So This Is How It Feels

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*Full episode list: List of Magical Monster High School Drama! episodes*

This page is about the twelth episode of Magical Monster High School Drama! It was released on May 25th, 2017.

## Production

The episode was written by Terry H and features the voices of Kitto M, George H-S, and Rory F. The episode surprised viewers by finally showing Sashi the ninetails receive some consequences for her actions. This episode and the next one also establish Rowan as a detective character eager to perform their duties for the DC.

## Plot

Early Thursday morning, before sunrise, a piercing screech jerks Quentin from sleep. Blearily, he looks to the clock to see that it is just past three in the morning. Roaring and wailing continues from across the hallway. He blinks, shuffles out of bed wearily, and walks out of the bedroom. The noises from the opposite flat change to a constant animal whine. Then whimpers  too quiet for Quentin to hear. He makes it to the door, and peers through the peephole. He sees Sashi enter Zero’s room, then after about two minutes, he sees the dragon leave her room in human form, clutching a huge decorated egg that is part of her hoard. Quentin sighs, fetches the Wand of Promethia, and transforms into Rowan. They open the door and approach Zero, who startles a little. She clutches her golden egg like a child would clutch a comfort blanket, and is shaking slightly. She looks like she would cry. This is not like her at all, and Rowan asks what is wrong.

She tells him shakily that all of her gold is gone - not taken, but transformed into lead, and melted. Rowan asks to see this, intrigued, and Zero gives them permission before leaving to try and calm down with a bath. Rowan opens the door to find Sashi standing before a rapidly hardening pool of molten lead, jewels and a few silver items poking from the base metal. Sashi tells them that it seems like someone is messing with the dragon. Rowan takes it upon themselves to solve this case and swears to find the one who committed this crime, telling Sashi to inform Zeroeth of this vow. They ask Sashi if they have anything that could help with this, and the kitsune tells them that she may be able to extract recordings of the incident from the wards that she placed on the room, with time.

Rowan exhorts her to do so, and leaves to the DC Tower. There, they ask Felicia, the night receptionist(who is Florence’s larger and more disheveled twin sister), for a form to fill for vandalism and destruction of private student property. Felicia points them to a cabinet filled with assorted forms, and gives no further guidance. With the power of bureaucracy, Rowan effortlessly locates the correct form and fills it. Felicia cannot be bothered to file it, however, and Rowan may not take the case until it has been filed and placed on the board, so they must wait until Florence’s shift, which begins at five. To fill the time, Rowan goes to the student union and parses the list of clubs of societies for any that may have anything to do with transmutation. Through keyword searching on the archaic computer system, Rowan notes down the Wizard’s Guild, the Alchemical Society, and the Ferriothropic Society.

At five, Florence, still waking up, authorises them to take this case as a quest. Rowan also ask for hallway surveillance for their dorm and a printed list of students from Class 1E, reasoning that the most obvious suspects will be those that have been in contact with Zero. Then they leave to check on Sashi’s progress. Sashi in fact installed no recording magics or hardware in Zeroeth’s room at all, but instead she has spent the time forging a projection. She gives the “recordings” to Rowan when they return, then they both head to class.

After class, Rowan takes these recordings to the DC Tower, and is directed to the fourth floor for surveillance. They enter a tiny room with one door and a giant glass window taking up most of the opposing wall. Through the window, Rowan can see rows and rows of desks descending to a giant screen on the far wall, like a lecture hall. Identical people sit at the desks with computers, typing at superhuman speed with more fingers than any human should possess. Cyborgs. Rowan waits, and eventually one of them comes up and enters the small room to see them. He introduces himself as Dr. Wills, and Rowan asks the doctor if he would examine Sashi’s recording.

