With the road to Kiel open, preparations begin for the capture of the port city. On a patrol, Eila and Sanya run into Ominous Fog and a Neuroi hidden in it that attacks them and they are forced to withdraw. It is quickly established that the Neuroi is generating the fog and reconnaissance photos indicate that it is covering all of Kiel preventing any kind of air support. Britannia plans to launch a saturation bombing raid which will wipe out the Neuroi, but devastate Kiel in the process rendering it useless as a port and push the start date of Operation Southwind to next spring at the earliest. Barkhorn, Hartmann, Yeager, Lucchini, Clostermann, and Bishop are assigned to escort the bombers.
After the meeting Barkhorn confronts Wilcke about this attack, as both of them are close to losing their powers due to aging, and expresses her desire to be able to participate in the assault on Berlin, which would be in jeopardy if it were pushed back. Sanya overhears this and proposes an alternate plan where she leads a strike force consisting of Eila, Miyafuji, and Hattori to destroy the Neuroi and dissapate the fog before the bombers get to Kiel.
During the attack, Eila panics and fires against orders and the mission is a failure. After getting back to base, Eila claims she sensed a Neuroi, but Sanya claims she detected nothing on radar, chews out Eila and grounds her for disobeying orders. Sanya, Hattori, and Miyafuji decide to attack one more time to destroy the Neuroi. They seemingly do, but it is just a drone and reforms while its controller Neuroi (undetected by Sanya) is discovered, proving Eila right. Back at base, Eila has a precognition of Sanya being killed in the attack and flies off to their rescue. She locates the Core, and calling out in the fog to Sanya, who is able to hone in and destroy the core. The fog dissapates and Kiel is able to be captured intact. Sanya and Eila embrace in the air and go back to base where they celebrate Saturnus together.
Tropes in this episode:
- Beware the Nice Ones: For the first time in the series, Sanya gets really angry (at Eila) and it isn't pretty.
- Big Damn Heroes: Eila shows up just in time to bail out Sanya's team from the Neuroi's fatal blow.
- Call-Back: Barkhorn reminded Minna that their time as Witches are about to expire soon due to nearing their age limit, which is first happened with Mio in the previous season.
- Christmas Episode: Saturnus is the Strike Witches equivalent.
- Foreshadowing: The Neuroi of this episode is shaped after the Himmeli Eila made for the Saturnus Festival.
- Idiot Ball: During their second encounter with the Neuroi, Eila has a vision of Sanya getting vaporized by an unseen Neuroi from the side, and Eila breaks her orders to fire towards it and save Sanya's life. Sanya never detected the Neuroi, and so punishes Eila for insubordination and grounds her for the next mission. This despite knowing that Eila's precognition powers are real. Sanya ignoring Eila's explanation nearly gets herself, Hattori, and Miyafuji killed.
- This can however be also equally applied to Eila: who suddenly broke orders in the middle of an operation, and when turning to engaged the Neuroi she foresaw in her vision: was pointing the barrel of her live and loaded MG42 in Shizuka's direction as the Fuso witches HEAD was passing in front of the Barrel of said gun. Which would run the obvious risk of a I Just Shot Marvin in the Face moment. It also doesn't help Eila's position that she either doesn't explain her actions effectively and concisely or not even bothering to explain herself at all (character flaws she has a known history of). It's also recorded in her profile that she has a habit of not being very perceptive of her immediate surroundings and not stepping out of her own headspace, given her tunnel vision that results in her not working well with team mates, which have been seen in instances before. Eila's stubborn aloofness and lack of attentiveness to her squad-mates, impulsive actions and actual (if intentional) character flaws that exacerbate things are also contributing factors that do not help the operation and result in Sanya's questioning of Eila's trustworthiness in carrying out the operation effectively at least Justified, and thus further complicating the situation when things take a turn for the worse.
- It's Personal: Despite being the most reserved among the 501st, Sanya is revealed to have a massive beef with the Neuroi for invading Orussia and took the fog-clearing operation very seriously.
