"Ow, ow, ow!!"
"How on earth did you end up in this state?"
"Was there a fire at your house? I haven't heard any reports of a fire in Morioh Town today. Besides, it was just raining earlier."
Inside the hospital, as his wounds were being bandaged, Josuke Higashikata had to listen to the skeptical and suspicious tones of the doctor and nurse.
"It was an accident! Just a freak accident!"
Josuke offered a sheepish, embarrassed smile as he responded.
"Good grief. You're just like that manga artist we brought in earlier."
"Both of you have these bizarre, inexplicable injuries."
Josuke froze at the nurse's casual remark.
'A manga artist?'
As far as he knew, there was only one prominent manga artist living in this town: Rohan Kishibe.
But Rohan had left with Jotaro Kujo this morning.
"Wait a second, nurse. That manga artist... he wouldn't happen to be named Rohan Kishibe, would he?"
"Eh?"
"I'm an acquaintance of his. A close friend, actually."
Seeing that Josuke knew the name, the nurse sighed and explained the situation.
"Yes, that's the one. He was rushed in recently for emergency surgery. His body looked like it had been flattened by a heavy truck."
"What room is he in?"
"Room 502."
"Thanks a million!"
"Hey! Wait! You're not finished!"
The nurse was left staring in shock as the delinquent looking young man, his bandages barely secured, dashed out of the treatment room.
"Man, not having a cell phone is such a pain."
"Mr. Jotaro has probably already called my house by now. I haven't even had a chance to check in with Koichi and the others."
Josuke took the elevator to the fifth floor and stealthily approached the designated room.
"We still can't get in touch with Josuke. He hasn't returned home yet either."
"Koichi said he ran out in the middle of a lecture and hasn't been back to the school."
Josuke peered through the narrow window in the door. He saw Jotaro Kujo standing by the bed, looking at a figure wrapped in so many white bandages that he resembled an Egyptian mummy.
'Where has that guy been at a time like this?'
Feeling the weight of his agonized recovery, Rohan Kishibe was in a foul mood.
If Josuke didn't show up soon to use [Crazy Diamond] on him, he'd be lucky to be on his feet within a month.
Recalling the sensation of the [Ki] flare he had witnessed at point-blank range, a shudder ran through his broken body.
But even through the pain, a spark of artistic inspiration was flickering in his mind. He wanted to draw that scene.
He had clearly used [Heaven's Door] to write a command onto the boy's soul, preventing him from attacking.
Yet the boy had somehow bypassed the restriction.
Son Goku hadn't actually tried to hit him; the sheer act of flaring his energy had been enough to nearly send Rohan to the afterlife.
[Ki]. It truly was an incomprehensible, miraculous force.
"Hmm?"
Jotaro sensed a subtle gaze and spun around to face the door.
"What is it?"
"I don't know. It feels like someone is watching us."
"What?! Is it another participant? A Stand user?"
"I'm not sure. But I'm about to find out."
"Wait! It's me... it's me! Don't get trigger happy!"
Recognizing that Jotaro was a heartbeat away from stopping time and dragging him into the room, Josuke abandoned his prank and shoved the door open.
"Josuke Higashikata! You...!"
Rohan's indignant shout died in his throat.
He saw the scorch marks and the fresh bandages covering Josuke's arms and chest. It was obvious the boy had just survived a life or death struggle of his own.
"What happened, Josuke? Those injuries..."
Jotaro knew Josuke's capabilities better than anyone. For him to be wounded like this meant his opponent had been significantly dangerous.
"Yeah. I got into it with another Master. I even ran into Yoshikage Kira's Servant."
"What?"
"Tell us everything. Spare no details."
"I will. But let me get Rohan fixed up first."
In a bed in a nearby private room, Accelerator lay in silence, his ears twitching at the sounds filtering in from the hallway.
He glanced at his right arm, which was proving difficult to regenerate. He hadn't expected such a "Surprise" from this world.
Yuuki's performance as a Master was quite low, meaning the magical energy required to restore a lost limb was taking an agonizingly long time to process.
As a result, he had decided to stay put for a while, analyzing the data he'd gathered from the boy with the erasing hand.
But then, he had overheard several very interesting snippets of conversation.
It was a stroke of luck that he hadn't decided to reflect all sound waves. If he had, he would have missed this.
