WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Episode 42 of Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon, "The Collapse of the Windmill of Time," now streaming on Crunchyroll, Funimation, Animelab and Hulu.
As the Grim Comet threatened modern-day Japan, the three half-demon princesses rushed to the Windmill of Time so they can save the world 500 years into the future. When they greet Her Ladyship for the first time upon their arrival, Towa and Setsuna are excited to finally meet their grandmother. However, things take a tragic turn for the worse when Kirinmaru forces his own daughter to kill Riku.
When Rion's artificial vessel ran out of lifeforce, Kirinmaru arrived to save her and resurrected her temporary body. While Kirinmaru claimed to save her out of fatherly love and a desire to protect his daughter, Rion rejected his love and doesn't thank him for saving her. Kirinmaru asked her to travel with him to the modern era but she refused because it would bring about the Degenerate Age she's been trying to prevent. Despite revealing his plan to destroy the Grim Comet to save the world in the future, Rion doesn't believe his intentions and decided to take a stand against her father.
Rion and Riku grow increasingly hostile toward Kirinmaru when they discovered his plan to use Towa's body as the new vessel for Rion. Kirinmaru cursed the Zanseiken before Rion gifted it to Towa, which caused the sword to steal Towa's Kon every time she uses the weapon. This curse will hollow Towa's mind and spirit, leaving her body an empty husk that another could take over. Rion attacked Kirinmaru in anger at his betrayal, but her emotions caused her to hesitate when she's given the opportunity to kill her father once and for all. Kirinmaru took advantage of his daughter's hesitation to redirect her weapon toward Riku when he tried to come to her rescue. In a tragic twist of fate, Rion accidentally killed her closest friend and ally before Kirinmaru put her to sleep and took her with him to the Windmill of Time against her will.
Meanwhile, the three half-demon princesses were on a separate mission to beat Kirinmaru to the Windmill of Time with the help of Akuru and Her Ladyship, most commonly known as Sesshōmaru's mother. After Jaken and Takechiyo brought them to their grandmother, Towa grew flustered when meeting her for the first time. Despite her usual cold and indifferent attitude that rubbed off on her son and her disdain for humans and half-demons, Her Ladyship willingly helped the three cousins in their mission and offered them advice. She informed them that the gates to the Windmill of Time will open for them because Akuru had already chosen them. However, she warned them that the resentful spirits in the underworld who perished because they weren't chosen by the Windmill of Time were preventing it from turning.
The three cousins had to fight and defeat Meidomaru, who embodied the collection of wrath and lost spirits who resented their fate. They successfully defeated him when Setsuna severed all of the red threads of fate connected to Meidomaru with her Yukari no Tachikiri. With the threads no longer tying him down with resentment, Meidomaru found peace and finally passed on which allowed the Windmill of Time to turn once again. After Towa used her Zanseiken to absorb Meidomaru's demon energy, Her Ladyship warned that the blade is cursed to whittle away her Kon when she uses it. She advised her granddaughter to discard the sword before the owner took control of her body and transplanted a new soul into it, but Towa claimed she'd master the sword anyway.
After Akuru hands them his pinwheel and the Windmill of Time begins to turn once again, the three half-demon princesses entered the gate and start traveling through time without knowing the tragic fate of Riku. While their mission was a success, Kirinmaru slipped into the open portal after them. With the race through and against time, Yashahime will be taking fans back to modern-day Japan for its next act.
