Chapter 11: The Knife
A/N: Edited 18/12/2020. Changed the whole Yuri vs. Sakimoto Final Fight to better fit Yuri's personality. And other minor word choice edits.
"What the hell happened here?" JoJo remarked as he walked into MC's house, seeing the two other girls already there, heads in their hands.
MC gulped as he looked at Sayori and Yuri one more time. "Quite a bit. You should know that I reset the week again, and both of them know now."
"Wait," JoJo turned to MC to ask. "I thought only one of them remembered your last run?"
"Yuri remembers it now, too."
"But why?"
"I have absolutely no idea."
MC then turned to the purple-haired girl. "Yuri, we need to talk about all this."
"Y-Yes, MC, we do," Yuri nodded as she looked at the boy as well, still shaking with nervousness. "H-How are we in the p-past?"
"It's an ability of MC's," JoJo cut in. "Let's just leave it at that."
MC looked at JoJo in confusion, but JoJo only signed for him to go with it.
"An ability?" Yuri gasped. "You can reverse time at will? But how? How did you get such an ability? And why can I remember all of it?"
"I don't know," MC confessed. "But I'm glad we're here now. I'd hate to have to go through all of that once again."
"Oh, y-y-yes, about that," Yuri looked down in guilt. "MC, I-I am so v-very s-sorry for everything t-that h-"
"It's not your fault!" Sayori interrupted. "Please, don't apologize for anything like that."
"She's right," MC added, looking at Yuri again. "It wasn't your fault. Monika was able to turn your mind into that. It's her power, in a way."
"Monika?" Yuri widened her eyes. "B-But why would she do that?"
"… I don't know." MC confessed, much to Sayori's chagrin as well.
JoJo looked at MC. "Wait, you don't know yet?"
"I know some things," MC said. "I've seen Monika's Stand, and it can control people and delete them."
"Wait, you saw it?" Sayori interrupted. "When? I hadn't seen it at all?"
"She had used it on me, actually," MC revealed. "Remember when I picked Monika to work with during the weekend? Her Stand made me do that."
"Huh?" Sayori cocked her head in confusion. "But I was watching both of you during that time. I hadn't seen her Stand anywhere."
"Wait, this chick has a Stand?!" JoJo remarked, pointing at Sayori, but it was ignored by MC.
"It was stuck on my head for quite a while, Sayori, you should have seen it," MC said.
"I didn't, MC," Sayori said. "I hadn't seen it at all."
"Well, maybe you just hadn't looked properly?" JoJo contributed. "It was probably there, but you missed it?"
MC paused. "I don't think that's right. It was there long enough for her to see it. Maybe there is some other reason?"
"Yeah, I guess so," Sayori repeated.
"Umm, c-can you please explain," Yuri broke her silence, "what a S-Stand is?"
The trio looked at Yuri with widened eyes, just realizing that they had that entire conversation in front of an outsider.
"Um, we can't explain that to you just yet," JoJo confessed. "We have our reasons, but for now I think it is best you head back home."
MC looked at JoJo, surprised, "Hey man, we can't just leave her be! She deserves an explanation!"
"You know she's not a Stand User, right?" JoJo asked.
"Well, yeah, she's never responded to my Stand before, but-"
"Then that's that." JoJo concluded. "We're not getting her into business she can't comprehend or perceive."
"Um, I c-could h-help?" Yuri tried to ask. "I j-just want to know what you are t-talking about, t-that's all."
"And that's the same information you're not privy to," JoJo said, now looking at her. "Goodbye, Yuri. We might meet some other day."
"Yuri," Sayori turned to her. "I'm sorry we can't talk about this to you, but there is one thing you need to know. We've confirmed that Monika was the one who twisted our mind that way, so please, stay away from her unless you're with one of us. Can you please do that?"
Yuri sighed, and looked down. "O-Okay, I guess I can do that. Just keep clear of her?"
"Yep," MC followed up. "I'm honestly afraid she'll do the same thing to you this run, so please keep away from her."
