Getting the full list of Stand users that Keicho Nijimura had created during the course of his time with the Bow and Arrow that his pain-in-the-ass Uncle had given to Nijimura's old man for some kind of services rendered was enough of a pain in the ass, but finding out that Nijimura had been careless enough to lose track of them after he'd shot them with the Arrow made him more than a bit tempted to call out Star Platinum to throttle him, just a bit. Still, for all that something like that would make him feel better in more than a few ways, it wouldn't have been beneficial to their future working relationship at all.
He'd learned at least that much from Aunt Alice.
Narrowing his eyes, as he watched Nijimura making his way into the living room where he, Kakyoin, and Josuke were all gathered together, Jotaro directed him to sit down.
=DiU=
Listening to Jotaro-san as he interrogated Nijimura-san about the Stand users he'd made with that bow and arrow of his, Josuke found himself learning a lot more about Stands, their users, and just where all of this weird shit had come from. Apparently, the Arrows that gave people Stands had been brought to their old uncle – a man named Dio Brando, the brother of the founder of Brando International, something that'd confused him until he found out that the pair of them were actually vampires and had lived since the 1800s or so – by some old lady named Enya. Jotaro-san didn't seem to know where she had gotten the Arrows in the first place, though.
Nijimura-san seemed to have absorbed the fact that Alice Brando – who he'd been calling Alicia, up until Jotaro-san had revealed how old she really was, as well as the fact that she was a vampire – wasn't really human a lot better than he'd have expected anyone to, but then nothing had really seemed to get to him for as long as Josuke had known him.
"So, this Yukako Yamagishi is one of the people you shot with the Arrow?" Jotaro-san asked, narrowing his eyes as he continued his interrogation.
"Yes, she was," Nijimura-san said, a stoic look on his face to match the one on Jotaro-san's own.
Josuke wondered just how in the hell Nijimura-san could manage to face the sheer weight of Jotaro-san's displeasure, since Josuke didn't think even he would have been able to stand up against that kind of thing.
=DiU=
After he'd gotten Keicho to stop fucking around and tell him what he knew about Yukako Yamagishi and the Stand she'd gotten when he'd shot her with the Arrow, Jotaro had found himself wanting to punch the idiot all over again. Still, knowing that the only thing Yamagishi's Stand could really do was make her hair move – the same thing that Aunt Alice and his bastard uncle could do without the aid of their Stands, since the both of them were Vampires and all – gave him at least something to go on. He'd met with Josuke and the rest of his family, and they'd mutually decided to invite Yamagishi to dinner.
Both so that they could find out what kind of person she was, and also so that she wouldn't be too confused when whatever strange force that drew Stand users together – Pucci called it fate, but Jotaro wasn't sure he was prepared to give such credence to something that Pucci so enthusiastic about, considering how enamored he was with Dio and how obsessed Uncle Dio was with fate and all that kind of bullshit – began drawing her toward their group.
The fact that the end of the school day was coming up fast brought a sense of at least some relief, considering that he would be able to meet the girl and take her measure himself. Keicho didn't really seem to be the type to pay attention to anyone when he didn't have a use for them, and since Yamagishi's Stand just seemed to give her the power to move her hair in the same way that a Vampire could, he didn't seem to be interested in her anymore. Of course, there was still the girl's personality to consider.
It was possible that Keicho had other reasons for losing interest in Yamagishi the way he had; time would tell.
=DiU=
When they'd invited Yamagishi-chan to have dinner with them, Josuke couldn't help but feel a bit unsettled at the look in her eyes when she found out that Koichi was going to be there; it almost looked like she was more interested in talking to Koichi than about finding out just what in the hell was going on with her hair. It didn't make a hell of a lot of sense, so far as Josuke was concerned, but he couldn't really say anything more than that it was kind of unsettling.
He didn't know what to make of someone who wasn't curious about the kind of weird shit that Stands could do, especially when she had one.
=DiU=
She'd really only gone along with this whole dinner thing Josuke had suggested because Koichi-kun was going to be there, but when she walked in, the first person Yukako caught sight of was the fantastically, almost ethereally handsome man sitting at the head of the near the middle of the table. Finding herself smiling widely as she settled down at the table, as close to him as she possibly could, Yukako glanced down at his right hand.
It turned out that he was married, but since he was a bit too old for her, Yukako found that she really didn't mind.
After the man had introduced himself as Noriaki Kakyoin – and his wife, who looked just as beautiful as he did, as Loreena McKennitt-Kakyoin – Yukako found herself wishing that she could meet someone who made her just as happy as he seemed to be with his married life. And, when she met up with little Ichigo-chan, Yukako found that she couldn't imagine meeting a cuter, more adorable little boy.
