Josefumi dodged to the left, avoiding a pounce attack from Leading The Pack, rolling on his shoulder as he winced in pain, trying to ignore it despite his ribs screaming at him to stop moving. The pain had almost made him puke, but he kept it back—he couldn't show weakness, nor could he show any signs of losing. After all, if he lost now, then he wouldn't be able to live up to The True Man's World.

Leading The Pack snarled after failing to land a successful attack on the first attempt. The aura around it flared, as the visor it had for eyes glowed a bright red. It clawed the ground with its front-facing left paw, pulling back its lips to growl, revealing two rows of devilishly sharp teeth.

"You're lucky... but you won't get lucky for a second time, Joestar…" The Stand growled as Josefumi stood up, slowly, just to make sure the pain in his side didn't flare again. Honestly, he hated being a Stand User some days. Especially when he had to deal with crap like this. The whole "Stand Users attract other Stand Users" bit was something he had always hated, and he had half the mind to curse out God for doing such a horrible thing. But, such was life.

At least he knew he wasn't going to die seeing as there were hundreds of Heroes watching, so even if dying had factored into this, the person responsible would've been arrested lightning fast. Quite frankly, the fact that he had to think like that at all perturbed him.

Maybe he needed a therapist? Whatever, just because he couldn't die didn't change the fact that he was already wounded and that he now had to fight an Automatic Stand that would probably not let up even if he asked politely.

In all reality, he knew he should just use Soft & Wet. If he did, this fight would be over, and he could go camp out in some building and hide. But, he didn't. He had already committed to only using The Spin. He had promised Gyro he would only use The Spin while he was participating in The Sports Festival.

Gyro had gone out of his way to train him out of his volition. He would honour his promise. He refused to disappoint his teacher. Even if Gyro told him not to do it and to focus on winning, his stubbornness refused to bow to the obvious.

Was it stupid? Yes. But, the fact of the matter was that if he was limiting himself, he was doing so with the pretense that he knew he could beat his foe with only his Steel Ball. And while he had a good idea of how to beat it only using The Spin, the enemy wasn't really giving him much wiggle room to put it into action.

The Spin was connected to life energy at a conceptual level—just like Hamon was. However, unlike Hamon, where you needed some kind of aptitude to use it, The Spin was entirely different. Anyone could use it if they knew the basics, but it was incredibly difficult to master.

Also like Hamon, The Spin was a gateway to eventually developing a Stand. It was how Gyro Zeppelli awakened his Stand, Ball Breaker. While it wasn't uniquely Gyro's, but rather a Stand that belonged to The Spin, Gyro was still one of the very few people who awakened it and was one of the only people who Ball Breaker seemingly preferred to be summoned by.

Josefumi wanted to understand and be one with The Spin just like his father and Gyro. He looked up to them, and he wanted to emulate them. So when he promised Gyro that he was only going to use The Spin, he meant it.

"Sure… whatever you say," Josefumi grunted, a wide smile taking up his visage as blood seeped down from his forehead, trailing down past his left eye as it dripped onto the ground below. "The only reason why you aren't gone and I haven't tracked down and beat up your user is because I'm injured. Don't get cocky, asshole!"

Leading The Pack snarled, approaching Josefumi as it prepared itself to pounce. Josefumi gripped his Steel Ball, searching for something to see The Golden Ratio in. Once again, he targeted the window as his muse and prepared to shoot his Steel Ball at Leading The Pack.

This time, he would destroy it and buy himself some time to hunt down the user.

He arched his arm and wrist back, and with an arching throw, the ball made its way to the Stand's lanky neck. Leading The Pack raised its head upward, miscalculating where the ball was being thrown, allowing The Steel Ball to hit its target, knocking Leading The Pack to the ground.

Leading The Pack made an audible gasp and choking sound as it got hit, and while it was stunned, Josefumi was able to get away from the problematic situation and relocate. Unfortunately for him, the pain in the left side of his body flared, causing him to slow down more than he would've liked to.

He hissed, clutching at his side as he frowned, stopping to breathe. He needed to find a place to hide. Though, given that he would more than likely be chased, he knew that hiding wouldn't do him any good for very long. Automatic Stands were relentless, and they were designed to be. It was why he hated fighting them.

"Something tells me that's going to be a problem," Josefumi thought, collecting the Steel Ball from his opponent, who laid still, unmoving. Josefumi was weary of his opponent, kicking its head to try and garner a reaction. However, Leading The Pack didn't get up, and even after waiting for a second or two, even then it didn't budge. "Don't tell me… I defeated it already?"

Josefumi took a step back and prepared himself with an ounce of trepidation in his eyes as Leading The Pack didn't budge. There was something wrong with this scenario, and he knew it. A Stand didn't go down this easily. It was clear it was playing a trick on him. It had to have been.

And his trepidation was rewarded as Leading The Pack began to spasm. Its limbs jutted out and shook as if it was having a seizure, and then, the head began to split apart, a black gooey substance separating the new head and the old one. Two new paws jutted out from its back, and in the blink of an eye, a new Leading The Pack showed up, digging its way out of the old one.

Except, it wasn't alone, as another one came out of its former as well, both with deep red visors staring at him. Both wolves growled as Josefumi took a step back, the pain in his left side flaring once more, making him grit his teeth and narrow his eyes.

"WHOA! WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT?! IT WOULD SEEM THAT THERE'S MORE TO UTSAGI'S QUIRK THAN WE THOUGHT! IT CAN DUPLICATE! HOW DID SHE NOT GET INTO THE HERO COURSE?!"

