Chapter Text
The moon was a fixed and watchful point upon the sky. The glow felt relentless. Dio had always liked that about it, especially when it was bright and full. He knew that the moon reflected the light of the sun, and that nocturnal inversion of its radiance always made him feel as though its light became invigorating instead of oppressive. Werewolves favored the moon, and so did vampires, ghouls, etcetera— anything that thrived upon the border of humanity, anything that lurked outside of that daytime herd.
Now, though, it seemed to hound him; he wondered if it did at all spread ultraviolet, if the silver wash across the desert was beginning to prickle his skin. He adjusted the coverage of his stolen silk scarf with a huff, wrapping it over his nose and brow, leaving a slit for his eyes. He slid his way down a dune, squinting against the scattering spray of sand. He trusted his own measure of gravity, and so the path to Cairo felt obvious to him; that, and he was sure that meandering lost in the desert would be of little entertainment to his double. It would not be easy, but he would reach his destination, he would retrieve Hermes and Josuke, and then—
He had to consider both his double and a triplet. His past self was busy painting the town red. He could imagine Josuke dropped right in the center of the revel, standing shocked, frightened to an uncharacteristic stillness. Dread grew at the thought— not shame, never shame, but he needed Josuke’s support and to have the boy traumatized yet again would be incredibly counterproductive.
As he crested the next peak, he grimaced, angered in an aimless way. Cairo, too, was a fixed point, bright, relentless, illuminating; there would be no true undoing of his time here. The best he could manage was a feint. Jotaro would have to mourn his friends for a few years, and then Dio would deliver them to Morioh, no harm, no foul, save for a few dozen dead supplicants and the carried weight of grief.
Noriaki’s parents would have to be informed about the miraculous resurrection of their son in 1999— he’d leave that task to Jotaro. Avdol surely had his own loose ends to thread together. Who else? That damn dog. Was that even worth pursuing? Yes, Dio thought, but not out of any particular pang of sympathy. Josuke could lament about the miscellaneous innocents killed in the mansion if he wanted, but Dio was still fully capable of dividing his gravitational connections into ‘comsically important’ and ‘not quite’, and Iggy, unfortunately, had some kind of pull.
He saw the peaks of the pyramids ahead. Buildings swarmed the bases at a demarcated distance; he recalled the scenic ring road, restaurants, tourist traps. He remembered, too, an acquired taste for Americans.
He slipped down the next slope of sand, idly fantasizing, and he nearly tripped over something. He wrested back his balance, leaping and landing upon his tiptoes, and he scowled at the offending mass— a backpack. Some of the contents had spilled out: a metal bowl, two sets of very small socks, and several packages of gum.
A whistle broke the quiet. Dio stiffened, alert.
“An intruder!” declared a damnably French voice, and the air ignited. Dio recoiled, raising one arm to guard himself, but the flames were only meant to illuminate the dunes. Avdol, at the ready, had Magician’s Red perched at his back. Polnareff leapt in front of him and sneered.
“Shame on you, sneaking up on us in the dead of night!” Polnareff said. The firelight gleamed upon the armor sheen of Silver Chariot. The Stand’s sharp foil jutted forth, nearly nicking the silk covering Dio’s nose.
“It’s only ten,” Avdol said, but Polnareff was undeterred; Silver Chariot’s sword remained precisely where it was. When Dio squinted and craned his head back, the sword followed. Dio meditated upon Polnareff’s honor, his strength, and his overwhelming dedication towards his allies, all qualities that he had himself valued or at least forcibly redirected towards his own ends; still, he imagined wringing the man by his neck.
“Introduce yourself,” Avdol said, with tactically measured politeness. “If you are merely a thief, then we may yet forgive you. But if you intended worse…”
“We are getting closer and closer to the devil’s den,” Polnareff added. “I doubt this is any mere thief.”
Avdol, exhausted by the act of agreement, shrugged. “Yes. But after all we have been through, I’d take one.”
Dio looked around the glare of the fire for the rest of the crew. He could outmaneuver these two easily, but he disliked this early intersection, and an exposure to Jotaro and Joseph could tarnish his plan. He had really only intended to get Hermes and Josuke settled into Cairo, scout out his own mansion, map their future incisions of fate, maybe visit the club the night before the big event, and then finish the job and head back to Morioh. The question of where Hermes and Josuke had landed, of course, had haunted him as relentlessly as the moonlight. It was possible that they were merely wandering through the vistas of Giza, but again, he imagined his own den—
“Tongue-tied?” Polnareff jibed. “I’ll assist you. Silver Chariot can cut any knot!”
