Shadow Skill TV Anime Series Episode 6 – Synopsis Cast of Characters: Elle Ragu - 59th sevalle of Kuruda Gau Ban – her adoptive brother Folli Brazmetizer – Sui Reme Kyo Ruu – Septia Lowengren – White Lightning, apprentice to King Iba Stola Iba Stola – King of Kuruda, the 55th sevalle Hawkeye Teaser: The practice ground at the Green Octopus Inn. Elle and Gau are practising – and Gau is getting the worst of it. The dust and noise startles Feorina, who is enjoying the new morning after a good night’s sleep. Kuruda Colosseum. King Iba Stola and a young man are watching mercenaries in training on the arena below them. The King talks about how the Kuruda Annihilation Technique is like a double-edged sword: white for Front Skill and black for Shadow Skill. He is addressing a young man by the name of Lowengren, who is called by his fighting name, White Lightning. He tells Low that there is an unknown young man who probably deserves to be called Black Lightning – cut to an image of Gau executing a Shadow Skill move – and though he is still unrefined and off-guard, he does have sevalle potential. The King is looking forward to a future with both White and Black Lightning. Low seems a bit piqued by this and claims the title of next sevalle for the White Front Skill, White Lightning. He tells the King not to forget that. The King glances down at Low and asks if he is bothered by the idea. Low realizes that maybe he’s spoken out of turn, and says it’s unusual for the King to be so lavish with praise for a young unknown. Low thinks who or what is this new valle named Black Lightning for Shadow Skill, and expresses a wish to fight him very soon someday. (Opening Credits) Act 1 The Green Octopus Inn. Elle has just picked some fruit off the tree and enters the Inn’s backyard, where Kyo is hanging out the laundry. Kyo asks where Gau is – and is thrown into a state of absolute shock as Gau staggers in a falls in a heap on the ground. Kyo cries out and rushes to him, fussing over the young man anxiously. Even Faury clucks in disapproval, asking why Elle can’t train him a little more gently. Elle waves this off with the remark that Gau’s bones and internal organs are totally fine. Kyo exclaims that that is not the point, and questions if Elle is still Gau’s sister. Elle says of course she is, that’s why she went easy on him so as not to kill him. She asks Gau, “You *are* alive, aren’t you?” An embarrassed Gau replies in the affirmative, and Elle chuckles, saying, “Tell me when you want to fight seriously, because I’m going to beat you to death any time.” Kyo and Faury exchange exasperated looks, and then Kyo turns to Gau with concern all over her face. Seeing a bruise on his skin, she is about to wipe at it with her hanky, but Gau pulls away, saying that it’s nothing. A potentially tender moment is totally ruined when Elle comes up to them saying, “He’s right, it’ll heal if you just lick it and leave it.” Gau tries to stop Elle from touching the bruise with the spit on her finger, and the pair fall over, with Elle’s lips landing on the broken skin in a kiss. This has the effect of unsettling Kyo completely. Elle teases Gau about why he’s blushing, did he enjoy the kiss and does he want another? Gau is desperate to get away, and just as Elle is about to dive in for another kiss, Kyo shoves her roughly aside and pounces on the hapless young man and tells him he shouldn’t be moving. The young man’s cheerful insistence that it’s just as Elle has said – that it’s not a serious injury at all, totally upsets the young lady and brings out the jealousy in her: “Well! I guess Elle’s kiss will work for your injury rather than getting my treatment!” Kyo then storms off, much to Gau’s bewilderment, in the direction of the Inn. Just then, the totally unsuspecting Feorina calls out for someone to go into town for her, and Kyo angrily accepts the commission. Both Gau and Elle can’t figure it out, and only Faury seems to have read the entire situation at a glance, wearing a little smile on her face. At Kuruda Colosseum, Low is pacing down the sevalle statue gallery. He stops at the statue of Scarface, and starts trying out several poses that might work for the time when his statue goes up in the gallery. His musings are interrupted by three female valle trainees, who ask if he was thinking about his pose for when he becomes sevalle. Low denies it, saying he was just wiping off the some dust from Scarface’s statue. When the girls start to wonder when Elle’s statue will go up, and express admiration for her talent, Low’s mood changes abruptly. He says that Elle is neglecting her own training to focus on her brother, and there’s no need to admire that kind of person at all. He storms off, much to the