Under the flawless command of the world's most certified Vehicle Killer, the aircraft skimmed across the surface of the sea like a wounded bird that had given up on being airborne.
Then —
BOOOOM.
The fuselage carved a long, violent scar through the dark waves — metal screaming, water exploding upward in towering arcs — before grinding at last to a shuddering halt.
At the moment of impact, Shintaro had already acted.
From the shadows inside the cockpit, the Black Sperm surged outward, layering themselves against the metal walls in dense, overlapping sheets. Soft bodies compressed and stacked, locking together into a grotesque but genuinely effective shock-absorbing buffer.
The cabin shook violently. But nobody was thrown.
Jotaro steadied himself against the console, looked at the writhing black wall behind him, and clicked his tongue.
"...Disgusting."
Shintaro chose, deliberately, not to have heard that.
"Main body! That hurt like hell!" "Compensation! We want food!" "Ten people's worth!" "A hundred!"
Shintaro hauled himself free from the pile of complaining, flattened creatures and waved his hands helplessly.
"Alright, alright. Everyone eats when we're ashore. A lot. I promise."
Joseph pushed himself upright, brushing seawater from his hair as the black tide retreated into Shintaro's shadow. He surveyed the dispersing swarm and gave a grand, magnanimous wave.
"Foul-mouthed and aesthetically challenged, but useful when it counts!" he declared. "Once we're safe — Grandpa's buying! Eat until you burst!"
The effect was instantaneous and total.
"GRANDPA IS THE ABSOLUTE BEST!" "Who was disrespecting Grandpa earlier?! Step forward voluntarily!"
Shintaro looked at them — at this army of pitch-black, endlessly hungry, deeply punchable creatures who would apparently do anything for a meal and a kind word from an old man they'd known for two days — and felt torn between laughter and something resembling familial despair.
"...They really are the most cheaply bought creatures in existence."
"If only they were cuter," Joseph sighed, with genuine regret.
"We need to get out." Avdol's gaze went to the sealed windshield with the focused calm of a man identifying the next problem before the current one had finished.
There was exactly one person for this.
"Ora."
A single punch.
Star Platinum's fist met the glass and the windshield detonated outward — cracks exploding across the surface in an instant before the whole panel collapsed into the dark water below in a cascade of fragments. Icy seawater rushed in immediately through the gap.
"Move!"
One by one they scrambled out.
Hierophant Green moved ahead of them, tentacles tossing lifebuoys onto the surface with precise, unhurried care. The five of them grabbed hold and clung to the swaying orange rings as the ruined aircraft settled slowly beneath the waves behind them.
The night sea stretched endlessly in every direction.
Joseph scanned the horizon and let out a weighted exhale. "Past eleven, at least. Earliest rescue is at dawn." He wiped seawater from his face. "We don't even know exactly where we are."
"Based on flight time and heading, we're likely in international waters near Hong Kong," Avdol said steadily, adjusting his grip on the lifebuoy.
"Which means we wait," Joseph said. "And staying warm until then is the actual problem. The water temperature here is not forgiving."
The word had barely left his mouth —
"Achoo!"
Shintaro sneezed with considerable force.
All eyes swiveled toward him.
"I'm fine!" He raised both hands immediately. "My nose just — it was just itchy. That's all."
Joseph narrowed his eyes with the particular expression of a man who has heard this before and remains unconvinced.
Before he could respond, warmth bloomed across the water.
Magician's Red appeared at Avdol's side — palms raised, two steady flames rising from them, burning clean and constant without smoke or flicker in the salt air. Heat radiated outward, wrapping itself around the floating lifebuoys like a second shelter against the dark.
The bone-deep cold retreated a fraction.
Ah, Shintaro thought, watching the flames. That's how. That's always been how.
He had wondered, back in his previous life, how anyone survived a full night floating in open water. The answer was burning steadily right in front of him.
Time passed as it does on the open sea — simultaneously endless and sudden. The tension bled slowly into exhaustion as the immediate danger faded and the body remembered how tired it was.
Joseph dozed first, producing snores of truly impressive volume given the circumstances. Kakyoin rested against the rim of his lifebuoy, red hair lifting in the salt breeze. Avdol maintained the fire with the steady vigilance of a man who has decided this is his contribution and intends to honor it completely. Jotaro sat with arms folded and hat brim low — whether sleeping or simply refusing to participate in the concept of vulnerability was impossible to determine.
Shintaro rested his chin on the cold rubber and let his eyelids grow heavy. Most of the Black Sperm had retreated inside him, leaving only a handful of drowsy sentries clinging to the shadows. Even they were starting to list sideways.
An indeterminate amount of time passed.
A deep, resonant horn blast tore through his dream like a fist.
His eyes snapped open. Vision still blurred. A wall of brilliant gold filled the world.
Dawn.
The black sea had turned to hammered light — the morning sun breaking through low clouds and scattering itself across the water in shimmering, overlapping ripples. Cutting through that light — sails blazing red, hull steady — was a weathered fishing boat, angling directly toward them.
"Hey! Over there — people!" someone at the bow shouted, the Cantonese carrying clean across the water.
Joseph erupted from his lifebuoy as if struck by lightning.
Avdol grabbed him by the back of the collar before he could pitch headfirst into the sea.
"HEY!! OVER HERE!!"
The rescue was wet, undignified, and chaotic in the manner of all rescues that actually work. Some time later — how much exactly, nobody tracked — Shintaro's feet touched solid concrete.
Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon.
The city met them with sound and color — massive traditional characters blazing from building faces, red taxis weaving through traffic, the air heavy with salt and exhaust and, somewhere impossibly close, the unmistakable warmth of food being cooked somewhere nearby.
Something moved in Shintaro's chest that he hadn't expected.
My motherland, some deep part of him recognized quietly, the word carrying the specific weight of a home seen again after a long absence. Even in 1987, Hong Kong already wore its skyline like it had always been there.
Roast duck. Wonton noodles. Curry fish balls. The smells layered over each other in a wave.
"Food! Food! FOOD!" "Boss! That roasted duck in the window — I want a hundred!" "Two hundred!"
Shintaro pressed a hand to his stomach. He was, he realized, profoundly hungry. So was literally every small black creature currently embedded in his shadow.
"Achoo!" Joseph sneezed violently and grimaced. "These wet clothes are absolutely miserable. Wallet's soaked through too." He looked around and pointed toward a red telephone booth. "I'm going to call the SPW Foundation's Hong Kong branch — have them send money and fresh clothes. Wait here."
He strode off, leaving four exhausted, salt-crusted people and a very hungry invisible army standing on a Kowloon pavement in the early morning, with nowhere to be but forward.
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