"Stay right here and don't wander off, okay? We'll bring you goldfish when we come back. Oh—and don't open the door for strangers. If someone you don't know comes by, just pretend nobody's home. Don't say a word."
"Mew~ (\^\_^\)"
"Papa, are you sure you're feeling alright?" Holy cast a worried glance at Joseph, then stole a look at Avdol.
She suspected Avdol might be his personal physician.
Yimi's first impression of Holy was very good—because the name "Holy" sounded almost exactly like her grandmother's.
By the same token, being locked inside Holy's house gave her the distinct sensation of being locked in by her grandmother. Normally she'd scheme her way out to pick fights with the neighborhood cats and dogs, or just plop down in front of her mother's school gate and wait to be carried home.
She could never sit still. That was probably why she'd disappeared from her nana's side in the first place. So after Joseph's instructions, she actually sat there and didn't move.
Rebellious as Jotaro Kujo might be, his family was genuine upper class. Their home was a proper Japanese-style compound—single-story wooden buildings arranged around a central courtyard with a pond in the middle.
Shifting back to human form, Yimi put on the black cotton hat Suzi-obaachan had bought her. The hat came with built-in cat-ear silhouettes that perfectly concealed her real ears without causing any discomfort.
She inched her way toward the pond in tiny steps, reaching down to swirl the slightly cold water.
There were goldfish right here.
Knock knock knock.
The sound from the front door halted her scheming little hands.
She clapped both palms over her mouth. Pretend nobody's home.
"Joestar-san? The tuna you ordered has arrived." A young man's voice came from outside.
"Fish!"
The person outside heard her. "That's right—fish! Soft and tender as jelly, tastes wonderful even raw. Premium-grade fish, prepared specially for good little children who open the door."
She'd never heard of "tuna" before, but the word fish was more than enough to lure Yimi to the entrance. Unfortunately, nobody in her life had ever told her the "Little Bunny, Be Good" story about not opening the door for strangers.
The result: the first thing she saw when she opened the door was something green and alien-looking, both hands hovering in the air as a watery substance coalesced between its palms.
"Emerald Splash!"
"Mph!"
Bullet-fast green gemstones shredded the wooden door in an instant, targeting the little girl's limbs in a non-lethal barrage.
A cat's reflexes were fast to the point of neurotic. Even at point-blank range she summoned her Stand and swatted outward. D-rank Precision in her first world, sure, but with her Adaptive Power boost, fists at A-rank speed intercepted every last projectile dead-on.
Yimi stumbled back two steps, still not understanding what had just happened.
"Don't even think about running!"
The green Stand's user was a young man—or rather, a teenager—dressed head to toe in a matching green school uniform. Barely seventeen, yet already 180 centimeters tall—a rare sight in this era's Japan.
Under his command, Hierophant Green warped into a grotesque configuration, extending multiple tendrils that snaked toward Famine and coiled tight around it, binding the Stand and hoisting it off the ground until its feet dangled in the air.
"No matter how powerful a Stand might be, if it has a humanoid body, it shares human weaknesses. Lock down every joint so there's no leverage to break free, and escape becomes impossible. Simply submit to DIO-sama and—urk!"
Mid-sentence, a sudden constricting force seized him. An invisible rope yanked him off his feet and into the air.
What was with this person? Attacking a cat out of nowhere.
Yimi didn't bother struggling head-on. She activated Love Train, warping the tendrils away. The binding force on Kakyoin himself, though—that was Unequal Exchange taking effect.
A white arc sliced through the air. Kakyoin squeezed his eyes shut as pain spiked through his skull.
But Yimi wasn't done. The freed Famine rolled its wrists and dove at him, driving a fist straight into his abdomen.
"Guh—!"
Kakyoin coughed blood.
Congratulations, host! Achievement unlocked: [Gut-Punching the Green Bug]. Reward: +5% portal energy.
"Hrraaaagh—!"
Famine discarded the scales in its hand and unleashed a flurry of wild punches on Kakyoin—who was a full size larger—hammering his torso before launching a final blow that sent him crashing through the Kujo residence's outer wall.
"Ngh..."
Maybe it was a Stand user's natural resilience, or maybe the Kujo family had hired a shoddy contractor, but despite everything, Kakyoin hadn't sustained critical injuries.
What did happen was that several tendrils burst from his forehead and thrashed wildly in the air. These weren't the kind he'd extended earlier through his Stand—they were fleshy, nauseating growths. As if Love Train's light had agitated something buried inside him.
And it was in that moment that Kakyoin's dead, glassy eyes flickered with a spark of clarity. He stared, bewildered, at the arm now streaming blood from cuts left by scattered debris.
What was he doing right now?
"I was... attacking a little girl whose teeth haven't even fully grown in?" Shame and self-directed fury made him clench his jaw until it ached.
Controlled by DIO or not—the fact that he'd done something this inhumane meant he deserved to die right here.
He didn't tell Yimi to kill him. Asking someone else—a child, no less—to stain her hands with blood for his own release was an utterly shameless thing to do.
Using this brief window of lucidity, he ordered Hierophant Green to strike his own vital points.
Thinking it was a sneak attack, Yimi had Famine smash every incoming gemstone out of the air.
"?"
"Don't... stop me. My mind has been taken over. Even if I don't die here, I've got a few months at best. Just let me... die here with some human dignity..."
Fighting through the agony, he clawed at the tendrils protruding from his forehead, trying to rip them out and cause brain death. But the pain that shot from brow to brain was too much. He passed out cold.
"Mind control?" Yimi tilted her head.
"A general term for having one's psyche and behavior manipulated by another, resulting in involuntary actions." System served as her walking encyclopedia.
"Oh." The little cat nodded.
So the red-and-green person had been controlled into attacking her.
Yimi walked over, crouched beside Kakyoin, and placed her palm on him. A layer of white light shimmered across her hand, and the fleshy growth on his brow was wrenched free in an instant.
Simultaneously—Italy.
A certain innately evil, pink-haired youth who'd been lurking in the shadows, spying on his first batch of subordinates, clutched his own forehead in shock. "What is this thing?! Ngh—"