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Prosciutto finishes his bite of fruit salad and glances over to Buccellati, to the right of him. “I didn’t know you were a picky eater.”
“I’m not,” says Buccellati. He stops pushing a piece of pineapple around with his fork. “I was just hoping for food other than fruit for dinner.”
“That’s the same. Just eat, it’s healthier than whatever you’ve been filling yourself with, and you’re being rude to the chef.” Prosciutto scoffs, and takes another bite.
Buccellati looks to a passing Passione member. “Who is the chef?” he asks. “Not our usual?”
“No, he’s sick today. Azzurro volunteered to make the meal instead-”
Buccellati rises from his seat. “Don’t eat any more of this. Not until I have a chance to speak to Azzurro.”
Prosciutto blinks at him after swallowing. “We already tested for pois-”
He doesn’t get the chance to speak more, because there’s suddenly a hole in his throat.
There are several holes in him, actually, the largest in his stomach. He can see what caused them: partially digested food is flying from his body towards the kitchen. The same is happening to the others seated at the table. It’s kind of gross, but he’s too preoccupied with the wounds on his body to voice this opinion.
Sticky Fingers is in front of him suddenly, zipping the holes shut. Buccellati, who appears to be fine, says nothing to him before he sends the Stand to close the person next to him’s wounds.
“Buccellati!” When Buccellati turns to him, Prosciutto holds his glass of ice water out. “I’ll take care of this.” What he should say is thank you, but he doesn’t have time to swallow his pride that much.
Buccellati nods and takes the ice from the glass, holding it to his own cheek before moving on to treat others’ wounds.
Prosciutto calls his Stand, filling the room with its mist. He and Buccellati are the ones left untouched by its effects, with the handful of other Passione members that had been dining with them aging rapidly. He hears a curse from the kitchen, and dashes toward the door.
It is not difficult to find Azzurro. A ring of fruit surrounds him on the floor, both whole and partially eaten. His Stand is at the center of the ring.
“Interesting Stand,” says Prosciutto. His gun is out and trained on Azzurro, who is aging just as quickly as the rest of the diners. “What is it called?”
Azzurro glares at him. “Banana Phone.”
“Who was your target?” Prosciutto asks.
“Buccellati. You were a bonus.”
He tsks. “Are you working with anyone else?”
Azzurro says nothing, but kicks a pineapple towards him. The force behind the motion is too weak to do much, and it rolls to Prosciutto’s feet before slowly being drawn back towards Azzurro. He curses again.
“Well, if you won’t talk, then…” Prosciutto gives Azzurro a second to change his mind, but he only stares defiantly, so Prosciutto shoots him in the head.
Grateful Dead’s mist dissipates. Prosciutto returns to the dining room. “Someone needs to clean up the kitchen, it’s disgusting,” he says.
“I’ll get someone to take care of it. Could you call Giorno? These wounds need a more permanent fix.” Buccellati speaks more quietly. “Did he give any information?”
“Just that you were his target.” Prosciutto reaches for his cell phone, but pauses. “If the moral I’m supposed to take from this is ‘eat less fruit because a Stand might kill you with it’-”
“Nothing like that,” says Buccellati. “That would just be ridiculous.”
After Buccellati gives the warning, Fugo is hyperalert and on the lookout for anything strange, which is the only reason he notices the bomb.
It’s a pipe bomb, and it’s tucked unobtrusively in a dark corner of a fairly unused room, attached to the wall. Fugo knows if he tried to detach it, he’d risk setting it off himself. He’s only seen a couple bombs like this before: Abbacchio would have more experience.
He’s staring at the bomb from a relatively decent distance, though it won’t protect him much if it goes off, and reaching for his cell phone when the phone is knocked out of his hand.
“I’d appreciate,” says the woman behind him, “if you didn’t tell anybody about what’s in that corner, right? Makes all my hard work go to waste.”
Fugo looks around. No one else is in the room, and the woman is blocking his way to the only exit. “It looks like you want a fight,” he says, and calls Purple Haze.
“If I have to. I’m Rosa,” she says, pulling out a knife, “and this is Soft Cell.”
Her Stand appears. It’s close to Ghiaccio’s in appearance, surrounding her with another layer of skin.
Fugo backs off, not because he’s particularly afraid of that knife (Narancia has sharper ones) or because he wants to be closer to the bomb (obviously not), but to give Purple Haze some room to work. Rosa lets him, driving her knife into Purple Haze’s arm and giving both Stand and user a nasty gash there.