"A Stand that can duplicate itself through division? And from the looks of it, it duplicates depending on how much damage it takes. Which means… I have to find the user before this gets out of hand!" Josefumi thought, his Steel Ball spinning with sparkling energy, taunting the wolves to come after him. And come after him they did, the pair charging him, though noticeably faster than the first.

He dodged to the left, and out of reflex, he had Soft & Wet hit the one that was going to punish him for misstepping in the chest, knocking the wolf into the side of the building. It slid down, unconscious as the remaining laugh cackled.

"So my master's intuition was correct… You are a Stand User!" The conscious wolf of Leading The Pack said, its visor flashing with a bright red light, mimicking a glare. The wolf that was smashed into the wall duplicated once again, splitting into another two wolves, both growling at him.

"They get faster the more they split… I'll have to also assume they get stronger too… which means I have to dodge them rather than attack them unless it's absolutely necessary…. Shit!" Josefumi thought, glancing behind him as the wolf that spoke prepared to lunge at him, while the other two were blocking him from advancing.

He was, once again, cornered, injured, and in no condition to continue a fight like this. In other words, he was stuck in an unwinnable situation. Most of the time he would be able to weasel his way out of it. But he was already horribly injured, and it was only getting worse by the second.

He was getting woozy from the blood loss, and he had completely forgotten about Bakugo. A puddle of blood had already formed around Bakugo, and that probably wasn't a good sign. Why hadn't any medical robots shown up to take him away?

That was when a thought struck him… "Is Leading The Pack preventing the medical robots from getting here?" Josefumi thought, narrowing his eyes. "Oi… are you destroying any medical robots that come near here? How many more of you are there?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Leading The Pack taunted, snickering to itself as it stalked toward Josefumi. "But if you must know, no, I'm not. They're just taking their sweet time getting here. Think about how big this place is. Besides, My User only told me to hunt down the top five competitors from the last round and to incapacitate them. Not kill them."

"Well, that answers my question…" Josefumi thought, looking around. His Steel Ball was not in reaching distance, and if he had tried to grab it, he'd be rushed and attacked by Leading The Pack. If he wanted to keep up his promise, he'd need that Steel Ball. But without it, he had no choice but to resort to Soft & Wet.

"I have to think of something! I can't just get mauled by a bunch of fake wolves!" Josefumi's thoughts raced with panic as he frowned. He kind of hoped he'd be able to continue not using Soft & Wet, but it would seem as if he had no real choice in the matter. As the wolf behind him pounced, Josefumi summoned Soft & Wet to his side, and shot a bubble at it, removing its gravity as it began to float upward.

"HUH?!"

"Soft & Wet removed your gravity," Josefumi explained, looking over at the other two wolves, both of which growled and began to howl. "Well, it's been fun, but I got more important things to do. You know, like find your user?" Josefumi said as he began to run away from Leading The Pack, leaving it to float above the ground.

All he had to do was outrun or at the very least juke the wolves that were no doubt going to hunt him down. He knew that if he hit them they would just duplicate and get faster, as well as stronger, so knocking the last two out was a no-go.

In other words, he had to play his own scuffed version of Subway Surfer.

However, as he ran, the two other wolves who were unaffected by Soft & Wet's ability dashed after him, just as he expected. But unlike what he had expected, he hadn't been expecting just how fast they were. He at most assumed they would be slightly faster than the previous wolf that he knocked to the ground, but these were at least triple the speed of the original.

The two wolves were now by his sides, both on his left and on his right. Josefumi's eyes widened, not anticipating them to be as fast as they were. And just as he summoned Soft & Wet to his left side, the wolf to his right swiped at his right leg, tripping him as he faceplanted into the concrete, his nose smashing flat against the ground as blood shot out of his face; a sickening cracking sound reverberating throughout the streets as Josefumi tumbled for a few more feet, laying on the ground facing the sky.

His head hurt like hell, but then again whose head wouldn't after it got introduced to the concrete? But this was worse, namely because he had already had a headache from Bakugo's explosions. This only made it worse.

Blood trailed down from his nose, including its bridge, as well as his now busted lip. He could taste the coppery liquid, and as soon as it entered his mouth, he felt like he wanted to gag. He watched in the distance as medical bots took away Bakugo's unconscious form on a stretcher. If he didn't figure his shit out in the next few seconds, that was going to be him soon.

The two wolves began to circle him, both growling, and both ready to make a move if he so much as flinched the wrong way. He was boxed in completely and had no way out. Not to mention breathing through his nose was becoming an issue, namely because he was just now realizing that it was broken. "They broke my nose! Assholes!" Josefumi thought, a tic forming on his forehead.

Even if he got past these two, he wouldn't be allowed to continue to the next round due to the injuries he had accumulated. A broken nose, a no doubt dislocated shoulder, probably a few broken or bruised ribs along with a broken kneecap. He was defeated, and there was no way around it. Had this been a fight to the death, it would've been a hell of a lot different. But it wasn't and therefore he couldn't do much of anything.

"IT SEEMS THAT KUJO JOSEFUMI GOT KNOCKED TO THE GROUND! IS GONNA GET UP, OR IS HE DONE FOR!?" Present Mic announced as Josefumi groaned. He hated to admit defeat, but at the same time, he knew when he had been defeated. And so, with a sigh, he tapped the floor, a universal sign of surrender. The two wolves stopped prowling around him, and the one to his right looked down at him, growling.

"What does that supposed to mean?" The wolf snapped as Josefumi rolled his eyes.

"It means I surrender, jackass." At that response, the wolf smirked, revealing its many rows of dagger-like teeth.

