New Delhi, 1988
Joseph hums to himself as he walks up the now familiar stairs of the Le Meridien. Jotaro trudges slowly behind him, more silent than normal.
Quiet all the way back, and not even a grumble about me humming?
Stopping at the top of the stairwell, Joseph spins on his heel and points directly at Jotaro before shouting,
"Jotaro! Why the hell are you moping so much?"
"Tch." Jotaro barely voices a response, looking directly back at Joseph's eyes.
"Listen, I get it, the guy got away. But we can meet up with wrinkly me an-"
"Jojo." Jotaro responds flatly but directly as he continues to glare at Joseph.
"Spit it out, Jotaro."
"What if you can't go back?"
"What?" Jotaro's eyes squint a bit as he speaks, as if recoiling from pain. A less keen eye than Joseph's would sense discomfort. Joseph however-
He…he's really worried about me, huh… What if I can't-
"Nonsense, Jotaro! Just gotta wring the answers outta Miller, even if I have to kick his teeth in first!" Joseph poses proudly, but Jotaro rushes up to him and grabs him by the shirt.
"Oi. Take this seriously for once."
"Hey hey, cool it!"
"We don't know enough about this, Joseph. If you can't go back, what does that mean about the Gramps I know? About Suzi Q? About-"
"About your mother?" Jotaro grits his teeth in response, before spitting out,
"Your daughter, Jojo. You talk like being stranded here is a vacation."
"Hey, all this future stuff is neat, and the food's not bad-" Jotaro lifts Joseph up with two hands, a mixture of feelings bubbling through.
"Joseph. I'll say this once. My grandfather always talks about the peaceful moments in his life being his proudest. The fifty years since he got married as his happiest years. Don't act like you don't want to go back. That you won't regret a thing. That'd you regret making a family that I'm fighting to save." Jotaro releases his grip, leaving Joseph leaned against the stairwell wall. The usual glow in his eyes dims as he thinks to himself.
"I…" Jotaro continues up the stairs, leaving Joseph alone in an echo chamber of somber footsteps.
A family…Did I really just settle down? A wife and a kid…and I just waited 'til I had to for me to go on more adventures…
Joseph gulps to himself, thoughts of Lisa Lisa, Granny Erina, and Smokey going through his head. He has family back home as well. Back then, really. And they, too, were gone. His thoughts drift. He doesn't even know if they're alive at this point. And it never crossed his mind to ask.
Oh god…I'm still just a child…my whole life, my whole family…I just got married. And hell, if my mother and grandmother died…I missed their funerals.
Tears well up in his eyes. He thinks of all the fights he's had, before and after the whisking away in time. He thinks of Caesar, the regrets he carries with him to this day.
I…No. This isn't about me anymore. I regret a lot. But fighting for my friends and family will never be a regret. Even if I don't go back…saving my daughter here and now is the priority. And hell, from what I've heard, if DIO gets his way, all the Joestars and THEIR friends will be in danger.
Joseph straightens up and wipes a line of tears away from his cheek. He can still hear the echoes of footsteps above him.
"Hey, Jotaro!" And with a dive forward, he leaps in between the sets of stairs and sends his Stand upward, using it to climb at high speeds towards the floor Jotaro is on. Landing with a flourish, Joseph puts on hand near his temple and the other pointed right at Jotaro.
"My only regret right now, Jotaro-" He smiles with a goofy grin. "Would be to waver and fail you now. After all, you better look up to your elders!" Jotaro looks at him with a hard glare, but the masked pain from earlier seems to dull in his eyes. He shakes his head and pushes past the posing man.
"Yare yare daze…"
"Will you ever tell me what that means?" Jotaro just opens the door to the top floor and shuffles in, leaving Joseph standing and grinning in the stairwell.
We can't fail now, Jotaro. Even if I'm stuck here forever, the only thing I'd regret would be failing my family once more.
God I'm bored, ugh I don't know, like, Thursday?
With a huff, Anne flips through more channels on the television. The hotel people came in yesterday to fix the glass, but other than that she's bored as hell. Not only that, but both Jojo and Jotaro got back today but they went to go sleep. Well, Jotaro did. Joseph seems to be, well, "resting his eyes".
"Jojo." Anne pokes the sprawled out man on the couch beside her. His eyes are completely closed, the sunset outside bathing them both in orange.
"Joooojoooooooo." She once again prods him, this time on the bottom of his ribs. Again, no response.
"Ugh."
"What do you want, you little gremlin?" Without opening his eyes, Joseph responds with unnatural alertness.
"I'm bored."
"Congrats. Read a book."
"No."
"Well I can't help you."
"Entertain me."
"Lady, I just climbed a mountain up and down and almost got gutted by a ghostly birdman. Let me get some shut eye."
"That sounds like it was an interesting trip, though…"
"It was."
"Sooounds like you did some cool stuff."
"Yeah, I did.
"So…."
"So…."
"You going to tell me about it?" Sitting up and opening his eyes at that, Joseph gives a hard look at Anne.
C'mon, take the bait, take the bait.
"Well, you see, we found this temple…"
Time passes…
"And then, the old man took off his terrible disguise and attacked me in the inner sanctum!"
