It was strange.

A strange void engulfed Giorno to where he felt like his limbs moved through syrup, so slowly and carefully as if he had no control over them. Yet he could see clearly despite the fog surrounding his entire being, and maybe that was what it was, maybe this was his soul and his body was left behind somewhere far away and he was floating in nothing and everything all at once. Yes, Giorno thought, it truly was bizarre.

Eyes were everywhere, so many, staring through him, at him, into him, and all at once. Giorno was a puppet on a stage with an audience waiting for his every move to be perfect, exactly right even though he never knew what was truly right or not, he just hoped he did. It was suffocating and he could hardly breathe. And why were all these feelings pouring out of him all at once, was this what Maiden was- right, Maiden. Giorno had almost lost himself to this… this entity.

What was he to do? Where was the enemy? There was nothing to fight but the eyes but Gold Experience wouldn't appear no matter how hard Giorno called for it. It was there, it was pulsing inside him right beneath his skin but it couldn't escape, like it was wrapped in the void as well.

A voice, booming yet soothing, as if echoing from behind the eyes, spoke.

'Who are you, Giorno Giovanna?'

What? What did that mean? What was going on? Giorno felt panic start to bubble inside as he thought, 'What is this?'

'What is this?'

Wait, was that an echo? His thoughts were swarming, sucking him back, back into a scene he'd tried to forget, to-

"What is this?" a 13-year-old Giorno gasped, staring into the mirror of the small bathroom on the small second floor of their small house in Napoli. He reached up, fingers shaking, to touch his hair, soft and long and- and gold.

I still don't know, Giorno's current thoughts overlapping with his past ones in a strange amalgamation he couldn't control, could barely listen to, couldn't hear himself think-

'What happened?' He thought desperately, was this some kind of prank? But no, who would do that? Certainly not his patrigno and he had no friends… this wasn't right, hair doesn't just change colors overnight, how could this-

"Oh Dio!"

A shriek came from the hall and Giorno spun around to see his mother staring at him with a look of pure disgust.

No, not again, not this, don't show me this-

"What have you done?!" she cried, backing away as if… as if she was scared. "You look… Dio, you're a monster too! You're just like him!"

"What? Mamma, I don't-"

"Don't call me that! I'm not your mother!"

"What the fuck is going on?!" All the screaming must have caught patrigno's attention as the burly man stormed into view and Giorno couldn't help shrinking back.

Stop.

From deep inside, somewhere the young Giorno Giovanna could never feel or reach, his older self shrank as well.

"Look at him! Dio, that, that thing had- his hair- Dio, do something, Tomasso!"

Giorno's patrigno turned to him and stepped forward, those big hands reaching for who knows what but Giorno knew from experience it was never good but he was trapped in this tiny bathroom, the man blocked the door and there was no escape, he couldn't-

"Stop fucking staring at me like that," the man has reached him and his fist curled into Giorno's hair, this strange golden mane that had suddenly appeared overnight and Giorno was just as confused as the rest of them but that didn't matter, did it? Of course not, it never did, "And wash this shit out of your goddamn head before I rip it all off!"

Please stop.

And he pulled and Dio, it felt like a thousand nails were ripping from his scalp as he was dragged towards the sink, thrown against it so hard that the sink bowl smashed against his temple and Giorno saw stars. Stars that same gold as his hair. Pain pulsed through his head from patrigno's iron grip, from the cold porcelain sink that Giorno could barely feel the water splashing over him.

Until it was hot, a hundred degrees of pure magma seeping into his aching skull, into his brain, and as it coursed down his face, drenching his nose and choking his mouth and he couldn't breathe- he cried out, he screamed, he begged for it to stop but Giorno didn't know if he was even making noise or what was going on, and this wasn't working, his patrigno was getting angrier and shaking him and his mother was crying and it hurt-

Please don't show me this.

"GYAAAH!"

