Panel 4: I rather like the possibility that Kozue might just have picked up the idea of shuriken-painting her nails from Oyuki-chan, though I can't say that this is definitely part of Official Empowered Continuity.

Panel 6: And that's it for Empowered vol.7's final Abrupt Flashback, folks. Whew! The rest of the volume's dwindling pages take place in "real time," you'll (possibly?) be glad to hear.

Today’s Patreon update: As it’s a Wednesday, time for the $5+ Patron tiers to get their weekly dose of commissioned damsel-in-distress content, along the lines of the same material was eventually reworked into Empowered. (No idea as to exactly what that might be at this time, though; these commentaries are written much further out from posting than are my often last-minute Patreon updates.)