Chapter 15
Where I Can Part 2: Home
Natsuki made her way out of the clubroom, ignoring the odd scar she had just received as she was leaving. For a moment, the scar had reminded her of the one that she had found in the closet the previous day. However, she knew that that was just a coincidence, so she ignored it.
She wasn't stupid, after all.
She really didn't want to run back home because she wanted to take as long as possible. However, her curfew was 4:15 PM, and it was currently 3:50 as the club ended. The journey back would take her about 30 minutes on foot, and she obviously wasn't given vehicles like bikes, nor did she have enough money for the bus. She was given the fare, but she kept it on her for lunch that day instead.
That meant that she had no other choice. She chastised herself for considering even spending a minute extra with MC and everyone else, and decided to fuck it and run all the way back home.
'Well, it would be good exercise,' she pondered. 'Oh, who am I kidding, this is gonna burn through my lunch today. I'll be sleeping hungry again.'
Managing to make it to her street by 4:10, she heaved as she pulled up at the entrance of her house. At the door, she took a moment to flap air into her sweat-drenched clothes. She found it a miracle that she hadn't fallen while running. Maybe those extra protein bars Yuri gave her actually helped.
As she wiped the sweat off her face, she kept thinking about her clubmates. 'MC being in a relationship is a real shame,' she pondered. 'Seriously, I might be getting a bit of a crush on him as well. Maybe I need to talk to Sayori about that; I don't wanna get in their way, after all. Maybe I can tell them about… No, I can't break Papa's rules.'
Bracing herself as he heaved on her knees, she managed to look down at her hands. She paled as she noticed the faint shade of the makeup she had put on that day, now on her palms.
'Crap, I need to get in now!' she realized as she ran to the door and opened it, wanting to enter before anyone noticed the marks on her face.
She stepped inside, unknowingly holding a breath.
… Nothing happened.
Natsuki sighed in relief as she closed the door behind her.
"Ms. Natsuki, I hope you're doing well?" A man asked from behind her, with a voice sounding so similar to her father's that it made her flinch every time she heard it.
Natsuki merely nodded as she turned back to the man.
He was bald and had constantly closed eyes. He was wearing a golden three piece suit with a white undershirt and a black tie hidden behind his waistcoat and blazer. On the side of his face were iron plates that seemed almost glued on. He wore his face in a small smile that was so ever present that it ended up genuinely unnerving her.
She suspected that those smiles were there underneath their mouth guards even as they would beat her up.
Not saying anything to the robot of a man, she took off her shoes and socks and dropped it on the butler's outstretched hands. He gratefully accepted the footwear and stashed them away in the shoe rack.
Another butler walked in, looking exactly the same as the first one and speaking in the same voice. "Do you need anything, Ms. Natsuki?"
"I need to shower," she said in reply, briefly sniffing her sweat covered body.
The butler simply bowed in response as he escorted her to her room.
The house she was living in was… unusual, so to speak. If a stranger would enter the two-story bungalow, they would be genuinely surprised that it contained a large mansion inside. The rooms did meet the structure of the house, however, everything was just bigger on the inside. The only exception being Natsuki's room, of course.
She remembered how the house was once. The hallway she was in was a curtain-lit zone, littered with bottles, takeout boxes and other rubbish. Her papa's own room was equally modest. There were absolutely no family photos. There were, once, but they were thrown away due to bad memories.
However, that was before the butlers came in.
She had no idea how Papa found them. There were an innumerable number of them, and they all looked exactly the same. They even wore the same stuff. They never seemed to sleep nor eat, making it easy to manage them. They never wore any expression other than that now creepy smile.
When they would hold her back for her dad to get her after she broke a rule, she would always be reminded about how they were probably not even human in the first place.
As the butlers had come into the house, everything had started to change. The dirt and garbage in the house had quickly faded, alongside the weird smell that Natsuki would feel every time she crossed the hall. Everything was so well cleaned that some would even think that the house was golden, from the way that sunlight had reflected off of every surface. No stain in the house would ever stay more than a minute before one of the butlers would come in and clean it up.
Natsuki's dad had somewhat changed too. He didn't bother with drinking so much whenever he was back home. He started to give more focus to his work (He's a lawyer). He didn't become a slob the moment he reached back anymore, and even kept on a gold waistcoat at home. He actually shaved, too.
Despite all that, the most significant change was that he seemed even more into the idea of abusing his daughter. That must have also been why he had done that the previous night.
Shaking her head away from the bad thoughts, Natsuki stepped into her room, leaving the butler behind for her privacy. Her room was the bleakest in the house. When it once held withering wallpaper and a rickety shelf, the way it was fixed was by removing all the outliers. And of course, nothing was replaced.
So, Natsuki was met with blank walls and a simple desk as she quickly changed out of her clothes and hung them up to dry.
Quickly finishing up her shower, she stepped out of her bathroom to see her school uniform missing. She wasn't alarmed by it, however, knowing that the butlers would even break into her room just to maintain the sanctity of the house. Breaking in was easy too, knowing that there was no lock on her door.
As she was changing into a fresh set of clothes, the silence of the house carried the sound of the front door opening. She froze from the sound, for she knew what it meant.
He's here.
"Natsuki~!" Naoko Honda called out, sporting his neatly slicked pink hair and clean shaven face as he took off his current black blazer and waistcoat for his standard golden one. "I'm home!"
Natsuki opened the door a peek, in order to peer out of it.
"There you are!" Naoko called out from behind her as he yanked the door open, the motion making Natsuki abruptly fall to the ground.
"You know," Naoko hummed as Natsuki slowly picked herself out of the ground, now truly feeling the bruises from the previous day. "Our company lost another case today. I mean, I had predicted it, of course. Our case was a lost cause, the guy was clearly guilty. But we still lost."
He bent down and gripped Natsuki's hair, pulling her up to a stand when she couldn't herself. Ignoring her yelping, he continued as he gazed into her eyes wick a wide grin. "And you know what happens whenever I lose, right?"
Natsuki paled in his grasp, knowing what he was talking about.
Suddenly, Natsuki felt a punch connect to her ribs. As her breath was knocked out of her, she managed to escape Naoko's hold as she fell to the ground again, gasping.
Looking up, she could see one of the butlers going up to her father with a napkin, allowing Naoko to safely throw away the hair he had pulled off from Natsuki's head. She could even see a number of the butlers standing by, just in case.
"This is what boys will do to you, you must remember that," Naoko casually said as he undid his cufflinks and rolled up his sleeves. "Remember why I'm doing this to you, Natsuki. I'd hate to see you end up like your mother, after all."
Natsuki grit her teeth in frustration.
'Dammit, Mama actually loved me! Unlike you!' she thought.
