The sudden light in the sky poured into the corridor through the shattered side window, stretching Ryosuke's shadow long, like a nightmare as it covered Father Pucci, reflected in his eyes that had already lost all light.
Thud!
Father Pucci's corpse crashed to the ground, completely lifeless.
The light outside the hospital vanished, and along with it, the screams of the vampire army also disappeared.
Jolyne Kujo stared blankly at the scene before her, her mind completely empty as a sharp ringing filled her ears.
She looked at Emporio and Anasui, who were receiving treatment from Hot Pants and whose injuries were recovering.
She looked at Father Pucci lying on the ground, who had chased them earlier like dogs driven from their homes, now dead with eyes still open. Then she looked out the window at the ashes of the vampire army scattering in the wind…
Jolyne only felt that everything in the world seemed very far away from her, filled with an unreal sense of absurdity.
Until she met the gaze of Ryosuke walking toward her.
"…Sister Jolyne!"
The ringing in her ears vanished in an instant. Emporio's voice reached her as a small figure rushed over and helped Jolyne up.
"This is the big brother Ryosuke we talked about!"
Jolyne stared blankly at Ryosuke as he approached.
During the White Snake trial mission, Ryosuke had possessed Jolyne Kujo, using her body to deal with Father Pucci. So Anasui, Emporio, and even Father Pucci all remembered Ryosuke.
Only Jolyne Kujo herself had never truly felt it. She had only kept hearing her companions talk about how amazing and reliable Ryosuke was, but none of it felt real to her.
After hearing it so many times, Jolyne even felt that everyone was exaggerating too much, and she secretly felt unconvinced.
It was her body being used, her Stone Free being controlled. No matter how strong Ryosuke was, how much stronger could he really be than her?
Now… Jolyne was convinced.
Emporio really had not exaggerated at all. If anything, he had been too restrained and conservative.
Jolyne wanted to say something, but did not know what to say. She could only stare a little foolishly at Ryosuke's face, and for no reason at all, a thought popped into her head.
"He's really good-looking."
Seeing that Jolyne looked like she wanted to speak but held back, Ryosuke gave a slight nod as a greeting. Then his gaze passed over her and landed on Jotaro Kujo, who had just sat up.
With Jonathan's support, Jotaro struggled to his feet and looked at Ryosuke with eyes full of gratitude.
"Long time no see… Ryosuke."
"You remember me?"
Ryosuke did not remember having any direct dealings with the Stone Ocean version of Jotaro.
Jotaro raised a hand and lightly tapped his forehead. "Maybe because my memories were extracted. With my mind being blank, I can vaguely receive some images. Images of fighting together with you."
Ryosuke nodded, then thought of the Saint's Corpse he had taken from Father Pucci.
There was another possibility. Because Jotaro's memory disc had been carried on Father Pucci's body, it might have come into contact with the Saint's Corpse.
Using the Corpse's ability to transcend space and time, it caused a faint resonance between Jotaros from different timelines.
After downing three bottles of nutrient potion and receiving joint treatment from Ryosuke and Jonathan, both Ripple masters, Jotaro no longer needed support and could stand on his own.
Weather Report had also recovered after being purified by the Saint's Corpse.
Jotaro clenched his fist. Because of Dio's interference, he had been bedridden for nearly three more months than in the original timeline. Naturally, his condition was worse.
Much of his muscle mass had faded, his whole body looked thinner, and even the summoned Star Platinum looked weaker than before.
But he was still Jotaro Kujo.
He could still fight.
After hearing from everyone about the fates of himself in other timelines, as well as Old Joseph, Polnareff, and the others, even Jotaro, who had experienced the highs and lows of life and was already over forty, clenched his fists in fury.
He only wanted to go find Dio right now and let him taste Star Platinum's iron fists once again.
And so...
Saint's Corpse +1, currently 8 pieces total (Ryosuke 7 pieces, Giorno 1 piece)
Teammates +2. Jotaro Kujo and Weather Report joined the team. After consideration, in order to let Jotaro focus fully on fighting, Jolyne stayed behind in the Stone Ocean timeline.
Tainted souls +9. One from Father Pucci, and the shattered souls of thousands of vampires counted as eight more. Current total: 30.
After going through this timeline, the team's overall strength had clearly risen to a new level.
Jotaro could coordinate with Ryosuke, stopping time together.
Weather Report had fully regained his memories, and his Stand was "Weather Report: Raging Storm," equivalent to a Requiem-level Stand achieved by consuming a Fate Ink.
And it did not take up one of Ryosuke's Stand slots.
This was the advantage of teammates.
Once Giorno returned to the team, Requiem would increase by one more.
But Ryosuke's brows had not relaxed since killing Father Pucci.
"What's wrong?" Uchiha Madara asked.
Ryosuke did not hide it from him. He handed over the memory disc taken from Father Pucci and sighed softly. "It records the reason why Super Dio appeared."
Everyone gathered around to look.
This reason was not written in Father Pucci's own memories, but came from the memories of himself from a parallel world.
In one parallel world, Father Pucci obtained the Green Baby, awakened C-Moon, and then went to the space center to prepare to enter Heaven at the right place and time.
Normally, Jolyne and the main cast, along with Jotaro who would arrive later, would use every possible method to stop Father Pucci.
But for some unknown reason, Jotaro never appeared in that parallel world, and Jolyne and the others seemed weakened, hitting obstacles everywhere. In the end, Father Pucci actually succeeded in reaching Heaven and truly restarted the universe.
Father Pucci treated others inhumanly, but toward Dio, he was genuinely loyal and emotional.
After achieving success himself, he wanted to save his close friend.
So Father Pucci restarted the universe again and again, trying to find a world where Dio was revived.
But there was none.
Even when Father Pucci returned to a point in time before Dio's death, the one standing before him was still a strange vampire merely bearing Dio's name.
This result was something Father Pucci could not accept.
In the end, during yet another acceleration of time to its extreme, when the entire universe poured into a spacetime singularity...
He destroyed the singularity.
A singularity at the end of time acceleration allows certain actions.
For example, in the original story, because Father Pucci died and the acceleration went out of control, it entered a third universe where everyone was revived but had lost their memories.
Based on this, Ryosuke stabbed in the Tear Blade and created a fourth universe where fate was not fixed.
But Father Pucci chose to destroy the world he was in.
He killed tens of billions of humans and hundreds of billions of living beings across the universe.
Then…
He fell into another Stone Ocean parallel world.
Father Pucci accelerated and detonated again and again. After destroying countless Stone Ocean parallel worlds and killing tens of trillions of living beings, he finally found a world where Dio had successfully killed Jotaro.
But the Father Pucci of that world had died early.
As a result, although Dio survived, he did not have "a trustworthy friend," and therefore had not yet ascended to Heaven.
Until Father Pucci arrived after destroying his world.
The two hit it off immediately.
Dio completed the leap and gained the Stand: The World Over Heaven.
This was the cause of everything.
Ryosuke's expression was dark. On one hand, it was because of the tens of trillions of lives that had perished. On the other, he finally understood why Father Pucci had been able to successfully reach Heaven...
That was the price of Fate Ink.
For a Stand to evolve, it must undergo a trial mission.
During a trial mission, the influence of all story characters is reduced to the lowest level, with Ryosuke as the core to defeat powerful enemies.
Fate Ink forcibly promoted C-Moon into Made in Heaven, but a trial mission world that should have been resolved by Ryosuke still existed.
With Ryosuke absent, and the protagonist group weakened, Father Pucci was able to grow without restraint.
Father Pucci, Made in Heaven.
Super Dio, The World Over Heaven.
These were the two world-level calamities Ryosuke had to face.