As Skylos approaches the Mud Whale and begins its attack, Chakuro, Ouni, Nibi and the other members of the Self-Defense Force use their thymia-powered boats to board Skylos under the cover of the sand storm. Emma sings a song as the battle gets underway.
Everyone on the Mud Whale who can fight finds some way to contribute. Some of the children gather weapons from the dead Skylos soldiers, while other people use their thymia to power their arrows. In a battle of guns vs archers, who will win??
Suou is given a dead soldier’s sword by a well-intentioned group of little kids, and he decides to keep it on himself for protection. However seeing his fellow Mud Whale inhabitants fight and be killed has definitely unsettled Suou. As someone who abhors violence, will he eventually come to realize he doesn’t have a choice?
Chakuro and Lykos’ group board Skylos and encounter some soldiers in one of the underground tunnels. They kill the soliders fairly easily, but their presence is reported to one of the ship’s higher ranking soldiers, who orders that the entire group be killed. Even Lykos, who is Captain Orka’s sister and thus someone of considerable importance.
Back on the Mud Whale, the Skylos soldiers blow a hole in the Mud Whale’s central tower, and Suou finally decides to get involved in the fight. A woman tries to get Suou to hide, but he insists on stepping in, saying that it would be his way of supporting the inhabitants of the Mud Whale.
En route to the tower Suou finds Elder Hakuji bleeding badly on the ground; he’d defended a group of children with his body up in the central tower. As his lifeforce drains from his body, Elder Hakuji says that his decision to try to sink the Mud Whale was a mistake, that he loves everyone, and that he wants to see Suou’s future. However his final words are cut short as Liontari kills Elder Hakuji with an arrow.
An enraged Suou picks up his sword and attempts to fight Liontari, but the pink-haired psychopath quickly uses a nunchuck-like weapon to knock Suou’s weapon from his hand, and then knock the stuffing out of the blond chief.
However the beating is interrupted when the guard captain (who had been silently watching up to this point) asks Liontari to not kill his “boss”, and then tells the kid that he’s “more annoying than a mosquito.” Yes, finally someone says it! xP
Inside Skylos, Chakuro and the others reach the last barrier before they find Nous Skylos: a heavy metal door. Chakuro, Nibi, Ouni and a few others wait outside the thick door while Lykos and some members of the SDF head inside the humongous chamber towards where the nous is housed.
Huge, gorgeous stained glass windows line the chamber leading to the nous. As Lykos and the others get closer to the nous, she notes that their group is encountering little resistance from Skylos. Yes there was the initial attack, and an attempted ambush from behind by another little group of soldiers, but it’s not what she expected. Why are they being allowed to get so close to the nous so easily?
Lykos manages to reach an SDF member named Urumi in the nick of time, but it’s too late for everyone else in the group. As Tokusa (the leader of the SDF) parts some billowing curtains covering an open doorway, he sees too late that armed Skylos soldiers are waiting for their group on the other side. Chakuro and the other thymia guards hear the shots fired, and Chakuro rushes to investigate.
My thoughts: I felt that Emma’s song was a little… misplaced? I was not expecting to hear an insert song just as a bloody attack was about to get underway. Then again, as we saw apparently some creatures can live in the sand sea! So that’s kinda neat.
I had a feeling that someone was going to die by the end of the episode. As soon as Lykos’ inner thoughts mentioned that their group was encountering less resistance than expected from the Skylos soldiers, that’s where my guess lay. Will Chakuro, Lykos and/or Ouni gain enhanced powers a-la-Dragonball Z as a result of losing their friends?
This show continues to be gorgeous, and is easily one of the most beautiful anime I have ever seen. I just can’t get over how amazing this show looks!