The setup by now is familiar. Teru lost her brother, inherited a phone, and has spent four volumes texting a mysterious protector named Daisy while falling for a scowling school custodian named Tasuku Kurosaki who is definitely, obviously, come on, Daisy. Volume 5 doesn’t waste pages relitigating that dramatic irony. Instead it throws the whole cast into a messier, higher stakes situation: someone out there is impersonating Daisy, and the search to unmask the impostor gets violent fast.

The chapter opens with tension already simmering between Teru and the people around her who want access to Daisy for their own reasons. One of them corners Teru and demands she hand over Daisy’s contact information because they claim to be in danger. Teru refuses. What follows is not clean or triumphant. Someone gets hurt because of that refusal, and Teru spends a good chunk of the volume wrestling with guilt that isn’t quite what you’d expect from the setup. Motomi is good at this particular trick, making you assume you know the emotional math and then quietly changing the equation.

Riko, ever the sharpest person in the room, gets some of the volume’s best material here, talking Kurosaki through his own tangled feelings in a way that’s funny without undercutting how much he’s actually struggling. And Ms. Mori, previously filed under comic relief, starts showing cracks that suggest she’s been playing a longer game than anyone gave her credit for.

What makes Volume 5 land is pacing. Motomi lets the mystery breathe without stalling the romance, and lets the romance deepen without turning saccharine. Nobody monologues their feelings for six panels. People get hurt, people get scared, and the story trusts silence to do some of the talking.

If you’ve been on the fence about this series, Volume 5 is the argument. It’s the point where Dengeki Daisy stops being a cute premise and starts being a story with actual blood in it.