Giorno is twenty six, half a world away from home, and witnessing the end of the world.
The star on his shoulder burns like molten lava, pulling and pulling but Giorno is too late. He tried to arrive in time—had spirited across an ocean and sprinted across the swamp of Florida with little more notice than a hastily scribbled note left on their kitchen table. But it wasn't enough, he knows this; sure as the sand between his fingertips.
Beneath, the ground crumbles—cracks into itself like egg on the rim of Mista's cooking bowl. Above, the sky spins. The world rushes through eclipses and scatters stars against the cosmos. Soon enough, there will be no ground left to stand on, and Giorno will fall into the sky and into the stars; will feel the pull of gravity and the tug of fate. He will rot into the cosmos, the chill of space will seep itself into his bones and he will reach out and no one will reach back.
It is cold, at the end of the world.
He wonders how Italy is doing. He wonders how his family is doing. Trish and Mista and Fugo. He wonders if by now they've read his scribbled note. It's the worst goodbye. I'm going to Florida, don't worry. And isn't that just...just...he doesn't know. He wanted—wanted more than that, he wants more than that. He's always wanted more with his precious people.
He's never given a proper goodbye. Not to Buccellati, or Narancia, or Abbacchio—and now not to Trish or Mista or Fugo and—and—
—and he wishes deeply and desperately for that chance. Wants to feel their warmth between his fingertips, wants to hear their voices, wants to say thank you and good night. Wants a second chance.
For the first time in a decade, Requiem hums beneath his skin.
Its violet eyes meet his, it's armor reflects gold at the end of the universe, and it stretches out a hand. Giorno, with the earth crumbling beneath his shoes, his future falling through his fingertips, and drowning in a wish so deep and so potent that he can practically feel it thrumming through his veins, takes the offer.
Requiem's hand is sure as steel as it tugs him through the bloom of supernova stars and out of the frenzy of a dying world.
Giorno takes a step and—
—and wakes up to the scent of salt.
Childhood is a nightmare that Giorno never wanted to repeat. He quickly learns that in this life he's been born into the mafia. His father is a Don and his mother is the man's favorite prostitute. This childhood is no better.
His mother ignores him, his father is abusive. It's nothing new, but the sting of purple bruises still hurts.
Giorno—(they call him Loren here. But that is not his name not his name nothisname)—picks up the language quickly, and begins to read when he is three. This is a blessing, and a curse. It makes the Don uneasy—and that unease breeds violence. But on the other hand the books are interesting. He is no longer on earth, he is in an entirely new world. A world of water, of oceans, of oppression. Giorno used to run a benevolent dictatorship, but that doesn't mean he even remotely approves of authoritarianism. He believes in freedom, in the good of the individual, in kindness.
This world, he finds, is horrifyingly cruel.
Giorno is born into North Blue, where the cold bites at his skin and the waves claw at his feet. North Blue is an ocean of chaos. It is the harshest sea—a tide of political turmoil an unstable violence that never quite bubbled down over the centuries. It is a nest of mafia, a breeding ground of pirates, a playground of corruption.
North Blue breeds violence—perhaps that is why no one lasts long here. People rise fast and fall hard. Germa seized the entire sea, once, and fell in an instant. A cruel rein does not last, Giorno knows this. Nazi Germany fell, Soviet Russia fell, Diavolo fell.
Giorno hates it. It's like someone dialed all the best aspects of Italy down and let all the worst aspects fester. And Giorno can do nothing, he's useless and it's a feeling that makes him want to rip his eyes out.
One day, he overhears his father discussing plans to literally poison a population and charge for the antidote. And Giorno cannot take it.
"Don't," he snaps, and sees the flare of anger-disdain-murder that flashes over his father's expression. He is on shaky ground. Quickly, he elaborates, "They'll rebel if you do that. There's only so much cruelty a person can take."
He doesn't say this for the man's benefit. He says this because his dream is a world without the muck of humanity. He loves people, and he hates to see them suffer. Before, he had friends, had family, had history. Now, he is nothing without his dream. And he will be damned if he ever falls to nothing.
His father does not take this well—of course he wouldn't. Here, Giorno is only four, and the don is nothing without his idiotic pride. With some growing horror, Giorno realizes he acted preemptively, he...shit. In an instant, he snaps back to his too-small body, forces himself into the present. He didn't think this through nearly enough.
Because his father is sneering and reaching for a gun. A gun. And Giorno knows that look, he's seen that look, has seen it so many times. Directed at him, directed at others, and it sends a freezing bolt of dread through Giorno's gut.
