: Which of these mobster or madman gunmen will hit the jackpot?
: Let’s find out in the clash!
: Alright, remember last week when you ate the last piggie in a blanket which was supposed to be for me?
: Yeah?
: The one you said you “owed” me for?
: I remember, yeah.
: Well, I get first dibs since you owe me. I’m picking Mista.
: Fine, but I thought you were gonna use it on something like getting my share of dessert or something.
: Hey, I’m not that heartless. Why don’t I just go out and kick a puppy while I’m at it then?
: Yeah, yeah.
Location: Train En Route to Rome, 1:35 pm
“Hrrrrrrnnnaaaaagh!” Stretches a young man with a shirt of blue diamonds in his seat, yawning as he does.
Nothing quite beats a smooth train ride on a sleepy Sunday afternoon. The undercover mobster was delighted to have been given such a mission by his boss and trusted friend Giorno Giovanna, seeing as he was given first class arrangements on his ride. There were rumors of a man killing people in fours in Rome, wielding a power similar to Giorno’s own. Information was limited, however, due to the masked figure silencing all but one who saw. If this masked man was out there damaging Giorno’s image, then he would have to be dealt with as to not make Giorno public enemy number one, especially with his position as the new leader of Passione.
With the pattern of fours, it was simple to predict that the assailant would attack something in a group of four or a multiple of, which Giorno predicted to be on the next train headed for and leaving Rome. With a passenger count of one-hundred twenty-eight people both ways, a multiple of four, and with sixteen cars, he would likely attack the train next.
Mista was all for hunting this masqueraded man, especially with all the fine wines and hospitality he received in first class.
Of the four first class cars, he sits in the fourth. While Mista would have taken offense to this, due to his tetraphobia, he rationalized it with himself, saying that he could just as easily pick from the sixteen other cars, not just the first four. Regardless, he has a good vantage point as it is the sixth car down from the conductor’s car.
A crippling case of tetraphobia was kept at bay with the given comfort, though. So, Mista downs a glass of red wine like he was dared to chug it, savoring the moment and distracting himself from the bad juju he still somewhat feels at the train’s bar.
“You eat up too Sex Pistols,” Mista says as he takes a piece of salami from his complimentary cheese and meat platter, carefully handing it to Numbers 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, and 7, who happily accept.
“Thank you Mista!” The Colony Stand says, mouths full as they speedily chew on the meat.
“Slow down all of you! You’re going to choke!” Mista yells, garnering some looks from members of other seats, which catch his ire back. “And why are all of you staring? Want to make something of it?”
The legitimate nobility return to their own devices, fully intimidated. Mista looks at the clock. 1:38 pm.
We should be getting to Rome by 3 pm, Mista thinks. This masked guy should attack this train when we get there or during the next ride out. That’s when I’ll catch him with his pants down and load him full of lead.
“Would you like a refill sir?” The bartender asks, bringing over a bottle of some fine Shiraz wine.
“Yeah, fill the glass,” Mista says, watching the glass fill with the dark liquid.
Mista stretches again and looks at his surroundings as he brings the glass to his lips. A mahogany bar lacquered to a glossy finish sits in front of him, stocked with wine, spirits, ciders, and gin from around the world. There were four other tables, three to his left going along the wall of the car, and two behind his own table. There are two old ladies talking about nonsensical jobs their children do, and three old men behind him talking about “the good ol’ days.” A man who looks down on his luck exits the all-gender bathroom at the back of the car and the car-connecting door has a panel of glass, through which a white, porcelain face peers in.
“Wait…” Mista mutters as he has a double-take, his Sex Pistols looking over the seat to get a look at what Mista was worried about.
The door slides open and in walks an estranged-looking gentleman. A slender man wearing a cape over his large, hunchback, questionably-shaped shoulder and a black unitard covering every square inch of his body except his eyes, which peer out with concentrated ill-intent. He holds in one hand a mean-looking handcannon, and in the other, a cane which he taps along to an odd 4-beat rhythm. He hums as he strolls, his voice filtered by the mask.
What the hell? Mista internally screams. Is that him? He shouldn’t even be on this train, how did he get here already!? Did he sneak onto another train the previous day and snuck into this one before it took off?
The masked man known as Khada Jhin strolls forward, muttering something like stage directions under his breath. He puts his fingers to his chin as sweat beads from Mista’s forehead slide to his own chin. The nobility look spooked by the enigma’s entrance and so they stop conversing, all eyes on him. The three men and the man down on his luck leave the car immediately, leaving only…
“Four…” Mista mutters to himself. “The two ladies, the bartender, and me. I don’t like my odds.”