There was a shout and the hands holding him down were suddenly gone and Giorno collapsed to the tiled floor, coughing and shaking and cradling his head.

Patrigno was still screaming, "Get it off, get it off, what the fuck-" and Giorno didn't know was was going on and he forced himself to look up through the dull throb echoing everywhere.

A snake. A small snake but a snake nonetheless had attached itself to his patrigno's hand and was refusing to let go. Where had it come from? Giorno had to admit, sometimes he brought small animals into the house when no one was home but he always released them before anyone got back so it couldn't have been- Giorno stopped midthought as he followed the snake's writhing body to… to the sink. It… it was growing… from the sink?

Oh no, maybe that hit to the head did more damage than Giorno had thought, this was it, he was finally going insane or had a concussion at the very least, there was no way-

And then it was gone as suddenly as it had appeared, morphing into one of the sink handles, the very one controlling the scalding hot water that had burned his nose and lungs. If Giorno hadn't watched it with his own eyes, he wouldn't have believed it.

There was silence for a few seconds, the only noise the running water and his patrigno's frantic panting. Even his mother had stopped sobbing to stare in shock at what had just happened.

And Giorno saw it.

There, by the shower, creeping out from behind the curtain, was a strange humanoid… thing, gold and shining and watching him with empty purple orbs where eyes should be. Giorno couldn't help it, he shrieked as he scrambled back towards the wall, pointing in fear as he cried out, "Who are you?! How did you get in here?!"

Distracted by the thing hovering in the corner, Giorno didn't see the way his mother and patrigno stared at him in confusion before exchanging fearful glances.

"What, why aren't you doing something?!" he cried, turning to his patrigno, there was this thing in the man's home, surely he would drive it out or yell at it or do something but all he did was stared at Giorno before backing away.

"...Ain't nothing there, monello," patrigno finally said before reaching back towards Giorno and even when he flinched away, it didn't matter because the man grabbed his shoulders and practically dragged him back towards the small room at the end of the hall they'd given him.

The thing followed them the entire way.

Giorno was practically thrown into the room, barely skin and bones to begin with, and as he thudded to the floor, he looked up just in time to see his patrigno slam the door shut with the sound of the lock clicking right after.

"Fucking crazy bastardo…" he heard patrigno mutter as he walked away before starting to curse out the snake that had bitten him. Giorno's shirt had blood on the shoulder from the man's wound and when Giorno looked away from it, he met the gaze of the thing, Standing before him.

No, this should be behind me by now-

"…I'm scared," Giorno whispered as he backed into the far corner, as far from the thing as he could, pulling his knees to his chest.

"I'm scared."

I'm scared.

"I'm scared, Tomasso."

His mother's voice drifted over towards where Giorno sat leaned up against his bedroom door, waiting in case he heard footsteps approaching the safe haven of those four thin walls, however slight they may be.

"Nothing about this is right. That- that thing has changed since then. I can't even call it human anymore! What on earth do we do?!"

'Not human? If I'm not human, then what on earth am I, madre?' Giorno couldn't help but think bitterly. Movement from the corner of the room caught his eye and his sickened grin quickly vanished from his face as he willed the feelings of disgust and disappointment back down. He couldn't let that monster out again. It had been appearing more and more lately.

It's not a monster. You aren't a monster.

"Calm down, tesora," Tomasso spoke and Giorno was reminded of the only thing he liked about his stepfather. At least the man loved his mother. At least Giorno was the only one treated cruelly. At least he could focus on that to distract himself from the anger deflected towards him. Surely he deserved it if the man could love others, surely there was something unlovable about Giorno from the very start.

"Fanculo, if I had known this was going to happen, I would've just gotten rid of it!" his mother shrieked, ignoring her husband entirely. "I wanted to, you know! That devil sucked me in but no, okaa-san only blamed me!"

