JORGE JOESTAR - Chapter 16
Summary
Thrilled about getting closer to his goal of standing on top of the universe, Dio taunts Kars and his enemies. Rather than being irritated, Kars is excited to fight Dio, as Penelope, Narancia, and Jorge watch with fear. Curious of each other's immortality, the two begin fighting. Kars charges forward first and immediately explodes from Dio's punch rush, with bits of his flesh flying in all directions. The force from the impact was strong enough that Kars's flesh stabs through Jorge's body, breaking his bones and puncturing his organs. Narancia grabs Jorge and Penelope and then flees on a one meter long U-Boat, appearing similarly to a skateboard. Kars's body parts start reforming, healing Jorge as the pieces exit from his body. They meet Lisa Lisa and Jorge introduces himself. Although he decides not to tell Lisa Lisa about Kars in case it causes a time paradox, Penelope does so anyways. Penelope declares her resolve to Lisa Lisa that she will find George and bring him back. Meanwhile, Jorge is jealous that the other George has beautiful women who care for him. Narancia interrupts to point out that Dio and Kars are constantly exploding from each other's attacks. They would regenerate faster each time, enjoying their immortality to the fullest. Noticing that the sun is setting, Lisa Lisa thinks that Dio has a strategy in mind and must be buying time for it.
The American Air Force starts dropping missiles to break through the barrier surrounding Great Britain, inside the stomach of the giant Antonio. Jorge sees the elderly Funny Valentine37 walking across the surface of the barrier with his frog Stand. He shows them a large piece of paper with only the word "COURAGE" written on it. The younger Funny Valentine who was with Dio earlier appears behind them, informing them that the message is a warning. Funny flings a cape around Jorge but before it could cover him, Lisa Lisa punches Funny's cheek with the Ripple. However, the cape falls onto Jorge anyways and he is teleported to a parallel world along with Funny. Funny's face is momentarily swollen but quickly recovers. In the middle of a red desert, Jorge sees a car headed toward him with another 'Funny Valentine' driving it. After getting an explanation of Funny's Stand, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, Jorge sees many cars racing across the desert. The 'Funny' that was in the car tells Jorge that it's the second stage of the Steel Ball Run, taking place in Monument Valley. He's ordered his men to retrieve nine volumes of the Holy Scriptures. Jorge mentions that one of his ancestors was in the Steel Ball Run, but it was a horse race. 'Funny' responds that the race can change in each world, as some worlds have races with planes and blimps instead. Jorge finally understands the meaning of the 'Spiral Staircase'. As the universe loops, lives would be reincarnated but their identities wouldn't be the same. Pucci's Made in Heaven was used to reach the next universe, attempting to connect history and create a loop, but instead what he created is a spiral staircase of different universes. 'Funny' mentions that Dio decided to punish Pucci for this sin, and thus he can no longer return to any universe due to Gold Experience Requiem. He changes the subject to mention that in Jorge's universe, the competitors of the race gathered nine Holy Grails, and Johnny Joestar played a major role but had to drop out along the way.
Not caring about the race, Jorge asks why he was brought to this world. 'Funny' reveals that the two 'Singularities' are the body of the holy man and Jorge Joestar. A singularity is something that only exists once, and there is no other instance of them. The Saint's Corpse only exists in the second universe, where the very first Steel Ball Run took place. Jorge is a singularity because he is an abandoned Japanese kid adopted by the Joestar family and there is no replacement for him in any other universe or parallel world. Jorge questions whether he should trust what 'Funny' is saying, but 'Funny' tells him to just have faith in himself. He opens the car, lets Jorge get in, and then the other Funny starts driving them away. Jorge sees a massive cloud headed towards them from behind, which Funny reveals is Kars from this parallel world. In order to conquer Kars, Funny had fought Kars numerous times in different parallel worlds, trying to find a way to seal Kars or send him away. Kars easily tosses this world's 'Funny' aside while the other Funny starts driving faster. Their car crashes and half of Funny's head gets torn off, but Jorge survives after slamming into a nearby rock.
