“Horne?”
Avdol was dead certain he had never crossed paths with this young man, yet the stranger seemed intimately familiar with him, sending a chill down his spine.
“Relax.
I know a hell of a lot of secrets, including your personal history.
You can think of me as someone who possesses foresight of your destined fates.
I’m here right now to help you break free from the tragedy written in your stars.”
Noticing Avdol’s apprehension, Horne clarified smoothly.
“Rewrite destiny?
Then…
what was my original fate?”
Avdol couldn’t help asking, his curiosity piqued.
“Are you sure you want to know?
Peeking behind the curtain of fate rarely brings peace of mind.”
Horne challenged him with a smirk.
“Well…”
As a fortune-teller, Avdol was superstitious about such omens, suddenly hesitating whether to press for an answer.
Old Joseph, however, had no such reservations.
“You claim to know our fate?
Bullshit.
Let’s hear what you have to say about mine.”
“A few years down the line, Joseph, you’ll go senile.
Every ounce of this impressive muscle will wither away, you’ll hobble around leaning on a cane, plagued by gallstones, cataracts, and a mouth full of dentures that won’t let you chew a proper T-bone steak.
You’ll live a long-ass life, though.
If a legendary hero like you doesn’t want his golden years spent rotting away like a decrepit old fossil, you’d better pick your Ripple training back up.
At the very least, don’t let Caesar’s final Ripple go in vain.”
Both the grim portrait of his senile future and the mention of Caesar’s tragic death—the eternal scar carved into Joseph’s soul—instantly darkened the old warrior’s expression.
“Are you telling the truth?”
Even so, Joseph found it nearly impossible to believe.
“Still skeptical?
What about Tequila Girl?
Surely that rings a bell?”
“ALRIGHT!
I BELIEVE YOU!!”
The moment the phrase ‘Tequila Girl’ left Horne’s lips, Joseph nearly suffered a massive cardiac arrest.
Pure, unadulterated, catastrophic cringe from his past.
‘These are merely the blunders of youth’—a sentiment well documented even in Char Aznable’s personal archives.
(Dad is reacting so strongly…
it must be a sweetheart from his younger days.)
(The old man is losing his shit…
an illicit affair?)
(Mr.
Joestar is thoroughly shaken…
this youth might truly see through the threads of fate.)
None of the clueless onlookers came even close to guessing the cursed truth.
Meanwhile, Joseph was sweating buckets through his shirt.
(Holy shit…
to think anyone on earth still remembers that incident!)
“Relax, Joseph.
I respect you far too much to ruin your glorious legacy with your dirty laundry.”
Yet as he said it, Horne’s lips twitched upward until he burst into snickering laughter.
(He definitely knows every single detail!)
At that moment, Joseph was thoroughly convinced that this kid possessed authentic omniscience.
He instantly dragged Horne off to the side to cut a private deal.
“Kid, name your price for hush money.”
“Hush money?
Talking about cash hurts our brotherhood, Joseph.”
“Then what the hell do you want?”
“Let me ask you a few things first.
Do you still have any of that ultraviolet gear you used against Kars and the Pillar Men?”
“Well…
it’s been decades.
They’re probably all scrapped or decayed by now, since no vampires surfaced after that.”
Joseph wasn’t entirely certain, though he’d love nothing more than to point UV cannons at Dio if they still existed.
“Can the Speedwagon Foundation manufacture more?”
“I’ll have to check with our people.”
“Next question: where did you stash the Super Aja stone?”
The Red Stone of Super Aja was a one-of-a-kind cosmic treasure, capable of amplifying solar radiation and Ripple energy to turn natural sunlight into a devastating laser cannon.
Decades ago, Kars, the Pillar Man, had used this very gem alongside a modified Stone Mask to ascend into the Ultimate Lifeform.
“The Super Aja is secured in a high-security vault, but pulling it out right now will involve quite a bit of bureaucratic red tape.”
“Who gives a damn about red tape?
Grab it first and vaporize Dio with it.”
“You’ve got a point.”
Joseph nodded in full agreement.
“Once Dio is dead and buried, mind letting me keep the Red Stone?”
“What the hell do you need it for?”
“I have serious use for it.
It’s just collecting dust in your vault anyway; in my hands, it’ll actually see real action.”
“Action against what?”
Joseph was naturally cautious; after all, the stone was immensely dangerous.
“To exterminate demons.”
“Kill demons?
You mean vampires?
Vampires other than Dio?!
Where are they?!”
Even in his golden years, his sacred duty as a Ripple warrior to eradicate bloodsuckers was carved straight into his marrow.
