The western region is a forest of gorgeous trees, and is home to a race of anthropomorphic raccoons known as the Procyon. These are not to be confused with the Tanuki, which is a kind of ayakashi native to southern Darhan. When I visited this place I was treated to a wonderful walk through the woods and some truly fantastic sake, as well as a curious tale of their history.
In days long past, the Procyon were slaves to a barbaric race that historians now presume to be humans. One day a comet fell from above, casting a blight on the land that warped everything living into crystalline monstrosities. The barbarians fought back but were consumed one by one, until even their mighty general was absorbed into the horde.
Whatever it was, the comet was impressed by his valour: it was assimilated into the general's body, turning him into a host that protected it from outside threats. He came to be known as the Hanged Man, and remained inactive in the crater unless disturbed; over time the Procyon learned to live with the blight, which left them alone provided they remained at a distance.
In theory, they were free. In reality, they had merely traded one oppressor for another. At least until Leon got there.
Huan Strongarm: A Bartfort Folktale, by Lufas Maphaahl
Their imprisonment in the underground city was becoming more familiar. Even though they barely understood why they were doing it, the trio continued to seek the nodes in the vague hope that it would lead them to freedom. Because Itadori had basically been picking their destinations like a living quest marker, they had chosen the west for their third node.
Leon had no words to express how beautiful it was. Soft blue grass acted as a carpet for his pads, while tall trees with gorgeous red leaves towered around them. Small glowing flowers lay nestled amidst their branches, illuminating their way through the peaceful woods. "I like it here," admitted Moz. "It's very peaceful."
"Yeah," grumbled Leon. "But it's at this point that we usually stumble across the dead bodies of Kwanchi's friends, or some other poor soul that tried to escape."
The further they progressed into the woods, the more they saw odd formations of green crystals sprouting out of the scenery. Some of them had dead warriors encased within, just as Leon predicted.
In one was a bald man with sharp teeth, with long blades extending from his wrists. In another was a man with black hair and a black markings over his eyes, and a man with no skin over his hideous, exposed flesh. Two demons stood side by side, one a hulking blue ogre with a steel orb on a chain and the other wearing a green mask with a spiked club for a forearm. A beautiful woman with bat wings stood by a masked lady in red, as well as a third woman resembling a bizarre humanoid insect.
There was also a man dressed like a cowboy, a towering man with green skin and a massive sword, a midget on the shoulders of a masked brute and a pasty, hooded figure with four arms. Of everywhere they had explored thus far, these beautiful woods had claimed the most victims.
Leon shivered, shaking himself anxiously. "See what I mean?" Moz would have pulled a face if… well, if he had one.
As the crystals became more prolific they began to find crumbling stone roads and ruined, long abandoned buildings. The remains of an ancient civilisation began to emerge, culminating in a massive stone temple. As they climbed the steps built into the outside, they found themselves lifted far above the sea of trees.
From this height, they could see that the forest had been swallowed by a sparkling green mist; to Moz and Itadori it was eerily silent, but Leon's supernatural hearing caught the sounds of unknown horrors moving through the dark below. He chose to ignore them, focusing instead on his crumbling footing.
The peak of the temple led to a series of thin walkways that spiderwebbed above the forest's canopy, leading to a huge structure atop a tall pillar. A golden wheel that reminded Leon of a Spartan shield sat in the front, surrounded by two concentric gold rings; the outer rings were adorned with clay reliefs of creepy faces, while the inner circle was decorated with three gems coloured red, green and purple.
Before the wheel stood a knight decked head to toe in golden armour. She was intimidatingly tall, more so than even Moz, and her face was covered by a gold helmet decorated with goatish horns. In her hands were a pair of swords with bell grips; she held them loosely at her sides as the trio approached.
"Greetings, challengers." She bowed formally, her voice echoing with authority. "I am the Knight of Strength. Behind me is the Wheel of Fortune. Are you prepared to fight?"
Itadori licked his lips nervously. "Sure! Why not?" A sword and shield flashed into Sir Onemore's hands, while Leon stepped into the front of the group as he grew slowly in size. The Knight nodded solemnly.
"Very well." Two glass canisters raised out of the ground, each containing a huge, humanoid figure. The first was a large, heavily armed man with a leathery mask and an enormous chainsaw, who Leon mentally nicknamed Leatherface. The other resembled the White Magician they had fought when they arrived and the Liquid Emperor he had fought in the north, its body smooth, white and crackling with electricity. A disc in its chest glowed like a white sun, while bits of metal floated around it in the shape of a disc.
Also like the White Magician and Liquid Emperor, it sounded exactly like Metal Sonic. "I am the Wheel of Fate," it proclaimed. "I shall destroy everything, and… resurrect everything."
Before Leatherface or the Wheel of Fate could attack, the Knight of Strength planted her swords in the ground: two long shadows extended outward, rising into two hulking forms. The first was extremely bizarre, like a flat, metal, clockwork sphinx. It had an odd mask set into its face, with a lurid grin and eyes that sat vertically on its face.
