The dry wind of Arizona swept through the red earth of this wilderness, carrying grit.
Deep in the cave, the white light that had crossed time and space finally faded.
Shin felt the slightly parched red soil beneath his feet. Before he could even take a proper look at the Indian woman kneeling before him, his attention was pulled away by the group chat.
Since the "livestream" function was active by default during missions, the moment they had landed Shin and the Great Witch beside him had reached some kind of unspoken "mother-and-son understanding" — and both cut the feed simultaneously.
It wasn't that Shin was hiding anything — it was simply the Great Witch's request.
[Moon Princess]: Hey hey hey, what's going on? I'd just gotten my sunflower seeds and my soda ready, and before I could even see what this place looks like, the screen went dark?
Kaguya was playing dumb, of course — she knew Shin's group identity perfectly well.
[Moon Princess]: @Spreading Witch Factors — I say, mother-in-law, you're not taking my dear somewhere private to do something you can't show the public, are you?
None of which stopped Kaguya from needling the Great Witch, naturally. As far as she was concerned, she had every right as a wife to accompany her husband on a trip — far more right than this mother-in-law.
She trusted that her husband was no mama's boy.
[King of Britain]: It does seem a little strange. In past missions, [Yearning] has always been quite open about the livestream — why cut it this time?
[Lord of the Lands Between]: This mother is curious as well. Is there some kind of taboo at the landing site?
Shin stared at the flood of queries, and felt the corner of his eye twitch.
He'd have been happy to open the livestream — the problem was that the Great Witch standing beside him was currently giving him the look that said good children listen.
[Yearning to Become the Perfect Human Being]: Ah, apologies everyone. There was a slight hiccup with the landing site — the current environment is a bit… private. Not a good time to livestream.
He sent that, then quietly stole a glance at the Great Witch.
The Great Witch was maintaining her composed, aloof, divine bearing — but her typing speed in the group chat was astonishing.
[Spreading Witch Factors]: Nothing to worry about. I simply don't want certain busybodies (@Moon Princess) sticking their nose in.
[Spreading Witch Factors]: There's nothing for anyone to be concerned about. Sorry to trouble you all.
[Moon Princess]: Oh, is that right.
Kaguya kept pressing, clearly still annoyed about the Great Witch's pre-emptive move earlier.
[Moon Princess]: Something tells me mother-in-law has a guilty conscience. I wonder what my dear husband — that is, your son, mother-in-law — would make of his own mother running off to a private rendezvous in another world like this.
[Moon Princess]: …Hmm. Still hard to wrap my head around. If I were your son, I might start wondering if my mother was some kind of "devouring mother" — the type that raises her own child as a personal possession, harbouring certain unspoken desires that she dare not name…
"You — you are talking complete and utter nonsense!!"
The Great Witch broke in the real world this time, not just in the chat.
— But Shin had no intention of letting the group chat escalate into another round of their verbal sparring match. He reached over and gave the Great Witch's sleeve a quick tug, silently asking her not to rise to Kaguya's bait any further.
The Great Witch was still visibly bristling — and to be fair, in the art of verbal combat, she was nowhere near Kaguya's level. After an existence measured in tens of thousands of years, Kaguya had had an eternity of practice.
Inside the cave, the light was dim.
Shin and the Great Witch turned their attention to what lay before them.
A young Indian girl — tanned, wearing buckskin clothing — was pressed hard against the floor, trembling from head to foot. Her forehead was against the stone, and she was murmuring ancient ceremonial words in a language that took Shin a few sentences to decipher.
"Mother, it seems we've arrived at our destination."
"I know, Shaya — you could have at least said something in my defence in the chat…"
Shin reminded her softly, though the Great Witch was clearly a little cross with him too.
Still, she reined in her temper, bowed her head slightly, and looked at the mortal woman kneeling at her feet:
"So this is what humans look like in this world?"
"Quite different from those fair-skinned ones."
The Great Witch's brow knitted, her tone analytical. She clearly didn't know a great deal about the full breadth of humanity.
"Humans have considerable variation, Mother. Just as the people who committed those sins against the witch-folk were white-skinned humans — that doesn't mean every human is guilty."
"The differences between humans can sometimes be greater than the difference between humans and witches… Anyway, don't worry about it, Mother. She should be harmless — she's Native American."
Shin looked at the prostrate woman and felt a pang of something difficult to name. He didn't know if fate was actively at work here.
With the brain of an Ultimate Being, he had recognised her immediately — even though he hadn't specifically tried to memorise her when reading Part 7 of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.
