Anubis

Anubis is a minor antagonist of Stardust Crusaders and belongs to the handful of Stands that lack a fixed wielder. It borrows the shape of the jackal-headed Egyptian deity whose name it carries, a human body beneath a beast's head, though its genuine host is an elaborate, jewel-set shamshir sword and its scabbard. Forged some five hundred years before the story, it pledges itself to DIO out of gratitude and defeat, and makes repeated attempts on the lives of the Joestar group as they push through Egypt. Utterly fixated on killing, it praises each new bearer as the world's finest swordsman, casts them aside the moment a stronger candidate appears, and turns almost comically frantic whenever a battle escapes its grip.

Anubis is built solely for combat, and its several powers make it deadlier the longer a fight wears on. It can do nothing until a person draws its blade, but once wielded it trades blows with the likes of Silver Chariot and Star Platinum and could beat either outright. The sword stays keenly sharp even without its abilities, and it is astonishingly hard to kill: break it and the Stand simply lives on in the largest remaining shard at full power.

Its central gift is domination of the mind. Anyone who bares the sword hears the Stand whispering in their skull, egging them onward until it seizes them completely, taking their body and any Stand of their own along with it, until it withdraws and the host snaps back to reason. It cannot actually improve a wielder's skill, only draw on what they already possess. It also decides who may unsheathe it, staying immovable for anyone it rejects, and it can choose exactly where along the blade it cuts, wounding someone hidden behind a pillar without scratching the stone or their clothing.

Deadliest of all is its knack for adaptation. Anubis records each strike aimed at it and learns to turn that strike aside, so no tactic works on it twice, and it appears to accelerate and strengthen as a duel drags on. Left unbeaten it might well have ranked among the most fearsome Stands ever created, undone only by an oblique threat such as DIO's The World, which hands it no attack to memorize.

The Stand first belonged to a man called Caravan Serai and attached itself to a sword he forged after he died. Across the tale it jumps between hosts, the farmer Chaka, the barber Khan, and finally Jean Pierre Polnareff, through whom it hands Jotaro Kujo a punishing fight. Jotaro at last baits it into dropping its guard and smashes the hilt, and after one more try through a possessed boy and a cow, the blade slips into the Nile to rust into nothing, wiping the Stand from existence.