The wailing whistle of the train echoed across the vast wilderness, charging forward without hesitation, as if heading for the end of the world.
Along one side of the train, Johnny and Gyro lowered their bodies and urged their horses on, closely following. Two pairs of determined eyes swept over the train's windows, searching for their target, Funny Valentine.
Not long ago, the two of them had witnessed the failure of Ryosuke (Diego) and Hot Pants at the edge of the jungle.
To be fair, whether it was Diego's Scary Monsters, Hot Pants' Cream Starter, or the fighting will of the two of them, none of it was inferior to Johnny and Gyro in the slightest.
From a team-composition standpoint, the Twin Stars duo was even more reasonable than Johnny and Gyro, two ability users of the same type teaming up.
And yet, even those two had ultimately died at the hands of Funny Valentine.
And now…
Johnny's gaze was firm. "We're the last ones who can stop Funny Valentine."
After the Philadelphia shooting incident, Johnny had clearly realized just how bizarre Valentine's Stand, D4C, really was. But no matter how strange an ability might be, it still had weaknesses.
As long as they didn't give him a chance to "sandwich" them, and killed him before he could slip into a parallel world, that would be enough.
In Johnny's view, his nail bullets and Gyro's Steel Balls both had mid- to long-range combat capability. As long as the timing was right, a single strike could end the battle.
The train was still speeding along. Since they didn't know how many of Funny Valentine's subordinates were on board, Gyro decided to jump onto the front of the train first, take out the engineer, and force the train to stop.
After that, whether to confront him head-on or use the horses' mobility to fight a guerrilla battle would be up to them.
Gyro moved into action.
Johnny maintained his ride, nail bullets spinning on his fingernails, staying alert and ready to support Gyro at any moment.
Just then...
He locked eyes with Funny Valentine through a pane of glass.
"Damn!"
"Damn!"
Both of them were startled.
Johnny raised his hand immediately, preparing to fire his nail bullets.
Funny Valentine immediately lifted Lucy, ready to use her as a shield to block the nail bullets.
Without even half a second of hesitation, Johnny's eyes flashing with pitch-black resolve, he attacked.
Bang! Bang! Bang.
"Good!"
Even as an opponent, Funny Valentine couldn't help but praise Johnny's decisiveness. Then he adjusted his angle again, making sure Lucy's body could block all of the attacks.
Lucy, "..."
The nail bullets struck Lucy, yet they didn't truly injure the poor girl.
The black bullet holes slid along Lucy's body and landed on Funny Valentine's palm.
BOOM!
Valentine's arm, along with Big Bunny D4C's arm, exploded at the same time.
Blood sprayed everywhere, reflected in Funny Valentine's pupils as an indescribable shock.
With a direct hit scored, Johnny prepared to press the advantage.
Bzzz!
A tiny, sharp sound suddenly appeared.
The source of the sound was Lucy, who had fallen onto the carpet inside the carriage. Her entire body's skin was cracking dry, and the sound was coming from the skin. Listening closely, one could vaguely hear hymns, murmurs, and blessings.
At the same time, a dazzling golden wall of light surged out from Lucy's body, enveloping Funny Valentine. The wound on his hand instantly disappeared, turning into a beam of light that flew off into the distance.
The beam landed on a farmer working his fields not far away.
The farmer's head exploded, killing him instantly.
Johnny stared blankly at the farmer's sudden death.
Suddenly, a soft chuckle came from inside the carriage. Funny Valentine stood within the gaps of the light wall, feeling the protection bestowed by the world, and wore a smile as if this were only natural.
"This is the Saint's Corpse. This is…"
He gently lifted Lucy, who was nearly no longer breathing.
"The goddess that belongs to me, that belongs to all humanity."
"This is..."
"D4C: Love Train."
A privilege that only those acknowledged by the Saint's Corpse could enjoy, true, in the fullest sense, an "invincible" ability.
Funny Valentine set Lucy down, stepped on the wall of light, and took a step forward. He actually ignored the carriage walls entirely, walked out of the train, and hung in midair as he approached Johnny.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Johnny fired nail bullets again.
'Ineffective! Ineffective! Ineffective!'
Somewhere in the world, at a construction site, a rope snapped, and several unlucky workers were buried.
Through the gaps in the light wall, Johnny saw this scene with absolute clarity.
Helplessness and guilt wrapped around Johnny.
Funny Valentine looked at Johnny coldly. "Within the ground where I stand, no misfortune will fall."
Johnny clenched his teeth.
Valentine wasted no more words. He controlled D4C and charged at Johnny, while at the same time the land closed in. A large stretch of forest sealed off Johnny's retreat from behind.
In an instant, Johnny was trapped, unable to advance or retreat.
"I'll get rid of one first!"
Funny Valentine's eyes turned sharp, and his blade-like palm swung down.
Bang!
A steel ball struck Funny Valentine's palm.
'Gyro?'
'No!'
The steel ball in Gyro's hand was still spinning; he hadn't thrown it yet.
And the ball that had been thrown wasn't a metal steel ball, it was... 'A stone ball?'
With Johnny's eye, the difference was obvious. In terms of rotation technique, the stone ball was inferior to Gyro's, but the raw strength behind it was several times greater.
Even more bizarre, stone was far more brittle than metal. Thrown with such terrifying power and speed, it should have shattered on impact, unable to unleash the full force of the rotation.
So why hadn't it shattered?
Thin strands of tiny golden "lightning" were wrapped around it, was that the effect of lightning?
"No! That's not important. What's important is…"
"Who is it?"
Now that Wekapipo was dead, how could there still be someone on the SBR course who had mastered the rotation technique?
The movements of the three in combat paused at the same time as they all looked toward the direction the stone ball had flown from.
They saw a figure riding at full speed, rapidly closing in.
The blazing sunlight shone from behind the figure, making the features impossible to see. All they could make out was a silhouette. But the golden long hair dancing in the wind under the sun, and the slight trembling of the horse beneath them from fear even before the rider arrived, revealed the identity of the newcomer.
"Diego!"
"It's Ryosuke," Ryosuke corrected.
Whoosh!
A pink dinosaur carrying Ryosuke leapt high into the air.
"And me too, Hot Pants-da!"
Perhaps because she had become a dinosaur and the hormonal changes in her body, Hot Pants was unusually excited.
One man and one dinosaur crashed down heavily, bursting into the battlefield.
Hot Pants swung her dinosaur claws, shredding the branches that were blocking Johnny.
Ryosuke, Johnny, and Gyro formed a triangular encirclement around Funny Valentine.
Ryosuke took out a stone ball from the waist pouch he carried.
These had all been polished bit by bit on his way here, using his own sharp fingernails.
The stone ball rotated in his palm. A faint ripple drawn from the projections of the past wrapped around it, further boosting its power and ensuring that it wouldn't shatter.
"You're not dead?!" Funny Valentine couldn't believe his eyes.
He had personally killed the two people standing in front of him.
Ryosuke swept his golden hair, messed up by the fierce wind, back behind his head. Aiming the stone ball in his palm at Funny Valentine, he said softly, "Of course. By the will of the Saint's Corpse, I've come to bring you happiness..."
"The kind of happiness called 'death.'"
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