Dr. Wills explains that wards do not usually have innate recording functions and scoffs at the idea that an amatuar could rival his protection, but opens the projection nonetheless. A fuzzy blue image appears above his hand. The image shows Zeroeth asleep in her room, all seeming fine. Then, one of the ceiling panels opens up, and a figure in frilly clothes descends and begins making the hand movements of a spell. It looks like Cami was the perpetrator. After remarking that he has not seen footage that grainy since the seventies, Dr. Wills searches the school system for Cami and tells Rowan that she is a previous student of the school from a disbanded class, currently waiting for re-enrollment. He then gives Rowan a copy of this film, saying to return after he has checked that it is genuine.

Rowan goes to afternoon classes. The first class is history; Mr. Vyager begins by detailing traditional punishments for traitors and those that sow discord within the ranks. Sashi contemplates these teachings with a slight smile. After lessons, Rowan takes Zero aside and asks her to think if there is anyone in particular that she believes she has wronged, or that she would suspect of committing the crime. Zero first states Akio, as she caused trouble on his own world and as he already took the Sword of Aria from her room and killed her. Rowan tells her that Akio has not been on the campus for days, and Zero continues to list Kimberly and another member of the DC who she burned very badly during her very first encounter with them.

Jynx approaches them to interrupt, and Rowan takes this chance to ask the nekomata about her complaint against Illack. Jynx explains that Illack somehow forced three members of the FAS to leave the club, probably through intimidation. She is adamant that her members would never wish to leave of their own violation, as all felines belong in her society. However, she has no evidence for this, and Rowan tells her to convince the lost members to return by herself.

At this point, Sashi has already left to the kendo society. There, she practices wielding the golden sword and silently converses with Ophelia. Ophelia warns Sashi to be careful, and tells her that she needs to make sure someone is framed quickly now that Rowan is investigating her actions. Sashi agrees with this, but isn’t sure what else she can do. Meanwhile, Rowan visits the alchemical society. They find the room in disarray, shot glasses strewn everywhere. Lolling on the floor is a group of EXTREMELY inebriated gnomes. Rowan steps carefully into the room and attempts to ask Micky, the head gnome, if anyone has asked about metallic transmutation recently. Micky can remember nothing of sashi’s visit, but eventually manages to tell Rowan that metallic transmutation is not the sort of thing his society covers.

Rowan checks at the Wizard Guild(Arcana Society) tower instead. They walk into the third floor to find themselves in the middle of a celebration. Banners of congratulation hang on the walls, wine is being poured, and plates of entrees line the tables. Three elderly gentlemen at the back of the room seem to be the focus of attention. Apparently, they recently rediscovered a formula for transmuting lead into gold, the very transmutation that the society was founded on. Rowan takes aside the dean of the transmutation department, Mr Flemarge, and tells him that the reverse of that very transmutation has been used for the destruction of student property. Mr Flemarge responds by reminiscing that the crime sounds like an amusing jape he would have performed when he was younger. After he is reminded of the severity of the situation, the dean agrees to ask around for if anyone from outside the society asked about gold to lead transmutation. He also tells Rowan that the department’s newest member is a student of Class 1E, Simon Smith.

Rowan thanks Mr Flemarge and leaves the party, climbing further up the tower to the divination department. The room features a large mural of a wise old mole, patron god of their school of divination. The people here say that they foresaw Rowan’s coming, and tell them that someone has indeed been asking about gold to lead transmutation. They cannot scry the person, but they can provide their silhouette, using the area they cannot scry as template. They show the image they have gleaned to Rowan… the silhouette of a nine tailed fox girl. Rowan returns to Dr. Wills with this image. The doctor tells Rowan that Sashi’s “recording” is no such thing, instead it is merely an illusion, with intentionally bad quality. Rowan leaves the divination department’s image with Dr. Wills, and takes a copy with him.

