The temperature plunged. Cold knifed across her whole body again. Inori couldn't help being grateful she'd worn a relatively heavy coat today — in yesterday's outfit she'd have been struggling to breathe... Her constitution was unusual. She was sensitive to cold but rarely got sick from it.
This time, though, the rider was even more vicious than before.
The first time it had been some chilly air. This time, snow was actually falling, and the wind cut like razor blades — her cheeks ached, frost was about to form on her eyebrows. For a moment Inori felt like she was back in that endless snow-field from her dreams. No — she couldn't let this thing keep dropping the temperature!
It was supposed to be April, blossoms and warm spring, and instead she was getting a blizzard. Inori's mood crashed straight to the bottom.
The motorcycle plus the blizzard — that seemed to be the full extent of this Stand's attack pattern. Inori bit down on the cold and, the instant the motorcycle came charging, triggered Time Erasure again.
Whoosh!
The motorcycle blurred past where its target had been standing and shot straight out through the gate. Just as it was activating its programmed dead-stop turn to lock back onto her, a strong arm clamped around its neck from behind and yanked it off the bike.
Inori knew you couldn't kill this thing. All those punches she'd thrown earlier had only sent it into a temporary retreat. Now it was back at full health and bringing this miserable blizzard with it... so she'd wondered if she could deal with it the same way she'd dealt with Heaven's Door. That was the best plan she'd come up with on short notice.
It failed, of course.
The rider struggled briefly, realized it was locked down, and dissolved once more into a puddle of melting snow. The weather went back to normal. Only the thick drifts of snow on the ground remained, sitting incongruously beside the manor's delicate ornamental plants.
"So annoying!"
Inori scrubbed her hand through her hair, frustrated.
A piece of trash like this couldn't actually hurt her — not with Epitaph and Time Erasure on her side — but she also couldn't put it down for good. After every retreat it would come back at some random moment, like a fly buzzing endlessly around her ears. It might not hurt her, but it could completely sabotage her mood for getting anything done. Her precious time was being eaten up... and she couldn't exactly let it harass her forever, could she?
She had to find the user and take him out, or she wasn't even going to be able to sleep at night.
"Paisley Park — any way to find that guy's user?"
Inori took out the folded map and reopened it, and was startled by Paisley Park's ability all over again.
She'd bought a large-scale overview map of Morioh. Now it had transformed into a finely detailed close-up, with the red dot at center marking the layout of this house and the trees and obstacles around it in perfect detail. It looked like she was using a smartphone navigation app zoomed all the way down on a satellite map...
(③)
On the second floor of the house, a green target marker had been placed. That must be why Paisley Park had pointed her here — that had to be the rider's user. Couldn't be anything else.
—VROOM!
But before she could move, the piercing roar of an engine erupted behind her again! No way? It was back already?
Had she unknowingly triggered its tracking again just now?
This time the motorcycle came tearing straight out of a tree trunk, dragging another vicious blizzard with it. Inori bit her teeth and decided not to keep tangling with this thing — she sprinted into the house instead.
Morioh's history ran deep, and there were a number of these villa-style residences left over from the samurai era. Those samurai families had long since fallen on hard times. By modern times their homes had become traditional-style dwellings with cultural cachet. Inori vaulted onto the outer veranda and didn't hesitate — she smashed straight through the sliding door, only to find herself face-to-face with an elderly woman kneeling at the tatami, eating her lunch.
The two of them stared at each other... but Inori had no time to make polite explanations, because the motorcycle was barreling along behind her, refusing to give up!
Inori hadn't read the JoJolion arc this Stand came from, or she'd have noticed how eerily history was repeating itself.
She was tracking mud all over the woman's tatami in her boots. She slid open the door to the next room and tore toward the stairs. The motorcycle chasing her actually drove its tires straight into the house, dragging the blizzard along with it.
The poor old woman, rice bowl still in her hands, stared blankly at the place Inori had burst in and out of... by the time she had the wherewithal to voice her confusion, the entire house had been swallowed by snow.
—She'd been quietly eating her lunch, watching television, and suddenly some wild young woman had come crashing into her home dragging a blizzard with her... were such bizarre things really possible in this world?
...
...
"Ora!"
King Crimson, lying in wait at the bend of the staircase, exploded outward — a heavy fist sent the rider sprawling. Inori didn't stop there. With both hands she pinned the rider's face hard, then drove another fast, clean, brutal punch through it like a cannon round. The crack rang out sharp and clean. The helmet pulverized. The body vanished.
Inori crouched on the wooden stairs and let out a breath.
...She had a pretty good idea now what triggered this Stand.
It was the act of opening something.
This was an automatic remote type. Once it locked onto a target, any action by the target that involved opening something — a door, a map, a what-have-you — would trigger an attack. The first time she'd opened the map. The second time she'd opened the gate of this manor. The third time she'd opened the map again. All three matched.
That said, things like blinking, opening her mouth, opening and closing her eyes — none of those would set it off. As long as she was careful and avoided any "opening" action, the Stand wouldn't appear.
Then all she had to do was use this window to take down the user, and the fight was over.
"Hey!"
Inori reached the second floor. According to the map, the user was in the room at the very end of the corridor. But to avoid triggering the bike Stand and getting frozen again, she didn't move recklessly.
"Get out here right now, like a first-class flight attendant answering a customer's questions, and explain everything to me with perfect courtesy! Do that and I'll spare your life!"
The girl's voice echoed in the empty corridor. No answer came.
But Inori knew he was in there.
"Don't think just because I can't open the door that you're safe."
"This is your last chance!"
...Still no answer.
Inori was angry. She drew in a deep breath, closed her eyes, and strode toward the room — and in that instant triggered a half-second Time Erasure. To anyone watching, she would have passed through the wall like a ghost.
For her — Inori — a single door was laughably naive. She'd phased through GHQ's most cutting-edge defensive walls without breaking stride. She could just open the door, of course, but she didn't want to see that disgusting rider again, so Time Erasure it was.
"H-how did you get in?"
The room was a sty. Empty cup noodles and snack bags everywhere. A foul stench hung in the air. The curtains were drawn tight, only thin slivers of light leaking through the sides. The room appeared empty. A half-eaten bowl of curry rice sat on the desk — identical to what the old woman downstairs had been holding.
"Hmph."
Inori blinked, held her breath against the stench, and walked slowly to the side of the filthy bed. She had King Crimson drive a fist down through it.