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It was the end of the world, yet all Giorno could focus on was the creeping sensation that someone was watching him.
Such a familiar, yet undeniably foreign feeling. In all of his twenty six years of living, in all of the ups and downs and losses and wins of his life, this was something he had never experienced. Golden Experience Requiem had, with and without his knowledge, protected him from the current catastrophe that was going on. So when the sky turned at a thousand miles an hour, and gravity swept him upside down, a visitor coming to see him was the last thing on his mind.
“Haruno Shiobana,” the wind in the trees seemed to whisper to him. “Come to me.”
A stand user seemed to be attacking him, was Giorno’s first thought. It would explain to dull force of attraction, and the overwhelming magnitude of need to see. What it didn’t explain was how this user knew his name, which no one knew. Not his most trusted members-- Mista, or Trish, or any of the other Capos that he interacted with on a daily basis. It didn’t explain how the hairs on Giorno’s neck stood up in alarm, as if this meeting took precedent over the state of the world.
No, this was someone who knew him intimately, someone who seemingly knew him inside and out.
Golden Experience Requiem had forcefully left his body upon hearing his name, and had slammed him into the solid ground and would not let him up. Giorno remained still underneath his guardian angel, knowing and trusting in its abilities, and what it would do to protect him.
“Do not heed this voice, Giorno.” It explained to him softly, a mere breath in his ear. Vines bloomed around his wrists, holding him in place. “It will only lead to your demise. Do not-”
“I need to,” Giorno said, patiently. His name reverberated in his skull without stop. The star on his back, his mysterious birthmark, flared up in pain, making him dizzy.
Haruno. Haruno. Haruno.
“Giorno,” GER sharply shot back. Panic flooded through its voice. “Giorno, I will not allow you to do this.”
Giorno sighed. Just as quickly as the vines that shackled him grew, he cut through them with sheer force. Sunlight, sunset, pitch dark blackness, a sky void of stars. Distantly, he wondered if he should be doing more to help out, more to save the stand and non stand users around him.
Regrettably, he thought to himself, I don’t care.
Something--someone-- was calling to him, something beyond the force of nature. That was, in Giorno’s books, incredibly important. It was akin to how he felt a few months ago, when he boarded an impromptu plane to Florida. He felt a tugging sensation at his heart, but as he looked down, he saw no bodily harm. There was no destruction of his person, or destruction of his mind, which meant that GER could let him out of it’s grasp, if only for a little bit.
“I have warned you,” GER commented with finality before returning back to his body.
Rubbing his wrists, his sight locked in on the ever rotating atmosphere, Giorno tsked.
Come to me, Haruno, The sand seemed to call out to him. Walking along the beach right side up was something he wasn’t quite sure he could manage, but with every step he took, lavender, thick beach grass, and morning glories took root against his feet, keeping him planted in place. He walked as if he were a zombie, entranced by his surroundings, his mind honed in on the burning of his birthmark.
Of all the people that were still alive, which even Giorno has no concrete idea of, none of them were out in the open. The panic in the city had calmed down in the past twenty four hours, but it wasn’t all gone. In the first hour, he had covered the entire city of Naples in tree branches and hemp that he turned into thick rope to help catch any passerby who may have fallen. Trish, who had never officially joined the mafia, but was an insider nonetheless, decided to help their people by turning the rooms of their homes and offices into that rubber like material, keeping everyone in place.
She showed great strength and resolve, and Giorno had never been more pleased with her.
Where are you going, Giorno? GER asked as it floated beside him, curious. Maybe it was studying him. It had never seen this kind of response from him, this kind of betrayal to himself. Maybe, during his last day on Earth, GER had learned something new about him too.
Giorno had always been a walking risk, someone who would die for their cause, a classic martyr in the making-- but his suffering had always had reason, and he had always gotten better. This time is different, though. There’s no coming back from this, he knew.
“I don’t know,” he replied aloud after a moment, honest. “I really don’t know, this time.”
GER said nothing, and remained his silent shadow the rest of the way.
He was still in Naples when he decided to lay down.
The spinning of the Earth had gotten faster within the hour of his lonesome wandering, and the pain in his shoulder had gotten too much to bear.
Clawing ones shirt off in public was something that never crossed Giorno’s mind, but then again, what public was there? Everyone within his view was gone, buildings deserted, and children dead on the street.
His shoulder throbbed where his birthmark lay. The star that seemed to have its own heartbeat.
All that was left was the ocean, his plants, and the calm before the storm.
Haruno, the voice hummed in his mind.
“I’m here,” Giorno croaked, his eyelids twitching open. He was pinned into the sand by gentle vines, laying in a flowerbed of death. “I’m here, whoever you are. If you’ve come to kill me, or love me, now’s your chance.”
Sandy wind dusted his forehead, and he closed his eyes again, just for another moment, relishing in the chaotic silence. He was more than tempted to rip his arm off, as he was sure that would hurt less than what he was currently experiencing.
“Haruno,” a sudden voice-- a mans voice, an English voice!-- said, rather sadly. “Oh, Haruno.”
Giorno felt like he couldn’t breathe. Sitting next to him was a rather bizarre man, who was searching his face like it was the last time they would see each other. There was something about the man, with his black hair and blue eyes and imposing figure. Something that he felt connected to, something that was at the tip of his tongue.
“You came,” said Giorno, softly. He was not surprised that they could communicate with each other, despite the language barriers they so clearly held.
