| Episode 1 |
| 黒い死神は金色の妖精を見つける |
| The Dark Reaper Meets the Golden Fairy |
Synopsis
Under the shadow of a red moon, Mistress Roxanne proceeds her nightly ritual. As her followers gather, with faces completely hidden except for a pair of eyeholes, they listen to their superior's predictions of the future, which consist of an imminent death, followed by a disastrous event. Roxanne's followers are alarmed by what future has in store, and so they followed Roxanne's advice: to release a box into the ocean, and to set free eleven hares to be torn apart by rabid dogs.
At the start of Spring of 1924, a newcomer to the prestigious school Saint Marguerite Academy arrives: Kazuya Kujo. His first day does not bode well for him, as he was already acquired a reputation... as the Dark Reaper (黒い死神 Kuroi Shinigami), particularly for his dark pupils which are foreign to Europeans. Nonetheless, he endures this treatment and takes his first moments on his desk to read a letter from his eldest brother.
Then, their teacher named Cecile arrives, giving Kazuya an unusual piece of advice: to read ghost stories.
After his class, Kazuya accompanies Cecile and there, she begins to talk about how everything occult is so famous in Saubure. Cecile also includes how he acquired his nickname, which is basically "the Springtime Reaper" with the added "dark" in it. Cecile also urges Kazuya to make many friends, and learning about ghost stories are a nice topic to start a conversation, so he visits the school's immense library complex.
Kazuya starts reading about ghost stories, including a certain ghost ship Queen Berry that appears at night, and an alchemist named Leviathan that can turn intestines into gold. As he flips through more pages, he discovers a strand of golden-brown hair between them. Upon looking up, he sees a glint of light, and this sparks Kazuya's interest in going to the topmost portion of the library,
Kazuya instantly finds reaching the top a grueling task, as the library is several stories up, and he has to catch his breath as he nears his destination.
After what seemed like Kazuya's highest climb on a flight of stairs yet, he discovers a hidden paradise on the topmost floor; the entire floor is covered with flowers and tropical trees, and it was designed to welcome the light of the sun. Kazuya then shifts his focus to a motionless girl sitting on the floor. At first, the girl's beauty made Kazuya assume that the person in front of him was just a doll, but the "doll" did speak, and she even told Kazuya that he would visit the next day.
Kazuya made a mad dash out of fright, that a doll actually told him his future.
The next day, at noon, Kazuya tells Cecile about his discovery of the garden at the top of the library, and Cecile reveals that the girl is actually his classmate Victorica, who is the owner of the seat usually left unoccupied in Kazuya's class. Cecile is happy for Kazuya's progress and, since she assumes that Victorica is now Kazuya's friend, she asks him to give her handouts for that day, which Kazuya can't just turn down.
Like Victorica predicted, Kazuya returns to see her again; there, she points out that she knew he was coming because he wanted to know more about the "Springtime Reaper" urban legend.
Soon, the elevator to the topmost floor opens, and a man with an outrageous hairstyle emerges. After noticing Victorica's guest, the man, introduced by Victorica as Inspector Grevil de Blois, begins to talk about a certain case of murder involving someone named Roxanne.
According to him, the old fortune-teller lives in a mansion with an Indian manservant and an Arabian maid; she is also accompanied with her granddaughter for that night. At the night before the murder, Roxanne was resting in her bedroom. Meanwhile, the manservant was putting back the hares released at a recently-finished ritual (those hares are usually left to die under the jaws of hunting dogs).
Then, the sound of gunfire rattled the mansion, and the fortune-teller's three companions gathered at the hallway. There were no answers from Roxanne, and the granddaughter did not want the manservant to axe the door, blurting out that the mansion will be hers as long as her grandmother dies. They are left with one option: shooting apart the lock. The maid uses her pistol to destroy the lock, and upon opening the door, a gruesome scene unfolds: Roxanne is dead in her wheelchair, her left eye shattered.
Upon investigation of Roxanne's companions, the window is locked from the inside, and there are no weapons to be found.
