"This guy—this is the guy!"
Polnareff pressed so hard on the photograph that he left a fingerprint dent in it. Through Spirit Photography via blood relation, Joseph had projected the full appearance of Polnareff's sworn enemy directly onto the print.
Avdol walked up behind him and studied the image. "The architecture looks local. I should recognize some of it. I've lived here for over twenty years, but I can't say I've memorized every street and building."
"Since his mother was here, he shouldn't be far. Stand users are drawn to one another."
Polnareff forced himself to calm down. "But how do we find him?"
"This." Before he'd even finished asking, Yimi scooped up Iggy and held the dog up to her face, making Polnareff instinctively step back.
"Right, we've got a dog with us!"
Polnareff hastily fished out a stick of gum as a bribe. "Iggy, can you sniff this old woman for me? Besides DIO himself, the only person carrying her scent should be her son, right? Since you can turn into a dog, you've gotta have a dog's abilities too, yeah?"
"Woof woof woof!"
For some reason, this enraged Iggy. The dog lunged at Polnareff's face, gnawed on his hair for a solid few seconds, then bolted.
Iggy was nothing more than an innocent little dog who'd been forcibly captured and dragged along. No way was he risking his neck fighting other Stand users over something that had nothing to do with him.
"He ran off."
"Well, cats as a species—I know, I know, cats are wonderful animals. Stop looking at me like that." Joseph had barely started his quip before Yimi's unhappy expression forced a retraction.
"You mutt! I lost a good chunk of hair to you!" Polnareff, revenge just a step away, chased after Iggy.
He turned back to the others. "Joestar-san, let's part ways here. My only purpose for coming was to punish that bastard with my own hands. I don't want to hold up your journey."
"Hey!" Kakyoin called out, then turned to the group. "Joestar-san, I'll keep an eye on him. We'll meet up at the agreed location."
"Honestly, DIO's assassins—or the man himself—could be anywhere around here. Wouldn't waiting for daylight be smarter?" Joseph glanced at the pitch-black sky outside.
They'd been adjusting to the time zone anyway. Once jolted awake, nobody was falling back asleep.
Not that they could stay here regardless—Polnareff had brought a corpse in with him. Enya's body was easy enough to deal with: wipe off as many fingerprints as possible, then toss her in among the heap of corpses she'd hauled in herself.
But no matter what, their position was compromised. Staying at this hotel was out of the question.
"Old man, your Stand can't read a dead person's thoughts, right? But I recall you mentioning the kid can turn into a cat."
Jotaro crouched down, gazing at Enya's corpse. "A cat's nose should be pretty sharp too."
"Jotaro, you little..." Joseph's eyelid twitched.
If Suzi Q found out they were using a little girl like this, she'd beat them over the head with her parasol.
Jotaro looked at Yimi. "How about it? You just need to find where the old hag spent the most time these past two days. You don't have to go in yourself. The old man will buy you a goldfish."
He had no intention of letting a child face DIO directly.
"Goldfish."
Yimi nodded, shifted back to cat form, and sniffed at Enya's body.
A cat's sense of smell was nothing to scoff at—though it excelled more at identification than tracking compared to dogs. But her sense of smell, enhanced by Frightening Monsters since the very first world, was no less keen than a canine's.
Yimi darted off in a specific direction, glancing back to check whether the others were keeping up.
"We've got a lead!" Avdol called out, excited.
Egypt was vast, but DIO's "palace" happened to be right here in Cairo.
Then again, Cairo was Egypt's largest city. Trying to find a specific location just by looking around or asking for directions would be like searching for a needle in a haystack.
Similarly, three grown men chasing after Yimi were gasping for breath after a considerable run, while the little cat ahead showed zero signs of fatigue.
"Hold on, Yimi. Just point us in the right direction. Jotaro." Joseph turned to his grandson.
"Mm."
With a grunt of acknowledgment, Jotaro summoned Star Platinum to pry open the door of a roadside car, then began hotwiring it the old-fashioned way.
"Jotaro? Joestar-san, why are you two so in sync about stealing a car?!" Avdol protested even as he cooperatively placed the cat inside the vehicle.
"Relax, we'll compensate the owner afterward. For safety's sake, you drive, Jotaro. I've got a prosthetic hand, after all. If there's anything you're not sure about, just ask me."
"Joestar-san?"
Jotaro settled into the driver's seat. "Yare yare, I don't exactly have a license."
Despite saying this, his driving was reasonably steady.
"Meow meow." Paw extended.
With the window open, riding in a car didn't hinder Yimi's ability to track the scent at all. Finding where Enya had spent the most time didn't take long.
A building as opulent as a palace.
"Is this the place?"
