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Giorno sprinted into San Giorgio Maggiore, terrified he would be too late.
He ran at full tilt towards Trish and Bucciarati, skidding to a stop and falling to his knees. He had already summoned Gold Experience, preparing to heal as soon as he reached them. Bucciarati was the most injured, but when Giorno laid his hands on him, he could feel no life energy from him anymore. His eyes were dull.
Bucciarati was already dead.
Bucciarati, Giorno’s one and only ally: a powerful, competent Stand user with the same goal as him. Another person like that would be near-impossible to find, if one even existed. His men would likely be reassigned to other teams, scattered - if not outright killed for their capo’s betrayal.
It was only by luck that they’d gotten near the boss so quickly; Giorno had been prepared for it to take years for him to rise through the ranks. But now, with victory so close, he couldn’t bear the thought of going back to where it had been so far out of reach.
Giorno knelt shivering in the pool of Bucciarati’s blood.
The pool of his blood.
Something occurred to him.
Mere minutes ago, he’d created a new instance of Coco Jumbo, the tortoise, with exact precision - it’s Stand was even replicated - from his ladybug brooch. Gold Experience had replicated its brain structure as well - likely it would behave exactly as the original would, memories and all. All he’d needed were some cells from it to use as a blueprint.
He could create a frog that jumps, a bird that flies, a tortoise that slowly ambles onward. Why not a human being that speaks and fights and dreams? A human is just another type of animal, after all. And if he could recreate a tortoise...
He might be able to recreate Bucciarati.
It was a dark idea, a wild idea - the only idea he had. He ripped the other ladybug brooch from his chest, dragging it through the puddle of blood, imbuing it with life.
He had to hurry - if any of Bucciarati’s team caught him doing this, it was highly likely that they’d try to kill him. With all of them together, they’d probably even succeed. But the building was large, and they had no idea where Giorno was. It would only take a few minutes. Perhaps it was enough.
The largest animal Giorno had ever made had been a tiger, once, out of curiosity. It had been much more draining than making a frog or a snake. Making a human being was even worse, but he was able to push through the exhaustion. When the body began to become recognizably person-shaped, he busied himself with swapping the clothes from the corpse onto the new body.
When he was done, he pushed Bucciarati’s body - his real body, his dead body - through the jagged hole that had been zipped through the stone floor. It landed in the basement with a sickening, squelching thud. Giorno felt like a monster.
The new Bucciarati opened his eyes - blue, vibrant, alive.
“Giorno! Get Abbacchio and the rest of the team! We have to hurry!”
Giorno stared at him in horror. It had worked perfectly. He realized that he hadn’t even thought of what he was going to do if it hadn’t . There were so many ways it might have gone wrong - the new body might have had no memories, no soul - it might have been monstrous, twisted. But this was just what he’d hoped for: a perfect double of Bruno Bucciarati, seemingly indistinguishable from the original.
It would be best, he decided, not to tell him. He thought Bucciarati would be reasonable about it, but he had no idea how he would react, and the situation was dire. Perhaps he could consider it a kindness, even - what would one even do with such information, other than be upset? It would be useless to tell him.
Giorno couldn’t believe he had this power. He hoped he’d never have to use it again.
Again, Giorno had been too late.
Abbacchio was dead, and with him, Moody Blues, and their one and only clue to the boss’s identity.
Giorno had liked and respected the man, despite his ill temper, but he’d only known him for a few days. He felt like an intruder among the others’ intense grief.
“We have to leave. There’s nothing left for us here.” Bucciarati’s posture was rigid, jaw clenched.
“Or anywhere,” said Giorno quietly. He could feel his dream slipping away again, perhaps forever. The boss would kill them all and continue his reign of terror, rendering the entirety of Giorno’s life useless. He couldn’t accept that.
The last time he’d felt this way, he’d brought his dream back from the brink. He could do it again. But this time, he wouldn’t be able to keep it secret.
“Let’s go,” said Bucciarati, already walking away.
“Wait! This - this may not be the end,” Giorno said, speaking hesitantly. He had to frame this in the right way. “I have an idea. Back at San Giorgio Maggiore, I was able to create a copy of Coco Jumbo perfectly with Gold Experience. Stand and all. I can - I might be able to do the same with Abbacchio.”
There was a sickening silence.
Narancia spoke first, raising his head from the ground he’d been sobbing into, face tear-streaked and sandy. “It wouldn’t be the same Abbacchio, would it?”
“No, Narancia,” Giorno said. “The copy of Coco Jumbo lived while the original still did, so it must have had a different soul, even if it was identical. It would have all of his memories and thought processes. But...the original Abbacchio is dead. I’m sorry. I can’t change that.”
