DIO's scent trail had broken. The final heading pointed in the direction Yimi hated most.
Up.
DIO had flown away, and Yimi couldn't fly. Worse, without contact surfaces in midair, a scent couldn't linger long enough to be tracked.
"Three people."
Besides DIO himself, there were two other scents. One had been carried off with him. The other had vanished right here in this room.
"He got away? What a shame." Kakyoin walked over, gently scooped Yimi up and cradled her against his chest, studying the perfectly circular hole bored through the wall. "I've got a bad feeling about this. Is Polnareff ready yet?"
The primary target was right here. DIO couldn't have gone far. But since he hadn't come to meet them directly, he'd surely left behind a subordinate he trusted.
"Let me see... tch, I thought in the movies you just cross the right wires and it starts. What a pain!"
Outside, Polnareff stood beside a car with Silver Chariot's rapier jammed into the ignition. He was attempting to hotwire this 1980-model clunker, and somehow managed to get it running.
He took the passenger seat of his own accord and waved Kakyoin over. "After you."
"What exactly are you expecting from a seventeen-year-old high schooler?" Kakyoin opened the rear door and climbed in instead, electing to ignore the fact that a self-proclaimed knight had just stolen a car.
"Wait, you're five years younger than me? Even so, the only vehicle I can handle competently is a motorcycle."
"Ironic for a man whose Stand is literally named after a chariot."
Kakyoin glanced around uneasily. "So what's the plan—do we go after DIO? Just now, we were less than two hundred meters from the guy. He watched us kill his subordinate and didn't lift a finger?"
"Obviously we link up with Jotaro first. Listen, this isn't about running from a fight. Our top priority right now is protecting this child." Polnareff made the call.
He shuffled over to the driver's seat and studied the controls. "By the way, what's this handle for?"
...
And so the situation escalated into something far more dangerous.
"Meow meow, meow meow meow." In cat form, Yimi sniffed out the direction of Jotaro and the others while simultaneously steering with her paws.
"Go, Yimi! Pass that obnoxious car up ahead!" Polnareff glared at the luxury vehicle cruising the late-night roads.
They hadn't been attacked by Vanilla Ice on their way out. Perhaps because using his ability left the man blind as well, or perhaps the car was simply too fast for him to keep up.
Kakyoin clung to the overhead handle in the back seat, cold sweat pouring down his face. "Can you even reach the brake pedal like this? Joestar-san's parenting style is even bolder than I imagined. Jotaro can probably drive too, can't he?"
Polnareff leaned forward, squinting. "Is the car ahead rolling its window down?"
Kakyoin pressed forward warily—then his eyes widened slightly. "He just gave us a thumbs-down! Yimi, pass him."
"Mrow!" Yimi's paws performed a rapid sequence of maneuvers Kakyoin couldn't begin to decipher.
Under her masterful driving, the two cars quickly drew level. Through Yimi's open window, the other driver was treated to the sight of two grown men flashing double peace signs—with a cat at the wheel.
"—?!!" The man screamed something incomprehensible in Arabic.
The man's car swerved wildly, then hastily veered off toward a side road at the next intersection. He wasn't about to share a lane with them.
「Congratulations, Host! Achievement unlocked: [The Reason Men's Average Lifespans Are Short]. Reward: 5% portal energy.」
"Meow? (\^\_^\)"
"Hahaha!" Polnareff threw his head back in open laughter. He hadn't laughed like this in two years.
"Cairo's enormous, though. Are Jotaro and the others really that far away?"
He checked the dashboard clock. It was already past three in the morning. "By my math, it should be about morning in Japan right now. Yimi-chan, are you hungry?"
"Yimi, you can slow down now. Getting there safely matters more than anything." Kakyoin leaned against the window, eyes scanning their surroundings in constant vigilance.
"I remember Yimi has a sweet tooth, right? Around here, dried fruits would probably be the main option. Then again, for a kid, the pyramids are probably more exciting than food on a trip like this."
"Meow! (Protest!)"
