Capitolo Primo: Giovinezza (6)

It was early in the morning, Jonathan was still sleeping and George had just recently started to go through his daily stack of paperwork from his society, leaving the gentleman stuck in his study room until at least breakfast.

Two hours. It was always that much.

It was the first time I found myself waking up at this stage of the way and, despite my careful attempts to have a healthy sleep schedule, I had been so unprepared for the little nightmare I was provided with the night before.

Dinner had been quite delicious and carefully studied as usual before being consumed, thus denying the chances of any external influence to cause this bad dream.

Yet it was easy to know that there was nothing natural within that curious circumstance, especially with what I faced in that sequence.

I was sitting on a well-decorated blue chair, another chair standing right the opposite to mine and a dark-yellow table between the two seats.

We were all floating in unknown darkness that seemed to best represent the true face of nothingness.

I was feeling… numb, unwilling to display any emotion to the figure sitting right in that second chair.

His face was shrouded in shadows, yet I could see his golden locks combed in a spiky style.

He was donning just a pair of yellow pants with green hearts placed by his kneecaps and some pointy shoes going up.

He was humming quietly, his lack of activity urging me to study appearance, his shirtless self as his ripped body just looked far too unnatural to be his own.

There was a white scar by his neck, right to show where Jonathan’s body has been connected to Dio’s head.

I held myself from flinching, it was far too clear who I was looking at.

“Why?”

My lips parted to dispatch the query, unsure of the chances of getting a reply of this grim figure, of one of the greatest fears I had over my plans.

“Incorrect,” DIO replied with a soothing voice. “Truly a wrong question. Far too predictable.”

There was silence, and his smile widened at the confusion finally breaching through my composure, gloating in his quiet amusement over my restrained squirming.

“What do you want?” I asked once again, this time adding more sternness to my words.

He blinked. “What an unruly fool. Do you seriously think that because you were blessed with the ownership of my youthful body, you could just childishly play the part of the rightful beholder of the Heavens?”

My orange eyes narrowed over the glimmering golden orbs finally reducing the effects of the shadows.

“Yes,” I stated firmly, mustering every inch of my inner bravery to stand up to this mockery of a dream.

There was no chance that this was a real situation.

If it had been DIO Over Heaven, then yes I would have been genuinely feared the worst considering his immense hold over dimensional-hopping, but I knew for a fact that this wasn’t the case.

This… whatever it was, it wasn’t something that was happening for real.

“Yet your left foot is twitching,” The vampire pointed out dully, his smile dropping to a little scowl. “Your toes are wriggling in what could easily be seen as fear.”

I didn’t back down from this, having noticed myself just a moment ago about the situation and… I was prepared to reply in kind.

“I guess that I still need to train my body to better resist the dreadful air you have around yourself,” I managed to state with some difficulty. “In fact, I think my soul is far from quivering at your irritating presence.”

He blinked. “Ho ho? You think that you can hide your emotions from me?” DIO mused with some fascination. “I’m easily perceiving your fear through that shallow thing you call courage.”

“Heh-” I smiled madly at his comment, causing him to give a curious look right at my reaction. “Then you truly have steeped so low in recognizing the magnitude of emotions, about what truly courage is.”

“And you have taken the annoying habit of mocking your betters, you pathetic mongrel,” He said, his hold over the right armchair causing the bit to crack and shatter at his strength. “Maybe you should-”

“Did losing your soul to the Mask truly affect your capacity to think?” I interjected with a morbid tone of voice.

He blinked, dropping his irritated look to show some surprise at my bravado.

“You think you can afford to make these remarks? Do you think you can challenge me, DIO, with your rebellious effort?” The vampire pressed on, trying to gain my fear with his intense stare. “The Stone Mask was an instrument to accelerate the means to attain victory over my foes-”

“But it failed to give you the same perspective as a mere human,” I pointed out snidely. “You were literally going blind with every decision after donning that hideous tool from the Pillar Men, failing to grasp the stupidity you would then commit on multiple occasions.”

“There’s no such thing as-”

“First you decided to fight Jonathan when you could have gotten him kill in other fashion instead of personally,” I continued with a bored gaze directed at his growing scowl. “Then you decided to play around with Jotaro.”

