Synduality: Noir – 05 – Marital Blitz

In a distressing cold open, a Drifter is surrounded by sinister black coffins who take his Magus captive. So of course I feared Noir would meet a similar fate later in the episode. That’s especially true when Kanata and Noir encounter Claudia and Flamme in the Rock Town market, selling the crystal they took for themselves.

All Claudie can offer them is lunch and some advice: if they want to get better at “becoming one” as a Drifter-Magus pair, she recommends they visit the maze at Fes, which is almost certainly a trap. In the meantime, Noir is determined to “become one” with Kanata, culminating in her declaring that they are “husband and wife”.

The two start eating, drinking, even brushing their teeth in unison in hopes that they’ll become a better tuned duo on the battlefield. Noir wants to take a shower with Kanata, but he forbids it. And when Noir wants to sleep in his hammock with him, he finally relents, only for the weight of the both of them to break said hammock.

Nevertheless, they fall asleep on the floor, and that’s where a very confused and outraged Ellie finds them. She’s even more distressed when Noir says they’re husband and wife, and asks if love is even necessary in a marriage. Clearly, they’ve been sold another bill of goods by Claudia.

As expected, the maze is indeed a trap, and Claudia sold Kanata and Noir out for a payday, earning her some more villainess brownie points. Fortunately Tokio knows something is up, since Mouton reported the Type Zero Magus abductions like the one we saw in the cold open.

No sooner do Kanata and Noir enter the maze of Fes than they are surrounded by the same sinister black coffins, which are launched from flying carriers. Kanata is able to evade them for a few blocks, but eventually they’re surrounded.

Before one of the black coffins can pry open the rear bay where Noir is, Tokio’s coffin arrives and knocks a couple of the coffins away. He’s joined by Ellie and Michael, and even Claudia shows up, albeit just to make sure Kanata isn’t hurt.

She explains that her client was looking for a certain Type Zero—even Flamme was checked out—they have deep pockets, and Flamme ain’t cheap to maintain, so she had no choice but to take the job. But not unreasonably, Kanata wants payback for being played the fool not once but twice now.

Claudia doesn’t make it easy at first, as she uses smoke bombs and shadow clones to confuse her opponent. However, once Kanata and Noir are on the same page, he maintains evasive maneuvers while Noir locks on to the weak spot on Claudia’s coffin that she hasn’t gotten around to fixing. With one shot, her coffin is disabled, and she’s at Kanata’s mercy.

However, having won the fight, all Kanata does is recommend a cheap and eager tinkerer to maintain her Type Zero: Ellie’s sister Maria, specifically. That way, perhaps Claudia won’t have to resort to betraying him again in the future. I won’t hold my breath, but if she were truly heartless she wouldn’t have come to check on him, so who knows.

As for Kanata and Noir, to Ellie’s relief they were unable to complete the maze of Fes, which is akin to a lovers’ trial. That said, even though she’s able to work up the courage to ask Kanata to go through the maze with her, they’re not able to as the maze has been ruined by the battle with the black coffins. Poor Ellie…never any luck…