"Huh...? His injuries—they're already healed?"
Josuke looked down, about to use Crazy Diamond to treat Koichi's wounds, only to find that the shrimp lying on the ground had already stopped bleeding. The reddened bump on his forehead had returned to normal too.
"Did I already do that? Weird, I don't remember..."
Josuke scratched his head, baffled. He didn't dwell on it, though—just sighed to himself that today had been one hell of a day, nothing but one strange thing after another.
"Damn it! That guy's way too much of a pushover! Gets smacked around by a girl a few times and just rolls over? Tch!"
A young man with slicked-back blond hair, wearing a Budogaoka High second-year uniform, sat at a table pretending to drink tea while secretly watching from a distance. His eyes were small and mean—the textbook look of a '90s Japanese delinquent.
"But don't think I'm letting you off the hook... Josuke Higashikata... I'm going to make sure you die!"
He snarled the words under his breath, then summoned the Stand he'd recently acquired—Soft & Wet. He pulled out a baseball he'd prepared in advance and hurled it at the floor. It struck without making a sound, because the force of the impact had already been stripped away and stored by his bubble.
Next, he sent that bubble floating over to Josuke, forcing him to strike the short kid. That way, the powerful girl would think Josuke had gone back on his word—and she'd teach him a real lesson.
If she killed him outright? Even better! And if she held back? He was confident his own Stand could finish Josuke off.
Haha, worked like a charm!
He seemed to be someone who didn't exist in the original story—at least, Inori couldn't recall a Stand user like this ever appearing, let alone one who wielded Soft & Wet.
"Having fun with your little games?"
The man heard a girl's voice, tinged with amusement, coming from behind him. His blood ran cold. He whipped around—the pink-haired girl had appeared behind him without a sound.
"Wha—! How did you—"
Smack!
Inori didn't let him finish. King Crimson slammed him face-first into the table, one massive hand pinning his head down like a boulder. The girls sitting at the neighboring table couldn't help but stare.
From their perspective, though, all they saw was a girl standing there while the punk-looking guy had his face planted on the table of his own accord.
"Talk. Where did you get your Stand?"
"Hmph!"
Despite being thoroughly pinned, the punk refused to cooperate. He just let out a defiant snort.
"As expected of a Stand that can erase time—seeing it in person really does send a chill down your spine. Damn!"
"What?"
Inori's mind buzzed, a shockwave of alarm ringing through her skull.
This guy just described my Stand's ability. How does he know what King Crimson can do?!
(③)
In JoJo's world, battles between Stand users were fundamentally battles of information. You had to figure out your enemy's ability before they killed you, find the weakness, and build a strategy around it. That was why JoJo had earned its reputation as a battle-of-wits series among fans, and why Inori had been able to run wild in Morioh—she already knew the abilities of nearly every Stand in this town.
But how did this nobody know about Time Erasure?
An even more terrifying thought followed: if even some random thug knew her Stand's ability, did that mean she'd ended up like Jotaro? Did the whole world now know she could erase time?
"Soft & Wet!"
The man screamed his Stand's name through the agony of his face being crushed against the table. A teal-blue puppet-like Stand materialized and threw a heavy punch at King Crimson's face.
The revelation was hard to swallow, but Inori wasn't the type to sit around agonizing over things. So what if you know? King Crimson is invincible. Even with that knowledge, there's nothing you can do about it.
Inori reacted instantly. King Crimson withdrew its pressing hand and raised its arm to block. Soft & Wet's punch was reasonably fast, but its destructive power was only C. The blow landed on King Crimson's arm and barely registered. Inori was already winding up for a counter.
"ORA!"
King Crimson roared and swung a devastating punch that slipped past Soft & Wet's arms and connected flush with its face.
Soft & Wet had a body roughly shaped like a human's, but it looked more like a life-sized puppet—its limbs smooth and slender. Compared to King Crimson's towering, muscular frame, it was frail. The punch caved in its robotic-looking face and sent it flying backward.
The punk screamed and was launched sideways into the street.
Inori's heart sank. She'd originally planned to toy with him a bit, but now the mood for that was gone.
The playful smile vanished. Inori got serious. She knew Soft & Wet's abilities. She hadn't read the Part Eight manga, but as a protagonist's Stand, she knew the basics. First, if his bubbles made contact, things could get ugly. Those bubbles could strip away her vision, her nutrients, even the blood she needed to survive.
If she didn't need information from him, she probably would have killed him on the spot.
She'd hit him hard, but held back enough not to kill him. She wasn't worried about the damage. Josuke was here, after all. As long as it wasn't an instant kill, he could fix anything.
"You fell for it, you stupid woman! This is my escape route!"
But the punk, despite taking that brutal hit, was back on his feet in an instant, screaming insults as he sprinted toward the intersection.
"That guy... did he stick a bubble on his own face beforehand?"
Inori bit her lip. One look at his smug little face and she understood exactly what he'd done.
Damn it. Epitaph had shown him getting sent flying, but she hadn't expected that image to be a fabrication designed to fool her. He'd placed a bubble on his face. When King Crimson's fist connected, the bubble burst and absorbed the force of the punch. Then he'd faked being knocked away and used the opening to run.
"Bastard."
Inori felt a surge of irritation—especially since he'd had the nerve to mouth off to her. She tapped her neck with her palm and glanced at her watch.
8:19 AM.
Still early. Did he really think he could get away that easily? Don't underestimate me.
"Um, excuse me, miss... what exactly just happened?"
A timid voice came from behind her. It was the café waiter. He'd noticed one of his tables had been knocked over and a teacup shattered. It looked like this girl had gotten into some kind of altercation with the blond punk, but somehow he was the one who'd fled with his tail between his legs.
"Ah... sorry about that. Go find the guy with the weird hair up ahead and ask him to pay for the damages. I'm busy right now."
Inori was too fired up to waste time on this. She turned, activated King Crimson again, and with the superhuman leg strength her Stand granted, she accelerated into a sprint, chasing after the direction the bastard had fled.