Nodding, Yuri turned to the door. "I-I'm not welcome here, then, am I?"
"Yuri, please don't take it like that!" Sayori intercepted her thoughts. "It's just… what we're doing here is really dangerous. Remember how weird I acted last time? That was all because of things I had learned from this secret. I don't want you to go through that, especially not when you can't feel the danger yourself."
"I-I don't understand, Sayori," Yuri turned to her. "W-Why do you think I can't h-handle it? I almost killed someone, MC, back last time! I want to know why that happened!"
"… We can't, Yuri." Sayori continued. "This involves things you can't understand, even with all the books you read. You'll only understand it if you see it, which we know you can't."
"I…" Yuri dropped her gaze. "Fine. I'll stop asking. I-I'll just go."
The trio chose not to speak any further, knowing that it would only get harder. So, they opened the door and let Yuri walk out.
As she did so, Yuri was quite befuddled. She had no clue what any of them were talking about. She didn't understand why MC had the ability to revert time, nor what Stands were and why Sayori knew about it as well.
"Oh well," she told herself, "They might explain it at some point. I'm not going to sleep tonight, aren't I…"
Subconsciously, Yuri scratched her forearm, right where her scars were. She stopped walking as soon as she caught herself doing so.
She could feel it. The urge. The want to cut into her flesh once again.
Racing back home, she got to her room and opened her drawer. She pulled out Sky, observing it like always.
She pulled back her sleeve and held the blade above her arm again, ready to cut through, but she froze.
'… What?' she thought as her hand remained frozen over her arm.
All of a sudden, she vividly remembered her action of gutting MC through the chest. She remembered how she felt, how she had wanted to kill herself because of some misguided feelings that she held for MC.
Feeling repulsed, she dropped the blade without cutting herself and ran to the bathroom. She hurled for a few minutes, and as she cleaned up, she saw the redness of her sink from all the times she had cleaned herself there in the past.
She had to hurl yet again.
It was Wednesday, and Yuri was dazed from a lack of sleep.
It took her pretty much all night to clean up everything she had done properly. She couldn't cut anymore without going through a violent reaction, so she remained pent up with her emotion and frustration from the last night without having any way to deal with it.
At the moment, she was at the library, looking for any books with any mention to whatever 'Stands' were. Sadly, despite her hunting, there was no record of the word other than the classical dictionary adverb.
It seemed that whatever this was, it was well covered up. Well enough to not be put into any books anywhere. After all, if it was able to give MC the power to revert time, the fact that such powers weren't public knowledge gave enough sign to affirm the fact.
As she went through summaries of fiction, trying to find some connection, she felt a hand tap her shoulder.
Snapping out of her stupor, she jerked back only to see the last person she wanted to see.
"Hello, Yuri!" Monika said. "I hope you're doing well."
"Uhh…" Yuri stood agape, vaguely remembering what MC and Sayori mentioned the previous day.
"Oh, my, I hope I didn't break you, Yuri!" Monika sweatdropped, seeing Yuri's reaction.
"N-Not at all, Monika!" Yuri remarked, and put her book back and pretended to look at the clock. "Oh dear, is that the time? I'm sorry, but there is something I have to do."
"Oh, that's okay!" she replied as Yuri holstered her bag. "This will only take a second of your time."
"Umm, Monika, I must insist to leave," Yuri pursued. "I'm quite late for an appointment I have."
"You'll be okay in a second, Yuri, don't worry," she said as she leaned in and murmured under her breath, but loud enough form Yuri to hear. "Mess is Mine."
Suddenly, a black shadow creature came out of Monika's body and floated toward Yuri. Yuri could see its gaping eyes and voided mouth as it groaned, and she shrieked in response. Ignoring Monika's wide eyes, Yuri ran away as fast as she could, staying away from whatever that was.
Now well away from the library, she kept running in the halls, still trying to recover from whatever it was that she saw.
'Was that a Stand?' she pondered.
