Omake 21: Crusader from a Different Future (1)

“Mr. Kageyama, I can assure you that I’m not your enemy, nor I am the same DIO you have fought.”

I would have never expected myself to ever utter those words. Yet I had to or the red-haired young Japanese man was going to put me in quite the awkward and deadly circumstance. I could only stare at how swift his Stand had been, but… I couldn’t exactly say much since I knew ｢Miracles｣ was one of the potentially most dreadful Stands one could end up facing.

While a range-specialist, the capacity held within the Stand’s power was beyond anything I could hope to resist or defend myself to. Why? Because this floating pristine white being with a long tail, a large head-piece with a large open eye seemingly painted on it, was staring at me with the most vicious look something its size and mostly childish appearance could muster against anyone.

It was a deadly glare that was packed with the means to turn a thought in an attack. The sizzling noise and feeling of Fire that was cataloged within the young man’s mind? Those could easily be used to manifest a fireball or to impress the pain it causes to its target’s mind. Water, Electricity, Ice, the power to stun or paralyze people, even putting those to sleep.

The power of inflicting Death on a target.

The concept behind such a Stand was as terrifying as it sounded, and right now, despite my current arsenal of powers, I could barely do anything if the confused redhead decided to strike me one way or another. He was panicking from the looks of it, and I didn’t blame him since he was thrown in the room by Vins before she left.

What really made me realize how distraught the guy was could be easily found by the book drenched in water the young Stand User was clutching. He was completely drenched in water, but the book was the thing that easily got a frown out of me. I didn’t need to open it to know what it was and… to understand which timeline he came from.

One of the things that the 7th Stand User game left as part of the Endings was something called the Exchange End. After being told of the truth behind Vins and her goons’ real purpose by people that had been pulled in this dimensional mishap just like him, the main protagonist, in this case Mr. Kageyama, was given the option of storming Dio’s manor with a group of resurrected Ripple Warriors since the challenge was daunting and quite deadly.

But, instead of picking anyone from within the roster of candidates at his disposal, the young man decided to venture the challenge alone to try and handle this issue on his own. Mostly because of a moral standpoint to not delve in the nature of resurrecting some of the old and long-deceased fighters available to him, the Stand User managed to make it past D’Arby the Young, Vanilla Ice and Dio on his own before finding himself fighting Vins on his own.

Wounded, and close to death, he managed to destroy his final opponent in an all-out battle. He died while tripping and falling off the bridge and killing himself in the process.

Or so the ending would have gone like if not for Vins somehow pulling the already-hurt Stand User in this timeline.

Only now I could notice the full extent of his injuries. Bleeding through his school uniform, I was mostly impressed that he wasn’t collapsing with how pale he was. The blood loss had to have been a nightmare to handle while in this specific instance.

I approached him, despite the deadly hold imposed by his Stand supposedly to threaten me in the most horrible way possible. His eyes widened, but he paused, staring as I walked close to him and he finally was standing in front of me. I didn’t say anything, realizing that his condition was critical, and that there was only a single telling way to prove my point.

I lifted my open palm up, his eyes narrowing at the hand and… widening as I allowed Hamon to course through my fingers. Albeit a Stand User, Kageyama was supposedly a novice Hamon User too, all thanks to Joseph giving him the basics, while the young man learned more of the mystic arts by finding books about the subject.

“Y-You,” He muttered in confusion, a little bit of accent evident in his voice, but just barely as he sounded experienced in speaking in English.

“I’m not the same monster you won against, Mr. Kageyama. And Vins is as much as my enemy as she is yours.”

He looked confused at the growing state of weirdness around us, but he only tensed up as my hamon-imbued hand pressed on his chest. Ripple flowed within him, activating his reserves and allowing me to use most of his present reserves to heal the current damage that had been inflicted to him. He stared, at first worried but then allowed a wonder-filled shocked look to take over as he could feel some of his strength returning to him… but still being far from enough to help him handle the mental stress he had accumulated after the boss rush he had to go through.

His eyes lost focus as I retrieved my hand, his body tripping forward as I was quickly holding it in place so it couldn’t fall down to the ground. Much to my surprise, while its user was currently disabled in such a fashion, ｢Miracles｣ managed to remain manifested in the real world, this time keeping itself more to protect his user rather than threaten my existence as I turned to the others, which had been helping Kate onto a softer spot where to help her heal and… were now staring back at us.

Yep, this is going to be a really mess to explain.