Chapter Text
In 2012, the question of how he had gotten here was a complicated thing. It was at least one part a nostalgic pull, a strange need to see with his own eyes the forest that, despite all memory, was simply too unfamiliar to him now. He had never truly experienced any chase through that forest. The fact that he had in the first place was an oddity that, unlike many other such things, he could let himself experience now.
If it were just that though, perhaps he would have been able to ignore it. Simply stare off into the dark for a bit, and shake it off to join Jens for more games through the night. But instead, here he was.
Walking.
It probably tied to whatever he’d done in this place. To whatever memory he had tucked away in a folder among many, many others, drowning in a sea of ‘sitting in front of Jotaro’s high school’. Yet for one reason or another, it wasn’t quite surfacing.
Instead, looking out into the dark from the edge of where one would just barely be able to see the lights of the house, he could only think of his arrival in 1988.
The boat trip had been stressful at best, that much he knew. He had stood on the boat with his back to just about everyone there, telling himself to work up the nerve before reality did it for him.
Yet in 1988, there was no such hope. Over the sound of churning water, he ultimately heard-
“ALRIGHT! COMING TO PORT!”
And with grit teeth and a hiss, he thought to himself-
Coward.
Kakyoin in 1988 sighed, pulling himself together as he came around to the front of the boat. It was only a small comfort to see that he wasn’t the only one clearly stressed now. Joy as well seemed to carry that weight upon her back and shoulders, a strange thought to hold when all she had around them now was an airy shawl against the early evening spray.
“...It looks like something out of a photo book,” he managed to comment with a dismissive snort, emotion drained from the words in his vain attempt to distract from them. “Like an island anyone would have seen, anywhere.”
Joy managed to crack a smile at that, even bringing forward a laugh. “Hmhmhm…doesn’t it? You can just picture those old jungle movies happening on it, don’t you agree Jean-Pierre?”
It was a fragile attempt to pull the Frenchman into the conversation. Both of them, ultimately, knew that. But they had to try all the same, and that thought only grew stronger as they turned to look at Polnareff himself. The man was staring out at the island in complete silence. His already pale skin seemed clammy as they slowed enough to drift into the tiny dockside port that had been constructed there, and he visibly swallowed when the quiet ‘thud’ of boat against wood met their ears.
The amount of time it took was but minutes, but with a full silence it felt like hours. Kakyoin and Joy both stared at him in that growing, heavy silence, Joy even drawing back after an aborted motion to try offering some sort of comfort.
(And what did she expect that she would do anyway, Kakyoin couldn’t help but ask himself back then. What did she think would happen, that he’d just shake it off like everything else? Of course this was hell, of course it was.)
(How couldn’t it be hell, he asked without understanding why.)
“Alright! Just give me a minute to tie us in, and we can head inland…” Joseph was starting, only to turn to the others and blink. “...What’s the matter with all of you then? Get one last spell of sea sickness?” he joked, only for the sounds to fall flat.
With a brief and weak smile, Joy moved to make her way off the boat with her father. “Oh, well…We’re just all a little tired still I think, that’s all~” she reassured, her usual lilt and cheer somehow absent from her voice.
It wasn’t quite intended to hide her mood, Kakyoin supposed. Perhaps if it was about that it would be different, but instead as she seemed to convey a quiet, secret message to Joseph, Kakyoin watched as the man’s expression grew stern.
“Got it. Well, in that case, Joy if you want to see about tying off the boat instead? Kakyoin, you should go with! Be a great chance to learn something new!” he offered with his own false grin, sharp enough that the teen couldn’t find any room to argue.
“...Of course, Mr. Joestar,” he said, but quietly he couldn’t help but keep his ear trained on the conversation that was undoubtedly about to happen as well. It wasn’t exactly a large boat, after all. Far from any yacht, that was for sure. Listening in was as easy as handling the ropes at the bow first, and to that end as he hopped off the side and waited for Joy, he was already angling himself in that direction.
