Traversal complete. Landing confirmed.
Anthony felt like he was about to throw up. Unfortunately, souls don't get that luxury.
The chat group's idea of world traversal was apparently to stuff a person into a front-loading washing machine, spin them violently for an indeterminate amount of time, and then hurl them into an entirely new world. Whack whack whack. Done. Enjoy your destination.
He was dizzy as hell.
Worse, he could feel a powerful gravitational force tugging at his back. Not the JoJo world rejecting him — no, it was the Primordial River, still chasing him down like a debt collector who doesn't know when to quit.
Oh, for the love of — so what if I'm your Earth-Bound Spirit? Why are you chasing me this hard?
Anthony endured the relentless drag that was only amplifying his already skull-splitting vertigo, forced the corner of his mouth into something resembling composure, and steadied himself.
According to the chat group, he had one hour.
I'll need to find a way to deal with this problem eventually… but for now, there's no time to waste.
He glanced down at himself. His soul drifted in midair, suspended inside what appeared to be a dim, shadowy castle. And there, ahead of him — another translucent soul, hovering just the same.
"Jonathan Joestar?"
Anthony raised a hand in greeting.
Jonathan seemed to stiffen for a moment. Then, gradually, he recovered — turning toward Anthony and offering a perfectly proper, perfectly gentlemanly bow.
"You must be Mr. Anthony. My regards."
A brief pause, and then he added: "The flow of time seems to have… stabilized. Temporarily, at least. It may be because of your arrival."
That was good news.
Anthony gave a short nod and got straight to the point. "Time is limited. Let's skip the pleasantries."
"Where is DIO right now?"
Jonathan gestured off to one side. Anthony drifted over — and found DIO, fast asleep inside his coffin.
Right. Just as expected. Same as in canon — DIO needed a considerable length of time to fully adapt to Jonathan's body…
"Is it daytime right now?"
The question came out of nowhere. Jonathan answered immediately.
"It should be. The fact that he isn't moving means it's daylight — the sunlight that vampires despise."
Anthony exhaled. A quiet breath of relief.
Good. Heaven and earth are both on our side.
"Get ready. We're about to hit DIO where it hurts."
Anthony turned to face Jonathan and laid it out. "I can't say exactly how long you'll have — but the moment you're back in your body, you need to activate the Ripple as fast as humanly possible."
"DIO's vampire nature conflicts directly with your Ripple. He's still in the middle of the adaptation phase, which means there are still residual traces of your Ripple energy inside that body. If you channel the Ripple now, the resulting clash should hit him hard — probably not enough to shatter him outright, but it should cause him to temporarily lose control of the body. Even a brief window is what we need."
He reached up as he spoke and pulled the fishing rod straight out of his own skull — which made Jonathan blink sideways at him with mild, bemused surprise.
…Where exactly did that come from?
"I believe I understand your meaning," Jonathan said, composing himself. "After he loses control, I attempt to sever the bond between my soul and this body — and use that to reclaim some freedom of movement?"
"Roughly, yes — though that's not all of it. If luck is on our side, we might be able to squeeze out a little more than that…"
"Let's try it first and see."
With a casual, almost offhand motion, Anthony cast the line.
Instantly, a flash of silver-white light ran along the rod. On Anthony's status panel, the lifespan counter began plummeting at a terrifying rate — until it bottomed out at exactly twenty-four hours remaining.
The hook landed on Jonathan's soul.
In that instant, Jonathan felt a surge of energy welling up from somewhere deep within his soul — ceaseless and powerful — and then, the body that had once been his sent out an overwhelming pull, like a tide dragging him home…
One moment later, he was back inside his own body. But the hook remained latched to his soul, and through that connection, Anthony's voice carried across.
"By my estimate, accounting for the rate of drain — you've got about twenty minutes."
With the Primordial River's resistance cut out of the equation, the efficiency shot up dramatically.
Jonathan didn't reply. He used every fraction of a second, reaching inward through the wreckage of his battered body, hunting for the nodes — and then, in that ruined vessel, began channeling the Ripple.
In the eyes of the soul watching from outside, it looked as though his very pupils had caught fire — burning gold.
"DIO Brando… I have come back for you!"
............
It had been several days since DIO had been hauled up from the sea.
In that time, he had worked without pause — expanding his power base, and forcing himself to adapt to Jonathan's body.
If he was being honest, the residual Ripple energy lingering in the body had cost him a tremendous amount of effort to manage. An irritating inconvenience.
But it was still within his capabilities. A few more days of quiet recuperation inside this coffin, and he would achieve perfect, seamless control over this body. Every last trace of Jonathan's Ripple would be gone.
That was what DIO had believed — right up until today.
He had been lying in his coffin, resting peacefully, when something felt… wrong. Something deep in his vampire nature seemed to be screaming. He frowned.
He assumed it was a minor issue. Something trivial.
And then — without any warning whatsoever — Jonathan's body began channeling the Ripple on its own.
DIO's eyes flew open.
Even his pupils flickered — wild, unsteady, gripped by a shock he could not conceal.
What…?
For DIO, this was nothing short of horrifying. It was like lying perfectly still while the blood in your own veins abruptly decided to shout "What the hell — I'M ON FIRE!" and then spontaneously combusted. From the inside. Without permission.
This was, objectively, completely unreasonable. He wanted that on the record.
But after that single instant of pure, stunned incomprehension, DIO forced himself to go cold. He began to think.
Whatever was happening, the immediate priority was to deal with—
"DIO Brando!"
A voice. From inside his own body.
DIO's pupils contracted to pinpoints. He lurched upright, spine rigid, cold dread crawling up his back in waves.
That voice—
That voice.
He would never forget it. Not even in his worst nightmares. Especially in his worst nightmares — it was the voice that could wake him screaming.
Jonathan Joestar.
Was this a hallucination?
DIO snapped his gaze down to the body — Jonathan's body — his expression a storm of disbelief and alarm. He was just about to act when he felt it: the Ripple accelerating. Faster and faster.
It had started at the lungs, radiating down toward the soles of the feet. Now it was climbing — already past the ankles, already creeping up toward the shins—
DIO felt, with absolute certainty, that something was very wrong.
And then the voice came again, resonating from somewhere deep inside his own stolen frame:
"It has been a long time, DIO. I truly never expected you to still be alive. But since you are…"
"Then I must settle the fate I failed to see through to its end!"
In that instant, DIO felt something in his brainstem stutter and go blank.
By the time the sensation passed, the Ripple was still spreading — relentless, inevitable — and DIO stared down at his own body, and the words that came out of his mouth were almost unconscious:
"Jonathan — you didn't die?!"
............
Meanwhile, Anthony stood nearby — invisible, intangible, gripping the fishing rod in one hand.
With his free hand, he pulled up the chat group panel. Scrolled around for a while. Found the livestream interface. Tapped it open and started broadcasting to the group.
His gut told him this was about to be extremely entertaining.
Time to go live. Your host has arrived.
____
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