Full Metal Panic! The Second Raid Ep. 11: His Problem

En route to Hong Kong by helicopter, Gates rants about the importance of keeping things balanced while his assistant asks him what he plans to do with Yu Lan’s corpse. Sousuke wanders the empty streets and finds a family vacating their store. The owner asks Sousuke where he’s from and the latter answers that he has no homeland. Sousuke grabs a bottle of Scotch and offers to pay for it but the owner tells him to take it and get lost. The other SRT team composed of Wang and Yu reach one of the search points: A building under construction. They find a maggot-ridden corpse which’s been there for a few days and a message on his shirt saying “To the son of Bdakshon’s Tiger. Meet Hamidra at Tsim Sha Tsui.” Meanwhile Borda tells Tessa that they can only stall for three more hours before negotiations between North and South China break down so they have to find the Codarl fast. Mao calls in and reports the discovery of the corpse and the message. There were also several reports of the same message in other places. Tessa has no idea what the message refers to and Mardukas suggests that Kalinin might know since he has ties to Bdakshon. Kalinin examines the message and reveals that Bdakshon’s Tiger was a legendary Helmajistan guerilla fighter named Majid. The Soviets had tried to have him assassinated several times, and one of the hitmen sent to do that was an eight year old Sousuke. Majid adopted Sousuke out of kindness and named him Kashim. Tessa quickly contacts Mao and asks to be put through to Sousuke, but Mao tells her that he’s not with her. Sousuke finds a prostitute trying to flirt with a couple of soldiers who blow her off. When she turns around, he is surprised to discover that she looks just like Chidori. The girl sees the whisky bottle in his hand an excitedly approaches him. She asks if Sousuke wants to have some fun with her, and after a long pause Sousuke finally agrees.

On the Tuatha de Danaan, Weber gets word that Sousuke bailed and can’t believe it. The other M9 pilots discuss the issue and think Chidori is the cause. At her apartment, the girl pours two glasses of Scotch and tells Sousuke that he looks just like the guy she used to go out with. She tells him to smile a little and he says he only knows how to fight. This causes her to burst out laughing because she thinks Sousuke is a cleaning guy based on his uniform. Sousuke says he was just joking and she asks what he’s doing here. Sousuke replies that he was working with his colleagues but decided to skip out. She says that the best action when faced with a difficult situation is to run away. Sousuke says that he can’t return to his companions now because they lost their trust, and the girl says that he shouldn’t be so trusting of them in the first place since people are only good as long as they are useful to you. By now the girl is drunk and Sousuke hadn’t touched his glass because he’s never had alcohol before. The girl straddles him but every time he looks at her face he remembers Chidori. Before she can kiss him, Sousuke pushes her off and he says that he won’t go through with it. He tosses her some money and she angrily throws his whisky bottle back, telling him to get out of her sight. Borda tells Tessa that they’ve run out of time and orders the deployments of all M9’s to stop the Codarl. However, the Arbalest will not be used. Tessa begs for more time and says that they don’t an effective counter for the Codarl yet and Borda retorts that Hong Kong will suffer more casualties if they delay any longer. Grudgingly, Tessa gives the order for deployment. Kalinin contacts Mao and tells her to stop the search and meet up with Clouseau to get her M9. The Tuatha de Danaan reaches surface level and launches the M9’s. Sousuke sits on a bench and tries to drink the Scotch but finds it revolting. He quickly throws it in the trash and notices a folded newspaper with the same message from before.