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Impressions:

Louise’s behaviour was absolutely atrocious this episode, even if she was under the effects of an illegal love potion. I did not appreciate that at all. However, the whole love potion thing allowed for a greater expanse in the story. The whole holy spirit thing ties together nicely with this new Cromwell guy, and also provided some interesting moments in an otherwise below average episode. Once again, I’m quite dissatisfied with the confrontation between Saito and Kirche/Tabitha. The fight was not long but long enough, although I was hoping for a more dramatic scene when everyone finally realised the identity of the ones they were fighting. I also wished Saito was able to penetrate Tabitha’s water wall as a display of his power, which would also awe everyone in view. Cromwell, the new and most likely final enemy of the series. So far, the show proves it incapable of creating a serious fight. The bout with Fouquet was the closest to a meaningful one, though the way she went down does not present Saito as much of a hero. I guess the true secrets of the Gandalfr will be revealed in the final battle.

Summary:

It is the day after Louise drank the love potion and the effect still hasn’t worn off. She is so love sick that she clings to Saito all day, reluctant even to let him to do the laundry as she is afraid he’ll go off and spend time with another girl again.

Saito has a quick flashback of last night, when Montmorency had explained to him about the love potion. Also etched into his memory is the making up of her and Guiche. Before the two can kiss, he interrupts and demands Montmorency return Louise back to normal. She tells Saito that the effect will wear off in a month or so, a span of time too long to wait.

As Louise is giving Saito a warm yet disturbing goodbye, Siesta walks past, taking notice of Louise’s erratic behaviour, but not seeing anything wrong with it (though that is how she acts on the outside. It seems she is in fact quite hurt). Saito tries to explain himself to Siesta, which results in Louise getting upset and running off. Saito runs after Siesta as she heads for the fountain to do some washing. He tells her that Louise’s sudden change in conduct is due to her consumption of a love potion. Siesta won’t believe him because love potions are illegal. This gets him thinking…

When Saito gets back to Louise’s room, he finds her on the bed wearing nothing except a see-through piece of clothing. He tries to convince her to put some clothes on, but she refuses as she believes she has no sex-appeal. She goes on to say some truly shameful things, such as allowing Saito to do whatever he wants with her while she has her eyes closed for half an hour or so. When Louise pushes Saito onto her bed, he takes drastic action and actually tells Louise she is under the effect of a love potion. The action is not so drastic after all as she does not believe him. Regardless of what she said, he promises to bring her back to normal.

Saito makes his way to Guiche’s room and barges in. once again asking Montmorency to cure Louise. Before she can give the same response as before, he asks her whether there is some sort of counter-active potion. There is none, but there is another option: the tears of a holy spirit, though it is quite difficult to obtain it. Saito reveals his knowledge of the legality of love potions and threatens Montmorency that he’ll inform the principle of the issue. Because of this, Montmorency reluctantly agrees to get the tears. Using the same threat, he also forces her to leave tomorrow.

That night, Louise demands that Saito sleep with her, using her status as a master, but he stubbornly refuses and eventually convinces her to sleep. Staring at her sleeping face, he finds that he can’t get to sleep.

At dawn the next day, Montmorency, Guiche, Saito and Louise head out to Ragdorian Lake, where they will be able to find the spirit with the holy tears. On the way, Louise presents Saito with an affectionate hat…I mean sweater, which is only a quarter done and barely covers his shoulders. Louise is apparently oblivious to the fact that it is too small and goes on to think she has just made Saito happy.

When they reach the lake, they find the lake to have flooded the town. They decide to wait around for some time as the spirit only appears after dusk. At sunset, Montmorency sends out her familiar, Robin, with a drop of her blood to take to the holy spirit. Shortly after, the water rises and forms a giant tower of gushing liquid. Montmorency asks the spirit if it recognises her. It does and forms the form of Montmorency. With this, Montmorency asks for some tears, but the request is immediately rejected. Saito gets down on his knees and begs for it. The spirit agrees, but only under one condition. Recently, the spirit has been constantly attacked by mages. The condition is for Saito to defeat them. He will do anything and so accepts the deal.

Later at night, Satou and Guiche prepare to combat the mysterious attackers. A plan is formed that illustrates Guiche getting the attackers’ attention while Saito attacks. Then, two figures in cloaks appear with their faces covered. Guiche rushes out and uses his earth element attacks to distract the two figures. As they are busy fending the attack of with their own fire and water magic, Saito dashes out and lunges with his sword. By now, it is already quite obvious the two attackers are Kirche and Tabitha. No one else notices this as it is quite dark, so the two sides attack relentlessly. After a few attempts, Saito manages to get close, but is blown back by an unexpected counter attack. As he is on the ground with the two enemies pointing their wands at him, Louise makes her move to defend him by blowing up the nearby turf. The wind caused by this blows of the attackers’ hoods and all the identities are revealed.

The two parties explain each other afterwards: Kirche and Tabitha attacked the holy spirit because they were requested in order to stop the flooding of the town. Saito remembers Montmorency say that she had felt the spirit to be unhappy a while ago and decides to ask it why this is so. When they do, the spirit replies that a treasure has been stolen from it by a person who goes by the name of Cromwell. The treasure is the Ring of Andvari, used to give fake souls. The spirit reasons that by flooding the world, it will be able to retrieve eventually. And since the spirit cannot die, the amount of time it takes does not matter. Hearing this, Saito decides to retrieve the treasure for the spirit. Surprisingy, the spirit is confident that Saito can manage such a task, as he is a ‘Gandalfr’ (it’s not Gandalf is it? It sounds like ‘gandaruru’…) The spirit also gives him some tears and promises to remove the flooding. Saito says he will fulfil the promise ’some day’. When Montmorency asks what he means by this, he explains that as the spirit is immortal, time doesn’t matter. With this, everyone returns home.

Following the lifting of the effects of the love potion on Louise … disaster! It seems that Louise remembers everything she did while influenced by the potion and has decided to take everything out on Saito. With perfect timing to stop Louise before she can do some serious damage, a cloaked Henrietta flies through the window.

Elsewhere, Fouquet and her new accomplice, Cromwell (when has that named been mentioned before again?), plan out their net move. It should also be noted that Fouquet calls Cromwell ‘King’.

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