Archive of Our Own

The heart of man is very much like the sea. 

It has its storms, it has its tides,

and in its depths it has its pearls too. 

—

Joseph had told him that once they were back in Japan, everything would feel more real. He had believed him, of course, the old man wasn’t wrong about much these days, but he hadn’t realized just how real everything would become. 

The nightmares were the worst part. Joseph had planned on staying with the Kujos for a few days, to watch over his mother, of course, but then he had heard Jotaro break something in the middle of the night. He had walked into Jotaro’s room to check on him, only to find him curled up in the corner of the bedroom, green china cup smashed in the middle of the floor next to his bed. Joseph had changed his plans after that. 

In the part of Jotaro’s brain that told him things would have to go on, he knew that Joseph couldn’t stay forever. He had a job and a life, and Jotaro’s grandmother hadn’t stayed long after the two came back from Cairo. But the part of his brain that was still seventeen and scared and lonely, that part of him just wanted Joseph to stay here and help him get better. 

Maybe Joseph would actually stay forever. He hoped so. He wanted to have someone there who understood, who had seen the same things Jotaro had, who knew what had happened to Kakyoin and Avdol and Iggy. His mom was nice, sure, and was helping take care of his scratches and bruises, but she didn’t know what had happened to him. She just worried about him, told him that he needed a break from his binder if he’d been wearing it so much while they were in Egypt. Joseph, though, he was understanding. He knew what had happened, knew what was wrong, and didn’t make him answer any weird questions about Egypt and Cairo and Dio. 

Sometimes, it wasn’t even that bad. Joseph kept taking him on walks, making him stretch his legs so he didn’t just stay there sitting in his bed all day for the rest of time. That was basically what he wanted to do, which meant it was good that Joseph had managed to get him on his feet and out into public. They went to the aquarium once, which he knew was a halfway decent attempt at cheering him up. He ordinarily wouldn’t have accepted such an obvious try at making him happy, but it almost worked, so he let it happen.

Other times, it was really bad. He wasn’t even able to get out of bed, eat, move—nothing would help him. All he could see was Polnareff lying on the ground, all he could hear was Joseph telling him that Kakyoin was gone. All that stayed in his mind were the memories of Dio and the ways he’d made them suffer. Again and again, he replayed the memories of seeing Joseph dead, being certain that he was completely and utterly alone.

Those times, it was hard to keep from feeling completely alone again. He hoped more than anything that somehow, his friends would come back. The people he cared about, who helped him win against Dio… they were just gone. He needed them.

The first time he’d ‘seen’ Kakyoin, he had almost lost it. 

It was at school—they had let him take a week off after his mother recovered, and excused the rest of his absences, but he still wasn’t paying attention, even in the oceanography elective he’d personally fought to get at the school. His mind had been on Kakyoin, on Avdol. On Dio. On Egypt and how he still hurt from the knives that had stuck in the magazines but grazed him nonetheless. 

As he wandered through the hallways and into the courtyard, listless, he spotted a glimpse of pink-red hair, a green uniform against the stark white of the hallway, and practically sprinted towards it. Of course, by the time he’d made it to the place that he’d seen him, there was nothing there and he’d just made a complete fool of himself in front of the entire school. 

There were a lot of times after that. In the supermarket with his mother, who didn’t understand why he wouldn’t look up when they were walking in crowds anymore. When he was out on the beach trying to calm himself down, hoping that he wasn’t going crazy. As Joseph took him out in the middle of a crowd of people who were crushingly unfamiliar, where any one of them could be a Stand user. Everywhere he went, there was another moment where he’d think he saw Kakyoin. 

He once tried to talk to Joseph about it, who in return told him about someone named Caesar that he’d cared about very deeply—someone else who’d been lost in the fight to defeat Dio. Jotaro got the sense that Joseph understood what he was feeling, but he still didn’t want to talk about it too much. He wasn’t ready. 

The nightmares got worse, in the meantime. Joseph had told him they were normal, a natural response to what had happened, told him that he got nightmares too and he had learned how to deal with them properly over the years. He said that if he kept practicing it, the nightmares would most likely fade over time. Jotaro didn’t know if he believed him, but he knew the breathing techniques and late-night discussions of what had happened were helping him sleep better, at the very least.

They’d been talking about getting him a counselor. Jotaro had listened in—the walls of his house weren’t thick enough to prevent that—while his mother and grandfather worried about him, made late-night calls to his grandma overseas, shared information about what he’d told them individually. 

“I’m worried about him, Papa,” his mother had said one night while Jotaro listened in through the walls. “He’s only seventeen, he doesn’t need to be dealing with this.”

“I know. I am, too. But we’ll find a way to help him, alright? I know we will.”

“But he’s hurting so much, and he won’t talk to me about it. I know it’ll take time, but I don’t want him to be stuck in his own head for so long.” 

Jotaro sighed as quietly as he could, pressing his head back against the wall. He didn’t need to talk to them about it. He was fine . 

He was supposed to be fine, at least. That was his role, his job. He didn’t lose his cool, even in the face of death—the death of everyone he cared about. If he did lose his cool, it was just for anger, not for being afraid or for crying or even for being happy. He wasn’t supposed to be the emotional one. He couldn’t be—for the sake of the team. Even if the team wasn’t a team anymore. 

Even if they were almost all gone.

— 

The last time that he ‘saw’ Kakyoin was in a crowded park, where he’d come to be alone after a long night up talking. His mother had finally found out about the nightmares, and she’d been insisting he talk to her about them. He didn’t even talk to Joseph about them. He couldn’t talk to her, not yet.

He was sitting alone, but some kid walked by him and made a comment about how weird the chain on his jacket was, and Jotaro just rolled his eyes. Annoying little kids had always gotten on his nerves.

And then he heard the voice from behind him. "Jotaro?"

No.

He hadn’t ever heard Kakyoin’s voice before. The hallucinations must have been getting worse, and he pulled his jacket more tightly around himself as if that would stave them away. 

