Beaches of Sardinia
Evening

? ﾝﾅﾥ? - A Dream

Over the many, many years since Giorno Giovanna first visited Sardinia, he'd noticed that not much about the place actually changed. The beaches were always the same, the flowers were always in full bloom, and the children were always playing outside.

Some years ago, in 2002, the Don of Passione erected a cemetery on one of the beaches. The rocks from the surrounding sands decorated the since-furnished beach. Giorno had personally made sure that the construction was done properly, even moving headstones himself on a few occasions.

This year, he was back again. From his privately owned airstrip, he, Fugo, Mista, and his wife Grace didn't make a single sound on the drive over. The residents of Sardinia knew about his yearly visits, and found them fairly odd. "What would a mafia boss be doing here?" they would ask. "Is he here for trouble?"

What no-one would expect was that they were here for the opposite: they were here only for peace.

The car rolled to a stop next to the stairs of the mafia-funded cemetery. Grace waited in the car, while Fugo opened the trunk and got out a large briefcase.

Giorno, Fugo, and Mista entered the cemetery in single file, respectfully greeting the groundskeeper, who had long since grown accustomed to the yearly visits.

Inside, they spotted a pink–haired individual solemnly reading a headstone. Trish Una, who was taking a break from her tour.

The three approached her, and wordlessly exchanged greetings. Giorno turned to the grave Trish was reading. There were three in a row.

Leone Abbacchio

25/03/1980 – 19/04/2001

'To be remembered.'

Bruno Bucciarati

27/09/1980 – 19/04/2001

'To remain together.'

Narancia Ghirga

20/05/1983 – 19/04/2001

'To fly high.'

Giorno turned to Mista and nodded.

Mista summoned ｢Sex Pistols｣, all six of whom hovered over to Fugo, who had set the large briefcase down, and opened it.

Number 1 and Number 2 grabbed a hold of a wine bottle, the most valuable Giorno could find of Leone's favourite, and took it over to Abbacchio's headstone.

Number 3 and Number 5 found a pot of soil with a white daffodil planted in it, and lifted it to Narancia's grave.

Number 6 and 7 hoisted a pair of zippers and laid them on Bruno's resting place.

The Pistols returned to Mista and sat down on his shoulders. They all understood the significance of the situation, and there was no bickering, no teasing at all coming from any of them. A rare sight for the Stand.

Finally, Giorno picked up the red wine on Abbacchio's grave, opened it, and poured it out on all three graves.

Once the bottle was emptied, Giorno returned it to Abbacchio.

The four remaining friends fell back in line, closed their eyes, and said 'hello' to their fallen comrades.

The future forecasted blue skies.

Local Park
Afternoon

? ﾝﾅﾥ? - Link

Viale was moving on autopilot. He had been for two days now, ever since Sana… did that. School was a blur, Vuoto tried to talk to him a few times in vain, and he'd had the conversation with his father. No matter what Viale tried, his thoughts would stray back to the incident without fail.

He had somehow made it to the park around the corner from school. It was a common meeting place for students for various activities, Viale'd found. Mostly to vape and smoke.

Right now Viale had no idea what he was doing with his after school time. He could be doing homework (Stand homework that Polnareff set), or hanging out with friends. But instead, he was wasting his time wandering around.

Viale was about to return to school when he noticed a glimmer of auburn hair up on the hill. Sana was sitting on top of the tall hill, arms around her knees, holding them close to her chest.

Viale sighed. He knew what he had to do.

He stumbled up the hill, making the whole thing difficult for himself as he scaled the sheer side of the cliff rather than taking the stairs on the other side of the mound.

Sana had noticed him by that point, incredulously wondering what the hell Viale was doing.

Viale finally made it up the steep incline, doubled over, huffing and puffing. "'Sup?" he asked.

Sana was perplexed. "You know there are stairs, right?"

He had not. "Of course."

She rolled her eyes.

"This is quite the sight." He looked around from atop the hill. He pointed off into the distance. "You can see the ocean from here."

"Yeah…"

Viale sighed. "You know why I'm here, though." He sat down next to her, mirroring her position, but resting his arms on his legs instead of around them. When he thought back, Viale could still see the wall, plaster caved in, blood splattered along the edges of the broken material. He waved those thoughts away. "Are you okay?"

"No." She said it without pause, barely a second between hearing the question and speaking the word. "I'm not."

Viale sighed, gently raising a hand to massage his temples. It had been a stupid question. "Sorry."

"Don't be." The words were spoken with bitterness, with a dangerous slant of tone that cut through the space between them like a knife. "You didn't do anything wrong."

He couldn't help but wonder if there was a double meaning to that.

"Neither did you."

Sana glared to her left, staring Viale in the eyes, disbelieving. "I tortured him! I– I committed a war crime! Seriously! I looked it up!" She shot up. "I broke the Geneva Convention! What do you mean 'neither did you'? Yes I did! I should be tried in court!"

Her eyes were closed, trying to stop her tears from falling. She didn't notice Viale getting up.

She felt his arms wrap around her. Her breath hitched. If she was crying before, she was sobbing then, as she leaned into Viale. Viale held her, trying his best to comfort his torn friend.

