The rest of the catacombs remained silent as Shiho and the others traversed through them. They had been on alert ever since leaving Dirty Chains and Eat the Rich behind, keeping an eye out for any remaining members of Die Die Riches. Spike had thought he had seen people peeking at them from around corners, but whenever they got there, they were gone.
“There! I see someone!” Spike pointed again, but this time at a different location. “There, between the two coffins. Someone’s looking at us!”
“Where? I don’t see anyone, Spike.” Twilight squinted harder, but she still saw nothing.
Daring Do pulled out her whip and ran over, but as she searched between the coffins, she too found nothing and she straightened herself and shook her head.
“Stop it, there’s nothing there…” Shiho growled. “You’re just seeing things. Again.”
“The darkness is just playing tricks on your mind,” Daring Do said and handed him the tracker. “Just use this. It’ll get us there in no time.”
Earlier, when Eat the Rich had gone on its rampage, it had knocked all the lights down and plunged the catacombs back into darkness, but thanks to the tracker they had received from Garland Greyness, they didn’t need to worry about following the lights.
“It’s amazing how this place hasn’t been discovered till now,” Josher marveled at the expanse of the catacombs. “Daring, you should totally get it out there, being an adventurer and all.”
She nodded. “Once we’ve settled this DDR thing, sure! I’ll get these catacombs on the map.”
Spike held out the tracker and watched as the blinking light in its center began to increase its beat. “We must be getting close now. I’m going to take this Duckie down for taking my arm.”
“Wait in line.” Shiho flicked at her fringe. “She’s mine. I’m going to give her the beating of a lifetime.”
“But we still have to be careful,” Twilight warned. “We don’t know what kind of power she possesses.”
“Whatever power she has won’t stop me from beating her to the ground.” Shiho held up a fist. “She made the mistake of killing my friend back home in Japan. I would’ve been content to let them continue protesting. She brought this upon herself.”
“According to Weather Alternate’s database, she’s a wanted criminal,” Josher said, walking a little faster to walk in step with Shiho. “She killed her older sister or something, when she was young.
Spike nodded his head, but as he looked back up from the tracker, he saw another face peeking at them from around the next corner, just dimly visible from their lightphone orbs. It looked to be a woman this time and she had curly black hair dangling down one side of her face.
“There’s…” Spike started again, but then decided against it. They wouldn’t believe him after he had been debunked so many times. “The only way to get them on my side would be to capture this elusive person!”
Spike ran off into the tunnel on his own, aiming for the side passage through their tunnel. The figure darted their head back and Spike sent his Stand out past himself, freezing the air in the next tunnel.
He heard a gasp and when he rounded the corner, he saw the most beautiful human in the world, crouched down and clutching at her shoulders. She wore a loose red dress that had a really short skirt and one leg was up, revealing a slender thigh all the way down. Her hair was indeed black, so black that it seemed to reflect light and she looked out past it with shimmering green eyes. Her body shook as she cowered before him and the icy air he created.
“W-W-Who are you?” Spike asked as he sent Winter Wrap Up away. He couldn’t harm such a beautiful woman.
“I don’t know where I am.” The woman shook. “I got lost in these tunnels and I can’t find my way out. Please, please he-help me!”
The woman got up and ran at Spike and buried her face in his shoulder. Her red dress slipped off her shoulders and began to sag down, allowing Spike to see something he’d never seen in the human world before and it made him feel warm.
“Uh-uh, ah, hurm… I can uh, you can come with me, I’ll show you, uh, the way…” Spike blurted out as his face turned bright red.
“O-Oh thank you, sir!” The woman wrapped her arms around him and squeezed. “I’ve only known you for a few seconds, but I feel like we’ve made a connection here!”
“O-Ohh, re-really now?” Spike let out a nervous laugh.
“Yes, please, would you do something for me?” The woman leaned her head closer to his, pushing her bright red lips closer towards Spike’s.
“W-What is that?” Spike trembled.
The woman’s lips curved into a smile and a shadow fell over her eyes. “Die for me.”
Her left arm spun around and she produced a knife from between her index and middle finger. But before she could thrust it into the back of Spike’s neck, A blue fist was thrown into her cheek and her face squished together before she was flung back into one of the coffins, shattering it as her knife clattered to the floor. From Spike’s missing arm, Winter Wrap Up’s arm had emerged, its fingers still wrapped tightly into its palm.
