When the first rays of dawn touched the horizon, the sharpest riders were already preparing for the day's sprint.
Perhaps to prevent contestants from getting clever—but more likely because the President needed racers to follow routes aligned with the Holy Corpse burial sites—the race didn't strictly dictate paths, but it did mandate nine checkpoints that every racer had to pass through.
These checkpoints offered free supplies and provisions, but the real incentive was the SBR's points system.
The top finishers at each checkpoint earned time bonuses based on placement. Come the final stretch, even if the second-place rider crossed the finish line behind the first, their accumulated time bonuses from earlier checkpoints could push them ahead in the overall standings—enough to leapfrog into first.
Based on current positions, the frontrunners could reach the Fourth Stage checkpoint today, which meant the race was roughly half over.
None of which concerned Yimi in the slightest.
"My name... is Yimi."
"I am... a good cat."
She was practicing speech on her own, addressing the empty air in a slightly stiff, babyish voice.
A beat later, a lizard of indeterminate species wriggled out of the sand, darted its eyes around cautiously, flicked out its tongue, and gulped down a nearby earthworm.
Then—Yimi lunged, clamped her jaws on a scavenged rod, and reeled the hook-snagged lizard right over.
Fishing knowledge really was useful.
She bit into the lizard. Breakfast. The first thing that hit was a thick, muddy stink, followed by the raw tang of uncooked meat—both hitting hard.
Four out of ten.
The night before, she'd tried sneaking over to the two men's campsite under cover of darkness to see if she could somehow extract the Corpse Parts. But house-cat Yimi had underestimated one critical detail: humans sleeping in dangerous wilderness take shifts keeping watch. Fortunately, the gold-toothed one hadn't thought too deeply about it—he'd just glanced guiltily at the sleeping Johnny and slipped Yimi two fish as hush money.
Good-girl Yimi didn't take them. Because Yimi knew that giving a cat a fish isn't as good as teaching a cat to fish—so Yimi stole his fishing rod instead.
Yimi was a clever cat who knew how to think on her feet. Since there was no opportunity here, she'd go find other Corpse Parts first.
For some reason she couldn't explain, she could almost smell the approximate locations of every remaining Corpse Part, as if the relics were actively luring her forward—compensating for the map markings she couldn't read.
She'd walked nearly all night, and oddly, the only thing she felt was hunger. No mental or physical fatigue at all.
Just as she was about to cast another line for a second course, thundering hoofbeats and a familiar voice erupted from behind her.
"Johnny—GO! Shake them off!"
"Meow?"
She turned to find a stampede of racers charging toward her. Among them was a barefoot man keeping pace with the horses' stride for stride. Despite everyone theoretically following different routes, they'd all converged at the Fourth Stage checkpoint like some kind of miracle.
Once they hit this stretch, it came down to pure rider skill and horse condition. The surveillance balloon overhead had a clear line of sight—no one could cheat or sabotage the competition.
"Meow meow?"
Kitty didn't know about any race. Kitty especially didn't care what they were doing. But kitty was a kitty with thoughts.
So in Yimi's mind, the chain of events went: Gold-Tooth Man reneged on giving kitty fish → Gold-Tooth Man remembered kitty had the audacity to kick him, stewed about it all night → Treacherous Gold-Tooth Man rallied his goons at the crack of dawn to capture adorable, innocent kitty for soup.
"MEOW!"
The panicked furball pumped her little legs and ran.
Gyro squinted into the distance: "Is that... yesterday's panda? How'd it get ahead of us?"
"Now that you mention it, it really does look like a panda. Maybe some third-rate circus in town dyed it like that to swindle kids out of their allowance." Johnny studied it. "It doesn't know to get out of the way of horses—probably some rich family's pet."
"Gyro, shoo it off the track. It'll throw off the horses' stride."
"You're worried my horse will kick it into orbit, aren't you, buddy?" Gyro reached for the weapon at his hip. Where most people holstered a gun, he kept a green metallic ball secured by a leather strap.
In his hand, the featureless iron ball began to rotate on its own. With a flick of his wrist, it traced a perfect arc through the air, hugging the ground as it curved toward Yimi's side.
This wasn't a Stand ability. This was the Spin—the Zeppeli family's ancestral technique, passed down through generations. Its applications ranged from combat to medicine to execution to everyday convenience.
Right now, he intended to use the ball's rotation to pinch the scruff of the cat's neck, twist it into a harmless bundle, and carry her safely off the track.
But the cat dodged.
"Are you kidding me?! Something that round shouldn't be that agile!" Gyro shouted.
It reminded him of Diego Brando's nightmarish reptilian transformation—the same maddening dynamic vision that made long-range attacks nearly impossible to land.
"MEW MEW MEW!"
Gyro's attack only confirmed Yimi's worst fears about his murderous intentions. She kicked her four stubby legs into overdrive and accelerated.
The other riders, who'd been worried about this thing getting trampled or tripping their horses, began to notice something was off.
"OHHHH! Ladies and gentlemen—Gyro Zeppeli takes the lead by a full horse-length over Johnny Joestar! The indigenous Sandman has been overtaken!"
The balloon crew had been tracking the field from a distance.
Sandman was the barefoot one—the Native American runner. Who'd invited him? The mounted riders had barely pulled ahead of a man on foot, and the announcer was this excited?
"Wait—there's something in front of them! It's a panda... no, it's a CAT! Unbelievable—this cat is outrunning every horse on the track! Will someone please rescue this poor creature? Dear God, it'll be trampled to paste under those hooves! But in the final mile before the finish, there's no way these riders are slowing down—"
"MEW MEW MEW!"
"Hold on—the cat isn't slowing down either! How does that tiny body have this much stamina?!"
"GOOD LORD! It crossed the finish line ahead of every single contestant! It beat every horse in the field over the final mile-plus! I hereby declare the winner of the Fourth Stage—this cat!"
The crowd at the checkpoint erupted.
First place going to a cat was obviously a joke, but the spectacle had fired up the entire crowd waiting at the Fourth Stage checkpoint.
Several wealthy young ladies immediately expressed interest in adopting the cat—and if it already had an owner, they were happy to negotiate a purchase price.
"Ted Khan! That area is not a rest stop—stop galloping through town! Where are you going?!"
Gyro was utterly bewildered: "I knew that wasn't a normal cat! Since when can cats learn to fish?!"
"Fish?" Johnny shot his companion a suspicious look.
"Ah... uh..."