Suddenly, she was met with a punch to the face, followed by her getting roughly hoisted up to a stand, while something held her arms behind her. She knew what it was. The butlers were holding her and attacking her, their iron plates now covering their mouths as guards and their eyes open, revealing purely red orbs beneath. Natsuki knew that this face was what they wore when they were active. When they were aggressive.
"What's Rule No. 1, Natsuki?" her dad asked.
"Never-" she was interrupted by a punch to the face. "Never accuse you of anything."
"Good," Naoko nodded. "I can't believe I need to remind you of it. And what was the punishment?"
"A… fresh beating…" Natsuki wheezed out in between gasps, hanging limply from the hold on her arms.
"Full marks," Naoko somberly applauded. "Men, you can take it away."
With that, Naoko walked away as the butlers came up to Natsuki, their faces quickly changing to their more aggressive versions.
'Please…' Natsuki thought. 'Someone help me!'
Suddenly, seeming to answer her prayer, a hand shot out from somewhere, stretching until it met all the guards in the face, knocking them back.
"W-Wha…?" she muttered, but paused as she suddenly felt something from her right palm.
The scar on her palm, it was pulsing somehow.
Natsuki widened her eyes as something shot out of her hand, moving it away from her face in time. The air in front of her hand started to shimmer, as a figure walked out of nowhere from the surface of her hand.
It was someone she had never met before, but wearing her school uniform. A very tall, sandy-haired boy with dark tanned skin and olive green eyes. The stranger returned a cold look to Natsuki.
"Seriously, couldn't your dad abuse you some other time?" he remarked. "Your friends kept stressing that we had to save you now, so I couldn't attend my SF meeting."
"W-Who are you…?" Natsuki asked, trembling as the butlers let go of her, making her fall onto her knees and look up at her savior.
"Keep your hand up, there are people still coming through," he said, to which Natsuki hastily complied. "My name's Geoff Joster, but your friends call me JoJo. Speaking of them, they should be here in a minute."
Soon enough, a new figure emerged from her hand. A far more familiar one.
"Did you land the first hit, JoJo?" MC asked, walking out of her hand. "Where's the bastard?"
"We first need to find out what Stand this is," he said, pointing MC to the numerous identical guards.
"Colony Stand, I'm guessing?"
"You're learning. Good."
The next to walk out of her hand was Sayori.
"Okay, what's going on?" Sayori said, but almost slipped as she stepped on the floor. "Oh wow, this place is really clean. I would've never guessed that an abuser lives here."
"W-What are you doing here?!" Natsuki finally relented but yelped as a purple-haired girl stepped out of her hand as well. "A-And how the hell are you coming out of my fucking hand?!"
"I-I made that scar there," Yuri confessed, now fully outside, with The Knife returned to her. "I can make portals on any scars my Stand makes."
"W-What…" Natsuki trembled as she beared witness to her incredibly bizarre, yet familiar saviors. "H-How is that possible? W-Why do you guys… and Papa… have powers like that?!"
MC widened his eyes. "Natsuki, can you tell us what your dad's power is? We need it to fight him."
Natsuki's pink eyes could not get any wider at MC's question. "H-He can know my thoughts… for w-when I b-break rules… and these… things… behind me…"
MC widened his eyes as well, looking back up at the mass of butlers behind her, now in their calm form with smiles and closed eyes.
"You can see them?" MC asked.
"Y-Yes…" she decided not to use logic for his questions anymore.
"Can you see this?" MC pointed to his side.
"Umm… I-I don't think so…" she confessed.
However, the butlers behind her did see what was there. And they didn't like it. Their faces quickly morphed to their active mode, mouth guards set and red eyes open.
"Now, now, these guests don't know about our rules yet," a voice suddenly boomed out from the whole house. "You can stand down."
And with that statement, the butlers returned to their passive state once more.
"For those of you who don't know," the voice continued, not having any particular source, "my name is Naoko Honda. Natsuki seems to be your friend, and I am her father. Although, I am surprised that she's made friends with boys even after all my conditioning. In any case, you're currently trespassing. So, I'll ask you this once. Put away your Stands and leave this house."
"No way in hell!" MC suddenly announced back before anyone else got the time to react, letting Day One reveal its fully green Rollback hand, expose its yellow Save States and bends its legs in an odd pose next to him. "We know you're abusing Natsuki, we're not leaving until we know she's safe!"
"Ah, Natsuki," the voice carried on, "You've broken that rule, then?"
"I-I didn't know!" Natsuki managed to push through her fear and speak out. "I had no idea they found out!"
"Ah, well, not much we can do there," the voice said. "However, here's what you need to know about me, and this house."
"This is my House of Gold," he said. "And that means my house, my rules. If you fail to follow my rules in this house, you will be punished. Natsuki is not exempt from this rule, either. So, to all of you, I will lay down this rule. No trespassers permitted. You must all leave, while Natsuki must stay here and get punished for breaking her rule."
"N-N-No…" Natsuki whined, as she curled herself up into a ball. "Why…?"
To everyone's surprise, however, JoJo stopped MC before he could say anything. Stepping forward, he projected his voice forth. "Have you ever heard of the Joestar clan, sir?"
After keeping a pause, Naoko spoke, "No, I'm sorry I haven't. Am I supposed to?"
"Not at all," JoJo replied with a smirk. "But it certainly would have helped if you did."
Pulling back the cloth on his left shoulder, he exposed his star-shaped birthmark. "This is the mark of a Joestar. A family that is destined for greatness. Every member will have a legacy to follow, one that they must toil to succeed in."
Recovering his mark, he faced the empty hallway once again. "My name is Geoff Joster, and I am a Joestar. It is part of my legacy to defeat the infestation of criminal Stand Users in this town and in our school. And I will not ever stop until I do so. So, you'd better believe that I wouldn't run away from your house from a simple punishment threat."
Almost hearing Naoko's smirk from wherever he was, he continued. "So be it. You've shown me your conviction, let's see how long it will last. House of Gold, you may attack the rule-breakers now."
Suddenly, the hallway around them had its space distorted as it closed off on either end.
"Um, Yuri, please tell me you've got portals made already?" Sayori asked.
"Let me try," Yuri said, letting The Knife make a scratch on the wall next to her.
However, almost as soon as she did it, the scratch closed up from the space inside being distorted enough to fix it.
Crossing her eyes, Yuri concentrated. "I… I can't make a portal here!" she soon declared.
"I heard about your Stand when you mentioned it to Natsuki," Naoko revealed, still hidden. "And so, I thought: If I could erase those scratches, then would I be able to nullify your ability? I'm glad to know that it's true."
"How are you doing that?!" MC yelled out. "How are you moving the house around?"
Suddenly, the wall on MC's left split open, revealing an active butler running at him, red eyes glinting as he did so. MC reacted in time and sent forth Day One for a punch.