She was curious about meeting Tenmei-chan, but it sounded like he was working with someone, and it didn't sound like he was going to be back anytime soon.
Still, talking to little Ichigo-chan about his older brother gave her a good enough picture of little Tenmei-chan that Yukako was sure she would love him just as soon as the pair of them had the chance to meet for the first time. It also made her all the more certain that she wanted to have a little boy of her own; one who would be just as sweet as Ichigo-chan and Tenmei-chan. Now, all she had to do was convince Koichi-kun to be her boyfriend.
Then, she could begin shaping him into the ideal man; someone who would be just as perfect a husband and father as Kakyoin-san, and then she could be just as perfect a wife and mother as Loreena-san clearly already was.
=DiU=
When they'd finished their meeting with Yamagishi-san, Josuke couldn't quite help the thought that there was something up with the girl. It was just the way she'd been watching Koichi; almost like she wanted to take a bite out of him, or something. There'd been the creepiest hungry look on her face, when she thought no one else was looking.
Josuke didn't like it, but he also didn't want to freak Koichi out by bringing up weird shit like that, so he'd try to deal with it himself, before he tried to bring anyone else in on this.
The next day, once all of them had met up again, Josuke made sure to keep an eye out for whatever Yamagishi-san might have been thinking. She had to be thinking something weird, given the look on her face. Still, Koichi seemed to be interested in her – or else he was just desperate enough not to notice the weird vibes she was giving off; Koichi was pretty shy, when it came right down to it – so Josuke was just going to make sure to keep an eye on the pair of them.
If anything started getting too weird – even for Stand users – Josuke was going to step in.
=DiU=
Tenmei-kun had been doing such good work for him – giving him so many new ideas that he would be able to use to make Pink Dark Boy the best manga that it could possibly be – but he'd also noticed that his assistant, for all his skill at drawing and painting backgrounds, didn't have either the skill or the confidence to draw people. And yes, he could have written the skill for figure-drawing into Tenmei-kun's book, but then the skill would have been artificial.
It wouldn't have meant anything; Tenmei-kun would be better off if he developed that kind of skill for himself.
"Make sure you observe the people around here carefully, Tenmei-kun," he said, turning to look at his helpful assistant, all prepared with his sketchpad and mechanical pencils.
It was something that the both of them had in common, which was rather pleasing: both he and Tenmei-kun preferred the control and precision that mechanical pencils gave their work. Smiling softly as Tenmei-kun observed the people passing by in front of the quaint little café where the pair of them were sitting, Rohan turned as his assistant sighed.
"Sorry, boss, I just don't know if I can capture the feelings of these people without getting a closer look at them," Tenmei-kun said, gaze falling to his sketchpad where it lay on the table for a long moment. "And, every time I try to ask someone to let me observe them closely enough to capture them that way, they always look at me like I'm creepy."
"That's why I don't put any stock in what people say," Rohan said, resting a gentle hand on his assistant's narrow left shoulder. "And you shouldn't either, Tenmei-kun."
"Yes, boss," Tenmei-kun said, sitting back up in his seat, face settling into an expression of calm once more.
Another figure caught his eye, then; someone who matched the description that Tenmei-kun's father that he'd found within his book, and Rohan found himself both pleased and slightly surprised to see that Tenmei-kun's father was here in Morioh.
"Tenmei-kun," he called, glancing over at his assistant, finding himself smiling softly as he watched Tenmei-kun taking notes. "If you're still concerned about asking a stranger to model for you, I'm certain that your father would be willing to help you out. Call him over," he said, then paused for a moment to consider just what he'd said. "Ask him to meet you at work."
"Yes, boss."
=DiU=
The sound of Tenmei's voice, calling out to him from a table at the café he'd been just about to pass by, brought a smile to Noriaki's face as he turned to make his way over to the table. Tenmei and someone else – someone who seemed to be an artist, just like his eldest, which was probably why the two of them had seemed to connect well enough that Tenmei had been willing to stay with him as long as he had – were both sitting at one of the tables.
"Good morning, Tenmei-chan," he said, reaching out to pat Tenmei-chan's head and gently petting his ponytail, as well. "It's good to see you again. Is this the artist you were trying to get a job with?"
"His name is Rohan Kishibe," Tenmei said, after looking over at the man he was sitting next to. "I like working for him."
There was a look on Tenmei's face, however… Noriaki found that he couldn't get it out of his head; really, it seemed to be the same kind of expression that Jotaro-san had described as being on his own face – and Loreena-chan's too, for that matter – when Brando-san had held them under his thrall at his resort in Egypt. Glancing over at Kishibe-san as subtly as he could, Noriaki saw the pleased expression on his face and had to force himself not to shudder. It seemed as though his eldest son had ended up stumbling into the same kind of situation that he and Loreena-chan had ended up in before he was born.
