Chapter 185: Chapter 20: The Lord Will Bless You
Having parted ways with DIO, Pucci wandered the streets alone. His Stand had only just awakened—he was in no position to shoulder DIO’s burdens in battle. But sitting idle while DIO fought alone was certainly not the reason he’d come to Egypt.
Bzzzt—hummm!
"What is...?"
A radiance appeared—the kind Pucci had only ever imagined in the depths of his mind during seminary, when the rituals of Mass compelled him to envision the light of Heaven. Sacred. Immaculate. Without a trace of impurity or discomfort.
As if a hand riddled with holes had grabbed Yimi by the scruff of her collar and tossed her out of that light, the girl stumbled forward on her short little limbs. A crimson spear clattered to the ground at her feet right after.
Yimi raised a foot and stepped on the Spear of Longinus, pulling it back into her storage space to seal its manifestation of divinity.
The emotionless state catalyzed by Divinity still refused to let go. If it persisted for more than twenty seconds, she’d likely let rationality override emotion entirely—conclude that maintaining peak combat readiness as a permanent default was simply better—and discard the Spear of Longinus on the spot.
But the only way she’d gotten out of that space at all was through the full Love Train’s ability to contract dimensions.
"Could this truly be—!"
Pucci, having witnessed everything, clutched the crucifix at his neck. Swallowing hard, he touched his forehead and traced the sign of the cross, frantically dredging up every scrap of theology the seminary had drilled into him.
None of it, it seemed, covered what one was supposed to do when an angel descended before you.
"Who are you?" Yimi turned to look at him and sniffed the air.
Her human form’s sense of smell wasn’t as sharp as her cat form’s, but at this distance she could still tell—this man was one of the people who’d been with that guy called DIO.
"Are you the first objective DIO must reach to attain Heaven?" Pucci’s body was rigid as he lowered his gaze to the girl before him, the doctrines in his heart screaming about how disrespectful this angle of looking down was.
He dropped to one knee, adjusting to a slightly lower vantage point so he could meet her eyes.
"Attain Heaven—you know how to attain Heaven?" Yimi tilted her head up at him.
"I’m afraid that’s something I don’t know."
DIO had written it all down in his diary, he said. Promised to show him later.
Pucci stared at her, conflicted, and traced another cross. "Forgive me—might I be permitted to take my leave for now? I won’t tell anyone about this... No, what I mean is, I’ll persuade DIO."
Yimi planted both hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes, working through the connections.
Misreading her pose as judgment, Pucci bowed his head in pious deference. "Lord... please believe this is not mere genuflection before an ’angel.’ Even if the one before me were merely an ordinary little girl whom DIO had set his sights on, I would still abide by doctrine and pretend I’d seen nothing."
Yimi didn’t quite follow all of that, but her ears caught the word Lord. She didn’t have any deep understanding of who or what this "Lord" was, but the scene triggered something familiar—just as she’d done for Flandre in the last world, she patted Pucci on the shoulder:
"The Lord will bless you."
She shifted back into a cat and resumed her search for DIO and Jotaro.
"..."
Was that... the Lord’s way of granting him absolution?
After she left, Pucci rose to his feet and sighed.
He wavered briefly between friend and faith, yet lacked the life experience to judge which weighed more.
Go persuade DIO. The key to attaining Heaven lay with the angel—it was about as profound as saying you need a knife and fork to eat a steak. Meaningless in its obviousness.
Pulling a friend back from a wayward path could also count as his duty to save—regardless of which identity he acted under.
What even Pucci failed to notice, however, was that DIO himself stood atop Cairo’s tallest clock tower, arms folded, gazing in their direction.
DIO felt a flicker of surprise at the deference Pucci had shown Yimi but no anger. From that distance he couldn’t see the hand that had thrown her out, but the sacred curtain of light—that, he could feel.
The instinctive revulsion of a Vampire. And yet he felt no psychological aversion whatsoever. That in itself proved the brat’s ability to help him attain Heaven was a genuine reflection of reality.
"DIO-sama."
At his side, a gaunt man knelt on one knee with the respectful bearing of a well-trained servant. His features bore a striking resemblance to the butler at DIO’s mansion.
He presented a stack of chips with both hands. This was the power of his Stand, Osiris: the soul of anyone who lost a wager against him was compressed into a chip and claimed.
Incidentally, his younger brother possessed a similar—but stronger—soul-stealing ability. The two of them were the linchpin of DIO’s effort to collect the souls of thirty-six sinners.
Initially, DIO had judged the more capable younger D’Arby as fit for the task and kept him close as a personal butler. But having just witnessed Pucci’s ability, a realization struck: this particular condition seemed intimately connected to "a trusted friend." And at this point, there clearly wasn’t enough time to prepare Pucci for the role.
DIO crushed the chips in his palm. "D’Arby. In your eyes, what sort of existence is an ’evil person’?"
"DIO-sama, I..."
Before he could finish, DIO winced and pressed a hand to the star-shaped birthmark on the back of his neck.
"Oh, sorry to interrupt. Mind if I ask for directions? It’s nearly four in the morning—not exactly easy to find someone to talk to."
A rather flippant voice appeared atop the clock tower. It belonged to a young-looking man.
"Name’s Jotaro Kujo. I’m looking for a pedophile who goes by DIO or something. Seen him around? If not, that’s fine too—"
Light exploded from his hand like an electric discharge, and he whipped out a rope-like object, hurling it straight at DIO.
"Hm? A face I don’t recognize." DIO didn’t budge. The world’s gears of time ground to a halt—everything except him froze into perfect stillness.
A golden Stand materialized before him and swatted the incoming Hamon attack aside.
"Hamon, is it? How nostalgic."
DIO turned to look behind him. "But as someone bound to me by the fate of the Joestar bloodline, attempting a sneak attack on me, DIO, is far too naive. And such naivety will cost you your life."
Behind him, Jotaro had somehow scaled the edge of the clock tower—positioned as though he’d been waiting for the young Joseph’s Hamon to draw DIO’s attention before striking.
"Those of you who carry Joestar blood should be well aware that I can sense your approach. No matter. Before ’The World,’ all schemes are futile." DIO walked over and planted a foot on Jotaro’s hand, preparing to deliver a killing blow.
But then—Jotaro’s eyeballs suddenly rolled toward DIO’s face. This movement had occurred within his Time Stop.
"Nani?!"
"ORA!"
Star Platinum’s fist shattered DIO’s bones outright, sending him flying.
"Impossible!"
DIO’s Time Stop expired.
Jotaro climbed up and dusted off the footprint on his hand. "Yare yare. And here I thought your ability was some kind of time-leap. Guess I was wrong?"
"Heh heh... ha ha ha HA!"
DIO clutched his rapidly regenerating wounds and roared with laughter. "A Stand of the same type as my ’World,’ is it? But Jotaro—humans have their limits. The reason you only threw one punch is because you can only move for a second or two, am I right?"
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