'KIAI!'
However, the punch's range ended about an inch away from the butler's face. The butler, in turn, punched as well. Unusually to MC, the punch went past the full range of his Stand, and connected with MC's own face. Even though their armspans were roughly equal.
MC went back to the wall, feeling the recoil of the punch. Nursing his bruised jaw, he looked at the butler walking towards him.
"Day One!" he called out.
However, it was to no fruit as right before he could start his Stand Rush, the floor beneath him opened up and he fell down to the lower floor.
"MC!" Sayori called out, running up to follow behind him through the formed hole. However, she was too late as it closed up just as she reached.
"T-Take me to Church!"
Her Stand emerged from her, trying to punch its way through the ground. However, her Stand wasn't meant for power, and it couldn't do anything.
Suddenly, Sayori felt herself get tackled from her left. Looking down, she noticed that it was one of the butlers, wrapping its arms around her, pushing her to the opposite wall. And to her demise, the wall opened up just like before, and swallowed her up as well.
"Sayori!" Yuri called out, before she dropped to her knees, breathing deeply. Turning back to Natsuki's shaking form, she smiled.
"Natsuki," she said, "I'm going to get you out of here, okay?"
Natsuki looked at Yuri's tear-stricken face, then briefly nodded.
"Oh no, we can't have that!" the voice called out again.
Suddenly, the butlers standing behind Natsuki went wild as they all pounced on Yuri at once. Yuri tried to shriek under the collection of people she was being beat up by, but her voice was drowned out in the din of the noise that were all making to beat her.
"T-The Knife!"
Her purple Stand quickly made a cut on its user, then moved away to form a portal away from her. Somewhere safer. And it did; Yuri made it through.
However, just as she was emerging, space around her warped as she found herself closer to the butlers than she should have been. And with her current injuries, including a bleeding nose, bruised face and broken arms and legs, she couldn't properly run away as the horde came for her once again.
"T-The Knife…" she called out again. This time, the Stand moved away again, attempting to do the same thing again. However, it couldn't move away. No matter how much it moved, it was always right above the horde.
"Shit, Yuri!" JoJo yelled out. He was trying to run up to her, but no matter how much he had travelled, he had never made it. Not even his extensions could make it all the way.
The butlers beating Yuri suddenly stopped. They slowly stood back up, as the filed away from their pile. This revealed Yuri's body, beaten to an absolute pulp. One wouldn't even recognize that it was Yuri underneath all of the dismembered flesh on her face. The Knife slowly dissolved into nothing above her.
Natsuki shook as she crawled up to her purple-haired friend. Still jittering, she quickly grabbed her wrist. However, she paled as she dropped her hand, while frozen in fear.
"Her pulse… She's… she's dead…"
JoJo paled as well, hearing her response.
"What…?" he said. "What… the hell?"
JoJo quickly shrunk his still extended limbs, as he fell to his knees. Falling down to his hands, he started heaving.
"She… I brought her here…" he quietly said to himself, letting a tear fall. "… I'm the reason why she's dead…"
"You know," the voice called out again. "I wouldn't have had to kill her. You forced my hand."
JoJo paled, but then gritted his teeth in frustration as he stood up. "Natsuki, right?" he said. "You're going to have to run. You don't want these things coming after you."
"B-But…" Natsuki stammered out, still stressed about the loss of her friend. "But what are you going to do?!"
JoJo sighed as he turned to the warped piece of wall. Calling out Renegades, he broke the warped wall in a single punch.
"I'm gonna kill your dad."
[Yuri Yamamoto]
[Status: Deceased]
Sayori was still running.
Her rope wasn't able to take away the energy from the butlers, probably considering how they weren't human in the first place. However, since she was able to create so much rope, she could easily trip them up with it. She couldn't risk healing her own bruises, as the only energy source she had was herself. Exhausting herself would be a worse decision here.
However, just as she would tie some butlers up with her rope, a new set of butlers would emerge from the walls to take their place. Sayori even saw the butlers trapped in rope fade away into nothingness.
Nothing she was doing was having any actual effect. All she could do was run.
However, the house got much more convoluted than before. Each off turn would result in her reaching a dead end, making her have to trap a horde of butlers as she tried to run away again. It certainly helped, however, that the house stopped warping space.
Just as she had pushed past another group of butlers after another dead end, she accidentally bumped into something shorter than all of the butlers that were attacking them.
Wincing through the pain, Sayori still stood up, not having any time to moan through it. Looking down, she saw that the thing she collided with was…
"Natsuki?!" Sayori yelped as she saw the pink-haired girl, quickly sitting up as well. Sayori grasped her hand and ran with her, roughly yanking her up to a stand. "We need to run! No time to lose!"
However, just as they went, they found that their path was blocked by a group of butlers. Turning back around, she saw that the group she had trapped had either broken free or were replaced and were there waiting for them.
They were closed in.
"Natsuki?" Sayori softly called out. "Can you trust me?"
"I… Y-Yeah, I'll try…" Natsuki stammered out, frightened at the sight of the men around her.
"Alright." Sayori quickly grabbed Natsuki's hand as she ran the direction she was originally travelling, straight into the group waiting for them.
"Wait, Sayori, what are you-!"
"No time to explain! Take me to Church!"
Sayori's red and white Stand manifested next to her, shooting out rope from its gauntlets. Sayori willed the rope to yank the butlers away from each other, making them stick to the wall and leaving a path open for them.
However, to her demise, there were another group of butlers already waiting for her there.
"Shit!" she cursed as she looked behind again. The butlers she had just trapped had disappeared, now replaced with a fresh batch still coming out the walls. She knew that once they were done, they would run up to them as well.
"Natsuki, grab on to me!" Sayori yelled.
Hesitantly, Natsuki wrapped herself around her body. "What are you planning?"
Sayori smirked, as she saw the hanging lights on the high ceiling. Despite herself, her smirk turned into and excited grin.
"I'm gonna become Spiderman."
Manifesting Take Me to Church over her own right arm, she shot out a strand of rope that she willed to catch onto the hanging light.
Pushing Natsuki onto her back, she immediately withdrew the rope back into Take Me to Church's gauntlet, making her move upwards as she did so. As she came to a suitable length, high enough away from the hordes of butlers below her, she let gravity run its course, and she swung.
"AAAAAAHHHH!" Natsuki yelled out as to her, they were swinging from absolutely nothing. Natsuki could deduce that there was an invisible rope of some kind seeing how the light was moving with them as well.
However, the light wasn't meant to carry the weight of two young girls. And so, the chain quickly snapped.
Sayori looked down as the light snapped. It turned out that the entire hallway was filled with butlers. Wincing, she shot out another rope to connect to the next hanging light, hoping that it would hold up better than last time.
CRASH!
