News of a student being arrested by GHQ on suspicion spread through Tennozu First High School with startling speed. It didn't take long for everyone to know the name — Shu Ouma, an ordinary second-year in Class A. The whole school went quiet with unease.
Shu's two closest friends took the news differently. Yahiro Samukawa held it together, more or less. Satta Takamachi didn't bother trying — the anger was written all over him. They both knew exactly what Shu was like. Sure, he could be impulsive sometimes; he'd actually enjoy sitting through a horror film everyone else refused to watch. But Shu in league with Funeral Parlor? That was impossible for either of them to accept.
Inori had barely set foot inside the school building when a tall figure stepped into her path.
She looked up, frowning slightly. Yahiro Samukawa. He was staring at her with cold, suspicious eyes.
He was perceptive. Sharp. The timing was too convenient — Shu, who should have been staying after school with Satta to finish their homework, had walked off with Inori instead, only to be arrested by GHQ moments later. He had every reason to suspect she'd arranged it.
"Inori. What actually happened yesterday? Why did Shu get arrested?"
His voice carried no attempt at politeness.
He was blocking the hallway with his whole body — an unspoken promise that if he didn't like what he heard, she wasn't getting past.
Inori studied him with half-lidded eyes. He was someone worth taking seriously. His track record of quiet, steady support for Shu throughout the original story said as much.
The nerve to confront her — that alone was worth something.
"Hey! What are you doing, Yahiro!"
Before Inori could say a word, Satta came sprinting up from behind, face tight with alarm.
"Inori must be traumatized too! Something that terrifying happened right in front of her — how could you put her through all this again? What kind of question is that?"
"I just want the facts, Satta. Don't lose your head right now. Isn't Shu the one you're supposed to be worried about?" Yahiro's expression shifted, a trace of exhaustion crossing his face at Satta's blind devotion.
"Of course I'm worried! But Inori is innocent!"
Satta grabbed his arm and tried to drag him away.
Yahiro exhaled slowly. His gaze swept over Inori one more time, cold and deliberate. He held the silence for a few seconds before turning back to Satta.
"If Shu really did have a connection to Funeral Parlor," he said slowly, eyes still cutting toward Inori for a fraction of a second, "then someone found out and turned him in. And that someone was almost certainly someone close to him." He paused. "That makes everyone in his class worth looking at."
Inori almost laughed.
That kind of thinking didn't come from nowhere — it was shaped by who he was, where he'd come from. If she ever put him in Funeral Parlor, he'd probably make a formidable asset. She filed the thought away without acting on it.
"That is enough."
A small figure stepped in front of Inori.
Chestnut hair. Two small, cherry-like buns perched at the back of her head.
Matsuri.
She should have been frantic with worry over Shu — the boy she liked had just been arrested. What was she doing here?
"Inori has a special job that's different from the rest of us — but she's not the kind of person who'd betray a friend!"
Not a friend — a useful piece. Inori thought, privately. That's different.
"And you two, pointing fingers at each other at a time like this — you should be ashamed! Apologize to Inori right now!"
"Sorry!" Satta, ever wavering, caved the instant Matsuri turned on him. He grabbed Yahiro's arm. "Come on. We'll deal with Shu's situation later."
"...Tch."
Yahiro gave one cold exhale — a we'll see expression — and let himself be pulled away.
Inori stood there with a frown, genuinely puzzled. She hadn't done anything to him. He had no evidence. And yet—
Wait.
Did he — by some accident — see me during that last battle?
No. Impossible. She'd been careful every step of the way. Even after eliminating enemies, she'd never removed her mask. Could he really have made the connection from just a silhouette and the lower half of a face glimpsed through the mask?
A thread of genuine worry pulled taut in her chest. She watched the two boys disappear down the hall and slowly curled her hand into a fist at her side.
If I'm right about that, he can't be allowed to keep breathing. I'll find an opportunity.
