Nadesico Ep. 22: Protect the Visitor

Akito launches in his Aestivalis as Erina attempts to talk him back into doing jump experiments over his communicator. She basically calls him a disgrace for abandoning his duty, but he calmly says he can live with that. Yurika pops up to happily support Akito’s choice, followed by Akatsuki and several others with their own opinions. The communicator traffic completely blocks out Akito’s view, causing him to nearly crash into his target–an unarmed Jovian shuttle containing an ambassador–Shiratori’s 13-year old sister, Yukina. Apparently, her boson jump was a bit unstable, and thus she is taken aboard unconscious. When she awakes, she not-so-convincingly feigns amnesia, somehow escapes Inez, and begins to wander the ship looking for Minato, whom she cannot forgive for stealing her brother’s heart. Akito returns to his room to find Erina waiting for him inside. Annoyed, he asks her what she wants. She says that she’s chasing him because he’s running away. He calmly denies this–he just doesn’t want to escalate the fighting. Erina warns him that people will die if he doesn’t fight, but he tells her he’s sick of experiments. The argument escalates until Erina finally lets it slip that he’s just like his father when he was working on the CCs. Hearing this, Akito turns deadly serious and asks her what she knows. Erina makes an excuse and bolts from the room. Meanwhile, Yukina has taken a break from her vendetta to steal some food from the kitchen. She overhears Howmei, Uribatake and some of the maintenance men talking about the new, cute POW. Upon hearing them taking pity on her for her ‘amnesia’ and hoping that the war ends soon so she can go home, she begins to doubt some of her views on Earthlings. But quickly decides that they are probably just putting on a show to bring her back out in the open so they can catch her. Passing by the Nadesico‘s health spa, she hears someone mention Minato’s name. Realizing that Minato is preparing for a bath, Yukina sneaks in first to ambush her. Unfortunately, Minato takes her time, and by the time she finally makes it to the bath, Yukina passes out from the heat in the middle of her big revenge speech. When Yukina regains consciousness, she finds Minato fanning her and singing Gekiganger‘s ending theme song. Annoyed, but no longer angry, she asks how Minato knows that song. Minato tells her that Shiratori was nice enough to teach it to her. Yukina tells her that she likes her brother, but she hates that cartoon. Then she accuses Minato of being a spy sent to seduce her brother. Minato tells her that if she was trying to seduce him, they’d already be a lot closer than they are. Taken aback, Yukina asks what’s so special about her brother, anyway? Minato notes that he has a wonderful little sister, for her to come all this way just because she was worried about him. Furthermore, her brother would be very sad if she died using the bomb she has hidden in her belongings. 

On the bridge, Yukina brings out a Jovian machine which uses a mini-Chulip to communicate across long distances. Using it, she contacts her brother, who is extremely concerned for her safety, and grudgingly allows Minato to use it to talk to him. Minato and Shiratori make embarrassing small talk for a bit, and then Yurika announces that they will protect Yukina as their visitor and convince Nergal and the UEF to negotiate a peace treaty. Just as Shiratori attempts to ask Minato out when peace becomes a reality, alarms go off on the Nadesico. It seems that they have been surrounded by UEF battleships, lead by Yurika’s father, who have been instructed to ‘insure the safety of Yukina Shiratori.’ Unconvinced, Yurika asks him where would be safer than within the most powerful battleship ever, but Admiral Misumaru says that he doesn’t question orders from the top. Yurika responds that if he has no better explanation than she has no choice. Yurika orders Ruri to power up the gravity blast cannon and fire a warning shot. Before she can, however, Akatsuki pulls the master key, leaving the Nadesico powerless. Yurika reacts with shock, noting that she’s supposed to be the only one able to pull out that key. Akatsuki tells her that only two people are able to–the captain of the Nadesico and the chairman of Nergal: Akatsuki Nagare. To Akatsuki’s annoyance, none of the crew reacts with much surprise, but there’s still little they can do in the current situation. Akatsuki takes control of the Nadesico and plans to turn Yukina over to the military. Admiral Misumaru boards the ship and tries to talk some sense into his daughter, but it seems that Yukina has gone missing in the meantime. In the bowls of the ship, Akito is keeping Yukina hidden when Erina discovers them. She smugly asks if Akito would like her help. Akito doesn’t trust her at all, of course, so she volunteers to tell him about his father. Meanwhile, Admiral Misumaru, Yurika, Mr. Prospector, and Hoary are taken to see Akatsuki. The Admiral tells him that he’s become more like his father–similar to the days when Akatsuki’s father and Akito’s father discovered the CCs on Mars. The day after the military was ordered to pull out of Mars, a coup d’etat was staged and in the aftermath, Akito’s parents were killed. Some believe that Nergal orchestrated the whole thing. Akatsuki feigns ignorance, so Mr. Prospector volunteers to explain a little further. Nergal wanted to keep the CCs a secret, while Akito’s father wanted to publicize the findings. Mr. Prospector was stationed on Mars at the time, and looking back things went rather unnaturally smoothly for Nergal. As Mr. Prospector talks, his voice is carried throughout the ship via a transmitter provided by Ruri. After the coup, Mr. Prospector took the liberty of breaking into Nergal’s corporate computers and discovered that Nergal had decided that Akito’s parents must be assassinated. Akatsuki tells him that it was all for the sake of the phase transition plant ruins left behind by the ancient Martians or Jovians. Seeing that this technology was the future of humanity, Akatsuki’s father consolidated all his holdings to capitalize on the coming boson jump era. Mr. Prospector asks what they plan to do with Yukina, and Akatsuki explains that the main Jovian fleet has moved into Mars orbit. If any mention of peace negotiations is made public would undoubtedly affect moral. Thus, Yukina is to be eliminated. With that, Yurika yells into Mr. Prospector’s transmitter to tell Akito to run, and Hoary begins taking out the armed guards. Admiral Misumaru even helps out by knocking Akatsuki out cold. Akito, with Yukina in tow, makes a break for it as Erina begs him not to go. Akito tells her to go on with her life where she does nothing but use people to get her way. In tears, Erina asks him once more to not leave her. Noting her change in attitude, Akito tells her he’s sorry, but leaves with Yukina. In the next hallway he is cornered by several armed guards, but Ryoko, Hikaru, and Izumi appear to help get him down to the hanger. As Akito prepares to launch, Yurika orders the crew of the captured Nadesico to scatter and escape by any means possible.