“Let’s see…” Jhin voices clearly.
He points at one of the ladies with his cane.
“One…” He exclaims.
He points at the next lady.
“Two…”
“Three…” Pointing at the bartender.
Why’d it have to be four!? Mista thinks, gripping the handle of his revolver and tensing his legs.
“Four,” Jhin says as he blasts the empty space where Mista was just sitting with a ray of magic, sending fluff and springs billowing into the air.
Mista leaps over the table and somersaults along the floor. He stands up and holds his gun up to Jhin. The two women get up and swiftly run away to another car while the bartender slowly sinks behind the bar and places a “Sorry, We’re Closed!” sign over the front.
“Well, you’re a spry one,” Jhin says non-chalantly. “I hope you’ll make this more fun than the last thirty-two did yesterday. They went down in a very… Uninteresting manner. Almost as though they sabotaged my art.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Mista replies. “I don’t know what ‘fun’ you’re talking about, but thanks to your little stunt just now, I promise to turn you into Swiss cheese.”
“You wouldn’t be so offended if you had died with that shot,” Jhin says in a mockingly sing-song tone, holding his gun aloft at Mista as the two stare each other down. “But… I suppose your death will be more perfect this way…”
———-
Mista and Jhin fire at the same time, their bullets clashing in the air. The sheer overbearing force of Jhin’s bullet crumpled Mista’s, knocking both off-course. The mangled bullets graze Mista’s arm, leaving a surface cut but drawing little blood.
“What an original opening move,” Jhin cynically says.
Mista reels back and shoots four more of his hollow-point bullets, but none of them hit Jhin as the masked man maneuvers around them in a perverse tango. Jhin fires another two shots, forcing Mista to dive over the bar as they sail into the wall. Mista sits against the bar, refilling his revolver from his hat.
“Sex Pistols!” Mista exclaims. “Get ready–”
“Mista!” Number 3 cries, standing on its user’s shoulder.
“What is it Number…” Mista says before stopping and looking at his shoulder.
A rose grows from where the mangled bullet cut him, except that the petals were smoldering.
“Is this…” Mista mutters, gently poking the flower’s embers. “His Stand ability?”
Passione’s gunman turns his attention back to his Stand, motioning for it to get in his gun. Number 3 quickly hops in, ready for action.
I’ll have to be careful with how I fight this guy… Mista thinks. If his bullets manage to hit Sex Pistols, they can get pretty banged up from the attack… If I get hit by them, I’ll fare even worse.
“Uh… Who are you talking to?” The bartender asks, still cowering under the bar.
“What the hell are you doing here!” Mista shouts. “Two gunmen pull out their guns and you start a nice chat with them!? Get out of here idiot!”
“I… Guess you do have a point…” The man looks embarrassed, getting to his feet in a crouched position.
“Whatever,” Mista says. “Just get ready to run when I tell you, it’s dangerous right now.”
Jhin, taps his foot impatiently, eyeing the bar and shaking his head.
“I’m waiting!” He exclaims, aiming Whisper at the bar.
With a little pressure on the trigger, the fourth shot explodes out and careens into the side of the bar, causing it to erupt in a mess of torched wood. All that remains of the bar is the thin, inner wall. Jhin sighs and reloads his gun.
“Shit!” Mista shouts, adjusting into a crouch.
He peeks over the top of the bar and fires a shot. Jhin weaves his head out of the way, avoiding the bullet that would’ve made him one eye blinder.
“Pass! Pass! Pass!”
Jhin turns around, finding the bullet redirecting midair and now aiming at his gut. The masked madman shifts sideways to avoid the bullet once more, but only barely as it clips off a small shred of his unitard.
Interesting, Jhin thinks. I didn’t see what he ricocheted the bullet off of, but that was quite impress–
Jhin stops mid-thought, hearing the bullet ricochet again and at point-blank range with his ankle. The hollow-point bullet digs into Jhin’s flesh and decimates his tendons, causing him to trip.
Mista looks over the top of the bar once more, aiming the revolver squarely at the handicapped hitman. Before he takes the shot, the rose on his shoulder lights up brightly, detonating in his face. He falls onto his back with an anguished grunt and cradles his burnt shoulder and seared cheek.
“Damn!” The bartender cries, scrambling to his feet and leaving the cover of the bar. “I gotta get the hell outta here!”
He looks over the bar, finding the rest of the car quickly steeped in a murky fog. He couldn’t see two steps in front of him.
“Hey, Number 1 and 6, go and scout out the area ahead, I can’t see anything in this fog,” Mista orders. “It looks like he didn’t notice you guys earlier, so just be careful.”