The two turned around to see that the previous light had crashed straight onto a group of butlers, who had dissolved onto goop and evaporated.
Quickly speaking through their eyes, Natsuki and Sayori nodded to each other.
And that was how Sayori decided to yank her rope down every time she would let go of one swing to ensure the old light would crash on the men beneath.
After a couple swings, they managed to make it out of the hallway, and stay clear of the butlers. Sayori took a breath as she extended her rope enough to let them safely drop onto the ground.
Setting Natsuki down while returning Take Me to Church into herself, the two ran towards a nearby door, in which they hid from any incoming enemies. While they were safe, Sayori chuckled. "That was fun, wasn't it?"
"Why…" Natsuki replied instead, making Sayori frown. "Why did you guys come here?! How are you able to do all that?!"
"Well, the second question's hard to explain, so it's best to just roll with it," Sayori chuckled, then turned somber as she looked straight at Natsuki. "As for the first reason, Monika's been harming the club."
"Monika? Harming the club?" Natsuki replied. "What do you mean by that?"
"She gave your dad that ability," Sayori said back. "At least, we think so. But we do know that she encouraged him to abuse you."
"W-What…?" Natsuki shuddered.
"It happened to Yuri earlier. Luckily, we saved her," Sayori continued. "Never have I been so glad of MC's ability, that I probably shouldn't share considering how your dad probably hears everything here."
"Yuri…" Natsuki murmured and choked back a sob.
"Natsuki? What is it?" Sayori asked.
"Yuri, she's…" Natsuki spoke in between sobs. "She's dead!"
Sayori's eyes widened as Natsuki fell into her arms. "Are… Are you sure?" she asked.
Natsuki nodded as she covered her face in Sayori's blazer sleeve. "I-I checked her pulse. She was dead…"
"I-I-It's not too late, Natsuki," Sayori emphasized, bringing her up to meet her eyes. "I can… probably… heal her. And if I can't, there's always MC. He can make it so that it never happened in the first place."
"W-Wait, what?" Natsuki replied.
"Yeah, it's his ability," Sayori confessed, after which she quickly looked around. "I don't want to talk about it here, though. JoJo always said that we're supposed to keep our abilities secret, hehe."
"I…" Natsuki softly replied. "I hope it works. S-She tried to send me away. T-T-To k-keep me s-safe."
Sayori sighed, and quietly wrapped Natsuki in another hug. "Don't worry. I know that Yuri'll be fine."
Splitting up soon after, Sayori looked around again. "Alright, we need to keep an eye out for those butlers. House of Gold, he called them. What do you know about his ability?"
"W-What I said earlier," she said. "H-However, t-the house… it's different."
"Huh?" Sayori remarked. "What do you mean?"
"The house was never this big," Natsuki revealed. "I think… I think my dad did something to the house to change it. To make it bigger. More dangerous."
Suddenly, they heard a boom from the other end of the room that they were in, as a familiar figure walked in, their Stand punching out a whole bunch of others.
"MC! You're okay!"
"Sayori, Natsuki," MC groaned as he dropped down onto a knee.
"Shit!" Sayori yelled as she supported him up. "Can you still use Day One?"
"I… I don't know," MC admitted.
Natsuki walked forward. "What the hell happened back there?" she asked.
"I was just flooded with those things, had to beat them all up," he revealed. "Lucky for me, the space warping stopped."
"Wait, space warping?" Sayori asked.
"Huh? You haven't noticed yet?" MC asked, quirking a brow. "I thought I was supposed to be the dense one."
"Ehehe, well, sorry," Sayori whined.
"Okay," MC sighed as he stood back up. "House of Gold seems to have multiple abilities. Other than the butlers, he seems to be able to warp the house however he deems fit. It certainly fits into his 'My house, my rules' policy."
"Oh, that makes sense," Sayori admitted, pinching her chin. "That explains why we all phased through walls back then. And why the house changed as well."
"MC, Sayori said you can help her," Natsuki interrupted their conversation hastily. "Yuri… she's dead."
Upon hearing this, MC paled. "W-Wait, what?!" he expressed, wearing a horrified face.
"It's okay, MC!" Sayori comforted him. "You can still save her. You just need to… you know?"
"Load a-"
"Don't say it!"
"O-Oh, uh…" MC drifted off, looking away. "I've never done it for a d-dead person before, so I don't know for sure. I certainly do hope so, however."
Sayori smiled at him. "I know you can do it, MC."
"Y-Yeah," MC replied with a light stutter. "I'm just worried about how Yuri would remember it."
"O-Oh," Sayori looked down. "Y-Yeah, that's an issue, isn't it? B-But hey, don't worry! We'll be there to help her!"
"How the hell do you treat someone who's survived death?!"
"I don't know, we'll just have to find out!"
"Guys, we've got bigger problems!" Natsuki interrupted them, forcefully pushing them apart to make them see the new horde of butlers walking in through the hole that MC made.
"Crap," MC said as he called out Day One. "Sayori, keep your energy for now. I'll ask for some when I need it."
Seeing her nod, MC set out to use his Stand to leap to the opposite wall and smash through. Sayori picked up Natsuki and used Take Me to Church to pull herself through the hole alongside her boyfriend.
However, as they broke through the wall, they noticed another group of people that they hadn't expected.
"JoJo/Dad?!"
JoJo was smashing through random walls, enraged by the death he was forced to bear on his consciousness.
Any manifestation of House of Gold he saw, he would immediately destroy. However, just as he would destroy some, he noticed that instead of taking damage, they would just turn into peach goop.
'Are they invincible?' he pondered as he broke through another wall. 'Is Natsuki's dad taking any damage from this? I guess not, because I'm pretty sure he would protect his colony Stand if he did.'
As JoJo broke through another wall, after what seemed like an immeasurable amount of time, he noticed something different. There were no butlers here. Along the left wall of the hallway he was currently in, was an oak door with a nameplate on it, calling it 'Study'.
Heaving through his exhaustion, he buried his frustration as he walked to the door, only briefly registering the wall behind him fixing itself.
Upon opening the door, he walked in on a room that gave the vibe of a log cabin. Oak walls, musky scent, lit fireplace, everything. And in this room was a sofa chair, in which a man was sitting.
"Certainly took you long enough," Naoko Honda said as he dragged the ottoman he was using to the side and set down the teacup he was holding. Standing up, he turned to JoJo as he straightened his waistcoat.
JoJo crossed his eyes. "I know I'm not here by coincidence. Why did you bring me here?"
Naoko chuckled as he paced across the hall, light thumps of his feet on the hardwood floor resounding with the crackling of the fire nearby. "Your ability is interesting. Elongation, from what I've seen. However effective it could be, it cannot stand against House of Gold's internal space manipulation."
JoJo grit his teeth, knowing that he was saying the truth.
