Chapter 12: Another Stand?!
A/N: I edited the last chapter again. An incredibly major edit to the final fight this time. If you've read it before this upload, please check it out again.
JoJo went quiet the moment he heard the news. He wordlessly walked to MC's couch, plopped onto it and started to pull his hair while crying out in frustration.
"Um… c-can I ask what's going on?" Yuri hesitantly asked.
MC shrugged. "He's probably frustrated that there's another Stand Us-"
"THERE'S ANOTHER STAND USER FROM YOUR CLUB?!" JoJo suddenly shouted out, making MC, Sayori and Yuri, who were standing nearby, visibly recoil.
JoJo suddenly got up from the sofa and starting walking towards Yuri, keeping his hardened gaze fixed on her. Yuri, not knowing what he was trying to do, started to step back and away from the approaching figure of Geoff Joster. However, it was to no avail as she was pushed up to a wall and JoJo up close, in front of her face.
"Do you, or do you not, remember getting stabbed by an arrow?" JoJo harshly asked her.
"N-N-No," Yuri barely stammered out, leaning her head back against the wall to keep as much distance from JoJo as possible.
"Renegades," JoJo immediately called out, making the red Stand appear beside him.
Yuri yelped as soon as she saw this, and replied with, "The Knife!" Thus, letting her own short purple Stand hover near her.
"Guys, stop!" Sayori immediately called out, making them turn back to meet her gaze. "We're not here to fight. Yes, no one knows how Yuri got Stand. But we don't know how MC's and my Stand came either! We can't fight about this!"
JoJo groaned at her words, but finally got out of Yuri's personal space, leaving her to loudly sigh in relief.
"Yuri, right?" JoJo continued, much to Yuri's chagrin. "Are you really serious about not knowing how your Stand came? About not getting pierced by an arrow?"
"Y-Yes, I am. I-I would c-certainly r-remember getting hurt b-by an a-a-arrow of all things."
JoJo groaned at her reply.
"What about you two?" he asked, letting his defeat show. "Stand arrows? Do they even exist for you guys anymore?"
MC replied for both of them. "Neither of us remember getting stabbed by an arrow. We told you this last run, but I guess you would call that the future?" He looked back at Sayori, who shrugged in return. "Time gets pretty confusing when you can reverse it."
"MC, h-how many times have you r-reverted t-time?" Yuri asked, while JoJo groaned in the corner.
"This is my third run," MC confessed. "I did it first to save Sayori from-"
Suddenly, Sayori clapped a hand onto MC's mouth, hushing him. Looking at her, MC nodded and smiled under her hand. Sighing, Sayori let her hand go, knowing that MC wouldn't talk about it.
"Sayori," MC said, "I really think they should know. We know about what happened to Yuri, after all. They need to know about your issues as well."
Sayori looked at MC, letting her fear show. Upon receiving a smile from him along a hand on her shoulder, she sighed and turned back to the other two.
"I committed suicide," she finally confessed, gulping as she did so. "I have pretty bad depression, and Monika pushed me to actually act on it."
"Oh my god," Yuri widened her eyes in surprise. "I… I would have never known, Sayori. You always act so cheerful in the club."
"You weren't there for her last days," MC added, gently holding Sayori's hand to comfort her. "It was worse than how she acted from last week, when we first saw someone die. Or rather, deleted."
"Yeah, there was that too, huh?" Sayori asked in reply with a smirk and a chuckle.
"Wait, deleted?" JoJo asked with Yuri sharing an equally inquisitive look.
"Erased from existence," MC said. "I actually need to ask; have any of you heard of Ken Oyanagi? He's supposed to be in the football team, if I remember correctly."
"I can look into him tomorrow," JoJo said, "But I don't really know him now."
"I don't think he's alive," Sayori said.
MC turned to her, slightly tightening his grip on her hand. "Why do you think that?" he asked.
"I don't know… I just feel it," Sayori confessed. "I think it's more intuition than anything."
Yuri frowned at the actions of the two, especially Sayori. She had known her for quite a while, and to see her so shaken out of her demeanor from the mere knowledge of Stands made her question her ability to handle her own new abilities.
JoJo sighed, breaking the silence wrought among them. "Look, we can't say for sure, but as I said, I'll look into whether he's alive or not. I'll let you know as soon as possible if I find him."
"Okay," MC said in turn, sighing a breath of relief. "Just don't play Janken with him, no matter how many times he gets you to."
"Huh?" JoJo asked.
"It activates his Stand," MC replied. "If you lose, he gets your Stand."
