Chapter Text
Giorno opens his eyes, and there is light, bright, white, and blinding. He squints against it, looking around to find himself in an endless expanse. Light lifts his feet up and weighs his shoulders down so that he doesn’t float away. It supports his back and stretches on for an eternity in every direction. He gasps, and it echoes, then changes. He hears other voices layered into his own, gasps, laughter, cries of delight and sorrow, wailing in agony, screams of anger and grief. He can hear footsteps too, loud stomps and gentle taps, leisurely and hurried, hundreds of them, thousands of them. All the sounds blend together until they sound like waves crashing against the sharp stones under a cliff.
Giorno blinks, between the blackness behind his eyelids and the blinding light of the void, a warm weight settles on his shoulder. Giorno looks up and is met with sky blue irises set into a kind, familiar face. “You did it,” Polnareff says. He looks as he did years ago. His voice is younger, matching the lack of crow’s feet around his eyes and wrinkles around his mouth. “Great work, Giorno,” he says. The voice doesn’t sound like it is coming from his mouth, rather it echoes around them, warming his skin.
“I failed,” Giorno says, his heart-shattering. It hollows him out, like the arrow in his chest, bringing the inevitable to pass. “I was supposed to save you,” he laments, reaching up to grasp Polnareff’s face. His hands make contact, but it is like cupping warm water in his palms. “I... “ he chokes on the space opened in his chest before he can say more, but the words still carry themselves into existence anyway.
“I was supposed to be different.”
Polnareff smiles at him, but it is melancholic. “Yeah,” he says. The ache in Giorno’s chest crests into agony. Around them, the light grows so bright as to blur Polnareff at the edges, his pale skin going translucent. “But what you are instead isn’t so bad, is it?” he says softly.
“I have become… my rage,” Giorno whispers, “I wanted… I was doing this for a righteous cause. I’ve been lying to myself, I always wanted revenge, but I thought it was for the people of Italy… my team…. But now that revenge is in my grasp, it’s not enough. I can still feel it… my anger... it only grows. It’s consuming me.” No matter how quietly he tries to talk, his voice still resonates loudly around him. “Nothing will ever be enough,” he hisses, but it sounds like a scream.
“Makes sense, doesn’t it?” Polnareff asks casually, “There’s plenty of injustice in this world to feed that fire. Plenty of reasons to be angry.” He reaches up, cupping Giorno’s cheek, smirking in that familiar way of his. “But you’ll be alright,” he says.
Giorno shakes his head, knocking Polnareff’s hand away from his face. “You don’t understand! That’s how he was,” Giorno says emphatically. He remembers blonde hair and cold hands. Those crazed golden eyes had looked into his own with so much anger and resentment. He remembers Dio’s horrible knowledge of his own madness and his refusal to fight against it. Then there was the abandon, the shrill, gleeful laughter when he gave up, gave into it. “It rotted him from the inside out! It turned him into a monster!” he argues, “He refused to accept reality!”
Polnareff has vanished, his genial warmth replaced with the cold stability of stone and the pervading scent of copper. “And what about you?” another voice says, rich and heavy. There is a presence as Giorno’s back, casting a shadow against the floor, a familiar silhouette. “There are two sides to everything, you know? Rage becomes passion, fear becomes caution, pride becomes confidence, and likewise, love becomes possessiveness, compassion becomes pity, and mercy becomes lenience.”
The shadow does not move, but Giorno hears the familiar click of shoes against a polished tile floor. They pace back and forth. Fabric swishes, displaced by phantom movements. Jewelry tinkles against itself as the figure comes to a stop, a sound so familiar that it pushes Giorno into absolute anguish. He hunches forward, pushed forward by an invisible weight he is much too weak to withstand.
“You are like me,” the shadow says into Giorno’s ear, “So what? Take what you have been given and use it. Make your choice and stand by it. You control your Truth. You shape your own Reality. You have been doing so since the moment you were born. Why is this moment any different?”
Cool fingers gently touch the nape of his neck. “I see it now, Giorno. Remember when I spoke briefly on the force that pulls us all together and forward? Gravity. You say you don’t believe in it,” the voice mutters softly, much more somber, “But you fear it.”
