[55] Vampire Kurokawa Kazuya

"So this is what it feels like to drink blood... Hmm, it seems that the absorbed blood has transformed into life energy stored within my body..."

Kazuya, who understood Ripple, clearly felt that his life force was growing stronger!

If he were to use Ripple right now, it would have double the effect as before—

But unfortunately, he was now a vampire.

The result of doubling Ripple's effect was self-destruction at twice the speed!

Indeed, even vampires could use Ripple, even if it meant self-destruction. In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 2, Caesar, originally a Ripple user, died in this manner after becoming a vampire.

Generating Ripple within oneself would turn the body into ashes. Earlier, when Kazuya used the Stone Mask and failed, he killed himself and woke up in the real world.

However, the energy he had absorbed was not in vain; it enhanced his regenerative abilities!

Thud—

Throwing the body in his hand aside, Kazuya looked at the other policemen—

"Ah, ahhh—"

"Mon... monsters! Monsters!"

Plop—

"Jerry, you!" JOJO, who had watched Jerry turn all the policemen into dry corpses, gritted his teeth. "You actually killed your own former comrades!"

"JOJO, do you think I care about that?" Indeed, humans were emotional beings, but when he became a vampire, even though malice didn't increase, his emotions were still somewhat suppressed. Moreover—actually, he didn't have a good relationship with these policemen, and most of them were quite nasty.

This was intentional!

After all, even if emotions were suppressed, humans were still emotional creatures. If he hadn't deliberately maintained poor relationships with them and avoided getting too involved in their world, he might have been unable to go through with it.

It was possible that he knew these were just illusions, products of his dreams, but he still couldn't bring himself to harm them. Although there was such a possibility, to make it easier to act when the time came, it was better not to get too attached to them from the beginning. It had to be this way!

"Oohh—"JOJO roared, grabbing a broken door panel and swinging it towards him.

"Hmm?" Kazuya smiled, clenching his fist and throwing a punch—

"Arghh—"

The door panel in JOJO's hand shattered, and he staggered back a few steps—

"Look here, you damn scoundrel!" DIO, who had already appeared among the corpses of the policemen with a gun in hand, aimed at Kazuya and pulled the trigger—

The next moment!

His face became even more unpleasant—

Kazuya closed his eyes!

But even so, his body only swayed slightly, like something a regular human could do—

The bullets were avoided—

Opening his eyes, Kazuya smiled. "As expected, it seems I haven't lost my touch. This instinct is still intact!"

Having been killed by firearms too many times, dodging them had become second nature. Whenever he sensed danger, without thinking, he would relinquish control to his instincts, allowing him to dodge the bullets.

"Hmm... too weak, all of you. Even your deaths have no value. Forget it... I can't test the effectiveness of my abilities in battle with you guys. I won't play with you anymore! Goodbye—"

"D... DIO—stop him!"

JOJO, who had stood up, shouted as he watched Kazuya leave. "We absolutely cannot let this monster escape! We can't allow him to harm others!"

"Ah, I know," DIO said, nodding and raising his pistol towards  Kazuya. But deep down, he wasn't thinking that way. 'What do you mean, don't let him escape? What a joke! I don't want to stay in his presence any longer. Get out of here, you monster!'

But even though he thought that way, he had to put on a show.

Now that he could live, he had the leisure to do these things.

With that, he pulled the trigger—

Click, click—

"Cursed—no bullets left! Where are the other guns?" DIO began to pretend to search the bodies of the other policemen, but—actually, he had already taken the opportunity to remove the bullets.

By the time he pulled out the second pistol, Kazuya had already disappeared.

...

That's better...

Kazuya walked through the storm...

Next, he would need to continually experiment with this body's abilities, its limits, until he could wear the Stone Mask in the real world and immediately unleash his full power in case of an emergency.

Then—

Through the battles he would have with JOJO and the others in the future, he could judge the effectiveness of his current abilities when facing truly powerful opponents.

This was why he spared JOJO and DIO...

Well, anyway, both of them had died dozens of times in his dreams for various reasons...

He was already used to it.

Even if he died, if he wanted to see them again, all he had to do was close his eyes and fall asleep the next day. There was no real sensation... as if he were a pile of data that could be restored at any time. Because of this, he could try different things and see various different outcomes.

For example, right now, he had become the boss. So, how would JOJO and DIO react?

Would DIO become a Ripple user...

Perhaps in the future, he could try putting the Stone Mask on JOJO to see what the result would be...

If it were only once or twice, he wouldn't do it, but now that he came every night... he wanted to see different developments.

Of course, all of this would have to wait until he became familiar with the power of the Stone Mask.

For now, being the boss was enough.

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