Chapter 187: Chapter 22: Tumor!
"What’s with this weird perspective? Jotaro?"
Joseph flexed his wrists in confusion. "Strange—my hand’s healed. And it’s wrapped in something. Wait, why does my voice sound this dumb?"
He’d been de-aged, yes, but the body he’d reverted to was from the period right after fighting Kars—which meant his hand should’ve been missing.
Clatter— Something hitting the ground. Sounded like a person.
"Who’s there?" Joseph turned and found himself staring at himself. He clasped both hands over his face. "Oh shit!"
"The old man, huh? That’s a relief."
The Star Platinum standing behind "Joseph’s" body confirmed his identity.
"Jotaro? If you’re me, then am I you? Is this one of DIO’s underlings’ abilities?" Joseph looked down at his arms.
Teal gauntlets. Impossible to tell who he was from the outside, and one’s own voice always sounded different in one’s own head. He vaguely recalled catching a glimpse of someone in a costumed getup—presumably his grandson—beating DIO half to death on the way down.
Like Jotaro, the armor made him instinctively feel something, but whether from lack of aptitude or some other cause, he couldn’t figure out how to operate it. Instead, an urge kept welling up to shout things like judgment and limited edition.
"Quiet. Don’t distract me." Jotaro’s tone remained as blunt as ever.
"My young self—scolded by my own grandson!"
Jotaro ignored him, gently pushed him aside, and positioned himself where he’d been standing before the body swap.
Time Erasure. It had skipped the process, sure, but logically—as long as DIO hadn’t simply teleported—even if someone had snatched him away faster than Jotaro could react, he should at least have been looking in that direction.
And his last line of sight before the swap—
"Here!" Jotaro ripped open a manhole cover and, sure enough, found DIO’s half-destroyed body in the sewer below.
Star Platinum’s fist was already in motion. But the figure below simply closed his eyes, calm and ready to accept the blow.
"No—this isn’t him."
The fist stopped a millimeter from "DIO’s" face.
"So DIO swapped bodies with someone too, huh? And what’s with this tokusatsu getup, anyway?"
Joseph walked up behind Jotaro and pointed at the injured DIO in the sewer. "Jotaro—when the soul swap hit, I was in mid-jump using the rope. We were only about five meters apart. If this soul-swapping ability prioritizes proximity, then whoever swapped with DIO must be whoever rescued him."
"Yeah, I didn’t need you to tell me that." Jotaro grabbed "DIO" by the collar. "What does DIO look like right now?"
The figure closed his eyes. "The Joestar destiny rests in this body. Strike me down. He’s already been given a new life and a fresh start. If I die here in this body, the feud between the Joestars and DIO ends."
Meaning destiny would finally be broken.
"You..."
Poke poke.
Yimi shifted into her little-girl form, crouched down, and poked the woman on the ground.
Something had happened—the woman had just passed out for no apparent reason.
Maybe it was only a brief lapse. After a couple of pokes, the woman actually opened her eyes, looking around in bewilderment. "Where am I?"
"You fainted," Yimi informed her.
"I blacked out on the street again?" The woman rubbed her hair in frustration, then stared at her own hands in confusion. "Wait—this isn’t me, is it? Little girl, do you know anything?"
"Nope."
Yimi stood up. Looking at the woman’s arm again—it hadn’t been a serious wound to begin with, and by now the bleeding had stopped on its own.
"It’s nighttime. What are you doing out here alone? Did you get separated from your parents?" Rather than dwelling on the mystery of suddenly being in a different body, this person seemed more concerned with the comparatively mundane situation in front of her.
"Looking for Jotaro." Seeing the woman was fine, Yimi turned to leave.
"Is that your father’s name? Let me help you find him." The woman offered a gentle smile and took Yimi’s small hand. "My name’s Doppio. What’s yours?"
Silver Chariot Requiem. In essence: the shadow of every person in the world. Its manifestation meant that no matter which direction you looked at it from, its shadow always fell on the opposite side—regardless of where the sun stood.
Polnareff didn’t know the mechanics of its evolution, but what he did know was that even he could barely maintain control over it. The large-scale body-swapping that had just occurred? That was the consequence of losing his grip.
And that wasn’t all. The reason he’d given it the provisional name "Requiem" was that this Stand’s power didn’t simply end after an attack like a normal Stand’s would. Once the prelude concluded, the next movement began—and what that entailed, even he couldn’t fully predict.
One thing was certain, though: when he’d launched his attack, his heart had held the explicit thought do not harm Kakyoin. So amid the mass Soul Swap, Kakyoin had been spared.
As for the so-called "default proximity" rule—in certain cases, exceptions occurred. Such as Diavolo’s dual-soul phenomenon. And also...
"Woof woof!"
"This guy just barked?" Kakyoin pointed at "Diavolo" in bafflement.
"Diavolo" had instinctively dropped to all fours, then frantically waved his hands at them in a panic.
"Wha—what is going on?"
A woman’s voice—and from the dim alley emerged a small Boston Terrier they both recognized. A dog’s vocal cords couldn’t produce human speech, but Stand users in certain special circumstances—like being submerged underwater—could communicate through sheer psychic force. Only other Stand users could hear it.
Iggy. Come to think of it, they’d chased after him in the first place. They’d driven quite a distance, sure, but it was really only two blocks—him being in the vicinity was hardly surprising.
Upon spotting Polnareff and Kakyoin—two enemies—the "Iggy" whose true identity was the Empress user who’d tried to ambush Yimi froze for one terrified second, then bolted.
Her ability was parasitism and nothing else. A power utterly unfit for direct combat—she wasn’t about to waltz up to opponents in the open.
Worse yet, for reasons she couldn’t explain, she’d temporarily lost all sense of her Stand.
"Iggy can talk now?"
"That’s not Iggy, Kakyoin. That one’s an enemy too. The real Iggy is in this pink-haired bastard’s body—my screw-up." Polnareff explained.
He stomped the ground in frustration. "Even that wasn’t enough to draw the hiding bastard out? That piece of shit probably fled."
"As long as you can tell I’m not an enemy, that’s good enough... Also, this damn situation is YOUR doing?! I’ll gnaw your pencil-head to shreds!"
Iggy let out a relieved bark or two, but his attempt at human speech through Diavolo’s body came out as nothing but muffled, guttural bellowing.
"What are you celebrating, you dumb mutt?"
Iggy suddenly felt a sharp pain on his back. Something was pinching his flesh and whispering—barely audible, for his ears only.
"Go get your body back now, then get back in it! If I can’t swap back, do you really expect me—Diavolo—to stay like this—"
Right. Diavolo had become the Empress’s tumor.
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