Episode 13 - To Where Endings Begin

To Where Endings Begin (終わりの始まる場所へ Owari no Hajimaru Basho e) is the thirteenth episode of the Little Busters! Animation. It aired on December 29, 2012. It is the second episode of Mio Nishizono's arc.

Short Summary

 * Riki sees the girl who looks like Mio in the courtyard, but she disappears soon after. Mio remains absent from school for several days, and people around Riki start slowing forgetting about her. The next day, Riki finds Mio in the courtyard, who gives him her treasured book of poems and invites him to go with her to the beach. Midori, the girl who looks like Mio, shows up at the beach and reveals that the reason why Mio always carries a parasol is to hide the fact that she has no shadow. Upon learning this, Riki suffers an attack of narcolepsy, and when he wakes up, he is already back in his dorm room, but cannot remember what happened at the beach. Life returns to normal, until Riki rediscovers Mio's book of poems and goes to look for her in the classroom. However, Midori comes in and everyone except for Riki know her as Mio. While mulling over Mio's disappearance, Midori confronts Riki and wants him to call her Mio like everyone else, which Riki refuses. Midori points out that she also does not have a shadow, and Riki thinks that Midori may be Mio's shadow. Midori says that eventually, he too will forget about Mio.

Detailed Summary

 * Riki needed a better look outside the window because he was certain that he heard Mio was sick today and had not come to school, but there she was staring right back up at him from her favorite tree. Of course, she was smiling and she didn’t have her trademark parasol with her. He recoiled and looked again and Mio was nowhere in sight. He begins wondering if he really saw Mio and then decides that it was that strange imposter that looks like Mio. But all too soon over the next coming days, strange things start happening. The Little Busters are forgetting about Mio. When Riki calls their attention to the sick Mio, they feel bad for forgetting her. No one else in the class seems to notice or care that Mio is absent. Even Riki is beginning to forget her. Riki almost snapped when Masato forgot that Mio is the manager of their baseball team. When the stormy weather and depressing atmosphere finally go away, Mio returns to school to her favorite tree; Riki is already there and he is so, so happy to see her.


 * Riki thought about visiting Mio in the girl’s dorm, but it’s just so hard sneaking in there lately. Mio asks him jokingly if he wanted to see her sleeping that badly. Riki had ulterior motives, he only wants her body, Mio jests. Riki stammers out an excuse and for the first time this episode, Mio smiles. She tells him that she was only joking and here Riki tells Mio that he was worried about her because he thought she would suddenly disappear. Mio doesn’t say anything for a moment. She only glances upward at sky and probably imagines herself as the white bird from her favorite poem, how it is the only shade of color that is blue in the sky or across the vast expanse of ocean below. Mio says out loud, to nobody in particular, how if she were to suddenly disappear, then people would forget about her as if she never existed. It would be like Mio never lived and the memory of her in everyone’s mind would be erased. Riki starts saying how that isn’t true, but Mio stops him. Mio depressingly talks about how the birds beneath this tree will forget about her, even the book of poems that she has read so many times that its covers are fading will disappear along with her. But all of this is fine, Mio tells Riki. Riki doesn’t know how to reply. And then Mio says what Riki has been dreading; she confirms the fact that everyone around them has been forgetting about her over the past few days.


 * Mio hands her favorite book to Riki and he seems at a loss for what to do. This book is so important to Mio that she called it herself. The book is her. Mio doesn’t mind if Riki forgets about her, but she wants him to remember the poem with the little white bird. That way, if he does remember, then Mio feels that there is some importance to somebody as insignificant as her being born at all. Mio then turned to go away and Riki shouted, asking her where she was going. Mio stopped and turned back around and says that she is going to the beginning of the end. Riki is confused and Mio offers to take him there. It would seem that the end is at the beach. Mio’s final request of Riki is to talk about the Little Busters. Mio wants to know about them when they were children. Riki tells Mio everything, how they saved him when he was all alone. He tells her about having narcolepsy. He even tells Mio about silly times when the Little Busters were hunting four-leaf clovers and how Kyousuke was the only one that ever found any.


