魔法少女リリカルなのはStrikerS（ストライカーズ）Ep. 18
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS Episode 18

SPOILER Summary: In the aftermath of the attack, General Geis is very upset over what has happened while Hayate requests a meeting with his aide Auris after meeting her in the hall. She says she’ll meet Hayate after she finishes the meeting she’s going to at present. Outside, Signum takes over for Tia and sends her to the hospital where the injured 6th members are all recovering. Tia heads to Subaru’s room where Caro and Elio are. Tia already knew that Subaru was a cyborg and Subaru had just told Caro and Elio this. Caro and Elio leave to allow Tia and Subaru some time alone where they talk about Ginga. Elsewhere, Vita is visiting Shamal and Zafira and worrying about Rein, who saved her life.

Some of the Long Arch staff, Admiral Chrono, Knight Carim, Nanoha, Fate, and Signum are briefed by Major Nakajima about the truth behind Subaru and Ginga, two cyborgs rescued by his mage wife after investigating an illegal research facility (the girls looking a lot like her). They adopted the girls and decided to raise them as human but some time later, she was killed. Major Nakajima suspects his wife saw something she shouldn’t have. The major kept the door open to finding out who was responsible for his wife’s death. Because Hayate knew of Nakajima’s experience with combat cyborgs, she asked for his assistance in her investigation.

For her part, Hayate is walking down a hall with Auris, inquiring about General Geis connections with the development of combat cyborgs and artificial mages. Auris tries to play off this as stuff from the distant past, but Hayate presses, stating her belief that Geis is in fact working with Scaglietti to have this technology continued. Scaglietti would work in secret, the Geis “finds” the research when complete and then uses it without having his hands dirtied with illegal research. Auris is not happy with this line of questioning as well as the fact that in 10-years, Hayate has risen to Lt. Colonel, especially when she had been a criminal killing mages. Hayate is not detoured by this so Auris suggests Hayate get a warrant, something Hayate plans to do.

Meanwhile, General Geis is informed that the High Council is summoning him as they want answers on his recent conduct. He’s angry by this and even more so when he learns they are suspending “Einherjar.” As such, he decides to refuse the summons and decides that he’s going to have to destroy Scaglietti for turning on him (though he never mentions the name specifically). The officer who’s been informing Geis of all this has one additional piece of information. He shows imagery of Vita-Rein’s combat with Zest-Agito. Seeing Zest, General Geis clutches his chest and appears to be having a heart attack.

Elsewhere, Zest is vomiting blood while a worried Agito (who addresses him with the title “Danna”) frets, feeling she hadn’t done enough to protect him. Zest disagrees, owing his life to Agito. He sends her to get him another cup of medicine and Uno contacts him, telling him the Lutecia will be rejoining him soon. Zest tells Uno that he knows they really don’t have a use for him any more, which Uno denies. He wants to complete a few things first before dying again, apparently having died previously and been brought back to life.

At Scaglietti’s secret lair-lab, Quattro works on the severely injuring Cinque as some of the other Numbers observe. They learn that if Subaru can make a clean hit on them, they would not survive. Still elsewhere in the lab, more numbers come upon Lutecia, who’s looking at a nude woman in a giant canister. Some of the Number’s are new and introduce themselves to Lutecia, where we learn the woman is apparently her mother, though Lutecia doesn’t remember that. We also learn that the doctor has told Lutecia that if she acquires Relic #11, her mother will wake up and Lutecia will have a heart.

At the Dimensional HQ for the TSA, Hayate meets with Verossa (Inspector Acous), where she has received permission to use the old mage warship Asura as a temporary mobile HQ for the 6th Mobile Division since their facility has been destroyed. Back on the planet, Nanoha finally breaks down that night when talking to Fate outside over the loss of Vivio and Nanoha’s inability to keep her promise and protect the girl. Nanoha gets more upset, thinking about how Vivio is likely crying right now and there’s nothing Nanoha can do about it.

Back at Scaglietti’s lair, Quattro has turned her attention to Vivio, who indeed is crying and very scared. Quattro and most of the other Numbers seem to take perverse pleasure in Vivio’s fear and cries for her mama, especially since Vivio understands what they are about to do with her. Scaglietti arrives, also seemingly enjoying what Vivio is going through and is going to insert a Relic into her, making her his masterpiece.

Thoughts: Lots of explaining happening here. The shock of everything that happened in the previous episode clouded my mind, but as Major Nakajima explained about Subaru and Ginga, suddenly their “medical” visit with Mary, an engineer, made sense.

Vivio’s cries at the end were just heart-rending. Sheeze. The fact that she was going to be violated so horribly AND the Numbers and Scaglietti were cold and gleeful about it made it worse. I hate seeing that kind of thing and were I to witness it in person, I would go insane and start killing the violators immediately. The scene just made me really angry and even though this is just an anime, just the thought that someone could do something so horrific to a sweet, innocent girl just made me angry and in a foul mood the rest of the day. I guess in this regard, the writers have succeeded in making Scaglietti pure evil.

Speaking of that bastard, I was right when I thought that General Geis was connected to him. Well, you know what they say about making a deal with the devil.

The series has gotten to the point that stopping to even write a review is hard, to say nothing of doing other things. That is a sign of a good series though, right?