"Also," he continued, "I just wanted to be the one to defeat you, to make you eat your words. You can keep up your family legacy charade and all that, but when it comes to a Stand battle, I hold a much greater advantage over you. Outside my house, you may be able to defeat me. However, in here, these are my quarters. Mine to command. I am king here. And you all, my new playthings. The only person I expect to barely have a chance of beating me is that boy, Caulfield. Reversing time is a daunting ability to fight against."
JoJo shook his head. "Look, I know I'm not MC, nor do I have as good an ability as him. I'm not a part of the Literature Club. Hell, I'm not even in his time reversal group thingy!"
"But I do know this," JoJo made a fist, and held it up to Naoko. "My blood is what gives me resolve. Your only resolve is your will to hurt your daughter. Mine is to protect the world from threats like you. And that is why I keep going, no matter what."
"Heh, you think my resolve lies in hurting my daughter?" Naoko chuckled, before having his expression turn into anger. "I'm doing this to protect her! You cannot fight back against a man's love for their daughter!"
"And how the hell are you showing that you love her?!"
"By showing her what the real world is like!" Naoko yelled back. "By making sure that what happened to her mother and her aunt will never happen to her! By letting her know that friends are the worst things you can have, especially if they are men! I have corrupted my image in her mind, broken her, raped her, all for this cause! Not for some sick pleasure! Because I, Naoko Honda, will not stop until Natsuki is safe from any threat that comes her way!"
JoJo took a step back, faltering at his serious expression. "You… are you fucking serious?!"
"Of course, I am!" Naoko stressed. "Never doubt my love for my daughter."
"Oh, I'm doubting it," JoJo replied. "Protecting her is one thing, but what you're doing is robbing her of not only her childhood, but her goddamn humanity! You're making her afraid of everything! If you keep going down this path, your daughter will be a mere husk of a person!"
Naoko sighed. "Better than to have her killed."
"You…" JoJo frowned in disgust. "You're sick, you know that?"
"The only sick one is you, thinking that you can stop me," Naoko looked down, then grinned. "But why are talking about this. I brought you here to fight you."
"So, let's start."
Suddenly, the room morphed into a different one. The room had its oak walls replaced with metallic blue ones, with weapons of all kinds lining the walls. Knives, katanas, guns, nunchucks, even a morningstar. The glint from the shine of all the weapons suddenly nearly blinded JoJo as the sofa and the fireplace sank through a flat tiled floor.
Looking up, JoJo saw Naoko running up to him, five butlers running behind him for backup.
Bracing himself, JoJo turned his legs elastic and bounced out of the way of the approaching group. However, space pulled him back to his original location, allowing Naoko to appear in front of him.
Grunting, JoJo extended his hand and thrust for Naoko's face, only to find that it would fall short of it no matter how much he stretched due to the compression of space. Naoko ignored the failing punch and spawned several butler arms around his own, delivering a single punch with multiple hands.
JoJo was knocked back from the distributed force of the punch. Withdrawing his hand, he collapsed onto the floor, placing a hand upon it.
"You see," Naoko walked up to him. "It's useless."
JoJo, however, merely chuckled. Looking up to meet Naoko's eyes again, he shot him a dark look.
"Once again, don't underestimate the resolve of a Joestar. Renegades!"
Unexpectedly to Naoko, Renegades manifested from behind him, even though he was a good 3 meters away. Sensing its presence, he turned around to intercept it, but failed as the Stand used its incredible speed to attack him.
"DORADORADORADORADORA!"
"Ghhaaahh!" Naoko yelled as blood spewed from his damaged face as he moved towards JoJo. Letting his face drop in front of JoJo's hand, he noticed what happened.
JoJo's hand had seemed to meld with the ground, and there were thin strands of skin that travelled across the floor, resembling a web.
Finally realizing how he was manifesting his Stand outside his range, Naoko quickly came up with a countermeasure for it. As Renegades was about to emerge from underneath him, he jumped up, compressing the space from him to the ceiling while expanding the space between himself and the ground, and consequently, the rogue Stand. Making one of his butlers phase their hands through the ceiling, he put his hand out to hold on to them, letting him dangle from the ceiling.
"I will admit, that is a rather innovative use of your ability," Naoko confessed. "Thank you for showing it to me. That gave me a rather good idea of how to further improve my own, after all."
JoJo grit his teeth, seeing how his opponent had escaped his most powerful move after easily noticing how he did it. However, as he pulled his skin back into his hand and tried to stand up, he found resistance from his hand. Looking down, he gaped his mouth at the stray hand popping up from the ground, clutching onto his hand.
"My butlers can manifest from any area within this house," Naoko revealed. "That also includes the walls someone is leaning on, or the floor someone is standing on. You cannot run from them, not ever. And while I'm at it, you are not permitted to attack me."
JoJo grimaced, but as he looked back up, he held back a grin as he saw how Naoko's arm was a little extended.
'My extensions give you a poorer control over your body. It will be more difficult for bones to hold up, for nerves to send messages, for muscles to function, for blood to be pumped through vessels, when they're all longer than they should be,' he thought. 'He must he finding it difficult to hold on there. I just need to get Renegades up there and extend him a little more.'
And so, he used the hand that was being held down to his advantage. He spread out his skin web up to the ceiling by making it stick and move up the wall.
However, just as he was about to reach within range of his enemy, an axe from the walls suddenly flew over his hand to land blade first into his wrist, shearing off his hand.
"RAAAGHHH!" JoJo yelled as he held on to his amputated right hand, trying to suppress the flowing blood.
"Remember what I said earlier? My house, my rules," Naoko said as the extensions of his arm faded from the fading of JoJo's focus. "As long as a rule is broken in your thoughts, then I will know about it. I had just mentioned a new rule of mine to you: You aren't permitted to attack me. You broke that rule by getting ready to attack. And so, I knew you would. The best way to stop your attack was by cutting off your hand, since that was what sent out your skin web."
JoJo gritted his teeth. 'Is there no way I can defeat this guy?' he thought as he used Renegades to stretch the skin on his amputated hand to wrap around itself, to stop the blood loss.
"I will be moving away, since I believe that staying int his room would not be good for me," Naoko said as the hand holding him on the ceiling slowly pulled him up into it. "However, don't think my attacks are done. Things will only get more intense from here."
Yelling in frustration, JoJo manifested Renegades around his legs to jump at Naoko. However, his path was impeded by a chain of butlers emerging from the ground and grabbing him by his feet. As he fell to the ground, he found his body restrained by the numerous hands on him emerging from the ground. Gritting his teeth, he immediately called out Renegades to bash through all of the hands holding him down, which all turned to sludge as he did so. However, as he stood up to briefly see that Naoko had gone missing, he was immediately met with a baton to the face.