As he listened, Giorno slowly realized what his mother was saying. No, no, surely she wasn't, she couldn't be, for as much as she acted like he was nothing but a burden, she loved him… right? He had to be misunderstanding there was no way his mother, the woman who had birthed him and was meant to love him was saying-

Cover your ears, Giorno prayed desperately, don't listen, please, my self, please-

"What does family honor matter when it means giving birth to a demon?! I wish I had just gotte rid of it!"

Oh.

So that was what it was.

Had she always thought that way?

Were the few good memories he held with her, of her giving him a cupcake for his third birthday, of her holding his hand tightly as she introduced him to Tomasso, of her singing a lullaby to him late at night when he woke up from a nightmare… Was that nothing?

What more could it have been but childish dreaming.

In the corner of his room, Giorno heard something explode into a flap of wings that quickly thudded lifelessly to the ground but it barely registered.

"Stop worrying about it; what's done is done." His patrigno's voice sounded defeated, far too resigned to something that shouldn't have even been at all. "Think about it, he's fourteen, he's a man now, right? The brat can live by himself, we'll find a school with dormitories, yeah? We'll get him far away from you, morosa."

"I can't even look at him…" His mother's voice trailed off into sobs. "Not when he looks so much like… like…"

"Shh, I know, it's okay," Tomasso said in a gentle tone he'd never used with Giorno. "You won't have to anymore Haruka, I promise. Let's just start over. We're still young, we can still have a family. You always wanted a baby girl, right?"

As the two continued to talk, Giorno rested his head on his knees, not wanting to hear anymore. If only he could go back, could stop himself from listening to them. He could at least continue to pretend that they cared, deluded himself into the impossible without having the definitive proof that now circled relentlessly through his skull, stabbing daggers into what little innocence he'd still had until it was a bloody, pulpy mess.

Was it really all his fault? Giorno never even knew his father, had never brought it up after he saw the faraway look in his mother's eyes when he'd asked her about him once when he was very little. Still, who else could she be talking about that he looked like? He had tried to change his hair back, had used dye after dye until he even tried permanent marker but nothing worked. Giorno would go to sleep with a head of black hair and wake up to that brilliant gold he'd quickly begun to despise.

No. Your hair is beautiful. Don't listen. But Giorno could hardly hear himself anymore, the memories and emotions drowning him in the endless abyss of Iron Maiden's eyes.

And that monster hadn't left him. As the weeks had passed, it remained, sometimes by his side, sometimes out of sight, but never far. It simply stood and watched. Giorno still didn't understand it, didn't know what it was or why it was there but he'd learned that it lashed out whenever he felt strong emotions.

In fact, his room was currently exploding into life around him. He couldn't notice it.

What had he done to deserve this? Was his existence truly such a curse? Would it have been for the best if he never existed at all?

Maybe all this suffering wouldn't have happened if I had just succeeded-

Mindlessly, Giorno reached for something, anything that might take all of this away in an instant. It was all he could think about, the only thing that had solidified in his mind: he was unwanted. Unloved. Completely and utterly useless to everything and everyone. Yes, he should just disappear.

The scissors appeared in his hand without a second thought, mind swirling unaware of even moving at all but as he swung them towards his neck with all the force he could muster, the only thing that touched him were his own fingers.

But I always fail.

Giorno looked up for the first time to see golden butterflies spilling from his fingertips and spiraling into his dark room, catching the moonlight in a way that made them look like stars falling around him.

When Giorno dropped his gaze, he saw the thing watching him from across the room. If he didn't know any better, he would swear it looked sad.

His back hit the wall and he slid down to the ground, hanging his head and averting his gaze from the swarming butterflies that were far too beautiful for a nothing like him to see them. He couldn't even die, so what could he possibly do?

All he had ever wanted was to be loved.

I can never be loved.

"You just… seem like you wanna be loved."

