The sound of Josuke's voice drew Noriaki's attention, and since there'd been a lull in their planning – given that they didn't know just how it was that Rohan Kishibe's Stand actually worked, and hence couldn't really make plans to work around an ability they had basically no ideas about – he and Jotaro had invited Josuke to sit down with them. And then, hearing just what it was that Josuke had come to meet with them about, Noriaki found himself more than slightly unsettled to find that there were two people in Morioh that seemed to have such little regard for the thoughts and opinions of the people around them.
"Yare yare daze, so we have to deal with two kidnappings, and what sounds like someone with a mind-control Stand," Jotaro grumbled, slouching in his seat with what looked like merely a more pronounced version of his usual, annoyed scowl.
"Sounds like it," he said, sighing as he found himself wondering just how it was that Tenmei-chan had been unfortunate enough to run headlong into the same kind of situation that he and Loreena-chan had ended up in. However, it was the same kind of situation that had ultimately led to Tenmei-chan's conception in the first place, so maybe there was something to that. Maybe it was some kind of fate, after all…
When Stardust arrived again, after having gone to pick up Alice Brando's secondary Stand – the shape shifting, pure white Stand that for some reason Alice had named The Duke – Noriaki settled back down into his seat. If they were going to go after Kishibe-san, the Stand user who had done something that was entirely too much like what Mr. Brando had done; the very thing that had resulted in Tenmei-chan being born at all, so maybe it was some kind of fate that had brought Tenmei-chan to Kishibe-san's attention.
Noriaki didn't like to think about that kind of thing, but it did seem like the most likely reason for this kind of thing to be happening.
"Jotaro told me about everything that's been going on," Alice said, speaking through the mouth of the white, currently cat-shaped Stand that had come back to them alongside Stardust. "I'm glad to know that you and this nephew of yours are getting along so well," Alice continued, as Stardust leaned lightly against the couch in the living room of the home that Josuke-chan had invited all of them to stay while they were trying to get a bead on what a town full of Stand users was truly like.
"Hold on, is there something else going on here?" Josuke-chan asked, standing up with kind of a confused look on his own face. "I thought we were all here to talk about how to keep that crazy girl from holding Koichi prisoner. But, it sounds like you guys are talking about something else."
Sighing, since it looked like there was someone else who needed their help to escape from the control of someone who didn't seem to have their best interests at heart, Noriaki folded his arms as he sat up in his chair. "My eldest, Tenmei, seems to have attracted the attention of a Stand user by the name of Rohan Kishibe," narrowing his eyes, Noriaki forced himself to continue. "It sounds as though Kishibe-san has some kind of mind-controlling Stand, since not only did Tenmei-chan seem to be waiting to be prompted by Kishibe-san before he spoke, but there was a look on his face…"
Biting his lip as he found himself reminded of the fact that only Jotaro-san – and Alice, but she wasn't exactly here with the rest of them – really knew what had happened to him, just why it was that Tenmei-chan existed in the first place. And also the fact that he wasn't truly in any kind of shape to tell Josuke-chan those kinds of things, particularly considering how young Josuke-chan really was. He might have come to them with news about a girl that seemed to have kidnapped one of his friends, but it seemed like he was more worried about how his friend might feel, rather than anything that might end up happening to him.
It was really something that people didn't think about until it happened to them or someone they knew; Noriaki didn't like thinking about that kind of thing, but that was the way it seemed to be.
=DiU=
Finding himself with his arms full of The Duke – Josuke wondered what it was about Brando-chan, the vampire lady who seemed to have kind of adopted Jotaro and everyone else in their family, and Nijimura-san that had seemed to give the both of them more than one Stand – and sent out to spot people who might have had a Stand that Jotaro-san and Kakyoin-san hadn't found out about yet, while at the same time searching for Yamagishi-san so that he would able able to track her back to wherever it was that she was keeping Koichi.
He wanted to know just what that crazy girl thought she was doing, pulling Koichi out of his bed and stuffing him wherever she had while she was doing whatever the hell she was trying to do to him.
Thinking of what might be going on with Koichi led, almost too naturally, to Josuke wondering what had happened to Tenmei-chan. It sounded like Tenmei-chan had run into the same kind of trouble that Koichi had, only Kakyoin-san knew just where he was, rather than being forced to look everywhere in Morioh to find out just where in the hell it was that she was hiding. Once the pair of them had made it through a crowd, made up of what had to be a bunch of average people given the fact that not one of them had reacted to The Duke in the slightest, Josuke heard Brando-chan sigh.
"This is going to take forever," Brando-chan muttered. "Particularly if we're looking for a place where that girl you talked about is holding your friend captive, considering that she'd probably want to stay somewhere out of the way; somewhere she could could have the privacy she wants to do… Whatever she's planning."
