Episode 26 usually marks the end of a two-cour anime, but thankfully we’ve got another half-cour left of Eminence to enjoy before the second season is out. And things escalate quickly this week, with Alpha and Gamma dispatching Delta to deal with John Smith. It’s reasonable that they assume even if he can defeat Shadows in the 660-range, he can’t beat the fourth Greek letter.
Smith, who is reading his journal of random notes, suddenly sees something moving extremely fast in parallel to the train. It suddenly maks a beeline for his cabin and blasts through the window. Smith’s magical threads stop her in her tracks, but Delta is able to burst through them, and even blast the roof off the train car.
Shadow counters by using the threads to bring all of the wreckage of the car on top of Delta, paralyzing her. She lies there under hundreds of pounds of metal, growling, until she has a good sniff at her foe and realizes it’s Boss! Unlike the 660s, visual disguises won’t work on her canine nose.
While I’m sure Cid didn’t intend for the Seven to discover him so quickly, he’s not surprised by how quickly they did and takes it in stride. He reminds Delta that an order from Lord Shadow countermands any order from Lady Alpha (whose anger Delta legit fears), and gives her a new mission: go hunt Juggernaut in the Lawless City.
That Delta does not return from her assassination mission, and when a lock of her hair is found, Gamma and Alpha expect the worst: Delta couldn’t have disobeyed, so she must have been killed. Gamma also reports the worsening credit situation, and a furious Alpha realizes Smith’s plan was never to profit off the market, but to seize it in its entirety once they and the MCA crumbled.
Gettan gets a visit from two Cult reps, who blame him for letting things get so out of hand to the point the Cult is going to take massive losses. He beheads them and orders every entrance and exit in and out of the city to be monitored. It’s a desperate move from an increasingly impatient Gettan who has yet to grasp just how thoroughly he’s been outplayed.
Two people who don’t seem concerned with the economic situation at all are Alexia and Iris. The latter encounters the former with a tall stack of books, and Alexia explains how she’s studying as much as she can about … everything to become a better warrior. That Iris walks away without saying anything makes me think she’s not interested in such a route, which is why it’s entirely possible Alexia could surpass her one day.
Cid actually makes an appearance as Shadow in his gaudy apartment with all the windows open. He sits near a brazier and shivers and sneezes as Beta gives him a report. He’s also taking notes, which she finds odd. Beta can’t help but tear up when she reports Delta is missing.
Cid can’t very well tell her the truth, so he simply says she’s “somewhere far away,” then offers a page from his notes (in a strange mix of Japanese characters, Western letters, and Arabic numbers), says he’ll teach her if she can decipher the code, and then takes off.
He’s aboard a train out of town, and even though Rettan’s henchmen have barricaded the track, he breaks through it with his thread and continues uninterrupted. Then, just as suddenly and even more stylishly than Delta, Alpha is facing off against him.
Alpha may be far more powerful than Delta, but she is still no match for “John Smith.” But just as Delta was able to sniff out her Boss, Alpha is able to determine he’s Lord Shadow by how he fights. But while she now knows Shadow and Smith are one and the same, she can’t understand why, and that breaks her heart.
Her whole life, all she’s sought is to be of help to Lord Shadow, the man who saved her life and those of her sisters. To support and understand him. Now, it feels like he’s discarding her. Could it be he doens’t need her anymore? All he’ll say is that Delta is far away, and that when it’s all over she’ll understand.
That’s not good enough for Alpha; not here and now. She continues her attacks, insisting that he allow her to remain by his side and let her keep supporting him. She even uses her Mistform, but he catches her blade in his bare hand, then blasts her off the train, just as easily as he did the 660s.
While I understand even Cid isn’t entirely sure what he’s doing, so he’s not being intentionally malicious, it still sucks that he has to hurt Alpha and mess with her emotions to such an extent. For all her power, when it comes to Shadow she’s still a scared, insecure, lonely girl who fears him abandoning her above all else.
Instead, he meets up with Yukime, who has procured a good chunk of the MCA’s gold reserves. She details how this will lead to economic chaos in the capital as the people demand redemption of their funds and business fall like dominoes. She then provides more of her backstory, revealing that Gettan was to be her husband in an alliance of Great Wolves and Spirit Foxes.
Everything was hunky-dory until the Cult got to Gettan and he burned her village and literally stabbed her in the back when she refused to submit to the cult as well. She blacks out just as Cid, in Stylish Bandit Slayer persona (with the bag on his head), slashes one of Gettan’s eyes while saving (and inspiring) Rose back in the day.
Yukime never met Cid, but worked her way up to Queen of the Lawless City so that she could take everything from Gettan the way he took everything from her. Since Cid is reclaiming all that he believes to be his (unaware it already is all his), he and Yukime make for perfect allies in this scheme. It’s all going their way so far, but I hope it’s worth it.
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