Chapter Text
"You are lukewarm and hate to be bothered to do much of anything, but are also dignified. You assert yourself easily, are thick-skinned, and have few worries. However, you are obstinate, contrarian, and hate to lose, often preventing it by aggressive means. You are overbearing and rebellious, but have talent to back it up."
"Made of smoke, it can manipulate atmospheric density. It can poison the air around it, change the air pressure, and detonate hydrogen and oxygen particles. However, its range is extremely short. The smoke that composes the Stand flows out of the skull-faced jar in the center."
"Your Stand will be named...
D e e p P u r p l e..."
Maeno doesn’t believe in fate or destiny. The tides of life ebb and flow as they please, and it is up to her to dive in when the time is right.
The right time happens to be before school on November 26, 1988.
She doesn’t know Jojo all that well. He’s in a different class, and she never had a need to seek him out or befriend him. There is no reason for her to be standing at his side, her newfound power emanating a dark purple haze. “Can you control it?” he asks in a hushed voice. She doesn’t know, so she doesn’t answer. Instead, she turns her attention to the red-headed boy across the blood-spattered floor. Kakyoin Noriaki, if the note on Jojo's handkerchief was correct.
“Make one move, and you’ll meet the same fate as him…” Kakyoin says darkly, voice dripping with malice.
Maeno doesn’t believe in fate, so she leaps forward with outstretched arms and a plea to her phantom. The smoke draws in, and the air surrounding them is pulled into her Stand. The boy lurches forward, clawing at his throat, then falls to his knees. She lands safely on her feet, but her power is still weak, and it releases the air just as quickly as it stole it away.
Her enemy regains his breath and lifts his eyes to meet her gaze, brow furrowed in fury and violet eyes aflame. “Looks like you won’t be heeding my warning,” he hisses. “Fine then! Die along with him, fool!” The lights in the nurse's office go out. Maeno is blinded by the darkness. Before she can regain her bearings, she sees his spirit glow an eerie green. It releases its energy in a charged stream, grazing her forearm, and she spins around before collapsing on the floor.
Jojo's ghost appears in a flash of purple, and for a moment, Maeno can see. Kakyoin points, and his spirit charges the attack again. Flashes of green are all she can see, and from Jojo's pained yell, she figures he took a direct hit. Maeno prepares to face the consequences of her choices, that she and Jojo would die a pitiful death in the nurse's office of their own school at the hands of a fellow student, but after pounding his fist through the window to let in more light, he rises as if nothing happened, his spirit still present at his side. Jojo beats the next green attack away in a flurry of fists, and he targets Kakyoin next. After a heroic speech about good and evil, or something (Maeno wasn't really paying attention), his spirit pummels the green one into oblivion. Their opponent falls onto his face right next to the felled nurse.
As if nothing had happened, Jojo turns to Maeno and bluntly asks, “You’re not one of DIO’s followers, are you?” without an offer to tend to her wounds or help her up. It’s probably for the best, since Maeno would have been too stubborn to accept the help.
“No,” she matches his tone. Clutching her arm to slow the bleeding from the emerald blast, she shakily stands up. “I’m a student here, just like you.”
He doesn’t respond—just grunts and throws the unconscious Kakyoin over his shoulder. “I’m taking him to my gramps. He knows about these Stands. You should come, too. I don’t live far.” He trudges out the door without another word.
Maeno doesn’t believe in fate, so she makes the choice to follow him home.
***
Who Maeno assumes to be Jojo's mom greets them upon arrival. She quickly turns her attention to the limp body over her son's shoulder. "Oh my, he's bleeding! What happened to him? Jotaro, d-did you do this?"
Ah, right. His name is Jotaro, not Jojo.
Completely ignoring his mother, Jotaro turns to Maeno and commands, “Hold Kakyoin while I go talk to Gramps.” He drops his shoulder and eases the body into her arms.
Maeno stumbles back, feeling her knees threaten to buckle under the weight. “Huh? You… you want me to carry him? But I’m a girl, and he’s taller than me!” Heavier, too, she thinks to herself, but she doesn't say that out loud.
“Just do it.”
Jotaro is gone in an instant, and his mother flutters over to Maeno's side. "Do you need any help, sweetie?"
Maeno winces but shakes her head. "N-no need to worry Mrs…" she pauses to think, "...Kujo, I think I've got him, now."
"If you're sure," she offers one more time. When Maeno starts to slowly shuffle in Jotaro's direction, she asks, "Are you a friend of Jotato's?" Friend isn't exactly the word Maeno would use to describe whatever their relationship is, but his mom's voice is expectant, and Maeno doesn't have the heart to tell her that they just met that morning. She nods, and Jotaro's mom's voice lights up behind her. "I knew it! He is making friends!"
