Episode 45

is the forty-fifth episode of the Fire Force anime and the twenty-first episode of the second season.

Summary
Following destruction of Orochi, Juggernaut lies badly wounded from her attacks and cannot move. Tamaki sends the remaining Eternals to their rest, but is then attacked by two more Purple Haze knights. Fortunately she is saved by the arrival of Gustav Honda and Captain Obi. Meanwhile, Hinawa and Oze come under attack by Iron, another Knight of the Purple Haze, who uses his fire abilities to harden the iron in his body to the steely hardness of martensite. While Oze deflects Iron's flames, Hinawa keeps shooting at Iron’s vulnerable joints and they eventually defeat him. Elsewhere, Shinra is attacked by Dr. Giovanni who reveals that the White Clad lab they found was a trap laid to lure the Fire force into the Nether so they could be defeated. Giovanni has genetically transformed his body using Adolla to incorporate the features of insects and begins attacking Shira until Arthur joins him. Back with Tamaki, Obi takes out the first knight, Sasori, and Honda head-buts the second knight into a wall. Licht finds them and deduces from the distribution of Infernals that the White Knights intend to destroy the underground Nether facilities, so Honda orders the withdrawal of the surviving Fire force. Meanwhile, the White Knight, Ritsu, absorbs the additional power of the dead Fire Soldiers who have become Infernals and prepares to destroy the Nether, collapsing the Tokyo Empire into the ground.