“JoJo was my foe! As if I would have deprived myself of the delicious sight of seeing him fall before my brutality-”

“Yet I recall he had you beat thrice before dying.”

DIO snarled at the interjection but he seemed to hold himself well enough to try again.

“Hamon had been a cheap trick that proved to be complicated without proper preparation.”

“Which you would have countered if you had considered it way beyond a simple ‘trick’,” I chided lightly, staring for a moment at my hands while remembering the power flowing in my veins as I first awakened the Ripple. “You could have beaten him by being serious, yet you had to become emotional over killing the last obstacle to world domination-”

“SHUT UP!” The vampire shouted while slamming his closed fist on the table, creating some cracks onto it but giving me just some minor nervousness as… he was still not attacking me.

My theory that this was all a fake moment in my mind giving me more strength with my initiative in roast the hell out of this faux blond.

"But I suppose your fight with Jotaro has to have some serious reason to see you lose to a mere seventeen years old with a weaker Stand than ｢The World｣,” I mused with a giddy smile on my face, enjoying way too much seeing the now-red face of the effeminate vampire… I sure was not going to turn into. “It certainly has nothing to do with the fact you literally played around with him until he surprisingly ‘won’ because of the ‘Same-Stand’ bullshit that got him to learn ｢The World｣’s ability. Heck, even someone as ‘mere mortal’ like Pucci managed to kill a more experienced Jotaro!”

“He shouldn’t have developed a connection with me! He should have perished like he did against Pucci and yet-”

“You still decided to be a fucking moron about it all, Mr. Gasper Vladi, by delaying your ultimate victory until you were defeated-”

SLAM

“-!!”

My commentary was interrupted abruptly when I saw a certain yellow-colored humanoid appear right in front of the table, its cold eyes fixed onto my face as ｢The World｣ stared down at me.

DIO looked incredibly livid after the verbal beating he had sustained, possibly far more incensed than any brutal beating either Jonathan or Jotaro could have given him in his past life.

“I’ve given you plenty of space to bring around this mockery of a speech,” The fellow blond quietly and furiously commented. “An insane spiel, one that only someone that has failed to grasp the reality of his possible demise.”

I tensed as I saw the Stand close its right hand in a fist, cocking it a little and… prompting me to search right by my little blue jacket.

I grasped the steel ball, the sensation giving me a certain degree of relief over the chances offered at this range.

…

“But you are correct with this statement.”

I blinked at the sudden disappearance of ｢The World｣ and my attention subsequently returned to DIO- No, wait!

The smug smirk that was now present on my interlocutor’s face was associated with a shorter and slimmer figure, he was wearing the same clothes as mine and my orange eyes were matched with his own pair.

“DIO failed to reach the Heavens, only Pucci formally attaining that state of omnipotence for so little time, and now you are stuck in dealing with the newer odds for your very attempt,” My doppelganger mirthfully summarized. “Facing new odds, new problems and… the pity of keeping our morality intact.”

I frowned at the last bit. “Becoming a vampire wouldn’t-”

“We could become the Ultimate Being, if we try well enough we-”

“Would die because of sunlight and Hamon Users.” I concluded with an angry whisper.

There was a pause and he sighed. “I think you are merely afraid of the costs-”

“Considering how self-destructive that road is with DIO’s example, I think there are other means to achieve control over the Heavens.”

“Then why aren’t you trying to search more about her lullaby?” The clone inquired with the same infuriating smile on his face.

…

“What are you-”

“The ritual,” He interrupted again. “Giotto, Fig Tart, Ghost Town…-”

“I wonder what is the secret key.”

My hand rushed to my mouth, eyes widening as I parroted his last sentence without even thinking about it.

A chuckle rising from the other Dio sending me in a bout of shivers.

“We both would want to know that,” The doppelganger stood out of his chair and crouched beside me. “No, you only want to know that.”

A blink, I was alone and unseated while I fell towards the abyss below me.

My sight failing me for several moments, my panic surging exponentially at the closure of this dream before my eyes were…

Blinking back to the real world, finding myself drawn back to my bedroom with my body sweating profusely at that horrible nightmare.

What did I face there? It had to be something from within.

A lingering spirit of the former owner? Some hallucination over the circumstances that took me there?

No, it would have happened much earlier and… not this suddenly.

