Episode 44

Word of the hijacking races through Eden Academy, where Henderson alerts the headmaster and orders the staff to keep the news from students and reporters alike. On the bus, the terror radiating from dozens of frightened minds leaves Anya dizzy until Bill Watkins steadies his classmates, reminding them their influential parents guarantee a rescue. Billy Squire lays out the Red Circus's intent: the children are bargaining chips against the government. At WISE, Sylvia takes personal charge once she learns Anya and Damian are aboard, declining to recall Loid from an undercover assignment in Bayan and directing her agents to shadow the police instead.

Unable to pull anything useful from the hijackers' heads, Anya loudly announces she needs a bathroom, tricking the driver into thinking of their destination, Papier Park. She passes the name to Becky, and the girls scribble an SOS note while Damian, having overheard them, manufactures a distraction by claiming his own bathroom emergency. The note sails out the window, but Billy catches the suspicious movement and, when the girls play innocent, locks a collar around Anya's neck and identifies it as a bomb. The message still lands: the SSS makes crushing the Red Circus its top priority under a total media blackout, while at Blackbell Industries, Becky's father has to be restrained by Martha, who volunteers to assess the scene herself. Yuri, ordered to stay clear because Anya could recognize him, obeys only until he pictures Yor mourning her daughter, then bolts after his colleagues.

Reading Billy's mind, Anya learns her collar is a dud and relaxes so visibly that her classmates are baffled. Hoping to impress Damian for Plan B, she casually taps the device and sets off fresh panic. Damian, convinced she is putting on a brave face, demands to take her place and receives a collar of his own; only Anya's whispered assurance that both bombs are fake, and her hand holding his, keeps him from breaking down. The bus finally hits a spike strip and stops, ringed by Berlint police. Billy steps out with Damian as a shield and demands the release of seventeen imprisoned comrades plus passage to Nortica, unaware most of those prisoners are already dead, a fact an SSS captain shares while pushing unsuccessfully to storm the vehicle. Inside, Billy rejects Vadim's call to threaten executions, betting everything on the parents pressuring the government. Elsewhere, Yuri talks his way off a pillar he was literally tied to, wins permission to hunt for the still-missing second bus, and begins working his informants.

Anya's bathroom ruse extracts the destination from the driver's thoughts, and the SOS note she and Becky throw from the window reaches the authorities, though the attempt earns her the collar bomb.

Damian volunteers to swap places with Anya and is fitted with a second collar, a moment of courage his classmates later celebrate. Anya secretly confirms both devices are fakes through Billy's mind.

The bus is stopped and surrounded, Billy issues his demands with Damian as hostage, and the revelation that most jailed Red Circus members are dead renders negotiation hollow. Byron Blackbell and the police chief debut, and Yuri begins his independent search for the second hijacked bus.

The episode adapts Chapters 70, 71, and the opening pages of Chapter 72. The WISE communications officer checking the police radio is redesigned from the manga to match the operator who fields Loid's castle request back in Episode 5.

Damian's embarrassment over serving as Billy's public hostage plays out differently: the manga has him voice it while returning to his seat, while the anime shows him already seated and dazed first. The pub where Yuri meets his informant borrows its exterior from a real location in St. Michael's Alley in London.