JoJo widened his eyes. "He must be really dangerous then. Was he really on our side?"
"Sayori spared him in the last moment," MC said, smiling at her. "That was why he tried to betray his boss to help us."
"Oh?" JoJo turned to Sayori. "That's impressive. You defeated him?"
"He almost killed MC," Sayori said, gripping MC's hand tighter. "He had taken his Stand and was beating him with it. I had to take his energy and heal MC with it to stop him."
"Heh, certainly helps that your Stand is the perfect counter to MC's," JoJo added.
"Yeah, I guess so," Sayori turned to MC, smirking at him. "How does it feel to know that I can beat you in a battle?"
"I wouldn't doubt you at all, Sayori," MC said in return. "But I know I'd make it a tough fight."
"I guess you would," Sayori admitted, her eyes fluttering as she gazed at MC.
"Okay, enough of the lovey dovey shit, you two," JoJo interrupted. "We need to get back onto the matter at hand. What else do you need to say?"
MC turned back to JoJo, face turning serious enough to let him leave Sayori's hand behind. Ignoring her slight whimper, he started, "We know a little bit about Monika's Stand. We know it can control people somehow, and maybe even delete them. I've seen it once, but Sayori missed it."
"Monika's Stand," Yuri interrupted, "Does it look like a gray dwarf with no eyes nor teeth?"
"Exactly," MC replied with widened eyes. "You've seen it?"
"Today," Yuri said. "She almost tried to control me. I ran away before she could."
"Wait," JoJo turned to her. "Did you react to it?"
"Well, y-yes," Yuri admitted hesitantly. "I-It was the first S-Stand I've ever seen, and i-it was c-c-creepy, too."
JoJo sighed out loud. "It was your first Stand, so I can't say much against that mistake. However, Yuri, you've officially outed yourself to Monika as a Stand User."
Yuri nodded. "Only S-Stand U-Users can see Stands, right?"
JoJo widened his eyes. "How did you know that? Did someone tell you?"
"No," Yuri replied. "I just deduced it from everything you guys said yesterday."
"That's impressive," JoJo said. "Did you learn anything else?"
"Well, Monika's Stand name." she added, earning the attention of every other member there.
"Mess is Mine. That's what she said before her Stand appeared."
The whole room went silent, letting the name of their enemy settle in their minds.
MC eventually broke the silence. "I really don't think we'll learn much from just knowing her Stand's name," he said, "But thank you for saying that, Yuri. Can I ask you something else? Something pretty… intrusive?"
"Um… yes, you m-may do so?" Yuri replied, a little confused.
"During the last run, within one of my Rollbacks," MC started to reveal. "Sayori and I found out that you were cutting yourself. Was that just something Monika made you do?"
Yuri froze, her eyes widened with shock. JoJo widened his eyes too, turning to Yuri.
"I-I-I…" Yuri stammered out, choking on her words. Eventually, she gulped and chose to not trust her words. Thus, she rolled back her left sleeve, exposing the scars marked across her arm arranged with a good level of organization, all going along her arm.
Sayori gasped out loud, seeing Yuri's tendencies in full display. MC and JoJo just paled at the sight, not having expected that.
"I-It's a c-c-cop-ping m-m-mechanism," Yuri managed to stammer out, before frantically hiding her scars once again.
Suddenly, Yuri felt something wrap around her arms. Pulling her sleeves back again, she noticed rope around them, glowing yellow.
"You may have done that before, Yuri," Sayori said, Take Me to Church by her side, as a small stream of energy wafted from her body to Yuri's arms. "But if you'll let me, I want to help you get better. I know what it's like, so I want to help."
As the glowing rope faded away with Sayori's Stand, Yuri gasped as she finally noticed her pale smooth skin underneath, free of all the scars she had made on herself over the last year.
"S-S-Sayori…" Yuri started to choke, not on her words this time, but on tears that were forming from her eyes. Suddenly, she dove to her and hugged her, letting all of emotion roll out in the tears that fell on her newly reformed skin. Sayori smiled as she hugged Yuri back, a few tears of her own breaking out.
MC and JoJo stood by, smiling at their recovery. Sayori opened her eyes from the embrace, and upon seeing them, nudged her head, beckoning them in. The two widened their eyes in surprise. MC decided to walk up to the two, and put his own arms over them. Yuri, in turn, pulled her arm off to envelop him in her hug too. JoJo tried to step away from the forming group hug at first, but MC called out Day One and pulled him forward, making him join the hug. And he did so too, not hiding how awkward he found it.
