An explosion rocked the ship from somewhere deep inside. Wooden beams tore free from the roof and rained down on Dio. One dug into his arm. Another pierced his shoulder. Dio clenched his teeth together and bit back a pained hiss. Any more damage to this body, and he might not have the strength to reach his coffin.
But that was a risk he had to take.
Sucking in another breath, Dio let the vampire essence flow through Jojo's–through his veins. He could feel the residual traces of Hamon fight back against his influence. His muscles burned from the conflict, Hamon tearing through his cells almost as fast as he was taking control of them.
But the Hamon couldn't last forever. Not without someone to keep the blood properly circulating in his system, and as Dio felt the pain slowly subside, his lips curled up into a grin.
No more resistance. No more struggling. This body was now, and would forevermore be–
His.
A nearby bolt popped off. Dio dragged himself out of the way just as the pipes it had been securing before came crashing down onto the floor.
And just in time, too, he thought wryly. Fate always seems to have a particular sense of timing. Now, where did I leave that coffin?
Stumbling through the burning wreckage, hauling himself over the gaping holes in the skeleton of the ship, as he shoved a pair of crates out of the way, Dio finally spotted the sleek, black casket amidst the thick curls of smoke oozing out of the ship's boiler. His claws dug into the wood as he pulled himself closer, one inch at a time. Closer. Closer.
At last, he pulled himself next to the coffin. Throwing one arm up over the edge, Dio pulled himself up.
Right into the wide, blue gaze of Erina Joestar.
No one moved.
Then, everyone moved.
Erina Joestar was the first to act, screaming as she reached out to shove him away. Adrenaline must have sharpened her senses to a near inhuman degree.
But Dio was not human. He was so much more than human.
Dio ducked under her pathetic, flailing attempt at an attack and punched her in the face. Erina cried out. The baby tumbled from her grasp, wailing and sobbing into the floor. At least it understood its place properly. It was going to die here. Just like Jojo, moments before. Just like Erina, right now.
"Wryyyyyyyyyyy!" he howled. "Useless useless useless useless! Did you really think someone as weak and untrained as you would be able to deny me, Dio? This was my escape plan. The last person to ever sabotage it would be you, Erina!"
Dio bared his fangs with a hiss. His claws gleamed crimson in the flickering orange light. He leapt off the coffin, hands extended for Erina's throat.
He saw her scramble back in terror. Her hands flailed around on the floor for something. Anything.
She grasped a metal pipe. One of the very same pipes that had been blown loose moments before. He should have seen it coming.
He should have seen it coming.
Stars exploded in his vision. Dio collapsed onto the floor, blood gushing out from his nose.
Blood?
No. No no no no no. He... he was Dio! He was a vampire, destined to live for eternity! There was no way he could be wounded by something so primitive. So desperate.
Unless...
Unless.
He'd used all of his power to seize control over Jojo's body. Though the muscles responded to his command in an instant, they were still muscles. Human muscles. Human body.
"No!" he shrieked. Dio tried to push himself off the floor, but his head was still spinning. Cursing, Dio smashed his palm through the wooden floor of the ship. It hurt. It hurt so much, the splinters biting into his skin, tearing through his skin. The pain helped to reorient himself, and he staggered to his feet.
Just in time to catch Erina's eyes as she pulled the coffin shut behind her, the baby tucked around her chest.
The ship exploded.
And that was that.
DIO watched his mother's reaction. Her face flit through so many expressions in so short a time. Confusion. Shock. Horror. Grief. Sadness.
At last, she said, "I'm disappointed in you, Dio."
"Oh? Are you?" DIO's lips curled into a grin.
"Yes. I did my best to teach you from right to wrong, but you have become no better than your father."
At that, DIO's smile died an ugly death. No better than his father? Was she in denial, or just plain stupid? He was nothing like his father. No, he was better. So much better.
"That man," he spat, "was a lazy sack of shit. He was happy to stay in that run-down shack, to rot away on that rickety old bed so long as he had booze to fill his stomach and whores to suck on his dick. I refuse to rot away. I have taken everything that I wanted, everything I needed to live a long and happy life."
"And yet you are not happy," his mother replied. "Your father was not happy, either."
"And how are you so sure of yourself?"
"Because I knew him when he was truly happy." His mother glanced away, and her fingers clutched her shoulders as a fond expression flashed across her face. "He was kinder, then. He took me on long trips out into the countryside to watch the birds fly south for the winter, brought me to see his friends and hear them play music, walked with me out in the city on the dark, cold nights so we could dance together under the moonlight."
"Was this before or after your aristocratic family cast you out?"
His mother didn't speak. Her shoulders did not so much as twitch to give her away, but as DIO watched, he saw the faint glimmer in her eyes vanish, and he grinned viciously.
"The dress you always wore, whenever that man did not have the energy to wander around town? The one you thought he loved the most? Lord Joestar owned one exactly like it for his own, departed wife. Both of them, woven from silk, I believe? Not something a poor woman could ever get her hands on."
His footsteps made no sound as he stepped closer to her. The only sound that gave him away was the soft rustling of cloth as his pants brushed against cobwebs frozen to the spot, so dainty and so thin that they shattered the moment he got close.
"That man only loved you for your weight in gold," he hissed. "When you were no longer any use to him, he tossed you out like the worthless woman you are."