Rubbing his head as he picked himself up from the tiled floor again, he widened his eyes as he noticed the numerous weapons in the room floating around him.
'Shit, that's why he brought me here?!'
As every single from the walls dove into his direction, he immediately jumped up using Renegades on his legs. Moving out of the eye of the storm hadn't helped him, however, as the weapon storm trailed behind him as he jumped.
Immediately summoning Renegades, he immediately punched through the hordes of weapons coming his way. Since House of Gold's space manipulation wasn't as fast as Renegades was, he was able to successfully destroy some of the incoming weapons, while the ones further behind, or the heavier ones, managed to curve around the Stand and attack JoJo from behind. Space also made Renegades unable to reach some of the weapons, which had also moved around with the others.
'Crap, I can't keep doing this!' JoJo thought as he turned around to intercept the weapons once again with his Stand. As the trailing weapons went behind JoJo once again, he could see that they were slowly getting closer. At some point, Renegades would be unable to defend him.
'I need to stop this!' JoJo decided. 'I'll have to destroy all the weapons with this one!'
Turning back one last time, he brought out Renegades. However, he let the weapons come at him.
Renegades, however, cocked its arm back as Stand energy started to flood its fist, shown by the growing red aura growing on it.
'All… in this punch!' JoJo yelled in his mind as he unleashed his ultimate punch at the incoming weapons.
The punch was so strong that the resulting flow of wind was enough to shred the remaining weapons into a grind. However, what confused JoJo the most was what happened when the aura spread out into the area in front of him.
Suddenly, the room seemed much longer, while JoJo felt himself get squished shorter. However, this space manipulation hadn't attempted to hurt him in any way, as the room's dimensions quickly turned back to normal.
'… What?' JoJo thought, regarding what had just happened.
However, feeling a new grip on his legs, JoJo was shaken out of his thoughts as he jumped out of the way of the incoming butlers from the ground. However, he paled as he noticed the shard of the weapons that he had destroyed hovering over the ground, turning their sharp ends to him.
Still in the air, JoJo decided that he would have to bust through the ceiling the hard way. And so, he decided to charge up another punch from Renegades.
As he shot out his Stand's aura at the incoming shards and butlers, not only did he feel the recoil push him up to the ceiling, but the space between himself and the weapons suddenly elongated while the distance between himself and the ceiling shortened.
And so, JoJo managed to bust out through the ceiling and avoid the incoming weapons, which ended up hitting the tile around the hole he made to bust through.
JoJo heaved in relief as he collapsed onto his knees, having finally freed himself from that room of terror. Before Naoko could do anything further, JoJo punched the floor with Renegades, making it elongate to fill up the hole he had made.
Using his lone hand, JoJo picked himself up to a stand after stumbling a little from his exhaustion.
"Hmm, you did rather well," a voice came from behind him. Jerking back around, JoJo saw Naoko standing there, alongside another small army of butlers, showing their red eyes and mouth guards as they leered at him.
"I will admit, I don't understand what happened in that last moment. I guess your Stand's strength being better than you imagined ended up in your favor. Wind impact can be rather serious."
JoJo sneered at him. "What? Was that all you got?"
Naoko chuckled. "What, do you really think you can handle any more? Face it, you're exhausted. You can't handle much more than this, and that's a fact. In fact, I'm sure that this tiny army behind me will be enough to kill-"
Suddenly, they were interrupted by a blast from the nearby wall.
"JoJo/Dad?!" the rest of the Literature Club remarked as they blitzed in.
"Ah, you're right on time!" Naoko announced, projecting his voice using his space manipulation. "I positioned this room here for one reason only. I've already killed the purple-haired one, you know? And now, I'm going to kill this one too."
With that, he pointed to the exhausted body of JoJo, currently missing a right hand among other injuries. The three gasped as they saw his state.
"Rough day, huh?" JoJo said with a chuckle.
"JoJo," MC gulped. "You can't fight anymore. Let's all take over this one."
"Oh, I'm sorry," Naoko interrupted. "I'm not letting you anywhere close. Why don't you try it?"
Widening their eyes as they looked at each other, MC slowly walked up to them. However, his walk was interrupted by a near invisible sheet of glass in front of him. Gritting his teeth, MC brought out Day One and tried to bust through it. However, none of the punches he would make could land, as Naoko expanded the space between them every time he tried.
"That glass actually spans the entire room. And don't think you can break through the walls as well; I'll protect wherever you move to. You see? It's impossible for you to make it through. Now be good children and see what happens when you don't follow my rules."
Naoko took a resounding step forward, closer to JoJo.
"House of Gold, you may attack him now."
However, before the butlers could rush him, JoJo immediately brought out Renegades and punched out aura to his right. The resulting wind from the highly intense punch made Naoko shield his face for a moment, but it faded as soon as it came.
Naoko, widening his eyes at JoJo's ridiculous moved, suddenly started laughing. "Is… Is that your definition of an attack?!" he spoke between his laughs. "That didn't even come close to me!"
However, to the confusion of Naoko, JoJo simply grinned wide. Looking back up at him, he stopped supporting himself on his knees and stood up as straight as he could.
"You're not the only one who's grown from our fight."
Suddenly, the aura that he had punched out into space dispersed, making the space on his right elongate further. However, as it did so, the space between JoJo and Naoko got consumed, as the two were brought closer.
"W-What?!" Naoko exclaimed as he suddenly found himself within range of JoJo's Stand. "How?!"
JoJo simply chuckled. "Dora."
Renegades quickly emerged from JoJo's body, towering over Naoko's writhing figure.
"I've heard a story, once, of a friend of one of my ancestors," JoJo spoke to a whimpering Naoko. "Okuyasu Nijimura, with the Stand 'The Hand'. His Stand had the ability to scrape away anything it brushed with its right hand, with the remaining pieces closing back together to make it seem like nothing vanished in the first place. Even normally, this Stand was fearsome enough. However, it was made more effective with its ability to scrape away space, making a victim teleport to be within its range. As it turns out, my Stand can operate on a similar principle."
Renegades suddenly charged its fists again, letting its red aura cover them.
"Renegades has the ability to elongate anything it touches. I always thought that this was applicable only to solid objects. The odd thing is that I've extended the blood in a person's arm before. I will confess that I've never done it for gases. However, who's to say that Renegades cannot touch space, and elongate it? What I'm trying to say here is this: You're not the only one here who can control space anymore."
"You… Godammit!" Naoko exclaimed. "House of Gold!"
As the butlers rushed in from their sides, attempting to sandwich their enemy, JoJo let out a loose laugh in return.
"Renegades. Elongate Space."
Suddenly, Renegades punched the air on its sides with its already aura-enforced fists. As the aura dispersed into the room, the space between JoJo and the approaching figures of House of Gold expanded, leaving them further away. However, to accommodate for the expansion, the space between JoJo and Naoko got shortened further.
