Naples basked beneath a clear Mediterranean sky as a small group made its way toward the airport.
The battle that had decided the fate of Italy’s underworld was finally over, yet one mystery continued to hang over them.
Giorno Giovanna walked near the middle of the group, his golden hair arranged in its familiar three curls.
After a moment of hesitation, he addressed the broad-shouldered, silver-haired man ahead of him.
“Mr.
Polnareff, there’s something I’d like to ask.
What happened to the gentleman named Lucian Vale?”
Jean Pierre Polnareff slowed slightly.
The question was simple, but he had no satisfying answer.
“Sorry, Giorno.
I don’t know either.” He gave a helpless shrug.
“Lucian has always been mysterious.
Perhaps he has already left Italy.”
During the final confrontation with Diavolo, Lucian had driven the beetle-marked Stand Arrow into his own body.
A moment later, he had vanished without leaving so much as a trace.
There had been no corpse, no blood trail, and no sign of an ordinary escape.
Even Polnareff, who had spent years investigating the Stand Arrows, could not explain what had happened.
He turned toward the calm, red-haired man walking beside him.
“Hey, Kakyoin.
Have you managed to contact Mr.
Joseph?”
Noriaki Kakyoin paused before answering.
“The Speedwagon Foundation has received no report of Lucian returning.
They have begun searching throughout Europe.”
Polnareff sighed.
That sounded exactly like Joseph Joestar.
Whenever Lucian Vale was involved, Joseph and the Speedwagon Foundation reacted like cats whose tails had been stepped on.
No matter how many times Lucian fought beside them, the mere possibility of him disappearing beyond their surveillance was enough to make the entire organization tense.
Their caution was not entirely unreasonable.
Lucian was believed to be the last surviving Pillar Man.
More importantly, he was the one who had ambushed Kars and seized the opportunity to become an Ultimate Life Form—an existence that no longer feared sunlight.
Even before awakening a Stand, Lucian had been terrifying.
While traveling with Bruno Bucciarati’s team, he had fought powerful Stand users with nothing more than his monstrous body, his adaptability, and an ability disturbingly similar to Gold Experience.
His Hamon was so overwhelming that a single punch had severely wounded Diavolo.
“In any case, Mr.
Polnareff and Mr.
Kakyoin, we owe both of you our thanks.”
Bruno Bucciarati’s voice came from the front.
For once, the tension that usually weighed upon him had disappeared.
“Now that the Boss has been defeated, we should be able to bring the gangs throughout Italy under control before long.
Once we do, we will make certain that drugs disappear from the streets.”
Kakyoin gave him an approving nod.
“Keep moving forward, Bucciarati.
As Mr.
Joseph would say, you possess a golden spirit.
Under your leadership, I believe the Italian mafia can truly change.”
“Of course it can!”
Guido Mista slapped a hand against his chest, grinning with confidence.
“Bucciarati isn’t doing this alone.
He has me, Giorno, Abbacchio, Narancia, Fugo, and Trish.
We’re not about to let Passione fall back into its old ways.”
Narancia Ghirga laughed and eagerly hurried forward until he was almost shoulder to shoulder with Bucciarati.
“Exactly!
Of course, we—”
“Hey, Narancia!
Get back where you belong!”
Mista’s expression darkened at once.
He seized Narancia by the collar and dragged him into the second row.
There had been three people in each row.
The moment Narancia moved forward, the first row contained four people while the second had only two.
Four.
Mista could not tolerate such a disaster.
Narancia gagged as his collar tightened.
After stumbling backward, he slapped Mista’s hand away and glared at him.
“What’s the big deal?” he muttered.
Mista refused to answer.
Some principles were too sacred to explain.
The others continued toward the airport, their voices mingling with the distant roar of aircraft.
For the first time in what felt like an eternity, they were walking toward a future they had chosen for themselves.
Lucian Vale, however, was no longer there to see it.
On the flight to England, Polnareff and Kakyoin sat beside one another while clouds drifted beneath the plane like a white ocean.
Polnareff glanced at his companion.
“Now that the investigation into the beetle-marked Stand Arrow is over, what are you planning to do next?”
Kakyoin had been lightly dozing.
He opened his eyes, lowered his sunglasses, and stared at Polnareff with obvious irritation.
“I’m returning to Hawaii, of course.
If I hadn’t received your distress call, I wouldn’t have cut my vacation short, left my mother there, and flown to Italy alone.”
Polnareff laughed awkwardly and looked away.
This time, he truly had overestimated himself.
Muhammad Avdol had offered to accompany him, but Polnareff had arrogantly refused, convinced that he could handle the investigation alone.
Instead, he had nearly died.
Without Giorno’s extraordinary life-giving ability, the injuries he suffered would probably have left him permanently crippled.