“Jotaro? Is that you?”

He wasn't going to turn around. It wasn't real, it wasn't real , just like every other time he had imagined him coming back like nothing had ever happened— 

"Jotaro, please, is that you?" 

No. He wasn't alive. It wasn't possible. He wasn't going to turn around.

He turned around. 

And there he was, on unsteady feet, uniform tattered and bloodstained and torn around his stomach, just high enough that Jotaro could see the edge of his binder which was just as frayed and torn as the rest of his clothes, and in barely another second Jotaro was running towards him like his life depended on it. 

For one painful second, Jotaro was sure that this was another hallucination. He sure must have been going off the deep end, if he was still coming for Kakyoin even though there was literally no chance he was still alive. 

He thought about stopping. He thought about admitting he had a problem and coming to terms with the fact that his hallucinations were just that, hallucinations. Maybe then he could finally confront what he’d been feeling about the whole thing. But once they collided, and there was a living person there in Jotaro’s arms, he couldn’t help but cry. It hadn’t been a hallucination or a dream or anything like that. This was real. 

“You’re back.” Jotaro’s voice shook. He didn’t want this to be another hallucination—it couldn’t be, not if something solid was here. He was just desperate for someone to be back, be it Avdol or Iggy… or Kakyoin. Maybe he really was alive—maybe he was just going more insane than he’d originally thought. “You’re back?”

“I’m back,” Kakyoin said, and his voice sounded choked, too. “Be careful, ah, ow —everything still really hurts, even though the big wound is gone. I can’t really do that much.”

“How did you even get here? You were in Egypt ,” Jotaro said, refusing to let go. He thought that maybe if he did, the hallucination would vanish, and Kakyoin would really be gone. “You were—I saw you in Egypt, I saw you—”

Jotaro cut himself off before he could say I saw you die .

“I don’t know how either. I really don’t. I just woke up and I was alive, and… I knew I had to go back to you. The only person who would really understand.” Kakyoin let Jotaro keep him close, even if he looked panicked by the sudden affection from Jotaro of all people. It was obvious he thought this was weird. 

Jotaro had a few ideas about where he could stick his thoughts. He didn’t say that out loud, though. It wasn’t really appropriate for his friend that had just returned from the dead. 

He took Kakyoin back to his place, just like he’d done that first day they met, and talked to him the whole way there—he didn’t even like talking to people, he just had so much to say to Kakyoin that he would’ve kept going for hours if he could’ve. 

They stopped in front of the door. What if this was just a hallucination? What if Jotaro was really losing it this time?

“You knock,” he said, after a long moment of quiet. “My mom and the old man are home.”

And Kakyoin did. They stood and waited, and for a while Jotaro didn’t hear any movement from inside, nothing to indicate that there was anyone coming to get the door. 

Because it was a hallucination. Of course it was. There was no way Kakyoin was really alive, and Jotaro had just been deluding himself again into thinking that maybe there was some small hope left. He turned around, getting ready to leave. He didn’t want his mother or Joseph seeing him through the window and thinking he really had lost it, even though he was certain that he had if now he was imagining sensations and sounds as well as visuals. 

But then the door opened.

His mother was standing on the other side, speechless for a long moment. She looked up at Jotaro, looking from him to the probably-empty space where Kakyoin would have been. She was probably just confused as to why Jotaro hadn’t been standing in the middle of the porch.

“Well,” she said, hand on her hip. “You certainly need your uniform fixed up.”

Jotaro had to stifle a sob of relief. 

— 

It took too long for them to get Jotaro to stop crying, though he vehemently denied it was happening through the whole process. Once that was done, Joseph and Holly got Kakyoin out of his old uniform and gave him some of Jotaro’s old clothes to wear in the meantime, while they tried to fix the rest of his wounds. 

The wounds were, in no specific order, the majority of his ribs being bruised, two black eyes, a massive scar on his stomach, and more scarring over his shoulders and back. Jotaro wasn’t sure why those scars were there, but they were, and they were pretty deep. They looked like they might have been infected a long time ago, but the infections were gone now, and the disinfectant cream seemed to be helping. 

Kakyoin looked tired through most of the treatments, but once he had been treated, he looked a lot better. It seemed like he felt a lot better, too, despite how vacant he seemed. 

Holly had insisted on making dinner and fixing Kakyoin’s hair, and Joseph had spent some time out of the house renting a movie for the four of them to watch together, but Kakyoin had seemed very dazed the whole time. He didn’t focus on the movie, instead just leaning against Jotaro’s shoulder with closed eyes.

Maybe it should’ve made him uncomfortable. After all, they’d only been friends for a little while, and Jotaro had literally watched Kakyoin die in front of him a month ago. It didn’t make sense that he was alright with Kakyoin leaning against him, practically sleeping on his shoulder, but somehow he was. 

It could just have been the leftover adrenaline from meeting up with Kakyoin again after his supposed death. That would make sense—but maybe this wasn’t something that made sense. Maybe he was actually just feeling emotions. 

Maybe. 

Jotaro sighed, wrapping his arm around Kakyoin’s shoulders. That got him another sigh from Kakyoin and a confused-concerned look from Joseph. It didn’t matter to him, though—whether or not everyone was staring at him, whether or not Kakyoin was awake enough for him to even notice where Jotaro’s arm was, he didn’t care. He just wanted to make sure that he was okay after everything that had happened. 

It still hadn’t really sunk in that Kakyoin had come back. He’d died—really died—his heart had stopped , he had had a hole completely through him—and somehow he was still alive to tell the tale after losing so many vital organs that he couldn’t possibly live through another second, let alone another month. 

“Mmh.” Kakyoin sat up, eyes blinking open. The purple in his eyes was clouded and fogged with grey—probably a side effect of the Speedwagon Foundation fixing his eyes. “What time is it?” he asked, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. The scars running directly through them shifted and pulled as he did. 

