"This world forces people to make choices at every turn."
"Survival of the fittest—that is the truth of this world. But we will sing a funeral hymn for those who are cast aside. That is why we are called Funeral Parlor: it declares that we are, and always will be, the ones who bear the dead—an existence that cannot be extinguished."
From a high floor above, Gai directed dozens of projectors to cast laser targeting beams across the Anti-Bodies' formation. It was a simple trick—a patient enemy would see through it quickly—but that exact reaction was what Gai wanted.
It was also precisely why he was making this speech in the open, with Major Guin in the command vehicle as his audience.
Yes—the terrorist who, in their eyes, was no better than a cockroach from the sewers, was brazenly and openly taunting them. That would enrage them. The order to open fire with everything would come—and that was the keystone of Gai's plan.
Major Guin heard that melodramatic speech, ground his teeth, and answered in a cold voice.
"You seem to have misread the situation."
"Isn't it obvious who's about to be eliminated here? Speak! Where is the biological weapon you stole?!"
Gai's silver eyes held something pressed down beneath them. He said nothing.
A mere terrorist daring to stonewall him—the shame of it was beyond what Guin could absorb.
He signaled immediately: every tactical vehicle and Endlave weapon locked onto Gai alone. Then he bellowed.
"I'll count to ten. If you haven't confessed your crimes by then, you'll be riddled with holes. Ten—nine—eight—"
"Seven…"
The count ticked down at a measured pace. Gai didn't move.
Inori Yuzuriha's willfulness had knocked the plan off course, but the outcome itself was unaffected—so Gai held firm. He was certain she would deliver. She would take the Kaleidoscope from Daryl.
Ten seconds expired. Hundreds of gun barrels discharged brilliant crimson energy beams, a dense lattice of red lines stabbing straight toward where Gai stood.
"Ten seconds are up! Wryyyyy~"
Inori's voice came crackling through the comm.
And then—just before the beams could reach him—an invisible wall of light rose into existence, built from countless layered prisms. Like a kaleidoscope stacked on itself, endlessly repeating—the blocked beams struck its facets, refracted across mirrored surface after mirrored surface, and came roaring back.
—BOOM.
Vivid firelight blazed across the sky.
Explosions cascaded. Armored vehicles, Endlaves, ordinary soldiers—all of them vanished in an instant beneath that annihilating red glare. The Anti-Bodies search unit, Major Guin included, was wiped out to the last.
All except Daryl, whose Void had been extracted—though he wasn't truly Anti-Bodies to begin with.
Once the Kaleidoscope dispersed, the battlefield held nothing but roaring fires, Endlaves beginning to melt in the heat, and the charred remains of what had been soldiers. Only Gai still stood where he'd started, composed and unhurried. He exhaled slowly, then turned to the girl behind him.
"Well done, Inori."
"You completed the task I gave you excellently."
She had taken off the black mask, but the hood still cast a shadow over the upper half of her face, leaving only the damp curve of her lips visible.
—Does this guy not know how to talk like a normal person? It's a celebration—so why does it sound so awkward? This was practically her achievement alone: she had used her body to lure Daryl, then used the Void to destroy the enemy. The arrogant bastard. Does he think everyone rolls over for him like a child?
"I'm not doing this for free."
Inori didn't voice any of that, naturally—but she would collect payment in her own way.
She hadn't thrown herself into a fight just to come away with nothing. And she certainly wasn't getting up at this hour for free.
"Oh? And what would you like me to do?"
"I'll tell you in a few days."
Inori thought for a moment, then smiled—small and sly.
By now, the ruined streets below had come alive. Civilians who had sheltered in nearby buildings crept out, and Funeral Parlor's members emerged alongside them. People greeted each other with relieved, delighted faces, celebrating a victory that had swept away the gloom of last night's defeat in one stroke.
From the outside, Gai's strategy had clearly been the linchpin—but Inori, who had charged the enemy camp alone and stopped Daryl from killing an innocent mother, was recognized as a warrior of rare courage as well.
The people who had been sentenced to "disposal" as so-called infected—Dayun had already led a team in to pull them out the moment the first rockets fired.
From this day on, the name Funeral Parlor would travel to every corner of this country.
Inori watched the aftermath below from the corner of her eye. Maybe she'd gone slightly overboard. The quarantine zone's refugees were irreplaceable lives—but these soldiers were just cannon fodder, weren't they?
—I, Inori, have a dream: to become a sovereign who respects the value of life.
GHQ soldiers had come from countries around the world. Who among them had wanted to die in a foreign land? And at the end of it, Funeral Parlor's actions were themselves, objectively, unreasonable. Without the GHQ's support propping up this crumbling country, it would have long since become a dead zone, a place the living dare not enter. The Apocalypse Virus had come from a meteorite beyond the sky; developing a vaccine to suppress it demanded colossal resources—it couldn't simply be handed to the island's refugees as charity. High tax levies were a natural consequence of that. And the GHQ had, by international standards, provided better services and a higher quality of life than what came before.
Effort and return scale together. There is no free lunch in this world—and no free medicine.
And yet, among everyone here, who would choose to live like this in the quarantine zone if they had any other option?
So all of it—every tragedy—traced back to that origin stone. To truly destroy the Apocalypse Virus, the masterminds who sought to trigger the Crystal Age would first have to be killed.
—Those who trample lives without mercy must be brought to judgment by my King Crimson.
...
...
News of the incident—stretching from the skeletal Christmas tree all the way to the quarantine zone—broke across every major platform within hours. In an era of total information saturation, half a day was enough for practically the entire country to know the name Funeral Parlor. More than a few Japanese people who had long resented the GHQ began speaking of this organization as the architects of a new age.
They had beaten the GHQ—not just in the field, but had dealt a serious blow to that fortress of a military base, the skeletal Christmas tree. That was not something any petty gang-like outfit of small-time troublemakers could accomplish.
The GHQ, absorbing blow after blow, naturally didn't ease up on the manhunt for Funeral Parlor members. Generous bounties went up—report any suspected affiliates and collect a reward. All at once, this country that had been frozen in stasis for so long began, once again, to move.
"Funeral Parlor…"
Even hearing the name felt off somehow—dark, unsettling. But there was, undeniably, just a touch of something cool about it.
With two minutes left before the end of class, Hare Menjou finished her last round of annotation and let her mind wander to matters unrelated to the lesson. As if on cue, the teacher announced class dismissed early.
"One more thing before you go."
"Today, we will be welcoming a transfer student. Come in, please."
The male teacher called toward the classroom door.
A girl stepped through—wearing the neat red uniform of Tennōzu First High. Pink-white hair tied with red ribbons, split into low twin tails behind her. She walked from shadow into sunlight with soft, unhurried steps, and her hair moved with her like scattered cherry blossom petals.
"This is Inori Yuzuriha, your new transfer student."