The words hit like a slap. Giorno grits his teeth and ducks his head. His hands shake where they rest in his lap. He feels helpless, like that little boy trembling before the fists of an angry giant. The emotions well up inside of him, paralyzing him.
“I’m afraid,” Giorno breathes. There is no answer to his confession. The only shadow left here is his own. He looks down at his knees, past them to the endless expanse of light.
He lets go of a breath, forcing his stiff knees to move. He makes it to a wobbling stand, the light moving to support him as he goes. He presses a hand to his chest, feeling the searing warmth underneath, the arrow at work in his soul. He thinks about tenacious plants crumbling stone walls on their quest towards the sun. He thinks about strings fraying, and rusted chains cracking under a blazing heat.
“But I have overcome him…” Dio’s voice resonates around him. It feels like it is coming from within him, rather than around him, a reminder from a time long past. “There is nowhere to go, but up from here.”
Giorno’s eyes fall closed. Blessed calm falls over him. The heat in his chest begins to spread, flooding out from his heart to the tips of his fingers and toes. Giorno shivers at the contrast. He hadn’t known how cold he felt until the heat had replaced it.
He remembers those words. They had been half-crazed, dripping in madness, but there was hope in them as well. Dio was one step. He had defied his fate in more ways than one, even if he had eventually succumbed to the darkness waiting in his soul. He was right, there is only one way to go now.
“That is what you are, what you are meant for,” the words drape themselves over him, a small comfort.
Perhaps he would not be bringing his father along with him on his journey upward, but he could take those he still could with him. He could not save his father or Polnareff, but others are still in reach. His own soul, teetering on the edge of falling into indifferent wickedness, is still in reach.
“I’m afraid,” Giorno repeats on an exhale. The words flow out of him, like the roots of a tree, anchoring him into reality. Here, he has control, if only a little. Here he can choose and sway the tides of fate. Here there is no unknowable power looming, no overarching fate designated to him before the stars that made his soul were hung in the sky. There are only decisions and the consequences of those decisions. Here he does not reject the Truth, but he acknowledges it.
When he opens his eyes, the light is still blinding, but it is radiating from a single point, shining directly into his face. The sun glares at him, its rays warming his face. Though more blinding than the sun is his transformed stand. He stands in front of him, more than a few heads taller than Giorno now and sporting a crown-like head. His solid gold exterior is more muted, the richer shades of his original yellow peeking through at his inner forearms and thighs. The shape of the arrow sits nestled on his forehead, pointing down between his eyes.
Though this form is foreign, entirely new, Giorno knows it as intimately as he does Gold Experience’s other form. Gold Experience Requiem looks at him with humanoid eyes, purple irises betraying more life and emotion than Gold Experience’s bug-like ones could. He frowns at Giorno, but there is warmth in his eyes. He directs his gaze towards the man he stands or rather floats before.
Diavolo stands in the road, eyes wide, all traces of triumph fled from his face. Before he can move, Gold Experience Requiem raises a hand, sending a blast of golden energy forward. Diavolo tries to defend himself with King Crimson, but the blast travels through both his and his stand’s hands, hitting a stone pillar behind them. Scorpians born from the stone scuttle out, one leaping directly at Diavolo. Diavolo tries to defend himself, but only succeeds in being stung. He immediately uses King Crimson to slice off the affected flesh with a cry of pain.
“All that will survive in this world are righteous actions born from reality,” Giorno breathes. The words feel at home in his mouth, even as they ring in his ears like a foreign language. “You may have killed Polnareff… killed many people… tried to erase their existence from this world, but they won’t disappear. You cannot erase their actions. Those actions are what gave me the arrow.”
He breathes deeply, the air around him honey-sweet with Gold Experience Requiem’s energy. The stand takes a stance behind him as he speaks, nuzzling his head against Giorno’s shoulder and bracing a hand on his waist. Diavolo continues to marvel at him, mouth agape like a water-starved fish.
“Now are your actions born from reality? Or are they just superficially evil?” Giorno questions Diavolo, though he feels he already knows the answer, “In the end, will you escape being erased? We’re about to find out!”