Mista's gentle voice pierced Giorno's thoughts as his eyes fluttered open. The turtle, he was in the turtle on the couch lying against Mista's broad chest, against the wet spots he had made with his tears that Mista had so graciously ignored as they both tried to fall back asleep. It had been such a long day and Giorno felt drained in both mind and body. Who would have thought bringing someone back from the dead would do that?

He'd awoke earlier that night in a cold sweat, his dreams filled with images of Abbacchio's lifeless eyes and of his own failure. He had been so sure, so certain that he had failed that it had taken Mista ages to talk him down. At some point, Giorno must have drifted off again but as he listened now, it seemed Mista hadn't.

In the quiet still of Coco Jumbo, Mista's voice was barely audible and yet his words seemed to pierce Giorno right to his core.

"I dunno what happened," Mista continued to ramble unaware Giorno had awoken. "I don't know your past, I don't know what words you've heard, I don't know you. But every single thing you do seems to scream for something. And it's something that I've seen before by now, from Fugo, from Nara, hell, even from Abbacchio. You just… you want someone to care, huh Giorno? At the heart of it, that's what everyone wants I think."

He's wrong. He has to be. But why? Why must he be? Would it be so bad?

No. Mista didn't understand. He didn't know because Giorno hadn't told anyone, hadn't told a single soul about why it was impossible. If his own mother couldn't love him, if his own father never wanted him, if he was rejected by everyone and killed anyone who got close to him, then how could it ever be possible? And Giorno had accepted that, he'd made his peace with being alone by now, Mista couldn't be allowed through that, not when it would surely end the same way it always did. Giorno was fine on his own, he didn't need anything, he would accomplish his goals on his own and exist in his own space just like always. People could get close but they would never reach through that barrier.

And yet Mista was getting so, so, so close. Just millimeters away from that wall. He couldn't be allowed closer. Giorno had to stop him, he had to explain why-

"I'm not that smart, y'know," Mista added, and Giorno lost his train of thought when he felt Mista's hand tighten gently around his own. "If you tell me that you're fine, I'm gonna just have to believe you. I can't read between the lines like Bucciarati can and I can't understand your big words like Fugo does and I can't make you open up just by being happy like Nara is and I can't even get you to express yourself the way Abbacchio manages too. I can't do any'a that. And sometimes I wish I could. I might not understand you, but I want to. And that counts for somethin' right?"

No. It couldn't. No, wait, but it does-

'Yes,' Giorno thought before he could stop himself.

As he firmly reminded himself that the true answer was no, Giorno felt like he might cry all over again.

Mista was silent for so long that Giorno wondered if he had fallen asleep so when he heard those last few words, he was nearly back asleep himself.

"And if it's that you just wanna be loved… Well, I think I can do that. If you'll let me."

Giorno waited, waited late into the night to see if Mista would say anything else. And when he was certain the gunsman was deeply asleep, he pulled himself away from the man's warm embrace.

Loneliness crushed him as he drew back into himself and Giorno could practically feel Gold Experience urging him back. Yes, his Stand only wanted what Giorno himself wanted. He knew that now. But Gold Experience had none of the knowledge that Giorno had. It didn't understand that some things wouldn't come true, no matter how much you wished for them.

Was that true? Giorno was having a hard time even bringing himself to think separately now, his past self merging into the him of the now so profusely that the negative emotions were wearing him down to the bone.

Fugo glanced at him when he emerged from Coco Jumbo but whatever expression Giorno had on his face must have dissuaded the boy from saying anything as he simply went back to driving the van.

In the far corner, near the door and away from the others at the front, Giorno forced himself to draw that line once again. He could practically see it by now, each and every brick engraved with the names and words of the people who had told him what he was worth, had shown him the cruelty of the world before he was even grown.

As he curled in on himself, Giorno wondered if those bricks would one day include these people's names. And he wondered what it would take to break him in the end.

Broken? Giorno felt himself falling, down, down, down… Is this the end?

"You broke us, Giorno Giovanna. You break everything you touch in the end."

