"He was a really nice older guy."
Inori said this with a bright smile, her expression turning dreamy and starstruck whenever she mentioned this "older guy"... and the longer Yasuho looked, the more wrong it felt. This little girl had not only lost her memory—she was also innocent to the point of being gullible. With a face like hers, walking around on the streets meant she'd get hit on constantly... ugh, what was I thinking? I should never have let her wander off on her own!
"He, he didn't do anything to you, did he?"
Yasuho suddenly reached back and grabbed Inori's wrist, staring into her eyes with genuine worry.
"No. Nothing at all."
"He said he had an old friend who died more than ten years ago, and that I look a lot like that person's long-lost daughter." Inori had originally planned to tease Yasuho a little, but one look at the anxious expression on her face—anxious for her—and she couldn't bring herself to do it... so she went with a reasonably plausible lie instead. "He said he'd help me look for my family, and he even gave me some money."
"The daughter of an old friend?... Isn't that a little too coincidental?"
Yasuho's brow furrowed deeply, her skeptical expression making it clear she wasn't buying a word of it.
—It's more ridiculous than a prime-time TV drama. I haven't even had Inori at my house for a full day, and suddenly some "father's friend" shows up? That guy was definitely just making stuff up to trick her! Tch. No way. I have to keep a close eye on her and stop letting her run around on her own. Otherwise who knows what else she'll get conned out of in the next few days...
"Don't trust strangers so easily. Morioh is a nice place, but you still have to stay on your guard!"
Yasuho gripped her shoulders and drove the point home with deadly seriousness.
"All right, all right. I won't talk to him anymore."
Inori, for her part, didn't seem particularly bothered and didn't feel the need to keep explaining.
She wasn't the type to lecture people anyway—direct action was more Inori's style. Like forcibly kissing Hare Menjou. If things kept progressing naturally, Koichi would awaken his Stand before long, and she'd have plenty of chances to explain everything to Yasuho then.
"Haah~"
—Life is so exhausting.
Yasuho suddenly felt bone-tired. The start of a new semester was supposed to be a happy occasion, but she couldn't muster any joy at all. That boy who'd been pestering her all through vacation had left another letter in her shoe locker today... if she didn't have club activities to use as an excuse, she'd probably get cornered on the way home.
—If this keeps up, she was seriously going to have to call the police!
She'd finally gotten a chance to see cute little Inori and let it heal her soul—and then this little airhead went and trusted some random stranger! Hadn't her own cautionary example been warning enough? No. She absolutely had to keep Inori under close watch!
Inori noticed the grim look on Yasuho's face and her foul mood, and she could more or less guess what was going on. She wanted to say something comforting, but then realized she knew almost nothing about this girl... beyond the fact that she was the gender-swapped Koichi of a parallel world, she'd only gotten a basic read on Yasuho's personality last night.
Inori walked a half-step behind her, watching the fading sunlight darken Yasuho's braids, the glossy black hair ornaments clacking softly against each other with every step.
She couldn't just seize Yasuho's vulnerabilities and go on the offensive the way she did with everyone else... so all she could do was stay silent.
Thinking about it that way, Inori suddenly felt like she was stuck in a galge she'd already watched a playthrough of, only to have a new character show up out of nowhere—leaving her completely at a loss for what choice to make.
She happened to glance down at that moment—and froze.
...in the long shadow Yasuho cast in the slanting sunlight, she thought she saw a wild-haired, rose-red ghost!
Seeing something so horrific out of nowhere, Inori nearly shrieked—she was a delicate young lady, after all! She bit back the scream, rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand, and looked again—but the thing had vanished without a trace.
Inori knew she couldn't possibly be hallucinating. Had Yasuho been attacked by a Stand?
"Hm? Inori? Why'd you stop walking?"
Yasuho noticed the footsteps behind her had gone silent and turned around in confusion.
The atmosphere had turned strange... under the darkening sky, the two girls stood at a short distance, staring at each other.
Could it be a Stand hiding in her shadow? Who does it belong to? A student from Budogaoka High? If the target were Yasuho, it should have already attacked by now! Don't tell me the one it's after is... me?
Yasuho stood with her hands on her hips, looking completely lost, wondering what this girl's deal was now.
At that exact moment, a police car came screaming past on the road beside them, its siren wailing shrilly.
"Eh? Did something happen somewhere?"
Yasuho's attention was pulled toward the cruiser.
—It's Anjuro Katagiri! Inori remembered this moment clearly. In the original timeline, Josuke and Koichi would chase after that car and help the police rescue the hostage. But now—because of her arrival—Josuke and the others had been pulled away by Jotaro for a conversation somewhere else... What do I do? Chase after it? But I still haven't figured out who that shadow Stand was that attacked Yasuho...
"Beep beep beep!"
"Hm?"
Inori heard the strange sound and paused for a moment before realizing it was coming from the handbag she'd just bought.
It's the Game Boy! But... didn't I already turn it off? Damn it, it won't stop, this is so annoying.
Irritated, Inori pulled the Game Boy out and found the screen was still lit. Could she have gotten a defective unit that someone returned?
"...?"
Inori was about to press the power button when she noticed something on the screen she'd never seen before... on the dim green display, pixels formed a single line of text.
—Chase the car or turn back.
It was giving her a choice?
"What the hell is going on with this thing?"
Inori had never known a Game Boy could do this—was it a bug? She refused to believe someone was using this thing to send her messages... and what was she supposed to do with these options? Chase the car or turn back? God, she was getting a splitting headache. These bizarre events kept piling up and making her dizzy.
Frantic, Inori mashed the other buttons, but none of them responded. She'd already used Epitaph twice and found nothing.
"Should we go check it out? Inori, I've got a feeling something's wrong." Yasuho turned back to look at Inori—and saw the girl was once again hunched over the Game Boy, fiddling with it. "Hey! Stop playing games!"
"I know. But this thing seems to be broken..."
No matter how Inori pressed the back button, nothing worked. Even a hard power-off did nothing! God, this was getting ridiculous.
Whatever. I'll just pick one and see what happens next.
Inori pressed the D-pad and confirmed her selection, choosing the first option: "Chase the car."
She'd expected the game to give her the next instruction, but instead the screen went completely black and the Game Boy powered off... leaving her baffled. Damn it, don't tell me this is another Stand from Part 8 messing with me? She hadn't read JoJolion carefully, so her knowledge of that part's Stands was limited to the protagonist Josuke's "Soft & Wet."
"Forget the Game Boy, Inori! Let's just go over and take a look."
It wasn't only curiosity. As a girl who'd grown up in Morioh all her life, Yasuho loved her hometown deeply. Sure, there'd been a rash of missing-persons cases lately, but seeing a live crime scene with a police car screaming past—that was a first.
"Inori, let's hurry!"
"O...kay."
—Forget this busted thing for now.
Keep Epitaph running. The moment that shadow Stand attacks Yasuho, strike immediately! Right now, the priority is catching up to that cruiser and dealing with Anjuro Katagiri! What Josuke didn't get to do this time, she'd handle herself. Even if the other side knew about her Stand abilities... Inori honestly didn't care.
Just like Diavolo—even after his Stand's ability was exposed to the protagonist team, they still couldn't touch him. In the end, he only lost because the Arrow evolved Gold Experience into Gold Experience Requiem.