surprise of the girls. Act 2 Kuruda’s main street. Kyo and Low are approaching from different ends, each lost in their own thoughts. The sequence jumps from one to the other as those thoughts are expressed. Low is grumbling over why the girls are taking ferocious women as role models; Kyo is fuming that Gau clings to Elle too much. Low thinks that being gentle and modest is exactly what a woman is supposed to be; Kyo bursts out that Gau is so insensitive he could be a national treasure. Low comes to the conclusion that his ideal maiden would be pretty, neat, and modest, and her best virtue would be to be protected by a man…just as Kyo barrels into him and knocks him over. Low angrily shouts his displeasure, when his eyes register Kyo’s remorseful face in front of him. Time freezes for a long moment. As Kyo scrambles to her feet in apology, Low offers his own apologies for the accident, and asks if she’s hurt. Kyo says she’s all right and admits that she was distracted, and Low laughs in embarrassment, saying he was thinking of something, too. Kyo laughs and says, “You’re funny…” and takes her leave of him, turning after a few steps to give him another bow of farewell. Low stares after her for a moment, and then bursts out, “She’s my maiden!!” – and there’s a cute sequence of the White Lightning being hit by the lightning bolt of first love, and the last we see of him is a cloud of dust as he races down Kuruda’s main street. The mail boat comes to call at the Green Octopus Island, and Feorina receives the day’s delivery with thanks. Up at the inn, she tells a dreamy Kyo that she has another letter again. Kyo is puzzling over the contents of the letter when Faury comes up behind her with a gentle inquiry, wondering if the letter is from Kyo’s far-away friend. Kyo confesses she doesn’t even know who it is, as she hands over the letter to Faury. “From your faithful prisoner,” reads Faury. Kyo says she’s received the same letter every day for the past few days, and can’t make any sense of it at all; perhaps it’s a bad joke? Faury has continued reading the letter, and her eyes cross at what she sees. In a laughing voice she declares that someone has a crush on Kyo, and that the letter is a love letter! As realization dawns on the younger girl, she upsets the table with the other letters in order to read the latest one over. Faury says the young man sounds self-conscious, but she feels that he is quite in love with Kyo, if he’s calling himself her “faithful prisoner”. “I really hope he’s not a demon beast, though,” teases Faury, and at Kyo’s frightened exclamation, hastens to add, still smiling, that she was only teasing, and Kyo laughs in relief. On the practice ground, Gau is straddled over Elle’s prone body, massaging out the knots in her muscles. Elle is commanding him to massage a little harder, and it seems like he’s having a hard time of things. A cheerful Kyo calls out hello from behind one of the pillars of the stone circle, startling the young man. She waves the letter in front of him, her expression showing that she is expecting a particular reaction from him. Gau reads the flowery phrases: “Your lips are so beautiful, they are like fruit of a sweet cherry. Your eyes are so pure like morning dews floating off the petals of a white lily…” Kyo is watching Gau’s face expectantly as he reads, then asks him what he makes of it. Gau – utterly clueless about love in this entire episode! – has of course, absolutely no idea. Elle snatches the letter from Gau, demanding to know if it’s some kind of cryptogram. Her eyes latch onto the sentence “The arrow you shot on that fateful day struck through my heart and will never be removed…” and from this Elle asks Kyo if she assassinated someone. Kyo denies that she ever did, and Gau agrees that Kyo would never kill anyone (which is about the only sensible thing he says in her eyes, I think, the whole ep). Elle then speculates that it could be a frame-up. Or at the very least, the guy has a huge grudge against Kyo. Between the brother and sister, the entire context of the letter is twisted into a plot to harm Kyo; and Gau worriedly asks what they are going to do. Elle relishes the idea of tangling with assassins, and as Gau turns confidently to Kyo to tell her that they will protect her for sure, it is to see her stalking down the hill in a royal rage. When he asks what the matter is, she yells back, “I don’t care! You big idiot!” Elle murmurs, “She’s been in such a bad mood.” Night at the Green Octopus. Kyo is mooning by a window, wondering why Gau can’t see how she feels for him. On the lake, Low is in a boat, looking up at Kyo’s window. He thinks, “Ah, my love letters are making her sigh, just as I knew they would. I’m so