“ | If she escapes this facility, we might be the ones who will be extinct. | ” |
–Kurama, describing the existential threat posed by Lucy |
Lucy's Escape from the Diclonius Research Institute marks the start of the series in both versions, and while a battle was waged, it much more resembled a slaughter.
Exploiting gaps created by the schedule in the institute as well as being aided by an unknown benefactor, Lucy managed to suddenly end her three years of captivity in the island facility. Security guards were sent out to stop her, and almost to a one met their fate.
First, two guards stationed at Lucy's position (a transfer by elevator in the manga, a stationary holding chamber in the anime) were killed when one of them allowed himself to fall inside the range of Lucy's vectors. As Lucy moved forward, other guards lost limbs, were decapitated, or were simply split in two. Lucy's vectors were often very effective at turning back light to heavy personal arms fire, from standard handguns to machine guns, sometimes directly, and sometimes using strategy.
Reaching the area nearest the outer exit, Lucy was confronted by a group of armed guards equipped with machine guns and far enough away from her position as not to be easy targets. Sadly, it was at this point that Director Kurama's awkward secretary, Miss Kisaragi, walked right into the field of fire. She was an opportunity Lucy exploited on multiple levels. Her arrival was a delay to the guards opening fire; her grisly death put the guards and Kurama off their mark; her headless body was used by Lucy as a shield against gunfire, aiding her vectors until the guards simply ran out of ammo.
Lucy plowed through a few remaining guards who either did not move quickly enough, or who were foolish enough to confront her. In keeping with her vow to Kurama to let him live while those he cared for died, Lucy bypassed him, only to have her unknown helper open the exit doors, placing her outside the facility and near to freedom.
In a last ditch effort to contain or kill the escaping Lucy, Kurama ordered a sniper to fire on her with shells too heavy for her vectors to turn back. A combination of dumb luck and savvy meant that while Lucy was wounded (and rendered amnesiac) by the shot, she was not killed, falling into the water and off the island. Kurama immediately began a search for her under the assumption she had survived both the shot and the fall.
This bloody escape, especially in the anime version of the series, becomes the scene for which Elfen Lied, rightly or wrongly, is most often remembered.
This sequence is represented in the first manga chapter and the first broadcast episode of the anime.
“ | No! She didn't die! | ” |
–Kurama, refusing to believe in the power of bullets and gravity against the survival of his sworn foe |
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