Chapter 25
New Trifecta Part 2: Imagine Dragons
A/N: Ultimate Crossover Chapter ahead. Probably underwhelming, though.
"Too sweet," JoJo harshly critiqued as he took his first bite of Natsuki's cupcakes, setting it down immediately after.
Everyone, even Sayori, stopped eating to gape at the atrocity that JoJo had committed. Natsuki, however, started seething with rage.
Before Natsuki could say anything, JoJo also took a sip of his tea. He immediately pursed his lips.
"Tea's fine, but I prefer coffee, thanks," he said, setting his cup down and pushing both treats away.
Yuri ended up merely looking down at her own cup of tea, swirling it with a sad smile. Natsuki, however, didn't hold back.
"Oi, oi, oi," Natsuki grit her teeth as she walked up to the still seated JoJo, popping a vein. JoJo, not noticing Yuri's subtle actions, nonchalantly looked at Natsuki.
"Who the hell do you think you are," Natsuki spoke, spite seeping through every syllable. "Dissing my cupcakes like that?!"
JoJo chuckled and stood up, towering over her. After all, he was the tallest in the room while Natsuki was the shortest. "Well, I just don't like stuff with too much sugar. And I don't like tea. Can't help it."
"Your loss," MC said, placing the two cupcake wrappers he had in his hand aside and grabbing JoJo's spare. "You don't mind?"
"Of course not."
Nodding, MC proceeded to remove the portion where JoJo had bitten off from then heartily stuff himself with the rest.
"MC's getting a third!" Sayori protested while hastily lifting her own third cupcake from the tray to scarf down, much to MC's and Monika's amusement.
Natsuki sweatdropped upon seeing the two. "I seriously can't believe you're both Stand Users," she said, grimacing grossly at them.
JoJo chuckled. "Word," he agreed. "I wouldn't have ever looked MC's way if I hadn't seen his Stand firsthand."
"Hey, that's mean! I seriously missed these things!" MC yelled at JoJo, mouth still stuffed with pastry.
"E-Every day we see more of Sayori in you," Yuri shakingly simpered as she spoke, still hiding her face in embarrassment. "I-It seems she's rubbing off on you."
"Ha! Good one, Yuri!" Natsuki cheered for the purple-haired girl while MC wordlessly protested, much to Yuri's demise.
Monika laughed as well, setting her teacup down. "I guess we've all changed in some ways, haven't we?" she said, addressing the entire club.
JoJo nodded. "Haven't been here long, but I kinda get where you're all coming from," he pointed out.
"Oh yeah! About that!" Sayori said after improperly wiping away the crumbs on her face from her demolished cupcake. "Monika! We gotta add you to our chat!"
"Chat?" she asked in reply.
"For the Stand Literature Club!" Sayori replied. "You're the only one left out."
Smiling, Monika nodded. "I'd love to join," she said. Suddenly, her expression turned crestfallen. "That is… if you'll let me, even after everything I've done."
She was shut up by a sudden smack to the back of her head.
"Natsuki, what-?" Monika looked to the side to speak to the one who attacked her while rubbing her head but then paused upon seeing that it wasn't Natsuki. "Yuri?"
"Monika, please," the purple-haired girl said, setting her outstretched palm back down. "Stop putting yourself down. You're here to redeem yourself. Not to keep whining about what happened in the past."
Monika faltered at Yuri's words for a moment, then vigorously nodded and smiled. "Yeah!" Monika spoke back, hiding all traces of her previous guilt. "You're right! Keep looking forward, huh?"
Nodding, Yuri smiled as she patted Monika on the shoulder. "Of course," she added, picking up her phone from the table. "Now, to add you into the chat."
In a few moments, Monika's name was added into the club chatroom and the title, for some reason, was changed into 'SLiterature Club'.
"Okay, who the hell renamed the chatroom?" Natsuki immediately said once she took one look at the new title.
"Me. Why?" JoJo asked. "It's funny. Also, it stands for Stand Literature Club, and it fits the theme of us slitting our enemies' throats!"
"No, it's not, it's stupid," Natsuki shot back. "And slitting throats? When have we ever done that?"
"Yeah, I agree with Natsuki," MC said, cringing at the title. "That's lame, man."
"Well, it ain't changing, got it?" JoJo demanded, setting his phone down. However, he was interrupted by another ding from the phone. Looking back down, he saw that Monika changed the name to 'Stand Club'.
"Making everyone admin isn't the best way to manage a chatroom," Monika said with a smirk. "But I agree that SLiterature is just stupid and needs to be replaced. We're not worried about Literature too much anymore, so I'm willing to temporarily change our club's name to the Stand Club!"
"Oh, come on!" JoJo protested at the new name. "What's wrong with SLiterature? It's cool!"
Yuri chose not to say anything, but quietly shook her head at JoJo making him groan out loud again.
"Seriously, no one?!" JoJo whined, still looking around. "Sayori, what about you?"
Interrupted from taking a bite from her fourth cupcake she snuck off from the tray, she froze and looked up like she was caught with her hand in the cookie jar. "Umm, what are you guys talking about?" Sayori slowly asked after a quick swallow, hiding her extra cupcake behind her even though everyone already saw it.
"Is SLiterature funny?" MC asked plainly, ignoring Natsuki's popping veins.
Sayori blinked, but then chuckled a little. "Oh, I get it!" she said. "Like Stand Literature Club, huh? That's pretty clever!"
"Thank you!" JoJo commended her. "Also, it's a sign that we're going to slit the throats of-"
He suddenly found that no sound was coming out of his mouth. He tried screaming, but nothing was coming out.
"Tokkkeeaaa…"
JoJo shook his head as Mess is Mine crawled on his shoulder, meeting his face.
"That's enough, JoJo," Monika said with a playful smile as her Stand vanished. "I didn't mean to hurt you, by the way. I just don't want you scarring Sayori by saying that."
"Phkawwing?" Sayori asked, with her mouth full of cupcake once again. Quickly swallowing and hiding her cupcake once again, she continued. "What do you mean?"
JoJo looked at Sayori for a moment, then relented his case with a sigh. "It's fine, don't worry about it," he said. "Stand Club it is, then."
Ignoring the sighs of relief around him, he walked up to Sayori. "Renegades."
As the Stand quickly feigned a punch at Sayori, it took all her will to not flinch at the incoming attack. Now, with the fist an inch away from her nose, JoJo chuckled.
"You've gotten good too," he appraised her. "I guess I can help you out."
Charging up the aura on his Stand's fist, he quickly touched it on the cupcake in her hands behind her.
Sayori widened her eyes as her cupcake became longer, bigger. She started to drool as she saw the doubled cupcake in her hands. Not waiting to say her thanks, she quickly indulged herself in the additional treat.
"Damn, that's a good idea," Natsuki said. "Hey! Why didn't we use our Stands to cook?!"
"How would we have done that?" Yuri asked.
"Like this!" Natsuki said, picking out a to be washed bowl and whisk from MC's sink. Manifesting her Stand on her fist, she froze the bowl in place and started to fake whisk space within.
"I don't need to hold it like this!" she said. "I can actually use two whisks at once as well!"
MC chuckled as he plucked the floating bowl and placed it over his sink. Groaning, Natsuki quickly clapped her hands and let the bowl fall back into the sink.
As the clatter of the metal died down, Natsuki sighed and tossed the whisk back in as well. "Alright, I guess we need to move on to more important things."