“Don’t do it,” Mista said immediately. “This idea is way, way, too fucked up. This is some playing God shit.”
“This is our only chance at defeating the boss, Mista,” Giorno argued. “If we don’t defeat him, he’ll kill us all.”
“There’s gotta be some other way. We always find a way when things look grim, right? There’s no reason to jump to this - this insanity!” Mista was steadfast.
“Maybe this is the ‘other way’. The boss doesn’t know I can do this - he could never predict it! It’s an advantage!” Giorno could feel himself beginning to lose his cool. This spot and that time were the only scraps of information Trish had, scraps that the boss was willing to kill her for. Without Moody Blues, they had nothing. They had to do this. He had to do this.
“No! ” Mista insisted. “This is going too far!”
Giorno looked to Narancia - who he thought might be his ally in this - but he was just shaking his head in panicked indecision, fists clenched in his hair. It seemed cruel to ask him for his explicit support.
So he looked to Bucciarati, who hadn’t spoken at all - whose expression was stricken, furious, and piercing all at once. He stared at Giorno for so long that he was sure he’d say no. He was already making plans to split from the group and do it himself, or perhaps to gather some of Abbacchio’s cells and use them later if they really could find no other options. Or perhaps -
“Do it,” Bucciarati spat. “And do it quickly.”
“Bucciarati!” Mista hissed in stunned horror. “Abbacchio wouldn’t want this. You know he wouldn’t!”
“Do you want Abbacchio’s sacrifice to have been for nothing, Mista?” Giorno asked, composure recovered, voice flat. Bucciarati had the final word, and they both knew it.
“Fuck you, Giovanna.” Mista clenched his fists and turned away. “I want no part in this.”
“We won’t tell him,” said Giorno, attempting to comfort him. “He won’t even know what happened.”
He had gravely miscalculated. Mista whirled around, eyes blazing with fury once more. “That makes it worse, you-”
“Enough! Mista! This is not your decision!” Bucciarati snapped. “We are going to defeat the boss no matter what. No matter what! Giorno is right: this is our only chance. Narancia, Mista, be on guard in case the boss shows up again.”
Giorno got to work, creating the new Abbacchio out of a small chip of stone that his corpse had been holding. It was a strange detail, but Giorno didn’t have time to think about it. Bucciarati zipped Abbacchio’s body into the rock he’d died on, hands shaking.
Once Giorno imbued the shard of stone with life, all they had to do was wait for it to take on the form of their fallen teammate. When the newly created body became recognizable and took in a breath, the rest of them did as well. He realized that the others had no idea that this would actually work. It must have been a harrowing few minutes for them.
They all jumped when the new Abbacchio spoke.
“...Giorno. Can’t believe you got to me in time.” He sat up gingerly, then looked down at himself in surprise. “I thought it would hurt more. When you heal people, doesn’t it -”
“ Abbacchio .” Narancia was rooted to the spot. “Is it - do you - are you...Abbacchio?” he stammered, voice small.
“Am I what? Are you okay? Was there a fight that I missed?” He stood up, tensing.
“Abbacchio,” Giorno said. “We shouldn’t linger here. We need you to start your replay again. The boss could come ba- he could come at any time.”
Abbacchio smirked. “Already done, kid. Thought I was a goner, so I smashed Moody Blues’ face into the rock there, and yes, it hurt like hell .” He sauntered over to the monument, so close to where they’d been standing. They approached it slowly.
The face of the boss stared out at them from the stone. A perfect impression. They hadn’t needed to duplicate Abbacchio at all. In fact, staying here these additional few minutes to recreate him had been an extra risk. Giorno felt ill. He could feel Mista’s flat-eyed stare boring holes into his skull.
“Even left a clue for you personally. I had a chip of the rock in my hand so you could turn it into a butterfly or whatever and it would return here.” Abbacchio glanced around and frowned. “I don’t see it, though. I must have dropped it when you healed me. I guess all's well that ends well.”
Nobody said a word. Abbacchio’s gaze turned upward from the sand, finally noticing everyone’s grim expressions.
“Never thought I’d see the day where I was the least somber out of you all. What the fuck happened? Did -” his eyes swept the group again. “Did we lose Trish?” he asked, suddenly urgent.
“Trish is in the turtle,” said Bucciarati, sounding far away. “Abbacchio. I’m sorry.” Giorno gave him a worried look - would he tell him what they’d done right here, right now ? Surely he would panic, try to kill him. Giorno tried to shake his head to warn him, but Bucciarati was looking away, to the pool of blood on the sand, to the rock where the original Abbacchio’s corpse was hidden.
