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With great power comes great responsibility.
Giorno drills this into his head, over and over again, in attempts to make the tedious act of scrawling his signature on to what seems to be a million documents more tolerable. He has a rhythm going now. In fact, the repetitive motion–sign it, staple it, slide it to the other side of his desk–has become such a normal task to him that he could do it in his sleep. Meaning he’s perfectly fine doing it while lost in thought, paying no mind to the papers before him or the world around him; sign, staple, slide. That’s all it is.
And then his phone rings, knocking him out of his reverie, much to his chagrin.
He fishes around in his back pocket to pull out his cell. It’s Narancia that’s calling him; Giorno feels a pang of unease course through him. He’d only left for the mission he’s on now about a half hour ago, if Giorno’s calculations are correct, so it’s unlikely he’s calling to announce that he’s completed his task. It’s a simple mission, really; cut the guy off and take him out. No tracking, no chasing, no infiltrating. Giorno can’t fathom that there would be any way for it to go wrong. And yet, brewing there in the pit of his stomach, there’s an undeniable feeling of…concern.
He picks up the phone.
“Hello?”
“Is Mista there?” Narancia sounds alright, so that’s a relief. But why does he need Mista?
“No.”
“Ah, shit. Okay, we need to talk about Giorno.”
Giorno takes a moment to process the sentence. “...Okay.”
“Tell him that I am unable to track this guy. I don’t know what happened, but he’s completely off of my radar,” Narancia doesn’t sound too upset over this. He sounds more emotionless than anything, really.
“Uh–” Giorno takes a pause, confused by the statement. This assignment required no tracking. They’d gone over it multiple times; according to the wanted man’s schedule, they all knew exactly where he would be. With no possible chance of him expecting them, there would be no reason to have to search for him. Not to mention this third-person nonsense. “Okay. Noted. Anything else you would like me to pass along?”
“Yeah, could you ask him-”
“Yo, Giorno!” Mista peeks his head through the door, tilting his head after receiving a look from Giorno, mixed with a haste finger to his lips. The wide-eyed expression on his face confuses Mista, who cocks a brow.
Giorno covers the cell receiver with his hand. “What do you need? I’m having a conversation about…our Don, Giorno.”
Mista’s raised brow turns to a furrow.
“It is a very serious conversation,” Giorno makes a shooing motion with his hand, not sure how else to communicate that he needs Mista to leave– or at the very least, not say his name. “If you don’t mind?”
“...okay. Alright. I respect your private property,” Mista puts a hand up in surrender, backing out of the door and shutting it behind him. Giorno breathes a sigh of relief.
“I’m sorry, what were you saying, Narancia?”
There’s a moment of silence, as if Narancia is taking a pause to register this question. And then suddenly, as if it clicked, there’s an abrupt, “Yes,” from the other side of the line.
“Yes?”
“Yes! Narancia. My name. Narancia. I, Narancia, was going to tell you that I lost him because…” another long beat of silence.
“Because…?”
“Because my name…is Narancia!”
“Right.” Giorno sighs through his nose, trying to make sense of all of this. Narancia doesn’t sound anything like himself in tone, and he isn’t making any sense when he talks. But that voice is undeniably his. He tries to remember if he had any files on the target’s stand, but any prior knowledge he’d had is escaping him. He hadn’t anticipated this at all. “Are you feeling alright …Narancia ?”
“Yes! I, Narancia, am alright! Perfectly alright, yes,” another period of silence before Narancia seems to remember his original intention of calling Giorno and asks, “just so I can…remember…where is your apartment again? So I know where to go…after my mission, of course!”
“In Milan,” Giorno lies easily, knowing damn well that whoever– whatever– was on the other end of this line, it certainly isn’t Narancia. Not entirely. To confirm the suspicion, as if it needs any further confirmation, he adds, “but I told you to report to our headquarters just north of Venice, remember?”
“Right! The headquarters in Venice! I, Narancia, remember now! And who else will be there exactly?”
“Mista and I will be upstairs.” Giorno pauses to think. He knows that his name, as well as Mista’s, have both been revealed, but since nobody else has been mentioned… “We’ll also be with our teammates Baccal à and Licenziare. Agnello won’t be there. He’s still stationed in Rome.”
“Oh, yes! Of course. I forgot. I can’t believe I, Narancia, forgot! How foolish of me. I will find this guy and report right back to Venice to meet with you, Mista, Baccal à, and Licenziare!”
