Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Laying on the couch of the Morioh grand hotel with Terunosuke placed next to her and staring at the ceiling, KT Caprae was overwhelmed. There were too many new factors, too many pieces of information. She’d gotten some of it down, but there were still too many unknowns and variables and connections that could be made. She has wanted these rumors to be true so badly, and she got everything she wanted and more. So much more. She’s excited, that’s true. But there’s a burning question: Where does she go from here?  

Laying on the couch (softer than he was used to) with KT beside him, Terunosuke was lost.    He wanted to believe more memories were truly coming back, but instead he could only gather the faintest impressions. And that’s not to mention KT herself. How could someone this kind actually exist? Terunosuke didn’t have any sort of reference frame for kindness, but she put him on a pillow and he felt comfortable in a way he hadn’t for… decades. That was kindness, right?  

So the two of them laid there and stared at the ceiling. KT thought how it feels different to do nothing like this with another person around.

And Terunosuke thought about the last time he’d been around someone who did anything with him, maybe this girl with a pink jacket, though he was fairly sure that never happened.  

You cannot stare at a ceiling forever. In a literal sense, all buildings crumble one day, so you will theoretically end up looking at the sky until the heat death of the universe. In a metaphorical sense:

KT Caprae decided to do what she’d always done and keep moving forward no matter what. She’d wanted to explore Morioh more and she’s going to do just that.  

Terunosuke decided to try and stay awake a while longer and observe whatever KT did next. He had nothing to lose, after all.  

She got up from the couch, putting on her shoes and grabbing her cracked Samsung. Time to go actually do something and see what happens. That’s how exploration and science worked, and it has been working for KT so far. To be fair, those things have more planning than KT had, but she’s very good at figuring things out as she goes along. For example, there was a silent understanding that she would take Terunosuke with her. It really didn’t need to be said that he didn’t want to be alone. He had some type of recollection or flashback once he heard where he was, so maybe actually seeing the rest of Morioh would help him remember himself.  

Thinking of that caused her to once again wonder what type of situation could even result in him getting turned into a book in the first place, and how common this type of “and I must scream”-esque fate was in stand fights, and if she should try and avoid getting in stand fights at all costs. Was Rome 2001 caused by stands? Probably, that mold wasn’t any recorded species and disappeared within the hour. Was the Egypt tape caused by stands? It would make sense, the events were definitely “horrible and destructive”. Were the other Morioh missing cases caused by stands? Well,she was hopefully going to find that out. Was 2012 stands? Was 2012 real? Not the time. Not the time at all.  

And if they were caused by stands, either touch tone is a rare visible stand OR stands can’t be seen by non stand users. Terunosuke realized she was a stand user when she could hear him so it’s likely the second one. If this is true, then she’s much more likely to encounter supernatural things from now on. The truth is near, but damn, she was getting distracted.  

Terunosuke was still on the couch, doing nothing. With a quick

“Incoming!”

She put him in her tote bag, then paused for a moment, took him out, rearranged some things and put him back in. Now he could fully see out over the side of the bag. That should be a little better, right?  

“It’s a room with a view. Fancy”, she muttered to herself, smirking a bit at her own joke. Hopefully he wasn’t awake to hear her talking to herself.  

Terunosuke was fully awake, and quickly retorted,

“Why, thank you for the deluxe accommodations.”

He didn’t exactly know where that came from, but again, he had nothing left to lose. He very well could have been the type of person to do that often(though that didn’t feel exactly right now that he thought about it.)  

“Of course, anything for my esteemed guest.” Kt was a bit surprised, but she’d keep this train going.  

“This is great service, I’ll have to leave a high tip.”

“Oh no, it’s on the house, I promise.”

They were both kind of laughing now, and you know how when one person laughs you start to laugh harder? The person in the room next door must have been surprised to hear hysterical laughing out of nowhere, but it didn’t matter. Sometimes things just happen, and sometimes you share a joke with the sentient book in your tote bag. This is just how things end up. 

Putting aside all that, it was almost noon and KT had spent all morning passed out on the couch, so she should probably get going somewhere. 

Meanwhile, a white haired girl is waiting outside for the next tourist to come by...

Chapter Text

Alright, time for these two to hit the town. They’ve got a plan for staying inconspicuous and everything.

“So if we talk, I’ll just pretend I’m on the phone, okay Terunosuke?”

“i don’t think i’ll need to talk. i’m more than okay just watching.”

“Well, I think it’s good to have options. Plus, you might change your mind or see something really cool I didn’t notice and want to tell me.”

“…that’s fair. “

Aside from a reservation for that one Italian place later in the day, KT didn’t have a plan for her actual vacation. It’s not as interesting to come up with plans for “time management” as it is to come up with plans for “What to do if you have to talk to an entity no one else can hear such as a ghost or a sentient hardcover”. Which is ultimately good, because it sucks when you have a plan and something unexpected happens. KT wasn’t even a few feet away from the hotel before something unexpected happened.

A young white haired girl in a lacy black school uniform, and for some strange reason a top hat, sidestepped right into KT’s path.

“Hello! Would you like a tour of Morioh?”

Kt stared at that girl for a good ten seconds. What a solicitor.

“I don’t need one”

And she did a smooth 180 turn and started to walk in the opposite direction.

It wasn’t even another ten seconds before she heard the distinctive clomping sound of a teen girl speedwalking in platform boots.

“Hey! Come back! I didn’t really finish my explanation!”

Oh god. Is she following us? This random teen was following them. KT walked faster.

“I know this town like the back of my hand!”

Yeah, I want to discover these things myself. I already found a secret guy. Get on my level.  KT walked even faster, hoping to lose this over-earnest girl as soon as possible. Terunosuke was watching as best as he possibly could from KT’s bag and thinking this situation is kind of funny.

“My name is Tomie Hirose! Ask around, you won’t find anyone better than me!”

This is getting weird.

KT was basically running at this point, and Terunosuke suddenly thought that this situation was not funny, but dangerous. Hirose… where had he heard that name before?

“HEY! IT’S ILLEGAL TO IGNORE A TOUR GUIDE!” Tomie was almost screaming now, and her voice had a strange metallic tone to it.

What? That makes no-

It’s illegal to ignore a tour guide. It’s illegal to ignore a tour guide.  It’s illegal to ignore a tour guide..I think I read that somewhere…yeah, it’s for safety reasons or something.

Something felt off. It was probably just that she forgot such a crucial piece of information. She’d hear this girl out and get out of the situation without causing any more problems OR having to go on a tour. She got off scot free for the trespassing last night. Breaking another law might push her luck.

Illegal to ignore a tour guide? That didn’t sound right to Terunosuke at all, but what did he know. He still couldn’t shake the deep uncomfortableness that the name “Hirose” caused. He knew needed to follow that feeling. The longer he dwelled on it, the closer he got to a memory. Thursday, July 15. He had some sort of task to do…

Meanwhile, KT turned around, steeling herself for interaction. And she caught a glimpse of something. A floating turquoise figure, covered in words.

Tomie grit her teeth. Fuck. This tourist had just looked right at PYT. She knew she should have gotten quicker at retracting her stand, but what were the odds of this?

Okay. Maybe it was just coincidence.

The widened eyes of her mark proved otherwise.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Okay. I can lie my way out of this. They’re just a tourist.

KT got to it before Tomie could begin to craft an explanation. Pointing her finger like some sort of ace attorney character, she delivered her accusation:

“Was that a-Are you a stand user!”

Tomie smirked. Her suspicions were confirmed, and it wasn’t every day she got to talk about PYT. Time for her to have some fun.

Chapter Text

“Yes. You just saw my stand, Pretty Young Thing. When it’s in effect, you’ll believe anything I say, at least for a little while. And I mean ANYTHING.” Smirking, she did a proud and determinedly unrespectful curtsy.

This wasn’t good, KT realized.

A stand that can make anything seem true.. maybe it isn’t illegal to ignore a tour guide. No, it is illegal. Is it? Has she already used her stand? I need to do something!

Before Touch Tone could even fully manifest, Tomie twirled around into another statement. Waving her hands in an exaggeratedly innocent manner, she exclaimed

“ I don’t have a stand. I don’t even know what a stand is! Is it some kind of drug? I don’t know where those are sold! I’m just a teen!”, and put on a convincing expression of naïveté.

Terunosuke was growing more alarmed by the second. He noticed that KT’s stance changed from battle ready to slightly embarrassed. That power, PYT, must have been working on her. But not on him. If he could just get her attention in any way, he could help her.. There were no physical signs to show it, no stance he was capable of taking, but Terunosuke was afraid.

“Okay, I’m sorry for assuming you had… that.” KT admitted, avoiding Tomie’s gaze. This is why she tried to not talk to people.

“But I’m still not interested in a tour.”

“Really? Are you sure? My tours are great! They’re 5,000 yen an hour. I cover all the important spots, from a local point of view. It’ll be the experience of a lifetime!” Tomie finished off her spiel with a dramatic flourish, hands raised in the air. But no amount of pizzaz could distract from that  price.

“ 5,000 yen! Are you kidding me? Is this a joke? That’s ridiculous!”

“No, it’s actually quite a reasonable price.”

There was a glimpse of glimmering teal. Strange.

Was that a… She doesn’t have a stand. She doesn’t have a stand, and 5,000 yen is a reasonable price. I bet her tours are good, I bet it would be worth it, I just don’t want one!”

“ I still am not interested in a tour of Morioh in any way . Please find someone who is more appreciative of your services. I prefer to be by myself.”, KT said through gritted teeth.

“Okay, I get it.”, Tomie sighed. “But you’re blocking the street and we should really talk somewhere else. Step into this alley.”

“What? No, I’m not doing that! We aren’t talking about anything else! I’m leaving!” KT backed away slowly. Then more quickly. Then turned and started to jog off.

Well, Tomie couldn’t have that. She summoned her stand fully. As its thin tentacles wove their way towards her mark, she grinned. A bag that big had to have some good stuff in it. The second PYT made contact with KT, she clutched her head and winced.

Tomie quickly checked to see if anyone was watching and shoved KT into the alleyway.

“So you’re a bit disoriented now. I’m right, right? “

“What the…”

“Okay. Good. I’m right. This explanation won’t do you much good, but basically PYT got you. Which means that for the next 5 minutes, everything and nothing is true. At the same time. Basically, you’re a paradox. Or not. Got it?”

“No?”

“Okay cool, it worked! So while you try to process this non-reality, I’m going to take all of your stuff. Hope you don’t mind!”

Pushing aside his intrigue at this type of mental trickery, Terunosuke was absolutely terrified. KT was getting robbed blind and he couldn’t do a single thing. If he said anything, he’d catch Hirose’s attention, not KT. She could easily rip him in half. And he didn’t want to die. There had to be something he could do. Tomie sorted through KT’s bag, tossing complimentary desk pens and other bits of useful junk aside. She could probably pawn that cracked phone, but she was still looking for an actual wallet. She had about 3 and a half minutes of paradox time to find it and get the hell out of here. Plenty of time to mess around with some other things.

“Oh, what’s this? A book?” Tomie asked, lifting Terunosuke out of the bag.

KT was too preoccupied to answer.

“Oh, look at that. ‘Property of the Morioh public library. Not to be checked out.’ You’re a thief too! Guess I’ll have to return this.”

No. No. I can’t go back there.

Terunosuke thought he’d never have to be handled like this again. The feeling made him want to just shut down.

Or want to do something about it.

I won’t go back there. I have to do something. Anything. I’m sick of being frozen like this.

A long dormant part of him flickered awake again.

Enigma reached out and grabbed at Tomie’s arm. It didn’t even make contact, but she still dropped him, crying out in surprise.

“WHAT THE SHIT? “

Chapter Text

Tomie stood up quickly, and turned to the book laying on the ground. She stared at it intensely for a few seconds.

Could that book be the stand user? No, that doesn’t make sense. Which means that my mark is the one trying to attack me!

“How the hell are you using your stand! You should still be too disoriented to do that!”

KT didn’t respond, and kept staring at the ground. Tomie, waving her hands in front of her face, continued.

“Are you just pretending to be out of it? Hello? There’s no way my stand didn’t work on you! Helloooooooo! “

There was still no response.

No, she has to be faking! There’s no one else around that could have attacked me!

“Hey! You can stop pretending now! I know what you’re doing!”

Slowly, KT looked up.

“Oh, I wasn’t pretending. You really had me out of it for a while.” She smiled a bit. “But I’m betting you can’t do that type of attack twice in a row.”

As she got up from the asphalt, her stand appeared. Touch Tone stood beside her, tall and sharp, but looking more annoyed than murderous. It was still an incredibly intimidating sight.

“So, you’re going to give me back my bag now, okay?”

Tomie wasn’t completely down for the count. She had one last trick up her sleeve. Taking off her decorated hat and looking rather pitiful, she tried her best to summon tears.

“Wait! I have a good excuse! You see, my parents-“

“TOMIE!”

Both KT and Tomie turned to the opening of the alley to see a tall, imposing woman in a very nice pantsuit. Her hair was blowing in the opposite direction of the wind.

Maybe Tomies ability hasn’t worn off on me yet? How is she doing that? KT wondered.

“Mom! What are you doing here?”

Tomie immediately put her hat back on, demeanor changing to that of a guilty kid who got found stealing ice cream bars from the freezer.

“Well if I hear my daughter screaming expletives from a block away I’m going to come running as soon as possible!”

“Thank you! She-“

“Stop trying to use your powers on me, you know full well I’m immune to them. And stop trying to use the divorce as an excuse for your delinquency! We split up when you were 3 and still meet for lunch every Saturday. “

“How do you know I-“

“Your hand is still in this poor ladies wallet! This is the final straw!” Tomie was glowing red with embarrassment while KT just sort of stared at the two of them. Terunosuke wished that he could see this better, but alas, he was stuck on the ground.

“You’re going to give this poor lady her stuff back, apologize to her, and then you’re grounded!”

Tomie, knowing there was no point in arguing further, obliged. She picked up everything she had taken out, including Terunosuke, and dumped it all in the main body of the tote bag with no thought for organization. Without looking up, she handed it to KT, and muttered “Sorry.” KT sort of nodded and took her bag back. Terunosuke seemed to be okay, but she’d have to check that later.

Before Tomie’s mother left the alleyway, she stopped, considering something. Gesturing to her daughter to stay put (with the dreaded “We’ll talk more about this later.”), she walked over to KT.

“You’re a stand user, right?”, she asked.

“I guess? I’ve only had my ability for a day.”

“I’m also a stand user. A lot of people in this town are. You’re not here to cause trouble, right?” As she said this, her hair stiffened, as if taking on an attack position.

“No, I’m just here on vacation. Since you’re a stand user, can I ask you a few questions?” KT’s excitement grew at the chance to learn the truth about Morioh. The woman’s hair relaxed a bit.

“Sure. Since you’re new, it’s best for you to hear about stands from someone experienced than just go around trying it out on random people.” Having been given the OK, KT burst into rapid questioning.

“Well actually, it’s more about Morioh in general. I have a few. First, are all the missing people in the 80’s and 90’s the result of stands? Why did people stop going missing?” The woman cut her off at this point.

“I’m not answering those types of questions. Recounting the whole story would take all day, but I’ll tell you that you are correct. And that people stopped going missing because we killed that bastard. Now, I do have to take my daughter home. Enjoy your time here; and you should really be responsible with that power. “

“Uh.. I will, ma’am!” Was that a threat? It felt like a threat. KT sat down to process, and the woman turned around and walked off, Tomie sulking behind her.

TOMIE HIROSE-YAMAGISHI: [GROUNDED]

Tomie is no longer able to leave the house without adult supervision for the rest of the summer. In addition to that, her father has gotten a family friend to do a favor for him, so when school starts up again she won’t be allowed to use her stand’s full abilities. Hopefully she learns to be more responsible.

Now that she was mostly alone, she could get the important stuff out of the way. “Hey, Terunosuke? You good?”

From her bag, she heard a faint

“I’ve been worse.“. A few seconds passed in silence, and then, there was a slightly louder “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, don’t worry. I’m all fine.”

Chapter Text

KT was really mostly fine, now that the world didn’t feel like it was spinning around her in both directions. She got up from the gritty asphalt, but paused before stepping back out onto the sidewalk. Terunosuke was saying something. 

“I think I remembered my stand.

Its name was Enigma. I had only had it for a few days before… whatever happened. I still can’t remember what caused this. But I do remember that I figured out that it could store almost anything in paper. Even people, under the right conditions. I don’t fully remember the conditions. I know it didn’t cause this..”

She nodded and waited for a conclusion, but he seemed to have said everything he needed to. His voice had sounded more alive now than it had just last night, back in the empty library.  It sounded more like…well, a person than a tired echo.

She smiled a bit at that realization. Then she stepped out of the alley before her pacing attracted any more confused glances. 

Now, standing out in the sunlight, KT just needed to kill some time. Checking her watch (it wasn’t wound or even functional) and then her actual phone, she figured that she had about a... half an hour until her lunch reservation.  Her lunch reservation on the other side of town. A town she didn’t know any shortcuts in.

"Shit." It looked like she didn't have any time to kill. 

"What is it?"  Terunosuke wasn’t asleep as she had thought.

"There's no way I'm going to be able to walk to that restaurant.  I’m going to have to get a taxi or something. “

“…Are you absolutely sure you can’t walk? Are you certain that it’s too far?”

“I have enough money to take one, don’t worry.”

“Okay. Okay.” He sounded uneasy, but she wasn’t willing to pry into it. He was almost certainly trying to remember something. She hoped he was getting closer to those memories.

Their conversation ended on a open note once again, and KT hailed down a taxi.

“Can you take me to that one Italian place?” The driver, a man in maybe his forties, yet greying all the same, turned around to answer her.

“Which one?”

“There’s more than one? I mean, the one everyone goes to. “ KT clenched her hand tighter around the strap of her tote bag.

“I see. You don’t even know the name, though? It’s-“

“I know the name; I just hate speaking the Italian language. “ She let out a forced laugh.

“ I mean not really. That was a joke. I don’t hate Italian. I was just trying to be funny. You know what I mean.” The driver did not respond. KT did not prolong the misery. She also did not remember the name of the place.

A while later, she arrived at That Italian Place.

“Trattoria Trussardi. So that’s the name.”Terunosuke seemed to be asleep in her bag, as there was no response. The first thing about the building she noticed was actually its proximity to the local cemetery.

Weird location for a restaurant… I’ve never heard any stories about it being haunted, so I’m really just here to eat.

The second thing she noticed was the laminated menu hung on the painted brick wall, stating that dishes were made based on the customer. She did her research on this place, so it didn’t surprise her.

As she walked through the door (ringing a small bell) and sat down to wait to be seated, she thought more about that “research”. Every single review of this place, on yelp, Google, whatever, said that they walked away feeling significantly more healthy. Now that could just be hyperbole or fake reviews, but she was a bit excited to see if it lived up to the hype.

She could really use some fancy good food.

An older man, clearly Italian, emerged from the kitchen.

“Ah, are you here for the lunch reservation?”

He was wearing a white apron and chefs hat as neat as the lobby of the restaurant. Everything in this place was perfectly put together, in a way that felt authentic.

“Uh, yes! I am. Sir.”

“You can just call me Tonio. I see you’re a tourist? “ He sounded kind and genuinely curious, not dismissive as she had expected. KT continued, relaxing a bit.

“Yeah, I am. I’m here for a weekend. So, do I need to tell you any allergies or anything? How does this work? Will the price change depending on what you serve me?”

“Don’t worry. I try to keep a stable price. This isn’t a fancy place. And you don’t need to tell me any specifics about your food needs. “

This was perplexing to KT. How did she not need to tell him anything? Would he just guess?

“ If you don’t mind, could you please hold out your hands?” She hesitated for a moment, even more confused at that request, before sliding off her black gloves and holding out her hands. Touch Tone could always retaliate if things got weird.

After looking her up and down for a few moments, Tonio delivered his assessment.

“It seems like you have somewhat severe anemia, as well as general vitamin deficiencies. Your ligaments and tendons are weaker than normal, and you’re rather sleep deprived.” He seemed to have a few more things to say, but KT reflectively summoned Touch Tone, pulling her hands back. How the hell does he know all this personal stuff! She was getting by just fine, surely she didn’t look that bad!

To her surprise, he looked directly at it, and summoned something of his own; a swarm of small, tomato-like creatures floating around him.

“Oh! You’re a ‘Stand User’ as well! That’s wonderful!” This was unexpected, but he truly sounded happy to make that discovery.

“I am, but I only discovered mine recently. So you have a stand? Is that why everyone raves about your food online?”

“Oh, not exactly. I’ve honed my cooking skills to over the years. I can say that my recipes are unaltered in flavor by my ability. The power is what makes it so healthy. “ KT leaned in further, intrigued. Yet another Morioh landmark was tied to stand abilities. Her theory was becoming more and more correct by the minute. Tonio, noticing her interest, continued.

“I use nothing but the best, healthiest, possible ingredients for my meals, but ‘Pearl Jam’, as I call it, makes them potent enough to instantly heal any ailments.” He smiled, clearly happy to be able to fully explain his ability. Kt was even more interested now.

“So how does it work? Is it just a magical ‘Boom! You’re better!’?” There had to be some sort of catch.

“…Not exactly. You know how people often say that you have to get rid of the bad before you get the good? My ability does that. It may be a bit unpleasant in the moment, but I assure you, you will feel much better afterwards.” That was a bit vague, but there was NOTHING suspicious about this man. If anything strange happened in this restaurant, KT was sure she would have heard about it.

Secure in her safety, she said

“I’m even more excited to experience your cooking now!” while pulling a notepad and pen out of her bag. Note taking was very important, and she wanted to document exactly what she experienced.

Tonio seemed to be just as enthusiastic about cooking for such an eager guest. He disappeared into the kitchen for a moment before coming back out with a glass of ice water.

“This should help with the sleep deprivation.”, he said with a smile.

KT took a small sip and… well, it was better than good.

Holy shit! This tastes better than water in the middle of the night!  I’m quenched, I’m thriving, I’m revitalized; it doesn’t have a weird bad aftertaste like bottled water but it clearly still has minerals in it. How is this not his stand power? You can’t cook water!

It took her a few moments to realize she was actually crying on her notebook. This was strange to her, as she didn’t cry often. Was it really that good? She wiped her face only to find that it was absolutely drenched in tears. Her eyes were almost feeling dry. This must be the “bad” she had to get out. She never cried anyway. It’s probably best that she got it out. A few increasingly intense seconds later, and she found she was no longer gushing tears like a broken sink. She also didn’t feel exhausted, not even a little bit. This was incredible. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt as well rested as she did now.

As Tonio returned with the next plate, KT absolutely flooded him with compliments.

(“How did you make water taste this good? I don’t even feel jetlagged anymore!)

He left her the next course; a plate of some small italian rice balls called arancini. As he returned to the kitchen to work on the main dish, she took a bite.

The breadcrumb layer on the outside was the perfect exoskeleton to a warm and delicious center of sauce, rice and cheese.

Taken aback by the absolute deliciousness of this perfect combination, KT suddenly fell off of her chair. She flopped halfway to the floor, with her knees still on the side of the chair, like she was trying to sit horizontally. Thankfully she didn’t knock anything over. However she just kind of laid there sprawled on the floor for a minute, as she couldn’t get up. No matter how hard she tried, her legs just wouldn’t move even a single bit, nor would anything else. She silently panicked, but then realized that this must have been the dishes’ side effect, and that she wasn’t dying. Sure enough, she was able to get up perfectly fine a few moments later, and found that she was feeling a lot less sore. Those reviews weren’t lying. If anything, they were downplaying this.

Tonio soon came out with the main course, and was once again greeted by a storm of compliments. He laid the main course down on the table: Ricotta gnocchi with crema di pomodoro.

An absolutely succulent plate of round dumplings in a red and white sauce. She took a forkful and was immediately almost overcome. The cheesy yet almost sweet gnocchi complimented the tartness and creaminess of the two sauces. Before she took another bite, she felt something in her throat, and coughed.

It was blood. Her blood, staining the white tablecloth, almost like the sauce on top of her dish. And she coughed again. And again. It spattered onto the notes she had been taking, giving some direct evidence to her descriptions. But that didn’t matter, as she was hacking it up almost nonstop. The metallic taste blotted out any remnants of the dish she had been eating as she coughed up more and more and more, now aiming it towards the tiled floor, away from any of her stuff and the still sleeping Terunosuke. It was quickly forming a large, dark puddle on the previously clean ground, spreading through the grooves in the tiles. She was quickly becoming disoriented, as more and more came out uncontrollably. Her vision began to blur, and she though, in her blood loss delirium, that maybe this was all a trick. Maybe he had meant to kill her all along…

Then, the delirium disappeared. She could hear her heart pumping again, and the taste had faded from her mouth. She stood up as quickly as she could and didn’t feel the slightest bit dizzy. Her hands weren’t cold.

She didn’t feel sick or tired or sore. Not even a little bit. She felt entirely physically okay. The puddle of blood was still present on the floor. Stand powers are wonderful.

Tonio came back in to see KT absolutely overjoyed, but her face soon fell a bit. Pulling out her wallet, she asked, a bit hesitantly,

“So.. how much do I have to pay for this? You gave me medical treatment and the best meal of my life. I’m sure I have enough to-“

He cut her off.

“You don’t have to worry about it. I do this to help people and make them happy, not to make money. And I certainly don’t charge extra for the healing. You haven’t even had the dessert course yet, but your total will be 4,082 yen after that. “

“Really? But that’s so cheap for a fancy meal! I really can pay, I’m sure.”

“I don’t make this food to be fancy. I make good food for everyday people, not high class critics. I’m just glad that I could help you.”

KT paused for a moment, then turned back to Tonio before he returned to the kitchen.

“I do have one question on the limits of your stand..Could it maybe fix someone who got turned into something not human? Theoretically, I mean..”

He paused for a moment, considering his answer.
“Interesting question.. well, I have tried something similar to that, and it didn’t fix the main issue. Every ability has boundaries, I suppose.” He turned around to return to the kitchen. Once he was out of sight, KT heard Terunosuke speak quietly from her bag.

”I just remembered another thing…”

Chapter Text

“What is it?” She hoped it was something good, but his disheartened tone suggested otherwise.

“It’s no use for you to go around asking stand users if they could fix me. I can’t be fixed.”

“What do you mean?”

“ I mean that I’m stuck like this. Forever. I didn’t remember this until now, but the person who did this to me..”

His voice was shaky, as if he was trying not to cry.

" I don't think anyone cared when this happened to me. If they cared I wouldn't have been here for years.."

Or trying his hardest to cry .

"I'm.. I'm sorry. I remembered something else. It's not important."

He was sounding more and more upset.

“They said they couldn’t fix me. And that I shouldn’t be let out anyway. I didn’t deserve to be. It didn't matter because no one cared.”   And bitter. 

She tried to step in.

“What did they mean by that? I’m sure that’s not-“

The bitterness reached its peak.

“I don’t know what they meant by that! I don’t know! I don’t know who I was. I don’t know why I ended up like this. I don’t know what I did to deserve this. I don’t even know ANYTHING about the world around me because I’ve been a book for two decades!“  His anger disappeared as he said, quiet as he had been before,

“I don’t even know how I should feel about this. If I really deserved this.. I must have been a horrible person. I just want to go back to sleep…”

KT had no clue how to respond to this. The dessert course was delicious ( a perfectly sour lime sorbet ) but she couldn't take her mind off of what Terunosuke had said. 
What could he have done to deserve this? He couldn't have been a murderer or criminal or anything. And he was on the missing website, so clearly someone cared that he disappeared.

She glanced down at him. He really was asleep again.

But, I can't blame him for thinking that.

She walked out of Tonio's, and stood by the side of the road, still trying to weigh all the variables and possibilities. Still frustrated that she didn't know much more than he did. 

Is it just because I want to know what happened to him? 

Then she realized something.
Tonio's was right across from the Morioh Cemetery. 
Terunosuke had been presumed to be dead. 
This could be a good idea. 

After spending a few minutes debating the pros and cons of visiting a living persons grave, KT sucked it up and went in. The cemetery was easy to enter, which was good as she didn't have a sensical reason for coming and would chicken out if questioned. She didn't tell him where she was going. He was asleep anyway, and it wasn't like he'd know where he was "buried". Maybe this could be a surprise.
She passed row after row of well maintained graves, walking as quickly as she could until she came across his. A family plot, one as well kept as the others. In fact, someone had left a flower there. She averted her eyes before she could fully read the other name etched into the grave. She wouldn't think about that now. Not now. This wasn’t about her. She clenched her fists as she realized how damn STUPID she was. "You thought you were a horrible person so I visited your grave to prove you weren't!". Is that what she was going to say? What was she trying to prove!

"You know, you've been shaking since you stepped foot in here. And, you've been grabbing onto the strap of this bag the whole time.You’re afraid, aren’t you?"

Shit. He's awake. She said nothing to that. 

"Is that my grave?"

Shit^2. 

"Yeah, it is. " No good outcome could come from this. 

"Last night you said you were only afraid of one thing. Either that was a bluff, or this is your only fear." He didn't sound as angry as he had earlier. She didn't know what emotion he sounded like. 

"It's probably one of those two, Terunosuke… sorry?" She didn’t know what she was apologizing for.

"I don't really get you. I don't know anything about you. You don't know anything about me. And despite all of this, you've done nothing but help me. Why? I don't even know you? "

It's true that she hadn't said much about herself ever since she picked him up last night. He'd just been along for the ride. 

"How about I introduce myself properly?"