“I’m sorry I...left you alone here. To do the replay. It was an unforgivable oversight. Unforgivable. I don’t know what I was thinking,” Bucciarati continued, face pale.
“But it’s...everything ended up fine, Bucciarati. Are you sure everything’s alright? This isn’t like you.” Abbacchio put a hand on Bucciarati’s shoulder in concern. He flinched and closed his eyes.
“There’s no time. Let’s take an impression of the boss’s face and get out of here.”
Time always seemed to be Giorno’s enemy. Again, again he’d been too late, and Narancia was dead.
After the initial confusion of figuring out Silver Chariot Requiem’s body swaps, they had assumed they were in the clear. Polnareff was in Diavolo’s body, so the boss’s soul (or so they thought) was trapped in a cage of his own making - Polnareff’s body was rapidly dying. They hadn’t realized there had been two separate souls - and Diavolo could have swapped with anyone, anywhere. They had no idea where he could be.
“Why Narancia?” asked Trish brokenly in Mista’s voice. “Of all of us, why did he go after him?”
“He went after our radar,” said Bucciarati numbly, in Abbacchio’s voice. “So we won’t be able to see Diavolo giving chase. We’re blind.”
The severity of the situation sunk in for all of them. Diavolo would take them out one by one, too quickly for Giorno to heal - like Bucciarati, Abbacchio, Narancia. If Diavolo obtained the arrow, they’d lose track of him forever - if he left any of them alive, which was unlikely. They had been so close to winning.
Giorno was still cradling Narancia’s body. “We need him,” he said quietly.
“No,” said Mista. “Not him. Don’t - please, Giorno -”
“Don’t what?” asked Abbacchio.
Everyone looked away. They had managed to get away without telling Abbacchio he was a copy. Giorno was worried he’d figure out something was up - Narancia kept looking at him as if he were going to explode, Mista was strangely distant with him, and Bucciarati never let him out of his sight. But so much was going on, and everyone’s behavior towards him was already sliding back to normal levels - indistinguishable as he was from the original Leone Abbacchio, it was easy to forget he was technically a different person.
Giorno had to be very cautious in how he would explain this.
“Back when Bucciarati was first fighting the boss in Venice, I created a copy of Coco Jumbo from his cells, including his Stand,” Giorno explained once more, a truth with so many holes in it that it tasted like a lie on his tongue. “It’s not resurrection but it recreates memories and all that. If I can do it with a tortoise...I can do it with any kind of animal.”
“You had better not be suggesting what I think you are,” Abbacchio warned.
“I am.”
Abbacchio shook his head. “You’ll make a new one and you’ll think you own him. He dies again, you just make another one because you did it once. People aren’t tools, Giorno. Narancia is not replaceable. He deserves to be remembered .”
Giorno bristled. “Of course we’ll remember -”
“No. There’ll be another Narancia. We’ll see him and it’ll be so easy to forget that this one sacrificed his life for us and doesn’t get to live anymore. It’ll be like he never died. But he died.”
Giorno tried a different tactic. A risky one, but Abbacchio had proven his intense dedication to the mission, to the team. “Abbacchio, I agree that it’s a high price to pay. But if it were the only way to defeat the boss - to save the rest of us - would you want us to duplicate you?”
Abbacchio snorted. “I refuse to believe the world needs two of me that badly. But hypothetically...yeah, fine, fuck it. I’d be dead anyway. But it doesn’t matter what I want because we’re not talking about me. You can’t ask Narancia. And he deserves better than this.”
“This Narancia is dead either way,” Trish said slowly. “If it’s really the only way...the new one will be able to live a whole life, right? We all die if Diavolo wins, right?”
“Yes, Trish,” said Giorno gratefully. An unlikely ally. “It is the only way.”
“What if it turns out it’s not the only way?” Mista asked harshly. “What if you do it and we defeat the boss some other way and it’s for nothing ?”
Giorno didn’t have an answer. Maybe, without Narancia, Diavolo would show his hand too soon, or too clumsily, and they would be able to defeat him.
Or maybe not.
“Then we will have defeated Diavolo which is what matters. We might not know if we could have done it another way,” Giorno admitted. “But this isn’t the time to let even a single advantage go to waste! I’m going to do it.”
He reached for Narancia.
