Twenty minutes later.
Funeral Parlor, whatever its flaws, had a more than capable leader at its head—and once Inori Yuzuriha's sharp words had dealt with the morale problem, they assembled with impressive speed and moved according to the strategy Gai had laid out. Their Endlaves were few and obsolete, all of them requisitioned enemy hardware—but that uniformity had a silver lining: every unit was piloted by someone exceptional. Ayase Shinomiya stood head and shoulders above the rest.
The plan itself was simple. Daryl Yan—present on site—carried a Void: the Kaleidoscope, capable of deflecting energy attacks back at attackers within a fixed area. Funeral Parlor would open with a ranged barrage designed to draw the hot-headed Daryl out of his formation. Then Inori would extract his Void—and use it to dismantle the enemy.
Daryl was the original story's sadistic blond, the one who got a forced redemption arc later on. Also the son of GHQ Major General Yan—allegedly, though rumors about the blood relation circulated. Either way, father and son had built something of a reputation in the industry as a picture-perfect case of filial devotion—in the same sense that a certain Lordaeron prince was devoted to his father.
"Yaaawn~ so sleepy. Let's just finish this. I need to get back to sleep."
(③)
The girl yawning with total indifference in the middle of a tense briefing crowd stood out like a wrong note.
"The battle plan—have you memorized it?"
"Hm? Sorry… I wasn't listening."
Inori answered with serene unhelpfulness.
"You're joking." Gai caught his breath and restrained himself. "I'm being serious. Even with the Void Genome, reckless action can get you hurt. I made a promise to that man that you wouldn't be hurt. So please, Inori—don't make this difficult for me."
Inori waved a hand in lazy reassurance.
"Obviously I'm joking. I know the plan. Extract the kid's Void, then watch everything they fire at us fly right back—that's the idea, yes?"
"Right. You'll infiltrate through this drainage channel to a viable range and wait for my signal."
Gai stepped back slightly and pointed to the rusted access grate at the side of the road. Inori stared at it. Some vague recollection of the original plot surfaced—she remembered the scene, more or less—but watching it on screen was one thing. In person, it was entirely different.
That yellowed ladder looked structurally optimistic at best. And whatever was down there—rats, cockroaches, worse—thinking about it made her skin crawl.
"It smells and it's filthy. Can I take a different route?"
Inori pinched her nose delicately and voiced this complaint with great restraint.
"I'd prefer that too—but there's no other approach to that position. You'll have to bear it."
Inori considered this for a moment, then dismissed it with a wave.
"The road is plenty wide, isn't it?"
She pointed straight down the boulevard ahead of them. Even at this distance, the outline of Endlaves and armored vehicles was visible—the Anti-Bodies' main camp.
"…Inori, are you playing with me right now?"
A strange expression settled on Gai's face, almost amused. He didn't actually believe she was serious—in the short time they'd known each other, he'd come to read Inori as a bright, slightly eccentric girl who made unorthodox jokes, liked to catch people off guard, and happened to also be quietly sharp. All in all, she radiated an irresistible charm—not just because of her stunning face, but because of the way her words and actions forever defied expectation. Whatever else one might think of her, she was never, ever boring.
"If it really comes to it, I could go along the rooftops."
Inori pinched her chin between thumb and forefinger and looked up at the broken skyline running down both sides of the street.
On reflection, a straight charge did seem ill-advised. She was King Crimson, not The World—and she had no interest in letting Gai figure out that the so-called "time jumps" in the field had been coming from her. Better to avoid showing her hand.
"The rooftops?"
"Fine. Settled."
Without waiting for an answer, Inori reached into her pocket and pulled out a black face mask, fitted it over her nose and mouth. She pulled the hood of her new black Funeral Parlor uniform up over her head, covering her hair and most of her face. New disguise.
Then something shifted in her—subtle, like a frequency changing—and in the next instant she launched. The pavement cracked under her foot. She shot toward the nearest building like a fired round, hit the wall mid-rise with impossible momentum, ricocheted off a balcony halfway up, and drove herself upward with a single thrust until she cleared the roofline and vanished over the edge.
Gai stood there. Staring at the space where Inori had been half a second ago.
"Hm? Gai? Did Inori leave already?"
Ayase, settled into her Endlave cockpit and ready to deploy at any moment, turned around and found the space Inori had occupied now empty.
"Ah… yes."
The physical display had been staggering. But beneath the awe, something more quiet was taking shape in Gai's mind—a question beginning to form.
He had the Apocalypse Virus embedded in his body. The result of an unfortunate childhood. He managed it with special blood-type plasma infusions—and, perhaps because of some interaction with his own Void, he had developed an unusual sensitivity: he could look at a person and immediately discern the nature of their Void.
That was, in part, why he had been confident enough to design this plan around Inori in the first place.
And yet—Inori's Void was invisible to him. More than that: she had never once let its form appear in front of anyone. She engaged—and impossible strength came out of it, impossible speed—but no visible manifestation. Some form of enhancement compound? Something Diavolo had done to her body?
—To such a good girl. Ruined by a man like that.
Gai felt a retroactive pang of regret. If only he'd moved faster—he could have reached her first. This girl would have become his loyal subordinate.
—Though it's not too late to start now.
He was certain of it. Given enough shared time, his genuine character would eventually win her over. Diavolo was—however one looked at it—a middle-aged man. Gai was in the full bloom of youth. The comparison needed no elaboration.
Gai quietly resolved himself on this point.
...
...
"Please—I'm begging you! My husband isn't infected—he's not—please, just let him go!"
The woman was using the last strength in her body to beg the armed soldiers facing her.
(③)
Behind those soldiers, several people knelt on the ground—blindfolded, hands bound, awaiting disposal. The Anti-Bodies held the authority to designate anyone a pathogen carrier. In practice, this meant anyone who didn't comply was declared infected—and they had the legal sanction to carry out summary executions.
"Mama…"
A boy of four or five kept tugging at the hem of his mother's sleeve. He didn't understand what any of this meant.
The woman's clothes were in tatters. Her voice was loud and broken with crying. The smell of the quarantine zone clung to her like a second skin. The soldiers were losing patience by the second, but without a direct order they couldn't open fire—so they stood there, swallowing their irritation.
Daryl Yan came strolling over from around the bend, twirling a white wildflower he'd plucked from the roadside, lifting it now and then to breathe in the fragrance.
"Please, soldier—!"
His small peace was immediately interrupted.
The woman, panicked, had spotted a blond-haired young man who looked less severe than the helmeted soldiers and ran straight at him, seizing his wrist with trembling hands. She kept crying, kept pleading. In her distress, her grip snapped the stem of the flower he was holding.
That small accident sealed her fate completely.
"Bitch—you stink!"
The moment his flower died, Daryl's gentle face twisted. He erupted—a single shout, and then a kick that sent the woman crashing to the ground. That wasn't enough. He went at her, stamping down on her again and again, his footfalls vicious and rhythmic, as though only this could drain the fury out of him.
This was the GHQ's "Butcher." A personality so warped it extended no warmth even to his own allies—let alone to someone like this.
While Daryl was screaming abuse and stamping the woman into the ground like something deranged, a flying kick came out of nowhere from behind and sent him sprawling.
"What do you think you're doing?"
A hooded figure with a face mask had materialized directly behind him.