The two wolves howled, and when they did, the user of the Stand withdrew them, the wolves dematerializing. "IT WOULD SEEM AS IF KUJO JOSEFUMI HAS BEEN DEFEATED! MAKING TATAMI UTSAGI 3RD PLACE! HER BOUNTY IS NOW AT 550,600! ALSO, A WARNING TO ALL CONTESTANTS! 4 MINUTES REMAIN ON THE CLOCK! GET THOSE LAST POINTS IN BEFORE ITS TOO LATE!"

Not even five seconds later, two more recovery bots came out from the alleyways of the street and put him on a stretcher. He felt embarrassed, seeing as he lost in the second event. Not that he could've done anything about it.

Even if he did come out on top in that fight, it would've had no point. He just hoped his father was all too disappointed in him. He knew he was in the stadium, and he also knew that Gyro and Gio were watching him, which only added to his embarrassment.

If he could facepalm without it hurting, he would have.

[XXXX]

If there was one thing that Izuku hadn't been expecting, it was for Kujo-san to be eliminated before the third round. He was a capable fighter, and for him to be eliminated by someone before he could advance didn't bode well for everyone else. If Tatami Utsagi, the person who bested Kujo, went after him next, he probably would be at a disadvantage.

Over in the distance, he could feel a cold breeze. That had to have meant that Todoroki had just taken someone out, and over to his right, he knew he previously heard a round of explosions, maybe a minute prior.

Bakugo was eliminated by Kujo-san, and not too long after that, Kujo-san was defeated by whoever Tatami Utsagi was. He had to admit, he was a little concerned. Todoroki was to his left, and Utsagi was to his right. Not to mention that he was still hunting down whoever had manipulated Uraraka-san, and they could be anywhere.

It also didn't help that he was currently being attacked by someone, which only added to the stress of everything going on around him.

Izuku dodged and ducked between punches sent at him by one Shoji Mezou and his Quirk, Dupli-arms. His classmate seemed to be determined to take him out if the determined glare in his eyes wasn't proof enough of that. From what he knew, Shoji had 400 points, meaning he either took out 4 separate people, or 2 people once the timer hit half-time.

Whatever the case might have been, Shoji had defeated a couple of people, which made Izuku feel a little nervous. Normally he'd be a bit confident against someone like Shoji—he knew One For All was powerful, and he had decent control over it—but that wasn't why he was nervous. He was hampered because of his wounds, and they were starting to get to him.

His head injury was starting to make him feel dizzy, and it was affecting how he fought. However, he needed to continue, and if he was going to give anything credit as to how he was continuing this round, it was his determination. He needed to take down the Stand User that puppeteered Uraraka and rendered her nothing more than an object before The Stand User could do that to anyone else.

After all, if there was one thing you didn't do, it was mess with Izuku's friends, no matter how close they might have been to him. Yoshihara had said that he had a "Luffy mentality" when it came to his friends. He didn't fully know what that meant since he had never watched or read One Piece before, but he was inclined to agree.

But, how did he know it was a Stand User? For all he knew, he could've been some really broken emitter-type Quirk. However, Izuku knew that wasn't the case. Why? Well, there were a lot of reasons, the key of which being the fact that she sustained injuries that seemed to come from nowhere, which was a telltale of a Stand being at play.

It wasn't Yoshihara's Killer Queen, namely because its ability wasn't puppeteering people, it was blowing things up with bubbles. It also wasn't Josefumi's Soft & Wet, doubly so for the latter seeing as he was just taken out of the competition. That meant there was another Stand User within U.A. completely unaccounted for.

And as much as he would've loved to continue his little spat with Shoji, he had important things to tend to. As much as he wanted to give proper respect to Shoji as a competent fighter, and defeat him more respectably than what he was about to do, he wasn't given much of a choice.

He had a Stand User to defeat.

Using 5% of One For All in his right arm, cocking his arm back, he lunged forward, leaning into the blow as much as he could as he landed the devastating blow to Shoji's ribs, making him double over in pain, a cracking sound echoing around the pair.

Then, Izuku charged up another 5% of One For All into his left arm and followed up his right hook to the gut with a quick jab to the face, knocking Shoji to the ground, rendering him unconscious as Present Mic announced his classmate's defeat.

Izuku's head pounded as he gripped his forehead, causing him to grit his teeth in pain. He might have had a concussion from what Uraraka had done to him when she was being controlled by the mysterious Stand User, which would be pretty bad all things considered.

Another 200 points were added to his bounty, which wasn't really saying much since his bounty was already over a million points. He looked up at the timer and the number of people. There were 3 minutes and 50 seconds left on the clock, and with every second he stood there, the timer continued to go down.

There were 22 people left in the competition, and if he had to guess most of them had to have 600 points—key word being most, and seeing as the event wasn't over, that meant he still had his chance to take on The Stand User before they progressed to the finals.

He had two timers over his head. One of them was the literal timer, and the other was the timer in terms of people left. If he didn't find The Stand User soon, either they were going to get taken out before he could take them out, or, The Stand User would make it to the final round, where they may not end up fighting at all.

And just as he was about to go out in search of the person who did what they did to Uraraka, he felt a disturbance in the air, specifically to his left. Though it felt different compared to how a Stand's presence was, that didn't matter. An attack was an attack, and he still had to dodge.

And so, he did just that and dodged to the right. When he got out of the way of the attack, and when the air felt normal, Izuku got into a defensive stance. "They're here!" Izuku thought, a wave of nervousness washing over him. He had almost been grabbed by the Stand, and had it not been for what his mother taught him, he would've been caught.

