Shingeki no Bahamut: Genesis – 03

That’s the look of a person you can TRUST.

The town of Nebelville is cloaked in foreboding fog, which causes Kaisar to pass out while searching for Favaro, who now has a bounty out on him. But when Kaisar went into that fog, he already had a fog around him: a fog of singlemindedness bordering on obsession, that occludes his ability to see he’s stumbling into a very carefully-laid TRAP.

The funny thing is, he’s so successful in tracking Favaro down, he arrives at Favaro’s next destination before he even gets there. Lucky for him Favaro’s mind isn’t as fogged up with vendetta and loathing for his nemesis. Favaro wants to get rid of his damn tail. That means escorting Amira to Helheim (which is still way way way far away, Missy), which means he needs coin, which means he has to do what he does best: bounty-hunt.

After climbing a cliff to snatch up herbs to make an antidote before facing his quarry, he realizes he could have used Amira to simply fly up to them. Amira corrects, him, saying she cannot fly (though she can clearly jump really high) after losing a wing in “The Incident.”

That “incident” she speaks of is the time she, as a demon, broke into the realm of the gods — where demons aren’t supposed to be able to tread” — and stole the God Key, which is to say, absorbed it into her soul. So yeah, she’s down a wing, but she’s also totally the God Key, which explains why we’re taken to the realm of both angels and demons as they discuss how to neutralize/exploit this development. Bahamut is waking up, after all. That’s not good…right? It’s probably not good for a simple bounty hunter like Favaro.

Meanwhile, both Kaisar and I are totally taken in by the Fog of Nebelville, seeing it how he sees it when he wakes up: a quaint but cozy town whose doctor’s daughter Rita rescued him, set his broken arm, and fed him, before her father asks him to help them out with a troll-like demon problem. Kaisar, the valiant knight, would be happy to assist in any way he can. All of this seems to piss Rita off.

Look at that place. This show has some sweet-ass settings, I’ll give it that.

Kaisar sees a bit of himself in Rita’s disdain for her family, inspiring him to regale her with pretty much his life story: family of knights; hard upbringing; resented folks and rebelled against them. But then, when a King’s Tribute was stolen under his father’s watch, his dad was hanged and the entire House of Lidfort ruined and torn asunder. It’s a sad tale well-told with energy and drama by Kaisar, but Rita is unmoved, sick of “playing house.”

The next morning (if you can call it that; so damn foggy!), the first of a multitude of dominoes the episode had artfully set up is nudged over, and everything comes together. As soon as the one of the trolls Kaisar faces starts talking with a somewhat Favaro-y speech pattern, I knew the fog was having some kind of hallucinatory effect on Kaisar. In reality, everyone in Nebelville is dead and rotting.

And who’s behind it…Rita! Rita, who also happens to be the target Favaro was preparing for all along. He and Amira come in with handkerchiefs soaked in the herb potion he made, protecting them from the fog’s effects. Whether she aimed to use Kaisar as a pawn to defend her, or was just bored with two hundred years of necromancing, the jig is suddenly up for Little Miss Rita.

She sics her town’s worth of zombies, but again, as they’re both highly capable fighters, Favaro and Amira have no trouble shaking them off. I love how while hunting a bounty, Favaro ends up saving the life of the bounty hunter hunting for him. When Rita’s own father bites her, and she collapses to the ground, I’ll admit, I felt bad. That’s right when I learn Favaro isn’t even after her, just her book, a “black bible.” In another example of how Favaro, like the Honey Badger, don’t give a shit, he leaves Kaisar bent over Rita’s bloody, soon to be zombified corpse, with the decision of having to finish her off before she rises.

She does rise…but later Kaisar walks across the same landscape as Favaro and Amira had earlier, with Rita following behind, seemingly alive and well, but probably…something else as well. And now, just like Favaro, Kaisar has a lovely and powerful traveling companion all his own! You gotta love the dichotomy of these two.