"Sir...?" The underboss asks, quiet ad hesitant. He was selected because of this, actually, the underboss is a coward with no particularly special traits. He is easy to replace and easy to manipulate.
Giorno's father glares at the underboss. It is enough for the man to back off. Giorno is alone here. That's alright. He's excelled in in worse situations.
There's a dull click, and Giorno wills himself into action. The body is too small and too weak but it's all he has. Muscle memory doesn't help him, but his mind knows the steps he must preform. Knows that if he kicks at his father's knees the man will stumble, knows how to use that moment to grab the gun, knows—
—knows not to hesitate.
Giorno pushes and it's hard with these weak fingers and fragile bones but the trigger gives beneath his finger, and the bullet lets loose with the sound of cracking bones. Pain bursts through his fingers—the recoil is too much for his soft toddler-bones and they fracture. It hurts, hurts a lot, but Giorno can't focus on the pain.
In front of him, on the stone floor, lies his father. Crimson is blooming bright and bloody from his head. Sometimes Giorno forgets how vividly red blood is.
Giorno blinks.
It isn't the first time he's killed his father. He killed his stepfather, too. He hadn't meant to, but Gold Experience acted on its own and sent the man crashing into the concrete. In his own world, he hadn't killed his mother—he had exiled her, yes, but not killed her.
In this world, he is four and just taken his father's position. In this world, at least until he can look a little more matured, he needs to pretend to be his father. The don was paranoid—it won't be too hard. No one but the underboss had really seen his father. And the underboss is easy to manipulate.
In this world, he looks his underboss straight in the face and orders for the poisoning of his mother. His fingers are numb, pain pulses through his fractured fingers, he can't hear much beyond the roar of blood. He looks at the corpse of his father, thinks of the poisoning of his mother and feels—feels—feels that it's natural it turned out like this.
Family was never kind to him before, why would this be any different? Family...family is Trish, is Mista, is Fugo. Family is not a man with power in his fists, is not a woman with no care for anyone but herself.
Giorno has no family. His found-family is gone. His birth-family is dead by his hand.
This is natural.
Giorno does what he's always done. He runs the mafia—assembles power—spins thread through the underworld and begins to build his web of dreams. In this world, order is run through marine power, he takes this to heart.
Giorno sits uncomfortably on the railing of a ship. The ocean rocks below him. The water gleams blue-gray in the early dawn. Italy's water had always glittered brilliant tortoise and breathtaking gold in morning. He takes a deep breath—salt and wood. Italy always smelled faintly of salt and strongly of baking bread. Cold bites at his fingers.
This is not Italy.
Sometimes, like this, in the early morning dawn, with the weight of a gun heavy on his hip, Giorno wonders why he's here. Why Requiem brought him here. He shifts, the wooden railing is not a comfortable seat. Saltwater licks at his boots.
He takes a breath. In, and out.
Wondering about Requiem is beyond useless. Giorno wouldn't be able to ask it if he tried. Before, in his world, his soul sat comfortable and heavy in his chest. He could feel it lodged between his lungs, resting heavy through his spine, curling easily around his heart. Before, drawing on Gold Experience was easy and breathing.
Now, in this world, where the laws of reality are warped and different—where the globe is made of oceans and giants walk the land—now, his soul rests in his veins. It buzzes in his flesh, pulses through his fingertips, and for all of Giorno's genius he cannot figure how to draw on it. Trying to manipulate his soul—(is it still a soul? Is it something else? It feels like stand energy, but it's different. It works different, functions different, connects different.)—is like trying to reverse the flow of his blood.
So, wondering about Requiem is useless, useless useless.
Still, sometimes like this, with the railing digging into his flesh, and the ocean churning below him—with the air so thick with water that is almost clots in his lungs—Giorno feels like he's drowning. He's ten years old, a world away from home, and his anchors are gone.
Trish and Mista were his roots, his foundation, they held him up and forced his hand. It was through their unyielding social ability and incessant nagging that Giorno interacted with the world. It was through their efforts that he made causal acquaintances. It was through their will that he took care of himself.
(Fugo was a whole other matter. Fugo wasn't able to anchor Giorno to the world, but he was able to give Giorno the ability to stay anchored. It was Fugo that made his coffee, Fugo that held his hand, Fugo that gave himself so completely. Trish and Mista were wonderful in that they pulled him, and Fugo was wonderful in that he stopped him from falling back.)
Then, the sun climbs in the sky, blazes red across the horizon, and Giorno pulls himself off the railing and out of his mind. He pushes himself out of the past and into the present and lets himself burn into his dream.