"And what did you do next?"
"I used my excellent Hamon skills to fight him off!"
"Wow!"
"Well, then he-"
Time passes…
"And then Jotaro hit him?"
"Y'know it, all according to plan, of course."
"Wow, Jojo. I'm surprised Jotaro doesn't know all those martial arts moves you know."
"Well, someone was a failure of a grandpa, and it wasn't me!" Joseph proudly gives a thumbs up.
"Are you gonna teach him?"
"I mean, of course. Hamon runs in the family!"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, my mother was a Hamon master. And my grandfather was also excellent…and well, I sort of had a good friend that was like a brother. And he was a Hamon master. Almost as good as yours truly." Joseph gives another thumbs up, but slightly dulled eyes.
"So it's just a Joestar thing, huh…" Anne looks out at the night sky, a little troubled.
Man…after I got all jazzed up to ask him. A whole two days wasted watching karate movies…
"I mean, not really. My mom wasn't blood related to my grandfather. It's an, uh, aptitude thing."
"So what you're saying is-" Anne's eyes gleam devilishly, "-I might have a shot?"
"Hm…" Joseph scratches his chin and looks her up and down. "Hm…"
"What?"
"Breathe."
"Uh, okay?" Joseph examines her closely as she breathes deeply, watching her face and chest as the air fills her lungs.
"Nope, all wrong, you suck at breathing."
"Hey! Isn't that what you're supposed to teach me?"
"Well, it'll be a lot of work…"
"I can do it! I want to do cool stuff like you and Jotaro!"
"Well…I can try to use the super secret Hamon booster technique."
"Do it, Jojo! I wanna be cool!"
"You sure? It's not pleasant."
"Stop stalling!"
"Alright, I warned you…" Joseph balls his hand up into a fist, with his pinky extended. In a flash of a moment, too quick for Anne to see, a massive impact collides with her solar plexus. Her vision goes completely black as her breath escapes her.
New Delhi, 39 Days Remaining
"She asked you to train her, so you killed her."
"She's not dead! I might have just hit her a little too hard for her size."
"Jojo, she's sprawled out like she got hit by a bus."
"But not dead!" Jotaro looks with disdain at Joseph. His grandfather really did have a weakness for doing what women asked of him. A small groan comes from the girl's body on the floor as she stirs from unconsciousness. "See! Not dead."
"Ugh. Anne, get up."
"Jo…Jotaro?"
"Anne, tell me, did you feel it?"
"What?" Anne rubs her eyes after her groggy response. "Ugh, my throats dry…"
"Well, uh, you've been out for about three hours…and you fell and had a nosebleed everywhere."
"Joseph woke me up for this." Jotaro turns to go back to his room and starts to step away.
"Wait, Jotaro, I had something to tell you." She coughs a bit as her voice gets more hoarse.
"Hold on." Jotaro gets a glass and fills it with cold water, before kneeling down and handing it to Anne, who was still on the floor with a thin line of dried blood on his lip. She takes it, but continues.
"Your grandpa called. He said to give him an explanation about the guy who's with you-" Anne begins to speed up, "And sorry I might have accidentally have hinted that someone else was with you and had a Stand thingie but I didn't tell him it was a younger version of him but I may have had a glass of Champagne that day because god the hotel staff don't check anythingsoanywayI'msosorryJotaro!" She goes into a brief coughing fit after the motor-mouthed rant, which prompts Joseph to kneel down as well and pat her on the back.
"Hey, hey, Anne. Take it easy. Just calm down, breathe deep, and drink the water." She closes her eyes, exhales, then breathes in. The tenseness in her arms and face fade, and she breathes in again. Out, then in. Out, then in, and out of the corner of his eye, Jotaro sees something odd. The water in her glass undulates and ripples as she breathes.
"Good, good, breathe a little more, calm down." Another breath, and just as she starts to straighten up with a confident breath, the water crackles with a bit of electric force, causing the glass to shatter in her hands.
"Eek!" Anne's hand recoils back and Joseph giggles a bit.
"Oh man, good one Anne! You pick it up quick, take notes Jotaro!" Jotaro just stands up, shakes his head, and walks out.
"Wait, that was me?"
"Thaaat's Hamon, baby!"
"I DID IT!" Anne goes to stand up, but notices that her hand has some glass embedded in it. She shrieks a bit, then faints, causing her to slump into the waiting Joseph's arms.
"Jeez, that's not even a bad one. Try losing an arm." Joseph notices no one conscious is still in the room, and sighs. "Fine, fine, I'll heal you up before you wake up again and scream…"
Around the corner, Jotaro listens to Joseph as he breathes, the man in the other room channeling breath into healing energy.
Just breathe…
Sucking the air into his lungs, he closes his eyes and exhales. Jotaro rests his hand on the wall as he breathes, and its as if the whole hotel floor resonated into his mind's eye. He senses the heartbeat of the two in the living room, someone a floor below is sweeping the floor, and for some reason, off on the other side of the hallway, he feels footsteps without a heartbeat. Heavy footfalls, as if they were made of stone or dirt…
END of CHAPTER 16