happy! I must be the luckiest guy in Ashliana tonight! I’m so lucky!” Above him, clouds gather across the full moon… Act 3 The Green Octopus. Gau and Elle are continuing with their analysis of the letters sent by Low. Faury walks in on the trio, each lost in their own thoughts. In answer to Faury’s question about whether Elle and Gau are still at it, Elle answers affirmatively, and reads extracts from the letters together with her own theories about how the phrases only prove the writer wants to kill Kyo. Faury sighs at the patently wrong conclusion, and then Gau bursts in with another extract from the letter delivered just that day, which Elle declares is an intent to kidnap – perhaps even that very night. It is too much for Kyo, and she storms angrily to her feet, overturning her chair, begging them to stop it. As Elle and Gau look at her, puzzled, Feorina’s voice can be heard asking for someone to go into town to deliver things. Kyo offers to go, and Gau, who sincerely cares about her (though of course not in the romantic sense), is concerned about her mood. He follows her into town, and she angrily tells him to stay away. He insists that someone has to accompany her, because it is dangerous, and she launches into a tirade reminding him that she is a septia, and doesn’t need to be protected by someone younger than her. Gau protests that she shouldn’t say that to him, since he was strictly charged with her protection by Elle. This only angers Kyo, who demands to know whether Gau is escorting her just because Elle told him to; and if that is the case, why doesn’t he protect Elle instead? She runs off, almost in tears, and manages to lose Gau in an alleyway off the main street. Feeling totally out of sorts, she wanders down the back streets, when she hears footsteps behind her. Impatiently, she demands that Gau stop following her…only to discover a shadowy figure ducking behind a building. She starts to move faster, and so do the mysterious footsteps behind her. As Kyo spins around again, the figure ducks behind another building, and now she starts to be frightened. The camera moves to the mysterious figure, and we find out that it is Low, himself nervous to the very bones about making his first approach to Kyo. But by the time he gets himself together, all he sees is the dust trail kicked up by her racing feet; and off he goes in pursuit of his ideal maiden. Once out on the main street, Kyo accosts a passer-by and pours out a jumbled tale of a strange man chasing after her; as she sees Low approaching she ducks under the man’s arm and speeds away. Low corners the man saying he noticed Kyo talking to him. The man replies in bewilderment that she spoke about a strange guy chasing her around or something. This has the expected effect on Low, and he continues the pursuit of Kyo down the main street. Kyo, in her blind run, is sideswiped by a man carrying some sacks, and is sent sprawling on the ground. As the man asks if Kyo is all right, Low leaps into the picture, set to do battle for his lady-love. Planting himself squarely in front of the prostrate Kyo, he is all ready to beat the poor man into a pulp – he introduces himself as White Lighting, ready to defend her even at the cost of his life. (interesting tooth sparkle effect off Low’s smile here ) Gau emerges out of a side street at this point. Low turns, his blood spoiling for a fight, asking aloud if Gau is the person who has been following “this beautiful maiden”. (never does Shadow Skill sound more medieval-chivalric than when Low is spouting his lines about Kyo’s beauty) Low then starts going after Gau, who avoids the blows with commendable skill, and asks who his opponent is. Low says he wouldn’t give his name to a pervert, but obliges Gau’s question anyway, and the young man is rather impressed. Kyo cries out that there has been some misunderstanding, and for them to please stop! In a quiet square, the three young people are seated on the rim of a fountain as they get to the bottom of the entire misunderstanding. Kyo sits behind Gau, and the two are little distance from Low, who finally admits that he wrote the letters. Gau erupts with his mistaken conclusion that “you’re the one who’s trying to assassinate Kyo?” Kyo leaps up to tell Gau that he’s wrong – Low echoes Gau’s words, then realizes that someone other than Kyo has been reading his letters, and he’s ready to die from embarrassment. Low asks if Gau did indeed read the letters, and Kyo apologizes, saying it’s not that she wanted him to see the letters…Low waves Kyo’s apology aside, saying it’s all right, it wasn’t her fault. He takes a stand and puts all the blame on Gau, challenging him to a duel. “I’ll wait for you tomorrow at Kuruda Colosseum number