“Late. Nearly midnight.” Joseph stood, turning off the TV with Hermit. “Do you boys want to get some rest? You’ve both been wearing your binders far too long, and Kakyoin needs to rest up to heal those wounds.” 

Jotaro nodded. “I’ll find the pullout bed,” he said, standing up and shoving his hands into his jacket pockets. He pulled the hat down over his face, hiding his eyes.  

Maybe if he just ignored all of this, it would get better without him having to do anything.

The rest of the night passed uneventfully for the most part. Jotaro and Kakyoin were sharing a room, mostly because the Kujos already didn’t have much space, but even if they had had a spare room for him Jotaro likely would’ve insisted on Kakyoin staying with him. It was too soon to leave him alone.

Jotaro sat there, alone in the room with Kakyoin, who looked like he was halfway to tears. He was sleeping, or trying to, but he wouldn’t look at Jotaro, and he wouldn’t move away from the pillows he’d piled up in one corner, away from all the windows. It looked like he was halfway to having a nightmare—if he could fall asleep at all, which wasn’t likely considering how he looked right now.

His eyes were open, but they looked glassy and vacant. Like he—

No.  

Jotaro , he'd said. Jotaro, is that you? Like he couldn't believe what was in front of him. Like he wasn't sure—like he couldn't even see it at all.

He fell silent. He didn’t want to think about the implications of all this, not again. 

“Jotaro. Are you alright? I… I can’t hear you.” Kakyoin looked worried.

“You can’t see me, either.” 

Kakyoin flinched, putting his arms around himself tightly. “I should’ve told you, but… I just couldn’t. I really couldn’t. Not when you were already so happy to see me.”

“How did it…” Jotaro’s voice trailed off, not wanting to freak Kakyoin out. He had been through enough already.

“Honestly, I don’t know.”

“You don’t know ?”

Kakyoin sighed. "Whatever brought me back, it… it took my eyes. Not literally, you can see I still have them there, I just… I can't see too good anymore. Took part of Hierophant, too," he said, lifting his hand. A tiny green snake twisted around his little finger. The head and torso that emerged from where the snake's neck would be were those of Kakyoin's old Stand, though battered and missing an eye. "This is all of him now. Can't get any bigger, can't really do anything." He sighed. "I don't like feeling powerless."

“But there’s no reason for you to need Hierophant anymore.”

Another sigh from Kakyoin. “You don’t need Star Platinum, but wouldn’t you be sad if it got taken away from you and turned into a little-kid version of itself?”

Jotaro couldn’t argue with that. 

Kakyoin was silent for a little while longer. “I… when I woke up, I still had my vision for a little while. I still do, I guess, it’s just really foggy and clouded over. But when I had just woken up, I saw someone. That little girl, Anne, the one we met way back before most of this had happened. She was there. And… she had a Stand.”

“She what ?”

“I guess it showed up later in life, like yours. But it was there, and I don’t know why. I think there might be other Stand users out there we haven’t met yet.” 

“...do you think they might have flesh buds?” Jotaro asked, almost afraid of the answer. 

“Oh no. I hadn’t even considered that.” Kakyoin sighed, raking both hands through his hair. 

“Do you want to try and find her again? Maybe she can give us some answers about what was happening—and how you came back to life.” 

He nodded. “She was in Egypt for some reason,” he said quietly. “Maybe we should start there.”

— 

It took a lot of convincing for Joseph to let them leave. Jotaro understood. He had nearly died—Kakyoin had actually died—and even if Dio was gone, there was still risk involved if they left the country. And it seemed like Joseph was already pushing his level of comfort even by letting Jotaro out of his sight. 

Jotaro had his own reservations about going back, too, though he wasn’t about to tell his grandfather that. He had watched his friends struggle—seen Dio nearly kill him, actually kill his friend and grandfather, and threaten the safety of his mother. Going back meant seeing the broken clock that Kakyoin had used as his last signal to them, seeing the place on the sidewalk where Polnareff had been tossed aside like a broken toy, seeing the remains of Dio’s house where Avdol had died. 

But… he had to. If there was a chance there was a Stand user here, one that could befriend them and help them though the threat of Dio was gone, that was a chance he had to take. 

It had taken three late-night discussions, a promise that Kakyoin would take it easy on the stomach injury and that they wouldn’t bind for too long, and an insistence on Joseph coming with them. After all that, though, Joseph and Holly had agreed to take them back to Egypt.

“It’s here,” Kakyoin said, looking down at the ground. For obvious reasons, he didn’t want to look up. 

It was obvious they were in the right place just with a quick glance around. The clock tower. The smashed wall. There was still smeared gore all over the stone, and probably more if Jotaro had wanted to look any harder.. Jotaro didn’t want to look at all , but he had to. He had to try to find Anne. 

Nearly as soon as he started looking, he spotted a young girl on the sidewalk with two people who had to be her parents. She was engrossed in conversation with them—they seemed angry with her. As Jotaro got closer, he could hear their conversation. Apparently Anne had run off to Egypt without their permission, and they had only just found her. He sighed. Good grief . She hadn’t broken the habit of running away yet.

Anne turned around and noticed them, her expression shifting. Her parents followed her gaze to keep a close eye on the two of them as they approached. Jotaro waved to them awkwardly as the woman—Anne’s mother—narrowed her eyes at the two of them. It made him a little uncomfortable. He was used to being looked at suspiciously, sure, but not to this extent. 

“Hi there,” Kakyoin said quietly, kneeling down next to Anne on the sidewalk. 

“Anne, do you know these boys?” her father asked, obviously still suspicious of them. 

“It’s alright. We’re the ones who sent your daughter back after she ran away the first time,” Kakyoin said. Jotaro just nodded.

“Is this true?”

“Yes.” Anne tucked one hand into the pocket of her overalls. “I came back to find that one, ’cause I knew he was in trouble.” She pointed at Kakyoin. “He was hurt.”