There were other war participants in the very same hospital, just a few floors away.
From the sound of it, they were here to lick their wounds after a defeat.
"Black flames that ignited out of thin air?"
"Turning people into logs?"
"That certainly doesn't sound like a typical Saber profile."
"And the mental manipulation Rohan mentioned earlier... I didn't experience any of that. It's likely that the commands he wrote onto me using [Heaven's Door] were what blocked it."
Accelerator leaned back against the headboard, absorbing the stream of information.
According to the textbooks, a Saber should be a master swordsman.
But the descriptions these people were offering painted a much more unconventional picture.
Still, it didn't matter. Whether it was black fire or mental interference, as long as it followed a physical vector, he could calculate and reflect it.
"I didn't see Kira's Stand, [Killer Queen], during the fight."
"If only Amber or Mr. Jotaro had been there. Caster was helpless once she lost the ability to stop time. We couldn't catch him."
Accelerator's eyes narrowed as he focused on that last phrase.
'Time Stop?'
It was another concept that sat well outside his existing knowledge base.
As far as he knew, there were no Level 5 Espers in Academy City who possessed the ability to halt the flow of time itself.
'Time.'
'If I wanted to reflect that...'
His mind began to churn with equations, reaching for the knowledge required to manipulate the fourth dimension. A predatory, jagged grin spread across his face.
"Ah... it has been quite a while since I enjoyed such a peaceful moment."
Sitting alone on a lush, green hillside, Yoshikage Kira enjoyed his lunch with a quiet, contented heart.
The trouble with Hayato was being handled by Saber's illusions. The other participants seemed to be wary of the combined strength of [Killer Queen] and his Servant, as they hadn't dared to approach him.
He had spent a remarkably pleasant morning.
This was exactly the kind of life he craved.
No need to worry about the invincible Jotaro Kujo. No need to worry about those meddling high school students.
"My urges are starting to become a bit difficult to contain lately, though."
Finishing his meal, he stood up and adjusted his suit jacket. As he prepared to leave, the air itself seemed to turn against him.
A massive, invisible impact slammed into his face, senting him tumbling backward across the grass.
THUD!
His body rolled several meters before he came to a stop. He stared at the sky in a state of pure, unadulterated terror.
'I'm under attack!'
'By who?!'
'Is it Josuke Higashikata?'
"Hey. Shouldn't you have broken one of his legs instead?"
"Why did you only hit him in the face?"
"I expected better of his physical condition. I thought that punch would have knocked him unconscious."
A pair of unfamiliar voices echoed from nearby. Kira ignored the throbbing pain in his jaw and scrambled to his feet.
He found himself facing a duo he had never seen before.
A man with long pink hair and a massive, muscular blond man.
'Master and Servant!'
Recognizing the threat, Kira immediately reached for his [Command Spell].
Saber wasn't by his side. If he didn't use the spell to recall him instantly, he was as good as dead.
"Hmph. Trying to use your spells, are you?"
"What a shame. I'm not going to give you that chance."
"The World!!"
Rider: DIO (Dio Brando)
[Vampire] (A+): He possesses the supernatural abilities of a vampire, granting him incredible regenerative powers. This comes at the cost of high energy consumption. He remains vulnerable to sunlight, ultraviolet radiation, and ripple energy. He can convert those he defeats into low-level zombies or vampires.
[The World] (A++): A legendary Noble Phantasm manifested as a Stand. Beyond its exceptional combat capabilities, it has the power to stop the flow of time. As DIO grows, this ability will continue to strengthen. In his Heroic Spirit form, DIO's time-stop capacity already exceeds what he possessed in life, with potential for further evolution.
[Vaporization Freezing Technique] (B): By rapidly vaporizing the moisture in his own body, he can flash-freeze anything he touches by draining its heat.
[Space Ripper Stingy Eyes] (B): He can pressurize his bodily fluids and hurl them through his eyes as lethal, high-velocity projectiles. Similar to a laser, the attack is preceded by the sight of his eyeballs cracking. Because the eyes are destroyed in the process, he suffers brief blindness after each use.
[Road Roller] (B): A Noble Phantasm born from his most infamous act in life. He can manifest a massive steamroller and drop it upon his opponents within a 7 second window of frozen time.
[Translated and Rewritten by Shika_Kagura]