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Throughtout his life, and even for a long while afterwards, there would be many, many people to say that Dio Brando was born evil.
The first of these people would be a shady asian shop owner, who saw the three dots marking his earlobe as a sign that this child buying poison from him in the darkest hours of the night was the devil in all but name. It would continue with an inspired gang leader-turned-millionaire, with the countless employees of the globally-spanning foundation he would create, and with the majority of the family line that Dio Brando tried so hard through his life (and un-life) to stomp out, the Joestars.
But there would be one Joestar that would neither say, nor think, that Dio Brando was born evil, and it was arguably the one who had every right to hate him more than anyone else.
Jonathan Joestar, no matter how he felt towards the actions of his brother-in-only-name, would never say that Dio Brando had always been completely and utterly evil. Maybe towards the end, but not always.
And it was because of his actions when they were young.
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Dio Brando was fifteen years old when, out of boredom, he used old pieces of cloth that he had stolen from a sewing class to make a sling. As soon as he had made the impromptu weapon, his mind had been filled with ideas about how to use it, and who to use it on. He discarded almost all of them, cruel actions that would certainly implicate him, would certainly destroy the image of 'Golden Child' he had been building up since even before he left the slums. He couldn't use it on strangers, for fear of them being people who actually mattered later on, and likely not on windows without the chance of someone hearing the noise and coming upon him vandalising the place. 'But,' he thought to himself, with a creeping, sinister grin growing on his face, 'There is one person.'
After all, why care about maintaining your mask of innocence with someone you had never bothered to show it to in the first place?
So it was with a growing sense of vindictive glee and a pocket full of stones that Dio Brando followed Jonathan Joestar when he went out the following day. He shadowed Jonathan, hiding a good distance away and ducking behind trees or rocks or whatever cover was avaliable when he had a feeling Jonathan would turn around, and turn around he did.
Jonathan was aware of the foreboding feeling that had been following him ever since he had set off from his home, but he tried to brush it off as he went deeper into the small forest he often explored, close enough to the nearby town that his father permittted him to adventure around the area on his lonesome. Although recently, his father had been suggesting he invite Dio on his little journeys. He didn't like the idea, not one bit.
After a solid fifteen minutes of Jonathan navigating the dense cluster of trees, (something that was quite fun for him, but not so much for his increasingly irritated stalker,) he finally caught wind of the faint sound of rushing water. A smile perked up on his face, and he sped up towards where the treeline began to thin slightly, emerging upon the bank of a fast-moving river.
The sun streamed down upon his face as he looked out to the scene before him. He certainly wouldn't be entering the river of course, it was far too fast moving for that, but maybe he could head downstream and it would slow as it widened out? He knew that the water that ran through the nearby town was incredibly sluggish in speed, maybe he could go for a dip at some point before it reached the town with all it's inevitable pollution?
His thoughts were cut off as he let out a pained cry, a sharp pain jabbing through his skull as something smacked against the back of his head. He whirled around, furiously blinking away tears that had involuntarily arisen at the corners of his eyes at the sudden pain, and looked downwards towards the sandy dirt he was standing on. Innocently lying on the ground, half buried from its fall, sat a smooth grey stone. Where had it come from?
Another stone whizzed out of the darkened treeline, and he only caught it because he had turned in the correct direction. It whipped against his bared arm, just below where he had rolled up the sleeve of his shirt, and he flinched.
"Hey!" He called out, eyes roaming through the trees in a hope to find whomever was harassing him with rocks. He jerked to the side as another came shooting out of the forest, from a different spot that it had previously. He thought he caught a hint of movement, and took a step forward, only to get caught by another stone. Surely there weren't that many exposed stones in the dirt-floored forest?
He kept trying to move forward, but was cut off by rocks everytime he did, forcing him to dodge backwards, towards the river. While he was panicking over what to do in his current dilemma, Dio was having the time of his fucking life.
He had a hand to his mouth to muffle the cackles that were threatening to erupt, only moving it to reload the sling with more rocks, which he was silently thanking his foresight in bringing several pocket's worth, because he wanted this shit to last. He was careful to only swing his weapon lightly whenever he aimed for Jonathan's head, but the rocks he was flinging at the other boy's arms and legs were sure to leave ugly bruises. And if he stayed begind the cover of the trees, Jonathan couldn't even say that it was him on the off chance he went crying to father.
He snickered silently as Jonathan failed to dodge yet another projectile, this one hitting his calf, and the boy half-leapt backwards with a yelp as he clutched at his leg. His hands were already in his pocket, searching for another rock.
Jonathan had had enough of this. He didn't know who was attacking him, nor why exactly, although he did have an idea. Clearly he couldn't charge the trees without both risking the possibility of getting seriously hurt, and losing his attacker, but he also couldn't stay here and keep taking this.
With this thought in mind, he turned and ran over towards the one tree closest to the river, away from the rest of the forest. Its roots were half buried underwater, and its branches were leaning in close to those of a seperate tree on the other side of the bank. That would be his escape. He almost fell forward as a stone smacked against his back, him barely having enough warning in the whistle it had made as it flew through the air. He put his hand on steady bark and started clambering to what was hopefully safety.
