“Actually, I—no, me and two other guys were yanked here by Aer at your side, like fish on a hook.”

...

“FNNDP!!!”

Silence stretched like a taut wire, then Lian flared like dry grass catching fire. She flipped a chair and hurled it at D like a storm-tossed plank.

D caught it one-handed like plucking a falling leaf, all swagger under stage lights—if only his hand wasn’t shaking like a reed in wind.

“Calm down. I’m not done,” his voice fell like cool rain.

He steadied Lian as she started to draw the Darkness Sword, the blade a night tide about to break. The pint-sized terror moved like a lit fuse.

“Any last words? Want me to take care of your wife?” Her tone was frost on glass, her eyes twin knives.

Her grip on the Darkness Sword didn’t ease; her intent hung like a guillotine. She’d wait for his last words, then cut clean, maybe “care for” his tiny wife on the way.

Seeing her stance like a coiled viper, D knew useless words meant a grave. He reached for something that sounded like water in a drought.

“Look… I’m not lying. Aer force-summoned us, and ordered us to wait for you here. Then she went upstairs to start the fight.” His words fell like stones in a still pond.

It had shape and timing like a trail of footprints. Lian didn’t want to doubt Aer, yet intel tied to Aer was a net you didn’t ignore. After a heartbeat like a drum, she loosened her hold on the Darkness Sword.

“Be clear,” she said, voice a drawn bow.

Relief slipped from D like steam from a kettle now off the flame.

“We three were force-summoned, from different worldlines, ripples in a split river. Honestly, we’re all Dio,” he said, wearing a crooked moon of a smile.

Lian’s stare turned to flint. “You? This timid? Your Stand isn’t the real Za Warudo. You’re just a look-alike, a paper lantern imitating the moon.”

At that, a rare cloud crossed D’s face, a shadow over snow. “We’re from different lines. If we differ a bit, so what? Let’s skip that. Here’s what you want: Aer summoned us for a plan. I don’t know the goal. It seems tied to you.” His words drifted like smoke toward a shut door.

Tied to her?

A ache rose first, warm and sore like a bruise, then memory bloomed like plum blossoms in snow. Back when she and Aer were together, Aer often spoke of a plan tied to the world. Aer never told her the core, but the weight of it pressed like mountains. It mattered to Aer.

“Keep talking,” Lian said, a low tide drawing back.

D scratched his head, helpless as a stray in rain. “We don’t know much. Orders said fight you. Go all out, even though we’d lose anyway.” The sentence rang like a cracked bell.

Lian’s trust wavered like a lantern in wind. If—only if—one in a billion, all this was Aer’s arrangement, then why? The question gnawed like winter on bone.

“Why tell me this?” The doubt came first, cool and coiling like mist, then the words. This touched a plan; wasn’t he afraid of losing his head? Or was this a trick, bait on a hook?

D just laughed, a brittle sound like ice breaking on a river. “It’s fated stuff. She probably never meant us to live long. If I’m dead anyway, why not throw a rock in her gears?”

It made sense like a straight road in daylight, and Lian half-believed like a door half-open. But Aer wouldn’t lie—her heart balked like a horse at fire.

Seeing her confusion curl like smoke, D’s mouth tipped up, a fox-tail smile. “Kid, listen. Aer may be Aer, but the now isn’t the past. Monsters always change skins,” he said, voice like a low drum from the Underworld.

The words dragged like cold hands at her ankles, and pain spiked through Lian’s head like lightning spearing dark clouds. “Shut up!”

Her small fist hit D’s chest like a meteor—no, like [Star Platinum] bull-rushing a wall. Pain flooded him like a red tide, but men bleed, they don’t weep. So his chest bled instead of his eyes.

When the headache ebbed like a receding wave, Lian noticed the resistance under her knuckles. She looked up. Blood ran down D’s chest like red vines; tears pooled at the corners of his eyes, ugly as smeared ink.

She pulled back, awkward as a cat caught on a fence, scratching her nape. “Uh… didn’t mean it.” The apology fluttered like a nervous sparrow.

Vampire flesh knitted in a few breaths like silk reweaving itself. D touched the smooth skin, sighed like wind through pines. “Whatever. One more thing.”

He stood, then his Stand opened a stair of space before him, a spiral cut into air like a shell. He walked in, the wound closing behind him like a mouth. When only his head remained, he dropped the last pebble: “Aer isn’t a good person. She’s a complete bastard.”

“Thoom!”

A high-speed object tore the air like a hawk’s dive, then fired at D with the weight of a falling bell.

“I won’t let you talk about Aer like that! No one gets to insult her!” Lian’s roar rolled across the space like thunder.

But D slid into the space in a blink, gone like a fish into deep water. The thrown Darkness Sword slammed the ground like a hammer to an anvil, and in the boundless white the echoes braided her roar with iron’s ring.

Lian clicked her tongue, a spark like flint. Her doubt of Aer blew out like a candle. From D’s act, it was a cheap trick to split their bond, a wedge dressed as truth.

“Woom…”

The space around her blurred like hot air over stone. With D’s exit, this pocket couldn’t hold, a bubble about to pop.

“Lian! Are you okay?” The moment the space vanished, Aer’s voice rushed in like warm wind.

Then a warm hug wrapped her like a quilt from the sun, and Lian felt a small swell of warmth rise like spring water. Yes. How could a hug this warm be fake?