"Good point," JoJo agreed as Sayori quickly finished her enlarged cupcake. "We need a plan."
"Hold up, you guys discuss that," Natsuki said, walking over to her bag. "I need to investigate that manga series I saw."
"A House of Gold, you mean?" MC asked. "What are you going to do?"
"I'll be reading the volumes, of course!" Natsuki smirked at the others while pulling out several volumes of the manga from her bag. "I got these from the club today. I'm gonna head out to read these for a while, then maybe check out a manga store for the others."
Monika nodded. "That sounds like a good plan," she said. "We'll miss you, but you can go ahead."
"Thanks," Natsuki smiled at them, stuffing the volumes back into her bag. "Just let me know what you've decided tomorrow, alright? I don't wanna be outta the loop, after all."
"Don't worry, Natsuki!" Sayori said, now stowing away an empty cupcake tray. "We'll let you know, alright?"
Natsuki chuckled as she saw the tray Sayori had emptied pretty much herself, then nodded.
"Alright, I'll see you tomorrow, then?"
"Yeah," MC said. "Stay safe."
"Will do. Bye. I'll get all that equipment back later, okay?"
Right before Natsuki could go, however, Yuri walked up to her.
"The Knife Act 1."
Once the short purple Stand emerged from her body, it moved down to Natsuki's left hand and lightly scratched its surface.
"Ow!" Natsuki yelped as she slowly rubbed the slight scar. "What was that for?"
"Just in case," Yuri explained herself, bringing her Stand back into her. "I'll be leaving scratches like that for everyone else as well, just in case we need to meet up."
JoJo smirked as he walked up to the two. "Good insight, Yuri," he said. "You might even want to make some portals in different places."
Yuri silently groaned. "I… have to do all that again?" she muttered mostly to herself. Rubbing her temples, she sighed out loud. "Very well."
Natsuki puckered her lips in a show of pity for her friend. "Well, I'm gonna head out, kay?" she declared to the rest of the club. "Thanks, Yuri! Glad to know you've got our backs!"
As Natsuki gathered her stuff and walked out, JoJo turned to the rest of the club. "Alright, what do we do now?"
"Make a plan, probably?" MC said. "Although, I don't know how it would work out. We don't know the Stand abilities of anyone that we're going to fight. Everyone we've fought before was either defeated or deleted."
"That's true," JoJo said, now turning to Monika. "Who else was in this Trifecta of yours?"
"Well, there was me and Sakimoto," Monika started to speak. "And there was another girl as well. Honestly, I don't know how we'd fare against her."
"Why?" Yuri asked. "Is her Stand that powerful?"
Monika sighed. "Wallace once said that her Stand had Infinite Potential," she recalled. "If she can get stronger every second, there's not much we can do against her."
"Who is this girl?" JoJo asked. "And what is her Stand?"
Monika took a breath and opened her mouth to speak-
"Where is it… where is it…" Natsuki muttered under her breath as she riffled through the manga volumes, ignoring the odd looks that the strangers around her were giving her. She was mildly irritated that there were mostly kids around her in the store, but it was something she always had to deal with. The actual adults were more inclined to the more wordy and bigger novels instead, after all.
It was late, about 7:45 in the night. Lucky for her, however, the manga store she had frequented only closed at 8. There weren't many people there, just her and a couple of kids running around out of control.
Looking around, she paused upon seeing the black covers of the series she was looking for.
'A House of Gold!' Natsuki read with a cheer as she ran up to the stacks.
She had quickly skimmed through the volumes that she already had at hand before she even entered the store, slightly disappointed that she could not read it in more detail. Even though the series as a whole was mediocre at best, the fact that she was learning about her abusive dad's ex-life in every volume pushed her on further. It was a pity, however, that she didn't have many volumes of the series. Her collection of it was rather minimal, probably because of how poor her family was.
"There!" she cheered as she picked out the black volume she was looking for. The volume right after the one she had finished reading. "A House of Gold, Volume 5! Perfect!"
"Huh, who knew you'd be into the emo stuff, Natty?"
Jumping back into the stacks of books in recoil at the sudden voice while wordlessly thanking fate for not letting any of the other books fall, Natsuki turned around to see who it was that talked to her.
"Yo!" Sachiko Kamiya spoke to her, playfully flicking her dark short hair away and putting her fingers up to her lone sky-blue eye in a peace sign with a grin, the right covered with a skull and swords eyepatch. "Sorry I scared you, lol!"
Natsuki groaned as she set her picked out volume under her arm. "The hell do you want, Chuunibyou?"
Saying that Natsuki knew Sachiko would be an understatement. She was the closest thing she had to a friend before she had joined the Literature Club. She was one of the most prominent members of the Anime Club, probably because she was the only girl in that sausage fest club. Time and time again, Sachiko tried to convince Natsuki to join the club with her, but the pink-haired girl always turned up her nose when she heard that there were 29 other boys in the club. Noisy, crowded and full of boys, all the ticks marked for a terrible club. Safe to say, Sachiko wasn't thrilled when she heard about Natsuki joining the Literature Club eventually, but she seemed alright with it in the long run.
'I wonder how she changed after everything that happened to my dad?' Natsuki pondered, gingerly looking at the cause of all her issues beneath her own armpit.
"Aww, don't be a meanie like that, uwu!" Sachiko exaggerated a pout in reply. Natsuki groaned out loud at her antics. 'Seriously, who the hell says uwu out loud?' she pondered. 'There's no wonder why she's so popular in her club.'
"Are you denying it?" Natsuki shot back. "Because that eyepatch you're wearing that you absolutely don't need suggests otherwise."
"Eyepatches are cool! And I'm not a Chuunibyou, Natty!"
Natsuki chuckled. "Save it for the court," she said back. "I've seen you act out your Domain Expansion. In Public."
"Of course!" Sachiko jumped in excitement for a moment, then suddenly closed her eyes and went still. After folding up the cloth of the eyepatch on her right eye, exposing it, she suddenly threw the cloth of her open uniform blazer back, letting it billow behind her. Raising her hands in front of her, she steepled her fingers together while tucking her thumbs in and crossing her ring and middle fingers together while tucking them in as well. Shooting her two eyes open wide, she yelled out, "Domain Expansion: Wings of Freedom!"
She was suddenly knocked out by Natsuki's slap to her head, while the rest of the kids from within the store looked at her like she was a madman.
"Oww… what's that for?" Sachiko whimpered as she rubbed the impacted area while she lowered her eyepatch as well.
"For being an idiot," Natsuki said, frowning at her with her arms crossed. "And what the hell was that? A crossover of Jujutsu Kaisen, Naruto and Attack on Titan? Oh, don't think I didn't recognize the bird seal you made."
Sachiko faltered for a moment, then grinned evilly. "You recognized a Naruto seal?" she said, keeping her grin up while Natsuki paled. "And you call me the otaku Chuunibyou."
"You… you…" Natsuki grit her teeth, irritated that the situation was turned on its head to be against her. She replied by blushing in embarrassment and looking away from the perpetrator. "Shut up, eyepatch!"
"Thank you!" Sachiko laughed at Natsuki, then slowly patted her on the head to make her recoil in irritation. "Anyway, you done buying stuff? And how is that series, really?"
