Chapter 2 – Floating, Sinking, Swimming

In her dream, she was floating above Morioh, watching all the people rush about, cars like toys on the winding roads. She felt like she could point to anyone of those little people, and tell an observer all about them. Who they were, what they wanted. Where they came from, and where they were going.

She found she didn't have to look at the roads to know where they lead, the knowledge was already a part of her. The amount each business made, net and gross, monthly and yearly flashed through her mind. The amount of times a light would turn red over the next half hour. And just as quickly, the information was gone again.

A woman named Kira Kyo was walking home after she finished buying groceries. The shirt she wore had been made in Taiwan, by an unmarried woman named Fen. Kyo would take a left, two rights, a left and continue straight until she reached her apartment building, which was situated on the right. Kyo, in theory, shared the apartment with her mother Holly, who was a doctor. Holly was in the hospital. Not as a doctor, but a patient. Her brain was damaged, and it wouldn't be fixed by any of the means available to the hospital staff.

On a different street Higashikata Jobin was running. His Quirk was speed (capable of short bursts of 120 kph), his Stand was Speed King (capable of heating objects to extreme temperatures), and like nearly every Stand-wielding hero (or villain) he'd taken the name of his Stand as his hero name. He was chasing a villain through the streets, and would arrive at said villains location in approximately two minutes.

Also, Yasuho was choking.

It took her a moment to realise she wasn't floating anymore, but was instead being restrained. Her arms were pinned behind her, and there was mud in her mouth.

She kicked out and in, without any plan, lost in her sudden desperation. What- oh that's right. She'd crashed into someone, and… had she been stabbed?

A quick glance confirmed that, yes, there was indeed an arrow sticking out of her clavicle. She didn't have the coherence necessary to wonder why it wasn't bleeding more. For a brief moment she just kept struggling and choking, before regaining enough lucidity to figure out her liquid opponent wouldn't be harmed by kicks.

Luckily for her, her arms were already behind her back. All she had to do was point backwards, and blast water through the villain.

His hold went immediately, along with the rest of him as he lost physical coherency and was scattered backwards. The reprieve was a short one, however, as the villain quickly reconstituted himself with the aid of his Quirk. Yasuho took a defensive stance, hands angled out to fire more water from her own Quirk, but the sludge villain took a different approach this time.

An odd looking figure materialised next, looking like some sort of boxer robot, covered in hearts.

"What on earth is that?"

"You can see it? Well, you were just pierced by the arrow, I suppose. This, girl, is my Stand: Crazy Diamond."

Yasuho's mind was running at a mile a minute. She knew what Stands were, her education had covered that (albeit more briefly than Quirks, due to the rarity of Stands) but she'd never been able to see them before! And what, exactly, did the arrow have to do with it?

"I'm in a bit of a hurry, girl, so I'll make this quick. I can't risk him catching up to me. Crazy Diamond!"

The Stand responded to its master's call, leaping forward, fist extended. Yasuho managed to duck in time (barely), but the thing was so damn fast, she didn't see any way of winning without some sort of Stand of her own. After all, only a Stand can damage another Stand.

Resolving to focus on the physical villain, rather than his power, she pointed her hands again. This time, she focused her aim. If he could just reconstitute himself after his body was blasted apart, then she'd have to hit his head.

It felt like time was slowing down, Crazy Diamond's fist was incoming and Yasuho hoped against hope that she could hit the villain before the stand did whatever it was going to do.

And then Crazy Diamond became distorted, and pieces started to break off of it. A few metres away from them, the sludge villain began screeching, steaming, and evaporating. Until finally, there was nothing left of him but some sort of white disk, his stand nowhere to be seen. Why did that disk seem so similar? Was it related to the one that she'd found with Josuke?

Yasuho didn't have time to try and contemplate what that disk could be, because something was wrong with her too. It felt like she was on fire underneath her skin; there was a burning sensation in her throat. Was this the same heat that had evaporated the villain? That must be the case. Clearly she was under attack. She clawed at her neck, to no avail, as the world spun around her and went dark yet again.

It didn't last for long, however. She soon awoke to a hand tapping her cheek.

She tried to open her eyes, but the at first everything was far too bright. Her head was pounding, and she felt like she was spinning- or maybe it was the world spinning around her.

