Battle Damage | A CaeJose Story

Caesar

Caesar was wiping the blood out of his eyes and trying – again – to get to his feet when Joseph stepped forward, facing the retreating pillarmen. A certain flavor of Joseph-related dread, one Caesar was already familiar with, settled on him immediately. He wanted to shout at him that he wouldn't last three seconds, but he was too out of breath to force the words out. Not that his protests would have done much anyway.

"Leaving so soon?" Joseph called out, sounding infuriatingly smug. "And here I was thinking you'd want to meet the one who took out Sanviento..."

Wamuu turned back, and a little of the smug amusement left over from watching Caesar smash into the stone pillar had left her face. Great, now you've pissed them off.

Joseph glanced back, as if he could feel the irritation radiating from Caesar, but that damned smugness hadn't faded in the least. "You're not looking too good there, Zeppeli. Why don't you sit this one out." The wink that accompanied the last words made Caesar wish he had the strength to stand up and punch him in the face. "It should be quick... with my new secret technique."

As he brandished the clackers, launched into a dramatic monologue, and spun them in a blurred circle above his head, Caesar held onto hope that maybe this wouldn't go as badly as he had thought. Then the string slipped out of Joseph's hand and the clackers smacked into the side of his head, and Caesar felt his hope evaporating.

Joseph quickly recovered both the clackers and the overconfidence. He didn't waste the opportunity to give them another elaborate spin before launching them at Wamuu. They swished through the air by her head, missing by at least a foot.

Caesar pulled himself to his knees and forced a full breath into his lungs. The twinge in his side was well worth it to shout at him. "Do you think this is a joke?"

Joseph glanced back. Caesar was mildly surprised to see the small, self-satisfied smile on his face. "I'm hurt, Caesar. Do you really have so little confidence in me?"

On cue, there was a quiet whoosh, and then something smashed into the side of Wamuu's face and Joseph's hand shot up to grab the clackers out of the air. His smile spread. Wamuu reached up to touch the glowing blood oozing down her face from the gash in the side of her skull.

"Well." Her mouth twisted in the approximation of a smile, which somehow did not look very much like a smile at all. "It appears I have underestimated you. You may yet prove a worthy opponent, and for that I will give you sixty seconds."

The flicker of confusion had barely crossed Joseph's face before the slash appeared on his wrist. Immediately, blood was streaming down his fingers to the stone floor. A lot of blood. "What the hell?" Joseph shouted.

"You will lose consciousness from blood loss in exactly one minute. I don't suggest you waste it."

"60 seconds, huh?" The usual confidence sounded forced. Caesar didn't have a good feeling about this. "Alright, then -"

He launched the clackers mid-sentence, sparks of hamon dancing from his fingertips. Wamuu dodged smoothly out of the way, waited a breath, and reached up to snatch them from the air as they returned. Joseph went a little paler.

"They call this -" Wamuu tossed the clackers aside, took a step forward, raised her arms. The illumination of the floodlights gleamed in her eyes. "The Divine Sandstorm."

The movement started slow, a twisting of her arms that the constraints of bones and ligaments definitely should not have allowed. Dust began to lift off the ground.

"JoJo!" Speedwagon shouted. He must get tired of shouting at Joseph to get out of situations like this, Caesar thought. "Get back!"

But he must have known there was nowhere to go. The wind was already fierce, whipping Caesar's hair into his eyes. Wamuu's arms were a blur, and the wind was a roar, the air full of sand. Chips of stone flew off the column of marble to Joseph's right and were caught up in the whirlwind before they could hit the ground. Joseph didn't even have time for a final quip before the column shattered completely and the wind lifted him off his feet, carrying him into the heart of the fierce currents of sand and rock.