Dio circled his double warily, his steps uneven and wobbly. "You wanted this to happen," he spat. "You wanted me to hurt him. To bring him here."
He double shrugged.
"Why? Why put me through this? Why put him through this?"
"When have I ever been opposed to cruelty?"
Dio glared at him. "I have some standards."
His double smiled. "No, you're just sentimental."
Dio forced himself to breathe in, out. "No. To do this... you… you're not even my double, then. You're—"
"Better," his double replied.
"Worse," Dio snarled.
"What are you thinking?" His double tilted his head. "Do you think you can simply change the past? Do you think you can let Jonathan live a full life? Did you think that my lesson for you was that you had to change something?"
Dio stared at him with his jaw tightly clenched.
"Fate is what it is," his double said. "I wanted to show you that it is unavoidable. You did, in fact, change the course of history in several ways by putting on the stone mask. You certainly wouldn't want to cause a paradox by not doing so, correct?"
Dio didn't respond, so his double continued. "I'll tell you what. I'll put you both back within the mansion, at the time right after Jonathan returns from Ogre Street. You'll put on the mask, all will continue as it always had, and once you are done, I'll allow you to get back to hunting down the Stand Arrows. I'll even sweeten the deal. After you convince Speedwagon to help, I'll give the arrows right to you. No more bumbling around in Morioh. You'll unlock your next ability. What you do from then onwards will be up to you."
Dio took a lurching step forward. "I don't believe you."
His double rolled his eyes. "Don't believe me about what? Fate, the arrows, or all of it?"
Dio tripped and fell into a crouch. His stomach roiled.
His double tutted and leaned over him. "Look at the state of you. You drank yourself sick. You were supposed to visit your father's house, not impersonate him."
"I'm going to kill you," Dio hissed between tightly-grit teeth.
"Oh? Is that so?" His double crossed his arms. "How would you do that? Do tell. I'm so curious. If you're too intoxicated to realize it, I'll remind you that you are only human."
Dio glared up at him, his eyes burning with hatred.
His double smiled and lifted a hand. "Oh, you're perfect," he practically purred. "Look at you, plotting away. I look forward to seeing what you come up with. But in the meantime," he said, and his hand swung downward with a blinding light; Dio was now back within the Joestar mansion. His double was gone.
The stone mask was in his left hand. A knife was in his right. Jonathan stood in front of him, gripping a set of handcuffs. To their left, Speedwagon and the police squadron observed. To their right, the moon sent silver beams through the tall glass window.
Time began again.
Dio moved to stab Jonathan. As always, George Joestar leapt forward to take the blow.
George's blood slicked onto the mask. Dio pressed his face into the stone and jolted as the spikes pierced his skull. His vision wavered. A spray of bullets sent him stumbling. He could just barely peer through the mask as he crashed through the window.
The look of pain on Jonathan's face would have been worth it, once.
He felt the ground drop from beneath him. Instead of landing on the Joestar estate lawn, he landed on a tile floor lit harshly by overhead lights. The stone spikes slid out of his skull. He felt his bullet wounds healing. He rolled onto his side and let the mask fall off his face and clatter to the floor. He grit his teeth, curled his fingers into a fist, and hit the ground hard enough to shatter a tile.
Of course his double hadn't given him the chance to explain anything to Jonathan. His double refused to let him change the past. But where was he now?
"Again?" he heard someone gasp. "How?!"
Dio craned his neck and looked behind him. The older Speedwagon stood a few paces away, frozen in shock. He began to speak, but Dio cut him off. "If you tell me that I smell bad one more time, I can't be held responsible for what I do to you."
"Don't threaten me, Dio, I've got a hundred-thousand lux and I'm not afraid to use it." He brandished something that looked like a flashlight bulked up to the size of a gallon jug. "I thought that the Pillar Men might send vampires to infiltrate this base but I certainly wasn't expecting you to show up again!"
Dio narrowed his eyes and watched the flashlight warily. "Yeah, well, neither was I."
"What are you doing here? What are you planning?" Speedwagon aimed the flashlight at him and kept his thumb on the switch.
What was he planning? Dio had settled on a goal, but the path to it was murky and undefined. He glowered at Speedwagon and remained silent.
Speedwagon shook the flashlight. "Answer me, Dio!"
"I need your help," Dio replied.
Speedwagon's mouth fell open and his grip on the switch loosened, but he steeled himself and re-aimed the flashlight. "I don't believe you."
"Yes, you do. Isn't that your whole thing? Being able to tell if I'm lying or not?" Dio stood and Speedwagon took a hesitant step back. "I need you to remember something for me," Dio stated. "After the Joestar estate burned down, did Jojo say anything about me?"
Speedwagon frowned. "What, other than how you betrayed years of his family's trust and hospitality?"
"Yes, other than that." Dio rolled his eyes.
Speedwagon stared at him, his lips pressed into a thin line as he thought it over.
"Your father," Speedwagon finally said. "He said you told him about your father, and that after that you were upset with him."
Dio sighed and turned away. He squeezed the bridge of his nose and shut his eyes.
"He had sympathy for you," Speedwagon said, his voice tinged with sadness, but he furrowed his eyebrows and squared his shoulders. "But I'm not so easily manipulated. You think you're the only one who had a bad childhood? You think you're the only one with a worthless shitstain of a father? I grew up on Ogre Street! You know what I didn't do? Become some sort of murderous megalomaniac!"
