Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

She had been standing in her kitchen, when it happened.

It was slow at first- she’d dropped a pen and it seemingly appeared immediately upon the ground, already rolled to the side. She poured herself some water, only to find the glass overflowing into the sink within seconds. At 69, she was hardly someone who was yet susceptible to memory troubles, Holly was sure. Even her father had remained reasonably sharp as a tack until just recently- and at this point, she wasn’t yet certain if he was teasing her or not.

When the building began to show signs of age, she rushed outside immediately. The plants there, they were safe- as grown as they had been, never growing more than they were. Alive, like her, they flourished even as the city in the distance began to wear down to nothing, the house before her doing the same alongside even the clothes on her body.

Until everything, the trees, herself, and what other forms of life still existed, were standing on nothing at all.

…

She had been standing in her kitchen, when the strangest sense of deja vu occurred. She couldn’t shake it. It was almost like a dream- as if somehow, faint in her memory, it was months later than it already was. She went to call her son, (he doesn’t answer, she knows,) then her father as a check in, (Shizuka will answer, and pass her to their father, and they’ll speak idly of recent happenings in their life) before settling down for a book (the heroine is going to be faced with such a perilous choice, as her family considers signing a contract of marriage to save them from poverty).

Holly looked up from her book in the living room (in 15 minutes, she will go to the kitchen and prepare dinner for herself, before-)-

The clock began to move faster.

The book was on the ground before she properly dropped it.

The rain came, and then went in an instant.

Holly rushed outside as her thoughts began to scream that something was wrong, and she watched the city, her house, the planet, dissolve to nothing a number of months early.

…

Holly Kujo blinked, and she was in her kitchen. There were no thoughts plaguing her mind of the future, but for some reason a headache began to stir up through her, her hands shaking as she moved to hold her head. It was a motion that she soon halted, staring at her hands in slow alarm-

They were younger. No- she, was younger.

Her breathing was steady. She forced it to be, one part for anxiety, another from a habit that her headache continued to insist was normal. Her body couldn’t have been this young- it was 2012, and she hadn’t looked like this since 1985. Moving her arms, Holly could only find more things amiss- though the house was her own, it was as if her skin itself was not. Scars- scars of a strange sort could be found at her arms and front, and even her neck- scars that she quietly found herself thinking of Jotaro for, rather than herself.

Something nagged at her thoughts, as she continued to breathe. Something was wrong- vines began to grow from her very back as if to address it, coiled raspberry plants curling as their thorns grew sharp and pronged. Gold light glistened across them as she breathed, and the sound of the clock ticking felt somehow louder with each tick. Her body was hers and yet not. She could see from here a number of photos on the wall that were different in just a few minor ways. The more she looked, the more tiny things, insignificant things, began to build. Something wasn’t right. Something was very wrong. As if time itself had-

. . .

There was a knock on the door, and Holly moved robotically toward it as she breathed, part of her praying for answers, and another for something to distract her from her own mind.

“H-AaaAH-!”

What she found with a gasp was a great and imposing stand of violet, cradling a near motionless form in their arms.

Blue eyes looked up from a crouched and desperate position, and Holly choked on her breath but momentarily before habit pulled it back into place.

“Star…Platinum..?”

The stand disintegrated, and she barely caught the small bundle before they hit the ground.

…

Holly Kujo had been in her kitchen when it happened.

And with but one blink, her life was no longer her own.

Chapter Text

Before Holly Kujo had stood in her kitchen, Jotaro Kujo died.

…

Death was dark.

Not metaphorically perhaps, but instead literally. Death was dark, and it was cold, and strangely like the ocean.

(He was in the ocean. He was-)

He couldn’t die.

That had been Jotaro’s thought, as time resumed and the blades pierced through his skull at blistering speed. Perhaps thrown at the force of even a vampire’s controlled toss he would have been alright. He’d survived such a thing once before after all. But Pucci’s blades were more than merely thrown, they were propelled by time itself increasing their velocity, and by the time he could even comprehend something coming toward him after pushing Jolyne aside, it was already through.

…

…But he couldn’t die. He couldn’t.

Jolyne needed to live. He needed to live to make sure Jolyne would live. In the void of nothing, floating in the empty sea, it was all he could think of as his heart clenched.

He couldn’t die.

…And yet even in death, something was coming for him.

Standing before him, floating before him, he could see Star Platinum there. Wearing an expression that was as serious as ever, as they had in the last number of years; their eyes shadowed, their gaze piercing through him with nothing but ferocity behind them.

…Or was it something else?

Something was coming for him.

He could feel it scratch at his very soul, as if to try and tie a lead around it before dragging him to a kennel. Something through the void, cutting through death itself, to take them somewhere yet worse.

…Star Platinum’s gaze had lost its ferocity, Jotaro realized.

What he saw instead was nothing short of exhaustion.

And what did he want him to do, he felt himself plea. He, too, was tired- and yet he, too, wanted nothing more than to push back through the void and tear the priest’s head from his very shoulders. What did he want him to do, Jotaro thought-

-and then Star Platinum passed through him, and the sensation of the rope simply vanished.

Jotaro sucked in a breath at the feeling almost immediately- despite the emptiness around them it felt like being doused in ice water, a frigid chill rushing from head to foot. He grabbed instinctively at his front, only to pull his hand back with a jump.

It was gloved.

Fingerless, studded across the back, the fabric dark and soft against his skin.

…

His skin was purple.

Choking, it took an instant to look himself over further. The void around them was feeling less empty now- less like death and more like something real, as if the world itself were rushing to catch up to them to set them back upon it. It didn’t even take seconds to find each familiar feature- the pauldrons at his shoulders, the scarf about his neck, the armored boots he’d barely cast an eye to in life-

Now fading, however slightly-

Jotaro, Star Platinum, turned abruptly from his growing horror to see what had become of the body that had been his only to find that something else entirely was there. Eyes half-lidded and quickly fading in focus, staring upward at nothing as the Stand froze.

It was no more than a child. He could see resemblance there, if he thought of old photos his mother had kept- but it was nothing but a child he realized as shaking arms moved to carefully take hold of them, his thoughts reeling at at the sight.

How old, he found himself wondering, would Star Platinum have truly been? They said that the average human being slept one full third of their life, but Stands for the most part had no need for sleep- he wasn’t even sure that most could. No- they were simply there when most willed it, like the manifestations they were.

A Fighting Spirit only existed when it was needed.

…did the size of this child, so small that all they wore of his clothes was his shirt, indicate he’d needed it too little? Or too much?

His arms were translucent, Jotaro realized. It took all his focus to so much as grab the little one as the empty void around them seemed to beat upon their skin. How many times had he and many others pummeled someone into unconsciousness to take their Stand out of commission? That was all it took. It never had to be death- they just had to lose focus.

Lose their will.

The child’s eyes were glazed with exhaustion, and Jotaro grit his teeth. First he died failing to truly save his daughter, now he couldn’t even save himself!? And if he was still here for that matter, how could he delay? Jolyne was still fighting- Jolyne needed him, and instead he was here!

After everything, everything that had been to keep her away from that danger!

His hands gripped the child in his arms (how often had he held his own daughter), feeling heartbeat and breath as it waned (she’d had a fever while he was in Morioh and nearly died, but people were dying there too!), while his jaw only tightened more.

(Do something)

(DO SOMETHING)

“ORRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-!”

Time tore itself apart, and idly in the back of his mind there was one thought.

‘A safe place.’

‘No matter what happened, this was a safe place.’

In the trees, birds were chirping quietly in the late afternoon sun. Despite the early spring chil of March- if above freezing could be considered a chill- he could only barely feel it on his skin.

Stands felt what their users felt. Stand users felt what their Stands felt. Jotaro swallowed, and forced himself to move forward. His legs felt like weights- for all the strength he knew ‘Star Platinum’ to have, now more than ever was he reminded of the true caveat to most Stand abilities. The child in his arms was barely conscious, and fading fast- they needed help. Both needed help, loathe as he was to think of it, more so as he recognized the house in front of him.

This place…

…Was a safe place, and he had wanted so badly for it to always remain as such. Avoiding it, keeping calls brief…

Putting as much energy into his hand as possible he knocked on the door, even as he fell to his knees.

With how quickly he was losing his presence, he barely comprehended how much younger his mother looked as she opened the door. He simply looked up, shakily held out the child…

…and faded with a relieved sigh when she took hold before his failing arms dropped them to the ground.

Chapter Text

Holly remembered having a son.

Not so long after collapsing in her doorway to fearfully check over the fatigued child in her arms, the phone in the kitchen had started ringing, prompting her to make her way there and answer. Her conversation with Josuke had been short- neither truly knew what had happened, only that something had- and it had almost been the idea of checking in on Shizuka and their father that ended the call.

Except Josuke choked out that he had called them first, only to receive an answer from a completely different family.

The call ended with the promise that both would do what they could to find out what that meant, and in the back of her mind Holly did her best to ignore the feeling that one among the two no longer existed.

Holly held back tears as she laid the child upon a bed, brushing strands of messy, so familiarly messy black hair from such a recognizable round face, and remembered having two sons.

Jotaro, of course. Her sweet, kind Jotaro, hiding himself away from the world for the sake of a heart too burdened and injured.

And then somehow…Jotaro again, and yet Not Jotaro.

The child tucked in now that she was certain they were merely sleeping, Holly looked about the room, her son’s room, that son’s room, and felt nausea steadily rising through her throat even as hamon practiced breathing brought it back down.

So much in here was wrong.

So much in here just wasn’t right. The photos that were there were slightly more plentiful than Jotaro’s had been, and were entirely mundane in their nature. There were certain posters still on the wall, certain sparse furnishings, and yet it felt as if everything had been shifted to the left.

It wasn’t her son.

Yet it was, and she remembered having him in her arms, watching him grow over time. At first, along the exact path that Jotaro had taken. And then ever slightly, as time went on and as highschool approached, diverging. As if he had known the path he had been taking was one of pain, and simply…avoided it.

Such was her ‘second’ son.

‘Shotaro’, her mind supplied. The same characters. A different reading.

Holly’s breath was impossibly steady as she looked over the child on the bed now, a humanoid mass of vines giving her a second perspective in the same moment. Where her own eyes looked to the little girl in the bed, her wild hair streaked across the pillow like a small black sun, the second set continued to pour over the room. As if unaccepting. As if judging, studying.

Trying to determine what it all meant.

She held her head. There had been an ever growing headache ever since the world had ‘resettled’ in a sense, an incoming and pressuring wall of knowledge that simply could not be parsed. Ask her but two minutes ago and she would have never known the name ‘Shotaro’ as her ‘son’s own, but already now she could look to the photo on the desk that featured her standing at his side on his entrance to school and recall the day perfectly. Almost exactly the same as the day Jotaro had gotten his own photo taken, it was- gakuran coat buttoned tightly shut around a form that had yet to grow the muscle that was going with his height, an unblemished cap sitting upon his head.

Over time Jotaro’s smile in the photo had become rarer and rarer, she felt. Something that had to nearly be fought for, she feared. Even in the photo she remembered, his smile had been somewhat forced. Tense. More for her, perhaps, in her excitement for her baby boy taking another great step into the world.

Shotaro…

…Shotaro’s smile, she noted, was softer. Something about that day had been more brilliant to him, if she could only piece together why. But for all that the question was on her mind, her bigger one was still where her real-

Where her first son, was.

(‘Real’ didn’t feel correct as a differentiation already. ‘Real’ implied she had no connection to this boy with her son’s face, as if all the little things in the very room she stood in did not already prove that he was his own being, beyond the likes of any doppelganger. ‘Real’ implied she couldn’t find room in her heart for him, who had done nothing more than exist within a void to be filled.)

Holly could remember Star Platinum- or at least, Star Platinum as he had one day been described to her. Her father wanted her to know nothing of danger. Her son quite agreed. Her brother however, didn’t see such facts as a risk, and over the past few years she had quite appreciated having family she could regularly talk to within visiting distance. She missed her father- a feeling that somehow felt deeper and deeper still the more she thought of it. She missed her son- how long it had been, since she had been able to actually contact him, since he had answered her calls instead of ignoring them out of worry.

She missed her family, and it was a feeling that Josuke had been able to reciprocate on.

Josuke had described Star Platinum as Jotaro’s spirit made real- full of vibrant yet welcoming colour, despite an imposing and fearsome visage. Big, perhaps terrifyingly so- but there was a kindness there that could not be hidden, not even as such a protective, warrior-like force. Josuke had told her what he saw, and what he saw had been what she met at that door.

She’d known as much the moment she opened it, and Star Platinum’s reply had only cemented that. Star Platinum was her son’s stand.

…But then…

Then who was the child?

Still sitting at the side of the bed, Holly gasped as a thorn from her stand’s hand brushed against the girl’s hair with enough sharpness that a strand or two cut free- and gasped again when a series of images appeared in her mind. The woman sat up stock still with wide eyes, and as she looked to her Stand, and then to the child, she held a hand to her heart.

Holly remembered having two sons- Jotaro, of her first timeline. Shotaro, of this new one.

Holly remembered, as images of the little girl’s yet to come waking moments appeared, her Stand, roiling with vines and berries and eyes agleam with starlight.

Holly remembered her names-

And as Space Oddity gently held her with vine wreathed arms, ‘Jocelyne Kujo’ wondered how it could be possible to hold two lives of experience within herself without bursting.

Chapter Text

When she woke up, she did not know who she was, or where she was. She knew that the world was both clearer, and hazier than it used to be. She knew that things felt more, more than they ever had.

She knew, as a face manifested at the side of the thing she lay upon, that it was the face of someone very important to her, who had been there as long as she had ‘memory’.

“....”

She said nothing. She did not, in fact, even know there was anything she could say.

“....Ora,” was the whispered sound the purple being beside her said, as she slowly blinked in recognition and ignorance alike.

Truthfully, there was not a lot she knew at all. But her body knew how to move on its own, to a point- the girl slowly sat up with a yawn, looking over herself with bleary blue eyes that took in every detail they could.

She had tiny hands, but they could only be recognized as such because when she held them out for herself on her lap and on the bedspread, the purple man’s own hands slowly moved over to hers. They were cool to the touch- and yet when the touch registered with the back of her hand, it could be felt at her fingers as well.

As if she was the one making the motion instead, and not the ‘purple man’ who was familiar yet not. The girl blinked at them, and then blinked at the man’s face-

It was impassive almost- eyes shadowed by dark markings on the face, expression a stern line. Yet something in the eyes spoke of sadness- sadness and confusion that could not be put to words, and could only be felt.

The girl blinked, and her eyes moved around the room even as her body became aware of the sensation of cloth over herself. The shirt she wore was roomy, and large, and smelled somewhat of salt-water. While she did not know that everything else had been torn apart by time, it seemed that whatever she was wearing now had survived to come with her, one way or another. What that something she was wearing was, she did not have a word for however.

She did not have a word for anything, in fact.

The room seemed familiar- yet somehow, it did not. As the purple man moved away, she was able to move and climb slowly off to the floor, feet touching the ground before the rest of her unceremoniously fell after.

“OOf-!” she gasped, only to blink in shock at the sound itself. As the purple man held her slightly- keeping her from falling entirely to the floor, she muttered the sound again under her breath.

“Uuuffff. FFffff…”

Slowly, she was helped to her feet. Wobbling, shaking, but none the less understanding somehow that if she moved one foot, and then the next, she could probably see more than just this room.

“Fffff…”

“....’ora’,” the purple man whispered again, and she looked up to him to blink as they stood at the door.

“....Ohhhh….Ohhhhhhra…”

The purple man said nothing- in fact, he drew back, as if struck- reaching up near his brow for something only to bring his hand back, and turn away before fading slightly from view.

The girl repeated him again. “Oh…Ohra..! Orrah!” Wobbling off balance on the spot, again she repeated it, but louder. “Ora ora ora..-!”

…And then, she fell again.

“Ooof!”

“Ahh- are you awake!?”

This time, they both looked to the door. Footsteps rushed from outside the room, and the door opened to reveal a woman who seemed as familiar as- or even more familiar- than the room itself.

Blinking at the sounds, the girl slowly mouthed to repeat them- “...Aaaah….Aaaaarrre…?”

In the meantime the woman rushed to scoop her from the ground, narrowly missing the purple man’s faint form in the process. “Oh, I had hoped I was here when you woke up…it’s okay little one, I’m here…”

“Ooohhhhhh…?”

There was a pause, and the woman looked to her with both worry and confusion. Rather than say anything however, she carried the girl out from the room. “Let’s get you something to eat okay? I bet you’re very hungry from whatever happened…” The woman’s eyes trailed toward the purple man- and then back to the girl. “And Star Platinum will be here too, okay?”

The purple man- (Star Platinum?)- seemed to watch the woman with that same pain in his eyes. Maybe more. The girl didn’t know to nod, but she did turn her gaze to the woman to repeat those few sounds she seemed to make fairly often. “Ohhhhhhkayyyy…”

There was worry in her eyes. Not the way they were in ‘Star’s eyes- it was a worry without knowing, where the other one seemed to know too much. (She didn’t quite understand what that feeling could be, that knowing, but she recognized it all the same.) The girl was sat down upon the floor near a low table in another room- they passed a room with taller seats, but this was where they went- and before her, a small plate set.

She stared at it.

Both ‘Star’, and the woman, stared at her.

“...Do you know how to eat?” she asked kindly, carefully taking a set of utensils to bring some of what was there forward. “Here- open your mouth. ‘Aah’,” she said, opening hers and watching expectantly.

“...Aaaah-?”

The utensils were moved forward- mouth automatically registering what was there, and chewing, and swallowing.

“Mnh!!”

Whatever it was, it was definitely not bad (whatever bad would be). Beside her, the woman was sighing in relief. “Thank goodness…” she was muttering, occasionally looking to Star at the side. She did not say anything to him however- instead she went back to the food, and carefully took the girl’s hand in hers. “Here- I’ll show you how, okay?”

“Ohhhhkay…”

There was a lot to learn, but she was doing quite well quite fast. The woman’s hand helped her to hold the utensils, and from there she was able to grab and scoop the ‘food’. She knew where it went from there- into the mouth- and did just that.

Easy. “Is it good?” The woman asked, and the girl looked to her with a blink. After a moment she smiled- “Good, right..?”

That seemed like the right word, yes. “Gooood…”

A nod, a bobbing of the head, up and down, from the woman.

Slowly, the girl repeated. “...Gooood…?”

“Right!”

She went back to eating.

There were a lot of sounds that could be made now. Somehow it seemed there were a great too many. They had meanings, probably. Different meanings, for different sounds. It felt like there hadn’t been a need for that once before, and yet here she was. Star, though the sound felt wrong, not his somehow, was watching in silence the entire time. He only had one sound, it seemed. And only one.

It felt that it would be better that way, if she only had to worry about one sound. It would be easy to tell what it meant when it was said- but if she could make these other ones, then maybe that was important.

The girl reached the last of what was on her plate.

“Are you done?” the woman asked.

In turn she nodded- it felt like the right motion, at least. Though she didn’t say anything however, the woman seemed happy enough.

“Good..! I’m going to make sure to take very good care of you okay? Just like a good ‘Haha’, okay?”

….Haha…

Felt familiar. “...Haha..?”

It felt familiar- but when she said the word, ‘Star’ seemed even more distant, and despaired. ‘Haha’ however, simply seemed to pause- wet spots at her eyes as she smiled.

“...Yes. That’s right- ‘Haha’. You can be my little girl, as long as you want, and I’ll be your ‘Haha’, okay?”

She nodded again. “...Haha…”

“That’s right!”

“Haaahaa,” she said more ‘firmly, a broken laugh coming from the woman in turn.

“That’s right! And you…” She trailed off. The girl stared in silence as she did so, watching as ‘Haha’ bit her lip. “...I…guess you don’t have a name, do you?” she weakly laughed, the girl staring blankly in turn. Taking a shuddering breath, ‘Haha’ just moved to brush some hair from the girl’s face. “...Well. We’ll figure it out, okay?”

Not understanding, the girl merely nodded.

“...Ohhhhkay…”

Chapter Text

There were few things she could determine about the little girl that had been carried in by Star Platinum, but above all, what she could determine about Star Platinum perhaps shook her the most.

The girl herself was ‘empty’, in a sense. While so clearly filled with a life of her own, it was as though she had nothing in her head at all- not a whit of language, not an ounce of understanding of the world around her. She learned quickly of course- within minutes she picked up basic movement, and within hours it seemed to Holly that the girl could, however minimally, understand what she was saying.

But it was rapid growth from a base of zero, and it showed.

Star Platinum, in contrast, twisted a stake of suspicion deep into her heart until it hurt. He acted human. Too human. Watching with his eyes from the side, making subtle motions that she recognized all too well despite years of distance enforced by the other. These were the actions of her son- her first son, her once only son-

Performed and displayed by a Stand.

Star Platinum was her son’s Stand. Her son had been nowhere to be seen.

Could it be possible, she felt herself wonder? This Stand that acted so much like her child, and this child who acted…

Like no one.

Like someone who had never been a person until that very day.

(She had spoken, however vaguely, to Sadao about this- describing a small child brought in by a Stand, and leaving it largely at that after he himself had started his call with ‘is this how a Stand attack feels?’ He had called not long after the first call to Josuke had ended, frantically asking if she was alright; very little had changed about his current circumstance, but when rehearsing a song he’d named for her ended in him balking and jumping at the title, he’d acted as quickly as expected.)

(It had taken a lot to reassure him of the fact that he didn’t need to fly back home from his reunion tour. Being frank, she worried that the sight of her would send him into too much shock as it was, and it sounded to her that even her dear husband wasn’t entirely certain what he knew to be real- he as well, needed more time to adjust.)

The thoughts on the child plagued her even when the phone rang again, and even after, when what she answered it to flung ice water down her spine.

“Moshi-moshiii! This is the Kujo residence!”

“Hello, Haha.”

It was Shotaro.

(He called every week, those new memories insisted.)

“Sorry for calling late- things came up this week with the Foundation, and I didn’t get back until recently…”

(He had been working with them ever since university. He had no Stand as best they could tell, but he had his reasons.)

“How was your week?”

Part of her wanted to scream. To cry. Her smile felt fake, stretched across her face. Holly remembered Josuke’s panicked breathing across the phone line, as he asked if she had heard from their father. As he said-

‘I saw Grandpa when I went to check in on Mom…Mom was talking to him, they were both shaking, but I saw him, Holly..!’

Ryohei was dead.

Now he wasn’t.

Jotaro was gone. Yet also-

“It was great~!” It wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t. “I’ve been reading a new book, and I got started on the garden, so in spring we’ll see plenty of fresh new flowers~! And soon, it’ll be warm enough to go outside to see the stars at night again!~” But she couldn’t make herself say anything but the ‘truth’.

That had been what she was working on, until that ‘day’ in the kitchen. Even this time around.

She couldn’t make herself say anything else.

“That’s good to hear. Irene should be over for the end of Spring Break,” he was continuing conversationally. On her end of the line, Holly frowned. Irene wasn’t a name she recognized. Irene was-

(Shotaro had asked for suggestions before she was born. Tired, hiding his stress, but trying- trying to make sure he ‘didn’t do it wrong’, he had said.)

(‘I know Gramps wants to see a ‘JoJo’ in the family again, but I want to leave that to someone else,’ he had said. ‘It feels like the right thing to do.’)

“Is she? That’s good to hear! Do you have many plans?”

Irene was the same as before and yet not. But it wasn’t the same as the reason her eldest son was gone.

(‘Of course, it means I have to tell Polnareff his idea isn’t going to work…’)

Jolyne. Often spelled Jolene. French. It was often shortened to ‘Jolie’, meaning ‘Pretty’, but more importantly it had been a name that could be given kanji. Kanji that in turn meant gentle, gradual…companion…

(‘Well…I know you wanted to make sure it could translate well, but…’)

“Not too many. She wanted to spend most of it with a new boyfriend…I’ll be meeting him, so I can tell you how that goes.”

…was her heart…breaking? Or was…

Was this something else?

Behind her, the little girl that had appeared with her son’s Stand (her son, it was so much like her son she couldn’t bear it-), was drawing. She had gently set paper and crayon down and shown her how to make the markings, setting it all atop a placemat to protect the table and trusting that the violet shade among them all could handle things for a short time from there. She was drawing in silence, her eyes big and wide with attention, occasionally looking around the room, or at ‘Star Platinum’, or the few flowers already blooming outside.

Something hurt somehow, even as her mind filled the blanks.

(They named her ‘Irene’. Greek. Peace. Choosing kanji characters that would match in sound, and…)

(‘...I want her to have a peaceful life, without any pain. I’ll do anything to make sure it happens.’)

Of course he would. She was his daughter. The daughter of…both, somehow.

“I was thinking though Haha, that we might come visit during the summer once her semester is over. I should have time, so-”

There was a faint sound over the line. Like an engine approaching.

Holly steeled herself and put as much cheer in her voice as possible. “That sounds great! I can’t wait to see you both again!”

“Same. …I think that’s Irene now, so I’m going to hang up. …I love you, Haha. Stay safe.”

The words rang through her skull. “Okay!~ I love you too!”

It wasn’t a lie. It came out without thinking. This was still her son. A different son. Her son. But it felt…

There was a pause on the other end of the phone. As if he wanted to say something else- as if he’d felt something, heard something, or…

The sound of a door met her ears. The faint sound of a woman calling- ‘Hey Dad! I’m here! I uh…brought someone other than-’

The phone was hung up.

Holly slowly set hers back on the cradle, and realized quietly that her face was wet. Gold vines softly curled upward to catch the tears, and otherwise faded back away as she steadied her breathing and turned away.

How did she feel…how could she feel? Irene was real in the sense that she was Jolyne, this much she knew in her heart. It pained her to think even that much, however. How little had she seen her granddaughter over the years before. How little had she been able to hear of her until it had been too late? And now, so suddenly, she had memories. Memories of watching her run about her house, memories of her walking through…

Morioh?

She could remember Morioh…?

With a shuddering breath she turned to look at where the little girl was still drawing- at where ‘Star Platinum’ now watched her with something unreadable- or perhaps unreadable to anyone but herself- in his eyes.

“...I’ll be fine~” she assured, and almost expectantly, she watched the Stand as he curled his fists and ground his teeth. “It’s just a headache~”

The Stand could do nothing. Her son could do nothing.

Holly moved to sit beside the little girl, and looked at what she was drawing.

“Having fun?” she asked her, smile less forced, but now simply pained.

For a moment, the girl did not seem to understand. But slowly, she nodded, pointing at the paper.

Alright. She had that gesture down. “Oh, you drew something,” she cheered quietly, looking to the girl’s drawing. “Let’s see…oh!”

It was as crude as any child’s drawing typically was. Limbs and head proportioned oddly, the face in particular large where she’d focused on that and added the rest as after thought. But there was the wild hair, the ‘frowning’ face-

“Oh, you drew Star Platinum?”

A small nod- Holly watched as the girl picked up the paper and nodded again, holding it quietly for the Stand himself.

“Ssss…’Hoooh-shi’,” she determined, causing Holly to blink. Even ‘Star Platinum’ did so, looking to the girl in quiet alarm.

Holly recovered first. This child seemed empty. Empty of knowledge, of real understanding…all she had been doing was listening, and watching, for however many hours.

But ‘Hoshi’, she had said all the same. Hoshi. Star. Star, the way she’d said it moments ago, on the phone with-

“...Is that his real name?” Holly whispered, the way so many parents knew to do with children discussing ‘serious’, ‘secret’ topics. “Have I been getting it wrong?”

Again there was a pause, as the girl considered this. She looked at her drawing again. Looked at her Stand, who now seemed unsure of just what was happening.

And she nodded. “...Nnnnn…not Star Platinum,” she said with quiet deliberation. “...Hoshi.”

Was it more breaking, that she saw in that figure, or was it something else? Something more akin to relief, or even gratitude?

“I’ll make sure to remember that,” Holly assured the girl, gently taking the drawing. “Here- let’s put Hoshi’s picture on the fridge okay~? That way, everyone can see what a good job you did!” Though the girl did not seem to know what on earth was meant by it, being led to the fridge allowed the message to sink in with ease. She regarded the placement upon the fridge with something of awe, eyes wide with wonder.

This girl was…empty, but not quite. Slowly, things were trickling in. Filling the spaces a person might fill, where she had been unable to be one before. That was certain.

(The person behind her, meanwhile, was left to watch. With a stare that continued to cause her heart to break, and crumble, while her conversation over the phone sank like a stone in her stomach.)

(Her son was behind her and she couldn’t even bring herself to acknowledge it in full, because if she did she knew it would crush him farther.)

The gaps were filling in though. Quickly, but slowly. Piece by piece.

They shared another meal together. She walked her through the house, watching carefully as the ever present ‘Hoshi’ followed.

Holly could remember with such chilling clarity, when she had her second son. She could remember a man with golden hair standing with her father (he hadn’t been there when Jotaro was born, Japan was so far, but he’d made the trip that time somehow, with everyone-). A man whose name seemed to hover at the fringes of memory, who smiled, and laughed, and-

Holly could remember sitting with Sadao as they considered kanji.

‘Jotaro,’ she had decided with him. ‘Look- the kanji have the same meaning as Joseph- we can name him after him, and then maybe he’ll accept things more!’

Sadao had been optimistic. So had she.

(They had both been optimistic, once, before so much had destroyed them and before Sadao had been left to receive a call and come flying in with nothing but panic and grief.)

(But grief for What…)

‘Joy’ could remember a different tale.

‘I want to name him after both of them,’ she could remember saying to Sadao. ‘You know what they’re like- he was practically a second father to me, and without him we would never have seen Papa get on that plane!’

Sadao had pointed at a kanji, and written something above it with a smile.

‘I know you picked it for ‘Jo’, but…’

“Hey~”

Holly kept her voice soft as she sat with the little girl. She was still wearing that shirt- she needed to get her clothes, but so much of the day had been spent in chaos as she watched her slowly learn to interact with the world around her, that there had just been no time to plan for those things.

(No time, perhaps, because of how much her head continued to spin.)

“Do you know why Hoshi is Hoshi? It’s because that’s his name, right~?” she said, watching for the recognition and understanding in the little one’s eyes. “Do you know what your name is now?”

The girl was quiet.

…

…There was nothing. Nothing. More nothing, and finally she slowly shook her head no- even looking sad, confused…hurt.

(It was an expression only made worse by the look upon ‘Hoshi’s own face. Confusion, realization, and perhaps something worse.)

Holly pressed on. “Would you like me to help you find one?”

With a long stare, and a longer pause, she found herself smiling when the answer was a nod for ‘yes’.

(This time the smile was as warm and bright as even the child could recall in faint, bubbling memories that were gradually given context)

Chapter Text

Suzume.

For ‘Suzi’. “For your ‘Nonna’,” ‘Haha’ told her, as she looked at the symbols on the paper.

Suzume.

That was her name.

“It means ‘Sparrow’. Do you see the little birds outside?”

She didn’t know what birds were, until she looked where Haha pointed. They were small things, round and brown, moving back and forth through the air. Suzume nodded as Haha continued.

“They’re cute, right~? They’re cute little birds, so it’s a cute name~!”

Suzume didn’t really understand what ‘cute’ was beyond ‘good’, so she just nodded. Hoshi, quiet ever since they had first left the room together, simply stared with a hard to grasp expression on his face.

The more that her Haha talked, however, the more she was understanding. By the second ‘day’ she ‘was’, Suzume could walk without any help, eat without any help, and so much more. It was something that seemed to make her Haha very happy, she noted- and that was something else she was understanding. What happy was. What sad was. Maybe not completely, but it was a little.

And that was good.

The more that Suzume learned, the more that it seemed her ‘Haha’ learned as well. Haha’s head would hurt a lot, and she would make a strange face, like a smile but without any of the ‘happy’ in it. Hoshi, the one that Haha would sometimes start to call ‘Jo-’something or ‘Star Platinum’ before using his name, would have a much more sad face, without ever trying to make such a smile. Instead he just sort of looked away, or even disappeared.

He was getting better at doing that, like how she was getting better at walking and soon running and even jumping (though her Haha would quickly run over with shining golden vines to tug her shirt back down when she did that).

Being better at disappearing didn’t stop him from grabbing her under her arms when she got angry at the rock she accidentally kicked however (she was about to kick it harder, because That would definitely show it what happened when you hurt her toes), or at the bug that bit her hand (she could remember being Very angry at a bug much larger, and even if she hadn’t caught that one, she could probably catch this one), or at the squirrel that stole some of the peanuts she had in a bowl given to Just Her, from Haha.

(She didn’t see it coming. Somehow it felt like she Should have, like how her drawing of Hoshi Should have been different, but she couldn’t figure out why.)

The dish of her remaining peanuts had scattered, but she didn’t care- she was too busy chasing the one that had made off with the first peanut. It wasn’t anything for squirrels after all, and just like the other things that had gotten her ‘mad’, she stopped paying attention to everything that was there and instead started screaming and charging until she was stuck in the air courtesy of big purple arms, with her tiny shrill ‘oras’ filling the air.

And then her Haha had come out, gently thanked Hoshi, and took her back inside saying nice things until she calmed down.

And that was good too.

On the third day, ‘Haha’ showed her a ‘computer’ screen, with lots of things to wear on it. That’s what ‘clothes’ were. The thing that she had been wearing, and the shirts after- those were also clothes. A type of clothes.

(Shirts.)

Haha said her first ‘shirt’ was smelly and dirty and ‘crusty’, and while she stared somewhat blankly at the shirt that Hoshi could not take his eyes from, Haha even squished a corner of the bottom to make it ‘crunch’ from dried salt. She said ‘I’ll wash it until it’s nice and clean, and we’ll take good care of it,’ and looked right at Hoshi when she finished saying that.

(Hoshi didn’t say anything. Other than sometimes a quiet Ora, Hoshi didn’t ever say anything, and it felt like he didn’t like that.)

(Quietly, Suzume asked her Haha if Hoshi needed clothes, and both of them had just stared blankly before Haha said Hoshi would be okay. Hoshi for his part did that thing where he tried to grab something up near his head that wasn’t there, before disappearing.)

Haha told her she could choose anything to wear, scrolling through page after page of different ‘clothes’ that she could choose. ‘You need things for the top, and for the bottom,’ she had kindly explained, gesturing to her shirt and to her pants. Suzume thought, at that point, she only had a top. She looked down and, quietly- that was how things came out right now, quiet, because it felt like ‘loud’ was meant to be for something more important, more angry- quietly, said-

“...there’s no bottoms…”

And Haha had just laughed, kindly, warmly, and showed her the screen and pulled her on her lap. She let her point at different skirts and shirts and things, things with flowers, or shapes, or just different colors. Haha even stopped when she saw something called a ‘scarf’, and eagerly pointed at it to whisper ‘It’s Hoshi’s!’.

Haha asked if she wanted it, and after Suzume nodded it was added to the cart; the last item that was added before clicking ‘check out’ and then clicking the button for ‘order’.

“And now, we wait,” Haha whispered, beaming as the ‘window’ (it wasn’t really a window, windows were the things with glass and screen in them between inside and outside, but Haha kept saying it was), was closed. “Okay~?”

Suzume knew that word, and even smiled. That word, after all, was a Good word. “Ooooo-kay..!”

She was pretty sure smiles were good.

Especially when Haha smiled back.

(She wished she could get Hoshi to smile, but maybe that would be a later thing.)

For now, Suzume thought she was getting pretty good at ‘being’. Even if she didn’t completely understand why that was so hard, when everyone else seemed to do it so easy.

She at least liked it though.

(Somehow, a lot of things felt nicer now.)

Chapter Text

Jotaro Kujo-

(Star Platinum,)

(‘Hoshi’,)

-was not faring well.

When he had first woken his stand, he had put himself in a prison.

Watched the fists launch his attackers back with enough force that it could’ve been a full pro-ring match, watched them twitch bloodily on the pavement, and then immediately turned himself in and locked himself behind bars.

Pulling his legs up onto the thin, stained mattress in the room as objects he occasionally wished he had began to pile.

After an hour he’d felt thirsty- and a beer appeared. A little after the beer, hungry- chips, snacks. More time, and he wished briefly there was at least some music playing in the back area where the holding cells sat.

A radio.

He tried for a moment to just not think. Just not do anything. He let the boredom sink deep into his skin until he could almost have fallen asleep, in fact, only to find a pile of manga and an RC car next.

And as such, the frustration had quickly built by the time his mother arrived- worried, confused, but ever filled with faith that her son would be fine-

(He wasn’t fine.)

Something that had only worsened and frankly threatened to press into what he would best describe as ‘resigned rage’ by the time his mother arrived again, this time bringing his estranged grandfather (who he had perhaps spoken to twice and seen all of once) and a man from Egypt who at the time seemed far too confident for his frayed nerves.

(He wasn’t fine for days, weeks, months after,)

He wondered, not for the first time, if they could have found a way to save Avdol from whatever void Polnareff watched him fall into. Gone in an instant, nothing but arms left behind, to a place no one could truly describe and locate, not even the Stand user himself.

(Years after,)

Jotaro made himself a prisoner when he first woke his Stand. Back then, there had been family and friends to pull him out and keep pulling, until they themselves were largely dead and gone.

Now, his Stand had made him a prisoner in his own body.

Truthfully he couldn’t even say it was his body anymore- for obvious reasons (he had assuredly been born male, rather than requiring any medical means to get there)- and no matter what choices Star Platinum-

Suzume, for Suzi, and dammit he couldn’t even be mad at his mother because every time she looked it was clear she knew, even if she couldn’t bring herself to voice it.

It was clear this was tearing her apart just as much, and were it not for the fact that Suzume herself seemed so temporarily disconnected from most strong emotions he would’ve had to force himself to disappear entirely to keep from bringing the house down in frustration.

The point was that no matter any choices made to bring the kid closer to resembling ‘Jotaro’, it wouldn’t be ‘him’.

It’d be a part of his soul that outgrew him, while he watched, distantly- name surrendered to the void and replaced by a child’s quiet and painful choice to simply pick ‘Star’.

(It was already happening, one could argue, watching tiny fingers point and squish against a computer screen at a shirt covered in faux fur patches shaped like rabbits.)

It hadn’t even been a week, and he couldn’t stand it.

He could restrain himself, refrain from reacting, but he couldn’t stand it. He couldn’t touch, unless on some level Suzume desired him to touch anything. He couldn’t move something, unless she on some level desired it. Perhaps the most alarming exception to the rule had been when he instinctively moved to pull the child off the ground from under the arms before she managed to break a toe, and again when she started chasing bugs and trying to fight a war with a squirrel over peanuts.

(He’d thought during the first day or so about the objects in the cell that had appeared at the slightest thought, and how in hindsight Star Platinum had long broken the rule of any close range stands simply because he wanted things. Thought about how perhaps, in condensing the traits of a sliver of his own soul to its own being, that giving spirit had been emphasized.)

“ORAORAORAORAORAORAORAAAAA-!!!”

“.....Ora-ora...”

(Holding a screeching child having a tantrum more in line with someone half her apparent age but no doubt fitting for where her mind had thus far progressed, and watching her flail in his tight grip, had him quietly and painfully acknowledge that it would not have been so hard to put the other part of Star Platinum’s core into a single being.)

“Oh..!” Fortunately his mother was not so far behind him. “Suzume, shhhh…it’s okay~! Here- let me take you from Hoshi…”

She gave a sympathetic smile while taking the girl- a mouthed ‘It’ll be Okay’ that she meant entirely but could not even herself believe.

‘Hoshi’ just stared, eyes half glazed with thought and potential tears alike. His mother couldn’t bring herself to acknowledge things directly, but could not likewise help but at least somewhat address him as something more than a mere Stand, a fact that twisted a knife through his heart with far more force than any of the blades that had killed him.

Somehow being connected to someone so outwardly emotional was making this that much worse, and he couldn’t keep from thinking about how emotive Star Platinum had been to begin with. Grinning. Leering at the enemy, screaming, roaring, a demon, for good reason.

Condensed into tiny form it was nothing more than an outgrown tendency for a tantrum, as a small child regrew the concept of what emotions were.

And of course, tainted his own heart with enough overflow that he needed to force himself from sight just to cool off.

It was stupid really. These weren’t even his emotions.

(They had been, when reversed. When Star Platinum was full of rage there was good reason, and in his eyes if anyone had been looking they’d have seen it. His Stand was wearing his heart on its sleeves, their literal face, and the only thing that made it work out was the fact that whoever could even see Star Platinum would also know better than to point that out.)

When he disappeared, it wasn’t to non-existence. That, strangely, was something reserved for deep sleep. A void of existence, where one moment he would know the sun was setting and the girl closing her eyes, and the next the sun was peering through glass upon a yawning form. But before that point, and if he so willed it- then, he was…elsewhere.

At the cusp of consciousness, floating in a haze of nothing but clouded emotion. Suzume was content, and quietly happy. There was nothing to come out for, no reason to come forward. If she wanted him, he would know- the pull of being her Stand not quite impossible to ignore, though plenty easy to push aside when her thoughts of ‘I don’t like that squirrel’ were being dampened by his own reply of ‘Good grief, it’s a squirrel, it isn’t worth it’.

Perhaps in any other world or situation this entire thing would be charming to his mother somehow. A little girl in the family with a great violet guardian to keep her out of trouble.

Instead, Hoshi-

(He was Jotaro. He was, but without anyone to call him that he would grudgingly take the other name in the meantime)

Instead…

“Suzume~ Guess what arrived~!”

“...boxes..?”

Hm. She picked up another word.

Hoshi followed, dully, quietly, half visible behind Suzume and watched as she and his mother quietly pulled boxes of mail order clothing in and took them to the living room to unpack. He watched, dully, quietly, and vanished back into the haze of the girl’s subconscious.

A prisoner, in his own ‘Stand’. Karma, one could say.

Except this time there was no going back to a life that had now had the hole refilled.

Chapter Text

Hamon was a strange power.

The energy of the sun, and of life itself, floating through her veins and giving her strength.

Holly, in her first life, had never been taught. She could remember her grandmother having hushed conversations with her ‘Papa’ outside of the room she was in, one scolding the other for dropping vital daily habits as the other made excuses. ‘I can’t!’ her father would hiss, careful not to 'wake' her. ‘I can’t raise her that way, as if she should ever have to worry about that kind of thing!’

‘You are a fool- you know it can be used for so much more than that! You-’

‘You might have been able to forget him Mom, but I-!’

She would stop listening after that.

Something had changed for Joy, however, something that gave her just a few moments more behind the door. A man with golden hair and eyes as green as a meadow, feathers decorating his hair, who would one day so many years later be there for the birth of her son.

‘It’s alright, JoJo. We made it through that didn’t we?’

‘But-!’

Joy had instead heard a third voice calming her father down, reminding him of other things. Health. Laughter. The way their daughter smiled watching bubbles dance through the air.

‘It won’t be something she has to fight with, JoJo. It’ll become something she can make her own.’

Such was the effect her ‘uncle’- second father, really, and now in 2012 she wondered if they had been using such terms for the safety of everyone around them or if her ‘parents’ had all been some level of dense on the matter- such was the effect Uncle Caesar had on her Papa.

(Caesar was a dead man in her original life. This much she knew now that the name finally registered.)

(She wondered how far back this all went.)

Hamon pulsed through her veins, and it was impossible not to feel the life it brought. Impossible not to feel the life across from her, or even in her garden if she so thought it.

(She didn’t use hamon to propel the growth of the plants there- that would be cheating, even if the very thought brought to mind some other blond young man chuckling and muttering Italian phrases under his breath in amusement. Something about how…cheating life was so much more dramatic than encouraging a flower to grow.)

Cheating life was so very different, and as she watched Suzume try on the things they’d mail ordered- she’d have preferred going to the store, but truthfully she would have to come up with a better cover story for them to work with before chatting casually to the neighbors about this- the very phrase ‘cheating life’ brought something else.

Something that had Holly struggle to smile a moment, as a chill passed through her spine. She could remember after all- the feeling of life through her veins. Through her body.

In her body.

Life was unique. There was true life, a thing that had since ‘become’, gained a ‘soul’, or some equivalent. The life of the animals, trees, people around her.

And there was ‘life’ at its simplest. Cells, interlinked, gathering and growing. A life that was not yet one. She remembered being able to tell, without any test, when her and Sadao’s efforts had finally, painfully, come to fruition. After years of trying, they could have their child, so long as they did everything they had to. The first step was passed, now they only needed to pull through the rest.

She remembered a thrum of excitement when that ‘not-yet’ life became paired. Two. They could have two if all simply went well, they wouldn’t have to worry about the no doubt inevitable fact that after this child there could well be no others, they could have-

…

…One.

‘Joy’ had been so quietly distraught despite her smiles that Sadao had dropped everything immediately to rush back and drive her into the hospital to make sure that things weren’t about to veer sideways into nothing. It had been a simple explanation in the end but an act that nonetheless helped greatly to remind the world that unless someone were to go out of their way to keep him from knowing, there would be nothing to keep Sadao Kujo away from his wife.

(Like Father, like Son, one could say- Sadao, like Jotaro, had not been a very outwardly emotional man, but where Jotaro inherited the bulk of his forefathers, Sadao was so small that his own wife was taller, so where many read intimidation from her son, they read apathy from her husband. He was a gentle sort with a perpetually grim face, whose emotions came through in his music and his actions because, as Sadao would put it for her son to so firmly grab, ‘my emotions are as clear as they can be’.)

(Though Jotaro of course would simply have said, ‘Everyone can tell how I feel anyway’.)

The doctor explained something called ‘Vanishing Twin Syndrome’. Perfectly normal, they said- A 1 in 3 chance in pregnancies with more than one fertilization. Sometimes in the earliest stages of development, a set of twins would begin to form- but likewise as time went, sometimes only one would make it to the end. In early stages such as this, before there had even been more than an embryonic tube, it would typically be reabsorbed by the remaining living cells.

Hence, 'Vanishing', the doctor had explained.

Joy had been upset, but calmed quickly, as best as she could. Sadao, likewise, calmed alongside his wife.

Holly, years later, could only wonder if this had happened to her as well. Was that why, even? Why there was a ‘Shotaro’ at all, instead of simply…

…nothing?

If Jotaro had come here and there had been nothing to take his place, would there still be a Jolyne- an Irene? Would everyone else still…

“...Haha..?”

Holly was pulled from her thoughts by Suzume’s ever soft voice, the girl fidgeting with the end of her new skirt.

“...you’re sad…”

Paper thin, she was.

(She’d told Sadao the same thing, when he’d quietly and cautiously voiced surprise that she seemed to always know how he felt. ‘You’re paper thin!’ she had perhaps incorrectly said, still fumbling with the language at the time. ‘It’s easy to see how you feel! That’s what makes you so wonderful!’)

(Within a matter of weeks after that, he’d proposed.)

Holly smiled- pained, but there all the same- but she could not bring herself to lie.

Not entirely.

“I’m just a little tired,” she insisted with a warm smile, eyes locked on the child and looking quite deliberately away from her now ghostly son. “Don’t you worry.”

“...oh…” Suzume took that answer in quiet, seeming to mull it over a bit. And then after a pause, decided something else. “...when you’re tired, you have to sleep…”

Ah, she was getting better at this. At this ‘talking’ matter. Aside from a few things, she would even say she’d caught up to her appearance on things- she just needed to fill those social gaps.

(She wasn’t sure how she would quite manage that one.)

(Then again there was a lot she wasn’t sure about at the moment, even if the week was helping her settle. Gold vines would occasionally coil at her arms, as if to remind her that she had options to cope with that, but she had yet to feel confident in trying after her first brush with ‘branching possibilities’ from Space Oddity.)

Holly shook her head. “It’s alright Suzume. It’ll pass, okay~? And you look lovely in your new clothes! It’s waking me right back up~!”

Suzume’s nod was hesitant.

‘Hoshi’s stare, meanwhile, was accusing.

The lie lessened a little more. “I’m just thinking about how to introduce you to your big brother Shotaro,” the woman softly told her, and to that, Suzume blinked.

“...brother..?”

“Mnh, that’s right~! It’s…another part of your family,” Holly explained, quietly trying to find the words to describe it. Words that Suzume would know by now. Words that would…make sense. Suzume stared with large, unblinking eyes, and Holly smiled. “...Why don’t I tell you about that, okay?”

As expected, Suzume nodded.

“Okayyyy…”

And perhaps unexpectedly…

…Holly found herself struggling from there.

Chapter Text

Her Haha seemed confused when explaining family. Or maybe, just sad.

Suzume felt pretty sure about ‘being’, by now. She knew where the rooms in the house were, how food worked, how gardens and plants and stupid fuzzy peanut stealing squirrels worked. She could count the numbers on the clock, and even though reading the words in Haha’s book was pretty hard, she could figure out some of the hiragana and katakana already, and her Haha had let her try tapping some for a ‘letter game’ on her ‘phone’, which was different from the phone on the wall.

She liked the clothes her Haha got, even if Haha quickly had her try some shorts under her skirt after Hoshi carried her around from another thing she’d gotten mad about (she forgot what she was mad about), and that was sort of weird, but Haha also wasn’t stopping her from running and jumping everywhere after that, and that was good.

(Unknown to Suzume, Holly was simply glad that little one would not be showing off her underwear whenever she did such jumping and running about now, and wondered if Jotaro, and Shotaro for that matter, ever had to do that for Jolyne/Irene. She was quite rambunctious at that age, at least if Joy's memories were right about it.)

But when they were talking about family- both the day she first tried all her clothes, and the days after, since there were lots of breaks in between. Suzume thought that maybe Hoshi was the reason there were breaks- when she said being tired meant sleep time, Haha didn’t listen, so it was probably something about how he looked to her that made her pause and stop and find something else for them to do together.

Like making rice and eggs (‘a Very important breakfast’, she had been told), or washing dishes (she had a big stool to stand on, and Hoshi hovered carefully behind it), or sitting and drawing more things with the crayons (she was drawing, Haha was just reading, or sometimes talking on the phone with…people).

Haha’s family was Suzume’s family. That was what Haha said. She said she had a ‘Papa’, someone like ‘Haha’ was. She also had one big brother, and she was the little sister. Which made sense, she thought, since she had since learned that ‘little’ meant everything was ‘more’ than you and there were definitely a lot of things that were ‘more’ than her. Haha said it was about how ‘old’ she was, but then it took a little bit before Haha said she was ‘five’ and her big brother was ‘forty’.

…which she was pretty sure was definitely ‘more’ than five, so she wasn’t sure how that made her reason wrong.

(Haha laughed and said ‘I guess it just means both are right!’, which just made Suzume frown a little before grumbling at the floor.)

Brothers and sisters were ‘siblings’, Haha had said, (while deciding not to explain ‘half-siblings’ for the time being). But for Suzume, someone else’s siblings wouldn’t be her siblings, they would be something else. There was an ‘uncle Josuke’, who was Haha’s ‘brother’ in ‘Morioh’, which was in ‘Japan’, which was where they were now. And where they were now in Japan, (since it wasn't Morioh) was 'Narita', which was part of 'Tokyo'.

Suzume had nodded and tried to understand, and in the meantime Haha had more quiet talks on the phone with ‘uncle Josuke’ about things she couldn’t really hear.

She also had something called a ‘niece’, but explaining that made Haha get another strange look on her face. Not a sad one exactly, but a pained one, a confused one, and she kept looking at Hoshi while she explained it. Eventually she said ‘it means your brother has a daughter, like how you’re my daughter!’, and Suzume tried to nod and understand it again.

(She didn’t, not really. It was all really a lot. But if she remembered the words, it would probably be okay, and Haha wouldn’t look so sad because of more questions. She hoped Hoshi would look a little less sad too, but that seemed like a much harder thing to achieve.)

Haha also explained that her parents were Suzume’s grandparents. Which made them seem a whole lot ‘more’ for sure. Nonna Suzi was where she got her name- she knew that. She was very, very old, but apparently still doing lots of things like going on fun boat rides or making pasta. There was also a ‘Grandpa Caesar’- Haha took a while to say that, like she was having problems remembering that one herself, or how to say it, or why to say it.

Suzume understood. There was just a lot to remember, and it was probably very very hard.

And then…

“And then there’s your second grandpa- your ‘JiJi’..! He…”

Something was wrong when Haha tried to explain ‘Jiji’. First, she started to look sad, and her words slowed down. Then she started to look paler somehow, and Hoshi got close to be worried as well. And then…

“...he’s not here anymore,” she managed- smile tight, eyes watering, and words breaking. “...But I can show you some pictures, okay~? I think that would be nice wouldn’t it?”

Suzume had nodded, without blinking, and said- “Okayyyyy…”

It didn’t make her Haha smile any more nicely though, not even while they looked at the pictures (which actually seemed to make them feel worse) and Suzume thought to herself that wherever her ‘JiJi’ had gone, she was going to have to try and chase him and bring him back with more effort than she used to chase squirrels.

Chapter Text

Over the course of the week, things began to fall into place.

She and Josuke still couldn’t contact anyone other than ‘Irene’ and ‘Shotaro’ within the family- a thing that they were frankly hesitant to do, given their place as obvious outliers in everything. Josuke, in fact, had almost considered driving right over to the Kujo house to offer some support as a result- it had been clear from Holly’s voice that the entire mess was nothing short of terrifying, and while he felt the same he knew it was only worse for his sister.

Holly also knew that he wanted to be with the rest of his own family however. His mother after all was only barely able to bring poor Ryohei down from the panic of being ‘dead’, and then ‘not’, and from there the family was having an even harder time keeping itself together as they piece by piece made their way through the further changes within their town.

(Josuke had apparently ended up in a conversation with a coworker about the ‘Cinderella Salon’ downtown closing for a day or so due to health problems for the owner and nearly spat out his entire mug of coffee, before finding out from Koichi and Yukako that the poor woman had woken up with memories of only barely being pulled from danger by ‘a series of golden vines’ before getting patched up some unknown 'golden energy, that felt like the sun'.)

(Followed by more than a decade of life that she had not lived.)

This was no local matter- that much was clear, had been clear when Sadao called her for that matter, and with quiet and fearful promises to keep the other posted, they had said their goodbyes and refocused.

(Sadao, as it stood, had called every day to quietly discuss the differences in their lives bit by bit.)

(She still didn’t know how to explain their sons, plural, and putting it off felt like swallowing ice.)

She refocused, and worked on helping Suzume to settle into being a person. Worked on re-familiarizing herself with her own house, and the small changes within it. Worked on identifying the numerous and unrecognizable names and numbers in her address book.

Refocusing managed to work until late in the week when she remembered why they could not contact their father.

(The sound of broken glass had filled her ears as she tried to recall what her Papa was to ‘Joy’- lest she give poor Suzume information that neither of them could use. Broken glass and screams and a low, brutal laugh while she herself wailed herself hoarse.)

(The body had been drained of fluid, and from there Dio had charged, her own golden vines shielding her face as she darted from the spot.)

“...Josuke?”

(There had been no body when she and Polnareff finally returned, bloody and limping to the spot, after sunrise.)

Josuke’s voice was calm, only the slightest edge of anxiety laced within it. “Holly? Did something happen? I think things are calming down here, so-”

Her own voice in contrast broke the moment she opened her mouth again.

“I think I remembered what happened to him.”

It was a strange sort of mourning.

A mourning only they could properly experience- with ‘Shotaro’ seemingly at home in this reality, Irene the same, and the rest of them lost to the winds with different addresses and numbers or in Sadao’s case simply so far removed that to tell him the precise details now could well just kill him given his age.

(It was the exact problem that Josuke had been dealing with this entire time, for a man a year younger than herself after all; easing a person from shock and confusion without simply triggering a heart attack on the spot.)

(Sadao was three years older than that.)

She had assumed, as Josuke had, that the number she had found written down and additionally saved away in her contacts list, would reach their father. It was a foreign number, to both Japan and America, and though that fact was strange it had been a lead.

After discussing that memory however, there had been silence. Followed quietly by a question- how long ago had the number been added. Had they been, yet again, calling the wrong one the whole time? Ignored due to being someone unrecognizable, rather than anything else?

“...I’ll keep trying it,” Josuke had decided when the call ended. “...I have to keep trying..! There’s no way what we ‘re-rememeber’ from this place can be right, and there’s still Shizuka and Suzi to get in contact with!”

Josuke was perhaps optimistic. Ordinarily both of them would be, or at least trying to be, she acknowledged.

(Josuke, with the experiences in this new world as he so vaguely described, perhaps had most reason to cling to it.)

Her heart however, simply thudded dully in her chest. “...Alright,” Holly replied, her voice unable to keep its chipper edge.

The phone clicked back into the cradle, and only then did Holly allow herself to choke out some tears in the late evening quiet, hand over her mouth to muffle the sound.

Suzume was in bed. She’d been put to bed ages ago on a futon that hadn’t even been properly put away in the first place, and thank goodness because she didn’t think she could possibly explain this away lightly. It was like there was a hole in her heart, one that had been filled with a thick, but no less fragile substance, easily melted away the moment something came into contact with it. Holly’s breathing could not keep steady as she wept- silently shuddering against the wall of her home, illuminated by the kitchen light.

He was gone. Worse, she realized, he had been gone for more than 20 years here, where she had in memory spoken to him just the last week. He was gone, dead without a grave, and the worst thing she felt…

…the worst thing perhaps, was that she knew she’d been there when it happened, in this life she only partly remembered.

(How long had it been since she’d experienced this feeling of loss? For Joy, it was surely something that returned repeatedly, a wound reopening seemingly at random. As if every scar she now held on her body were bursting from within, a silent pain that could not be undone.)

Quiet tapping came from down the hallway, but Holly could not stop her tears.

(Was this how her father felt all this time? In the world she remembered, where hamon did not flow through her veins and where her father carried instead the memory of a man who he had known for such a short time, yet forged such a deep bond with?)

It was barely audible- one step after another, with someone else floating ahead instead. Beside her already was Space Oddity- body half dissolved into vines, wrapping around her and resting their head upon her shoulder in comfort. But at her other side it did not take long for a familiar figure in violet to appear.

Jotaro-

(Star Platinum-)

(‘Hoshi’-)

(...her son, who would have been there in their original timeline, and been there in time to help-)

…knelt quietly at her side, and though he held his hands back for a moment it was not a long one. Holly gasped quietly as familiar yet unfamiliar arms reached around for a quiet embrace, and in that moment at last she broke the silence with a loud choke and sob. A pained sound, half strangled by her own motions while both Stands sat in silence.

(Suzume was somewhere near. She would have to be for this to be possible, but Holly couldn’t think of protecting her new child from the sight of tears right now. Not right now.)

“Oh, Jotaro…” she wheezed, almost sounding the age she properly was despite her appearances. She could not keep his name to herself any longer, no matter the gravity it carried once finally said. Too much had been steadily unearthed in the last number of days to cling to such things, and Jotaro’s expression despite coming from a different face conveyed a similar thought. Her shaking hand gripped at his arm as she closed her eyes, trying her best not to think of the alien sensation of Stand markings and armor in her grip. “...he’s gone…he’s gone and I didn’t even know...”

Jotaro said nothing. It was all he could do after all, and that much she knew after enough observations of his interaction with Suzume. But then, even as himself, that was when he ‘spoke’ the most.

Even now, as a Stand, she did not need him to speak to understand.

(‘Paper thin’, as she would have described his father, but she would never have told Jotaro this. Instead she would simply say, ‘A mother knows’ with a mischievous smile as learned from her own mother, and stretch to peck him on the cheek.)

Suzume’s quiet steps came around the corner, but she did not say a word. Quietly, Holly braced for it- any question, however simple, even the slightest ‘what’s wrong’.

The girl said nothing, and merely crept close to squeeze her way into the tearful group hug. Looking up briefly, and then closing her eyes to lean against Holly in silence, and just that.

It was some time before any breathing patterns resembling hamon returned for Holly. If anyone could be coming close it would have been the young child on her lap, or perhaps even the Stand who had been so recently human that the idea of breathing had yet to properly be abandoned.

By the time it did, she herself was long asleep along with Suzume however.

And while the presence of the Stands had thus been lost as well, when Holly woke, she could not help but feel as if they had somehow remained regardless.

Chapter Text

After the revelation of her father’s demise, Holly perhaps threw herself more ferociously into cementing a place for Suzume in the world.

(Distractions were the best way for her to move forward, in the end.)

(At least until they ended in her collapsing under a pile of vines sapping her life force, or in her son picking up the painful habit of withdrawing when hurt.)

The Speedwagon Foundation was of course an option that she had considered right away- her only trouble, Holly thought, was that she couldn’t actually remember her exact involvement with them as ‘Joy’.

To Holly the Speedwagon Foundation was something distant. She had vague, hazy memories of Speedwagon himself from her childhood years and years ago, but the organization itself was something largely handled from a distance. A group that her father had certainly relied upon, but otherwise a group that handled its own business and research over the years that had passed. Holly Kujo had known them as the people who provided her healthcare over the grueling weeks that her son was risking his life in battle after battle on his way to Egypt.

Joy, even with what flickering memory she was yet accessing, had assuredly been far more involved.

It would be incorrect to say that Holly wasn’t trusting. If anything people had considered her to be too trusting, perhaps- too full of kindness, not a thought to anything else. A heart that couldn’t hurt so much as a fly.

(It was still true, in a sense. It was true for ‘Joy’, as well.)

(She simply remembered having to understand when mothers needed to step forward and ‘fight’ as well.)

Holly determined, grimly, that she did not have faith in the Speedwagon Foundation properly handling the matter. Not when so many others were at risk in their connection- ignoring what could possibly become of Suzume herself (and Jotaro by extension for that matter), she had no clue how they would respond to Shotaro.

(Shotaro, her thoughts reminded her, worked for the Foundation.)

(If anything were to happen it would have likely happened by now, and she suddenly found herself wondering if she was going to still get a call in a day or so.)

The woman gave a tired sigh from her chair that evening, 6 days after the ‘end’ of the world and some number of hours after she and Suzume had fallen asleep against the kitchen wall. She was being foolish. Childish even, she could say. If she needed help she needed to get help, no matter the unknown ahead.

Golden vines dangled in view again, and an almost judging stare followed from Space Oddity as the Stand manifested just above and behind her.

Holly- ‘Joy’- knew why.

She couldn’t remember everything this Stand could do. The very idea that she had possessed such a thing and with it faced Dio and lived was foreign enough, and gave her such a shiver of fear that Holly was still asking herself if she couldn’t possibly have misremembered the entire thing.

(She couldn’t have of course.)

(Whenever it came back to mind it only came back clearer- the scent of blood and smoke from burning cars and ruin. The sounds of people crying in fear and confusion. The sound of the Vampire’s terrifying voice-)

(‘Ahhhhhh…The Joestar girl- or no, it’s ‘Kujo’, isn’t it?’)

(As he held her father by the face with his bloodied, hamon-cut hand-)

(‘A shame you didn’t stay hidden…perhaps you could have survived one more day. Instead, I, DIO…shall take that Joestar blood from your veins…’)

Holly forced her breath to remain steady, and forced her attention to move back to the present. She counted the seconds with each inhale and exhale, and looked up to her Stand- the golden woman still staring with judgment, wreathed in raspberries so red they could have been made of blood themselves.

Space Oddity, to ‘Joy’s memory, had not looked like this when she first appeared. She had been nothing more than vines- rusty in hue, playfully dancing across her arms like they were added limbs. They’d appeared one morning while she was gardening, reaching for the trowel that had been just too far from her and curling around with a hesitance that could be called innocent.

As if the vines themselves were unsure that they were allowed, exactly.

(They were. It wasn’t help she expected, but it was a help she accepted, unlike, perhaps, her actual self another lifetime ago.)

Holly- Joy- still didn’t know how the name ‘Space Oddity’ had come to be. She only knew that it had baffled her father’s friend when they had shown up some time after the vines first appeared, after nothing more than a phone call in which the old man had asked in panic if anything odd had started happening.

(It wasn’t until later that she received another call, from an airport payphone, via Caesar. ‘We’re coming to Tokyo,’ he had said with a somewhat tired sigh. ‘It’s nothing to worry about, JoJo’s just being JoJo.’)

(After a pause he had warned her in a quieter voice- ‘...keep an eye on Shotaro for now though.’- and then hung up.)

Golden vines curled around her arm, and Holly thought of what she had seen when they scratched little Suzume’s arm that first night. A multitude of paths, of realities that could have been- where the girl woke to explore more of the room, where the girl woke and simply stayed on the bed a number of moments more, where the girl woke and stepped out without so much as a word, surprising her instead- a number of potential paths through fate, with no indication of which one she would take until she got there.

The only true constant had been that she would wake- something that had made it somewhat easy to track for when it happened for real, so she could go and speak to the girl.

(Would it be easier? To know what to do next, if she could see the many possibilities she could take in the number of minutes? In a sea of choices that had no known trigger, would she even be able to choose?)

There was another memory, she thought, tied to this Stand.

(Her father had arrived with Avdol after she called in fear for Jotaro’s health, after the boy had locked himself in a prison cell and proven that things were not happening normally. Dropped everything and flown in, and within a day they’d stormed down to the prison only for her to watch flames appear from nothing, prison bars to bend back, and prior even the call itself, see her son attempt to shoot himself in the head with the sort of manic confidence that only the most desperate could have.)

(Joy did not suffer this sight. The only thing that happened the day before her guests arrived was Shotaro looking somewhat shaken, like he’d had a nightmare, and telling her quietly that he loved her before going to school.)

When ‘Joy’s fathers had arrived with Avdol, there was her Papa in a panic, her ‘uncle’ appearing greatly exhausted, and Avdol simply asking, politely, how her day had been proceeding. He was perhaps the best guest of the three, complimenting her on her tea brewing while Caesar tried vainly to calm down his partner of many years (his partner who had, undoubtedly, drained far too much coffee and worked himself up into a nervous storm).

‘You have a wonderful home,’ Avdol had told her with a warm smile, and she herself had beamed proudly in turn. ‘Now…my friend Mr. Joestar- your father, of course- has told me that strange happenings have been brewing around you. Can you explain what you mean by this?’

In the present, Holly watched as vines coiled around her hand- expectant, and waiting, appearing more like a gauntlet than anything else. She could make out faint hair-line scars across her palms that spoke of doing this in the past, and as she looked to them she allowed herself to sink more fully into the memory of the past.

The memory of smiling and laughing at Avdol’s question, cheerfully allowing the branches and vines to manifest while explaining their help in the garden. The memory of Avdol’s somewhat sputtered confusion when she explained she’d taken to calling it her ‘space oddity’, one part for a song she had been listening to, another for their alien appearance.

(He had murmured something about it being unconventional to use music for a name, fingering the tarot deck in his hands. Papa, having finally recovered after Caesar made sure he had at least one cup of tea to calm down, had from there laughed about how there was still Shotaro to consider, and then laughed about the idea of their whole family having vines for Stands.)

(‘Shotaro?’ she had asked back then. ‘Mmm…Shotaro hasn’t had anything like this happen I don’t think- he couldn’t even see Space Oddity~!’)

Hermit Purple, at least to start, had been something her father needed to smash technology to activate- a photographic clairvoyance, or perhaps more accurately an ability sleeping heavily in espionage. Hermit Purple, as best she could understand, had never been about foreseeing the future necessarily.

Instead it had been about seeing from afar.

(The idea of Shotaro lacking a Stand of his own had been alarming to all three men at her table.

‘O-Oh…are you sure, Joy..?’

‘JoJo, we should be more optimistic about this if anything- if Avdol’s theory of a curse were to be true…’)

Her own Stand was quite different.

Perhaps that was why where Hermit Purple was so Precise, Space Oddity was anything but.

(Her own confusion had been blatant. ‘Hmn? A Curse?’

‘It’s nothing to worry about for now, Mrs. Kujo. For now, has Space Oddity displayed any ability more than this utility as extra limbs? For example, Mr. Joestar here…’)

Holly closed her fist over the thorns, breathing steady even as the thorns broke skin.

Immediately as her hand shook, a series of images assailed her- paths where she called the Foundation. Paths where she called Josuke. Paths where she tried number after number, or even went out to speak with neighbors. Each one, simultaneously, as if dozens of television screens were broadcasting before her eyes.

Shotaro, she could confirm from some, was fine- albeit confused for some unknown reason, cautious about something else.

Irene as well, as determined from paths where she was the one to answer the phone- Irene was fine, enjoying her time at her father’s despite certain hiccups in her plans.

(Neither had any answers. Nor would Josuke, nor would any other number called only to be rung through to the answering machine again.)

Holly breathed, and picked up her phone to dial.

(Really, she should have trusted her heart instead of dwelling in her nerves.)

“...Hello?”

“Sadao?”

“Seiko? Isn’t it late at home? Did something happen?”

“No, no…” Holly sighed, chewing her lip as she spoke. “...I just…need some advice.”

It was a call that, once again, ended in convincing Sadao that he did not need to come home early.

(It would no doubt be fruitless, but for now at least, she knew what to do next.)

Chapter Text

From Sadao, the advice had been simple.

However illegal it would be, however much they would have to perhaps answer to and speak to the SPW for later on, there was a need to relax.

‘It isn’t so hard I think…to be honest and say she’s someone you’re looking after. …I look forward to seeing her, Seiko- but I know if you do what feels best, you’ll be happier that way.’

He was right.

Of course he was, that was often how their talks ended when she was worried. A calm reassurance, a soft ‘yare yare’ perhaps as he gave a breathy chuckle, and just the right words to help her find her footing again.

(And often, an apology, for not being there in person to say it.)

They could start simply then. By the end of the week, she needed groceries as it was, and so taking Suzume’s hand in hers, she told her they were going outside.

“...to the back..?” she had asked in turn, Jotaro for the moment watching with mild interest.

Holly shook her head, smiling. “Somewhere even better Suzume- we’re going to go out the front. We have to get food for the fridge, and food for dinner, okay~?”

To this, Suzume quietly nodded- while she could understand plenty, she seemed more keen on staying quiet, rarely if ever raising her voice for anything other than anger. Guiding her to the front hall, Holly stooped down- an act that was astoundingly easy compared to what she was limited by a week before. Honestly, if she’d known this was the kind of benefit her Papa could have received-

(Holly stamped that thought down quickly, with such force that even Jotaro seemed to notice despite her smile not changing a whit. He was always perceptive of those things.)

“Do you remember what you do when you go to the back yard, Suzume?” Suzume again nodded, and quietly sat down at the ledge in the hall to take her slippers off.

“...put shoes on…” she muttered, searching for them and soon finding the pair where Holly had brought them from the back porch. “And…” Trailing off, the sound of velcro soon met the air. Holly was sure that it wouldn’t take much for Suzume to figure out tying laces- she’d figured out plenty at a rapid pace- but for something like this she wanted to be more cautious than anything.

“Good~!” Holly cheered, reaching out for the girl’s hand again. “Now- it’s a nice day outside, so we don’t need any coats…we have…our purse~!” She held her purse out with a smile, or at least as far out as possible while still holding it close and over her shoulder. “We have our Stands..!”

There was a brief and beaming smile- from both- to Jotaro. Jotaro for his part did his best impression of an irritated rock, but Holly could catch a glimmer of grudging amusement in his eyes before he vanished from sight. It was understandable, if not upsetting. Holly, at least, still had ‘her’ life in a sense.

Jotaro had been outright replaced and shackled, and even thinking about the ramifications of that were enough to threaten tears from her. The only reason there weren’t any, as it was, was because of a hyper awareness of how much worse that could likely make things.

That, and the pressing desire to do what little could be done to lift his spirits.

Still, for now he was likely going to sit wherever it was that Stands remained during most hours of the day, so while Suzume was nodding again Holly gently pulled her toward the door. “Then let’s go..! It’s time to go shopping..!”

This was something that they had all needed, Holly decided as they left the door. The pair walked quietly across the path to the gate, and as Suzume looked about at everything with wide eyes, Holly herself gave a less absorbing pass. Suzume observed as if to take in everything around her and commit it to memory. For Holly, however, she simply drunk in what was familiar.

Very little, if anything, had changed about the outside.

When she brought them through the gate, that was much the same. It brought a more honest smile to her face, and put a little more energy in her steps. The gate closed behind them, and with Suzume’s hand carefully held in hers as golden vines moved to secure the grip, the two set off down the street.

“We’re going to go by lots of places Suzume, so make sure you tell me if you feel tired okay?” Holly encouraged, beaming down at the girl as she nodded again.

Suzume, apparently emboldened by such a challenge, gave a firm whisper. “...I won’t get tired…”

“Hmhmm~! That’s good to hear!” she replied, unable to help but think of Jotaro himself at such an age. Perhaps, despite everything, they could at least make sure that this little one had as kind a childhood, she thought. Certainly, a better experience in the middle school years would be ideal- though thinking about that and realizing how much older she would be by then was certainly an odd thing to consider. She was, after all, not far from 70. Hamon rejuvenating her to this point was nothing short of astounding, even if ‘Joy’ likely found it entirely expected.

It was a strange thought- a sad one, for that matter, when she thought about what that could mean for Sadao.

(She wasn’t going to stop though, she determined, her breathing steady all the same. There had been a reason Joy kept up the habit, why Joy had conversed quietly with her husband about the future, and about what could be meant. Some men, certainly, would have either lied or simply been blatant in either jealousy or fear.)

(Her father might have been suspicious, but Sadao had never done either of those things when they- when ‘Joy’ and he- had spoken. That much she was certain.)

Holly’s breathing persisted at its steady pace, the spring breeze rustling through the leaves of nearby trees and bushes as they entered more bustling areas. It was somewhat later in the morning- many, Holly noted, were likely in school or in their buildings of work. It made it easier to do her shopping; introducing Suzume as a young girl she’d taken in, and beaming with a well schooled smile when more familiar store keeps remarked on the resemblance to her son.

“Kujo-san!” One even shouted from afar as she approached. “You didn’t tell me your son had another one! She looks so much like him at that age!”

“Ahh~ Sorry! She’s actually not related to him that way…it’s very remarkable though, isn’t it?”

“Oh, is that so..?”

Suzume watched this exchange with calm, albeit confused eyes, while housewife and storekeep conversed. She seemed as if she wanted to say something, but she ultimately held her tongue- instead looking curiously at the various vegetables laid out on display.

It was difficult to tell how much of the excuse many of the marketfolk believed; for any who had seen Jotaro- or Shotaro for that matter at that age, the resemblance was impossible to simply brush aside after all. Jotaro didn’t start his habit of wearing hats until he’d started high school- when the hat had been part of the uniform in the first place. Suzume’s hair may have been longer, but there was no mistaking the slight curls of black, nor the wide eyes that so looked like Jotaro’s own at that age.

(She wondered if Suzume would also find herself with a seeming permanent scowl in later years- at the very least she certainly had the right brows for it, even if her youthful face made her appear to be perpetually astounded instead.)

If she was honest with herself, the entire trip felt much the same as when, years and years before, she’d done similar with her son as well. It was an odd feeling- not because she didn’t like the memory, but rather because as she thought about it for longer she realized that it felt the same for both. For Shotaro and Jotaro alike, she could remember making a similar trip- introducing the children to the various storekeepers in the area, pointing out the street signs and crossing signs and explaining what they meant.

“Now, when the light is that color, and you see the walking man, what does that mean Suzume?”

Suzume, not unlike Jotaro (not unlike Shotaro,) peered around Holly to blink at it. “...it’s safe to walk…” she quietly answered, receiving a beaming smile and a nod in turn.

“Exactly~! Now, let’s go..!”

This memory…

…with each step, the identical nature of it persisted more into reality. The same footsteps taken by both sons. The same quiet stares and small smiles, the same taiyaki treat at the end.

“...a fish…” Suzume commented when they approached the middle of their walk to get such a thing, the girl staring at the crusty fish shaped pastry.

“Mmhm~ It’s fish shaped, but it’s not going to taste like fish at all,” Holly chuckled, watching the girl sniff at it after paying. “Don’t worry if you don’t like it okay? We can get something else if that happens.”

To this, Suzume nodded and took her first bite- soon after which her expression immediately lit up, and the girl began more voraciously digging in.

“Ahhhh! Careful, careful Suzume, you don’t want to choke..!”

“HAHA! A healthy appetite for sweets from the little one I see! And you tell me she isn’t little Shotaro-kun’s?”

“Now now, I don’t know that he’d appreciate being called little...” Holly automatically replied, chuckling even as her mind caught up with the statement.

The shopkeeper missed Holly’s mild upset, simply laughing. “To me, no matter how tall he is, he’ll be ‘little Shotaro’..! You two have a good day now, alright?”

“Mmm-hmm, mm-hm, we will~!”

She barely got the words out before she and Suzume started walking farther down the street. Perhaps it looked a bit rushed- perhaps not.

(Maybe the shopkeeper as well, could remember an inkling of which name was correct or incorrect. It was probably harder, she realized, for anyone who had only distantly known another- as easy as ‘realizing’ you misremembered a name, or misplaced an address.)

Their walk took them perhaps a bit farther than typical in her thoughts. They began to pass a familiar sight, or at least a familiar one for her sons, as they came about the bend and prepared to make their final market stop before going home.

“Haha..?”

“Mnnh? Is everything okay Suzume? Ahh, here, you have something on your cheek…”

While the woman stooped down to pull out a handkerchief and wipe at the custard that had become smudged on Suzume’s cheeks, the girl blinked- in a tired motion that Holly, in quiet amusement, recognized. “...I got tired…” she said somewhat morosely, as if having broken some promise she’d made.

“You’re tired?” Holly repeated, smiling warmly. When she received a nod in reply, she merely brushed some strands of hair from her face before moving to scoop her up. It was an easy motion- again, the benefits of Hamon and Stand-assisted strength came to mind- and the ‘old’ woman continued on their walk past the wooded incline that led down to her son’s old highschool. “Don’t worry- I can carry you back home without anyyy problems~!”

There was a sleepy nod over her shoulder, while Space Oddity simply manifested a few more vines to gently tie the girl’s hair back and out of her face. At the very least, she’d have no trouble looking about while they walked back.

(They didn’t walk this far out, with Jotaro, nor with Shotaro. There’d been no reason back then.)

(Call it nostalgia, or longing, she supposed- or perhaps something else. There was something strange about this place, something burning at the edges of her memory as she looked toward the trees growing at the highschool’s path.)

In the spring breeze, the branches rustled. A strange contrast to the branches of autumn, she found herself thinking for some odd reason she couldn’t place. So many years after the boys had graduated, and the trees were all still here. Some appeared the same as ever. Others, in contrast, seemed to have grown wild- their branches reaching out over the path like claws, reaching to hold something away from it.

Holly found their final stop and purchased some seasonings and other supplies, all while carrying a soon slumbering Suzume over her shoulder. She said her goodbyes, quietly introduced the girl while noting she needed to get her home, and did what she could not to think about the sight.

She didn’t know why- something about those trees haunted her.

(Suzume, similarly, couldn’t help but think she wanted to get closer as she drifted off into slumber.)

Chapter Text

His mother was remembering things.

After she’d broken down and referred to him by name, it was a fact that he couldn’t ignore even if he had been trying to begin with. There had already been a suspicion- even hearing one side of the phone conversations made it clear there was something vital he was missing, only intensified as his mother corresponded with his father.

(He knew, quietly, that his father had tried. It was something he reflected on with bitterness, not only for a childhood where he’d known him primarily as a quiet man calling just too late to catch him on the phone, but for an adulthood where he’d managed to end up channeling a natural evolution from that habit.)

(One could argue that his father at least had an excuse. Phones and travel were harder in the 80s- an excuse Jotaro himself could not exercise as more time passed, and as he leaned on the need to hold his family at a safe distance instead. …for all the good that had done, at least.)

He could hear that they were talking of ‘differences’. Of missing memories, and doubled memories. His mother’s youthful appearance came to mind as part of it- her appearance, as well as her Stand. It was a strange, but perhaps even frightening thing to behold; his mother never manifested a Stand after they defeated DIO. At the very least if she had one, it had fallen to dormancy for the sake of its User.

Instead he witnessed something so uncannily like his grandfather’s Hermit Purple, that it nearly knocked him off guard- raspberry vines not unlike those that had choked her life bit by bit over the course of nearly two months, now free and blooming to the point they could form humanoid shape in a manner so similar to Jolyne’s ‘Stone Free’ that it stung.

(Occasionally, it would become something much smaller than that- more of a beetle on its own, hovering, a mass of floating vines to form the shell and ‘tail’ while a few raspberry clusters indicated apparent eyes. His mother either noticed this long before Suzume had woken up in time to see it, or had determined that ignorance was bliss.)

(He couldn’t blame her, even if the act made him wonder, painfully, which parent he’d been mirroring in some ways.)

‘Space Oddity’, as he now knew the Stand was called, was somewhat similar to the Stands he’d come to know in his earlier years- primarily an extension of their User, but bearing just enough ‘life’ that there was the illusion of character…though perhaps, now that Star Platinum had become ‘Suzume’, the word illusion wasn’t entirely correct. Seeds of life, it could perhaps be said. A fragile existence, nurtured or curbed by the allowance of the partner.

(Kakyoin and Polnareff, he realized then, seemed to have Stands with more personality- as did Josuke, for that matter. The one thing they had in common, if he thought on the matter, was that their Stands had manifested as children, an invisible ‘friend’ where none could tell them otherwise.)

(Star Platinum bringing him gifts came to mind again. He wondered what would have happened, if no one had told him Stands had limits.)

His mother’s Stand was a thing of the ‘new world’- the first clue after her ‘Hamon’ that the changes to the world were greater than simply his nonexistence.

(She mentioned Jolyne in one of the calls to his father. She mentioned her, and briefly looked right at him, as if aware that he had no other way to find out of her fate.)

(She mentioned Jolyne and then quietly remarked on the need to take care when speaking to her, due to the fact that she would have different memories, and a different name.)

Everyone in this new world who had crossed from the last, had a ‘double life’. The changes seemed betrayingly minimal, if his mother’s conversations were to be believed. As simple as a memory changing over time, a small detail misrecalled and altered with each repetition.

(Even from the void of half-consciousness in that hazy between that Stands could reside within, he could feel it; the overflow of his partner’s emotions now draining into him the way he’d crushed down on Star Platinum’s own with practice, only instead of anger and ferocity in reply for whatever upset him it seemed the reverse was a synchronicity of pain. For Suzume, she was not unaware of his mother’s quiet grief as she navigated a world that had faced the end of the world and seemingly moved on without even addressing what occurred.)

(As such, he could not be ignorant either.)

Jotaro manifested himself- something easy to do so long as Suzume was even slightly awake, though his ability from there was assuredly limited- only after they had returned home. By the end of the walk, the small child had regained some energy enough to groggily ask to be set down so she could take her own shoes off, and from there the girl had wandered over to the tea room where paper and crayons were set out again.

“Alright- here you are. Now, I’m going to go make us some food okay? I’ll come get you when it’s dinner time~”

“Okayyyy…”

Just as ‘Star Platinum’ proper, he had a limit of 2 meters. Once his mother left the room, he would lose the small chance he had. He watched as she moved through the doorway to the path that joined the two buildings, and in a flash of speed that had him mentally stumble, he followed and reached out.

“Hn-!” She was surprised- but only for a moment. Her voice low, she blinked. “Jotaro? Is there something else..?” she trailed off, studying his face.

(She used to do that more subtly- he blamed the fact that he’d spent literal years staying away from home. In that regard, his mother was out of practice when it came to hiding when she was ‘reading’ him, a necessity when the other wasn’t speaking.)

(He didn’t want to think that it was because he had a different face, even if that was the far more likely reason.)

There was no answer out loud, of course. He knew from multiple tries, that he couldn’t speak- not properly. Any word he wanted to say, any word he thought, it came out in one sound.

(Perhaps with focus that could change. He remembered stories from Polnareff on the trip, tales he shared more for Kakyoin’s sake than anything as they bonded over the childhood experience that was having a Stand where none did- how in his youth when he would play with Silver Chariot at his side the silvery knight would cheerfully shout ‘pami’ for added effect, something that only changed to ‘hora’ when he’d become a teenager.)

(The question was, whose focus it would take to manage that.)

His mother knew the type of man he was, and had been. Even after years, she knew, and all he could think now as they stood there and stared at the other was if it had only worked. If they had stayed safe, as he had hoped. If they had pulled through, as he hoped.

It was an empty ending- a vessel of delayed wishes and promises that now could never be fulfilled. Unbidden, he thought of his highschool years- both before, and after the chaos of those fifty days. His attitude and shouts, her persisting smile and tolerance as she pecked him on the cheek before the school day began.

(Honestly, years later, he couldn’t help but be amused that she managed to catch him at just the right moment for the step in the front hall to give her the advantage needed to do that. Some would call it coincidence. He himself, looking back, knew for a fact that it was otherwise.)

Jotaro quietly put his arms around the woman and sighed, however, head over hers, and eyes taking in the garden with a half awareness that spoke of clouded emotions. They had done this not long before- when Suzume’s unrest had encouraged him enough to prod her to awareness before they both made their way down the hall, and when he himself had reached the kitchen first to find his mother in grief stricken tears.

(‘He’s gone,’ she said, after finally using his name aloud. ‘He’s gone and I didn’t even know.’)

(It was a new world. With new memories.)

(The important ones were not necessarily the ones they were remembering first.)

If he could speak it aloud he would say- ‘...I’m sorry, Haha.’

For pushing her away. For denying her the chance to see her granddaughter. For denying her her family out of nothing short of fear.

(Would it have been better, he wondered? Would they have been attacked, or killed? It was too little or too late to ask these questions, and if he thought farther on the matter there was only one thing to say in reply.)

(That no matter the choices he could have made, he’d made the wrong one.)

Jotaro’s hug- however awkward it was, coming from a man (a Stand) that frankly rarely, if ever did so- was quietly returned, and there was soon a soft whisper in his ear.

(He wondered if Suzume heard the things he heard. He knew she felt the things he did, at least, and he could already tell that the girl was currently wondering why it felt like she was in a hug while she was busy holding crayons to paper.)

“...It’s alright, Jotaro,” his mother whispered. “I know.”

He disappeared only after she seemed ready to continue her way back to the kitchen. Of course, he thought- of course she would know.

His mother never truly needed to hear him speak, to know what was in his heart.

Chapter Text

After their shopping day, Suzume decided she liked the idea of going outside from the front.

When she asked Haha about if they could go outside again, Haha had laughed and said they didn’t need any shopping, and that maybe later in the week she could show her the park. For now, she could play in the backyard if she wanted to go outside, which was alright, but didn’t have the same appeal as the comparatively massive area that had been beyond the front gate.

Suzume thus sat on the porch and largely pouted while Hoshi hovered as close to Haha as possible during her call with her big brother, which Haha said came every week and could one day include her as well. Right now she wanted to let her ‘get settled’ more, though Suzume felt she was pretty settled in being a person, however that worked.

Maybe it was actually Haha who needed settling. Haha got sad a lot when they were on their walk, and that was probably a reason for not wanting to go outside the gates right away too if she thought about it.

Which wasn’t very fair, she thought with a scowl. Whatever was making her Haha sad, she wanted to find it and get rid of it so they could have happy walks with crunchy breadfish filled with chocolate.

(Suzume didn’t really hear what ‘Hoshi’ heard, only getting vague feelings, but her irritation was perhaps fueled some by that very fact; while her Stand could only glean so much from the conversation their mother had on the phone- and the fact was he wasn’t there to listen so much as offer some shred of comfort through presence alone, so it wasn’t as if he was trying that hard- it was clear that what was nothing more than another ‘normal’ conversation with ‘Shotaro’ was taking a toll on the woman.)

(For Holly herself, it had felt uncannily as if Shotaro knew something was amiss; he had paused just a little too long when she insisted she was alright, but as their conversation from there had been nothing more than the topic of how Sadao was, of Irene’s return to university, and of a young boy he’d taken in recently with the help of the SPW, there was no way to truly know.)

Thus, the first day of her second week had been spent largely filled with frustrated grumbling, staring at sparrows, and scribbling angrily on paper until Haha had come over and entertained her with stories about her childhood.

(They were confused stories. She fumbled over who was there and who wasn’t, but Suzume didn’t question things because it seemed to her, and to Hoshi as well, that if they didn’t let the woman try her best then it would only make things worse.)

(At the very least, the adults present knew it would be easier to cope if they saw it coming in advance.)

The next day when Suzume asked about going outside, her Haha had again gently laughed- but instead carefully opened the door to the walkway porch to point outside. The sky, Suzume noted, was still strangely dark. Clouds had gathered overhead in a vaguely familiar pattern, and water fell from them in sheets.

“Sorry Suzume..! It’s raining too much to go outside today…if you went outside right now, you’d get all wet, and then you’d catch a cold!” she scolded, still smiling all the same.

Suzume, in reply, had scrunched up her face to prepare to protest, only to shout as Hoshi floated out into the rain himself. The Stand floated out there, one hand at his hip as the rain crashed down over his head and shoulders and left a phantom chill over Suzume herself. He stood there for a number of moments- expression carefully blank, as if to quietly say, ‘This is what it feels like now; do you want to feel it more?’

To that feeling, the scrunched expression only intensified. “...colddddddddd…” As Hoshi vanished and took the feeling back with him, Suzume curled up on the porch and shivered. “...that’s cold…”

Chuckling, her Haha pulled her close by the shoulder. “Exactly…that’s why you can’t go outside today, Suzume.” There was a pause though- golden vines from Haha’s own Stand unfurled and adding to the comfort of the small hug while they sat there, enjoying the more pleasant chill that came from sitting away from the water itself.

(One of the thorns snagged her scarf, at the edge. She didn’t see it, but Holly certainly saw what came of it.)

(It gave her plenty to consider; for herself, for the child beside her, and for the Stand that had just now disappeared from view. She could not see so far into the future that she knew precise details, but she at least knew which path contained the choices that would make at least one of them happy. Making Jotaro happy after all, in this state…)

(That was much harder.)

“Well,” the woman hummed, leaning in close. “How about this, hm?” Her voice was playfully conspiratory, eyes dancing with mischief despite the fact that they would be the only ones to enjoy it. “Since you want to go shopping very, very badly, I’m going to make a list for you tomorrow, ok?”

As her Haha explained this, Hoshi re-appeared behind the two- mostly to look at Haha with furrowed brows as she explained.

“...We can go shopping..?” Suzume started, only to receive a wink.

“Not me- you. I’ll have a very important list for you, and Hoshi, and you can do it all by yourselves~! It’s going to be your first errand.”

With every word that her Haha spoke, the feeling of this being something incredibly important only increased. Perhaps it was the way she kept punctuating each word- or the way she said the last two in particular. Her ‘First Errand’. Something big, and important.

(Hoshi- Jotaro- had gone from furrowing his brows to raising them somewhat accusingly instead. He was not unfamiliar with the concept of a ‘First Errand’- for all that he’d never given Jolyne such a task given the culture of the USA, he’d certainly experienced it himself before entering Kindergarten. Suzume was, by all appearances, the ‘Correct Age’ for what was at this point something he knew to be a dying practice.)

(...But then again, his mother was also incredibly aware that the girl would technically be accompanied by an adult capable of launching any danger through a wall if need be, so he suspected this was, if anything, a way to take advantage of that in order to give the girl some freedom. Holly may have been physically rejuvenated thanks to hamon, but the entire week was taking a strong emotional toll on her that she needed a break from- and if there was anything Jotaro was good at, it was ignoring his own need for the same, much as that hadn’t come to his mother’s mind.)

Suzume, ultimately, only barely heard what her Haha was saying after she said ‘First Errand’- there was something about making something special to eat, but she wasn’t paying much attention. She was too excited for the idea of doing something big, and important, and it didn’t take long before her Haha figured that out and took her inside with a held hand.

“I’m going to give you something so that you don’t get lost, okay~? And if you need help, I’ll be able to find out and come get you~”

Again, the words only half landed. Haha didn’t seem too upset about this though, merely smiling happily and setting her up with a snack. An ‘Important First Errand’, Suzume kept thinking to herself, unable to keep from beaming at her peanuts.

It was good (though not to her), that it kept raining through the entire day.

Letting herself go to bed in the evening was hard when thinking about what she’d get to do the next day, after all.

Chapter Text

Space Oddity had not shown Holly precisely what would happen during Suzume’s ‘First Errand’. For that matter, it hadn’t even shown as far as the next day- only the various responses that the little one had to what she said or didn’t say, and her attitude through the day from there. It had been a momentary debate for her as a result. Suzume, physically, looked to be about 5 years old. Certainly, when she had been bringing up Jotaro (and Shotaro), they’d been about that old as well.

But the boys had also grown up a natural life by that point. Suzume, as best as could be seen, technically had a week and a day of life to her.

Which led her to consider Jotaro in the equation as well.

Both of them were grieving. For lives lost, for lives stolen, in his case, and it was only crushing them both to shut themselves in the house through it all. A distraction would be perfect- or at the very least, it would be something that could help pass some time until they could use another method of coping. To her knowledge, and to ‘Joy’s knowledge as well, there were no other Stand users in the neighborhood, even considering the local high school. Not only was it now saturday, but for the time being it was the spring break before the start of the school year.

Students, even if any had Stands, would very likely be somewhere else.

In that sense, it was the best opportunity for Jotaro himself to adjust more to his current state of being without being painfully surrounded by closer reminders of the past. The neighborhood didn’t have the same associations as their house- it didn’t have the same memories tied to it in the form of altered photographs and constant phone calls between worried family.

(She had noticed him hovering at the edge of his summoning radius when she spoke with Shotaro. He was watching- for her sake, naturally, not for anything she was talking about, but in comparing their situations she felt it safe enough to say that between the two of them he needed space and comfort more than she did.)

(The problem was, there was only so much she could offer that he would take.)

Suzume as well, deserved the chance to ‘re-bond’ with the one who had been her partner in a reversed situation. It was an unprecedented flip, and with what had occurred, the girl simply could not be taught about Stands the way most children would be. Even now there was something in her mind that had her wondering if there even was a typical way for that- from what little she remembered they were so variable, so different from how she had been told about them so many years ago as ‘Joy’.

‘A Stand is so named because it ‘Stands’ beside you,’ Avdol had said back then. ‘Though between you and your father, I am beginning to think it’s no longer an accurate name,’ he laughed, Caesar scoffing alongside them all.

‘You also said a Stand is manifested as a ‘Will to Fight’,’ he pointed out, Joseph nodding in turn.

‘That’s right! But Joy doesn’t have a harmful bone in her body!’

This had resulted in a set of rolled eyes from Caesar while Avdol smiled into his tea. ‘JoJo…that is not what I meant…’

‘What do you mean it isn’t what you meant- Are you telling me I’m the one who doesn’t have a will to fight! Caesar, you wound me!’

It had been a playful debate that persisted for a number of minutes at the time. Her fathers each ribbing the other, Avdol occasionally getting in a sly comment or two to carry the humor along, while Joy herself laughed warmly at the sight. At the end, Stands had been defined as a manifested desire to act- to fight if need be, either from the defense or otherwise.

(“Well,” her Papa had huffed, “It would be nothing but insulting to say Joy isn’t capable of defending herself at least…”)

(Caesar had responded smartly that his teacher would certainly have words to say about it, and the man beside him had turned a unique shade of purple in reply.)

Whatever the case- this was different.

It was always going to be different, given how they started. One, swapped with the other- her son, a human being, switched with a fragment of himself. It couldn't ever be treated as the same. It wasn't even the same as with those who had Stands with already defined personalities, after all.

(Another glimpse, however faint, of a shining sun on a coastline. A young girl in pink trading insults with a boy in orange and blue, the pair with smiles on their faces, and small bullet-like imps laughing along with.

“You know, the Foundation said a Stand like that implies something is fundamentally broken- a 'fractured soul',” she could hear Caesar snorting, in that same tone that implied he believed none of it.

The same blond from a memory of gardens and talks of life chuckled in turn. “Signore Zeppeli, the more you tell me these things, the more I wonder what the Speedwagon Foundation is doing to conduct this research.”)

Her thoughts were drifting. Holly couldn't be sure if that was good or not, but admitted she would need to face things eventually as she thumbed through the options on her smartphone.

(No missed calls- everyone knew she preferred her landline, thank goodness, and any text messages thus far were read as of over a week prior- whoever would have been messaging, she realized with a wince, was probably faced with the exact issues she, Josuke, and Sadao had.)

(Caesar was a dead man in her last life. Here, he wasn't, just as Aya from the Cinderella Salon. She wondered with a small shock of realization, if it had anything to so with the shock of waking up with decades more life.)

(She wondered, even more briefly, if she would actually get to meet him for real as a result.)

"GPS….And…set route..?"

Technology, in many ways, was as much a curse as it was a blessing she was realizing. On one hand, this would guarantee that- at least with Jotaro to help- Suzume would not at all be at risk of getting lost. On the…other hand she needed to properly mark the shops as destinations, and it felt like this program was nothing like she remembered it…

(Well, it wasn’t anything like she, as Holly remembered. ‘Joy’ certainly made use of this, but it was a much fancier and more complicated app, made for people who actually spent a lot of time traveling. It brought to mind the question of if being at home in the first place right now hadn’t been a sheer stroke of luck.)

The phone gave a beep- ‘Route Accepted’

“Ah! Great~! Suzume~!” she called, Space Oddity’s vines quickly tapping something to ‘lock’ the phone screen for added safety. “It’s ready~!”

Suzume, as she had been for the last few minutes, was waiting at the front door with her shoes on. Jotaro was nowhere to be seen- she suspected he would only come out once she’d properly set off on her ‘errand’, inevitably rising to the occasion of making sure she didn’t attempt a fight for honor with a pigeon- and the girl herself was currently fiddling with the buttons of her new denim jacket.

Her scarf, Holly could tell, was going to become something so frequently washed that it would be as frayed at the edges as Jotaro’s hat had been.

(Jotaro, to be fair to the little one, had kickstarted that out of spite after a student in his first year class managed to cut the support band at the back. Classmates and upper year students picking fights with him had already started to become a constant thing at that time- something not at all helped when he started building the muscle his grandfather and those before him had been known for- but it seemed that at the transition from first year to second, that was where things properly escalated.)

(It occurred to her as she held that thought, that Shotaro had not only taken up sewing at a younger age after rejecting the choice to join track as his counterpart had, but had purchased the day prior the materials he’d need to repair his hat himself- on top of asking for a larger coat in advance. ‘Joy’ had thought him brilliantly mature for thinking so far in advance. Holly, armed with the knowledge of her first son’s life, couldn’t help but wonder if he’d somehow known. Known enough to move ahead with so much confidence, that where Jotaro’s second year had quickly become a mess of fights and calls from the school by fall term, Shotaro had managed to weather things through until she was being complimented on her ‘model student’ of a son. …Something that stung her now, with the contrasting memories to compare.)

“Alright,” Holly hummed as she brushed such thoughts aside, again brushing a strand of hair from Suzume’s face. “Do you know what you need to get?” In reply, she silently held her list- divided by the names of the stores she had to visit. “Great~! And now, here…I’m going to put this in your pocket. It’s going to tell you which way to go, okay~?”

The phone was carefully slipped in, the button over it closed. If they had any trouble hearing it, she didn’t doubt that one of the two could get it out. Suzume briefly poked at the lumpy pocket (proving Holly right in making sure the screen wouldn’t get jostled), and then nodded. “...Okay..!” There was a little more enthusiasm in her voice this time, and Holly couldn’t help but beam in reply.

“Alright~ And if you get tired, you make sure to ask Hoshi to call, okay?” she whispered into her ear, watching through Space Oddity’s eyes as Jotaro manifested entirely to frown. “But don’t worry! You’re going to do perfect!”

Suzume nodded a little more furiously at that, and proceeded to march as close to the door as possible. Chuckling, Holly thus opened the door. “Okay- here you go, and I’ll give you a good luck kiss too..!”

“...good luck kiss..?” Just as Suzume questioned that, Holly stooped down to peck her forehead with the kiss, leaving the girl to gasp and stare at the air as if she’d been splashed with water. The expression only served to make Holly laugh more, waving her hand to motion the girl forward.

“Mmhm~ So you can have lots of good luck on your trip! Okay, go have fun, and do your best~!”

“Okay..!!”

With that, as Jotaro faded from sight once again, Suzume started fast walking down the path and toward the gate- violet arms briefly appearing again to help the tiny child push them open and then close them behind.

She’d be okay, Holly decided with a smile and a sigh as the door closed. She’d…

…

Holly stood in the doorway, and for a moment, instead of being Holly, she was Joy.

A memory, again, but clearer than before. Setting up for Papa and the others to stay the night, and introducing Shotaro to them once he’d arrived home- it was a surprise visit, but it wasn’t as if they never visited at all, and only Avdol was the true surprise. A surprise that clearly showed as well- Shotaro’s response to the man had been to nearly drop his school bag, in fact, staring at him as if he could attack him at any moment.

‘We just came to discuss something with your mother,’ Avdol had calmly reassured when he saw the teen’s expression. For all that Joy had read momentary fear from her son, most- her father and ‘uncle’ included- easily mistook it for quiet and suspicious alarm. ‘It’s nothing to worry about…’

‘Your grandfather started to panic, and so we followed,’ Caesar had added to Joseph’s protest, and with that Shotaro had given a snort, a muttered ‘yare yare’, and excused himself to do his schoolwork in his room- with none the wiser to whatever it was that had given him such a scare. In the morning, most of the three guests were still asleep by the time it was time for him to leave for school; something that involved her having a quick breakfast with him at the table, passing him a packed lunch, and at last at the steps, preparing for the usual ‘goodbye kiss’.

To Joy's surprise, he’d refused. ‘...Shotaro..?’

He’d grumbled a bit- not as violently as Jotaro did by that point, but red faced and looking away.

‘Shotaro what’s wrong? Is-’

‘Nothing! …There’s nothing wrong,’ he’d repeated more softly after snapping- a typical apology for Joy, but for Holly something that again felt somehow…learned.

(Like he had seen it all before, and recognizing the pain ahead, pulled back immediately.)

‘Well then come over here! It’s not a problem right..~?’

Shotaro grumbled a bit more- but then from there as the sound of voices started to enter the kitchen he relented and came over. She kissed his cheek- somewhat warm, though she passed it off as whatever had gotten on his nerves- and sent him off.

…

Only to realize quickly after that he’d forgotten the lunch, Space Oddity quickly grabbing at the thing and digging thorns into fabric. ‘Oh-! Papa, I’m going out, Shotaro forgot his lunch!!’

‘What? Don’t they have cafeterias here!?’

‘If you had to choose between cafeteria food and home cooking Jojo, wouldn’t you want home cooking?’

‘I’d want a burger is what I’d want!’

‘Aii, of course you would…’

Joy had ignored them. Not because of anything deliberate, however- instead she’d gone quiet and pale as a multitude of potential futures began assaulting her thoughts, the thorns of Space Oddity still digging into the wrapped lunch. Shotaro was already on his way to school. There were very few paths for him to ‘take’, that had a different end.

