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Kakyoin stood in front of the mansion, steeling himself for what was to come. Everyone was there, ready to give up all they had to put down the greatest evil the world had ever seen. The sun beat on them, roasting the arid desert air. Kakyoin’s skin felt like it was cracking at every possible seam. There was sand in all of his clothes. And his greasy hair couldn’t remember the last time he’d washed it. Forget evil, Kakyoin would kill any one of DIO’s goons for 15 minutes of peace to have a damn bath.
Kakyoin turned his eyes to the others. They looked just as ready to bust down DIO’s doors as he did. They walked up to the door, ready to get this nightmare over with, when the door swung open on their own. An endless corridor stretched before them, looking like it reached back infinitely. A figure appeared in the hall, coming at them rapidly. Its feet never touched the ground like it was a spirit haunting the grounds.
The figure’s body appeared in the light, escaping the pitch black of the mansion when it screeched.
“Fuck!” It screamed clutching its face in pain. “I’ve gotta stop blinding myself like this! Ugh. What do you people want?”
Joseph looked at Jotaro in confusion. Jotaro sent an angry look of confusion back.
“Hm hm,” Mister Joestar said, fakely clearing his throat.
“You are DIO’s lackey correct?”
The figure, a man in very weird white clothes, pulled his face away from his hand with a groan. “Oh, yeah. Totally says so in my job description. Lackey #27… that’s me.”
“You sound… sarcastic.”
“No shit-” The butler cleared his throat even more fakely than Joesph had. “Welcome to DIO’s manor dear guests. My name is Telence T. D’arby.”
Telence’s voice turned from a whining bitter croak to a refined and decidedly punchable prattle. “If you’ll follow me, I’ll seat you and then you’ll get an audience with the master of the house.”
“You think we’ll trust the guidance of one of DIO’s minions?”
“Alright, lackey was one thing but minion is another. If you’re going to be so damn rude you can just buzz off and get lost in the mansion’s maze without me.”
Telence turned to make his leave.
“Wait! Telence, we accept your offer.” Kakyoin stopped him.
“What?” Joseph huffed.
Kakyoin leaned into him. “It’s obviously a trap but it’s better to follow him and walk into an obvious trap with our guards up than to stumble around the mansion until we get caught off guard.”
Polnareff nodded his head in agreement. “Great idea, Kakyoin.”
“Hey, what’re you whispering about?”
“Nothing,” Kakyoin said politely. “Just conversing about the weather.”
Telence gave him a look and then squinted at the sky. “Yeah, I guess it is particularly blisteringly hot today. Anyways, follow me.”
They did, suspiciously looking around every corner and on guard for any surprise attack. None came and they were seated on plush seats in a weirdly cozy (and dark) parlor. It was lit only with candles and thick sticks of incense. The seats were a deep maroon with golden linings, the tables carved almost to bits with delicate engravings and filled with hard resin. The wood of the floor was dark and mature, fitting perfectly with the dark-painted walls of the space. Telence left and they tensed even more, waiting for anything that might come from the shadows.
When Telence came back with a tray, Polnareff jumped and smacked the tray out of his hands. “We see your plot fiend!”
Telence looked at the sorbet-topped truffles he’d just been forced to drop and sighed. “Another fucking thing to clean,” He whispered under his breath as he peacefully left.
Polnareff sat down, the wind having been let out of his sails. “What’s going on here? Why haven’t they done anything yet?”
Iggy barked in apparent agreement.
They sat there, growing increasingly impatient and paranoid, the walls seeming to close in on them.
“This is obviously another one of his plans. We’re losing daylight!” Mister Joestar screamed. “He’ll come out to meet us when the sun dips below the sky and then-”
“Hello, dear guests. What a ruckus you’re making.”
Everyone jumped back in abject fright. On the armchair opposite of them all, DIO had appeared, silently, without a single tell of his approach. The only one who’s face never betrayed fear was Jotaro whose eyes blazed with righteous anger. DIO sat on the armchair with a delicate cup of steaming tea in his hand and a mischievous smile on his perfectly shaped lips.