“Okay Mista!” Number 1 exclaims.
“Let’s go!” Number 6 exclaims.
The two sail through the air while Mista tries to make sense of what happened.
His gun is pretty strong… Mista thinks. Maybe that gun is his Stand? And what the hell were those effects? His cane flashed bright purple, his bullet grew a flower from the cut on my shoulder, which shortly thereafter exploded, and he made this fog by shooting that guy in the head… Is he using different ammo each time? What the hell kinda ammo is he even using? Or is it a Stand effect like with that Cioccolata bastard?
His body shudders as he remembers that fourth bullet.
Dammit! Mista thinks, lips trembling. Why’d it have to be four!? Of course it’s the fourth shot that annihilated the bar behind me… But wait, why didn’t anything grow from the bar? The bullets from before grew flowers on my shoulder, and the old bartender was shot in the head and had fog pour out…
Mista quickly inspects the bar’s damage from his safe spot to find no plantlife growing whatsoever. He looks over the wall where his foe’s other two shots landed and finds they left two, still smoking, holes and nothing else.
So his ability only works on flesh and blood it seems, Mista thinks.
“Mista!” Number 1 shouts out. “We found him! We found him! He moved down two cars and he’s waiting on a tree-chair made from another two guys!”
“Good work you two,” Mista says. “Now get ready, you’re going to nail him again.”
“Yeah!” Sex Pistols shout out, each one filing into one of the chambers of Mista’s revolver.
He takes aim down at where the car door’s window should approximately be, vision obscured by the fog, and squeezes the trigger.
If I can get him away from the other passengers, Mista thinks. He’ll have to fill his quota for… Eugh… FOURS…. Another way. That will make me the target, and I can corner him. So let’s go Sex Pistols, let’s get this job done!
The bullet with all six Stand members flew through the misty car and disappeared, with the only indications of it flying true being the shattering of glass at the other end of the car. Mista smiled and gave chase.
———
There’s no magic I know of that make bullets ricochet midair, Jhin thinks, twirling his gun while sitting on thin branches that grew from two men shot earlier. Nor is there any machine or technology that can do such a thing, at least not as quickly or efficiently as that. Could it be a special technique he devised? Perhaps I underestimated him…
The ceiling fan above him scatters the leaves that grew from the spindly trees, leaving them spread across the seats around him.
“I wonder what kind of name he has…” Jhin says, chuckling. “His death deserves something special… Perhaps a writ of recognition is in order for his excellence, plastered on his chest with his own blood… No, that sounds much too tacky–”
He hears a gunshot and looks at the door, listening as the bullet whistles across the car ahead of him. He hears a strike, one redirection, likely in order to avoid the passengers’ first class cabins.
“One…” Jhin mutters, standing up with his gun at the ready.
He hears another strike of the bullet, redirecting the shot through the next window.
“Two…” Jhin mutters, watching the bullet slice through the glass window in front of him.
He hears another ricochet, aimed upward toward the ceiling fan. The fan’s cord was struck and it fell, but the outstretched branches keep it from crashing into Jhin’s head.
“Three…” Jhin mutters.
Even though they are being ricocheted… Jhin thinks. Every ricochet retains its initial momentum. The bullets aren’t simply redirecting, otherwise they would be getting slower instead of retaining their velocity.
The bullet changes direction once more, aiming at Jhin’s head now.
“Four…” Jhin mutters, his excitement growing at the mention of the number.
The bullet narrowly misses as Jhin bows his head gleefully. He trains his eye on the bullet once more as it ricochets. He hops to his right to avoid it as it misses his chest and proceeds through the window behind him. He loses vision of it as it flies into the next space between cars.
“…” Jhin stands, disappointed. “Five…”
He hears the bullet ricochet one more time, hitting something else metal.
Six… Clever, but fruitless… Jhin thinks. Cutting off my escape route? Or perhaps saving the other passengers? The result will be the same in the end.
The next car down suddenly grows smaller and smaller as it slows down, having been cut off from the main engine.
“How simple, how boring…” Jhin mutters. “Did I really think that highly of him? He doesn’t deserve anything from my kind artist’s heart after all–”
Another bullet sails right by him, cutting his mask’s cheek. He turns around to find Mista standing in the doorway, mist still trailing from the bar car like dry ice at a heavy metal concert.
“Ah, so the prodigious rival shows himself…” Jhin trails on, pivoting on his good foot. “Welcome to the second act, hope you brought some popcorn.”
“Shut up,” Mista yells, training his gun with pinpoint accuracy. “I already broke the handle off the bar car’s door to the conductor’s room, and seeing as you killed only three people so far, that leaves only two people on this end of the train, the conductor and myself.”