It is all he has left.
Giorno can't rule from the shadows forever. But to reveal himself he must first prove two things. First, his intelligence. Second, his strength. Now, he is twelve, but if he lies he can be sixteen. Which is young, but if he proves himself...
He enters the most prestigious North Blue university and graduates the entire curriculum in a year. The newspapers swim with stories of the North Blue genius. The World Government incessantly pesters him with recruitment efforts.
A week after his graduation, he enters the battlefield. The mysterious Don Passione, finally in light.
It is the first time he's appeared directly on the battlefield of a gang war since his early days in his original Passione. The stares burn. They prick on his flesh, itch on his face. The gun is horribly light in his hand. Now, with training, he can hardly feel recoil. Around him is the hum of battle—of bullets, or screams, of war for peace.
He has taken out a decent portion of the opposition. Even devil fruit users—Giorno is agile and slings seastone bullets like second nature. It's not a challenge. It's according to plan—
—Something tugs on his arm, it's a grip like iron. Giorno twists himself around and readies his gun and shit. His fingers twitch, raw on the trigger. The man who grabbed his leg is a turtle zoan—the turtle zoan. The head-honcho, the rival don. Every bit of him is armored bar the joints. Giorno can't aim like this. His seastone is useless.
There's rising nausea in his throat. His clothes stick on his skin uncomfortably. Blood pulses loud through his veins. Giorno is strong, but not enough to break through a shell like that. But he needs to. He needs to break that shell, he needs to kick it and have it crack beneath his force.
The turtle zoan looks at him—a knife grazes Giorno's skin—and, for the first time in over a decade, Giorno grips the power of his soul. Before, it rested in his chest, between his ribs, curled around his heart and pressed against his lungs. Now, it hums through his veins, soaks into his bones, hardens on his skin. Before, it was detached and disjointed, it was his will away form his body. Now, it hums through his skin and curls around his fingertips and Giorno wields it as one.
He kicks at the turtle zoan's abdomen and—and—the shell shatters. It gives way with the sound of breaking rock and Giorno feels like he could fly on the adrenaline. The battleground screeches to a halt. His skin pricks. But the enemy isn't dead yet and it's not quite time for motivational speeches so he slams his boot down on the turtle zoan's fallen form and feels ribs give way beneath his feet.
There, in the center of the battlefield, Giorno stands on his enemy's body, and declares victory.
Between the air in his lungs—too thick, all the air in this world is too thick, it's so bogged by water that it almost clots in his lungs—the blood on his fingertips, the adrenaline in his veins, and the feeling that he could crush boulders beneath his feet—beneath all that is a cold, dreadful feeling. It rests in his chest, in the space between his ribs, and it says last time you had people.
Giorno is thirteen, the Don of the largest North-Blue mafia, and a world away from anyone he's ever loved.
Giorno changes the world, again. He spins his web of dreams, begins to build his utopia. North Blue is a cockpit of problems but he meticulously dissembles them and begins nurturing the seeds for something better. He doesn't have the entire blue under his influence quite yet, but he's getting close.
But maintain his even tentative hold, Giorno needs more power. More devil fruits, more seastone. Especially seastone. Soon enough, with his influence beginning to claw into the Grand Line, his mafia will start facing more devil fruit users. Of all the blues, North Blue does have the most devil fruit users, does have better fighters, but they won't be able to truly hold against a Grand Line organization.
Currently, their seastone is sourced from Kaido. Giorno cannot stand this. Not only does Kaido charge ridiculous amounts, but the Emperor is a frankly despicable person.
But North Blue's accessible reserves of seastone have long since been mined to a pebble. Giorno...needs to expand to the grand line.
He's making things better. The road to his dream is long and tedious, but he's progressing.
But—but—sometimes, in the early morning dawn, with the blue-gray ocean below him, and the endless sky above him, sometimes—sometimes it feels like Giorno is drowning. Isolation presses down on him and it feels like gravity itself has decided to double.
If Trish were here she would take his wrist and march him to a therapist. If Mista were here he would coax Giorno into a bar, wave over a few strangers, and carry the conversation until it could survive without him. If Fugo were here he would gently take Giorno's hand, rub circles into his back, lead him back to bed and clear his schedule for the whole morning. If they were here—
—but they aren't.
Giorno has run on his dream and his dream alone for fifteen years and he'll be damned if he stops now. He would rather cut off his tongue than give up. He'll let his dream be his every meal if it keeps him going.
It's all he has left.
Giorno is on his first vacation in a decade when he gets the message.
