Lian's Peculiar Journey: Starlight Paladins

Chapter 32

THE CHILD OF SORROWS, SERES
PART II

Zhin fell to his knees.
He wanted to focus on the odd situation at hand and at the arrival of Seres from out of the alleys, but he could not.
Something was pulling him away from this world faster than he could muster up the anger to lash out at the young woman who was causing his allies so much hassle.

And Sarah saw why.

"Z-Z-Zhin…" she stammered as a little black flower sprouted on his back.

"HNGH!" the swordsman yelled as the vines of the flower suddenly penetrated his being and his stand, which was suddenly yanked out by the appendages and bound.

"PO LI!" Moji called out her stand and made it into a rock bat, which she swung to remove the vines off Thousand Hands. However, just like all the other previous attempts, no damage was done to the intruder.

Sarah immediately ran to Zhin and placed her hand on his head, for she saw that, unlike Yamina, his flower was growing at an exponential rate.

"AHHHHHH!" Zhin cried out to the sky as the darkest memories of his mind raced forth.
Especially those memories.

The black haired woman he loved so much sprawled out on her desk with her head cast open.
The redness everywhere, the staining of wood and carpet, of wall and floor.

These memories caused the flower to become as big as his entire torso and for its vines to become as thick as telephone cables. These very vines constricted Thousand Hands from movement, not that its owner had any ability to move it in the first place.

"Zhin! Listen to me!" Sarah panicked as she tried to the bring the grieving eastern man back to reality, "Zhin."

"Mr. Zhin!" Moji was about to prance over to her friend but was torn when she saw Yamina collapse to the ground as well, weeping.
"Yamina!" she istead hopped over to her.

"Zhin shouldn't suffer like this…" Yamina cried to herself, "Zhin…"

Nearby,

Seres had expertly deflected some of The Law's stand blasts with her own stand and was now running to take cover behind a column.
"It seems my risk in infecting that swordsman worked out well…" she murmured to herself when she turned to see Zhin's debilitated position.

"Take this!" Lian had used Power Khan to jump closer to her and used it again to smash the wooden pole she was hiding behind in two.

"HAH!" Seres pulled out a handgun and shot at the woman.

Lian gnashed her teeth as the few bullets that managed to escape Power Khan's defensive speed raced past her face, one even scraping her left cheek.

"Lian!" Lex came into the scene and directed The Law to fire at their foe.

Sha Lin loaded an arrow but then turned to see Zhin crying out to the heavens.
"What the- Hey!" he saw that his stand was bound by vines, "Get off!"

Three arrows raced from The Bow and careened all the way towards Thousand Hands, striking the vines around it with utmost accuracy but ultimately proving useless when they bounced off and landed harmlessly on the ground.

Well, almost harmlessly.

Zhin turned to face one of the arrows that had thudded on the ground and it all rushed back to him.
All the memories, all the pain, all the darkness inside dog pilled into his mind and that was it.

He broke.

With an aggressive push he shoved aside Sarah.

Curiously, the vines that once constricted Thousand Hands now imbedded themselves into its being, freeing it for movement.

"Zhin?" Sarah stammered as she saw the swordsman walking towards the archer.

Sha Lin noted this action too and was confounded at first, but it all it took was one glance at the man's tearstained and puffy eyes to understand it.

Zhin had a menacing and dark aura around him.

Sha Lin pulled out The Bow and fired at Zhin to the shock of Lex and Lian, which was soon amplified by the fact that Zhin deflected the arrows with his stand.

"Zhin!" Lian stopped her assault on Seres and started to run to his position, "What's wrong with you!?"

Lex took over in suppressing Seres, but not without saying: "Lian, Sha Lin! Something is on Zhin! Look! It's just like Yamina's!"

Lian took a moment to notice the flower and vines on Zhin and turned her gaze back to Seres.
"Explain this, you old crone!"

Seres popped out from her cover of a barrel and sighed deeply, brandishing an assault rifle with the intent to kill.
"You have brought me much pain in afflicting my family. Injuring my sister, killing my brother." She called out, "It is only fair I give the sensation of that much pain, that much sorrow, back to you. All the SAD! things in this world never truly go away, they are never fully cleansed by the passage of Time and Space. Flowers bloom and wither, children become adults, streams dry up, clocks unwind and break, but the persistence of memory goes on beyond them all."

Her stand started to glow a deep purple.