Through all of this, Sashi attempts to scry Rowan’s doings. She can see Rowan at the Alchemy Society, where she grins at the antics of the gnomes. After this, however, Rowan enters a void that she cannot scry: the Wizard Tower. She feels like she is being watched. Unsettled, Sashi pulls out of the vision. Ophelia takes no time to inform Sashi that she has made a great mistake. She will undoubtedly lose all progress that they have made with the dragon, and now have two choices: run; or stay and be tortured by the DC. Sashi does not reply to her, but goes for a walk. She stands before the portals, considering leaving the plane. She turns away. Back at the dorms, Sashi encounters Zero, who tells her that she is going to her plane for the night to sleep on another, smaller portion of her hoard. Sashi secretly removes the curse on Zero as she leaves, then returns to her room. She sits down within a glowing magic circle on the floor, and concentrates.

Meanwhile, Rowan goes to the Disciplinary Committee tower and reports to Kimberly. They present their findings to the head: Sashi’s fake recording and her silhouette at the alchemical society and the Wizard’s Guild. They state motive for the crime as revenge for Sashi having almost died in Zeroeth’s fire; and method, transmutation. After remarking that, as Zeroeth opted out of security, the DC has no obligation to look into this case; Kimberly tells Rowan that their part in this case is done.

In her room in the dorms, Sashi waits, and prepares. She wards and traps her room, and buffs her own defence and stamina. With her scrying, Sashi keeps an eye on the surrounding corridors, and she waits. She sits cross legged in the middle of her magic circle, the golden sword across her knees. As Kimberly and three DC goons enter the dorms, Sashi watches silently, tapping her fingers on the blade. Kimberly knocks, ordering Sashi to exit the room and accompany the DC peacefully. Sashi answers as if she has just woken, and hesitates. Ophelia berates her for this, saying that if she was scared, she should have run when she had the chance. Sashi does not answer. She sheathes the sword, and holds it in plain sight as she opens the door.

Kimberly asks her to leave the weapon behind, and Sashi refuses. In response, gunfire sprays through Sashi’s window, shattering it. Sashi dodges the first two barrages, and her magical force field deflects the bullets of the third. Then, she faces off against Kimberly and her three goons. One of them rams a baton into her gut, and Sashi staggers backwards and drops the sword. Then she looks up innocently, with a scared look, and asks what is going on and why she is here. Kimberly halts the attack. With no further resistance, Sashi is cuffed and taken away with a bag over her head, then sedated.

When she wakes, Sashi finds herself somewhere… very familiar to her. She is lying in a small hollow under the exposed roots of an old tree. The tree is a gnarled and curling Japanese pine with silver bark. It stands in a courtyard filled with cherry trees, constantly in bloom. This is the shrine where Sashi was imprisoned for thousands of years, on her homeworld. In the tree branches above her, a pair of purple eyes appear, and stare down at her. She cannot move. She calls out for Ojisan, and the illusion around her fades away. Sashi is in fact sitting down and cuffed to a table, in a normal room within the DC tower. She attempts to transform, but fails.

An old man wearing monk robes enters the room, and sits down opposite. Dimitri. He asks Sashi about what happened, and she tells him of the delve of the Wand of Promethia. She pleads complete ignorance of anything past the point where Ophelia entered the golden sword, saying she remembers nothing after touching it. Dimitri tells her that Ophelia herself told the story quite differently. He takes hold of Sashi’s memories and draws her attention to the moment when she released Ophelia willfully, and then to Zeroeth crying in her pool of lead.

At this, Sashi drops the act and talks more frankly, saying that she has been in this position before on her homeworld. She tells Dimitri that her crime was nothing but a harmless prank. Then she asks him not to tell Zero that she destroyed her hoard, as the dragon would surely attack her in another rage, probably destroying school property in the process. Dimitri agrees that definitely should not happen... on school grounds.

