Clain and Nessa are taken a town where people do not use or actively oppose the Fractale system. It might be a kidnapping, but Clain is in heaven. Summary: Enri and goons drop Clain and Nessa off at seaside village of Granitz, which is located inside and around an abandoned city. Enri tries to remind Nessa and Clain that they are hostages, but Clain (who loves old technology) and Nessa are too taking in the sights to listen. Clain is eventually bought in front of the young man that Enri looks up to for a chat, while Nessa decides to pester Enri and uses her digital nature to follow Enri everywhere (including the bathroom). One of the reasons why you shouldn't have a network connected visual device in your washroom At the young man's house, Clain learns that Granitz is a large branch of Lost Millennium, an organization of people who oppose the Fractale System. People in the village do not have nanomachines in their bodies, and so they must wear special glasses to see doppels (Nessa included). Clain wonders what the young man wants with Phryne or Nessa, and the young man explains that it's all part of his plan to bring down the Fractale system. What kind of cake has a sneaky, wiggly taste? Clain and Nessa spend the rest of the day hanging out in the village. At night Clain has old fashioned cooked food for the first time in his life, and later at night Nessa convinces Clain to describe the taste to her by dancing (since she can't eat). The next day, Clain and Nessa wake up to find the young leader, Enri and company ready to head out on the village's giant airship. The leader explains that his group is going to stop a prayer to the stars (what people under the Fractale system does every once in a while) and drags Clain along. Nessa is intentionally left behind, but she easily gets aboard the ship anyways. Nobody in this day and age seems to know how to use cover in a fire fight. Clain and company get off the airship near the site and sneak in for a closer look, and the young leader hands Clain a pair of special glasses that makes him unaffected by the prayer. At the site, old priestesses from the church along with a hooded young girl onto the site platform and begin the ceremony. The civilians who have gathered are instructed to look up, and three "stars" in the sky starts flashing and everyone seem to be hypnotized by the lights. From behind cover, the young leader explains to Clain that the purpose of the prayers are for the church to reprogram people's nanomachines so that people do not doubt the Fractale system, and this is all ploy to keep people under control. The Lost Millennium forces then spring out from cover and start shooting at the priestesses and guards with their old style guns, while the priestesses return fire by firing energy bolts from their staffs. Both sides take casualties, and many civilians are shot in the cross fire. During the battle the hooded young girl is revealed to look exactly like Nessa. Suddenly, Phryne appears which puts a stop to the fighting. Phryne walks up to the platform to the Nessa look-alike and surviving priestesses, and the Nessa look-alike greets Phryne as her big sister. A familiar yet strange face. Look who's back in the picture. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This is one of those pivotal episodes where things get really interesting and not to mention more serious. Most of the episode was laid-back and cutesy like the previous episodes, but things suddenly kicked into high gear near the end. Gunfights, people getting shot... I guess Phryne was shot at in the first episode, but the violence at the end of the episode still felt a little surprising. Adding to that, there were the Nessa look-alike and Phryne's surprise return, and all of that combined together into quite the ending for the episode. So according to the Lost Millennium, the Fractale System is a system that allows the church (or the organization that the priestesses work for, whatever the name is) to brainwash and control people, and in exchange for the brainwash ordinary people can use doppels. It's terrible deal, especially considering how most people have terrible looking doppels. For whatever reason, the Fractale System appears to be falling apart and the balloons that maintain the system are falling the earth, and this is probably what Clain had meant last episode about stuff falling from the skies. The last few minutes of the episode explained a lot, but it also raised a lot more questions regarding Phryne, Nessa, and the girl that looks identical to Nessa (or rather, Nessa is made identical to her). Perhaps most importantly, what will Clain do now that he has learned the truth about the Fractale System? Clain does like old technology and living in a house which puts him closer to Lost Millennium's camp, but he doesn't seem like the type who would grab guns and start shooting at people. I'm looking forward to how things will turn out next episode. From the feed of A Product of Wasted Time
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