After blaming her for his loss to Utena, Ruka humiliates Shiori by dumping her in front of the entire school. Seeing how broken this has left Shiori, she tries to get Ruka to take her back, but Ruka has his own agenda to free Juri from the shackles of her past.
"Azure Paler than the Sky" provides examples of:
- Be Careful What You Wish For: What was the miracle that Juri secretly longed for all this time? Her love of Shiori being shattered before her eyes.
- Borrowed Catchphrase: Ruka says most of the introdutory speech before Juri's scene in Akio's car, something that normally is done by Touga. Lampshaded by Ruka himself, as he even asks Touga to finish the phrase, saying it was his line.
- Character Death: Ruka dies of his illness.
- Despair Event Horizon: Juri finally breaks when Utena, using the power of Dios, shatters her locket of Shiori instead of hitting her rose. As the locket hits the ground, Juri loses all will to fight and tears off her rose upon finally realizing Shiori will never love her and Juri will never be happy no matter what she does for the girl.
- Gray Rain of Depression: Utena's duel with Juri ends with a downpour of heavy rain when the she unintentionally destroys Juri's locket, though Juri is more broken by the revelation of her problems than the destruction of the locket.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Deconstructed with Juri and Shiori. After Ruka cruelly breaks up with Shiori and humiliates her in front of the entire school, Juri disregards her mistrust of Ruka and tells him to go back to Shiori if it will make her happy. She then immediately reconsiders this when Ruka assaults and almost rapes her. It then reaches a point when Juri makes it clear she has no interest of dueling to gain power to make Shiori recognize her feelings, but rather, to make it so Shiori is no longer despairing over Ruka. However, it's shown that Juri's fight for the happiness of someone who only wants to hurt her is not healthy, and ultimately Juri does indeed want to believe in miracles if it means Shiori will miraculously love her back. The destruction of the locket symbolizes her brutal but much-needed wake-up call that Shiori will never reciprocate her feelings no matter what she does, and Juri must move on in order to find happiness.
- No-Sell: Juri doesn't fall for Akio or Ruka's monologuing about the nature of the world or what they're really after like Saionji and the others did. She makes it clear she doesn't give a shit about anything either of them has to say to her and will only duel Utena because she agreed to do what Ruka wanted her to.
- Oh, Crap!: Juri twice, both concerning her locket.
- After Ruka assaults her, Juri's horrified when she sees he managed to get her locket off and plans to crush it.
- During the duel in the arena, Utena's sword misses Juri's rose and instead strikes the locket. Juri can only gape in utter horror as we're shown the locket sailing through the air and then completely shattering on the ground. It's here that she finally realizes she will never be loved by Shiori, and she's left stumbling as if she'd been stabbed in the heart.
- Redemption in the Rain: Utena unintentionally striking and destroying Juri's locket symbolizes her freedom from a toxic and one-sided relationship, and a heavy downpour starts right after.
