The JoJo Universe.
November 24, 1987.
The Kujo Residence, Jotaro Kujo’s bedroom.
“It’s so rare for Jotaro to bring a friend home~ Here is some juice and snacks for you two.”
Jotaro’s mother, Holly Kujo, set the tray of juice and sweets onto the low table, her face brimming with maternal pride and warmth.
“Shut the hell up!
You annoying bitch!
Get out of here right now!!”
Spoken like a truly devoted son, Jotaro Kujo delivered his signature line.
“Okay dear~~”
Holly was remarkable in her own right, her unconditional love for Jotaro practically overflowing.
Once Holly closed the door behind her, Horne, who had been buried in medical textbooks, finally spoke up.
“Hey, Jotaro, isn’t talking to your own mother like that a little harsh?”
“Tch.
She’s like this every single day.
Annoying as hell.”
Jotaro was the quintessential rebellious teenager, perpetually impatient with his mother.
“Leave her be.
More importantly, can you actually understand any of that?”
To Jotaro’s astonishment, Horne wasn’t the only one reading.
Both manifestation units of his Stand, [One-Man Army], had been summoned, each tearing through their own massive volumes.
They weren’t even reading line by line; they merely glanced at a page for a split second, flipped it, and repeated the process in rapid succession.
It made one wonder what the hell was the point—were they actually absorbing anything?
“Can’t help it.
There’s way too much I need to learn, and these academic tomes are dense as lead.
I have to commit the raw data to memory first and digest it later.”
Horne was surrounded by towering stacks of books borrowed from the public library, spanning advanced medicine, theoretical physics, cellular biology, organic chemistry, mathematics, and exercise physiology.
Stacked together, the pile was taller than Jotaro himself.
“And don’t assume I’m just skimming.
My memory retention is practically photographic right now.
That’s one of the perks of awakening a Stand—your spiritual energy and biological vitality surge exponentially.
Humans aren’t the only ones who can awaken Stands; even animals can.
And an animal blessed with a Stand often develops intellect rivaling or surpassing that of an average human.
So stop just standing there, Jotaro.
Put that Star Platinum of yours to work on your studies.”
“Yare yare daze…
Fine, whatever.”
Muttering under his breath, Jotaro picked up a thick oceanography textbook and manifested Star Platinum beside him to scan the pages.
To his surprise, Horne wasn’t bullshitting—processing and memorizing complex information was absurdly effortless with his Stand engaged.
“Horne, what was that Joestar family destiny you mentioned earlier?”
Jotaro hadn’t forgotten Horne’s ominous words from their fight.
“That’s a long, bloody tale, so I’ll give you the abridged version.
Back in 1888, in Victorian England, your family took in an adopted son named Dio Brando.
Eventually, his plot to poison his adoptive father, George Joestar, was exposed.
During the fallout, Dio used an ancient Mesoamerican artifact known as the Stone Mask, triggering it with George Joestar’s blood to transform himself into a vampire.”
Jotaro’s brow furrowed deep.
“A vampire?”
“Yes, an authentic vampire.
A nocturnal predator that preys on human flesh and blood, boasting monstrous regeneration that lets it survive even if reduced to a severed head, practically unkillable by any means other than direct sunlight.”
Hearing this, Jotaro realized that the world he inhabited was far weirder and darker than he had ever imagined.
“That night marked the genesis of your family’s curse.
Your great-great-grandfather, Jonathan Joestar, engaged in a death match against the newly turned Dio.
At the cost of horrific injuries and burning the grand Joestar estate to the ground, Jonathan managed to cast Dio into the roaring flames.
Yet Dio was a tough bastard and survived the inferno.
Jonathan subsequently crossed paths with his mentor, Will A.
Zeppeli, and mastered the ancient martial art known as Hamon, or Ripple Breathing.
The Ripple is the ultimate mortal technique against vampires, second only to the sun itself.
Through specialized breathing patterns, the human bloodstream produces an electromagnetic life energy identical to solar rays, disintegrating vampires at the cellular level.
Jonathan and Dio fought a final decisive duel, but Dio survived once again as a severed head.