"Just looking at it gives me a bad feeling."
"Hmm... but there doesn't seem to be any crashed aircraft nearby."
"Let's go take a look inside. Avdol, you stay outside with Yimi." Joseph issued his orders, then squinted. "Was that front door open just now?"
"Understood." Avdol had no objections.
"Is DIO inside?"
Jotaro strode ahead without waiting. As he entered, a flashily dressed man came floating down from the far end of the corridor.
"Good evening, everyone. I—"
"Nngh—"
But Yimi, who was supposed to be waiting outside with Avdol, hadn't moved an inch. She summoned her Stand and landed a precision punch that embedded the man into the ceiling. In the same motion, she knocked unconscious a hidden Stand user on the second floor who'd been attempting some kind of illusion.
"?"
"What are you doing?! That guy wasn't necessarily an enemy!" Avdol's eyes went wide.
The man hadn't even finished his sentence before being launched.
"Hm?" Yimi looked up at Avdol with a puzzled, innocent tilt of her head.
Weren't they about to go beat up the guy who'd been sending people to hunt her?
"Calm down, Avdol. That guy clearly wasn't normal." Jotaro adjusted his hat.
They were already here. How could they possibly punch the wrong person?
"I suppose that's true. But to be safe, you and I should still wait outside." Avdol pulled Yimi along and headed out, though he felt a pang of reluctance.
He'd already been scared off by DIO once. Even with the excuse of looking after a child, it still felt like running from a fight...
Contrary to expectations, Jotaro and Joseph encountered no one else inside besides the man from before.
"Save me! I don't know anything! There's a Vampire—blegh!"
Oh—on the third floor, they'd captured a Vampire whose nickname was "Nukesaku." Jotaro didn't bother with conversation and simply pinned him to the ground for a beating.
"Where is DIO?"
"DIO-sama—DIO-sama left as soon as night fell! I don't know where he is!"
This guy was nothing more than a small fry DIO had converted into a Vampire. Not particularly bright, either. When Jotaro first came upstairs, Nukesaku had tried to trick them with a woman's face grown on the back of his head—but forgot to turn his feet around.
Jotaro dragged him to the top floor. He surveyed the room, then shoved Nukesaku toward the prominent coffin at its center. "Go open it."
"Even if you ask me to... if nobody's there, nobody's there." Nukesaku's hands trembled as he pushed the coffin lid. Even knowing DIO had left, the sheer terror DIO had branded into him made him dread seeing that figure inside. If he'd been caught as a traitor, his fate would be worse than death.
The coffin was indeed empty.
"How can this be? DIO's already left?" Joseph stood by the window, peering down to check on Avdol and Yimi below.
Naturally, he couldn't see them. Avdol wasn't foolish enough to stand where he'd be visible.
"Looks that way. If he were still here, we wouldn't have run into so few people." Jotaro stared at DIO's bookshelf.
Most of the spines were covered in a layer of dust. Curiously, several were related to religion and even the nature of the soul. And on the most accessible shelf...
Jotaro pulled the volume out. More than a book, it was a notebook—a diary.
Required condition one: the Stand, The World.
Required condition two: a trusted friend.
Required condition three: the souls of 36 sinners of the utmost evil.
The most critical element—the 14 Phrases: Spiral Staircase, Rhinoceros Beetle...
And the courage to part with one's Stand.
Fulfill the above conditions. Proceed to coordinates 28°24' N latitude, 80°36' W longitude.
"And you can reach Heaven?"
"Heaven!"
The crystalline child's voice made Jotaro's hand flinch. He nearly threw a punch on reflex.
"Why are you running around again? Didn't I tell you to wait downstairs? It's dangerous up here." Joseph held Yimi by the shoulders and manually spun her in place as punishment.
"That thing inside—does it say how to get to Heaven?" Yimi pointed at the diary in Jotaro's hand.
"Just some nonsense." Jotaro pulled out a lighter, preparing to burn it. He'd originally expected it to be DIO's itinerary or daily log.
Yimi frantically grabbed his clothes and began climbing up. "If you don't want it, give it to me!"
"This isn't some fun storybook." Jotaro was unmoved. He set it alight. The dry climate and paper composition burned it so fast that Yimi didn't even have a chance to save it with Famine.
"Mrow!"
Yimi kicked him square in the shin.
You're not a good person!
But the man in black had just read that diary. He had a memory of its contents.
Yimi's eyes darted around. Scheming, she pulled the utterly useless Game Console out of her storage space and secretly slipped it into Jotaro's pocket.
Why not cat grass? Because to a cat, things that are useless to cats are worth even less than cat grass.
Jotaro frowned as a sudden haze washed over his memory. "What did you just do, kid?"