Sitting across from me at a corner table was Manhattan Cafe, her slender frame nearly swallowed by the shadows she so naturally occupied. To anyone else, she was just an introverted, coffee-obsessed horse girl staring intently into a porcelain cup. But to me, the air around her told a completely different story. The ambient temperature in the room had plummeted, and a faint, spectral coffee aroma floated through the air—the calling card of her Stand.

I didn't need to look out the window to know she was right. My own Stand, an entity forged from pure adrenaline and tactical calculations, materialized silently at my side, its aura crackling like static electricity. At Tracen Academy, girls ran to break records and fulfill dreams on the turf. But for Cafe and me, the real race was happening in the shadows, where an unseen enemy was hunting Stand Users—and we were next on the track.