“Giorno, stop it! You can’t just decide to do this!” Abbacchio shouted. Mista leapt at him, trying to grapple him away from Narancia’s corpse. But he’d swapped bodies with Trish, and Giorno was able to fend him off. Abbacchio moved to help Mista, but Bucciarati held out an arm, stopping him.
“Giorno’s right,” he said hollowly. “Everything you said was true, Abbacchio. But Giorno’s right.”
They stared at each other. Some complex, wordless communication passed between them. And then Abbacchio backed down. It was strange, seeing Bucciarati’s body slumped in such a posture of defeat.
“Fine. But we tell him what happened right away. It wouldn’t be right not to.”
“After we defeat Diavolo,” said Bucciarati. “I promise.”
“Fine. Right after.”
Giorno picked up a rock, preparing to imbue it with life.
“Fuck. Have some respect. Narancia’s worth more than a fucking pebble,” Mista snapped. He cast his eyes around for something better, but there was nothing around them, nothing special or valuable or meaningful. Just stones and blood.
He reached over to Trish and pulled his hat off from her head, handing it to Giorno. Just as well.
They watched. They waited. Bucciarati zipped Narancia’s corpse into the ground. “We’ll come back for him,” said Giorno. “We’ll take him home.”
No one answered him.
The duplicate of Narancia opened his eyes.
“Guys, guess what? A few minutes ago I decided I’m gonna go back to school after this!” he chirped. “Oh hey - I’m back in my body, sweet! Did everyone switch back, or…?”
“Wonderful idea, kid,” Abbacchio said earnestly, voice thick. Giorno knew what he was thinking - the duplicate of Narancia had spoken the second he was fully formed. The original Narancia must have made that decision as well - minutes, if not seconds, before dying. That Narancia would never get to go to school.
“Let’s go,” said Giorno. They didn’t have time for further conversation.
They defeated Diavolo.
A matter of minutes from certain doom to total victory. Well, near-total. Despite everyone’s presence, they’d lost three lives total among their gang, the first known only to Giorno himself. And at the last, crucial moment, Polnareff had sacrificed his life to defeat him for good, the conclusion to some grand story that they’d only ever know scraps of. His body (and Doppio’s soul along with it) had perished not long after the swaps - there was nowhere else for him to go.
Aerosmith had, indeed, come in handy. There was no way of knowing if they’d needed it. But Giorno could make peace with that.
As promised, they’d told Narancia afterwards, right there in Rome, with the glow of victory still fading. He’d handled it fairly well, all things considered.
At first he was upset, of course. “So I’m not the real - the first - Narancia?” he’d stammered out, wringing his hands. “Giorno, you just...made me? Just a few minutes ago?”
Giorno nodded. He didn’t know what to say.
Narancia cast his eyes around, gaze flickering to each of their faces in turn. “But I’m Narancia. I feel the same. Like it didn’t happen. I’m - I’m Narancia!” he pleaded.
“Hey. Don’t overthink this. You’re real, and you’re Narancia,” said Abbacchio. “There was another Narancia who died, and he was real, too. But don’t think we’ll treat you any different.” He put a hand on Narancia’s shoulder. It was strange to see Abbacchio be so comforting. Maybe he was like this more often when Giorno wasn’t around.
With Abbacchio’s support, Narancia seemed to recover quickly, despite the silence and stiff postures of the others. “I guess...I’m alive now. I feel bad about the other me, but I’m me, so...I guess it’s kind of the same, right?”. Giorno wasn’t sure if it was simplicity or wisdom. “Guess I owe you my life, huh?” he said to Giorno, with a nervous little laugh.
“You don’t owe me anything, Narancia,” Giorno said, and meant it.
They went to Naples and chose a new base of operations, some Passione-owned villa that Giorno saw great promise in. Of course, Giorno would take over as Don. Diavolo had a lot of information to comb through and there were many plans to make. It was long dark when Bucciarati, Abbacchio, and Narancia left, to return to familiar living spaces they had never been to.
When they left, the villa suddenly seemed cavernous. Giorno trailed along the poorly lit hallways, making idle plans to redecorate - more light, more art, more flowers. He was about to revitalize a sad, sparse houseplant - one of only a scant few, Diavolo obviously hadn’t cared for them - when Mista emerged from behind a column and cornered him, grabbing him by the lapels and shoving him against a wall.
Out of instinct, Giorno went limp, face blank, but he knew he was in no true danger. If Mista wanted to kill him, he would have shot him. He might have even succeeded - Giorno hadn’t even known he was there. He probably shouldn’t allow him to do this, but he felt he owed Mista something. They hadn’t found Fugo yet - as of now, he was really the only one left of his original team. He’d gotten a new hat already somehow, or perhaps had already had it in reserve. It was just like his old one, but the colors were darker. It suited him.
