digiorno | ic inbox ( ruby city ) Ⅰ

Entry tags:

ic inbox ( ruby city ) Ⅰ

buongiorno! sorry i missed you; i'll happily get back to you as soon as i'm done with whatever business i'm on. leave a message!

( text | voice | video )

⇦ ● ⇨

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Giorno smiles, then, a little wistful. It's his least favorite of the powers that he's capable of, the things that Gold Experience can do. And yet it's what allowed him to win in the end. Maybe he should be more grateful. But he just isn't. Jotaro's right; it's a lot of responsibility to hold in your hands, and while he knows he can handle it, it's not something that he feels connected to.]

[Maybe that makes sense. It's artificial, after all, or at least more artificial than what he started with. The arrow created Requiem, pulled Gold Experience inside out and made it unbeatable. But it reminds him uncomfortably of Dio and makes him itch to put his fingers on life instead of death, for all that he would do it again (and again and again and again) if Diavolo ever dared to show up here.]

Sometimes I do. Sometimes I think . . .

[He hesitates here, unsure if he should continue. It's something he wouldn't say to anyone from home, not even Trish, who's usually exposed to his weaker side. But it's Jotaro.]

[That, somehow, is the only reason he needs. It's Jotaro.]

Gold Experience Requiem resets. Everything. It makes an action void. And so . . . sometimes I think it feels like a test. Will I abuse it or won't I?

[The implication is obvious. Will he do what Dio would have done with it, or will he keep his promises? So far, he's done the latter, hasn't even felt a temptation towards the former. But time changes people, he supposes, and nothing's impossible.]

Do you? Wonder, I mean.

...I've thought about what you told us, a little. About what Diavolo could do, what it was like. You can...take this however you want to, get pissed at the arrogance or find it reassuring, whatever. But. ...I think, if I had to, I could beat him.

[Little things, after all, do keep him up at night, and this was one he'd mulled over at length — the difference between stopping time and erasing it, the mechanics of a battle where both participants are manipulating time, whether the ability to erase could act on something that had already ceased to move.

Before he'd known what Gold Experience (Requiem) could do, he'd assumed that Giorno must've had time-related powers of his own. It was a logical conclusion, between his relationship to Dio and the enemy he'd had to defeat with them.

But now, he realizes, he's going to be back to wondering again — not out of apprehension, but because it's always the little things like this that preoccupy him: which would outdo the other, if they were to meet head to head? Could Giorno's Stand reset time that had stopped, and force it to move again?

He'll think about that more later, assuming he hasn't destroyed the relative peace they have going with his thoughts. But if Diavolo is their mutual benchmark for powerful, then professing confidence in defeating him speaks a lot about the nature of his own Stand, while saying very little in the realm of how.]

...Yeah. Pretty constantly, I wonder. Half the time I think it's got to be some kind of mistake.

[The smile isn't so wistful anymore. It's not exactly cunning, either, not the way it can be sometimes; it's not Dio's smile, that's for sure. It's the look of someone pleased, but not happy - because Giorno is, all things considered, very rarely happy.]

[It seems right to him, though, that Jotaro be this confident. At least something came out of everything he's been through - not something he asked for, sure, but something measurable.]

It's not arrogant. It just sounds like a fact to me. I hope you never have to.

[Like he hopes he never has to face Dio; but hopes are only hopes.]

[His fingers curl on the edge of the table then, almost a nervous gesture.]

It could be a mutation. Genetically, I mean. Incredibly improbable, but - a kind of mistake.

[And that was how it came down, wasn't it? Father to son.]

...I think you care too much about the things you want to achieve for yourself, to lose control when it comes to undoing other people's.

[He watches, quietly. Watches Giorno's fingers against the table like his own are twisting the napkin still. It's like turning over stones, this conversation, like stones that are dry and unassuming on the surface but damp underneath, hiding secrets.]

I think you care too much about the things people achieve in general, to ever run the risk of erasing them lightly.

. . . I think that's true. I hope that's true.

[He looks at Jotaro for a long moment, as if trying to ascertain if he's telling the truth; but there's nothing but honesty in him, and it occurs to Giorno in that moment that he doesn't think Jotaro's ever lied to him.]

I want to be an admirable person. Not for the sake of being admired, but . . . [So I can look myself in the mirror at the end of the day.] Because I want people to reach their dreams, like I did.

...You are. Admirable.

[And when he hesitates, it's not because of what he's just said, but because of what he's tempted to follow it with, the thing he knows that Giorno doesn't that makes him the most qualified person in the world to say that someone with every inherent bias toward turning out like Dio who still fights to rise above it and push back against it is admirable —

Yes. He has every reason to find that admirable. It's inspiration, if not to achieve his dreams, then at least to prevent his nightmares.]

I'll tell you why someday. But just trust me on it for now.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only