He's lounging on the canopy of Sabaody's outer-ring of trees. Below him he can faintly hear the buzz of black market deals and flourishing tourism. But that's below him—far away. In front of him—stretching far as he can see—is the ocean. Glittering shades of green and hues of blue. It almost looks like Italy. Almost. Not really.
Absentmindedly, he pops a bubble. He shifts, the leaves rustle. They smell faintly of soap.
The leaves rustle more. A head pops through the canopy, relief and anxiety run parallel through the man's face.
"B-Boss?"
Giorno hums.
"Uh..." he trails off.
A beat.
"Yes?"
"Ah." The leave rustle more, the smell of soap, building irritation. "Whitebeard uh...their second division." Another moment. Giorno thins his lips. "They attacked Purotto Island."
Giorno's thoughts screech to a halt.
"I...see," he manages. "You are dismissed. Thank you."
The underling shuffles off—back down the canopy, down hundreds of feet the roots of the archipelago. The instant he's is gone Giorno's composure begins to scramble. He taps his fingers, digs nails into his palms until they bleed, it feels like he'll suffocate. Because actually what the fuck. There's a list of things Giorno tries to avoid, and near the top of it is pissing off an emperor.
Purotto Island borders Whitebeard's territory, yes, but it doesn't trespass.
If it were any other island Giorno would probably just weep this under the rug but... But this his first actual seastone farm. He's spent an entire year dedicate almost solely to working out the logistics and sorting through the chinks. He'd bribed marine officials, secured transportation routes, and most importantly—secured fishman cooperation. Because for all Purotto is rich with seastone—there's a reason it hasn't been harvested yet. All it's seastone is trapped deep beneath the New World waters.
It had taken all of Giorno's persuasion powers to secure cooperation. Months of talking out historic human-fishman strife. Months of reworking Purotto's social structure to include fishman. And now the island is finally at a workable state, where it won't be taken by immediate racial violence the second he leaves.
Reaching a good point in that project is the whole reason Giorno took a vacation in the first place.
Giorno sigh very, very deeply. Looks around, see's the blue-green sea in front of him. Feels the soft canopy of Sabaody beneath his fingertips. Smells soap and salt and gunpowder. Fugo would love this place, he thinks.
If Fugo were here—
—but he isn't.
The pressure Giorno feels upon stepping foot on the Moby's deck is akin to gravity doubling down on his shoulders. Air turns to lead in his lungs. On the wooden planks, in front of him, stands Whitebeard. The emperor towers more than double Giorno's height and for a moment he can't move.
For a moment, it's Diavolo.
But Diavolo—Diavolo was a pathetic, disgusting excuse for a man. Before, faced with this pressure, Giorno moved on adrenaline and hate. Diavolo was a vortex of rot and the killer of Giorno's almost-family, moving was natural.
Whitebeard is not that. The fact is simultaneously terrifying, and a relief.
Whitebeard is an emperor, a giant that can stand in the sun with no fear because he has nothing to fear of. This is a man that could crush Giorno in little more than thirty minutes. This is a man who rules the sea—who has an era named in his honor. He is a man who's mere presence makes the air suffocating.
But he's also reasonable. Not kind, but not cruel. He is a man of principal—and that—that gives Giorno a chance.
Giorno steps forward. His expression is carefully calm. A mask of light indifference. Not arrogance. Calm. Blank. His eyebrows don't twitch, his blinking is even, he isn't smiling but he isn't frowning. The dark circles beneath his eyes have been covered.
His skin pricks.
Slowly, with measured calm, Giorno folds a cloak of Conqueror's Haki around himself. Just enough to keep himself from suffocating, to let him push forward through the opposing waves. He keeps it level, just a shield and not a sword. He isn't here for conflict. Only to figure out why the hell Whitebeard's second division attacked his island, and hopefully to rectify whatever the issue was. Giorno will not be able to easily expand into the New World if he clashes with an Emperor.
Calm, he reminds himself, and stops in front of Whitebeard. The fabric of his clothing feels too tight. Cloying. Suffocating.
"Whitebeard," he says, bowing his head just a little.
"Goldie," he responds, and Giorno is almost grateful the giant didn't say 'Golden Ladybug' because he hates that title. So much. The World Government assigns the most stupid monikers. "I can see where you get your title."
Giorno tilts his head, gold jewelry faintly clicking, sun reflecting off his blonde hair. "The World Government isn't all that creative." A beat, Whitebeard says nothing more. The seastone knives son Giorno's belt press heavily onto his side. His skin pricks uncomfortably. It's too hot—a spring climate would've been better—the ocean is glittering shades of blue and tints of gold. It's almost Italy. Giorno very pointedly doesn't twitch. "May I cut to the chase?"
