"?Wildflower in bloom, won't you tell me?~"
The following night, a clear and ethereal voice drifted across the rooftop of a high-rise building.
Inori Yuzuriha sat on the ledge at the building's edge. Her long pink hair spilled free, whipping in loose disorder with the wind. Her legs — sheathed in black leggings, feet fitted into heeled boots — swung back and forth over a hundred-meter drop into the air below. She felt no fear whatsoever. Even if she accidentally fell, King Crimson, standing by within her, would haul her back.
"Gai Tsutsugami. You'd better not disappoint me."
She muttered idly at the structure on the distant artificial island, then picked up the lemon soda she'd set beside her and drew on the straw. She kept pulling until the plastic cup collapsed inward with a crinkling sound, only then realizing it was empty.
"How did I finish that so fast? I only just opened it."
She furrowed her brow, feeling an inexplicable restlessness crawl under her skin.
Then she simply tossed the drained cup — saliva-covered straw and all — out in front of her, letting it drop in free fall to the pavement a hundred meters below.
——Hmm, throwing things from height probably carries a fine. But as long as it doesn't hit anyone, who's to know it was me?~
It was pure instinct.
Inori was certain Gai Tsutsugami would come to steal the Void Genome, and soon — the right now, any moment kind of soon. So she'd woken early that morning, scouted the area to confirm the specifics of her plan, then set out near dusk. She'd picked up her two favorite beef-and-cheese burgers, chosen a high-rise with an excellent vantage point very close to the White Bone Christmas Tree, and spent two hours eating and waiting.
The rooftop wind was fierce. Aside from the sharp screech of brakes each time a train pulled into the station below, there was almost nothing else to hear.
Having frozen herself too many times before, Inori had this time dutifully bundled up in a thick padded coat, and its soft fleece lining made her feel considerably more comfortable. Her personal style was simple — black, red, nothing more. She didn't much care for makeup either; unless she was filming an MV, she went out in minimal makeup almost always. When your natural features were good enough, appearances hardly mattered.
That said, Inori's original goldfish outfit from canon was rather lovely, she supposed — but there was no way she'd ever wear something like that. Because it was mortifying. Showing off that much — no chest coverage, nothing covering the back — she truly could not fathom why anyone would design something like that as battle attire. Come to think of it, practically every combat outfit Inori wore had the faint air of deliberate fanservice. The white one at least looked decent from the front, but the back was completely bare — totally exposed.
With nothing better to do at the moment, Inori let her mind drift through these inconsequential thoughts to pass the time. She pulled herself back to attention and resumed surveying the cityscape — between the towers, searchlights swung in constant arcs, presumably for patrol or some similar function. Inori didn't much care.
This was the Minato ward of Tokyo — formerly Odaiba, now designated the 24th Ward. That was where the White Bone Christmas Tree stood.
A massive pyramid-shaped structure, it rose even higher than the rooftop where Inori perched. The reason for the "white bone" descriptor was the complex of glass panels covering the building from its core out to its exterior, coated in a special compound that, at night, emitted a ghostly blue luminescence — countless cone-shaped white-bone formations floating in the air.
"Hm?"
A flash of firelight caught Inori's eye.
Through the wind, she smelled blood.
Not through her own nose — through her Stand. Through King Crimson.
"They've finally come."
Inori pressed both hands against the ledge and pushed herself upright. King Crimson's face materialized at her back. She began using the Stand's Precision A vision to analyze the wide-angle panorama spread before her far below — and in a corner far too remote and small for the naked eye to distinguish, she saw clearly: a battered old truck parked along the waterfront, and on the bridge to the south — the one you had to cross to reach the White Bone Christmas Tree — an exchange of fire had already begun.
A white antique Endlave was engaging GHQ soldiers. This was the primary mechanized weapon used in military engagements in this story — operated by a pilot in a cockpit. No different from mechs in any other franchise in that regard, except for one particular feature: the pilot's senses were directly linked to the Endlave. Any damage sustained by the machine fed its pain straight back to the pilot's body. Without a body tough enough to take it, it simply couldn't be done.
That would be Ayase Shinomiya in combat. Gai would never do something so pointlessly conspicuous — the far more likely play was a feint, sending a subordinate to draw attention at the front while he slipped in from underwater.
——Everything was proceeding according to plan. What Inori needed to do now was use the chaos to infiltrate the pyramid herself, and steal what she'd come for from the inside.
"Move out."
Every trace of impatience evaporated in an instant.
Moonlight fell into the girl's deep crimson eyes. She curved her lips in a small smile, then threw herself forward off the edge in a leap of faith — arms and legs spread wide, letting air resistance carry her as she plunged toward the earth below.
——King Crimson!
The red Stand manifested at a scale fitted to her frame, enveloping her body like armor.
...
...
King Crimson was powerful, but its glaring weakness was Stamina rated at only E — the lowest tier on any Stand's stat panel, earning it the fandom nickname "kidney-deficiency Stand."
For reasons Inori couldn't quite explain, however, ever since her awakening and rebirth, she'd felt herself growing each time she used King Crimson — like accumulating experience toward the next level-up in an RPG. The maximum duration of Time Erasure had already ticked upward by a fraction of a second, and the cooldown between uses was growing shorter.
Inori activated King Crimson just before impact, then used the tremendous leg strength King Crimson added to leap between the high-rises, covering ground rapidly until she reached a lighthouse at the water's edge. The dock looked exactly as she'd scouted it that morning — a speedboat waiting at anchor. Without a second thought she jumped aboard using a Time Erasure skip, then opened the throttle to full and pushed toward the White Bone Christmas Tree, all while the soldiers' attention remained fixed on the mech battle at the bridge.
No one would notice her.
Because Inori and her speedboat were, to King Crimson, an extension of her own body. Every time King Crimson activated its ability, the speedboat was carried along with her — leaping across the water's surface like a series of teleportations, blinking forward again and again.
The gap between her and the Tree was only a few hundred meters. She kept close to the bridge pilings, and between that cover and King Crimson's Time Erasure, she crossed the water without the slightest obstruction and reached the far shore.
She spotted a large drainage pipe — its mouth eight meters above the waterline. Red light flared across Inori's legs as King Crimson's phantom overlaid them; she planted her feet on the speedboat's hull and launched herself upward, completing a clean aerial flip and sticking the landing perfectly.
"This is the place."
Inori drew a slow, deep breath.
This was where it all began. The very first scene of the Guilty Crown anime — the shot of Inori clutching the robotic pet Funell and running through this exact pipe with the Void Genome, desperate to escape.
For this mission, Inori had chosen not to disguise herself. She needed to show her face for what came next, and in any case avoiding combat was the priority — which meant her small, compact frame was actually the greater advantage for staying hidden.
"Full speed ahead, King Crimson!"
The Red King swept its user up into its arms and charged through the pipe at maximum velocity. A Stand with A-rank Speed wasn't just fast with its fists — it moved with incomparable swiftness altogether. Inori felt as though she were riding a human-shaped vehicle, the iron pipe walls blurring past in a streak.
This way she conserved her own energy while also recovering the mental stamina she'd spent on the rapid-fire Time Erasure activations earlier.
In roughly three minutes, the long pipe reached its end.
——Inori had successfully infiltrated the interior of the White Bone Christmas Tree.