While Hiori explores the city to find clues, she comes across a younger version of Shino. When she touches her, Hiori experiences a strange sensation from her. What is it?
It’s obvious that something strange happened when Hiori found a child version of Shino. The child Shino doesn’t talk. Eventually Hiori brought her back to the dorm to have her other friends evaluate her. Ruka touched child Shino and she almost passed out.
We find out that the Shino Hiori brought back is a fragment of her. Yep, a fragment that Shino still have in the wild took the form of a human. This not too surprising since the Common is merging with the world. With that, Hiori told what she saw from Shino’s fragment.
As for Shino’s past, well it’s disturbing and of course tragic. Shino’s mother had two twins, Kano, which is the older twin and Shino, the younger one. The twins take on the identity of Nekunan, a leader of a cult religion their mother created. They preach the belief the world needs to get rid of the old, weak, and the uneducated that can ruin the future.
To sum things up, their mother treats Kano as a martyr by punishing her for every mistake Shino makes. Shino is basically the saint. I must admit that their mother is terrible due to the blatant child abuse. Even with the abuse Kano experiences, this causes Shino to become worried. Despite this, Kano still thinks her mother is kind.
Even when they decide to play together, Shino had the happiest time ever. That is until their mother caught them and beats Kano up even more. Eventually, Shino becomes a figurehead of the Saint Ines Girls School that spread their mother’s cult religion. Shino eventually becomes disturbed by the images of the Nekunan photobook that a girl wants her to sign. Yep, it had pictures of Kano’s beatings from her mother.
One day, their mother chained both of her daughters up. She kills Kano and forces Shino to drink her blood. I must admit that I kind of skipped that part since it’s too much. Shino’s mother commits the biggest sin.
Of course, we know that Shino eventually kills her mother off screen as she runs away as her fragment becomes rampant. Mio eventually stabilized Shino’s fragment and hears Shino’s troubles of her terrible mother. Shino thought that Mio will safe her from her mother.
However, it’s quite the opposite since Mio didn’t fully understand the situation Shino is and refuses her help. After all, Shino wants Mio to get rid of the cultish teachings from her mother. Shino being hopeless, eventually commits suicide by jumping off the building. While this is unfortunate, it’s easy to see why Shino resents those feelings and did what she did.
From this, the fragment Shino finally talks and ask Hiori to take her to the Common. With that, Hiori decides to do this to save Shino. Of course, before that happens, Uta bursts out of Ruka’s bedroom when Hiori tries to get her. Yep, Uta wants to eliminate the fragment of Shino. Will Uta become successful? Can Hiori and her friends bring fragment Shino to the Common? We must wait and see next time.
This is beyond the abuse, this is inhuman, there is nothing to justify it, but in my opinion I do not believe that her feelings are the real problem, it is the lunatic of a mother that she has. I’m sure that if she had friends who supported her, none of this would have happened at least I want to believe
I think Shino’s mother lands on the list of worst mothers aside from Fate’s mother from Lyrical Nanoha. But it’s easy to feel sympathetic towards Shino and understand her actions. Hopefully Hiori and her friends can help her realize this by bringing the Shino fragment to the Common next time.