There were only three episodes on the second volume, and the first wasn't honestly too bad. It picked up four years later (called that obvious timeskip), Yakumo and two monks attempting to divine where Pai was. However, Benares (the other Wu), has summoned all the lesser demons of the world to track Pai down and prevent the two from finding one another. This amounts to absolutely nothing, but there you go. Cut to some city where we find Pai, now
a school girl, being corrected by her two annoying friends for somehow winding up in
a dirty magazine because she let someone take her photo on the street. She appears to have lost all of her memory before the big explosion in Hong Kong at the end of volume one, and ends up crossing paths with
a homeless man that turns out to be YAKUMO.
Yakumo, being the level headed person he is, decides the best way of approaching his lost love is to hug her from behind. She freaks out, having lost her memory and all, and runs away screaming a pervert is attacking her. Once in an alley, Yakumo is attacked by some creature we later learn is Pai's guardian (oh, thanks for randomly injecting that into the story), and Pai passes out. She awakens in her home
from a nightmare involving her past as a Sanjiyan, only to find Yakumo downstairs with her "grandparents" and two friends. They are all relieved to see she is okay, and the grandparents suggest everyone stay the night since it is late and Yakumo carried Pai home.
Neither Yakumo or Pai can sleep, and they run into each other on the balcony of the house. Yakumo attempts to hide who he is as Pai probes him for answers about who he is, what he's doing there, and if he knows anything about her lost memory. However, they're suddenly attacked by
large mannequins that the grandfather uses in his work. I think? He's apparently a doll maker, as their home is
littered with creepy dolls. Anyways, it seems Yakumo has made the most of his last four years and starts
kicking all sorts of butt. He still finds time to make
random groping humor for the viewer... However, a special mannequin shows up, and it has fully modeled female genitalia
and nipples. Grandpa, just what were you
really working on..? Things start going poorly as the mannequin won't die and, using the dolls in the house, she
possesses Pai's family. The two escape on the back of her guardian
creature from before to a rooftop in the distance.
Yakumo gives Pai some kind of
weird glove thing that should give her back her powers or something if she speaks into it. Their peace doesn't last long, as Pai's possessed
friends turn up to deal out the damage. However, for all the fans of staring down the shirts of girls that look like they're in their teens, her friends are kind enough to rip her shirt so you can gets
lots and lots of chances to look. Seriously? Anyways, Yakumo gets
chomped up once the mannequin reappears and possesses Pai's guardian friend. When everything seems lost, Pai recounts the words that Yakumo told her to say, and she saves the day with her magic glowy stuff.
Oh yeah, and the new Pai had these three diamonds on her head blocking her power/memory. She broke two of them during the episode, but
the third is really stubborn. ANYWAYS. Yakumo attempts to leave the following morning for a flight to Tibet to find someone that can break the spell that has been put on Pai. However, she has tracked him down in the airport and forces him to let her
tag along.
The second of the three episodes picks up with a man stealing an incense jar from a temple. However, he's attacked by
Major Toht from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Well, he's actually Choukai, but Toht is much cooler. He and his goons run the self-declared Jake McDonald into the river nearby, but they are unable to locate him. The following morning, we see Yakumo and Pai cruising the Tibetan countryside in search of the very temple that had been attacked in the previous scenes.
The temple is deserted, but a wounded
Jake McDonald shows up with the incense jar. Yakumo notices it has three eyes on it, but he doesn't get a chance to ask about it before Toht and his goons show back up. A fight ensues, evil lady turns into
four-armed beast lady, McDonald blows up the motorcycle, and they end up escaping into the previous river on a boat manned by a monk from the beginning of the first episode that Yakumo was with.
On the way to the monk's hideout, they find a tiny,
young girl wandering the desert. They decide to bring her back with them, and they reach a hidden location in the mountainside.
Tinzin, the eldest of the monks, tells them all that the incense jar McDonald found is used as a key to reach the "holy land," where the Sanjiyan were from. Toht is acting under orders to prevent them from being able to reach the "holy land" by Benares. This makes no sense later on, when we learn what Benares had in mind for Pai. The group decides to go to one of the nearby gates to enter the "holy land," but McDonald doesn't trust the little girl they brought home. Pai convinces him with her determined face expressions, and they head for the gate!
Things don't go as planned when they reach the site, as Toht shows up blowing a whistle which turns the little girl into the four armed beast lady from earlier.
WHO WOULD HAVE SUSPECTED SHE WAS NOT WHAT SHE SEEMED? Things start going very badly for everyone, and Toht appears to have the upper hand, as he rushes off with beast lady to destroy the gate. Tinzin was seriously wounded fighting the beat lady and dies in Pai's arms. She
snaps, turning into the Sanjiyan. However, the Sanjiyan has also lost her memory and rushes off to chase Toht and kill him. Just because.