The second looked like a huge bouquet of multicoloured roses that hovered a few feet off the ground, surrounded by a spiralling metal fence. A woman in a yellow dress with long blonde hair stood atop it, her flesh made of darkness and a glowing symbol hovering above her like a halo. She wore a blue mask with the numeral XI set into forehead: this was how Leon identified it as the Strength Shadow, meaning the weird sphinx must have been Fortune.
Itadori just summoned his Stands in response. "Bring it!"
Before the fighting could even begin, a haze of pink light spread from the Strength Shadow's hands: the Fortune Shadow, the Wheel of Fate and the Wheel of Fortune were all surrounded by matching barriers of floating pink flower petals.
"Defensive magic," growled Leon. "I'll test it out." He barked at the inlaid golden wheel, only for the sonic blast to do absolutely nothing. "Damn. Invincibility shield. We should take out the caster first."
All of the Fortunes attacked him at once as the wolfdog lunged for the Strength Shadow; the Wheel of Fortune fired elemental blasts from the gems on its surface, while the Wheel of Fate rapidly teleported around him firing bursts of lightning from his hands. The Fortune Shadow summoned a huge, goofy looking roulette wheel that began blasting off random spells every time it landed on a different result; all three took full advantage of their invincibility to protect the caster.
That left only Leatherface and the Strength Knight for Moz and Itadori; it quickly became apparent that she was many times faster and stronger than either of them, dancing around their blows and skilfully preventing them from taking down the much weaker chainsaw wielder. "I hate this woman," spat Moz. "She's like the High Priestess, only worse!"
Itadori fired off a few shots with the Emperor, but she deflected the bullets with ease. "Keep fighting! She has to have some kind of weakness!" He cautiously avoided using the High Priestess (considering how she was wounded in their last battle) but otherwise threw every Stand he had at her to see what stuck.
The Fool's sand bullets and the fire blasts of Magician's Red were too easily telegraphed to land, while the Empress was unable to get through her armour. He tried using Hierophant Green's superior mobility to trip her up, but very nearly got shanked instead. "Is this all you have? Did the Hermits and Hierophants fall to this? Is this all you have to offer?"
Then it hit him. "Pincer manoeuvre! Pincer manoeuvre!" Itadori screamed frantically; Moz almost tripped over himself trying to follow suit, amusing the Strength Knight enough that she let it go. As soon as they had her surrounded, the cook put his plan into action. "Emerald Splash!"
She dodged the blast of gemstones with ease. "Is that it?"
"Imbue." Moz had absorbed the gems into his shield by intercepting the blast, causing his sword to glow an ominous green. "Emerald Slash!"
The Strength Knight tried to dodge, but a glowing purple vine had wrapped around her ankles. "Hermit Purple!"
For a moment, it really seemed like they had her; then Leatherface threw himself in the way, and with a final roar he was bifurcated by the Comet General's strike. The Meta-Beings that spilled out resembled slithering mollusks, with brown shells and purple tentacles. Where the head should have been were skeletal female torsos, with long black hair and long blades for arms.
It was only when Little Silly refused to eat them that they remembered Leatherface was technically of the Strength Arcana: that meant that until the Fortunes were dealt with, these guys were here to stay.
They began viciously attacking with their bladed arms, scattering an ominous purple powder from their hair that Itadori was able to strain from the air using Justice; all of them were unkillable, making the fight against the Strength Knight that much harder. "Even in death," she intoned. "We stand together."
By now she was keeping her distance, firing huge, flaming tiger heads from her swords that exploded on impact and cartwheeling through the air in spinning wheels of blue energy. Moz and Itadori were forced onto the back foot, barely holding on as she betrayed less and less openings. "I hope the boss finishes soon!"
Leon tanked everything the Fortunes threw at him, lunging at the Strength Shadow with murderous tenacity; the rose that she carried in her hand was apparently also an extremely sharp sword, cutting into his hide whenever the wolfdog drew too close. "That all you've got?" The fact that he never ran out of breath meant he was able to taunt them more or less constantly. "Jules is a better swordsman than you!"
This must have gotten under her skin; the Strength Shadow unleashed a blast of heat, but Leon shrank himself down so the attack went clear over his head. He lunged through the air as he grew once again, catching her in his jaws and violently tearing her to shreds.
He ignored the resulting hail of Meta-Beings and attacked the Fortune Shadow, only to realise that the pink invincibility shield was still there to block his fangs. "Why? I already killed the… Guys! We need to get all the Strengths before the barrier lifts!"
Leon lunged for the Strength Knight while she was distracted, only for her to summon a massive purple arm from the ground that punched him hard in the mouth; some of his teeth were knocked out, growing back within moments. "Pathetic," she scoffed. "All you achieve by increasing your size is giving me a bigger target."
"Fair advice." Leon shrank down to the size of a regular dog, and soon he was moving impossibly fast as he fought the Knight of Strength in an intense duel. The Fortunes began focusing fire on Moz and Itadori, but were blocked by a barrier of sand.
"Justice!" The attacks stopped as the battlefield was suddenly shrouded in mist, which Itadori hadn't used on the Knight for fear that it wouldn't have slowed her down; he was absolutely right, but when tried to attack him through the mist he had already relocated and disguised his presence. "Get her now! The Fortunes won't attack if there's a chance of hitting her!"
