Chapter Text
When Sherry died, Polnareff was so sure that he had lost the ability to love. Everyday was so full of guilt, his heart unbearably heavy- practically on the verge of breaking whenever he saw things that had reminded him of his sister.
So, so many nights spent thinking about how he could have been there for her (he should have); how it could’ve been him instead of her (and it should’ve been). How he noticed every little creak in the house because it had been so quiet- how he keeps thinking that if he turns around and looks into the living room she’ll be there, studying on the couch like she always did (but she wasn’t).
Sherry was gone, and she was never going to come back.
He missed the days he’d spent aimlessly wandering the house, waiting for her to return. He missed how she would slam the front door open- announcing her arrival with an equally loud “I’M HOME!”- before flopping down onto one of the couches to complain about her day.
He missed listening to her talk. Missed teasing her about boys and girls and missed the way she would shove him off the couch with her foot.
He missed her so much that when the full weight of what had happened came crashing down, he felt his heart snap into two pieces. So, so sure that it would never be made whole again.
I.
Polnareff felt the light leave his eyes when he stood over his sister’s grave, felt nothing but the empty space left behind by guilt piercing through his chest once it had hit him that this was real and that Sherry was dead.
Dead. His sister- who he had sworn to protect since they were young, -gone. Just like that.
...
It didn’t feel real. He didn’t want to believe it was real. But it was. And he had to accept it.
He stopped thinking about himself after that. Stopped thinking about his safety and his health the moment he had decided with an unshaking will that he would go to the ends of the earth just to avenge Sherry. Everything he would do, everything that would become an obstacle in his way he swore to himself to overcome. He would do it for her. Everything he couldn’t do for her before, he would do it for her now.
And even as he stood before Dio, even as he felt a tremendous fear coursing through his entire body- a single, solid, and unwavering thought remained even as the rest of his mind and body surrendered themselves to Dio’s will.
Do it for her.
When he eventually found himself face to face with a man who he’d come to know as Muhammed Avdol in the following days- he thought he would just be another obstacle in the way. Polnareff wasn’t going to let this man stop him from avenging Sherry.
Nothing in the world could stop him from avenging Sherry.
During the earlier points of their duel, Polnareff was so sure he would defeat him. So sure it would be over, and that he and Silver Chariot would turn out to be victorious unlike the others. He thought his skill in swordsmanship could overcome whatever it was that his opponent would throw at him. He had full confidence in himself that he would get Dio what he wanted, and Polnareff would return to France once Dio had given him what he expected in return.
So when he found himself writhing on the ground, engulfed in the flames of his opponent’s Stand, Polnareff became unsure of anything anymore.
He was so sure he would avenge Sherry.
He trusted in his revenge so much to the point that it had become his single, driving point in life. Had that been his downfall? Had there been a bigger point he hadn’t been seeing?
He didn’t know.
But.. He did know one thing. Whoever this man- Avdol, -was, he was a fighter who had earned and deserved Polnareff’s respect. He had challenged Polnareff to a height in battle where he had to shed Silver Chariot’s armor just to get a leg up in the duel. Polnareff might have lost everything, but he was at least proud to have retained his sense of honor.
He was so ready to die in the case that he had finally confronted Sherry’s killer, so ready to give up his life just to avenge his sister, that he hadn’t even taken a step back to think if that was what he had truly wanted. (It was, wasn’t it?)
At least this way, he would go into whatever afterlife was waiting for him knowing he had been killed by a skillful Stand User who put him in his place.
“I choose to suffer from my burns,” He had said, dropping the dagger into the dirt as he watched Avdol’s retreating form. “It would be cowardly to end it myself.”
And he doesn’t know what happened after that. Doesn’t know why the continuous, searing pain suddenly stopped.
All he knows, and all that he remembers was the feeling of being held, and the foreign- almost distant skip of a heartbeat when he barely gazes up to see Avdol’s determined eyes boring into the windows of his soul. He had believed in love at first sight but… that was before.
It was then that Polnareff had felt the light from the man’s eyes reflect back into his own. He had found in less than an hour and in simply looking into Avdol’s eyes, what he had been lacking in himself and had been searching for, all those years.
He found respect.