"A-A-All of you…" Yuri choked out through the middle of her sobs, "T-Thank you so much. F-For helping m-me so m-much. I-I d-don't know w-w-why I d-deserved an-ny of t-this…"
"Yuri, we'll be there to save you anytime," Sayori replied.
"Yeah, I know we will," MC added.
JoJo, not knowing what to say, simply grunted in approval.
They stayed in the hug for a good minute or two, and as the two girls felt their emotions run dry, they eventually split up from the hug. JoJo, being eager to stop, stepped away from the group pretty much immediately. The other three split up, however, they stood close to each other, letting each other know that they would be there.
Clearing his throat, JoJo earned his attention from them. "If we can move on to other matters?" JoJo asked. Upon seeing their nods, he continued. "Okay, I don't mean to make light of anything any of you are going through, but I am seeing a trend here. Sayori has depression, Yuri has self-harm, Monika is a fucking psychopath, MC has… do you have any personal issues like this, MC?"
MC shook his head. "Well, no. None that I know of, at least."
"Okay," JoJo continued. "MC is a reckless hero. Doesn't your club have one more member?"
"Yeah, Natsuki." Sayori replied.
"Yeah, her," JoJo said. "Could she have an issue like this?"
The trio widened their eyes at the prospect.
MC turned to them. "I think the odds of that are ridiculous. Can every member of the club have something like this?"
"I… have something to confess," Yuri said, earning her everyone's attention. "Much like how I've shied from revealing my scars, I seen Natsuki afraid to expose herself as well. Especially her midriff. Whether that is because she is afraid of perverts or if she's hiding something is still up to discussion, however."
Sayori paled. "MC, we left her alone in the club with Monika."
"Wait, why would you do that?" JoJo asked.
"We heard about Yuri getting detention, and that never happened in the last run," MC confessed. "So, we wanted to check on her to make sure that everything was okay and ended up skipping the club to do that. I… hadn't thought about leaving Natsuki behind."
"Look, that doesn't matter now," Sayori concluded. "She's had enough time with her, so we know she's affected now. We need to save her this time."
"Well, there's always the chance that nothing's happening," MC tried to add. "I mean, she's called me a pervert after nothing way too many times. Maybe she is just shy?"
"Do you just want to leave her be, MC?" Sayori asked, turning to her newly minted boyfriend.
"N-No, of course not!" MC frantically responded. "It's just… I don't think we should jump to any conclusions."
"So, what should we do then?" Yuri asked.
MC sighed out loud. "I'll talk to her tomorrow," he decided. "I'll see for myself if I can see anything wrong with her. Maybe somehow follow up on that midriff comment you made earlier, Yuri. If I find anything, I'll let you guys know, okay?"
"Okay," Yuri replied, nodding with a worried expression. "And please, if you find anything wrong with her, can we please help her as soon as possible?"
"Shouldn't you gather as much info as you can first?" JoJo dropped in.
"Well, yes, that can certainly help, it's just…" Yuri sighed, as she looked back the group. "The Literature Club attracting so much evil is something that is very unexpected to me. If Natsuki's problems are as serious as mine or even Sayori's were, we would have to make sure that she is kept safe from it as soon as possible, before she could end up getting hurt."
"She's right," Sayori said. "We should help Natsuki as soon as we can."
"Okay, I can try," MC gave in with a sigh. "But I need to meet her tomorrow to learn whatever I can."
"Why you?" JoJo asked, walking up to them.
"Well, I'm technically the new guy, right?" MC replied. "It wouldn't be surprising if I walk up to her and started to speak to her out of nowhere. In the meantime, I want you two to keep an eye on Monika in the meantime. She probably knows we're Stand Users now, so we need to be extra careful of her and Mess is Mine."
Seeing the trio come to a conclusion about their tasks for the next club meeting, JoJo immediately volunteered to teach Yuri the basics of Stands. This left MC and Sayori behind to do whatever they wanted in the meantime. And for their time together, they decided that they had more important things to do than simply waste time, so they ended up writing poems for the next day. Since MC wanted to appease Natsuki, he decided to write a poem for her. Since Sayori already had her poem done from the last runs, she helped MC write his poem as well.
Soon enough, they finished the poem and were watching some anime together when Yuri knocked on their door and told them that she was done.
With that, the four decided to call it a day and complete their tasks for the next day. JoJo, Sayori and Yuri said goodbye to MC and left his house.
JoJo quickly walked back to his place after giving a curt goodbye to the girls. Before Yuri could leave, Sayori grabbed her wrist.
"Yuri, can we talk about something?" she asked.