He could see the faintest hint of purple hair in the corner of the window. His eyes narrowed and charged up full cowling. Without thinking, he dashed forward, and as soon as he did, he prepared to kick down the wall, only to be met with an earphone jack to the stomach, and for a massive pulsating feeling filling his body.

Izuku's eyes widened as the pain shook throughout his body, and for a wad of spit mixed with blood to come out of his mouth, the blood coming from his head wound that had entered his mouth. "These are Jirou-san's jacks! Is it really her or…?" As Izuku thought that, he was shot back by a punch to his gut, knocking him back.

As he tumbled to the ground, his back hitting the wall of another building being the only thing stopping his rolling, he looked up to see both Jirou and another boy with a lighter shade of purple hair standing side-by-side, only for Jirou's eyes to be wide in what appeared to be annoyance, embarrassment, and frustration as the other person—a boy—smirked.

"Well, well, well. Look who it is?" The boy began as he used a wooden puppet to have Jirou launch toward him, holding him up by a neck as Izuku cringed at the sensation of being choked. He felt his body press up against the wall, small fissure cracks forming from the force with which Jirou's puppeteered body had slammed him.

"WHOA! LOOK AT THAT EVERYONE! FIRST-PLACE STUDENT MIDORIYA IZUKU IS IN A BIT OF A BIND! AND IT'S THANKS TO NONE OTHER THAN HITOSHI SHINSO FROM GENERAL STUDIOS! WHO WOULDA THUNK IT!" Present Mic announced as Izuku choked out a gasp, Jirou's grip lightening up so he could breathe, but still keeping him in a decent enough grip to prevent him from doing anything major.

"If it isn't Midoriya Izuku. A.k.a., the first-place contender in this little event. I gotta wonder, how much fun did you have pummelling my last puppet?" Hitoshi asked, tilting his head over to his right with a taunt of sorts.

Izuku's eyes practically turned feral at that. And to make things worse, it seemed to make the teen's smirk turn into a smile. "That must really grind your gears, doesn't it? To be fair, it would grind my gears too, if I was in your position, anyway," Shinso taunted, a coy smirk spreading across his lips whilst he shrugged. "I apologize, but it's what my Everybody Loves Me does. I can't change what my Stand can do. Besides, I'm here to win, not make friends, right? If it means I have to use people as my proverbial meat shields, I will."

"Keep calm, Izuku. He's trying to aggravate you. Don't let him get the better of you," Izuku thought, taking in a deep breath to calm himself down. "You're the one who declared war on our class… You want to be a hero, and yet… You use people as weapons and shields to protect yourself… that's awful. Do you even hear yourself right now?" Izuku said, readying himself to get up and attack.

It was then that his smirk turned to a frown. "Jeez… that did sound ominous, didn't it?" Hitoshi said, huffing. "Oh well, I'm not gonna be the one to complain. Not like I chose my power, didn't I? Either way, my Stand increases the physical strength of whoever becomes my puppet in return for their bodies, It's a fair trade-off, don't you think?" Hitoshi continued as he cracked his neck from side to side. "Oh well, I caught you now. You wouldn't want to break your friend, would you? You're cornered, which means, I win."

And just as he said, he motioned his wooden puppet to make Jirou's grip increase, making Izuku falter. Kyoka felt apologetic but knew she couldn't do anything to stop… well, herself. In the back of her mind, she was furious at being used as someone else's plaything, but there wasn't much she could do about it, now could she?

She should've knocked the guy out before she could do whatever it was he had done her. She was embarrassed and made a mockery of. Her blood boiled. If she could, she would've turned around and smashed the side of his face into a brick wall. Unfortunately for her, she couldn't, as she didn't exactly have control over her body at the moment.

She was reduced to nothing more than a toy for someone else's victory. If this was her right now, if she had been in control of her actions, then maybe she wouldn't have cared as much as she did. But right now, she did care. She cared a lot. Hell, the very least this asshole could've done was use her Quirk right.

Her Quirk could be two things—really good, or bad. It depended on how it was used. It could be supportive, or it could be destructive. Soundwaves were powerful, especially in high decibels. There was a reason why the United States Of America used Sonar Canons. Sound, especially when used correctly, was a deadly weapon.

Ever since Kyoka was a kid, she knew that. Mika had taught her that just because their shared Quirk was innoxious that didn't mean it wasn't dangerous—just like every Quirk, it was a weapon, and just like a weapon, it was extremely dangerous.

Back when she still respected Mika, she made a promise to her, and that was to never plug an earphone jack into someone and use her Quirks ability to project soundwaves into people. The only acceptable time was for self-defence, or if she was simply jolting someone awake. Otherwise, it could cause irreparable damage to the human body.

And seeing as this wasn't her using her Quirk, but rather someone else, they might not have known that. And because of that, what happened next both infuriated her, and terrified her, as one of her jacks plugged into Midoriya's gut again, but this time it did so in the same way that she used it to inject sound into an object. The result was her Quirk reverberating a wave of sound out through his body, which made Jirou's eyes widen.

She knew damn well that doing that was practically fatal. It could be deadly if used in the right way and in the right place. Izuku was lucky the first time, but his luck wouldn't protect him forever. So, watching the guy that started to somehow puppeteer her magically without activating a Quirk do that, made her fear for her classmate…. She tried to stop it, but she had no control over her body.

"No, no! Stop! You don't know what you're doing!" Kyoka thought, her eyes widening as she tried to open her mouth, but found that doing so was impossible. That bastard Shinso had tape over the mouth of the puppet, which meant that she couldn't speak—at least, that was how Shinso had explained it.

