Beep Beep! Beep Beep!
The alarm clock rang right on time at 7,30.
Ryosuke rolled out of bed and pushed open the window.
By the time Shinobu Kawajiri pushed open the door, planning to urge Ryosuke to get up for breakfast, the room was already empty.
Kira Yoshikage, who came half a step late, looked at the wide-open window and the curtain drifting in the wind, his smug smile slowly freezing on his face.
In the morning streets of Morioh, the roar of a motorcycle engine blasted through the city.
Many residents who had just woken up cursed as they yanked open their curtains, looking toward the source of the noise, "Damn it, which family's delinquent biker gang is this, riding a motorcycle so early in the morning? Do they think they look cool or something?"
Halfway through the complaint, they froze.
Because the one riding the motorcycle wasn't some punk with a cow-dung haircut, but instead…
A kid who looked around ten years old?
Without Ripple, he couldn't fly, so this was the fastest way Ryosuke could think of to move between different areas of the city.
He sped through streets and alleys, searching for the figure of "that person."
The villa district… the downtown area… the business district…
Ryosuke checked them one by one.
Beep Beep!
A small reminder tone came from his digital watch.
8:29.
"Time really does fly fast."
Ryosuke stopped the motorcycle and greeted a nearby office worker waiting for the bus,
"Hey, big brother."
"Huh?"
The office worker turned his head, bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, staring blankly at the kid on the motorcycle. For a moment he wondered if he was still dreaming.
Then he heard Ryosuke say, "Kira Yoshikage is disguised as my dad."
BOOM!
Bites the Dust activated.
Fifth loop… sixth loop…
Ryosuke wandered through the city, like piecing together a jigsaw puzzle. Each time, he went into areas he hadn't explored before, constantly expanding his "visible map."
Every rewind was locked precisely onto 8:29, and from beginning to end, Ryosuke and Kira Yoshikage never once crossed paths, never spoke a single word.
This meant that Kira Yoshikage had no way of deducing which loop it was based on Ryosuke's behavior.
The precise trigger at 8:29 also ensured that Kira Yoshikage never got to witness Rohan and the others' deaths, leaving him too uncertain to end Bites the Dust rashly.
Endless, ceaseless rewinds, yet the control wasn't in the Stand user's hands.
That was Bites the Dust's greatest, and also deadliest, weakness.
And the other weakness, the one that could end the loop, was "that person." That person was...
7:48.
Ryosuke's gaze locked onto an old man hunched over, hair gray, pushing an empty baby stroller across the street.
"It's you! Joseph Joestar!"
The only person in Morioh who, even if he knew Kawajiri Hayato's identity, wouldn't think to investigate Kira Yoshikage's Stand… and was also a Ripple user.
Ryosuke screeched his motorcycle to a halt in front of old Joseph. The three SPW Foundation security staff trailing behind quickly came forward.
After all, Joseph was an old man suffering from dementia. For his safety and the safety of the invisible baby, of course the SPW Foundation would hire guards.
Ryosuke ignored them, jumped off the motorcycle, and grabbed Joseph's hand.
"Come with me."
"Go… where?"
Joseph pushed up his reading glasses. "Kid, who are you?"
Dementia wasn't the same as stupidity.
Joseph's cognition had changed, his thinking was slow, but he still had the logical framework of someone with dementia. A random stranger couldn't just lead him away to act as muscle.
Ryosuke gave him an answer he couldn't refuse.
"Kars has returned to Earth. As for who I am..."
Ryosuke pulled out a multicolored headband, tied it around his forehead, sharply quickened his breathing, and in his hand appeared a faint glow of Ripple energy.
"I am Caesar!"
Old Joseph was struck like thunder.
He had lived a free and dashing life. In youth he defeated the Ultimate Lifeform. In old age he defeated the Egyptian vampire.
The only regret he would carry into his coffin was the death of his best friend, Caesar.
Tears blurred his vision. He looked at the boy in front of him. His face, his race, completely different from Caesar's. But Joseph recognized the expression in his eyes,
That was the look only a true warrior had, one who charged forward without hesitation. And the Ripple in his hand… that couldn't be faked.
It was genuine Ripple.
"Let's go."
Joseph handed the stroller to the SPW guards, shakily climbed onto the motorcycle, and patted Ryosuke's shoulder.
He wasn't sure who this child really was.
But Joseph wanted to see just where this kid would take him.
The three SPW guards tried to stop them. A few marbles smacked into their calves, not strong, but precisely hitting muscle gaps.
The spinning force seeped in, and the three tumbled to the ground, helplessly watching as Ryosuke lured Joseph away.
One guard pulled out his phone, frantically dialing. A few seconds later, the line connected, "Mr. Jotaro! Something bad happened! Old Mr. Joseph has been taken!"
"What?"
"The one who took him said… 'Kars' has returned."
"What?!!!"
Jotaro's expression changed instantly.
Joseph had bragged more than once to Jotaro about how he had turned the tide in his youth, about how terrifying Kars had been.
An immortal, indestructible monster who saw humans as food, if he really had returned to Earth, the destruction he would cause couldn't even be compared to Kira Yoshikage.
Whether the information was true or not, Jotaro had to bring Joseph back.
The SPW Foundation fully mobilized. Cars rolled out across the streets, picking up Josuke, Okuyasu, Koichi, and Rohan, who had received the notification.
Morioh wasn't large, a small city with fewer than sixty thousand residents. The convoy quickly caught up to Ryosuke and Joseph.
Ryosuke glanced at the pursuing convoy behind them, then at his watch.
8:05.
Joseph heard the car horns blaring behind them. He looked back and saw the cars chasing, with faces inside he vaguely recognized but couldn't quite recall.
His dementia flared, and Joseph grinned, "Is it Stroheim's army?"
Then, seeing the headlights flashing repeatedly to signal them to stop, Joseph laughed again, "They even brought ultraviolet lamps! Truly reliable!"
Hearing Joseph's words, Ryosuke couldn't help but laugh too.
The laughter of one old and one young echoed through the streets.
The pursuers behind, Jotaro and the others, were dumbfounded.
'What are they laughing at?'
But as the laughter continued, Joseph's face clouded. "But I'm too old. I can't use Ripple anymore. Hermit Purple won't extend. How can I help you?"
"It's fine."
Ryosuke stretched out his left hand. A marble spun rapidly in his palm, faint ripples of Ripple energy flickering across it. Half an hour of training, that was the limit he could manage.
Because of Joseph's presbyopia, he couldn't see clearly at such close range. He only felt something round, glowing faintly with Ripple, appear in Ryosuke's palm. Then he realized,
It was Caesar's Ripple Bubble.
The last shred of doubt in Joseph's heart vanished.
The child before him truly was Caesar's reincarnation.
The next second, the marble fell against Joseph's chest. The Golden Spin carried that sliver of Ripple into his heart. With Ryosuke's Stage Three Ripple Breathing Technique control, it reactivated the life energy within Joseph's blood.
Whoosh~
Purple vines spread outward.
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