HPC10

'''Saidai no Pinch! Dark Cure ga Arawaremasita!' is the 10th episode for the season Heartcatch Pretty Cure!, the seventh season in the Pretty Cure'' franchise. The episode focuses on Dark Cure's encounter with Pretty Cure, and Tsubomi and Erika's friendship and trust to the mascots.

Synopsis
Tired of their constant loss, Dark Cure asks for permission to go and defeat Pretty Cure, taking Sasorina with her upon her request. At Kihougahana, the girls finish homework and take a walk outside, ending where Tsubomi met Chypre and Coffret the first time. They talk about their fights against the Desert Apostles, but then Ueshima Sayaka appears, telling them how she has made a team of female football players.

While Sayaka and her team is training, Sasorina and Snackeys, dressed as football players, challenge them. As they are losing, Dark Cure appears and, claiming to be a part of Pretty Cure, sends the ball at Sayaka and her friends, injuring them heavily. Tsubomi and Erika find them and take them to the nurse, only to hear that the flowers are crying. They meet Dark Cure, but Chypre and Coffret are kidnapped before they can transform. At the botanic garden, the girls has lost hope, but Tsukikage Yuri gives them some advices about friendship and trust, encouraging them to give their best to save the fairies, who trust them.

Where they planend to meet and bargain, Tsubomi and Erika fight through the Snackeys, but then the Mysterious Guy appears and rescues the fairies, giving the girls back the ability to transform. As Pretty Cure, the girls defeat the rest of the Snackeys, but as they are about to take down Dark Cure, the latter opens her eye and sends them down. Seeing how easily they fell, Dark Cure compares them to Cure Moonlight, but Cure Blossom tells her that they are friends and that they will never lose to her. They then use Floral Power Fortissimo, but Dark Cure uses her powers and defeats them, leaving them to deform. As she is about to kill them, however, she sees Yuri in the distance, and decides to leave them be. At the end, Yuri is looking down at a part of her Pretty Cure Seed, which she keeps as a charm.

Major Events

 * Dark Cure fights Pretty Cure for the first time.
 * Pretty Cure lose a battle for the first time.
 * It is revealed that Tsukikage Yuri has a piece of Cure Moonlight's Pretty Cure Seed.

Characters

 * Hanasaki Tsubomi/Cure Blossom
 * Kurumi Erika/Cure Marine
 * Cure Moonlight (through flashbacks)
 * Chypre
 * Coffret
 * Coupe
 * Desertrian
 * Sabaku
 * Dark Cure
 * Kumojaki
 * Sasorina
 * Cobraja
 * Snackey
 * Hanasaki Kaoruko
 * Tsukikage Yuri
 * Ueshima Sayaka

Trivia

 * This is the first time there is a battle without a Heart Seed being gained, with the exception of the first episode, which the battle was linked to the second episode.
 * It is also the first episode not featuring a Desertrian.