She took Terunosuke out, opened him, and set him on top of her bag, positioned directly across from her. 

"I'm KT Caprae, I'm.. about 18, and I'm from Florida. I helped you because I wanted to. I don't know much about you but I don't think you were a horrible person."

She saw the slightest hint of a smile on Terunosukes 'face'.

"I really should have said this already. Thank you."

Chapter Text

He looked around as much as he could, taking in his current, if somewhat morbid surroundings. The grass, the gravestones, the sky… it was all so full of color and variety. He could even almost feel the sun. The change in scenery was surreal.

“In fact, I don’t know if I can thank you enough. I haven’t been outside in a long time. Or had anyone to talk to. I expected to just stay asleep in that library until the world ended..”

As casually as someone placing a phone order for pizza, KT dropped this bombshell.

“You’re welcome, but it’s actually kind of funny you say that. The ‘until the world ended’ part that is. The world did actually end in 2012.” She was twirling her hair around her finger, as if she didn’t just say something completely bizarre. Terunosuke stared at her blankly as she continued.

“Well, almost. It didn’t really end, it got fixed. Most people don’t remember it but I do. And so do other people, so I know it was real!”

“So you’re a….conspiracy theorist?”

“You could say that, but I really just think of myself as an investigator.”

“What type of apocalypse was this?”

“It wasn’t a meteor or war or grey goo or anything like that. It was a spacetime based distortion that I’m willing to bet anything was caused by a stand now that I think about it.” Now she had begun to get  excited, and was enthusiastically gesturing.

“I mean, what was it like?” Her excited gestures stopped. She pushed her glasses further up the bridge of her nose. They caught the light and reflected in an almost glowing way.

“No one has ever really asked me that before. I mean, not in person. I guess I’ll tell you….the easiest way to say it is that time broke. I mean it completely broke. Everything that wasn’t alive started to speed up and deteriorate or rot. Buildings were collapsing, and the roads were a complete disaster.” KT was staring off to her left, seeming much more serious than she had been moments ago, and looking nowhere in particular. “Everywhere you looked you’d see people panicking. They were screaming how it was the rapture or the end of days. The sun was moving too fast to even see, until the sky was just glowing completely white. Everything was breaking. And then..the universe just kind of undid everything. Everything was back to normal. No one was dead, no one was screaming, and no one remembered it.” After a moment, she looked back over at him, gauging his reaction. Seeing that it wasn’t annoyance or skepticism was a pretty good start. But it wasn’t really any reaction at all. His ink “face” wasn’t expressive in the slightest, but she still worried. “..A few people online remember, but I assume you don’t. Sorry if this made me sound crazy or anything.” She sighed a bit, the sigh of someone who had said this many times before and knew exactly the reactions she got.

“I don’t remember it, but I don’t remember anything. It’s really not that crazy either.”

Her face lit up again in an instant.

“Really? You really think that?”

“Certainly. If I had to guess, this was the incident that lead you to become a ‘Paranormal Enthusiast’? You probably went around looking for people who remembered and it lead you to other paranormal topics. ”

“It’s creepy how good you are at that.And also really impressive.”

“At what? What am I creepily good at?”

“At noticing these small details about people! You figured out that I was nervous about being in a graveyard and guessed how I got into the paranormal completely correctly! “

He smirked a little bit.

“I guess I am good at it. And I didn’t mention how you clearly like asking

people questions more than answer-”

“Okay, now you’re just psychoanalyzing me. “

“I feel like this is fair. You’ve done plenty of theorizing about me before you even met me.”

“And I can keep doing it. “

“Really? I’ve had more correct guesses about you than you have about me.”

“Well here’s one. Get ready. The 2012 incident inevitably destroyed anything that wasn’t biologically alive, and I’m willing to bet that dying would have woken you up. So, you have to be both biological and technically alive to have slept through it.”

She almost got him there. He had thought about that same thing as she explained the event, but this was more than just a conversation. It was a competition now. He had to rebuke her in some way, or otherwise whatever honor he had as a book would be nullified.

“I’m sure one of the many idiots who came to look at me would have noticed if I was ‘alive’. And do you really think I’m biological? I’m made of paper.”

KT took a second to think, and then an smile of realization crept across her face.

“Apparently, leather made of human skin is identical to normal leather. You’re leather-bound, right?”

These words were the equivalent of a explosive missile to the competition.

“ What the fuck.”

“Should I have not said that?”

“No, I actually think that’s.. well it’s the type of thing you only see in horror stories. I like that. “

“Really? I was worried it would freak you out.”

“No, I’m glad you told me that.”

A few seconds passed, silent save for the buzz of cicadas.

“Hey, KT?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you..like me? Like as a person. Well. You know what I mean.”

“Yes, I know what you mean. I do.”

“Are we…friends?”

She looked a bit surprised by that, but then smiled.

“Yeah, we’re friends.”

Chapter Text

Just as the two of them were going to begin talking again, they both heard something. An unexpected disruption to their connection. A woman’s voice, coming from in between the two of them.

"Aww, that was such a nice moment! Sorry for eavesdropping, but I got invested."

The thing is,there wasn’t anyone in between them. There wasn’t a single person nearby in this entire cemetery. No mourners or employees or anything. KT realized that meant there was only one sensible conclusion.

“Are you an actual ghost? Are you buried in this area?”

The voice, now coming from behind her, began to laugh in a very human way.

“No, I’m just camouflaged.” As she said this, the direction of her voice began to change. “Look over here!”, she said, now by one of the scattered trees.

KT turned around, repositioning Terunosuke so he could see as well. For a second, there was still nothing, and she was reconsidering her ghost theory. Then, just like an old slideshow transition, the colors of the tree bark began to fade and warp. Suddenly, a young woman was standing there. A young woman with a tail. Not a tail as in part of a Halloween costume or part of her outfit, but an actual, honest to god tail.

“Okay, so I know you have questions but I will go over the most common ones. First off: yes, I have a tail. Second off: you’re not special. I don’t mean that in a rude way, as you’re stand users. I follow a lot of people around, but I only reveal myself to stand users. Third off: yes, I’m a stand user. That’s where the camouflage comes from. Larutan s’ti. “

KT and Terunosuke glanced at eachother, as if to confirm that this was real. They both had their questions.

“Who are you?” Terunosuke was trying his best to see if this woman seemed familiar in any way. Nothing was coming up.

“What’s your angle? Are you another scam artist?” KT was repeatedly looking over at her tail and then away again, wondering how she hadn’t heard about this before.

“My name is Mao Katahira. And I’m not that type of artist.”

It didn’t ring any bells for Terunosuke, but KT’s jaw dropped.

“Wait. You’re Katahira? THE Katahira? The writer of ‘Otherworld Trawler’? That Katahira?” The woman smiled proudly.

“I am. You’re a fan of mine, I can see that. Thank you.” She smiled, tail swishing back and forth.

“I can’t believe my favorite manga artist is a stand user….and following random people around a cemetery. But I can’t believe you’re here! I’m meeting my favorite artist!”

“Real life is the best inspiration. I learned that from my mentor. I first met him when I was very young, and he used the experience to inspire some of his own work. It’s totally true. This is information about me I don’t even give out in interviews! Sweicretni cilbup evah neve t’nod I. You’re lucky.” She had a million more possible questions, like when these alleged interviews ever happened or if she just spoke backwards. She went with the third option, which was the most obvious.

“Your mentor? Who’s that?”

“Rohan Kishibe.”

Mao said it so casually, but KT’s level of starstruck-ness shot through the roof at this revelation. She felt like doing backflips. She never thought she’d get this excited over a celebrity, but Katahira and Kishibe aren’t just celebrities. They’re manga GODS. Some of the most unique authors of their eras! Kishibe got an exhibition in the goddamn louvre!

“Oh wow! Wow! Holy fuck! Sorry for the profanity, Miss Katahira but HOLY FUCK!!! I knew the surreal aspects of your work were a visual homage to Pink Dark Boy but I had no idea it was because Kishibe was your mentor!”

“No need to apologize. It’s KT, right?”

“Yes! KT Caprae! That’s my name!” She clasped her hands together tightly. “Can I have an autograph? I know I said this already but you’re amazing! Of course you worked with Rohan! Can you get me Rohans autograph?”

“I can get you to meet Rohan.”

If KT hadn’t recently had all of her nutrients boosted, she would have passed out from hearing that. If she wasn’t as concerned about a good impression, she’d be literally jumping for joy. She could feel touch tone almost manifesting behind her. It was vibrating, a blueish blur.

“Really? Why? I can’t believe this is happening! “ Touch Tone’s vibrations were reaching a fever pitch and it was starting to make excited noises. KT shook her hands out a bit and it calmed down.

“You’re both stand users, and you aren’t from Morioh. You’re the type of interesting people that artists like to talk to, and you’ve been through fascinating things. Sgniht gnitanicsaf yrev. Both of you have.” She peered over at Terunosuke, who was somehow closed again. It must have been the wind.

Come to think of it, he hasn’t said anything for a while either. It made sense, considering he didn’t know who she was. She was younger than 22, so she wouldn’t bring back any memories for him. This response probably wasn’t out of place. Nothing the continued lack of response, Mao continued speaking.

“Rohan’s house isn’t too far away, if you want to meet him. His schedule is always open this time of day.”

KT gave her an enthusiastic thumbs up, and briefly turned her attention to her friend.

“Hey, dude, are you good?”

She heard a quiet

“yep.”

and gently put him back into his space in the bag. Then she stood up, dusting off her cargo pants.

“I’d be honored, Miss Katahira!”

Chapter Text

Mao turned around and started to walk out of the cemetery, gesturing for KT to come with her. After a few minutes of nervous excitement, they arrived at their destination.

The first thing that caught her eye was the gate. It was a solid white brick wall, really. It was large and ornate, befitting a famous author, but was also covered in signs. One of them was normal, baring the name “Kishibe” and the address. There was another sign tacked on below it saying “No solicitors”, and another labeled “Beware of Dog”, and another labeled “Private Property. Trespassers will be charged.”. KT stopped, hesitant to even touch the gate, which seemingly had multiple different padlocks. She looked over at Mao, hoping for any sort of explanation but not wanting to ask.

“Most of the padlocks are fake. We’ve had a lot of issues with stalkers, so we have to add some deterrent.”, she said, pulling out a decorated keyring from the pocket of her vest. She unlocked a single padlock and the gate instantly swung open.  The yard was neatly maintained, but had a few dog toys scattered about.

“What about the dog?” KT always thought Rohan would be more of a cat person, so this was interesting.

“Oh, he’s…” her face pressed into a concerned expression.

As she was saying this, a tiny little cream colored puppy came trotting up to the gate.

“He’s harmless, he just thinks my tail is a chew toy. Other than that, he’s just a little baby.”

That was an accurate description. That dog was ABSOLUTELY a little baby.Kt reached down to pet him, and he immediately rolled over, exposing his belly.

“OH MY. Who’s a good boy! Is it you? Are you the good boy? Yes you are! You’re a little baby boy! A little guy! You’re a good boy-“ she paused, reading the name on the pup’s shiny collar. “Bakin! Bakin, you’re a good boy! oh my god! You’re a good boy!” He was wagging his tail and licking KT’s hand, who had sat down to pet him. She was completely immersed in giving the good boy some belly rubs. So immersed in fact, that she didn’t hear the footsteps coming towards her. When she looked up, it was at THE Rohan Kishibe, looking over her.

“How did you get in here? Weren’t the signs enough?” He seemed irritated at her presence. KT looked around for Mao, but didn’t see her anywhere. She’d ditched her.

“Uh-Ms. Katahira let me in, sir? She said you’d want to talk to me? “  KT was trying her very best to stay composed and not disintegrate into an apologetic mess. He sighed, and Bakin trotted over him, pawing at his leg and making little puppy barks. Rohan scooped the dog up like you would a human infant, and continued speaking, as serious as ever.

“Every other day she’s dragging in anyone who seems the slightest bit interesting, as if I can’t go out and do it myself. “

There was a faint yell of “I can hear you, yknow!” from the nearest tree.

“So, what exactly did you do to get her  attention?”

KT felt like she was melting under Rohans judgmental glare. She knew from the internet that he wasn’t the most social person, but how he could manage to be intimidating while holding a puppy like that was beyond her.

“Well, have you ever heard of the 2012 incident? The one where time started acting up?” Rohan’s glare shifted into a look of surprise.

“I remember it. Can we talk more about this inside?” KT’s heart caught in her throat. She followed him up the porch and into a well decorated living room, trying to figure out what this could mean. Rohan let Bakin out of his arms and into his dog bed, grabbed a clipboard, and sat down in the armchair across from her.

“So, what was your experience of the incident-“

“I have questions to ask you. Not the other way around. But first, let’s establish some rules.”, he said, tapping his pen against the paper. KT stiffened in her seat, embarrassed.

“First off: I ask the questions, you answer them. Secondly: You don’t take any photos, videos, anything. Thirdly, you don’t tell ANYONE about this. “

With a dramatic flick of his pen, a white and gold figure materialized behind him, floating in the air. Another stand. Of course Rohan had a stand. KT was trying her absolute hardest to not ask any of the many questions bubbling up inside of her; and was very close to failing.

“So you can see Heaven’s Door. You’re a stand user, as I expected. This makes things a lot easier. Would you mind if I made this interview quicker? I do have a call to take in an hour.”

She nodded, expecting some sort of lightning round questions; both the stand and Rohan practically lunged at her. Her glasses fell to the floor as she felt her face…opening? Not in a bloody way, but like a book. Rohan started to scan her pages,reading the contents out loud. The Extremely Personal contents.

“You’re 18 years old, your real name is KT Caprae, birth name..” He mercifully skipped down a few lines, though the details were still uncomfortably personal. She was regretting agreeing to this.

“So your stand is just literal mind reading. Cool.” she said, hoping the snark would be picked up on. Now she knew why people said “never meet your heroes.” Your heroes might be stand users who read all of your personal information.

“Yes, now let me finish this. You live in Cape Canerval, Florida, in the house of your mother, Marina Caprae, who died in 2019. You’re 17, but you’re legally 18 due to a paperwork snafu…You don’t know who your father is.”

He flipped through some more of her pages, and she made a mental note to never try and read Terunosuke. This was also incredibly physically uncomfortable.

“Oh, this is what I was looking for. Perfect. I don’t have much to say on your experience with 2012. It’s the same as mine, but this, this interests me! Just yesterday your innate stand ability was unlocked when you fell out of a library window, after successfully finding the ‘Enigma Book.’, who you now know to be a former stand user named Terunosuke Miyamoto.” His face lit up with excitement, as he continued to read.

“You currently have Terunosuke on you right now. Also, you’re thinking that my stand sucks because it’s much more rewarding to ask people questions normally. Ok, I’m done with you. I am glad you like my work that much, but I’m not adding as much Catholic subtext as you thought I was. I’m not even religious.”

And with that, her face returned to normal in an instant.

“What-I didn’t give you permission to do that what the hell! I’m definitely putting this online! “

“No, you aren’t. I didn’t trust that you wouldn’t leak this information, so I wrote down that you’d follow rules two and three to the letter.”

She should have just told Mao to screw off.

Chapter Text

Before KT could even react, Rohan grabbed Terunosuke right from her bag.

“Oh, this is fascinating. I’d always been interested in this legend, but I never found the time to look for it myself. Thank you for bringing this to me. I really do mean it.”

“What? Give him back! You can’t just do that!” 

“I can. While I was reading you, I also wrote that you can’t try and take this book from me while I’m reading it.”

It was true. She couldn't even try to move from her seat, to reach out and grab her friend. She was frozen in place. Even trying to mentally command Touch Tone to help him was impossible.  This was fucked. While KT tried in vain to do anything, Rohan examined the cover, tracing the designs with his finger. 

“So I've heard your name is Terunosuke.”

He didn’t respond. 

“Put him down, Kishibe!” KT still couldn't reach out to get him, but Rohan didn’t say anything about her talking to him while he was trying to read. She still had some ammunition. 

“I’ll be quick. Please, stay quiet.” 

This was a nightmare. Rohan began to open him, and Terunosuke couldn't even flinch away from this unwanted attention. This feeling of being pried open and read was too familiar. It must have happened to him hundreds of times. He didn't want to be investigated or interrogated or similarly probed at.  He thought he could just stay quiet and avoid all of this. But despite his best effort, he was still being held in unfamiliar hands.

"Or what?" KT stood up from the couch.
I’m not trying to take Terunosuke back, so I can move. Great.

She stepped right over the center table in an attempt to intimidate, knocking multiple magazines and a crystal drinking cup onto the carpet while doing so.

“Or I'll make you.” Rohan didn’t even look up at her, but his voice was dripping with irritation. KT stepped back and bumped into the coffee table. Holding Terunosuke in one hand, he again began to read aloud. 

“This is even more interesting than I could have imagined! Your memories… They’re all completely gone. Painted over. You can’t remember your family, date of birth, hobbies, anything. Usually I can’t tell if people have forgotten things, but I’ve never read anyone with amnesia before. There’s a few faded old things, but almost everything in your mind is from the past couple of days.”

Terunosuke knew this, but he still hated to hear it.

“Unfortunately, my stand can’t make you remember anything. But this is still really intriguing.”

He was sick of this. Enigma wasn’t responding and he couldn’t move. It was always like this. He could never stop people from reading him. 

“Put me down.” He knew it would be useless, but it was all he could do. 

“Just a secon-”

There was a horrible noise. It sounded like an excavator dumping a pile of ceramic vases onto concrete. The once-solid wooden coffee table had shattered like glass, spread across the carpet in countless splintery shards. KT had a crushed crystal drinking cup under her boot, Touch Tone by her side and a smug smile on her face. 

“Put him down.”

“You shouldn’t have been able to do that.” Rohan was staring at the pile of wood that was formerly a table.

“You must have forgotten the details of my stand ability. When I stepped over that table, it wasn’t just to intimidate. It was so I could link it and break it if you kept being a douche. “

Taking advantage of Rohan’s distraction, Touch Tone quickly grabbed Terunosuke and handed him back to KT. 

“How did you do that? I wrote that you couldn’t take him!”

“You said I couldn’t take him while you were trying to read him. You weren’t trying to read him right now, so I can take him."

“You know what I meant! Don't get caught up in stupid semantics!”

“Nah, I really didn’t know. Be more specific next time.”

Heaven’s door reached out to her, but Touch Tone reacted and dragged KT across the room. Making direct eye contact with Rohan, she held a magazine in one hand as Touch Tone rested the other on the nearby wall. A blue string shot out and connected the two. 

“Hey, Teru,this magazine is now linked to his house.”

Touch Tone slid across the room, carrying them away from Heaven’s Door and connecting another wall.

“Yeah, I see.”

It slid again. The room was starting to look like it had a laser security system in place.

“ Is there anything you want me to ask him to do? “

Touch tone was still running around the room, carrying KT like a ragdoll cat.

“Hmmm..Try and make me human again. Or, have him give me Enigma back.”

“Got it. Mr. Rohan, please try those things. I personally don’t have any requests. If you write anything else in him, or write anything in me, I’ll destroy your house. I’m faster, so don’t try it.”

Rohan clenched his fists, nails digging deep into his palms. In the past, he’d certainly have destroyed his house to best some teenagers with more audacity than common sense. He’d never stoop to such a level to follow these blackmail demands. But now…
He glanced over at Bakin, who was being pet by a partially-camouflaged Mao, and sighed.

“Fine. I’ll do it.”

Chapter Text

For once I don't mind being held. The hands are gloved, and they belong to someone I trust. 

I don't trust the one reading me. Sure, I know that KT would destroy his house with her ability the second he tried anything. I can still hear the chirps of her stand, she's really quite prepared. But despite my faith in her, I know that this ability is still trying to probe the little bits of mind I have.

While he flips to the "right place to write", I'm watching his eyes scan back and forth across my pages, and those quick flashes of excitement he's trying his best to mask.

I see every small detail like that, every attribute most people would consider too insignificant to care about. These attributes are the most important of all. People can choose to say how they feel, what they will do, and who they are. They can put on a brave face or act like they know everything. But the only way to actually, truly know a person is to observe the details, the things that they do and DON’T think about. No one can actually hide the person they are inside. It leaks out every chance it gets.

I know that Enigma worked on fear. If I observed someone, I could fold them up into a piece of paper as easily as I folded anything else. I’d just need to discover the way that their fear showed.

Lightning fast and mercifully painless, the mangaka writes something in me with a dramatic flourish. For a second, nothing changes.

Then a spark ignites.

This must be his stand. It certainly fits the name “Enigma”, as it’s emblazoned with multiple large question marks.

It was standing right in front of KT, and holding Terunosuke instead of her. Rohan dismissed Heaven's door. Satisfied with his performance,he settled back into his chair with a self-assured smile.

Enigma didn’t stop moving for a second. After pacing in uneven loops across the room, It set Terunosuke down on the sofa, readjusted his position, picked him back up, and repeated the process multiple times.

KT had taken a few moments to carefully craft the best question to ask.

“So..”

“Yeah?” Enigma opened Terunosuke up, revealing an expression that can only be described as electrified glee.

“You're happy with this!”

His stand moved him up and down in a nodding motion.

“I don't even have the  words! I... I'm doing something! I’m moving! This has to be a dream! Please tell me you're real, KT.”

“I’m real. And now I don't have to pick you up! You said you disliked that, right?"

The two continued their excited exchange; Touch Tone and Enigma were doing various uncoordinated secret handshakes and making their respective noises of excitement ( Enigma was making the sounds that occurs when you wave laminated paper around).

“Hold on, let me try something. Hand me a random-wait, I can do that myself!”

He yanked a shard of mahogany off of the rug. Instead of giving his stand a copious amount of splinters, it was instantly converted into a piece of paper.

It looked just like a standard 8 by 12 printer sheet, folded unevenly the way schoolteachers call " Hamburger style”.

This genuinely impressed KT.

"So you can just do this to anything?There are so many possibilities for what your stand can do!”

"I think so! Just let me try it on something bigger.”

Enigma reached for the sofa, but Rohan, who now had Bakin curled up on his lap, had also had enough.

“Absolutely not. You two have already done enough damage to my home. Get out or I’ll take his stand  away again. "

He didn’t  need to emphasize any further. KT rushed to the door, with Terunosuke rapidly following. As she slipped her boots back on, she looked up to see Mao looming over her. Flustered, she gave her best attempt at a response.

“ Oh! Miss Katahira!"

Terunosuke continued walking outside.

“Yes, KT?”

“Sorry for causing a mess in there..”

“No, it’s all right. Rohan called an upcoming character I was extremely proud of “trite, illogical and cliche”, so I wanted to prank him. Great job. “

“Really?”

“Yes. You’re talented.”

KT’s face was glowing red, and in her excitement from the high praise of her idol, she failed to say anything but her prepared question.

"Can you tell me how Rohan reacted in 2012? He wasn't really that clear.Also thank you so much! Thank you!!!”

Mao laughed a bit, in a way that was kind and not judgmental.

“To be honest, I don't really remember it. Probably because I was only around ten years old.”

"Wait you’re just a year older than me? And you’re that talented?”

This question remained unanswered.

Before KT could pass out from excitement, Mao flicked her tail and faded into the background.

Chapter Text

They began the long walk back to the hotel. The area around them was somewhat forested. They were taking back roads as not to confuse pedestrians with a seemingly floating book. As fun as starting her own urban legend would be, she just wanted to go and chill in her hotel room. If she hadn’t have had that miracle water earlier today, she probably would have passed out already.

“You came here on a vacation, right? “

KT turned to look at Terunosuke. She knew it was really his stand she was looking at; but for the time being it was easiest to consider it part of his body. That was how it was being used.

“Yeah, I did. I’m sort of glad that today was so eventful. I mean, I am exhausted, but I’m heading back to Florida tomorrow afternoon.”

“Florida?”

“Part of America. I only came here for a few days. The 14th to the 16th. ”

Terunosuke’s voice started to shake.

“Oh. You’re leaving. I knew that but…I’m coming with you, right? I can stay in ‘Florida’ with you?”

<author’s note: it is important that you know he said Florida in an imitation of how KT said it. KT pronounced Florida like it was a Japanese word, but she said it in an American accident. Terunosuke assumed Florida was pronounced EXACTLY like that. I will probably never do an author note again. >

“Of course. Is there anything you want to see in your hometown before we go?”

He seemed to breath a sigh of relief, despite his stand lacking any sort of mouth.

“I don’t consider this place my home anymore.There’s nothing left for me to do here. “

“I get the feeling. That reminds me of a question I had for you. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.“

“I’ll answer anything.”

“How did you spend those years as a book? I know you said you were asleep,but Even a few days in solitary confinement can irreparably damage someone, and I don’t know if you were sleeping 24/7. Either way, after a few decades, you shouldn’t be..” -She gestured indeterminately. -“Here.”

There were a few silent moments. It was a later and cooler part of the day, the bugs were chirping in the trees, and KT grabbed the strap of her bag a bit tighter. She worried she had probed too much.

Finally Terunosuke spoke, in a more muted tone.

“I wasn’t here.”

“What do you mean?”

“In the beginning, all I could do was think and watch people.  After a couple of…years? I got too tired to keep thinking. So I stopped and I stayed that way.“

There are no good responses to a statement like that. If KT ignored the emotional factor it made sense. Entering an unconscious state preserved the basics of his mind.

But that wasn’t the type of thing she could say to him, and she wasn’t ignoring the emotional factor. It was just that none of her emotions had the right words to them.

“You were in a coma for years?”

“I sort of felt like I was in a deep sleep, but I know I didn’t have any dreams.

I just disappeared. I was gone. I was as sentient as any other book on the shelf. I can sort of remember things happening around me, but these memories are a mush of random noises and lights. That’s about it.”

“Oh.”

“It was like..I can’t describe it. I hope you never have to experience it. I’d try and start my mind again but I couldn’t do it on my own. I was trapped in stasis. And then you found me.”

They had reached the edge of the forest and were standing by an intersection, Morioh hotel visible in the distance.

“I have a question for you, KT.”

“What is it?”

“What’s it like being a person in ‘Florida’?”

“OH where do I even start about that. Do you want to hear some of the absolute bullshit that goes on in the good old sunshine state?”

”Yes. I absolutely would.”

Chapter Text

Well. It was finally time. After a mercifully chill night of explaining what YouTube is and then watching YouTube, the 16th of July had arrived.

KT was pacing around the hotel room, gathering up her stuff and messily tying part of her hair into a bun. Terunosuke was a book, so didn’t have much to do to get ready. He watched her pack from his pillow for a while. Then he felt like being helpful, so he sent enigma to fold up all the complimentary hotel soaps, depositing them into KT’s luggage. It was better than stopping and thinking about how he was leaving a hometown that he couldn’t remember. He guessed “Florida” would be his home now.

KT seemed equally preoccupied. She had barely stopped talking ever since Terunosuke met her, but she had only said a few words since she woke up this morning.

That’s worrying..

He thought, beginning to zone out.

“I think you may need to go in my bag for the airport. I’m really sorry.”

This snapped him out of his daze, and he saw KT with her bag open.  Her voice was unusually subdued. Definitely worrying.  Enigma  quickly put him in, adjusting a few times for comfort, as she held her bag straps tight.

The wait in the lobby and ride to the airport remained uncomfortably quiet.

As did all the airport lines and queues and everything, until the X-ray machine thing.

KT, turning to the partially manifested Enigma next to her, spoke. Again, it was unsure and almost a whisper.

“Uh-you’re going to have to go through the X-ray machine, hope that’s okay with you.”

That was okay with him. In case you want to know what the inside of an airport X-ray looks like, it’s dark. He thought KT would appreciate that knowledge, but she just absentmindedly nodded in response.

Once they reached the boarding gate, Terunosuke finally gathered the courage to say something. He discreetly took himself out of her bag and set himself down on the seat next to her. She glanced over at him. Then he asked the question that had been on his mind.

“Are you okay? You’re acting really different. And you’re holding your bag strap.”

She sighed.

“Sorry for saying this-you’re too damn observant.Not in a bad way.. it’s just no one has ever noticed- Nevermind. I’m not.”

“Ah…What is it?”

“ It doesn’t really matter, but I came to Morioh to gather proof of the supernatural I could put online. I couldn’t do that.”

“You found me, I think that counts. In fact, you did really well.”

“But I can’t put that on the forums, you’re my friend. I don’t want to just exploit you like that. And I don’t think I can post about stands. It feels wrong. I’ll try and find something else to post about. And I can’t post ANYTHING about Rohan. I’ve tried. I’m incapable of typing it out, it comes out like a keysmash, so that’s not an option. And I don’t have evidence for anything else!“- She was smiling, but her voice was cracking.-“I’ll  have to look around in Florida for something paranormal. I’ll have to do that. Yeah.”

People were now staring at the girl apparently talking to no one. Terunosuke put himself back into her bag.

“Gate C Boarding.”

Neither of them said much more.

KT went through the motions of getting ready for takeoff, with Terunosuke resting on the uninhabited seat next to her (seatbelt on, of course.) She was hoping to look out a window. That one small hope was quashed when a flight attendant passed by, shutting the windows one by one.

“Hey, why did you do that?”

KT reached to re-open the window, but the attendant slammed it shut again.

“It’s a special request for the flight. It’s required.”  He had a strange look in his eyes.  KT stared at him for a few tense seconds, and he stared back.

