Scott, Lydia, and Isaac sit in the Sheriff's office waiting to answer questions. Scott pictures Allison dying and then remembers Chris telling him to look at him. "You have to remember. You called me first, okay? Say it." Scott tries to repeat the story he's being coached to say. That he called Mr. Argent. That there were two assailants who tried to steal their car. They wore masks. One of them had a knife. "You think. Don't get specific, Scott." Chris tells him that if he gets confused to just repeat, "It happened so fast." 

 

Scott turns to look at Chris and asks him how he's doing this--being so calm. Chris looks away from him, his eyes welling with tears. "It's what we do." 

 

Deputy Jordan Parrish asks the three of them if they can remember anything else. Isaac whispers that he's sorry, and the Sheriff puts his hand on his shoulder. "It just happened so fast," Isaac says. 

 

Stiles and Kira are at Kira's house with her mother. Noshiko offers Stiles some tea to calm him. "What, like magic tea?" "No, chamomile tea. Drink it." Ken Yukimura walks in declaring that Stiles isn't safe there. Noshiko points out the Stiles isn't safe anywhere. Kira tells them that Allison killed an Oni. "Doesn't that mean something?" Kira's parents aren't sure how it's possible, but Kira insists that she did do it. "Yeah, and then they killed her," Stiles says. "Allison's dead. Now I guess the only good thing is it looks like I'm dying, too."

 

Noshiko sits next to Stiles and says that the nogitsune made a powerful move by splitting the two of them. Kira asks what their move is, and her father replies that they need a divine move. Noshiko explains that, "In the game of Go, it's what we call a truly inspired, or out-of-the-box move." The nogitsune has had the advantage up until now. They need a divine move to turn the game around. "Okay, so is anyone feeling divinely inspired?" Stiles asks.

 

Kira asks her mom about the jar she buried the nogitsune fly in. But it wasn't that jar that kept the nogitsune trapped, it was the fact that she buried it under the nemeton. Stiles realizes that Deaton knows more about the nemeton than anyone. 

 

Chris and Isaac go the Argents' apartment. Isaac is sobbing quietly. Chris stops just inside the hall and doesn't turn to look at him as he says, "I appreciate the concern, but you don't have to stay." He tells him that he's dealt with this before, even as his voice breaks. "I have a capacity and an ability to compartmentalize my emotions." Isaac looks at him and whispers, "I don't." 

 

Chris pulls Isaac into a hug. After a few seconds, his expression hardens from grief into anger.

 

The Sheriff tells Deputy Jordan Parrish that they need to keep this quiet because once the press finds out they're going to be all over Scott, Lydia, Isaac, Kira, and Stiles. Parrish asks if he'd like a squad car outside his house, and the Sheriff agrees to it. As he's looking out into the station, Parrish sees an Oni appear behind another deputy. He draws his gun, much to the Sheriff's surprise, and starts shooting at the Oni.

 

Derek uses a lighter to burn the rest of Ethan's wolfsbane wound closed. Presumably he put some wolfsbane in the wound first, like he had to do with his own in Season 1. Derek snaps his lighter shut and tells them that they should be fine in a few hours unless they get themselves shot again.

 

Aiden marches away, ready to go find Lydia. Derek asks if he's going to convince Lydia to go with him. "I'm gonna try and convince her to run and hide. Like any sane person would do." Derek looks at Ethan and asks if he intends the same for Danny. "Allison's dead. Stiles is dying. What do you think?" "I think Danny won't believe you. And Lydia would never run and hide." Aiden asks if he means because she wouldn't leave Stiles. But he means she wouldn't leave Scott. 

 

Derek then explains to them why they haven't been able to get into Scott's pack. "You don't fight for a leader. You fight for a leader's cause. Scott's always been about one thing. Saving his friends. He will do anything and everything to save the people he cares about. When there's no chance of winning, he keeps fighting. When all hope is lost, he finds another way. And when he's beaten down, he stands up again. You want to earn a place in his pack? You want redemption? Find another way to stand and fight." 

