First Bank Robbery

Returning to Japan after six years, Batou rides in with Purin Ezaki, trading talk about the country and its economy. Learning the Major and the rest will not land for another week, he peels off to amuse himself, to Purin's annoyance. At a bank he watches an older man struggle with the password and PIN entry, then an elderly woman lose much of a withdrawal for wanting paper money instead of cyber currency. As he tries to comfort her, the lights die and two jittery robbers seize the room, clearing everyone out except Batou and the woman hiding behind a pillar.

Batou drops both robbers and finds they are old men. An aged security guard then arrives with a shotgun, but rather than help he takes the woman hostage and orders the heist to continue, revealing he has worked there thirty years, kept on only because his prosthetic leg earns the bank a government subsidy alongside the lone human branch manager, who slips away every Thursday for a private meeting. Forced to crack the safe, Batou warns that spending the paper bills means being traced by serial numbers. The robbers call the guard by his real name, Nashida, who confirms it and admits he wants revenge on the branch head. In a turn, the woman tackles Nashida and levels his shotgun at him, demanding Batou help the robbers as police surround the building.

Batou emerges wearing a pouch he claims is a bomb and relays the crew's message to the cops. Inside, the woman shares her history: a husband who taught Russian literature and worked until his death, leaving her his savings. The group learns she is running out of time and hoped to afford euthanasia in Switzerland, a procedure costing three million yen she cannot cover after the Global Simultaneous Default wrecked their finances. Revealing he is a cop, Batou discovers the branch manager, Takao Ochi, had swindled Nashida by converting his money into crypto. Batou pledges his own earnings as seed money, has the group buy and quickly sell cryptocurrency through American QWE, then stages the robbers' escape with the fake bomb once police move in. The old men toast their windfall, Ochi is arrested, and the woman, Kaede, chooses to keep living a while rather than travel to Switzerland. Batou reunites with Pazu, Boma, Ishikawa, and the Major.

Batou single-handedly subdues two elderly robbers, only for the prosthetic-legged guard Nashida to hijack the situation and hold a woman hostage.

The dying woman, Kaede, seizes the shotgun and forces Batou to help the crew fund her euthanasia trip.

Batou exposes branch manager Takao Ochi's crypto swindle and turns a quick cryptocurrency trade into the group's payout.

The robbers escape with a fake bomb, Ochi is arrested, and Batou rejoins the arriving Section 9 members.

Subtitled PIE IN THE SKY, this 2045 episode leans into wry social commentary on aging, currency, and economic collapse. Norihiro Naganuma directed it from a script by Harumi Doki.

It aired in Japan on April 23, 2020, and in English on May 3, 2020, following Quantized Gospel and preceding What Came About as a Result of Togusa's Death.