“You’re going to promise me something,” Mista said in a low and dangerous voice, despite having absolutely no standing to give orders. “If I die, don’t make another one of me. I’m telling you right now I don’t want it.”
Giorno kept his expression neutral, but his mind was racing. Maybe this was alright. They’d already won. He’d needed Bucciarati for his allegiance and team, and he’d needed Abbacchio and Narancia for their Stands. Mista’s Stand was useful, but simply because it was good in a fight, and occasionally to deliver information. He couldn’t envision a scenario where he’d require Mista specifically. He would never need to copy Mista.
So he said, “If that’s what you want, I won’t.”
“Do you think I’ll just take you at your word?” Mista sneered. “Swear it. Swear it on - ugh, what the fuck do you even care about? Swear it on your shiny new position as Don. Swear it on your dream .”
Giorno tried to keep his breathing even. “I swear.”
Mista gripped him even more tightly. “If you do...If I die and you make a goddamn duplicate then you better pray the new guy doesn’t find out because if he does, he will kill you. That’s a promise.”
“Mista. If you - if he kills me, he’d die. And so would Abbacchio and Narancia,” Giorno said blandly. It wasn’t a threat or a plea - just the truth.
“What? What the fuck do you mean?”
“Stand effects go away after their users die. If I die, they die too. I don’t want it to be that way, but it is.”
“You’re bluffing. You can’t know that for sure.” Giorno could feel Mista’s hands shaking.
Giorno decided to take a risk. “In San Giorgio Maggiore, Bucciarati was near-dying when I went to heal him. His zippers were starting to disappear. I have no reason to think the lives I create wouldn’t do the same when I die.”
A spark of awful dread lit up in Mista’s dark eyes. “My God - Bucciarati...back then...don’t tell me you-”
“I didn’t,” Giorno lied.
Mista’s chin trembled, his face twisting into a mask of rage and grief. Giorno tensed; maybe Mista really would try to kill him now, take the whole awful lot of them out in one shot. But instead he let go of his grip on Giorno, hanging his head in defeat. Maybe he’d believed him. More likely, he decided that it was better not to know. As long as he abandoned this line of questioning, Giorno supposed that it didn’t matter.
“Well then...just...you’d better not fucking die.” He tried to say it like it was another threat, rather than an unwilling plea.
“So make sure I stay alive,” Giorno suggested. Yes, this was the perfect solution. As the Don, his life would be in constant danger, and it would be a long and difficult process to find capable bodyguards that he could fully trust. In the meantime, there was Mista, who was as loyal to his friends as they come. He didn’t need to be loyal to Giorno - any threat on his life would be a threat on Abbacchio and Narancia’s lives as well. He even briefly considered telling him the truth about Bucciarati after all, if he hadn’t thought that might make him snap.
Mista nodded. “You know, for a minute there, I really did like you, Giorno,” he said with a humorless chuckle. “Maybe if things had gone different, we could have been friends. I might never have known you had it in you to go this far.” He turned, looking sideways at Giorno. “I want you to never forget that they were my family. And they died for you. And you spat on their fucking graves.” He walked away, footsteps echoing loudly. Giorno made a mental note to put some carpeting down.
It was a shame. Giorno, in return, had liked Mista quite a lot; they’d gotten along rather well before they’d reached this philosophical impasse. To be honest, Mista’s clear disdain for him hurt. But the realization of his dream was worth far more than a fledgeling friendship. His dismantling of Diavolo’s drug trade would save countless innocent lives. If Mista wanted his family’s sacrifice to have been in vain - and for all of them to have died brutally to Diavolo - that was on him.
Giorno turned his attention back to the houseplant. It was dead. No matter; he’d get a new one.
For Don Giorno Giovanna, the power to remake any person continued to be an effective tool. A lot of useful underlings with useful Stands died in the line of duty. Giorno got into the habit of taking hair or blood samples from them regularly, although he only copied the very best, the most powerful and faithful.
He never told any of them the truth, of course. Nobody knew the extent of Giorno’s powers, and anyone who had been “miraculously healed” - from their perspective - was grateful enough not to question him. Or they were too afraid.
He took care not to overuse it; he was trying to build an empire here, one that would outlive him, and half of his underlings turning into rubble upon the event of his death seemed like the ticket to a quick collapse.
