The race is on! Claus and Lavi enter in a race, that they've entered so many limes before. But this time is different. They hope to finish the race, and they almost do (in 1st place too), but they are hit by a renegade vanship delivering ""cargo"". They soon learn that the ""cargo"" is actually a little girl. Claus decided to take the mission and is told, by Ralph, not to run his engine because the people after the girl can detect it. Just as Claus and Lavi leave the enemy vanship approaches. Now Ralph must make the ultimate sacrifice so that Claus and Lavi can escape with the little girl.

Sophia arrives at Norkia to parley with Disith commander Nestor Messina and reveals to him a copy of the peace offer lost in the Grand Stream ten years earlier. As a gesture of goodwill, Disith supplies Anatoray with a map of the Grand Stream's air currents and a recording of Exile's acoustic signature. Mullin decides to rejoin the musketeer squad and meets the female Disith musketeer, who introduces herself as Dunya Scheer. They are informed that the capture attempt of battleship Claudia units will occur on the Guild's Covenant Day, when 17-year-old youths pledge their allegiance to the Maestro. Before the Silvana leaves dock, Claus, Lavie, and Alvis say goodbye to Mullin. The formal alliance between Anatoray and Disith is signed at Sophia's coronation as Empress. Claus, Tatiana, Dio, and Lucciola arrive ahead of the Silvana to send congratulations, but Delphine's ship appears from the clouds above and rains down rose petals as a declaration of war. Dio, realizing that he has been found by his sister, panics and flies his vanship erratically. When Alex sees Delphine's ship above the site of the coronation ceremony, he immediately orders that it be destroyed, but his crew refuses to comply for fear of killing Sophia.