Then, pain exploded throughout her body as Midoriya broke her hand with an electrically charged grip and a scowl on his face. "I'm sorry, Jirou, but I can't go down like this, and I can't let him continue doing this to you… not like what he did to Uraraka-san!" Midoriya said, righteous anger in his voice.

She had no choice but to let go—not even that asshole could stop her from letting go of Midoriya. Then, he dashed forward, using his arm to snag Jirou by her waist and throw her into Shinso into a wall, close-lining her and him, whose eyes widened and gasped in pain as he was slammed violently and suddenly.

Once the two collided and crashed into the wall, Izuku grabbed the wooden doll out of Shinso's hand. His eyes narrowed, staring at the thing that had caused so much pain to both Uraraka-san and Jirou-san…. As soon as he took it, he slammed the wooden doll against the wall with all the force his body would allow, shattering it to pieces.

At that moment, pain erupted from Jirou's body. It was as if all of the bones in her body had just been broken all at once, even though they weren't. The pain felt real, even though it wasn't. She collapsed to her knees, falling into the fetal position as she groaned in pain, all the while Izuku stalked toward Hitoshi.

Hitoshi's eye's widened, his mouth agape. He couldn't believe what he was witnessing. "YOU IDIOT!" Hitoshi shouted, genuine anger on his face. "THAT COULDA KILLED HER!" He yelled, anger in his movements as he rushed towards Izuku in a desperate attempt to take him out.

Hitoshi knew that without Everybody Loves Me's puppets, he stood no real chance. However, he still had to try. He wanted to make his dream a reality, and he would be able to pull it off if he didn't take down Izuku Midoriya right here, and right now!

And just as he closed the distance, only a few inches away from socking Izuku in the stomach in an attempt to knock him out, his reward for making it that close to him was a powerful punch to the face courtesy of Izuku and 5% of One For All in his fist. Hitoshi went flying, tumbling across the ground as he felt unconscious, his Stand's ability lifting off of Jirou, as a wave of rejuvenation washed over her.

"WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT FOLKS! IN A STRANGE TURN OF EVENTS, SHINSO HITOSHI FROM GENERAL STUDIES HAS BEEN ELIMINATED, ALONG WITH HIS INCREDIBLY BIZARRE PUPPETEER QUIRK! SEEMS LIKE MIDORIYA IZUKU WILL CONTINUE TO HOLD ON TO HIS FIRST-PLACE TITLE AFTER ALL!"

"I knew what I was doing. A Stand's ability goes away once the Stand is deactivated, forcefully or otherwise," Izuku stated, though namely to himself. "That means whatever pain Jirou-san would've felt thanks to your Stand and its proxy would fade once you went unconscious." As Izuku said that, Jirou groggily sat up, looking warily at Izuku, who shot a concerned glance at her.

"W-What the hell was that all about?" Kyoka questioned, earning a troubled sigh from the boy. He walked over to her and sat next to Kyoka, helping her sit up properly. She looked more worse for wear than he did.

"How much of that did you hear?" Izuku asked as Kyoka raised an eyebrow.

"Uh… almost everything? What the hell is a Stand?" Kyoka asked as Izuku bit the inside of his cheek. He slipped up. He must've been too tired to realize that he had said that out loud.

"That… was something you weren't supposed to hear…"

[XXXX]

!Stand Information Corner!

Stand User: Hitoshi Shinso

Stand Name: Everybody Loves Me

Localized Name: Everyone Adores Me

Stand Appearance: Everybody Loves Me takes the appearance of a bisected humanoid, with wires dangling out of the bottom of the torso like hung intestines. In the center of the torso is a monitor that, when its ability is not active, has the word "Disconnected" in plain, white text. The torso is a metal ribcage, with the pointed ends of the ribcage keeping the monitor where it is supposed to be. It has two large heart-shaped shoulder pads, and attached to the shoulder pads are thin, wirey arms with hand-sized fishing hooks wound up in golden reels. In place of eyes, a nose, and a mouth, it has pits and spirals all over its face.

Stand Ability: Everybody Loves Me allows Hitoshi to control people as if they were puppets. It works like this: Using the fish hooks that Everybody Loves Me has will snare an individual by hooking them by the shoulders. From there, all Hitoshi has to do is use a medium to control them—usually a wooden doll. In return for being used as a puppet by Hitoshi, the person who is hooked by Everybody Loves Me receives a physical boost in all categories. However, if the wooden puppet is destroyed at any point, the person being controlled by Everybody Loves Me will also be destroyed. Unless, of course, Hitoshi is killed and or knocked unconscious.

Stand Stats:

Destructive Power: Grade N/A (Not Applicable/Has No Means Of Damaging An Individual In The Traditional Sense)

Effective Range: Grade D (When Disconnected)/Grade A (When Connected)

General Speed: Grade C (As fast as a bullet)

Persistent use of Ability: Grade A (The ability is always active and instantly connects with an individual the moment they enter Hitoshi's range unless Hitoshi does not want it to)

Precision: Grade A (It will always hook whoever is in Hitoshi's range unless Hitoshi does not want it to)

Overall Potential: D

[Status: Retired/Defeated]

[XXXX]

Yoshihara had to admit one thing, her opponent was clever. Not smart, but definitely clever. She had deduced that the Stand's ability had something to do with emotional and sensation manipulation. It wasn't one or the other based on what happened earlier with her "fight" with Ibara and the unnatural rage she had felt towards her. To what degree she wasn't so sure. What she was sure of was just how debilitating it could be.

Right now, she felt like she was seconds away from fainting. Her only help with the matter was the fact that she refused to go down this easily. She was able to push through it before, but it seemed as if the closer she got to her enemy's location, the worse it was going to get.