"This one is for Yuri. The girl you mercilessly killed."
"DORA!"
"This one, one behalf of me and the entire Joestar clan."
"DORA!"
"And finally, this one is for Natsuki. The daughter of yours that you've tormented since childhood."
"DORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORADORA!"
As Renegades finished its rush with a final "DORA!", it shot Naoko away onto the wall making him bust clean through. The impact made him unconscious, rendering him unable to keep up House of Gold. And as such, the butlers quickly faded away, like every Stand did once their users couldn't keep them up anymore. JoJo could briefly see that Naoko's entire body had pooled around the floor, having been extended quite a bit. He grinned, knowing that the chances of him moving after that were minimal.
"KIAI!" Day One shouted as MC broke through the glass blocking them. JoJo smirked at them as they entered.
"Try topping that someday, would ya, MC?"
With that, he swiftly collapsed onto the ground, the extensions on his amputated wrist fading as blood started to flow from his injury again.
Natsuki had absolutely no idea what to think.
On one hand, they had won. MC was holding JoJo up with what seemed like an apparition of a hand covering his bleeding stump. Papa lost, and all the butlers were gone. Natsuki was safe to go wherever she wanted, now that the threat of her dad was gone.
However, on the other, she couldn't forget the one thing that held her back from speaking to anyone other than the rules. That was the fact that he was the only one left from her family.
"I'm… I'm all alone now…" Natsuki quietly said to herself, looking away from JoJo's crippled form.
Sayori, having stood next to her at that moment, overheard her. She immediately paled as she realized how what they did would have looked to Natsuki.
"Hey, Natsuki," Sayori gently rested a hand on her shoulder, still keeping an eye on JoJo just in case he needed help. "I want you to know this, okay? You're not alone. We're all here for you. MC, me, JoJo, and Yuri. Maybe even Monika, at least, I hope. J-Just… remember that we're here too, okay? We can be your family."
Natsuki turned to Sayori, letting her see the tears running down her slap-marked cheeks. "You… You would really do that…?"
"Definitely!" Sayori beamed at her. "I promise."
"B-But… Papa…"
"Was a bad person. The meanest of meanies," Sayori interrupted her. "He hurt you, Natsuki. As your new family, we're not going to let that go. We protected you, and we would still do so in a heartbeat."
Now choking on her sobs, Natsuki quickly covered her head in Sayori's chest once again, crying herself dry. Sayori didn't mind, as she gingerly held on to the pink-haired girl, reminding her that she's there.
MC walked up to the two, JoJo in hand. "Sayori, can you heal him?" he asked. "His hand-"
"Don't…" JoJo choked between gasps, blood still oozing out of his wound despite Day One's grip on it. "Give all your energy to MC. He needs it for the rewind. Just… one thing."
"What is it?" MC asked.
JoJo looked at him, and smirked. "Can you tell past me about that new technique? I don't think I'm gonna be part of your loop anytime soon, but I still wanna keep this new move. If I end up asking how, just tell me that it's like The Hand. That I have to focus all my elongation power in a single attack to space."
MC smiled back and nodded to assure him.
"Alright, we're going to rewind now, right?" Sayori interrupted.
"Wait, rewind?" Natsuki took her head out of Sayori's boobs, looking at MC. "Like, rewind time?"
"Yep," MC confessed. "That's my ability."
Natsuki paused for a moment, then asked, "You said that a friend recommended Parfait Girls to you. Was that friend…?"
MC loosely chuckled. "Okay, yeah, it was you. I'll admit to having manipulated you a little to make you trust me more, but we knew that you were hurting somehow. It was the only way I could find out more about you."
"Look, we don't have time for this, alright?" JoJo wheezed out. "I really don't want to die, even if it won't happen in the long run. Just get this over with, would you?"
"Ah, right," MC replied, letting go of JoJo to free his Stand. "Day One."
Before the Stand could approach Natsuki, they all heard the signature whoosh of a space shift from behind them.
Slowly turning back, they noticed Naoko still conscious, but barely. The elongation in his limbs were reverted from JoJo losing his steam, but he was unable to move. All he could do was manifest a single hand of House of Gold from his shoulder, which was currently typing something on a flip-phone.
"You… Mark Caulfield," Naoko softly wheezed out, "I've… heard of your ability. Reversing time. I… I knew… that nothing I did here… would be… permanent. Nothing I do… would bear fruit… However… I can… help someone else… keep her dream… even if… it destroys me."
House of Gold pressed the call button on the phone, and it rang in speaker phone as Naoko continued.
"I'll say… what I'm supposed to… here… what she told me…"
With a deep breath, Naoko kept speaking.
"You can't… rewrite… what… was never written…"
"No matter how many times you try to rewrite time, you can't fix what never existed in the first place." MC remembered Monika telling him.
The call made it through.
"Do it…" Naoko moaned into the phone. "Delete me."
The person on the other end didn't respond, and simply cut the phone. Naoko flipped his phone close, and slowly used House of Gold to crush it on the floor.
Suddenly, his body started glitching.
"God… This shit hurts!"
As he slowly got deleted, Natsuki paled as she watched the last moments of her father.
'I can't rewrite what was never written… how does that apply here?' MC thought. 'Why is Natsuki's dad deleting himself?'
"JoJo," he found himself asking. "Did you find out what happened to Oyanagi?"
"Um, no," JoJo confessed. "It was like he never existed in the first place."
"Sayori," MC continued. "What do we know about deletion?"
Sayori paled from the sight of the second deletion she would ever witness. "Someone's… erased from existence."
"I can't rewrite what was never written," MC finally said. "Deletion is shredding the material, making it so that the person never existed in the first place. That means that no matter how many times I try to rewind time, I can't ever bring back someone who's deleted."
"Wait," Sayori continued. "Deletion makes it so that a person's never existed, right?"
"Yeah," MC responded, looking at her.
Sayori paled even further. "If Natsuki's Dad had never existed, then wouldn't Natsuki not be born?"
MC paled as well, slowly turning to the pink-haired girl.
"Umm, guys?" she said as she gently grasped her stomach. "I… I don't feel so good."
Suddenly, Natsuki's body started to glitch as well, just like her dad's.
"Shit! Natsuki!" MC yelled out as he ran for her. He tried to grab her, but her hands simply phased through.
"What… What's happening to me?!" Natsuki yelled as she looked down at her glitching hands. "Am I… am I going to die…?"
"Natsuki, we will do everything we can to save you, okay?" Sayori told her. "MC, please do something!"
"I can't!" MC yelled back. "I can't stop deletion! I… I can't save her…"
"Yes, you can!" Sayori immediately yelled out, gripping MC by the shoulders, ignoring his emerging tears. "Please, try it! We're all out of options, the only thing we haven't tried is your Load Save!"