"Many people see the past as a way to grow stronger, as a method to bring up old glories. But my mother has shown me that it is the sorrows of the past that ultimately matter." She continued.

These words stung deep into the soul of Sarah, as memories of her sister speaking to her came to light.

"Ultimately, life is a tragedy, and we are all merely actors on stage waiting for our exit." Seres looked up to the stars.
"My brother had his exit, perhaps my sister will too, but it is I who has to continue the play." She made her way towards Lian, "My stand's second ability allows the actors to become committed to their part by showing them the true nature of the tragedy of life."

"Second ability, shows us the first one, asshole!" Sha Lin aimed The Bow at her when he saw that Zhin capitulated to his sorrow.
"I don't want to be turned into Sha Lin Sashimi!"

"That… is nothing I can reveal to you…" Seres scowled, "But soon it will reunite me with brother and sister… But what I can reveal to you is this! SAD!'s second ability, JOCELYN FLOWERS!"

"RAH!" Power Khan shot out and struck Seres in the right leg, shattering it on impact.

"Lian!" Sarah piped up, "This stand ability is making Zhin and Yamina see their wo rst memories in their lives!" she informed them, "It's debilitating their ability to live!"

Seres groaned as she picked herself back up.
"I am living the tragedy every day. It is only fair that others see their own too." She smiled and gave a deep sigh.
"SAD!"

"TAKE THIS!" Lian yelled at the top of her lungs and directed Power Khan to haymaker her head into the ground.

Silence…

Sha Lin pulled out The Bow and fired at Zhin to the shock of Lex, which was soon amplified by the fact that Lian was no longer next to the enforcer but kneeling in front of a destroyed barrel.

"Lian!" Lex and Sarah cried out as the woman gnashed her teeth and started murmuring angrily to herself. It was appearing that she was struggling with some internal conflict and was completely oblivious to her surroundings.

Even Power Khan, the everpresent guardian, was immobile.
Then the reason appeared.
Vines.

"Lian!" Moji cried out as a flower bloomed on her head, "Ms. Sarah!"

"Lian!?" Sha Lin stammered and then noticed Seres walking towards her.

The daughter of Seris stopped and pointed her handgun right at the princess's head.
"Your part is over, princess." She mumbled to herself and pulled the trigger several times.

"LIAN!"
"LIAN! NO!"
"HORRRYYYY SHIIIITTTTT!" Lex, Sarah, and Sha Lin yelled in horror as Power Khan faded and the princess' body collapsed to the ground.

"THE LAW!" an incensed Lex called out to 15 copies of his stand, "15 OFFICER POLICE SHOOT OUT! FIRE!"

Seres noticed this action and all the various stands that appeared around her.
"It is too soon to use SAD!, it is too risky to bring her back! But I cannot escape!" she thought to herself as the hail of blasts shot towards her.
"If I don't use it… I'll DIE!"

"PUNISMENT IS: DEATH!" Lex pointed at her with righteous indignation.

Seres closed her eyes.

Sarah turned to see that a few streaks of white light, like spores, came out of the flowers that were on Yamina and Zhin and shot towards Seres.

Yamina looked up, finally reeling from her grief.

"SAD!"

The world turned purple.
Seres looked distraughtly at the night sky.

Lian's sat back up and her head put itself back together as the bullets from Seres' handgun retracted back into the barrel. The moment the flower reappeared on Lian's head was the moment whatever was happening stopped affecting her, as it was now happening to Yamina and Zhin.

Eventually everything returned to normal.

At least as normal as it could be.

Lian was now alive again, but Lex had now capitulated to the power of JOCELYN FLOWERS as well. His eyes now catching a monochrome view of the battlefield with memories of all his failed missions coming to his mind.

A woman caught on the railroad tracks he was too late to save.
An orphanage full of children that burned before his eyes.
A previous enforcer partner gunned down in cold blood by a gang of orks in their very wagon.

Unlike the others, who were weeping loudly, only a single tear could escape Lex's eye, but he was still far from being viable to fight.

The only people left standing were Sha Lin, Moji, and Sarah, who now had the task on protecting all their downed comrades from the incoming assault of Seres and her automatic rifle.

"Most of you are down, now most of you will make your grand exit." The daughter of Seris spoke as she loaded a magazine.

"Moji! Take care of her!" Sarah told the leipori when she noticed Yamina standing up.