Her pours felt like they were on fire, and her skin hummed with a burning sensation that matched that of a sunburn; except unlike a sunburn, the pain was never the same as it fluctuated from a peaceful hum to a violent burn.

Sweat had cumulated around her forehead and under her armpits. She felt like she was being baked alive, and the worst part about it was that she knew why it was happening, and she knew how it was happening, too.

Earlier, when she was at the entrance of the building she saw the Stand User in, she had felt like death warmed over, only for a few seconds later for that intensity to die down. It continued to die down every passing second, and when she began her climb, it felt like a soft gust of heated wind was on her skin. But now it felt like a mix of the two, and it sucked big time.

Which led her to conclude the obvious. Her opponent had a Stand that could use its ability from a distance, which only meant one thing…

"A range-based Stand… and with an ability like this, it could be deadly once in close quarters, which limits my options. Though with an ability like this, it probably has weak physical strength. Or maybe not, I won't know till I encounter it…" Yoshihara thought, biting down on her lower lip as she took a step or two back.

The sensation seemed to weaken, but only a small amount. She had to get out of this thing's range, or at the very least get away from it enough to where she didn't feel like she knocking on death's door. She walked down the stairs, ensuring to do so quietly so that she didn't catch The Stand Users attention.

After all, she didn't want to take away her one true advantage.

Upon making it to the first floor, and upon ducking into the alleyway, the burning sensation started to fade. It wasn't back to the safe humming feeling, more as if the sun was gently hitting her with an average amount of heat. Like a summer afternoon day. While it was still hot, it wasn't as if it felt like she was in the Sahara Desert during the worst heatwave ever recorded in history.

She had two minutes left until the timer ran out. The last thing she was going to do was allow herself to go down like this. If Yoshihara knew which floor she was on, she could've probably fished her out with one of Killer Queen's bubble bombs. However, as it stood, she didn't. Therefore, she had to try something else.

Summoning Killer Queen to her side, Yoshihara glanced over to its left hand as the skull icon on the glove had its eyes flash, and out of it came Sheer Heart Attack. It rolled off of Killer Queen's hand, knowing its command instinctively.

Knock out the enemy Stand user within the building to her right. Collateral damage be damned. A slow, very small facsimile of a smile made itself present on Yoshihara's face as she wiped the sweat off her forehead.

"You want to play the range game? Be my guest. I'll beat you at your own game, and then some."

[XXXX]

Heimei Kishibe felt a wave of smugness rage through her body. She was able to tag that murderous fiend once she turned her back and seeing as her Stand, Sweet Child O' Mine could extend its limbs, it wasn't difficult at all to activate her ability.

Sweet Child O' Mine was a humanoid Stand that sat around the same height as Heimei herself. Its whole body was a bright white with golden lines going across its face, while the rest of its body stayed bright white. It wore a black mouthguard that covered up where its nose and mouth would be, and over its eyes were a pair of golden radiator sunglasses.

Sweet Child O' Mine's limbs are disjointed and do not connect to themselves, rather floating in the air as if they were in anti-gravity 24/7. This extended to the fingers. On its head is a black top hat, accompanying it is a black cape that is constantly blowing in the wind.

Overall, she had to say that her Stand looked rather cool and way better than an ugly pink cat humanoid. Then again, that could've been her ego talking, but she felt as if that Sweet Child O' Mine was a far better Stand than Killer Queen.

Then again, everyone who had a Stand probably thought they had the best Stand in all of the universe, but that was not true. That title belonged to her, period.

But as much as she wanted to stroke her ego, Heimei had more pressing things to worry about. Namely, her opponent. Yoshihara Kira. To say she had been a bit disappointed that she didn't fall for the trap she laid was… well, she wouldn't say she hadn't expected it. Kira seemed to be at least a little smart, and she should've seen this coming. Truth be told, she didn't think that increasing her anger would've worked in the first place, but she still had to try.

After all, she was supposed to get her taken out by humiliating her. And while her first plan seemed to fall flat on its face, the second one seemed like it had been working, and that was all she needed to know.

While it would've made her ego that much more inflated, she knew when she was outmatched, and thus, decided that a game of cat and mouse was in order.

Heimei wasn't stupid. Killer Queen, no matter the user, was a Stand that could easily destroy Sweet Child O' Mine in hand-to-hand combat. All it needed to do was touch her once and she'd be nothing more than dust in the wind. Henceforth she was "putting on the pressure" so to speak, with the burning sensation she had inflicted on Kira.

'Course, the further she got away, the weaker the feeling became. The same went with the added-on emotions, however, she could only inflict one at once. Meaning that even if she wanted to inflict her with soul-crushing sadness, she would have to remove the effect, and before she did that, Sweet Child O' Mine would have to touch her again.

However seeing as Kira wasn't following her, she should've been fine.

Keyword being: Should've been.

"LOOK OVER HERE!" The metallic-sounding voice of Sheer Heart Attack rang throughout the building that Heimei hid in. She hadn't forgotten about Sheer Heart Attack, per se, but what she had forgotten was that Kira technically had no real rules attached to her seeing as her ability was invisible to everyone but them.

And it was with that added advantage that Heimei dreaded facing her one-on-one. Sweet Child O' Mine was prepared to bat away the explosive tank on wheels if it got too close. She knew that Sheer Heart Attack had a range of over 100 meters or more thanks to her Great-grandfather's notes on Yoshikage Kira. That meant that Yoshihara Kira was still facing the effects of the burning sensation, and feeling it pretty badly, on top of that.

However, worrying about that was the least of her concerns. Sheer Heart Attack was what was at the forefront of her mind. If she didn't deal with it now, she would have to deal with it for the remainder of the round.