He was just about to ask Brando-chan what she had in mind, when the white cat in his arms suddenly changed into some kind of bird, flapping its wings once they had fully formed.
"You're going to try searching from the air?" he asked, though it was pretty obvious what Brando-chan was intending to do.
"It'll certainly be faster than anything the pair of us could manage on the ground," she said, as the pair of them began making their way up to another group of people. "I'll stay in touch as much as I can," Brando-chan continued, leaping off of his right shoulder and quickly vanishing into the sky.
=DiU=
Shuddering as he sat, slumped in the chair where Yukako-chan had dumped him after he'd… Shying away from the thought of what had happened to him, Koichi bit his lower lip as he forced himself to stand back up again. It didn't look like there was anyone coming to save him, so he was going to have to find a way out of this place on his own.
He was going to have to find a way to escape from this place, and from whatever strange powers that Yukako-chan possessed, without any kind of powers of his own. It was insane enough to think about, especially considering what else had happened – the thing he was trying as hard as he could not to think about – but that was what he had to deal with now.
The sight of something fluttering, just outside the large window behind his head, drew his attention, but it turned out to be just the bushes outside the house rustling in the wind. Or, at least that was what he thought, before the window exploded inward and something jumped into the room with him. There seemed to be some kind of invisible creature standing in front of him; something with dainty-looking hooves, if the imprints he was seeing in the carpet were any indication.
When that same, invisible creature nudged him, Koichi reached out to see if he could find out what he could find out about the invisible creature who seemed to have come to save him. The face that he was feeling under his hands did seem to be some kind of a deer or something, given the antlers and the large, wide ears that he could feel. When something small, fast, and black erupted from the top of his head, wrapping tightly around what seemed to be the legs of whatever kind of invisible deer had tried to come save him, Koichi tensed.
But, when he saw what seemed to be ropes made of hair, and more than that when he saw them straining and then snapping as they tried to keep hold of whatever the invisible deer was turning into, Koichi looked down at the carpet to see if he could tell what the invisible deer was becoming. Narrowing his eyes as he watched the previously light, dainty hoof prints rounding out and deepening into…
Before he could spend more than a few seconds wondering about what kind of invisible animal could be making those kinds of tracks, Koichi yelped in surprise as he felt an elephant's trunk winding around his waist, tucking him in close to what felt like a wide, flapping left ear, and then a sudden lurch as the invisible elephant smashed through the wall in front of them.
=DiU=
The sight of the front wall of the house being smashed open by the charging form of The Duke – this time transformed into a fucking elephant, which kind of begged the question of just how many things Brando-chan's other Stand could actually transform into – drew Josuke's attention, and he breathed more easily as Nijimura-san launched a force of planes and helicopters to guard Koichi as The Duke brought him back to them.
"Thanks," he said, reaching out to help Koichi down as The Duke set him on the ground and unwound its trunk.
As the three of them all hurried back to Jotaro-san's car, driving off before Yukako-san could come back and do… Whatever crazy thing that a stalker Stand user would do when she found out that the guy she'd captured had been freed from her the house where she'd been keeping him for whatever kind of weird reason that she'd gotten into her head to want him for… whatever. Shaking his head, Josuke made up his mind to ask Nijimura-san for the Stand Arrow.
If that crazy girl was going to keep stalking Koichi, he was at least going to make sure that his friend had some way to protect himself.
=DiU=
Once they'd solved Josuke's problem with that crazy stalker girl, Jotaro could feel more comfortable focusing his attention on whatever the hell was going on with Tenmei and that bastard Kishibe. When they all made it back to Josuke's house, getting Koichi and the rest of the kids settled, he flagged down Stardust and he and Kakyoin made their way back to the room he'd been given for however long all of them were going to need to stay in Morioh.
"So, did you manage to find out where Tenmei-chan is?" Kakyoin asked, as Stardust settled down with The Duke in it lap; The Duke was wearing the form of a white cat again, which seemed to be its new default.
It was a hell of a lot different from the thin, white bracelet that The Duke had looked like, back when Aunt Alice had gained Stardust in the first place, but it could've been just because The Duke's powers were growing stronger; at least insofar as any Stand's power could be said to be strong or weak at all.
"It looks like he's living in Kishibe's house, though he clearly has his own room," Aunt Alice said, speaking through The Duke's mouth.
It was something that all of them had learned to do, during the time all of them had possessed their Stands, living and working with them; at least after Jotaro's bastard uncle had given them all Stands in the first place.
"That's good to hear," Kakyoin said, shuddering briefly. "Can you lead us to him?"
"Of course," Aunt Alice said, The Duke nodding as it shifted into a bird and Stardust lifted it up on its arm.
