Chapter Text
Prologue: A Waking Slave
“Boss…”
Coagulated blood poured out of Vinegar Doppio’s wounds. Everything felt slow. His heart fluttered, barely pumping.
He watched the rebels run away from him, Mista not so much flinching at the sight of Bruno’s broken body. Doppio tried to move, but things were so slow. Bruno’s powerful muscles had wasted away from the slow death he was undergoing. Doppio was under no illusions of the state of this body. It was Bruno’s decrepitude to thank for him getting the Boss near to that bastard Polnareff in the first place.
For a moment, everything faded away. His vision swam, and he saw everything. He saw the truth. Instead of the outer bodies, like Bruno had been able to he could only see their souls. Could see Trish, with the Boss wrapped around his own daughter, hidden underneath her.
“Is that… where… you are?” He whispered, lips moving at a glacial pace. “That spot… that moment when we got sleepy… and our souls… were dragged out of our bodies….”
He turned over, his vision swimming. Even that much movement was a herculean effort. One of Mista’s bullets had wormed into his spine, his legs just so much dead weight. He forced himself to take another breath, even as his heart pumped flaccidly once more, pushing out more blood.
“You told me it would be dangerous to remain… so you were leaving.” A spike of anger cleared his vision before the colosseum turned into another grey mass of stone. Bruno had spared what he thought was an innocent man earlier… but this utter torment, this slow wasting away, nearly made him traitorously wish he had died there. “You went… to that body…?”
He was in no pain, but every motion was agonizing. He wanted to stop, wanted to rest so badly. But he now knew what Bruno did… if he seriously stopped, if he rested for even an instant, that is where he would stay. He reached out, his hand meeting a phone. For an instant, he wanted to pick it up.
He knocked it away, continuing to crawl. The Boss wasn’t with him. He had to understand that… he had been assigned here. Assigned there to…?
He couldn’t think of what it was. Everything was too slow. He had to remember.
“Yes… if you’re in there… victory’s guaranteed…”
He was so confused, continuing to force himself forward. ｢Gold Experience｣’s taint, the Stand of that damned Giorno, was here even after he’d left. It was the only thing that Doppio could see, beautiful flowers having been created over Narancia’s body.
“...for… us? Hahaha….”
He was just a few meters away… so close… if he could just get to there he could… surely remember everything that he was supposed to do.
He stopped breathing, but he grit his teeth and forced his lips to move.
“I miss you boss….”
He had never been alone. He had always… only needed the Boss, always been taken care of. Why was he so cold? He’d been… such a good friend.
So close. He felt so so fucking close.
“Call me… like you always do…”
Minutes had passed, and he was slowing even more. He had always been an existence defined by another. He had his own self, his own personality to help the boss with, but was never allowed to so much as look upon his master. Unlike the rest of Passione, he had never needed his own Stand, granted one directly by the Boss himself.
What could he do to help, now that the Boss was fighting himself. He didn’t know why he was crawling to those flowers.
“I’ll be…….”
Waiting?
Waiting?
Would he be?
It was so hard.
Did the Boss need him?
He needed….
Doppio could barely think, his entire self desperately trying to reach the flowers. Unbeknownst to him, at that same time the last shreds of Jean Pierre Polnareff, his ｢Requiem｣ was about to die. With it, so did Bruno Bucciarati, sacrificing himself yet again for Trish, to defeat the enigmatic Diavolo. And then did Giorno take Bruno’s torch, to finally defeat him again, and again, and again….
In that one minute, a series of miracles happened. A combination of graces and coincidences.
Bruno severed the last connection with his failing body, leaving it vacant. Doppio’s own body was filled to bursting by Diavolo, his evil having metastasized with his need for yet more power, and that power so close in his hands. There was no room for him left… and soon enough, courtesy of Giorno Giovanna, there was no Diavolo in the world at all.
In the last seconds of his life, Vinegar Doppio felt himself be free. A horrible, awful wash of that ultimate ‘freedom’ entered his dying mind. His lips barely moved.
“Waiting?”
He felt his vision wash with color. Instead of the glowing gold of the flowers, now he saw the world around him in rainbow colors. Every wall’s top was blue, turning to green, then yellow as it went down. The venerable columns turned to orange… the floor underneath him was green itself. He still couldn’t see through these useless eyes, but now he sensed something ‘else’, another world he had never thought of before.
He was abandoned. He had been completely abandoned. He remembered now… the Boss had cast him away, thrown into this decrepit, dying body so he would have a chance to win.
A chance the Boss had wasted.
Doppio, having never had a traitorous thought in his life, had started realizing his true place in Passione at the very end of things.
Now, instead of the power of ｢Gold Experience｣, just centimeters away from him, he saw the outline of the flowers, and the place where they stood in. A single, loose brick, just a bit over Narancia.
He couldn’t move anymore, but he was so close, so fucking close to reaching that well of life. Despite himself, despite knowing that the Boss was gone, his ｢King Crimson｣ annihilated, Doppio knew if he could get just a hand… just a single hand, he could make it…. His lips didn’t move, but he still thought it. And one last miracle happened for him.
“｢Call… Me…｣”
A massive hand sunk into the brickwork, its fingers ripping away the outer facade. Now unmoored, a single vine branch fell, landing across Doppio’s hand. It was like touching a live power line… ｢Gold Experience｣ shocking his brain, his heart, the bullets buried in his body still….
Doppio was put under, not by the sopor of death but the ravaging force of life.