"It's a good thing we have two medical professionals in the house," Gyro said as he finished tightening a bandage over Ungalo's shoulder; Erina, after finishing her chastisement of the Stand user, had bundled an ice pack in a towel in order to tend to Rikiel, who was now apologizing profusely to Ungalo. Once the effect of the Stand had dissipated, Okuyasu had quickly phoned Josuke to request Crazy Diamond's healing, but it had seemed prudent to address the inch-deep cut and the golf-ball sized lump as soon as possible.

Rikiel clutched the ice pack to his head and grimaced. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm—"

"Dude, it's fine," Ungalo said, and he grinned as he clamped his hand over the bandages. "I'm almost sad that this is gonna get Stand-healed. It would have made for such a sick scar. D'you think he can fix you up, too?"

Rikiel tentatively nudged at the purplish lump on his forehead. "I can't believe I fainted."

"You faint all the time, dude."

"Well, I thought I was getting a better handle on it." He winced as his fingertips brushed over the bruising, then jumped, startled as the door slammed open.

"SorryI'mlateguys Iwaswithmymomand therewasotherStandbullshit—" The explanation spilled out as a stream of breathlessly conjoined syllables. Josuke rushed up to Okuyasu, who shook his head and pointed him towards Ungalo. Josuke ran towards him and then slid in on his knees as if stealing a base. Crazy Diamond emerged, placed its hands upon the bandaged gash in his shoulder, and then emitted a bright glow.

"The good stuff!" Gyro exclaimed. "Just go and feed my artisanally-wrapped bandages to a donkey, why don't you?"

In his rush to help, Josuke hadn't even noticed that Gyro was there. "Oh my God. You're here!" His eyes widened, and his mouth fell open in an expression of pure despair. "Oh no!"

"Yeah, super devastated to see you too, pal," Gyro quipped, but beyond his humor he held some genuine confusion; Johnny, realizing the source of Josuke's agony, only smiled wanly.

"I wanted to be the one to introduce you guys!" Josuke exclaimed, and Crazy Diamond conscientiously laid healing hands upon Rikiel, who winced.

"Yes, we are acquainted!" Joseph replied, Gyro let out an oof as a steel hand clapped him on the back. "There's no better icebreaker than a Stand attack. What happened with yours?"

"Well, there was a whole thing where every person downtown was getting shriveled into a husk, and Rohan and I tracked it down to this one Stand user over in the hospital, who was freaking out, because he couldn't get a handle on the thing at all, he had been trying to heal himself up from a motorcycle accident so he had started using the ability, but it was eating his nurses and his three girlfriends and whoever else got touched by these, these, these damned Stand toes, and at that point he was begging us to help him, but we were practically shriveled husks too, and the last thing Rohan could do was pop his face-book open, find where the guy got shot with the Stand arrow— twice!— and then write in 'not', so that he was 'not' shot with the Stand arrow. Twice. Then there was this huge bang and everything went back to normal and the guy yelled at us for being in his room. I know he forgot everything that happened but damn was I pissed that he was so ungrateful. And then Rohan yelled at me because he had a headache and my voice was like 'thirty nails on thirty chalkboards.'" Josuke finally paused to inhale. "I swear, every time I see that guy he finds a new thing to get annoyed with me for."

"So am I under arrest or can I just go," Terunosuke asked, and the social temperature of the room dropped several degrees.

Josuke looked up at him and scowled. "So is this the Stand user that attacked you guys?"

Despite the encircling glares, Terunosuke tilted his chin up. "Yes."

Josuke stood, and Crazy Diamond moved with him, smoothly mirroring the tension building in his shoulders. "Asshole. If I had been here, you would have ended up in the hospital right beside that other bastard."

"Ah," Erina said, and a bit of the arrogance evaporated out of Terunosuke's posture; he crossed his arms and frowned as she spoke. "Nobody needs to go to the hospital, because…"

"Because I apologize," Terunosuke said.

