The Flame Haze prepares to battle, but one of them has different plans.

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We start as Keisaku finds himself locked up for more than a week with no idea what’s going on as soon as he had arrived at Outlaw. He was put into the room after taking away his communication devices and left alone. But suddenly, he hears voices about the situation in Misaki City.

We find out the guy who locked Keisaku up is called Flieder and his contractor, in the shape of a rose, is Brigid. They then say something about Margery so Keisaku bangs on the door and luckily gets their attention, but unluckily is nearly killed as the person with Flieder blows open the door. Her name is Rebecca Reed contracted to Balar in the shape of a large bracelet.

After hearing that Margery’s in a coma, Keisaku wants to get back, but Rebecca refuses to let him go and locks him up again as she goes to a meeting. On the way she thinks back to the time when she and Wilhelmina used to help each other out.

Still at Misaki city, Wilhelmina gets another rejection to send help so she is prepared to go alone.

In some other place, Sophie is having a meeting with an odd army person known as Samuel Demantius who’s contracted to Zimitra in the shape of a tiny cup, or chess piece, or eggcup… It seems these two have come to offer their services to the Flame Haze army

At a war meeting, it is noted that Tokyo is now an important defensive position because of the fall of the Shanghai branch and it’s likely the main battle against Bal Masque will take place there. Hence why they want Wilhelmina here so she and Rebecca can lead the Tokyo branch. But of course Wilhelmina is still going to get Shana even if it seems an impossible task. And it’s indeed true that they are using Keisaku as bait to get Wilhelmina there.

But in the end Rebecca decides to go to Wilhelmina’s aid and blows up part of the building to get Keisaku out.

Sophie hears about this but decides to turn a blind eye.

Rebecca hands back Keisaku’s communication stuff and gives him Margery’s report of what happened in Misaki city and also included plans for the war. She then parts with him as he heads back to Margery and he’ll join up with Wilhelmina to rescue Shana.

Flieder will now take control of the Tokyo branch.

Wilhelmina gets in contact with Rebecca and agree on a meeting point.

Shana does a lot of thinking whilst taking a bath and realises that Yuji wasn’t trying to scare her after all.

Suddenly there’s a loud noise and goes out to see that Hecate is here!

Thoughts:

So, for the majority of this episode we are introduced to the Flame Haze side of the war. I’m not sure I stand by what I said last episode that the Flame Haze are much less organised. Thanks to Sophie, they seem relatively together, there’s just the odd few stronger Flame Hazes like Wilhelmina and Rebecca going off on their own, and to be fair, it’s a just cause, at least in our eyes. The rest of the forces seemed gathered under the same banner if you will. But of course, we’ve only seen a small portion of the Flame Haze’s forces, or rather, just the main commanders, so perhaps there’re unrest with the minor members of the army. Although from what I know, I don’t think the Flame Haze have a lot of ‘minions’ they can throw out, it’s mainly one powerful individual after another. Which is why I still believe Bal Masque has the advantage, if they can overwhelm the Flame Haze and tire them out with numbers then the stronger ones can kill off the individual Flame Hazes easily, apart from the most powerful which will be left alone at the end to be taken down by the trinity or Yuji.

Anyway, going away from the big war ahead, there were some background story to Wilhelmina. Not sure on this, but it’s the first time we get personal background on her isn’t it? If not then I blame my poor memory. Shame it’s only short, and it’s to do with the new character Rebecca. But still, better than nothing. And looks like Wilhelmina’s as impractical as ever, wearing ‘princessy’ clothes in the hot desert. I’d be quite surprised if she’s not full of sand in minutes and sweaty as well… Oh well, at least we see that she at least varied her clothes a little in the past, no maid outfit this time.

Also, you’d think in this day and age they’d give each other a call or email rather than send letters. It’s slow and you can’t get all your messages across. Well I suppose they have lived a long time so maybe they got used to letters and aren’t adapting as fast, technology has grown exponentially in the past decades. But even still… they should get up to date, it’ll be much better. For starters, Wilhelmina wouldn’t have to wait days for letter replies.

Well, we indeed saw what the Flame Haze has in store for us this episode, although there’s no where this episode could have gone otherwise. They paused developments in Bal Masque to move here, and now we’re going back to Bal Masque after our short introduction of the Flame Haze force as Hecate attacks Shana. Is she here to kill a powerless Shana? Seems most likely. But Yuji’s bound to return, so nothing much unexpected there, I’m still waiting to see what Lamies is doing…