Jorge wakes up back in the original world at Piccadilly Circus in London. He sees that Funny is somehow still alive. Meanwhile, the giant Antonio spits out a military helicopter with The Funniest Valentine inside. In the sky, Kars has three giant U-Boat Ultimate submarines shooting missiles but Dio would regenerate after each barrage. Kars then uses his own version of Goyathlay Soundman's Dune, swallowing Dio up into a massive whirlpool of sand and rubble. Dio breaks through the sand pillar and laughs along with Kars, realizing that neither of them will win against each other. Dio decides to summon The Funniest, who then leaps out of the helicopter without a parachute. At Dio's cue, Funny runs toward the place where The Funniest is about to land and then claps his hands as The Funniest falls into his arms. The Funniest vanishes and then Funny leaps toward Kars. With assistance from Dio's The World positioning Funny in place, Funny claps his hands on the Pillar Man. However, as time resumes, Kars quickly contorts his body to avoid the clap. Dio continues trying to stop time as Funny attempts to trap Kars between his palms but Kars would rapidly contort his body as soon as time resumes. In the moment that Kars smirks stating that he has figured out Dio's Stand, Funny finally succeeds in teleporting him to a parallel world. Jorge notices The Funniest's hands sticking out of Funny's hands to extend his reach, revealing that The Funniest has the same Stand as Funny, D4C. Suddenly, Jorge is pulled toward The Funniest's hands from a thin strand of Kars's hair wrapped around Jorge's neck.
Jorge finds himself in Manhattan Island in The Funniest's parallel world. He meets with Funny, learning that the Funny in Piccadilly Circus was a fake parallel world version and the actual one that Jorge met with Dio was waiting here for Jorge. Funny notes that since Jorge is a singularity, he is the key to defeating Dio's Stand The Passion which could see the future, and that Kars has realized this. Now that Dio is an Ultimate Thing, his The World is also capable of stopping time for nearly an hour. Funny then teleports Jorge to a parallel Morioh, where Kars is. Kars immediately extracts Jorge's DISC with Whitesnake Ultimate to read everything that Jorge has learned so far. Jorge realizes he still has the pebble phone and calls Bucciarati. Bucciarati informs him of the events in the Arrow Cross House and how the other George solved the mystery. Learning about Dio, Bucciarati interrogates the original Antonio and learns that Dio is his boss. After Antonio killed the three Japanese detectives, Giorno helped him arrange their bodies to resemble Japanese folk tales. Unable to think of a solution on how to flip Morioh, Jorge tells Bucciarati to gather as many Morioh citizens into Arrow Cross House as he could so that they could either time travel or be protected from whatever happens to the island. However, Bucciarati states that since Reimi reverted back to Cube House, they have no way to exit the house or bring anyone inside. After Bucciarati hangs up, Kars tells Jorge to think of a way for them to get back to England while he entertains their guest, this parallel world's version of Kars.
The other 'Kars' had also become an Ultimate Thing and activates his Light Mode. However, instead of fighting, the other 'Kars' punches the air to create a dancing light show. 'Kars' makes light copies of himself, dancing and scattering variations of light across the school yard. The original Kars doesn't understand why he isn't stopping, but Jorge believes that it's just something that 'Kars' is doing for himself. 'Kars' spiels that after running on Mars for so long, he understood that despite the immortality of his flesh, his life is fragile and can be extinguished easily. Aware of himself being a fake version of Kars, he had the intention of killing himself by getting close to his original world version but decided to dance instead. His speech puts the original Kars deep in thought and Jorge discovers a way they could get back to England. They find a house at the edge of Morioh, belonging to Kosaku Kawajiri, Shinobu, and Hayato.
