Eight o'clock at night.
Morioh's population was sparse, and most of it clustered around the train station and the bustling commercial district. The farther you got from the center of town, the fewer people you'd see.
(③)
Under the sickly glow of a streetlamp, the speeding motorcycle rolled to a stop at the roadside. The girl in the floral skirt who'd been riding it set the stolen machine on its kickstand, then composed herself and turned to Hayato with her question.
"Onee-san, your family name is Hirose—do you know a Koichi Hirose?"
(③)
After hearing her question, Hayato thought for a moment, then answered with one of his own.
—That name was prominently mentioned in Yoshikage Kira's notes. His ability was making objects heavier—he'd once pinned down Kira's "Sheer Heart Attack." Hayato had no idea what "Sheer Heart Attack" meant, but the name itself he'd committed firmly to memory.
"He's... sort of my brother."
Yasuho's reaction was a little awkward.
(③)
Now that her memories had returned, she didn't know how to face the friends and family belonging to this world's version of herself. Especially after gradually adjusting to the changes Pearl Jam had triggered in her, the artificial memories that had been forcibly implanted felt increasingly alien.
But this world's "mother," "sister," and "brother" were real. They genuinely treated her as family. And that was precisely where the conflict lay.
"Ah, so you really are Koichi Hirose's sister. Then the person mentioned... must be you."
"What?" Yasuho blinked. "Hayato-kun, what do you mean?"
"I saw something."
The boy hesitated. He lifted his gaze, removed his cap and held it against his stomach, and haltingly revealed what he'd read.
"Yoshikage Kira... seems to have another ability."
"One that rewinds time to twenty days before—and pulls a person who doesn't exist in this world out of a parallel dimension. After that, I couldn't understand the rest. Something about creating Stands that don't belong to this world..."
Yasuho didn't fully understand it either.
But she only needed to grasp Hayato's first sentence, and that was enough.
So this was why Paisley Park had guided her to cross paths with Kira and led her on this pursuit. The answer she'd been searching for was inside Yoshikage Kira's notebook. A person who didn't exist in this world—who else could that be but Yasuho Hirose?
"The ability is called the Fourth Bomb: Great Days."
"On April ninth—I remember it clearly. Kira wrote in the diary that it was the day Inori arrived in Morioh."
Hayato's memory wasn't actually that sharp. He'd drilled the contents into his head by privately reviewing and transcribing everything into a separate notebook, over and over.
"Inori-chan did arrive in Morioh that day..."
Yasuho knew. That was also the day she'd found Inori at Lovers' Cape.
"It was on that day that Kira confirmed your existence! And he mentions picking up an object from Lovers' Cape—something capable of creating Stands that don't belong to this world."
"That's everything I know, Yasuho-nee-san. The person from a parallel world that he mentions—it's you, isn't it? I don't really understand all this, but I've read about parallel universes in books. Yasuho-nee-san, are you from another world?"
"...That's right."
If she hadn't accepted Pearl Jam's treatment and had her memories restored, Yasuho would never have believed something like I'm actually from a parallel universe. But now everything was perfectly clear. She was the "extra person" that Yoshikage Kira had summoned from another parallel world using his Stand ability.
"I'm from Morioh in the year 2008. But it isn't this world's future—it's a parallel Earth."
"...I don't understand." Hayato was startled, but he was a boy who'd already seen far stranger things. After a brief moment of shock, he pressed on with his analysis. "Why would Yoshikage Kira pull you here? He didn't bring you as an ally—it's that your presence alone somehow lets him create Stands. I can't make any sense of it!"
"I don't know either."
Yasuho's eyes dropped. The lamplight dimmed across her face.
Simply by summoning her, he could create Stand users who didn't belong to this world. What did that even mean? More powerful Stands? And on April ninth, what had he taken from Lovers' Cape?
How was she supposed to explain any of this to Inori?
"Onee-san, let's hurry and go see Inori!"
Hayato kept glancing nervously back the way they'd come.
He knew Yoshikage Kira wasn't the kind of man who'd just let things go. He would find a way to pursue them.
"Mm."
Yasuho nodded and was about to turn back toward the motorcycle when the steel steed suddenly let out a sound on its own, like a warning. The jolt of it made her stumble back two steps, which was just enough to dodge the black shape that plummeted from above.
Splat!
It was a crow—jet-black, its feathers catching a dull sheen under the streetlight. It hit the pavement in a mangled heap of blood and flesh, its gore splattering onto Yasuho's shoes and socks.
"Ugh!? Where did a dead bird come from?"
Setting aside whether a direct hit would've hurt, having something like that fall on you was foul luck any way you looked at it.
"Yasuho-nee-san! No—something's wrong! Get away from that thing, hurry!"
Hayato's mind raced. He knew this couldn't be a coincidence. In a flash, he connected it to Yoshikage Kira's power—the ability to turn anything into a bomb.
"It's Kira! He's caught up to us!"
"Huh?"
Yasuho's face went blank. She'd never fought Kira head-on, and unlike Hayato, she hadn't read detailed records of his abilities. She couldn't react in time.
"The bird's body has to be a bomb!"
Hayato was already lunging forward to pull Yasuho to safety, but his foot had barely left the ground when he had to freeze in place.
Because something had wrapped around him from behind. Goosebumps erupted across his skin. Cold sweat seeped from every pore, and the sheer terror made it hard to breathe. He understood now—the real target had been him all along.
The dead crow was a decoy.
Fighting through the panic, Hayato forced himself to turn his head. He found himself staring directly into Killer Queen's eerie cat-slit pupils, glowing a faint crimson.
"I didn't expect the one who rescued Hayato to be you."
Yasuho held her breath, not daring to move. In her line of sight, the suit-clad salaryman emerged calmly from the shadows at the edge of the road.
He looked at Yasuho and smiled—a smile of deep, genuine satisfaction. Gone was the panic from when Hayato had cornered him.
"What incredible luck~ Fate truly does favor Yoshikage Kira!"
Kira clapped his hands together, grinning with unbridled glee.
"Let go of that boy! Yoshikage Kira!"
Yasuho knew her Stand was no match for Killer Queen. But Lovers' Cape was close. Inori had to be nearby by now. If she could just get Paisley Park to guide Inori here, Kira was a dead man.
"I want answers! Why did you summon me to this world? What did you take from Lovers' Cape!?"
"Oh?" Kira preened. "So Hayato's already told you about Great Days. And your memories from the original world have come back too."
"You've already lost, Yoshikage Kira...!" Hayato croaked, dangling in midair where Killer Queen's grip clamped around his throat, his face swollen an ugly purple-red, his voice scraped raw. "Kill me, and it means you can't escape either. No matter what you do, you can't undo the fact that your identity's been exposed!"
"Suit yourself, Hayato."
Kira gave a cold smirk.
"Even if you call Inori and Jotaro Kujo here, it won't matter~ They're no longer a match for me."