“Did we give you a fright? Oh, our poor guests. Please take a seat. We’ll try not to spook you so much again.”
“DIO, you demon!” Mister Joetstar shouted.
DIO’s eyebrow quirked attractively. “Now that’s the third time this week that I’ve been greeted in such a way. Is there something about me that screams demon, dear soul?”
“Maybe it’s the fact that your very existence is choking the life out of Jotaro’s mom, the fact that you’re wearing Joseph’s grandfather’s body like a skinsuit, or the fact that you’ve sent so many assassins after us that it’s taken us a month and a half to get here and put you down!”
DIO calmly took a sip of his tea and then dropped a bomb. “What assassins?”
Kakyoin felt like he was going to be ill. What did he mean? The others seemed just as surprised.
“The assassins that you have accosted us all with for the better part of two months?” Avdol said unsurely.
“We have no assassins. What use would we have for assassins, when we are as strong as we are? You must be at the wrong address. If you tell us who you’re looking for we’ll send you on your way.”
“You’re blatantly lying to our faces, trying to confuse us!” Polnareff yelled before charging at him. “It won’t work, you villain!”
In the blink of an eye, something strange happened. Kakyoin could have sworn that Polnareff had jumped at DIO and yet he was sat beside them all on DIO’s silk couch. When had they sat down?
“We’ll give you the honor of repeating ourselves. We have no assassins. The only people that live here are those committed to leaving their old miserable lives behind for a life of peace under our rule.”
“But we’ve just spent almost two months fighting off dozens of people fighting under YOUR name.”
“Oh yes. You’ve probably met with some overzealous followers of ours. Ones who wouldn’t think twice about going off on their own.” DIO’s eyes drifted before locking with Kakyoin’s. In the blink of an eye, DIO’s nose was only half an inch away from touching his. “But we remember you. Yes, you were one of the little birds who loved to flutter around us. Wherever did you go, little chick?”
Kakyoin stood up, now in his own rage. “Off to Japan on YOUR command! I remember you putting your fleshbud in my BRAIN!”
“Do you remember what it was for?”
“What does that matter? You put a piece of your flesh into my head to CONTROL me and make me attack the Joestars!”
“I gave no such order.”
“Stop lying right to my face!”
“Kakyoin, do you remember us ever directly commanding you to do that? The same goes for you, oh virtuous swordsman. Any specific memories?”
Kakyoin searched his mind, certain that he’d find something. When he came back with nothing he was astounded. He looked at Polnareff who looked back with the same look of astonishment. “What…”
“Thought so. You must understand Kakyoin. We put the bud in your brain because of all of our crazed devotees, you and Polnareff were the most… touched in the head we could say, even before we ever put in the bud. The two of you took servitude to a new unheard-of extreme that overshadowed even Vanilla Ice in unfortunately the worst way possible. Do you remember scaring half of Cairo to death, killing scores of women who dared to enter our bed, killing people in this very mansion you perceived to have slighted us? We put the bud in to make you, as the children say, chill out as you were really killing our vibrations.”
Kakyoin sat in shock. He… he could indeed remember everything DIO was talking about. Now there was the embarrassment of people thinking that you had an imaginary friend for 10 years and then there was the embarrassment of foaming at the mouth for, and having to be tamed by, evil personified.
Was he even evil personified, or was that just another thing that he had swallowed without thinking too deeply about it? Oh fuck. What was he doing here? He was a Japanese high schooler who was hunting down a century-old vampire in Egypt that he had apparently lost his damned mind over, to the point that he’d had to be force-fed a chill pill. What the fuck was his life?
“Well, now that we’ve got all that sorted out, do any of you want tea? Telence just brewed a fresh pot and while we could drink it all ourselves, we’d feel rude if we didn’t at least offer some.”
“DIO,” Kakyoin whispered desperately. “Are you… actually evil?”
DIO took another sip of his nearly gone tea. “Oh yeah, totally. Our soul’s too black for hell, so if you were to kill us, we would just stay here.”