Seeing Kars, Kosaku desperately screams at Shinobu and Hayato to run away. Kars asks whether he's Kira and Kosaku confirms that he's a serial killer, causing Bites the Dust to explode. As Kars is immune to explosions, he puts Jorge inside him and travels back in time an hour. They arrive back at Piccadilly Circus with Funny about to teleport Kars again, but this time Jorge knows what would happen. Jorge yells out to Kars that Funny will clap twice, allowing Kars to instantly react to both claps. Kars sends Funny flying away with a punch but Dio unleashes the next part of his plan. A parallel world version of Dio grabs Kars from behind him, as a group of nine Funny Valentines and nine The Funniest Valentines surround Kars. 36 hands clap down on Kars and he vanishes once more along with the other Dio. Meanwhile, the group of Funnys collides with the group of The Funniests and they disintegrate into Menger sponges. Dio laughs over his victory until Jorge tells him to look at the sky. Kars grins down at him, revealing that he learned how to use his own version of Dio's Stand, The World Ultimate. He had stopped time and escaped from the claps. Wondering where Dio's confidence comes from, Jorge sees a shadowy figure with long hair talking behind Dio, realizing that Dio has a Beyond too.
Dio's Stand becomes The World Ultimate as well, but Kars fights him with Whitesnake Ultimate. It punches Dio's cheek and shatters the DISC of The World Ultimate, dissolving Dio's Stand. Kars then uses Whitesnake Ultimate on himself, slamming the numerous DISCs flowing out of him into Dio's head. Dio's head and body swells up into a ball of flesh from all the DISCs but he remains confident. With an Arrow, Dio stabs Kars's Whitesnake Ultimate before he explodes into nine parts. Kars attempts to send Dio away with Ultimate D4C but Dio's body parts fly away, managing to take control of Kars's new C-Moon Ultimate Requiem. Jorge and Narancia fire missiles with U-Boat at the giant Antonio, though Antonio knocks them all aside. As Antonio attempts to swallow the pieces of Dio in order to bring Dio outside England, Lisa Lisa runs across Antonio's body upside down and dodges his giant punches. She places the Red Stone of Aja on Antonio's stomach and uses her technique, Sunset Orange Overdrive. Antonio shrieks from the Ripple traveling throughout his body. Dio furiously berates Antonio for being worthless and shouts that all he needs to do is inhale Dio's pieces. Antonio finally manages to inhale, allowing Dio to travel outside England and achieve Made in Heaven Ultimate Requiem. Antonio's head begins to crumble from the constant barrage of missiles from Jorge and Narancia, but Kars tells them to stop killing him or they won't be able to return England back to its original timeline.
As Dio starts speeding up time, Funny and The Funniest discover that Dio is headed for the past beyond the future. They reveal that the Valentines have two duties as leaders of the United States. Their first is to intervene in the Steel Ball Run race and their second is to protect the secret held underground at Trinity Church, the Saint's Corpse. The corpse was gathered by their ancestor, the original Funny Valentine from the 2nd universe during the first Steel Ball Run. They realize now that the corpse of the "holy man" was actually just the body parts of Dio, separated from his fight with Kars. Dio's body couldn't recombine because Kars placed nine blank Stand DISCs into him. Humans and vampires can only have one Stand per person, so Dio's body attempted to compensate by splitting into nine pieces. Funny calls his wife Scarlet who verifies that the Trinity Church in their universe does not have the Saint's Corpse. Meanwhile, Made in Heaven Ultimate Requiem loops the universe back to July 24, 2012, on the 37th iteration where they started. The elderly Funny Valentine had been clinging so closely to the giant Antonio's stomach with his Stand that he exposed his flesh to 36 deaths and births of the universe. They realize that this means the 37th universe is the final universe, and the universe where Lisa Lisa and Kars is from is the first.
While speaking with Kars, Jorge understands that the real two 'Singularities' are Nishi Akatsuki and the Bermuda Triangle. Kars also gets him to comprehend that Jorge is the only one who could surprise Dio, as he had already succeeded in taking him by surprise earlier. Only someone with a Beyond could defeat another with a Beyond, so Jorge gains confidence in himself. He discerns that they could go back in time and outmaneuver Dio by utilizing Kira's Bites the Dust. Kars divulges that the real Kira actually isn't dead and the corpse in the Arrow Cross House was the 37th universe's Kosaku Kawajiri. The Kosaku they met in the parallel world wasn't Kira either, it was Kosaku who was turned into a bomb by Bites the Dust, who thought of himself as a serial killer because of how many people he had indirectly killed.
