Episode 5: Case 7 Bullet & Blade's Ballad

## Episode 5

**Episode 5: *Case 7 Bullet & Blade's Ballad*** is the fifth overall episode of *Princess Principal* season 1.

## Summary

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## Story

Episode five begins with a delegation visiting the Kingdom of Albion, namely Lord Horikawa and his men from Japan. The delegation disembarks a large four-funnel liner in Dover. They have arrived in the Kingdom negotiate a treaty and diplomatic relations. Princess Charlotte is there along with Beatrice, Ange and Dorothy (disguised as maids) waiting to welcome the delegation to Albion. Princess was chosen by the royal family to meet with Lord Horikawa because of all of the assassination attempts against him by the famed assassin Jubei Todo.

Princess shows Lord Horikawa to the Royal Train that will take them to London. Lord Horikawa feels honored by this and he, along with his men, give Princess a kneeling bow (*Zarei)* and entrust themselves into her hands. Princess and the other girls do not fully understand this foreign gesture and find it strange.

On the train Dorothy, inquires about the treaty that the delegation came to negotiate. Lord Horikawa begins to discuss its terms and why they are unhappy with it in its current form, before he is told by one of his men, Oshima, not to discuss it. Princess sees how important this treaty is for him and his country, so she promises to arrange a meeting for him with the Queen. The men again give Princess a kneeling bow for her kindness.

Some time later, Chise (who is not yet known to Team White Pigeon) is shown waiting atop an aqueduct. As the Royal Train passes underneath, she jumps onboard. Ange hears the faint thud of Chise landing on the trains roof and concludes that someone has boarded the train and goes to confront them on the roof.

When Ange confronts Chise, who is sitting down casually looking through a spyglass, on the roof of the train, she questions her if she is the assassin Jubei Todo. Dorothy joins them on the roof and opens fire on Chise, also thinking that she is the assassin. Chise blocks the bullets with her katana. The fight continues with Ange now using her C-Ball until Oshima yells at them to stop, explaining that Chise is not Jubei Todo. Oshima questions why Chise is in Albion, and she reveals that she is there for vengeance.

Lord Horikawa decides to allow Chise to stay with him as a bodyguard. Chise promises that she will protect Lord Horikawa and kill Jubei Todo. Ange does not trust Chise and sees her as a security threat to Princess. In order to reconcile this, Princess has Chise and Ange pair up as a team.

As Ange and Chise patrol the train cars together, Ange discusses what protection they have in place, in case Jubei Todo shows up. There is a platoon of 50 guards in car 5 and the caboose. Chise believes that they are not prepared enough for an attack and tells Ange that she has fought Jubei Todo many times.

Chise feels that Ange is interrogating her and answers in such by giving her name, age, what she likes and where about she is from in Japan. Ange tells Chise her name, age and that she is from the Black Lizard Planet. Ange is taken aback when Chise takes the information at face value and retorts by bringing up how Princess Kaguya also lives on the moon, as well as the thousands of gods that inhabit everything in daily life in Japan.

On the train journey they make their only stop before reaching London, Ange, Chise and some soldiers are shown to disembark the train while the train is stationed. Ange sees Chise use a traditional Japanese spell to help a crying child who had scrapped his knee, near another platform. Chise mentions that her father taught her the “magic spell.” At the same time Dorothy takes notice of some suspicious behaviour from a janitor who leaves a broom against a railway map. A soldier onboard also takes notice.

Meanwhile in a conversation between the Duke of Normandy and Gazelle it is revealed that the Duke of Normandy is secretly working with Jūbei in the hopes that Princess will be caught up in the assassination attempt, even though she is a “ figure head” he does not want to risk her ascending the throne, as she is currently fourth inline.

As the train resumes its journey to London, many discuss how surprising it was that Tōdō Jūbei did not attack them at the station and when Ange and Chise discuss this, Chise reveals that Tōdō Jūbei killed her father two years before and she would stop at nothing until he is dead.

A solider is shown walking through car 5 to the end of the carriage before exiting it and reaching for an explosive device attached to his leg. Dorothy follows the solider outside having taken note of the janitor at the pervious stop, and confronts him before shooting him in the shoulder as a fight breaks out. The solider when knocked down by Dorothy quickly pulls the detonation wire in a suicide attempt, that kills him, injures Dorothy and uncouples carriage 5, which is full of the platoon from the rest of the train.

After the explosion a train is shown fast approaching and pulling up along side the royal train on a parallel track. On board the train is Tōdō Jūbei. Tōdō Jūbei remarks on how the Duke of Normandy kept his word and orders his men to commence their attack on the royal train. The attack begins with with Tōdō Jūbei trains harpooning the other train in an attempt to derail it and Jūbei's men fire a cannon that kills some of Lord Horikawa's samurai.

Back on the decoupled carriages, Ange and Chise use the C-ball to get across to the trains and fight Tōdō Jūbei's men, after making sure Dorothy is okay from the explosion. Ange and Chise engage the men on the roof of the royal train and Tōdō Jūbei realising Chise is on the other train orders his men to speed up his train. Ange from her vantage point in top of the train notices that the two tracks the trains are on merge into a single track which would cause both trains to derail.

Ange and Chise use the C-ball to get across to Tōdō Jūbei's train and resume fighting his men. Tōdō Jūbei seeing all this unfold takes the opportunity to switch trains and kills the trains driver and Oshima. He them moves onto the state car, where he cuts down two of Lord Horikawas samurai and swings at Beatrice who is trying to protect Princess. Beatrice is spared from death thanks to Tōdō Jūbei's sword hitting her metal covered mechanical throat which saves her, but the shear impact knocks her out. Jūbei is about to assassinate Lord Horikawa when Chise enters the train and fights him one on one.

Ange is about to help Chise when Princess tells her they need to stop the trains first. Princess is able to get around Jūbei and to the front of the locomotive, where Ange tells her what levers to pull to slow the train down, while she does the same on the other train. The two trains both slow down and hit each other at low speed, luckily slow enough to not cause a derailment as they stop. While this was going on Chise and Jūbei continued their duel with Chise finishing it by breaking Jūbei's katana and stabbing him.

After the train is secured Ange, Princess and Beatrice go to see Chise who is praying on a nearby hill in front of a white stone, presumably where Tōdō Jūbei is laid to rest. Ange deduces that Jūbei was Chise's father and the group gives their condoles. Ange leaves Chise by saying that she now owes Chise for keeping Princess safe. Chise resumes praying to her father and repeats the “magic spell” that her father taught her from earlier in the episode.

Afterwards back at Queen's Mayfaire Academy in the Team White Pigeon's club room not to long after the incident, Chise joins the team as a new transfer student much to Beatrice's surprise. This was the result of a deal between Lord Horikawa and Control. Some time after the train incident Dorothy had introduced Lord Horikawa to Control in an attempt to see if he would change sides to the Commonwealth. They believed Chise would help Operation: Changeling occur smoothly.

## Trivia

* The English voice actress for Chise, Rachael Messer, did the Japanese voice lines for Chise in the English dub as well, since she can speak both Japanese and English.
* Episode 5 was the last episode to be adapted to manga format, before the *Princess Principal* manga was discontinued.