Chapter 51

With the fireworks show minutes away, Yor guides Olka, Gram, and Zeb through the ship's corridors toward Storage Area 3, laying out the plan to transfer Olka to the rendezvous vessel under cover of the spectacle. The group walks straight past the Assassin Leader, whose nose picks Olka's perfume out of the air; recognizing the party's scents, he breaks into a grin at having finally run his quarry down.

Topside, Loid hoists Anya onto his shoulders after she complains she cannot see the sky, borrowing the idea from a nearby child's piggyback ride. Anya scans faces for her mother and strains to pick Yor's thoughts out of the crowd, but the collective excitement drowns everything out.

Approaching the bow, Yor spots two men posted at the far end of a hallway and reroutes through the lounge, only to find that path blocked as well. Concluding that every passage is covered, she opts to cross the open deck rather than fight through a chokepoint. The moment the group steps outside, the first fireworks detonate, delighting Anya and rattling the fugitives before they press on.

A sniper perched above tracks Olka and Gram, timing his shot to the next burst. Yor yanks both out of the line of fire, the round grazing her arm, and her instantly thrown weapon misses the stunned shooter by a hair. A knife-thrower follows up at close quarters; Yor shatters his lunging blade with a kick and drives a hand strike that he barely catches on a second knife.

When the man withdraws, Yor turns to check on Olka, and the deck fills with assassins she never felt coming. Shaken that so many killers slipped beneath her senses, she acknowledges their skill, draws her weapons, and plants herself between the ring of enemies and her clients.

The Assassin Leader locates Olka's group by scent as they move toward Storage Area 3, and the escape plan collides with sealed corridors that force Yor onto the open deck.

A sniper's shot grazes Yor's arm, her first injury of the mission, and after she repels a knife-wielding attacker, a large force of assassins surrounds the group, none of whom Yor sensed approaching. She draws her weapons for a last-stand defense.

The Swordsman debuts here, though only in the collected edition: the volume release swaps him into the final-page assassin lineup in place of a different figure, possibly his earlier design, from the digital version.

The chapter is adapted in Episode 33 of the anime.