"That bastard... that monster..."
Jotaro Kujo knelt beside the desiccated, leathery remains of the unidentified man, his eyes fixed on the horrific sight. He knew this "Face" all too well.
Years ago, he had witnessed Joseph Joestar in this exact same state after the man's life force had been drained by DIO.
To see such a sight again after over a decade was a jarring experience that threatened to shatter his stoic composure.
Normally, such a discovery would have triggered a surge of incandescent rage, but the current situation was too complex, too layered with uncertainty for simple anger.
"What exactly happened here?"
Rohan Kishibe and Amber stood beside him, their eyes scanning the rooftop as they tried to piece together the sequence of events.
In theory, the only way for the timeline to diverge so sharply from the previous iteration was if someone possessed the foreknowledge to act before the events occurred.
But if DIO and his Master had that kind of foresight, they would surely have found a way to collaborate more effectively. A betrayal of this magnitude suggested a fundamental fracture in their alliance.
Unless there was a reason that defied standard logic.
Rohan called forth [Heaven's Door], the pages of the Stand fluttering into existence as he attempted to "Open" the man's physical form.
"As I suspected... the history recorded in his soul has been erased."
He sighed, his voice heavy with frustration.
With the death of the consciousness, the memories began to dissipate into spiritual dust. Even a power like [Heaven's Door] couldn't extract
the truth from a man who no longer existed in any meaningful sense.
Rohan stood up, his mind churning as he tried to understand the nature of the conflict between the Master and his Servant.
"Is it possible they had a falling out over the missing Dragon Ball?"
"It's a distinct possibility."
Amber's suggestion caused Rohan to nod in agreement.
The fact that the Dragon Balls remained untouched by the temporal regression was a piece of intelligence that only they currently possessed.
If the Master believed the orb was lost forever due to the reset, it could easily have led to a breakdown in their mutual trust.
"Without a Master, and without a fresh contract, the Servant will be forced to hunt other participants or innocent civilians to maintain his manifestation."
"Which means if we hear reports of missing persons or sudden, unexplained deaths, we'll know exactly who is responsible."
Rohan listened to Amber's assessment, his expression grim.
"He definitely escaped from this location."
Jotaro looked out over the city from the edge of the roof, his senses on high alert.
DIO never acted without a greater purpose. The vampire was a creature of supreme cunning. If he had dared to murder his own Master, it meant he had already secured a path for his continued survival.
The temporal recoil had rendered the previously clear chessboard into a chaotic mess of shifting pieces.
"He's not here?"
"Yoshikage Kira... or rather, Kosaku Kawajiri. Is he not at the office today?"
"Ah... he called in earlier to request a sudden leave of absence. He mentioned something about his child being unwell."
Josuke and his group stood at the entrance to Kira's workplace, but their ambush had found only an empty desk.
"Dammit! He's gone already!"
"Which confirms it. He remembers what happened before the reset."
Josuke shoved his hands into his pockets, his voice thick with irritation.
"What do we do now?"
"He's likely already preparing some fresh horror to keep us from finding him."
Koichi's voice trembled with a flicker of genuine fear. Yoshikage Kira had been cornered once; he wouldn't allow himself to be caught in the same snare a second time.
CLACK.
"Tch. Time... whether it's moving forward or backward, it's a miserable thing to deal with."
Okuyasu kicked a discarded soda can across the pavement, his mood as dark as the shadows lengthening in the alleyway.
"We don't know if he went home or if he's gone into hiding somewhere else."
"Let's head back and regroup with Jotaro and Rohan. We need to pool our resources if we're going to find him again."
Having found no trace of their target, the three of them turned and began to walk away, their footsteps echoing against the concrete.
They had no way of knowing that their every movement was being observed by a single black crow perched on a nearby roof.
WHOOSH!
A throwing knife sizzled through the air, piercing the bird's body with surgical precision.
Sakuya Izayoi watched with a cold, detached expression as the creature fell.
