After regrouping with Avdol and defeating Priestess, the main cast led by Jotaro finally arrived at the place they had been chasing for so long - the heart of Dio's domain, Egypt.
When Joseph and the others looked back on the journey that had already carried them beyond the halfway point, strange smiles rose to their faces on their own, bitter and satisfied at once. If everything had gone the way it should have, a plane ride of little more than ten hours would have been enough to get them there. Instead, they had spent a full thirty days crossing danger, ambushes, battles, and impossible miracles.
It had been a brutal road. Exhausting. But vivid enough to leave marks on every one of them.
As flashes of that journey drifted past like a carousel of memories, and Jotaro's signature execution theme surged in at just the right moment, the audience was hit by the same bittersweet emotion. At that point, no one felt like they were merely watching an anime anymore. It felt as though they had walked that road with the protagonists themselves, endured the heat, the fatigue, the tension, and the anticipation right beside them. This was what a real road story was supposed to feel like - not just movement from one place to another, but a journey that made the viewer carry the weight of the distance.
When the ending theme finished, the subtitle team even left one last line on the screen with deliberate care.
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders - End
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders - Egypt Arc
The moment they saw the first half of that line, the ever-growing number of JoJo fans felt their hearts seize. For one terrifying second, they thought Alex was about to pull the same stunt he had used before with Bleach: Arrancar Arc and Death Note - cutting things off right at the most critical moment out of sheer sadistic instinct.
Thankfully, once their eyes reached the second line, they could finally breathe again.
A trick like that might be tolerable once. People could grit their teeth and endure it twice. But a third time? At that point, the internet would probably unite under a single righteous cause: hunting Alex down to the ends of the earth.
Meanwhile, Stardust Crusaders had wrapped up its run with stunning numbers. Domestically, it landed an extraordinary 9.7 rating. Overseas, it was just as dominant, pulling in a 96% approval rate. If there was one weakness at all, it was only this: the total number of ratings still hadn't caught up to Bleach and Death Note.
That, in itself, reflected a simple truth. JoJo's cumulative audience was still behind Alex's previous two works. But he wasn't worried in the slightest. In his eyes, JoJo had never been the kind of series that exploded all at once. It was the kind that fermented inside its viewers, grew slowly, deepened over time, and only later revealed the true scale of its influence. There were too many details buried inside it, too many symbols, too much style and strangeness woven into its bones. It was inevitable that fans would spend a long time excavating that world.
What actually bothered him, however, was something else entirely.
The news that Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War had already entered production had leaked.
And it had leaked loudly enough to steal part of the attention that should have belonged to Stardust Crusaders' finale.
Alex suspected there was a mole somewhere in the production team. But after thinking it through, he also knew the situation wasn't that simple. A production of that scale created too much movement on set. Too many eyes, too many people, too many Momos. Silencing every single mouth, from the lead cast to the extras, was practically impossible.
Even so, he reacted immediately.
Everyone on set - actors, actresses, extras, and even backstage personnel with the slightest access to production - was made to sign strict confidentiality agreements. Until Stardust Crusaders: Egypt Arc finished airing, nobody was allowed to leak a single word about Bleach's third season. If a reporter asked, the only acceptable answer was a smile wrapped in ambiguity and a sentence that confirmed nothing.
On the set of Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War, Alex cleared his throat and coughed lightly.
Mark had been in terrible form that day. He had stalled over and over during filming, and Alex had already spent nearly half an hour tearing into him. His throat was genuinely starting to dry out.
The long-legged assistant noticed at once and quickly moved forward to refill his cup. But before she could reach him, another elegant figure had already stepped in and poured the tea first, so naturally it was almost offensive.
The assistant stopped dead, teeth grinding in frustration.
If it had been any other actress, she might have dared to push back. With Alex behind her, a second-tier actress wasn't exactly someone she needed to fear. But this woman was different.
Rebeca Verne.
Yes, that Rebeca Verne.
Even though the character she had played was long gone from the story, she was still showing up here. Her excuse was simple enough: she wanted to observe, to learn, to gain experience from being on set. That was what she said.
Alex glanced silently at the blocked contact still sitting in his message list and fell into a brief stretch of speechless contemplation.
Things were starting to drift into strange territory.
For a moment, he even found himself wondering whether Rebeca genuinely had some kind of submissive streak. In his previous life, he had read more than enough entertainment-industry novels, and in a ridiculous number of them there was always some lovestruck author treating a certain untouchable beauty like a goddess descended from heaven. That kind of nauseating worship had always disgusted him.
And now, absurdly enough, the situation had flipped on its head.
That same woman, once wrapped in an almost untouchable aura of superiority, was now standing here pouring tea for him of her own free will.
Thinking about it that way, Alex almost felt like he was delivering poetic justice on behalf of every reader who had ever rolled their eyes at that kind of ridiculous adoration.
