digiorno | ic inbox ( ruby city ) Ⅰ

You--!

[Yes you did!]

[. . .]

[No. No - he didn't.]

[His breath catches, and everything is very . . . very quiet, all of a sudden. His nerves are buzzing; he was ready for a fight, and now. Well.]

[Fuck you. I don't owe you shit, and I'm not going to help you play the martyr.]

[He deserves his place in Passione and I will not let his anger and his resentment--that same anger and resentment you provoked by taking ownership of something you have no right to--push him out.]

[They were . . . both right.]

[He knew they'd be fine. He knew that. And he knew they were both strong enough to withstand a fight anyway. And he . . . thinks he has some kind of claim to that, the guilt and the pain that should be between the two of them, all these things that aren't his, that were there before he ever showed up, largely unwelcome on their doorstep. Showed up and led people to die.]

[Bruno didn't need him to take that hit. So why the hell did he do it?]

I . . .

[Taking ownership of something he had no right to.]

[So is he just a conqueror after all?]

I don't . . . know.

...Giorno.

[...So that's what happened here.]

...It happens when you love someone so much you can't think straight.

And when you're so scared of something that you start seeing it in situations where it's not.

[He just breathes for a moment, letting space hang in the air, the distance between mouth and pocketwatch and all the city distance between the two of them right now.

Abbacchio had to come here to Spiral, and Bruno came with him.]

You were trying to be the fairy godmother for them. Right? At your pace. The way you want them to.

Ha . . .

[Breathing is hard. It's hard, and it hurts. He has to focus on it, in and out, before he can speak. Not that he knows what to say. Not that he knows anything right now, about himself or about what he's chosen to do. If it's right.]

[He wants Mista. He wants that safety, that security, to have someone close who believes in him no matter what. But he needs this.]

[In. Out.]

Yes. I.

I thought . . . Bruno wouldn't tell him. That he would wait. And it felt like a lie. And I was worried . . . I was scared that if he lied, that there wouldn't be any way to fix it. Because--

[Because Abbacchio has no love in his heart for anyone but Bruno. Certainly not for himself. If Bruno lied to him - logic says now that Abbacchio would try to understand, would trust that Bruno knew what he was doing. But in the moment, all he thought was that Abbacchio would pull away, and then he'd have no one.]

I just don't want him to be alone. I don't want either of them. To be alone. I was so happy to see him it hurt . . .

I overcorrected.

...That's your family.

[An observation that comes not altogether directed at anything Giorno has laid out, but at least in some way responding to it. Passione isn't his business, and these are someone else's internal affairs — but Giorno is distraught, and Giorno is his affair in a way that Abbacchio and even Bruno aren't.

Because Giorno is family. Because Giorno understands some things in a way that most people — maybe everyone — simply can't.

Because he'll never forget that he has moments like these, when Jonathan raises his voice or — he suspects, at least — Bruno is at odds with him, and Giorno sounds like he wants to crawl into a hole and never come out.

He really, really wishes he were one of those people who's good with words. That he were the kind of person who sets people at ease just by existing, the way Kakyoin describes his mother. Either one would be so useful right now.

He can't help but wonder how much of Giorno's agony right now is stemming from not wanting to be alone, either.]

...I'm sorry. I didn't call hoping to...

[...do this.]

...Even if you did make a mistake. It's not something that can't be fixed. A bond like the one you have with them isn't something that disappears just because of something like this, either.

I know you didn't.

[Somehow, the reassurance does help - well. It's not that much of a mystery, is it? When he's put in a position to make someone else feel safer, even if in the smallest way, it proves to him that he's capable. But this, all of this, is starting to make him wonder, the rest of the time.]

[It's not bad enough that he's ever going to doubt himself completely. His confidence is a double-backboned thing; it doesn't break under pressure, just bends. But there's still that part of him that was a sad dark-haired child with no friends and no reason to believe anyone would ever love him, and that part of him clings desperately and too tightly to what love the world chooses to push his way, for fear of it being ripped out of his hands.]

[He sighs, wishing he were closer to ready for bed so he could run his hands through his hair, some kind of fruitless self-soothing. Instead, he pulls the emerald ladybug out of his pocket and balances it between his fingers again. He really ought to get a chain for it, a setting, so he doesn't lose it. If he lost it, he'd be devastated.]