Maybe she realized why. As she looked to the ropes in question she briefly grimaced, only for the expression to quickly revert back to a serene smile. Soon enough she was gently taking the ropes and showing how to loop them around the sturdy peg that had no doubt been installed within the last week, murmuring quietly her instructions.
Kakyoin could barely hear the two men above on deck. The only reason he could even start to hear was because of the gradual increase of emotion happening overhead.
“-ey, Polnareff. Hey, there’s nothing to panic about, what’s gotten into you!?” he heard Joseph finally say more clearly, the teen jolting his head upright with a blink.
Even Joy didn’t have the heart to tell him off. Instead she lifted her head as well, worry on her face. “...Jean-Pierre?” she finally chanced with a call, only to jump to the side as a blur of white and black tore off the boat. “J-Jean-Pierre!?”
“Polnareff! Hey, come back, it’s not necessarily safe-!”
“What on earth!?”
Polnareff’s only reply locked him in place for all the time it needed, the Frenchman not even looking back. “I can’t- I can’t do this again, non, non non non, Sherry, non-”
He disappeared through the trees in the blink of an eye, leaving Kakyoin feeling cold on the dock. “S…Sherry?” he managed to repeat, slowly looking at the others. “...Wasn’t that…”
The two ‘Joestars’ themselves seemed just as baffled as he did, which only served to make the feeling worse. “That was his younger sister wasn’t it?” Joy asked. “...But what on earth would make him think of her now..?”
She looked to her father in clear questioning, but given his own expression they could tell they wouldn’t get any actual answers. With a wince and a shrug, he told them as much outright. “I don’t have the damndest clue at this point,” he sighed. “I was all set to break it to him gently that we’d be reuniting with Avdol here, but he started muttering about…Hell, I don’t even know what! Zombies? Be one thing if you and Kakyoin were picking something up here but it’s not as if he’s ever been able to sense those kinds of things and Avdol would’ve burned the place down to take them out if he had to.” The old man shook his head, passing a few bags down to the others before coming down with the rest. “No…whatever this is, it’s the exact reason we’d been so hush hush in the first place unfortunately. I hate saying we were right but…”
But after all, how else could they feel. To see proof that, given the worst circumstance, Polnareff could have unintentionally let things slip to the wrong person wasn’t just unfortunate. It was nauseating. They didn’t know what this was. They didn’t know how to help, and god, they wanted to help. Not a single one of them could muster up irritation or anger at the sight of what had happened.
Only fear, and concern, for their friend who could well have run to his unintended doom. “...The island should be safe…right?” Kakyoin found himself ask with that thought on his mind, a thought mirrored by Joy’s own look.
Fortunately, Joseph nodded. “It’s a small place, and I doubt Polnareff’s about to try swimming off. …Though we better go fill Avdol in all the same, if we want to be sure of that,” he added grimly.
Right, Kakyoin thought. Polnareff could swim, and swim fairly well, so if he decided to try it while in this state… “...I’ll go look for him,” he insisted, the others turning with a start.
“Oh-! Noriaki you don’t have to do that,” Joy started to insist. “Really, either of us could do the job just as well-”
“Yes, but he’ll probably calm down faster with me,” Kakyoin countered. It hurt to see Joy’s response to that. A quiet blink, as she slowly looked away. But he hurriedly continued- “I was with him in Kolkata. So I should be able to calm him down, since it’s basically the same kind of episode, right? Once he’s calmed down, I can bring him back to the house, and you two can explain the rest,” he insisted, and that seemed to help Joy feel at least a little better about the matter.
Not that he could blame her for the upset of course, he thought. It had been her idea in the first place after all, so why wouldn’t she feel the blame fell entirely on her? If it hadn’t been for her, they would have told Polnareff immediately. Who knew, from there, what would have followed.
Probably disaster, he thought quietly to himself, the others giving him their blessing to head off. “We’ll explain to Avdol what’s going on,” Joseph assured the teen with a nod. “But if we don’t see you by sunset, we’re coming out for you.”