She could hear Sheer Heart Attack's tank treads clang and clack overtop the tile floor, alerting her to where it was. However, no matter how far it travelled, it never left the room. It knew she was in here, and that meant that it would only find her eventually. As the sound got closer, and as she brought Sweet Child O' Mine closer to her person in order to protect herself, the tank treads stopped moving against the concrete.

"Why'd it stop? Did she… fall unconscious?" Heimei thought, quickly looking around the surrounding area. Her eyes landed on Sheer Heart Attack, which that was sitting just a few feet away from her left, and as their eyes met, it's mouth closed, and when it did, Heimei didn't even have a second to react or send her Stand to bat the small tank away.

A massive explosion raged throughout the room, knocking Heimei back and through several walls as she rested on a pile of rubble, her head pounding with a mixture of pain and annoyance. There was no way she was going to lose like this! She was so close! She had to have been!

She had crashed through two different walls, both of which were concrete. How she survived the blast, she had no idea. What she did have an idea of, however, was the pain she was in. If she had to guess, Sheer Heart Attack's explosive power had been weakened.

Blood streamed down her arms, face, and the rest of her body as she tried to desperately get up. Her legs felt like Jello, her chest hurt and breathing had become difficult. The outer wounds were superficial, that much she knew, but the pain wasn't.

As the dust and smoke cleared, and as a few tiles from the upper floors came crashing down and shattering on the floor they were on, Sweet Child O' Mine came out to protect its user as Sheer Heart Attack inched its way closer to her. Its fiery purple eyes stared at her with a soulless determination.

"Do you surrender?" The Stand asked, looking at her with an emotionless, robotic glare. All Heimei could respond with was a haphazard glare. "I shall repeat. Do you Surrender?" At that, Sheer Heart Attack inched itself closer to her, and when it did that, Sweet Child O' Mine closed the distance between itself and Sheer Heart Attack.

But that didn't matter, as the tank exploded all the same. The pressure from the blast was enough to send Heimei out of the building and plummet to her death. Pain erupted all over her body, and just as she was seconds away from making a connection with the ground she closed her eyes knowing damn well that if she died, Kira would take the fall, and it would prove to those watching that she was a heartless monster—not that media hadn't done that already, but that was beside the point.

But then, something caught her, and when she opened her eyes to see who or what it was, she was met with the cold eyes of Killer Queen staring her down. To her left was Yoshihara, who had a smug smirk taking up her visage. "Deactivate your Stand, Kishibe, you lost."

As much as she wanted to have Sweet Child O' Mine beat her within an inch of her life, with her being in the literal hands of Killer Queen, there was nothing that she could do. Even if she could do something, though….

"AND THAT'S A WRAP, FOLKS! ALL OUT WAR IS OVER!"

Her chance to do so was lost. With only 400 points to her name, even if she were healed, she wouldn't have made it to the final round anyway. And so, she deactivated Sweet Child O' Mine, then, passed out from the pain she had felt throughout her body. All the while Yoshihara smirked. Medic bots came out of the woodwork and took them away as they all made their way back to the stadium.

The third and final round of The Sports Festival was just a few moments. She wouldn't lie and say she wasn't nervous, but she was determined to win.

She had made it this far, so there was no turning back now. She was going to win this thing, no matter the cost.

[XXXX]

!Stand Information Corner!

Stand User: Heimei Kishibe

Stand Name: Sweet Child O' Mine

Localized Name: Sweet Child

Stand Appearance: Sweet Child O' Mine appears to be a humanoid around the same height as Heimei. It has a white-skinned body with golden lines running through its face. It wears a black mouth guard that covers up to where its nose and mouth would typically be. Over its eyes, it wears a pair of golden radiator sunglasses, and atop its head is a black top hat, and on its back is a black cape that appears to be constantly blowing in an anomalous wind. Each of Sweet Child O' Mine's limbs is fragmented and floats in the air as if affected by anti-gravity. However, they keep to where they are supposed to be on the human body.

Stand Abilities: Sweet Child O' Mine, unlike most Stands, has two abilities. Its first ability is to extend its limbs up to ten meters ahead of it. Anything past that, the limbs will snap back together and not stretch back out for five seconds. Its second ability is to tamper with the emotions of whoever it touches. Anyone who is affected by this ability will experience a mild heatstroke, and the closer they come to Heimei, the worse the heatstroke will get. The second ability has no set range. So long as the user is conscious/alive, the ability will continue to go off. The only caveat is that Heimei must be emotionally calm and stable in order for the second ability to work. Otherwise, the second ability will have no effect on whatever Heimei's target is.

Stand Stats:

Destructive Power: Grade D (As strong as a regular human)

Effective Range: Ability 1: Grade D (10 meters), Ability 2: N/A (Has no set range and is only limited based on the current living status of Heimei)

General Speed: Grade A (Can attack at Hypersonic, Massively Hypersonic, to potentially at the Speed of Light, depending on how hard Heimei is pushing Sweet Child O' Mine)

Persistent use of ability: Ability 1: Grade C (Can sustain ability for prolonged periods of time, so long as the abilities range is kept in mind), Ability 2: Grade N/A (Has no set limit and is only truly limited based on the current living status of Heimei)

Precision: Grade A (Rarely, if ever, misses)

Overall Potential: Grade B

[Status: Retired/Defeated]

[XXXX]

"That was so cool! Yoshikage, did you see that? I hate to say it but Killer Queen is so cool!" Reimei gushed as Yoshikage grunted. He couldn't believe that Reimei had talked him into coming to this overly loud and crowded place. Although, it did serve its benefits. Today he learned that he couldn't stray too far away from Reimei to talk to Yoshihara without it being distorted or jumbled.