"And…"

"I realize it was fundamentally wrong to pick a fight with a bunch of strangers based on the instructions of another stranger," he added, and then he mumbled, "though I could have won, if I hadn't hesitated—"

Erina cleared her throat sternly.

"But I won't do it again," he stated, and he sighed.

"Oh sure you won't," Josuke said. "Don't see why we can't have Rohan erase your Stand right out of you."

"No," Erina and Dio said simultaneously; Dio made a small motion with his hand and deferred to her.

"It's his responsibility, now," Erina said, and as she spoke, Terunosuke visibly relaxed; Josuke's statement had caused a full-body flinch. "I think he can be trusted to make better decisions."

"Okay. That's very optimistic of you. My concern is that you said Rohan had a headache after de-Standing that other user," Dio added. "He has a very, shall we call it, conceptual Stand. It has the ability to rewrite causality. My Stand is concerned with time, and we now know that there are conditions, albeit quite extreme, that cause my Stand to become—"

"Broken," Josuke said.

"Extremely fatigued," Dio said through clenched teeth. "Let's not risk exhausting Rohan in the same fashion. We may need his capabilities if things become more dire. We need to proceed with great caution. The killer is operating with my favor, if you catch my drift. And you," he added, pointing a nail towards Terunosuke. "Before you go anywhere, you're going to tell us everything you know about the man who gave you your Stand."

There hadn't been much for him to say. A strange photograph had shot him twice; he had not seen even a glimpse of the killer, nor had he been gloated at by the double. Dio, muttering at the inanity of it all, had retreated into the basement; Josuke had fixed the massive hole punched through Okuyasu's wall before heading home; Giorno, Rikiel, Ungalo, and an extremely reluctant Donatello had cleaned up the various icing-related disasters flung across the living room, as well as the remnant traces of mud tracked throughout the house.

"And you call me if you happen upon anything strange," Erina said, and she pressed the slip of paper into Terunosuke's hands. "We're all here for you."

His mouth twitched towards a sneer, but he put the paper into his pocket. He took a deep breath, glanced around, and then let his focus settle back upon her. "I've been thinking about what you said."

"Oh?"

"About competition."

Her shoulders sank. "Now, listen here—"

"I'm not about to go and fight the guy by myself," he interrupted. "I'm not that stupid. But… I suppose, in the interest of repaying…" He trailed off, frowned, and then gathered himself. "Let's just say that if I go looking for something strange, and I happen to find it, I'll definitely call you."

"Well, I'm not your mother," Erina said, her expression softening with a smile, and she set one hand upon his shoulder. "But be careful."

"Sure."

"Good night, Terunosuke."

He seemed vaguely embarrassed, but he steeled himself and nodded. "Yeah."

Erina watched as he walked off into the dark. She clutched at a sense of hopefulness, but dread dragged alongside it. She was startled by the ringing of the house phone.

Okuyasu lifted it off the receiver and pressed it to his ear. "Yo yo! Nijimura residence." His brows rose, wrinkling the lines that arced along his forehead. "Oh, yeah, totally, uh, one second—" He raised his voice. "Dio! Jotaro's calling. Did he go downstairs? Ungalo, go—"

He flung the phone in surprise when Dio appeared beside him. Dio smoothly caught it, pressed it to his ear, and then leaned against the wall, affecting casualness to mask his excitement. "What?"

"The Foundation gave me a list."

"Perfect."

"It is also possible that someone who is already here in Morioh could be capable of what you're looking for."

"Very perfect."

"Tomorrow morning. Eight o'clock. Café. We'll discuss it then."

"Wonderful. I'll—" Dio was about to say more, but Jotaro had already hung up; he was certainly a persistently laconic individual. At the moment, it was in his favor. Jotaro could be informed about Erina successfully putting her own life on the line in order to defuse a devastating Stand attack at some later time, preferably one where Dio was outside the bounds of a multi-mile radius.

"No, no, and no," Dio said, and he crossed his arms and scowled after tossing the printouts onto the table.