Piling into the car with Kakyoin, the pair of them followed The Duke as it led them to Kishibe's house so that they could deal with the bastard who had kidnapped Kakyoin's first kid. Before he could call Star out, Kakyoin had torn the door off of its hinges with Hierophant Green. Chuckling under his breath, since that was just the kind of thing that he would do if anyone had tried to fuck with Jolyne, Jotaro looked up as he heard the sound of running feet approaching them.
=DiU=
Running for his living room at the sound of his door being torn open, Rohan found himself all the more excited. He'd known that this kind of thing was likely, ever since he'd seen the unsettled look on Noriaki Kakyoin's face when he and his assistant Tenmei-kun had encountered him, back at the café where the pair of them had had lunch. And now, he was going to have the chance to find out what Noriaki would actually do.
Sure, he could make a guess about that kind of thing given everything he'd read in Tenmei-kun's book, but it was always better to observe the true reality of a situation than to just make guesses about it.
"Tenmei-kun, come here," he called, waving to his assistant, then looking back down over his balcony at the two men – Jotaro Kujo and Noriaki Kakyoin; both of whom seemed to be Stand users, according to what he had read in Tenmei-kun's book – who'd just stormed into his house.
"Yes, boss."
Draping his left arm over Tenmei-kun's left shoulder, Rohan watched as Jotaro and Noriaki looked around for a moment, before both of their gazes turned to him at nearly the same moment.
"What are you doing to my son?" Noriaki-san asked, a plaintive expression on his face.
"Are you going to punch me?" he asked, his arm still resting on Tenmei-kun's shoulder. "I've always been curious about that."
"We'll kick your ass if you don't bring him down here!" Jotaro snarled up at him, but for the most part Rohan found himself curious about what the Stand who seemed to be made out stars – really, it looked like someone had taken a picture of space, cut it out in the shape of a person who looked like they were wearing some kind of a mid-brimmed hat pulled down just over their eyes – who was standing between Jotaro and Noriaki.
It didn't fit the description that he'd read of either Jotaro's Stand Star Platinum, or Noriaki's Stand Hierophant Green.
"Look, we could probably work all this out without anyone having to get hurt," Noriaki said, looking between Rohan himself and Jotaro. "It doesn't look like you've been hurting Tenmei-chan, and ever since he heard about you and what you did, he's wanted to work with you in at least some capacity. So, if you just bring him down here, I'm sure we could find a way to resolve this without anyone getting hurt."
"Come on, Tenmei-kun," he said, leading his assistant down to the main floor of the house where the both of them lived and worked.
"Yes, boss."
"What in the hell did you do to him?" Jotaro demanded, the glare on his face just like the one that Rohan had seen described within the pages of Tenmei-kun's book; the one that had been described as looking like he was interrogating someone without even saying a word.
"Whatever you've done, can you reverse it?" Noriaki asked, the worry for his son plain on his face; Rohan looked closely, absorbing the nuances of such a thing.
The expression that Noriaki Kakyoin wore on his face was the epitome of what might be properly called fatherly concern, and if Rohan truly desired to capture all the nuances of reality within the pages of Pink Dark Boy, he was going to need to watch and learn from everything that he was seeing here. The plot he was bearing witness to at this very moment truly did seem like something his readers would enjoy. A tale of fatherly love, brotherly concern, and the gentle boy both of those feelings were concentrated on.
After all, a few slice-of-life chapters would be a welcome contrast to the action he had been writing for the last month.
=DiU=
Narrowing his eyes, as he found himself face to face with Tenmei-chan for the first time since the kid had gone off to work for Kishibe in the first place, Jotaro turned to watch as Stardust made its own way over to where Tenmei-chan and Kishibe were standing.
"Why would I want to do something like that?" Kishibe asked, looking as though he was genuinely confused, rather than trying to mock them or any of that kind of shit. "All of this was to help him become the best assistant he could possibly be."
Before any of them could say another word, Stardust had moved to reach into Tenmei-chan's chest, searching around briefly, before pulling out what looked like a strip of paper. It almost seemed like Aunt Alice's Stand was reading the thing, and Jotaro found himself wondering how that was possible considering the way the Indiana Jones hat it seemed to be wearing came down over its eyes. But, after a few seconds or so, Stardust came over to hand him the paper it'd extracted from Tenmei-chan.
"Prepared to die?" he demanded, Star emerging as he clenched his fists and stomping over to where Kishibe was standing, his arm still draped around Tenmei-chan's left shoulder.
"It's the one rule that every manga-ka should follow," Kishibe said, though he seemed to be a lot more focused on what Stardust was doing.
"I don't care what you do with your life, but don't fuck around with one of our kids, all right?" he demanded, making his way over to pull Tenmei-chan away from Kishibe. "Stardust, you mind getting rid of the rest of that shit?"
