The episode starts with Makina “approving” Yuuji to be her father. And thus, he becomes her father. Actually, she initially offered to buy him for 70 million yen (about 700,000 USD…actually less than 600,000 now with these recent rates). Makina is from a family with great political power which is also related to Yuuji’s organization.
Makina’s father married into the family. However, when he realized the corruption of the family, he tried to sell them out. He was involved in an “accident,” and Makina’s little sister was replaced as the successor to the family when she developed a mental illness. Meanwhile, Makina is growing an apple tree and summer vacation begins. Yuuji explains that despite vacation, she’ll go on a morning 5 kilometer jog and do homework before breakfast every day, followed by training.
Apparently Yuuji bought something online with Yumiko’s computer. It turns out to be a sniper rifle, and he’s teaching Makina how to snipe. Amane leaves for home during the break, and Yuuji plans to visit his master’s grave in the mountains. He borrows Amane’s motorcycle and they go to visit her. He explains that after his family passed away, he lived with an “acquaintance,” who was a “villain.” His master saved Yuuji from him, and he went to America before coming back to live with Asako, his master. In some ways, she was a mother to him. In the house where Yuuji grew up in the mountains, JB left a picture of the three, and he introduces Makina to Asako.
Later, Makina is on her way home from shopping and sees Sarina, her little sister in the city. Sarina is from a different father and is unaware of Makina’s existence as a sister. As she walks by the car, it suddenly explodes when the engine starts. Makina does not have any serious damage, but it seems Sarina was a target for political reasons. Yuuji recalls how he promised to protect Makina no matter what. However, he is called to headquarters where JB meets him to explain a new assignment. Upon opening the documents, he finds his assassination target: Irisu Makina.
The truth is Makina’s father was murdered for trying to reveal the corruption of the family he married into. In a flashforward, Yuuji has run away with Makina and is attempting to escape from the assassination attempt. Originally, he had no choice but he to accept the request to escape being detained. But of course, he betrayed them to save Makina. Although he is taking out the agents following him, JB realizes he can’t keep it up forever.
When they were leaving the school, Makina received something from each girl except Yumiko. Instead, Yumiko is watching them from the roof, as per her personality. JB warns Yuuji that he can’t just run around with her. She explains some of the political issues surrounding Makina and her family. Makina had memorized some of the documents that her father had procured and is a dangerous existence to the family. At the same time, there is a faction that wants her to return to being the successor. Yuuji says he will protect her and tells JB to send everything after her.
Makina recalls about the incident with her father. When her father was killed, she had also been kidnapped to lure him. She was left tied up, watching her dead father’s rotting corpse for 6 days without any food or water. Instead, she spent the entire time talking to him. This is the source of her mental illness. Yuuji is making some “toys,” and lures out his pursuers. They infiltrate the building but fall for Yuuji’s trap; instead, Makina and Yuuji are hiding inside a refrigerator and use the chaos to escape.
Makina realizes she forgot the apple sapling she got from Sachi. She wants to go back to get it, but Yuuji convinces her not to. Meanwhile, a letter from the “professor” in the organization’s basement tells them to leave the apple sapling where they found it. Makina has, unfortunately, returned to the scene of the crime to get the sapling only to be shot after an impressive struggle. Yuuji tries to save her, but he has no choice but to hand her over due to her need for medical care. Makina’s mother is quite annoyed and suggests that she’ll use Makina’s organs to save her sister. Yuuji, on the other hand, won’t have any of it. He sneaks into Makina’s mother’s office, and quickly shoots her to death. The Irisu family’s corruption gets revealed, and so Yuuji and Makina are no longer targets who need to be on the run.
Makina is a girl in desperate need of a father figure. Her father was murdered before her eyes, and her complex family situation doesn’t seem to care, casting her aside as useless, even though she is still the official heir. As such she has a habit of copying those around her. When she meets Yuuji, she calls him onii-san, which she later reveals as a “test.” She judges him to be worthy of her papa and is willing to pay him for it. Of all the girls, Makina is the easiest to draw a Christian parallel to as her relationship with Yuuji is one of that between a daughter and father. However, she immediately gets one thing wrong – she thinks she needs to buy his love. Although Yuuji agrees to hold onto the money, he does not factor the money into his decision. If he does, it is only because he realizes how twisted her concept of relationships and a father figure are. Sometimes people feel this way about God. They feel that we need to win over His love because they are so unworthy of it (and we all are). Other people feel that the relationship is an undesirable trade – we go to heaven but have to obey all his rules for our entire lives; they would much rather go to hell than have to live by such silly rules. But like Makina, these concepts of the relationship with God the Father are wrong. First, God loves us no matter what we do and will do in the future. There is no need to pay for His love, and in fact, the only “payment” that was required was already made by Jesus. Unlike Makina, we do not need to find a father figure because we already have the Father waiting for us to accept Him, not the other way around.
Second, it is true that there are numerous rules to live by as a Christian, all of which are impossible for humans to follow perfectly. However, these rules should be followed not begrudgingly but lovingly because we love God. Christianity is not about following rules but about having a relationship, and in that way, we agree to His “rules” out of love. Yuuji, too, explains to Makina that he will raise her the way he sees fit and it may be a harsh lifestyle. She agrees not because she wants any father figure, but because she has chosen him specifically. She follows his unorthodox military regime because she has decided he is someone who is worthy to follow. Furthermore, Yuuji explained how he would probably not be her “ideal” image of what a father was but that he would definitely protect her no matter who her enemies are. In the same way, God is often not like the kind of father we want Him to be; we have our own selfish desires that we impose on Him and when He fails to meet those expectations, we blame Him. However, even so, God stays on our side and like Yuuji, will never turn against us in the face of our enemies.
Makina exhibits a child-like behavior of imitation toward not just Yuuji but people in general. However, as she grows closer to Yuuji, she imitates him more and more from his actions to his manner of speech to eventually being his successor in his job (in the VN). This is exactly like how our relationship with God should be. The more time we spend with God, the more we begin to exhibit His loving and graceful characteristics. It is not a trial to painfully get through every day; it is a relationship that grows as we become closer to each other. It is the child-like innocence of Makina that we should strive to be like – one which will let us easily imitate our Father who we have chosen not out of obligation but out of love.