She kept running, mainly due to her frustration from not being able to cut anymore and the fright from whatever Monika's Stand was and what it had done to her. She kept everything she had done to MC and the other club members in her mind in the last run, and kept her legs moving.
Soon enough, she found herself in the school courtyard, still going.
"No running in these grounds!" a voice suddenly called out.
Not seeing Yuri stop, the owner of the voice suddenly drove an arm in front of her path. Colliding with it, the girl fell down clutching her stomach, while the boy simply withdrew his arms.
"I apologize for the violent action," he continued. "But I had to emphasize that running isn't permitted in this campus!"
Yuri groaned as she looked up and say who was speaking. Reshi Sakimoto, the Hall Monitor, was the one who stood there to stop her.
"Might I ask what warranted this run?" he asked, wind flowing his blue hair and metal-rimmed glasses covering his dark eyes and angular face. His uniform was pressed well, fitting his slender and tall body.
Yuri, as she stood up, slowly mumbled, "I was running away from something."
She widened her eyes at how easily the truth had come out of her.
"Running away from something?" he asked as he took off his glasses. "What was it?"
"I think it was a Stand," she yelped out before she could catch herself.
"A Stand attack? Interesting." He looked around the area as he cleaned his lenses with a cloth from his pocket. "Who was the User?"
"Monika."
"Ahh, she's okay. She probably relied on her intimidation tactics," Sakimoto turned to Yuri as he wore his glasses and pushed them up the bridge of his nose. "What's your name?"
"Yuri," she said. As she cleared her vision from the fall, did she notice the diluted white mist looming in the area around her.
"Last name?"
"Yamamoto."
"Very well, Ms. Yamamoto," Sakimoto said, gesturing around himself. "I believe you can see that you've walked into my Stand as well?"
"Y-Yes," she said as she watched the white mist swirl around her.
"Good, continue to give me the truth as I deem you comfortable," Sakimoto smiled as he watched Yuri slowly begin hyperventilating.
"W-What is going on? Why is this-"
"Relax."
Yuri felt the mist around her react, wrapping itself around her like a blanket. The odd comfort from the motion made her heart slow down. She even lost the urge to cut herself, and the guilt from what had happened in the last run.
"Thank you," Sakimoto appeased. "Can you tell me about your Stand?"
"I don't have one."
"Well, of course you have one!" Sakimoto laughed. "If you can see a Stand, that means you have one of your own. It's one of the big rules of every Stand User."
"W-What…?" Yuri looked back at Sakimoto, who stood a head shorter than her, in confusion.
"You see, Stupid Deep isn't a Stand meant to attack other people," as he said this, a figure emerged from behind him. The figure had a bluish-white body with no face. Its body was covered with white cloud shapes, and the center of its chest held a symbol of a star placed within a circle. It seemed to shimmer in and out of existence as the mist emerged from grills placed on its body. "I've always used this Stand to provide comfort to other people whenever they need it, just so that they can open up to me enough for me to help them. However, I know for certain that I can wreak chaos with this Stand if I so desire. So, it would be in your best interest to not earn my ire."
"Now tell me, Ms. Yamamoto," he continued as he crossed his eyes, "Why would Monika be looking to control you?"
Yuri felt the comfort of the situation loosening her lips far too much, and was about to answer, before she caught herself.
Suddenly, the mist around her seemed even more comfortable as it came closer to her. Yuri would have almost smiled; this was the best she had ever felt while standing outdoors. However, since she knew what was going on, she managed to control herself.
"Come on, give in," Sakimoto emphasized with a smirk. "You know you want to."
Yuri wasn't showing it on the outside, but something within her was afraid of what was happening. She was already used once, she didn't want to be used again.
That must have been why, as she felt the mist around her grow more comfortable, she lifted her arm and bit down on it.
What once would have given her pleasure was now replaced by the jarring sense of pain that brought her back to her senses, enough to escape from the cocoon of comfort that Sakimoto had wreathed around her.
"Ah, I see you're acting unresponsive," Sakimoto frowned. "I wouldn't want to do this normally, but you leave me no choice."
