The Heinous Aura
~Mastermind~
Japanese Title:
巨悪のオーラ ～黒幕～
Kyoaku no Ōra ~Kuromaku~
Original Air Date:
13 September 2016
A group of Claw soldiers gossip over a game of cards; Kaito sits with them, unharmed. Ritsu and company sneak him out but are caught in flagrante delicto. The mook in charge lets the kids go in peace, surprising everyone involved.
Wearing the hapless security guard's body, Dimple pokes around the facility. The Claw Scar enforcer Matsuo, who collects spirits like Pokémon and uses them in much the same fashion, spots him in the act. He can see right through the ghost's meat-suit and wants him for his collection.
Cut to Teru, cracking his knuckles with glee on a pile of redshirts. Miyagawa, another Scar, says hello with a sudden backdraft. The gangly pyrokinetic is quick, but Teru is smarter. Before the boy can exhale—let alone properly dust the ash off his favorite sweater—Sakurai and Muraki, an imposing Scar who can project astral clones of himself, appear and overpower him.
Gigantic chittering wooden dolls—the toys of young Mukai, a Scar and skilled puppeteer—surround Mob elsewhere in the building. She scampers off to investigate. Her 'big sis' Tsuchiya, a monastic qigong martial artist, looks on in admiration.
Meanwhile, Shou... materializes before Ritsu and company. This overbearing little shit looks to be about Ritsu's age, with an ego four times his size. Unlike the other enforcers we've seen, he has no scars. Seems the younger Kageyama is still overestimating his abilities; he takes on Shou alone. As the others escape to safety, Shou bodies him offscreen for bait.
Mukai returns in tears; Tsucchi's got her back. Cut to the annoyed culprit, quietly standing amid a pile of wood scrap. Tsuchiya unleashes on Mob, but he refuses to fight her. Upon learning why, she calls him out, asking him not to hold back. Given full permission... he obliges her.
Ishiguro, the head of Claw's 7th Division, sends Takeuchi, another Scar qigong warrior monk, after Mob next. We're told Takeuchi is an even bigger threat than Tsuchiya, but the boy disposes of him without moving a limb. He continues on... and then turns a corner. It's Ritsu, out cold. As a seething Mob wonders why, Mutō the mental illusionist suddenly appears to show the child some true despair. Mob rejects his unreality and returns it tenfold to its sender. Unfortunately he knocks himself out too: Shou's hook worked.
All three intruders and Ritsu have now been captured; Ishiguro is pissed off. They defeated seven of her Scars and this won't look good to her boss at all. Matsuo rejoins the remaining crew, with Dimple trapped in his poison jar. It's crammed to bursting with hundreds of other spirits, and they're starving. Dimple can't talk his way out of this one...
Tropes appearing in this episode include:
- Apologetic Attacker:
- Doubles as a Crowning Moment of Funny—Mob simply glances at Takeuchi, a powerful warrior-monk, and craters a wall with him before the man even gets out a word. The teenager then apologizes.
- Mob weeps at having to 'beat up a lady'. Tsuchiya calls him out.
- Cuckoosnarker: Mob is normally a sweetheart with No Sense of Humor, but piss him off enough and he just might pick up the Snark Ball. Maybe it's his brother's influence: At the sight of Tsuchiya, he provokes her.Mob: [in annoyed resignation] Are you violent too, old woman?
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Miyagawa. Poor, roasted Miyagawa. The pyrokinetic aims to braise Teru alive under his psychic barrier, but the teenager flips it onto him and charbroils the man in his own flames.
- Sanity Slippage: Played for laughs. Mob formally greeting Mukai's dolls and asking after his brother's whereabouts before they attack him.
- Would Hurt a Child: Every member of Claw our esper teenagers contend with. Even Mukai, still a child herself.
- Wouldn't Hit a Girl: Mob, until Tsuchiya lays clear the limitations of this well-meaning and sexist philosophy. Here she asks the teenager for a fair fight, and...gets it. In the manga, it takes her pointing out the inherent unfairness of the situation (a middle-aged, trained martial artist against a teenager) for him to fight back.
