Fugo had done his best to explain his theory to Giorno as they rushed back to the Colosseum in the early morning light. It couldn't be any later than 7 at the most, but Fugo hoped that the chaos that had just happened around the amphitheatre would postpone any overly eager tourists trying to cram as many sights as they could into one day.
Either way, time was of the essence, and not just because Bucciarati stood less and less of a chance of returning the longer they took. The sooner they were out of the scene of the crime, the better. Fugo was more than willing to let the polizia handle it for once.
"Are you sure your Stand can handle doing both?" Giorno had asked as they ran down Via dei Cerchi, Trish and Mista just a few steps behind them.
"Theoretically speaking, yes, as both the virus and the parasites will come from separate capsules and can be controlled distinctly. Truthfully? I have no idea," Fugo had replied. "But I owe it to Bucciarati to try."
Giorno had seemed satisfied with that answer, but really it wasn't like they had much other choice. It was far past the point where modern medicine could help; they could only rely on the supernatural power their Stands held to create what could only be described as miracles.
They stuck to the shadows on the left side of Via dei San Gregorio created by the stone walls that lined the road leading to the Colosseum. Sure enough, the poliziotto Fugo had seen earlier was now taking statements from a couple, a man standing further away murmuring to a woman holding a crying baby. More people that he hadn't seen before had appeared, likely from out of the buildings along the street after the chaos had passed and dissolved into confusion.
As they entered one of the limestone arches leading to the center of the amphitheatre, Fugo wished that he had thought to tell the others of Narancia's revival because he heard the gasps of shock the second they turned the corner into the arena.
"Nara!" Mista screeched so loudly that Fugo winced as the gunman bolted past him at a speed Fugo had never seen him use before.
To his relief, Narancia was all too willing to launch himself at Mista as well, sending the older boy crashing to the ground instead of Narancia. Fugo knew he was still feeling the aftereffects of coming back from the dead.
Trish was already headed straight to them and Fugo swore under his breath, swivelling around to grab Giorno and drag him to Bucciarati if he had to, but the blond had only paused long enough to register that Narancia was, in fact, alive, before resuming his pace towards where Abbacchio sat beside their capo.
Fugo once again thanked God for Giorno's rationality.
Abbacchio looked up to meet Fugo's gaze as the pair neared them and Fugo couldn't help but wince. Bucciarati looked worse, if that was even possible, as his skin had begun to turn gray. Abbacchio must've closed his eyes at some point because at least those vacant blue orbs weren't staring up at Fugo any longer.
"I'll keep those guys back. It's probably best if they don't look if they don't have to," Abbacchio said softly, rising to his feet. He rested one hand on Fugo's shoulder and the other on Girono's as he passed between them, muttering, "I'll leave it to you two."
Fugo couldn't help it, having the man acknowledge him like that felt good. Abbacchio had never said it aloud, but he knew he didn't like that Bucciarati had chosen Fugo over him when it came to picking the second in command. They'd joined at nearly the same time, after all.
"It simply doesn't make sense," Giorno said, drawing Fugo's attention back to the task at hand. The blond had settled down on Bucciarati's right side, next to his head, and was examining the corpse. "I've considered it before, but although he was dead, he showed no signs of it aside from absence of feeling and slowed blood flow."
"I noticed that too," Fugo agreed, going around to the capo's left side so they wouldn't get in each other's way. "The traditional stages of death, algor mortis, rigor mortis, livor mortis, he doesn't display them at all. Pallor mortis is the only visible change so far, and that's only occurred in the last few minutes. By all scientific definitions, he wasn't dead."
"Well, if you consider somatic death and molecular death to be different," Giorno mused, "Perhaps it was only a somatic death, since the conditions belying that are debated? It would certainly be good news for us; his organs would take to functioning again much more easily if molecular death hasn't occurred."
"I hadn't thought of that," Fugo said, once again thinking that he and Giorno needed to sit down sometime after this and talk about some stuff. None of the other guys had been this educated; he'd love to have an intellectual conversation partner and not Narancia and Mista levels of stupid.
"So I suppose we focus on reversing the stages of death, then?" Giorno asked.
"The organs are our most important target," Fugo confirmed. "They have to be alive for them to start working again; we can worry about the muscle tissue and the bones later. I'd say the brain takes priority, but after observing what's happened to Bucciarati, I believe it's the brain that kept him half-alive this whole time, in which case, we turn our attention to the heart."
"We can enter through the bullet holes," Giorno said, unbuttoning Bucciarati's jacket to access the two holes burrowed clean through the body. "We won't create any new wounds that way. If we're starting with the parasites, then I'll wait to administer the antibodies until we're certain they're going to remain in the body longer than- what did you say the time limit for them was?"
