Xebek\’s Blog

Haseo faces off agaisnt Endrance in the arena and learns about what drives Endrance to fight and what his connection to AIDA is.

Summary:

• Haseo returns to the arena from the plane and Kuhn is lying on the ground. However we see he is ok, and Pai asked if he used the Propagation. Kuhn said yes and we find out that Magus’s special ability is that it is able to propagate data, so Kuhn wasn’t in that much danger. Kuhn says he gives up and Haseo wins the match.
• Haseo then goes to talk with Yata at Raven and Yata tells him how since Haseo took Kuhn’s chance to fight Endrance, he is giving Haseo his assignment to collect data on Endrance and his Avatar. Haseo agrees.
• Haseo fights in the final title match against Endrance. Everyone is gathered to watch and the guest commentator for the match was supposed to be Anteras but Ovan shows up instead. Haseo wonders what he is doing, Gabi seems to know him, Sakaki seems distressed and Yata wonders what he is planning. Ovan tells the announcer how he and Haseo used to be in the same guild, the Twilight Brigade, over half a year ago. Haseo flashback to the times in the Brigade and when he was with Shino looking for Ovan. Zelkova hears this and says how he is more interested in Haseo now.
• Haseo starts the match and after a while Endrance says how its not enough, at this rate “she” will never be happy. Endrance summons Macha and Haseo summons Skeith. They fight and after a while Endrance asks where is he, and who are you. He says eh doesn’t like it here, you’re not here. Why aren’t you here with me in this world? Is it because I’m weak? He says he will get stronger and asks if he does will “you” stay with me forever? He says eh will get strong enough to protect “you”.
• After fighting more Endrance asks why Haseo wants to become stronger. Endrance says Haseo is the same as him. Haseo asks if he lost “her” too. Endrance says he doesn’t want to be alone anymore. He doesn’t want to loose anything ever again. He says that when “she” left he was all alone, she may look different now but he knew right away. Haseo asks if “she” is AIDA and Endrance just says “she” is simply “she”
• Haseo defeats Endrance, data draining him. They return to the arena and Endrance appears with a cat on his shoulder. He falls backward and holds out his hand to the cat, whispering Mia. The cat then is engulfed by AIDA black stuff and spreads around the arena as Endrance yells no!
• The AIDA gathers together and then disappears and Haseo asks what was that. Ovan’s voice says it was AIDA, up until now it had been mimicking Endrance’s cat. Haseo finds himself at the arena again with Endrance lying on the ground.
• We see Zelkova in the arena say that Endrance must have really loved her. Sakai is talking to Matsu asking if that power will become a hindrance or maybe it will… Saku sees this and yells no way, and says she will never ever forgive Haseo. Haseo summarizes that the cat was AIDA all along and Endrance knew that, yet still treasured it because of the memory of someone.
• Haseo had to the celebration party and talks with everyone, and wonders where Atoli went. We see Atoli looking out over the sea and Ovan appears and talks to her. They talk and Atoli says how she is sure Haseo isn’t worried about her. Ovan asks if they had a fight and Atoli says they aren’t even close enough to have a fight, she thinks he hates her. Ovan says even so, she wants to be closer to Haseo so she has to put forth some effort. He whispers in her ear that her character….
• Haseo walks up to them and asks Ovan what he is doing. Eventually Ovan gets around to tell Atoli about how Haseo used to be in his guild and there was another member named Shino. They were searching for the Key of the Twilight but Shino was PKed and never logged in after that, and they also couldn’t contact her in real life. Ovan then tells Atoli that she has the same character as Shino, and Atoli finally gets it, remembering how Haseo mistook her for Shino and the times he said he didn’t want to see her face.
• Atoli runs off and Haseo tries to stop her but Atoli says that all along she was trying to become Haseo’s friend. She worked hard to train and learn about combat for the arena, she was happy to be with him and wanted to adventure more, but all along he wasn’t adventuring with her, he was just looking at Shino in her. Atoli runs off, leaving Haseo there alone

Impressions:

I thought it was really cool how they talked about Kuhn’s special ability being named Propagation. Up until now we haven’t really heard any mention of the titles that go along with the epitaph users except for Haseo’s The Terror of Death. Although they didn’t actually say Kuhn had The Propagation as a title, they still used the word as the name of his ability which I think was awesome.

Endrance was the biggest thing in this episode I think. I think that now more then ever it is just completely blatantly obvious that Endrance is Elk. For anyone who thinks he isn’t, shut up and go finish drinking gasoline to kill of the rest of your brain cells. Before all I had to go by was the fact that it is the same seiyuu, he has the Macha Avatar, and the fact that he calls his cat Mia. However I think the big thing that tips to him being Elk is all his talk about her leaving him. It is obviously referring to the huge shock he went though while fairly young of having someone he couldn’t be without disappear. The reason eh tired to become stronger is because he didn’t want Mia to leave. He thinks that the reason that she first left was cause he want’ strong enough to protect her.

I thought it was interesting how Yata said that Endrance has a abnormally large play time although he doesn’t do much. I think the reason he spends so much time is defiantly because of the whole Mia thing. He wants to spend time with Mia. That and/or to get strong enough so that Mia doesn’t leave him again (following the Elk theory) Although I find it very intriguing what will happen next. Because as Haseo said, Endrance knew that the cat wasn’t really Mia but loved it anyways. It seems now however that it is gone, Endrance’s motivation and personality will be touched on a lot. At least in the next game.

All in all I know that I may pay this much attention to Endrance because I think he is a really cool character but this whole fight with him really showed that he is one of the most complex characters in the whole game. Hell, not even Haseo is this complex. Haseo goes crazy trying to save Shino, using the power he has to do anything he needs and realizes that its ok to rely on others….BORING. Endrance now that is a character personality hat is deep and thought out. He basically became strong so he could protect someone who disappeared. Even though its not his fault he didn’t know what else to do because he was devastated by Mia’s loose. When he got Macha he experienced for the first time a connection to her, and then used the AIDA to fill his desire to not be alone anymore. Even though Endrance never actually met back up with Mia, as in Endrance in the new game not Elk in the old game. The AIDA thing never was Mia. Endrance just named the AIDA Mia because he was desperate to not be alone.

Ok Ill surmise this in this paragraph because four paragraphs dedicated to Endrance may be starting to turn this form an impressions on the game segment to Endrance fawning. Endrance is a great complex character because h was devastated. At the loss of Mia he felt like there was nothing he could do. So in the new game he felt that perhaps if he was stronger back then when Mia disappeared then perhaps he could have saved her. He desperately tried to gain strength and when he encountered the AIDA he named it Mia because he was desperate to not be alone anymore. He kept babbling how he was all alone and so he used the AIDA to fill the gap in his heart left by Mia.

Ovan’s talk with Atoli was another interesting point in this section. I’m really curious as to what Ovan whispered to Atoli. He said that her character…..and then cut off. However I’m pretty sure he didn’t just tell her that her character looked like Shino because she heard that from Ovan again when Haseo was there. It’s likely that Ovan knows about Atoli being an epitaph user and told her something about that.