灼眼のシャナ II Episode 13

SPOILER Summary: Pheles arrives and speaks of freeing Johan to Yuuji. In an act of self-defense, Yuuji activates a Fuzetsu, who’s silver flame immediately sets Margery Daw off. Marchosias, Wilhelmina, Tiamat, Shana, and Alastor try to calm her, but Margery has stepped off the deep end and turned into a werebear (its supposedly a werewolf, but she looks more like a bear to me) to attack. Marchosias continues to try to get her to listen to reason as Wilhelmina restrains Margery’s rampage as best she can, activating the Tiamat mask. Shana, under the urgence of Alastor, goes to save Yuuji from Pheles.

Meanwhile Tanaka and Sato pick up Yoshida from the rubble, wondering why Margery has gone berserk. They note the silver flame of the Fuzetsu and know that this is the calling card of the Tomogara she’s been searching for, but Sato seems to know the source isn’t right. Further, the green flame is from Pheles and there’s more going on here than meets the eye. Margery continues to rampage despite Wilhelmina’s best efforts and not only is there massive destruction to the school, but Oga-chan gets hit by Margery’s purple flames and would be dead were it not for the Fuzetsu. Tanaka is beside himself after witnessing this and Sato has to help him, reminding him that all this can be repaired thanks to the Fuzetsu.

Meanwhile, Shana had been having some problems battling Pheles thanks to her Inbelna unrestricted spell which prevents Shana from sensing her. However, as they battle, Pheles is getting weaker. Margery manages to get to Yuuji and despite Marchosias’ pleas, she attacks him. However, a barrier around him prevents the attacks from doing damage. Wilhelmina and Shana decide to do a combination attack with Tiamat’s approval and the result takes out Pheles and restricts Margery’s beast form, allowing Shana to come in and send Margery to the ground where she’s now unable to move.

With combat over, Shana prepares to start addressing some issues but Sato wants to start with the explanation of the silver flame of Yuuji’s. However, since Margery is still struggling to free herself from Wilhelmina’s binds, Sato addresses her, asking her if she really thought Yuuji was the Silver she’d been looking for and that if she destroyed him, she’d lose a valuable clue. Wilhelmina steps in to say this was the information she was going to pass to Margery. Margery is still not listening and still struggles to get out until Tanaka asks her why she went berserk and as a result of her destruction, Oga-chan was caught in the middle. Hearing this takes the fire out of Margery’s rage and she reverts back to her human form, getting some mild chastisement from Marchosias as well.

Margery gets up and comes to Yuuji, confirming that he’s not Tomogara. However, she wants to know exactly what he is, something everyone else is keen on knowing as well. Wilhelmina goes to Pheles and inquires as to Johan, someone who was supposedly dead along with Pheles. The weakened Pheles states that in her and Johan’s battle with the powerful Tomogara Sabrac, they were beaten and to save Johan, she placed him within the Reiji Maigo to preserve him, then sent the Hougu out, which explains how Yuuji ended up with it. After the battle, Pheles then began to hunt for the Reiji Maigo.

Wilhelmina requests that Pheles not rescue Johan until they’ve solved the mystery of why Yuuji has the silver flame. She frees Pheles and then requests that Shana not kill Pheles. Apparently when Pheles made a pact with Johan, she stopped the normal Tomogara consumption of humans. Considering how weak Pheles is, Shana confirms that Pheles has not been consuming humans and agrees to the request. Pheles states that there is something wrong with the Reiji Maigo as it shouldn’t emit a silver flame and might be the result of what Sabrac did. With that, Wilhelmina prepares to use Yuuji’s Power of Existence to restore everything, but Margery decides to perform the task instead as a means of apology, which pleases Tanaka.

With everything back as it should be, Shana is the winner of the costume contest. Yoshida brings Yuuji a soda and he apologizes to her for the problems earlier. Yoshida makes him promise to keep her informed as to everything that happens, promising him that she’ll catch up to him no matter how far ahead he gets. They head to Shana, who’s having her picture taken by a group of guys in the school. They congratulate her and she them. Elsewhere, a still shaken Tanaka sees Oga-chan and is so relieved by it that he cries and embraces her. Even though she doesn’t understand why, she returns the embrace. On the roof, Wilhelmina and Pheles discuss something while in a building, Konoe and her butler discuss something.

Thoughts: Pheles is an interesting Tomogara to be sure. I say this because normally, Flame Haze and Tomogara aren’t friends (at least, not that I remember since it is always Tomogara that the Flame Haze are fighting) and yet Pheles is friends with Wilhelmina. Then again, how many Tomogara’s make a pact not to consume humans? Marchosias being calm and reasonable as Margery went berserk was certainly different and a nice touch. Another nice touch was Tanaka’s reaction when he saw Oga-chan after the battle.

We got an explanation as to why Pheles got right on top of the Flame Haze and they didn’t know it (the Inbelna spell). I was glad of that.

Interesting seeing Konoe and her butler at the end. Maybe she has a form of Inbelna on her.

While I’m at it, I will NEVER use the Viz term “Seal” or any other term they’ve used to protect me from that evil Japanese terminology (I’m stunned they haven’t invented other terms to keep all of the Japanese terms used in the original works away from us, but then the Japanese used the actual English word “Torch” and I guess Viz couldn’t logically protect us from that). I only mention this because Viz is releasing the manga and light novels in English (which I will not buy, though I will try to buy the Japanese ones one day) and so some wiki-god felt the need to change the Wikipedia entry to match Viz’s terms, even if they were different than the Geneon terms used.