“May we talk to your daughter in private for a moment?” Jotaro asked, not sure if his English was good enough to communicate. “We won’t be far away, you’ll be able to see her the whole time. We just have a question— some questions, sorry—for her.”

“Sure,” her father said, though he still seemed suspicious. “Just don’t be too long, Anne.”

“I won’t.” She wandered down the sidewalk to a place out of earshot of her parents. Jotaro made sure to keep his hands visible, and even let her take his hat—she seemed excited about that, which was nice. It also had the added bonus of making him look a lot less suspicious to her parents, which was even nicer. 

“So. What do you want from me? Someone else that you need me to fix?”

“You… you fixed me, you said? That means you healed my wounds?” 

Anne nodded like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Jotaro was starting to suspect that ‘fixing’ someone was a lot less simple than she was letting on. “Can we see your Stand, please?”

She nodded, and suddenly beside her was a ghostly woman wearing chain mail armor. The woman—Anne’s Stand—carried a sword with her, the blade of which appeared to be made of glass or crystal of some kind. She only had one eye, centered on her face like a Cyclops.

“She’s very pretty,” Jotaro said. He didn’t really know what he was doing. Talking to little kids had never been his strong suit. “Does she have a name?”

Anne looked embarrassed. “Miss Silver. Because you called yours Platinum, and I thought you were supposed to name them after metal. You’re not, though, because I saw yours—” she pointed with Miss Silver’s sword at Kakyoin— “and it’s green. No metal is green.” 

“Actually—”

Kakyoin gave Jotaro a look before focusing back on Anne and her Stand. “It’s a good name. Can you tell me what she does?

“She makes people not hurt anymore. I fixed a bunch of people before I fixed you. They didn’t seem to like it as much, though.” She gestured towards the place where Kakyoin’s stomach had been destroyed. “She fixed that. I’m sorry she took away something, that’s what she does after she fixes you.”

“Can she give it back?” Jotaro asked. Anne shook her head.

“She says it costs something. That if I want to fix people I have to take things away, too. But I think if I talk to her for a really long time she’ll make an exception for you.” Miss Silver faded into a cloud of pale grey mist, and Anne stood up quickly, brushing off the knees of her overalls. “I have to go now. I don’t think I’m supposed to talk to strangers for this long.”

“Wait, Anne—do you think you could show us how Miss Silver works, just quickly? I have a cut on my hand, could she fix that?”

Anne shook her head once again. “She only fixes people when they’re really hurt. I fixed someone with a lot of bullets in him once. And then I fixed you after that. I haven’t found anyone to fix recently.” She glanced over her shoulder, where her parents were looking at her impatiently, and handed Jotaro his hat back. “I have to go now. It was nice to see you again!” she said, hurrying back over to them.

As she disappeared from view, Jotaro and Kakyoin exchanged an incredulous look. Miss Silver—and by extension, Anne—hadn’t been healing wounds, as she seemed to think. They had been bringing people back from the dead. 

—

Jotaro and Kakyoin’s encounter with Anne jump-started the beginning of a very thorough investigation into the local Stand users. It wasn’t easy, not by a long shot, and looking through everyone’s brains wasn’t exactly something Kakyoin was comfortable with, at least if his immense reluctance to look was anything to go by. 

Unfortunately, in the middle of an English practice quiz, Kakyoin went into Jotaro’s head to say there was a Stand user in their classroom right at that moment. He didn’t know which one, but apparently there was someone—whoever they were, they weren’t using it right now. 

And then all of a sudden, they were. Or… she was? He was? Jotaro couldn’t tell. What he could tell was that they suddenly had a Stand beside them that was absolutely covered in eyes. 

Nine tentacles, each with nine eyes each, reached out over the quizzes, looking over everyone’s papers. The student had their pencil off the page, but after a few moments of looking over everyone’s shoulders, continued to write. Once they’d filled in all the answers—or what must have been all the answers, Jotaro couldn’t really tell without seeming like he was the one cheating—they set their pencil down. 

Clever. They weren’t handing in their test yet. It’d be suspicious if they were, so they were keeping it low-profile, not cheating in public where everyone could see them. 

It took a little while longer for them to ‘finish’, but Jotaro watched them stand, hand it in, and sit back down. Their Stand high-fived them underneath the desk, and Jotaro had to stifle a laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. It was completely unreasonable to use their Stand to cheat on tests, not to mention absolutely hilarious. Their Stand was so weird. So many eyes.

Jotaro sneaked a glance at the name on their workbooks. Hiro something, covered up by their hand. Didn’t clear up the gender, but at least the Stand user had a name now. And, when he watched them walk back to their desk, the Stand user also had bangs covering the center of their forehead. Like they were hiding a flesh bud underneath. 

Another odd thing—the Stand wasn’t going away. Or they weren’t putting it away, but why would they risk that? It might have been something weird with the actual Stand itself—it had to be out when it was needed—but it wasn’t needed anymore. It didn’t make any sense. None of it did, but this made the least.  

Kakyoin glanced at him, and Jotaro brushed a hand across his forehead. He might’ve just been adjusting his hair—the teacher had started cracking down on Jotaro for wearing his hat during school hours more frequently—but it would hopefully be obvious to Kakyoin that he was indicating the possibility of a flesh bud. Judging by Kakyoin nodding nearly imperceptibly, the message had gotten through to him. 

“Ten more minutes for the test,” their teacher said just as Kakyoin got up to turn his in. Show-off , Jotaro thought without any real malice behind it. Kakyoin was good, and they both knew it, so Kakyoin never said it. Neither did Jotaro. He just sighed and finished up the rest of his test, turning it in a few minutes before the end of the day. 

Hiro brushed their hair back over their forehead, bangs uncovering a dark, greenish spot—it looked like it might have been a birthmark if birthmarks were necrotic tissue. They were packing up their bag, putting everything into a pale green backpack with kitten ears on the top. 

Kakyoin stopped them, putting his hand on their shoulder. “Excuse me. Hiro, yes?”