A hour or two  later, long after the plane had taken off, KT was watching “The Truman Show” on her laptop. (The start of her globe spanning flight movie binge part 2 playlist.) Terunosuke was very asleep and planning to be for the rest of the flight. Flight attendants again emerged from the cabin and began to take orders for food, but one of them stood out. She was wearing a deep mauve uniform, covered in various pins and brooches. Her complexion was unhealthily pale and her hair was unusually long. No one else seemed to notice her difference in appearance. And she wasn’t talking to anyone, either. That was until she glided over to KT.

“Hello miss… would you like another drink?“

Her voice was smooth and beautiful…Wait, did she have fangs?

Chapter Text

Anyone would be flustered when someone gets in their face, and KT was no exception.

Is she a vampire? The windows are all closed, shes pale, she has fangs, No, that doesn’t make sense. There’s no puncture wounds on her neck..Is she breathing? Yeah, but I don’t think she’s blinking…why is she so close to me?

The woman was leaned forward, face mere inches from KTs. Waiting for a response, probably. It didn’t make it any less uncomfortable.

“A ginger ale. I guess. Yeah. Thank you.”,

she stammered out, worried that she seemed like a total weirdo. The flight attendant continued to look at her for a few seconds, then leaned back.

“Of course.”, she said, with a too-sharp grin.

She turned around and glided down the aisle; bumping past some other stewards and stewardesses. They didn’t even look at her. A few minutes later, she returned with a single cup of iced ginger ale. There were no other drinks on the tray, no other orders taken. She was attending to KT and KT alone. The attendant walked back to the cabin; still remaining unacknowledged by everyone.  KT didn’t touch her ginger ale.

One movie, (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) later, the planes speakers crackled to life.

“Due to unforeseen weather circumstances- csshk- This plane will not be continuing on the regular route. We are headed towards Italy and will be stopping there before continuing to Florida.Your tickets back to Florida will be comped. We apologize for the detour.”

As soon as the other passengers had processed the message, grumbling broke out across the plane.

“Italy? We’re going the wrong way!”

“What the hell is this? You think they would have told us before hand.”

“If we’re ending up in Italy, I think we deserve more than a free ticket as compensation!”

“Mom? Are we still going to make it to Disney?”

Everyone was concerned about their travel plans, but KT wasn’t worried about that at all. Instead, she thought something more sinister might be taking place on the plane. The closed windows… the strange woman… The unexpected detour… there had to be something very, very wrong.

Seeing that everyone around her was only paying attention to their own confusion, she took the opportunity.  Terunosuke should know what was happening. She started to lightly tap on his cover until his “eyes” opened.

“..KT..?“ , he mumbled, barely sounding awake.

“Quick update, the plane has been going to Italy this whole time and I think there’s something wrong with that flight attendant.”

She saw the distinctive purple glimmer of Enigma, just barely manifesting enough to emote. It gave her a faint shrug.

“.Sorry…I’m really tired…wake me up when the plane lands.”

His stand faded, and his eyes closed. He had fallen back asleep.

For a few minutes, KT considered sending Touch Tone out, to investigate and see if anyone else on this plane was a stand user (as she suspected). But the risks of that would be much higher than the reward. Touch tone wasn’t very subtle, and if a stand fight broke out on an airplane, there’s no way to sugarcoat the outcome. People would die.

There was nothing she could do. She couldn’t get off this plane, couldn’t get help or fight. And there were still hours left in the flight.

She put her headphones back on, covered Terunosuke with her spare hoodie, and tried to return to her movie marathon.

Every attendant or passenger that walked through the aisle sent a jolt of adrenaline through her, and she’d shut her laptop and look around, hoping to not see that woman. Every time, the woman was nowhere in sight, and after a few minutes, she’d let her guard down again.

After a few repetitions of this cycle, KT finally dozed off.

She should have kept herself alert. Then she would have seen the glowing eyes from down the aisle.

Chapter Text

The sun had yet to shine on this part of the world, but their Florida-bound plane to Italy had touched down at the airport. The flight attendants were rousing the passengers from their sleep; giving directions on boarding and tickets and gates. KT was one of said passengers. The first thing she did was check her neck for puncture wounds. She found none of those. That was a relief. Knowing she wasn’t any sort of undead, she looked around for the strange stewardess. She again found none of those, only seeing regular, blue-clad airline employees. She grabbed her belongings and friend, and began trying to process what could have happened.

Maybe she was a stand. Or a ghost. Maybe that whole thing was a dream…No, I don’t have lucid dreams. Hopefully she won’t be on the transfer flight. What gate am I supposed to go-

She was pulled through a door that most certainly was not supposed to be open. She didn’t notice the asphalt of the airport runway, or the chill to the air, or the pre-dawn darkness. She noticed the fingers in her neck. Not on,or around, but IN.

Instinctively, she summoned Touch Tone, elbowing back at her unknown attacker. The sharp edges punctured something, and she was free from their grasp.

Good. The wounds are shallow,
She thought, fingers grazing the cuts on her neck.

KT turned around to see, unsurprisingly, the attendant in red. She was bent over, staring at the wound in her abdomen…and watching it slowly heal.

“Ah, I should have expected this,”-she said, with a chillingly hungry look in her eyes-“I thought you would just be an average freak, but you’re one of those stand users, aren’t you?”

She took a step back, shaking, but the woman took a step forward.

“Yes, you certainly are. This will be delicious.” She took another step forward. KT was frozen in fear, almost dazed with it. She saw the name tag on her now-bloodstained blouse.

Her name is Moschino. She is a vampire. And she’s not a stand user.

There was no time to try to apply logic or rationality. No time to ask questions, no matter how many she would have usually had. Moschino was still walking towards her, now without a scratch.

She was in her stand’s range, so she hit her again, with all her force. The vampire slid back. Making eye contact with KT, she began to lick the blood from her freshly sliced arms.

“Darling, if you go out fighting, it’ll hurt much more. Why don’t you just let me eat? The taste I got was so delicious.”

As she took a second to preenherself and heal, KT saw that familiar purple hue next to her. Terunosuke was thankfully awake.

“What’s she saying? I don’t know English-wait, you’re bleeding. Are you okay?”

His voice was emanating from the stand, as it apparently had speakers.

“Yeah, it’s uh-just a flesh wound. Basically she’s a vampire and trying to kill me.”

“Vampires are real.”

“Yeah, I would be excited but-FUCK! She’s coming back!”

Before KT had a chance to attack with Touch Tone, Enigma unsuccessfully lunged out to punch her. The hit connected, the form was fine, it just didn’t do any damage. It didn’t even break her stride.

“What was that supposed to be? Have you run out of steam? Or is there another one of you? A two course meal? “
Moschino was laughing, walking back towards them.
Fight or flight kicked in. Touch Tone scooped her up and started to run. They were getting closer and closer to the perceived safety of the airport, the fence/wall of the airport is visible-

Pain shot through KT’s leg, touch tone disappeared for a second from the shock. Her bag fell off, taking Terunosuke and Enigma with it. Blood was soaking her cargo pants. No weapon was in sight. Enigma got to its feet, dusting itself off and carrying Terunosuke. KT tried to get up, but her leg was feeling numb, her efforts were futile, Moschino was approaching.

“You may be wondering what that just was. In the words of a man I met once, this is an advanced vampiric technique known as ‘Space Ripper Stingy Eyes’. It’s good for when your prey runs..” -she scooped some of KT’s lost blood up from the ground and slurped it out of her hands-“DON’T laugh at the name or I will devein you like a shrimp.”

She hit Moschino again, forming a sizable hole.
“Dear, will you stop doing that?”
And again.
“Stop trying to fight back, it’s nicer to die peacefully.”
The wounds were knitting up quicker than she could make them.
“It’s useless! Just let me eat you, damn it!”
She turned to see Terunosuke, not sure as to why. Maybe so he could know to get away. A section of the solid metal fence separating the airplane from the runway was missing, and he was holding a slightly uneven paper airplane. The horizon was starting to glow with daylight. They nodded at each other, and he threw it.

As KT caught it, she felt a dead cold creep through her already numb leg. Moschino had taken her chance during KT’s distraction, and she was preparing her meal.

“Useless bitches like you taste better frozen, wouldn’t you think?” She snarled. KT summoned Touch tone, or part of it. Her whole lower body was freezing. As quickly as she could, she grabbed something from her pocket, a pen of some sort, and linked it to the paper airplane, gliding the former back to Terunosuke. She could only hope he caught it.

“What are you trying to do? You can’t hurt me with stationary. Or is the cold making you delirious? Moschino was right beside KT now, stroking (scratching) her face. In one movement, with the last of her energy, she tossed the paper airplane over Moschino’s head-

And steel fenceposts came raining down, impaling the woman.

“Stakes..only work in myths, you know. You haven’t killed me.” She was desperately trying to claw her way through the metal. KT still didn’t have the strength to stand up, but dragged herself a few feet away. Enigma carried Terunosuke over, his cover now splattered with blotches of pen ink.

“I figured, but I’m willing to bet sunlight does. You closed all those windows on that plane for a reason, didn’t you?"

The sun rises quicker than you’d think. KT and Terunosuke didn’t need to do anything special, just wait. Moschino was rambling and screaming in Italian, panicked as everyone who knows they are about to die. The first few beams of sunlight streamed into the sky..and destroyed Moschino completely.

A few miles away, a red telephone rings with breaking news.

Chapter Text

Back to the airport runway. The sun had risen, the danger was gone.
And KT’s injuries were still painfully present. The claw marks down her face and neck, the pressure washer-like wound in her leg. They were still bleeding, but not badly. The adrenaline of the fight was kicking out. She was tired. Her legs were numb. Her head was woozy. Terunosuke was.. somewhere. She couldn’t see him, but she could see Enigma. At least he was safe.

She tried to stand up, to limp out of the runway, but that was unsuccessful; Her injured leg was unwilling to let her walk on it.
So she dragged herself out of the runway instead.

Though, even that was a struggle. Touch tone appeared, because four arms were better than one. After a too-long amount of time, she finally reached an oasis. A small corner between luggage containers. She got her back against a wall like the injured animal she was, and shielded by the arms of her stand, she started to dig through her belongings. Desperately.
She had supplies in there somewhere.
Enigma carried Terunosuke over. He didn’t say anything to her, but nestled himself in an unoccupied bag compartment.

While she bandaged herself up, it became increasingly difficult to deny how bad the situation she was in was. It wasn’t just because of her injury or location. With no good unsuspicious way to get back to the terminal or explain her bloodstained clothes-
I’ll miss my flight, maybe get involved with the police, I can’t pay to get a ticket to home,-

She felt her emotions running over. Tears were welling in her eyes. As if the situation couldn’t get any more stressful, another person appeared from behind the luggage container.

She was tall and gaunt, but the sunlight meant she couldn’t be a vampire. But on second thought, she didn’t look like law enforcement either, with her ruffled bell bottoms and sleeveless shirt. The only thing that made KT think she was police was the pistol she was aiming at her head. And her eyepatch implied countless other possible, dangerous. occupations.

Touch Tone started to go on the defense, but KT stopped it. She didn’t know if she could catch a bullet and didn’t want to find out.

“You would like to stay alive, wouldn’t you? Then put your stands away now. Both of you, including the book.” Kt put her hands up and Touch Tone faded out. Terunosuke had no hands and Enigma didn’t move. The woman’s eye narrowed in dissatisfaction.

“Wait! My friend-he doesn’t know English. He’s not ignoring you I promise.”
She said through sobs, as nonthreateningly as possible.
She took her finger off the trigger, with a briefly pensive expression on her face.
“You may translate for him, but I will still shoot if either of you try and attack. Now, will you listen? ”

KT nodded, shaking. And after Terunosuke received the message, Enigma demanifested, though not before closing the bag. The woman began to speak again.

“My name is Panzanella. You will listen to me and do exactly as I say, or I will shoot you and I will kill you. I recommend you listen. You get that? Good. Now, you’re going to get up and walk to your right; to that gate in the airport fence. I will follow directly behind you, gun to your head. If you try and run, I will shoot you. You won’t talk until we get to my car, and then you will not talk unless I talk to you. If I see your stands it will be seen as a sign of aggression. Judging by the confusion on your face, I’m sure you have many questions, and I am sure you will not need to ask many of those. I will explain in the car. And tell that book that he needs to stay quiet and not try anything either. Now, you’re going to get up and do what I just told you.”

KT did what she was told. Her leg cooperated enough to stand and shuffle over to the gate. Maybe it was the adrenaline giving her a boost. She could feel Panzanella’s gun on the back of her skull.

Reaching the gate, she pushed through to see a sleek, black, and certainly non-police car.

“Get in.”

She continued to do as she was told. Once Panzanella closed the door, she finally began to explain.

“I can tell from your crying that you’re very confused and possibly scared. Well, I am no common criminal, and I am not kidnapping you. I am an elite member of the most prestigious criminal organization in Italy.My boss may think I am telling you too much, but seeing what you just did, you ought to know. You just killed Moschino, who is an extremely high profile target of Passione. She has killed countless of our elite operatives and has been trying to overtake our territory. And you have SOMEHOW eliminated her. So as a member of Passione, I am taking you in for questioning. You can respond now.”

Despite having permission to speak, KT had no clue what to say.

“So-wait. This is the fucking stand user Italian mafia? The STAND USER ITALIAN MAFIA. What.”

“Yes. And you two are now people of utmost concern to us. Take all the time you need to process, or tell your friend.”

“Terunosuke, we’ve been kidnapped by the Italian mafia, which is full of stand users, apparently.“

From the depths of her bag, Terunosuke responded.

“…Got it. Are you okay?”

“Physically, I’m not doing any worse. Emotionally? I’m terrified, to be honest. If I lied I know you’d see right through me.”

“That makes sense. Me..I’m not an optimist, but.. this is much more exciting than just being in the library. Anything is. But if there are stand users in this mafia, you really need to be careful.”

“What about you? You should be careful too.”

“The only way my situation could get worse is if you were gone.”

The rest of the ride was silent, save for Panzanella occasionally speaking to someone unseen in Italian. In any other situation, this would catch KTs attention, but she was trying to parse everything else that had happened. She killed a vampire and is stuck in Italy with the mafia. And.. she’s really important to Terunosuke.

Before she could fully unravel the layers of bafflement that the former situation held, they were at their destination. A nice, but unassuming building, one that looked like any other slightly high end Italian office.

“Tell your friend that we’re here and get out. I still have my gun, by the way. Don’t try anything."

Chapter Text

Panza got out of her car, which KT had now noticed was a modified hearse, and knocked on the door. She said something in Italian and it was opened to reveal.. the most ridiculously gilded building interior KT had ever seen. In the Italian sunshine, it could have blinded someone not equipped with cool sunglasses There wasn’t an inch that wasn’t covered in filigree or crystal. The marble support pillars were covered in  white quartz flowers and bejeweled ladybugs. She felt like if she breathed wrong she’d be in debt for life.

She wanted to stop and say something, but Panzanella kept pushing her through, giving her no time to gawk. After being rushed through a series of similarly opalescent rooms, they entered a sort of meeting space and immediately knew all eyes were on them. Both KT and Terunosuke began taking note of their audience.

On the left of the table was a woman with one golden eye, a pastel frilled dress, and an immensely satisfied expression. On the right were two men. The first had a 3 piece suit with 3 times the patterns, a…unique hat, and a pistol casually aimed at KT. The other was dressed in purple with long white hair and a web of scars across his throat. And in the center, sitting upon the type of gilded throne you only see in fantasy JRPGS, was an imposing man as golden as the room around him.

He must be the boss of this mafia.

thought Terunosuke, who was trying his best to make sense of the situation with his limited information.

Panzanella sat down next to the eye woman, and motioned for KT to sit down as well. The boss  was staring at her with an indeterminate expression as she put Terunosuke on the table in front of her.  She would have really liked to speak, but all her words were blocked in her throat, so a few tense moments passed.

Finally, the man in the patterned suit and strange hat spoke up, though not to her.

“Panza, are you really sure these are the right people?”

Panzanella side-eyed him, but the white haired man was the one to respond.

“Panzanella doesn’t make mistakes. I’m not doubting her.”

“Then where’s the other guy? She said that two stand users killed that bitch. I’m looking at one stand user. Unless the ghosts lied to her, she might have gotten something wrong.”

KT’s voice was still too blocked to correct him, but thankfully, Panzanella spoke up for her.

“Oh, the other stand user? He’s right there, on the table.”

“Are you telling me he’s that book? Is this stand bullshit?”

“I assume it is. It’s always stand bullshit. “

“You two are correct. It seems to be stand bullshit. He’s not dead, but he’s not really alive. He has a stand. He’s self-aware. I don’t know much else. ”

“Can he hear what we’re saying about him?”

“According to the girl, it looks like he can, but he apparently doesn’t speak Italian.”

“Hm.”

The golden eye woman joined the conversation, with a voice like sugared arsenic.

“Babe. I’ll ask you something you do know. Did that bitch suffer as she died? Did she feel the pain she inflicted on her? Did she go straight to hell where she belongs?”

Panzanella smiled for the first time since KT had seen her.

“Champagne, darling, I’d say she did. 5 stakes through her body-that finished her off well. And yes, she went straight to hell.”

The white haired man spoke up again.

“Now I’m doubting too. That worked? I thought that the stake thing was a myth. And are you really telling me that this random girl we’ve never heard of before and a fucking book could kill her when Sheila couldn’t? This story is too sketchy.”

“ I thought you said I didn’t make mistakes, Fugo. And it was the sun that did her in. The stakes pinned her down. “

Before anyone else could respond, the boss interrupted.

“Everyone, quiet. It doesn’t matter how it happened. We need to deal with them. Pannacotta, you translate for the book. I assume he speaks Japanese, as the flight was coming from Japan. Mista and Champagne, keep standing guard so they don’t try anything.”- wow, the mafia really likes that phrase. , KT thought-“If they move to attack, don’t hesitate. Panzanella, cross-check every word they say; I assume there are plenty of spirits ready to do so. “

They all nodded in agreement . KT sat up straighter in her high-backed chair. Terunosuke flipped himself open with Enigma.

“So, who are you, and who do you work for? “

Mustering all of her effort, KT spoke.

“My- my name is KT Caprae and I have multiple part time jobs, though I don’t work in this country. And I’m probably going to get fired because I was supposed to go into work today.”

“My name is… Terunosuke Miyamoto and I don’t think I have a job.”

“Interesting. Caprae, who is the contractor that hired you to kill Moschino. Someone overseas? And it’s not typical for assassins to work for multiple groups.. Miyamoto, how did you get associated with this trained assassin? You’re lucky you didn’t take out one of our own or this interrogation would be… much less pleasant for the two of you. “

Before Fugo could even translate for Terunosuke, Panzanella stood up from her seat.

“Don, hold on a moment. There’s new news. Enzo-one of the spirits-He was at the airport, he’s a traveler. He’s never lied to me, we go way back. He says that this girl is not an assassin. There’s no way she’s ever killed before. He says that she killed Moschino in self defense, and tried to run away during their fight. The only reason Moschino died was because she attacked this girl and her friend first.”

“Oh. Caprae, Miyamoto..You could be a great help to us.” The man’s facade remained golden.

“Tell me, how much would it take for you to kill again?”

Chapter Text

KT paused, considering her answer. Terunosuke had his prepared, and instantly responded.

“My body. I want my human body back, exactly the way it was in 1999. If you’re a mafia of stand users, surely one of you can make me human again. And I’ll need to become human before I do a single thing. Consider that a failsafe, so you don’t take advantage of me. Then, once I have my body back, I will kill for you.”

Before Fugo could even begin to translate his request, the boss stood up from his throne, signaling to his subordinates to stay where they were.

“Wait, are you leaving? I haven’t told you what I’d kill for yet?!”

KT said, sitting up straight in her seat with indignance.

“Caprae, you can tell that to my associates. I must speak to Miyamoto privately.”

He moved to pick Terunosuke up, but before his hands made contact, he summoned Enigma to lift himself off of the table. The stand was pacing around in that excited, uneven manner, and Terunosuke’s voice was full of hopeful desperation.

“There’s someone who can give my body back?”

“Yes. Everyone else, stay here and talk to Caprae.”

Terunosuke followed the boss out, glancing back at KT before leaving the room. She gave him a nervous thumbs up.

As he followed him through the overdecorated hallways, the boss began to speak.

“Removing you from the room was absolutely necessary. You see, you are about to witness something.. beyond our world. A power that can cause unimaginable pain or unbelievable miracles.”

He grabbed a small potted plant off of the shelf for no apparent reason.

“What? Isn’t that just all stands? I mean, unless your stand is the weak type, it’s the type that can ruin lives.”

“I figure from you saying that that you are in this form because of a stand. But the powers of other stands are unimportant compared to this.

He entered a small, dimly lit room containing nothing other than a table, two chairs, and a single box.

The boss took a seat in one of the chairs, and Terunosuke had Enigma sit in the other. Then, a golden aura surrounded the boss, and the plant in his hands morphed and shifted into a small, plain key. Terunosuke cringed a little at the sight of the transformation. Then, the man unlocked the small box, and took out an ornate arrow decorated with a beetle. A stand arrow, something familiar to Terunosuke, but not.

“There is a power that, in all honesty, none should wield. And yet, I, Giorno Giovanna, have it completely under my control. This power, Gold Experience Requiem, can untwist and reweave the strings of fate. Make what was Meant To Be what Almost Was, or make the inevitable tantalizingly out of reach . Regardless of what has been done, Requiem can cause things to be exactly as they were. To put it simply, I can undo things.”

He slid his finger across the edge of the arrow, just lightly enough to not break the skin. Terunosuke took a few moments to process what  Giorno had said, and

“So..your stand ability isn’t whatever you just did to that plant? It’s reversal? It can make me human again? Really? Just like I used to be? I can finally be human again?”

“More or less. But I have some things I’d like to ask you before I decide to go through with it.”

“What do you mean ‘more or less?’ And why wouldn’t you make me human again? I told you I would kill for you if you did.“

“Some people deserve an eternity. An ending without ending. From what I’ve seen so far, you do not. But I don’t want to release someone dangerous. What did you do to deserve this?”

“I can’t fully remember what I did. But you’re right in assuming this was a punishment. 22 years ago, I was told to target.. some people, I can’t recall who. But I failed, and one of their stands turned me into a book as ‘payback’.”

“Hmm.. Well, you have been a book for quite a long time. I’d say that if you have reached the point where you cannot remember yourself, you have done enough repenting. “

“So you’ll turn me back to how I was?”

“There are some things you should know. There may be side effects. Requiem restores the physical, not the mental. In body, it’s true that you would be exactly the same as you used to be. But you would not regain any memories you have lost since you became a book.”

“I don’t care about that. I’ll remember myself somehow. I just want to be free of this body. I’ve dreamed about it for years.”

“And what about her? With your body back, you wouldn’t need her for anything. You’re the one who finished Moschino off, so we may not need her either.”

“I think you’re just testing me now. Since I can’t remember who I used to be, you’re trying to see if I’m the type to abandon or turn on people. I’m not. And we finished Moschino off together.”

“You’re smart. You’ll be useful. I can fulfill your request.”

Boss Giorno Giovanna elegantly stabbed himself in the chest with the arrow he was holding.

Chapter Text

Terunosuke had just left with the boss, leaving KT alone with four stand wielding and presumably highly dangerous people.
She fidgeted in her seat, changing position seven times in a minute. That had to be a new record of some sort.

“So, are you going to say what you’d kill for?”

Mista, along with everyone else, was expectantly staring her down.

“Oh, I wasn’t sure if that question was still in play. Anyway the answer is money. Enough money to live comfortably for a while, and enough to help Terunosuke too.”-feeling as if her answer wasn’t satisfactory, she continued speaking and shifting restlessly-“But I assume the boss is discussing that with him? I didn’t know the boss could speak Japanese. And do you know if he’ll get a fake ID or anything? God I hope he’s gonna be okay.”

Still feeling the pressure of her interviewers, she attempted to stand up and walk around. The key word here is attempted.

As soon as she had risen from her seat, she felt a sharp pain. Not sharp as in a butcher knife or needle, but sharp like a factory blade used for cutting metal. No sawing. No stabbing. Just the precise shlick of her body coming apart, and the dull thud of pieces of her hitting the table and floor.

So this is absolutely a stand effect. I’m not bleeding all over or dead. It doesn’t even hurt anym-HOLY SHIT there’s the stand.

Sure enough, a pallid, rotting figure, a corpse covered in lacey ribbons and bloodstained pastel thread, was picking up pieces of KT and inspecting them, then putting them back into place. She resisted the urge to summon Touch Tone, knowing it would be a death sentence.

“Champagne! What the hell did you do that for? “

“Don’t worry, don’t worry! I’m just seeing if she has what it takes to be a temporary assassin for me. I’m the head of the team. I can assess how I like!”
The woman, now surrounded in a crimson aura, picked up one of KT’s eyes and began to rotate it, all while still talking to her.

“Your request is reasonable, especially for multiple kills. Yes, multiple kills. I see your pupils shrinking in shock, but don’t worry! If you can handle this you should be fine. We’ll provide you all the materials you need. Any weapons you want, a room to stay in while you and your friend work for us, food-we have all this surplus after Moschino killed my last team.”

“Love, put her eye down. You’re going to pop it with how tight you grip.”

“Oh-thanks for noticing, darling.”

She put KT’s eye back in its socket. KT was wondering if this was why Panzanella wore an eyepatch, and trying to think about anything other than the state of her body.

“Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that you’re in. I’ll let you go back to your normal American life once you and your friend have killed for us, but don’t think you can talk about this. Don’t think it can become a fun little dinner story. Passione has eyes everywhere. “

Her stand slid the last chunk of KT’s body back into place. She sat up, blinked a few times, and put her sunglasses back on.

“On behalf of Passione, I am so sorry for my associates behavior. She has a tendency to use her stand to take people apart without forewarning because there’s. Something. Wrong. With. Her.” Fugo was glaring daggers at Champagne as he spoke, making the apology much less sincere. KT absently nodded in response and pulled her knees to her chest.

While the two bickered (“You need to control Jigsaw feeling!” “ I can control my stand, unlike you!”) she sat curled up in her chair, checking her body to make sure everything was still there, that she wasn’t going to secretly bleed out. They weren’t trying to kill her. They weren’t trying to kill her.

She checked the bandage on her leg, peeling it back to see if the wound had reopened. It was stitched shut with pastel thread. She checked her arms and pulse. She thought about Terunosuke and hoped things were going well for him. Checked the bandage on her leg again just in case, and didn’t say anything despite her curiosity about the stands of the people in the room or where she’d be staying or who Passione’s “eyes” were. Rocked back and forth and tried to breath. Tried to breathe.

The room was too loud and she didn’t want to get up again and she couldn’t ask to get her earplugs from her bag and she was just there, not being enough, failing their expectations by being so sensitive. She heard someone get up and flip off the lights in the room, and a voice, not processable due to all the other voices, saying something not directed towards her.

The other voices stopped talking, and she could finally breathe again.

A few minutes passed, quiet save for the whispers of the others and the sounds of a city building. Then, she heard a more welcome noise. A familiar voice, happier than she had ever heard it before, and two sets of footsteps coming down the hallway.

Chapter Text

It happened in slow motion.

It was instantaneous.

With a single touch from that stand, Terunosuke’s body began to unfold.

His pages unraveled into strips of loose paper, intertwining and solidifying to form limbs, a face, a human shape.

Pulp became solid flesh.

Ink undried, became blood.

A heart resumed its beating after a decades-long pause.

———

I’m..

What just happened to me? It’s dark.

I’m feeling strange, feeling..

What is this ?

Oh, I remember it now.

It’s my heartbeat. My pulse. Breathing.

My old body.

I’m human .

I’m on the carpet. I can feel it, I can feel my long jacket, I’m not sure what it’s called but I must have been wearing it when this happened to me, I must have liked this outfit.  My eyes must be closed.

I’ve just opened my eyes and this room is so much smaller now that I take up space in it. I hear someone sitting down next to me, it must be the Boss, and I turn my head to look at him.

I turn my head to look at him.

I moved. And I can look away too, and at the carpet. I can move. I can move and it feels natural, it’s easy. It’s easy to move now. I can move because I have a human body again.

I feel something on my face. My eyes are wet.

Am I crying?

I place my hand on my face. I have hands now. And I’m certainly crying.

I never thought this would happen to me, that anyone would ever say I deserved to be a human. If there are words for the feeling I’m experiencing I’ve forgotten them. So I’m just sitting here, opening and closing my hand while tears stream down my face.

This feeling is happiness, like when I hear KT make a good joke or when I got Enigma back, but it’s more then that.

I still don’t remember my old self, but I know I’ve wanted this for so long. I should get up, go see KT but….

I don’t remember exactly how to walk. That might be an issue, but he said my body should be exactly as it was. Isn’t there something called muscle memory that helps you do things like walk? If I stand up, that should kick in.

I just need to stand up.

Alright, move my legs, hold on to the chair for support and- I’m so high up. Oh I’m so high up, is this what people see all the time? I should sit down before I fall again because I don’t think my legs are that steady. I should say something to the boss. There’s so much that this body can do.

“Thank you so much. Thank you, thank you, this will last right? I can trust you? I’ll do anything for you now, thank you so much. “

I’ve collapsed onto the chair.

“ It’s good to see you’ve got the basics of using your body down, because I’ll need you to kill your first target in..about 2 days.  I’ll tell you more about your assignments when you reunite with Caprae. “

“2 days?”

“Yes. I’ll give you the rest of today and tomorrow to adjust and prepare. “

“Can I go see KT now?”

“Yes, if you can just walk straight down the hallway you came in through. Do it yourself.”

I stand up, and take my first step forward.

