SO Episode 21

AWAKEN (AWAKEN -目醒め-) is the twenty-first episode of Stone Ocean and the one-hundred-seventy-third episode of the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure anime. The episode covers Chapter 85 to Chapter 90 of the original manga.

The fight between F.F. and Enrico Pucci continues. Meanwhile, Jolyne and Anasui encounter the Green Baby and try to catch it. However, it becomes clear that a Stand ability protects the baby.

Summary
The narration presents F.F.'s greatest fear of losing her intellect. Ever since she's been in prison, F.F. has accumulated many memories of her life in prison and of her friends, and now she fears losing the memories she has of them, notably of Jolyne whom she deeply admires.

In the now, F.F. briefly hesitates between shooting D an G or Enrico Pucci and then decides on D an G. That split second gives Pucci an opening to send in Whitesnake, who blocks the shots and then chops into her head. D an G only suffers from a glancing hit. Whitesnake starts to extract F.F.'s Foo Fighters DISC, but she reacts quickly and shoots herself in the head. The DISC comes out and some plankton covers D an G, they go inside of his body and then tear him apart from the inside, decapitating him. Meanwhile, another mass of plankton stuck to the DISC is sneaking away. Foo Fighters now has to warn his friends about Enrico Pucci.

The battle between Foo Fighters and Enrico Pucci continues. On dry land, trapped inside of an ambulance, Foo Fighters continues to dehydrate and slowly crumbles, only having minutes or seconds to live if it doesn't find water. It spots a faucet just outside of the building and tries to open the door but Whitesnake surges from beneath the driving wheel and grabs onto Foo Fighters. Foo Fighters tries to punch Whitesnake and it deflects the blow and cuts Foo Fighters' arm. It plunges its hand in Foo Fighters, tearing the DISC from its head, but thankfully, the arm still manages to shoot plankton bullets into Whitesnake, forcing Whitesnake to evade and let Foo Fighters go. Foo Fighters is able to get out of the ambulance.

However, Foo Fighters is still cut in half and on the ground. Enrico Pucci thus asks it what was in the punishment ward, asking for details. Foo Fighters does say that something was born from the plants but thinks that Anasui may have killed it. However, Whitesnake is confident that the creature can't be killed and it will be able to control it thanks to Jotaro Kujo's memories. However, Pucci suddenly realizes that Foo Fighters has been stalling for time by answering them. It turns out that the main body is the legs in contain the Stand DISC. Foo Fighters manages to reach and open the faucet, allowing it to reconstitute itself. However, Whitesnake has inserted a Stand DISC giving the ability to boil water into the remains of the dummy Foo Fighters. The main Foo Fighters thus forcibly gains this ability and it suddenly disintegrates because of the water inside of it boiling.

In the swamps, Yo-Yo Ma melts away, leaving an empty cocoon behind it. Jolyne and Anasui glimpse the baby falling into the water and when Anasui reaches for it, the baby leaves a burning imprint on the back of his hand. The boat begins to rock and the water ripples heavily, with dead fishes coming to the surface. Jolyne feels speechless at the existence of this strange Green Baby. She feels the plant mutation subsiding and wonders if it is because the baby is born. The Green Baby falls into the water. Jolyne stitches her tongue so she can speak again and tells Anasui that the baby has already reached the ground. Anasui assumes it's trying to escape but Jolyne is not sure of its intention. She begins to run after the baby but Anasui tells her to stop. Jolyne realizes that she's shrunk, while a small rock the baby rolled behind him turned into a larger boulder. Jolyne tries to run anyway but when Anasui grabs onto her shoulder to pull her behind, they switch places and Anasui also finds himself shrinking.

Anasui tries to analyze the situation. He notes that the Green Baby seems to have a normal size no matter how close he is, but still sees objects shrinking as they get closer to the baby. As soon as he gets away from the baby, Anasui regains his normal size. Thus, Anasui concludes that the baby's ability makes things shrink proportionally to their relative distance to it. In conclusion, the baby would be theoretically unreachable because of the shrinking hindering more and more their ability to approach.

Anasui hears some guard dogs barking far away, meaning other search parties are closing in on them. Jolyne is determined to reach the Baby and prevent Pucci from using it while Anasui wants to hide from the guards. Jolyne thus rushes towards the baby, not minding shrinking more and more. Anasui is astonished but he also follows her, since it was her focus who seduced him in the first place. Jolyne and Anasui thus run towards the Green Baby as the landscape becomes more and more alien to them. Small rocks become boulders and patches of grass become like forests. Jolyne tries to send a string towards the baby but her unravelling is more extreme than anticipated since the string also gets smaller and smaller, causing Jolyne to unravel herself to a dangerous degree. Still, Jolyne persists in believing the baby can be reached.

She decides to climb a small plant and jump down near the Green Baby since, she thinks, she must eventually reach the ground. Jolyne prepares herself but suddenly, something pulls on her string. She then sees a Stand crawling on her string, which grows more and more as it approaches. The enemy Stand bites on the string, hurting Jolyne. For her part, she finds herself somewhat stuck midair and fears she will never reach the ground anyway as the Stand Green, Green Grass of Home grows in size and power.

Green, Green Grass of Home has grown to the point it towers over Jolyne and it reaches for her. Stone Free deploys a string net to tie it up, Jolyne figuring that if she can capture the Stand then she can capture the Green Baby. However, Green, Green Grass of Home snaps the net due to sheer size. Stone Free tries to punch it but the Stand evades the strike and grabs onto her leg. It then tries to drag Jolyne towards the Green Baby and she fears being erased if she gets infinitely shrunk.

Thankfully, Anasui intervenes. Diver Down grabs Green, Green Grass of Home and pulls Jolyne out. Incidentally, one of Jolyne's shoes falls near the Green Baby. Jolyne and Anasui land too, but find themselves in the middle of a strange mountainous landscape. They thus can observe the Baby and the Stand from the top of a cliff. Anasui suggests retreating but Jolyne is still adamant about reaching the Green Baby. Suddenly, Green, Green Grass of Home reaches for a rock and tosses it toward Jolyne. It turns into a large rock that nearly crushes Jolyne and Anasui, forcing them off the cliff and the enemy Stand comes for them.

However, Anasui reveals that he had a plan. He had rolled a glass bottle towards the baby earlier to test its intelligence, but now, as they've run away from the baby, they've managed to lure Green, Green Grass of Home into the bottle and now that it has grown, it is trapped inside of the bottle. One problem stands: Jolyne and Anasui are trapped in the bottle with a Stand that still towers over them. Thankfully, Anasui has phased Diver Down inside of the walls of the bottle, and it grabs the neck of the bottle and brings it close to them, allowing the duo to crawl out of the bottle just in time to escape Green, Green Grass of Home's grasp. The heroes seal the bottle, but Green, Green Grass of Home suddenly makes the bottle roll away from the baby so that it can grow. Jolyne and Anasui intercept the bottle but it also has grown and crushes Anasui's legs. Jolyne uses Stone Free to punch the bottle, cracking it, but Anasui tells her to stop because he doesn't want to free the enemy.

Suddenly, the Green Baby touches Jolyne. When she turns back, she realizes that she's returned to her normal size and has the baby crawling on her. Anasui has also returned to normal. Jolyne asks what is going on and Anasui theorizes that the child has taken an interest in Jolyne and stopped its attack, probably because it saw the Joestar Birthmark on her shoulder. The Baby seems to appreciate Jolyne, but Anasui predicts that it will become an enemy.