“Yeah, what do you want from me? An autograph? I only sign for people who actually care about my writing, I’m only writing for fun—”

“We don’t want an autograph. We just want to talk to you for a minute.” Jotaro stepped up next to Kakyoin, letting Star Platinum out to look over his shoulder. 

“Holy shit,” they said. “You have one too.”

— 

They’d walked home together after discovering Hiro’s Stand—Glance, they’d called it, which was about as uncreative as it got considering the thing had eighty-one eyes. Jotaro had checked out their writing— their , according to the About the Author in the video gaming journal they wrote for in their free time—and it was actually pretty good. They might have been a nerd, but they were a nerd with a Stand. And a flesh bud.

Whatever they were going to do, Jotaro wasn’t going to do any of it without figuring out exactly what was wrong first. Flesh buds shouldn’t still have been active, but it was obvious that something was forcing the Stand to come out and stay out. It could’ve just been inexperience, but apparently Hiro had had Glance since they were a kid. 

They explained flesh buds to an incredulous Hiro the next afternoon. At first, they didn’t seem to believe it, but after a lot of probing it seemed that they just didn’t remember it getting put in. That made sense, too—the lack of memory would mean they weren’t an active part of Dio’s army, which checked out since they hadn’t been after Jotaro. 

Hiro let them take the flesh bud out a few days after talking with Jotaro and Kakyoin every day after school. They were apparently something close to friends, now that the Stands had brought them closer together.

“Okay. This is going to hurt a little bit, but it’s going to get it out, so…” 

“Just get it over with, dude. Dragging it out’s just gonna make things worse.” Hiro sighed, leaning back on the bench and closing their eyes. “Now put the weird green tentacle in my brain already and stop this from happening again so I can live my life.”

Kakyoin closed his eyes, and Jotaro instinctually closed his, too—and then he saw everything.

Green pressing up against the sides of Hiro’s face and down into their brain. Something strange was going on, and Jotaro wasn’t sure what it was.

He could see into Hiro’s head. When he looked down, there was one of Hierophant Green’s tentacles wrapped tightly around his ankle, connecting him psychically through Kakyoin to let him look into Hiro’s head alongside him. 

“Wow.”

“Wow is right.”

The flesh bud was making its presence known with a significant amount of pressure against Jotaro’s forehead. “We have to work fast before this headache kills us both,” he said, rubbing his head with one hand. Kakyoin nodded.

It was fascinating to watch him work, from the inside and out. At first it took a lot of focus to switch back and forth, from looking inside Hiro’s head to watching from his own body, but he got the hang of it relatively quickly and could soon switch between the two as easily as blinking—or letting out his Stand. He supposed it came with practice. After all, Kakyoin seemed not to even notice himself doing it.

The bud was coming apart in pieces, like it was rotten. That made sense—without someone to control it, it must have been decomposing. Maybe that was why Hiro had such trouble putting away their Stand. The flesh bud was still affecting them, even though Dio was gone.

“Almost done.” Jotaro couldn’t tell if Kakyoin had said that out loud or if it was just in his head, but only a few moments later, the flesh bud was completely gone and Hierophant’s tentacle came unwrapped from his ankle.

Hiro sat up, rubbing the spot in their forehead where it had been. “Shit. That’s what was causing all those headaches?”

“Seems so. Can you test out whether you can put Glance away now?”

After a minute for them to compose themself, Glance faded out of view and then back in again, out and in. They did this a few times, faster and easier every time they did. “I’m rusty,” they said as their Stand flickered in and out of view like a strobe. “It’s getting easier, though, and my head barely even hurts anymore. Thank you guys.” 

“Have you ever met anyone else with a Stand?” Jotaro asked, really hoping to get back to business as usual. He hadn’t done anything to help Kakyoin get the flesh bud out, really. Just sort of stood there while he worked. 

“Other than you two? Nope,” they said, Glance floating above their shoulder. “Why, is there like a secret society of people like us? Am I getting recruited into superhero school or something?” 

“We know a few others. No secret societies, nothing like that, but…” Kakyoin looked over his shoulder. “There were more. They had flesh buds like you. And now there are a lot less of them.” 

“Oh. Why?”

Jotaro and Kakyoin shared a look. “They… worked for someone. A Stand user like you and me,” Kakyoin said, obviously choosing his words carefully. “He wasn’t a good person. He had been around for a while, and he came after me and Jotaro because, uh, well, it’s a little bit complicated. He controlled me with a flesh bud like you, but I got out.”

“He sounds like a dick.”

The corner of Kakyoin’s mouth quirked up into a smile. “He was. He sent a bunch of other Stand users after us, tried to… uh, tried to kill us. And we had to kill them first.”

“Holy shit.” Hiro looked equal parts entranced and terrified. “So that’s why you were out of school for like three months, then.” 

Jotaro nodded. “We had to keep ourselves safe first and foremost. And things got pretty bad, ended up with both of us getting really hurt, and now we’re here. I don’t think there are any more Stand users under his control, he’s dead, but I think that if you’re here, there might be more people like you—people he didn’t fully control, but tried to.”

“And you figure if there are more, their Stands might be all messed up like Glance was,” Hiro finished, nodding along. Surprisingly, it seemed like they understood fairly well. “Makes sense, I guess. Do you want me to help you find ’em all?”

“Oh.” Kakyoin frowned. “I don’t—it isn’t safe for someone who doesn’t have a lot of experience with their Stand in combat situations.”

“Please. I’m older than both of you, I can handle myself perfectly fine.” They grabbed a notebook out of their backpack and scribbled down something—their phone number. “You losers call me when you decide to go on your weird quest for other people with Stands, ’cause you know I’m coming with you.”

— 

They had both intended to throw Hiro’s phone number out, but Jotaro ended up tucking it into his pocket instead. Maybe they’d need it.

