Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“You really do not have to come if it is too much of a hassle.”

Trish glanced up from her packing to roll her eyes at Giorno. A few months ago, maybe, she would’ve been offended that he kept giving her really obvious outs, but by now, she knew that this was how Giorno operated. More than that, she knew that the more he tried to talk Trish out of it, the more he actually wanted her to be there. She gave him a look, trying to convey her awareness of this through glare alone.

Giorno shifted uneasily. “You don’t even speak Japanese.”

“Didn’t Jotaro say that they had someone whose stand could circumvent language barriers?”

“Well, yes, but—”

“Jolyne asked for me. More importantly, you asked for me.”

Trish watched Giorno press his lips together in wariness. “I do not want to drag you into a family mess.”

Trish’s throat went tight, and the thought of her mother came to her, unbidden, unwanted, and she shoved it away, thinking of her father instead. “Didn’t I drag you into my family mess last year?”

“Well,” Giorno allowed, “that was extremely different.”

“Was it,” she said, flat, dry.

There was a single warning knock on the door before Abbacchio ducked into her room, and Trish and Giorno both stilled as he flicked a suspicious gaze between them. “You two look like you’re conspiring something.”

“No conspiring,” Trish said, holding up her hands.

He rolled his eyes. “Well, I was going to ask what you guys wanted to do for dinner.”

Trish shot Giorno a sickly-sweet smile, and he shook his head in a wordless rejection that Trish ignored. “What do you want for dinner, Abbacchio?” she asked in her sweetest and most innocent tone.

Abbacchio didn’t seem to notice. “I don’t give a shit.” He narrowed his eyes. “Why the fuck did I come to you guys first, anyway? You two don’t have opinions on anything. I’m going to ask Narancia.”

The second he left, Trish turned to Giorno and said, “If Abbacchio makes ice cream tonight, you owe me one of your suits.”

Giorno looked properly scandalized by this. “I will not.”

“Only if there’s no ice cream.” Trish tapped her chin, faux-thoughtful. “I think I’d look amazing in that pink suit you wore when we first met.”

That actually got Giorno to scowl, and Trish snickered. “We leave tomorrow at noon,” he said, changing the subject with the least tact Trish had ever seen from him. “Do you require any additional assistance in packing?”

Trish shook her head.

“Abbacchio will likely drive us to the airport.”

“Sweet.”

There was an awkward pause before Giorno added, “Will you be okay spending time with Fugo?”

Trish bit her lip to keep back a reflexive, rude response. It was nice that Giorno thought to ask, and it was nice that he knew she was wary of him, but she could take care of herself. She could conduct herself like a normal human being for four days. And it wasn’t as if she never spent time with Fugo. She forced herself to roll up her next T-shirt calmly, slowly, and said, “I’ll be fine. Now, go and rig the bet so that Abbacchio makes whatever you secretly want for dinner. I know you want to.”

“I do not. Any suggestion that I would do something so underhanded is absurd,” Giorno said, but he was already walking towards the room’s exit.

When he left, Trish balled up her nearest shirt and threw it in the suitcase.

Trish watched Sheila E struggle to jam their luggage into an overhead compartment, even though the stewards for the private jet had said it wasn’t necessary. Sheila E was like that. Once she got it in her head that something was supposed to be done, she did it.

“Do you need help?” Fugo asked, who was watching her from a slight distance, brows furrowed.

“What, just because you’re a lot taller than me?” Sheila E huffed, finally managing to shove Trish’s bulky suitcase all the way into the compartment. “I don’t need your help, stringbean.”

“Stringbean?” Fugo echoed, eyes widening in more surprise than anger, Trish thought.

“Skinny, tall, green,” Sheila E said, ticking off the adjectives on her fingers.

“I’m wearing purple.”

“I meant green, like, metaphorically.”

Fugo scowled, opening his mouth to probably deliver a flat insult, but then Giorno strolled onto the plane, looking for all the world like the ruler of a vast empire in this suit that had a one-shouldered shimmering cape built into it. God, Trish wanted a cape. Fugo said, “Hi, Giorno,” and Trish watched with as little cynicism as she could manage as Giorno’s cold expression softened just the slightest.

Trish glanced at Sheila E, who had turned to the rest of the luggage, which was thankfully much less awkwardly large than Trish’s. Sighing, she resigned herself to half-paying attention to Giorno and Fugo’s conversation—something about geckos being invasive species in Japan.

As the plane was getting ready to close its doors and take off, Abbacchio ducked inside for a moment. “You guys good?” he asked, sounding gruff.

Trish saw Giorno unsuccessfully try and hide an eye roll. “Yes.”

“Well,” Abbacchio visibly floundered for something to say, “See you in four days, I guess.”

“Perhaps.”

“Just text me when you land.”

Giorno gave him a bored nod. “I will call you.”

Trish watched the internal struggle of whether or not to offer them hugs play out on Abbacchio’s face, a little amused. In the end, hugs predictably won out, and then Abbacchio exited the plane with a grumpy little goodbye.

“He loves us,” Trish declared when the plane’s door sealed.

“He is stupid,” Giorno said, which was definitely an agreement, coming from him.

Trish sat down on the opposite end of the plane from Fugo and Giorno, and Sheila E joined her after a few minutes. “What are you reading?”

Trish angled her magazine so that Sheila E could see it.

“Cool,” Sheila E lied. “Do you mind if I sleep here?”

“Nope,” Trish said. “My shoulder is your pillow.” And then she cringed internally at how fucking lame that sounded out loud.

Sheila E just smiled and rolled her eyes, though. “You got it, princess.”

When Sheila E fell asleep, though, she kept her chin tucked against her chest, arms wrapped around her middle as if, even unconscious, she was afraid to touch Trish.

Jotaro and Jolyne were waiting for them when they arrived in Morioh, Jotaro just as stoic and blank-faced as Trish remembered. Jolyne ran across the parking lot to launch herself in a hug at Giorno, then at Trish, then at Sheila E. “I don’t know you!” she said to Fugo in English.

“This is my boyfriend, Fugo,” Giorno said.

“Oh, I remember.” Jolyne narrowed her eyes at a very-uncomfortable-looking Fugo and said, “Your suit’s dumb.”

Trish laughed, offering her hand for a high five.

“Nice to see you all again,” Jotaro said stiffly, like he’d been practicing politeness in the mirror and hadn’t been doing a very good job of it.

“You too,” Giorno said with parallel awkwardness that Trish knew was uncharacteristic. “We brought Polnareff.”

“Uncle Polnareff is here?” Jolyne demanded.

“He is a little bit—ah—dazed,” Fugo said, lifting the turtle where he’d been cradling it in his hands.

“Dad, I really really thought you were lying about the turtle,” Jolyne said, peering at it.

“Why would I lie.”

Polnareff didn’t pop out of the turtle. A side effect of him being a ghost was that he sometimes let massive chunks of time fly by without notice.

“Will we all fit in your car?” Giorno asked.

“Should be fine,” Jotaro said, turning on his heel and stalking away in these big long strides. Everyone scrambled to follow, except Jolyne, who seemed to be used to this sort of thing.

The car wasn’t the tiny Subaru that Trish remembered from Florida, which made sense. Instead, Jotaro climbed into the front seat of a minivan, and Giorno joined him in the passenger’s seat, the rest of them filing into the back.

“It’s about a half hour drive,” Jotaro said, starting the car. The radio hummed to life just as an upbeat song was ending, and Trish absently listened to a little jingle of the radio station play out.

There was the sound of a shrill bang and the scraping of metal, and all of them jumped to look at Giorno, who was staring at the hole in the dashboard in shock. Gold Experience Requiem had punched straight through the radio.

“Uh—” Giorno said, voice choked.

Jotaro sighed. “Good grief.”

“Giogio, are you alright?” Fugo said, switching to Italian.

Giorno followed the language shift, and Trish saw that his hands were shaking. “The radio. I’ve heard it before.”

“The arrows?”

“The arrows,” Giorno agreed. He closed his eyes, returning to English. “I apologize, Professor Kujo. I will pay for the damages.”

Jotaro shifted in discomfort. “Not a big deal.”

Trish’s heart was hammering in her chest, and she forced herself to relax back into her seat. Jolyne said, “We could’ve changed the station for you,” and Giorno laughed weakly in response.

Trish and Sheila E exchanged a glance. The thing with the arrows had ended ages ago, they’d thought. They’d thought that Giorno would stop hearing and seeing things from the other stand arrows after he’d fully united with the Requiem arrow, but every now and then, something would cast doubt on that certainty.

Jolyne started humming into the absence of sound in the car, and very slowly, everyone began to relax again.

In the midst of the confusing chaos of being introduced to Giorno’s entire family-and-friends at once, after some asshole with one of the weirder stands Trish had encountered opened her face like a book, Trish sat down in a dazed huff at a seat a little way’s away from the action, taking a minute to collect herself. She watched the ensemble of people loudly and energetically mingle, and she thought, There’s no way families can be this big. She remembered spending Rosh Hashana with just her and Donatella, trying to eat all the food they’d made by themselves and always failing.

She shook her head. She’d been at big events before. It was impossible not to have been at big events when she was a mildly famous singer, but this was different.

Fugo sat down at a chair at the empty table she was occupying, and she shot him a tired, wary look. “What do you think?” she said after Fugo awkwardly refused to initiate conversation.

Fugo looked a little bit frayed around the edges as well. “They’re nice,” he croaked.

“Did you talk to Josuke?”

He nodded a few times, rather robotically. “He was nice.”

Trish laughed without much humor. “Oh?”

“He and Giorno seem to be getting along.”

