The scorching asphalt runway roughly scraped against Fudou Hayabusa's broken cheek.
Each arduous squirm tugged at a bone-shattering pain, dragging a viscous, glaring dark red bloodstain behind him.
The shadow of death had never weighed so heavily upon him, his consciousness drifting at the icy edge of darkness.
Yet, in this dying chaos, fragments of memory, long buried and even forcibly erased by some power, stubbornly floated to the surface of his consciousness like shipwrecked remains.
The sounds of other children and parents laughing and playing drifted in from outside the window, but inside the room, there was only the gentle yet undeniably weary profile of his mother.
She had done her best, providing him with living conditions no less favorable than other families.
But in Fudou Hayabusa's young heart, an unshakeable question always lingered.
Why couldn't Dad and Mom be together like other families? Why couldn't they understand each other?
As time passed, he gradually discovered that what he thought and liked was a little different from others.
Ancient fossils, specimens preserved in jars, videos of various wild animals mating... When he tried to share these unique "hobbies" with classmates and friends, he often received puzzled looks, polite smiles, or undisguised exclamations of "How disgusting!"
He tried hard to explain, racking his brains to convey the emotion he felt inside, but it always seemed as if there was a thick, transparent wall between them.
He could see the world outside the wall, but the people outside the wall could not truly reach him within the wall.
This did not prevent him from being a good student, a trustworthy and helpful class monitor.
He helped classmates mediate disputes and shared responsibilities with teachers, hoping to build connections from heart to heart.
But in the quiet of the night, that sense of "no one truly understands" loneliness, like an icy tide, silently engulfed him.
What he yearned for was not a casual acquaintance, but a friend who could penetrate that "transparent wall" and be in tune with his heart.
On an afternoon when cherry blossoms fluttered, he habitually sat on a bench far from the crowd.
Another figure, also detached from the hubbub, sat at the other end of the bench.
It was a red-haired teenager with a calm demeanor and a lock of hair falling over his forehead.
There were no polite greetings, no judgments about each other's "peculiar" hobbies.
They talked about how the world appeared in their respective eyes, and about the "loneliness" that followed them like a shadow.
Language lost its barriers at that moment.
Although their hobbies were vastly different and their ways of thinking diverged greatly, that resonance of "loneliness" deeply rooted in their souls became the strongest Gravity.
They became friends, friends who could sense each other's emotions without much explanation.
That was the brightest, warmest time in Fudou Hayabusa's brief youth.
It was as if that transparent wall had finally been breached, allowing real sunlight to stream in.
The memory scene abruptly paused here.
After graduation, everything about that friend... was roughly and completely erased from his mind, as if by an invisible eraser.
Name, face, voice, every shared moment... all traces vanished completely.
Only a huge, unfillable sense of emptiness remained, its cause unknown, yet so heavy it suffocated him.
It was as if the most important piece of his life's puzzle had been forcibly gouged out.
He tried to recall, but only grasped at a void of mist.
Much later, he became a Stand User, foresaw the predetermined future, and joined a mad organization whose highest principles were "happiness" and "peace of mind."
It wasn't until he achieved a certain status within that organization and learned more about the secrets of the Starfall Night that he vaguely connected this feeling of being "erased" with that bizarre meteor shower... but that was only a guess, a fear buried deep in his heart, impossible to confirm.
"Heh... heh heh..."
Hoarse laughter, mixed with bloody foam, squeezed from his broken throat.
Fudou Hayabusa struggled to regain consciousness from his chaotic memories.
The near-death experience had made him remember so much... especially that "erased" friend.
That warmth, that comfort of being understood, now seemed so luxurious, so... ironic.
The remaining power of Japari Park, like a flickering candle in the wind, barely kept his crumbling body from falling apart completely.
Excruciating pain washed over his nerves like a tide, but his consciousness was exceptionally clear.
He painstakingly rolled his eyes, looking at the blurry sky and the runway stretching into the distance.
The scene before him perfectly matched the images he had seen in the predetermined future.
"Still... couldn't change it?"
The thought of despair had just risen when it was brutally suppressed by an even more twisted obsession.
"No! There's still a chance!"
"Nightingale failed... but I still have... I still have the meteor core!"
A final, desperate glint, like a dying ember, erupted in his cloudy eyes.
"Yes! It's not over yet! As long as I can reach that place... as long as I can reach that place!"
"Although the Beast Refining Pool in the water distribution hub was destroyed... how could such a thing not have a backup?!"
"As long as... as long as I can drag this broken body over there and immerse myself in the backup Beast Refining Pool... I can restart the cycle, wash away the severe poison in my body, and fully resurrect! Regain power!"
