I was glad to see that there was quite a bit of development in this episode. We now know for sure Aoi is alive although she looks to be badly wounded. I do wonder who Nagi got a hold of the song from Aoi. I don’t want to consider the idea that Aoi betrayed Mashiro, especially after sacrificing herself to save her. We get a taste of what the Valkyries are capable of when they fight Arica. They seemed pretty strong (although it was a 4-on-1 fight), but once Miyu showed up I started to reconsider. Of course, it could be that Miyu is just incredibly powerful like in “Mai-HiME”. It seems like there are two nearly identical cats, only differentiated by the markings on their forehead. Hopefully we’ll find out the significance of it along with more plot development in the next episode. After thinking that Arica was in some way responsible for Sergay getting wounded, Nina goes beserk. I’m not so interested in knowing what happens right after Miyu and Nina cross blades. I’m actually more interested in seeing how Arica and Mashiro end up with Mai and Mikoto as shown in the preview. Why they made Mai and Mikoto so “evil-looking” at the end of the episode when we can clearly see them in the preview is somewhat of a mystery to me. I guess the only thing I can think of is it works better when it gets released on DVD.