“But I know an enemy when I see one,” Spike said as he thrust Winter Wrap Up’s arm to his side.
The woman groaned in pain and plucked a splinter from her cheek and winced. “H-How did you know I was the enemy…?”
“Simple.” Spike pointed to the icy walls all around them. “I froze the walls of this tunnel and ice as thick as this acts like a mirror. I made sure I could see behind myself in case anyone tried to sneak up on me. I was right to do that.”
“I… I misunderestimated you.” The woman clutched at her jawline. Instantly, her body began to bubble and warp, before it began sagging down along with her dress.
Spike took a few steps back just in case, but he kept Winter Wrap Up at the ready in case she were to try something else. She was definitely a Stand master, but as of what she could do, he was still unsure.
When he looked back up, the woman was no longer lithe and attractive, smooth and slender. Where the woman once stood was a shriveled up elderly woman with a severe hunched back and missing teeth.
“W-Woah, who are you?” Spike stepped back more as his Stand emerged behind him, creating a ball of ice between its palms.
“I am Hagatha Crispy, the longest-standing member of Die Die Riches…” she coughed and gagged. Her black hair had turned frizzy and white and she was missing hair at various patches on her head. “My Stand, Agar Agar, is supposed to enthrall you and then I would’ve eliminated you one by one.”
“What are you, like a thousand years old?” Spike asked incredulously.
“Only ninety-six,” the woman said. “Now, you wouldn’t harm an old woman, would you?”
Then she spat out blood and rubbed at her jaw. It seemed to be off one hinge.
“Not if you tell me where Duckie Deluxe is!” Spike pointed at her as the rest of his friends appeared around the corner. “And what kind of Stand does she have?”
“Spike, what happened? We heard a commotion,” Twilight was the first to speak.
“Yeah, some old crone tried to trick me,” Spike didn’t take his eyes off Hagatha in case she tried something else. “But now she’s going to tell us the secret of Duckie’s Stand, or else.”
“I… I will tell you anything, I promise!” Hagatha put her hands together and gave them a smile full of missing teeth. “I-I know all about Duckie’s Stand, I do!”
Shiho pushed her way up to the front. “Less useless yapping, more spilling. What’s your leader’s Stand power? If you don’t answer or lie, I’ll beat you so badly you’ll wish you were dead.”
And to punctuate that threat, Shiho called forth her Stand, which cracked its knuckles menacingly.
“Come now… you wouldn’t hurt an old woman… right?” Hagatha timidly asked.
Shiho’s eyes were unyielding. “Do you think this is the first time I’ve beat up an old granny?” She spat. “Now stop stalling and tell us about Duckie’s Stand before I lose my patience, and believe me, it’s running thin as it is.”
“I will, I will, Duckie’s secret, it’s… it’s… She’s able to, she’s able to-”
Shiho suddenly leaned forward and thrust a hand through Hagatha’s midsection. The old woman bent over her arm and spat out a torrent of blood.
“It was a good thing I put that dreambug on you. I knew something like this would happen, Hagatha…” Shiho was gone and Hagatha found herself in a basement with old rusty shelves and old equipment scattered around. A single lightbulb swung from side to side above her, occasionally blinking out and letting the darkness in.
“N-No, Duckie, let me out!” Hagatha crawled across the floor, reaching for one of the shelves.
There was a hiss and when she turned around, she could see a large shadow approaching her, wielding a giant mallet. Each time the lightbulb turned on, it disappeared again, but each time darkness returned, it got closer and closer towards her.
“No, no, no, Duckie, no! Not meeee!” Hagatha screeched as she accidentally pulled one of the shelves down on top of herself, trapping her frail body there.
“Goodbye, Hagatha.” The shadow rose high above her and raised its weapon, which turned into a knife. “I would say thank you for your service, but you’ve been quite the useless one.”
Shiho Sunfast and her friends watched as Hagatha Cripsy’s body convulsed on the spot as her eyes rolled back into her head. She began gasping and shaking from side to side before grabbing at her chest.
“Shiho, what did you do? Did you hit her already?” Daring Do ran past her and inspected the old woman. “She’s having some kind of convulsion.”
