Summary:
Henrietta arrives in Louise’s room and quickly gets down to business – she has a request. She explains that she’s going to be getting married to someone from Germania for the purpose of an alliance. In other words, it’s a political marriage. As the princess of Tristein, Henrietta knows that her own choices are sacrificed for the sake of the country. But before that, she wants Louise to go collect a certain something. It seems that Henrietta sent a letter to the Prince of Wales of the Kingdom of Albion. If people found out about this letter, then the engagement to Germania would be broken off. When Saito wonders out loud what kind of letter would break off an engagement, Louise kicks him in the shin. Anyway, the problem is that Albion is currently in an unstable political situation, so it’s in a rather dangerous state because of a revolt. Henrietta seems ready to break down in tears, so Louise gladly accepts this mission. It’s at this point that Saito notices someone eavesdropping from outside the door. The person turns out to be Guiche, and he had overheard everything. Henrietta recognizes his last name (Gramont), and she asks him to go along with Saito and Louise, much to their surprise.
Saito is later doing laundry, talking to himself about how Guiche will just be a burden, when Siesta comes by to apologize for being rude to him during the love potion incident. Saito doesn’t mind since Louise was returned to normal, but thinking about what the water spirit said reminds him again of the Gandalfr moniker. He asks Siesta if there’s someone at this school who knows a lot about history, and she sends him to go see Colbert. The professor explains that there are four magic elements (fire, water, earth, and wind), though originally there were five. The lost element is nothingness or “void” and the Gandalfr is the familiar of the legendary mage who can use void. Colbert notes that although Saito has a rune on his hand that resembles the Gandalfr’s rune, there’s no proof that he is the Gandalfr because there isn’t a void mage. Even Saito doesn’t think that Louise is the legendary one. Saito then notices a foul smelling flask on Colbert’s table. The professor tells him that it is filled with dragon’s blood and recounts a story of two never-seen-before dragons that appeared in the sky a long time ago, one of which vanished and the other of which fell down somewhere. Saito seems doubtful of the dragon’s blood, and seems to recognize something about the smell.
Before bedtime, Louise expresses her doubts about being able to do this mission, so Saito reminds her that she’s gotten through everything so far. Saito makes Louise blush by telling her that he’d protect her if anything happens, though Louise then tries to pretend that that’s a given since he’s her familiar. The next morning, as the group is getting ready to set out, Louise looks at the Water Ruby ring that Henrietta gave her. Henrietta had also mentioned that there would be one person coming to help escort her. But before that person appears, Guiche’s familiar Verdandi pops out of the ground and goes after Louise’s ring because it loves jewels. Just as Louise is yelling for the guys to help her, a large wind blows out of nowhere and knocks Verdandi off of Louise. A man riding a griffin appears from the sky and introduces himself as the Griffin Corps Commander Waldo. But what really surprises Guiche and Saito is the fact that Waldo calls Louise his fiancée.
As the group starts their trip, Waldo tells Louise that he specially came himself to do this when he heard that she was the one in need of an escort. Riding behind the griffin carrying Louise and Waldo, Saito mocks Louise saying Waldo-sama with disdain. Eventually, the four of them arrive at the port city of La Rochelle and go to the inn where Waldo says that they’ll be staying until they depart tomorrow night. As Saito is putting his bags down, Louise feels the need to come over and explain that the fiancée thing was decided by her parents. Still, Saito can tell that she thinks quite highly of Waldo and Louise even admits that she admired him. It gets to the point where Saito thinks that it wasn’t necessary for him to come along, though Louise vehemently claims that he it was natural for him to come since he’s her familiar and then runs off. After she’s gone, the sword Derfflinger wonders if Saito is love with Louise. Saito denies it, but is feeling down because he thinks it would have been better if he hadn’t told Louise that he’d protect her.
Over dinner, Waldo compliments Louise on how she was able to get a human for a familiar. In fact, he knows all about the duel between Saito and Guiche and about the Staff of Destruction & Fouquet. Waldo is very interested in Saito and requests a fighting match with him. Not thinking much of it, Saito agrees, but gets angry when Waldo tells Louise he’ll go easy on Saito. Waldo then takes Louise up to his room claiming that he has something important to tell her. Since Guiche decided to go out to hit on a girl, Saito ends up alone in his own room with Derfflinger. He asks the sword about the Gandalfr and is surprised when Derfflinger says that Saito is the Gandalfr. According to the talking sword, regardless of whether it’s 6000 years ago or now, Derfflinger’s partner is the Gandalfr. Saito is a bit skeptical about what Derfflinger said since they had bought the sword from as a bargain from a weapon shop. However, Derfflinger tells Saito that there are no coincidences in this world – Saito is Derfflinger’s partner, that’s why Derfflinger is here now. As for why Derfflinger never mentioned this before, he claims it’s because Saito never asked. Saito now knows that he has the power to use weapons at will. But just using Derfflinger doesn’t necessarily mean that Saito will win – that depends on himself.
Meanwhile, Louise and Waldo remember a time when she was little and had been crying after being scolded by her father. Waldo had come to comfort her and offered his hand so that they could go smooth things over with her father. The current Waldo explains that he knows that Louise has a special power that no one else has. He then surprises her by suggesting that they get married after this mission is over. He tells her that he needs her and then leans in to kiss her. Right before he is about to, he says that he will protect her, triggering Louise’s memory of when Saito had said the same thing. Louise utters Saito’s name, causing Waldo to stop his advance and pull back. As he leaves the room, Waldo says that for now he doesn’t want her answer to his proposal, but before this journey is over, he thinks that her heart will lean towards him. Downstairs, Guiche is getting rejected by the girl he was after. Watching from above is a masked man and a masked woman whose figures resemble Waldo and Fouquet, respectively. The next day, Waldo and Saito face off in their duel. Louise tries to order Saito to stop, but he ignores her and instead tells Waldo not to go easy on him. Saito starts the fight with several quick swings, but Waldo dodges or parries them all and notes how agile Saito is. Saito then uses the wall to gain speed and flies toward Waldo with Derfflinger thrust out. As he’s parrying the thrust, Waldo comments on how Saito is still an amateur. The Griffin Corps Commander launches into a counterattack with several quick thrusts and follows it up with a spell that blasts Saito into a pile of barrels, knocking away Derfflinger. Waldo says that Saito can’t win against a true mage with his skills – in other words, he can’t protect Louise.