Aunt Alice's Stand gave him a sharp nod, reaching back into Tenmei-chan's chest, pulling out another strip of paper. Tenmei-chan, blinking in surprise, looked around at the room they were all standing in like he didn't quite know where he was. Jotaro could only hope that he'd been aware enough of what was going on around him that ending up in this place wouldn't end up being too disorienting for him. But, just as Stardust was about to remove another scrap of paper from Tenmei-chan's chest, the kid slapped his right hand over his chest, and tried to push back against Stardust with his left.
The sight of another Stand – a Stand that looked just like Kakyoin's – leaping out of Tenmei-chan's body to take up position behind him, brought Jotaro up short for a long moment.
"Wait!" Tenmei-chan exclaimed, moving back, hands over his chest almost protectively. "I'd- I'd really like to keep that one, please."
"Tenmei-chan," Kakyoin said, making his way over to put his right hand on Tenmei-chan's head. "Are you sure about this? You're sure it's not hurting you?"
"No, this one is all right," Tenmei-chan said, right hand still on his chest, as though he was still worried about Stardust reaching for it; Aunt Alice wouldn't do that kind of thing, of course, but if there was one thing that Tenmei-chan and Kakyoin had in common, it was worrying about shit that either didn't matter or wasn't going to happen. Tenmei-chan was just a kid, though, so that made dealing with him less annoying than it could've been.
Less annoying than dealing with Kakyoin could be, sometimes.
"All right, we'll let you keep that Stand of yours, if you're sure about it," he said, feeling more than a bit strange about the whole thing.
First it'd been the way that his bastard uncle had given him and the rest of his family Stands with that Arrow he'd found somewhere or other, and now it was Kishibe doing this kind of shit to Tenmei-chan. Sure, he'd heard that Stand users were drawn to each other, but all of this was too much. Tenmei-chan hadn't even been a Stand user before he'd met up with Kishibe for the first time.
It was frustrating, but then that was what had happened, and now they would have to deal with it.
=DiU=
Having Dad and Uncle Jotaro there with him wasn't something Tenmei had been expecting, even when Dad had looked so worried seeing him at the café with Rohan-sensei, but now that he could actually talk on his own…
"Rohan-sensei, did you want to keep me from talking because you don't really take good care of yourself?" he asked, turning to Rohan-sensei, who didn't quite seem to know quite what to say in response.
"He works himself that hard, huh?" Uncle Jotaro asked, folding his arms and glaring at Rohan-sensei for a long moment, before turning back to him again. "He didn't make you do any of that shit, did he, Tenmei-chan?"
"Of course not," Rohan-sensei snapped, before Tenmei could say a single word in response. "Tenmei-kun needs his sleep to paint; his book even says that he does his best work when he's calm and well-rested."
"His book?" Dad asked, looking from Rohan-sensei to him and then back again.
"It's something to do with how his Stand works," Tenmei said, looking back at Rohan-sensei; he didn't know if he should try to explain anything else, since it wasn't his Stand they were all talking about.
That was still something he was getting used to: the thought that he had a Stand of his very own, one just like Dad's, even.
"That's enough, Tenmei-kun," Rohan-sensei said, a bit more sharply than Tenmei had ever heard him speak; he wondered if that was because Tenmei could speak for himself now.
"No, let's hear about that," Uncle Jotaro demanded, turning narrowed eyes on Rohan-sensei as the four of them all stared each other down. "What does your Stand do to people, Kishibe?"
"You could always come up to office, and I could show you," Rohan-sensei said, sounding all enthusiastic again.
Then he yelped, as Aunt Alice's Stand slapped the back of his head.
"Thanks, Stardust," Uncle Jotaro said, glancing briefly at Aunt Alice's Stand, before turning his attention back to Rohan-sensei. "Now, just what in the hell does your Stand do to people?"
"Is it some kind of mind-control?" Dad asked, and Tenmei leaned back into his embrace as he came to stand behind and a bit beside him. "Tenmei, are you really sure he didn't hurt you?"
"I'm all right, Dad," he assured his father, feeling his Stand reaching out to tug on his father's ponytail.
"Yeah, I'm starting to get that," Dad said, his own Stand emerging from his body, pulling his hair out of Tenmei's Stand's – he was going to need a name for it; Dad's Stand was named Hierophant Green, so Tenmei was going to try looking for a name that sounded kind of like that – grip, and chuckled softly.
Tenmei laughed, leaning his head under Dad's chin; this was nice, even though things had gotten pretty weird.
=DiU=
Once all of them had managed to set some proper boundaries with Kishibe-san and Tenmei – as excitable as the pair of them were; really, there were moments when Tenmei actually seemed to be more mature than the man who was presumably a lot older than him – Noriaki let himself relax. He was glad that none of them had been forced into a Stand fight, both since his son was new to having a Stand at all, and because he still didn't know what Kishibe-san's Stand was capable of. Given how long Tenmei had been away, Jotaro had flatly informed Kishibe-san that Tenmei was going to be staying with them for the rest of the day.