Shana is captured, Margery sleeps, Bal Masque prepares to move and Wilhelmina leaves the city.

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Shana wakes up from a horrible dream of Yuji trying to kill her and finds herself in a well designed bedroom with a Hogu on her wrist that completely locks away her powers.

Elsewhere in a huge hall, a battle strategy meeting is taking place of how best to attack the Flame Haze. During the meeting, Decarabia appears, he was the diagram on the wall that Lamies talked to, and his true form is that of a large fish. After he leaves, the debate starts.

Without her powers, anyone here can kill Shana. Her sword and Alastor have both been taken away. She remembers to the time when she tried to get through a pile of boxes in an alleyway and found herself stuck, and then Shiro rescues her.

Another flashback of when Shana was under the watchful eye of Sophie and she remembers some of the quieter and calmer times of her life.

Yuji visits her room. It seems that Alastor went with Yuji voluntarily as he was invited to see the inner workings of Bal Masque and of course he wasn’t going to reject that offer. Shana demands that the Hogu sealing her powers be removed, but Yuji can’t allow that as there are denizens here who wants to kill her, so it’s not wise to move around carelessly.

Yuji tries to get close to Shana, but she remembers that dream and backs away scared. Yuji is worried and tries to forcefully hold Shana, but is stopped eventually and Lamies appears.

Back in the real world it seems that all traces of Shana are gone, Yuji’s mum remembers no such person. Wilhelmina believes that if Yuji wanted to kill her, he wouldn’t need to come himself, therefore, he’s probably restricting her powers somewhere. Wilhemina makes her decision and leaves the city.

Tanaka tries to get in contact with Keisaku, but fails. Margery is sleeping with no signs of waking up anytime soon.

It seems Wilhelmina has been ignoring requests from Toyko branch of Outlaw to join the battle, even from Sophie. So Marco thinks keeping Keisaku away from them as a ‘hostage’, they’re going to be able to get Wilhelmina to join this way. Seems Wilhelmina’s been trying to get help to stop a reckless plan, but have been rejected thus far. So she’s setting out to find one person that she thinks that can help.

Sydonay is unsure of their new commander, but Bel Peol reassures him that everything’s fine. Even so, she’s unsure herself if Yuji will do anything to disrupt their plans, however she trusts that their commander would erase any of that thought. But he barely tells them anything.

But no matter, their plan is going smoothly, deadlines are approaching and everything will be on time in their grand plan.

We end with a short scene as Shana stands on a balcony looking up at the dark skies.

Thoughts:

Story has slowed down a bit, although these are the first episodes, I’m assuming there’ll be quite a few episodes of calmness as each side prepares themselves for the war and the tension and anxiety builds up. So we just need to see slowly what each side’s plans are. Not looking good for the Flame Haze though, as Marco rightly said, they’re not the most united of all people, and Bal Masque seems more united under the leadership of the Trinity seeing as Yuji doesn’t show himself that much, probably not the best at the moment, there is a bit of unrest, he should really make himself known as the leader. But I guess as long as the Trinity keeps things under control then the leader needn’t show himself. Yuji’s seems preoccupied with other things anyway, like the safety of Shana and Lamies who just appeared, looking forward to what he’s doing here.

So anyway, as I found out last episode thanks to a comment, Yuji’s love for Shana is now apparent and she’s quite safe here. But still my problem with that is Shana’s definitely not going to stay quiet. Will she really have more of a chance of survival here in the realm of the denizens who wants to kill her, than in the real world preparing to face the denizens in war? I don’t know, but I know that maybe it would’ve been better for Yuji to leave her in the real world, she’ll at least be among friends, here, she’s got no one but himself and he can’t be everywhere at the same night to look after her, especially when she constantly tries to escape and get her powers back. If she ever succeeds and tries to escape properly, she’s not going to survive unless Yuji can get to her quickly enough. I’m also looking forward to seeing how this will be resolved, I doubt Shana can escape alone, Alastor isn’t with her at the moment and I’m sure the chain suppressing her powers won’t be cut that easily.

It seems that number wise, Bal Masque probably has the advantage, with a lot of denizens who weren’t formerly together, now joined under Yuji. And power wise, with people like the Trinity, Sabrac etc, they’re probably in front as well. However I only say that as I haven’t seen what the Flame Haze has to offer. But they do seem much well organised with this huge plan of theirs. Especially when they’ve got that mad professor with them, gotta watch out for anything he comes up with.

With that analysis, it doesn’t look good for the Flame Haze, especially in the unity department.  But I’m sure they’ll make me think otherwise with the next few episodes. We get a look at the Outlaws branch in Tokyo first, so, what’s their big plan?