Grevil asks Kazuya about his point of view, which he evades, and Victorica speaks about solving the crime herself, using her "fountain of knowledge" to "piece together the fragments of chaos". Grevil ignores this, boasting that he knew who that suspect is (the manservant), but Victorica points out that the maid is the culprit, much to Grevil's annoyance.
Victorica recalls that Roxanne knows Arabic very well, and so, might have warned about the gunshot heard earlier. Assuming that the gunman is outside, the maid asks her mistress to move towards the door. The maid tricked Roxanne into doing so and, peeking at the keyhole, receives the shot from the maid's pistol. Victorica also assumes that the first gunshot was fired elsewhere to scare the rest of the household.
Grevil, admitting his defeat, walks back to the elevator room and plans on returning to the police station, but Victorica asks him if he wanted to know what the maid's motive to the crime, and which was the maid's target on the first gunshot. Unfortunately for Grevil, the shutters have closed, and he groans as he is lowered, missing vital information from Victorica.
With Grevil gone, Victorica feels bored once again, and Kazuya is left more curious about her than before. Victoria orders Kazuya to dance so that he can learn more about her, and since she was not interested much about his Bon festival dance, he failed to get any more details about Victorica even after three dances.
Kazuya laments over his failure at the school cafeteria and, when he sees the daily newspaper, he is furious upon reading Grevil's "achievement" over the case (that Victorica solved by herself).
He rushes to the police department to confront Grevil, who received a yacht and a kiss from the granddaughter of the victim, both of which not his efforts. Before Kazuya could leak any information about Victorica, Grevil takes him to a room and invites them to the maiden voyage of his yacht instead.
Kazuya returns to tell Victorica about the trip, and although she suspects that Kazuya might be biting more than he could chew, she thinks that the trip will be the perfect moment for her to escape from the library that has been a proson for her. Victorica heads off to the elevator room, telling him about her preparing for the trip while she leaves Kazuya to use the stairs like always.
The day of the trip arrives, and Kazuya is surprised at the amount of Victorica's luggage. And what's worse for Kazuya, is that he's gonna be her porter throughout the trip. Kazuya finds out ways to loosen her load, checking through her stuff while Victorica annoyingly glares at him.
Victorica maintains a pouting face along the way, until the scenery unfolds from outside the locomotive they are boarding in, where she shows a smile of a child that has boarded a train for the first time.
Soon, they arrive at the city, where Victorica no longer was the detective that could solve crimes in no time. She childishly points at every unfamiliar sight she sees, as if she does not know where to go first. However, Kazuya is there to guide her along, taking her to the port by carriage.
After the carriage ride to the port, they head off to Grevil's yacht, welcomed by the owner who wears a sailor outfit. He instantly talks to Victorica about the recently solved murder, and he tells her that the first gunshot was through a mirror that he discovered in one room in Roxanne's mansion. As for the motive, Grevil explains that according to the maid, she did it as "revenge of the box" and this is something he could not understand.
Then, one policeman alarmingly reported to Grevil that the Arabian maid has escaped. Grevil frantically leaves the yacht and leaves it to Victorica and Kazuya; while Kazuya is disappointed to have a voyage like that be cancelled, Victorica heads off inside the boat.
Since the yacht is originally owned by Roxanne, Victorica decides to investigate. She then finds out an opened invitation letter addressed to Roxanne, inviting her on a dinner with hare as a main dish. Kazuya reads the letter and finds out that the event is called "Miniature Garden Box Evening"; he thinks that the "box" the Arabian maid is avenging might be related to the "Miniature Garden Box" in the event.
Using the invitation, Victorica and Kazuya join the event and boards a ship... a ship named Queen Berry.
Adapted From
Characters
New Characters
In order of appearance
- Mistress Roxanne - a fortune-teller and the owner of a sizable estate.
- Kazuya Kujo - a Japanese newcomer to Saint Marguerite Academy. He is called "the Dark Reaper" because of his eye color and the fact that he arrived at Spring.
- Cecile Lafitte - Kazuya's teacher and confidante. She appears to be lively most of the time.
- Victorica - a mysterious girl who lives most of the day reading books.
Trivia
Unanswered Questions
- What is the sentimental value of Victorica's necklace?