“The Future Rules”, says the Future Devil, who resembles the Forest Spirit from Princess Mononoke, but is a lot more happy-go-lucky. The terms of his new contract with Aki are simple: he’ll reside in Aki’s right eye and lend him his power. In exchange, he’ll have a front row seat to Aki’s death, which he promises will also “rule.”
Kishibe’s tough love training of Denji and Power continues to a point where he’s satisfied they won’t embarrass themselves in the next battle, which will be against The snake woman (Sawatari) and the Katana Man (who is called “Samurai Sword” in the episode.
In his meeting with Makima, Kishibe posits that she knew the assault that claimed so many public safety officers (including his student Himeno) was coming and did nothing to stop it. He doesn’t really mind, as long as Makima shares his overarching directive to save as many people as possible in the long run.
I’m not entirely sure why Makima allowed such a devastating assault to take place, but intentionally allowed or not it led to her consolidating her power in Public Safety, amplifying the importance of her surviving underlings like Denji and Power, and revealing the identities of their enemies—among them Sawatari, who unfortunately has no character beyond “slightly bored baddie”. I kinda wish we knew more about her.
After contracting with the Future Devil, Aki gets a ride back to HQ from Kurose and Tendou. Kurose tries to press Aki’s buttons by telling him his shounen manga-style goal to take the Gun Devil down pisses him off, but Aki isn’t phased. If he can defeat the Gun Devil, he’ll be happy. If he dies, Kurose can laugh all he likes. But while Aki pisses him off, Kurose can’t help but root for the guy.
As for Makima, the less we know about her, the more mysterious and awesome she is. I could watch an entire episode of her politely chatting with a yakuza head. She isn’t the slightest bit intimidated by the soldiers surrounding her as she asks their leader to give up the names of the members of other yakuza families who contracted with the Gun Devil.
The yakuza head declines to snitch on his rival families as it would start a war that would destabilize the Japanese mob and invite foreign mobs to invade. That’s when Makima presents a little brown paper bag that she calmly describes contains the eyes of a loved one of everyone in that room. When one of them raises a hand to her, he’s stopped in his tracks, his nose bleeds, and he keels over dead.
After their brutal training, Denji and Power are excited to finally put what they’ve learned into action. Kobeni is not so enthused, but now that we can see what she’s capable of it’s a plain matter of motivation, not ability. Kishibe sends the three and Aki into the building where Sawatari and Katana Man are holed up.
As Kishibe explained to Denji and Power, this is an all-or-nothing, make-or-break operation. Either Division 4 will succeed in defeating Sawatari and Katana Man, or they’ll fail and be destroyed. They’re backed up by four new fiends: Shark, Violence, Spider, and Angel, all of whom feature cool designs and fighting (or in the case of Angel, non-fighting) styles.
While those four mop up the zombie army in the basement, Aki heads upstairs and meets non-zombie resistance in the form of yakuza soldiers. When he ends up in a four-on-one situation, his our opponents all get bloody noses and fall over dead. We cut to Makina striding confidently out of the yakuza head’s house, having gotten what she wanted. That gives Aki a clear path to Sawatari.
If Sawatari has any particular reason for siding with the Gun Devil and wanting to destroy Division 4, she doesn’t share them with Aki. She’s all business, summoning Himeno’s Ghost Devil to fight him, keeping her Snake Devil in reserve. It’s a pragmatic move that’s also definitely meant to rile Aki up, but he doesn’t take the bait.
Instead, he puts his new buddy the Future Devil to use by anticipating the movements of the Ghost’s arms so he can dodge and slice at will. Unfortunately, the Ghost’s arms regenerated and multiply, and Aki loses his time advantage when he starts to slow due to fatigue.
The Ghost eventually covers Aki in arms and grabs him, and Sawatari orders it to choke him to death. But something tells me this isn’t the awesome death the Future Devil foresaw. Will he find his second wind on his own, or will Denji, Power, and/or Kobeni bail him out?