"It depends," Fugo answered. "With Castagna, I needed them to work as quickly as possible, but his Stand ended up working against him, so factoring both of those into account, I'd say we have about five minutes before we absolutely have to do something about them?"
"Alright." Gold Experience appeared beside Giorno and holy shit, it looked completely different, but of course it did, it must be a Requiem Stand now. They could discuss it later; right now, Fugo couldn't be distracted.
He called Purple Haze to his side, the white-and-purple Stand crouched behind him holding out a small golden capsule, already ready to go.
"Don't you have to break it first?" Giorno asked.
Fugo shook his head; "The parasites are the shell. It's what it's made of, that's why I can't touch it directly. But Gold Experience should be able to without any harm."
Giorno nodded and his Stand took the orb from Haze, eyeing it in what seemed like curiosity.
"Can you do delayed lifegiving?" Fugo asked. "I'd like to get the parasites moving through the veins first before they begin transforming into cells."
"That should work," Giorno replied. "I just need you to tell me as soon as they reach his heart."
Fugo nodded; it was now or never. "Go ahead," he said, heart racing in his chest. God, he hoped this would work. Judging by Giorno's expression, the boy was thinking the same thing as his Stand shattered the capsule in its hand before slamming the contents into the bullet hole closest to Bucciarati's heart with a loud cry.
Just like with Narancia, Fugo could sort of feel them, sense where they were as they travelled through the blood vessels. It was almost like he could see them, and when Fugo closed his eyes, images appeared in his mind of long, slim wormlike things slithering through the plasma in the veins. How this was even possible, Fugo didn't know, it wasn't like parasites had eyes, but then again, they weren't traditional parasites, were they?
"This is strange," Fugo said aloud. "Bucciarati's blood plasma should be draining to the bottom of his body but the vessels are still nearly full."
"It's likely because he somehow kept moving despite his physical death," Giorno answered and Fugo's eyes snapped open, the images of the parasites vanishing.
"But if the blood stopped flowing but because he never stayed in one position for long enough, it should have at least moved somewhere," Fugo said in confusion. "It's almost as if his body was simply frozen in time…"
The implications of that gave further encouragement to Fugo; if, somehow, Diavolo's Stand had attacked Bucciarati's body within that space of time it erased and somehow an adverse reaction was formed from Giorno's interference with Gold Experience, then that would help to explain at least a tiny bit of the impossibility of the situation.
"They're at the heart," Fugo said suddenly, jerking back to attention when Purple Haze let out a soft moan.
"Already ahead of you," Giorno replied, and he was, Gold Experience's hand resting above Bucciarati's heart. "Perhaps it's because our Stands powers combined when it entered his body, but I could feel them as well, although it seems as if you could even see what they saw?"
"I think it's part of how Haze evolved," Fugo admitted. "When I fought Castagna, I was too out of it to really notice it but it was like I just sort of knew they were there, ready to attack whenever I wanted them to."
"In trusting your Stand, you learned to trust its powers as well," Giorno murmured, and when Fugo looked up, the blond was staring at him with eyes alight from curiosity. "You'll have to tell me more about Haze's growth at another time."
"If we can manage this, I'll tell you whatever you wanna know," Fugo conceded. "Can you feel anything? How's it going?"
"It's slow," Giorno admitted, his green eyes switching to examine the space where his Stand hovered over Bucciarati. "I can't see it at all but Gold Experience Requiem can, and I can feel that, so I know it's working. At the very least, the conversion to cells is working."
"Then we need to start the second phase," Fugo said. "In restoring the blood vessels and the blood cells, we should be able to reach the other organs as well. Attempting to restart the heart is the last thing we need to do; everything else has to be working well enough for it to not immediately fail again."
"Reversing livor mortis," Giorno agreed. "We'll need both your parasites to repair the walls of the blood vessels and your virus to carry the blood cells; that should be enough force to get the plasma circulating again, albeit slowly."
"Let's start with the virus then," Fugo sighed. He was worried about the antibodies not reaching the virus cells in time but it was a risk they'd have to take. Besides, the parasites would need the same antibodies very soon.
"Do you think you can turn some of the viruses into antibodies at the same time as giving the parasites life to repair the veins and arteries?"
Giorno gave him a weak smile; "I suppose we're both attempting things we've never tried before today. If you can deliver both the virus and parasites at the same time, then I shall transform them both."
That was the best answer he could hope for, Fugo supposed, so he just flashed Giorno an awkward smile before he turned to Haze. His Stand was staring at him with the orbs on its hands resting atop its knees. One hand held the golden capsules made of the parasites while the other had smaller, white orbs. Fugo had never even noticed the difference before.
