Mission 18

Television news covers the arrival of Minister Brantz and a Westalis delegation at Berlint Airport, with an East-West summit planned for the same night. Across town, young radicals load caged dogs into a van and declare their preparations complete.

The Forgers head downtown for Anya's promised reward. Their first stop, a pet shop called Kemono Park, turns out to be stocked by WISE with fierce, combat-trained animals that leave Anya cold. Hearing of an adoption fair nearby, Loid steers the family there, but a covert signal pulls him away on new orders, so he excuses himself with a bathroom story. Anya, having read his thoughts, helpfully adds that he will be gone a long time.

At WISE headquarters, Loid learns of a plan to murder Brantz at the evening summit, driven by isolationist students from Berlint University whom the SSS is also tracking. One member, Kris, has been captured near the embassy but refuses to talk. Handler breaks him with theater: Loid, disguised as ringleader Keith Kepler, is paraded past the interrogation room while blaming the entire plot on Kris. Furious at the betrayal, Kris names active members, reveals hideouts, and discloses the method, dogs rigged with explosives. Loid doubts college students could fund such training, and a colleague suggests a far-right group or foreign state is bankrolling them. Rather than cancel the summit, which would embarrass Ostania's ruling party, Handler orders the intelligence leaked to party officials.

Elsewhere, one of the leashed dogs, Bond, darts away from his handlers to pull a child clear of a falling plank, then trots back. The men wonder about the animals' reliability but press on.

At the shelter, Yor consults a worker about breeds while Anya spots Bond passing by with a stranger. Reading his mind, she finds an image of the whole Forger family inside it and, rather than explain to Yor, chases after him alone. She follows him into a building full of tethered dogs and overhears Keith laying out the assassination, which he hopes will drag Ostania into a new war and restore its old glory. A student named Kurt catches her eavesdropping. As the panicked group debates what to do, Keith draws a knife and says they simply have to deal with her. Back at the fair, Yor searches desperately for her missing daughter.

WISE learns of a student plot to assassinate Minister Brantz at the East-West summit using dogs fitted with bombs.

A disguise ruse by Loid and Handler turns the captured student Kris into an informant.

Bond rescues a child from a falling plank while in the terrorists' custody.

Anya follows Bond into the terrorists' staging ground, overhears their plan, and is caught at knifepoint.

A street the Forgers pass is named "Oneone," a bilingual pun: read in Japanese it becomes "wan-wan," the standard onomatopoeia for barking.

Every named terrorist in this arc, Kris, Keith Kepler, Kurt, and Kevin Knowles, has a K name, and Kris's "K9" jacket nods to the bomb-dog scheme.

The chapter opens the Doggy Crisis Arc and is adapted in Episode 13 of the anime. Yor, Anya, and Loid Forger share the cover, and Minister Brantz, Keith Kepler, Kris, Kurt, Aaron, and a recurring WISE agent all debut.