Natsuki pulled out the volume from her armpit. "A House of Gold, that's what it's called," she declared. "A friend suggested it and I picked it up because I was bored. It's not great, but I don't have anything else to read." She decided to not share her actual reason for two reasons. One, she won't understand anything about Stands. Two, never mention that you have actual superpowers to a Chuunibyou like her. She couldn't even tell her a half-truth, knowing how she would constantly pester her for what's going on.
"A friend?!" the girl blinked with her lone exposed blue eye, suddenly giving a toothy grin. "Oh! Who?!"
'Shit, shouldn't have said that either,' Natsuki realized.
"Just a new guy in my club," she said, deciding that throwing the blame on MC would suffice. "He said he was busy, and he couldn't get this volume, so he'd pay me back with interest if I got it for him. So, I'm gonna read it myself then hand it off to him."
"Ooh," Sachiko said, eagerly stepping up to Natsuki with a teasing grin. "A new boyfriend?"
Natsuki rolled her eyes. "He already has a girlfriend," she said. "And no, it's not me. Get your head out of the damn gutter," she added once she saw the spark in Sachiko's eyes once she heard that.
"Aww," the eyepatched girl pouted as she fiddled with the thick ribbon around her neck tied like a bowtie. "No fun. Anywho, wanna walk with me for a while?"
Natsuki quirked a brow. "Isn't it pretty late already?"
Sachiko shook her head. "It's cool!" she replied, keeping her ever-constant grin on. "We can be like agents of the dark!"
Despite groaning out loud at the rendition of her wishes, Natsuki nodded back at her.
"Sure, I'll entertain you for a bit. Just need to buy this thing first," she said, lifting up the volume in her hands. "Wait till then."
Nodding, Sachiko followed her to the checkout counter where Natsuki paid for the manga. Now bagged, Natsuki brought her volume out of the store with her, Sachiko following behind her.
"So, how's it been?" Sachiko asked, striking conversation as they walked along the streets, ignoring the slow rush of people around them and the sound of cars driving by.
Natsuki looked ahead and thought about that question.
'So, my dad who abused me just got erased from existence, and one of my clubmates gave me a superpower to freeze things in place. Oh, and every member of my club has powers too. They're called Stands, and you can't see them. We fought our club president who dating the student president and working under his command. We convinced her to switch sides and are now fighting the actual student president and his army of Stand Users.'
"Not much, really," Natsuki said. "Same old, same old."
"Sweet!" Sachiko cheered in reply. "Anime Club and I are pretty good too!"
The pink-haired girl frowned. "Do you really need to speak for your club as well?"
She chuckled in reply. "Of course, I do!" she replied with a wide smirk. "I've invited the most people into the club, after all! It's my baby!"
"Wonder why that is. And I'm pretty sure one of your members would get off to that," Natsuki muttered under her breath. The raven-haired girl by her side didn't show any sign of hearing her.
"Ooh!" Sachiko jumped and clapped her hands once she saw the entrance to a public jungle park. "Let's hang out in there!"
"Really?" Natsuki asked, recoiling a little at the dark depths inside. She groaned as she saw Sachiko dash into the thickets. "Well, I guess you leave me no choice," she said as she followed behind her.
"Jeez, where are we?" Natsuki asked, having finally caught up to Sachiko. "This has got to be the middle of nowhere!"
As she had said, they were currently in the middle of the forest, every laid path obstructed by overgrown roots and trees. It was an untamed area of the forest, and as such, they had no clue where they were. The fact that they were there at night and that there was no other light source other than their phones did not help in the slightest.
"Isn't this exciting?!" Sachiko grinned happily, accidentally flashing Natsuki with her phone flashlight. "We have no clue what we'll find here!"
"Yeah, you say that when you see a wild animal approaching us," Natsuki retorted, still grumbling about their situation. "I seriously shouldn't have followed you in here."
"Aww, don't be that much of a sucker," Sachiko mock frowned while skipping up to her. Suddenly, she presented an incredibly thick leather-bound book in her hands. "After all, I can protect you!"
"Huh? Protect me?" Natsuki asked, shaking her head. "I doubt that."
"Aww, don't say th-"
"And what the hell is up with that book?" Natsuki said, aiming her light at it. "Where did it come from? I know you didn't have it a second ago."
Sachiko suddenly faltered once Natsuki said that, but then smiled at her again.
"Oh, this?" she asked, lifting up her book while Natsuki nodded. "I just had it in my back pocket!"
Natsuki quirked a brow in confusion but shook her head and simply walked ahead. 'Probably Sachiko being Sachiko,' she pondered.
"Ooh! What's that!" Sachiko yelled out suddenly, looking up at the trees nearby.
Following her eyes, Natsuki ended up seeing a squirrel on the branch of the tree, nibbling on a seed that it found on the tree. She smiled as she saw it barely made out by the spread-out light from their phones.
"Just a squirrel," Natsuki turned to Sachiko and spoke. "We'll see more of them, so let's just keep going."
"It's so cuuuutte!" Sachiko all but yelled out, making Natsuki wince and rub her ears. "Can we keep it?!"
"No."
"Aww," Sachiko frowned as she looked up at the squirrel, then suddenly held her hand out to it even though it was far out of her reach.
"Telekinesis, don't fail me now!" she yelled out, seeming to concentrate on the squirrel.
Natsuki frowned at her, then shook her head. "Yeah, you keep doing that," she said, turning around. "I'm going ahead. Follow behind if you want."
Sachiko didn't bother saying anything back in response, still keeping her eyes closed in a deep concentration, so Natsuki just sighed in exasperation once again. Nodding to herself, she started to walk away from her companion.
Once she was a few meters away, however, she heard her say something.
"Huh?" Natsuki called back and turned to see her.
Sachiko was currently holding her book open for some reason and petting the squirrel that was once upon the top branch of the tree while it kept nibbling on its food on the ground. Her phone was set on the ground, the light pointing upwards to illuminate her like a beacon along with the other bugs that were flying in as well.
"Now, be a dear and move away from here, please Mr Squirrel?" Sachiko smiled as she spoke to it. Natsuki widened her eyes as she saw the squirrel actually nod at her and run away as she asked.
"W-Wha…" Natsuki faltered back upon seeing the odd display in front of her. "T-That squirrel w-was up t-there… a-and you talked to it…"
Sachiko slowly turned up to meet Natsuki's eyes, making the pink-haired girl widen her eyes at her expression. She was showing her a sad smile. An expression that Natsuki had never seen on the ever-enthusiastic Sachiko before.
"I… am so sorry to do this, Natsuki," she said, keeping her book in between them. "But you can see this book. I didn't want him to have said the truth. But he did. I see that now."
"W-Wait, Sachiko," Natsuki widened her eyes in surprise and worry as she spoke. "W-What's going on?"
Instead of replying, Sachiko slowly pulled off her eyepatch. Holding the patch in her hand, she smiled. "I really love this eyepatch, you know?" she said, looking up at her. "Really reminds me of when things were easy. When I could just be a Chuunibyou like you keep saying. But now, seeing how I have powers, I see how terrible it all actually is. It even made me see anime protagonists in a different light. You understand that, right, Natsuki?"
"W-Wha… What are you talking about?!" Natsuki demanded, gritting her teeth and widening her eyes in confusion and a hint of anger at her possible betrayal. "W-We're friends, right?!"
Despite Natsuki saying all of this, she was slowly coming to the conclusion that Sachiko was aiming at.