One time a new recruit had received such a useful Stand that Giorno had, once he’d thoroughly tested the man’s loyalty, created two more of him while he was still alive. One man, Enrico Mortadella, became “identical triplets” - Enrico, Roberto, and Angelo Mortadella. They had forged birth certificates and identical Stands. The three of them had felt pride that they could be so valuable to their Don, and had of course been sworn to secrecy. He was able to send them to three different locations and expand Passione’s influence further.
He kept a vial of their blood stored. If one of them died, he’d make a new one.
Perhaps he should consider doing this with other people, too. The Stand arrow was fickle, and the idea of creating more users with guaranteed Stands - already tried and tested - well. It was something to think about.
Other than the newly-made “triplets”, only Giorno’s innermost circle knew the truth about this power to seemingly resurrect. And of them, only Bucciarati - his right hand man - knew about this latest endeavor. Bucciarati stood behind him as he sent the “triplets” off on their assignments. Giorno half-turned to examine his face once they’d left. It was stony, as usual, but Giorno knew him well enough by now to read it with moderate success.
“You disapprove, Bucciarati.” It was a statement of fact, not quite an accusation.
“They’ll be extremely useful to us.”
“But you disapprove. Whenever I duplicate someone.”
Bucciarati walked out from behind Giorno’s desk, sitting in the chair beside it. He spoke carefully. “I think that you don’t treat it with the gravity that one should treat these things. And you are more reckless with the lives of those that you intend to copy. Would you really have sent Mortadella - the original one - to kill that traitorous capo on his own last month, if you didn’t know you could simply make another?”
Giorno twisted his mouth. He had seen it as a necessary risk. He couldn’t say what choice he would have made if the situation were different.
Sometimes, when he looked into a mirror, he would think of that fight with Illuso in the ruins of Pompeii - nearly five years ago, now - where he’d risked the mission and his own life to save Fugo, so insistent was he on leaving no man behind. If he’d known what he could do then, would he have risked so much? But then again, they hadn’t needed Fugo or his Stand.
Giorno simply hadn’t wanted someone to die.
What would the Giorno of five years ago think of his methods now? He genuinely wasn’t sure. It was an uncomfortable feeling - he was so rarely unsure about himself. But he couldn’t quite conjure up who he was then, anymore. He almost wished, sometimes, that he had some cells from himself back then, to recreate him, show him his empire, and ask his younger self just what he thought of who he had become.
And then he’d have to kill him, regardless of his answer. He knew himself well enough to be certain he’d try to usurp himself, if not immediately then eventually.
But it was useless to think about hypotheticals that would never come to pass.
“I don’t know,” he confessed.
“From your perspective, it’s so much like nothing changed. To everyone else, death is synonymous with absence. For you, it isn’t. But it’s still a loss of life - the loss of a person - just as grave as any other.”
“I know that,” Giorno snapped. Did Bucciarati think he was that much of a monster? “You haven’t advised me to stop.” He was no longer a teenager, but talking to Bucciarati still made him feel petulant sometimes. He was now as old as Bucciarati was then, and more powerful than he had ever been - and yet. He couldn’t imagine Bucciarati had ever been petulant in his life. Giorno snatched up a paperweight from his desk and turned it into a snake. It slithered languidly up his arm and across his shoulders.
“Like I said. It is useful.” Bucciarati didn’t react to his change in tone. “And it would be hypocritical of me to disagree on moral grounds. I didn’t discourage you from doing so with Abbacchio and Narancia - I encouraged it, in fact. I was in a position where I could have stopped it, then. And perhaps my motivations were worse - more selfish than yours. It was practical, of course, but...I must admit, I wanted them back. Even if it wasn’t...them.”
The snake slid down Giorno’s other arm to the floor and slithered into the shadows. It had been an expensive paperweight, a gift from some sniveling politician or another. They’d find it eventually. Maybe. It didn’t matter.
“Bucciarati,” he asked once it had disappeared from sight, “Do you think I’m a bad person?”
An embarrassing question, an indulgent question, one he wouldn’t have asked if it didn’t echo his own words from their very first meeting. Giorno had been so sure, then, about what made a person good or bad. How could he ever have been so idealistic, so naive? But he still felt that his original assessment of Bucciarati was, ultimately, correct. When he’d seen the track marks on that boy’s arm, there had been shock, concern, and sadness on his face.
On Giorno’s, there had been anger, hatred, disgust.
And he’d thought the two of them were the same.
“No.” There was only the slightest hesitation before Bucciarati answered, but Giorno caught it. As well as the touch of formality in his voice, audible even in only the one word.
“I’m not asking as the Don, I’m asking as your friend.” In truth, Giorno didn’t know if Bucciarati ever saw him as a friend.
