Shinobu Kawajiri had laid out a full dinner table and was waiting for her husband and son to come home — but they never came. She had called Kosaku's phone more than a dozen times. A husband being late she could chalk up to work, but the child missing too was simply strange.
Hayato was an eleven-year-old elementary schooler. Where could he go at this hour?
The time was almost nine o'clock. The food had gone cold long since, but Shinobu had no appetite. She'd called Kosaku's coworkers, Hayato's teacher, his classmates' parents — nothing useful came back. The hour hand was nearly at ten when she finally heard the entrance.
"Mom... I'm home."
Shinobu rushed out in relief — and found her son, head to toe in filth. For a moment she was transported to his childhood: Hayato rolling home caked in mud after chasing beetles in the fields with the neighbor's kids.
"Hayato! Why are you home so late?!"
"I... went somewhere to play and got lost."
"Oh, Hayato—!"
He braced himself for a scolding and a smack. What he got instead was Shinobu pulling him tight against her, voice thick with tears.
"Look at the state of you — I thought you'd run into someone dangerous!"
Hayato had been holding back — had been so determined not to break down in front of her. He couldn't hold on. He burst into tears.
"Right — your father — have you seen him?"
"Dad... he..."
—Dad... he's never coming back.
Hayato swallowed around the lump in his throat and answered slowly.
"I haven't seen him. He... hasn't come home?"
...
...
From the second floor, Inori could hear every word between Shinobu and Hayato. She could do nothing. She had to move fast — rifle through Kosaku's study before whatever window Hayato had bought her closed.
The study was immaculate. A few books and notebooks sat stacked neatly on the desk. Inori stood at the door and didn't rush in — because she knew Yoshihiro Kira, Kira's father, was almost certainly lurking here. His Stand, Atom Heart Father, was perfectly suited for ambushes. Getting caught by it carelessly would be a serious problem.
Atom Heart Father: the ability to seal everything captured by a camera inside a photograph space cut off from the outside world. Only Yoshihiro Kira could move freely within that sealed photo. If she blundered in and got photographed by a camera hidden somewhere in the room, the old man could attack her at will.
"Hmph."
Inori put a hand on her hip and made a soft, dismissive sound.
For an ordinary person, it would genuinely be a difficult Stand to guard against. But Inori was the sole exception — because right in front of her sat a perfect-score homework assignment she could copy at will.
Click.
She stepped into the room. A crisp shutter sound rang out.
—The bookcase. Behind the closed glass doors of the bookcase, a vintage camera sat quietly aimed at her.
"I know who you are. Don't move, Inori... Where is my son!"
A hoarse, unpleasant old voice issued from the photograph that had just been taken. Inori blinked, let the corners of her mouth curve upward slightly, then sauntered over and opened the glass doors, picking up the photo.
It showed the side profile of a strikingly beautiful young girl. Then, in the corner of the photograph, a dark shape materialized — the long-dead father of Yoshikage Kira, his face finally revealed, a gleaming knife in hand, bellowing at her.
"Your son is dead."
Inori stared at him, expressionless.
"That's — impossible! Kira had the power to rewind time! He can't be killed!"
"Is that so?" Inori suddenly stifled a laugh behind her hand. "Then tell me — why am I standing here? Yoshikage Kira became Kosaku Kawajiri. That's right, isn't it?"
"Urgh—!"
A strangled sound from the old man in the photo. The wrinkled face collapsed, flooding with despair.
He understood. If his son were still alive, he would never — never — have allowed Inori to find this place. Time Reversal meant he could undo any mishap.
The fact that Inori had found her way here left exactly one possibility: she had exposed his identity, and his son had been killed by this woman.
"Yoshikage... my son... WAHHHH!"
The grief of losing a child hit all at once. Yoshihiro Kira's face crumpled into miserable, furious tears.
"Why! You people — why did you have to drive my son to his death — hic — Yoshikage..."
"He deserved everything he got."
Inori answered with cold clarity.
The old man was weeping hard. But for this father and son, she had not an atom of mercy.
"Have you never once thought about the women your son destroyed? What about their families? Now you've lost your son — perhaps you finally understand a little of what those victims felt."
"I — I'll kill you! Inori! I'll kill you right now to avenge my son!"
The appeal to conscience produced nothing. Not a flicker of guilt.
This pair had been beyond reason for a long time. From the moment Yoshikage Kira killed Reimi Sugimoto and Yoshihiro chose to cover for him — chose to let him keep killing — he had made himself into the same kind of monster.
"You can't escape! You've been sealed in this photograph, Inori, and I'm going to cut your head off right now!"
"And if you tear the photo apart, that's fine too! With Yoshikage gone, I have nothing to live for! We'll die together!"
If a photo under Atom Heart Father's effect was torn, whoever was sealed inside would suffer the same harm. They would die together.
But as already noted — Inori had a perfect-score homework assignment laid out right in front of her.
She smiled, unhurried. Then she carefully repositioned the photo — specifically the corner where Yoshihiro existed — directly against the camera lens, and pressed the shutter simultaneously, taking a new shot that "cropped" him out of her frame entirely.
"If you can control the space inside a photo you're in, then all it takes is photographing you alone — and the photo contains only you."
She explained it lightly, with a small impish grin.
In the original story, it was Jotaro Kujo who had defeated the Photo Old Man this exact way. Inori simply copied his approach.
"Wh—!"
Yoshihiro Kira was left alone in a tiny photo-booth print, struck speechless.
...She had thought of a counter to his Stand this quickly? Yoshikage... what kind of monster have you been fighting?
Yoshihiro Kira was left with nothing but despair. He could only sit there reminiscing about his precious son from infancy to adulthood, and weep.
He knew. He had no power to avenge Yoshikage. The reason Inori had tracked him here was almost certainly for the relic bone Yoshikage had left behind.
"I could destroy you with one light tear right now, but — first, tell me. How did Yoshikage Kira complete the soul swap with Kosaku Kawajiri, and where did he hide the relic bone he brought from the parallel world?"