Joy rushed out the door that instant, the bento left behind on the front step as she chased after her son before it would be too late.

(In the present, and still in the hall, Holly Kujo shuddered on the spot. She had a feeling, she realized, that she knew precisely how this memory went for Jotaro instead.)

(She also realized, having recalled the incident with fresher eyes, that Shotaro indeed had a fever that morning.)

Chapter Text

As Suzume walked, she had a smile on her face that absolutely couldn’t be removed. The sun, high in the sky, was shining. The birds- some of them even sparrows, like her name- chirped sweetly along power lines and trees as she steadily tromped forward.

Haha needed her to get- milk, gelatin, vanilla extract, whipping cream, and eggs. The eggs were last on the list, so she was pretty sure that it would be the last stop she made, even if she saw where the eggs were earlier than that.

For now, she was having a great time walking on her own though.

‘In 100 meters, turn Left.’

“Ora,” whispered Hoshi a few seconds after her pocket said this, pointing discreetly in the direction she had to go.

Suzume nodded, gripped her backpack straps, and carried on- pausing to look up at the light like she learned, and then doing so when she saw the walking man.

“Well, look who it is!” cheered the first grocery stop. “But where’s Kujo-san?”

Suzume blinked, and then frowned. “...That’s Haha…”

(Evidently, this was what she’d been ‘not saying’ the whole time a few days earlier. Who was this ‘Kujo-san’??? Haha was Haha! Obviously.)

The grocer just laughed warmly, leaning over their counter. “Of course, my mistake little miss! So, Suzume-kun, are you here to get something for your Haha then?”

The list was held out as the girl nodded, and from there the grocer had someone watch the front while guiding her find the milk. Most chatter came from the grocer rather than her-

“It’s been a while since I’ve seen little ones doing this!”

“It’s refreshing- we all know each other in this neighborhood, but most of us have grown old now…”

“Okay, Suzume-kun; here you go, one big carton of milk!” Suzume had mostly nodded and given short sounds of agreement or similar while the grocer had spoken, but it seemed that he’d expected as much. Once she and the old man were back to the front, it was rung through, and the money put in Suzume’s bag carefully pulled out and exchanged.

Suzume gave a small bow, like she’d gotten to practice while it was raining after her Haha taught her how to say ‘thank you’. “...Thank you, Grocery-san…”

A burst of laughter, and the grocer nodded. “Grocery-san! I like it! And thank you, Suzume-kun; here, let’s put this carefully in your bag…” The carton was put in, and the bag carefully closed. “Okay, there you go. Off you go to your next stop- be safe!”

“Okay~!”

“Hah!! Taking after Ku- ahm, your Haha, already!”

Suzume frowned- he’d definitely been about to say ‘Kujo-san’. But otherwise just nodded and carried on her way.

The same song and dance was performed for each stop along the path. There weren’t as many as when she’d gone with Haha earlier- the list was shorter, and her backpack could only hold so much, even if Hoshi was there…sort of.

It felt like he was always there, enough that she didn’t have to try looking, but he was still very invisible after all. Was that where she was before she Was? She had to think about it while waiting for the ‘red hand’ to become a ‘walking man’ again at another crosswalk.

The sights around her were starting to change as she walked. There were trees, where it felt like there used to be far more of them. Buildings that looked more like bricks, where it seemed that once there had been more with rooftops like her house. Suzume wandered, still following the sound of her pocket telling her to ‘go straight for 400 meters’, and did not take her eyes away from these sights.

Eventually, they landed on a long staircase going down toward a series of buildings.

The stairs were empty. There was a big red ‘gate’ (there weren’t doors, but she knew it was a gate somehow) at the top of the stairs, and little stone lanterns like in Haha’s garden along the side. Various trees grew as well, but they seemed…bigger than they should have been. Much much bigger.

There was something strange about the one half-way down as well, and she could not take her eyes off of it.

‘-Dng-dmn!- Readjusting. Make a U-Turn and turn left at-’

While Suzume ignored the pocket to start making her way down the stairs, something a little harder to ignore floated beside her with a scolding frown.

The girl looked up. “...I wanna see the tree…” she insisted with a point and a frown of her own, clumsy feet moving to the next stair with both shoes before repeating the process per stair.

Hoshi in reply hissed- “Or-a..!”

It wasn’t in words like Haha and her had, but she could guess what he meant all the same. Her pouting continued, and she pointed harder. “No..! I’m going to see the tree, Hoshi..!! There’s a green there!”

The Stand halted the protests, even recoiling at the statement.

Suzume for her part, looked back to the tree. From far up at the gate she’d seen something that looked more like a coat than a tree. The branches here were all still bare from winter- little bundles of greenery had started appearing, but her Haha said there wouldn’t be any real leaves for a bit longer.

But from up at the gate, where she hadn’t looked the last time, she’d seen a big, big block of green.

And now, Hoshi saw it too.

“...ora-”

He made a sound like a choke- like someone took the air that he didn’t need and tore it from his throat. Suzume ignored him, carrying on step by step downward while she tried to make out what it was. The more she looked, the clearer it seemed. Hoshi could probably see it perfectly, she knew- knew, and felt somehow like he’d gotten that trick from her, even if that was hard to really remember. But it didn’t change that she couldn’t, and that she would have to work with what she could make out now.

The green lump was becoming something more substantial. More person shaped, she thought as she continued down. There was an arm dangling down from the tree branches, and a leg propping itself up against another one. A shock of red could be seen, and somehow through their bond she could feel a spike of what wasn’t quite fear but something like fear from Hoshi. She didn’t know why, though. After all-

It was just a person in a tree, and a person she knew somehow to be nice, as well.

(Jotaro for his part had felt a yawning pit in his throat ever since he turned ‘Star Platinum’s eyes toward the tree where they’d met and saw an all too familiar shade of green locked in its branches. He’d started to say a name on reflex and heard that same two-syllable sound he was trapped with instead, and from there simply stared and kept staring even as Suzume’s path forced him closer and closer to what he could see. A lounging pose in green. As if nothing had ever happened. As if nothing had ever changed.)

(But it had, and if there was any greater proof of it, it was in the fist sized hole that could still be clearly seen through the chest of the figure that was now moving from their spot.)

Chapter Text

Being a ghost was hell.

If one had asked Noriaki Kakyoin years ago-

(Decades,)

(Centuries, tied to this damn tree as it defied space time through repeated lifetimes,)

-about the idea of heaven and hell, and on what both were like, he would have coolly and calmly described them both as an idyllic paradise and a realm of greatest horror, before adding with a smirk that if either place existed, he would not be going to either.

(Perhaps while Dio had him in his thrall he would have claimed it unnecessary.)

(After the fact, when he was laying in a hospital bed with his eyes covered in bandages, he would have in contrast argued that hell was a place you did not recognize as such; there was a comfort after all, in knowing just where you stood.)

He had no idea, how right those thoughts would have been.

(All of them.)

Hell was finding oneself not in the place where they grew up, nor the place they were buried, but instead the place that could most easily be defined as their turning point before the turning point.

It wasn’t the place where he made his worst mistake. No, certainly not.

(He could still see her in his minds eye; his cousin, hurriedly stowed behind a series of wooden work skids.)

(If he’d given it half a thought before falling for DIO’s game, he’d have realized that the easiest way to get someone as slippery as Hierophant to brace for a one on one fight face to face, was to seemingly go for his cousin first.)

Instead it was before he’d had his choice made for him. Before he’d made his way to the school’s medical room, his Stand slinking in and filling the nauseatingly tight spaces of a person’s insides in order to puppet to his will.

(He couldn’t feel Hierophant anymore, Kakyoin had thought when he first woke up here. And for a number of days that had been what was on his mind. It felt as hollow as it had when he’d sent his last message, the strength of his soul long gone before he followed suit, and looking at the forever fresh wound on his front had made it clear that he was never getting Hierophant back.)

(And then Jotaro had walked by, arm in a sling, head down on the way to school, and somehow it felt all the more worse.)

When he stared at the air, he couldn’t tell exactly how long it had been. Being bound as he was, the ghost had felt days and weeks and months blur together, barely making sense of the passage of time in the form of students present and students not.

Jotaro had gone to school for a year and a number of weeks more, and then graduated. He hadn’t seen him in his tree even once, and by the end Kakyoin even sabotaged the chance by growing so frustrated by the fact that one of the higher branches actually snapped and fell right on the path.

(They’d closed it for a short time to repair the steps. Or he thought so, at least- they’d needed repairing at some point, he knew. There was a hazy feeling that somehow things had gone differently in ‘recent’ memory, but he couldn’t place it.)

(Not in the amount of time it took for a full passing of the earth to see.)

So, here he was. He knew that something had happened. Something had…repeated, it was easier to say, and perhaps that was what hell really was. Being stuck there, hovering, waiting for his living counterpart to repeat his mistakes and then rejoin him in his consciousness. Turning his every thought off as much as possible until he was numb to the world around him and then letting years skip onward emptily.

It was spring break, he could tell idly. No students walking the path for more than a day or so, which meant they wouldn’t be here for a good week or so more- he always noticed that much. Eventually there would be nothing at all for years on end save for the occasional person, but he tried not to dwell on that knowledge. That, after all, wouldn’t be for a good number of decades still.

He thought he heard something though, something faintly clipping down the steps with a clumsy ‘tap-tap’. Nothing like the sound of footsteps from highschoolers (he’d given up on making a game of things ages ago, he bitterly thought with a scowl; it wasn’t worth it, no one saw him, and all he was doing was driving himself insane). It was…

‘One-two, one-two’

…It was more like how Ryoko used to go up the apartment building stairs when her family visited, if he thought about it.

(How old was Ryoko now? An adult, obviously. But was she even still alive? Everything…merged. Everything happened and passed and repeated and happened and-)

(Jotaro probably had a family at some point. He wondered occasionally if they would be stuck with the same kind of tragedy Jotaro dealt with, or if they’d be granted the relative peace his mother had for at least until the next generation began. Then, in his wondering, he would snap and push the thoughts away before he made himself more miserable.)

(Being alone wasn’t healthy as a human. As a ghost, it was assuredly the definition of Hell, making him feel as small as he had when there was not yet a Hierophant Green to even miss. Which, perhaps, was the point all along.)

Kakyoin turned his head, and as the wind seemed briefly to blow from behind him, he squinted toward the stairs.

He was right to think it was a child. Younger than Ryoko was in Egypt, not by much, but younger. Black hair that seemed somehow familiar, and a little red scarf to accompany what was definitely the kind of kid’s designer wear given to those with well-to-do parents who could stand to replace a wardrobe every year.

(Part of him couldn’t stand it. He focused on that one point of irritation despite himself, because the other thing to focus on was the fact that a small child seemed to have taken an unhealthy interest in his tree, and he didn’t want to ask himself what that meant. Focusing on the spending habits of parents who didn’t grasp that children weren’t their dolls was easier.)

It was nothing, he told himself as he looked back up at the sky. Whoever the kid’s parents were, they would probably come down and tug her back upstairs while explaining that ‘high school was for older kids’ or some rot like that. It was a single thread of change in an entire tapestry of the same old-same old, and he wasn’t going to fixate on it.

(He thought he briefly heard an ‘ora’. Thought it, and resolutely turned even farther away.)

One-two.

One-two.

The footsteps were coming closer he realized, which meant the girl either had terrible parents, or was actually alone out here.

Which still meant ‘probably terrible parents’ in his opinion, because for all that he could remember going out to get carrots and tea from the store at age 4, he was pretty sure it would’ve ended poorly indeed if he hadn’t abruptly found himself accompanied by a friend in green.

(His parents had obligingly cooed over his ‘invisible friend’, with his father playfully asking if he was an ‘alien’ when Hierophant was described as best as possible by a small child with little to go off of beyond puddles, grass, and perhaps an octopus.)

(It did not take long before a young Noriaki realized that they did not think Hierophant was real at all.)

“Hoshi, Hoshi…”

He could hear the kid now, he realized with a glance. She was far closer- practically right under the tree, pouting up at him as if she could actually see where he sat. When she spoke however, she looked away, so whoever or whatever ‘Hoshi’ was, it wasn’t him.

Kakyoin glanced upward. There were a few birds making themselves comfortable up there again, which explained why the girl had gotten over here to stare in the first place he realized. It was nothing. If Jotaro, after all, hadn’t been able to see him-

“Hoshi, bring me up now..!!!”

It was a quiet, but forceful demand, and a sudden shock entered him at the sound. Kakyoin found himself frozen- still staring upward, not looking away from the two birds as they turned their heads to the sound of something moving and abruptly tore off.

“Higher, Hoshi..!!”

That was even clearer. That was even closer. That was-

From right beside him, a small child beamed wide and spoke. “...Hello..!”

Kakyoin, finally unable to ignore things, turned.

And immediately, despite having no air in his lungs at all, choked as the sight of Star Platinum holding the child he’d so earlier dismissed met his eyes.

“KH- Kg-”

He couldn’t even get words out. He couldn’t even speak. If he had a heartbeat, if he had a heart, it would be hammering in his chest.

Star Platinum was watching him with narrowed eyes- as if the Stand itself did not want to be there in the slightest, while the child herself merely looked at him as if he were some grand thing.

“My name is, Kujo Suzume,” the girl was introducing, the words only serving to have Kakyoin stiffen more as she tried to bow.

It was a difficult thing to pull off, given that she was currently being supported in the air by two large hands as Star Platinum held her as close as physically possible. She seemed unconcerned by this, still smiling broadly as she continued.

“It’s nice to meet you..!”

The introduction was stiff. About as stiff as any small child given the lines to recite would sound no matter their actual mood, and painfully, he was reminded of his first day entering school as a preschool student.

(‘Now Noriaki, make sure your hands are at your side like this- and then we bow this way, and say..?’)

(‘Hello! My name is, Kakyoin Noriaki! It’s nice to meet you!’)

(‘Exactly~!’)

Kakyoin’s eyes stung. There weren't any tears (was it even possible for him to cry?), but they stung, and he slowly forced himself to reply.

Not with his name though.

“...Who…ARE you…?”

The pout that the child- Suzume- made in reply was honestly impressive.

“...you’re supposed to say ‘hello’ back…” In fact the frown actually deepened. “...I said my name…”

Kakyoin blinked.

And then blinked again. Not that he hadn’t heard the girl, but this was a little sudden for someone who expected another eternity of solitude. Rather than answer he instead backed away, eyes glued to the girl.

Kujo, his mind quietly reminded him. Kujo, Kujo, she’d said-

“...Kujo? …As in…” No. This was too much, he needed to focus- “...As in Jotaro Kujo…or perhaps…Holly Kujo..?” His voice was hesitant. It wasn’t anything he could likely be blamed for- even if he’d thought of it, and wondered it, the idea that life had indeed ‘moved on’ was a chilling one to be faced with.

Somehow this was the wrong answer, as the girl scowled even more angrily. “Haha. Is Haha,” she spat, the anger somehow clear as day despite the softness it was uttered with. Star Platinum, Kakyoin noted, looked down at the girl with tired amusement in reply.

Well. “So then you’re her daughter,” he murmured, interest gradually growing. Star Platinum was Jotaro’s stand. Holly Kujo was Jotaro’s mother. Was…no, that couldn’t be right, maybe this repeating of history was for some other reason? There hadn’t been any other changes to his knowledge though (or at least, it hadn’t felt…).

The fact was Kakyoin was at a severe disadvantage, even if he was unaware.

The living human brain had the biological sense to take its time when crushing another lifetime of memories onto a person; even the Stands of those affected were coaxing new users through the mess, lest their partners become shells of themselves.

Those beyond the realm of the living, who had yet the determination to remain through multiple instances of time, did not have this natural defense- and Kakyoin had no reason to so much as try to sift through decades for a single instant of time.

(Which in summation meant that trying to make sense of someone other than Jotaro with Jotaro’s Stand and Mother was not going well.)

Suzume, he noticed in his thoughts, was a bit red faced.

“If you’re going to keep calling Haha names…” she muttered quietly, tiny fists balled and shaking while she dangled in Star Platinum’s grip, “I’m going to give you one.”

…He shouldn’t be entertaining this, he thought idly. He shouldn’t. Shouldn’t…

But it was so damn lonely. Stuck here. With no one. Except for now?

(Who was she? Some reincarnation? It could’ve been long enough for that. Maybe it was farther than he thought in time, and this was some descendant. Or maybe it was another reality, earlier in time, his ghost clinging in wait of the inevitable. The school didn’t seem that different, after all.)

(....Either way, it would make this one…)

“Really?” he teased idly, crossing his arms and trying not to think about the way they covered his fatal injury as a result. What was the worst that could happen? What else was there? He’d regret this later when she never came back, he knew it, but right now? Kakyoin smiled, and though the motion was out of practice he couldn’t help hope it at least looked friendly. “And what could you call me?” Kakyoin chuckled, adjusting himself in the tree. “We just met~”

“Mister Donut.”

Kakyoin’s smile fell.

(Star Platinum, he noticed, actually Winced.)

“No,”

“You’re Mister Donut now, you have a donut hole…”

“No,” he repeated with a growl, and this time he even sat up and moved to hop out of the tree and away. His limit was small- he could reach as far as the closest wing of the school, and no higher than the Torii gate at the top of the steps- but he’d take advantage to get away from this. “You’re not using that.”

“...You keep calling Haha a different name…and…you won’t say yours…so…”

“Ora-oraaaaaaa-” he heard Star Platinum grumble, as if actual words would come out. In the same instance, Suzume was carefully lowered to the ground, the girl walking closer as Kakyoin reeled upon her.

“Because that is her name!” he hissed, a hand to his head. How long was it before kids learned that again? Why hadn’t she picked up on that one? “Her name isn’t actually ‘Haha’, that just means-! Gkh-”

Kakyoin choked mid-grumble, looking down to the child’s face. The girl was still scowling- a kind of determination he was far too unused to seeing, and with a face he could tell would grow to resemble his that much more. With major differences he was sure, but few differences enough to throw him now.

So the ghost growled and turned again, exhaling a useless breath slowly as he calmed down.

He was getting attached.

(He couldn’t risk that, not knowing the inevitable years, decades, and more, ahead. He couldn’t bear that, not like this, not as hollowed out and alone as he already was.)

“Just go,” he muttered, not turning around.

“....I told you my name though…” was the child’s whining and quiet protest, Kakyoin rolling his eyes in return. Was his cousin this irritating? He hadn’t thought so but maybe he was remembering her wrong. At this point Ryoko was a spec in a sea of nothing, and he hadn’t even mentioned her on the trip to Cairo besides.

(He hadn’t mentioned anything about himself, not really.)

(It was easier to focus on the present, all of them; talking about the past beyond casual, unrelated and impersonal anecdotes, stung enough that it was easier to let Polnareff do so on his own alongside Mr. Joestar and Avdol so that the grim reminder of why they’d left to begin with could never come, and talking about the future would have effectively been suicide. The present was easier.)

(The present was all they actually had.)

A growling sigh, and Kakyoin finally turned, sighing in exasperation while trying to ground himself. “...Kakyoin Noriaki,” he finally muttered, narrowing his eyes as a flash of familiarity came through the girl’s eyes. Suspicion was growing- enough that he found himself slowly approaching to stoop down and study the girl’s face more, wind passing through him and his injury all the same.

(He didn’t see the expression on Star Platinum’s face. He’d paid attention to the Stand when he was directly behind the girl, but right now with his focus on the child he may as well have been more of a ghost than he was.)

(‘Star Platinum’, unbeknownst to the ghost, somehow felt that to be a harsher blow than anything else thus far.)

Suzume was taking the name and nodding over it now. She seemed impressively pleased about something, if he could only identify what. And she was definitely related. Absolutely related, apparently having come down here on her own without any prompting…

…He was getting attached, he thought again, eyes unable to tear themselves away. That was no good, he realized coldly. She probably wasn’t even supposed to be down here, after all.

…even if she…seemed to recognize…

The girl threw her arms around him, and it felt like lightning shot through his spine. It didn’t hurt- but it left him gasping with enough shock that he pulled back, Suzume falling back to the ground with an audible ‘oof!’

“...ow…” She looked up accusingly, and Kakyoin for his part looked back down with all the terrified ferocity of a dog that had never been kindly touched in its life.

“Don’t,” he forced out, the words thick on the air. He could feel himself shudder, and where her arms had made contact it felt almost like he’d been burned. “Don’t touch me.”

“...you were sad…” was Suzume’s protest. “Hoshi gives hugs when Haha is sad…”

(Behind her, her Stand closed his eyes with the barest of winces.)

“I’m always ‘sad’,” the ghost snorted. “I’m dead.” At the confused and yet hurt stare, Kakyoin merely floated past and back up into the tree. This was pointless, he reasoned once more, absently rubbing at his arms. “Just leave; I can’t leave here anyway.”

He couldn’t get attached. It’d be worse than seeing Jotaro walk past his tree for most of the year and then disappearing forever after. He’d be conversing with a shadow of his friend and then see that shadow get extinguished, and then just wait forever more.

This time for a glimmer of hope that amounted to nothing.

Suzume almost said something. That was the feeling he had, at least. In the corner of his eye however, he could see her look up to her Stand instead before turning away in silence.

(He should say something. Make…make her come back, make her…)

Kakyoin said nothing.

He just sat in his tree and waited for eternity to continue.

Chapter Text

For a variety of reasons, the detour was costing Jotaro a heart he didn’t physically have. Walking off the beaten path was already something he was trying to prevent- he knew his mother meant well in sending them out like this, but he was fairly certain Suzume wasn’t actually ready for this kind of solitary walk.

Not because of anything at a technical level, mind; even if he hadn’t occasionally interjected to point or gesture toward the proper direction or proper object, the kid would probably have figured it out. Or even gotten help, for that matter. Arguably the entire point had been that he would help- some sort of bonding experience, his mother would say.

(Actually it would be exactly what she’d say, most likely. A chance to figure the other out at the level they’d both been brought to, in separate directions.)

Suzume was, however, assuredly more ready to rise for a fight when she wasn’t being supervised by anyone other than him; thus far it was only the playfully polite nature of elderly grocery keepers that kept her from flying into a small tornado of a tantrum, and if that happened there wouldn’t necessarily be much he could do to stop it other than pinning her carefully in place.

That was what he’d thought, at least.

The stairs should have been his first clue- a clue that his exceptions in the yard with things that could otherwise have harmed the child were exceptions because of the harm to be avoided. At some subconscious level, Suzume had known that kicking a rock would hurt, that chasing a bug would get her hurt, and that chasing a squirrel would do that as well.

No matter how angry she had been, she knew- deep down, very deep- that it would hurt.

There was nothing about the stairs to his old school that could hurt her- not physically, and automatically, at least, and that meant that any attempts to turn her around by (admittedly minimal) force ended in his hands moving through her shoulders. She’d walked toward them as if drawn there, perhaps by some faint recollection of a pattern he’d carried Star Platinum through for a number of weeks in the past.

(Jotaro did not want to go down those steps, to glance at a place that was not only so far in the past, but so very representative of the start of when things began to go wrong. It may not have been the exact beginning, but it had been the only part he had been forced to face again, and again, and again, once he’d returned.)

(It mattered not, and in his protest something hit him even harder.)

‘A Green’, she’d claimed, as if the one in her sights was merely an object. If he’d had breath to breathe he’d have lost it. If he had a heart to beat, it would have stopped. Jotaro saw the sight of a painfully familiar uniform, a head of red hair, and after choking out a name that was no longer a name forced himself to disappear from sight.

He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t face this, he couldn’t face him.

Not like this.

‘Hoshi…’

There was a tug.

‘Hoshiiii…’

Harder, and despite his desire to be elsewhere, Jotaro found himself considering the option of giving an answer. What would happen if he ignored this? The girl would get more upset, that much he knew. And then she’d start getting louder, and probably attract attention and…

(If he could sigh in this space, or if he still had a hat to grip by the brim, he’d be doing it. If too much happened it would blow back on his mother and frankly she didn’t need that right now.)

(None of them did, but he could at least carry some of that weight.)

He manifested again behind the girl and stared, face set in a grim frown.

Suzume, it seemed, had gotten much closer while he was ‘away’. The sight of Kakyoin so close, simply sitting there in the tree with his back turned, nearly made him wonder if this was somehow a Stand attack instead of something else, even despite the fact that a Stand wouldn’t psychologically attack another Stand.

Kakyoin’s form looked simultaneously limp and tense- a ghost accustomed to their lot in the afterlife, yet perpetually standing on the knife’s edge. This far from the tree he could make out the worn details on the uniform- the scuffs and tears from various encounters they’d had along the journey, and the wear from simply having nothing else for two months on top of that.

(They’d dropped everything and gone, but the fact was even if they’d taken more than a few hours of time to pack, Kakyoin would have only had the clothes on his back, and perhaps whatever he’d tucked on his person. It wasn’t just ‘as if’ he had been sent on his way to die. No; DIO had clearly picked out someone with the expectation of failure. It couldn’t have even been testing the waters- all it was was a message.)

(I’m coming for you whether you want it or not.)

“Hoshi, Hoshi,” Suzume was demanding, gesturing to the tree. He knew what she wanted. He knew what she wanted, and that was a fact that sat on his mind like a slowly increasing weight, particularly now that he’d ‘agreed’ to at least see what it was the girl was after. It brought to mind an inescapable thought, despite the fact that he could still very easily continue to refuse-

Stands were ‘tools’.

Partners, but ‘tools’, extensions of the soul. Some had more personality and individuality than others, but at the end of the day something almost universally constant in his experiences had been how Stand Users referred to their Stands.

As theirs. Their Stand had preferences, but it also had power at Their disposal. It was Their orders on the field, Their desires, Theirs-

“Hoshi,” Suzume demanded with a frustrated hiss, stamping her foot. “Bring me up now..!!”

A quiet sigh, now that he had form enough to manage it. If he could speak properly, there’d be a muttered ‘yare yare daze…’ rather than the muffled ‘oras’ he was stuck with. He was here now, however.

He was committed to it now, for that matter, and slowly, stiffly, he grabbed the girl under the arms to lift her up.

(It had always been My Hierophant Green, My Silver Chariot, My Magician’s Red, whenever they had fought or watched another fight.)

(He’d always been so quick to think of Star Platinum as too eager to land the blows, but he’d never given pause to wonder about how the reverse could even operate.)

He barely held her off the ground- chest level, she was, and Jotaro forced himself to not even look up at the ghost that had now truly frozen in the tree. He’d heard her- Kakyoin had absolutely heard the girl in his arms, but for whatever reason-

(Disbelief, Loneliness, Resignation,)

-was refusing to turn.

Suzume was smiling- she was excited, even elated, and the emotions were muddying the edges of his own. “Higher, Hoshi..!!” she cheered, and with a muted grunt he forced himself to relent.

Stands could float to a point. Floating as Star Platinum was easy, in fact, and for all that this wasn’t that impressive an advantage when their roles were as they should have been, it made giving a small child a ‘boost’ that much easier. Suzume was now facing Kakyoin- practically right beside the undead teen, vibrating with anticipation.

Jotaro for his part narrowed his eyes and cursed himself for not being able to turn his head away when Kakyoin himself looked with a start.

(How much of Star Platinum over time had been his own will overpowering the Stand, he found himself wonder, as the waves of Suzume’s own excitement continued to batter against his own wall of upset. He wouldn’t say that Star Platinum stopped emoting entirely, but the fact remained that the Stand had calmed down. Calmed to something more like himself. Something more suited to a life that shouldn’t have been regular fighting.)

(The idea of the same happening to him was petrifying, even with the knowledge that having as much pre-established for himself as he did cut the possibility off entirely.)

Watching Suzume…

Watching Kakyoin, primarily…

It was uncomfortable. Upsetting. He was there now and couldn’t force himself to leave- couldn’t force himself to drop the child and deal with things from there- and that meant watching an old and long dead friend reveal bit by bit just how broken they were.

Kakyoin had not expected to be seen, let alone heard. Seeing ‘Star Platinum’ on top of that was clearly just confusing, and it wasn’t as if he could blame the kid.

And christ, that was a thought. He was a kid. They’d both been damn kids, and he couldn’t even ask what the hell his grandfather had been thinking because in the end it had come down to his hands to take DIO down- a kid, younger than his own daughter.

(He wanted so badly to know what she was doing. Was she herself? She must have been, with how his mother spoke over the phone while looking to him. Something had happened to create his circumstance while sparing the others, clearly, but he still couldn’t identify why it happened like this. …Least of all why it would steal his daughter’s memory while leaving the rest in place.)

Sitting before him in the tree, Kakyoin had the look of someone who hadn’t slept in far too long (he probably couldn’t), hadn’t spoken to someone in far too long, hadn’t been heard by someone…

But more than that as confusion melted away there was…relief. Relief, and somehow as well, fear. The more Suzume spoke, the more the expression cleared, and Jotaro could not help but tighten his jaw at the gut wrenching sight. They were almost playfully bickering now, to add insult to the injury. The topic wasn’t surprising- it was the exact one he predicted the girl would start fighting over (hence the ‘almost’ if he was honest), and now, here they were. When Kakyoin called for her bluff, however-

Mister Donut

Jotaro couldn’t keep from flinching. There was no surprise when the conversation soured from there and Kakyoin actually left the tree as Suzume continued to call after him.

Good freaking grief- “Ora-oraaaaaa…”

Out loud again. He needed to stop doing that, he thought as he let the girl down to more properly follow after Kakyoin.

He only barely followed- distance, at least, helped to keep from getting overpowered by his partner’s thoughts, something that was becoming strangely harder the longer they were in this area. It was like she was…

…Remembering this place.

Jotaro looked up at the tree in thought. This was the one he’d grabbed mid fall- Kakyoin’s hiding place, if it could be called one back then, wouldn’t have been far. If he thought back to that time he could even locate where he’d been sitting.

A speck of red among the green, painting on a canvas.

(He wondered what brought Kakyoin here to begin with, as a ghost. In life he knew he hadn’t lived here. In death, he’d died in Cairo for that matter. So why here? And what even existed that was so unfulfilled that he remained? His only experience with ghosts had been a young woman in an alley that most would have said never even existed, and he wondered just how many others he’d missed.)

(He wondered why it was that this current change now made this possible.)

Kakyoin had given in and given his name by now, Jotaro observed, but that wasn’t the only thing he’d given up on. The ghost focused intensely on the girl before him, and with a jolt Suzume was already in motion before Jotaro could even do something to avoid it. The feeling of an embrace, more encompassing than physically possible for him but absolutely in the realm of potential for a small child, pulled him from his thoughts to look ahead just in time to see his friend pull back as if struck.

(He wasn’t doing well. He hadn’t been doing well for a while.)

(Only one of them had ignored the help there could have been, it seemed. The other had nothing to go on at all, and could tell just how much help there would ever be.)

‘Just…leave.’

They needed to listen.

(Before he caught himself any more upon the thought that there was nothing they could do.)

As Suzume opened her mouth to protest, he focused on that feeling as hard as possible until she turned to him, the ghost already taking refuge in his tree. They had taken enough time as it was. They needed to finish this shopping list and get home, before his mother-

…Theirs, he supposed-

Got worried.

In his mind he could still see the rest of the walk he’d taken at 17, leg bleeding as he stubbornly avoided showing a limp- but now, looking at the stairs that went farther down, and watching as Suzume herself turned from the tree only to wander toward the school on that same path, he wondered how this would have happened in this ‘new reality’. His mother had a Stand. That changed things, it changed things significantly.

(If his mother had a Stand, a fully fledged Stand, then what had driven them to Egypt?)

The photos in the room that was ‘his’ weren’t the same as in his own life. While kept clean, it was clear they belonged to someone…different. Someone who wasn’t him. The name had the same kanji- but it was just a shell. A faulty mirror, a…

Jotaro froze. His eyes were more sensitive as Star Platinum, but it hadn’t been something he’d put too much focus into. Things were more detailed on their own- focus was the key to seeing farther, so as long as he didn’t do that he’d save himself (and Suzume) the headache.

There was something in the grass, however. Something partly covered by soil, but otherwise foreign. The more he looked, the more he felt Suzume pause up ahead- turning around from where she’d been going toward the school.

(Perhaps she really was remembering, at least a little. No more than fragments however, that much he was sure. He suspected, if she remembered any of this clearly, she would not be so happy at all.)

(Something- someone- who cared enough to pick up on when he’d offered his family comfort to try and do the same for another, wouldn’t have found enjoyment in their fights.)

“Hoshi?” Suzume blinked up at the Stand, and then followed his eyes. “...what’s that?”

In a small burst of speed, he was crouched beside the object and carefully digging it out- a corner of fabric soon becoming a full square of it. Lined with green triangles, a faded message smudged and stained into it.

He didn’t need to read what was in front of him, to know what it said.

(The same kanji. The message would never have had to change outside a single furigana character, and the handkerchief was ready. There was no dried blood on this however, and this was too far away from the school for any fight to have brought it here, from there. His counterpart had never even tripped, he deduced.)

(He’d gone right to Kakyoin to head him off at the pass, and from there what happened, happened.)

Suzume blinked at the handkerchief, and reached for it with a smile. Jotaro didn’t stop her- watching as she shook it out with a grin and then carefully put the grubby thing in her pocket. “Donut’s sheet!” she cheered quietly, Jotaro scowling in reply. Suzume paused to look up at him, an innocent stare all she had for her defense.

The staring contest persisted for a few moments.

“...he was being mean though…” she muttered, fists clenched against her jacket.

Jotaro’s stare only persisted harder. Eventually there was a grumble, and she made her way back up the stairs. When they passed the tree- Kakyoin still resolutely refraining from even a glance their way- Suzume paused to wave.

“...Bye Green- I’ll look after your sheet..!”

Hm. Green was alright, Jotaro supposed. Like Hierophant. Like-

(‘Hoshi’, she insisted, just as she was now referring to Kakyoin as ‘Midori’. How much concept of names did Stands- at least Stands of their quality- have, he found himself wondering. It was nothing he could prove. Nothing he could question, for that matter.)

(He wondered if Avdol and Polnareff would have been ‘Red’ and ‘Silver’, or ‘Magician’ and ‘Chariot’. Hierophant, at least, would’ve been harder for Suzume’s new language ability than even Kakyoin was.)

There was a shift. Miniscule, barely notable except with his high powered eyes. But Kakyoin otherwise said nothing, and so off they went up the stairs. Bit by bit until they were coming to the torii gate that heralded the entrance to the path, and until the muffled sound of the phone GPS’s irritated insistence to ‘make a u-turn’ was finally responded to.

(It had been going the entire time, but admittedly when they’d first gone down the stairs he’d discreetly gone for the volume dial. Now that they were back on track he could turn it up, even if Suzume was confusedly frowning at her front pocket while Jotaro did so.)

A left, the phone had said. Time to get some eggs, and then they could head home. The weight of what had happened today, at least, could sit on him alone-

“WHGH- How on earth!?”

Both Stand and Stand user fumbled as they stopped five feet from the gate, watching Kakyoin land in an unceremonious heap just behind them. The ghost looked no less haggard than before, but assuredly confused by his circumstance and even more irritated than when they’d left. Hair strewn across his scarred face, the ghost stood up limply to fix a stare at them.

He was here. He was following- No, not even following, it was more like he’d been bodily launched toward them-

“How?” Kakyoin choked out, eyes wide with an expression so painfully familiar he could place it in an instant.

(‘Why?’, he could hear him ask, his expression not quite confusion but something more fearful instead. His head was still dripping with blood from the recently excised thing that had twisted his thoughts so thoroughly, the thing that had nearly struck at his own in retaliation. ‘Why did you save me, at the risk of your life?’)

(His answer had been about as flippantly cool as anyone expected, but it had been no less honest. Even turning away, the lost look his soon to be friend had was almost haunting.)

This wasn’t irritation, Jotaro realized coldly. This was something else. Something entirely different.

This was hope, however twisted and painful it was to see in something other than long faded memory.

“How did you get me away from the school grounds?”

Suzume looked up to her Stand as he himself looked down to her pocket, and between the two of them, he was certain he was the only one with enough sense and knowledge to groan.

Chapter Text

In the distant past and yet not at all, Jocelyn Kujo nee Joestar ran as fast as she could toward her son’s school.

In some paths of time the lunch was passed off to the teen while he patched up a torn pant leg that had caught on a branch. In some paths he was held up by classmates, mid lecture due to their breaking into a fight behind him. In others, more frightfully, she brought the lunch only to be given the worst news any mother could hear.

Something about the first few paths felt unlikely- there was no lunch in her hand, even if she rushed in the same manner. The paths she brought it with were faded, hazy at the edges, as if something had already actively started to prune the branches. The last one felt strongest despite that tangible fact however, and it was for that reason that instead of a calm and ladylike walk, Jocelyn ‘Joy’, 'JoJo', Kujo ran.

People who recognized her were calling her name in confusion- had something happened? Was everything alright? She ignored them all to keep running, struggling to hold steady breath all the same and then forgoing the balance when she started to hear screams.

The classmates from one of the timelines were at the top of the stairs- two of them ran toward her to try and grab her shoulders.

“Mrs. Kujo!! Mrs. Kujo you can’t go down there, it’s-”

“Someone started fighting Shotaro-kun-”

Some boys had followed behind. “That’s no fight, it's a monster..!” one was protesting. “It’s lifting him in the air!!”

“It’s like he’s got psychic powers or something-”

“Has anyone even seen that guy before!?”

Joy drowned them out. Her face had gone white the minute the second girl had said ‘fighting Shotaro’, and the only reason she hadn't yet moved their hands off her shoulder was because she’d forgotten to do anything but stiffen her own in fright.

Without another word she’d shouldered past the children and rushed down the stairs-

(What if it was too late, what if this was That path, what if-)

Shotaro, her dear Shotaro, was covered with blood and limp in the air, suspended by stiffened green tendrils that held him prone. She looked at the sight, and immediately screamed-

“NO-!”

The source of the tendrils snapped his head toward her with an inhuman crack. A motion that would have normally had any person pause and cry out at something they pulled was given no thought at all as the teen with red hair fixed dull eyes upon her and pointed.

(He’d been saying something to her son but she’d not heard it. What she heard was the rest.)

“Emerald Splash.”

Stones.

Stones were flying in her direction, she realized, but Joy was seeing nothing but red where there was green. A pained and agonized scream broke from her lips as vines tore forward, hamon gleaming across like live wires. The stones met with bramble- but rather than tear through the vines, it was the hamon that shattered the stone as if it were mere paper.

(She’d been told in her childhood that Hamon couldn’t truly harm the living. Her father and uncle said otherwise- alter the resonance of life, and you could assuredly do damage- but they had also proven handily that the counterbalance to hamon’s typical state was nothing to sneeze at.)

(Stones had no life at all, and they could be reduced to dust with nothing more than a single, basic, hamon punch.)

Joy was charging. She didn’t even know quite what she was doing, but she was charging. Not for the one who had shot at her, but instead for her son. Angry vines of raspberry were tearing at the ground, rushing to latch onto the stiff tentacles of green. A path of life to take advantage of as she pulled, her will as a parent against the somehow weak will of the assassin.

She couldn’t heal this. She couldn’t encourage life enough to heal all of this. She couldn’t do more than stabilize, but right now she couldn’t let that stop her from trying.

Green tentacles snapped and broke and retracted under the frantic pull, and Shotaro fell limp upon a floating bush of thorns and fruit as she wailed and pulled him close.

“Shotaro..! Shotaro, oh honey please…please don’t be gone, please…”

Coughing. Weak, fragile and watery, but coughing met her ears as she sobbed.

“Ohhh…oh sweetie, hold on, just hold on…it’s going to be alright, it’s going to be-”

“So…you’re his mother then…” uttered a cold voice from behind her, Joy’s gaze moving back to see a writhing form in green alongside the stiff stance of the teenager who had evidently started this. “...Very well- Lord DIO’s orders were absolute,” he sneered, a dark smirk on his face. “I will take you down, and finish the job from there.”

Not so long ago, Joy’s fathers had discussed how she had not a violent bone in her body. This, alongside the fact that if any had ‘the will to fight’, she certainly did.

Both were correct.

Joy looked to the teenager before her with wide eyed horror, but not an ounce of will for revenge could be mustered. Perhaps it was because of how he stood- rigid, like a mannequin, something not himself. Perhaps the way his eyes had clouded, as if he were already close to death somehow himself despite being entirely unmarred and unharmed.

Perhaps it was that he was a child. A student, someone’s boy-

But when Joy stood, there was a fire filling her veins. Her breathing, even again, allowed golden light to course over her skin like water as she set her eyes ahead. She had no will to kill.

One did not need to maim or murder to fight.

(They only needed the control to avoid such ends.)

Joy did not charge.

(She didn’t have to. The ground, as thorns clawed at it, told her all she needed.)

Instead, as the boy before her began to shout his hollow apology and send something in her direction, gold-streaked vines clambered up his leg and the ‘legs’ of his hiding stand.

“W-What..!?”

Breathing steadied. Her mind focused.

“...Just rest, for now...”

Stands were an extension of the body.

Hamon ‘hypnosis’ required direct contact.

Her son’s attacker was out like a light in an instant, and Joy fell to her knees in tears as the sound of sirens soon began to approach, she herself making her way to her son to be at his side.

“Miss? Miss, you need to come with us.”

“She’s in shock, we need to-”

The sirens were quiet in her ears, even as she was gently grabbed by the shoulders. It wasn’t until paramedics were coaxing her away that she spoke.

“Please- please, that’s my son…please, I need to stay with him…”

“Your so- you hardly look more than-”

“Ma’am, we can call you to the hospital once he’s stable but we can’t risk that-”

Joy-

Holly-

Slowly blinked tears away from her eyes, as they were wiped by a hand formed of golden vines. She had dozed off, she realized quietly- book in her lap, the emotive exhaustion of the last few days finally taking its toll. Physically she felt fine- she knew she was fine, even. But mentally she was even now still somewhat drained, looking toward the clock and closing her eyes to sigh.

“They haven’t come back yet have they?” she asked aloud, her Stand merely blinking her eyes. In silence, she sat back in her chair. “...They’ll be alright, won’t they..?”

To this, her Stand vanished- a quiet message that what she needed was nothing getting out of the chair for now would do. Watching the vines fade away, she found herself wondering if this was anything like how they’d appeared on her body when she fell ill in her ‘first’ life.

She had never seen it, despite the thing apparently being a Stand. She hadn’t gotten the description from her son or father either- it had once again been a conversation with Josuke, one punctuated with a sharp ‘Wait…you didn’t know!?’

(Josuke had about as much faith in her son as she did, perhaps; it hurt them both when he distanced himself yet further, but looking back on her thoughts Holly wondered if Josuke had been hurt a little more personally than she used to suspect. For Holly, Jotaro was her son.)

(To Josuke, Jotaro had been a mentor and guardian, a brother-like figure despite being his nephew, and someone he’d come to consider family. That their father soon came to travel to see them more than Jotaro did, would have been like a bullet to the chest.)

Vines- coiling brambles with raspberries upon them, though the raspberries had been a fact Josuke could only barely glean from their father. They had apparently grown thickly around her like a cocoon and even filled much of the room in her later stages, causing disease symptoms of many sorts.

‘Fever was the big one,’ Josuke had said, recounting how he’d come down with one around the same time. ‘I guess the idea was that if you fought it off you’d have a Stand..?’

He hadn’t been sure of himself, at least not given how desperately everyone had instead charged for Egypt to clear it up the hard way. Holly’s breath came softly in, and out, as she pondered that fact for a moment. They had never told her- not at all, the gravity of the journey they had made. She had had her guesses, and her observations of course- the state Jotaro had been in after the fact, not only physically but mentally, had been testament to the fact that something, multiple somethings had gone wrong.

But the details had never…been offered. Not even when she asked.

(If she let her thoughts drift back to her ‘actual’ memories, her ‘true’, ‘original’ memories, she could see herself sitting in the cafe with her father, Avdol sitting beside him while Jotaro sat at hers. She could feel again the feverish panic building as he said everything and yet nothing at all, talking of a destiny to fight a monster a century her son’s senior mere seconds after she’d been told in strained tones to simply stand back and watch while fire lept from nowhere to pin her only child against the wall. She could recall her father saying with his own words that part of why he’d even come to Japan had been because of ‘that destiny’, and with an inward sob wondered to herself how selfish could he have been, to prepare to recruit her son with nothing but that?)

(Near immediately after that thought she was left to steady and scold herself all in one move, as she remembered that her father was now dead.)

Shotaro had left the house with a fever in Joy’s memory, Holly knew, but she also knew that the fever had disappeared within the same day- sinking back into the memory of the morning after, when Shotaro had been stabilized and when the others had managed to dig into his attacker some more, she could recall her father getting hold of her son’s medical charts while at the bed, and flipping through them in silence.

Kakyoin was in the next room over, though at the time they’d not yet known his name. Avdol was keeping watch there, having pulled a few strings with Joseph and the SPW’s help to avoid too many questions on the matter. For all that Kakyoin had attacked in Dio’s name after all, Joy’s description of his actions had all three of the men pausing to trade looks of grim understanding.

Even without understanding the context the message had been clear; Kakyoin had not been in control of his own actions.

"No fever," Joseph had idly commented as he looked through the charts, Joy’s brows furrowing at the strange focus. "...But…it looks like that will be the least of his problems…" The charts had been replaced, and Joseph sighed. "...Joy. I need to-" He cut himself short, wincing with some unknown thought before correcting himself with a sigh. "...We need to talk to the other two. If I’m right, and DIO is doing what I think…We need to act quickly before something worse happens."

"...Worse?" she had questioned, standing from her seat immediately. "...Papa what do you mean worse..? And why is ‘DIO’ involved, I thought he was dead..! That was a story, you and Zio both told me about him as a little girl-..!"

At her panicked shouts Joseph had flinched, but otherwise held his ground. He quietly, (regretfully,) looked her in the eye and said-

"...I'll explain in the other room, Joy."

Joy had given one last look to Shotaro's motionless form. His organs had been on the verge of failure, and while he could well awaken in a matter of days, he would be bedridden for at least a month if not more. Even that, doctors theorized, was nothing short of miraculous.

(Hamon was truly spectacular, Holly had thought in reminiscing. If she had been even a minute later, her son would have bled out just too much to be brought back from the brink. As it was, it was not magic- she could not do anything more than pull fragile organ wounds closer together before the moment they truly broke.)

Sadao had been called not long before. He would arrive, no doubt, in a matter of hours.

"...Alright Papa," Joy sighed, following her father to the room where 'Kakyoin Noriaki', as some digging had eventually unearthed, lay sleeping. "But please…How could this possibly get worse..?"

"Most likely Mrs. Kujo, it is because he will attack again." From his seat beside Kakyoin's bedside, Avdol looked to be what Joy could only describe as conflicted. With a glance toward Caesar, and then Joseph however, he cleared his throat and explained. “DIO is a persistent foe, Mrs. Kujo…I presume Mr. Joestar has explained?”

Joseph shook his head. “...I wanted to cover that as a group,” he replied, tone still grim and severe. It was enough that it shocked Joy to silence, and the woman watched as he rubbed his neck on the birthmark side. “...Joy- this…was not something that was meant to involve you, if we could help it.”

“Any of you,” Caesar added sternly. “Least of all Shotaro. JoJo insisted on the visit because it sounded as if you were developing a Stand however- and Avdol,” he gestured, the Egyptian giving a nod, “Had warned there could be complications if it didn’t develop properly.”

A frown was Joy’s answer to that. “...Complications..?”

Keeping it simple, Avdol nodded. “There are cases, where a person’s spirit and determination are not enough to sustain the spirit of the ‘Stand’,” he explained. “As a result, they become something the body must fight over, driving victims into a heavy fever with deteriorating symptoms. If one lacks the will to overcome…” Avdol swallowed- and unable to meet Joy’s gaze, looked instead to the slumbering teen with them in the room. “...They perish.”

“But, in the end, you had a fine Stand, without any complications!” Joseph remarked more loudly, even beaming for a brief moment. “So there was nothing to worry about!”

Joy’s worried frown did not fade.

“We had wondered if we would have to worry about Shotaro of course,” his partner pointed out, “...But instead, the problem we were hoping to keep from you seems to have come here.”

This admission took the wind out of Joseph’s sails, and he sighed. “...That’s right,” the man confirmed. “...And by the look of this, he’d have sent trouble even if we never came.”

Only now did Joy find her voice. “But what trouble Papa..? What does…what does DIO have to do with…”

“DIO didn’t die when JoJo’s grandfather defeated him,” Caesar answered, the words cutting through the air with a hiss. “...He stole his body and used it to persist in the same coffin he sank down with.”

“He’s the reason we’ve been developing these Stands in the first place!” Joseph barked, only to quiet down just as quickly. “Er…well, at least…that had been our guess until Shotaro…”

“Regardless.” With a sigh Caesar stood, turning his focus onto Kakyoin as well. “DIO wants, at least as a partial goal, to get rid of the bloodline that stood in his way; despite our hopes to chase after him without worrying anyone else, he’s made it clear that he plans to target you both, in taking this boy as a weapon.”

A rumbling sigh met the air, and soon everyone’s attention was on the bed- Joseph in particular clenching his jaw. “...The poor kid..!” he ground out, shaking his head. “Joy…you meant well knocking him out, but we have bad news,” the man warned, Avdol continuing in his stead.

“...The reason this boy attacked Shotaro to begin with, is because DIO has infected him with his own cells. Take a look at his brow, if you can stomach such a sight,” Avdol murmured. “...you’ll see the ‘flesh bud’ there. It’s moving slower than expected…the doctors who attempted to examine it earlier were miraculously able to be pulled away before the worst, which I’ve never seen managed before…but it is a vicious thing, reaching down to the center of the very brain, leeching whatever it needs to make a man loyal. And once their use has run out….”

The group went silent. Joy looked to each one of the men with growing dread in her eyes, only to let her gaze fall back upon the boy. In his sleep he looked so different from the cold ‘assassin’ he had been made to be. Taller than most of the teens she knew Shotaro attended classes with, but smaller, so much smaller than him, he gave no indication of being on the brink of death as Avdol said.

None save the light shudder he gave with each breath- and the small, grotesque lump that sat so clearly upon his brow.

“...He can’t,” Joy started brokenly, turning as her father immediately sighed. “Papa, we can’t- He can’t just die, there has to be some way..!”

“...Joy…”

“You said it was made of DIO’s cells, didn’t you..?!” As the men paused, she choked on her words- desperately moving toward the bed herself. “So then those are vampiric cells aren’t they? Papa…Zio..! You both told me so much about your Hamon, and what you used it for, but you can’t save this poor boy? His family must be worried sick for him..!”

It was Avdol who spoke up, standing to approach with a comforting arm. Joseph for his part had simply gone silent, his eyes turned emptily to the bed. “...I am sorry, Mrs. Kujo. But there is no stopping this. The fleshbuds are simply too fast to counter, and they work to infect anything that tries to interfere. It is-”

“...No.”

It was Joseph who had cut in, and Avdol blinked in surprise. “...Mr. Joestar?”

“No- …Apologies, Avdol!” Joseph cut in, coming closer to the bed as renewed determination lit in his eyes, “But my daughter has a damn good point..! Caesar! You remember Suzi? And that Pillarman?”

“Esidisi? Of course I do JoJo, but that situation was-”

“Was just as delicate, wouldn’t you say?” he snorted, grinning. “The entire nervous system, compared to one brain?” Joseph’s grin grew wider, and cautiously, Caesar moved to come near as well. “Come on, Caesar...Let’s try it!”

As if running the numbers through his head, Caesar looked to his family and then to the teen laying asleep in front of them. “Three Hamon users, two with Stands that can bind…” The connections were being made.

(If he thought about it, they could probably even manage with less.)

Caesar snapped his eyes back to Joy. “...And naturally, Joy, you used Hamon in your fight with him as well, didn’t you?”

“When I knocked him unconscious?” Joy questioned, Avdol perking up with understanding beside them. “Of course..! It was clear something was wrong with the boy!”

“...Then the reason the fleshbud has slowed in its actions…”

Avdol’s trailing realization was met with a laugh. “...Is because of what we’re about to use to get rid of it for good! Joy-!” Joseph called, purple vines growing off of his hand. “Get your Space Oddity ready, and brace his head. Make sure they’re absolutely overflowing with hamon! Caesar,” he continued, the Italian nodding in reply. “You know what to do!”

Violet and gold coiled around the body, and both father and daughter soon braced the head with their hands as well. Caesar moved to stand beside Joseph with a severe look in his eyes, and with a dark determination held his hands at the ready. “I do, JoJo..! At the count of three! One…”

“Two…”

“THREE!”

A flash of sunlight, and a minute shock.

Eyes flying open in time to watch a lump of decaying flesh scream into smoke without leaving so much as a wound.

And in her chair in the present, Holly wondered just how it had been that Kakyoin had ever been spared his looming fate, in a world where the last Hamon wielders had barely kept the art alive at all.

Chapter Text

At the entrance of the Torii gate, there was quite an odd sight indeed.

Or at least, it was an odd sight for anyone who could see both Stands, and the spirits of the vagabond dead.

A spirit, staring at the others in some difficult to quantify mix of shock, fear, and hope all the same.

A Stand, looking to the spirit with an empty, perhaps even pitying stare as he felt himself become lost to the past.

And a small child, looking between the both and eventually giving nothing more than a shaking head in reply to the spirit’s earlier words, a worried frown on her tiny face.

“...does this mean I can’t have your sheet..?”

The silence, despite being carried between two beings who were utterly unseen and unheard by anyone save the child for the moment, was palpable. Kakyoin eventually became the first to speak, half floating, half walking toward the girl.

“..Sheet?” he repeated questioningly, narrowing his eyes. To the side, Jotaro found himself stuck on just how young he looked. It had struck him at the tree, but now with the ghost apparently stuck to them instead of the school grounds, he was left to ponder it more under the light of the sun.

(He didn’t know how to describe it. He didn’t know, precisely, how to explain the enormous sensation of emptiness that seemed there in this yawning gap of time and memory between them, this distance that seemed to prevent the shade from seeing who was right in front of him now that what he’d once known had become something wholly different- not merely in body, but even earlier, in mind.)

While Jotaro pondered this, Suzume pulled the handkerchief from her pocket and held it forward. “...Your sheet..! …It’s still messy…” she muttered, looking at the filthy thing with a scowl. Kakyoin for his part seemed drawn to the message instead, squinting at it as if it had offended him in some way. “...I was going to…mnh…ask if Haha could clean it…”

“...You were going to wash my handkerchief,” he muttered, half repeating what the girl said. “Pff. Of course you were,” Kakyoin grumbled, looking more closely at it. His brief smile betrayed the seeming annoyance however, and soon both tone and expression were replaced with a more harmonious aura of curiosity. “Where did you even find this? I would have expected Jotaro…” He trailed off, staring oddly at the girl before sighing. “Nevermi-”

“Hoshi found it.” Suzume looked up at Jotaro, and Kakyoin followed suit with a frown. “...I thought it was in the building…but Hoshi found it in the dirt instead.”

Both Stand and Spirit paused at that.

(For Jotaro, it had been confirmation; she had remembered the fight however vaguely, or at least enough to realize where the handkerchief had once been seen, held, and then summarily discarded for the sake of a dying teacher, a dying student, and an attacked him. She’d remembered at minimum where it should have been, and thus, where it shouldn’t have.)

(For Kakyoin it was a stake of suspicion. The actions of Jotaro as an adult were unfamiliar, and Star Platinum’s manner meant nothing to him as a result. All they were were the motions of a more developed Stand, and he himself from an early age had allowed Hierophant to ‘grow’ more independently from him after all. The only connection he had to the Jotaro he ‘knew’ was something now voiced by a small girl with his Stand, and it was a connection that had done something nothing else had.)

“...Do you want it back..?” Suzume started to ask, only for Kakyoin to immediately tense at the suggestion.

“No-!” he shouted, quick to calm from there. Appearing to take a breath that was technically unnecessary, he gave a pained smile. “...No. …No, you should keep it. It seems that I’m bound to it, instead of to the grounds… …keeping it with you can give me some fresh air- and someone to talk to,” he added, as if the latter were for the girl’s benefit more than his. “We can call that a ‘win win’, can’t we?”

Suzume didn’t seem to know how to answer that- and perhaps didn’t even know what ‘win win’ actually meant- but she nodded and folded the handkerchief back into her pocket. A corner poked out, flashing green triangles for all to see, and from there she just nodded.

The GPS beeped.

‘Continue forward for 100 meters, and turn right-’

“...Is that a radio…in your pocket?” Kakyoin muttered, stooping down. Curiosity, if at all hidden before, could not even somewhat be hidden now. He only barely kept himself from reaching out for the source, instead bringing his eyes almost directly in front of the pocket. “How small is…”

The ghost was cut off, as Suzume gasped- apparently only now realizing the amount of time she’d been taking. Her ghostly friend jumping back in alarm, Kakyoin watched as Suzume bounced in place and turned. “Oh..! Hoshi, the errand..!” With a frown- albeit not one as serious as earlier, she looked momentarily at Kakyoin. “...Your talking takes too long Green..!”

“What-?!”

He received no answer as the girl rushed off, instead left to float behind.

“Aren’t you the one who started talking to me, J- ‘Suzume’..?!”

Jotaro narrowed his eyes- he as well floating in chase, and now frowning heavily at his late friend. He could not possibly be making the mistake he thought was, and yet it would be just his luck all the same, when he lacked the time and precise methods to make corrections right now. With Suzume failing to answer and instead rushing to the store for eggs- something that had the local grocer chuckle a bit before warning her not to run with those, as they’d be fragile- Kakyoin was left almost sputtering in the air.

The Stand meanwhile, took some well needed distraction in the form of helping to keep the eggs stable when Suzume began running anyway, lest they simply become a mess in the bag on her back. Because of course she would just run, for at least as long as possible.

(As long as possible was about 30 or so seconds before she slowed back down to a sluggish walk, followed by her eventually just sitting at the side of a small park and muttering about being tired. For their own reasons, both hovering ‘spirits’ could not help but be at least slightly amused.)

If they hadn’t been late before, they were going to be far later now. Jotaro hovered there- Kakyoin busy looking around at the world as if it were something precious, a change in scenery he wasn’t yet sure was real. For a moment, Jotaro was tempted to try and speak to him- to speak with something other than words, perhaps scrawl some letters in the dirt.

(He knew it wouldn’t work. Suzume had handed him crayons once or twice at the table himself, and while the photographic recreation was easily inherited to his mild astonishment, it was as if anything involving actual words simply became gibberish. It was a baffling, crippling weakness, and he tried not to dwell on it as much as possible.)

(It was difficult not to, when he realized that even with drawing, he was limited to either what he saw, or what Suzume could think of.)

A shout broke through the air before he could consider the thought more, and all three- albeit invisibly for the most part- turned.

“Suzumeeee..!!”

Suzume stood up first, energy at least partly renewed. “...Haha..!!”

“Haha? …Wait, that’s..!?” Kakyoin reacted next, if only because he was the only one with true reason to- Jotaro truthfully couldn’t blame him. Kakyoin had probably expected an old woman if anything, at least given how long he’d been in that tree. Perhaps he hadn’t even expected Holly at all.

Instead he was met with the sight of Holly Kujo as she had appeared at the age of 40- younger even than when he met her, even if only by five seeming years- no matter how her fashion had changed to reflect her actual age. The woman did not so much as blink in Kakyoin’s direction, and with a tired sigh she smiled instead to Jotaro before looking down at the girl before them.

(“...of course she wouldn’t,” Kakyoin muttered in that bitter tone, but words did not hide the fact that he looked as if he’d been slapped. He turned his head away, and with one hand gripped his arm tight. “What was I thinking…”)

“Suzume, are you okay? You weren’t home still, so I came to meet you!”

Suzume nodded, and then blearily gave a yawn. “I got tired...”

Technically not a lie, Jotaro noted. In fact, it probably wasn’t even being stated as an excuse. He was almost impressed.

Holly simply chuckled and ruffled the girl’s hair, before pausing at the sight of the handkerchief in her pocket. “Oh..? What’s this..?”

Jotaro tensed. Kakyoin, as well, stiffened and looked back, watching as Suzume pulled it out without a care. “Mn…’s Green’s sheet,” she murmured, Holly merely blinking curiously at the name. “I was going to clean it…”

“You were? Do you want to surprise him with it?” Holly cooed, only to pale when she actually saw what was on the handkerchief. Smudged, worn, and barely legible the message was, but it was absolutely still there.

Holly read the words and shook at the sight.

(She remembered her son coming home with a boy over his shoulders- she remembered scolding in her panic only to be brushed off with snaps, and had relented only when she heard he’d be bringing the boy to her father. Joseph, despite her earlier scare, would be able to handle it she had reasoned, never seeing the message and the context surrounding the matter.)

(And what a relief it had been at the time to think that she could leave it to Joseph, given the fever already wracking at her. Her head had felt like it had been hollowed out, and doing her best to appear otherwise had not helped.)

Suzume was staring in confusion now. Kakyoin as well, floating in place, seemed torn about something, or even guilty. Holly could not see the ghost however, and when she slowly took the handkerchief it was without a doubt for Suzume’s sake.

(The guilt, he was realizing somewhat painfully, was for more than just the message, now that he knew who one of the ‘parents’ he’d been cursing was.)

The girl herself, feeling it now safe enough to speak, only now gave her answer. “Mnh…I’m keeping it,” she claimed, tugging at her jacket while Holly carefully re-folded the handkerchief. “...even if there’s no pocket…”

A strange concern for some, but children often had strange concerns. Kakyoin at least looked reasonably touched by the motion, or at least as touched as he could when he was still pulling himself from a mood of constant salt and lemon- a large amount of which seemed directed at himself more than anything.

(Jotaro, at least for now, couldn’t help but be relieved all the same, not wanting to think about if it would be worse or not for the kerchief to simply be discarded.)

“Well,” Holly decided, stooping down to brush some hair back from Suzume’s face. “I think I can find a perfect way for you to keep it, hm? Do you think Hoshi has ideas too?” she added, glancing up to the Stand.

Again, Kakyoin stiffened- in Jotaro’s mind, he sighed. After all, yet another thing that had changed was Stands, period. Holly had never had one before, or at least one that wasn’t actively destroying her by simply existing.

How would Kakyoin, bound to a tree as he was for however long a ‘lifetime’ spent as a ghost would take, have known the entire world had changed more than just in time.

As Suzume looked up to him, Jotaro merely blinked. Honestly he had no ideas at all, despite being put on the spot like this. …Well. Perhaps a small one, he quietly corrected as the hair that had been brushed back went right back in Suzume’s face. Crouching down he pulled the strands back as he would have for Jolyne- twisting them gently, and giving it a loose ‘knot’ for the time being to hold it around the back of her head.

Holly for her part looked utterly thrilled, even as her son frowned and took note of the fact that there were recently scabbed up cuts on her palms. “Oh~! How sweet..~! And that’s a perfect idea too- I can make this a hair clip after I clean it, and then you can keep your hair out of your face, isn’t that nice~?”

There was nodding from the child- honestly Suzume at this point was just starting to let her exhaustion show, having spent plenty of energy being frustrated at a ghost earlier in the day, not to mention the actual trip walking around for groceries. Recognizing this, Holly moved to carefully scoop the other up- golden vines moving to assist as Kakyoin mutely gasped at the sight.

Jotaro did not let himself look back at the ghost, and for that matter opted not to think too hard about his mother’s many near-familiar scars. At this point he wasn’t sure if he did or didn’t want the spirit to know who he was. He should have been happy to see him- or perhaps not.

It was believable, to be hesitant. More than believable given circumstance, but it was made all the worse by just how much time there was between the ghost he was looking at and the same-aged friend of memory. A sticky haze created by nostalgia and expectations hovered between them now, a void of memory that only further clouded the reality of those days for him.

Kakyoin was lonely and desperately so, that much was plain to see. Yet the curiosity and immediate connection was just as much there. The smiles genuine, the growing chance of some trivia-filled ramble clear. In that way it was the one he’d known- a part of memory dragged by force to the present, in a time where he had finally numbed the wound to something he could ignore.

But he was also miserable. Reflexively bitter, and unsurprisingly so- if he forced himself to think of the first year or so after the end of the journey he could recall a trip down the steps that had nearly ended in a broken arm, and Jotaro found himself wondering if that had been coincidence or not.

(And if not, then what would that mean now that he wasn’t stuck there. Better, because of the chance to find some semblance of peace despite being stuck on this plane? Or worse, because it was only a half filled glass?)

Jotaro had grown up with plenty of tales about angered dead, spirits who could no longer find peace for one reason or another. Spirits that weren’t necessarily ‘evil’ but became evil, entities that cursed soil, doomed bloodlines, and more besides. In the modern era and as an adult, he had largely come to accept and know that most tales were nothing but that. Stories, passed ear to ear.

(A ghost in an alleyway that no longer existed. The threat of angered damned ripping a person from life without any knowing why.)

Not all of them were mere stories.

Jotaro watched as his mother carried Suzume back toward their home- and as Kakyoin watched the two with an incomprehensible expression on his face, a spark in his eyes that spoke one part of hopeful anticipation and one part of the painful half-rejection that came from being utterly invisible to the world around him. Jotaro wondered, in grim silence, what it meant that Kakyoin had been trapped at the place they met rather than anywhere else in the world.

(What it meant, that the thing his friend had died for, and clung to the earth for, was no longer here to at least see for himself.)

Chapter Text

To Kakyoin the house was both the same as he could remember, and yet painfully different in far too many ways. The ghost had held silent during the walk. He didn't want Holly to have an inkling of his presence if she couldn’t already see him for herself- particularly not when his current state, as he grimly remembered, had a literal fist shaped hole through his front.

No- she didn’t deserve that. He'd known her simply as a kind woman who suffered a great threat, and made him think however quietly of what he'd like his own to be more like, and having a Stand didn’t change that he wanted only good in her path.

(It wasn't right to say that his mother didn't care, of course. Nor to say that she didn't love him. It was simply...a lack of understanding. A tragic miscommunication that couldn't be overcome, leaving a gap between them both. Whatever understanding Jotaro and Holly had come to, it was a thing to treasure, that much he could recognize simply from how quick he'd moved from such an uncaring state to preparing to jump to Egypt without pause.)

(The grass was always greener, as they said.)

It was a strange mix of history and unseen futures now unfolding before his eyes as he quietly whispered 'don't mention me' to the little girl in Holly's arms and moved to float farther back- or at least as far as could be allowed. Moving around at all was strange, truthfully- there had never been much point in it at the tree after all, not when there was no one to move toward for good reason. Beyond the occasional float upward to the higher branches without pause, he hadn't bothered.

Now here he was, and it was so freeing as to be suffocating. Buildings that once had satellite dishes and cables running too and fro were cleaner now somehow, far cleaner than before. Despite the traditional feeling of so many places, there were a far greater number of 'modern' buildings as well, and yet 'modern' here seemed something entirely distant from his definition.

Holly had taken the device from Suzume's pocket, tapping the screen with enough familiar ease that told him that even if she wasn't completely familiar with the device, she was familiar enough to navigate the basics. He could see even from above and behind numerous icons, like a desktop's view but far cleaner, far smoother, and when the phone one became especially obvious he gawked.

It wasn't just a radio belting directions- it probably wasn't a radio at all. The thing was a phone, sleeker, smaller, and more like a computer than anything he'd seen before-

And then of course, there was the house.

(Entering the threshold of the gate had him relieved in a way he couldn’t describe, and he told himself it was nothing but seeing the sight of familiar wood almost made him smile.)

(At least before he noticed the signs of age that had been cleverly hidden with newer coats of wood treatment or paint.)

When they made it back to the house Suzume was quickly set up quietly at the table with some paper and crayons, while Holly put the groceries away. The girl was tired, but not so tired she needed a nap- and for that matter, she was just barely a bit old for that in their opinions.

From the tatami room that they had been set up in, Kakyoin was able to tell just how little and how much had changed even in one passing glance. Though the room was largely the same there were small things that had shifted over the evident years- tatami that had been replaced entirely, and had differing edges upon them. Furnishings that, given wear on the bottoms, had been set down time and time and time again. With where the room sat, it was a more peaceful drop into reality. Even outside, things had changed, but not so dramatically as they likely had elsewhere.

(If phones could be what they were now, Kakyoin thought, then he could only imagine what something like a kitchen, or an entertainment room, would look like.)

(He couldn’t explain why that thought filled him with just as much discomfort as it did excitement.)

Outside the room he could see the hazily familiar sight of the garden and yard to the Kujo home- a distorted mirror to the autumn imagery he’d seen last he was here, with trees having grown farther, and bushes having grown larger. Birds chirped and perched here and there, and eventually Kakyoin looked away to glance at what Suzume was drawing.

(He’d been grinning for one moment. Standing with his feet braced on the narrow, pointed roof of a spire, a web of green surrounding him. With a final shout he’d snarled DIO’s inevitable loss-)

(Air. Pain. Blood. AirPainBloodAirAirAirHe couldn’t breathe and he could feel the air he could feel the air where it never should have been where there should have been a muscle to move his lungs where there should have been a stomach to churn a spine to-)

He glowered at it, and then immediately recoiled when the paper tore in two.

“Oh- !”

(It felt like he was surrounded by steel…)

Kakyoin stared with now alarmed eyes, unable to look away from the page even as Star Platinum- ’Hoshi’, for the girl’s sake he supposed- manifested at her side to glare back at the ghost. He recovered outwardly as quick as possible, moving forward to gently reach for the paper.

As expected he couldn’t touch it. His fingers passed right through, the torn image of his caricatured form staring up at him. “...That wasn’t intentional,” he offered as a half excuse, unable to feel completely remorseful the more he looked to the art. A large red ‘o’ sat in the middle of the green uniform it had, and it took focus to keep from causing it to tear further.

(It wasn’t even that bad otherwise. Little dots for eyes, a big wide smile. She’d drawn the cherries he had for earrings, added the scarf he’d used even in the desert of Saudi. It was just-)

(PainPainPainPain and yet nothing it was as if there was nothing beneath his waist but he could see his legs for that brief moment he’d flown backward-)

Kakyoin smiled, but the motion was strained. “It’s a nice thought, but…” He didn’t meet the girl’s gaze, instead turning his eyes to the most familiar thing he could. For all that the subject was doing nothing but staring at him in concern, Star Platinum would do. “I don’t think you should draw me though, alright? You’ll make Mrs. K-” A pause, as he caught the frown on the girl’s face. God she was precise about these names… “...Your Haha, upset,” he corrected, watching as she looked back to the art.

“Oh…” She looked somewhat sorry at that, her frown lightening. Even her Stand seemed to give that more pause than had already been given- giving the paper a look before carefully taking it himself and crumpling it into an impossibly tight ball after a moment’s pause for the girl’s benefit. “...I don’t want to make Haha sad,” she said quietly as he did so, shaking her head. “...she’s already sad a lot…”

He kept himself from flinching at that knowledge, simply nodding. “Exactly,” the ghost encouraged. Confident that he wouldn’t be unwittingly giving her mother a heart attack now, he pulled back and looked around the room more. If he closed his eyes and focused he could feel it as it was back then- when he was laid on the ground half-conscious, only to find himself forcefully wrenched awake when the thing at his brow took action.

This was the room. The Kujo home’s ‘tea room’, where Jotaro’s grandfather and Avdol had spent much of their time while staying here, or so he’d gathered. It had only been a number of hours after all, and then he was waving them off to go back to the hotel he’d paid out for the night. He remembered the tension that had been in the air before then though- the way sweat had gathered on Jotaro’s brow as his hands remained fixed against his head to hold it steady. The grotesque tendril had dug its way through so quickly that he’d been able to see its shape through the side of Jotaro’s face.

But he’d held firm, then.

‘Why did you save me, at the risk of your life?’

‘Well…I’m not sure I know.’

Suzume was staring, he realized. With a glance, Kakyoin let her persist a moment or two more before speaking. “...Do you want to draw me that badly?” he joked after a moment, a small smile on his face. ‘Hoshi’ had disappeared again, he noted. It only made sense- in a peaceful place like this, without any threat of Stand Users, of DIO, there was no reason to really bother. At least, none for her.

(Perhaps it would be different, he supposed. She looked close to how old he had been after all, and there was nothing like a friend who was a part of you. Even thinking that now, he felt an ache in his chest, only emphasized by the literal hole that went right through it- having met and made friends in person, he’d come to crave their company.)

(Now, with the chance of the latter, he couldn’t help but crave the first friend he’d ever had.)

Shaking her head, Suzume instead wandered over to stare more obviously at him- eyes fixed upon his face. No- upon his forehead he realized, and Kakyoin’s brows raised as he realized it.

“...Are you going to grow noodles again?”

Kakyoin immediately choked on a laugh, eyes wide with incredulity. It was so unexpected that he couldn’t even stop to think about what she meant. “...A what!?”

Suzume made a wobbling motion with her finger- which ultimately looked more like she was flailing it up and down- and tried to explain. “Mnh…a noodle…it could get stuck in things, and I’d have to get it out again…”

Again.

She said again. Kakyoin barely found it in him to respond, instead staring at the girl with some unknown feeling in his chest. It…It really was him, wasn’t it? It had to be him- Holly had taken her in, she had the same Stand, she’d seen him, even if it was too little too late for Jotaro as Jotaro-!

(In the expanse of nothing where Stands resided, Jotaro felt something prickle at his mind. While Suzume had nothing to suspect or fear from the ghost in the room, he himself absolutely did- loathe as he was to think of his highschool era friend in such a light.)

(Ghosts were ghosts, however, and ghosts saw what they wanted.)

Kakyoin’s face twitched. A noodle. Somehow all he could picture was vampiric ramen flailing out of a bowl only to perhaps get cut apart by slamming the lid back on, and an almost hysteric laugh nearly bubbled out at the image. Noodles, she said, she…

…his best friend was here too many years too early, weren’t they.

He smiled, but it was broken. “...I won’t,” he eventually said, coming down close. “...but if I did, you’d be able to deal with it again wouldn’t you?”

Honestly even he wasn’t so sure about that. With Star Platinum’s speed and precision, certainly- that was how the bud had been removed to begin with. But restraining the head without getting overtaken, when Suzume was little more than a small child? Innocent of most things, albeit as temperamental as expected?

..Well, it didn’t matter anyway. It was hardly as if they had to worry about DIO anymore.

(If they did, Holly wouldn’t be here. Not even because of any illness, the ghost thought grimly, but simply because DIO would never have stood to leave anyone in that bloodline alive.)

Suzume was nodding in any case. Whatever confidence in her prowess the people around her lacked, she, at least, had plenty to spare, and he couldn’t help but feel like the optimism was a little contagious. At the very least, he felt better, despite the offending drawing that was now balled so tightly it could probably be used to shoot tin-cans.

“Suzume~!” called Holly, the pair turning toward the sound. “Are you ready to see your reward~? You did a very good job on your first errand, and I made you something with the things you bought~!”

In silence, the girl took off to see just what it was, leaving Kakyoin to quietly follow after. He paid little attention to the interaction and conversation now going on- it was largely ‘kid-talk’, idly chatter between parent and young child, with nothing of use for him when he was nothing more than a bystander.

(He thought about how his mother used to do that with him. His father not so much but then again he didn’t expect most fathers ever did- it felt like a distinctly motherly thing, but then maybe he was wrong about that. He thought about the calls he had never made, and the notice he’d never given.)

(He thought about how they’d undoubtedly been blissfully unaware and asleep elsewhere when he died, and grimly stared out at the door as his thoughts trailed to the fact that he was a ghost at all. Perhaps they hadn’t buried him properly. Perhaps he never had proper rites, if those had anything to do with it. It would explain why he couldn’t stop feeling like he was buried in water and metal, chilled to the bone.)

“Brrrrrrr…”

“Are you feeling cold Suzume? I’ll make sure there’s an extra blanket for bed tonight, how’s that?”

Kakyoin pulled himself from rapidly souring thoughts with a start, shaking his head. What use was there in thinking about those kinds of things anyway? About parents who may or may not have loved him. About a funeral that may or may not have happened, for all he’d known.

(He wondered if they’d been horrified, when they got the news.)

About things that happened decades ago according to all this strange and foreign technology in the kitchen-dining room he floated in, and about things that couldn’t be undone.

(Coldly, it occurred to him that he didn’t know if they got the news at all. He’d never bothered to tell the others their number after all.)

The proceedings of the night went about as boringly as he expected they would, once he was no longer alone with the seeming incarnation of his former friend. He had no intentions to so cruelly reveal his presence to Holly, nor did he intend to just as painfully give Suzume a repeat of his own childhood. Stands, at least, Holly recognized and saw. Ghosts?

Frankly it seemed hardly anyone saw those, and talking to one was going to be for Suzume what having Hierophant had been for him. So he hung back in silence, watching as the girl first enjoyed the purin Holly had made (complete with a little drizzle puppy face, he observed with a muffled snort and a smile), then joined to play with a puzzle in the room as her mother read (or at least gave two cents and the occasional factoid about the worn painted animals on an old, Very old ‘hiragana learning’ woodblock set), and then ultimately had dinner before being helped through pre-bed rituals.

(Dinner was something of a repeat of the purin moment, but he found if he didn’t look in the kitchen, he could avoid thinking of nothing but cold watery steel. Or at least, he hoped he was.)

It was all painfully domestic, in the way things felt when one realized they could no longer take part. Who would have thought, Kakyoin hummed more gloomily from outside the washroom door as the sound of a shower faintly passed through, that he would miss the whole process of washing up and brushing his teeth?

The door opened, and out walked Holly and Suzume- both in PJs of some kind, and both with hair freshly dried. Silence persisted on his part only a short while more-

After that, and after the futon had been unfolded and set up alongside the promised second blanket, Holly finally left the girl so she could sleep.

Well. Sleep eventually at least.

“No bath then?” Kakyoin asked in a light attempt to bring the mood back up with small talk, the girl shaking her head.

“Haha says that’s not for ‘every day’, even if baths feel nice…”

A nod, and the spirit looked around the room. He hadn’t looked at most of what was in here after following- there wasn’t really anything of interest for him here beyond what was familiar after all. And what was familiar wasn’t likely to be much as it was he acknowledged- he’d never seen Jotaro’s room after all. He’d been curious, but the house was larger than his grandparent’s home (which in hindsight had likely gone to his Uncle, or even his own mother by now depending on who inherited)- starting to dig around would have presumably gotten one or more people hauling him right back out, and at the time he’d been a bit less keen on testing those waters.

It only took a moment though, before certain things began to stand out.

Photos on a desk. Posters on a wall. A certain style to the bedding contrasting what else was in here, pointing to freshly changed cloth for rare use as a room for a particular visitor, while the rest was preserved like a time capsule.

A familiar face in the photos.

(A foreign one all the same.)

Kakyoin blinked, an indescribable pressure building in his head. Confusion twisted across his face, and somehow he could hear ringing in his ears.

“...Who...who is this..?”

“Mnh…?”

Looking over and up from the bed, Suzume just blearily blinked, seemingly unaware of her new friend’s distress.

Then, after a moment, yawned her answer and rolled over to sleep. “...Oh. Haha says that’s ‘Shotaro’. Mnh…’Niichan’, she said I should call him…”

It was a good thing that Suzume did not say anything more.

Kakyoin frankly wasn’t sure if he could properly pretend everything was alright after that.

Chapter Text

Washing the handkerchief was not a difficult matter, considering how long it had been sitting in the elements. She had actually been worried when she left it soaking- she knew how to remove ink stains from polyester fabric when it was recent, but she wasn’t quite sure how something that had for all appearances been sitting half buried in dirt for more than 20 years would cope.

(She had bit back a grimace when she remembered, abruptly, a similar worry from roughly the same amount of years before- the number of times cloth had been covered with dried blood, the number of times the question had after the dust settled been ‘do we still have anything to wear?’)

(She recovered with another thought- the amusement that somehow, someway, Jotaro had managed to come home with a perfect replica of his uniform jacket made of pure wool. Not even a blend. Just wool. It wasn’t even that damaged.)

Fortunately, what hadn’t been water soluble had been more than susceptible to vinegar. The last remains of written ink were scrubbed away, and by the time morning had come she had long since washed and dried the handkerchief entirely.

Which brought her then, to the next part.

Once breakfast was over, the handkerchief was held out in pinched fingers, each hand holding a corner. “All clean~!” Holly cheered, beaming as Suzume looked over the fabric with wide eyes. “See? There’s not even a little dirt on it!”

Suzume in reply simply continued to look over the cloth with wonder, carefully taking it as if it were something precious.

And then paused.

“...I don’t have pockets today…”

Holly laughed. “Ahhh, that’s right, you don’t…but it’s okay Suzume~ I have some ideas that we can use to fix that, ok?” As the girl nodded, she sat her down at a small table while they talked. “There are lots and lots of things we can do with a handkerchief- it all depends on what you want to do with it, hm?”

Technically, she’d had an idea already. An idea playfully considered while pondering that wild wild hair that was so like Jotaro’s at that age but so very much Suzume’s own- Star Platinum’s own (and was it just her or was Jotaro’s own hair, despite taking the form of that Stand, just a little less sprawling and gravity defying these days?). Jotaro had done an adorably good job at twisting it back temporarily, but what she needed frankly was something more permanent.

She’d be buying a few hair clips and hair ties either way of course, though. At the very least she couldn’t see reason for the little one to want to wear a handkerchief clip there forever if she chose that.

(She did choose that, of course. After looking through options such as little angel charms and ghost charms, she’d picked what looked more like a flower and said ‘Green for plants’ while adding that if she didn’t have pockets her hair was just as good. Folding the handkerchief into a rose had been easy from there, though getting Suzume to keep from touching it while it was carefully sewn closed and onto a hair-tie was another story.)

It had not been so long, but she could feel herself settling into some sort of…rhythm, at least as best as she could. The terror was still there. The questioning was still there- calls with Josuke, calls with Sadao, and calls with no one else as they tried to break through to a number that was either not answering, or simply not ever there.

Sadao’s calls were a blessing and a comfort. He’d clearly ignored her when she’d said not to worry and to focus on his tour, but she couldn’t find it in her to complain about it. He knew precisely what to say to calm her down, and it made her feel all the more worse for not being able to explain exactly what was going on with their son or even herself. He’d remembered things, after all- very small things, very subtle things, but the largest of them was how much his wife had worked, actually worked with the Speedwagon foundation after 1988, and it was clear in his tone that he wasn’t entirely sure how to take that.

(Sadao’s experience with the Speedwagon foundation had been nothing at all, and that was perhaps why. He’d called in to tell his family that he was on his way back from tour and been greeted with a surly, distant, and frankly dissociating son with no reason as to why, leading Holly to come to the room only because she started hearing shouting from both ends.)

(It took her a good amount of time to calm both parties down. Jotaro, because to him his father should have known better.)

(Sadao, because no one had given him the opportunity to.)

Josuke’s calls were beginning to become worrisome, in contrast. He still hadn’t had much luck with the number- that much she had expected, and that much she was trying not to pry into. He was avoiding certain topics, however- primarily the one regarding his work, as he himself had been just as curiously present as Sadao had been, perhaps even more so.

When it came to Sadao, at least, the calls were at the same time. Josuke’s could come at any time, at least as long as they fit within the calm ‘at home’ schedule she’d made for herself in apparently only recent years.

(Apparently, Holly thought, because frankly beyond her women’s social group and her housework, she did not travel about nearly as much as ‘Joy’ had. It was such that she wondered how many of these strange scars were only from 1988, and not from some time later.)

There was little she could do to pry though. From Josuke at least, she could get a clear image about the state of Morioh- people were stumbling, but otherwise managing to move on well enough. Most people had kept their jobs, their lives, and their identities, with very little change. There were perhaps more ‘spirits’, Josuke had joked as his sister pursed her lips on the other end. “Maybe even ~Yokai~,” he teased, and Holly was quite certain she’d heard a faint voice in the background screeching for Josuke not to even joke about that.

(She could place that voice, in memory- see herself, or more accurately, hear herself stepping into a building with her eyes squeezed shut and thorns bristling over her form. ‘That’s cheating,’ the voice huffed almost petulantly, though only somewhat- amusement could be heard just as easily after all. ‘How did you even know that Heavens Door would need you to view the manuscript?’)

It was perhaps selfish to sink into complacency, but keeping her husband’s words in mind helped to avoid such a pitfall. She’d overworked herself too many times prior, and ignored her own needs just as much. Suzume was alright- Jotaro was as well as he could be given circumstance, and could benefit further only with time and nothing else- and as for the other matters, blind calls and questions would do little.

Perhaps she should call the Speedwagon foundation, she considered as she sipped her tea that afternoon. She’d found some more of Jotaro- Shotaro’s old toys, rather, and Suzume was now playing with a ball in the garden. Watching Jotaro hover there while she chattered too quietly to hear the details was nothing short of heart warming, she found herself honestly thinking, and as long as she didn’t focus too much upon the precise identities of those involved she could enjoy the sight for quite a while. She was still nervous about it of course- but Shotaro had still been alright (if not seemingly oblivious to all that had occurred, though she had some suspicions about the boy he had the foundation helping with now), and her own memories combined with Sadao’s words lended some good reason for why Sadao’s first instinct wasn’t to call.

How could he trust a group that, in another life, hadn’t called him?

(How could she carry this, this ever constant curse, of finding more of her father’s mistakes when it was too late to do anything but mourn and wish things had been better?)

There was a knock on the door, and Holly gently set her tea down. Jotaro briefly looked up- Suzume still quite happy to play with her ball, and otherwise not focus on a thing- but Holly merely gave Jotaro a soft smile and carried on her way to the front in order to see who was there. It was clearly someone she knew at least, she thought as she walked. Otherwise, they would have simply buzzed the intercom…

Perhaps Josuke making good on his ‘threats’ to drive here himself then? She had yet to mention Suzume as anything more than a young child brought in by a Stand, so that could take some explanation if that were the case. Sadao at least, she had time to consider how best to explain matters before he arrived, but-

The door opened, and Holly felt her stomach drop in her chest even as she kept breathing. Her eyes met with silver hair and a smile made primarily with crinkling eyes- with the slightest, subtlest of movements at the corner of a seemingly ‘frowning’ mouth, her heart and soul knowing otherwise. With a suitcase at his side, and another with it bearing a saxophone-

Holly had never been more aware of how she looked, so much younger in the eyes of anyone unfamiliar with hamon, so much more like someone her son’s age rather than otherwise, and yet instead of her greatest fear the man before her took two steps closer to gently wrap his arms around her- briefly pausing to leave a gentle kiss at her cheek.

“Yare yare, Seiko,” Sadao chuckled quietly, his voice as soft as the wind. “Did you think something like this would scare me so much..?” One hand rubbed her back gently, and Holly choked as she returned the motion more tightly, eyes welling on the spot. Her sobs were muffled- too faint to be heard by anyone but her husband- and Sadao himself merely continued to hold her. “...It’s going to be alright, Seiko. I’m home this time, it’s going to be alright.”

This time, he said, as if the last she’d struggled so much had been his fault. This time, this time, this time-!

“Sadao-!” she coughed through a wet sob, shaking as they held each other. “Oh- …Oh, I’d told you not to cancel..!”

To that the man simply laughed- a faint sound, a bare action to most. He looked up to her and gave a more visible smile. “Which is what told me I needed to come,” he insisted, only slowly pulling back his hug when Holly started to do so. “You weren’t happy, Seiko. I could tell. And leaving you alone through that? Especially with a little one, I could never. Not like this- and not when I made that mistake already,” he added more quietly, slowly moving to grab his things.

“Oh- here, I can-”

“I know,” Sadao calmly answered, grabbing the handles anyway. “...but you shouldn’t have to.”

To that, Holly could only brokenly choke down another sob, shaking somewhat as he leaned against her for a pseudo-hug while bringing his things inside. “Sadao…”

“Come, Seiko…I want to meet this little one, and we can talk about just what upturned our lives these two weeks.”

The door, like the gate long before, closed quietly behind them, and Holly nodded silently with it.

Chapter Text

Playing with toys was more fun than just drawing every day, Suzume decided. When she commented on that with Green, the ghost had hummed-

“...She might have been trying to help you learn faster.”

But Suzume wasn’t sure exactly what she was supposed to have been learning. Well, letters were one thing maybe, since there were letters and animals on the puzzle. And Green definitely knew a lot of animals, she’d found out. But the toys she had now didn’t seem to have things to learn.

Either way, she had a lot of fun playing with things like a bouncy ball and a wooden cow, even if the latter took a moment of explanation from Green and mild demonstration from Hoshi.

(For some reason, Hoshi moving the cow around with little steps on the brick for her sake got a loud laugh out of Green, at which point Hoshi disappeared while the other choked back the sound with a grin.)

For the earlier part of the day, playing was supposed to pass the time while waiting for Haha to finish sewing the handkerchief. Every now and then Green would wander over to check the progress himself- an action that had Hoshi strangely on edge, stiff and straight and watching- before floating back with a progress update. He had a strange expression on his face as the end came closer. Looking back constantly over his shoulder, eyes narrowed in thought.

Green- who would pinch his nose and huff and mutter under his breath about using his name every time she called him that, as if he didn’t still slip on Hoshi and Haha’s names- had been acting strange ever since the night before. There was a weird look on his face, like he didn’t know if he was hearing things properly, or maybe seeing them properly. He’d asked about Shotaro-niichan again in the morning, but all Suzume knew about ‘Shotaro’ was that he was someone else’s touchan, lived somewhere else, and called Haha every week.

Green had looked sort of weird about that, something that wasn’t really anger but not really being sure of anything either, and Suzume thought that she saw him floating to one of the bigger bushes while he stewed- it would make sense because a lot of bugs and a few birds abruptly scattered from it as if their lives depended on it, and she even heard a snap.

(Hoshi had watched with a deepening scowl- the kind he got when he didn’t like where things were going, but couldn’t really do anything. Suzume wasn’t really sure how she knew it was That kind of scowl- he hadn’t made it too much, aside from when Haha was getting really sad after all, and that was something he could hug her for. But she knew it Was that kind, at least.)

Now, Green seemed to just be focused on anything else, and Suzume decided she wasn’t going to change that. It seemed to make the ghost feel better at least.

Even if ‘something else’ was her new hair clip. “It’s….cute,” he observed with a pause- hesitant in his words. The tie- it was really more of a tie than a hairclip after all- had been gently put into place by Hoshi’s ever diligent hands. The Stand had moved with the same sort of skill she knew he absolutely had to have had for a number of years now, pulling back strands of hair from the front and sides to neatly tie them out of her face with a simple twist before fixing the hair tie on.

As a result, she now had what looked rather like a bow on the back of her head at first glance. A closer look however, showed it was both simpler and less so than that. Rather than make a bow, Haha had carefully started folding and twisting the handkerchief, putting pins in as she went. Around and around the twists went, until finally it looked like a rose with two great big leaves coming out.

If roses and leaves were white and had green triangles at the edges (or in the blossom’s case, ‘wherever’), at least.

Now that it was in place, Green seemed to be looking at it with complicated and messy feelings, the sort that were both happy and sad and just about everything there could ever be in between.

Suzume tilted her head back a moment, ultimately looking at the ghost 'upside down'. "...are flowers bad..?" she asked quietly, watching as the spirit jolted.

"Hm? ...Oh, no. It looks cute on you, J- Suzume," he complimented, stumbling only slightly on her name when she minutely scowled. "I hadn't expected to see this again. It was...spur the moment, as far as purchases went."

About half of what Green said didn't really register properly, but Suzume nodded all the same. She kept her mouth shut however, as he was still going.

"It was just for dramatics…” he admitted with a quiet voice, brows furrowed somewhat as he looked away. “I got it out of a convenience store, it’s meant for lunchboxes normally. ...And yet somehow, I'm stuck to this thing..." As he said that he reached forward, tentatively touching a 'leaf' with his finger.

Immediately, he pulled it back, prompting Suzume to properly turn around. "...Green?"

A sigh. "Honestly...at this point even a diminutive- is Kakyoin, or Noriaki at least, that hard to say!?" he protested, shaking his head.

"You keep getting mine wrong, and Haha's wrong, and Hoshi's..."

"Maybe you should get mine right first then," he grumbled, unable to really put emotion into his own words. He shook it off, instead reaching toward the handkerchief again. "But this...interesting," he murmured, not clarifying anything as he reached for the handkerchief again. "It seems like..."

"...Mnh?"

Green hummed, and from behind the girl, smiled. "...It looks like I can finally get some sleep," he explained- and with a poke to the handkerchief, he abruptly vanished.

Suzume jumped immediately, Hoshi appearing beside her in the same moment. "G-Green..?!"

"ORA..!?"

"Relax," came a chuckle as the spirit floated briefly out again, both Stand and Stand user looking about in confusion. Rather than exit entirely, it was more like some shade of him peered out from the stitched bloom, barely formed enough to speak. "I'm in the hairpiece. ....It's nice," he sighed- and somehow a sense of actual contentment came along with it despite any real way of seeing him properly. "Much more restful than that tree... ...I'll stay in here for a bit, alright? Keep playing with your ball, or...that cow thing, if you want. For now...I'm sleeping."

With that, the ghost returned inside the clip and went entirely silent, leaving the two to decide if they would or wouldn't. In the end however, as the spirit's thoughts in the hairpiece seemed to vanish further into 'slumber', there was a shout from the back walkway.

"Suzume~ There's someone to see you here!"

Someone was here? That wasn't something she expected. Suzume perked up and started quickly walking over, Hoshi as well floating along in idle curiosity. The idle nature quickly changed however, when the Stand saw who it was that her Haha had been referring to.

And almost immediately froze, Hahas sympathetic smile appearing pained upon her face.

There was a new person here, Suzume thought, ignoring the upset from the others. She couldn't tell why they were really upset at all- especially not when her Haha only ever said good things about this person.

She could recognize him from photos she had been shown. The silvery short hair, the crinkly eyes, and the face that made her think a little of Hoshi. This was-

"...Touchan!"

"Oh...you already know who I am, little one?" 'Touchan' quietly observed, the faintest of smiles on his face. "That's good...I've heard lots about you too. Suzume, right?"

Suzume nodded, though she didn't say anything else. 'Touchan' didn't seem bothered by this however. Instead, he simply sat down at the end of the walkway and slipped into silence.

Eventually, as Suzume herself clambered up to sit as well (discretely helped up by some vines that Haha made, that Touchan couldn't see), he spoke. "I saw you made lots of nice drawings," he gently said.

The girl nodded somewhat rapidly. "...I drew Hoshi! ...and Haha, and Haha's berry lady." Touchan looked back toward Haha with a small smile, like he was saying things without saying them at all. It was perhaps even more impressive than when Hoshi seemed to do it- like there were a million words in one face.

"It's a good thing you did," Touchan encouraged. "I can't see her- only Seiko."

Suzume blinked- and then frowned. That still wasn't the right name- but, without her saying anything, Touchan seemed to understand.

"Ahh, that's right. You don't know about her special name- it's the one I use, like how she calls me 'Sadao'. ...do you know why?"

Touchan spoke slowly, and softly- like saying words at all was maybe hard, or something he didn't like to do. Despite that, it didn't sound like the words themselves were something he didn't want said. If anything, it made them very important- which made Suzume want to listen more as well. "...It's a special name..?"

Haha seemed relieved behind her. Touchan nodded. "It is...only you, and Jotaro- ah..." A pause and he hummed. "Shotaro- only you two can call Haha 'Haha'- and only you two, can call me 'Touchan'."

Well that didn't seem right. But then she remembered when Haha was talking about the rest of the family, and how some people were uncles or brothers or nephews and such. "...because we're different things..?"

"That's right."

They fell silent for a little bit, Suzume's feet dangling as she stared up at the strange man that was 'Touchan'. Or Sadao, if one was Haha, apparently. This was quite a lot to think about though, and now she was wondering if maybe she had been a bit mean to Green. What if those were his special names?

She promptly stopped thinking about that, and focused on something that was probably more important, at least to her. "...why can't you see the berry lady..?"

"Oh....I just have bad eyes," he joked, though his tone did not change from how he had been speaking before. If it wasn't for how his face seemed to change so slightly, Suzume would have thought he was telling the truth. As it was, she tilted her head to continue staring for a bit until Haha came over to join them.

"Suzume, would you like to get some of your other drawings to show your Touchan?" Haha asked with a bright smile, the child quickly nodding. "Great~! Do you remember where they are?" Another nod, and Haha beamed wider. "Perfect~! While you do that, I'll be right here!"

Suzume did just that, and soon she was pulling open a small drawer at the shelf. Haha and Touchan were quiet, but she could still hear them, just a little bit. Not very clearly though- and once she passed most of the room she couldn't hear them at all.

The same was the case when she started coming back with the papers- her steps quiet, she paused in the room when she realized Hoshi had appeared with her on the way back.

"...Hoshi?" she asked, whispering for a reason even she didn't know.

Instead of answering- instead of looking down to her- he stared toward her parents.

"...mber Shotaro?" Haha was asking, most of the question missed. "...I've only gotten bits and pieces so far...but it's so strange, Sadao. I remember him but I don't remember him..."

"Is he so different?" Sadao countered gently, but his tone and body said more. It was not an accusation- it was something to confirm. To agree, even.

"...Jolyne is Irene," came the soft reply. "...but Sadao...our son..."

A small, gentle nod, as he looked out to the garden. "...It is connected to her, isn't it? ...to the little one."

"It is."

"....I'll listen, Seiko. I won't interrupt," he assured, Haha breathing the way she always did even as she nodded and shook.

"...Do you remember..? When I told you about Stands?"

This seemed to have Touchan draw back. "...I do. Seiko...Is this something a Stand has done? ...Can it be..."

"No. It can't be undone, I don't think. I don't even know if I could let myself try," Haha admitted. "...It would erase such a sweet thing from existence...but at the same time, my Jotaro..!"

Suzume knew that name. She looked up at Hoshi, blinking. "...is that your special name, like Haha's 'Seiko' is..?" she whispered, watching as Hoshi merely blinked with wide eyes. She received no answer, and her attention was drawn by the adults outside the room.

"...Seiko. ...Take your time," Touchan said, and before Suzume could move to sit with them, Hoshi was gently drawing her back.

"...Hoshi?"

As she asked her question she was pulled further and further from hearing range, eventually sat there in silence. Hoshi himself then disappeared, leaving Suzume to blink and frown for a moment.

Was it a bad thing to be listening then? Hoshi clearly hadn't wanted that, for some reason. But, he also just left instead of making sure she would stay. Should she keep staying then? Or...

Suzume held her papers- there were a lot more drawings on them, mostly of people she knew, or things like the fish outside in the pond, and the birds that lived in the plants. They weren't as good as she thought they could be. They didn't seem to have all the little details she knew they had. But Haha seemed to like them, so maybe that was actually why she asked for them.

If that was the case, she should go deliver them she decided, standing up and heading for the outside.

(Jotaro was already there, not that Suzume realized. His range was such that he could float discretely over, visible for his mother to get what small comfort she could as she broke the news to his father. Sadao was a distant man. Not uncaring, but distant. He could remember as a child, not understanding why his father had so little time to spend at home doing something other than work, not understanding why he tried to act as if he were always there the few times he could be there. It took years to understand that, and as an adult Jotaro had grimly had to acknowledge that between the two of them, Sadao had at least done a little better in his attempts to make the most of the time he could have.)

(At the very least, if someone had called him that day that Holly collapsed, if someone had bothered to get a hold of his father, Sadao would have dropped everything for what mattered most- this, he knew too well now.)

Suzume came out to the walk-way, but her parents were not looking at her just yet. Instead, they were looking ahead to where Hoshi floated.

"....He is in front of us, isn't he?" Touchan sadly said, her Haha nodding. Hoshi had a strange expression- like a frown but sadder, or like he'd eaten something and gotten a weird taste from it. Like he didn't know what to do, even though he was invisible anyway. "...I see. ...I never thought I would want a Stand...but..."

"He can still touch you," Haha insisted quietly. "...Not all the time, but..."

They fell into silence. Two who rarely spoke, one unable to see the other- staring at each other all the same. Haha seemed to be giving Hoshi a look- a small smile, a nod- both filled with pain no matter how hard she tried as she linked her arm and hand with Touchan's own for a moment.

(It was a terrible silence. They had never really spoken much in the first place, and then after distancing himself from his mother he'd only done so even more in his father's case. He could never say he was close. But nor could he say that there was an absence of love. It was standing there, watching his father work to spot where the wind itself seemed to have trouble blowing, where the slightest of imprints on the ground could be seen, where Holly's own eyes went-)

(It was standing there that he realized, however poorly they showed it, however much they had failed, so many times, they cherished the other even so.)

A hand gently reached forward- and grasped at the elderly man's shoulder, not painfully, but firmly. He did not flinch- instead, Suzume watched her Touchan gently close his eyes, and even more gently put his own hand over Hoshi's...

...Only for it to pass through, Stand that he was.

"...Like a ghost..." he murmured. "...yet perhaps worse. ...I am sorry, Jotaro," Touchan said even more quietly.

And then, to their surprise, he turned toward her. Suzume blinked as she looked at the man, papers still gripped in one hand.

"I was told, Stand users feel what their Stands do- so the reverse should be the same then," he determined as he reached for Suzume. "...And in that case...this is for both of you.”

Suzume was confused- but she didn’t resist, even going somewhat boneless as Sadao carefully moved to hold her close in some form of embrace. It wasn’t quite the same as hugs from Haha- Haha got really close, and hugged so tight it felt like being wrapped inside a pile of blankets. Sadao’s hugs weren’t loose, but they couldn’t be called ‘tight’ either. Just soft. Careful. Like making sure nothing would break.

(Jotaro could remember cruel remarks made in teenage anger. Remember mocking his father’s careful touch, as if he weren’t practically twice the man’s size. Sadao had never gotten angry. He’d simply kept this solemn expression on his face as if he were attending a funeral, clapped his shoulder, and said, ‘I love you, Jotaro. …Don’t forget that.’)

(Feeling those arms around him through the connection he had with Suzume, he is coldly aware of the fact that he cannot go back to that time. He cannot invest himself in the rare opportunities where his own father gave his all with what time he had, he cannot return an embrace because damn the anger, damn the shame, it’s the last time he has it. He cannot say-)

“...Hoshi loves you too, Touchan,” Suzume whispered softly.

(Her tone was precisely as firm as Jolyne’s was at that age when stating something she considered particularly serious. It shook him to his core and dragged him bodily back to those final moments in memory he had with the girl, now grown, now full of her own frustrated energy, full of her own desperate energy-)

The words briefly shocked the man holding her- holding both of them in a sense. In his motion he was unable to see Hoshi even if he didn’t have ‘bad eyes’, his back now turned to the Stand. Even so, Suzume could tell that whatever she was seeing, so was he. He could easily see the small smile on the man’s face, easily see the way the corners of his eyes crinkled just a little more and dotted some with tears.