"You don't like any of them," Jotaro said slowly, each syllable considered; there was an undercurrent of frustration, for sure, but he also watched Dio with a growing tactical curiosity.

"No. Take this one. Echo Bunnyman. It generates about fifty clones, but they're all one-fiftieth the size of the original, and the original body is temporarily broken down in order to make them. I need to retain the old body and the new one, so that doesn't work."

"Perhaps you should have written out all of your specifications before I made the request," Jotaro said flatly.

"I should have," Dio agreed. "And this one. Art d'Ecco. It makes a copy of the user, but it functions like a glass shield. It can only absorb a minor amount of damage before it shatters. I essentially need it to function indefinitely."

"What else?"

"Well, this Twin Shadow one is getting close," Dio admitted, and he looked over the profile again. "Generate a Siamese twin of the target with an opposing personality. It's still attached at the hip, though, and I would prefer that the bodies be separated."

Jotaro sighed.

Dio shoved the papers away from himself. "What about the one that you said was in Morioh?"

"He's late," Jotaro said, and he leaned back in his chair. "I should not have trusted a high schooler to get up before ten while on summer vacation."

Glass shards streaked across the asphalt, veering well outside the circumference of a set of concentric chalk circles. Then, they gathered themselves, re-forming as gleaming glass curves against the sunlight as it flew back to Josuke's hand. He adjusted his grip against the grooved base of the lightbulb, aimed, and threw again.

"Booyah," he exclaimed.

"That's a ten-pointer," Gyro said with a whistle, and Okuyasu cheered.

"My turn," Johnny said, and he took the lightbulb, tossed it up in the air, planted his feet against the ground, bent his knees, exhaled, and then— a fingernail shot out, shattering the bulb at the peak of its thrown arc. The shrapnel sprayed over the chalk target.

"Man, I don't know how to score that," Gyro said.

"That's a zero," Johnny acquiesced. "Just wanted to see if I could do it."

Okuyasu pumped his fist. "Siiiiiick!"

Josuke dashed out, nabbed the base of the bulb while avoiding any slicing segments of glass, and began to reform the light. "Gyro, you up?"

Joseph, happily sitting outside of the splash zone, waved him over. "Let me see it."

Josuke ran over him and offered the bulb. Joseph held the base between his palms and inhaled, exhaled.

The filament began to glow. "Old party trick," Joseph mumbled, smiling.

"Oh! Oh!" Josuke gestured for the bulb to be returned; with furrowed brows, Joseph handed it back. Josuke matched his prior movements, holding the bulb between his palms, breathing in, out. Nothing happened. Josuke widened his stance, flattening his soles against the ground, and he held his arms straight out in front of him. He inhaled, exhaled.

A fizzle of orange light crackled across the bulb.

Joseph's eyes widened. Josuke grinned.

Jotaro looked up and made one brief beckoning signal with his hand; a young and sweaty-looking man rushed up to them. Wooden limbs held together with duct tape clattered against the table. Dio raised his brows.

"Thank you for this opportunity Jotaro-hakase sorry I'm late and this is my Stand Surface it can copy people," he said, stumbling over his own words in his rush to get them out.

Jotaro said nothing. Dio, now curious, leaned forward and tapped on one of the wooden limbs. "A doll?"

A flare of energy rippled across the wooden pieces. The mannequin shuddered off of the table and, upon earning its balance and standing upright, turned to face Dio. He stood to inspect it more closely. He saw himself— a perfect copy, save for the obvious screw centered upon his forehead. He frowned, lifted one fist, and knocked against the copy's forehead, causing a hollow wooden sound.

"True to life," Jotaro stated.

He scowled. "You're so clever."

Hazamada, sensing Dio's disappointment, lifted his hands and waved them. "Wait, wait. It can also— see?"

Dio's arms lifted. It was not of his own volition. A pulse of immediate rage jolted through him. He saw the copy wave its hands. His own mirrored the movement.

"Stop that," Jotaro said.