And then another.

And another.

I can do this. I’m doing this.

Enigma is behind me, holding me steady.

I can hear my feet hitting the ground.

I’m walking.

I’m moving.

Doing it by myself without needing anyone else to hold me.

I keep slowly taking steps. I’m in the hallway now, and I can see the door to the room KT’s in.

I take another step.

Right. Left. Right. Left.

I start to take my steps quicker, much quicker, I’m stumbling and there’s nothing my body can do to express what I’m feeling right now, now that I have my life again. I’m almost at the door to see her.

——

The door to the meeting room creaked open. KT excitedly got up from her seat, and at the same time, someone carefully began to step in. Terunosuke had his body back.

Chapter Text

“ Terunosuke!”

He just stared at her blankly.

“Terunosuke? You good?”

“Wait, how do you know my name? Where am I?”

That response made her heart drop right through her stomach and hit the floor.

She froze where she stood, trying to process what he’d just said. Did he lose his memories again? He looked just like he did in 1999, (though his hair was much shorter, was that photo old? Not important right now.) did he only have the memories he had up to that point? Did he forget her? Was this supposed to-

Suddenly, Terunosuke burst out laughing.

“Oh wow, you looked like you were about to die on the spot! I got you!“

“Dude, you scared me! I almost passed out!”

“I wasn’t trying to scare you that badly, just a bit! Enough to be funny. Now that I’ve got my body I can actually interact with people. If I tried this on the gangsters I’d die by their stands and if I didn’t try and actually use my body for something new I’d die by excitement*!”

She started to laugh as well, partially out of relief and partially because he was funny.

“Oh, so you just got your body back. And the first thing you do is play a terrifying prank on me and now you’re making puns?”

“I’ve already thanked you so many times so I thought I’d mix it up.”

“How are you feeling?“

“Everything is so much…more. It’s wild.“

“You’ll have to tell me everything about what the bo- Oh god he’s right there.”

“Pannacotta, Panzanella, Champagne, and Mista, you go give our… interns a tour. Get them dressed, get them food, and show them to their room.“

Giorno was in fact back, standing in the doorway, holding a position of unquestionable authority and a tortoise with a gilded shell.

Judging by the reactions of the four whose names had been called, it sounded to Terunosuke like The Boss had ordered them to do something. Three of them nodded and said Italian words of affirmation, while the fourth became noticeably tense and jittery.

“KT, what did The Boss tell them to do?”, he whispered, “Hat guy is shaking terribly. Is it about us?”

“No, He made a joke about having memory loss again.”, she retorted, tongue in cheek.

“I doubt we made the same joke. But seriously, does he know something we don’t?”

“Ok, to be honest the boss just asked them to give us a tour. No clue why hat guy is scared.”

As if hearing his cue, Hat Guy spoke up.

“Hey, can I opt out? I have to do other things, and if four people give a tour it’ll go much worse than three.”

And then he left quickly the room.

“Ok, he says he doesn’t think 4 people would go well. I know there’s a superstition in Japan that four is bad luck..”

“Yeah, I remember that! I remember it! But he’s Italian, so has the superstition spread in those 22 years I was gone? “

“No, I think he’s just weirdly superstitious. Hey, Boss, can I see that turtle?”

“He’s a tortoise, and you cannot. Go with my associates.”

“Tortoise. I knew that. Just a slip of the tongue.”

Panzanella was standing in the doorframe, gesturing for them to follow her. Fugo and Champagne were behind her. Giorno was on the other side of the room. Hat Guy aka Mista was nowhere to be found. The tortoise had gold leaf on his shell. Terunosuke was human.

KT nodded vigorously and stood up, glancing around. There weren’t any stand shenanigans in play. Good. She took a step towards the door, but heard a small thud, paused, and looked over.

Terunosuke was leaned over the table, one leg on the chair and one barely touching the ground. He attempted to push himself up, but with another thud he fell again.

“Are you good?”

He stared at her with that same nothing expression as she reached out her hand.

Before she had even fully extended it he was up on his feet. He had used Enigma to pull himself into a standing position.

“I’ll never need that again. Don’t do that.”

"...Okay, dude."

—————————

After a short, quiet walk down yet another overly decorated corridor, KT and Terunosuke stood in the Passione uniform room. It wasn’t what they had expected.

“Why does it look like a Gucci show bargain bin?”

There was no answer from the connoisseurs of this Gucci bargain bin.

“Why do I have to change in the first place? Isn’t this shirt cool? I made it myself!”

“Your outfit will attract too much attention, it’s unprofessional, and your pants are already bloodstained.”, Panzanella said despite wearing shirtless sleeves and a sleeveless shirt at the same time.

“Is my outfit okay?”, Terunosuke said,

“That jacket is covered in impossibly fresh blood, ink, and what looks like dried orange juice. I can take the blood out, but not the other two. And I’m not a free dry cleaner, so you’d have to let me see that eye of yours. I’ve only ever seen one other man with eyes like that, and he was dead at the time. A shame. His eyes were already too decomposed to use. Yours are very fresh. Have you ever wanted heterochromia, Miyamoto? Because I could give you heterochromia.”

Champagne twirled her hair around her finger, and Fugo sighed.

“Do I really have to translate your gruesome questions?”

“Yes.”

Once he translated the gruesome question, Terunosuke took a few shaky steps back.

“You probably shouldn’t have said that to him, dear. Just consider lost soul rules.”

“It was worth a try.”

As the couple discussed the most tactful way to ask for someone’s eyes, Fugo finally got more than a single original sentence out.

“You can choose from any of these outfits or articles of clothing. Just go into the changing rooms, and try and have a fashion sense. Have fun, kids.”

KT speedwalked to the nearest rack with green jackets, knowing exactly what she liked, while Terunosuke was more hesitant. He didn't know what he liked. He looked down at his outfit. He looked up at the rows and rows of clothing. He was overall indifferent to the strange garments. 

He didn't even know what he wanted.

Purple was the color of his stand, but he wore mostly black and white before, and purple was KT's color anyway. It felt off limits. He gingerly flipped through the cutout jackets and crop-top shirts. The textures were more varied than he could have ever dreamed of. That was not a wholly good thing. The polyester skirts and velvet suits felt like they were gnawing at his hands. He didn't know what to make of any of it.

White is the color of paper, so he shouldn't wear that, or maybe he should, but the neon colors were giving him a headache . Internally, he reached out to his old self. Wondering what he'd like, looking for some sort of Deja Vu or familiarity to guide him. 

Just tell me what I used to like, please. 

His memories were silent. No amount of thinking would get them to make a sound.
He grabbed a random shirt and pair of pants, and rushed into the changing room with his eyes closed. 

A few minutes later, he finally gathered the courage to look in the mirror. He had a pair of surprisingly plain pants and a black and white sweater with some interlocking spiral designs.

His hair was different than that photo KT had shown him. It was parted the same way, but unevenly, almost haphazardly cut at the ends. Like strips of paper. His pulse quickened, but the face in the mirror, his face, was void of any expression. Call it serene, if you want. He didn't feel serene. 

That's not my hair. That's not my face. That's not what was in the photo. That's not mine. That's not mine. I don't look like that. I don't. I don't. 

His body moved before his mind could catch up, and that reflection, that horribly unfamiliar reflection, was distorted by cracked glass.

There. 

Hoping that no one had noticed, he turned to pick up his old clothing, only to find a single piece of paper sitting in their place. He tried to unfold it, but it was wrapped in layers and layers of tape. Unfolding it would surely destroy it. Enigma was floating next to its handiwork.

"Why did you do that?"

The stand shrugged, as if asking Terunosuke the same question. 

A piece of the mirror fell out and hit the floor.

Chapter Text

A woman lays in bed. Aside from her breathing, she is motionless. Her eyes are closed, but she is awake, and may have a lot on her mind. She starts every day like this, at 6 am at the latest. It does not matter when she actually wants to get up.

Sometimes her eyes open seconds after she wakes. Sometimes she lays still for hours before she hears a knock at her bedroom door. She knows which days she will hear a knock, but never gets up to open the door before someone else does.

Today is one of those days. She has been in bed, half asleep, for 3 hours. It is a Saturday, so she has slept longer, but she knows it’s time for her to wake up soon. Her son will knock at the door, and she will get up.

Today she has to return some homeschooling books to the Merritt library, and put up many more flyers. A gust of wind will sweep a few flyers away.

Today she knows exactly what is going to happen.

Chapter Text

Terunosuke leaned against the wall of the changing room and slowly slid down until he was sitting on the ground. Enigma mirrored the movement . The stand had been constantly guiding him ever since he got his body back… what, half an hour ago? He hasn’t been telling it to do so, but it wasn’t unwelcome. If he knew how to use his body, he’d still be standing up. Standing up was seemingly too difficult for now. So he sat there and gazed at the impenetrably folded papers in his hand.

“Hey, Terunosuke! You all good in there? It’s been, what, ten minutes?”

The knock at the door snapped him back to reality. KT had been waiting for him for…well he’d think “who knows how long” , but according to her it had been ten minutes. He pulled himself up and unlatched the door. KT was standing there, hands on her hips, also in a new outfit. He thought it suited her well.

(AN: it’s a shiny aqua shirt with a clover shaped cutout and dark purple pants)

“Ah, there you are, dude. Nice outfit. I like the Galaga pattern.”

“Galaga pattern? What do you mean?”

Is that some sort of modern or Floridian slang term?

He thought, once again painfully aware of how out of touch he was. KT’s hands were in her pockets now, as she swayed side to side.

“Yeah, the little designs on your shirt. They look like those little ships from the video game Galaga.”

“The pattern’s name is Houndstooth, not Galaga.”, Fugo scoffed, appearing out of seemingly nowhere. “Nonetheless, I am glad to see that you changed into passione standard and non biohazardous outfits. “

“Houndstooth. It’s a tessellation…“

“The next step for you two is to get some food. It’s around breakfast time. Panza and her wife are already eating in the cafeteria. You don’t do mafia work on an empty stomach.”

Terunosuke was suddenly acutely aware of that persistent ache in his stomach. He hadn’t eaten anything for 22 years, so it was probably hunger. He had to eat something, and he had the opportunity, but come to think of it, he couldn’t remember what food he liked. Or what anything tasted like. Did he even remember how to eat?  He’d be able to eat, right?

He sighed.

——

The walk to the cafeteria was strangely long, or at least that’s what KT thought. There were a lot of things about this place that didn’t add up to her. How did anyone, even a mafia boss, have such a comical amount of money that even the floors were gilded? Where did these perfectly fitted clothes come from?

Why was the building so clean? She’d learned that even small buildings take a lot of work to keep perfectly polished, and yet there wasn’t a speck of tarnish on any of the metal or dust on any of the furniture.

Did the mafia have a elite butler team?

It seemed silly, but she was at a loss. A loss for answers, words, anything.

Her life the past few days had been a metaphorical hydra. Every question answered caused 3 more left unsolved.

Even good fortune (Terunosuke getting his body back, for example) only begot more confusion. How was he going to go out if he’s legally 100% dead? Was it implied he gets a fake ID?

He was talking vaguely in her direction as she pondered these worries. Trying to name foods off the top of his head and in her opinion not doing that well, though she’d cut him a break because he had memory loss. She just nodded in response, lost in her own thoughts.

Terunosuke’s muttering and KT’s dwelling were interrupted by the sound of a door being opened and the faint melodies of Italian pop music.

They had walked into a room full of wooden benches and shining buffet stations, like if a Golden Corral was loved by God. Each platter was stacked with food that could only be described as looking absolutely scrumptious.

Fugo noticed the absolute wonder (and hunger) in the pair’s eyes.

“You can have as much as you want. Just be respectful, and don’t make a mess.”, he said, walking over to one of the tables and grabbing a plate with a strawberry croissant

Having got the go-ahead, they took a step towards the buffet tables, but KT paused when she noticed another odd detail.

“Hey, Terunosuke, did you notice there’s no kitchen in sight? The only door is the one we came in through. That can’t be right.”

He shrugged and walked past her.

“I don’t know if that’s normal. Anyway I’m going to go eat for the first time in two decades.”

Fair enough.

KT poked around in the corners of the room, looking for hidden entrances. Terunosuke gathered his first meal. When she found that there were no obvious hidden doors(read:was strictly glared at by Fugo from the juice bar), she decided to just do what she was supposed to and get some breakfast. 

A few minutes later, she met Terunosuke at the bench he has chosen. She set her plate down next to his, which was piled high with one of every option at the breakfast bar.  In his hands he gripped some sort of filled pastry.

Slowly, he took a small bite.

Something unfamiliar—a taste, a good taste, not the taste of blood or ink or dryness, but a good taste, hit him. As he chewed, Terunosuke realized his eyes were wet again.

KT, who was standing behind him, noticed his choked almost-sobs and went to pat her friend on the back.

This is a moment with every component of an explosion but the presence of a bomb.

There was a scream, the loudest KT had heard in a long time. It was honestly more like a shriek. A bloodcurdling sound of desperate fear. It was in Terunosuke’s voice. His entire demeanor had shifted. No longer comfortably sitting, he curled up in  a ball on the bench, eyes squeezed shut and screaming to no one in particular to put him down and stop touching him.

Most surprising of all, thin and shallow yet painful cuts were spreading from KT’s fingertips to her wrist. Papercuts.

And Terunosuke was surrounded in a stand aura. Her heart skipped a beat when she came to what was seemingly the only rational conclusion.

“WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU JUST DO?”

He looked up at her, prying one eye open, voice shaking.

“What did I just do? What did I just do? “

“Were you trying to trick me? Were you not satisfied just mentally scaring me? Why did you do that? “ Touch tone was partially manifested, defensively forming around her cut hand. Terunosuke somehow curled up even smaller.

“I- don’t touch me, you know not to-but-those cuts… Enigma can’t do that ! It’s weak! I didn’t do that!“

“ Why would I take your word for that when you’re surrounded in your stand aura?”

“I-don’t know! I didn’t do that! Why did you touch me! I thought you knew better than that!”

“I was trying to comfort you! And you attacked me! What’s wrong with you!”

The room fell silent. Even the higher-ups were just watching their altercation. Shaking with something slightly left of rage, Terunosuke slowly stood up.

“ You know what’s wrong with me. You know. You wanted to know the answer to that more than you wanted to know me. You ‘paranormal investigator’. You ‘Ghost hunter.’ Even those phrases make me feel sick. It’s just a fancy way to say you heard a years old rumor and came to poke around and wake me up. Disgusting. “

KT was at a loss for words. She was too scattered to even look for the right ones. She stuttered.

“Terunosuke- I.. but you’re my friend! just because I was looking for a ghost doesn’t mean I don’t-“

“Shut up, ghost hunter. You don’t care about me. “  Was that emotion coldness? A jaded hurt?

“Well,  I don’t know much about you, so it’s-“

She finally found some words, but they were certainly not the right ones.

“I barely know myself, KT. Do you get that?It’s very clear. I can’t remember more than these few days. It’s so hard to keep myself coherent when there’s so little left of me. But I’ve told you every  fragment of a thing I can remember, everything I know, and you aren’t fucking happy yet. You knew to not touch me. You did that to get a reaction. Did you want a reaction? Did you want it to give you a reaction? Well it gave you a reaction! Are you satisfied now? You got your reaction!”

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to, I wasn’t thinking about it! Terunosuke, what’s gotten into you? I thought you liked me! I thought we were friends!”

She was stuttering, trying to backtrack, feeling the eyes of the adults on her.

“I thought we could be friends. I thought you respected me. I thought you actually wanted to help me. But now that I’m a person and not some object you can carry around, you just don’t care.”

The detonation was done.

Chapter Text

“Teru.. do you really think that’s how I feel?”

“Yes.”

She froze. As he walked past her, she didn’t respond. She couldn’t respond as he walked out of the cafeteria. He left her. He had said yes and he had walked away and she stood there alone; the light coming in from the hall was warmer and brighter and the whole room felt like it was shaking.

She still had no response, but she ran through the door after him.

———————————

Panzanella and Champagne stared at the exit for a second, then returned to drinking their coffees.

“Babe, should we go get them? I don’t want to overreact because of a fairly mild squabble, but I absolutely do not want to have to explain that the temps under my supervision ripped each other to shreds instead of the enemy.

“Blood was shed, so you’re right to be on guard. Although, we only saw the actions and didn’t know if the words they exchanged were as serious as it looked.  Neither of us are fluent in Japanese like other people, so we could not have fully understood what they were arguing about..”  Panzanella said, stirring her macchiato.

“You can be so passive aggressive, Panza.” Fugo replied, carrying his tray over to their table.

“But it works on you.” She smirked.

“So, Pannacotta, can you tell us what that scrap was about? Did a big piece of drama get revealed? “

He sprayed his hands with a bit of sanitizer.

“I think Miyamoto has a wound ability.”

The couple sat up in surprise.

“A wound.. that’s the first time I’ve seen another wound user in ages,” Panzanella remarked.

“It makes sense. Despite our limited knowledge on his background, he was clearly suffering for a long time.“

“How do you know that? Did the boss get anything out of him? I know he’d tell you first, Pannacotta.”

“You’re right; Giorno did tell me. He told me that even Miyamoto doesn’t know his own background. He’s got some sort of amnesia, I’d be willing to bet it’s isolation induced. He was in there for 22 years.”

“Oh, well, 22 years is pretty short in ghost terms. Most truly lost souls (assuming they didn’t get partially cleansed) have lost the majority of their life memories around the 50 year mark at the very earliest. I was assuming that was how long he was in there. ”

She paused, adjusting her shirtless sleeves.

“But I digress. Of course it makes sense that it’s a wound in hindsight. I only know what the ghosts told me about their stand abilities, but if he knew he had a directly damaging ability, he would have likely used it to kill her.”

Champagne took a bite of her almond croissant.

“Speaking of killing, should we go after them to keep any fatalities from happening? I need a team.”

“Darling, don’t worry. I’ve just heard from the locals that Rising Sun is going to manage them. They aren’t going anywhere.”

——————————

She saw him at least ten feet ahead of her, the monochromatic Galaga houndstooth pattern of his shirt sticking out against the extravagant luster of the walls.

The walls that she was sure were red and gold walking in, but that were now gold and blue.

That can’t be right , she thought. But it wasn’t her biggest concern right now.

“Terunosuke!”

She called out to him again. He kept walking. She kept following. She wasn’t sure why.

They turned into another corridor.

It looked exactly the same as the last two.

Identical down to the decorations on the shelves and the scratches in the wallpaper.

KT was rummaging in her bag, feeling around for something that could help her make sense of this. A compass? Her phone and laptop had been confiscated by Panzanella, so she couldn’t check if this was a time loop.

The uneasy feeling in her gut overpowered the sting of her cut hand.

She would have near given up on her pursuit; ( he can handle his damn self,  thought the angrier part of her) had she not heard the click of a door opening. She looked up just in time to see Terunosuke disappear through a white doorframe.

Overtaken by curiosity and feeling as if she had no choice but to follow, KT stepped through as well.

She didn’t see Terunosuke, or another hallway.

Instead she found herself in a small sort of living room. It had a very different atmosphere than the rest of the building, feeling like some sort of living room from the 60’s vision of the future. There was  a lavender and turquoise egg chair, a sort of circular sectional sofa, a rodgers-model tv with a iridescent chrome coating and a fancier antenna. And no exits in sight.

Chapter Text

“Teru..do you really think that’s how I feel?”

“Yes.”

He couldn’t look her in the eye.

He couldn’t spend another second around her. Not after what she had done.

The touch lingered on his shoulder even as he walked away.

And as he walked further and further away from the cafeteria, he was vaguely aware of KT’s voice calling out to him. But he wasn’t paying attention. He didn’t want to hear what she had to say.

He wanted to get away.

He had to get away.

She had lied to him, she didn’t really care, and nothing she could say could change that because he knew she knew he hated touch, and she had asked to be his friend and wanted to be his friend but she just said she “ didn’t know him,” as if he had any secrets to hide from her, as if she wasn’t the only person he had ever really spoken to,as if she didn’t kill him just a few days ago when dying was all he wanted. As if any amount of guilt in her voice could get him to break and  look behind him.

Walking through the hallway in a daze, he looked for any sort of escape. He recalled that this was known as “fight or flight”.

Interesting . I’m probably looking for a safe room, He thought.

Probably?

This body was new. This instinct was familiar.

Am I the type of coward who always runs away?

But he finally could run. His new body could actually do that, even if he stumbled and wasn’t very good at it. Hyperventilation and a pounding heart were all indicators of his fear, but also that he could breathe, and his heart could beat. That was the one good thing he had going for him right now.

Maybe, he thought, already looking for an exit, I could just run away. Leave everything behind right now. Run and never come back to any of this.

Then he shoved that idea aside, remembering what he had said to the boss. However, it didn’t even matter if he had promised to not run. There wasn’t a way out here. He had reached the end of the hall. It was green and gold wallpaper with no exits and no explanations. Confused, he turned around. He was met with another wall behind him. He was penned in, no doors to be seen.

The message was clear:

“You can’t even think of running.”

How they knew he was thinking of it was a mystery, but either way, he was screwed.

He sighed and sat down, defeated. Now he had ruined it. He’d only had his body for an hour. Just a single hour of being able to run and move and speak out loud. Now he was sitting on hotel carpet and the ceiling had lowered to a point where he couldn’t stand up. Would he lose his body? Did he not deserve to have it after all?

Out of nowhere, a sign appeared on the wall in front of him.

“You did not ruin anything, and you are not losing your body. We just had to separate you from her.”

He blinked a couple of times. This didn’t seem real, but the sign didn’t go away. The sign remained just as it was, inexplicable and unwavering.

“Really? Then could you give me a little more room to move?” He might as well try and talk to it, or whatever stand user was manipulating it. He might as well try and make it better.

“Sorry, your feelings had indicated that being in large open rooms was unnerving. Part of my ability is to create spaces attuned to the needs and wants of those who enter. I will rectify the issue,”

Seconds later the ceiling grew tall enough for him to stand, the lights dimmed, and a pile of pillows appeared on the floor.

“Now, I have a lot of things Panzanella has told me to tell you.“

Terunosuke took a moment to think on that, then flopped over onto the pillow pile.

“I don’t really want to hear them right now,” he said, staring up at the ceiling. Another sign appeared there.

“You’re full of confusion, anger, fear and guilt. Would an explanation not help?”

“Explain why KT did that. What she’s feeling right now. Maybe that would help.”

“She is feeling the same things that you are.”

“Ok. “

He took a minute to think about that, though he didn’t really want to. He needed to take his mind off of this with anything he could.

“Who are you, anyway? What’s you’re name?”

“House of the Rising Sun”

“That’s… is that a stand name? Are you a stand?”

When he said that, Enigma spontaneously manifested.

“Not exactly. I’m not a human being”

“Now I’m curious. I think I once heard of an animal stand… are you a cat?”

“ I am not a cat. Sorry to dash your hopes. I am not exactly alive, either.”

“What do you mean you’re not alive?”

“ I know saying this will alarm you, but I am this building itself. Nice to meet you, Terunosuke.”

Chapter Text

Terunosuke felt a chill.

This building… Rising Sun is this building… another stand user inside an object.. how?

“Who did this to you?”

Though he’d rather not know, he couldn’t help but ask anyway.

The sign seemed to softly laugh.

“Oh, no one did this to me. This is what I am. I am happy this way.”

“You’re happy this way… how are you happy this way?”

“ Well, from the moment I gained consciousness I have never been any way but this way. I am this building, and I am also a stand, and I can control this building entirely. If I was turned into a human, I would feel trapped and vulnerable. And I would surely ask how you enjoyed being the way you are.“

“Ok?”

“Now, we should get back on track, correct? I would not be so pushy, but Panzanella is insistent on making sure you know about that ability.“

“I know I wasn’t able to do that before my body was human. Being inanimate probably stopped my stand ability from lashing out, but when I got my body back I couldn’t control that attack. I couldn’t even remember I was able to do that.”

“You make a lot of assumptions.”

“There’s no one to tell me otherwise.”

“ Well, you did not exactly have a choice to activate that ability. What activated it was your fear, and your conscious mind had nothing to do with it. This is your newly awakened wound ability.“

“A wound ability..but why did it just then appear? I’ve been afraid before.“

“It is not just fear, but human adaptability in motion. A wound grabs the past by the neck and throttles it.”

Grabs the past and throttles it..

He thought of the cuts spreading up KT’s arm and her gentle, gloved, familiar, nauseating touch; he almost thought of the many unremembered touches lingering inside pages he did not have.

How could any of that be the past? I’m feeling it right now.

“I’m not following.” He didn’t want it to be what he thought.

“I see. I will drop the flowery metaphors then. When someone with a stand or even someone with stand potential experiences repeated severe trauma for a prolonged period of time, a wound ability may form. Wounds are similar to stands, but unlike a stand, a wound ability cannot be controlled or directed. Its only purpose is to keep whatever was traumatic from ever happening again, no matter what.“

A brief moment of silence passed. The sign shifted again.

“You wanted me to explain it, so I explained it.”

“Terunosuke?”

—————————-

A plethora of medical supplies laid spread out on the floor. Touch tone doused her user’s hand in hydrogen peroxide. KT winced, and bit down harder on the bandage’s end. The puddle of runoff foamed and sunk into the plush carpet, and she started to wonder why she even bothered.

With some tying and a snip of medical scissors, her hand was all bandaged up. It still pulsed and stung, but it wouldn’t get worse. That was a good thing.

Paper cuts are more likely to get infected than regular cuts, aren’t they? , she thought. It’s something to do with the invisible notches and irregularities in paper edges. And they hurt so much because the hands face such a high number of nerve endings.

She glanced at the clocks (one on the wall, one on the side table) and noticed their displays were both upside down and backwards. And displaying different times.

This was absurd.

“Touch tone, do you have a clue how I ended up like this? “

Her stand shrugged and draped itself over her shoulder. It felt like a vinyl seat cushion from a diner. How kind.

It didn’t solve her biggest worry. If she didn’t know a single thing about the situation around her, didn’t have a shred of evidence as to what would happen next, she couldn’t manage anything. So in an absence of evidence, it became impossible for her to avoid theorizing.

This was clearly the work of a stand user. But who?

Panzanella has some sort of ability to communicate with ghosts, and Champagne has-vivisection? Body compartmentalization? Either way, it’s not this. I don’t know the boss’s ability, but I doubt it was this, and I heard Champagne say to the Pannacotta guy in the cutout suit that “at least her stand isn’t infectious”, so I really doubt this is his unless this is some sort of illusion virus..it must be the hat guy’s ability. No, it’s more likely that this is someone I haven’t seen. I have to stay vigilant.

Just as she was about to put the bandages away, the tv flickered to life in a flurry of static. Out of the static, a person appeared.

“Caprae, could we speak about something? It’s important,” Panzanella said, looking surprisingly high def for such an old model tv.

KT wasn’t in the mood for this. Hopefully that important something made her less confused, but she still thought that Panzanella could meet her face to face.

“ Could you PLEASE come here in person?  I’m sure you know how to get into this room.”

“Of course,” she said.

Her hand started to phase through the screen.

Chapter Text

“-You are correct in your assessment. My stand does allow me to communicate with ghosts, and it’s physical form is in fact ‘that fucking telephone’, Panzanella said, gesturing to that fucking telephone, which KT now knew was actually called “Heaven Knows”.

“But I am assuming you have also picked up that I have some other ability.  I will give you a hint: it is not the creation of this room. The building has a stand.”

It took a few seconds, but the implications of that statement definitely sunk in. Kt clenched her bag strap.

“The…building? The building has a stand?”

“Yes.”

“It’s sentient?”

“Yes.”

“How? And is it listening in on everything?”

“We are getting off topic.”

This was bizzare and fucked up, but it explained a lot of the logistical issues.

“Did it like… use to be human?”

“No. “

“Then how is it sentient?”

“That is not something that needs to be explained right now. Please get back on the topic.”

“ Ok, so your ability is whatever made you crawl through the tv like Sadako. You know, from that one movie? The Ring?”

“Yes, I have seen The Ring.”

“What does that ability have to do with communicating with ghosts? Yeah, it’s ghostly in nature, but you laid out your stand ability very clearly, and this doesn’t fit into it. “

“That’s because it is not a stand ability. It is a wound ability, a different power entirely,”-she said, sharply turning around and shooing off an eavesdropping ghost-“Wounds are the result of severe, repeated trauma. They are formed by the same ‘spirit’ that forms stands, but while stands are versatile and controllable, wounds are usually uncontrollable and only serve one purpose. The purpose is to protect the user. Yes, I have one. Yes, I know you like to ask questions, but it is none of your business as to why. I am not telling you this to talk about myself.”

“Then what are you telling me this for?”

“I am telling you this because your associate almost certainly has one as well. “

KT did not say anything to that. She tensed her bandaged hand, squeezing it tight, feeling the individual cuts rub against the gauze. The homogeneous mass of pain separated into hundreds of little stinging wounds. The work of her collagen was quickly ripped apart. She knew that fresh cuts reopen too easily, but squeezed tighter anyway.

“He wasn’t trying to hurt me then. It was all on me”.

Panzanella tilted her head a bit.

“I believe you were not trying to hurt him, correct?”

“No, but I did it anyway! I hurt him by not remembering the very simple request he’s given me over and over again, because I’m fucking stupid!”

“ Then you need to apologize. Do not include the untrue self depreciation, but genuinely apologize.”