The desire to live overcame the bone-shattering pain.
Using the half of his body that could still barely move, he dug his fingernails deep into the rough asphalt ground, dragging his severely damaged lower body, little by little, towards the edge of the runway, towards the direction where a backup Beast Refining Pool might exist, and began his desperate crawl.
A trail of blood stretched behind him, like a red carpet leading to a hellish altar.
"This is already the end."
A voice, cold, smooth, like a viper sliding over dry leaves, pierced his eardrums without warning.
Fudou Hayabusa's body stiffened abruptly, as if nailed to the spot by an invisible ice pick.
He laboriously, little by little, raised his blood-stained head.
In front of him, like a tombstone rising from the ground, stood a figure.
A thick, impenetrable black shadow completely enveloped his face, revealing only a few strands of dull golden hair hanging down.
He was dressed in all black, his figure tall, thin, and eerie.
And in his arms—a petite girl was carefully wrapped in a long black robe, revealing only half of a pale, serene face, like a sleeping beauty immersed in a dream.
Fudou Hayabusa's gaze was completely unable to move away from the man shrouded in shadow.
A pure fear, originating from the deepest part of his soul, purer than death itself, instantly seized him.
This feeling, he had only experienced when facing the former BOSS of his organization.
In the dense darkness, two vertical pupils, like cracks in an abyss, slowly lit up, emotionlessly looking down at the young man, who was like a maggot on the ground.
"You..." Fudou Hayabusa's throat rattled, but he couldn't form a complete syllable.
That icy gaze froze all his thoughts and the courage to struggle.
A scaly hand reached out from the shadow and gently pressed on the forehead of the sleeping girl in his arms, the movement carrying a strange tenderness.
Immediately, the dark golden snake eyes refocused on Fudou Hayabusa, like a viper locking onto its prey.
A phantom wrapped in bandages silently appeared to one side, and like a medieval executioner, he swung his hand, cutting into Fudou Hayabusa's head.
Fudou Hayabusa's pupils suddenly constricted to their limit.
He understood!
The other party didn't want his life, but something more important than life.
He used his last ounce of strength to roar, desperately wanting to curl up his body, wanting to resist.
But it was all too late.
White Snake's fingers, as if piercing through a thin sheet of paper, effortlessly plunged into the despair-ridden "soul"!
Two discs were slowly extracted from his forehead, and on one of them, a pair of orange cat ears was reflected.
Fudou Hayabusa's body, as if its last support had been pulled away, completely collapsed onto the runway.
Loneliness, persistence, madness... all the lights that flickered in pursuit of happiness, like burnt-out candles, completely extinguished, leaving only hollow ash.
Togawa Fuuki indifferently glanced at the Stand disc and memory disc, still warm in White Snake's hand, his dark golden snake pupils gradually diffused, returning to their original deep black.
After a quick review of the memories, he already understood the Stand ability of Japari Park and its characteristics.
And realizing that Mutsumi in his arms was fine, and that the beast-transformed Sakiko and Uika would gradually return to normal, the gloom that had shrouded his heart dissipated a little.
However, he had no intention of letting the person in front of him go unpunished.
The location where this beast transformation incident erupted was not some remote village, but the bustling Ikebukuro.
Although those affected by Japari Park would not die even if they suffered fatal injuries, the deaths and losses caused by the beast-transformed people could no longer be simply covered up.
The immense chaos it caused would inevitably have a serious impact on the current social situation—an inexplicable beast transformation disaster, the exposure of Stand Users, the suspicion and panic of ordinary people... these factors would all have unpredictable effects on his efforts to build power and pursue "Heaven," and this uncertainty was what he disliked most.
Just as Fuuki was pondering how to deal with Fudou Hayabusa, White Snake, who was handling the memory disc for him, suddenly discovered an anomaly.
In Fudou Hayabusa's memories, there were many parts that had been crudely "smeared and covered up," and these contents were all related to the mysterious organization he belonged to.
Furthermore, Fuuki then discovered a crucial piece of information—the existence of the meteor core!
The meteorite fragment, which should have been impossible to violently seize, was collected by that organization from various places and made into a meteor core that could amplify Stand abilities and influence the predetermined future!
And this meteor core was on Fudou Hayabusa!
Buzz—!
Suddenly, a flapping sound rang out, and a dark red metallic flying insect flew out from Fudou Hayabusa's embrace, clutching a broken crystal disc between its mechanical, slender limbs.
Fuuki quickly put his arm around the girl in his arms and pulled out "Ruin," unleashing a dense barrage of fire at the flying insect.
However, the metallic flying insect emerged from the barrage unscathed, then folded its wings in mid-air and shot straight up into the distant sky like a rocket.
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