I was confused- no, I was floored over the predicament itself, feeling fairly defenseless over the possible recurring visions I might be experiencing.

A message? It had to be a sign, but what was that and why it was important now?

It was connected to the lullaby somehow, something about that very period of time awakening a ‘need’ to pursuit the non-negligible queries shrouding the Lullaby’s mystery.

Why did Dio’s mother use these incomprehensible words to compose a soothing song for her child?

Some words were even beyond her time or even beyond her illiterate knowledge, so how did she even attain the capacity to muster them so eagerly and so certain of its meaning as proper part of a lullaby?

I had to make some serious research over the matter and that is why, despite the little nagging craving for some more sleep, I decided to pursue an early trip to the library of the Joestar Mansion.

Knowing about George’s passion to recover artifacts and tomes detailing supernatural beings and circumstances from the various corners of the known world, I decided to lose myself in the search of any book that could have even so remotely been connected to the fourteen words.

I browsed for any references for the Bow and Arrow first and foremost, contemplating any quick correlation between the two topics as Stands were important for the ritual and I found nothing about it.

I found some fragments contemplating the existence of the objects somewhere in Egypt, which I was already aware of and thus making the little news barely important in that precise moment, but soon I ended up reading a particularly thick-volume detailing a mythological tale I had been unaware about.

This was already odd.

While I couldn’t say that I knew the entire world’s mythologies, I made a major focus of studies over the religions developing in the Mediterranean cultures and the story itself was something that I’ve never heard during my studies.

Still, I decided to religiously give attention to all details of the various pages and I quickly noticed that the tome was all written in Latin, thus rendering the lecture of the text fairly slow.

It was possibly the copy of the original masterwork, created by one of the priests assigned to the translation and corrections of ancient tomes from the former Roman Empire during the medieval ages.

I spent the two hours of peace I had in translating the first two pages and a half from the book, getting just a glimpse at the introduction allowed by the mysterious author.

The ‘Mystery of the Sagittarius’ revolved around a major prophecy proclaimed by the ‘beholder of the mystical weapons’, tools used to bring forth the ‘mythical nature of men’s souls’ and that were of interest for many important characters before the birth of Christ.

The introduction was just a summary of the tale, lacking anything about the full content of the prophecy itself or about the ‘happening of some grand war among men of various countries’.

Just as I closed the book, ready to make my way to the dining room, I turned my attention to my right and… I was bestowed with a close-up of a smiling Jonathan.

The sight was enough to get me to jump off my chair and fall on the floor. “Gah, why did you-!!”

I stopped carefully trying to push my concentration over standing up before giving the greatest of glares at JoJo… only to see the teen having taken several steps back while also giving me a sheepish smile at the development.

“I wanted to tell you that breakfast is ready and father got us a chocolate cake to share-”

He tensed up as I took a step towards him, my face dignifying some anger at the sudden jumpscare and…

He turned around and ran away.

“I didn’t mean to scare you, Dio!!” JoJo yelled while giving himself a futile advantage for the ensuing chase.

It seems like I would have to continue to traduce this tome on a latter date, maybe after I was done making Jonathan’s existence a hell of teases and funny verbal probing once I was done with the plans I had for today about Erina.

----------d-d-d-d-------------d-d-d-d-----------d-d-d-d-------------

“What? Why can’t we go for the next lesson?”

I sighed as I tried to drown away the whines coming from Jonathan.

We were once again by the little river section that we had been using for some time now as a place to practice some swimming, and this time I had in mind some peculiar escalations that not even JoJo could have thought about.

I was waiting to commence the proper lesson, yet it wasn’t going to be a new one as the young Joestar had expected as I was waiting for someone else before starting.

“Can you at least tell me why aren’t we even doing anything right now?” He whined again, causing me to suppress once more the need to reprimand him harshly.

While George’s antiquate attitude in punishing his son for misbehaving might be wrong, Jonathan sure wasn’t making a good case for himself with how much of an infuriating moron he could be when he wanted to.

I was seriously tempted to remind him that the whip was still a tool I knew the location about, just to make him back down with his annoying attempts of distract me, but then I saw her finally approaching from the distance.

The blonde was donning the same swimsuit that she had back during the little montage of scenes she spent together with Jojo in the anime, the little purple-white one that had a little skirt-like frilly detail by her stomach.