Polnareff turned around and fixed Kakyoin with a look. "Hey, kid—in the movies, the only characters who start making plans for after the mission before it's even over are the ones about to die."
"Ah... sorry, sorry."
"No, I get it. Facing that monster, it's only natural. It sounds heartless to say, but after avenging Sherry, I technically have no reason to stay. And yet—abandoning a child and walking away? I just can't do it."
"It's decided. As long as I draw breath, I won't let her come to harm here."
Polnareff and Kakyoin locked eyes. "Just to be safe, let me get to know you a little better, Kakyoin. We only met the day before yesterday—haven't had a proper chat yet. What brought you all the way to Egypt?"
"Similar reasons to yours, I suppose." Kakyoin continued gazing out the window. "Anger at what DIO did, and gratitude for having the Flesh Bud removed, among other things... guh!"
His pupils contracted sharply.
"What is it, Kakyoin? What do you see?!" Polnareff whipped around to follow his line of sight, but the street they'd already passed was empty.
"A streetlight—it just vanished! Polnareff, we have an enemy!"
"An enemy? Even Yimi hasn't picked up any scent..." Polnareff's voice died in his throat.
Under the glow of the remaining streetlights, the ambient dust drifting through the night air occasionally caught the light. And through that haze, he could make out the faint outline of an invisible sphere pursuing them.
"Stay away from it!" Kakyoin immediately summoned Hierophant Green, suspending it from the car window. A barrage of Emerald Splash rained on the sphere's position—and that was when they saw it clearly for the first time: something was definitely there.
"It disappeared?"
The instant the Emerald Splash struck the sphere's location, the projectiles didn't shatter—they simply ceased to exist.
And because they'd slowed down, the invisible sphere quickly sheared through the rear of their car.
"Jump!" Kakyoin threw open his door and rolled out.
"Mrow!"
Polnareff's reflexes were equally sharp. He grabbed Yimi and dove from the vehicle—fortunate they hadn't dared buckle their seatbelts precisely because they'd feared an ambush.
The car was carved open with a void that consumed half its body.
Simultaneously, the ouroboros-shaped Stand materialized in midair. From within its maw emerged Vanilla Ice's face, fury blazing as he scanned for their positions.
"You bastards..."
After they'd discovered DIO-sama's last known location, these wretches had the gall to flee by car—leaving him to circle the room twice before realizing they were gone.
Cream—that was his Stand's name. Its ability: within the Stand's mouth lay a space of annihilation connected to somewhere even he didn't understand. Yet he, as the user, could exist safely inside it.
By having Cream devour him, then devour itself completely, he could vanish from this world. And by some unknown principle, his disappearance left behind an invisible sphere that annihilated everything it touched, moving wherever he moved through that space.
The trade-off: while vanished from this world, he couldn't see the outside either. That was the primary reason the chase had taken this long.
"Whatever. Being frightened off by DIO-sama's overwhelming presence is perfectly normal. What baffles me is how you detected my attack without any advance warning."
Vanilla Ice eyed the streetlamps lining the road. "I see. The streetlights."
He vanished again. Using positions he'd memorized in advance, he systematically erased every streetlight in the area.
"Damn it, I can't see a thing!" Polnareff scrambled to shield Yimi, who had already shifted to human form.
Yimi squeezed free of his hands, staring dead ahead in the direction Vanilla Ice was moving.
"Don't just stand there—Polnareff!" Kakyoin reacted in a flash, extending Hierophant Green's tendrils across the entire block to sense the enemy's position.
"Right side! He's on your right!"
"Die!" Polnareff swung Silver Chariot's blade toward the indicated direction.
The rapier was annihilated in an instant. Only then did it truly dawn on him what this enemy's power meant—but having committed to the attack, he couldn't pull back in time. The thing had already shaved off his fingernails.
"Mrow!" Yimi shoved him out of the way and threw a punch toward the void.
Cream grazed past.
One long, untrimmed strand of Yimi's hair drifted down and landed on Polnareff's face.
"Yimi-chan...?" Polnareff extended a hand into the darkness, hoping for a response.