魔法少女リリカルなのはStrikerS（ストライカーズ） Ep. 20
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS Episode 20

SPOILER Summary: As the ancient Belkan battleship Saint’s Cradle rises from the ground, the various Numbers have questions. Doctor Scaglietti tells them that in order to get Saint’s Cradle to fly once he found it, he needed a true descendant of the ancient Belkan to activate it. However, no such person existed. As such, he had one of the Numbers, Due, infiltrate the Saint Church and seduce a powerful priest into giving her genetic materials of the great king of Ancient Belka, the Saint. They also ask about the High Council, since they’d sponsored so much of the doctor’s work. However, they are being dealt with.

Meanwhile, Admiral Chrono reports that his fleet is en route. A meeting between himself, the three head admirals, and certain members of the 6th discuss current events. Because there are few that can handle the AFB combat, Nanoha reports that they’ll be splitting into three teams to assist all fields. Fate tells Caro and Elio goodbye after assuring them things will be OK. Rein and Signum discuss Zest and Agito. Signum has learned from Major Nakajima that Zest had been a knight but had been killed years before. Nanoha and Vita give the rookies one final briefing where Nanoha has them take a moment to reflect on their training, the reasons for which are coming to fruition now.

After the talk, Subaru stays behind. Nanoha assures her things will be well. Subaru isn’t so much worried about Gin-nee, but rather Nanoha and her attempt to rescue Vivio. Nanoha ends up reassuring Subaru, so that when Subaru reports to the helicopter, Tia notes that Subaru’s plan to cheer up Nanoha backfired so that Nanoha did the cheering. The teams deploy with Hayate, Fate, Nanoha, and Vita working together (Signum being deployed to the ground). Knight Carim unlocks the limiters on all of the 6th’s commanders so that they will now operate at full power. As they fly to the Saint’s Cradle, Fate worries about Nanoha overdoing it and Nanoha tells her the same in kind. The two fist-bump and head to their targets, Nanoha determined to rescue Vivio.

The Numbers involved in the Einherjar attacks are returning to Saint’s Cradle while a team, with Ginga (now called Number 13 in Japanese) heads to attack the Ground HQ. Due is still working on her current mission. She enters the chamber of the High Council (as she is recognized as the tech who works on their life support equipment), who are revealed to be nothing more than brains in giant canisters. They’ve kept themselves alive for so long in an effort to achieve their goal for the universe. However, while the High Council may have created Doctor Scaglietti, they could not control him. Thus when Due reveals herself to them, she destroys them, ending the High Council.

Thoughts: OK, time for more answers and reveal. I hadn’t even thought about it, but had I been keeping track of the number of Numbers, I would have realized that we still had not seen one, in this case, Due. However, because she wasn’t someone we’d seen before (whether on the General’s staff or within the 6th Mobile Division), her reveal carried little impact beyond being a plot device to kill the High Council.

While they didn’t show it this episode, now that the limiters are removed from the power-houses (Fate, Nanoha, Hayate, Signum, and Vita), I expect to see some arse kicking soon.