"B-But what if it-"
"If it fails, then there's nothing we could have done, okay?" Sayori interrupted him. "Please, MC. Save her."
Looking back at Natsuki's writhing form, he felt a wave of determination wash over him.
"I…" MC slowly spoke. "I'll do it. I'll do everything I can."
Sayori beamed. "Thank you. Take Me to Church." Sayori's Stand emerged, shooting rope at MC, JoJo and its user. It took energy from both Sayori and JoJo, and transferred it all to MC
MC slowly shrugged off Sayori's hands as he paced towards Natsuki with his newly filled energy. With a deep sigh, he started.
"Day One."
The green Stand materialized on his side, the second yellow bar on its chest lit up. MC went ahead and pressed the bar.
"Load Save."
The world broke once again. Broke apart and vanished piece by piece, until all that was left was darkness dotted with stars at random.
There were several figures around MC. Sayori and JoJo were present, but were waning a little in their auras. Naoko, from behind him, was wrapped with red strands that were slowly eating at his golden aura. He had a white line that traced back to Natsuki. Speaking of, Natsuki was being eaten up as well, her form being sucked in by the white line connecting her to her dad.
Slowly grabbing the line, MC felt a soft barrier around it, not letting him touch it. It wasn't his to touch. It wasn't his family, after all.
MC was getting frantic. He knew that he had to do something here, but he had absolutely no idea what.
Soon enough, he noticed Yuri's form in the distance. Her light was dimmed out completely. She was truly dead. That was when he noticed the green strands connected Yuri's form and Sayori's form to him. Or, more precisely, to his right hand, which held the strings.
Looking back at Natsuki, he quickly reached out to her with his right hand. Letting his Stand touch her, he tried to send his green aura into her. However, as soon as he did, it would get sucked away by the line of family to her dad.
Looking a little more, MC finally noticed what he needed.
A much fainter white line was connected to her from behind. This line, however, was snapped. Watching the line travel, he discovered that the source was incredibly far away, but barely visible. The new form was as lightly dimmed as Yuri was. MC reasoned that this person was probably dead, like Yuri was.
However, he felt like he could use this. He knew it, in his heart of hearts.
He quickly allowed his Stand to grasp that white strand along where it had snapped. Pressing it together, MC watched as the line slowly regained color. Reaching back to the line connecting Natsuki and her dad, which he could touch now, he did the only thing he could to save her.
He snapped the line.
The flow of Natsuki's aura back to her father was broken, as it returned to her form. Looking back, he noticed that the red strands finished eating the rest of Naoko's body, leaving nothing behind. And so, the broken string from Natsuki's father remained disconnected forever.
MC used his Stand to try touching Natsuki again. This time, however, he truly managed to fill her up with green aura like he had before for other people.
Moving back, he felt a new pull to her form. Looking down, he noticed that a new strand was created from him to her, joining the ranks of the other two in his grasp.
MC closed his mind, as he willed himself to be done. The stars around him shifted, as MC was jerked back, bringing back the ones connected to his strands.
However, as he travelled back, Natsuki's form phased through him, allowing the white lines he had adjusted to follow behind her into him.
And the world exploded white.
Stand User: Naoko Honda
Stand Name: House of Gold (inspired by "House of Gold" by Twenty One Pilots)
Type: Bound-Colony Stand
This Stand is bound to the smallest area that the user deems as home. The colony is in the form of the butlers who can switch between their calm and active states whenever required, 200 strong and the executors of the will of the Stand. They can spawn from any area within the house or the user, and they do not reflect damage back on their user. Damage will be shown if the realm of the Stand is massively destroyed.
Abilities:
Rule-Maker: If anyone within the house is given a rule by the user, and the person breaks it even in thought, the user will know about it.
Space Manipulation: The user can freely manipulate the space within the realm of the Stand. This can be done as little as simple deflection of attacks, and as great as changing the entire house's structure. Changes will not be reflected on the outside of the house, which is why it is impossible to exit when this is in effect.
Butlers: Manifestation of their colony Stand. When passive, they do menial tasks like cleaning and cooking to perfection. When active, they share the physical strength and speed of their user, but they make up the lack of strength with their numbers.
PWR: A
SPD: C
RNG: C
PER: A
PRC: A
DEV: B
A/N: And herein marks the end of the Natsuki arc! Well, not yet, really. The stuff in the next chapter is essentially the segue between the arcs, but it serves as a conclusion for this one.
Btw, I introduced a key feature in this story. A landmark, of sorts. The 7-line Dora. I had originally planned to make it go for 7 pages, as its own independent chapter, but then I felt like that was a bit much. So, I stuck with 7 lines. Note that this is 7 lines in the editing page in FF, so I'm sorry if it's different for you. I can't control what font size and format you read this in, after all.
I'm pretty proud of House of Gold. True, it has far too many powers than it should know what to do with, and calling it a Bound-Colony Stand was already too much, seeing how the phrase is an oxymoron. I really love the fights in this story, though. The wonders that I come up with in the heat of writing always baffles me. Also, I wanted exposure for JoJo and Sayori.
Bet none of you expected Yuri to die so early on, huh? Don't worry, she'll be back. It's why I hadn't given her a satisfying death. Keeping her within the story would have been stupid, because Naoko's control is within his house. Yuri can escape him whenever she needed to, bringing anyone she wanted with her. So, Naoko had to get rid of the threat she posed early on. This is also going to help Yuri grow further in the long run, just in time for the Monika fight.
Despite what it seems, the next chapter is one of the most important chapters of this story. If you can decipher it correctly, which most of you will, you'll find out a secret meant for the very end of the story. We're nearing the endgame now, after all
Review!
IzuOchaShipper99: (I really don't think I need to write this name out anymore, tbh.) The main reason for Monika's line was explained in this chapter. MC will never be able to recover anyone who's deleted. Lucky for him, it was a familial tie that ended up attempting to delete Natsuki. Also, grammar mistakes?! Please, tell me where they are! I'm going to have to fix those. Hope this chapter wasn't too intense.
I will admit, this is probably the best chapter I've ever written in my fanfiction career till now. This is even better than Ascension's Full Shroud. Everything in the chapter was valuable and new, and I loved every second of it. That's why I'd gotten it done so quickly, too. I planned on splitting it into two chapters, but I didn't want to keep you guys waiting any longer. You can't blame me either, I mean, this is 10.5k words long.
Anyway, I'm going to take a break for a while, mainly to watch AoT. I'll be uploading my new chapter next year.
;)
Happy Advanced New Year, everyone! I really hope that 2021 won't be as much of a shitshow as this year was. And no jinx, please.
But that's it for now. Look forward to the next chapter, coming out next year! I'll see you all next chapter!