Their instruction of their Stands was wordless, and it was fascinating how in sync Haze and Gold Experience seemed. Their hands came together, pale golden fingers entwining with Haze's own white ones and it was almost like they merged together, the way Gold Experience's fingers wrapped around the small capsules and Haze's palms fit into the other Stand perfectly. This time, both bullet holes were used, one for each set of hands to press the capsules deep into the wounds.
It was an incredibly strange feeling, Fugo realized as the capsules dissolved within Bucciarati's body. He'd never thought about the feeling of Purple Haze using its virus before, had never really been connected enough to his Stand to even recognize that he could feel it, but it was different now. Releasing the virus and unravelling the capsule formed by the parasites was like having two separate waves crash into each other within him, and the vertigo was enough to have him blinking away stars.
"Are you alright?" he heard Giorno ask, and Fugo shook his head to try to clear it some.
"Yeah, it- it's a weird feeling," he admitted, bringing a hand to his left temple as a throb began to form behind it. "Like I'm being twisted in two directions at once, if that makes sense."
"A Stand is like an extension of yourself," Giorno murmured. "It makes sense then, that the two powers would potentially be at odds with each other. Viruses are obligate parasites after all, it likely sees your parasites as competition."
"Well at least they aren't attacking each other in his body," Fugo chuckled. "I don't mind bearing their backlash as long as they still obey me."
Giorno smiled at that, before turning his focus back to Bucciarati's body. "It seems the few antibodies I've had form so far have been working; I see no outer signs of decay on his corpse and your power works fairly quickly so it would likely be evident by now."
"I think you're right," Fugo agreed. "And the parasites are replicating as well, which I hadn't expected at all. The virus is potent and has an incredible replication speed while infecting cells, but the parasites are also splitting from each other as well. I would've expected eggs or perhaps spores based on their shape, but it's more like binary fission."
"You know what it looks like?" Giorno asked, and Fugo could tell from the surprise in his voice that he hadn't expected that. Neither had Fugo, to be honest.
"They're like worms," he answered, "Except they're much smaller, so not quite like the helminths humans normally contract. They aren't really like anything I've ever seen before, even during my brief time in Professore Bianchi's lab. He was observing the life cycle of parasitic worms in brown rats. If I had to pick, I'd say they appear similar to Caenorhabditis elegans."
"Unfortunately, I'm not quite as well-versed in the nature of parasites as you seem to be," Giorno said, amusement in his voice. "So I'll just take your word for it."
"Small, unsegmented, and long," Fugo clarified, face flushing awkwardly in embarrassment. "And transparent. I think they've reached most of his organs by now."
"Fascinating," Giorno exclaimed, and when Fugo looked at him in confusion, he gestured to the area of Bucciarati's chest where the capsules had entered. "His skin, look at his skin, Fugo."
Giorno was right; it was hard to tell at first, but if Fugo looked carefully, there were certain areas of the skin that had taken on a less grayish hue, almost looking more like a fading bruise than a bloodless corpse.
"Let's hope that's good," Fugo said, hoping it wasn't because they'd somehow managed to cause mass internal bleeding in those areas. He hadn't sensed anything out of the area there, and Giorno must not have either, but Fugo wasn't going to rule it out as a possibility.
"Gold Experience Requiem has already begun to heal his lungs, liver, and kidneys. The stomach and gastrointestinal tract will be a bit more difficult, but I was hoping we could enter through Bucciarati's mouth for that, once we get enough of the connected organs functioning well enough." Giorno grimaced as he added, "I'm worried about what we'll find in his stomach."
"I didn't even think of that," Fugo realized. "Please tell me he didn't try to eat anything after he died?"
"I don't believe so, but it's possible. It might not be such a bad thing if he had; I'm also concerned that the bacteria may have begun to eat the stomach lining when they ran out of sustenance."
"We'll hope for the best then," Fugo agreed. At least ulcers could be fixed easily enough. The gastrointestinal tract was a bit more hardy than the respiratory and circulatory systems, so Fugo was placing his hopes on that.
They worked in silence for the next few minutes, giving Fugo time to try to catch his thoughts up to what was going on. That throb had turned into a full blown headache, even as the virus and the parasites drifted further apart in Bucciarati's corpse to different areas of the body, but it wasn't bad enough that he couldn't think, thank God. He was able to push the nausea aside as long as he focused on one specific area at a time. There was also just a general fatigue that was even showing on Giorno now, the blond boy paler than he normally was. Fugo supposed he didn't look much better. Bringing a man back from the dead was nothing to scoff at, after all. They were pushing the limits of life as they knew it, and Fugo hoped they wouldn't incur some sort of karmic wrath for doing so.
