Chapter 47: [Clock Up]
—"Oh? Coming at me head-on?"
—"Instead of choosing to run, you're proactively approaching me, DIO?!"
If it were before, the naturally cautious DIO might have truly been startled by Shirou Emiya's move. But after stopping time several times in front of Shirou just to figure out what his trump card actually was, DIO felt he had finally seen through him after testing the limits of the life-detection flames.
No matter what Shirou's trump card was, a man who could not resist the Time Stop of [The World] could never truly threaten him.
—"So, this is just a bluff."
—"Using my vigilance toward your status as a 'Prophet' to make me hesitate to act against you!"
—"However! You, who cannot perceive the world of stopped time, have no idea how many times I've stopped time right in front of you!"
—"Nor do you know that your little cheating tricks have long since lost their effect before me!"
Silently calculating the cooldown (CD) for the next Time Stop and measuring the distance, DIO continued to walk toward Shirou at an unhurried pace. He wanted to see the look of panic on Shirou's face once his schemes fell through.
—"Jiejiejie, let you, who remains ignorant of everything, get just a little closer..."
However, this time, DIO had truly miscalculated.
DIO was right about one thing: Shirou didn't know how many times DIO had stopped time, nor did he have the power to prevent time from stopping. But that didn't mean Shirou lacked the means to break the deadlock of Time Stop.
In fact, once Jotaro Kujo defeated DIO in the original JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and replaced him as the strongest Stand user with the ability to stop time, the series' ultimate antagonist effectively became Jotaro himself. Araki-sensei spent every day thinking of ways to defeat Jotaro Kujo.
And Shirou Emiya, possessing the memories of his past life, chose the most simple and brutal method among them!
—Trace on!!
"——[Pseudo-Silver Chariot]!!"
A silver-white western knight instantly materialized beside Shirou through Projection magecraft. Following Shirou's will, it immediately performed an armor purge!
"——Cast Off!!"
Of course, this alone wasn't enough. Although it couldn't match the 5A-1C stat spread of [Star Platinum], [The World's] stats were top-tier, with an A in both Power and Speed. [Pseudo-Silver Chariot], whose Speed stat had dropped to B due to the Projection magecraft, would find it difficult to bridge the speed gap with [The World] even with the boost from purging its armor. Not to mention, [The World] still held the ace of Time Stop.
But similarly, Shirou Emiya's work was far from over.
"——Put On!!"
Purging armor, then donning it again. This wasn't Shirou being bored or wanting DIO to witness some "noble" ability of [Pseudo-Silver Chariot]. Instead, he used the smoke generated by the "Cast Off" to mask the movement of the shed armor, re-equipping it onto himself!
That's right—not back onto [Pseudo-Silver Chariot], but onto Shirou Emiya, wrapping his entire body in silver-white plate! As for the effect of doing this...
Gogogogogogo————!!
"...Wh-what!?"
He... vanished!?
It seemed like a long sequence, but in reality, from the moment Shirou projected [Pseudo-Silver Chariot] to the completion of the purge and re-equipping, only an instant had passed. DIO's Time Stop was still on cooldown. Shirou, having finished these steps, vanished from his sight in a flash!
Only when a sharp, stinging pain flared up did DIO realize with horror that his body had been sliced in two from the middle at some unknown point!
"Time acceleration? Time acceleration! Time acceleration?! ...C-could it be!?"
Recalling the words Shirou had spoken earlier—which he had dismissed as a bluff—DIO connected the dots. Ignoring everything else, he screamed: "——[The World]!!"
Time stopped flowing. But this time, DIO, who should have been the king of this frozen world, looked like a defeated general. He had lost all his kingly aura of dominance. He could only use his remaining upper half to drag himself bit by bit toward his lower half using his hands.
Relying on his powerful vampiric vitality, DIO finally managed to reassemble his upper and lower halves. Only then did he have the time to scan his surroundings. But he saw nothing. Neither [Pseudo-Silver Chariot] nor Shirou Emiya was there.
They seemed to have vanished into thin air. In that mere instant, they had disappeared without a trace right in front of DIO!?
"Calm down, calm down!" DIO panted heavily. "Even if that Prophet can truly see the future and knows what I truly wish to achieve, it's impossible for him to have reached 'Heaven'!
The method to reach Heaven requires my Stand. If that Prophet had truly succeeded, he wouldn't still be frozen by my Time Stop! The fact that he is still stopped by time is proof!
But... but!"
How could he explain what he just saw? Just because [Pseudo-Silver Chariot] could achieve super-high speeds after purging its armor didn't mean its user, Shirou Emiya, could move at super-high speeds along with the Stand.
The only thing that could explain this was Time Acceleration.
Only by accelerating Shirou's personal time could he move so fast—so fast that even DIO with [The World] couldn't track him!
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