“Yeah, I know that much.” Shiho frowned. “But it’s not me. She’s just old.”
Hagatha shook and opened her mouth wider, then she suddenly collapsed down in a heap, letting out one final breath of air before ceasing all movement.
“What the hay?” Josher raised a hand. “What just happened?!”
“It’s just like back in the restaurant.” Shiho whipped around from side to side, looking for the enemy. “I bet it’s Duckie. At last, we’re close to ending her and her rogue organization.”
“But we still have no clue what kind of power Duckie’s Stand has,” Twilight said, frowning at Hagatha’s body. “We could be walking right into an ambush.”
“Either way, we’re finding her.” Shiho barreled past Hagatha. “I’m ready to put her in the ground.”
“We have to be careful. We don’t know where she can strike from, if Hagatha just died like that,” Spike warned them. “She could have a long range Stand.”
“This is it, everyone!” Daring Do gave her whip a flick as it extended out of the handle. “The moment we’ve come all this way for! The end of DDR is in sight. Eat the Rich must’ve taken a whole lot of them out of commission. But we can clear up the rest in no time. The only tough one left would be their leader herself! May I say, it has been an honor traveling with you folk all this way. I’ve never gone on an adventure with more than one other person before. I will remember this for the rest of my life.”
"Let’s talk memories after the deed is done,” Josher advised. “It’s like the saying goes, ‘celebrate when you’re half done, and the finish won’t be near as fun’.”
“I have never heard that saying,” Spike grumbled. “And I read almost as many books as Twilight does.”
“Must be a human thing.” Twilight shrugged.
“But Daring’s right.” Josher flicked a card to each of his comrades. When they turned them over, they found that they each had an ace. “I’m glad I got to go on this adventure with all of you. Even with you, Shiho.”
“Good grief, don’t start with that kind of thing now,” Shiho said. “Saying things like that is just asking to get killed. Me, I’m looking forward to stepping on Duckie Deluxe’s corpse. That’ll be enough celebration for me.”
“Of course you would say that…” Josher shook his head. “You’ve never wanted friendship, you’ve always despised it. You push everyone away and you’ve never done what’s right.”
“I came on this whole misbegotten adventure because of a friend,” Shiho growled. “A friend who might still be alive if Die Die Riches hadn’t shown their ugly faces. Don’t lecture me about friendship, Josher.”
“Friendship…” Twilight started. “You know nothing about it, Shiho. Did you ever stop to think what would’ve happened if you had taken care of those around you instead of just your rich friends?”
“With your powers, you could’ve changed the world for the better. All of you could,” Spike continued where Twilight had stopped, making Shiho blink twice. “But you are all selfish with what you have. Every single one of you. It is because of you that the world is the way it is.”
“How about you shut your trap?” Shiho glared at Twilight and Spike. “Who I choose to be friends with is none of your business, nor is it any business of yours who I spend my money on. And I would definitely never consider giving it to a bunch of braindead radicals like Die Die Riches.”
“Your friend would still be alive if you weren’t like this…” Daring Do grabbed her by the wrist and spun her around. “You did this, Shiho. Maybe if you had been faster that day, you could’ve done something.”
Shiho looked at her eyes, but all she saw in them was white. Her pupils had disappeared and her mouth was turned up in a crooked grin.
“What the hell?” she said rather flatly.
“Your end comes, Shiho Sunfast…” Daring Do began laughing. Her voice had become layered, as though someone else was also speaking over her own voice. “You came down here seeking justice, but death is all you will find. Death in the most painful and torturous way you have never experienced before.”
Shiho didn’t know what was happening, but she knew enough to know that these weren’t her real friends.
“Duckie Deluxe…” she deduced.
“Glad to finally meet you. Not quite in the flesh, but make no mistake, you are before my Stand right now…” Daring Do walked forward as her whip morphed into a large kitchen knife. “You have foiled my plans countlessly across the world, and your friends even helped to protect the French president.”
Shiho summoned Curtain Call, which immediately threw its cloth over a vase, turning it into a metal ball before kicking it at Daring Do.
“Qu’est-ce que c’est,” Daring Do slashed her weapon across the space, shearing the ball in half as they sailed past her on both sides.
Shiho turned to run down the catacomb tunnel, but suddenly found her face in a wooden door and she smacked her forehead against it before falling flat on her back. Stars danced around her vision as she sat up and for some reason, everything seemed to have grown even darker and more blue around her.
