Beneath the cut is a detailed summary of 7 Seeds vol. 19 by Tamura Yumi. Don’t click through if you don’t want spoilers. Download the raw here.
Semimaru thinks he shot Ryou and is instantly filled with regret. He thinks “I didn’t mean to shoot him” and then thinks how that sounds like he’s just making excuses, but it really is true. Then he realises something’s wrong with his gun and wonders if maybe it didn’t go off after all, but the cartridge turned and he smelled gunpowder and felt the shock and saw the smoke. Then he looks up and sees Ryou pointing a gun at him and looks down to see he himself has been shot in the chest.
Ryou says, “Were you just playing the fool so you could attack me!?” But Semimaru is glad he didn’t shoot Ryou. Matsuri starts shouting and drops down to where Semimaru is lying on the ground, pleading for him not to die. Ryou notes that Semimaru is wearing a bulletproof vest.
We switch to Hotaru and Botan watching the captain’s video as he says the countdown is about to begin. He asks that the passengers spend their last day peacefully and says they will meet their end beautifully like cherry blossoms falling and then recites Samuel Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
However, when he finishes, shouting and gunshots can be heard in the background, and Botan says the screams and laughter don’t even sound human.
Hotaru asks if she wants to watch it again, but she says no. She says they shouldn’t panic, because this video is old and nothing’s going to happen now. However, Hotaru points out that the ship didn’t self-destruct, and there is a countdown going on right now. They realise something must have happened to interrupt it and now it’s begun again. But there’s still the hope that the mechanisms are too old to work correctly, and the ship will be unable to fire its missiles and self-destruct.
However, they decide it’s best to head to the control room and see if they can stop it anyway. Botan says Japan wasn’t supposed to have nuclear weapons, but when the end of the world came, they must have decided to ignore those rules. She says they must have thought other countries would attack, trying to steal Japan’s food stores, etc. and that’s why they left so many weapons behind. But the survivors ended up killing each other instead. It makes her think of the poison she was given to commit suicide if need be, and wonders if the desire for everyone to die beautifully (“beautifully…?” she thinks, incredulously) is a Japanese thing.
As they leave, the countdown passes 13 hours, and a dialogue box pops up saying that if they want to stop the countdown, they must do so before it hits 12 hours.
Meanwhile, Ango is pointing his gun at Arashi, still believing him to be Ugai. He accuses Ugai of causing Shigeru’s death and fires at him. His aim isn’t very good with his left hand, so he misses, but he cracks open a water tank that floods the room. He and Arashi are washed away, and that finally brings him back to reality and he recognises Arashi. He’s shocked to hear that he fired at Arashi and wonders if he was hallucinating.
The water is rising in the small space they’re in. There’s a small grate, but Arashi can’t get it off. At first they think maybe the water will just flow out through there and they’ll be fine where they are, but then Ango leans against a pipe and hears Ryou’s Morse Code tapping out his name. That seems to clear his head and he looks through the grate and realises that even if the water flows out, they might still drown in here.
Using Arashi’s knife as a screwdriver, they remove the grate and swim out and up into the other room. Arashi thanks him for saving his life, but Ango thinks Arashi shouldn’t be thanking him, since it was his fault they were in this situation.
The water is very cold, so both of them strip and huddle under a blanket on a narrow ledge just out of the water. Arashi is wondering why Ango has a gun, and Ango is wondering if he’s going crazy. Then he thinks that since he killed Hana, he might as well have killed her boyfriend, too. Arashi is asleep on his shoulder and Ango thinks Arashi is too unguarded considering Ango has a gun. He looks up and realises they probably can’t climb out.
Meanwhile, Ryou is still tapping for Ango, and Matsuri is examining Semimaru to see how badly he’s hurt. His ribs don’t appear to be broken, and Ryou says he’s lucky it wasn’t worse. Then as he’s about to ask why Semimaru was attacking him, Semimaru starts shouting about how there’s something dangerous in the ship.
Natsu is still psyching herself up to make the climb across the beam. She finally starts up on the ladder and is telling herself there’s no one here to see her, to laugh at her or get angry. She prays she’s not making a mistake.
Arashi tells Ango the ship is floating on end now as if it were meant to do so. Then he notices something floating in the water in the room with them. They turn out to be turtles. Ango says they must have been kept for food. They’re not dead, but hibernating. Arashi compares it to how they were in cryogenic sleep and says he’d like to set them free in the ocean if they wake up. Ango says if the ship doesn’t sink they could also use it to breed turtles for food.