Diavolo snaps his mouth shut. Then he grins, almost of all of his perfect, white teeth on full display. “I am fate’s chosen apex!” he declares, “I, Diavolo, am the Emperor! I have overcome every challenge I have faced!” He shoves a finger in Giorno’s direction, his smile fleeing in the face of all-encompassing rage. “You dare to lecture me, you cocky brat?!” he screams, “Giorno Giovanna!” The name sounds like a curse, like a bitter poison on the man’s tongue. “I won’t even give you time to lament your own death!” he declares.
Giorno blinks and there is blood on his face, the ground around him is crumbling, debris blown into the air by the force of their stands. For a moment, everything is still. The debris floats around Giorno, suspended as if from a wire. Birds are frozen mid-flight, a wasp hovers near Diavolo’s face. It is completely silent. Diavolo stares at him, wide-eyed and confused. Giorno wonders if in releasing Requiem, he has just mimicked Jotaro’s own stand powers. He spares a thought to hope he isn’t jealous.
“What shall we make of him?” the voice is unfamiliar, and yet exactly like his own. Giorno looks up to see Gold Experience Requiem observing him, his expression blank, but his eyes fiery. Giorno looks back to Diavolo, sees his hateful face. All he can think of are his terrible actions, all in an attempt to hide who he was. His willingness to let the world burn for some unknown goal. It makes Giorno’s stomach twist with revulsion. This is the man who stole away the lives of his friends. This is the man who stole Polnareff away. The man planned to kill his own daughter and slaughtered his brother. He forced their hands, had them contribute to the misery of his own design. He inspired that deep, hopeless heartbreak lingering around Risotto Nero like a cloud.
This is the man who unlocked Giorno’s ability to hate.
“Perhaps he should suffer the fate he wished on so many others…” Gold Experience mutters thoughtfully. He looks down at Giorno, seems to catch his expression, and nods to himself.
Time abruptly starts. The rubble rains to the ground, some would have hit Giorno, if he had not already moved forward. The first hit lands directly in Diavolo’s face, knocking his head back with the force of the blow. “Muda!” Requiem announces.
Giorno channels all his fury, his indignance, and his agony into every hit. He is determined to make Diavolo feel at least a fraction of the pain he caused. Requiem delivers, landing hit after hit on King Crimson, his face and chest, all the while chanting his signature phrase.
“You goddamn brat!” Diavolo screams, blood spilling from his mouth and nose. King Crimson begins to crumble under the continuous blows, his two-toned voice shouting in disbelief and pain.
There is a pause as Gold Experience Requiem fumes. Around them, it falls silent aside from Diavolo’s wheezing breaths. “You will never go anywhere,” Requiem mutters, “Especially not reality. Ever!”
With another steady stream of “Muda!” Gold Experience Requiem rears back his fists and pummels Diavolo from head to toe, ignoring when his stand completely disappears and he is just hitting the human body. Giorno lets out his own wordless scream, something that starts deep in his chest and rises, full of his suffering at its highest, whistling pitch. It knocks him backward, arches his back, and he throws his head back as he yells. However, it is not the angry sound of Gold Experience’s mantra, but deeply mournful, as it travels into the air.
As it trails off, Gold Experience Requiem finishes with one last punch, sending Diavolo flying back. He tumbles over some nearby railing and splashes into a canal. The water continues on, undisturbed. Diavolo does not surface, not even bubbles rise to show that he had been there.
The world fades in around them. Time, freed from Gold Experience Requiem’s hold, resumes its flow. Giorno looks over the railing, and though he isn’t certain where Diavolo has gone, he knows that he is gone for good. He looks up at Gold Experience Requiem, feeling that familiar fear at the result of his soul. Requiem looks back at him, challenging.
“Giorno, did you do it?!" Kakyoin calls to him in his own voice this time. Giorno jumps, looking over to his teammates, all recovering from their sprawled positions on the ground. His heart jumps into his throat. Everyone just witnessed him at his absolute most violent, watched him ruthlessly attack someone until they were knocked entirely out of existence. He looks away, feeling a familiar cold sweat break out on his face, and his hands tremble where they grasp the railing.
Before he can spiral, however, strong, but spindly arms wrap around his waist as someone tackles him into the railing. “That was amazing, dude!” Narancia cheers. He gives Giorno a little squeeze before reaching over and smacking Gold Experience Requiem on the ass. “This guy isn’t half bad!” he says, even as he shakes the pain in his hand out.