If one could tell if Jhin’s eyes were able to narrow, they would have done so after Mista speaks those words.
“You like to kill in fours, right?” Mista continues. “Hell, you love the number, I’m sure. And you’re much too skilled for anyone else on this train to take you out. So you can either try to kill me, or go through me to get to the conductor.”
“Are you really trying to imply that I can’t open a measly door?” Jhin asks, almost offended.
“No,” Mista says. “I’m saying that you have to kill me either way.”
“Oh?” Jhin tilts his head curiously. “I don’t seem to understand. Is this supposed to be your preemptive obituary?”
“Wrong again,” Mista responds, squeezing the trigger. “The boss’s reputation is at stake. I have no option but to stop you.”
A bullet sails through the air, landing in Jhin’s shoulder. A stream of blood arcs in the air as he falls backward.
He… He took the bullet? Mista thinks. I was sure he’d avoid it and I could surprise him. Sex Pistols would have put it between his eyes at this point-blank range.
Mista steps forward in order to get a better double tap in, but something halts his advance. His right foot is planted in place, unable to move. He looks down, finding a lotus-shape pattern gripping his foot tightly. Purple light emanates from the object and smoke seeps out of it, the color of cotton candy. Somehow, Mista knows it is a bomb.
“Mista!” Number 7 cries out. “Masky’s still alive!”
The Stand User’s eyes widen as he crouches, tearing at the metallic leaves holding his boot. He picks the leaves off and lunges out of the way, only for a burst of magic to strike him through the back, snaring him in place. Jhin’s cane smokes at the tip, still held in the lain man’s now bloody hand. Deep cackling fills the room as Mista’s opposition swiftly leaps to his feet, seeming to recoil at shifting his weight on his bad ankle, but recovering from it just as quickly.
“There’s more than one way to get through the survivor you insist you are,” Jhin coldly says before pivoting and crouching behind his tree throne.
As he finishes saying that the Lotus Trap erupts in purple smoke and pink flames, blowing a hole in the side of the car and firing Mista with it. Jhin emerges from behind the throne and looks out the hole to find Mista hanging onto a single railing, blood profusely draining from his thigh.
“Mista!” Sex Pistols collectively exclaim, emotions compelling them to kick at Jhin’s face. “He’s so nice, why’d you have to hurt Mista like that!?”
“What the…?” Jhin mutters as he swats away the invisible assailants, unable to see them but finding them annoying enough to warrant swats. “So that’s your secret? You have a bunch of fairies, maybe a total of six judging from their kicks, that can redirect your bullets for you?”
“Fairies!?” Mista and Sex Pistols simultaneously exclaim angrily.
“Well, regardless,” Jhin says, holstering his gun and walking past the hole to leave Mista be. “You must understand, I don’t see the spark. Deaths, are the greatest moments in people’s lives, so I try to make them mean something. Your death at my hands, after all we’ve been through, would leave a bad taste in my mouth. For you to throw away your life so… Inadequately and recklessly…”
Jhin punches the wall next to him, leaving a hole in the stylized, corrugated steel lining the wallpaper.
“Your recklessness douses the flame in my heart, the artistic touch. I… felt for you,” Jhin mutters. “And so, I will leave you to die exactly as you lived: Meaninglessly.”
“What the hell are you talking about!?” Mista exclaims. “You’re making this big deal out of something as simple as killing? You’re stupid! Fucking stupid! I’m going to kill you and clean the messy name you gave my friend!”
“Ah right, your friend?” Jhin says, looking over his shoulder. “That’s the reason you chase my coattails. How have I wronged him? Did I kill him? Did I kill someone dear to him?”
“Your power is just like his, so you’re giving him a bad name!” Mista shouts, firing a bullet that Jhin avoids effortlessly.
“Hahahah!” Jhin cackles, limping away. “Fighting for the honor of a friend’s name? It’s a shame you care not for your life, for you are becoming more and more interesting!”
Jhin exits the car and makes his way to the front. Mista holsters his gun and grips the railing tighter.
“Bastard…” He mutters, climbing up higher. “Didn’t even have the decency to finish me off. Might be for the best though.”
Mista rolls onto the roof of the current car. Sex Pistols float up to see him.
“Mista! Are you okay?” Number 2 asks, concerned.
“Yeah, yeah,” Mista groans, getting to his feet. “Just a scratch.”
Tearing his sleeve, Mista makes a makeshift tourniquet to stop his thigh’s bleeding. He quickly rushes across the train car roofs, trying his best to run with his intense limp.
