In volume 13, the school festival that has been teased for several volumes now finally happens. The most interesting part of this, beyond a switch from a totally brain burst driven accelerated world volume, are the interactions between Haruyuki Arita and Niko with her pouring his heart out to him finally making herself vulnerable, and the meeting of Rin (Ash Roller) with the Red King (as well as Utai meeting her as well). For everyone to make themselves vulnerable in the real was interesting. However, it was also pretty funny seeing them with their confrontational meeting with pointed stares of perhaps the jealousy variety at Haru.
Main plot wise, the heart to heart with Niko describing the F and M type avatars and how the females may have put up extra barriers whenever they were around guys in the real was an interesting route to take and made one think of what are perhaps some of the reasons why people were driven to brain burst in the first place. As an escape is one, but to get power is another, however, in both cases, they only sought to make the person seem weak in the real.
Action wise, Im so glad they are finally launching an assault against Metatron which has been teased for so long. Rin getting tainted by Magenta Scissor was just the thing we needed, and further, that fight was extra special for being a Sky Raker v her daughter, Ash Roller thing. The parent child relationship is special.
Obviously Reki Kawahara is an amazing author, otherwise I wouldn't be reading volume 13 of a rather obscure series where the anime only stopped at volume 4.
This was a great book in terms of plot development in between major arcs, especially setting up for the Metatron raid which has been hinted at for some time. The school festival was fun and great for character development in regards to building friendships. Timing is a little off in that the other major books and major events happened in less than days ago, although with the time of acceleration maybe pacing becomes a little better.
In general, my biggest complaint is that he adds very specific scenes that do not need to be, and have no place in the book. The characters are young, even if they are mature mentally and deal with complicated issues and trauma that adults deal with. If those scenes are skipped, which is pretty easy to do since they are foreshadowed, then the book is rather quite good.
While it was a volume that didn't progress the main story much further, it was great for character development and world building. So, maybe because it didn't have those "act of god" moments the author loves, I really enjoyed it :)