Dio narrowed his eyes in annoyance as he watched Jonathan climb up the tree and move on to the branches streching out across the river. What was the idiot-? Ah. Dio supposed that he would have to turn back soon, before Jonathan could return to the manor from the alternate path he was surely taking, and see that he wasn't there. Maybe he could get some of his 'friends' to agree to an alibi for him...?
Dio watched as Jonathan gripped the outstretching branch tightly, unsteadily getting to his feet as he leaned as close as he dared to the edge of it. With one swift movement of his legs, he leapt towards the other tree on the opposite side of the river-
-and fell short, plummeting into the rapids head-first and not resurfacing.
Uncharacteristic panic bloomed in Dio's chest as he watched where Jonathan had fallen into the river. What had happened? Was he alri-
Ah, Dio relaxed as he saw the bright white shirt of the other boy, his unmoving body floating to the surface of the river and drifting downwards.
Hang on.
Why wasn't he moving? How far had he dropped? How shallow was the river?
Dio didn't know exactly why, but he found himself sprinting outside the cover of the forest and into the light, coming to a halt just by the side of the river. He didn't know how to swim, and the currents were extremely choppy at best. Shit.
He ran alongside the river, trying to keep up with Jonathan as he was dragged along by the water, (and he still wasn't moving,) until he spied some outcroppings of rock poking up from the river. There.
He pushed his legs as fast as he could, silently thanking the fact he pursued multiple stamina-based sports as well as strength-based ones, and leapt from the edge of the bank onto the first rock. Not close enough. He jumped to the second, and his heart shot up to his throat as his foot slipped and he almost fell into the rapids, catching himself at just the last moment.
His hand shot out and grabbed the back of Jonathan's shirt, and he yanked the other boy out of the freezing water and onto the rock.
Jonathan hacked slightly, water spilling out of his lungs, and Dio felt a slight bit of regret that he never learnt anything about saving people from drowning on land, because surely that would be possible if there was still water in his lungs? So he just did the asshole thing, and punched Jojo in the chest as hard as he could.
'That seemed to do the trick,' he thought to himself as Jonathan jerked to the side and spewed out a concerning amount of water in his coughing fit. 'Wait,' he realised, as the events that just transpired caught up to him. 'I could have just left him. I could have just LEFT HIM, AND NO ONE WOULD HAVE SUSPECTED A THING.'
Drowning was a natural cause of death, and no one would have any proof that Dio had inadvertently gotten rid of the one thing standing in his way between him and the Joestar fortune. Uggggh. He smacked a palm to his forehead. Well, he couldn't just drop Jonathan back into the water now, as his own clothes were soaked, and returning home with wet clother and Jonathan being found dead via drowing a few days, maybe even a scant few hours later would place suspicion on him immediately. He couldn't do it and then try to dry his clothes either, because then he would be late home on the day Jonathan went missing, and that would also be suspicious and- ugh. Just, ugh.
Dio exhaled sharply through his nose at his self-inflicted misfortune. Oh well, might as well get home. He slung Jonathan over his shoulder, staggering slightly at the weight, and warily eyed up the two jumps he would have to make to get back to the safety of the river bank.
He sighed. This... would take a while.
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Jonathan awoke to the unique feeling of being warmed up to ward off cold-caused numbness. His skin tingled in the fashion it would when sitting in front of a fire after hours spent outside in the snow. He shifted in bed, pulling the duvet up further as he- wait, when had he gotten into bed.
He shot up straight, immediately regretting the action as several currently-bruising spots on his body sent minute jolts of pain through him. That's right, he had been attacked at the river, from within the forest, he had climbed the tree to escape, and then-
And then-
Well, he couldn't remember much after reaching the tree, but judging by the fact that the roots of his hair were still damp, and he wasn't wearing the clothes he had been previously, there was a sizeable chance he had fallen in. So what had-
"Ah, master Jonathan!" A voice called from the doorway. He looked towards it, craning his stiff neck to see one of the household staff, Elizabeth. "Everyone was so worried about you! Thank God that master Dio brought you back before you could develop hypothermia!"
What? Hypothermia, Dio? He moved his hand up to where he felt a slight pain on his forehead, wincing as his fingers brushed against a large bruise that had scabbed over. Dio had rescued him from the river? So it had been him who was throwing the stones. But why did he-?
"Thank you, Elizabeth." He said on autopilot, not even protesting when the maid gently pushed him back into bed, stating that he couldn't catch a cold just yet, as his mind too busy whirling through the possibilities of Dio maybe, just maybe not being as mean as he first thought him to be.
Meanwhile, in his own room, Dio slammed his head against his desk over and over again, trying to express his endless frustration without breaking anything, as he was not in the mood to explain something like that away.
He had been so close! He didn't even know why he had acted, since when had he cared for anyone but himself? Since never, that's when, and he would not be starting anytime soon. He rationalised it away, explained it in his own head as him fearing he would have been blamed, that it would be him who would witness the consequences. He vowed to himself that next time Jonathan was in peril, if there was a next time, he wasn't going to do anything.
(He ignores the fact he felt panic not for himself or his image, but purely for Jonathan. He's never cared before, couldn't afford to, and he won't let himself start caring now.)