"Hmph! Alright!" Moji took a deep breath, "NOTORIOUS PO I. LI!" she called out her stand.

"What the!?" Seres exclaimed and aimed her assault rifle, only to have her bullets stopped when Po Li turned into a stone wall that deflected it.
"HRRR!" she growled but had no time to channel that rage since the worse was yet to come.

And did it come.

From the top of the stone wall Sha Lin jumped up and aimed The Bow straight at her.
"TAKE THIS!"

"SAD!"

The arrows shot out deflected off the stand, but the archer still dive bombed and struck the woman physically with a downwards kick to the face.

Seres tumbled to the ground with violence.

Moji made Po Li into a miniature sandstorm that picked up the enemy and sent her into the sky.
"This is for my friends!" she yelled.

"Hold it right there, pipsqueak!" Sha Lin told her as he held his ankle, "Damn it…" he grumbled.

Nearby, Sarah was tending to Yamina, who was slowly gaining the color back to her face.
"Are you ok?" she asked her, then saw the most peculiar sight.

Despite anyone with JOCELYN FLOWERS on them having sickly purple-indigo souls of grief, there was a spark of white in hers.

This too was felt by Seres, the master of the sorrow parasite.
"Huh?" she ignored the pain brought by the grains of sand and looked in the direction this sentiment was coming from.

Despite her weakness, a spark of light shone in Yamina's eyes.
"Despite the sorrow…" she groaned as she held her chest, "Despite the rain and the clouds… despite the streams drying up and the flowers withering… There is still hope…"

"I can't hold it for long!" Moji cried out as her focus and sandstorm started to falter.

Sha Lin growled as the pain of his broken ankle was too much to bear.
"Give me a few minutes!" he tied his foot with his red scarf.

"I cannot live with my sister's death, or my mother's sickness, but what I can do is look… to a new sunrise…" Yamina stood up fully, "A new flower popping up… A new child being born… Sarah." She turned to the woman before falling back into the ground.

"What is it, Yamina?" Sarah looked at her in concern.

Yamina took in a deep breath, trying her best to ignore the pain and sorrow of the vines around her chest.
"I may not understand all this stand business, or these SAD! or Joshua Flowers… but I do know one thing. That woman, the woman who Zhin attacked, when she says SAD. Everything becomes back."

"Huh?" Sarah shook her head.

"All things return to how they were." Yamina murmured, "Oh Father! Watch out! There's robbers on the road!" she blurted, showing she was succumbing to JOCELYN FLOWERS once again.
Despite this, she soldiered on.
"She turns back time!" she cried out.

The other stand users heard this and lost their focus.

"Turns back time!?" Sha Lin and Sarah yelled in shock.

"NO!" Seres on top of a building nearby and recovered, "Hrrr!" she took out a long rifle and aimed it at Lian before noticing Sarah was running to that location.

"Sha Lin!" Moji cried out, as she couldn't move her stand fast enough.

Seres turned her sights to Zhin.
POW
POW
POW!

Sarah turned and her eyes widened.

Moji stood in fear.

Sha Lin laidback demeanor was deleted from existence.

"Uh…"a sharp exhale.
Yamina stood in front of Zhin with several bullet holes to her chest and neck.

"Furious Flame!" Sarah called out her stand to save her.

POW!
POW!
POW!
More bullets struck her.

"Perhaps you will see the new sunrise…" Yamina said as she fell to back, "Zhin…"
A small smile escaped her face.

Seres was about to fire when the same fate met her, except with arrows.
"HWAK!" an arrow sank itself deep into her neck.

"That was inexcusable!" Sha Lin yelled and put more arrows into The Bow, "She didn't deserve that!"

Seres felt more arrows strike her chest and arms and legs.
And before the last arrow struck her between the eyes.

Silence.

"NO!" Seres on top of a building nearby and recovered, "Wait! No! I waited too long!" she saw that Sarah was heading straight towards her, "SAD! Turn back time!"

She felt her stand waver and then looked at all the flowers on her enemies.

"I've sapped too much power from that swordsman and that desert woman." She muttered to herself, "And the flowers on the enforcer and the archer are too young to extract from… I'll have to wait before I-"

"Turn back time, huh?"

"Nani?" Seres gasped when she heard that voice.

