The Harvest Festival finally comes to an end – if not yet the Harvest Festival Arc.  There was still quite a bit of unfinished business here, some of it discussed here already (like how to divvy up the points), and some not so much.  Starting with a very simple and practical problem: how does one make the Legend Leaf bloom?  After all it’s the Legend itself that’s worth a hundred K, not the seed or vase (though that will crucially come into play later).  And the clock is ticking down the final few seconds of the competition, to boot.

It’s Lead (the unsung hero of this festa, even with the whole Elizabetta debacle) who kind of figures out the problem.  Way back on their first day, Suzy-sensei taught them how to use magic to make flowers bloom – “Quan Quan!”.   And he’s sort of right – that is part of the equation.  But his initial efforts bear no fruit (pun intended).  Is it simply a matter of mana?  Iruma can get Ali-san involved of course, but the little sprite informs Iru-bo that he’s plum out of juice.  Fortunately there’s a demon nearby who’s fit to bursting, having been sucking the mana out of bewitched playmates for the past four days.  And she needs no persuasion to hold Iruma’s hand…

That doesn’t complete the circuit either, but it’s also not wrong, as it’s a necessary part.  Naphula using their special “Rainbow Watering Can” (there’s another layer to that too) is as well, and if you put it all together you get… this.  At first it seems a bit of an anti-climax (Balam-sensei later hilariously refers to it as “aho mitai”), but it is in fact the Legend Leaf.  It’s worth 100,000 points and that’s a winning number (theoretically) but my sense is that it wasn’t the most important thing to happen in this sequence.  I’m almost sure the “Is it you?” guy (who notably only appears to Iruma, not Lead-kun) is a very important (missing) demon.  The most important, in fact…

But that’s for laters.  For now there’s winning – and the first decision is how to split the points.  As I predicted Clara doesn’t care  – “I want you to win” is her answer, though she somewhat presumptuously answers for Naphula-san too.  Which is actually fine, as Naphula – first name Ampsey – is actually a student council plant.  Rescuing them was part of the trial for attaining the Legend Leaf (a trial no one had ever completed before).  The Leaf itself does turn out to be very aho mitai, quite the absurd little blob.  But it says something very, very interesting before it blooms – “I wanted to meet the least demonish demon of them all”.  If that isn’t food for thought I don’t know what is.

As to that little matter of the Harvest Festival – and the Dalet bump – it initially looks as if Orobas has miraculously pipped it at the post with 58,000 points.  He feels conflicted but then, he damn well should.  It’s Jazzy who saves the day by pointing out that the Vase of Endings itself is a rare item worth 20K points (why isn’t the Seed of Beginnings, too – because it turns into the Leaf, maybe?), which conveniently puts Team Shota over the top.  Orobas actually feels better about things (hey, at least he’s not second again!), but as to the matter of Ocho, that remains unresolved.  If Ocho is Wormtongue, then I want to know who Saruman is.

It’s going to be very interesting indeed to see whether we find out anything more about what and who the Leaf of Legend really is next week, but I’m quite certain that “Is it you?” and “The least demonish demon of them all” were the two most important moments of the episode.  That said, Iruma-kun and Lead getting promoted is certainly important in practical terms, and then there’s the Young King – is this a “there can be only one” kind of thing?  And if so, which one?

Su…ki…ma