“...I’m glad,” he answered quietly. There was no questioning, no ‘does he really?’, no doubt. Just quiet happiness for the words. “...I’ve always cherished him, after all.”

(Like an electric shock. A waterfall on his back. Fading consciousness while his eyes grew unfocused. ‘I’ve always…cherished you.’)

(He’d lost consciousness before Jolyne’s words reached him at all, but somehow her emotions made it just fine.)

They sat like that in silence for as long as they could, until Suzume was fast asleep, and her Stand banished for the same reason- the drawings still laying behind them, corners fluttering in the wind until they were gathered and put back away.

Chapter Text

With Sadao in the house, things felt a little more stable.

It was a nice return to older days- back before Jotaro had concluded that it wasn’t worth it if the man was never around for more than a few weeks at a time, back before trauma had railed into all of them like an unforgiving freight truck dropping its baggage on them in one swoop.

Holly remembered the tension that existed the few times Sadao and Jotaro had existed in the same space after those fateful two months. How confused he had been- how confused she had been- by the scars sustained despite any stories given to them from the Speedwagon Foundation, by the clear peril that was being regularly squashed down behind their son’s eyes at the slightest movement.

She’d miscounted the number of mugs they would need (Jotaro had grabbed his own), and without even a word he’d simply smashed it. Eyes wide, breathing heavy- the motion of Star Platinum unnoticed before the teen simply stood and stormed back to his room as if the devil were hot on his heels.

(Shotaro didn’t suffer that, but Shotaro hadn’t had those experiences then either. No- Shotaro spent those two months in hospital, speaking with Caesar instead. Sharing stories, sharing experiences, and then after the fact, sharing grief. Joy remembered clearly, when Shotaro had remarked on his ‘Gramps’ wanting another JoJo in the family.)

(Holly only now realized which grandparent he’d referred to, as the slowly clearing memory of her husband and son taking as much of the housework on themselves as possible during her recovery came back to mind. Joy, like Jotaro, had never divulged the full experience- it was something that she hadn’t been able to put to words, something she as Holly couldn’t manage either.)

(Somehow, in her minds eye, she realized Shotaro had something of a phantom in his own eyes as well, as if he’d been privy to the tale nonetheless.)

While such trauma was absent, another trauma yet remained. The knowledge of Jotaro’s presence was an odd one- for all that Sadao’s conversation on ‘special names’ had helped to ease Suzume into the idea of someone- anyone- not referring to the poor man as something like ‘Hoshi’ or ‘Star Platinum’, the fact remained that one among their number could not even see him there. Jotaro himself being heavily aware of it seemed to make him more of a ghost than before- while occasionally making himself present to help in minor ways, he seemed quite preferential to simply hiding away in the void where all Stands went.

Sadao noticed- perhaps it was even why Jotaro persisted in this act. If Sadao didn’t notice when he was there or otherwise, it would have perhaps been easier to ignore- Jotaro could simply make himself a ghost in reality, turning his head and averting gaze.

But when Jotaro was present, Sadao’s eyes would be drawn toward his location, as if something in his heart simply ‘knew’. He would watch them not unlike a grandparent watching their child and grandchild, and undoubtedly both were unable to entirely cope with the alien nature of it all.

Shotaro may have brought Irene regularly in their memory, but Sadao’s work habits, while less intense in his age, were no less likely to make him absent from the home. Even if ‘Joy’ often accompanied the man now- and Holly was again reminded of how fortunate it was that she had been home at all this time- she was present far more often for one reason or another, which meant ‘Joy’s memories were the ones filled with visits with her grandchild, while Sadao had one or two that were floating into existence to confuse him.

They were pleasant memories. Of course they were.

But the ever pounding fact that they had not ever been granted the chance to experience them with Jotaro and Jolyne instead was a heavy weight to bear. Josuke hadn’t even known Jolyne existed for a good while, Holly found herself considering as she puttered about to get lunch put together a day after Sadao had arrived. The girl would have been seven by the time Jotaro had gone to Morioh, but apparently the fact that he had a daughter had simply never come up.

Even while an invisible infant was being adopted.

(She tried not to think of how foolish a decision that had been; her mother had already been steaming and stressed over the revelation that was Josuke’s existence, something that had made it all the more difficult for them to even think on how meeting him would go. It had gone well enough of course, Suzi had plenty of room in her heart for a boy who had done nothing more than exist, but adding a surprise adoption into the picture certainly did not help the stress.)

(Holly could at least assure herself that Shizuka had still been taken in despite everything, despite not even being able to recall just how her mother had taken things here, in this reality with Joseph’s demise, when the news of Josuke had come forward. She knew she’d gone to Morioh at some point- she knew Shotaro had gone as well, potentially for the same reason Jotaro had. But for some reason despite all of that, the memory of Shizuka being bounced in Caesar’s lap was clear as day, the discussion of her name even clearer still.)

CrK-

A cracking sound pulled Holly from her thinking while she poured her tea, and she blinked toward the source. “Oh,” she muttered, setting the kettle down and moving to inspect the mug. Space Oddity could work with the future, not the past- but despite this, she found herself holding the ceramic in her hand with a frown, feeling it over with gold vines. “...That’s odd…”

“Is everything alright in here?” Sadao came in with a slow blink, eyes moving to the mug. “Did you say something, Seiko?”

Holding it, she answered. “The mug cracked just now. It must be getting old I suppose…though I can’t see why it would suddenly do that..!” The best she had was that it was fairly cold somehow, and had perhaps reacted to the tea unpleasantly- but why, she couldn’t tell.

There was a considering nod from her husband, who walked over to take a look himself. “...I have noticed some cracks in the supporting beams as well…” he murmured, taking the mug carefully in his hands. “...It is an old house. …There have been drafts as well, and we have renovated this room in particular a number of times….”

“Drafts too?” The matter of the support beams was already a troubling thing. Drafts as well just made things even less pleasant. Not that the house couldn’t be drafty- it was a traditional build at the end of the day, with plenty of sliding paper screened doors. The reality was, with the typical weather even in the coldest point of year, it was better than not to have some way for the air to naturally pass through most of the house. Rooms that needed to hold the heat in had been sufficiently adjusted, and from there they realistically hadn’t needed to make much use of the air conditioning systems installed in certain rooms outside the particularly blistering points of summer.

(It was something she could remember a teenaged Irene grouching about, now, and the thought had Holly wrinkle her face somewhat- judging by the clouded look in Sadao’s eyes, it was one of the few new memories he shared as well.)

Drafts in the middle of early spring were…less than ideal for a variety of reasons though. Not the least of which being that there shouldn’t have been too many places for that to happen. A gap between screens perhaps? One of the doors not quite closing all the way? It was true that this room had been renovated most- and thus there were more chances to slip, but that had made it equally important that it pass inspection standard each time.

“I can make some calls,” Sadao determined as he set the mug down, a reassuring hand on Holly’s shoulder. She tried to pull herself from her thoughts, even as she chewed her lip. “I’m going to be delaying the tour some more anyway. I can use this time to get people to take a look at things.”

Holly immediately turned, a soft ‘ohhh’ escaping. “Delay- But Sadao you’d spent so much time preparing for this!”

A small smile, and Sadao moved to help with lunch himself. “We also prepared to spend part of the tour together…but I think plans have changed since then,” he pointed out knowingly.

And it was true, of course. No matter any formerly made plans to fly to the last location Sadao would be touring at for something of a vacation, looking after a child the world didn’t properly know existed would throw a significant wrench into things.

The guilt was still clearly on her face however, as Sadao paused in where he was gathering dishes to turn to her again with a smile. “Seiko,” he started, only to be interrupted by a distant loud ‘thud’, the sound of tumbling objects soon to follow.

The pair froze.

And then, setting everything down and rushing, they ran toward the source. At minimum it seemed to have come from the direction of Jotaro’s-

Shotaro’s-

Suzume’s, currently-

Room. Holly was quicker, not that it would come to any surprise if they thought about why, but when she finally reached the room in question she could only stop and stare.

The room was largely as it was left, beyond most contents of the closet now being very much across the floor. Suzume was in the middle of it, looking briefly very focused- as if following a set of instructions only she knew properly about- and in the same moment extremely small due to just what she was doing.

The closet had held a number of things, including articles of clothing that frankly should have been boxed long before. Jotaro- Shotaro, rather- had left for University in the USA not so long after graduation, and while Shotaro had been a more careful and considerate packer, he had not seen much use in packing up his old high school gakuran. So, much like his predecessor, the uniform had simply remained hung in the closet.

And now, Suzume was currently swimming in the jacket itself, waving one floppy sleeve on her arm and trying to see the end of it or at least see her fist through it somehow.

Behind her, Sadao quietly joined in the gawking before just as quietly pulling out his phone. At least one of them had enough sense, then, and Suzume seemed to not especially notice. Not until the loud ‘CL-K!’ of the camera app registered over the air anyway, at which point Suzume’s head snapped up in time with Jotaro’s own appearance behind her.

(He very quickly took in the room and looked immediately exhausted, in the way most parents would in Holly’s own current shoes. Unlike her and Sadao however, there had not likely been a loud ‘THUD’ to send a shock through him, so he was at least spared the small heart attack that preceded such incidents best described as ‘not really dangerous exactly, but definitely enough to get someone in trouble’.)

It was to some surprise that Jotaro did not simply vanish again, but instead apparently resigned himself to helping out with the mess and started diligently putting things away. Sadao followed the motions of floating cloth and hangers with wide eyes and raised brows, otherwise saying nothing as Holly put a smile on her face and stepped in to take some charge while she still could. “Now what are you doing Suzume~? Did you want to try on Shotaro’s uniform?” she teased, helping the jacket off of her.

Suzume, much to her curious surprise, did not give much of an answer- she just shook her head and gave an odd shrug. “Hoshi’s clothes are gone…” she eventually said with a near whisper, and behind them, Sadao’s tiny smile fell. “...These ones are wrong…”

Holding her smile firm, Holly simply set the jacket down for it to be picked up and hung. She wasn’t sure she expected Suzume to remember things, if she was honest. Perhaps she should have. She’d come back with that handkerchief, which meant she’d gone down to the school. Between there and the home, where else would ‘Star Platinum’ have existed, even for a short time? What else would Star Platinum have seen, for just brief moments?

“Do you want to wear something like that?” she asked instead, and she could practically hear her husband holding his breath from where she sat. “A jacket just for you?”

The girl gave it honest thought. She looked at the jacket in Holly’s arms, and, perhaps while imagining some great chain bored through the collar, slowly tilted her head. Eventually she shook her head, watching as the jacket was hung up by her Stand to mark the final thing put away.

Holly nodded. “I thought not. Sometimes, it’s okay to change how we dress, okay~? J- Shotaro,” she explained, fumbling only briefly, “Did that too after a while. He tried wearing lots of white, and then he wore lots of stars..~”

With every word she was saying, she surprised herself. Would she have had a clue what Jotaro typically wore, if it wasn’t for the occasional, sparing photograph or description sent her way from third parties by the end of recent years? She could picture his face. Picture it as she would have imagined it, but now with memories of actually seeing Shotaro all those times her eldest hadn’t been there, she was forced to wonder if she had been somewhat wrong. Her guesses, slightly off, assumptions just…a little incorrect.

She forced herself away from those thoughts, if only to keep Suzume from getting confused. “Well, Suzume- it’s almost time for lunch,” she cheered, standing up. “Why don’t you go to the table, and have Hoshi get the plate you want?”

Jotaro turned at that, and easily recognized a need for the little one to be out of the room for a moment while the parents discussed matters best kept away from little ears. He disappeared, but it was not before he gave a small nod in her direction- not to mention a small, almost imperceptible look of worry to his father.

Suzume herself just nodded, and quietly trotted off. “Okay Haha,” she said softly, pausing beside Sadao for a moment. “...Okay Touchan,” she decided to add as well, causing the man to slowly blink and watch her leave.

He did not stay in the hall long though. Once Suzume was already making her way toward the kitchen, Sadao came into the room to quietly bring an arm around Holly as they sat down upon the floor.

“...I keep expecting there to be a chain,” she eventually said quietly. “...Even though I know he- …Shotaro, he never…” Sadao was silent- he would stay silent for some time, but Holly herself needed to fill that space. She needed that, and he knew as much, patiently letting her fumble through the words. “I still don’t even know why he did that,” Holly choked, smile forced on her face. “Jotaro, I mean- obviously, I-”

Soft shhhs filled the air from Sadao, and Holly choked and swallowed on air until she was back to a regular hamon-forming pace. Until she could close her eyes for two seconds, and open them again through a haze of tears, golden vines coiling around them both.

“...I remember asking,” she managed to half whimper, her words strained and tight. “...He never…answered, but I remember…”

‘None of your business,’ he had snapped, face red and still somewhat scratched from a fight not so long ago. He’d ducked under his hat, still ruined, and forced his way by- the chain jangling from it all the while.

(Shotaro that same day, in another time, in this time, had come home and paused at the doorway, as if realizing something. He’d brought his hand up almost hesitantly to his neck, and Joy had watched from around the corner, only coming in when he’d long since connected the two points. She’d asked if he’d pulled something- he’d just smiled slightly and shook his head.)

(Asked, for ‘curiosity's sake’, about the idea of uniform embellishments before she’d laughed and reminded him not to break uniform code.)

Maybe it was to create an image. Maybe it was projection, she didn’t know. Had she ever known, known more than merely that her son was hurting and angry and then simply hurting and despairing? Known more than the fact that Japan had never been kind to anything ‘different’ to begin with, more than the fact that children could be cruel, truly cruel, no matter how many times anyone spoke to parents, spoke to teachers, stepped in-

Stopped stepping in because no one was listening, and resigned oneself to simply offering as much comfort as arms could hold?

A parallel, she supposed. Jotaro had hardly been under physical attack after leaving for America, but it wasn’t as if he’d had it easy there as well. People could be cruel, even if she wished to pretend otherwise, and people could take so many things in front of them only to twist them into something else.

And it wasn’t as if Jotaro was ever going to say, out loud, for even his family, that the events of those 50 days, the events of Morioh, and then some, had left something more than just scars. For all that she tried to keep calling him, she could do nothing if he never answered. For all that she loved her son and knew where his heart lay, she was only painfully reminded now that knowing the core of someone’s being didn’t help if you couldn’t get through what it was surrounding it.

Everyone knew there was gold in the safe, but it meant nothing if you lacked knowledge of how best to open it. Try enough times with the same set of keys and all you did was break the lock, and make it impossible for someone who had the right combination to ever get in, all in one go.

“Seiko,” Sadao half scolded, though it sounded more like a whisper at her ear. “...It will be alright.”

“...I should have pried, shouldn’t I?” she brokenly replied. “...I should have asked more. …Should have pushed more…maybe I should have flown right there without messaging, the way P…the way Papa…”

A broken choke, and a reassuring hold. Sadao leaned his face against hers, and continued to whisper. “...You and Jotaro are far too alike,” he said softly, and she could feel the smile in his words where it wasn’t on his face.

(He didn’t need to say How. He never had to say anything like that. What she was doing was hardly any different from the very thing she was wishing she’d helped him with after all.)

“...Seiko. Holly,” he said more clearly, english name rolling off his tongue almost stiffly. Holly turned to look him in the eyes as she calmed herself, the sound jolting her back to the presence even as she wept.

(It had started as a joke. Nothing more. ‘Holly’, she had said, trying not to laugh as Sadao repeated it one of two ways. ‘Hah-lee’ was the funniest, but the rarest. ‘Hoh-ly’ was more common, especially when he was reading it off paper. ‘That is not what ho sounds like,’ he would say when she corrected him, a frustrated frown on his face. ‘The second ‘l’, it isn’t even making a sound…’)

(‘Seiko’ meant ‘Holy Child’. She’d joked about that being her name because as far as Sadao was reading the English one, it was ‘Holy’ instead of ‘Holly’. Telling her father to use that name had just made it all the funnier, when he would frown first about the language and then later about how he’d been duped the entire time. Holly, after all, was ‘Hiiragi’.)

“...We cannot change the past,” Sadao told her, a hand cupping her face. “...We cannot let ourselves stay where nothing exists. What we can do,” he emphasized, “Is do better.”

Do better. Keep doing better.

(Shotaro’s actions as she could recall them thus far, reflected against Jotaro’s, cut like a knife. They weren’t the same person, but the more she remembered the more it felt he was using his brother’s life as a cheat sheet, and she knew that wasn’t a fair thought in the slightest.)

(He was doing his best. They all were- from she herself, who had to catch herself every half moment in her grief to recall that Jotaro was at least still there, however hindered, to Jotaro, working with what limitations he was now impossibly bound to, to his replacement, who had done nothing more than simply live and likely try his best to keep doing so.)

Holly nodded, and after another moment to compose herself they both stood.

They had others waiting for them after all, and doing ‘better’ would hardly happen if they left them to worry.

Chapter Text

Jotaro was honestly torn, on the matter of his old friend.

Kakyoin was Kakyoin, and yet not as he remembered him at all. It was something he would admit to himself was shrouded in time- the memories cloaked by distance and mourning, twisting what he could recall and what he knew.

For so long after that trip to Cairo, all he ever remembered were the fights. The feeling of metal, flesh, or spirit crashing against his body, the taste of blood dripping to his mouth from his brow or from within his throat, and the hoarse sounds of a battle roar escaping from the ‘demon’ that was his Stand. The trip to reach Egypt alone had taken 30 days. The actual battles on the way there had taken mere hours of time, and some weren’t even battles he was present for.

(Polnareff’s face as they stood in the lobby was a priceless one he’d thought in the moment, as the Frenchman muttered curses and collapsed on the spot. ‘Well, what took you so long? We need to talk about this Stand,’ he remembered his Grandfather saying, and while there had been a spark of worry as Polnareff went down, it had been faint. Something about the situation seemed…fine.)

(It always seemed fine after the fact, for the first few days. They’d made it out after all, hadn’t they? So what was the harm in moving on?)

As time passed, as wounds had healed, he had asked himself a question.

Hadn’t there been any…good days, back then?

Egypt in particular, had taken more than two weeks to traverse after the full month it had taken to get there. They’d spent days in Cairo alone, searching out Dio’s location with growing desperation. And again, until that point, the fights had been mere fragments of time, sharp moments cutting through the roiling tension that lay beneath a guise of calm. Like the swirling vortex of a whirlpool- the danger present, but only ever properly so once fully submersed.

There surely had to have been happy moments. Moments that justified their closeness, before it had been wrenched so cruelly in those final minutes of time.

But it was hard. It was so damn hard to think back to them, even to the entire days of presumed peace there should have been, when so many of the faces were now gone. Swallowed by the void, mired with sand and grit and blood, or simply slack and soaked in stale water.

Once upon a time he had done things such as half swallow lit cigarettes to watch the look on his friend’s faces when it came out without him batting an eye, taken a mouthful of alcohol on a boring desert night to spew a gust of flame courtesy of another holding a lantern. There had been days, so many days, of nothing but them, the car, the music playing, and whatever the hell they had been saying and almost all of it was nothing but a blur.

(Polnareff’s grinning face as he said something, something he could no longer piece together despite the image of his mouth moving. Avdol’s smaller smile from the front, and his Grandfather’s roaring laugh. And Kakyoin-)

(Kakyoin’s side comments and smiles would twist from a scene against a mid-day sun to a scene late in the night, the stars twinkling innocently above water and blood that he hadn’t even seen until so long after the fact.)

He knew Kakyoin. He knew him, or at least..

He used to.

It made things all the more worse, he felt. The Kakyoin before him was him, yet not. He wasn’t marred by time the way he was, to an unrecognizable point, but instead something of the reverse- excised from it, a paper thin sticker without any backing remaining after it was torn from the surface and put elsewhere. His friend had the advantage of his appearance. There was no denying after all, whose face, whose uniform, and whose unbelievably fatal injury that was.

(He hadn’t let himself look. He had the option, but he hadn’t let himself because if he did he’d never see him properly again, or at least that was what his Grandfather had warned with such a grave tone that he hadn’t simply tried out of spite. Joseph had watched it after all- the abrupt blast that sent Kakyoin backward, shattering Hierophant like the emeralds that had been fired immediately before.)

(His imagination had filled the blanks regardless.)

It had been the size of DIO’s fist, and almost perfectly round. Directly through the solar plexus- under the sternum, under the heart despite what he’d always theorized and seen in his nightmares so long after, but undeniably fatal all the same. It would have cleared through the stomach. The inferior vena cava and descending aorta. The spine, if the rest hadn't been enough. That Kakyoin had been able to remain conscious at all let alone have presence of mind and will enough to launch a final attack at the clock for the sake of getting his message through was a miracle in itself.

Kakyoin was smart- clever as hell, crafty he could even say, and had at times the sharpest tongue in the group. He’d been damn loyal, too- and maybe part of that had been for revenge, maybe part of it had been simply having nowhere else to go, no clue what else to do. Kakyoin had been missing weeks of time thanks to DIO’s fleshbud, and in his shoes Jotaro would have agreed.

It was easier to jump at the chance to pay back the ones who ripped it out free of charge, easier to join along and get back at the bastard who’d put it there to begin with, than simply walk away.

(Kakyoin had shown up, that first day, that first fight while under DIO’s influence, holding a marionette and puppetting a nurse with his Stand. Not for the first time, it occurred to him he’d never seen Kakyoin use it after that day.)

(He wondered, not for the first time, if the similarities between what he’d done and what had been done to him, had been a little much.)

Kakyoin the Ghost was himself- but he wasn’t part of the world anymore.

And it was wearing at his friend in a way that he couldn’t explain.

“Hahhhh…that…” The spirit stretched once he finally exited Suzume’s hairclip the next day, looking remarkably refreshed for someone who was dead. Despite the fact that it was there for the two of them to see, he didn’t even make an effort to hide the death-wound immortalized on his front as he brought his arms above his head and grinned the way he would have on a particularly good morning years and years ago. “...That’s the best I’ve felt in decades,” Kakyoin remarked, resting a hand on his hip as he floated.

“Is it hard to sleep..?” Suzume asked the spirit, Kakyoin’s smile faltering.

“...Until now I haven’t,” he answered slowly, and despite himself, Jotaro found himself thinking of a conversation he’d had on their trip. It’d been in Singapore- after Temperance, just before they left for the train. It’d taken a bit of time-

‘Well you’re running late,’ he could remember the teen snorting. ‘What took you?’

He’d kept it short. ‘Kid was hard to find. Let’s get on the train.’

‘...Kid? …What are you talking about?’

He hadn’t explained. Not really, anyway. There had eventually been some discussion about kids in general- jokes from Polnareff about maybe chasing that stowaway, Anne, from following them- and eventually a narrowing down to the fact that he’d been spotted by his Grandfather while dragging a little boy to a popsicle stand and tossing him a sea-salt pop.

Kakyoin had looked at him like he’d grown another head. Polnareff had beamed, started to loudly say awwww, before getting shut up with a glare from under the black brim of his hat.

‘Kid’s dog died, what the fuck was I supposed to do?’

It was a flimsy excuse. What had initially happened was he’d taken the ice pop the kid did have and tried (uselessly) to freeze off a parasitic blob. The dog happened after that though, and honestly he’d admit that if not for that he probably wouldn’t have bothered.

(The kid’s father had certainly been traumatized enough not to voice any nervous upset at least, which made things far less complicated.)

Polnareff of course had skipped right over the dog, and gone right for what was funny to him. ‘Who would have thought, a scary guy like you decent with little ones..!’

‘Fuck off.’

‘Hah! You can’t deny it now, Jotaro!’

Another glare and the Frenchman had shut up again. Later, much later, after he and Kakyoin had a car to themselves, and after Kakyoin had pulled what turned out to be his own actual way of playing around with cherries, and not another bizarro quirk of the man wearing his face, it had inevitably come up yet again.

‘So there was someone wearing my face,’ Kakyoin had repeated, slowly, consideringly, as if holding something else back, something bitter-

Jotaro had felt his face redden with frustration at the time, doing everything he could to not look at Kakyoin. He got it. It was stupid. He hadn’t been acting normal the whole morning. Asshole.

‘Yeah.’

‘...And you didn’t notice until he was taller than you? I should be insulted.’

He’d growled, looked out the window, and muttered- ‘Fuck off.’

And Kakyoin in turn had just laughed before looking out the window with him.

(Later that night they’d been bunking in the same sleeper carriage- Kakyoin up top, him on the bottom. Later that night he could remember waking up with images of animals torn apart by sludge, and people torn apart by metal on his mind, and when he turned his head it was Star Platinum floating there in silence- like a watch dog at the ready, confused at the lack of target. It took moments before they realized Kakyoin was awake as well, not that it mattered. Neither was going to ask the other the obvious question.)

(In that regard, little kids had more courage than the both of them had at their peak.)

“Oh….” In the present, in reality, Suzume was tugging at her shirt again. It was becoming a nervous habit of hers- if she couldn’t touch something, couldn’t do something, then that was her way around it. “...Does that mean you need to sleep more..?”

In the present, and in reality, Kakyoin’s ghost assumed a sort of sitting position in the air. Body poised the way he would in life when considering something, thoughtful silence around them. “I don’t think that will help right now,” he finally determined. “It’s a break- but it isn’t the same as when you sleep. It’s just a way to pass time. And right now, I’m less inclined to do that- do you just want to sleep through everything?” Kakyoin asked the girl, watching as she blinked in response. After an eventual smirk, he continued- “...Exactly. If I slept now, I’d just miss everything!”

Suzume for her part just looked fairly confused, and Jotaro could not blame her. As far as the girl was probably concerned, sleep was just a thing that ‘happened’, and it didn’t help that their mother had emphasized on its importance every time the little one was tucked in. Avoiding it for something else probably-

No, definitely, if he was reading her right-

Felt like a disaster in the making.

Ultimately she decided to move on from things, namely putting her futon away and getting ready for the day itself. The hair clip, sitting innocently at the side, was quickly held out for her Stand to handle as she started.

“Hoshi, you have to do it…” she quietly demanded, Jotaro doing just that. It was likely she wouldn’t bother with anything else until then after all, and at this point he preferred keeping Kakyoin in his sight as it was. The spirit’s mood was somewhat volatile- he would be himself for one moment, and then in a flash of something agonizingly similar to how he’d felt on and off for years after Cairo, something would snap.

It would snap, and while Kakyoin was busy finding his bearings, something around him would literally snap.

And the expression would be replaced by a knowing guilt that lasted only slightly longer, in turn.

While the hair clip was being properly put in place, and the blanket folded up atop the futon that had been put away, Suzume spoke again. “...Is the flower sheet nice to sleep in..?” she asked, and for a moment Kakyoin looked as if he wasn’t sure he’d actually heard the question. Or at least, he had the look of someone who didn’t think such a question was worth asking, and was now realizing he had to give an answer regardless.

“After nothing, it is,” he muttered, watching the girl tilt her head. A small smile was offered, though it didn’t seem to do much to ease her mood. “I’ve slept in worse conditions, don’t worry about it.” Kakyoin paused, and after a moment of silence looked away while adding another thought- “...You should know that yourself; a home futon tops an unknown motel any day of the year, let alone a sleeping bag. I bet you sleep your best here.”

Jotaro frowned- a look that was ignored, partly due to him being behind the ghost. Suzume for her part just blinked, and blinked a few times before finishing her task.

“...I’ve never slept somewhere else…”

A snort, and the ghost shook his head. “It’s definitely an experience…” he hummed, but he left it at that as they fell into silence.

Eventually before either of them could think of anything to say, they could hear Holly call for breakfast- at which point, with a shrug, Kakyoin disappeared into the hairclip once more.

“....you do need sleep then…” Suzume started to mutter, only for the ghost’s voice to echo back out as he paused part way in.

“I…just don’t want to be walked through- I’ll still be listening,” he answered easily, leaving the other two to stare. This seemed to be a learning process for everyone involved, Kakyoin included. As expected of Kakyoin though, he was as good at bluffing his way through these matters as during the trip.

(It wasn’t as if he couldn’t bluff either, mind. Despite his assumption that whatever his mood was, was clear on his face, he at least knew how to roll with the punches in any given situation. That was how they’d survived the whole time after all. That was how he’d survived Cairo to begin with.)

(If he thought about it, it was when he started getting confident enough to call his shots, that he started failing.)

Breakfast, without Kakyoin floating around, could almost have passed for a normal affair. Suzume stood on a chair to help Holly make eggs, while Sadao calmly helped to set the table at a casual pace. The food was set down, the three clapped their hands with a quiet ‘itadakimasu’ that Suzume somehow butchered into something more like ‘itekimasu’ while the others held back laughs, and they dug in.

(Jotaro could not ignore how much cooler the air felt around the room, nor how his mother was carefully using warm water to heat up her mug before getting any tea. It was an odd habit, and not one she tended to use outside of proper tea ceremony.)

Breakfast was breakfast. That much was fine. Suzume showing off her drawings, since she hadn’t been able to do so the other day, that was fine as well. Before long Suzume had gone to draw and play in the tea room again while Holly opened her book and Sadao was given some time to rest and simply play music.

It was only once they were alone, that Kakyoin re-appeared, misting into focus with crossed arms as he studied Suzume before him. He seemed conflicted somehow- or perhaps just thoughtful. Suzume was the one to question it before he could create some excuse however, looking up once she realized he was there.

“Oh….you’re done sleeping…”

The reaction was immediate- exasperated, tired eyes, fixed on the girl who’d said the words. “I told you I wasn’t sleeping this time…” he muttered, watching as she started shuffling to the far end of the table and setting paper beside her spot on it. “And what are you doing?”

“...drawing things is…something you like,” she answered, pausing only for the sake of choosing her words. “So I made room.”

He wasn’t quite touched by the words, but Kakyoin at least seemed surprised. Then again Suzume had a habit of doing that, entirely by offering things that most wouldn’t think ghosts could make use of.

And to be fair, he couldn’t. He even demonstrated by moving his hand through the crayon- his expression moving from genuine, touched surprise mixed in with quiet gratitude, to a well masked flash of misery hidden under a tight frown.

“...Oh…” The wind came out of her sails fairly quickly, and while hardly in a rush to put it back, Kakyoin had the decency to at least offer some excuse in turn, if at least to keep himself from dwelling on it.

“...Drawing was for dramatics anyway, you should know that Jojo,” he insisted, Jotaro frowning again from behind as Suzume merely tilted her head. He seemed to be especially diligent in his refusal to look at her this time, and his eyes were focused on the very fingers that passed through the crayon- which itself now seemed to conspicuously have its paper shredded off where it had been whole half a second ago. “Did you even see me pick up a sketch pad while we were on that trip?”

There was no answer of course, not even to correct her name- but Jotaro found himself thinking on it anyway, even while Suzume went back to her drawing. After all if he thought about it, he really hadn’t. If anything, he’d done more drawing- Star Platinum’s precision had been too useful a skill to ignore, and beyond pinpointing the fly in DIO’s photo he’d drawn more than a few times in the quiet moments of the trip.

(He’d just forgotten. Or perhaps more accurately, not bothered to remember. It wasn’t like the events were foreign- it wasn’t as if his recollection of watching Star Platinum scratch out the distant sight of sea birds and street cats was something he couldn’t place. If anything it was more like the incidents were so small, so minor, so fleeting, that they were….overshadowed by more dramatic things.)

Listening to his Stand operate a cheap motel pen until he fell asleep was neither a positive experience, nor a negative one, but Kakyoin was right to pass the title of ‘artist’ to someone other than himself in current conversation. The habit wasn’t even something restricted to the trip- if anything it was an action he repeated for years to come, pockets stuffed with cheap motel notepads that would make their appearance on the ledge behind the backseat while hovering hands furiously scrawled away at whatever Star Platinum’s eyes were taking in.

‘How many of these do you even have!’ his Grandfather had shouted when they checked in at Calcutta- Kolkata, he mentally corrected, even as the past played behind his eyes. They were taking stock of their belongings as they settled into their hotel rooms, determining how much of a favor they would need to call in from the Foundation once again. ‘If only they’d gone for your other pocket instead, at least all they would have taken is a bunch of…’

Joseph had paused, flipping through the pages. That Jotaro still had his wallet in the first place seemed to pass his notice.

‘What are these, dolphins..? I didn’t see any dolphins…’

‘You’re fucking blind then, old man.’

‘WHAT! Now is that any way to-’

‘Oh, these are rather good- did you use Star Platinum for these Jotaro?’

Avdol’s interruption had only briefly quieted the commotion in the hotel room, as Polnareff cut in to laugh. ‘You stole the notepads, Jotaro..? Not something useful, like the towels!?’

‘Can’t all steal the pajamas like Kakyoin.’

‘The- What kind of hotel has pajamas!?’

Kakyoin had at that point of course, come out to the hall they were in, dressed in his pajamas. The silence resulting had been nothing short of hysterical to his memory, even if his face had been nothing but a dead frown.

In contrast, Kakyoin’s expression was practically innocent in its bewilderment. ‘....What. It’s late.’

‘There are hotels that provide pajamas after all!?!’

‘Have you never seen Japan, Polnareff?’

Jotaro shook himself back to the present, eyes yet unblinking as they pushed back the memory of the last evening before Avdol’s brush with death in order to instead look at whatever it was Suzume was trying to draw.

(He tried not to think about the excitement Kakyoin had whenever he noticed what Jotaro had been drawing during the trip. Tried not to think about the fact that there was nothing cobbled together about the way he’d set up an entire easel set outside the school while he waited, about the fact that more than once he could recall some tangent he went off on about the local sculptures, frescoes, and woven textile.)

(Tried not to think about the hope there had been before the crayon ‘refused’ Kakyoin’s minimal presence, and the fact that he only ever turned his back this sharply when there was something he didn’t want said, that his eyes would betray.)

This time, it was something in red.

“Avdol!” Kakyoin noted with a smile, leaning in with interest. While clearly still not confident in his dealings with children- least of all children that he seemed near completely convinced to be incarnations of old friends- it was somewhat comforting to see him try. “That’s right, he and Mr. Joestar spent time in this room before you brought me here, didn’t they?” he asked, Jotaro looking over the paper in the meantime.

The drawing was as simple as the rest- comically oversized head, hands, shoes- Avdol’s trademark earring-pendants were perhaps the part of the ‘body’ taking most real estate, Jotaro couldn’t help but notice, and he quietly found himself wondering how the man’s ears had never stretched under the strain. It hadn’t been pure gold obviously (that would never have sustained itself), but even that much wood would have been heavy…

(His thoughts were more prone to wandering in this state he was finding, a frown growing on his face. Whether because of Suzume’s own tendencies, or the fact that he had literally nothing else to do save think, he wasn’t sure- he was only certain that he didn’t like it.)

Kakyoin, he realized, was still talking, and Jotaro closed his eyes when he heard the specifics alongside Suzume’s reply. “I’m surprised to only see him now,” Kakyoin was saying, looking over the remaining papers. “But I suppose compared to everyone else…oh- but Joj-” A look was given this time, now that there wasn’t something more unfortunate to distract the girl. “...Suzume- you aren’t drawing anyone else?”

To this, she blinked. “...Do you think… …Would Haha and Touchan like that?” she asked, missing Kakyoin’s smile drop briefly for a confused frown.

It was, like every other time either parent came up, followed by a similarly brief pause as the spirit seemed to measure his words, unwilling to say nothing, but unsure of how to weigh in where he had nothing.

“...Probably,” the spirit eventually said, looking to the other crayons Suzume had at her disposal. “I was thinking of Mr. Joestar however…” A pause, as he noted Suzume’s confused expression. With something of a sigh, Kakyoin again offered a correction- all while carefully bracing for whatever frustrated protest he would soon receive. “...’Jiji’, you called him.”

To his surprise, that didn’t happen. Instead Suzume immediately brightened. “Oh! …Haha told me about Jiji…” she started, only to quickly deflate.

Surprise and confusion turning into faint worry, Kakyoin straightened. “...No longer on good terms?” he offered, only to frown- apparently remembering, once again, that he was speaking to someone barely more than a toddler. He started correcting himself, trying to think about a way to put it that would be easier to grasp. “...Do you not like-”

“...Drawing Jiji will make Haha sad too…” was Suzume’s interrupting response, and Kakyoin stiffened immediately.

Jotaro, for his part- eyes still closed- bowed his head and faded out for the time being. Fragments of conversation reached him as he did so- faint, and scarcely there as he let himself be embraced by the sensation of ‘nothing’ around him.

(It was another form of hiding, one would argue. Rather than avoiding calls, avoiding a country, avoiding the right words, he was just avoiding reality altogether. Technically, he lacked the option to avoid anything but that as it was.)

‘So he’s… …Right. I want to check something then...’

‘J- Suzume, let’s go back to your room.’

(It was nothing of worth, and nothing of concern. He knew what Kakyoin was doing even if he was trying not to think about it. Even if he was trying to avoid it. What he did certainly wasn’t changing matters, and at this point if he thought about doing anything he needed to focus on how to fix it and not how much he hated that this was happening at all. He knew the symptoms. He was watching enough of them. What he needed was a cure, and nothing he followed them for would provide that.)

‘Calendar… …ah. …Yes at that age he would…’

‘...He looks so young in these though- …well, I guess ‘Haha’ is too…’ ‘It’s okay, I know you were just using her special name now.’

‘Speci- …Oh. Oh! …Thank you, Suzume.’

‘Wait, but you’re still calling me ‘Green’?’ ‘....’

‘Hmn. I don’t recognize anything in these photos…I’d expected at least…’

‘Hn. It’s funny, you don’t look anything like yourself…’

‘Like niichan?’ ‘Right. …That as well I guess.’

(He really should’ve drowned more of this out, if he was going to vanish. Try as he might he couldn’t help keeping one ear open though; it was easy to think that Kakyoin wouldn’t deliberately put the girl in danger, especially not with how at ease he seemed to be when interacting with her, but it didn’t stop him from those fits and moments that rang so familiarly.)

(She was a walking reminder of what was gone, more so with his evident assumptions- a scrap of familiarity that could at least be tangible in a way that he himself was not, but in that same way, the very thing making those changes so clear to see.)

‘Ugh, trying to explain the differences when you’re right there is just-’ ‘Huh?’

‘Ah- Ignore that!’

‘Do I have to look more like niichan?’ ‘What- no! …Though… …Here- I have an idea. …let’s take a look in here…’

If he could physically pinch his nose, he’d be doing that. He knew whatever was happening was nothing he liked. What was it he’d heard said more than once? Inaction was just as bad as active enabling? The thought was immediately, and violently rammed back as it appeared. Pretty words, when he was able to talk. The situation he was in- watching his teenaged, dead friend rapidly and brokenly become a textbook display of what made his own postsecondary years hell, only somehow worse because at least Kakyoin was trying to push past it with a smile, or even trying to focus on the upsides-

‘....I can’t reach…’ ‘PFFFF…PFFHFHF…’

‘HHHFFHHHAHAHA…god you’re so small it’s incredible-’

It wasn’t the same.

‘-CLRK-’ ‘Oh- …I’ll disappear for now.’

They weren’t the same. It wasn’t…

(....Being in this state was probably doing worse than watching it, he reasoned from the void. However certain he was that he couldn’t convince Kakyoin of anything else simply by being present and ‘himself’, sitting and closing his eyes to avoid catching when something in the room shocked a reaction out of the spirit was…)

Jotaro manifested out into reality only to immediately be met with a small, but familiar form of chaos. The closet contents of his counterpart were strewn across the floor in the kind of pattern that said it had fallen down not unlike an avalanche- without a doubt, one thing had been tugged, and the rest had followed.

Potentially, the thing that had been tugged was the very thing that Suzume was now swimming in on the floor. The eerily unblemished (and perhaps even improved) gakuran jacket sat over her to the point where even her hairpiece nearly disappeared into it, and she was still fiddling with the sleeve as Kakyoin vanished into it.

Resigning himself to a parental task most typical of this- more than once, before he’d started to more properly slip and distance himself from his family, he’d ended up picking up after Jolyne this way- he glanced toward the doorway where his parents stood. That was undoubtedly the reason for the ghost disappearing, he reasoned as he started hanging things up. He went at a casual pace, for now. He could move fast- no doubt as fast as his former Stand had- but the sensation was still disorienting, an alien motion on a once human brain.

For that matter, it was more considerate while there was an audience- confusing his father more than necessary wasn’t something he wanted to be doing.

(That, too, was an excuse perhaps. He knew he was avoiding him. Dressing it up as giving Sadao less to think about, and less to worry about, did not change that fact. Even if there were fewer ways to interact, there were still options- even if he had no idea where to even begin.)

Getting the room clean was easy, even if letting himself ask and then answer the question of why they were in the room wasn’t. Arguably, he already knew-

Kakyoin was drowning.

The last of the clothing was hung up, and Jotaro frowned. Whatever pinned Kakyoin to the world of the living, Kakyoin had held nothing to go on until the day Suzume had wandered out on her own- it wasn’t surprising that he’d latched on. She was the only contact he’d had in just over 20 years, she seemed to know who he was…

It was a shred of something he’d had, and Kakyoin was desperately grasping at the straws whether he realized or not. And as he assumed Suzume was him, that meant testing the boundary between what was remembered and what wasn’t as much as possible.

(A shame that what was ‘possible’ was nothing.)

The tree at least, he assumed, was something Kakyoin could know. It was probably even a little easier to ignore being invisible while there- if he stayed out of the way, then it would be like nothing changed.

‘-go to the table, and have Hoshi get the plate you want?’

Holly’s words met the air, and with a look toward his mother he recognized what was being said. She needed the room empty- she needed the eyes of concerned small children, and the ears of curious ones, out. It was a simple matter to guide Suzume out the door from there, briefly phasing out of tangibility lest he crash into his father.

(Sadao knew, just from a glance, what Holly needed. He could handle it, Jotaro forced himself to understand. And frankly he had no right to claim he himself would do any better as a human being, let alone as the Stand he now was.)

In the time that he had retreated, and re-appeared, it had started spitting. The sky was a murky gray that shrouded everything in a facsimile of the night, and his eyes scanned over the scene with grim consideration as they walked.

Jotaro had wondered, more than once, how Kakyoin had felt in those final moments. Not physically exactly, but rather mentally. Emotionally. He had the strength to send one final message, but how much time had he after that?

Had he been scared? Or just despairing? Had he been regretful? Or just desperate?

While watching his parents as they left the room per Holly's request, he tried to compare her behavior now, to her behavior just days earlier.

(Was she crumbling? Or was something else crumbling around her? Was it because his father was there to offer some form of support and let the facade fall? Or was it something that had built over time?)

Not for the first time, Jotaro watched the intensity of the storm outside and how it ever so subtly seemed to move from visible sheets to a downpour so thick he could barely see through with his enhanced vision. The Stand watched, and through Suzume's eyes as well, watched their ghostly companion reemerge only to say nothing.

He wondered if the house was the first thing that would actually fall, if this didn't stop.

They walked through chilled halls, and outside the storm began to properly brew. Jotaro looked out as rain started to properly fall, and felt his gaze grow unfocused, even as Kakyoin returned from the hairpiece to float with them. He looked almost sullen, and Jotaro couldn’t help but understand why.

(Even he was able to interact with the world more than Kakyoin was.)

“Oh... …Green, are you going to be sad if we’re eating when you can’t..?”

Kakyoin had started to open his mouth before the question even registered, it felt like, as after only a moment he’d flinched back as if slapped. The rain, already pouring heavily, seemed almost to worsen, and Kakyoin closed his eyes and shook his head- arms crossed across his front, body tight and drawn close. As if compacting himself would keep things from spiraling. “...Don’t worry about that,” Kakyoin insisted, even as they approached the kitchen. He hovered outside it and looked through the gap, a shuddering ‘breath’ escaping as he did so.

The air, Jotaro noted, was somehow colder.

“I’ll be fine,” he offered with a hollow smirk. It was a lie. It was a lie he knew too well, and it grew clearer with every minute spent in proximity. No amount of a brave face could hide it, and he listened to Kakyoin’s words with a dull stare. “Unless you’re having something like cherries…and then I would have to wonder if it was on purpose.”

Suzume did not look like she believed it. She nodded and walked into the kitchen all the same.

Jotaro in the meantime watched…and wordlessly turned his eyes upon the rest of the house. On the storm above them, worsening.

(He doubted it was all Kakyoin. No, it certainly wasn’t all Kakyoin. But he couldn’t likewise deny that Kakyoin, like the storm, was getting worse.)

Kakyoin was clinging to a sinking raft in the middle of a storm, he found himself thinking. He was searching for peace where he couldn’t find closure, was just as quickly finding nothing. And what was closure for Kakyoin as it was, Jotaro asked himself. Why wasn’t DIO’s death enough? Why wasn’t Pucci’s death enough, if it was a matter of closing the legacy entirely. Holly’s recovery, if they were looking at anything else?

(It would be so much easier, he found himself thinking, if it was something akin to Reimi Sugimoto’s case. She knew precisely what she wanted. She knew precisely why she was there. It had taken time, patience, and a bit of her own pointed vengeance, but she had gotten it.)

(But then perhaps it was easier to narrow things down in that situation.)

A peal of thunder rang through the distance, and as he felt a questioning tug on his thoughts, he wordlessly entered the kitchen with Suzume to get some dishes set out. On the counter, a cracked mug stood out to his eye immediately.

(Behind him, Kakyoin seemed to be doing his best to do anything but look.)

(His friend was doing more than tearing himself apart. He was actively trying to avoid it, and failing.)

Kakyoin had no ideas.

Suzume could not either.

If he waited for his parents to notice what was truly happening, and act, it would likely cost at minimum what little emotional stability they yet had, and Kakyoin’s existence entirely.

(Maybe the latter could be seen as giving him peace, but the part of him painfully aware of how much younger his friend had been than his daughter when he died, the part that hadn’t stopped noticing how damn cruel it was, that it came down to the actions of teenagers in Cairo, came down to the death of a teenager to succeed in Cairo, continued to butt violently against the idea of such a violent solution.)

(It didn’t feel right to call it peace, when Kakyoin so clearly still wanted to have a life.)

He needed an idea.

(He needed to identify the problem to begin with.)

“Ah- your parents are coming…” His voice still morose in tone, the spirit kept his head bowed and eyes shut in a motion that could almost be casual as he approached Suzume. “…I’ll take a ‘nap’ I suppose- I don’t need to listen in on this,” Kakyoin determined, disappearing into the hair piece as Holly and Sadao came in.

“Oh, good! The table is ready~ Now, I can get lunch served..~”

Jotaro closed his eyes, arms crossed, and disappeared as well.

A bolt of understanding shot through him so quickly, he nearly came right back.

Why was Kakyoin hiding, if he didn’t need to hide? Why was he hiding, when he could just avoid being seen from behind a wall?

Why did Kakyoin insist Suzume say nothing to his mother? Why did he take so long to even stand before his father, despite knowing Sadao couldn’t see him to begin with?

Why hadn’t he ever heard more about Kakyoin’s family? Why hadn’t he told everyone else about his, once he had more of one?

In the void where Stands existed unsummoned, the answer could not be clearer, and yet the solution could not be any farther than before.

Kakyoin after all, had once described Holly as the type of woman who made a room feel comfortable just by being there. Carrying a kindness, a calmness, the type of personality one wanted to simply be near to.

In other words- his house, Holly’s presence, all of it- it should have been safe. It should have been more than safe. It should have been another home, instead of the very thing that he himself felt despite having actually grown up here.

A reminder.

A relic.

None of them had any ideas.

(Only one, perhaps, knew what they were even looking for.)

Jotaro resolved to not come out until he could think of at least something resembling a plan to solve things, and waited for lunch to be over as he pondered.

Chapter Text

For all that a personal declaration had been made to find some sort of plan to resolve things that were occurring, it was a matter far more easily said than it was done.

(Such was a truth that applied to both Jotaro, and Kakyoin. There was something to be said about the timelessness of being stubborn however, and even if Jotaro’s own mood had matured and ultimately mellowed out with time, he was nothing if not equally as stubborn as that 17 year old boy facing a vampire in Cairo mid-January.)

(It was perhaps fortuitous- though if one could ask Jotaro on the matter, he would likely fear it a curse more than anything- that the two seemed to be drawing the same conclusion to their otherwise different problems.)

In Kakyoin’s case unfortunately enough, he could not even place what the problem was- and it was likely he did not realize that the ‘solution’ he’d honed in on wasn’t quite right either, not that knowing the problem would really help.

Since leaving the grounds of the school, it had felt something like being crushed in a vice. It was a gradual thing, so much so that he hadn’t noticed it right away. At first instead there had been an unmistakable feeling of freedom. He couldn’t even count the years to precise degree, that he had been trapped in the same place. It had been to the point where he could have told someone how many stones there were in the stairway both before and after the incident with the broken branch, if only there had been someone he could speak to.

In that regard, the little girl that was Suzume was a refreshing splash of water, an unexpected rainstorm after a painfully long drought. It hadn’t made sense, until it had, for him. Here was a girl who, somehow, had Jotaro’s Stand. Recognized who he was, at least in face. Recognized his handkerchief, of all things (and honestly it was so like Jotaro, or an incarnation of Jotaro at least, to decide such a thing had been important to him while buying the lie about not actually being ‘that into’ painting).

And then he’d heard the…smartphone.

(It was interesting. Exciting even. At least until he remembered he couldn’t touch anything.)

And then he’d seen Holly- seemingly younger than he remembered, somehow older by far, and on top of that there was a Stand-

There was a rapidly growing pressure, a need for something that he hadn’t been able to identify. Maybe it was even a need for less of something he’d reasoned, that thought in particular striking when he’d seen the kitchen. He didn’t even know where to begin seeing everything, and it felt as if he was trying to reassure himself just as much as the girl when he said he was fine.

It wasn’t as if the pressure came from nowhere- it couldn’t have, after all, and to memory it had even always been there. It had been there when he first woke in the tree, been there when he first saw Jotaro again, and absolutely been there when he fumbled his shot and managed to snap a tree down over the steps. That entire time, it had been there- as pressuring as DIO’s presence had been, bearing down upon him from the unseen even as he watched the vampire’s form fade from sight with his consciousness from the crushed metal of a water tower.

(Of all the things to make him think about it, it had been Holly’s Stand- Space Oddity, he thought it was called- tenderly operating a damn can opener. He watched the metal buckle and found himself violently dragged back to that moment without a minute of warning, gasping for air he didn’t need as hairline cracks mutely formed along one of the pillars of the room.)

(Going outside only barely helped.)

Until coming to the Kujo house, the incident with the tree was the only time he’d affected anything physical as far as he’d known. There was perhaps one other time if he strained to think about it- much, much later in time, after centuries it had felt, where he’d finally up and had enough of watching students walk by in gradually changing uniforms, watching adults and elderly begin to take the path instead at some other point, and just screamed. Whether in frustration or misery or both, he didn’t know- but at the very least, there had been a murmured ‘Did you hear something..?’ while he gripped at his head and cried unseen.

(He was pretty sure he broke the shrine that time, sending a fissure through the wooden structure that sat near the base of the steps. He occasionally looked at it to see if he could interact with the offerings there, and both before and after the situation was no different.)

(The shrine was perfectly fine when he saw it most recently however, so perhaps not. But then again, the tree looked equally fine as well- so maybe it really was somehow all in his head, like the looping final moments he’d been experiencing since he got here.)

Was it something about leaving that place, perhaps? The thought sent a wave of revulsion so strong that Kakyoin had to pause to see that nothing had changed around him- no darkening storms, no cracks in the walls, no stains on the tatami. He refused to be a prisoner to death- death came to everyone, this he knew, but to be chained to a single spot, with nothing else to go on?

No. He refused, and that was that.

There was not much relief from that nauseating hold on him however, and that was what was making this all feel so much worse. He hadn’t thought of his final moments for decades- longer, even, and yet now he could barely go an hour without something setting him off. It wasn’t him- he wasn’t that weak of a person, he wasn’t. He could get over it, he had to get over it, because otherwise how could he even begin to enjoy what he was meant to here?.

(Hierophant tearing the petals off of flowers while he watched dully- the boys at school had ripped at his hair until his scalp bled and while his parents had comforted him it had done nothing to fill the void of pain the little boy had.)

(Later, he would ask- how much was him, and how much was Hierophant? Later, he would ask- did Hierophant truly like to rip things apart, or was it simply the lesser of two evils when it came to venting the poisonous emotions that were vengeance and anger?)

(How long could he bottle everything that stung, before it ended in a field of barren stems?)

He didn’t want this.

(It hurt.)

He didn’t want any of this.

(It hurt almost as much as that night, and there wasn’t even anything here.)

If this were a story, he would perhaps just disappear now. Fade into the afterlife, aware that his time had passed and there was nothing more for him here. Instead, as plastic cherries dangled off his ears, as his hair refused to move in the wind of the back yard during the thunderous downpour he couldn’t feel, he was still here.

A broken bush sat some distance away, and he could still see where numerous twigs had fallen from his anger. ‘A’ broken bush was key. It wasn’t the only one he’d floated into while stewing, and even through the dark rain he could see it. What was he even so upset about that time? Suzume’s apparent older brother?

(If he had his head on straight, he’d ask himself how Jotaro’s reincarnation could possibly even have an elder brother of that age, while Holly still looked as she did.)

(Unfortunately for anyone waiting on him to figure it out, just trying to come to terms with ‘Shotaro’s existence was enough to send his thoughts reeling, already having enough to deal with as he tried to sort out why Holly was Holly and what had happened in 23 years- give or take a few centuries that he knew had to have happened.)

It was all these little things setting him off he determined, but the trouble was there was no controlling how he reacted. It just happened so fast- like blinking. Like breathing. Like something ingrained at his very core, filling the hole that still existed through his chest for so many to see.

And he knew that he had to be on to something, at least. For all the emotion he was trying to rebottle before he took out a support pillar over something as simple as being asked if he could touch something (He couldn’t. He couldn’t that was the entire point of being a ghost, he couldn’t, the land of the living was for the Living)-

Kakyoin reigned himself in.

And nothing happened.

(Not until he thought, so briefly, about how fast things had moved from triumph to failure in life. How little time it had taken before he was losing his soul, before he was choking on blood, before he was-)

(The rain was not stopping.)

Kakyoin wanted so badly, for this to just stop. There was no reason to feel like this. There was no reason for this pressure that increased, this hovering instability that he couldn’t place the source of. It was peaceful. It was warm.

(He was ruining it, and the very thought only made the air colder.)

And it wasn’t fair, he thought, allowing himself at least that much petulance. It wasn’t fair to finally be away from there in what should have been the best way possible, only to feel so miserable all the time instead. He couldn’t deny that Suzume seemed to…remember something after all. Be remembering plenty of ‘somethings’, or at least what had happened while Here. There was reason enough to stay behind to some degree, but here he was instead feeling ready to jump out of his own invisible skin, haunted by the shackles that chained him to the living world as his eyes snapped to every grain of wood that had shifted with time.

It wasn’t as if he couldn’t escape it. But it wasn’t easy to, either. For all that his enthusiasm while talking to the little one was genuine, she was still in the end a small child.

Not even children could keep him from thinking about what he was and why, forever.

He’d stooped down after lunch, after floating out in the absence of her parents- and god, JoJo- no, Suzume, Suzume he reminded himself, she was never going to knock it off with the nicknames otherwise- Her father was old. Or maybe her mother was just inexplicably young? A consequence of a Stand, perhaps? The calendar spoke of almost 25 years gone after all, so…so…

(So it explained, at least, Mr. Joestar’s absence. The reason Suzume had…not drawn him, at least. ‘Haha will be sad’ indeed. Coldly he wondered how much time with her own parents she even had. For that matter, the thought of how they were her parents at all kept brushing against his thoughts- but trying to sort through the tangled web that was the family tree only gave him a pounding headache and an overload of energy he couldn’t quite reign in, so he stopped chasing the thought as soon as possible.)

Kakyoin had avoided asking about Mr. Joestar after connecting the dots from Suzume’s admittance- he focused on Avdol instead. The only other one who would’ve been in Japan, and the safest bet on a topic they could both talk about and understand from both sides somehow, given he had yet to see so much as a shock of silver forced onto the paper in crayon. Suzume in turn said that he was ‘Mister Magic’ (startling a laugh out of the ghost), and he had lots and lots of fire.

She also said, with an incredibly potent scowl for someone her size, that ‘Mister Magic’ was a very sneaky person who pulled a very sneaky trick to make her leave her ‘room of things’ after she worked very hard to get so many things.

When he asked why (in part because trying to sort out just what the hell it was JoJo was remembering in the first place was a challenge and a half), the response was a muttered admittance that her Haha had been upset about things and wanted her (Rather, her and Hoshi, as she put it) to leave the room anyway.

But Mister Magic was still very rude, she claimed, because she’d had to leave all the things behind. Suzume was quite firm about the fact that if and when she saw him again, she’d be punching him very very hard.

(When Kakyoin pointed out that Avdol was long gone and she could only reach up to his knee with a good blow anyway, he’d had to hide his grin behind one hand as Suzume’s scowl only deepened, tiny little fists grabbing another crayon to make a new drawing.)

(He wished, quietly, that Avdol was still here though. Not just because it felt that Avdol would at least have answers for the situation he was in, but because it would be fairly amusing to watch Suzume try to stomp on the man’s toes over what he was pretty sure was the infamous ‘jail cell fight’ that Avdol had described at one point. It hadn’t been within Jotaro’s earshot, to his memory. …For good reason, probably.)

A flower blossom to his side was starting to wilt as his thoughts wandered. An inescapably melancholy feeling, with no precise source whatsoever as he watched. They- He, he supposed- never got the details of just what had happened to Avdol and Iggy. There had only been time for Polnareff to stammer out that they’d sacrificed themselves for him- that was all. He had no idea what had happened. No idea how it had happened.

(How much did they tell Jotaro, he wondered? Did Mr. Joestar find his body himself, and carry back those gorey details? Was it a matter of tearfully read reports instead? He tried to picture either of them receiving the information- second hand or otherwise. Tried to imagine that it was given gently. Softly. Something that wouldn’t take away from the victory they’d finally achieved.)

(He tried to hope it wasn’t something they heard from the one that murdered him, and ignored how likely that was to have happened.)

The flower wilted further, and the ghost sighed in realization of why. Kakyoin closed his eyes and reined himself in again, happy for the fact that he and JoJo were at least not sitting around near the pond as she’d hoped, due to the storm. Holly’s flowers were replaceable.

Holly’s fish…far less so. At least this way all they had to worry about was how much rain might flood their home sweet home.

(And possibly, he thought reflexively, a stray lightning bolt. …Though that probably wouldn’t happen, right?)

He just needed to find out what he needed, he thought more intensely, watching as Suzume fussed confusedly at fallen, soaked petals while Star Platinu…Hoshi, if he slipped out loud again JoJo would never let it go- scowled.

‘Hoshi’ had been doing plenty of that. If not for the fact that he knew by the time they’d reached Egypt that Jotaro’s resting scowl was just that, he’d wonder if the Stand picked it up from him. It was eerily similar to that distant, unreadable stare he’d so often adopted, and it was only made worse by the natural shadowing around Star Platinum’s eyes.

As it were, no. While it was similar, that was all it was. Similar. Unable to restrain himself, he finally huffed, the Stand giving a vaguely surprised blink in turn.

“Irritated that I can’t find what I’m looking for under my nose?” he asked, and for a moment the Stand looked a bit taken aback. They probably wanted the same thing Kakyoin reasoned. No, they definitely wanted the same thing, his mind determined, because if he could sort out his problems and successfully cut them short, the Stand’s charge would finally be able to stop looking so gloomy. It was a bad look for the girl, and one that only made his smiles feel more strained when he made them.

(He’d been seeing a same pattern with Holly as well. That strain, that stress- when he’d seen her under the effects of the fever it was understandable, but now all he could do was feel bitterly guilty about his role in causing it.)

Star Platinum didn’t make a move. Kakyoin adjusted himself in the air, leveling a stare to the being. “Well I don’t see you offering anything- the only one you can get any ideas from is five. If I’m stuck, you’re worse.”

Rather than answer- not that he could answer, Kakyoin reasoned, but still- Hoshi simply drew back and maintained his frown. He couldn’t find himself gaining any feeling of success from it however, not even in minimal childish amounts. Wonderful, he’d managed to ‘shame’ a Stand. An extension of a soul that at least for now was in the mental state of a five year old little girl.

What an impressive feat, he thought sarcastically. He wondered how long it would be before he started really holding conversations with ‘Hoshi’, turning away to find Suzume staring.

They had not been having a very private ‘conversation’, after all- not at all, if the fact that Suzume had apparently decided to come outside to check on them was any sign.

JoJo blinked. And then whispered to her Stand, as the little one was prone to doing- “...Is Green hiding again?”

Kakyoin froze.

…Again.

(Again, she said, only this time it wasn’t about something years and years and years before.)

When had he even become something that hid? When had he even adopted that trait of Hierophant? He hadn’t liked standing out- his height and hair did plenty enough for that, and those who fought would only find trouble knocking at every turn- Jotaro was proof of that.

Not standing out was different from hiding. From not being seen. Being polite and knowing where to really land your barbs wasn’t the same as streaking across the floor invisibly, and in recent years he’d gotten fairly skilled at making sure people’s opinions on him were neutral at worst.

(At least until he met-)

(Kakyoin stopped that thought before it even fully formed, and willfully ignored the thunderclap overhead.)

A sigh. “It’s not hiding if I’m right here,” he insisted quietly. “I’m just watching the rain.”

Suzume stared, and for a moment Kakyoin thought she might go back into the tea room to work on another drawing. She was quite the prolific little crayon artist, even if it felt like half of it was motivated by personal frustration. The girl was very insistent of the matter that whatever she drew didn’t ‘look right’.

(He could relate, and to keep from sinking back into misery he tried to boost himself up with the hysteric thought that he was currently numerous years out of practice. His art would probably look absolutely horrible, if he could pick up a crayon.)

She did not go back inside.

“....Mmm…G…Nori..?”

For but an instant, Kakyoin felt like what he would describe as ‘something melting’. It was a boneless feeling for a being who no longer had bones, weightless yet weighted, stunned and yet not quite. It wasn’t his name but it was close, and even if he’d never heard Jotaro use his first name he thought that the feeling would be something like this somehow.

(He couldn’t even let himself dwell on the fact that she probably meant ‘nori’ as in ‘seaweed’, something else that was green, something else that worked, because dammit it was close enough.)

Suzume kept speaking, and the sensation changed to breaking. “....do you not like Haha…?”

Honestly speaking he didn’t know what to say. It simply tumbled out in a rush, a panic, a shout that had Star Platinum-

Hoshi-

(Whatever the hell name Suzume was using, it wasn’t even-)

Straighten up in alarm.

“NO-!”

(Nothing happened that time. Maybe it wasn’t emotions exactly, that was throwing everything off. Maybe it was something else. He was a bit busy not thinking.)

“...No…I could never hate her, she’s…wonderful, your mother is incredible, I-”

Suzume’s face scrunched somewhat with confusion at his answer, and idly he couldn’t blame her. Unfortunately, she wasn’t about to drop it either. “...then why do you keep hiding from her..?”

He opened his mouth to deny it-

(He was though. He took his first shot to hide as completely as possible and took it, and if it wasn’t for that hollow pit somewhere above the actual hole in his body he’d wonder if he’d just absorbed his Stand when he died.)

Kakyoin ground his teeth. He could feel the metaphorical vice crushing at his skull, a buzzing energy in the air. It wasn’t right to say he was angry- he wasn’t angry at the girl, he wasn’t angry at-

At himself-

(He was)

(He put himself here, he had no one else to blame)

He just felt-

(There were so many damn walls in this place. So many walls, and then even more walls to wall those in, and the house was practically labyrinthian despite only seeing perhaps three rooms and one hall-)

It felt-

“Nori… Tell me why. Nori, tell me,” she hissed, repeating herself the way most children would try begging for ice cream. “Tell meeeee-”

(He felt Trapped.)

“BECAUSE TELLING HER WHO I AM DOESN’T CHANGE THAT SHE CAN’T SEE ME, JOJO!”

It was such a sharp shout that Hoshi himself pulled Suzume backward. Lightning flashed in the far back behind him, and while it was nothing in the yard that was struck, he couldn’t help but feel responsible. For a long, painful moment, it looked as if Suzume would just stare- perpetual shock in place, eyes wide from her Stand’s grip.

Kakyoin dared not move. Part of him wanted her to say something. Say anything- give him the anger he was familiar with, the low irritation he’d come to expect from Jotaro. Give him a growled ‘shut up’, or ‘fuck off’, or-

(It’s a five year old, his logical mind would counter back.)

Say anything, curse him for crossing a line, for bringing all this emotion onto the house, the family-

(I want my best friend back, snarled the voice drowning it out.)

Suzume’s eyes watered, and Kakyoin genuinely couldn’t tell what he was feeling at all. He couldn’t say anything- his teeth clenched too tightly, and his fists just as tense.

It felt like he’d blinked for a moment, and yet things had changed. The girl was worming her way out of Star Platinum’s grip, despite the Stand’s own upset. She was squirming back to the wood of the floor and running forward, even as Kakyoin’s thoughts latched back to that same rerun of the brutal past, where he’d known one thing only to abruptly experience another.

Kakyoin gasped as something knocked him back, but this time it wasn’t more than even an inch as tiny arms latched around his legs and a tiny face buried against his pant leg. How she could even do that was anyone’s guess, but despite the shock and near burn he could feel searing through he could likewise feel the tension immediately vanish.

Until he, too, was looking with watering eyes. “...I’m sorry I shouted, JoJo,” he started, eyes falling naturally on the hair-piece. “But-”

“....it’s ok to say you’ll be the sad one,” she whispered against his leg, shaking somewhat. Behind her, Hoshi was cautiously approaching, as if any motion he made would set things aflame.

(A ridiculous thought, he tried to think, but the wilted flower was too clearly in his view to hold it for long.)

There were tears running down his face, he realized. When was the last time he’d even properly cried? While he was alive? He couldn’t say it counted as a ghost. Saying it counted would mean thinking of every time it had become too much, every time he’d sat in a tree and realized no matter the weather, he didn’t have to worry about the exposure, every time he realized how long it had been since he’d eaten, since he’d slept, and more, and more, and more-

(She’s five, that bitter voice thought. If Jotaro was properly here you’d have sucked it up, and started getting to the bottom of this.)

(There was a far softer voice asking if maybe he needed something like this more, all the same.)

Unable to hold himself back, he finally made himself speak. “...Why do you even care about me this much?” he finally asked. “You didn’t know my name, you don’t use it,” he protested. “Why did you bother pulling that handkerchief out, for this?”

Suzume was silent. She was silent, and the most she could do in her defense was shake her head against his knee, adjusting her hug to somehow be instead tighter. It wasn’t until Star Platinum made a move to try gently prying her off, that she said anything at all.

“....I don’t want you gone again…”

In his shock, a few more tears fell.

“...What?”

Again, Suzume was silent. Except now it was silence and perhaps guilt. He should feel that too, he thought briefly. JoJo wasn’t Jotaro anymore. This was a child. Just…

(But he wanted Jotaro BACK-)

“...I…I don’t know how to…how to make it better like Haha does…I only…I don’t know a lot of things, and…” A sniff, and as the girl wiped her eyes she scuffed the floor with her sock. “...I don’t even know where to find a memory store…” she finally muttered mournfully, resulting in a comically stunned look from her Stand as Kakyoin blinked and reeled back in laughter.

“A memo- there’s no such thing as a store for Memory! You’re lucky to be remembering anything at all more likely..!”

(The sound was too broken. Scattered, uncontrolled, spat out in a fit of incredulity. It sounded more like when they’d finally cracked the mystery of ‘The Sun’ Stand and he hated it.)

Suzume grew a bit more emotional about the matter- fists clenched and one foot prepared to stomp as her expression twisted with distress. All Kakyoin’s laughter was doing was making it more important, and she didn’t want to back down. “...I don’t want you to be sad… …but everything’s making you sad, and I don’t know where there’s helping things…”

…She really cared about this, he realized. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that- not because he thought she shouldn’t, exactly. It seemed ridiculous for someone so young to be worried about something like this, but given an ounce of thought it made complete sense. Things were so much simpler when you were small, after all. He couldn’t help but be stunned all the same. Most kids wouldn’t bother, would they? At the very least he couldn’t remember being so altruistic, but then not many kids had been nice to him in turn. In that regard he could argue that most kids weren’t nice at all. That most would just say sorry and not mean it, and move on with their lives.

(Most kids didn’t sit behind doors and listen to their parents tear themselves apart trying to find a way to keep children from being cruel, peg-hammering children. Didn’t listen as parents argued briefly with statements like ‘Where did your family even get that color from anyway!’ followed by rapid apologies and excuses of being stressed. Most kids didn’t move from picking at the stitches in cloth, the threads in the tatami, the cracked glaze on cheap plates, to watching as a wave of green tendrils simply shredded through grass, wood, and occasional insects making the mistake of trying to bite him in the yard.)

(His parents never noticed after he let Hierophant handle things, and when he stopped insisting that Hierophant was ‘real’ they’d even started congratulating his maturity. It was part of what assured him that they hadn’t noticed he was gone, or at least not until long after perhaps. Maybe Ryoko had, but she’d have forgotten by now. She was only a little older than JoJo…than Suzume, after all.)

Kakyoin sat down and sighed, tear stains still visible on his face.

“You’re impossible, you know,” he said. “Not only can you see me but you can hear me. The first one to do that, in centuries,” he emphasized as the Stand among them stiffened. “…That should be more than enough for me, don’t you think?”

The Stand looked ready to throw him into a wall, perhaps. Or maybe that was the self-deprecation talking. Self-flagellation? No, his thoughts corrected, the latter would need Hierophant to be around, probably.

(He’d noticed this himself, at the tree. That he was getting attached. That was dangerous- dangerous, for everyone, least of all him.)

(...Maybe the Stand thought he was still being an idiot? He couldn’t tell. It was this indescribable look of shock, as if maybe the Stand himself had been thrown through a wall instead.)

Kakyoin ignored Star Platinum. It was only by a little, but he was feeling at least somewhat better, if it could be called that. Enough that he could try and help the other one feel more her usual, before the next time he sank into the inevitable.

(That was proof wasn’t it? Proof that it wasn’t working, proof that if he wanted to move on properly he needed to figure this out, find the source of this weight, do it better, or…Or…)

The girl shook her head, and he had to bite back a bitter smile.

Of course she was going to argue. “...not being happy means it’s not enough…” she said quietly, before angling her face in a way that achieved precisely the kind of expression utterly impossible for Jotaro ‘195cm’ Kujo to ever pull off. With her head bowed low, but her eyes angled up toward him, Kakyoin found himself strangely told off. “...if the happy things aren’t here, then…” She paused, as if she wasn’t actually sure where she was going with that. Seeming to find it eventually, she pressed on. “...we have to find it.”

A blink. “...Find…’It’,” Kakyoin repeated, snorting under his breath. “You have less to work with than I do, given what you remember…”

Apparently not deterred by this issue, Suzume shuffled a bit in her seat until she could find the words she wanted. “...then…I have to remember the things.”

Kakyoin raised a brow, but said nothing.

“...but I still don’t…” Suzume’s face screwed up into a frown again, and she sighed- turning to Kakyoin. “...do…you know where you find memories..? ” she was quietly asking, and Kakyoin realized he had perhaps half a second to actually make his choice.

This was happening or not at all. He could either make a leap, or not. With one statement he could decide what this child did next, and part of him wanted Star Platinum to reach over and launch him through the wall just to avoid it.

(‘I curse myself,’ he could remember thinking. And after that- ‘I won’t be the same Kakyoin Noriaki again.’ When he’d left with them he had spun a yarn about the kindness he saw in Jotaro’s mother, expressing his own wish to bask in that care, and saying he just wanted to help her recover. And in a sense, that part wasn’t untrue. Holly was kind- Jotaro was lucky to have a mother like that, and lucky to have someone who was apparently willing to push through doing the song and dance twice. But he was selfish, as well. Truly, deeply selfish, he determined.)

(More than anything he’d wanted to bury everything he hated about himself, everything that made him weak, and come out of it something better. That he’d backslid since death was something he simultaneously refused to stop thinking about, and refused to so much as consider, all at once.)

“....It would be a long trip,” Kakyoin finally said. “...You wouldn’t be able to tell your parents either- they wouldn’t let you go. You’re too little…and after all, I can’t even do what ‘Hoshi’ can,” he added with a weak smile, and the Stand he was ignoring seemed to simply go limp with resigned understanding.

“...it’s important though, right?” The girl nodded, as if answering her own question. Without even looking at Kakyoin she nodded again, and looked back to her Stand. “Like… …like for Haha. Like…Hoshi’s errand. The big one.”

(...even now, the little things she remembered, filtered out through child logic and innocence…)

(Yes, or no. A leap, or otherwise. He was suffocating here and that unspeakable pressure had seemed to simultaneously ease off and increase tenfold somehow. Frankly speaking he had no idea what he was even feeling right now. It was equally as terrifying as it was exciting and everything he felt seemed to inspire each other emotion in turn, making it all the more confusing.)

“...We’ll have to get you on a plane,” he finally said- unable to believe what he was saying. “...We have to sneak onto it. And it has to be in the middle of the night, or they’ll find out.” She should be more apprehensive, he thought. She should stop him. Or at least, stop him through the Stand. This was ridiculous. He was suggesting a 50 day joyride, something along the lines of a college-age flight of fancy, maybe highschool, this was a preschooler-

(The Stand did nothing.)

Suzume, for her part, just said-

“...I don’t know what a plane is, but that’s okay…you and Hoshi can show me, and we can go get the memories then.”

(Okay. Okay.)

(‘It’s time,’ Avdol had said as Joseph shared the flight details, and they stood at the gate for what would, for many of them, be the last they ever did. ‘Let’s go.’)

Kakyoin smiled, wide, and honest, despite everything that churned through his being.

The rain was still pouring for now, but that was fine enough. If they left right now, he reasoned, Holly would stop them (as she should), and that would probably convince Suzume it was a bad idea (which was less than ideal for him). Also, as it occurred to him idly, he had no idea how much planes had changed in the last number of years.

It was a good distraction at least.

(He sent one last look to the withered flower before he lost his nerve. It would be fine, he told himself. And maybe, just maybe, this really would fix things.)

Chapter Text

Through the breakdown that he had witnessed, Jotaro- the real one, as opposed to the image of identity that Kakyoin had painfully but understandably created- was almost entirely overcome by conflicted emotions.

The ghost was not wrong to read ‘agreement’ from him by the time they had calmed down enough that Suzume could be encouraged to go and do some more drawing. ‘It’s not a good idea to bring your crayons,’ Kakyoin had told her while shooing her back inside the Tea room. ‘You might lose them all,’ he’d warned, and once safely out of his sight again the ghost had more or less collapsed in his seat with what Jotaro could only call shameful anticipation.

It could be his only chance. This was a thought that Jotaro had realized the moment Suzume had begun to ask about where memories could be found.

But it practically demanded they retrace the steps of old, and in the absence of any time to actually explain that, the only options involved were nothing short of despicable.

What was his mother going to think? When she woke, and found them both gone? She’d know they could stay safe. Even Sadao would know, he was sure.

But what would they think? What would they even do?

(Was this truly any different from when he’d rushed off with Polnareff looking for arrows, when he’d flown out to Morioh without his family, when he’d otherwise vanished into his work so thoroughly that he missed every major incident in his daughter’s life until the last minute?)

Suzume patiently worked on her new drawing, and at the threshold of the tea room Jotaro stared at the spirit sitting on the walkway in silence. Going by Kakyoin’s plan- if it could be called that- was risky. Not the least of which was because the only human in the group was a child, and one that he couldn’t necessarily keep out of danger until the last minute. Add in the inevitability that outside the safety of one’s home there was a heightened chance of encountering another Stand user, and it did not look good.

By all means, he shouldn’t have been entertaining this idea at all.

But when he thought to question it, more than the matter of how, his mind went to stolen glances of his mother huddled at the phone with hushed whispers he could barely hear. They went to the lines of worry that were practically creased into her face despite a smile, and to the few times he’d watched her willfully close her fist over a bundle of thorns before making a decision.

It went to the look on her face when they saw the other, and to the fact that the last she’d looked like this in his memory was before he’d even started high school.

He didn’t know for certain if Kakyoin’s own emotions had started clouding the emotions of those here. Suzume was upset because she could see for herself what was happening. Their parents, meanwhile, were in a completely believable state given what was happening.

Jotaro looked at the withered flower near the door. Considering how much Kakyoin had looked to it, he could guess how this had happened.

If not for his parents’ emotional state, then perhaps at least this was necessary for their physical state.

(Planning on the fly was something he had become good at anyway, wasn’t it? Or at least enough so, that he could recognize his chances of coming out of this with something positive paradoxically increased.)

(This was perhaps the most hollow reassurance he’d ever given himself.)

With something of a sigh, Jotaro opted to do what he could to have some sort of plan. In terms of funds, they would have nothing unless it was stolen- whether from a random stranger (not ideal), or from his own parents (almost equally ideal, with the chances of a card not being frozen going up while the chances of simply being caught went up in the same instance). Topping that off, it would be far more than just food and water that they needed- Suzume needed somewhere to sleep. Every night.

Period.

A Stand was limited by the strength of their user in many ways, and he was not taking any chances.

(At the very least, he wasn’t worried about getting to Narita. Even if Kakyoin wasn’t likely to know the way there, he was familiar enough with the route between the house and that place that he could still find it going on foot.)

Another issue- one almost immediately relevant- was how they were going to get a plane in the first place. Last time, it had been his Grandfather’s string pulling and wallet. This time, he thought as he listened to Kakyoin mutter ideas for himself, it was going to be far more illegal.

“Maybe if she steals someone’s boarding pass… …or I could check for a spare seat, there has to be at least one…” Jotaro sighed, at least able to find relief in the fact that the ghost was keeping as quiet as possible. If they could find a plane flying empty first class, he thought, they could feasibly manage- the carriage would be empty, but otherwise safe, and using his speed he could get Suzume through all the passenger check points without anyone the wiser.

(He would also, he realized, have to look for a flight going to Hong Kong. Otherwise they wouldn’t exactly be traveling the ‘old road’ so to speak.)

The afternoon proceeded both too quickly, and too slowly from that point on. To Jotaro’s vague surprise, Kakyoin didn’t even bother disappearing into the hairpiece as dinner progressed, leaving the Stand to simply watch as the ghost flitted around the kitchen with an almost forced interest instead of showing any obvious opinions about the current topic at the table. Suzume’s drawing of Avdol sat there, her most recent one having been instead left in their room between her retreating back to get her puzzle, and the current moment. Holly was talking about how polite the man had been during tea, mostly- the occasional twitch in her smile and Stand alike giving away the fact that she was trying not to remember more of that via ‘Joy’.

Sadao, who Kakyoin appeared to have no distinct opinions on any more than he did an unpainted wall, contributed to the conversation mostly with the occasional hum- something he both understood and related to, and found somehow comforting in fact.

(Sadao’s personal thought that Avdol should have prompted Joseph to contact him did not get voiced, at any rate- and in fact, the conversation stopped soon after that before moving onto the question of eventual preschool for Suzume- He was not going to watch his wife crumble under painful memories of what happened to a man she had once known for but moments, and now abruptly weeks.)

It was a familiar scene, despite how long ago it had been that he was part of this. He could remember being so small, so young, before children his age had cottoned on to the fact that his blue eyes meant anything ‘different’, and before he himself had recognized that his father’s in and out presence wasn’t something he was simply imagining. It wasn’t as if he had treasured those moments back then. That time at the table where his mother talked and talked about the day while he and Sadao both gave their own grunts of contribution. But like an old wine, or an antique, the worth was something he apparently only realized after its moment had long passed.

If he could, he would treasure it now- more than ever as he guiltily thought about what he would be packing in Suzume’s bag before she turned in for sleep.

(Kakyoin meanwhile, had been looking back and occasionally staring at Sadao with the image of an inordinately polite Jotaro entering his head each time. …Which was an eerie image and one he did not want to have in mind much longer, actually.)

Dinner finished. Suzume had only a little more time before bed, and she dutifully carried her papers from dinner to the drawer they had been going to, unfolding her futon and gathering the things she needed for her evening shower and clean up.

And through the process, Jotaro continued to wait and think. It was incredible, how much he and the others had relied on the Speedwagon Foundation and his grandfather’s bank account, if he thought about it. If any normal person had been thrown off course as much as they had, they could’ve been stranded for weeks. Far too long for Holly to ever make it.

Instead, each time took as little as hours- but then again perhaps the time spent fighting would become time spent sorting out finances on the road this time around.

(Knock on wood, he couldn’t help but think to himself, before immediately closing his eyes and banishing the image of his ex-wife from mind.)

“Don’t forget- I’m going to wake you early,” he could hear Kakyoin whispering now, materializing in the room as Suzume laid down. “Make sure you sleep- you have a long walk.”

The ghost turned from there, and with a brief moment of clear surprise, frowned.

“...Sta..Hoshi?” he muttered, lowering his voice so that the little one would focus on drifting out. Already, the Stand was finding it tricky to remain present- but he needed to get this done now, rather than risk waking anyone in the night with it.

Jotaro’s presence blurred.

“...What?”

Moving so quickly was disorienting. He’d done it before, at the school, but he had not done it for so much, with so much focus before. Suzume was still wide awake albeit tired- he would take advantage of that, if at least to handle the part of the trip he could determine.

(For however much he could stretch her will from his own end, at least.)

Backpack first, set on the ground, opened, and emptied of anything unnecessary. Kakyoin was watching as objects abruptly began gathering, drawers that had been carefully organized and put together in the closet rushing in and out as articles of clothing came out. She would need room for food and water- that, he could feasibly snatch from vending machines without issue if he thought about it. All he’d need to do was get his arm through the glass and knock things down, or even go behind the thing and just kick it, for all that that option was just a little too loud and ‘17’ for him at this point.

She would also need camping equipment- trickier, but not something they had to pack in the immediate moment. They didn’t have anything immediately on hand here as it was, and their first destination was a bustling city known for having the most skyscrapers in the world, and as much as an enormous number were for housing they would probably find something.

She would absolutely, however, need clothes now. There would be no avoiding the fact that laundry would have to be done somehow on this trip- he had some ideas on how to manage that, making sure nothing getting tightly rolled and folded was anything that would suffer too badly from the ravages of untreated waters- but having known the feeling of wearing the same damn thing every day for a number of days on the road, he wasn’t about to put a literal child through it.

(Suzume didn't understand the hierarchy of needs, the idea of supply limits and the risk of heat exposure. It was impressive enough that she understood the need to bring something along at all, at least enough for him to do this.)

…She would need something to do. Most motels had paper pads of some kind, and that would have to work for the most part, but with a millisecond of thought the crayons were reduced to an easily replaceable number and set in the bag along with a ‘pack’ of folded paper from the stash that she still had at the desk.

(He hesitated, looking at what drawings were there on it. There was something visible on one of the sheets in the pile, something a familiar green in color.)

(His rapid bustling quickly hid it for now, but he made note to make certain he was last in the room before they left.)

The bag was packed, and set by the door.

Kakyoin continued to stare, blinking rapidly. “How…weirdly paternal of you,” he muttered, almost too quietly to be heard. For a moment, Jotaro wondered if maybe some sense was about to get through. Instead- “...I wonder if he’d been a…” Muttering further to himself, the ghost sighed. “...He would have gotten old enough for that at least…”

Good grief.

Of course it still wasn’t that simple.

Suzume was properly falling asleep now though- he could tell, because his hold on reality was starting to fade in and out as she came closer to deep sleep. Jotaro didn’t fight it off- he just closed his eyes, and vanished from sight.

And from there…he waited.

(If waiting at least was the same as simply vanishing from reality and coming to presence a number of hours later without any indication. So many things could simply happen while Suzume was sleeping, he realized, and he bit down on the realization that soon enough they would be tempting gravity without a single person they could actually rely on.)

(Kakyoin was there, that was true. But what would Kakyoin be able to do now, if Suzume fell asleep before someone decided to attack them for the simple crime of having a Stand.)

The moment he could sense awareness begin to return, he manifested.

“JoJo,” he first heard, quietly cursing the laser focused nature death and isolation had left on his former friend. “Jo- …ah, right. Suzume- Suzume,” Kakyoin corrected, the awareness of his partner making it easier to manifest in full.

While Suzume stirred into wakefulness to be quietly shushed by the ghost, Jotaro took a look at the clock. 2AM- a good choice, if only because his parents would be asleep, while they yet had enough time to wait for a plane suiting their needs. He had a slight idea of how he could scope one out at least- actually looking into the planes wouldn’t work, not with the limits on visibility, but he’d be able to quickly skim any computer screens available to staff while there.

Perhaps even scroll through himself, if Suzume was up to a distraction.

(Upon thinking of that, it occurred to him that his quiet frustrations and fretting over the pros and cons of helping his former Stand to kidnap herself were entirely useless.)

(If Suzume wanted it badly enough he’d have no choice but to run right through her for the entire way there, her tiny legs the only thing that actually determined where they were going.)

Kakyoin seemed optimistic for someone who had likely had to sit there for a few hours though, he found himself noting. He probably shouldn’t have been surprised by it- after years in a tree, a few hours watching a clock was probably child’s play.

(Centuries, Kakyoin had said, and he was still struck by the impossibility of it. It had been not even 25 years. A long time to be dead- longer than Reimi had been if he thought about it- but centuries should have been impossible. He knew for a fact that though his parents had unique memories of the world around them, those memories only lasted as long as their lives.)

(What then, made the memories of those without it, different?)

Kakyoin was coaxing the girl into her clothes now, gesturing to her dresser and glancing toward the clock himself as the child obediently got something warm on to counter the cold of the night. It had barely been minutes, but time was precious, and they both knew it.

The more time they had, the more time before people started looking around Narita for a missing child.

(His eyes fell again on the papers at the desk. It was the best he could do, and he hoped that if she did not forgive him, his mother could at least forgive the child for the hell that she would no doubt experience.)

(He had no illusions about what this would do to Holly. All he could do was assure himself that the most he could do was help prepare to keep Suzume alive during this expedition, and hope that it was what Kakyoin needed to find some peace.)

5 minutes passed, and Kakyoin was now gesturing to Suzume’s bag- in the corner of his eye, Jotaro watched as she gently tucked the teddy bear- somewhat worn, and a clear remnant from when Jolyne…Irene, rather, had visited as a child herself. His expression softened, and he sighed.

It was extra space taken up in the bag, but at the very least it could only add to the indication that she’d left willingly.

6 minutes. They would likely not spend more than 2 minutes more in this house now, so confirmed by the clumsy fingers closing her bag up before he helped to hoist it over her shoulders. He wondered if he could carry her for some of the walk. It was a solid possibility, and he had been able to lift her a few times now…

“Alright. Are you ready?” Kakyoin whispered, Suzume nodding determinedly. The ghost’s answer was a look of near excitement- one that flickered in and out with hesitation and guilt before he turned. “Okay. Let’s go.”

The pair began to make their way out of the room, and in the back of his mind Jotaro pulled. His hand hovering over the pages of drawings on the desk in the room, his form lingering but briefly as he tugged at his own desires as sharply as possible.

(It didn't matter what he wanted, not really. It had to be something she wanted at heart as well.)

It needs to be seen, he enforced, Suzume starting to test the limits on his distance already. It NEEDS to be SEEN-

(Something she was convinced to want-)

A small gust of wind ruffled the pages as he vanished, at last pulled back by the Stand limits to the void for until he could regain his bearings.

On the desk, a drawing of a green figure with cherries and a dark hole in their middle, holding hands with a violet warrior and a tiny girl with a red smear of a scarf, innocently looked up to the ceiling.

Chapter Text

It was fortunate, Kakyoin thought as they walked-

Well. Sort of walked anyway.

-that Star Platinum/Hoshi was so in tune with Suzume’s needs. Getting through the door and gate had been easy thanks to the Stand’s cooperation, and while he was still somewhat baffled by the fact that he had the foresight to pack spare clothes and things for the journey (he’d admittedly forgotten that would probably be necessary, and not just because of the fact that he was dead), he determined it was best not to think too hard about it.

If that feeling was aided by that pressure on his entire being only lightening when he did so, he didn’t show it- save for his optimistic mood.

(Even so, he couldn’t help but be brought to a memory of standing on a dock, a newfound friend hauling a worn, practically trash-like sack over his shoulder. ‘Alright- I have my things,’ he had said, and then looked over them on the gangplank with a frown. ‘....you… …you don’t have any…’)

(Luggage wouldn’t have mattered anyway he thought back, even as the image of Polnareff laughing and hopping into a liferaft with the words, ‘Don’t worry mon amie! I have all our things!’ came to mind. It had been followed by his own swift ‘Oh these are ours now Polnareff? Well thank you, I can use some change for a cherry soda later,’ as the Frenchman sputtered ‘Non!! Non!!!’)

As it stood, if anyone happened to bother walking the paths they took to get to Narita Airport- a path that was quickly coming into more developed areas of the district, at a rate faster than Kakyoin expected- they would almost certainly see a five year old child with a backpack sitting on nothing, eagerly whispering hushed commentary to thin air after various intervals.

Kakyoin had determined, after about 15 minutes of ‘walking’, that Suzume focusing on being carried was not actually something necessary- and thank goodness, because in hindsight, he wasn’t sure they’d actually make it otherwise.

As it was, she was a far more receptive audience to his trivia than Jotaro had been in another life, he couldn’t help but think with a grin.

…Though to be fair that could well have been due to the fact that she was 1, easily distracted, and 2, utterly unable to completely understand what he was talking about.

“...and that would be why I don’t think those dogs should be kept here,” he was in the middle of saying as they walked past a house where a large fluffy cloud of a canine had nearly alerted the entire neighborhood of their presence. “The samoyed was a dog intended for cold journeys, and long distances. No one needs heat like that in-”

“Oh..!”

Kakyoin paused and turned mid-ramble, watching as Hoshi put the girl down.

“Hoshi?”

The Stand, of course, said nothing- and in fact merely looked ahead as the lights of the more active city loomed ahead.

It did not take long for Kakyoin to guess why. “Right- it’s going to be fairly obvious something is strange if you’re just floating around like that…”

To this, Suzume furrowed her brows. “...but Hoshi was holding…”

Funny, he could have sworn even Holly bothered explaining Stand visibility to the girl…pushing it from mind as he looked ahead momentarily, the spirit soon stooped nearer to her level. “We aren’t very far now,” he reassured with a nod, soon moving to float ahead. “Let’s go- we need time to find a plane for you to get on.”

As soon as he said that, Hoshi appeared to furrow his brows as well- no doubt reflecting the sort of deep thought and confusion his partner now had.

(Truthfully, Jotaro was busy running various backup options for getting on the plane and staying on. In an ideal world he could just count on scooting Suzume past border and airline security before finding a flight that wasn’t full- the latter of which would be easy at this hour.)

(Actually, in an ideal world he wouldn’t be in this situation, but he wasn’t going to dwell on that when he’d done plenty of that already. At the very least he could question how he’d gotten here while on an hours long plane journey.)

To some extent, Kakyoin couldn’t even be slightly frustrated about how much slower they were now that Suzume was on the ground. Star Platinum had been fast- not blisteringly so, though he had no doubt the Stand could do so, but the advantage of being a ‘fully grown’ Stand with a user who hadn’t even started school was impossible to ignore. Using one’s Stand to enhance physical capability was hardly a thing he wasn’t familiar with- he couldn’t quite use it the way most did, mind, but he knew how.

(Climbing had been so easy that night. Like a spider. Like a growing vine. He had thought back at the time, to when they faced off against Wheel of Fortune. Hierophant wasn’t strong, not physically. Lifting an entire car, not to mention a number of people, had always been impossible.)

(But what about just one?)

Watching JoJo’s hair blast back in the wind alongside the little flaps of her hairclip, however, only heightened the display of just what potential she arguably had. If the Stand himself hadn’t somehow apparently retained whatever amount of sense Jotaro had in prior life, then Suzume would be an absolute terror, this, he was sure of.

Comparatively, walking along the street however was so much slower. The time they’d saved impressively was probably going to be completely used up by the time they got to the airport. It didn’t matter though, even if the numbing, overcoming pressure started to sink in again.

Because there was just…so much.

Cities changed with time. Technology developed, and advanced, society adjusted. Jotaro’s- Suzume’s- the Kujo’s neighborhood was more traditional. The buildings were surrounded by woods, small stores flanked by trees not unlike what he remembered seeing in the outskirts of Morioh. There were temples- a number of them in fact, and even a few genuine wooded parks.

But where there was an airport, especially an international one acting as the ‘gateway’ to Japan, there was also tourism even if just for the arrival. There was demand, commercialism, and all that came with it. Even in the late night, there was the occasional person walking down the well lit streets, and Kakyoin’s sights were practically assaulted by the billboard displays and computerized signs.

It wasn’t as if he didn’t know what these were. That was perhaps even the worst part, he realized as the pressure increased.

It was just… Different.

‘I’m going inside,’ he wanted to say. JoJo was still walking, he thought. She was still moving steadily forward, only occasionally guided by Hoshi as they came closer and closer to the airport. It would be tricky to get there after a certain point given the highway, but assuming they did the same trick as before they would probably manage. Suzume- JoJo-

(She wouldn’t really mind if he defaulted to that old nickname right?)

She’d be fine on her own from here to the airport. And the feeling was overwhelming. He couldn’t describe this energy- this itching fire clawing most furiously at his skull with every step.

The style of the buildings.

The patterns of paint on the road.

The symbols on the stoplights.

The sounds, even the sounds!

And yet he wanted to see it all.

He didn’t want to miss a single thing.

(He could remember being blind. He could remember hearing everyone panic over him as water found newer and crueler ways to attack them. Toying with them as a cat would play with a mouse, or even a mere insect. He could remember seeing nothing but red and then nothing but dark.)

(So dark that it couldn’t be called anything at all.)

A numbing tug at his hand shook him from his thoughts. “Huh?” His vision cleared from its almost trance like state, and when he looked down he could see JoJo’s tiny face. The girl was staring up with those wide and unblinking eyes, and eventually Suzume spoke.

“It’s your turn…” she said quietly, and pointed across the street. The light had only recently turned to show the walking figure, and Hoshi was floating near, arms crossed. Somehow he almost seemed worried- but Kakyoin quickly regained his bearings and nodded as they ‘walked’ across the street.

“Right. You’re a very good girl, Joj-” He quickly coughed, his mental slip becoming audible and his audible slip becoming a target for tiny scowls. “...Suzume.”

Suzume just nodded to that and they crossed, the girl apparently appeased by the small compliment. It occurred to him that he’d managed to, in his overwhelmed state, miss everything he hadn’t wanted to miss. In the time he’d zoned out, a significant time indeed, they’d managed to cross the bustling area of the cityscape and make it back to the few airport leading backroads (if they could be called as such, since really they were just small, pedestrian friendly highways).

The mammoth structure loomed ahead, and even with a clear gap of time remaining for them to approach, Kakyoin could feel the wash of pressure begin to hit again. Tightening his grip- a difficult thing fortunately, or he’d probably just crush the poor kid’s hand, unless Star Platinum could somehow get in between that- the ghost took shuddering breaths to steady himself.

Stupid. Weak. This was pathetic, it was the airport, so what if it was bigger? So what if there were more ‘red eye’ flights than he’d ever seen before, one even taking off in the air now? So what if the lights from the airport alone were nearly as brilliant as the city streets behind him, he was better than that.

(Suzume was still holding his hand. They had long since crossed the final crosswalk, now simply walking closer and closer to the building, but she was still holding his hand.)

(If he looked down, he would have realized that Jotaro had long since stooped down to carefully lift her off the ground to aid in this bit by bit. They weren’t about to speed off like before, but he could keep her energy up enough for what they needed without taking the one safety line Kakyoin seemed to have.)

Narita International Airport.

Once, he knew plenty about this place. A gateway to the country, he had seen it time and time again thanks to his parents’ traveling. He knew, in his time, that it was one of two international airports. He also knew that for a time, it was the only one handling international airports. It was the only airport that required security checks and ID on entry (though he was counting on Star Platinum to work around that), due to the intensely violent anti-airport protests that there had been ever since construction was even considered.

And that had been the mid-sixties.

He knew a second terminal had been under debate- idle trivia and current events wasn’t an immediate interest but it was something he couldn’t help but dig into when available, and that was the same anywhere he’d gone. The local history, the local art, the local culture-

The trees, the animals, the tiniest little details, he and Hierophant spread that web as wide as possible as they dug in and took in what they could.

Looking at the clearly now approved and constructed second terminal, and at the busses and even train that passed as they made their approach, it was astounding just how much had changed in a span of little more than 20 years.

(And it was Just that many, he reminded himself. 23 years. No more than that had passed, despite the fact that it had.)

The airport began to draw closer, and gently, he could feel himself tugged closer to the ground- he hadn’t realized that Suzume had been held in the air for a bit there, but it made sense, just as it made sense to set her down now.

Now, they were beginning to really enter the airport. Enter the small clusters of people, all taking off in cars or busses, or alternatively exiting taxi cabs to prepare for their own departure. Most of them adults wearing suits of some kind- a large number of women more than he expected, he acknowledged- but a few foreigners and otherwise in the mix as well. Suzume’s hand was only gently coaxed away from Kakyoin’s, and it was by his own will.

“...We can’t let people notice you now, okay?” he asked, and even saying it he couldn’t help but become overwhelmed by just what he was doing. Thoughts that had come to mind as trivia, as casual facts and tips he had once gathered for himself and for mere amusement, flooded him the closer they came to the nearest set of doors for ‘departures’. Security checks. They did security checks that included children. What was he thinking, starting this off? They didn’t have the Joestar patriarch’s wallet with them. They didn’t have the support of the SPW on their backs, nor even the careful words of an adult presence.

This was just the airport. This was just the airport he thought frantically, lights flickering within their radius. They weren’t even going to get inside let alone get on a plane, they-

"KFGH-”

Kakyoin launched forward in a manner not unlike at the stairs, the first time his bound object had finally altered its range, and he fumbled.

He was…

…he was in the airport. (At least that was his best guess.)

Kakyoin could remember, easily, the troubles they’d had going in before. He could remember Joseph grumbling about how he’d been there days before and shouldn’t have to bother, he could remember Avdol calmly explaining it was all in due process.

(Jotaro mostly recalled having his ID taken from his hand before the man handling checks started eyeing him and his grandfather up and down, a gaze that slowly moved to the rest of the group. He could remember Seeing the commentary rising- the sharp temptation to say something bubbling up within the clerk’s throat.)

(In turn, he had glowered down at the man, daring. Daring until his ID was handed back with a stiff ‘all clear’.)

They had just circumvented the first security check.

“How on earth did you get around that fast…” Kakyoin murmured, and instead of receiving any answer he watched as Suzume began toddling away.

It wasn’t until he rushed to catch up that she explained- “Hoshi wants to go this way…”- and Kakyoin looked up to see just why.

He wasn’t unfamiliar with the displays up above- no, that wouldn’t be quite right to say. He was unfamiliar, once again, with how they were constructed.

The entire airport was like experiencing Jotaro’s neighborhood all over again. The basic structure of the building could be understood, the relative path he remembered taking still there. But the kiosks and store fronts were different, their displays redesigned completely. The signs listing planes due for take off (some, he noted, were due for simultaneous take off even, no doubt using the advantage having two runways granted) were TV screens stretched across the ceiling, holding display for a number of moments before shifting through.

A small, small thought reached his mind as he stared.

This was so many more planes, than had been taking off before.

With a start, he realized Star Platinum was staring at the screens- eyes flitting across them with resolute focus.

“Of course…we don’t know how many planes are due to take off for Hong Kong right now,” he muttered, the Stand of course giving no indication that he’d heard.

(He had of course- Jotaro could probably do to give more gestures to at least encourage the idea of being more than he appeared, or so the man would occasionally realize while watching his friend mistake the small child for…well. Him, again.)

(The trouble was he never felt it especially necessary in the moment, and he wasn’t comfortable with exaggerating for that benefit anyway. If anything it made him feel less like himself doing that, and he wasn’t about to push it.)

Kakyoin thought he had a good idea of which planes looked promising, skimming the lists himself. It helped that he could float closer- not everyone had stands with super vision- but he was fairly certain that over the course of the next few hours they had options.

The tricky part, he realized with another sinking feeling of paranoid dread, was figuring out which planes could be snuck onto.

(What had he been thinking? He hadn’t been. He’d made a half-baked suggestion to a five year old and for reasons he could only barely pin down as ‘desperate’ said ‘okay, let’s go’. What was so wrong with Holly’s house? What was so wrong with the first breath of fresh air he’d had in so long?)

(The problem was the same there as the problem here, and as quickly as the thought came he pushed it aside- he would not acknowledge the fact that he couldn’t feel like there was a home for him now.)

There seemed to be four different airlines heading out to Hong Kong within the next amount of time. Three, given their names, were undoubtedly going to be arriving from Hong Kong as well. The other- ‘ANA’- That was definitely the Japanese airline.

(Last time they’d come here, as both Kakyoin and Jotaro could recall, they had taken none of these planes. There was only one airline that went from Narita to Cairo, and it was EgyptAir. For their own reasons, both found themselves thinking of the head of Horus that had decorated its fin.)

(‘God of the Sky,’ Kakyoin had explained with a nod. ‘He’s a good choice for this…’)

…But now, how would they choose the airline..?

Kakyoin looked down and soon after, scrambled, as Suzume started wandering off after her Stand again. “Don’t tell me you have an idea..??”

The sheer intuition this girl had was phenomenal, the ghost thought. But there was only so far it could go. Looking for the flights on the board made sense at least- especially using residual memory as a guide. Watching her now made that plain to see- she was wandering along the seats, occasionally staring at the many unique vending machines in silence.

It was a bad idea, he thought with a sigh. A hopeless one, and he tried to pull back on the feeling of loss that the thought carried. He just focused on the fact that it wasn’t meant to be. What would he even do once they got to Cairo, just move on from there? There were all sorts of ghost stories he could think upon, draw from, Kakyoin mused. Any truly heart-wrenching tale would end in Suzume only just remembering her old life in time for him to say goodbye, or perhaps even remember only the fragments of what was important while he drifted off. Enough for closure, perhaps. Just barely enough.

Would it need seeing where he died? Would it need seeing where DIO died? It didn’t matter, he thought, the screens beside him flickering in scattered patterns with his mood. Eventually Suzume would get bored, the planes would be in the air, and in theory, Holly would come to pick her up after someone in the building started making calls.

