"Giorno, please tell me this isn't what I think it is," Trish said as she quickly walked to catch up with Giorno in the hotel's hallway.
"Well," Giorno replied. "That depends on what you think it is."
"Don't play dumb," Trish shot back. "I heard what your daughter said about a guy with the "SLIP" and "KNOT" tattoos under his eyes. It's Kraven, isn't it? He's figured out you're here somehow?"
"That's right," Giorno said. "It looks like he's tracked me down. I'm not too concerned for my own safety, though. I'm more worried about getting as far away from Joanne as possible so that she doesn't get involved in this."
Trish crossed her arms, tilting her head and looking at Giorno in annoyance.
"You've already gotten her involved," she said. "You got her involved as soon as you decided to keep tabs on her, as a matter of fact. If anybody were to find out that she's your daughter and that you care about her, she'd have a constant stream of assassination attempts for as long as her and you are both alive to look forward to."
"I know," Giorno said. "That's why nobody's going to find out. And if they do, we can deal with them before they have the chance to get the information out there."
"Do you really think that's a good idea?" Trish asked skeptically. "You might be able to keep her safe nine times out of ten, but it only takes one to get her killed."
Giorno stopped walking and turned toward Trish. He clasped her hands in his and looked directly into her eyes, and she noticed that not only did he have a dead serious expression, but his eyes seemed to burn with some kind of internal fire, as if to reinforce his point.
"Trust me on this, Trish," he said. "I know what I'm doing. She's my daughter, and I'll keep her safe no matter what."
"I…" Trish said. "Look, I just… she reminds me of myself way back then, okay? So I'm just worried. You're right, you know what you're doing. You always do."
Giorno released her hands and continued walking. Trish kept walking after him, pulling a cell phone out of her pocket and opening her contacts. Then she scrolled to Mista and pressed "Call". The phone began ringing, and she held it up to her ear, but after a full minute, Mista still hadn't answered.
"Mista's not picking up," Trish told Giorno. "Should I leave a message?"
"Just try calling him again," Giorno said. "His phone probably just fell out of his pocket while he was sitting down somewhere. As usual."
The two of them turned a corner, walking toward the elevator and the huge, wall-spanning window across from it. Giorno walked over to a small table that was placed directly against the wall and picked up the fancy decorative vase on top of it.
"Do you think anybody's going to miss this?" he asked.
Before Trish could answer, Gold Experience Requiem appeared behind him and he tossed the vase up into the air. As it flew upward, it dissolved into a swarm of ladybugs, which dispersed in every direction, flying down the halls and into the ventilation system.
"Those flies will be able to find Kraven wherever he is in the hotel," he said.
While Giorno was occupied with creating ladybugs, Trish attempted to call Mista again. After about forty seconds, he finally answered.
"Hey, Trish," he said in a voice barely above a whisper.
"Hey, Mista," Trish replied. "Giorno wants you back at the hotel immediately."
"I miiight not be able to do that," Mista said.
"Why not?" Trish asked, annoyed. "And for that matter, why are you whispering?"
"I miiight be in the back of a police car…" Mista explained sheepishly. "Because I miiight have been arrested…"
"You what?!" Trish yelled. She could almost feel Mista flinching on his end of the phone. "Of all the stupid… Can you believe this idiota?"
"Don't tell me," Giorno said. "Mista got arrested again. That makes, what, the sixth time in two years?"
"Seventh, actually," Trish said.
Giorno sighed and walked up to the elevator, pressing the button to call it up.
"Well, he'll just have to wait a while for me to bail him out this time," he said. "Dealing with Kraven is a higher priority."
"I'll relay the message," Trish said, holding the phone up to her ear again. "Giorno says-"
"Yeah, I heard," Mista complained from the other end. "Friggin' stronzos," he added quietly. "The police car's right outside of the goddamn hotel, too. It wouldn't even be that hard for you to just come down here and sort it out."
Giorno froze.
"What was that last part?" he asked.
"He said that the police car's right outside of the hotel," Trish relayed.
Giorno grabbed the phone out of her hand and held it up to his ear.
"Mista," he asked. "Why is there any number of police cars outside of this hotel?"
"Some guy got tossed out one of the windows or something," Mista replied. "I can't friggin' tell from, you know, the back of a police car?"
"Where was the window that this guy was thrown out of?" Giorno asked.
"I don't know!" Mista said. "Police car, remember? Somewhere on the fourth floor, I think-"
Without waiting for Mista to finish his sentence, Giorno tossed the phone back to Trish, who caught it before it could hit the ground. Then he leapt onto the elevator, which had just arrived.
"Trish, change of plans," he said. "Looks like I'll be bailing Mista out again after all. Now that we've got something close to a bead on Kraven's location, it's the logical move to have as many people as possible. You stay here and intercept him if he comes through the elevator."
Trish hung up the phone and replaced it in her pocket.
"Are you sure?" she asked. "I mean, would splitting up like that really be the best idea with someone like Kraven running around?"
"It should be fine," Giorno assured her. "Kraven's pretty bad, but we've dealt with worse before."