Nodding, Yuri turned back to her, waiting for her question.
"Well, I don't want to sound pres… presimp…"
"Presumptous?" Yuri completed.
"Yeah, that!" Sayori called. "I don't want to sound like that, b-but you know how I'm MC's girlfriend now?"
"Well, yes," Yuri said with a nod.
"Yeah, and well, you went a bit crazy for him in the last run, right? I'm not asking if you're still like that, but I just want to know if you still have feelings for him?"
Yuri paused, considering Sayori's question. Looking back at MC's house, she began to speak. "Thank you for asking me this, Sayori. And for your answer, I don't really know. I did find him rather attractive when I first joined. However, after everything Monika did, I still don't know whether if whatever feelings I have for him are real or bastardized by her. So, my answer for the moment would be no. I still need to place my feelings, but I don't think I will ever share your feelings for him after everything that's happened."
"Yuri, I'm so sorry to hear that," Sayori replied with a light frown. Gently holding her by her arm to show support, she smiled at her. "But hey, we're going to get to the bottom of this, okay? We'll find out why Monika did all that to us."
Yuri smiled at her as well. "Thank you, Sayori. I will help whenever it is necessary as well."
With that, the two split off, heading back to their homes.
Naoko Honda grunted as he heard the doorbell ring. 'Who the fuck could that be, no one ever comes here,' he thought.
Upon opening the door, he saw two unfamiliar faces wearing familiar uniforms. A white shirt underneath a brown blazer and a red jumper underneath, and blue pants and skirts. The two faces, a boy and a girl, looked different, though. The boy had dark-brown hair and amber eyes, and was rather short for someone of his stature. The girl exuded less confidence than the boy, but a fair amount regardless. She was a brunette with emerald eyes.
"Good evening, sir," the boy began to introduce. "Are you Mr. Honda, Natsuki's father?"
Naoko sighed and scratched his ruffled pink hair. "What'd the little squirt do now?" he asked.
"Nothing of concern, sir," the boy said. "Allow us to introduce ourselves. My name is Wallace Grieves, and I am the student body president of our school. Monika Takeyama is my girlfriend, and the president of the literature club which your daughter is a member of."
"Okay," Naoko said, not opening the door any further. "What the hell are you two doing here, then?"
"This," Monika stepped up to the man and exhaled. "Mess is Mine."
A/N: *gets down on knees* I AM SO SORRY FOR BEING A TERRIBLE WRITER!
I didn't even have to reread the last chapter to know that something was wrong with it. And I knew what it was to. The Yuri that I wrote last chapter was not Yuri at all (Don't take that out of context). I made Yuri a ready fighter, willing to even kill someone just because he threatened a group of innocents. That's not canon Yuri, and it was glaringly obvious to me. So, I decided to rewrite the entire fight, keeping Yuri's true personality in mind. This did mean that a lot of the potential of [Za Knaifu] isn't shown in the fight. I'm planning to add all that in other fights that will come up soon, giving Yuri time to grow just like Koichi from Part 4 (My favorite character, actually). Hopefully you've read the new fight before reading this chapter, because otherwise, some things won't make sense.
I'm writing Yuri as an unholy combination of Koichi and Yukako, holy shit I just realized this. Maybe I should change Yuri's last name to Hirose?
If you're new to the story, however, and you really want to know how strong The Knife can get, know that I haven't changed the A/N from my previous chapter at all. You can review that, and find out more about the Stand that way.
I also added some MC x Sayori fluff in the last chapter, and a slight amount in this too, so I hope that makes your day. I'm very new to writing fluff, so please let me know if I did well or if you have any problems with it.
I just finished binging Fire Force. I'm planning to watch Attack on Titan next. Yes, I'm a newbie. I know.
Anyway, the Natsuki arc is officially beginning! I haven't planned the sequencing of things yet, just some things and a semblance for the end situation. Hopefully, by then, you'll be able to read into my foreshadowing and find out what's going on behind the scenes.
TBF, these chapters are all mainly intermediary filler. That doesn't make it any less important, however. A lot of important things can happen from a simple discussion among friends. Also, they serve as a bit of a recap for everything that has happened in the story already, especially after the end of an arc. That's also why I don't put too much effort into them; I just make sure that they fulfil a list of things to be discussed. This chapter was done in one night, after all, right after the edits of the last fight.
I've decided to let go of Ascension until the end of this story, btw. Sorry to anyone who was waiting for a new chapter for that.
Anyway, things are going to get more heated next time, so get ready for that! I'll see you next chapter!