Once, there was a girl who grew up in a church.
She had unusual hair — pink shot through with dark patches, like mold spots on stale bread. Many people mocked her for it.
Her personality was strange as well. At times she was sharp and composed, almost preternaturally perceptive. At others she behaved like a fool, announcing things no one understood — proclaiming herself a fallen angel, the emperor of the realm of the dead, a harbinger of the apocalypse. Because she was distinctly her own person, and because her name contained two sounds of "JO," the people around her took to calling her "JoJo."
She was raised by a priest. She had a taste for strange novels — monster legends from other cultures, dark fairy tales. She would spend hours with a pen, sketching bizarre creatures to satisfy her appetite for the odd and wonderful.
A beautiful girl in an alluring goldfish outfit — but actually a monster. Possessed of an immortal body, capable of launching feathers as blades. Driven into a corner, she would release her true form — the Blood Awakening. A blood noble in the fullest sense. The Monster Queen.
This was what Ouma Mana had spent these many days patiently uncovering in the depths of Inori's Sea of Memories. She didn't know what it meant, and so had held back — wanting to search further before she said anything.
But there was no more time. At this rate Inori would lose to Muzan. Mana couldn't stand by and do nothing. If these deep memories were real, then the Nameless Monster still had further potential to unlock — to become exactly what those chuunibyou, profoundly embarrassing words described: the Monster Queen.
Ouma Mana held her tight.
—Embrace our power, Inori.
There was, in fact, a continuation to what Mana had found.
But that would be too clichéd.
After the awakening, the goldfish outfit would become an even more provocative black feather outfit, and the Lord of Blood — symbol of the awakening — would appear at her side: the expression of all her power, her most loyal servant, ready to answer her every command~
...
...
Just as Kibutsuji Muzan was winding up for a finishing blow, something about Inori's sudden, inexplicable change stopped him cold.
The pink-haired girl's body lifted off the ground. Two massive, semi-translucent red tentacles erupted from the earth beneath her, coiling around her body, sealing her within them — wrapping her up like something being put into hibernation.
A few seconds passed. Before Muzan could decide how to press his attack, the tentacles burst apart with a thunderclap — and what floated in the air was no longer the girl.
It was a humanoid creature, wreathed head to toe in raw, liquid, blood-red energy — barely tangible, barely solid. And this clearly wasn't Inori transformed. This thing's shape was unmistakably a man's: a powerfully built two-meter frame, its entire surface sheathed in crimson liquid skin. The skull was wrong. The face was worse — two large eyes jutting forward like glass marbles pushed into a snowman's face, no mouth, and on its forehead, a second smaller face.
"Who are you? Where did that woman go?"
At the sound of Muzan's voice, the creature turned its head slowly, silently. Those green eyes — irises rotating like a camera lens adjusting focus — stared at him until something crawled along his spine.
When Inori opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was a familiar silhouette.
King Crimson's back. The shape she had grown so used to during all those battles fought side by side.
—King Crimson... you came back?
She barely swallowed the cry of surprised relief. The moment she'd heard Mana's voice, something had flooded into her mind — fragments of knowledge that weren't hers. Her temperature had spiked. The sudden heat had needed somewhere to go.
—Right — I'm a Stand user. Sending my Stand into battle is how I've always fought.
And if King Crimson: Nameless Monster now had an independent form outside her body, that meant her own body should have reverted to normal? Wait. She had stripped off all her clothes earlier. Which meant — was she just — floating here, completely —
That thought hit her and Inori's face went scarlet. She curled instinctively, hands flying to cover herself.
Her hands landed on something soft and feathery.
...Huh? Huh??
She looked down. The glow of her pale pink irises traveled slowly downward.
Two curves at her chest — modest, but present — veiled by black feathers. Below her waist, a full skirt woven from countless black plumes, positioned unreasonably low; pull the feathers any lower and she'd be exposed. Her arms were sleeved in wing-shaped black feathers. Against the expanse of pale, luminous skin they left exposed, the contrast was arresting.
She recognized this. The black feather outfit from Inori's Euterpe MV.
—What is this?! Is the universe deliberately messing with me? First the goldfish outfit — fine, at least that was technically clothing — but this? What is this even supposed to be? Is this something a person can actually wear outside?!
The black feather outfit had no shoes. Inori was now, against her will, barefoot — though the subtle levitation she seemed to have gained in this form meant she didn't have to touch the ground.
"I cannot take this!!"
The girl's furious voice rang out from behind the monster.
Muzan swiveled. He stepped slightly to one side, and there she was — the liquid red skin from before was gone, replaced by an equally scandalous black feather ensemble.
"Is this your true form, Inori?"
Kibutsuji Muzan found nothing improper about her appearance. What he found was a deepening sense of trouble. He'd thought he had the upper hand. Here was another variable.
He had released his sealed power. It seemed she had released hers as well. What was this red humanoid creature? What did it mean?
"Stop staring, you pervert!"
—That settles it — I refuse to let anyone who has seen me like this survive. Kibutsuji Muzan, you were going to die today anyway, but now you definitely are!
Embarrassed and furious, Inori tried to pull back — her weightless body drifted through the air like a pendulum. At the same moment, the Nameless Monster touched down, planting itself squarely between her and Muzan.
The white-haired demon hesitated only a moment before charging. He extended his whip-blades and drove them straight at the red creature.
—?
His most confident attack. A single whip-blade had punched straight through Inori's body just moments ago.
But this creature she'd summoned — the scarlet blood monster — the blades hit it and sank in as if stabbing a pool of blood. No purchase, no damage.
Its body wasn't a visual effect. It was genuinely liquid.
The Nameless Monster moved.
Its speed was obscene. In a single blink it was already in Muzan's face, both hands balling into fists, driving them at him — fast, relentless, without mercy.
"Ora ora ora ora ora!!"