"Chapter 5, a new element"
Again, the years pass. Then, one night, in what looks a lot like a dream, Beatrice invites Shannon to join her and party forever in her rose garden. Shannon politely declines, to Beatrice's bewilderment and anger. A servant's live is hard and will little reward : why doesn't Shannon want to leave it ?
The answer becomes clear the next day, at the annual Ushiromiya family reunion : Jessica has secretly become friends with Shannon (despite Natsuhi's best efforts), and the maid enjoys the company of the three cousins while the adults are too busy to care. (Maria's too young to count ; Asumu's presence suggests this is at least "six years ago"... and I'm already pretty sure it's exactly that point in time.)
[LOL at the reveal that Battler and George spent the night talking about Shannon's breasts. And, er... Jessica and Shannon were also there for at least part of the discussion, and the maid wasn't the least interested in all this flowers and bees talk...]
But moreover, what Shannon found was... love. It all started with Battler lending her a mystery book (smooth, man !)... and then their shared passion for those became something more, and an excuse for them to meet alone together. By now, he even gets enough nerve to suggest that, if she ever quits her job as a maid, he'd welcome her happily... But he leaves her time to think it over, and she decides to give it a year. If he still comes for her next year... Oh dear. I already know he'll break his promise and won't be coming.
Beato watches all this from afar... and becomes very interested in this "love" thing.
Cut to Lion (watching all this with Will), who's quite unnerved by this parallel version of her... but still has no clue why she'd commit murder. Beato states that she herself didn't know then she'd commit mass murder six years later... and really it was bad luck that Battler came back exactly six years later. So the timing of his return's important, hum ? Oh, and will has guessed that one of the root causes for the whole thing is that Beato solved the epitaph... which gave her leverage to gain allies. Well, EP 2 strongly hinted at that, and it supports my "round robin of allies" pet theory.
But why does Battler coming back exactly six years later matter so much ?
And I'm tired, so that's it for today.
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