She was Sandman's sister.
A background character in the SBR story, used to illustrate Sandman's mission. A brief arc — but one that had left a lasting impression on many readers.
Because she was a Native American.
A Native American. The protagonists of the greatest tragedy to unfold on the American continent in the nineteenth century.
"Well, Mother — let me show you something. Try to keep an open mind."
Shin stepped forward, his palm resting naturally on the Great Witch's shoulder.
[Soul Synchrony].
The moment the skill activated, Shin linked the information stored in his own memory about this land's history directly into the Great Witch's consciousness.
After all, the Great Witch was a woman of the fifteenth century, and this was the eighteenth. Some context was needed.
This was one of the conveniences his new skill offered — rather than explaining things in laborious words, he could share information as a direct, synchronised stream of consciousness.
The moment the information entered her, the Great Witch's pupils constricted sharply.
Through Shin's shared imagery, she saw too much that felt like something she already knew.
Countless figures in black robes, holding crosses, setting foot on this virgin land.
They cried out the name of God — yet their waists were armed with guns built for slaughter.
They traded blankets infected with smallpox to the people who had shared their food and water with them, leaving entire populations to weaken and die.
The Great Witch watched those gentle, innocent tribes being driven away. She watched them butchered like livestock, in wretched, forced marches toward nothing.
Countless Indian elders and children died in the winter wind, while the conquerors praised God's grace at the tops of their voices.
That was a sin. A sin that human beings could commit against their own kind, the same sin that had been committed against the witch-folk.
The Great Witch's expression changed. She was genuinely taken aback. She had thought that humanity's cruelty toward witches was already the worst of it.
She hadn't imagined they could do the same to fellow humans — simply because their skin was a different colour.
"So this is what they call… 'the future belongs to humanity?'"
The Great Witch narrowed her eyes. She pinched her fingertips together.
"…Humanity really had better just go extinct."
It wasn't quite one-to-one with what the other Great Witches had said — more like a case of doubling down.
She thought of Witch's Island.
She thought of the comrades who had been betrayed and calculated against by humans and killed.
In her fifteenth century, she hadn't yet seen the great armoured ships that crossed oceans. But she knew this pattern by heart.
That greed dressed up as faith. That blade swung down on "the different" by those who called themselves the superior life.
Those other Great Witches had said the future was in humanity's hands — and here was that future, three centuries on. This was humanity's future?
"Easy, Mother."
"You can see — humans treat even people of different skin colours as enemies. Which means those who committed sins against the witch-folk certainly couldn't represent all of humanity, correct?"
Shin soothed his loli mother. His intent had been to show her that humanity was not universally guilty.
"Raise your head, girl."
Shin turned his gaze to the prostrate figure of Sandman's sister and spoke to her — in the Native American language he had mastered in the space of a few seconds:
"As you can see before you, the one who has descended is a deity, and I am the herald who serves her. The deity shall return justice and hope to your people."
"Now — rise. Return to your tribe, and await the coming of a righteous reckoning."
Shin opened the black wings on his back, their dark expanse carrying a wordless authority that confirmed everything he had said.
"I will obey, divine herald—"
Sandman's sister dared not linger. She pressed her forehead twice to the ground with each retreating step, backing out of the cave — Shin caught a glimpse of her eyes, brimming with tears. He wasn't quite sure how he felt about it.
"Shaya — what are you planning?"
The Great Witch blinked. Their mission was to recover the Saint's Corpse — but she wasn't against letting Shin make some noise along the way.
After all, the nation that had been built on this land of America had more than a few threads connecting it to the Holy Church — might as well collect a bit of interest from the enemy ahead of time.
"Heh heh. Exactly what you're thinking, Mother."
"Since this continent's foreign rulers love their 'God' so much, and love using divine will to justify themselves — why don't we give them a real divine judgment?"
Now it truly was a witch trial — but the one banging the gavel would be a witch.
Of course, it wasn't entirely without personal motive. These people had stepped directly on his mother's pain point, after all.
With his and the Great Witch's combined power, rather than quietly following the original SBR storyline, it would be far more effective to step boldly into the open and seize the initiative over this world.
"What do you want to do, Shaya?"
"This mission is to recover the Saint's Corpse. If possible, I'd also like to settle the score with Heaven-Attained DIO — the one who nearly got Merrow hurt last time."
Shin looked around the primitive, sacred cave, his tone carrying a certain unruffled let chaos reign:
"Mother — I have an idea. Since this land's foreign rulers believe in God, let's give them a true 'God.'"
