Saiunkoku Monogatari – 17 – After a month absence, Shuurei returns. And more awesome than ever. :)

I’m SO glad that Saiunkoku Monogatari’s back again. And to top things, it returns with one of the best episodes so far. I really loved it!

Remember when Shuurei was on the verge of being captured by Kochou and her henchmen? The story returns from this point. Kochou orders Shuurei to come inside, as there’s someone who wishes for it. She can’t refuse, as it’s a person whose rank is way higher than Shuurei, Eigetsu and Seiran’s combined. Kochou reminds Seiran of the fact that he can’t do anything with his current status, and that he can’t even protect his loved ones. She gives the subtle hint that if he was an officer with authority like Shuuei, he could have done something. Seiran gets this hint, and leaves.

We then see a scene in which the bad guy for this arc has a small conversation with one of his henchmen. He seems to be the one who ordered Kochou to take in Shuurei, and he indeed seems to have set his mind to kicking Shuurei out of the palace. He also seems to have a grudge against Eigetsu. I’m not sure about the reason yet, but I think Yougetsu made a fool out of him once. He also surprises himself over the fact that Reishin would volunteer to act as Shuurei’s sponsor. It seems that he also wants Reishin to leave.

Next, a discussion between Shouka and his younger brother, Kurou. It begins strange, when Shouka reveals that Kurou was the one who gave Eigetsu food and a place to stay after he ended up sending all of his money back to his village. I always thought that Eigetsu was staying in Shuurei’s house, though now it seems that Kurou has been taking care of him. Kurou also seemed to have asked Eigetsu about Shuurei. Apart from this research, he also seems to have been the one to prevent Shuurei from facing a huge amount of harassment, though it’s not yet clear what. He also tells Shouka that he hates him, and he seems to have been the one to throw Shouka out of a certain home. Shouka, however, remains indifferent about this. Not only that, but he also plans to have Shuurei become Kouyuu’s wife. A messenger then arrives, telling him about Reishin who’s been locked up and Shuurei and Eigetsu are stuck in Kogarou. There’ll also be an inquiry about the two of them the next morning. Kurou figures that the two of them are being held to prevent them from being able to attend, so it would seem that they were afraid to come and have fled, making them guilty. Kurou then gets serious, and plans to make use of his power as a member of the Kou-clan. He doesn’t like it when his clan-members are put in difficult situations.

Back when they were taken in by Kochou, Eigetsu secretly gave Seiran the stamp he got from Ryuuki in the previous episode. During this episode, the purpose of this stamp gets explained. If you give a letter that stamp, it will always arrive with top priority. Seiran used this to notify Ryuuki that Shuurei’s been captured. He discusses this with Shuuei, and they both don’t like it. When Ryuuki also finds out that Reishin has been captured and Kurou, who apparently is the proxy head of the Kou clan also has been sighted, he really begins to see that things aren’t going into the right direction. The reason for that, we see later. Ryuuki gets an idea when Kouyuu notifies him with the letter for the petition. He plans to go to Shuurei, though Kouyuu commands him to come back soon with a very evil voice. ^^

Then we see Seiran, who’s paying a visit to Raien, who seems to be a high-ranked official. Seiran asks for the position, rank and authority to wear a sword to protect what’s important to him. Kochou’s plan seemed to have worked.

Shuurei, meanwhile, is getting a bit depressed inside Kogarou, because Kochou betrayed her. Eigetsu then tells her the reason why he wanted to become a government official. It seems that it’s for the money. Eigetsu’s village had one doctor. At times, this doctor wouldn’t be able to handle all of the patients who came to him. If he had money, he would have. The doctor always had a sad look on his eyes when this happened. Eigetsu doesn’t want him to get that look. Some thugs then come to pick up Eigetsu, in order to play around with him a bit. I love the thugs in Saiunkoku Monogatari. They seem to fit perfect, but are clueless at the same time. This becomes clear when they try to feed Eigetsu some alcohol. Eigetsu gets taken away, along with the alcohol. In any case, they also mention something important. The reason why Eigetsu went berserk was because he refused to marry the daughter of the bad guy.

