Darker Than Black (Episode 12)

I am going AWOL starting tomorrow as I am on way back to Kelantan. Yes, I am going back to the lectures-classes routine and the endless agony of the environment there. No hard feelings but I think Kelantan is boring. Speaking of Kelantan, Limkokwing University (the country’s leading institution of arts and technology) is keen for Kelantan as they had planned to open a campus there at Machang. I can’t seem to see the real deal here. This is absolutely bizarre.

Darker Than Black is your typical love and hate affair. For one moment, you like the series so much. Then on the next second, you are less convinced of the story’s potential. If there is a lesson ought to be learned here is to never give high expectations to this story. You might end up disappointed. Considering the nature of story with two-episodes arc, usually the first episode doesn’t give you much excitement for you to keep up. Then it hits you to the second episode, which was improvised to impress. This arc this time had a better first episode. From this, you can easily tell that this second episode failed to live to expectation – to my expectation at least. It was good to know that the writers had decided to scoop into Hei’s past and expose a little about the mysteries regarding to this story. They have proved me wrong. I must have been asking for too much.

Hei in his younger years.

This episode begins with a girl telling her brother of a shooting star that she saw. The older brother seemed to look like Hei. Putting that aside, the brother told her to make a wish, claiming that it is a light that escapes whenever God opens the sky. It was a chance for her to make a wish to have God to listen to. Indeed she was excited as she began to wish to become a nurse and going to outer space. The boy told her sister not to tell her wishes to him but to the stars instead. She began wishing and another star fell from the sky. Then there were an array of shooting stars covering the night sky. At that point, the boy turned into a grown-up – he was Hei. Feeling worried, he ran to his sister (and now we know her as Bai) and grabbed her shoulder. Suddenly the sky turned bloody red. Hei startled from his daydream and found himself with a vacuum cleaner turning on in a room full of scientists who were on a discussion. Hei’s supervisor rushed to him and told him to turn off the vacuum cleaner. He then apologised to the researchers for the disturbance and told Hei to apologise along. After that brief commotion, the scientist returned to their topic in regards to their findings inside the Gate, which they believed to be a meteor fragment. Hei freshen up himself in the restroom when suddenly Meena showed up from his back. What is she doing inside the men’s restroom? Meena asked him if he could see that image. She explained that people who experience sightings of illusions ended up losing their composure (going insane) and told him to talk about it to deal with the problem. However Hei mentioned that it is not her duty although Meena was worried if Hei loses his sanity. She felt threatened to be expelled from the research by the Syndicate if she accomplishes nothing. Hei reassured her that the Syndicate won’t dispose as they did not expect anything from her. He then asked her to leave to avoid being seen together.

Meena and Hei finally decided to make out… in the toilet.

Outside the restroom, Hei’s supervisor tried to peep into the scene inside the restroom but bumped into Meena who ran out. She pretended that she went into the wrong restroom. However she stopped from her tracks and turned to him, smiling. Meanwhile Hei passed by Nick who was packing his stuff. Nick told him that he was sent to the mission to retrieve a substance of the Gate’s origin which had caused the synchrotron light the other day. While at it, Nick intended to give away the Satake telescope to Hei and Hei accepted it willingly. Then an announcement was made to call for the retrieval team and Nick invited Hei to join him for star-gazing once he returns. Hei was eating at the cafeteria when his supervisor asked if he could sit to dine with him. His supervisor looked incredibly happy, so Hei asked him what’s up. He told Hei that it was his fault for giving “her” the cold shoulder while he referred to Meena who was sitting behind. Meena felt uneasy and went away. Later on, Hei opened his locker and noticed a note from Meena. Inside, she asked if the overturned shoes next to Corinna’s body was the remuneration for the Contractor. Hei confronted Meena and asked her if she got that information from Kikuchi (his supervisor). She admits it as she felt of doing whatever she can. But Hei warned her not to act on his own. Although Kikuchi is not a threat, Hei told her that the person supervising him is. So Hei told her to stay away from the matter. Meena defended herself that she only had a little chat. All of the sudden, the siren went off and all researchers were called to return to their stations. An emergency was issued when they have reveiced a feed from the retrieval team which was under attack. Meena realised that all the letterings were reversed. When the last person was murdered, they noticed that all the shoes of team members were overturned. Over the cafeteria, all of the personnel looked out when Hei saw one person from the team survived the danger. It turned out that the person is Nick.

Nick is in a bad shape obviously.

The head of security pressed on for a search party to recover the meteor fragment as Nick had failed to achieve that. However Sergei who supervised the project did not want to risk any more casualties among his team of researchers. He returned to his office, defeated. He was surprised to see his boss, Eric Nishijima who was demanding for the meteor fragment. Eric made it clear to him that the executives were growing impatient. Days passed and Hei returned to the telescope room once again and saw Nick inside, bounded to his wheelchair. Nick told Hei that he was going to quit his job and considered on returning back to NASA. Remembering their promise, Nick said that their star-gazing meeting had to be postponed. Offering his hand, Nick told Hei that he never treated him as a stranger ever since they met because it felt like he was seeing another part of himself. Hei received his hand when they were interrupted with Meena who was standing at the door. Later Hei was outraged by Meena for having a contact with him in front of others. Meena must be putting on a deaf ear as she talked about something else – how possibly Nick was the only one survived. She found it more strange as she checked from all the video feeds, Nick was never in the picture. Then there was also the overturned shoes. She began to understand that the incident was not caused by the Gate. She could only wonder if Nick was responsible for all of this and Hei acknowledged this. So he asked her if she had ever consider Nick as a Contractor. She denied this but ever since meeting Hei, she was not sure. She felt him kinder compared to other people so she was compelled to make sure that he was not hurt. She was about to confess her feelings towards him but Hei just walked away.

