ASM hack: improved Gale Hairpin; please help

Hi GrayShadows and thank you for your suggestion. I tried abandoning the approach to check for $3C44,X altogether, and instead put in a check for bit 5 of $11D9 directly (that is, instead of checking for a matching item number in either relic slot, I just check for bit 5 of $11D9). This works in a strange way: if the party leader has a Gale Hairpin equipped, the entire party will gain Initiative. If a character has Gale Hairpin equipped but is not the party leader, it has no effect at all.

I also tried adding in a check for a matching item number to flip the bit in $3C44,X (which then triggers the Initiative effect) which had no effect at all.

As I keep trying more things that don't work, I feel like I'm at least narrowing down the problem, but I have to conclude that I don't quite understand how the code for battle effects from items works just yet. Or admittedly, the loop that deals with initializing battle timers.