Work Text:
A stand using murderer was on the loose and a young student, a friend of his uncle, had been killed. Jotaro’s trip to the town of Morioh wasn’t meant to be this complicated. His original mission in the coastal town originally had only two simple parts; track down Josuke to discuss his pending inheritance, and investigate the odd spirit photos his grandfather had produced. He hadn’t expected things to take the sharp turn that they had. The discovery of the Arrow and the abilities it could produce became a retrieval mission as well as a mission to catalogue all of the stand users that had been created as a result, already dragging his stay on much longer than he had intended and now this.
“Yare, yare…” he muttered quietly to himself as he left the last tailor on his list. Nothing matched the button Shigechi had left behind, not a single shop he’d visited had or had seen anything similar in any recent time. It seemed he’d reached a dead end in his search.
Reaching into the inner pocket of his modified lab coat, Jotaro withdrew his small black notebook, allowing it to fall open to a page he had bookmarked. The marine biologist’s sharp turquiose eyes scanned the list he’d compiled, searching for a name he might have missed. With a frown he found none, they’d all been checked off. He was half a second away from shoving the book back into his pocket with an irritated sigh when a voice called his name.
His annoyed glare shifted to the side, falling upon his uncle’s silver haired classmate. The small boy had called out in greeting but seemed to shrink back slightly from the weight of Jotaro’s slightly less than friendly gaze before nervously inquiring about his search.
“No, not really. There’s nothing yet.” Was his only reply as he turned and began to walk away, opting to wander for a bit, thinking he might eventually stumble across something that could help.That seemed to be how most things had happened during his adventures in Egypt.
Eyes sliding unfocused for a minute, his mind drifted back to the events that had taken place ten years ago, the friends he made, the stand users he’d defeated and the friends he’d lost along the way. Six of them had trekked out into the desert, but only three of them had managed to find their way home. His thoughts brought him to memories of a boy, of much taller stature that the silver haired student, but who wore a strikingly similar uniform. Red hair, amethyst eyes, and a wide smile…
Quickly the taller man pulled himself from those thoughts when he felt the presence of Koichi beside him, talking to him.
Jotaro’s brows furrowed slightly and he once again gave short and curt answers. A silence fell between them and it was obvious that Koichi was searching for something to fill it with, though Jotaro hoped he’d just leave it. Carrying on a conversation wasn’t something he was particularly interested in or something he felt like he had the energy for.
Just as the student seemed to have a thought and opened his mouth to voice it, a sign in a window caught Jotaro’s eye. He stopped, leaving Koichi to carry on a few steps before he realized he’d been left behind. The older male’s eyes scanned over the messily lettered mixture of hirigana and kanji: “We also do simple tailoring”.
His attention turned to the shop sign, “Centipede Shoes”. A shoe store. Sometimes shops offered other small services and he suddenly felt like an idiot for not considering that possibility before.
When the enemy stand attacked, Jotaro immediately went on the defensive. If he had been alone, no question, he would have gone after the killer himself. But, he wasn’t. Koichi was with him; a young student and Josuke’s friend. The young boy had a stand of his own, but Echo was weak in comparison to his Star Platinum and he wasn’t sure what good it could currently do against the seemingly relentless bomb stand. As soon as the seasoned stand user realized the gravity of the situation, his mind flashed back to Egypt once again.
Avdol, Iggy, Kakyoin. All strong and capable on their own, older, stronger, and more skilled than the boy currently fighting at his side and they still had been cut down in the midst of battle. Jotaro could feel something cold gripping his lungs, a feeling he couldn’t quite place. Anxiety? Fear? Whatever it was rose to his throat and he felt as though every breath was a struggle to take in.
One misstep and he could die and no stand ability could bring him back.
No. Not again.
He had to protect, not pursue. He had to get Koichi out of there and to safety. He needed to make sure the young boy made it out of this alive. It was with that in the forefront of his mind that he gave his orders to stay close and try to retreat. He drove Star Platinum’s fists into the toy-like stand relentlessly until his knuckles bled. He stopped time over and over again in an effort to defeat the thing until he was was forced to kneel with one knee pressed against the floorboards of the shop.
Koichi hadn’t listened. Jotaro wasn’t sure why he’d expected him to. The kid was too zealous in his want to catch the killer and prove himself, that much was obvious in the very beginnings of this fight.