I'm so tired of feeling like this.

[It's so strange, hearing that same sentence — the exact words, even — coming out of someone else's mouth. Everything's been really terrible lately, and when someone puts it so bluntly and with such cavalier abandon, it's disguised in plain sight. It's there like it's nothing, and you just assume it must be fine despite its severity, because no one is treating it like it's a big deal so much as just a state of being.

Getting from that to I don't want to feel like this anymore is a transition that's infinitely harder alone. He knows that from personal experience, too.

But what the hell does he know about doing something about it?]

When I get like that, I usually go hit things until I feel something again.

[But what the hell does he know, even, his coping strategies are shit and if it weren't for Passione, if it weren't for Giorno, if it weren't for Bruno Buccellati he'd still be deep in that hole right now, too.]

If you want something like that, I can make it happen.

[The relief that blooms in his chest is instantaneous. He isn't allowed to do this at home, not really, not like what Jotaro's suggesting. He isn't allowed to lose control ever. And maybe that's part of the problem, that he doesn't have outlets for the anger that he keeps a tight grip on but is still very much there, or for the fear that threatens to strangle him some days, or the grief like lead in the pit of his stomach.]

[He almost asks really? but doesn't, in the end, because he doesn't want to give even the slightest chance for Jotaro to take it back.]

I'll meet you on the beach in half an hour.

[Well, that's — okay, actually, no, that should be enough time to — yeah, good, a half-hour. That should do, just fine.]

Okay. We'll be there. I might get a little tied up, but no more than ten or fifteen minutes.

["We" being Star Platinum, clearly, but from the sound of rustling on Jotaro's end of the microphone, he's already moving to try to ensure that the extra lag doesn't prove to be necessary.]

[He doesn't answer. Just hangs up, breathes out, and gets ready.]

[As usual, he thought ahead, even in crisis. He chose half an hour for a specific reason, because there are three things he needs to do before he meets Jotaro on the beach.]

[The first one is the easiest: he goes into the bathroom and packs two things into a small cloth bag. One is a button, small and square and green, one of the many he keeps in his pockets just in case he has to make something and there's nothing convenient to hand. The other, which takes a little more thought, is a light blue washcloth, slightly frayed at the edges. Another just in case.]

[The second one is easy, too. Once he's back in his room, it's a matter of a few minutes to unpin his bangs, take out the braid, run his fingers through his hair until what's left is a messy halo. He'll go back to normal tomorrow, but this one time, this one night, he wants to be wild and angry - to allow himself that, because if he battens it down any more it'll just fester. So for now, for this, he creates a new ritual, lets himself be less than perfect, and studies himself in the mirror for a moment in the dark. What he sees doesn't entirely satisfy him, but he turns to go anyway.]

[The third one . . .]

[The third one is pushing Mista's door open with his hip, as silent as if he's floating, crossing his arms and leaning against the doorframe with a tight frown; listening to his breathing, watching his slight movements in his sleep. It would be so easy to take advantage of him, and maybe he has been, maybe a little bit. Everything else has been cresting over him in a never-ending wave, and through it all, as always, Mista's been there, always just there, trusting him without fail, believing in his ability to pull through no matter what. There are negatives to that kind of loyalty, plenty of them, but he doesn't--]

[Unconditional loyalty, unconditional love, those are new to him. So he has to do better here, too. Make Mista's life as good as it can be, because even though he would be happy with very little, he deserves everything.]

[He'll start tomorrow. For now, he doesn't leave a note, just vanishes into the night. By the time he gets to the beach, his hair is wind-whipped and Gold Experience is trailing at his heels, close enough to kick them, but he doesn't, because for all that Giorno is deliberately choosing not to be perfect right now, there's still a predatory elegance to him that never dies.]

[Yes. It's time to get ready.

What he's doing, frankly, is crazy. He's well aware of that. But for Jotaro, actions will always speak louder than words, and though he's not technically the one who created this mess, he is the one who dragged it out and into the light of day, so on some level that makes it his to accept and contend with. That's how things are. And Giorno is a special case anyway, because Giorno is always a special case. He has been since the beginning.