Trish followed his gaze to where Josuke had hooked his arm around Giorno’s shoulders and was gesturing wildly about something. Giorno ducked his head to hide a smile at whatever he was saying. “That’s good,” Trish said.

Fugo frowned at her, furrowing his brows. “You’re uncomfortable,” he observed.

“I am not,” she sputtered.

“Trish Una is uncomfortable,” Fugo continued, lips twitching into the approximation of a smile.

“Shove it. I’m not used to this many people who all know or want to know each other.”

“Oh? Is that not what any music event is?”

“It’s not.”

Fugo tilted his head in consideration. “I see.”

Trish didn’t really like the prospect of Fugo seeing anything about her, so she stood up. “I’m just going to take a walk around the building, if anyone asks.”

Fugo shrugged. “Fine.”

Trish tore through the crowd of people to reach the exit, and when she could finally breathe again, she sagged against the wall of the building’s exterior, blinking up at the darkening sky, pressing a hand to her sternum.

She stayed like that for a while. She wasn’t sure how long. Somebody else from the party stepped outside, a woman whose name Trish couldn’t remember. Trish watched her light a cigarette, cradling the flame against the cage of her hands, and the woman noticed her after inhaling.

“You okay?” she called in Japanese, and it was still weird that Trish could just understand, all of a sudden.

“Yeah,” she replied. “Your family is loud.”

The woman lifted a shoulder. “They get like that. I hope Josuke didn’t bother you.”

“No,” Trish said, and remembered that this was Josuke’s mother. “Trish,” she reintroduced herself.

“Tomoko. You’re one of Giorno’s friends, right?”

“Yes.”

Tomoko nodded. “He seems like a good kid. Still not quite sure how he’s related to Josuke, but,” she shrugged, “he seems alright.”

“He’s okay,” Trish agreed, allowing herself to be amused.

“Jotaro said not to fuck with him,” Tomoko said casually.

“Yeah, probably for the best.”

She hummed, putting out her cigarette after a little stretch of silence before approaching Trish. “I get it. The first Joestar reunion was pretty overwhelming for me, too.”

“There’s so many of them,” Trish agreed.

Tomoko gave her a sympathetic look, patting her on the shoulder, and Trish made herself not tense up. “I know.”

Trish forced a little laugh. “I should probably go back inside.”

“I’ll walk with you and properly introduce you to Josuke. I promise he’s a good kid.”

“Thanks.”

On their way back to the door, Sheila E pushed herself outside with some urgency, but she stopped in her tracks when she saw Trish and Tomoko. She looked at Trish and, in Italian (she’d refused to allow that guy to use his stand on her), she said, “Fugo said you went on a walk,” kind of accusatorily.

“I needed a second.”

Sheila E frowned. “Fine.” And then she ducked back inside.

“Everything okay?” Tomoko asked.

“Yeah,” Trish said, though she honestly wasn’t sure. A little bit bewildered by the exchange, she followed Tomoko inside and back into the throng of people.

They reached Josuke and Giorno, who were listening to another teenager talk about some restaurant with rapt attention.

“Oi, Josuke,” Tomoko said, voice somehow both sharp and soft at the same time. The three teenagers turned in their direction, and Trish forced herself not to react. “This is Trish. She’s cool.”

Trish watched Josuke’s eyes light up. “Hey, you’re a singer, right? Okuyasu loves your music.”

Trish followed Josuke’s gesture to the third teenager, who was looking at her with wide eyes. “Hello,” he said.

“Hi,” Trish offered, a little wary.

“Hey, I have an idea!” Josuke said, glancing between Giorno, Trish, Okuyasu, and his mother. “Let’s get out of here, we can show you guys around Morioh without Jotaro trying to tell you about starfish breeding habits or whatever.”

Giorno cracked a smile. “I would like that.”

“Go grab your boyfriend,” Josuke said, “and meet us outside.”

“Okay.” Trish watched him disappear into the crowd, leaving her alone with Josuke and Okuyasu. They were very tall.

“Rohan said you and Giorno have a soul bond friendship,” Josuke said to her. “Not that I trust anything that guy says.”

Trish bit her lip, uncomfortable. “We understand each other.”

“Yeah, I get that,” Josuke said. “Oku, stop being starstruck.”

“I’m not starstruck,” Okuyasu muttered, eyes still a little wide while he shuffled over to Josuke’s side.

“It’s okay if you are,” Trish said, smoothly switching to her popstar persona, flashing a smile.

“I see!” Okuyasu said, voice several octaves too high.

Tomoko shook her head. “Well, I’ll leave you guys to it. I’ll try and buy you some time before your dad notices you’ve all disappeared and sends Jotaro after you.”

“Thanks, ma,” Josuke said, looking relieved. Tomoko gave him a light, affectionate punch to the shoulder and ducked into the crowd. Trish felt something in her chest constrict and give way, and she blinked a few times, trying to clear it.

Giorno returned with Fugo and Sheila E in tow, and Josuke and Okuyasu navigated their way to lead them back outside. Trish fell into step with Sheila E. “Isn’t it alienating to not be able to understand them?” she nodded at Okuyasu and Josuke.

Sheila E frowned. “I don’t need to understand them to do my job. I’m here to protect Giorno, not make friends.”

Trish opened her mouth. Closed it. “Alright.”

“Plus, you can just tell me if anyone says something mean to Fugo later.”

She shook her head. “Good point, I guess.”

Josuke and Okuyasu kept up a light, steady stream of chatter mostly directed at Giorno and occasionally Fugo as they led the way down the streets.

Sheila E accidentally bumped their hands together, and Trish reflexively shoved hers in her pockets. She glanced at Sheila E to glean her reaction, but she was just staring forward, watching Giorno. Trish kept her hands in her pockets.

They got ice cream, where they met up with two of Josuke’s friends who hadn’t been at the reunion. Koichi seemed okay, if a little bit uptight and kind of whiny for Trish’s taste, and Yukako was…

Well.

“All I’m saying is that if you really cared about beating me in math, you’d try harder,” Yukako was saying to Josuke. Ice cream was dripping onto her hand.

“Hey, I care. And I beat you on the last test, didn’t I?”

“You lack discipline and self-control,” Yukako said with a stiff little sniff, glancing at Koichi. “Right?”

Koichi hummed noncommittally.

“Josuke’s plenty disciplined,” Okuyasu said.

“Thanks, bud.”

“Why are you guys fighting about math,” Fugo said in a monotone. Yukako and Josuke both turned to stare at him, Yukako in semi-enraged incredulity and Josuke in genuine befuddlement.

“It’s fun,” Josuke finally said, rather lamely.

They were walking along the shoulder of the road, and Trish thought that they were beginning to reach the outskirts of the city. The sky was absurdly pretty here.

“Hey, that reminds me, how was the reunion anyway?” Koichi asked.

Trish watched Josuke’s face twitch into disgruntlement with mild fascination. “You know…”

“I don’t,” Koichi said.

“Big parties don’t buy sixteen years back.”

They descended into a silence. Okuyasu wordlessly hooked his arm around Josuke’s neck, and Josuke’s expression softened a little bit.

Giorno wandered a little bit away from the group. Something weird was going on across his face—he seemed attentive but utterly absent, and his eyes were glazed over, darker and dimmer than usual. He was staring into the middle distance, somewhere off the road. Trish absently pushed her way to his side, reflexively reaching for him.

When she touched his wrist, he blinked, and the weirdness faded just enough to pacify her for a moment. “You good?” she asked.

Giorno frowned. He blinked, and she thought that the movement was at once too lethargic and too rapid, somehow. “I think I need to go that way,” he said, nodding in the direction he’d been looking.

“Alright. We’ll follow.”

Giorno shook his head, the weirdness returned in full force, and he took a marked step away.

“What’s going on?” Josuke asked. He’d noticed them starting to wander off the path.

“Don’t worry about it,” Trish said.

“Uh—”

Trish stayed a hesitant, slight distance behind Giorno as he walked a few steps into the grass. Fugo reached his side and touched the small of his back, but Giorno didn’t seem to notice. He knelt down, and Trish decided to approach.

“Fuck,” Fugo hissed, and Trish’s stomach plummeted while Giorno carefully sifted through the long grass to reveal a cracked arrowhead. “Fuck,” Fugo said again.

“What’re you—? Oh.”

They all stared at it for a second that stretched into an eternity.

Then, Giorno began to laugh. It was a soft, wrong sound that sent a grating chill down Trish’s spine. She clenched her teeth, hard.

Giorno reached forward, skimming a finger along the sharp edge of the arrow. “You orphan heirs of fixed destiny,” he whispered, lips pulling into an ironic, unhappy smile, “Attend your office and your quality.”

“Giogio,” Fugo whispered, and Trish watched the spasm of pain play across his face.

Giorno grabbed the arrow and stood up. He glanced around, taking note of how everyone was staring at him. “Well,” he said.

“Um,” Okuyasu said. “I thought the arrow got destroyed, Josuke.”

Josuke hunched his shoulders, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Me, too.”

Giorno shrugged. “If it is all the same to you, I think I should take it.”

“You’re, like, five,” Yukako snapped with narrowed eyes. “Why the hell would we let you take it?”

“I am sixteen.”

“Josuke, say something.”

“Look, I never wanted to see one of those again,” Josuke muttered. “If Giorno wants to take it, fine.”

“Thank you,” Giorno said, already starting to put it into his pocket.

“How did you know where it was?” Koichi asked.

Fugo and Trish exchanged a worried glance, but Giorno only said, “Lucky guess.” He dusted some imaginary dirt off his pants. “I believe we were headed towards the coastline?” He still had this horribly amused look on his face.

“Right,” Okuyasu said, slowly. “Uh. I guess we should. Start walking.”

