We kick off immediately following the sky going pale, Ban is in a critical meeting with the rest of the force but Suwa is nowhere to be found. This pisses of Ban, as he gives the kid a call. Initially I thought someone had gotten to Suwa but no it seems like he was fucking around god knows where as the signal is worse than shit on the other end, though.
Given what happens next, its safe to assume the shit signal was less because of Suwa taking a wierd route to his destination, and more of a very late sign of whats about to happen; as an earthquake strikes the police station, and this is a strong fucking earthquake, we see later that it completely topples Takumi's bed.
Regardless, the earthquake isn't the only strange occurrence, it looks like several officers die of splitting headaches in the Chaos(;Head NoAH). I think Ban was also affected but I could just be misreading.
Following this intro we cut back to Takumi, who previously was knocked out cold by the horrific headache that hit him from that call back in Chapter 5. He wakes up but his PC seems bricked, and after a bit of justified tweaking and forgetting how MMO save data works, he gets a message from who else? Shogun's back, and a lot more antagonistic this time. Takumi doesn't really focus on his messages right now the guy is pissing his pants and trying to find Rimi, as it seems like she's gone completely MIA.
In desperation, this leads Takumi to head out to Misumi in hopes of finding Rimi to reassure him, only to find... one of the scenes in this chapter that had me scared.
A crowd has gathered around, someone stands at the top of the roof, beyond the fences, a grim reminder of what can often happen, this far up. Her hair is a pale blue, arms outstretched, Di-sword in hand.
If you'll recall previously, FES had been doxxed on @chan, this. Coupled with the Earthquake that hit just hours ago, it seems like Ayase has lost hope. We get her perspective, the sky is red. As if hell has finally come to take the earth.
She stands there, reciting the prose seen on her page on the mental hospitals website. She laments the cruelty of people.
The world is laden with malicious delusions...
.
Everyone thrills of the misery of others.
.
Try as I might to close my eyes... to cover my ears... it is futile...
.
She asks one last question to greater will she clings to.
.
Are the Black Knights even real?
.
And then.
.
Take my soul away with you.
.
She jumps down.
Takumi can only watch, her fall made agonizingly slow, aimed straight for the concrete.
If only there was a flowerbed or something. If only there was something soft below her.
He averts his eyes, he shuts them off to the horror set to play out in front of him, but...
Unbeknownst to him, it seems like he managed to commit a dimensional slight of hand by accident as Ayase falls on a very out of place flowerbed.
This moment, was fucking great, I genuinely screamed out when she hit the ground, its such a strong moment both for Ayase and Takumi. I love it, unfortunately it gets ruined by the immediate cut to NOZOMI fucking around again, however, it is not entirely for naught, as the name of our great laboratory's dreaded arch-nemesis finally rears its despicable head! The Committee of 300!
NOZOMI is operating against the wishes of the 300 with whatever Noah is, and given what happened in Shibuya just hours ago, yeah, I wouldn't blame the Committee for going apeshit over this because this seems like a horrific breach in secrecy. Like, basically broadcasting "Hey the most evil shit ever is happening right fucking now guys look its so cool!" God, that cover up is going to cost trillions, they're lucky they took over the banks because they would go broke just planning a cover-up alone.
Anyway, we get Sena interrogating Takumi, I took the negative delusion for this one and yeah the aftermath isn't pretty. Thankfully, Sena doesn't seem to have it out for him, she probably has more pressing matters, like NOZOMI making more moves.
Honestly, much as I like Sena at base, she doesn't seem to be doing much outside of info dumping and aura farming. Not that I mind her being cool, I just wish she was doing more at this point of the story, but, who knows, maybe she'll finally be able to get some limelight next chapter.
Cut to AH Tokyo General Hospital, the place is crawling with patients, as expected, the casualties are over 100 apparently, which is terrifying. Whats worse is the hospital is understaffed, on top of losing a doctor as part of NewGen. Poor bastards.
Anyway, the Nurse from Takumi's checkup back in I think Chapter 2? Hazuki, yeah, she gets jumpscared by Suwa, turns out he's looking to get Takumi's medical record for the case, of course, this violates Patient Confidentiality, but like, shits going down, might as well.
