Diya walked into the Kame-Yu corner store. School was rarely an issue for Diya, but today felt like he had been hit by a bus. If there was anything good that came from today, it was a first glance at his Stand. No, he thought. That couldn't have been a good thing. It was truly terrifying to see what I can do to somebody. That face…

Diya was still lost in his own world when Okuyasu saw him.

"Hey! Diya!" Okuyasu called. Diya was startled back to reality.

"Okuyasu. I saw my Stand today," Diya muttered unexcitedly.

"You did? That's great! Let me go on break and we can talk more! Mr. Sato, I'm going to go smoke, sir!" Okuyasu called to the back. He saw Sato with his head down in the office. Next to the office was his coworker, just punching in for the beginning of her shift.

"No Okuyasu," Sato called out, raising his head. "Clock out. Hiroko is going to be late for her 10 P.M shift tonight. You need to come in at 10 tonight until she gets here at 1 A.M. Kaori is going to finish your shift now."

"Mr. Sato! I don't want to work t-"

"Okuyasu! I don't want to hear it!" He stood up, enraged. "I am your boss, you are my employee. You will come back, or you will be fired!"

Okuyasu wanted to punch Sato in his wrinkled face. He truly missed the days where the answer to his problems could be as simple as beating up the person giving him trouble. Without a word, Okuyasu went back to the office, grabbed his card, and punched out.

"There you go. A good employee knows to listen to his superiors." Sato said haughtily.

Sato returned to his desk as Okuyasu turned to leave. The manager took a sip of his coffee, steam rising as he set it back down. Diya watched as Okuyasu began to return to the front of the store. From behind Okuyasu, Diya once again saw the mechanical grey and blue figure emerge.

Okuyasu didn't turn around as the hand approached the edge of his range. He reached out between Sato and his cup of coffee. Sato stayed blissfully unaware as Diya watched The Hand's right hand swipe down, accompanied by the horrible noise.

Sato's hot cup of coffee wobbled for a moment before falling off the desk onto his lap. Sato cried out in pain as he used his newspaper to soak up the coffee the best he could.

Okuyasu smirked. The Hand can erase the space between two objects to move them closer to each other. Since I erased the space between the coffee cup and Sato himself, the coffee spilled all over him.

"Let's go Diya. I'll give you a ride home," Okuyasu said, gently wrapping his arm around Diya's back, guiding him out of the store. He smiled at the sound of Sato demanding his coworker grab the paper towels from the women's room.

"Sorry that your boss is making you work tonight…" Diya apologized as he climbed into Okuyasu's car.

"He's an asshole anyway," Okuyasu brushed off Diya's sympathy. "Though he was acting bizarrely today. He was an even bigger asshole than usual. Tell me about your Stand kid, that's what we should be talking about!"

Okuyasu gushed like a kid while they sat in the parking lot. Diya didn't understand Okuyasu's excitement, he personally had found everything to be terrifying to say the least. Okuyasu started his engine and pulled out of the parking lot. Diya took a deep breath and composed himself before retelling his account.

"So it's some kind of Stand that creates a copy of you?" Okuyasu asked. After hearing Diya's story, he was confused.

"I don't know if that's it. You said that other people are unable to see Stands, but Isao saw my Stand. My other classmate couldn't though. On top of that, my Stand didn't even protect me. It only attacked after I was thrown to the ground and he began walking away."

The two pulled into Diya's driveway.

"I don't know. This will be good information to give Rohan when we see him next. Here, get out of the car and bring your Stand out. Maybe we can figure something out," Okuyasu sounded hopeful.

Diya looked in his garage and saw his parents weren't home yet.

"Alright…" Diya reluctantly agreed as he got out of the car.

Okuyasu followed suit and the two stood in the front yard. Diya closed his eyes and tried to summon his Stand. Although he couldn't see, he could feel that it didn't work. He felt fearful of his own Stand and powerless that he couldn't even bring it out on command. He closed his eyes tighter and strained every muscle in his body.

"Diya, Diya, Diya!" Okuyasu quickly tried to get the boy's attention. Diya opened his eyes. "Stop that, you're going to shit your pants."

Diya went red.

"I can't get it. I don't know what was different earlier today, but I can't bring it out now."

"Some Stands only work under certain circumstances. I've seen a Stand that only works if you have a camera, and one that only works if you're underneath one specific radio tower here in town," Okuyasu consoled the teenager. "Not everyone gets a close range Stand like mine. Once you figure out how your Stand works, you'll probably have full control over it."

"Probably!?" Diya yelled.

"Well there are some stands that are difficult to control or might hurt… you…" Okuyasu drifted off mid-sentence, seeing Diya begin to cower. "You'll get it though. I know you will."

"I already failed to control it once!" Diya said shakily.

"Mr. Jotaro said he couldn't control his stand very well when he first began to manifest his stand."

"Jotaro?" Diya asked. The name sounded strangely familiar to him, as if he was trying to remember a dream. "Who's Jotaro?"

"Oh, I told you about him yesterday. That's my friend's nephew I told you about. The one who knows everything about Stands. He works for the Speedwagon Foundation, I'm sure you've heard of them."

"They're that company that does all sorts of humanitarian work right?"

"Yeah! They also do research on Stands and try to keep track of users."

"They spy on us!?" Diya exclaimed. "I didn't trust them before, but that freaks me out!"