After a few days, Hiro stopped asking them about when they were going to leave and started asking them if they wanted to come over and hang out sometime. It seemed like they were actually friends now, which was nice. Jotaro didn’t really have that many friends at school, and the friends he did have outside of school were either dead, in France, or his grandpa. 

It took a few days, but they examined the rest of the school for other Stands. After they came up empty on Stands for the fifth day in a row, they decided Hiro was probably the only one, and looking for more would be useless. After all, three Stand users in a single school was already unlikely enough. They came to the executive decision to give up on Stand users for now and be normal teenagers.

That lasted all of a minute. Every evening when they got home, Jotaro and Kakyoin spent only a couple of seconds on their homework and moved on to discussing the possibility of other Stand users they hadn’t yet found. After all, if Hiro and Glance were out there, and Anne had Miss Silver, there was at least a possibility that there were more. Holly put up with it for barely any longer than the two of them had worked on their schoolwork and then put her foot down.

“You three need to rest. You especially, Jotaro,” Holly said, picking up a teapot to brew them all some tea. “I don’t want to see you running yourself ragged, no matter whether there are more Stand users out there or not. Oh—!”

The teapot slipped out of Holly’s hands, nearly dropping to the floor.

“Oh my god.” Joseph went pale.

“What? What is it?” Holly looked down at the ground, where the shattered teapot should have been. But it wasn’t. Instead, it was wrapped in thick, flowery vines, held about eight centimeters above the floor. 

“I guess it didn’t skip a generation after all.” 

— 

In the end, they decided to wait for summer vacation to go looking for Stand users with necrotic flesh buds. According to Holly, it wasn’t fair to pull them out of high school again, and they both needed more time to recover from ‘the Cairo problems’, as she exclusively called it. Jotaro had tried to convince her that it was okay, that she could just talk about Dio, but she refused. He might have been slightly pissed off, but he was grateful, too. 

Joseph had decided not to go on this trip. Apparently he needed to spend more time with his wife, which was understandable. Jotaro had still been sad when he left for the airport the day before they were set to leave on their trip. 

Hiro was coming with them. So was Holly, and apparently so was Anne. She showed up at the Kujos’ house with her parents, who had a long talk with Holly and eventually agreed to let her go on the trip as long as there was adequate adult supervision and she wasn’t to be brought into any actual conflict situations. Apparently she had told them about her Stand, showed them how it worked by ‘fixing’ a dead mouse their cat had brought in. They were shaken by it, of course, but Holly’s explanation helped. 

After an hour where they demonstrated the abilities of each of their Stands, and another few hours spent working out the best ways to work together and cover each other’s weak spots, Holly deemed them ready for combat. 

In the end, the team was fairly strong, even without Joseph and even now that Kakyoin’s stand was pretty weak. Jotaro just hoped they’d be strong enough to get through whatever would come at them. 

— 

He knew it was for a good reason, but travel was triggering for both himself and Kakyoin. They spent a lot of time in each other’s company as they made their way through Japan, searching for other Stand users to help. Maybe for someone else it would have been fun, but it just felt like they were going back to Cairo again.

“Jotaro.”

It was two in the morning, in the hotel Holly had gotten them for the next few days. The jet lag was a convenient excuse for why they hadn’t been sleeping too much. 

“What is it?”

“Another nightmare.” Kakyoin’s voice shook. “From when I died.”

“You didn’t—”

“Yes, I did. I know I did.” 

Two-fifteen. They sat there in silence. Jotaro wasn’t sure what to say. After all, what could you say to your friend who was dreaming about his own death? 

“I’m sorry.” The words meant next to nothing. What was an apology going to do for Kakyoin? How could it possibly help? It was a useless platitude and he knew it. 

Two-thirty. More silence. More of that strange, impenetrable energy that seemed to keep them apart even though they had gone through so much together. 

“Can I come over there?” 

“What?” Jotaro sat up, looking over at him. 

“Only if you’ll let me,” Kakyoin said, hugging a pillow to his chest. “I’m just—it’s really hard. My parents don’t even know I’m alive, they think I’m—they think I’m gone. Have since I disappeared after Dio got to me. I had to change the address where they send my school stuff just in case they found out. And even though your mom is really nice, she doesn’t get it. Nobody else gets it.”

“Good grief. Just come over.” He shifted over in the hotel bed, sighing. “If you want to talk about it, uh, I get it. I was there. So if you ever need to—”

“I’m fine.”

Jotaro frowned. “Wait, your parents don’t… they don’t know you’re still alive?”

“They think I just disappeared one day. I’ve seen them. They’re not looking for me anymore, I don’t think.”

“That’s horrible.”

Kakyoin just shrugged, sitting down next to Jotaro. He seemed more tired than before—more tired than Jotaro had ever seen him. This trip had taken a lot out of both of them already. 

They were silent for a while. Jotaro took a moment to be thankful that he had someone else here who really got what was going on. 

Kakyoin understood. He was seventeen like him, had been through everything with Egypt and Dio, and knew how hard it was, going back to school and trying to recover from what had happened. Jotaro had seen that scar on his stomach. He didn’t think that was ever going to fully heal. Anne had done her best, of course, but no matter how strong your Stand, healing death was nearly impossible.

He leaned back on the headboard. Kakyoin mirrored him, the tiny snake of Hierophant Green curling around his hand as he did. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I don’t know why I really care so much about this stuff.”

“You… you literally died and you’re sorry that you care? I’d be upset if you didn’t care.” Jotaro leaned his head against Kakyoin’s. “Don’t say sorry. You don’t have to.” 

Another minute of silence. He still had no idea what to say. He had never been good with words.

“When we’re done with this, I want to go to the beach.” Jotaro didn’t know why he’d said that, but he couldn’t take it back. He kept going. “I don’t go as much as I used to. And I like seeing crabs and gulls and stuff. Maybe I’ll go when we’re done here. If I get the chance.”

“You’ll go. And when we’re done, I’ll go with you.” 

