Instead of backing away, the boy mindlessly kept forcing himself forward, repeatedly smashing his own face into the sign with an almost mechanical consistency, to the point that one of his eyeballs nearly popped out of its socket. Horrified by this, Josuke instinctively moved to help him, but the boy suddenly slipped past the sign and started falling towards him.
Reacting on instinct, Soft and Wet swept the boy's legs out from under him while Josuke dived onto the road to avoid making any direct physical contact. Despite being covered in his own blood, the boy snapped back up like a feral animal, relentlessly pursuing his target.
Suddenly a car screeched to a halt between them. The driver, an older woman, rolled down her window to furiously chastise Josuke for standing in the middle of traffic. As she screamed about almost running him over, the feral boy mindlessly bashed his head against her car window.
Watching the madness unfold, Josuke's mind raced. He suspected that the tooth dried onto the envelope was the thing that had started it all.
Losing her temper, the woman rolled her other window partway down to yell at the boy as well. But the kid took the opportunity to start reaching into the vehicle himself, his body cutting off the mechanism for the window. He forcefully pulled his way in past the woman as he climbed over the seats.
Needing a distraction, Soft and Wet grabbed a nearby coffee cup and used the bubble shape to spill the hot liquid directly over the boy's face, temporarily blinding him. Josuke then seized the opening, hauling the terrified woman out of the car to safety. Still inside, the feral boy tripped and flailed as he scrambled out after them.
But by the time he had wiped the coffee from his eyes and stood up, Josuke had completely vanished. Bizarrely, the boy collapsed to the pavement.
Just as an anxious crowd of onlookers began to gather around him, Josuke, safely hidden behind a nearby brick wall, caught his breath and observed the aftermath. While the crowd was checking the kid, he had successfully used a bubble to steal the tooth from the envelope.
Somewhat confused, he wondered who could possibly be targeting him. Tamaki Damo's allies had all been neutralised, and a random attack made no logical sense. The enemy had nothing to gain by striking now. If they wanted the Locacaca, then they should have waited, since he had not even located the branch yet.
Pulling out his phone, a curious thought crossed his mind. Someone was trying to systematically block him from reaching the plant appraiser. He dismissed the possibility almost at once, because he knew that absolutely nobody apart from Norisuke even knew about his secret search. However, just as he went to continue on, he looked up to see the same woman he had just rescued from the car, now looming over him like some sort of feral animal.
Back at the Mutsukabe shrine, Dolomite violently smashed his mouth against a hard rock, intentionally causing one of his own teeth to fly out, and Jobin picked it up with his gloves on. Jobin thanked the rock human for making the right decision. This place, the shrine, might be beautiful, but it certainly was not his blue lagoon. Everyone, even Jobin himself, born as the eldest son in a wealthy family, needed to keep climbing higher, or they would never achieve true happiness.
Showing Josuke's photograph to Dolomite one last time, Jobin told him that they had to stop this hybrid from ever reaching the unknown ally who could help him identify the fruit's branch. Dolomite asked about Josuke's phone, and whether it really had all of the information they needed, to which Jobin confirmed that he really was in dire need of Blue Hawaii.
Jobin then carefully placed Dolomite's bloody tooth into an envelope. As he sealed it, Dolomite asked him whether he was truly prepared for the dire consequences that his stand, Blue Hawaii, could unleash upon Josuke, or even upon the entire city of Morio. But Jobin did not care.
Back in the current battle, the older woman who had almost run Josuke over now towered above him, blood dripping from her nostrils. Josuke glanced back and noticed that the boy had regained consciousness, but he had no time to strategise. The infected woman violently lunged at him, forcing him to dodge backwards. She slammed herself face first onto the asphalt, completely ignoring Josuke's frantic commands to stay back.
It quickly clicked in his mind that the tooth he had thrown away was the key to fighting this unseen enemy. The infection was passed from person to person through direct physical contact, meaning he had to avoid touching her, or even getting a single drop of blood on him.
Slowly retreating into an alleyway, Josuke snatched up a heavy trash can lid to use as a makeshift shield. When the woman charged, Soft and Wet delivered a powerful bash through the metal barrier to push her back.
But even as Josuke broke into a sprint to try and escape her and hunt down the user, the infected woman pursued him with unnatural resilience. Almost getting grabbed by her, he had to scramble up some nearby construction scaffolding, leaving her to mindlessly bash her head against a concrete wall. Thinking he was finally safe, Josuke went to relax, but stopped when he heard the woman continuing to smash her head against the wall.
He examined how she was not really heading for him at all, and was instead travelling in a linear path. He went to climb higher when some of the blood from the woman splattered onto the scaffolding next to him. Immediately sensing his presence, the feral woman locked onto him, grabbing his sneaker and aggressively scaling the scaffolding to attack. Josuke tried to kick her off, but was forced to abandon his shoes and opted to leap back down to the ground to escape.
Snapping after him, the woman grabbed Josuke's arm and successfully pinned him against the side of the scaffolding. Unable to do anything else, Josuke summoned his stand to hit her a few times, but the woman refused to break her grip. Slowly, her teeth started tearing through the plastic, letting her snap her jaws like a deranged animal.
Needing to do something, Josuke used his bubbles to grab a nearby shovel and passed it to Soft and Wet. In an instant, the stand violently battered the woman, smashing her over the head and forcing her through a window.
Finally free to escape, Josuke dropped down and went to leave the area, only to hear the woman banging against the inside of the building. He could tell she was still tracking him, which meant she was automatically trying to contaminate him with her blood, so that he too could become a controllable zombie, just like her.
Whoever these people were, they were obviously trying to get information out of the appraiser before he could. Above all else, he knew that he could not let this infection touch him and allow them to do whatever they wanted with his body.
Meanwhile, inside the abandoned building, three local hoodlums watched in utter bewilderment as the woman mindlessly bashed her head against the wall. Seeing an easy target, the thugs decided to rob her, while the only girl in the group pulled out her phone to joyfully film the event.
Sprinting through the city streets, Josuke realised he desperately needed an ally. His first instinct was to dial Norisuke, but he froze and abruptly changed his mind. He remembered that multiple members of the Higashikata family had been present when they discussed the secret plant appraiser. If this sudden enemy was tracking him, the leak could be coming directly from inside the Higashikata household itself.
Instead, Josuke dialled Yasuho, who was obviously stoked to hear from him again.