After being separated from Belldandy, Keiichi finds Sora and continues his struggle through the castle to reach Sayoko at the top.
Summary
Keiichi panics and flees from the group of men dressed up as Belldandy that tried to woo him. He dashes through a hall into another room and closes the doors behind him when a mist fills the area and a woman suddenly appears. She is none other than Nekomi Tech's amateur exorcist Shiho Sakakibara!
As Keiichi spots Sora tied up behind her, Shiho tells him that thanks to him, she's made lots of new friends in the spirit world, though she's disappointed Belldandy isn't with him to have "fun" as well. She unleashes a swarm of large snake-shaped spirits in Keiichi's direction and makes him flee for the door he entered, but the Belldandy impersonators are on the other side, and they enter the room. The spirits mistakenly believe that these men are the real Belldandy and attack them instead of Keiichi. Shiho tries to get them under control, but she gets caught in the chaos and is knocked out, which makes the spirits disappear.
Meanwhile, Urd and Skuld meet up after beating and blowing up their respective opponents. They agree to catch up with Keiichi and Belldandy, but their go in opposite directions and predictably argue about which way they should go. They attempt to go their own ways, but the floor traps convince them to stay together.
Keiichi frees Sora from her bonds, and she is very glad that he came to her rescue since she was so scared. Keiichi suddenly gets scared about Sora being under Sayoko's influence, but she reveals a ribbon she's wearing on her back of her head that she claims she got from Skuld earlier and was freed before Shiho captured her. Knowing that she used to be one of Sayoko's slaves, Keiichi realizes Sora knows the layout of the castle, and she now leads Keiichi forward in the direction of Sayoko's throne room up until Sora stop them at one particular room, saying that the path from there on is filled with traps. Sora instructs Keiichi to precisely follow a sequence of movements to avoid springing the trap. Keiichi fails to do so and is nearly killed, and if that wasn't bad enough, Sora tells him that there are thirty-six levels to go after this!
Keiichi and Sora press on while Sayoko watches them on her TV, astonished that Keiichi repeatedly best her traps. Mara asks her about what happened to Belldandy. Sayoko tells her that she handed Belldandy but tell her that she can have her if she wishes.
Belldandy was taken to the "Imperial Model Club"'s research center and placed on a table. The club members are preparing to make a full-body silicon molding out of her, as they determine that having such a molding has "various" uses. However, while they argue amongst themselves over who should take Belldandy's clothes off to apply the mold, Mara appears out of thin air and knocks them all out. She lightly taps Belldandy's lip to wake her up and disappears before she sees her. Belldandy immediately rushes to find Keiichi, reluctantly using the obvious trap of the castle's tour route to direct her. She has no patience for a rock band that tries to stop her and uses Holy Bell to blow them out of her way.
Sora and Keiichi reach the bottom of the spiral staircase leading to where Sayoko and supposedly Belldandy are. Keiichi takes the lead and runs up the stairs with Sora following in tow.