'She's a Stand User,' she realised. 'My best friend is a Stand User fighting against me. And that book is her Stand.'
Sachiko's expression fell as she unceremoniously let out a tear from her eye. She hastily wiped it away with the eyepatch and stowed the accessory away in one of her blazer pockets.
"What you just saw was me using two different abilities," Sachiko said. "Mob's Telekinesis and Koda's Anivoice. That's the power of my Stand, Imagine Dragons.".
"S-Sachiko… you too?!" Natsuki choked out, tears filling her eyes. "Y-You're working for him too?!"
"I-I don't want to!" she yelled back. "W-Wallace just came up to me one day and asked me if I wanted powers like in all these stories, and I obviously said yes! B-But… I had no idea it would be this bad…"
Finally landing her page, she held her hand out. "And that's why I have to defeat you, Natsuki. You and your Stand. I am so sorry."
Suddenly, Natsuki felt a tug from her hand. Looking down, she flinched as the bag she was holding suddenly pried itself away from her hands and flew over to Sachiko.
"That's Larceny, by the way. Another quirk from MHA," she said as she pulled out the volume from within. "Apparently, I'm supposed to use this volume as well against you."
"S-Sachiko, we can help!" Natsuki yelled back. "We freed the Chinen Twins from that threat! If I can get you to MC, I can get him to save you too!"
"I wish it were that simple, Natsuki," Sachiko said with a sad smile. "I know about the twins too. But it won't work anymore. Wallace has the last member of the Trifecta looking out and making sure that we're not betraying him."
"S-So, y-you're from the Trifecta?" Natsuki asked.
Sachiko nodded in reply, lifting up her leather-bound book. Now that Natsuki could focus on it, she noticed that it had the letters I and D on the spine written in an ornate font.
"I am," she responded. "Although I'm sure that I'm in only because Wallace said that my Stand was his greatest creation. A Stand with Infinite Development Potential."
"Infinite?!" Natsuki asked in response, widening her eyes in surprise.
Sachiko didn't respond and closed her eyes. "Imagine Dragons," she said, making the cover of the book turn into a yellow portal of sorts while a similarly coloured aura covered Sachiko. She gingerly held the other volume that Natsuki bought over the book and dropped it. It went through the portal as she had expected, and the yellow glow disappeared. Opening the book, a page materialized at the very end of the book. Moving to it, Sachiko quickly read it and widened her eyes.
"This… is weird," she said. "I've never seen this in the wiki. I'm pretty sure that this manga didn't have powers. Well, whatever. Imagine Dragons."
…
Nothing happened. Sachiko blinked, but then looked back at the book in her hands.
"Oh, it needs to be at my home, huh?" Sachiko read out loud.
Natsuki immediately paled as she heard that description. "Oi, Sachiko," she called out. "W-What are you talking about?"
"This power," she said, showing the book to her. "Apparently I can adjust the space of my home and manifest… butlers?... within it."
"That's… House of Gold," Natsuki muttered.
Sachiko deadpanned, an expression that Natsuki had never seen on her friend's face before. "Isn't the name of the book A House of Gold?" she asked.
Natsuki shook her head. "No, I'm talking about my dad's Stand," she said. "He used to abuse me. But after I got saved, he was deleted and turned into that series. House of Gold was his Stand's name."
"W-What?!" Sachiko quickly blanched, unknowingly withdrawing her book Stand in a flash of yellow. "W-Was I… g-going to use y-you're a-abuser's power against y-you?!"
Natsuki slowly nodded. "Whoever asked you to do that… knew their shit," Natsuki said, trying her best to forget her father once again.
Sachiko widened her eyes in surprise at Natsuki's revelation, and then hung her head low, suppressing her anger. "Dammit," she said. "If… If it weren't for Haku-senpai, I-I wouldn't be in this! I-I would have betrayed that guy already! W-Wallace, he's a fucking monster!"
Sachiko shook her head from the tears forming. "I-It doesn't matter," she carried on. "I-I'm not going to use t-that ability on you, don't worry. B-But, I still have to defeat you." As she said this, Sachiko turned up to look at Natsuki, a grim look set on her face, manifesting Imagine Dragons in her hand again. Once again, Natsuki was baffled at the novelty of the expression on her face.
Natsuki ended up chuckling, making Sachiko widen her eyes in surprise. "Stands sure do suck, don't they?" she said. "Despite everything it probably sounds like?"
Sachiko stared at Natsuki for a moment, then giggled a little as well. "They sure do," she replied, looking at her with the sad smile she kept through most of the conversation.
Natsuki nodded as well, then turned away for a moment. Taking a moment for herself to breathe, she turned back to Sachiko once again, wearing a grim expression like hers.
"That just means that we'll have to get this out of the way," Natsuki said, balling her fists in frustration at what she was supposed to do. "Sweet Victory!"
"Imagine Dragons!"
As Natsuki rushed forward with her Stand boosting her ahead, Sachiko jumped away from her as she riffled through her list of abilities.
"Kitty Pryde!"
As Natsuki punched her, she widened her eyes at how her hand simply phased through Sachiko's body. Grunting in disapproval, Sachiko quickly let her hand move through Natsuki's Stand and punch her directly in her face.
The pink-haired girl suddenly felt a tooth go loose at the no-holds-barred punched directly on her face, making her stumble away from her newly minted opponent as well. Looking back up at her, she sadly smirked and wiped her mouth.
"I think… I get it now," she said, still smiling as she looked to the floor. "Why they wanted to set those guys free instead."
"Huh?" Sachiko asked, quirking a brow even though her Stand still remained open at Shadowcat.
"I always wanted to defeat everyone," she said. "That's my Stand, right? Sweet Victory. Attain victory over everything. And so, I was willing to almost kill a whole bunch of people that tried to kill us, even though they were forced to do so. But my friends, my club, they were the ones who held me back every time. They wanted to save the others. Except for JoJo, but he has his reasons, hah."
"I… I honestly don't know where I'd be if it weren't for them," Natsuki continued, now looking back at Sachiko once again. "And that's why I'm going to win this. For them. That's why I'm going to save you, no matter what happens to me."
Sachiko drew her head back for a moment, trying to hold her tears back in, but then closed her eyes and forcefully glared at Natsuki, even though her wobbly expression told her true feelings. "As I said, I wish you could. There's a reason why I love using Kitty Pryde. I won't get hurt as long as I see everything you do."
Natsuki looked at her book once again, thinking about what she had just said.
'That's right, I can't touch her,' she thought. 'But she's here to defeat me, right? Her abilities are all close-ranged with Kitty. That means…'
"It's actually pretty easy to beat you, once you think about it," Natsuki mocked her with a playful smirk. "I've already got a plan."
"Huh?" Sachiko asked, casually waltzing up to her without keeping her guard up. "What kind of plan? Kitty's invincible!"
"A plan that I had misjudged once, but I now see the value in," she said, manifesting Sweet Victory by her side again. "One that seems so simple and stupid that everyone will just think 'What the fuck…' but for some reason, is capable of defeating Gods."
'I'll need to take a page out of your book, JoJo.'
"NIGERUNDAYOOOO!" Natsuki suddenly yelled out as she quickly used her Stand around her feet to bond the air together there to step away from. What she hadn't expected, however, was the springiness of the air steps she created, enough for her to bounce away from elastic air.
'Wait, what?' Natsuki pondered as she flew through the air. 'I thought my Stand could only freeze things? What was that?'