"Another of those shadow constructs?"
"The capabilities of that Saber are truly versatile. I've never seen anything quite like them."
"Fortunately, I've cross paths with plenty of 'Irregularities' in my time."
The crow dissolved into a cloud of black feathers on the rooftop, and Sakuya let out a soft, thoughtful sigh.
When she had first answered the call to manifest in this world, she had assumed that her mastery over the flow of time would be an absolute advantage.
But the reality of this war was proving to be a much more complex equation.
The iterative regressions had begun to expose the limitations of her own power.
Seeing the world rewritten... seeing damaged objects restored and the memories of the fallen reset to their original state... it was a scale of temporal manipulation that exceeded her own capabilities.
"This is no longer a situation I can resolve through simple physical intervention."
Recalling the events of the "Lost" timeline, Sakuya realized that her proficiency in stopping time was being systematically neutralized by those who could rewind it.
"What is it, Saber?"
"You look as though you've seen a ghost."
"No... my observation unit has been neutralized."
Yoshikage Kira sat in his living room, a cup of tea in his hand as he enjoyed a moment of manufactured peace.
He noticed the flicker of emotion on Itachi's face and immediately correctly deduced the cause.
"I see. It was likely Josuke Higashikata and his group, wasn't it?"
"Based on the intelligence you provided, they would have arrived at my office to blockade the entrance. The battle on the rooftop would have been the subsequent event."
"We were pushed to the brink of death, only for you to use another participant as a catalyst to trigger [Bites the Dust] and return us to the present."
Kira calmly recounted the details he had learned from Itachi. While he himself didn't remember the loop, the shinobi's reports were absolute and indisputable.
"While it was regrettable that I had to temporarily recall [Killer Queen], the bypass of your ocular side effects was a significant strategic gain."
Kira glanced at the Dragon Ball resting on the table, his expression one of pure, unadulterated satisfaction.
"In this war, only our collaboration can hope to achieve a final victory."
It was a sentiment that both he and Itachi now shared with absolute conviction.
"My Genjutsu was neutralized by the interference of Rohan Kishibe. His Stand possesses a power that is fundamentally irrational."
"To kill him while he remains under the protection of Jotaro Kujo is a task of extreme difficulty."
"Perhaps we should consider shifting our focus to the other participants first."
If Josuke and Rohan were proving to be an impenetrable wall, the logical move was to find a weaker target and secure their resources.
With Itachi's capabilities, a confrontation could be decided in the first second of an encounter.
"As predicted... the battles that were supposed to happen have vanished."
"Even the encounter between Accelerator, Homura, and Miyu hasn't occurred."
Subaru Natsuki sat on the [Kinto Un], clutching the boy's back as they observed the quiet streets from the high atmosphere. His voice was thick with a growing sense of unease.
The events that "Should" have repeated themselves had simply failed to manifest.
It was a deviation from the expected pattern that indicated a catastrophic shift in the battlefield's variables.
"It's not just one group. Two... three... they've all changed their behavior."
"Does this mean everyone remembers what happened?"
Theoretically, that was the only explanation. If every participant had "Woken Up" with the knowledge of the future, then the previous script was useless.
After all, a temporal recoil should naturally lead to a repetition of the same actions.
The only reason for a divergence was active interference from those who knew the outcome.
Homura Akemi, walking along the roadside with Miyu, reached the same conclusion.
Knowledge of the future was the ultimate advantage... but if every player held the same card, it transformed the war into a game of high-stakes psychological warfare where every move was a potential trap.
The problem was that this wasn't the first recoil.
And every time the world reset, the subsequent timeline became increasingly distorted and unpredictable.
Subaru and Homura both felt a cold weight of dread settling over them. It felt as though they were standing on the threshold of something monumental... something horrific that was about to be unleashed.
"The situation has returned to the 'Starting Point'... so where exactly do we go from here?"
[Translated and Rewritten by Shika_Kagura]