Jorge calls Bucciarati and informs him of the situation. Bucciarati has Daibakusho Curry and Runbaba 12 investigate what happened to Denta Shishimaru's secretary, Chien Kunimido. The two are quickly able to find Chien at his house, learning that he is actually Kira. Disguised as Chien, Kira had blown up several detectives and also tortured the original George to the brink of death. Listening to Jorge's request, Bucciarati sends the original Antonio through Cube House back in time to England. To prolong the life of the giant Antonio, Kars uses Made in Heaven Ultimate Requiem to speed up time for the original Antonio. The original Antonio would constantly create new Antonio clones, and then Penelope would use her Wound to make the clones be absorbed into the dying giant Antonio, slightly repairing him.
Bucciarati and the others manage to reach Chien's house by Reimi rolling Cube House like a die. By the time they arrive, Kira apparently killed George already. Angered, Bucciarati threatens to kill Kira but Jorge warns him not to, as they need Kira's power. He has Bucciarati drop Kira through the hole in Cube House, which teleports Kira to Jorge. Kars lectures Kira about how he could never wash the blood away from killing humans, and that's why he's so weak. Kars demonstrates by touching blood on Kira's lip and creating a round, transparent bubble from his fingertip which transforms into a woman's head. Kars then touches Kira with the finger and the woman's head attaches to Kira's body. In time, more and more bubbles surround the head, causing Kira to be covered in several heads of women. Kira screams, trying to shake them off. Eventually, Kars touches the five meter long chain of heads, causing them to shrink and disappear. Kira goes into a state of shock, with hollow eyes and muttering that he's filthy. Kars pulls Killer Queen out of Kira and the Stand attempts to blow Kars up. It repeatedly tries making Kars into a bomb, but Kars contains the explosions inside him and regenerates. Kars then orders Killer Queen to set Bites the Dust on Kira. Killer Queen obliges and goes inside Kira, shocking Kira that his Stand would betray him. Kira starts crying as Kars grabs his body and flies into the sky. The Funniest leaves back to America by entering the mouth of the giant Antonio. Finally, Kars constantly has Bites the Dust activate and repeatedly explodes to keep going back in time.
They arrive at Trinity Church in the 2nd universe, where Funny leads them to the secret underground facility. After hearing the plan on the pebble phone, NYPD Blue insists Manhattan is his territory and decides to come with them, dragging Fukashigi into Cube House's hole. They see a corpse of the parallel world Diego on the ground, along with Dio's head and Lucy Steel. Dio thanks Lucy because her giving birth to the supplemental head of the holy man allowed Dio to reach this spot where all his body parts were gathered without Funny Valentine or anyone in the race suspecting the truth of where the corpse's head had gone.
As Dio pulls his corpse parts toward his head, Erina emerges from behind Dio. Jorge had previously loaned his U-Boat DISC to Penelope, who made the trip back to Wastewood to bring Erina here. Erina fuels Dio's anger, stating that even Dario Brando had the sense to behave in front of George Joestar I, whereas Dio is still trapped by his parent's curse after a century and refuses to take responsibility for anything. Next, Lisa Lisa steps out of the darkness holding her son, Joseph Joestar. Dio roars with confusion as to why Lisa Lisa would bring her baby to a battle zone. Erina then calls for Jorge to show himself, surprising Dio even more. Jorge's plan of catching Dio off guard was working. He recalls how Kars told him that Dio left Made in Heaven Ultimate Requiem in the original universe. Right after the fake DIO died against Jotaro Kujo in Egypt, Dio recovered The World from there.
