Shana finds herself trapped in a giant bedroom at the Palace of the Stars, without her sword or Alastor. Yuji, who now wears Alastor, arrives, and tries to be friendly with Shana, but she rebuffs his advances, to the confusion and disappointment of Yuji. We also learn that the Corpse Collector has joined Yuji in attempting to accomplish the Grand Order. The Bal Masqué is nearly ready to launch the 2nd phase of the Grand Order, which involves multiple independent attacks on Flame Haze positions. Meanwhile, Wilhelmina is preparing to set out to save Shana on her own, after being rebuffed in her requests for aid from the other Flame Hazes.

Hecate is almost ready for the real action to begin

We still don’t really have any word about what the Flame Hazes are doing to prepare for imminent Bal Masqué attack, though it seems they keep asking for Wilhelmina to be a part of it, though she’s intent on trying to save Shana, which seems like it would be a suicide mission right now. Perhaps the one way it could work is if she attempted to rescue her while all the members of Bal Masqué were away as part of their 2nd state attack.

I still wonder what Yuji’s true intentions are. There are more rumblings, this time from Sydonay, about what Yuji is up to, though Bel Peol assures him that things are alright. One has to wonder if he is doing something behind the scenes to hurt the Bal Masqué’s plans or somehow has secret knowledge in that, even if the Bal Masqué succeeds in doing what they’re doing, the end result won’t be what they expected. Otherwise, why would Yuji allow Alastor to basically be in on some of the Bal Masqué’s meetings. Not that there is much Alastor can do about it right now, but still…

Margery and Wilhelmina show up and think Yuji showing up is just a ruse, but he reveals himself as The Snake of the Festival, the counterpart to Alastor, the God of Atonement. Yuji tries to kidnap Shana, and in the process traps Margery and Wilhelmina. He then tells Margery that the Silver is her own projection of her hatred of everything, and the Silver merely did to her what she secretly wanted to do to herself, and Margery has a breakdown upon hearing this. Yuji tells Shana that he wants to change her fate as a flame haze: to only fight until she finally dies. Shana tries to fight might but is simply overwhelmed. Yuji then goes to the Crystal Altar and retrieves it, and formally rejects Yoshida in the process.

She was like fire in bed

So it’s pretty clear that Yuji and Silver (or whatever he’s actually called) are either of one mind or are completely in agreement about whatever they’re doing. His final goal seems to be to save Shana from her fate as a flame haze, and there are indications that he wants or needs Alastor’s help in this endeavor, but it’s certainly unclear how he intends to accomplish this goal. Is he planning on doing it by helping the Bal Masqué win, or is he merely using them?

In any case, with Shana kidnapped and Margery likely out of service, Wilhelmina is the only flame haze in the city in a position to do anything, and I’m sure she’ll try to find some way to find Shana, though I would think she would have very long odds of actually being able to succeed. Yuji was able to defeat three Flame Hazes with barely any effort, so I doubt facing just Wilhelmina could post much of a problem.