The force of their ascent shakes the nearby cars, stuck in an endless traffic jam. Inside one on the deadlocked cars, a little boy has been watching the fight. “Daddy daddy look!” he cries to his father. “That man out there is flying!”



The boy’s father, overweight and sweaty, curls his lip and doesn’t look. “Damn bums,” he says under his breath, before shouting to the jam to “Get moving already!” The traffic doesn’t budge an inch.

Sailing through the sky, SATURN BARZ follows its master’s direction, waving its arms in a circle. Small, murky clouds form in the Stand’s hands, and these are pushed out to expand in size and volume. Liquid droplets begin to fall out of it and descend on the traffic below. Kilo lands back on the tarmac, SATURN BARZ cushioning his fall, and the rain falls with him. But this is not ordinary rain.

Where the droplets hit, there is a sizzling sound and a sour, chemical smell. Squinting, Kilo notices a gap where the rain doesn’t fall. A human shaped silhouette, which jerks and twitches as the strange rain hits it. Eventually, the silhouette’s composure breaks, and it starts shrieking in surprise and pain.

Wasting no time, Kilo sprints to the silhouette and punches it around the ribs. It gasps in pain and moves out from under the cloud, disappearing. SATURN BARZ shields its master from the rain as he shouts to his opponent.

“LA’s known for its smog! The damn city can’t help but poison its own atmosphere. But the nastiest part is when it gets high enough into the atmosphere, eventually it’ll come back down as rain! Acid rain, pure liquid carbon monoxide! And you just got a highly concentrated dose of that! Bet it stings like a bitch!

“As long as you’re in this city, you can’t escape the smog, and you can’t escape ME! Even if you disappear completely, I won’t ever stop until I smoke you out! I’ll smoke every last bastard in your organization out!!”

He advances down the road, the dark cloud of acid rain building slowly above him, a portent of doom. Ahead, Shizuka crouches invisible under the shade of an overhead gantry, holding her breath. Her skin itches and burns where the acid hit.

“This guy’s nuts!” she thinks, holding her breath, “He’s even more stubborn than Josuke-bro! Even if I told him I don’t know who he’s talking about, he’ll just think I’m lying! Maybe Josuke and Mamma were right. I have to get him away from me!”

She scans the area, looking for something that she can use. She is sweating, not only from the stress but also the sheer heat of the day. Wiping the sweat from her forehead, she eyes go wide as she begins to have an idea. Looking towards the blacktop of the interstate, she watches the heat warp the air over the road in an undulating haze. Her grin returns as she forms a plan.

Stalking down the middle of the road, Kilo spots her stepping out from the shade and facing him confidently. He creates a pellet from the air and fires it at her. ACHTUNG BABY catches it in its hand, dropping it into Shizuka’s. With a fighter’s heart, she proclaims:

“I’m not gonna run away anymore…” as Shizuka prepares to fight.

END OF CHAPTER 6