 

Scott and Lydia meet up with Deaton at the Animal Clinic. They tell him about the nemeton keeping the nogitsune trapped. "The problem is this isn't even a person you're fighting. It just looks like one." Lydia points out that if someone caught it once, they can do it again. Deaton explains that when the nogitsune was first trapped, the nemeton was still whole. It doesn't have the same power now that it's been cut down. Scott asks if there's anything that does. Deaton tells them that when the tree was alive, the wood was sometimes used to contain powerful objects. 

 

Lydia makes the connection to the triskele urn and asks if an alpha's claws would be one such powerful object. Deaton asks her which alpha. "Talia Hale." Deaton confirms that the box was made from wood from the nemeton because he carved it himself.

 

The nogitsune goes to Beacon Hills Hospital and asks at the front desk if they can page Melissa. Two Oni appear next to him and stab the nurse before he can even respond. The nogitsune watches the man fall and says, "Well, I guess I'll just find her myself." 

 

He and the Oni walk through the hospital killing people at random. An orderly tries to beat an Oni with a tray. They slice up everyone they can find on their way to the elevator, while the nogitsune stands back calmly and watches.

 

In the sheriff station, Parrish, the Sheriff, and a redshirt deputy take cover. The Sheriff edges toward the door and peers around at the Oni that Parrish shot, which is lying on the ground. Parrish moves to go with him, but the Sheriff signals for him to stay down. The Oni jumps to its feet, and another appears behind the Sheriff. The Sheriff turns and manages to get away without getting hit. They continue to unload bullets into them with no effect.

 

In the 2West hallway, Melissa and Rafael McCall discuss his leaving without telling Scott good-bye. She's incredulous that he think it's a good idea for her to just tell Scott his dad went back to San Francisco, says he's sorry, but didn't have time to say good-bye. For some reason, Rafael thinks that sounds good. They head into the elevator. She tells him that he can't bail after one fight if he wants a relationship with his son. 

 

The lights in the elevator flicker as they get closer to the nogitsune, and then the doors open on the massacre. The Oni charge at them, and one of them slices Melissa on the leg before Rafael McCall shoves her back out of the way. He fires a few shots at the Oni to keep them back as the elevator door closes. 

 

Isaac is in Allison's room, touching one of the ring daggers. Chris comes in and warns him to be careful. "When Allison was learning, she had to bandage her fingers because they got so raw." Isaac whispers to him that Allison kept trying to say something. "She didn't get a chance to finish it, but I'm sure it was just that she loved you," he says. Chris tries to keep himself from crying and tells Isaac that Allison made a point of telling him that earlier. 

 

Chris explains their tradition of the silver bullet, but Isaac already knows. "She was making a silver arrowhead," Chris says. He hands the ring dagger back to Isaac and gets up to leave. As he's walking away, Isaac asks him where the arrowhead is. Chris isn't sure why he's asking, but Isaac insists that he needs to see it. "Why?" "Because I have a feeling it isn't there."

 

Melissa moans in pain, and the slice on her leg bleeds the black smoke that makes up the Oni. Agent McCall makes a tourniquet around her leg, and she cries louder. 

 

In the sheriff station, Deputy Jordan Parrish falls back, but keeps firing. He runs out of bullets, and while he's switching clips, the Sheriff comes out. "You're gonna need a bigger gun." He fires at the Oni with a shotgun, knocking it flat. The redshirt deputy gets himself sliced up by the second Oni, which closes in on Parrish. The Sheriff shoves Parrish out of the way and gets cut on the arm. Parrish then shoves him out of the way and keep shooting while the Oni moves in.

 

Scott calls Derek about the triskele urn and says he'll meet them. Lydia hears whispering and almost faints. Scott catches her, and she tells them that something is happening and she feels like they're running out of time. Stiles and Kira show up, Stiles looking worse than ever. "Yeah, I kinda got that feeling, too."

