Yuliy is going to go after the Ark all by his lonesome? Boy, that’s gonna make it hard for Ryoko to continuing courting him. Unless… 

— Our hero was about to face both Kershner and his own brother, but Willard has finally returned to the mansion. Not only that, he’s enlisted the help of Iba and the Japanese army. This scares Kershner enough to fall back, leaving Yuliy to Mikhail. What I don’t understand, however, is why the vampire proceeded to stick around and not flee the scene.

— The battle between Yuliy and Mikhail begins, but it’s a short one. The brothers obviously don’t want to kill each other. Moreover, it seems as though Mikhail is just testing Yuliy’s resolve.

— Baron Naoe is kinda dumb. Seeing the army roll in, he suddenly wants to stick his head out from his safe spot. Dude, have you forgotten that there are vampires out there?

— But back to the werewolf bros, Mikhail admonishes his younger brother for being so simple-minded. Getting revenge won’t help all those lost souls rest in peace. Rather, Yuliy must do what the Sirius have always done: protect the Ark. Their father left the village with this invaluable artifact, but it sounds like he may no longer be alive: “Make use of what my vampire blood has taken from me, and do the thing that only you can do.” But what is the Ark? Well, we’re find out later.

— There’s a small problem here, though: if Yuliy is the only Sirius left, then even if he tries to protect the Ark, he won’t be able to do it for long. He’ll eventually die one day as well. Sure, he could shack up with a wife, but his offspring would be half-Sirius, half-human. And when they form their own families, the bloodline would continue to dilute. Maybe you don’t need to be a full-blooded werewolf in order to protect the Ark, but at this point, all we can do is speculate.

— Anyways, after dispensing invaluable information to both Yuliy and the audience, Mikhail conveniently disappears behind a wall of smoke. Um, okay.

— When Dorothea and Fallon finally get back to the mansion, our hero leaves Philip to those two so that he can chase after Kershner.

— On the mansion’s rooftop, we see that the vampire has stuck around. Why? Maybe he’s surrounded on all sides, so he can’t escape. I would hope that a vampire can turn into a bat and just fly away or something, but maybe this isn’t possible for him. Either way, the first person to greet him on the rooftop is actually Willard.

— It becomes quickly apparent that these two have a shared history. Kershner, however, quickly gets the upper hand on the professor. Luckily for him, Yuliy is finally here.

— Kershner then reveals the oh-so-horrible truth (not really): in order to locate Dogville, the vampires had turned to Willard to help them translate an ancient text. This, of course, led to the massacre of Yuliy’s village. But we can only blame the professor if he knew that the vampires were up to no good. Since we’re lacking that information, it’s hard to fault him.

— Nevertheless, this new bit of information enrages Yuliy, and yeah, he doesn’t look so hot here. Hope Ryoko isn’t looking!

— Kershner manages to disarm Yuliy and stab him through the shoulder, but the werewolf’s raw strength overpowers the vampire in the end. And just like that, Kershner meets his ignominious defeat. Tsk tsk. Neither he nor Agatha were long for this series, huh?

— Yuliy then quickly turns his attention to Willard, but he stops just short of ending the professor’s life. The latter obviously feels guilty over helping the vampires destroy Dogville. He also feels guilty for leading Yuliy down the road of vengeance. As a result, he always intended to die. Once his mission was finished, he would reveal the truth to Yuliy and allow the kid to end his life. If you ask me, that seems kinda cowardly.

— Plus, he underestimates Yuliy. Yes, our hero is mad. Yes, our hero feels betrayed. But at the end of the day, Willard saved his life and treated him like a son. He’s not going to kill the only father figure he has left.

— The next day, Iba is reprimanded for his stunt. After all, it’s kinda hard to prove that vampires exist when they turn into ash immediately after dying. So from an outsider’s perspective, it looks like Iba mobilized a bunch of tanks for nothing.

— Ryoko’s mentor returns to find the mansion in complete ruins. The girl is perfectly okay, though. Plus, V Shipping will foot the bill. After all, it’s their fault the vampires attacked Baron Naoe in the first place.

—  Of course, Ryoko is worried about Yuliy, but again, they go through another episode without having a single conversation with each other.

— Off to the side, Willard finally tells Yuliy and the audience all about this mystical Ark that everyone wants so badly. It’s apparently a treasure trove of “knowledge and technologies.” So why is it being guarded so closely by the werewolves? Wouldn’t this information be beneficial for the entire world? Wouldn’t you be able to save countless lives with the “knowledge and technologies” contained within the Ark? Or is it, like, just destructive knowledge? Knowledge of weapons and stuff like that?

— Plus, what good is keeping the Ark around if you’re not going to use it? It’s like buying a book just to put on your shelf and never read. What’s the point? Moreover, what good is keeping the Ark around if evil people like the vampires can use it to subjugate humanity? If you’re not going to do anything with all this power at your fingertips, wouldn’t it be more practical just to destroy the damn thing? Or is it not possible to destroy the Ark?

— We then cut to Yevgraf, and it sounds like a deadly disease is threatening to kill the vampires off. Maybe that’s why they want the Ark so badly. If they weren’t such murderous bastards, the werewolves probably would’ve helped them too.

— Anyways, the loli vampires burst into the room with news from Tokyo. They inform Yevgraf that Kershner is dead, but as expected, no one in the room gives a hoot about that guy. Instead, they’re happy to learn that Mikhail will soon be rejoining them. Well, who doesn’t love the family pet?

— Later that day, Willard goes to deliver his report to headquarters. In order to do so, he drops by his late friend’s bar. When he gets there, he finds Iba casually waiting for him.

— The two men proceed to exchange information. Top brass within the Japanese military now wants their hands on the Ark as well. In fact, they’ve known of its existence for a quite a while, but they just, well, stopped caring until recently. But y’know, retrieve the Ark for the Empire’s sake, yadda yadda yadda.

— In return, Willard tells Iba all about Yevgraf and how the vampire is in Sakhalin, a Russian island just north of Japan. So that’s where the Ark is, huh? That’s not too far for our heroes. Just a stone’s throw away… kinda.

— Nevertheless, Willard later tells his team that they have been ordered to return to London. Yuliy, however, has other designs.

— In the after credits scene, we see Yuliy board a ship that will take him directly to Sakhalin. You can tell that he obviously cherishes his “family” — he refers to them as his pack — but he now feels that he has a mission that only he can fulfill. He must find the Ark and protect it from the vampires. Welp, I doubt the Jaegers are just going to let him do something so dangerous all by his lonesome.

— Plus, what about Ryoko! Yes, what about her? In past episodes, she was crazy enough to hop on a train just to follow Yuliy. Will she be reckless enough to join him in Sakhalin? Well, this would be tough to explain to her bewildered father. And sure, she wants to see the world and broaden her horizons, but I doubt Sakhalin is high on her list of priorities. On the other hand, if she doesn’t go on some mad quest for werewolf love, then how else would the show justify her existence within this series? If she stays in Tokyo, wouldn’t she just, well, fade out from the story altogether? I won’t lie: she amuses me, so I hope she sticks around.