---o---
The instant Kars was about to strike Joseph, Joseph instinctively held up the Red Stone of Aja as a shield.
It was a purely subconscious action; even Joseph himself was bewildered, not understanding why his body had moved that way.
The next moment, however, a miracle occurred...
The intense, crimson Hamon was suddenly redirected by the Red Stone.
"The Red Stone... it can deflect Kars's Hamon, and... it's an amplifier for Hamon," Joseph said, his voice incredibly weak. He no longer had the strength to stand.
He had blocked the blow, but then what? Kars was completely unharmed. They were still no match for him. The situation remained just as hopeless.
Joseph thought helplessly. The redirected crimson Hamon shot directly toward the volcano's crater. In an instant, like a lit fuse, this power became the final straw that triggered the eruption. Mount Fuji... had reached its breaking point and was about to blow.
The light of the Hamon raced down the volcano and struck its core. The next moment, a far more powerful force surged from the depths of the earth... the volcano erupted!
With an unstoppable force, the rock platform beneath Joseph and Kars was torn from the ground by the subterranean shockwave and launched into the sky.
"Old man!! How is this possible?! They've both been thrown into the air by the eruption!!"
Jotaro Kujo cried out in shock, but he had no time to stay stunned. Lava was already spewing from the crater and fissures in the rock.
He couldn't stay here. At this rate, even with Star Platinum protecting him, he would still die.
With no time to worry about Joseph's fate, the invincible Jotaro Kujo and Star Platinum could only flee in the face of nature's power.
The scene shifted to Kars and Joseph, now soaring through the sky, both clinging to the flying slab of rock.
"This is..." Even as the Ultimate Lifeform, Kars was astonished by this terrifying power. Although he considered himself to have conquered the sun and the Earth, the sheer might of nature was on a level he could never hope to challenge.
"This power is indeed immense, but JOJO, do you really think a mere volcanic eruption can destroy me, Kars?"
"Heh heh, watch as I turn into a bird and escape. Farewell, JOJO!" As he spoke, his hands transformed into wings, taking on the same form he had used to pursue Joseph earlier.
Watching Kars prepare to fly away, Joseph clutched his left arm in pain. He had already lost all strength to fight back. And even if he could still use Hamon or Hermit Purple, it would be utterly meaningless against Kars.
But just then, a surreal scene unfolded, causing the audience outside the light curtain to gape in astonishment.
Just as Kars was about to fly away, a hand seized him by the throat. It was Joseph's severed arm, gripping Kars's neck with a deathly hold.
"N-No wonder... this is the power of the Earth. It easily accomplished what I could not... launching my arm all the way up here."
Joseph was clearly stunned by the sight, muttering to himself in utter disbelief.
The audience outside the light curtain found it simply preposterous. Fate was too absurd. A normal human's severed arm had just grabbed Kars by the neck, and Kars couldn't even break free. If there wasn't something fishy going on, who would believe it?
"Wh-What is this?" Kars was thoroughly terrified by this turn of events. Not only was his neck being squeezed, but the pressure of the high altitude was also immobilizing his body.
"That's right, Kars!" Although he didn't know what was happening, Joseph saw that the advantage had shifted to him. He pointed at Kars and said with a grin, "Kars, your next line is: 'Was this also part of your plan, JOJO!?'"
Enduring the pressure on his neck, Kars struggled to speak. "Was this also part of your plan..."
In that instant, the moment Kars uttered those words, he had already lost the battle. The trajectory of his fate had been completely altered.
During Kars's moment of distraction, a piece of molten rock that he could have otherwise dodged slammed into him, sending him flying even higher!
This time, he flew higher and faster than ever before, beyond all imagination.
"Was this also part of your plan, JOJO!?" With a cry filled with resentment and the declaration of a loser, Kars flew completely out of Joseph's sight, ascending ever higher.
"Oh hahahaha! Of course it was, Kars!!!" Joseph raised his fist in front of him and shouted back.
"Everything was within my, JOJO's, calculations!!!" His voice grew louder, as if afraid Kars wouldn't hear him.
However, only Joseph knew the truth. It was all a complete bluff, said only because he knew it would infuriate Kars.
The scalding ejecta left Earth's atmosphere, flying into the vast expanse that humanity had always sought to explore—the sea of stars, space!
Even the power of the Earth could not kill Kars, but the Earth itself had chosen another method. It... exiled Kars, banishing him completely beyond the atmosphere.
"St... Stars? H-How is that possible?" Kars stared blankly at the scene before him, the Earth shrinking rapidly below. He had been blasted into outer space by Mount Fuji's eruption.
"JO—JO!!!" With one final cry in this lifetime, Kars could never again set foot on the planet below.
At that moment, Joseph, who had been launched into the sky alongside him, lay quietly on the rock platform, awaiting his own end.
"Goodbye, Grandma Erina... Grandpa Speedwagon... Goodbye, my future wife and grandson... Goodbye, everyone..."
Having succeeded in exiling a god into space, the exhaustion and pain wracking his body had broken Joseph's spirit. He could only close his eyes helplessly, as if bidding farewell to this beautiful world.
Though he was dying in a foreign land, Grandma Erina would surely be proud if she knew what he had accomplished. It was just a pity for her; after losing her husband and son, she was now about to lose her last grandson as well.
The Joestar family, in the end, could not escape the curse of a short life. Back then, Jonathan Joestar and Dio had perished together at the bottom of the sea. And now, he, Joseph Joestar, would follow Jonathan, taking Kars down with him.
Finally, Joseph and the rock platform plummeted toward the earth, his fate unknown...
---o---
Meanwhile, on the other side, Kars was still struggling.
