Chapter 48

Anya watches Barnaby close in on her mother, calculating that Loid will witness everything the moment he steps out of the shop or hears a scream. Her strained expression baffles Loid, who decides she must still be hurt over the keychain refusal and, remembering Sylvia's framing of the vacation as an extension of Operation Strix, convinces himself his handler foresaw this parenting test.

When a shop employee offers souvenir clothing, Anya seizes the opening: she declares that a boring, badly dressed father is ruining her fun, and if he wants her to enjoy herself he should dress the part. Loid takes the bait completely, requesting every item in the store and vanishing into a fitting room to engineer the ultimate upbeat dad. Hearing him mentally rework the outfit again and again, Anya slips away.

Outside, Barnaby swings his blade at the passing group without warning. Yor, who has tracked his bloodlust the whole time, ducks the arc and sweeps Olka, Gram, and Furseal clear in the same motion. The two professionals size each other up as the fight begins, Barnaby's whirling chain repeatedly denying Yor the close range she needs.

A crowd forms around the spectacle, and Yor freezes when she hears Anya cheering among them, then relaxes as her daughter pretends not to know her and loudly sells the brawl as a circus act. Barnaby, realizing he has drawn far too many eyes, decides the audience must die too, but the thought dies when he sees Yor bearing down on him with a terrifying expression. She slips through his desperate attacks, seizes the chain, binds him with his own weapon, and shuts his body down with strikes to his pressure points. The delighted onlookers applaud the performance while Anya quietly registers how frightening her mother can be.

Racing back once Loid's thoughts signal he is finished, Anya savors having helped Yor without her father suspecting anything. Loid then emerges in a gaudy pile of clothes and accessories, convinced he has become the perfect fun father, only for Anya to flatly call him uncool. Yor, having dumped the unconscious Barnaby in a seat, rejoins her clients.

Yor defeats Sickle-and-Chain Barnaby in open view without triggering an incident, binding him in his own chain and knocking him out with pressure-point strikes. Anya covers the battle by convincing the gathered crowd it is a circus performance.

Anya deliberately strands Loid in a fitting-room makeover to keep him from witnessing the fight, and his resulting "upbeat father" outfit lands with a thud. Barnaby's plan to silence the audience dies before it starts.

Barnaby fights with a kusarigama, the Japanese sickle-and-chain weapon his alias references. The water gun in Loid's outlandish outfit is modeled on the Splattershot from the Splatoon games.

The anime splits this chapter across two episodes: pages 1 through 9 appear in Episode 31 and the remainder in Episode 32.