They all hesitantly fell into step, and Trish listened as Giorno hummed a cheerful little tune that sounded so fucking familiar. It wasn’t until she could see the ocean that she realized it was the jingle that had made Giorno destroy Jotaro’s radio.

After a while of dicking around by the cliffs, most of the group had started to relax enough to lounge around, napping or talking quietly, watching the sunset paint the sky.

Trish sat down next to where Giorno was sitting alone, legs dangling off the cliff. He didn’t look at her.

“It wanted you to take it?” Trish finally asked.

Giorno hummed in agreement. “I can—It’s—happy. To have been found.”

“You can feel that.”

“Yes.”

Trish took a moment to digest that. “It wanted you?”

“Anyone. I was a means to an end.” He tilted his head. “It doesn’t want to stay with me.”

Trish figured that the stand arrows were like any other living organism: they wanted to survive and reproduce, and that was pretty much it. It probably wasn’t very helpful to be lying half-obscured in the grass, slowly succumbing an inevitable burial, and it probably didn’t want to be a seldom-used back-up to Giorno’s Requiem arrow.

She leaned back on her elbows. Giorno glanced at her, and then back at the sea.

“So, what are you going to do?”

Giorno smiled again, and it was wry and tortured all at once. “Would you hate me if I said that I have no idea?”

“No,” Trish said, voice too soft for her liking, so she cleared her throat and said, “No,” again, firmer.

“Perhaps, this was what had been drawing me here, all along. Perhaps, I never truly wanted to meet these people,” Giorno mused, mostly to himself.

“I thought you liked Jotaro and Jolyne. And Josuke,” Trish said.

Giorno shrugged. “Sometimes, I feel—” But he cut himself off, shooting her a dry, self-deprecating look. “Ah, but you do not need to hear this.”

Trish rolled her eyes, letting Giorno drop the subject. She’d already gotten a lot more out of him than she’d expected, frankly. “How’s Fugo dealing?” she made herself ask.

Giorno’s distant gaze faded into something a little bit gentler, and Trish’s gut clenched at the reflexive simplicity of it. “Mostly by quoting Shakespeare at me. He’ll probably try hugs, later.”

“Sounds like him.”

“Yes,” Giorno agreed, affectionate. “He is very easy to read.”

“Unlike you.”

“Or you.”

“Touché.”

Giorno shot a look over his shoulder, and Trish refused to follow his gaze with some effort. “I don’t think Sheila E likes this.”

“She doesn’t like many things,” Trish offered, frowning.

“I meant Morioh. Down-time.”

“Hate to break it to you, but I don’t think she considers this down-time, Giorno.”

“Well.”

Speak of the devil. Trish blinked up at the darkening sky, which was suddenly blocked by the looming visage of Sheila E. “It’s getting late,” she said. “Your great-nephew called you.” She passed Giorno his phone.

Trish took the opportunity to watch Sheila E in all her stoic grace. And she was graceful, even from this angle, in an effortless, subconscious way. Sheila E’s gaze flicked to meet hers, and Trish closed her eyes to avoid holding it.

They collectively decided to head back to their hotel after Giorno called Jotaro back, and before Trish could really register it, Sheila E was shutting the door behind her. They’d been alone before, so many times. Trish wasn’t sure why this time felt different. She carefully got into the bed that she’d claimed earlier and was debating pretending to be asleep before Sheila E emerged from the bathroom, but she didn’t get a chance to decide.

“You okay?” Sheila E asked warily, clambering into her own bed without coordination. Trish noticed that she’d relaxed significantly.

“I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be okay?” Trish asked, not sure why she was so agitated.

Sheila E shrugged. “You’ve seemed wired most of the day. Is it ‘cause of the arrow? Because I get it. Really puts another big target on Giorno’s head.”

“Yeah,” Trish agreed with some relief. “That’s it.”

Sheila E rolled over, flicking off the lamp before she wriggled under the covers, casting them into darkness. Trish was still sitting cross-legged against the headboard. “I don’t know if I’m the best person to talk about it, but we can hit stuff about it if you want.”

“Thank you,” Trish said with an unbidden burst of warmth. She cleared her throat. “Sheila.”

Sheila E waited for her to finish, but when Trish said nothing after a while, she whispered, “What is it?”

Trish shook her head. “Ah, it’s nothing. Maybe we’ll hit some stuff together tomorrow. Good night,” she said, and she forced herself to lie down.

She stared wide-eyed at the ceiling for a very long time.

The following day was more relaxing. The main event of this day of the reunion was a much more chill picnic, and Trish took the opportunity to try and get a better handle on these people who were supposed to be Giorno’s family.

She found herself being invited into a conversation between Tomoko, Jotaro’s mother, and Tomoko’s friend, a woman named Shinobu.

“So, Trish, you’re Giorno’s friend, right?” Holly said, offering her a sandwich cut into triangles. “What’s he like? My Jotaro is so reticent about him.”

“He’s reticent about everything,” Tomoko said.

“Giorno’s cool,” Trish said, rather lamely. “Very, uh, competent.”

Holly nodded encouragingly.

“I like him,” she finished, voice weak.

“Tell him to come talk to us,” Tomoko said. “Josuke’s been stealing his attention away from everyone else. I’ve barely met the kid.”

“Sure.” Trish clambered to her feet, feeling a little bit dizzy. “Excuse me.”

The three women turned back towards each other, chatting about something or another, and Trish felt a cold gnawing hollow in her stomach. They wanted to see Giorno, she reminded herself. She forced away the image of Donatella and trudged off in pursuit of her friend. She didn’t need the approval or the affection of these women, these strangers. She was fine on her own.

It didn’t take long to find Giorno.

Josuke was showing off his stand, having Okuyasu break things so that they could smugly put them back together, and Giorno was watching in mild amusement and fascination, Fugo sitting in the grass a few steps away, warily eating an apple.

She didn’t know why she hesitated before drawing close to them, but she took a moment to observe unnoticed anyway.

“Anyway, that’s Crazy Diamond,” Josuke said, squaring his shoulders with a lazy little smile. “No big deal. What’s yours do?”

“Mine?” Giorno mused. “One moment. Allow me to make it more palatable.”

“Palatable?” Josuke echoed, arching an eyebrow. Okuyasu shrugged.

Giorno called forth Gold Experience Requiem and held out a hand expectantly. The stand hovered before him, and Trish, for one stunned moment, thought she recognized the dimness in its eyes, but it must have been a trick of the light. It stared at Giorno for a long time, and then it held out its hand with mirrored expectance.

“Stop that,” Giorno chided, and Trish couldn’t place his tone. His hand drifted to his pocket, and Gold Experience Requiem hovered closer, but Giorno just said, “Give it to me,” and it stopped, almost nose-to-nose with Giorno, unblinking. It very slowly extracted the arrow and handed it to Giorno with reluctance.

“Dude,” Okuyasu said, disturbed.

Giorno paid him no mind, though, as his stand changed. He turned back to Josuke and Okuyasu and had Gold Experience go over to a nearby tree, where it made the flowers blossom.

“Whoa,” Josuke breathed.

“Your stands are so cool,” Okuyasu sighed. “Mine just destroys.”

“Hey, cut that shit out,” Josuke said. “I love your stand.”

Giorno glanced at Fugo, who offered a halfhearted smile. While she watched, Gold Experience returned to Giorno’s side, reaching for the Requiem arrow. Giorno absently gave the arrow back to it. Gold Experience Requiem’s gaze was still locked on Giorno’s pocket when he called it away.

Feeling uneasy for some nameless reason, Trish finally approached all the way. Fugo noticed her first, and Giorno’s attention followed when she said, “The mothers want to talk to you.”

Giorno’s expression clouded. “Mothers?” he echoed.

“Tomoko, Holly, Shinobu,” she counted off on her fingers.

“Oh.”

“I’ll go with you!” Josuke announced, bounding over to Giorno’s side. They offered Trish little smiles before departing, Giorno absently reaching for his pocket as they walked.

Trish frowned after them, not sure why the whole thing had been so off-putting. “Are you proud of your stand?” she asked Fugo.

Fugo gave her an incredulous look. “No.”

“Me neither, I don’t think,” she admitted. Spice Girls had saved her on the plane, sure, and Trish had been awed by her from the start, but she was also a mark of her own cowardice, her own inability to realize her fear and turn it into something with teeth. “Josuke and Giorno are outliers in that.”

“I don’t know if Giorno is proud of his stand,” Fugo said idly. “He understands it, though, which I do think is the real outlier.”

Trish hummed. “You don’t understand yours?”

“That’s none of your business, actually.”

She definitely didn’t understand hers. She didn’t think she’d used Spice Girls once since last April. “Where’s Sheila E?”

“Caught that, did you,” Fugo muttered, dry. He jerked his chin up, and Trish followed the gesture to the tree Giorno had made bloom. After a moment of scrutiny, she located Sheila E, hidden, sitting on one of the branches and quietly watching Giorno.

“She takes her job very seriously.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you think her faith in Giorno is unhealthy?”

“Who are we to judge unhealthy behaviors?”

Trish scowled. “Whatever. Sometimes, I think she wouldn’t hesitate to die for him.”

Fugo blinked at her once, surprised. “You wouldn’t?”

She almost jerked back, affronted. “No.”

“Maybe that’s why he likes you so much,” Fugo mused, narrowing his eyes. “I think you’re the only person he knows who wouldn’t.”