 

Chris and Isaac go down to the basement and discover four additional silver arrowheads. Chris asks why she'd make four, but Isaac explains that she made five. "She made the first one, then she figured it out. She used the first silver arrowhead to kill one of the Oni." Isaac reminds him that during his first gun deal with the yakuza, he shot an Oni with a silver bullet. "But it didn't kill, it just broke his mask," Chris says. Isaac figures the bullet went straight through. It didn't stay in long enough to poison it. "What if that's what she was trying to tell you, that she'd figured it out?" 

 

Chris picks up an arrowhead and declares that they can kill the Oni.

 

Deputy Jordan Parrish and the Sheriff lean against the desks, each with a sword wound. The Oni just left the station. "Why did they let us live?" Parrish asks. The Sheriff looks at the wound on his arm with black smoke coming out. "I'm not so sure they did." 

 

Scott, Stiles, Kira, and Lydia arrive at the school. Lydia helps hold Stiles up while they walk. Stiles stops them just before they enter the school, aware that they're all worried that if their plan works it might kill him too. He wants them to go through with it, even if it kills him. "Stick with the plan, okay?" "The plan is to save you. That's the plan I'm going with," Scott says.

 

They walk into the school and enter the garden at the yakuza compound, covered in snow. The door closes behind them. "Well, this is definitely not part of the plan," Stiles says. 

 

In the elevator, Rafael McCall calls the Sheriff on his cell since no one at the station is answering. Melissa starts fading and tells Rafael to call Scott. He says that he needs to get her out of there. She tells him that if something happens, he needs to fix his relationship with Scott. He tries to not have this conversation. She reminds him that Scott is a teenage boy. "He doesn't care about apologies. He wants you to do better. And he probably wants you to suffer a little." 

 

She makes him promise to try, and he promises. The elevator door opens, and he waves his gun around, checking that there's nothing he has to shoot, then he drags Melissa out into the hallway filled with bleeding people.

 

Derek walks up to the school, already wolfed out. The nogitsune is there to meet him with two Oni at his sides. "Did you bring us a present?" the nogitsune asks. Derek sets the triskele urn down. Aiden and Ethan join him as he replies, "I brought two." "I've heard of an alpha pack, Derek, but not a pack of former alphas." Derek says that he's not an alpha anymore, but he can still fight like one. This isn't much a threat given that Derek never won a fight when he was an alpha.

 

In the snow garden, the bandaged man walks out to meet them. Kira draws her sword. The nogitsune claims that he's going to kill all of Stiles's friends one by one and then summons two Oni. Scott asks where they are, and the nogitsune tells him they are between life and death. They are in bardo. The nogitsune claims there are no peaceful deities here and that Stiles is dying. He taunts him that everyone he cares about it dying too.

 

"I've captured almost all of the territories on the board, Stiles. The hospital. The sheriff station. And now the animal clinic." At the clinic, two Oni appear and corner Deaton. He attempts to fight by using one of the Oni's swords against the other, but they eventually get a slice in. 

 

The nogitsune asks Stiles if he knows the ritual of seppuku. It's when a samurai disembowels himself with his own sword to maintain his honor. But that's not what kills him. He is killed when his kaishakunin cuts off his head. Scott is Stiles's kaishakunin. "I'm going to make your best friend kill you, Stiles. And you're going to let him." Everyone touched by an Oni's blade is going to die unless Scott kills Stiles first.

 

Stiles asks him why he's doing this, and he replies, "To win the game." More Oni than are actually left swing their swords. Lydia and Stiles draw closer together, Scott wolfs out, and Kira prepares to fight. 

 

The Sheriff yells at Parrish to keep his eyes open. Parrish asks if they've been poisoned, but the Sheriff isn't sure. He just knows that it's working fast. Agent McCall holds Melissa's hand. She makes him promise not to leave Scott again. He replies that she told him to leave. "I told a drunk to get out of the house. I didn't tell his father to get out of his life." 

 

Lydia and Stiles huddle together as Scott and Kira fight. Scott and Kira back up to one another and Scott asks her how it's even possible that they're in bardo. "You're asking me? A month ago I never even touched a sword." 

