No sooner does Chisato not pick up than Takina is racing to the clinic like a bat out of hell. She enters the OR gun blazing, forcing Himegama to make a hasty retreat out the window, but the damage is already done. Chisato eventually awakens from the sedative, but the electric shock overloaded her heart’s battery, which can no longer be recharged. Chisato now has just two months to live.
Both Chisato and Takina are true-to-character in their reactions. Chisato basically shrugs it off as two months and ten years longer than she would have lived, and accepts her fate. Takina doesn’t want accept it, and doesn’t like how her best friend is so quick to.
Chisato heads to the DA for what she believes might be the final time, and when Kusunoki asks her to return to DA for the operation to bring down Majima, her condition is that Takina be reinstated. Sure enough, Fuki and Sakura are at LycoReco delivering Takina’s reinstatement.
After another routine mission where this time Takina apologizes for making Chisato run (she wants the battery to last as long as it can), Takina and Mizuki end up arriving at LycoReco in the middle of a private conversation between Mika and Kurumi, who has dug up enough online that Mika is compelled to tell her the story of Chisato.
Chisato had a singular talent for killing and avoiding being killed (at least by guns), but had a congenital heart condition. Yoshimatsu Shinji struck a deal with Mika, who also happened to be his lover at the time. Chisato would be fitted with a bleeding-edge artificial heart by Alan Institute, and Mika would see to it she fulfilled the promise of her talent.
Shinji made clear that even with this tech, Chisato would probably only lie to 18 – typically the retirement age for a Lycoris (if they live that long). Before the procedure, Chisato encounter Shinji in a hallway on accident, and immediately pegged him as her “Mr. Savior”, giving him a hug of gratitude. Shinji accepted the hug but soon left both her and Mika’s lives for a long while.
Having overheard Mika’s tale, Takina resolves to do everything she can to extend Chisato’s life. If that means leaving LycoReco, returning to the DA, and helping capture Majima, so be it. But before dropping this news on Chisato, she decides to take her out for what might be their last day off shopping and having fun.
Takina makes up a long and detailed schedule and keeps Chisato on it to the very minute with phone alarms. But despite being whisked from one place to another and having to move on just when she’s getting comfortable, Chisato still admits that she’s having fun, because that’s what happens whenever she’s with Takina.
The final leg in Takina’s fun day off itinerary is sitting on a bench at a hilltop park with a view of the city just when it’s supposed to start snowing. The snow doesn’t come at first, but Chisato can tell without Takina saying anything that this is about her returning to the DA. After all, it’s what Chisato told the DA would be a condition of her own return.
But for now, Chisato and Takina are to part ways. The snow finally comes while they’re still in view of one another, and they exchange bittersweet smiles of mutual affection. Chisato may have accepted the fact she only has two months left, but Takina is going back to the DA not because it’s what she wanted, but because it’s what she thinks she needs to do to give Chisato a chance she herself isn’t worrying about.
Takina is returning to the DA just as Majima and his henchmen capture Shinji and Himegama. Can Majima still be a possible ally in getting Shinji or Alan to cough up the needed tech to repair Chisato’s heart? Will the heart give out once she reaches adulthood anyway? With four episodes left, I’m hoping Takina, with help from the rest of the LycoReco crew, DA, and maybe even Majima, can save Chisato. If they can’t, that would suck!