CHAPTER TEN: Witch Mountain - Part 2



Like gunfighters in the Old West, they glare at each other through narrowed eyes. A bead of sweat runs down Shizuka’s forehead. She glances away from Moya for an instant, in the direction where Kilo stumbles away.

“I can’t let him hurt himself,” she thinks. Her mind races, searching her surroundings, “Whatever this woman did to him to take control of him, I won’t let him die!

“I don’t see any cops around, so he can’t just grab a gun and shoot himself. But what about knives or razors? There’s broken glass all over the place, how can I–?”

Her thoughts are interrupted by WITCH MOUNTAIN’s fist swinging towards her, which she narrowly avoids, whirling out of the way to Moya’s flank.

“Don’t get distracted!” Moya shouts, and WITCH MOUNTAIN opens its fist into a claw and swipes its arm, flinging droplets of dark oil at Shizuka. Before it can hit her face, ACHTUNG BABY manifests and waves its billowing sleeve. The oil hit the sleeve, staining the patterned cloth with black marks.

Wasting no time, Shizuka orders her Stand to disturb the sand with a high kick. WITCH MOUNTAIN is quick to defend its master from the sand. Nonetheless, the technicolor girl uses that brief distraction to dash in Kilo’s direction.

“Oh no you don’t!” Moya cries. She chases Shizuka and is upon her in an instant, but she knows something is wrong when she goes to grab her arms and her fist closes around air.

What she thought was Shizuka winks at her, then crumbles into dust before her eyes. The human shape explodes into a whirling sandstorm. A completely silent whirlwind, Moya knows it is only an illusion, yet another of ACHTUNG BABY’s light tricks. And yet she squints and shields her face, reacting to the “sand” in spite of herself.

Those watching from outside see a dome of spinning sand, and out of the dome comes Shizuka sprinting down the beach, discarding her flip-flops, her feet landing on the hot sand. She catches up to her companion, who is walking listlessly.

“Kilo! Kilo, we have to go!” she cries, but he keeps walking. He ignores her. She grabs his arm and planting herself on the ground, pulling, but that hardly does anything to slow him down. “Kilo!” she cries, her bare feet scraping through the sand as he pulls her along. “Kilo, you have to stop!”

“No… I have to do what’s right.” he mutters under his breath, not turning to face her.

“Nonsense! That woman, she’s messing with your head! Come with me, I can help you!”

“Why?” he asks, stopping and looking at her. He sounds genuinely confused. “I do nothing but hurt. The world is better off without someone like me.”

Shizuka grabs his arm. “No! That isn’t true! That woman is controlling you with her Stand, she must be! That black stuff is clouding your vision, you have to fight this!”

“…I don’t think… This stuff hasn’t blinded me at all. It’s made me see. It’s finally made me see.”

With that, Kilo shoves her away from him, sprawling her across the sand. She scrambles to get up. “Have to do what’s right… have to do what’s right…”

Before she can protest further, Shizuka hears Moya’s voice again.“He’s right, you know. I’m not doing anything to him right now. WITCH MOUNTAIN brought to the surface his true self, that’s all.”

Shizuka whips around to see the gangster woman emerge from the illusory sandstorm, having gotten over its psychosomatic effect. Shizuka grimaces, holding onto Kilo’s arm and fixing her eyes on Moya. She growls “Like I said, what does that even mean!? How can you let a person kill themselves!?!”

Unaffected, Moya continues in her moralizing tone, striding towards them “All of us know the difference between right and wrong. We all know the right thing to do. But with practice and denial, that sense can be ignored. Contradicted. But never forgotten. The result is guilt.

“In this city, there are lots of people with guilty consciences, that they bury and cover up so they can go on hurting others, their homes and themselves. WITCH MOUNTAIN’s power draws that guilt out, forcing all those rotten bastards to confront the truth. When a person is faced with the full magnitude of their sin, they have no choice but to atone.”

With that, Kilo shoves Shizuka away from him, sprawling her across the sand. She scrambles to get up, and realizes with horror: he is going to drown himself. As she prepares to dash for him again, she senses Moya looming behind her and dives to avoid a stomp from WITCH MOUNTAIN, which causes a small eruption of sand. In the same motion, she turns invisible.

“That won’t work twice!” Moya shouts, swiping WITCH MOUNTAIN’s arm forward, spraying its black oil. But the droplets don’t hit anything. Too late does she notice footprints in the sand approaching her from the side. Before she can move to counter, Shizuka reappears, leaping into the air with a kick across Moya’s face that sends her to her knees.

Upon landing, Shizuka turns to Kilo, and stretches out her hand, in a desperate gesture. He is unaware, or uncaring, of the showdown going on behind him. His eyes stay fixed straight ahead, on the ocean and the flat horizon. “Always hated the ocean…” he thinks, his thoughts numb. Gray. “But it’s good for this at least.”

It takes him a moment to realize how long its taking him to reach the water. He walks forward, at the same pace as ever, but no matter how long he walks, he is always just at the water’s edge. “…Shizuka,” he mutters. Behind him, Shizuka watches him listing to the left, before coming around to start walking in a circle. ACHTUNG BABY holds the illusion in front of his eyes, keeping that view of the sea in his sight.