He pressed a button on the elevator's console, and the doors began to slide shut. He looked out through the closing doors.
"And remember…" he said as the doors finished closing. "Keep him away from my daughter by any means necessary."
And then the elevator doors were closed, and it began to descend toward the ground floor. Trish stood there for a few seconds, unsure exactly what to do, then walked over to a small couch that was positioned across from the elevator doors and sat down, stretching out to rest on it. She let out a long sigh.
"And now I wait," she said to herself. "Why do I always get the boring jobs? He's probably not even taking the elevator. He'd have to be a real big idiota to just ride up through the most obvious path towards his target."
Just after she finished speaking, Trish heard the elevator to the right of the one Giorno had used ding. She turned her head to look at it as the doors slid open and saw Kraven standing in the middle of the elevator, stepping forward as the doors opened.
"There's no way," she said disbelievingly. "There's no way this guy is that stupid."
Kraven stepped out of the elevator, his left leg curved at an angle in front of his right one and his hands clasped together above his head and to the left.
"Oh my god, he is," Trish said.
As the doors closed behind him automatically, she leapt up from the couch.
"Spice Girl!" she shouted, her Stand appearing behind her with its fists held up in the air, ready to fight.
Kraven took a step forward.
"Oh, one of Giorno's goons?" he cackled. "Already? Well, I suppose it can't hurt to get a little practice in. Which one were you again?"
Instead of answering, Trish put one hand on her hip and pointed the other one forward. Spice Girl flew forward, swinging a fist at Kraven. Kraven just smirked. The second before the Stand's fist collided with his skull, he dropped down at high speeds, his body sinking into the tiled marble floor below him until only his waist up was visible.
"I remember now," he said. "You're Trish, right? The one who makes things soft or something like that?"
"That's me," Trish confirmed. "Tell me what you want with Giorno, you stripey-tattooed stronzo!"
Kraven cackled, tossing his head back.
"Oh, come on!" he laughed. "Isn't it obvious? I want him dead! And the same to anyone who gets in my way! Which, unfortunately, includes you."
He shot back out of the floor, leaping towards Trish. Trish noticed something in his right hand as he pulled it back behind himself, readying to swing it forward.
A knife! she thought. But he wasn't holding one before…? Where'd it come from?
Kraven swung his hand forward, throwing the knife directly at Trish's neck. Trish quickly leaned her head to the side, avoiding the attack easily. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that instead of breaking through the glass, the knife simply vanished into the surface, sinking into the window directly on top of where Kraven's face was reflected.
"What'd you do?" she demanded. "Where did the knife go?"
"What do you mean, 'where did the knife go'?" Kraven cackled. "It's right here!"
Sure enough, the knife shot out of the floor right at the assassin's feet, flying towards Trish's chest at a slight angle. The blade glinted, his eye reflecting on its blade ominously. Spice Girl quickly swung its fist at the side of the knife to punch it out of the air.
"You fool!" Kraven yelled. "You haven't got the slightest clue how powerful Nero Forte is, do you?!"
A second knife shot out of the flat side of the blade of the first one. Spice Girl tried to pull its arm away, but the blade stabbed into its fist, badly cutting the back of its hand and some of its arm. A gash appeared on Trish's right hand and arm as well, blood spurting out of it as the knife dropped out of her Stand's hand and clattered to the ground. She twisted her body at an awkward angle to avoid the first knife, but it still cut her side slightly.
"What the hell?!" she shouted. "Giorno's intel said that your Stand's ability was to 'eject' objects from walls and 'absorb' them into them! How did you do that?!"
Kraven threw back his head and cackled again, taking another step forward, then another, as he began walking towards Trish.
"Did you really think that a professional assassin like me would be so obvious about my Stand's abilities?" he asked. "You can't begin to imagine the true ability of Nero Forte! Not that it matters, since either way you're dead!"
"Am I?" Trish asked. "How about you look down?"
Kraven obliged, looking down at the floor. His foot was sinking down, the tiles folding inward in a crater.
"Wha-" he gasped.
He tried to lift his foot up, but in doing so, he released the elastic floor that had been held back by his weight pressing down on it. The backlash from the floor springing back into place tossed him off-balance, launching him up into the air.
"Spice Girl!" Trish shouted, standing in a flamingo-like pose, with one leg bent and her hands on her hips.
Spice Girl flew forward again, swinging both fists at Kraven.
"WANNABE!" it shouted as its fists collided with him several times, juggling him in the air until it sent him flying into the ceiling with a final punch.
Kraven slammed into the ceiling, but before he could fall back to the ground, a knife shot out of the floor below him, angled to fly just past him. As he fell, he reached out his hand, and when it touched the flat side of the knife, he vanished into the surface. Trish walked over to the knife as it clattered to the ground and crouched down to look at it. She picked it up by the handle, dangling it carefully in front of her face at a distance.
"What the hell did he just do?" she muttered.
Right behind her, Kraven, who had stuck his arm out of the window just as it entered the knife, pulled himself the rest of the way out of the glass, holding a piece of rope between his hands as a makeshift garrotte, and began silently walking towards her.