elevown what biggbran77 is saying is that the main operators, the geniuses, are a couple from ch02: Kugawa x Sana, having their fight be the center point of this chapter overshadowed the potential couple of Mura x Tarin. Honestly for me this change made it a bit more complex then I feel the chapter should have been because it was pretty much all about a previous couple and messed with the overall flow of the manga a bit.
On another note-
Yes the top of page 26 is meant to be black like that because neither one won the fight and had at that point delivered the final blow, it is meant to be similar to how a show will leave you hanging to go to commercial or end an episode when a big plot point happens