“I’m sure he won’t accept it. Didn’t you see what happened? “

“Well, think about it pragmatically. If you apologize and he does not accept, your relationship will not be any worse off than it is now. But if you apologize and he does accept, it has made things better. This applies to a lot of situations. Do not do it if you could die as a result. “

Panzanella stood up from the floor and sat on the sectional. Heaven Knows disappeared from the floor in a puff of smoke and reappeared on the table beside her.

“ I have said what I needed to say. I could stay in this room to answer any auxiliary questions you have about your temporary role and the way this place operates, if you would like that”

Tentatively, KT went to sit on the sectional as well. She was quiet for a moment. Touch Tone glanced over at Heaven Knows, then back at Panzanella, then at Heaven Knows again. After a few seconds of that, KT spoke.

“What’s the building’s name?”

”Rising sun.”

”Thanks.”

Chapter Text

Neither of them said anything more. Panzanella leaned back and closed her eye. KT took her gloves off, ran her hands across the blue velvet sofa, tracing lines back and forth. Up and down, towards and against. Lighter, darker, lighter, darker. 

It was nice.

When she heard the *sklch* of a sliding door, she glanced up from her patterns. Champagne was standing in the entryway,   looking down at her with a calm but inexorable gaze. 

“You’re still going to have to work with him, you know that, right?” 

KT clenched her jaw. 

“I don’t want to work with him.”

She walked over, sitting down on an armchair that had only recently spawned in and crossing her legs. 

“It’s just mafia business. People have to work with those that they hate all the time in this field. “

“I don’t HATE him, I just don’t think he wants to work with me. “

“Why? Do you think he hates you?“

KT paused. Champagne stared at her expectantly. 

“You don’t have to answer that. Anyway, I’m getting back on track. I came in here to give you some information on your actual duties here. You’ve got 3 targets to take down, and you both have a certain knack with your stands for sure. Still, a knack isn’t enough to save your neck in the heat of battle, so it’s a good idea to get some practice in before you have to kill a man on Monday.

“In two days?”

“Yes, which is why I recommend you get some practice in.“

“Is he a stand user?”

“They’re all stand users. Their base of operations is a condo in Sicily, which is where we’ll be going ,”   Panzanella   said, still laying down.

“We?”

“Yes, we. I will get you there, Champagne will come as emergency support in case everything goes wrong, and you two will be our hitmen.”

A hitman. A contract killer. A contract   killer.   She was going to kill people. That was just sinking in now. Kill people. Or they’d kill her.  

Kill people.

Noticing the clammy look on her face, Champagne just leaned back in her chair and smiled.

"Come on, Caprae. I believe you can do it."

——————- A little on Champagne.

Born to wealthy parents in Cannes, France, Eloise was always such a good child. She excelled in her classes, shone at her dance recitals, she was truly all her parents had wanted.  

At all the gatherings and events, in the company of their rich friends and on their ski trips for their companies and at all the high end restaurants with their high end benefactors they always flaunted her successes.  

“Eloise is such a good child, our little surprise blessing!”  

That was the motto of her parents.

Eloise was found dead, disemboweled in her own bedroom when she was 14.

Born to wealthy parents in Cannes, France, Eloise once said to Champagne

“Well, then you’re a double accident, because we’re twins,”  

and there was nothing Champagne could say to argue with that.  

At all the gatherings and events, in the company of their rich friends and on their ski trips for their companies and at all the high end restaurants with their high end benefactors, Champagne was told children should be seen and not heard. Champagne would sit outside her sister’s dance studio and stare at that pretty pallid corpse that had followed her since she turned 6, when she was staring at some swallowtails and wondering what a butterfly with two different colors of wings would look like. Soon it did more than that. Much more. No one else could see it, but she knew it was real. It scared her.

She tried to cover its glassy eyes with bows. She tried to tell her parents.

“You’re too old to talk about imaginary friends.”

That was the motto of her parents.

When she was 14, Champagne snuck into Eloise’s king sized bedroom in the middle of the night, took out her vocal chords to not have to hear her sister scream, and methodically, calmly, took her sister’s body apart like she was just another butterfly.  

----------back to the present

Champagne leaned back and smiled, but KT didn't seem reassured. 

Chapter Text

—-QUITE A FEW HOURS LATER—-

Slumped over the balcony that Rising Sun had so kindly provided for him, Terunosuke looked at the pedestrians from his perch on the third floor. Something here, something there, it all passed below. He watched them move in lines, cars changing lanes and kids on bikes, distant conversations. He still didn’t know Italian, and his mind was swirling with everything he’d been told he had to do, so he just watched to watch.

He was snapped out of his reverie by the slam of a screen door (he could tell it was a screen door, they have a certain rattle to them) and saw someone purple in his peripheral vision.

He snapped up and instantly whipped around to see her.

KT.

Terunosuke.

KT and Terunosuke.

They stayed out there on that balcony for half an hour without saying a single word to each other; they each continued to glance at the other whenever they looked away.

——THE NEXT MORNING ——

KT woke up on the blue velvet pull out couch, at five AM, to see Panzanella strolling straight through the wall. Naturally, she shrieked and almost threw a punch. Panzanella was not bothered by this.

“You need to save your strength for the actual enemy. Good morning,“ she said, sounding perfectly awake.

“Morning..are you going to tell me the stand ability of this ‘actual enemy‘ now?”

“As much as I wish I could, I absolutely cannot. I told you yesterday that any information on how his ability works or who he is will activate his ability remotely.   He is a tricky bastard in that way, and that is why you are killing him today.”

“This is honestly really terrifying. Why do I have to do this? “

“ Because you, KT Caprae, made a promise yesterday. You have to follow through. And we know what you are capable of.”

“So? I can’t redo what I did to that vampire! It was a -“

“So get your act together.“

Panzanella turned around to exit, bell bottoms swishing behind her.

“I believe in you, KT. Get food in your stomach and get yourself cleaned up. We are leaving in half an hour. “

In the room next door, Terunosuke had already been up for quite a while; he’d barely slept last night and spent most of it talking to Rising Sun. He sealed the last paper, shoving it into the “combat folder” with the other 30 or so pages. He felt well prepared enough with that.

“Are you ready, Terunosuke? You need to be ready,” said the sign that popped up on the door.

“I’m ready.”

“Hmm… I can tell you are not ready. Just remember what you did yesterday and do that again. “

“I can’t. “

“Well, you have to, okay? Get out there and end a man’s life. “

With that, the door swung open to the garage.

There was only one car they could take. It’s not that it was the only car that worked: There were a lot of available cars in the Passione garage, but Panzanella would only drive one: her personal car, the “Lovely thing”. It was a modified hearse, and it smelled like bleach. The drive was going to be one and a half hours long.

Panzanella was in the drivers seat, of course. According to her,  a ghost named Milena (who had been killed by one of the stand users living in the condo and was treating this upcoming assassination like a sporting event) was latched onto the roof giving her directions. Champagne was in the passengers seat, sleeping. All she had said before she dozed off was that she wasn’t a morning person. KT and Terunosuke were in the backseat.

The ride went the way you’d expect.

The arrival was not that uneventful.

They pulled up to a nice seaside condo, something that looked expensive, well kept. Something that looked normal. With a door left ajar. With lights on. With a young girl standing on the front porch.

“CAPRAE! MIYAMOTO! STAY IN THE FUCKING CAR! PLAN CHANGED, we need to leave NOW!”

And then the car stopped moving.

The car stopped moving, and a quiet panic set in. Panzanella was pushing on the gas as hard as she could, but the engine just whirred helplessly. Champagne  snapped awake and summoned Jigsaw Feeling, a look of inappropriately enthusiastic anticipation on her face .The air felt thicker. Heavier. Terunosuke’s left eye wouldn’t stop twitching. Someone was scratching on the roof, and they could hear pained breathing.

Nothing after that can be described in a dignified manner, but it can be described in an accurate manner.

There was a sound like a broken hot tub, and the car shot upwards, then started to plummet. It did that a couple of times. The seatbelts helped a lot, even as the vehicle began to revolve and rotate like it was on spin cycle. They did not help keep Panzanella’s stand from ricocheting throughout the interior unrestrained and hitting everyone at least once. It also did not keep the occupants of the car from swearing in at least four different languages. Seconds before they smashed into the ground, the momentum shifted yet again. Panzanella’s “lovely thing” skidded sideways across the tarmac like it was an air hockey puck before coming to a stop mere inches away from the condo; airbags activated, windows broken, passengers jostled and paint scratched.

Terunosuke had been flitting in and out of paper form the whole time they were in the air, and he’d landed in the trunk when they hit the ground. Once KT wriggled out of the confines of her seatbelt, she glanced back at him: he looked mostly unharmed. Champagne used a pocketknife to pop the airbags up front, as Panzanella muttered something worried in Italian. Their assailant stood on top of the wreck for a moment, then jumped back down to earth.

No, she didn’t just jump. She fell backwards, then bounced up off of nothing into the air. She shot up into the sky before she flipped back onto the porch and landed on her feet.

She looked like a child on the porch from far away, but now having gotten a closer look, she looks…like a child.

She’s a child.

That’s what hits KT first. She’s 15 at most, her hair is blue, her afro puffs are styled into points not dissimilar to the ears of a cat.

“AMIANTO! MOZZARELLA!” - She yells- THEY’RE HERE!”

A woman in a hazmat suit jacket and latex booty shorts slams open the front door, followed by a man in a business suit .

He snarled something at the girl

-“How many times do I have to tell you to call me ‘Sir’, Gatta?”,

and the hazmat woman snapped back.

“Mozzarella, you can scold her when Passione’s dogs aren’t at our door!”

He sighed and stared at her for a few seconds.

“Very well, we do have priorities. Let’s see who put mistress Moschino in the dirt, huh?

Calmly, he strolled over to the wreck. His stand aura flickered jauntily. He was even humming as he glanced at the others, glancing quickly with disdain at Panzanella and Champagne, but passing them by nontheless. But he stopped on a dime when he spotted KT through the shattered window. She gazed up at him, frozen with fear, breaths shallow and quick. He looked her up and down, examining her body with piercing disgust. Eyes lingering on her jawline and her chest. 

“You. You are one of the ones who killed mistress Moschino. Duel me.”

Chapter Text

—————- a while back

“When is she coming back? I miss her!”

The young girl flopped onto her pull out bed, causing the springs to let out a sickly creak.

“Don’t put your shoes on the bed.”

“Don’t smoke in the house, mozzy. You’re gonna make the girl’s lungs give out.”

Amianto said, while drawing on her own cigarette.

—————-

His stand aura flared up, flashing a steel blue.  Simultaneously, Kt felt a zap of pain somewhere inside her chest, sending little frazzled currents of pure fear down all her veins.

“ I see the grimace on your face, boy . That’s my stand ability, Complicated Game. If you keep acting so inappropriately, I’ll keep shocking you until your heart gives out. Now, I said duel me. “

She stood up, for she had no choice but to oblige.

Near instantly, Champagne sprung up and out through the broken window, summoning her stand in all its gory glory.

Free from the danger of Mozzarella’s attention, she broke into a dead sprint in the direction of Gatta. Jigsaw Feeling reached to claw at flesh, to separate skin from muscle, to get close enough to eviscerate… But her target had very good reflexes. The girl flinched, raised her forearms defensively, and summoned her stand. It unsheathed its claws, it clawed the air and the air turned blue.

For a split second, all movement ceased—-Then, the force kicked in, and Champagne landed in the sand at Amianto’s feet. Getting to her feet, she dusted off her frilled dress and glared at the other woman.

“You couldn’t even give her a scratch!” she laughed, slowly stepping away from her.

“Well, don’t assume that means anything. I’m more than content to just kill you first, Amianto.”

Moments after she had that danger out of her hair, Gatta heard another thud. Whipping around, she found that her stand had dragged in someone…unexpected. A messy-haired man in a black and white fleece ( isn’t that too hot for the weather? She thought) pinned to the ground by her stand’s effect, but still struggling relentlessly to get up.

Easy prey for her and Lovecats.

Back at her battered Lovely Thing, Panzanella came to a grim conclusion.

“Milena, this is not so good of a start,” she whispered to the bloodless woman curled up on the center console. “We had only expected the chemist to be here, and instead there were all three. None of them are prepared,especially not when Mozzarella is here. And Terunosuke’s strategy is useless against Gatta when she controls gravity.”

She nervously twisted her stand’s cord. The ghost shrugged at her.

“Well, Aren’t you a regular Mrs. Fatalistic. You’re so negative.”

“No, no, I am not being negative. I think we can win this, but I am just not sure if we will be bringing the two of them back with or without their bodies.”

After briefly turning to witness what was unfolding all around him, Mozzarella looked back at KT.

“Now that I finally have your attention, and everyone else has found themselves to be quite occupied..we can finally begin our duel, can’t we? “

“I don’t have a weapon.”

SHOCK. Her heart rate spiked. Adrenaline flooded her system.

“Well, that’s an awful shame. You should have come prepared for this; what are you, an amateur?”

“Yes, actually..”

SHOCK.

Chapter Text

Once the current was done thrashing its way through her nerves, KT felt his stand fully manifest.

Felt, not saw, because it wasn’t standing behind him. It was on her back.

She could feel it suckered there, whiskers coiled around her neck, the writing piscine form, the lashing tail. Oh, she could feel it, damp and heavy and thrumming with energy, but she took care not to react.  If she reacted, then…

Her train of thought was cut off when Mozzarella cleared his throat. Anticipating another shock, she jerked her head up to meet his eyes.

“Now that you can feel my Complicated Game on you, let me explain the stakes more clearly. We are going to have a duel. The duel itself will be fair. My stand gives me no advantage in that regard. However, if at any point you break the rules of duel etiquette-or social etiquette for that matter- Complicated Game will shock you.”

KT nodded, trying to keep eye contact. He nodded back and  continued on.

“His suckers administer 50 volts at the very lowest.  50 volts is fairly painful, as I am sure you now know. It is also enough to kill you— if it travels through your body right.“

[ A while back..

“Wait, you’ve been shocking me hard enough to kill this whole time?”

Gatta slammed her hand down on the table, rattling bowls and utensils.

“Why would you try and kill me with all these shocks?!?,”

“I’m not trying to kill you, just keep you in line! I want you to be a proper girl!”

Moschino lifted her head up from the chest cavity of her dinner and scowled, pressing her bloody lips into a thin line.

“Mozzarella, we are all just trying to enjoy our food. Leave this conversation for another time, will you?

The vampire wiped vicera off her forehead with the back of her hand, blotching her burgundy sleeves with easily hidden stains.

“And that reminds me, Gatta. You did a splendid job helping me hunt today. This is so nicely bruised and tenderized, so the blood was flowing freely. I’m glad you flung her around carelessly like that.”

She felt the cold rays of Moschino’s proud smile. Amianto made some comment, Mozzarella laughed, their leader went down for another drink, licking her lips, savoring. Gatta, well, she wasn’t paying attention to any of this, even as the three others at the table laughed.  She couldn’t pull her attention away from the glazed eyes of the corpse on the table. She was studying the tattoo on her cheek, but her attention kept flickering just slightly upward. She had seen life leave people’s eyes before, but never before had she made someone’s neck crack in such a way that her body went limp and her stand vanished instantly.

Moschino said this woman was a Passione spy; and she was glad that her darling killed her so efficiently.

Mozzarella said that she really could earn her keep around here after all, a rare smile on his face as he recognized her usefulness

Amianto said she should be proud of how well she used her stand, and that next time she went to the store she’d let her come with and buy something.

Gatta said she had no appetite for dinner today and asked Mozzarella for permission to leave the room.

]

Snapping her finger, she de-materialized the bubble as she started to move in. Terunosuke shot up, gasping. Grabbing at his pockets, he pulled out a piece of paper and held it out like a shield.

Gatta stared at him, unintimidated by his display. Was this man really the one who killed Moschino? She took a step closer, her stand creeping at her side. Lovecats looked hungry. As she neared him, he yelled something in a language she didn’t know.

He unfolded the paper. Threw something sharp.

Thunk. She increased the gravity, dropping it to the ground with a wave of her hand.

Step.

Unfold.

Throw.

Thunk.

Step.

Unfold.

Throw.

Thunk.

Step.

Unfold.

Throw.

“ SHIT !”

This time, she dropped with the projectile. Not with. On top of it. A drawing compass drove its point deep into her abdomen; she gripped the sand and screamed.

She rolled over, but resisted the urge to pull it out. She wouldn’t die, not when she still had something to do. She felt his footsteps in the sand, out of dunce with the throbbing of her pulse, and she frantically tried to sit up. Damn , it was too painful to put pressure on the area. Guess she’d get up another way.

When Terunosuke took his next step towards her, his feet refused to hit the ground. Instead, he tumbled upwards, papers scattering everywhere. Gravity had been reversed.

Not even 30 feet away, Champagne and Amianto had already shed their first blood.  Amianto stood proudly, goggles gleaming in the sun. Champagne clutched her blistering arm, glaring at the opposition.

“You’re really quite fucked, you know. My Weird Science has twice the range of your little gutted fish thing, so you’ll never get close enough to retaliate.”

She laughed, a surprisingly pretty sound for such an ugly situation, and continued on her rant.

“I wonder if I’ll poison or burn you to death? Maybe inject you with mercury? I’m sure you understand the struggles of decision, as a fellow sadist. “  Weird science wriggled and floated behind her, dangling its hexagonal chains all over. Slowly, Champagne drew her combat knife, but she smirked and stepped a bit back.

“No way. Are you really top assassin? This is stupid. I saw that. I should just kill you right now. “

“I seriously doubt you. Sand is mostly silica, so it’s not very reactive. I can even take out my lungs and clean them of the dust! There’s not a lot you can get to to change that doesn’t require you to enter my range, turn your back, or endanger yourself by setting the very air on fire again. We’ve entered a stalemate now. “

“Unless you move, that is. “

“Amianto, I’ll take that risk any day.”

With that, Champagne burst into action. She lunged. She dodged. She jumped out of the way of Weird Science’s stingers, and her stand dug its nails into its bell. Blood gushed from Amianto’s forehead.

“You fucking BITCH! “

She whipped some sort of white clumpy powder in Champagne’s direction. The assassin ducked to dodge it-and was met with a spray of sodium hydroxide coming from Weird Science. Her vision went red and agonizingly painful. Her enemy laughed, taking the moment of distraction to get perilously close.

“I wasn’t aiming for you! That was just table salt, anyway! I was aiming for my stand, so I could change it into something much deadlier, and you, being the fool you are, you fell right for-“

She felt a sharp, clean, pain in her throat as her voice stopped. Jigsaw feeling had her by the neck.

Her vocal cords were severed.

“I warned you to stay out of my range, didn’t I?”

Chapter Text

Though he was suspended 30 feet in the air, Terunosuke couldn’t help but look at the earth below. Down there, the figures of the others whirled around in frenetic fights. Up here, it was uncannily still. Gatta floated a few feet away from him, clutching her stomach. Her face was still wracked with pain; her stand was now fully summoned. It was no longer the size of an average housecat. It was the size of Enigma, and it stared at him like it was backed into a corner: hackles raised, tail puffed, claws out.

Wait, she has the upper hand, but aren’t these signs of-

His reasoning was interrupted by a sharp stinging pain in his hand. Lovecats had gathered its own momentum from nowhere and pounced, unfettered by the lack of gravity.

He had reflexively summoned Enigma, trying to push it back. But Enigma’s arms folded, and the stand’s claws dug into its palms. Gritting his teeth, Terunosuke kicked at it himself. Utterly unfazed by his attempts, Lovecats bit halfway through Enigma’s shoulder with a crumpling crunch. Underneath his fleece, he felt puncture wounds open up. Taking no breaks, it swiped at him again, and he yanked his head back, narrowly avoiding the razor sharp claws. He couldn’t keep dodging like this forever.

The stand opened its mouth, revealing rows of glistening teeth. In the split second before it bit down on his head, he kicked off from the stand, pushing himself past the border of the zero-gravity circle.  The laws of physics kicked in, and he fell.

He was 30 feet from the ground,

25 feet from the ground,

20 feet up,

I’m not going to make it.

15 feet,

10 ,

5 .

Seconds before impact, paper enveloped his body. Shaking, shoving open the folds, he crawled out of the paper and onto the sand. His hands throbbed with pain, blood was beginning to soak his sweater. Nevertheless. Enigma pulled him to his feet.

Up above, he heard an agonized scream. Gatta’s sphere was shaking and flickering. Blood was floating around her, streaming out from her stomach-He could just barely make out the drawing compass in her hand.  Using the last of her strength, she focused her stand ability on the weapon and hurled it at him. He reached out with Enigma, crumpling it into a ball just millimeters from his face.

Up in the sky, Gatta swayed, then fainted.

—-

“So, a duel is really quite simple. You’re paying attention, right? Because if you are, you should be able to understand.”

KT nodded, her lips pressed into a thin line.

“Good job. This proves you can follow directions and respond to them, so you can do this too. When I start to count to ten, you will turn your back and walk ten paces, one for every number.”   

He pulled a revolver out of his pocket and spun it in his hand. The engraved patterns on it caught the sun and glimmered like the scales of a sturgeon.

“Then, I’ll shoot you in the head. If you survive, you win the duel. Sounds good?”

What the hell! This isn’t a duel at all! She thought, realizing that everything he had said about “fairness” earlier was an utter black tar lie.  He was just going to kill her without giving her a chance to fight back. That’s how it always went.

“I said, does it sound good!?!”

KT felt electricity begin to crackle around her neck. She nodded and forced a smile, because this is how it always went.

“Ok then, let me begin. “

This is how it always went.

“One.”

Well, this is how it is.

“Two.”

I guess I knew this couldn’t last. I really thought things were looking up for me for a while. So much was turning out to be true.. But if this is what life is handing me…

“Three.”

There’s no fucking reason I should just have to stand there and take it!

“Four.”

If I do nothing, I’m going to die. If I fight back, it’ll be awful and I could die anyway. But there’s a chance I’ll live!

“Five.”

So I’m doing this…I need to do this. I need to be strong enough to do this. I need to fight back.

“Six.”

Not just for myself. I didn’t make this deal for just myself.

“Seven.”

When this is all over, I want to talk to Terunosuke again. I want to apologize to him. I want to be his friend.

“Eight.”

I won’t die without doing that. I won’t die now at all! I’m going to live!

“Nine.”

If I get through this, if I can bear the pain I’m about to bring onto myself, we can live a good fucking life!

“TEN!”

BANG!

It hurt.

It felt like the electrical grid of a small city was concentrated in her bones. Pulse after pulse after pulse after pulse shot from Complicated game and into the nerves of her back, disseminating pure pain throughout her entire body. But there was no bullet in her head. Though the currents made her brain rattle in her skull, her skull was at least still intact. Touch Tone was moving with a speed she had never seen before, landing kick after kick after kick on Mozzarella. Something in her, maybe some involuntary nerve response to the shocks, maybe something a little deeper, stirred her to scream , and her stand echoed that cry.

“ BADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADADORA!”

A few meters away, the sound broke the two women’s heated battle. Amianto whipped around in shock and horror, staring just long enough to see a shotgun-strength kick hit Mozzarella just between the eyes. Then, she felt a sharp finger running down her spine. She heard Champagne laugh softly. She couldn’t move.

“I thought you knew better, but you lost focus.”

She tried desperately to do anything, but all she could do was move her eyes to stare at her stand twitching helplessly at her feet. It was covered in deep, thin cuts that made every shake and shudder look like undulating waves. She could barely see the same types of cuts all over her legs. She couldn’t feel them though.she couldn’t feel her body at all.

“Oh, your friend just died? Is that why you lost focus? You killed a lot of my friends, Amianto. Didn’t make me any less determined. Anyway, don’t cry about his death. He doesn’t deserve your tears, just like you don’t deserve mine. “

In one swift motion, Jigsaw feeling yanked Amianto’s head backwards, cracking her neck in just the wrong place. Her body went limp. The stand let go of her hair and let her collapse to the ground.

At about that same moment, KT felt the current stop. Complicated Game’s tendrils uncoiled from around her neck as it flopped to the floor and dissipated. She stared at the corpse of Mozzarella. His body was riddled with holes, his insides were leaking outside.

I did that. She thought, before falling flat on her back into the sand.

Panzanella crawled out of the car and strolled over to assess the gory scene. Champagne was poking at her victim’s eyes and comparing their health to her injured ones, contemplating a swap while the body was still warm (the best time to do it.) KT was sweating and shaking and her heart was beating faster than she could count it. She felt like all her nerves were fried, but she was trying to remind herself that she probably wasn’t suffering from anything permanent yet.

Terunosuke was still staring up at the sky, because his enemy hadn’t come down yet.

[MOZZARELLA: DEFEATED, DEAD.]

[AMIANTO: DEFEATED, DEAD]

[GATTA: STILL IN COMMISSION ]

Chapter Text

Gatta was indeed still in commission. Barely. She was 10 feet off the ground, and dropped down a little more every time her stand aura flickered. But she was still conscious, and therefore likely still a threat. Champagne noticed, and rushed to Terunosuke’s side, summoning her stand once again.

Gatta made contact with the ground in front of them, then crumpled to the sand. She didn’t attempt to attack. All she did was clutch her stomach in a futile attempt to not lose any more blood.

She looked up at them in horror. To Terunosuke, time seemed to slow ever so slightly as he observed the scene.

He noticed that her stand was still active. Too weak to move, but active. Its hackles were raised, its fur stood on end, its eyes were wide.

Signs of fear.

Moving as quick as it ever had, Enigma grabbed Lovecats by the scruff of its neck, effortlessly folding it and its user up.

Terunosuke grabbed the paper from his stand and held it away from Champagne.

She stared at him in bewilderment for a moment, then let out a sharp laugh.

“Oh, I see! You wanted to kill her. Apologies for almost stealing your target.”

He didn’t understand what she was saying, but it didn’t sound like she realized what he was trying to do.  He put Gatta’s paper in his pocket, and Champagne’s expression once again shifted to one of confusion.

“You’re going to kill her, right? You should do it now.”

Again, he didn’t understand the words, but he picked up quite a bit of anger in them this time. He shook his head and took a step back, and Champagne took a step forward.

“You aren’t trying to say you’re sparing her, right? Are you serious? She needs to die!”

“HEY! He defeated her, right? If she’s in the paper, she’s totally incapacitated.“

Terunosuke whipped around at the sound of a familiar voice, and saw that KT was up on her feet and walking towards him. Save for the blood splattered on her face and the burns on her clothes, she looked no worse for wear. Surprising, considering the screams he had heard coming from her.

“Cut my buddy some slack, okay?” She said, tugging at her singed collar.

Panzanella arrived at the scene just seconds later, and ran to her disgruntled wife’s side.

“I will cut him some slack, If he explains what he is doing. There are jobs that need to be done.”

Kt quickly translated, and Terunosuke shot back a response.

“I’m sparing her because she doesn’t want to die. And she’s younger than I was.”

He had expected there to be a standoff, some sort of heated argument. But Panzanella instead responded with

“How old is she?”

“I think she’s around 15.”

“I see.”

She furrowed her brow.

“Take her out of the paper and lay her flat. Champagne, will you help them stabilize her? I need to go do some…composting of the leftovers.”

She power-walked off towards the now-ownerless house.

Hesitantly, Terunosuke took the paper out of his pocket.

Kt watched in slight awe as he unfolded the small slip of paper into something many times its size, then lifted the page up off the sand to reveal Gatta laying underneath. She was out cold, bleeding fast and breathing shallow. Champagne sighed, muttered something resigned and vulgar in French, and plunged Jigsaw Feeling’s fingers into her abdomen like a fork into jello.

It was at this point that KT and Terunosuke both decided to stop watching her operate.

——

Primarily, they wanted to get far enough away as to not hear the squelching of organs being prodded at, but getting out of the sun was also a goal.

So they sat down in the shade of the ruined hearse together.

“I kinda want to see what the eyepatch wearing one is doing inside their house.” Terunosuke muttered.

“You mean Panzanella? Yeah, me too.”

“Do you think we should? “

“Maybe… “

KT replied, taking off her jacket.

“Y’know, I should have said it sooner, but I’m sorry, Terunosuke. I’m sorry for hurting you like that. “

She balled it up and tossed it behind her.

“I shouldn’t have touched you. I absolutely shouldn’t have said those things about you. I felt awful when I realized how badly it scared you, and that I lashed out at you for something I caused.. It’s a bit of a lame excuse, but I’ve never had a genuine friend before you. So I don’t really know how to be friends with people, and I make mistakes like this.”

“I don’t know how either,” he said, doing his best attempt at a smile. He had intended to apologize first, but she beat him to it.

“Still, you have a reason for that. I don’t. I messed up, I hurt you, and I’m sorry. That’s the bottom line of it all. “

“I hurt you as well, so I’m sorry too.”

“Wait, why are you apologizing? You don’t need to apologize, you couldn’t control that ability! Don’t apologize for something totally out of your control!”

“Well, I meant emotionally hurt but—how do you know that I couldn’t control my wound ability?”

“Oh, Panzanella told me. Apparently she has one too, but she doesn’t want to talk about it. Did she tell you what a wound was as well?”

“No, Rising Sun did that.”

“You got to talk to the house?!!! What’s it like! How did it speak to you? Did it tell you anything cool?”

“Yeah, I did! It uses signs to talk, at least to me. It talks a lot. It says it doesn’t like to overshare details about people, but…it also said it can read the minds of anybody inside so-“

“Holy shit that’s freaky. This is awesomesauce.”

“Huh?”