Fugo's eyes drifted over to where Gold Experience Requiem was working above Bucciarati's stomach and could barely bite back a scream of shock when he saw just what the Stand was doing.
Requiem's hands were inside Bucciarati's body.
"Giorno!" Fugo snapped, "Pull back, pull Gold Experience back!"
Giorno's eyes widened in surprise before he quickly jerked his head over to see what exactly Fugo was talking about. They weren't fully inside the man, the tops of its palms were visible, as were the first orange segmented joint of its fingers, but the rest of its hands appeared almost merged into Bucciarati's skin.
"No, Fugo, wait, it… it's not a bad thing," Giorno said slowly, eyes flicking between his Stand and Fugo warily. "I can't fully explain it, but Requiem is… it's sure that it's right."
"…Requiem and Haze," Fugo realized all of a sudden. "When they touched, when they took each other's hands, it looked like they were almost mixing. I-I thought it was just my mind playing tricks on me, an illusion."
"I don't fully understand Requiem's new powers," Giorno added. "I don't know the extent to which it can go to now for healing; the arrow is supposed to greatly augment its original strength, so perhaps this is just a new method of delivering that power. And I can feel it as well, Fugo, not only is it changing your viruses, twisting them into new cells, but it's almost like it's… like it's giving the organs themselves life."
"Wait, it doesn't need the virus anymore?!"
"No, no, that's not it- well, actually, yes, I suppose it wouldn't," Giorno amended, exchanging some sort of wordless understanding between the blond and his Stand. "Think of your virus as a catalyst and Gold Experience Requiem and Bucciarati's organs as the reaction. It's going exponentially faster than it would. I hadn't even known it was possible to imbue life into dead things, but I haven't ever tried before either."
"…This doesn't make sense," Fugo eventually groaned. If what Giorno was saying was true, then the boy's power could potentially rival God himself, if the entity even existed to begin with. So much power in the hands of one man, no, one boy, Fugo couldn't even begin to fathom it. But if any of them were to be worthy of that strength, it was Giorno. Fugo wasn't sure when he'd really started to actually believe that himself, but he couldn't even bring himself to argue that Bucciarati should've received the arrow. Not if Gold Experience Requiem could do something like this.
"How can it do that?" Fugo asked. "I thought you said it can only give life to inorganic material?"
"It still adheres to that principal, I think, but instead of focusing on inorganic material to simply be that which is not alive, it's grown to encompass a wider variety of things?"
"…So instead of focusing on the chemically inorganic definition of death that it used before, it now uses the biological definition of death? Anything not exhibiting signs of life counts as dead now?"
Giorno nodded. "I believe it's something like that, although I'm not quite sure. I'm not sure Gold Experience Requiem knows either."
"So does this mean you can tell how his organs are progressing?" Fugo finally asked.
"I can't see it at all, not like you seem to be able to do with Haze's parasites, but I can sort of sense it? Or rather, Gold Experience Requiem can and is transmitting that information to me."
"Then you can tell me when we're ready to target his stomach next."
"We could probably try it now, if you're able to handle that, Fugo," Giorno replied.
"I'll be fine." Fugo reached over to Bucciarati's head, pushing two fingers into the man's mouth so he could pull his jaw open. "I don't think the amount of capsules used has any effect on me; we've used three so far and the only issue was using two different ones at once. But Haze only has three more and I'm not sure how long it takes to recover them, so we can't waste them. You're absolutely sure it's ready?"
Giorno nodded as he scooted up to Bucciarati's head. "His liver and kidneys are nearly complete with healthy cells, by the time your parasites reach the stomach, it should be done."
"Alright. Whenever you're ready then."
Gold Experience Requiem pulled one of its hands out of Bucciarati's chest to reach towards Purple Haze and this time, Fugo watched closely as the two hands touched. It wasn't really Haze's hand that merged with Requiem, so much as the golden orb atop its knuckle that seemed to fuse with Gold Experience's fingers. Fugo held Bucciarati's mouth open as the Stands forced the capsule down the man's throat.
It was strange, to watch something be swallowed by a dead man, but Fugo could feel the capsule breaking halfway down Bucciarati's trachea and the small lump beneath the dead flesh disappeared.
"What are we going to do about everything else?" Giorno asked softly, and Fugo wasn't sure he had an answer for that.