Next up, a discussion between Kourin and Ensei. Ensei seemed to have grown his beard again (he indeed really hates shaving). It seems that the two of them will be arriving early, and Kourin displays the strength of her character. This scene really made me respect her. It seems that Kourin wanted to meet the one she tried to kill, in order to apologize, and repent for her sins. She’s actually willing to take responsibility for the things she’s done.

Back to Shuurei, one of the thugs decided to have a bit of fun with her (being in a brothel, and all). Then, it seems that the thugs managed to feed Eigetsu some alcohol after all, and Yougetsu appears. That takes care of the annoying thugs.

Kochou then arrives at the place. The thugs then command her to summon the guards, though Kochou turns back on them, using her own guards to knock out the rest of the thugs. In a highly intimidating way. Afterwards, Yougetsu tries to hit on Shuurei, but faints before it gets serious. The remaining thug then scolds Kochou, claiming that she betrayed them, after all of the affection his master showed. Kochou then claims to never have been on his side in the first place, and that the guy should really begin to know his place. She also yells at him for doing things to her precious Shuurei. Shuurei then realizes that Kochou just acted, and that she never betrayed her in the first place. What follows is a touching scene in which Shuurei’s extremely glad that Kochou didn’t turn her back on her. It seems that Kochou told her to stay away from Kogarou was to protect Shuurei. After all, if she was seen in a brothel, she’d be in trouble. Kochou also tells her that she acted the way she did because of a request from Shuuei. It seems that the guy really knew what was going on.

Back to Kurou, Kage (the messenger) and Shouka. Kurou has taken drastic measures when he sends out a message to every member of the Kou-clan living in the capital. Kurou’s really getting angry for having his big brother locked up.

Back to Kogarou, Ryuuki explains Shuurei about the ring of the head of the Sa clan. Originally, Sa Taiho had this, though ever since his death, the ring has been missing. The bad guy is trying to take advantage of it. How exactly isn’t known. It seems that if you have the ring, you automatically have status, or something, but that isn’t really explained. He also tells her about t
he inquiry. Ryuuki thinks it’s a good idea to let Shuurei and Eigetsu stay at Kogarou for the night, so that they can head for the palace next morning. There’ll probably be resistance, though he won’t assign any major guards, as he wants Shuurei to come on her own strength. Seiran gets to be the only one to protect her. Ryuuki then grabs a number of papers, which somehow will become a large piece of evidence of that corruption. I think he means Shuurei’s report on her treatment for the last couple of episodes.

What follows is Seiran leaving to check up on Shouka and Kochou bringing Eigetsu to bed. It seems that they knew that the two of them needed a bit of time along. In this time, Shuurei thanks Ryuuki for not going soft on her. The fact remained that when she worked as the queen, she was never told about anything. She was being protected, though now she isn’t. She likes it that Ryuuki treats her as a normal official. Ryuuki then gets notified of a very angry Kouyuu, who alerts him of the fact that half of all work outside of the castle has come to a halt (Kurou’s work).

Back in the palace, Ryuuki surprises himself over all the petitions that arrived. This just shows the power of the Kou clan. The capital is in a state of major confusion. Senior Secretary Kou has been occupying one of the distant residences all by himself (remind me again… who was that?) and has put himself under self-imposed house-arrest. Shuuei then figures that should be going back to normal in a day, if nobody does something about it. The power of the Kou clan is much larger than what Kuro demonstrated and they’re able to do much worse. So, basically, Kurou is telling them to resolve everything within a day. Then, another interesting fact gets revealed. Ryuuki wonders what the bad guy was thinking by going against Reishin. Shuuei then mentions that Reishin hasn’t revealed the public that he’s the actual head of the Kou-clan. And indeed, when we later see a scene with the bad guy, he’s astonished about Reishin’s power. He never imagined it would be this big. Oh, and they also get a note from Ensei, with the message that he’s likely to arrive the next day, in the evening. Ryuuki then orders them to arrive that noon instead. Probably because he wants them to attend Shuurei’s inquiry.

Back to Shuurei and Kochou, Eigetsu seems to have woken up, and the two of them spend the rest of the night working on their report, to get them done before the inquiry begins.

The next day, we see what Kijin was planning with the papers from the previous episode. I have no idea what kinds of papers they were, but they were valuable to Shuurei’s and Kouyuu’s reports, and he slipped in into their work.

Next episode promises to be a big one. I’m glad Saiunkoku Monogatari returned. ^_^