Trish rolled that over in her mind, and as disturbing as it was, she didn’t find it surprising at all. Did it mean that something was wrong with her, somewhere deep and integral? Should she have wanted to have that kind of faith in someone else? “Do you think he’s alright?” she asked, nodding back at Giorno, who had sat down, cross-legged, in the spot that Trish had vacated. Trish felt scraped raw at the sudden wall of isolation she felt, watching the women smile at Giorno, feeling Fugo and Sheila E’s attention occupied with him even if they weren’t at his side.

“I don’t know,” Fugo confessed. He was chewing his lip. “He’s been distracted ever since we got here.”

“Maybe it’s his family,” Trish said doubtfully.

“Maybe,” Fugo said in clear non-agreement.

Moments like these, Trish felt like if she’d disappear into nothing, no one would notice. She tested the nebulous boundaries of her theory, taking a noticeable step away. Fugo didn’t even twitch.

Bitterness crawled from her stomach up her throat, through the gaps in her teeth, and for a moment, she really, really considered it: just walking away and not looking back until someone called after her.

But that was too petty, too childish. Instead, she wandered away from Fugo to the outskirts of the picnic, where she sat against a tree and ate her sandwich alone.

Trish woke up early the next day and snuck down to the hotel lobby to get breakfast. She was dismayed (and could only surmise that Jotaro was equally so) when she and Jotaro Kujo made eye contact in the near-empty hotel restaurant, and he waved her over to his table, almost pained by it. Trish joined him slowly, with reluctance.

“How are you doing,” he said flatly, sipping at his coffee. He put aside the honest-to-god textbook he’d been reading, two little highlighters neatly lined up next to his forks.

“Good,” Trish said. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Is there another arrow in Morioh?”

Jotaro faltered on his next sip of coffee. He blinked at her. “You found it.”

Trish shrugged because she knew Giorno would want room for doubt. “Things he’s said since we got here.”

Jotaro hummed lowly. “I suspect there may be. The Speedwagon Foundation believes it’s been destroyed.”

“You don’t.”

“I don’t.”

“Does this arrow do anything weird?”

Jotaro frowned. “How would I know?”

“Giorno’s does something weird.”

“Perhaps they all do something… weird.” He hesitated painfully upon use of the word. Trish sagged back into her seat.

They were saved from further attempts at conversation by the arrival of Jolyne, who sleepily dragged a chair to the table and immediately stole Jotaro’s coffee. “Aunt Laura called,” she mumbled.

“What did she say?”

“To call her back. Also that she likes me better than you.”

“Hah,” Jotaro said, and Jolyne smirked into the coffee cup.

After breakfast, Trish wandered around the hotel lobby and ended up stumbling into Jotaro’s grandfather slash Josuke’s dad slash Giorno’s nephew. It was all very confusing, and his half-senile nature did not help things.

“Italy, huh,” he was saying, trying to make small talk. “I spent some time there.”

“That’s nice,” Trish said warily.

Of all people, it was Fugo who saved her. He came down to the lobby, looking restless and sleep-deprived, and as soon as he saw Trish, he shoved his way over to reach her. “Hi,” he said. “We need to talk.”

“Excuse me, sir,” Trish said to Mister Joestar, and he let her go without a fuss.

“It’s Giorno,” Fugo said as he led her outside. He was still wearing his pajamas.

“Yeah, I figured that much.”

Fugo scowled at her, then took a moment to rub his eyes. “Okay, you know what? Okay. Fine.” She waited him out, crossing her arms. “Look, I’ve got a really bad feeling.”

“You usually do.”

Fugo inhaled and exhaled sharply, and Trish lifted her chin, almost welcoming the oncoming tantrum, but Fugo’s eye only twitched, and he said evenly, with effort, “I don’t think he should have more than one arrow at once.”

“Sure,” she agreed. “He told me it didn’t want to stay with him anyway.”

“Yes,” Fugo said slowly. “However, the situation has evolved.”

She arched an eyebrow. “How so?”

She watched Fugo wind his arms around himself, and the urgent, sleepless irritation in his expression hollowed out to something more haunted, more desperate. “He tried to give the new arrow to Gold Experience Requiem last night.”

Trish blinked. “Why?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. He’s not making a lot of sense to me. He usually makes sense to me. I—I don’t know what to—”

“Calm down.”

Fugo’s pulse jumped visibly in his throat, and he snapped, “Do not fucking tell me to calm down.”

“Did you leave him alone?”

“With Sheila E.”

Trish took a moment to try and process, but all she could say was, “I think I need to see him.”

“Sure,” Fugo agreed, pained. “I’ll follow you up in a minute.”

Trish took the stairs. She never took elevators anymore.

During her ascent, she let the conversation wash over her. It was undeniable that the arrows had a certain gravity to them. She’d felt it in the battle against her father. Though Diavalo and Giorno had been the ones truly grappling for the arrow, she’d felt the compulsion as well. She’d wanted it just as badly. There was a certain unescapable hunger to that kind of power that always left her breathless and aching. She thought she could understand why Giorno would want more.

Though maybe that was just the residuals of Diavalo in her blood and in her mind.

Giorno wasn’t doing anything that would have indicated anything being wrong when she arrived at his room. He was sitting at the desk, and he appeared to be chatting with someone on the phone about mafia logistics—probably Abbacchio or Mista. Sheila E stood by the door, tense and just restless enough to put Trish on edge. Trish waited for Giorno to finish his call.

When he did, he turned to her. His expression was placid as ever. “Yes?” he said. He was always talking to people like he was there to interrogate them.

“I’m stealing the arrow,” she said. “It’s mine now.”

His face seemed to flicker, almost. One second, he was her friend, a pristine boss of an expansive criminal empire, a sixteen-year-old boy, and the next, he was a stranger, dangerous, antagonistic. He leaned back. “Excuse me?”

“Where is it?”

“Trish,” Giorno warned, “If you do this, you are going to make yourself my enemy.” His voice was gentle, like he was telling her a lullaby instead of delivering an ultimatum.

“Why do you want to keep it? You told me it doesn’t want you.”

Giorno stood. “Stop.”

“Where is it?”

“Trish—” Sheila E whispered, but Trish ignored her.

“Where are you keeping it? I know Fugo wouldn’t have let you hold it.”

Giorno said, “You can’t take it.”

She approached him until they were nearly chest-to-chest. She’d never realized that she was taller than him. “Where is it?”

“Trish,” Giorno said, dangerous.

“These arrows aren’t good for you, Giorno. They make you someone else,” Trish said, trying to soften her tone. “Give it to me. I’ll make it go away.”

Giorno was shaking, a fine tremor that went up each of his limbs, and Trish felt a lump form in her throat, unbidden. A note of feverish desperation clawed into his voice when he said, “Leaving it feels like being torn in half, Trish, you don’t understand.”

“I’m trying to help you.”

“I don’t know what I will do to you if you take it. I don’t—”

Trish put her hands on his shoulders. “Giorno. Look at me.”

He did, with effort. His eyes had cleared slightly from that unnatural dimness that had sent chills down her spine the other day. He wasn’t himself, not entirely, but he was enough to listen to her.

“It doesn’t belong to you.”

His jaw clenched around the pain of it. “It’s in Fugo’s toiletries bag.”

“Thank you.”

“Take it and run.”

“Giorno—”

“You’re not safe while you have it. I’ll know exactly where it is and what it’s doing unless you’re very careful.”

Trish took a step back. She let her hands drop from Giorno’s shoulders, and he stood, rooted rigidly to the spot. She took another step back towards the bathroom.

“Go,” Giorno snapped, and she turned, finding Fugo’s toiletries bag and rooting through it until she found the arrowhead. When she grabbed it, she heard Giorno let out an agonized, alien sort of hiss, and she forced herself not to think about it as she tore out of the room, to the stairwell.

Sheila E was at her heels. “What the hell are you doing?” Trish shouted. “Stay with Giorno!”

“He has Fugo,” Sheila E called back. “You have no one.”

It hit her in a wave of nausea. She had no one. In taking the arrow, she’d made an enemy of Giorno Giovanna, whether it was of his own free will or not. The thought knocked the breath out her, and she staggered, nearly missing the next step.

“Trish—”

“Keep going,” Trish managed, blinking away the involuntary tears. She’d sliced her palm open from gripping the arrow too tightly. She hissed at the shock of pain and forced herself to keep going, trying to take strength in the fact that Sheila E had caught up to her.

They tore through the lobby and found Fugo leaning against the wall outside. Sheila E skidded to a stop, explaining what had happened in frantic, half-coherent fragments, but Fugo seemed to understand impressively quickly. His eyes went wide. “Keep it safe!” he shouted, already turning to sprint for the door, towards Giorno. “Get rid of it!”

“Where the hell should we go?” Trish gasped, cradling the arrow and her hand to her chest. It was burning. “What do we do?”

“This was your idea,” Sheila E whispered, and it looked like the consequences of her decision to follow Trish were only beginning to catch up to her. “I’m not good at leading.”

“Fuck,” Trish managed. “Hell.”

“Hey!”

They whirled in the direction of Jolyne’s voice. She was leaning out of the rolled-down passenger’s seat of Jotaro’s car, waving. Unable to come up with an alternative, Trish led the way to the car, throwing herself into the backseat next to a nauseated-looking Josuke. Sheila E followed.

“Oh, great, the arrow,” Josuke whispered, voice rising several octaves. “Love to see that.”

“Drive. It’s not safe,” Trish shouted at Jotaro who, for his part, stepped on the gas without asking questions.

“What the hell’s going on?” Josuke demanded, looking a little frayed around the edges as Jotaro tore out of the parking lot. “Why isn’t it safe?”

Trish shook her head, unable to respond. Her throat was tight with grief and something greater, something stronger, something that had crawled its way from her throat to her extremities little by little until it was the only thing she was made of anymore.

Rage, she realized, dully.