[TERUNOSUKE MIYAMOTO AND KT CAPRAE: NO LONGER FIGHTING]

[GATTA: BEGRUDGINGLY HEALED BY CHAMPAGNE, STILL OUT COLD. WILL BE BROUGHT BACK TO PASSIONE HQ, WHERE HER FATE WILL BE DETERMINED]

[MILENA, THE GHOST WHO WAS TAGGING ALONG: STILL FOLLOWING PANZA. SHE DID NOT INTEND TO MOVE ON. FREELOADER.]

[AMIANTO AND MOZZARELLA: CURRENTLY FACING A SECOND DEATH AT THE HANDS OF PANZANELLA. UTTERLY DESTROYED, DEAD.]

Chapter Text

This morning, she did not have to wait long to wake up. Her mind turned on at 6, as per usual, and she counted the seconds until the lamp in her living room would be knocked over.

*CRACK*

There it was.

The pitiful girl had shown up this morning at 06:15:37 am-

-Right on time.

She found her lying prone on her living room floor next to the broken dog shaped lamp. Then she blinked and opened her eyes to the girl standing behind her, whispering nigh-incoherent apologies for the unintentional home intrusion. “An unwanted side effect of my condition”, she said, voice trembling.

It should have been rather surprising for her to encounter her next actor like this. Instead, it merely amused her.

This is because Cilicia Commedes had not been surprised by anything at all since 2012.

Chapter Text

The ride back to Passione was just as tense as the ride there, albeit for different reasons. It was good that Panzanella managed to get her lovely thing working again, as once she did, her entire demeanor lightened up significantly, and when she perked up, Champagne’s mood seemed to improve. But it was still tense.

When they finally got there, Giorno was waiting for them in the garage, his expression utterly unreadable.

Panzanella and Champagne dutifully walked to his side, but Kt and Terunosuke were…less eager to approach. After all, fear of his judgement on their actions was what made the ride back so strained.

To be fair though, they did have a lot to talk about. Catastrophizing about the possible outcomes of disobedience together was not exactly fun, but it was bonding.

Well, the hour of judgement was upon them now, and Giorno beckoned them forward.

“Go on, open and release her. I assure you she will not be harmed.”

That was better than they hoped for a first statement.

With no option but to trust in the boss , Terunosuke unfolded Gatta and laid her down on the cold concrete floor.

This time,she awoke when freed. And she did so quite violently. She shot straight up, shaking, sweating, as if coming right off the tail end of a night terror. As if she was still dying.

KT took a step back, instinctively summoning Touch Tone the moment she saw the girl’s stand aura flicker.

But there was no need for her to do that.

There was simply a gold flash, and the world was sternly corrected for daring to make more blood be shed.

[Terunosuke had seen it before. He wasn’t phased. Kt was quietly scared shitless.]

That sudden and powerful use of his ability was less surprising than what they saw Giorno doing when the glow subsided.

All they had ever seen from this man was stoic professionalism.

Now he was kneeling next to Gatta and comforting her.

“It’s okay, child. It’s okay. We don’t intend to hurt you. We plan to let you go. We have many places you can stay that will be safe for a young one like you.”

Is what they would have heard, if they understood Italian.

Gatta responded, choking out

“I don’t believe you. “

through heavy sobs, and though they didn’t understand that either, they got the meaning.

It went on like that.

No blows were exchanged.

Giorno did not raise his voice,or

summon his Stand again.

They just argued, then they talked.

Eventually, after at least ten minutes (during which Panzanella and Champagne quietly decided to take their leave), she muttered something worn down. Yes, worn down, tired, willing to take whatever rest she was given- that’s how she sounded. The moment she did so, the nearest wall molded itself a doorway. Slowly, she stood up and moved towards it. She hesitated for a moment, choked out another sob, flung the door open, and disappeared inside. The door did not vanish behind her, but you could hear her lock it from the inside.

Now KT and Terunosuke were alone in the garage with the most powerful man in the country. He stood up from the ground, concrete dust sparkling on his previously pristine suit. And he smiled at them.

“You two did well out there. I am pleasantly surprised you both made it out relatively unscathed.”

“Full body electrocution is relatively unscathed??” Kt blurted out, before she had the better judgment to stop herself or maybe ask a more relevant question.

“Yes. I was somewhat worried that one or both of you would be killed on this mission. That’s why I sent Panzanella with you.”

“What?”

“ I was worried about that, Miyamoto. It’s beside the point now. You did it, you survived and you won’t have to do it again.”

He clasped his hands nicely and continued.

“The main reason that I am congratulating you is your decision to spare Gatta. If you had chosen to kill her, I may have put you back in the book.”

“ Please don’t say that to me.”

“It’s a compliment. You didn’t kill her, which is the right choice, so you have earned your freedom. You are a good person. You’re both good people, which is why I’m declining to have you stay in the mafia. You can go home soon.”

“Thanks?” KT replied, thought she wasn’t exactly sure she was supposed to thank him for that.

“Of course, we do have a few more things to sort out with you. But over all, you’re in the clear. Congratulations. “

——— one hour later…——-

That’s the most money I’ve ever seen in my life, KT thought, looking at the 6 digit deposit in her bank account.

“And there you go. Don’t spend it all in one place,” Fugo said.

“Are you absolutely sure this won’t get flagged as suspicious activity?”

“Charges and deposits from our accounts always go under the radar.”

“But this is an American bank. So that means you have connections all over the world.”

“Yes, we do.”

“I’ll have to keep an eye out for that.”

“I’d recommend you just forget about your little adventures in Italy and never tell anyone, okay? You did kill a politician.”

“What? Who?”

“Mozzarella was a member of the parliament. When people notice he’s gone, it’ll be all over the news. So just don’t talk about it.”

While KT was reeling from that bombshell, Terunosuke sat at the table, looking through his fabricated documents.

Height 5”3, blue eyes, brown skin, white hair, male, name Terunosuke Miyamoto, birthday January first, 2004. Legally, he was now 17. He had an American birth certificate too, just for contingency. The numbers on it were made up retroactively, guesstimates. He couldn’t remember his mother’s name, so KT had to go back to the article on his disappearance to find it.

—-and later—-

The sign read:

“Here’s some clothes for you to make up for the ones you lost. On the house. Get it?”

It hung over a table with 2 folded sets of clothes: one matching Terunosuke’s current outfit, and one a perfect replica of KT’s original outfit, down to the pin. She grabbed the bundle of clothes and squeezed them tight, grinning. Another sign appeared underneath the first:

“Get it? On the house? Because I’m the house?”

Then another:

“I’m just joking with you guys. I know you get it. It’s so cute that you guys made up. “

The signs folded up into the wall, then rolled back out again.

“Oh, and since I know it’s on both of your minds, Gatta is ok.”

“What’s going to happen to her next?” Kt asked, still hugging the second coming of her favorite shirt.

“I do not know. It’s too soon for anything to happen to her. She needs time.”

—-and later—-

“So, do you like it? This is what I got back at that Tonio’s place in Morioh. Well, it’s not the exact same obviously but it’s the same type of pasta. “

“It’s pretty starchy.”

He stabbed another gnocchi with his fork, then popped it in his mouth.

“But it’s pretty good.”

Across the room, they saw Panzanella jolt up as if she had suddenly remembered something, then walk over to their table.

“Are you trying different types of pasta?” She said, with her typical seriousness.

“Yeah…?” KT replied.

“Try Cavatappi next. It is my personal favorite.”

—-and later, at night,——

Terunosuke laid on the pile of throw pillows next to KT’s beanbag chair and stared up at the ceiling with her.

“I assume this isn’t what a normal week is like for you?”

She laughed.

“No, thank god. It’s usually a lot more mundane. I am glad that we got derailed like this, though. You got your body back.”

“Yeah, I... I lack the words to describe it. It feels like the first time I’m doing these things, but I’ve got a constant sense of Deja vu. And I get little flashes sometimes.”

He paused for a moment, then sighed.

“Only for a moment though. They don’t stay.”

“Well, now that you’re out you can start to make new memories to make up for the lost ones.”

“Have you said that to me before?”

“Huh? No, I haven’t.”

“Oh. Perhaps it was just Deja vu.”

—-and the next morning—-

Champagne and Panzanella were having coffee in the foyer. They passed them on their way out to the cab to the airport, and they stopped them for a moment.

“Good luck out there, you two,” said Champagne. “I’d say I hope that you don’t encounter any other stand users back in the United States, but it’s likely that you will. So be sharp, and goodbye. “

—and on the airplane—-

KT was going to suggest they watched the Truman show together, but Terunosuke fell asleep just minutes into the flight. Well, now that he was human it was clear it wasn’t reallt sleep? His eyes were open, but he wasn’t staring at anything. It creeped her out a little bit, so thirty minutes into the flight she tapped him on the shoulder with Touch Tone and the lights in his eyes turned back on.

“Mnm..what is it?”

“I was just checking if you’re okay. “

“I’m fine, this is just..how I pass time.”

He slumped back over in his seat, and she figured it would be better if she didn’t bother him again until the seatbelts were off.

—-and finally, at KT’s home in the middle of the night—

She opened the door and immediately remembered why she didn’t have people over. The stained kitchen, the trash filled living room with the stripped mattress on the floor, the faded pictures pinned to the walls, the shitty curtains, the house she could barely live in. She was back in the real world, and he was exposed to her travesty of a living situation.

“Shit, I’m sorry Terunosuke. I don’t-here-let me-“ she said, frantically pushing garbage away with her stand and brushing crumbs off the mattress. When she realized how long that would take, and how late it already was, she swung open the door to the side, to a pristine but dusty room.

“Here, I have an unused room, you can sleep in there, it’s pretty clean, I’m sorry about-“

“I can help you clean tomorrow, if you want. Enigma should make it easy.”

“……yeah, that would be a good idea. It’s fucking filthy in this house. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s ok, KT.”

“…thanks. The bathroom is just across from this room if you need it. I’m really tired, so I’m going to go to bed. Come get me if you need anything. “

So, he laid down in the only clean room in the house, and KT laid down on the frameless mattress in her living room and thought about everything she needed to do and the job she’d been fired from and the money she got and the man she killed and her best friend who probably deserved better than the house she had and the theories on her walls. She didn’t know when she fell asleep, but she knew touch tone was holding her when she did.

END OF ACT ONE.

Chapter Text

The room he slept in was pretty barren. There were no trinkets or indicators that could point him towards its original purpose or owner, and he had been looking since he got up. The absence was an indicator in its own right. He didn’t want to keep sitting in an empty room, so threw on a pair of pants and ventured out into the main body of the house.

KT was still asleep on her frameless mattress. The word “nest” came to his mind when he saw her curled up among the blankets.

He didn’t want to wake her. He could guess that she needed the sleep badly.

Unsure of what to do, he considered just watching her until she woke up on her own, but that might scare her..it was tempting, but no.

He looked around the room, eventually catching his eye on the dingy shine of her fridge.  Ah. That’s it. He could have some food.

…

Despite his hopes, the fridge was pretty much empty. He had a bit more luck with the cabinets, finding some canned and boxed good, but there still wasn’t much.

So, he decided to finally examine the elephant in the room. The web  of posters, printed pictures, and strings that took up an entire wall. He’d never seen anything like it before.

He approached it gingerly, like it had some sort of power. He couldn’t make out the writing, as most of it seemed to be in English. But he could look at the images.

In the center, there was a picture of dilapidated buildings and a sky bright with stars merging together, seemingly drawn by a child. The paper was yellowed and curling at the edges.  It had strings coming out of every side of it, linking it to pictures of Mayan calendars and scribbled over world maps and what looked like the logo of a government agency and print outs of a green messaging board.  In the periphery of this, there were other clusters. Notably, there was one for Morioh.  Among documents pertaining to other urban legends, he caught sight of a picture of what he could assume was himself as a book and a long missing persons list with his name on it. When he looked at the lines she had drawn, he noticed he wasn’t even one of the suspects for who “the book “ could have been.  Hah.

It was about then that KT woke up. She rolled over in bed, opened her eyes, and noticed him standing amid the mess on the floor and staring at her board of theories.

“Oh, hi, Terunosuke. You were up before me?”

“Yeah, I woke up a little bit ago. I was just looking at this board. It’s quite interesting. Did you come up with all of this?”

“Some of it. A lot of it is based off of other theories, but..I’ve noticed some threads in between the events. Like how there was unexplained SWF presence in both 1999 Morioh and 2012 Florida. Some people say that’s a coincidence, but I just don’t buy it. So I linked those across the clusters. “

She took a second to process what was going on outside her head .

“ I see you’ve noticed the photos of you.”

“Yeah. “

“Should I take those down?”

“Please do. I mean, you have figured it out.”

She took a breath and looked at her mess of a house, remembering the conversation they had last night.

“We should still clean” -she gestured around vaguely- “all this up today, right?”

“Yes. Do you have anything to eat first?”

“…I’ve got trail mix, if that’s ok.”

—— one trail mix later

They figured it would be easiest to start by working through the masses on the floor. They made piles, one for keeping, one for trash. When the trash pile got too big, or when they found anything particularly gross, Terunosuke would fold it away using Enigma. They worked through the whole main area that way, talking to each other the whole time.

“Is that yours?”

“Yeah, but it’s probably too small for me now.“

“This?”

“We can get rid of that one”

“Oh, this one is rather interesting.”

“It’s a puzzle cube. You can keep it if you want.”

“Thank you.”

“No need to thank me, you need some stuff too.”

“You’re correct. Right now I only have the clothes that Rising sun gave me.”

“And they’re…all the same outfit, right?”

“Yes. I don’t know how to feel about that.”

“You’re going to look like an anime character.”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, I guess I might.  It’ll work fine for now anyways. How about this?”

“Oh that’s good, let’s keep it.”

“Got it. By the way, what is the ‘SWF’ you mentioned earlier when talking about your board?”

“Oh, the Speedwagon Foundation? They’re a semi-obscure non government organization that has a lot of shady ties. They claim to just be in the business of ‘international public safety’. “

“That sounds kind of vague.”

“It’s really vague. I’ve scoured their public facing website for a definitive mission statement, but it’s still really vague. They do a lot of good work with environmental protection and stuff, but they’re just sketchy . If you use the way back machine, you can find what their website looked like in the wake of 2012. You had to jump through some hoops to find it, but they had a whole dedicated page for denying anything happened in 2012, with bullshit hypothesis such as ‘it was a mass panic that retroactively influenced your memories of that day to be more apocalyptic’. They deleted it in a few days once normies who didn’t remember started noticing, but the fact that they even cared to address something they claimed was just a mass hallucination shared by a very small percentage of people worldwide proves they know something.”

“You said you think it was stand related, right?”

“ Yeah, but I don’t know what kind of stand could do that.”

———-and so on, and so forth. —-

They were well into the afternoon by now, but with determination and some help from their stand abilities, the job was finally done.

KT flopped down onto her no longer stripped mattress (they had found some sheets in a closet) and sighed.

“I think this is the cleanest my house has felt in years. “

Terunosuke sat down on a pillow on the floor.

“You weren’t taking very good care of yourself, were you?”

“You’re too observant. But I guess it was kinda obvious.”

He didn’t confirm or deny if that was true.

There was a little bit of silence.

“I don’t want it to get that bad again, but even with you here it feels inevitable.“

“I don’t think it’ll get like that again. You have two pairs of hands now. You and Touch Tone, ”  He said, deadpan.

His joke cleaved the tense aura right in two.

“What, so you don’t count? You just helped!” She said, starting to laugh.

“I’m not used to having hands so I don’t know if I count yet. But I guess Enigma is right there. He can help out,” he said, now slightly laughing as well.

Chapter Text

Warning: this chapter contains ableism, proceed with caution.

Even though the house was clean now, it was still mostly foodless. Both KT and Terunosuke thought this should be remedied, and there was but one way to do so: going to the grocery store that was conveniently walking distance from the house.

The grocery store was a strange place that contained all the worst aspects of outside. It was bright, vast, and loud, but had no lizards. Just rows of vaguely familiar produce and very unfamiliar brands, stretching into near-eternity.

At least, that was Terunosuke’s first impression. It wasn’t anything like that to KT.  It was familiar to her, even though she agreed that the lights could be grating- “That’s why I wear the sunglasses.”

Maybe he should get some, but not here. Right now, the two of them were on a dedicated mission: purchase the eponymous groceries.  Kt was going a little bit mad with her purchasing power, throwing seemingly whatever in the cart. She didn’t even have a list. A couple of items caught Terunosuke’s eye as well. A carton of what looked like mango juice, a few other snacks. He put those in the cart too.

They had seen quite a few other people doing their shopping. Most were minding their own business, giving the pair strange looks at most. This space facilitated a secular outlook, Terunosuke noticed.

“Everything is there for you to choose, so mind your own business”

That’s what it said, and that was fine by him.

They were in the drinks aisle when someone broke that formula. A pale, middle aged woman with dark brown hair and eyes that could only be described as piercing and strange gave them a harsher look than most.  He felt the omnipresent pit of unease in his stomach start to sprout. But it was just a harsh look. That’s what he said to KT, at least. She’s just another shopper. But she didn’t even have a basket, nor a single item on her arms.

They exited the drinks aisle, and she was still trailing behind them. He felt her eyes, that’s how he could tell. He felt her eyes.

“I think she’s following us.”

“Shit. It does look like that. Here, let’s try this.”  KT grabbed the reins of the cart and begun to zig and zag around the aisles, weaving into the chip aisle, then out into baking supplies, then all the way around to dairy. If the woman was just coincidentally following, this would surely get her off their trail.

Well, it  wasn’t a coincidence. She was still walking behind them. The unease in his stomach was blossoming into dozens of thorny clusters.

The grocery store was as big as the beach he fought on as big as the cemetery as big as the field as the field as the side of the road he lost on and he could hear a thousand indecipherable conversations and he could feel a tugging in his head. It’s not safe out here. You are not ready to live.

Near-mindlessly, he slipped into paper form and wedged himself in between the two nearest shelves. There was just barely enough space to go back to human form, so of course he did.

CRAMPED. He just barely had room to breathe, and that’s it. He could see through the gap out into the aisle, a bright blade of light slicing through his vision. 

Even KT’s voice couldn’t be understood, though she was calling out to him. His head hurt. Something was pulling at his brain.

He saw a flash of KT approaching with a deeply concerned expression.

Then, the woman that had been following them jammed herself into his field of view and started to talk. 

She was speaking in Japanese. She was speaking in Japanese.

“You can’t act like this in a public place. There are kids around, and you’re going to scare them. Well, I’m not scared of you. Now get up and get out of there. You’re not allowed to be there.”

When he stared at her like a deer in headlights, she continued on her crusade.

“This is really worrying behavior. Should I call someone, or do you have a responsible adult with you? There’s no way you live alone. At least, you shouldn’t.”

He heard KT saying something:

“Hey, I’m with him, back the fuck off!”.

The lady deflected her pleas and persisted.

“Do you know how to speak? Answer me or I’m calling the non emergency line! I’m going to tell them some delusional freak is creeping around the grocery store, and then they’ll get someone to handle y-“

KT, fed up with all this, shoved the woman as hard as she could without using her stand.

“DID YOU JUST ASSAULT ME?”

“SELF DEFENSE AND SINGLE PARTY CONSENT STATE, MOTHERFUCKER!” She shouted, holding up her phone. “CALL THE COPS, I’VE GOT EVIDENCE! YOU THREATENED MY FRIEND INTO A CORNER. GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM HIM!”

The lady turned back to Terunosuke.

“Ah, there’s your handler. Fine. I won’t call the cops, because I want to stop dealing with you people as soon as possible. Otherwise you might abuse me some more. So violent.”

She turned her back to them, muttered something that he could just barely make out, and strode away. The tugging pain in his head stopped.

“What the hell was that all about, and are you okay?” KT asked.

“No. Can we..finish this up quickly? I want to go back to your house.”

“Of course. We were almost done anyway.”

So they finished up as quickly as they possibly could. Terunosuke felt dazed the whole time.

Dazed while adding the last few items to the cart.

Dazed while KT was checking out and giving a Very Large Tip to the young seal-eyed woman at the register (perhaps an apology for all the commotion? )

Dazed and constantly looking over his shoulder for the whole walk back.

KT noticed his silence, and tried to ask him if he was ok. She tried to reassure him too. Maybe he’d take her words to heart later, but right now he was busy. He was busy reading the gaze of every passerby to see if they were sharp enough to pierce him.

His conclusion was that each and every one could and would if angled right, and that they could all tell that he was dangerously out of place.

Next time KT went on an errand, he’d stay home.

Chapter Text

Terunosuke wasn’t quite sure what to do with his new life.

He had become so sick of spending most his time at home that he was considering going back on his vow of agoraphobia. Sure, it had only been two days since the incident at the grocery store, but he was just that bored. “NEET life”, as KT called it, was not for him.

With this in mind, he gladly agreed when she suggested going to a place called Ikea to get some new furniture. He had no clue what to expect there, but she seemed pretty excited. Maybe he could get a desk or something.  Who knows.

Sadly, the Ikea was not in convenient walking distance, and KT didn’t have a car.  She had a bike, but that wasn’t  a viable transportation method for two people. With no other option, they sat down at the nearest bus stop and waited.  

“Ah, shit, how are we gonna get the furniture back to the house? I don’t want to pay extra for shipping,” KT muttered.

“I can use Enigma on it. “

“You’re a lifesaver, Teru,” she said, leaning back against the plexiglass walls of the shoddily constructed bus stop.  They shared silence for a moment, until some nearby crows broke out in chattering.

“Do you hear that?“

“The crows? Yeah. They’re here all the time. I think they nest around this bus stop to eat crumbs dropped by people.”

“That’s a sensible explanation. I assume you aren’t the type of person who believes in bad omens, then. “

“No, not at all. I don’t follow any superstitions.”

That was a bit surprising to hear coming from Miss Paranormal Investigator.

“Huh? I suspected you would. You have a clover pin and everything. “

She let out a soft laugh.

“Look closer-“ she said, pulling the pin away from her chest “-it’s three leaves, not four.”

“It’s not lucky.”

“Exactly. I don’t believe in luck. Believing in luck—believing in ‘lucky’ or ‘unlucky’ people and things—means that you believe that the universe favors some over others. It means you believe that some people are doomed to lives where they never get what they want. I don’t think that’s fair. Bad or good events happen because of the things that occurred prior, and random chance is random. So the crows are just here because people leave food for them, and a four leaf clover is just a mutation.”

She tilted her head back and took a breath.

“That’s all there is to it, really. “

“Hm. I don’t think I’ve heard that perspective before.”

“Do you like it? “

“It’s certainly much more hopeful than the alternative.”

—-the bus arrives—

Once he had boarded and sat down, Terunosuke found himself quite fond of the environment.  It was prime real estate for people watching. Just across from them, there was an old woman in a sweatsuit chowing down on a pack of red licorice, and a young man with braids reading what looked like a college textbook. To his right was a pale white girl with a mullet reading manga on her phone. KT was to his left, rocking back and forth in her seat with anticipation. His eyes darted back and forth between the four of them, observing their idiosyncrasies. It was quite enjoyable.

It was also over quickly. In about ten minutes, the bus came to a shuddering stop and dropped them on the far side of a vast  parking lot. Seagulls circled ahead, though there was no beach in sight. The ikea gleamed blue and gold at the other end of this asphalt desert.

“It’s massive,” Terunosuke remarked.

“Yep. That’s why it’s so great,” KT responded.

They embarked across the lot and entered into the air conditioned glory of the Ikea entrance.  Banners hung overhead, emblazoned with images of meatballs and couches. A grand escalator pointed upward with no downward equivalent. This building made its intentions very clear. Once you crossed the threshold, you’d only exit once your journey was done, unless you used the stairs or legally required elevator.

—a few minutes later—

They were deep in the thicket of model rooms, and Terunosuke had just discovered a wonderful piece of furniture known as a “loft bed”. It was a bed, but it was a little nook well above the ground, and he could put something else such as a desk underneath. Wonderful. Glorious. He needed it.  Maybe he could get it in purple. 

His expectations had been low coming in, and his worry had been high. Despite all that, the trip was going well so far.

That would not last.

They were looking at a stylish pair of chairs in an ambiently lit mock kitchen when their nice afternoon was interrupted by a loud “HEY!” coming from the left.

The call came from a boy in a white hoodie and sweats, looking to be about ten years of age.

KT’s first thought was: There’s no way this kid is human.

This may sound like a rude reaction, but it was due to the fact that he was entirely green.

Not “is this kid gonna throw up” green. Pure, vibrant  chlorophyll green. Leafy growths speckled his face where a normal preteen might have had acne, his red eyes were ringed with  petals, and his knockoff Kubrick stare expression implied he was trying his very hardest to look intimidating.

Though KT was hesitant to get Touch Tone out, Terunosuke summoned Enigma as soon as he set eyes on this cryptid child.

The boy didn’t seem surprised to see a stand at all. In fact, he instantly summoned his own.  It was a gangly turquoise thing, covered in red thorns and x marks. In clumsy and clearly rehearsed Japanese, he introduced himself.

“My name is Verde! I’m here to fight you guys, and I know I’m going to win!”

Chapter Text

The two of them had been muttering back and forth for a few minutes, but they weren’t actually doing anything.

Verde wasn’t pleased. He had gotten all excited, but they wouldn’t approach him at all! It felt like he had been waiting FOREVEEERRRR for them to actually do something. And even worse, his mom had told him to meet her at the ikea cafeteria with them “ in some sort of container” in 40 minutes and then she’d buy him an extra large frozen yogurt and the new Fortnite battle pass. He couldn’t waste any time! It was time for the green child to take Drastic Measures.

He unsummoned his stand and calmly walked towards KT. She was looking at him in that curious way everyone did. He remembered what his mom told him about people who looked at him that way. Then he gave her a merciless kick in the balls with his discount Air Force sneakers and ran.  This literally always works.

They had both been hesitant to fight a kid, and Terunosuke pointed out that they should try and stay out of his stand range, but all ethical and safety considerations were now irrelevant. As soon as the stun from the dolorous strike wore off, she sprinted after him, and Terunosuke eagerly followed his friend. How could they not? Justice needed to be served.

It’s odd, though. A child of his stature shouldn’t be able to run that fast, but they weren’t closing the distance between them. In fact, they didn’t seem to be going far at all.  It didn’t take them long to pick up on this, but the damage had already been done. Both KT and Terunosuke were about the size of anime figurines, and Verde was just as far away as he was to begin with. And he was laughing at them. Like, wheeze laughing at them.

“You idiots fell for it!”

He reached out towards them with his stand, still laughing hard. KT tapped the floor and tried to kickrush, but it looked like her stand strength was proportional. Green, Green Grass of Home was mostly undeterred by the blows, though Verde winced like he got stung by a wasp, and the smell of yard clippings filled the air. Terunosuke simply braced for impact.

One second later, the stand threw them at the nearest table as hard as it could. Not at all coincidentally, a floorboard dislodged itself from the floor with a vicious crack and shot towards Verde with the same exact momentum. Another second passed, and the board hit the green child in his face.

At that same instant, KT should have hit her head on the corner of the brass table, killing her instantly.

Instead she was consumed by infinite tesselations of herself and something very close to a deep sleep.

———

She woke up in a dark room with the door ajar. She rubbed her eyes and blinked a few times, trying to wash the Escher afterimages away. Terunosuke was crouching in front of her.

“Good. You’re awake.”

“Did…you just use Enigma on me..?”

He nodded.

“I did. You were scared, and…I had to do it. How did it feel in there?”

“It felt like..”

I can’t describe it.

“Benadryl.”

“Benadryl? What’s that?”

“It’s a…sleep medication. Among other things. “

“I see. So it’s a sedative. That checks out.”

She paused for a moment to let her head clear.

“Where are we?”

“We’re in a cabinet I found. The kid ran off after the board hit him in the face, but the noise attracted some of the staff. I didn’t want to be seen, so I climbed over to here.”

“The board hit him in the face? Nice.”

“Yeah, it was a little funny. But I don’t know where he ran off to.”

“Well, then finding that out is our first priority.”

She pushed open the cabinet door and looked down at the floor. It seemed to be at least 12 feet away from her warped perspective. She inspected her surroundings carefully, but there were no strange children in sight.

This cabinet was a pretty good vantage point, but they just needed to be a bit higher.

“Hey, Terunosuke, how hard was it to climb up here?”

“It was less difficult than you’d assume. Why do you ask?”

“Well, none of these model rooms have walls that reach the showroom ceiling. And I’m willing to bet that this kid hasn’t gone too far.“

TO BE CONTINUED =>

Chapter Text

Despite the dire circumstances, KT forced a confident smile.

“If we can get on top of the wall, we can locate him,  and if we can locate him we can plan our counterattack.”

Terunosuke stood up and walked over to her side. Together, they stared out at the landscape of sofas, side tables, and desks that stretched beyond the horizon.

“Is there a chance we could trigger his stand ability by moving around?“ she asked, toeing the edge of the cabinet.

“I doubt it. While you were coming to, I walked laps around that shelf. My size didn’t change at all. It seems that you only shrink when you knowingly move towards a certain location: his location.”

KT stepped back from the ledge with a look of realization on her face.

“Oh, I get it! It’s like in the Fermi paradox. If you want to go somewhere, that means you have to get halfway there first. But getting halfway there means you have to get a quarter of the way there, and to do that, you have to get an eighth of the way there… logically, you’d keep moving without covering any distance. Causing us to shrink does the same thing!”

[AN: the Fermi paradox is not the correct name for this paradox, but neither KT nor Terunosuke know that.]

