The ship was going down.

It didn't take genius on the level of Dio's to make that obvious. The boiler had burst like a balloon, flames were quickly racing up the support beams and through the ceiling, and any floorboards that had not burned away were already beginning to creak under his weight. Any other time, Dio would not have worried. As he was learning again and again, his body was well and truly indestructible. A volley of gunfire, the wreckage of a burning house, a sword through the head, none of those had been enough to stop him.

But this was not his body, and as he dragged himself across the floor of the sinking ship, Jojo's aching muscles made that fact abundantly clear. When he commanded them, his limbs would move just a few inches off the mark. When his muscles flexed, they burned with the still fading glow of the Hamon coursing through Jojo's body.

Even in death, you still try to stop me, Jojo? Dio hissed between his sharpened teeth. How foolish. There is no point in resisting me. You are dead. There is nothing for you to gain from this, but you do not let me get to safety, we will both perish!

Again, he thrust his hands forward, digging his claws into the wood as he pulled himself ever-closer to the shiny black coffin at the end of the room, he could still feel the sharp pain of Jojo's Hamon refusing to die down. A man of futility to the very end, it seems.

Dio had said that he had admired that about Jojo to his face, and he had been telling the truth then, but now...

It doesn't bother me in the slightest. Dio laughed, his raspy voice sputtering out between the smoke quickly choking the air overhead. You fought well. You were able to defeat me at every turn. But I am the only one still alive.

At last, Dio's fingers brushed against the side of the coffin. He'd made it. Just a little further, just a little more. Dio shoved the lid aside.

Your resistance is useless.

Grasped the rim.

Useless.

Pulled himself up.

Useless!

A hand reached out, grasped Dio's wrist, and shoved him away.

The ship exploded. Dio's body was consumed in flames and burned to ash.

DIO's quill snapped. Blood trickled down his lip as his fangs bit into his flesh, and the way his eyes narrowed did little to restrain the bubbling frustration in his throat.

No, that's not what happened, he thought. If I had died on that blasted ship, could I have risen to this seat of power?

But as much as he had tried to deny it, the fact of the matter remained that there had been someone else in that coffin. The muffled sounds of combat coming from the manor's basement was proof enough of that.

How was it that the most useless of the Joestars were always the ones that caused him the most problems? Before it was Holly Kujo's fragile soul sending her father and son on the warpath, it was Erina Joestar who had stubbornly clung to life, escaping a death that was rightfully hers by weaseling her way into his coffin and using it to ferry herself to safety.

Her, the girl who had burst into tears upon having her doll stolen, had been the one to turn his own machinations against him? The idea was so laughable, had it not been the truth.

Which, of course, then meant that DIO, the genius that he was, must have outsmarted her somehow. Found... found some kind of way to turn her trickery against him.

But how had he done it?

The fact that he could not remember annoyed him greatly. This was his greatest moment of triumph, the moment he had finally taken everything from his greatest and only enemy, when he had triumphed over the destiny determined to pit them against each other forever and escaped with his life, and he could not remember it? What kind of a god did that make him, that he could not even recall something like that? What kind of a memoir was he going to give Pucci if he could not finish it?

I must think about this carefully and logically. This was a sinking ship. The entire crew, all its passengers, under my command. There should not have been many ways to escape, not for me, and certainly not for her, either. If I examine the facts of the case, then surely I will be able to determine the truth of this through the process of elimination.

Not that there were that many options to eliminate. There was a coffin. There was Erina. And there was Dio. There was only so many ways those three things could be arranged, and it would only be a matter of time before he found one that actually made sense. This was, after all, the night where he would at last discard everything that connected him to his past and his humanity. The Joestar bloodline, Jonathan's body, they would all submit under his heel by tonight. There would be no other outcome.

"Lord DIO." Vanilla Ice's low voice seeped through the door.

Had he come to inform DIO about Telence T' D'Arby's defeat? From the loud, resonating crash downstairs, DIO had already assumed that he had been overwhelmed by the combined efforts of Jotaro Kujo and Joseph Joestar, but it never hurt to have confirmation. The long and winding paths generated by Kenny G's Stand, Tenor Sax, would slow them down, and with the way Nukesaku was wandering through the halls, he was bound to run into them too, but for Jean Pierre Polnareff, Mohammad Avdol, and Iggy, coming in through the main entrance... they would need to be dealt with directly.

And just how should I rile up my oh-so faithful servant to deal with them? Shall I compliment his strength? Or his resolve? Either one should not matter. He is more than strong enough to, at the very least, deal a crippling blow to Joseph Joestar's team of crusaders.

DIO snapped his diary shut and placed it down on the desk at his bedside, swirling the wine in his other hand as he tried to think of the best way to drive his most powerful disciple into a frenzy, before he waved his hand and said, "Speak."

Then Vanilla Ice said, "There was a woman wandering the atrium. She has requested your presence, so I have brought her here."

The wine in DIO's glass stilled. His nostrils flared. The frost clinging to the threads of silk on his bedsheets crinkled as DIO's back muscles flexed, pulling him up to sit just a little straighter.