It wasn't just the assistant who was bothered.
Emily, another top actress, and even the more mature women on set all wore unpleasant expressions. None of them could understand why Rebeca was here at all. She had no role, no scene, no purpose. Had she really come all this way just to hover around Alex and pour him tea?
Farther away, several of the male actors, including Mark - who had been verbally slaughtered all morning - had gathered at what they considered a safe distance. Every one of them tried to look casual, but the gossip burning in their eyes gave them away completely. The atmosphere of restrained curiosity was so obvious it was almost funny.
Mark, in particular, looked the most entertained out of all of them.
He had worked with both Alex and Rebeca before. Precisely because of that, the scene in front of him felt even more unbelievable. The woman who had once seemed like some untouchable celestial beauty was now standing there quietly and obediently, serving tea as though she had willingly taken on the role of Alex's personal attendant.
Who in their right mind could ever have imagined something like this?
Alex took the cup, cast a sidelong glance at Rebeca - who remained near him with a posture almost too docile - and said out of nowhere,
"You're actually starting to have a leading heroine's vibe."
Her eyes lit up immediately.
"Really?"
The joy came so quickly it almost looked childish. She had spent the past few days lingering around the set, watching everything she could, so the first thing that came to mind was that maybe her acting really had improved. After a fierce argument with her mother, she had simply run straight to Alex. There was something almost absurdly familiar about it, like a rebellious girl storming out after a fight at home and running to her boyfriend's place without thinking twice.
Before that excitement could settle, Emily stepped in with a cold, sharp smile and asked,
"Oh? And what about me? Do I have that leading-lady aura too?"
Alex didn't even blink.
"That's not a leading-lady aura. That's the aura of a simp."
For a second, Emily nearly choked on her own sarcasm.
Then she burst out laughing.
A simp?
That word hit with terrifying accuracy.
Years ago, when Rebeca had still been treated like some untouchable star, Emily had already played supporting roles around her. Who could have imagined that one day a word that humiliating, that painfully modern, would be used on the lofty, aloof Rebeca Verne of all people?
Rebeca, on the other hand, froze.
The excitement that had just brightened her face vanished on the spot, replaced by something stiff, wounded, and dark. It was true that in front of Alex - under the pressure of the overwhelming authority he carried in the industry - she instinctively lowered her guard and her pride. But that did not mean she had no dignity left at all.
Then Alex spoke again, and everything changed.
Like sunlight tearing through a cloudbank, her expression brightened all over again.
"When you get home, study Misa Amane more carefully."
Misa Amane.
The female lead of the second half of Death Note.
The role Rebeca had once desperately wanted to audition for, only for Alex to reject her without a trace of mercy.
For a moment, she could hardly believe what she had just heard.
Did that mean he was willing to give her another chance?
If there hadn't been so many people around, Rebeca might really have lost control and thrown herself into his arms on the spot. The joy rising inside her was fierce, radiant, impossible to hide.
Emily, however, did not share that relief in the slightest.
The laughter vanished from her face almost immediately, replaced by a heavy shadow.
"You're not seriously thinking about casting that box office poison as your female lead, are you?"
Her tone was hard and direct, making no effort whatsoever to hide her disdain.
Alex answered with the same calm he always carried.
"I'm only giving her a chance. I never said she was already chosen."
Emily fell silent.
She knew that expression well. When Alex spoke in that quiet, effortless way - without raising his voice, without trying to persuade anyone - it was precisely when he was being most sincere. And that was exactly why it irritated her even more.
Even if it wasn't a promise, the fact that Rebeca had been allowed into the competition at all was enough to make her furious.
Alex, of course, had his own reasons.
The impression Rebeca was giving off now - that almost irrational devotion, that willingness to lower herself, that tendency to orbit someone as if he were the center of her entire world - fit Misa Amane far too well. There was something in that surrender, in that insistence that bordered on humiliating, that unexpectedly aligned with the essence of the role.
But the competition for that part would be fierce.
After all, this production wasn't only aimed at the domestic market. The goal was to make money from overseas audiences too, which meant Alex's earliest candidates had leaned toward a different type entirely, including young Western actresses better suited to the international appeal he wanted to build.
As for Rebeca, for now she was nothing more than a possibility.
A curious possibility. An exception born from the very specific flavor she happened to give off at this moment.
Nothing more.
In the end, the person who would make the final decision was him - and him alone.
Emily understood that without needing another word. And because she understood it, she became even more annoyed. Even knowing Alex wasn't lying, she still couldn't accept the fact that Rebeca had been allowed onto the shortlist.
Her eyes shifted subtly, quick and bright, full of calculation.
Like a fox already sniffing out its next move, Emily lowered her gaze for a moment and began making plans in silence.
This was far from over.
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