Pretending to be the original George, Jorge states his name, introducing himself as the host of this Joestar family reunion. Jorge then reveals a special party trick, lifting his shirt up and exposing his stomach. Kars jumps out from a parallel world within Jorge's stomach. From there, Funny additionally sends out seven parallel world Kars, each having their own The World Ultimate. They each stop time so that they wouldn't be destroyed and then form a ladder by grabbing each other's hands. The original Kars makes time resume, and at that signal, Jorge quickly runs up the ladder of Kars before they collapse into Menger sponges. Jorge lands on the table where Dio's body was placed and chops off the supplemental head, using a hatchet given to him by Funny. Finally, Funny gives Jorge another head from out of Jorge's stomach, the head of Jonathan Joestar, which Erina had kept safe. Jorge places Jonathan's head on top of the corpse and it matches perfectly, as it was his original body. Jorge knows that all of this had become possible due to him, the other George, and Dio all sharing the same Beyond, known as The Trinity.
Erina wraps her shawl around Jonathan's waist so he wouldn't be naked. For a moment, Jorge could see Jonathan's Stand The Passion around his head. Jonathan revives and suddenly starts laughing, claiming that he is actually Dio since Dio had given him his blood after cutting off Jonathan's head on the boat. Everybody is shocked aside from Erina who could tell that he is joking. She scolds him by saying he should at least thank everyone for their help instead of joking like that. Jonathan states that he couldn't remember anything after he passed out in the ship but he felt like he was watching a very long dream and what he just did was an inside joke between him and Dio, referencing what Joseph Joestar does in the future. When Dio was using The Passion to watch the futures of Jonathan's descendants, Jonathan had also been seeing them. Frustrated about constantly losing to the Joestars, Dio attaches himself to the headless body of Diego. Dissatisfied, Dio declares he does not want to associate with the Joestars anymore and vanishes into the darkness of the stairs behind him.
Erina and Jonathan have a tearful reunion. Erina hesitates mentioning what happened to their son, George II, and Jonathan looks confused. He had figured out that George was hiding inside a parallel world within the body of the 37th universe's Jorge. George leaps out of the parallel world and reunites with Lisa Lisa. Although he was found dead by Bucciarati's team, his body was brought back to Cube House where Reimi cried and shook his body. Two hours later, she found George's soul flying inside her. With the power of his Beyond, George had learned how to separate his soul like Dio did so he could get away from Kira's torture. The Joestar family all have a group hug. Meanwhile, Erina notices Lucy staring at her. They mention how their maiden names are both Pendleton and discuss how it is important to keep faith. The two are glad they could meet each other and tears run down Lucy's cheeks, although she doesn't know why.
NYPD Blue convinces Fukashigi to live in New York, so he decides he should apply for a college there. Funny goes back to his own universe, stating that he has learned his lesson in how to make America truly prosper. Penelope decides it's time for her to leave the Joestars and moves to Japan in the 37th universe so she could meet her Stand, Reimi. Two years later, she marries Jorge's father, Jonda Joestar and a year after that, they have a daughter, Joeko Joestar. Kars uses the exhausted Kira to take everybody back to their respective universes and timelines. Jorge wonders what Kars is up to now, but decides he's better off not knowing. Lisa Lisa and George were separated because she was afraid of losing him again. Since George was legally dead in England, he moves to America and becomes a screenwriter in Hollywood using the pen name "Motorize Jump", waiting for Lisa Lisa to come back to him. When Jorge is twenty, he changes the official English spelling of his name from 'Joji' to 'Jorge'. However, he can't decide on the Japanese spelling. Although Jorge feels like an idiot asking a man from a country which doesn't use kanji about what the spelling of his name should be, Jorge decides to call Tonpetty using the pebble phone. Tonpetty gives him the spelling 城字ジョースター (Jōji Jōsutā). At first Jorge thinks it's extremely weird from a Japanese perspective because the kanji that Tonpetty chose for spelling "Joji" means "castle" and "character", but then Jorge realizes that it is actually fitting for him.
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