A woman? How... unexpected. Had one of his whores managed to slip away amidst one of his blood-fueled feasts? DIO was careless and indulgent in his drinking of women, so it would not surprise him if one or two had come to their senses in the middle of seeing their companions waste away and had hidden themselves in the manor's many crevices and hallways, but the fact that she had specifically asked for him implied otherwise. Could this be a poorly executed ambush by the wretched Speedwagon Foundation? Or was this another Stand user chasing after dreams of glory and power, as so many others seeking to serve him had done? He had little use for either, not when all his remaining disciples were more than enough to funnel Joseph Joestar and his companions right into his waiting jaws.

DIO flexed his hands, watching as Jojo's bicep, his bicep, curled, a faint undercurrent of Hamon still sizzling beneath his skin. Of course, I could use her to finish my transformation, a small, traitorous part of his mind suggested, but he snuffed it out without a second thought. If my dominance is to be total, and my victory complete, I must drink the blood of a Joestar to satisfy this hunger. It was the blood of a Joestar that granted me this power–it must be the same to complete it. To accept anything less would be... demeaning.

Still, this woman could still serve some use, so DIO waved his hand, and the mist parted for The World as he reached through and pulled the doors open. "You may enter."

The first thing he noticed about the woman who stumbled in through the door was that she was tall. Not taller than him, goodness no, but taller than a woman of her stature should have been, almost as if, despite being a full two heads shorter than either him or Vanilla Ice, he should have been the one looking up at her–and wasn't that one hell of a strange thing to admit. The whores had thrown themselves at his feet but this one, she picked herself up, brushed down her white wool coat, and got to her feet. She had this strange sense of dignity to her, almost like... like...

A rooster! Yes, a rooster among hens. One that carried itself with pride, oblivious to the fact that, like the rest, it was only just livestock.

"Dio? Is that you?" she asked, brushing her long, brown hair out of her eyes. "My, how you've grown!"

DIO narrowed his eyes. Definitely not one of his whores, then. They would have never spoken to him so blatantly out of line. None of his servants, either. DIO glanced past the woman at Vanilla Ice. The man looked tense, like it was taking everything in him not to snap and put the woman in her place.

DIO raised his hand, and at his command, Vanilla Ice spoke. "D'Arby has been defeated. As we speaking, Joseph Joestar's group has begun to search for a way out of the basement, while Muhammud Avdol's group nears the courtyard."

"Indeed. Ice, you are my strongest servant. I have full–"

"Joestar? Have you invited his family here too? My, you must be quite rich if they are the ones coming to your home."

DIO's wine froze in his glass. The curtains on his bed rattled and fell still, ice locking the threads in place.

Had she just–

"You dare?!" Vanilla Ice roared, instantly on his feet. "Who do you think you are, that you can interrupt your better?"

"We are all equal in the eyes of the Lord."

"There is no Lord but Lord DIO, and he stands above us all! Say another word against him, and I shall–"

"Ice. That is enough." DIO flicked his hand out the door. "See to it that Avdol's group is dealt with."

Immediately, Vanilla Ice's face cleared of all rage. "As you command." He leaped back, vanishing into the open mouth of his Stand, before that too disappeared through the open doors.

Which left him and the woman alone in his room.

"Where did he go? Is your friend alright?"

For better or for worse.

DIO had initially planned on injecting her with his vampiric essence, turned her into a thrall, and let her loose on Joseph Joestar's group, but now...

"You interest me, woman," DIO purred. "No one else dares speak to me so boldly."

The woman shook her head with a quiet laugh. "That's silly. Why should I be intimidated by you?"

"Why wouldn't you?" DIO's bed creaked as he pushed himself to his feet. His shadow, already stretched long by the deep blue candlelight pulsing from the glittering silver candelabra decorating the table beside him, cast over her face and left no light on her skin except for the faint red glow of his eyes. Tougher men had been left quivering by such a sight.

This woman, she just smiled. "Oh, DIO. It doesn't matter how old you are. I could never be afraid of you."

DIO's heart stopped. Something inside him stirred, in a way that he had thought he had forgotten how to. When he had put on that mask, he had left everything that was Dio Brando behind. His memories, his attachments, his fears. He should not be feeling this.

And yet, suddenly, he found himself sitting in that cold, dark room, sitting atop wooden floorboards as his father tore apart dinner with his bare hands on the other side of the crumbling wall.

He should have killed her then and there. He'd done it before, charmed dozens, perhaps hundreds of women into his grasp, only to drain the life from their bodies with a brush of his fingernails.

And yet... and yet...

"I am not old," he hissed, leaning closer so she could see his fangs. "I am DIO! I am beyond age. I have outlived entire bloodlines. There is no one in living memory who remembers my face."

"I could never forget your face," the woman whispered, and, instead of turning away, she placed a hand on his check. Her touch burned against his. His skin must have felt ice cold to her.

"Your smile. Your eyes. Your eyebrows." She reached out and tapped him on his forehead. "You inherited so much from me, but your nose... you have your father's handsome eyebrows."

The word escaped him before he could stop it. "Mother."

His mother smiled. "Dio. My son. You have grown up into such a beautiful boy."

Happy 2025 yall! A friend of mine recommended that I try writing shorter stuff for a bit, so here we are. Hopefully this should just be a short, 5 chapter adventure that won't take too much time from any of my longer projects, just something that I can be done with in a short and reasonable amount of time so I can actually say I've finished something recently.