There simply weren't enough capsules to attempt to regrow all the dead tissue, the deteriorating muscle and bones and dead skin. Giorno's normal method of using inorganic material to replace what was lost wouldn't work either because nothing was lost, Bucciarati hadn't even begun to decay yet. And if Giorno was right, if Gold Experience could imbue life to something once-alive, they still had no idea how long that would take or if it would even work.
"I'm not sure there's anything we can do," Fugo answered, and Giorno's silence made it clear that he'd been thinking the same thing. "With any luck, if this works, then Bucciarati might be able to regain the muscle that's wasted away, shed the dead skin, but I… I'm not sure."
"We'll just do what we can." Giorno's voice was soft but confident and when Fugo glanced over at him, his green eyes were full of determination. "It will be up to Bucciarati himself to do the rest."
"Well, seeing as he was stubborn enough to not even die when he was supposed to, surely he can come back from this," Fugo forced out, a smile that probably looked more like a grimace on his face. Giorno nodded in agreement and they turned their focus back to the body.
Fugo could feel Haze's parasites swarming the intestines, pushing through the pyloric sphincter in the stomach after they'd eaten away at the small mound of food left in Bucciarati's stomach. There hadn't seemed to be any holes in the lining luckily, which meant they wouldn't need to spend much time on that area. The virus was everywhere by now, Fugo could tell it was coursing through Bucciarati's body, forcing the plasma in his veins and arteries to start moving again, carrying the revitalized blood cells with them.
Giorno likely felt something similar, Fugo supposed, but it must be strange for him to not be working hands-on for the first time. All the other injuries the boy had treated were visible and required Giorno to touch what he was morphing into living tissue. It was a wonder his pink suit wasn't red at this point, with all the times he'd had blood all over him before.
"…I think it's done," Giorno murmured. "I mean, there's still some minor damage in certain places but it's better to attempt to restart his heart sooner rather than later. We don't want to miss that window of opportunity."
Giorno was right; if they took too long ensuring everything was perfect, then it was possible things would begin to die again before they managed to get Bucciarati's heart beating. And the sooner his blood could flow on it's own, the sooner the body could attempt to resume normal function without the help of Gold Experience Requiem or Purple Haze.
"I can start CPR," Fugo affirmed, moving to get into position but Giorno's fingers alighted on his wrist, stopping him.
"I have an idea," Giorno said. "Or rather, Gold Experience Requiem does. It's a bit hard to explain but- I think it wants to force Bucciarati's heart to beat."
"What do you mean?" Giorno gave Fugo an uneasy look before sighing.
"It's going to grab it."
"What?!" Fugo couldn't help but exclaim. "How on earth- I get that Requiem can sort of, I guess merge with his body, but-"
"Not quite like that," Giorno explained. "It's more like it nullifies the part of its fingers and hands that touch the tissue except for the tiny part that needs to be touching the targeted organ. It wants to use that to reach Bucciarati's heart and squeeze it to see if it will take to beating on its own without help."
That sounded way too dangerous but the look in Giorno's eyes made Fugo hesitate. The blond looked so certain of himself and his Stand, and Fugo had learned to trust in that over the past week or so.
"Alright," he said finally. "Go ahead."
This was it, Fugo realized as Gold Experience Requiem pressed its orange and golden hand into Bucciarati's chest. If this didn't work, then nothing would. Everything they'd done up until now would either work or have been for naught, and Fugo almost didn't want to watch. But he had to, had to see for himself whether he'd just been grasping at straws or if he'd truly managed to reverse the odds. If he'd played God or not.
The following seconds were agonizingly slow, Fugo and Giorno both fixated on where Gold Experience Requiem's hand disappeared against pale skin.
"One," Fugo heard Giorno murmur, and realized he was counting the forced beats of the heart, as he said, "Two… three…"
How many would be enough? Or would it never be enough?
There was a soft exhale and Fugo's head snapped up to look towards Bucciarati's mouth. It was still slightly open from where Fugo had forced it, and he quickly scrambled over to the man's head and pressed his ear against his capo's lips.
There was silence for a few seconds before he felt, a soft brush of air against his ear followed by the quietest inhale he'd ever heard before. But it was there. Bucciarati was breathing.
"Giorno, pull Requiem back," Fugo instructed, positioning his fingers against Bucciarati's carotid artery right below the man's chin.
"It already has," he heard Giorno saying. "Fugo, is he-"
There it was. A beat. It was faint and far too slow to be considered healthy, but it was there. Fugo couldn't hold back the wide grin on his face as he looked up to meet Giorno's worried gaze.
"He has a pulse. He's breathing." Fugo watched as Giorno's eyes widened in shock as the blond processed Fugo's words. "Giorno, we did it. Bucciarati's alive."