"Huh?! What's with that mock Gentle Criminal?!" Sachiko reacted as she saw her running away. "W-Wait, I'm supposed to be defeating you, not letting you run away! Yuno!"
After flicking through her pages again, she suddenly shot away from the ground as a gust of wind carried her, helping her trail behind Natsuki in the air. Seeing her following from her peripherals, Natsuki quickly created several air pellets in her hand and used her Stand to shoot them back at her. Sachiko widened her eyes at the incoming bullets and quickly compressed an air shield to stop them. The shield couldn't stop them, however, seeing how they were actually stronger than the shield by being more solid, but the compressed gale was strong to push them away from her. Gritting her teeth, Sachiko saw that Natsuki had taken that time to move further away.
Natsuki looked back to see Sachiko manifesting a wind bow in her hands, pulling back several arrows within. Shooting them at her, Natsuki quickly compressed a new set of air beneath her feet, using her Stand to spring her away into another direction. Thinking back to Sachiko's earlier words, she grinned as pushed out an elastic wind panel in front of her, strong enough to hold back the new volley of wind arrows that Sachiko shot her way. To her surprise, the shield was strong enough to send the shaped arrows back where they came from, successfully deflecting them back at Sachiko.
With a yelp, Sachiko quickly pushed herself out of the path with another burst of wind. Looking back at Natsuki, she shook her head.
"Seriously, you're not going to make this easy, huh?" she said. Quickly flying over Natsuki's plane, she let herself fall by flipping through her book once again. "Shinra!"
Suddenly, a burst of flames shot out from Sachiko's feet, burning through her mismatched hero-inspired socks and high-tops. Propelling herself over to Natsuki faster than she had before, Natsuki barely managed to form an air shield in front of her, making sure that it wasn't elastic like the other ones.
Sachiko, having already expected this, quickly flipped over in the air, and pressed her feet onto the surface of the shield, using the burst of flames to brute her way through the shield. However, all of the flame she was generating simply moved around the shield, preventing any of them from burning Natsuki. The girl in question widened her eyes as she noticed how she wasn't getting burned in the slightest, only forced to face a little bit of heat.
Gritting her teeth in frustration, Sachiko quickly pushed away, hovering over the air once again.
"Those air shields block heat as well, huh?" she realised. "That means I can't cook you in there."
Natsuki raised her eyebrows in concern, gently pressing the elastic air panel beneath her. "Sachiko, I'm seriously worried about your thought process right now."
"You already know that I have no choice," Sachiko shot back, flying over Natsuki once again. "That means I need to try something else."
Flicking through the pages in her book again, she started to fall. The next thing Natsuki knew, Sachiko appeared in front of her in a flash of royal blue. Feeling her grab her shoulder, she suddenly found herself on the ground, Sachiko leaping away from her while teleporting with several BAMFS.
Just before she landed, however, Sachiko quickly flicked over to another page she had bookmarked with her finger, forming the familiar jets of fire on her feet. Shooting over to Natsuki, the pink-haired girl quickly formed a shield in front of her with Sweet Victory yet again. Sachiko noticed this and quickly stopped the propulsion, letting inertia carry her forward. Quickly turning around to push her feet at her opponent, she quickly flicked over to another page to let her phase through the shield like it wasn't there. Kicking Natsuki away from the shield far enough to set her free from the solid wind, she quickly moved back to Shinra to reignite her feet, shooting Natsuki away from her while wildly burning her chest.
Natsuki gasped as she was sent rolling away. Finding herself coming to a stop, Natsuki wheezed as she forced herself to stand up. Seeing Sachiko still flying to her with a pained grimace, Natsuki closed her eyes and manifested Sweet Victory yet again.
As Sachiko kept flying to Natsuki, she scowled as Natsuki quickly leapt away from her, using her Stand to strengthen her legs. As Sachiko deviated to reach her, Natsuki quickly formed another shield in front of her again. Punching it, she shot it forward at Sachiko. Acting quick, Sachiko flicked over to Shadowcat to move through the projectile, resetting back into Shinra to keep flying. Leaping over her with the jets on her feet, Sachiko quickly flipped over to land another attack on Natsuki.
Natsuki, however, steeled herself as she brought her Stand out. Clapping her hands, she immediately jumped to the side, away from Sachiko's attack. Sachiko swiftly turned her head to look at Natsuki and braced herself to switch directions once again.
And she would have if it weren't for the gusts of compressed wind that suddenly hit her from the side.
The pellets weren't Sweet Victory's classic solidified air balls. These were spreadable air that was just compressed together. Despite that, Sachiko didn't know about them to switch to Shadowcat, so she had to get hit by them all.
As Sachiko got knocked away, Natsuki leapt at her again, manifesting her Stand above her again.
"BAKABAKABAKABAKABAKABAKA!"
Sachiko yelped as she found the several attacks catching her gut, strong enough to shatter through her ribs and nearly hurt her organs. As she was sent flying back, Natsuki sighed as she wiped a layer of sweat from her forehead.
"I'm glad I thought of that plan," she said. "I should really remember that stored force ability that my Stand can use more. Making pellets while running away and storing force on them was a lot harder than it seemed."
Sachiko quickly coughed out a mouthful of blood as she forced herself onto her knees.
"Sachiko, please, I don't want to hurt you anymore," Natsuki said, slowly walking to her but not getting too close. "Let me call my friends. We can all help you."
Sachiko grit her teeth in frustration, then slowly reached for her book.
"I… didn't want to… rely on this…" Sachiko spoke with a raspy voice, probably from her damaged trachea. "My… trump card…"
Moving the book over to the second page, she quickly rested her hand on the cover. As Imagine Dragons shone yellow once again, Natsuki widened her eyes as all the damage that Sachiko faced vanished from her body.
"That's Deadpool, by the way," Sachiko said with a gasp once she was fully healed, standing up to look at Natsuki again. "Natsuki, I know that my Stand is infinite in its potential. There are so many superpowers out there, and I know that there are certain combos that will defeat you, no matter what. However, I see that my standards are not working, so I will need to remove all bars."
Natsuki warily set out an elastic shield in front of her, bracing herself for the attack that she would be sending out. Meanwhile, Sachiko moved a lone page back in her book.
"And that means that I have to use my very first entry."
The next thing Natsuki knew was that Sachiko was right in front of her face, having flown so fast that she couldn't even see her travelling. Sachiko punched her, ripping through the elastic air shield in front of her and landing a deadly blow on Natsuki's chest.
The impact from that lone blow was far too much for Natsuki to handle. Feeling her ribs crack within her, Natsuki found herself flying away from her opponent at near-supersonic speeds. It took all her consciousness to make a few air barriers in her way, which couldn't stop her but could slow her down.
Tumbling onto the ground once again, Natsuki winced as she managed to sit back up. Looking ahead, she found Sachiko floating in the air in front of her.
"I didn't want to bring this out against you, but you left me no choice," Sachiko said, showing the page of her book to her. Natsuki paled as she finally realized why her punch was so strong. It was all said in the iconic red and blue diamond-shaped logo on that book with an oddly fashioned S within.
"Superman."
As she flew to Natsuki once again, she barely managed to push herself out of the way with her Stand.
'Hoy shit, I'm fucked,' she realized. 'I would have died if it weren't for those shields that I made."