Joy immediately pursed her lips and nodded. “This island isn’t very large, but there’s no telling what lives on it other than Avdol right now. There could easily be dangerous animals, and I don’t want you both out there in the dark with them.”
He almost protested. What kind of animals could possibly be out here? Bugs? Snakes? Then again, he realized with a glance at the horizon, snakes could actually be a very fatal risk out here. That in mind, he turned to jog off after where they’d seen the other disappear. “Got it,” he called back. “I’ll go as fast as I can!”
He heard nothing else behind him, save the calm footsteps of those moving along the path to where Avdol was probably waiting. Kakyoin truthfully wasn’t paying much attention to those sounds anyway though. Instead he picked up his speed until it was a true run, Hierophant sprawling out as tendrils to slap at leaves and branches in his path. Trying to find Polnareff here would have been like finding a needle in a haystack if he was going in fully blind, he thought rather grimly, and that only spoke to the panic his friend was in. Some part of him couldn’t stop thinking of Kolkata- of being in the car, driving as fear clawed his every being. Asking himself what he was watching, and finally lashing out in the only way he could to stop it.
Twigs snapped underfoot. The sounds of small animals hiding in the undergrowth fleeing into the opposite direction passed through his ears. Kakyoin breathed heavily, momentarily taken off his hamon pace whilst he ran, eyes skimming the thick trees and seeing nothing.
He couldn’t use his normal senses for this. There was no way he was going to be able to find Polnareff with his normal senses, he corrected. Kakyoin took a deep breath as he tried to recenter himself, hamon pulsing through his body. He needed to focus. Feel, through the trees for another source. Look for a lonely presence in the coming night, in the dark of the wood. He took in a breath.
Pin pricks, behind him and moving, gradually meeting with another. Joy, Joseph, Avdol.
He exhaled.
Farther points back and distant, some scattered, some muffled. Animals, he was sure, even some beneath the ground.
Another breath in.
There was one in front of him. One source that wasn’t mere stars in the night to his sense of life, one that was more brilliant and gleaming even in its misery.
Kakyoin breathed more deeply, and took a step forward. One after another, his gait no longer pressed and rushing. He passed tree after tree, stepped through bush after bush until it became nothing but a sea of grasses among palms, and in the sunset quiet there he was.
Polnareff looked like a shadow of himself. He sat there, the grasses around him cut down in some frenzy with Silver Chariot, the Stand in question nowhere to be seen. The teen took a step closer. Another. And then another-
“Hey-”
And with a jolt, came back to himself in 2012, the dark around him so much thicker than the sunset of 1988 that he nearly fell over himself.
“GKh-” Kakyoin choked, still tripping all the same. The dark around him wasn’t entirely total, he realized with each slow blink as he came back to himself. There were the stars above him of course, the same stars that he’d seen from within the house. But there was also the bright, brilliant beam shining behind him to cast his shadow, passing through his scarf until it seemed the stars were glimmering on the ground as well.
The spirit turned around to the light’s source, and squinted behind his arm to try and make out who he saw. Before he could, the light dimmed to a faint glow. “...You good?” Jens asked once he had done so, faint worry on the young man’s face. “You uh…You still going through it?”
Part of him honestly wasn’t sure what Jens was talking about. ‘Going through it’? What did that even mean. The rest of him bit that side of him down harshly, knowing full well that there was plenty of context to tell him. He’d just wandered off into the middle of the woods in the dark, spaced out and entirely out of his mind. He’d let himself get carried off into memory without a care for who was left behind, what did he think ‘going through it’ meant?
Kakyoin swallowed, and looked away. “...I’m fine,” he insisted. “...Really, you shouldn’t worry about me. I’m no mere ghost, but that doesn’t mean I’m harmless either. I can take care of myself.”
“Oh. Well, I mean, yeah obviously!” Jens’ exclamation didn’t sound forced, so much as startled. The young man rubbed the back of his head and came over to join his new friend, shining the light around them to take a look at the dark woods. “Never said anything about that. Everyone could use someone to lean on during…rough spots, if you know what I’m saying. …Bad memories. Stuff like that.”