Giorno opened his eyes to a corpse appearing before him in the empty void formed by his own heart. Blood stained the suit as it slowly dripped from the fleshy lumps of meat hanging from what was once a head. Bits of brain lodged in bone fragments, a deflated eye hanging by its nerve endings, the occasional gush of blood and pulsing of meat as the heart, untouched from the gunshot, slowly gave out and died. If not for the yellow suit, he would have no idea who it was.

"What was it that I said?" Polpo questioned as he seemed to grow closer to Giorno until anywhere the blond looked was filled with that mass of flesh and bone, the ripe scent of blood meat floating past his nostrils.

"That God can forgive even murder? I indeed stand by that but did you really understand what I said? What I meant? When in saving a life you also doomed it to death?"

Giorno's eyes widened. He had tried to forget that, to avoid thinking about what his stepfather had told him when he eventually stopped seeing that gangster around Napoli.

"Yes, you think I wouldn't know? That Passione was the only thing on my mind? Please," the capo said with a scoff and as he shook his head in dismissal, a small fleshy blob fell into the void around them. "A gangster can't get close to anyone, you see. Not without risking their own lives. He simply made the wrong choice, I suppose. Do you even know why they wanted him dead? In saving him, how many others did you condemn? Did you even think of that?"

No, that man wasn't like that. He wasn't like these monsters Giorno had met along his journey, he was good, he was like Bucciarati. Surely, that was who he was. Surely…

"Sometimes, a death is for the greater good, Giorno Giovanna. And you do not seem to understand that."

"Well o'course he doesn't." That was a new voice and as Giorno looked, he recognized Luca, the indentation from the shovel clear as day in his skull. One of his eyes had bulged out from the blow and his skull had clearly been fractured as bits of brain seeped from the seams of the wound.

"What was the point in killing me, after all? I was just doin' my job. You could have stopped It any time, don't pretend like my death was inevitable. But you wanted it, didn't you? You wanted to see my corpse and feel that power. Didn't you?"

"N-No of course not!" Girono couldn't help but argue, "I would never-"

"Oh but wouldn't you?" Ghiaccio whispered into Giorno's ear and he felt blood spurt out of the man's mouth with every word from the hole going straight through his neck. "Don't act like you didn't enjoy seeing that crimson red drain from my throat as I slowly drowned in my own blood."

"I'm sure you felt so clever when that snake did its job," Melone added, "You must have been disappointed you couldn't have watched my body gradually necrotize as the venom tore through my veins and ate me alive. I never had a chance, did I? And that's exactly what you wanted."

"Mm, I understand, really, I do." Cioccolata sighed as he moved forwards to rest his mangled hand on Giorno's shoulder, his head hanging at an unnatural angle after being crushed and dismembered inside the garbage compactor. "It truly is such a rush, isn't it? Taking a life. If only you weren't so deluded in your own thoughts of grandeur. To think you truly believe yourself above us all. What a bad joke."

"No," Giorno managed to force out, feeling like he was being strangled as he tried desperately to escape the corpses weighing him down, down, down into the depths. "No, I'm nothing like any of you! I-I have a dream! I want to do what is right! I'm a good-"

His words caught in his throat and Giorno reached up frantically, clawing at the flesh as if he'd be able to physically force that final word out.

"See?"

Only one person remained but he was everywhere, all around Giorno in all states of dismemberment and decay as Diavolo swarmed into the blond's sight and into his vulnerable mind.

"You can't even say it," one of them hissed mockingly.

"Would a good person sentence someone to eternal damnation? To an infinity of nothing but death? You know, the pain eventually grows numb. You don't even feel anything after a while. Yes, it's not the physical death that hurts, it's the slow decay of the mind. Of my thoughts and emotions and my very being slowly stripped away from me. One. By one. By one. But you enjoy thinking about that. Don't you, Giorno Giovanna?"