"Would you like to come model for me, so I can practice drawing people?" Tenmei asked, looking up at him with a distant, pleading sort of look on his face.
"Yes, I think that would make Tenmei-kun very happy," Kishibe-san said, smiling in a way that looked more than a bit smug to Noriaki.
"Give me some time to set things up," he said, hoping that Kishibe-san wouldn't suspect just what it was that he was truly attempting to do.
"And then you'll come back?" Kishibe-san asked, an eager expression on his face.
"Enjoy the rest of your day," he said, sketching a shallow bow and then quickly turning to leave the café.
Before he did anything else, he was going to need to speak to Jotaro-san.
=DiU=
Raising an eyebrow as Kakyoin-san departed, Rohan turned to look over at Tenmei-kun again.
"Come on, Tenmei-kun," he said, tugging Tenmei-kun along on the way back to his car.
There was something about the meeting he'd just had with Kakyoin-san, something that stuck in his mind from when he'd first gotten access to the memories that Tenmei-kun had carried all of his life. There was something that stuck in his mind about the interaction that the pair of them had just had that stuck in his mind, and so the only real answer was for him to head back to his studio and attempt to determine just what it was about that particular interaction that had stood out to him.
Once he'd returned to his studio with Tenmei-kun, Rohan guided his assistant back up to the room where he spent so much of his time while he worked on Pink Dark Boy. Settling Tenmei-kun down in the chair he'd brought in when he'd first decided to make Tenmei-kun his assistant, Rohan took a moment to make sure that his assistant was comfortable. Pulling open the book that Heaven's Door had created for him, Rohan flipped through the pages in Tenmei-kun's chest, looking for anything that his assistant's memories would be able to tell him about Kakyoin-san.
=DiU=
Keeping an eye on Yamagishi-san, when she seemed bound and determined to lose him, wasn't the easiest thing he'd ever done. But, given the kind of person she seemed to be, Josuke was determined to at least make sure that she didn't try anything too weird. Following the pair of them whenever Yamagishi-san would try to corner Koichi, Josuke would be there to gently ward her off.
She wasn't happy about that, clearly, but as long as Koichi – oblivious as he could be, sometimes – wouldn't end up getting into any more trouble than he could handle on his own. Still, the way Yamagishi-san was staring at him, those times when she clearly thought that Koichi wasn't looking… Yeah, she already knew he was a Stand user, so she probably wouldn't end up doing anything too crazy, but under the circumstances it was probably better that he had backup.
That was how he'd ended up back at the Nijimura house, looking to have a talk with Keicho-san.
"So, you want me to dispatch a force of Bad Company to keep an eye on your friend?" Keicho-san asked, frowning in a way that really looked more annoyed than anything.
"Yeah," he said, folding his arms and glaring right back. "You said you wanted to join up with some kind of secret organization that protects people from the shadows," he continued. "So, here's your chance to get started."
"Why are you so interested in using Bad Company for this?" Nijimura-san asked, still seeming unimpressed by what he was hearing.
"Because the creepy girl who's been stalking my friend Koichi has a Stand of her own, so if I tried to use Crazy Diamond for anything, she'd know someone was following her, and considering the way she met me, she'd know just who it was since I showed her Crazy Diamond when we met," he said, folding his arms as he found himself wondering just what in the hell that crazy girl was doing, considering he wasn't around to keep her from doing something to Koichi.
He could only hope that he'd be able to keep Koichi safe, with or without Nijimura-san's help.
=DiU=
Once he'd managed to meet up with Jotaro again, Noriaki quickly explained what he'd seen with regards to Tenmei-chan and the man he was working for.
"Damn it, it's the same shit that my bastard uncle tried with you," Jotaro growled, leaving unspoken the fact that it had worked out, in the case of him and Loreena-chan.
Well, he supposed that anyone else wouldn't have been so easy to forgive Mr. Brando for what he'd done, but he and Loreena-chan had been making tentative plans to start a family of their own; true, Tenmei-chan had been born a long time before either of them had been planning to have any of the children that Noriaki had begun to envision when he thought about the future that he and Loreena-chan were trying to make together, but Tenmei-chan was sweet enough to make up for that. Still, knowing that Tenmei-chan might be in danger…
"Do you think we could call Alice?" he asked, knowing that he would feel just what much better, knowing that they had an untouchable Stand on their side.
"Yeah, I'll take care of that," Jotaro said, eyes still narrowed as he made his way over to the phone in the room where he was staying.
