20 years ago, Rosa was just a kid, and one day she ran away from the mansion into the island's forest. She got lost, and found by chance the hidden building where "Beatrice" lived. She managed to find a hole in the fence, and led "Beatrice" outside her golden cage. Their path took them to the cliff, "Beatrice" missed her step, fell and died. Oops.
But wait, if the human Beatrice died 20 years ago, she can't be on the island now. And Beatrice choses this moment to confirm in red that "there are no more than 18 people on the island". Well, so much for all that speculation about the 19th person...
It's about midnight, and Grampa is alone in his study. He's drawing tarot cards to predict what will happen... and the results are bad. So he calls for his closest servants (Genji, Kanon & Shannon), because he's that kind of bastard. Beatrice is there with Ronove (who is apparently an old friend of Genji's), and kills Grampa as soon as the servants arrive.
Genji and Shannon are fine with dying now (Shannon is fulfilled from getting George's ring). Kanon, on the other hand, rebels yet again. Beatrice promises he can chose the five last survivors if he defeats her "furniture". And summons Lucifer, the eldest of the knife-sisters, for a duel.
None of those fights against the knife-sisters went well in the former chapter, but Kanon eventually manages to defeat Lucifer. It helps that she's cripplingly arrogant, and announced where she would hit him. He stopped and caught her at the price of his left hand. Yeah Kanon !
Oh, Crap!. Beatrice calls the remainder of her furniture : the six other knife-sisters. Kanon is so screwed.
But wait ! Shannon was moved by Kanon's struggled, and decides to protect him with her magic shields. She won't last long, though. So Genji does the honorable thing and swiftly kills them both through some variant of the vulcan nerve-pinch. Beatrice is super-annoyed, but before she can do anything, Ronove mercy-kills Genji in the same way. I'm starting to like this guy.
There's still two sacrifices to do, so the knife-sisters corner poor Gohda in the kitchen. They're going for the full set of servants, so old bag Kumasawa is next. For some reason, she's waiting for them in the garden... and completely immune to their attacks ! WTF ?
Wow ! Remember the "predecessor" Beatrice in the flashback at the beginning of the chapter ? she's been sealed and asleep in Kumasawa's body for a while. Beatrice's growing power has now awakened her, and she's not happy about what her former disciple has done. It'll be a fight to the death between the two witches, and the knife-sisters are politely invited to get the heck out of here.
Wow, this is an impressive fight scene. Beatrice and The Witch Formerly Known As Beatrice go all-out, draw giant weapons out of nowhere, and even grow giant buildings from the ground as protection. It nearly looks like Beatrice is defeated, but Not so Fast, Bucko!, we're only halfway through the third chapter out of at least four. Indeed, she had actually pulled a sneaky move early in the fight, and killed her former master without her noticing. Eh.
It's getting late, so Beatrice orders Ronove to place the six bodies in impossibly closed places to maximize confusion. Eh. Battler's spirit self, who has seen everything, is completely nonplussed. So I am : what is the point of dangling some interesting mystery threads when everything is explained right away as "The Witch Did It" ? For now, this is mainly a "Shaggy Dog" Story...
Next part : The second day. Hopefully the plot will go into a more interesting direction...