"Right," muttered Leon. "This looks like a job for the old super senses."
Bizarrely, the Strength Knight gave off no scent at all; she made almost no sound as she darted through the mist, and he felt no vibrations through the ground as she approached. Leon ignored her as her as she repeatedly darted in and took chunks out of him, remembering what the Shura Elder had told him about the Blue Dragon Scale.
"It's not just water," he muttered. "It's a state of mind. Be calm. Be serene. I am the mirror that reflects the universe."
Slowly, Leon was able to enter the same zen state he had achieved in the Shura Village. He could feel the flow of air, the flow of sound, the flow of power itself. He took those mixing streams into his soul, until it felt like he was one with the world itself. One with the flow of the world.
He felt something approaching. As it moved closer it made massive waves, disturbing the streams flowing through him. He dodged to the side, easily avoiding the attack. No… it wasn't dodging. Like a leaf floating down a stream, Leon was merely pushed to the side.
"I see it," he murmured. "The flow."
The Strength Knight couldn't speak dog, but she understood that something was different. Her eyes narrowed behind her helmet. "How did you avoid that?"
Time and again, Leon let the waves formed by her strikes push him aside. Without him even needing to think about it, his body was pushed aside before her attacks could connect. Trusting himself to the flow connecting him to the Knight, he let it guide him to her sole vulnerable point.
She screamed in agony as her arm was abruptly torn off at the shoulder, spraying blood into the fog. "My arm! You bit off my fucking arm!"
The limb dropped from Leon's mouth as he was snapped out of the meditative state, leaving him briefly disoriented. "Whuh?"
Then Itadori was there, appearing from the mist and slapping something onto the Strength Knight's back. "High Priestess!" The Stand immediately integrated with her armour, crushing her to death before she had a chance to scream. He sighed in relief as the High Priestess rose into the air, apparently fully recovered. "I guess you're okay. Alright, let's-"
He withdrew Justice from the battlefield: the pink barriers had disappeared, leaving the remaining enemies vulnerable. The Fortune Shadow had summoned one last roulette, this time with an ominous reaper symbol as one of the options. "Thas bad," slurred Leon. "Don led it land on…" He landed hard on his face; apparently, the Serene Mind ability had some pretty serious drawbacks.
Itadori wildly opened fire with the Emperor, but the Wheel of Fate redirected his bullets with electromagnetism. "You cannot fight fate."
"Watch me asshole!" He continued to shoot as Moz moved in to block, the Wheel of Fate's lightning bolts dissipating uselessly against his armour. Itadori's mind raced as he considered his Stands one by one.
The Fool? Negative: insufficient range.
Magician's Red? Negative: insufficient range.
High Priestess? Negative: the Wheel would redirect her the same way it redirected those bullets.
Empress? Negative: inapplicable. At best he could channel her into his arms and make himself slightly more muscular. Why couldn't he do that to his Stands? If only there was a way to enhance them in same way the Empress could-
"HIGH PRIESTESS!" Itadori screamed, his voice shrill with panic as the roulette began to slow. "GET IN THE GUN!"
She smoothly merged with the Emperor's surface, causing the gun to contort and transform in his grip. The barrel became smooth and silver, the barrel so big and bulky that a lesser man would have found it too heavy to lift. Somehow, the two Stands had become one.
The kickback from the following gunshot almost knocked him on his ass, the bullet hitting the Fortune Shadow in its mask and blowing a hole straight through it; as it dissolved into Meta-Beings the roulette screeched to a halt, just barely avoiding landing on the Reaper. Itadori wheezed tiredly. "Hoo boy! That could've been bad!"
The Fortune Meta-Beings resembled odd wheels with little heads coming out one of the spokes. They had long tongues and occasionally spat out hideous insects that jumped around like fleas; Little Silly finally leapt into action, eating the parent Meta-Beings but ignoring their offspring.
"About damn time," muttered Moz, glancing curiously at Itadori's new gun. "Where did that come from?"
He held up the firearm to the light. "So the High Priestess can enhance them if they're made of metal, huh?" He did a mental inventory, but the Emperor was the only metallic Stand he currently had. "Good to know."
He opened fire on the Wheel of Fate, but even in its enhanced state the bullets were deflected with ease. As Leon regained his senses he threw himself at their only other surviving adversary, but the Wheel of Fortune remained unscathed. "Does anyone else hate how fucking arbitrary these things are?"
Just then, Itadori saw the gems on the Wheel of Fortune's surface flash in a specific order. "Hey! Let's swap targets for a minute!"
Leon was too frustrated to argue, lunging at the Wheel of Fate while Itadori shot at the gems in the same order that they had flashed; as soon as they were gone, the emblem that Leon had compared to a Spartan shield slid aside. The creature that crawled out resembled a giant demonic head with five tiny ridiculous arms waggling behind it, with glowing blue eyes and a glowing blue gem in the centre of its forehead.
"Fools!" the creature howled. "Weep! Despair! For now you face Buer, Master of Fortune!" He began blasting them with fireballs from his toothy mouth, forcing Moz to hide behind his shield while Itadori made a barrier out of sand. "I shall feast upon your souls!"
