WARNING: The following contains spoilers for The Irregular at Magic High School Season 2, Episode 12, "Visitor Arc XII," now streaming on Funimation.
The much-anticipated party celebrating the completion of the monumental Tokyo Offshore Tower has begun, and the suspected terrorist threat is real. The magician supremacist group New Breed Front has members outside and inside the Tower while the Yotsuba has its own agents ready with a different goal in mind. Meanwhile, Tatsuya, Miyuki and Honoka are special guests at the party thanks to Shizuku's father helping fund the Tower's construction.
Though the party appears to be running smoothly, Tatsuya sees the plot thicken when his younger cousins Ayako and Fumiya jump into action outside the building. The Yotsuba's goal is not to stop a potential terrorist attack, but to collect intel on the New Breed Front and detain any members if possible. When the radicals take over the Tower from the inside and make an explicit bomb threat, Tatsuya may be forced to take actions that contradict both factions.
While Tatsuya and friends are chatting at the party, Ayako and Fumiya -- the latter now disguised as a girl named Yami -- attack a couple of suspected New Breed Front agents posing as utility workers to get into the Tower. Ayako uses a Perfect Diffusion spell, allowing Yami to silently attack the intruders from inside a magic teleportation portal. The siblings' teamwork is exceptional as they subdue and transport their targets quickly and efficiently. Only Tatsuya, watching from the Tower's top floor, notices their handiwork.
Their two outside agents may have failed to cut the Tower's major power cables, but it turns out the New Breed Front's leading members are already hiding inside the building. While the party members are on the 360th floor, the terrorists lie in wait on an underground floor. With gas masks on, they begin their assault on lower-level security teams by sending sleeping gas through the ventilation shafts. This allows them to hijack the Tower's main communication room and speak to everyone in the building.
The group leader introduces the New Breed Front and claims to be fighting for magicians' rights after decades of being subjected to "slave labor." The Tokyo Offshore Tower is partially protected by a band of magician workers on an underground floor, who are supposedly being forced to do so against their will. Tatsuya is skeptical, having personally heard the Tower's employees are treated well. The New Breed Front then gives a warning to the party attendees: the Tower will be blown up in one hour, so everyone must vacate the building in that time or be caught in the explosion. They claim to not want to harm anybody, and that this is the only way they can stand up for magicians' rights.
It's unclear how true or false their claims of slave labor are, but it is well-established that many magicians are trained and used as weapons in the military or local law enforcement. Tatsuya himself is the embodiment of this. Having his free will and most of his emotions taken from him as a boy, the Yotsuba use him for the sole purpose of protecting Miyuki and he is a teenage officer for the 101 Independent Magic-Equipped Battalion. Though Tatsuya loves Miyuki and prioritizes her protection and happiness above all else, he's never really had a say in his life's path. Is it possible the New Breed Front's general message -- if not their terrorist actions -- could resonate with him? What about the other party attendees and the wider magician public?
Whatever Tatsuya ultimately thinks of their message, his first priority will be to help everyone else to safety and try to eliminate the bomb threat. The New Breed Front claims to want to liberate magicians while the Yotsuba have long forced Tatsuya (and other children in the family) to work for their own mysterious agenda. But with Yotsuba agents wanting to learn about the terrorists and capture their members, what will Tatsuya do if he and his own family have a direct clash of motivations?