"Are you okay? You were passed out on the sidewalk."

Blearily, she blinked a few times, letting her eyes adjust to the light. Standing above her was Higashikata Jobin.

And right next to him, clear as day, was Speed King.


The call had not been unexpected, truth be told. Kyo had always known where her brother's tendency for plotting and picking fights would lead him. Stand users attracted other Stand users, after all, and with Yoshikage's disposition, it had only been a matter of time.

That didn't mean she'd been prepared for it. Jotaro was still unresponsive, her mother was in the hospital, and all that was left of Yoshikage was a pallid facsimile of a person. She was alone.

She liked being alone, true, but there was a difference between solitude and isolation. The former was something you sought yourself, and the latter was imposed. She felt like she was in a pit, sinking deeper, and try as she might to claw her way up the walls, the dirt just fell off into her hands.

She'd never been overly emotional, a trait she shared with her brothers, but now she wondered if maybe that had been a result of habit, rather than an aspect inherent to her personality. Perhaps she'd just kept compiling all of the various slights and miseries a person experiences over the natural course of their life, stuffing them into a reservoir of negativity. And now that was it. A straw had broken the camel's back. The boy from the old fable broke yet another hole in the dam, but this time he hadn't bothered to plug it with a finger.

This was just the latest in another string of miseries, she told herself, and not necessarily even the worst. She and Yoshikage had never been that close, all things considered. She would grieve the loss of her mother so much more. She did, in fact, as the inevitability crested the horizon. But now, what would be left afterwards? It felt like each day just brought worse news. Monday it would cloud, Tuesday it would rain, and Wednesday the waves would reach massive heights and shatter her home and her peace, and she'd be left picking up splinters in the deluge.

She'd met him. Of course she had, to sate her curiosity if nothing else. It wasn't the same. There were none of the snide remarks, the witticisms, the cold, subtly amused glances.

He'd asked if he should take the name Kira Yoshikage. Some of her distaste must have shown on her face, because he'd shelved the thought quickly. They'd mostly just been silent, the whole time.

She wasn't really sure what he was doing, honestly. Maybe he was squatting in Yoshikage's apartment. Who knew where he got his food from.

She didn't ask. She just sank deeper into the pit.


The boat ride was, as expected, thoroughly fucking abysmal. Annasui and Hermes. It was always Annasui and Hermes. Why couldn't they be more like Weather, and keep their fucking mouths shut. At least Emporio was chill. Why was her kid friend so much less drama than her adult friends?

"Hey, JoJo! Look at all the water! This is great, can we stay out here for like, ever?"

Well, at least FF was having fun. Jolyne watched as the pseudo-girl took a running leap off the side of the ship, belly flopping with a loud smack. She had to wince at the sheer force.

"Hey, JoJo."

"Yes, Hermes?"

"We're best friends, right?"

"Yes, Hermes."

"So why do you get mad at my perfectly innocent antics, but not Foo's?

"Because Foo isn't a jaded snark slinging prison gremlin."

"Shit, you right." The four of them (Emporio and Weather were there too, just blessedly silent) watched FF swim around for a minute. It was nice.

"Hey, Jolyne!"

Why did God hate her?

"Yes, Annasui?"

"Why are you just letting those things swim around? Who knows what could happen!" She gave him a blank stare.

"Foo is plankton. She'll be fine."

"I'm not worried about her. What if the Japanese coast guard or whatever see her? Our stealth would be blown, and they'd try to arrest us."

"I mean… if that's what you're worried about, we should probably get away from the railing too. And below deck." Emporio said.

"Shit, you right."

"Yeah, now that you mention it… Hey, Foo! Sorry, but we're gonna need you to get back up here."

The girl in question had a bit of trouble getting back aboard, of course. Jolyne ended up having to give her a hand. Literally, she turned her arm to string, grasped FF, and reeled her back up the side.

Of course, once she was back aboard, Hermes began snickering under her breath. What was so- ah. Jolyne hadn't really noticed, but despite her arm reattaching itself, the two of them were still holding each other's hands. Christ, and she wonders why Jolyne gets frustrated by her.