Arashi tells Ango that when he first got on the ship and there was electricity and everything, he felt like even if it was safe to be on it, he wouldn’t want to live here. He says his girlfriend once said to him that a blazing fire under the stars was the best thing in the world and he had just complained about bugs, but now he understands. He now likes sitting around the fire with everyone, the long nights, and being recharged by the sun in the mornings. He wishes he could tell Hana, and he asks Ango if he feels the same.
Ango thinks the girlfriend he’s talking about must be Hana. He thinks fires are something you light when necessary, and the stars are something you look at for directions. The dawn is a signal for the start of a new day and a sign that you didn’t die in the night. “Hana is dead,” he thinks, and then he says, “Arashi… Your girlfriend…” but he’s cut off by Arashi, who has noticed Natsu up above them.
Natsu is slowly, slowly inching across the beam. Ango shouts at her, but Arashi says to keep quiet, that if she notices them it might break her concentration. Ango is already convinced she’ll fall, but Arashi has confidence in her. He says once she’s decided to cross, she will see it through. But Ango just keeps saying, “No, no, she’ll fall,” and thinking about Shigeru.
Natsu thinks she heard someone calling her and peeks over the edge. She sees there’s water and wonders if she’ll be okay if she falls, but then realises it’s too high. Ango climbs one-handed up onto some scaffolding and shouts at her again, telling her to go back. She starts getting agitated, just as Arashi was afraid she would.
Arashi climbs up to where Ango is and shouts at Natsu to calm down. She’s shocked to find him here. He tells her he was washed away and just happened to arrive at the same place. She starts crying. He asks her if there’s anyone else with her, and when she says she’s alone, he tells her that he and Ango are stuck and need help getting up there. He asks if there’s a rope or anything around.
Ango says Arashi shouldn’t have asked her, that it’s impossible for her to help, but Arashi just continues to tell Natsu to calm down and try to think of a way to save them. Ango keeps saying it’s impossible, but Arashi says Natsu has made it this far without complaining and that he relies on her. Ango closes his eyes and remembers Shigeru saying he would save Ango.
Natsu is paralysed at the thought of having to think up a solution on her own, but she knows she has to do it because there’s no one else. She knows any of the others would find a way to save them somehow, and if Arashi was the one up here and she was down there, he would find a way to save her. But she’s so high up and even if she had a rope, she couldn’t pull them up. And Ango’s hand is injured, so he couldn’t climb up on his own. Then just as she’s looking around wishing there were a long ladder or something sturdy like that, she sees a crane. She wonders how it works and if it’s even still working.
She looks around and sees what looks like a controller far away, but attached to the crane by a cord. However, she can’t reach the cord, so she’ll have to go back the way she came to get the controller. She shouts down to Arashi that she’s going to try and work the crane. He tells her to be careful and take her time. She’s scared to turn around, but then she just does it, and makes her way back across. As she’s crossing the beam, she thinks that before coming to this world, she couldn’t even make herself speak loudly, but she’s getting braver.
Her legs are trembling by the time she gets off the beam. She grabs the controller and presses the button and with a creak, the crane begins to move. She thinks that although she never used one before, this must be what one of those crane machines at arcades is like. Once she’s familiar with the controls, she tells Arashi she’s going to let it down. He tells Natsu to bring it back up on his signal, then says to Ango, “Let’s go. Have faith in Natsu.”
Natsu worries something will go wrong on the way up, but tells herself to stop thinking about it. On Arashi’s signal, she brings them up and over to the ledge. They get off, and Arashi says, “Natsu! Mission accomplished!” He also tells her the door is open and thanks her for saving them. She starts crying. He asks her if she’s going to use the crane herself, but she says she’ll walk. It’s her third time up on the beam now, and she moves faster. Arashi tells her to jump down and holds out his arms, but instead of jumping into his arms, she jumps down in front of him instead. He hugs her and says he missed her and she starts crying again, then high-fives him.
Arashi and Natsu trade stories about what’s been happening to each of them. She tells him she thinks they’re at the bottom of the ship and that in order to get up, this was the only door out. He tells her she was very brave, and she says she’s really glad she found the two of them and thinks, “This wasn’t a mistake”. Ango is tapping the pipes and not paying attention to them. They decide to continue on up and hope to find the others.
Meanwhile, Semimaru is poking at his shoulder and saying it hurts. He kicks his gun in anger and says the guns shouldn’t have been left here, because then people will use them and shoot others even when they didn’t mean to. He says there are more important things that should have been left instead. Ryou hears Ango tapping and tells Matsuri and Semimaru that he’s pretty far down and that he met up with Arashi and Natsu. They’re all surprised to hear Arashi is here.
