Joker winds up involved with quite a lot of people during his adventure. One of my regular followers asked when his partner Violet will show up (remember this story was being written after I had started Phantom Thieves Origins). She'll be around somewhere in the second half. Disclaimer: I don't own Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, the Persona series, Lupin the Third, or any other referenced media.
Eighth Caper: A Gun in Hand, Braggart's Memory
Buccellati entered Giorno's office with some papers in hand. "It's another report from our field men. Another victim of Eric 'The Unkiller' Orujani has been checked into a San Marino hospital." Giorno grimaced. "The bastardo is taking advantage of our minimal presence in San Marino. Something must be done about him." "We may be making progress on that front," Buccellati assured his boss, "Our men have managed to obtain a photo of Eric during his latest incursion." He showed Giorno the photo and pointed to a ring on Eric's right middle finger. Giorno narrowed his eye. "Contact Phantom Thief Joker."
"How the heck does a Heroic Spirit get a toothache of all things!?," Rin demanded of Jigen. The recently resurrected Archer was looking through a San Marino phone book for a local clinic. "It's not like we're invincible, Rin. Otherwise what's the point of the Holy Grail War? Heck, Lupin took quite a few lumps during his tenure as Assassin. We can still feel pain like ordinary people." Rin sighed. "It's not like Dad lived long enough to explain how Servants work. That damn Pycal... I hope he's rotting in Hell!" "He probably is," Jigen noted as he flagged down a passerby for directions to a clinic.
Ren was sitting inside the clinic in his normal role as an intern, looking over the file sent to him by Giorno. He observed the photo of the ring worn by Eric the Unkiller. The jawless, crownless skull that adorned it was rather distinct. 'The Braggart's Memory. During the Great Fire of London in 1666, six siblings of the Joestar family died, leaving only one survivor. This ring was made in remembrance of one of those siblings, Victor Joestar, a notable risk-taker and gambler who had proven himself invulnerable to a number of poisons whenever he drank at the taverns.'
"Look, just get me something for the pain already," came the familiar sound of Daisuke Jigen. Ren remembered him from Lupin's wedding. Ren looked around, and sure enough there was Rin Tohsaka. 'No doubt she's working with Zenigata on the Lupin case. If she catches wind that Joker's here in the clinic, she could make things way more complicated. As a Mage she has the supernatural ability to see Stands without having one of her own. And W Boiled Xtreme is very distinct. I'd best give her a wide berth.' He still had to let out a small chuckle at Jigen's exaggerated reaction to his toothache.
One of the female doctors, Livia if Ren was remembering correctly, approached Jigen. Ren noted that her eyes widened at the sight of the revolver holstered just under Jigen's jacket. "Not getting involved in this debacle," Ren muttered. He already knew from the files Giorno gave him that Eric wanted to have a monopoly on all guns in San Marino. "Excuse me," Rin said from just behind him, "Have we met somewhere?" Ren looked at her. "Probably. I intern with the Speedwagon Foundation, after all. And if I'm not mistaken, you're a member of Inspector Zenigata's team."
Rin placed a fist on her palm. "Oh yeah. You were one of the guests at Harry Flowers' party. You really missed a show that day. First Lupin, then that new Joker guy." She noticed Jigen get led off. "Well, I should keep an eye on him. For better or worse I'm responsible for his well-being. Though to be honest as far as Archer Servants go, he's not nearly as insufferable as the one my dad summoned." Ren nodded. Once he was certain Rin was out of sight, he phased into a nearby broom closet and donned his Joker outfit. "Little do you know, Miss Tohsaka, I had a backstage pass to that show."
Joker spotted the room where all of Eric's victims were being kept. "What the hell is this!?," came Jigen's voice, causing Joker to spin around, coming face-to-face with Rin and Jigen. Rin stared blankly before sighing. "Speak of the devil and he'll appear..." Joker stood up straight. "I'm told these are all victims of one Eric 'The Unkiller' Orujani." Just then, another victim on a gurney was being wheeled in, catching Jigen and Rin's attention long enough for Joker to leap through the ceiling out of sight.
He soon drove off on his motorcycle and found Eric's hideout. "Apparently he's offering peace and safety to the town in exchange for an exorbitant protection racket. Sure Passione charges protection money as well, but the amount is a percentage that's actually lower than the government taxation. They rely on the economy itself to rake in the big bucks. Eric's just a sadist with a bottom-line manner of thinking, and it's bleeding the town dry. Not to mention..." He realized that with Jigen having his own gun, things were going to get hairy.
"Well this is just embarrassing!," Rin said, "What kind of Heroic Spirit gets their Noble Phantasm stolen from them!?" "Why don't you ask the previous Archer?," Jigen countered, "From what I understand, he had his Gate of Babylon plundered regularly by Lupin." Rin facepalmed. "Ask a silly question..." "You really lost your Noble Phantasm?," Joker asked, driving up to the duo, "That sucks. Good thing it can't work while it's not in your hands." "I can definitely get it back," Jigen said, "Plus I can track it through its prana signature."
"That's not the problem though," Rin said, "Listen Joker, as much as I'd like to inform Goro of your presence here, right now I consider Eric the bigger threat." "Funny you should mention that," Joker said, getting out the photo, "I'm currently targeting him. He has a piece of the Joestar Collection." Jigen scoffed. "Why am I not surprised? Somehow those pieces always wind up in the hands of crooks and scumbags. Oh, and Rebecca too." He walked back into the hospital. "I need to have a talk with Livia. It looks like she might be going off the deep-end."
