The crimson humanoid Stand activated its ability in an instant.
King Crimson — it erases all of time except for the user's own, for roughly ten seconds or more.
On the surface, that might sound no different from something like Time Stop. In practice, they are fundamentally distinct.
The concept is difficult to grasp, but a few simple examples make it clear.
When the ability activates, a boy who was about to eat his ice cream turns around to find that it's already been eaten. A soldier who was about to pull the trigger has no memory of pulling it — yet the bullet has already found its mark.
When the author was about to explain to the reader what King Crimson's ability does, the reader blinks — and the author has already finished.
That is Time Erasure.
A flash of deep rose, like a silhouette cut from light, swept across her vision — and in the next instant, G and her Stand stepped together into a void of absolute darkness. This was a world without time. Because time in this moment had been erased by King Crimson.
This was King Crimson — the Stand of Diavolo, the ultimate antagonist of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind. When the ability activated, all things in the world would skip over those ten-odd seconds, leaving only the final result. Only Inori herself and King Crimson could move freely within the time-erased world — but she could not touch anything other than herself. Likewise, she could not attack.
Within this timeless space, Inori passed through every object like a ghost. Which also meant she could move completely at will, unconstrained by anything in the world. Cryogenic pods, iron blast doors bristling with lock systems — none of it could stop her while Time Erasure was in effect. Getting out of here would be effortless.
Gone!
These two researchers were staff of the GHQ Void Genome Research Institute. They didn't know the exact nature of the girl sleeping in that cryogenic pod, but they had their orders from Director Shuichiro Keido — monitor and tend to the girl, and contact him the instant she showed any signs of waking. They couldn't afford the slightest negligence. So when they heard the sound, they walked straight over. One step. Two steps. Through the outer transparent casing—
The pod was empty.
"What happened?! Where did she go?!"
"I — I have no idea..."
The two men stared at each other, then back at the completely inexplicable scene before them, gaping wordlessly.
"How is this possible? We've been in this room the whole time. How could she have escaped right under our noses?!"
"Damn it! We were this close to transferring her to the Roppongi facility — and this has to happen in the final few days!"
A perfectly reasonable reaction for any rational human being.
There was no way she could have escaped without opening the pod first — and yet the pod had made no sound, no movement whatsoever. It hadn't been opened at all. They'd been in this room from morning to night; even meals and bathroom breaks had required calling in guards to swap shifts. How could she have simply vanished?
If anything had happened to that girl, their jobs were as good as forfeit.
"Calm down. Don't panic." One researcher steadied his colleague. "There are more than ten security-coded iron doors outside. Without a clearance pass, there's no way she got through! Let's alert the others and conduct a search — quickly!"
"Find her!"
After activating her Stand ability approximately seven times in succession, Inori passed through every last obstacle, slipping away without a single security camera catching so much as a frame of her. She had simply ceased to exist in that building.
She stepped into the first sunlight of her new life.
This was the moment that deserved a line — something to mark the feeling of freedom reclaimed.
But then she remembered she was a girl now. Inori. How could something so crass pass these lips?
This feeling... it's like putting on brand new underwear on New Year's morning.
After quietly venting that thoroughly satisfying thought to herself, she kept to lower ground and followed a stream for a long stretch until the city came into view.
The world of Guilty Crown was set in the year 2039, and this was what a city of that future looked like. A steel jungle of skyscrapers, floating rail trams threading between buildings. Beyond that, nothing felt particularly out of place.
And yet a new puzzle was already forming in her mind.
"That's odd."
"Why can't I use the future vision? King Crimson is supposed to have a second ability — Epitaph, which predicts roughly ten seconds into the future. Why am I not feeling anything from it?"
She pressed the tip of her index finger to her lower lip, brow furrowed in thought.
King Crimson floated before her, motionless as a machine. Only Stand users could see other Stands — and in the world of Guilty Crown, where the concept of Stands didn't exist, the only one who could see King Crimson was Inori herself.
"You don't know either?"
"..."
King Crimson blinked its eyes but had no voice to answer.
"Damn it — don't tell me it was neutered because I'm not the Boss himself?"
She muttered irritably.
Beyond Time Erasure, King Crimson had a second ability: Epitaph — the power to foresee roughly ten seconds into the future. It was symbolized by that second, smaller face on the Stand's forehead. In the anime, that face was always alert, its expression synchronized with King Crimson's own. But looking now — her King Crimson had the face, yes, but it was closed-eyed. Dormant.
She thought for a moment, then recalled something from the fandom: Diavolo possessed Epitaph because he suffered from dissociative identity disorder — two completely independent personalities sharing one body.
Then... for Inori, who only had one personality, using Epitaph naturally wasn't possible.
"But Inori is actually a character with two souls sharing one body."
She murmured to herself.
Mana Ouma.
This physical form was built as a vessel to resurrect Mana Ouma.
If Mana's soul were to return to this body, then the sealed Epitaph would surely awaken as well. Going by Diavolo's own situation, it was a perfectly reasonable conclusion. No contradictions anywhere — she nodded firmly, fully convinced.
Predicting the future ten seconds out was an outrageously broken ability. Beyond letting her dodge danger and time her attacks perfectly based on what she saw, it combined with Time Erasure to form an airtight defense against virtually any assault. Only their combined use had made the Boss the unstoppable force he was.
If not for Gold Experience Requiem — a Stand so absurdly overpowered it bent the entire power scaling of the arc around it — he would have remained an undefeatable emperor.
Good.
Then the action plan is confirmed.
"First priority: find a place to stay."
"Then figure out how to infiltrate GHQ and locate Mana Ouma's soul."
"But before any of that — King Crimson."
She called her Stand. That hideous, wicked face appeared before her once again.
"From now on, do not come out unless I give you an explicit order."
"You're so ugly it HURTS!!!"