Leon had been struggling to catch the Wheel, whose power over electricity made him ridiculously fast. "Give up," he scoffed, still sounding like a hilarious imitation of Metal Sonic. He channeled lightning into the ring still orbiting his body, blasting the wolfdog with colossal amounts of electricity. "You are outmatched. You should submit-"
Leon switched on his Serene Mind, biting the Wheel out of the air and cutting him off mid sentence. "Durrr!" His brain immediately shorted out again, his tongue lolling out of his mouth in a dopey grin as he flopped onto his belly.
"I am not waiting for him to snap out of that!" Moz snarled, leaping through the air and plunging his sword into the gem on Buer's forehead: the demon roared in agony as careened through the air. "Now! Shoot him now!"
"Magician's Red! Hierophant Green!" Both Stands bombarded the demon with everything they had, some of the green gems landing by the Comet General's shield. "Now! The gems!"
"Imbue!" Buer howled in agony as Sir Onemore's blade was charged with energy, still jabbed painfully through his skull. "Emerald Slash!"
With a final roar the demon exploded into Meta-Beings and gooey chunks; apparently the Master of Fortune acted as a living support for the stone structure, which began to crumble beneath them. "Woah!" Itadori yelped as the floor fell away, summoning Hermit Purple and grabbing onto a stone pillar; he found himself dangling helplessly, the glittering emerald mist far, far below. "Guys! Are you okay?"
"I'm fine!" Moz replied, forgetting that Itadori couldn't hear him. "Boss! What about you?"
"Durrr!"
The trio screamed as the ancient structure collapsed, dropping them into the sea of trees. While Leon and Moz were more than tough enough to survive the fall, Itadori was forced to encase himself in a protective sphere of sand. The branches broke his fall, dropping him into a dark clearing lit by a sickly green glow.
The mist was literally made of tiny, floating shards of crystal, and as soon as the Fool's barrier dropped they began cutting into his lungs as he breathed. Itadori recalled how Justice had strained his blood before placing it back in his body as well as how it protected him from the poisonous Meta-Beings; he morphed it into a breathing mask resembling a skeletal jaw, which made it easier to breathe when he placed it over his mouth and nose.
"There," he wheezed. "Now… Now to… to find the others…"
The woods were horrifically silent as he pushed his way through the dense underbrush. There were none of the sounds of wildlife that had been present in the north and east, nor even the sounds of wind or the snapping of twigs; there was just a horrific, all-consuming silence that seemed to swallow up Itadori's senses, choking him with its awful, colossal emptiness.
That said, there were living things in the mist. They were living only in the loosest terms, but they were there nonetheless. The reason he encountered none of them was because he was accidentally moving towards the centre of the corruption, which was ground that none of them dared tread.
He found himself at the rim of a gigantic crater, its slopes pockmarked with outcroppings of jagged green crystal. At the center of the crater was a colossal bear of a man wearing red armour. Although hunched over he was taller than Moz and the Strength Knight combined; he had a long, shaggy beard and wore a gold crown, matching the massive, curved sword clutched in his hand. Green crystals protruded all over his body, leading Itadori to guess that he was the source of the green blight.
As he carefully made his way into the crater, the large man rose to his intimidating full height. "I am… the High Hanged Man…" he rasped, spitting tiny gems from his withered lips. "I guard… the western node… face me… if your life… you value not…"
Itadori had fought enough Arcana to know what was happening when his shadow grew unnaturally long before him; as the Hanged Man Shadow emerged it was supported by two spinning hoops lined with angelic wings, below which hung thin strings that connected to a metal cross on it back in a vague imitation of a marionette. Its grey skin hung grotesquely from iron hooks set into the cross, while its wrists and ankles were bound by thick manacles; it wore an upside down mask on its face, with the Roman numeral XII set into the forehead.
Level 12: the Hanged Man.
As it rose into the sky, the Hanged Man Shadow in turn summoned three stone statues made of white stone; they resembled praying women in nuns' habits, and stood protectively around the High Hanged Man. A battle line had been formed, and Itadori was completely on his own.
Shit.
He opened fire with his offensive Stands and the enhanced Emperor: although one of the statues proved immune to fire the attack worked, tearing into the statues until only one remained. Itadori was so focused on the enemy in front of him that he was taken off guard when something tackled him from the side, sweeping him dizzyingly high into the air. "Woah! What the-"
The creature was humanoid, with wrinkled, leathery black skin and huge bat wings flapping at its shoulders; a flock of smaller bats fluttered around them, annoying the cook with their shrieks. The monster had glowing red eyes, a beaked mouth and long, creepy fingers.
"So young," it chuckled; the bat monster's voice was hilariously nasally and high pitched, as though it had been huffing helium with a head cold. "So young, and yet you die down here in the dark! How does it feel, I wonder, to meet such an ignominious end?"
Itadori began to laugh helplessly. "Is that your voice? You sound like a snake trying to cough up a hairball!"
The creature immediately began to throttle him Simpsons style. "Nobody makes fun of my voice!"
