1943

 

A truck pulls to a stop and two soldiers jump out. Merrick starts asking the other, Hayes, riddles: What gets broken without being held? The other replies that he doesn't care, but the first answers anyway: a promise. 

 

They open the back of the truck, which is full of bodies. Hayes tells Merrick to stop because the riddle isn't funny--nothing about what they're doing is funny. They pull a woman's body from the truck and start taking her to a mass grave.

 

What has teeth but doesn't bite?

A comb.

 

Hayes continues to complain that the jokes are stupid. Merrick claims that his girlfriend loves the riddles.

 

What has a neck but no head?

 

Hayes couldn't care less, but Merrick supplies that it's a bottle. They grab cans of gas off the truck, then turn to see the wrapped man, the nogitsune, standing among the bodies. Hayes starts to shoot the nogitsune, but it doesn't stop coming. It grabs his hands holding the gun and forces him to shoot himself in the gut.

 

Merrick runs to get into the truck, but he's too panicked to open the door. The nogitsune catches him. "What has a neck, but no head?" it asks him, then rips his head off his shoulders.

 

2001

 

Ken Yukimura is in his classroom preparing. He hears a fly buzzing and kills it with a book. "Coming in on a Saturday," the nogitsune says as it walks in, "that's dedication." He asks where Noshiko's tails are and starts pulling books off Ken's bookshelf. The daggers are a physical representation of her tails. Ken says he can direct the nogitsune to the Japanese mythology section of the library if he'd like to do some reading on the subject.

 

The nogitsune comes closer, drumming his fingers on the desks. "The older the tail, the stronger the Oni. Am I right? I know there's one left." Ken continues to stonewall. The nogitsune assures him that he'll talk. He then lifts the textbook off the fly, and the fly goes straight into Ken's mouth. He starts to choke.

 

Scott and Kira are in her room, looking at the photo that Malia brought them. The girl in the photo looks just like Kira, and she assumes it must be her grandmother. Scott then shows Kira the katana and explains it was buried in the wall with a body, and the wall had the onore kanji on it. Scott concludes that the whole nogitsune problem sounds like it goes back to Kira's family.

 

Kira's phone buzzes, and she gives Scott a worried look. Something is wrong with her dad. They quickly arrive at the school and find Noshiko kneeling over her husband. Kira gives her mother a small container of reishi. "You are not seriously giving Dad magic mushrooms," she says. But the mushrooms help him expel the nogitsune's fly.

 

Scott asks if Stiles did this, and Noshiko tells him that the nogitsune wanted the last Tails, or tail. She has the dagger on her and has kept it close ever since Stiles disappeared from Eichen House. Kira insists that her mother needs to tell them what's really going on. Scott silently holds up the photo from 1943. Kira asks if it's her grandmother, and Noshiko admits that she's the one in the photo.

 

NOTE: There is no explanation as to why Noshiko appears to age from 17 to mid-40s in the last 68 years but looked 17 for the previous 800.

 

1943

 

Merrick and Hayes are supposed to be unloading supplies at the Oak Creek interment camp, but Hayes is more interested in tossing around a baseball. Rhys asks Merrick how many crates of apples there are supposed to be, and Merrick replies five. Meanwhile, someone snags some goods off the truck, and there are only four crates of apples accounted for. 

 

Merrick gets Hayes to finally help him, and Noshiko picks up the baseball after Hayes sets it down.

 

2011

 

Scott is incredulous that it could be Noshiko in the picture. "You'd have to be like 90 years old." "Closer to 900," she says. Kira takes the news rather well, then asks her father how old he is. He's 43. 

 

Kira hands her mother the katana. Noshiko pulls the sword from the scabbard, but there's only a handle and a collection of shards. She explains that the sword shattered when she last used it to stop the nogitsune. Scott realizes that everything has happened before. "Those that cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," Ken says.