“I wouldn’t lie to you, Giorno.”
“Do you think I’m a good person, then?” Anyone who said yes to that would have been a fool or a liar, and Bucciarati was no fool. Giorno watched his face carefully.
“Your ultimate motivation, I think, is still good.”
Giorno sighed. He didn’t tell Bucciarati that he wasn’t sure what motivated him anymore. He’d gotten rid of Diavolo’s drug trade and then some. Expanding Passione’s power in other ventures - by far the more impressive, lucrative endeavor - was little more to him than a never-ending victory lap. But if he didn’t hold onto his power, it was likely someone just as bad or worse than Diavolo would take over.
“There are precious few people I ever thought of as ‘good people’, in the way that you do - or used to. None of them were in the mafia,” continued Buciarati after a moment of thought. “You have never betrayed my heart the way Diavolo did. I hope that’s enough for you.”
It surprised Giorno how much that was a comfort to him. But he still felt on edge. He watched as a ladybug that had recently been a pen crawl along his hand. “Was it wrong of us not to tell Abbacchio?”
“Yes,” Bucciarati answered immediately. “Perhaps not at the time, but afterwards.”
“Do you think we should tell him now?” Giorno asked, unable to hold back the worry that crept into his tone. For his initial prickliness, Abbacchio had been shockingly loyal and respectful ever since Giorno became Don. And Moody Blues was quite a useful Stand to have around. But if he reacted to this news very poorly - which was not unlikely - Giorno may have to kill him.
He’d had to kill underlings before, sometimes even with a heavy heart. But he’d grown especially fond of Abbacchio - of every member of Bucciarati’s original team. Not only that, but all of them had sacrificed so much - half of them had sacrificed their own lives, in a way - to get him where he was. Killing them would feel almost sacrilegious.
“I have to confess something to you, Giorno. He already knows.” Bucciarati made eye contact, and held it steady . “As do I.”
“As. Do. You?” Giorno asked slowly.
“I was your first duplicate. In San Giorgio Maggiore. Correct?” His tone was even. His stare was piercing. He didn’t need to ask for Giorno’s confirmation - Giorno had told nobody, he’d told nobody, but somehow Bucciarati knew all the same.
Memories flickered through Giorno’s mind. Dull, unseeing blue eyes. A dark pool of blood. The thud of a body hitting stone in a dark cavern below him. “When did you know?”
“Right away, just about. All of my scars were missing. I knew what you did to Coco Jumbo, and I just...connected the dots. Scars aren’t part of our genetic code, but acquired over a lifetime of experience. You couldn’t recreate those on our new bodies.”
Scars. Giorno felt like a fool. Such a simple thing not to consider - for years . And for years he’d let these painful secrets fester inside him uselessly. He clenched his hands into fists. “Did you tell Abbacchio, Bucciarati?” he asked quietly, trying to calculate how much of a betrayal he should consider this to be.
“He came to me with the same suspicions soon after we defeated Diavolo. I wouldn’t lie to him.”
“So everyone knows,” Giorno groaned, feeling dread. He’d been made a fool of. Everyone in the mafia had scars. Everyone he’d ever duplicated must have known and not a single one had told him -
“I highly doubt it.” Bucciarati interrupted his spiraling thoughts. “Nobody else knows the specifics of your healing powers.”
Giorno let out a deep breath. He’d been panicking for no reason. Of course they wouldn’t know - wider knowledge of the extent of his powers was vague, clouded by conflicting rumors that he himself had taken great care to seed. “I see. Why didn’t you tell me that you knew?”
“It changes nothing. We’ve both sworn our loyalty to you regardless. I’m sure our feelings on the matter aren’t relevant to you. I didn’t want to bother you with something...unnecessary.”
Giorno gave him a sharp look. “You’re my consigliere. Your feelings on any matter are relevant to me. You should have told me.”
“I’m sorry,” Bucciarati apologized. Giorno should have felt satisfied; he only felt shame.
“Well? How do you feel about it, then?” He tried to sound caring, but came out as demanding.
“Would it upset you, Giorno, to learn the original you had died?”
Giorno hated when Bucciarati answered a question with a question, but he decided to allow it. He had already thought about this. “I’d be grateful to be alive. In this scenario, if the original me hadn’t died, then the current version of me wouldn’t be around. I would feel sorry for him, I suppose. But it would be useless to dwell on it.”
“I feel much the same. The only thing that bothers me is that my past experiences aren’t truly my own. I’ve never met my father,” said Bucciarati, a rare bitterness in his tone. “The other one did. The man I think of as my father died years before I was created. Isn’t that funny?”