As Sachiko curved midair, Natsuki rapidly froze the injuries Sachiko gave her and jumped off another elastic shield on the ground. As she went soaring in the air without having to look back to know that Sachiko was closely following behind, she quickly formed another shield beneath her feet.
She paled once she realised that she didn't bounce off it since she was already travelling upwards and away from it. This mistake cost her as she found another punch to her face barely blocked by another shield and her arms.
Sent tumbling into the ground from the sky, Natsuki groaned as she looked into the sky. Wincing as she stood back up, she looked back down at her now battered arms. She didn't have to look at her face to know how badly beat up it was at the moment.
Ignoring it, she looked back up at Sachiko drifting down from the sky.
"Seriously, you put up a good fight," she said, looking down at her from the skies. "With an ability like force and velocity stalling, your applications were incredible. Elastic shields that froze most intermolecular forces but not all of them. Storing force in an object to be used later as traps. Natty, I know for certain that if you had some more knowledge of science, your Stand would be absolutely incredible."
Natsuki widened what was left of her eyes as she thought about what Sachiko had said. "Force and velocity stalling?" she managed to ask out loud, looking back up at her. "What does that mean?"
"Isn't it obvious?" she asked. "You can freeze forces and velocities! I don't know how far it can actually go just yet, but I'm pretty sure you can do quite a bit with it."
'Wait, really?' she pondered, looking back down to the injuries on her. 'She's… she's right! I froze that force on those air pellets I made earlier, making them shoot out once I released them. My injuries… they're not bleeding because the force of the blood is cancelled!'
Looking back up at Sachiko, hovering in the air again, she widened her eyes. 'Wait, I can add onto that, can't I? Sachiko, isn't she flying by…'?
"I'm sorry, Natsuki, but I can't keep you here for any longer," Sachiko spoke up, making the pink-haired girl flinch in surprise. Sachiko's eyes suddenly started to glow red. "I… have to do this."
Widening her eyes in surprise and recognition, she quickly sent her Stand out in front of her to intercept the incoming laser vision. Natsuki quickly looked away, preparing for her to be burned to death.
…
But nothing happened.
Looking back up, she stood bewildered as she saw Sweet Victory's hands in the air, forming another solid air shield. Natsuki could feel the heat from the laser rolling through, but for some reason, the actual laser was being sent away.
"I forgot about that," Sachiko smirked as she shut down her laser vision. "You can even freeze molecular vibration, forcing ay object into a state of absolute zero. Not surprising that laser vision won't work against that."
Looking back at the page on her book for a moment, she closed her eyes in pensiveness. "But that's why I have to end this quickly."
Briefly seeing Sachiko flash in front of her once again with a determined scowl marring her features, she was suddenly knocked back by a blast of cold wind that she blew out. Natsuki could feel her limbs slowly freezing, but before they could, she quickly froze her particles' movement just as she had mentioned, keeping them all at the same pace to keep her at the same temperature.
Gritting her teeth, Natsuki quickly used her Stand to leap onto another air shield she created, jumping away from Sachiko once again.
"You can't get far like that!" Sachiko yelled out, quickly zipping through the air once again and landing a punch on Natsuki's gut.
However, Natsuki was prepared this time.
While her Stand wasn't fast enough to actually intercept the punch, Natsuki brought one of its hands into her gut, quickly freezing all movement there. She had to bite down on her lip her agony as she suddenly felt her gut turn deathly cold and immobile. However, despite the skin of her stomach shifting to absolute zero, the effect was strong enough to fully freeze the intermolecular forces as well, making Sachiko's punch knock her back to the ground again without injuring her. Natsuki counted her lucky stars that she also froze intermolecular forces as well, making sure that her gut didn't shatter.
As Natsuki found herself hurtling to the ground yet again, she closed her eyes and braced herself. Out of pure instinct, Natsuki ended up bring her Stand down to her once again, to touch her on the shoulder.
In mere moments, Natsuki felt herself slowing down.
Slowly, she opened her eyes in suspense. She gasped as she found that she was hovering over the ground. It didn't take her long to realise what had happened.
'Gravity,' she realised. 'I froze my fucking gravity.'
Out of the corner of her eye, she found Sachiko flying at her again. Sharply inhaling, she quickly rolled out of the way midair, partly using her Stand to support her unfamiliar three-dimensional movement.
"Looks like you've learned how to fly," Sachiko smirked as she turned back to look at her again. "But how will you hold up against a seasoned flyer like me?"
Gritting her teeth in frustration, Natsuki quickly shot a hand to the opposite side to move away. However, to her demise, she hadn't moved at all.
Sachiko widened her eyes as she noticed the fault in her setup. "Well, since you can only hover, I don't see how you can move as fast as I can," she said.
She paled as she realized that Sachiko was right. She couldn't move in any direction. She may have had her gravity frozen, leaving her suspended midair, but she had no way to move around.
As Sachiko shot back at her again, Natsuki grit her teeth, deciding that this was enough for now. She may not be able to fly like her old friend, but hovering midair would be enough for that moment, just for long enough to stop her.
As Sachiko flew at her, Natsuki thought back to what JoJo had told her in the last run. The rules of every Stand.
'Only a Stand can hurt other Stands. Stands reflect damage back to their user,' she realized. Now looking at Sachiko and the thick book in her hands, she finally realized her weakness, even though she possessed Kryptonian durability.
Now close enough, Sachiko quickly drew back her free right hand to land another punch on Natsuki. However, she hadn't expected Natsuki to quickly toss herself slightly to her left with the use of her Stand. Now on her free side, Natsuki quickly sent Sweet Victory out in front of her once again and targeted the book in Sachiko's hands.
"BAKABAKABAKABAKABAKABAKA!"
Sachiko quickly coughed up blood as the book in her hands quickly went flying out of her hands. Natsuki widened her eyes as she found that Sachiko's own form went along with Imagine Dragons, sending her flying back while keeping her hand within a centimetre's proximity from the Stand tome.
As Sachiko rolled up from the ground, Natsuki grinned, knowing that she would be frozen at that moment. She willed for it this time, instead of the last where she wanted to keep Sachiko free.
"I-Imagine Dragons," Sachiko coughed out between the bits of blood she was coughing. "Return."
The book in her hands suddenly vanished in a flash of yellow, letting Sachiko close her fist and stretch it. Nodding, Sachiko stood back up again and regarded Natsuki.
"W-What?!" Natsuki yelled at her actions. "You're supposed to be frozen! Why aren't you frozen!"
"You froze my Stand," she said. "While it is true that whatever happens to a Stand happens to its user, Stands can remove themselves from our plane. And so, I can free my Stand from your power by calling it back into me."
Natsuki grit her teeth, hating how that had made sense.
"Imagine Dragons," she said, summoning the book in her hands once again. She started flipping through the pages. "I'll heal myself with Deadpool first, then I'll return to Superman."
As Sachiko was healing herself, Natsuki hated that she couldn't do anything to stop her, but she took her time to think about what had just happened.
'Sachiko flew away, even though I targeted her book, right?' she pondered. 'Wait, that was… that was just like what JoJo said about MC! He said that MC ended up dragging himself forward with his own Stand!'
Summoning Sweet Victory again, she regarded her Stand once more.
'It only has a limited range,' she pointed out to herself. 'If it goes beyond that range, then I will have to move along with it, right?'
Natsuki smirked as she looked down to her feet, still feet away from the ground in her hover, while she came up with a plan.
