"This is looking pretty bad..."
"Josuke is at school right now. It looks like the only option is to get Rohan to the hospital as quickly as possible."
Jotaro Kujo looked at Rohan, who was slumped against a crumbling brick wall and covered in blood. He let out a long, heavy sigh.
They had significantly underestimated their opponent.
It was beyond comprehension that the young boy had been able to move and react within the stilled world of stopped time.
Even if Son Goku himself had been frozen, his Master was far more than a normal human.
Furthermore, the boy's physical conditioning was exceptional. Both he and Rohan had tried to close the gap earlier, but they hadn't been able to catch him.
In the end, Rohan had managed to activate [Heaven's Door] for a split second, writing a series of restrictive commands onto Son Goku.
[He cannot attack Rohan Kishibe or Jotaro Kujo.]
It was a perfect counter on paper. But as soon as the flow of time resumed, they realized how badly they had miscalculated.
No, it wasn't a miscalculation; it was simply that the power of Son Goku exceeded the boundaries of their logic.
Goku hadn't even needed to land a punch. The mere act of "Flaring" his [Ki] had been enough to shatter the environment.
Rohan, who had been in the immediate vicinity of the eruption, had been caught in the shockwave. The result was the broken, bloody mess currently lying in the rubble.
'Is a direct confrontation really out of the question?'
It was a bitter realization. Jotaro hadn't expected to find himself in such a position.
Throughout his life, he had always been the one with the ultimate trump card in [Star Platinum]. He was the one people were supposed to be afraid of.
Now, a far more troublesome entity had entered the board.
"Man, that was terrifying! Since when can so many people move around in stopped time?"
"And that was definitely Jotaro Kujo, wasn't it? The protagonist of the JoJo series!"
Subaru Natsuki leaned against a wall near a crowded train station, his breath coming in ragged gasps as he replayed the encounter in his mind.
Because Goku had been frozen during the pause, he had nearly been caught by the two men. It had been the closest brush with death he'd had in a while.
"Agh! I have to come up with a better plan!"
"I can't exactly go out there and fight those monsters myself, can I?"
He let out a frustrated groan. He had the most powerful Servant in history on his team, yet he was struggling to find a way to let that power truly manifest.
If only he could find a way to shield Goku from the effects of temporal manipulation... if he could do that, he was confident Goku could wipe the floor with every other Master and Servant in the city.
Sensing Goku's presence nearby, Subaru quickly ducked into an alleyway.
A moment later, he saw the boy descending from the sky on his golden [Flying Nimbus].
"I don't know why, but my punches wouldn't hit those guys a few seconds ago."
"Then I decided to release all my [Ki] at once, and it sent that one guy flying into a wall!"
Looking at the innocent, beaming smile on Goku's face, Subaru couldn't help but feel a twinge of sympathy for the man who had been blasted.
Even if he wasn't dead, he was going to be feeling that for a long time.
"Wait... Goku... is that a Dragon Ball in your hand?"
"Yeah! I saw it hiding inside that guy's clothes, so I just grabbed it when everything was exploding!"
Goku reached into his martial arts gi and pulled out a translucent orange orb with red stars inside. Subaru's eyes bugged out.
"Oh! This is incredible! We actually came out ahead!"
His earlier frustration vanished in an instant, replaced by a surge of pure joy.
With this one, they only needed five more to complete the set.
"That's right... we don't even have to beat all of our enemies. As long as we get the Dragon Balls, we win the game!"
Subaru rested his chin in his hand, a new strategy forming in his brain.
They didn't have to focus on direct combat.
As long as they could identify the Masters and locate the Dragon Balls, using Goku's incredible speed and instincts to "Borrow" them was a perfectly viable path to victory.
"This might actually be easier than I thought. Heh heh."
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Homura Akemi froze the space in front of her, preventing the incoming knives from hitting her vital points. She narrowed her eyes as she watched Sakuya continue to move through the courtyard with an effortless grace.
'Is she truly a shadow of the mansion itself?'
The wounds Homura had sustained were already beginning to close. Even the knife that had been buried in the back of her skull hadn't been enough to stop her.
This was not a body that followed the mechanical laws of humanity.