One of its wings was abruptly blown off, sending the both of them crashing to the ground. Leon had finally entered the battlefield and brought down the bat thing with a sonic bark. With no way to protect himself from the emerald mist, he was wheezing badly and bleeding from his eyes, nose and mouth. "Stupid… fucking voice…" he rasped, dragging himself across the jagged ground. "Sounds like… the midgets… from God Hand…"
"Insolent mongrel!" The creature held out its hand, sending its shrieking minions to attack the coughing wolfdog. "Kill him, my children! Feast upon his flesh!"
Itadori incinerated him with Magician's Red, causing him to disintegrate into Meta-Beings; they resembled headless, blue skinned men that hung upside down from one leg, their fingers long, tubular and leaking some unknown gas. "That's enough out of you." He ran to Leon's side, but the wolfdog was almost helpless from the crystalline blight. "Are you okay? You should be stronger than this! Why are you… wait…
He suddenly tempered their short battle against the Lovers, and how Leon had been knocked out cold by the spider's venom.
"Poison," he whispered. "You're vulnerable to poison. So this, this place… this place is like an execution ground designed specifically for you!"
"See?" Leon croaked weakly. "I knew you'd get it eventually." The High Hanged Man was approaching, the statues surrounding him having been replenished by the Shadow. "You should get out of here, kid. It's starting to get to you."
Itadori suddenly realised that he was beginning to crystallise, with parts of his body now encased in glittering emerald. Apparently his mask had only slowed the process. "Oh no," he whispered. "What do we do?"
Somewhere in the distance, Little Silly devoured the last of the Meta-Beings produced by the Fortunes, spitting out a brand new Stand that raced through the forest to its master's side. Itadori stared in awe as a red car covered in chrome spikes tore out of the trees, drifting stylishly across the ground before skidding to a halt before him.
The car's door opened on its own, welcoming him inside.
"Oh, hell yes!" Itadori jumped in, dumping Leon into the passenger seat before driving off into the mist. The name of the Stand was already scrawled across the steering wheel.
The Wheel of Fortune.
"Hang in there, buddy!" Itadori was saying, swerving between the trees at breakneck speeds. "I have a plan! If we… If we can just lure those things out of the mist, then…" Leon tried to tell him to keep his eyes on the road, but just coughed up blood instead.
Dead ahead, the three statues summoned by the Hanged Man Shadow appeared from the haze: a huge set of jaws appeared at the front of the car, chewing them up like a lawnmower. Whatever the statues were, their destruction caused the Shadow to plummet helplessly out of the sky.
"It's down! Attack! Attack!" Itadori fired the Emperor out the car window as his Stand unleashed everything they had, getting as many hits in as they could until the Shadow righted itself. As it roared and lunged he slammed his foot on the ignition, causing the Wheel of Fortune to slam into the Shadow like an angry bull.
The Shadow met the Stand head on; a pair of huge golden hands appeared out of thin air, punching the car in the face and sending it flying away into the trees.
Itadori blacked out for a moment, waking to the wolfdog nuzzling his face; the Wheel of Fortune had landed upside down, forcing him to dispel it while he regained his bearings. A piece of wood had been impaled through his side in the crash; Itadori angrily tore it out before using the Empress to heal the wound, glaring defiantly at the Shadow as it slowly crawled toward him.
"Bring it!" He opened fire with the enhanced Emperor, sinking bullet after bullet into its chest as the Fool, Magician's Red and Hierophant Green added to the assault. "Come on! Come on! COME ON!"
The Hanged Man Shadow was now close enough that Leon attempted a sonic bark, but no sound came out as blood filled his throat. Itadori was on his own.
"High Priestess," he snarled. "I know you can hear me! If you have anything left - if there are any depths of power within the Emperor that you still haven't tapped - then please, bring it out now! Because we're all going to die if you don't!"
Like a bomb going off, the gun exploded with harsh bright light. Its chrome surface fell away to reveal a shining core, so dazzling that Leon, Itadori and the Shadow all screamed in pain as its radiance burned their eyes. The cook howled in agony as his arm warped and distorted, reforming around the Emperor's core in a bizarre new form.
His skin and flesh had become pure white like polished marble, and deformed protrusions like tiny wings stuck out along its length. The arm - or rather, the Emperor Arm - was now grotesquely long, the glowing core sitting in the joint of his elbow. His hand had disappeared, and was replaced with an opening that extended deep into his hollow forearm.
Like the barrel of a gun.
Through the haze of agony, Itadori grinned as the barrel of the Emperor Arm glowed with ominous orange light; he pointed it at the Shadow, the mist swirling around him as his body overflowed with energy. "This is for my car, you ugly mother-"
The ensuing blast was so intense that his entire arm was obliterated, the Shadow shrieking as it was swallowed up by the wave of light. A massive swathe was blown out of the forest, scattering the resulting Meta-Beings for miles. Itadori fell onto his back, his ears ringing from the ungodly sound.
He groped at the missing limb, groggily attaching the Empress to his shoulder so she could begin growing him a new arm. He shot the wolfdog a tired grin. "You see? Everything's… Everything's going to be okay! Just… Just need to…"
He was sent flying across the grass as a gauntleted fist smacked him in the face; the tall, armoured form of the High Hanged Man had appeared from the mist, trudging ominously towards him. Even the Meta-Beings began to shrink away in terror. "No… escape…"
Itadori summoned his Stands, but it did little good: the Fool was destroyed by a single swing of his sword, while Hierophant Green was hit by a green blast from his free hand that instantly encased it in crystal. Magician's Red was ignored entirely, the blasts of fire washing uselessly over his armour.