"JoJo? What's wrong? Why'd I have to come back up?" Foo asked. Jolyne noticed she was bizarrely dry in spite of her swim. Must've been her water absorption at work.

"We're going to stay below deck. We're not too far out from our destination, and we can't risk being spotted by the authorities."

"Oooh, that makes sense." With that, FF let go and skipped off to the doorway.

They all piled in, and walked down the stairs 'til they were below deck.

"Well, since we're all together right now, this seems as good a time as any. I've been meaning to bring this up, actually."

"What's up, Emporio?"

"Well it's just… does anyone here actually speak Japanese?"

Everyone paused. Jolyne tentatively raised a hand.

"I mean, I'm part Japanese. So I got taught a little. I can read kana and maybe two hundred kanji, and also hold a conversation. Almost."

"You can read two hundred? That's so many!"

"Trust me Hermes, it really isn't."

Emporio brought out his ghost computer with his Stand.

"Yeah, according to this, you have to be able to read about four thousand to be considered literate. Regardless, the reason I'm bringing this up with everyone, and not just Jolyne, is this: we're all going to need at least a basic understanding of the language if we're going to be in the country."

Annasui scoffed.

"I'm sorry to burst your bubble, kid, but that ship has sailed. We've already left the US, where we might've been able to take Japanese classes. Besides, even if we hadn't, we're wanted fugitives. It's not as though we can even sign up for classes in the first place, our faces are all over the news. We're gonna just have to leave this one to Jolyne."

"Yeah, Annasui has a point. Huh." Hermes paused, and screwed up her face. "That felt really weird to say."

"But you're all missing the obvious. I have a computer. We can simply go to a website for learning Japanese. It won't make us fluent, or even conversational, but we'll be able to learn enough to get by. I've actually been doing it since before we left, and I think I've got a decent handle on it."

"Ugh. Look, brat, I'm here to fight, not hold a bunch of conversations with whatever fucking randos we meet."

"Yeah, I have to agree with Annasui." Jolyne said.

"Really?" Emporio asked, shocked.

"In the sense that Annasui, specifically, should be exempt. We don't really want him being our people person."

Hermes turned to the man in question. "You gonna take that, dude?"

He shrugged. "I'm aware of how my behaviour comes off. I just don't care."

"If we're exempting people on the basis of their… sociability, may I also be excused?" Weather Report mumbled.

"Yeah, sure. So, that leaves Foo, Hermes, Emporio and me. Wait, hold on, you said we'd take lessons online?"

"Yeah."

"Do… do we have internet on this ship?"

"No, but my ghost computer has ghost internet."

"That sounds like bullshit, but I'll go with it. So like, just spitballing here, but it could theoretically go to any website, not just, y'know, the language teaching ones."

"Uh, yeah? Jolyne, where are you going with this?"

"And like, realistically speaking, we'd have to be alone with the computer when we're studying. 'Cause I figure the others would just be a distraction."

"Well I actually thought we could do a study group, so that everyone can help each other out with the complicated parts, but yeah, self-study would probably also be involved. Why does that matter?"

"I'll tell you when you're older." Next to her Annasui and Hermes snickered.

"Why are they laughing? Hey, Jolyne, what's the joke?" Foo looked to her hopefully. Weather just shook his head.

"And you say I act classless." Hermes said with a grin.

"Hey, I'll have you know I build a lotta stress bein' group mom for this circus sideshow."

"JoJo." Hermes gave her a look. "You aren't the group mom. Emporio is."

"Shit, you right."


Author's notes

Just a few brief points

1. I'll be sort of skipping through scenes that happen the same as canon. In the sense that I'll provide enough info to make it clear that it happened, but I won't be giving a play by play for something we've already read/watched. (Like how I only had a few paragraphs for the Stand user in the apartment)

2. Midoriya won't be in this. I like him, much more than most shounen protagonists, but I feel he'd overshadow the story and the rest of the cast, and would naturally push the storyline into resembling BNHA canon too much.

3. Regarding Kyo. I feel like she's a little too 'meh' about losing her brother and her mother in canon. Also, her name is Kira in this because she hasn't gone undercover as the Higashikata's maid, and thus has no reason to take the name Nijimura.

4. From now on, I'll be updating on Wednesdays.