"It was wrong of me to look into your private life without permission."
"As compensation, I've written in a new setting that should negate your price."
Rohan Kishibe spoke with a rare touch of humility as he retracted his hand from his Assassin.
"Stands truly are fascinating things. They possess the power to rewrite actual reality, yet they don't seem to require any heavy price from the user," Amber remarked softly, looking down at her own hand. It was currently fluttering like the pages of an open book.
[Every time her ability is activated, her age does not change.]
This was the "setting" Rohan had inscribed into her life using [Heaven's Door].
Normally, every time Amber triggered her power--whether it was to pause the world or rewind the clock--she would be forced to pay two years of her own life. Since she had been summoned as a Heroic Spirit in a form roughly twenty years old, she would have only been able to use her abilities ten times before vanishing forever.
Ten uses might sound like a lot, but in a high-intensity battle, she would have burned through that limit in minutes.
But now, under the influence of [Heaven's Door], the shackles of her [Remuneration] had been shattered. She could now utilize her mastery over time to its absolute limit.
And Amber's true strength didn't lie in direct combat. She was, quite possibly, the ultimate support.
She had the power to grant others the ability to act within stopped time, and even if she rewound the world to a previous point, she could allow her allies to retain their memories of the erased future.
Knowing this, Rohan realized he had drawn a true trump card.
Just moments ago, he had felt the ripples of a massive temporal disturbance. He didn't know which Servants had been involved, but the duration of the stop had exceeded ten minutes.
It was a terrifying prospect. Even Jotaro Kujo, the strongest man Rohan knew, could only manage a few seconds.
The fact that the magical energy had finally settled suggested that a winner had been decided, but the identity of the combatants remained a mystery.
Rohan felt a chill run down his spine as he considered the implications of such a long time-stop. If someone lacked the resistance to move in frozen time, they wouldn't even have a second choice. They would simply be executed where they stood.
Ten minutes was enough time for a Stand user to kill an opponent several dozen times over in a variety of creative ways.
At least with Amber by his side, constant death was no longer an absolute certainty.
'Heaven's Door still works on Servants. The best strategy is to find the perpetrator and use my ability to ensure they can never stop time for that long again.'
'But it certainly won't be easy.'
"Assassin, how many people can you simultaneously protect within a world of stopped time?"
"Moving a single person counts as a single activation of my power. Without the price, it's quite easy for me."
"However, if we take the duration into account... with our combined magical energy, I could sustain three people for roughly thirty minutes."
"Four people would drop that to fifteen minutes. With five... we would likely have less than five minutes of free movement."
Hearing Amber's breakdown, Rohan began counting on his fingers.
Jotaro Kujo. Josuke Higashikata. Koichi Hirose. Okuyasu Nijimura.
Including himself, that was exactly five people.
If they all moved together, they would have a five-minute window to operate in a frozen world. For a group of Stand users, five minutes was more than enough time to end almost any conflict.
'Come to think of it... what kind of Servant did Josuke get?'
Rohan suddenly remembered that the "delinquent" was also a Master. He hadn't seen Josuke since the war officially began.
"I should probably give them a call and see if they're still alive."
"Man... what the hell happened here?"
"Was it terrorists?"
"No... a Stand user?"
The intersection where Sakuya and Homura had clashed was already drawing a crowd of curious onlookers. The cratered pavement and the bullet-scarred walls looked like something out of a war zone.
"..."
Accelerator leaned on his cane, blending into the crowd as he observed the remnants of the battle.
He could tell these were the marks left by Servants, but he hadn't felt any surge of magical energy. Usually, a clash of this magnitude would have sent ripples through the leylines.
Hidden abilities? Some kind of spatial distortion?
Countless possibilities flickered through his mind as he let out a cold, sharp laugh.
This "war" was proving to be far more entertaining than he had expected.
Maintaining his usual arrogant stride, Accelerator turned and vanished into the night.
"Are you all right?"
Miyu looked at the blood-soaked Homura with wide, worried eyes.
From her perspective, it had only been a second since the war began. How had her Archer ended up in such a horrific state so quickly?
"I'm fine. I was just a little too careless."
"I didn't expect to run into another Master of time who was more proficient than I am."
Recalling Sakuya's surgical precision with the temporal axis, Homura knew she had been outmatched. She was lucky that their powers could cancel each other out, or she might not have been able to escape at all.
"?"
Miyu stood there, bewildered. From Homura's tone, it sounded like she had already been in a life-or-death struggle with another Servant.
How was that possible?
"I'll explain the details later. For now, we need to find somewhere to rest."
Homura began to draw upon her magical reserves to slowly knit her wounds back together.
'I have to find another way.'
She realized now that she couldn't win this war on her own.
With Sakuya Izayoi able to negate her time-stop at will, her primary advantage was gone. She was left with nothing but her conventional weapons--handguns and explosives.
For a Heroic Spirit, it was a pathetic arsenal.
While there might be a few brief windows where she could trigger a pause while her opponent was distracted, she could no longer rely on it as a guaranteed win.
The best move now would be to find an ally.
With the information she possessed, finding a partner shouldn't be too difficult. But in a war where everyone was a potential enemy, how could she find someone trustworthy?
"Okay... I mean, the summoning was technically a success, but this still feels wrong."
Natsuki Subaru sat on the ground, his eyes twitching as he stared at the figure that had emerged from the ritual circle.
He had used the [Four-Star Dragon Ball] as a catalyst to summon Son Goku.
That was the plan.
And technically, he had succeeded. Goku was here.
But he wasn't exactly the "Invincible God" Subaru had been expecting.
"Whoa! Where am I?!"
The boy wore a orange martial arts gi and had a [Power Pole] strapped to his back. Subaru recognized him immediately.
This was the "Protagonist" from the early days.
Summoned into the [Lancer] class was none other than [Kid Goku], long before he had ever learned how to become a Super Saiyan.
"Goku... have you ever participated in the World Martial Arts Tournament?"
"Yeah, I have!"
"Did you ever fight a guy with three eyes?"
"Nope!"
"Ah... so you haven't fought Tienshinhan yet."
"What about a hitman named Tao Pai Pai?"
"Huh?"
"Do you know the Red Ribbon Army?"
"Oh! Those bad guys!"
"Okay... I get it now."
Subaru sighed and covered his face with his hand.
'Well, even if it's not the Saiyan Saga version, early Goku is still a beast. He should be more than enough to handle most of these other guys.'
Subaru stood up, his mind shifting to a more pressing concern.
He had already sensed several long periods of stopped time since the war began. He looked at the curious, wide-eyed boy standing beside him and fell into deep thought.
[Translated and Rewritten by Shika_Kagura]