“Number 6!” Mista shouts, refilling his empty barrel. “Give chase to the masked man inside and tell me where he is and what he’s doing.”
“But he knows about us already Mista!” Number 2 says. “Sorry, but we got so mad since he hurt you so bad.”
“It’s okay, really,” Mista reassures them. “I’m not that badly banged up, so don’t worry about me.”
But they do have a point, Mista thinks. If he sees me ricocheting my shots only five times or less, he’s going to figure out that he’s being followed. But If I don’t send one of the Numbers down, then I’ll be at a disadvantage for aiming my shots.
Mista checks his supply of bullets. He has four still in his hat, and in addition to the six in his pistol, he had ten total.
Shit, Mista thinks. I can’t be wasteful either. He’s already shown to be very capable physically, able to pirouette through a bullet rain if he wanted. Damn, what do I do? What do I do?
“Let’s keep with that last course of action,” He says. “Number 6, head down!”
“Right!” Number 6 dives down and flies through the walls of all the cars, looking for Jhin.
“The rest of you, into your chambers!” Mista yells, the rest filing into each chamber.
———
Jhin makes it to the busted car door in the bar car, finding the handle mangled badly. He pushes the corpse, no longer producing fog but still with glowing eyes and wisps of gas escaping his mouth, out of his way. He looks at the track the door slides across, which has handfuls of broken glass, wood splinters, and dry blood mashed in so the door would jam regardless of whether it opened right or not.
“A waste of effort,” Jhin says, pulling out Whisper. “But you can’t forget to make it twelve inches thick and reinforced with adamantium.”
Jhin aims at the door and unloads three shots into it, each one carving a clean hole through it.
“And…” Jhin breathes in, savoring the moment. “Four.”
Jhin stops before the final shot, as he hears a strange noise like crumpling metal. He holds his gun aloft and surveys the area. Nobody is there. He returns his attention to the door, but as he did he heard a light, metallic crinkle coming from behind him. He turns again to find nothing behind him. All of a sudden, three bullets rain in from the ceiling, all of which perfectly aimed around Jhin’s current location.
“So he lives…” Jhin says as the bullets were kicked by Numbers 1, 2, and 3, aiming at Jhin’s waist, closing in from three different directions.
Ducking close to the floor, Jhin left behind his marble-colored cape, which subsequently is skewered by bullets. His shoulder piece is revealed to be four canisters mounted on a loading mechanism of some sort, apparently not being the hunchback hump Mista or Sex Pistols initially thought it was. He lunges forward and fires his final shot at the ceiling, which eruptsa in magical brimstone. A large hole was leftover, smoking, and the assault had stopped. Hearing the metallic footsteps going past him, Jhin chuckes a grenade through the hole to the car in front of him.
“What the?” Mista exclaims as a grenade hit him in the back of the head as he leaped across the next car division.
The grenade bounced a second time off the roof, then another time as it bounced off a transmission tower by the tracks. The train was starting to turn, making it more difficult for Mista to continue on his way. It was when Mista was a car away from the Conductor’s car that it dawned on him.
“Oh no…” Mista mutters as the grenade’s huge arc seems to home in on him. “Does he have anything that doesn’t involve four!?”
He fires a bullet into the service hatch of the conductor’s car, causing the hatch to swing open from gravity, and leaps in. He quickly shuts the ceiling opening behind him and hears the explosion outside.
Jhin gives up on his eccentric door opening and kicks the car door out, the metal door falling from car division and into the field nearby the train tracks. He looks out the side to assess the state of the train, finding a lake coming up soon. He steps over the car lock and makes his way through the next few cars, blood still spurting from his mangled ankle.
———-
“Dammit, why can’t you see I’m trying to help you?” Mista shouts, slapping the gun out of the man’s feeble hands.
Mista grabbs the man by the collar of his shirt and drags him over to the service hatch, opening it again. He throws the man up top just as Mista came face to face with his adversary once more, who opens the door to the conductor’s car.
“We really should stop meeting like this…” Jhin says.
“Mista!” Number 5 exclaims, rushing out of the gun and to his aid.
“Smile!” Jhin says, firing a bullet point-blank into Mista’s chest. “Everyone is watching!”
“Jesus Christ!” The conductor cries, watching through the hatch as Mista falls backward.
Jhin turns his attention to the man on the roof, who immediately scurries away. Two shots through the ceiling and into the conductor’s path stop him in place as Jhin joins his quarry.
“You need not worry about that man,” Jhin says. “I have a stake on him now. If he’s so reckless, then he’ll come after me more, and I can have more fun personally showing him the depths of his despair. His inability to save others… And that, will his magnum opus in the world of art!”