 

Derek and the twins fight two Oni outside the school while the nogitsune watches. The twins ask where the others are, and Derek replies that they must be in the school.

 

Lydia and Stiles continue to watch the fighting. Lydia claims that it can't be real.

 

Derek yells to the twins that one of them needs to make sure they protect the box. Two Oni appear next to it. "I hate ninjas," Aiden says, and goes to protect the box. 

 

Kira loses her sword during the fight.

 

Melissa looks weaker by the second, and blood starts dripping out of her mouth. Agent McCall yells at the other hospital workers, wondering what they means, but no one answers.

 

Stiles grabs the katana and holds it against his stomach. Scott yells at him to stop. "What if it saves you? What if it saves all of you?" Stiles asks. "What if it's just a trick!" Lydia replies. The nogitsune claims there will be no more tricks. Stiles gets ready to do it, but as he looks at the sword, he sees a reflection of items in the school. This makes him realize that it's all an illusion.

 

The nogitsune tells him that he has no moves left, but he thinks he does. He tosses Kira's sword back to her. 

 

The twins keep fighting. Aiden yells that they can't do this, they can't beat the Oni. Ethan tells his brother to take the box while he and Derek hold the Oni off. Derek throws an Oni down the steps. It gets up and prepares to attack again but is suddenly struck in the chest with a silver arrow. Derek looks over his shoulder to see Chris wielding a crossbow. "What was that?" Ethan asks. "Silver," Chris replies.

 

Derek yells at Isaac to get the triskele urn to Scott. The nogitsune for the first time looks afraid and runs away.

 

In the snow garden, Stiles tells everyone to stop fighting. "It looks real and it feels real, but Scott, you gotta trust me, it's an illusion." Scott turns toward the nogitsune and the door out. The Oni line up in a gauntlet, and as Scott walks between them, they cut him. It's a mirror of Christ going through the gauntlet on his way to Calvary. Kira takes a beating as well, but the both of them press on until they reach the door.

 

They emerge into the school without a mark on them.

 

Scott is amazed. "We're okay," he says. "We're--" But the nogitsune smacks him into the lockers and quickly does the same to Kira. "This was my game. Think you can beat me at my game?"

 

Chris continues to shoot Oni. An Oni slices the last arrow before it hits, and Chris tells Aiden to get it because it's the last silver arrowhead. Aiden slides to grab the arrow, then spins and slams it into the Oni. Simultaneously, the Oni impales him with its sword. Ethan shouts his brother's name, as Aiden pulls the blade out and drops it.

 

The nogitsune stalks forward toward Lydia and Stiles, angry. "Divine move. Divine move. You think you have any moves at all? You can kill the Oni, but me? I'm a thousand years old. You can't kill me!" Lydia stops running. "But we can change you."

 

The nogitsune just stares at her. "What?" They remind him about the Shugendo scroll. "You can't be a fox and a wolf," Stiles says. Scott then leaps up and bites the nogitsune on the arm. While he's reeling from that, Kira runs him through with the katana for good measure. 

 

The nogitsune fly escapes the dying host, and Isaac captures it in the triskele urn. The host jerks around, cracks, and dissolves into smoke.

 

Melissa wakes up, and her wound is healed. She leans against Agent McCall. Deaton touches his chest in relief. The Sheriff and Parrish help each other stand up.

 

Stiles looks woozy and passes out. He wakes up to everyone gathered over him. "We're alive. We all alive?" he asks. Scott thinks of Allison but replies, "Yeah. We're okay." 

 

Lydia suddenly senses someone dying and runs out of the school. 

 

Derek has Aiden propped up as Ethan and Chris gather around him. "Does it hurt you as much as it hurts me?" he asks Ethan. Ethan cries and tells him yes. Aiden tells him that it's okay. "Lydia never believed I was one of the good guys anyway." Ethan laughs. Derek tells Aiden, "She'll believe me."

