Talk about a cliffhanger!

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Kirito and Alice hang for dear life alongside the walls of the cathedral, with Alice still trying to kill Kirito despite their dire situation. Eventually, he gets her to see reason and work with him to save themselves first, though she promises to slay him the moment they get back in the building. As they work to get back inside, Kirito questions the role of the Taboo Index given its contradictions, an idea that Alice hesitates to answer. Using a combination of Sacred Arts, gymnastics, and good old fashioned teamwork, they manage to climb up the walls with their swords with hopes to reach an open area on the 95th floor. Along the way, they come across stone gargoyles that reveal themselves to be creatures from the Dark Territory, meaning they now have to fight off flying monsters while balancing on footholds as long as their arms and half as thick.

In a last-ditch effort, they get on the ledge to face the monsters, known as Minions, but Alice is shocked that creatures of the Dark Territory would be allowed this high up the Central Cathedral without the Pontifex knowing it. Something must really be up. Even weirder is that Kirito manages to nudge out some of her forgotten memories, leading the two of them to get closer.

Inside, Eugeo continues to travel up the floors on his own and reaches the 90th floor. There, he enters what looks like a bathhouse and encounters another Integrity Knight bathing there. And in the real world, Asuna notices some concerning behavior from ships approaching the Ocean Turtle.

OUR TAKE

First off, this is not a good episode for anyone with a fear of heights! Not that it’s bad in terms of writing exactly, but seeing Kirito and Alice’s slow climb up the side of a flat building is going to make you squirm at least a couple times, even while knowing that Kirito is the protagonist and is therefore in no real danger. Though what’s important about this is, for one, Kirito and Alice finally having some significant non-combative interactions, as well as Alice slowly peeling away her programming to understand the contradictions in the church’s rules. I know it hasn’t officially happened yet, but I actually expected Alice becoming an ally would happen a little further down the road. Or at least after one more fight. Not that I’m complaining about that, though the bickering/flirting between the two was pretty eye-rolling.

And while he didn’t get a ton of screen time this week, I’m also interested in seeing where Eugeo’s going to end up on his own. So far, he’s needed Kirito to guide him and fight alongside him in order to get by, but now he’s facing an Integrity Knight all on his own. Seeing how I find Eugeo a considerably more interesting and compelling character than Kirito, I’m naturally pretty invested in how this next fight will go. Him fighting on his own would have to happen eventually for his character to progress, so now we’ll finally get to see if the fruits of Kirito’s training really paid off. OR we could see how far Eugeo still has to go if he loses, which I guess would be an equally interesting outcome. Given that this knight is placed after Fanatio, who was the second, chances are high he might be the first and strongest of the group.

Also, another minor scene is Asuna’s brief appearance to check in with the real world. The matter with the ships probably seems minor since it breezes by amongst all the stuff going on in Underworld, but my money is on this being the harbinger of something bigger. I mean, I guess it would be weirder if it wasn’t, but I’m keeping an eye out for mention of it later on. I can’t imagine the stuff on the Ocean Turtle just being the other human characters waiting around for Kirito to finish up, so we’ve gotta get them back in the action somehow.

Score 7/10