Jujutsu Kaisen – 40 – We’re the Ants

Megumi can’t compete with Berserk Touji’s speed and power, so he tries to use fleeing hares to cover him while he puts some distance between them and formulates a strategy for victory. Unfortunately, Touji is so goddamn fast and so goddamn strong, he’s able to kill every single one of Megumi’s thousands of hares with flung bits of debris,

Kusakabe, who has Panda assigned to him, is absolutely determined not to get into a fight he won’t survive. He abhors a hassle, and thankfully Panda doesn’t know Shibuya well enough to locate B5 on his own, which is the one place Kusakabe is certain they’ll both get killed. Touji and Megumi continue their cat-and-mouse, with Megumi trying to use office sprinklers and Nue’s lightning to zap Touji, to no avail. Worth some style points, however.

Knowing Ieiri Shouko is somewhere on site to patch him up, Megumi decides to push his limits a bit for an all-or-nothing last-ditch attack against Touji. Of course, even with near-perfect timing he fails, but demonstrating his skills jolts the real Touji, whose body is being borrowed by another curse user, back into lucidity. He realizes this is his son he’s fighting, and when he learns his name is Fushiguro (and not Zen’in), he stabs himself in the brain to break the curse user’s link and end their fight.

That’s probably as close as we’ll get to Megumi meeting his father, because there are much bigger fish trying to fry each other. Taking up Sukuna on his offer, Jougo throws everything he’s got at him, but his attacks and defenses are just as ineffective against Sukuna as Megumi’s were against Berserk Touji. That said, two Special Grades going at it certainly makes for some striking visuals as they tear through downtown with no regard for collateral damage.

Kusakabe, delayed by Getou’s secretary Suda Manami, is the first to sense they all need to get the heck out of there, but they’re too late: as Jougo brings a freaking meteor down on top of him, Sukuna insists everyone remain still until he says so. He finally tells them they can go less than a second before the meteor falls on him, but it still misses, and Sukuna decides to whip out his own flames.

The result is academic; Jougo perishes, and meets his departed friends in a white void, lamenting that he lost and that only Mahito is left. Sukuna even invades this void, but not to continue the fight; instead he tells Jougo that in a thousand years, he was one of the more entertaining fights he’s had, so he should be proud he lasted as long as he did. This moves Jougo to tears.

Then someone named Uraume, perhaps drawn to Sukuna’s presence comes to his side, apparently ready to continue serving him. Sukuna seems pleased to see him at least. I’m not pleased to see ponytail guy, AKA Shigemo Haruta, still alive, but after bashing Megumi’s head in it looks like he won’t be for long as he’s being stalked by a hulking (and pissed) cursed spirit.

The Ancient Magus’ Bride – S2 18 – Under the Skin

The Winter Goddess pays a visit to Elia’s and Chise’s home, only to find Silver and Cartaphilus. When she learns Chise isn’t there she and her mount turn into a murder of crows. Within the College, Chise explains to Lucy how she’s able to tap into deep, painful memories of others.

Lucy asks her to hop back into hers on purpose, in case there’s any additional information she can gleam. Indeed she does: the two werewolves sent to kill everyone were at odds; one of them didn’t want to kill Lucy. Also, there’s a little kid Chise identifies as a girl, but was wearing the same kind of hoodie that Isaac wears, telling a young Lucy “I’m sorry.”

Much to Lucy’s anger, the second dive into her memories brings up more questions than it answers. But with Christmas coming up, Chise surprises everyone by offering them handmade rune amulets as presents. They contain the thorn rune, which represents both her and Elias.

She asks Isaac to give Rian his amulet, then asks Alcyone to give Philomela hers. Philomela continues to suffer horribly in the darkness of her room, bruised and bandaged, unable to quite remember her parents. While Chise gets her routine curse checkup, Alex makes a distinction between her curse, the work of old sorcery and magic.

Another type of curse is a hex, cast by a human, and with the expectation that the harm it does will eventually befall the caster: “you reap what you sow.” The cut to Philomela suffering almost seems to imply Philomela is reaping what she’s sown…or is she?

When Alcyone arrives to give her the amulet Chise made for her, Philomela suddenly stands up, takes the amulet … and swallows it whole. She then immediately asks for “more”, thrusts her arm into Alcyone’s chest, and pulls out the magical book that is the source of all of this unpleasantness: The Testament of Carnamagos.

When Philomela answers the almost robotic knocking and calling of her name from Veronica, she is no longer just Philomela. The tips of her fingers are black like Chise’s left arm, and fibrous white tendrils emerge from her bandages. By possessing her, the book voices things Philomela herself would never say, like she’s always feared Veronica.

Chise immediately senses that the book holder is nearby, and she nearly passes out from its magical power countering her own. Meanwhile, Rian, who had been waiting just beyond the girls dorm hoping to apologize and perhaps ask Philomela to join him at the Christmas Party, hears a scream, and finds Veronica on the floor and someone covered in tendrils floating above her.

When Ruth and Elias enter the infirmary, Chise tells him she wants to help. The old Elias might have refused out of overprotectiveness, but not this one. He says they’ll go help together, as they both have friends they want to protect. Chise is at first shocked, then incredibly touched.

That sweet scene is interrupted by the evil book getting the better of Rian before revealing its vessel is Philomela, by telling him she always hated him for always being right, strong, honest, and decisive, making Philomela feel pathetic and worthless.

Shortly after neutralizing Rian, Book!Philomela (Bibliomela?) crashes the Christmas Party, and with one swipe of her arm knocks out all of the students, leaving only the stronger faculty, led by Liza Quillyn.

Earlier in the episode, Gregory asks Liza why she’s doing so little to investigate or solve the mystery of the missing book. She said she was attempting to achieve the most by doing the least. It could well be she sealed off the College not only to protect the students, but to keep the magic book from getting out.

If that’s the case, she has the book exactly where she wants it. I’m left wondering why the book was within Alcyone’s body, and if Philomela’s grandmother Lizbeth put it there, maybe as part of her larger efforts to get “Adam” back (presumably Philomela’s dad).

But for now, Philomela is in a very, very bad way, merely a vessel for the book and its will. She politely asks Liza to let her out of the College, with a glint in her eye(s) and a smile that strongly suggests it’s the one and only time she’ll ask nicely before unleashing hell.