Inside Aurora Entertainment, the chaos wasn't glamorous - it was raw, human, unfiltered.
Mark, the lead of the phenomenon, stood there like the floor had been ripped out from under him. Around him, the younger cast - the ones who always played tough behind the scenes - looked like they'd been run through by an invisible blade. No one spoke loudly. No one cracked jokes. There was only that hollow stare people get when something hits too deep and they're still trying to figure out where the pain even started.
Mark, though, couldn't pretend.
With one hand, he kept wiping his tears as if he could erase them before anyone turned them into a meme. With the other, he clutched the actor who played Caesar - hard enough to wrinkle the costume, hard enough to say, without saying, that this felt too real.
It was almost ridiculous… if it hadn't been so genuine.
Good thing you didn't die in real life.
Emily had been cut up by the scene on-screen too, but when her eyes caught Mark practically holding on to "Caesar" like the universe would collapse if he let go, a part of her brain - the honest, wicked part grief couldn't fully silence - fired off a thought that was indecent and unavoidable:
That's… really gay.
And for a split second, the crushing tragedy cracked open just enough to let a drop of air in. Tiny. Almost invisible. But real.
…
…
After Caesar's death, Joseph and Lisa Lisa didn't stop. There was no time for proper mourning. No time to breathe. Only forward - because the world doesn't wait, and enemies like these wait even less.
When the confrontation with Wamuu and Kars finally became unavoidable, Lisa Lisa did something that changed the tone of the game. With the Red Stone of Aja in hand, she turned it into a blade pointed at everyone's pride and demanded a true duel. No chaos. No cheap tricks. A fight where honor would be the one rule no one could break without exposing themselves.
And at the end of that week's newly released second episode, Wamuu proved why even an enemy can earn respect.
He fought Joseph like a complete warrior - and even at the edge, even with death closing in, he didn't shrink. He didn't beg. He didn't bargain. Instead, he offered something rare: recognition.
His voice worn thin, his body failing, he looked at Joseph like he was seeing meaning for the first time in millennia of waiting.
"Watching you grow… was good. Maybe all those thousands and thousands of years of uncertainty… were only so I could reach this moment. So I could meet you. Farewell… JOJO…"
And then only a head remained - and even that was taken by the wind. Not grotesquely, but almost solemn, like the world was granting him the kind of goodbye most villains never deserved.
Joseph raised his hand in salute.
No sarcasm. No pose. Just respect.
And a lot of men on this side of the screen broke all over again. Because that - that strange nobility, that brutal farewell, that sense that even the "enemy" can be whole - grabbed you by the throat.
Reactions exploded.
"WAMUU IS A REAL MAN!"
"THIS IS TRUE MEN'S FRIENDSHIP!"
"THE WARRIOR WHO VANISHED INTO THE WIND!"
"WHY DOES A VILLAIN DYING HURT THIS MUCH?!"
"WHY IS A VILLAIN THIS STRAIGHT-LACED - YOU MADE ME CRY!"
And as if the universe wanted to carve the moment into stone, the trending list jumped.
Caesar's death. Wamuu's name.
Two spots among the day's hottest topics - rare for the franchise, which since launch had lived in that awkward zone of being praised loudly but consumed quietly. It wasn't like Bleach, which dominated the top every single day, crushing anything nearby with the momentum of an established monster.
But today, Battle Flow clawed its way into the spotlight.
Still, the number one topic was something else - something far more poisonous:
#Alex joins "Mushroom House" as a temporary guest#
And the moment you opened the newest episode on Penguim TV, you understood what kind of "success" it was.
The screen was flooded with comments - and most of them were a massacre.
Because the episode's main segment was simple and cruel: Alex watching Battle Flow together with the Mushroom House quartet.
And the audience… the audience was hungry.
"ALEX, YOU DOG! GIVE ME CAESAR BACK!"
"WHEN JOSEPH SHOUTED HIS NAME I SOBBED LIKE A BABY!"
"MY MOM HEARD ME CRYING AND RAN IN ASKING WHO DIED!"
"YOU TRASH - YOU HAVE NO HEART! CAESAR DIES AND YOUR FACE DOESN'T EVEN CHANGE!"
It wasn't just anger. It was grief looking for a target. And Alex was right there - sitting on the couch, calm enough to make it feel personal, his expression steady even after emotionally gutting millions.
…
…
In a meeting room where numbers spoke louder than tears, an executive rushed in, nearly tripping over his own excitement.
"Mr. Parker - bringing Alex onto Mushroom House worked better than we expected! JOJO's views finally passed two hundred million!"
Raymond listened, and for a beat, didn't answer. He just rubbed his chin, slow and calculating.
His gaze slid to another screen, where Bleach's charts looked like a skyscraper: over five billion views, and the year's projections pointing to something even more obscene.
He stayed silent long enough for the air to thicken - not from hesitation, but because strategy was assembling itself piece by piece.
Then he spoke.
"Tell the director. Next episode will be live. I want Alex watching the finale… with the audience."
The employee swallowed.
"Live…? That can go wrong, Mr. Parker. Live broadcasts always risk… incidents."
Everyone knew it. Big shows weren't truly "live" for a reason: everything had a script, everything could be reshot, everything was controlled until spontaneity looked manufactured.
Raymond didn't blink.
"They're just watching. What incident could possibly happen?"
What he didn't say was the real reason: he wanted to squeeze the finale until the last drop. Turn every second into engagement, into trends, into clips, into screaming chat messages.
And inside him, another decision hardened into steel:
He had to secure the exclusive domestic streaming rights to Bleach Season Two.
He had to.
Even if it cost him ten figures.
…
…
The announcement went out fast on the official account.