The sword swished, and the silk fell to pieces. Time stopped. Dio touched the tip of the blade, prepared to push it away and dash off into the night; the two would presume a Stand attack, perhaps one utilizing super-speed or invisibility, and they would guard their perimeter as he continued on into Cairo.
Or…
All things happened for a reason; not a single grain of sand tumbled down these dunes without being a part of a greater design. His plan required that the deeply carved grooves of time kept to their predetermined pattern— Avdol could only be freed at the exact moment of his end, a fitting image in this tourist necropolis, with each destined death made a forged hieroglyphic. To change the timeline yet more introduced complications, but if he, Dio, was meant to be here, so be it. He would continue to challenge fate.
Time began again. The shreds of silk fell. Polnareff shrieked.
“Dio!” Avdol exclaimed, and he stood with his hands half-raised, staring. The flames flickered in place.
Silver Chariot, too, seemed unsure of what to do; it wavered, stunned, looking as though a Stand could faint. Polnareff soon rallied, however, and the sword returned to the center of Dio’s face. “An illusion! Or— a nightmare! I won’t fall for it!”
Avdol rallied, and his flames intensified, but his wariness restrained him. Dio had not moved, had not spoken, had not reacted beyond an inscrutable, narrow-eyed stare; the neutrality of his presence was more frightening than if he had announced himself with his claws in their necks and a monologue. “Polnareff,” he said. “It is him. I know it. But for him to reveal himself now— to eschew the Glory Gods— what does that mean? Be careful—”
“Then— how dare you?” Polnareff exclaimed. “How dare you just— stand there? Monster! Le diable! Accost me! Insult me! Give me the battle I deserve!”
A small head finally lifted from a pillow; Iggy sniffed, licked his chops, stood up, and shook himself off.
Avdol pointed in a short, tactical gesture, which Iggy likely understood but chose to ignore. “Iggy!” he cried out. “Heel! We’re in danger!”
The dog yawned, stretched, and looked around.
“Iggy!” Polnareff, sweating, looked from Dio to the dog and then back again. “Assist me! Pincer in! On his right—”
The dog ambled forward. Avdol and Polnareff observed the daring approach breathlessly; the gouts of flame produced by Magician’s Red twisted away from his path. Iggy came to a stop a foot before Dio’s imposing figure. The dog yawned, lifted one hind paw to scratch behind his ear, and then looked up. He gazed at Dio impassively. Dio stared back with a corresponding lack of affect.
“Iggy,” Polnareff whispered. “Iggy, wait—”
The dog trotted forward. He yawned again, circled thrice before Dio’s feet, and then settled down.
Polnareff, immobile, stared; Avdol, similarly stunned, looked at Iggy with his mouth slackly parted. Iggy rested his head upon the pointed leather of a pair of shoes that were expensive enough to be used as collateral, and he slobbered profusely as he dozed. Dio looked down and, slowly, he sighed.
“What does that mean,” Polnareff cried out. “What does that mean?!”
The rest came easily. He had no need to ply them with supernatural charm, no need to force them to accept this new reality; he needed only the drool-stained approval of one stray mutt. Still, the straightforward physical evidence helped: he pulled at his shirt, exposing his seamless neck and clavicle, and he explained that yes, he was indeed Dio, but a Dio that was at once the one they knew and one from what may as well have been another world, from another time, he could explain it but it would be tiresome, truly tiresome, and he hated explaining and re-explaining himself, anyway, they only needed to know that he was the better Dio, perhaps the best one if he really applied himself, and no he did not know how many Dios there were but they should not be seeing any more after him and to please stop asking so many questions. The night was not infinite, and soon Joseph and Jotaro would return from the city outskirts with snacks and he could not convince a force so absolute as Jotaro to not to obliterate him where he stood on sight.
“Make no mistake— the Dio you pursue will still require all your ire,” he said from where he sat on the sand. “You should expect no mercy from me, truly. Especially you,” he said, and he leaned forward to nudge his fingers against the backs of Iggy’s ears. “I’d punt you over the Pyramids if I could, that’s-right-good-doggy-yes.”