She was holding a little basket with some clothes in them and I waved at her in the distance, causing the girl to blush a little while trying to wave back in quite the shy manner.

Once she was close enough, I greeted her properly. “Good afternoon, Erina.”

“G-Good afternoon, Dio and...” She bowed a little in Jonathan’s direction, the boy looking quite surprised by the planned intrusion and was silent as she nodded right at him.

But that silence? I couldn’t afford the moron to lose chances now so early.

“JoJo, can you please stop staring at Erina and greet her back?” I huffed as I concluded the little pressure, noticing the blonde now blushing a little more at the comment while the young Joestar nodded and made a few steps toward the two of us.

“I’m sorry for not greeting you early on,” He said while giving a sheepish look at the still-embarrassed. “I was just not expecting-”

“I-It’s alright,” She jumped in quickly, shaking her head at his apologetic tone. “I- Dio told me that it would have been alright for me-”

I sighed as I was seeing quite a plane crash before my eyes and now I was sure where Joseph got his gig in crashing airplanes.

“I met Erina yesterday while I had gone for that early swim I talked you about,” I intervened, getting a quick nod from Jonathan. “By the way, how is your leg?”

Her mouth formed a thin line about being interrupted so suddenly but she gave a little smile at the concern I was showing about that subject.

“It’s fine,” She said with a stabler tone. “I told Papa that one of the workers helped me with cleaning the little wound and he himself applied some ointment to get it properly fixed by the morning.”

Jojo blinked. “You were wounded?” He asked with what I could describe as the prelude of some gentleman-ish attitude.

“I-I tripped while trying to climb a tree,” The girl blurted nervously, glancing at me in surprise as she wasn’t supposed to tell him but I merely nodded her.

“She was trying to get some acorns from one of the tree’s branches,” I continued for her, drawing the boy’s attention back at me. “But she slipped and fell on some thorny bush, getting some shallow injury on her leg that is now fixed.

I looked down at the spot and it was indeed mostly invisible to my eyes, only some little lines on her skin remaining as a sign of the wound.

“B-But weren’t you afraid of slipping and hurting yourself while climbing the tree?” Jonathan pressed on with a hint of awe, almost endeared by this whole situation and-

Oh right, I almost forgot that Joestars do love strong women in their lives.

“A little,” Erina admitted shyly. “But Papa told me that fear of the maybe shouldn’t stop me from still giving a try to things.”

“That sounds like a good life advice,” I commented positively. “There are some hefty obstacles created just by fear along our lives and we need to be just brave in those occasions to find happiness.”

The two teens nodded at my words and I smiled.

“A-Also, I wanted to apologize for running away last time and… I have your handkerchief here.”

She took the small piece of cloth from the folded dress she had in her basket, handing it to the boy as he gave her a thankful smile at the little gesture.

The two smiled at each other, with Jojo clueless about the inner turmoil within Erina and the blonde appearing a little elated about concluding this little tense situation that had been going for some days now.

Without wasting further time, I decided to interrupt this little moment they were sharing together to begin the second step of my simple plan.

“And now we shall move to the reason why there will be no new reason today, JoJo.”

The Joestar nodded again, this time showing some confusion as I indicated at the girl.

“Erina here has asked me if it could be possible for me to teach her how to swim,” I explained with a careful tone. “But since I feel like you have yet to master the basic lessons after so long, I think it would be nice if you were the one teaching her just the first two lessons.”

His blue eyes widened in surprise and the girl’s entire face was flaring a lovely red at the little situation I had created for them to experience on their own.

“Y-You mean that I’ve to help her with-”

“You need to help her about the basics of swimming, and I expect a gentleman-like attitude from you, Jojo,” I interjected with a serious voice. “I don’t think it would be fair for a fair maiden like Erina to be subjected to any behavior I think you know could be considered childish.”

The little lecture managed to get the boy to straighten up his posture and nod diligently as he carefully helped the blonde in the water and… looked at me with an odd look.

“What about you, Dio?” He asked confused. “Aren’t you going to enter the water?”

I shook my head. “I think I will leave you two alone for a while so that you get accustomed with each other’s company,” I replied with a serious nod, hiding the little smug smirk at the fact I was helping the two grow closer to each other by leaving them alone for a while. “I will be back in about two minutes from now and I hope I don’t find you making anything that could get me to chide you, Jojo.”

