Synopsis: The truth regarding the inn is revealed.

As the Medicine Seller stated in the previous episode, the intertwined lives of men give mononoke its form. The woman with her child, the mistress who gives the woman shelter for the night, and the man who seeks the woman are the cast. Though children’s voices are heard, there is only one child and that is the one in the woman’s womb. The Medicine Seller confirms that the mononoke is indeed a Zashikiwarashi. Now that Form is revealed, only Truth and Regret are missing.

The Medicine Seller asks the inn’s owner and her servant if the pregnant woman in the inn brings anything to mind but they don’t reply. He then asks the pregnant woman about the man the mononoke killed. She replies that his name was Naosuke and that he was an assassin sent by her master and mistress to kill her and her unborn child. The reason was that the child’s father is their heir (at first, I thought she had an affair with her master).

The inn’s owner annoyed at hearing her story attemps to leave but when she opens the door, she finds out that the following room is exactly the same as the room they were in. Her servant opens the opposite door and discovers the same. Crashing sounds are then heard and the servant and his mistress are surrounded by children (the Zashikiwarashi). A child (different from the one that appeared in the previous episode) comes to the pregnant woman and calls her mother.

The woman faints and when she recovers, finds herself in a stinking room with toys on the floor and a tub of water in the middle. She finds the daruma doll from before and remembers the child she met last time. She becomes frightened and screams. She then hears laughter coming from the next room. She opens the door and sees a man and a woman making love. She apologizes but they just keep on laughing. They resume with what they are doing and red cloth spreads itself from the couple towards a blue daruma doll though at one scene it was yellow (same as the daruma doll earlier). A blue Zashikiwarashi is then seen looking towards the couple’s direction and sighs. I think the cloth spreading towards the daruma doll represent the child that resulted from their union.

Meanwhile, the Medicine Seller convinces the inn’s owner to talk. She relents and says that the room was made as an offering to the dead. He asks her to clarify and she confesses that the inn was once a brothel and that the room was once an abortion room.

Back to the pregnant woman, she hears a voice calling her name (Shino). She takes a look at the next room and this time finds a man in bed with a woman. She realizes that the woman was her. The yellow daruma doll is also seen in the room. Anyway, the man confesses his love for her and even tells her that they should marry. She tells him that the she is carrying his child. Upon hearing this, the man becomes somewhat shocked. I think this scene is was what happened with the woman and the man who impregnated her. I guess when he knew she was bearing his child, he became afraid of the complications that could arise. So to remove the complications, probably as adviced by the master and the mistress, an assassin was hired.

The woman screams and the scream is heard by a younger innkeeper. As she cries, she hears a voice saying ‘mother”. She looks around and sees women with children. One child says that he’s finally got a mother. The other children congratulate him and I realize that these spirits or Zashikiwarashi were the spirits of children waiting to born. However, the innkeeper tears a red cloth, symbolic of the act of abortion. The tub in the middle of the room becomes filled with blood and daruma dolls, representing all the unborn children.

In the next scene, we see the woman with the servant. He says that since the woman is pregnant, it would be a problem. The younger version of the innkeeper beats the woman’s womb saying the Zashiwarashi wanted to be born that’s why they came after her.

The scene shifts and returns to the room with the Medicine Seller, pregnant woman, innkeeper and her servant present. Interestingly, the woman’s hair was let loose this time. The door opens and red cloths attack the innkeeper and her servant forming a giant eyeball.

The Medicine Seller states that now only Regret was lacking. If he can find Regret, the sword can be drawn. The woman pleads to him not to kill the mononoke. She tells him that they only want to live. The Medicine Seller tells her that they cannot but she calls to them and tells the mononoke that she will give birth to them as well. The Zashikiwarashi all appear. The Medicine Seller tries to stop the woman. She removes the ward in her tummy and blood falls from her. The yellow daruma doll breaks and the child speaks of how he was always treated kindly by his mother and he tells her he loves her. The woman thanks the Zashikiwarashi for choosing her then apologizes that she could not be their mother and that they can’t be together.

The other spirits smile and disappear. Only the Medicine Seller and the woman (who fell asleep) are left in the room. The Medicine Seller looks at a wall painting of a pregnant woman. The woman also looks at the painting later and realizes she is hungry. She then tells her “child’ that she can’t wait to see him.

According to Japanese folklore, Zashikiwarashi, originated from the the Iwate prefecture. Zashikiwarashi appear as a five or six year old child. They can be either male or female though it was only recently that they are depicted as girls (such as the one in xxxHOLiC). Zashikiwarashi are said to bring good fortune to the house they inhabit. In order to attract and maintain a Zashikiwarashi, the spirit must be take care off in the same manner that one cares for a child. The Zashikiwarashi presented in the show, however, is different from its traditional concept.

Anyway, this was really a beautiful conclusion to the Zashikiwarashi story. Mononoke is rich is symbolism and subtle clues. I wonder how the other episodes would be like.