"..."
Time remained frozen, yet Jotaro noticed that DIO made no move to attack.
A question flickered in his mind.
Back in Cairo, DIO had used every possible second of his stopped time to try and end Jotaro's life. Why was he being so hesitant now?
'The nine-second mark is almost here.'
'There is no point in wasting my strength on Jotaro. He's an outsider to this war.'
As he counted the passing seconds, DIO came to a decision.
He had no intention of clashing with Jotaro Kujo tonight.
From any logical perspective, a deathmatch now offered him absolutely no benefit. In fact, it carried the immense risk of "Narrative Correction." If their Stands clashed, the weight of history might simply dictate his defeat once again.
The smartest move was to withdraw and avoid Jotaro until he had a concrete advantage.
"!"
To Jotaro's absolute shock, DIO simply vanished from existence right before his eyes.
"What?!"
Jotaro's brow furrowed into a deep V. He couldn't grasp the nature of the ability DIO had just used.
In that same instant, the flow of time resumed.
"Hmph. Jotaro, our final battle will have to wait for another day."
"Today is still far too early for us to finish things."
The remnant of DIO's voice echoed through the narrow street, but there was no trace of his physical presence.
"Damn it. What was that?"
He couldn't find a single footprint. He didn't even know if DIO was still lurking in the shadows, waiting for an opening.
The way he had simply disappeared was a power Jotaro had never seen him use before.
'Wait... could it be?'
He remembered his encounter with Josuke and Sakuya Izayoi earlier that evening. If he recalled correctly, Josuke's Servant had vanished into thin air in much the same way.
'Is this an ability shared by all Servants?'
Realizing that he was up against a system with many secrets yet to be revealed, Jotaro felt his resolve harden.
The bastard who had cost him his friends had been brought back as a Servant.
There was no way Jotaro Kujo was going to let that slide.
"DIO... I don't care where you hide. I will find you, and I will be the one to personally send you back to hell."
"Hmph... Jotaro. I bet you didn't see that coming. This is my true escape route!"
Having completely vanished from his rival's sight by shifting into [Spirit Form], DIO felt a massive weight lift from his shoulders.
This was the greatest advantage of being a Servant rather than a normal Stand user.
As long as he remained in his [Spirit Form], it was almost impossible for someone like Jotaro to catch or harm him. He could simply drift away and watch from a safe distance.
"Hmm?"
"Is that guy already in a fight?"
"I can sense the aura of another Servant nearby."
"Interesting."
Sensing a disturbance from Diavolo's direction, DIO's mood instantly improved.
He decided to head toward the commotion and see what kind of opponent his "Master" had managed to stumble upon.
"It doesn't really matter who wins. It won't affect me either way."
With a callous, indifferent attitude, DIO glided through the air toward the source of the magical energy.
'How is this happening?'
'Why can't I even get near him?'
Diavolo stared at the white-haired teenager walking toward him with a cane, his expression a mask of frustrated tension.
He had initially thought he had found a Lone Servant that he could easily eliminate. With the power of [King Crimson], even a Heroic Spirit should have been a simple target.
But the future shown to him by [Epitaph] was deeply disturbing.
With [Epitaph], Diavolo could see more than ten seconds into the future.
In every single vision of the immediate future, his attempts to attack or even approach the teenager resulted in an "awkward" failure.
Before he could even touch the boy, he would find himself being violently blasted backward. Even when he manifested his Stand to force a path, it was futile.
As a result, he was stuck in a tense standoff with the boy, unable to find a single opening.
"What's wrong? You jumped out with such confidence, and yet this is all you have to show for it?"
Accelerator looked at the man's face and instantly knew he was one of the Masters.
For someone to have the guts to stand directly in his path like this... they certainly had courage. Or idiocy.
He had been waiting to see what kind of trick the man would try, but the octopus-headed freak had done nothing but stand there and stare as if he were having a stroke.
Tap!
"If you aren't going to move... then it's my turn."
Accelerator's cane struck the pavement with a sharp, resonant sound as a cold smirk played across his lips.
"!"
"?"
The moment Accelerator lifted his leg to move, he suddenly realized his position had changed.
"He's gone?"
He looked at the empty street where Diavolo had been standing just a moment ago.
"What the hell was that?"
Accelerator had no memory of actually moving.
He had intended to use his vectors to "reflect" his own acceleration and close the distance in a flash, slamming into the man and ending him instantly.
But his "speed" had felt strangely abnormal.
It was so fast that even he hadn't reacted to the intervening process.
That was impossible. He calculated every vector of his movement with absolute precision. He didn't make mistakes like that.
Standing in the spot where Diavolo had just been, Accelerator felt a rare sense of confusion.
He had no memory of the process of moving.
From the moment his foot left the ground to the moment he came to a stop, the "process" of his journey was a complete blank in his mind.
"Tch. So this is what they call a Stand ability?"
This was a fascinating new experience for him.
At least back in Academy City, there wasn't anyone who could play tricks like this with the flow of time and memory.
While the basic knowledge granted to him as a Servant explained the existence of Stands, their wildly varied and nonsensical powers were something he was still adapting to.
His [Vector Transformation] allowed him to reflect almost any physical force, but that required his brain to calculate the incoming factors.
"Still... the fact that he used his power to run away instead of attacking me proves one thing. My [Reflection] still works even on these unscientific Stands, doesn't it?"
Even though the Master hadn't attacked him, Accelerator was starting to piece together the secrets of these invisible spirits.
Before leaving his hideout, he had already "pre-calculated" a vast array of defensive vectors.
Kinetic energy, thermal energy, electricity...
Even air pressure, gravity, light, sound, and specialized psychic wavelengths had been accounted for.
He had even included the vectors for close-quarters physical attacks like punches, knives, or firearms.
Theoretically, an enemy would have to find a way to bypass his entire mental "firewall" if they wanted to land a single point of damage on him.
This little stroll was purely to observe how "unscientific" these Stands really were.
But so far, they seemed to adhere to a certain level of physical logic. At the very least, conventional attacks like a physical strike wouldn't be enough to touch him.
"The real problem will be the more exotic abilities, right?"
"Interesting."
"It seems I've finally found something worth the effort of a challenge."
Accelerator stood beneath the silent night sky and let out a vicious, mocking laugh.
[Translated and Rewritten by Shika_Kagura]