Eye of Fortune, Eye of Misfortune (Episode 25)

Eye of Fortune, Eye of Misfortune is the twenty-fifth episode of the anime series.

Synopsis
While passing through a town, Ginko encounters a strange woman named Amane who can see everyone's past and future, except her own.

Plot
A blind girl sees light blossoming in the darkness of her vision, it continues to grow and suddenly she is able to see normally.

Ginko wanders into a city and encounters a street performer named Amane playing a biwa, he notices the song she is singing is about a Mushi. He asks her where she heard it from and she tells him it was one of her father’s stories. She also correctly assumes he is a Mushishi. Ginko spends the night at the inn she works at. Amane reveals her father was a Mushishi but he is now dead because of “her eyes being of no use.” Ginko asks if she is blind and she replies saying she saw a Ganpuku. Ginko is surprised, saying that they are rare. She agrees to tell him more in exchange for him doing her a favor: burying her eyes.

In a flashback, Amane is blind and welcomes her father returning from a trip. Her father tells her he came into possession of an eyeball of someone who had seen a Ganpuku. For a few years after seeing the Ganpuku the man’s vision kept getting better and even after removal, the eyeball has not decayed. He promises he will cure Amanes blindness. Later in his study, he cuts open the eyeball and a black mushi bursts out from it. It escapes from the room and he gives chase but never finds it. A month later Amane sees a white flower blooming in the darkness of her vision. It keeps growing and she becomes able to see. In time she becomes able to see farther than normal and soon becomes able to see through obstructions. She is also able to monitor vast distances from her home, however, exercising this ability makes her nauseous. She only has peace when she closes her eyes and it becomes habit for her to keep her eyes closed. Furthermore, she becomes able to see future and past events. People show up to ask their fortunes and rumors spread of an oracle. However even if they become aware of their fate, they will not be able to change it. Soon criminal investigators come and eventually people stop visiting altogether. Sometime later, Amane becomes able to see through her eyelids. Her father goes on a trip but never comes back. She uses her sight to search for her father and eventually spots him dead in a valley. She decides to travel, telling her father’s stories with her biwa to pay for expenses. Eventually she finds and buries her father. She continues to travel and play the biwa.

Back in the present, Amane reveals that her sight has continued to improve and she can now see her own future. She tells Ginko that soon the Ganpuku residing in her eyes will come out and infect others which is why she wants him to bury them. She also tells him that treatments do not exist; regardless Ginko resolves to attempt a cure. Amane asks Ginko why he is so determined to help her, and he asks why her eyes don’t tell her why. She reveals that she cannot see Ginko's childhood. Ginkos says that his earliest memory was from around 10. He was lost, wandering in the dark, in the darkness he spots a fake looking moon which soon sets and a second moon rises. Eventually he wanders to a place where the sun rises and was thankful to see sunlight again. He asks Amane if she's afraid of losing the light forever. She is afraid but is more afraid of a world with only light. She would prefer to be in the dark rather than see the future but be unable to affect it.

Amane wakes up in the night with pain in her eyes, she is now able to see up the moment her eyes die. Ginko realizes that when she could only see other people’s futures, she was not able to see through her own eyelids. He theorizes that for her to see through her eyelids and view her own future means that her eyes have become independent. The mushi infests the eye when it is viewed and transforms them so it can live on after the host body dies. When it completely takes over the eye, it will leave the body. Ginko predicts it will split off soon.

The next evening Amane wakes up to find she is seeing normally, but soon notices that her eyes are moving on their own. Her eyes then fall out to reveal squirming black larvae, Ginko pulls close a net to confine them and captures them in a bottle.

Amane reveals that she has seen Ginko burying the mushi in the dirt, but they eventually infect an animal to continue its lifecycle.

Later, Ginko goes far into the forest to bury the Ganpuku. He reminisces about a conversation between him and amine outside the inn: she is blind again but is happy she can't see the future anymore. She resolves to continue traveling, playing the biwa, and telling her father’s stories. She asks Ginko to say hi if he ever sees her again.