Recap: Megumu is back from his travels around the world in order to sew the seeds of discontent against the Tree. Back in the Yoshino and Hakaze camp, the poor girl still can’t get a good grasp of her emotions, and thus spends most of the episode being hilariously adorable.

Man, I really was not expecting this episode. Usually we see these types of stories take their sweet time in revealing touchy subjects like attraction or secrets. Not Tempest. In keeping with its verbose tradition it just keeps chugging along, making even the most mundane or inane conversations sound like intense discussions. The best part was, by far, our continued glimpse into the conflicted mind of Hakaze.

It’s almost like this show is made for people like Life and me. Miyuki Sawashiro is, once again, playing the role of a normally straight-laced level-headed girl whose love for the main character in retrospect to those serious characteristics just makes her absolutely adorable. Doesn’t hurt that she has absolutely nailed that embarrassed voice in her inner monologues. Still, I can only see this ending badly for her. For one I still doubt that Aika is totally gone, but also you can just get that feeling from Yoshino that even though Aika is dead and buried he’s just not the type to move on from that. One might question what he sees in someone who is otherwise a complete sociopath but who am I to judge.

On the main front, we get a few more snippets into how the world is reacting to the presence of the Mage of Exodus. Not surprisingly, a whole ton of people are still for the Tree. In all honesty it really doesn’t make any sense to me to reverse things at this point. The tree has already taken the lives of those swallowed when it appeared. If it really has solved all environmental and international problems, is there really any ill in leaving it alone? I suppose this really is the crux of the moral grey area this show is presenting us. Would you rather live confined to remain safe, or free to choose your own path, even if it may result in suffering?

This episode sure dropped a ton of bricks on us by the end. I did think Hakaze would not be able to take it for much longer, but to have her confront him so bluntly was a surprise. I still say that, while she may already be dead, it does not seem to be outside the Tree’s powers to make that happen before her full feelings even came into fruition. I also loved that, at the same time, the Kusaribe faction spent the better part of five minutes dancing around the obvious answer of Yoshino’s Girlfriend. Does it speak to some connection to Yoshino that Megumu has that he can so easily see the truth, or is it simply the regular characters didn’t want to recognize the plain truth? Either way, the cat’s out of the bag for both parties, and from the look of the preview, it’s not going to end well.