When Inori gave the location, Souta immediately sensed trouble.
She looked at him calmly, as if confident that just naming a place was enough for him to know exactly how to get there.
"Can you be a little more specific?" Souta raised his hand, pointing upward. "Like, which direction? How far is it from the bridge above us?"
He was planning to teleport there directly.
What kind of god wastes time walking?
Inori tilted her head, thought for a moment, and then handed the rice cooker over to Souta.
"Fyu-Neru will take us there," she said softly.
With her clear, bell-like voice, the top of the rice cooker—ahem, 'mechanical pet' flipped open to reveal a screen. An electronic map popped up, with a red dot marking the destination.
After glancing at it a few times, Souta suddenly felt the urge to take this gadget apart.
Just how many functions did it have?
He vaguely remembered it being able to cook rice in the original series...
But the details were fuzzy. He'd need divine power to fully recall everything.
"Alright, let's head out."
Staring at the map, Souta gauged the direction and distance, preparing to teleport.
But right before he could—
Inori's stomach rumbled.
The pink-haired girl froze for a few seconds, then quickly turned away, a faint blush blooming on her cheeks.
She was actually embarrassed.
Souta was surprised. It was the first time he'd seen the idol girl show emotion on her face.
Inori didn't reply or look at him, clearly avoiding eye contact.
"I'll take that as a yes." Souta smiled. "In that case, let's eat before we go. But..."
The shift in his tone made Inori turn back to look at him.
"I won't give you food for free. After you eat, you have to sing me a song."
"You like music?" Inori asked.
"No. I like your voice."
After the first Apocalypse Virus outbreak, Tokyo was devastated.
For Japan, losing Tokyo was like losing the entire country.
In the wake of the outbreak, riots spread. The nation descended into anarchy.
That's when the global organization GHQ arrived, suppressed the chaos, and took control of the archipelago.
GHQ ruled through terror, barely treating civilians as human. At one point, they even ordered the complete extermination of all virus-infected people in an entire district.
If this were a zombie movie, such a move might make sense.
But the Apocalypse Virus didn't spread through human carriers—massacres didn't stop the infection.
Under such brutal rule, further unrest was inevitable.
Especially in the outbreak's epicenter 'Roppongi', where the streets were filled with vagrants, starved citizens, infected people unable to afford vaccines, and local thugs.
Fyu-Neru's map had pointed them to a small park in Roppongi.
The place was crawling with shady characters.
Souta surveyed the area carefully. He realized that he and Inori had teleported to the very spot from episode one of the anime, where Shu first met Gai.
He even spotted the same bald thug Shu had encountered.
The guy, leading a gang, approached Souta and the moment they saw Inori, their faces turned vulgar.
Crude laughter echoed across the park.
Souta sighed. What a mess.
He recalled how, later in the anime, thugs had tried to assault Inori in a scene that was very much not PG.
Of course, by then, Inori's true soul had awakened, and those thugs met a grisly end.
Realizing they were surrounded, Inori instinctively tensed, slipping into a combat-ready stance.
Souta, on the other hand, looked as relaxed as a tourist.
As the bald thug stepped closer, Souta casually slapped him—sending teeth flying, cracking the pavement, and knocking him out cold.
The rest of the gang dropped instantly under the weight of Souta's divine aura.
Propping his chin up with one hand, Souta fell into thought.
Inori relaxed, then glanced at him, confused.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
"I suddenly remembered this bandit trope in novels—authors love to use the 'kill or not kill the bandits' dilemma to show if someone's a bleeding-heart."
Souta looked down at the unconscious thugs, considering whether he should finish them off.
If he let them go, they'd just hurt someone else eventually.
But killing them all on first meeting... felt a bit excessive.
Not long ago, he was still a regular person. Now that he was a god, he was starting to treat human lives too casually.
After thinking it over, Souta cast a permanent mental suggestion on the gang.
If they ever tried to harm anyone again, they'd be forced to slap themselves silly and run ten kilometers naked.
It barely cost him any divine power.
Shame spiritual distortion couldn't produce faith—otherwise, he could've gotten seven or eight new zealots.
Inori didn't understand a word of what he was mumbling. She just stared at him, blank-faced.
Souta didn't explain further. Instead, he led her to a bench, and they sat down to wait for the Funeral Parlor members.
During the wait, he kept checking his system phone, @-mentioning Kurumi in the chat or sending her DMs.
The system didn't warn of any life-threatening danger, but Souta was still deeply uneasy.
What if her evolution went wrong?
"I'll have to check on her later," he decided, frowning at his phone.
And while I'm at it, I'll grab the Path of Peace mythology archive from the Akame world and tweak it for this one.
Though he'd made up his mind, he didn't leave immediately, not while Inori was still with him.
At the very least, he'd wait until someone from Funeral Parlor picked her up.
"Seriously... they're taking forever. One meal and a song's worth of time, and they're still not here?"
Souta looked around. Other than the unconscious thugs, the park was empty.
Inori sat beside him, hugging Fyu-Neru, softly singing another nursery rhyme from Mother Goose.
Souta noticed a pattern—when Inori was alone, she either zoned out or sang. Very simple, very quiet. As if singing was the only thing she knew how to do.
"Inori, let me take a look at the Void Genome."
The pink-haired girl paused her song and handed him the sealed tube without hesitation.
There was no distrust in her eyes.
Souta had already shown her enough divine power to expand her worldview.
To a god, something like the Void Genome held no value.
Inori believed he had no reason to covet it.
"If Funeral Parlor accepts my help, the Void Genome won't even be necessary," Souta said as he examined it.
"It's for Gai," Inori reminded him.
"No," Souta shook his head. "If I can help it, I don't want anyone to use it."
"Because I don't want to see you being... pulled apart by others."
Souta said it bluntly.
Inori looked at him, still puzzled.
He didn't explain further.
How could he? The truth was awkward.
Guilty Crown was his gateway anime. Inori had once been his goddess.
From an outside perspective, it was just fiction.
But to watch his goddess, now flesh and blood, being pulled apart by other men 'from her chest, no less', it made his chest tighten uncomfortably.
Maybe it was a man thing. That irrational possessiveness.
If he had no power, he'd have swallowed it.
But now that he was a god?
Why put up with what he didn't like?
If it bothered him, he'd stop it. Simple.
Just as he was thinking that, beams of light pierced the darkness.
TL Status: Mildly Irritated but I'll continue