 

Aiden coughs, and Ethan shushes him, trying to soothe his pain. He rocks him lightly, and Aiden dies. 

 

Lydia runs out of the school and sees them, then turns and rushes into Stiles's arms. Scott, Isaac, and Kira look on. 

 

Mr. and Mrs. Yukimura put the Go board away. 

 

Later, the next morning, Scott and Melissa are at the dining room table. He breaks down and cries in her arms. 

 

Isaac still has the triskele urn as he and Chris leave the apartment.

 

At school, Kira confides in Lydia that she doesn't know what to say to any of them or how much time or space she's supposed to give them. 

 

Coach and Malia come down the stairs at school. Coach asks her about running track and she tells him she ran from cougars. "I've had the same problem," Coach replies. He says they're going to start off slow, since she hasn't been in school since she was 9. (NOTE: The show isn't going to address how Malia's mental age, vocabulary, or level of learning could possibly match a teenager's. They just seem to be going with it.) Lydia watches Malia walk by and gives her a sad smile, remembering the last time she met the new girl at school.

 

In Scott's room, Stiles watches as Scott attempts to show Malia how to take our her claws. She tries once, but nothing happens. Scott advises her to just try to let it happen. She tries again, and her claws come out. She's so happy she turns towards Stiles, but he ducks back to keep from getting clawed in the face. 

 

Ethan and Danny sit together on some stairs at school. Ethan apologizes. "I just don't think I can stay." Danny tells him that it's okay, and Ethan is a little surprised that Danny is breaking up with him. Danny smiles. "I like you. A lot. You're incredibly good-looking. And smart and sweet. And... I just don't think I can do it." "Date me?" "Date a Werewolf." Ethan is stunned. "You knew?" "Dude, it's Beacon Hills." Ethan gives Danny a kiss good-bye, and Danny grins to himself as he leaves.

 

In his room, Stiles takes down all his case maps. His dad stops by to ask him what he's doing. "Just clearing my head," Stiles replies.

 

Scott is at the animal clinic. Deaton asks him if he's ever heard the term regression to the mean. He says it's a way of saying that things will always even out. "Like things will always get better?" "More like things can't always be bad." No matter how bad or how good things get, they always come back to the  middle. "I'm not so sure that applies to a town like this," Scott says. Deaton laughs and agrees. 

 

Derek is in the boys locker room talking to Stiles. He tells him that he was having a nightmare. He tells him that it started with the Mexican hunters who caught Peter and him after they left Cora. It was a family led by a man named Severo Calavera. They broke into Derek's loft.

 

We then see Severo Calavera and his men breaking in demanding to know where La Loba is. "You should just go ahead and kill me. Cause you're never gonna find Cora," Derek replies. Severo Calavera is confused because he's not looking for Cora. 

 

Suddenly a smoke bomb flies into the room. Derek ducks, and Severo Calavera's men start shooting. Something fast growls and starts taking out the hunters. Derek keeps loking around, but he can't see anything. Then a shotgun cocks, and he gets shot.

 

Stiles asks who shot him, and Derek replies by telling him about the myths for creating a Werewolf. "Usually a bite. There's one about rain water." "Drinking rain water out of the puddle of a Werewolf's print." "There's another one." We see a flashback of Kate asking Chris if you can get turned by a scratch, and then an image of Peter killing her with his claws. 

 

Stiles sits down across from Derek. "Derek, if this is all just a dream, why do you look so worried?" Derek looks at him and says, "Because I don't remember waking up." He asks Stiles how you tell if you're dreaming, and Stiles tells him that you have the wrong number of fingers. Derek grabs Stiles's wrist and looks at his hand, which has six fingers.

 

It then becomes clear that the conversation with Stiles is a daydream in Derek's head that started the moment he got shot by the shotgun. 

 

Derek drops to his knees in the loft, with a bullethole in his chest. "It's real. You're real."

 

Kate Argent steps out of the smoke. "That's right, Derek. And if seeing me is a surprise, watch this." Kate shifts into something with blue skin, green eyes, and cat teeth.