Moment Subpages are Spoilers Off. You Have Been Warned.
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General
- Zazie is walking Paranoia Fuel, as they have the ability to see through the bugs and bird like creatures on the planet. So every scene those bugs appear in where the characters are at, Zazie will know what's going on.Zazie: We are always watching.
Episode 1: Noman's Land
- Vash confronting Nai who is cackling madly over his work at causing the Big Fall. He has no idea why his brother is doing this, and focuses on the fact that Nai is not only damning the sleeping humans, he killed Rem - their mother. Nai continues to laugh, showing a side of himself that absolutely terrifies Vash. He never knew Nai was capable of this much destruction, and is forever going to be reminded that all of this subsequent suffering of humanity - that it's all his fault.Nai: You're my accomplice! Well, aren't you, Vaaaaaaaash?
Episode 2: Running Man
- Just as Vash tries to leave town, he and Roberto hear a scream from the bar. Gofsef is covered in Lost Technology that starts to glow red. In a panic, Gofsef quickly runs out of the bar likely knowing the damage he'll causes if he stays. Just as he looks up to the others in fright and confusion, the bombs go off.
Episode 3: Bright Light, Shine Through the Darkness
- At the beginning of the episode, one of the officers on a Tomas runs out towards Knives walking calmly towards Jeneora Rock. He tries to warn off who he thinks is a civilian from coming near a bomb-infested town, and likely shared the same fate as the others who came across Knives.
- Millions Knives creeping around everyone in Jeneora Rock, mocking them and severing their limbs in the process. He doesn't even bother with Rosa, content with going after the red Plant and forcing her to watch as her town is crushed into nothing.
- The sequence where Rosa loses her friends is sickening. Knives is perfectly capable of killing them all at once without lifting a finger, but he makes sure to inspire as much fear in them as possible instead, dragging them away one by one and slaughtering them in gruesome sprays of blood. After the first dies, Rosa thinks quickly and grabs the other by the arm before Knives can do the same to her — and they play tug-of-war as the woman screams Rosa's name in terror, before Knives slices off her arm and drags her away too. It's like he's making a game of it.
- The way Vash is begging his brother to not unleash his blades onto the town. It's like he's seen Knives flex his power before, and after 150 years, Vash is all too familiar with the kind of destruction his brother is capable of. What's worse, is how Vash knows he can do nothing to stop it.
Episode 4: Hungry!
- The group go to a nearby station to look for help only to see the couple who ran the station slaughtered. Zazie, pretending to be a child is hiding in the locker. Whether it was by their hands or one of the other Gung-Ho members, these innocent people were dragged into something out of their control.
Episode 6: Once Upon a Time in Hopeland
- Legato inflicting Cold-Blooded Torture on Wolfwood via telekinesis. His hands, limbs, and finally his spine are forcefully bent in ways not humanly possible, with the sound of one Sickening "Crunch!" after the next.
Episode 9: Millions Knives
- When Knives go to check on the plants, he sees their withered forms stretch their hands out and try to reach for him. All Knives can do is touch the glass in turn, but has no way to heal them.
- The Plants being forced to go through a "Last Run" where they're forced to use their remaining life force to give energy to the city they're powering. Once they do that, their tanks light grows dark and they die.
Episode 10: Humanity
- William Conrad retelling Meryl why he does what he does. In one flashback, he comes across a teenage Knives and is happy to see the boy. But as he runs towards him, Knives hold up one of his claws with a single blue eye peeking out from it and looking at Conrad. The doctor recognizes it as Tesla's eye and crumbles to the floor, begging for forgiveness.
- To take out the bullet from his body, Vash takes off his shirt and reveals the multiple scars he has over his body. On his back it almost looks like his muscles are exposed.
- When Meryl and Roberto are held as bait to lure Vash, Conrad shows them the Plant tanks. The two express pity for the Plants... and then Elindira awakens, shoots one hell of a Psychotic Smirk at Meryl, fires a nail at her that shatters the tank, and mocks, "Who are you to pity me?" This begins a chase where she fires ballistic nails at the duo as they desperately try to escape. Finally, as the two wait for the elevator to freedom, they hear Elindria emerging from the shadows:Elendira: Fo-o-und you~
Episode 11: To the New World
- Knives breaking Vash's mind by showing him all of the memories Vash has of humanity and how they've failed him.
- He stumbles upon Ship Five and sees corpses of the people who didn't survive littering the sand.
- Tonis with his missing arm glares at Vash and angrily tells Vash how he promised he'd bring Jeneora Rock their Plant back. As he reaches for the kid, they become Rollo, who stares at Vash coldly, asking why he didn't save him. Then it changes to Rollo, still in his child form, being shot through the head by Wolfwood. As Rollo after his mutation into Monev the Gale begs to be killed, Knives takes Wolfwood's place and shoots the Punisher until Rollo is a corpse.
- Tesla's fate. The twins dig up information about another Independent like them from fifty years ago and pull up her files. Then Nai hits a button that shows Tesla's body and her other remains stored in tanks. While she's cryogenically suspended, her status is still alive. The twins are not even a year old, and they break down screaming in horror at what humanity has done to plants like them.