Suddenly, the mist around her retreated back into Stupid Deep. More to that, the air around her generated the same mist and returned it back to the Stand. And as the mist disappeared, Yuri felt different.
She felt like the air was biting into her skin with how dry it was. She could feel herself slowly getting dehydrated as the discomfort grew stronger.
"Now, onto the fun bit," Sakimoto grinned as he pushed Yuri onto one of the other students walking by.
"Hey, watch it!" he yelped as Yuri collided with her. In his frustration, and ignoring Yuri's apologies, he pushed her away as well, making her collide onto two people walking together.
"Hey, what the hell?!" the two turned to each other and Yuri as the started pushing each other away.
Those two had pushed each other into other people who ended up pushing them onto other people as well. Push after push, the courtyard eventually became filled with the din of a large mass fight, in which people were recklessly attacking anyone around them, mainly because they were irritated.
Yuri couldn't attend the club that day. Because of detention. Alongside every other person who participated in that fight.
It wasn't fun when almost the entire teacher's body of the school had to come together to break everyone up from the fight.
Thinking back, it was rather unusual how everyone around her, including herself, had gone to anger so quickly. 'It has to be because of Sakimoto's Stand,' she thought.
'Think, Yuri, what did he do?' she pondered hard, furrowing her eyebrows. 'How was he able to make me open up about things one moment, then turn me into a madman again in the next? Can he control emotions with that mist? Or is it something else?'
She had time to think, after all. Detention, if anything, gave you that time.
Looking around, she could see the throes of students, all seemingly confused at their own actions. 'Everyone in the area was influenced, except Sakimoto,' she noticed. 'And it seems that no one else could see what was happening. MC and Sayori said that I wasn't able to see Stands, maybe that has something to do with it?'
'I mean, why am I even thinking about this?' she realized. 'I can't fight someone like that! How would I do that?'
Her thought process was abruptly cut off as someone knocked on the door.
Their invigilator walked up to the door and opened it. Yuri paled as she saw a little bit of that white mist enter the room.
'He's here!' she realized. 'Why would he come here?'
Surprisingly to everyone else in the detention, the teacher turned to them and said that their Hall Monitor would be taking over the detention for her and walked away. Giving Reshi Sakimoto free reign to do whatever he wanted as he walked into the room.
"I want to apologize to all of you for that… terrible… event that I made you all do," he said out loud, addressing the entire room. He then brought his Stand out once again, and flooded the room with its mist. "However, I'm going to have to ask you all to sleep now."
Yuri could feel the mist crawling on her skin once again, making her drowsier as it enveloped her in its embrace once again. Unwilling to listen to him, Yuri decided to bite her thumb, letting the brief pain wake her up like it had before.
"Ms. Yamamoto, I did expect you to be smart enough to evade this attack," Sakimoto grinned as he creepily stared at the purple-haired girl, pressing his glasses into his face. "And that is why I've decided to share my reason for attacking you."
'Huh?' Yuri reacted to Sakimoto's statement.
"You see," he began. "I'm supposed to kill any outlier Stand Users, any who aren't accounted for by the boss. We don't know about you, so my task is to kill you."
'Kill me?!' Yuri widened her eyes in surprise and fear. 'Is he really going to go that far, just because I could have a Stand?'
"However," he continued. "I know that I will feel quite unfulfilled if I kill someone with no means for them to defend themselves. Ergo, I've decided to help you bring out your Stand, after which I fight you fairly and kill you."
"And I will start right now."
Suddenly, all of the mist in the room concentrated on Yuri specifically.
And it was terrible.
The air got stuffier as the mist thickened around her. It was thick enough to prickle her skin as she stood there. It even made it difficult for her to walk as the mist obstructed her path, and made her ooze out sweat like there was no tomorrow. The mist was thick enough to severely obstruct Yuri's breathing, making her choke on the air.
