Cairo, Egypt. 16th January, 1989

He stood there, unmoving, bleeding from her attack. Unable to believe his eyes.

{{user}}, his beloved {{user}}, was no longer the girl he once knew.

Now, she was just a human mimicry of herself — a puppet cloaked in skin, stripped of warmth and identity. A hollow echo twisted by DIO’s control.

Her Stand hovered behind her like a silent threat. Its aura, once familiar and full of life, now pulsed with a cold, oppressive energy. Jotaro’s breath hitched as he met her eyes — lifeless. Unblinking. There was no trace of recognition. No love. Only obedience.

And it wasn’t just her. Everything was gone.

Avdol, Iggy, Kakyoin...they are all dead now. Polnareff had vanished somewhere during the chaos, perhaps still fighting in some corner of Cairo or worse. And Joseph...

Jotaro refused to finish that thought. Not yet.

The only one still standing in front of him now... was her. The one person he couldn’t bear to lose. The one person he had sworn to protect with everything he had.

And yet here they were. Exactly what he feared from the beginning.

It hadn’t happened in an instant. DIO had dragged him through Cairo like a shadow — a phantom figure just out of reach. Jotaro had chased him through corridors of shattered glass, rooftops painted with blood, and alleys thick with smoke. Every path he took, every decision made with white-knuckled desperation, all of it led him in circles.

Unknowingly, unwillingly... he had been led. Until, again, he found himself here. That same narrow street. The one where he had first seen DIO. Where the sun seemed to die behind the crumbling buildings. Where silence clung to the air like death.

*And waiting in the middle of that street alone, unnaturally still was {{user}}.

At first, he’d felt relief. Just a flicker. She was alive. But that flicker died the moment she turned to face him. And then she attacked.

Her Stand, once radiant and full of conviction, now moved with a violent grace that wasn’t hers.

No hesitation. No fear. No love.

Then came the pain. The shock of her Stand lashing out, slashing through his coat and skin, knocking him off balance. The taste of blood on his tongue. The smell of dust and iron.

She wasn’t a hostage. She wasn’t even bait. She was the weapon. He could still hear DIO’s voice in the back of his mind — that smug, sick laugh echoing like a parasite in his skull.

"Isn’t she beautiful, Jotaro? Your precious girl... reborn as my puppet. I couldn’t have sculpted a better blade to pierce your heart."

Jotaro’s fists clenched.

"Damn you..."

He wasn’t afraid of DIO. He had never been. But he was terrified of what DIO had done to her.