She looked at the arrowhead in her hand. The blood on her palm was pooling and beginning to congeal, still burning, but it was the arrow that occupied her attention, the odd way that it was just a little bit broken, a little bit fragmented. She closed her fingers around it, aggravating the cut, but she almost didn’t feel it.

She glanced back at Sheila E, who had wound her arms around her torso, hunching her shoulders. They met eyes, and for once, Trish did not look away. Sheila E hesitated before nodding, sharply, and that was all Trish needed.

“Take us to the airport,” she said, and Jotaro complied.

Despising,

For you, the city, thus I turn my back;

There is a world elsewhere.

Chapter Text

Josuke somehow managed to extract what he needed to know out of them as Jotaro drove to the airport, way above the speed limit.

“So, he’s crazy,” Josuke said, faint.

“No,” Trish snapped. “It’s not Giorno, it’s those stupid arrows.”

Jotaro’s knuckles went white against the steering wheel.

“The arrows are bad news,” Josuke agreed, rather reluctantly.

“Are you still holding the arrow?” Jotaro demanded.

Trish looked down at it in her hand, almost surprised. “Um.”

“Hide it. He’ll be able to hear us.”

Trish glanced around at the blank expanse of the backseat. “Where?”

After a few moments of confused arguing, Josuke convinced Jotaro to pull over at a nearby store, where they bought a bunch of bags and scarves. Trish watched as Josuke wound the first scarf around the arrowhead, shoved it into the smallest bag, put that bag into the next smallest one and stuffed it with a bunch of scarves, and repeat the process until Trish had a very useless and ugly backpack.

“Do you think that’ll be soundproof?” she asked warily.

Josuke shrugged. “It’ll help, at the very least.”

While they’d been packaging the arrow, Jotaro and Jolyne had stepped aside to make a phone call, and they now returned, Jolyne looking both disappointed and excited, and Jotaro looking suitably grim. “I’m taking you to the airport,” he said. “I’ve booked you flights to Atlanta.”

“Atlanta?” Sheila E echoed, recognizing the name of the city despite not having the context.

“Why Atlanta?” Trish added.

“A friend lives there. She has a safe place for you to stay, and she will likely be able to help.”

“She’s awesome,” Jolyne added, a little glumly. “I wish I could go with you.”

“Good grief. We’ll see her in a few days,” Jotaro muttered.

“Whatever.”

As they got back in the car, Josuke handed Trish a small scarf that he hadn’t stuffed in the bag. “Here,” he said. “For your hand.”

Trish took it in surprise, winding it slowly around her hand. “Thank you.”

Josuke shrugged.

It seemed to take forever and no time at all before they arrived at the airport.

As Trish was unbuckling her seatbelt, Sheila E said, “Tell them they have to help Giorno.”

Trish relayed this to the rest of the car, and they all nodded, looking serious and drawn. Hesitant, Trish added, “Make sure he doesn’t get hurt. Or hurt anyone else.”

Jotaro tugged his hat low over his eyes, and Josuke squared his shoulders. “You got it,” he said.

“You have my contact information,” Jotaro said, gruff. “Let me know when you’ve landed safely.”

And then they were gone.

It’d been a while since Trish had been to a real airport.

Giorno liked to use his private jet if he had to travel for any reason, which was not only understandable but also likely the safest option for everyone, and Trish, though she sometimes went on minor tours, usually took the train or let Giorno provide her with ostensibly safe but in actuality merely ostentatious means of travel.

They were trying to find their gate, and Trish was feeling… weird. Her hand burned like the scarf was made of literal fire, and her head felt like it had been filled with thick, sticky syrup. Sheila E said, “I think that’s our flight,” and Trish realized that she’d stopped walking, and that Sheila E was ahead of her by what seemed like a truly insurmountable distance.

“What,” she said belatedly.

Sheila E warily backtracked to her. “Are you okay?”

“Um.” She touched her own forehead, faintly. “Yeah. Sorry.” Sheila E watched her take a few faltering steps forward, and then jumped to catch her by the elbows when she lost balance.

“Trish—”

“Uh,” Trish said, blinking rapidly to try and clear her vision. “Wow, I don’t feel well.”

Sheila E must have towed her to sit down in one of the ridiculously uncomfortable seats in front of the gates. She was kneeling down in front of Trish, trying to catch her gaze. “I’m gonna grab you some water. Stay here.”

“Cool,” Trish said, closing her eyes.

It felt like the world around her was… wavering, or maybe stuttering was a better word. Everyone aside from her seemed to be out of step, like they’d all learned the wrong dance for one of Trish’s performances.

Sheila E returned with a water bottle, and Trish wrinkled her nose in distaste at the shitty brand label, but she forced herself to drink it anyway, mostly to see the tension around Sheila E’s mouth begin to fade a little. “Did Giorno do something to you to make you… sick?”

“I don’t know,” Trish said, bewildered. “Can he do that?”

Sheila E shrugged, helpless. “There’s a lot I don’t think even Giorno knows about what he can do.”

The thought was not a reassuring one. She shivered. “Do you think he’s going to come after us?”

Sheila E’s expression was grave. She took a sip from the water bottle and handed it back to Trish. “If there is anything I have learned about Giorno Giovanna over the course of my employment…” she trailed off, biting her lip, and continued, “…it’s that he does not leave scores unsettled.”

“Oh, god. We have a score, now.” Nausea crept up her throat.

Sheila E looked similarly nauseated. “I guess so.”

Trish stared at her. She was standing before her now, and Trish had to tilt her head up to be able to properly observe her face. She was looking out the window, at the planes. “Why did you come with me?” Trish whispered, horrified. Sheila E’s gaze snapped to her, sharp, and Trish swallowed with some difficulty. “Your loyalty to Giorno is… unparalleled. Why are you here, with me?”

Sheila E was silent for a long time. “I meant what I said at the hotel. You can’t go against him alone.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“What do you want me to say? I don’t know. I panicked. I wanted to help him. I wanted to help you. I don’t know.”

Trish’s breath constricted in her chest, and she realized that she had no idea how to respond to any of that, so she didn’t, sinking into her seat and feeling as though the world was made of material just slightly too soft to be able to fit against her sharp elbows and pointed anger. The cushion of packed scarves in the bag at her back pressed against her like a knife in her spine.

“They’re calling our gate,” Sheila E whispered after a second or an hour. “Come on.” She hesitated before offering her hand to help Trish stand, but Trish shook her head, pushing herself to her feet on her own. She watched Sheila E’s hand fall to her side with a little bit of mourning, a little bit of righteous satisfaction, and a little bit of an ache in her chest that she couldn’t name if she tried.

They boarded the plane. Trish’s hand burned.

Trish mostly drifted in and out of a feverish sleep throughout the flight, but she remembered snatches of consciousness: a beam of sunlight cutting through the cracked window, blinding her; Sheila E staring out at the endless expanse of the ocean, lovely shadows cast on the planes of her face; pain in her hand and in her head and the memory of her own voice, twisted and eager and damning on another plane, an eternity ago, cold metal of a pipe in her hands.

She felt slightly more clear-headed when they were off the plane. Sheila E didn’t say much of anything, which grated on her, for some reason. She shot Jotaro a brief text and began to carefully unwind the scarf from their hand as they approached the airport’s exit. It had stuck to her skin with the congealing blood of her wound, and she blinked back tears as she tore it away, and thankfully, the cut only reopened a little bit.

When they got to the area that had all the people waiting for their loved ones, Trish faltered at the sight of a sizeable poster that said ITALIAN TEENAGERS in glittery marker. Her gaze flicked to the woman holding the sign, which took an additional moment to process. She was wearing a confusing ensemble of a leopard print tube top, hot pink joggers, and what appeared to be lime green crocks. Trish nudged Sheila E, and they approached her cautiously, warily.

“Hey,” she said in Italian, blinding them with a bright smile, though Trish couldn’t help but think that the expression was a little bit strained around the edges. “Are you two Doctor Kujo’s friends?”

Trish blinked. “Yes,” she finally offered.

“I’m Laura.”

“Trish.”

“Sheila E.”

“Sweet,” Laura said. She put the sign down, propping it against her legs, and took a second to tie her mass of dark curly hair back with what looked like a bedazzled scrunchie. There were dark circles under her eyes that nearly looked like bruises, and when she spoke again, the flow of words sounded cheerful up to a very distinct point, like she was putting on a decided veneer of peppiness. “Sorry. It’s hot as hell out. Some of my coworkers say people call it ‘hot-lanta.’ Instead of Atlanta. Which, you know, it does get hot.” She shrugged. “Anyway. Do you guys want to eat something before heading over to my place? You must be hungry.”

Trish and Sheila E exchanged a bewildered glance before following Laura out into the horrific brightness of the day. Trish hissed unhappily, still feeling the dregs of feverish misery.

Laura led them to a nice-looking car towards the back of an obscenely crowded parking lot, keeping up a pretty steady stream of chatter about the weather, mostly, and how she greatly preferred Italian climates.

Trish let Sheila E take the passenger’s seat, letting herself slump and tune out a little bit as she settled herself in the back. On the seat next to her were two labcoats, one half-singed, the other covered in something green.

“Are you a scientist?” Trish asked.

“Doctor, yeah,” Laura answered absently. “I work at the Speedwagon Foundation.”

“Sheila E went there a little while ago.”

She shot Trish a mild little glare as Laura perked up. “Really? In Italy?”

“No. Here,” Sheila E answered, rather reluctantly.

“Aw, that’s cool. What department did you see?”

“I have no idea.”

“Do you remember the scientists you worked with?” she asked, undeterred by or unaware of Sheila E’s lack of enthusiasm.

