In the first episode of the show, we’re introduced to Iwanaga and how she became the mediator between the yokai and humanity. We’re also first introduced to the extremely attractive Kuro Sakuragawa. Kuro often visits the same hospital as Iwanaga to check on his cousin who is hospitalized and that’s where she fell in love with him. Knowing that Kuro and his girlfriend had recently broken up, Iwanaga uses this as an opportunity to get closer to him. But she soon realizes that there’s more to Kuro than meets the eye. After explaining to him who she is, she invites him to help her at the library where the barrier had been broken so a monster yokai was going berserk. Kuro reluctantly accompanies her, only to get his arm eaten off. Iwanaga is in shock and asks Kuro why he isn’t worried that he’s hurt, only to see his arm grow back right before her eyes.

Well, maybe finding out the guy who you experienced love at first sight with isn’t human isn’t the worst thing that could happen. At least, it wasn’t for Iwanaga. Any normal person, much like Kuro’s ex girlfriend, would’ve ran for the hills. Iwanaga is used to seeing things out of the ordinary so this incident actually made her love him more and was the beginning of their questionable relationship. Starting off the season with an episode like that further proved that we would be in for some surprises on this 12 episode journey.

As if being immortal isn’t crazy enough, we learn that Kuro can also predict the future. But don’t expect him to grab his crystal ball and tarot cards. Kuro can only predict the future if he dies. The ability to predict the future is the reason Kuro has become the way he is. Usually, when the future is predicted, the host dies. So as an attempt to create someone who could predict the future and survive, Kuro’s grandmother secretly feeds him and his cousins 2 different types of yokai meat when he was only 11. While everyone else who ate the meat died, Kuro survived and was subjected to many grueling experiments to ensure that the meats worked.

Despite the horrible way that he acquired it, Kuro having the ability at all is a shocker. Well, being able to predict the future might not be the best way to describe this power. It’s more like, he can choose a path to take and it will happen. When Kuro experiences death, he’s met with infinite branches of possibilities that can happen and once he grabs hold and chooses one, it will come true; effectively helping him determine what will happen. Since he’s immortal, even if he has to die to predict the future, he will come back to life. So maybe being forced to eat weird meat, seeing all of your family die before your eyes, and being tortured for most of your childhood would be worth it in exchange for immortality! If I add that he also has super strength, would that make it better?

In the first few episodes of the season, we are told about Kuro’s cousin, Rikka Sakuragawa, who is hospitalized. Although we are told her name, very few details of who she is are given. It’s even assumed that she has passed away within the 2 years that Kuro and Iwanaga have been together. During a conversation between Kuro and his ex girlfriend Saki, it is revealed that she’s still alive and Saki reminisces on the time she first met Rikka. Here, her appearance is finally revealed. Due to her condition, she looks very sick and weak but she is a very beautiful woman. Even in the condition that she was in, her eyes pierced you like a thousand needles. Something about her just screamed that she isn’t someone to be messed with.

Upon meeting Rikka, Saki states that she can tell that Rikka was Kuro’s first love. Which is pretty weird given that she’s his cousin. It’s revealed that she’s the only other person to survive the experiment along with Kuro, making her immortal as well. Saki is surprised that Kuro is even with Iwanaga because she’s the complete opposite of Rikka when Rikka is clearly his type. In a sense, after everything he’s been through growing up and even ongoing with caring for Rikka, it would make sense for him to want to be with someone who is the complete opposite of her.

As much as we might want some of our favorite fictional characters to be real, cough cough Levi Ackerman, the chances of that happening would come down to a truckload of pennies in a wishing well and an animal sacrifice. This wasn’t necessarily the case for Steel Lady Nanase. After the tragic death of a young pop idol named Karin Nanase, rumors of sightings of her ghost began to spread. But she wasn’t like Casper the friendly ghost. This woman had no face, carried a steel beam, and acted violently. Thus earning her the name Steel Lady Nanase. When a detective ends up dead, finding out the identity of this “ghost” becomes crucial. We are shocked to learn that Steel Lady Nanase is actually a manifestation of a rumor that started and numerous people began to believe the rumor and have the same image in their head.

The only thing that could make this discovery even more crazy would be finding out who started the rumor in the first place. To our astonishment, the culprit is none other than Rikka. You might be wondering how she had time to devise up such an evil scheme in her fragile condition. After living with Iwanaga for some time upon her releasement from the hospital, she left and no one knew where she had gone. In fact, Kuro had been looking for her with suspicions that she could be behind the whole thing. While Kuro probably wasn’t surprised to learn that his own cousin was behind the whole thing, we’re left wondering how he could still feel such love for someone who would go to such extreme lengths to get what they want. Even if that person is a family member.

With the culprit revealed, the only thing left was to stop her. But this wouldn’t be an easy task since they would be fighting not only against the minds of thousands of people, but against Rikka also. The only solution would be to convince everyone that Steel Lady Nanase isn’t real to make her disappear. We watch as Iwanaga throws hypothesis after hypothesis at the people of the internet to try to divert their beliefs. Jumping between Steel Lady Nanase actually being real to her not being real, Iwanaga presents different possibilities but with a lot of the same facts. But as soon as it seems like Iwanaga is winning over people as they start to believe what she’s saying, Rikka is right there debunking all of her claims as she continuously kills herself to choose the right future for her success.

When all efforts seem to be lost, Iwanaga reveals her real plan that she has had from the beginning and it leaves us all speechless. The whole reason for her jumping between possibilities but not changing certain facts was all so she could say that Karin Nanase is still alive and she tricked someone to die in her place. She explains that Nanase is the one who started the Steel Lady Nanase rumors so that everyone will believe that she’s dead. All because the detective, whom she killed, recognized her. Of course it was a complete lie. Even so, everyone believed it and their new belief that Nanase was behind the whole thing caused the manifestation to disappear, thus defeating Rikka. The fact that Iwanaga planned everything from the beginning and even expected the people’s responses gives us goosebumps!