Sarah was standing on the balcony of the next building with Furious flame perched over her shoulders.
"To think I am related to you in any way shape or form, especially by blood." She growled and a wave of heat filled the atmosphere.

POW!
POW!
POW!

Sarah avoided being struck by rifle bullets and used her stand to fly down safely on the ground.

"WHAT THE!?" Seres exclaimed when a huge boulder burst through the balcony she was standing on and fell back when the splinters of wood struck her arms and legs.
The daughter of Seris fell off the building with a crippling thud.

"Moji, stand down!" Sarah told the leipori as she walked over to her, "Do not attack her."

"Why not?"

Sarah looked at her allies and turned to Moji.
"I feel that this awful curse happens if you kill her." She informed, "I think what happens is that if you mortally wound her, she curses you with that JOCELYN FLOWERS and turns back time to save yourself. However, it also appears the JOCELYN FLOWERS allows the person afflicted to see what happened in that lost time."

"My head hurts…" Moji grumbled and pulled down her hat.

"I WILL KILL YOU!"

Moji narrowly avoided the incoming handgun bullets by hopping behind a barrel, but Sarah took some rounds into her leg.

"Aunt Sarah… You had too many chances…" Seres walked out from behind the building she fell off from, holding her chest in pain.
"Not only do you deny a place with my mother, you killed your own nephew."

Sarah only stared at her with a stoic expression.
"Perhaps it is was for the best fate separated me from you lot." She clenched her fists, "I could never imagine being family with you."

Seres sighed with deep sentiment.
"Perhaps it was fate…" she murmured, "It is a fate I am sad to see."

Sarah could see a sadness in her eyes that she could not ignore. It felt as if she was deeply regretting what she was doing, but just as that glint appeared it went away.

"You know what will happen if you mortally wound me." Seres continued as she loaded a clip into her handgun, "Would you take that chance?"

Furious Flame hovered closely behind its owner and glared and their enemy.

"I know your life is the biggest tragedy here…"
Seres raised her gun.

CLICK.

"Huh?"

A steady stream of sand entered the barrel of the gun.

"What the!?"

"PO LI!"
Several jagged rocks shot out of the gun and struck the woman in the chest and face.

"Furious Flame!" the fire stand shot out a stream of fire that narrowly missed Seres and shot up to the sky before it swooped down and struck a building.

"You're a fool, Aunt Sarah!" Seres pulled out her assault rifle and laid waste to Sarah with a hail of bullets.
"THIS IS FOR SERENO."

Sarah felt the bullets penetrate her body and gave an exhale that brought out blood from her mouth before she collapsed to the ground.

"Ms. Sarah!" Moji screamed and popped out from behind her barrel, "YOU BIG FAT MEANIE!"

"NAÏVE CHILD!" Seres responded and pulled out a revolver, seeing it was too late to reload.

PO LI struck SAD!, making its attack ineffective at harming the assailant. The same, unfortunately, did not occur for Moji. Her frail body took several rounds and fell to the ground. Her stand vanished into the sand.

"Hrrr…." Seres panted and took a moment to gather her bearings.
She noticed her victory and took a look back the sky.
"Mother, I've done it." She smiled, "Father, Sister, Brother… I defeated the Frayser bloodline."

Several groans brought her back to reality.

The daughter of Seris turned to see the victims of JOCELYN FLOWERS grieving on the ground.

"Almost done." She growled under her breath and reloaded her revolver.
Her walk was weak but determined, the dirt of the road softly shifting under her boots.

Her first target was the closest, Sha Lin.

"I remember you… You were there looking for gold." She spoke and raised the revolver, "This is the payment from mother."

POW! POW! POW!

Sarah wasted no time and made her path towards Lex and did the same to him. Once that was done she reloaded her revolver again and made her way to Zhin.

"Your flower is the largest." She murmured, noting the size of his JOCELYN FLOWERS stand parasite, "You will die with your regre-"

A large wooden spear shot out of her stomach.

"Ha… Ha…" Moji panted and retracted the wooden spear before shifting it back to Po Li, "You hurt my friends…." She slowly stood up.

Seres gasped and fell to her knees.
"SAD!..."

Time reversed itself.
Seres felt a relief when body was freed from the spear's fatal effects and she was taken up by the reversal of her movement.
She cleared her throat as she avoided Sarah's attack from Furious Flame.

Then everything was set.

"Once again, Aunt Sarah." She spoke as she aimed her newly acquired assault rifle, "DIE!"