A little boy, none other than the same little boy from the airport interstate, points at Kilo and calls his father, “Daddy, that man is walking around in circles.”

The boy’s father glances up from his smartphone, sneers, muttering “Goddamn junkies,” then returns his gaze to his phone.

Shizuka breathes a sigh of relief, then immediately tenses back up at the sound of Moya’s voice. “So you managed to stop him, for now. Nice going. But you’re only delaying the inevitable. WITCH MOUNTAIN compels the wicked to do what’s right. There is no escape. No practice or denial can drown it out. Until atonement is achieved, then WITCH MOUNTAIN will never release its hold. And if the sins are too great, if the guilt is too heavy…

“Then the only release is death.”

“You just shut up… You don’t know what you’re talking about…”

“Don’t I? I know, Shizuka Joestar. I know you think you can handle whatever this city throws at you. All I’ve tried to do today is explain to you–”

Suddenly, WITCH MOUNTAIN hand shoots out to its side and grabs something unseen. In the same moment, the Shizuka that Moya was facing disappears, and the real Shizuka appears, her face held by the enemy Stand’s grip.

“–You can’t handle shit.”

WITCH MOUNTAIN throws Shizuka away from it towards a palm tree. She hits the tree hard and falls to the ground again. Moya crouches over her, casting her in shade.

“Making a clone right as you finished talking. Nice try. For the final time,” she whispers, “Go home. Before you get hurt.”

Shizuka growls and ACHTUNG BABY emerges, before becoming a horde of flashing lights. Moya shades her eyes and backs up slightly, while Shizuka leaps to her feet with the lights flashing minutely around her fists and legs.

Kicking off the palm tree, she aims a flying kick at Moya’s jaw. This is dodged easily, but it was a feint anyway, because the lights around her ankles suddenly flash white and bright. Moya winces as her eyes sting, and she instinctively raises her hand to her face, exposing her side.

Shizuka tries for a punch. WITCH MOUNTAIN moves to catch her fist, but this is also a feint. Instead, Shizuka swivels to her knees and sweep-kicks at Moya’s calves. But her legs stay firm, unflinching. Shizuka rolls out the way just in time before WITCH MOUNTAIN’s fist crunches into the sand. A single bead of sweat rolls down Moya’s forehead.

“You can’t beat me.” she says, exhaling as she catches her breath. “And you know the saddest part? I’m not even the toughest there is. I don’t mean to be too modest, but my Stand’s nothing compared to some of the guys I work with.

“If you can’t defeat me, then you don’t have a hope against the rest of the gang. You’ll have to face all of them if you want to find your mama. That’s how things work here. And you’re too weak to handle it.”

Shizuka pants heavily, sweat pouring down her face in rivulets. She grits her teeth, but despair begins to surface in her expression. Moya gestures with her chin towards the sea and says, “Just look how easily your concentration is broken.”

Shizuka turns to see Kilo is already knee-deep into the ocean, wading out into the depths. “KILO, NO!!” she cries. In that moment, WITCH MOUNTAIN appears in front of her and twitches its head, flicking oil from its hair straight into her eyes.

“AAAAHHHHHHH!!!” she yells out, as she feels the burning sensation in her eyes, trying desperately to rub them out. “DAMN IIIIIT!!!!!” But before long she settles down, hands covering her face, lying on her back, breathing labored.

Moya dips a tender hand under her back and lifts her to her feet, gently. Shizuka doesn’t look up. Stooping slightly, Moya says in soothing tones, “You’re not a bad person, OK? You’re just misguided. What you’ve done here today, was done out of ignorance. That’s not unforgivable.”

She turns her around, directing Shizuka away from the sea and Kilo, toward the city. “Go on home now, chica. It wasn’t meant to be.”

Shizuka says nothing, but turns wordlessly turns and walks up the beach. She doesn’t look up. She is dead to the world, insensible to the flurry of activity.

Several feet behind her, Kilo walks in the opposite direction, straight into the ocean. He is up to his chest in water. His eyes are as dead as hers, swimming in old regrets and weeping black tears.

People are making a commotion now as it becomes clear what he’s doing. Shizuka stops at the edge of the beach as the sounds of voices grow. She stands still, not looking up. The wind plays with her hair. Kilo’s head dips beneath the waves.

“Ow! Owowowow…” says Moya as she washed the sand out of her wounds, using water from a faucet near the sidewalk. She notices a shadow approaching her and tenses, only to hear a crooning voice.

“Hey there, sweet thing, how ya doin’?” says the young man in the open yellow aloha shirt swaggering towards her, sweeping his hair back in a practiced gesture, “You havin’ fun playing with the water? Maybe you and I could–” And then he flicks down his sunglasses and notices her wounds. “Oh shit, you’re bleeding, what the fu–?”

Unseen to him WITCH MOUNTAIN appears to fling oil into his face. He doesn’t see the oil either, but he does feel it, and winces as it burns into his eyes. “I… I should call my mom…” he says once the oil has worked its trick.

“You do that,” Moya replies, stepping over to him to dry her hands on his shirt, then sending him away. The young man stumbles away, and Moya turns around. A flash of pink and yellow catches her eye and she sees Shizuka sprinting down the beach, slipping through the gathering crowd and leaping into the water after Kilo.