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You were unsure of how many times you’ve lived through these 50 days.
It had to have been at least ten by now but honestly you couldn’t say for certain. You still hadn’t quite managed to perfect your ‘loop’ yet, at least you assumed that was why this journey kept repeating. The Joykiller and Steel being your only two constants in the resetting world. You didn’t really have time to be contemplating it though. You were entering Karachi, which meant your little group was about to run into Steely Dan, the user of the Lovers stand. Figuring it would be inconvenient to have to track him down later you let the encounter play out as usual, until the last few moments of Enya’s life.
Without hesitation you dropped onto your knees next to Enya and grab her face, turning it towards you.
“Enya, you need to tell us where DIO is. Don’t you get it, he’s betrayed you!”
Of course, Enya refused, dying as she choked out that she could never betray ’Lord’ DIO. You hadn’t thought you’d be able to convince her, not really, but you had to try. Mostly you had just wanted to make sure Lovers ended up in you and not Mr. Joestar, but there was a small part of you that could never quite give up on the old woman. You had no sympathy for her, and you would never forgive her and her son but…still. You had been able change other aspects of “Fate”, why not her deathbed loyalty to DIO?
Shaking the thought from your head, you pull out your switch blade and carefully position yourself behind the other Crusaders so as not to collide with anyone when the inevitable occurs. Steely Dan, literal scum of the earth, earns himself a punch in the gut courtesy of one Jotaro Kujo and goes flying backwards. You feel like you’ve been punched in the gut by one Jotaro Kujo and heedless of logical physics, are flung back twenty or so feet. Geez, how did Jotaro punch so hard without using Star Platinum anyway?
Your friends shout in alarm but before they can run over to you Steely Dan stops them in their tracks. He explains in great detail what his stand can do and how he intends to use it to kill you. Seriously, you had never understood why he felt like explaining his stand was a good idea in front of known schemer™ Joseph Joestar was a good idea. But whatever. Made your job easier at any rate. You pulled yourself to your feet quietly, and stared blankly as Steely Dan continued to gloat at your companions.
With an unimpressed look you flipped the switch blade around in your hand and drove it straight into your abdomen.
“GYRK!!” Steely Dan shrieked grabbing at his stomach. “What are you doi-EEEK”
With a bored expression you twisted the knife, cutting Dan off as your friends looked on in horror. They needn’t be worried though. You once fought DIO to the death all by your lonesome, this level of pain was negligible. In fact, for someone whose whole schtick is using his own body to hold people hostage, Steely Dan was kind of being a huge baby about this.
Your beloved older sister wanted to be a nurse. When you started getting into more and more fights, she was always patching you up. She would talk about anatomy as she did, her textbook open in you lap as she plastered bandages all over you. She had never said as much, but you knew that this was for your benefit. She wanted you to understand the human body more, so you could protect yourself better.
…And so, you always knew where to avoid hitting someone else.
You had aimed the knife perfectly to avoid anything vital, and it wasn’t like you had driven it in to the hilt. Steely Dan must have had a much lower pain tolerance than you thought.
“What the fuck—Have you lost your mind? Do you even understand your situation?! Lovers is going to destroy your brain, you stupid little--”
He was blustering again though, time to kick it up a notch. Casually you yanked the knife out and stretched your arm to the side. The crusaders were still frozen where they had been when you stabbed yourself. For all his yelling, Steely Dan too seemed disinclined to actually physically move towards you. In your pocket you felt a strange buzzing from the radio. Steel was definitely going to lay into you next time you were alone. Adrenaline coursed through you though, and it was hard to think about the consequences, hard to think about anything but the enemy in front of you and your desire to win.
“If you’re really a servant of DIO, then you know all about my stand’s power right?” You asked keeping your tone conversational. “That’s kind of unfair don’t you think? I want to know all about the Lovers too. You told me it transferred pain but I wonder if it might go deeper than that.”
With a thought, The Joykiller emerged, hovering behind your outstretched arm silently. Steely Dan watched it warily, but you kept talking unperturbed. “The Joykiller isn’t that strong you know, certainly not on the level of Star Platinum, it’s real power lies in the two unique attributes of its axe. The first is that it can phase through anything, so it can in theory cut anything.”
You saw the beginnings of understanding flickering in Steely Dan’s eyes, but he was far too proud to back down. You supposed it was not unreasonable that he felt he stood a chance of defeating you. After all, he was well out of your range, and if he stalled long enough, you would die and he could move Lovers to one of the other Crusaders.
“Y-You don’t think I’ll really fall for that do you? No one’s that stupid.” He stuttered with false bravado.
You continued as though you hadn’t heard him “The second is it’s ability to rot anything. I wonder…if my stand started rotting something your stand was in what would happen then? You said injuries are only transferred as pain, but so far, I’ve only seen common man made injuries. If we got stands involved, I wonder if something more would happen.”
The Crusader’s eyes flicked back and forth between you two like they were watching a tennis match. You ignored them. It was a reckless plan. Completely stupid, but you were this close. He was close to folding; you just need to push a little more. You had once beaten the world’s greatest cheater at poker. Well, you had beaten him many times technically, but the key to that first victory, before you knew the secret to his cheating, was one simple truth. When you went in on something you went all in. You bet life and limb to follow Jotaro and the others on a merry chase across the world. You gave 100% of your existence to every encounter, every fight, you backed down from nothing, not DIO and certainly not his lackeys. If this pathetic little man thought he could out bluff you he was in for a rude awakening.