“Your Stand can turn anything into something else…” She heard footsteps behind her. They sounded like they were being made by something flat. “But it will not help you here. This is my world now.”
After adjusting her vision, Shiho realized she was now in some kind of dining room, complete with a round table and six chairs around it. The table had been set with a rotting turkey and it smelt really bad. At the other end of the room, at the entrance to the kitchen, stood a shadowy figure that somewhat resembled a duck. It held a giant knife over one shoulder and as it took a step out of the kitchen, its webbed foot caused a shadow to spread out over towards Shiho, which formed into a four-fingered hand.
She summoned Curtain Call and changed the door into a piece of paper, tearing through it as she backed away from the shadow. The doorway led to the front entrance of a two-storey house and a stained-glass window with a rubber duck sat in the middle of the door frame, colored red and yellow. A wooden staircase led up beside it to a small hallway upstairs with a wooden banister.
“Where are you going, Shiho?” She heard the voice call from the dining room. “You can’t escape my Stand!”
Shiho first chose the main door, but from nowhere, wooden bars appeared over the door, sealing it shut. She flung Curtain Call’s cloth over the planks, but they turned to paper briefly before returning to wood in the blink of an eye.
“Screw this.” She kicked off against the main door and leapt up the staircase two steps at a time as the shadow emerged from the dining room.
As she turned back at the top of the stairs, she could see the enemy Stand’s head peeking out from the doorway, perfectly parallel to the ground, about midway up the door. She got Curtain Call to turn a nearby photo frame into a discus and it threw it down at the enemy Stand, only for it to bend away like a snake, avoiding the discus completely.
“Qu’est-ce que c’est, that was a good throw, but pointless…” The duck waddled out of the dining room as its shadow edged up the staircase, its knife warping and shifting into a giant mallet. “There’s nothing you can do against me, against my Psycho Killer!”
A piano began playing somewhere in the house. It constantly played only three notes, but it was enough to irritate Shiho, who whipped Curtain Call’s cloth around until it was a spiral. She was done running. Duckie was going to learn that she shouldn’t mess with a Sushi.
As the shadow raised its mallet high, Curtain Call flicked its cloth at its arm, but to her dismay, the cloth smacked against the wall, not harming the shadow in the slightest bit. She turned her attention to the approaching Stand, which was now on the third step up.
She had Curtain Call glide down the steps as it brought up a fist to attack it. The duck raised its own weapon, an oversized wooden mallet, but it was very much slower than Curtain Call and its fist connected with the Stand’s bill. Seeing her opening, Shiho had it continue to barrage the enemy with punch after punch after punch.
“Neigh! Neigh! Neigh! Neigh! Neigh! Neigh! Neigh! Neigh! Neigh!”
But before another punch could land, Psycho Killer was no longer standing there. Shiho was left in the darkness of the house with Curtain Call and all she could hear was her own ragged breathing.
“Where did you go?” she called out, looking in front and behind periodically.
“You don’t get it, do you, Shiho?” Duckie’s voice echoed around her. “You cannot win here! This is my world, and Psycho Killer is god here! I control everything in this world.”
“Yeah?” Shiho glared at the surrounding gloom. “You’re going to need a crowbar to get my foot out of your backside when I’m done with you, Duckie, Stand or no Stand.”
“Crowbar, you say? Oui, oui, what an idea…”
Something hooked into Shiho’s left ankle and she widened her eyes before she let out a yell of pain. She looked down, finding two ends of crowbars piercing her leg, lodging into her bones.
Psycho Killer reappeared in front of her, two steps above her. Its giant mallet had now become a long rusty crowbar and it swung it across the space, clipping Shiho across the cheek. She crashed into the wall, shattering a photo frame of a young girl with a knife and would’ve rolled down the stairs if the two crowbars below weren’t holding her down.
“Hoh hoh hoh hoh!” Psycho Killer smashed the crowbar into Shiho’s head repeatedly. “You cannot win, you cannot win, you cannot win!”
Shiho raised her hands and had Curtain Call whip its cloth around, tying it around the crowbar, but all it did was resume its knife form and it cut clean through the cloth before speeding down for Shiho’s face.
“It’s the end for you now!”