"No… hope…" Itadori coughed and hacked as his crystallisation suddenly advanced, crawling up his neck and making it difficult to breathe. The Stands flickered in and out of existence as his vision faded.
Just before the High Hanged Man could finish him off, Leon sank his fangs into his leg; his teeth penetrated the ancient armour with ease, and try as he might the warrior couldn't dislodge him.
With grim finality, the warrior raised his massive sword to behead him. "No… match…"
He never got to swing his sword, as a gauntleted fist had grabbed his fist and held him in place. "Is that a fact?"
The High Hanged Man was punched unceremoniously into the trees, which collapsed noisily on top of him. His cloak billowing dramatically behind him and his armour glinting in the half light, Sir Moissa Onemore had finally arrived.
"Woah!" He seemed to wince as saw the extent of Leon's infection. "This is not a great matchup for you, huh boss?"
He casually looked over as the High Hanged Man rose to his feet, sending the fallen trees flying in all directions with a furious roar. "Who… dares…"
"Hang on, let me just kill this guy." Moz faced the huge man down, summoning his sword and shield. "Hey there, Crystal Meth. Now, I really would answer your question-"
The juggernaut lunged at him with a roar; their swords locked, and even though he was much smaller the Comet General didn't budge.
"But we both know you can't understand me," finished Moz dryly. The two warriors began an intense one on one duel, the woods echoing with each deafening collision of their blades. Although the High Hanged Man was clearly stronger he couldn't make a dent in his armour, and his lack of lungs meant Moz was smugly unaffected by the crystal blight.
It only got worse for him when he tried incorporating the crystals into his attacks; everything he threw at him was simply absorbed into Onemore's shield, then thrown back into his face with a slash of his sword. The colossal man became angrier and angrier as his attacks continued to be ineffective, until he raised his sword above his head for a final rush.
Then Moz lunged forward, slicing him from his shoulder to his hip. The High Hanged Man looked down dumbly as pink blood oozed from the wound, while Sir Onemore casually walked back to his friends. "I'm going to try using my shield to suck the crystals out of your bodies. Just hold still." He knelt down over the wheezing cook. "Imbue."
The warrior's entire body was consumed by crystal in a matter of seconds, briefly turning him into a shimmering pillar of emerald; then the top half slid away - the point of separation marking accurately where Moz had cut him - allowing pink blood to ooze from the bifurcated crystal as his sword fell from his hand. "Goddamn!" Itadori rasped, the crystals riddling his body dissipating into harmless green light that was sucked into Onemore's shield. "Have you always been this cool?"
"Always," nodded Moz, then moved to help the wolfdog next. "Imbue."
A jagged green orb rose from the dead warrior's corpse, having seemingly sat within him like a second heart. It grew in size as it absorbed the surrounding crystal, growing to the size of grizzly.
"Oh thank god," gasped Leon, shaking the green dust from his coat as his body began to regenerate itself. "Now then: what in the balls is that?"
Moz rose to his feet, looking at the crystal core as it continued to grow in size: it was now hovering a few feet off the ground, a single disgusting eye swivelling around at its core. "Well, there was that second body with the Hierophant and the mould monster with the Hermit: my guess is this is the True Hanged Man."
"I see." Already the blight was beginning to reassert itself within the wolfdog's system; he could feel it as it crept its way into his lungs. "Moz?"
"Yes?"
"How much of this crystal stuff can you absorb at once?"
"An excellent question!"
From above, it looked like the green mist blanketing the forest was sucked inward like a great whirlpool, swirling towards a singular point like water down a drain. The crystals in the air, the crystals on the ground and even the crystals infecting the wildlife elsewhere in the wood were absorbed all at once. For a moment, the world held its breath.
Then the sea of trees exploded as a knight the size of a skyscraper rose to his feet, his massive body made of glimmering green crystal. As Sir Onemore's new form rose slowly to its feet, his two friends clung desperately to his colossal shoulders. "Holy shit!" Itadori screamed, the mask created by Justice whipping off his face. "Holy shit! HOLY SHIT! HOLY-"
The True Hanged Man had gotten the same idea, creating a massive exoskeleton of jagged crystal that towered above the treeline like a gigantic spider. Moz summoned a sword and shield - which were similarly huge - as he squared up to it.
"Oh man, that feels good!" Leon shook his coat, the last trace of the blight now thoroughly drained away. "Kaiju time!" Itadori cried out in alarm as he seemingly leapt to his death, only to grow to enormous size. His eyes now glowing red, he turned to the True Hanged Man and growled.
"Oh yeah," said Itadori faintly. "I forgot he could do that." The High Priestess appeared at his shoulder; vaguely, he remembered when she had created a sword out of stone for him to use against the Shadow Empress. Her power wasn't necessarily over metal, but over minerals.
And what was sand but a collection of tiny minerals?
The final kaiju to appear was a giant of sand, born from the fusion of the Fool and the High Priestess: it possessed a humanoid torso with a crablike pincer for a right arm. Its lower body was insectoid and heavily armoured, while its face was smooth and masked like a desert assassin.
