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The Helheim Saga

Episode 22: The Truth of One-Seventh

Written by: Gen Urobuchi, Directed by: Osamu Kaneda

As Kouta is confused about Yggdrasill's methods to "heep humanity safe" by nuking the city if their secret is spilled out, Micchy points out that Sid is only messing with his head. Kouta declares that Sid's messing wouldn't make Sid gain anything, as this is the irony where despite Sid trying to crush Kouta's ideals, it only strengthens Kouta's resolve instead. Mai calls Kouta to inform him about a crack that is small, opens slowly, and is embedded on a bridge, which Ryoma remarks as a crack that they can't hide. The Yggdrasill plans to use a defense system front in the bridge with keep out sign, but of course this is their ploy to keep the Helheim stuff unknown to the public. They also contemplate to activate the Scalar System, and there's a feud between Ryoma and Takatora, that the former taunts the latter's choice to push the button or not as he's the one tasked to make the biggest choices.

Kouta and Micchy came to the bridge only to find it being sealed now (btw where's Mai by then?). As Kouta thinks Yggdrasill is going to nuke the city if an Inves come through as they can't cover it up, he plans to take care of the crack from the inside of Helheim Forest again to prevent the Inves coming out of the crack and likely Yggdrasill nuking the city. This shows that while Kouta isn't the genius one like Micchy and has some naivety, he's still insightful in general. At the Helheim Forest, Kaito is seen putting several wrapped stuff across it. Kouta and Micchy came across him and asks to lend them a hand, which is a surprise to them that Kaito knows about the Scalar System too, which he got from Ryoma. Kaito instead opts to use the forest as a means to gain more power, as he notices both Zawame City and Yggdrasill cower in fear beneath Helheim, which would mean Helheim is the stronger one to Kaito, which would be more ideal for him to implement his social darwinist views, leaving them and reminding those 2 to be hurry.

Kouta and Micchy finally find the crack on the bridge from the Helheim side, which is guarded by Marika and a bunch of Kurokage Troopers. I wonder though how they can navigate towards the Helheim without any map, GPS, or any other directions... As there are Inves swarming the area, other than the Yggdrasill Riders fighting them off, they also had electricity to destroy the Inves that are going to the crack like the headquarters' defense system. Kouta comes to the area followed by Micchy, and is greeted by Ryoma, still maintaining his polite front, but confirms that he'll destroy the Zawame City if an Inves manages to get out, but tries to exhaust his options there to prevent that. Ryoma proposes a truce here to help each other preventing that, which Kouta begrudgingly agrees. For this situation, though the ones defending are despicable being like Ryoma, working together here for this once is something that can't be rejected by heroes too, as this will definitely benefit them too to protect, like before how Ryoma assists Gaim Suika Arms cleaning the Inves in Yggdrasill's roof, though Micchy opts to protect the city (specifically, Mai and his team) instead and leaves.

As this is a 'truce' between enemies, bickering shortly happens as Marika doubts about trusting Kouta, and Kouta is pissed at Ryoma's behavior to sit pretending to be busy as he's "forced" by Takatora (refering to him as terrible boss) to create a device to close the cracks faster. Ryoma however, reveals a surprise here as his research is almost complete, which is the previously mentioned Project Ark by mass producing Sengoku Drivers. Ryoma however cuts their conversation to send Kouta fighting off the Inves in that area. Marika here utilizes more of her close combat skills which is nice as she's an expert fighter as human, and Gaim tries the Cherry Energy Lockseed he got from Sid, turning him into Gaim Jimber Cherry Arms. As Lemon gives more strength, Cherry gives more speed, flashing through hordes of Inves, destroying them, with Ryoma praising Gaim as adaptable. Ryoma explains further about Project Ark that it's to distribute the power of Sengoku Drivers to wide part of humanity so that they can survive in Helheim Forest without becoming Inves if it takes over the Earth. And true to its biblical namesake, Project Ark is overall a plan to save chosen few of humanity, but leave the rest be killed (rather than them becoming Inves), which means as Ryoma can produce at most billion belts, as per the episode title, it'll only save 1/7th of humanity, leaving the rest to be doomed. Kouta calls him out for this plan, and notices that Ryoma is completely calm telling about this, emphasizing how sociopathic Ryoma is, and further boasts about Yggdrasill being the leading company and have no shortage of solution. Wrong... if they have no shortage of solution, they should be able to use non-extremist way to save humanity. Marika reacts violently again to this with the excuse of fighting off Inves for the city's sake.