It was a stupid idea, he sighed. It-

(Jotaro glanced at as many screens belonging to tired, overworked businessmen with last minute flights to make as possible. He looked at as many booking screens and seat plans as were in range, and when nothing came up gently nudged Suzume toward somewhere else. Four options. One was full. The other he hadn’t even seen. He needed a plane he could recognize, something that wouldn’t be too difficult to swap Suzume around between seats to avoid notice. Something-)

…JoJo was staring at him. Kakyoin peered down at the girl, whose Stand was now manifesting just behind her.

“Hoshi wants to go that way…” she said quietly, her voice barely a whisper. She waited until Kakyoin floated down to her level before speaking, and even then, didn’t quite point. “...but…I don’t want you to get hurt again…”

“...Hurt?” He blinked, and glanced toward where she was pointing. It was farther down for departures- presumably the passport check would be the next hurdle to pass through, if they even knew a pla-

No actually hold on, there was no way-

“Pulling me out of range doesn’t hurt,” he found himself murmuring. “It’s just surprising…J- Suzume, why are you going-” Rather than stay and listen, she was already walking off. “Suzume..!”

Like a snap.

“GKH-”

Once she was around the corner again it was like a snap in the air- her Stand moving too fast to even blink, pulling the girl impossible distances around a corner. She had a clear destination in mind, that he couldn’t deny, and nor could he deny that the abrupt disorientation created by pulling him around this way wasn’t effective as a distraction.

“Suzume! Where are you going..!”

“This way Nori..! Hoshi wants to go this way!”

Despite the late hour, the busy bustling of the airport did well to blot out Suzume’s shouts. She was quickly scurrying off in the general direction Hoshi floated in, her Stand looking more like an ominous ghost lure than a protective deity each time.

He nearly said something again- maybe she just guessed at a plane. As long as it said Hong Kong, she would probably assume it would work right? But as they turned down another pathway, as he ignored still more signs and posters holding strange scan codes and advertisements for things he could not quite recognize, Kakyoin went stock still.

In the late 80s, as he boarded with the others, he remembered the simplicity of it all. Metal detectors waved over them after they removed what was necessary- Physical contact almost used to pat them down as a secondary precaution before Joseph charmed their way out of it- and from there they were on their way.

(Jotaro had been somewhat resigned to the whole process- in fact when his Grandfather started protesting his way through, he felt almost relieved. It was when they settled in the plane seats and waited for take off that he realized the danger of it all. Not of the trip, but of what they’d just done. If his Grandfather could get away with chatting through security, how many others would as well?)

(It wasn’t as if security would have caught the man, but he couldn’t help but think back to it after watching Kakyoin rip Tower of Gray apart.)

What Kakyoin was looking at looked more like it belonged in a Sci-Fi. A great semi-translucent booth, where people were slowly allowed through before they could make their way to the lounge and wait for their plane to board. Carry on luggage, best he could tell, went on a moving conveyor through an x-ray.

Apparently they had to walk through an x-ray as well. There was already a small line of some sort- mostly travelling business workers as far as he could tell, the occasional yawning family taking a tired flight out-

Panic had settled in since they’d arrived, and yet before he could even speak against the plan, there was a tug at his sleeve. Suzume scowled up at him, her Stand hovering nearby with a slightly less irritated frown.

“Mister Donut,” she hissed, ignoring both the clenched jaw Hoshi had in reply, and the immediate flash of flickering lights that prompted the people around them to pause and murmur. “You are a big liar," she accused angrily, "And you are going to stop getting lost and scared, right now.”

Kakyoin’s jaw dropped, unable to think of a reply.

The girl continued for him. “Hoshi wants to go that way, so come with this time, and stop hurting.”

She left him very little choice between the shock and insult, if he was honest. Still holding onto his sleeve (awkwardly of course, after all, even if he were on the ground he was far taller than her), she tugged him toward the machines as she butted around the line.

The lights were still flashing- if he wasn’t careful, he found himself thinking duly as the rest of his thoughts were taken by fear, he’d probably cause a local blackout.

Could he do that, actually? Would that happen on the plane? One part of him bickered that this would require him to get on the plane in the first place.

Another part, soaring higher and higher in some desperate hope that had no idea where to go, what to look for, or even where it came from, shouted wordlessly as Suzume ducked behind the clerk while chaos ensued through the power flicker. Of course they were going to make it on the plane. It was JoJo.

(In the strangest sense, Kakyoin’s faith was not quite misplaced. While Suzume knew nothing of how the process went after all, Jotaro was pushing as hard as he could to guide his partner through.)

(Perhaps more so because of the power flickers- but guiltily, painfully, as he watched his teenaged friend look to a child with those eyes, he dared to give himself some hope as well. If anything could come from this, he thought, it had to at least be some form of relief for the one that deserved it.)

Chapter Text

Holly Kujo awoke to what should have been a normal morning. Her alarm gently buzzed at 7- she liked to wake early, to see the sun peeking carefully over the bushes, and to enjoy a good cup of tea before settling in for breakfast.

(As Joy, this habit only strengthened. Those who practiced Hamon moved ever so sensitively with the sun, and Joy basked in its light whenever it came out to join them.)

Space Oddity took partial form at her side, and beside her Sadao yawned from his own slumber to get up as well. He was an early riser himself, though in the past it had been earlier still. It was only age, that had him wake a little later now.

(She focused on the fact that they were waking together, rather than anything else.)

It was a nice morning. Peaceful, which was what she needed after the storm the night before. The water from the prior rain could still be seen dripping down from branches in the back garden, and Holly sat quietly on the fortunately dry porch with her steaming tea. It was hard to remain optimistic- but she was doing what she could to do so, even if Space Oddity’s supportive hovering would give her away the moment Jotaro and Suzume awoke and came by. She’d had the oddest dream- a memory, she was certain of- but given the nature of it and her knowledge of what eventually followed she could not think of it in anything more than a painfully melancholic light.

For Joy, the fate of Kakyoin had not ended any differently after all. This much, she knew too well.

It stung her in the way that thinking of her father now stung. Her father, the boy, and Avdol as well.

(Perhaps there were even more to remember, only to mourn. She did not wish to force herself into such a state if she could help it.)

Holly could remember a young teenager opening his eyes with a snap as the thing that had twisted his every thought launched through the air in search of freedom from the sun, only to fry into ash and dust before him. Kakyoin had been at a loss for words initially- his brow bleeding, and his throat dry.

And then with a rasp as he looked around the room, he had asked with the most broken, quiet voice she’d ever heard, why they’d bothered.

He’d heard everything after all. Heard it, and through the twisted haze inflicted by DIO, been waiting until he could simply slip by and continue what he’d started.

‘I killed your son,’ he whispered. ‘I tried to kill you-’

‘Shotaro will live,’ she’d assured him quickly enough. ‘...And I don’t think he’d stand it if we blamed you for something out of your control.’

Of course, not long after that had come more serious discussions. They’d left Kakyoin briefly so he could rest, after making it clear that they’d be back to check in on him- originally they’d wanted to get in contact with his parents, but when he’d refused multiple times the best that Joy had managed was quietly discussing with her fathers and Avdol about perhaps digging around until they found some numbers to call. Sadao had arrived, by that time- quietly sobbing in a mix of grief and gratitude alike at his son’s bedside, torn between the relief that he had survived, and the peril that was knowing how easily he could have lost him.

(In this other time, in this reality known to ‘Joy’, Holly suspected that Sadao had greater faith in the organization that had apparently helped her family so much over the years. They had made it utterly impossible for anything to go awry as he canceled his tour for the sake of flying in, and even secured him a plane earlier than should have been possible. All this, with a simple request.)

Sadao was unable to see Stands as most in the room could, however, and so Joy’s husband had found himself sitting beside Caesar at Shotaro’s bed as they talked- the musician’s eyes occasionally drifting over as he listened to the conversation, understanding little of the details, but not needing to in the slightest.

All that mattered were the basics. All that mattered, was the broad scope of reality as it was unfolding before them.

“If he was willing to do this much already, he’s not going to stop,” Joseph was warning them gravely. “And Shotaro is in no condition to be moved somewhere safer..!”

“Adding the fact that DIO has countless Stand users at his disposal, whose abilities are very much unknown to us, and this hospital becomes an incredible target…” There had been a tense pause in the room when Avdol pointed this out, the air only feeling heavier. “...To remain here is to be a sitting duck, as you would put it Mr. Joestar.”

Joy fiddled with her Stand’s vines in that moment- small cuts had started appearing on her hands as a result, and she murmured worried apologies to her husband when Sadao noticed and gently took her hands in his. He could not see what caused them, but he could at least offer distraction himself.

(Joy didn’t know what to do. Space Oddity could only show so much. As Avdol had said, they were sitting ducks, and they could not protect Shotaro like this.)

It was Caesar who eventually spoke first.

“....JoJo,” he spoke, both Joy and Joseph turning in that moment. The two had blushed somewhat and turned their heads away, while Caesar himself smirked briefly at the sight. The small smile dropped as he started to speak again. “...between all of us here, who would DIO chase first?”

It looked as if it pained Caesar to say it. As if he knew the answer already. Slowly, Holly’s father- Joy’s father- spoke.

“...DIO was obsessed with the Joestars,” he muttered, looking equally unwilling to speak what he knew. “...Given that…”

Avdol finished the statement for him. Waiting for Joseph to say it aloud was too painfully slow otherwise. “...As the closest living relative and the one with that name, that would be you then.”

“...But he appeared here even so.”

It had been Sadao who said this. Sadao, whose words brought quiet to the room again. “...He appeared here, before he could have known you would be here. …Is that not right..?”

Joy swallowed. “...that’s right. Shotaro…Shotaro was attacked too quickly for anyone to have known Papa and Zio were visiting. They…”

“...Which means the second target DIO will choose, is Joy.”

No one dared to so much as breathe out of line, as Caesar told them this.

“Shotaro, as far as the boy in the other room knew, is as good as dead. Joy, however…Joy fought back, and won.”

“...Caesar.”

“What would happen JoJo, if both of you left in what appeared to be retaliation?”

“Mr. Zeppelli…if you are suggesting that my wife…”

Caesar looked to Sadao as the man stood, and the look was nothing but grim and mournful.

In return, Sadao quieted. In return, Joy grew pale, just as her father did.

And eventually, all of them came to the same conclusion.

There is no other choice.

(In the present, Holly breathed. She sipped her tea, inhaled deeply according to hamon practice, and closed her eyes.)

(In the past, and yet not, Joy tearfully held her husband close for what they knew could be the last time.)

Kakyoin Noriaki had found them at an airport departure terminal wearing a scarf around his neck, and a look of quiet, steadfast determination. He had said, ‘I’m coming with you,’ and gave them nothing more than a challenging look.

(In the hospital, Sadao and Caesar did not leave Shotaro’s side. They needed at least one person to stand guard without drawing unnecessary attention to the hospital, and if anyone was capable of defending the boy without a Stand, it was him.)

In front of Kakyoin, Joycelne Kujo frowned and prepared to protest. He was just a boy- younger than her son by half a year, even, and she would not have wished him to come on such a treacherous journey either. What of his parents? What of his family? The questions furled through her mind, but instead her father set a hand on her shoulder and shook his head- whispering something quietly in her ear whilst Avdol asked if the teen had a ticket prepared.

‘Look at those eyes, JoJo,’ her father had said. ‘Someone with those eyes won’t be turned away, and we don’t have any claim on his decision. If we tell him to leave, he’ll just try it alone instead. This way,’ Joseph assured her, the words ringing in Joy’s ears as they boarded only an hour later, ‘We can at least keep him safe.’

Holly Kujo opened her eyes, and closed them again as she felt them water.

They could only have hoped, she found herself thinking sadly, And they had hoped too much.

“Ah….Seiko.” Holly opened her eyes again as Sadao came into the kitchen hall, and turned to face him as she hid her grief with a tired smile. “Good morning. Is the kettle still hot?”

Holly nodded, helping herself up with the assistance of her Stand. “It should be. Do you want me to get you a tea Sadao?” He simply shook his head, already getting what he needed for a coffee. With a cheery ‘Okay~’ she returned the gesture- taking a short moment to peck him on the cheek.

It was nearing 7:30. She decided it best to check in on Suzume before starting breakfast, in case she wanted to join. “I’m going to go see about waking Suzume, okay? I’ll come join you in a bit~”

The birds outside were chirping now. Holly breathed in deep, and calm as she walked, sipping the last remains of her tea as she went. Perhaps they could have eggs this morning- yesterday was more simple, Sadao hadn’t been home very long and likely wouldn’t want anything too filling or heavy. Not that eggs were especially heavy of course, but they could certainly be filling.

Holly entered the bedroom and blinked.

“...Suzume?” The futon lay at the side, already folded neatly. Her bag was gone, she noticed as well, which sent a thrum of confusion through her thoughts. “...Jotaro?” she tried, stepping into the room as her Stand flung itself out into high alert. “...Where…”

Rustling papers caught her attention, as did the doubled sight of her Stand. Turning with a frown, Holly blinked at the papers being handled by Space Oddity’s thorned fingers. Jotaro was immediately identifiable, at least as ‘Star Platinum’. The little crayon filled girl in dark navy and red was probably Suzume then, which was clear. The third-

Holly went white.

(She could remember feeling something wet. Wet and cold, and already stale around her. She had groaned as she sat up, wondering how she’d gotten here- one moment she’d been looking at DIO, wishing she had just gone with her father to begin with instead of chasing Polnareff down. The next-)

(Cold, wet, and somehow it wasn’t just water. Joy had shakily pulled herself up with her Stand, turned around, and choked back a scream that turned quickly into a sob.)

She knew what this was. A hole of red black, marring an otherwise solid figure of green. The crayon drawing of Kakyoin was as crude as the rest but no less filled with the love of someone who had nothing but kindness in their heart for a memory. Oversized cherries hung beside the figure’s head, looking more like they should have been part of the hair itself. Kakyoin’s caricature had on his face a sad frown however- the brows angled to emphasize as much, twisted the opposite direction to Jotaro’s scowl.

(If it wasn’t for Kakyoin on the page, she’d have to laugh. Her poor son was never going to escape that misconception about his neutral expression was he, not even from his former Stand?)

(Instead though all she could do was breathe. Breathe, and remind herself it was over. Breathe. Breathe-)

Holly could remember meeting a ghost.

The paper crumpled at the corner Space Oddity held it in, and Holly grabbed for the thorns without thinking as she shook. “...No,” she whispered, trails and trails of visions meeting her eyes. “No…no, no, No-”

Suzume wasn’t in her room. She wasn’t in her parent’s rooms, or any of the guest rooms. She wasn’t in the washroom, the shrine, the yard, she wasn’t even in the areas of the home she dreaded ever finding a child astray. In all the timelines she looked, and looked, and looked, there was no one there.

“No-!” she squeaked out from behind her hand, heart pounding with panic. Breathe- She…She had to breathe, she had to find her didn’t she? It hadn’t even been more than two weeks, she had to breathe!

She was already walking back to the kitchen. The mug in her hand was empty and it was a good thing because the mug in her hand was shaking. She could barely keep from running- the only reason she wasn’t running was because she already knew that if she did, she would trip and break something and waste precious time dealing with that.

Even so when she finally spoke aloud again her voice was too sharp with panic for her liking. “Sadao..!”

Sadao, quite expectantly, was out to meet her in an instant- his coffee back in the kitchen. “Seiko?” Concern immediately in his words. “Seiko, what’s wrong?” Panic rising in his own tone, because Holly had just been to check in on the child, and now she was back, with no child in hand, with no-

“She’s not here,” she forced out with a watery choke. “She’s not in her room-”

“We can look then- I will search the-”

“She’s not in any room, Sadao..!”

There was a pause. It had been mere moments after all, the clock striking 7:30 just at that second. With the size of the house, it was impossible to have searched more than even one room.

But Sadao had more than his memories of his ‘real’ life, and in the same amount of time it had taken for Holly to realize Suzume’s absence, he realized how she knew.

(Holly Kujo could remember standing in front of an alley and speaking to a spirit. Speaking to a young woman, younger than Kakyoin had been most likely, who could not bear to turn her back lest the cause of her demise be seen.)

(She could remember speaking to her and wondering- ‘how many others are like this?’)

“...I am calling the Speedwagon Foundation,” Sadao said with his quiet, resolute voice that spoke of no room for argument. Placing a hand on her shoulder, he swallowed most other words he could say, and settled for one more thing. “...Call your brother, Holly. We will not lose them.”

Chapter Text

The tension that was there in the living room was such that Holly would mistake it for pure hamon, if not for the sheer negativity of it all. Sadao was moving for the phone, only for it to ring- Holly, for her part, was already holding her own cell to her ear and waiting for an answer.

It was early. She knew that. She knew how early it was and how likely it was that Josuke might not even answer. But Sadao had made the right call.

They needed to get help, but she also needed someone to ground her, and her younger son, for all that he would try, would not have that effect right now.

(Sadao was answering the phone behind her with some quiet confusion, but his voice was too soft to make out who it was. She tried not to think about the surprise on his face- though she allowed herself some hope in the cautious relief he displayed as well.)

Holly waited for the phone to connect while her own thoughts reeled. Ghost. That had been her first thought when she saw the drawing of Kakyoin and she didn’t even completely know why. Was it because of the drawing of the injury? To her knowledge, to her memory, Jotaro had never seen for himself Kakyoin’s body after the fact. He hadn’t allowed himself to, even if he heard plenty about it.

(He had never confided in her on that, but that much had been clear just from interactions those days and weeks afterward. Every so often he would stare at his own fist and look ready to be sick, and once- only once- he had made the ‘mistake’ of asking aloud if praying at a shrine meant anything for someone who wasn’t there.)

(It was a mistake only in Jotaro’s mind- Holly could tell that it was not so much that he thought it genuinely useless but more that he felt it useless of himself to carry on that way. She made certain to keep the shrine unlocked from that day on until the day he left for University in America.)

Ghosts were real and that much she knew but she had no proof that they were even involved. That he was even involved, however much she couldn’t shake the idea. What would it even mean- or do? Why was Suzume gone?

She knew she had to be safe. She had to be, she trusted Jotaro with that much. She trusted her son to keep himself safe, but more than that she knew her son would put far too many before himself if it came to it.

(It had spelled his own end, she was sure, but now it would be very much impossible to pull that off.)

(She was immediately disgusted with herself for having the thought.)

The phone finally connected.

“Holly? Are you alright, you don’t normally call-”

She blurted it without thought, the words tumbling forward like water from a dam. “S…Suzume’s missing.”

“...S…Suzume is- Wait, you mean that kid you took in..!? You mean she’s been kidnapped, or-”

She needed to explain this. Holly took a deep breath and sank into her chair, vines of gold carefully wrapping around her to try and offer comfort. “No…Or- I don’t know, I don’t know where she would even want to go, I… …I don’t know where to start,” she corrected, and the calmness with which her brother responded with was almost a shock.

(Sadao had been right to tell her to call Josuke.)

“Okay…okay. Holly, I need you to breathe, alright? Sadao’s with you, right? And he’s probably making calls too, that right…? So we’re going to take this slow- or…not slow-slow, but we’re going to get you through this okay?”

(Josuke was a self-employed investigator/’problem solver’ in a small town, with experience around traumatized children and victims of loss. A young man who grew up defiant of corrupted ideals, instead choosing to channel the spirit and belief of his now revived grandfather on his own.)

(If anyone could help her find the earth again, it was him.)

Holly nodded. And nodded again, before remembering she was on a phone and uttering a choked ‘Okay’. She knew better than to try and hide behind a smile this time. No- perhaps more accurately, there was a stake in her heart that kept lingering on the drawing at the desk and refused to allow her even a moment to fool herself.

“Okay,” she repeated- ignoring the quiet buzzing that questioned why Josuke felt the need to remind her to breathe, when breathing on pace was all she’d been doing for the last two weeks. “Okay…”

“Alright. Let’s start with who Suzume is then, alright? You told me she was a little girl you found at your door, with a Stand; no name, no parents. Have you learned anything else about her?”

Holly choked a sob immediately.

“Holly-! Holly, hey- It’s going to be okay, alright? We’re going to-”

“It’s him, Josuke-!”

Sadao turned briefly from where he was on the phone, but Holly was already moving to leave the room, flashing a weak smile to insist it was ‘alright’ while she moved to keep conversations from bleeding into the other. Josuke was sputtering- “Him? What do you mean ‘him’, who’s-”

Deep breaths. Fueling breaths, charged with sunlight and life. Vines around to drag her to the earth, and remind her of what was necessary. “...Do you remember when I explained Shotaro..?” she began with a soft sigh, listening to the quiet confusion on the other end.

That was another thing, another small ‘tic’ in things that were becoming concerning about Josuke. Shotaro came up as a name between them, but Josuke had not recognized it in the slightest. At the time she assumed it because Josuke was too distracted by current events for alternate memories to take hold.

But every conversation since, she realized, he seemed so much more stable about the matter of this figure who had ‘replaced’ Jotaro. Perhaps because Shotaro hadn’t been there? Except he had been there in Morioh, Holly recalled.

He’d been there first and brought her along, claiming at the last minute as they stepped on the bus that he’d had a bad feeling coming alone.

(Space Oddity had been nothing short of vital during those early days in Morioh, that much she knew. What she could not recall though, was where Josuke had been in all of that.)

(Shotaro, in a manner that left her perturbed at the time, seemed to wonder the same thing in those memories.)

“Yeah. You said he wasn’t…Jotaro, not in the way Irene is Jolyne.” The first time, Josuke had asked how she knew. She had simply said, ‘I know my son, Josuke- this is a different one.’

The excuse had felt as hollow as the fact that Josuke couldn’t bring forward any further statements of his own.

(She should have worried more. Should she worry now? She-)

“...I don’t know how to explain it,” she admitted after a span of silence filled with nothing but her breath and the sound of quiet movements on the other end of the phone. “...but Jotaro and Star Platinum switched places, and…”

“Wait…so then Shotaro is- But no, you said he doesn’t even have a Stand!”

…Something was wrong.

(Something wasn’t right.)

Why didn’t Josuke know anything about Shotaro?

(Why couldn’t she, as Joy, remember anything about Josuke?)

She-

“No- Shotaro is new,” she reiterated. “He…’Joy’ had Shotaro instead of Jotaro; but the girl that appeared at my door, the girl’s Stand appeared to be Star Platinum,” she rambled, speaking quickly in her nervousness if only to get it out there. “When I say that Jotaro switched-”

Josuke finished the thought for her, and she could imagine him going white. “...You… …You’re saying Jotaro is the Stand. That’s…you’re serious. You’ve been looking after-!”

Now it seemed to be Josuke’s turn to panic- a mood that spread like blood in water, as Holly shuddered and cut in. “Josuke- I know…It’s been a while since you offered, but I think we might need your help if you can manage it. Sadao is calling the Speedwagon Foundation next, and-”

Holly paused.

On the other end, Josuke had started coughing- even muttering inaudibly, in a manner that almost sounded like arguing.

“...Josuke?”

The muttering continued briefly, before he came back to the phone. “Sorry- Sorry, I had to talk to…uh, my coworker,” he said, and Holly frowned at the clear lie. “I… …I don’t think I can drive down,” he admitted, Holly’s heart sinking in her chest. “I’m sorry. I…I’ll try advising from here, I really let us get off track huh? But I…”

She forced a smile to her face, even as her eyes watered and her fist clenched at her side. “It’s fine. I know you can be busy, and I can only imagine it’s gotten worse over there.”

“...Y…yeah,” Josuke replied- and somehow it seemed as if he sounded worse. More upset. Guilty, even. “Yeah I…”

A beat of silence, and then muffled over the line, his shout-

“...dammit I can’t keep this up..!”

Holly stiffened. A familiar and yet unfamiliar feeling hardened in her veins, a relic of ‘Joy’s’ memories flooding through her. “.............Josuke?”

Silence.

‘That’s enough of this. Give me the phone Josuke.’ ‘Give- No! We’re looking for a missing kid, I’m not making this worse!’

The ice in her veins faded, but only because of confusion. That second voice was one she recognized- it was someone she thought to be Josuke’s coworker at first, given the prevalence, but over time it had become more and more recognizable as someone she- or at least, Joy- knew.

Someone who most definitely wasn’t someone from the office, for all that she could certainly imagine him sliding into the office in a manner akin to a recent procedural she’d heard about.

“....Josuke..?” she repeated, a warning edge coming into her tone despite herself.

The one who answered was not him.

“Greetings Mrs. Kujo, and apologies for the back and forth; and might I say it’s wonderful to finally speak to you for real?”

The name came to mind immediately, and somehow, with it, a great sense of exhaustion.

“...Kishibe Rohan.”

“An honor for you, I’m sure.”

The exhaustion was followed by irritation. It was a strange feeling- not because she couldn’t feel it, but rather because she was feeling it so strongly. There was a reason here- there was a reason, somehow, that Rohan was someone her very soul felt the need to have such thoughts for.

(She could remember walking in blind. She could also remember a young teenager she’d come to know, a second year student who was stumbling through the struggles of a new Stand.)

(She could recall being angry on their behalf, and recall how that feeling only barely faded to a dull roar as she came to know its source.)

Holly breathed in. “I would ask why you’re with Josuke right now, but that isn’t important,” she sighed. “I know that you’re probably just as busy as he is…” He was…a mangaka right? So he was probably busy. “...but I need to ask him some questions to try and find Suzume-”

“You’re right, I am very busy,” Rohan interrupted, sounding somehow the opposite. “Which is why I’ll get right to the point. I am here, because this is my phone. You’ve been calling my number, Mrs. Kujo.”

She…

What?

“You’re on speaker now, by the way. I need to sit.”

“And what’s stopping me from just turning it off then- Don’t just write that on me!”

“I’ll do what I need, and our agreement from the first timeline is null and void right now. Besides, this is for the best.”

“HOW!?”

Holly breathed in, and breathed out.

“Boys…”

Rohan went quiet, as did Josuke- save for a muttered ‘...sorry Holly. Not the time, I know.’ from her brother. With another sigh, Holly pinched her nose. “As I said…I can tell that you’re busy,” she said tiredly, her Stand hovering in its odd ‘second’ stage beside her. “So I’ll just-”

Hang up?

If she hung up, they would simply call back, her Stand ‘told’ her.

Holly paused, and instead stayed on the line.

“...Holly?” Josuke tried, his sister shaking the feeling off.

That was different from what Space Oddity typically did, she thought quietly. It was…very…

“...Holly I’m sorry,” Josuke continued, his nervousness clear over the phone. “I didn’t…I didn’t want to have to explain this, I mean I’d hoped to have fixed it by now!” he rambled, and she could imagine him gesturing about in the process. “I just…”

Rohan’s phone, he had said. “...Why did you give me Rohan’s…no. No…if this is Rohan’s number, why have you been calling so often, Josuke? Why not your own phone?”

It was Rohan who answered- flat, and direct. “Because he doesn’t have one, Mrs. Kujo. …In fact while he hasn’t been especially thankful about it, the only reason he’s here is because of me.”

“...What-”

“Oh come on don’t put it like that!”

“You were dying, Josuke, if I hadn’t written ‘I will persist’ on your face in time, you would have died-”

“That’s not what would have happened at all-!”

Choking incredulously, Holly forced herself to interrupt. “What do you mean dying? Josuke what happened?!” Suzume was the priority, but Sadao was handling it, her mind insisted. Sadao was handling it for now and more importantly there were apparently other problems happening right under their nose. Dying, he said. Rohan could be strange, and obsessive, and even apathetic, but if there was one thing he saw no use in to her knowledge, it was exaggerating things relevant to him.

Whatever put Josuke in his house was undoubtedly in that category.

It was also, apparently, dire enough that Rohan shut his mouth and waited for the man to come clean.

Josuke’s breath came out a long, tired sigh. “....I don’t exist anymore, Holly.”

Her heart practically stopped, until he spoke again.

“I mean…I ‘exist’, it’s just…not the same? Ugh, the guys at the agency building has been laughing about it all week...” he grumbled, groaning as he carried on. “I just…it’s weird! It’s like Kira’s creepy father I hate it-”

“Don’t compare this to that piece of filth, my anime cels are worth far more Josuke!”

“THE FACT THAT I EXIST AS AN ANIME CHARACTER IS CREEPY TOO!”

This was getting far too confusing, far too fast, and Holly moved to weakly sit at her son’s desk. The drawing she’d wanted to talk about in the first place continued sitting on the desk, practically glaring at her, and she squeezed her eyes shut as she waited for the boys to remember she was still on the line.

(An anime cel. And she knew who Kira’s father had been, the man- the ghost- haunting a photograph. Was Josuke somehow…haunting a drawn image then? Except Rohan had outright stated he was alive…)

She tuned back into the conversation, realizing that they were speaking to her again.

“...ny case, the point of the matter is that Josuke is restricted to a framed anime cel celebrating a series my other self apparently made based on events that happened here, using a dreamed character for the protagonist. I would normally feel disgusted with myself for choosing such weak inspiration, but it was probably my own work as time spun over that allowed enough of the idea to persist for Josuke to cling to.”

Rohan’s words left her almost as confused as everything else, but Josuke was fortunately able to simplify it not long after. “I’ve been getting around by having Crazy Diamond carry the frame around for now, but we were trying to contact Giorno- crap, right, do you know Giorno?” he started, only to carry on without waiting for an answer, “Right, we were trying to get in contact, he can make a body…but I. Jeeze, it’s so weird…I guess Mom just never met our Dad in this timeline? She was a real mess over it, it took ages to calm her down…”

“She kept assuming he would just cease existing,” Rohan scoffed. “As if I would let that happen.”

Privately, Holly couldn’t blame Tomoko for her fear in the slightest, but it seemed at least that she had a rough answer on what had been confusing her about these calls. “...That’s why you didn’t recognize Shotaro and Irene’s names then,” she eventually managed as she rubbed her forehead. “...You don’t have a set of memories to draw from.”

“Pretty much yeah…I was almost grateful until I realized how much I was missing,” Josuke admitted. “I keep having to ask this guy for details,”

“’This guy’ is still suffering a migraine from saving your sorry soul from nonexistence,” Rohan snapped, Holly wincing in turn. “Still, I don’t regret doing it.”

“Oh, you’re admitting it now? Anything else on your mind~?”

Josuke was ignored as the mangaka smoothly trailed ahead in the conversation. “With that out of the way now though, we can talk about what’s important. I heard from your conversation that the girl you took in was Star Platinum at one point?” he asked with clear interest, his current guest hissing immediately.

Apparently now successfully reminded of what they had been talking about to begin with, Josuke interrupted with a cold voice. “Start your hyperfocus later; we have to find her first. Holly, you said she was five? If Jotaro is with her as a Stand we can be sure she’s safe,” he determined with absolute confidence, “But we need to know as much as we can.”

Finally.

Finally they were back on track. Holly nodded, opening her eyes only to wince when they were met with the drawing. “...She’s still learning for the most part,” she began. “She’s picked up language quickly, and I was able to send her for her ‘first errand’ thanks to Jotaro,” Holly explained, “But there’s still a lot she doesn’t know- her social experience…she’s only really been like this for two weeks after all, and most of that time has been spent here. She likes drawing most, but she started playing with some toys in the yard…”

In the background she could hear Rohan muttering something about ‘Star Platinum’ becoming more ‘tolerable’.

She ignored it and pressed on. “Sadao of course is on the phone,” Holly rambled slightly. “I think I mentioned that…”

“Right, with the Speedwagon Foundation. That’s a good call- if anyone’s going to be able to locate her, it’s going to be them. But there’s nothing there to tell you why Jotaro would let her go?”

Holly chewed her lip, thinking over what she had seen of the interactions between the two. Over what Jotaro could, and couldn’t do, and the likely consequences.

“...I don’t think he had any choice in the matter,” she finally admitted, her tone stiff. “He’s Suzume’s Stand now- if she wants to go somewhere, he’s going to be forced to follow.”

There was no immediate answer to that- there wasn’t any room to question it, after all. As such, she turned her focus to what was bothering her.

“There is….a drawing, though,” she admitted with a small choke. “...I wanted to ask you for some advice, but I think Rohan might have more insight as well-”

“In a…kid’s drawing?” Josuke started, only for Rohan to immediately butt in.

“And you think I have advice? You’re right of course, but I’m curious to hear why you think I’ll give it. It can’t be about the drawing itself obviously.”

She shook her head. “No. …The drawing…she drew herself, Jotaro, and one other. He…” Holly swallowed, and took a breath to steady herself, a wave of hamon rushing over her for a brief moment. “...He was part of the trip to Cairo,” she said after a moment, voice quiet. “...He didn’t make it.”

Silence on the other end.

“...She’s drawn him with the wound that killed him,” she said softly. “...So I need to ask…”

Rohan knew now, why Holly thought he might have advice to give.

“I see. You think she’s left with a ghost.”

(Insufferable as he was, Holly could not help but be greatly relieved when the mangaka immediately followed with as much as he could offer, the mood not even slightly soured when he finished it all with a request to bring the child to Morioh one day for a meeting.)

Chapter Text

“You’re very fortunate to have me here,” Rohan had said after only a momentary pause when she was on the phone. Holly was sitting with the phone hung up now- she had long since finished her final conversation with the boys, Josuke offering what support he could while apologizing for not being able to drive via his Stand with his frame tied to a car seat.

(It had brought a pained giggle at the image- no doubt the intent- but Josuke had reminded her that she needed to discuss things with Sadao, and in turn had added that he would try telling Giorno- and she did know him, at least vaguely, that blond young man so awkwardly entwined in their family- to keep an eye out through his own network as well.)

(It was a relief, but for now she felt like she was made of lead.)

Rohan’s ‘new life’ it seemed, had various shades of a much more exciting experience, much to his chagrin. Josuke’s laughing remark about Yokai much earlier in the week had not been made for no reason- and likewise, Rohan had not reacted for no reason.

(Holly tried not to think about the fact that yokai were definitely real, and instead tried to find some solace in the fact that she did her very best to keep the family shrine in good order.)

(Her mind continued drifting to a body laying boneless in the frame of a water tower however, and her mood did not lighten.)

Josuke was able to provide- oddly enough- the logical path. Putting together the questions of what Suzume did know, alongside what she seemed to be capable of knowing. Considering the drawings of people such as Avdol, that category included anything and everything she had ever encountered as ‘Star Platinum’.

Rohan, then, provided the supernatural end. There were no ‘ifs’ with Rohan, not really. He asked for every detail of the drawing Holly had before her, even after sending a photo through the phone itself. The expressions-

(Suzume’s smile, her optimism. Jotaro’s neutral scowl, proof of the fact that ‘if anything, it is undoubtedly our Dr. Kujo’.)

(Kakyoin’s sad frown. ‘At the very least, she thinks he’s miserable.’)

The positions, the decoration of the rest of the page- Compared to the analysis of the emotions themselves, there was little to be taken from the rest of the image it seemed. Standing as a group and holding hands, on a blank page, Rohan determined it ‘obvious’ that even Suzume had no idea just where they would be going. Only that they would be going there, as a group, for some reason.

The only question then, was where.

“Kakyoin Noriaki,” Rohan had rattled off to their surprise, his casually superior tone somehow helping rather than hindering for once. In the background her half-brother was strangely quiet, giving the mangaka plenty of time to go over his theory. “Thanks to the much appreciated generosity of our ‘Jocelyne Kujo’, I happen to at least have a picture of him as she knew him. Of course,” he had then warned, “That might not matter.”

While Josuke came to attention and wondered aloud why that would at all be the case, it had only taken a fraction of a second for Holly herself to guess why. Rohan had read the pages of Jocelyne’s life story- in a bargain Holly barely remembered, involving her Stand, their combined cooperation, and an agreement to never take ‘pen to paper’.

(How she convinced him, she could not quite remember yet.)

The Kakyoin that Joy knew would not have been the same as the Kakyoin Holly, Jotaro, and so many others did. At the start perhaps- but even then, perhaps not. While it was only a journey of 50 days it was an integral one, a trek impossible to avoid forming bonds of some kind.

Bonds between herself and the boys would have been so different, so very very different, from the sort of bonds her son would have made.

Even so, it was not all hopeless. “At the very least we can probably assume your route of travel was the same,” Rohan had carried on, seemingly unaffected by their brief hiccup. “That much I can gather from having looked through your fath-”

“AHP-!”

Josuke had spent the next few moments quieting Rohan, while Holly focused on breathing. She knew he hadn’t meant anything by it, but drawing attention to the painful fact that Joseph was gone did not help.

They eventually returned to their discussion, and Holly managed to ease her migraine back a little more.

The road trip, they could be sure, was the same. Ghosts, as Rohan explained them, were trapped for a reason. Spirits were not meant to linger- not in any ‘normal’, ‘human’ manner at least. Reimi Sugimoto, as an immediate example- who lingered in the purgatory-like alleyway until her murderer had been caught.

“The side street was perfect for her,” Rohan had explained. “Because people don’t typically go there- they can’t. Ghosts don’t like interacting with the living, they’re naturally opposed to it. But anyone who found their way there would be more likely to work toward her dying wish.”

Josuke had pointed out the exact theory they were working on, and Rohan had huffed in reply, before plowing on regardless. It wasn’t as if Reimi had ever refused to interact with the ones she’d spoken to after all. She simply preferred the solitude to the questions and reminders.

(Both Josuke and Holly had enough tact to not point out that Reimi clearly hadn’t chosen the alley to be bound to- Rohan’s voice had been oddly distant as he spoke about her, and both suspected he was not as at peace with the matter as he himself thought.)

“So. A dying wish, and a haunt- obviously yours isn’t a location.”

No, it obviously wasn’t. But the haunt was easy to identify all the same.

“...His handkerchief,” she had said. “She found his handkerchief, and had me make it into a hair clip.”

Easy enough deduction. The handkerchief on its own may never have been important- but it was the one that had been used for a message of challenge. It was Kakyoin’s first face to face interaction with either of the boys, and for him to be in this area it was the thing that made the most sense.

The problem was that being here otherwise didn’t make sense. Holly was quiet as she explained Kakyoin’s demise, or at least what she knew of it. She knew it had been one blow. She knew that whatever had happened, it had been a surprise.

(A spray of stones shot through the air above them as they drove. She’d only just convinced Polnareff to see some sense but seeing those fly overhead was proof that she had convinced him too late; DIO had found her father.)

She knew that after that fact, Kakyoin’s last moments had been spent to send Joseph a message.

‘Time, Stopped.’

So Kakyoin’s death most certainly fell in line with the process of creating ghosts. But Kakyoin’s location didn’t make sense for it, leaving most of them stuck.

And then Rohan realized something.

“49 days.”

(It was a limit that hadn't existed for Joy. No one was suffering a fever at that time, no one was degrading with illness. No one was going to die after 50 days, but for both Jotaro and 'herself', the adventure fit within the number all the same.)

“What- I thought the trip took 50 days,” Josuke started, only for Holly to blink.

“No,” she had replied, remembering easily what she once gleaned from personal medical records and marked calendars. “The limit was 50 days. DIO was killed on the 49th day.”

“Exactly.”

Holly was an optimistic sort. She felt certain that Kakyoin would have gotten the funeral rites he deserved- even as Joy she was certain of this, despite lacking the memories to inform her of why. Kakyoin’s parents might not have understood him completely but they still cared, and they certainly cared enough to do that.

“But caring is a double edged sword,” Rohan had hummed. “No one knew how he died, did they? The seven weeks of the mourning period are meant to be a journey to help a spirit move on, but how successful do you think they’ll be if the cause of death itself is never known?”

They couldn’t be sure.

It was impossible to be sure in fact, but as far as theories went it was strong. 49 Days. Take the journey of the last 49 days he had been alive, and help the spirit move on.

(Could that really have been on his mind, she wondered? Was that truly what Jotaro had thought, while Suzume wandered off with a ghost at her side? More than anything her thoughts lingered on how unaware of things she had been.)

(How unaware she was, that there had been a ghost at all.)

The call had ended with a decision. Those in Morioh would start getting friends and allies along the route to try and keep eyes open. She herself would pass the theory to Sadao and to the SPW, with the first goal being to check for any sign of the girl heading to Hong Kong. Perhaps if they were lucky she was even still at the airport, and they could re-coordinate to help the deceased boy in a safer manner.

(She knew she wasn’t- it was a hollow wish.)

Holly stood from the desk, her eyes still trained upon the drawing. The crayon had been applied so heavily to Kakyoin’s middle that she was surprised she hadn’t torn the paper. Her fingers trailed across it, and the woman immediately squeezed her eyes shut at the burst of memory that came with.

(The body that she had landed on. Would that have been her? If she had gone instead of him, would she have died the same way? All she could think as she sobbed was that it should have been the case. That at the very least, someone who had yet to even leave high school, deserved more time.)

(Polnareff had found her there, and it had taken everything to make sure that the last one in the group stayed put while she chased after a vampire.)

Polnareff to her memory was alive, not that she knew how best to contact him. She suspected it was connected to Giorno- to those numbers in Italy she’d tried, and failed to get through on. Perhaps Josuke would speak to him. Perhaps he knew him, in fact. It didn’t matter right now, not really.

She wondered how ghosts knew what they needed. If they knew, for that matter. Her thoughts wandered to the drafts of cold through the house, the sudden cracks that appeared in the supports, and with barely steadied breaths the woman held herself with both her own arms and the arms of her Stand.

He had been right there, hadn’t he?

(It was strange, to feel so attached. Holly Kujo knew Kakyoin as a young teenager carried in by her son after a fight, helped to mild recovery only to remain in touch until he left. She knew him as a name occasionally choked through muffled shouts as Jotaro awoke late at night, and as one of many sources of trauma that she pretended not to know too much about while offering the comfort she could.)

(Jocelyne Kujo knew Kakyoin as a brilliant young man who only somewhat knew where he was going to go. Someone so simultaneously lost and certain that it was practically a paradox. She knew him enough to be able to think to herself his least and favorite foods, the movies he would have watched, and the things he would have wanted on his birthdays.)

(She knew him the way one came to know their children, and the knowledge left a gaping hole not unlike the crayon void her fingers were resting upon.)

Holly stood from the desk and took a deep breath. Sadao was no doubt done by now. She needed to talk to him- and then they needed to make a plan, she told herself as she walked. Space Oddity hovered over her shoulder in their secondary form again, the bug-like mass of vines clinging to her shoulder as a tight-gripped parrot would.

They would find them. …They would find all of them, she told herself, even if part of her dreaded it.

They had to.

“Sadao?” she started, coming back into the kitchen feeling far more stable than she had a number of minutes before. “Are you still on the line with the Foundation?”

Sadao looked up from where he was holding a phone along with a pen, and nodded- but rather than stay silent, adjusted the phone slightly to speak as he slid a sheet of paper over.

“The first call was from Hong Kong,” he spoke lowly, Holly’s eyes going over the paper. “...From an airline steward for A-N-A.”

Her husband had done an incredible job of transcribing everything important from that call. It was almost a shame- she barely glanced at it before sharing her own piece of news with a quiet, somehow broken voice.

“...I think I know where they’re going.”

The phone was set down, and Sadao tapped a button on the main console as he nodded.

“You are on speaker, ‘Agent’.”

“I’ll do my best to make things quick then.”

(The call lasted at least an hour, but the speed was never doubted. By the end of it, despite the need to wait rather than pursue, they felt more relieved indeed.)

Chapter Text

Suzume did not get to see the plane up close, but there were lots of pictures of them in the airport as she walked. She had been doing a lot of walking that night. Or was it morning? You were supposed to wake up in the morning, and she had certainly done some sleeping, but mornings were also supposed to have more light she was pretty sure.

Still, when she did make it to the airport with Hoshi and Nori- the latter seemed to be feeling really upset about things, but she determined it was because he apparently couldn’t sleep- there had been lots and lots of people with hot drinks like Haha and Touchan had at breakfast, so maybe mornings could be dark.

Hoshi seemed to know exactly what he wanted to do, once they got to the airport. He held her tight as they came to the doors with the man checking people's cards and things, and moved. Moved fast- she knew it had to be fast, so fast that they were faster than a clock.

She knew, held her breath, and let him.

(And Time Stopped. Just for a moment- just long enough to dart around a corner. Just barely enough to even notice, but as Jotaro floated in the void to take a moment to recover he was at least able to assure himself it was possible if needed.)

Hoshi knew what he wanted everywhere in the airport. She could feel when he wanted to go one way and not the other, and even though she could tell him no, she didn't really have any better ideas. Suzume wandered toward the various seats and tv screens because of that, and soon she was taking a seat and looking up at where Hoshi was floating.

Nori was floating too. He still seemed shaky though, which was a little worrying. But for now it was nothing she could ask him about. He was too far up to just talk to, and she didn't want to shout. She didn't know why, but it felt like Hoshi didn't think that would be a good idea.

So instead, she walked by all the machines and people like it seemed he wanted- sometimes she pointed at a bottle in the glass and her Stand quickly fetched it through with a jostle, and while she diligently set it in her bag, Hoshi looked around at all the screens the people had. She didn't know why he needed to do that- but it was probably important, and he at least seemed to have an idea of what to do with it.

Hoshi was giving a little pull, and Suzume turned to go follow after. He was done, whatever it was, and now Nori had floated down a bit as well. Still shaking- and even looking upset. Sad, mad, scared, all the upset things in one, and so she frowned.

If she thought about it, she'd pulled him around a lot in the airport. When they got past the card man after all, Nori had been pulled really hard, just like at the shrine gate. "Nori...Noriiii," she whispered, tugging at his pant leg discretely until he paid attention. Once he finally was, she frowned and pointed ahead. "...Hoshi wants to go that way...but...I don't want you to get hurt again..."

Nori was confused about that. He didn't think it was hurting him at all, apparently, and Suzume wanted to believe that, but wasn't sure if she Should believe it. It was hard to tell, and she ultimately just went after Hoshi again so that they could get on the plane and make it a little better for him. Hoshi thought they needed to move fast again, and she thought that was a good idea.

Faster than a clock.

(Time Stopped once she was around the corner.)

So fast the clock didn't move.

(Time Resumed as they ran down the hall, and Kakyoin's shouting met their ears again. Jotaro wondered what he would think- the thing that killed him, in his best friend's hands.)

(He wondered how betrayed Kakyoin would feel.)

"This way Nori..! Hoshi wants to go this way!" she called, running as fast as she could with her backpack bouncing. Soon they came to where people were lining up to go through machines, and to where it looked like people were sitting and waiting again. That was probably where Hoshi wanted to go. Or maybe, somewhere else? Somewhere further?

Hoshi stopped, and looked back over her.

Suzume stopped, and looked back at where Nori was.

All the bad feelings were there, and somehow even more. All the lights were going in and out, in and out, and it made him look even worse. Nori wanted to go on this trip, because it was important, she thought. Hoshi didn't really want to go, but Hoshi liked Nori, and wanted Nori to get better, which was why they were going anyway. They had to find the things she forgot, for Nori. That was what they had to do.

(In Jotaro's mind all he could think on was what it would take to let a spirit rest. What it meant that Kakyoin appeared at the start of the journey, instead of the end. He had nothing but desperate hope, but it was hope all the same.)

(Hope that recreating those 49 final days might indeed let someone who had been waiting for too damn long, finally find what they needed.)

Suzume stomped right over to Nori, and hissed. If he was going to be all sad and scared and mad when they still had to get on the plane, then she was going to make sure he was paying attention.

"Mister Donut," she hissed, and even though Hoshi didn't like her saying it she didn't care. It made Nori look, and it made him listen, and that was what was important- because Nori was being sad and he was going to ruin everything for himself if he didn't stop. "You are a big liar," Suzume continued threateningly, "And you are going to stop getting lost and scared right now."

Nori didn't say anything, and she thought that maybe it was because he had been so lost and scared already. He needed a reminder, so she pointed at the machines and lines.

“Hoshi wants to go that way, so come with this time, and stop hurting.”

Nori still didn't say anything, and the lights were still going in and out, and in and out, but Suzume ignored it. She grabbed Nori's arm and pulled, pulling toward the machine and lines and things, and moving as fast as Hoshi could get her to go.

Not quite as fast as a clock, but that was fine- everyone was looking up at the lights anyway, instead of down at the little girl running behind them.

He still wasn't saying anything, but that was okay, she thought. Even if Nori was quiet, he was at least less scared, and she kept holding his arm even when it made him stoop down to keep her from standing out. Hoshi, now, was looking at all the signs again, before floating a bit ahead for her to follow. They didn't have to go as fast now, but he seemed pretty sure that they still needed to go 'kind of' fast.

Over the air, she could hear lots of voices- 'Boarding will begin in-' 'Now boarding for-' 'Last call for-'

They repeated them, and said things with the same voice in words that didn't make sense, but Suzume stopped listening to them. Hoshi was leading them to a spot with a gate and a tunnel, the Stand quickly checking something there before floating back.

'Boarding to Hong Kong will begin in 10 minutes-'

Nori stiffened beside her- and with a swallow, he looked down to her. "...I'm going in the hair clip until we're on the plane," he muttered, and Suzume thought he looked guilty about something. "I'll see you on board."

He was gone before she could argue.

Maybe he was worried about bugs, she thought quietly. Hoshi needed them to move fast again, and so they did- passing people dressed with the same scarves and vests, their feet stuck in the air while hers weren't. Hoshi picked her up for this part, which made it much easier too- she couldn't move that fast at all, and even though they passed a lot of people, no one saw them at all.

(Time Stop was short, but worthwhile. Suzume didn't seem to be suffering for it yet, but he knew he had to be careful about it all the same. For now at least- five seconds, and he was through the boarding tunnel and at the plane. A brief pause was all they needed before they could go again.)

(And when Time Stopped again, he moved with precision. He knew the airline wasn't flying First Class for this trip- the seats were empty, and sectioned off. A simple matter of getting through the curtain, and tucking the girl in behind the neat little wall that First Class was equipped with.)

(Time Resumed.)

There were no people in the part where Hoshi wanted them to go.

Suzume crawled up on the seat for now, looking around with wide and interested eyes. It was much bigger than her, so the seat was probably meant for bigger people, she thought. That was definitely why Hoshi was being so careful. He didn't want anyone to look, that much she knew.

The girl yawned, but as she did, Hoshi came to gently shake her. She didn't think he wanted her asleep either- which was hard, but she could probably stay awake.

(She needed to remain awake until they were properly in the air. Once they were airborne, not only would the plane be forced to stay on route, but there would be fewer people coming in to check that First Class was as empty as it was meant to be. Boarding would officially start in minutes. Jotaro hovered, practically a sentinel on guard at the booth.)

(They would be fine.)

The seat was very boxy, she thought. There were only a few of them, and they had a lot of space. There was a small wall between her seat and the one beside it, and across from both was only one more seat. There was another row of them in front of her- but that was it.

Suzume pulled her legs up and tugged at her backpack straps a bit. Even though the walls were small, she was smaller. The walls hid her, and if she really wanted, she could even go to the part of her ‘seat room’ across from her and duck under that instead to hide- it was probably where she would put her bag when she went to sleep, she thought. Sleep wasn’t allowed for now though. That much, she knew.

(They were boarding now. Noise could be heard behind them- bit by bit people were trickling onto the plane, and now they needed to simply wait for take off. He wondered when Kakyoin would reappear. Perhaps he wouldn’t- he hated to think it, but it could well be for the better that way. For all that this trip was meant to help, it seemed that the process was going to be just as risky as staying at home had been.)

(Jotaro didn’t want to see if a ghost’s panic attack would be strong enough to down a plane.)

Voices were coming from above now. Footsteps, however, were coming from behind. Hoshi appeared and quickly moved her under the spot she’d seen before, before she could even think about it, and the footsteps moved past- on the other side, the side separated from her by her wall. Suzume was silent- and quickly, very quickly, Hoshi pulled her over the wall to stow her under the spot there.

The footsteps passed the seat she had been at.

(The steward was thorough- checking the spaces where luggage would go, and so on. But normal stewards did not have Stands, nor did they have the paranoia to expect them, so Suzume was well hidden.)

And then, they disappeared.

Hoshi moved her one last time, to the side with windows- gently lifting one of the shutters so she could look outside with wide eyes. It was still very dark- but she could see lots, and lots of lights, and the girl leaned closer to the glass to stare.

More voices. One mentioned a seatbelt, and Hoshi quietly clicked hers- or at least, that was probably what the buckling strap was- in place. Suzume looked up with a start as the plane started to properly move, but at her Stand’s motion she stayed quiet.

From her hair clip, Nori floated out-

“Oh- we’re on the plane…is…Is this First Class?” he asked with a breathy gasp, looking around in wonder. “...It’s so much more private..! There’s even a way to close you in here entirely,” he realized, inspecting the sides of the walls and entry to the seat-room. “And a television-”

Suzume held her finger to her mouth, a quiet ‘shhhh’ passing. Nori blinked.

(Jotaro wouldn’t lie and say that wasn’t amusing. In fact, it was amusing enough that he even managed a smile as he mirrored the motion. It wasn’t as if anyone could hear the ghost, of course. They both knew that. But humoring the child was as good a way for anyone to find themselves in a good mood.)

With a smile, Nori nodded and went quiet- crossing his arms and sitting in the air.

The plane began to move. Suzume stared out the window with wide eyes as the path to the runway started to move before her, and as the runway itself began to fill her vision. She watched, entranced, as the lights along the side started to slowly move lower, and lower, the plane making its way into the air. Suzume watched and mutely gasped- as below them, distant city lights began to form little ‘star’ maps across the country, a mirror to the stars that she could see above.

(They hadn’t had time to be so interested, when they took the plane before. They left that evening, and sat in varying levels of tension- with he himself stiff in the seat and wanting to be anywhere but there- wanting to be in Cairo, and then home again- with his Grandfather beside him, asking if he wanted to see out the window, or talking to Avdol from the other side of the seat. With Avdol himself folding his hands together and closing his eyes in anticipation of a brief nap….and Kakyoin…)

(Kakyoin could remember sitting there and finding himself feeling almost lost. Part of him was wondering what the hell he was doing. He could have gone home. He could have. The other part however had him sit calmly in place running trivia through his head while repeating one simple thing; ‘the idea that you could go home is a Lie.’)

There was nothing stopping the ghost from marveling at the sights now. No grim underlying threat, no fear of attack- the spirit joined Suzume in quiet wonder at the sights below, confident in the fact that there was no image to even attempt to uphold. They were in the air.

(Behind the two, Jotaro quietly released the seatbelt as the light came on, before gently pulling out the slats that connected luggage space and seat together into a bed. The complimentary blanket and pillow were acquired while Suzume turned and murmured quiet surprise, but as she yawned, all involved agreed it was a good call.)

It didn’t take long for her to lay down at all. Her bag was set at the end of the ‘bed’, and her teddy was pulled out for company after setting her jacket and shoes aside. Another yawn, and she was beneath the blanket and resting her head on the pillow. Just a bit of fidgeting, and then she was out.

…And then…

…And then she was walking. Which was very strange, she thought. Because she was sure she had been in her seat. Staying in her seat was important too- she knew she wasn’t supposed to be seen. But she was walking- walking on the plane at least, so maybe Hoshi moved her again. The seats all looked different after all. Very, very different, with lots of people sitting in them.

She hazarded a call- “...Hoshi?”

Something buzzed instead.

“Someone is in Big Trouble, little girl…”

(As a recreation of ‘Tower of Gray’ floated before them with taunting eyes, Jotaro, behind his partner, froze. He should have known, he thought fearfully, as it darted toward him. He should have known better than to trust fate- it was the first rule of having a Stand. There was always someone else. There was always someone around the corner. It was just his luck, he realized- standing in the recreated aisles of ‘Egyptair’s plane.)

(They were being attacked by a Stand. And this one, it seemed, used dreams.)

Chapter Text

Suzume was very familiar with this place, and yet, somehow, she wasn’t. There was a great big bug in front of her that she definitely knew though, and as soon as she saw it she gasped and frowned.

“You..!” she shouted, jumping to stamp her feet. “Beetle! I’ll catch you this time, Hoshi’s definitely fast enough now!”

She said this, but even though it was Hoshi who would have to do it, she charged for the bug instead. Suzume swung her arm in a wide arc, but the beetle just flew up above it, laughing.

“Come back here Beetle..! You can’t have Hoshi’s tongue!”

That’s what beetles ate, Suzume thought. She knew they did, because last time it got lots and lots of them. It had tried really hard to get Hoshi’s tongue, she knew that, but she’d stopped it that time.

Though, if she thought about it, it was really hard, and she had to bite down very fast. Remembering this, she gasped as the beetle flew for Hoshi instead. “Oh no..! Hoshi! Hoshi, you have to eat the beetle!” Biting meant eating, right? But then, how did the beetle keep flying away last time, if she’d eaten it? Suzume decided not to think about it, since right now Hoshi had to do it instead. “Hoshi..!”

The bug just laughed- it laughed and laughed, and Suzume chased for it instead of waiting to let Hoshi munch on it. She climbed up the airplane seat and jumped, flailing her arms only to land on the floor.

“Ooof!”

“Hahaha! Your arms are too small, little Star Platinum! And now his tongue is mine!”

Hoshi gave an angry, gargling snarl at that- pulling at the air and then grasping at his mouth. With a gasp, Suzume ran over to where there was just blood, strange and dark and violet, coming from between his teeth. Behind her, the Beetle had his tongue.

“No!! That’s not fair..! …Hoshi, you were supposed to eat the Beetle..!”

There was no reply- not even an ‘ora’, and Hoshi just looked around the plane. He wasn’t even looking at the Beetle, Suzume realized, and she didn’t know why. All she knew was that the Beetle wasn’t going to stop with just one tongue. It was very greedy, not even eating the first one before trying to get more.

She decided she would tell it that much. “Y…You…You mean Beetle..! Give back Hoshi’s tongue! I’m not in trouble, you are!”

“Aren’t you?” the Beetle cackled. It was flying around, knocking everyone in the seats over from the back of the head. Thunk, thunk, thunk, it went, and Suzume ran after it with growing screams of frustration. “Passengers have to have tickets! I bet you don’t even have a passport little girl!”

More cackling met the air as Suzume snarled, climbing on another seat. She didn’t know what a passport was, but that probably meant she didn’t have one either. But that was fine anyway, because if she really wasn’t allowed, Hoshi would definitely have stopped her.

“Would he?” Flying around in circles above her, the Beetle shot forward and bopped her on the nose. With a cry, she fell back onto another seat again, rubbing it where it stung. “He’s not doing anything right now after all! Not even what you asked him too!”

(Jotaro, frankly, was doing his best to try and ignore the bug for now- there was an obvious level of ‘dream logic’ to all of this, as evidenced by the fact that damage to his own tongue hadn’t even rebounded onto Suzume herself. The Stand User was probably within the dream with them somehow though, if he could only find them-)

(If he could find them, he thought, and take care of things without bringing real danger to Suzume.)

Unconvinced by the Beetle’s words, Suzume just balled her fists at her sides. “You’re the one trying to eat all the tongues!” she accused, swinging madly at it again. “Get down here! Get! RrrrRAAAAA!!!”

Her swings had no effect, and it just continued to laugh.

“ORAORAORAORAAAAAAA!!!” Her shouting had no effect either, and the Beetle flew over to the wall with its tongues. It was writing something there, but she couldn’t read what it was. They were probably letters, she thought, and the Beetle sang a song as it did so.

“Naughty girls should go home to be punished~ I bet your mother and father wouldn’t agree with you~ You’re going to be in troubleeeeee~”

“RRRRAAAARAARAAAAAA…!!”

Before she could charge it again, Hoshi came from behind to grab her. He held her tight until she stopped shaking, and while the Beetle taunted them, he pointed at the floor. There wasn’t anything there right now she thought. But he had to be pointing for a reason, right?

Suzume sniffed. This wasn’t fair. How did she stop the Beetle? She knew she tried her best before, but shouldn’t it have been easier now? She could do lots of things now, she knew it! She could say words, she could buy food…she definitely couldn’t do those before, even if she didn’t know what ‘before’ was. So why couldn’t she stop the Beetle?

“Where are your parents little girl?” the Beetle was asking now, hovering across the aisle from them. “Who let you come here alone? We’re a long way from the city- did you really walk all on your own?”

Frustrated, Suzume rubbed at her eyes and sniffed. This Beetle was even worse than the first one, she decided. The first one didn’t say things like this, it just wanted tongues and hurting. But somehow, the questions it was asking hurt even more than stuff like that. It didn’t make sense. They were just trying to help Nori! It was important! It-

Suzume looked down, remembering something. “N…Nori…?”

Suddenly a bunch of vines grew from the floor, and the Beetle screamed. Suzume gasped happily as the vines ripped and ripped the beetle apart, breaking it into pieces. Hoshi put her down, and she ran over to give each piece a big stomp. There! Now she’d done more than last time. She knew it! She-

“Do you think you did anything?”

Suzume looked up with a shock, and a broken man stood up from the seat. He was covered in red, and parts of him looked like they were coming apart like a ruined doll. His tongue was all split up, and Suzume looked fearfully between the man and between Hoshi.

Suddenly, she didn’t feel very strong anymore.

Suddenly, she felt like something very wrong was going to happen.

“H…Hoshi…?”

Hoshi was there in a flash, pulling her slowly back as the man approached.

(The Plane wasn’t actually structured like this. It was shifting as needed, the aisle widening, the seat count shrinking. As they passed the windows however, one thing stood out to Jotaro with impossible clarity-)

(It was not Gray Fly’s reflection in the glass. It was something else. A collage-like creature, subdued in color. It stood in the same position as the old man, but it was anything but- a mess of stone statue and wooden carving, the traits of old ships and temple guards cobbled together and covered in glittering paint. It looked forward with empty, goggle-like eyes, and Jotaro knew immediately-)

“OOOOOOOORA-!”

Hoshi hit the window hard, and with a resounding crack the plane shuddered. Suzume wanted to cheer, but instead she looked at her hands. They were much smaller than Hoshi’s were, she realized, and she could only now wonder why. Were they supposed to be so small? She thought they always were, but she felt like she remembered them not always being that way. They were supposed to match, probably, but somehow now they didn’t.

Did Nori have to stop the Beetle because of how small her hands were? Because of how short her arms were? Did Nori have to stop the Beetle because she couldn’t? Did Hoshi have to hit the plane because she couldn’t?

“You’re too small for this,” the old man was saying, but the old man wasn’t there anymore. It was a voice in the air, as clouds started to come in through the window and cover everything with white. Suzume couldn’t stop feeling nervous. She couldn’t stop feeling all those bad things that she knew Nori had felt, even after wiggling out of Hoshi’s grip and landing on something soft.

They weren’t on the plane anymore, she thought. It was somewhere foggy instead, and as she walked it felt like Hoshi disappeared.

(He didn’t. Not really- Jotaro was there, still watching, still vigilant. But it felt like the distance was becoming enforced somehow. Not by the Stand- no, if anything he realized the Stand had only a minimal role in this.)

(It was Suzume’s own perception that kept him from acting.)

Foggy, thick, and white- it was white like the clothes the plane people had in the tunnel on the way on with Hoshi, but the white made her think of something else too. With another sniff, she heard a new voice.

This one was soft, and deep, but something about it was wrong.

Something about it made her not want to move at all.

“Just tell me where your parents are,” the new man said gently. He only sounded nice, Suzume thought, but it was all a lie. She remembered. She remembered hearing a voice like this once, and then she couldn’t feel anything, not even Hoshi. If she listened to this voice, she thought, she would never see Hoshi again.

Suzume didn’t want to turn around. “H…Hoshi..? …Hoshi come back…” Her eyes watered. Did he already take him away? Was he going to take Haha away? Touchan? “Y…You can’t have them,” she sniffed, shaking her head. “Y…I’m allowed, I’m helping Nori- you’re the bad one..!”

The man kept speaking, kneeling behind her. “I promise I won’t take your ‘Hoshi’ away,” he assured, but the words were all lies and she knew it. “I just need to know where they are- I can call them. I can get you home,”

“No! No no no!” No meant No. It meant not having to do anything someone said, so she shouted it as many times as she could. She ran and ran with her eyes squeezed shut, screaming all the while. “I’m helping Nori! He helped me, so now I get to help him! If Nori sees Haha he’ll be sad, so I have to!”

“And who is ‘Nori’?” the voice asked. “I know ‘Hoshi’ is your Stand…”

“No no no no no!” she screamed, until finally she tripped- her face landing against the soft dirt of the ground, the little girl sputtering as she sat up.

The sky was the wrong color. There was water lapping against her legs.

Suzume finally turned around, and when she saw the man who was speaking to her, she whimpered.

Tall, he was. Tall, with cold eyes. In the water he looked much better, but she wasn’t looking there. If she looked, maybe she would have decided he wasn’t the same as the Snake. That he just looked like the Snake, but wasn’t real. She could have seen the horns in the water, and the big goggle eyes surrounded with feathers and stones and paint, and decided it was all an even bigger trick.

But Suzume could not look away from the man floating over the water. She couldn’t look away from the cross on his coat, or look away from the Stand- half horse, half man, all covered in clocks.

Clocks she knew she wasn’t fast enough to beat.

“Hhh…Hoshiiiii….”

She knew where she was, but not really. She didn’t know what name it had, or what people did here. She didn’t know anything like that, but she knew what was important. She knew the people in the water were important- frozen there, waiting. She knew everyone here was important, and that the man with the cross and the horse-clock-person needed to stop.

“I just want to help,” the man with the horns in the water said, but Suzume’s eyes watered and spilled over as the sky got darker. As something tore through the man in Pink, and made the water a darker color than he was. As screams met her ears, and she looked and looked for her Stand. “Just tell me where-”

(Whoever was using Pucci to speak was wavering. They hadn’t expected this, Jotaro realized, but nor did Jotaro care. He fought against the dream with all he had- pushing himself into appearance as much as possible, and looking up to the doppleganger with nothing but rage and grief alike. What a scene before him- what a scene he never wanted to see again. He had tried, dammit. He had tried-)

Hoshi’s arms were around her- but Suzume could only cry, and reach out at the knives floating in the air. They were stuck, just for now. The one the knives wanted to hit most had been pushed out of the way, but just for now. There were still too many. They would still hit everyone there.

“I…I cannnnn’ttttt…” she wept, shaking. Hoshi turned her away, and she looked up to him miserably. Even with all the knives, the horse-clock-person would do it anyway. It would still hit one’s arms, another’s stomach, and worse, they would hit Hoshi too, even if she didn’t want them to. Their hand was too fast, so much faster than she was, and she couldn’t do anything to stop them. “Hoshiiiii…I can’t…I can’t do it…! Hoshi I can’t do it..!”

(Time Resumed, but Jotaro did not let her see what happened as the memory replayed with all the accuracy that even he had failed to grasp in his dying moments, and as Made-in-Heaven’s hand tore through everything in its path.)

(She already knew enough in her heart, and he felt even that much was too much for her to bear.)

‘JoJo,’ someone was calling, and Suzume kept crying. Behind them, the Snake had stopped talking- behind them, she knew she’d failed.

“I’m ss…I’m sorry Hoshiiii….I’m not strong, I can’t...!”

The Stand continued to hold her close, jaw clenched tight. He couldn’t speak, but it felt as if instead he was saying it was his fault. As if instead, he was the one who should have been stronger, been faster, been able to do everything else.

‘JoJo,’ the voice called again. ‘JoJo!! Wake up, JoJo!’

The water around them was turning a murky red- the sand on the beach was turning black, and the sky with it.

“Nnn…no, it’s my fault…It’s…It’s…”

‘Dammit JoJo-!’

“...JoJo...?”

The water was gone.

Or at least the red water.

Suzume kept crying, but suddenly it was becoming harder. Why was she crying, she wondered, despite the recent nightmare she had just experienced. There had been something important she was sure, but what was it? There was something she hadn’t been able to do, wasn’t there?

But then what was it?

Hoshi set her down, but he also didn’t. It was as if something else carried her to the ground, which was suddenly so much farther away from before. It was another beach, now. Big and vast with nothing else there, lots of water and little fish, and nothing to ruin them. It didn’t hurt to look at, she thought, but even thinking that was strange.

Why would looking at the ocean hurt?

(Dreams were fickle things. So little to be remembered, so little to leave more than a numbing scar. This was more than this however, and Jotaro watched as the nightmare swiftly bled into a calming memory of a beach he had visited long before he ever had a Stand at all.)

(“JoJo,” the voice whispered, and this time it truly was on the air. “...It’s been a while since I heard that name.”)

Suzume dipped her bare feet in the water, the big, big star t-shirt that Haha had told her was crusty and salty still over her now. Her hands sifted through mucky sand as she grinned, and behind her Hoshi stared in silence.

(“I think I get what’s going on now, or at least enough,” the voice echoed.)

(“Let’s talk.”)

Chapter Text

From dream, to nightmare, to dream again- Jotaro Kujo tried in vain to understand the machinations of the Stand before him, narrowing his eyes as it requested to talk.

What a joke, he thought bitterly. As if having his tongue ripped out in the nightmare wouldn’t have ended that already, it was hardly as if he could properly speak as is.

“You’re annoyed by that,” the dream observed. If he looked to the sky he could see the Stand he’d caught glimpses of before. The goggle lenses gleamed down impassively, and Jotaro clenched his fists at his sides. “That’s fair enough. I didn’t know that thing would make you mute…more than that, I didn’t expect things to get this intense. I’ve never entered a kid’s dream before,” it continued remorsefully, “But more than that, I didn’t realize this wasn’t a normal kid to begin with.”

Jotaro glared up at the sky, and then stiffened as Kakyoin’s voice echoed over them again.

‘JoJo…? Are you alright now..? ….please…’

(He was calling them from the waking world, he realized as a pit sunk in his gut. He was calling them, and Jotaro had no idea just how calm or in control the spirit was.)

When he looked back down, it was to the stand.

“Good- you have a concrete enough idea of what something of me looks like.” At Jotaro’s slight frown, the Stand explained. “I don’t control what you see here; if I could, your nightmare, and her nightmare, wouldn’t have ended up like that. All I can do is find something to talk to you through…and guide the mood,” they added, gesturing to the far distance Suzume could still be seen in. “...Even what you hear- that relies on who I’m speaking through. I’d hoped that Priest would be more calming when the chance appeared…but, well.”

Jotaro ground his teeth and focused on his partner for now. The girl was oblivious- hands deep in the sand, pulling up sea shells and the occasional tiny crab with a grin.

She was happy. Happy, and no longer cognizant to what they’d just seen. As if nothing in the nightmare had occurred, as if it was nothing more than a forgotten…dream.

(It hurt- it hurt like his heart being ripped out by teeth. He’d spared his Stand the sight but it hadn’t spared him the wash of guilt that drowned him, merging with his own utter despair from that time. He’d failed. He’d failed, a second too slow to act, and everyone had died as a result.)

A dream that only he remembered, the image of white and red filling his mind while imagination filled in the gaps that were there following his own demise.

(Because of course he failed. He had failed her in everything else, and it was inevitable that he fail where it counted most. If he hadn’t, if they hadn’t died, he would still have Jolyne. She would still be Jolyne, and not ‘Irene’, as his mother had confirmed. He had failed, and he had watched it all again, and no amount of apology would make up for that.)

“So…JoJo.” Jotaro stared at the Stand unblinkingly, waiting for the other to move. Supposedly he had no more foul intentions- supposedly in fact, he had none at all, but that was hard to believe when he’d been faced with his daughter’s murderer. At that very thought, the Stand across from him winced. “You’re really angry…” it muttered, drawing back on strange clawed wheels that almost looked like paws. “...I can’t defend myself on this- I just wanted to know why there was a kid here; I didn’t expect a dream like…that,” it continued, “To be what resulted. My Stand is just for little talks, you know? I enter the dream, and we have a chat. That’s all. …But those things…”

As if there couldn’t be a catch. As if someone who had his name-

“Man. You really are that guy, aren’t you?” As Jotaro blinked, the stand rattled, chuckling sounds escaping it. “I’d ask if you’d changed a bit, but that feels like a bad joke…for that matter, I barely knew you to begin with.”

Jotaro’s thoughts were spinning in mud as he looked at the Stand. This was someone who had his nickname at the least- someone who hadn’t seen him in a while, not that that was a surprise, but also someone who hadn’t automatically referred to him as ‘Star Platinum’. …Actually…

He studied the Stand for a moment. He knew this Stand User could see him, but he didn’t seem to have recognized who he looked like.

Which pointed most likely to someone he knew before he had a Stand.

With a grimace, he realized he didn’t actually remember anyone from that time. High school was hell, and that hadn’t changed even after Cairo. The girls were loud and shallow, the boys were an aggressive annoyance at best, and part of the wallpaper at worst- though now that the thought was coming to mind he was tempted to turn that around. As a teenager, fights were a great distraction.

As an adult, he could realistically remind himself that it was a hollow high at best.

Still.

He had no idea who this was.

“...None at all huh…I’m hurt! I spent a whole year two desks behind you! …of course, I only remembered you because of your terrifying reputation…” Which explained ‘JoJo’ being what he remembered first, Jotaro thought, wracking his brain for a face and a name.

The latter wasn’t coming.

The former, however…

Jotaro closed his eyes, and when he opened them there stood before him a young teenager.

“Ahh…now that’s a little more like it…it’s weird to look like this again though,” he hummed, adjusting his oversized glasses. “We are both at least 40, last I checked after all.”

Jotaro fixed the teenager with a steady frown, and the boy coughed. Dream or otherwise, he was not in the mood to waste any time on small talk- least of all when he couldn’t speak.

“...Right. This really is happening then, isn’t it. …JoJo…no, we’re not kids anymore,” he sighed, a nostalgic smile on his face. “...And good thing too- I get the feeling you’d have beaten the tar out of me by now if that was the case. Kujo, though. Seems like you’re projecting a different personality on me,” he snorted. “...But this works enough for now. I…”

For a moment, the teenager seemed stuck on what to say- hesitating mid-sentence, hand frozen in gesture. He looked over to the beach with an unreadable gaze, eventually sighing and bowing his head.

“I’ve apologized already for springing that dream on you. I don’t know what happened…but I can tell the difference between a nightmare made by fantasy, and something that happened,” he said grimly.

And wasn’t that grand then, Jotaro thought bitterly. He knew he’d watched the one thing no decent man would have ever wanted to see. Knew he watched, he failed-

“...Kujo. That wasn’t your fault.”

“ORRR-AA-!”

With a roar he charged, and the image of his teenaged classmate vanished- the boy reappearing not far behind him.

(For the best, he thought with quiet horror, before reminding himself that nothing here was real. He would have broken his skull open like an egg.)

(But all the same, to hear those words just made something snap.)

“...You don’t want anyone hurt, Kujo-” The words weren’t quite a taunt but they may well have been, with the way they were so gently thrown in his face. “I told you I don’t control these dreams; attacking me, that’s only going to go as far as you want it, and even then it’s not real.” the boy reminded him, shaking his head. “...But I get the picture. I’ll drop it.”

It sounded as if he didn’t want to- but quietly, darkly, Jotaro looked down at the teen- not even an actual teen, he bitterly thought, just an approximation to fill in the gap of some unknown former classmate in his mind- with a glare.

No matter what the other wanted after all, it was not his right to try and appease him with weak platitudes.

(It was his fault. No matter the guilt his own Stand now carried as a small child, it was his fault. He’d let himself fall behind. He’d let himself grow out of practice, leaving it all down to a few seconds and nothing more. It was his fault.)

(If his mother could hear his thoughts, she would be telling him otherwise as well.)

The boy was watching him for only a moment. Soon his attention was on Suzume, watching the girl play in the sand.

“...I won’t pretend to understand what happened, Kujo. I don’t know much about Stands as it is. But hearing that name shouted through the dream…that was someone trying to wake you up,” he explained unnecessarily. It was an obvious fact after all. Jotaro knew full well what was happening, and who was doing it. The teenager nodded. “...That’s the point,” he ‘answered’ in reply to Jotaro’s thoughts. “You have this feeling of familiarity…even fear. I didn’t see anyone else on the plane when I was passing around- and while I could tell someone was there with a Stand, there was only ‘one’. Which means you have someone…or something else with you that no one, not even Stand Users can see.”

Jotaro stared and grew stiff, limbs tense as he watched the other. Around him, while the beach was unaffected, the dream itself wasn’t. This was a happy dream, control largely in Suzume’s hands rather than his.

A teenager as old as the one before him appeared to join the girl, uniform untarnished and green, not a single injury in sight.

(It was just a dream, Jotaro thought, but he could only look with sadness.)

(It was just a dream, and he knew Kakyoin’s spirit was still holding himself a hair away from panic in the waking world.)

“...At least someone responsible knows who then,” the Stand User murmured, turning his attention briefly to the dream-Kakyoin. “Strange. I didn’t expect to see that face.”

Jotaro turned- and without looking back, the teenager sighed and explained.

“...I only remember him, because something traumatic happened to you...or at least to ‘Kujo-kun’,” he hummed, looking more than a little amused by Jotaro’s baffled frown. “Oh yes!” the teen snorted, “That one was far easier for anyone to remember- or at least he would have been…” There was a considering pause- no doubt he was thinking about what a difference it made, knowing one life more than the other- but he carried on. “Regardless. ...’Shotaro’ Kujo wasn’t you. He was polite, patient…” He shrugged, and blew out a somewhat tired breath. “The kind of person you didn’t want to fight, for completely different reasons than the ones you’re probably familiar with from that time,” he added. “So no ‘JoJo’, there. Just…Kujo-kun.”

It made sense. Even ‘JoJo’ came about through a twisted mess of respect after he’d broken enough noses. The police had rattled it off as if it were a name shared between good friends at the time.

Until his impromptu road trip, the only positive use of the nickname had come from immediate family.

The boy pointed toward Kakyoin, and his tone became grim. Before he even spoke, Jotaro knew why. “...That one…put him out of commission for as long as you skipped out,” he muttered darkly. “...I remember…because I saw it happen. …I’ll never forget it,” the boy whispered. “...Imagine yourself at that age- restrained in the air, blue in the face…I called it a monster and even knowing what I do now I wouldn’t call it anything else. I knew Kujo-kun wasn’t one to fight…but somehow until then the idea of him going down in one never clicked.”

He was torn. On the one hand there was no denying the kind of fight he had had with Kakyoin that day. It wasn’t so one sided, but in his own case there had certainly been more casualties. Had the kid with the pen in his eye even come out of that alive, he wondered? He’d checked the nurse- but the boys had bolted as soon as able, and who knew what happened from there.

But there had been a fleshbud. More than that, with the time spent after…

(Jotaro didn’t let himself linger on the other thought, on the foreign topic of ‘Shotaro’. His mother had avoided it wherever possible. His father, quiet as he was, focused on what was most important when they were knowingly in the same room at all. The more he heard about this stranger taking his place, the more it felt as if someone had tried excising from him everything that was him to replace it with someone everyone else would have loved.)

(All while the result turned to taunt him in silence.)

The boy beside him sighed. “...Obviously there’s something I’m missing…especially if you’re being haunted by him,” he determined. Another sigh, and he pinched his nose in a manner far too old for his seeming body. “...This is over my head, but it’s clearly over yours as well; if this was just another Stand I would just call the Speedwagon Foundation, but this is something else.” A pause to take in the feeling of affirmation from Jotaro, and he went on. “...I’m not going to stop you, but that’s only because I don’t know what would happen if I tried,” he whispered, turning his attention back. “Would you say that’s the right approach to take?”

It was strange, having this ‘conversation’. This back and forth with thoughts against words, words that he expected from another adult rather than someone as old as Kakyoin had been.

There was a sharp laugh, albeit a friendly one. “Hey! I said we’re both 40 didn’t I? It’s not my fault you only remember what I looked like in year 2!”

Right.

Now if he could just remember his name…

Perhaps catching that thought, the teen shook his head and sighed. “Forcing it won’t work, you know.” And then, taking a seat on the beach, turned his focus to Suzume and ‘Kakyoin’ once again. “...It was strange,” he eventually admitted to the Stand beside him. “...I was going through my things one day, and suddenly the names in my yearbook changed, or at least just one. I’d almost thought I misremembered something…but thinking back. What happened in my classes suddenly became too different for that to be true.”

Shotaro versus Jotaro, and the differences were night and day, the man realized dully. Even from the bedroom alone, he knew that whoever had ‘replaced’ him was too different to make the mistake. The Stand user’s words only emphasized it.

“I should have guessed it just from the yearbook, honestly.”

How Irene- how ‘Jolyne’- had still been born, he would never know. The sheer number of things that had to stack upon the other for him to even have met his ex-wife were suffocating on their own.

(Or did they manage it? Did they keep that marriage going through sheer grit and determination as his doppleganger sidestepped each pitfall day by day?)

“Your doppleganger’s uniform was pristine, not to mention he actually showed up.”

He didn’t even think Shotaro went into marine biology. What reason could he have even had for going to Florida, or any other place? Their fates had been so different, and yet-

“Kujo,” the Stand user uttered, pulling him from his drifting, almost mourning thoughts.

Jotaro looked to the teen again, watching and waiting in silence. He was tired of this, if he was honest. He still had no name to the face before him, and things had happened so quickly, fresh wounds made even fresher, that he could feel the need to scream rattling his entire being.

There was a look of sympathy sent his way that made him feel ill and bitter. He didn’t want it. He didn’t want any of that, not when he was making a choice that made things as worse as it did better.

His former classmate sighed and looked away. “...I can’t make any calls until this plane lands. But…” The teen himself looked back in the corner of his eye, judging the other’s response. “...When I do…”

The message was clear, and he nodded.

Yes, he thought. Do it.

And to that, so did the boy. “...I’ll make sure your mother gets the call then,” he determined. “...Believe it or not, I actually have that number now,” he huffed, ignoring Jotaro’s momentary alarm. “...Turns out she made it her life’s work to keep an eye out for young Stand Users after you went missing for a few weeks that year, and remembered who she’d heard shouting about monsters on the school grounds.”

…

Of course.

‘Jocelyne’ Kujo was still Holly Kujo. Still his mother.

If his mother had had a Stand, had experienced all that, had lost Kakyoin the way he had…

Jotaro smiled, and the teen before him started to fade.

“...I had a feeling you’d understand. …Try to enjoy the dream yourself,” he added softly, winking before the rest of him faded out into nothing but an echo on the wind. “...The nice thing about them after all, is that even if you can’t remember everything clearly, the feelings don’t have to fade.”

It would normally have been a curse, Jotaro thought as he breathed in and sighed. How many times had he woken from nightmares where all he could remember was the sharp sensation of dread followed by loss- how many times had he woken up with nothing but a racing heart, ragged breathing, and sweat on his face?

Normally this would be a curse…

(Jotaro closed his eyes, and joined the two at the beach for as long as he could remain a coherent thought.)

Chapter Text

Suzume woke from her fitful sleep about an hour into the flight, and Kakyoin could not have felt more relieved. She had been muttering and calling for her Stand quietly in her sleep- fortunate for them to avoid being caught, but not for his nerves- and after about 20 minutes of it had simply gone silent. It had seemed after a time, that she was sleeping well.

It had seemed that way, but all Kakyoin could think of as he floated there was his sleepless desert nights in the face of Death 13.

(That boy was alive, he realized coldly. That boy would now be a man, even. Kakyoin wondered if he had done the right thing. He couldn’t kill an infant, not without really having questions to face- but more than that, he wasn’t even sure he could make himself kill an infant. If it was an active attack, probably. But he’d won by then. He’d won the fight.)

(He wondered how long that lasted. How long the boy kept to himself. Thinking about it made him sick, and he stopped focusing on it as soon as he could.)

Kakyoin’s worries and wonderings all vanished the moment the girl yawned and sat up however, as he pulled himself from self-inflicted stupor- he was not bringing this plane down, he refused, he refused- and refocused.

“JoJo!” he called in relief, only to wince when his answer was a scowl. Right. Right… “...Suzume,” he corrected, the relief no less present. Star Platinum didn’t take long to start hovering beside the girl, and he sighed. “Thank goodness…you were muttering in your sleep for a while there,” he murmured cautiously. “...Was it a Stand att…” Before he could finish the statement he trailed off, Suzume just blinking confusedly.

Right.

Just a nightmare. Those happened, after all, and if she was remembering things from that time, well.

“Never mind,” he breathed, shaking his head. “Did you sleep well?” As Suzume nodded, the ghost smiled. Good. Things were already going better than before, then. Though…

He looked at the clock on the TV screen- when it had been turned on was beyond him. The flight was going to take about five and a half hours, and they’d be moving back a timezone.

(Jotaro, as well, looked at the TV screen and blinked. He knew they had to have come in contact with the Stand user after all- otherwise the dream that he still at least faintly remembered, the conversation from which only a few bits and pieces stood out, would never have happened. It was still odd though.)

(It would be nice to give Suzume something to focus on while they flew though, if she wasn’t sleeping the whole time.)

“You know, about this time on our last plane trip, things would have started to turn for the worst,” Kakyoin hummed, somehow keeping an air of amusement about him despite the blank stare from Suzume and the glare from ‘Hoshi’. Smiling, he leaned back in his ‘seat’.

If the point was helping her remember after all, then he would just have to talk about the best parts. It wasn’t as if there weren’t plenty of those after all.

“Oh yes. Your grandfather- ahhh…’JiJi’,” he tried, carrying on with some more confidence when the girl perked up, “Had terrible luck with planes. He crashed four in his life, by the time I saw him last!”

There was a loud gasp from Suzume, or at least it would have been if Hoshi hadn’t quickly moved to stifle it with a hand. Even with the panic though, the Stand itself looked somewhat amused- albeit tired- as well.

“Haha said four is a bad number...” Suzume breathed, causing her friend to snort in laughter.

“You’re right, but I don’t think getting him to crash a fifth plane is a good idea,” he said with a smile. “For all I know he’s upped the count by now.”

(Jotaro, idly, had to wonder if the remote plane at Morioh counted. Probably not.)

(He also had to ask himself if his grandfather had crashed another plane, but decided not to worry about it. Especially not when he remembered, somewhat coldly, that he couldn’t ask.)

“Why did Jiji crash the planes..?” Suzume asked, looking somewhere between angry that it would happen, and confused for the same reason.

That was a good question. He knew that Mr. Joestar had said the Egyptair incident would be his third- but he had to focus somewhat to actually bring to mind what the other two had been. He wasn’t actually sure as to whether or not the story had even come up. As entertaining as the man was, Jotaro had been far from eager to listen to his grandfather yammer on about his past heroics.

More than that, perhaps, there was something about the topic that couldn’t be broached at all. He could remember when they came too close to that, in fact- it had happened just after Joseph’s hamon came up, that sunlight energy he claimed would kill any vampire with ease. They had watched as it was employed to dispatch the bud once burrowed in Polnareff’s skull- and he himself had asked about it not long after.

‘That’s what you used to get rid of mine then,’ he’d stated first, watching as Joseph grinned and nodded. His mind had been made up at that point. He’d not thought too much of Joseph’s Stand, given its simplicity and focus in espionage rather than anything else. But if there was something he could draw from observation it was how similar he could get Hierophant to mimic the vine-like qualities of it.

And as Joseph seemed quite clearly capable of lacing those vines with Hamon…

(He didn’t think about the fact that his memories were muddied on this. That they were…confused. Sometimes if he focused he remembered seeing far more of that golden light, and at others, it barely appeared.)

(Kakyoin didn’t want to focus on confusion. Confusion led to black outs and power failures, which led to him feeling nothing but the cold, cold water that surrounded him in his death. He wanted to focus on spending time with his first friend- the only friend available right now, with the rest scattered to the wind.)

(If he could have this much, and have it without anything but smiles and laughter, he’d give up anything for it.)

…He’d asked.

‘How hard would it be to learn?’

And somehow Mr. Joestar had seemed…cold in that moment. Distant, withdrawn. He had a smile on his face but it was forced, and he looked between Kakyoin and the others in silence before eventually replying.

‘You can’t,’ he said flatly. ‘I inherited my potential from my Grandfather and from my Mother- and it ends with me.’

(Somehow he had to frown. He felt as if perhaps there had been more. That he had said more. Or even said something else entirely. That couldn’t be right though- he remembered things with concerning precision, now more than ever. It wasn’t as if he’d been eidetic in life, but at the very least his memory had been enough that the enormous gaps left behind after the flesh bud was removed had been near painful in scope.)

(But as a ghost? As a ghost his memory was pristine. He could claim how many leaves were in his tree if he wanted. So then why…)

Another excuse. An excuse he couldn’t tell was real or not.

‘That’s not my area,’ he could hear the old man mutter. ‘...And there’s not enough time for that anyway.’

(Someone arguing. ‘You managed in almost as much time.’ Muttered bickering, but amused in tone. ‘It’s going to take us longer if we’re going by road, and a few weeks is enough to get started- he doesn’t need to be a master, he just needs to defend himself.’)

(He can’t place the voice arguing back. It’s not Jotaro. It’s someone else, but he doesn’t want to let himself focus on it- Not when trying makes Jotaro disappear entirely.)

Kakyoin shook himself from memory, and simply shrugged. “I don’t know about the second time- I remember he said the first time, his plane was taken by criminals, trying to use his uncle for something…” Presumably a hostage to get some money, but, well, if he thought about it JoJo didn’t need to know that.

Maybe in a few years if she asked again. Assuming she didn’t remember Mr. Joestar sharing that tale on her own, at least.

“The third time though…” Kakyoin slowly grinned, falling into the retelling. “Was when you were there.”

“Me..?” Suzume blinked at that, and with a small gasp looked at her Stand. “...And Hoshi?”

Kakyoin nodded. “That’s right. We were on a plane, but it was older than this one. With smaller seats-”

Another gasp escaped her, and the girl beamed. “And JiJi got the window!” A pause, and she pointed to Kakyoin. “...and you got the window too…and Mister Magic was there…”

As she started looking around the plane herself- no doubt trying to either locate Avdol, or trying to compare the seats- Kakyoin snorted.

“Right…though it wasn’t as exciting at the start. We just slept,” he hummed, watching the girl nod in agreement. Her Stand, as typical, just watched with a cautious eye. “And then-”

“And then the mean tongue eating beetle attacked..!”

Somehow, Suzume did not shout. It was a harsh whisper, the girl recognizing full well that if she raised her voice it would cause problems and attract attention. The same effort could not be given to her mood though, which was so passionate that it caused both Hoshi and Kakyoin to jump.

(Well, Jotaro found himself thinking once he traded out the alarm for amusement, if Kakyoin was after memory, he certainly got it.)

“...Yes, that was…” He coughed, shaking himself. “That’s right- Tower of Gray. It looked like a big stag beetle…” The ghost trailed off, thinking back to the remark on tongues with some mild distaste. “...And it gathered tongues from its victims…”

He studied the girl a moment. He…expected her to be more upset by that, but then again if he thought about it maybe not. At the very least, she was probably holding it together more than they had after the fact.

(Jotaro kept a cool head, back then, but Kakyoin had not been able to ignore the way that he glanced at the blood of the scene until they landed in Hong Kong. He’d been silent since the moment the plane hit water, barely responding to anyone with more than one word sentences.)

(The exception had been him. After all the cool calm of handling a fight’s aftermath had been dealt with, and after they were floating in the water with lifejackets and meager belongings, he’d said- ‘...Good call.’)

Suzume looked at him with a frown, and after looking at her Stand, looked back and said- “...You weren’t good at making people sleep though…” Weren-

He blinked. And then with a snort, started laughing. “Is that what you- Stands can keep going after you go to sleep, J- Suzume,” he corrected, explaining further. “Even I’ve taken advantage.”

(She was right though. If he’d just done it more properly, perhaps-)

(Dwelling on that was as stupid as dwelling on being dead, perhaps more so, he scolded mentally.)

“...Someone tried to hurt you when you were sleeping..?”

With almost hysteric understanding, it occurred to Kakyoin that if anyone was going to believe the incident of Death 13, it was JoJo, but a Child. Because of course it was.

(Jotaro himself didn’t know to think of that incident. The nights in Saudi had passed in a paranoid blur where none of them were at their best, and if he was going to think back to that incident it’d be to the cold shoulder Kakyoin had given them all until about the time that Polnareff had gotten sick from the baby’s left over breakfast and sent the teen into a roaring fit of laughter.)

(He still had no idea why.)

Kakyoin waved the girl off. “It’s nothing to worry about. But you remember the bug, right?”

She nodded, and frowned at her hands. “....I couldn’t stop it…my arms are too small…”

Star Platinum blinked.

Kakyoin blinked.

And then, while the former seemed stuck just blinking with rapid confusion, the ghost himself bowled over on himself with laughter.

“You- Well I can’t say that wouldn’t get in the way either, I suppose..! It was also just fast though..! Ah..!” He took a moment to compose himself, sighing. “...Tower of Gray was small, and fast- we couldn’t tell what he was doing, or what his user was doing…So we had to trick him!”

“With the noodles,” Suzume confirmed, and Kakyoin was suddenly very grateful he couldn’t breathe.

He’d probably suffocate himself laughing.

“Hierophant,” he corrected with a grin, but the motion soon faded. “...Yes. …We trapped him with the floor, and then ripped him apart…”

“And then I squashed the bug…!”

….Not really, he thought with a snort- but if JoJo wanted to believe that for now he’d give her that. He wasn’t feeling up to correcting her anyway, suddenly very aware of the hole in his chest again. “He was definitely squashed by the end,” Kakyoin instead confirmed, ignoring what seemed to be a concerned frown from Star Platinum. “But unfortunately, the plane was still going to crash because of him.”

To this, Suzume looked around to the front of the plane. “....are we going to crash..?”

Suzume probably wasn’t actually aware of what a plane crash really meant, but she seemed to grasp that it was bad at least. Little JoJo was now looking up to the ghost with immense worry, and Kakyoin forced himself to smile reassuringly even as the look was replaced by a teenaged frown in his memory.

(Maybe he shouldn’t have done this. He missed him. It hurt-)

(Kakyoin threw the thought from mind immediately, in a manner not unlike the first time. You can’t go back, that voice from before taunted. Not anymore.)

“We won’t,” he promised quietly. It was an easy promise. There were no Stands on the plane, there was no great task ahead of them that they had to fight their way through. Kakyoin floated easily in place as he said these words, his arms crossed over his front. He’d offer the fact that Mr. Joestar would probably have to be there to tip the scale, but considering he was apparently long gone that felt a bit insensitive for the moment. So instead-

Well, instead he’d offer something else.

“You still have a while before we land,” Kakyoin remarked with a gesture to her bag. “It’s probably a good time for you to have breakfast, now.”

No sooner did he say that, and he was forced to hurriedly back away from Suzume’s seat to avoid being walked through. Suzume herself looked up in surprise- neither of the two had noticed anything after all, so seeing a plane attendant walk in sent a shock through them both.

But not through the Stand, apparently.

Kakyoin’s eyes were wide, but he watched as both of the others- it didn’t take long for JoJo to calm down after all, when she noticed the calm that Star Platinum had- simply looked to the unassuming man in spectacles in silence.

“Some breakfast,” he said with aplomb- and Kakyoin frowned as he saw what was set down. Not that he expected anything at all, and in fact he was still waiting for Hoshi to do something about the fact that they had clearly been caught but-

Yogurt. A soft roll, a juice box…

“...Is this…really alright..?”

Kakyoin did not receive an answer- instead he watched, owlishly, as the attendant quietly set up a children’s movie with headphones on the TV across from her after first pulling the table out for her food.

(Jotaro for his part looked at the name pin reading ‘Kageno Gomera’ and then to the face that the teenager from the dream ultimately grew up into- this quieter, more composed, but ultimately sharp minded Stand User who had seen fit to rifle through the leftover children’s stock in Economy Class to make sure a child didn’t go hungry for 5 hours.)

(He looked, and when the attendant briefly looked back to meet his gaze, caught a gesture so quick and discreet that the only one who could have ever caught it was him.)

(Unseen to the others, Little Talks gave a thumbs up- and hours later, as they scurried off the plane to blend into the crowd, an excitable child, her Stand, and a confused ghost, Kageno Gomera called the number he’d been putting off trying for the last two weeks.)

Chapter Text

Waiting, Holly decided, was far easier to manage when one had the answers they needed. Not that she had nearly as many answers as that of course, but as she tapped at her tea cup after she and Sadao finished booking matters through the Speedwagon Foundation, it was a thought she had all the same.

People were now looking for Suzume. People were looking, however tentatively, in Hong Kong especially- with a warning already patched out and sent to the airports expecting flights from Narita.

Which of course left them with nothing more than waiting, and thinking about what else they’d talked about.

(Shotaro’s weekly call would be tomorrow, she thought dully. She wondered how much of the news had reached him, or if they would be avoiding him in their delegate considerations at the Foundation.)

“She will be okay,” Sadao assured her- his voice quiet, flat, but filled with conviction. “And so will he.”

Holly just found herself huffing. “I know! I know, but I can’t help but worry,” she sighed loudly, but the volume at least pointed toward a sense of greater ease. The panic and fear had passed- Holly and Joy both were the sort to have faith in people, and while it was a more fragile thing in Joy’s case-

Too many deaths and too many times where things had fallen through the cracks had this effect-

She was still Holly. Joy was simply another batch of memories and experiences informing her of what the world was like now, not a thing to control her.

Space Oddity was hovering, she noted as she sat in her chair. She wasn’t offering a vine- even her Stand knew that she’d be waiting for hours now- but she was hovering at least, offering a shroud of comfort where Sadao couldn’t completely catch it.

And so, they waited. Waited, and in the awkward and stressful silence, talked.

(Well, she did, anyway. Sadao listened, as he was want to do.)

“...I wonder how many others I mentored like that,” she murmured, a glance toward the abandoned phone transcript. “...I…think I remember talking to him after Cairo, but…”

It was more a haze of a memory. Something done in a panicked state of perceived responsibility, brought on in part because of Shotaro’s own remarks. Gomera had visited once or twice during the teen’s recovery after everything had settled at the school, citing that he’d felt ‘bad’ about the incident somehow.

Which was ridiculous of course, since he had only witnessed the fight not started it, but still.

(One would argue that Stands attracted Stands, but of course, Shotaro neither had nor saw them.)

Shotaro and Gomera never ‘clicked’, ultimately. They spoke and interacted through school for their third year, but they drifted quickly after graduation, and Holly couldn’t find herself very surprised by that. Shotaro didn’t push people away, no.

But something about the high school made it impossible for him to do more than have ‘acquaintances’ rather than ‘friends’.

(Perhaps in the same way that he’d seen all of Jotaro’s potholes in life, he’d also seen the ones who created them or ignored them.)

Holly pulled herself from the thought with a sip of tea. “I can’t remember any other strange numbers in the area,” she hummed, “But there were definitely more in the address book…”

A nod from her husband. “...Something to try, later. With all of this…I think people will understand, when address books need to be resorted.”

It was true. If Gomera himself had been hemming and hawing over the idea of calling her for a full two weeks, he was not likely the only one pausing at a phone and wondering if they should do some test runs.

“We can look into that later,” Holly decided, a little more cheer coming into her tone. It wasn’t forced at least, which was a step in the right direction, but she was nervous all the same. “The Foundation said they’re going to have people watching the docks at Hong Kong and Singapore, but that’s such a long stretch of water..! I really hope they can catch them in Hong Kong…”

With any luck they weren’t left to float adrift- she didn’t doubt Jotaro would properly prepare them for it, but it was a terrifying thought given all that could go wrong.

And on top of that- “...We will have to talk to Shotaro about this.”

Sadao of course was on topic. He would not let his wife fly off from the one she feared and dreaded and wished ever so much to avoid until the last minute- not knowing the consequences.

With a sigh, Holly sipped her tea again. “....You’re riiiiiight…” Comically drawn out as she tried not to slip into upset, she sighed yet again. “...I don’t know where to begin with him though. …I can’t tell him he didn’t exist before- and how could I ask poor Luisa about everything else on top of that?”

Neither were quite sure why, out of everything that happened, Shotaro managed to marry the same woman Jotaro had in his own life. Holly had expected things to have diverted too far- but somehow Irene had to exist, which meant that Irene’s- and Jolyne’s- mother also had to exist, in the right moment, and the right time.

Somehow, Shotaro had still moved to Florida, even if for an entirely different focus of study.

Somehow, he had pulled it off.

And then on top of it managed to keep the marriage going, for that matter- yet another kick to her elder son’s teeth.

(They hoped, since they had yet to get a panicked call from their daughter in law, that she had somehow managed to cope with everything. Neither could recall a different name for the woman, so with any luck it was still her.)

(...Even if the poor girl was probably still trying to determine if she’d suffered head trauma over the switch from ‘divorced’ to ‘not’, among the rest of the chaos.)

What they were discussing wouldn’t likely drive any stake into things, but it would certainly make it awkward, she determined. She didn’t think they’d say no at least. No, they definitely wouldn’t say no, it was just…

“He just started talking about adopting a boy with her, he said- how can we ask them to claim responsibility on paper for someone younger, when we’re the ones raising them?”

Sadao was quiet as he contemplated the question. For all that Holly had told their neighbors that the girl had no relation to Shotaro, the Speedwagon Foundation had argued it was the best and easiest way to explain her away and formulate the paperwork. They needed to do it quickly as well- they could certainly cover for things right now in Hong Kong as they looked for the missing child, but not only would getting her back be more difficult, but the longer things drew out the harder it would be to safely track her to do so.

Holly, despite her youthful appearance, was far too old to be considering a child and would have been too old 5 to 6 years prior as well. Even if her body could handle it, it had physically crossed that safe line.

There was something sour about it all, however. She had told the girl to call her ‘Haha’, she had accepted her as her own even if it was a stretched, twisted manner.

“...Is it them that you worry for?” Sadao asked, and Holly’s face crumbled at the armor piercing blow. She sniffed quietly, and Sadao gently put a hand over hers.

“I don’t want her to think they left her, and I told her we were her parents for a reason…but even ‘just paper’ means that it could look like that, doesn’t it? …Even without their actual input…”

She knew they’d have to give Suzume the truth one day. She hadn’t been born- she’d ‘appeared’, a fluke of Stand use and desperation and who knew what else, swapping things around and creating a miracle and a curse all in one.

Somehow adding to this just..complicated matters though. What would she say if she found out that part first? Before the details of Stands and ‘magic’? Would she assume she’d been abandoned? Tossed aside to her grandparents?

All Shotaro and his wife would have done was claim something for a story, and they’d become the villains.

Eventually, Sadao simply nodded. “Then, she is ours.”

Holly turned, eyes wide. Sadao simply raised his brows ever so slightly, as if waiting for the challenge. To say it was a ‘challenge’ of course, wouldn’t quite be right. “...You’re sure..?”

Another nod. “If your father,” he muttered, managing to contain his distaste for the man if only out of respect for the apparently deceased, “Could take in an infant at a much older age…we can allow ourselves this role.”