"No! I didn't know, I didn't know Gold Experience would-" Giorno's eyes widened as he broke off and quickly jerked back, as if he could escape them if only he moved far enough away. "Stop it, stop trying to break me down! I don't enjoy violence! I'm nothing like you!"

Even as he said the words himself, Giorno found it harder and harder to believe them. And the nothing seemed to be crushing him tighter and tighter.

"But aren't you?" one of them asked, the leftover remains of his head looking as if they had been through a meat slicer, the strips of flesh, tissue, and greymatter lying atop each other flatly. "All I wanted was to be left alone. Isn't that what you want? What you think is best?"

Giorno couldn't respond, not when he knew it was true, that he had told himself time and time again to keep others at arm's length and to not allow anyone close to him. It didn't matter one way or another, it was simply the right choice to Giorno.

"Isn't there justice in solitude?" another continued, "Isn't there righteousness in isolation? And if a single person must be sacrificed for the good of the many… is that not the right thing? Is that not just? Is that not the just world you long for oh so much, Giorno Giovanna?"

"I… I…" Giorno didn't know, he didn't know what to say, not when what Diavolo was saying somehow made sense to him. After all, wasn't he alone in the end anyway? When all of this was over, did he really think anyone would choose to stay with him? Once the emotions cool and the adrenaline dies… he would just be left on the wayside. Forgotten. And wasn't that the best thing? If he left, if he simply vanished, all the turmoil and pain and suffering he had brought to so many around him would surely vanish with him… And even though he had a dream he believed in, how could he possibly achieve it when he believed in nothing else at all? When nothing and no one believed in-

"I trust you, Giorno."

Giorno jerked his head up, looking around frantically for that faint voice he could barely hear over the thoughts in his own head but there was nothing and everything around him all at once and he couldn't see anything at all.

"It's your fault."

No. No, please no, not him, please don't-

"If not for you, I would be alive," Bucciarati murmured before Giorno as the capo he respected, the man he loved like a brother, decayed before his eyes. The decomposition was slow but ever growing, graying and bloating and blackening the necrotic corpse until the man hardly resembled Bucciarati and yet it was, Giorno knew it was.

"I would have lived my life peacefully with the would have continued on in our lives as gangsters and one day might have even risen to the top to change things. But you stole that chance from us. From me."

Giorno felt tears welling up in his eyes as he tried to shove them back, to not show how weak he truly felt but Bucciarati's words hit right where it hurt. It targeted the very doubts Giorno had so carefully hidden away with the precision of a hawk stalking its prey and dived straight and true to pierce the heart clean through.

"This is what true happiness is. This is how it should be. Don't worry about it. "

Those words, Giorno recognized them, a faint memory of the man's soul speaking to him after the battle with Diavolo. He had thought he was hallucinating the whole thing, but could it have been… no, he reminded himself with a shake of his head, how could it be true; this Bucciarati was right, he had stolen everything from this man.

"You took him from me. I'd lost so much already and you took the man I loved away from me and forced me to continue without him," Abbacchio added as he took his place next to Bucciarati's corpse. "And in a body that only works half as well. I'm only a liability now; without my strength, my sight, my motor skills, I'm nothing. You took everything from me and cursed me to exist in this state. I would have rather died."

"I'm only gonna say this once, so listen up. Thank you."

Abbacchio couldn't have meant that, that gratitude had to have been a lie. What kind of life would it be if Giorno lost the person he loved? When he was never meant to love anyone at all, not when he knew, he knew the pain it would cause and yet he couldn't stop it. Maybe that was the only human part of him left now. Could Abbacchio really say that in the state he was now stuck in? And all because of Giorno.

"What about us?" Fugo questioned from behind Giorno, his hand clenched tightly in Narancia's. "What about all the suffering you've put us through? I've lost Nara so many times now that it drives me mad."