His mother whirled on him. He thought he saw her lips twitch, and for a moment, he thought she would finally start talking sense.
Then, she took a deep breath, and replied, "That is no excuse to be unkind, Dio. Your father was going through a tough time. It's only natural I would stay with him, through his best, and through his worst. Just like I shall do with you."
Idiot woman. Was she truly so blind to how that man had used her? How that man had abused her and would never love her as much as he had loved himself? What had he done that was so deserving of her complete, and unending devotion?
DIO glowered over her, fangs bared to make a response, when he heard a high pitched scream echo out from somewhere in those halls. His mother heard them too, and she turned to follow them.
"Oh no!" she gasped. "Hello? Who is there? Are you hurt?"
Yes. Badly, from the sounds of it. DIO could tell from the inflections of their voice that their jaw must have been broken. Nukesaku had fallen.
DIO cursed. Out of all the times–and he was not even in his room! What kind of a host would he be, if he were not there to welcome Joseph Joestar and his family to their demise?
"You! Stay there," he hissed at his mother, and he stormed out the door. Of course, his mother followed him, even through the manor's twisting hallways and pitch black corridors. Who the hell was he to stop her? If she wished to run to her doom, then so be it. It would be the final addition to the incredibly long list of poor decisions the woman had made over her incredibly insignificant life.
Again, he heard Nukesaku's sniveling voice, begging for mercy down the hall. Jotaro Kujo had gotten his hands on him, then, and had taken to his deception as kindly as he'd expected. How unfortunate it had been that Polnareff had been the one to run into Vanilla Ice instead of them.
How very unfortunate indeed.
They entered another corridor, one that led directly to the stairs ascending to his room, dimly lit with the dying gasps of candlelight and drenched in a frosty shade of blue from the ice clinging to the walls. DIO paid them no mind, trudging through until he'd reached the end.
His mother did, however. He heard her stop.
For reasons he didn't care to think about, he stopped with her.
"What is it, woman?" he said, back to her.
"You have so much gold," she mumbled.
"Yes. I never noticed."
"I've never seen so much in my entire life, not even... not even in my father's manor. How?"
"Gifts," DIO said, and since it was clear they would not be moving anytime soon, he stopped to peel Polnareff's dried blood off his nails. "From people I've killed, and people I've not. I don't bother to remember."
"And it's all... here. On the floor." DIO heard gold coins rattle, and he looked over his shoulder to find his mother wading through the piles of treasure and gold coins, enough perhaps to buy the Joestar manor three times over. "What a mess..."
She'd said it in such a low, soft-spoken tone of voice, like she was disappointed. Such a thing would normally be beneath him, but...
But father had left things all over the floor before. His mother had never chastised him then. She'd been more than happy to break her back, putting away the mess he'd always made. To look after other people's mess was blessed work, she'd said.
"Father left more of a mess than I ever did," he blurted out.
His mother looked up, her expression unchanging. "You should not strive to be like your father, Dio," she said. "Your father was... your father was suffering. He was still human, still someone worthy of love and patience, but he was not someone to be followed."
"As opposed to you?" DIO sneered. "You, who would have me throw away what little I had to the bastards on the street? You, who saw how we suffered, and told me I had to suffer more to reap a reward I would never receive in my lifetime?"
"That's not what I meant, Dio."
"Then what did you mean, mother? Because I understood what father taught me, and I understood it well. I have been rewarded for my sins, and I shall continue to reap my reward until the day I die!"
"That is nothing compared to the reward you would have received if you could find the strength in you to be kind. A life of sin is not a life worth living."
"And how is it so? My father lived in sin. He practically bathed in it, and he got everything he ever wanted. He taught me the true way the world works–that sacrifices must be made to live a happy life. You would have me sacrifice myself for nothing! My father may have been a wicked man, but he was the only true parent I ever had, the only one who taught me anything worth a damn!"
DIO heard the gold coins shift on the floor. He looked back.
His mother was on her knees. Her shoulders trembled with every breath she took, and as her fingers grasped at the glittering trinkets on the floor unconsciously, DIO realized she was crying.
"I'm sorry," she said between sobs. "I'm so, so sorry. I thought... I thought if I loved him enough, he would understand. I thought you would understand how much you both meant to me. I should have done more. I should have been more, but I... I was so scared. I didn't think I could do it. Be like your father, be like you. I wanted to give you both so much more, but I wasn't brave enough to push myself any further. I'm sorry, Dio. I'm so sorry."
Ages ago, when he was still a little boy, crying himself to sleep, he'd dreamt of being surrounded by riches, of having his enemies at his feet, begging for mercy that would never come.
He had all of that, now.
His manor was practically overflowing with gold in every room. His generations-long enemies, the Joestar family, would be laid dead on the street come morning.
But right now, his mother was all he could see. All he could hear.
Suddenly, he was that little boy again, huddled in the corner of their home, on a night when his father had come home, drunk, hungry, and ready to violently beat the first person he'd laid eyes on. He'd thought himself clever, hiding away in his room on nights like that. He'd thought himself smart, knowing his father would never find him first, not while his mother would rush to the door to welcome him home.
Where was his father now?
Turns out, it's harder than it looks to write a fic that is entirely one long conversation without it becoming incredibly boring. God knows how many times I've rewritten it because I could not figure out how to make it flow in a way that didn't seem like they were just talking about mashed potatoes for 10 minutes.