Black Butler: Public School Arc

Episode 4

Heavy is the chest that wears the flower, at least if that chest belongs to Ciel Phantomhive, and the flower signifies his entrée into the coveted P4 set. As I mentioned before, Ciel is used to being at the top of the food chain in both his life and his work, but now, as a mere drudge (even to no less a personage than the drudge of his house head), he's much closer to the bottom. That means he has to take extra care in his attitude: if he had to be sweet and obliging to get to this point, he'd better be even more so now that he has it. After all, the removal of Maurice's mask got him in trouble, and Ciel wouldn't want to fall into his own trap.

You can see that being a good little boy doesn't come easily or naturally to him. He does a decent enough job of holding his tongue when he's in the gazebo with the P4, at least about things like "don't give away Violet's sketching game," but later, it's confirmed that his attempts to be subtle about Derrick fall far short of the mark. Yes, he's on a mission from the queen (and kudos to Edward for figuring that out), which requires Ciel to keep playing a role but doggedly asking almost literally everyone about one random student is anything but subtle. Even if Derrick's family wasn't a few steps above him on the nobility ladder – and he's related to Queen Victoria, so he's from a family of royal dukes – it also looks a little odd that he's waited until he got in with the P4 to start asking about him. In all fairness, Ciel may have assumed they'd believe he was looking for Derrick before and is just restating his questions, but that's almost too naïve for young Phantomhive. If the prefects are feeling suspicious (and at least one is), any mention of Derrick at all is going to raise their eyebrows since their statement about "more people have switched houses" seems to be followed by an unsaid, "especially around the time Derrick transferred which of course had nothing to do with covering something up."

It's also odd that they all discuss Derrick in the past tense. As far as I understood, Derrick hasn't been missing for that long, just long enough that his parents and the queen have started worrying. But the prefects (and not, as Ciel notes, their drudges) all act like he's been gone forever, or at least long enough that they're not thinking about him often. This could be a misdirection that doesn't consider Ciel's curiosity and determination. Still, it feels distinctly suspicious because it implies that all drudges may have been changed after whatever happened. The fact that everyone's answer also involves some variation of the phrase "the Head Master did it" is striking as well; it very well could have been his call (and it probably was), but it still could be read as an easy way of writing off Derrick's fate – well, it was Head Master's call, so nothing we can do about it. Let's go play cricket.

Of course, the question is why the Head Master stepped in, and what about Violet Wolf Hall makes it a good place to stash someone? Ciel's plan is a pretty good one on that front because as drastic as "tossing oil lamp into a building full of people" is, if Derrick's in there and alive, there's an excellent chance he'll come out. If he doesn't, he's either dead or a prisoner, both of which are major problems. Bluewer and Clayton are both already suspicious of Ciel, so he probably ought to move away from the front gate of Violet Wolf Hall before people start coming out (or at least switch to a dressing gown), but a slight suspicion isn't going to stop him from finding out what's going on.

I'd bet that someone will try their hardest to stop him anyway. How lucky he has a person tossing out quotations about death not being the end to deal with that.

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Black Butler: Public School Arc is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.