Nick is a Contractor.

That night, the head of security readied himself with a gun and decided to follow Nick who was on his way to the restricted area. From behind, Hei was following. Nick made his way to the locker and unlocked it. The head of security had already pointed his gun towards Nick and asked him if the meteor fragment is there. He ordered Nick to moved away from the locker and he was about to retrieve the meteor fragment. Using his powers, Nick electrocuted him and he fell to the ground. Then Nick gave him the fatal shock. Nick was surprised to see Hei standing nearby, witnessed what had happened. He still wanted Hei’s trust and showed him the meteor fragment. It turned out that Nick was working for the CIA and was ordered to retrieve the meteor fragment in exchange for a job with NASA. He did not like the working environment at the PANDORA and felt that he was running away from his dreams. He had always wished to return the real sky and bring her sister to outer space – something he shares in common with Hei. So he wants Hei to believe in his dreams. Then Hei told Nick that he saw the same thing a long time ago – the meteor fragment. He explained that it increases the Contractor’s ability to an extent of losing control and killing each other. A flashback of Hei’s sister handing over the meteor fragment to another person with her face covered with blood. He then accused Nick of lying as his dreams are not real since Contractors could not dream after all. Feeling threaten of Hei being a Contractor, he tried to electrocute him and Hei too did the same. This cancelled both powers, rendering the powers with no effect. At this point, I really like the BGM – kind of reminds you of that Spanish romantic story (whatever it is). Nick grabbed the gun and fled away with Hei chasing. Meanwhile Meena tried to confront Hei but he was not in the room. Back to the chase, both of them managed to take cover. However Hei began to see the illusion of his sister in the middle of the road and tried to approach her. The meteor fragment at Nick’s pocket began to glow as well. Hei grabbed her shoulder and the illusion disappeared but ended up with Nick pointing the gun to his head. Nick noticed that both of them are identical as they share the same ability. Knowing the similarity, he expected him to trust and understand him.

And his remuneration is putting shoes upside down. That guy lying down there is dead by the way.

“This is the meteor fragment… for your Satake telescope.”

Hei’s guardian angel to the rescue.

Then the meteor fragment to emit and amplify their powers. Nick fired a shot to Hei but the visage of Bai (Hei’s sister) appeared to protect him. Light began to envelope around them while from the PANDORA, the staff witnessed an explosion. Hei and Nick found themselves into another realm (somehow). Under the amber-torched light, Nick began to shrink into a young boy. Then up in the sky, the starry night began to open and this mesmerized them both. Nearby a space rocket was set to take off. This is no ordinary space rocket. It’s a cartoon space rocket with Nick’s name written on it. Nick ran to the rocket and thanked Hei for believing in him. He joined his sister inside the space rocket and headed towards the starry sky. Then Hei returned to reality with the meteor fragment in his hand and Nick was nowhere to be seen. Hei ran away to escape to an alley. Then a man gave him an evacuation instruction. To his surprise, it was Dr. Sergei. Sergei admitted to know that Nick was the Contractor responsible to the incident. Yet he allowed it to happen as he wanted to witness for himself the power of the meteor fragment. Hei was angry and regained his self-composure. He asked him about Meena and Sergei said that she won’t be affected and recovered what she had lost as remuneration. In the aftermath of the incident, Mao told Hei to get some rest. He asked Mao if the real starry nights would return but Mao only mentioned about retrieving what was lost inside the Gate. But that may be a rumour. Hei made his way to Yin and gave her a candy as a token of appreciation. Meanwhile a blond girl was standing on top of an observatory deck.

“I can see the stars now…”

Chibi Nick

NASA latest technology breakthrough – space rocket for kids.

Leaving on a jet plane…

Meena got ditched. So sad.

This episode may not answer most of the questions popped up throughout the story but this second part of the story had bring characters to a personal involvement. It was good to see how Hei was emotionally indulged into the incident especially about his dreams and his sister. He must be one great brother, to love his sister and he was on a personal pursue to meet with Bai someday. Character involvement at personal level was seen greatly in Hei and Nick’s relationship. Having so much in common, there was no surprise to see these two bond closer to each other. To the least, one mystery was answered about the Gate’s mystery to retrieve what was lost. It possibly refers to visualising a person’s dream and creating an illusion of the thing that was missed the most by a person. In this case, it was Bai who Hei wanted to see for so long. Then also there was Nick who was able to live his dream to see the real starry sky and bring his sister there. Somehow Hei believed in his dream and he was able to reach for that. In the end, Nick vanished to somewhere unknown. Probably to the world of his dreams.