"He didn't run away, did he?" Johnny asked.
With Hot Pants's help, Johnny's gunshot wound had long since healed.
He and Gyro really wanted to continue the SBR race.
But thinking that President Funny Valentine still wasn't dead, although Ryosuke claimed that his Spin of the Cavalry could completely lock down all of Valentine's escape routes, when it came to Stands, who could say anything for sure?
To be safe, the two of them decided to wait. At the very least, they would wait until everything was settled before returning to the race.
That wait lasted an entire afternoon.
The mountains, rivers, lakes, and seas that had gathered earlier had long since dispersed. As far as the eye could see, everything had returned to a vast, desolate plain. The rosy sunset sank at the edge of the horizon, dyeing long, feather-like thin clouds a deep crimson, like a gigantic flamingo.
Still at the previous battlefield, with night about to fall, they built a small campfire.
Gyro was roasting meat. Johnny seemed to be thinking about the earlier battle, sitting in silence.
Hot Pants kept touching her butt nonstop.
Earlier, when her tail had been cut off, after she reverted to human form, a large chunk of flesh along with her tailbone had been missing. Now that it had healed, it still felt a bit strange.
"Ryosuke, take a look for me. Does my butt seem a bit smaller than before?"
Faced with Hot Pants's question, Ryosuke, who was boiling tea, stiffened for half a second. Half amused and half helpless, he asked, "How would I remember what it looked like before?"
Hot Pants rolled her eyes, stopped worrying about her butt, walked over, and stretched out her hand to ask Ryosuke for tea.
Ryosuke poured two cups. Each of them took one, and the two sat on the ground, looking not far away at Lucy and the Steel couple, who were quietly sobbing and talking in low voices.
After the battle ended, Lucy and the Saint's corpse separated from each other. The Saint's body lay quietly to the side, while Lucy returned to being an ordinary girl.
With the pressure of life and death gone, she could no longer control her emotions and sobbed uncontrollably in Steel's arms.
For a fourteen-year-old girl, the responsibility, pressure, and fear she had borne along the way were simply too much.
On the eve of sunset, before the stars appeared, the world grew somewhat unreal, as if only the campfire before them and the companions at their side remained. The group gathered around the fire, quietly waiting in silence.
Suddenly, the coat Valentine had tossed on the ground bulged outward.
D4C lifted the coat, and Funny Valentine stepped out along with another man wearing an army-green T-shirt and a steel helmet.
Ryosuke, who was drinking tea, slightly turned his head.
"Oh, the American king has arrived."
Under Ryosuke's gaze, President Valentine inexplicably trembled slightly. The corner of his eye twitched. After a moment of silence, he didn't respond to that remark and instead patted the shoulder of the man he had brought.
"I've brought you the person you wanted. Axl, as agreed..."
He pointed at the eyeball that had been spinning endlessly for an entire afternoon.
"You need to get rid of this damn thing!"
Ryosuke nodded and said, "I'll honor the agreement, but before that..."
His gaze fell on Axl, and he made a polite gesture.
"Please summon your Stand."
Axl turned back to glance at Funny Valentine.
Even now, he was still completely confused. His boss had suddenly descended from the sky and brought him here.
Why bring him here?
What was he supposed to do?
He had no idea.
Seeing Valentine nod, Axl obediently summoned his Stand.
Civil War.
A humanoid, five-star Stand.
Its body structure looked like it was pieced together from many miscellaneous objects. Its head was a vertically lined iron plate that looked hard and solid. In reality, the Stand itself had no offensive capability at all.
Its strength stat was bluntly simple, "None."
Like many Stands in Steel Ball Run, Civil War was a Stand with a trash-tier panel but god-tier abilities.
Over the long course of a person's life, everyone more or less abandons or destroys certain objects, matters, or even lives.
Civil War can recreate all of that.
However, it must be something that was subjectively abandoned or destroyed, something the subconscious believed should not have happened, but that one was forced to do for various reasons.
For example, a dog abandoned in childhood because one's parents wouldn't allow it.
For example, enemies killed on the battlefield.
On the other hand, things like throwing away food packaging or chopsticks after eating, or flicking away a booger, things the subconscious doesn't even register, will not be recreated by Civil War.
As long as the above conditions are met, the objects will be summoned. Once summoned, they will move toward you.
If you accidentally touch them, the related memories will erupt with overwhelming force.
Once guilt arises, a layer of "sin membrane" will appear on the skin, covering the entire body until the person disappears.
In life, who doesn't carry some guilt?
Aside from infants and saints, Civil War can be said to kill everyone.
Of course, that's in theory.
In actual practice, it has many limitations.
First, as long as you wash with clean water, it's equivalent to washing away all sins.
If there's no clean water, peeing on yourself or rolling around in a not-too-dirty ditch also works.
Second, it doesn't work on people who feel no guilt.
Take the vampire Dio, for example. Killing people? What killing people? I'm eating little bread rolls.
That said, for most people, the subconscious isn't something you can just ignore by being thick-skinned. Not everyone is as utterly deranged as Dio.
Third, its range isn't large, about the size of a single house.
It's fine for bullying ordinary people in the Steel Ball Run world, but if you want to deal with enemies on the level of Isshiki or Momoshiki, it's impossible to confine them within its range.
Beyond all those abilities and limitations, Civil War has one extremely special ability.
As long as it's within the ability's range (that is, within the size of a house), no matter who kills another person, all of the victim's sins will transfer to the killer, who will bear the victim's sins on their behalf.
At the same time, the dead person will be revived by "Civil War" in the form of the killer's sins.
A true resurrection.
At this moment, the resurrected "dead" will no longer suffer any harm from their previous killer.
This state can be nested infinitely.
To trigger this special effect, one must deliberately attack and kill the other person. Only then will the sins transfer.
The second condition is that it must be within the Stand's range. Beyond that range, it's invalid.
All of the above is long and extremely complex.
To sum it up...
"Summoning and transfer of sins."
Ryosuke recalled the details of Civil War's abilities, drained the tea in his cup in one gulp, gently set the cup down, and said, "Axl, please use your Stand ability on me."
"Ryosuke!"
Johnny, Gyro, and Hot Pants cried out in unison.
The three of them had encountered Axl from the base world before. If not for sheer luck, the three of them would have been wiped out together.
"Don't worry."
Ryosuke pointed toward a spot a little farther away. "You wait for me over there. If there's danger and he doesn't cancel the ability… just kill him."
Axl, who had been muddled and dazed since arriving, unable to understand what they were talking about, finally got the message. He swallowed and obediently controlled his Stand to activate its ability.
At that moment, the last slanting rays of the sunset shone over. Everyone's eyes were on Ryosuke, guessing what his "sins" would look like.
And then… they saw a vast ocean rising from beneath Ryosuke's feet.
A blood-colored ocean.