Next episode, Alex and the Mushroom House group would watch the finale of JOJO's Bizarre Adventure: Battle Flow LIVE, synchronized with the audience.
The reaction was instant - electric.
Fans lost their minds - not only because of the finale, but because of the delicious possibility of watching and cursing Alex in real time, with him there, reading, existing, absorbing it.
Hands rubbed together. Fingers hovered over keyboards. The anticipation was almost childish in its cruelty.
If they'd already seen Part Three, they would've had the perfect phrase for what they felt.
Something like: I'm so hyped I can't even breathe.
The weekend arrived.
The last two episodes dropped.
On Penguim TV's Mushroom House livestream page, Alex and the quartet were already seated on the living room couch, waiting for the final chapters to refresh. The atmosphere had that light, taut tension that comes before a storm - the certainty something huge is coming, and no one can stop it.
"Dude," one host murmured, scrolling his phone like he was watching a wildfire, "the chat is absolutely destroying you."
Alex shrugged, completely unbothered.
Let them curse.
Cursing became fuel. Hate became attention. Attention became numbers.
The moment the clock hit eight, the penultimate episode started - and the audience fell into it all at once.
Unlike Esidisi and Wamuu, who valued clean, honorable combat, Kars didn't care about pride like that.
He wanted the Red Stone of Aja. Period.
And when Stroheim relaxed for a fraction of a second, Kars found the opening, slammed the stone into the mask, and fitted it onto his own face.
The transformation felt like a violation of nature.
The next scene became instant legend.
The "Ultimate Lifeform" turned his back to the sun - and then, with shameless theatricality, lifted the strip of cloth that barely counted as coverage.
And the worst part?
He did it with Jasper Quin's face.
That face that had once symbolized cold elegance and lethal composure - now doing that.
The room nearly choked.
Teacher Hugo looked at Alex with an expression that mixed pain and disbelief.
"Alex… the costumes in this series are… uh… distinctive."
Distinctive was kind. A-list actors didn't agree to just anything. And yet there was Jasper Quin - prestige intact - performing something the internet would never forgive.
His acting was so strong that many viewers no longer linked Kars to Jasper's previous iconic role. But seeing that moment, countless Jasper fans revolted in the chat anyway:
"HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO LOOK AT JASPER QUIN THE SAME WAY AFTER THIS?!"
Still, the embarrassment was a side note.
Because Kars, evolved, was suffocating.
Even the narration said it plainly: the Ultimate Lifeform would not die. Not truly. Not in any way a living thing understands the word.
So the question drilled into everyone's chest:
How do you fight something that can't die?
That's when Joseph did what he always did - thought in the wrong direction… and won because of it.
He used a plane. He rammed Kars into a volcano, like he was telling the universe that no matter what you are, nothing survives in hell like that.
For a moment, the audience believed.
For a moment, the world allowed a clean ending.
Until Kars escaped.
Until he severed Joseph's left arm like he was ripping a piece of the audience's hope out of the air.
And when everyone thought, it's over, the volcano erupted.
A colossal, insane explosion, as if nature itself was screaming.
Joseph and Kars were hurled upward, beyond the world's reach.
Kars tried to flee by transforming - but fate, coincidence, or the curse of playing with forces you don't understand made the impossible happen:
Joseph's severed arm rocketed upward like a blade.
A living blade.
It pierced Kars's throat - and along with the molten debris, it shoved the Ultimate Lifeform out of Earth's grasp, into the cold emptiness of space.
And then Joseph, battered and gasping, still Joseph to the core, delivered the line like it was a punch straight into destiny's teeth:
"Kars! Your next line is - 'Was this also part of your plan, JOJO?!'"
And, furious and off-balance, Kars spat exactly what he'd been told to say:
"WAS THIS ALSO PART OF YOUR PLAN, JOJO?!"
Joseph grinned - that survivor's grin.
"Of course it was! Everything I do is part of the plan!!!"
His final victorious roar echoed, and Kars was sent drifting into the void, frozen by the universe until he became nothing but a silent block of existence.
Then the narrator sealed it with a sentence so simple it hurt:
And so… Kars stopped thinking.
The Mushroom House living room went quiet for a beat, like nobody was sure it had actually happened.
The main host blinked slowly, trying to turn the absurdity into a joke just so it would fit inside his head.
"So… technically… one of those stars out there could be Kars?"
Two of them instinctively looked toward the window, toward the night sky. And for one ridiculous, terrifying moment… it felt possible.
But the gut-punch wasn't done.
Because even though Kars was defeated, Joseph was too high, too far, too close to the edge of the atmosphere.
He wasn't coming back.
The chat detonated.
"YOU BASTARD, ALEX!"
"LAST WEEK YOU KILLED THE SECOND LEAD - NOW YOU'RE NOT EVEN SPARING THE PROTAGONIST?!"
It was collective panic, returning at full force, as if the audience had learned the hard rule of this story: nobody was safe - not even the one who should be untouchable.
Then came the funeral.
Erina. Lisa Lisa. Smokey.
Tired faces. Empty eyes. A ceremony weighted with the kind of grief that doesn't scream - it just presses down.
Until…
Joseph showed up.
Alive.
Attending his own funeral like it was the most natural thing in the world, like death had been a minor inconvenience he'd simply decided to outsmart.
The room burst into laughter, relief, rage flipping into joy. The chat became a flood of hysterical celebration - the kind of emotion that only exists when you've almost lost something and the world suddenly gives it back.
And at the very end - one last sweet twist of the knife - Joseph appeared older.
An elderly Joseph, carrying the quiet aura of someone who had crossed the impossible and still had time to collect stories.
The chat, like a chorus rehearsed by the universe itself, spammed the line that was both an insult and a love letter:
"YOU OLD BASTARD… YOU LIVED THE LONGEST!"
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