Itadori stood on the titan's shoulder, pointing gleefully at the True Hanged Man. "Attack!"
With an epic roar, the four colossi erupted into an all out brawl. And it was AWESOME! Leon, Moz and Itadori had the time of their lives as they raged against the crystal spider, milking the moment for all it was worth as their inner children took over.
At least until Itadori was tossed unceremoniously from the Mega Fool's shoulder. "Wheel of Fortune!"
The car appeared around him, its wheels landing on the Mega Fool's forearm as it grabbed the spider by its leg; Itadori slammed his foot down and sped down his giant's arm, jumping over its wrist and landing on the jagged green surface of the opposing kaiju.
"Gah! What the-" Jagged spires of crystal erupted from the ground, the car swerving from side to side to avoid them; engine roared as the Wheel of Fortune went flying of a ramp, landing on Leon's head as the massive wolfdog sank his fangs into the True Hanged Man's abdomen. "Oh thank you! Thank you, doggie!"
He drove for a while across his skull, his fur rising around him like a forest of black trees. The sky echoed with a canine scream as spires of crystal erupted from the spider's surface, stabbing through Leon's muzzle and holding his head locked in place.
"Oh no you fucking don't," muttered Itadori; he drifted into a sickass U-turn, driving off Leon's flattened ear and landing once more on the spider's surface. Long spikes and blades erupted from the Wheel of Fortune's sides, which he used to shred the crystal barbs impaling the wolfdog's face. With a final yelp he pulled away, causing the cook to pump his fist and cheer. "Whoo! Suck on that, Emerald Stache!"
Once again the True Hanged Man tried to kill him, creating countless obstacles and hindrances to try and make him crash. His ears popped as the Mega Fool's immense pincer passed overhead, and his wheels left the ground for a moment as Moz ran the spider through with his colossal sword. Unable to turn, Itadori was forced to drive up the blade in the hope that he could make it to the safety of Onemore's shoulders.
Then he yanked the sword free, accidentally launching him into the sky.
Itadori screamed, clutching the car in terror as he sailed far above the clashing titans; the Wheel of Fortune flipped lazily through the air, and soon the giants looked tiny beneath him. Through one window, the virtual sky was so close he could make out the individual pixels.
Then, somewhere far below, Little Silly produced a new Stand. Instantly, Itadori felt the connection appear in his mind. "Strength!"
A massive steel ship appeared around him, the Wheel of Fortune now jammed uncomfortably into the captain's quarters. Leon and Moz did a massive double take as it plummeted out of the sky. "What the fuck!"
With the same energy as DIO with his road roller, the ship landed on the crystal spider and shattered it like glass. Leon and Moz were actually blown back by the impact; the ship stood on its nose atop the destroyed monster before tipping sideways, accidentally crushing the Mega Fool.
Itadori blinked, his hair sticking out in all directions. "Holy shit," he rasped. "That was… That was… Holy shit!"
The wall of the ship was abruptly torn away; the jagged green orb that was the True Hanged Man's main body clawed its way through the hull, its single eye meeting his own with a murderous glare.
Without conscious thought he slammed his foot on the pedal, speeding into the bowels of the ship with the crystal horror close behind; the wall melted in and out of existence to let them through, while the monster simply tore them apart in feral pursuit. He found he could control the ship's insides with his mind, but no matter how he manipulated the environment he couldn't hold the creature back.
The intense chase continued as the car sped through the different floors of the ship, until Leon shrank himself down and leapt inside to join the fray. He sank his fangs into the jagged exterior, only for it to immediately infect him with the crystal blight. "Oh for crying out loud!"
Itadori scowled coldly. "I've had enough of this." He materialised a metal pole from the floor, attaching it to the horror using Hermit Purple; he grabbed the wolfdog with Hierophant Green, dumping him in the front seat. "Hang on."
The car's wheels screeched as it hit the True Hanged Man dead on, pushing it across the deck; the vine caused it to move in a slow circle around the metal pole, rapidly gaining momentum as the Wheel of Fortune gained speed. The horror attacked them through the windshield with tendrils of green crystal, but Leon angrily bit them apart before it could do any damage.
Then, with a thought, Itadori willed Hermit Purple out of existence; with nothing to anchor it in place the True Hanged Man was sent rocketing through the wall, soaring off into the distance. He allowed both Strength and the Wheel of Fortune to vanish, dropping Leon and himself into the leafy canopy below.
Moz caught the crystal horror in one hand as it sailed towards him. Almost immediately, he felt it try to absorb the gemstone that composed his gigantic form. "Can't have that." With a thought, the knight of green crystal became a knight made of surging green energy, the air burning as green lightning lanced off its skin. Moissa Onemore hung suspended in the giant's chest, watching the abomination howl with impotent fury. "I'm afraid begging won't help. Sorry."
The titanic knight's energy was slowly channelled into the hand holding the True Hanged Man; the legs and left arm disappeared, its body shrinking to a floating arm. By the time only the hand was left it shone like a green star, clutching the crystal horror in its electric fist. With a last thunderclap and a final, defiant roar, the creature was vaporised in a brilliant flash; the last few Meta-Being fell out of its grip as it disappeared, likewise dropping Moz anticlimactically out of the sky.