Micchy informs his team that there's a new open stage underground, and he insists them to check them out now, to their confusion. As Takatora looks over the button for Scalar System, it's revealed that Micchy lies to the other Team Gaim members other than Kouta, as he leads them to Yggdrasill's underground shelter, likely pretending to be heroic in front of Kouta again, as he seems to prefer Yggdrasill complete their plans, like-minded with him to keep the secret, as long as his source of joy can be safe. As he's being secretive of the situation, he makes up more excuses like him might be mistaken, and as they plan to head back, he claims that the elevator is damaged to keep them there, all while they're bewildered by the panicking people there. You feel it Micchy... keeping secrets will only make things harder in the long run, like searching out white lies here.

The crack is finally closed, and Ryoma praises his crew, including Kouta. However Kouta quickly thinks of his next plan, by stealing an Energy Lockseed from Yoko, catching her off guard, and while Yoko flips him over, Kouta successfully stole it from her. This moment although can be considered a badass one for Kouta fooling a highly trained fighter, this can not sit well with some people (including me a bit) that for them this can be Yoko being shafted to have her being unable to stop a human stealing something from her, despite her being established as expert fighter. Gaim fights off numerous Kurokage Troopers in his way, but what makes this one more impressive here is that he only uses his fists or blunt weapons (borrowing Kagematsu) to dispatch them. Gaim's plan is to wreck the control room so that Yggdrasill can't use Scalar System anymore as Takatora confronts him, informing him that he had known Project Ark too, to Takatora's dismay, protesting about Ryoma's decision. Takatora henshins into Zangetsu Shin, while Gaim upgrades into Jimber Lemon Arms. The Scalar System is a part of Project Ark, as Zangetsu claims he's ready to kill 200000 people in Zawame City, and collects 30000 times killcount further in the next 10 years totaling to 6 billion. Though Zangetsu has the humanity best interest in his mind, Gaim points out that there's nothing good to create a future from mass bloodshed. Zangetsu however normalizes sacrifices, justifies his acts of experimens on Beat Riders and Hase's death as a way to bring hope to humanity. Gaim points out that his extremism will only bring despair to humanity instead, which would be true as obviously there would be horror in extremism and humanity would hope not to be caught to the extremism of Yggdrasill.

However, though Gaim gain the upper hand on their fight, Zangetsu resorts to reveal the irony, that despite Gaim's objection to sacrifices, Gaim himself isn't above sacrifice, that he's only here fighting off Yggdrasill because of a sacrifice, as both de-henshin into human, Takatora reveals the already revealed moment before in ep. 14 to Kouta, which is Yuuya turning into Inves for eating Helheim Fruit, and him being the first monster that Kouta killed. Takatora for now clearly wins in his ideals as the person that is against sacrifices turns out to need sacrifice to function too, normalizes sacrifices again using Kouta's actions as necessary for him need to fight in that situation and bringing hope for his survival and the others being saved by that action, while Kouta is obviously devastated at this reveal, falling to his knees, mentally shutting down. It's for sure traumatizing to find out that you're the cause of death for your friend, let alone about how you're indirectly contradicting all your ideals from that, it can also feel like everything you said won't be credible anymore. And once again the irony of Micchy's attempts to keep the Yggdrasill's secrets safe, only for more of them to be revealed to Kouta, for both Project Ark and Yuuya's death.