The shit is definitely hitting the fan now.  At the heart of what we’re seeing here, I think, was that fateful night when Cless was saved by Rafeed-san and the doctor he summoned.  But a lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then, with a lot more fateful moments.  And fateful meetings too, like the one between Helck and Azudora.  Helck may be pretty naive at that point (and dense as dwarf star alloy) but he’s never been anything close to a fool.  His instincts about Azudora are spot-on and his inner voice never stops telling him so.

It’s not only Azudora who wants peace between the species.  When they meet at the demon lord’s castle he tells Helck that the demon lord was known as “Thor the Peacemaker”.  In point of the fact it’s the very war with humans which has spawned (pun intended) the wave of monsters attacking humankind.  Helck is skeptical about this at first, but willing to listen – he’s a good and reasonable man in every sense of the word, and in the end he’s persuaded.  He he also recognizes that the tale he has to tell is not going to be believed by his human audience, and at the very least he needs a different spokesman to tell it.

Unfortunately that man is unavailable, as Cless is still unconscious.  The leadership of the capital is proving themselves both immoral and incompetent, locking the gates on the army fighting to protect the city from the latest wave of attacks.  And a trio of demon prisoners has been tied up in the square, leading to a scene which horrifies Helck and shakes his belief in human nature to the core.  Rafeed shows up, refuting the story Azudora told Helck, and the transformation of the demons seems to back him up.   But Helck smells a rat here, and remains unconvinced.  When the upgraded human warriors show it, it’s pretty clear something is very wrong.

It seems obvious that Rafeed is responsible for the demons, and for Cless being in the state he is.  He and his doctor friend (who popped up last week) cooked up a means to “unlock” the hidden hero powers in humans, and Cless was almost certainly the key to that.  Did it start all those years ago, or was that part coincidental?  And is there something innate in the brothers that made them suitable for experimentation. or were they just the unlucky ones who fell into the wrong hands?

I miss the lighter side of Helck, and I certainly miss Piwi.  But this is what we punched the ticket for, really – and so far the backstory isn’t disappointing in the slightest.  It makes sense in the context of what we already knew, and it’s well-told.  We’re probably getting fairly close to tying this all in the present, but there are still some questions to be answered and loose ends to be tied up.  And spare a thought for Alicia, who has to suffer the trauma of being in love with this affable but clueless lunk.