“Think their names were Jovi and Sheers.”

“Spears?”

“Sure.”

“That’s funny,” Laura said. “We work together a lot. We probably just missed each other, huh?”

“Sure.”

Laura glanced back at Trish as she was buckling her seatbelt and faltered, immediately twisting around to throw open the door and get out of the driver’s seat. She opened the back door and sat down on top of the labcoats, taking Trish’s bloody hand. “You’re injured.”

“It’s not bad,” Trish said, wary.

“Hold on a sec, I got provisions here.”

She rummaged around and located the largest first-aid kit that Trish had ever seen in her life. Laura flipped it open and methodically gathered several materials with practiced efficiency.

“Is it okay if I clean and dress the wound?”

Trish shrugged. “Yeah.”

Usually, when people got critically injured, they made their way to Giorno to receive his painful treatment of healing. It had been a while since Trish had seen a real doctor.

Laura cleaned the blood away in careful, gentle swipes before examining the nature of the slice, which hadn’t closed as much as Trish had led herself to believe. “This’ll need stitches,” Laura murmured to herself, and Trish witnessed a somber pull to her mouth crack through whatever fake cheer she’d been trying to maintain. “I’ll numb the area.”

As she worked, Trish looked at Sheila E, who was watching with an unreadable expression. They met eyes, and Sheila E’s brows drew together in a silent question that Trish flattered herself with thinking she may have understood, and she shook her head a little bit. Sheila E relaxed, just slightly.

Laura finished her stitches and carefully put a bandage over her palm. “That should do it. How does it feel?”

“I can’t move my fingers,” Trish said honestly.

“That’s the numbing agent. Good.” She clapped her hands, once. “You guys want burgers?”

After eating at an extremely strange and crowded burger restaurant, Laura drove them through exhausting traffic to her apartment, which was much nicer than most of the apartments she’d been to in her life (which honestly was mostly just Mista’s). She had an extra bedroom with a queen-sized bed.

“Doctor Kujo and Jolyne visit sometimes. Jolyne takes the room, and he takes the couch, which is hilarious,” Laura commented as she showed them around. “You guys can both take this room if you’d like.”

Trish tossed the bag with the stand arrow at the base of the bed while Sheila E looked on warily.

“So,” Laura said, and something in her tone and demeanor shifted, and Trish forgot, for a moment, that she had been wearing green crocks with jibbitz that haphazardly spelled out SCIENCE RULES! All that shifted behind an eerie and grave professionality and an analytical gaze as she said, “Want to tell me about the arrow?”

If she’d been Giorno Giovanna, she would have evasively rejected this sort of question. She would have kept nearly everything to herself, hoarding secrets like a dragon and bestowing details like precious and ill-gotten gifts.

But she was not Giorno Giovanna.

“Are you going to take this stuff to the Speedwagon Foundation?” she asked.

Laura shrugged. “Nah, not my field. Plus, my bosses suck.”

Trish nodded. “Okay. Cool.” She took a deep breath, taking comfort in Sheila E’s quiet, looming presence, leaned up against a wall just behind her. “Our friend is hooked up to a sort of hivemind of all the stand arrows. He’s connected to one of them, and I guess some fucked up alien instinct made him want to also connect to this one we found in Morioh.”

“Huh. I thought that one had been destroyed,” Laura said, frowning. “Can I see it?”

“No. Giorno will be able to find out where we are,” Sheila E said.

“I think it’s broken, though,” Trish admitted. “It’s cracked, and it’s weird. Maybe that’s what made Giorno freak out. Maybe it’s like… a feral stand arrow.”

“Interesting,” Laura said, drawing her brows together in consternation. “So, what’s your aim, then? To hide it?”

“I guess.”

“If I’ve learned anything over the course of my dealings with stand shit, I’ve learned that the arrows can’t stay hidden. They won’t allow themselves to stay hidden.”

“Maybe, we should destroy it, then,” Trish said, directing this at Sheila E, who only frowned.

“We don’t know what would happen. We have no idea if there are dangerous consequences to that, or if they even can be destroyed.”

“For someone operative in a different field, you sure know an awful lot about the stand arrows,” Sheila E said, wary.

Laura smiled without humor. “I dabble.”

“Well, I don’t see that we have many options aside from destroying it,” Trish said. The exhaustion of her fading fever and the plane ride finally seemed to catch up to her, and she drifted over to sit heavily on the couch. “It’s already broken, anyway.”

“I wonder if that has any effect on the virus,” Laura mused, and Trish watched the way that something darker and graver belied her neutrally analytical expression, feeling a little shiver try to work its way up her spine. “You could hand it over to the Foundation, if you want. We’ve been keeping the other one pretty safe.”

“I really doubt they could stop Giorno, if he’s on a warpath. Plus, doesn’t he already know where it is?” When Sheila E nodded the affirmative, Trish added, “I think we should just blow it up. We should’ve done that back in Morioh, honestly.”

Laura frowned. “If that’s what you think is the safest option for yourselves and your friends, I’ll help you try and destroy it in the least dangerous way possible.”

“You’d give up a research thread for that?” Sheila E asked, sounding tired and wary and suspicious.

“First, do no harm,” Laura said. She shrugged, and then offered them the most genuine smile she’d bestowed all day. It was an exhausted, tentative thing, and Trish decided that maybe Laura wasn’t a bad person. “I just want to help.”

“Thanks,” Trish murmured, feeling suddenly boneless at the prospect of not doing this alone, of having help from someone who seemed at least marginally more qualified than her or Sheila E.

“We can go through all that tomorrow, though. You guys look like a strong wind would knock you over. You should get some rest.”

Sheila E scowled, resentful at the notion that she wasn’t always in perfect fight-ready form, and Trish found herself biting down a smile at the reaction. Sheila E was clearly almost as tired as Trish. She kept blinking these long, lethargic blinks despite her constant alertness. “Thanks,” Trish said again before Sheila E could protest. She stood and made her way to the guest bedroom, relieved when Sheila E followed behind her.

She didn’t process the fact that they were about to share the bed at first. She crawled under the covers with her mind blank, save for the looping thought that she needed to be unconscious as soon as possible. It was only when Sheila E hesitated, staring at the empty side of the bed with a blank sort of horror or terror that Trish realized what was about to happen.

Sheila E didn’t say anything as she carefully tucked herself under the blankets at her side. Trish glanced over at her, feeling the anxiety crawl up her stomach as she registered Sheila E’s gaze locked rigidly onto the ceiling, the line of her profile unmoving and intense while Trish tried to find the wherewithal to tear her eyes away. Instead, she just said, “Sorry.”

Sheila E blinked once, not moving otherwise. “For what?”

“All of this.”

That got her to turn just enough to look at Trish. Her expression was an impermeable thing, and Trish felt her throat close, unbidden. “I’m glad that I came with you,” Sheila E whispered. “Stop talking about it like it’s your fault.” A little bit of anger had crept into her tone, and Trish felt something akin to a thrill at it.

Trish knew that this situation wasn’t really, objectively, her fault, but she was the one who’d had the idea to take the arrow, to escape, to make Giorno their enemy, and she couldn’t imagine that Sheila E wouldn’t resent her for that. “Do you think Giorno will be our friend again? After all this is over?”

Sheila E blinked, like the question had simply never occurred to her. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t care if he doesn’t like you,” Trish said, the realization hitting her like a truck.

She frowned. “My job is to keep him safe. Not to be his friend.”

“Oh.”

Her own friendship with Giorno had been characterized by this incomparable mutual understanding between them. About fate, about legacy, about vengeance via merely existing and succeeding. Sheila E’s devotion came from something different, something that demanded his wellbeing over hers, and Trish couldn’t help but ache at it.

“We’re friends,” she whispered, uncertain, “right?”

Sheila E stared at her for a long, silent moment, very still. Then, the corner of her mouth ticked up just a little bit, and she said, “Yes. Yeah. We’re friends.”

Trish knew she probably shouldn’t have felt as relieved as she did at that, but she couldn’t help but let out a soft, half-hysterical huff of a laugh. “That’s good.”

“Go to sleep, Trish, you’re exhausted.”

“Good evening, pot, may I introduce you to kettle?”

“Shut up, oh my god.”

Trying to hide a smile, Trish turned her back, hyper-aware of Sheila E’s lingering tension at their closeness. She closed her eyes, surrendering herself to the quiet, careful marks of Sheila E’s breaths as they seemed to fall in sync with the throbbing pain in the palm of her hand.

The following morning, Laura drove them all over to her office at the Speedwagon Foundation, claiming they had a very odd version of the stand sickness to a few disinterested-looking coworkers, and then shut them in her examination room.

“We need to take the arrow out to figure out how to destroy it,” Laura said apologetically. “I think my office is pretty generic-looking, though, and speaking in Italian may throw him off.”

“Unavoidable,” Sheila E said curtly. Her arms were crossed, and she hovered rather menacingly at the fringe of the room.

Trish swung the drawstring bag off her shoulders and began the careful process of unpacking the arrowhead. When it was exposed to the world, she held it for a moment. The fractures that went through it gleamed under the harsh light, and it struck Trish that the breaks made for a kind of inescapable beauty.

She handed it to Laura as if through syrup, dazed and bereft.

Laura hummed in interest, running gloved fingers across the cracks before carefully arranging it underneath a microscope. She examined it in silence for what felt like forever.

“Well,” she finally said, sounding perturbed. “I’m not going to pretend I’m qualified to understand any of what’s going on here.” She tapped the arrowhead. “However, it honestly doesn’t seem much different from the other arrow I’ve looked at.”

“Is that a good thing?” Trish asked, confused.