He was noticeably dragging himself as he met up with the others; Itadori was visibly exhausted, while Leon of course looked totally fine. While he had been infected in the final moments with the renewed crystal blight, it had vanished following its creator's demise.
Little Silly skipped through the woods, giddily devouring the surviving Meta-Beings. "If he stiffs us on the Stand again then I swear to god…"
Leon allowed the boy to ride on his back as they tracked down the third node, while Moz gratefully copied him by returning to the form of a bracelet. They woke up when Leon activated it, leaving only the south to go.
"Do you guys hear that?" Moz asked suddenly. A series of flying saucers - not unlike those which had repaired the city following their battle with the Magicians - had swooped out of the artificial sky. They were moving in formation towards the ruined city, and even at this distance they could see them laying into the crumbling structures with various kinds of death rays. "What do you think that's all about?"
"Urgh!" Itadori whined. "Can't we deal with that later? I just… I just wanna chill for a bit, y'know?"
Leon looked at the bracelet on his leg. "I could go for a chill. Moz?"
"Hey, you're the boss."
The wolfdog lay down on the grass as the boy snuggled into his fur. Around him he could hear the wildlife stirring awake, apparently having been revived after the blight was expunged. In the distance, his supernatural hearing picked up the tinny screams of holograms as the UFOs laid waste to the hub city.
Meh. It could wait.
Leon rested his head on his paws and enjoyed the soft grass. He would fight the UFOs later, but for now? Chill.
Boss: Fortune, Strength and the Hanged Man
Summary: Fortune represents the number 10, Strength is 11 and the Hanged Man is 12.
Fortune: Buer and the Wheel of Fortune are the fourteenth boss of Dire Vengeance, while the Wheel of Fate is the final boss of House of the Dead 3. The Fortune Shadow is fought in the seventh mandatory boss battle of Persona 3, the Meta-Beings are called Kato and Wheel of Fortune was the Stand used by ZZ.
Strength: the Strength Knight is one of the last bosses of Dire Vengeance, Leatherface was the fourth boss of House of the Dead 2 and the Strength Shadow is fought alongside Fortune. The Meta-Beings are called Liars, while Strength is the Stand of Forever.
Hanged Man: the high-pitched bat guy is the second boss of the original House of the Dead, while the Hanged Man Shadow is the ninth mandatory boss of Persona 3. The High Hanged Man is from Hyper Light Drifter and the True Hanged Man is based on the Sleeper from Darkest Dungeon, while the Meta-Beings are called Hungones.
Dire Vengeance actually doesn't have a Hanged Man boss: in the official tarot, they use an image of one of the dudes hanging from nooses in the background of the first stage. I keep meaning to do a tarot score to see how many Arcana are represented in each game, so maybe I'll do it at the end of the next chapter.
As for the fallen Kombatants seen at the start of this area: Baraka debuted in Mortal Kombat 2, Reiko and Meat are from Mortal Kombat 4, Drahmin, Moloch and Nitara are from Deadly Alliance, Skarlet is from Mortal Kombat 9, D'Vorah, Erron Black, Kotal Kahn, Ferra and Tor are from Mortal Kombat X and the Kollector is from Mortal Kombat 11.
I'm going to do a quick rant here. For those of you not familiar with the Jojo franchise, any time a Stand is wounded the damage is reflected on the user: that's what happened in the last chapter when Itadori shot the High Priestess by mistake. But there are exceptions, and those exceptions are usually Possession type Stands.
Take the Fool, for instance; rather than being a psychic manifestation like other Stands, it is literally possessing a lump of sand and using it to make a body. When bad guys hit it they aren't hurting the Stand, just the sand, which is why the user isn't damaged. Then you get another Stand called Ebony Devil, which actually does transmit damage to its user.
The point is, do Strength and Wheel of Fortune transmit damage? You see, I desperately wanted to drop a giant ship on something but couldn't do that if it meant crushing Itadori's skull in the process. Then I remembered a certain someone from Part 4.
In Diamond is Unbreakable, there exists a one off villain named Hazamada Toshikazu. His Stand, Surface, is basically a wooden mannequin. It gets destroyed by the heroes, but not only is he unhurt but he also retains his ability to see Stands. Why?
The answer lies in Ebony Devil's introduction, where we actually get to see it before it possesses a doll. In the case of Surface, the Fool, Strength and the Wheel of Fortune, none of them are ever seen separating from their… Mediums, let's call them. This lets us separate Possession type Stands into two varieties: the first is able to take control of a physical object, like Ebony Devil, High Priestess and the Empress. The other actually is a physical object, which means they don't transmit damage.
This is how I rationalised letting Itadori go full ham with his car and his boat. The Stands weren't being damaged, the mannequin/car/ship/sand was being damaged. In the case of Ebony Devil, High Priestess and the Empress, all of them reflected injuries onto their user: even though the heroes were attacking physical objects, the psychic manifestations that constituted the real Stands were still trapped inside the doll/mineral/tumour, meaning they still took damage.
Or at least, that's how I interpreted it.