"No, no don't worry!" Okuyasu tried to calm Diya. "They do it to keep people safe. A few years ago, this town started producing so many Stand users. That was partially my brother's fault. But long story short, we found a couple of Arrows and-"

"Arrows?"

"Arrows that give people Stands if they can handle them," Okuyasu explained. "Hey you weren't shot by an Arrow in 1999, were you?"

"What a bizarre question. No, I didn't move to Morioh until 2000."

"Strange," Okuyasu pondered. Diya and Okuyasu stood quietly in the front yard together for a few seconds. "I've got to get home and rest for that shift the asshole Sato gave me."

Diya and Okuyasu exchanged their goodbyes. Okuyasu opened his driver's side door and began to climb in. He stopped for a moment like he was lost in thought. He climbed back out and leaned on the car, looking at Diya.

"You said you didn't trust the Speedwagon Foundation. Why is that?"

"I don't know," Diya shrugged. "Probably just because of how rich and powerful they are. It's just a hunch."

Okuyasu nodded and drove out of the driveway. Diya silently watched him drive down the road. As soon as he was out of sight, he saw his mother's car driving down the road. The fear of the principal's message on their answering machine began to sit in his stomach like a ball of iron; though bizarrely enough, Diya couldn't stop thinking about Jotaro and the Speedwagon Foundation.

A figure sat at a desk, hunched over his computer at a dirty and ill-lit Internet cafe on the other side of town. The room was empty besides him and the man working at the desk at the front of the cafe.

The man at the computer dove his hand into a bag of chips and shoved them in his mouth as he continued to write with a proud fury. He laughed with every insult he wrote, chewed food flying out of his mouth and covering the computer screen as he did. The employee looked back at the American man with disdain before returning back to his Shonen Jump.

"Hey what are you looking at! I paid for my time at the computer, go back to your shitty comics!" The man yelled at the employee. "Stupid nosy bastard…" he mumbled as he put the finishing touches on his forum post. The employee didn't even lift his head, trying to ignore the patron.

The man's name was Rip Washington. A 33 year old American man from Missouri. He was tall, but he still carried noticeable weight with him. His hair was dark and curled, matted down by grease with strands against his forehead. From his pocket, he pulled a small, outdated cell phone. It was a small thing, it didn't even flip open. He pressed some buttons and held it to his shiny face.

"Jenny, baby. I just finished my newest review of that chapter of Pink Dark Boy. Let's see how long it stays up for this time. These damn forum moderators always take my shit down," Rip grinded his teeth as he punched the table under him.

The employee looked at him intensely. How many times is this asshole going to interrupt my reading? He's lucky there are no other customers around.

"Oh you want to hear the review? Of course I can read it for you baby," Rip grinned maliciously as he began to read his review. "You idiots can keep on deleting my posts and making fun of my all you like. At least I'm not a damn sheep like you all. Kishibe's work has sucked since fall of 1999, but you all keep eating it up. You don't give him a chance to try anything new and that's why it sucks now! I visited Rohan the other day at his house and he even thinks this crap is good. This is what you've done to him you idiots. I hope he remembers me for a long time." As Rip finished reading the post, he began to break out into chilling laughter.

The employee was unnerved by the man's laughter. He knew that he couldn't put up with it any longer. The young man slammed his Shonen Jump on the desk and moved to the back by the man on the cell phone.

"You have to leave man," the employee said plainly.

"Oh yeah… man?" Rip said darkly. He lifted the phone back up to his ear slowly, not breaking eye contact with the stern-faced employee. "Hey baby, I'll have to call you back soon," he lowered the phone and continued to look at the man.

"You're getting food on the computer, you're too loud, and you're on your cell phone. It's rude to other people."

"The only reason I'm here is because my shitty motel doesn't have a computer I can use. They had a business center at the Morioh Grand Hotel, but when I got to town, there were no open rooms. Those assholes told me that I didn't make a reservation so I couldn't stay there. Now you're kicking me out from the only computer I have access to?"

The employee started sweating bullets, but stood his ground.

"Yes, you have to leave."

The man stood up, towering over the employee. They continued to maintain eye contact like they were playing a game of chicken. As the employee stared into rip's dark eyes, he could have sworn he could make out a face in the darkness. It wasn't a human face. It looked like it was made of dark clouds, with a bright red visor where the eyes might have been.

Sleepless in Seattle… I leave this to you now. Washington continued to stare at the young employee as he picked up his bag of chips. It was nearly empty. He flipped it 180 degrees over the keyboard, letting the crumbs fall between the keys.

Rip walked out of the shop onto the street before pulling his cellphone out again.

"Jenny baby, I got another one. That's the fourth one since I got to town."

"That's great sweetie! That's the bus driver, the Kame-Yu manager, and that employee in the cafe" A woman encouraged him from the other end of the line. "Those people should have never wronged you, and I'm glad you've found this new power to punish those who make your life harder."

"Don't forget about Rohan Kishibe," Rip said devilishly. "If I stay in town, Rohan will eventually meet his fate. I miss you dearly, but I can't return home yet. Especially since-"

"You are a superstar Rip!" The voice on the phone interrupted him. "You command a power that a normal person could never dream of. You can return home whenever you want Rip Washington. You'll always have me."

"I know I will baby. I'm walking back to the motel now."

The employee inside of the Internet cafe watched Rip talk on the phone until he left. He returned to his Shonen Jump.

What an ugly man, he thought. I'm just going to push him out of my mind and finish my manga. He picked the magazine up and got lost in his stories. Deep in his unconscious however, that face was burning itself into his memory.