From the back cover:
Mokuren yearns for friendship, but she keeps overhearing the members of the KK research team bad-mouthing her. Handsome Gyokuran treats her with kindness, yet Mokuren is instead drawn to bad-tempered Shion, since he’s the only one who can see her as a fellow mortal. When the team learns that their star system has been destroyed, Gyokuran turns to Mokuren for a miracle, not understanding that she is just as emotionally devastated and powerless as everyone else.
Meanwhile, in the present world, Jinpachi and Issei learn how to see Alice’s dreams, but she’s reluctant to visit the painful events of her past…
Review:
Volume seventeen is almost entirely Mokuren memories, but contains more of the present day than the previous volume. The repetition (four times) of Mokuren overhearing a conversation about her got a little annoying, but I really liked how much more is learned about Enju, Shusuran, and Gyokuran here. Not only more about their personalities, but also their interactions with other members of the team. Shusuran’s development particularly stood out. I wouldn’t say that I like her personality, but I like her as a character, and especially seeing her and Enju together.
I caught something here that I didn’t previously—that the team seems to think Shion wants their passwords to use the base to act as God over KK. Perhaps we were supposed to think that was possibly Rin’s true ambition all along, and I am coming to the realization late.
The volume ends before Alice can dream about the rest of what happened when Shion was in confinement or any of the events afterwards. The concluding chapter takes place in the present day and really worked to build suspense for what will happen when she has seen everything. As if I weren’t impatient enough to see some progress in the present day story!