“Not in this universe.”
That threw Joseph for a total loop.
“What do you mean, ‘not in this universe’?”
Horne gave him a concise rundown of the infinite multiverse concept, followed by the situation in the Demon Slayer world.
“I see.
I get it now.
Even if it’s an alternate dimension, if abominations like that are running rampant, the Super Aja is yours.
It’s far better serving justice in your hands than rotting in our archives.”
Hearing Joseph’s magnanimous reply, Horne felt genuinely moved.
“As expected, Joseph, you’re still the same Joseph Joestar—in your youth, in your prime, and to the very end.
You might be reckless, goofy, and love slacking off during training, but whenever the world teeters on the brink, you never hesitate to step up.
Your righteous heart remains unchanged, and your Golden Spirit shines as brightly as ever.”
In Horne’s eyes, the silhouettes of young Joseph and old Joseph seamlessly overlapped.
The sheer warmth of an old friend in Horne’s tone instilled a deep sense of camaraderie in Joseph, even though he knew for a fact they had never met.
“You…
have we really never crossed paths before?
Not even once?”
Horne shook his head.
“You don’t know me, but I know you.
From beyond your reality, I watched the tragic genesis of the Joestar destiny, and I watched you grow step by step until you hurled Kars into the void of space.
Same goes for Jotaro.
I never imagined that an invincible titan like him would meet such a tragic end…
five seconds of stopped time is simply far too brief for a protective father.”
Those words packed colossal weight, yet Joseph intuitively grasped their solemn meaning; he didn’t pry further, knowing that dwelling on distant sorrow was pointless.
He extended his right hand toward Horne.
“In that case, it seems we truly are lifelong brothers who’ve only just met.”
Horne clasped his grip firmly in return.
“Damn right, Joseph!”
And in that instant, Horne watched in awe as a radiant, sun-like surge of energy flooded through Joseph’s palms straight into his veins.
That divine current acted as the spark for a nuclear fusion, violently igniting the colossal reservoir of latent vitality dormant inside Horne’s flesh.
To the naked eye, dazzling waves of biological energy erupted from Horne’s frame in the sacred geometry of the Ripple!
The life force venting from his skin burned with the blinding brilliance and scorching warmth of a miniature sun.
As if the biological rhythm had been hard-coded into his DNA from birth, nobody instructed Horne how to execute Ripple breathing—yet his lungs inhaled and exhaled in perfect, rhythmic resonance.
Was it a miracle?
HELL NO!
THIS WAS THE LIVING LEGACY OF MANKIND!!
In a flash of transcendence, Horne ‘witnessed’ it—woven deeply into the cosmic vibrations of the Ripple, passed down across centuries—the unbreakable torch known as COURAGE.
Spanning ancient eras through countless bloodlines: from Master Tonpetty to Baron Zeppeli, from Zeppeli to Jonathan, from Jonathan, Lisa Lisa, and Caesar to Joseph…
and now, passed from Joseph into the hands of Horne!
Generation after generation of Ripple masters had poured their souls, sacrifices, and wills into this radiant energy, and now that burning torch rested in Horne’s grasp!
This was how humanity passed down the sacred fire of Courage: a courage that shattered the chains of class, gender, race, hatred, time, death, and predetermined destiny itself!
And Courage, in turn, elevated mankind above their mortal limits, carrying them across borders, across eras, and across the void of mortality!
The hymn of humanity is the hymn of Courage!
The history of humanity is the history of Courage!!
The legacy of humanity is the legacy of Courage!!!
And now, the Ripple of mankind, the Courage of humanity, would cross the boundary between worlds!!
Horne’s human biology underwent immediate evolution, his height rocketing to a towering six-foot-five, his skeleton and musculature carving out the flawless proportions of a classical marble deity.
Eventually, the outward explosion of solar energy settled, sealing shut like a closed valve, ready to burst forth at a moment’s notice whenever commanded.
“OH MY GOD!!
This is absolutely unbelievable!!
Horne, you might just be a Ripple prodigy equal to—no, far surpassing—even my own innate genius!!!”
Joseph gasped in sheer awe; as a veteran Ripple warrior, he felt the unfathomable scale of the vital energy that had just erupted from Horne’s frame.
In fact, Joseph had even received a massive reciprocal backflow of Ripple energy through their joined hands.
That concentrated flood of youth-restoring vitality revitalized Joseph’s aging organs and joints; so long as he maintained diligent training, his physical prime would endure for decades to come.
“Joseph!
I feel it!
I have received from your hands the sacred Ripple of Courage passed down through the ages!!!”