It would affect both of them of course. Socially speaking, that was. They didn’t care about that, so much as how it would affect Suzume, but if Holly thought about it the same would be the case the other way around. With a sigh as she nodded in agreement, she relented- no matter the case, there would be whispers to cut down. It was simply unavoidable if they were looking after her.

Sadao took a sip of his coffee, which had been sitting somewhat cold for the last while.

“It is no one’s business to ask who is, or isn’t, her parents anyway.”

Hah. Unable to keep from beaming at that, Holly couldn’t help but agree. “Hmmm… ...Good point...~” Standing from her seat, she made to put her tea mug away and settle elsewhere while they waited. There was a certain tension in the air- neither wanted to stray too far from the phone, for fear that they would miss the desired call declaring Suzume’s acquisition. The table became a thing filled with tea mugs, books, and music sheets as both attempted to distract themselves- something that inevitably led to her phone’s contact list after enough time.

She couldn’t help but wonder how they had gotten on that plane, she thought almost distantly. Visions of the past flickered in and out before her eyes as she sat there, closing them over even after flipping a page from habit. Of the security there was now- the various sensors and gates in addition to passport checks and identity precautions.

Of the security in the past…back when she wouldn’t doubt the ease of it all.

Holly remembered tense conversation muttered back and forth- they could aim for the plane headed directly for Cairo, or opt for a more convoluted trek filled with transfers. By this point they had, with some caution, pinpointed what it was that Space Oddity precisely did.

(It defied all current ideas of fate, at least for Avdol. In the one hand, they were truly the captains of their own ship, the authors of their tales.)

(But on the other hand, how could they ever truly know what they would have done without the use of that Stand?)

Countless possibilities- a few minutes of time, give or take depending on how active a path was- and Joy would be able to choose which path felt the most promising. Sometimes certain consequences could be immediately seen, and thus avoided.

Often, as had been displayed in her chase after Shotaro, that was far from the case.

Such was how their test of the plane worked. With little to cut into, Kakyoin had suggested that Joy simply nick herself with a thorn- something that elicited furious snapping from her father while she herself assured the man that it seemed like a fine idea. It wouldn’t be any worse than accidentally getting a paper cut, not really.

So they sat in their seats at the airport with baited breath, and waited.

Waited, only for Joy to shake her head and apologetically admit that she had no way of knowing which plane was safer. If they wanted this over with quick however, the fastest way to Cairo seemed promising.

So, they chose Egyptair. They filed on, took their seats, and settled in for the ride.

Joy was restless as they took off however. It didn’t take long before her father beside her was trying to settle her- offering headphones for his tape player, offering to swap to the window seat if she so desired. Just in front of them, Avdol was shaking his head and quietly speaking to Kakyoin. The word ‘Stand’ could be made out, but from their faces at least, it was a positive topic.

(Kakyoin hadn’t met a Stand User who had theirs since childhood, not on his own terms at least. Avdol was talking to him, however quietly, about his experiences as such. Answering the boy’s questions, no matter how numerous they were. Kakyoin was starving for information, and now he was getting it.)

(Holly wondered if this had happened in Jotaro’s memory or not.)

She kept scratching herself.

Slightly- very slightly. She requested a tea from the staff, and as she rubbed her finger along the rim, clipped against the tip with a thorn every few seconds or so. All was well, for a time. All was calm. All was moving according to what was ideal.

And then.

(And then it changed, and dramatically so.)

A Beetle. A great, gigantic mutation of a stag beetle, and in her mind’s eye she could see Avdol in particular muttering about it.

In some timelines he simply remarked that he’d heard of a criminal with such a Stand. In others he recalled their specialty in theft. In still others, recent rumors of changing specialties to disaster wrecks.

(There was no rhyme or reason for why the shift occurred. Kakyoin’s theory in at least one branch, the boy’s face twisting with disgust, was that the Stand User had grown bored and overconfident.)

Kakyoin, best she could see, seemed to be the most…prepared in each timeline. Nervous- nervous for certain- but with a thought his Stand was melting across the floor, trailing vines seeking out the culprit with ease even as the boy’s own face betrayed his feelings. He was nervous, perhaps even scared-

But he didn’t hesitate all the same.

(That was in the future.)

(This, was Now.)

Joy reached across and between the seats with a vine, and shook his shoulder gently.

“...Kakyoin-kun. Kakyoin-kun,” she politely whispered, the boy jolting awake with a small grunt. Before he could react- and while images of Kakyoin himself flooded her mind via the many vines of Space Oddity- she continued. “Shhhhhhhh…”

“What- …Mrs. Kujo is something wrong? Why didn’t you wake the other two?” Kakyoin at least, was observant- he kept his voice low, the other two not even stirring.

Joy held her finger to her lips- she glanced to the air without moving anything more than her eyes, and then lowered her voice even more.

“...Don’t let it know you’ve seen it yet,” she said softly, analyzing the images in her mind at rapid pace. The claws dug into Kakyoin’s scarf, and while the boy would undoubtedly comment later he could sense the tension in her voice.

Slowly, Kakyoin’s eyes glanced to the side as well- an innocent motion that looked more akin to turning back to his seat.

It darted by again, a large, drooling gray beetle…

Hierophant, Joy could see, was already sprawling across the floor. Like growing grass, or perhaps a spreading series of rivers, the lines slowly overtook the floor in a patterned web. The woman spoke up again as the beetle made its pass- no doubt its User was waiting for one of the two to notice it to ‘play’.

“In every path we wait for it to act, 5 people die,” she whispered, shaking just slightly. The image of the gore was seared into her mind, lightning quick yet no less horrific. Gone in a flash, but no doubt in agony all the same, the written letters ‘massacre’ there in ‘future memory’ but otherwise not yet upon the wall to be seen.

(Holly remembered that this was only the first- perhaps second if one was technical- fight along the trip to Cairo, and fought back a wave of nausea wondering how much worse it could get.)

Joy continued to tremble but minutely, doing her best to hold the image of a concerned mother checking in on a teenager. “He moves only once he knows we’ve seen him, and taunts us first. …and in every path,” she breathed, “You catch him at the end.”

The gears were turning. Joy knew that he would get the Stand User eventually. She knew this- which meant…

“You know where he is now,” he observed. He received no answer, and the beetle made another ‘unnoticed’ pass beside them.

Silence. Their eyes remained averted from it, their calm betrayed by nothing but their inner thoughts and whispers.

“...Your Stand can’t reach it, can it?” Kakyoin murmured, and Joy swallowed.

(Stands were manifestations of a Fighting Spirit, Holly had been told. Supposedly, she never manifested one because she lacked one.)

(Holly wondered if Fighting had anything to do with Killing, and immediately felt ashamed.)

“...It’s not just….it…”

Joy knew her vines could only hold someone down for so long before it became a problem. She knew she could try hamon to put him to sleep, but she couldn’t see him from this angle. Instead-

“...My vines aren’t as strong alone,” she whispered tensely. Kakyoin had suspended Shotaro in the air with Hierophant. She herself could never hope to maintain that sort of thing. “And we need to immobilize him quickly enough that he’s knocked out. If I go for the seat he’s in…I need someone ready for the beetle.”

A short nod- so short, it could be mistaken for a sneezing motion, or a cough. Joy kept her breathing even, but held her Hamon back- the vines a dull brown and gold as they gradually ‘grew’ across the floor. Two seats away. One seat. And…

“...Get ready,” she murmured, and in the same moment she looked at the beetle in the air, she swore that it cackled.

Cautious eyes watched the roving thing- the Stand made one more pass over the air, and then looked directly to them.

(In the true present, outside of memory, Holly’s idle page turning and phone scrolling paused- her husband doing the same to glance worriedly and watch for the signs that he would need to step in. A small buzzing sound typical of a spring beetle making its way inside met her ears.)

(In the true present she ignored it. In the past, and in memory, thorned vines angrily coiled around an old man’s face and body with wild wrathful abandon.)

Holly could recall the feeling of blood on her hair and arms.

It wasn’t hers. It wasn’t even something splashed on her directly.

It was the red gathered from a tight, encircling grip of thorns and bramble, an elderly man choking in their grasp.

Joy had stiffened the minute she felt the wet upon her limbs, the vines corresponding in seemingly random patterns. The feeling that she herself was smothering someone in her grip was impossible to avoid, and it took everything she had to uphold a pattern of hamon.

She had never learned this for fighting, even if she knew there could be a time it was needed.

But she’d expected it, she thought grimly, to be a matter of more cut and dry self-defense.

(They would have died, both Joy and her counterpart reasoned, even as Holly refilled her tea to cope with the phantom sensation. Unrelated, innocent people would have died.)

(The feeling of blood lingered even when the vines were dispelled moments later.)

Wasting not a moment despite her shock, Joy had whispered- “Got him.”- but it was hardly necessary.

The beetle, before it had so much as uttered a word, began to flail and choke midair. Sputters became curses, and its eyes fixed wrathfully upon the one targeting its host. “You…Rotten BITC-”

Stones flew between bug and woman, and Kakyoin stood. Beside them both, the other two in their party jolted awake.

“Hn!! Wh- What’s going on-”

“Mnhh, who is shouting on- AH…”

Avdol could only be considered a hair more coherent than Joseph as the two woke, but both Joy and Kakyoin ignored it for the moment. They had more important things on hand after all, such as the focus that the former required to keep pinning her target down.

“Rearmost row,” she grunted, the balance of hamon versus otherwise strained. “Stand user!”

More stones entered the air. The beetle screeched- whereas in memory and potential it had toyed with them and created chaos, now they were the ones with the upperhand.

(She wished she could trust hamon to do the trick here. But her Hamon was never about such intense overpowering. The man in the airport seat wanted nothing more than to stay wide awake.)

(Even Holly knew that between a determined old man, and a boy whose desire to fight hinged on a vampiric mass of cells, the hamon would have a clear advantage against only one of those.)

The men moved quickly, and with a silence that one would almost think trained. Joy slid just slightly to the side to allow her father into the row, and Avdol swept out himself to chase after the man. Restraints of flame and violet bramble moved almost as quickly- interrogation the first thing both set their thoughts to.

Kakyoin…

Kakyoin regarded the insect before him like the vermin it was.

“You think you’re so smart!?” the Tower sneered, gagging and choking and wheezing as it dodged thrown emeralds so narrowly one could almost wonder if Hierophant was playing. “Lord DIO told me all about you! Whether you returned or otherwise, it didn’t matter- your ‘subtle strength’ has nothing on my speed, and soon I’ll have you spread as thin as yo- GLAUK-”

In a flash of green, Joy was met with the sight she had seen from before- from her sights of many futures and memories, or at least those that led to victory.

“Didn’t notice this, did you?” Kakyoin calmly retorted, narrowing his eyes. “My Hierophant spread himself under the seats long before Mrs. Kujo struck you. All I was doing…as leading you to the middle of my web...”

The teen moved toward the beetle stand as tentacles of green scrambled around it- ripping wings, limbs, and chunks of carapaced body apart, the Stand moving with violent glee that far contrasted Kakyoin’s seeming calm.

“You’ll have me ‘spread thin’? You should watch your words…Hierophant loves nothing more than tearing things like you apart.”

The beetle crumbled with a dying scream, and Kakyoin looked back to the others. Joy, for her part, still looked tense- sweating, grimacing, and holding firm.

Kakyoin’s confident stance deflated for worry. Joseph and Avdol were still at the seat. Joy, however, was still holding him down. So why-

“Nkh- Kakyoin-kun, the pilots-!!”

He ran from the spot immediately.

(Later they would realize just how different Stands could be. They had always assumed that because they saw one beetle, that was all there was. That the man whose tongue split apart and whose body shredded itself under pressure had nothing more to hide.)

(Later they would think- ‘insects often have colonies, don’t they?’- and realize how fortunate it was that the tower had only ever split in Two.)

“I…I am the TOWER,” Kakyoin heard as he rushed to the front, the words unheard and the beetle unseen by the stewardesses barring the way. It flew, both in his sight and in Joy’s visions, with erratic motions- sluggish and haggard, suffering under the injuries of its original source. “The very image..! Of DESTRUCTION…HKRHG-”

The boy grabbed the first stewardess in his path as she attempted to bar him, and he flashed a small smile.

“Apologies- normally I hate this kind of rough behavior, but this is really an emergency-” A pause, and as Kakyoin inhaled, his Stand shot forward at the beetle.

It screeched under the pull of vine-like limbs, and Kakyoin focused on the women.

“I need to talk to the pilots- one of the passengers started bleeding heavily, and I think we need to get him to a hospital.”

“YOUUUU! You…will nEVER REACH! KAAUGHK-”

“Please forgive us.”

“O-Oh, well if it’s something like that..!” the Stewardess breathed, her cohort already pulling the doors open to speak to the unharmed pilots. Kakyoin was doing well to ignore the charmed daze in the woman’s eye. Instead, just as Joy had in her mind, the mental attention went to the ground.

“You’ll never get there…Kkkkhhahahha…Never…”

The beetle was crushed under the feet of the very stewardess making her way to the pilots, unseen and unheard in its dying wails.

And at the back, as Joy released her hold on the gruesome corpse of a man before her, she shuddered.

“You’re…miles away,” Gray Fly rasped, gargled laughter coming through his bloodied lungs. “And Lord DIO has many…many others ready…He knows…them all…Controls…them all…! Kkkhahhhkkkhahhhkkk…”

Joy shuddered, and the men before their victim watched impassively as he wheezed. Coiling flames were unnecessary now, and violet was if anything a precautionary measure.

“They’ll make your trip….a living hell…hhh….hhhhaaahhhhh….”

As he wheezed, and then breathed his last.

In the past and in memory, Kakyoin rejoined the group as an announcement rang over the air- ‘Attention Passengers; due to medical emergency, we will be taking an unplanned stop-’

In the past and in memory, Joy slowly sank back into her seat and trembled, her father rushing to her side to take her shoulders and comfort her.

In the past and in memory, they disembarked from a plane that they had intended to take the full distance- too afraid of what could happen if they slipped even once.

(In the present, Holly Kujo looked over deep, thorn-mark scars on her palms, and saw them in a darker light. Later in her memory she could recall a study on Colony Stands- Stands with two or more personifications- and what they indicated. She could remember a young man in tiger print pants scolding a colony of six, gently feeding them a lunch of salami and cheese.)

(In the present, she knew there were always ‘exceptions to the rule’.)

Downing her tea as Sadao whispered her back to the present, she smiled her way away from the thoughts of who those exceptions would be.

(Jotaro’s ex-wife, Shotaro’s current wife, had not called for a reason.)

(She could focus on Suzume for now, and worry about how Luisa was handling her own double life later.)

“It is over Seiko,” he whispered, knowing too well what she was dealing with. “Ghosts of the past are in the past. It will be alright, Seiko.”

Ghosts. Holly breathed, and smiled, and nodded, and told herself it would be alright. Ghosts of the past, he said, and neither of them saw fit to comment on how painfully relevant the words were.

Ghosts were a thing they could tackle later. In a few hours. Perhaps even before Shotaro called the next morning.

(They were thoughts repeated like a mantra as they distracted themselves with books and music, the phone accusingly silent until they’d finally pushed it from mind.)

It wouldn’t ring until morning, Holly knew by the time she gave it a final touch with Space Oddity’s thorns, arms shaking all the way to her room as she forced herself to smile and breathe.

(That was how misfortune operated, after all.)

Holly didn’t know what the call would bring. If anything all she knew was that the call would be something that was delayed for some reason, her vision of the paths stretched too thin to keep going after that point.

All they could do was lay down together and hope. Hope, and sleep.

(And dream- dream of carved tigers and trimmed hedges, and a gleaming blade coated in flames.)

Chapter Text

When the plane touched down in Hong Kong, Suzume repacked her bag at an almost casual pace before being hurried off to the economy class where she would more easily blend in. It was easy enough when Hoshi handled the pace of it- one would simply blink and she was gone, as if she hadn’t been there at all- and once they were through the security measures of Hong Kong’s own airport, the trio were making their way out into the city just in time for the morning to truly be ‘morning’.

Or at least that was what Suzume thought. The sun was much brighter now, and people were bustling about, and there was nothing she could mistake for evening at all.

The airport of course had come with its challenges again- but it seemed that having experienced Narita International, Kakyoin was a fair bit more prepared for it all. When they exited the doors to the open air of Hong Kong, he immediately took in a relieved and even relaxed breath and looked out at familiar enough waters that he could be called ‘calm’.

It was easier, to pass off the changes here- not even being in an entirely different airport location could take that feeling away, not when they’d had to be airlifted from the ocean in ‘88 to begin with. Hong Kong itself though was a place he’d seen a few times in life, and it was a place that changed each time he had. Right now the new buildings on the horizon weren’t a thing he immediately connected to two decades of change- it was merely a ‘change’, and one that he floated and admired as they wandered along the Airline Express bay in search of ideal transport.

(Landing at another location wasn’t anything new either, he had been telling himself as he looked out to the sea. Narita International certainly wasn’t the only international airport in the Tokyo area, not by a long shot, and with the expansion Hong Kong had been going through in his memory it was no surprise.)

(He just had to keep telling himself that as they waited for the train.)

Walking to Narita International was one thing- but walking away from Hong Kong International just wasn’t happening. If they were going to head for Haw Par for some reminiscing before leaving by boat- or even if all they were after was a boat- they needed to get off the Airport’s island and to the Kowloon area. Kakyoin was doing his best not to think too hard about how they would manage it- if there was one thing he’d learned by now, it was that Suzume’s Stand seemed to have everything in order.

(The unconscious cling to things that JoJo had known in a past life was impressive- had Kakyoin been more willing to let his thoughts wander, he could even call it suspicious.)

(Unfortunately, wandering thoughts led to reminders of cold water and broken bodies, and such flashing fears only led to his own personal frustration as local damages racked up.)

There was a tug at his side, and sure enough the pair had done what they needed.

“Hoshi got one ticket…do you need one though..?” Ah. Aha.

The express rail wasn’t quite there yet, so Kakyoin looked away from the track heading off toward what was considered the mainland of Hong Kong.

‘And yet,’ Kakyoin thought with an idle smile, ‘Not the location of the namesake.’

That honor went to Hong Kong Island, where their goal of the gardens would be.

With a question he still needed to answer, he shook his head. “I’ll be fine, J- Suzume,” he assured, catching himself before the glare this time. “If it gets crowded I can hide in your hair tie, but I won’t need a ticket.”

With a smiling nod, Suzume thus trotted over for a bench that was still miraculously clear so she could sit. While early in the morning, the station at the airport was already quite busy- Hong Kong was a dense and heavily active place of business to Kakyoin’s memory, and he felt no surprise at the sight. If it hadn’t been crowded in fact, he’d have wondered if something was wrong.

It was probably a good thing that JoJo’s lone guardian was to be her Stand, he thought, looking down at the girl. If that hadn’t been the case, there’d be a very real worry about being separated from them.

Still waiting for the train to arrive, Kakyoin looked down to his companion. “So,” he chanced, ready to give the answer when she inevitably fumbled. “Do you know where we’re going?”

Suzume of course shook her head, her Stand simply looking along down the tracks. No doubt Hoshi could already see the incoming thing, however far off it was.

(Jotaro could, in fact, see it, as it started pulling out from its stop. It would be there in moments, and then they’d be able to carry on toward the Kowloon area. He, like Kakyoin, had not seen Hong Kong in some time however.)

(He, unlike Kakyoin, was taking into account the many changes that had happened as tensions steadily rose in the area, and trying not to worry about how much he’d have to try and steer his charge away from while looking for a garden that no longer existed.)

No longer keen on waiting in silence, Suzume blinked up at her friend.

“Where?”

Pondering the options, Kakyoin hummed. “Food, first,” he replied, looking down with a smile. “It might not seem like you need it, but it’s been a while since your breakfast hasn’t it? And it’ll take us more time to look for somewhere to eat, too.”

A rumbling started down the track, and people started to gather closer toward the side. Star Platinum was quick to move and hold her in place, if only to make certain that she didn’t get knocked over. Kakyoin didn’t see much after that- while he’d predicted it necessary, the sheer force and shock of abruptly having countless people walking right through him was enough to send him running for the hair tie.

(They would probably get out at the right stop. Probably. Until then time could simply pass in a blur, the way he had always mastered it.)

(The way he’d dared not allow it, the night before. The night they left. The night they-)

Nori? Nori, we’re here. Noriiii…

Kakyoin floated out, and immediately flinched.

Maybe he’d have been more ready for it, if he’d remained on the train. Or perhaps not. Perhaps the windows would have been tinted- a dark caramel hiding away the reality outside, allowing him to pretend it was that same dusty city as before. Or perhaps he’d have just caused a railway incident- looking at the clock, he hadn’t expected them to be here this quickly. Sure, the bullet train to Osaka would have been just as fast- probably faster, actually, if he did his math right.

But this was a simple airport rail, if there was a good way to say that.

The train rushed off behind him, and he was glad JoJo had waited until they were off at the station to call him. He’d probably have had to be pulled off otherwise, and that would have just been a mess.

(They hadn’t needed this, when they were airlifted. The destination they were brought to was where they stood now, almost, in the middle of the Kowloon area of Hong Kong. It was why they’d ended up on Hong Kong Island to begin with- after looking for a hotel and some food, they’d picked something with more plantlife to it.)

(They hadn’t needed this before, but only Jotaro knew between the two ‘older’ ones that the airport there had been demolished in the 90s, with the one behind them built to do better, and do it farther from the encroaching sprawl of skyscraper growth.)

Tugging at his sleeve drew his attention again, and Kakyoin looked down as the girl beside him frowned. “Nori, I don’t know where we’re going…” she whispered, and Kakyoin nodded. He could handle this, he thought with a needless breath, looking for the exit from the station. “Where are we going..?”

After she’d seemingly wandered her way with ease through the house, this was an interesting change, Kakyoin had to admit. Then again, he highly doubted Jotaro had ever been in this area of the city- so with a slight turn of the head, he spoke. “We’re not going to be picky,” he calmly explained, looking back down to Suzume. “You’re not hungry yet, right?” At the girl’s nod, he smiled. “So we’re going to look, while enjoying ourselves, just like last time.”

Well.

Not just like it, perhaps.

(If he looked just to the left he’d have even seen the actual Jotaro’s steady and dry frown over it.)

But he wasn’t about to spill how tense things had been at the time, if she wasn’t thinking about that.

It had taken them half an hour to get to Kowloon, but Kakyoin was confident in the thought that it would take far longer to cover the rest of the ground in Hong Kong by foot. Not merely because of Suzume’s own physical limits, but also because it would benefit all of them if they took their time. All this rushing, he was realizing, was actually taking a toll on him- if he could hover somewhere more familiar for a moment or so, and simply ‘be’, it would settle some nerves.

(He didn’t dwell on the fact that that had been his existence for a number of decades. There was a difference, after all, in the choice and in lacking it. He had been stuck there, at that tree, surrounded by students in uniform- as if taunting him with what he’d taken for granted and now would never have again.)

(He didn’t dwell on how much of an ‘average teenaged life’ he missed either.)

The streets were different- and here, Kakyoin was certain that Star Platinum’s knowledge wouldn’t serve them much use either. The Stand was staring off into various directions, but that was about it. So Kakyoin took a glance at the shore nearby, and then to the opposite direction.

“For now,” he determined, “We’ll retrace our steps. Follow me, JoJo,” the ghost requested, ignoring the frown he received to his back. “I can tell you about this place while we go; did you know that the first time, we landed via helicopter? We weren’t able to keep most of the things we brought on board, though there wasn’t much to speak of to begin with,” he rambled, Suzume’s tiny fuming footsteps tromping behind.

“Why did we use a helly…Hellichopter, Mister Donut?”

Kakyoin grimaced, but ultimately recognized his slip.

He wouldn’t say he deserved that specifically, but he did at least sigh and turn. “Sorry, Suzume…” he muttered, not sounding especially remorseful about it. Ignoring the steady frowns from both child and Stand now (and once again he was reminded of how much like Jotaro’s default scowl Star Platinum’s default expression was), he stooped down to explain.

“Do you remember how we had to crash?” he began, waiting for the nod before they carried on down the street. Chatter was good. Chatter was familiar, and distracting, and kept him from looking up. Up, at buildings now even taller than he remembered in some cases. At buildings that were more populated and decorated than before, at streets even more crowded than before- so crowded in fact, that he practically had to hover directly above JoJo while he motioned directions out and hoped Hoshi would guide from there. “We weren’t able to guide the plane to land- if we had, the crash would have caused a lot of injuries for people living here,” Kakyoin explained.

Suzume looked around a moment, and nodded. “There’s too many people on the road…you can’t park a plane…”

Refraining from snorting too loudly at that, the ghost nodded. “Look up- there’s too many power lines and skyscrapers too,” he argued. “It was lucky Mr. Jo- ahem, ‘JiJi’,” he corrected, though Kakyoin noted that Suzume seemed less irritated about that slip than the one for her name, “-was able to crash as successfully as he did anyway. The controls had been totally ruined by the Tower, and he’d only flown propeller planes before.” He paused to sigh, shaking his head. They were passing a small park now, and though he was tempted to offer a break to the girl there, he decided they’d be better off reaching the Kowloon Walled City first before going from there. While hardly the best place to be sitting around, it was something of a novelty (albeit an incredibly unsafe one), and she’d probably be just as entertained by the trivia as she was anything else.

The propeller though.

“...What’s a propeller…”

He didn’t expect that issue. Hm. “Ahhh…have you seen any windmills while outside, Suzume?” he offered, and Suzume stopped walking a moment to think about that. With a nudge from Hoshi, she kept going, but ultimately shook her head.

Shoot, that would have made this much easier.

“Right…it’s sort of…Oh- have you seen a fan?” he asked with a smile, and this time she did nod. “Great. Imagine things like fans on the wings and fronts- the nose- of planes. They used to help keep the plane in the air, but now the fans are only on the wings of larger planes, and much bigger- they’re turbines, instead of propellers now.”

It looked a bit like most of what he said had literally flown over Suzume’s head, but she was at least nodding as if it hadn’t, so he would take that as a win.

“...if planes have noses…do they have eyes..?”

…

Alright maybe he should have seen that one coming.

“It’s not really… …Planes have noses but they’re not the same as our noses, Suzume. It’s hard to explain.” Or at least, he didn’t look forward to seeing how much of the concept of ‘anthropomorphism’ stuck with a five year old. Kakyoin moved on, focusing on changing the subject as they walked. “The important thing, is we had to crash in the ocean- the plane floated for a little, and everyone had to jump out into the water with life jackets until the helicopter could lift everyone out. From there, we were dropped off at the airport.”

That had Suzume perk up immediately. “Where we went!” she cheered, and Kakyoin beamed. There was a bit of a pause from some of the people on the street, but the ghost was happy to see that the language barrier meant nothing worrying- it was hard to tell someone was talking to thin air if you had no idea what they were saying.

(Of course, there had been a few other looks, looks Jotaro suspected had little to do with language barriers and everything to do with the call Gomera had no doubt made by this time, but Jotaro was quick to make sure they carried on their way. If Kakyoin was heading for Kowloon City, he could at least take a guess on the right direction.)

(Particularly with the incline they were coming up upon as they walked down the busy shop streets.)

“Not quite- there was another airport,” Kakyoin explained, and while he wasn’t Actually certain why this was the case, he could take a guess. As they passed displays of local clothing and jade, he took a glance upward and nodded inwardly. “See all the buildings J- Suzume?” Not waiting for the nod, he continued. If he was right about the landmarks- which was everything and anything if one was technical, but he could at least see the nearby incline that loomed nearby- they would be able to see Kowloon’s infamous mass of condensed construction soon, and he was getting a bit excited if he were honest with himself. “Planes need time to lower down properly and safely. These buildings would be in the way, as would all the cables that go between them- there used to be an airport near here, but if you remember where we landed, there was a lot more space wasn’t there?”

Another nod, and Kakyoin smiled.

“So you can see why it’s different. It’s been a long time,” he admitted, swallowing down the feeling of ‘wrongness’ that came with it. Time marched on yet here he was, but he was hardly going to let himself spiral and snap a cable because of it. Not when he was about to have some fun for once, and fun with an old friend (of sorts) besides. “Because of us landing in a different area, it’s taking us a bit longer to get there…but one of the first things we went by when we landed, was a great big building that I’m going to show you now, which we almost tried to stay at,” he snickered, missing the rolled eyes Hoshi gave in turn.

(Jotaro could remember very easily, the frustration and disbelief on his face as he listened to his grandfather fluster in the face of the mammoth structure that was the Kowloon Walled City. As soon as Kakyoin had started about it, Joseph had hopped in and insisted on experiencing the oddity while they waited for the Foundation’s update. It had taken no less than 20 minutes of back and forth between the old man, Avdol, and Kakyoin to try and emphasize that the construct was largely personal apartments with store fronts and social gathering points, not a hotel, before Jotaro finally barked for everyone to shut up and stormed off toward something that looked promising.)

(It wasn’t quite his intention to force them all to follow in that way, but it at least worked, and saved them the embarrassment of watching his British-American grandfather make an ass of himself with the locals for more time than necessary.)

“Where are we going to stay?” Suzume asked as they came around the corner, and while Kakyoin was still looking to her, Star Platinum seemed to look ahead and balk.

“I don’t know that we’re going to be sleeping here tonight,” Kakyoin hummed, tapping his chin in thought. “We took a boat to leave Hong Kong last time, and while it took a bit for things to be arranged, we shouldn’t have that issue- so you can likely sleep there,” he explained, moving to look toward Kowloon. “For now though, there should be a street restaurant somewhere along the wall here- we can see how long it takes to find, and-”

It did not take long to see why even Star Platinum seemed shocked, when he turned to face the location that should have been Kowloon’s Walled City. Kakyoin could remember it in his mind- the walls, the windows mashed together, the ladders on rooftops connecting structure to structure, and the tangle of satellite dishes and laundry equipment. The city was an architect’s nightmare or artistic dream depending on how one looked at it, an enclave of living that had quickly been overtaken by crime within. His plan had been to make sure they stayed outside it- or at least that they went no further than the storefronts that littered the edges and bottoms- but he quickly saw that there was no way for that plan to come to fruition.

Time had marched on. Hong Kong had only grown, its buildings taller, its population mammoth. It had been easy to think to himself that it was natural, seeing more and more of the skyscrapers stretching upward. But this was a level of change Kakyoin had not expected in the slightest.

No- as he looked to the stretch of greenery before him, the magnificent park that sat where the Kowloon Walled City once stood, he found himself shocked into silence.

Chapter Text

If one were to press Jotaro about the current circumstance, he would have to summarize it as ‘frustrated’. On the one hand, he was hopeful that both distraction and recreation would help Kakyoin’s ghost to shuffle off the mortal coil as he should have long ago, cursing his old friend with isolation no longer. While a more selfish person might have been tempted to find a way to keep such a spirit around, Jotaro was at least slightly realistic about it all- perhaps if he were still ‘alive’ and human he might have considered it, but the fact was that this was the happiest he’d seen the ghost for some time. There was hope there again, but more importantly a natural ease that hadn’t been there before.

It no doubt wouldn’t last- such a mood was fleeting for the dead, as it didn’t take long for reality to crash down. It was why the hope was that he could move on- so that the pressuring gloom of such back and forth could be done with, and things could simply return to some level of peace. That he was rapidly left thinking on his feet about how to handle things like shelter and food for someone who couldn’t do so for herself didn’t help, and if he wasn’t resigned to completing the entire trip he’d have simply done what he could to get Suzume stuck at the airport.

As it was he instead fast-tracked their exit, something that no one looking for a child would be likely to expect, and followed along with the nostalgia blinded ghost and his charge. At this point he knew from prior experience that simply going back home with Kakyoin in tow would not end well- either for them, as the spirit’s encroaching issues forced a decline that seeped into reality, or for Kakyoin himself when an exorcist or similar was inevitably involved.

Perhaps an exorcism would actually work. He didn’t know. But having seen bits and pieces of media he was pretty sure it would just cause more frustration even if it did.

No one- least of all his parents, least of all his mother, deserved that.

(She didn’t deserve this either, a sharp, biting voice that made him think of his ex-wife, reminded. Call or no call, she had no way to guarantee their safety, and he himself would have no way to change that.)

(He ignored that voice as he had for many years now, and tried desperately not to think about how doing so had been what caused the entire mess to begin with. He justified his actions the way he always had- ‘It was for the best’, ‘There was nothing else to be done’, ‘We’re here Now’- and drowned it out with as many distractions as possible.)

(He and Kakyoin were not so unalike, despite the passage of time.)

Kowloon Walled City Park, as it was called, was an eerie reminder for all but one of how much had changed. Once, here, there had been a massive structure clustered in over itself- there had been a string of apartments across the street toward the incline, and across on the other end parking lots and gradually developed land.

Now, that was all gone. Now there was grass and greenery, and as Suzume cheerfully wandered inside, both he and Kakyoin watched in quiet shock.

“...It used to be here,” Kakyoin was saying, torn between spouting trivia for the fun of it, and between doing so to calm down. “The ‘Walled City’ was a small city in itself- apartments, businesses, they all grouped together within one small area. Most apartments were as small as 250 square feet,” Kakyoin explained distantly, looking out at the trees. “And it was saturated with crime, with control of it falling in the hands of the triads.”

At Suzume’s confused blink, Kakyoin opted to press on rather than explain. Jotaro was glad for it- explaining criminal organizations akin to the mafia was not something the girl was ready for.

Birdsong occasionally broke through the trees as they walked, and while Jotaro suspected that Kakyoin would ordinarily have wanted for them to hurry it up and get to Hong Kong Island to reach the site of their battle with Polnareff- or at least Avdol’s- it seemed the spirit was locked in a daze. It was not unlike when they’d first met the being. Something parallel to the shock of coming to the Kujo house, something that prevented the surroundings from falling under sway entirely because Kakyoin was too numb to feel more than a breeze of emotion.

Animals were watching them, Jotaro realized as they walked. As Kakyoin murmured trivia note after trivia note about the fallen Kowloon, expression a hair away from horror in the face of the unshakable proof that time had continued without him.

A squirrel bolted from them- Jotaro refrained from snorting a laugh when he noticed that Suzume had taken a moment to pout at it before that point.

(‘Peanut stealing jerks’ indeed.)

“...Nori?” By the time Suzume chanced asking the spirit something directly, they were well into the park. It was clean and clearly maintained, easy to traverse walkways and bridges with rails making it simple to get about. There was no getting lost, or at least truly lost, in such a space- and so for now they sat in the stands of what was a round playing arena, empty for the moment due to a lack of events for the day. Paper and crayons had yet to be pulled out from the bag, but it seemed that the girl was fine enough without. The novelty of her surroundings held her attention enough without tiring her.

As did her conversation partner, it seemed.

“...Nori? …do you miss the city?”

Kakyoin visibly stumbled in the air, and Jotaro raised his brows at the sight. “I- …What?”

“You know a lot about it..!” Suzume pointed out immediately, nodding furiously. The fervor faded quick however, and she gained a more saddened look. “...but you’re also sad… …is it because it’s gone..? …can’t it come back..?”

It was so innocently put. If things that made you happy were gone, why not simply get them back? For Suzume it was that simple. That was why she suggested going in the first place, even if it had taken bits and pieces of reality from Kakyoin to fill in the perceived ‘how’. If something wasn’t there, they just had to get it back.

Would that the world work that way.

“...It’s not so simple,” Kakyoin voiced for him. “...Imagine…if you tore your drawing,” he explained falteringly, his voice growing thick with emotion now that he’d been called on it. “Even taping it together wouldn’t make it the same- and that’s just a drawing. If someone ruined your house…destroyed it,” he added, and as the spirit stumbled over those words and glanced aside, Jotaro bowed his head.

(Kakyoin knew full well what he’d been starting to do at the house after all. It was hard to ignore.)

(But now here, there was little to affect. The air seemed heavier perhaps, and silent with the absence of animals who knew better- but the fact was, there would always be that barrier between the world of the living, and wherever Kakyoin existed at this moment.)

“We would fix that then…right?” The girl paused, considering Kakyoin’s words. “Umn… …with a lot of tape…”

A snort, and for a moment Kakyoin smiled. It vanished quickly however, and he shook his head. “...It would take more than tape. And it would take a lot of time. ….And…people would have to want it back,” he added more hesitantly, the pair of them watching as Suzume tilted her head. “I’m sure your mother would want that of course,” Kakyoin insisted, “And more than that, your house won’t be destroyed- that’s a promise,” he hummed, and Jotaro kept from outright shaking his head at the sight.

That was a promise that would only work out if this worked out, but he could hardly bring that point up.

(It suited him, as a punishment. Along for the ride, left unable to interfere after having refused for so long.)

“...Then… …why can’t your city come back?”

Kakyoin almost outright laughed this time, though the sound came out more akin to a wheeze. “It wasn’t…my city,” he snorted. “...That’s part of why, really. …For me it was just…amusement. Something to look at. Kowloon Walled City was dangerous,” the spirit warned, looking across the many trees that now stood in the building’s place. “The alleys were tight and full of refuse…and the people lived among crime and violence, even if they banded together for their sakes. People went…missing in the Walled City,” he murmured.

Suzume did not seem to know what to say.

“...It’s best that it was taken down,” Kakyoin finally said in the silence. “That they replaced it with this park is…incredible, in fact.”

It appeared as if she was still confused, but the girl at least nodded. She seemed a bit worried about it still- the park was nice, and the city apparently not so nice, but was it really all gone as well? At her prompting, Jotaro opted to look more heavily in the direction he knew it was meant to be in- focusing his eyes as well as possible to make up for the distance.

The park was by no means small, but they had made their way a good ways in- far enough that they were right near something that had managed to withstand even the madcap construction of the original Kowloon structure. Pulling mentally for Suzume’s attention, Jotaro waited for the girl to respond before they both started in that direction.

“Hm? Is there something over there?”

Suzume nodded. “Hoshi found a building,” she calmly answered, trotting off toward it. A building it was indeed- once far enough down the path that they were directly in front of it, Kakyoin found himself staring with rapt interest.

“Oh…they…They kept this?”

“...What is it..?”

The spirit blinked. “It’s…it’s the original ‘Yamen’ of Kowloon. An administrative building,” he absently explained, inspecting the relic of a cannon on display near it. “They built around this building to begin with, which was impressive on its own- as you can see it’s not that tall, and there’s a courtyard in it…but to keep it from ruin while taking the buildings down as well is nothing short of incredible…”

Jotaro could not help but agree. Time was a merciless thing. It took, and it took, and left nothing behind. He knew that more than anything, especially now that it had literally rolled over and left something entirely different in its wake.

But there was something comforting about the sight of the Yamen, a few visitors wandering in and out among the lush greenery surrounding it. For all that the park was a marvel of planned nature, it was still a breath of fresh air- and one that still maintained even ruins from its history.

(He wondered if that boy- Emporio, he thought his name was- could have explored the original Kowloon if he desired. They surely couldn’t have preserved the Yamen without some reconstruction of some kind.)

(As quickly as the thought passed, Jotaro closed his eyes. Emporio had lived, that much he was certain- there was no Pucci, after all. But he had no way of knowing if the boy was actually okay, and no true way to convey to someone that there was more than just his daughter to be concerned for.)

The three stayed there in silence from there. Kakyoin looking at the Yamen with something indescribable in his expression, Suzume with her quiet wonder. He himself in silent pondering as time passed over them peacefully, while taking nothing away.

If this much could remain from the actions of those doing their best to remove the past from sight and mind, maybe he could find a little more hope in giving Kakyoin peace.

After all- this was just Hong Kong.

The rest of the world, especially those places they had yet to revisit, would have changed as well.

Chapter Text

Kakyoin and the others remained at the Yamen in Kowloon Walled City Park for an hour or so before determining it was time to leave. There was nothing they could especially eat while here- no food stands or similar, and for that matter no money- but Suzume had yet to give sign that she was hungry, and as her Stand had yet to indicate as much as well, the spirit assumed they would be fine for now.

For all that the morning was pleasant, he had not forgotten why they were here after all. They needed to get to Hong Kong Island- it had been easy in the past. Back then they’d simply gotten in a car and driven, using the tunnel bridging it to the mainland. There had been no sidewalk then, however- it was strictly for road traffic, and while he had no way of checking for otherwise he felt confident in the assumption that this wouldn’t have changed.

Perhaps a ferry then, he thought. A ferry would be easy enough to slip onto after a plane, he was sure. The question then was where to find a ferry- but with a sigh, he acknowledged that going somewhere was better than sitting and floating around.

“We should head for the shoreline,” he eventually said, looking at JoJo. “Are you up to walking, J-Suzume?”

The girl paused a moment to consider that, and eventually nodded. “Hoshi can carry me if I get tired,” she declared, and while Star Platinum merely frowned at that- no doubt for the same reason Kakyoin was, which was that Suzume would be seen by no less than a few hundred people at a time if he did that- they decided to take it. Walking to the shoreline and looking for a ferry couldn’t take that long, could it?

They started making their way onward, Kakyoin keeping a bit to the air for his own sake, and Suzume quietly following what directions he gave from there. He was no Star Platinum, but hovering above the street crowds at least made it easy to see where they were going- and given Suzume’s possession of his apparent bound object, they wouldn’t be getting separated either.

It was far busier now however, so they would need to be careful. It was probably nearing…noon now? The thought pulled his attention downward briefly, and Kakyoin hummed.

“...We never did find a place for you to eat did we,” he muttered, looking around. His heart sank when he realized a fatal error in his initial plan. Last time, they’d found a restaurant across at Hong Kong Island and settled to eat there. But they had Mr. Joestar’s wallet at that time, not to mention the backing of the SPW.

(Really it was mostly Mr. Joestar’s wallet though. As much as the Speedwagon Foundation was willing to help with travel expenses, the man was apparently an incredibly successful realtor and an inheritor of a Lord’s funds besides. He had casual tastes and as such the money had lasted for a good number of years, and putting the pieces together down the line as they were revealed brought him no surprise.)

It had felt familiar in the restaurant, but somehow more so than it ever had when out with family due to their travels or vacations. When he’d sat there he should have been an outsider. A former attacker, along for the ride, having only just now proven any loyalty by taking a man down for the cause. Instead it felt easy.

Jumping into the plans for travel, even if to say he had no input and would go wherever. Grumbling about the timing, about how they could have easily been in Cairo by the time they were settling for dinner at all. Explaining local dining traditions, one part to distract himself, another to calm down the fellow teenager beside him.

(Jotaro was tense and there had been no denying it. He’d been snappy and growled at practically anyone they didn’t know and after the shock that had been Gray Fly none could blame him. Jotaro spent the time waiting for their meal with one hand at his chin and another clenched tightly by his chair, a facsimile of a casual slouch. Anyone with eyes could see through it.)

(Anyone with eyes could have guessed that the minute a foreign tourist came to them in the middle of a restaurant for help, they were getting shouted at, and had Joseph not had the foresight to de-escalate at least long enough to eat, it would’ve been a mess.)

The water was in view now, and Kakyoin stooped down to whisper in Suzume’s ear- “I’m going to float ahead a little, as much as I can, to see where we can find a boat to get across. I’ll try seeing how they pay as well, but how about you have St-” A cough, as Suzume frowned. “Hoshi take a look as well?”

Without any prompting, the Stand was summoned- he’d faded from view after leaving the park to keep from drawing attention to the girl via a wide berth (not to mention to avoid tempting fate on Stand encounters, he imagined), but with something to do there was no reason to hang back.

Suzume thus sat on a ledge and waited, her Stand at his outer limit, and Kakyoin soon doing the same. A few birds flew in to land nearby, and otherwise, there was nothing for it.

Kakyoin turned his focus on the shoreline. There were tour ships, but that was hardly what they wanted to be boarding right now. There were other, smaller ferries as well it seemed though- familiar ones even, the structure perhaps reinforced over time but otherwise building on a design that hadn’t changed in a number of years. It made him smile, despite himself. Familiarity was a welcome thing, and he would take what he could get.

A glance at some passing people had him soon focusing on them as well. He couldn’t completely understand Cantonese- bits and pieces at best- but it looked to him as if they were talking about the tokens in their hands, with how one was gesturing from their companion to the ferry.

“Great…” he muttered in resignation. “Now we have to find something more than just spare change…” While he didn’t doubt Suzume could be snuck aboard, it felt safer to go with an honest method where they could. There wasn’t much else he could do however- so he floated back and sighed.

Hopefully ‘Hoshi’ had spotted something they could use…

“I’ve found a ferry,” he explained casually, looking to the side to check in on Star Platinum’s location. He seemed to be studying something far to the side, and if he squinted it looked a bit like a vending machine. The same system as the train, perhaps? “They take token payment,” he carried on as he turned back, “So we’ll have to look for-” A pause, and he looked at Suzume.

Suzume, who had evidently managed to let trouble find her while her Stand was otherwise busy.

Again. Somehow.

She appeared, he observed dully- not completely sure if he was actually seeing this or not- to be surrounded by birds. Some were magpies- he could tell by the white on their wings, and their sleek black feathers as one or the other chirped mimicked sounds at the child. Some were crows- the local varieties, some looking ruddy and faded in their plumage, while others bore a unique collar of white around their necks. There was a rook or two, even a Raven, and all of them were quite focused on her.

And really he couldn’t be surprised about that, not when he gaped at the rest of the scene before him.

Suzume also had after all, quite a lot of food- all of it on cheap street food dishes, despite being far from cheap street food. He could see a familiar beef porridge sitting in a soda cup of all things. Roast fish, carefully balanced on a 7-11 sandwich lid. There were mussels, shrimp, and even duck, and the sheer contrast between the food and the dishes shocked him briefly to silence. Some of it looked like it had rightfully been tossed- if anyone ate that, they’d be sitting on the toilet for hours. Some dishes meanwhile seemed fit for gourmet- something from a Michelin 3 star.

The only problem, he felt, was that this was a street corner near a set of ferry docks, and they were nowhere near any such establishment.

“...J…JoJo..?!”

The girl paused in the middle of passing what looked to be grilled frog on a stick to one of the birds, and the two stared at the other.

And stared. And-

“...They said please…”

…

He wheezed somewhat brokenly, his unblinking stare still fixed on the girl and her various platters of food. Every one of the birds present now had also turned, reminding him of the awkward fact that while human beings couldn’t see him, animals certainly could, and he almost felt that they were now beginning to judge him. “They said…please…did they…”

Judged by parliament of magpies and crows. As if the afterlife couldn’t get any weirder.

Suzume nodded, and passed the frog over. Immediately, the frog taken by the crow went ‘off’ in color, while the one in her hands seemed to only look fresher.

“...and…orange bird for this one…” she muttered, passing a chunk of glazed duck to another bird as Kakyoin took in the regeneration of the original dish again. “And…”

…

Kakyoin felt one part at peace, and another part utterly livid.

Where was that Stand, he asked himself despite knowing that Star Platinum had yet to move from two meters away in the direction of the vending machines. He was going to find some way to yank the thing’s non-existent ears if it killed him, for apparently ignoring the presence of another one.

Chapter Text

As far as Suzume was concerned in that moment, there really wasn’t anything bad happening at all.

The first few birds appeared after the other two left to do their looking. What they were looking for, she was only sort of sure. She knew they had to get across the water, and apparently they would do that with a boat- which was probably what the thing she could see move across the water now was, but why weren’t they on that now then?- but she didn’t really know much about the details of it all, so she was quite alright with just sitting behind and waiting.

Her tummy sort of hurt though, and had made a few grumbling sounds, which reminded her of what Nori had said not long ago.

“...we still don’t have food…” she muttered, scowling a bit heavily. At this, one of the birds beside her gave a chirp. Or maybe it was something more like a ‘Kauh’. It sounded sharp, like they were agreeing she thought, so she looked to it and blinked. “...mnh…do…you not have food either..?”

There was no immediate answer, and so Suzume simply nodded. She understood. It was no good to not have food.

“If, um… …If Hoshi gets us food, I’ll give you some…because you aren’t a squirrel, and squirrels steal peanuts…”

The bird cocked its head, and made the ‘kauh’ sound at another bird. The other two there repeated it, and looked up.

Suzume stared.

The birds stared.

“Kaw!”

She decided they probably agreed. “Umn- ok. Nori said we have to find..a restaurant place, and that’s where the food is…”

One of the birds flew away at that point, and Suzume gasped. Maybe they knew where the restaurant place was? Nori and Hoshi seemed to be having a lot of trouble with that, so even if it was a bird, a bird could probably help.

While the first one flew away, a few more landed beside her though. They seemed to have brought a lot of things that looked like plates. They weren’t really plates- they had cracks and things, and some were even see through, and they were strange square shapes for the most part- but they’d probably work really well in their place.

Some of them could have even been bowls, she was pretty sure.

Suzume looked back at Hoshi for a moment. He was still looking out toward the machines, she thought- except maybe that wasn’t the only thing he was looking at. Hoshi felt like Nori did, when they were at the house. He felt tense and sad and even scared, even without anything happening at all. It was the kind of feeling that she didn’t think anyone actually knew about. The kind of feeling you didn’t know was happening until something broke, or screamed.

Hoshi was looking at the machines where people were getting their blue coins, but he was also looking at the water.

She could remember, vaguely, looking out at the water feeling nothing at all. She was just looking- looking as hard and as far as she could.

But she knew that Hoshi had wanted to see. To see all the little creatures that lived in it, to see how they moved and survived, how they coexisted with one another. She knew it had made him happy to see that.

(Jotaro once loved the ocean. He studied it, and earned his degree toward it, and being honest had found peace in it. The ocean was dangerous, but it was a danger he could control for himself. They knew less about it than the regions beyond their own atmosphere, and yet there could be peace found in that mystery. It was an uncertainty he could keep at a safe distance, a thing he could offer respect and work with.)

(He died at the shore of its waters, and despite being miles away now, he could not keep that fact from mind. The ocean had been something he loved, but looking at the sea now he couldn’t focus on what he loved about it first. All he could do was focus on the feeling of desperation as he pushed his daughter out of immediate harms way during frozen time, and the blinding instant of pain from Made In Heaven’s hand slamming into his skull.)

Suzume looked at her Stand, and decided to do her best not to let him feel worse because of her. She knew he could feel the things she felt, so she would make sure it was only happy things for now. Looking back to the birds, she blinked as the first one returned.

This time, there was something with them. It looked like a bird, Suzume thought- but it also didn’t. She was pretty sure that it was something a lot more like Hoshi was in fact- or Melon, or Red, or Knight. It almost looked like a big fat chicken, if chickens had bodies made of gashapon machines like along the sidewalks. She couldn’t see through the glass in the middle though- Instead there were lots of cage bars across it, hiding everything inside.

The chicken had normal wings, and normal feathers along their back, but their legs were made of metal and plastic. Their feet even looked like forks and knives, and she wondered if that made it easier for them to eat. Their head, even with their body, was the weirdest part- half was clear, like glass, with bundles of wires stretching up for a neck. But the beak, and the top of their head, was metal, and unbreakable. Their eyes were glass-lensed goggles, but sometimes metal in the lenses would close and open for eye-lids, one after the other.

Suzume stared.

The bird that brought them here stared as well, and then eventually the chicken spoke.

“ORDER-PLEASE!”

A blink. “...Order..?” Suzume looked to the birds, and blinked. “...are they going to get us food..?”

Turning to the chicken, the first bird chirped- and then, to Suzume’s even greater surprise, said a few words. “Hǎixiān quècháo!”

The bird’s voice was strange, and high- it sounded more like it should have been said somewhere else, and by someone else. But the Chicken gave a metal cluck, and the knob on their middle started to spin. One of the other birds quickly stuck their plastic dish under, and a nest of noodles came out, filled with mushrooms, shrimp, pieces of fish, and more. It smelled sort of funny though- and Suzume wrinkled her nose.

Maybe she had to say something else then. Obviously though, if she said something she could get food though. Before she could, the bird with the nest food pulled their dish toward another, and started passing things to the rest. Shrimp to one, fish to another- it was a very nice thing to do, Suzume thought, even if it didn’t look like something she wanted to eat.

Except, she realized quickly, it was starting to smell really good. And, she realized with a gasp, everything that the bird was giving away was still in the bowl.

“Everyone’s food is…”

It was becoming ‘more’. After they got their food from the first bird, each bird would seek out another and start breaking their food apart to share. The piece they started with would start to smell better and better, and the pieces taken away would smell as strange as the thing they started with.

Suzume thought, with a slowly growing smile, that she understood now.

Quietly, she looked to the first bird- who looked quite pleased indeed.

“...I don’t have a bowl…” she whispered, shaking her head. “But…can I ask for food still, please..?”

Immediately, the bird preened. “Kauh!” A large styrofoam cup that had been cleaned out was passed over, and with careful tiny hands, she moved it under the chicken.

What did she want to eat though? While she’d watched everyone share, a lot of other birds had started chirping all kinds of orders. There was a lot of food piling up, but she was pretty sure she’d have to give pieces to everyone else before she could eat any of it. So just taking a lot of food was a bad idea.

That was nice, she thought. It was nice that the important part was sharing first. But there was a lot of very good food here, and she wanted to make sure that whatever she shared was something really good too.

Suzume thought about it for a moment, and thought of what she made a lot with Haha. That would be perfect, she decided- after all, none of what the birds were getting so far looked much like what Haha made. So-

“Can I have…um…’curry bread’..?” That was what Haha called it at least. She made the curry, and then put bread beside it. It tasted very good, and the bread was always very buttery.

There was a clanking sound from the Chicken. Instead of pouring out curry though, a big lumpy bread came out. It looked sort of like the crunchy bread fish she had before- but somehow different.

Suzume stared.

A number of the birds, some of whom were starting to pass small bits to her while other birds waited for her to pass the bits back, stared.

Slowly, she grabbed the loaf and tore it in two.

And gasped.

“It’s curry in bread..!”

“KAUH!” “KAH!!” “KAWH!!”

Sharing all the food did not take very long from there, and soon she had a little pile of her own that she had to split with everyone before she could eat. There was her curry bread, ready and steaming, some pieces of orange bird, some rice-in-soup-

There were even weird shell things, and while she wanted to see if Hoshi maybe knew what those were, Hoshi was still being scared and sad.

She didn’t want to interrupt that. If Nori shouted and screamed when he got interrupted, then what would happen if Hoshi did that too? She’d probably feel bad, and then Hoshi would feel more bad…

No, she would just surprise him, she decided. He’d been worried about the food too, so he would definitely feel better when he saw all the food that the birds were sharing!

So for now, Suzume thought, it was food time. She had a few things that she was looking forward to eating- and there was something that looked like little legs on a stick that she was starting to pass around as well, which she was excited to try. Over all she, and all the birds, were going to have lots and lots to eat, and she said ‘thank you’ every time they shared and traded because of it. But especially to the Chicken- the Chicken was the one who gave them all this after all. And then-

“J…JoJo..?!”

Suzume looked up. There was Nori, but he didn’t look very happy. He mostly looked very surprised, and like he didn’t know what he was supposed to say. If she thought about it, that made sense though. There were a lot more birds here now than there were before! And now there was lots of food too. …Maybe he thought they were bugging her for it?

“...They said please…” she explained quietly, but somehow it didn’t feel like that actually made anything much better. Nori was still staring after all, and even making some strange choking sounds that probably shouldn’t have existed given that Nori didn’t normally breathe properly.

“They said…please…did they…”

For a minute, Nori just floated there and watched. Suzume still had food to give to the other birds right now, and since they were starting to just trade it instead of giving each other food for nothing, she wanted to be careful about it. “...and…orange bird for this one,” she decided as she passed some of the orange covered meat to another bird, receiving a few shelled things in turn. “And…”

“STAR PLATINUM..!!”

The girl jumped as Mister Donut hissed and stalked toward Hoshi, frowning and setting her latest acquisition down so she could follow. The birds carefully parted away, and she herself was careful not to step on any of their snacks as well, but it meant that he got to Hoshi a lot faster than she could stop him.

Which was unfortunate, because while Hoshi hadn’t turned in response to the wrong name (because it was the Wrong Name, obviously), he did look very surprised when Mister Donut got there.

“What kind of Stand are you!?” he was hissing, some of the birds now following after Suzume in support. It sounded, she thought, a little like a whine. “Your partner is dealing with a Stand right now, but you’re still…!?” Scowling and huffing, the ghost looked torn. On the one hand he was definitely mad. On the other, maybe he was realizing it wasn’t Hoshi’s fault?

Suzume took that moment to interrupt. “Mister. Donut,” she growled, watching the ghost flinch.

Apparently struck on his last nerve, he in turn narrowed his eyes. “Call me that again…” he threatened, the sky growing just a little more cloudy.

Suzume pointed to her Stand. If he didn’t like that name he could stop having a donut hole and getting everyone’s name wrong and being mean to Hoshi. “Hoshi was sad and had to think about things, and you don’t get to call him the wrong name..!” she hissed, stomping a foot. “...Say sorry..!”

Rather than doing so, everyone went very quiet, and very still. The ghost across from her seemed to fight something- like something from inside was hurting him now, a mix of all kinds of things that had to be dropped down and crushed into a ball.

A type of angry that was quiet. A type that was somehow worse.

(On Jotaro’s end, he was looking at the scene before him in a mixture of horror and shock. He hadn’t realized how much time had passed, though he hadn’t been unaware of it passing. But he had held the impression, through his connection to Suzume, that nothing had been happening. That things were at peace. Things were calm.)

(Obviously now that was still the case- as strange as the scene of birds and various food dishes were, the way they acted was clearly positive. Birds might not have been an area of study for himself through the years, but he could at least tell when they were meaning well and frankly this was it. But that wasn’t the issue.)

(The issue was if she could- and would- keep him from noticing when she was actually in danger.)

“Is that how we’re doing this?” Mister Donut spitefully answered, looking to the scowl on Suzume’s face. Despite his words he looked calm again. Staring, floating stiffly, and watching her as if he could get more answers from what she did than what she said. “When you have yet to apologize even once for the name you’ve given me?” he spat.

Oh.

…Well.

The birds looked at her, and Suzume quietly thought about how maybe there was a bit of a point there. She was still frowning, but it wasn’t really like she could say that Nori was wrong. He didn’t seem to like having a donut hole after all, so maybe it wasn’t a good name to use, even if she was using it when she was mad, and he was being mean.

(Honestly Kakyoin wasn’t sure if that was even why he was so upset- hadn’t he been putting up with that stupid name for a few days now? Every time she heard him use her old one, or her Stand’s ‘old one’, it was flung back like a pulled elastic. He should be used to it, no matter how much each time felt like the shock of never seeing that first punch.)

(He wasn’t about to say it of course- but something about coming back to the scene, a Stand’s power clearly in full effect, sent shudder through him, some indescribable feeling that had him snapping without pause. That the girl’s Stand didn’t seem to be worried didn’t help. And he knew that was how it would probably be- for all that Hierophant had character, Hierophant was still connected to his own thoughts, back then.)

(So why would Suzume’s Stand worry, when Suzume herself didn’t?)

“...I will work harder to use the names you prefer,” Nori said quietly, and for just a small moment, it felt like all of the anger was quietly gone. His eyes were serious though, and Suzume could not meet them. “But you need to do the same.”

(He tried not to think about the fact that Star Platinum- that ‘Hoshi’- had done plenty that she could have only been tangentially aware of being necessary. From packing her bag to getting on the plane itself, it was all things that she would only barely have known she wanted. He tried not to think about that, and about how much worse things could have been if the Stand watching them was anything like what they’d all experienced the first time they traveled to Cairo.)

Suzume figetted, bumping her feet along the ground. “.......”

(Tried not to think about Polnareff of all things, running out of a hotel building, and of Avdol, rushed to a hospital in India.)

But she didn’t say anything. Not even as Hoshi stared at her, not even as Nori did the same. Eventually the ghost just closed his eyes and sighed.

“...Fine. …Have it your way, JoJo.” As if testing her, he waited to see her frown. But Suzume couldn’t get mad- all she could think about was that Hoshi was frowning at her too, in a way that was more sad and expecting, than it was really angry. Like she’d done something wrong, even though she didn’t think she was wrong at all.

(What was he expecting, he wondered. Polnareff had been older than he was. JoJo- Suzume- was just a kid all over again. Somehow her refusing to react this time made all of that worse though. Like he was the one chasing ghosts, and not the other way around.)

(To the side, Jotaro clenched and unclenched fists to keep from somehow making things worse by stepping in.)

Nori turned away, looking deliberately out at the water instead of at everything else. Suzume couldn’t help but think he probably wanted to just leave, instead of still being there. He didn’t say anything for a moment though, just looking away with a face that wasn’t really mad, but was something else.

“Eat your lunch- we can have Hoshi,” he emphasized almost politely as he looked back, still refusing to look directly at her, “Get the token you need to get on the ferry. We’re going to the Tiger Balm garden from there.”

Suzume went back to her food immediately, and the birds around her stared before eating their own food in silence. It tasted good. It all tasted very good, and it was even still nice and hot.

Somehow though, it felt like she’d never shared anything at all, and she knew that if she tried to say sorry now, it wouldn’t work the same.

Chapter Text

The boat trip between Kowloon district and Hong Kong Island was…tense, to put things gently.

Jotaro only somewhat recovered from the concern he had taken from the situation- the fact that Suzume had been able to bar off any awareness of his actual surroundings, even for a few minutes, was something he could do nothing about, and as such trying to come up with a solution was going nowhere. The best he could hope for was that she gained a stronger awareness of what could be dangerous, but that wasn’t much to go on.

That was his primary concern. That he’d been stewing in a blend of a PTSD attack and mere melancholy while his former Stand was trading food and drink with a flock of various corvids. His primary concern now however, was the problem of Kakyoin and Suzume alike.

Every time she used that name to get his attention, it worked. Too well, unfortunately. She’d clearly decided it was the thing to do if he was getting on her nerves, and he had no way to actually explain why it wasn’t. Not beyond mere feeling at least, which of course meant it was easier for her to ignore.

(Or at least, somewhat, he thought with a glance to the child. Suzume was clearly guilty about it all, but it wouldn’t mean anything if she didn’t come outright and apologize. As best he could tell, she was experiencing the unnamed- to her at least- emotion of pride.)

(Because of course she got that from him somehow, of fucking course she did. Good grief.)

Kakyoin best he could observe was stewing. Not in anger though, which was probably for the best- Kakyoin to memory was good at holding onto things like that. He could still faintly remember his attitude after they left Saudi Arabia- for a few days there had been just a few more cutting remarks, and a lot more cold stares, like he was waiting for them to say something. Something, anything, to get an excuse to do something back.

It had been a bit easier, back then, to confront someone over that kind of thing. ‘What the hell’s your problem?’ he’d finally snapped, his grandfather a few meters off haggling for a motorboat with Polnareff at his side. ‘Since when were we back to this crap, huh?’

His friend of course had snapped back about a lack of trust over the entire situation with the baby and the plane crash. Jotaro, at the time- frustrated, proud, and not quite willing to take any blame in the matter- countered that he’d never seen Kakyoin have nightmares like that during the entire trip.

‘Then why did you think there was nothing wrong?’

And that…

That had been the splash of cold water that it took to shock him, really. The apology was tight. Strained. Grumbled and accompanied by muttered excuses that he still had no idea what the hell had even happened, but it was taken enough that Kakyoin at least felt like he could explain the whole mess without being told off for an active imagination.

‘....Baby Stand huh.’

‘Yep.’

He’d given a long exhale, and gone for a cigarette. ‘....Good grief…that’s just fucked up.’

Things would be easier, Jotaro thought now as the ferry chugged along and Suzume sat at the rail in quiet misery, if he was the one who had had this argument. Granted, he wouldn’t have had it in the first place- for all that he could be a right asshole at 17, he wasn’t an especially cruel one, and using such an obviously targeted moniker so regularly to get a rise from someone he liked (or even felt neutral toward for that matter) just wasn’t happening. It was the exact kind of stubborn refusal fitting of the girl’s age. The kind of thing parents were expected to guide kids out of, explaining the whole idea of empathy, other feelings to consider, so on, so forth.

It wasn’t that the kid didn’t feel for anyone either. That was obviously not the case. That wasn’t entirely how it…worked, not really.

Kids were just a bit too good at feeling for themselves first, was all.

(He’d argue the same for teens and adults. The difference was that one group had more time and chance to learn otherwise, while the other ones were a little more set in their ways.)

If he could groan aloud in a sound that didn’t immediately make him do so again, he’d be venting tired frustrations right this moment. On Kakyoin’s end, he wasn’t quite over it- and frankly, that was understandable because if he’d been in Kakyoin’s shoes, eternally 17 and dealing with that level of crap, he’d have snapped at the airport- but on Kakyoin’s end at least he seemed to be dealing all the same.

He wondered if the guy had experience. Dealing with kids, dealing with younger kids, rather. Other than the baby (and god, that kid was still out there, wasn’t that a thought), he wasn’t great but Kakyoin sure wasn’t the abrasive force that his age-mate had been, and if one were to compare Polnareff or Joseph, the two were frankly overgrown kids themselves. In fact, the way he had been handling Suzume almost had him scoring better than any sitter he’d heard wind about in relation to Jolyne.

Almost. There were limits after all, to how he could judge things.

Still- Kakyoin wasnt exactly over it but he was more over it. It almost made him glad for the disadvantages of being a Stand. Instinctively, his first reaction would have been to start shouting himself. Not to anyone’s precise defense exactly, but it would’ve been loud. A thunder clap on the scene, a stern glare as he stepped in.

Being unable to do that meant being unable to bite in with the reflexive ‘you’re the older one here, act like it.’ It meant watching Kakyoin sort himself out, and watching Suzume prove herself the child she was- to unfortunate end.

There both was, and wasn’t, an excuse. Suzume hadn’t the life experience yet- not the least because she didn’t have that kind of social interaction stored away. Expecting her to grasp why Kakyoin had been scared and worried- something that again had Jotaro wonder has he looked after kids before?, and made him wish he could ask if the teen had babysat at some point- wasn’t happening.

Hell, he would bet that the overpowering fight-drive and thrill for the danger carried over from Star Platinum. Yet another thing to make him worry about how much she could or couldn’t keep from his sphere of awareness, frankly.

Regardless. Suzume couldn’t completely grasp a reason why Kakyoin would be that upset. But she sure as hell recognized now, as he realized in that moment where she’d gone silent, what calling the ghost that meant. She may not have realized the severity of the injury. May not have understood just what it meant, for him to be a ghost, for him to have been there. But she knew it hurt.

And she’d still done it.

(Kakyoin, Jotaro realized, still thought of her as ‘him’- thought of himself, the ‘Stand’, as being the Stand.)

(How much more must it have hit then, he thought. To hear that reminder so constantly from the mouth of who Kakyoin thought of as ‘his friend’s reborn self’.)

Getting Suzume to understand the gravity of the issue was going to take time, and impossibly enough, work. Impossible, in the sense of his limitations- he could hardly pull her aside and just talk, and getting anything through via emotion was a mess and a half. He was still going to try it of course- if this trip was going to be anything but hell in a handbasket, he’d have to. But it wasn’t going to be easy.

He could have some hope in the fact that she seemed to have made it a bit of the ways there on her own by now he determined. It wasn’t much, but just acknowledging that she’d been wrong was a start, even if it was acknowledging it to herself. There was no mistaking the guilt on her end of the bond, however. There was no denying that she felt bad about it.

It was just a matter of getting her over the hurdle of pride, and getting her to admit, aloud, in apology, that she was wrong.

The ferry, he realized after a moment of dwelling on the matter, was coming to the shore. Sparing Kakyoin the awkward stiffness of addressing someone they were still trying to give the cold shoulder (for all that he was obviously failing, he noted with a small part of amusement- apparently it was harder for him to keep that up with small children than it was prickly teenagers and immature adults, which was admittedly a bit of a relief), Jotaro went to hover beside Suzume and pull for her attention.

Predictably, she looked utterly miserable. She wasn’t crying- no, she wasn’t really displaying too much of her upset at all in fact- but that was just testament to the fact. To the severity of it all. She was too upset to add any theatre, however unintended, and it was more than mere Stand-Bleed that had his heart strings tug.

Clenching his jaw, he ignored the pull all the same. She was, frankly, in trouble. Maybe not big trouble (which was a category reserved for the trip they’d gone on in the first place, and frankly he deserved every bit of upset his mother directed at him in turn for it), but she was in trouble and he wasn’t going to bend to it.

So instead he turned his gaze toward the ferry docks, looking back to make sure the despondent child stood to head off.

“....Okay Hoshi…” she sighed, and he almost rolled his eyes at the dramatics of it. His own feeling for it spurred a slight scowl in reply- but it faded out quickly when she remembered she was still upset.

For a moment she almost said something. For just a moment.

But Jotaro eyed her with a stern frown, and a glance from the corner of his eyes toward the ghost now holding his distance, and from there Suzume simply turned and left the boat.

Time and work, Jotaro reminded himself with a mute sigh. Time and work. He floated after the girl, and behind him he could sense Kakyoin doing the same- the ghost distracting himself by taking in all the familiar sights of Hong Kong Island.

What few there were now, at least.

It was only 10 minutes for the ferry, but Jotaro knew the walk from here would take time. The walk however wasn’t what held his attention- instead he watched as Kakyoin hovered and floated ahead as if dazed, looking around at the ferry terminal and what sat beyond it. It was without a doubt a feeling similar to entering Hong Kong from the airport- the buildings that had been there to begin with were worn, no matter how many times they had been restored or repaired. The new buildings were the ‘wrong style’, the wrong look, even if Kakyoin did not say as much.

He didn’t have to, Jotaro thought. It was written all over his face.

“When we came here last time,” he was saying, no doubt in part to distract himself, “We took a car over the ferry. The hotel we took wasn’t far from here,” he continued, only now looking back to study Suzume. “Remember?”

Suzume didn’t remember anything of course. Star Platinum hadn’t been a necessary part of Hong Kong’s venture, and Jotaro was certain that the only reason she knew anything at all was because of how on edge he himself had been. Star Platinum had been worn like a second skin for a few hours after the plane’s crash into the sea, the teen waiting and itching for another fight to begin. He hadn’t been the only one either- while his grandfather and Avdol alike had been fine keeping it underwraps, there was an added tension to Kakyoin as well that had left him unable to quite identify what changed at the time.

He only realized it later- Hierophant had been under his uniform, close to the form and ready as a volatile armor. The stiffness was only partly from tension- the rest was to keep any from realizing something else was there.

Kakyoin of course had his own assumptions now though, and so Kakyoin stared at Suzume a moment more with distant eyes before moving on. Suzume herself had been silent the entire time, still feeling more sorry for herself than for the other.

So, they walked. They walked, and as they did so television sets scattered into static snow. Radio signals playing from street stands grew shaking, swapping in and out with various other signals. There was frustration there, but it was one that Kakyoin was doing well to hide, or at least trying to hide.

“...This was that hotel,” he muttered as they came upon a familiar street. There was the restaurant near to it, Jotaro noticed- standing strong, albeit more crowded given the hour.

(It was lucky, he found himself thinking, that Avdol and Polnareff had been so dramatic. It had given the other patrons time to flee, running the minute even a hint of a fight came about. He could remember the meeting itself easily- the call from another table, too convenient for his liking. ‘Buzz off!’ he’d snapped, only for his grandfather to invite the man over anyway.)

(Jotaro wondered now, if that had been intentional. Back then he’d been nothing but pissed- he’d been right to turn the guy away, it just ended in a fight. It wasn’t until after, when he was pulling the bud out with Star Platinum, that he’d figured it came out net positive. But his grandfather…)

(Jotaro wondered now, if his grandfather had determined it would get worse in putting things off. That the man waiting for a chance to fight would perhaps grow impatient.)

They had been standing there for only a moment. Suzume in confusion- it was nothing she recognized after all, and frankly with all the walking they’d been doing she was getting tired. He could feel it. Kakyoin, however, with a miserable exhaustion that only seemed to be getting worse. He looked over the posters decorating the windows- the menu items on display with garish, eye-catching print.

He turned and left, leaving them to follow after without another word. “It doesn’t matter…what happened in there only truly took off at the garden,” he murmured, averting his gaze and guiding them toward where he remembered them to be. “I don’t think you ever directly fought him…no, there was maybe one time that you mentioned at least,” Kakyoin admitted quietly, Suzume just frowning behind him. “...But it had been an impressive fight to witness. You remember Av…your ‘Mister Magic’?” he asked, managing to hold back any annoyance Jotaro expected with the name adjustment. “That was who Polnareff fought alongside his Stand, Silver Chariot. They did that-”

Before Kakyoin could finish the statement- before Kakyoin could even be faced with whatever name Suzume came up with for the two in fact, they came to an abrupt halt.

Still towering above them were many skyscrapers, but they were standing where once the edge of a massive garden had stood. Even Jotaro felt himself stiffen at the sight- but Kakyoin’s response was even worse.

A dam, breaking. A straw finally snapping his back in two, and the ghost crumpled to his knees and shook. Gone- it was simply gone and while Kowloon had been a reversed scenario it was never something so personal. This was different, however. This…

“What was the point,” he morosely spoke- his voice dull and empty. Suzume was quiet still, but Jotaro noted it was no longer in that self-imposed silent guilt that had been carried from the ferry. Instead the girl looked to Kakyoin with wide eyes, trying to determine just what had even happened.

(Jotaro knew. He knew, but it didn’t do anything to help the matter now. Even if he could speak, he wasn’t sure there would be words to help.)

“What was the point!” he cried out again, hand clutching at his front as if there were something to be clawed out and freed from. “...I should have known…if even the Kujo house was so different…” Kakyoin rambled, breaking down bit by bit before them as tiny cracks began to gather in the sidewalk concrete. “Everything is so damn different..! As if it never mattered..! At least the walled city was a disaster, but now this..! How am I meant to-” And Kakyoin choked- as if he couldn’t even believe he was speaking these words, let alone believe the words himself. As if ‘possessed’, as feeble as the pun was, as if only half himself in that frustrated confusion. “What was the point in reliving it, if nothing can be relived..! How are you supposed to remember anything if-”

Another choke, but this time Suzume’s expression changed and cracked as well. And why not, Jotaro found himself thinking. Did she even completely understand what Kakyoin wanted her to recall? Probably not, or she’d no doubt be far more frustrated. But even without that, she at least knew something was apparently missing, and that it was something the ghost wanted back.

But she wasn’t Him. She wasn’t even someone who understood the gravity of what was wanted, let alone someone who could deliver.

(This was a terrible idea. He knew from the start and yet he’d actively helped to perpetuate it. Out of confidence? Pride?)

(...Hope?)

(Kakyoin wanted his friend back, despite his friend being right behind him the entire time. Jotaro supposed that in a similar vein, he wanted his friend to finally move on from what could never be grasped again.)

“.....condominiums…” Kakyoin was muttering dully, eyes half glazed as he looked around. It was a miracle, frankly, that Kakyoin had managed to restrict the reflexive damage to the sidewalk and bushes decorating it instead of the high-rises around them. The tone Kakyoin had right now spoke of something about to break. “Replaced with…damn condominiums, of all things…” The ghost deflated, and the pressure on the air that had been building up vanished so quickly that it took that moment for Jotaro to realize it had been there at all. The Stand nearly choked on reflex, and in the meantime Kakyoin himself simply sat there.

Unmoving. Quiet. In a position that no doubt had been familiar to the teenager for a very, very long time.

“....what was the point…” he repeated, but Jotaro was certain it was only to himself.

By now, they may well have not existed at all.

“....n…”

Suzume didn’t quite speak, but that she uttered a sound at all seemed all it took to break the spell. There was a twitch from the ghost- and as she approached, he nearly leaned away from her as well.

“...I’m…. …I’m sorry, Nori…”

Kakyoin didn’t quite flinch, but there was another twitch, like he wanted to say or do something but couldn’t quite muster up the strength for it. The ground had been swept under him in the worst way possible- not a single one of them could have predicted exactly how every change would be taken after all, and even Jotaro was stuck on if the trek would help or hinder. True, they were here now.

But if he reacted this way to Hong Kong he could only imagine how he’d take places that had made leaps and bounds the way Kolkata had.

Suzume tried again though, carefully taking hold of his sleeve. It wasn’t quite the firm hug she’d given him when they first met, but it was something being eased into it. Her voice was quiet, and while the guilt was still there Jotaro noted, it was something she was actually managing to pace her way through.

It was a rather remarkable amount of maturity for someone of her mental capacity, and considering where he expected her to plateau- even if that place wasn’t quite where she had been thus far- he was pleasantly surprised.

“...I’m sorry for being mean,” she said more clearly, even if her voice was barely a whisper. “...And I’m sorry for being mean on purpose. T…Tou-chan said some people have special names, but…but the names you had felt wrong…”

There was a look of tired wariness in Kakyoin’s eyes. He was waiting for the other shoe to drop, and now Jotaro was waiting for the same.

Instead she carefully wrapped her arms around the other and kept talking. “...but that doesn’t make it fair to use a wrong name for you…”

There was a sniffle- the girl shuffling awkwardly as a few tears escaped her, and Kakyoin himself looked fairly put upon. An apology was an apology but it didn’t erase the sting. More than that, Jotaro felt, Suzume wasn’t even the source of what broke it all.

It was…this.

“...Just don’t do it again,” he duly answered, and after a heavy sigh he returned the girl’s hug with one arm. “...I didn’t ask to have this…reminder with me. I don’t need another one,” Kakyoin muttered, scowling to the side as Suzume looked up.

The girl was confused- understandably so. She looked up at the ghost and then around them, and then back to her friend once again. “...Because…we have to find happy memories..?” she offered, not sounding sure of it herself.

That was going to be a challenge in itself, Jotaro thought to himself. Not the least because of the only memories she could likely recover. Ironically, the one place she would have any here was nothing but high rises it seemed- though if he looked far enough into the distance he could see that ‘Haw Par Mansion’ at least still remained.

As a museum, apparently, though he wouldn’t be drawing their attention to that just yet. Right now…

…Right now he determined, they had to work this out. Kakyoin specifically had to work this out, determine for them all if he was going to get anything from the rest of the journey. They didn’t know if it would put him to rest or not. Didn’t know what he actually needed, he’d acknowledge that.

But his mood was a good indicator. His mental state, his precarious status in the world, all of it was an indicator. He improved, almost immediately, away from the school.

And then stagnated before entering decline at the house.

There was something there- something here- to overcome.

Something neither he nor Suzume could determine, not entirely.

“...Any memories here would be welcome at this point,” Kakyoin grumbled hypocritically, looking around them in distaste. “It isn’t as if we didn’t manage through everything else- anything ‘bad’ was followed by ‘good’, wouldn’t you say?” Kakyoin didn’t wait for Suzume to answer. Instead after staring at her for a moment he sighed in resignation and looked away again.

She didn’t (she couldn’t) remember anything after all.

(So what then, was the point, in trying?)

Suzume didn’t answer, but she did look around. She was frowning- and soon enough voiced why. “...we didn’t see buildings this big last time…” she muttered, and Kakyoin seemed to be so wrapped up in his depressive thoughts that he didn’t bother to repay that with much response.

The most he did was shrug- a flinching motion, so quick Jotaro almost missed it. “I’d wanted to show you the gardens so you could remember, but the gardens are gone. Apparently everything really has changed too much,” he added bitterly.

Rather than say anything more however, Suzume looked about with ponderous eyes. She slowly moved away from the spirit to wander, squinting at various spots with so much determination that even Jotaro couldn’t help but do so.

It was after a few seconds of this, that she abruptly wandered off ahead.

“What- Suzume,” Kakyoin scolded, and there was an edge of that same worry that Jotaro could recognize from when he’d been shouted at near the ferry docks. “Suzume..!”

Suzume ignored him, shooting off directly for a spot in the walk up to one of the few high rises there. She gave one loud thump of a stomp, and as soon as Kakyoin was back in sight- he’d fortunately been moving fast enough to avoid being jolted around by the handkerchief, but that didn’t help much with the buildings and trees constantly blocking the other’s view- she beamed.

“Suzume,” he started, voice clipped as he held in his frustration, “We should be looking into getting you home at this point- I obviously made a mistake, so-”

“This spot!”

Dawning realization started to come over Jotaro’s face, in the same moment that Kakyoin simply stared ahead with narrowed eyes. Confusion thickening his voice, the teenager managed only barely to reply. “....What do you mean, ‘this’-”

“This is where I got Mister Hair’s noodles out!”

They were quiet for just a moment, the three of them. Suzume, proud as could possibly be, Kakyoin, blinking away the shock of mister Hair, and of course Jotaro- who had seen it coming but somehow hadn’t seen that part.

(Admittedly, he was still stuck on how she found the spot to begin with. How what he’d seen had confirmed it for her, and encouraged her onward. She’d been using the landmarks- the distant hills and trees, the things that couldn’t quite change, or hadn’t changed so much as to be unrecognizable- and gone from there.)

(She’d found what hadn’t changed to bring out what had, and the more he thought about it the more some indescribable feeling seemed to crush around his chest. He was almost certain that Kakyoin was feeling the same.)

“M…Mist…” Realization was slowly flooding into the ghost. Kakyoin’s face making way for touched shock as he stared, Suzume’s pride softening to let him consider it. “...You remembered that?” he laughed somewhat brokenly, and once the sound started it wouldn’t stop. He shook, floating there as breathless wheezes escaped him alongside pained teardrops, the disbelief unable to be removed. “All of th…There’s nothing here though! How could…” He looked around, and quieted.

He’d realized where they were standing- where they were really standing now- as well.

(If he closed his eyes, Kakyoin could see it. The carved statues- the lush green along the dirt path. He could see the hole that had been dug through the fight- small, narrow, but perfect for Avdol’s trap. He could smell the smoke in the air, the scent of heating metal soon followed by burning cloth.)

(Avdol’s fire had never gotten to Polnareff too strongly. It had been a test after all, one that he recognized only in hind-thought rather than in the moment. Burns were severe matters to play around with after all- had Polnareff truly been so aflame that he suffered more than the burns of heat rather than the burns of physical contact, he would have needed medical attention immediately. As it was-)

Jotaro could not help but smile, even if the motion was slight. It was the only thing she could possibly remember- something that had him worry somewhat for the future, where ‘Star Platinum’ had been in play more. He knew the route they would have to take on the water- even had a slight idea how he would have to take them on the water, thanks to the trip to the airport the evening prior. But for now, what little there was was a comfort.

A surprising one, even.

“...You really were out of it that day,” Kakyoin was muttering, and if he hadn’t been in such a relieved mood, Jotaro would be sorely tempted to figure out how to throttle a ghost for being so willfully blind. It wasn’t exactly a fair thought- ghosts in stories, however real or otherwise, did not take long to become truly blind to reason, and as far as things went, Kakyoin had almost as much of it as before.

The problem was the area he didn’t.

(But then again as he was reminding himself, what made more sense? A Stand, acting foreign to the teen one knew, acting akin to a parent, as an adult, being the former friend? Or the child with that teenager’s face being that incarnation?)

(He had to admit that it was something that could have fooled his own mother if she wasn’t so perceptive. Likewise, his own father. What the hell else was Kakyoin, who knew him for just shy two months, going to do?)

Kakyoin sighed, but when he looked back to Suzume he at least had an honest smile again. It was one that had her cautiously do the same in turn, the sky seeming to even clear by the force of their optimism. “It figures this would be what came to mind…fine, then. …I can fill in those blanks. It’s up to you though- J…” Again, he caught himself. Again, he sighed, but this time his mood didn’t fade. And this time, Suzume didn’t even frown. “...Suzume. …Do you want to keep going?”

Suzume’s smile was all they truly needed for an answer.

Chapter Text

Actually getting to sea was easier said than done, and Jotaro ultimately opted to give the two ‘kids’ a distraction while he thought out a plan.

(There was no removing that title from Kakyoin in his mind, no matter how many decades he’d apparently been a ghost- Kakyoin was still Kakyoin, and Kakyoin was still very much acting like the 17 year old he had been, and as the only actual adult there, Jotaro had to grudgingly hold back an audible ‘ora’ in the place of his usual ‘yare yare’ and just suck it up.)

(It wasn’t like he hadn’t had to pull that role off before- this time at least, it was somehow easier than managing a pack of high schoolers.)

Not so far from where they had been standing, there was the Haw Par Mansion- all that remained of the Tiger Balm Gardens. It was a museum- one which Suzume was easily able to get entry to, and one that was an otherwise brilliant sight. That she could remember seeing some of the statues around the area where she ‘helped Mister Hair’ (as she so put it) was something of the icing on the cake- it encouraged Kakyoin’s optimism, and overall left them in far better spirits than they’d been while on the ferry.

Jotaro’s main concern at this point was twofold. The first- they couldn’t simply sneak aboard a ship, not when anything passing through those channels would be cruise liners (too slow) or shipping freighters (too risky). The second-

Assuming they simply took a boat and he powered it himself, which he’d acknowledge was incredibly possible, they needed a steady supply of fresh water.

Food at least wouldn’t be an issue. He knew how fish in the area would be operating, and he knew it’d be easy enough to catch and take a small one apart. As long as he avoided anything that looked sick, or anything that outright had toxin on its skin, Suzume could eat it as a sushi cut easily.

Just a very strange sushi cut.

Any plans he could make were loose ultimately, but he at least had something of a plan by the time they were walking toward the opposite shore of Hong Kong Island. It would be from here that they had to find a boat they could reasonably commandeer despite being a ghost, a Stand, and a preschooler. It would be from here that they would need to head, to his distaste, directly for Woody Island, in the Paracel ‘Islands’- the Hoang Sa archipelago.

He’d heard enough about them, at least. A series of reefs and tiny islands that China was digging and digging their grip into, expanding land at the cost of the local reefs, adding more and more to increase their control. Before his death, they had even started broadcasting radio stations and TV to the inhabited islands and budding villages there.

Refilling their water there, especially considering the amounts they’d need, wouldn’t do much to hurt the system of the islands but it would at least feel somewhat good.

Right now though they couldn’t see the Paracel islands. Right now they wandered by the various docks, seeking something that could also be stolen without trouble. Quietly- not that he had many options in that state of being- Jotaro reasoned that he should probably feel a bit worse about this aspect of the trip. It wouldn’t be the first time, he was sure; there had been plenty of points along the road that needed a car, specifically, and while he suspected he could drive if they wanted it would be a dangerous thing to try.

Also, it would attract the exact worst kind of attention. He knew enough of the Speedwagon Foundation to know precisely how many times seeming ghost stories ended in their agents swooping down after a Stand User figuring themselves out.

Just outside of Ocean Park, there was a stretch of shoreline that had building after building dedicated to boating clubs, tour sails, and yachts. It was a familiar place, but only barely so. Between 1987 and 2012, the increase in business, population, and standards of enjoyment had meant the place where once Joseph Joestar had secured them a large ship last minute was now surrounded.

They would not do well with a ship, however, not with the group they had. Also, stealing something like that would be far too much. They needed something small- not quite a rowboat, but maybe a small recreational fishing vessel. Something with a motor, lest they be relying on his own power for the whole trip. Ideally, something with a cover- even a tarp would do, if they propped it up to block out the sun.

And of course, most vitally, something to carry water. Lots of it.

The Paracel Islands would be the first leg- approximately the first day, first night if they were being technical about the timing, after which he would have to carefully get them hidden at one of the many reefs there. His primary fear after being pulled out by current- which wouldn’t likely carry them out of the range of the South sea so much as into the path of a passing ship- was being caught. With the high tensions in the area, the entire area at that, even a tiny fishing dingy would be something at risk of gathering the wrong attention.

So whatever boat he found would also have to be as unremarkable as possible for them to even reach the area. And from there, remain shipworthy and cargo friendly enough to get them to the Spratly area. After that, the third day could likely get them to Singapore- or, failing that, the Rial islands between the two points. Overall the entire stretch was fairly ‘hop-scotch’ friendly, as long as they kept a good speed up.

Thus, the need for a motor of course.

Jotaro skimmed the boats, watching as Kakyoin did the same- he was talking now of course. Filling the void of silence to keep himself focused and distracted, lest any second thoughts or quiet fears come forward. It was a strangely familiar sensation- something discomfiting to see in the ‘younger’ one, but each time he let himself dwell on it he was reminded of the most painful thing about it.

Those habits in himself had started while traveling to Cairo, when he was scarcely much older.

“Now your grandfather had a lot of money,” Kakyoin was saying, Jotaro giving a mute snort from behind. “A ridiculous amount, frankly. After we decided we couldn’t risk taking a plane, we had to change our entire plan to get to Cairo- Avdol…er. ‘Mister Magic’, you called him,” he muttered, and somehow it seemed he’d struck a compromise in acknowledging as much, “Was the one who came up with the plan.”

“...The one we’re taking..?” Suzume asked, looking up from where she’d started watching local sea birds.

“Exactly that. Avdol suggested we take a boat first- and from there, a train, and whatever else we needed along what was known as the ‘Silk Road’.”

That, predictably, had an immediate response. “...We’re going to walk on laundry..?” came Suzume’s gasp, before she immediately grew serious. “..Did everyone on the road not want to clean..?”

Jotaro of course, was left quietly counting to ten and closing his eyes. Everytime she said something like this, the fact that she had been his Stand somehow came to mind, and the contrast of those facts was jarring as all hell.

And then Kakyoin meanwhile, just found it hilarious. Perhaps it was the absurdity of it all- the surprise, the casual innocence. Whatever the case, it seemed exactly what he needed to just not think for a while, which suited them all fine. Kakyoin laughed, albeit quietly, and shook his head.

“Nothing like that,” he started, slipping immediately into a trivia tangent. “The silk road was more accurately the ‘silk roads’- they were a network of trade routes that began in the second century BCE, and kept in use until the mid 1400s. They were vital in shaping the economic, cultural, political, and even religious interactions between the East and West, as the routes were somewhere around 6400 kilometers!”

Suzume stared in astonishment, but Jotaro did not need to be connected to her to tell she understood perhaps three words of that. Still, Kakyoin was happy, and that seemed to be all Suzume cared about.

“Technically speaking, the route we took could only barely be called the ‘Silk Road’- it was the marine route that we took to reach Calcutta, and from there there I don’t think there was a recorded route between it and Delhi…”

He trailed off, frowning in thought.

(There were countless trade routes that were considered part of the Silk Road. It was all part of what the point had been- getting goods from one place, to another, and quickly. When they’d left Delhi- new and old- they’d been following the approximate route incredibly well.)

(And then, well, they’d been attacked by a Stand that was a Car but they’d at least given it a fair shot.)

“Doesn’t matter,” Kakyoin hummed, refocusing. “Technically, what we’re doing now is also going to be following the Marine Silk Road you know.”

As proof of what she’d misunderstood, Suzume blinked. “...on the water..?” she asked skeptically, the ghost merely coughing on his words.

“No- I mean yes, we’re going on the water, but there’s no actual road it’s just a route,” Kakyoin rambled, attempting to salvage his explanation as Jotaro frowned.

It wasn’t Kakyoin’s words that was causing him to do so, however. No- there was something wrong- in the crowds of people walking about as they scanned for boats and options, there had been a feeling of being watched ever since they began to enter a more public docking area. A place littered with tiny fishing vessels of all kinds, some of which would have even caught his eye as a good option were it not for this feeling. Someone was watching them now, he realized tensely. Watching- paying attention. They were-

“...Soozoomei..?”

“Hmn?” Just as Suzume turned, a young woman with freckled skin and dark hair came up from behind. Her eyes widened- as if she hadn’t expected the girl to actually respond to the name- but she recovered quickly and started for them.

“Oh, good! Here, stand st-”

“OR-A!”

With a snarl, Jotaro reached for his charge and pulled her away, Suzume herself even realizing what being grabbed by someone else could mean. It was only barely too late however- the woman had managed to grab Suzume’s arm. Jotaro could use his strength to pry her off with ease, certainly. But-

“St- Hoshi,” Kakyoin questioned, looking from the Stand to the woman, the latter of whom seemed confused by the feeling of something on her wrist. “What are you waiting for, pull her free!”

…

He couldn’t.

“Errrrrr…Right…okay, Suzume, right? Can you understand me? My name is Anne Merali, and you’ve made your family really, really worried…”

Suzume didn’t want to be caught- she looked uncomfortable as it was. But she also didn’t want to hurt the woman who grabbed her, no doubt for the reason that she hadn’t hurt her yet. Jotaro felt his strength somehow barred- blocked away from his reach, impossible to access as a result. He could grab the other, yes.

But his pull did nothing, no matter how much Kakyoin was hissing in protest.

Of course, as soon as the woman spoke, both froze and paused- Jotaro even removing his grip.

…Anne? That…couldn’t be more than a coincidence, could it?

“...No…” Kakyoin was muttering, the same thought voiced aloud by the ghost. “...But those freckles… …But that can’t be…”

“Shoot…maybe English?” Swapping from Cantonese, ‘Anne’ gave a weak smile as she gently pulled the girl closer while stooping down. “Hiii~ My name is Anne Merali, do you understand me..?”

Suzume still wasn’t answering- largely because while Jotaro could understand it clearly, the girl’s understanding of the English language was slim to none- but it didn’t matter. Whatever the woman said, it wouldn’t change anything. Suzume, despite mild protest, was being led by the hand toward a nearby management booth for the local boats.

Which meant they had perhaps a handful of seconds to figure out a good way to get on the water before all options became closed.

(...Shit.)

"Okay well, if neither works...Don't worry! Just come over this way! We're going to call some people who know your mama and papa, and get you all sorted out!"

(...A thought on both their minds, as it seemed.)

Kakyoin was both panicking and not panicking, as Suzume was led away. By now it was pretty clear that Star Platinum could do shit and all about the situation unless Suzume herself decided this was a bad idea. The look on the Stand’s face said as much, and he was already well aware that he was going to have to do some quick convincing to the girl to fix this.

It was trickier than he thought to get himself to do that, however, and for one good reason.

This was That Anne.

It threw him, when it finally clicked properly. That it had been 23 years had already been striking painfully in the form of their surroundings, but to see a young woman in her thirties where there had been a young girl at the edge of puberty filled him with a numb sensation that he could only compare to when he’d seen Holly Kujo with a Stand. Holly, at least, looked the same for some reason. Because of…’Hamon’, apparently, or at least that was the explanation that came to mind so quickly he couldn’t help but feel confident in the fact.

But Anne had grown as any other would- rather ironically now trying to fix a ‘run-away’ situation of great degree, where she herself had quickly stowed away on the first ship she likely saw.

She was speaking mostly to herself at this point- in Cantonese rather than English, which on the one hand made sense but on the other was no less frustrating to attempt to follow. He knew a bare minimum of the language- enough that he had squinted years ago at the menu to compare locations as Mr. Joestar tapped out their order, but not enough to make corrections in that same vein. He got the occasional word- that was it. And it was this disconnect that finally allowed him to shake it off and float lower.

“Suzume” he said seriously, the building now fast approaching. “We CANNOT go inside, or we’re not getting off this island!”

The result was immediate. While Suzume only frowned with abrupt fear, Star Platinum moved with rapid speed. There was an alarmed shout as the girl was wrenched from Anne’s grip- but rather than flee in any direction, Star Platinum simply hovered there protectively. Suzume was outside the building- but it seemed, at least to her, that this was the only important thing about it.

“What on earth- come on, it’s going to be okay-”

Anne tried again- Kakyoin idly noting that despite growing so much older, her fishing garb made her look incredibly like ‘herself’ as they’d seen the girl. Initially she had success in taking Suzume’s hand- but again, the girl was pulled away as they approached the door, even floated to make some kind of added point.

It was an incredibly JoJo maneuver, without being anything JoJo would do at all, somehow.

(Anne was not having a very good day, if one were to be clear in asking about it. She felt like she could take a pretty fair guess at whose kid this was, and it was frankly weird to think about given the last time she’d seen that guy. She was also a bit busy combating the conflicting emotions of hypocrisy on either end, which became easier when she reminded herself how young this girl was compared to herself.)

(Of course, like Jotaro Kujo, apparently this kid was surrounded by weird invisible stuff going on too.)

Anne visibly bristled at the looping pattern of being unable to enter the building- one that the Stand itself seemed affected by as well. Eventually, the woman seemed to have enough.

“Alright, if we’re doing it that way..” she grumbled, before plastering a smile back on her face. With a gesture toward a small- very small fishing vessel that had a simple canopy cover and looked to have been ready stocked for the fishing trip Anne was dressed for, she spoke. “How about, you wait over here then~? You can enjoy a great time on a great boat…that I definitely didn’t have to spend three months paying off~”

Kakyoin snorted, both JoJo and Star Platinum pausing to blink in his direction. For now he just shrugged- apparently he knew more Cantonese than expected. Still, this was an unexpected windfall. A normal little girl wouldn’t be able to take advantage of this but… “Go along with it- at the very least, we needed a boat to begin with, right?”

"We get boat..?" was all Suzume questioned, but her Stand in turn deflated in relief.

With nothing left to argue, Star Platinum hung back- and without any resistance, Suzume was led toward the boat. “Now, just to make really sure nothing happens…” A small life vest was fished out, and beaten down to free some dust. Smiling again, Anne slid it around the girl’s body after first setting her bag in the boat. “Always wear a life jacket, got it? …glad I still had that thing for tourists…” she muttered, Kakyoin again muffling a laugh.

With a swooping lift, Suzume was thus set in the boat’s bow, eyes roving about at the boats and surrounding waters. Hoshi, Kakyoin noted, focused intensely on the boat’s security- specifically on how the motor ran, and what was tying the boat to the docks.

“Okay kid…stay…here…” Anne started, darting glances toward the building she’d been trying to get them into. “And don’t…move! OkayBye!”

And with that the woman took off at such a pace that it had JoJo peering off the side of the boat to stare. “...Does that mean we aren't bringing the spots lady on the boat..?”

Kakyoin couldn’t quite hold the laugh in at that, and frankly when even her Stand was giving a small smile, he was well within his rights. “PFfFFHFhfhfhf…yes…something like that,” he snorted, floating about to inspect the vessel. He glanced down at the water and grimaced. On the one hand, Star Platinum was probably better for this…on the other, that kind of sensory carry over was probably going to overload the girl, which they really didn’t need.

Still.

“I’m going to float under the boat to see what we’re dealing with,” he remarked, already moving off to the side. “Stay there- this is something I’m…uniquely equipped to handle,” the ghost continued. Funny how that worked, he thought. Last time they were on a boat, it was all in JoJo’s hands, Suzume’s former hands.

Then again the situation wasn’t exactly as serious, he thought, and he plunged downward.

The water didn’t quite feel like water, was his first thought. Though he knew he would be able to do this, it was an entirely other thing to experience it, and where any swimmer would be busy struggling to exhale into the polluted murk, he himself was simply there. The water felt no different from air, except to be a little chillier, and it was eerie to sit there like this.

He resolved to get this finished as fast as possible, then. The bottom of the boat looked fine enough- it was a fiberglass model, simple, clean, and had been well looked after in the short time Anne likely had it. There were no worrying dents- no scratches of merit- and so with that he floated back up to see how the other two were faring.

Suzume for her part was just perched at the bow, hands holding onto the edge like a handle as her knees dug into the cushioned seating. Small as the boat was, JoJo herself was much smaller- she only barely reached above the boat’s sides with her head, and it was easy to see why a lifejacket was all that Anne worried about putting on the girl before running in to make her phone call.

(Said phone call was having some issues. Apparently as serious as a missing child situation was, the local police were not quite as keen to believe just anyone calling, and there had already been a number of false alarms brought up.)

(One would have thought, Anne had long since growled, that it wouldn’t be hard to see that a kid didn’t have blue eyes and go from there, but apparently not for the authorities.)

“Taking stock?” Kakyoin observed as he floated, ignoring the alien feeling of having no water to shake off.

While Suzume didn’t nod, it wasn’t surprising- he had a feeling she didn’t actually know what he meant by that. Star Platinum however was calmly moving a few things about before pulling up the canopy shade. From what Kakyoin could see, they were in good order indeed-

“A water keg, an ice box with food…and there’s even a fishing kit,” the ghost cheered, only to blink as Suzume’s stand slowly pulled out a small knife from the kit. “Including a knife..!?”

Come to think, Kakyoin realized, how were they going to guarantee food for the girl? Was JoJo just going to have to stop at as many small islands as possible? Cut to the mainland at some point and restock?

With the way that Hoshi was carefully slipping the knife back in its protective sheath, and setting the fishing equipment to the side, he would almost think the intention was to catch all their food. But that couldn’t be right, right..?

A glance toward the shack that Anne had gone into. She looked to still be on the phone, but he doubted that would last long. “...Whatever you intend to do to get this boat out of here, you had better do it soon…” he muttered, though who he muttered to was unclear.

Suzume for her part looked to Star Platinum. The Stand, in turn, simply glanced toward the rope holding the boat to the dock…

And in a flash, had it untied. Had it not been for the blur that he witnessed, Kakyoin would almost have to wonder if time had stopped. But-

No, that couldn’t be it.

(Honestly, Jotaro had been tempted- but frankly he needed to conserve his energy. Getting the motor going right now would attract too much attention- so as he grabbed the rear of the boat and gently kicked off from the dock, he resigned himself to simply kicking it out like a paddle board.)

(The amount of times he felt like saying ‘yare yare’ were becoming difficult to count.)

Kakyoin didn’t take his eyes off the shack. He knew logically why Star Platinum was going slowly- even while Suzume winced and grimaced and muttered cold, it was at least not causing enough sound for Anne to turn around. But then-

He stiffened.

“Jo- Suzume. Hoshi. She’s turning around, you need to move!”

“Ah..!”

Eyes slowly focused through the window and then widened. Inside, a phone dropped, but Hoshi was already quick to move. Where he’d been slowly paddling before, he fixed Suzume with a fierce look and gave the boat a rough turn facing directly out to sea.

“Suzume, hold tight!”

And kicked.

“WHAT THE HELL..!?! STAYING PUT INCLUDED THE BOAT, HOW ARE YOU-”

Silently thankful that Suzume didn’t know any Cantonese, Kakyoin just urged them on. “Go, go, go, go!!”

It was a needless request- the boat was tearing off through the water at a speed that outpaced even its own motor, and Anne’s figure very quickly disappeared from clear sight. Other boats were hardly able to even consider getting in their path- Star Platinum maneuvered the boat masterfully, with Suzume squinting off the front with an excited grin as salt spray blasted around them.

(Anne had some very choice words when she got back to the phone- words that almost helped to cover her when it came out how the girl had gotten away at all.)

(Perhaps fortunately for her, the Speedwagon Foundation was far more understanding, even if she still felt embarrassed to admit she’d been hoodwinked and robbed by a five year old.)

“YEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH..!!”

