"Damn it! I used a bubble to block her ability, but that still hurt like hell!"
The blond delinquent rubbed his aching jaw and spat in frustration.
—That liar! Telling me she could let me get back at Josuke Higashikata, and all she did was drag me into a beating! That woman doesn't just erase time—she can sense my bubbles too! Infuriating! And she's got the face of some harmless little kid, but she's much smarter than she looks! If it weren't for that man handing me a Stand in the first place, I never would have listened to him!
He knew his speed couldn't match Inori's King Crimson, so he'd had the foresight to duck into a fountain plaza—a gathering spot for people in his circle, a proper gang-adjacent crowd of Morioh's underworld. Even a Stand user like her wouldn't make a move with so many witnesses around, right?
Then again, who could say. He pulled out his sunglasses and slid them onto his face. Disguise complete. Foolproof.
The plaza was packed with Budogaoka High delinquents, plenty of them dyed blond just like him, all in the same school uniforms. As long as he melted into the crowd, found an unassuming corner, sat down and pretended to eat and chat with friends, he'd never be spotted.
He forced himself not to be afraid of that girl. Even if she tracked him here, he'd just act natural, and she'd never recognize him.
"Hey! Chunren! The hell'd you go? Didn't even wait for us."
A familiar face came striding over. Chunren—the blond delinquent—plastered on a grin and laughed the way he always did.
"Ahh, ha—I was trying to pick up a girl. Heh heh."
"What, you? A virgin? You finally figured it out? And why are you wearing sunglasses first thing in the morning?"
His friend snickered, reaching out to snatch the shades, but Chunren dodged with a quick sidestep.
"I walked into the doorframe this morning, banged my head! The corner of my eye got cut too—don't you dare embarrass me in front of everyone!"
"Ha ha ha, only an idiot like you could do that. Pathetic! Ha ha ha..."
Even getting mocked like that, Chunren didn't mind in the slightest. If anything, he wanted his friend to keep laughing. As long as he could stay hidden from that girl, he'd get on his knees and lick this guy's shoes if that's what it took.
...
...
Inori moved fast. Through Epitaph she'd already seen it clearly—the nondescript blond delinquent who wielded Soft & Wet had ducked into a park. It wasn't far from Budogaoka High, and before she even reached the entrance she could hear the noise of the crowd, men's exaggerated laughter mingling through it.
She walked into the plaza, face cold. The place was exactly what she'd expected—close to the high school, packed with students in uniform, delinquents by the look of them, at least thirty or forty at a glance. Some lounged on the benches near the fountain; others stood around catching up with classmates they hadn't seen in a while.
He has to be here somewhere. There's no way he covered the distance to the main road in that time.
Inori swept a cool gaze across every face in the plaza. Just looking at this crowd of problem teenagers gave her a headache—like walking onto the set of Crows Zero, except with full 1990s Japanese yankii aesthetics: pompadours that defied gravity, actual mohawks, the whole picture. The sight did nothing to improve her mood. A small fry had slipped through her fingers, and she was in a very bad mood about it.
"Oh? Don't see her around here often. Hey, miss—you alone?"
While Inori stood there frowning, a few sharp-eyed delinquents had already clocked her. These types had the routine down cold: one walked up to cut her off while three more flanked from the sides and behind, boxing her in before she could turn around.
"I'm looking for someone," Inori said, arms crossed, not panicking in the slightest.
Back in the Guilty Crown world she'd dealt with this kind of situation more times than she could count. The results, as previously noted, ranged from a light bruising to a three-month hospital stay—for the other party.
"Looking for a man? Why go far when you've got plenty right here? We're all upstanding gentlemen!"
"Are you? All I see are a few horny pigheads."
The delinquents bristled. This soft-looking girl had walked right into their turf and insulted them to their faces—that was too much.
"Who are you calling a pighead!"
"Oh, sorry—my mistake. You're a horny jackass, not a pighead." Inori smiled very politely, if you didn't listen to what she was actually saying.
"Ha ha ha ha—she's hilarious!" One of the delinquents doubled over, the best joke he'd heard in months. Several others were visibly fighting not to crack.
"Shut your mouth!" The one who'd been insulted had gone from ugly to uglier. He jabbed a finger at Inori. "Listen up, girl! This is our turf. You're coming out to eat with us and singing karaoke, or we're going to do something very unpleasant to you!"
"Oh, must it come to that?"
Inori didn't panic. She just let out a mildly resigned sigh.
"Does that mean you agree?" The delinquent's eyes lit up, his gaze sliding toward her pink hair, her lips.
"Can't be helped."
She smiled with a trace of bitterness and raised an eyebrow, relaxed and unhurried.
"Since I can't find him anyway... I'll just have to beat everyone here one by one until he shows up."
"Huh?"
Before the delinquent could process what she'd said—let alone react—an invisible iron fist slammed him square in the face.
...
...
Thirty-something ordinary people. Some had baseball bats and other weapons, but set against Inori they were no different from a kindergarten class.
In her previous world she had killed many GHQ soldiers to protect her cover. She'd felt guilty about it each time—those men were only following orders; dying in a foreign country was genuinely pitiable. But these ones in front of her now were problem teenagers. Leave them alone and they'd keep causing trouble for everyone around them. So even if she was using a Stand against ordinary people, Inori felt not a shred of guilt.
She hit each one hard—hard enough to take them down, not hard enough to kill. And through Epitaph's foreknowledge, she pinpointed him within moments. In Epitaph's preview, she caught him using the chaos of someone else getting hit to fire a bubble at the ground beneath her feet. He was going to strip the friction from the paving stones, leave her unable to stand, and use that cover to bolt down a different road and disappear.
"Found you. You little pest."
Following Epitaph's preview, Inori knocked another delinquent flying. The bubble was already landing on the ground—he was aiming to strip the friction from all the stone tiles around the fountain, so he didn't need to target her directly. He just vaulted onto the road and spun back to release the bubble.
That was the moment Inori activated King Crimson. The world fell apart before her eyes, and outside the timeline, she crossed the distance and drove her fist straight into his face.