Preview:

So not only is Henrietta engaged, Louise is too…to a lolicon no less. Really, that whole flashback sequence to when Louise was young just made me feel like Waldo was a pedophile. It seems like he’s a bad guy, especially since that masked man with Fouquet looked remarkably like Waldo. And of course, Waldo’s appearance and challenge for Louise makes Saito unhappy. I’ll hold off from calling it jealousy because it doesn’t quite feel like jealousy just yet.
The segments with Colbert and Derfflinger were probably the most interesting to me. If you couple Colbert’s explanation of how the Gandalfr is the familiar of the legendary mage who can use void magic with Derfflinger’s insistence that Saito is the Gandalfr with the fact that Waldo seems to think Louise has a special power, then you get a picture of Saito as the Gandalfr and Louise as the legendary mage. This also makes more sense given that Louise’s past attempts at magic have been quite destructive and hard to control. The Colbert scene also had the mention of the dragon’s blood, which I would guess is gasoline. The two dragons are likely a pair of airplanes, and this is perhaps setting us up for the Zero seen in the OP.
Waldo telling Saito that he can’t protect Louise hit Saito pretty hard, so next week will probably have plenty of angst as Saito tries to figure things out.

42 Comments

  1. Hmm, what do you bet Louise is NOT gonna get married?^^
    Anyways, three episodes left. Very curious how they’ll gonna end this.
    Of course it’s difficult since the story in the novel is much longer, 13 episodes arent enough to cover that.

  2. well after reading what a gandalfr is im kinda wtf at seeing saito lose to that guy and lose to kirche and tabitha in the previous episode, especially with the feat saito pulled in the manga >.