Suzume, very quickly, was being overcome by excited shouting- the boat bounced and jumped upon the rolling waves, the Stand pushing it uncaring of any chopping waves and worrisome churn. That they had some charts pinned to the boat’s seats by its own cushions helped- no doubt Hoshi had given them a good look before they started.

How a Stand could read sea charts of course was another question, but he decided not to dwell on it.

After all- the important part was that they’d made it.

Now they just had to get to Singapore.

Chapter Text

When Holly laid down to rest, it was for a fitful, uncomfortable sleep that had little for her to truly earn peace from. Without any answers for how well the search in Hong Kong had went, she and Sadao had been left with little choice but to set the phones near their futons and turn in for sleep. They could do nothing after all, from their home. Not right now at least, which meant that no matter when they got the news, putting off sleep to wait for it would do no good for anyone.

In fact, it would actively make things worse.

As Holly Kujo closed her eyes however, all she could see was Hong Kong. She could remember the plane landing there for the sake of the body they’d ‘found’- made, she thought to herself, and in the waking world she narrowly avoided making herself sick.

(It wasn’t the first time she took someone’s life, she realized grimly, even if she wasn’t the one to Actually take it.)

(It did not feel any better, and there was a painful solace in that.)

The smells of Hong Kong’s streets welled into her nose as she drifted off into slumber- Hong Kong in the late 80s, practically the 90s as it were, could not quite be called ‘Beautiful’. People didn’t come to Hong Kong to experience beauty at the time, they came to experience the unique freedom that they had drunk as a result of being split across between China and Great Britain.

Oh, what a world, when being under colonial control was the better option.

Such thoughts had not been on their minds as they exited the airport in Kowloon however- no, instead as Joy patiently and happily listened to the youngest of their travel party rattle on about the Kowloon Walled City and its surroundings, they were seeking out a place to eat.

After the incident on the plane, what was unsaid was on everyone’s minds. Before boarding, they had done everything they could with Space Oddity to try and determine just how likely they were to be attacked. The Stand had limits however- and those limits could well have killed numerous people on that plane.

It was by sheer fortune that the only fatality was the culprit himself.

The sounds of trams and their clanking bells passed them by, crowded streets threatening to either separate them or cram them into a single spot like a pressed can of sardines. The air was thick and muggy- while it was autumn it was still hot here, and would be for some time.

“Alright, found a spot!” was what her father had finally said as they were ushered into a hotel. “And they recommended somewhere to eat too! Just across the street, authentic Hong Kong dining!”

Kakyoin had perked up at that. “Really? Actual authentic, or hotel authentic?”

“What’s that supposed to mean, authentic is authentic…” Joseph muttered with a squint, and it was Avdol who in fact replied with a laugh.

“I believe I know exactly what you mean- I have seen more than a few times, ‘authentic’ Egyptian cuisine that could never be placed in my childhood.”

While Kakyoin flashed a smirking grin at that, Joy just sighed, a fragile but beaming smile on her own face. “Well I’m glad we’re able to get a moment to breathe then…~ Maybe we can see a few more sights before we move on too!”

“Ahhhhh…” Just as soon as she said that, Joseph looked almost guilty. “For now, yes- but Joy, we’re only going to be here for a night or two at best- if they could get us on a plane they can definitely get us in a city like this…” Rubbing his neck, he did his best to offer some assurance. “I’m going to make some calls after dinner- see about getting us a boat, or a truck…Avdol, you’re more familiar with this end of traveling, what’s your recommendation?”

Sitting there in the large hotel suite- a set of joined rooms, though only the ‘Joestars’ would be in the one room, as both Avdol and Kakyoin had blanched at the thought of sharing with the woman-

(No surprise there, when it was such close quarters. Family was family- there was just something too personal about the idea of doing otherwise, even if they used the washrooms to change.)

-the plan slowly unfolded.

Avdol for now simply steepled his fingers in thought. He had his deck of tarot cards on hand, but for now they were set aside. “I will want to do a reading first,” he eventually said, looking toward Joy as she perked up. With a smile, he nodded in her direction. “...But not the way you would. Sometimes the future we need is the one we interpret- the one left open for ‘Fate’ to play around with, rather than being the ‘Fate’ handed to us.”

If Joy felt upset about the implications of his words, she didn’t show it. She was, of course- just a little- but all she could think of now was how likely it could ever have been to ignore certain pathways as Space Oddity had shown. Could she really have just sat idly as a man tore through five people’s jaws? Could she have sat idly while waiting to hear if her son had died? Of course not.

Fate handed to them, indeed.

Avdol did not spread the cards just yet, but he did continue. “For now Mr. Joestar, I think it’s safe to say a boat will be our best option- the roads out of Hong Kong will be crowded, and slow- we stand better chance of controlling who we board with on ship and on water.”

Uneasy nods surrounded them, and this did not change as they moved downstairs to prepare for dinner. Avdol’s deck of cards seemed to sit in the man’s cloak pocket like a brick of steel, and Joy only barely kept herself from compulsively clawing at things around them with vines. It took her father to calm her- the man grabbing her shoulder, and slowly winding his metal hand around a vine.

“Joy,” he shushed, shaking his head. “It’s going to be alright. You can trust that- you’ve got your ‘Papa’, and plenty other reliable people with you, don’t you think?” the man whispered, giving a grin and a wink.

Joy’s answer had been a watery smile and a shaking nod, before they pushed open the restaurant doors to follow after the others. It was a moment of honesty- a moment of vulnerability that she never enjoyed showing off, always preferred to hide behind a smile. But even so.

“Okay, Papa.”

They walked in, and while the smile returned it was at least a bit more honest.

“Okay..~ Do we have a table yet~?” she cheerfully asked in Japanese, her father sputtering behind her.

“Hey- hey! That’s not my best language..!!”

“And English isn’t mine, ‘Joestar-san’. I appreciate the kindness and consideration,” Kakyoin deadpanned in response, leaving the man to choke further while Avdol laughed.

A compromise was quickly reached- “As long as you don’t use it for any serious conversation with me, I don’t mind,” he insisted warmly, waving a hand. “Unfortunately for me, I’ve only barely started with it, so it could make our conversations difficult if you tried. Unless Arabic is on the table?” he added with raised brows, his smile met with what was now a triad of wheezing sounds. It was cut short with his own loud laughter, and he grinned. “I thought not!”

The table they sat at was in the far back of the establishment- large and round, with the spinning addition up top for them to share dishes among them. Kakyoin, ever eager to distract himself from his own nerves, was quick to explain while Avdol casually shuffled his tarot cards beside him.

“...it’s called a ‘Lazy Susan’ in English I heard, but the important part is why it’s in use here. For Chinese cuisine, a lot of the food can be more communal, so the idea is to order a number of dishes and then share it across with each other. So we can spin the table,” he was explaining, Joy calmly nodding and smiling, “And take what we want without making a mess.”

“Joy, didn’t you already know this?” Joseph questioned, Kakyoin going beet red in response.

“...oh, did you..?”

“Well, I didn’t know the original name for it,” she insisted in turn, beaming to the boy. “So thank you for that~!””

That seemed enough to recover the teenager’s confidence, and he nodded. “Of course!”

“Alright,” Avdol calmly cut in, Joseph looking from his menu while the others turned to stare. “I have the cards ready- we’ll be doing a simple spread. What we need,” he explained, “Is not just a way forward, but a way to understand what our greatest obstacle will be.”

“That would be other Stand Users, wouldn’t it?” Joseph questioned, frowning at the thought. In the meantime, a server came by to speak to Joy-

“Miss, is there anything you would like to have for a drink?”

“Oh, we’ll have some tea of course~ Some water as well is probably best, thank you so much~”

The server left, and Joy turned her attention back.

“Stand Users, yes,” Avdol was explaining, having taken a moment to let Joy place the ‘pre-order’ of sorts. “But primarily, the method of which those Stand Users will be using to get to us.”

The cards on the table were arranged as best they could while at a round setting. They sat innocently on the cloth in what Joy could best describe as an oblong sort of cross. Pairs of cards, for the most part, with a singular card above and below.

Avdol gestured to the central pair first. “Here, we have our greatest problem- whether we know it, or not. Beside it then, we will find what we need to focus on through it. What we should hold onto, what we should pursue.”

He did not yet flip the cards over. Instead, he gestured to the left.

“To this side, we will find the source of our problem. Not necessarily the entire problem, or even the immediate one. It could even be a problem we haven’t recognized,” he warned, his tone grave. “But beside it, we will find a clue toward what we must learn from it, or even apply toward it.”

Another gesture, this time to the right. Avdol’s hands were steady, and his expression did not change.

“At the side opposing, we will find how to solve this in full. Our path forward, both what we must use toward it, and what we must do,” the man warned, but as he looked up, Joseph pointed the menu toward the top and bottom cards- those that were the ‘arms’ of an otherwise odd cross.

“And what about those, then?” he asked, frowning.

“To the top, we will find our greatest asset toward this goal,” he replied evenly. “Not literal, necessarily- if we pulled the Hermit, it would not mean you Mr. Joestar,” Avdol added with a wry smile, his friend giving a playful huff in reply.

“And the last one?” Kakyoin questioned, the smile on Avdol’s face fading.

Now instead he looked to the cards with something unreadable. A distant stare that nearly clouded his eyes. “To the last one…we find what defines our help from outside our group.”

(Not long after this, a server arrived with the tea and water, asking them for their choice of food. Joy watched her father order somewhat blindly, sharing a knowing smile with Kakyoin and Avdol alike while they added a dish or two to the spread themselves.)

(And while Avdol flipped the cards over, a frenchman with silver hair sat at another table in her periphery.)

Chapter Text

They said that in sleep, one could not read. The idea of it could be there- the association of meaning and intent- but one could not truly read in their dreams, and that was that.

Holly Kujo wondered, in that distant half aware state she held in this dreaming recreation of her alternate past, if the same were true for memories.

(She wondered, in that distant state, if memories could truly be considered dreams at all.)

In the alternate memory of Hong Kong’s recommended restaurant, four people sat at a round table, with three leaning toward the fourth member of the group. Steeping tea sat steaming, and the tang of green leaves could be smelled in the air. Menus lay only partly skimmed, orders taken seconds before.

And eight cards sat before them, face down, and waiting.

“What we see will not be so precise as to tell us what to do, but rather, guide us in how,” Avdol warned them all, his hands only briefly folded together. “We are asking Fate to give insight on our troubles and situation- and how to move from there. Now-”

He flipped the first card.

“Our greatest problem. About what I expected, if I’m honest,” he snorted, and those there alternately grimaced and groaned at the sight of the Tower. “The Major Arcana indicate significant matters- immediate things, things we need to pay attention and tribute to without pause. As for where the Tower sits in that line,” Avdol continued, a knowing smirk gracing him, “We would be hard pressed to find something describing ‘danger’ more.”

Kakyoin stared at the card on the table, the boy’s eyes trailing over the bolt of lightning and the crumbling structure. “The man we apprehended on the plane pointed that out. He called himself an embodiment of destruction, and catastrophe.”

“And he would not be far from the truth,” Avdol grimly confirmed. “Gray Fly is well known in my circles; his Stand was used first for petty crimes such as theft, but quickly escalated into full scale accidents with numerous fatalities. I do not often say this…” he continued with a low, near whispering voice, “...but I am glad he is gone...”

Silence.

The next card was drawn. “Our solution to this problem, over all,” he began, leaning back in his seat with a small smile. “...The Four of Wands.” In the cartoonish, exaggerated style of the cards, four tall beams could clearly be seen. They supported garlands of flowers in a canopy, the growth overtaking the wands to such extent that their vines even spiraled off to bind the smiling people beneath it. All in all it appeared to be a happy card- and Avdol soon confirmed it. “The Four of Wands is a card of unity- it indicates happy families and friends, celebrations and community. We have not been together long, but this card tells us that our fellowship is one to encourage. We are strongest as a whole," he explained as he looked across the table. "And we will do best while in agreement."

(Privately, Joy suspected that her father would have called the sentiment sappy if the situation were any less dire. Instead, all three simply nodded and waited. Considering the group effort handling Gray Fly had been, it was an accurate read indeed.)

(It was left unsaid, then, that there would be consequences if they strayed from such a mindset.)

“Next then…” Avdol’s hand moved to the left of the ‘cross’, where the second pair lay. As he moved to flip the card over, he spoke aloud- though only so loud that those at the table could hear.

(Joy hadn’t realized it until later. Hadn’t realized she had seen it in the corners of her eye- a young man turning his head, ever so slightly as he leaned in his chair, trying his best to listen.)

“Here, we find the source of our problem- ! The concern we have most ignored,” he proclaimed, and just as quickly as the card was revealed he sucked in a breath.

It took a moment for the others to recognize it. “Four, five, six, seven…That’s seven blades, isn’t it?” Joseph questioned, Kakyoin narrowing his eyes at the sight.

“What is that card..?” he muttered in confusion. “I’ve never seen the seven of swords look like this…”

“I would be surprised if you did- not all Tarot decks borrow from the same source for their art. Some, such as this one, are far more interpretive,” Avdol explained, “Though cards like this draw the matter much farther than most.”

Joy could not help but agree, especially when she saw for herself what the traditional card looked like later. In the ‘Rider Waite’ tarot and those derived from it, the Seven of Swords was a simple matter- a man carrying five blades as he glanced back at whence he stole them from, eyes nervous and watching toward the remaining two swords in the ground.

This card was nothing like that. Instead, like claws piercing a veil, six daggers could be seen scratching down a curtain. The seventh blade hovered- a blade of Damocles, its point aimed directly for a feeble, boggle eyed mouse beneath it.

Avdol cut directly to the point.

“We are being watched.” As the others jumped and tensed, he looked over them with a severe stare. “...Perhaps not directly…no, I would be very surprised if they were with us now. No, whoever watches us, they had to be able to give the go-ahead to those on the plane, and then some. The Seven of Swords indicates a deception we did not foresee- one that we cannot predict…and one which is doing a very good job at taking us for fools,” Avdol added, the others swallowing.

“Then…the solution to that is..?”

At Joy’s questioning tone, the second card was revealed. For a moment, Avdol frowned at it, as if he had been dreading the result he pulled. At the questioning stares of the others however, he bowed his head and sighed, announcing the answer. “...There is none.”

The trio looking to him stared with wide eyes, and Avdol held up his hand.

There was more, after all, and he gestured to the card before him- Eight staves shattering as they speared toward the ground, their fragmented remains pointing toward the center with just as much force. There was a ninth, however, or at least there was if the arm desperately reaching upward from the earth counted. Clawing at the air, one could see the visage of a frightened face beneath the earth it came from, reaching for freedom. In a sense, Joy could understand why Avdol appeared disappointed.

The image of such desperation was not a comforting one to behold.

“Nine of Wands. Defense and perseverance against adversity, while we are already at a disadvantage. Our fight…will not be easy. This card is a reminder then- that what we move forward for, ensures the safety of others. There is no denying,” Avdol warned, “That the path ahead will be dangerous. The Tower itself has ensured that, and our experiences have proven it. But even if each step of our journey is made beneath watching eyes, we can hold comfort in the fact that those eyes are upon us.”

It was a cold reminder of why they were here at all. Of the fact that this was not some journey of secret heroism, some trek undertaken with the intention of swooping in like some vengeful bird.

They were here to draw attention to them. To draw it away from the ones who couldn’t stand a chance.

It was a sobering matter, but one that had all three nod all the same. “...Not much we can do to argue that one,” Joseph snorted with a half hearted laugh, Joy appearing almost sick beside him. Even Kakyoin seemed affected, for all that he was more of an outlier within the group. That he had been the reason they needed to take such immediate measures to protect Shotaro, was no doubt on his mind.

“No, not beyond carrying on,” Avdol agreed, and with that he moved his hand to the other side of the cross. “So why don’t we determine where that is?” Before flipping the card, he smiled. “Of course, we have already determined where we are literally going- so what we reveal now will be an indication of what that path will be like, more than anything.”

So he said, before revealing a card bearing a tiny globe. It was a simple thing. A man overlooked the sea, the globe floating in his hand. Butterflies flitted about the image, and two staves, tall torches in fact, were incorporated into the image- one for each side.

They were getting quite a lot of wands, so far.

(As Avdol explained later, it was the suit of action and initiative- of energy and fire.)

To their surprise, Avdol’s first response to the card was to bark a loud laugh.

(To Joy’s side, the man with silver hair nearly fell from his chair, regathering himself to grumble softly at his menu.)

“A globetrotter gets that response?” Joseph snorted, shaking his head as his friend tried to regather himself. “That must be one hell of a card..!”

“No, no…in actuality Mr. Joestar, it is a very simple one. I am just amused- we are heading to the south, the direction of ‘flame’ in many beliefs…and we will be heading in that direction by sea. And as you can now see,” he laughed, gesturing to the card. “That is precisely what is here..!” The laughter began to subside, and Avdol smiled. “This is a good result however, and a good sign- to the question of our path forward, it seems we are being told to have faith in our decision. To go by sea it appears, is indeed our best option.”

It was a comforting thing to hear, particularly after the revelation brought on by the Nine of Wands. Even so, there was still the second card.

“The sixth card is supposed to indicate how we are to progress on this path; our greatest strategy, if we are to ensure our success…” The card was flipped over.

And Avdol, to their surprise, drew back and frowned.

“...Avdol?” Joy questioned innocently, blinking at the man’s shock. “...Is it alright?”

“...what on earth…” he was muttering, squinting at the card as he leaned forward. He did this for a moment, and then drew back, still staring at the thing as if it had offended him.

“...You’re not stuck are you?” Joseph demanded, Kakyoin watching in polite, albeit somewhat judging silence.

And still, Avdol didn’t answer, instead opening and closing his mouth once or twice. Finally, he at least forced out the name. “...The Page of Swords…reversed,” he said aloud, almost choking on the words.

Furrowing his brows, Kakyoin was the first to respond to that. “...When a card is reversed- upside down, rather, that means its message is made ‘negative’, doesn’t it?”

“Oh dear-!” Joy did not like the sound of that. “...That’s not good then is it?”

“Hah! Half the cards we have here are no good,” Joseph countered, though he wasn’t quite able to smile as he said it. “...Go on though Avdol- what does the card mean?”

Avdol was still shaking his head somewhat, but it seemed he was forming some kind of interpretation. To begin with, he covered why he was confused at all- “...The Page of Swords is of course a Court card,” he explained, still staring at its face. The depiction was that of a carefree caricature, swinging a sword with wild abandon and an equally wide smile. It was easy for Joy to make out from her position, thanks to the card’s ‘reversed’ state- though Kakyoin’s words were still leaving an uneasy feeling in her gut.

A court card, he had said, and the group only frowned as Avdol covered what that meant.

“Court cards typically refer to specific people, but what we are seeing here is the Page of Swords in a position of advice- if anything it should indicate how we are to conduct ourselves…but this card, when reversed, typically indicates a person of deception...”

Avdol’s eyes were moving back to look at the Two of Wands. He did not seem able to completely say what this meant now, but it looked as if he was getting a good idea. “...I cannot say for sure what the cards are telling us with this… …but I would guess that we need to be very, very wary for the next stretch of our journey. We must act with caution- with quiet tricks, rather than any overt actions. …That much is all I can say for now…”

“I guess even a fortune teller can’t read everything then…” While Joseph’s words were grumbled, it was clear he didn’t truly have any heat in the words. When Avdol looked to him, the man could not meet him in the eye.

“Will the seventh and eighth cards help then?” Kakyoin tried offering, cutting in with an awkward cough.

Avdol nodded, and without saying a word moved his hand to the top of the ‘cross’. “We shall soon find out. The seventh card- our greatest strength, which we must not forget..!”

The card was flipped over.

The group collectively found themselves exhausted at the sight.

It was another Court card.

“There are only…16 of these in the entire deck of 78, aren’t there? Less than the Major Arcana..?” Kakyoin questioned with a drained tone, Avdol himself just frowning at the image. Joseph, for his part, was pinching his nose.

In a swift second, he gestured to his friend. “If we’re supposed to be working together, why is our greatest personal strength ‘one person’..! Who would this even refer to?”

“Oh, but Papa, Avdol said it’s not necessarily going to be that literal didn’t he?” Joy tried, despite the confusion in her own voice.

“It’s hard not to right after what he said about these!”

It was only Avdol’s voice that pulled them all back from discord- though his frown did not fade. “...The King of Pentacles.”

The man depicted was a stern one, a fact that somehow permeated through the gleefully childish artwork of the card. He sat upon a rigid and gilded throne, surrounded by earth, and greenery. What was most eye-catching however was the enormous gold coin he held up with one hand- the star embossed upon it.

“The King of Pentacles being another court card seems to indicate a sense of individuality, despite earlier instruction,” Avdol huffed, narrowing his eyes as he did his best to interpret the image before him. It appeared as if he had more confidence in this one at least, not the least because he was sitting upright this time. “As noted, we need to act as one- but there will be times where that is impossible. Trust,” he emphasized, “Is vital. Trusting in each one’s individual strengths, in our individual strengths, and acting when we feel confident a fight is ours. We will make no progress, if we do not even move to defend ourselves while caught alone. Thus,” he added with a sharp smile, “We trust that we can move alone.”

They were odd words to hear, but only for a moment. It took mere seconds for the group to nod to each other in agreement, considering the card before them. “...It’s true- particularly in a fight, it would be useless to rely on checking what the other was doing,” Kakyoin admitted.

“And it isn’t as if we’ll never be separated either- hell, one of us could end up jumped going to the toilet!”

Joseph’s comment was met with a sharp frown from his daughter. “Papa don’t say things like that..!”

“I’m only telling the truth!”

A cough, and Kakyoin muttered to Avdol. “Perhaps we should see the eighth card, Avdol.”

A shaking head and an amused chuckle was Avdol’s reply to that, before he cleared his throat and drew the others’ attention. “The final card then,” he said, reaching for it with a nod.

In Joy’s periphery, the man with silver hair was moving. He looked to his menu with an almost comical resignation, and came closer and closer until she couldn’t ignore what was in the corner of her eye.

The card flipped over.

The man coughed. “Ahh…Excuse moi, Parlez-vous Français..?”

Avdol stared at the table, keeping his mouth shut. Joseph looked toward the card, and back to the man, a wary glimmer in his eye despite his warm smile.

Kakyoin, directly in front of the intruder, did well not to freeze from where he’d been shifting the lid on the no longer steaming tea pot.

And Joy, bless her heart, did exactly what Holly would have done in that situation.

“Ahhh…We don’t, sorry, but I know English, ‘Nihongo’, Italiano…”

“Italiano! Ahh, Perfect, perfect, I can speak that better than English!”

Joseph jumped, all hostility seemingly lost from him. “Italian!? You know Italian!?”

And on the table, where Kakyoin was now looking and sucking in a muted breath, ‘The Chariot’ stared up at them all.

Chapter Text

Avdol did not get to explain the meaning of the Chariot, but if he had been given the chance, he would have said this-

First, it did not likely refer to a person in literal, Stand related aspects, for all that Holly felt it painfully amusing in hindsight that Polnareff fit the bill there on all such accounts.

The next thing he would have of course said, was what the Chariot even entailed. As a Major Arcana, it was certainly something big. Immediate. Eye catching.

(Which, of course, fit Polnareff to a T.)

It was a card of advancement. Of action, and control in one’s life, steadily moving forward. It was Success and Ambition, a card filled with energy and life. Sometimes it could refer to literal transport, but as the final card was meant to refer to outside help, that wasn’t necessarily what it would be. For all that they were going to be seeking out a boat for themselves, it was unlikely that this was what the Chariot referred to.

It was also, as the others had noticed before Avdol quickly slid the cards back together to go into his deck, Reversed in the placement.

(It would not be until much later that they pondered this. For a few moments it was only Avdol who seemed so resolute in the fact that Chariot had not been literal- or at least, not merely literal. The Chariot. Driven and dedicated and ever moving onward with confidence.)

(The Chariot Reversed, out of control of its life.)

For a few shining moments, the Joestars (or rather, Joestar and Kujo) rapidly conversed with the poor French tourist in Italian, the young man looking simultaneously relieved, thrilled, and terrified in a singular go.

(It had been a stroke of cheer for Polnareff when the one who spoke to him first was the beautiful woman at the table.)

(It had not lasted, however, when it came out that her father was right beside her. He would not be completely dettered, but it was certainly a daunting task.)

(Joy, of course, had just been charmed by it all.)

Those few moments did not last long, as Kakyoin loudly, in English, announced that the food was here.

“Oh my goodness, I am so sorry Noriaki, I should have at least kept to a language we can all understand..!” Joy fretted, before motioning to her father. While Kakyoin blinked rapidly at the first name usage- an alarming but not unsurprising shift given their move to English- she continued on with her worried bluster. “We’ll just have to keep to English for now- Jean-Pierre, would you like to join us for the meal though? You hadn’t ordered after all right~? I’m sure we have plenty to go around!”

“Ahhh, I could not possibly impose on a beautiful Miss such as yourself, non, non,” he insisted, eliciting a warm chuckle from Joy and a set of amused brows from Kakyoin and Avdol alike.

They would sit on what they knew though. This was going to be good.

“Nonsense, Polnareff! Caesar would destroy me if I turned you away after you spoke so clearly, here, have a chair..!”

“Mais…well, if you insist then..! A pleasure to meet you, fellow travellers..! I am Jean-Pierre Polnareff, of France…” Introductions had been flashed through in Italian during the rapid-fire mess; it was something of a test perhaps, to see how the man reacted.

(Later, they would realize that ‘Joestar’ sounded incredibly odd on an Italian accent, and had thrown the poor man off.)

(Even so, there had been enough pause for Joseph to send a warning glance toward Avdol, which was answered to with a calm and contemplative nod.)

“Well now, let’s see what we have here..~” Joy cheered, gently taking hold of the roundtable before them. Her father took a look at a dish passing him by, and immediately laughed.

“BAHHHAHAHA! So this is what you two were chuckling over, there?” he asked as a set of grilled frogs legs passed him by. A few odd seeming dishes followed- including whole broiled fish, and a sort of beef porridge. “Well, we can’t question authenticity now then, can we? Let’s dig in!” Joseph cheered, the others mostly shaking their head at the man’s antics.

“Ahhh…I believe Monsieurs and Mademoiselle, I shall pass upon this dish…” Polnareff nervously laughed, passing the table on when the frogs looped around to come by him.

Joseph in reply just took the last set of legs, pointing at the man with his chopstick. “Not a fan of frogs Polnareff? I thought those were a French delicacy!”

The nervous smile only increased as he put his hands up. “It is definitely a…’delicacy’, yes…”

Sensing an opportunity, Kakyoin smiled in the Frenchman’s direction.

“Like snails, right?”

He immediately recoiled, spitting a few colorful curses in French as Kakyoin muffled his laughter behind a hand.

“...absolute Shit taste, how can anyone stand the over oiled-” he rambled in frustrated French, the laughter quickly spreading across the table. Eventually Joy seemed to have mercy on the man and patted his shoulder, shaking her head.

“There aren’t any snails here, so you don’t have to worry okay~?” she cheered, even if it was difficult to speak without a giggle slipping out. “And there’s plenty of other options after all!”

Looking utterly abashed, Polnareff nodded. “Ahhhh yes, yes, of course! And merci, merci, thank you again for inviting me to your table,” he cheered, fishing for himself some food. There was a pause as some of the decorative salad from the dish came with, cut carrots and vegetables standing upward.

Those at the table carried on calmly at first- Kakyoin helpfully explaining what he’d been doing with the tea lid to Joy, and Avdol muttering discretely to Joseph.

(‘See, if you do this it’s a sign that you want it refilled…and if you tap the table twice, that’s generally an indication that you need the wait staff’s attention…’ ‘Oh, I see~! Well thank you Noriaki, that’s very helpful…’)

(‘Final slot was Major, Mr. Joestar…you are right to be wary…’ ‘As long as we can get through the meal, I’m famished.’)

“What an artful shape…”

The four at the table turned immediately.

In the pinchers of Polnareff’s chopsticks was a carrot cut like a Star.

“I remember meeting someone…” Tension spread as a shock across the table, and under it, three sets of ‘vine’ started furling in anticipation. “Someone with this exact shape on their shoulder…Oui…the ones I need to face are-”

“Ah-MN!”

A loud cough startled four at the table, and Joy reached over to place a hand on Polnareff’s arm. Her smile was broad, but there was a dangerous edge to it, and one that Joseph himself had recognized in his own wife. Gold vines grew and uncoiled and covered both limbs, and Joy’s smile stiffened.

“I most certainly hope you weren’t about to ruin our wonderful meal with a fight, Jean-Pierre Polnareff...Certainly not when there are so many people trying to enjoy their food, which the staff here worked so hard to cook..!” she added as the smile was traded out for guilting anguish.

(Those from the travel party were torn between fear and laughter. On the one hand, there was no way this would work.)

(On the other, admittedly more plausible hand, this man had been flirting shamelessly with the woman since opening his damn mouth, and watching her turn that on its natural head as a mother had a certain delightful feeling to it.)

“Th…That is…Mademoiselle, I could never, not for such a wonderful young lady as yourself, Non non non-”

“Well that’s wonderful to hear~! I’m sure we can arrange for something after we’re done!” Joy cheered, her vines pulling back.

“Now that sounds plenty manageable, wouldn’t you all say?” Joseph agreed, now going back to scooping porridge onto his plate.

“I would definitely rather finish my food.”

“Indeed Mister Joestar, and for that matter I agree that this is not the best place for it. A proper fight should be outdoors, in open space, should it not?”

Polnareff looked, admittedly, a bit lost. “An open space here, though…”

Kakyoin coughed.

The table turned, and he suddenly wished he hadn’t done that. Still, the boy was nothing if not good at improvisation and obfuscation, and looked absolutely confident as he gave his suggestion. “...The Haw Par amusement park still has space.”

Silence.

He clarified- “...Tiger Balm Gardens.”

“Ohhh…It’s an amusement park now?” Joy asked with a small frown, Kakyoin simply nodding. “Well that sounds like it could be fun~”

“An amusement park…Now that’s a way to kill time while we wait for news!” Joseph agreed with a grin, leaving Avdol to once again be the greater adult it seemed.

Avdol wasn’t quite sure how he got here, considering they both out aged him by minimum ten years, but here he was all the same.

(Admittedly he liked the idea of trying a roller coaster as well. And also a fight.)

“Then it is agreed- unless, Mr. Polnareff, you have objections?”

Polnareff, to their mild surprise- he was, after all, likely here to kill them- did not appear to have any at all. They went back to their food, and every now and then when he got a strange glazed look in his eye, Joy would somewhat loudly shout his name- in full- and drag him back to reality with all the shock of being caught hand first in a cookie jar.

(Holly took a moment from her amusement of the remembering, to realize how differently this had actually happened. She thought of the plane, and how Jotaro had at one point cursed and growled about his grandfather’s inability to fly planes after waking in the middle of the night once, before he hit the point of awareness that convinced him to shut up and just stash any problems and worries away deep in a hole his mother couldn’t find. She could recall the risky timelines so narrowly averted by ‘Jocelyne’, and connect the dots from there. Star Platinum, after all, was not meant for such a fight.)

(Holly took a moment to fall into a state of quiet mourning and despair in her dreams, as she realized how differently their dinner would have gone. Jotaro would have been stressed and tense. He would have snapped at Polnareff without hesitation, even if her father would have invited the man over. More importantly though, whether they finished the meal or not, there would not have been any stern voice taking advantage of the Frenchman’s confusion, no vines to gently ease off any anger.)

(A fight would have broken out in that restaurant in a flash.)

Holly Kujo did not quite wake up just then- her dreams faded out only after their arrival at Haw Par Amusement Park, and at the sight of a friendly and affable man’s face sobering into one of utterly murderous resolve. It faded out at the sight of a blade pointing toward them all, and at the sight of Avdol stepping forward, his hand raised.

(A voice, distantly. Seiko, it called, as her eyes in the dream beheld their surroundings.)

“Allow me to take this, please,” he insisted, a confident smile on his face. “This fight is one that will be better performed close range.”

(Seiko, the voice repeated, and she could feel her brows furrow. Seiko! Wake up!)

Holly’s dream faded out to the sight of her father nodding, and a young teenager doing the same, and to the sound of her husband’s hushed voice.

“Seiko- Holly!”

Her eyes snapped open.

Sadao held the phone in his hand, swallowing.

“It is the Foundation,” he said quietly, and though his tone was even, she could sense the fear in his heart.

She did not need Space Oddity to tell her this was bad news.

“She has reached the ocean.”

She did not at all.

Chapter Text

It was while they were drinking down caffeine and doing their best to connect the dots of just what had happened and how, that Holly allowed herself to think on how the remaining events of that day had gone. Part of her perhaps hoped for a clue- that if the paths so closely aligned, they could predict where they were.

Sadao himself was occupied with opening a small map of the South China Sea- he might not have been as close to his son as Holly was, but he liked to think they were both logically minded enough to steer things in a more favorable direction. If Suzume and Jotaro were not on an already moving shipping freighter, a matter that the SPW was currently digging into with as much energy as possible, then they would be sailing alone.

And while that wasn’t exactly ideal, it also left only a handful of safe options for them to take.

(Jotaro had been a marine biologist, an oceanographer, Sadao reminded himself as he thought this.)

(If anyone could find a way to make this work it would be him, and he just had to try and follow after that line of thinking.)

Holly could remember the fight at Haw Par- in the middle of an open park, with people watching from afar what looked to be miraculous acrobatics amid heat without a source. She could remember how blades clashed against sheer flames, cutting through it, through earth, and through rock.

She could remember watching the blows that were traded, and thinking, as Joy, how terrifying it was to behold.

(Holly did not have to think about what was worse. This, or the invisible flames that had pinned her son to a prison wall as the imprint of a hand appeared over Avdol’s throat. ‘He will kill me if I’m not careful. He’ll snap my neck.’, he had said.)

(At the time she had been too shocked to register those words, but as she thought of the scene in her memory and in her past, she knew how serious Avdol had been.)

The battle was brutal- and ultimately, it was quick. Polnareff went down under a coat of flames, groaning and in pain. Avdol threw him a knife, and despite Joy’s shouts, shouts that Joseph tried his best to quiet with excuses, he followed that gift with a few words.

‘It is painful to die by flame. Better to take your own life, instead.’

For a brief moment, it looked as if Polnareff would take that knife and do something else with it. Throw it perhaps, or even gain some unfound strength to charge with just that.

Instead he shakily turned it around to point at his throat.

(‘NO!’ she had screamed, horrified at the sight. ‘We can’t let him kill himself-!’)

Polnareff did not get the chance to use the knife. No, it would be more correct to say he didn't allow himself that chance, instead setting the blade point down into the earth beside him. He collapsed, and the flames were removed, the knife falling harmlessly to the side when the soil failed to support it.

(They had moved from there. Avdol called them over, with Kakyoin more than anyone questioning what that entire exchange had been about. In reply he had rolled the man over with his Stand, an agitated fleshbud now plain for all to see.)

(‘I was drawing out This,’ he explained, eyes narrowed. ‘It was a little more stubbornly embedded, but his behavior here and at the table confirms it. And now, with him fast asleep under the sunlight, there should be enough here for you both to act, shouldn’t there?’)

The fleshbud had died easily under hamon. Polnareff remained unconscious for a little longer, Kakyoin staring at him with an unreadable emotion on his face. Eventually, he had said to them-

‘So that’s what you used to get rid of mine then.’

Hamon played over Holly’s fingers as she listened to the memory of Kakyoin’s voice, focusing on that instead of on the cool absence there was in a now recurring and steadily more identifiable nightmare.

(Somehow it didn’t help.)

‘How hard would it be to learn?’

(Somehow the thought that things could have been prevented, however impossible that reality was, only made it worse.)

He’d wanted to learn. Joseph, nervous and anxious enough about bringing a student who was yet younger than his own hospitalized grandson, rebuffed him- making all sorts of excuses, and waving it off.

Joy herself had scolded him for it, even arguing for a bit before assuring the boy of otherwise. ‘It’s going to take us longer if we’re going by road, and a few weeks is enough to get started-’ she could hear herself huffing, voice so much younger than she could ever recall it. ‘He doesn’t need to be a master, he just needs to defend himself.’

She’d smiled encouragingly at Kakyoin at that time. Kakyoin himself looked something like a cat that had gotten a canary, knowing he’d won the argument.

(Joseph, wisely, said nothing now that he’d lost. He couldn’t deny it useful, even if he worried about an overconfidence and overdependence forming. He needed to not think of it like himself, or like Caesar, he had justified. Not everyone was going to run cock-eyed because they knew how to use a little Hamon.)

(He did not think about the fact that technically, Kakyoin was here because he’d been planning to do so without hamon.)

In the present, Holly’s sparks of hamon were dispersed through the air, sending scattered light across their vision. Sadao had been staring at the map for a few moments, now tracing a line from the shore to the nearest set of islands and doing some quiet math.

She had faith in her son, at least. Both of them did, both of them knew that they would be fine, probably. It was the same kind of fear and trust that sat there when anyone entered a dangerous situation struck though. What if a storm broke out? What if something, some Stand, attacked, even the fish could well have them after all. What if the ghost with them-

Holly swallowed. She knew Noriaki Kakyoin about as much as she knew ‘Shotaro’, and in that same vein the more she learned the more it hurt. How many times had she asked if he wanted to call his parents? If he had family looking for him? If he wanted to stay behind?

(Too many. Not so much that she pushed him away, she knew that, but it was too many all the same. She tried so hard to convince him to stay with Avdol in Kolkata she knew, the memory of such parental fear so heavy on her heart that she couldn’t possibly ignore what else had triggered it. And she knew for a fact that in Egypt, it had happened again.)

(‘Stay here, please. Noriaki- it’s almost over, but you need to recover.’)

(‘....Fine,’ he had said, and then two weeks later he’d appeared in Cairo with a determined frown not unlike what he’d displayed at Narita International.)

“...There are a lot more islands in the South Sea than I remember,” Holly murmured to distract herself, looking over at the phone as Sadao nodded.

“...the woman who found them claimed they stole her fishing vessel,” he replied seriously, a small calculator still opened in a ‘pop-up’ tab. “...They asked her how fast it can run, and on how much fuel, and they should easily be able to move island to island.”

(Sadao didn’t add that said woman had seemed almost familiar with the idea of Jotaro, or at least, had at one point. It was if anything a passing fact between himself and the SPW agent handling the call- that she’d been infuriated, embarrassed, and miserable all in one, and apparently wanted to apologize to ‘JoJo’ about probably losing his daughter but also he owed her a boat.)

(If he had passed this onto Holly, she would have found herself abruptly struck with the image of a loudmouthed young girl in oversized overall jeans and a newsboy hat, before marveling at the irony of it all.)

There was a spark of hope from Sadao’s words however, something for Holly to latch onto despite her worry. It was enough to even smile again, optimism in her words. “Well that’s great then..~ They could have someone wait ahead, or even just patrol the water!”

Sadao was nodding- but he wasn’t speaking. He was still looking over the map, and Holly knew why.

She knew, but she didn’t want to say it- Patrolling to find Suzume would be one thing. Patrolling to find Jotaro though…

Her smile faltered.

“....I just wish I knew why he did it this way,” she whispered, the sound coming out half whimpering. Sadao’s reply was to simply pull her close with one arm, leaning his head comfortingly against her shoulder. “...I know he doesn’t have much of a choice, of course!” No matter how forceful Jotaro got, the reins and legs were ultimately in Suzume’s hands, for all that he’d clearly been helping the girl along. “But…”

Sadao didn’t have to answer, but she knew what he was thinking. It hurt regardless. It hurt, because it felt like that wouldn’t have mattered. That given the option he would have slunk off in the night without more than a small note at best, if he even did that. He would have come to some conclusion, wrong or right, and instead of waiting around to sort it through simply moved- damn the consequences.

(Holly didn’t know how right she was; that her son hadn’t even been conscious for most of the last year, because of such an act. Perhaps if he’d bothered to do more than have a handful of SPW agents at the sidelines, he wouldn’t have been in that mess.)

Holly could remember with pained clarity, the conversations with Luisa. Those few and sparing interactions she’d had with the woman, phone only, and almost certainly for the sake of her granddaughter rather than anyone else. When the calls had first begun, she had sensed bitterness in her daughter-in-law’s words- it was before the divorce, before Jotaro had truly crossed his last line. She was calling in part because it was the closest scrap of contact with Jotaro that she had at all- he’d gone again, for work again, and with her daughter feverish and ill Luisa had been desperate for help.

(He didn’t come home of course. He’d said things were too dangerous where he was, and that he couldn’t leave, and before being pressed for more details left it simply at that.)

(While Holly hated to think the worst of her son, she could not deny why Luisa felt the way she had, after so much of that.)

The calls were few and far between, almost always in search of a man who for the life of him could not get more than a few words out on the phone before being forced to hang up for one reason or another, and almost always from a tired, desperate young woman at her wits end.

One day Luisa had realized how many times Holly didn’t have an answer to ‘have you heard from him’.

And suddenly, they could relate to the other instead of simply speaking to another during the younger’s fit of desperation.

The phone rang, and Holly jolted from her thoughts. In her mind, the passage of time counted itself down, and Holly stood from her chair rigidly as she realized who was calling.

“...Shotaro,” she murmured, glancing sharply to Sadao. Before the man could move to pick it up, Holly did so herself, golden vines aiding the process as she forced some optimism into her voice. Nothing to be done, after all. They couldn’t muddy things this much, not when Shotaro had so little on the truth of things, or-

“Hi, Haha.”

“Hiii, Shotaro~! How is your week?”

(She wondered how fast he’d see through it.)

“Ah…busy,” he answered honestly, and quietly she was not surprised in the slightest. “The foundation has been sorting through a big case over the last two weeks…”

(She wondered if he would say so when he did.)

Shotaro, Holly couldn’t help but notice, seemed to actually be holding something back himself as well this time. While she wouldn’t be surprised to see that from Jotaro himself, she couldn’t ignore the quiet confusion that came from her memories as ‘Joy’. Her son, her second son, was not quite the sort to so obviously shy away from honesty. He was someone who was open with her- if he worried, he brought it forward, if he had something that concerned her, concerned his family, he brought it forward.

(As Holly it was a familiar experience, but the two clashing forces had even she, even her proper self, questioning the matter. What was the difference, between what Shotaro freely spoke of, and what he was holding back now?)

“It’s not something dangerous is it?” Holly found herself asking despite the small thrum at the back of her mind that said not to. “Are you and the others alright?”

Shotaro didn’t pause exactly, but there was a hesitation all the same. Quietly, Holly pondered the fact that this big case existed just as long as they had been in this strange new reality that was thrust upon them.

“No,” he answered honestly, and she knew it was because there wasn’t that same underlying feeling of having something held back this time. “Any danger involved has passed already. It’s mostly paperwork- I can’t say much about it over the phone.” Understandable, the Foundation was a fairly private deal at the best of times. “How are you, Haha? And the girl?”

Right, yes, she had mentioned Suzume as nothing more than a little waif of a Stand user she’d taken in, during her last call with the man. Chipper edge to her tone as Sadao watched worriedly, she stomped down on her heart and lied. “We’re all doing wonderful~! Your father even took some time to come home for the time being- he might still be around when you visit with your family,” she added, in part as a way to give herself an edge of hope.

Summer was months away. She would have Suzume and Jotaro back before then, mark her words. If she had to more properly channel Jocelyne ‘JoJo’ Kujo herself to do it, then so be it.

That nasty little pause had returned, and for a moment Holly held her breath. They were both playing a cruel game with the other, she couldn’t help but think. Holding back things that they knew would hurt, but couldn’t simply identify the source of through their own deductions. Quietly she wondered- did he know somehow? About all of these twisting lives and memories that now flanked him in some morbid hedge? He was an island in all of this, that much she knew by now- the reversed scenario that Josuke was in, a man with a fully established life where it had been someone elses.

“That’s good to hear,” Shotaro said, again with honesty, despite that terrible knowledge that there was more that could- that should- have been said. “Is Dad busy? I haven’t spoken to him too much recently.”

Holly looked to Sadao. Sadao, perhaps tempted to act immediately, instead paused to consider the matter in relation to what his conflicting memories said. Eventually he nodded, and Holly passed the phone over.

“I’ll talk to him,” he said calmly, taking it from the woman. “...Shotaro?”

Holly didn’t stay too close, not letting herself listen in on the call. Instead she looked back at the map that was still on Sadao’s phone screen, eyes growing distant. In the past, they went back to their hotel and offered Polnareff the option to join them. He’d politely refused, but asked if they had plans for where to move next. They were honest in that- in where they were going, and who with. In that they had no real destination, just a single location between two people to best start from- their only time limit, the limit of their nerves.

(Holly Kujo had 49 to 50 days to live.)

Polnareff had nodded, said nothing, and then appeared before them at the docks the next day, a strange parallel to how they had found Kakyoin at the airport.

(Shotaro had the same amount before he would almost undoubtedly be fit to return to school, and their little game of lies shattered.)

“....hahhhhh…” Holly sighed, and before she could get lost in the memory and thoughts of the ocean and the ocean that her son was currently traveling on, she looked back to Sadao. It was expected perhaps, but he’d kept the conversation short. Somewhat shamefully, that was how they had been each time thus far, despite the internal knowledge that they could often last a good bit longer.

(It wasn’t even that Shotaro himself had much to say; frankly speaking he rarely said much at all during those calls, as for all his politeness he was definitely about as much for conversation as his brother and counterpart.)

(He was simply that eager to listen, and in any typical circumstance, she herself was eager to talk.)

“Seiko,” Sadao spoke, and Holly blinked as the phone was quietly passed over.

“Oh- thank you dear,” she said with a nod, “Did Shotaro have more to..?”

She trailed off as Sadao shook his head, the motion small, curt, but otherwise telling.

“He is putting Luisa on,” he instead said, and Holly found herself growing rather pale.

They weren’t divorced any longer, she reminded herself. That thought had come up long ago, but it kept fading in importance, only to come back like a roaring wave. Luisa woke up from an empty home with a jailed daughter and a divorced lifestyle to a college visit and a husband, plus extras in the form of a lost child, and rather than dwell on just how jarring it must have been for the poor girl, Holly had focused as much on what was tangible as possible.

Luisa, it seemed, still recognized where there could be a branch to grab in the flood that was her new life.

“She wants to speak with you.”

Of course she did, Holly thought, nodding and taking the phone. The problem was…

“Hello…?”

“...Luisa?”

“Yes. Yes, that’s right, and…”

Of course. It wasn’t as if she could outright say it from her end, and Holly kept her breathing as even as possible. “...It’s Seiko,” she half whispered, despite the knowledge that only Luisa would hear regardless. “...It’s Holly-”

“Oh thank God, I thought it was just myself and the boy…” the woman half sobbed, half whispered in turn, and Holly again reminded herself to keep her hamon-regulating pace on track.

The problem was, after all…

…Well, put gently, she didn’t know if her ‘branch’ could support this kind of pressure.

(She would try though, Holly told herself. Absolutely she would try, and maybe by the end of things they would even wrangle some sense of peace and calm out of this by the end of the month.)

Chapter Text

When looking back on the moment, Jotaro would honestly have to admit that he hadn’t really been thinking when he tore off using a fishing boat like most professional swimmers would a kickboard. Primarily, all there had been on his mind was the sort of dull panic that would strike him when a plan abruptly turned on its head with nothing more than a fraction of a moment to react. Thinking wasn’t happening in a fraction of a moment. Thinking was arguably going to betray him, actually. Doing whatever came to reflex was probably his best shot.

That normally didn’t work, but at least in this specific case, he’d pulled it off.

“Hhhhwwwwwwaaaauuuuhhh…”

Now of course, they weren’t moving at that blistering and panicked pace- one that once stopped, had Kakyoin himself eyeing the Stand with undisguised amusement as Jotaro carefully hauled himself on only to instinctively shake his head like he was some kind of dog.

(He’d like to see how Kakyoin took having a head full of salt water, frankly. He couldn’t even feel guilty for having the thought in relation to someone who could never again do so, because Kakyoin’s shit-eating grin and failure to muffle his laughter was simply that strong.)

All in all, they were a good ways out to sea however- and with any luck, they would be seeing their first stop goal in just an hour or so.

Suzume’s yawn was a solid warning as to why they were making such a stop as soon as possible. While they’d be seeing Woody island soon enough, it would take them a number of hours still to get there- hours that, frankly, she needed to be awake for so he could guarantee their safe travels.

A slight splash as the motor was lowered into place off the back of the boat, and Jotaro gave it a considering glance. He could feel Kakyoin watching as he did so- the ghost’s refusal to see the obvious perhaps testament to the reputation for ghosts to stick to their opinions no matter the consequence- but for now he ignored it.

What he needed, was to see how fast this thing was going to move and for how long.

Kicking out from the bay hadn’t been especially fast- for all that ‘Star Platinum’, personally (hah) was faster than near anything, they were ultimately limited by the fact that he’d also been pushing a boat along the water without any intentions of launching it off the surface.

As far as he could tell with the motor however…they were looking at a top speed of 50 knots. Average preference would be 30, but it could definitely hold 50 for a short bit, which would mean about 8 hours to get to Woody.

He’d have to take a look at the charts again, but he was fairly certain they could get the same amount of time between there and Thitu as well- which was ideal, since finding a source of water and gas (and food that wasn’t fresh caught fish, something which he’d be having a hell of a time with as it was) in the Spratly Islands was going to be hell and a half.

Honestly if it wasn’t for the fact that he could personally steer the damn boat over and around just about any obstacle in sight, the very idea of taking them so quickly through known ‘dangerous waters’ would have him stiff with distaste. Fortunately, there were apparently a few small advantages to being in this state.

It was outweighed immeasurably by the cons, as he was continuously reminded, but there were at least a few pros.

The greatly outnumbering points were being brought to his attention again though, as he started up the motor and looked over the others on the boat. Suzume at least, seemed bored rather than properly tired- good, because on top of getting to the island, they had to somehow find a discrete spot to tie up and avoid attention for a solid number of hours. At least it wasn’t rain season, he reasoned as the boat took off into a steady pace. That would just make things even more of a challenge.

(Kakyoin, he noted, was still staring. If he didn’t have to keep hold on the steering wheel of this tiny covered boat, he’d have long since disappeared to avoid it, given that it didn’t go anywhere except even worse and stranger assumptions. Unfortunately, here he was.)

With the boat holding around 40 for now- Jotaro wasn’t going to floor it at full speed until it was necessary, especially since these were monitored waters- he looked down to Suzume with a quiet mental prod that things were relatively safe now. With that in mind, she started reaching for the bag-

Fortunately, Kakyoin stopped her.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, J- Suzume,” he smoothly corrected, and to Suzume’s credit she wasn’t reacting as strongly to the slip as she was before. For all that she was justified, she’d been far worse about dragging things back in the ghost’s face, and Jotaro found he much preferred the tentative peace and quiet that an agreement was bringing them. “Your paper will get wet in the spray- you should keep from drawing until we reach land…most likely a few days.”

Suzume, to no surprise, did not like the sound of that. “...days…?” She knew what days were. Days were long. Very long. She had not yet had a single day without drawing things, and the idea of having one was not a nice one.

Kakyoin sensed that, and quickly found something to distract her with. “Why don’t you help me to get familiar with the boat instead- you can keep your bag safe at the front here, and show me the supplies. You’ll probably be thirsty soon, or hungry, right?” The sun wasn’t setting exactly, but it certainly wasn’t high in the air like it had been when they started looking for a boat off of Hong Kong, so it was a fair estimate. “So, why don’t you show me?”

It took a bit of thinking on her part, but Suzume ultimately nodded. “...Okay…” she answered, sounding far more like she had a few days prior, with an edge of frustrated boredom added in. If it wasn’t for the fact that he had better things to focus on, he’d even roll his eyes. As it were-

“Ora-oraa…”

He really needed to stop trying to say ‘yare yare’, it wasn’t working. For that matter if it did he’d probably get stuck saying nothing but ‘yare’, and wouldn’t that be a bitter laugh for everyone in the know?

(One of these days Kakyoin was going to connect the damn dots. Maybe.)

(He supposed that in the ghost’s defense, half the reason they were out here was his inability to connect the two dots.)

“This boat is much smaller than the ship we took before,” Kakyoin was offering Suzume as a ‘peace offering’ of sorts. “It won’t take near as long for you to see everything on it- when we traveled last time, we had to look for our rooms for so long, we decided to just lounge in the sun after,” he snorted, Jotaro staring out at the sea as he thought back to the memory himself.

His eyes kept drifting to the green of Kakyoin’s uniform as he did so, he’d admit. His own eyes as Star Platinum were doing more than enough to guarantee he saw anything they needed to avoid before it became a risk, so his wandering eye was at least nothing to worry about at that level. But it was something to curse at least, emotionally.

(‘Aren’t you boys going to change?! My god you must be baking-’

‘We’re students. Students should look like students,’ Kakyoin had said without pausing, and quietly Jotaro channeled as much thanks as possible into his otherwise stern frown of a resting bitch face as possible.)

(It was just like his grandfather to see nothing wrong with just borrowing the t-shirts of sailors, to forget that they had seen warmer weather in their own country while wearing these uniforms, and for that matter to, at that point in time, simply fail to grasp the idea of how private his grandson even was.)

Kakyoin was never going to take that uniform off. It was practically his skin now, glued to him in death, never to part until he parted from this plane. He found himself wondering what his friend would have worn outside of the school year, as Kakyoin idly chattered about the layout of a ship that their charge had never seen the inside of. He himself had been almost lost without the gakuran jacket. Summer was summer, and it was easy to stick to his sleeveless shirt and a pair of black pants (which were far from uniform standard but dark enough that between the bare minimum of conformity and his own reputation, the staff took one look at what he’d done to the rest of his clothes and just gave in). The hat stayed as a constant, after its backing had been ruined- the jacket as well, during half the holidays. These were things that had been used against him- things that, when he had bothered trying to ‘fit in’ were simply demolished regardless.

So he took them back, added layers, added chains, pins, more, and let the sound of his grim approach tell everyone exactly what he thought of it.

These were his, he was him, and not a damn thing anyone did was going to make him cow.

(They were ‘students’, Kakyoin had said casually, and Jotaro just let his hat rest over his eyes as he dozed off.)

(They were themselves, no matter what uniform was thrown at them, and paradoxically those uniforms had become a way for them to show precisely how individual they could be.)

Jotaro watched, occasionally turning the wheel to steady themselves or plow on ahead, as Kakyoin and Suzume went over their supplies. The water keg was first, as well as the ice box- partly because the ice box was where Anne (and god it really WAS Anne, wasn’t that a trip) kept her glasses. Suzume gulped down a single cup of water easily, kept shaded by the canopy of the boat, and Kakyoin meanwhile pointed out the contents of the box with as much help as could be bothered.

(He himself had already taken stock of the situation- the food would be enough for more than one meal given Suzume’s size, but he’d rather they save it for as needed, for now. It was a pack of ‘pancakes’- fried up with egg and green onion, and a simple container of steamed rice. A good, solid meal on the water while aiming to try for a catch- and enough that if catching a fish to eat on the sea wasn’t happening (though he hadn’t found a grill, which meant they’d be eating it sushi style, not that he minded much), she wouldn’t have gone hungry.

And since Suzume was five, and not a relatively athletic grown woman, that just meant that much more pre-cooked and preserved food for her. Perfect.

The ice box was closed, and Jotaro focused on the ocean again. Green against blue, black against blue, weathered school uniforms that only one of them had outgrown.

He remembered things moving…slowly, after he graduated. Not literally, but mentally, perhaps. He was accepted into university, to his surprise. He moved to the USA, got an apartment (with no small amount of help from his grandfather, but honestly by that point he couldn’t bring himself to be too upset about it)...

…And managed to nearly unravel into a mess no fewer than four or so times in a matter of weeks.

(The less said about the years after Cairo, the better.)

(Recovery took time. The evidence was how little he’d actually managed to do so.)

Just what was the reason, he thought, that he decided to shred the back of the first hat he bought to replace his uniform cap? It took so long before he had- a number of days on the sea, the sun beating on black and toasting him like some sad marshmallow until he swayed into a heat stroke suffering heap on the deck of his professor’s borrowed boat.

Credit to his professor, as it was due- but he did warn him in the first place, and after that particular incident went as far as refusing to let him on the damn deck if he was going to keep being an idiot about it.

(He swapped out for white from there, staring impassively as the poor man groaned and cussed under his breath because of course, his professor lamented, of course his idiot student was going to be as stubborn as to just get the same damn thing in white instead.)

(Jotaro had replied- ‘You said we needed sun protection,’ and to his credit, ended up the only one who didn’t get a sunburn even once.)

Whatever the reason, he’d done it. No doubt to the chagrin of his ever suffering professor, who was certain that one day a gust of wind (or god willing, a seagull) would sweep in and snatch it off his head with ease and he’d never see the thing again.

(He added the pins, and his professor wisely, for the old coot’s own health, did not ask how much they had cost.)

The thing was though, Jotaro thought- Kakyoin didn’t strike him as the sort to just stubbornly keep up with things like that. Kakyoin had a more subtle way of battering against the edges of the world- he benefited from the silence around him, from an ability to melt to the background despite having been 5’10’’ and a damned red-head in the middle of Japan. Jotaro might have been a giant next to the guy, but he knew Kakyoin wasn’t short either.

And frankly, he’d have eaten his hat if Kakyoin hadn’t been the tallest guy in his own, actual class.

So then, he couldn’t help but wonder…what would he have done after school? What would he have come to look like, with his subtle pushes against the grind? He couldn’t see Kakyoin changing his hair much, or his accessories- if those cherries didn’t stay, it’d be the end of the world.

But a uniform?

‘We’re students,’ he heard Kakyoin say again, and Jotaro pushed the image from mind even as that last damn thought came through.

Uniforms were for students.

(He didn’t have to wonder, to know how much it probably pissed the kid off to still be wearing one.)

Chapter Text

Suzume found that she was enjoying this adventure again.

There had been something strangely familiar about the spots lady (well, she had them on her face at least, but admittedly Suzume didn’t see any on her neck or arms or anything, so maybe ‘spots lady’ wasn’t right), the lady who kept trying to get her into that building, but Nori and Hoshi had both agreed very much about the fact that they couldn’t go with her, so she was more than happy to just Not.

And the best thing was, deciding to just Not meant that they got what they needed! She didn’t know that it would work all the time, but she was feeling very very proud of herself for at least this moment.

Of course, after cheering and screaming and laughing her way out onto the water as Hoshi kicked the boat off, things got boring again pretty fast. The boat was still moving of course- Hoshi even did something to get the boat to do its own kicking, even if it didn’t have legs (Nori said it had a ‘motor’ and a ‘propellor’), but that was it.

She couldn’t even draw, which wasn’t great at all but apparently everything was going to get wet while they were here and she at least knew that water wasn’t good for paper.

Still, Nori was helping at least. So far they’d found where all the food was, and she’d had a lot of water to drink, and there were maps and fishing sticks (poles) with string and hooks (‘Don’t touch those JoJ- ah, Suzume’), and a very sharp knife in a little kit that Nori didn’t even let her start to reach for before asking if she could see the island.

(She could now- tiny and faint and a little green, unless she looked with Hoshi’s eyes, but Hoshi wanted to mostly look at the water. Which was fair, she thought, because there was lots of neat stuff in the water too, like weird fish and weirder rocks.)

It took a long, long, long time before they could get that far though, and Suzume frowned under the roof of the boat for a lot of it. The adventure had started getting fun again, but mostly now it was just boring, even if Nori was trying his best to talk about stuff while Hoshi looked at the water. For now at least, Nori was talking about another boat-

“If you can imagine a boat so big that there are bedrooms inside, and a kitchen, and then bigger, that’s the kind of boat we were on,” Nori explained, Suzume tilting her head as she considered it.

Honestly, she was having a hard time, and eventually her friend conceded some form of defeat.

“We didn’t spend much time down below to be fair,” he sighed, shrugging as he lounged back in the air. It was sort of cool, how Nori could just do that. It was like he had an invisible couch, or a chair, or a futon, all in one, the way he just floated however he wanted instead of ‘standing’. “It was a last minute rental as it is- for all that it was a massive luxury ship, it felt more like we were on a fishing vessel, with how many sailors were aboard to maintain it. It was a good day when we left though,” Nori offered- beaming a smile to the girl to try and cheer her. “The sun had been just rising, and by the time we were leaving it was daylight. We left so quickly in fact, that…” He trailed off, realizing something.

Or at least, she thought that was probably what was happening. He had that look on his face, sort of like Haha did when she remembered something. She hoped it didn’t mean he just said nothing though, because they were definitely too far away from the island for that.

(Kakyoin wasn’t going to just stop talking of course, but he was quiet for the moment in favor of the stark realization that had it not been for their rush to get out in the first place, the fight with their imposter captain could have gone far differently. How long had he intended to sail off with them none the wiser? He’d waited until Anne had tried to swim ashore, a fools errand without Stands involved.)

(The waters of the South Chinese Sea were dangerous, but not because of sharks, or at least that wasn’t the primary reason. The primary reason had always been the reefs, the plethora of reefs smack in the middle of it, so sudden and fatal that it was to be called 'Dangerous Ground'. Was that, then, where…)

In the end Nori had kept talking, this time about all the fish in the water, and they’d ended up making a sort of game of it to pass the time. Suzume would look deep in the water with Hoshi’s eyes (which he seemed quite happy to do), talk about something she saw, and then they’d see if Nori could tell what it was and what it did. A lot of the time he was right! It made Hoshi very happy, and Suzume was all too happy to pass that on. When everyone was happy, well…everyone was happy! And that was pretty good.

Sometimes of course, he didn’t know, and even though Suzume was pretty sure Hoshi knew, there wasn’t really a way to say so. So Suzume just tried to guess instead, even if her guess was probably a lot more wrong than what Nori’s was.

Like the guess about the rounder fish with sharp fins. It was silver, and had a curving tail, like what the moon looked like sometimes. Suzume called it a forkfish. Nori…well. Nori frowned, and eventually admitted he didn’t know, so Suzume supposed she won that one.

(Kakyoin frankly just thought it sounded like ‘a fish’. He could spot out the weird fish fine enough- describe the lumpy face of a Mahi-Mahi and he had it. But what the hell was a small sharp finned fish out here?)

Eventually after a lot of fish guessing, which started to get more and more interesting as the island ahead of them appeared in the dusky dark that only Hoshi could really see through, the motor was turned off. They drifted slowly from there- quietly, until they sounded just like the rest of the water, even as Hoshi dipped into it to start pushing the boat himself.

(Jotaro knew as soon as he saw it, of course. It was a sickle pomfret. Good eating, those. Shame the one spotted had been covered with cookie cutter sharks.)

There were very few lights on the island. It wasn’t like Hong Kong, or Narita at all. Despite this though, Hoshi pushed them very carefully around- until they could see (or at least he could) the few bits of leafy trees and bushes that were still there.

“I didn’t realize China had developed this heavily here,” Nori muttered, frowning as he looked about the island. Hoshi had started pushing them to shore now, and soon enough was even standing as he did so, though he floated over a few spots anyway- he kept going despite the shallow water however, and even after they made it to the sand, he made sure the motor was safely tucked upward and started pulling the boat by its rope at the front.

Suzume almost spoke.

“Shhh,” Nori said first, and because of how serious his face was, she knew it was important. She didn’t know why though- she showed it on her face, a nervous frown in place until the ghost caved. “This island isn’t all military, but a lot of it is,” he muttered, looking cautiously through the trees. “...And it looks like China fully intends to settle here properly on top of that. The structures we passed aren’t just the makings of a base. They’re the makings of an entire town,” Nori warned. “...We don’t want to be seen.”

Didn’t want to be caught, rather, but Suzume knew that. The girl nodded, and while she was nervous, sat quietly until they were pulled into the trees. The only sound she made was when Hoshi scooped her up- “Mnh-”

“St- …Hoshi?” Nori questioned, as if wondering if Hoshi could even answer things.

Hoshi just adjusted how he held her- and she looked back to where he was looking, to the shore they came from. A big trail of sand pushed away could be seen, and she blinked.

“Ah. You need to clear that, of course,” her friend confirmed, and with that they floated out to do just that. A quick ‘brush’ with Hoshi’s feet was more than enough to erase the sight of the path, and soon they were back at the boat again- with Hoshi pulling things out of her bag, and setting it down on the boat. Most of it was her clothes- he bundled them up in a lump, and set it down on the cushion seats at the front after beating them dry, somehow doing it so fast there wasn’t a single sound at all. And then, with the bed made-

She was picked up again. “...Hoshi?” She sat there in one arm, while Hoshi picked up the water keg in another. As soon as he did, Nori grimaced.

“Right- we need to top your water off, or tomorrow won’t go safely at all. You might want to see if there’s any food you can reasonably take along as well- you were lucky that there was food on the boat as it was, Suzume.”

She was pretty sure that was not what Nori was going to say, but since he was trying, she was going to be Nice.

Also, he had a very good point. She knew what it felt like to get food late, and she didn’t like it, and she was pretty sure that they wouldn’t see the Blackbird out here if that happened again. So Suzume nodded slowly, and off they went. “Ooookay…” she quietly intoned, and their quiet floating persisted. The boat would be safe where it was- she knew that, and so did the others.

They still had to be careful though, and Nori even stayed quiet just for that, floating ahead to look around at things.

Just like when they were on the water, there wasn’t a lot of lights. There were buildings that weren’t buildings yet, with half walls and missing ceilings. There were buildings so new even she knew they were new, all clean and pretty and fresh with paint.

Hoshi seemed to be looking for something very specific though- his eyes focused sharply on something far off to the side, near the docks they’d avoided going toward. After a while of looking, Nori floated ahead.

(It hadn’t taken a genius to realize that JoJo and Star Platinum were looking at the water supply delivery- it looked like they had to get it shipped in right now, which would have made him feel bad save for how little they were taking from how much. It wasn’t exactly just sitting there of course- but the set up was enough that they could pilfer some fresh water from the source without issue, and China would be none the wiser.)

(....Probably. Honestly he was finding himself nervous, looking at the set up on this island.)

Nori floated back nice and quick, and whispered, even though he couldn’t be heard by anyone else. “It’s just ahead, and the coast is clear for now…I can only go so far but I’ll look around for something you can bring to sea for food as well. Preferably some fruit,” he murmured, though Suzume thought he sounded like it wouldn’t happen.

Which was probably a great way to make sure it didn’t, but she was trying not to be mean. So she just focused on Hoshi, who went nice and fast and even took a bit to move faster than a clock for good measure, while they got their water and darted back to a hiding spot. If Nori got lost it’d be okay; he could just get pulled back to the handkerchief anyway.

(He didn’t get lost, of course. Actually, contrary to his fears he managed to strike theoretical jackpot- though if he thought about it long enough he couldn’t be surprised.)

(Why not, after all, include the fresh produce delivery with the water?)

“Jo- Suzume,” he whispered on his return, the girl sleepily stifling a yawn. She was doing her best not to go to sleep so that Hoshi didn’t drop her but it was getting pretty hard, so she hoped Nori had good news. Nori seemed to recognize that too, though he smiled anyway. “How do you like cucumbers?”

Suzume blinked, and beamed. Hoshi as well seemed pleased, and Nori quickly motioned for the two to follow. They did so quickly, keeping in the shadows and keeping as quiet as they could, until they were standing before a big metal box.

“It’s refrigerated,” he explained with a hum. “I was able to float inside though; if you stretch what you have of rice for a bit, it’ll be perfect.

Looking up at Hoshi, Suzume waited. It was okay, right? He set her down, and their full keg down, and disappeared momentarily from where they stood near the door.

And then, with a click and a thunk, the door opened for them to walk in.

“...woah….”

“Shhh.”

Suzume frowned. She wasn’t even making a real sound, it was just a quiet sound. Honestly, Nori.

It was for a good reason too. Inside there were piles and piles of food in big rectangle shapes, stacked between layers of wood. Hoshi was already looking around carefully, and quickly grabbing one or two things to fill his arm before they were done. It looked like a lot- Suzume was pretty sure it would fit in the ice box, but only barely. Was she going to eat all of it?

(Well, Jotaro figured she would at least. He grabbed two cucumbers- which in itself would help the water levels, and then after briefly questioning their luck, a pile of kumquats. Vitamin C was going to be The vitamin they would have issues with on the sea, and if they could top that off for the kid before it was an issue, then great.)

Carefully, Hoshi put the fruits he got into her hands, making sure not to squish them. Suzume as well made sure not to move- she was pretty sure they Would squish if she did, and she didn’t want that. So she just followed Hoshi back out, let him close the door, and waited for him to lift her, the water keg, and the cucumbers back up. Easy!

(Kakyoin almost wondered if it were ‘too easy’, but the tension of Suzume’s Stand said otherwise. No, they were managing this only because of a high amount of internally ingrained care- they were going to be fine.)

It didn’t take very long before they were back at the boat- Suzume was glad to see it, yawning widely when they did so. Even though it was sort of loud, Nori didn’t even shush her- she was just too tired for that.

“Alright Suzume- you can go to sleep once everything is in this box again alright? And then once you’re on the water, you get a nice breakfast with fruit this time- nice, isn’t it?”

She’d already had one of the egg pancakes with some rice when they were getting close to the island, so something like that Did sound nice, she thought. Instead of saying so though she just muttered wordlessly and yawned again, Hoshi slowly and carefully packing everything into the box before it clicked. She could only barely feel him lifting her up to lay down on the cushions with her clothes pillow- and she was even so tired, that she couldn’t think about how it didn’t really feel as comfortable as a futon at all.

She had her teddy anyway, she decided, holding it close. That would be plenty enough.

It was a good adventure, she thought. And falling asleep on the boat, she started to dream about more of it, thinking about big big boats with bedrooms inside, and sailors in stripey shirts shouting at each other.

(Suzume wondered, while she slept, what they were shouting about. She thought she knew, but she couldn’t quite figure it out. Some were looking at the water. Others were looking at her, it felt like.)

(In the water though…in the water was a shape, big and blue and grinning. It had great golden eyes, round like the moon, but much much brighter. They stared at her- the toothy grin getting bigger and wider, and as she pointed toward it, she-)

“Suzume…time to wake up, Suzume.”

“Mmnh…moon..?”

“...Hm?”

Suzume blinked it off, and yawned. She didn’t know why she thought ‘moon’, really. She just did. But she could tell Moon wasn’t here, so it wasn’t important. Instead she rubbed her eyes and woke Hoshi up too, the Stand looking far more ready to go than she felt at all.

(Jotaro would at least agree that when Suzume was well rested, he felt rested as well. It meant of course that he could tell when she hadn’t slept properly- such as now- but hopefully once they were off the sea and on an overnight train from outside of Singapore, it would go better.)

(In any case, he was used to running on fumes, and this was far from that- Suzume herself would be feeling much more eager to move once she had some sugars in her system, and that was what the kumquats were for.)

Rope in hand, Hoshi started pulling the boat out to the water. The sun was already in the air now. Not by a lot, but it was. Hoshi didn’t pull too fast, but he and Nori both looked around very carefully as he pulled them there, and they didn’t even go back to get rid of the sand marks this time.

No, instead Hoshi kept pulling until the boat was floating, before moving around to the other end and pushing it out the way he’d pushed them in.

“We should be able to get you some food once we’re away from the island,” Nori was explaining in the meantime, Suzume just nodding blearily at the words. “Hang in there okay?”

“Ooookay….” She was really too tired for any other words, if she thought about it. Or maybe tired wasn’t right. It was more like she wasn’t awake yet, and still had to get there. Yes, that was it.

Hoshi was still pushing them- his legs kicking under the water, getting them farther and farther away from the island until he was climbing back on and putting the motor down. Now that she could see more than just what Hoshi saw, the island looked very small. It hadn’t seemed small from where they were before- but somehow it was, and that was…well.

A little strange.

The motor started.

“Woah-!”

The boat took off, Suzume bouncing a little on her seat. The water spray was starting again, with Hoshi at the wheel and carefully steering them in some direction only he really knew about. Faster and faster, the island they were on began to fade into a faint green on blue instead of the thing with specks of white and gold that she’d seen in the night. Faster and faster, until at last they stopped again.

Nori seemed to know why, and was even smirking. “That should be far enough, yes,” he was saying, as if agreeing with her on something. Which was weird, because she hadn’t said anything, but she just nodded.

(Jotaro, already fairly tired of Kakyoin’s willful ignorance to the fact that ‘the Stand’ was definitely thinking for himself over here, just ignored the ghost in turn so that he could focus on pulling out ‘breakfast’.)

“Does that mean it’s time to eat..?” Suzume yawned, blinking rapidly when a round orange fruit was held in her face. “...Oh..!” She took it, and eagerly took a bite- which, admittedly, was the entire fruit save the stick bit. It immediately burst into a tangy sweet taste in her mouth, and she beamed.

She swallowed first though. Haha had said not to talk with her mouth full.

“It’s good..!” Hoshi smiled quietly back, and turned back to the cucumber he was cutting up, and Nori just hummed and looked around at the water with a smile. Suzume, with a few kumquats beside her, eagerly ate another one.

“....prrrouwwwrr…”

There was a quiet, quiet rumble beside her, and she blinked. Now what, exactly, was that? Hoshi and Nori didn’t hear it. It was too quiet (and well, not really important enough for her to tell Hoshi, she thought). But she couldn’t see where it was either. So where-

“...Prrrrroooo…?”

Suzume turned, and looked over the boat.

Hoshi was still cutting the cucumber into pieces and strips with the knife he found on the boat. Nori was still watching, some strange look on his face she couldn’t figure out.

(For Jotaro, he was doing his best to recreate techniques he’d known his wife to use when making lunches for Jolyne, back before he’d really been absent.)

(For Kakyoin, he was trying not to think of how he used to have things like that in his own lunches as a little boy- strips of cucumber set with rice in artful designs courtesy of his mother, before he’d gotten too old for that kind of thing, at least, according to his parents. Not that he’d questioned it aloud of course.)

(They simply stopped one day, and he felt in the air that asking wouldn’t be right.)

The other two weren’t looking. Suzume, staring at big, big gold eyes on a flat, flat face, stayed quiet.

(Dark Blue Moon, lonely, and happy to no longer be alone, just grinned toothily, like a strange dog who had found someone to play with.)

Chapter Text

Suzume stared at Moon- and she was sure it was Moon, he had all four gold eyes and the same toothy grin, even if his face was a little longer and all the barnacles he had were gone- and made her decision very quickly.

Hoshi was giving her cucumber anyway, she reasoned- so she lifted up a handful of her kumquats, and held them over the boat.

“Prrprprrrr…” Moon burbled a bit, and then slowly opened his big mouth- letting Suzume drop all the fruits onto a great purple tongue before he closed his teeth over the things. The burbling continued at a much more muted level, but his eyes widened at the taste.

“Do you want…um…” Suzume looked back at her kumquats. She liked them too, but she had offered, after all. She could count though, and she did. She had six left, and then the bag would all be gone. “...You can have…three more,” she decided with a whisper, holding three fingers.

Excitedly, Moon nodded and opened their mouth again. In went three kumquats, and she beamed.

“Prprrrr…!”

“Suzume, I think the rest of your breakfast is ready,” Nori called over, and Suzume turned with a start. She opened her mouth to ask about Moon, but paused.

Where Moon had been, there was no one there.

Well, she supposed that was okay then. Maybe he didn’t need so much breakfast. “Okay…!" Taking the rest of her kumquats, she put the three gently in the ice box, still opened. Hoshi stared rather consideringly at that- and she answered, with some honesty- “...I’m…mnh…I’ll save them for later…”

“I’m more surprised there’s only three left,” Nori muttered with a frown. “Are you actually still hungry..?”

“Yes..!” Was her immediate protest, which was followed by Hoshi passing her some cucumber sticks. They crunched with a satisfying taste in her mouth, and she quite happily sat under the canopy as she ate them. Hoshi had been careful to cut the cucumber in half along the long part first, and he’d set the rest in the ice box for now. The rest would be for later, apparently, and that was probably good. She could have it with the kumquats at lunch then.

For now, looking out at where Moon had been, and wondering if Moon would have liked cucumber too, she just enjoyed breakfast though. They were going to have more water time today, she knew- because Nori had said she wouldn’t be able to draw until after that, and he’d also said it would be a few days. So she wanted to make sure to be done fast, so they could move fast, so that a few days went faster.

That was probably how it worked. If Hoshi could move faster than a clock, then they could do that with a boat, definitely.

At the very least it felt like it was working when she loudly announced she was done, and moved to sit in her lifejacket up at the front with some expectation. There was a huff from Hoshi- but she knew he was at least a little happy when the motor started grumbling and the boat pushed away.

They could do more fish guessing for now, she determined. That had been sort of fun.

“It’s much different to look at all of this in the morning rather than the evening,” Nori was saying as he floated up there as well, looking around the water. It was mostly just that, if they didn’t look down. Lots and lots of water, and lots of sky, too. “Unless we get near Macclesfield though, I don’t know how interesting our fish game will be,” he admitted. “It could get repetitive.”

A pause. Suzume stared, not saying that she didn’t know that word, but conveying as much with a look.

“We would be seeing the same fish mostly.”

Hoshi had a look on his face that said Nori was being an idiot, and that they’d see lots of fish. But Suzume thought quietly that if Nori thought they were all the same, then he would probably just guess a lot of the same ones, so as they zoomed across the water she just asked about the Mackles field.

“....Macclesfield,” Nori corrected, and though he sighed when she said that again (what did he hear the first time?), he kept going. “It’s a sunken atoll not far from us- but I think it’s just barely off course for us. For the best- I suspect there would be more activity there,” he muttered, and Hoshi seemed to agree as well.

So, that was probably okay then. “...What’s an ‘atoll’?”

“It’s….a sort of ring in the water,” the ghost explained as he slid easily into conversation. “An Atoll can be a ring shaped island, with water in the middle, or it can be a reef- but the important part is that it’s some sort of ring. The one here is sunken though, so you can’t see it, or the reefs that are there. It makes it dangerous to sail near for some boats, which was why we avoided it before.”

Suzume blinked. “Before…?” And then, with a start, remembered Moon. “Oh! …where Moon was…”

From at the helm, Hoshi looked over and frowned a little. Nori though, seemed to just nod. “Right! With the boat that we took last time, if you remember. We spent almost the whole journey on the deck. …actually,” he realized, looking around, “I don’t think we’re far from where we had to abandon ship…”

(Kakyoin didn’t really know how best to gauge that- not like Jotaro, who even prior his studies had enough interest in aircraft and seacraft structures to have given it plenty of thought. He knew they were moving a fair bit faster than the ship had been of course- the fight with the imposter captain had happened a short time after they left shore, but it had been far longer after when the ship actually exploded- but that did little to tell him exactly where.)

(Jotaro knew, of course. Not quite by specifics, but he knew enough. The ship they’d had back then would have moved less than half the rate they were moving now- they’d had time enough to eat, rest, and even get a bit of sleep before that sudden shockwave hit, sparking everyone to panic and rush for the lifeboats. No doubt if the imposter captain had survived to wait as planned, he’d have sabotaged them at the last minute, but as it was, their lives were saved by the chaos Anne’s sneaking aboard had brought about.)

(Frankly, he was just surprised Kakyoin remembered him muttering about the field of reefs they’d been passing at that time.)

Suzume thought for a moment, about the ship and how it apparently went down. She couldn’t remember anything about that, not really. She mostly just remembered Moon. If she thought about it, Moon hadn’t been very nice- or maybe she’d been mean first? It was hard to remember, and she knew she definitely hit him a bunch, but he also covered her arms in weird rocks, she was pretty sure.

Maybe she could ask Moon. Actually- “Was Moon here then..?”

“Ah…” With a blink, Nori moved from where he’d sat floating with crossed arms and shook his head. “No, I suppose I should have been clearer on that…you probably mostly remember the fight don’t you,” he murmured, and Suzume was really sure she saw Hoshi turn his head to scowl and mutter. The exact ‘ora’ sound he made when he was really tired of something, she knew it.

But why would he do it for this?

Nori didn’t notice at least, which was probably good, since Nori would definitely have gotten upset about it. Maybe? As she blinked, and listened, she realized that Nori wasn’t very good at talking to Hoshi actually. He’d said some things when they were waiting for the ferry, but he’d stopped very fast too, like he wasn’t supposed to be talking to begin with, or something.

(He was equally confused, if Kakyoin were to be honest. As far as he could tell, a Stand was a Stand, and Star Platinum was very much that. A Stand, albeit one that had clearly retained any adult habits his friend had before any process of rebirth. It almost made it hard to remember that he was a Stand, that. He had to catch himself on it, lest he expect anything else. For all that the slips helped keep him away from the perilous thoughts of how out of depth he was, it quickly brought him back to that point too.)

(Jotaro just reminded himself that he’d made this bed on his own. Aside from the fact that he probably could have found some way to make sure Kakyoin had just heard his parents speaking to him, he’d gone and cobbled together this plan on a hunch and a guess and charged in ‘alone’, even placing the blame on a child who hadn’t existed until days prior. Too late to turn back now- too late to do more than regret the fact that, once again, he was repeating his mistakes.)

(Jotaro could hear his ex-wife’s voice echo in his ears, and he resolved to focus on the water while Kakyoin relived his friend’s best fights.)

“The captain- an imposter, of course,” Nori explained calmly, “Had placed explosives in the bottom of the ship’s hull- not enough to sink us immediately, but enough to sink us fast you see. They went off a long time after the fight- after we were fairly far out at sea- and that was where we were forced to abandon ship.”

Well. “Ohhh…” That was probably bad. “So everyone got wet..?”

This, it seemed, just made Nori laugh. “Ah- no, no, we had lifeboats, it was alright- bigger ships have small boats on them for emergencies,” he explained. “We had to rush so there wasn’t a lot left for us on them, but we all got off safely.”

(For all the good it did, of course. Both Kakyoin and Jotaro held that thought back with pursed lips and grim stares, recalling just how soon afterward the remaining crew had met their grisly ends. If it hadn’t been for Forever’s desire to toy with the Stand users in particular, they would have gone just as quickly.)

The boat trip kept going and going, and Suzume decided that if they weren’t going to look for fish, she could just let Nori talk more about the boat fight. “Why did I have to fight Moon..?” she asked, thinking about the big blue friend who wanted kumquats and wondering what had been going on that day.

Nori of course, was happy to oblige, and started from the beginning- with the big big ship, and their setting up the rooms below (she was pretty sure he meant Hoshi, but since she couldn’t really remember everything she wasn’t sure enough to say), to the lounging on the deck.

(‘I’d brought the book I’d been reading at your house along- come to think, I never brought it back…’ ‘Do you have to get a new one..?’ ‘....’)

(Kakyoin wasn’t sure if that was possible, but he resolved to give it an effort, even as ‘Hoshi’ sent him a frown.)

It was only about an hour after they left, he said- so soon that they could still see the docks- that some shouting had started.

“The sailors had found a stowaway on board,” Nori explained with a casual tone, just like how he would talk about things like how old a building was, or how you were supposed to say please to someone. “A young girl who was older than you, but younger than-” He cut off, realizing how odd that sounded, at least to him. “...Well, in any case, she was older, but not old enough to be recognizable…”

That sounded sort of weird. “...Do people look really different when they get old..?” She didn’t really know anyone as being any different from how she met them after all. Was something going to change about that?

Nori for some reason just went a weird color of red like his hair though, and didn’t answer her at all- instead, he made a gesture with his hand. “...Her name was Anne,” he explained instead, “And when it looked as if trouble was going to start for her, she decided to jump overboard. This…was a mistake,” Nori warned, and Suzume tilted her head as she tried to remember.

(She couldn’t of course. That much Jotaro knew. Even with all his tension, he’d kept Star Platinum under the skin, diving into the water to grab the troublesome child that was Anne Merlai and looking back in shock as the shark that had been curiously looking toward the disturbances nearby was revealed to be torn clean in two. End to end- perfect halves.)

(Sharks were dangerous sure. They didn’t deserve that, though, not by a long shot.)

Nori kept talking- “We were able to get you out with Hierophant,” he told her, “And just in time; the life ring we had thrown was torn to pieces by the Stand in the water, and it was a narrow thing to avoid the same for ourselves.”

“Melon got hurt..?” She liked Melon. She remembered him very clearly as Nori’s friend and partner, with the green marks on green skin and lots and lots of silver. Suzume’s worry didn’t seem to be enough though, since instead of saying if she was right or not, Nori just stared.

“...M…mel…”

(Jotaro nearly vanished on the spot to avoid laughing. It was good he didn’t, but he came close, and as it was his face looked like it was threatening to split over the matter. Melon. Melon-)

(As if he needed to be reminded of the feeling of Star Platinum pulling him out by the scalp while Jotaro called his Stand a melon!!, was all Kakyoin could think.)

Suzume, deciding that Nori obviously hadn’t quite heard her, nodded. “...Was he hurt..?” she asked again, the worry finally pulling her friend from thought.

“Oh- …Only a little,” he assured her, shaking his head. “Dark Blue Moon’s scales hurt more, I think. The fight was a little strange- we didn’t know who the Stand user was right away after all. We had to find out who it was, first."

There was a thunk, and the motor was turned off. Hoshi inspected it carefully- unscrewing the lid with care and peering in for a moment before screwing it back on- and from there, Nori paused to look.

“Oh- it’s a little early for lunch isn’t it?” he asked, frowning at Suzume. “You didn’t get hungry did you?”

She shook her head. She hadn’t. But- “...Hoshi saw a fish that looked like…umn…store fish?”

To clear things up it seemed, Hoshi was pulling out the fishing equipment that had been stored on the boat.

“You’re fishing for your meal? …Can you trust wild fish raw..?”

Hoshi couldn’t answer, but he did keep working on his fishing rod. Suzume supposed that somehow, he was going to get a fish to eat with that, but she wasn’t really sure how. There was lots of string on the fishing rod- the ‘stick’, she’d called it until Nori said what it was out loud anyway- and something that almost looked like a little fish down on the end of it.

She stared at it for a while, and when it was clear Hoshi was too focused on getting it all ready to really pay attention to anything else, she looked at Nori expectantly.

A few moments passed before he realized what for. “Ah. Right, the rest of the story…” Trailing off with a narrow eyed frown, he soon shook the mood off and continued. “...Well- if you can remember it at all, you drew out the Stand user with either the most impressive or most stupid bluff I’d ever seen,” he snorted, causing Suzume to frown for a moment.

She couldn’t see it, but she could tell that Hoshi was frowning as well. His face was far more unimpressed though, and she had a feeling that if he hadn’t been keeping himself from saying it most of the day, he’d have said the loudest ‘ora-ora’ ever.

Or maybe he’d have just given Nori a long look. That felt like something he was working hard not to do as well.

Still- she tried to pay attention again, listening in time for her friend to explain how everyone had touched their noses, and how Not-Captain-Tennly had Moon grab Anne (who she was pretty sure was the lady with spots on her face) and get in the water.

Suzume had to think for a moment- it was hard to imagine Anne as being small, even though Nori said she had been- but with a gasp, she realized she knew what he was talking about. “Oh!!” she shouted, standing up with a start. For a moment, Hoshi looked over- the boat shook just a little bit, and she was pretty sure she wasn’t supposed to do that. It wasn’t shaking now though, so she grinned. “And then I beat up Moon and Tennly!” she cheered, Nori sucking in a breath that sounded more like a weird snort as he tried to not laugh. Suzume’s grin disappeared very fast though, because she remembered a bit about what came next.

She’d definitely caught the Anne girl. She wasn’t very heavy, and she definitely seemed small in her memory for sure. But then she did get heavy. Or at least her arm did. Covered in lots and lots and lots of weird rocks until-

“...and then Hoshi got hurt…” Suzume glumly said with a frown, sitting back down. “And all the rocks kept me from moving…”

“Mmm. Unfortunately yes- Dark Blue Moon was able to grow acorn barnacles wherever he wanted, and perhaps much more. We didn’t get a good read of what else that Stand could do with that kind of power- the imposter mostly used it to control the water, and once he’d weighted you enough to pull you under, that was all he really needed beyond those barnacles. A fight broke out between you two- we couldn’t clearly see what was happening, couldn’t hear what you were saying,” he continued grimly, Suzume just frowning in thought. “...But soon enough there was a massive whirlpool forming, with Dark Blue Moon at its center. And we couldn’t do anything,” Nori spat, gritting his teeth. “Even trying to reach you with Hierophant, we were kept back by the Stand’s razor sharp scales.”

…Suzume didn’t really like remembering Moon this way, she started to realize. Hoshi slipped over the boat to swing the fishing rod, the string landing far in the water as he stared and focused. Nori looked toward it as well, while Suzume turned her head back to the floor of the boat and frowned. Moon earlier had been pretty nice, honestly. Even in the memories though, he always had a grin. Was it a fake grin then? Except Moon definitely liked the kumquats, and he definitely wasn’t mean about those. He didn’t try to pull her in the water, or grow a bunch of sharp rocks on her to cut her all up. So…

A blink. Nori had floated a bit closer so he could see Hoshi better, but behind the ghost now, there was a fish on the seat. It wasn’t moving- but it was as big as her hand, silvery and shiny. She pointed toward it-

“...Moon-!”

And looked up to see a big blue grin, and four big golden eyes, fins wiggling on Moon’s happy face.

Nori turned, but not all the way- he just looked down at Suzume, and laughed. “Hah! Exactly that,” he said to her, grinning widely. “Of all the things, you just…Pointed at him! Dark Blue Moon ended up with their he-” There was a sharp sound from Hoshi, and Nori cut off briefly- “That you stopped them with one-”

Suzume huffed, and growled, and pointed at Moon properly.

“I’m not talking about memory things Nori..!” she huffed, the ghost beside her frowning. “It’s Moon!”

“PrrRRoroorrrrrr…~”

Nori started choking, the strange, faltering way he had when they first met each other. He drew back so much he was floating over the water, while Moon burbled happily at him and wiggled his fins. Hoshi, who turned with a shout as soon as Moon made his burbling sounds, nearly dropped the fishing rod, but Suzume made sure to remind him not to do that.

(Technically, she was also the reason he hadn’t just instinctively stopped time and darted over to smash the Stand’s face in, but then again maybe he wouldn’t have done that. For now after all, Jotaro was left in mute shock, a hair away from uttering some sound equivalent to whatever Kakyoin was doing.)

“D…Dark B… …But how is that even..-!”

“Prororrorrrrr…!” said Moon, putting another fish on the bench and grinning.

“...it’s for me..?”

“JoJo- Suzume- This can’t even be possible..!!”

(But it was. It was, Jotaro realized, but frozen on the spot he couldn’t help but agree with Kakyoin all the same. Dark Blue Moon should have died with the imposter Captain of the ship, far away in Hong Kong’s waters.)

(Instead it was here, following them of its own free will, and Jotaro dully found the words in his mind to explain why. Words that so rarely graced the files of Stands he’d looked into over the years of cooperation with the Speedwagon Foundation, words that had met his eyes after a disastrous tale from Italy finally reached his ears just when he’d allowed himself to believe things would be ‘fine’.)

(Post-Mortem Stand.)

“Prrrrrrr?”

(Dark Blue Moon was a damn Post-Mortem Stand, and Jotaro shook on the spot as the implications sunk in.)

Chapter Text

Standing in the sun, floating in the water, were four figures.

The smallest of them had a small, growing smile on her face. She had hoped there was kindness for real after all. That sharing small orange fruits and things hadn’t just been a trick, that the big blue friend with a grin wasn’t like the big blue thing she’d seen with Not-Tenny.

The lightest of them floated with peril and confusion in his eyes and body- his form frozen mid action in the air, as if he could call upon green tendrils and shining emeralds at that moment, despite his eyes betraying the fact that he knew he couldn’t. His green uniform did not move despite the wind blowing somewhat roughly around them, and his eyes did not leave the one across from him, as if he were afraid that even blinking would invite catastrophe.

The fastest meanwhile, had started to inch closer to his charge. Jotaro had more or less learned to drown out the discomfort of being in the body he was- the sense of wrongness had faded quick, but to simply adjust to the technicalities and the ‘clothing’ was an entirely separate matter that he still combatted at the back of his mind- but situations like this brought such troubles to the forefront, as he too, kept his eyes upon the fourth among their group. He did not trust them in the slightest- but his hands, where they had been able to hold the fishing rod that now lay on the floor of the boat, simply passed through Suzume’s shoulders, and he cursed his inability to move without the girl’s perceived ‘just cause’.

And as for the one in the water…

Jotaro could not help but notice that Dark Blue Moon had changed over the past few years. If he looked, he could see the scar where a chunk of his very head had been launched off, a sight that sent a cold shudder down his spine as he thought back to the sharp and instant sensation of Made in Heaven’s nails driving through his skull. What the Stand had grown back was covered in the same type of rough blue skin, the two eyes on that side cloudy and unfocused despite their shine.

Mere recovery would have been worth notice as it was given the impossible nature of Dark Blue Moon’s continued existence, but what caught the attention of the two who clearly remembered the fight most was the Stand’s arms. ‘Moon’s face was already odd in itself- more elongated than before, fins clearly defined and separated from those on the back now as it shook its head. But the arms had become more fin-like, flattening and widening, with thickly scaled skin stretched from the likely location of its elbows and down. The Stand they had known had been completely humanoid in appearance- yet what sat before them now had clearly adapted itself for the ocean.

And Suzume of course, was approaching it. “Do you…um…do you want to share fish, like…like we did orange fruits?” she asked, and both of the others stiffened. The fact that she’d encountered the Stand earlier as well was a strike that came from nowhere, and yet somehow one that gave Kakyoin his voice back.

“I don’t understand how this can be possible…” he whispered to himself in fear, a look of conflict on his face. “He was dead. The captain…”

Jotaro showed no response to the words- he couldn’t explain the intricacies of post-mortem stands like this, and trying was just going to end badly for everyone. Instead he stayed close to Suzume, watching with a frown as Moon drew back at the sight of him.

“...It’s afraid of you…” Kakyoin murmured, narrowing his eyes. “It… …Does it somehow remember..?”

For his part, he was certain it did. In the same fragmented, and even childlike way that Suzume could, Dark Blue Moon clearly remembered the look of ‘Star Platinum’ as the last thing it would have seen before losing half its own self, and the feel of that soul as something familiar, something to investigate for however much time it took. Where had Dark Blue Moon even resided Jotaro wondered, unable to keep apprehension from his eyes as he drew back enough for the Stand to relax. The fight happened just offshore at Hong Kong. The body, no doubt, would have been there.

Perhaps Blue Moon had been chased into more open waters he theorized, watching as Suzume picked up the fish from the bench. Perhaps it was just a matter of time and comfort; if Blue Moon got sustenance via local barnacles after all-

(Jotaro realized something, and felt himself grow very cold, and if he had normal blood to affect such things, he would have paled as well.)

“Does he…want us to cut it? ….god I can’t believe I’m even entertaining this… …Do you want to share anything else with this thing, given the fish is here?”

“Moon is Moon, not a ‘thing’...” Suzume replied with a frown, tapping her Stand’s arm all the same. “...Moon likes sharing, though, so…So Hoshi can fix the fish, and we can eat cucumbers…”

“PrRRorr?” Was Moon’s confused reply, not knowing what they were actually saying.

It took a moment for Jotaro to clear his thoughts enough to turn for the ice box though. Better to play along and get the hell out of open water, than to try anything he ultimately decided. And grudgingly he had to accept that these were good fish to pick. While he didn’t doubt that a Stand as large as Dark Blue Moon, if it needed to eat, would eat a lot, Suzume was only a small young girl. A fish too large would have been a waste, and that the Stand took this into consideration was strangely touching.

With relative ease, he fished out the knife and a board, before pointedly looking up at Kakyoin.

“...What? It’s not as if I can-” He blinked when he realized why he was being stared at, and then just as quickly frowned. To Kakyoin after all, the Stand before him was but a Stand. An extension of the girl before him. Yet time and time again that same Stand had acted somewhat independently, performing actions to their benefit without the girl’s notice.

‘Star Platinum’, Kakyoin determined, wanted him to keep Suzume from watching the fish’s complete disembowelment and preparation. With that thought on his mind, Kakyoin looked to Dark Blue Moon again with a pained frown.

Where was Hierophant, he couldn’t help but think. He’d always assumed the stand simply gone, vanished into nothing- destroyed, like the strands that had been spread about between himself and DIO.

(It had felt like that after all. As he sat in the water of the ruined tower, steel biting into what little of himself he could feel, and water soaking his uniform from the hole created by his force of impact. How could he even still think? His skull must have crushed itself against the wall he’d struck. How could he even still see, or feel, or do anything?)

(A Will to Fight, was how Avdol described Stands. A Will to Fight. He’d had that will for as long as it took to fire off a barrage of stones in the direction of the city clock.)

“Oh, Moon, this is Nori- do you know Nori..?”

“PrrRorrro..?”

(A Will to Fight, and then None.)

Kakyoin looked at the Stand before him with bitterness, and felt little shame when it seemed to duck back toward the water with wide eyes, the fish-like thing nervously pawing at the edge of the boat with wide, fat paws. They made him think of lizards more than fish- of the crocodiles in the Nile that his family had been warned about while traveling in Egypt, conversing with locals who knew tourists didn’t know any better about what did or didn’t reside in their waters.

‘If you go in the water, you’ll be standing, and then gone,’ locals had warned behind teasing and dark grins, and the memory only served to bring him back to the city heights beneath a cold and heartless moon, the sky clouding somewhat above them.

“PRrrr…Prrrrrr…?”

“It’s okay Moon,” Suzume whispered to the Stand, moving close and getting up on the bench to sit nearer to it. “It’s okay. …Sometimes Nori gets sad, and lonely, and it gets dark…so…we just have to help him feel happy again,” she babbled, and cautiously, she reached toward the Stand’s shoulder the way she would for a hug. She couldn’t use both arms, but one was probably enough for it.

Instead, Moon moved to duck his head under her hand, causing her to pause- Kakyoin himself doing the same when he registered Suzume’s words, and somewhat shamefully he tried to stamp down on whatever ethereal side effects his rampant emotions were leaving on reality.

This was the ocean. This was the middle of nowhere. He was not going to nudge a storm into existence, if that was even a thing he could do, he wasn’-

Kakyoin focused on Dark Blue Moon. “I think…” Focused on the Stand acting more like an animal than anything else, and on how their head was now under Suzume’s hand. “...I think it wants you to…pet it…” Even Kakyoin wasn’t entirely sure, frankly. Aside from what they were looking at, the Stand’s eyes were up there after all. And yet as Suzume gently lowered her hand on the patch of violet between all four eyes the fish-creature seemed to hum with delight.

“PrrRrrurorrrr….”

Happy to sit there in the water now, Suzume kept softly patting the thing’s head, looking back to Kakyoin with something like wonder in her eyes. “...He feels like…um…shells…”

Hmm. Dark Blue Moon did look to be an amalgamation of aquatic things, Kakyoin acknowledged quietly as he approached. He couldn’t help but note, with some idle bitterness, that the Stand had no real reaction to him. He wasn’t afraid- he could see him but he wasn’t afraid, simply treating the ghost as another ‘person’ who was there.

Kakyoin wasn’t sure if he should be insulted or not. Apparently the honor of fear was only granted to the one that nearly killed this thing.

(A pit formed in him at the thought all the same. Since when did he want people to ever fear him, after all? He should be grateful, Kakyoin brutally reminded himself. Grateful that anything could see him at all.)

A thunk- and as the ice box was set down before them, everyone turned. Dark Blue Moon drew back some as Jotaro approached with it. There was something gripped in his palm, and on the ice box itself slices of raw fish had been laid along with rice and cucumber for a proper meal of sushi. In his hands though.

Suzume turned. “...Hoshi?”

Kakyoin figured it out quickly enough, and drew the girl’s attention aside. “Let’s get you some water as well,” he told her, drawing her away. “The cups were over here I believe…”

And thus, Jotaro was left with Moon as alone as one could get on a small motor boat, staring at each other in silence.

“PRoroaorrr…” Dark Blue Moon was nervous. “ProaaaaaRrrrrr…” Nervous, and scared, and it was a strange feeling. As the Stand alone, Jotaro couldn’t hold anything against it. It was entirely the imposter captain who took their rage for misleading them and preparing to pick them off one after the other.

(Jotaro still found himself wondering how the man even pulled that off. Ten years that crew had known their captain, ten years and they didn’t notice. That wasn’t just passing resemblance Tennille had had with his killer; their imposter had to have known enough to fool a crew that had to know the other cold, that had to trust each other to the end and back. You couldn’t survive the sea otherwise, not out here.)

(Not for ten years.)

Jotaro held out his hand, and opened it.

Dark Blue Moon quieted, and sniffed.

If he could speak he would say- ‘Go on, take it. I’m not wasting this.’ He would tell the creature to eat, mutter about how he knew if he was eating normally he’d be eating more, and so on.

Instead, as required, he sat in silence and waited. And slowly, cautiously, Dark Blue Moon stretched their head forward and opened big, big jaws.

It was strange, but he couldn’t help but think of a porpoise, rather than anything else now. False Killer Whales- a somewhat nonsense statement when the entire lot from bottle nose to orca were dolphins in the first place- had been documented sharing fish with humans in the past. Dark Blue Moon had done so without hesitation it seemed, and as Jotaro tossed the innards and discarded leave behinds of fish to the Stand’s mouth, he had quiet flashbacks to watching aquarium feeding sessions at rescue centers. Dark Blue Moon snapped down on the food with relish, fins waggling before they grinned, and despite himself he found himself with a slight smile.

He loved the sea, in the end. He loved what was in it, what mysteries there could be. So many parts dangerous, while so many parts nurturing, a part of the world that contributed so heavily to the livelihood of those on land despite so much ignorance. Most of the oxygen on the planet came because of plankton doing exactly as trees did. So much of the world’s food, of its hydration, would be impossible if the oceans were not there.

He’d gotten interested because of the trip, perhaps. Before that he’d had passing glances at ecological pursuits, had interest in aircraft, in seacraft, as well. But the trip had…brought him closer, he would admit.

(It was hard to remember that at times, with how much he took from his time and from time for others, to check on the Foundation’s business. For all that they were in part a charity organization working with the preservation of nature itself, his reputation preceded him- for every bit of work he was able to do with creatures of the sea, there were at least five more matters of import to handle that involved Stands.)

(It was hard to remember why he’d come to enjoy it so much.)

“Careful not to spill…”

“I’m okay Nori, I am...”

The two came back around, and Jotaro floated a bit more to the side to let Suzume at the food. With a beaming grin she rushed over, ignoring Kakyoin’s hissing warnings before sitting at the ice box. The water wasn’t spilled, of course.

(He’d have caught it. He knew he could have.)