The train crosses over the lake’s bridge. The clear water reflects the two on top of the train: conductor on his hands and knees staring up at the Masked Demon who stares his barrel back at him.
“You, however, will bring my quota up to the four I require,” Jhin says. “So go ahead and make this the most important moment of your life. Because if you don’t, I promise to make it perfect.”
They both hear a gunshot and Jhin quickly reacts, keeping watch over the surroundings. Suddenly, Jhin’s ankle explodes in shrapnel bone and bloody gore as a hollow-point bullet nestles in. He falls face first onto the train’s hull, looking up to find the conductor running away again. Jhin holds up his gun and fires his fourth, empowered shot at the conductor.
Another hollow-point bullet flies up and strikes the magical round, causing it to detonate with a magical explosion. The conductor is pushed by the blast force off the train and lands safely in the water, while Jhin lifts his arm to block the shrapnel from his shot.
“Damn, he is persistent,” Jhin says angrily, crawling to the next car down.
———-
Mista looks down at the wound in his chest, watching Number 5 pull the large, pulsating round out. The blood on the round starts growing into vines that twist and wrap around Number 5 as it hovers away.
“Number 5…” Mista says, blood dribbling out of his mouth. “Leave it…”
“Mista, if I don’t get this away from you it’s going to grow and trap you!” Number 5 exclaims. “So… So I’ll take this attack on my own!”
“Stop being so melodramatic and get rid of it already,” Mista says as he struggles to his feet. “It isn’t a Stand power. Go ahead and phase through.”
“Okay…” Number 5 says, phasing through the branches and throwing the bullet away to grow a short while longer. “Wow Mista! How did you know?”
“He couldn’t see you guys,” Mista says. “He can’t be a Stand User if he can’t see other Stands. I’m sure he would be sooner to call you guys Stands than fairies if he were a Stand User. It doesn’t explain his powers, but that doesn’t matter.”
He looks up, finding Jhin boasting over his victory and Mista’s despair. Mista takes the chance to grab the old man’s revolver and stuffs it in the back of his pants, out of view. He aims his revolver up through the window and fires Number 1 out to bust Jhin’s ankle so it would be useless.
“Okay, as soon as you see his next shot Number 2, be sure to use your bullet to intercept it,” Mista explains before firing the sensitive Number. “It should solve our biggest problem, because if he kills that conductor, there’s nothing keeping him here, and that means he can go into hiding and we’ll lose him for sure.”
Number 5 does as instructed and intercepts Jhin’s bullet, causing it to explode. After landing, Number 1 and 2 do a short jig and do their secret handshake. Shortly after the explosion, Mista jumps up to the service hatch and grabs the side, climbing up onto the roof again.
———
There they were, standing on two different cars, Jhin at the back of his and Mista at the front of the conductor’s car. The train straightens as it finishes crossing the bridge but only for a short time as it starts turning through the countryside.
“That’s two times I’ve misjudged you…” Jhin says. “Make me do it twice more and I’ll start to think you’re a diehard fan.”
“Shut up,” Mista says. “If I did it four times, I’d kill myself for you.”
“Ah, but you see, I have you all wrong,” Jhin says. “You aren’t trying to diminish the meaning of your own death, but rather, you wish to define others by giving them a chance to live longer and cherish their lives. By extension, their deaths would become that much more impactful, no?”
“I think that people die when they die,” Mista says. “It’s just that my success means they aren’t meant to die yet.”
“You hold life so closely,” Jhin says, gripping the stock of Whisper tightly in anger. “Yet you chalk it up to chance? What is beautiful about the chance of death? Do we not fear chance? Do we not find safety and comfort in the quantifiable? Life is a mystery, death is a certainty.”
Jhin bows, ducking his head very low.
“I humbly provide the service of making those certainties meaningful. They will be famous in life and afterlife having been one of my victims, a victim of Khada Jhin. They share in the definition of my existence. And soon, you will too–”
As Jhin lifts his head, a bullet is planted in his gut. He staggers momentarily.
“I don’t give a shit about your wackjob philosophy,” Mista says. “People should live their lives to the fullest. They don’t need permission to have a meaningful life. It’s what you make of it, not what you make of it. Now draw.”
“Hmph,” Jhin grunts. “Draw? Fitting words to speak to an artistic assassin. I suppose you have earned yourself a… Curtain Call.”
Mista fires three more shots, each of which Jhin effortlessly avoids again, even with his destroyed ankle.
“Nice try, but you’ll be the one dying here,” Jhin says, as he pulls his cane up and attaches it to the end of his handcannon, forming a large rifle.
