Hime returns from her business trip, and begins to broadcast a song of her own making throughout the city. Meanwhile, Akina meets with the Senior Council, which tells him to disregard that Enjin is in Gin's body. Afterwards, Akina meets with Yae, and tells her to keep his encounter with Enjin a secret. Hime, Ao, Kotoha, Kyōsuke, and Tōka agree to supervise a daycare center, but are unable to control the children until Ao uses her telepathic abilities to play with the children. When Ao reads the mind of Junta, a reclusive child, she accidentally reveals a promise he made with his missing father, and Junta runs away. Distressed, Ao refuses to use her telepathic abilities. Akina and Hime manage to find the boy's father, and Ao apologizes to Junta. As Ao relaxes on one of the Seven Pillars, she sees Enjin hovering in the sky.

Enjin demands that Akina open the entrance to the shrine, and Hime attacks him. Kotoha and Ao begin to fight Shinozuka, who manages to dodge all of Kotoha's attacks. Using the telepathic abilities of Gin's body, Enjin realizes that Hime is unwilling to seriously fight him because he is inhabiting Gin's body and overpowers her. Realizing that Hime cannot defeat Enjin, Yae decides to join the fight, but Mariabelle, Yūhi's assistant, reveals that Yūhi has forbidden her from interfering. Enjin forces Akina to open the entrance to the shrine by holding Hime hostage, and Akina does so. Yae throws one of her swords into Enjin's back, but allows him to enter the shrine, where he starts to force the tree to bloom. To stop the process, Hime uses the Dragon Spear to remove part of the tree.

The Senior Council reveals that if the Seven Pillars are cut down, the city members will have to flee, but a portal that connects the human world to the yōkai world will not be created. When the townspeople question the decision, Hime is unable to calm them. On her regular rounds throughout the city, she learns that Akina has sent out recommendations to the townspeople to hide in safe locations, and she accuses him of lacking the resolve to defeat Enjin. A pair of giant yōkai attack, and Hime attempts to defeat one of them by herself, but is defeated. Akina, Kyōsuke, and Kotoha defeat both of them, and Hime is hospitalized. Meanwhile, the Seven Pillars start to grow, and Kyōsuke orders that the townspeople abandon the area. In the hospital, Hime tearfully confides to Akina that she is too weak to save the town by herself, and Ao tells her to allow her friends to help her.