    Drayen
  3. They don’t really dive into what Saito can do as a Gundalf..r…in the show. Beating Guiche and the golem gave him potential, but losing to Tabitha and Kirche blurs it again. They’ll…probably either cram it into the next three episodes, or make a second season.

    Kuya
  4. Yes she is getting married, she was engaged by her parents to Waldo, she tells this to Saito. Waldo asked louse to marry him and that he will protect her, but when he told her this, she remembered that Saito told her the samething the night before. Before Waldo can kiss her, she calls Saito’s name.

    Show Spoiler ▼

    Did you see that Waldo cheated? This was supposed to be a sword duel, but he used magic because he knew he couldn’t beat Saito in swordmanship.

    I think that Waldo is a bad guy and eventually he is discovered and that is how the engagement is broken. I have not read that part of the novels.

    golthin
  5. My guess for the Dragon’s blood is that it is gasoline with Dragon being an airplane and since chances are, the airplane FELL from the sky, it crashed and had an oil-leak. An airplane is big so they assumed that it was a dragon and they didn’t have fuel so anything that came out of anything was blood.
    But then again.. if an airplane was a dragon than what is Tabitha’s tsukaima?

    Zanarky
  6. >>The whole flashback to when Louise was young just made me feel like Waldo was a pedophile…

    I’m sure many others watching this, including me, are all having the same thoughts…

    This Waldo guy really knows how to get on people’s nerves, already didn’t like him when he first appeared. Too much contact with Louise and i think he’s in the same leauge as fouqet…

    This episode reminds me of SnS last few episodes all over again, where Shana and Yuuji could not come clear with their own feelings…

  7. Saito will definitely own grey-hair in the end but i think most probably we will have an open ending where louise v Siesta(much like SnS) although i was kinda picturing this climax where saito has to choose between going home with siesta(somehow siesta finds away to go back to earth) and louise. But i doubt its gonna happen anyway since the final arc involves angst on louise side instead of saito arggg… another guess bites the dust(i guess i am pretty bad at this).

    Also talking about legendary swordsmen and void magicians, I have come to a conclusion that ever since louise broke the hole in the wall to allow fouqet to get the weapon i knew she could use void magic. Also another thing to note is that waldo does not trully love louise as i think fouqet knows that louise can use void and told him abt it which makes him all the more want louise for his devious plans.

    As for whether or not we will have a 2nd season remains to be seen(it isn’t really given a high budget in the 1st place).

    cyw1988
  8. Get ready for a lot of disappointment shadowWizz cause even in the novels, Show Spoiler ▼

    KiraTakuto
  9. If they are not going to produce a 2nd season, the producers may very well just make up an ending on their own. It is not impossible. Its been done b4. But oh well, I was hoping to see louise go deredere more… *sigh~

    cyw1988
  10. That liquid should be gasoline. That explains the Zero fighter in the OP.
    People in that world doesn’t know anything about an airplane. Never even imagine there could be such a thing. Only thing they can think of as a big, winged and flying one is a dragon, so they naturally assumed that airplane kinda dragon.
    So, if the Gandalv can use ANY kind of weapon properly, why not a fighter plane? It’s kinda weapon after all.

    calde
  11. @ KiraTakuto
    Thanks for the heads up! Sad to say that it still seems a long way when Louise decides to be true to herself…

    “…when Louise does admit her feelings, it will signal the end of Zero no Tsukaima.”
    well, i don’t really mind as much as an open ending, as long as both of them(or rather Louise) comes clean with their feelings and live happily ever after…

    @ Stranger
    not sure if this is a spoiler but just in case…
    Show Spoiler ▼

  12. Wait, I already knew that Louise is Void element. I saw it in wikipedia. Anyway, it says that a “Gandalfr is the familiar of the legendary mage who can use void magic”; it makes perfect sense considering the VOID (space) covers the distance between Halkeginia and Earth, and since Louise is a Void mage, only she can summon a familiar from another planet.

    Izaak

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