The Pilot frowned, pressing himself flat against the warped compartment door on the outside of the sealed space, straining to hear.
Something had shifted in there. He had been certain about the architecture of the moment — he had the group trapped, limited resources, sealed exit — the prey was supposed to be desperate by now. Instead, the laughter coming through the white walls had the specific quality of people who have been told something funny rather than something terrible.
He didn't understand it.
He leaned closer, letting sound pass through the barrier.
Shintaro's voice drifted out, composed and conversational.
"My current command of this situation," Shintaro said lightly, "is approximately like Einstein solving a linear equation with two variables. Completely effortless."
The Pilot's eye twitched.
"Effortless?!" He slammed a fist against the door surface. "Look at yourself! Trapped like livestock and still talking like this — you —"
He caught himself, leaned back in toward the door — ready to pour another round of words through it.
"Hey, old man," a shrill voice chirped, originating from somewhere near his left calf.
The Pilot's entire body went rigid.
"Let my main body out already~"
He spun around.
The corridor was empty.
"...Auditory hallucinations," he muttered, with the specific conviction of someone trying very hard to believe their own assessment. He turned back to the door.
Something tapped his calf.
Light. Deliberate. Twice.
He looked down.
A palm-sized, pitch-black creature stood at his feet. Arms crossed. Antenna pointing upward. Expression arranged into something that managed to convey maximum personal offense at everything around it.
The Pilot stared at it for one full second. Then he straightened, sneered, and crouched to bring his face level with the creature's.
"Oh? So you managed to leave one of these little mice outside?" He jabbed a finger toward its face. "Your cell division ability must be exhausted. You're just trash now."
He lifted his foot.
Splat.
The Black Sperm was flattened into a dark smear against the floor.
The Pilot lifted his shoe with satisfaction — and froze.
The smear wriggled.
Two brand-new Black Sperm popped upright where one had been, both pointing their small fingers directly at his nose.
"Bastard! How dare you step on me with those filthy shoes?!"
"Muku-rosu!! I will end you!!"
The Pilot's smile cracked.
"Just two?" He rolled up his sleeve. "It'll take me two steps."
Left foot.
Splat.
Right foot.
Splat.
"Pathetic."
When he lifted his feet again, four Black Sperm stood where two had been. Their collective expression had converged into something that had moved past anger and arrived at decision.
"Get him together!"
"Exactly what I was thinking!"
They launched themselves at him.
The Pilot wasn't panicking. They're bluffing, he told himself, with the certainty of a man running calculations. Stand energy has hard limits. They'll run out eventually.
He even had enough composure to deliver his verdict with theatrical timing, thumping his chest and declaring:
"The final winner of this exchange is — KONO PILOT DA!!"
Five minutes later —
He was slumped against the corridor wall, staring at the horizon of his own destroyed confidence and at the sea of Black Sperm carpeting the floor in every direction. His lungs were functioning on a provisional basis. His ability to form coherent sentences had been temporarily revoked.
Can't kill them. The thought kept resolving the same way. I cannot kill all of them.
The next wave surged forward.
He disappeared beneath it.
"STILL ACTING SMUG NOW?!"
"Where's all that confidence gone?!"
"Stop running and face us you coward!"
The punches arrived like a methodical demonstration of what happens when you stamp on something that multiplies. Under the sustained, comprehensive assault of a hundred — then two hundred — then more — the Pilot finally reached the specific intersection of pain and pride where one cannot continue.
"AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!"
The scream tore through the sealed space.
Inside the white void, Avdol turned to Shintaro with a thoroughly baffled expression.
Shintaro remained composed. He looked, instead, at Polnareff.
"Actually," he said, "this is thanks to you."
Polnareff blinked. "...Me? I did something useful?"
"Your earlier strike — the one that split the floor." Shintaro walked to the fractured marble, examining the gash that ran through the white. "I sent Black Sperm into the fissure while you and I were still fighting. A contingency. Against you."
He opened his palm. A Black Sperm climbed onto it.
"But your strike went deeper than expected. Through that gap, I caught a glimpse of the corridor outside. The moment I confirmed the Pilot's position, I sent a unit through."
He closed his hand around the small creature.
"My Stand shares vision. The second I spotted him, I redirected."
Kakyoin nodded once, quietly. "Which explains why you were certain from the start." He paused. "And why you weren't actually despairing."
Polnareff scratched his silver hair with one finger, his expression somewhere between impressed and personally affronted. "Didn't think my own attack would be used against me like that."
Joseph let out a long, enormous sigh. "Hohhh... I really am getting old."
Outside the sealed space, the Pilot's screaming ended.
The white walls peeled away.
Color bled back in — tables, chairs, the ruined floor, the restaurant's warm overhead lighting. The staircase reappeared. The doors materialized. The world reassembled itself in the space of a breath.
In the corridor outside, the Pilot lay on the floor in the particular arrangement of a man who has been thoroughly convinced of a point he hadn't wanted to hear. His face had sustained an editorial revision. One eye was sealed. Various small handprints were visible across his person. A Black Sperm sat cross-legged on the bridge of his nose with its legs swinging, deeply satisfied.
"Main body! What do we do with this one?" it called out.
Shintaro didn't answer immediately. He looked at Jotaro.
"JoJo. I'll leave the rest to you."
The Black Sperm scattered at his gesture. The Pilot pushed himself upright with trembling arms, what remained of his dignity still making the attempt.
"P — please..." he managed. "Go easy on me..."
"NO!!"
Joseph popped out from behind Jotaro's shoulder with the abrupt enthusiasm of a man who has been waiting for this moment specifically. He planted his hands on his hips, leaned forward until his face was inches from the Pilot's, and grinned with the particular joy of watching someone helpless beg the wrong person for mercy.
"I love watching people beg when they're completely stuck! Gah-hahahahaha!!"
"yare yare..."
Jotaro adjusted his hat. Lowered his stance.
"Next," he said quietly, "I'm going to beat you until you can't stand up."
Star Platinum's fists became motion.
"ORA! ORA! ORA ORA ORA ORA —!!"
The corridor thundered. The Pilot's body lurched with every strike, reduced well past the point of protest. Joseph stepped aside, clasped his hands behind his back, nodded appreciatively at the rhythm.
Shintaro watched the whole thing with a single drifting thought.
Where exactly does DIO find so many people like this.
The assassins had been, without exception, unstable, eccentric, or outright bizarre. Every single one.
As expected of DIO. Truly remarkable curation.
I also read novels also read novels as you all know today i found more than 1 such person that was selling their novels for up to 150 USD[each book] i mean daammn and two were selling translations for 40 USD i mean ok but i have to say either i have been poor my whole life and dont know jack shit about this market or may be i am just a saint [damn the war is effecting the price of novels as well???]
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