As Natsu is walking along, she wishes she could change her menstrual pad. She notices some bathrooms and decides to go in to change it. She finds a bunch of unused toilet paper and brings the rolls out with her. She throws her used toilet paper in the trash, and as she’s walking out, thinks she hears rustling, but looks around and doesn’t see anything.
Arashi is excited about the toilet paper and goes to the men’s room to see if there’s any more. Meanwhile, as Natsu is putting the toilet paper in her backpack, she takes out the photo of Mimi the kitten and looks at it. Ango asks her about it and she tells him she found it, that it reminds her of her own cat, and that it helped give her courage when she was alone.
He tells her not to do anything like that again, that it’s too much for her, and that next time she’ll die. She says that he’s the one who told her she could do the tablecloth trick if she just tried, and he says that’s different because it’s not dangerous. Natsu says she wants to try, wants to be helpful.
Then Arashi comes back and he says it sounds like Ango wishes Natsu had messed up. Ango says that’s not true, then he remembers Shigeru saying Ango didn’t have faith in him or think of him as an equal, and that’s why Ango got upset when Shigeru beat him.
Ango clutches his arm in pain and Arashi asks if it hurts. Ango says it doesn’t hurt, that it’s all healed, and that this is just a hallucination, too, that he’s always hallucinating. Then he says Arashi and Natsu should go on without him, that he wants to rest a while longer, but Arashi says he won’t leave him behind.
Then Arashi says Ango said he was hallucinating before, and asks him what he say. When Ango explains that he thought he was in a cave, Arashi asks him if the cave was somewhere he’d been before, and says they should go look for a cave before deciding it was just a hallucination. Natsu agrees that there are places on the ship that look like they could be caves. Ango ignores them and says he’s leaving. He can’t believe they’re pitying him and tells himself to get a hold of himself.
Arashi tells Natsu she was cool to talk back to Ango, and she says, “I th, think so, too.” Then they go after Ango, and Arashi says they’ll have time to explore later. “Time” makes Natsu remember the countdown, and she wonders what it was for.
Botan and Hotaru climb out of the captain’s chambers and decide to go look for a ladder to climb up through the rest of the ship. They believe there is plenty of time, so they don’t hurry.
Ryou is still tapping the pipes, but can no longer hear Ango, so he assumes Ango has moved and is safe. Semimaru is telling Matsuri all about the skeletons and guns in the ship, then Matsuri asks Ryou why he has a gun. Ryou says it was in his things when he awoke, and Semimaru says that’s not fair. Then Ryou changes the subject and asks Semimaru about this dangerous thing he warned them about, and was it a human or an animal. Semimaru says he thought he sensed something, but now he’s not sure. Maybe it was just his imagination. Matsuri says this isn’t a movie, so there’s no way an animal could be waiting to attack them here, but Ryou thinks that although Semimaru is stupid, his instincts aren’t bad, so there may really be something there.
Ryou says he’s going to look for Ango, and that Matsuri and Semimaru should leave the way they came, but Semimaru refuses, saying he’s not going back emptyhanded.
They find a kitchen, and Semimaru and Matsuri take a bunch of pots and pans. Matsuri is about to open a freezer when Ryou stops her, thinking of the shelter incident. He thinks there is something here, something dangerous, and they shouldn’t have come. He thinks if this were a test, they’d already have failed.
The next place they come to is a gym. There are basketball hopes and a ping pong table. Matsuri and Semimaru play ping pong, and are shocked to learn Ryou has never played it. They get him to play a little and then Matsuri and Semimaru start playing with the basketballs, which are kind of flat. They find volleyballs and golf clubs, too. Ryou throws the basketball and makes a basket, and he remembers Aramaki asking if Summer A played baseball.
Matsuri says it’s strange, but not that long ago she would have seen this place and cried, wanting to go home, but now it’s just nostalgic. She says she’s glad she came to this world. Ryou is surprised that she would say that. When they leave, they take a bunch of stuff with them, including the ping pong table.
Meanwhile, Ango, Arashi, and Natsu find a place that really does look like a cave. Arashi asks Ango if this is the place, and Ango says he doesn’t know if it’s the same place, but it was somewhere like this.
They find a room that was some sort of control room. Arashi says the clumps of stuff look like what he’s seen in pictures of the Titanic and other sunken ships. Ango explains that there are bacteria that eat iron, but that they can’t live in the air, so these must be evolved versions. He says this ship will eventually be destroyed by them.