“G-get real! You can’t d-defeat me, and we both know it! My Lovers will—"
You met Steely Dan’s eyes and smirked. It was not a pleasant expression, you only wore it at your most dangerous, an animal backed into a corner with nothing left to lose.
“The Joykiller!”
Obediently, your stand swung, axe whistling through the air to chop off your hand. You heard all of your companions cry out but knew there was nothing they could do. That was by design of course. With their short range Jotaro and Polnareff would be unable to reach you in time, and Mr. Joestar and Kakyoin’s stands lacked the strength to stop such a huge swing from The Joykiller. Steely Dan regarded you in absolute terror and the trap swung shut.
In a split second, Star Platinum’s hand was in the space between yourself and your opponent, closed around something. The Lovers. The axe swinging at your arms stopped dead, likely bruising you where it made contact but not actually cutting you. The Joykiller sunk back into you, having completed its task for the moment. Steely Dan gave a chocked gasp, frozen as if restrained by some sort of invisible force. You walked purposefully towards him, knowing your companions would still be too stunned to move just yet. He squeaked as you approached. With a sweet smile, you brought you leg back and kicked him right in the crotch. While Star Platinum’s grip on Lovers kept its user from moving, he made a noise of immense pain, one that got louder when you smashed his nose under your fist. Satisfied that the other were more than capable of handling a weakling like that, you walked back towards the carriage to look for your first aid kit. You could feel Jotaro’s eyes burning into your back the whole way.
You heard the crusaders start talking amongst themselves quietly, but you tuned it out. Discarding your jacket, you unbuttoned the bottom few buttons of your shirt, just enough to get at the wound. As you predicted, it wasn’t that bad at all. Disinfecting it, you considered your options. You could certainly stitch it up, but the boys would probably insist on dragging you to a hospital to have a professional do it. The wound wasn’t all that deep, you bet you could heal it with the Ripple. As you weighed the choices, The Joykiller re-emerged, gently taking a disinfecting wipe and your knife, cleaning it for you. You made your choice and were channeling the Ripple when someone politely cleared their throat behind you. A glance over your shoulder revealed Kakyoin, watching you with an unreadable expression on his face. You had gotten quite good at reading your friends over the many loops, so that was bit unnerving, but you pushed the thought aside to give him a small smile.
“What’s up, Kak?”
Strangely he grimaced at that, but his expression smoothed out and he gave you a small smile of his own. “I thought you might like to know that Jojo has taken care of Steely Dan. Unfortunately, but unsurprisingly Mr. Joestar was unable to get any information out of him that we didn’t already know."
Yeah, that wasn’t particularly shocking, Still you were surprised that Jotaro had already dealt with the assassin. Usually when he kicked the shit out of Steely Dan it was the definition of ‘unsubtle’. Though since Mr. Joestar hadn’t been threatened and Jotaro hadn’t been humiliated this time, he probably just wasn’t as angry.
(Unbeknownst to you, Jotaro had in fact been VERY angry. You had been so concentrated on your ripple breathing you had missed the sound of Lover’s user getting beaten within in an inch of his life.)
Absent-mindedly you began digging through your pack for a spare shirt, since yours now had a very notable blood stain on it and all. “Cool, cool. Are we heading straight to the hotel then?”
Though you couldn’t see it, Kakyoin was watching you closely. His answer came slowly. “Sort of. The horse and carriage aren’t exactly convenient in a busy city, so Mr. Joestar took Polnareff and they walked further into town to hail a cab.”
“Makes sense.” You remarked, pulling out a new white button down with a small ‘aha!’ Kakyoin politely turned around while you changed shirts. As you pulled on your jacket, you heard footsteps approaching. You and Kakyoin both turned to regard Jotaro as he joins you by the carriage. As always, Jotaro towers over you, staring down at you intensely. In response, you simply cocked your head to the side and waited for him to say something. After a few moments he simply shook his head and looked away, pulling his hat over his eyes. The Joykiller finished cleaning off your switch blade and handed it back to you. Thanking it, you missed the unease that flickers across Kakyoin’s faces as you return the blade to its pocket. With nothing better to do, the three of you begin removing your groups possessions from the carriage in anticipation of loading the cab.
The cab ride itself was a quiet affair, more awkward and concerned than anything, not that you noticed. For all that you prided yourself on understanding your friends, you did have one fatal blind spot. You could never pick up on their concerns and worries when they were directed at you. Once upon a memory you had been better at it, but as the loops wore on you stopped being able to see it. Perhaps this was because you were so accustomed to the events of the journey you had stopped worrying about your OWN safety, and it no longer occurred to you that others probably still were. You knew they cared of course, and you adored them for it, but when it came to putting yourself between them and stand users you no longer took notice of the looks they threw at your back.
Your mind was already hundreds of miles away, plotting what you would try this loop to make sure all your friends survived DIO’s World. You would get all of them out no matter what had to happen to you. That’s what friends were for after all.