"Dying hurts a lot y'know," Narancia chimed in, leaning forward as blood pooled beneath him from the holes that the iron bars had impaled him through. "He targeted me because I was in you, Giorno. Yeah, I had Aerosmith for reconnaissance, but imagine how great it must've felt for Diavolo to watch his main target die. And I was just collateral damage, huh? Just another sacrifice to tack off your list on your way to some dream you don't even really understand."

"I just wanted to say thanks, Giorno. Ya brought Fugo back. No, really, he's smart but he wouldn't'a thought about all that himself. Fugo always needs a push from behind to get moving. Your words, your dream? That was his push. That's why he's with me now. You saved him Giorno. Really, thank you. I just had to say that. I had to tell you."

Narancia had told him that before they left the safehouse, when there was a quiet moment and it was just the two of them in the kitchen. Giorno had tried to argue but was eventually forced to accept Narancia's cheerful gratitude however sheepish it made him feel. And it had felt good. But now, Giorno knew how empty those words were. He was the reason Fugo had left in the first place, he had caused so much strife in such a brief time that all he wanted to do at this point was just erase himself entirely.

"It's the most painful thing in the world," Fugo agreed, pulling Narancia close to him, "To watch the singular light in your life blink out all because you chose to listen to a child even younger than yourself?"

"We support you. We all do."

"Besides, I'm pretty sure I remember something about a dream you want to accomplish. Right?"

"How do you think that feels, Giorno? Ah wait, you wouldn't know. Because you really only tried to protect one of us, didn't you? And you couldn't even do that right."

Ah, that's right.

Mista.

All at once, the images of the gunsman flashed before Giorno's eyes, riddled with bullets, covered in wounds, blood gushing from his mouth, from his eyes, from every orifice of the man as the injuries accumulated from his time with Giorno turned Mista into nothing but a bloody pulp that resembled a meat pie more than a man. The one Giorno wanted the most was the one he hurt the most. How could he have been so stupid to think it would be alright to get close to someone when it always ended in pain?

"I just got one thing to say t' you, Giorno," the Mista amalgamation spoke, and even as Giorno covered his ears as tightly as he could, the words echoed in his mind with the volume of a jet plane engine.

"I hate you."

He could feel himself crumble, break apart, shatter into a thousand butterflies as red as the blood he spilled of so many victims of his very existence, every one of them crying crystalline tears of anguish and fury and denouncing whatever Giorno used to be. Hundreds of voices screamed and cried and cursed him until Giorno felt nothing at all because he simply wasn't there anymore.

As he fell, faded into the empty void of nothing at all, the fragments of Giorno heard a faint voice calling to him. How it even managed to reach him through all the noise, Giorno had no idea, he had no thoughts anymore except for that single voice.

"…You know it's not your fault, right?"

But that was a lie, everything was his fault, and he was doomed to nothing but endless black darkness, to become nothing at all-

"I can see it! I can see the path perfectly! It's there, Giorno! I see the path I need to take through the darkness! It's time for my true resolve to shine!"

"We need you. I need you."

"Then do whatever ya gotta do. I trust you."

Fingers brush against Giorno's ear and as he reaches up, he touches soft flower petals tucked behind him. A flush crosses his cheeks and Mista grins as he says, "Not as good as a crown but it'll do."

"It's okay, Giorno. Everything is. You did good. You did great. So great."

As the words continued to fall around what was left of Giorno, the final pieces of his existence, they were warm and comforting and everything all at once.

"You're fucking amazing."

"You can't change everything. Especially not fate."

"Your carriage awaits!" Giorno's cheeks flush at Mista's words and a sudden urge comes over him. It feels so silly and stupid but after everything, after all of this, and how Mista never changes and the way the man smiles at Giorno in a way no one ever has before, all of it was just- he leans forward to press his lips to Mista's cheek before dashing towards the turtle in a poor attempt to hide his red face.