I had yet to seriously condemn the young Joestar, only a few times did I have to point out some of his flaws but I had never gotten as far as to resemble the tone his father would use while punishing him.

He seemed to recognize the silent message I was sending him and Erina merely nodded, sporting the ghost of a smirk at the little chance she got to spend alone with the young man.

I proceeded to walk deeper in the foliage, realizing just a little after leaving their eyesight that I was starting to get cold at the fact… I was wearing just my swimsuit.

Once I was enough away from the lovebirds-in-progress, I decided to try my hand in creating a little fire without getting this little forest burned in the process.

Placing some pebbles in a circle and some fallen branches inside the little shape, I tried to ignite the resulting structure with two unused branches and, after about twenty minutes of trials, it started to work properly.

The limited flame was well-contained by the pebbles and I was offered some warmth by the new heat source, giving me the chance to take a seat by the ground and enjoy some peace in my loneliness.

I meditated, my objective being reaching the core of my energy, the Ripple burning from within my soul and waiting to be used properly.

I felt the energy accumulate all over my arms, my breathing becoming almost non-existing as the weird noise accustomed to the ability turned suave and easy to ignore as I stared with limited attention at the crackles of electricity passing through my limbs.

The strange sensation those were creating, bringing vitality to my sleepy body and nullifying the effects of the little sleep I had yesterday, while also warming my entire body a little more than what the flame could have given me.

Just as I started to get better in manipulating the various electric particles between my fingertips, I was tempted to try and attempt to manipulate fire with the Hamon.

It was possible, only difficult to master without particular attention.

I knew that it was tempting fate now by ‘skipping grades’ to get some interesting ability going with the Ripple, but since I was nearby a river I felt like I could give it a try.

I hovered three fingers of my left hand over the fire, starting to approach it closer as I prepared for some early failure which could result in some minor but treatable burns.

Before I could give it a true attempt, I noticed the flame bending a little down as if it was receiving some wind from above directed downward…

But there was no wind!!

I acted on instinct, pushing some hamon in my legs and jumping to the side as I felt a little pressure from above trying to descend onto me.

As I dodged the intruder, I noticed the short figure plunging down near the fire and… starting to get some flames spreading over his exotic dress.

I tensed up, forcing myself to stand and adopt some guarded posture as I continued to stare at the unexpected attacker recovering from the fire on his clothes.

“Hehehehe...” The figure chuckled dementedly, adjusting his claws properly before taking a stare at me, part of his dress still smoking a little from the close encounter with a fiery and stupid death.

A befitting death for someone like Wang Chan.

The short Chinese man grinned eye to eye at me and nodded. “Dio! Look at you, you… were quick!”

I frowned as the figure, trying to appear friendly after trying to cleave me in half with the crazy claws of his.

“S-Spare me the pleasantries, Wang Chan,” I snarled at him, trying to hide the fact I just stutter. “Why did you come here to attack me?”

The shopkeeper hummed quietly, staring up and faking a pondering face before nodding. “Oh yes, I think you are not Dio.”

...What?!

“What madness are you talking-”

“Oh, there is no need to lie,” The Chinese man muttered with a smug tone. “I realize that it must be surprising to know that your identify has been revealed. In fact, I was surprised myself when I noticed that your aura was different.”

I took a step back. “You are raving, you pathetic-”

“Not only can’t I perceive the degree of delightful evil little Dio was so keen to sport from the bottom of his heart,” Wang Chan interrupted, ignoring the insult I was throwing at him. “But you also have a level of resolution in your actions that makes you even more disgusting.”

What was he talking about?

While in the show he did have the means to measure the evilness or the goodness of people, he shouldn’t have been able to discern this truth out of such a flimsy ‘test’.

“Evil matters little if there isn’t chaos to temperate it in the bloody shows that I aspire to see,” The man stated while giving a quick stroke of his mustaches. “You are too ‘stiff’, too stuck in those petty moral rules that-”

He stopped and suddenly jumped in action with his claws poised to lunge towards me.

“Makes me feel sick inside!”

I didn’t have any steel balls on me and Hamon couldn’t be used to harm humans, putting me in quite the difficult circumstance since he was approaching very quickly.

