Chapter 34

Hoping to stretch out their drive together, Fiona offers to take Loid right to his door. He declines, pointing out that neighbors who suspect infidelity file reports with the SSS, and gets out near a park where Yor, Anya, and Bond are wrapping up a tennis session. Fiona approaches the family, sizes up Yor, and challenges her to a match, telling Loid in coded language that Yor's fitness for Operation Strix needs testing. Privately she intends to crush Yor and claim the wife role for herself.

Yor, terrified that refusing will get her replaced, agrees and plays at full strength. Her opening serve slices the ball into ribbons in midair. Easing off slightly, she sends her next shot flying faster than sound; Fiona's attempted return fails and the ball punches straight through her racket. Beaten, Fiona concedes for now, promises a future rematch, and drives away in tears while Yor celebrates and Loid quietly reflects that he did warn her.

The following day Sylvia Sherwood presents Loid with the recovered Zacharis Dossier, in reality the diary of Erik Zacharis. The feared secret turns out to be a hoard of actress postcards the man hid from his disapproving wife; a secrecy oath he once extracted from Western diplomats at a musical evening snowballed over the years into rumors of a war-reigniting bombshell. Sylvia counts the empty result as a win since nothing can rekindle the conflict, and Loid, looking at a photo of Zacharis with his family, contemplates whether any falsehood is acceptable in the service of peace. The chapter closes with Fiona training furiously in the mountains, swinging a boulder lashed to a stick while wildlife looks on in terror.

Fiona forces a tennis showdown with Yor under the pretext of testing her readiness for Operation Strix, though her real goal is to force Yor out of the Forger family.

Yor wins decisively; even her held-back shot smashes through Fiona's racket, and Fiona retreats while vowing revenge.

The Zacharis Dossier investigation ends: the hidden threat is exposed as a private postcard collection rather than intelligence capable of restarting the war.

The chapter runs 25 pages in Volume 6 as part of the Campbelldon Tennis Arc, and Episode 23 of the anime adapts its events. Fiona and Loid share the cover.

Sylvia appears wearing the rings Fiona claimed in the preceding chapter, and several actresses in Zacharis's postcard collection are modeled on members of the Sakamichi idol groups.