—

Stopping in Murmansk hadn’t been in the plans, but Polnareff had contacted them, told them he had heard reports of Stand users there. Two of them, actually. The person who’d described them had detailed the massive humanlike stands, towering above the buildings. They were godlike. 

Of course, immediately after getting the Stand user report, Holly had asked Kakyoin and Jotaro if either of them wanted to talk to Polnareff, and that was the way he found out about Kakyoin being brought back to life. He’d had questions, of course, mostly about how his Stand had been affected, but eventually they’d just had a nice talk. Anne and Hiro had come in to talk to him, too, even though Hiro didn’t know him at all. 

The next stop was supposed to be America, but the pause in Murmansk was alright, too. It meant splitting up the amount of time they were on planes, which made Jotaro feel a lot better. He liked solid ground. They were good friends. And at least if a Stand user attacked there, they had a chance at defeating them without getting in another plane crash.

The Stand users were in a small town, close to Murmansk, and Hiro had used Glance to track them down fairly easily. Unfortunately, they also appeared to be having a temper tantrum, because there were literal mountains being torn up out of the earth and gale force winds swirling around on an otherwise perfectly clear day.

“Good grief.” 

Approaching the town hadn’t been easy. They obviously had perfect control over their Stands, and the storms and clouds of dust made it almost impossible to see. 

In the center of the town were two… kids. Kids? They were only little kids, and their Stands were taller than buildings. If Jotaro hadn’t been so worried for them, he would have been kind of impressed. After all, it wasn’t every day that he saw such powerful Stands, and he had fought The World and won. 

The team made their way into town, accompanied by Anne, who had insisted on joining them even though she didn’t have an offensive Stand. She said she could take care of herself, but Jotaro had made a mental note to keep an eye on her through the whole battle. 

The two kids turned to look at the group, moving in perfect synchronization. He heard Hiro say “what the fuck” under their breath as they took a step back. 

They weren’t attacking, and then all of a sudden they were. Boulders flew at Star Platinum, and he managed to punch them apart, thankfully. Jotaro was struggling, winded, and the other Stand user hadn’t even used his attack yet. He was almost afraid to see what it was. 

Luckily for him, but unluckily for Hiro, the other Stand user thought they were a bigger threat than he was. He blasted them with a massive gust of wind, enough that it almost looked like a hurricane. Jotaro sent Star Platinum up to quickly attack the Stand, a tall, strong one with hair that looked like it was made of clouds.

The fight would’ve gone a lot more quickly if the two Stand users hadn’t been kids. Jotaro hated attacking kids. He knew he had to, but he still didn’t like to do it. And besides, these kids were putting up one hell of a fight. The girl had thrown enough boulders at him to crush a car, and the boy, well, Hiro was still caught in that hurricane. In the end, Holly had to tie them down for Kakyoin to even be able to get close enough to remove the flesh buds. 

With the same deftness he’d shown with Hiro, Kakyoin extracted the flesh buds from the twins’ foreheads. The necrotic flesh fell apart as he removed it, breaking into tiny green-black pieces as he pulled it apart. 

Waking them up seemed like a more difficult endeavor than usual. Maybe it was because they were kids? Either way, they were both pretty beat up, and the girl had passed out. 

The boy crouched protectively beside the girl. “Don’t come closer!”

“We’re here to help you,” Holly said gently, hands up in surrender. “What’s your name?”

Their names were Andrei and Anya Konstantinovich, and they hadn’t been using their Stands for very long. The control hadn’t come easily, and they’d never been on the front lines of any battle, but once the flesh buds had gone necrotic, they’d lost control of their Stands completely. Jotaro was honestly kind of relieved that Dio had never sent children to fight them. 

Andrei had insisted on accompanying Anya to the hospital. It was understandable; she had been pretty badly beaten in the fight with Star Platinum, after all. He seemed like he was the older twin, though “older” was probably inaccurate for two kids who couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen.

He explained their Stands as they were driving to the hospital. They were named after deities, since Anya had assumed they were gifts from the old gods when she first discovered their abilities. Dodol, Andrei’s Stand, manipulated air, and Mokosi, Anya’s Stand, manipulated earth. 

“Explains all the boulders she threw at me,” Anne said with a sour expression. “I can’t bring myself back, you know.”

Anya made a full recovery, but they both declined to join the group on their search. After all, Andrei had explained, they had school. It was a response that no one had expected, but Holly seemed to understand, and let them go back after making sure their wounds were properly treated. 

“I hope they learn how to control those,” Kakyoin said quietly on the train back to the airport. “It’s hard being a kid with a Stand, especially as powerful as those two. I know it’s not easy even when you’re an adult, so… you know.” 

Jotaro just nodded, staring out the window. He wasn’t sure how many more were out there, but he hoped they wouldn’t have to fight any more kids. He didn’t think he could take it.

— 

Supposedly, the U.S. had become a hotspot for Stand users. Jotaro didn’t mind traveling there as much—he’d been a few times to go to the Speedwagon Foundation’s clinics, and of course his grandfather lived there. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t be visiting Joseph. There was some kind of Stand user causing massive  earthquakes in a big city where they ordinarily wouldn’t be happening, and Holly suspected it was someone under flesh bud influence.

They got off the plane, jet-lagged and exhausted, and immediately felt the tremors underneath their feet. Good grief . Already? It had barely been a minute.

Hiro seemed to feel much the same way. They glared out at the crowds harshly enough that everyone got out of their way as they walked, much to Anne’s delight. “Can you teach me how to do that?” she asked as they made their way out of the airport and towards the source of the earthquakes. Hiro just sighed, hands in the pockets of their oversized cargo pants. 

As it turned out, the earthquakes’ source was a young woman wearing a bright red skirt suit, who was currently standing in the middle of a street with her arms spread to either side. When she spotted Jotaro and the rest, she grinned.