“I…Itadakiii…”

Kakyoin sighed, and looked to the girl. “’I-ta-da-ki-ma-su’” he patiently sounded out for her, stuffing back memories of his parents doing the same with him.

“Iiitadakimaaaaas..!”

A huff. “Close enough…Tell me how it tastes, hm?” he requested, causing Suzume to look up with a concerned frown. Rolling his eyes, Kakyoin just adjusted how he was sitting. “I’m used to it, J- Suzume. Make sure to give someone else their share as well,” he added as a topic shift, nodding toward Dark Blue Moon. For Suzume, it was just the right thing to do.

For Kakyoin, and Jotaro as well for that matter, neither was especially keen on testing their luck with a Stand that controlled water. And grew barnacles. And-

“Okayyyy..! Here you go, Moon..!”

“PrrOooouu!”

While Stand and child shared bites of fish and rice, Jotaro slowly turned his eyes on Dark Blue Moon as a new thought dawned upon him. When they had first encountered the Stand, they had known little- there were so many preconceptions, so many expectations for how Stands worked. The distance limits, the combative limits, the abilities-

It was only later, as years passed and as more with the power beneath their skin came to light, that they began to realize how wrong they were, and it was that knowledge that now had him review what he’d seen of Dark Blue Moon in that fight. That he was Post-Mortem was simply strange, no question of that. This wasn’t exactly a Stand with a set goal- hell if it had had one, they wouldn’t be sitting around sharing fish and rice.

But more than that, Jotaro realized he needed to rethink everything he had seen Dark Blue Moon do in that fight.

Dark Blue Moon’s control of water was fine and good- that kind of broad range Stand Power was typical of those in that generation, from before arrows had been flying left right and center and spawning entire bloodlines of ability. Avdol had controlled fire in its entirety after all- why not water?

But forming barnacles? Those weren’t simple creatures. Those were crustaceans- living organisms that were potentially symbiotic with their hosts, and had complex enough systems to warrant an entire diagram of how they worked. They had a head. They had a thorax. There wasn’t much of an abdomen that could be found let alone seen once the carapace was taken out of the equation of course, but that complicated thinking creature of all things had been how Dark Blue Moon manifested a draining power.

Maybe it was a one off. Jotaro calmed himself, not that his momentary panic had shown as anything but a disconcerted stare. Plenty of Stands had side-skills that seemed to have little to do with what they actually represented. He could think of a few even- Pucci came to mind first in fact, and…

…He decided not to chase that line of thinking. It shouldn’t matter. He knew for a fact that a Stand was only ever as powerful as their User was skilled or motivated, present exceptions aside. Okuyasu’s Stand could potentially cause mass destruction, but he lacked any sort of desire for it and for that matter used The Hand about as directly as one could expect. Rohan, as well- his Stand was terrifying in its potential, enough power behind its use to rival Gods.

If he ever bothered to try for anything other than his manga, of course.

It was the balance that kept Stand Users in check, he had once theorized. The nature of the soul created a Stand, and that Stand reflected it by way of only rarely becoming something so horrific.

(White Snake came to mind again. Manipulating the code of man into Discs, be it Memory, Stand, or even overwriting existing senses and thoughts. How a Stand like that had any business having the range it did was beyond him, but that was just Pucci for you, Jotaro reasoned.)

(Terrifying, and dedicated, and hopefully dead.)

It was just a fluke, he reasoned in the end. He wasn’t looking at an aquatic based Gold Experience (And that was a Stand that fell into the category of ‘terrifying in potential with the mind to back it up’ if he ever saw one), he was looking at a Stand that had a mild extension to its expected powerset. Acorn barnacles were sessile, not symbiotic, but it was a fluke.

(Giorno was another one he was trying not to think of now, but for a completely different reason. He trusted him- Koichi had vouched, so despite the fact that it had been followed immediately by the largest Stand disaster in years within the span of a week, he chose to put some faith in that.)

(It was faith well placed, but all things considered he was still glad to have worked out an added test of trust with the Foundation afterward- the speed that Giorno Giovanna had jumped from taxi scam artist/pickpocket to Boss of the largest group in organized crime within Italy was nothing to ignore.)

(No hard feelings, probably.)

“Hoshi, Hoshi…”

Jotaro was pulled from his grim line of thought by Suzume, and he looked to where the food had been finished. They would probably need to get going soon then, he reasoned. If they pushed it for a stretch, they would easily make their goal by sundown in time to tie off, provided they took care in Dangerous Ground. He looked down as Suzume reached out with something again, only to blink.

(Across from them, Kakyoin was looking remarkably uncertain about something, shooting glances at the watery Stand that was still happily licking rice off its teeth.)

(It didn’t take too long to guess why.)

“Hoshi…Hoshi, Moon is lonely, and…and we have to leave the water, but…Moon can come with until we leave, right..?”

Jotaro of course, said nothing, and in fact even stared. Eyes wide, and looking at what was in Suzume’s hands rather than the girl’s face.

“He even made a pretty rock for me…s…so…please..?”

In Suzume’s hand was a very pretty thing indeed, but it wasn’t a rock. It was a shell. Emptied of its snail (recently at that, and he was looking at the Stand licking its teeth in a new light now), shining in the sun, and it was a shell.

Kakyoin looked over to the Stand, that same look still on his face. “....You had better be able to keep up…” he was grudgingly warning the Stand, Dark Blue Moon simply turning to stare blankly.

Jotaro, for his part, just resisted the urge to groan again.

Aquatic Gold Experience.. Sure. Fine.

They set off 5 minutes later, and Dark Blue Moon was happily holding pace alongside them.

Chapter Text

Miles and miles, and still more away, and Luisa Kujo- oft misspelled ‘Cujoh’- was having a bad time.

It had started two weeks ago.

(Everything started two weeks ago it seemed.)

And it felt, honestly, that it hadn’t stopped.

Maybe she could argue that it started earlier, she thought to herself as she set the phone back in its cradle after that first desperate talk with her mother-in-law. When her daughter had been arrested, only to be set cruelly for a fall by a hack lawyer. When she had found herself sitting in the hallway of a prison waiting room fingering a small package left by her ex-husband, bitterly asking herself if this was all he could truly pull together.

(She’d received a call a short time later, to her surprise. The Speedwagon Foundation, as a courtesy. ‘Jotaro is in a coma’, they said. ‘While he would disagree, we thought you should know.’)

(She’d been so confused and lost and hurt she cried herself to sleep over him for the first time since their divorce.)

Waking up in this ‘new world’ could not have quite been called ‘waking up’, as it were. It was more sudden. Like blinking, Luisa had determined when she found herself fumbling around a work building she didn’t actually know. Her coworkers acted as if she had always been there- they paused on her name but once they had it simply smiled and said ‘Right, Kujo!’ as if she hadn’t been going by her maiden name for a few years now.

It was good that she’d been too shocked to correct them, in hindsight. It almost prepared her for the phone call to her cell that she received that evening.

(‘Hey,’ came his voice, the same and yet not, calmer yet more uncertain, steady yet fragile. ‘Irene got here safe. She’s brought a few people over, so I was thinking of getting us take-out for the night. Is there anything you want?’)

(She’d answered automatically, her voice hoarse with shock. ‘...Pizza would be fine for everyone right?’)

It had been fine, yes, but when the phone had been hung up she nearly dropped hers. It had been completely fine, but Luisa rushed to lock herself in a washroom stall immediately after and found herself scrolling in panic through her own phone as if she was preparing to impersonate her own self and not getting ready to go back to her own house and daughter-

(And her husband, who she was married to still, but that wasn’t him, someone else was there, something wearing his skin, something-)

Luisa, all things considered, was great at keeping calm. She had to be. She had to know how to put on a brave face (too many times telling her daughter that her father wasn’t coming home that night), to put on a smile (assurances that he’d be there, which eventually became she’d be there because both of them knew that Jotaro wasn’t going to be coming back any time soon).

To be strong but to be caring and to not fall apart no matter how much she wanted, because if she went down the rest would follow.

(Times like this Luisa missed being 19. At 19 she was quite free to break down into a screaming crying mess, even if it was frankly embarrassing and childish. Jotaro might not have had a clue what to do except awkwardly sit there and try to figure out what was wrong but-)

(Memories of Shotaro even more awkwardly reaching an arm around to hold her close came to mind, and Luisa’s false smile nearly shattered as she retreated to another room for some solitude, again, for the third time that day.)

At this point, the only thing saving her from a complete breakdown was the fact that most of the people in the house who could and would react to her crumbling weren’t there. Irene- and that was Jolyne, her sweet and ferocious Jolyne yet somehow tempered, calmed to a peaceful breeze where a bitter storm had once been, and she didn’t know if she needed to be relieved or despairing- had left for college again, what with the Spring Break having lasted only so long. She never had the chance to properly meet the ‘Annakiss’ she’d brought with her- apparently, ‘for once in his life’ as was put, Shotaro had taken one look at the man and put his foot down. He’d calmly explained to both young adults that if they felt so strongly about marriage they’d best give sharing space with the other a try for a good long while first, and in the aftermath there had been a fairly awkward conversation that Irene had understandably not wanted to revisit. Not even with her mother.

(Were they as close here, she found herself worrying with no small amount of panic? Was a better relationship with…A father, because it wasn’t him even though it was, and wasn’t that a twisted joke, handing her a replacement that could do his damn job as a parent…was a better relationship something that took away from hers?)

(A week wasn’t long enough to determine this. A week wasn’t fair. A week wasn’t-)

Irene had left with Annakiss in the end, but the impression was that they would be taking things more slowly. Friends first. Possibly friends only, given Shotaro’s idle comments on the way Irene had traded numbers and words with the woman who had come along with, a hispanic woman with an absolutely astounding number of well kept braids. There had been something in his tone and eyes that said he had good feelings about those two, or at least a better impression.

(Idly, there was a part of her, the part that presumably met and knew and married this man, that agreed. A part that was used to him just knowing things somehow, having these hunches, these guesses.)

(Part of her was almost tempted to ask if he was just waiting for her to come clean and say she didn’t know him. Maybe if she did he’d nod and say ‘I know’ before helping her to come back to earth, but at this point she was too afraid to try.)

‘El’- she’d refused to give her full given name, and the way Irene laughed behind her said it was probably just something the girl considered ‘old’- had left on her own in any case, not bringing any of the other two who had come along in the car with as she called up a cab and gave a short wave from the driveway. ‘Visiting my sister,’ she had said with a grin, nodding in the direction of the others. ‘See you later, Iriii~’

(Irene had promptly gone a unique shade of red that Luisa could vividly associate with both versions of her husband, before emoting in a way that neither had ever hoped to manage- beaming widely and waving while Annakiss seemed to gain a look of understanding that said ‘Well…if she’s happy, it's enough for me’.)

(He was taking the risk better than she expected somehow, but she wasn’t actually sure what she expected. More surprisingly, Shotaro voiced that quiet alarm for himself, making it an even stranger moment for them all when Annakiss left with Irene much later.)

There were two others who had come with the group, and only one was older than the three students they had so briefly housed.

‘Blumarine’ as he went by, didn’t give her a first name, and if he’d given it to the others they weren’t sharing. Shotaro had kept a worried eye on him in particular, she noted, and perhaps he’d picked up on that given how closed off he’d been for the entire night. Despite an easy smile there was something indescribable about the man, something distant. He had eaten, given a nod, and then left- ‘I never planned to get a ride,’ he’d said as he did so, shrugging his shoulders while adjusting a large sack of belongings. ‘Just needed a place away from the rain.’

The rain had long since stopped, and thus, his reason to stay had passed.

They did not trade numbers.

(Luisa couldn’t help but notice that he had the aura of a man who was simply existing, rather than living.)

There was one who had tried to speak more to the man, and that same one was the only member of the group who had stayed behind. A shotgun decision it had been- something determined so immediately that Shotaro had apologized to her at the door over it, shocking her so much that the emotion managed to overcome her fear and hesitation for everything around her in this alien realm for a time.

(‘She found a child on the side of the road not far from Green Dolphin’s Prison,’ Shotaro had told her in a hushed tone, Luisa’s eyes widening with recognition, but perhaps for Shotaro looking more like shock. ‘So far I haven’t had any luck finding family.’)

(‘....If we took him in…’)

The boy was ‘Emporio Alniño’. He claimed to be 12 years old, and from there said little else. He flinched at sounds, and drew away from adults. The only one he seemed relatively comfortable with was Irene, and when his options as presented made it clear he could either stay at the house or stay with none of them at all, he hedged his bets on the former instead of the latter. He was clearly traumatized, clearly floundering in the environment he’d been put into, and yet that was not the main thing that caught Luisa’s eye.

Emporio Alniño knew their ‘real’ names.

To Blumarine, he sputtered ‘Weather’ before passing it off as asking about what the forecast was, ‘for [his] sake’. To Annakiss he nailed the first half, only to drag out a ‘sssssuuuu’ sound that awkwardly slid into a ‘kiss’ with all the grace of a newborn deer.

Annakiss, to his credit, shrugged and acknowledged that his name was ’Pretty darn weird’.

(Shotaro later confided that he was also surprised with the way Annakiss kept his language in check. Actually he was surprised by most of Irene’s friends in that regard, and again, Luisa couldn’t help but agree.)

El had nearly been ‘Ermes’, a slip that ultimately revealed her full name to be ‘Elidis’, and it was the first real sign for Luisa to realize that something was off here. But then, with Irene-

‘Jo- erm…Irene?’

While Emporio quietly asked her for more juice, Luisa’s eyes snapped to the boy like a hawk.

(He noticed, and immediately made sure to hold his distance, and Luisa herself tried not to think about how much pain she’d seen in his eyes.)

(Tried not to think about the fact that she may well have become a persisting source of it, for that matter.)

Luisa was an adult. 39, very nearly 40, and the boy was potentially younger than estimated- and she would bet money that it was an estimate, not an exact, that he’d given. Luisa was an adult though, so while she was certain that she’d managed to find someone else here who either had a clue what was happening or at least knew things as they should have been, she did not rush over to pester the boy with questions.

Because she was an adult. A responsible adult who just jumped from single working mother to married working mother in a flash, and had the sense to not pile her problems on a child.

(She liked to think that she’d choose this at 19 as well, though had she been 19 she’d probably also have started sobbing in a pillow while no one was looking as well. Either she was absolutely nailing this, or she was repressing a truckload of emotions.)

(It was definitely the latter but she hardly had the time to unpack that right now.)

Luisa sighed, and sank down at the edge of her bed in silence hours later with the same thought running circles in her head, as it had been since she hung up the phone with her mother-in-law. Shotaro himself was at work- and it astounded her how easily his name flowed from her lips when addressing the man, the ease of which she could fall on patterns some other version of herself relied on to interact with him. Shotaro was at work though right now, and she herself had very willingly offered to take some time off to watch over Emporio in the meantime.

Either Shotaro was nervous about the boy, or recognized they both needed space, or both, but the fact was he hadn’t argued and instead agreed on the condition that they swap on and off for the sake of the other. It was sweet, really.

(She wished so badly that Jotaro, her Jotaro, was here so she could slam him in the face with her tiny beady fist like they were 19 again, and then let herself cry in the same way for putting her through this.)

(There was no way in hell this was not at least partly his fault.)

It was a bridge she could cross later. A bridge she had to cross later, frankly, because she was going to be no good to anyone, let alone a closed off child, when she was a mess herself. Luisa rubbed her face with that in mind, and assured herself of at least one thing.

It wasn’t just them. Words couldn’t describe the relief she’d felt when Holly had confirmed her name, the ‘new’ name having long since been noted in her phone contacts list. If Holly remembered, then others surely did as well, and that was something. Even if everyone at her ‘new’ workplace clearly hadn’t. Even if…

Luisa swallowed, pulling out her phone and tapping a message to Holly. Shotaro was out of the house, which meant this was the best time to talk without toeing any lines. If Emporio overheard, then perhaps that would even give him the confidence needed to reach out himself- she’d confront him on the matter first if she wasn’t so blisteringly aware of the fear he had, and aware of the fact that it could well drive him farther into a corner.

‘I can talk now’ was all she sent, and she allowed herself to fall onto the bed in silence. Everything had been so…alien, if she were to describe it. Sharing a bed with another person again, seeing photos of their wedding, the same and yet not. Photos of trips she had never taken with Jotaro at all, including locations she knew Jotaro had been. This wasn’t her husband, she thought, but like her mother-in-law was no doubt feeling, that wasn’t entirely true.

Because somehow there was a numb edge to that feeling, a tarp over a hidden pit, and simply peeking inside proved to her otherwise when experiencing the depths that this new world had gone for everyone around them.

She could remember, after all, how she met Jotaro.

(She couldn’t blame him for the tension of that first meeting either. There weren’t a lot of women on campus back then, certainly not in the fields where they had their overlap and primary studies, and the few that did were far from shy about how they looked at the man. She’d wondered back then if maybe it was different in Japan, but in hindsight Jotaro’s tension spoke of someone who had experienced all the same in another language, and now had that minor advantage torn away.)

(And if the girls in his High School had been loud, at least it was a way to tell they were there.)

Jotaro was a student from overseas, who had not truly immigrated to the country at the time. There were professors who were astounded by this, based on his size- they would occasionally challenge the man on it in fact, asking where he was ‘actually’ from, or claiming he was hiding behind a ‘falsified language barrier’ to get away with ignoring their lectures.

Whatever advantage he could have used to beat them back, he did not seem inclined to use, which perhaps made it worse. She knew now, after all, who the Joestars were, what influence they had. All it would have taken was one call.

(Jotaro wasn’t the type to rely on that though. He wasn’t the type to rely on anything but himself if he could manage it, frankly.)

(Luisa wondered if that was why he wasn’t here, even in the way Jolyne- Irene- was.)

The first time they truly spoke, was in the lecture hall. There were only a small number of other girls in the class, and it was clear how uncomfortable they made the man. So she stepped up first-

“....”

“There’s no problem with me sitting here, right? It’s easier to see the board.”

“...Sure.”

Jotaro’s seat was to the aisle, and across, and in front, others had already taken seats. There were only so many ways to really ‘block off’ a spot, but one of the advantages of the benches at least was that she could give him his space while keeping anyone else from invading it.

(She wasn’t sure if he noticed. He probably did, she thought.)

(He was the one who took the seat next to her first, when the next chance came after all.)

Their first meeting wasn’t really their first connection though, not exactly. Their relationship was quiet. They took their notes down, focused on the lesson, and parted ways. If she had interest in any dating, she wasn’t going to bring it up with him. It wasn’t exactly hard to tell where the tentative bond of shallow trust was coming in. He could trust her not to ask. Not to want, perhaps.

…

His notes, being in his second language, were a mess. Not because of his own skill exactly, but more because their shared professor in environmental sciences spoke at such a rapidfire pace it was blistering.

Like the first time, Luisa took the move before he did.

“....You’re good in Bio, right?” she muttered lowly, lest the professor call them out on chatting.

Jotaro back then had quietly glanced over, and otherwise just stared with mild suspicion.

“Can we trade notes? We could compare between each other for the classes we overlap.”

A pause. Tension, sitting, settling. And then-

“...Sure.”

‘Sure.’ It was impressive honestly how much he could get across with one word, she thought. How the hell they ended up signing papers and moving in with the other so fast after that was a mystery even to her, and she’d been revisiting the memory for days on end. That was how she met Jotaro after all.

But Shotaro? That was an entirely different can of worms and it both confused and scared her all in one. She was glad she had her daughter. She recognized that somehow if this man wasn’t here, she would not have her daughter.

But it wasn’t him.

(But somehow she’d fallen in love with him anyway, in another life, another time, and some quiet, tentative part of her brain even suggested it would be possible to do it again.)

She didn’t want to think about how they hadn’t ended up divorcing-

(It was astounding, what happened when your partner refused to keep secrets from you, refused to leave you out of things, refused to leave you and the rest of the family behind without so much as a note.)

She didn’t want to think about how it felt as if there was something he knew that she didn’t-

(That was too much like Jotaro, too much like the man she’d come to love, come to cherish, and then cried for when she realized she could no longer keep waiting for a man that for whatever reason refused to remain a constant in their life anymore.)

(Why did he have to agree to sign those papers..!)

Luisa didn’t want to think about how she’d met Shotaro rather than Jotaro, and yet somehow, she did.

The Speedwagon Foundation was a global, non-profit organization focused on environmental conservation and medical research. Call her paranoid but she tended to squint at that combination, and that hadn’t changed how she took it at 19, on the campus in Florida when they visited.

He wasn’t in the same classes. He wasn’t even in the same program. She’d run into him when he was leaving the Dean’s office after some discussion regarding the internship track he was apparently placed within, or so he’d quietly explained later. Working with the Foundation was all well and good but the Foundation worked with topics that needed studying, and so he was studying.

That wasn’t important. That wasn’t relevant. What was relevant was-

“.....Oh…” he had said, and in turn she blinked and frowned, and asked what was wrong. It came out harsher than she’d meant- he’d even drawn back, a motion that wasn’t quite a flinch, too graceful for it, and yet somehow carried that energy all the same.

He’d frozen at the sight of her though, and it had unnerved her. They’d never met, at that time, to her memory, to her alternate memory. They didn’t know each other.

(Quietly she thought- ‘I met Jotaro Kujo in the first week of the Spring semester.’)

(‘I met Shotaro Kujo, a month later than that in time.’)

He’d been candid even then. ‘You reminded me of someone- we haven’t met though, have we?’

She’d shaken her head to confirm it. What a lame pick-up line, she'd thought! And then…

‘...Do you…’

It was a leap. Shotaro took a leap, like he seemed to so often do whenever she thought on it, going on a hunch that was built on nothing, or so it felt.

(With knowledge of what was ‘real’, each ‘hunch’ brought a sinking feeling instead.)

He took a leap, confessing later that asking her to join him for lunch was frankly the most terrifying thing he’d ever experienced.

(She wondered if Jotaro would have said the same.)

The phone rang, and Luisa sighed. Pulling herself from thoughts of Shotaro and Jotaro, of what was real and what wasn’t, and answering the phone after but a glance at the ID.

“Holly?”

“Yes!” She sounded much more cheerful now, Luisa thought to herself.

(She wondered how much was forced, and shooed the thought away. She’d be hypocritical if she questioned it.)

“Thank god… …S…Shotaro is out right now, so we can talk about what we know. I have you on speaker, I can’t hold the phone like this…I… …Do you have any idea what happened?” she managed to force out, swallowing. “My h..” Ex. Jotaro was Ex, ex, because instead of taking the hard way through and asking to try and fix things he just said alright, just signed those papers- “...Jotaro is…and Jolyne…”

“Jotaro is alive.”

Her breath caught in her lungs.

“He- …Holly you know that isn’t him,” she choked out, the sound thick in her throat. “You know- I know it isn’t him-”

“I do. And it’s not- but Jotaro..he’s…”

“...Is…is he really..?”

Luisa sucked in a breath, and in that moment on the other end, Holly did the same. Cautiously, with eyes wide, small bare feet toed around the corner. There hadn’t been much they could give the boy for clothes but they did their best, and thus the waifish child looked even more so as he looked into the room.

(He was crying, Luisa realized, and with a pain in her chest she realized he would have known just as much as her who ‘Shotaro’ was and wasn’t.)

“I…”

Emporio was without words. As if realizing he’d crossed his own fabricated line already he froze in the doorway, and Luisa swallowed. She’d set this up knowing it could bring him in, but it did not make it any easier to watch. To watch the fear, the trauma, the misery all in one go.

“...Emporio,” she eventually opened with, the boy breathing shallowly in the doorway. “...You don’t have to say anything. Holly- …That’s Jotaro’s mother, Jolyne’s grandmother,” she added, watching the flash of recognition and pain in the boy’s eyes, “...She’s going to explain what she knows. If you don’t want to be here for that…”

Don’t demand his presence. Don’t tighten a leash. Don’t-

“No....No, I need to- ...I was there,” Emporio squeaked out, and Luisa felt the blood in her veins go cold. “I…I saw h…I saw all of th…all of them…”

To hell with talking, Luisa decided in that moment.

For the next number of minutes, the only thing they would be doing was holding a young boy so he could safely cry.

Chapter Text

Holly Kujo, let it be said, had the patience of a saint. Maybe more, Luisa often thought to herself whenever they finished their calls with each other, though she would die before she willingly tested it.

Emporio broke down in seconds after his admittance, and if they had both been there there was no doubt that both mothers would have traded looks of utmost concern over his head. Luisa in particular had hoped to eventually earn enough trust that she could offer some support, but this was not what that felt like.

This was exhaustion- this was running out of options and running into a wall, and having only one option to get over it. This was grasping at a single straw that wasn’t aflame, and while it was progress of a sort it was progress that required absolute care.

Ultimately, Emporio didn’t say anything more. He fell to a near sleep instead, and just as Luisa was about to carry him to the spare bedroom, hushed whispering conversation having been her only other companion over the phone, he stirred to focus.

Holly didn’t ask if he needed to lie down, because Holly had the memories of raising a young boy twice and knew at least from the sounds of things that asking would just make the boy feel more upset- if not outwardly so than inwardly. Whether she made use of her Stand as part of it, only she knew.

Luisa meanwhile did not ask because by the time Jolyne had been 12, there had been plenty enough attitude to give the same forewarning. Instead, the woman gently held the boy’s shoulder and asked if he needed some water perhaps. Maybe a small snack. He said no of course, but she had the impression that it was the right thing to ask.

Which in turn, left them with nothing else to distract them.

“...What happened to him, Holly?” she asked with a pained whisper, only to correct that statement. “...What happened to us? …I know the man here isn’t him, but I can still remember an entire life with him,” she wept, unable to completely reign herself in even with the boy with them in the room.

There was confusion in Emporio’s eyes with that statement, but he didn’t push, and Luisa didn’t push back. When he was ready, she told herself, looking to the phone on the bedspread. When he was ready, he would say something.

Holly, were she to be honest, sounded just as lost. “I don’t know exactly how everything happened- Sadao and everyone else we’ve contacted for the most part have been having the same trouble with memories though. It’s like everything got redone and we were just…caught in the crossfire..!” she proclaimed, trying to slip some humor and optimism in and failing most spectacularly.

(Emporio, Luisa noted, actually flinched when Holly said ‘redone’, and the woman had to bite her tongue to keep from asking why.)

There was a bullet to be bitten though, and Holly was going to do it.

“....He…he switched places with his Stand, somehow. …Star Platinum, he…”

There was a pause- Emporio seemed to look at Luisa with a question barely at the end of his tongue, while she herself frowned. She wanted to ask what a Stand even was- to question it, and yet…

She held her head. Stands, Stands…Stands were-

Emporio gasped and drew back, and in the same moment Luisa choked on a scream. Emerging from behind it stood, leaving the woman deaf to the questioning sounds of worry from the phone. Like something from an alien dream, some surrealist response to the idea of romance and pain, it sprouted with a golden body akin to a cage, a corset, and something molten all the same. Spindling legs that amounted to twigs stood tall, and its arms were the most human aspect of it after its lips- the rest of the thing’s head was blanketed with a melting veil, its ends stretched upon the body’s ‘skin’. What could be seen erupting from between the armor of the shoulders, at least.

There could be seen, if one squinted, the image of a broken heart- the shoulders stretched and curved and domed to suggest them having been part of a cocoon covering the thing’s face- and within the cage itself, a more brutally realistic seeming pair, stitched together and strung within the gold. Luisa’s breath was still caught in her throat, and her eyes hadn’t moved away from it. The thing- the Stand, her mind corrected hysterically, did move though. It moved and brushed a hand across her cheek in some gesture of comfort, one that had her pulling back with a shout.

“Luisa?! Honey is everything alright?” Holly was asking, the woman too frozen to answer. She was only barely keeping her tone in check, but panic was gradually seeping into each word. “Luisa, please say something..!”

It was to their surprise- or it would be when they had time to contemplate it all- that Emporio was the one to move. He rushed for the phone and with a quick tap found the option for camera, turning it to the Stand with wide eyes.

On the other end there was a sharp hiss, with a whisper they only barely heard. “Oh shoot you haven’t seen your Stand yet-”

“She hasn’t- wait what?!” Emporio started, Luisa grasping at the words to pull from her shock.

“My Stand!?”

“I know, it was just as surprising for me- I’m sorry Luisa I haven’t remembered just how it happened right now-”

“This looks like something painted by Dali..!”

Emporio, apparently pulled into his element by all of this, gave the remarkably calm observation of- “...Huh. I guess she kind of does…”

Followed by the far more appropriately nervous question on Luisa’s mind.

“...You didn’t have a Stand, Mrs. Kujo..?”

He sounded so very fearful about the fact that Luisa forgot to even correct him on her name. It was probably better that way, she idly thought; after all, for all intents and purposes, for now she was still Kujo.

“Neither of us did dear,” Holly remarked, and Luisa eyed the Stand with gradually lessening anxiety as it calmly stood and waited for things to settle. “Something…Whatever changed to make ‘Shotaro’ instead of ‘Jotaro’ changed how everything happened in our lives, including that. There’s been a lot to have headaches over~!” she cheered, clearly trying to downplay the matter for the boy’s sake.

For all that it wasn’t working given the boy’s grimace, he at least wasn’t calling her out on it. Luisa swallowed, and shared a look with the boy. Nothing like strange surrealist extensions of the soul to create a bonding experience…apparently.

“...So then…this is a Stand. …Okay…” she breathed, not feeling ‘okay’ in the slightest. “Okay…I can…handle that…”

“...do you need a drink Mrs. Kujo..?”

Luisa immediately found herself casting her eyes to the ceiling at Emporio’s question. How did this turn into being offered aid by a twelve year old child, after all her effort to not have that happen? “...I’ll be fine,” she assured him, giving what she hoped was a comforting smile.

Given his grimace it wasn’t, but as long as neither was calling the other out, fine.

They needed to refocus anyway. They had to. They- “...You said he Switched...”

Surprisingly it was Emporio who spoke first, and not Holly. “...Shotaro doesn’t…feel like Star Platinum,” he mumbled, and while he moved to tug at his baseball cap- a motion that was unfairly similar to how Jotaro would do it, Luisa observed- he kept frowning. “So that doesn’t feel right…”

“Oh no- No, Shotaro is…” On the other end, Holly hesitated as she tried finding the words. “It’s hard to explain honestly but…he’s very much his own person, Shotaro.”

Luisa nodded. She’d believe it, after all. “But then…” Emporio swallowed, looking from Luisa, to the Stand, to the phone. “...Then how do you know- no, why did you say they switched..?”

“Because they both appeared at my house,” Holly confessed, both Luisa and Emporio raising their brows in a flash. “It’s such a strange situation, honestly- He’s here, but he’s limited by everything a Stand is, and ‘Star Platinum’ meanwhile…well, I suppose he didn’t explain the concept to you Luisa, but Star Platinum just doesn’t have the same grasp on existence as an adult human being…”

Gears were turning, but they were turning at a sluggish pace that spoke of rust and age. Nothing being said made sense. Stands? Switching places with Stands? Implying that the switch…did something?

“...Then…Star Platinum is a little kid..?”

Luisa couldn’t help but ask herself what had been going on in this boy’s daily life, that he was taking all of this so calmly.

“Very little- I’ve called her Suzume for now, but she’s five at most, the sweet thing…”

Very calmly.

“Sh…She!?” Somehow she wasn’t surprised that was what caught the boy though.

“Was…Star Platinum the Stand always…?” As Luisa muttered the first question on her mind, Holly quickly cut in with an answer.

“I don’t think Stands really have a concept of that? Though I’m relieved to say Star Platinum as a Stand looked very much like Jotaro, he’s already going through enough as it is…”

“It did look a lot like him, yeah…”

Quietly, Luisa had no idea if that was indeed the case or not, and in fact had a short moment of thinking Jotaro maybe deserved a bit of time as a ‘ghost’ to that end. Very quickly she regretted that- especially when the same part of her the regret originated from seemed to carry the knowledge of why.

(Jotaro barely trusted anyone his age to handle what he was doing.)

(Having his actions in the hands of a five year old must truly have been hell.)

“Can…” Emporio was speaking again, and when he got the words out, Luisa’s heart broke once again in a count that she had long lost track of. “...can we talk to…”

Holly’s answer did not bring them any pleasant feelings. “...I’m sorry honey, but he… …Star Platinum had never been able to talk either, and…”

“Right..” A hair away from tears again, there was a choked sound as he forced himself to speak. “...That…that makes sense. I just…”

“Do we know why..? …Holly, do we know why this even happened? You’re in Japan, why did he appear there to begin with..?”

It was hard to keep her voice quiet as she asked those questions- her feelings bordering on hysteria as Emporio nodded in agreement with her. They were doing well to put Holly on the spot, the poor woman- though to Holly’s grand credit, she was handling it much better than they were.

(She supposed part of that was that Holly had more time in a sense- Jotaro had been there from the start of those ‘two weeks’, whereas for herself and for the boy with her, it was a mystery that for all they knew ended in death.)

“Honestly I have no clue…” she admitted, her voice becoming heavy with grief now. “I can’t fathom how such a switch would happen, or why…”

While Emporio was nodding, there was clearly something on his mind. He kept fidgeting- looking to the side, and opening his mouth before closing it lest the wrong word come out. “...I…” So he started, eyes swimming with tears again as he seemed to drift off in thought. “I think it might be my…”

Part of Luisa wanted to demand he spit it out. It was the same part that wanted to break down right there. The same part that was so close to the skin that she was visibly shaking, however slightly.

The part of Luisa that was a Mother, however, stood firm. That part had her reach over for the boy’s shoulder, had her shake her head, and instead say- “...You don’t have to talk about it right now.”

Emporio stared at her as if he hadn’t heard her. As if he couldn’t have heard her, not when those were the words spoken. She repeated herself then, while Holly remained on the call and while her Stand, whose name was just on the tip of her tongue, hovering in the back of her mind, watched.

“You said you were there,” she began softly, though her voice strained with grief over what little of the situation she’d guessed from context alone. Jotaro had never returned home with a smile, exactly. Happy to be there- not happy because of where he had been. There had always been something unsaid, and at least once she realized he’d had clothes for a funeral prepared.

(Always in the back of the closet. Always placed as if they weren’t touched in years. She was smarter than that.)

(Even if he forgot that, she could tell that beneath the dusty cover, those clothes had been recently worn.)

“...You don’t have to tell us how,” Luisa insisted with another head shake, and Emporio shook in turn.

“But I… …But you knew him more,” he insisted, trembling as his eyes welled and overflowed. “...You knew him…I… …I only knew Jolyne, and for a few months, but you were her mom," he wept, and Luisa dared not ask how that was even possible when Jolyne’s last location had been Green Dolphin for so long. “And I...I barely…You should…”

It was Luisa’s turn to gasp, and Holly’s as well, the angle of the phone in Emporio’s hands giving a clear view of the white, cloud-like thing that began to manifest behind the boy. Emporio couldn’t muster any words anymore- he was simply crying now, and it was the sound that allowed Luisa to ignore the looming stare of red from white and simply pull the boy close.

“No,” she repeated softly, arms wrapped tight as if to protect him from trauma itself. “No, we shouldn’t know, not if it means you have to relive it like this. You can tell us when you’re ready and no sooner, understand?” Luisa instructed, her voice wavering as tears developed for herself. “No sooner.”

The phone fell to the ground, and Holly’s voice came to the air soon after.

“She’s right. …Whatever happened, we can’t ask that of you, okay? …Whether you feel ready in a week, or never, I won’t force you.”

Her voice was betrayingly calm, where Luisa’s own kept shaking. She was almost jealous. Almost.

(Jotaro was Holly's son after all, and if being his wife made this hard she could imagine what was harder.)

Emporio still trembled- “But-!”

And this time, the Stand in white put a hand upon his head. It knelt down as if it were human, and the hug between the two loosened only enough for the two to turn their heads and stare. It was enough to quiet the boy. Enough to have him pause, and look, and through his tears finally nod.

“...okay,” he whispered, sniffing. And with a nod Luisa gave him a small kiss on the brow, trying not to feel worse when he stiffened at the touch. He said nothing of it, however. He simply nodded again, and sniffed. “....Okay. …I won’t…I… …I’m sorry-”

“There’s no need to apologize,” Holly shushed over the phone with soft tones, and Luisa could imagine her shaking her head “There’s nothing to apologize for…”

“I… …I know,” he protested, with all the fragility of someone who still thought they were wrong, “But…”

The Stand in White brushed some tears away from his face. It drew the water off, and the salt with it, and gently dispersed it into the air with a slight salty tang that made her think of the sea breeze. Emporio looked at it like an old friend or something similar, and it felt as if he was going to break down once again.

Luisa, pulling on the strength of parenthood like a forgotten cloak while her heart screamed, shuddered and nodded. “..I think we need to call you back later Holly,” she finally said, glancing to the phone. “If that’s alright?”

Holly, with all the extra years of experience, understood. “Of course dear. And I look forward to talking with you both, too” she emphasized, Emporio’s only reply another sniff. “Just message me and I’ll call.”

Just a moment later and the phone hung up. Luisa adjusted how she was sitting so that it was more comfortable for the two, now simply sitting at the side of the bed, on the floor, looking like a mess.

Attempting to bring some levity back to the room, she even said as much.

“Well. …It’s a good thing Shotaro isn’t home for a number of hours, isn’t it?” she asked, the boy bursting into a startled laugh at the words.

“Th..That’s…!”

Luisa simply smiled at him, and he turned away. Despite his smile it was clear how much pain still remained, and she didn’t expect that that would change any time soon. At this point their best option was to put some distance to the matter. Take things a step at a time. Breathe. Rest.

(Try not to look at ‘Irene’ and think about- either from memory or imagination- the circumstances that brought her there.)

(Try not to look at Shotaro, and wonder why he was the one here.)

Luisa looked to the cloud Stand, the one still kneeling there in silence. Her own simply hovered- a strange guardian angel, alert and braced, something that brought every sensation of the world to attention. “So this is yours then?” she asked, looking to the boy.

To her surprise he hesitated. Opened his mouth but said nothing more, as if unsure. That wasn’t how Stands worked, she knew. Even working on a minimal amount of knowledge trickling in-

(Blood. Blood dripped from her wound, and it dripped from her husband’s front as he held her, and both looked to the injury with no source in shocked confusion before passing out-)

-that wasn’t how Stands worked.

“I…”

Was it?

“...No. …He was… …he belonged to someone we knew,” Emporio admitted quietly, Luisa staring at the figure with new eyes.

(Almost human, it acted. With care, with attention-)

“...I didn’t…” The boy swallowed, and the Stand did not move. “...I keep forgetting he’s still here. …I thought…”

“...He’s worried about you,” she whispered to him, hoping the words would bring some comfort.

To a point perhaps, it did. He nodded, still sitting there, and continued to look at them. “....Y…yeah. …I…”

“...Does he have a name?” she tried, one arm still holding the boy close.

Emporio paused, and after a moment, nodded again.

“...Weather. …He’s Weather Report,” he answered.

The Stand stared.

And with a wavering voice, the boy added- “...I think… …he feels like how a parent would, maybe...or...or something like...”

‘Weather’ moved forward in an instant- leaning its head near Emporio’s own until their foreheads made gentle contact, laying a hand on his shoulder when Luisa made room. He stayed there, half mist half ‘being’, in silence-

And then disappeared.

“...I’m glad you have him then,” Luisa murmured quietly.

Emporio merely sniffed, even if there was a small smile. Seeing how little there was to be done in the moment, Luisa thus stood from there and offered him a hand- her own Stand fading into nothing behind her.

“....Let’s get some water. …some food too, while we’re at it. …I think we could use some.”

There was no argument- and as Luisa pocketed her phone again and guided the boy downstairs, she couldn’t help but feel a little more sturdy than she had a mere ten or so minutes before.

(Maybe it was finding a part of her that refused to back down from something, again. That part that refused compromise. That refused to give an inch, unless it was dearly worth it. The name came to mind, and she couldn’t help but find it intensely appropriate.)

(In the place where Stands resided, Heartbreak simply continued their vigil in defending her from the worst.)

Chapter Text

If Holly hadn’t expected her call to go the way it had, she had done a good job of adjusting, or so she insisted to even herself. Truthfully she had been dreading a good amount of it- what if Luisa asked about Jotaro’s whereabouts in the present moment? What if they both lost themselves to grief on the wrong topic? What if there were more unexpected deaths, more unexpected revivals, that shocked the heart too much?

Holly couldn’t say that this was a better conversation, not at all, but it was at least one she could handle.

Emporio as he was named, as Luisa had told her the day before, may not have been her son, but he was arguably Luisa’s now, Shotaro’s as well and even Jotaro’s in a distanced sense, and that was enough for her. She did her best to offer comfort from afar, and when in the end the phone was hung up, Holly sank into her chair with a sigh.

Sadao came in with tea at that moment- no doubt having been waiting for her to need it, in fact- and offered a comforting hand for her to hold as she breathed.

“...How did it go..?” he asked, despite already guessing the answer.

“...Ohhhh Sadao…” Quickly, Holly found herself holding onto him like a lifeline, letting herself break for one moment more in the privacy that was the two of them. “..I knew something had to have happened, but if it’s what I think…”

Her son died.

He died, he died and she would never have known until so long after if it had stuck, she was sure. He died and so did her granddaughter who she’d barely known for real, who she knew more in memory of some strange life unlived that for all poor Irene knew she had lived, and-!

“He’s alright now,” Sadao whispered, hand gently stroking her hair as she began to sob at the thought of what undoubtedly had occurred. “He’s still alive, Seiko.”

“But only just, and you saw how much it hurt him..!” she cried, the shout echoing in the room. “And his own daughter..! …His entire life, his wife…!”

“Shhhh…”

There was nothing they could do to change it all, she knew. Sadao knew as well, had no doubt come to some sort of terms on the matter as well, having perhaps had to realize and connect the dots even earlier out of necessity.

(What else could one think, when presented with an invisible ghost of a son that could not be truly touched? Holly at least could see Jotaro, in his status as a Stand.)

(For Sadao, there was only the motions of the wind, and the rustling of grass. For Sadao, his son was barely there, but for Sadao, he knew the importance of treasuring and acknowledging what was.)

Holly said nothing more from there, and neither did her husband. They needed the silence, the both of them- to breathe, to recover somewhat, and to keep themselves from thinking of a boat in the middle of the sea, with nothing but a spirit, a child, and a Stand upon it. The second day, it was. They had estimated three to get through the ocean, with agents from the foundation stretching out anything they could to try locating them sooner.

The second night, it soon became, and as Holly closed her eyes all she could see was blue.

Blue- a dark emerald toned hue for the waters as they lapped against the docks the morning after they met with Polnareff, their paltry belongings ready as Joseph spoke with the man who would be captaining their ship.

Blue- the paler robin’s egg shade for the sky, where she turned her head to stare before being pulled to her attention by a shout.

“Ahhh, what a wonderful day! And a wonderful sight greeting me! Bonjour, Mademoiselle, you have my continued thanks for everything you did yesterday!”

“Well, I didn’t do that alone after all,” Joy reminded him with a chuckle- it was frankly a relief to see someone in such good spirits, particularly with the shroud of gloom that seemed to have lingered ever since their tarot reading the night before. “You have my Papa to thank for that as well- in fact if it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t have known how to help in the first place!”

“Ahhhh of course, but of course,” Polnareff waved, his grin impossible to dislodge. “Speaking of your dear Père, I must speak to him, un moment, s'il vous plait...”

He walked off toward the man with such a severe expression, that Joy found herself caught off guard. It was enough that Kakyoin as well noticed- despite having been busy speaking with Avdol regarding what he knew of their coming trip.

“...has assured me that everyone aboard has been vetted in advance, but I don’t blame you for your paranoia,” Avdol was muttering, “Not after last night… …Oh? And what is Polnareff speaking to Mr. Joestar for then..?”

“Whatever it is it’s serious,” Kakyoin murmured suspiciously, Joy soon joining into the conversation herself. “...he certainly changes his mood fast…”

“He was so cheerful just now too…” As Joy hummed and frowned, she watched as her father calmly listened to whatever it was that Polnareff was muttering to him in hushed tones.

It was a grave matter after all. One that he could not take any risks for, not in the slightest. “Monsieur, as one who appreciates the Italian language, I will extend to you this courtesy once- but I do not want to think about if my trust has no place…that hand of yours…the glove you’re wearing…I must ask you Joestar, if what that glove hides is another right hand, rather than a left one.”

“A right hand?” Joseph had frowned, but acquiesced, taking his glove off even while he spoke. “Lost it in a fight- glove keeps the joints from getting jammed, and keeps people from staring,” he answered honestly, robotic fingers clicking in the air. “Why did you want to know?”

“Because he is someone I must kill, Monsieur Joestar.”

Joseph didn’t have time to properly say anything to that, as his daughter had finally gotten curious enough to walk over and see for herself what was going on. Her worry was carefully masked with a smile, a smile that was hastily matched by the others. “Did something happen Papa? I saw you taking your glove off..? By the way, Avdol says they’re tying up at the dock now, so we should be allowed on shortly…”

“Ah, good! And it’s nothing Joy, don’t you worry about a thing,” Joseph insisted, clapping his daughter’s shoulders reassuringly. “Just a little chat-”

“That’s right! I was simply telling your father just how lovely you are,” Polnareff beamed, and a flash of mischief flashed in Joseph’s eyes at the words.

Either Joy missed it, or she was quite familiar with the idea of playing along.

(While it was strange for Holly, as Joy she was no stranger to how young she looked, and no stranger to what first impressions that left behind. That Joseph looked as young as he did only carried the appearance of it all, and between the two of them acting the way they did, it was any wonder more people hadn’t questioned the age of Shotaro’s mother.)

(Then again, there was a fair chance that it was a side effect of people being more inclined to whisper amongst each other rather than shout their thoughts aloud, back in Narita.)

“Mhmhmhmhmmhmh~” Laughing warmly, Joy simply beamed. Considering the man was old enough to have been her son, had she managed such a thing a little easier, this was more than a little amusing no matter how much of Joseph’s plotting she caught onto. “Well aren’t you a charmer, Jean-Pierre! I don’t think I’ve heard a compliment like that since I was in college!”

(Behind them, as Kakyoin and Avdol entered earshot, they were quickly joining Joseph in a ring of knowing smiles and smirks.)

(Polnareff was blissfully, painfully oblivious, and it showed.)

“College? Did you graduate recently then? You speak Japanese, so I must assume then that it was something international?”

“Ohhh, well, my degree was actually in America but I did meet my husband there before moving overseas with him yes,” she chuckled, and the smiles around her grew yet wider even as Polnareff briefly faltered. “But goodness no, I graduated a number of years before I had Shotaro after all!”

And then completely faltered, while Joseph in fact started to struggle containing a laugh.

Kakyoin, either taking pity on the man or simply eager for the chance to get another shot in, clarified somewhat- “...For reference Polnareff, Shotaro is a little older than I am, so we are looking at about 20 or so years ago.”

“Twent…” One could see the math working through his head, even as he looked back at Joy and furrowed his brows. “But…”

There was no relief for his dilemma.

“...Quoi…”

“Ah- Mister Joestar, they are calling for us to board now so we would best be going now.”

“Excellent, let’s go get settled on board then-”

“Non, non no- attends, att- Monsieur Joestar, explain this..!!”

(Polnareff’s explanation was, for at least the next two hours, nothing but roaring laughter as he chased after the man with questions such as ‘And how old are you then!!?’ which received a highly amused and teasing ‘Come on now Polnareff, don’t you know it’s rude to question someone’s age?’)

(Joy for her part was more than fine to leave the pair at it while she chuckled and set her small case of clothes at the side of her bunk in the ship.)

“Phew…well, that was fun,” Joseph sighed later as they made their way to open sea, stretching himself out now that he’d changed. Joy eyed the striped shirt with a bit of a raised brow admittedly, and for good reason.

That wasn’t his. “...Papa did you borrow that..?”

The grin she received in turn was utterly shameless. “Sure did! We’re on a ship, why not dress the part! …Hey, Kakyoin!” At the sound of his name, Kakyoin- who had just settled on one of the deck chairs with the book he’d packed- glanced over. “Aren’t you hot in that thing? They’ve got extras~!”

“Papa that’s really inappropriate I think…”

“Ina- is this one of those Japanese things, I thought I was caught up on those…”

“It’s a hygiene thing Mr. Joestar, and No Thank You,” Kakyoin emphasized as he looked back to his book, quickly tuning the man out.

“Bah! Hygiene…it’s not like they don’t do their laundry!”

“It’s still a little uncomfortable Papa, you can’t ignore that…” she chuckled back.

The man grumbled a little from there, but ultimately deflated- his heart wasn’t quite into it, and while he glanced at the teen occasionally, he sighed. “Good thing it’s November then or I’d be more worried about him getting a damn heat stroke,” Joseph muttered, pausing to raise his brows when his daughter gave him a look for the language. He said nothing in defense however, focusing on other things. “Joy, I need you to keep an eye on him- he’ll take it better from you than any of us, that much is obvious.”

“Well of course~” With a small laugh, she gave an eager nod. “I already planned to do that!” Speaking more softly, she added- “...I pricked the deck with a few thorns as well, but I haven’t seen anything happening Papa- I’m a little nervous though after the plane…”

“Joy…” Joseph sighed, and pinched his nose. “...I went through every sailor on this ship myself, it’s going to be fine- I promise that.”

“Every last one..?”

She couldn’t help but ask really. They didn’t have those sorts of odds going into the air of course, but something just didn’t feel right despite their advantage.

(An advantage that involved the same mistake they no doubt made with Jotaro, she thought in her sleep, stirring but slightly at the thought. The sailors had been vetted in advance.)

(They didn’t wait to double check the morning of.)

“Every last one Joy, there’s not a single person on board that I haven’t-”

“UGH! Let GO!”

A shrill child’s voice cut through the air, and everyone on the deck jumped as Cantonese cursing began to meet their ears. Pulled from the crew’s stairs, one of the sailors was half dragging, half carrying what looked to be a young boy in a news-cap by the arm, and he seemed none too displeased either. “Kid, you’ve got a lot of nerve making demands like this when I caught you red-handed..!” he snarled back in the same language, Joseph quickly striding over.

“What’s going on here, sailor? I said no passengers!”

“Just shut UP-!”

“Dammit- Ahhh, sorry Mr. Joestar,” the sailor continued with a resigned expression, “This kid stowed aboard with the supplies, I was about to get the captain so we could call for the Marine Region…”

“The Mari- No way-!” The child’s struggles grew more intense, and the sailor struggled to hold them still. “I’ll do anything if you don’t do that! Anything, just gimme some work, I swear-”

While the sailor started to bicker- which from the adult’s end involved a lot of poking at their shoulder and flicking their brow-

“Oh, this is on me actually~”

The people on deck froze.

(It was such a ‘her’ move, really. Whatever happened in Jotaro’s timeline, in her actual timeline, it most certainly wasn’t this.)

“...Joy?” her father questioned, while the woman smoothly stepped in and reached to pat the child’s shoulder.

“Sorry~! I didn’t know where all the rooms were, so I wasn’t able to tell him what side of the ship we were on- I found him wandering near the hotel, he’d just lost his wallet you know!”

The child frowned, too stunned by the sudden defense to argue. The sailor squinted, looking from them to Joy, and then to Joseph. “...Is this some kind of joke? This wasn’t part of our agreement-”

“No, it wasn’t,” Joseph quickly agreed with a frown. “Joy-”

“Papa, I couldn’t just leave them! Imagine if they’d actually snuck aboard! I know I forgot to tell you, but please?”

Unspoken was something that only the pair of them knew. That Joy had far from inherited her mother’s poor memory despite seemingly taking on much of the airy personality, and would thus have been on top of the matter in an instant. That they had no idea who they needed to suspect, that even a child could potentially be dangerous. That this risk Joy was taking was something on his level, not hers.

Joseph looked to his daughter for a few long moments, and then finally nodded. “Alright then. …I trust this won’t be a problem?” he added, looking to the sailor.

The sailor for his part thought it over- while the child visibly seemed to be wondering how they’d gotten so lucky. Ultimately the idea of keeping things simple (and green) won out, and he nodded. “I’ll have to bring it up with the captain, but it should work out.” With a final threatening point, and a flick at the kid’s nose, he gave a final warning- “Don’t make trouble for them after they covered for you, brat- I know full well that woman didn’t meet you at the hotel.”

To that, the child simply scowled, glaring as the sailor left. Joy took that chance to smile down, gesturing toward their side of the ship. “Why don’t I show you where the cabins are, hm? You can tell me about what you’re planning to do in Singapore~!”

“Huh- How did you know I was going to-” The kid cut their protest short, catching Joseph’s raised brow. “I mean- I just wanted to go see my dad, that’s all…”

The brows and stares persisted, but Joy ignored them as they moved. Rather than heading directly for a cabin, she found a small nook in the hall and glanced back to see that they hadn't been followed.

“Hey, I thought you were bringing me to the cabin…what, you change your mind lady? You know I’ve got a knife, I’ll use it if I gotta!”

(Oh, Holly thought in her sleep, now smiling through the dream, this felt so painfully like the stories her great-grandmother told her of her father shortly before her passing that it was hilarious.)

(It was a thought that she had held as Joy as well, though the amusement was more strained given the situation.)

“I’m not going to hurt you young lady,” Joy said with a whisper, the girl- and indeed she was a girl, with the way she tensed and sucked in a breath at the statement- “But I thought you would rather a talk in private than one with all the boys listening in, is that right?”

Of course, the girl immediately backpedaled. “Girl!? That some kinda joke? You saying I can’t hold my own then, huh?”

With but a soft smile, Joy sighed. “...I’ve done my hair up enough to know what it looks like when you have most of it tucked away,” she whispered knowingly. “If I took that hat off, just how much of your hair would come tumbling out now, hm?” With a sigh she stooped down to the other’s level- a motion that not only brought her closer, but put her at more disadvantage, at least when it came to a child with a knife. “I don’t know why you snuck on like this, but it was a bad idea…right now, my friends, my family and I, we’re going to be followed by some dangerous people; the sooner you get away from us, the better, but right now on the sea there’s no way for that to happen. I don’t want to see anyone hurt,” Joy continued with a weak smile. “...Not when my boy is already one of those victims.”

Perhaps it was the brutal honesty that held her in place. The quiet, soft spoken nature of it, words barely echoing in the air. The girl stared, and though she didn’t move to take the hat off herself, she didn’t stop Joy from doing it either- simply making a small sound, a sound which had Joy pause, before ducking her head to allow the hat’s removal.

Waves of thick brown-black came tumbling down, and Joy smiled despite herself. “Well, isn’t that a lovely head of hair you have? It’s a good thing you don’t have to hide it like that now, isn’t it?”

“You think I’m gonna get back on that deck without putting this back on?! Are you nuts lady, I’ve heard stories!” At Joy’s dry stare, she huffed. “And you can’t tell me you haven’t either! I bet you’ve got something ready up your sleeve too, just in case!”

“I like to think my Papa would have picked men with more honor than that,” Joy coughed- not wanting to go into any specifics such as the fact that the girl was far too young to need to worry about that in her opinion. “...But I understand. …And that just means I’ll stay near you as much as you need, alright? And when we get to Singapore, wherever you have to go, whatever you need, I’ll see about helping with that too, okay~?”

The girl frowned. Frowned, stared, and sighed, hands on her hips as she looked away. “...Anne.”

“Hm?”

“Anne Merlai,” she introduced, before sticking her tongue out and looking back. “And that’s all you’re gettin’ right now, I’ll see if I can trust you with gettin’ me to my dad later!”

(Privately, in both dream and in memory, Holly was certain there was no Singaporan father, and that if anything, there was either a Chinese or British one waiting back in Hong Kong wringing his hands.)

(That was a bridge they could cross later though. Later, when they weren’t on a boat surrounded by a growing sensation of unease.)

“Well then- you can call me ‘Joy’~ And if that’s too casual,” she added knowingly, “Then Mrs. Kujo is fine too.”

“...Kujo?” Anne squinted. “...That almost sounds…”

Before she could finish that thought, the pair both stiffened. Behind them came footsteps, and Anne snatched for her hat on reflex. It was too late however, the long and excited strides coming through the hall within a matter of seconds rather than anything longer.

“Mademoiselle Joy!” Polnareff cheered, “I have been sent to tell you that…that…” For a moment, it looked as if he might take things quietly. Perhaps even with some grace.

That moment was very brief.

“Mon DIEU, a young girl?! I didn’t even know you could hide so much hair in one hat!”

“You wanna go over it pal!?” The knife was out immediately. “My knife is crying for the blood of its next victim!!”

“Anne, there’s really no need for that dear,” Joy protested, Polnareff meanwhile looking as if he was in a completely different world.

“Such energy,” he muttered in French, and somehow it seemed that something had shifted in the man, Joy noticed. His entire posture weakened, and an odd, small smile replaced his usual broad one. “It is almost like looking at…”

“...Jean-Pierre?” Joy asked, cutting his murmurs short.

Anne meanwhile, had not stopped shouting. “...you’ll be number…340! …Hey, are you listening!?”

A short and almost fragile laugh came from the man, and it was so soft that Joy almost wanted to look and see if anyone else had come down after them. He shook his head and managed a grin that felt more appropriate for the man, even waving a hand. “Mais… Did Mademoiselle Joy know about this, then? Was this a little plan you both put together for her sake?”

“Huh?! Is he that dumb?” Anne demanded, causing Polnareff to choke.

“Ahhhh….actually Jean-Pierre, I lied on the deck…sorry~!”

Now looking far more alarmed, the Frenchman tensed. “Lie- But what if she’s secretly a Stand User then! Or what if-”

“..Stand?” Anne furrowed her brows, muttering in Cantonese for a moment before asking her question in English. “Isn’t that like…for ‘Standing’? Does that mean something else in English then?”

At Joy’s dry frown in his direction, Polnareff simply wheezed a little. Familiar as he was with linguistic struggles, he considered himself capable enough of telling when it was an act.

(Of course, that didn’t mean he was capable, and Holly knew for herself that there was quite a lot that would sail right over his head if he wasn’t paying attention, but that was beside the point at the time.)

“...Well-”

“Jean-Pierre,” Joy protested with a small hiss, “If we let things happen the way they were going the poor girl would have gotten arrested potentially, I couldn’t just let that happen..! Look at her!”

“Look- what, now I’m the weakling again!?”

“Oh not at all honey, I just don’t think you’d want to spend your time dealing with that,” Joy answered easily, and Anne in turn had to grudgingly admit defeat on that. “Regardless…I’m going to be helping her to find her father once we get to Singapore, she wanted to go visit him.”

“Errr…yeah, right,” Anne coughed, and at Joy’s raised brow she quickly nodded. “...That.”

“I see… …but then, I do not understand, why the disguise..? It seems almost uncomfortable, so much bundled together like that!”

Anne almost repeated her earlier question of Polnareff’s intelligence, but remained quiet when Joy simply smiled and muttered a soft ‘boys…’ under her breath. “Well, sometimes you can’t be too careful, right?” she hummed, the girl beside her nodding.

“Right! There’s all kinds of guys out there, so if I can keep my skin on by stuffing on a hat, I’m gonna! I got maybe a year before that stops working after all, and then it’ll be girl stuff, and never leaving the house, and…”

Something was wrong with Polnareff, Joy noticed. As Anne spoke, he started going pale, an impressive feat for someone with his complexion. Eventually he held up a hand, coughing, stammering-

“...Pardonnez moi, I think I will go eat now… …I’ll see you at the table! Aha!”

…The smile was so…false.

Joy watched him flee with wide eyes, and Anne merely frowned, it being her turn for obliviousness.

“...What was that about huh..?”

The woman swallowed. She could consider context clues, could consider body language and words and all manner of things. She didn’t want to guess however.

She almost felt that it would be too painful to guess.

“...I don’t know…let’s just leave it for now okay?” she decided, patting the girl’s shoulder. “For now let’s introduce you to the others, alright~?”

Anne looked for a moment like she intended to argue, but ultimately just nodded. There wasn’t much else to say after all.

Not right now, at least.

Chapter Text

Dinner progressed with such a casual air that even in her dreams it passed in a blur. It was simple fare, them being on a ship, but the kind of meal that the presence of company made all the better. They had it in private, in the small dining quarters that had been set up for them, and Joy couldn’t help but be relieved.

She didn’t want to think her father had perhaps failed to take as much care as possible, but that feeling that something was going to go wrong was still a constant.

The others were surprised at Anne’s introduction of course- Joseph most loudly so until a frown from his daughter quieted him down- but one thing that stuck most intensely through it all was the distant look that Polnareff had through much of the meal, a look that no amount of joking could quite erase.

It was unnerving. No, not unnerving exactly- simply…sad. Even distressing. They had known him for a matter of hours, only a day or so, and they were able to gauge that much.

“...Did something happen with Polnareff, Mrs. Kujo?” Kakyoin asked her later, as they started settling down and preparing the bunks for sleep.

Hers was no longer for her and her alone, now that Anne was sharing, and Joy couldn’t help but find that to be a good thing. It would have been so painfully easy to catch her off guard otherwise, and fighting the shudder that came at the thought was near impossible. The rooms were arranged by pairs in part for that reason- while they could fit three easy enough in a space, four was another matter, and no one wanted to be caught unawares.

Even her father was picking up on the mood for himself, glancing over his shoulder as they convened in what would be the girl’s room.

(The boys had picked arrangements for themselves after a fair bit of debate- Kakyoin didn’t know anyone that well after all, but he’d already shared the hotel room the night before with Avdol, and between him, and the option of either Joseph or Polnareff, he was firm in sticking with what he’d already tried.)

(Holly quietly suspected he’d have picked Jotaro in the original circumstances. Of course, Jotaro likely would have done the same on principle- the two might have been relatively opposed on student norms, but they were at least similar in the sense of being students. They had a connection of sorts in the form of being that same age, of being from that same country, of being in a mess where the solution would ultimately be getting to the end of the finish line as fast as possible before dragging the enemy down kicking and screaming.)

(Their methods couldn’t have been more different, but their similarities would have been enough to make bunking preferable to bunking with the ‘adults’.)

Polnareff, for now, had gone to the washroom- they trusted disaster not to strike in such a short span of time, and left him to it. Anne, after some convincing, was already on her top bunk and under the covers, even if she was peering over and trying to listen anyway. After the fifth time she tried, Joy kindly but firmly reminded the girl that she’d be getting up when they did no matter how much sleep she actually got by morning, and Anne seemed to huff and roll over to get a head start on that sooner rather than later.

Seemed was the operative word, but keeping her voice down to answer Kakyoin, Joy opted to let the girl figure the consequences out on her own. This wasn’t her first time dealing with children staying up too late after all. “I’m not actually sure…he’s been quiet most of the evening though hasn’t he?”

(Quiet wasn’t like Polnareff, even Holly knew that. She barely knew the man, barely spoke to him, and she knew that, even without factoring all of Joy’s trickling knowledge.)

(Factoring that in and it was a night and day matter.)

Joseph and Avdol were quick to agree- Joseph in particular had a frown on his face, watching the door for when the Frenchman returned. “First blush and I pegged him for the kind of guy that thinks with his crotch,” he muttered, ignoring the muttered ‘Papa-’ that Joy gave in protest for the crudeness. “But of all the surprises to throw down, it turns out he’s the kind to have a vendetta with someone, down to the dramatic identity question to ask in every meeting!”

Amid the round of raised eyebrows, Joy was the one who asked first. “A vendetta?”

“What was the question then?” Kakyoin instead asked, while Avdol built on it with a hum.

“I take it this relates to you giving a good view of your hand earlier, Mr. Joestar..?”

Joseph nodded. “Asked me if I was hiding a second right hand in here. Didn’t even know people could come out that way,” he scoffed, his daughter leaning back with a blink.

“A second right hand…” She frowned. “...Papa that’s practically a direct line from Princess Bride…”

“HAH!” A barked laugh met the air, followed a round of ‘shhhs’ from the group, and while they glanced to the upper bunk- Anne’s lack of movement if anything proved she was still awake, and she was not going to enjoy the morning- Joseph hushed himself. “Right? I thought the same thing! …But no. No, he’s dead serious, which is the weirdest thing…”

Another hum, and Avdol turned his attention to Joy. “Hmmm…Mrs. Kujo, exactly what were you talking about before this change in mood occurred?”

“In that moment? …Well, he had been wondering just what would lead Anne to pretend to be a boy while traveling…”

Kakyoin had little reaction to that beyond a considering hum.

(His cousin was barely elementary age. This fear was a fear he did not know yet, and would never know.)

Avdol paused, and slowly glanced toward Joseph, drumming his fingers together in silence.

(Avdol had no such relatives, but he was a learned man and a man who grew up in an area that was far from privileged and protected. He was no fool, and he was not blind to some realities of the world.)

Her father…

Joseph stared, and for a moment it was as if he were looking at someone else- or perhaps, some ‘when’. At heart Joseph knew his daughter could protect herself. He knew, and had even helped to make sure of it.

But one could not erase that fear, that gnawing and agonizing fear, that something could happen all the same.

"...Guess there's depths to everyone then," he eventually grunted, and before anyone could say more on that Polnareff had returned- grinning, casually sauntering in it almost seemed, acting for the world that nothing had happened at all.

"We should probably turn in for ourselves now," Joy suggested in that moment, giving her father a small hug and waving to the rest. "If we keep talking we might risk waking Anne- and we have time to plan tomorrow as well."

"Sounds like a plan then," Kakyoin agreed, and from there it didn't take long for the boys to leave for their own rooms and carry their chatter down the hall.

They could talk in the morning, and everything would be fine. Utterly, absolutely...

(Except that was not quite how it went, Holly realized through her memory. That was not all there was. She remembered the feeling of paper in her fingers. Remembered slipping something in the collar of her father's shirt, and him hiding a look of severity behind a smile.)

(Her father's daughter- capable of thinking on her feet. The Page of Swords Reversed, following after the Two of Wands.)

Much later into the night, and Space Oddity's vines wordlessly and soundlessly removed the blanket. Her door slid open with just as much silence, and she began to make her way down the hall, and then to the deck. She took in the smell of salty air, and the light of the moon high above- its white visage reflected clearly onto the water beneath it.

There was something down there, in the water. Something moving, she knew, but it was much too dark to tell what it was.

With any luck, she would not have to find out up close. Her nails drummed the metal of the edge, and gold vines gently nicked at the wood by her feet.

(Kakyoin was hidden higher, near the masts. Avdol was hidden around the wall. Her father was somewhere between this, and Polnareff remained quiet in a similar distant position.)

(All was quiet.)

"Mrs. Kujo, was it? Is something troubling you?"

The captain made his approach, and Joy ignored the flashes that had started rapidly appearing in her mind now that he was here for the thorns to pick up on from the ship's wood.

"Oh...I just couldn't sleep," she giggled, a false smile on her face. "I've actually never been on a boat like this you know! I've had a stressful few days though, so it's harder to enjoy than I thought..." Blinking innocently, she looked at the captain.

Really looked, this time.

"What about you, Captain? I didn't expect anyone else to be awake tonight!"

Something seemed off.

"Ahh, I work at odder hours miss- keeps the ship running, and your father told me he wanted to be reaching port by morning, which means we need to keep the engines going through the night."

"The engines? But this is a sailboat?"

The way his eyes drooped perhaps. Like something had been pasted on, plastered there or something else…

(Even in her sleep she knew that wasn’t a fair thought. Or a reasonable one. In the past, Joy had been paranoid and jumpy however, watching reels of time that involved her being thrown over the side of the rail to be brutally drowned, torn apart by feeding fish, or even drained slowly by barnacles until she was a withered husk.)

(Realistically Joy knew none of those realities accounted for her seeing them in advance but to see your own death so many times could affect even the most resolute.)

…something else. Focus. Loss of sleep.

“True it is, but we use both methods- otherwise we’d be dead in the water without any wind after all,” the Captain happily explained, and for a moment there was even a sense of honesty in the man’s face.

Had it not been for how many times and how many methods he intended to use to kill her and then the others, she’d almost be sad.

Thorns dug into her palms, a trickle of blood pooling in the cracks before they were scabbed by hamon. There was a twitch in the captain’s eye, and Joy paid it no mind, trying her best to play her role. “I see~ Well thank you Captain! That tells me we’ll be right on time then!” Though she smiled, it faltered, and she studied the man. “...My, but aren’t you and your sailors tired then? I know you said you work odd hours, but keeping an engine going all night can’t be easy in the slightest…”

“Just a matter of shift work,” he easily waved, moving to try and guide her elsewhere. “We have enough men here to make certain no one slacks on that. But, while we’re out here…why don’t I show you to the viewing deck here? I’m sure you’d appreciate the night sky far more from there.”

(Sometimes she refused, and an argument broke out enough to throw her overboard, even with the support of the others. Sometimes she went along, only to be knocked off the rail as she made her approach, a Stand in blue making a rope of seaweed to make the extra distance easier.)

(Sometimes he used his own fists instead. Sometimes she fell from great height to the deck below, the water not even part of it. But-)

Joy started toward where she knew the deck to be, smiling. “The viewing deck is…up there isn’t it? Are you sure it’ll be clear enough?”

“Miss, I can guarantee you the moon will be the most brilliant thing in the sky from up there,” the Captain assured, and Joy caught her moment. She was in the middle of the deck now, having moved that way to make her exaggerated point. The others were in position…

Maybe it wouldn’t end in death this time. Maybe.

(Holly knew better, not only due to a guess but due to a knowledge of their luck. She wondered how much sooner this fight would have happened for her son, as she remembered her alternate self calling out a cheery phrase that meant ‘now’-)

“Okay~! I’d love to tell the others all about it~”

Before the Captain could even remark on how loud that statement had been, there was fire around him in a ring. Polnareff came around the corner with his blade at the ready in Silver Chariot’s hand, and as for Joseph all he needed was to breathe as violet brambles gathered over his one hand. All three men, for Avdol did not take long to reveal himself after starting the flames, approached with grim expressions-

And to the Captain’s credit, he managed to look surprised.

“Mister Joestar, company…” he started, holding his facade just a little longer. He wiped his brow. “Hotter than I thought it would be this hour…I didn’t think we could come through a heat wave like this, but somehow…”

“...Captain, I would appreciate it if you didn’t lie to us,” Joy softly requested, her own expression far kinder than those of the others.

(She was kind after all, Joy, Holly- even someone who had killed her so many times in unwritten time deserved mercy in her eyes.)

(Deserved a chance to be better.)

Captain Tennille, assuming that were even his name, managed to uphold that sheer look of bafflement even now. Joy wondered in that moment, just how close she could have come to losing the faith of the others in fact- their eyes narrowed with suspicion, locked upon the man before them. "Can I at least have a reason for this seeming mutiny, Joestar? I like to think I've been nothing but helpful as far as hosts go!"

"And you have," Joseph admitted, his expression resolute despite this. "And believe me I almost hoped it was someone else on the deck tonight...However."

"...However?"

The captain raised a brow, and Joseph nearly spat on the ground. "However, Captain Tennille, it took me less than an hour to figure out who you weren't! Unless you kicked a habit between now and last night!"

(Somehow Joy hadn't realized that her father had a guess of who they would encounter. They knew they would be encountering someone, certainly, but even that had been a question of 'when' in addition to 'who'. She had a signal phrase for if she saw undeniable proof of who they were after- a phrase for if Space Oddity's visions showed Stand involvement, a phrase for if they were in the clear. A phrase even for if things were simply uncertain- moving along through to the end of the foreseen interaction with nothing to speak of.)

(She supposed it made sense- both as Joy in the past, and as Holly, in memory- her father would have gone along with this gambit entirely because she felt so strongly, yes, but everything about his approach spoke of an itch to fight. And this time, with the longevity and energy of Hamon, he could bring it.)

'Captain Tennille' went quiet and studied Joseph with that same, droopy eyed look of perplexity. "I truly don't have a clue what you mean," he began firmly. "But if this is how you plan to be, then I suggest you get off my ship as soon as we meet landfall. I understand you're being pursued- but as an upstanding man of the sea, I won't see you insult my honor this violently."

He remained calm the whole time. Not a word from his lips was made in panic, or anger, no matter how enclosed he was.

(He knew this was more than being outnumbered. This was being outflanked- an experienced Stand user at nearly every angle, and experienced combatants on the remaining besides. The fox had been outfoxed, so to say-)

(In the past, beyond Holly's memory, Jotaro's bluff had caught the moon-braying-liar too quickly for the 'Captain' to remain unfazed.)

Joy could take it no longer.

"...I suppose it was just going to take a push, wasn't it?" she asked, voice dripping with such saccharine edge that her own father tensed. To her sides, Kakyoin and Avdol shared a quiet, wide eyed glance as the former slipped down from above to join, and Polnareff in the meanwhile just froze altogether. "Or maybe, one of those ropes were going to be involved~"

(Once. Twice. Five times. Five more-)

(She couldn't feel it entirely, but what she felt was enough, and her voice hitched with frantic tension only slightly bottled in.)

“Joy,” her father started quietly, but the woman did not completely stop.

“You were going to kill me, Captain,” the woman said bluntly, clearly, her voice shaking just a touch. “Please don’t lie about that.”

Captain Tennille was quiet- And then reaching for his cap to remove it, he sucked in a deep, unnaturally long breath.

“...That precognition is exactly why you needed to go first,” he started lowly, the group around him tensing in anticipation. “So I killed you did I? It’s nothing personal miss, so why not put that tone away? I had planned to go after the rest of your group too!” The more he spoke the more he rose his voice- a tone of sheer fanaticism marching step by rapid step into the words.

(Something was wrong. The captain was surrounded, but something was wrong. But what-)

“So then where’s the real captain?” Kakyoin questioned, his expression giving away his suspicions. “Mr. Joestar insisted this was a crew a decade strong- if you were a traitor that would explain it…but now he’s confirmed that isn’t the case. You’re just an imposter!”

Sensing an opportunity to draw out his life with conversation that didn’t risk an information leak, the Captain grinned- strange and crooked, his eyes narrowing until they were mere slits. “You want to know? You’re smart, aren’t you? Smart enough to figure me out?” he added almost sarcastically, a look sent to Joseph in particular. “...I’ll tell you where he is! He’s at the bottom of Repulse Bay, sleeping with the fishes! And when I took his place, the crew was more than happy to accept their ‘substitute captain’!”

“Bullshit they were! They were a crew for more than a decade! So how-”

“I do not think that question is necessarily important, Mr. Joestar,” Avdol cut in, barely even gesturing with his hand before the fire drew closer in.

(Joseph of course, greatly disagreed, and while Joy had been far too stressed and traumatized by visions of futures narrowly averted to agree, Holly found herself in his shoes on the matter. He had a point- a decade meant they would have known their captain well.)

(Whatever method had been used to convince them, it had to be incredibly potent in its execution. That, or so simple it could be nothing but the truth.)

"Tell us, 'Captain'," the Egyptian continued sternly. "You intended to kill us all, one by one. But surely you did not expect us to take this idly. Eventually even as you succeeded, we would have noticed something amiss. So...tell us, then-"

Before Avdol could finish the first step of his interrogation there was a shout- a sharp yelp, the kind one would make after stubbing a toe or tripping over something overfoot. It was only a half moment- shorter, even.

It was all that the captain needed.

With a sharp grin a wave came crashing upon the deck- water blasted against the flames to create a cacophonous hiss, and steam quickly obscured everyone's vision. It was only a half moment-

And Anne's sharp screams of terror began to fill the air.

Chapter Text

Once Anne's screaming had begun on the deck of the ship, it had not taken long for their own shouts to follow-

"Dammit it controls water!" was the first, as briny fluid soaked their clothes.

"That was seaweed pulling the Captain free Mr. Joestar, I think it's safe to say this is more than that-" was another shout, and idly in memory Holly admitted this to be true- just as in at least one attempted murder of a memory, a lasso of seaweed had briefly been used to secure the false Captain from his fate.

And in the chaos at the rail, the imposter howled. "Do you know what the tarot for the Moon entails?" he taunted, looking to Avdol in particular as he said so. "Trouble in the water- lies, and betrayal! And above all, a fear of the unknown!" the captain continued. "I'll give you the name of my Stand, and nothing else, as a trade for this new hostage of mine...Dark Blue Moon!"

"You coward!" Polnareff was immediately shouting, all while frozen in place with the rest of the others. Though his eyes seemed glued to the Stand User, it was clear his attention was anywhere but- instead the Frenchman kept looking to how the massive, scaled Stand pinned Anne in its arms, large gold eyes looking emptily down at them all. "We have you in a fight, and your first instinct is to take a young girl!"

'Tennille'-

(They never did get his name. They knew it was the name of a man now drowned and dead in the bay, but they never got the imposter's name-)

Merely grinned, as if he were simply playing a childish little joke. "You were all the ones who cornered me, weren't you? Where I stand, it's clear that you could have avoided all of this by accepting your deaths instead." With the grin widening at the sight of Polnareff's momentary hesitation, he made a show of having Dark Blue Moon lean back toward the water. The group held their breaths and tensed, and the captain gave his barking laugh again.

(Joy could never see dogs the same after that, not for a number of weeks, and had for that period of time thought it nothing but ridiculous as a result; Blue Moon had nothing to do with canines, but all she could hear when she saw the imagery of the card, was that horrid sound.)

(Holly could recall a small dog whose bizarre quirks dashed that easily. A blur of black and white, and sand...sand...)

"Put her down, bastard! You think taking her down to the water with you will change anything?" Joseph was shouting, even while Avdol and Kakyoin appeared to consider it.

The captain of course answered for him, and jumped up to the rail himself. "You want to make demands?" he asked, even as the deck filled with sailors he'd claimed as his own.

(They were shouting, Joy noted- first in confusion then in terror, looking toward Anne with absolute fear in their eyes.)

(Holly knew why. Knew exactly why, given all the time she had to know the feeling herself. The ones she knew personally in memory could see Dark Blue Moon as the thing flexed and clutched its prize.)

(The sailors saw nothing but a girl floating and struggling against the air that suspended her.)

Avdol realized it first.

"No- STOP HIM-"

His flames did not streak behind the captain fast enough however, and with frozen expressions they witnessed the downward plunge. Dark Blue Moon and its partner had no cocky claims to toss to them as they did so. There was no reason- it was clear to them, after all, who had the upper hand.

(Perhaps that wasn't the case with Jotaro, Holly thought. Star Platinum- by extension now him, she supposed- was fast, and ludicrously so. Perhaps the captain would have taunted him instead- he wanted them dead after all, so why not lure them to the sea?)

(Who could guarantee a hostage successful after all? No- who could guarantee that it would make the real target so willing to ensure they remained one?)

Silver Chariot's armor clattered across the deck, and both the mind numbingly quick Stand and Polnareff himself went over, a single blade skillfully catching the opponent Stand's shoulder as his free hand grabbed for the girl. Polnareff himself reached out and grabbed- and swung, as vines spilled around him.

Anne's screaming carried through everyone's ears as she sailed first downward and then upward by their efforts. Thorns dug into her shirt and clung to her hair, and verdant tendrils hoisted her up and back over the rail without issue.

There was, however, an issue with someone else.

"Polnareff- !" Kakyoin shouted in panic, as deep cuts came across his hands and arms. "Aa-gk-!" Tendrils of green alternately collapsed to the water and retreated, and Joy rushed to the boy to look over his arms.

"They don't look too deep at least..." she shakily observed, eyes still wide with panic and stress. She turned, but momentarily, to her father. "Papa, I didn't catch him- did you-"

"He's in the water..!"

Joseph's sharp negation was only supported by Avdol's own words as well. "He's out of our hands- and more over entirely defenseless! Look," he cried, he too pulled from his typical state of calm. "That's the armor he discarded during our own fight to hasten himself!"

All their words were only words though. Ignoring his bleeding, Kakyoin leaned over the rail with grit teeth, shouting down. "Polnareff! ...Polnareff, find some way out..!"

Words. Pretty words- Anne was frozen in place herself, looking at the churning water with absolute peril. The sailors behind them were shouting about ghosts, spirits- no surprise, after all, what must it have looked like?

(What must it have looked like to him, Holly wondered. When a being so fast one could blink and feel them move, had beaten so many to the ground in a flash? Had stolen object after object beyond that perceived range of two short meters, caught a bullet midair like it was nothing?)

(Evil spirit indeed. What else would anyone have thought, when growing in a place rife with tales of spirits and demons who always had a price they were owed?)

(....In a sense perhaps there had been a price paid indeed.)

Shouts were naught but shouts and in the water Polnareff was doing his best with the sort of grim determination that far surpassed the casual flaunting match he had had with Avdol. There was something else there now- a cold fire in his eyes that made things personal, in a way no one ought dare.

Polnareff was cursing up a storm in the water. It spun round him in a vortex, and the captain laughed at its side, allowing himself and Dark Blue Moon to just barely be caught in its fringes- they would do more than simply make it difficult for Polnareff to get his bearings. They would make it next to impossible to pin his location by any other means.

(Stands could be used to communicate under the water. Holly knew this now, knew this from memories Joy gained after the fight, after it was all over. Memories of questioning Polnareff in the aftermath blurred and churned and twisted into the dream- filling blanks, and perhaps even altering the story.)

(She could see it-)

Deep in the water Polnareff was almost uncharacteristically devoid of words beyond the cussing and spitting he uttered as the water churned. Barnacles grew across his arm from where he had initially tried to strike at his opponent, and even if the man were to pull another Princess Bride-like statement from his actions it would do no good.

He would need to be able to get the sword out of his hand to change hands after all.

And all through it, Tennille would have laughed- would have welcomed him to the domain of his Stand, to the place where he was 'king'. Polnareff would swirl and wait and hold his breath where there was no breath to hold, and the taunts would wash over him just as the rest of the pool did.

Eventually he interrupted- with a voice so clear through Silver Chariot that even those on the deck could hear him speak, those who could see Stands at least.

Not that any could understand him, exactly. Polnareff after all was speaking French.

"You are a coward," Holly would learn his words were later. "You are an honorless coward, who deserves none of the power in that Stand! Even a false title of Captain is too much for you! You sicken me for what you plotted, Monsieur, but most of all what you did just now has sealed your fate!"

Tennille couldn't understand French. He could tell he was being defied of course- and in reply shouted of the futility in the act. Of the barnacles sapping away at Polnareff's strength. Of the air he would soon run out of.

Polnareff simply raised his blade and pointed it forward.

"You cannot be allowed to live. Non..non, for even if you are not as disgusting as that man with two right hands, you are close enough! There will be no more Sherrys, where I breathe!"

Perhaps later, one of them would remark- 'Polnareff? You were underwater. You weren't breathing at all.'

Perhaps instead they would decide not to bring it up. It wasn't the place. It wasn't the time.

At the very least, Tennille didn't have even a second to make that very retort- like a bullet from a gun, Polnareff's blade launched forward, an act that had the majority of those watching fall back from the railing to gasp.

"I...He could throw his sword? This entire time?" Avdol questioned, only to find his shock becoming thoughtful horror. "....But then how could he get it back? If he had used this with no way to retrieve the blade in our fight, he would have lost immediately..."

The water calmed even as Avdol spoke. Polnareff surfaced with choking gasps, his Stand fading away, and in the meantime as he swam quietly away Tennille's body floated and bled.

"A good thing he didn't miss then," was all Joseph said.

(By the time they had Polnareff out of the water, the sharks were already covering the body like flies.)

(It took moments before there was no body at all, and not just because of the wreckage they left behind hours after.)

Trying to explain everything once Polnareff was aboard again, had not been a fun experience, to Holly's memory.

When she woke that morning it was still on her mind- partly because it reminded her of yet another looming conversation that was drawing ever nearer to necessity.

(She couldn't put it off forever. Neither she, nor Luisa especially. Shotaro would have to know.)

(And hopefuly he would know that however Luisa felt, his mother at least loved both her sons despite how everything came together.)

In the distant past and memory all the same, there had only been so much they could clarify with the sailors of the ship. Stands could not be seen, only 'felt'. To the sailors they may as well have been haunted, and ultimately they only had so long to even discuss that matter- as one of the men realized they were still moving.

Her father of course had shrugged it off. 'What of it?' he had said calmly. 'I told the Captain we wanted to make port as soon as possible, and he was playing a role wasn't he?'

As it turned out, it was a massive 'what'.

The engines weren't meant to be run that way.

They weren't meant to run that way at all.

In moments, as they determined nothing could be undone, as they hurriedly and desperately loaded supplies and belongings into lifeboats and lowered themselves down and rowed away at top speed, the first explosion began. Followed by the next, as the resulting flames met with reactive chemicals- and the next, as more and more occurred in a chain reaction.

All of them sat in their boats and watched dully as the wreck sank into the sea beneath the brilliant moon, soon to be a shadow in the depths.

Was Jotaro alright? Was Suzume? Holly’s thoughts drifted over tea in silence, her thoughts a fog and her breathing even with habit. All they had were scraps, from that end- the Foundation picking away at small time reports of theft at an island or two, with agents charting across maps and making estimations based upon what they had of Anne’s boat and Jotaro’s own ability and reasoning.

(Perhaps she ought try calling Anne herself, she pondered more than once. It felt like something she had the option to do at any rate, so that couldn’t be nothing right?)

Part of her felt she was being rather self-centered right now, despite the fact that just hours ago before she had even gone down for sleep, she’d spent a good amount of time easing her daughter in law’s own terrified state, not to mention the boy staying with her. Sadao certainly didn’t deserve to be playing support this whole time. Between the two of them she was arguably the stronger one by virtue of a timeline’s fluke.

(Strength wasn’t simply physical, as he would no doubt remind her. Strength was mental, emotional- and while they were certainly both suffering it was only one of them who had to really deal with such serious conflict in their lifetimes.)

This was the third day, Holly thought as she moved automatically for the kitchen to prepare a breakfast for them both- yet another thing that could be pointed out against her fear of being any sort of a burden at the moment- and started pulling out the eggs and frying tin. This was the last day that Jotaro and Suzume (and Kakyoin if her theory really was on the mark, though they had no real way of bringing proof of that to light) would be on the water, if their estimations were correct. After this, they would either be in Singapore, or extremely close to it- they now had agents from the foundation monitoring those seas in anticipation, with more still in the country itself. As they had been told- ‘By the end of the evening, avoiding capture and return will be impossible.’

(Holly knew better than to put too much faith in that. Her son was almost certainly going along with this plan for whatever reason, some reason he no doubt determined to be best no matter the cost of anyone around him, and that would unfortunately mean he’d Find a way.)

(Such was Jotaro 23 years ago. Such was Jotaro now, even if his circumstances pointed evidence to failure.)

She wanted nothing more than to do something though. To do more than sit, and wait. To do more than roll egg into a fried log for a breakfast platter, while a kettle brewed for tea. Perhaps it was ‘Joy’s influence. She’d hardly been an idle person over the years, but compared to ‘Jocelyne Kujo’ she may as well have been sedentary. ‘Joy’ traveled. She got into people’s business- she intervened, she acted, she pulled string after string after string after string-

(Morioh came to mind, the memory of her son and son’s family giving a short embrace as they piled into a taxi fresh at the heels of its salty breezy air. Jotaro had used the surrounding bay area as a source for his thesis at the time she knew, picking a lesser known starfish that turned out to be a keystone species as his focus while there. Shotaro hadn’t needed that, having gone as an SPW agent to begin with- it was only ever the arrow from the start, and in a twisted way that made her cry at the hind-shock, it had even given the man more time with Irene and Luisa.)

(Morioh wasn’t all though. She could recall America, she could recall Italy…countries faint and faded and distant but more vitally countries she had seen. Jocelyne Kujo had not been an idle force, not at all, and if she heard something was wrong she could not be prevented from stepping to that plate.)

There were no strings to pull here, Holly reminded herself as she started mixing soup together. There were only strings to watch for. Wait for.

The strings that she could pull, had to pull if she was going to keep things from falling apart…those were different ones.

Luisa was Luisa, and the boy with her- Emporio- was equally himself. She herself was her own former being, and Sadao was of course, Sadao.

Rohan was Rohan. Giorno, though she only recalled the boy slightly (man now, though like Josuke that was awful difficult to think of him as), was Giorno. So on, so forth, and continuously so.

The Agents of the SPW, for the most part, were themselves in that same vein.

And Shotaro worked for the SPW.

At some point she was going to have to talk to him. At some point all of them were going to have to talk to him, technically, but Holly’s thoughts of course focused on her own duties rather than anything else. Arguably this was a problem most would put in Luisa’s lap first if anything. Or perhaps more professionally, the Foundation itself.

Holly couldn’t help but want to be the one to control that encounter though- to be the one to break it gently, the one to say ‘there was a world where you never existed, a world where someone else lived a life I think you remember’. The very thought of confronting him on that latter point nearly caused her to spill the rice as she set up the rice cooker- how could she accuse him of that, after all? Ask him what he knew of a life he hadn’t even touched, about the things he searched for in silence as he walked a different path.

(Now that she knew Josuke’s fate here, she wondered how long it had been before the knowledge sank into Shotaro’s own understanding. Even without proof of it, she could recall that he’d been looking for someone. He’d watched a crowd of students almost expectantly, and then stared off to near suspicious extent when they later spoke with Ryohei regarding the Angelo case.)

(It had made sense to go to the Higashikatas then- Ryohei had been instrumental in Angelo’s initial arrest, and would be vital in determining how he operated now, and in tracking down a criminal who had by all accounts vanished into ether. But there was something chilling now, in that knowledge of why Shotaro’s eyes had been so clouded back then.)

Eggs. Rice. Miso soup. It was all carefully set up in dishes and brought to the table, a pot of tea brewed and steaming as she watched Sadao come in to join her.

Sadao said nothing.

(He didn’t have to.)

Holly said nothing.

(She couldn’t get the words off her tongue, couldn’t get the thoughts to stay still long enough for her to come to terms with them.)

The air was so quiet, that their chopsticks could be heard despite any care that was made to preserve that silence. The meal passed with a strange and unfamiliar tension- a tension borne of knowing there was a danger now, rather than hearing about it after the fact. Sadao’s eyes were upon her with care, but there was still nothing to say. Nothing he could say.

(Nothing he could do.)

“...I need to tell him, don’t I?”

He didn’t have to ask who ‘he’ was. “...It would be unfair not to,” Sadao acknowledged, his voice soft but as equally weighed down by the burden they spoke about. “Everyone around him must surely have some idea by now, if they aren’t in our own situation,” he warned, taking a sip from his tea.

Holly nodded. She nodded but she sighed, spinning the cup slowly in her hands as vines trailed the edge of the porcelain. “...I just don’t know how to do it. Where to start. What to…say, when Jotaro is still right there on top of it all…” There was nothing simple about it. Nothing kind, nothing gentle.

Sadao gently reached out to place a reassuring hand upon her own, and she sniffed. “...We will do it together,” he started softly. “I’m not making you do this alone.”

“Mak- Sadao you weren’t making me in the first place,” she scolded with an amused huff, her husband smiling in turn.

“And I still mean what I say.”

“Hahh…” The mug continued to spin gently in her hands. “...I just wish…” That she knew how. Knew the best way, knew the right way… “...I can’t use Space Oddity for this,” she murmured after a moment, her husband only nodding. “...Even if I could get the answer, it…”

She would still see where the ‘worst’ ways happened, where the ‘worst’ answers had occurred. See all the mistakes and could haves, and in its own way that was the true drawback of her Stand. She didn’t want to know how many ways something could go wrong.

She just wanted to be able to have faith that she would do it right, and the fact that she couldn’t was enough to have her tremble.

The thing she thought she could handle, she couldn’t step in upon- no matter how much ‘Joy’ could have found some way. And the thing she thought she couldn’t…

“...After today, things will be much busier…”

There was no question as to why. Either Suzume and Jotaro would be home safe by then, or they’d be on the road and far easier to track, and the phones and running about would be happening with more and more rapidity.

Holly nodded, and finally took a sip of tea.

This was the best moment they had. The best time they had, and really, putting things off more would not only be cruel to Shotaro himself but to those in the household with him.

And there was no doubt Luisa would want to have this talk as well. It was her husband, despite everything, and it wasn’t something any of them could ignore. Holly could almost picture a line of people waiting to break the same news, and the very fact nearly had her wince before a thought occurred.

“...Do you know how to set up a conference call, Sadao?”

Sadao looked up, and while he didn’t answer there was a look on his face that implied a ‘yes’, so Holly continued.

“...I think I’m going to call Luisa later, and see if we can’t offer the other support for this from there.”

Her smile, her voice, and her eyes, were all tight and strained and fragile.

Her husband merely gripped her hand reassuringly, and nodded.

Chapter Text

The blast out from where they met with Moon did not last too long, for all that Suzume would have loved it to. After a while, she started getting too tired for that- and after perhaps the third yawn, Hoshi started slowing the boat with a worried look in his eye.

(Privately, Jotaro was counting out the distance in his head and trying to determine how far they were from their target Island- falling asleep out here too early would be disastrous without something to hold them in place, and he wasn’t sure Dark Blue Moon would be reliable enough to do that for them.)

(He also wasn’t sure how much more gas they could spare for those speeds- they would have to refill once landside, though he was at least certain in their ability to do that once there.)

Blinking tiredly, Suzume looked up to her Stand. “...are we there soon..?” she asked, Nori floating beside the group with a frown as well.

“Good question. We’ve been driving for a while haven’t we? I’m sure we’re not far…” the ghost muttered, looking up at the sky. It wasn’t really getting dark yet, but the sun wasn’t so high at least. “...I’m not the one with long distance vision, however.”

For that, he looked to Suzume. And then after a pause, to Hoshi instead. Hoshi in turn looked toward where they were driving, and turned back to them- and also to Moon, who had stopped to poke over the side of the boat again.

“PrRRrrrr??” the fishy Stand questioned, Suzume yawning again.

“That’s not good…” Nori muttered, and Suzume agreed. She didn’t want to sleep through any of this.

(Needless to say, Kakyoin was worried about worse things.)

“Suzume, I need you to try and stay awake, alright? You can sleep when we reach the beach, but it could get dangerous if you sleep here,” he tried, looking a little unsure of his words.

Which…well, they made sense at least. So he was probably right?

The silence he received only made it seem more likely.

(Having failed to fill up on gas while on Woody Island, both Jotaro and Kakyoin were feeling the tension impressively so, and not only because of the fuel. Dark Blue Moon’s assistance with fish was appreciated, of course- but the fruits and vegetables they’d gotten from Woody were largely gone save that last cucumber they had, and adding some variety was ideal. Add in the fact that they weren't even sure they would make it to shore, and Jotaro was soon digging into the storage beneath the seats of the boat while Kakyoin watched.)

(They would have to sleep on the water. This had quickly gone from a miraculous situation to a sour one, something Suzume picked up on as she watched her Stand pull out what little could be used to keep them from going adrift.)

"...I suppose I will have to keep watch and wake you then," Nori murmured with a swallow, Moon himself floating near in curiosity. They certainly couldn't expect the Stand to handle it after all.

(‘I’ll keep watch’, Jotaro could remember his grandfather saying as they floated off into the open sea, meager belongings between them. They had already long since made use of the radio that was with the emergency supplies, but actually being picked up could take as long as days.)

(Floating farther adrift would be a death sentence in that case, and so when the youngest of their boat had first yawned, his grandfather had insisted.)

(Even if Jotaro’s answer had been to stare and look out at the sea instead.)

"....Rest for now," came Kakyoin's grudging request as the sea anchor was tossed over, and from there the sights and sounds of water mostly faded.

Two days on sea, and from inside the void of consciousness that existed while Suzume started falling asleep, Jotaro had to admit they weren’t doing too badly at least. Not compared to the last time he had been marooned, certainly.

Their supplies back then, in the wreckage of the imposter's explosion of the ship, had included- Polnareff’s belongings. Kakyoin’s bag, which included a scarf, a book, and his pajamas. Avdol’s cards, Joseph’s water canteen, however much that was going to last them all. And then, of course, that which was stored on each life boat itself-

Flares, two different types. Oars, obviously. Bailer and buckets. Ropes, boat hooks, and sea anchor (which he remembered being interested in, because it looked more like a small parachute). A compass and survivor’s manual, which Kakyoin was now idly pouring over with all the tension of someone waiting for tea to steep.

(It was a ruse, obviously. Kakyoin wore tension quietly after a storm, carrying it in sharp shoulders and averted eyes. If no one else was going to call him on it, he wasn’t going to call them on their own tells.)

Two hatchets. A container of water not quite holding as much as it was supposed to, because of course Tennille sabotaged that.

(It was more than what Joseph had, at least.)

Rations, plenty enough to last a few days on sea. Dipper, drinking cup, and smoke signals- along with a flashlight, though they weren’t sure if the batteries survived the water. Fishing equipment. Blanket. Mirror, which Polnareff had joked about to try cheering Anne up before Joseph joined in with a tangent about how it was meant to create light signals.

Not long after that she’d tried to have some water and spat it out, prompting a longer lecture followed by sputtering shock when the shadow of Strength floated over them.

(It was weird to think, but somehow being picked up by the freighter that was ‘Strength’ had maybe saved their lives. They’d at least been able to leave the damn thing with more than they’d arrived with, even if it was barely- apes needed water too, and while it hadn’t been on his own mind after cornering the disgusting brute, the others had managed a decent haul of extra rations and water before the boat started more or less eating them.)

Obviously in the way of emergency equipment, one could say that Anne’s boat was lacking. It wasn’t inappropriately supplied, of course- the first aid kit was where one expected it, and if he did some digging there were in fact packed rations in case of an emergency. But compared to the plethora of (then awkwardly stared at, frowned at, and then set aside as they picked one out and let it loose) flares and light reflectors, they had much less. Having the anchor to keep them from drifting too much was frankly a surprise.

As well though, they also still had fresh food, maps, and a steady course to chart, so all in all they were doing better than in the past by spades, a fact that he was content to remind himself of repeatedly.

(Kakyoin didn't really allow himself that relief. He was busy keeping his fraying nerves in check, occasionally muttering requests at Dark Blue Moon in the hopes the thing would restrain the boat somehow.)

(Somehow.)

Suzume of course didn’t really understand all of that, all the sources of everyone's stress and worry. The fact was, Suzume didn’t really remember being in a lifeboat at all- Jotaro had had no need for Star Platinum at the time beyond residual nerves and tension, so beyond the faint ghost of a memory as a shadow approached, there was nothing.

Not until everyone had been on the boat, anyway. Then…then, it was different.

Suzume could remember steel then, and she dreamed as much as the bobbing of waves carried her off. It was not unlike the slow back and forth dip that she’d felt back then as well- carried through the walls and the floor, all guiding back to the big orange haired being in a jacket and hat.

Or, no- maybe he didn’t have his jacket and hat? It was a weird dream, even if it wasn’t as weird as the dream about the mean bug. She was pretty sure the orange man was just as mean though. Or maybe mean in a different way?

(She thought that maybe the lady from the boats was there, but a lot smaller. Was it like how Haha said she would get bigger one day? That was probably it. She looked scared in the dream, which made sense, because the orange man was right there between them all.)

The orange man didn’t fight fair. She knew that at least. She hit as hard as she could and Hoshi still got hurt- a whole ceiling part fell right in his shoulder, so they couldn’t move that arm. And then it hit Hoshi’s face. And then more things hit more things and-

(Suzume rolled in her sleep, and she thought she heard some muttering sounds. Some whispering sounds. It was probably just Moon and Nori talking though.)

(Kakyoin was doing his best, honestly- Dark Blue Moon wasn’t smart but they weren’t stupid either, so he seemed to have figured out some kind of system to keep the boat from moving a lot at least.)

Nothing that got thrown back worked at all, because the orange man cheated. Even though he had plenty long arms, and lots of strength to punch with- or she was pretty sure he could anyway- he just hid inside his boat like a ghost. Which was very unfair, because he wasn’t a ghost- ghosts couldn’t touch things. She knew, because it made Nori sad when he couldn’t.

Somehow thinking about that part just made her even angrier at the orange man, which was pretty impressive because she didn’t know she could get more mad. The orange man in his coat and his hat had her and Hoshi all tied up and stuck in a wall and there wasn’t anything she could do at all!

…So…how did she get out then?

She could remember being really mad. She could remember the orange man laughing and smoking with a weird curly stick, instead of the smaller sticks Hoshi used to have.

(Hoshi used to have a lot of those all the time, she thought. That was a long long time ago though. It felt like it at least.)

‘This button…isn’t your stand.’

Suzume sighed in her sleep- that’s right. That was how. Hoshi was really smart, so of course he’d find a way even when they were all stuck! He flicked a button off and hit the orange man, and that meant she could hit the button too! She just had to point and hit it harder, and then they were free!

And that meant…

‘JoJo…JoJo, wake up!’

She got to hit the orange man! One, two, three, four, and more! And harder and harder and harder and harder!! Because that’s what happened when you hurt Hoshi and JiJi, and Mr. Magic, and Mr. Hair, and Nori-

‘J- Suzume!! Suzume wake up now!’

She didn’t really know what happened after she beat up the orange man though…Maybe he was gone now? She wasn’t on that boat right now at least, even if it felt like it…

‘Dammit…Suzume, we’re in danger! Wake up now!’

‘PrrRROOAAAAAA-!’

‘Crap, and now even Dark Blue Moon can’t help-!’

Maybe….there would have been lots of shouting…Shouting normally happened when there was trouble, right?

Oh! And what about the lady?? Suzume hoped she got her clothes back. When she remembered her on the orange man’s boat, she just had a big wet blanket around her instead, and that didn’t seem very comfortable at all. The lady had clothes when they were at the boat place at least, so obviously she got them back somehow.

‘Tch…all of you see me don’t you…but you’re not doing anything…why…’

‘PRrRRrorrrrr…’

‘....He’s with us, by the way. She’ll be very upset if you hurt-’

‘THIS IS YOUR CAPTAIN SPEAKING: CHILDREN MUST BE ATTENDED BY AN ADULT AT ALL TIMES WHILE ABOARD. I REPEAT-’

Had there been any machine shouting, Suzume wondered as she grumbled in her sleep. She didn’t think there had been. It would have definitely been something she remembered, she was sure. Just like how she remembered just how many people were with them when they were on the boat- Hoshi, JiJi, Mr. Magic, Mr. Hair, Nori, and the lady.

There definitely hadn’t been anyone else, other than the mean orange man-

‘Attend- You’re the one who pulled us in!’

‘MAN OVERBOARD! MAN OVER-’

‘You can’t just say that after you ‘rescue’ us!’

There was a lot more shouting than she thought there would be though. In her dream she tried to think about what happened next, what should have happened next, after she stopped remembering. Maybe everyone would get in another boat and leave, since the metal one was starting to shake too much. Maybe it would be a boat just like the one they were on, though, as she started to mumble and blink her eyes slowly open, she thought that this boat was shaking a whole lot too. Maybe even too much. Maybe-

“Mnnhh… …Oh…”

“Ah- Now you wake up?!”