Yes, you know, something within Giorno's fragments said to him. You know what you are. You know who you are. You know what you're worth. Because others believe. Lies are everywhere and it takes courage to see the truth. To see the reality of things, both good and bad. You've always known that, Giorno, he reminded himself. You are not nothing.

"I-I really like you. A lot."

"Ya mean someone who joined the mafia just because he wanted to change things for the better for his community? Someone who immediately put his life on the line for a guy he'd met just hours earlier? Someone who brought my friends back to life when I thought they were dead and gone? Someone who was deemed worthy by some supernatural arrow-thing way beyond any scope of modern knowledge? That someone?"

"Yes, Giorno. Hell yes."

Giorno knew logically that Gold Experience wasn't there; some part of him recognized that truth but he had to wonder if this was what it felt like to be given life by the Stand. It was gently pushed into him as simply as breathing, an explosion of color and light and sound all at once as the dark void splintered apart into a kaleidoscope of people and places and memories, both good and bad. Giorno could feel himself opening up, taking in all as it was as he was reborn from nothing.

He could feel the voices, the corpses and the burdens of all of his sins slipping away as he simply embraced them for what they were: decisions with consequences. Every day, every single person makes a thousand choices and every single one of them has repercussions. Something that is truly right doesn't exist, and Giorno felt himself recognizing that.

It wouldn't have been fair to be crushed like that, to be disintegrated into nothing when he had so many who truly believed in him. Who chose to take the good with the bad and live for the dream that Giorno had clung to in his darkest moments. No, he had to press on for them. For them, and for himself.

To say that his past was simply gone now would be a lie; his regret and his anguish would always stay with him until Giorno drew his last breath. Those cold, lonely nights where he wallowed alone in his misery and indecision and doubts, they wouldn't simply stop. But they would improve. He could improve. He could be better. Just because he didn't know how to love didn't mean he couldn't learn. It didn't mean he was worth nothing, those visions told the truth, yes, but they also twisted it into the worst version possible. Rather than push them aside like he had done oh so often, Giorno felt like he could finally begin to accept his own failings and shortcomings. As just another part of being human.

A human, not a monster. He was nothing but human, after all.

Giorno opened his eyes to a void full of eyes and everything that had come to pass seemed like nothing but a second in time. The eyes that gazed at him seemed gentler now, no longer viewing him as something to be manipulated and molded to their will but acknowledging his own instead. Acknowledging him.

He raised his gaze to the massive gate before him, the iron bars no longer seeming to cage him inside but to hold back what had nearly destroyed him. The angel perched atop the stone stared at him benevolently, its deep gray tear stains having dried over. And once again, it spoke.

'Who are you, Giorno Giovanna?'

Who am I? How can I answer that? How can I possibly describe what I am or what I want so simply that it would answer the question? Is it even possible to do so? Still, I must press on. I'm not anyone and I'm not no one… I… am just me.

Giorno raised his head to stare at the vast void staring back at him within Iron Maiden's eyes and there, reflected back at him, was the one there for him the entire time.

"There has been so much bloodshed and loss to get me here to this point…" Giorno began as he looked down at his hands, unable to see them without the blood flowing freely from the lives lost and the friends injured because of him, "but I cannot go back, nor do I want to. The only way is forward. I have a dream…"

Giorno clenched his hands into fists, squashing down the pain, grief, sorrow, loneliness, unhappiness, suffering, what his life had always been up until now, unshakeable and inescapable after all this time. But that was what life was, wasn't it? One's suffering cannot be compared to another's for they both are equal in their own way. Picking himself up, walking on despite the chains dragging him down into the darkness, forcing himself to live. Surely, everyone deals with that? Surely he wasn't alone? And surely he knew that by now.

"I have a dream," Giorno repeated before reaching out towards the darkness within Maiden's large eyes. Towards that speck of light reflected back in them that looked like the hands that had been pushing him from behind all this time.

"Who am I? I am worthy," Giorno affirmed. "I am Giorno Giovanna. And I have a dream that I know is just."