"You weren't exactly living a life of honor, either," Dio snapped. "Not until—"
"Not until I met Jojo," he interrupted, but some of the fight had left his voice. He glanced to the side and sighed.
"Not until you met Jojo," Dio repeated emptily.
"But what does it matter?" Speedwagon jostled the flashlight. "Why are you here?"
"I'm going to save Jojo from myself," Dio answered.
Speedwagon lowered the flashlight, his hands trembling. "Oh God, you're telling the truth," he gasped. "Why is that scarier?"
"I'm not sure how I'm going to do it yet," Dio admitted, "but I have a few ideas. In the future, your foundation will find two ancient artifacts in Japan. The artifacts are a special type of bow and arrow. The arrows are the important part. You have to make sure that the first arrow the foundation finds goes to Joseph. Then, Joseph needs to give the arrow to me."
"The future?" Speedwagon was bewildered. "Do you have a damn time machine now, too?"
"Sort of." Dio refused to elaborate further.
"What do the arrows do?"
"Much like the mask, they unlock an inner power," Dio explained. "I need it to become stronger."
Speedwagon frowned and went to say something, but a panel on the ceiling clattered to the floor. A half-rotten vampire dropped to the ground. Speedwagon yelped and turned on the flashlight. The bright light blasted the vampire's skin apart and it died with a teapot-esque shrill.
Dio looked into the shadowy gap in the ceiling and saw several sets of eyes.
Two thin beams of pressurized blood plasma burst from the hole in the ceiling, tore through the flashlight, and bored holes into the floor. The bright light flickered and disappeared.
Time stopped.
Dio let out a sigh of relief. His double had pulled him out of the past right after he had turned into a vampire, so he was still in his original body that had never been exposed to the Stand Arrow. However, using a Stand was a bit like riding a bike; once you knew how to do it, it would take something pretty extraordinary to forget.
The real advantage of having his old body back, Dio realized, was that he was no longer constrained by Rohan's rules.
There was an unknown amount of vampires seething in the ceiling. If Speedwagon was killed, he would not be able to write down the instructions to give Dio the Stand Arrow.
"The World," he commanded, and the familiar form appeared. "Defend Speedwagon."
While his Stand couldn't stray too far from his side, it was able to hover over Speedwagon as long as Dio remained close.
Time began again. Speedwagon jumped at Dio's sudden appearance in front of him. He slapped the flashlight a few times in an attempt to get it to turn back on, but it was thoroughly broken. As the first vampire poked its head out of the ceiling and hissed, he hurled the bulky flashlight at its head. It cracked against the vampire's skull, but it only scowled and dropped to the floor, followed by three others.
Dio glanced back at Speedwagon. "You never learned the Ripple, did you?"
"Don't have the temperament for it," Speedwagon answered. "But we're close to my office. I have the walls fitted with UV floodlights. I just need to get to the switch."
"Don't run." A vampire lunged forward. Dio grabbed it by the skull and threw it to the floor, where both its bones and the tiles crunched. "Stay within ten meters of me and you'll be perfectly safe."
Another vampire leapt at him; Dio sidestepped it and allowed it to approach Speedwagon. Speedwagon shouted and tried to dodge, but The World held him by the shoulder. Speedwagon swore and tried to tear himself away from the invisible grip. The vampire snarled and went straight for Speedwagon's throat. The World punched the vampire so hard that it splattered into pieces.
Speedwagon stared at the meat that had once been a vampire, his mouth agape. Dio smirked and turned his attention back to the vampires descending from the ceiling.
The two retreated down the hallway. Dio was having some much-needed fun crushing skulls, tearing off limbs, and stopping time just to turn a vampire around so that it was now attacking its fellow undead. The World hovered protectively over Speedwagon, only having to act when a stray vampire escaped Dio's carnage. Speedwagon walked backward at a steady pace, keeping considerate of the distance between Dio and himself. He estimated that his office was only twenty meters away now, but the flow of vampires from the ceiling only seemed to increase.
One vampire twisted its head to the side and shot eye beams right at Speedwagon. The World lifted its forearm to block the blow. Dio hissed as matching holes bored into his own arm. "How much further?" he shouted over his shoulder.
"The third door on the left, right there," Speedwagon answered. Dio looked past him and judged the distance. He could probably reach it within the confines of the stopped time, even if he had to carry Speedwagon with him.
His ankle stung. He glared down at a mangled vampire that had shoved its hand into his leg. He kicked at it with his other leg, but the vampire refused to disengage. Dio doubted the vampire would be able to drain him but it was effective dead weight. He staggered back, dragging the vampire with him.
He heard rumbling above him and the ceiling panels rattled. More vampires. He scowled as he realized that they might have listened in; if they knew about the UV lights, they might try to cut the power to the switch. "Speedwagon. Run. Now. Turn on the lights."
"If you get in the room, I can just turn on the ones in the hallway," Speedwagon insisted.
Another vampire latched onto his leg. Dio stomped on it. "Go turn them on. Now."
"But you're out here," Speedwagon said, his voice wavering.
Dio fell to the ground and another vampire latched onto him, but his Stand was now just within range of the office. The World opened the door and shoved Speedwagon in.
Dio stopped time and used the World to remove the panels from the ceiling. The remaining vampires hiding in the crawlspace were primed to fall.
Time began again. The vampires landed on the ground in a messy heap. An electric buzzing filled the air and metal plates in the walls slid open. The floodlights turned on.
If dying for him wouldn't convince Speedwagon, Dio thought, nothing would.