After a skirmish with Touma and the Anti-Skills, Sherry changes targets and goes after Index instead.Touma: Damn! I'm so cool!Summary:Touma arrives just in time to save Hyoka from being crushed by Alice and destroys the golem with his right hand. Sherry re-summons Alice once again but finds herself surrounded by the Anti-Skills. Sherry orders Alice to kill everyone and the Anti-Skills responds peppering the golem with bullets. As Alice slowly advances upon the Anti-Skills, Aiho and Hyoka ask if Touma really wants to fight the golem and Sherry, and Touma states that he has to. Despite Hyoka's repeated protests, Touma is determined to take out Sherry and Alice. On cue, the Anti-Skills scatter ant Touma charges at Alice but is knocked off his feet when Alice smashes the ground. The golem tries to crush Touma, but Touma slides under its massive fist and between its legs to come face to face with Sherry. Touma knocks Sherry to the deck with a hard uppercut, but Sherry quickly draws a summoning circle and uses Alice's summoning procedure to escape into the subway rails below the mall. Consequently, Alice falls apart after Sherry disappears down the hole. After Sherry escapes, Touma wonders why Sherry would abandon her target Hyoka. Touma then thinks back to his earlier conversations with Sherry and realizes that with the conditions met, Sherry can kill any number of people to start a conflict, and one of those people is Index.Wouldn't it be much more effective to shoot Sherry instead? Look, she isn't even hiding any more.Touma has done the unthinkable.Mikoto: Wow! Where did you get this fabric? It's so nice!Somewhere in the city, Index and Mikoto are on a sidewalk waiting for Touma and the others. Mikoto starts to wonder about Index's strange attire and why her robe is held together by safety pins, but Index doesn't want to talk about it (Touma destroyed her robe in episode 1). Index then starts worrying about Hyoka and is even more worried that Hyoka is alone with Touma. Mikoto asks why Index isn't worried about Touma and Index answers that she knows Touma will come back to her no matter what. As Mikoto is starting get jealous, Sphinx suddenly jumps out of Index's robes and runs across the street. After Index chases after the kitten, Mikoto notices that a nearby manhole cover is shaking.It's not enough that Touma punched Sherry early, but he just had make Hyoka cry as well.Back down inside the mall, Touma is frustrated that he can't go anywhere as the mall is still in lock down and the Anti-Skills can't open the gates on their own. Touma walks to the hole that Sherry escaped through and wonders how he is going to get down there. Hyoka asks if Touma really have to go down the hole, and Touma explains Sherry's intent and states that he has to save Index. After hearing that Index is in danger, Hyoka decides to go save Index herself since her body is much more durable than a humans, so she might be able to distract the golem and allow Index to escape. Touma. Touma tries to stop Hyoka but Hyoka jumps down the hole anyways. After landing on the lower level, Hyoka runs down the subway tracks and thinks back to how she came into existence. Hyoka first merged in a sub-dimension of the real world where all the people around her would periodically morph into other people, and none of them can see her. Index was the first person Hyoka could talk to and this allowed her to cross into the real world. Hyoka then remembers the fun times with Index and promises herself that she would save Index.Index to Sphinx: No treats for a week!Index: Sorry, I don't go out with golems, especially one that's named Alice. Index finally catches Sphinx near a construction site. After putting the kitten back into her robes, Index notice the ground is shaking and sudden Alice emerges. Index identifies Alice as a Cabala golem statue integrated with English magical techniques and operated by remote control. Alice tries to attack Index, but Index redirects the golem's limbs by saying the appropriate commands. After sending Alice crashing into a nearby structure, Index takes advantage of the golem's regeneration abilities and immobilizes one of its legs using a safety-pin from her robe (don't ask me how this works). Index thinks that she can defeat Alice, but the golem smashes the ground and knocks Index off her feet. Index tries to use the Spell Intercept commands but soon realizes the golem is now autonomous and therefore the commands don't work. Alice swings its right arm to smash Index and suddenly there is an explosion of blue sparkles.What is Index doing to Sphinx?! Animal abuse!Alice to Index: This is for making me dance like an idiot!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~There were some pretty good parts in this episode, and there were some not so good parts. I guess it's appropriate given the hit-and-miss nature of the series. The first part of the episode was unintentionally funny because Touma thinks he's a hero of justice now and was trying his best to act cool only to produce the opposite effect. Oh, and there was the part where Touma slid under Alice and socked Sherry in the jaw (Oh no, he punched a girl!). I guess Touma has earned all of his victories by knocking out the villain, so it's only fair that Sherry gets the same treatment. You can even call it (a bad case of) gender equality. Have to hand it to Sherry though, she was still conscious enough to draw a summon circle after the upper cut, so at least she did much better than Stiyl who was KOed with one shot. I also found Hyoka's "I'm a monster" speech to be boring, since the flashback is more than enough to explain Hyoka's motivation, so there's no point talking to Touma as he will always respond with some incomprehensible hero speech.Moving on to the good parts, the action in this episode was quite good, and that includes the part where Touma socked Sherry in the jaw. Index has always had good production quality, and the fights in this episode have decent planning. During the first fight it's funny how all the Anti-Skills just kept firing without needing to reload, but I suppose in the advancement of weapons technology has made it so that guns have infinite ammo. The main fight sequence was of course near the end of the episode with Index going against Alice. For the first time ever in the series, Index actually looked cool (she was scary at the end of the first story-arc), and she showed that she knows how to make use of the magical information stored inside her head. Ultimately Index's lack of attacking ability meant that she couldn't defeat the golem by herself, but she performed a lot better than I thought she would. It looks like Hyoka arrives in time to save Index given the blue sparkles at the end of the show, although Index could have probably saved herself from the trouble just by sticking with Mikoto. Speaking of Mikoto, there wasn't enough of her in this episode, and it doesn't look like she'll play a large role next week either. I kind of wanted to see Mikoto rail-gun the golem with her spare change, but we'll to settle for Hyoka saving Index while Touma beats up Sherry (yeah it sounds wrong doesn't it?).
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