Bal Masque’s plan slowly comes to fruition whilst Shana trains hard for the upcoming battle.

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Near Shanghai’s Outlaw Branch, Bal Masque’s Sydonay faces off against Flame Haze Yu Xuan and crimson lord Di Hong. After what looks like an even exchange of attacks, Yu Xuan is caught in a trap and immediately obliterated. That finishes off this outlaw branch. But Sydonay isn’t in the mood to celebrate.

Shana returns home to a letter from Sophie. She tells Shana to stop fooling herself, and be one with herself. Shana repeats that phrase to herself but doesn’t get it.

Elsewhere, Pirsoyn, a small kid in appearance meets a hairy monster, Stolas who was with Sydonay when he fought earlier this episode. Ribesal, a large humanoid beetle like monster appears. He’s unhappy that their new lord is just a mystes and wonders why everyone obeys him. Stolas, being a herald, says he will report Ribesal’s opinions. But he’s still not happy with that, so he comes up with a better plan.

On top of some snowy mountains, the new Yuji along with Hecate and Bel Peol stare into the far distance. A bard like Denizen plays a quick tune on his lute next to them. Bel Peol reports that Shanghai outlaw has fallen. Yuji recognises that the only one capable of hindering their plans is the Flame of Heaven. Bel Peol wonders why their master chose Yuji as a host, but she still trusts in everything he says.

Suddenly a gateway opens and Fecor steps in telling them that everything is set up for an audience with everyone. As soon as Yuji enters the main halls, Ribesal steps up and demands him to prove his strength. Yuji stops him dead and tells him that he’s grown. He retreats and bows to allow passage.

Yuji steps up in front of everyone and declares he has 2 commands to give.

Back in the real world, Shana and Margery are training again, but Shana’s mind’s elsewhere. Margery decides to call it quits but Shana wants to continue. So they suggest naming her power to mentally make her focus. But then she realises that this training is for her to find herself. After that, her power is significantly enhanced and training resumes.

In a raining street somewhere Lamies sees an odd magic circle on the wall and greets Decarabia. He says he doesn’t see an emergency, but he still received a mobilization order.

At a train station Keisaku remembers back to leaving Margery. He was handed a bookmark like device that detects Denizens nearby and is told to run if he ever senses one.

Suddenly on the train, he senses something dangerous nearby and starts to panic. He tries to run, but in the end the denizen was on another train nearby, not his.

And the Denizen, is no other than Sakai Yuji.

Thoughts:

Ha, I knew it, I knew it. This new Yuji is someone from ages ago who led Bal Masque who needed a vassal strong enough to hold itself. Yuji can hold a lot of ‘fire’ or power of existence because of what happened with Hecate quite a while ago, and the Reiji maigo regenerates that power every day, seems like the perfect vassal. And I don’t care if you believe me or not, but I got all of this explanation apart from Yuji being an old leader of Bal Masque before Bel Peol told everyone. She just confirmed and added details for me.

So yes, this episode cleared that up, and the person inhabiting Yuji is someone very strong, enough to lead Bal Masque and command everyone’s respect, even the trinity. But even so, I still wonder if he should risk going to meet Shana alone. I mean sure he’s Yuji and all, but if you’re the leader of a huge evil organisation, you’d stay in the shadows more in my opinion. But oh well, I wonder what he’s there for. And I also wonder if Yuji’s presence is there at all. If it goes the typical ‘happy’ ending way, I assume Yuji will take back control to allow Shana to kill him. But that’s a long way off so I better not get an image of the ending in my head already, way too early.

I don’t like that Ribesal, what he says is untrue, a leader of a civilised organisation needs no strength to back up his leadership. He needs intellect to command everyone. Look at Zhuge Liang from the three kingdoms era, (think I’ve mentioned him before at some point), he was probably the weakest person in the army by far and yet he destroyed everyone with a sweep of his fan. But yeah, I guess this Bal Masque isn’t particularly civilised, they do go on a hierarchy of power…

Glad to see Lamies again, probably my favourite character in the series or at least top 2. I do wonder what he’s doing greeting a random magic circle on a wall. He’s more mysterious than most, so whatever he’s up to, it’s gonna be interesting.