Apart from Inori Yuzuriha and Gai, the infiltration team included a remotely operated robot tasked with slipping into the server room, swapping out the feed lines, and loading pre-recorded footage. Once the surveillance video and audio had been fully replaced, Tsugumi sent Gai the all-clear from the rear.
"Gai — all surveillance feeds and audio have been swapped! You're good to go!"
"Good."
Gai let out a long breath. He pulled the elastic from his tied-back hair, then removed the glasses and the fake stubble, letting his usual self surface. He exhaled quietly, then fixed Shu with a level, serious look.
"To put it plainly, Shu — I'm here to get you out."
"This is too dangerous, Gai!"
Shu looked rattled.
Part of it was the risk of escape — the shadow of last time, of being caught mid-flight, hadn't left him. But the other part was something more complicated: he had already made a deal with Segai. The moment he encountered Gai Tsutsugami, he was supposed to use the pen currently sitting in his pocket to send a signal. If he didn't, Segai had promised he'd be arrested again — this time sent directly to GHQ's largest prison, somewhere even his mother's influence couldn't reach him.
And more than that — they had Inori in their sights too. Shu was a simple boy. He didn't want the person he cared about dragged into trouble because of something he'd done wrong.
— For Inori's sake… even if they brand me a traitor, I'll bear it. Even if she finds out and hates me — stops wanting to be near me — that's enough. As long as she's safe, nothing else matters.
"I'm sorry, Gai. I can't go with you."
Shu's hand tightened around the pen in his pocket. His lips were trembling.
Gai went still. Then his brow drew together, his voice dropping to something cold.
"Did someone get to you? Who was it — Director Keido?"
"Gai… why do you fight?"
"To hold a woman in my arms."
Gai was quiet for a moment. Then he looked up, utterly serious.
Shu hadn't anticipated that. It was so far outside any answer he'd been bracing for that it left him momentarily at a loss. But he steadied himself. He gripped the pen, gathered his nerve, and spoke.
"Is that so? Then I also have someone I'm fighting with everything I have to protect."
"So — I'm sorry!"
"What are you doing!"
Gai registered the wrongness immediately and lunged forward, slapping the pen from Shu's hand — but it was already too late. While they'd been talking, Shu had worked through the activation sequence. The tracking signal went straight to Segai.
"Gai! What happened?"
Tsugumi, hearing Gai's shout, broke in with alarm.
"Tch — something unexpected. Tell Argo and the others to start the assault now!"
Gai barely finished speaking before a burst of gunfire stitched through the locked door. One stray round — improbably, infuriatingly placed — caught his arm. He had just started to rise when it hit. The impact threw him off balance, and he went down with a muffled grunt. Armed soldiers flooded the room, surrounding both him and Shu.
"Well. You really did a wonderful job, Shu."
Segai's voice came through laced with genuine pleasure.
From his office, he'd watched the signal activate and responded in seconds — every soldier in the facility redirected to the interrogation room, the defense lawyer to be taken into custody.
What a delightful surprise. Segai found himself quietly relieved that he'd thought better of giving Shu the Leucocyte control device — for an official organization like GHQ, arrest and lawful prosecution was the correct procedure. And besides, Shu had only been with Funeral Parlor for a single day, with no meaningful attachment to Gai. Handing him the tracker had been the right call.
He'd never imagined the signal would go off right under his nose. Gai Tsutsugami would never risk his life for a raw recruit — which meant his real objective here could only be one thing: the bomb-obsessed maniac locked in the underground cell. Kenji Kido.
"Shu… so you really did betray us."
Gai's hand pressed against his bleeding arm. Gun barrels ringed him on every side. He had nowhere left to go.
Even so, he was still wearing that stubborn, crooked smile.
"What did they promise you?… The person you said you'd fight to protect — is it Inori?"
"I'm sorry, Gai. They'd already found Inori. If I didn't do this… they were going to take her. I'm sorry."
"…I see."
Gai closed his eyes. When they opened again, his face had transformed — every trace of bitterness burned away and replaced with something raw. His gold hair hung loose. He channeled all of the pain from his wound, all of the rage he'd been swallowing, and hurled it at the name.
"Diavolo! You played me!"
Now it all made sense. Why Diavolo had arranged for Inori to transfer to Tennouzu First High School. Why he'd had her draw Shu into Funeral Parlor, only to have him sell Gai out. He must have uncovered Gai's relationship with Shu — and his plan to rescue Kenji Kido — and engineered this entire trap in response. A borrowed knife. Use an unknowing Shu, use GHQ, and eliminate Gai cleanly. In one move, he could seize control of Funeral Parlor without getting his own hands dirty.
Gai was past caring about the reasons behind it.
"Don't move, Gai Tsutsugami! We are authorized to shoot you where you stand!"
The lead soldier hadn't finished speaking before every light in the room went dark.
Gai moved like a wounded lion cornered into a last stand. In the sudden blind spot, he exploded — one punch caved a soldier's throat, seized his rifle, and used the momentum to drop low. Before the others could react, he swept the room with controlled fire and put them all down.
Outside, the distant percussion of artillery rolled in, and the floor began to tremble beneath their feet. Funeral Parlor's outer strike team had started the assault. The original plan had been simple enough — Gai would emerge with Shu and link up with Inori, then push for Kenji Kido.
But that man — Diavolo —
"Inori, can you hear me?"
Gai slumped onto one of the fallen soldiers, chest heaving. The blood loss and the burst of effort had left him light-headed, but this wasn't the end of the road — not yet. Inori was still in this building. With a Void's power behind them, a wounded arm was nothing.
"Gai, what's wrong?"
"Shu turned on us… they got to him. I'm injured. Can you come to me first?"
Gai's voice came out strained.
Inori's impression of Gai was that he almost never asked anyone for help. Even at the skeleton Christmas tree — when she'd charged through live fire to get to him — he hadn't been this straightforward about it. For him to ask like this now meant he was genuinely in trouble.
"Okay. I'll be right there."
Inori agreed without hesitation.
She tossed the helmet aside, shrugged off the GHQ uniform she'd been wearing over her clothes. Things were moving too fast now — no time to play soldier, no time for the slow game. She was going in loud.
Funeral Parlor jacket on. Mask and hood up. Inori cleared the shipping container she'd been hiding behind and ran straight at the wall. Time was erased for an instant, and she slipped through the outer wall like smoke — inside the facility.
Honestly, Inori felt a little adrift — and couldn't even decide what to do next.
She had intended for Shu to end up with Segai's pen. That much was deliberate — a safety measure.
What she hadn't anticipated was that he'd actually activate it immediately the moment he ran into Gai. That kind of decisiveness was completely at odds with the Shu Ouma she thought she knew. And the pen turning out to be a tracker rather than a Leucocyte controller — she hadn't predicted that either. Segai had surprised her. Which meant the canon plot could no longer be treated as a reliable map, only a rough one.
"Hostile spotted!"
"Open fire!"
A familiar scene. The black-jacketed girl appeared from nowhere, and the soldiers scrambling through the corridor snapped into reaction.
— Thud. The low, muffled sound of Time Erasure.
Inori's silhouette vanished. The world dropped into darkness. Both hands raised, each gripping a pistol, she moved through the frozen moment — and in the last instant before time reasserted itself, she put precise rounds through each of them from behind.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
The soldiers never got their safeties off. They went down to a girl whose trigger speed felt like it could stop time itself.