It’s Phantom episode 22 and Cal and Ellen finally have their first confrontation. Also, with the increasing threat from Inferno, Ellen decides that it’s time top play their trump card.

Cal decides to chat it up with Ellen for a while, telling her that watching as she and Reiji run in fear from her is the only thing that’s kept her alive for the past two years (and showing a healthy disdain for Inferno while she’s at it). However, Ellen isn’t really up for small talk, and switches into her assassin mode and the two draw their guns in each other’s faces equally fast, but don’t shoot. Cal continues to taunt Ellen, but Ellen just calmly reminds Cal that she’s the one who is out to make Reiji suffer because he abandoned her. Reiji then shows up and tells Cal that she has no reason to fight Ellen.

Reiji draws his gun on Cal and insists that she stop, so Cal tells him to shoot her, but that she’ll take Ellen with her. The three seem to be at a stalemate until Lizzie shows up. Lizzie, apparently on the orders of Scythe Master, tells Cal to leave, because, according to Scythe Master, “the entire cast isn’t assembled yet.” After Cal leaves, Lizzie tells Reiji that they better better escape quickly, because she won’t be able to stop Cal again.

Reiji then calls up Shiga and tells him that, as long as nothing happens to Ellen and himself, then nothing will happen to Mio. Reiji tells Shiga to thwart Cal and Inferno long enough to allow him to escape. After the call, Ellen tells Reiji that she’ll go and negotiate with a smuggling freighter up north…alone. Back at HQ, Cal gets word that the operation is off until they can secure Mio. Lizzie and Cal end up chatting, where Cal says a lot about how Reiji was lying about everything, but never really says what he was lying about.

The next day at school, Sanae invites everyone to go out to a movie, but they all end up ditching, leaving Reiji and Mio alone. While out on their date, Reiji notices that several men are keeping watch over them, and thinks that as long as he’s seen with Mio, that Shiga will be pressured to let him escape. After the two go to a movie, Mio and Reiji chat, with Mio telling him that he’s “different” since he seems to cherish even ordinary things.

However, suddenly Cal shows up, and Mio excuses herself, but watches them from behind a tree. Reiji tells Cal that if she wants to kill him, then to go ahead, just as long as she doesn’t hurt Ellen. This just enrages Cal even more, since he abandoned her, but is willing to die for Ellen. Cal then decks him, but says that she’ll only kill him after toying with him some more. Afterward, Cal is increasingly unnerved by Reiji’s behavior, and takes her frustration out on some street thugs.

Well, the fighting wasn’t as intense as I thought it might be (then again, a fight between Phantoms is either going last a long time or be over in a flash), but I guess things are progressing about as I expected. There are two things I’m kind of expecting to happen in the next couple of episodes, however:

First, I think this episode just increasingly shows that we’re building up to some sort of “realization” moment for Cal, that she’s wrong about Reiji. She seems legitimately confused and unnerved at the end of this episode due to how Reiji is behaving. She sees Reiji as some sort of scheming guy who is only looking out for himself, so his willingness to die for someone else flies in the face of how she sees Reiji (and probably reminds her of how he was before he abandoned her). We also have the continuing building up of Reiji “lying” to Cal. I’ve said this probably three episodes in a row now, but I still think that exactly what Cal has been led to believe will be revealed very soon, perhaps next episode.

Second, the show seems to be setting Mio up as something more than meets the eye, I think. She’s being built up as too major a character to merely be Reiji’s hostage or something. I’m not really expecting that she suddenly whip out some glocks and start mowing people down or anything, but she’s going to have a major active roll to play before the end, I think.

Scythe Master also remarked that the “entire cast” hadn’t been assembled yet, which I”m guessing means his group of loli-assassins or whatever, which makes me wonder if he plans on wiping out Cal after she finishes off Reiji, figuring that Cal has no reason to be loyal to him or Inferno after she does. Lizzie also keeps popping up everywhere. She’s lasted longer than I’ve ever expected her to, though now I don’t think I’d be surprised if she were one of the last people standing. The one person we haven’t seen much of if McGuire, though I expect to see him again before the show finished.

If I had to guess, episode 23 and 24, and maybe 25 will be about Cal going after Reiji. Shiga and Co. will probably be wiped out in episode 25 is my guess, with Scythe Master escaping back to America (or McGuire showing up in Japan for some reason), and Reiji and Friends – possibly including Lizzie – go and finishing those two off in the last episode.