Wakaba's trying to be sneaky but Saionji's jacket's just hanging up on the wall.

It does make sense for Wakaba, the designated ordinary character, to have a thing about wanting to be special. It's at least more interesting than it only being about her having a crush on Saionji. What's the deal with Saionji calling her late despite the fact that she's punting on social stuff and rushing, though? Is he just bored being alone all day?

It's interesting how Akio is sorta giving "episode focus character" a diagetic metaphysical quality. I could see literally doing that in a ttrpg or whatever. I guess from that perspective duelists and Akio have an intrinsic miraculous main character energy, which is why all the black rose duelists have been leeching off of their significance.

At first I thought it'd feel forced for Wakaba to have a dark side, because she seems so nice and generous. But being possessive of her secret and Saionji, and feel like she'd be doomed to be in everyone's shadow otherwise, does work well. I think I like this angle better than if Saionji carelessly did something big and cruel to push her over, even though he easily could've.

Mikage definitely seems to have teleportation and divination/insight powers. He seems like someone fun to base a ttrpg character off of.

It's interesting that Anthy's uniquely assertive in this duel. It sorta creates the impression that she could assert herself more if she felt like she needed to. But it also raises the question of what the leaf hair pin deal looks like from her perspective. Probably Saionji didn't actually give it to her in person. Did Mikage do so, and if so what's their relationship like from Anthy's perspective? Or are Mikage and Akio collaborating more than we've been lead to expect?

Oh, but Mikage still has the hair pin after the duel. So was Wakaba seeing Anthy with it some sort of illusion? (Though why would he need the actual pin for an illusion? And why does he care about burning it afterwards?)

I was sorta hoping that Utena would be in Wakaba's room to surprise her, or something. Utena's really the one that should've learned a lesson from this duel, but despite her reluctance to fight it's not clear that she has?

I do hope that this isn't the end of Wakaba being a significant character.