Term Break Arc

The Term Break Arc stretches across chapters 103 through 113 and Short Mission 14, filling volumes 15 and 16 between the Love and War Arc and the Poacher Hunting Arc. Framed by Eden Academy's end-of-term holiday, it strings together vacation stories for the Forgers, Damian, Franky, and the Desmonds before delivering one of the series' biggest revelations about Donovan.

The break opens with Belle, a Nordic seal stranded in the Eber River. Loid initially refuses the sightseeing trip until Yor points out that such gentle news is proof of a peaceful world, and the family's patient afternoon by the water ends with the surprisingly clever seal leaving a thank-you crawfish before swimming toward the ocean. Damian, dodging his own homesickness, mounts an archaeological expedition inspired by a Stella-winning alumnus and finds a rare giant flower called a Geschocran instead of glory. Franky's chapter follows a full day in an informant's life: inventions, a commission from Fiona, gambling losses, and a self-sacrificing rescue of the racetrack teller from an SSS raid that costs him a promising movie date. The girls, joined by Yor and Martha, take in the romance film Kiss Distance, while a rare full Desmond family dinner passes in near silence, capped by Donovan cryptically calling the night worthwhile.

At the Winter Sheep Festival, hosted by the Lady Patriots Society, Loid works the crowd of Eden families for connections until a butler's remark about children finding their own happiness stings him into realizing how far he has subordinated Anya's childhood to the mission. Yor and Anya, meanwhile, discover that the rookie fortune teller Lunaluna Selena is Melinda Desmond in disguise. Sworn to secrecy, Yor deepens their bond, and before parting she suggests Melinda seek a consultation at Berlint General Hospital.

Melinda takes the advice. In sessions with Loid, she confesses her terror of her husband and her belief that an alien replaced Donovan sometime between her sons' births, adding that she and Demetrius both suspect he can read minds. Loid offers steady support and proposes an honest confrontation with Donovan, possibly at a joint session. When he carries the case home in his thoughts, Anya reads them and freezes: Donovan may share her power. The arc closes with Anya dreaming of her biological mother, then returning for the new term, where class assignments based on the finals pull her away from her friends in most tested subjects, and a diplomatic booger incident wins her two new companions, Prince Tertius of Septevia and the delinquent-looking Freddy. Damian's resulting jealousy spawns a dream monster he calls Mr. Buzz, which counselor Mr. Green's visualization advice finally teaches the boys to make peace with.

The holiday reshuffles the board considerably. Fiona returns to duty healed from the Wheeler mission, Damian sets foot in the Desmond estate for the first time since enrolling, and Anya's biological mother makes her first appearance, if only in a dream. Above all, Loid now has a direct line to Melinda Desmond and a bizarre new hypothesis about her husband, while Anya alone grasps what a mind-reading Donovan would mean for every secret the Forgers keep.