Cut back to Takumi, still hoping Rimi might come in clutch, his phone even buzzes with a message but it turns out its just Nanami. Interestingly, the quake seems localized to Shibuya, on top of that, the event caused anything magnetic to go kaput, explains Suwa's bad connection at the start of the chapter. Anyway, no one seems to now shit about how the this all even happened, expected but, still sad to see.
We then cut back to AH Tokyo General Hospital, where we're reminded of the true scale of the damage. Interestingly enough, they're prioritizing patients who've been knocked out over the ones with more apparent physical trauma, its a bit a weird policy, I wonder if this order of things is actually accurate to this kind of disaster response in medical centers.
An ambulance comes in, carrying Ayase, the docs put her in a stretcher and bring her inside, as... Rimi... watches just outside the entrance to the hospital. Which is strange given how she's been AWOL since this kicked off, maybe a family member got caught up in the chaos and was hospitalized here? Honestly, I've got no clue.
Going back to Takumi, he's still lamenting Rimi's sudden absence when he checks his PC, seeing a mail from Nanami with the ever trendy "Whose eyes are those eyes?" as the title. The email is very much directly antagonistic towards Takumi, its kind of strange, the reading I got regarding Shogun up to this point was that he was a fairly aloof and kind of neutral but.. his recent behavior throughout these chapters has grown much more direct, much more hostile.
Anyways, bottom line is, he's got Nanami hostage, and he's seemingly mailed Nanami's severed forearm, bangle in and phone in hand.
But a quick word from our sponsors, NOZOMI.
This cut in is a lot less egregious than the previous NOZOMI cut in, these are still a bit jarring but this one has a very key detail, basically it seems to be an explanation on how Noah II is able to even do the trickery it does to begin with. As well, it seems like the Committee had a hand in trying to block/gatekeep NOZOMI's efforts into this research, as expected of their insipid machinations, I don't blame them though NOZOMI seems very irresponsible.
We also get an explanation as to who Porters are and how they function as a part of increasing Noah II's effective range, which I'll give them credit for.
Now then, we reach what is one of the coolest moments thusfar, Shogun, who's voice is.. a bit different this time around, which coupled with his switch up makes me wonder if Shogun even is Shogun at all here, but regardless, he has Takumi against the metaphorical wall, Nanami's life is in his hands.
The crowd below is cheering and hollering at him from down below, all of Shibuya is eyeing him down, all chanting those same accursed words, "Whose eyes are those eyes." Takumi is absolutely racked with anxiety not helped by Shogun pressuring him to try and grasp his Di-sword, while the imagined voice of Seira tries to make him bow out.
I think I took Neutral leading up to the moment that caught me off guard, the choices regarding the sword. I actually failed this and Takumi fell to his death the first time around cause I did the last answer wrong which was uhh... whoops. Next run through though, I managed to get it done, I went YES-YES-NO-NO-YES.
Taking a positive Delusion here, I actually thought I borked it as Seira managed to convince Takumi to just go back to the Base, but after loading back and checking the negative, it didn't lead to any game over so, we're all good.
Anyways, after bowing out, he gets a sudden delusion, one about her sister, kneeling, covered in blood, with some of it dripping from whats likely her severed hand creating a gruesome puddle. This delusion sends Takumi off the deep end and into rage, he charges at Shogun, and knocks the paraplegic bastard to the ground———except.
He's a lot lighter than expected? Takumi's on the ground, he tries to find man he knocked down, reaching out to touch a simple helmet, of I think a ripoff of Darth Vader, closing off the chapter there.
This one was a blast for how short it was, once again my favorite scene from this is Ayase's Descent but I feel like this one was a bit too short as they're just cramming in the fucking NOZOMI Slack group chat at weird times but all in all, I think its nice.
As I said before the door choice part caught me off guard, overall this chapter, for what it lacks in length, does a solid job of keeping you on your toes, especially with the final sequence, one hell of a closer. Can't wait to see more of this next chapter now that things have ramped up.