The season had turned — autumn giving way to winter — and the night air on the way home was bitterly cold.
Inori Yuzuriha had no spare clothing with her. Probably because this body had spent so long sealed away indoors, her sensitivity to temperature ran higher than an ordinary person's. Even accounting purely for age, she was at most two or three years old — mentally and physically mature in most respects, but with small gaps like this one.
Inori rarely got sick. She just got hungry, and cold, very easily.
All she could do was pull herself together and keep moving. The dress she'd chosen for tonight had decent insulation — she'd picked it deliberately. The problem was that on her usual night-operations return trips, she would have thrown the disguise coat over herself for the walk home. Tonight, that coat had been turned into a colander by gunfire, and she'd packed it into a box and thrown the whole bundle into the river.
She walked down the empty, quiet streets, looking out over the city swallowed by night — and found herself, unexpectedly, feeling a little lonely. Whether it was the cold, or something else, she couldn't quite say. And the feeling wasn't entirely unfamiliar. More like déjà vu — as though she had stood here before, looking at the same view, a very long time ago.
Two rings of that absurd ringtone, and she came back to herself. She pressed answer.
"Major Rowan?"
She snapped into Diavolo's voice without hesitation.
"Mr. Diavolo — we've got them. All of them have been apprehended, and the drugs have been fully seized."
After leaving the scene, Inori had called in the tip and had GHQ's people come handle the mess.
"Congratulations." Inori kept her voice pleasantly light. "Still — I'd recommend a thorough sweep. There may be additional contraband hidden elsewhere, or individuals who weren't present tonight."
"There won't be." Rowan sounded almost cheerful on his end. "The intelligence you provided indicated this location held everything."
"There's one more thing I should bring to your attention, Lieutenant."
Inori paused for a moment, then said it.
"Go ahead."
"For a trafficking operation of this scale to run under GHQ's watch——" She let the sentence sit, warm and measured, unhurried. "——I imagine you're not entirely without a theory as to how."
Silence fell on the other end.
He was only a mid-ranking officer — a trusted aide to GHQ Supreme Commander Major General Yang, but powerless in the face of this particular variety of corruption. Disrupting someone's income stream was as good as attacking their family. Looking the other way was partly why an organization as large as GHQ had been able to keep operating this long. His job was to be a soldier. Everything else was none of his concern.
"Of course. It's because terrorists were providing them cover."
Rowan's laugh was hollow and unconvincing.
This darkness repulsed him — but he had no intention of wading into that swamp, or even looking at it directly. It was a kind of self-delusion, he knew. But if he couldn't see it, it couldn't keep him awake at night. And there was something to be said for a clean conscience.
"Is that so~"
Inori laughed softly.
She already knew exactly what he was thinking. Which was precisely why it was the right moment to introduce what came next.
"You've seen that email, then."
"..."
Another silence. Inori waited. Then she heard footsteps and the ambient noise pulling back — he'd moved somewhere he wouldn't be overheard — and he spoke again.
"Mr. Diavolo, that object is one of GHQ's most classified secrets."
"I won't speak of this to anyone else. I ask that you forget what you saw — and in exchange, I will not expose this either."
He was issuing a warning. Stop digging. For your own good.
"You know about the genome?"
Inori played dumb.
"I have a great deal of respect for your abilities, Mr. Diavolo — you're one of the sharpest minds I've encountered." Rowan's tone had gone entirely serious. "I'm asking you not to let curiosity get you killed."
"Understood."
Inori agreed without missing a beat.
"That said — one final note, Major Rowan."
"That message has already been sent. I expect the terrorist in question will be making his move shortly. I'd suggest heightening your security — or, if you're feeling ruthless, consider sitting on the news of the trafficking ring's takedown for now. Leave an obvious opening. Let them walk into the trap."
She said it lightly, offhandedly — and in the same breath, handed him the means to derail Funeral Parlor's involvement in the arc entirely.
"...I'll handle it as I see fit. Thank you for the warning, Mr. Diavolo."