“You’d best be advised to get out of my way, kid,” she said, tucking a lock of long blonde hair behind her ear. Jotaro just took another step closer, Star Platinum flickering out behind him. He could see Glance flying overhead, tentacles stretching far over the city to watch for other Stand users. Hiro gave him a thumbs-up from on a fire escape. 

He approached. Star Platinum stood behind him, ready for the attack. As he raised his fist, the Stand user sighed and shook her head. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. It’s a bad idea.”

“Why? Are you scared?”

“No, but you should be.” 

Jotaro had basically had enough of Stand users getting cocky around him. He knew he could probably take her—she hadn’t shown her Stand, which was a bit worrying, but he had backup from Kakyoin and Hiro, not to mention Anne if anything went really wrong. 

He threw a punch. The Stand user blocked it.

A moment later, he went flying across the street, colliding with a wall. He’d taken a hit—exactly like the one he’d tried to use against her.

“Very smart. You want to use all that energy inside you, huh? Try and take me down with your super strength?” She laughed, the ground beneath their feet rumbling. “I’d like to see any of you try. Not like you possibly could.”

Jotaro was too winded from the punch to listen, to try and deduce what the hell this woman was talking about. He stared out blankly as Hiro’s Stand soared closer over both of them, watching to make sure he was alright. With one weak hand, he gave them a thumbs-up and struggled to his feet. 

It took all of his strength to do so. His breathing was off, and he had to take a moment leaning up against the wall to compose himself. Luckily, the Stand user didn’t come after him, just watched and waited. He sighed, cradling the spot where he’d just gotten hit. Another hit like that and he’d be down, easy—it felt like he’d gotten decked by Star Platinum, right in the stomach where he’d tried to go for this Stand user. 

The pieces clicked at last. “Nobody hit her!” he yelled, though it came out more like a wheeze—he was still short of breath from the hit to the stomach. “She’s using the energy—the earthquakes, they’re not earthquakes, she’s just picking up tremors and using—”

He was cut off by another hit to the stomach, this time with what felt like the force of a car. It winded him yet again, and he collapsed to the ground. He heard everyone else shout in surprise from somewhere to his right, but couldn’t really hear them. His ears were ringing from his head hitting the ground so hard. 

The air around him felt too thick to properly breathe. His hands were shaking uncontrollably as he leaned against the wall, trying to stand up. He could feel Star Platinum at his side, unmoving, as Kakyoin rushed to his side with Hierophant directly behind him.

From his vantage point on the ground, he could see his mother stepping up to confront the Stand user. He wanted to stop her, tell her not to get into the fight, but she was still walking towards the epicenter of the earthquake, getting closer and closer. Jotaro reached out with one weak hand to no avail. No one was going to stop her, either. But then his eyes focused on the vines crawling across the ground, barely a centimeter at a time, snaking their way up the Stand user so slow that she wouldn’t be able to use the force.

Jotaro grinned.

“Why are you smiling?” the Stand user said, glaring at him with glittering brown eyes. And then Holly’s Stand pulled her up into the air.

“No one try to hit her!” Jotaro managed to wheeze out. The Stand user struggled against Holly’s vines, but couldn’t get out. The force needed was too great, and Holly had been careful with how much power she used. 

He watched from the ground as Kakyoin lifted himself off the ground with Holly’s help, eyes closing as he slipped into her mind to remove the flesh bud. Jotaro would never get over how genuinely impressive it was, even after seeing it three times. This would always be a novelty, like watching a superhero work. No matter that he had his own Stand, that Hierophant was nearly useless in combat when it came down to it—this was one of the coolest things that he had ever seen.

The Stand user went limp for a moment before jolting awake, looking confused. Kakyoin and Holly brought her down to the pavement to explain things to her. 

Her name was Lizzie Armstrong, and she called her Stand Give and Take. Just as Jotaro had guessed, she could absorb and reflect energy back outwards, and the earthquakes had just been tiny tremors until she’d collected them all and sent them back out. 

She traveled a lot, but hadn’t found any other Stand users in the States, and hadn’t actually met Dio—just a few of his minions. Apparently the flesh bud had gone necrotic earlier than the others, and had actually been in the process of falling off. Jotaro supposed they’d gotten lucky; they might not have to fight anyone else after all.

He was tired of fighting. Tired of having to constantly use Star Platinum, tired of waking up in a cold sweat after another nightmare about Dio and that battle. Tired of cleaning out the scratches and cuts that had never fully healed after Egypt. There was just too much happening all the time, and even before all of this it had been hard for him with too much noise and input. 

Maybe sometime he would get a chance to just go sit by the ocean like he wanted to. Just him and the sea and the sounds of waves and gulls calling and the occasional clang of the bells on fishing boats passing by. 

Hopefully, if he ever did, Kakyoin would keep his promise.

— 

“Does it look nice?” Kakyoin asked.

“Huh?”

“The sea. Does it look nice today?”

Jotaro had almost forgotten how messed up Kakyoin’s vision was. They’d both grown accustomed to it in the months since his return to life, although he still used a cane if he needed to get around without someone else. “It does. Kind of greenish instead of blue, and there’s not a lot of waves. There aren’t any boats, either.”

Kakyoin nodded. “I can’t hear any, that makes sense.” 

The small waves crashed to shore with a quiet swish-swish , making the sand at their feet slightly damp. It was cool, and there was a bit of a breeze, so it was actually quite nice—not many other people were here, which afforded them a bit more privacy than they would usually have. Jotaro had even spotted a few fish in the water, though they were too far away for him to properly identify.

“What do you think is going to happen next?” Kakyoin asked, staring out at the waves. 

“Honestly? I don’t know.” The past year had been one of the most intense of his life, and he wasn’t even sure this was entirely over. There could still be more Stand users out there. Dio could somehow come back, or another vampire could rise up to take his place, or some other powerful Stand user could try to gain power. There were infinite possibilities for things that could go wrong, infinite problems that he might need to bring Star Platinum out again to fix.

But for now, those problems didn’t exist. The only things that existed were them and the sea.