It’s Phantom episode 12, and Inferno is consolidating their power on the US east coast.  Meanwhile, Claudia starts working with a gang in Japan, but their first meeting goes awry, resulting in Reiji meeting a new girl.

We move yet another six months into the future, and Inferno is now doing operations in New York City, where Reiji boldly assassinates a mob leader from a (presumably) Broadway stage as the mobster is watching the play. This action gives Inferno effective control of the underworld on the east coast.

However, back on the west coast, Claudia now sets her eyes overseas, and wishes to start working with groups in Japan in order to control product exports out of that country.  She wants to start by teaming up with the Godoh group – the group she enlisted to help betray Scythe Master – to do it. However, Isaac is becoming increasingly hostile towards Claudia’s increasing consolidation of power within Inferno.

Meanwhile, Claudia and Reiji are getting their thing on. However, despite Claudia’s claims that Reiji is working for Inferno of his own free will, Reiji himself still feels that he has no choice in the matter and finds that he’s now much like Ein was when he first met her.

Reiji and Claudia then plan a trade with the Godoh group, but find that the Godoh representatives have been killed at the meeting place. Meanwhile, a shadowy figure watches as Reiji cleans up the mess. Afterward, Issac gets angry at Claudia for having such an event screw up the situation in his territory, but Claudia points out that his gang controlled the area and thus should have been responsible for protecting them.

Outside, Lizzie reports to Reiji that one of the people killed appears to have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Reiji goes back to visit the scene and finds the younger sister of the victim, whose name is Cal, praying over the scene. Reiji agrees to bring Cal along because she claims to have witnessed what had happened the night before.

So, we’re now transitioning fully into the next story arc, which presumably will now center on Cal. Of course, the bigger question is what role will Cal have now? Will she somehow become an assassin of Inferno now, either willingly or unwillingly or what? In any case, she may help Reiji much like how Reiji tried to help Ein before in breaking free of Inferno.

Meanwhile, am I the only one who thought the “shadowy figure” at the crime scene looked like Ein? After all, we know that the 2nd in command of the Godoh group has had contact with Scythe Master, though last we knew, we don’t even know if Ein was still alive, much less whether she had connected back up to Scythe Master again, but that seems to be a possibility.  Then again, it could have been Cal too, since she was supposedly at the scene as well, though the figure looked more “watching” than “frightened,” which you would expect to to be if it were Cal and she is who she says she is.

We also appear to be heading for a major confrontation between Issac, who basically got blamed for the assassination of the Godoh Group members, and Claudia, who is ever increasing her stock within Inferno and with Mr. McGuire. It seems like it’s only a matter of time before Issac uses his Bloodies to try to either frame Claudia for something or confront her directly.

And, of course, we see that Reiji has now largely taken upon the role that Ein played originally: the “Phantom” of Inferno who appears hopelessly chained to the organization, unable to break free because he has nowhere else to go.

Overall, now that we’re nearly halfway through, this series continues to be pretty good. I’m also kind of expecting a new OP and ED either next episode or perhaps the episode after that, since they seem to focus on Ein while the main girl now appears like it’ll be Cal for the time being.