Chapter 96

Ewen and Emile, self-appointed heads of the partner-selection committee, announce a series of challenges to whittle down the girls competing for Damian, whose collective fighting spirit dizzies Anya until Becky steadies her. The opener is a one-legged endurance test with rhythmic clapping. Before it starts, the disguised Loid pretends to pick lint from Anya's dress while secretly rigging her with thin wires, then holds her upright like a puppeteer through rings on his hand. Anya, showing off, sways and leans to the rhythm while staying balanced, wrecking Loid's left hand in the process; he deems the loss acceptable for world peace. Ten girls survive the round, Anya conspicuous among them, while Henry observes the incomprehensible scene with Thomas Austin and pronounces it elegant.

Worried about Anya advancing, the flunkies press Damian, who insists the contest stay fair, then furiously denies wanting to dance with her. Their improvised second round is an obstacle course judging agility, top five advancing. Wires being useless here, Loid contemplates sabotage, but Anya stuns the crowd by kicking off her shoes and sprinting, surviving a hurdle stumble and a dress-shredding trap zone before an unexpectedly rapid sleeping-bag inchworm crawl carries her to third place. Objections about her gracelessness are shut down by Becky, and Ms. Muchberry mends the ruined dress.

The finale is a five-point trivia quiz about Damian himself. Questions prove impossible, like what he grabbed first at breakfast, but Anya lifts the answers straight from Ewen and Emile's minds, deliberately missing a few to disguise the pattern. Her clincher, that the person Damian loves most is his father, seals the win, and Damian accepts the result. As the dance begins, Henry invites Martha to join him for old time's sake. Damian and Anya fumble through the steps, bicker after she flattens his foot, and are chided by Henry about elegance before settling into a clumsy rhythm, at which point Loid withdraws to leave them be. Their conversation drifts from dance practice to Damian's family and a soft-spoken compliment about hers, then back to insults. When he demands to know how she knew about his dog and the pond, she whispers that she reads minds. He dismisses it outright, they squabble again, and the onlookers score their friendship 100 points higher.

Anya wins all three selection challenges, aided by Loid's hidden wires and her own telepathy, and becomes Damian's dance partner.

Henry Henderson and Martha Marriott share a dance for old time's sake.

Anya tells Damian outright that she can read minds, the first time she confesses her power to anyone, though he refuses to believe it.

A 25-page Volume 14 chapter in the Term Finals Arc, released March 18, 2024, with Ewen, Damian, and Emile on the cover.

The English release has Becky call a professor "Mrs. Pinns" despite her introduction as Ms. Muchberry a chapter earlier. Henry's timing remark implies all three challenges fit inside roughly ten minutes. In the Japanese version, Martha answers Henry's elegance lecture with a wry "Like you can say it," rendered simply as "Huh?" in English.