"It's a really good Stand," Hazamada insisted. "I can use it to get someone to do anything I want— within, um, within reason," he amended, as he finally became aware of Jotaro's glare.

"Hazamada," Jotaro said.

"Yes?"

"Turn it off."

Hazamada then also became quite aware of the bared fangs revealed by Dio's enraged expression and the now-featureless doll collapsed in a heap.

Jotaro, once assured that Dio was not about to leap across the table and tear Hazamada in half, made a small nod of dismissal. "You can go."

Hazamada's lip curled. "But— really, Surface is—"

"Not what we're looking for."

He shrank back at Jotaro's stern tone, but then he grumbled to himself as he slouched away. "Not my fault you don't know what you want."

Jotaro gave Dio a sidelong look; after a few long moments of consideration, Dio snarled to himself and sat back down.

"And one, two, three," Jolyne said, and she released the taut elastic sling she had formed out of her own arm and a utility pole. The lightbulb rocketed towards the ground, skidded several feet, and then rolled in a semicircle, unharmed.

"Aw, what the hell," she griped. "That was totally lame."

"Negative five points," Gyro called out.

"Bad angle," Joseph suggested.

"Come on," Hermes said, and she held out a pink sticker. "Let's try it with some more oomph."

The impromptu game of alleyway-arena explosive lightbulb bocce had been expanded when Jolyne and Hermes had happened upon them. The sound of glass breaking repeatedly had piqued their interest; the sound of Okuyasu nearly wheezing himself into cardiac arrest in response to one of Gyro's most impenetrable puns yet had solidified it. (He must have been picking up a lot of Italian at Tonio's, Josuke had guessed— that, or both Gyro and Okuyasu were operating on the same unknowable plane of thought, Johnny had proposed.)

The sticker flattened against Jolyne's forearm. The limb split, doubled. With a grin, Jolyne spun her other arm into string, wound it tightly, and then stretched it into a humming line. Her doubled hands clutched the string and pulled it back. Her shoulders shook with the effort.

Josuke retrieved the light and tossed it to Hermes, who then pressed the bulb into the sling. "Alright, everyone out of the way. Ready, aim, and—"

"Fire!" they exclaimed together, and Jolyne's hands released the string. There was a single soft plink as the lightbulb hit the ground at such a velocity that, rather than breaking into shards, it burst into a streak of glittering dust.

Gyro whistled. "Damn!"

"Oh, man, nobody's beating that. That thing was obliterated," Josuke said in awe, and the dust began to slowly swirl back together as Crazy Diamond focused upon it.

Jolyne peeled off the sticker carefully and winced as the copied arm cracked back into her own. There was a reddish irritation along the line of the impact, but no further injury. She swung her hand down, then up; Hermes caught it with a low- and hi-five. "Hell yeah!"

"I'll contact the Foundation again," Jotaro said, and he lifted the payphone from the vivid green receiver after slotting in the requisite yen. "In fact, I'll do it right now. You can give them all of the specifications you can think of. Yes, hello. Jotaro Kujo. Asteroidea six-eight-three-five. I wanted to follow up on—" He paused. "What?"

Dio stood still, but he put as much effort as he possibly could into eavesdropping. Jotaro turned away from him and cupped his hand around the speaker. "When?"

The voice on the other end was too tinny to discern. "Absolutely not," Jotaro said in return. "The airport?"

The phone clattered against the hook. Jotaro punched in another number, put in more yen, picked up the phone, and waited. When no-one answered, he slammed the phone down again and began to stride away.

Dio stalked after him. "What's the problem?"

"There is no problem."

"Clearly."

Jotaro turned, lifted one pointing finger. The corner of his mouth twitched towards a frown. He began to speak, but then he hesitated, fell silent.

"You figure out what you're doing," he finally said. "Figure it out fast."

Jotaro left. Dio did not pursue him.

(Stands mentioned: Echo and the Bunnymen, Art d'Ecco, Twin Shadow.

Setup, setup, setup. As always, thanks for reading!)