Sachiko groaned as she felt her wounds close up. Natsuki had definitely done a number on her, and if it weren't for Deadpool, she would have died so much sooner. As the healing completed, she nodded as flipped to the previous page once more, finding the Superman page.
The next thing she knew was Natsuki's Stand, Sweet Victory, meeting her head-on.
Widening her eyes in surprise, Sachiko kicked back into flight. She was even more surprised by Sweet Victory following her like nothing was in the way. But now that she had a clearer look, she dropped her jaw as she found out what was happening. Natsuki was still suspended in the air, but with her Stand's movement, she was making herself move forward as well. By making her Stand fly, she was letting herself fly along with it.
Sachiko grit her teeth as she took off into the sky, hoping that Superman's resistance and flight speed would be enough to save her from the incoming calamity that was Sweet Victory. Craning her head back, she shivered in fear as she saw Natsuki still behind her, meeting her pace even though she was flying the fastest she ever had before.
Seeing no other alternative, Sachiko decided that she just had to fly faster, breaking her personal records.
Natsuki quickly had to shield herself from the sonic boom that occurred when Sachiko burst away from her. Discovering her flight would certainly help her in her fight against Sachiko, but she still couldn't keep up with her Kryptonian speed.
However, as Sachiko made some distance between them both, she slowly turned around, bearing Natsuki once again. Natsuki, now seeing her face, could make out a stupid grin on her face, even though she was crying rivers.
"N-Natsuki!" she yelled out, pointing at her. "To the winner goes the spoils!"
Natsuki paused in her flight by pulling herself to a stop with Sweet Victory, but then smiled and nodded, accepting Sachiko's challenge.
"Bring it, Sachiko!"
Sachiko grinned at her even wider, then wiped the tears from her eyes. When she set her hand down, Natsuki could make out the red glow in her eyes building up.
"I'm not holding back anymore," she said, as she slowly tucked herself forward to charge at Natsuki. The pink-haired girl proceeded to do the same while sending her Stand out in front of her, mimicking her movements.
As they both shot at each other, Sachiko quickly let loose her laser vision with a loud yell. Natsuki made Sweet Victory form an air shield in front of her, letting her Stand carry it while making it large enough to wrap the heat from the lasers around and away from her. As the laser made its impact, the shield took the force and stalled it, letting Natsuki fly against the incoming light and move closer to Sachiko while ignoring her attack, yelling as she did so.
As the two shouting girls got into arms reach of each other in less than a second, Sachiko quickly threw a punch forward. Natsuki used her Stand to move over Sachiko with a grunt, keeping herself just far enough from her to keep her from attacking.
'Sachiko has an attack range limited to her arms,' Natsuki realized. 'But I have my power-type Stand.'
Sending Sweet Victory over to Sachiko, she quickly had her Stand land a punch on Sachiko's gut.
"BAKA!"
Surprisingly to Sachiko, she could actually feel agony from that hit. Not enough to render useless, but enough to force her breath away.
'But… I have Kryptonian resistance! I'm a Woman of Steel now!' she thought, bewildered at the pain she had faced. 'Sweet Victory is strong enough to match against Kryptonian durability?!'
As Sachiko was sent back, Natsuki suddenly moved to the spot behind her, tethering herself to the spot with Sweet Victory. Focusing on the book in her hands again and the body connected to it simultaneously, Natsuki braced herself to attack.
"BAKABAKABAKABAKABAKABAKABAKA!"
And just like Sachiko had done to Natsuki many times before, Sachiko found herself being sent to the ground, battered and bruised from the impact of the Stand against her. Colliding onto the earth with a loud boom, Sachiko found herself too broken to move.
Despite her injuries, the will of the Kryptonian induced in her forced her to sit up and attempt to flip over to the next page in Imagine Dragons.
"If I can… get to… Deadpool…" Sachiko strenuously muttered to herself, fighting against her pain to flip over to the second page. One that she knew held the details for Deadpool.
Holding it halfway, however, she found that her hand had stalled. Her entire body, in fact, had stalled. She was frozen. She paled even further as she noticed that the page slowly fell against the path she had pulled, keeping the book at Superman still.
Under her frozen skin, Sachiko was trembling in fear. 'She got me!' she realized. 'She managed to actually freeze me, even though my Stand is so strong!'
Hearing the gentle clopping of footsteps in front of her, she craned her eyes up to see who it was that was coming her way.
Natsuki was currently sporting a clearly shattered, burned and frosted chest with broken arms and missing teeth, hair gaining odd red tips from the blood on it and her face. All her injuries, at that moment, were frozen. Pulling out her phone, she quickly dialled someone up.
"Yuri," she spoke into it, wheezing in exhaustion as she did. "Thank god you made that scratch on me earlier. Come here quick. Stand attack. I won, but I'm hurt."
Hanging up her phone, Sachiko would have widened her eyes if she could as she saw a shroud of purple emanating from her left hand. Lifting it away from her with a slight wince, the purple mist formed a circular portal from which five other people stepped through.
"Well," JoJo remarked, frowning at the two battered people around him. "This is interesting, to say the least."
"Natsuki!" Sayori yelped as she moved to the girl, quickly shooting her rope out to heal her. Natsuki winced as the rope tightened itself around her but sighed in relief as she felt her wounds reknitting themselves closed.
"Is… MC here?" Natsuki asked, slowly getting dazed from the healing.
"Yeah, I am," MC said, having just walked out of the portal, regarding the dark forest they were in, just illuminated by JoJo phone flashlight.
"MC…" Natsuki wheezed out, briefly coughing for a moment. "Save Sachiko from Wallace, quick," she requested, looking at the frozen girl in front of her.
Looking at the girl, MC swiftly nodded. Walking up to the girl and summoning Day One, he touched her frozen shoulder just as custom asked. Looking back at his Stand, he smiled as he realised that the recharge had just finished. He freed the Chinen Twins at about 3 that day, and since it was 8:30, it was more than enough time for his Stand to recuperate.
"Enter the Breach."
"I… I don't know what to say," Sachiko said, kneeling down in despair as the red-ribboned girl, Sayori, healed her with her Stand, unable to keep the tears out of her eyes. "T-Thank you."
"Hey," she heard a familiar voice call out for her. Looking to the side, she widened her eyes as she saw a fully healed Natsuki, still sporting a ruined uniform and blood-matted hair, but with a wide smile on her face. "I told you I'd free you, right?"
Sachiko quickly fought through the rope holding her back, hugging Natsuki as tightly as her still-healing injuries would permit. Sayori smiled as she quickly readjusted the rope to not get in her way. Sachiko said that she could just use Deadpool again, but Sayori insisted that she healed her instead.
Soon after, the two split away from each other, Sachiko having completely dried herself out of tears. Wiping her eyes, she sent a stupidly wide smile at her.
"T-Thank you f-for beating me, Natsuki," Sachiko choked out. "I… I hadn't expected your Stand to be that strong, Really. A-And to think that it still has room to grow…"
Natsuki chuckled. "I'll admit, I hadn't expected it to be that strong, either," she confessed. "I mean, did you see me?! I fucking flew! Like, superhero flying!"
"Yeah!" Sachiko yelled out in reply, pumping her fists in excitement now that she was free of the rope around her, not that she noticed. "Freezing Gravity and using your Stand to move! I seriously never thought of that! But that's not all, you can even shift something to absolute zero! Seriously, if that isn't overpowered, nothing else is!"