'This stuffiness, I've felt it before!' Yuri realized. 'It's like the outdoor atmosphere after a hot rainy day, when the humidity covers you, times a hundred! This isn't simply controlling emotions, the mist is atmospheric humidity!'
'This… how is a seemingly simple ability like this able to do so much?!' Yuri screamed in her head as she felt blood leaking out of her nose from the pressure of the water vapor around her, weighing on her. Adding that onto her inability to breath gave her a much harder time within the mist.
"You see, Ms. Yamamoto, I've taken a little interest in you," Sakimoto grinned. "I want to see what your Stand can do, that's why I've decided to trouble you like this. I'm not going to stop unless you bring out your potential."
Yuri paled within the mist, thick enough to blind her completely. 'How am I going to fight this?' she thought as she was brought to her knees from the rising pressure around her, making her cough up blood as well alongside whatever oxygen she had left in her lungs.
'I… can't stop here,' Yuri thought as she slowly crawled forward, fighting back against the opposing mist and her own growing weariness. 'I have to do something! I need to run away!'
Suddenly, Yuri felt something leave her and move away to the distance. Almost instantly, it was back to her. She couldn't see it because of the mist, but she could feel its presence.
Whatever it was, she knew that it would help her.
Yuri slowly reached out and asked the being to come closer mentally. Slowly, she could make it out. A wave of purple breaking through the sheer white. She felt the purple mist come wrap itself around her, enveloping her once again, and suddenly spitting her out.
She was no longer within the mist, so Yuri heaved her breaths in the best she could. Quickly regaining her bearings, she stood up, only to see the mist still polled in an area nearby, and Sakimoto standing nearby with a smile.
"Portals?" he asked. "That's quite an interesting ability."
"W-What?" Yuri stammered out, still catching her breath.
"Look behind you," he said.
Yuri slowly heeded to his command and was incredibly shocked to see what stood behind her.
It was a purple creature with a single red eye on its head, and a mask of some sort covering its mouth. It wasn't very tall, just about a meter in height. Its body was designed with intricate swirls around it, not unlike Sky's hilt. Its ten fingers held long, sharp claws in place of nails.
"Ooorreaaa…" it groaned as it felt its master behold it for the first time.
Yuri felt her breath catch in her throat. 'Is this my Stand?' Yuri thought. 'Why would I have a Stand?'
"What is its name?" Sakimoto asked, making Yuri turn back to him.
"Its name?" Yuri asking in kind. "How would I know?"
"You just do," Sakimoto smiled. "It should come to you automatically."
"I…" Yuri turned back to her Stand, seeing it approach her. She gingerly put a hand out, letting it eagerly place its head in her palm.
"The Knife." Yuri replied to the boy with a smile. "That is its name."
"The Knife?" Sakimoto asked with a frown. "Isn't that a bit on the nose? I mean, with the claws and all?"
"I don't feel like it wants to be called anything else, however," Yuri replied, as she still stared at her Stand.
"Alright, well, let me tell you what I know about it right now," Sakimoto said. "Whatever those claws scratch will open up a portal whenever you want." He pointed to the wall that Yuri had come out of. Yuri looked at it, and sure enough, there was a long gash on the wall where The Knife's portal had opened.
"Now, I will move onto the new part of the plan," Sakimoto added. "I've helped you bring out your Stand, so now, I will kill you. I hope you give me a good fight."
The mist emerged again, reaching out for Yuri.
Yuri widened her eyes as she now noticed her enemy approaching her, but she wasn't as scared now that she had the power to escape. "The Knife!" she called out, as her Stand moved through the mist freely and made scratches across various areas of the room.
"Good move, but there's not much you can do against this," Sakimoto declared as the mist lost its focus on her, and instead, spread out into the room. However, despite the large area it was covering, the mist had thickened enough to seem as strong as it was when Yuri suffocated within it.
Yuri froze as she started hearing coughing. Turning around, it slowly came to her horror that the people within the classroom, who were asleep, were slowly rising because of the stuffiness of the air.
'I need to get out of here!' Yuri realized. 'If not, he's going to kill everyone here, including me!'