During Jonathan’s honeymoon aboard an Atlantic cruise with his wife, Erina Joestar, Dio launched an ambush.
Jonathan died in that battle, sinking into the depths of the ocean alongside Dio.
Decades later came the exploits of your grandfather, Joseph Joestar, who saved the world as a Ripple warrior in his youth.
I won’t dive into his grand adventure right now—ask the old man yourself if you’re curious.
The bottom line is: Dio never died at the bottom of the Atlantic.
He was salvaged from his watery grave, having severed Jonathan’s head and grafted his own onto your ancestor’s body.
Now, Dio has awakened a Stand.
And through the psychic resonance bound to Jonathan’s stolen flesh, every living descendant carrying Jonathan’s blood is awakening a Stand in response.”
Horne’s revelation plunged Jotaro into heavy contemplation.
He genuinely had no clue his lineage was stained with such insane history.
“So where is this bastard Dio now?”
“Lurking among human society, plotting to bend humanity to his will using his vampiric thralls and Stand supremacy.
And naturally, as a vampire, he hasn’t abandoned his appetite for human flesh.”
Jotaro’s knuckles cracked as his fists clenched with burning fury.
“That piece of shit…!”
“And that’s not all.
Like I said, every direct descendant of Jonathan is being forced to awaken a Stand.
Take a wild guess who else carries Jonathan’s blood, aside from you and your grandfather?”
Jotaro’s eyes widened in sheer realization as he shot to his feet.
Holly Kujo—born Holy Joestar—was Jonathan’s flesh and blood.
She was inevitably going to awaken a Stand as well.
“Here’s the catch: if a person lacks the violent fighting spirit and psychological constitution to command a Stand, the power runs wild, turning into a parasitic curse that consumes the user from the inside out.”
“What?!”
Knowing his mother was walking straight into mortal danger shattered Jotaro’s stoic composure.
No matter how rebellious or abrasive he acted, Jotaro Kujo loved his mother more than life itself.
“What the hell do we do?”
Though panicked inside, Jotaro forced himself to remain cold and calculated.
He knew Horne wouldn’t be sitting here chilling if there wasn’t a countermeasure.
“Two options.
One: drastically bolster her spiritual fortitude and vitality in a short window so she can tame the Stand.
Two: hunt down Dio and eradicate him.
Once the root cause is destroyed, the bloodline resonance terminates, and the curse lifts.”
Jotaro weighed the first option and shook his head; his gentle, pacifistic mother could never foster the predatory killer instinct needed to tame a combat Stand.
That left only the second path.
“Call your old man.
Tell Joseph Joestar to pack his bags and prepare for a vampire hunt.”
Without another word, Jotaro bolted downstairs to ring Joseph Joestar overseas.
Meanwhile, during the lull while waiting for Joseph to fly into Japan…
Over in the world of Demon Slayer, Horne managed to locate a sanctuary just before the morning sun broke the horizon.
It was a remote mountain settlement of over a hundred households, yet something was disturbingly off: every civilian shack was decrepit and rotten, while the local Shinto shrine gleamed with opulent luxury.
Catching the unnatural scent on the morning breeze, Horne inhaled deeply.
“Heh…
A stray demon.
Perfect timing for a feast.”
Horne grinned with cold brutality.
He knew demons could amplify their own demonic blood density and combat strength by cannibalizing each other.
To exact vengeance on Muzan Kibutsuji, he would become the predator of predators—a demon who slaughters and devours his own kind.
Horne ghosted through the village straight toward the grand shrine.
Along the way, he deployed the non-corporeal nature of his Stand to phase through walls and scout the settlement.
What he uncovered made his blood run cold: beyond the rotting homes, the surrounding farmlands lay entirely abandoned.
The villagers were emaciated husks of skin and bones, clinging to life by a thread.
Worse yet, the pregnancy rate was unnervingly high—virtually every fertile woman in the village was visibly carrying a child.
An abominable realization clicked in Horne’s mind: this demon was farming human beings like livestock.
Just then, a butterfly flitting through the trees registered Horne’s presence.
“Another demon…?”