Bus Hijacking Arc

The Bus Hijacking Arc (Japanese: バスジャック編, Basujakku-hen) ranks thirteenth among the story arcs of SPY x FAMILY, running from chapter 69 to chapter 78 (volumes 11 and 12) and adapted in the third season of the anime from the B part of episode 43 through episode 47. It sits between the Friendship Schemes Arc and the Wheeler Arc.

The arc is a milestone for the series: it is the first crisis Anya must defuse on her own, and the first in which Loid plays no direct part in the central conflict. A field trip to the Berlint Museum turns into a hostage standoff when extremists hijack two of the school's buses.

The SSS receives word that Billy Squire, who leads what survives of the Red Circus, is operating in Berlint. Soon after, his crew boards two of the four buses carrying Eden's first graders to a museum outing. The dorm tutor is tasered unconscious, Mr. Green's pursuing car is shot off the road, and the children are told their lives now belong to the Red Circus. Henry Henderson orders a total information blackout, while Sylvia mobilizes WISE once she learns Anya and Damian are among the hostages; Loid is away on an unrelated mission.

Anya fakes a bathroom emergency to make the driver think of the destination, Papier Palace Park, then smuggles an SOS out the window in Becky's tin with Damian running interference. Pedestrians find the message, and Billy retaliates by locking a collar bomb onto Anya's neck. Her telepathy catches his private thought that the device is a dummy, so she stays eerily calm, and when Damian demands the bomb be transferred to him, he earns a collar of his own. She squeezes his hand and shares the secret, though he refuses to believe her.

Police spike strips finally stop the bus. Billy demands the release of seventeen jailed comrades and safe passage to Nortica. Yuri, initially confined to headquarters, talks his way into hunting the second hijacked bus, traces it to a warehouse, and leads the raid that frees its hostages, taking a shoulder wound in the process. Henderson boards the remaining bus to deliver rations and trades himself for the injured tutor; over the meal he learns that Billy once had a daughter, Biddy, killed by the state when a Red Circus protest turned violent. Anya witnesses the memory through her telepathy.

With the SSS planning a night assault and Billy's subordinate Vadim secretly preparing to blow up the bus as a last resort, Anya reads both plans and acts. She approaches Billy, calmly asks for more rations, declares she is not afraid, and echoes Biddy's own dying words back at him, then repeats Loid's wish for a world where no child has to cry. Shaken by his daughter's memory, Billy walks off the bus and surrenders. Vadim grabs Anya as a human shield during his escape attempt, but Martha drops him with a taser, and the police sweep up the rest.

In the aftermath, Damian apologizes for how he treated Anya, Yor holds her sobbing daughter, and a disguised Loid, who raced back to Berlint and slipped into the strike team, watches in exhausted relief. When Melinda arrives to collect Damian, Anya is disturbed to hear affection and venom tangled together in her thoughts. Anya, Damian, Becky, and Bill Watkins receive Stella Stars for their courage, and the closing chapters follow Thomas Austin's therapy with Loid, whose nightmares trace back to his marriage rather than the hijacking, plus a day off in which Sylvia's dog Aaron and Bond compete to a draw while she warns Loid that the Project Apple program could still be operating.

The arc confirms that the Red Circus survived Yor's earlier purge of its leadership, and it permanently changes Anya's standing at school. Her second Stella Star makes her a minor celebrity among classmates who once dismissed her, and she immediately starts scheming to convert her popularity into friends, and eventually world conquest. Damian also reaches two Stellas, while Becky and Bill earn their first.

Several long-running threads open here: Anya glimpses Melinda's conflicted feelings toward her own son, Sylvia passes along rumors that Project Apple remains active with unclear ties to Donovan, and the SSS begins paying closer attention to Eden Academy. The arc also fills in supporting-cast detail, revealing Martha's surname and her old friendship with Henderson as well as the dorm tutor's name and troubled home life.