"Moji is down and out." Sarah saw Moji's stricken soul through the Pyre, "I took quite a risk trying to get something complicated set up. FURIOUS FLAME!" she made her stand push her down.

Seres had to correct her aim but kept her fire going. However, she was soon dissuaded by the rising flames and decided to flee and reload back into the alleyway.

"Or did I?" Sarah smiled as she kept directed Furious Flame to shoot out a torrent of fire to keep Seres pinned in the alley.

Seres growled as her escape was blocked out by the flaming inferno but used this opportunity to reload all the guns she had.
"My aunt is cunning, I should keep my back watched."

"No matter how much time you control, if I can set up the right springtrap. If I can just predict the future…" Sarah murmured, "If I can set up the future, I can win!"

"Shut up!" Seres screamed in anger, but then noticed something.
Smoke.

"There's a reason I let Moji kill you instead of I." Sarah's voice echoed off the wooden walls of the alley, "Because no one is as cunning as Sarah K. Plus setting up my schemes would be more difficult if I had to explain it to many people."

Seres was about to yell something, but the smoke increased.

"The Pyre is showing me something." Sarah continued, "I feel like the next thing you'll say is: 'What is that burning smell?'"

"What is that burning smell-" Seres snarled, but it was soon replaced by horror when she noticed the source.
A smoldering point near her and near a large barrel labeled KEROSENE.

"When you thought I missed, I actually decided to set fire to this alley way after seeing gas in there!" Sarah laughed.
"Seeing you just used your time return recently, perhaps you have to rest before you use it again."

"You set me up-"

KAPOOM!

Seres set up SAD! to shield a good portion of her body from the explosion. Her body was launched out of the alleyway and landed in the street.

Sarah stopped launching fire and saw as her niece landed on the dirt.
"Now it's up to me to deduce is if your JOCELYN FLOWERS ABILITY activates only when you're struck fatally and have the reverse time ability ready or it's always able to be activate at any fatal wounding."

Seres groaned as she stretched out.
"Why don't you figure out and find out…" she gave a hoarse chuckle.

"Then again, a stand's abilities don't persist after its user's death." Sarah spoke and stood above her niece.
Furious Flame came out.

Sarah had to take a deep breath before she did what she had to do.

"I never wanted this, you know that, Seres." She spoke to the heavens, "I also am like you. I wish that the fates would have made us a real family. But unlike your mother I do not believe the fates are set. I believe that one can change them with love and kindness…"

Seres breathed in.
"Just finish it, Aunt Sarah."

"If only it was that easy." Sarah responded, "You act like I held no remorse for you, Serica, and Sereno. But deep down I still regret having to face my own blood in such an unnecessary way. You see those people you infected with JOCELYN FLORES?" she pointed to her allies.
"Those people, those Paladins, those…. Friends of mine. They sacrificed their lives to join me on my journey to stop whatever wicked thing your mother is doing. Some are dedicated officials of the law, others are simple travelers, and one… is a ruler of a kingdom whose people depend on her… They have their lives yet they set them down for me and for this world. Some of them had people important to them die in their lives, others had nothing to begin with."
Some tears escaped her eyes, "Please Serica, do not fall for your mother's delusions. No one's fate is set. There is no grand conspiracy against us all. Your mother just wants to usurp the place of the gods in her quest to be queen of all things, including her so called concept of Destiny."

"What do you know?"

"Much more than you can possibly know." Sarah responded, "But there is one thing I don't know. Please, Seres, what is the secret of your mother's stand?"

Seres took in a deep breath.
"I could never betray her like that. She is my mother. The one who has loved me for many years. The one who has brought me up from my darkest times. The one who has shown me my true destiny."

"No, Seres. She lies to you."

"You don't know that!" Seres snapped and used her last strengths to pull out her revolver.
But it was too little too late.

Furious Flame came down with a flaming fist and struck Seres in the stomach, narrowly avoiding SAD! and its tendrils.

Seres gagged as she felt the flaming fist penetrate her stomach.

"I'm so sorry, Seres." Sarah said and caused her niece to completely catch fire.

"Mother… Mother…" Seres gnashed her teeth as flames engulfed her, "SAD!" she cried out and tried to activate her stand.

Sarah had to turn around.
"Furious Flame…. Incinerate."

Her stand made a column of fire shoot down and strike Seres directly.