three. You’re not allowed to run away from this!” A bewildered Gau wonders why it has to be this way. Act 4 Kuruda Colosseum number three. Low appears in the arena, announcing that he is a user of the Kuruda Style Annihilation Technique Front Skill – the White Lightning . Gau realizes that he is facing one of the best candidates for the title of sevalle. Low approves of Gau’s being there and not chickening out; Gau replies that it is the rule of Shadow Skill not to refuse any duels, and with a chuckle, Low approves of Gau’s attitude. In the arena as well, under the stands where Faury and Elle are watching, Kyo is earnestly pleading for the two men to call the whole thing off, wanting to take all the blame for everything. The cry, naturally, falls on deaf ears, with Low telling Kyo to stay out of things, that this is a fight between the two men in her life. To Gau he says, “now let me see with my own fists if you are the man who deserves to be her shield or not…” Elle cheers Gau on, drawing Low’s attention. He recognizes Elle and realizes who Gau is in relation to Elle, the man named by the King as Black Lightning. The duel begins, and Gau’s kick is blocked by Low’s arm. Faury notes the block with a little concern, even as Elle calls out encouragement from the stands. Low lands the first punch of the duel, bringing Gau down on his knees – and when he demands to know from Elle if it is a good thing to neglect her training just to watch them fight, she retorts, “Shut up! This is my precious brother’s first duel! How can I take it easy and train for myself!” Not understanding the bonds between Elle and Gau, Low thinks that Elle has spoiled her brother, and that if Gau stays much longer with Elle, he’ll ruin his own future; and the name of sevalle will be disgraced as well. Meanwhile, Gau is getting back up on his feet. When Gau regains his feet, Low lets loose with a powerful punch that slams the younger boy into the wall of the arena. Low taunts him with being a weakling, but Gau seems to be content to just take the punches. Faury notes that Low’s technique is sharpening in this duel, and that he deserves to be a sevalle with his own fighting name. A frightened Kyo rounds on Faury crying out that if the fight goes on much longer, Gau will be killed. Elle notes grimly that Gau is struggling because he can’t find a reason to fight his opponent. As Low continues to pulverize Gau, he concludes that his opponent is no match for his skill; Kyo is in a fine panic at this point, and with the foolhardiness born of love, she throws herself in front of Gau, right into the path of Low’s lightning punch. Low realizes he cannot hold back the punch; behind Kyo, Gau realizes the same thing as he sees her face backlighted by the lightning created by the fist coming through the air; and then – The blow is deflected by a powerful punch, and when the dust settles, Kyo is safe behind Gau’s arm. With a new authority in his voice, Gau orders Kyo to get out of the way of danger. Faury notes that Gau’s true power is displayed when he is trying to protect someone from the bottom of his heart, a characteristic that makes him truly unique. Low commends Gau’s chivalry, and Gau retorts, “I won’t let you touch Kyo with one finger! I will protect her!” This irks Low, who comes after him, and Gau unleashes the power of the Shadow Skill Sword, which slams Low into the arena wall. Realization dawns on Low that he has never seen the Sword move so well executed before, and the nature of Gau’s talent dawns on him. The battle continues, all through the afternoon, until the advent of the evening. Both participants are weary and battered but still willing to go on; the spectators nodding at their posts, faithfully waiting for the fight to end. There’s an interesting bit where Gau has Low pinned to the ground, wrestling-style, and is bending his leg over in a way it’s not meant to go. Gau: Say you give up! Low: Not yet, not yet! Gau: In that case, I am invincible! Low: Aw, that’s martial language… Gau: Give up, come on… Dawn breaks over the arena, and Kyo is the first one up. The boys have fought to a draw. Low and Gau shake hands, having come to an understanding. Low says he had a great fight and admits that Gau will make a great sevalle some day, and that Low himself has a long way to go. Gau returns the thanks by saying he was glad for the opportunity to fight with Low. The scene cuts to the three women looking on at this new friendship, and we end with the arrival of a new letter at the Green Octopus Inn, this time for Gau. It is from Low, and in it he says they will compete to find out who will become sevalle first, and also the love. Gau looks puzzled at the last phrase: “the love….?” (Closing Credits)