 

Kira asks where the nogitsune came from, and Noshiko tells her about the Oak Creek interment camp. Scott points out that Ken Yukimura told Allison and Isaac that there was no Oak Creek. Ken admits that he lied because he didn't know if he could trust Allison. There was a camp, but all records of it were erased. 

 

Noshiko's voice shakes when she says that they covered it up. Ken pulls out a book explaining that as a grad student it was his obsession to find the truth about Oak Creek. That was how he met Noshiko. Kira asks again where the nogitsune came from. "Isn't it obvious yet? It came from me," Noshiko says.

 

1943

 

Rinko hands out apples to the other prisoners. She warns everyone to keep their voices down so the MPs don't find them with stolen goods. A young boy named Michio runs into the barracks, and Noshiko tosses him the baseball she took. Rinko scolds her and asks if she stole anything more obvious, like some firecrackers or a machine gun.

 

Noshiko sighs and turns around to face an old woman who sits by herself. "I can feel your glare on the back of my head, Satomi." Satomi tells her that she takes too frequently and takes too much. Noshiko gives her a bottle of aspirin because she knows that Satomi gets migraines once a month. 

 

Satomi pushes the bottle back to her. "I prefer to suffer." She says that she knows Noshiko thinks she's weak because she follows the rules, because rules are for fools and cowards. "The young fox always knows the rules so she can break them. Older, wiser animal learns the exception to the rules."  

 

Satomi places a piece down on a Go board and watches Noshiko. Rinko advises that they stay quiet, but Michio busts one of the windows with the baseball. The MPs come to investigate, and everyone in the barracks hides their stolen goods. 

 

Rhys, Merrick, and Hayes come in, and Rhys holds up the baseball. "Somebody lose something?" 

 

Merrick announces that there were supplies stolen from the truck and asks if anyone knows what happened. He accosts Rinko, but Rhys warns him to stop. Rhys says he wants the window fixed and tells everything that there will be an inspection in the morning so they don't want to find anything that shouldn't be there. Hayes protests that they should look now.

 

Rhys is adamant that it's a relocation center and not a prison. Merrick and Hayes leave. Before Rhys leaves, he tosses the baseball to Michio. Satomi looks up at Noshiko and tells her that she reaps what she sows.

 

2011

 

Noshiko starts to sift through the pieces of the broken blade and asks Kira for her help. The sword needs to be fixed in the daylight. Kira refuses until her mother tells them everything. "Wolves and foxes tend not to get along," Noshiko says pointedly. Ken counters that allies should be welcomed in times of war. Outnumbered, Noshiko slams a piece of the blade down on the table.

 

Deputy Parrish refuses to give Chris his electrified baton back because it's way above the legal voltage limit. "I only use it for hunting," Chris says, and Derek gives him a look that calls bullshit. Parrish still refuses, and Chris points out that it's his property and the charges against him were dropped. Sheriff Stilinski walks in and claims responsibility for the charges being dropped. He tells Parrish that he'll handle this.

 

"Sheriff, I'm not kidding. This thing's a few watts from being a lightsaber." Derek again gives Chris a critical look, which Chris does not return. The Sheriff takes the baton and brings Derek and Chris into his office.

 

He explains that the specialist in LA told him what every doctor says when he's trying to avoid a lawsuit. "We can't say for sure." Then he spoke with Melissa. He produces the brain scans from Claudia and Stiles. "I knew they were similar, but those are the same. Exactly the same." Derek guesses that that isn't possible. "Not even remotely." The nogitsune is playing a trick. "But why this trick?" Derek asks. 

 

The Sheriff explains that when he was in the Army, an officer told him, "If you want to defeat your enemy, you don't take away their courage. You take away their hope." Chris comments that the Sheriff doesn't look like someone who gives up hope easily. The Sheriff thinks his son might. If the nogitsune is using Claudia's disease as a psychological trick, then they aren't just fighting for Stiles's body, they're fighting for his  mind.