Laura shrugged. “Something’s consistent, at least, I guess?”

“I’m brimming with confidence,” Sheila E groused.

“Why don’t we just try to destroy it? See what happens,” Laura suggested, swiping the arrow and dropping it into the pocket of her labcoat.

“How?”

She grinned, looking a little bit more the mad scientist part as she did so. “I’ve got access to research and development.”

They settled behind a protective window after Laura carefully placed the arrow in an eerily scorched-looking chamber. Behind the window was a bay of confusing controls, and Laura hummed to herself as she twisted some dials and typed some commands into whatever high-tech computer the Foundation had access to.

“I’m gonna try and blow it up,” Laura said. “Cool?”

“Cool,” Trish agreed, trying to hide her excitement. She’d never seen anything explode when it didn’t directly mean that her life was in imminent danger. They glanced at Sheila E, who gave a quick nod of approval.

“Alright,” Laura said. “Counting down in five… four… three… two…”

When she hit the button, something weird happened.

Trish felt a strangled, primal fear spasm through her gut, and her throat closed in desolate panic when the chamber before them seemed to activate. “Wait,” she said, “wait, this is wrong. Wait.”

Laura looked at her in sharp concern. “What? God, okay, uh—let me try—”

Laura’s hands flew over the keys, but Trish’s intense, cloying fear only expanded outward until it seeped into everything and everywhere, and she shouted, “Wait!”

As she did so, nauseatingly familiar ghostly arms flew out, slamming into the control panel.

Two things happened at once.

The first thing that Trish registered was the searing, blinding pain that circled each of her wrists, so intense and all-consuming that her knees immediately gave out, and she collapsed against the controls with a breathless gasp of agony, trying to blink past involuntary tears.

The second thing was that the control panel hadn’t turned soft. Something else was happening. The lights were blinking in a sickening, wrong slow motion, and the firepower that had been aiming itself at the arrowhead was all crawling at the same inexorably slow pace.

“What,” Trish gasped, staring forward. “What—”

“Trish,” Sheila E said, alarmed. “Your wrists.”

She followed Sheila E’s gaze down to her wrists, where a glowing ring had embedded itself, seemingly, into her skin. She watched in awed horror as the glow faded to a neat golden line, and then gave a strangled shout of pain as the searing started all over again, two glowing rings appearing just above the first.

“What’s happening,” she managed, weak, dizzy, yanking her gaze back to the crawling motion of the chamber’s turrets.

Laura snapped into action, launching herself out of the control room and into the chamber, snatching the arrowhead from its place and exiting. As she bolted the chamber shut, she shouted, “Let it go, Trish!”

It was a similar sensation to snapping things back to their regular elasticity, a breath released, a settling of rightness in her gut, but it was so much more intense when she released whatever grip she’d had over the controls and turrets, and they resumed their normal speed. The chamber before them exploded, and the glowing rings on her forearms faded.

“What the hell was that?” Trish managed, letting her weight drop fully onto the controls.

Laura helped her into a chair, looking fearful and grim. “That cut on your hand.”

“What about it?”

Sheila E’s eyes went wide. “The arrow.”

The words were slow to sink in, and as Trish blearily glanced between Laura and Sheila E, she whispered, “It did something to my stand.”

“Like Giorno’s?”

She shrugged, helpless.

Laura bit her lip, anxious. “Jotaro and Jovi have this theory that each stand arrow serves a different purpose, that while they all carry the same virus, each has a different variation. It makes sense from a biodiversity angle, but we don’t know enough about alien biology to be totally sure. We don’t know much about this particular arrow except that it was in the possession of a serial killer with several extremely powerful abilities.”

“Great,” Trish choked out. She twisted her wrists, feeling a sick curl to her gut as the gold rings glimmered dully against the soft light of the room.

Laura hesitated before continuing, tugging absently at her hair. “I should have known that the virus would have extreme survival instincts.”

“What do you mean by that?” Sheila E demanded, seeming to break out of some kind of trance. She knelt down next to Trish, hands hovering about her wrists for an aching pause before she slowly reached to run her thumbs across the rings, expression pulled into something tense and namelessly upset.

“It used Trish to protect itself,” Laura said.

“Oh, that sucked,” Trish said fervently, dazed at the sensation of Sheila E’s hands on her forearms. Her fingers were cold, and it was like she’d had a bucket of ice dumped on her in the middle of a hot, dry summer.

“What are we supposed to do with that?” Sheila E asked, voice sounding hollow and defeated. Trish ached.

Laura tried to hide the flash of misery in her gaze, but Trish caught it anyway. She didn’t seem to be very good at disguising her feelings. “I have no idea.”

They sat with that for a moment. Sheila E was still holding Trish’s wrists, kneeling at her side, and Trish didn’t know whether she was dizzier from that or from the thing with her stand. Her eyes strayed from Laura’s face to the arrowhead in her hands, cracked and damaged and hopelessly, desperately beautiful. A want surged up to her throat, stronger than her need for the Requiem arrow had been, an eternity ago, sharper around the edges.

More dangerous.

“Can I see it?” Trish asked, holding out her injured hand. Sheila E’s grip fell away from her, slack. Laura handed the arrow over after a pause that told Trish that maybe she was feeling it, too: the morbid pull of its gravity. Trish ran her thumb over the largest fracture, and she felt an electricity in the rings on her arms, like it was trying to communicate with her or something.

They all looked up in surprise when the door opened, and a tall woman ducked inside, a phone in her hand. Sheila E drew in a sharp breath next to her, and Trish hastily put the arrowhead behind her back, hoping the woman hadn’t seen it.

“Hey, Doctor Mista, sorry to interrupt. Phone for you.” Her gaze flicked to Trish and Sheila E, lingering on Sheila E. “Oh, we’ve met before, haven’t we?”

But she was speaking in English, and Sheila E only narrowed her eyes in distrust. Trish blinked, her thoughts snagging on— “Did you just say ‘Doctor Mista’?” she demanded, suddenly desperately cataloguing Laura for similarities to—

“It’s my name,” Laura said warily. Trish felt her lips part in shock, and she wasn’t sure how she hadn’t seen the resemblance before. Laura didn’t give her an opportunity to respond, though, taking the phone and saying, “Doctor Mista speaking,” giving Trish such strong whiplash that she almost dropped the arrow.

Trish watched Laura’s expression shutter, and she wordlessly handed the phone to Sheila E.

There was a collective inhale, and the stillness of the room seemed unbreakably electric as Sheila E carefully took the phone, bringing it to her ear.

Leaning close to eavesdrop, heart pounding, Trish heard the gentle, staticky voice of Giorno Giovanna say, “Not careful enough,” before the line disconnected.

Sheila E sprang to her feet. “We have to go. Now.”

Trish scrambled to follow, shoving the arrowhead hastily into her back pocket. Laura also jumped into action, opening the door for them and following them as they rushed outside, much to the confusion of the scientist who had delivered Giorno’s phone call.

“With me!” Laura shouted, taking off at a sprint down the hallway, much to the surprise of her various coworkers who all had to leap out of the way.

Still dizzy, Trish tripped over her own feet, sending herself careening to the floor, and a spasmodic panic went through her. She watched Spice Girls manifest, sending out a flurry of aimless, frantic punches.

The world around her slowed to a crawl. Everyone and everything in sight went by at a snail’s pace as Trish crashed painfully to the ground, vision going white with pain while another set of rings seared themselves into her skin above the others. She cried out, taking a moment to collect her quavering breath before shoving herself to her feet, lurching against the wall in a daze.

Sheila E and Laura were moving at a terrifyingly slow crawl, suspended in mid-run almost as if frozen. A scientist had dropped his paperwork, and she watched the pages slowly sink towards the ground like leaves underwater.

When the glow around her wrists started to fade, she was almost even prepared for the next burst of pain, twin rings appearing halfway up her forearms. “What the fuck is this?” she spat at Spice Girls. “What the fuck?”

But when Spice Girls drifted mockingly closer, it wasn’t to shed some light on this new and fucked up ability. Trish heard whispers, as if through a great distance, crackling and fragmented and too muffled to understand, but she thought she could identify the shape of Giorno’s voice.

“No,” she gasped, feeling the horrific press of the arrow in her back pocket. The next set of rings lit up, and Trish collapsed against the nearest wall.

She thought she heard Giorno say, “Go,” as she released her grip on the speed of her surroundings, all of which returned to normal with a nauseating stutter, making Trish blink rapidly to attempt to reconfigure herself in the world. She shoved herself off the wall, forcing herself to follow after Laura and Sheila E.

The sterile hallways passed in a blur, and the disorientation with which Trish stepped into the brightness of the outside world was raw and all-consuming. She lifted a hand to block the sun, gulping in great, heaving breaths.

Sheila E had turned to check that she was still with them, and alarm flashed across her face before she quickly approached Trish. “What’s wrong?”

“I—” Trish began, and then shook her head. “The pace—”

Sheila E’s brow furrowed in confusion, but her eyes flicked down to Trish’s forearms, and she drew in a sharp breath at the new rings. “When did you—”

“Come on,” Laura shouted. They turned, seeing that she’d gotten her car and had pulled it up to the front of the building. “Let’s go!”

They broke away, apart, rushing to the car.

In the confusion of their escape, all Trish could do was stare down at the golden marks on her skin and stew in a thrumming, vitriolic storm that took away her capacity for speech. She visualized the scepter of Spice Girls, knowing, mocking, voiceless for fucking once, and she hated.

She kept the arrow in her pocket, knowing she’d have to pack it away again soon.

Laura was driving down one-lane highways like a woman possessed, having a heated conversation with Jotaro over her cell phone.