Purple Haze retaliates by punching her in the face. There’s a moment, and only a moment, where a bruise forms on that outer layer of skin, and then it’s gone as if the armor had never been touched.
Fugo makes a quick conclusion. “You regenerate from injuries.”
“You’re not bad,” says Rosa. She stabs again.
“And you’re completely untrained with a knife,” he adds, holding his injured arm as another gash appears on his body. “Bombs are probably all you’re good at.”
“Why you-!”
One of Purple Haze’s bulbs bursts against her armor.
It’s painful to watch, but not nearly as painful as it must be to experience. As soon as the virus enters, the entrance wound clears up again. The virus is still inside, and it travels throughout the body, but every piece it destroys is regenerated almost immediately. Never quite quick enough to catch the virus itself, this process of destruction and regeneration continues, and continues, long past thirty seconds. Rosa is bent over from the agony of it.
“Just turn off your Stand,” says Fugo.
“Like hell I will,” she says, and swipes with her knife again. She doesn’t even hit Purple Haze this time.
“You’ll be like that forever if you don’t.” It’s pitiful to see.
“I can live like this for as long as it takes you to die!” She starts limping towards the bomb. Purple Haze steps on her foot and she can’t shake it off.
Fugo still doesn’t know how long that bomb is going to last, so when he picks up his phone again, he makes two phone calls.
The second person he called arrives shortly after that. Pesci winces just looking at the state of her, her flesh randomly appearing and disappearing. “Mercy kill is right.”
She snarls at him, and tries to hit the fishing line when it appears, only succeeding at creating a brief injury to herself. The hook enters her, and moves quickly until it reaches her heart, then yanks.
Death is instantaneous. With her Stand no longer protecting her, the virus finally is able to destroy her body.
“Thanks,” says Fugo as Pesci withdraws his Stand. “We should leave in case the bomb squad takes too long to show up.”
“Yeah, that… that’d be bad…”
The gang hasn’t got anything as formal as the police’s bomb squad, but they do have a few members with some training, and they successfully prevent headquarters from being blown into smithereens.
Giorno looks across his desk at Illuso, calm as ever. “I’ll consider this fight with Sheila E self-defense. You won’t be penalized for it.”
“Thank you, boss.” Illuso relaxes a little. “About the other thing you asked us to investigate… Carbonara, who Risotto and Melone took out a while back, claimed to have informants in Passione. We believe Azzurro and Rosa were two of them, and that there are likely more. Such as-” He points to the assistant looking through books on the shelves, who jolts and whirls around. “That guy.”
Giorno glances in his direction. “He is new, but… what makes you believe Porpora had something to do with this?”
“He touched me with his Stand when I entered the room and expected me not to notice. I didn’t get a good look of what it did, but I’m sure that’s about to change.” Illuso folds his arms. “Do you have anything to say for yourself?”
Porpora looks between the two of them and the door, clear across the room. “...Kidz Bop.”
There is a small mirror on Giorno’s desk, used to check to see if he’s been working so hard that the bags under his eyes are noticeable. From it emerges a Stand.
The Stand that appears could be the mirror image of Man in the Mirror… well, not quite. The shapes of its body are the same, but they’re sloppier, less well-defined. It looks as though someone had taken a picture of Man in the Mirror and tried to copy it with only partial success.
Kidz Bop reaches for Giorno, but when Gold Experience Requiem appears, stops before it touches him. Instead it turns and grabs Illuso, pulling him into the mirror and dropping him on the ground.
The mirror world is a familiar place to Illuso. He takes a look around the office, now devoid of Giorno, before turning to Porpora. “So your Stand copies other Stands?”
“Now that I’ve separated you from your Stand,” says Porpora, stilted and clearly rehearsed, “there’s no way you can fight me-”
“Are you an idiot?” Illuso summons Man in the Mirror to his side. “There’s only one mirror world, not two, and it’s my Stand’s natural environment. You can’t keep Man in the Mirror out.”
Porpora starts to tremble. “Shit.” Kidz Bop puts up its fists, also shaking. “Shit shit shit.”
“If you’ve started the fight, it’s self-defense for me, I hear,” Illuso says with a smirk. “So I won’t get penalized for beating you to a pulp.”
Man in the Mirror starts a flurry of blows, and Kidz Bop is barely able to block some of them. In terms of sheer strength, Man in the Mirror is not at the top of the Stands, but it seems it’s strong enough compared to its copy.
Bleeding and bruised, Porpora stumbles towards his Stand. “Kidz Bop, take me out of here…!”