 

Chris replies that the nogitsune has left people severely injured. "And others severely dead," Derek says. The Sheriff needs the two of them to help him stop the nogitsune. "And by stop him, you mean trap him," Chris says. The Sheriff nods and gives him his baton back. 

 

1943

 

Noshiko runs down an alleyway and grabs Rhys from behind.  She throws him against a wall lightly and then smiles. She wonders why she likes him when he's acting tough. "Maybe because you want me to be a fighter." She assures him that she likes her handsome medic. Rhys tells her that he thinks she's stealing too much and needs to stop because people are noticing. He quotes a Japanese proverb to her: The stake that sticks out gets hammered down. 

 

He's worried that when the Army comes in an confiscates everything, they'll get the other prisoners to turn Noshiko in. She agrees to return the bottles of aspirin if it's really causing that much of a problem. Rhys offers to help her steal the things she needs, because he can be sly himself. He produces a chocolate bar from his inside pocket. She snatches it from his hand, then kisses him.

 

2011

 

Kira tells her mom to stop. "We don't want to hear your Casablanca story. We want to know how to save Stiles." Noshiko claims she's trying to tell them, but Scott thinks she's trying to stall because when the sun goes down the Oni will go after Stiles again. Ken Yukimura tells him that Stiles is gone, but Scott doesn't believe they know that for sure. Noshiko insists that Stiles is nogitsune now. "He is void." Scott asks Noshiko if she can call the Oni off. She says that when they hear the rest of her story they won't want her to.

 

Allison leads the Sheriff, Chris, and Derek into Chris's office, explaining that she's gathered every non-lethal weapon she could find. Chris says to take all of it. Sheriff asks what their plan is, and Chris says their best shot is for Derek to try to pick up Stiles's scent at Eichen House. The Sheriff asks if all four of them should be going to the same place. Chris asks where else Stiles has been showing up, and Allison lists off the school and the hospital.

 

Derek points out that they've done this already. "He disappeared. We started looking for him. Then walked right into a trap at the hospital." They realize that the nogitsune is getting them to repeat the same moves. Allison asks if that means they should wait for him to come to them, but Derek says that they can't because night will fall and the Oni will come for him. The Sheriff says that Scott and Kira are trying to take care of the Oni. "That's the problem. We're all trying to outfox the fox," Chris says.

 

The Sheriff tells they all that he'll understand if any of them want to back out. Derek shrugs. "I'm not gonna be the first wolf to run from a fox," then grabs a taser. "Apparently I'm carrying a lightsaber," Chris says. Allison sends Chris and Derek to Eichen House while she and the Sheriff go to the hospital. They will all meet up at the school. 

 

As Derek leaves with the bag of non-lethal weapons, he sees Chris grab a gun and some extra ammo. "Making sure you have a few lethal options just in case?" Chris replies that he likes to be prepared for the worst.

 

Noshiko recounts that she and Rhys would find ways to see each other, sometimes in the bunkers where they parked military vehicles.

 

1943

 

Noshiko and Rhys sit in the back seat of a truck. Rhys was going to be transferred to North Africa in a few weeks, so he was trying to learn some French. "Coup de foudre." She explains to him that the literal translation is "bolt of lightning." Rhys snaps the book closed and asks her to kiss him in French. As they kiss, they hear someone drive up.

 

They see Merrick and Hayes whispering with Dr. Liston and getting paid. 

 

2011

 

Ken sees blood running from Noshiko's hand. She squeezed down on a piece of the blade so hard that she cut herself. She wipes her palm clean and shows Kira her healed hand. She explains that healing if one of their talents, which Kira will learn. Kira must have noticed that she never gets sick, not even a cold. 

 

1943

 

Michio is in bed with pneumonia. There's an epidemic running through the camp. Rinko is coughing, but she tells Noshiko that it isn't that bad. Noshiko sees Rhys talking to the doctor, then he comes to talk to her. He explains that they're all out of M&B, May and Baker Pharmaceuticals. They make the sulfadiazine that they use to treat pneumonia. Noshiko says that she saw those boxes, which confuses Rhys because they only got one box. She insists there were three.