"Inori..."
She came back to herself.
Matsuri had wrapped her arms around her.
That familiar warmth, soft and close — the same as always, no different from the moment Inori had told her that fabricated story about herself. Matsuri was holding back tears, her small body trembling despite everything she was doing to keep it still.
"It's okay, Matsuri."
Inori held her back, one hand moving in slow, steady pats against her spine.
"They're only guessing. They have nothing concrete."
"Funeral Parlor has been making a lot of noise lately. GHQ's jumpy all over the district. Shu was probably just wrongly suspected. He'll be fine."
In truth, I can't promise that.
In the original story, Shu went through Segai's famous "hospitality" — all psychological pressure, no actual violence. But Segai was unpredictable when his mood soured, and nobody could say for certain whether he'd keep his hands clean this time. Shu's life wasn't in real danger, though — not when his mother was Dr. Haruka Ouma of the Antibody research division.
Mm. Haruka's son... Haruka... the core of the Void chromosome research team.
Inori couldn't quite suppress a smile. She'd just spotted an unexpected angle she hadn't considered before.
"He'll be fine. I'm sure of it."
"I'm so glad you're here with me, Inori."
Matsuri's breathing steadied. She held on tighter.
In the original story, Matsuri had cried quietly to herself when Shu was taken. Here, she was only a little unsteady — probably because having Inori nearby gave her something to hold onto. Probably nothing more than that.
Probably.
Inori chose not to think too carefully about whether that was all there was to it.
"Duru duru duru duru durururu—!"
The ringtone cut through everything.
"Huh? What is that?"
"Duru duru duru durururu—!"
"Sorry, Matsuri. I need to take this."
Inori stepped back, gave her an apologetic smile, then pulled out her phone and made quickly for the auxiliary stairwell at the far end of the hall — the stretch of corridor no one ever passed through.
"Since when did Inori have such a weird ringtone?"
Matsuri tilted her head, confused.
That specific ringtone was only assigned to one thing: an incoming call for Diavolo. It gave Inori time to prepare — to find the register of a middle-aged man's low voice, to settle into it. She cleared her throat once and pressed answer.
"It's me."
"Was that your doing, Diavolo!"
Gai's voice came through the speaker sharp enough to make Inori pull the phone back from her ear.
"...What are you upset about, Gai?"
"Don't play dumb." He caught himself, clearly aware he'd let his temper get ahead of him. He forced his voice down — but the fury underneath was still audible. "Getting Shu Ouma involved — that was your idea, wasn't it?"
"Of course."
"Why? He was just living his life. An ordinary person. Why would you drag him into this?"
"...Hm." Inori let out a short sound of dismissal, turning to watch the students out on the sports field through the window. "I didn't realize you were so attached to your childhood friends, Gai. I have my reasons."
"Neither of you can escape what's coming. And besides — he's the one Eve chose as her 'Adam' from the start."
"He's been arrested because of you too, isn't he? Can you at least tell me why?"
"I don't make a habit of explaining myself."
The apology in the words and the contempt in the delivery were two completely different things. Gai's anger climbed another notch.
"You dragged Inori into danger. Now Shu. You treat their lives like they're nothing to you—"
"And? I may have hurt two people you care about. What does that have to do with me?"
The more Gai pushed, the easier Inori's tone became, a quiet satisfaction settling in her chest. She let him stew for a moment before continuing.
"Speaking of Inori — she's been disobedient lately. Contacting you without my orders." Inori bit down on the urge to laugh, slipping fully into the character's register, keeping her voice perfectly level with just a trace of self-satisfied amusement. "I gave her a fairly serious punishment last night. I expect she'll be considerably more cooperative going forward."
"You — what did you do to her?"
No man on earth could hear something like that and stay calm.
Certainly not Gai — who had long since come to see Inori's body as an extension of Mana herself. Words like that, in his ear, landed like a direct act of NTR right to his face.