“That….sounds right. And I suppose if you don’t know where you’re going, you can’t possibly know what the midway point is. And if we don’t know that, there’s no reference frame to shrink us from.”   -He paused to think for a moment, then continued speaking-  “So that’ll mean we can no longer move in his direction once we locate him.”

“Yep, probably. But this is still the best plan we have, isn’t it?”

With that, the two of them started climbing.

It was an awkward and strenuous affair to navigate the many-shelved cabinet they were in, one that involved a fair amount of getting tossed by Touch Tone.  Thankfully, it only took them a few minutes to finagle their way upwards. Once they made it, they realized that their climb was almost halfway over: The only furniture between them and the top of the wall was a decorative mirror with a thick rectangular frame. It seemed easy enough to scale, so KT’s mind turned to questions more interesting than the logistics of climbing.

“Why do you think that kid was attacking us anyway? For shits and giggles?”

“ I feel like it’s more than that. This is the second time I’ve left your home since I arrived in Florida, and this is the second time we’ve gotten specifically targeted. It feels personal, almost.”

He paused and sighed.

“Please don’t think I’m being paranoid. I’m sure you noticed how weird it was that both the woman at the store  and this child addressed us in Japanese. It’s like they’re trying to make sure I understand what they have to say. “

“It’s not paranoia if they’re really out to get you. And it does sorta feel like they’re out to get us. Maybe we can get some information out of the kid once we deactivate his stand ability.”

“I’m glad you noticed it too, KT. I heard paranoia was a symptom.”

“Of what?”

He just stared at her, knowing she knew the answer to her own question.

“Oh. That’s what you asked to use Google for.”

A fleeting instant of awkwardness floated by on the breeze.

They gazed at the mirror together.  Their tiny reflections were almost comical., a ridiculous reminder of the direness of the situation.

If  they could scale the ornate frame, they’d just have a little bit more to go and then they would be at the top.

Then they could get out of this mess, get the furniture they wanted, and just go home.

Sadly, the ladder to salvation wasn’t that easily reached from their perch.  It was about 7 feet (well, what they perceived as feet, something probably closer to a few inches) to the left of the cabinet, far enough that they’d have to jump and climb.  Oh well!

Terunosuke went first. He inhaled sharply, took a running start, and leapt off the precipice.

At the apex of his jump, he flickered into paper form to gain extra height. Unable to keep himself in that state for long, he turned back at just the right moment to grab hold of the detailing on the frame and clamber to the top. Once he got there, he shot KT an encouraging thumbs up.

KT lacked his ability of limited paper-flight, but she was right behind him. Confident in her skills, she jumped unaided—and managed to grab onto the very bottom edge of the frame. The moment she felt her grip slip even slightly, Touch Tone’s arms manifested around hers for an extra boost. She made it up quickly after that.

Now they had done it. With just a little bit more stand-aided throwing, the two of them were awkwardly straddling the top of the wall and surveying the area. It didn’t take long at all to find him.

“Target located.”

Terunosuke gestured sharply to his right. Sure enough, their target was rooting through couch cushions -looking for them, most likely- in the model room over.

The distinctive patterns of his hoodie made him quite easy to notice, as did the large stand hovering behind him.

“Alright, we found him.” KT whispered.

“What now—huh?” She looked back over her shoulder at Terunosuke, only to see he was nowhere to be found.

Before her panic had properly set in, she heard his voice from above.

“Up here. I’m by the loose ceiling tile.”

Sure enough, he was six “feet” above her, standing amidst a tangle of unprotected and poorly managed wires.

“Damn, you got up there fast.”

“I try to minimize the time spent in paper form. The only reason I jumped up at all are these wires. They’re our best bet at defeating that kid.”

“You’ve figured out a plan?”

“I have! It’s a very good plan. If we can cut  all these wires, we will most likely trigger a blackout. There aren’t even any windows visible from where we are, so everyone will be totally in the dark. Darkness is a common fear. To a human, especially a child, it means unpredictability, the potential of danger lurking out of sight. To a plant….it means starvation. Regardless of if this strange child is a plantlike human or a humanoid plant, he won’t be able to manage being in the dark for very long without getting stressed.”

Terunosuke explained all of this with casual confidence.

“I think his sign of fear is some sort of noise. He made a weird chirpy sound when he was running away after you hit him with the board. If he makes it again, I can send Enigma after him.”

This was a side of him KT hadn’t seen before. He didn’t even know if he had seen this side of himself before.

He had felt like he was living in a land of confusion ever since he woke up. But right now, he knew EXACTLY what was going on.

“Watch this, KT!” He said, glowing with his stand aura. He folded paper around the hunk of wires, pulled as hard as he could—an awful electric noise occurred, and the whole floor went dark.

————

Verde couldn’t help but let out a yelp when the lights cut out. He fumbled for his iPod touch, hoping he could find it and use its pithy flashlight. His mom had told him to avoid getting scared when dealing with these people.

It was a bit late for that advice, given how shaky his hands had become.

In the darkness of the ikea, he heard a voice coming from behind him.

To Be Continued———>

Chapter Text

Against his best judgement, he looked over his shoulder.

Choosing not to look wouldn’t change the situation, anyway.

Because Enigma was calmly, inexorably, -and most of all, impossibly,-approaching his location.

It was shambling, but moved steadily.  It wasn’t shrinking like it should be. It had no mouth, but it started to speak to him, and he knew just enough to make out what it was saying.

“You thought your stand could overpower mine.”

He wanted to give some sort of snarky response, but he was scared speechless. It just kept approaching, shrinking for a second, then unfolding back to its prior size.

But mom had said it wasn’t that physically strong, so if Home threw a  good punch, then-

The punch made contact. Well, it made contact with the punch. To be more specific, it grabbed Green Green Grass of Home, stopping the attack dead in its tracks. Its hand wrapped around his stand’s forearm, enclosing everything up to the elbow.  Both him and his stand were kicking now, trying to free themselves from its grasp. He knew his blows should have at least dented the stand, but..it kept grabbing him with hands appearing out of nowhere. He felt his arms and legs get folded in, and the terror finally stopped, unconsciousness taking its place.

———

As soon as Verde was folded into a neat square of cardstock, KT and Terunosuke returned to their normal size, fell to the ground in a heap, and took several ceiling tiles with them.

“You got him?” She asked, sitting up and rubbing her newly bruised shoulder.

“I got him. Enigma should be here in a second.”

“What are we gonna do with him now? Question him?” Enigma glided over with the paper in hand, and set it on her lap.

“I’m not sure. I don’t think we would get much out of him. He’s scared of us.”

“Confessions gained from fear are usually inaccurate.”

“Precisely. We should just put him on the bench I saw outside this place.”

They both whipped their heads around when they heard approaching footsteps. The ikea staff, most likely.

KT stood up and wiped the plaster dust off of her baggy pants.

“We’ve gotta go, I don’t want to get any charges for property destruction,” she said , passing the child to Terunosuke.

Sure enough, a flashlight beam shot towards them and landed on the pair.

“What the hell happened here?” Asked a weary-eyed and tight jawed woman.

“There was a raccoon in the ceiling.” KT responded, with stunning conviction.  The presumed manager stared at them in suspicion, but sighed and chose to believe them.

“Just get out, the store’s closed now.”

They gladly obliged, taking advantage of the stopped escalator to go out the way they came.  As soon as they had pushed open the sliding doors, the floodgates of conversation burst.

“That was a good cover story,” said Terunosuke, gently unfolding the kid’s paper and placing him on the shaded bench.

“Anytime. Yknow, you were really impressive back there. We’d have been screwed without your quick thinking.”

“I surprised myself. It was like everything started to make perfect sense, and I knew exactly what I had to do. Do you ever get that feeling?”

“All the time.”

She leaned her head back. Smells like rain. Hopefully the kids mom finds him soon. But since he’s a plant, it would probably help him feel better. When she gets home, she’ll have to ask about “plant people” on her forums…

“Do you remember the name of the loft bed you wanted to get?“

“…No, sorry. I think it was purple?”

“We can find it later online. No need to worry. Are you hungry? I think there’s a good pizza place around here.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever had pizza.”

“This is super cliche, but you HAVE to try pizza. Let’s go get some.”

“Maybe it’ll redeem this day . Unless the pizza is a stand or something.”

The jokes and hypotheticals continued as they walked off to have a better evening than afternoon.

—————

As she saw them leave the parking lot, the black-haired woman left her idling car, and beckoned to the girl in the passenger seat.

“ They’ve left. Come on. I need you to help carry my son.”

“No. I’m still mad at you.”

“I told you my reasons.”

“He was right there! He was so close! And you locked me in the car!!”

“You know why I said you couldn’t ‘say hi’. Stop pitching a fit.”

The girl sighed, stood up, and tied her pink jacket around her waist.

“Whatever, Cilicia.”

Chapter Text

[ENTER STAGE LIVING ROOM. A is sitting on a cushion leaning on a bathroom door. CCB is on a couch missing one cushion.]

A: I still have one question. Why the fuck did you do that to that bird?!????

CCB: Animals don’t have souls, so it’s ok to kill them whenever.

A voice pipes up from behind the bathroom door. Its owner, N, seems to be sitting in the bathtub, but there’s no sound of water.

N: I don’t…think that’s true. Animals have souls. After all, humans are animals and we have souls.

CCB: Your logic is admirable. But how do you know humans have souls?

N: because we can have stand abilities, right? Stands are the manifestation of your soul.

CCB: But A has a stand, and she doesn’t have a soul. Stands just come from spirit, not souls.

A: Those are the same thing! And I HAVE A FUCKING SOUL!

CCB: are you sure? Are you sure you really have a soul? Where’d the soul come from? I’ve heard that even inanimate objects can have stands, and you wouldn’t argue they have souls.

A: They can have souls sometimes.

CCB: Of course YOU’D say that, toy. Anyways, I’m going to go get Swaggy from outside so he doesn’t overheat.

[CCB EXITS, A SIGHS, IT’S QUIET FOR A MINUTE.]

N: I don’t know why they’ve been on your ass nonstop.

N: I believe you have a soul, for the record.

N:….

A:….

A: N, can I please come in there with you?

N: No. you know the reason.

A: Please? I’ll keep my eyes closed, I promise.

N: It would still kill me. You’d be able to hear me breathe.

A: Then why is it ok for me to hear you speak?

N: God, I wish I knew.

A: It’ll be ok. I won’t stay too long.

N: I’m sorry.

A: Please. Please.

N: I’m sorry.

Chapter Text

After a short but not negligible period of furniture struggle, they had finished assembling Terunosuke’s new bed. It looked more maroon than purple in most lightings, but he was still quite satisfied. To celebrate the achievement, they poured themselves some mango juice and sat out in the backyard.

Half a cup and half a conversation in, KT notices something kinda interesting.

“There’s a lizard over there,” she said, pointing at the frayed palm-like plant  at the edge of her unmaintained yard.

“Interesting. Let’s catch it without using our stands.”

“I’m game for that. Pincer maneuver? ”

He nodded in the affirmative and begun to creep towards the left of the oblivious anole, while KT followed on the right side. Their synchronized approach meant that it detected both as threats simultaneously, and saw only one way to jump: forward.

They had hoped it would jump onto the fence, where KT would be able to cup her hands around it, ultimately securing the beast for observation. It has worked the last time they tried. But this lizard must have been smarter, or worse at jumping. It didn’t leap into the snares of their trap, and instead fell into the scruffy grass below, scurrying away beyond the boundaries of the fence.

“Damn it,” muttered Terunosuke.

“Don’t beat yourself up, they’re crafty little bastards.”

At that moment, KT heard the distinctive and unusual sound of a wooden privacy fence swaying under the weight of a human.  She whipped around, catching the intruder just as they hit the ground.

They held a remote in their hand. They were around her age, slightly tan, and they would be short if not for their 5 inch golden platform boots. Their neon blue mullet curled at the end and parted around the …metal antenna?….by their right ear. Not even a second later, something metallic with heavy limbs flickering eyes, and the same antenna  cleared the fence in a jump.

“GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY YARD!”

KT screamed, Touch Tone already fully manifest behind her.  The intruder just started to smile.

“It’s not your yard. This will all be made clear,” they said, sprinting towards KT.

In a matter of seconds, everything went to shit.

Terunosuke tried to make a break for it. He’d found an old gun inside a few days ago, it had no bullets but if he could get that, he might be able to scare them—

“No, stay here!” The intruder screamed, and in one swift motion, the mechanical figure grabbed Terunosuke’s wrists and jammed them together behind his back, its own hands locking into makeshift cuffs as it walked him back to the intruder’s location. Fuck. He couldn’t fold himself in like this, he’d rip his own arms off.

Touch tone jabbed at the intruder, who raised their own arms to block. Of course, they were cut by her stand’s sharp edges. Blood began to gush out, but they didn’t seem too concerned about that. They lunged forward, placing their bleeding hand on her shoulder, and she felt a sharp static shock.

Quick binary pulses raced through her body in odd-numbered sets, webbing over her thoughts, creating a new baseline. Internal organs reorganized themselves into their closest mechanical counterparts,  as skin shifted into tactile steel.  A similar antenna manifested from her cpu case.

>unit online.

Her cameras focused and unfocused as she took in the scene. Her master stood in front of her, suffering from a wound she had foolishly inflicted, and

Her friend

A friend

Terunosuke

A “human”, weakly struggling against the other online unit restraining him.

“Alright! My work here is..half done. I still have to fix the other guy, but I’ll introduce myself first.”

Their master started to speak, dripping blood everywhere as they made bombastic sweeping gestures.  The human was still struggling. He sounded like he was crying.

>is it out of jealousy or is he just lame?

“I’m Cosmo, full name Cosmo Cosmo Bousou. This” -they grinned and tilted the remote in their hand- “is my stand, and if you haven’t figured out what it can do, put the fucking pieces together, feeble minded machines!”

———- to be continued>

Chapter Text

“Now please fix up the gashes in my arms,” they said, procuring a box of adhesive bandages from their pants pockets. KT(?) nodded and started to rhythmically unwrap them and apply  them to the cut, bandaid by bandaid. Dozens of tiny slips of waxy paper fluttered in the breeze. The restrained human tried to call out to her, but she was focused and ignored him. Her master was bleeding.

Half a box of bandaids later, her master was no longer bleeding and the restrained human wasn’t audibly crying. He was just pathetically limp, only held up by the presence of the other online unit.  She stared at him with emotions she had no choice but to assume were hatred, and started to raise her cannon arm.

“Hey! Don’t make a move at him yet. It’s gotta be a fair fight.”

————

Fair fight? Fair FIGHT? The other robot translated in Terunosuke’s ear, and the words spurred him to start struggling again.

He couldn’t fight her,  but she looked like she wanted to kill him.  She was just staring, holding her cannon at eye level, not knowing who she was pointing it at. Not even caring.

As the intruder approached him, his brain swirled with thoughts fragmented by panic, all of which could be summarized by “I have to get out.”

They pressed their thumb into his cheek. His Wound roared into action, but what use would papercuts do? All he knew in that moment is that he felt a static shock, a familar lack of warmth, and he didn’t have to get out anymore.

Unit Online.

———-

The two new robots sat cross legged on the pavement, staring at each other with mild recognition and acute agression. The experienced one—who was named “Swagboy”, according to his entity ID— shuffled around their their masters yard, rearranging the meager amounts of furniture to form an arena with a central throne.

As for their master, they were standing and waiting for the throne to be finished while rightfully complaining about the shredded skin on their thumb.

“What kind of stand ability is that? This isn’t rhetorical. You, the one with the screen face. Tell me what that was.”

TRNSK reached up to touch his face to confirm he was the one being referred to. He was.

“It is not a stand ability.”

“Then what the fuck is it.”

“It is a trauma response similar to a stand.”

KT piped up.

“And it hurts like a bitch, doesn’t it?”

A memory, suppressed and stolen from its context, emerges in TRNSK’s CPU. He thinks he hates her more now.

Their master walked over and placed their hand on his shoulder, to no external reaction other than blue flashes on his screen.

“So it’s a trauma response? Boo hoo. I can suppress those feelings. You’ll love anything I do to or with you, unless I WANT you to hate it. And regardless, none of your stand abilities will work when you’re under my control.”

They ran a hand through their electric blue hair, and plopped down in the chair they’d just been given. With his task completed, Swagboy hesitantly joined the other two in sitting on the ground.

“Stands are for real people, which you two have definitely proved you aren’t. It’s a law of the world that not many know, but the bottom line is that most humans are effectively flesh machines. Why? Well, it’s quite simple if you aren’t an idiot.”

They shifted in their chair and started twanging Swagboy’s antennae back and forth like it was a door stopper. Swagboy stiffened up a little bit, and Cosmo started to flick it even harder as they continued speaking.

“The average ‘human being’ is functionally identical to any other given human being. They have no desire, no drive, no motivation other than banal existence. Everyone wants a white picket fence, even the people who consider themselves outcasts. Everyone wants a house with a pool, even when you live next to the god damn ocean. It’s because at the core, most humans are the same. They’re all the fucking same, and they’re all programmed to live and die in their little boxes, stay in the shallows, and never once leave.”

KT stared at the ocean through the cracks in the fence.  TRNSK stared at KT. Cosmo snapped their fingers, and both swiveled back into attentiveness.

“I didn’t give you permission to linger on that metaphor, did I? I was trying to make a point. My point is that these self proclaimed people go their whole lives without making use of their humanity. So they don’t deserve to. They don’t deserve to leave that box. They made their bed, and I’m strapping them down to it!

They stood up. The robots remained sitting.

“The whole point of what I’m saying is that most humans are basically robots already, but robots are better because they’re durable and easy to control. The ideal solution is of course to roboticize all the fake people of the world and divvy them up amongst the true humans so that they can assist real people, but I’m not powerful enough to do that. Yet. I’m working on it.”

They grinned with genuine joy at the idea of the world they conceived.

“Now stand up. We’re getting to the fun part.”

They stood up, obviously. Cosmo’s word was God.

“You two are now both gorgeous machines. The problem is that I only have room for ONE more robot. The solution is to make you kill eachother. Exciting, right-“

Cosmo was interrupted by the whir of an arm cannon. TRNSK couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The KT unit was pointing her arm cannon at Master. How could she react so violently to an obvious statement like that? He crouched down so he could sever the exposed wires in her legs with his blade arm. He was mid lunge when Master masterfully resolved the miniature insurrection.

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING, YOU STUPID FUCKING AUTOMATON?”

They yelled, grabbing KT’s arm. She relaxed at their touch, as much as metal can relax, and the whirring of the canon stopped.

“I DIDN’T TELL YOU TO DO THAT. POINT IT AT HIM! HIM!!!!”

They angled the cannon down so that TRNSK was staring down the barrel.

“See, look! He was trying to get you, he was doing what he’s told, unlike YOU! I can tell he’s just itching to humble you. And yet you aim at me? BAD. Now both of you stand up so you can properly fight!”

——to be continued——>

Chapter Text

They stood up, awaiting further instruction. There was a moment of perfect silence. The ocean vacillated against the sand in the background—no, that was the sound of their CPU fans and the buzz of display screens.

“Now”, -their master said, confident in their lawn chair throne,-“You just rip each other apart. GO!”

KT immediately fired her blaster, and TRNSK folded down towards the ground, narrowly avoiding the molten bullets. In one smooth motion he lunged forward, and almost managed to cleave her exposed wires in two, but she kicked him away. Hard.

He skids a few inches back on the concrete, just long enough for him to hate the noise and feeling of metal on concrete.   Before he could spring back up on the offensive, she shot again.

TRNSK didn’t know which of his mechanical components were equivalent to nerves, but he knew they were screaming as the buckshot blew sizzling holes into his left shoulder’s chassis. He didn’t have time to linger on the pain- before he even knew his next move, he was on his feet and sprinting at KT.

Just rip each other apart.

Before she could shoot again, he swiped at her wildly with his otherwise useless blade-arm. It made contact.

>tfw cut sustained on abdomen, left thigh and blaster control panel

>fuck this guy for real

KT grit her “teeth”, taking about 0.009 seconds to asses the damage before kicking TRNSK to the ground. He probably would have screamed when his screen hit the floor and cracked. Hell, he definitely would have screamed when he got shot, but she would also have screamed when she got sliced up. And she didn’t. So she was pretty sure Cosmo had turned both of their speakers off.

>well, they must have a reason for doing that.

These thoughts, these simple logistics, were the only things that were close.

Even as she pinned TRNSK  down in the grass and prepared to blast a point blank hole in his frantically flashing visor, she felt like he was a million miles away, as was the rest of reality.

Then something became real again. A piece of irrelevant data was able to rest in her mind for more than a second.

His visor was flashing on and off.

Like a blink.

Closing both eyes.

——

“I feel a little embarrassed that you noticed, but I suppose I do make that face whenever I get scared.”

“Why’s it embarrassing? You told me that I grab my bag when I’m freaked out.”

“Well, you do it with your shirt too.”

“Fair. But really, why are you embarrassed, Teru?”

“I find I do it too often.”

——

What the hell was she doing?

Reality crashed back down around her as she started to frantically reassess the situation.

Terunosuke was lying on the ground beneath her, He was clearly still under the influence of Cosmo’s stand, locked into an enforced state of fight or flight. So, for safety and convenience, she kept him pinned in her stainless steel grasp, and looked up to where the stand user responsible for this was. She wanted to retaliate, obviously, but she was also wondering why she could just now think as herself again.

Well, it was pretty self obvious what was going on. Cosmo was fumbling with their stand remote in one hand, and trying to pry Swagboy’s mechanical fingers off their neck with the other.

Once again, the logistics of a battle started to run through KT’s head, but now it was entirely of her own accord.

It seems that they can only fully control two of us at a time, so if they’re distracted, I sh-

A jolt ran through her circuits,so those thoughts were short-lived.

Cosmo finished peeling the mechanical hands away from their throat, gently tapped the red marks, cringed in pain, and locked visors with KT, who had been priming her arm cannon for another shot.

“HEY! NOT YOU TOO! YOU THINGS ARE MEANT TO OBEY ME! ITS THE WHOLE POINT!”

Artificial guilt washed over KT as her thoughts plummeted back down into their pre-ordained limits.

“THIS IS THE SECOND TIME YOU’VE DONE THAT! ARE YOU JUST TOO WORTHLESS FOR EVEN YOUR PROGRAMMING TO FUNCTION??”

She nodded against her own will. She could hear TRNSK rising from the ground behind her, probably to hit her while she was distracted. Her circuits told her she’d deserve it, so she stayed standing still.

But in a matter of seconds, everything turned around.

TRNSK rushed at Cosmo, knocking them to the ground with a painful thud and a pained gasp. Sure, he froze up before he could lay a metaphorical finger on them, but that didn’t really matter.

The shift in Cosmo’s attention allowed KT to move in—

And when they paused her as well, Swagboy approached from behind and snapped their antennae in two.

————-

First and foremost, all 3 were still made of metal.

But KT and Terunosuke could think clearly, and they were glad to be back. As well as obviously pissed.

Swagboy could think clearly for the first time in 2 years, 7 months, and 15 days, and he was feeling nothing but incandescent rage.

Before Terunosuke could even stand up, Swagboy(?) started furiously kicking Cosmo. The other two joined in, vindicated. Satisfied with the violence.

“YOU FUCKING”-they let out a pained squeak and curled up under the flurry of metal blows/“YOU”-another whimper as they desperately punched a code into their stand-“I’LL LET YOU GO, OKAY? SORRY!”

KT and Terunosuke felt metal melt into soft flesh, and hardware damage into deep (mercifully cauterized) wounds. They stepped back. Swagboy didn’t.

Cosmo wasn’t even talking anymore, just yelping in pain every time a kick connected. A muscle spasm caused their stand to escape their grasp, and Swagboy stomped on it without a second thought. And again. And again. Until the aura left it and it was just an inert remote.

They weren’t even yelping anymore, just shaking on the ground. Mouth agape. If you looked closely, you would have seen the base of their antennae bleeding.

KT didn’t feel vindicated anymore. Her entire body hurt.

“Hey!”

Swagboy looked up, his face somehow less expressive than the screen it used to be.

“I really don’t care what you do to that prick, but can you not fucking MURDER THEM IN OUR BACKYARD? We live here!!”

He smiled without warmth.

“Of course.”

And dragged their still breathing body out of the yard.

[Cosmo Cosmo Bousou: RETIRED.]

Chapter Text

Both of our once again organic heroes were curled up on the ground. There were two simple reasons for this:

1: KT’s right forearm had a roughly 12x5x3* inch chunk of flesh missing.

(*30x3x8 cm for metric readers)

2: You could see Terunosuke’s collarbone AND sternum through the newly made hole.

After a perceptual eternity of fetal position misery, KT sat up shakily and started to scrounge around for her phone. Left handed. Her right hand wasn’t moving, which was  terrifying. Still, she found her cracked Samsung in a few seconds and sloppily typed in the password.

“Terunosuke, I’m going to call an ambulance, we’ll make a cover story while we wait, it’s” -She winced as a blade of grass tickled the semi-cauterized flesh inside her arm- “going to be fine.”

Terunosuke was lying on the ground and staring at the sky like it owed him money.

“Don’t. They wouldn’t be able to take me,”

“What?” She stopped typing with her finger hovering over “9.”

“My wound ability. It activates unconditionally. They wouldn’t be able to do anything with me’” he said hazily.

“Ah.” She grit her teeth and closed the app.

“You could just go?”

“Fuck no! Dude, I can see your bones, I’m not leaving you at home alone! I’ll figure something out.”

“Mhm..”

She pulled up her browser and started googling various terms, all of which had “go to the hospital” in their search results. She sighed and closed her browser, then opened it again and searched up “deep cut wound treatment”

Then she summoned Touch Tone

“Come inside and go to the bathroom. We’re figuring this out ourselves, Terunosuke.”

“Which way is the bathroom again?”

“It’s to the left.”

“Ok”

He methodically got to his feet and stumbled inside, leaning on Enigma for support.  She followed him, taking a break at her closet to grab hydrogen peroxide and bulk cloth bandages. When she caught up to him, he was curled up in the bathtub.

She had no clue how to fix this. Her little first aid supplies wouldn’t be enough to solve any of these problems. Even if she went to the hospital on her own after patching Terunosuke’s wound, her right arm was missing enough flesh for her hand to be paralyzed, would they even be able to restore function? She’s not even insured! She really should have paid for that asap! Now she’s going to have to sink half the money she got on trying to fix her DOMINANT HAND, all while she still couldn’t do jack shit for Terunosuke! Why couldn’t that crazy body part lady from Italy be here?  She’d be able to do some weird stand shit and patch her up! Or the mafia don could just undo all of this! Or-

Some very important mental dominos fell into place, and she plopped her arm onto the bathroom counter.

When I linked my body to the floorboard at IKEA, it didn’t become fleshy or anything, because I was linking myself as a person. I couldn’t transfer the quality of “human” to anything, just physics qualities like my velocity. But…the human body isn’t one individual entity in reality. That’s how people think of it. It’s made up of a million separate pieces, all of which are inert objects. Only when they come together and interlink do they form a human body!

“Ok, Teru, I think I’ve figured this out.”

“ Mhm…”

She pulled up a diagram of the layers of the arm on her phone, while Touch Tone ripped off an appropriately sized bandage piece.

The first step of the operation is the worst: Isolating the problem. In this case, it meant scratching off all the cauterized tissue so that KT could actually touch the muscle she was trying to prepare. She winced and let her stand’s sharp fingers do that job. Then, she tapped the muscle tissue with a freshly washed hand, and placed the linked rectangular bandage in there—

It expanded and started to twitch, filling up the hole until no other muscle was visible. The cut hurt less.  Her hand felt alive again.

She repeated the procedure, painful layer after painful layer, watching the bandages mold into blood filled veins and functioning skin, until the pain was almost gone. All that remained was a patch of tactile fabric and loose looped blue strings.

She didn’t want them to snag and destroy her hard work, so KT tied the strings into bows without much thought. The moment that the knot was tied, the strings disappeared and the fabric fully merged into her skin. She stared at her arm in awe, flexing her fingers , holding the patch right up by her face. It looked like nothing had ever happened. The weight of half formed anxieties lifted.

She could actually fix this.

“Did you figure something out?” Terunosuke was looking at her from his bathtub refuge, his eyes filled with a bit more awareness and a bit more pain. He was coming back down at the perfect moment.

“Yes, yes I did, I can patch wounds with Touch Tone now, and it’s amazing. It’ll have to poke around a bit, but it’s amazing.”

“Impressive…Do what you need to.”

She kneeled down outside of the bathtub, and Terunosuke scooted around to face her. She gently begun to peel off the cauterized skin with her stand, and he winced, but stayed silent. He finally spoke up when she was 3 layers in.

“Why does this keep happening to us?”

“I’ll promise I’ll find out.”

Chapter Text

————The day after the Cosmo fight…

Terunosuke didn’t remember asking KT that question.

In fact, he couldn’t remember much of that day at all. The entire ordeal was mercifully blurred into a composite of screaming and red-hot metal.

There wasn’t much physical evidence of their battle left. She had sealed up their wounds well, and spent a few hours fixing the damage to the fence with duct tape and Touch Tone. In retrospect, he would have liked to help her, but she probably didn’t ask.

At some point after he watched KT fix the fence, he thinks he fell asleep on the couch. He doesn’t know what KT was doing then,  but she said she went to the beach, “to clear my head.” Her hair was wet, but he remembers noticing that was no sand tracked anywhere.

That girl…

He can’t remember if he pressed her story, but he probably didn’t ask.

———————-

KT was making a new string board. There was less on it than she would have liked.