 

That's how they figured out that Dr. Liston, Merrick, and Hayes were selling the drugs on the black market. 

 

Michio dies while Noshiko and Rhys are looking at the logs.

 

Rinko gathers everyone in the barracks and insists that all they have to do is issue a formal complaint. Michio's father doesn't believe that the administration will do anything other than smile at them and tell them another shipment is coming. Rinko coughs, and Michio's father tells her that he'll be burying her next to his son. 

 

Satomi speaks up and says that they won't even get condescending smiles. She doesn't think the administration will listen at all. Then she places another piece on her Go board. Michio's father assembles a molotov cockatail. 

 

Noshiko realized too late that by speaking up she was inciting a riot.

 

A truck with Dr. Liston, Merrick, and Hayes drives up to the Oak Creek gate, but before they can leave, a mob gathers. The guards raise their weapons, but Rhys runs out and tells them to put their guns down. The mob calls for Dr. Liston and starts beating on the car and rocking it. Liston tells Merrick and Hayes that if the mob gets him, they'll lynch him, but his last words will be to announce his accomplices. Merrick threatens to throw him out of the car.

 

Liston tells him that the mob only has rocks and sticks while Merrick and Hayes have guns. "Now, get out there and shoot something." 

 

2011

 

Noshiko says she yelled at everyone to stop, but so many people were sick. "I'd never seen anger like that. It was a living, breathing thing." 

 

1943

 

Rhys pushes his way through the mob to the car. He manages to get Hayes out, and Hayes runs to safety. Michio's father lights his molotov, but Rhys begs him not to throw it. Merrick then gets out of the car and draws his gun. He orders everyone back. Satomi walks up to him, and Merrick pistol-whips her.

 

Noshiko then sees Satomi's eyes glow, and she realizes that she's a Werewolf. She finally understands what the monthly headaches were about and why Satomi tried to keep herself calm by playing Go. 

 

Satomi grabs the molotov from Michio's father and throws it at the car. It lands at Rhys's feet, setting him on fire.

 

2011

 

Allison and the Sheriff are in the elevator at the hospital. The Sheriff tells her that he doesn't know how she does it, always being so strong and fearless. She even manages to keep her grades up. Allison admits that she's failing Econ, and the Sheriff says he'll talk to Coach about that. 

 

Allison can't keep a lid on her emotions any longer and starts to break down. The Sheriff quickly stops the elevator. She admits that she's not fearless. "I'm terrified. I'm always terrified. I act like I know what I'm doing, but I don't. I don't know if Isaac is dying right now. I don't know if I made a mistake with Scott. I don't know what my dad is thinking. I don't know if we should trust Derek. I don't know... I don't know anything." 

 

As she starts to cry, he pulls her into a hug. "You know what's funny? You sound just like a cop." It makes Allison laugh a little. They part, and she gathers herself back together. As the Sheriff goes to turn the elevator back on, his phone buzzes with an alert from his home security system. He had cameras and motion detectors installed after Stiles started sleepwalking. 

 

The bedroom camera detected movement. The Sheriff brings up the feed from the camera, and the nogitsune is sitting on Stiles's bed. He waves his fingers slowly. 

 

1943

 

The mob gets more violent. Merrick joins the guards, and they all start shooting. Noshiko was shot more times that she could count, and it took so much of her energy to fight the bullet wounds that she appeared to be dead.

 

2011

 

Noshiko and Kira arrange the broken pieces of the katana. 

 

1943

 

Rhys was burned black over all of his body. His screams echoed throughout Eichen House, and he died in agony. Dr. Liston had sold the morphine on the black market, too. Merrick and Hayes were tasked with removing and destroying the bodies. Dr. Liston was tranferred. The Army was covering up the massacre.