This puzzles Maeno. Jojo is always surrounded by people at school. She had assumed that he had plenty of friends. Maybe it was because he was always getting into trouble? People only hang around him to get on his good side? She doesn't know, and Kakyoin is getting heavier with every step, so she stops thinking about it and focuses on carrying (then dragging) the body to the tearoom.
***
"He's not going to make it," Mr. Joestar—Jotaro's grandfather—says gravely. “He has a few days at most. That bud in his forehead is burrowed so deeply into his brain that even the world's best surgeons can't remove it." Maeno stares blankly at their former enemy. She's seen stuff like roadkill before, but she's never been in the presence of a dying person. It feels like her whole body stopped working, but she can't look away, as if she's morbidly waiting for the moment his soul departs to the next life.
"Don’t give up, yet," Jotaro criticizes, then holds Kakyoin's head between his hands. "Star Platinum is more precise than a surgeon. I'll yank it out."
"Jotaro, wait—" Mr. Joestar warns, but Star Platinum has already pinched the bud. It only takes about fifteen seconds to remove and evaporate, but for the observers, it feels like hours. Kakyoin passes out afterwards, and this time, Jotaro carries him.
“Miss Maeno, feel free to stay the night, here. A lot has happened, and you look like you need some rest,” Mr. Joestar’s friend Avdol tells her. She meekly nods and shuffles to the spare room. Kakyoin is already lying down there, unconscious. She lowers herself down next to him and watches his chest slowly rise and fall.
“Hey.” Jotaro’s voice echoes behind her. She weakly lifts her head. “He’s gonna be fine.”
“He’s not the only one, is he?” she asks quietly. “Th-there are more like him. More people who have those things in their brains. More people who are going to just… just die.”
Jotaro pulls his hat down over his eyes. “Probably.”
She glances over at him and asks, “Are you guys going to do something about it? Stop this from happening?”
“I don’t know.”
She pulls her knees to her chest. “If you do, I’m coming with you. I… I can’t let people die like this.” Maeno isn’t easily scared, and she’s usually content to go with the flow. But this? Forcibly taking control of someone else’s mind? Killing them after they fail you? It turns her stomach. She doesn’t sleep well that night.
The next morning, Maeno silently watches as ghastly vines snake around Jotaro's mother's petite frame. She tells Mr. Joestar that she wants to go with them to Egypt. Kakyoin, now fully conscious, expresses the same sentiment. The group boards the first plane to Cairo they can get tickets for, but they have no idea what dangers are in store for each one of them.
***
November 28, 1988.
Harbor in Hong Kong
Maeno is grateful for a warm hotel room and a good night's sleep. After barely surviving a plane crash and attacks from two enemy Stand users, she questions her decision to join the group in the first place. "We aren't forcing you to stay," Mr. Joestar assures her. "We're going to be traveling to Singapore by boat starting tomorrow, but we can get you on the next plane back to Japan if that's what you want." She doesn't know what she wants. Maeno joined this group because she felt like it. Because she didn't believe in fate. Because she thought she could make a difference. Because she didn’t want to see more people suffer at DIO’s hands. So far, though, she hasn't been good for much. Her Stand, which Avdol had named Deep Purple, was far too slow to be of use fighting against Tower of Gray and Silver Chariot. She’s a liability. She should let the experienced fighters handle this problem.
"I think you should go home," Jotaro speaks up from his spot leaning against the wall.
It only takes that comment for Maeno to completely change her opinion. Who does he think he is? If he tells her to go home, she's going to do the opposite. She opens her mouth to start tearing into him, but he doesn't stop there.
"Like Gramps said, we aren't forcing you to be here. It's going to be dangerous. If you won't commit to that, you should get on the next flight back to Japan."
"I already committed to this!" she snaps, marching past Mr. Joestar and stomping her feet right in front of Jotaro. "I chose to come, and I'm sticking by my decision." Maeno is sure that later that night, she would wrestle with herself for needing to prove him wrong, but that was a problem for future Maeno. "I'm getting on that boat tomorrow." She swears she sees Jotaro's lips twitch up into a smile, but then it vanishes.
"If that's what you want, we could really use your help," Mr. Joestar says. "You have yet to unlock the true potential of your Stand. I know it's frustrating now when you can't do much. You can think of this trip as intense training. Baptism by oil."
"Isn't the saying baptism by fire?" Maeno asks.
Mr. Joestar waves his hand and promises, "I'll tell you another time." He heads off, probably to contact the Speedwagon Foundation about the boat, leaving Jotaro and Maeno in the room.
It's only quiet for a moment before she says, "You suck."
He doesn’t take long to respond. "You're damn annoying."
“If I die on this trip, I’m dragging you to hell with me.”
“You’d die either way,” he says in a low voice. “Why do you think you found Kakyoin and me the day you got your Stand? I can’t explain it, but Stand users are drawn together. You’d run into trouble no matter where you go. Best you stick with us.”
