Half an hour earlier.
In the hotel restroom, Polnareff sat on the toilet, straining relentlessly.
"Hngh, hngh—uurgh..."
Polnareff clenched a wad of toilet paper in one hand, his face faintly twisted in pain. "I didn't eat anything bad today, so why do I keep having diarrhea?"
"Yawn..."
Unlike the sweat-drenched Polnareff, Hol Horse sat sleepily against a sink nearby. Polnareff had dragged him here by force, and he was exhausted enough to nod off every few seconds.
"Say, can you hurry it up, This Guy?"
Hol Horse yawned lazily, tears welling in his eyes from fatigue. "The past few days have worn me out. I finally wanted to get some extra rest, and you had to drag me along just because you needed to take a dump..."
"Mr. Joseph specifically told us to."
Polnareff immediately explained from inside the stall, "He said the Nine Glory Gods' Stand Users are too powerful. We absolutely can't be alone."
"Why not just do it in the room?"
Too sleepy to care, Hol Horse took a cigarette from his pocket and lit it. "Then you wouldn't be alone, and you wouldn't have had to wake me up to come to the bathroom with you..."
"The hell do you mean, do it in the room?"
Polnareff couldn't help snapping back. "Do you take me for one of those Indians we met before? I am a noble Frenchman... huh?!"
But he had only gotten halfway through his sentence.
When Polnareff suddenly froze in place.
Because he had noticed something extending over from the floor of the stall to his left.
It wasn't anything tangible, but a patch of darkness so thick it seemed impossible to disperse. Or, more accurately... it looked like a bizarre humanoid shadow.
"A Stand!"
Polnareff felt his ass clench. Before he could