Glancing over at Reimei, he sighed. "It sure is. I would know. It used to be mine," Yoshikage replied as Reimei rolled her eyes.

"But yours wasn't. Yoshihara's is cooler," Reimei said, sticking her tongue out at Yoshikage, who frowned. He didn't have time to deal with Reimei's childish antics. Honestly, couldn't Jesus have found someone else to pair him up with? He would've much preferred that strange pink-haired boy who lived across the street rather than her….

"Maybe this is part of my punishment and rehabilitation process. It would make sense—being forced to stick around my first victim as she gushes about stupid things…." Yoshikage thought as he brushed a hand through his dual-tone hair. "I'd also prefer my actual appearance rather than Kosaku's, but I suppose it makes sense. At least it isn't covered in wounds…"

"So, Yoshikage, who're you rooting for?" Reimei asked as Yoshikage scoffed.

"Isn't it obvious? Yoshihara, of course. Who else would I root for?" Yoshikage said as Reimei shrugged, leaning back in her seat. To everyone else, the seats were vacant, but no one came near them. Why? Well, because they were Ghosts.

Ghosts gave off a type of spiritual presence that indicated that something was there and didn't want to be disturbed. It wasn't a sensation that was obvious, but more subtle. Like a subliminal message being constantly drilled into someone's head telling them to stay away. At least, that was how Yoshikage understood it, anyway.

"Well, personally, I'm rooting for her boyfriend," Reimei said as Yoshikage blinked, confusion taking up his visage. Her what?

"Excuse you? Her what?" Yoshikage balked, a little offended as Reimei giggled tauntingly.

"Oh, don't tell me, you weren't there were you?" Reimei snickered as Yoshikage's frown deepened. It only prompted Reimei to burst out laughing, going the whole nine yards, even going as far as kicking her feet up in the air as if she found the whole thing so damn funny. Finally, after a few moments of incessant laughter, Reimei calmed down, wiping a tear from her eye as she collected herself.

"Oh my God, you gotta be kidding me, that's hilarious!" Reimei mocked as Yoshikage pinched the bridge of his nose. He so did not want to put up with this right now.

"Just tell me, Sugimoto. What the hell are you talking about?" Yoshikage grumbled as Reimei sighed, sitting forward as a small smile took up her visage.

"Okay, fine. So, here's how it started, right? Do you remember that broccoli-haired kid? Midoriya Izuku?" Reimei asked as Yoshikage nodded silently, prompting her to continue. "Okay, so, there was this party, right? You were somewhere else off wandering around the city, and seeing as the guy I'm supposed to be watching is in a coma, I had nothing else better to do, so I decided to check in on Yoshihara."

"What does this have to do with her having a boyfriend?" Yoshikage said as Reimei snickered.

"I'm getting there, okay, hold your horses," Reimei said before leaning back into her chair, kicking her feet up as she glanced at Yoshikage. "Everyone at the party, except for Midoriya and Yoshihara, is passed out drunk. They just finished a game of bowling, and no one is watching except for me—but they can't see me so whatever. They banter back and forth for a little bit, and then, boom!"

"Huh?" Yoshikage said, tilting his head, oblivious to what she meant by that.

"Whaddya mean "huh" how do you not understand!" Reimei said, flabbergasted. "Don't tell me, you're dense, aren't you!"

"Dense? I'll have you know I'm not dense at all, I just don't understand what you're talking about," Yoshikage replied, crossing his arms and an annoyed look taking up his visage." Just explain it to me in plain Japanese, will you?"

"Fine, fine! Jeez, you must be so fun at parties," Reimei said sarcastically. "To sum it up, they kissed, and after The Sports Festival, they're gonna go on a date! I mean, it was kind of obvious that they had a thing for each other, but ya know how teenage romance can be—oops, wait, no you don't, 'cause you were a loser growing up. Ha!"

If Yoshikage could choke her to death, again, he would. But frankly, he didn't have time to listen to her nonsense. "Whatever. Romance is for people who don't have a personal drive in life anyway. I honestly don't nor can I understand it. Even now it's a foreign concept to me."

"And yet, you somehow reproduced, so isn't that just bizarre?" Reimei said, poking him on the cheek as Yoshikage grumbled.

"I was drunk and not in my right mind at the time. We all make mistakes when we're drunk," Yoshikage bit out as he looked back down at the stadium field below. They were still gathering everyone from the last event's conclusion, which didn't shock Yoshikage all that much.

It made sense given how much had happened and with how spread apart everyone had been. While most of the fighting had been one-note punches and kicks, a few of the battles were interesting.

Although, that wasn't what he was primarily focused on. He was primarily focused on the fact that his message to Yoshihara didn't fully translate over to her. There was a reason as to why he wandered the city a lot. It was to get information on the people who were getting in his descendant's way.

She had no idea what she was in store for in the coming months. It was why he tried to stress to her that she needed to find The Stand Arrow before it was too late. If she could awaken the latent potential within her Killer Queen, not only would it increase in power, but it could potentially awaken its final and most powerful bomb—or at least a variant of it.

Frankly, she had no time to waste here. She should be actively trying to seek out The Stand Arrow. However, he supposed she didn't have complete autonomy yet. She was still a child, and so she still needed to go to school, so a lot of her time was wasted sitting at a desk and doing nothing.

Still, the future didn't bode well. If he wanted to remain in existence, then she could not die. She needed to find that Stand Arrow and she needed to find it soon.

Because if she didn't…

She wasn't going to survive the upcoming months.

-To Be Continued-