The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic – 09 – Staying the Person They Admired

If only she’d stayed a little closer to her team, Rose might have been able to heal some of them. Instead, Nero is able to lure her farther away. And while both Aul and the others are able to fight Nero’s subordinates to a stalemate that earns them Nero’s praise, once he uses his cursed sword to compel his people to fight without regard for their lives, Rose’s people start falling one after the other.

The episode doesn’t spare the brutality of the ensuing bloodbath, as the knights call for Rose to heal them. Alas, when her eye is struck by the cursed sword, her healing magic has no effect, and her mana is drained. She can’t make it in time to save anyone, but Aul makes it in time to save her, at the cost of her own life.

Rose lashes out in rage and beats the hell out of Nero before throwing his own cursed sword into his shoulder. He is not immune to its effects, but he still has one subordinate in reserve: a young, inexperienced, and clearly freaked out Amila. In her face Rose sees Aul’s, and ultimately allows her to escape with her maimed master, though with her wounded foot it’s not like Rose can move much.

With her last strands of life, Aul puts her hand on  Rose’s pained, bloodied face and smiles. She has no regrets, is glad to have been able to fight under Rose, and knows the others felt the same way. She urges Rose to “stay the one they admire,” before breathing her last. Rose, utterly broken, lets out a primal scream.

She does manage to return home with the bodies of all her subordinates, for which the parents of one are grateful. But she asks the king to relieve her of her army command and revoke her knighthood. She refuses to heal her eye, so she never forgets the lives lost under her watch. She spends a month alone in the suddenly empty and silent barracks once so full of life. She even admits to a concerned Siglis that the thought occurred to her that death might not be so bad.

But Rose has no intention of ending the life Aul gave her. It’s only a matter of what to do with it. Visions of her subordinates and Aul appear before her and tell her that if any of them were acting like she did, she’d throttle them and assign them to training from hell. Aul then reminds Rose of what she told her: that everything changes, and you have to accept that and move forward.

Rose allows herself a few more minutes of fragility, and tears, then stands up and walks outside the barracks with renewed purpose and resolve. She’ll honor Aul and the others by creating a new kind of force, one that saves lives and won’t allow anyone on the battlefield to die. She knows she’ll need someone like her who can both heal and fight.

Back in the present, she tells that someone, Usato Ken, how glad she is to have found him, and that he should be mindful of how precious his existence is. As they near his first battlefield, we’ll finally, finally see how her Rescue Team system works, and how the Heroes fare, and whether Ken can save them from a supremely confident Black Knight, not to mention a grown Amila eager to kill Rose.

The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic – 08 – The Knights of Summer

Rose is at the reins of the wagon bearing the Rescue Team to the battlefield, and Ken is at her side. He asks about the demons they’re about to engage, and Rose describes them as being essentially really strong humans with horns and more mana.

When she asks if he’s afraid, he implies he’s much more afraid of her. He then says that he originally endured her punishing training simply to “get one over on her.” He expects an angry reaction, but doesn’t get one. Instead, Rose raises her hand to her hidden, ruined eye.

We then go back to five years ago, when she was the Knight Commander of an entire battalion, but also of a small and tight-knit group of elite, possibly misfit knights. Her deputy is Aul (Kohara Konomi), a happy-go-lucky young knight with a personality so much like Ken’s it’s no wonder she took a shine to him so quickly.

Her team of seven knights occupied the same barracks now used as the Rescue Team’s headquarters. And we already know that all of them, including Aul, will eventually die. The series could have started with Rose’s past, but presenting it now adds a layer of melancholy and grim inevitability. No matter how silly these knights act, I was already pre-mourning them because I knew their fate.

Of course, they don’t think they’re doomed, nor does Rose. When they enter the Darkness of Llinger and camp for the night, Aul can’t sleep, and instead joins Rose by the fire and asks her why she chose her as her deputy commander. She ends up essentially answering her own question: Because she was what Rose was looking for in a successor.

Aul was a troublemaker, stubbornly refusing orders she didn’t agree with. She was an immovable object everyone else gave up on, but Rose became the unstoppable force she needed to nuture her potential. She never gave up, and Rose never gave up on her, believes she has what it takes to succeed her as unit commander when the time comes, because as she aptly puts it, “everything changes”.

This is a very moving, intimate scene between Rose and Aul that really does a lot of legwork in terms of making Aul a compelling tragic figure. Kohara Konomi also really gives the role the gravitas it needs while still being silly and hyper when called for. Knowing that night by the fire will probably be the last for everyone but Rose adds to the somber, wistful vibes.

The next day they come across the Demon unit stunning and capturing shock wolves, likely so the mad scientist demon guy can develop stronger monsters. Rose is the first to emerge from the trees and give the Demons a chance to withdraw and avoid conflict. It’s a deal the Demons’ commander won’t take, because now that humans have seen them, they must die.

As soon as Rose puts Aul in charge of leading the other six knights against the rank-and-file demons so she could focus on the leader, my heart sank in my chest, because I knew this was the beginning of the end of her unit.

For those eager to see this series actually give us some action, we finally get some here the end of the episode, as Rose throws everything she’s got at the Demon, who is impressed by her speed and strength. The battle music comes correct here, and there are some flashes of decent combat animation.

He’s so impressed with her tree-hucking ability that he deigns to give her his name—Nero Argence—and deigns to ask for hers. He summons a nasty-looking demon sword and announces that he’ll be killing her now, but Rose nonchalantly cracks her knuckles and tells him she’ll beat the crap out of him before he can.

I certainly didn’t expect the show to suddenly go back in time just when it looked like we’d finally see her, Ken, Suzune and Kazuki in their first real battle. But having watched this flashback unfold, I’m not mad about it, nor am I even mad that it won’t conclude until next week.

Such is the nature of the show’s careful and subtle character work and writing, as well as the fact that Rose is Just the Coolest no matter what timeline we’re in. There will be time to watch Ken, Suzune, and Kazuki do their thing. For now, it’s important to watch Rose’s history unfold, and hope that it won’t be repeated.