Iggy stared at him through one cracked-open eye, deeply considering the pros and cons of biting the offending fingers, and then he sneezed. He looked at the snot strewn over Dio’s foot with thorough satisfaction. Dio, to his own surprise, felt no true offense; he could happily buy more shoes. In his own mental hierarchy, he had always liked this mutt a bit more than the other crusaders that sought him out. The rating was as such: Joseph was Joseph, Polnareff was misled by his overly rigid sense of honor, the reach of Kakyoin’s cleverness exceeded his grasp, Avdol’s carefully calculated stratagems were limiting, and then, at the apex, Jotaro was Jotaro. The dog slotted in somewhere below Jotaro’s tier, he concluded. In his time in Cairo, while experimenting with the arrow, he had come to better appreciate the minds of animals; Pet Shop’s regal, vicious demeanor had always pleased him. Providing an animal with a Stand brought out the best of their feral pragmatism— dogs included, even though much of it remained latent beneath all the dulled-down domestication. And Iggy was no lapdog.
“I intend to help.” Dio watched as Iggy began to furtively chew on his shoe sole. “But my ability to do so is limited,” he lied, and he thought of when he first encountered Polnareff in the turtle, when he contended with his shock and his anger; even with this inexplicable encounter tonight, he would still spend years thinking that that this had been a fluke, that this Dio had failed, that the people he cared about had died— he would not learn of the truth until over a decade after Jotaro would, due to how he would be brought back to Morioh. How terrible a wait, and how wonderful a reveal: Dio wondered if Polnareff would express true gratitude towards him. His smile widened, and Iggy whale-eyed briefly at the display of sharp teeth. The shoe gradually slipped from his mouth.
“But it is imperative that you keep this a secret,” Dio added.
“Absolutely not,” Polnareff replied, and he crossed his arms tightly. “We can’t keep this from Jotaro.” Avdol did not concur, did not say anything; Polnareff looked at him, baffled. “Can’t we?” he added. “I mean— Avdol!”
Avdol stared at the sky. “We should keep our focus honed,” he said. “The Dio in Cairo is our target. As strange as this is— and as little as I do trust you, truly,” he said, sparing Dio a quick glance, “I still trust my own instinct. The strangest thing about all of this is that I feel no dread.”
“But that could be— you know,” Polnareff hissed. “Charisma.”
“I do not feel the way I felt that night,” Avdol said. “I am uncertain, but I am not afraid. And, of course, Iggy would not be so swayed if that were the case.”
Iggy did not look swayed. He looked as though he was slowly preparing to begin chewing again. Still: “Signs and wonders,” Dio mused. “So— you will keep this to yourselves?”
“If you are what you say you are… to kill a man is wrong,” Avdol said, “but to steal the bread from Death’s plate is wrong, too. We came here knowing the dangers of the path ahead. You say that you intend to help. What kind of help will you provide?”
“And everything until the Resurrection is already written,” Dio replied, deftly. “But to hold myself back for fear of upsetting the order of the universe— would that not be wrong, as well? To do so would be to presume that I comprehend Qadar.”
Avdol raised one brow. He gave Dio a long, amused stare.
“Have some faith in me,” Dio insisted, “and you’ll see.”
Avdol sighed. “You really cannot tell us more about your design, here?”
“No.”
“Then you must have some faith in us, as well,” Avdol said. “Leave us, and we will decide what to do.”
It would be easy, Dio considered, to plant a few flesh buds and be done with it; they wouldn’t even have to be malignant, they would merely have to tighten around a few key neurons and block out ten minutes worth of this night until he could retrieve them again. That would swear them to secrecy. But the thrill of it intrigued him; he wanted this risk. Besides— it would be funny for Jotaro to have known of this all along, for him to be at once wronged by and indebted to Dio. He imagined his typical standoffishness and resistance towards Dio’s meddling in Morioh having been a mask for this knowledge all along.
Dio stood. Iggy huffed and trotted away, looking back at him as he dusted the sand from his thighs. “So be it,” he said.
A whisper. “Josuke?”
“Yeah.”
“You there?”
“Definitely.”
“It’s dark.”
“Sure is.”
A sniff. “And it smells bad.”
“Sure does.”
“Do you know where—”
“Dio is? No.” He reconsidered. “Well… yes.”
Hermes scuffed her toe against the dusty marble tiles upon the floor. She clasped her hands over her elbows, shivered, and looked about the murky foyer. “Damn,” she said.
“Damn,” Josuke agreed.
“What’s wrong with him,” Jotaro said, and he nodded towards Polnareff, who was gulping down heavy scoops of recently delivered koshari with an extremely flustered expression.
Avdol observed him for a few silent moments. Then: “It must be too spicy for him,” he said smoothly, and he ate a few bites of his own.
Upon his pillow, the king of stray dogs chewed on an expertly stolen segment of shoelace.