Yimi hated pain. She hated it intensely—enough that under normal circumstances she would have done anything to avoid it. But she hated the thought of never getting home even more. The wound would heal. As long as she made it back, there would be someone to comfort her no matter how much it hurt.
He had no time to react.
This was different from a scratch. Once Famine's "toxic" blood entered the body, the only way to stop the effect was a perfect, total purge. Short of that, this body would starve until it gave out.
In the fraction of a second Valentine's mind flashed through his options—already preparing to switch bodies—the blood twisted away from his eyes at the last centimeter, deflected by gold light.
Simultaneously, from the window behind him, a woodcutter somewhere in the distance collapsed. His body went strangely, unnaturally hollow.
Valentine looked down at the golden radiance coating his entire body. He understood at once.
"I see now… Where sunlight falls, shadow must follow. And on the other side of any place touched by fortune, someone will always be there to carry its opposite…"
"In the eyes of God, fortune and misfortune are two values that add to zero."
He had been completely wrong. The land wasn't compressing—it was converging. Objects carrying "fortune" were being drawn toward this golden rift, while "harmful things" were being expelled to land on some stranger far away. Only the good remained within the rift.
Lucy was completing her transformation into the Corpse. But the one truly receiving the miracle was him—which meant he had inherited the privilege of automatically redirecting every misfortune away from himself.
『D4C · Love Train』
This was his reward for facing the trial head-on. D4C had ascended to a height he hadn't dared to imagine.
"Lucy Steel—you really are a goddess…" Valentine glanced into the corner of the carriage.
A green hat sat there. This world's conductor—the one who hadn't put it on yet.
His expression darkened. "Be grateful you existed to become the offering from which the Corpse took shape. I'll honor my promise and build you the statue you deserve." A measured pause. "Full nude, naturally."
With Love Train's protection wrapping him, he stepped out through the carriage window without ceremony. The golden rift held him aloft above the speeding train, and Yimi—galloping in pursuit—came into view directly ahead.
The Holy Corpse that gathers fortune upon this land—something like that must absolutely not belong to those random, unknown people. He loved this country. He loved this land. And he would let this same happiness wash over every inch of it.
What misfortune that love might displace beyond these borders—that was not his concern.
"Mrow!" The healed cat didn't hesitate. She bit into her own paw again and flung the blood.
It curved away at the last moment, just as before.
"Somewhere in a distant corner, 'misfortune alone' will befall some ordinary stranger—not this place." Valentine felt no urgency. He explained his current state with perfect composure.
"Ngh—"
The dark horse's rider re-emerged. One hand gripped the scales; the other hadn't bothered with the reins—it was locked around the pendant hanging from its chest, shielding it as it drove straight for Valentine. Hoof prints pressed deep into the soft earth, each one bare of iron shoes.
A fist with the force to punch through brick walls swung at Valentine's face. A man a hundred miles away was hit in the face by falling rock.
"Is this your final gambit? So be it." Valentine raised the reloaded revolver and pressed the barrel toward the rider's face, pulling the trigger without a flicker of hesitation.
Famine dodged—barely—but still caught a bullet through the shoulder. That wasn't the point.
The point was: Valentine felt his own shoulder collapse under the same force.
"Nani?!" America's president produced a single word of Japanese.
How?
At the same instant, Yimi—cradled in Famine's other arm—launched herself upward and bit down on the golden rift itself.
She had genuinely bitten into it. Valentine watched the small cat hang from the crack in space, teeth visibly embedded, gnawing a notch into something that had no physical form.
Of course. How had he forgotten? The Holy Corpse was sacred—and this cat was equally a herald of the divine. The Horseman, symbol of injustice, would naturally be untouched by injustice.
D4C materialized between them. Careless of the cost, it drove a punch straight for the Horseman's temple—willing to trade life for life. Valentine had never feared death. Not once.
But the blow's force was deflected.
"What is this?" Valentine understood instantly. D4C's attack—D4C's own inflicted misfortune—had been redirected outward, same as his own. The tables had turned.
Yimi chewed thoughtfully. In her small, clear voice, she delivered her verdict on the miraculous rift:
"Tastes good."
"UOOOOOOOH!!"
Something shifted—the rider's vast indifference ignited all at once into ferocity. Both hands plunged into the golden rift. And tore.
Valentine had underestimated her.
In his final moment in this body, he was filled with nothing but regret. He had let the ball of fluff on the outside blind him to what Revelation had promised about the end of days.
The cat landed on top of his head, raked three lines down the back of his neck, and kicked him off the train. Valentine hit the ground and rolled—thirty-three full revolutions—while Yimi walked the length of the golden rift toward the fully assembled Holy Corpse.
> [Achievement Unlocked: "Defeated an 8-Meter-Class Giant"]
> Reward: Portal Energy +5%
The golden rift warped. The complete Holy Corpse manifested before her. This—this was her way home.
Famine's gaunt hand closed around a black fish it had somehow retrieved, crushed it, and sprinkled the matter over the cat's fatal wounds.
The Holy Corpse drew back its scattered golden radiance. Yimi bit down on it whole. The vast divine nature flooded through her flickering Spirit Power and brought with it something she could not suppress—a wave of pain unlike anything she had felt before.
—
Elsewhere, the man who had rolled thirty-three times across the ground had, by some twist of fortune, been caught under the rear wheels of the train in the final moment—completing the conditions for D4C's clamping ability. The Stand carried him through.
The new Valentine rose slowly to his feet.
"This isn't over."
But from somewhere behind him, a voice he did not want to hear drifted forward:
"Johnny, stop fiddling with that armor of yours. Did anything I just said actually register?"
"But you refused to teach me from the start—and it'd be strange for an outsider to learn your family's exclusive technique anyway, wouldn't it? Besides, I figured out yesterday that this armor can slow down time. Or speed me up, maybe? If I run into that cat again, I should find a set for you too."
"Hmm… But you're already managing to stand on your own. Maybe you could marry into our family."
"Do you have a sister? Or a younger one?"
"I have a younger brother."
"Impossible."
"Ha—I'm joking." A pause. "…Hey, doesn't that good-looking fellow over there look kind of familiar?"
The gold-toothed rider shielded his eyes with both hands—though the distance between them had already closed to under five meters.
Silence settled over the road for a few seconds.
"…Wait."
Johnny, who hadn't taken off his armor even on horseback, reached for his waist.
『One, two, three—』
『RIDER KICK』