"Don't move! Josuke Higashikata!"
The freckle-faced man held up the chess piece and bellowed.
"If you lay a finger on me, I'll smash this thing to pieces—and she'll lose that memory forever!"
"Ngh! Damn it!!!"
Josuke was seething, but all he could do was halt Crazy Diamond's fist mid-swing. He couldn't vent his rage at the cost of Inori losing her Stand.
—Big Sis said it herself—she's the thorn in Yoshikage Kira's side. If she stops being a Stand user... that man could kill her whenever he wanted!
—Damn you, Yoshikage Kira. You can't beat us head-on, so you pull dirty tricks like this... Can I really take these two on without Big Sis backing me up?
Josuke stole a glance at Inori beside him. She stood with her arms folded, head slightly bowed, her eyes as calm and still as ever. Who knew what was going through her mind. That was Big Sis for you—if he'd suddenly lost Crazy Diamond, he'd have fallen apart on the spot.
—Panicking and freaking out at every little thing—that's no way to be. I need to become someone strong and clearheaded like Big Sis and Mr. Jotaro. The worse things get, the calmer I have to stay! Right—he's threatening to destroy the chess piece, but my ability is the perfect counter to that!
"Go ahead and destroy it! I'll use Crazy Diamond to put it right back together!"
Josuke took two more steps forward, shielding the defenseless Inori behind himself and Crazy Diamond. The resolve burning in the pompadoured teen's eyes was no longer simple fighting spirit. It was something deeper.
"Ha! You think I'd give you that chance?!"
"..."
Josuke talked tough, but he didn't make any reckless moves.
He was facing two opponents. He only knew the boy's ability. The mother's Stand was still a complete unknown.
And they weren't actually mother and son, because the moment the "boy" dropped the act, his voice stopped being a child's. In all likelihood, he was a full-grown man with a small frame. His stunted growth and childlike face had become the perfect disguise. Even Big Sis had been fooled. Just where the hell was Yoshikage Kira finding all these allies?
"Take a good look—she really is a fine woman. Cute, strong-willed. Exactly my type."
The dwarf-like man leered at the girl behind Josuke with an unspeakably vulgar gaze. Paired with that child's face, the effect was as grotesque as it was revolting.
"I'm going to steal every last one of her memories and train her into a slave who obeys only me!"
"Done with your last words?"
Josuke straightened his back and stared the man down.
"Insult her one more time and I'll make you wish you were dead."
The fury coursing through Josuke right now rivaled—no, surpassed—what he felt when someone insulted his hair. Without further hesitation, he resolved to take back Big Sis's memory first.
"Crazy Diamond!"
Crazy Diamond wound up and launched a devastating punch at the dwarf. But at that exact moment, a blindside attack—a massive boulder hurtling from behind and to the side—came flying straight at Inori. Josuke caught it in his peripheral vision, immediately pulled his Stand back, and shattered the rock with a single punch to protect her.
"...What the hell? Where are all these rocks..."
Josuke spun around and finally registered what was happening.
From the other side of the road, out of the dense wooded hillside, a swarm of rocks came rolling in—all shapes and sizes, like a plague of locusts about to devour a field. The sheer mass of them was overwhelming. Was this the fake mother's Stand ability?
"Go on, keep yelling, Josuke Higashikata! I'd love to see what you do now!"
"Damn it..."
Josuke was caught between the rat and the trap. He looked at Inori. The girl stood with her head down, silent, as if she'd taken a devastating blow and hadn't even noticed the rocks closing in behind her.
—Shit—there's way too many. Crazy Diamond alone can't handle this. What the hell is wrong with these two and their Stands? Why do they have such underhanded abilities?!
Staying to fight meant losing. He couldn't protect two people with one Stand. He made his decision on the spot, grabbed Inori by the wrist, and ran for the side gate they'd come through.
"Big Sis, let's get back to Mr. Jotaro and the others! Move!"
...
...
—I never thought I'd be pushed this far.
For the first time in days, Inori returned to that dark space inside her own mind.
A girl sat there in the void—white dress, cherry-blossom-pink hair—legs crossed, lounging in the nothingness as if an invisible chair were holding her up. She looked perfectly at ease as she welcomed Inori's arrival.
"Mana. I'm leaving this to you."
Saying it felt humiliating. But a loss was a loss. Yoshikage Kira had spent who-knew-how-long finding this particular route—this one chance to kill her. Inori wasn't going to let it become reality.
Those two were acting on Kira's orders. There had to be critical intel to extract from them.
Not that Inori planned to interrogate them herself. The moment she recovered her Stand ability, there was only one thing to do—ORA them for a dozen pages, dump the bodies in the ocean, and use Rohan's Heaven's Door to read out whatever intelligence they needed.
"Are you sure about this, Little Inori?"
Mana blinked and studied her with genuine seriousness.
"I can't use your King Crimson."
"But you can use Epitaph."
Inori walked over and sat down beside her. An invisible force materialized beneath her, cushioning her weight. This was her inner world—whatever she imagined simply came into being.
Three straight days of Stand battles had left even Inori feeling worn down.
"Using Epitaph, you'll need to find a way to reclaim my Stand memory—or at least get the chess piece back so Josuke-kun can repair it. Though I'm not sure if that method would actually work."
Inori let her eyes fall closed, carefully reviewing whether there were any other details she needed to pass along.
"Do you really trust me?"
Mana Ouma's pink brows drew together, uncertain.
"I've never had this kind of experience before, you know."
"Neither have I, actually."
Inori smiled, the tension leaving her face.
"Huh?"
"Everything I know about Stand combat came from watching other people fight. And now you've watched me beat all those enemies too. I may never have done it myself, but I've seen enough to know how it works. I believe in you."
—You're the only one I can believe in right now.
"If I fail, you're finished."
"Doesn't matter." Inori shook her head with casual indifference. "Worst case, we die together. If I lose here, it just proves that's all I ever amounted to. Someone like that has no right to stand at the top."
...
She wasn't being sarcastic, and she wasn't deliberately trying to provoke Mana with false negativity. She genuinely meant it. Some things in life you either didn't do at all, or you did to perfection. In Inori's world, there were only winners and losers. Running away had never been an option.
"I'll give it everything I've got, Little Inori."
Mana brushed the hair from her eyes, composed herself, rose to her feet, and began walking toward the luminous portal ahead.
"Aah~ Well then, I'll just take a nap and wait for you to come tell me how it went."
"You can actually sleep at a time like this?"
Mana Ouma whipped around, disbelief written across her face.
"Life and death are in the hands of fate. I'll leave it to you, my cute Little Mana~" Inori reclined on her side with a teasing smile, propping her cheek on one hand as she watched the girl about to depart.
"You need to get that chess piece back and give it to Josuke-kun."
"Of course. But your first priority should be dealing with that woman's stone-controlling Stand ability. Do your best, my cute Little Mana~"