The third episode... Prepare yourselves. You have no idea what kind of insanity awaits.
Yakumo chases the Sanjiyan, who has caught up to Toht and BL, wreaking untold havoc. The earth starts breaking apart and she wakes up to the Pai personality hanging
from the edge of a piece of shifted earth. The beast lady, now in little child form, falls and she grabs onto her. It's all very dramatic, as nobody seems to be capable of doing anything. Thankfully, her guardian creature comes to save everyone, since Yakumo is now worthless, apparently.
They regroup and head to another nearby gate (convenient? what was the point of the previous stuff, then?). The incense jar requires blood of a human, and McDonald, being the only human of the group now, goes
down the lane to appease the incense jar. Geez, dude, you're frigging pouring out, watch it next time! They're all
teleported to a very white world with lots of stalagmites. However, we very quickly learn that they're not stalagmites at all... they're graves! Pai feels something pulling her in a direction, and they find a big turtle. It also houses some kind of blue, watery, holographic
video of a very little Pai that relays some general info to anyone that would find it.
We learn that Pai was actually Pavrati the 4th, and the big bad guy (Kaiyanwang [benares' sanjiyan]) is named Shiva. Also, they
were supposed to get married. And he was a full grown adult. And she looked like five in that video.
Yeah. He apparently had psychic powers beyond anyone else of the Sanjiyan and attempted to rule everything. The people fought back, but every Sanjiyan, save Pai, perished after sealing Kaiyanwang into some stone. Everyone acts all mopey and split up to think or something lame.
Benares kidnaps Pai, as she is alone, and Toht (okay, Choukai, but he looks like Toht) attacks Yakumo and McDonald. He transforms into some
big, nasty thing with a hole in his stomach. He captures the two and joins Benares in front of the stone where he plans to release Kaiyanwang. However, before Toht arrived, he explained to Pai that he plans to use her power to give to Kaiyanwang when he is released and she
still hasn't recovered her memory. Oh, also, she apparently isn't really Pai. Well, she is, but who she thinks she is isn't who she really is.
He commands "Howasho" to remember. What? We get a flashback to the moments right before the explosion in Hong Kong where Benares explains he will seal away Pai's memory. To do this, he will have a snake demon he trusts turned into
a diamond, placed on her forehead, and the snake's personality will control her. Pai arrives, the fight happens, he places the diamond on her head, and she wanders around the city finding the grandparents from before.
Let me break this down for you. There is ten minutes left in this final episode. We are just now finding out that Pai was still Pai's body, but her personality is
actually a snake demon that forgot who it was when it
joined with her body. Not only is there Howasho, the snake demon, there is Pai, the Sanjiyan, and Yakumo's spirit within this single body. Benares even gives Howasho an out by telling it a phrase that will release itself from Pai's body and give her back her memory. However, Howasho is scared to be found ugly by Yakumo now that it has found itself falling in love with the man who doesn't really love Howasho but Pai. However, Yakumo didn't know Pai wasn't Pai, and he still has no idea what is going on. We have ten minutes left in the final episode. Yeah. WHAT?!
So, the beast lady shows up, attacks Toht, and Yakumo blows his head off, freeing McDonald and himself. Why didn't he just do this stuff before? The heck, dude? Yakumo and Howasho try to
stare Benares down, but he has
a better stare. Howasho cries a lot as Yakumo, beast lady, and McDonald all fall at Benares' hand trying to let her escape. Yakumo begs for her to leave, but Howasho says she will
do what she must. Yakumo thinks she's going to do what Benares asks, since he doesn't know about Howasho, but the viewer knows she's going to release Pai. She says
the words, and THE SNAKE COMES OUT OF HER HEAD, SHEDS
A TEAR, AND THEN EVERYTHING GOES WHITE.
The scene picks up in the ruins of the place they entered? Not sure, but the Sanjiyan sits on top of the guardian telling Yakumo that she's going to return to the "holy land"
to wait for Pai to awaken. Oh, great, so she's still not awake yet. He's super confused as the Sanjiyan explains the whole snake thing to him. She rides off on the guardian, and Yakumo stares wistfully into the sky. Oh, and the beast girl and McDonald lived. They're okay too.
A young woman awakens in the hospital to the grandparents and two friends from the earlier episodes. She thinks, "Wasn't I just a snake?" She remembers the name "Yakumo," but nothing else, it seems. The Sanjiyan sits
outside of her window and internally wishes Howasho the best. Wait, what? I thought the snake died? How is it a human? Better yet, how is she still the same Pai from before now? The next day, she's walking down the streets with her friends and declares aloud she would love to have a boyfriend named "Yakumo" because it's such a great name. They all run off laughing together, passing a man that turns around to see them run off happily. I hate you, Yakumo. You and your stupidly
smug face...