Friday morning, Zeroeth returns to the school plane to find herself in the blank white of one of the quarantine planes. A door opens in the blankness, and through it comes Sashi, bound at the wrists, with Dimitri after her. Zero asks what is going on, and Dimitri tells her that miss Miyamoto will explain. He then leaves, closing the door after him. Sashi explains that the DC “appears" to believe she transformed Zero’s gold, and that they have so much evidence against her. Zero is incredulous at the very suggestion that Sashi would betray her, and the kitsune assures her that she has been doing everything that she can to protect and serve the dragon. Kitsune are natural tricksters, however, and she admits that she did play the smallest of tricks on Zero.

Zero waits, and Sashi tells her that she was the one who punched the dragon on the nose, causing her rampage in the corridors. At this admission, the blank walls of the limbo light up with the image of the dragon sleeping on her hoard. Sashi blinks into her room, pulls back her arm and swings at Zero, before disappearing once more. In the present, Zero is agast.

She begins growling, and morphs into dragon form. She towers over the child sized kitsune, full sized, tail flicking. Eyes flaring, the dragon interrogates Sashi, asking her why. Sashi tells her honestly that she simply could not resist. The dragon’s growling intensifies, and she advances on the kitsune, railing about the humility that she has been subjected to due to Sashi’s actions. Sashi backs away, muttering that she is kind of expecting “a lot of damage coming her way”. The dragon asks if Sashi expects her to kill or torture the kitsune, to allow her to burn slowly from her tails, for example, now that she knows that Sashi can burn. She states that she would, except that she owes a debt to Sashi. The kitsune quickly agrees with this, reminding Zero that she would have died without her.

However, a debt only covers so much. If Sashi also turned her hoard to gold, then Zero would feel quite justified in killing her. Sashi, backing away and looking up at the dragon, suddenly finds herself drawn into the creature’s amber eyes. They swirl and flicker with golden flames in a captivating display, distracting her from the peril of her situation. Sashi shakes her head, looking away, and feels her mind clear. Zero demands to know if she turned her hoard to lead, and Sashi states that that would be suicide. The dragon agrees, and asks again. Behind Sashi, the walls light up once more, with the image of Zeroeth sleeping, her gold slowly dulling to lead beneath her. Sashi continues to deny her involvement. Zeroeth asks her why, if she is not guilty, she reeks of fear sweat. Sashi breaks down, begging the dragon not to give her anymore pain. Zeroeth flicks her tail, and tells Sashi that if she did not want this; she should not have betrayed the dragon, for her name means “Vengeance”.

Sashi begins to cower, shrinking into the form of an ordinary fox. The dragon slams her talon down on the tiny creature, but she phases right through the fox’s body. Growling, Zero’s throat glows, she opens her jaws… and Sashi teleports away. The dragon’s fire washes over blank white space, then extinguishes instantly. Zero roars, eyes swirling, and casts about for the kitsune. She flies after Sashi, and continues to attack her to no effect. She roars out all the terrible tortures that she wishes to inflict on her tormenter, growing more and more enraged at her inability to enact any of them.

Sashi attempts to plead that Zero does not need to do this, but the dragon only screams that as Sashi only wanted her to suffer; she will inflict suffering upon the kitsune in return. Her attacks continue to fade through the ghostly fox, however, and the creature continues to teleport from her as she begins to tire. A clock with two hands appears on the blank walls, ticking away. An hour passes. Zero pants and shakes, exhausted; Sashi remains ghostly and wary. A portal appears in the room, and Sashi dashes for her escape. Zero roars and spits flame. The dragonfire washes over the portal as the kitsune leaps through it, just the tips of her tails singed. The dragon staggers, then collapses to the floor.

Sashi finds herself in a second white abyss. As she morphs back into human form and pats out the fire on her tail, Dimitri enters the room. He asks her what she has learned from this, and Sashi replies that she feels that Zero will attack her on sight from now on. Dimitri doesn’t doubt this, and tells Sashi that she will be held accountable for any damages that occur from such conflict. He also strongly suggests that she construct some sort of ward or defence against the dragon’s breath weapon, then tells her she is free to go. Sashi goes to the portals and leaves to her plane.