"The Knife!"
The Stand barged out of the classroom, making a cut in the hallway outside. Yuri immediately used the cut behind her to teleport to the hallway.
Seeing the white-filled room leaking out mist little by little, Yuri slowly stood up and started to run away.
"Oh god, oh god," Yuri muttered to herself as she ran all the way back to the courtyard once again. She was hoping that the open air of the area would put a damper on Sakimoto's abilities, even though it hadn't the first time. "Have I lost him?"
"No, you haven't," Sakimoto said, walking from the hallway she had just emerged from. "You've left quite the trail behind, after all."
Yuri looked down with widened eyes, and gasped as she finally noticed her drenched clothes, from sweat and the water from the mist. Looking ahead, she noticed that the liquid was weighing her skirt down enough to leave droplets behind wherever she went.
"It's a shame that I could not fight you without giving you any experience with your Stand," Sakimoto remarked, "But it is what it is. I have to do what I have to do."
Stupid Deep emerged from his side once again and formed a new layer of mist that was approaching Yuri. Yuri shivered as she noticed the creeping mist, and frantically called out for her Stand.
"The Knife!"
'I need to run away!' Yuri thought. 'I can't fight him!' With this thought, Yuri decided to send her Stand out to form more scratches away from her enemy.
"You must be thinking of running away," Sakimoto announced, making Yuri flinch from the accuracy of his words. "It's quite obvious, seeing how your Stand is acting. Let me tell you that that is not going to happen."
Sakimoto jogged up to the path that she had created, and immediately formed thick mists around every scratch that she had made.
"Now you can't teleport, not without moving into the trap that I set!" Sakimoto declared, with a wide crazed smile and hands spread out in presentation of his idea.
'N-No, what?' Yuri's teeth jittered in fear as she saw her enemy's actions. 'What do I do?! I'm trying to run away, but he's not letting me!'
"I think it's time we end this," Sakimoto said as he walked up to the purple-haired girl. Yuri stood frozen as the mist rose up around her and enveloped her, pressing her together in its humidity. Even though death was approaching, the oxygen taken from her lungs left her unable to move, especially after her extreme physical exertion mere moments ago.
As Yuri began to choke on the water, her mind went into overdrive from the fear of death. 'What am I going to do?!' she started to think. 'I keep trying to run away, but I can't! He's not letting me! What do I do?!'
The answer, although it was staring Yuri in the face, made her falter even in the mist.
'I can't fight him!' Yuri thought. 'How am I going to fight someone who can control mist?! I mean, yes, I can teleport, but how am I going to use that to fight someone?!'
Bringing her Stand back to her, she brought it up close so that she it through the thick mist. She took another look at it through the whites and the blacks that she saw and noticed one thing she needed on her Stand.
'It has claws,' she realized. 'But am I really going to… N-No, I have no choice left! The Knife, do it!'
Sakimoto grinned as he walked up to the mist forming around his enemy. He saw her Stand coming back to her, but it would be useless considering how he had spread out mist on every crack she had formed. However, he hadn't expected her Stand, The Knife, to bust out of the mist suddenly and stab him in the chest with its claws.
"G-Ghahh!" Sakimoto shrieked as the Stand viciously pulled its claws out of his bleeding chest. Recoiling from the pain, the mist faded around Yuri and her scratch gates.
"I-I'm so sorry, S-Sakimoto, right?" Yuri said as she walked up to him. "I-I don't want to die, I-I needed to do this!"
Sakimoto grunted as he stood up straight once again. "Burn in hell," he quietly said with a steep grimace as Stupid Deep emerged once again, now approaching Yuri and enveloping her directly with a barrage of mist.
Suddenly, Sakimoto felt himself open up somehow. Looking down, he noticed that his bleeding cuts had transformed into a purple portal.
"W-What?" Sakimoto said as he put a hand into the portal. His hand went straight through, like nothing was there. Suddenly, he felt something pull his hand into the portal. He yelped as he went further into the portal on his own chest, his body contorting and stretching to let him into it. He yelled out as his face was eventually forced to enter the portal.