“We should still thank Lucian,” Kakyoin continued.
“If he hadn’t suddenly decided to travel through Italy, the Speedwagon Foundation wouldn’t have shifted its attention here.
We might never have received your distress signal in time.”
Kakyoin sounded annoyed, but the concern beneath his words was impossible to miss.
“It was a mistake,” Polnareff admitted.
“I underestimated Diavolo.
I also never imagined that Passione had extended its influence so deeply that it practically controlled Italy from the shadows.”
“As long as you’ve learned from it.
Once we return, get some proper rest.”
Polnareff gave a sheepish smile and wisely chose not to make any promises.
When their plane landed in England, Joseph Joestar was already waiting at the arrival gate.
His hair had turned white, yet his posture remained straight and his eyes were still sharp.
Lucian Vale’s continued existence had ensured that Joseph never dared abandon his Hamon training.
As a result, his body had aged far more slowly than it otherwise would have.
After they entered the car, Polnareff recounted everything that had happened in Italy.
The more Joseph heard, the more solemn his expression became.
The beetle-marked arrow was not an ordinary Stand Arrow.
It could draw out a Stand’s hidden potential and push its power into an entirely new state.
Yet it might also retain the basic function shared by the other arrows—the ability to awaken a Stand in someone with sufficient potential.
If Lucian had awakened a Stand, the consequences were impossible to predict.
Even if the Stand granted him nothing more than the ability to perceive other Stands, Lucian’s existing strength would make him nearly invincible.
He had already defeated many Stand users without being able to rely upon a Stand of his own.
If that final limitation disappeared, very few beings on Earth could threaten him.
And then there was the manner of his disappearance.
He had vanished instantly.
“A spatial ability?” Joseph murmured.
His frown deepened.
In Joseph’s experience, Stands capable of manipulating space were invariably troublesome.
Okuyasu Nijimura of Morioh possessed The Hand.
The boy had never developed its potential to the fullest, yet the Stand’s ability to erase space gave it terrifying destructive power.
Then there had been Vanilla Ice, the user of Cream.
Cream was extraordinarily dangerous, capable of consuming itself and its surroundings into a void that erased whatever it touched.
Had Lucian not killed Vanilla Ice almost instantly with overwhelming Hamon, the Stardust Crusaders might have suffered far more severely.
“Whatever happened, we should return to the Foundation first,” Joseph finally said.
“After knowing him for all these years, I’m reasonably certain Lucian has no interest in conquest.
Once he runs out of money, he’ll probably contact the Speedwagon Foundation on his own.”
The thought left Joseph feeling helpless.
Every Pillar Man who had followed Kars dreamed of conquering humanity.
Lucian, by contrast, had ambushed Kars, become the Ultimate Life Form, and then devoted himself almost entirely to enjoying life.
He travelled wherever he pleased, spent the Speedwagon Foundation’s money with astonishing enthusiasm, and treated most serious matters as troublesome interruptions.
Only occasionally did he stumble across a Stand user and become involved in another bizarre incident.
That laziness did not make him harmless.
Lucian’s Hamon was nearly a hundred times stronger than Joseph’s.
He possessed enough raw power to dominate the world if he ever developed the ambition to do so.
Worse still, the Red Stone of Aja remained in his possession.
That was the object Joseph feared most.
During the battle against Cream, Lucian had used the Red Stone of Aja to amplify his Hamon.
The resulting burst of solar energy had vaporized an entire building, leaving Vanilla Ice nowhere to hide.
Lucian also knew how to create Stone Masks.
A Stone Mask fitted with the Red Stone of Aja could normally be used only by a Pillar Man.
A human body would be unable to withstand the overwhelming energy and would be destroyed.
However, if an unusually powerful Stand user survived the transformation, that person might become an entirely new Pillar Man.
Joseph no longer truly regarded Lucian as an enemy.
Years of fighting side by side had eroded most of his suspicion, and Lucian had repeatedly proven that he lacked the desire to rule anyone.
But trust had limits.
If Lucian ever decided to revive the Pillar Men as a species, Joseph would have no choice but to stop him.
A Stand user transformed into a Pillar Man would possess immortality, superhuman biology, and a supernatural ability shaped by the soul.
If such a person lacked Lucian’s indifference toward power, the result could become a catastrophe for humanity.
Joseph stared through the car window, watching the English countryside pass beneath the grey sky.
He worried about where Lucian had gone, what kind of Stand he might have awakened, and what his disappearance meant for the future.
Those fears, however, were already meaningless.
At that very moment, Lucian Vale was no longer in their world.
He had crossed beyond its boundaries, into a place where Joseph Joestar, the Speedwagon Foundation, and everyone else he had known could never follow.
There would be no reunion.
Not in that world.