“Good,” Giorno stands as slowly as he can so as not to alert Narancia of any unnecessary movement. He makes his way out of his office and into Mista’s room, where he’s polishing one of his guns. Pulling the phone away from his ear, he gestures towards the device as he puts it on speaker. “I think I have something that could help you track our guy. You have an iPhone, right, Narancia?”
“No. I, Narancia, do not have an…iPhone.”
“What sort of phone do you have again? I’m sorry, I must have forgotten,” Giorno looks up at Mista, who fixes him with a perplexed look that mirrors his own. He moves to sit beside Mista on the edge of the bed, and Mista puts down his gun, turning his attention to the phone.
“I have a…” his voice becomes more distant, as if he pulled it away from his ear. It’s silent for a few moments but that silence is quickly interrupted by, “Telecom Italia! I, Narancia, have a Telecom Italia. Model: January 10.”
“Ah, that’s right. Well, I was going to send you an image that might help you, but I can’t send things to a January 10th Telecom Italia, I’m afraid,” Giorno says it with a straight face. Mista, beside him, snorts a little. Giorno whacks his thigh. “I’ll have to ask Licenziare to send it later.”
“Licenzi- who? ” Mista whispers. Giorno, again, presses a haste finger against his lips, signaling desperately for Mista to stay quiet. He wracks his brain for some sort of conclusion, some logical explanation for all of this. If he could only remember the ability of this guy’s stand–it had been something minor, surely, something easily overlooked.
On the other side of the call, there is sudden commotion. The sound of many bullets firing all at once - presumably coming from Aerosmith - can be heard, as well as someone being thrown to the floor, followed by the faint noise of punching and muffled screaming. “Narancia” seems unfazed, aside from his sudden rambles, though it all seems quite robotic. “Right! Narancia- Venice! Laundromat! Giornoooo… Can I ask- Giorno- question?”
“What was that? You’re breaking up.”
“Giorno. Would you…” the silence from Narancia is replaced by glass shattering, and a man’s scream slowly growing more faint. It seems as though someone has just been thrown out of a window. “...like to clone yourself, and put it in…the dryer?”
Dryer.
And then, it all makes sense.
There’s a loud banging sound on the other end of the line, and then a skidding noise. Hurried footsteps–the phone must have been dropped, and slid–and then the shuffling sounds of the phone being lifted off the ground.
There’s a muffled sound, and then the sound of something being ripped off of skin, such as duct tape. “Fuck! Giorno!” Narancia’s voice pierces through the dead air that followed his previous…malfunctioning. But he isn’t deadpan anymore.
“Narancia,” Giorno breathes a sigh of relief. To ensure that this is the real Narancia on the other end, he asks, “What sort of phone do you have?”
“Wh- iPhone, obviously!” He sounds panicked. “Holy shit man! I just shoved a guy out a window! It was crazy! I was like ‘bam’ and he was like ‘AHHH’ I was so cool, dude.”
“Would it happen to have been a laundromat window?”
Mista gives Giorno an incredulous look. Giorno chooses to ignore it.
“Yeah, how’d you know? He ran in here after I caught him. I thought it was just him tryna’ hide, so I chased him. But then ! When I got in, that weird shit I always see Abba pull out of the dryer started flying ! It became me , bro!!”
“Right,” Giorno fights the urge to facepalm. “I’m sorry I didn’t warn you about his stand sooner. I really didn’t think he’d get any chance to use it.”
“Man, can someone fill me in? I was just tryna clean my gun and now all this is happening. My brain’s fried,” Mista finally says, and for the first time today, Giorno doesn’t violently shush him.
“The stand user that I sent Narancia after,” Giorno begins, “his stand allows him to create clones, but only using lint. I overlooked it completely and didn’t mention it to Narancia because I saw no possible outcome in which he would encounter enough lint. But then he happened to end up in a laundromat, and, well…”
“There’s lots of lint there. Yeah, I follow,” Mista nods, “but that’s a pretty lame-ass stand. I mean, what the hell? Lint? How does that even happen? Was the dude abandoned in a laundromat or something?”
“Maybe he was put in a washing machine against his will,” Giorno suggests, and while it probably should sound more like a joke, he shrugs in a nonchalant way that says he might not be kidding. “I’m not sure.”
Giorno turns his attention back to the phone and to Narancia on the other end of the line. “Are you alright now, though? I really am sorry. It was my miscalculation that got you into this situation.”
“Nah, man. I’m cool. I, Narancia, handled it!”
And without any hesitation, Giorno ends the call.