He attaches the one end of the rifle to his shoulder which spurs to life, loading a large round from his shoulder into the rifle.
“Shit…” Mista mutters.
Whisper fires the shot directly at Mista’s head, the mobster barely dodging out of the way as it flies out into the distance.
“Lucky guess as to where it was going,” Jhin mutters. “You won’t be dodging the rest though!”
Another round flies through the air, this time nicking Mista’s cheek. Smoldering roses appeared once more, and en mass. Mista stumbles and finds a shard of scrap metal from the grenade’s earlier detonation. He scoops it up and slices the rose-corrupted skin off his cheek before it explodes. The whistling train winds burn his exposed flesh, but Mista has to stomach it for now. Before he could react, another bullet leaves Jhin’s rifle, catching the hand that was clutching the razor shrapnel.
“How unfortunate,” Jhin says. “You had better say your prayers before that hand blooms.”
Mista watches in horror as the flowers bloomed on his hand. He has mere seconds to think of a way out of this, otherwise the flowers will spread up his arm and into his body. He takes the scrap metal with his off-hand and swiftly cuts into his hand. He saws, biting back the tears and agonizing pain until the limp hand bounces lifelessly across the car’s roof. He crouches there, light-headed from the amount of blood he has lost, but he manages to kick his hand off the train in time for it to detonate over the countryside.
“Your survival drive is really starting to tick me off,” Jhin mutters.
Mista grins as he quickly whips out another revolver, glossy black in color.
“Do you ever shut up?” Mista asks as he fires all six bullets into his stationary foe.
The holes in his left lung, left shoulder, cheek, the graze on his neck, and the crippling shots that mangle Jhin’s other ankle all cause the man to bleed heavily. But, even with all that damage, Jhin is able to fire his final bullet.
“Farewell Mr. Gunman…”
What he isn’t aware of, though, are the three scoundrels now riding that final bullet, all making faces at the masked man.
“Wheeeeeee!” The Sex Pistols exclaim, riding the bullet to Mista. “Here we go!”
Moments before it would have pierced Mista’s skull, the Numbers riding it leap in front of it and kick it back, sounding like the bullet was shot once more. Jhin watches on as the bullet is reflected back at him. It flies cleanly back, aiming straight at Jhin’s head.
“Get him!” The Sex Pistols screams wildly.
“No, I can’t let you end my art yet…” Jhin says defiantly.
He leans backward, just in time to avoid the incoming magic bullet. Mista’s eyes grow wide as the bullet sails over Jhin’s face, coasting slightly over his mask enough to leave a small gash in it.
All this resolve, Jhin thinks, straightening back up again. And you failed to expect my own. Ironic.
Suddenly, another three members of the Sex Pistols, Number 3, 5, and 7 leap from Jhin’s shoulder onto the bullet.
“GO!!!!” The other Sex Pistols cry out.
“Do your best!” Mista calls out.
Jhin hears the familiar ricochet of the bullet. The three launch the bullet back at Jhin, who avoids it once more with a quick lunge forward. The bullet once again aims for Mista.
“Sorry Mista!” Number 5 cries.
Mista lowers himself and the bullet flies past him, nanometers from his head, and it sails ahead into a transmission tower. All who were present atop the train watch as the transmission tower crumples in response to the explosive yield of the rifle round, a piece of sharp metal jutting out from the fallen tower.
“Sex Pistols! Back to me!” Mista recalls his Stand and dives into the service hatch.
The transmission piece hangs low, shaped like a hook, and, upon meeting with the train, tore a fissure in the train’s roof as it chugs forward. Jhin could do nothing but sit there as the metal hook tears through to him.
“So… this is my perfection…” Jhin says, unable to move out of the way. “How droll.”
The transmission tower stabs Jhin in the chest and drags him along, pulling him through the roofs of each of the five remaining cars and mangling his body further. When the transmission arm was finally through the rest of the train, Jhin’s body was left a tattered, bloody mess. His legs fall like tendrils of meat to the ground, splattering ungracefully. His ribcage, a chunk of meaty bone mush, was barely holding him together.
He had a completely different perspective of what I do… Maybe that was a better way of going about it? No… I’m sure… My art… Was perfect… Jhin manages to think before his mind ceases all thought.
Mista falls to his back, exhausted. Sex Pistols urges him to stay awake, but all Mista did is pull out a cell phone, dial Giorno’s number, and pass out. Giorno responds immediately, and Mista blacks out from blood loss listening to his friend’s concerned shouts.
So long as I have Giorno, Mista thinks. I don’t really have to worry about losing a hand or two. As long as I can keep in touch with him, I’m sure he’ll help me out when he can.