With little time to think, I tried to find any technique that I could use to at least deflect the attack or dodge in time and… I blinked.

How could I be this much forgetful about that.

It was a risky maneuver, but one that could be pulled with accurate attention and focus, something that I got from training with the Spin.

I cocked my left arm, closing my fist and throwing a punch towards the man’s undefended face, still far away for his claws to come and hinder my attempt.

As my arm stretched fully, I forced it to rotate a little and-

Crack.

-got it dislocated.

A smile appeared on Wang Chan’s face, the shopkeeper thinking I had failed whatever defensive move I had planned to use but… failing to notice that I was already pumping the Ripple into my damaged arm.

Crac-

Crac-

Crac-

CRACK!

MUDA!

Surprise was painted on the attacker’s expression mere moments before my fist slammed on his exposed head, my arm having lengthened its reach by making use of Zeppeli’s own Zoom Punch.

The sudden impact was enough to get the malicious bastard to get sent away from pursuing another attack, slamming his back on the ground with wide eyes staring up at the sky and a bloody nose.

Meanwhile, my arm retracted back to its original position, the Hamon quickly healing the self-inflicted damage and leaving just some minor pain after concluding its action.

My orange eyes were upon the unmoving Wang Chang, having felt quite the loud crack from the impact and slightly hoping that the counter had broken his neck.

I tried to take a step closer to see if this was the case but, just as I tried to lift my right foot, I felt it restrained to the ground.

I glanced down and my eyes widened in shock at the strange shadow-like substance locking my feet stuck.

“Hehehehehehehehe!!” The shopkeeper started to laugh maniacally, jumping and standing up while fixing his nose. “Truly a brilliant and unexpected attempt. Sadly, you are not the only one capable of making use of ‘special spells’.”

I tried to shake my feet away from the substance, but I couldn’t get it moving as the Chinese man started to approach once more, this time calmly.

“Still, fair play, your little resistance will make it more pleasurable for me to murder you before slaughtering the boy and girl nearby.”

I tensed up, vigor urging me to crack through this limitation.

But before I could try to make use of my own Ripple, I felt a golden shockwave rush the floor where I was standing and shattering the little shadow-like mud around my feet.

I felt someone looming over me and I glanced behind to see a certain Tibetan man staring down at Wang Chan.

Muddiburi glared fiercely at the now uneasy-looking bastard, the shorter man taking a step back and chuckling nervously. “W-Would you look at that, you have a very strong friend too!”

He giggled and nodded. “I guess my attempt is a fluke… well, at least I gave it an effort.”

He turned around and waved at the two of us. “Bye bye, Dio and tall man. Next time I will slaughter you, boy~.”

A blink and… he was gone.

“W-What?” I blurted in shock at the sudden disappearance, my composure finally breaking now that the threat was gone.

“He is a dangerous fool,” Muddiburi muttered with a disdained tone, then he glanced down at me with a softened stare, one of his big hands reaching the top of my hand. “That was an interesting application of the Ripple.”

I blinked and gave a quick nod, a little relieved that he wasn’t suspicious over it. “I-I had it developed yesterday while I was practicing.”

“But it isn’t enough to keep up with this powerful opponent,” He replied with some uncertainty. “He used foul magic and it’s imperative to see him killed the next time you find yourself dealing with him.”

I nodded but he squeezed at my head a little to stop.

“This means that you will have to train more seriously and with me,” The Tibetan shopkeeper ordered with a sterner voice. “Your current abilities, albeit fascinating for a novice, are not enough to allow you a fight against such a foe.”

“But how-”

“Here,” He bluntly interrupted. “At this specific time of the day, I will find myself there. It shouldn’t be difficult to find an excuse to leave the young Mr. Joestar with young Ms. Pendleton.”

My mouth now closed at hearing the comment, I had a confused frown as I stared up at him once again.

“Are you… reading my mind?”

He blinked, looking to be particularly serious in that moment and-

“No.”

I felt some relief at the discovery but just as he removed his hand from my hand and started to retreat, Muddiburi hummed. “But maybe yes.”

He jumped, rushing away from the foliage and back on the road directed away from the mansion and back to London, leaving me to stare at his retreating form with my jaws close to drop at the floor.

I, Dio, might have been trolled by a Tibetan Hamon User with a penchant for mind-reading after all.

-To be continued…