He also explains that humans have iron in them, too, mainly in their blood, so the bacteria must have feasted on them, too. At Arashi and Natsu’s shock, he says not to worry, the bacteria won’t attack them. It’s just part of nature.
Arashi asks if Ango was the school president or had a little brother or sister. When Ango says no and asks why, Arashi says it’s because he’s very patient about answering questions and explaining things.
Botan and Hotaru finally make it up to the control room, but when they get there, they see the screen says there are only three minutes left to cancel the countdown.
Shocked, they try pressing the cancel button, but it wants an ID and password. Hotaru says they might be able to find out if they go back to the captain’s quarters, but there’s no time. Botan tries looking around there in the control room while Hotaru puts in whatever related words she can think of, such as Fuji, 7 Seeds, shelter, etc.
Of course nothing works, and the timer reaches twelve hours, locking them out of the ability to cancel. Botan still thinks there’s really no reason to panic, since the systems probably won’t work correctly even when the countdown reaches zero. However, just in case they decide to look around to see if there’s a manual shut-off somewhere.
Back to Semimaru’s group, who notices that it’s suddenly getting dark. All the lights are starting to shut off. Ryou wonders if the ship is running out of power or if this is a deliberate brown-out to conserve power. Semimaru says they’ll be in trouble if it gets completely dark and Ryou says that’s why they should get out right away. However, Semimaru is still determined to search for more “treasures” like his ping pong table.
Just then they hear a noise below like machinery moving. They follow the sound into a large open room and find themselves standing in an elevator. Ryou has never seen an elevator before, which Semimaru takes as more proof that Ryou is from some super hick town in the middle of nowhere. Just as he’s grabbing Ryou and tearfully saying how sorry for him he feels, the elevator starts to drop uncontrollably.
It comes to a halt some ways down, having wedged itself slightly sideways in the shaft, leaving them trapped. Ryou climbs up onto the top of the elevator to find the cables have snapped. Ryou says they might be able to climb up a little, but not far.
Then they hear another noise and look out the open side of the elevator to see the missiles rising up (though they don’t know they’re missiles). Ryou realises that must be why the ship was shutting off the lights, to refocus its remaining power.
Ryou uses the rope to go down as far below the elevator as possible, knowing that if the elevator falls while he’s down there, he’s a goner. He finds another exit, but the rope isn’t long enough to reach it.
He climbs back up to find Semimaru and Matsuri eating dango. Matsuri says they’re funny-shaped and should be round, but Semimaru says they’re like tsukimi dango. Matsuri says those should be round, too, but Semimaru says his mom always used to make them triangular. They ask Ryou to settle the argument for them, but he just stays silent.
Semimaru says he wishes they had kinako for them and Matsuri says if they had soybeans, she’d like to make some. Semimaru is surprised that kinako comes from soybeans, but when Matsuri is shocked that he didn’t know, he says he did know that tofu is made from soybeans. She says not just tofu, but soy sauce and miso as well. He says well, they’re all yellow-ish, so it makes sense. Then she tells him edamame are soy beans, too, and he says, “Edamame!? No way! But they’re green!”
Then Semimaru says that his mom rarely celebrated festivals, but she always did tsukimi and tanabata. Matsuri says she must have been romantic, since both are festivals that involve the stars. Semimaru says maybe it reminded her of his dad, whom he never knew. He’s upset that his mom never told him, and while he’s talking about secrets, it reminds Ryou of Hotaru saying he had a secret that he was deliberating over telling them.
Matsuri says Semimaru’s mom didn’t tell him because she was kind. She didn’t know whether it would be a good or bad thing for Semimaru to know, so she just didn’t tell him. Semimaru says it should have been his decision and that she just didn’t trust him and treated him like a child.
Matsuri notices Ryou is just kind of staring off into space. Semimaru asks Ryou about his parents. Ryou says he doesn’t have any. Surprised, Semimaru asks if he was raised by his grandmother, but Ryou says he never had parents to begin with. Semimaru doesn’t know how to respond.
Ryou then asks him what he meant back in the sauna, when he said people are most happy when they have something to regret. Semimaru doesn’t remember saying it, but says he probably meant that like if you regretted hurting someone, you could get drunk and wallow in it, and that feeling like you had such an influence over someone felt good. And also that if you were depressed over it, you didn’t have to move forward, and that feels good, because what’s really hard is giving yourself a kick and making yourself move on. Matsuri wonders if he’s speaking from experience, and he says his life is an ocean of regrets. While they’re talking, Ryou is thinking about Ango.