 

Noshiko comes to in the back of the truck next to Rhys's body. She's too weak to move or fight or prevent herself from being burned with the other bodies, so to get vengeance she calls out to her ancestors for kitsune-tsuki, or possession by a fox spirit. She asked for a nogitsune to take control of her body. Instead of possessing her, however, the spirit possesses Rhys.

 

When Merrick and Hayes go back to the truck for the gasoline after piling up the bodies, the nogitsune rises. It kills them both and then drives back to the camp. Noshiko calls for it to stop, but it doesn't listen.

 

The nogitsune corners all the camp prisoners and kills them.

 

Noshiko runs to Eichen House and finds all the staff and patients dead on the lawn. She gets her katana from the barracks.

 

2011

 

Noshiko tells Kira to hurry with the sword.

 

1943

 

Noshiko battles the nogitsune in a narrow corridor. They are evenly matched, until Satomi comes up from behind and shoves her claws into the nogitsune's back. Noshiko then runs him through. Her katana shatters after exorcising the spirit. A fly leaves Rhys's body, and Noshiko captures it. Rhys says "Coup de foudre" before he dies again.

 

2011

 

Noshiko places another piece of the blade down. She explains that while the literal translation is bolt of lightning, in French it means "love at first sight." She tells Kira that they need a real bolt of lightning right now to reforge the blade. Noshiko can't do it because she's not a thunder kitsune. "Do you trust me?" "I just found out you're 900 years old. I don't think I'm ever gonna trust you again." Noshiko holds her daughter's hand over the blade anyway, and Kira's power comes out. 

 

Chris, Derek, Allison, and the Sheriff are in Stiles's room. They look at the chessboard and ask what it is. The Sheriff explains that it's how Stiles first explained to him about the supernatural. Allison thinks it could be a message from Stiles.  Chris picks up a piece labeled Isaac, which has been removed from the board. Derek asks, "You think there's any reason my name's on the king?" 

 

The Sheriff replies that he's heavily guarded. "Though I guess the alarming detail is that you're one move from being in checkmate." (NOTE: The position of the pieces on the board are not actually one move from being in checkmate. Also, the position of the king in some of the shots is incorrect.) Chris interprets this to mean that it's not a message from Stiles but a threat from the nogitsune. 

 

Allison says that the message is that the nogitsune is waiting for them at Derek's loft. "This couldn't sound any more like a trap," Chris says. The Sheriff doesn't think so. "What we're dealing with here is someone who basically lacks motive. No rhyme, no reason, right? Our enemy's not a killer. He's a trickster. The killing is just a by-product." Derek is not reassured that they aren't going to end up dead. "It wants irony. It wants to play a trick. It wants a joke. All we need to do is come up with a new punch line."

 

Chris is willing to hear him out and asks what the Sheriff's plan is.

 

Noshiko hands Kira the reforged katana, telling her that she has her power now. If the Oni can't stop the nogitsune, then Kira will have to, with the help of a wolf. Scott argues that she didn't tell them anything useful. "You want to save Stiles? Kill him," Noshiko replies.

 

Scott asks Ken if he agrees with this assessment. "Sometimes history does repeat itself, Scott." "Only if you don't learn." Scott's phone buzzes telling him that they're meeting at Derek's loft. Scott insists that there has to be a way to save him.

 

Before they leave, Noshiko hands Kira the sword's scabbard.

 

1943

 

Noshiko runs from barking dogs. She has the nogitsune fly in a jar.

 

2011

 

Noshiko promises to put her last Tails somewhere safe. Ken says that he's not worried about that. He's worried about making children into killers. Noshiko replies that these kids were involved long before she returned to Beacon Hills. She buried the jar in the roots of the nemeton. Their sacrifice to the nemeton gave it enough power to release the nogitsune.

 

The Sheriff opens the door to Derek's loft to find the nogitsune looking out of the window toward the setting sun. It turns around to face him. "Hi, Dad."