The mans eyes softened impossibly, and he seemed to be nervous. As if Giorno were a stray cat, ready to pounce on what it perceives to be the enemy, the strange man held his hand out, his fingertips just barely touching the younger mans face.
When Giorno moved his head slightly, the man almost jumped back in fear. All the while, the sun and the moon wrapped around them as if they were chasing each other.
“Who are you,” Giorno asked. “Who are you, and how do you know my name.”
“When I found you, you said if I were to kill you or love you, now’s my chance.” The man replied instead, dodging his questions.
The blonde raised an eyebrow, amused. “I don’t think you’re going to kill me, if I’m honest.”
That got a smile out of the stranger, until he too looked up at the sky. “It was never supposed to be like this, you know. I was planning on spending the rest of my life in hell with him, where I would keep him under my watchful eye.” He looked down at the boy in the bed of flowers, and frowned sadly. “I could never begin to describe my love for you, Haruno. It flows through me like the Hamon in our veins. I could only hope, that right now, as you live and breathe, you can accept me too.”
Love. Hamon. Acceptance. What strange words this man speaks to me.
Giorno didn’t respond. He didn’t know what to say. He kind of felt like crying, a little bit.
“I love you, Haruno,” the man said, as if he were in his own world, as if these four words were repeated so often they were a mantra in his mind. Giorno wondered how long he’d been saying these words, how often they come up in speech, and why it was about him specifically.
Before either of them knew it, Golden Experience Requiem lifted from Giorno’s body and made its way over to the stranger. It paused in front of him, searching for just an inkling of threat.
“Hello, you,” the man said, as if he were greeting an old friend.
GER turned its head to Giorno, then back to the strange man, and in its solid expression, emotionless to anyone other than him, it told Giorno what he had been searching for.
This revelation too, didn’t take him by surprise. “You’re my father,” he announced neutrally.
“My name,” said the strange man, his father, “is Jonathan. Jonathan Joestar. And you’re Haruno Shiobana.”
“Call me Giorno,” he asked, tiredly. “I haven’t been Haruno in a very long time.”
“I know,” Jonathan said, the corners of his lips quirking up. “I’ve been watching you for a while now.”
The silence that sat between them was not unwelcome, nor unkind. A question itched at Giorno’s mind, and he asked, rather softly, “My wallet. Will you grab it for me?”
Jonathan nodded slowly, looking like he already knew the dreaded answer to what Giorno was about to ask him, and looked around for Giorno’s discarded dress wear. Once he found the thrown away shirt, he quietly slipped his worn out wallet from a hidden breast pocket.
“Open it for me,” he asked. “Tell me who you see in the photo.”
There had been a time in Giorno’s life, when he was still playing at Haruno, when he discovered a very strange letter addressed to him. There was no note, no return address, nothing to identify who or what gave the letter to him. But when he opened it, all that tumbled out was a single photo. It had been hard to make sense of, in those early years. In the photo was a blonde man, his chiseled back faced towards the camera, where an identical star sat upon his shoulder. He couldn’t see much of his face, for better or for worse. He didn’t even know the name of the man. All that had been written on the back of the photo was a simple, Dad.
“This,” started Jonathan, “is a man. This man…. I fear we don’t have enough time to get into the details, but his name is Dio. And just who Dio is….” Jonathan smiled a watery smile, and Giorno couldn’t help but shift closer to him. “My brother. My enemy. My greatest friend and foe, the only person in the world who truly knew me.”
“Why do I have his picture,” questioned Giorno, who had begun to move closer and closer to Jonathan, his budding flowers moving along with him.
Jonathan, who looked to be about the same age as Giorno, younger, even, shook his head silently. “I don’t know. I would presume my grandson, or even his grandson, sent it your way.”
“I look like him,” he stated, feeling childish with this line of questioning.
“Yes,” he said, almost amused. “Yes, I would think you would look like him. He is after all your father too. In a sense.”
Giorno has had an impossible life, he had done impossible things, and he had loved so hard he thought it would be the death of him. This, however, he could not wrap his aching head around.
“In a sense,” echoed Giorno, confused. He watched with bated breath as Jonathan took the photo out of his belonging, and held it closer to his son’s face.
“See,” he said, pointing a large finger roughly at Dio’s neck. “This is what happened to me, us, after my death. This,” he pointed, “is Dio’s head. He was a vampire, and the only way to kill him was with Hamon and determination.” Jonathan slid a shaky finger down the photo, like he finally understood exactly what he was holding, and how it got into his hands. Taking a deep breath, he said, “This, young man, is my body.”
Giorno’s eyes glanced between photo and person, and when Jonathan caught him staring, he moved some of his hair away, and showed off his neck, which was adorned with burn marks and a deep, gnarly cut.
“I killed him, or,” he said, suddenly breaking off, guilt written plainly across his gentle features, “at least I thought I did. I died before he did, but I was taking him down with me.”
Giorno thought about Bruno, and his decaying body, and how he died to save the world. How often does history repeat itself, he wondered. Quietly, reverently, he felt Jonathan’s hands on his face again, but this time, he was wiping away Giorno’s salty tears.
“Haruno,” said Jonathan, and it sounded like he was about to weep with him. The sky was on fire, and wrapped up in Jonathan’s embrace, he felt as though he couldn’t breathe. The last thing Giorno felt was the cool flowers against his back, and his father’s ghostly hands on his face.