Episode 41

In the first half, celebrated Ostanian opera figure Jonas Wellman prepares to cross the border for a cultural exchange meant to warm East-West relations, only for tabloids to bury him under accusations ranging from affairs and mob ties to insults against veterans. Sylvia Sherwood puts WISE to work keeping the stories out of Westalis and lectures a naive rookie who swallows the smears whole, noting the papers involved once served as National Unity Party mouthpieces during the war. A death threat mailed to the theater proves the real danger. Spotting a suspicious guard during live news coverage of protests, Sylvia enlists a kebab shop owner as a lookout, then intercepts the man herself, whipping the pistol from his hand with her belt and dropping him with a blow to the jaw. The attacker, Pance Karmer, turns out to be an embittered former soldier obsessed with punishing the corrupt. Wellman departs in high spirits once the fabricated charges collapse, though the rookie's tidy moral unravels when he hears the affair rumors may have been true all along; Sylvia simply tells him to dig up his own answers.

The second half follows Anya after class, stranded by a late school bus until Henderson recruits her to haul supplies to his office with tea cakes promised as payment. Walking back, the Housemaster probes her feelings about school and her ambitions, and is dismayed to learn she chases Stella Stars mainly because they look cool. He guides her through the gallery honoring Eden's Imperial Scholars and describes the years of effort behind every portrait, and something clicks for Anya: steady work, one day at a time, just like her father's mission. After collecting her sweets and skipping his offer of quiz review to catch Spy Wars at home, she sees how drained her parents are from their secret jobs and asks a stunned Loid to study with her. He mistakes the sudden enthusiasm for news of another Tonitrus and faints into Yor's arms.

Jonas Wellman, Pance Karmer, and the kebab shop owner Kebab all make their anime debuts. Sylvia's passing memory of training Loid links the spy plot back to the previous episode's flashbacks and makes her wonder whether she went too easy on him.

Sylvia shows her field skills directly, disarming an armed man before he can reach Wellman, and turns the case into a lesson for her rookie about acting on objective reasoning instead of convenient narratives.

Henderson's gallery tour gives Anya her first genuine motivation to pursue Stella Stars, resetting her attitude toward schoolwork and, indirectly, toward Operation Strix.

Part A adapts Chapter 63 and Part B adapts Chapter 64. The anime hands Kebab an extra line acknowledging his standby orders and reverses which agents carry the captured Karmer relative to the manga, while adding scenes of Anya left waiting at the bus stop.

The Imperial Scholar portrait hall reproduces many of the chapter's celebrity cameos, including the Forgers' Japanese voice cast, Comedy singer Gen Hoshino, LiSA, and manga editor Shihei Lin, though two idol portraits from Volume 10 are dropped. Donovan Desmond's portrait hangs in the hall as it does in the chapter. Yor also receives extra lines as Loid faints at the episode's close.