Ao no Exorcist: Shimane Illuminati-hen – 06 – Outfoxed

This week is given over entirely to the story of Kamiki Izumo’s childhood—if you can call it that—and it’s a tough watch, even during its more comedic moments. At no point does anyone in this episode treat Izumo like the child she is. We open with her ostensible mother, Tamamo, crying on her shoulder about Souji, Izumo and Tsukumo’s father. Meanwhile, all of the household duties are handled by the foxes, who love Tamamo unconditionally.

That’s because no one in the long line of Kamiki Tamamos throughout the centuries has performed a more powerful or beautiful dance of appeasement before the Killing Stone, where the Fox of Nine Tails dwells. Even Izumo is in awe of Tamamo when she’s doing her dance, even if the rest of the time she’s a complete train wreck of a mother unable to subordinate her forbidden love of the high priest Souji for anyone, even her daughters.

Tamamo takes every opportunity she can to pawn Tsukumo off onto Izumo, who must serve as a surrogate mother while she hangs out with Souji. When Izumo is at school, she has to leave Tsukumo in the care of other priestesses, who consider the girls bastards who sully the shrine. She’s made fun of and isolated at school for being able to see fox spirits. It’s a lot for a little girl, but this is Izumo; even she smells something shady-af when reps from Illuminati roll up to ask her some questions about the Killing Stone.

Even so, Izumo takes the business card of Illuminati’s Yoshida Maria, just in case she needs advice from someone else who can see what they call “demons.” As for Tamamo, she is responsible for appeasing the Nine Tails, a job that requires extreme emotional focus and stability. All that is destroyed with a few words from Souji, who as high priest should’ve really known better. When Tamamo asks if he’ll visit their children, he says he doesn’t want to, and if she keeps bringing it up, he’ll stop letting her visit him.

In the present, Izumo can’t stop blaming herself for everything that happened that has placed her and her sister in such a predicament. But she’s wrong. This is the fault of one person, and one person only: Souji. He sent Tamamo over the deep end, and eventually the Nine Tails took advantage of her heartbreak, anger, and despair, and possessed her, and transforming her into a murderous demon. That night, it’s all Izumo can do to run off while the foxes protect Tsukumo from Tamamo. She doesn’t even have time to put shoes on.

Izumo calls the only person in the world she can call: Maria, who takes her and Tsukumo to Illuminati, while her Nine Tails-ified mother is captured. Maria promises they’ll all be taken care of and protected from Holy Cross, who will want to eliminate Tamamo on site. But Maria isn’t in charge of Illuminati, and even though Izumo eventually comes to trust her a little bit, Maria never had the power or authority to make any such promises.

When Maria learns how mistaken she was about what goes on here, how much torture Tamamo is undergoing, and how Gedouiin plans to experiment on Tsukumo next, she make another unilateral call and has Tsukumo whisked away for adoption. When she did that, she automatically ruined any chance of Izumo trusting her ever again, no matter how good her intentions. Izumo asks if Maria will keep her cell door unlocked while she’s gone. She does, and Izumo leaves the room and is caught.

Once again, Izumo is subjected to sights and sounds a child should never see or hear, as Maria is beaten and begs for her life, only to be injected with an experimental immortality elixir that kills her after a few moments of unspeakable agony. The grotesque mad scientist Gedouiin is fearsome in his anger, and drunk with the absolute power bestowed upon him by Lucifer himself. Gedouiin doesn’t mince words with Izumo: submit to him entirely and he’ll leave Tsukumo alone … for a bit.

It’s a shit deal, and even young Izumo probably knows it, but she also knows it’s the best deal she’s going to get from this true demon in human skin. If becoming the next Nine Tails vessel will keep Tsukumo safe for a year, a month, or even just a day, she’ll do it.

Because if there’s one thing she learned in these hellish few weeks of her so-called childhood, it’s that she can’t rely on anyone. Not her mother, not Tamamo, and not Shima or Rin or Shiemi or Yukio. The gang rescuing her from Gedouiin and the Illuminati is one thing. Freeing her from the soul-crushing belief that she’s on her own in this wretched world, and always will be? That’ll be a far tougher task.

Author: magicalchurlsukui

Preston Yamazuka is a staff writer for RABUJOI.