"I know, right?!" Natsuki yelled in reply, not hiding her budding excitement. "I mean, half of those moves were brand new! Holy shit, that was so damn fun!"
Sachiko grinned at her as she stood back straight again. "Let's fight some other time, shall we?" she asked. "I'll do everything I can to kill you next time."
Natsuki faltered at her out of character remark but then smirked as she realised her true intentions. "Yeah, do your best," she said with a smirk in return. "I'll make sure that you won't lay a finger on me."
"We'll see about that, won't we?" Sachiko grinned as she looked at Natsuki, shooting her a competitive glare. "You can get as strong as you want, Imagine Dragons still has infinite potential. You'll hit a cap one day, but I never will. I'm gonna get stronger than you, got it?"
"Try me, Chuunibyou," Natsuki shot back, folding her arms while sending her an equally competitive smirk. "Dream on all you want; you won't ever beat me."
As the two girls kept bickering, JoJo deadpanned at the two. "Are these two actually girls or boys in disguise?" he wondered out loud, not realising that the two actually heard him and turned to glare at him for that comment.
However, before, they could unite against him, JoJo was immediately struck in the back of his neck.
"Ow!" he yelled as he rubbed his nape. "Who the hell was that?!"
Turning around, he found himself standing before a smiling Yuri. However, Yuri's seemingly innocent smile didn't reach her eyes at all.
"JoJo, please," she spoke, still sporting her unnaturally sweet smile. "Shut the fuck up."
JoJo felt a shiver run through his spine for a moment but ignored it as he huffed. "Fine, fine, whatever," he relented as he turned away, still rubbing his nape as he did so. Satisfied, the two girls turned to each other and nodded.
"Now, as much as I'd like to keep on seeing you two bicker," Monika interrupted, stepping up to the two. "We still have something to do."
"Right," Natsuki nodded at her, turning back to Sachiko. "Listen, who's the other Stand User in the Trifecta? We need to be sure about this."
"We need to move first," Sachiko said, expression turning grimmer. "We need to go somewhere safe quickly."
Nodding, Yuri quickly had The Knife Act 1 form a portal behind her. "Come with me," she said.
Sachiko took a step to follow, then winced at a slight bite on her feet. Looking back down, she saw that she was still barefoot.
'My shoes! My socks!' Sachiko mentally wailed, even though she still walked into the portal, bringing out her surprisingly intact eyepatch and wrapping it around her head.
Sachiko gasped as she found herself in a completely normal living room in a mere moment.
"Ooh, you can teleport too?" Sachiko said, beaming at Yuri. "Goddamn, I've got to mark this place with Finral!"
"Down, Chuunibyou," Natsuki said while resting a hand on the girl's shoulders, sighing as she did so. "Seriously, who thought about giving the Chuunibyou the ability to use any ability she wants? And why the hell are you still wearing that eyepatch?"
Sachiko chuckled as she turned to look at Natsuki again. "As much as I'd want to respect that person, it's Wallace we're talking about, so I'll just have to badmouth him," she said, still smirking at her. "Also, eyepatches are cool."
"A deal with the devil, why am I not surprised," Natsuki said, deadpanning at her, while Sachiko fake gasped out loud.
"Okay, enough of your shit, both of you," JoJo announced, making them all turn to him. "Sachiko, right? Tell us everything you know."
Sachiko's expression turned grim again as she regarded JoJo. "Very well," she said. "Just… I-I don't know if I can j-join you."
Monika nodded at her with a smile. "We understand, you should know that we do," she said. "But we'll need you to leave school as well."
"Monika," Sachiko sighed as she saw her. "Honestly, I thought that it was a miracle that you freed yourself. I really wanted to meet you guys, but that new Stand User that Wallace got was getting in our way ever since the Chinen Twins."
"Well…?" JoJo persisted.
"I know, I know," Sachiko said as she sighed. "Very well. The last Stand User is…"
Stand User: Sachiko Kamiya
Stand Name: Imagine Dragons (Inspired by the band going by the same name)
Ability:
Power Manifest: This Book Stand allows the user to insert any official illustrated book, like manga or fairy tales, into them. Once that page is opened, the user will be able to use any supernatural abilities displayed within that comic, one at a time. The book will have to remain open in its user's hand at the required page for the user to actually use the ability. She can only manifest the outcome of the power. For example, if there's a comic that features a person that trained to send their innate energy into their hands and combust it into fireballs, the user can only make fireballs on their hands. The user can also give these powers to others upon touch and can remove them if she closes Imagine Dragons. It cannot replicate technology, skills or training.
PWR: E
SPD: E
RNG: E
PER: E
PRC: E
DEV: Infinite
Reference list:
Marvel: Deadpool (Healing Factor), Kitty Pryde/Shadowcat (Intangibility), Nightcrawler (Teleportation)
DC: Superman (Kryptonian, nuff said)
My Hero Academia: Toya Setsuno (Larceny, stealing objects from people's hands), Koji Koda (Anivoice, the ability to speak to animals), Gentle Criminal (Elasticity)
Mob Psycho 100: Mob (Telekinesis)
Fire Force: Shinra Kusakabe (The Devil's Footprints, Emitting flames from feet)
Black Clover: Yuno (Wind Manipulation), Finral (Portal Teleportation, only referenced)
Jujutsu Kaisen: Domain Expansion
Naruto: The Bird Hand Seal
Attack on Titan: Wings of Freedom
A/N: Yes, I know I've drastically underutilized Imagine Dragons. I know that there were so many other abilities I could have used instead, but I'm still happy with how things ended up. I was afraid of making Sachiko too overpowered because then Natsuki wouldn't stand a chance. Creativity issues arise with versatility. Sachiko had to restrain herself to what she could imagine at once with her normally paced brain. Also, she didn't want to defeat Natsuki at heart. That's why she decided to shy away from other, more dangerous powers.
That's also why I wanted to end this fight on Superman. Superman is definitely not the strongest character out there, seeing how so many other anime characters can easily defeat him. However, Superman is iconic for being incredibly strong across the entire world, and having Natsuki defeat Superman himself just seemed like a great way to show her potential.
Honestly, half the reason why I wanted Superman in the end was to accompany Natsuki's flight discovery. Another thing I was looking forward to is Sachiko's Stand Card. All E's and a single Infinity was too much for me to resist, after all.
And yes, force freezing is highly overpowered. Natsuki's ability roster will only grow from here, aside from the already overpowered set of abilities of flight, absolute zero, temperature and state regulation, air shields, elastic air shields, air pellets, paralysis and stored forces. Jeez, even I think that that's quite the list.
Sometimes I say that I need to split the chapters in half because they're too long. Sometimes I upload chapters like this with 11k words all in one go.
As I mentioned before, I was pretty busy this week. I'm also going to start working on an internship soon, so updates will be a bit slower. I'll try my best to keep it to a weekly schedule, however.
Review!
IzuOchaShipper99: You're actually pretty close in your first review. Sorry, spoilers, but I can't really say no. I won't say which option you picked is right, however. I'll leave that to you. As for your second review, I forgot to mention that abilities affecting other abilities should not be added in the notice, pretty much as you had said. I thought about the general AFO use, but there's so much we don't know about his quirks still. That's why I stuck with this meagerly roster from MHA.
And that's all! I'll see you all next chapter!