[DreadBringer]

The secondary Rider getting upgrade and an episode centered around the heroes getting stronger while the villains getting weaker....

I too felt like the Daiji/Kagerou plot here wasn't as well executed as the Genta/Vail twist previously, because of the previous events preceding it. For Vail part, the buildup is consistent and smooth, with Hiromi becoming a Rider despite him failing to henshin as Revice before, then Hiromi's physique deteriorating, then the Demons Driver revealing that he's devouring his life force, then the Demons Driver showed to have more independence as he lent Olteca more of his power, prefering a sociopathic bastard using Demons, then the Demons Driver revealed as Vail and even Olteca wasn't his first choice at that time and he only wants Genta, revealed to be his former partner who had yandere-ish obsession to him to reunite.

For Daiji/Kagerou here? The events in this episode seem to contradict the previous episodes, as the minor scenes that featured Wataru Hyuga had Kagerou's influence growing stronger and stronger and Daiji worrying about it. But the fight here had it being 180 that it's Daiji blatantly stronger, Live having constant upper hand, not even using finisher attack to dispatch Evil (also cracking his helmet before), with the problem that he's shaking instead. The turnabout here is quite sudden, like this should be extended first before the eventual Livevil showdown like how Daiji prefers for peace between them (even giving more Kagerou other than just gag scenes), or had different setting altogether before.... like Kagerou whining about Daiji's power before (though this'd upset Kagerou's fans). Otherwise, Kagerou's demise here reminds me of the previous dark clone, like Ghost's Makoto Copy, which died 'making peace' with the original version (but only at that time they 'get along'). I don't know if Kagerou knows that killing the human host would kill the demon too or not as he claims to fight Daiji for his freedom, but if he knows then yeah it's a cruel to be kind approach to make Daiji stronger then. Still shows that cruel to be kind approach only prolongs the problem; all of the previous Daiji and Kagerou feud in instance, though of course other than to Sakura or eventually Daiji, Kagerou is still overall cruel and tried to corrupt Daiji in the name of making him stronger, as someone who prides being evil and looking down on virtue.

Regarding how Daiji and Kagerou can be separated like that, it's further shown that Akaishi for some reason wants to groom up Daiji by letting George give what Kagerou needs, though he shows more vileness of not caring if its Daiji or Kagerou who survives, he treats his men as tools, like how he views Hiromi before. While George here showed clear concern to Daiji, trying to stop both Kagerou and Akaishi on getting the Crow ViStamp and the 2nd Two SiDriver ('two side'). It seems that both Akaishi and George value Daiji more than Hiromi here, though in twisted way for Akaishi, I wonder if the reason of Daiji being somewhat 'precious' here would be shown later, so far he's been criticized for lacking presence in the series, and Daiji's conflict with Fenix hasn't been touched yet. And Akemi appeared again here, but she's here acted as sorta of damsel-in-distress for Kagerou. So she's not a combatant.

So what Buu-san told Ikki was that Genta also had even different identity back then, Junpei Shiranami. And more origin for something in the series, that the Deadmans originated from a military research organization called Noah that tried to weaponized demons, where Buu-san and Junpei met, and Junpei worked as Noah's executioner against failed demon experiments. So Genta was the one in control and he truly fought as a Rider back then, not Vail (or that it's both of them), and (I don't know yet about the spin-off) he didn't act as a super soldier or such. Junpei/Genta didn't seem to do morally questionable thing there by fighting off rogue demons but he still felt hollow (he was still pretty much a killing machine but against deserving target) until he met Yukimi and decided to escape, helped by Masumi to atone. Guess while Masumi is still an extremist, he had limits and he did have remorse for Junpei/Genta. Of course as Sakura noted, it wasn't enough to compensate for Masumi's deeds. But what happened had happened and, Masumi's still gotta be given a chance to atone even if it's not enough (like Rolling ViStamp) especially with his scientific abilities, just like George at ep. 23 before. After Junpei/Genta left Deadman was formed by the group stealing Giff coffin to create said cult. Well, Noah seemed already evil anyway before, being a warmonger. Buu-san does tell about Genta here, but, what did Buu-san do that time?

Said Vail chose to go back to Olteca's Demons Driver again due to him wanting to have fun by helping Olteca for now. Vail still values sociopathic bastards like Olteca much better than Hiromi even if Genta is his first choice. Or that Olteca wants to fight off Igarashi family thus it served Vail's desire too. But like Sh Ranger said before, Olteca can't find a way to get him out of the trouble before despite being self-proclaimed genius other than Vail choosing to come back... Olteca had clear shortcoming here (and the next episode preview is about his schemes again). Missed chance for Aguilera before tbh, who's still a Giftex, to put Olteca down for good. Olteca's role here is smaller but in-line, he'd cause trouble for the heck of it and to test Demons' power as Vail complies. Here, the main focus is instead the weaker Evilive, and the side troublemaker is the much stronger Demons (as well as Ikki fighting as Jack Revice); again no wonder Hiromi's debut as Demons almost upstaged Evil despite Vail not liking Hiromi, Demons was the real top dog. Other than that, this shows further that Ikki's growing out of his busybodiness to not interfere despite that Vice insisted him to help Daiji. So that'd mean, while Ikki and Vice are buddies now, Ikki shouldn't comply to Vice's rather corrupting ad-vice to stay the way he is; Ikki's busybodiness can cause trouble instead of helping, and Ikki's growing out of it here.

Now unfortunately for Aguilera (well she's despairing already), Sakura now surpassed her even when they're fighting in human form, shown that while both are still standing, Aguilera's the one that was bleeding from the mouth. I guess this episode had Sakura overall losing her patience that she wasn't angered (for understandable reasons) only at Masumi but also at Aguilera here who she had symphatized. Though obviously she won't know anything about Aguilera and that she doesn't know her weakness, she claims Aguilera had her reasons of fighting in front of her eyes already that she pretended to be blind of. This probably shows Sakura knows Aguilera more than she thinks... I'd look forward into this on more Aguilera depth that isn't figured out yet, or probably to make it more convincing about her redemption or such. About Sakura herself claiming Aguilera made her stronger.... technically it did came from Aguilera owning her and mocking her weakness that finally had Sakura accepting that she's not the strongest which made her able to henshin into Jeanne, which had Aguilera being proud later. She wanted to use Sakura as a sacrifice though and likely she wanted strong sacrifices, but of course... making one of the heroes stronger as a method can backfire like this that they're out of the villain's grasp now.