Sheila E’s silence was a frozen, intangible, fearful thing. To break it, Trish felt, would be to admit to a kind of defeat.

Laura finally hung up, her jaw tense. The shadows of the car cast a darkness over her face that made her look so much older than them. “We’ll figure this out,” she said. “Trish, I need you to hide the arrow again. We’ll regroup.”

Trish repackaged the arrow in its series of scarves and backpacks as if moving through honey instead of air. She’d hoped that clarity would return to her once it was out of sight, but her brain just felt full of cotton instead.

Nobody spoke.

Laura took them back to her apartment and stepped onto the balcony to make some more calls. Taking the opportunity of privacy, Trish dragged Sheila E into the guest bedroom and said, “We need to leave.”

“Tonight,” Sheila E agreed, tension dropping form her shoulders. “She doesn’t deserve—”

“I know.” Laura didn’t deserve to get caught up in all of this—it wasn’t her fight. “I know.”

They snuck out in the middle of the night with a surprising lack of difficulty. Laura, evidently, was a heavy sleeper.

After a few minutes of walking block after block in silence, Trish said, “What are we doing?”

“I’m looking for a car to steal.”

Trish pointed at a dark green pick-up truck. “That one has its keys in it.”

Sheila E jumped into the driver’s seat by unspoken understanding that Trish did not know how to drive. It took her a minute to figure out the steering and the gas, but then they were crawling out onto the streets.

Trish let out a gusty breath, relieved and exhausted. “Where are we going?”

“I don’t know. West? Seems like that has more options than north.”

“West it is, then.”

“This is only my second time in America,” Sheila E confessed. “I’m not sure where anything is.”

“Mine, too.”

They seemed to relax into their mutual ignorance, and Trish tilted her head back, exhausted and amused at once. “What?” Sheila E asked.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Do you think the rest of our friends are worried about us?”

“All Fugo does is worry.”

It was uncomfortable to frame Fugo within the language of friendship, so Trish moved on hastily. “Narancia probably stole my Gameboy.”

“Doesn’t he have a Gameboy?”

 “Yeah. He thinks mine is better because it’s a different color. Whatever.”

It was then that the other realization of the day dawned on her all over again, and Trish sat up straight. Sheila E shot a wary look at her.

“Laura Mista,” she said mechanically. “Do you think—you think she’s…?” She found that she couldn’t finish the sentence.

“Uh.”

“I didn’t know Mista had a sister,” Trish murmured, turning to stare out the window.

“She’s… different from him,” Sheila E allowed, rather diplomatically, and Trish snorted before she could stop herself. Sheila E ducked her head to hide a smile. “Should we—tell him—that we met her?”

“Why wouldn’t we?”

“Maybe they’re estranged.”

Trish frowned. She understood, a little bit now, why people could hate their family, fear them, dispose of them. It was something that had seemed remote until Donatella died, until she feared her mother’s memory so strongly that she couldn’t even get the syllables of the Mourner’s Kaddish out at her funeral, until she’d been taken to meet Diavalo with the sinking awareness in her gut that something about him was wrong.

She didn’t think she could understand Mista wanting to sever that tie to Laura, though. She seemed nice.

“I think he deserves to know,” she finally said. Sheila E pursed her lips, and it dawned on Trish that she was probably thinking about her own sister. She shivered. “Do you miss her?”

Sheila E clenched her jaw. “You and I are no strangers to grief,” she said, which had to be the most revealing and obscuring non-answer Trish had ever heard, and she was friends with Giorno Giovanna.

Trish was usually wont to drop these sorts of subjects once she met a hint of resistance, but the spread of half-visible stars and the sparse population of the road and the comfortable quiet of their breaths had put her in a mood to scrape raw and know, to be scraped raw and known. So she said, “I don’t know where my mom is buried.”

Sheila E shifted, not looking at her. She inhaled, recognizing the concession for what it was, and Trish hadn’t played fair with her, she knew. Sheila E was not one to leave things unbalanced in her favor. “I assume my sister’s body is rotting in that mirror world,” she said, and her voice was flat and tight.

Trish bit back an apology. Instead she said, “Do you ever wish it was you who got to kill Illuso?”

Sheila E’s arms went stiff with tension, and Trish realized that this was a question she had never expected to have been asked. “Every fucking day,” she whispered, hoarse.

Trish exhaled, and her chest felt light. “Yeah,” she managed, thinking of a river, of a total absence of answers, of a forever-incomplete revenge, “I understand.”

Sheila E didn’t look at her. Instead, she took one hand off the steering wheel and placed it, palm up, on the console between them, mouth and jaw rigid with tension as she glared at the pitch-black horizon interrupted by city lights. Trish catalogued the contours of her callouses with her eyes for a painfully stretch of a moment before hesitantly placing her hand on top of Sheila E’s, lacing their fingers together.

They drove into the dark, bereft, enraged, known.

Long after the city lights had faded into the unending spread of an unimaginably long highway, Sheila E blinked hard and shook her head sharply, and Trish said, “Let’s pull over. Get some sleep.”

Sheila E shook her head again but pulled off the highway at the next no-name exit, finding a dark corner of an empty gas station parking lot. Trish climbed out of the truck. “What are you doing?”

“Come on,” Trish said, jumping into the bed of the truck. She’d spotted a thick-looking blanket there, and even though it wasn’t necessarily cold outside, the weight and presence of a blanket would be nice.

Sheila E hesitated before climbing into the truck bed after her. They took a few minutes to get comfortable, ending up lying more on top of the blanket than anything else, staring at the sky.

“The stars are so clear,” Sheila E said, surprised.

Trish blinked. “Yeah,” she agreed, not sure why she’d never expected Sheila E to be the kind of person to take note of the clarity of the stars.

“Trish,” she said, “what are we going to do if Giorno actually catches up to us? I can’t—I can’t fight him. I won’t.”

“I don’t expect you to.” And she never had.

“So, I’m just supposed to let you fight him on your own?” Sheila E demanded, turning onto her side. Her expression was set into stubborn intensity. “I won’t watch that.”

Trish stared at her, frankly dumbfounded. “You confuse me.”

She furrowed her brows. “What? Why?”

How to answer that? Trish rolled the idea around in her head for a while before saying, “Sometimes, I think you’re so loyal to Giorno that you’d end the world for him. But then you—you do things like—like come with me—like saying that—like—” she cut herself off, winding her arms around herself. “I don’t understand you.”

Sheila E reached across the divide between them to kick her, lightly. “I can be complicated. I can have two people to place my loyalty in.”

Stunned, Trish said, “Why me?”

The stillness that settled between them almost convinced Trish that she’d accidentally used Spice Girls’ new ability again, and she rubbed at her wrists absently, just watching while Sheila E visibly struggled around the question. “Does it matter?” she finally said, voice raw, clearly entirely aware of exactly how much it did matter.

Trish faked a little huff of a laugh. “You don’t have to tell me.” Sheila E shifted uneasily, and Trish hastily changed the subject, no longer wanting to dwell, no longer feeling the comfort in being exposed now that Sheila E was so definitively withdrawing. “Beyond running across the country so that Giorno can’t pin us down, what the hell’s our aim here?”

The truth was that Trish would have been fine running aimlessly around the world, just her and Sheila E, until the consequences inevitably caught up to them. There was something that felt right about this whole thing, but she wasn’t about to acknowledge it. Sheila E shrugged. “Figure out how to destroy that thing without hurting you, I guess.”

Trish hesitated. “What if there was another way to end this all?”

“What do you mean?” Sheila E said, and her tone was flat and unimpressed.

“I mean…” she trailed off, feeling the weight of the drawstring bag at her side. “I mean what if I took this arrow the same way Giorno took the Requiem arrow. It already likes me or whatever.”

“You’ve seen what that thing did to him, Trish. Do you really want that?” Her eyes had gone hard with anger, and Trish reveled in it.

“I’m not Giorno.”

“That is abundantly clear.”

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Sheila E propped herself to sit up, to better glare at Trish. “Trish, whatever the hell is going on with Spice Girls right now is only a fraction of what that arrow wants from you. Do you want to just—exist like that? Do you want that?”

Trish sat up, too. “You think I can’t handle it?”

“I think you shouldn’t have to. I’ve never even seen you use your stand before yesterday. I know you don’t like using it. You shouldn’t have to become this.”

Whether it was from spite or something else, Trish didn’t know, but Spice Girls manifested at her side, looking kind of bored. Trish glanced at her and did a double take. “The hell?”

The grid of lines along her torso had started to deepen at the edges into what looked like fractures, half reminiscent of the rings around Trish’s arms, half reminiscent of the cracks in the arrow.

“Trish,” Sheila E whispered, ghosting a hand to hover in front of the center of Spice Girls’ torso, then drawing her eyes from Trish’s wrists, up her arms and towards her collarbone. “Trish,” she said again, “what happens when these markings reach your heart?”

Trish blinked, then tensed. “How am I supposed to know?”

Spice Girls faded away like an aborted rebuttal to a dying argument, and Trish closed her eyes. Sheila E carefully laid back down, and after a moment, so did Trish.

“You know the real difference between me and Giorno?” she muttered, more at the sky than at Sheila E.

“What,” Sheila E said, exhausted and flat.

“Giorno bonded with the Requiem arrow to save everyone else, to save himself.” She clenched her fists. “If I bonded with this arrow, I wouldn’t do it to save anyone, not even myself.”

“Trish,” Sheila E said, and then nothing else. There seemed to be nothing else to say.

They settled into silence under the nameless sky, gulfs and a single arrowhead carved between them.

So, Ilium, fall thou next! Come, Troy, sink down!

Here lies thy heart, thy sinews, and thy bone.