Mirai Nikki – Episode 17: Three Birds With One Stone
Double episode overview? Of course, why not. Since we’re so graciously being offered the next episode already, let’s have a look at it!
We start off by catching a flashback of Ai, whose parents had abandoned her in the very tower they are standing in at the moment. As she cried in the corner by herself, Marco appeared before her and took her into the family of lost children. Attending high school together, Ai seems to be struck with Marco and ends up following him everywhere. The two grow quite close as they hang out more and more, and it seems like Ai’s “diary” before the game begun was her texts to others about Marco. She spends her days in class constantly glued to her cell phone, and when the other girls grow sick of it, they decide to take action.
Now THAT is one pissed off fellow.
Finding a note in her locker the next day, Ai heads to an abandoned warehouse, thinking Marco would be meeting her there. However, she is greeted by a group of vicious boys who corner her and violate her. Marco senses something is wrong when a text from Ai waiting at the warehouse arrives on his phone. He rushes over to find out what had been happening, and in a fit of rage, he severely injures most of the boys and even kills one when he pulls a butterfly knife on him. As Ai and Marco sit on the rooftop of the tower after the fight, Marco apologizes for being unable to save her from what had happened. Overrun with guilt, he pulls the knife to his throat and is stopped by Ai. This is how the pair known as Seventh came to be.
Over where Yuki is, Yuno was the one to catch him, as Marco grabs a hold of Yuki’s father, who appears to be important to his plan. Marco and Ai run for the roof with intentions of escaping, but Yuno has a plan of her own to defeat them and steal their parachutes before the tower fully collapses. Ai worries that Yuki and Yuno might defeat them now that they are in possession of their own diaries, but Marco assures her that they’ll win. When Seventh arrives on the top floor however, Yuki is nowhere to be seen, and only Yuno is prepared to fight.
Yuno always has a plan.
Yuno charges Marco with a knife, and although Yuki shouts warnings out through an intercom, Marco bites down on the knife and disarms Yuno. This is followed by a strong kick to her stomach, which allows Ai to apprehend Yuno while Marco goes to the broadcasting room to look for Yuki. However, the plan backfires when Marco realizes that the diary he had stolen from Yuno was the fake they had previously made, and Yuki is already on his way back to where Ai is. Yuki hurls a dart at Ai’s phone, and although it misses its target, Yuno is now freed and swings her blade directly through Ai’s throat.
Damn, that is a feat worthy of the gods.
In the midst of the confusion, Yuki’s father has snatched up Ai’s parachute and jumped to safety, leaving the rest to die in the collapsing tower. From the outside, Yuki’s mother spots her ex-husband floating down and confronts him about where Yuki is. As she gets more and more pushy, Yuki’s father tightens his grip on the knife he’s holding and charges. On the inside of the tower, Yuki, Yuno and Ai are trapped under an area of unstable rubble, and with time running out, Yuno decides to use the dying Ai as a means to get Marco to let them out. Ai begs Marco to stay back as she’ll die anyways, but Marco is determined to get her out no matter what. He fights against the rubble to no avail, but after one final push it begins to move. The survivors find Marco pulling apart the wreckage as a chunk of metal sits directly in his chest. In the end, Ai dies of blood loss and Marco allows Yuno and Yuki to live by offering his parachute to them.
The pair barely escape as the tower explodes and crumbles behind them. They land safely, but Nishijima has some terrible news…Yuki’s mother is dead.