Kidz Bop grabs its user and drags it out of the mirror world. Without any fuss, Man in the Mirror does the same for Illuso.
“Welcome back,” says Giorno, when they return. He’s at least standing up from his chair now. “I see you have this under control.”
Kidz Bop does another almost-grab towards Giorno, and Porpora asks, “Why can’t I touch you?”
“You really should do better research.” Giorno looks toward Porpora, lips in a tight smile. “Now, you have three choices: you can give up information on your peers, Illuso can defeat you, or I can defeat you. Of these, you don’t want me to be the one to bring you down. Trust me.”
Porpora looks to Gold Experience Requiem, hovering behind Giorno, and then to Man in the Mirror and Illuso cracking his knuckles.
“I’ll talk,” he says.
Three down, three to go, according to Porpora’s confessions. He dropped their names with little prompting: Rosso, Grigio, and Bianco. He knew they all had Stands but not the nature of them: he said Bianco was the leader. Their mission was to take out both Giorno’s group and their immediate successors, the assassins: Bianco had not told them who was paying them, only that somebody was throwing handsome amounts of money their direction. Carbonara had been a contact.
Formaggio reads over the notes he was given a third time, sipping his coffee. Across the table from him, Mista is enjoying his breakfast, putting copious amounts of jam on his rolls. It can’t be healthy for him to have that much jam on that many rolls-
Wait.
“Hey, Mista.” When Mista looks up, Formaggio says, “You’re having four rolls.”
Mista blinks at him. “There’s enough left for everybody.”
“You’re having four, did you get replaced by an evil clone or something?” Formaggio says it like he might be joking, but sees Mista go a tiny bit pale.
“N-no way, I guess I just miscounted!” Mista drops one of the rolls back into the bread basket, and stuffs one of the remaining rolls in his mouth. “Should probably go to work,” he says, muffled.
“Mind if I hitch a ride?” Formaggio asks, standing up. “You’re going the same way as me.” Mista’s office is near Giorno’s, and Formaggio suddenly has something to report to the boss.
“Uh- sure thing.” Mista allows a tiny Formaggio to sit on his belt. “It’s like carpooling, right? Does that make me the car?”
“Pretty much!” Formaggio calls up to him. With this size and distance to Mista’s ears, he has to raise his voice to be heard.
Mista heads in the direction of his office. Formaggio notices that he doesn’t take the most direct path there, taking a long route around a particular hallway. What’s there in that hallway? Mostly closets.
A flash of yellow catches Formaggio’s eyes. One of the Sex Pistols is sneaking around and hiding behind corners. When it sees Formaggio, it zips closer, trailing behind Mista.
“Shhh.” Formaggio holds his finger to his lips. “Where’s the real Mista?”
The Sex Pistol, Number 1, whispers, “Third supply closet. This guy took his guns and his face. Literally, his face-”
“I get it. I’ll bring him back to you, so tell Mista to hold on.”
Number 1 nods and flies away, with ‘Mista’ not having noticed the whole exchange.
“Hey, Mista!” Formaggio calls up to him. “We split up here, remember?”
‘Mista’ looks down. “Oh, right! Sorry.” Carefully, he sets Formaggio on the ground.
“Thanks,” says Formaggio. Then Little Feet punches ‘Mista’ in the face.
“Ow!” ‘Mista’ levels his gun at Formaggio, already beginning to shrink. “What the hell?!” Before he can pull the trigger, Formaggio is already too tiny to see, and he waves his gun around wildly instead.
It takes a while for ‘Mista’ to shrink to the right size, and following him is a chore when Formaggio’s tiny, but eventually Formaggio decides his gun isn’t a threat anymore and returns to his full height, scooping ‘Mista’ up. “Let’s go on a trip.”
‘Mista’ fires into Formaggio’s hands, but it’s no more than an annoyance. “Let me go!”
“I’ll let you go after you give that face back. So which one are you, Rosso or Grigio? The leader would be smart enough not to give away their disguise.”
After running out of bullets, the man in Formaggio’s hands grumbles. “Grigio.” Grigio is looking too closely at the edge of Formaggio’s hands for Formaggio’s liking, so he holds him more tightly.
The closet is locked and Formaggio doesn’t have the key, so he kicks it down instead.
Mista is indeed tied up in there, with the Pistols all hovering around him. He jolts at the sound of the door crashing, because his ears are intact. The rest of his face, however, is missing, with only blank skin instead.
Formaggio looks to Grigio. “So, how does my friend here get his face back?”