"You–" he made sure that she could hear him, "You… can do so much good. With or without your Stand. Remember that you're still a good person. Haf Horse… he was scum. He hurt people. The way I see it, he got what was coming to him. But it came at the cost of your sacrifice, and…" He remembered what his father had suggested. "Sana, my dad's got a friend. He's… got a similar Stand to you, apparently, and he's been in a similar situation, too. He asked if you'd want to talk to him."

Sana sniffled. "I-I'd like that," she whispered into his shirt. Viale decided to delicately pet her on the head. Sana giggled in relief. "You're so corny."

Viale considered this mission: complete.

｢Out of the Blue｣

Close-Ranged Stand

Stats

Power: B

Speed: B

Range: D

Stamina: A

Precision: A

Potential: B

Yongen-Jaya
Tokyo
Late Afternoon

? ﾝﾅﾥ? - A Fate that Still Remains

Yongen-Jaya was often considered quiet. Homely. That's why Josuke liked it. It reminded him of home. Sure, he'd left Morioh in good hands, with Okuyasu, Yuya, Koichi, and Yukako, but Josuke couldn't help but worry. It was the town he'd sworn to protect in honour of his grandfather. However, the intrusive skyscrapers of Tokyo weren't very prominent in Yongen. That, and Shizuka's best friend lived nearby, and any friend of Shizuka's was a friend of his. He was almost at the apartment when he got a text from Viale.

Viale Giovanna

Sana's agreed to call

Be cautious, I've only just gotten her to calm down

Josuke sent back a 'Ready in 5' text as he entered the PIN for his apartment.

He'd been thinking about this conversation for a while now. 'Well, that's not entirely true. It only happened yesterday,' he thought. But the topic had really been on his mind since the bizarre summer of '99. Was it really alright for Josuke to pass judgement on Terunosuke Miyamoto? Sure, Angelo deserved his fate, but he wasn't sure about the Enigma. From what Josuke heard, Terunosuke was still a book in the Morioh library.

He was brought out of his head when he heard his phone buzz.

"Hello, this is Josuke Higashikata."

"Um, hi, uhhh, don't you speak Italian?" Josuke heard.

"Oh, yeah, right. Italian, not English. Sorry, Viale, I didn't read the caller ID. Have you got Ms. Rossi there?"

"Yeah, I'll pass you over."

Josuke heard a faint 'do I have to?' before some shuffling.

Viale's Dorm Room
Same Time

"H-hi?"

"Hi, is this Rossi-san?" His voice sounded warm, sort of like the voice of an old friend. She took a deep breath, failing to steel herself.

"Yeah. Uh, Viale told me… that you know about…"

"Yeah, I do. Don't worry, when Viale said that you're not to blame, he was right." Sana was surprised by how much Viale had told him. "Oh yeah, Viale's my cousin, by the way." That explained it. "Well– first cousin, once removed– it's complicated, but we're family, okay?"

"Yeah..." Sana took a moment to think. "C-can you tell me… what you did? I-I just wanna know… if you really were in, y'know, a similar situation."

She heard Josuke chuckle at the other end of the line. "Man, what haven't I done? That's not some weird flex, by the way. Stand business can get… pretty bizarre, sometimes."

"That's a word for it."

Josuke paused. "So, do you want to hear the most gruesome, or the least, first?"

"U-uh, least?" She was unsure. She did not expect this guy that sounded like a childhood friend to have a list of all of the horrible things he'd done.

"Right, well, my Stand, ｢Crazy Diamond｣, can essentially restore anything, living or no, to a previous state. Like if there was a broken table, I could fix it, but I could also turn it back into a tree stump. You get me?"

Sana nodded, but then realised it was a phone call, so said, "yeah."

"But I can also incorrectly fix something. With the table from earlier, I could make one of the legs twisted ninety degrees. So, this one time, this dickhead was riding around town, destroying stuff, so I… uh… snapped his knees and reset them to be backwards."

Sana had a thought. 'Hold on, that was the least gruesome?'

"This other time, I fused a guy into a book."

"Yeah, you've proved your point."

"I haven't even got to Angelo, yet." Josuke sighed. "Look. From what Viale's told me, this guy you fought… was a pretty bad dude." He paused. "Wait, was his last name 'Horse'?"

Sana raised an eyebrow. "Yeah?"

"No way. Just a sec, let me get out my laptop. I think Beneficci made a profile on him."

Sana waited impatiently, kind of annoyed that Josuke was making this about the guy she was stressing about.

"Ha… No way."

"What? What is it?"

"His father… is Hol Horse." Sana heard a chair creak. He'd probably leaned back. "I went to his funeral a few years back. He was an old friend. He helped me fight a Stand user back in '98." Josuke paused. "Hey, I have a question for you. You might need to remember the fight, though."

"Hit me."

"When you were beating him up, what did you feel?"

What did she feel? She felt herself leave. She felt her humanity ebb away. "I– fire. Bloodlust. I felt… absent."

"Hmm. I thought so. There's this thing that happens to Stand users in times of stress. Apparently I had it when I turned Angelo into a rock. That's what Jotaro said, anyway. You really can't blame yourself. That's just a side-effect of being a Stand user – it's unavoidable. Having these powers isn't all sunshine and rainbows."

Sana gave a small smile. "Thanks, Mr. Higashikata. I think I understand."

"No problem, Rossi-san. Call me anytime. Not business hours, though. And not on school nights."

"God, you're just as corny as Viale."

To Be Continued ===