[Sh Ranger]

There are a lot of conflicting feelings between the Sword Riders here!

I already thought Ren was kind of a psychopath with his dangerously simple "Seigi wa tsuyosa! Tsuyosa wa seigi!" philosophy and his creepy laugh. But when Kenzan was about to deal a coup de grace on Saber and Mei intercepted, he just continued with his attack! If Yuri hadn't stopped him, I think Mei might actually have been killed there. Actually, remember when Mei followed Rintarou, Ren and Ogami back to Northern Base? Ren was the only one who vetoed her joining. He was also left out of the promise between Touma, Rintarou, Mei and Kento. I think he looks down on Mei as a mere homosapien for not being his ideal of strength or justice.

With Kento's death, Rintarou is the only other person besides Mei who is a close friend to Touma, since Daishinji and Ogami still see him as a novice and Ren is.... Ren. So hearing Touma praise Daichi's goal (not his means) and express lack of faith in SOL, Rintarou regards that as blaspheming against not just the organization, but also his family and make right a just no matter dark joke of Kento's sacrifice. Honestly, his reaction hurts the most since Touma and Mei are also his family and he doesn't want to lose another.

Touma arguably has it the worst though. Imagine happily going to take your manuscript to the editor in chief (it's cool how we finally get to see Mei's office outside the OP) and then your most trusted and important friends suddenly show up and accuse you of a crime you didn't commit! He has my full sympathy for having to experience that.

Not long ago, I mentioned how even lawful good types can be made the enemy of their organizations, such as Shinnosuke. An organization may start out as good, but evil can still infiltrate and tear it apart from the inside. Reika is basically playing the role of Nira here, exploiting her position in SOL and spinning a lie to turn the Sword Riders against Touma. Yuri immediately calls them out on this for believing her and letting their loyalty to SOL get in the way of their crusade to protect what is good in the world.

I think Reika's manipulation is actually related to the theme of promises. A promise is an expression of ultimate truth. Touma always keeps his promises in the end but Reika is a reflection of some depraved people in real life, who use false promises to deceive people. She doesn't actually say the word itself but as a member of SOL, her words are automatically taken as truth due to their code of chivalry and it shows that even though promises are sacred, there are those who will make them lightly, without sincerity, the worst kind of person.

I guess this also relates the theme of "master of sword, master of pen" since words, even sacred words, can be abused to spread propaganda and obscure the truth for personal gain. Wielding only words as her weapon, Reika has turned Touma in to a wanted fugitive in a single episode and that makes her a terrible person. I totally agree with Kawazu Asuka about wanting to see Mei beat her up!

Yuri makes his shining debut as Saikou here and he has more lines besides his repetitive "Do not search!" from Touma's adventure in Avalon. At first, I thought it was weird how the name Saikou has nothing to do with swords, except Saikou literally is the sword so now it makes total sense. That's pretty clever! Not much to say about his fight, he's just a strong self-wielding sword and easily de-henshined the other Riders. It's simple. I guess he'll be replacing Kento as the new Tertiary Rider, at least until someone else inherits the mantle of Espada.