At the entrance to DIO's Mansion, there should have been one more dreaded guardian. Pet Shop—that was its name.
Yes, "it."
One of the rare non-human Stand users among DIO's subordinates. A falcon—a raptor with the innate ability to hunt small mammals. Beyond that, like Iggy, the fact that it was an animal granted it an equally blunt and brutal power.
Horus. The ability to create and control ice. The ice pillars it generated could pierce clean through a car. Even Iggy, a fellow animal Stand user, would struggle in a direct confrontation.
"Yimi! Joestar-san!"
Avdol, who'd been inadvertently left behind, steeled himself and pushed through to the fourth floor. It wasn't fear that had delayed him—he'd simply been held up for a while.
He blew on the roasted bird in his hand. The innards hadn't even been removed before he'd seared it on the spot, and there wasn't any oil either, but that crispy outer layer was enough to tantalize the appetite of someone who'd been woken in the middle of the night without supper.
Avdol himself wasn't entirely sure how it had happened. All he knew was that the moment Yimi had disobeyed and followed the others inside, this bird had suddenly swooped in to block his path, unleashing ice pillars of staggering power against his flames.
It was the first time since DIO had shattered his nerve that Avdol had felt this kind of confidence—even if his opponent wasn't even human.
"They jumped out from here? Could they have already run into DIO?" He looked down from the half-open window.
Shattered remains littered the ground below, their shriveled forms almost certainly the handiwork of DIO the Vampire. It looked like DIO had chased them out. It wasn't as if Joestar-san's group would have just forgotten about him and run off, right?
Avdol leaned out the window to scan the street. Through the glow of a distant streetlight, he could faintly make out a lone passerby below.
It had already been around two-thirty in the morning when they'd left the hotel. The person could also be an enemy.
Wasting no time, Avdol jumped. He had his Stand grab a windowsill on the way down for a controlled landing, paying the minor price of scraped palms before dropping right in front of the passerby.
The man's clothing had no business being in Egypt.
Avdol kept his Stand active, warily eyeing the youthful-looking man. "You there—what did DIO offer you to make you fight for him?!"
"The only one I serve is the Lord. My friend, are you drunk? You just fell from a building—do you need my help?" The white-haired young man asked with genuine concern, glancing around as if searching for a phone booth to call the police.
Had he overreacted?
When his initial probe failed, Avdol sent a Magician's Red punch flying—and stopped it inches from the man's face.
The man hadn't flinched. On closer inspection, his garments appeared to be those of a seminary student—or perhaps from some sort of theological academy.
"No—but the nights aren't exactly safe. Be careful out here. By the way, you didn't happen to see a few people jump out of the fourth-floor windows of that building, did you?"
"My Lord above—you must be joking. Anyone who fell from the fourth floor wouldn't be in good shape."
The answer was airtight. Avdol couldn't find a single crack.
"Stay away from that building. I hear a murderer's been hiding inside."
He had no choice but to head toward the rendezvous point Kakyoin had described. Those who carried a golden spirit wouldn't harass innocent bystanders.
After Avdol left, the young man rubbed his eyes, his gaze sharpening as he stared at Avdol's retreating back. His instincts told him the man he was looking for was at this address.
He gently touched the Flesh Bud on his forehead. "I don't understand what's happening, but I have this feeling that person needs me."
Unlike the others, he hadn't been directly controlled by the Flesh Bud for reasons unknown. Only intuition told him to come here—to help the man who had cured the congenital defect in both his feet. The man whose company he'd genuinely enjoyed.
It seemed she'd lost them. Not DIO—Joseph and Jotaro had lost track of her.
Yimi swished her tail and looked behind her. She'd been so focused that she hadn't noticed when the people behind her had stopped following.
Right, when she was in human form it wasn't exactly convenient to go scrambling up walls and across rooftops. Humans really were fragile creatures. But the cat had already pinpointed the general direction of the coffin's owner.
Yimi swished her tail again. What entered her field of vision, however, wasn't DIO himself, but Kakyoin and Polnareff—the two DIO had just been watching like a pair of performing monkeys.
"Finally... Sherry, can you see this?"
Polnareff sat on the ground, staring at the not-too-distant figure of a man impaled on a railing, skewered through and through. Death was certain, yet the man still groaned and twitched, unable to find release.
Against any other opponent, even one who'd wronged him, Polnareff would have granted the dignity of a clean end. But for the man who had dared defile and murder his little sister, he was willing to set aside the chivalry he'd upheld his entire life.
They hadn't found Iggy. J. Geil had simply attacked them on his own.
With the enemy's face already known, even a Stand that could leap between reflective surfaces was no match for opponents who could identify its user on sight. And in a blinding instant of fury, Polnareff had intercepted the light itself.
Kakyoin said nothing. He simply placed a hand on Polnareff's shoulder.
Polnareff dragged his arm across his face, roughly wiping away the tears. "Hey—don't you go running your mouth about this when we get back."
"Oh? About what, exactly?"
"You're seriously going to pretend you don't—"
"What are you two doing?"
She'd padded over on silent cat feet, then hit them with a sudden burst of that crystalline child's voice.
Super effective. Polnareff nearly ran her through on reflex.
"Ah, you followed us too? No—don't look at that!" He clapped his hands over Yimi's eyes, then directed Silver Chariot to grant J. Geil a swift end, sending that scum to join his mother.
"Shouldn't you be with Jotaro and the others? Whatever—let's regroup at the meeting point first." Kakyoin took Yimi's hand.
Polnareff opened his mouth to say something, then closed it. A quiet hum through his nose served as his answer.
They'd helped him kill his nemesis, after all. Saying something like "my revenge is done, so I'll be leaving now" would be unconscionably cold. Even after only two days together, he wasn't about to let this innocent little girl face danger on his watch.
"So that's the girl." DIO narrowed his eyes from his elevated perch. "Up close, she gives off a peculiar feeling. What do you think?"
A man stepped from the shadows. "I will eliminate every obstacle for you, DIO-sama."
"When it comes to loyalty, there is no one I trust more than you, Vanilla Ice." DIO folded his arms. Despite his target being right there, he showed not the slightest intention of making a move himself.
"Go."
At his command, the man before him summoned a terrifying Stand. Though humanoid in shape, it bit down on its own lower half like an ouroboros, swallowing itself from the waist down.
It opened its enormous maw wide, engulfing Vanilla Ice along with it. Then it devoured the rest of its own body—arms and all—until nothing remained visible.
Simultaneously, a perfect circular hole appeared in the wall of the top floor where DIO stood.
"Honestly." DIO descended the stairs to greet his next visitor. "I didn't expect the Flesh Bud to have been planted in you of all people. My apologies—using a Flesh Bud to control you was somewhat disrespectful."
He appeared before the young man and reached out, personally removing the Flesh Bud from his forehead.
"Pucci."