In a flashback to when Slaine first sees Asseylum in that damnable tube, we see the belief being imprinted within his heart: “She’s going to wake up.” This was merely a dark night, which would soon be broken by the light of day.
Somewhere down the road, that hope faded, and we see the result: battles being fought and won by knights loyal to him and cooperating, gaining him territory for his new kingdom with Lemrina.
But now that Asseylum is awake, as if to reprimand him for losing hope, he’s now forced to reassess everything.
Even hot-shot Inaho has few choices other than a speedy retreat when surrounded by powerful knights. Captain Magbaredge may be playing favorites by having the Deucalion execute risky low-altitude rescue maneuvers, but can you blame her for not wanting to lose Inaho, not to mention her remaining kataphrakts and pilots, considering how both are in short supply. Also, seeing the big battleship swoop in and take a licking but still get its people out was its own thrill.
The Deuc loses avionics, but Inaho is able to serve as a supplemental eye for Nina. Thankfully, it’s temporary: once she has her (literal) bearings, she thanks him and takes it form there. She’s the one who pulled off those rescue maneuvers, after all; she’s no slouch at the helm. Inaho could fly the ship if he needed to, but the fact he lacks experience would put him at a disadvantage, in spite of his magic eye.
Meanwhile, awkwardness is at an all-time high for the engaged couple. Lemrina continues to pour her heart out to Slaine but gets nothing in return; Slaine doesn’t blush in the least at her words, and is quickly off again to “attend to matters,” promptly turning his back on her so as not to suffer objections.
Lemrina is distressed by the fact her comatose (at least she thinks she still is) sister continues to command so firm a grip on her fiancee’s heart, and no matter how much power Lemrina amasses, she is powerless to wrest that heart away. Similarly, Inko is unable to get close to Inaho due to his continued insistence Asseylum is still alive.
Even if he’s proven right, Inko isn’t exactly happy to be second fiddle (or even third, if you count the Rayet angle). Hell, even Inaho and Nina had a brighter interaction. I wonder what Inko says to him in that corridor. Speaking of not happy, Darzana receives orders to re-take the territory they just lost by throwing everything they have at the Martians, even though it’s pretty clear that’s playing right into the Martians’ hands.
Earths leaders are short-sighted, inept fools, but the Martian situation doesn’t seem to be in that much better shape, seeing as how Slaine is paying far more attention to Asseylum than the war, and Lemrina’s growing resentment. Slaine tells Eddelrittuo how he gave up hope on the princess and is now being punished by having his plans blow up in his face.
He can now only hope Asseylum’s amnesia is permanent—a terrible thing to hope for the one you loved—or else he’ll be at the center of a power struggle between princesses, and Slaine would choose Asseylum without hesitation. Her happiness is more important to him than power or the war. That means if she wants the war to end, he’ll do everything he can to end it.
The political swagger gained by Lemrina’s proclamation certainly rallyed the Orbital Knights to her cause, but in her audience with Count Mazuurek (which Slaine patronizingly, callously agrees to in order to essentially throw her a bone and “keep her happy”) she falters fast and hard. Mazuurek has little trouble noticing something’s not quite right about “Asseylum”, and Lemrina, angered she was left out to dry alone, loses her cool altogeher and ends up a pathetic heap on the bulkhead.
Lemrina acts like a spouse who senses intrinsically that their spouse is being unfaithful. And even though Lemrina told him she didn’t care if he never loved her, as long as they were togther, Slaine isn’t even giving her that right now, and she’s collapsing under the weight of that constant rejection. Just as there was a point in time when Slaine gave up on Asseylum enough to agree to marry Lemrina, Lemrina is starting to give up on Slaine, and it only looks to get worse for her.
The suspicions Mazuurek develops in his talk with Lemrina are only compounded when he catches Eddelrittuo in several lies and omissions, particularly when he mentions Inaho right after she insisted she’d never been to Earth. Mazuurek is no fool, and that’s a good thing. I wonder what steps he’ll take from here. Lemrina and Slaine have never been more vulnerable, and as Slaine said, there’s nothing more fleeting and worthless than a knight’s loyalty.
Having clearly cried for a long time, an increasingly unstable Lemrina enters her sister’s lab, only to find the tube empty. This isn’t going to be good for Slaine, who probably should have put a lock on it, or used another hologram. But like her, Slaine is so all over the place he’s making a lot more mistakes that could end up paying dearly for very soon.
One of those mistakes was letting Mazuurek, a recently-released prisoner of the Earthlings, anywhere near Lemrina, as well as being blind to Lemrina’s steady descent into infatuation. Mazuurek was able to return Asseylum’s pendant to her, resulting in the sudden triggering of her memories, the same ones which we’ve seen in the first moments of the opening sequence all season.
This is great news for Inaho and Earth, terrible news for Lemrina, and a decidedly mixed bag for Slaine. In any case, it’s a welcome development, and I hope it leads to peace.
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