"Until next time."
The line went dead. Inori exhaled.
Then promptly sneezed.
— I have got to start keeping a spare coat. Next time, I'm remembering that.
She rubbed both arms briskly and quickened her pace toward home.
...
...
The plan was extremely disadvantageous to Funeral Parlor, no question. But she trusted Gai's mind — he wouldn't charge headlong into a trap and wipe himself out over this. The Void Genome mattered too much to him; it was the key to becoming the "Adam" who could embrace Mana again. Even with the danger, he'd never let it go. He'd find a way in. Maybe himself. Maybe through someone else.
She'd already delivered the early warning to GHQ. Whatever Funeral Parlor attempted, it would fail — and even if they managed to infiltrate, the cost would be severe. What Inori Yuzuriha was planning to do was wait. Wait for the moment Funeral Parlor and GHQ broke into open conflict inside the Skeletal Christmas Tree — and use that chaos as her cover to slip in and take the Void Genome for herself.
— Can't be helped. To avoid some future someone reaching into my chest and pulling out a sword, she had no choice.
Beyond that, this strategy had a secondary effect she was quietly pleased with: though she was throwing Gai to the wolves in the short term, she had no intention of letting Funeral Parlor be destroyed. And she didn't want GHQ losing such a persistent thorn in their side either. She needed both of them operational. Two identities, used with precision, to keep the balance — and to conceal her real purpose until the moment she could play her final card.
She pushed open the front door, and the smell of braised meat drifted out to meet her immediately.
"Inori — you're home!"
Hare, still wearing an apron, came rushing out of the kitchen.
"The braised pork's been going for a while! It should be ready soon."
"Braised pork?" Inori looked up at her in mild surprise, still stepping out of her shoes. "Is today a special occasion?"
Hare cooked every day despite the commute to and from school, and the accumulated fatigue meant their usual dinner rotation was katsu rice, tonkatsu donburi, sushi rolls, onigiri — things easy to assemble quickly. Inori didn't mind at all, because Hare's cooking was simply exceptional. Without exaggeration, even a plain bowl of rice tasted better when she made it. Maybe that was just that wife-material aura. However it worked, Shu Ouma absolutely did not deserve her in the future — and Inori fully intended to make sure he didn't get her.
Inori had tried cooking herself. She had some skill. But her sense for seasoning was genuinely not to be relied upon — the food was edible, but after two days of it even she got tired of it — so she'd eventually retired from the kitchen and never looked back.
Hare's expression shifted through confusion, and then into something slightly reproachful.
"Well, it's not like I usually follow internet celebrities or anything… but I've always been following you!"
"You released a new song today, didn't you? It was absolutely incredible — Sh… I mean, that boy I mentioned, one of my companions — he was watching it in class and got scolded by the teacher! You looked so beautiful in the MV, Inori — like an actual goddess!"
Oh right — that. It's a celebration dinner for the new release's big success.
She'd been so absorbed in the Void Genome lead that Inori had almost forgotten she'd posted The Everlasting Guilty Crown just this afternoon.
"Hmph~" Inori puffed out her cheeks slightly. "So you're saying I'm ugly in person? That I only look pretty with makeup and special effects?"
"That is not what I said!"
Hare rushed to protest, practically flustered into a panic.
The girl in front of her — pink-haired, beautiful even when she was clearly faking being offended — was someone Hare genuinely admired and deeply cared for as a friend. For various reasons she couldn't tell anyone else about this unusual friendship, which only made her treasure every single moment they had together all the more.
"Hehe, I'm joking. I know you love me most of all, Hare!"
Inori stuck out her tongue, then patted Hare's shoulder and wandered into the living room. The accumulated fatigue from sustained King Crimson use hit her the moment she sat down on the sofa; she sprawled back into it and stretched luxuriously, then turned her head.
"I'm starving! How long until dinner?"
"Another thirty minutes!"
"Mmmph..."
The sound of profound disappointment.