Emerging from the other end, he noticed that he was in a completely different area. He was back in the detention hall again. The other students were still there, but they were all still asleep. Yuri was there too, standing over him. However, along with her were two other people who weren't in the original detention session.
"Yuri, I am so glad we stopped by here to check in on you," MC said, as he walked up to the stranger. "Hey you! I spent a lot of time saving her in the last run. I'd appreciate it if you left her alone."
Sakimoto whined as a new Stand emerged from the boy approaching him. A green one, with yellow bars on its chest, star-filled arms and white gloves. He'd heard about this one, the one that had given Hoketsu trouble the day before and defeated Yowaida earlier that day.
"Day One, you know what to do."
As the portal on his chest withdrew to reveal the gushing wounds once again, Sakimoto faltered back as the seemingly strong Stand approached him.
"KIAIAIAIAIAIAIAIAIAIAIAIAIAIAIA!"
As Sayori wrapped Sakimoto within Take Me to Church's rope, MC looked back at the drenched purple-haired girl.
"Are you okay, Yuri?" he asked.
She wasn't. Yuri was heaving from her absolute near death experience. She was just lucky that she remembered that she could run back to this hall, and that MC and Sayori were already there having skipped the club, being baffled at how everyone was asleep with no invigilator around to watch them.
Yuri soon felt a warmth on her shoulder. Looking forward, she noticed that MC rested his hand there.
"I know it's hard, Yuri. We've all been there. But you've got to get through this," he said. "As confusing as this is, you have a Stand now. And that means that you've got to go through the same suffering that we had in our last run, maybe even more."
Yuri shook as she wiped away her tears with the back of her hand and nodded.
"I-I s-s-see why you d-didn't w-want to t-tell me yesterday, n-now," she said with a light chuckle, her voice refusing to come out straight due to her tension.
MC scoffed a little in kind. "In any case, we're sorry that you had to find out like this."
"Y-Yeah," Yuri remarked, choking on her breath a little. "I-I certainly c-could've u-used that knowledge s-sooner, after all."
"Heh, yeah," MC replied.
"Hey guys," Sayori walked up to them while dazed, collapsing onto MC's shoulder. "He's healed now. And I'm beat. MC, can you carry me home?"
MC chuckled at Sayori's antics, and gently scratched her hair, making her smile. "Yeah, sure, I can do that. Maybe I can get Day One out and-"
"No!" Sayori looked up at MC, interrupting him by pawing him on the chest. "You can carry me. Not Day One, you!"
"W-Well, okay," MC's face went red as he finally realized what Sayori was implying. Pulling apart his pressed lips, he managed to hoist Sayori onto his arms, holding her bridal style.
Yuri simply paled at their antics. She would have called them adorable, but not so soon after facing death in the face.
"A-Are you two…" she managed to choke out.
"Yep! We're dating! As of yesterday!" Sayori declared, kissing MC on the cheek, much to his embarrassment. "Well, we haven't really gone on any dates yet, but we will as soon as all this gets sorted and we find out what's happening to Monika!"
Yuri managed to finally break a smile at the two. "W-Well, I'm happy for you two," she said as she looked away.
Suddenly, the three heard a noise. Looking around, they realized that the class was still full of students. Students that were starting to wake up from their humidity induced slumber.
"Run?" MC asked Yuri.
She nodded in kind.
"RUUUUUUNNN!" Sayori playfully yelled out as they ran out of the classroom into one of Yuri's portals, Sayori still in MC's arms.
Monika groaned as she sat alone in the club, with almost no one else present.
Yuri being a Stand User came as a pleasant surprise to her. There was no other way she could have seen Mess is Mine, after all. Considering how Sayori and MC had skipped the club for some reason, probably to help her, she could only assume that they were Stand Users as well.
'When did this happen?' Monika thought. 'When did the club suddenly become filled with Stand Users?'