One could argue that her healing was a result of her Master's support, but surviving such catastrophic trauma without losing consciousness proved that something was fundamentally different about her transformation.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
Her machine gun roared, tracers chewing up the ground as she tried to lead the path of Sakuya's retreat. She was frantically searching for a way to deliver a decisive blow.
SHTUCK!
SHTUCK!
Knives continued to rain down from the sky, their temporal acceleration making them impossible to track with the naked eye.
Steel was buried in Homura's head, her shoulders, and her chest. Blood soaked her uniform, yet she continued to fight as if the damage were nothing but a minor inconvenience.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
She maintained a steady stream of fire, but Sakuya was perpetually shielded by the slow-motion ripples in the air. Even the accelerated bullets were being deflected or dodged before they could find their mark.
'I can't do this... even with her own powers mirrored, I can't defeat her alone.'
The realization was a cold weight in her chest.
Watching the way Sakuya danced through her offense while simultaneously launching a lethal counterattack made it clear that mimicry was not enough.
The gap in their experience was a canyon she couldn't bridge in a single afternoon.
If she wanted to win, she needed a reliable ally.
Someone who was powerful in their own right and whose goals aligned with her own.
"DORA RA RA RA!!"
CLANG! CLINK! CHING!
Josuke Higashikata continued to rip the stone from the earth, creating walls of defense while [Crazy Diamond] swatted away any swords or daggers that came too close. He was steadily closing the distance to Miyu.
'If I touch those projected weapons, they just dissolve back into magic energy.'
'No matter how hard she makes them, they can't withstand a direct hit from my Stand.'
Josuke moved with a fluid, athletic grace, his eyes fixed on the young girl who was slowly retreating before him. He was beginning to understand her limitations.
If she hadn't been able to flood the sky with such massive volumes of weaponry, he would have caught her minutes ago.
The only thing keeping him at bay was the sheer number of objects he had to deflect.
It was a performance of raw, overwhelming firepower.
"You're doing a great job of copying Sakuya's style..."
"But compared to the real deal, there's a massive difference in your execution."
The stone walls around him were caught in a constant cycle of [Shatter and Restore]. Josuke watched Miyu with a look of professional appraisal.
"..."
Miyu didn't waste her breath on a reply. She knew she couldn't afford to be careless against someone like him.
Josuke surged forward, using a massive slab of concrete as a mobile shield.
Miyu projected another wave of knives to surround him from all sides.
WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!
"Heh! Good choice, but it's too predictable!"
Josuke pulled the shield in to cover his sides and back, leaving a narrow opening in the front as he charged headlong into the fray.
SHTUCK!
"!"
Miyu's eyes widened as Josuke took several knives to his limbs and shoulders, using his hands only to protect his face and heart. He didn't even slow down.
"Too late!"
Just as Miyu began to weave the next wave of projection, Josuke reached into his jacket and hurled a pocket watch directly at her.
"!!"
Recognizing the object for what it was, Miyu tried to react, but it was too late.
One of the [Command Spells] on her hand vanished into a dull grey light. In that heartbeat, the space around her was struck by a localized temporal freeze.
Even the swords and knives she had just projected were caught in the stilled air, hanging like statues.
"Man, that hurts... I tried to protect my vitals, but I guess she really wasn't trying to kill me."
"Fortunately, I had Sakuya's little present. Now everything should be much simpler."
Josuke looked at his bleeding arms and legs, but the wounds weren't as deep as they appeared. He let out a long breath of relief as he looked at the frozen girl.
He didn't have it in him to actually punch a child of that age.
"Alright... I'm not going to hit you, but I am going to make sure you can't keep participating in this war."
Lancer: Son Goku (Kid)
[Ki] (A): His mastery over the energy of life is not yet at its peak, but even so, he is capable of unleashing shockwaves that can clear a battlefield or using [Ki] to perform supernatural feats of strength and speed.
[Saiyan] (EX): Whenever he recovers from the brink of death, his power increases exponentially. He possesses an abnormal potential for growth that defies the logic of regular Heroic Spirits.
[Great Ape Transformation] (A++): A Noble Phantasm that triggers automatically upon sighting a full moon. He transforms into a massive, rampaging Great Ape with overwhelming power, but he loses his reason in the process. This form is lost if his tail is severed.
[Translated and Rewritten by Shika_Kagura]