Avsnitt 9

Inhibited and encumbered by the mass of his ill-gotten payload as well as the police, Takashi desperately tries to compute a deus ex machina while Taizou and Oboro speculate upon Keiko Kojika's success prospects. Even as she detects his decreasing proximity and rushes to intercept him, Takashi uses a decoy rabbit to distract Hatsune and scores the unexpected bonus of Keiko being a lupine lunch for having Hatsune's necklace in hand . Minamoto being none too thrilled with the prospect of Hatsune's residence with his esper charges quickly takes a back seat to Takashi synthesizing a website to auction off his ill-gotten payload. Mio having successfully evacuated Takashi, Hatsune turning her anger on Keiko illuminates the root cause for Hatsune's absconding: Keiko's clumsy leadership being exacerbated by Akira's sycophantic and uxorious affinity for her . Everything goes according to plan during the simulated polar medical rescue mission until a solar flare induces a magnetic storm that occludes communication. Unable to abort the mission and the B.A.B.E.L . rations of no utility, Hatsune first tries to make a meal out of Keiko before turning her attention to a baby narwhal she had captured without much effort only to find that the baby narwhal's parent emphatically disagrees with her menu plan through a fierce roller-coaster sequence of deep dives and breaching the ice. Keiko realizes her groove in within B.A.B.E.L . as The Hound team leader when she urges the baby narwhal back to sea with its parent and quickly extinguishes Hatsune's hysterical tirade with an abrupt and potent »Get a grip on yourself!!!« slap across the chops before wrapping herself and Hatsune with insulating blankets under the luminous reward of the aurora.