And this is what they do, the niche he somehow fills in Giorno's existence by providing something he doesn't have from his other sources. Someone beyond the inherent power structure and struggles that dominate his life. Someone who grabs him from the middle of it and drags him elsewhere.

Sometimes there's chocolate pudding. Tonight there'll probably be blood.

As he's leaving, with Star Platinum at his side and a backpack slung over his shoulders, he pauses outside Kakyoin's door and takes a moment to just stand there, head lowered, thinking. Before he quite realizes it, he can feel the wood of the door beneath his fingertips; he won't open it, knows better than that, but there's a familiarity and closeness in reaching for it anyway.

I'm sorry for making you wait, he thinks. Just hang on a little longer?

And then — they go.

Giorno beats him to the beach, which is expected. Giorno — at first glance in the twilight, that isn't who he sees, which isn't expected at all. The saving grace is that he's far too short to be Dio, and the clothes are wrong, and the Stand looks nothing like The World, but from a distance there's still that moment, just like the first night they met all over again.

The noise he makes to give himself and his presence away comes in the form of unshouldering his bag and tossing it onto the sand with a thump; whatever's in there, it's soft enough not to risk being damaged by being dropped, but heavy enough to make a sound when it lands. Star is at his side, at always, and his face is the one hairline crack in an otherwise stoic situation, because he's grinning in a way that can only be called loud as a contrast to the quiet twilight silence.]

[Blood will work just fine. That's what this is all about anyway, isn't it? Blood for family, blood for death, blood for brothers found and lost and left behind, blood for lines drawn in the sand. So what if they bleed a little - with the power he has at his fingertips, he can save almost (almost) anyone.]

[There's an arrogance, a cockiness rising in him now, and he doesn't try to hide it away. He stands ramrod-straight on the beach with his shoes sinking into the soft cold sand, and all he can remember is Diavolo and the bodies he left behind. Abbacchio with a hole in his gut, Narancia bleeding from the mouth, and Bruno, his spirit watching and then fading away.]

[Not everything is Diavolo's fault. But that man should carry a lot of what's currently on Giorno's shoulders.]

[Gold Experience turns to look before its user does. It skims light fingers along Giorno's shoulder, grabs his attention, then watches Star Platinum only. Its movements are more graceful even than usual, somehow, or maybe it's just that it's moving more; in contrast with its typical efficiency of movement, it seems in constant motion now, its hand shifting from Giorno's shoulder to the small of his back, pushing his hair out of his face as he turns against the wind. There's a shyness that's been eliminated, a wall that's come down. This is raw honesty, maybe, for a few minutes.]

[Giorno cocks his head at the sound of the backpack falling to the sand, as if he can discern what's in there just by listening. It's tempting to try. Instead, he just turns to Jotaro and considers him, his expression not just neutral but blank. Wrung out.]

[Eventually:]

I sent him to hell, you know. Diavolo.

I remember what hell sounds like.

[And this is tonight's episode of Ultra Edgy Teens, with your host, Jotaro Kujo.

He remembers a little about the things Giorno's said about Diavolo prior to this. Things about the Stand he used, erasing time. Things about the way Giorno beat him, how he punished him for his transgressions. Their discussions about power, about how wielding it feels like a test instead of a gift, how it makes you wonder who decided that you could be trusted with something of that magnitude.

Maybe hell isn't a place so much as it is a state of being. Hell is ten thousand knives suspended in the air with their points all facing toward you, and waiting.

And hell, sometimes, is wanting to stop feeling like this when this saturates everything you do, clings to it, seeps in under your skin and won't get out, screams at you with words like failure and fault and they're dead because of you.

Star Platinum doesn't touch him, which makes for an odd contrast. Where Gold Experience is in constant motion, Star Platinum is a silent guardian, poised and waiting at the opposite end of this moment that isn't a showdown, but has all the elements of one anyway.]

You're not going to hold back, are you.

[It's not a question, just a confirmation. Everything about it is quiet and declarative, making sure everyone is on the same page before they start putting their fists through it.]

[He laughs. Not the laugh he had to force out, the laugh like a statement; not a laugh meant to disarm, high and light and breathy; not a monster's laugh, either, because when he's in a fight to kill he doesn't laugh or even smile. It just sounds like a boy laughing about something funny. That's all.]

