A familiar room swallowed in ink-black. Three familiar men sat in their familiar seats, like statues in a hall of shadows. The one called I drew out a strand of silver hair, barely a centimeter long, like a moon sliver cut from night.
“This the thing you wanted?”
D took the short lock and passed it to the man in the center. The man glanced at it, then curled a cold smile, like frost edging a blade.
“Hmph… That’s the one. You didn’t get spotted, did you?”
I’s face stayed blank, a still lake under a winter sky. He shook his head.
“Something happened that even I can’t explain. But for taking one centimeter of hair? I wouldn’t get noticed.”
The center man nodded and fixed his gaze on the silver strand, as if holding a thread of fate. D saw how the man treasured it, and couldn’t help asking.
“What’s it even for? You can’t eat it, can’t kill with it.”
“This is way more fun than killing.” The man swayed the hair before the lamp, like bait glinting in dim water. “According to that thing called World Consciousness, with this, our chance to kill Aer is over ninety percent.”
At the name World Consciousness, excitement broke across I’s face, like sunrise spilling gold.
“You got in touch with it?”
The man nodded.
“Of course. It reached out to me first. Which means…” He rose from his seat like a shadow growing tall. D and I stood as well. Dangerous smiles bloomed on all three faces, like thorns after rain. “DIO wins.”
They stepped out together into the corridor of dark. No one caught the man’s last whisper, a feather dropped in night.
“But it’s only me, Dio…”
——
Lian pushed open the inner door. The room inside was pitch-black, a cave where light had drowned. Even with night vision, he saw nothing but velvet fog, yet he still led everyone in, like a lantern guiding a caravan.
Step.
The moment his foot crossed the threshold, voice-activated candles flared to life. Blue, eerie flames bloomed along both walls, foxfire dancing in twin rows.
“Why does this family love rooms like this? Do they think they’re some final boss?”
Lian couldn’t help the gripe; a space this game-like tugged the mind toward wild ideas.
Aer ruffled Lian’s hair with a fond touch, like wind smoothing willow leaves.
“Aren’t you the one who loves this style? Why complain first?”
Under Aer’s head-pat, Lian’s tone softened, sweet as warm tea.
“Even I get aesthetic fatigue sometimes…”
Thud.
A heavy drop thumped ahead, like a stone falling into a well. D stepped out of the dark, a figure cut from midnight.
“Aesthetic fatigue?”
I followed from the same shadow seam, his voice finishing D’s.
“You won’t feel that way for long.”
Last to emerge was the man from before, like a blade drawn slow.
“You’re about to feel a pleasure you’ve never known.”
Swish. A shaft of moonlight poured over the three men, silver paint across sculpted muscle. Their oiled skin gleamed; each struck a different saucy pose. Under the moon, they made a ridiculous, magnificent tableau—like that infamous “Three Beefcakes Under the Moon” meme.
The center man smoothed his hair with a gentleman’s hand, then bowed to Lian, a lily bending over water.
“Pleased to meet you. I am… O.”
No surprise; his name was exactly as Lian expected. Together, their letters spelled DIO.
“So… you’re the last boss I need to fight? What kind of Stand do you have? Anything fun?”
O shook his head, puzzling like mist over a lake.
“My Stand… it’s called [The World]…”
“The World?!” Lian’s eyes lit up, sparks under a paper fan. This sounded like the Dio from the world he knew. Maybe there was a chance to meet a normal Dio after all.
O’s next words cracked that hope like thin ice.
“However, I gave [The World] to someone else. So I don’t have that Stand.”
Hearing that [The World] was gone, Lian’s excitement drained at once. His face went slack, like a salted fish on a drying rack—lively for them, nothing for him.
Clap. O brought his hands together, snapping everyone’s attention like a trap shut.
“As I said, I don’t have a Stand right now. I never said I’m weak.”
“Huh?” Lian peered at O, doubt flickering like a moth. Other Dios all had their own powers—weird, sure, but well-honed. You lost [The World], vampire. What can you even do? Space Ripper Stingy Eyes?
O answered without words.
His hands punched through D and I from behind, clean spears of flesh. He drove them to their hearts, a pair of red gates forced open. Two veins swelled along the backs of his hands; blood flowed, a visible river from D and I into O.
Shock scrawled across D’s face, lightning on a cliff.
“You… what are you doing?! Weren’t we set to prep the spell to restrain Aer, then rush him and kill him together?!”
I didn’t wear D’s shock. His face stayed an unbroken mask, calm as stone in rain, like the attack wasn’t even against him.
“I figured this might happen. If you’re doing it, you must have your reason. I have nothing left to cling to. Live if you can. At least you still have a daughter, don’t you?”
He spoke, then seized D’s arms tight, iron cuffs in human hands. D had no room to resist.
O stared, surprised, a flare of unexpected warmth rising in his chest. He’d planned to tank their counterblows to finish absorbing them—he hadn’t expected I to help him. The feeling landed strange, like a snowflake burning.
The absorption took only ten seconds, a brief eclipse. No matter how D thrashed, I blocked him completely—wall to wall, door to door. Willing or not, D dissolved into O’s body, a stream feeding a sea.
Done, O exhaled deep, fog spilling from a furnace. He looked at I’s corpse with a complicated gaze, a knot under water. He spared only a heartbeat, then turned toward Lian.
O had changed. Danger flashed in his pupils, red as fresh embers. His muscles rippled, waves beneath sunlit skin. His golden hair fanned out and floated, ignoring gravity like silk on wind.
The newborn O didn’t lose his wits. He didn’t drill his temple and shout, “I’m so high right now!” He bowed again, neat and gentlemanly, like a sword returning to its sheath.
“Then… allow me to reintroduce myself. The one who’ll defeat you next—ko no Dio da! (It’s me, Dio!)”