“I have no leads for the woman harassing you at the store, but she’s on here because she spoke Japanese just like that plant kid did. And for that plant kid, I did dredge up one or two local news articles about small red eyed humanoids. The silhouetted pictures kind of look like him, don’t they?”

Terunosuke squinted at the blurry snapshot from a news story titled “Google Street View Captures Unknown Creature in Canaveral Home’s Backyard”.

“I suppose it does. What house is that?”

“1347 Ersatz. The article didn’t mention its address because of ‘homeowner privacy concerns’,” -and she did little air quotes-

“but the houses around it were slightly visible in the picture, and I was able to find them on street view, and then guess what! The house with the ‘creature’—OR GREEN CHILD— is totally blurred out now! Usually, you have to specifically request to do that. Someone is trying to hide that kid from the public.”

“What’s up with all of those?” He said, gesturing at the side of the board taken up by fresh newspaper clippings and photos of someone with familiar blue hair.

“That’s the Cosmo side. I’m of course connecting them to the main cluster, because they came prepared to speak japanese…well, I guess, translate into it. But there are other interesting things about them. The press is keen on covering their story as quickly as possible, because it turns out that Swagboy was a big missing persons case a while back.”

“Swagboy…he was the one they brought with them, right? That cannot be his legal name.”

“It’s not. It turns out his legal name is Eric Marfore but, get this,” -she said, gesturing at the photos of the brunette ex-robot and the mugshot of the bleary-eyed ex-megalomaniac- “Cosmo’s actual legal name is Cosmo Cosmo Bousou, so what the fuck!”

She laughed, trying to make anything about this funny.

“I can remember seeing tons of missing posters for Eric Marfore. And now he’s back with his family, yay. All the local outlets have jumped on the case quickly, which makes my job a lot easier. I’ve also noticed that none of the articles  I saw are mentioning anything to do with robots. Eric probably told the cops a modified version of the story without all the supernatural stuff. I can’t blame him. Who would believe that??”

Before Terunosuke could answer the hypothetical, KT threw her head back in the air, let out an exhausted groan, ripped one of the papers off the wall, crumpled it, and threw it to the ground.

“Why they attacked us…why that kid attacked us… it doesn’t make any sense. I’m so sorry that I don’t know why this is happening.”

“I don’t think you need to apologize for this.”

“But I do. I-“ she paused and thought for a moment- “I should go buy some security cameras for the house! Do you want to go get them with me?”

“No, but could I help you set them up when you get back?”

She seemed caught off guard for a second, but recovered her composure.

“Absolutely!!”

——

While she was away, he took a closer look at the photos on the Cosmo side. Some were in fact part of quick-acting tabloid magazines. Some were printed on crisp white paper, taken around corners and out of view of the cops.

KT was back home soon enough, her arms loaded with cardboard boxes. She plopped her payload down on the table.

“These allegedly only record when there’s motion. That means they should be pretty safe, privacy wise. I got four so I can put one on every side of the house.”

“How much did they cost?” Terunosuke asked, running his fingers across the boxes.

“We have like three hundred thousand American dollars.”

“I see. Also, why does it matter if they only record when there’s motion? I understand that that’s the case to save storage, but we’re the only ones who will have access to the tapes, right? So why does it recording or not recording matter when it comes to our privacy?”

“What?”

“I don’t really know a great amount about technology, but does it not just save the video on the camera? We would be the only ones able to watch it.”

“No, that’s-“

He looked at her curiously. She realized that she forgot Terunosuke had missed the entire twenty-first century up to this point.  They proceeded to discuss the critical problems of security cameras and the threat of the surveillance state while putting  security cameras up all over.  And the rest of the day was almost okay.

——

That night, at around 2:30 AM the cameras detected motion.

At  8:30 AM, KT woke up and saw the resultant notification.

At 8:32 AM, Touch Tone shook Terunosuke awake. He blinked whatever he was dreaming away and stared up at her from the gap in the covers.

“Teru, we’re being stalked.”

“….What?”

“We’re being stalked. Look.”

She shoved her phone screen in his face.

At around 2:30 AM, there was someone in their backyard. A slightly blurry young woman, with light hair and some sort of jacket. She seemed directionless, but not aimless. She hopped the fence, spent a few minutes poking around in the grass, then looked up at the camera, smiled and waved. No hesitation. No fear at all.  It must have not been an isolated incident then, right? For her to be so casual? Yes, this must have been going on for a while. God knows how long.

That’s what KT said.

KT was talking about the clip all day. And the next.

And he let her, in much the same way as a deer lets itself get hit by a car.

In much the same was as the walls of the main room let the string board expand, corner to corner.

“Everyone who’s attacked us so far had a way to speak Japanese, but they all seem to be based in America. I mean, we know for certain Cosmo was. So this is some sort of quasi-American organization that knows I’m harboring a Japanese stand user.”

“Harboring? Is that all this is?” He ribbed.

“I mean, not to me, but in the eyes of the Speedwagon foundation, it could be!”

“Wait. You think the Speedwagon foundation is doing this???”

She looked away sheepishly.

“It’s the only thing that makes sense.  Even before I met you, I’ve suspected they’ve been monitoring me for a long time. Because I remember.”

“Really.”

“I’m doing what I have to. I’m really sorry. Once I figure this out, we can go back to being normal.”

This was a side of KT he had never seen before.

A place in her mind she’d visited countless

times.

She whirled around and through the ideas, the facts, the theories that could make everything make sense.

The net of strings on the board grew denser.

She took down the cameras.

She put the cameras back up.

She started practicing her combat skills with Touch Tone.

“It can’t hurt to prepare for the worst, can it?”

She started staking out by the back windows at night.

Ten thousand YouTube videos in a language he didn’t know, about shooting and conspiracies and how to hide your IP address.

Wall to wall paranoia.

Staying up until 5 am and sleeping until 4.

And all the apologies every time she forgets to eat.

——to be continued >

Chapter Text

Terunosuke appeared in the doorway, silhouetted against the light of his bedroom. He was obviously disheveled.

“KT.”

She looked up from her computer when he spoke, only to look down in shame a second later.

“I know. I’m just trying to figure out how to jailbreak my phone. I’ll go to sleep soon.”

“That’s not what I was going to ask. I just want to know what day it is.”

“It would be Saturday now…”

She trailed off as a few things clicked into place. The last time she had spoken to Terunosuke was Thursday evening.

“Yeah. I think I slept all day yesterday.”

“I thought you were just managing yourself.”

“I was asleep.”

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry.”

She buried her face in her hands to avoid his  piercing gaze. She couldn’t tell if he was angry. She hoped he was. He walked over to the mattress and sat next to her. He smelled like hunger and 30 hours of bed sweat. But when she met his eyes, she didn’t see any anger.

That made her feel worse.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

“Order a pizza from whatever’s still open. I think we should talk about this right now.”

So, she silently ordered a 18” sausage pizza online. When she was done, she flopped onto her back and stared at the ceiling, thinking about how fundamentally she had ruined things.

“I know how bad of a mistake this was, so please don’t rub it in.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“Then what were you going to talk to me about?”

“Not that. Let me get my thoughts straight.”

“Okay.”

They waited in silence for a few minutes.

“I’m just going to say it. I don’t know how to explain this in a softer manner.”

He sighed, still lacking any true frustration.

“What’s going on cannot continue. It’s not making us any safer from whoever has it out for us. And-“

“And I let you down?”

“..Well, you assumed I was more capable than I actually was.  Which is flattering, but I don’t think we can afford to do that. I haven’t been human for very long.”

“I’m so sorry.”

She had no clue what else she could say. He didn’t either. This was a situation that should have been reasonably expected, but it had fallen through the cracks, leaving both unprepared for when it landed directly on them with a sickening splatter.

Thankfully, the pizza arrived a few minutes later. As soon as the box opened, Terunosuke set upon the  slices at an impressive pace. KT knew she was probably hungry, but didn’t feel like that was a priority, so she took one of those corner pieces that was mostly crust.

After his fourth piece, Terunosuke’s brain started working a bit better, so he finally thought of something else to say.

“We should go out tomorrow. That would probably be a good idea.”

“Really?” KT asked, nibbling on a different corner. “There’s an obvious risk to that. If we go out, we’re going to get attacked again.”

“They could also attack us here. They know where we live, after all.”

That was empirically true.

It’ll probably be easier to escape if we’re in public.”

That seemed accurate.

“And if we get attacked again and beat them, we can get more information on whatever’s causing all of this.”

…She sees the game he’s playing now.

“I feel like you’re doing the rhetorical equivalent of a dog owner wrapping the heartworm pill in cheese.”

“What????”

“Yknow, when a dog doesn’t want to take its medicine even though it’s good for them so the owner has to hide it inside something the dog likes (cheese). You’re doing that to me but the cheese is pandering to my desire to investigate further.”

“Yes, you could say that I’m doing that. I’m making good points regardless, correct?”

“It..would be good for me to take my mind off of this. Even though it’s so important.”

She took a full slice of pizza from the box and leaned back in her chair.

“I’ll go.”

She felt like it was the least she could do for him.

“Thanks. I’m going to go take a shower now.”

So Terunosuke went and took a shower, because he had said everything that he had to say on the situation, and anything more would have been redundant-at least from his perspective.

When he was done, he came back to see her already asleep in front of her laptop, pizza slice half eaten, with the page for some nearby nature preserve illuminating her face. So it was his turn. His turn to fold her up- gently -with Enigma, and bring her over to her mattress. And he didn’t really mind. He just didn’t think it would be like this.

But he hadn’t been human for very long.

——The same moment, but elsewhere….

She woke up quickly (she was a light sleeper) when she heard familiar footsteps, but by the time she opened her eyes and jumped out of the guest

bed, the visitor had already sequestered herself somewhere out of sight.

"Trino? Is that you? You're here early..."

"Oh, yeah. It's me. I didn't mean to wake you up."

The voice came from underneath the bed, and it took everything she had not to peek.

"No, no, it's ok. I’m barely happy you're here."

"I can go if you want...?"

"NONONO that's not what I meant! I meant that I’m not happy that I got woken up but I am happy because you woke me up!! I realize now that gal slang doesn't translate well to English...it's so weird that I just know English now."

"Yeah, it is weird. It's incredible, though, that she can just make things like that happen. It's borderline magical."

"I mean, you're also a stand user, so you're just as magical, really."

"We don't have the same kind of powers, and you know that. I can't make anything happen like she does. I’m just genuinely cursed with my ‘ability’. I don't even know how I COULD win today."

"How couldn't you win? You only have to kill the purple haired bitch. And you know she told you that your victory was guaranteed. Just follow the plan."

"She also told Cosmo that."

"Well they were a bitch who probably didn’t follow the plan and also deserved to be lied to, and you're an incredible amazing beautiful woman, Neutrino."

"A-ah, thanks? Although you've never seen me, so I don't think you can speak on my appearance."

"All women are beautiful. Plus, I’ve given you makeup tips, so you're double beautiful."

"You're so confident,” she half-laughed.

"Eh, it's how I was made."

—to be continued—->

Chapter Text

[later that morning…]

They were waiting in her driveway, under the shade of the awning. It smelled like tacky sunscreen, and Terunosuke was already starting to sweat.

“So the bus doesn’t run to this park?”

“No.” KT said, fiddling with the drawstrings on her sun hat , “Not from here, anyway. At least we have money for Uber- Which is like a freelance taxi, by the way.”

“I see…right, you don’t drive”

She nodded.

“I don’t even have a drivers license, and I sold my mom’s old car. It just took up space, and I needed money,” she said plainly.

“Ah.”

Her mom. Terunosuke didn’t know much about the woman. Her name might have started with an “M”? He wasn’t sure. Maybe it would be safe to ask something basic.

“How long ago did she die?”

“It was two years ago. I ended up on my own.”

A puzzled expression crossed his face. She noticed.

“My situation afterwards definitely wasn’t legal. She left everything to her boyfriend, who I barely knew, then he took all the liquid assets and left me to fend for myself. I dropped out of high school and started working full time. I didn’t ask for help and no one questioned me. You know how it goes.”

“And this was when you were…what, 15? Why did no one step in?”

“I was 16 at the time. And I don’t think intervention would be better. Landing in foster care or having to stay with him wouldn’t do me any good. I was okay with functionally disappearing from the world.”

“…Disappearing is a good way to put that.“

To him, the timeline seemed a bit odd. He could have sworn she was still technically 17. He thought she had told him as much  But she’d know her own age better than anyone, right? And he’s more liable to misremember than the average person…so she must be 18.

“I think that’s our ride.”

Her voice snapped him out of his unpleasant reverie. Sure enough, the red whatever-brand-it-was-it-didn’t-matter was pulling onto their street, and any discontinuities could be damned. They were off to ideally have a nice day.

—Arrival—

The second he stepped out of the pseudo-taxi, he was awed by the surroundings. He’d never seen anything like it before. Except for the ocean, which he had seen multiple times since becoming a human again. What really mattered was that the scene before him was lush and flat and gorgeous.

“Wow,” KT said, staring at the trail map and loosely tracing their route. “It’s bigger than I remember.”

“You’ve been here before?”

“Yeah. My mom took me sometimes. Usually for some sort of special occasion. We’d walk a short loop, then get ice cream. It was always really nice…Sorry, I’m feeling reminiscent today.”

“It’s ok. I don’t think you’ve ever spoken about your mom before. It doesn’t bother me.”

Their footsteps made the scuffed boardwalk creak. It was the only man-made sound around.

“It bothers me, which is why I usually don’t bring her up. It’s hard to talk about her. I just-“

Her hands danced towards the strap of her bag. Terunosuke took a few quick strides, so that they could be properly side-by-side.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“Thanks.”

Using his powers of social deduction, he figured he should change the topic.

“I can’t believe places like this exist. It’s fascinating, it’s like a beach, but with..”

-He squinted at the plants lining the estuary waters-

“It’s a beach with more grasses and reeds and also a lot of streams.”

“Yeah, isn’t it incredible? I think it’s called a coastal swamp or something. Let me search it up”

While she stopped to type, he continued staring out at the shimmering waters, resplendent with the blue of the sky and brown of the mud. He wondered if the opposite of claustrophobia was a love of small spaces or a fear of large ones. He saw something swimming along the near bank.

A strange, spiny, jagged, beastly silhouette longer than he was tall.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?”

KT shot her head up in alarm, took one look at the water, and laughed.

“Teru, that’s just a gator! You didn’t know we had those in Florida?”

“I didn’t know you had those at all! That’s a giant lizard! It’s perfectly reasonable to assume giant lizards aren’t real! That’s terrifying!”

“Eh, if you leave them alone then they should return the favor.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, they spend most of their time just sitting around and basking in the sun. It makes me wonder where this one is going in such a hurry”

“Maybe it’s afraid of something.”

“Of course you’d say that. Though that does make a lot of sense…maybe it got into a fight with another gator?”

They watched it disappear into the distance together, then continued on their path.

They pointed out cool animals and/or worried about other theoretical bits of common knowledge they had no idea they were oblivious to. About half an hour later, something in the air shifted.

There was a rustle in the grass, and the birds stopped singing.

There’s a distinct type of gut-deep dread that that causes, comparable to what you feel when you’re walking in the forest on a windy day and hear branches creaking, or when you see the tide recede further than it ever should. It’s the feeling that the ground where you stand has become the most dangerous spot in the entire world, and both of them experienced it simultaneously.

When Terunosuke looked to KT, that feeling was vindicated. She was gone.

Saltwater stung her eyes, and nose, and throat. Something cold and formless was pushing down on her chest. She retaliated, and struck at her assailant with Touch Tone, but the only thing its kicks broke were the surface of the water. Like there was no one there, despite the ongoing sensation of hands(?) driving her deeper into the muddy sand.Soon she’d start needing to breathe, then her reflexes would force her to inhale. She only had a few precious seconds to get out.

——-To Be Continued——>

Chapter Text

It must have grown impatient waiting for her to drown, though only 20 seconds had passed. 

KT was lifted from the mud for a second, then slammed back down into the bottom of the marsh. The impact rippled through the water and knocked all the air she had left out of her lungs. Sediment swirled around and through her nebulous assailant as it pulled her towards the surface again.  

Darkness crept around the edges of her consciousness. Her limbs were losing their energy. 

Then something crashed into the water beside her, dispersing what little shape her attacker had. The pressure disappeared. Seconds later, she broke the surface and desperately gasped for air.

Through her muddy bangs, she caught a glimpse of familiar stark-white hair.

“Teru?”

“Hi.”

Sure enough, he was bobbing in the water next to her. “It’s actually quite nice in here.”

“Do you even know how to swim??”

“…I’m not sure, but it’s not difficult to float.”

“Dude, don’t fuck around with the water like that. It’s not safe.”

“Someone was trying to drown you. I wasn’t going to stand back.”

“Thanks.”  Her face was something distraught. He looked up into her eyes. They were already so red from the saltwater, but…was she tearing up as well? Okay, she was, but she didn’t seem interested in acknowledging her own feelings. “What..the hell was that?”

“I have no clue,” he said, trying to plant his feet into the sediment. He should really get on dry land. “I blinked, and you were gone. All I could see was some sort of shadow holding you underwater. It had to have been a stand attack”

“Yeah, we”-she sniffled, then regained her composure- “We have to get out of here.”

Her hands wandered towards where her backpack straps would have been, and her distress increased.

“My…my bag..”

“Enigma grabbed it.” Terunosuke gestured towards his stand, who was perched on the bank and holding out a soggy square of cardstock. It was little reassurance to her, but reassurance nonetheless.

“Thanks.” KT’s voice trembled as she crawled up onto solid ground. Gently, the stand unfolded the square and laid her (predictably) completely soaked bag by her side. He hopped up onto the bank as well and watched as she unpacked her similarly-soaked stuff.

“Are you okay? And don’t we need to go?”

“I’m fine. We’re going to have to defeat whoever that was anyway, right? I don’t see the point in running now. And I’ve gotta fix all my stuff before we can leave. Look, my phone’s totally waterlogged. There’s no way we could call to get out of here.” She waved the cracked glass and metal slab around for emphasis. “I’m gonna try and fix it with touch tone, link it to something dry. Well, first, I’ll test it on something I don’t mind breaking, and then if it works I’ll do it on my other stuff. The less fragile things can dry at home.”

He plopped down next to her to watch her work. Her voice was a bit more steady now. Having a plan of attack is helpful, isn’t it? Even though the danger is still around, it’s easier if you have a notion of what to do.

Heh. “The danger.”

“The danger” was a timid 18 year old girl named Neutrino, with dark hair braided into spirals and purple iridescent clothes. She was hiding intangible in the reeds not even ten feet away from the pair. She could very easily attack now. Drag KT back into the depths, teleport her further away, and hold her face in the mud until she stopped thrashing. But she was having second thoughts.

She knew she had to kill her. She knew she WOULD kill her. That’s what Cilicia said would happen. KT would die, Terunosuke would be dragged back to “base”, and that curse of a stand Neutrino had suffered for years with would be broken.

All she had to do was kill that girl.

She knew it was wrong, but she could deal with the guilt later.  She knew that KT was an inquisitive person, so she’d throw her a bone this time and let her know EXACTLY what hit her. The stand aura flickered around her hands as she separated her actions from her self and stand.

Making her all but invulnerable—To stands and humans alike—as long as she wasn’t perceived. Showtime once again.

“MOON ROCKS! GET HER!!”

For the second time within maybe 20 minutes, KT was tackled by something that wasn’t really there. This time, she didn’t bother attacking it. It was easier to simply wrest out of its grasp, kicking and scampering back until its presence was off of her. Easy. She sprung up from the floor and lunged in the direction of the voice, diving straight into the reeds.

But there was no one there.

She heard it from the canopy above her next.  Terunosuke did too, but he can’t understand English and was frankly feeling quite frozen by all the chaos.

“I’d show myself for all your effort, but that wouldn’t turn out very well for me,” Neutrino chimed. “See, I have a bit of an unfortunate condition. I’m not exactly real.”

To be continued———>

Chapter Text

“You’re..not real?”

KT asked, combing through the branches for the source of the voice. Her eyes danced too close. Time to go.

“Not in any way that counts,” Neutrino responded from the river. No, she was in the tree again, her voice glitching and moving mid-sentence. “I’ll tell you all about it, KT. I’m sure you have questions, and it’s the least I can do.”

Terunosuke still couldn’t understand the conversation that was going on. But something inside him told him that this strange, ephemeral girl was only revealing herself because she was confident enough. Because she could finish the job at any minute.

Oh, yeah, he had brought something useful with him. Unloaded, of course, but a good tool for bluffing—an American ritual object used to signify you’re ok with killing. In one smooth, practiced motion, he reached into his pocket and unfolded his Beretta APX. He found it in the closet of his room and was waiting for a chance to brandish it.

“If you come any closer, I’ll shoot!”

She probably couldn’t understand him, but he was caught up in the moment. KT, however, could definitely understand him.

“Hey!! Where the hell did you get that?!” She whipped around with such speed that beads of water flew off her hair.

“I found it in my closet. Don’t fear, it’s unloaded.”

Her face remained tense.

“How deep did you dig in there to get that?”

He shrugged. “I was curious. You sure have a lot of empty shoeboxes and old blankets. No ammo though.”

For a second, things felt inappropriately normal. And then the awful dread returned, and something wispy purple and paradoxically tangible grabbed the gun out of Terunosuke’s hand and slammed him into the ground.

“You see what I mean?” Her voice was stronger, more confident. It emanated  from the opposite direction of her…displacement which was holding Terunosuke’s face in the dirt. He tried to fold himself up and escape, but the displacement sandwiched his folded form between its nonexistent palm and the ground. “I’m so inconsequential, so ephemeral, that even my enemies will start to forget me as soon as I hide from them. In fact, the entire world has forgotten me. And then I can do things like this.”

KT took a step back, not just a little horrified by the situation she’d found herself in.

—-A bit of context—-

4 years ago, after a night of hoping and praying and begging the universe to just disappear, a 14 year old girl woke up to find her house totally empty.

In the present moment, that girl pinches Terunosuke Miyamoto between her displacement’s fingers and can’t hear him crying. She can hear his best friend’s protestations, and see her stand trembling with rage, but as long as her real body is hidden, she’s in the clear, so she tries not to care or fear.

4 years ago, the girl was calling the cops, scared out of her wits, only to be told that the house she’s in is is currently being sold and no one lives there, but they’ll check it out anyway.
Then she ran onto the steps to meet the officer they sent over, teary eyed, but the moment he saw her, something deep inside her broke.

Her heartbeat slowed down, and she couldn’t move a muscle.

She’s dizzier than she’s ever been.

Inexplicably, she knew that she’s going to stop existing if he stares too long.

When he blinks, she dashed back inside, and in an instant found herself in her once-inhabited bedroom.

—And back in the present moment, she teleports the young man to her real hand, and uses a binder clip to keep him folded up tight.  Hopefully it doesn’t hurt. Given that shes obviously not being perceived by him right now,  she guessed that he wasn’t even conscious of the world outside.

Meanwhile, KT was tearing up the grass, disturbing various bugs in her frenzy.

“LET HIM GO! LET HIM GO, OR I’LL REALLY KILL YOU!”

“You won’t even find me.” Her voice was a mirthless smile.

“I’m just too ephemeral. Barely there. Like… a neutrino particle. For years now, no one has been able to find me. I’ve been living in a women’s shelter, but they don’t even know I’m their client. I sleep in the unused bunks and such.”
Tauntingly, her displacement tapped the girl on her shoulder and watched as her stand fruitlessly attacked. She had to make it fun, or the guilt of what she was doing would set in.

“Because of this…ability, I didn’t have a single friend, a job, a girlfriend, any of the hallmarks of a normal life. I didn’t even have a chance. Until Cilicia found me.”

The action displacement struck again. In a split second, Touch Tone dropped to the hard ground and linked it to KT’s backpack, creating a sufficient (and dry) shield. She couldn’t block the first hit from the figure, but the resultant plume of dust created enough of a visual for her to dodge hits 2, 3, 5, and 6.

Damn it.

Well, she’d be nothing if she wasn’t persistent, so Neutrino teleported into the reeds at KT’s six and continued. It was nice to talk.

“Well, I found her. I was on a night walk, a noise scared me, and I accidentally teleported right into her living room…she said it was fate. She told me that this curse holding me down was a “stand”, and she named it Moon Rocks. Most importantly, she told me she could take it away with her own power….if I only did her a favor.”

“S-so that’s why I have to die?!” KT shouted furiously, “So you can live?”

“Exactly! Don’t worry, your friend won’t be hurt. I’m only taking him because there’s someone who really misses him, and he could probably use her support when he finds out you’re dead.”

Despite the early August sun, a chill ran down her spine.

“Someone…who misses him? Who?”

“Does it matter to you? You’ll be gone soon.”

And, with the full force of Moon Rocks, she once again shoved KT into the river.

——-TO BE CONTINUED—->

Chapter Text

Or at least, she tried to.  As soon as she felt the nonexistent hands pressing into her chest, she whipped out Touch Tone. With its user in one hand and a sturdy-enough tree in the other, it swung KT back onto the bank before her heels even broke the surface of the water.

“No, I won’t be. None of us are going to die. We’ll leave bruised as hell, but-“

She re-wove the shimmering blue thread between her backpack and the rocky ground.

“-After hearing the unbelievably shitty hand life dealt you?  I can bluff, but I can’t actually bring myself to end yours. So I want to…well, ideally be your friend, but I at least want to help you fix your stand with no strings attached. There’s gotta be a way.”

“You’d be my—You’d help me? ” Hope crossed her heart. She wanted to believe her. But then she remembered.

She’s going to try to get on your good side, she’ll say she doesn’t want to kill you, she wants to befriend you! But she’s lying. If you let your guard down, she would end you. You won’t fall for it, though. You’re too far clever for that.

Cilicia had told her that.

And that woman was always right.

So her hands would stay bloodstained.

“…Maybe in another life.”

She set off a flurry of displaced strikes.

KT was able to block a few without any visual cues-she was almost getting good at this.  But blocking wouldn’t matter for long when her backpack was starting to crumble from the hits. Stupid brittle gravel. After one final resolute swing (enough to disperse the displacement), she tossed it to the side, cut the connection, and linked the genuine metal of her (still broken, she’d probably never get around to fixing it) wristwatch to a shrub tree Touch Tone yanked out of the ground.

An all-natural metal bat was all it took for her to feel confident enough to bargain.

You’d think she would be pleading. She had reasons to. She was sweaty and bruised and muddy and desperate, but the conviction in her voice turned it into a bargain, one that she shouted towards the sky.

“I still don’t want you to die like this! Give Terunosuke back and tell me who misses him, and who this ‘Cilicia’ is, and we can all leave alive.”

In response, her alleged enemy’s voice rang in her ears. It wasn’t as confident anymore. It broke like a violin string, misused and wound too tightly.

“No. I have to. I have to. I’m sorry.”

“I’m so sorry.” She whispered to KT, with her real body and real voice, from a just few paces behind her.

KT spun around and hit her in the legs with the bat.

“Me too.”

Neutrino crumpled, then froze. She’d cry if the tears left her eyes. She felt awful, bathed in perception—KT closed her eyes, but lightly pressed the bat into her stomach, keeping her physical form indirectly in her umwelt.

“What pocket did you keep Terunosuke in?”

“Left…” she mumbled weakly.

She crouched down, and reached towards the jacket pocket with a clipped-shut piece of paper in it.

“Ok, ok, let me get him. This is a truce. We’re done fighting. You were really good at it. But no one will kill anyone, and you’re going to answer my questions. Then you need to go to Italy and find a man named Giorno Giovanna and he will fix your life without making you kill me personally. Ok?”

“What? I don’t-“

She never got to finish that sentence, because a group of hikers rounded the corner. They saw two girls, one curled up on the ground, one sopping wet.  KT spun around, tried to block her from view.

“HEY! DON’T COME ANY CLOSER!! CLOSE YOUR EYES!! YOU’RE GONNA REALLY FUCK THIS UP IF YOU DON’T LOOK AWAY!”

Of course, this only incited the group of about five or so to come closer.

They circled, and murmured things like “What the hell’s going on here?”  Neutrino folded in on herself. It hurt. It hurt. KT kept trying to push the crowd away. KT wasn’t letting her die.

“CLOSE YOUR EYES NOW, PLEASE, SHE COULD DIE IF YOU KEEP LOOKING AT HER!”  Now she was truly pleading.  The crowd didn’t look away.

It’s so cold. A neutrino is a particle that’s so small it hardly even exists. Neutrino is a girl who’s been lied to, and she realizes that. Neutrino is a girl who can feel her heartbeat becoming ever slower, her body growing lighter, as she lays on the ground, as another girl who she was told would kill her without a shred of remorse begs to strangers in order to save her life.

Begs unsuccessfully.

The crowd didn’t look away, but their faces shifted from confusion and concern to plain confusion.

One of them finally asked “Who’s she? You’re the only person standing there.”

And it was true.

There was no girl in iridescent purple clothing behind her. No girl who spent hours tediously braiding her own hair into spirals, or who had just this morning confidently applied white eyeliner at the recommendation of her only actual friend. No girl who habitually drew on every whiteboard she passed, just to make an impact. No girl at all, and not even an impression in the dirt.

“Umiforgottotakemymedsthismorningfuck,” KT whimpered,  and ran off through the group, clutching Terunosuke’s paper in her hands.

[NEUTRINO CICERA: WHEREABOUTS UNKNOWN. RECOVERY LIKELY IMPOSSIBLE.]