“No,” said Giorno. It wasn’t funny, and clearly Bucciarati didn’t think so either.
“I’ve known you for far longer than I knew the other one,” Giorno suddenly realized aloud. “That’s not funny, either,” he added. If he did have the power to truly resurrect - to summon the original Bucciarati back from the dead - that one would barely know Giorno at all. He wondered if the original might betray him too, hypothetically, although he couldn’t think of a reason for him to do so.
He turned a scrap of paper into an earthworm. It pulsed and wriggled in his palm. After a moment, he deposited it into the dirt of a potted plant that sat on the corner of his desk. “I’m surprised that Abbacchio reacted so calmly.” He’d been certain that Abbacchio would have gone berserk at him, but he hadn’t noticed a hint of that in all this time.
“He didn’t. At the time.” Bucciarati’s eyes were still far away.
“Yes?” Giorno prompted him to elaborate.
“He was furious that we didn’t tell him. For a while. But in the end, he handled it better than I did.”
“Really?”
Bucciarati tapped on the arm of his chair, clearly trying to think of what information wouldn’t be too private to disclose. “Abbacchio has a tendency to let himself be bound by his past. For him, I think, it was oddly freeing not to have one anymore. I believe he sees the original Abbacchio’s death as appropriate penance for everything that came before. He can live this life with a blank slate.”
“That’s good,” said Giorno with some relief. He could let go of the guilt - at least a small portion of it - that had been plaguing him for five years.
Bucciarati leaned forward. “I’d like to request that you don’t ask him further about his feelings on the matter. I don’t think he’d want to discuss it.” Giorno heard the unspoken with you. Fair enough. In truth, it was somewhat of a relief - he imagined that such a conversation would be unproductive, unpleasant, or both.
“Okay,” Giorno said.
“Thank you.” Bucciarati got up to leave, then paused. “May I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“Would you ever have told me , in the end?”
Giorno had thought about it more times than he could count. Every time he was alone with Bucciarati and the chance arose he would consider it, and then quickly think better of it. He liked to think of it as a kindness. He knew it was cowardice.
He respected Bucciarati too much to lie to him about this. “Most likely not.”
Bucciarati nodded. “What did you do with my -” he paused. “What did you do with the body of the original me? Just out of curiosity.”
Giorno had never thought he’d have to answer for this. The body of Bruno Bucciarati had rotted in the basement of San Giorgio Maggiore for weeks while Giorno had taken power and given Bucciarati’s duplicate the first orders of many. The first time he was able to take a day to himself, he’d flown alone to Venice to recover it. He’d turned it into a fig tree, brought it back to Naples, and planted it in his garden, out of some notion of sentimentality. Its presence there had haunted him so greatly that just looking at his garden twisted him up inside. In the middle of the night he’d dug it up, turned it into a seagull, and flung it into the sky. It was a sequence of events he was deeply ashamed of.
No gravestone for the man called Bruno Bucciarati - just one more bird in the sky, indistinct from the others, perhaps already dead and lost to the sea as far as either of them knew. And when this Bucciarati died, his body would turn back into a ladybug brooch, a shiny object only shaped like a living thing, with no indication that it had once held such an important life.
Giorno told him all of it. He almost wanted him to be angry, but Bucciarati took it all stunningly well. “I always expected my body to be chopped up, burned, or dissolved by whoever killed me,” he explained. “I’ve zipped plenty of corpses into places they’d never be found. The best I’d ever hoped for was to be dumped in pieces into the sea. It doesn’t matter to me, really. Burials are for the living.”
“When I die,” Bucciarati continued, “I don’t care what you - “ he paused, frowning. “Unless....would you remake me again?”
“Would you want me to?”
Bruno raised an eyebrow. “Is that up to me?”
“Perhaps.” Bucciarati was too valuable to make any promises about this to. He didn’t know the circumstances in which this Bucciarati would eventually die. But Giorno thought of him as his Bucciarati. The idea of remaking him yet again felt...strange.
Bucciarati thought for a long time. Giorno waited patiently.
“If you feel my presence is necessary. And if Abbacchio is still around. Only then.”
“If that’s what you want.” Giorno thought it sounded reasonable. It wasn’t quite a promise, but an intent, the most he was willing to give.
Bucciarati nodded, and then left.
Giorno decided to table the idea of duplicating other living people for now. He couldn’t think of anyone else he wanted multiples of, anyway.
As usual, the room felt cavernous and desolate when Giorno was the only one in it, despite it being filled with houseplants, frogs, insects - life he himself had created.