When the bomb stand flew towards Jotaro in his attempt to draw attention away from the student, the man was exhausted, too tired to move in time to avoid the blast that slammed into him. Star Platinum managed to manifest in front of him to take the brunt of it, dulling some of the impact, but pain still ripped through him. His body flew back, slamming into something the biologist guessed had been made of wood. His head bounced against the wall and shrapnel tore into his skin, leaving wounds that seeped blood.
For a while, everything wend black.
When he began to regain consciousness again, he was barely aware of anything around him. He’d been moved, that much he could tell after a few moments of fighting to manage a single coherent thought. Through hazy vision, he could tell there was movement close by, talking, yelling, though he couldn’t hear everything through the ringing in his ears.
Groaning, Jotaro managed to lift his head enough to see past the bill of his white hat, and what he saw caused his breath to hitch in his throat. A stand, small but humanoid, green and white with yellow eyes. It was hard for him to make out specific details with his vision fading in and out the way it was but… It couldn’t be.
More movement and Jotaro caught the flash of a green uniform and a body laying on the ground with the owners face being brutally ground into the pavement by a blond man.
“K-Kakyo--” No. It wasn’t. It couldn’t be. Straining, Jotaro forced his eyes to focus and Koichi’s beaten and prone form became clear along with the dialogue being exchanged.
"But even I was able to figure out your name. You’re not that big of a deal. You might get away for now, but how do you feel? A little brat like me managed to find out what your name was. I’ll say it again. A little brat found you out! You’re a complete idiot! I’ll be looking forward to seeing you in the next world!”
In the next moment the green uniform became drenched in red blood as a fist shot through the boy’s middle. Jotaro felt the blood in his own veins run ice cold. His pupils contracted, his lungs seized up and refused to draw in breath. Suddenly time seemed to move in slow motion as the fist was dislodged and Koichi’s body fell to the ground once again, a hole ripped through his chest and part of his abdomen, exposing his organs, or what was left of them. He didn’t move, didn’t even twitch.
Again, Jotaro flashed back to Egypt. He hadn’t been present when Kakyoin had been killed, but he’d seen the aftermath. He’d seen the body carted away, he’d seen the hole that had been torn through him, the blood that stained the green uniform a muddy red just before the Speedwagon Paramedics had zipped the bag closed. He’d given his life to discover DIO’s secret, and now Koichi…
He’d failed. Again, he’d failed, and again someone had died. Jotaro felt anger and frustration bubble in him in a way he hadn’t experienced since he was seventeen. Star Platinum practically bellowed in rage in the back of his mind.
Letting out a quite hiss of pain, Jotaro forced himself to move, willed himself to stand. The edges of his vision were tinted black and he was dizzy from the blood loss, but he elected to do his best to ignore it and push onward, nothing on his mind but an intense need to make the blond killer pay. If there was one thing he could do, he could do that.
When Star Platinum’s fists stopped Killer Queen’s attack, Yoshikage Kira turned to meet the hard glare of two glassy turquoise eyes, filled with killer intent and tears that seemed to well, but refused to fall past the other man’s thick lashes.
The first crack of Star Platinum’s knuckles against Kira’s skull had been the most satisfying. After that, Jotaro unleashed hell on the killer’s face and body, Star Platinum using his godly reflexes to land punch after punch in rapid succession, so fast even he had a hard time keeping track of how many times he hit the man.
Feeling his gathering strength waning, Jotaro allowed Star to land one last punch to Kira’s face, sending him flying across the street to lay flat in a bloody heap. Blinking slowly, Jotaro let out several shaky breaths through his nose, his body shuddering. He suddenly felt like he had several hundred pounds of weights sitting on his shoulders.
His eyes wandered to Koichi’s body on the ground in front of him. The blackness around his vision was slowly closing in and he could see that the boy wasn’t breathing, but if he squinted he could see the faint pulse of his heart through the gore that was his chest. It was thready, weak and fading but it was there. The last time Jotaro had seen that wound the heart was completely still, it’s owner long dead.
Despite his tongue feeling heavy and his mouth feeling bone dry, Jotaro couldn’t stop the words that seemed to tumble past his lips.
“Koichi-kun,”
Kakyoin.
"If it weren’t for you, I would have been dead. You did well fighting all by yourself. You have my respect, Koichi.”
Kakyoin.
“You’ve matured.”
Jotaro’s features softened as a smile found it’s way to his lips, just as the blackness closed in and his legs gave out from underneath him. The sound of Josuke and Okuyasu yelling in the distance, sounded faint and muffled against his eardrums. It was the last thing Jotaro Kujo heard before he fell face down and slipped once again into unconsciousness.
If Josuke hurried, the boy might survive.
Koichi could live.
Kakyoin.