Episode 12 - Night's End, Journey's End
A vast, swirling black dome has formed above the ocean's surface. The Arthra's crew confirms that the automated defense program has been separated from the Book of Darkness, and will soon reactivate itself. Amy tells Nanoha and the others not to do anything until Chrono arrives.
Reinforce tells Hayate they don't have much time before the defense program reactivates and starts running rampant. Using her administrative powers, Hayate restarts the guardian knights' programs and returns their linker cores. The four Wolkenritter reappear on the roof where they vanished, and Hayate calls them to her side.
A brilliant white light bursts out over the ocean. Nanoha and the others see a glowing sphere appear below them, with Signum, Vita, Zafira and Shamal standing guard around it. The four knights pledge their loyalty to the Queen of the Night Sky — and the sphere of light shatters to reveal Hayate, standing in the armour of a Belkan knight and wielding a mage's staff. She calls upon Reinforce and the pair of them enter Unison mode, turning Hayate's hair platinum and giving her wings.
Seeing their mistress, the knights start to apologize for their actions, but Hayate says they can worry about the details later. This is too much for Vita, who bursts into tears and hugs her. Nanoha and Fate hesitantly approach, and Hayate tells them she's sorry her children caused so much trouble.
A moment later, Chrono arrives and says the Book's now-separated defense program is about to go berserk. He asks Hayate and the Wolkenritter for advice on stopping it, saying their options include freezing it using Durandal, or obliterating it with the Arthra's Arc-en-Ciel. Signum and Shamal say that freezing the defense program won't prevent it from reincarnating if its core remains intact. The Arc-en-Ciel could destroy the core, but firing it on the Earth would destroy large swaths of the planet's surface. After considering the problem, Nanoha, Fate and Hayate together come up with a plan of attack.
On the shoreline, near where the Arthra's teleporter deposited them, Alisa and Suzuka look out over the water. They can see the ominous black mass of the defense program slowly growing, but Suzuka says she has a feeling Nanoha and Fate will protect everyone. Alisa agrees, but then angrily demands to know why Christmas Eve has turned so strange.
As everyone makes final preparations for the battle, Chrono relays their plan to Admiral Graham. He acknowledges that the Book of Darkness has hurt countless people throughout history, including him and his mother. Activating Durandal, he says that rather than dwell on a past which can't be changed, he will fight in order to create a better future. Meanwhile, on board the Arthra, Lindy gives the order to start charging the Arc-en-Ciel.
With only moments left, Hayate asks Shamal to heal Nanoha and Fate's accumulated injuries. Then everyone takes their positions as the black dome beneath them dissolves, revealing the horrifying magical chimera within.
Arf, Yuuno and Zafira use binding magic to prevent the defense program from attacking, while Vita, Nanoha, Signum and Fate attack in sequence to destroy its four layers of defensive shields. Next, Hayate wields her powers of the Night Sky to solidify and then shatter their opponent's body — which immediately re-forms into something equally monstrous. Chrono then uses Durandal to freeze the abomination in place. Before it can break free, Nanoha, Fate and Hayate combine their most powerful attacks to smash it to pieces... allowing Shamal to uncover its magical core.
Shamal, Yuuno and Arf use their transfer magic to send the core up into orbit, where the Arthra is waiting. Even as the defense program tries to regenerate, Lindy fires the Arc-en-Ciel and vaporizes it.
As everyone celebrates their victory, Amy takes the opportunity to teleport the extremely-confused Alisa and Suzuka to an undamaged area of the city. However, the congratulatory mood is interrupted by an alarmed cry from the Wolkenritter — Hayate has collapsed unconscious.
Tropes
- Actually a Good Idea: As everyone is debating whether to use Durandal or the Arc-en-Ciel to destroy the automated defense program, Arf gets impatient and asks why they can't all just blow it up with their powers. The others start to explain why that won't work — but then Nanoha, Fate and Hayate between them suddenly realize that strategy might actually succeed if they combine it with both the other plans.
- An Ass-Kicking Christmas: As Christmas Day approaches dawn, everyone comes together to blast all kinds of hell out of the automated defense program — in the way that only Nanoha and friends can.
- Awesome Moment of Crowning: After Hayate restores the Wolkenritter to life, they form an honour guard and proclaim her Queen of the Night Sky, pledging their eternal loyalty. At the same time, Reinforce bestows on her the armour and staff of an ancient Belkan knight, whereupon she appears before everyone — standing up.
- Badass Creed: The revived Wolkenritter recite one as they stand guard around Hayate:Signum: We are the guardian knights who gather before our mistress of the Night Sky.Shamal: As long as our mistress exists, our souls will never be extinguished.Zafira: As long as we live, we shall stand by each other.Vita: We stand with our mistress Hayate Yagami, Queen of the Night Sky, forever.
- Body Horror: As the automated defense program takes damage, it continually regenerates bits of itself into seemingly-random pieces of whatever creatures the Book of Darkness had absorbed. By its final moments, it's little more than a freakish collection of jumbled, inhuman body parts which is pretty disturbing to look at.
- Call-Back: Yuuno casts the spell Struggle Bind to help restrain the defense program. This is the same spell Chrono used to capture the Liese twins back in episode 10 — which may be a subtle clue as to just who Chrono learned it from.
- Exact Time to Failure: The Arthra is able to predict exactly how much time is left before the automated defense program re-awakens and starts its rampage.
- Hybrid Monster: The fully-separated defense program takes the form of a huge, vaguely centaur-like chimera. It appears to incorporate bits of all the creatures whose linker cores were previously absorbed by the Book of Darkness, crowned with the upper body of a female humanoid resembling a twisted version of Reinforce.
- Power Dyes Your Hair / Power Gives You Wings: When she enters Unison with Reinforce, Hayate's normally-brown hair turns platinum, and she gains wings similar to those the Book's avatar had previously.
- Rasputinian Death: What it takes to destroy the automated defense program is staggering, and too long to describe here.note
- Taken for Granite: Hayate's spell Mistelsteinn appears to petrify its target.
- Theme Music Power-Up: Nana Mizuki's Brave Phoenix scores most of the battle against the rampaging defense program.
- Unspoken Plan Guarantee: An interesting aversion: the plan is openly formulated and explained, then executed just as described... and it works perfectly. This is presumably because the real problems were resolved in the previous episode, and this one is basically cleanup. The main point of the battle here is to showcase how unstoppable everyone is when they all fight together on one side.
