Ryosuke suddenly understood the point in time when he had descended,
The fall of the Twin Stars.
In the original story, Diego and Hot Pants formed a team and went together to the train to assassinate Funny Valentine.
Both sides used every method they had, but in the end Valentine still came out on top. Diego died under the crushing force of the train, and the other teammate, Hot Pants, would also fall from the train moments later and die,
As Ryosuke was recalling this, he saw, about a hundred meters away, a slender woman in a pink trench coat fall from the train.
It was her.
Hot Pants wasn't dead yet, but she was close. At a guess, she would breathe her last only moments before or after Ryosuke.
Ryosuke tried to draw power from the projections of the past.
"No, too slow."
That previous vampire body, although it had drawbacks like fearing sunlight and being targeted by Kars, still had absolutely solid physical strength and potential. It could hold a large amount of power from past projections.
Even so, it had taken him dozens of minutes, plus absorbing the life energy of nearly a hundred vampires and zombie beings, just to complete the initial physical evolution.
And now, at most, Ryosuke would die in a matter of ten-plus seconds.
"A medium-difficulty trial mission wouldn't give me a guaranteed-death opening."
"The current situation can definitely be cracked with Lesson 4's rotation. It's just that I haven't found the answer yet."
"So… what exactly is the answer?"
Ryosuke's brain spun at high speed.
Suddenly, he saw the ground moving.
Not just the ground, the trees and animals on it, the clouds in the sky, and even the distant ocean were all moving toward the train, or more precisely, toward Funny Valentine on the train.
The power of the Saint's Corpse had been activated.
As the land shifted, three wild wolves roaming the jungle were drawn over in a daze.
The moment Ryosuke saw the wolves, a thought flashed through his mind.
"This is it!"
Seeing Ryosuke, covered in blood, their eyes lit up.
But then they saw Ryosuke again, his eyes also glowing, both hands slapping the ground as he controlled his upper body, severed at the waist, to leap into the air like a vicious ghost. The light instantly vanished from the little wolves' eyes. They tucked their tails and howled as they tried to flee.
Too late.
The ability of the Scary Monsters activated. Ryosuke's sharp nails pierced the bodies of two of the little wolves, transforming them into two half-meter-tall small dinosaurs.
One dinosaur carried Ryosuke.
The other grabbed the severed lower half of his body from the ground.
Leaving behind the last little wolf, trembling in terror, the two dinosaurs sprinted wildly toward the dying Hot Pants.
The distance kept shrinking, and Ryosuke's gaze grew more and more unfocused. Thankfully, the life force transmitted from the past projections barely kept his last breath hanging on.
But it was like one of those math problems about a swimming pool leaking and filling at the same time, the speed at which his life force was draining far exceeded the speed at which it was being replenished.
Ten meters left.
Ryosuke's vision sank into darkness.
He wouldn't make it by running.
From beside the small dinosaur's mouth, he forcibly tore out a tooth. The tooth spun in his palm, and another faint ripple was sent out, locking onto Hot Pants.
Fire!
Bang!
The fang struck Hot Pants in the chest.
Golden Rotation and the healing power of Ripple activated.
Hot Pants' eyes flew open. She stared at the piercing wound in her chest, like a phone that had shut down from a dead battery and was forcibly powered on by Ryosuke, about to shut down again at any moment.
But…
Hot Pants' Stand, Cream Starter, was a healing type.
She raised her hand and summoned Cream Starter's spray, which had fallen onto the train, into her grasp. Just as she was about to use it on her wound, she saw two shadows appear on the ground.
She looked up in shock.
Ryosuke and his lower half were flung over by the two small dinosaurs.
Ryosuke reached out to Hot Pants. In his palm was another spinning fang and faintly flickering ripples.
This was his plan.
Using the healing effect of Rotation to wake Hot Pants, who possessed a healing-type Stand, and then using Cream Starter's ability to fuse his upper and lower body back together after being cut in half by the train.
While Hot Pants treated him, Ryosuke would continuously use Ripple and Rotation to keep her alive.
After Ryosuke survived, Hot Pants would then heal herself.
That way, two "dead people" who should have perished could fight their way back from the edge of hell.
Hot Pants was a smart woman, or rather, among the women who follow the main cast in the JOJO series, there are very few who are stupid. With just a glance at her chest, she realized that it was Ryosuke who had saved her.
The two cooperated, and after nearly ten minutes, they finally healed all their injuries.
Having narrowly escaped death, Hot Pants felt completely drained and collapsed to the ground. Every time she recalled that near-death feeling, lingering fear surged up, and her mind went blank.
Ryosuke stood up and walked in the direction the train had gone.
"Y-you… where are you going?" Hot Pants asked.
Ryosuke pointed toward the train that had long since vanished from sight. "To kill the President."
"You're still going?!"
Hot Pants' voice rose. "No, I mean, don't you need to rest a bit? At least…"
Before joining the SBR race, she had been a nun. This time, she came to collect the Saint's Corpse to atone for the evil she had committed years ago, abandoning her younger brother, which led to his miserable death.
She had come prepared, resolved. For the Saint's Corpse, she was willing to offer her life.
But rational courage didn't mean being free of fear of death. Hot Pants was doing her best to calm herself as she looked at Ryosuke.
"Aren't you… afraid?"
Ryosuke smiled.
Compared to the battles he had experienced time and time again, the situation just now was nothing more than a warm-up to get familiar with the environment.
He looked at the constantly moving land, ocean, mountains, and forests.
"Happiness is gathering toward Funny Valentine, while misfortune is moving away. The longer we drag this out, the more happiness he can control, and the harder it will be to kill him."
Ryosuke extended his hand toward Hot Pants, who was sitting on the ground.
"Let me introduce myself. My name is Ryosuke. I'm no longer the Diego you're familiar with. What happened in between is complicated, we can explain it later. In short…"
"I'm going to kill Funny Valentine. Want to come?"
Hot Pants stared blankly at the hand extended toward her.
The man in front of her had Diego's face, used Diego's body, and controlled Diego's Stand.
But from just now on, the feeling he gave her was completely different from that ambitious Diego who would use any dirty means to achieve his goals…
Warm.
As if possessed, she reached out and took Ryosuke's hand.
Ryosuke pulled her up.
"But how do you plan to catch up?" Hot Pants asked.
Their horses were long gone, and even a steam train of this era couldn't be chased down by human legs.
Ryosuke glanced at the two small dinosaurs that had been transformed from wolves and were waiting nearby.
They were only half a meter tall. If Ryosuke and Hot Pants rode them, it would be like a dog riding a rabbit, probably they'd collapse from exhaustion after barely one or two kilometers.
Ryosuke looked left and right, then his gaze landed on Hot Pants.
"What are you looking at me for?"
A few seconds later, a pink giant dinosaur was carrying Ryosuke as it sprinted madly along the railroad tracks.
Under Ryosuke's control, the Scary Monsters hadn't erased Hot Pants' rationality. So she was rolling her eyes nonstop and swearing in her heart, 'What warm my ass!'
'This guy calling himself Ryosuke is no different from Diego at all!'
'No, he's even worse than Diego!'
Anger made Hot Pants run even faster.
Ryosuke hugged her neck, lowered his body to reduce air resistance, and fixed his eyes tightly on the road ahead.
Finally, he saw it again, the speeding train, and the duo moving alongside it, Johnny and Gyro.
Out of habit from riding, Ryosuke subconsciously gave her a pat from behind.
"Speed up!"
"I know!"
Hot Pants charged forward in long strides.