Maeno huffs and turns away. “I liked you better when you were just some school thug.”
“Shut up.”
A few seconds of silence pass, and then they both have to hold their hands over their faces to hide their laughter.
“Stand users are drawn together, huh? Like… like fate?” she asks softly. Maeno doesn’t believe in fate.
"If you want to see it that way," he answers. She doesn't respond after that.
***
Jotaro and Maeno decide to head out to town for supplies. They will be on the ship for a few days, and when they land in Singapore, they don’t know what will be available to buy. It’s best to stock up now. “Can you speak Cantonese?” she asks. Jotaro shakes his head. “I can’t, either. How are we supposed to buy anything?”
“We’ll figure it out,” he dismisses her worries.
Maeno sighs. “I don’t like this plan.”
“I can speak a bit,” a familiar voice draws the pair’s attention.
“Kakyoin,” Jotaro greets. Turning to Maeno, he mouths, “We figured it out.”
“Stuff it,” she hisses back.
"So, your grandfather has been in three plane crashes?" Kakyoin asks as the trio begins to meander through the streets.
Jotaro shoves his hands in his pockets and nods. "Apparently. Yesterday was the first I'd heard of any. I'm never getting on a plane with him again."
"Me neither," Maeno pipes up.
Kakyoin glances down at her with a warm smile. "You swam pretty far on your own while the others were getting rescued! Are you on the team at school?"
"I was, but I quit a couple years ago," she says with a shrug.
"Maybe you should get back into it after this is over," Jotaro suggests.
"Sure. As soon as you join a club."
"Clubs are damn annoying."
"Thought so." She turns her attention to Kakyoin. "Were you in clubs at school?"
He nods. "I'm in the art club, although I wouldn't say I'm very good."
"So, could you draw me?" Jotaro asks, lips turning up into a small smile, a sight that is less rare than Maeno originally thought.
"Ha. You're hilarious," Kakyoin teases right back. "Actually, I already did, although I was under DIO's influence at the time."
"Huh. Go figure."
They finally stumble upon a general store and decide to stock up on medicine. Jotaro volunteers to carry it back to the hotel. "I can carry it just fine!" Maeno yells after him.
He doesn't even turn around when he says, "I'm stronger."
She crosses her arms angrily, and Kakyoin can't help but laugh. “How long have you two known each other?” he asks, tapping her on the shoulder and pointing her towards a colorful booth.
Maeno sighs and follows him while she answers. “Jotaro? I met him the day we fought you.”
“A-ah.”
She realizes that may have sounded brash, so she adds, “No hard feelings.”
“Oh, none taken. You two fought together like you were used to it. You act like you've known each other for a long time," he explains, grabbing her arm when she almost runs into the table littered with goods.
"Excuse me!" Maeno quickly tells the salesman, then turns back to Kakyoin. "Speak for yourself! If I wasn't there when he pulled the flesh bud out of your forehead," she gestures to hers for good measure, "I would have thought you've known each other since you were kids."
Kakyoin's eyes zone out for a second, and Maeno mentally kicks herself. This is the second time she said the wrong thing. She isn't reading this conversation correctly at all .
The sun beats down on them from above, and Maeno cycles through things to say to save the conversation. Ask about when they fought? Ask about his Stand? Ask about Jotaro?? Somehow, these all seem wrong. Her collar is getting sweaty.
“This town is a port," Kakyoin changes the subject. Maeno breathes a sigh of relief. "There are lots of goods from overseas for sale. Why don’t you pick something out?" His expression is warm again, maybe even a little shy. "I’ll buy it for you.”
With as much grace as a hippopotamus, she asks "Wait, what?" eyes flicking between the table and Kakyoin.
"I… want to buy you a gift?" His voice turns up at the end of his sentence, so it sounds like a question. His expression turns sour.
Maeno's face contorts in confusion, and when she sees how tense he looks, she breaks eye contact and glances through the wares at the table. Some of this stuff looks really expensive. An ornate pearl necklace, gem-encrusted brass knuckles, a silver--wait, are those real rubies? Her parents didn't raise her to be a mooch, so she points at a small, shiny hair clip. "I'd like this."
Kakyoin relaxes, says something in Cantonese to the shop vendor, and hands her the accessory.
"Thank you," she says, using it to pin her bang to her headband. Finally, she said the right thing.
“It suits you," he mumbles, barely loud enough for her to hear. "Very girly and cute.” Oh, did she hear it.
Maeno's eyes widen, and she looks away. What is she supposed to say after that!? She decides she doesn't understand Kakyoin, and with his sudden silence replacing the prior small talk, she guesses he doesn't understand her, either. She's not sure they'll get along if all their conversations end in awkward silence. But later that night, his compliment bounces around her head like a rubber ball, and for another night, she can’t sleep.