Glancing toward the other, Kakyoin was tempted to brush him off. But the concern in Jens’ eyes was too severe for him to even try. After a moment of searching the other’s face for some kind of trick, or fault, all he could do was nod.
So, Jens rambled on. “Right. Yeah. I mean, the old man, even before all of…this, right, he’s been the same. Lots of baggage I guess, I dunno. Mom doesn’t really talk about that time much, and even Uncle Dirtbag doesn’t really say a lot…”
“...The…D’Arby you’re both avoiding?” Kakyoin chanced with a raised brow. “...The one with Atum?”
Jens sucked in a breath. “Ohhhhh cool you got to fight his Stand…yikesssss…” Shaking his head, he nodded. “Yeah, that one. I guess the year leading up to Riki’s birth was a rough one. But…after that whole ‘shift’, that time stuff, it got worse I guess. …Mom got all quiet for a bit, said she needed to settle stuff overseas… …Uncle Jackhole even started flinching some whenever one of us turned a corner, that was fucking weird,” he muttered, frowning at the ground. “But uh, Gramps…”
Kakyoin couldn’t tell where the other was going with things, but he thought he didn’t mind it. As the other trailed off, he gave a short indication with his head. ‘Go on’, he wordlessly said, and despite his uncomfortable grimace Jens did just that.
“...I wasn’t. Born, I guess. In that other time. Sounds of it everyone was just way too messed up for my mom to handle things even as the matriarch. She up and packed everyone up for the States, somewhere down south where she could raise my big brother on her own. Kinda wonder if that’s related to what she’s settling over there now? I dunno,” he breathed, closing his eyes. “I tried asking Riki about it, he just got all quiet so I never pushed, I just…whatever happened, it must’ve really messed Gramps up. I mean he ain’t a good guy, you probably know that, right?”
The spirit admittedly shrugged. “...I was actually hospitalized when everyone faced off against your uncle,” he admitted. “I met the younger, but not the elder. Jotaro certainly seems to have a bone to pick, but…” He glanced back toward where they came from, as if he could somehow see the old man there in the trees. “...He seems fine enough now, at least.”
“Yeah…way they all told it, ‘85 through ‘88 was a shit time,” Jens confirmed. “But I mean, there’s a reason I made Gramps a robo-Poker-bot, he just gets that…Itch, I guess, and his Stand ain’t far off from Atum. But like… …he’s family, y’know? …In a way Uncle Douchecanoe isn’t. My mom’s always been there for me, but so’s my Gramps, hell I named Boo after him!”
Kakyoin had to interrupt there. Not that he had anything against the colorful varieties of reference for D’Arby the younger, but there was something else as well. “...Boo? …How are they named after him?”
In reply to that, Jens only grinned. He pointed at his tattoos, the silver ink gleaming under the light that he had carried out with him. “Right after I got these- everyone in the family’s got ‘m somewhere, ‘least, anyone taking part in any games. You get a ‘bar’ in ‘m for each win with a Stand,” he added, immediately explaining why they looked like fangs rather than layers forming any shape.
Jens’ Stand after all wasn’t made for game related combat. Or at least, it didn’t seem like he was inclined to use it as such.
But he continued. “Gramps did ‘m himself! Said it was tradition, like bringing a bride down the aisle. Can’t be your parent- had to be the one you beat!” For a moment, Jens had an almost dopey grin on his face. His eyes looked out into the dark but they clearly saw something else entirely, something wonderful and mesmerizing from his memory. “...I knew right then and there…Even if he’s my Uncle, I’d be calling it ‘Born of Osiris’. Because without ‘Osiris’, I wouldn’t be here.”
Osiris… …Right. That would be D’Arby’s Stand. Kakyoin nodded, quietly wondering what to say from there. It was his own fault for the tangent of course- he’d asked. But… “...What happened after the ‘reset’, exactly?” he found himself press, watching as that smile fell from Jens’ face.