Joker looked at Rin quizzically. "It seems this isn't the first town Eric the Unkiller has hit," she explained, "He bleeds a town dry with the excuse of wanting to protect the city from gun violence. He's not a true mafioso, just a sadistic wannabe. A glorified landlord who doesn't care about the lives of his tenants. This whole town's chock full of people who'd love to see him dead." Joker nodded. "Well I'm a thief, not a killer. That said, if it came down to my life or someone trying to take my life, I think you know which I'd prefer." Rin nodded.
Joker looked at the hotel where Eric had his hideout. "By now Jigen should be making his move. Eric prides himself on having trained all his men to shoot non-lethally, just to watch his victims suffer. And he convinced poor Livia to leave them in a state of undeath. No wonder she was going off the deep-end. That old geezer who took Jigen's gun was likely the last straw. Well guess what, Eric? When going up against the untouchable Phantom Thief and the dead-shot Archer, you'll either have to fold... Or break your own rules of engagement."
Eric was not having a happy day. First the fruitless search of the hospital for a gun that supposedly wasn't there. Then he was denied the chance to punish one of his own subordinates because new information came out about an old geezer that apparently had the gun. Now this funny guy in the hat shows up claiming the gun is his. "So what else can go wrong today?," he wondered. "Sir," one of his goons said, "These were found plastered all over the outside of the hotel suite." Jigen smirked as he saw Eric get handed Joker's calling card. "Eric Orujani, I am the Phantom Thief Joker. This evening I will steal the Braggart's Memory from your possession."
Eric sighed. "I was KIDDING you morons! Whatever, this Joker guy only knows where our hideout is. He probably thinks the ring is somewhere in a vault and he'll try to steal from it. But we were just about to relocate. After all, we have a stranger here that needs some dancing lessons." Jigen smirked as he spotted Joker clinging to the outside of the window, up above where people rarely tended to look. 'He clearly doesn't know Joker that well. He must really be small-time if he's never even heard of him by now.'
It was the next morning, and Inspector Zenigata was joined by Goro. Apparently, there was a sighting of Phantom Thief Joker at a local church. Right now there was no sign of him, but there were certainly a lot of dead bodies. "Didn't think Joker was the sort to kill," Zenigata noted. "I don't think he is," Goro clarified, "Unless his life was on the line." He walked over to the fallen body of Eric, having been crushed by a chandelier. "Besides, other than a light patch of skin on this man's finger where a ring used to be, I'd say Joker didn't touch him at all."
"Come to think about it," Zenigata said, "Rin called in saying that Jigen was having some issues with his gun being stolen. I guess he was confronting Eric and his men to retrieve it." "I've heard of Eric," Goro said, "The man thinks killing is far too easy, so he trains his men to shoot a target non-lethally, thinking he's playing on hard mode." "He misunderstands the human body," Zenigata noted, "It's designed to take punishment. Even if you were shot in the heart or brain, you wouldn't necessarily die instantly. Depending on the position of the bullet and how fast you could get to an emergency room, it's possible to survive."
Goro took a look at the position of the bodies and the bullets. "Eric and his men must have surrounded Jigen to do their little shtick like they did a hundred times, not knowing the expertise of Jigen's Archer skills and personal skills. He'd easily be able to draw lines and move about to cause everyone here to wind up shooting each other on accident." Zenigata nodded. "My thoughts exactly. And with Eric being a small-time mobster, he wouldn't know jack-all about Jigen or Joker. He'd be a sitting duck and not even realize it."
"So when do you think Joker swooped in and snatched the Braggart's Memory?," Goro asked, holding up the calling card from Eric's pocket, "Before, or after the big shootout?" "Hard to say," Zenigata admitted, "Coulda been either one. I'm sure the coroner can narrow down how soon the skin patch started getting sun again. It was definitely before Eric got crushed, that's for sure. Joker doesn't strike me as the sort of thief who would steal from the dead. But with his Stand letting him become intangible, along with anything he's touching, he could have swiped the ring at any moment during that confrontation."
Goro nodded. He walked over to where a church pew had been shot to near splinters and found a bullet casing for a Magnum .357. "Standard round for a Smith and Wesson Model 19. Jigen's preferred handgun. He must have been the one to shoot down the chandelier. Eric was firing a sub-machine gun. Of course, he'd have never realized that normal bullets could never kill a Heroic Spirit." Zenigata nodded. "Given his flair for the dramatic, Joker likely swooped in just as the chandelier was falling down. I can imagine the look of confusion on Eric's face as Joker's hand phased through his own, stealing the ring as he did." Goro nodded. "Yeah, that's a fair assessment. I wonder where they both are now."
Joker sat on his motorcycle on the hill overlooking the hospital. As he held up the Braggart's Memory, he chuckled at Rin trying to get Jigen hooked up with Livia. "Jigen always had a distrust of women, especially Fujiko. Makes me wonder how he handled being summoned by one as a Servant in the Fifth Holy Grail War." He placed the skull ring in his inner jacket pocket. "Well, in the meantime I'll let Giorno know that Eric is out of the picture. In all likelihood, he'll have Passione move in to clean up the damage." He gunned his motorbike and drove off.
Next time, Joker learns that Riko Mine has fallen in love with an apprentice magician working with at a local circus. But when he learns that someone is after the young man's inheritance, Joker decides to investigate alongside Riko's friend Caren. Things really pick up when Joker's prime suspect turns out to have another piece of the Joestar Collection. Read and review.