Not tonight. Not with you.

[Which means I trust you and I'm so angry and I hate this and I want to be as alive as I can be.]

[He will not allow himself to live the same hell over and over again. He will not be condemned to that. He isn't the one who's done the evil deeds here. He's not a hero, but he's not the villain, either. He won't be treated like one, not even by himself.]

[It's a little funny, actually. If someone came upon this scene, the two of them . . . he knows the image he presents and the one Jotaro does, and someone looking without thinking or analyzing would almost certainly assume Jotaro the aggressor and him the victim. People are so damn simple-minded sometimes. It's not bad. It's just lazy.]

[Right here, right now, there aren't any heroes or villains. Just two very angry, very tired children.]

I want to know who's going to win.

[He nods slightly, hands finding their way into his pockets as his stance shifts fractionally, the distribution of his weight over his feet readjusting to something a little sturdier, a touch more ready.]

...Yeah. Me too.

[Because of course, he'd be lying if he said he'd never thought about it. He has. At length, across tedious mornings filled with the repetitive hammering of shingles, in sleepless nights of staring at the ceiling, in metal strings blunted against callouses on his fingers and in the cold air that hits the back of his throat before it descends and bites frigid at his lungs from the inside out.

Yeah, he's thought about it.]

I want two things, then, first. Because you know I won't go all-out unless you know what that means.

[Because this is how he chooses to use the power he's been given. This is what he needs, to satisfy his conscience and his honor. Maybe someday that will change, but for right now — ]

So tell me that's what you want. If I'm going to throw Star Platinum at you with everything he's got...then I want to hear you accept those terms first. That's the first thing.

[He listens to the terms carefully, because of course he does; angry he might be, but he respects Jotaro probably more than anyone else here, so it's only right to pay close attention. As he listens, though, he thinks: Do I have any terms?]

[No. He doesn't. And that's strange, because his life is all about negotiating terms, about politics, about using words to determine the lengths of violence one is willing to go before it becomes too much for either party. Here and now, though - he trusts Jotaro implicitly in that he is sure this would never become a fight to the death, but other than that . . .]

[He has Gold Experience. He can stand to lose a limb or two. It doesn't much matter at the moment.]

[All that said--]

That's what I want. I accept.

[That's that, then. The question isn't about developing a strategy so much as simply demarcating the field upon which they're playing, writing rules and traumas onto the blank pages of this moment's playbook because contrary to all third-party appearances, there is trust here, and respect. It's something neither of them had the last time fought like this; it makes it different enough that it doesn't twist knots into his stomach like thoughts of fighting Giorno's father do.

It's about confronting themselves, not each other. Seeing who wins. So in a way, it really does have to be everything, because to hold something back — maybe it's like Giorno said earlier. It would feel like lying.

The point is to be honest. With themselves, with what they've done. With what they carry on their backs, and what they shouldn't have to.]

The other is: am I the only one you're fighting?

[Oh.]

[He almost tells Jotaro, I bet you can guess. But this isn't Izabel; they don't play guessing games. And besides - one of the things Jotaro does is pose questions so that you have to come up with solutions all on your own. Even difficult solutions. It's an exercise he presents, a way of looking at yourself from the outside.]

[He really doesn't know how smart he is, does he? How well he understands people, when he doesn't overthink it.]

[Giorno shakes his head, and his voice comes out a little bittersweet after the unavoidable pause.]

No. I'm fighting myself, too.

[Someone has to. Mista won't; no one else, except Kakyoin, seems willing to admit that there are dangerous things in him. So he will do it himself, he supposes, and he'll feel better afterwards, not for punishing himself - this isn't that - but for fighting his demons and winning.]

Am I the only one you're fighting?

No.

[And that's exactly why he wants to say I understand, but what he does say is a little bit different, and a little less kind, and a little more open.]

I'm going to fight to earn the right to use the power of my Stand as I see fit. One more fight. No more doubts.

I'm going to use it to its fullest, and take it for myself once and for all.

[And that . . .]

[That's more than enough to bring a bloom of warmth to his chest, a sincere, incongruously soft smile to his face. He places a hand over his heart to feel it beating and thinks, yes, I am alive; I am alive here on this beach, and here is my friend who is also alive, brave and fragile and strong.]

