Yeah, it's no surprise that Aika was the Mage of Exodus, or that her and Hakaze would bump heads. I hope Hakaze at least tries to talk her out of a fight, but I doubt it will be much use. And Aika will probably pass her powers off to Hanemura at the last second before her death. While this was another well done episode, it was also a lot of things that I saw coming, which is rather unusual for this show. I hope next episode throws us some kind of curveball.

That said, even if we all basically knew it was coming, I still got a little wide-eyed when Aika showed up on the roof. I figured they'd keep it secret until the last moment. Of course, this show has a bit of a habit of dropping huge plot points casually.

As for whether Aika was just using them or really cared about them, I think the answer is probably both. If she was being extra nice to them, and making out her personality to be different around them, then I might think they were just pawns. However, notice that she was equally devious, sadistic, and rude around them as she was with Hakaze, with whom she had nothing to lose. Probably, I think she liked them as people, but given her personality, I'd say she was probably using them in addition. I would expect that if Hakaze tells them this, she would say something like "she was using you guys," and they would reply with something equivalent to "Yeah, that makes sense. Not really surprising."

The only other question I have a decent response for is what Kanemura is. Just like Hakaze is the Mage of Genesis and, say, Samon is a Mage of Genesis, we can probably just think of Aika as the "Princess" of Exodus, and Hanemura is just some other mage. Although maybe it's also possible he became the primary mage after Aika died, or his girlfriend is Aika, or some of the other theories, but yeah, there's a lot going on for this show, and a lot of questions. I love Thursdays.

I didn't know she would be the mage of exodus. I knew she was more than meets the eye and i thought maybe she caused her own death. So I was creeped out when she popped up on the roof like that. It wasn't surprising. It was just creepy. I'm still creeped out. They hinted in the show that Aika could come back if someone who looked similar to her was killed instead and kinda took her place. I didn't want that person to be Hakaze since they have similar builds. They threw out the same types of hints regarding Yoshino being the mage of exodus and having a split personality just to make us suspicious. So I dont think they'd do it. However, on the off chance it was true I came here looking for spoilers. lol