Synopsis: A new subway station has been opened. On a train’s first ride from that station, several passengers find themselves in the first car and the train moves on it’s own, seemingly disconnected from the other cars.

The final Mononoke arc is set at a time period considerably later than the previous one, perhaps in late Meiji period (1868-1912) when railways have been developed in Japan. The first subway, however, didn’t open until 1927, fifty nine years since the start of the Meiji period. If the arc is historically correct then the Medicine Seller must be old by then, that is, if he was born in the Edo period. The Bakeneko arc of Ayakashi is said to be set in the Edo period. The Medicine Seller, however, shows no signs of age at this point.

The episode starts with a woman falling into a subway track. It’s either that she was pushed or she attempted suicide. “Unforgivable,” the woman keeps on muttering. A cat walks on the railway. A train suddenly comes.

An opening ceremony for a new subway station, the Fukuju Station, is being held. The mayor who supported the project, makes a speech in front of a cheering crowd. A short man tells the mayor it’s time to go. A train will make its first trip on the subway and many people have come to ride it.

One of these is a girl. She asks a man where the fourth car will be boarding. The man tells her that the car nearby is the first car, exclusive for VIP passengers. He points the direction of the fourth car. They see the Medicine Seller, wearing his usual garb, amidst people in modern clothes. The girl comments that the Medicine Seller looks kind of handsome. The man she asked earlier says he must be a sandwich board advertiser since he is carrying a heavy pack.

The train arrives and the short man from before boards first. He is a police detective. A boy in the second car sees the mayor in the first car. He wishes he could ride there. Outside, a woman in traditional clothes, asks someone if the train will return by the afternoon. The person she asked replies that the train will loop after four stops, so it should return in less than an hour.

It’s four more minutes before the train will leave. Inside, the mayor is talking with the person next to him. The man who was asked by the girl earlier comes. He introduces himself as Moria from the Morning News. He congratulates the mayor on the new station. He asks the mayor how he feels. The mayor replies that he is extremely pleased to meet the expectations of his citizens. The detective, who is in the first car, thinks the journalist is sucking up. He tells him to leave the mayor.

The train moves. The people outside wave flags, cheering “Banzai!”. In the first car, there’s the mayor, the journalist and the detective. In the second car, is a boy. In the third, is the woman in traditional clothes, and in the fourth, the girl. One thing about the scenes so far is that everyone else, apart from those mentioned plus the driver and the Medicine Seller, are all portrayed as mannequins. It is probably to emphasize the main characters somehow similar to the technique done in xxxHOLiC.

Anyway, the girl is in the same car with the Medicine Seller. She stares at him. The Medicine Seller notices her and looks at her. She blushes. The Medicine Seller senses that something inside his pack, perhaps the scales, are moving.

The seemingly-bored driver sees something fall in front of the train. He then sees a figure of a woman standing in the tracks. He tries to stop the train but is too late.

In the first car, Moria wonders if there’s an accident. The mayor tells the people to calm down. The detective just looks. The other passengers (still represented as mannequins) have fallen. In the second train, the boy sees that the other passengers are on the ground. Same with the third and the fourth card.

The characters suddenly find themselves in the first car: the mayor, the detective, Moria, the boy, the woman, and the girl. There are no other passengers in the first car except for them. They wonder where the other passengers have gone to and how those from the other cars have come. The girl sees Moria and thanks him for earlier. The driver apologizes for the inconvenience. He says that a foreign object has been found in the tracks. The boy is happy to be in the first car but the detective asks those who aren’t from that car why they are there. The mayor tells the detective not to be rude to the other passengers.

The woman says she will return to her seat. The girl says she will too. The detective stares at the boy, as if signaling him to leave. The woman, however, cannot open the door. The girl tries but she can’t either. Moria thinks they are useless.

Kinoshita, the driver, calls Station One but there is no reply. All he hears is static.

The mayor stands up and helps the woman and the girl open the door. The detective thinks that the old man just can’t contain himself. The driver goes from his room to the first car. The mayor manages to open the door. He says he will have it modified so that anyone can open it. However, they realize that the other cars have disappeared. The train suddenly moves and the mayor falls outside. All that is left are his glasses.

The woman has fallen into the floor. She hears someone whisper to her, “Unforgivable”. She screams. She asks the girl if she said it. The girl said she didn’t. The girl asks if the other passengers said it. They said they didn’t either.

