After being summoned to a high-ranking council at the Vatican and being made to seal a contract with his blood, Yukio is troubled by the blue flame he’s seen in his eye and what his new guardian Pheles intends to do with him. But he finds peace and solace at Shiemi’s, as you’d expect. He uses the possibility he’s dating her to get Rin out of bed, but really he’s started tutoring her again, which they both admit is fun.
The next extracurricular mission for the group is to deal with Mayuko, an evil ghost haunting a girls’ bathroom in the academy. Because Mayuko will only appear before girls, Shiemi and Izumo must take the lead. When Shiemi exhorts “let’s do our best” it irks Izumo, since that’s all well and good for a defender and healer to say; she’s going to be doing all the offensive work.
Despite this show being around for thirteen years, Izumo still doesn’t consider Shiemi a friend, nor does she want to be close to anyone but Noriko, to whom she vents before the mission. It doesn’t matter to her if Shiemi means her no harm, or on the contrary, will always have her back. Izumo still can’t get over how Shiemi saved her in the Kyoto arc, and feels she needs to pay her back.
The baddie-of-the-week turns out to be uniquely suited to Izumo and Shiemi’s complicated dynamic: Mayuko is a cluster of women’s evil thoughts, and she wastes no time spewing general caustic vitriol, some of which cuts to the quick. There’s also the matter of Izumo’s fox spirits being completely unmotivated to expel the ghost. Shiemi ends up bailing Izumo out again by having Nee produce an offering of freshly harvested rice.
When Shiemi is snagged by the neck by Mayuko’s hair tendrils, the foxes agree to get off their asses … for Shiemi’s sake, since she gave them rice. As Mayuko tries to choke the life out of Shiemi, she tells her that Izumo doesn’t even consider her a friend. But Shiemi is, as always, tougher than she looks, and claps back that she’s never met Mayuko and Mayuko knows nothing about her.
Izumo and the foxes successfully expel Mayuko, and after coughing and re-catching her breath, Shiemi gets up and thanks Izumo for saving her. Izumo would argue that the foxes only acted because of Shiemi, so it’s not legit payback, but Shiemi would be the first to tell her that she’s not keeping score; it doesn’t matter who saved whom last; just that they keep fighting together and protecting one another.
The mood is lightened by the not-so-timely arrival of the boys, who are all dressed in drag, which is something Izumo and Shiemi can laugh about together. With a scene of them shopping in the ED and the academy festival coming up next week, I’m hoping Izumo can continue to loosen her hang-ups and accept Shiemi’s friendship.
Yukio suspected from his summoning to the council that something is up in the exorcist world, and sure enough, all of the high-rankers, led by Arthur and a dude who goes by Lightning, are in Russia at some kind of lab where scientists have successfully built a Gehenna Gate that is gradually expanding.
Pheles drops a barrier on the site to stop time, but only for a few months; the gate will have to be dealt with or cataclysm will befall Assiah. Lightning already has a good idea who is responsible for the artificial gate: the Illuminati. They’re namesake of this arc and its big bad, and I doubt Rin, Yukio, Shiemi, Izumo, and the rest of the academy kids will be kept out of the fighting.
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