Even at this size, he can see the sweat on Grigio’s face. “When I stop using my Stand, Nice Sprites, he’ll get it back. But if I die first, he’ll lose it forever.”
The Sex Pistols scream and yell. Mista himself says nothing, because he can say nothing.
“That’s a problem. How about this?” Formaggio picks Grigio up by the arm. “The longer you take to stop your Stand, the more limbs of yours I break. I’ll give you until three for the first arm. One… two…”
Grigio cries out in agony after Formaggio snaps his left arm. “I give! I give!”
His face and body warp, and settle into someone else’s features, the kind of unassuming appearance Formaggio might run into every day. Meanwhile, Mista’s face starts growing back on the front of his head. He coughs.
“All better, Mista? Everything in the same place?” Formaggio asks, sending Little Feet to slice off his bonds.
Mista feels his face with his hands. “Seems normal.”
“Good.” Formaggio sets Grigio on the ground and, before Grigio can do more than scream, stomps on him, digging his heel into the ground.
“Good riddance,” says Number 3. The other Pistols mumble their agreement.
Formaggio checks to see that the splotch under his foot isn’t moving, then turns back to Mista. “Don’t lose your head like that next time.”
Mista groans.
Narancia is holding a piece of paper and running through the halls, stopping everyone who he sees. Seeing that, Risotto can’t help but hang around.
“What’s that you have?” he asks.
Narancia beams and shoves the paper in his face. “One hundred percent on a math test!”
Risotto glances over it. It’s fairly basic math, but it is still a completely correct math test. The teacher has written ‘good job!’ and put a smiley face at the top.
“Congratulations,” he says. “What are you going to do to celebrate?”
“I- I don’t know,” Narancia says slowly. “I was definitely going to find Fugo, but after that, I don’t have any plans.”
Risotto tsks. “For milestones like this, you should celebrate. There’s a good pizza place in my territory. Do you know Antico Pizzo Risorto?”
“That’s pretty expensive,” says Narancia. “I’ve always really wanted to go though…”
“I’ll pay. Without threatening the owner,” he adds, realizing that the assumption might be made. “If money is that much of a concern to you.”
Narancia is staring at him as he takes out his wallet. “Seriously? I mean that’s awesome and everything, but really?”
Risotto nods, counting out enough money to easily cover two at a fancy restaurant. “It’s good that you’re pursuing your education, and it can easily feel like it goes unappreciated. You and Fugo should have a good time. Here.” He hands Narancia the money. “Don’t worry about repayment.”
He is not prepared when Narancia hugs him, but neither is he complaining.
Risotto is actually in headquarters in the first place to help track down Rosso, one of the remaining two conspirators against the boss. Abbacchio and Ghiaccio should be at Bianco’s place now, Abbacchio to dig up information and Ghiaccio in case a fight breaks out. Rosso, on the other hand, has no address on record. What he does have is a photo,
As various people pass by Narancia hugging Risotto in the middle of a hallway, Risotto has to gently push Narancia off of him.
Narancia looks embarrassed. “Sorry, that was a little-”
“Not that,” says Risotto. “That man there is our traitor, Rosso.”
Rosso evidently didn’t know his identity had been leaked. He jumps, breaking into a run towards the front entrance. Risotto follows closely behind him, and behind him he hears Narancia also chasing them.
When he reaches the entrance, Rosso whips out a gun. Narancia’s Aerosmith, however, has more guns, and more rapid ones. Risotto sends Metallica to steer some of Aerosmith’s bullets and pull them back towards him once they enter Rosso’s body, causing doubly large wounds.
Rosso fires a few shots that don’t do much before collapsing to the ground. “You’ll… never get a word from me…” he groans.
“We don’t need to,” Risotto says. “Your friend Porpora told us already.”
“You liar, you-!” Rosso coughs up a razor blade before he can finish his sentence. He summons his Stand, a small slimy thing, and sends it towards Narancia, who shoots it full of holes.
After a moment, Narancia announces, “He’s not breathing.”
“That was anticlimactic,” says Risotto. “I suppose I’ll dispose of this. You should ask Fugo out before the pizza place stops taking reservations.”
“Right, thanks~”
If Risotto has regrets, it’s only that he won’t have the chance to see Fugo’s face.
He wonders how Ghiaccio is doing.
“After this is done,” says Abbacchio, watching Moody Blues rewind, “I’m going to kill you.”
Ghiaccio snorts. “Not if I beat you to a pulp, you prick.”
“Who decided you were the best choice to work with me?”
“The boss did. What’d you do, piss in his cereal?”
Abbacchio coughs and doesn’t answer that.