The absurdly dramatic name had caught Rowan completely flat-footed. Before he could ask what it meant, the girl standing in the spotlight raised her right hand, lifted her thumb, and pressed it down — like hitting a "like" button. She was holding something. Something that looked just like a switch.
— BOOM.
Explosions tore across the bridge like a string of firecrackers, one detonation triggering the next from the center outward to both sides, ripping the entire structure apart in seconds. The Endlaves waiting on the bridge toppled into the sea one by one, sending up towering walls of spray. A tidal wave of fire and pressure rolled outward.
The shockwave hit everywhere at once. Gai and Kyo were hurled off their feet.
Inori Yuzuriha alone stood before the wall of fire. The wind tore at the loose bun on her head and whipped her oversized jacket like a flag snapping in a storm.
She'd gambled on two scenarios. The first: if GHQ realized their intention and threw everything into blocking them inside the building, she would force a breakthrough with King Crimson, commandeer an Endlave to throw them off, then wait for an opening. The second: if GHQ wanted to minimize property damage inside their own headquarters and preferred to intercept them in the open, they would mass forces on the bridge — so while she'd been "running" earlier, she'd had King Crimson slip ahead and set the charges. Let them walk into it themselves.
— Lelouch's strategy. Flip the board. Borrowed it straight from his playbook.
Should she cover her face and laugh maniacally right about now?
"Move! There's a boat below."
She decided against it. Once she confirmed every last Endlave had been swallowed by the fire, Inori turned and called out to Gai and Kyo where they'd fallen, then sprinted for the side of the bridge.
Below, a civilian speedboat was cutting through the explosion-churned sea toward them — the same boat Inori had used earlier. At the helm was a broad-shouldered figure nearly two meters tall. Inori caught King Crimson's eye, and it immediately swung the boat closer.
"Mr. Diavolo! I've brought them!"
Inori shouted down.
"...That's Diavolo?"
Gai's expression had grown even more complicated. He stared at the hulking, completely wrapped-up figure at the helm, his suspicion mounting. He had a lot of questions for this man — especially about the girl called G [CHECK].
He kept glancing at her profile, his gaze difficult to read.
"Come here, kid."
Inori beckoned to the small boy. Kyo made his way over with some difficulty, cradling his injured shoulder, about to ask what the older girl needed from him — when Inori unceremoniously picked him up and tossed him downward.
King Crimson caught him with both arms and set him gently on the deck.
"What — did you want me to throw you too, Mr. Tsutsugami?"
Inori glanced over at him with a slight smile.
"...No thank you."
Gai's expression had gone a little strange. He wasn't badly hurt — just scrapes — and he swung himself over the railing and dropped onto the boat without incident.
...
...
No one had anticipated that the terrorists, in such a short window, could have sourced explosives and planted them on both sides of the bridge. Now the entire East-2 gate structure was gone. GHQ's command center descended into chaos, every operational vessel being dispatched to fish soldiers out of the water. They had lost this engagement decisively — the bridge alone, let alone the Endlaves, was a catastrophic loss.
As for the terrorists who had supposedly been trapped at the bridgehead... they had vanished into the chaos of the explosion, without a trace.
Inori sat quietly at the helm, steering the boat away in the confusion — heading for the nearest exclusion zone port, a coastline that had long since become a dump, with nothing but King Crimson and Gai and his little sidekick behind her.
"Gai! Oh thank god — I finally got through!"
A girl's voice, thick with tears barely held back, came through Gai's earpiece, startlingly clear on the quiet water.
"I'm sorry, Tsugumi."
Gai let out a long breath. Hearing a comrade's voice was the only thing that finally made it feel real — that he'd somehow survived an impossible dead end.
"I'm out. Heading to the rally point now."
"R-really? Thank goodness... Ayase! Gai's okay!"
"This mission was my failure. I'm sorry to everyone."
Gai's mood had stayed low. Not only had the operation been a defeat — he'd come away without the Void genome. The one saving grace was that the genome had apparently already been used by this girl called G-inori, which meant it wasn't entirely lost.
"Spare the postmortems for later, Gai Tsutsugami."
The hulking figure sitting across from him cut in, voice flat.
"Gai? Is someone else with you?"
"It's nothing, Tsugumi. I'll call back in five."
He pulled out his earpiece and met the man's gaze with equal coldness.
He couldn't see his face. The man was wrapped from head to toe — not a centimeter of skin exposed — with a strange grey gas mask covering his face, obviously a rushed improvisation. Who was this Diavolo? Why refuse to show his face at all?
"I'd very much like to know who you are. Though it seems you're not planning to tell me."
"Many of the people who've seen my face are dead."
It was such an over-the-top line that Gai let out a faint wry smile. This man was either genuinely dangerous or completely unhinged.
"Why save me? I don't believe we've ever met."
"Because I want to work with you. I need you and Funeral Parlor to do something for me." The voice behind the mask was very confident, utterly unhurried.
These were, of course, lines Inori had fed King Crimson mentally. King Crimson couldn't speak on its own — it only spoke when she loaded it with words in advance.
"What is it?"
"I can't tell you yet." King Crimson continued evenly. "Going forward, Funeral Parlor's operations remain yours to command — but every order you give requires my approval before it's carried out."
"Out of the question!"
Gai's anger was immediate.
"I'm grateful you saved me. But Funeral Parlor is a revolutionary organization. I won't hand the lives of my comrades to someone who won't even show me their face."
"Please, Mr. Tsutsugami. Calm yourself."
There was something like amusement in Diavolo's tone. That relaxed, unrattled composure made Gai feel all the more mocked.
"I'm not trying to take your authority from you."
— I am absolutely taking your authority from you.
Inori added internally, very privately.
Everything in its proper time. No rushing. Gai still had too much value to be discarded, otherwise Inori might genuinely have been tempted to kick him into the sea and let the fish sort it out.
"I simply have doubts about your competence."
"You—!"
Gai seethed — and said nothing. Because the man was right. Trying to claim he was capable while sitting here looking like a drowned dog would be laughable. But Gai wasn't a fool. However reasonably Diavolo framed it, the man's agenda was obviously to take Funeral Parlor for himself.
— Why? Is running a terrorist cell really so appealing these days?
— If he were GHQ, why go to all this trouble rescuing me just to control us?
The boat was almost at shore. Engine noise. Waves. Gai couldn't make up his mind.