Chapter 188: Chapter 23: Awakening
"Spiral Staircase... Rhinoceros Beetle... Desolation Row... Fig Tart..."
The Stand known as The World.
A trusted friend.
"Rhinoceros Beetle... Via Dolorosa... Rhinoceros Beetle... Singularity Point... Giotto..."
The souls of thirty-six sinners.
"Angel... Hydrangea... Rhinoceros Beetle... Singularity Point... Secret Emperor—"
The 14 Phrases. And the courage to part with one’s Stand.
Occupying the body of a fifteen-year-old boy named Pucci, DIO gripped the toe bone that truly belonged to his own body—or rather, to Jonathan Joestar’s body—with a death grip.
DIO was a man blessed with fortune. People had said as much even a century ago, back when Jonathan still drew breath. The proof lay in the three moles on his ear; the fortune-teller who’d identified them claimed the last person to bear those same marks had lived to the age of one hundred and eighty-three.
That was likely the real reason he kept slipping out of death’s grasp—destiny, revered by some and reviled by others.
One of the conditions had always been his own Stand, so there was no need to evolve or modify it via the toe bone. Which meant the only condition he still lacked was location.
Pucci’s passport was at the hotel where he’d been staying. Wallet was in his pocket. He just had to wait for dawn to travel. Under normal circumstances DIO could never leave Egypt on his own—a Vampire’s body forced him to rely on subordinates for every long-distance trip. But now, everything was different.
"Grk—"
DIO suddenly collapsed to one knee.
"What?"
Pucci’s body should have been uninjured. Yet something was wrong around his kneecaps, and even the bones in his fingertips were trying to push through the skin.
This was Silver Chariot Requiem’s next movement. Every soul-swapped individual was now undergoing genetic mutation—the form humanity had taken millions of years to evolve into, and Requiem was attempting to rewrite it in an instant.
"How are you here again?" A clear, childish voice rang out. Yimi had broken free of Doppio’s hand and toddled over on her short legs to peer down at the kneeling DIO.
To her eyes, he was still just Pucci.
"Heh heh. I see now—this is truly fortunate." DIO’s expression lit up with sudden revelation. The soul transfer wasn’t merely a lucky escape. It was providence—a stepping stone toward Heaven itself.
The thing on his back spoke crudely, but Iggy understood the gist well enough: he needed to retrieve his own body and get Polnareff to reverse the swap. Fast.
"You wretch! I will not allow my body to assume such an undignified posture!"
But this guy had demands. The moment Iggy defaulted to running on all fours—perfectly natural, thank you very much—Diavolo pitched a fit. Never mind that Iggy was the one annoyed by how fragile human palms were, nearly scraping the skin off just from a bit of ground contact.
"Iggy! Hey—be careful! The one inside your body is probably an enemy!" Despite having met him only that evening, Polnareff had already counted Iggy among his allies.
"Over here?"
With Silver Chariot Requiem in his line of sight, Iggy followed Diavolo’s instructions and struck his own Light Source—the point at the back of his skull—with The Fool.
The Fool’s fundamental composition was sand. Power-wise, it wasn’t enough to destroy the Light Source, but a single jolt of concussive force was plenty.
Silver Chariot Requiem shuddered for an instant in front of Polnareff.
"I’m back!" Iggy stared at his own paws in delight.
"Don’t celebrate too early, you dumb mutt! How dare you make me—Diavolo—run through the streets in that humiliating fashion!"
The snarling visage of King Crimson erased time, then drove a palm strike at Iggy’s throat.
King Crimson couldn’t attack during the erasure, true. But closing the distance within erased time and launching an attack the instant it ended—no one had yet managed to react to that, including the monster called DIO.
By the time Iggy registered what was happening, King Crimson’s hand was already in his face.
But Iggy reacted.
He exploded into a backflip that no canine should have been capable of, landing atop a trash can behind him.
"Scum who can’t even match a cat! I knew you’d pull that crap. I didn’t want to use this power, but a cat’s reaction speed is seven times a human’s!"
Iggy bared his fangs at Diavolo.
Even an ordinary cat couldn’t have reacted to King Crimson’s raw-stat surprise strike, let alone one preceded by Time Erasure.
But the lingering influence of Silver Chariot Requiem hadn’t faded even after the swap reversal. His spiritual power and physical condition were still undergoing evolution.
For a normal human, this was catastrophic. But Iggy’s transformation had halted and pivoted in a different direction the moment he returned to his own body.
Namely: the dark flame-clouds now wreathing his form after he shifted into a cat.
"DAMMIT!" Diavolo screamed.
Not because he’d missed the dog in front of him, but because—
"Now what?!" Diavolo’s body—the one occupied by the Empress user—stared at her own hands in horror.
The one who’d swapped back was Iggy alone.
The current "Diavolo" was still the Empress. And the real Diavolo was still a tumor.
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