"I'll stay hidden as your right hand of God."
"And you, Mother — on this land, perform the miracles freely."
He gestured toward the sweeping wilderness beyond the cave mouth — that vast, boundless terrain, fertile and wild, nurtured by the Mississippi below.
With the Great Witch's power, playing God in the JoJo world was absolutely within her means.
And now that Shin thought about it — hadn't his loli mother always had a slight resemblance to a certain Dove… The thirteen apprentice witches corresponding to the thirteen disciples, the witch factor spread as original sin across all mankind — in a certain sense, the parallel was rather neat.
"Act as the voice of this land, as its true 'Lord.'"
"And go tell those who think themselves civilised and yet have stained humanity's finest virtues — tell those greedy opportunists—"
"The true Judgment — has arrived."
The Great Witch paused. Then, on that flawless face, there bloomed a smile that could make the whole of the American continent tremble.
She raised her right hand, index finger pointed toward the sky in cooperation.
"…?"
"This idea, Mama likes very much, Shaya."
And then, the Great Witch slowly extended her left hand — gloved in black silk — index finger aimed downward.
"Then — let it begin from here."
The Great Witch "Snow" — or Yuki — rose into the air, her movements unhurried, her expression serene. Yet what followed was a movement of the earth itself.
RUMBLE——!
The Indian girl who had just retreated to the cave entrance dropped to her knees again, her reverence multiplying a hundredfold.
And as she looked up once more—
The entire mountain in which the cave was set had begun to roar. And then—
It tore free of the earth. Rose into the sky. And hovered.
"O Spirit… O great Spirit…!"
"Please grant our people a future — please grant us the right to live—"
At this moment, the number prostrating themselves was far more than just Sandman's sister.
"That's — a miracle. My God, a miracle!"
"The sacred land — the sacred land is flying!"
"The great Earth Mother has descended — oh, Spirit — we knew you had never forsaken us…!"
All across the region, Native Americans who had felt the upheaval fell to their knees.
With devout eyes, they worshipped the floating mountain — their tribe's holy place, ascending.
They pressed their foreheads to the ground again and again, tears streaming down their faces. It was as though they were giving thanks for having finally crossed whatever trial and hardship the Spirit had placed before them.
Beneath the blazing noon sun, beneath the vast vault of sky stretching across Arizona — the shadow of the enormous floating mountain seemed to blot out the sun itself.
The titanic mountain hung in the sky, making residents of Arizona who witnessed it from the distance rub their eyes and question whether they were dreaming.
Not only Arizona.
At this moment, across every inch of American soil in 1890 — whether they were officers keeping order at a railway station, or SBR competitors who had come early to scope out the race — or the politicians sitting in the White House in Washington—
Every single one of them, at the same moment, heard a voice that resounded through the soul.
"People of this earth—"
It was not spoken in any mortal tongue, yet every listener, regardless of language or race, instantly understood every word.
It was the proclamation of a god.
It was a voice of judgment, capable of shattering the arrogance of an entire age.
"You who have circled these lands driven by greed, you who have broken faith with vile cunning and treachery."
The Great Witch's voice rolled through the sky above and spread across the fertile soil of this continent:
"I am a deity. I am the deity of this land. And I am the 'Lord' you speak of as all-powerful."
"The sins you have committed upon this holy ground — the sins committed in the false shelter of my name — have been seen by me and are known to me."
The voice carried high, rang to the far horizon, and echoed without end.
"All you who bear original sin against virtue and goodness — kneel. Repent your greed and your arrogance."
"For the great day of His wrath is come near."
"Near, and hasteneth greatly — the voice of the day of the Lord — the mighty man shall cry there bitterly!"
(The Old Testament — Zephaniah 1:14)
"Return the remains I have left upon this earth, and then tread carefully as you repent your sins — and perhaps I shall spare your lives."
With the Great Witch's final words, it was as if a storm swept through the whole of the American continent.
— That last sentence had been Shin's addition, since they were already broadcasting to the whole server, so they might as well take care of the mission objective at the same time.
From Arizona to Washington, the spectators who had come early for the SBR race found their legs giving out beneath them, sinking helplessly to the ground under the weight of that divine pressure, like mountains collapsing.
Sand flew. The sky and earth changed colour. Only the floating mountain above held peace and stillness.
Shin stood in the shadow of the cave, watching the Great Witch's stance — one finger to heaven, one finger to earth — and genuinely could not decide whether this was supremely overdramatic or supremely cool.
Either way — from here on out, the real show was about to begin.
To be continued…
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