Whitebeard hums, it's a deep noise, like the ocean. Almost foreboding.
"Why," says Giorno, and his voice doesn't waver, "did your second division attack my island?"
The Emperor leans forward, ever so slightly. Frame relaxed, but expression sharp. It's a not-so-subtle threat. Then again, when have pirates ever been subtle?
"Well," he says, and his voice is a deep rumble that carries the same tune as thunder, "my crew doesn't like slave mines. Whether it's in our territory or not."
Giorno blinks. "...Slave mines," he says, very slowly, and tries not to let himself hope too much. Because he's been stressing about this so much and if it actually turns out to be a misunderstanding this simple then—well—he isn't actually sure. Life just isn't supposed to be easy like that. "...I don't have any of those. I don't own slaves. I'm trying to get away from slave-sourced seastone."
"What!?" Bursts a sudden voice frown the crowd of surrounding pirates. A teen with ragged-looking black hair tumbles to the front ring. "You're lying!"
Giorno studies the man a little longer—see's the tattoo on his arm—oh. That's the super rookie that joined Whitebeard. Fire Fist Ace, he thinks. Giorno purses his lips. Eyes the crew of pirates and their captain. He needs to de-escalate this now. Fire Fist isn't known for his patience. Whitebeard will obviously side with his own crew in a conflict and Giorno really doesn't like his chances there.
"I do not have slaves. I do not have slave labor," he says, again. "Do you have proof I do?"
Fire Fist sputters. "I don't need it! I saw! There were fishman hauling rocks!"
Giorno very pointedly does not sigh. Weeks of stressing over this, weeks of wondering what kind of conflict he'll have to disassemble and fix. He's hasn't slept for fifty two hours. "So," he says, very carefully, "you saw fishman working and decided to burn the island."
Fire Fist just looks at him. "I—yes? What else would you do with a slave island?"
Okay, thinks Giorno, alright. It's fine. This is fine. He can fix this. "Let me rephrase that," he says, "You saw fishman working, didn't check to see if they were actually slaves, and burnt their island."
"What else would they be?" Fire Fist looks affronted. The surrounding crew is growing restless, buzzing, obviously not liking the accusation.
"Well," says Giorno, "maybe they were just normal civilian employees?"
"Yeah but fishman don't just do that!" Fire Fist flares, looking frustrated. "Free fishman are always underwater or in a pirate crew!"
"Yes," Giorno says, voice dry, "I noticed. Oppressed races tend to not have many employment options. I considered it an achievement to work that out, even if on a small scale."
Fire Fist looks about ready to commit arson on Giorno's face. He should...Giorno should probably handle this better. He said he'd de-escalate. He's only making things worse. Maybe it's the sleep deprivation. But..that really isn't an excuse. Giorno is better than this.
"Okay," he says, and holds up a hand, "you were mostly justified in attacking. It's true, being on the surface is too much of a threat for most fishman. Anywhere, not to mention the New World." Fire Fist looks like he's going to say something but really Giorno just—no. Giorno is so done. "But, have you stopped to consider that running a blatant slave operation right by Whitebeard's territory is one of the most idiotic things anyone could do?"
Whitebeard hums, there's a sharp look in his eyes. "Any you're saying you wouldn't make such an obvious mistake?"
Giorno nods. "It wou—"
"People make stupid mistakes all the time!" Fire Fist interrupts, and Giorno really, really has to hold himself back from sighing.
"Yes," Giorno says, and is a little mortified to find he can't quite bleed out all his irritation. "Not to mention I despise slavery in the first place. It's a disgusting practice."
"Oh?" Whitebeard raises an eyebrow. "Not words I'd imagine from a mafia don."
Giorno kind of just looks at him. Wants to say You're an a pirate, you should know people's morality isn't dictated by their career. But he has more self control than that. "Well, people aren't uniform after all."
The Emperor pauses, sharpens—Giorno is so glad that at least Whitebeard is smart. He caught onto the implication. That people aren't uniform, shouldn't be reduced to their position—that slavery is wrong and Giorno honestly believes it.
Whitebeard leans back. "I think," he says, and his voice is almost light, "this should be solved by simply visiting the island."
And wow. This..honestly Giorno isn't sure this could've gone better.
"Sure," he nods, agreeing easily. "I'll meet you there?"
"No," the Emperor says, and his eyes are a kind of sharp that speaks of scheming, "you're staying the trip."
Updates next week. Reviews are appreciated.