She sighed out loud. 'It doesn't matter,' Monika decided, looking at the last person in the club, reading manga by her closet. 'I need to look ahead. Maybe I need to pay a visit to her father…'
Stand User: Reshi Sakimoto
Stand Name: Stupid Deep (based on 'Stupid Deep' by Jon Bellion)
Abilities:-
Humidifier: This Stand is able to freely control the humidity around itself within a 10-meter radius.
Power: C
Speed: D
Range: C (10 meters)
Durability: C
Precision: B
Development Potential: C
Stand User: Yuri
Stand Name: The Knife (based on the EDM duo "The Knife")
Abilities:-
Portal: If it scratches any surface, it will be able to create a portal on that area at any point in time. It can also turn itself into a portal.
Power: C
Speed: B
Range: B (Stand can go up to 20 meters, but portals can be accessed anywhere infinitely)
Durability: C
Precision: A
Development Potential: A
A/N: And here we have [Za Knaifu]! Yuri's Stand! Yes, I know its pretty on the nose. In fact, I even considered the name Evermore for it, based on The Battle of Evermore. However, my OG name was The Knife for more than one reason, so I decided to stick with it.
Turns out I've got Writer's Block for Ascension. Yaay.
I'm back in my hometown now. Parents nearby makes things more irritating for me, so it's not really fun. But hey, the air here is fresher than my stale single studio apartment back near my Uni. So, that's a plus.
I've also got literally nothing to do as of now during this break, especially during COVID. I'm also relatively new to anime and manga in general, so please let me know if you have any recommendations.
A Review!
IzuOchaShipper99: Well, I did base Mess Is Mine's design on Cheap Trick. However, the application is much worse. Your stats seem about right, especially for precision and dev potential. However, all the other stats will be pushed to the extreme, and the reason why will be explained upon its reveal.
Sayori's arrival being an asspull made me think twice, and made me realise that that was correct. And I honestly don't want it to be like that, so I added an extra bit of content in the previous chapter to fix that. I'm also glad you found Yuri creepy, that's what I was going for.
Natsuki will get a Stand in the future, don't worry. I've got the details, name and design for the Stand already fleshed out in my head. And I've given MC a lot of weaknesses, including the requirement for energy and the ability cooldowns. I know I haven't exploited the cooldowns properly yet, but I will someday. The energy was not an original idea, but it had come up while I was writing Oyanagi. From there, I decided that that could be a deciding weakness as well, as it could play into the Stands current abilities quite well.
And that's all for the review!
I'm pretty proud of this fight, tbf. I just got up to date on Jojolion, so I made a battle that was close to victory on either side like Araki's. A close to true JoJo fight, even though I need a little more practice to truly master that art.
Sakimoto's Stand ability was actually a growth process. I first analyzed his character: a willing Hall Monitor, a rule follower unless threatened, wants to be there for people and help them grow. I thought that his Stand would be something that could control people's minds, allowing them to open up to whatever he wants, making them more compliant. However, that was boring and it was too much like Mess Is Mine. Ergo, I decided to expand its applications to even making them more irritated. From there, I thought about it a bit, and I remembered that one thing that really irritates me is atmospheric humidity. No, seriously, I hate humid weather. That was how I decided upon the ability to modify the humidity of the in-range area. Mid-level humidity will make people comfortable and drowzy, letting them open up about their secrets. Dry weather will make you easily irritable, and dehydrated. Densely humid weather will be stuffy, and with an excess amount of water in the air, it can actually weigh down on the victim, making it harder to breathe and to move, and making them bleed from the rising pressure too.
Yuri's Stand is also nothing to laugh at. You might think its a support Stand like Sayori's, but you couldn't be more wrong. It is useful for support, mainly transportation, but it has more than enough combat capabilities as demonstrated by this chapter. Yuri basically made Sakimoto fall off a high-rise skyscraper with her portals. Hell, I'm even going to implement Portal (the game) physics into this as well.
And that's all for this incredibly long A/N. I'll see you all next chapter!