The young man still looked out to the dark, at least for a little. But eventually, he sighed and turned his head back. “...It’s like I said, I tried asking the others about it. Well. Asking anyone who was there at least. Riki clammed up real good, buried himself right in his space science books. Mom just said she had to go deal with something and tore off… …The other uncle, the one with a shitty fetish, he just did what he does and latched onto what he can control- figured that was his big chance to say Riki ought be next in line for family head, like that’s what Riki wants at all. You know, he’s gonna go to space? It’s amazing, why would anyone want to stop that? He could be one of the guys putting houses on Mars or something one day! And normally that would be when Gramps stepped in but…”
“...But..?”
Jens sighed. “...It’s like I said. I guess…something from before, it messed him up. Messed everyone up, and the thing is, I’m the only one without a clue how. So…when the Foundation called, asked for someone to play check-in, I took ‘m with. That’s the best you can do sometimes. Be there, let someone talk it out. I love my Gramps man, but that doesn’t mean we’re as close as he is to my Mom, right?” There was a point he was emphasizing, and Kakyoin thought he was slowly finding it as Jens pressed on. “...It’s not the same, but it’s someone who’ll listen.”
Kakyoin swallowed. He stared at Jens, as of that would will the answer out of him.
And impossibly, it did. “...Stuff like that… …Trauma,” he said, like it was a forbidden word on his tongue, “...Sticks to a guy. It sticks in a way that makes it hard to chase off. I’ve seen Gramps pick his nails until they bleed, like there’s still something crammed in there that shouldn’t be. I’ve seen ‘m shuffle cards like if he gets one wrong he’s gonna keel over any second. …He wouldn’t talk to Mom. …But he talked to me, I guess because it doesn’t matter as much.”
A deep breath.
They stood there, in the dark, as Jens came to his point.
“...Sometimes it helps, talking to someone who isn’t so close to it all. …So, while I know I’m assuming a lot here…”
A feeble gesture to the woods.
A worried look, back to the spirit.
“...If you want… …do you wanna talk about what happened? …Back whenever you ‘were’, I mean?”
Strangely enough, Kakyoin found himself nodding.
“...Alright. ..I can try,” he added as he turned away, tongue running over his teeth as a wash of nervousness struck. “I’m not sure where to begin though,” the spirit snorted. “How much do you even know about 1988 in the first place?”
The laugh that came with the words sounded fractured somehow. Not so broken as it was at his worst, but fragmented enough that when Jens did nothing but shrug it somehow made Kakyoin feel smaller. Foolish, even.
Jens said, “Enough, I guess. Not from your ends, obviously. …But I know the guy who hired my crappy Uncle didn’t so much hire Gramps as he did threaten him into ramping up the stakes from one in a thousand to ‘every game’. …I know the same guy who did it, ‘s probably why Mom had to leave the room when Riki asked about his dad back when we were kids,” he continued, Kakyoin furrowing his brows at that in particular.
“His…Dad..?” he muttered, only to feel somewhat ill as the dots connected.
And still, rather than say more on that, Jens only shrugged. “...Shit happens, right?” he said quietly. “...It’s like I said, Gramps wasn’t good, but it doesn’t stop me from seeing when someone had to have been worse. …And even if whatever happened before made such a mess, I know something about what happened ‘here’. …And what I know is, you, or I guess whoever was with you…they took that guy out, and did it in a way that meant I could be here, having a family like I do. Warts and all!” Jens crowed, throwing his hands out. “...Wouldn’t have it any other way, not just saying that because it’d mean I wasn’t here either,” he said with a wink.
‘Warts and all’, huh? Kakyoin could guess what that meant from the context at least, but it still left him silent. It left him staring, wondering if maybe this was how most friendships were supposed to start, instead of the one he’d gained largely by getting brainwashed and attempting (poorly) to beat the shit out of someone.
Kakyoin swallowed, and once again nodded.
And this time, rather than delay, simply started to talk about what happened that night in 1988.