By Bokuto Uno and Miyuki Ruria. Released in Japan as “Nanatsu no Maken ga Shihai suru” by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

One of the memes that goes around about Reign of the Seven Spellblades – let’s be honest, it may be the only meme – has Fred from Scooby Doo in front of a villain with “Harry Potter” as a mask, and he says “Now let’s see who Reign of the Seven Spellblades *really* is!”, and removes the mask, showing Fate/Stay Night. I have, in fact, made this joke myself throughout these reviews. That said, no volume quite hammers this home as much as this one. Shirou and Saber… pardon me, Oliver and Nanao… are competing to see who can be the biggest death seeker (OK, that’s not quite correct, but both think death within a year or two is inevitable). Meanwhile, I’ve already talked about the ways, both physical and mental, that I think Chela is like Rin, but I wasn’t expecting her to also be Sakura. And of course, if you’ve played the original Fate game, you know how explicit it gets. This volume comes close to that.

In the aftermath of the last book, Guy has to distance himself from the rest of the Sword Roses, which is particularly devastating to Katie. To make things more annoying, they’re fourth years, and now is the time when they all have to essentially “choose a major” – decide what specific course they’re inclined to pursue in detail. Oliver has not really thought about his future at all, so simply goes along with Katie to keep an eye on her. Nanao accidentally forgets the most obvious path, mostly as she too is not bothering to think about the future. And Guy is seeing if he could be a good curse breaker, and also has the folks from Book 12 he fought with – including comedy relief Annie Mackley – trying to separate him from the Sword Roses. This all comes to a head when Katie gets so uptight she needs… relief, shall we say, and Chela asks for what is an obvious solution. Things go badly.

This book reminds us of two big things. The first is that our protagonists, the Sword Roses, are all thought of as huge freaks within the rest of the school. They’re literally described as ticking timebombs, and the main reason seems to be the fact that they’ve been so close knit since they first met at the start of their first year – most friend groups in this school drift apart. The second is that, despite all of this, there’s still a lot of secrets that have never been told between this friend group. Nanao learned one of Oliver’s worst tragedies from the past, but Chela didn’t, and that ends up blowing up in her face – mostly due to Chela’s OWN backstory, which we get another part of here, and – as Chela herself points out – she and Oliver are similar yet also opposite in some ways. I’d said that I wondered if this would end with just Oliver and Nanao dead or everyone dead. I now suspect this may be an all-or-nothing series – either the six survive or they all die.

All this plus a whole lot of… well, there’s no other way to put it, mutual masturbation… reminds us that this remains a really well-written, really horny, and really suspenseful series. I have no idea what’s going to happen next.

By Bokuto Uno and Miyuki Ruria. Released in Japan as “Nanatsu no Maken ga Shihai suru” by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

I’ve talked before about how my desire to see the main six cast members live happily ever after is warring with the narrative, which keeps underlining how Oliver and Katie are doomed. With this episode, I get the feeling that we’re going to be adding everyone else to that list as well, and make this an All Or Nothing type of series. The two characters who have gotten the least focus get attention here, and while Pete is mostly setup for future volumes (with one huge exception which I’ll get to later), Guy’s arc is looking to be a lot more dangerous and potentially fatal. Generally speaking I’ve always thought of Guy and Chela as “the sensible ones”, and this book is here to throw that out the window and remind me that absolutely everyone in that group is weird as hell. Of course he survives – none of them will die till at least Oliver explains what he’s doing. But yikes, I don’t wish what he has to go through on anyone else… wait, absolutely the wrong way to put that.

Despite the fact that Guy and Pete get much more focus here, the publisher still knows who its big sellers are, so Oliver and Nanao are on the cover again, along with new teacher Rod Farquois, who will be taking over astronomy, is a reversi just like Pete, and absolutely no one knows what they’re up to – it’s very clear they’re not here at the school’s request. As for the main plot, half of it … again, we’re coming to it… but the last half of the book is a rescue arc, as Guy, Ursule Valois’ twin attendants, and forgotten first book teen bully Annie Mackley are trapped on the second floor of the labyrinth, which is dealing with someone consumed by the spell, and he’s turned the floor into his own cursed treehouse of horrors. Everyone will be going there to rescue Guy/the twins (sorry, Annie, no one really likes you), but can they do it before Guy makes an irreversible decision?

I hate to be a broken record, but my god this series is horny. It’s baked into the plot, as it’s hinted that one of the main reasons that our heroes are suffering so much right now is that they’re not banging each other on the regular. Pete, at least, takes care of that in one of the more startling scenes in the book, where he confronts Oliver in his female body and takes him to bed. Oliver, of course, is doing similar things with Nanao, and Chela helped him earlier. Katie loves Oliver, but knows he’s rejecting her, so is snuggling Guy every chance she gets. Guy likes Katie, so is helping her with this. Third-year Rita likes Guy too, and is angry at Katie. And we also meet Leoncio’s sister, a third year who is absolutely his distaff counterpart, and who seems to be constantly aroused. I don’t think that all Oliver’s problems would be solved with an orgy… unless?

This is another book that ends WHAM, no epilogue at all, so I’m not sure what happens next. The cover to Vol. 13 sure looks like a “Breaking of the fellowship” situation, though, huh? In any case, please read about these powerful and pent-up idiots.

By Bokuto Uno and Ruria Miyuki. Released in Japan as “Nanatsu no Maken ga Shihai suru Side of Fire – Rengoku no Ki” by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

This does not have a ‘1’ on the cover, and the book ends with the words “The End”. That said, I would not be remotely surprised if we get another volume of this prequel/side story. It’s a book that serves to show off some of the more popular supporting cast before the events of the main series, but it’s also there to remind us that Kimberly Academy did not begin when Nanao and Oliver arrived – and, in fact, the reason that they are able to do as well as they are is because the way was paved. It was paved by Alvin Godfrey, of course. And he has his own close-knit group of friends (though not, it has to be said, quite as close knit as our main cast), all of whom we have seen before, and some of whom are now dead. It’s also an opportunity to see the teachers as caring (to a point) educators, and not the next people Oliver has to kill.

Alvin Godfrey is having a bad time. His magic is rather pathetic, and his father resolves to disown him unless he gets into a magic academy. He proceeds to take 18 exams, and fail 17 of them. But it’s Kimberly, the most prestigious, that accepts him, as they see what he can’t – that he’s been taught wrong from an early age, and that he is, in reality, far more powerful than he’d ever expect. As we see his first and then second year, he realizes how much he hates the current student environment, and how he’s going to change it by the power of being really nice and helping people. Fortunately, he has his androgynous best friend Carlos, the always angry but also righteous Lesedi, temperamental and unhinged poison maker Tim, and abused and bullied Ophelia. Can they change the academy?

I admit I did wonder if this would take in everything we’d seen from the main books in its one volume, and thus was watching Ophelia carefully. But about halfway through I realized that it wasn’t going to end quite that far ahead, so I was pleased to have it read like… well, honestly, like the main series. Alvin and company are trained by Kevin Walker to survive in the Labyrinth, and they get help (but not too much) from Vera Miligan. And, frankly, the fact that in the main series Ophelia has become an antagonist is something that could still easily happen in the main series, given Katie’s subplot. Oliver may have his Great Cause, and I get that, but he’s not special – there are other protagonists in their own story. I also liked the climax, where we discover that sometimes you can’t assign meaning and definition to everything. It doesn’t quite say “shit happens”, but the thought is there, and it allows someone to be saved, if not to survive.

All this plus another reminder of how well-hung Leoncio is, in case you forgot which series you were reading. Fans of the books will definitely want to get this.