. . . I'm honored, then. To be able to help you fight for what's yours, so you don't have to fight for it ever again.

[Underneath his words are everything he's ever said to Jotaro, affirmations that he's wiser and better and more giving than he thinks, that Giorno understands not believing it but will believe it for him until he can, that it's an honor to be his friend, his family. His opponent, in this situation, because--]

[He squares his shoulders.]

This might be arrogant, too. But I don't think there's anyone here who can begin to match us, except the other.

[Which is only right. Start a chapter with a fight, end it with a fight. Another thing that blood is: cleansing, the body's way of purifying itself, and they will never be pure or clean but if they shed a little blood tonight at least they can prove to themselves that they're still human.]

[And neither one of them is named Brando nor Joestar. They carry it with them, of course, but they wear their own names. They stand on their own feet.

...And maybe that's one more thing they'll both be fighting tonight, the enemy they both share and perceive, and will hopefully leave behind on the sand when they're done in some sense, some shape, some form.

Good. Let them carry the legacies of their forefathers in with them, and see what follows them back out again.]

Arrogant but true isn't really all that arrogant.

[And then, with his eyes darting from Giorno to Gold Experience and then back again, watching the way he naturally shifts because they can both taste on the wind that the fight is nearing its ignition with every passing moment: ]

Don't worry too much about fighting yourself. I'll gladly beat the shit out of him for you.

[Posturing. Idle, meaningless, senseless posturing, because it's important to acknowledge that there are fights without grudges and opponents that aren't enemies, and he could've just said it's my honor too, but in the end, he thinks it's probably more apt to do it this way, somehow.]

[He makes a good point, and Giorno smiles. And then he makes a stupid point, and Giorno smiles wider, calm and beatific, and clasps his hands together in front of him, bangs drifting in and out of his face.]

There's a saying . . . you wouldn't know it, but I'll teach you something easy before we get to the more difficult lessons.

[Gold Experience shifts, arms draped over Giorno's shoulders, pulls itself closer - disappears.]

Il serpe tra' fiori e l'erba giace.

[And there it is again, appearing all staccato, before him rather than behind him, still as Star Platinum now, posture relaxed and loose. Giorno tips his head slightly to one side.]

Snakes among sweet flowers do creep.

[So look before you leap.]

[This might actually be fun.]

[Oh. Disappearing acts, is that what we're doing now. Well, that's fine; there's one of his own he can answer with — but, as with all magician's tricks, it's really only impressive if you don't know how it's done.

Or at least, if you don't see the way the moving pieces work to make it happen.]

How about you brush up on your Japanese. Let's start with kakatte koi.

[But as he finishes the words, the easy vowels that come in Kakyoin's inflection instead of his own, his mouth keeps moving over the subsequent syllables of a familiar command, and Star Platinum stops the world.

He knows, already, that he'll have to use this sparingly. Maybe tonight is about finding his own limits for The World, too — limits he desperately needs to know, to use it with any real tactical effect. How many, for what duration. If he needs to recharge afterward, how long is that delay. He needs to know; it needs to become his. It needs to become second nature, inside and out, or it's nothing.

For now, he has five seconds, and he's not tired. So he uses them wisely, dispatching Star Platinum to follow him and sweep over his tracks in the sand as he runs at Giorno, catching him easily up and moving him back a few feet from where he'd previously stood. Not far; just enough to make a statement, to change his view enough that he'll notice, and have perhaps a moment of hesitation from trying to re-orient himself.

With his remaining time, he veers off to one side, just barely out of Giorno's peripheral vision in his new position, and brings Star Platinum to guard against a hair-trigger attack that he suspects will be coming the instant that —]

Soshite toki wa ugokidasu.

[— Time resumes.]

[There are many reasons why people underestimate Giorno Giovanna.]

[Many of the reasons are deliberately crafted. He chooses to look, speak, move a certain way; these happen to be the ways that come most naturally to him, for the most part, and he knows how to utilize his skills to best effect. But the fact is that things would likely be much easier for him, at least in the world he's chosen to inhabit, if he were more like his father: physically imposing, strong, visibly dangerous.]