Giorno has no time to speak before Mista is upon him, bracing a hand on his shoulder. “Shit, dude, you annihilated him! Wow!” he congratulates as he peers over the railing. “Shouldn’t we go looking for him to finish him off?” he asks, squinting at the quickly rushing water below. He holds a hand protectively over a zipper in his torso. It seems Abbacchio using Moody Blues to absorb Diavolo’s blow spared Mista the worst of it.
“No… I…” Giorno glances up at Gold Experience, then to his friends, “I know he’s gone.” He cannot help the small tremble in his voice.
“Good,” Fugo says, the third to approach him. Trish is not far behind.
Further behind them, Jotaro helps Kakyoin to his feet. Buccellati does the same for Abbacchio who is shaking his head with clear disorientation. Risotto lingers behind them, giving Giorno a look that he can’t quite decode from so far away.
“Is that really it? He’s gone?” Trish asks, slinking past Gold Experience carelessly to look over the railing too. “That’s it? Poof? Where’s the corpse?” she ponders.
“Yes, he’s…” Giorno wonders what to say. Gold Experience looks down at him. He swallows, steeling himself as the rest of the team approaches. “I don’t really understand Gold Experience Requiem’s ability, but… he isn’t here and he can never go anywhere… especially not reality,” he repeats Gold Experience’s words, unsure of their meaning.
“So… is he still alive or…?” Narancia questions, tilting his head, “I was kinda hoping to kick him in the head a few times…”
“He… he will never reach the reality of death,” Giorno says.
“So he’s alive,” Trish says, sounding almost disappointed.
“It’s an ending that… has no ending,” Giorno says, glancing at all of their team members. Trish, Fugo, Narancia, and Mista look mostly confused. Jotaro looks solemn, but unruffled, shoulders relaxed and lazily supporting Kakyoin. Kakyoin has no eyes for Giorno, only staring at Gold Experience Requiem with wide eyes and a thoughtful frown. Buccellati looks worried, but in that strangely parental way of his, not in any outward fear of Giorno. Abbacchio, for all that has happened, just looks bored. Risotto merely seems relaxed, like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders for the first time in years.
“That is Gold Experience Requiem’s power,” Giorno finishes, once the frantic beating of his heart has settled a bit.
“So it’s over,” Trish sighs, leaning against the railing with a heavy sigh, “Finally.”
“We win!” Narancia cheers, thrusting a fist in the air. He grins at Mista who reaches down and ruffles his hair, grinning back. They begin to play-wrestle until Mista hits a sore-spot on Narancia. In retaliation, Narancia kicks Mista in the balls, and they both topple to the ground, groaning.
Giorno watches, a bit detached. He is pulled away with a hand on his face. He looks up to see Fugo’s concerned eyes. “Are you okay?” he asks quietly. It draws everyone’s attention to him.
As if on cue, Gold Experience Requiem fades, leaving only the arrowhead to tumble to the ground, clanging against the pavement with a melodic chime. Giorno tears his eyes away from Fugo to stare at it, glinting in the sun. Then Gold Experience’s familiar beetle-like eyes block his vision. Behind his slightly translucent form, Jotaro picks up the arrowhead, shoving it in his jacket pocket.
Giorno swallows, accepting the relief that comes with the arrow hidden away, and the fear he felt with it out. Turning back to Fugo, he nods. “But it’s not over yet,” he says quietly, looking to Jotaro and Kakyoin in turn. They both nod at him.
“Let’s go get him,” Kakyoin says gently. He reaches out for Giorno and he comes to him easily, submits to being folded into a soft hug. “Let’s bring him home,” he whispers once he has Giorno pressed against his chest.
Giorno nods, feeling the familiar stinging behind his eyes and the painful tightness in his chest. He had been right about what he confessed to Polnareff in that strange arrow-induced dream. Revenge would never be enough to soothe this pain.
He looks back at his team, his friends, his family, all of them regarding him with sympathy, hovering closeby with encouraging words, or a comforting hand. He feels a small hope. The pain was all-encompassing now, dragging him down like concrete blocks on his feet, but perhaps they could help him shoulder the weight.