Suzume looked up. The sky was still dark- she had probably been sleeping for a long time, which was about how long people were supposed to sleep, she thought. Hoshi was appearing quickly though, and he seemed upset about something. Even scared, she determined, which was about what Nori looked too, and-

“Oh…Moon, why are you on the boat..?”

Moon gave a plaintive cry, his big fin-paws scrambling at the boat again. He was draped, however awkwardly, over most of the side, tilting it downward somewhat as he held onto the other end. He held as if for dear life, big mouth opening and closing with each whine.

Something must have been wrong with the water she determined, and when she looked over the boat, she saw why.

“...the water is gone..?”

“ATTENTION: CHILDREN MUST BE ACCOMPANIED BY AN ADULT AT ALL TIMES WHILE ABOARD-”

“Repeating it doesn’t change that you pulled us out of the water!” Nori shouted at the air as a loud metal voice shouted something in another language. It felt like Hoshi knew what it was saying at least, because he went from scared to confused and scared. It was probably because of the missing water. “What do you want with us?!”

The metal voice didn’t answer. Not right away. Instead, the boat shook- moving down and down until it landed in water that was different from the salty expanse she had gotten used to seeing. Instead, this water was almost too clear and blue- more like the sky, and surrounded by wood and concrete. It was a pool- not too large, but large enough for the boat, and that wasn’t the only thing either.

Hoshi held her tightly, and Nori drew near. Moon, sighing in relief and rolling back into the water, only seemed happy for a moment- he was quickly hissing, all of his spiny fins flared as he bared his teeth at the ones standing outside the water.

“PLEASE WELCOME ABOARD- CHILDREN MUST BE ATTENDED AT ALL TIMES- ENJOY YOUR STAY ON-”

A horn blared, and Suzume gaped at everyone watching- they stood somewhat hunched, draped in skirts and necklaces. They smiled without baring their teeth, and many held little ones to their fronts as they chittered gently in greeting.

The metal voice finished-

“STRONGER.”

And Suzume whispered in wonder. “It’s a whole boat of oranges…!”

(Jotaro had underestimated, it seemed, just how much trouble they could get into while Suzume slept.)

(He could only hope that the species norm for orangutans held priority over that of the last Stand User primate they’d encountered- because any animal that could form an entire cruise ship and house multiple of their own kind was smarter than Forever by a long shot.)

Chapter Text

Kakyoin thought, as the boat was released from the large crane device that was now melting back into the form of the ship, that this day was both starting and finishing with an impressive amount of peril. Getting over Dark Blue Moon had been…a task.

It wasn’t an easy task, and frankly he still had no idea what to make of the Stand that was somehow acting on its own, but there was nothing like danger to reveal something’s colors and frankly speaking Dark Blue Moon was a giant puppy. He whined and cried and clung to the boat like it was a life raft (and really it was), and the way it brightened upon entering the pool water on the deck was dare he say even kind of cute.

The thought was discarded immediately after that, because this was also Dark Blue Moon- a Stand once owned by a murderer and would-be-assassin who was responsible for all of them having been stranded at sea for almost a week.

(Asshole.)

Of course, while Dark Blue Moon was one thing, JoJo- Suzume- was a whole other one. They were in danger. They were absolutely undoubtedly in danger! Cruise ships didn’t have freighter cranes. Cruise ships didn’t sail directly for small boats, somehow failing to capsize them with the wake of the water, and then reach down for them as if fishing in a crane game.

And they definitely didn’t have automated messages from the ‘Captain’. Not of this caliber at least.

And perhaps, more to the direct point, they were not populated entirely by orangutans. Kakyoin couldn’t be completely sure how many were on the ship- certainly not enough to put it near at capacity, but it was a sizable number all the same. He tried to remember what little he actually knew about the things, what little he’d imparted to Jotaro back when they’d escaped the ship ‘Strength’-

It wasn’t a whole lot. First he found himself talking a bit about how he supposed Edgar Allen Poe had it right in a sense; the tale of a murderous orangutan, slitting throats in mangling manner.

(“Of course in Poe’s story, the orangutan didn’t actually intend any of that to begin with; it had been attempting to copy his human owner's actions with a straight razor, before being thrown into a rage. Straight razors were far more dangerous than what we use now, practically just a single palm sized blade, so it was pretty easy for anyone to hurt someone w-”

“Kakyoin.”

“Mn?”

“Just…shut up…”)

(Considering that Jotaro was busy trying not to look too long in the direction of where Strength had crumbled into a tiny little tug boat of a thing, Kakyoin hadn’t held that against him at the time.)

From there he’d eventually started on about how really, orangutans were actually supposed to be really docile, and that was really weird, and after Jotaro’s remark that Forever was really just too smart to be docile, probably, they had found themselves soundly derailed by something more notable.

Namely the fact that the orangutan was named Forever, and somehow Jotaro actually figured that out. How the hell had he done that.

(It wasn’t that hard, and if Jotaro had known Kakyoin was running himself into the ground on the thought back then, he’d probably have explained it to him.)

(Forever’s jacket had a name tag, was all.)

Maybe that would work in their favor. Orangutans were supposed to be peaceful. Supposed to be. These ones, best he could observe, were also female- many had young dangling off their fronts where they hung, holding onto long synthesized cables that strung along the top of the ship. From where the boat was being hauled upward, his view soon went from various windows into altered cruise suites and entertaining rooms, to a top deck filled with amenities. The pool was a pool obviously, but it had been altered- forming irrigation paths, floating toward various garden beds full of plant life. A ship couldn’t produce food and goods.

They could make it suitable to handle production themselves, though.

He’d tried waking up the girl while they were pulled out of course- cursing when Dark Blue Moon hurriedly scrambled onto the boat as it was pulled away, wanting to not be separated far more than he wanted to stay in the water, it seemed. Trying again to wake JoJo- Suzume he corrected, he really couldn’t keep doing that- continued to fail though, and as soon as the faces of long-armed apes became close enough to read, the ghost paled.

“Tch…all of you can see me can’t you…” he muttered, watching the orangutans communicate with one another. They were gesturing back and forth, pointing to the boat, to the creature atop it, making motions of rocking in their arms-

And he realized something.

“But you’re not doing anything…why…”

An Orangutan appeared from overhead- leaning over on the crane as it slowly moved, making motions toward the pool. It looked to Dark Blue Moon and slowly began to bare their teeth, causing Kakyoin to start.

“He’s with us by the way,” he sharply warned, frowning at the primate. Careful to keep from baring his own teeth, he added- “She’ll be very upset if you kill him.”

‘She’, in question, stirred- but only slightly. It was enough to make the creature back off at least, but the fact was by the time Suzume woke they were well beyond any saving.

Now she woke up. Of course now she did. He said as much and watched with rolling eyes as Star Platinum manifested and immediately balked, the Stand itself clearly aware that the situation they were in was now a dire one indeed.

Or, well…Maybe it wouldn’t be? He couldn’t be sure, bickering back at the boat in English as it blared its statements, his jaw clenched as it came back with those repeating warnings about children being attended by adults and so on.

“What do you want with us!” he finally shouted, and in an instant he almost felt like he wanted no answer.

Welcome aboard, the boat proclaimed. Welcome aboard the Cruise Ship..

Stronger.

Kakyoin could laugh. Almost.

(He didn’t.)

“Stronger?” he repeated almost hysterically, and it looked to him that Star Platinum had the same thought. If it was possible for Stands to go pale, he was now, even as his eyes roved over the greeting party of apes. A large bridge in the form of a dock medical board was being placed over from the pool deck, leaning against the boat rail with some minimal support. It was clear that Hoshi was tempted to just knock it aside.

He didn't though- if only because of how clearly and vastly out numbered they were.

“You know,” he warned lowly, “You still haven’t answered my question…”

There was nothing this time, not even a mocking radio statement. Some of the orangutans had started to stare at Hoshi now, watching the Stand’s move to immediately hover over Suzume with care. More chittering followed, and the ghost narrowed his eyes. Something had changed just now, it felt like. Something had altered their plans and thoughts, but just what about it would have…

Wait.

“..........All of you can see her Stand,” he realized, sucking in a breath.

The orangutans did nothing but stare, and Kakyoin drew back with wide eyes as Star Platinum himself stared as well.

(This should have been impossible, Jotaro thought. Strength, and Stands like it, made sense on their own. But a Stand with enough passive energy to make everything aboard see them?)

(These apes didn’t have Stands of their own. He could feel it. He could ‘see’ it, in a sense, and that made it all the stranger. The orangutans could see Stands without having them.)

(So what the hell kind of Stand was STRONGER?)

The chatter cut short with an abrupt hush, and those on the boat watched as the small crowd of apes parted before the bridge. A steady ‘clunk’ of a cane meeting the floor came over the air, the hand gripping it weathered and worn, the hairs equal parts white with red.

Kakyoin narrowed his eyes, floating between Suzume and the rest. It wasn’t as if he could actually do anything- he wouldn’t be able to block what came, or fight back. But the instinct was there, now that he’d spent even just a little time interacting with the living.

Perhaps the orangutan recognized that. Her eyes roved across the lot almost studiously, suspiciously even, locking over the spirit’s point of mortal injury before moving back to his face with a slow blink.

“You’re the Stand User, aren’t you?” he asked, receiving nothing in reply. “You’re the ‘Captain’ of this ship? …You’re not hurting them!” Kakyoin shouted further, and idly in his mind he couldn’t help but think about how much bravado it was taking to even entertain that bluff.

(He knew he could do nothing. He was as helpless now as he was on STRENGTH, if not even more. Back on the mock-up oil rig it had taken until Hierophant’s tendrils were melded through the floors and walls of the ship before he realized how much danger they were in- taken every bit of him abruptly being sucked one way or another into metal, feeling the cold presence latch around him so dangerously close to everything he needed to live.)

(Did Forever ever realize how easily they would have died, if he only decided to force the ship through them instead of around? He dared not think about it, just as he dared not think about how easily the orangutan before them would and likely could do that now.)

A clack of wood, and the speakers blared, but this time it wasn’t using pre-recorded messages from cruise announcements. Now it blasted with static- going back and forth and back from radio station to radio station, playing clips and statements one after another as it formed the dialogue that the primate so needed.

“CAPTAIN- TAROT,” she introduced, leveling her eyes upon them. “MEAN YOU NO HARM- CHILD ALONE? WONDERING WHY- YOU COULD ALL DIE!”

While Kakyoin winced at the irritating sting that trying to parse the messages brought, he could feel Star Platinum ease up beside him, if only to carefully pay attention to the creature now identified- perhaps ironically so- as ‘Tarot’. Suzume meanwhile, became the first to say something more as she took in the Captain's appearance-

“...Are you….are you like captain Tenny…?”

Kakyoin blinked, looking down with a start. “Captain- Oh right, Tennille… …That captain was an ‘imposter’, J- Suzume,” he explained, correcting in an instant. “This ‘Tarot’ is the real thing; she’s the one controlling this ship, and maintaining it.”

To this, Suzume looked up, and then looked back to Tarot, who now seemed to be taking a moment to wait for them to explain themselves. “Is she going to bring us to…um…the place where we stop using the boat?”

…Well that was certainly one way to put it, Kakyoin thought, and to that end it seemed even the Stand was a little exhausted by the statement- proving a keen sense for danger that she sorely lacked.

(Jotaro suspected, admittedly, that they were not in nearly as much danger as they had initially feared. Tarot’s garbled words spoke of a desire to communicate. No, more than that they spoke of a desire to understand, and perhaps even protect. Frankly speaking if there was any danger, it was for Kakyoin alone. Suzume and he could not, and would not be separated. Dark Blue Moon, given the Stand’s contentment in the water, would probably be ignored.)

(But Kakyoin’s fate hinged entirely on where they went from here, and it was for that reason that he allowed his thoughts to reel and search for a way to convince the orangutan Stand user that their best option would be to go to Singapore.)

Tarot looked to them, and a single word echoed-

“WHERE-”

Suzume looked to Kakyoin expectantly. Obviously, he realized, she expected him to both translate and answer. With a grudging sigh, he thus turned his head back to the orangutan. “...Singapore was our next stop in the journey. During our original trip,” he continued on with a brief switch back to Japanese again, more for the girl’s benefit than Tarot’s own, “We then took a train toward the north end of Thailand through Malaysia, intending to leave by boat for Calcutta.”

While Suzume tilted her head at that- her Stand seemed to have reacted to something in the tail end of that statement- Tarot seemed to study the ghost with some suspicion.

(It was a thought on both their minds, oddly; Calcutta was an anglicization, and hadn’t been official for a number of years now. The city was Kolkata. Tarot was now realizing how old this ghost was, and perhaps even piecing together what the point of this journey was even without further questioning.)

(Jotaro, almost casually, was picturing Kakyoin’s reaction to the inevitable when he was corrected by reality. He’d probably be absolutely ticked with himself, particularly since the actual name of ‘Kolkata’ had come up in one of his trivia bouts back in the day in the first place.)

Tarot did not immediately say anything to that, drumming her fingers over the top of her staff instead. No doubt, Kakyoin determined, the boat was doing something now. The question was what. Before he could even start to snap a question on the matter though, the orangutan acted-

“FOLLOW ME- SEE SINGAPORE-”

Kakyoin cut in immediately. “You’ll actually bring us to-”

“AUTHORITIES- RETURN THE CHILD- MAKE SOME CALLS-”

Where Hoshi’s expression was simply grim, Kakyoin felt as if something other than his wound had hollowed him out. They were being ushered off the boat- various apes were waving them over, and Suzume was too innocent not to answer by carefully stepping onto the plank and walking across. Her Stand hovered behind, and watched Tarot with clouded eyes. Eyes that Tarot returned with an ancient exhaustion.

He had had this moment in Hong Kong. Facing the look of reality, of the future, and thinking- why bother? Why try moving onward, without a goal as it were? What point was there in re-finding the past when they didn’t even know if it would…do anything…

He knew there was something wrong with him. That vice-like sensation closing in every time he thought he was near to what it was he needed, if he could even properly put words to what that was. It had to be a reconnection- had to be JoJo connecting enough that they could acknowledge his end, acknowledge what couldn’t be talked about in this state.

(‘This is a child’, he thought to himself not for the first time since determining this. ‘You can’t just talk about how and why you died with a child, just because of some grand adventure you had in another life. What will you accomplish, making them remember? What, beyond a loss of innocence?’)

(There were partial truths in there of course. Making Suzume remember what she had done as a Stand would eventually wear away. While it wouldn’t be a loss of innocence exactly, Jotaro knew for a fact it would be a grim day the minute any of the gravity sank through. But Jotaro also had theories for what Kakyoin needed after all, even if it wasn’t related to memory. A reliving of the journey would give the chance to come to terms with the journey as well- ‘What better option is there, to send a spirit off?’)

Rough, animal hands helped Suzume to the deck of the ship, the little one chattering quietly as she did so. “Everyone is…very orange,” she said quietly, her voice breathy with astonishment. “Everyone must have…had lots of orange fruits…” she determined, and the result was a round of chuckling chitter sounds, even if so little was truly understood.

As the girl started to smile, Kakyoin pulled himself from his thoughts to quickly get a warning in before they catastrophically lost the chance. “AH- Suzume, when you smile, don’t open your mouth here ok?”

Suzume turned. “...I can’t..?”

She hadn’t yet, fortunately enough. Kakyoin sighed in relief.

(Jotaro added this as another notch in what made Forever so odd. He’d smiled. Perhaps it was partly to threaten, partly to show the aggression he had in there, but there was pride in that smile as well. Smug, superior pride, far beyond what any primate would usually associate with the motion.)

(It made him wonder, frankly, just where the hell Forever had come from. How, exactly, had an animal like that become so very tightly bound by human notion, that even their displays of weakness were ‘wrong’?)

“...Ok Nori, I won’t,” Suzume was saying, and Kakyoin smiled- closed of course- in gratitude. When he looked back up to see Tarot staring in curiosity, he quickly frowned of course.

“...What? …I can do research into these things,” he huffed, narrowing his eyes. “You’re not the first orangutan with a ship that we’ve known.”

To his quiet pleasure, that statement seemed to throw Tarot off. The orangutan visibly stumbled, blinking rapidly at the ghost and those with him. Eventually she shook it off, waving for them to follow. No words were given- not regarding that, at least.

“STRONGER!- SAILING AWAY- 1989- A SAFE PLACE…-”

It didn’t take very long to realize that they were being given some background on the ship. Tarot brought them inside quickly, the halls of a nice hall with painfully familiar hotel aesthetic coming into view. While it was after his time- or perhaps depending on, just barely before the end of it- everything reeked of familiarity for him. It was enough to even begin to put him at ease, his eyes lingering over wall art and even carpet patterns with some fondness.

(Tarot was watching them, Jotaro noted as they walked. She was visibly studying them, like insects under a microscope, watching for their reaction. No doubt from him, she had noticed his own shock. The ship from the outside had not only been heavily modified for their uses, it’d been modernized- he recognized the type of wood in use, the chairs and the styling of the rails. He wasn’t one to take cruises for plenty of reasons; for all that they made attempts to lessen their damage to the environment, you didn’t ferry a small town through the water without leaving your mark.)

(But that didn’t mean he didn’t recognize things from photos, from research from countless moments where his mother would try in vain to draw his attention in hopes of reconnecting by sharing some small bit of vacation. Whether from herself, or from Josuke, or more importantly his own grandparents-)

(He cast the thoughts aside. They weren’t important, and couldn’t ever be now. Not only because of his own state of existence, but because the grandparent who had turned around to try hardest out of all of them after the fact was now the one missing from life entirely, and as far as Jotaro was concerned it was entirely his fault.)

(He should have been faster. Better. St-)

“A HUNDRED STRONG- WOMEN AND CHILDREN- NO EYES TO PRY-”

Suzume was the one who asked most questions as they moved. Kakyoin himself was too absorbed in everything, like being wrapped in a blanket that only he could feel. “...Is it dangerous for…for everyone to be off the boat..?”

There was a calm stare for a moment- between child, ape, and ghost. A short wait, and Kakyoin realized he would have to translate. “....She wants to know why you need everyone on the boat, rather, if it's dangerous,” he managed in English, pulling himself from his state of shock by force. “...She can’t understand what you’re saying.”

(Kakyoin was correct, to a point at least. Suzume could only retain fragmented bits of English thus far, and it would be a good amount of time before she retained more than that. What she understood was largely as a result of what passed through Jotaro’s own ears- his own innate understanding gently nudging her own to match.)

Tarot actually vocalized somewhat when she answered this time- looking down to Suzume with a sweetness that had been rather absent until now, and even smiling a little herself. “Hnnn-hnn-hnnn…” “VERY,” was the radio response, without much clarification beyond that. “NOT MANY LEFT- RUNNING OUT OF ROOM-”

After her companion passed the answer on, Suzume nodded in apparent understanding. “Oh…so…you needed a really big boat…”

This time Tarot laughed outright, before lightly ruffling the girl’s head. Suzume scowled somewhat, but the sound was enough to draw Kakyoin more firmly from his thoughts.

He decided to fill the girl in as they stepped into an elevator lift. “Tarot-” A pause as Suzume glared at him. What on earth was the trouble now?! As the stare persisted, the girl lowered her voice-

“Nori. She is Captain Tarot.”

Of course. “You’re going to be that precise, when you still won’t…” Visibly exhausted by the matter, he trailed off instead of finishing the statement. Suzume’s particularities over names and how they were given was something they could deal with after they figured out how to avoid being handed over to the authorities once they made landfall. “Fine,” Kakyoin huffed, ignoring the amused clicking Tarot was giving from the back of the elevator.

(Jotaro was keeping an eye on her, but the more he did the more he realized it wasn’t really necessary. She really was, it seemed, just trying to help.)

(If only that mattered when it came to waiting for Kakyoin’s mood to shift beyond his actual reach. The lights were dim, but he couldn’t tell if that was part of the ship’s ‘80s charm’ or because of the ghost’s growing anxiety.)

“Captain Tarot,” Kakyoin emphasized, “Is an orangutan. They’re endangered, Suzume; it means there aren’t a lot of them left. …The captain it seems,” he continued with a look, quietly gauging if he was about to make a completely incorrect guess, “Seems to be using this ship to help correct that.”

However much Suzume understood, it seemed enough that she was able to ask questions without being entirely baffled. “...So they make it a really big boat…so that everyone can sleep…”

“Precisely.” Smiling as he eased himself into rattling on on topics unrelated to anything else, he carried on.

(It was easier that way. Neither Past, Present, nor Future. Trivia was trivia, gatherings of facts or theories that had little to do with anything on hand outside minor details.)

(It was easier. He wouldn’t think of Cairo if he was talking about the mammoth ships of the seas made for vacationing. He wouldn’t think of his parents if he focused on long vacations that he never got to see. He wouldn’t think of-)

(Of-)

(Of-)

The elevator flickered.

“How do they have all the food, Nori..?”

Either Suzume didn’t notice, or she was simply barreling on for his sake. Kakyoin for his part was pale, paler than typical, and he had to force a smile back in place before pressing on.

He didn’t expect that kind of relapse.

(He didn’t expect that he could be getting Worse.)

“A cruise ship can do a lot more because of its size, J- Suzume. There’s enough rooms on it to be a hotel, and more. So you have rooms for sleeping in, but also rooms like Mrs. Kujo…erm…Like your Haha’s kitchen,” he pointed out, the elevator stopping with a ‘ding’.

(Jotaro was watching the ghost closely. Tarot was as well, he noted, though he pushed that from mind. If the orangutan tried to make certain moves to get rid of the ghost, he’d just have to intervene, damn the consequences.)

(If there was anything he could be certain of at least, it was the fact that Tarot wasn’t about to turn any violence on a child. In that much, he had an advantage.)

“So…they have bigger fridges…”

Kakyoin snorted, and laughed as they came to a set of doors. “....Something like that…”

Just keep distracting himself. That would have to work, right? At least until they could keep moving on, until Jojo-

Suzume-

(Jotaro was watching Kakyoin now, not Tarot, and he had good reason.)

Until enough could be remembered that…that something…

That anything could change.

Kakyoin distracted himself, as the doors opened to the captain’s bridge overlooking a slightly rough sea of water.

(Jotaro meanwhile, observed the change from calm seas they’d had, and prepared for what little he could do to intervene.)

Chapter Text

The captain’s bridge was a marvel of work, and perhaps the most worn thing in the ship. It didn’t miss Jotaro’s eye, that what they were looking at was dated- and not synthetically so, like in the halls. Tarot snuck a glance at Kakyoin occasionally, but he fortunately either didn’t notice- associating the look with older times than even the late 80s perhaps- or had simply found another method of distraction by this point.

At the very least he was now rambling to Suzume about different facilities cruise ships had at the time, leaving her in wonder of the idea of boats with entire rooms for dancing in.

There was a gesture from Tarot, and with a slight jolt, Jotaro realized it was to him. The Stand paused- did the orangutan somehow want him alone? And how was that going to work? As an easy demonstration, he tried to move beyond the two meter limit, seemingly to glance out the window. Almost immediately he simply vanished, Suzume looking around with a slight start when the extra sensations followed suit. With some tittering, Tarot waited for the Stand to remanifest before gesturing instead to the both of them from there.

“LOOK AND SEE- HISTORY OF THE- CRUISE SHIP- STRONGER”

“What an on the nose name…” Kakyoin muttered in turn, and quietly, Jotaro couldn’t help but agree.

(There was a connection there, undoubtedly. A link between the two, if only they knew what.)

Jotaro’s quiet consideration of the matter was briefly interrupted by a sharp animal sound as Tarot interrupted Kakyoin’s muttering, clacking her staff against the wall at the back of the bridge. Photos lined it, along with stacked books in shelves. This was where Tarot spent most of her time, it was clear, and as such it was where she kept the matters close to the heart. Such as-

Kakyoin voiced what the Stand was thinking in that moment. “...This is impossible,” he muttered almost harshly, incredulous eyes moving from the photo to the orangutan. “You couldn’t have had a camera for most of these.”

The images were from impossible perspectives in some cases. Images that for humans, in their time of modern convenience, would easily manage, but not so for apes with no such technology and typical understanding. And yet, there they were. Photos- of an infant Tarot and an orangutan best identified as her mother, while a familiar leering form stared in the distance. Photos of a ship half tilted in the shore, trapped by sand and muck, and then later sailing proudly into the open sea with restored frame.

“MAKE WHAT YOU NEED- STRONGER- THE BETTER VERSION- NEXT GENERATION-”

So Forever was her father then. If he thought about it that made sense- that first photo, rather. For any ‘unflanged’ male orangutan to successfully begin a family, it would be an ordeal. In orangutan society, it was the ‘flanged’ males, those with great disk-like faces, who had more success. Given Forever’s attitude, and the framing of the photo…

“No love lost there I see…” Kakyoin murmured, though he did have a look of sympathy at least. It faded the longer Tarot eyed him with a careless air, the orangutan making it clear that it was nothing she dwelled upon. The ghost crossed his arms, and Suzume as well peered closely at the frame of the ship in its initial state.

She pointed at it, and said- “...Then…this is where, you found...‘Stu-ron-ger’...?”

“...What?”

Though Kakyoin was the only one to voice the surprise, the other three had stiffened with shock so quickly one would wonder if an electric strike had passed through the room. While machines and controls moved on their own behind them, their attention was now squarely on Suzume.

Suzume, who carried on without much notice.

“Um…since…since Stronger couldn’t be like Hoshi, because…because they’re too big, and need water…”

Tarot clued in first. “SENSE OF LONGING- DREAM WALKING- SLEEP TALKING-”

Kakyoin, when Suzume’s response to the garbled radio guesses was to stare, continued to fill the blanks. “...I wondered how Stands like this could manifest… Hierophant Green just appeared when I was young. They were at my side for as long as I could remember,” he explained, though his mood visibly darkened the more he spoke of the Stand.

(He was gone now, after all. That much, Jotaro couldn’t ignore. Hierophant was gone-)

(A portion of his friend’s soul, lost to the ether.)

“But for something material…it would have to draw its user to its side, wouldn’t it?”

Tarot seemed to simply smile to the group at this, and from there moved to show off some other photos instead. These ones, perhaps, were more straightforward. More informative- photos of the boat with the gangplank lengthened, lowered, and buried in sand could be seen, cables manifested along their tops. The metal stretched onward into the woods near to the sea, and already on the cable could be seen various orangutans making their way aboard.

There were photos of the ship deck, as it underwent its first changes- as wood made way for ditches and ‘streams’, as garden beds were hollowed out and filled with buckets of soil carried out from the homeland they now left. As plants were carefully dug free and brought on board, as fruits and vegetation were carefully packed into fridges and freezers made manifest by the galleys.

Bit by bit, a ship that was already so large was simply refurbished to the needs of those aboard. Tarot kept a full gallery of images- or perhaps, she used her control of the thing to simply create a slight trick, cycling the images through as they walked so that they could see more, and faster.

“So you found your Stand and made a paradise for you and your fellows…” Kakyoin now muttered, unable to avoid being interested in what he saw. To that end, Jotaro could see the ghost fighting a smile- he was even doing his best not to look to the orangutan at all, eyes glued to the photos as he spoke. “...I suppose the name really is deserved then.”

While Tarot beamed, she also tapped her staff a little, making a show of gesturing toward a photo of Singapore. For a moment, the others (aside from Jotaro himself) smiled.

And then, so quickly he almost had to snort, Kakyoin frowned.

“That’s the Coast Guard!” he protested. “You’re still calling them?”

“...does a ‘coast guard’ look after a coast..?” Suzume asked from between the two, her question currently ignored.

“We need to keep going,” Kakyoin insisted more clearly in english, the lights above them starting to flicker. Jotaro’s eyes flicked between the two, and he tensed as he tried to think about what could be done to bring the ghost down from things. “If you let us explain why-”

“No Excuses!” came the radio chime, Suzume frowning as Tarot levelled a glare to the spirit. “No more- Danger!- No more- Missing children!”

“Missin- She isn’t-” Before he could actually lie, Kakyoin sputtered, shaking in place. It was obvious after all, that she was not here with the blessing of her guardians. But even from the outside looking in, Jotaro could see the situation begin to close over on the spirit. Logic was failing him. Panic was taking over, doing far more to influence the teen than it could have ever done in life. And soon-

A beeping noise began to echo through the room, and just like that Kakyoin’s descent stopped. Instead his face fell, eyes wide as Tarot snapped her gaze toward the many unmanned machines steering the ship.

“Storm warning- Talk later- Careful- Sailing-”

With the wave of a hand, Tarot’s staff was latched into the ground. Cables fell from the ceiling above for her to grab onto, and she swiftly began to swing over the various consoles with practiced focus. The staff in the meantime, began to slowly move across the floor, wedged into the material as if it were merely water.

“Follow- Relax and enjoy!- Bed and- Healthy meal-”

As the radio requests came over the air, Jotaro gently pressed for Suzume to follow the staff. At this point their best option was to play along, and it seemed that having been drawn back to his senses by the reality of what he was bringing down on them- the clouds outside had grown dark indeed- Kakyoin agreed completely. “...Actual sleep would be the best idea for you,” he conceded with a look to Suzume, visibly focusing his attention anywhere but the photos and windows. “And if you’re hungry, there’s definitely going to be something you can eat.”

“Will there be more orange fruits..?” Suzume asked in turn, the group soon following the staff out from the bridge and to the elevator.

Taking the distraction for what it was, even if just for now, Kakyoin hummed. “...Possibly… …At any rate the important thing is resting up enough that you can be awake before we dock at Singapore,” he emphasized. Jotaro, still floating alongside the pair, raised a brow somewhat from behind them- half leaning through the rail of the glass elevator as they started their descent.

(There was a tall wall at the side, mimicking the style of a waterfall. Despite this, he could see images of butterflies, not fish, swimming up along it as they moved downward to the lower levels. Blue, violet, and green-)

(He turned away, but all he saw for his efforts to avoid thinking of his daughter was the sight of violet in the glass, his reflection somehow making it worse.)

Kakyoin was muttering now. “I’ve gone back and forth on this too many times to turn us around over something decided by apes,” he half growled, so wrapped up in his emotions that he didn’t even smile at Suzume’s eager nod of agreement. “Once you’re awake again Suzume, make sure you stay awake- the moment we have a chance, we’re getting out of here!”

“Mnh…! Okay..~!” Suzume cheered, both of the others blinking rapidly in turn.

(What a thing to pick up from Holly already, they both thought for their own reasons. It could almost be cute- almost adorable even.)

(Only Kakyoin found himself violently torn, and he abruptly tossed the entire thought process from mind as soon as his thoughts tried to merge the image over the Jotaro he’d known in life. That was just wrong. No. It didn’t work.)

The elevator chimed open, and they were led out to the hall by the staff. It wasn’t a very far walk- the door to the hall of the suites level was just across from them, and yet another door practically right in front of it. Jotaro couldn’t help but be curious about how the other rooms were actually put together- these were for orangutans, after all. Animals suited for the trees and their canopies. They were natural nomads- a lifestyle that oddly enough suited and contrasted the cruise ship’s methods in the same go- and one of the greatest things that the apes were known for was their skilled creation of nests each evening for sleeping.

They didn’t need that here though, Jotaro thought as the door opened before them.

They had nests of their own.

“What on earth...Is that…a nest!?”

Well. Speaking of that. Jotaro stared at the room before him, watching as Suzume rushed forward in excitement. The room layout, oddly enough, was probably standard. To the side was a door to what was definitely a washroom. Their other side contained a closet meanwhile, inside of which Jotaro could already see Suzume’s backpack from the boat. Up ahead, and in any other cruise ship, they would be met with some space for a living area or a desk, and then a large bed.

What they were met with instead- though to be fair there was a small coffee table with lovingly provided coloring books and paper he noted- was exactly what Kakyoin was calling it.

A nest.

It wasn’t one fashioned of branches of course. In fact the main frame had been clearly spawned of metal- the beams and thick cables moved akin to branches of a tree however, forming both the ‘cradle’ to support its mattress, and the ladder Suzume would need to get up. As if to be cheeky, the blanket and pillows upon it were patterned with leaves- a reminder of where Tarot had no doubt gotten the idea for such a set up. And behind it all were large windows overlooking the water- the perfect place to sit and have dinner beside.

“She adapted her natural habits to the ship limits,” Kakyoin was murmuring, now officially intrigued and invested again. “I wonder if this is what she’s done for all of the apes, and not just you…”

Suzume didn’t seem to be paying much attention, Jotaro noted, and instead focused on pulling her bear out of her bag and going back to the coffee table. “Nori, Hoshi, look..! …There’s books with pictures here…”

Naturally that was her focus of course. Hiding a slight smile, Jotaro hung back as Kakyoin floated to investigate, looking at what were clearly recreated gift shop supplies from the original make- restored and made anew for the sake of one person.

“There are… …boats…and…fish…”

“And you can color it,” Kakyoin finished for her, Suzume snapping her head upward with a sharp gasp.

“...It’s for crayons..??”

“Of course- pictures are supposed to have color, aren’t they?” he asked, pointing to the images in the book. Jotaro supposed that it being a children’s coloring book helped the ghost to keep some emotional distance from this- drawing was one thing, but the teen probably thought this was too ‘kiddy’ to be bothered with. “And she’s given you a pack of crayons too- you just need to stay inside the lines.”

Taking this perhaps too seriously, Suzume slowly blinked at the lines, with a look that seemed now a little nervous about the task at hand. “...what happens if…if I color outside..?”

Jotaro stared.

Kakyoin stared.

Jotaro frowned, sensing the inevitable.

(“It’s considered bad luck if you do this, so be sure not to walk too near the trees growing near-”

Polnareff was a breath of fresh air with their group, but primarily that was because of how he seemed to bounce off of Kakyoin, Jotaro thought. He could remember Kakyoin’s tangent as they entered Delhi, his small lecture on the arts and on the culture, and remember even more clearly Polnareff interjecting before he’d actually finished his statement.

“What happens if I do, then?”)

“You turn the same color you used.”

(“You die.”

“SACRÉ BLEU-”)

“...no I won’t…”

Suzume wasn’t as easy to fool as Polnareff, but then again perhaps she was simply too aware of how terribly simple and stupid it would be for things to hinge on if she could color properly.

As it was Kakyoin had delivered the line perfectly- and managed to hold his dry, seemingly bored expression for even a full 30 seconds more before his lips split with a snort and he started laughing.

“I won’t…! You lied…” she protested, Kakyoin still laughing in the air.

“Ahahahhaaaa…hahhh I needed that… …it’s fine Joj- Suzume,” he wheezed, hiding the slip with a cough he didn’t need. “Just color how you want, alright? They probably expect you to eat something before going back to bed, so-”

As he said that, a small card slipped through the door. Jotaro was there in a flash, skimming what was on it before grabbing one of Suzume’s crayons to fill it out.

It was a room service card- albeit a very different one. Split into two columns there could be seen the request to choose both a snack, for now, and a breakfast selection for later. It was limited of course- the ship normally only had what it grew and raised, the latter a note he only added when he spotted eggs were on the list.

(It made sense. Orangutan were omnivores technically, not vegetarians, though they certainly didn’t eat meat in the strict sense.)

(It was a matter of opportunity, and peace. Bugs, and eggs from birds nests. He supposed if any animal could handle raising chickens in that way, it would be these great apes then.)

It was easy to handle in any case, even while Kakyoin floated over to squint over his shoulder.

“Oh- …That’s one way to do it,” he said after a moment’s pause. “So you’re getting her kumquats after all then…”

Of course he was. It was pretty clear the fruits were half eaten by Dark Blue Moon after all, so-

Jotaro blinked, looking to Kakyoin- the ghost wasn’t looking at him, just at the card, but he couldn’t help but stare.

He’d addressed him. Perhaps he’d done that a few times, but it felt in this case more like he’d been addressed as him, rather than as a Stand, or-

“Suzume, you like tamagoyaki then?”

As Suzume nodded, Jotaro dashed the small bit of hope from mind. No, this was probably going to need to be seen to the end before Kakyoin had that understanding sink in, he determined. It was fine. He’d accepted that, after all.

A snack of kumquats and juice, and a breakfast of oatmeal with egg when she woke, the latter accompanied by some berries and juice as well. It would be enough for the girl, and good to keep her energized, particularly if they had to make an escape.

(If he could just think of how the hell they could do that now, then they’d be set.)

Chapter Text

Suzume’s snacks had arrived almost immediately after the card was filled out, which perhaps further fed into Jotaro’s concerns about just how they were going to get off the boat. With Strength, it had become clear that Forever knew damn well where anyone and anything on his boat was at all times. Now, that feeling was only increasing- the room service card was generated by the ship, as were the crayons.

Therefore, the instant marks were made, Tarot had gotten the ship to grab a few fruits from those growing trees and bring them in.

If there could be anything going for them at all, the Stand thought, it was probably that Kakyoin’s anxious stress over how they’d be getting through the mess had potentially bought them time. Sure, the seas were calming now. And sure, the radios shouldn’t have had any trouble from there.

But there would have been at least a stretch of delay caused by it, and really, every minute counted.

Probably.

(Tarot had indeed hesitated, but perhaps not for any reason Jotaro or even Kakyoin expected. Perhaps Jotaro had noticed and simply paid it less mind. Perhaps not.)

(But when Tarot realized it was the ghost that the little girl’s Stand focused on, rather than she herself, the one in the position of ‘obstacle’, it gave her something more to think on.)

As it were, the group woke- however much the term applied to them- to breakfast sitting on the now cleared coffee table, steaming and warm beneath its cover, something that Suzume had just started to open up to dig into before a loud announcement came over the air.

Suzume, as with everything Tarot had proclaimed thus far, blinked curiously but confusedly at the air. Kakyoin however, raised a brow and listened carefully as a pre-recorded Captain’s announcement came over with the occasional interjection.

“Good morning passengers, and welcome to your final day aboard the- SHIP- STRONGER- Our current sailing speed is a smooth 20 knots, which will have us seeing the port of sunny Singapore at 6:30 AM!”

“So we have the day to figure this out then…” Kakyoin muttered, and the message continued.

“Be sure to enjoy yourselves during this final day, and check the navigational guides located at each elevator lobby for information on all that the- STRONGER has to offer!”

A clicking buzz, and the message ended. Suzume looked to her Stand and friend both, staring expectantly.

“Right…I keep forgetting you don’t understand English,” Kakyoin admitted with a blink. “That was Captain Tarot using the ship to speak- she says we’ll be in Singapore in the early morning tomorrow, which should give us plenty of time to plan our way off the boat. For now it looks like you can enjoy yourself…as long as you go to bed early,” he added with a frown, Suzume nodding seriously.

She wasn’t completely sure why, but it seemed important enough to her friend at least that she wasn’t about to argue.

With that agreed to, she started eating her oatmeal while Kakyoin continued to mutter his way through some sort of plan. On Jotaro’s end, he was more concerned about the delay than relieved- the ship could easily reach Singapore by evening if it wanted, without pushing speed too hard. And that was with the storm- though it fortunately had yet to make a reappearance.

So then why was Tarot delaying?

(For Tarot, communication with outside sources was always stressful, especially with sources speaking her third language rather than her second. Being an ape, she could hardly speak aloud after all, and that meant the phone was right out. So her only options were to slow the ship to a crawl and delay as much as possible in order to facilitate the time needed for emailed response.)

(It would take time. Absolutely it would take time. But with any luck she could get a concrete response. That was what she’d hoped- but the reply to her message from the last evening had been nothing short of confusing. Indeed, the coast guard had been able to get in contact with those charged with Suzume’s care. But the ‘answers’ she sought from those people in turn, were not answers at all.)

With no way of truly knowing without asking Tarot herself, breakfast was instead finished in silence before Suzume was ushered to the washroom. “I’ll wait out here,” Jotaro heard Kakyoin say, and from there the pair opted to take advantage of the ship resources while they could.

Much like the shirt he had died in, Suzume’s hair was frankly a bit crusted due to all the salt-water air, and a shower would do her a world of good. There was a strong chance she wouldn’t be able to get one as often as any would like once they reached Singapore, and idly, Jotaro wondered if they could potentially make off with some eco-friendly soaps when they left.

(There was no way Tarot was using anything less than that, after all- though he suspected the use of them in the first place was more due to an achieved understanding of certain health benefits afforded by human technology.)

Clean, dressed in clean clothes, and ready for the day, they thus came back to the room and then paused.

“...There’s a bag now…”

Suzume said it best. Kakyoin, shrugging- it wasn’t as if he was unfamiliar with how this Stand more or less operated- just explained. “It appeared while you were in the washroom. It’s for dirty laundry…I suspect for the clothes you’ve worn so far,” he added almost idly, as if pondering whether or not it was worth taking advantage of. “There was printing on it that promised the folded clothes by morning, but… …I wouldn't put it past the Captain to use this against us either…”

Naturally, Jotaro ignored that.

(Particularly since he suspected every word the ghost said could be heard by Tarot anyway.)

Instead, taking the dirty laundry from both the night before and from inside the backpack itself, he quickly tucked it in the laundry bag and set it down.

It melted through the floor in an instant, the three watching it with half glazed eyes.

“....Well. That’s one way to do it…” Kakyoin muttered, before Suzume distracted them both.

“...Can we go see Moon..?” she asked, the others pausing as they abruptly remembered the fish-like Stand who had come along with them. “...Is he okay..?”

Trading a look- though on Kakyoin’s end it was more that he happened to glance in Jotaro’s direction to see if the Stand was visibly conflicted on the matter (he wasn’t)- the pair both found themselves nodding. Kakyoin of course, was the only one to verbalize the matter. “I don’t see any problem with that. Presumably he’s still in the pool on the deck, so it should be easy to find him.” Before Suzume’s clear excitement could overtake the situation however, he added something more. “But- we’ll take a look at this ‘ship guide’ first. I’m skeptical that there would be much to do on something meant for preserving orangutans rather than entertaining the upper middle class…”

And if that wasn’t just so well put. With that decided then, the trio left the room, letting the door close behind them as they went to the elevator lobby. As announced, there was a map now on display at the back wall- one that hadn’t been there before, Jotaro noted, though he did well to push that from mind.

(Much like Jotaro, Kakyoin did the same- otherwise all he could see was metal warping around his legs, pulling himself and the others steadily under. Forever had moved slowly on them- playing with his ‘food’ so to speak, not that they were ever more than targets to be slaughtered. Watching Stronger in action wasn’t the same as watching Strength, certainly- there was something so much cleaner, more refined about how it operated-)

(But it was similar enough, and if he could feel physical nausea he’d be in a constant state.)

“There’s papers…” Suzume noted, looking beneath the massive light up map on display.

“They must be for the various activities apparently in store- take a look,” Kakyoin requested, waiting until each paper was held up before looking over them. Suzume shuffled through them somewhat quickly- watching as the ghost gave short, minute nods and signaled for the girl to move on- while Jotaro meanwhile committed the map to memory. It looked as if it was only displaying for this floor for the moment- perhaps if Kakyoin or even Suzume requested it aloud, Tarot would have it switch to another floor?

(That was the plan, in fact. It made things easier than trying to update the ship to some kind of scrolling map screen on a television after all. Privately Tarot hoped that the various activities would keep the group adequately distracted. Having sent yet another email off, this time to the ‘Speedwagon Foundation’ who had responded- to her surprise- to the first, the orangutan was frankly being reminded of the primary reason she was on the seas in this manner to begin with. Humans were troublesome. Troublesome, logicless things, who couldn’t see from another perspective if it killed them.)

(Either they were deliberately hiding their full hand, or they were entirely oblivious to the fact that there was a potentially dangerous spirit involved in the reason their ‘Suzume Kujo’ had left home, to say nothing of the fact that they revealed nothing to even hint at a Stand’s involvement. If they expected her to clarify that end for them, forget it. At least she could hopefully get contact with the child’s mother.)

The list was not especially extensive, and it was hardly any surprise- as both ‘guardians’ had surmised, the ship was intended primarily for inhuman inhabitants. Tarot had pulled together a few activities all the same though, including the offer of experiencing a small swim at the back of the boat, a chance to watch a small movie (which, Kakyoin read, was apparently more popular with the other occupants than one might have expected), and ultimately a more proper tour of the ship- which according to the description included some playtime with the younger (far younger, he suspected, or Suzume could presumably get hurt) apes.

There was plenty of time to be had to themselves with those small program brochures put aside, which was almost certainly intentional. For now however- “So…where is Moon?”

Suzume couldn’t well read these, so Kakyoin would have to translate. “I expected him to be up on deck, but it looks like they might have moved him to the back of the ship,” the ghost remarked curiously. “Have you ever gone swimming, Suzume?”

The girl shook her head. Obviously, she hadn’t- She had only existed in this state for about two weeks after all. Kakyoin could only assume she was naturally 5, and there was certainly nothing to say otherwise. Still, there was little strange about this apparently- for some families the chance just never came up, or it was considered too dangerous, and so with a small nod Kakyoin floated toward the elevator doors.

“In that case, it looks like you might be learning a little today. Probably not too much…they’ll probably set up a wading pool, or a ‘splash park’ instead,” he determined quietly. “But I don’t know the limits of Tarot-” A pause to glance at Suzume’s frown, followed by an exasperated sigh. “Captain Tarot’s ship either…”

(Jotaro couldn’t help but think about the fact that they had water slides on these things now, or at least on the larger ones. He wasn’t ruling out a full blown ‘water park’ experience just yet.)

Fortunately for everyone, Tarot wasn’t so drawn in by the larger than life limit pushing of cruise lines as to copy their every increasing detail. In fact, as would occur to the older of the three later, she was more restricted than even Forever had been- by choice.

Forever could have altered everything and crushed them down into tin-cans, without ever being at risk himself. All he needed was something to keep him afloat on the seas, and he’d literally have smooth sailing ahead of him. But Tarot had passengers- passengers she cared for, and passengers who relied on what the ship could carry. On what the ship could grow, maintain, and support, and to that end what she had set into place could not change.

When the elevator brought them to the deck level of the ship, and they followed the now indicated ‘LED’ path bringing them through a door at the aft end, they were thus met with just how any sort of large scale pool could be useful for something other than irrigation and drinking water.

(The LEDs, Tarot would think after this, were a bit of a masterstroke. They hadn’t been needed before- with her own kind she had guided everyone personally, and from there everyone taught each other. But the idea of making use of those fancy little lights as guiding strings was something she was quietly being very proud over.)

(Which was good because frankly she needed Something to go right. Reading the message from ‘Jocelyne Kujo’ wasn’t as frustrating as reading the one from the Speedwagon Foundation, but it still felt like she was either missing something, or the other end was missing something even more. She didn’t like that.)

“Is this just…a massive habitat?”

Kakyoin wasn’t far off, Jotaro thought. The glass framing the aft end of the ship turned the entire section into a large greenhouse, capable of much more than the decks outside. Trees, part synthetic, part real, grew at the ship’s mercy and to that end were clearly pruned by it as well, leaves otherwise flourishing where they were allowed.

“...It’s a forest…”

Yes, and no- following the path down to the bottom-most area of the ‘on board jungle’, there was indeed a pool- a few, even, each connected with waterfalls. It was easy to keep Suzume from wandering into them- they were separated from the path with glass and stone, allowing view inside, but nothing else. They didn’t make it to the bottom before they saw why these were even built in such a way however-

“AaaAAOUUUUUR!”

As quickly, with a great splash, Dark Blue Moon was peering out to grin.

“Moon..!!”

“Annnnnd there he is,” Kakyoin sighed, clearly torn between grudging relief and irritation. Both he and Jotaro looked at a now half-soaked Suzume with a frown, the thought of having to go back and get the girl into dry clothes later on each of their minds. “They didn’t build all of this for him though did they? He just arrived.”

Privately, Jotaro thought it was certainly possible. While the ‘woods’ of the room had been here for some time, it would have been child’s play for Tarot to create some sort of added habitat for Dark Blue Moon. ‘Why bother’ would be the better question though. As far as any were aware, Dark Blue Moon was just another Stand, albeit an odd one. Unless…

…The Stand pushed it from mind. He wasn’t going to chase any rabbit holes involving this thing. Instead, giving a mental nudge to Suzume, he floated toward the bottom of the chamber as best he could and waited for the girl to follow and from there lead onward.

“Moon, are you going to live here now..?” Suzume was asking as they did so, the girl waiting to make sure that they would be followed from the water as they went. “...There’s lots of oranges you can be friends with here…they won’t be mean like the other one either…”

Other-

Ah. While Jotaro quietly filed that away- and simultaneously asked himself how much could possibly be remembered from that fight- Kakyoin turned worriedly to look at the child. Strength had been a terrible fight- not so much because of any harm done immediately to them, but instead to everyone around them. They’d gone from a battle with everyone but the enemy surviving to a battle where no one but their traveling party made it through, and that hadn’t been a small number. It was brutal- bloody, messy, filled with screams worthy of the B-Horror imagery being thrust upon them as they went, and of the B-Horror attitudes the sailors with them seemed to all have.

‘No one touch anything!’ Joseph had warned back then on Forever’s ship. The man rushed out from the engine room, as the first victim of the impending slaughter dangled ominously above them. Jotaro’s hands were still over Anne’s eyes and despite the girl’s stubborn and painfully childish attitude toward the teen, she had yet to so much as start to complain. ‘Anything mechanical, electronic- don’t go anywhere near it! Stay below deck if you want to live!’

In a twisted way he’d probably sped up their deaths.

(Jotaro remembered almost idly, with the sort of chilled distance that only time and hindsight could bring, that there had been blood on Forever’s hands when they encountered the other. Blood, coating the palms enough that it wasn’t from anything like the spatter caused when the fan-blade struck his shoulder, or even anything after…if ‘after’ even mattered.)

(They had no time to search for the crew, but the blood in the crumbling halls spoke for itself. Perhaps Suzume would remember nothing of that- the most he himself remembered having Star Platinum for was attempting to fist fight the damn ape.)

(Perhaps she would remember all of it. God help them if she did.)

For all the fears that both of them had, Suzume didn’t seem to be acting like she was remembering anything traumatic, Kakyoin acknowledged. Instead once they reached the bottom-most pool, she was gleefully taking a seat on a materialized lawnchair as Dark Blue Moon blew large bubbles into the air.

Curiosity getting the better of him, the ghost had to ask- “...Suzume? That ‘mean’ orangutan you mentioned…”

“...Umnh…was he mean to you too Nori?”

(Crushing, crushing pain. It was slow and agonizingly so, surrounding him from all sides. Hierophant was being squeezed into nothing, even as he stretched farther and farther through the metal, the pipes, the cracks and seams of the ship- until there was nowhere left to run, nowhere left to spread, and even dispelling the presence of his Stand could do nothing.)

(The metal had already sucked him in to his ribs, already pressing inward enough to crack ribs-)

(coldcoldcoldhotcoldhot nothing but wind and emptiness wind and emptiness wind and emptiness-)

“Nori..?? Nori..!”

The sound of sirens tore him from his thoughts.

(In the Captain’s Bridge Tarot’s attentions were divided- in email form she was making her decision. Too many loose threads, too many confused elements, with the Speedwagon Foundation already proclaiming they would be waiting for her at the docks of a location she had never once disclosed. In physical form, her arms were moving as rapidly as any well-oiled machine- swinging from cable to cable, pipe to pipe as she looked out the window at chopping waves that supported a vaguely swaying ship, hitting switches and pulling levers as she focused on keeping stable.)

(Through Stronger she could feel the peril however. All her passengers as the waves rocked and splashed the hull. The aquatic one she hoped to strike a bargain with, providing company and board in exchange for kelp and roe. The child, and her Stand guardian, both worriedly reaching for what couldn’t be seen. What couldn’t be heard. What couldn’t-)

(Tarot pulled the alarm and made her choice.)

“I…”

“...Nori are you ok..?”

“....no,” Kakyoin finally admitted aloud, ignorant to the crushed expression on Jotaro’s face and the increased upset on Suzume’s own. “...I’m not.”

He disappeared into the hair tie so fast one would have wondered if he could stop time himself.

Chapter Text

It was a twisted sort of calm that settled over the remaining day from that point on. While the seas returned to calm waters and smooth- but incredibly slow- sailing, there could be no forgetting the sound of frightened siren peals as the ship itself tried to pull Kakyoin from his most recent traumatic flashback.

Suzume of course seemed to recover- but Jotaro knew full well how vital the word ‘seemed’ was to everything. It was not unlike when they had boarded the ferry to Hong Kong Island. When that fight had been lingering, and her apology not yet said.

Things that he could not affect, but more importantly, shouldn’t have tried to affect, sat upon the air and in the end Jotaro was simply staring out at the open sea to watch distant fish and cetaceans while Suzume slowly and somewhat happily played with the tiny whirlpools and bubbles that Dark Blue Moon manifested.

(It had been so hard to hold his breath back then. Spots had started to appear in his eyes as they spun, and he was just as unable to move as his Stand was. Desperation in his veins- a roaring scream I NEED TO LIVE!)

(They had barely left Japan. They had so little time to get there in whatever way they could, and fix this. If he died here how could he be sure his mother would live? How could he be sure anyone would succeed? How could he be sure?)

(He pointed, hand shaking, lungs tense, and-)

“Moon, can you…make the bubble come out of the swirl..?”

“OOuuUUuuunn!”

Jotaro’s eyes were no longer on Dark Blue Moon of course, what with them long since moving on to the next ‘event’ on Tarot’s created itinerary, but he couldn’t remove the image of the Stand’s lingering scar from mind either. It was strange to see such a massive reminder of the first murder he’d committed along the trip- Star Platinum’s fingers, ‘Suzume’s fingers, had torn right through the skull of Dark Blue Moon and in turn the Imposter Captain’s had split apart. All they had to do was move fast enough, and the force was there.

(How could he have ever misremembered his death as being through thrown knives, he found himself thinking as they floated off through the halls to tour ship facilities full of roaming hens and the occasional cockerel. He had avoided the knives.)

(His death was nothing less than the exact same thing he’d counted on over two decades prior, and in a twisted sense it had all come full circle.)

The tour was split in two, best Jotaro could tell. After saying goodbye to ‘Moon’, Suzume had wondered aloud what was next only for another- younger, but no less adult female orangutan- to appear at the door and wave them over. She quickly scampered up to hanging cabling that now seemed so much more obvious along the ceiling, swinging about with the ease of one at home in the trees.

Tarot did well to blend them in, he had found himself thinking as Suzume carefully ‘hugged’ more sociable hens. And it made more sense, as well. Orangutans weren’t made for walking- they were made for climbing, and swinging, and so the Captain had adjusted to suit.

Lunch had passed, and Kakyoin still hadn’t come out. Jotaro’s thoughts swirled as he mentally wondered what was the better alternative- the spirit hadn’t been wrong to be nervous about the entire situation after all. If they were going to keep going- if they were going to avoid bringing home the disaster that very well near shook an entire ship (and that was a terrifying thought to behold, the fact that a spirit who should have only been a handful of years dead was unintentionally pulling acts that would have people scrambling to get him enshrined and appeased-)- then they could not let Tarot hand them over at Singapore’s shores.

But on the other, it would do no good to have that happen by sinking a ship full of innocent animals. Particularly not a ship maintained by, however inconvenient it was proving to be, someone who clearly cared. Tarot’s ship had seen fit to scoop them out of the water like they were nothing, but had done so with so much careful balance that Suzume had barely stirred until they were already aboard. She’d allowed the presence of not just the child’s foreign Stand, but a completely independent one, whose powers would have been unknown to her, and whose intentions were equally in question.

The orangutan captain had trusted them- or more accurately, had decided that no matter where that trust lay, the safety of a small child overpowered it all.

(Jotaro’s mind couldn’t help but go back to the slight cracks in the beams of his parent’s house, the cracked branches in the yard and the wilted flowers present. It was nothing Kakyoin wanted. If anything it made the spirit feel worse.)

(But much like himself, excuses never changed the outcome.)

They were now at the bow of the ship, being ushered into what was definitely a repurposed theatre. He remembered reading something about apes and media- about studies that were to be conducted, simple tests that amounted to bringing in two apes and setting up a short video to see what happened. Did they enjoy spending time with entertainment together that way? Did it have a marked effect on their mood?

There were quite a number of apes in the theatre, so if Jotaro was to take a guess, the studies would probably come out with the answer of ‘yes’ once they were finally done. Currently on the screen was a simple drawn ‘Shhhh’ with the hand signal to match. It was a grainy black and white on the screen, and as the Stand floated near to Suzume- now sitting down on what was a massive cushioned stretch of floor that saw no need for things like arm-rests or raised seats when one could simply have piles of pillows and blankets as desired- he wondered just what movie they would be watching.

Tarot of course was intelligent, and scarily so. But while the apes of the ship were relatively intelligent in their own right- certainly intelligent enough to figure out animal husbandry and agriculture- he couldn’t be sure where they stood linguistically.

For that matter if Tarot was picking whatever she felt would work best for the child, it couldn’t be anything in the language they most likely understood. Tarot had been using English to speak to them on the radio- a good universal guess when stuck on what someone would understand. English could well have not even been the first human language of the apes as it was. Locally speaking, it would more likely be Malay, or potentially Cantonese.

And all three of course, were flat out for Suzume.

The ‘shhh’ remained on the screen. The lights dimmed further, and soon enough on the screen came crackling black and white. Music came through the speakers- orchestral in nature, surrounding and immersing. The solution hit Jotaro like a truck, the understanding sending his brows up immediately. Of course.

A Silent Movie. Where Tarot got the footage for this, Jotaro couldn’t have guessed. It wasn’t from the era of silent films, of course- finding any of those, beyond perhaps some Chaplin, would have been a nightmare. He wasn’t what anyone would call a movie buff- his favorites tended to skew the end of nature drama, rather than anything else. But he could recognize at least how the movie they were watching unfold on the screen was doing everything it could to pay homage to its predecessors-

Not a line of dialogue. Music, provided by a secondary source. Black and white filtering over the city streets and sights, with the kind of harmless slapstick comedy that almost made one forget there was a plot there.

(Kakyoin would have loved this, he found himself thinking as they watched. He would have delighted in it all, eagerly gushing about the tricks of old film, about the origins of certain jokes and gags, and how they’d managed to ascend it all to the ‘modern’ day…if the 80s could be called such anymore.)

(He’d have loved it, but in the hairpin he remained, and Jotaro found himself still conflicted.)

It was after the movie was over- after the remaining tour, as they were led to a windowed dining room for dinner, when the ghost finally came out. Arms crossed, head bowed, and an overall aura of misery still hanging around him all the while. For a moment he had to glance out the window to be sure nothing was happening. But no-

For now at least, he was able to keep himself in check.

Not that it helped the spirit’s mood. Clearly irritable, looking out the windows at what was an obvious early evening sky- however light it still was this close to the equator- Kakyoin only tensed more as he caught sight of Suzume’s almost clear plate.

“...I wasted it,” he started, visibly grinding his teeth. Jotaro per typical by this point made no move to do more than watch, he himself at a floating stance behind the child’s chair. “We were supposed to use the entire day to plan!” he cursed, his voice barely level. “...she probably kept you busy the entire time too. You wouldn’t have had any chance to…”

As Kakyoin trailed off, he looked to the now disappointed girl in her seat. As the spirit slowly got more worked up, her own mood became withdrawn and even nervous. Her grip on her spoon was tight, and there was nothing more for her to even eat.

(For Jotaro it was a tension he knew well, but not because of anything so simple as words. Certainly, words had had their own place. He could remember gripping pencils so tightly they cracked or even broke, while teachers remarked on how his recent attitude must have been that ‘American blood’- as if his mother hadn’t been the gentlest, kindest person on the face of the earth.)

(His grip hadn’t been anxiety. It hadn’t been anxiety even years later, nails barely kept from digging into the side of a textbook while a professor asked why he couldn’t ‘just’ write a ‘little neater’ and in the same breath said ‘It’s hardly your fault, I know they write differently there.’)

(That time, Star Platinum had been the one to make a move. The frame holding the professor’s doctorate certification fell, the glass shattering. ‘Shoot, the hook must have come loose…’)

(He wondered if Suzume would remember doing that, or if the memory was for him alone.)

Kakyoin looked at the grip and saw himself, for a short moment. Himself from before he’d ‘learned better’, and even then a little bit after. That tension that coiled in him like a snake, a spring, only to release itself in the form of plants exploding into shreds, objects tying themselves down to prevent their removal, until either Hierophant’s grip failed or the object itself cracked and creaked.

A regular poltergeist, he was.

…He was better than that, wasn’t he?

He had to be.

Despite himself as he looked to the girl in silence he found himself asking-

“......Did you have fun, at least?”

He could remember it quietly, awkwardly, those fragile attempts his mother would make, his father long since graduating to the point of checking his grades to see that they were beyond acceptable and leaving it at that. For his father there was no hope any longer. Better to make sure he wouldn’t insult the family by that point, the family that his father married up into lest his own go down in ruin.

His mother just wanted connections she was doomed to never have, it seemed, and no amount of trying to ignore the tense form and shattered flowers ever changed that.

Kakyoin hoped he didn’t sound as hollow.

“....”

Watching Suzume slowly look up somehow made him wonder if he did.

“...mnh…Hoshi and the oranges and me…saw a ‘movie’ today…”

It occurred to him that at least in this case, Suzume was kindhearted enough to try reaching back though- a thought that stung enough to have him wonder how much of his estrangement from his family in the end had been his own doing.

“A movie?” he forced himself to ask- idly noting that the Stand as well started to reflect a loss of tension, simply fading from view to give them the floor. “Can you tell me about that then?”

“Umn…yes. It didn’t have any colors…”

(Jotaro wasn’t gone of course. He wasn’t about to put himself in a state of unawareness on this trip if he could help it.)

(He was just hidden- ears open, on alert. Hopefully the guise of distance would help, though.)

“A black and white film? It must have been old then. Were they talking? …Oh- actually, you wouldn’t be able to read any cue cards, so…”

Suzume shook her head, and the tension already seemed to be easing away from her form. “Mnh…there were no words, just faces…it looked like…umn…” She hesitated for a moment, both Stand and Spirit watching. The Stand wondered, personally, if she could actually draw a comparison between the sight of New York in the film, and any city he’d called upon Star Platinum for aid. The spirit meanwhile, wondered if she would recall any city at all.

Both were correct, perhaps, though only somewhat.

“Like…the other place, with lots of people…”

It wasn’t an informative answer, but it was at least one that let Kakyoin continue the conversation without trouble. A smile came over him, and with an old, familiar level of ease, he was soon focused on nothing but the trivia of the matter. “It sounds like you watched one of the first movies there ever were,” he hummed, clearly amused when the response from the girl was an astonished gasp.

(Technically, Jotaro thought, the movie they watched came from the very year they finished it with Dio. A late year release, one he’d only seen now but heard of then.)

(Kakyoin didn’t need to know that, though. He could just enjoy the happiness of the moment now.)

“How old is…how old are the first movies..?” Suzume asked, tilting her head.

The spirit paused, doing some math. If the calendar had said they were in the next millennium now…

Ah, well, she was young enough that he could just round it a bit. “Almost 100 years,” he answered, receiving a confused squint in response. Sensing a chance to tease the girl at least a little, he added- “So not even as old as me~”

While her Stand frowned, Suzume frowned even more, leaving Kakyoin to hold back a laugh as he bit his tongue.

“....Nori you’re not old...”

“Reallllly now?” he found himself drawling, still holding back a laugh. “You’ve heard me say how long I’ve been around. Why don’t you believe it?”

Pouting, she pointed at his face. “...old people have…um, white hair. Like Mister Hair does.”

Well now this was even better than he predicted. “So he’s old then?” he snorted, watching as Suzume opened her mouth only to close it. A considerably baffled expression came over her face, followed by a statement that ultimately broke Kakyoin’s composure.

“....but he also doesn’t have eyebrows…”

“PFFHHFHFHFHFHFHFHAAAAAHAHHA..!”

As Suzume seemed to sink into a bit of an existential pondering state, a tone rang over the air, cutting Kakyoin’s laughter short and drawing their attention to the speakers that had manifested from the ceiling.

“GREETINGS PASSENGERS, THIS IS YOUR CAPTAIN SPEAKING; DUE TO UNFORESEEN- COMPLICATIONS-” the radio cut in, causing the ghost to frown, “OUR ARRIVAL TO SINGAPORE WILL BE DELAYED UNTIL AFTERNOON- GUESTS- TO THE CAPTAIN’S BRIDGE- MANDATORY-”

The speakers clicked off and sank back into the wall, leaving Kakyoin to blink. “...Mandatory?” he repeated with a frown, crossing his arms. “What does that orangutan want with us now?”

The question of course had no answer, and instead as the group watched, Tarot’s staff manifested through the ground before them. It was a clear sign- if they wanted those answers, they would have to follow the stick.

Kakyoin was tempted to convince Suzume to ignore it, honestly. To just wander back to their room, or wherever they were able to reach, and sit there.

(The thought made him remember how easily they could simply find Suzume melted off through the boat itself, pulled through sheets of traumatizing metal and plastic and wood, and as he closed his eyes and willed himself to calm even slightly, he pushed the idea from mind.)

(Besides- a delay at least meant they had more time to figure out a way off the boat, right?)

“...Nori..?” Kakyoin looked to Suzume as she blinked, and followed her gaze to the staff again. “Why is Captain Tarot’s um…stick here?”

…Right. English.

“Just follow it for now,” he said, feeling somehow too tired to really answer properly. “We’ll find out when we’re there.”

The girl wasn’t oblivious to the change in mood. It was obvious as she stared, before quietly sliding out from her seat and walking after the staff. Her Stand had since faded from sight- an easier alternative than hovering in wait, Kakyoin supposed, remembering how vigilant the thing had been the first time around the globe.

(He’d sometimes be there when he woke in the middle of the night- quiet, one eye open, glancing across the room. Unlike when he’d been frantically screaming in his sleep as he ran from Death 13 in that impossible state of half-consciousness they were trapped in, he was not the type to wake loudly.)

(Nor was Jotaro, evidently. Not if the way Star Platinum had hovered, the way tension radiated off his shoulders, or the way his eyes roved intensely about the room, had been any sign.)

Stands were there for when you needed to fight. That had been the rough idea, at least. For himself, Hierophant had simply been there for about anything he could think of. Something he needed from the shelf. Something falling to the ground that he needed to grab before it blew away.

(A companion. Someone who was there, when there wasn’t anything else. How pathetic, he had once thought- ‘my only friend is myself’. An extension of himself, that no one could see. How pathetic.)

(Maybe it said something that the first one who could was someone as vile as DIO. Maybe it said he was doomed, that every other decent person who could understand even an inkling of what he felt was someone he encountered later.)

The staff led them along a familiar path- while the floor they were on was unknown to him, the elevators weren’t, and he was soon watching the butterflies along the waterfall, the sight that had ‘Hoshi’ remain hidden and Suzume staring in what he could best call ‘pensive thought’ as they gradually disappeared along the wall beneath them. The elevator reached as far as they could possibly take it, and from there they were mere meters away from the bridge.

From Tarot.

Not a one of them could for now, open the doors themselves.

(As expected, they opened on their own, and it was time for them all to face the music.)

Chapter Text

As the doors opened before them, it was to a seemingly empty bridge. Kakyoin floated in with Suzume just behind him, and soon after he could see the presence of ‘Hoshi’ materializing in the corner of his eye. Ready, and listening- tense, and yet almost curious all the same. As they walked ahead it was almost tempting to simply turn around and ignore Tarot’s request over the simple matter of being ‘stood up’- and yet, as the doors closed behind them, they remained.

It didn’t take long for them to see that the room wasn’t empty- all they needed to do was look upward as they came toward the middle of the room, looking to where Tarot sat perched at the front upon various thickened and created cables, as if in a simple nest among the trees of her homeland. Her hands rested along the sides, and occasionally below her a few buttons would light up as they were made to press on their own. She did not come down-

Instead, the speakers began to carry her words.

“Strange people- Stranger- Intentions- Where will you go- After- Singapore?”

Kakyoin found himself somewhat stunned.

“...After Singapore?” he repeated, furrowing his brows. He wondered if he’d heard it right. English was a language he’d never excelled at, but had certainly learned plenty of while growing up. With all the traveling his parents had done for vacations, it was practically a necessity.

(They did everything they could to leave that sleepy town behind, he thought dully. Morioh was a peaceful place, and it was a place where people talked. Perhaps that was just his bitterness speaking, but that was how it always felt. Until he’d given up on anyone ever seeing the green mass of tendrils made to take human form, it felt as if his parents were at their wits end where they should have just offered kindness.)

(A more bitter thought added that the kindness would have felt just as bad, if they were the sort to be so easily affected by gossiping neighbors that they would get on a plane to China, Europe, and more to avoid it.)

Kakyoin swallowed, and stared upward at the ape that had yet to leave her seat. “I thought you were turning us over to the coast guard…what changed?” he asked suspiciously, glancing out the windows even knowing all he would see for now was darkness and water.

Tarot repeated herself. “Strange- Intentions- Unreadable-” And then, turning to look down to them, seemed almost sad as she clarified. “They know not what lies ahead- Dangers- Among us-”

Somehow the darkness outside seemed telling. Chopping waters, and wave after wave. ‘This is your fault’, she was saying without saying. ‘You’re dangerous’. “....But you won’t send us back?”

“...Nori..? What are you and Captain saying..?” Suzume asked, as a quiet settled between them.

(The Stand seemed to lack this confusion, Kakyoin noticed. Yet all the same he didn’t notice at all. As if there was a fog between him and what was needed to connect the points before him, a heavy haze he had no method to yet clear.)

“Let the children- Wisdom of babes-”

“You only believe us now?” Kakyoin snapped in turn, cutting Tarot off. “What a load of shit! Answer me- what CHANGED!”

Now the orangutan turned entirely. She stared first at Suzume, and then to the Stand, and then at last himself. She adjusted her seat with a grave sort of finality, and appeared to take a deep, steadying breath.

“I do not trust- The Foundation- Allies of- The Guard-,” she began, her stare slightly narrowed as she watched them for their responses. “No clear information was given in regards to- I sent a letter- No answers- No trade-”

The… “...The Speedwagon Foundation is involved?”

At Kakyoin’s quiet, almost hesitating murmur, it seemed that Tarot’s choice was only strengthened. She nodded- needing no radio or pre-recording to share her answer- and then slowly made her way down. “Real sneaky like- STRONGER Will be docking at- 8:30 AM...At this time, all passengers- Saiilllllling awayyyyy-”

He could guess, at least slightly, what she was saying. “...You’re going to sneak us around the Foundation…” he muttered, still reeling over the fact that the SPW was involved at all. “...You’re giving us a way to reach Singapore’s docks without- …And that’s it? …You trust us more than them, and so you’re letting us go instead of keeping us here?”

Tarot’s cold stare gave him the answer he needed. It was a yes, but it was not a pleased one. Having the spirit kept anywhere, as even Kakyoin knew, was a danger to whoever was there. Storms, damage, anything-

It was a countdown. A matter of time.

(How long had he been treated like a timebomb? He was no Jotaro, he never got into fights. The most he did was fight back enough to stay alive- use Hierophant to cleverly pull himself out of it without anyone the wiser. And yet it happened anyway.)

(‘There’s something strange about that Kakyoin guy- don’t talk to him.’)

They were being allowed to leave entirely because Tarot felt that it was the lesser of two evils that still left the ship afloat.

That was all.

“Acceptable?”

Tarot’s question rang over the speakers and pulled Kakyoin from melancholic thoughts with a jolt, the ghost looking up with wide eyes. Was it acceptable? This was technically what they wanted. A way through Singapore without being dragged back kicking and screaming to Japan. It was a way that even had a decent cover- there was no doubt after all, that Tarot’s capabilities would make things simple. Whatever small boat she sent out, chances are it would somehow go unnoticed.

Kakyoin couldn’t remove the paranoia from his heart however. If he had a working one in fact, it would be beating a mile a minute. What if this was a trap? Some clever ruse to keep them from running around like headless chickens with the few hours they had? Realistically Tarot didn’t need anything like that. They were helpless on the ship, entirely at her whim. But the thought couldn’t keep ringing through him. What if? What if? What-

“...Nori…?”

Suzume asked her question again, and Kakyoin turned. The girl’s stand was staring now- as if waiting for him to explain, despite somehow already knowing.

(He couldn’t possibly know, Kakyoin thought with a quiet correction. That was impossible.)

The ghost swallowed, and looked back. “...Yes,” he answered, before turning an eye down to the child. “...We’ll accept your help.”

She still didn’t know what they were talking about. The confusion settled among the cautious optimism was proof of that. As Tarot looked from Kakyoin to the child herself, Suzume’s expression didn’t shift. There was hope there- that whatever was happening, it was going to be good, and it sent nerves through him in a way nothing else had for a long time.

“Good-” the speakers began, stuttering on the word before repeating. “Good evening passengers, this is your Captain speaking- Sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite- We will begin to enter the docks of Singapore at 8:00 in the morning, and are expected to begin docking at 8:30- Please proceed to the upper decks at the indicated time- Our staff will be happy to help you off the boat. We hope you enjoyed your stay on the- STRONGER-”

In the absence of any answers, Tarot finished her statements by gently reaching out to ruffle the girl’s hair, seemingly chuckling when the response was a flustered scowl. Her staff stood ramrod straight out of the ground still, and it moved back toward the doors yet again.

Sleep tight indeed. Kakyoin gave a stiff nod, and motioned for Suzume to follow. “I’ll fill you in as we walk, Suzume. But the important thing is you need to go to bed soon alright?”

Now faced with the first bit of Japanese there had been for the whole conversation, Suzume blinked. “...It’s bedtime now..?”

“It is.” He found himself subdued somehow. Having things take such a sharp turn took the wind out of him, and having to explain it aloud only made it all the worse. He was laying cards on a table and only now seeing what they were, finding that the hand he’d thought would risk it all was perfectly in his favor the whole time. “...Captain Tarot is going to help us get into Singapore, Suzume. We’ll be able to get our train north from there.”

“Was she not helping already..?” the girl asked, furrowing her brows. “...was Moon in trouble..?”

…The Stand, yes. He supposed it made sense that she would assume things when he’d held the actual problem so close to his chest. Shaking his head, Kakyoin found himself glancing to the side as they entered the elevator again, arms crossed over his chest. “...No. …It’s just…”

“...is it why you were hiding all day?”

Kakyoin flinched. Called out by a child, as usual, but it wasn’t as if he could argue it. “...not quite. …The Captain was worried about you,” Kakyoin explained, trying to edge his way around her question as fast as possible. “...Children aren’t supposed to travel alone, and I can’t help if you end up in danger.”

With clear confusion on her face, she looked up to where Hoshi was still floating. The Stand merely looked back, a somewhat dull stare on his face. If she wanted answers from him, he wasn’t giving them.

“Hoshi doesn’t count,” the ghost remarked, taking the child’s attention again. “He’s your Stand; that makes him a part of you, instead of someone separate.”

He could have sworn the Stand looked at him when he said that- a dry, almost tired look, giving away nothing else. He was focused however, on Suzume’s expression instead. The frown deeper, the bits of judgment in her eyes. “...Hoshi is Hoshi,” she said resolutely, and Kakyoin found himself blinking off an image of his own younger self.

‘He’s real! He’s right here, see? He’s green, and he can change his shape-’

‘That’s ENOUGH,’ his father sternly said, and Kakyoin quietly thought to himself that at the very least he knew his father had been wrong.

“And he doesn’t count,” the spirit instead repeated, not wanting to push that kind of argument on someone this young. “He can’t look after you if you’re sleeping, and it makes things dangerous.”

Suzume couldn’t argue against that point, even if she seemed rather keen on wanting to argue, but it left him room enough to keep going.

“Something must have happened between her and the ‘Speedwagon Foundation’ though- she brought them up when explaining why she was going to let us carry on our way. She originally planned to pass us off to the Coast Guard. Changing her mind that fast… …I’m surprised she was able to get a message to them actually,” he rambled on, frowning. “She wouldn’t have been able to get away with that radio trick…”

Or maybe that was the reason? Her only method of communication being so suspect that the other end held their cards close to the chest- in turn leading Tarot herself to trust them as much as those who forced her onto this lifestyle in the first place. That there was already an existing language barrier couldn't possibly have helped, not in a situation as time sensitive as this.

It was a lot to think about.

(It was, not that he knew it, precisely what he was thinking.)

“We can talk more later,” Kakyoin sighed. “For now, what’s important is that we’re going to Singapore.”

It was enough to keep him busy for the next number of hours, in fact. Suzume was soon pacified enough to get ready for bed- curling into the blanket nest set up and dozing off, her Stand vanishing from sight in moments. Outside, the waters weren’t quite calm, but far from a churning and wrathful mess that he so feared.

Maybe he should have looked into ghosts more during all those research binges. Grabbing any book that caught his eye, paging idly and occasionally making note of something strange, something new, something…Interesting.

‘Did you know hippos sweat pink?’ he repeated once. ‘I wonder how they learned. It says hippos are really dangerous, and kill more than 500 people every-’

‘Noriaki. We’re eating. Don’t talk about things like that at the table.’

Well. Something he thought interesting at least. If he’d thought ghosts were interesting at any point, would he have any more clue about what he was doing here? What rules did ghosts even follow? Buddhist? Shinto?

…Western Christianity? (Blech, he was utterly screwed in that case wasn’t he?)

Sighing, Kakyoin floated out just a little- just enough to hover outside the ship itself and watch as they moved. Numbing time, reality, and everything around him until it began to happen ‘faster’.

(He’d been on a cruise ship once or twice when he was young. It was when he started really playing with his Stand’s abilities- nothing like climbing of course, that wasn’t until Egypt, but as the summer heat on the tropical journey made them sweat, he’d watched Hierophant and wondered-)

(‘What is that stuff?’)

(Brilliant green fluid became green stones, glimmering and shining and…)

Black became a dark blue. Dark blue began to lighten to a greyish hue tinted with red and rose, as Kakyoin pushed aside the mental reminder of his mother finding him holding nothing and asking, playfully, if he was making an invisible telescope.

‘We’ll get you a real one,’ she said with a smile. ‘One that you can see all the birds with!’

‘Can it be green like my rocks?’ he’d asked, small, young, and fortunately still at that stage where adults humored what they thought was make believe.

‘It can be exactly as green.’

(Nothing was exactly as green. He fixed it by having Hierophant dribble fluid from his hands over the lens though, and spent much of the time on the ship cheerfully grinning at everything in another color.)

“Hahhhhhhh….”

Kakyoin sighed. There were very few truly enjoyable vacations once he’d started grade school, weren’t there? Once realizing no one saw Hierophant and was humoring him became something worse. At least back then it was easy- his younger self shrugging it off, happy to at least know the truth, to know that something, someone else was there to do…something.

To try.

(Green stones fired like missiles, narrowly grazing the side of his attacker’s head. It was enough distraction for him to run and hide until they were called inside for class.)

(At the time he’d wished it hit harder.)

(Now, he could only think about how close he had been to killing someone at age 7.)

Growing up truly, genuinely….ruined everything, didn’t it?

The sun was peeking over the horizon, and he could see the haze of Singapore approaching. Behind him, the sound of Tarot’s wake up announcement, before things quickly entered a busy, bustling pattern to get them off and onward as fast as possible.

(‘Alright, final checklist,’ his mother said. Every time she said it, and every time it felt less cheerful, less…something. In highschool it just seemed drained. Like she knew, somehow, that he’d never stopped believing, never stopped seeing that which they insisted was never real. Just…played along.)

(Pretended to be ‘normal’, like the rest of them. ‘There’s something about that Kakyoin guy.’)

(Maybe there was.)

Suzume’s belongings were sorted- her bag packed, her shoes on. They moved through the elevator and then downward, far farther down than they had gone before, until they reached a door that simply became a ‘hole’.

A hole with a boat- a liferaft, he assumed, but as Kakyoin looked at it he had to pause. When they’d jumped into the boats to escape the soon exploding yacht Mr. Joestar had purchased, the escape vessels were as expected. Small boats- equipped with oars, filled with equipment-

(Somehow his memory was conflicted on this point again, Kakyoin realized as he looked around the massive, almost alien-like ‘capsule’ that was their way off the cruise ship. He could have sworn the first charge had gone off before they escaped- it was part of what made things so hectic, why so much in the way of spare supplies had been left behind. Between that and the imposter captain’s sabotage, it’d been a miracle they made it as far as they had.)

(Yet somehow he had memory of a much calmer escape. A kind voice saying to make sure they had everything, despite any underlying panic. A radio message being sent out, rough coordinates, and so on, so forth. But then how…)

The lifeboat they entered slowly painted itself blue as they entered the water. It was almost entirely submerged- only a small portion of the top visible, an iceberg in the middle of a tropical sea. This, Kakyoin found himself saying, must have been deliberate- it would be so much harder after all, for a wave to knock something under if it was already down there. It was also dangerous of course- easier to be sucked into some kind of undertow…but on the open sea, he suspected the risk of the boat getting knocked up and under was a greater risk.

He didn’t say it aloud though. Instead as they walked in, and as they waited for the boat to enter the water and sail off, he stared out the window and held his thoughts to himself.

Tarot was still on board her own ship and Stand of course, but there was another ape on the lifeboat with them- younger seeming, and eagerly nodding as it held up pre-written cue cards.

Bloody ship of geniuses, wasn’t it….well.

(They were talking about Dark Blue Moon; anticipating the worry, Tarot had apparently seen fit to not only prepare explanation but also a small photo of them all at the habitat now prepared for the thing. ‘Moon will no longer be alone. Do not worry. They will be safe.’)

(It brightened the girl’s mood incredibly, and Kakyoin couldn’t help but smile at least somewhat at the sight.)

Into the water they went, and onward toward Singapore they went from there. Through the window he could make out the city’s silhouette, different and yet not, so greatly changed from memory and yet just familiar enough that it was recognizable. This was his ultimate fate after all, he realized while watching the docks come closer. He could see STRONGER making its way toward separate docks already- gradually becoming a smaller shape in the distance before holding scale. They themselves were aiming for a smaller port of call. A place for fishing boats and tourist rafts, a place where they wouldn’t even stand out despite what they were sailing now. He could see-

(Jotaro froze, the Stand as well having been looking through the window at their incoming destination. It was one he didn’t expect would take long- the Kakyoin he spent time with in Singapore was for the most part an imposter after all, and for all the time spent around those moments, it ultimately meant that chances were high his old friend would set his sights on more distant destinations.)

(But he could see it, where Kakyoin could not. See it where STRONGER was now pulling in to port, see the thing that had caused her to change her mind. He had known the Speedwagon Foundation was involved- expected it even.)

(He hadn’t expected to see Anne Merali again, dressed in that familiar white, waiting on site with the rest of those expecting them to come ashore some distance away.)

Chapter Text

To those around him, while not considered private, he was known only by his surname.

It was better that way. He’d come to this understanding in grade school, when saying his first name drew enough ire and laughter that it was just easier to avoid it entirely. People still laughed of course. What kind of last name was his name, anyway? But it worked enough for him.

They would find other things to tease him about anyway. His face. His clothes. His money, or lack thereof.

There was always something. He learned that long ago.

(He would listen to his mama’s stories, his sweet dear mama who could be so strong, so vicious, and yet in his youth seemed to be the kindest woman on the face of the planet. His mama never got mad at him for being ‘too pale’, ‘too white’, ‘too light’ to fit in. Never called him a freak or a frog or some other animal for his face looking the way it did. Never got mad, never snipped behind his back.)

(She just kissed his head and said he was her favorite wishing star, and asked if he wanted to hear another story.)

Life had been meaningless once. Pointless. Directionless. School didn’t mean anything if you didn’t have money. Who was going to get you to the places where you could really learn, if you lived on the wrong street? Who was going to pay for your college, if you didn’t have the right smarts from the right schools, to get in on full ride?

(Mama didn’t look at him with that sweet smile anymore. Just a sad one, like he’d wasted everything he ever had. Like she’d seen what he was hiding under the floor board in his bedroom, and knew why he didn’t have a job again.)

He’d been asked so many times by teachers growing up- What are you going to do with your life, daydreaming all day? Art, maybe? Maybe he would tell stories. One teacher laughed in his face and told him he’d have to start getting an original thought first, so he scrapped the idea. What a joke- everyone was making reboots and remakes and crap anyway, but he couldn’t?

(The kids in class started saying ‘I bet he’s high’. ‘He’s always spacing out, staring at nothing.’ ‘Has to be drugs.’ One day he finally decided to see if what he was seeing really was the same.)

(And it was so much…better.)

Ungalo could remember the plane rotting from around him, the plane he'd had to wait days for to begin with so he could just get back home again. Heaven wasn't going to wait, and even if he'd screwed his shot, the Priest would understand right? Give him a piece of that pie?

That thought meant nothing, when the plane gave its first shudder of drained power. When the seats, the emergency devices, all of it vanished with the metal husk around them to follow. He could remember the fibers of his clothes unraveling with time, the planet beneath them spinning so rapidly it just disappeared, until suddenly he was standing in his room gasping for breath.

His mama ran in and asked what the matter was-

(Her eyes said she expected something else-)

And he was so shocked he didn’t even snap for her to just get out.

Where was the plane? Where was anything? Where was-

(The Calendar said it was months earlier.)

(There was a rush of wind, the apartment started to break down, and as they ran back outside he croaked for the first time in months- ‘...I love you Mama.’)

When he woke again, he wasn’t in the apartment.

His head pounded like he’d come out of a bad hangover, and the Calendar said it was the day the plane went down again. He pressed a hand to his head and cursed- and then brought it back down to stare.

…

There’d been scars there before. From falling on the wrong patch of ground, from holding a beer can too tight after a few rounds at a party-

…There’d been scars, but where were they?

…Hell. Where was he?

The apartment he was in was…clean. Not freakishly so, but clean in the way he and his Mama could never quite manage in the neighborhood they were at. There was always something wafting in from the window, there was always just a bit of dust hanging around somewhere, a bit of sweeping that still had to be done.

It was hard, when only one was really able to bring in any cash after all.

(When only one was actually paying for what mattered.)

There was something nagging at him, something he couldn’t quite describe. A thought, missing, an idea he wasn’t quite landing on. Ungalo looked at the calendar sitting innocently on the fridge (and hell, he’d only seen fridges like this in magazines, was this his?)- covered in notes and dates, and it was…probably his handwriting, right?

…

Did he have…a job?

The phone in his pocket buzzed, and automatically he pulled it out. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he was about to lose it for standing around ‘his’ apartment like a lazyass, that’d be just his…

…lu…

"....'Something came up; can you come in tomorrow'? …Wait what?"

…When the hell was he the guy they got for that?! If he was supposed to have another day off then hell no! He-

…

He typed 'Sure'.

"....that wasn't…"

….why did he type…

If he was being honest with himself, he wasn’t exactly a thinker. He wasn’t stupid- hell no, but putting a lot of deep thought into things wasn’t his style. What was the point? Where was that ever going to get him? He hadn’t even had to think that hard about the best way to make use of what that Priest, Pucci, told him to do.

(He could remember what he said- with that soft, calming voice that made it feel like nothing could go wrong. ‘You have an incredible power,’ he had said with such assurance, and suddenly it was like every teacher who talked him down never existed. Like every single person who ever told him ‘You can’t’ was replaced by this one man now standing there, telling him with so much confidence, ‘You can. I know you will.’)

(‘I’ve unlocked this power for you- all you need to do is let it free…keep yourself safe, my child.’)

He hadn’t even thought about it. Who cared that he was 22, it felt so real, so true, so meaningful-

He got on a plane, and breathed. Let himself dream.

(And just like that, the world started to fall into dreams of their own making.)

If he could just jump to something from here, that’d make everything better at this point. But standing in the apartment he…couldn’t. He-

The phone dropped to the floor as he realized what he was holding. “Wait this isn’t even my fucking phone..!” he snapped, only to yelp and scramble to check that it hadn’t broken. “...SHIT!”

No cracks. Had a good case on it, thank fuck, but this…

Ungalo sat there on the floor, in what was a room his brain kept telling him was familiar, while his eyes said hell fucking No. Man, he couldn’t do this! He couldn’t just…freestyle into whatever the hell job he apparently had in this bizarro heaven apartment!

Was this even Heaven? If this was the Priest’s idea of heaven, he needed to get his shit in order. Sure the apartment looked nice- he had a decent size kitchen just like on TV, no getting squashed between the oven and sink here. It was even open- there wasn’t even a wall between him and the living room, fuck, he even had a living room! A proper sized one with a great big TV, entertainment shit-

It was nice.

It could be nicer, he wanted to insist, but the more he tried to force the thought the more he found himself gripping at his skull (and shit, what the hell was he wearing, where was his hat, his nails were digging into his cornrows-).

The more he thought, It’s home. I like it the way it is. I made it this way.

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuuuuuuuuuuckkkkkk-” he hissed, finally pushing himself up off the ground while he gripped the phone.

(An iPhone, he had a goddamn iPhone, he-)

“Man screw this, I don’t even work until tomorrow,” Ungalo whined, setting the phone down on the counter. “I’ll just…Sherlock Holmes this crap, I dunno-”

“For something as simple as this? I didn’t think you were the sort to slack like that.”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUHH-!”

Ungalo’s first day in the new world went from worrying about what this new apartment, phone, and job was for his life, to worrying about the fact that Sherlock Holmes was standing in his apartment.

“What the HELLL-!”

“Ahhh,” he said with apparent understanding. “Now this is interesting, isn’t it?”

“Interesting!? When did I even turn the Stand thing on!” No, no, more important questions! “How are you even talking..!! I don’t relate to you! Go find a guy in tweed!”

The shouting persisted, and ‘Sherlock Holmes’ looked incredibly bored by it all.

Eventually, he ran out of breath.

“Are you done? Because if you wanted me to answer your questions,” the detective sighed, momentarily taking out a pocket watch and humming, “You’re doing a poor show of it.”

“Shit, how the hell does Holmes even die…wait, I can just turn this shit off, that’s not even-”

….Come to think how did he turn this…off…?

Just as Ungalo started going pale, Holmes slapped his face with a glove.

“Ow! The hell-!”

“You are not going to assimilate my life, Isidore Ungalo, and I am not going to be here forever. Now focus- I represent the Great Detective as you see him,” he explained with an almost eerie smile. “So tell me. What am I investigating?”

Frankly, Ungalo couldn’t choose between what he wanted here. Was saying yes a trap? What was even happening anymore? “How the hell did that Priest’s heaven get me here..?”

…

…oh he said that one out loud-

“Now. Now we’re getting somewhere.”

“What the fuckkkkkkkkkk…”

“I understand the need to curse, but put that attitude to bed my dear Ungalo! The answer to your question lies all around you now; let’s start with the basics. What was the last thing you were doing, before you were here?”

“Wondering how the hell you can be here if my Stand ain’t involved, that’s what!” he snapped, growling and rubbing his forehead when the response was a sharp poke from the mouth end of Sherlock’s pipe.

“A bit earlier Ungalo, earlier! You were surprised to have brought me here, despite that being the very power behind ‘Bohemian Rhapsody in Blue’,” he exposited with a grin. “You, from whom I get those answers and names to begin with. So if only one of us can get those answers, then it stands to reason that something…or perhaps someone, is the reason you cannot.”

The feeling of just wanting to go to bed so he could ‘wing it’ with work in the morning was incredibly strong right now, and as Holmes went on and on, Ungalo just groaned and moved to sit on the couch. He sank into the cushions- which were Exactly as soft as he’d wanted and dreamed, seriously, what the fuck-

And then froze, his eyes immediately catching a set of photos siting in frames on the TV stand.

This time Ungalo didn’t scream.

(He couldn’t scream. It felt like he’d already wasted his meter there, throat raw and hoarse as a figment of his imagination watched and smoked a pipe.)

His mouth hung open, as he slowly reached for the largest of the frames- one of those big family photo ones, with smaller ones around it. He could see his Mama in it immediately- her hair somehow healthier, her eyes somehow brighter than anything in his memory. Her smile, so free, so wide, and this…image of him, right there…

(He didn’t have an overbite anymore.)

(As quick as he’d thought that he’d thought, ‘Of course- what the hell else was that retainer supposed to be doing, huh?’)

“...I was on that plane coming home, so I could try and help the Priest get Heaven for us all again…so I could…ask for another chance, another…” he found himself whispering, his finger slowly tracing the photo.

(Behind him, the figment was fading.)

“...And then everything started going….faster. The pilot shouted something about…pulling us in a glide off course… …something about…the gas already running out…”

(Screams. Everyone was panicking as they were told to take emergency positions. They weren’t even on the ground, but they were so sure they were going to crash.)

(The screams got louder when the plane started to erode.)

“Like time just…picked up and went…and then I was back in time…”

Ungalo sat on the couch, and his hands shook as they held the frame. Not wanting to break the thing he dropped it to his lap and held his arms close, trying not to think about how foreign the tank top he was wearing felt despite its comfort, trying not to think about the other photos sitting innocently before him.

“...I told her I loved her, but…”

(But was it the Priest that made them even lose that apartment then..? None of this was adding-)

“....But I’ve never made her…this happy…”

Behind him, the figment vanished.

Before him, in the photo, there was a group of people. He recognized none but his mother- his mother, and himself. Like a whole new life had been led without him, and he was suddenly here, suddenly in a new story to take that place. Part of him thought ‘You know what? Good! I deserve something good for once in my damn life.’

Another part thought- ‘What the hell are you talking about? You already lived it.’

Inhaling deeply, Ungalo leaned back against the couch and groaned. It was too much. It was just too fucking much, just-

….Bohemian Rhapsody in Blue...

The faces in the photo stared upward.

(His mama, so happy. Him, looking so much better that he instinctively wanted to smash the frame even while another part of him stopped him in the act, a third, quieter, terrified voice wondering if that was what he’d see when he looked in the mirror.)

(No more nasty teeth, no drunken tattoo from his attempt at a cool half sun…)

A girl somewhere about his age best he could tell, long hair in two tones as she flashed a peace sign at the camera. A man, tall as all hell, dressed mostly in white with patterned stars over it and a smile just as soft and small as the one who must have been his daughter’s. A woman- she couldn’t have been older than the others, she looked too young, but somehow he couldn’t think of her as the girl’s mom- that was the other woman in the photo, the one between the man and his own mama. That was the one with golden blond hair as opposed to this one’s sandy hues. But this lady…

(He could remember something, but it wasn’t a memory that was his own, not really. The photo frame dropped on the couch as he pushed away from it and stormed for what he knew but didn’t know to be his bedroom, needing to scream and yell and ultimately finding the only solace for it when he turned on a shower that was blessedly hot where he could have only ever dreamed of having such a thing on demand. He could remember it, and the worst part was how strongly he felt for it as he did.)

(‘So you must be Isidore, right?’ she’d said- looking even younger then, reaching out with a hand to a version of himself that was so small, so filled with blind, stupid hope and belief that if you did good the world would do good right back. ‘My name is Joy- I’m….hmmm…well, you could say I’m something like your Auntie~! See? We have the same star…’)

Ungalo cursed and screamed and cried in the shower until all he could do was sit while the water rained down. Nothing made sense. Nothing connected.

…And dammit, part of him didn’t want to break it when he finally figured out where ‘work’ even was.

Chapter Text

Work, thanks to the god-send that was ‘saved locations’ on his fancy iPhone, was apparently someplace called ‘The Speedwagon Foundation’.

(He’d googled it, and considered barfing before that same part of him that kept getting him to do nice shit like use his Ps and Qs- whatever the hell the Q ever even meant- reminded him that he wanted to work here for a damn good reason.)

(...Whatever the hell THAT reason was anyway.)

And honestly? …Work was pretty damn easy, as it turned out.

(First day in, and he’d found himself nearly jumping out of his seat all the same- between the hassle of getting there on transit, and holding a door open for some lady even while his first instinct was to let it slam in her face, this whole ‘literal double life’ crap his head was spinning on him wasn’t exactly spectacular. But when the guy who was his boss dropped that file down…)

‘Annnnnd these are…?’

‘About an hour before I messaged, half of these agents started shouting about falling through time; we’ve got a few others in the stack who’ve started acting strangely, so higher ups want to play it safe. You know the drill. We’ve got Park’s Figure.09 on standby if anything gets out of control, but we need to make sure their inner souls line up with what’s on file.’

Ungalo decided to let habit speak for him this time. Anything else would get him in the same stack, he was sure.

‘Got it!’

Work, apparently, mostly involved…his Stand. The whole set up was easy. He’d go in the room with that Park chick and her weirdo sock monkey of a Stand, maybe say hi or something, and let loose. Nothing he specifically wanted- even though the whole deal back at the apartment proved he could call something he specifically wanted. This wasn’t about the ‘Rhapsody in Blue’.

It was all about the Rhapsody.

‘Alright,’ he spent the last two, coming on three weeks opening with. It was simple. Clockwork. He could laugh, it was so easy bringing it in.

(He was saving for a car, his brain was telling him. He had his eyes on the perfect car, and honestly? He could agree with his other self on that.)

‘Who would you say is your favorite character?’

Sometimes they’d ask- ‘From a book?’ ‘From a movie?’ ‘From a comic?’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ he would say with an easy, wide grin, and even though Park was rolling her eyes each time he said it, he couldn't care. ‘Just put ‘m in your mind.’

As soon as something became real and started focusing on the subject, they’d have their answer. Park would count down from 9 to 0, the Rhapsody would end, and they could look over their notes; had it changed from before, what nearly took their interviewee's place? No, more importantly, was it something sinister? It was never a good sign to relate to the Big Bad Wolf, but for reasons that weren’t just merely the wolf’s character.

After all, what did it say if you saw yourself in something you knew got the bad ending?

Work was easy.

He told himself this on repeat, and then went home and half drowned himself in the shower. Called his Mama when he was supposed to (he knew because he’d subconsciously gone for the number on the phone about two days after everything went tits up, and hovered there before sucking it up and hitting call), and poked around his own apartment like he was one of those cops in a TV show.

Learning about himself.

Learning who he was.

(He had family somehow. Distant, but it was there. Local, local enough that he worked with one of them. He and his mama were happy. They had what they needed…with extra. They didn’t have it all but they had It, but all it ever took was…)

Ungalo didn’t know what he’d do if he ran into anyone in person. Talking to his Mama it felt like she knew something he didn’t- like both of them were avoiding something, trying not to…say something. She stumbled asking about his job, just like he stumbled asking about the little black-and-white poodle-whatever dog she’d gotten a while after he moved out.

(‘It’s lonely without my little star here,’ she laughed, when some other version of himself protested that he was just downtown, cute little barks punctuating his Mama's words. ‘And now you can see someone new when you visit!’)

If he saw someone in person he was going to snap, he thought as he came in for work again. He knew it. He just knew it. So he just had to hang in there- avoid them all as long as he could. He-

“Isidore.”

Ungalo sucked in a breath.

“...I heard you’ve been busy the last few weeks. I was going to invite you to see Irene while she visited, but apparently you were doing overtime.”

It was the man from the photo. Tall as hell, face so calm and neutral that it was a hair between misery and anger.

He had to answer-

“Uhhhh- yeah! Yeah, I guess something huge happened two weeks out,” he rattled out, one part leaning on the side that knew this place like the back of his hand, another like the part that didn’t even fully grasp how his teeth felt in his mouth yet.

(Kept biting his tongue. Ow.)

“It’ll probably blow over, shit always does,” he continued, missing the way that the man-

(‘Shotaro, Uncle Sho, Uncle Kujo, mostly Shotaro because Uncle wasn’t a professional working title and he hadn’t shortened things to ‘Sho’ since he was 12-’)

-briefly raised his eyebrows. Just a touch.

“...Sounds stressful,” the man seemed to try after a moment, and for a moment, Ungalo wondered if he’d slipped.

(....Come to think, his new version didn’t really swear that much huh.)

“...fuck.”

That was out loud.

(Fuck-)

“...There’s tea in my office if you want,” his uncle- (‘He’s technically your great…great nephew or something, it’s super weird,’)- said with a strange, curious edge in his tone. Ungalo’s choices ran rapidly through his head from there.

Running was out. They were what four floors above ground? That was going to look bad. He’d get caught so fast. Maybe gunned down? Actually he hadn’t really seen that many guns around so maybe not?

(He’d have run by now if this other version of himself, this form…of him that wasn’t him, yet was, wasn’t latching him to the ground. ‘Knock it off. You know this guy, you can trust this guy, he’s not going to rat you out.’

How the hell did he actually know that? How the hell could he trust anyone? How-

‘You could trust that sketch-ass priest but not this dude?’)

By the time his thoughts stopped reeling, he was already sitting in a chair. His breath caught with a sharp gasp of surprise as he returned to focus in the new surroundings, the office door closed, the few shelves and books and photos-

(Uncle Sho was looking at him with….worry. Concern. There was something considering there, like something was starting to fall into place if he could only tell what.)

A mug was steaming in front of him.

“....You still drink this crap huh…” he muttered, one foot in each life as the words came out. All Shotaro did was nod.

(Chamomile tea. Nothing in it or anything. Uncle Sho drank it like it was a soda, or-)

“....Good for stress or whatever right..?”

Another nod. He still didn’t say anything. Ungalo looked at the yellowish fluid in the mug, the steam rising up into the air. He didn’t touch it yet. His heart raced, but he didn’t reach for the mug. It’s fine. He wasn’t going to be caught. It’s fine. He wasn’t-

“Hah….hh….hahaha…”

Someone was laughing. Quietly. Brokenly.

(It wasn’t him though, right?)

“Hahahaha…Haaahhaha…”

(It wasn’t him that was crying. Just something wrong with the sprinkler system, something like that. He wasn’t…)

“HHhh-Hhhh…Hhhhhh…”

(Shotaro hadn’t moved.)

“That really all I had in me..!? Two fucking weeks!?”

(Was this room sound proofed? Fuck, what did it matter. He’d been made- Made on what, he didn’t fucking know, what the hell did it matter!)

For some reason, Shotaro picked now to speak. “...It’s still your life, isn’t it?”

With a broken whine of a sound, Ungalo snapped his eyes upward. The mug was nudged slightly closer, and all that he could see in the fluid was a face that was only partly his own.

(It was all those little things, all those little changes…)

Kujo, Kujo…where’d he heard that name. He wasn’t given a name he was just told to let loose but he hadn’t left before the others were sent off. Kujo, Kujo…

That other side of him kept saying family, but it was starting to click.

“...What happens if I say yes then huh?” he asked, half hysteric.

(He should really drink that damn tea huh?)

“What if it’s some kind of trick huh? We’re on opposite sides, aren’t we..!”

Kujo, Kujo, JOLYNE CUJOH-

“It all comes down to that damn Priest right- Down to Heaven on Earth, d…”