 * Mio has been meaning to come here for a while now, but before she did Riki came up to her and spoke with her. before she knew it, Mio was the manager of their baseball team. It was fun and Mio didn’t want to come so badly anymore. She knew that this is how the end will always be and she put off coming here for as long as possible. But no more, the end has come. Suddenly appearing on the other side of Mio is another Mio. This Mio is the very same Mio that Riki saw one day in town and beneath the tree. The new Mio’s name is Midori and she would be Mio if Mio was talkative, energetic, and a people person. You could say that Midori is everything that Mio would like to have been in her life. Midori plays a horrible joke on Mio. She makes a grab for Mio’s parasol when she found out that Riki doesn’t know Mio’s most carefully guarded secret yet. The parasol flies out of Mio’s hand. Riki looks and is stunned to find out that Mio doesn’t have a shadow. Does this mean that Midori is Mio’s shadow? The shock of seeing two Mio here and one without a shadow was too much for Riki and he collapsed from narcolepsy.


 * Riki woke up in his dorm room, on his bed, with Masato beside him. Masato immediately handed Riki some medicine and a glass of water the moment Riki woke up. Masato tells Riki that people found him unconscious at the beach and brought him back to the dorms. Why was Riki at the beach in the first place? Riki doesn’t know; he doesn’t know if he was alone or with somebody. Everything is just a blur, but he feels that something important happened there. The other core, male members of the Little Busters come into the room to check on Riki and are relived to see him in good shape.


 * Over the next few days, things are calm and quiet at school. Riki can’t help shake this feeling that something is missing, but he doesn’t know what it is. The Little Busters pass right by Mio’s favorite tree and Riki stops and wonders if sitting beneath this tree to read is a good idea. The birds remember Mio and peck on the ground. Riki’s mind is jolted one morning when he and Masato are almost late for class. Mio’s book of poems falls off a book shelf and Riki coincidentally opens the book to the page of the little white bird. Suddenly with a rush that chilled his spine, Riki remembered Mio. He demanded Masato tell him where Mio is. Masato tells Riki that she is in the classroom. Riki doesn’t wait a second longer and runs to the classroom. He doesn’t see Mio, so he meandered his way towards Rin and the other girls and asks them if they know were Mio is. Komari points Mio out in the crowd talking quite happily with another group of girls.


 * Riki saw Midori talking to the girls across the classroom. He still remembers the real Mio and this girl is not her. He confronts Midori about Mio, but she says that her name isn’t Midori, it’s Mio. Midori then leaves Riki alone. Riki asks Masato, who just showed up with Kengo, a strange question: is that really Mio over there? Masato consented that was a strange question, but he answered nonetheless. That is Mio over there across the classroom, the manager of the Little Busters’ baseball team. Riki wonders if he is going insane. He seems to be the only one that thinks Midori is not Mio.


 * After school Riki went to Mio’s favorite tree and pondered over her book. There he knows with firm conviction that Midori is not Mio. Midori is an imposter. Midori speaks out to Riki from above him in the tree’s branches. She leaped down and somewhat congratulated him for remembering Mio. Midori knows the only person at this school that even knows the original Mio at this point is Riki, and the reason for that is Mio’s book. Midori stole the book from Riki and threatened to rip it in half. She even tore partial way through its back before she stopped. Midori doesn’t have to resort to pathetic attempts to force Riki to forget Mio’s existence. Midori knows that it’s just a matter of time before Riki forgets about Mio for the second time. Riki stands firm that he won’t ever forget Mio, but Midori taunts Riki like a perfect villain and tells him, yes, he will forget about her. She toys with Riki’s emotions and kisses him on the cheek, or tries to at any rate. Midori wins if Riki ever calls her Mio, so that is the one thing that Riki will never say.

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