———
———
: Boom! I picked right! Even with the nerfs he got, I am a god at this character!
: Yeah, yeah. Let’s get onto the verdict now.
: Well, it should be said that Mista was at a disadvantage for most of this fight. He was slow and weak, only boasting Peak Human stats in strength and speed compared to Jhin’s Small Building strength and Massively Hypersonic speed.
: But Mista’s greatest advantage was also Jhin’s, or more specifically, thanks to Sex Pistols’ ability and how it can interact with Jhin’s ammunition.
: Jhin’s bullets, as far as we’ve seen, are only able to apply life-giving effects like growing trees or plants, or whatever it is he’s feeling spicy about at the time, to living or ‘natural’ targets. This is in line with the nature background of the magic he uses, and likely can interact with things like trees, grass, or other natural, not man-made things, too.
: But we don’t know enough about his power to fully apply it to that degree in a fight. Even then, it doesn’t impact Mista that much anyway due to Jhin’s biggest weakness: The inability to deal with Sex Pistols.
: Jhin’s biggest weaknesses in this fight would be how Sex Pistols has the ability to manipulate the kinetic energy of projectiles, the inability to see them, and, even if he could see them and lock them down with a tree cage or something like that, they could just phase through it.
: They can act as little shields that block another bullet’s momentum as they have more than enough time to react to Jhin’s bullets seeing as Mista has FTL reaction speed, and they can redirect bullets they’re riding as well.
: As seen with Mista’s fight against Sale, they can commandeer enemy ammunition and ride/reflect those as well. So while Mista has the potential to survive one of Jhin’s shots, Jhin’s own Small Building durability would likely not guarantee his own survival, especially if he is boasting AP higher than that.
: And, seeing as the Sex Pistols aren’t living things, only mere projections of fighting spirit, they would likely be immune to the effects of Jhin’s magic bullets in the first place. It’s not like Jhin had anything that could actually harm Sex Pistols either, since other Stands are the only things that can harm them directly.
: There are some cases where injuries sustained by the user are reflected in the Stand as well, but as Sex Pistols is an Automatic Stand, they wouldn’t reflect damage that way anyway.
: Polpo’s Stand Black Sabbath is also considered an Automatic Stand and when it was completely destroyed, Polpo was none the wiser and in perfect health.
: Jhin may be a very skilled strategist and can stay cool and level-headed throughout an entire fight, but Mista is more reactive in his fighting-style in the first place, which, alongside his reckless abandon and Building Level durability from the energy output of Ghiaccio’s freezing feat, would likely let him keep up with Jhin’s plans.
: To be perfectly honest, Mista’s tetraphobia was not a prominent weakness in this fight, as much as some may think it is. Mista gets uncomfortable and tends to rant, getting distracted by the number for a few moments at best, but it doesn’t significantly impact his fighting ability. In his fight against Sale, he had four bullets left to beat him, but he only worried a bit before getting back into the fight. It’s superstition, not a crippling weakness.
: Jhin’s own obsession with the number four, however, is a more exploitable and prevalent weakness. Not only that, but his entire philosophy on murder being art and wanting to make death as special as he can, would likely play into this fight’s verdict notably enough.
: Jhin would likely treat Mista similarly to Zed in the comics or Camille in the “Awaken” Music Video in some ways, making him the audience of his show and not directly a participant until later. Even while bloodlusted, he has to stay true to his character.
: Jhin’s drive to make things into multiples of four would likely lead to his defeat, as the opponent can predict how many times he will attack before backing off, how many nearby victims he will take, how many seconds he’ll wait between attacks, and so on.
: Creepy four bastard.
: Regardless, Mista and Sex Pistols had the skills, the Stand powers, the less exploitable weaknesses, and the better reaction speed to handle Jhin’s stat trinity, attack potency, and superior equipment.
: Looks like Mista was outclassed, but not necessarily outgunned. Jhin tried all he could, but he just couldn’t go four the win.
: The winner is: Guido Mista
Where Titans Clash 
Well, this was a very fun and unique fight!
This was my introduction to both characters, and I loved how well you portrayed them. I especially loved how you had Mista call out Jhin’s nonsense about his obsession with death and using it as art.
The train setting also made the fight feel small and personal, which really suits a one-on-one gunfight. It reminded me a lot of “Bullet Train”, (which really helped because I love that movie.)
I was surprised that Mista won because I thought Jhin had the edge in power with his gun, but I guess power scaling isn’t everything, XD. But I’m not really complaining because I was rooting slightly more for Mista, anyway.
Overall, fantastic work as always! 🙂
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