- Vash breaking down screaming when Knives reveals to his brother he did everything for him, and implies the crash, and everything after it was Vash's fault.
- In Vash's final memory of Rem, Knives slashes her head off, just as Vash hugs her form and begs her not to leave him alone.
- Vash as a limp, colourless doll with no identity is haunting, but what's worse is Knives's genuine happiness with this result. He's cored his brother out physically and mentally like an apple, used him more brutally than any human ever could have, and he celebrates because he finally has Vash back with him.
- As the plants around them begin to unfurl, they appear to be heavily pregnant, and look just as horrified as Meryl and the audience do.
- The vines start to spread out into the July city and destroy everything from the July police to tanks without hesitation.
Episode 12: High Noon at July
- Meryl screams for Vash trying to wake him up. He instead starts humming a quiet song to himself. When he does turn to look in Meryl's direction, he still looks like a lifeless puppet. Even creepier is how it sounds like the other Plants are joining in with Vash during his song, creating an even more ominous atmosphere.
- When Vash begins to unravel the illusion Knives has trapped him in, the appearance of the sweet little boy that Knives was so long ago sprouts the bladed chains from his back that he bears in the present day. It's a frightening reminder that as heartfelt and beautiful as his dream to be reunited with Vash in his "paradise" is, Knives has become a monster in its pursuit.
- Vash sprouts his angel wing that looks like it's made of dark matter. When he flies around, he's quickly shot down by the July police. Vash tries warning them to leave, only for his pleas to be ignored and Knives coming down to slice the policemen's torsos from their bodies. Vash's face bears a look of pure terror at what his brother continues to do to the humanity Vash loves, and all of it, as Knives claims, in Vash's name.
- In the dub, Vash sounds like he's in extreme pain as the wing sprouts from his shoulder.
- The shot of Knives's reflection in a spreading pool of blood: a spiked and bladed angelic being silhouetted against the moon with his chains writhing like tentacles.
- As Knives and Vash's battle reaches a climax, both of them take to the sky, Vash trying to harmlessly discharge the unstable energy Knives drew from his Gate, condensed briefly into a portable cube through Vash regaining control of himself. Knives tries to stop him doing so, so enraged by Vash rejecting him again that his reason is gone, demonically focused on stealing back said energy and using it to brute-force open Vash's gate once more, ranting the whole time about how he needs to terminate humanity for their sake, and how Vash's actions are a mistake. Undeterred, Vash eventually manages to use his Plant abilities to transform his gun and the cube into his Angel Arm, physically struggling with Knives to point it out into space whilst his brother keeps wrestling the weapon back towards the planet to stop Vash from firing it, completely tuning out Vash's pleas to let him do so because he can't contain the energy any longer, and unleashing it is an inevitability. Knives's refusal to listen seems to stem either from his mad belief that he can still proceed with his plans and refusal to accept Vash's stubborn insistence on siding with humanity, or an equally insane, spiteful willingness to blow the planet up if Vash won't help him, indicating the depths of his madness.
- As Vash finally manages to point his Angel Arm out into space just as the blast unleashes, the recoil starts pushing him back towards the planet, helpless to control his descent or the weapon's discharge. Still clinging to his delusional dreams of ending humanity, Knives pursues him through the energy blast to grab the cube before it exhausts its reserves. A combination of his own durability and insane willpower means that the blast doesn't vaporise him... instantly. Instead, the anime gives a lovely drawn-out sequence of Knives slowly combusting from the inside out, the skin and muscles steadily burning away as he keeps pushing through the beam, heedless of anything else. Worse, even like this, even aware that Vash can't stop the energy, Knives adamantly refuses let go, reaching for the cube as his body becomes Stripped to the Bone, cursing his brother for the situation while he's the one causing his own suffering. By the end, his face is been burnt away to a fanged skull, reflective of the demon he is underneath his angelic grace. His last few words to Vash before his body finally fails him? To reject his human-given name of 'Nai' once and for all, telling his twin that Nai's been dead for a long time, and that Vash is the one who killed him. All whilst he's dying from the self-inflicted injuries Vash's weapon is causing him, which will no doubt haunt the Stampede for a long time.
- Even when Knives is blown away, Vash's suffering is not finished. The Angel Arm's recoil sends Vash hurtling down into the city of July like a meteor, and upon landing, causes a massive detonation of Gate energy that evaporates the entire city and everyone and everything still in it, leaving nothing but a crater — the 'July Incident' that past iterations of Vash were infamous for. A Flash Forward to two years later shows that the event is still widely remembered, and Vash Hated by All as the perpetrator, even after he spent most of the episode upon regaining himself frantically trying to prevent that outcome. The only mercy is that the shock of events seems to have rendered Vash amnesiac, but when he regains his senses, all the events that transpired — his brother's spiteful passing, the mind-numbing death toll — Vash is going to have to spend his extended lifespan grappling with those memories forever.
- The two notes Vash continues to play on the piano? It's the same notes heard on the ship of Chronica and the other Independent Plants, making their way to Noman's Land.