Settling down in a chair near the desk that Jotaro seemed to making more than a bit of use of while the pair of them were staying in Morioh to document the lives and interactions of all the Stand users who lived there, Noriaki waited while Jotaro spoke to his aunt about what had been going on while the pair of them had been trying to work out a way to meet up with the Stand users who lived in this place. He wondered if she would inform the Speedwagon Foundation, or if Jotaro would do that himself. Or really, if either of them was going to inform anyone else in the first place.
Really, none of them had enough information about the Stand or its user to inform the Speedwagon Foundation of anything more than the fact that he existed; they would need more information, before they could determine just what kind of a threat he was or could be.
When Stardust appeared in Jotaro's hotel room, Noriaki sighed, relived to know that they were going to have the help of one of the most powerful Stands that he had ever had the chance to encounter; to say nothing of Jotaro's aunt, since there was obviously something about her that had given Stardust the unstoppable ability to both teleport and to phase through solid matter.
=DiU=
Settling back in his chair, Keicho turned at the sound of White Rabbit making its way into his room. The long-distance Stand looked up at him for a long moment, and Keicho found himself wondering just what thoughts were going through the mind of the Stand user; he wondered what Jack Harper could have been thinking, deep within whatever Blackwatch compound he was staying in.
Have you been meeting up with any other Stand users?White Rabbit asked, beginning their conversation with a topic that Keicho honestly hadn't been expecting.
This town has a small population of them, but until today, I'd never had any reason to speak with any of them, he wrote, displaying the notepad he was using for a moment, before removing the page and having a few iterations of Bad Company incinerate it.
I take it you've found one, White Rabbit wrote back, tilting its head curiously, blinking those catlike, purple eyes at him.
Yes, but not in the way you might think, he explained, narrowing his eyes as he contemplated just how much information he was going to share with Harper-san. Are you aware of the existence of a group called the Speedwagon Foundation?
White Rabbit tilted its head, catlike purple eyes fixing on him for a long moment; Keicho once again found himself wondering what manner of thoughts were going through the mind of Harper-san, to give the man's Stand that look on its face. Some of my people have had dealings with them through Blackwater, since they're the ones that act as intermediaries between us and the world at large.
I suppose that makes sense, he wrote back, narrowing his eyes slightly as he considered what else he was going to say. I met up with a pair of agents of the Speedwagon Foundation; two men, by the name of Jotaro Kujo and Noriaki Kakyoin. Kujo seems to be related in some way to Josuke Higashikata, though I haven't managed to determine the precise nature of their relation.
White Rabbit nodded. Those two have done good work for the Foundation, or so I've heard.
I suppose I should keep that in mind,he wrote back, once it had become clear that Harper-san had nothing else to say on the subject.
White Rabbit left then, nodding to Keicho just before it departed from the house where he and Okuyasu had lived all of their lives. Summoning a handful of iterations of Bad Company, these ones equipped with flamethrowers, Keicho considered his next course of action while Bad Company disposed of the pages he'd used to communicate with White Rabbit. Considering everything that had previously occurred, his next course of action seemed clear.
=DiU=
Without knowing if he was going to be able to count on Nijimura-san's help, Josuke had taken to escorting Koichi-kun whenever he could, stopping just short of asking Hirose-san if he could stay over at her house, just so that he would be able to make sure that Yamagishi-san wouldn't have the chance to do… Whatever it was that she wanted to do to him. He didn't like the look in her eyes, and Koichi-kun… he was just a bit too nice to tell the crazy girl off when she inevitably started doing weird things to him.
When he'd made his way to Koichi-kun's house to escort him to school on this particular morning, however, the only thing he found was the worried presence of Hirose-san and her husband.
Finding out that Koichi-kun had seemingly vanished from his own bed, Josuke couldn't help but be furious with himself, just a little, for not insisting that he stay over at Koichi-kun's house. No matter how uncomfortable he might have made the other boy by doing it, it obviously would have been better than whatever had happened to him, either this morning or some time during the night. Making his way back to his house, knowing that he'd have a better chance of finding his old friend of he was able to recruit Jotaro-san and Kakyoin-san.
He might not have known the pair of them for all that long, but it was clear that the both of them had come to Morioh for just this kind of thing; the handling dangerous Stand users, not keeping creepy girls from taking people and doing… stuff to them, but since Yamagishi-san had revealed herself as a Stand user, that meant that the pair of them would probably help him once he'd explained everything that was going on.
Once he'd made it back home, where his nephew – the both of them had agreed that they weren't going to think about that too much, since it was entirely too fucking weird – and the guy's partner were both sitting down to what seemed to be a meeting of their own.