Chapter 3: Stalemate
Koichi Hirose, age 15, stared at the white envelope uneasily. There was no return address and Koichi had gotten too many nasty surprises over the past few months to be careless. After opening it slowly, he breathed a sigh of relief as the contents proved to be nothing but an ordinary letter.
As he started reading, that sense of relief quickly went away. The letter said: "He has a new weapon. A nearly invisible air bubble. Watch your back." Koichi got his house phone and dialed Jotaro's number. The situation had just gotten even more dangerous.
Yoshikage Kira watched in frustration as Koichi got in Rohan Kishibe's Nissan 300ZX sportscar. He and Jotaro had been doing this everyday for the past four days, leaving Kira with no opportunity to attack Koichi.
Something had to give sooner or later, Kira just didn't know what or when. In any case, he would just have to keep following Koichi. Still, things were looking good for Kira so far. He had sent a letter of resignation to his old job at Kameyu and disconnected his utilities at his old house.
He could still access his bank account under the name Yoshikage Kira as no one had declared him missing. The aforementioned letter to his work and a phone call had taken care of that. Kosaku Kawajiri had been very bad at managing money and Kira needed to pay off his irate landlord.
Kira had used Killer Queen earlier to pretend to pay his rent by stealing from him, but the man had counted and figured out he had been shortchanged. Another 500,000 yen later, and the landlord was once again satisfied. If he had actually tried to kick him out, Kira would have needed to kill him.
However, Kira was not a complete psychopath. He only killed to satisfy his, well, murderous impulses and to protect his "peaceful life". Otherwise, he handled situations calmly and diplomatically. Coming home a few hours later, Kira ate dinner and went to bed, while he and Hayato tried to avoid each other.
This continued to the next morning until Kira left for work. During his lunch break, Kira once more went to see Koichi get picked up from school. This time it was Jotaro in his own car. Over the next several days, this sequence of events repeated itself over and over again.
Jotaro, Koichi, and Rohan were meeting in the latter's house to discuss their hunt for Kira. Unfortunately, none of them had any leads, a fact that it seemed none of them could overcome. Koichi decided to make a bold proposal;
"Perhaps we could try to use me as a bait for Kira if I'm so important." Both Jotaro and Rohan shot down the idea, not wanting Koichi's death on their conscience and to lose their best defense against Sheer Heart Attack. Jotaro then dropped a bombshell:
"The Speedwagon Foundation wants me to leave Morioh to help them with other Stand investigations. As they happen to be the ones bankrolling my stay here, I can hardly say no. As Rohan can't guard you, Koichi, and look for Kira at the same time, I suggest we halt our search for the time being." Rohan and Koichi accepted this reluctantly, and for the first time in months an uneasy quiet settled over Morioh. At least for a year and a half…
To Be Continued