The train is moving without anyone controlling it. The driver said he’s tried all that he could but in vain. He can’t even contact the station. The journalist records the incident in his notebook. The detective asks him if he would get sick if he writes in the train. Moria replies he’s done his job for twenty years. He’s used to it already. The boy sees something.

The door suddenly opens and in comes the Medicine Seller. The other cars seem to be there this time. Moria rushes to the door but when he opens it again, the other cars are gone. The detective asks the Medicine seller how he got in as there are no other cars. The Medicine Seller replies that he came from the next car. He introduces himself and says that he has to dress in his garb so that his wares will sell. The girl and the woman, who seems to be blushing, look at him. Moria asks him why they could not leave the first car. He tells him about the mayor. The Medicine seller says he has fallen. The detective tells the Medicine Seller not to finish Moria’s sentence as it is creepy.

Moria tells the Medicine Seller that the train is moving on it’s own as if a fox spirit is controlling it. The Medicine Seller tells him it’s not a fox spirit. Moria says he was just using a figure of speech. The Medicine Seller then announces that the mayor was killed by a Mononoke. The passengers look scared. They tell the Medicine Seller not to speak such things. The woman says it was just an accident. The detective tells the Medicine Seller to leave. The woman then tells the Medicine Seller that he didn’t see anything. The Medicine Seller says that he can tell without seeing.

Scales from his pack come out. One of the scales seem to bow to the girl. The Medicine Seller explains that the scales’ alignment tell him of the Mononoke’s position. The scales form a line and stand upside-down in the ceiling.

The Medicine Seller says that the people in the car are connected in some way and that the Mononoke has gathered The woman says it’s the first time they’ve met. The detective asks how they could be connected. The Medicine Seller says they should know it.

The girl realizes that she knows one of them. The woman says she remembers one person also. So does Moria and the driver. The detective asks who it is. They point to him. The boy says he doesn’t know who they are. The detective says he doesn’t either. The Medicine Seller says that four out of the six in the car recognize the same person. He asks for details.

The detective doesn’t remember the others so he asks them to say their names, ages, profession and where they saw him. The girl introduces himself as Nomoto Chiyo, aged twenty-one, a waitress at a cafe across the station. The detective says he hasn’t been to that cafe. Chiyo insists he did, on an investigation. The Medicine Seller asks when it was.

The woman replies it must be three or four months ago. She remembers the detective smoking outside while his partner questioned her. She then introduces herself as Yamaguchi Haru, a widow. The detective asks for her age. She says she’s thirty-five. Chiyo tells her she didn’t have to tell him. The Medicine Seller asks what happened to her husband. She replies that he died five years ago of an illness of the lungs. She says she is currently living with her mother-in-law.

The detective and Chiyo argue. Chiyo asks the detective to introduce himself. He says he is Kadowaki Shakei, forty years old, a police officer. Chiyo says he was investigating about a regular customer at the cafe, one of those called as “Modern Girls”. She says that the customer was so gorgeous but unfortunately, she got hit by a train and died.

The driver shouts that he didn’t mean to. The detective remembers. The driver introduces himself as Kinoshita Bumpei, twenty-eight. He says it was an accident, the woman they were talking about jumped off the bridge and killed herself. The train just happened to be passing through. The driver becomes frantic. The detective tells him to calm down.

The journalist looks pale. He introduces himself as Moria Kioshi. Normally, he has a desk job but the newspaper company was shorthanded that day so they sent him out in the field. The detective says Moria was the victim’s boss. Haru says the victim was very famous before she died. She tries to remember her name. Chiyo says she remembers. The victim’s name is Ichikawa Setsuko.

The boy says there must be some mistake. He doesn’t know the others. He asks why must he be in that car. He cries. Chiyo asks him for his name. He says he is Kobayashi Masao. He just graduated from elementary and works delivering milk. Chiyo says his work must be early in the morning. The driver says he remembers, it was 5 AM when the train passed under the bridge. The detective says it was Kirigahara Bridge.

The Medicine Seller says the dots are finally connected. The door opens but no one comes in. The scales in the ceiling, starting from those near the door, tilt to one side, as if following someone invisible. They hear a cat’s mew. The delivery boy says there was a woman holding a cat at the site of the accident. One of the stanchions move, as if someone is holding it. The Medicine Seller says it’s a Bakeneko.

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