[He's not. He chooses not to fight that particular reality by clumsily mimicking machismo, a concept which he finds ridiculous; rather, he embodies grace and delicacy because he is graceful and he is delicate, but so is a spider's web, and they are designed to bend and flex and stretch but never break.]

[He's young. He's a boy. He knows this - now better than ever, after what happened in the mirrors, after what he's just learned about himself and his tendency to take on too much. He isn't always good at balance, and sometimes his judgment isn't the best. But if there's one thing, one thing that separates him from Dio Brando--]

[It's the way he chooses to react to the world.]

[The hair-trigger attack doesn't come. Instead, when time resumes, he reaches out for Gold Experience, who is there immediately to support him in the half-second of disorientation before he is able to stand on his own. And as he does--]

[(The other thing people forget about Giorno Giovanna: he is strong, but he is not only strong. He has the power of life at his fingertips, but he has the mind of a tactician, a general, an emperor. His goal is the preservation of civilization, not its destruction. Life and rebirth, not death, not suffering, not pain. Peace.)]

[--what comes is calm, defensive, well-planned (because what is his Requiem if not the ultimate defense? what is his calling if not a defense against man's worst nature? what would he spend his free time on if not coming up with solutions to worst-case scenarios?), a wall of braided vines sprouting in a circle around him, reaching for the sky. If Izabel were here, she would start at how similar they are to the vines that threatened them in Wonderland.]

[But she's not. It's just them.]

Naranc--

[Gold Experience Requiem looks at him, and he remembers: Narancia isn't here. Aerosmith isn't here. He's fighting alone, so he has to win alone. And that means . . .]

[The wall of vines moves forward, all in a rush, to swallow Jotaro up.]

[It makes a memory twinge briefly in the back of his mind, the sight of a towering mass of something advancing on him. There are a few things that save it, that keep it only a twinge; one is that he's upright, instead of on his back, and the other is that he has Star Platinum in front of him.

(A third is that time is moving. He is the only one here who can control time. Time Stop is his, and he'll prove it again and again until he believes it.)

It's reasonable to assume that this is Giorno's answer; he's built himself a wall to act as a shield (while he recovers? probably, he assumes; it'd be disorienting to anyone) and now that wall is advancing like an offensive, but they're vines. He's buying himself time to move.

That's fine. And frankly, Jotaro's a little relieved. Giorno has every reason to be unnerved by his use of The World, maybe even almost as much as Kakyoin, but he hasn't turned pale and screamed. He doubts he could've continued the fight, honestly, if he had.

But the fight has continued, and that means the next step is to show this wall why it's not going to be that easy.]

Star Platinum!

[His Stand surges forward with a mighty roar, fists winding back for a brutal, lightning-fast attack rush —]

...!!

[— that blows him back thirty feet and lands him on his back in the sand, blood beginning to pour from his nose as not-inconsequential explosions of pain begin to go off beneath the flesh of his torso and face.]

[It would be easy to hide in his little circle of plant life, to direct his attacks from within and keep himself protected. It would also be stupid. He isn't operating a fighter jet or a submarine, he's not piloting anything. He's fighting, fighting someone he cares about, so it's his duty to ensure precision, to fight to the best of his abilities until one or the other of them is done.]

[He doesn't waste time imagining who it'll be, either. They'll know soon enough.]

[What he does do is push through the vines like they're nothing, coming to stop in front of Star Platinum in the sand. It's not a move of bravado, since Gold Experience is absolutely still standing between them and just to one side, but he does look up at Jotaro's Stand a little apologetically.]

Mi dispiace, Star. [And to Jotaro:] I tried to warn you. You should know better than to make me repeat myself.

[But that's it. Monologuing's for amateurs (Padre), and he's got work to do.]

[Gold Experience moves without a word, a sound, a look, just moves. Not as fast as The World, of course, because The World moves outside time, but fast all the same - for Star, not Jotaro, which was another reason for the pardon begged, because - well.]

[The blow doesn't actually need to connect, really; it's more a movement through the air, an effect on the outside versus the inside. He can't stop time, no, but he can accelerate life just for a little while, and life is all in the mind.]

[Time moves forward. The mind rushes. Everything that is felt is felt more.]

[He stands framed against the surf, and watches, and waits.]

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