Then Semimaru gets up and starts jumping on the elevator floor. He says if he moves each side a little bit, they can get the elevator down little by little. Ryou thinks it’s too dangerous, but Semimaru keeps going.
Finally they reach the exit Ryou had found, and Ryou throws Matsuri through the hole first. Then Semimaru pushes his ping pong table through while Ryou jumps out, and just then the elevator begins to fall. Semimaru nearly falls with it, but Ryou grabs his lifeline and hauls him back up. Ryou gets really angry and yells at Semimaru to stop being so impulsive and thinking everything will work out in the end. He wonders to himself why he saved Semimaru.
Natsu, Arashi, and Ango are still wandering around trying to find a way up. They find another machine room, one that hasn’t been corroded as much. There is a map of the ship, showing they’re still pretty far down. Natsu looks at the controls and notices the machines are working, but she has no idea what they’re doing or how to control them. She thinks about how this is how technology is lost, when there’s no one who knows how to use it.
Arashi sees a screen with the countdown and Natsu tells him she saw that below, too. Ango says it was probably counting down to the meteor impact, which makes Arashi say it feels like they’re on a ghost ship.
Natsu notices that the corrosion has spread just since they entered the room, however, she thinks she might be mistaken, so this time she marks a spot that’s uncorroded so she can check. While she’s doing so, Arashi asks Ango if he’s good with computers and such, since he seems to know how to do everything, but Ango says no, it was assumed there would be no computers or machines in this world. Arashi thinks it’s unfair that some people were told they were going to come here and were prepared.
Then Natsu turns around and sees the place she marked is now totally corroded. Ango says even if they’re not directly affected by the bacteria, they should get out of here ASAP because the ship will get worse and worse.
Ango finds a room that looks like they can climb up through. Ango says he’ll go first, but Arashi says he should go, since Ango’s hand is injured. Ango remembers Shigeru saying he would go first, and hits Arashi, insisting he will go first himself. As he unwraps his hand, he thinks, “This time I’ll make it to the top and get out. Taking Shigeru with me.” He climbs up a ways until he reaches a ledge, then has Natsu climb up second. Arashi tells her to just be calm and take her time.
Matsuri, Semimaru, and Ryou walk in silence after Ryou’s outburst. Ryou is still tapping on the pipes, but gets no answer from Ango. Matsuri hesitantly notes that the hallway they’re following is turned on its side, and Ryou says the elevator must have moved side to side when the ship was on its side. Matsuri is happy that he responds normally.
She peeks in one of the doors underfoot, but they’re all dead ends. She says they fell a long ways, so they need to go up, but there are no doors on the ceiling. Ryou says he can smell the sea and to be careful.
They come to a room with a bunch of stagnant sea water. Semimaru exclaims about the algae growing all over, but as soon as he realises he was yelling, he gets quiet and starts apologising. Ryou just seems amused.
Matsuri says that the water must have collected when the ship was on its side and then flowed down when it turned on end. Ryou notes that the water isn’t rising, so it’s not leaking. Matsuri examines the room and finds a sheet with budding soybeans on it. Semimaru says it looks like sprouts, not soy beans, and she tells him that soy beans make sprouts, too. He calls soy beans the “king of beans”.
She and Ryou figure out that it must be the sea water that flowed in that started them sprouting. Matsuri reveals that her family were farmers and that she used to hate that, but it’s given her a purpose in this new world.
They decide to take as many of the seed sheets as possible, and Semimaru sacrifices his ping pong table to help them cross the water to a door on the other side.
Natsu, Arashi, and Ango are still climbing. Partway up, Natsu slips and falls back down to where Arashi is. However, aside from hitting her knee, she’s fine, thanks to the safetyline. But Ango is freaking out over it. Arashi and Natsu climb up to where he is and he tells them that there was a test to choose the seven who would go to the future, and everyone else died. Natsu keeps saying, “That’s horrible! That’s horrible!”
Ango keeps telling them they can’t understand because they didn’t have to go through it. Arashi says he’s right, they can’t understand. Then he asks why they didn’t run away. Ango looks at him like it never occurred to him, and Arashi asks again couldn’t they have all worked together to escape?
Matsuri, Semimaru, and Ryou find the place where Natsu wrote her name with an arrow on the wall. They follow the way she went and pass into a large, open chamber. Ryou sees the countdown, and Semimaru looks over to where something’s moving. He says, “Hey, guys, aren’t those missiles?”
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