"No... it's not time to give up yet! Fate will always be on my side! I, Kars, am the chosen one! This Kars... will absolutely not lose!!"
Tubes capable of expelling gas sprouted from his back. Kars intended to use the pressure difference to propel himself back to Earth.
But... as the Ultimate Lifeform, he had overlooked one thing. The temperature in space is extremely low. The air would freeze almost instantly!
The next moment, the tubes on Kars's back began to freeze over at a visible rate. The ice spread rapidly across his back, his face, and finally, his entire body.
"It's no use... I can't go back... I'm... I'm frozen!!!"
He instinctively extended the light blades from his hands, trying desperately to break free from his icy prison, but to little effect.
"The air... it's frozen! The expelled air is instantly cooled!!"
And so, Kars was never able to return to Earth. He became a being somewhere between mineral and life, doomed to wander the cosmos for eternity. And because he was immortal, he could not even die if he wished to.
Soon... Kars stopped thinking.
---o---
Light Curtain Barrage
Kars was defeated. Although it felt like a plot-mandated defeat, it was inseparable from Joseph's efforts.
From the severed hand appearing out of nowhere to Kars being launched directly into space by a volcano, none of it seemed normal. When so many coincidences collide, they cease to be coincidences.
However, more than the workings of fate, the audience outside the light curtain was concerned about the current states of Kars and Joseph.
Detective Conan: "'Stopped thinking,' not 'died.' Does this mean that even that unseen hand of fate can no longer kill Kars?"
Frowning, he noted that the light curtain never said Kars was dead, which meant he was almost certainly still alive. And as long as he was alive, there was a possibility he could cause harm again. Space is infinite. Even if Kars has left Earth, he could be discovered by some other alien civilization, revived, and resume his evil. His intelligence and abilities are simply too monstrous. Letting him drift freely could lead to a universal catastrophe.
Yukino Yukinoshita: "This might be the only character on the light curtain left in a state of living death. Though not truly dead, this state is far more cruel. To be eternally undying, reduced to space debris."
Unlike Conan, Yukino felt this resolution was quite fitting. Although Kars wasn't dead, forever wandering the void of space, alive but having completely given up on thought, was a punishment far crueler than death. For a creature as wicked as Kars, such a penalty was perfectly suitable.
Hero-King: "To think he could be made to exit the stage in such a manner. This king has been treated to quite a fine show. A buffoon will always be a buffoon. To foolishly dream of reigning over humanity... what a laughable and pathetic creature."
Gilgamesh offered his merciless scorn. After all, for this king—though he wouldn't say it aloud—he was, and always would be, the King of Uruk. He would not permit the existence of condescending gods, nor would he tolerate a self-proclaimed god like Kars.
Utaha Kasumigaoka: "The light curtain didn't say Joseph died either. But falling from such a height, and with his left arm already gone... it's hard to imagine him surviving."
At Toyogasaki Academy, Utaha, resting her head on her desk, mused. It wasn't that she wanted to see Joseph die, but from a purely logical standpoint, the chances of him surviving that fall were far too low, almost impossible.
Old Joseph: "Hmm, that's right. The process of defeating Kars was more or less the same as what happened to me back then, but due to various factors, my chances of survival here are indeed slim."
In the JoJo Part 3 timeline, an elderly Joseph analyzed the situation. He knew that his own survival had involved a great deal of luck. But surviving this time would be much more difficult. Setting aside everything else, the severed arm alone was a critical problem. In his past, he had relied on Stroheim and the world's finest German science to build a mechanical left hand.
But the world of Demon Slayer clearly lacked that level of technology. It wasn't just the technology; the medical care for treating and healing such a wound was completely incomparable to the conditions he had. He knew that if the wound became infected, the consequences would be dire, not to mention the damage from a high-altitude fall.
---o---
Light Curtain
With the defeat of the Ultimate Lifeform and Joseph's fall from thousands of feet in the air, the video shifted back to the ground.
The disaster from the volcanic eruption had already spread across most of Japan, turning the area around Asakusa into a scene of apocalyptic devastation.
A massive rock platform fell from the sky, shrinking continuously from air friction but still enormous as it plummeted. Joseph lay unconscious on its surface.
But just then, as the rock was about to crash into the ground, a figure appeared...
"Yare Yare Daze." Radiating a golden aura and an invincible presence, Jotaro Kujo, for reasons unknown, was flying. He floated in the air, silently watching the unconscious Joseph.
"You did it, old man!" Jotaro murmured in admiration before quickly activating Star Platinum to begin the rescue.
One could truly say Star Platinum was all-powerful. It all happened in a flash. Just as the rock platform was about to hit the ground, Jotaro used Star Platinum to intercept Joseph's descent into death.
As for how he knew Joseph was on that rock, or how Joseph had defeated the seemingly invincible Kars—these things could only be attributed to the word "fate."
Kars was not the one chosen by destiny. Joseph was. Or rather... the Joestars were.
By seeking to conquer the Earth after becoming the Ultimate Lifeform, Kars had placed himself in direct opposition to fate itself.
Kars's destiny was to become the Ultimate Lifeform. And Joseph's destiny... was to defeat the Ultimate Lifeform!
And Joseph, the man who defeated the Ultimate Lifeform, had lost his left hand and was severely injured. However, in the world of Demon Slayer, his injuries were not entirely without remedy. After all, if a congenital illness like Kibutsuji Muzan's could be cured, the medical science of this world was not as weak as one might imagine.
---o---
Author's Note:
PS: DIO and Kars can definitely not meet. Kars would never see DIO as a partner or a friend, and DIO would never permit a being stronger than himself like Kars to exist.
---o---