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On the whole, the room inside the turtle was certainly pleasant, and somehow managed to be spacious enough to fit everyone in, even as more and more people showed up from different time periods. The only problem was, it was full of Joestars.
They were good people, every last one of them, but… well. It was getting rambunctious. That’s what you’d get for shoving six - seven? - strong personalities who also happened to be related in a room, Koichi supposed. Josuke and Jolyne both liked yelling. There were two Josephs, both of whom were younger than the one he knew and both incredibly high-energy, constantly weirded out by the other’s presence, and prone to annoying everyone in the room. Giorno was quieter, but seemed to unnerve people with his intensity - including Koichi himself, who he seemed to treat as a respected older friend even though they were the same age and had never met. Yet, Koichi reminded himself. Jonathan was lovely, although also forceful and unrelentingly noble, which seemed to rub some of the others the wrong way. And the weirdly youthful Jotaro just looked persistently like he was about to commit murder. It was probably for the best that he was the one who’d taken up the job of carrying the turtle around most of the time.
It was loud. Really loud. There was some important discussion going on that had started with sharing information about the corpse parts and had devolved into a clamour of lots of raucous voices that wanted to be heard, those of Polnareff, Mista, Hermes and Caesar mixing in with the Joestar hubbub, all mostly in English with the occasional break out into Japanese or Italian, and thus incredibly hard to keep track of. Speedwagon looked blissfully happy, Rohan was busy drawing the scene, Narancia and Trish were somehow managing to hold down a card game in the corner, and Koichi wanted out. So he took a deep breath, decided that if his input was needed someone would come find him, and left.
The quiet outside in Morioh was blissful. He emerged next to one of the cafe tables, upon which the turtle was perched, dozing. In one of the chairs sat Jotaro’s red-haired friend, leant back with his feet up on one of the other seats and reading a book. He glanced at the turtle, then looked up at Koichi.
“Oh hey,” he said, closing the book. “How’s it going in there?”
“It’s… noisy,” Koichi replied with a guilty shrug. “Please don’t let me disturb your reading. I just came out for a break.”
The other student waved a hand. “Oh it’s fine, it’s just something to do while taking my turn to mind the turtle. I dread to think what it’s like in there. It was noisy enough with the six of us back in Egypt.” He spoke lightly and regarded Koichi with an interested expression. “I don’t think we’ve had a chance to properly say hello, have we? I’m Noriaki Kakyoin.”
“Koichi. Koichi Hirose,” he replied. “You’re a friend of Jotaro’s, right? It’s strange to think you’re just a couple of years older than me right now. You’d be in… your late twenties in my time, like Jotaro, right?”
Kakyoin grimaced. “Yeah, I guess I would have been, were it not for dying. Maybe I would’ve got to meet you guys if I’d been able to go along with him. Although…” His expression turned pensive. “I guess now I’m alive, maybe I’ll get the chance to do that after all.”
“Oh, I’m really sorry!” Koichi spluttered. He’d thoroughly put his foot in it now. “I didn’t mean-”
“It’s all right!” Kakyoin replied with a laugh. “It’s… weird. Knowing I didn’t make it the first time around. But it makes me anticipate my future more.”
Koichi nodded, unsure of how to respond to that. He sat down in one of the other chairs and folded his hands awkwardly, twisting his fingers into the fabric of his uniform and absently noting that it was about the same colour as Kakyoin’s. He wondered if he’d already screwed up on a good first impression - he knew next to nothing about the other guy, only that Jotaro liked and respected him, and Jotaro’s good opinion was important. And, in a way, that meant that Kakyoin’s good opinion was important as well. The silence dragged on a few long moments, but thankfully a thought seemed to occur to Kakyoin, who leaned over the table conspiratorially. “So tell me, Koichi. What’s Jotaro like in his late twenties, anyway?”
“Um! Well, uh…” Koichi found himself glancing around, checking to see if Jotaro hadn’t appeared behind him. “He’s intense. He doesn’t say a lot. You know, his daughter came as a surprise - he didn’t really ever mention his family to us.”
“I’m already not ever letting him live that down,” Kakyoin interjected with a grin. Koichi found himself grinning back on reflex. Somehow this guy was more mischievous than he’d been expecting.
“But I admire him a lot,” Koichi continued earnestly. “He’s so calm and controlled. And really smart. He figures out what needs to be done and just does it. And even if he doesn’t say it, I know he really cares about us, and our town.”
Kakyoin sat back and smiled fondly. “I guess he grew up some. But that does sound like Jotaro.”
“Did you both get your Stands at the same time?” Koichi asked, feeling a little more at ease.
“Oh no, not at all. I’ve had mine as long as I can remember.”
Koichi’s eyes widened. “Oh, can I see? If you don’t mind, that is.”
“Sure! Hierophant Green!” A flurry of shimmering green and silver tendrils emerged from behind Kakyoin, most coalescing into a humanoid figure in stylised armour and a mask, two of them disappearing into the cafe.
“Tea?” Kakyoin offered, holding out his hands. Koichi mirrored the gesture, somewhat confused, then jumped in alarm as the re-emerging tendrils deposited a saucer and brimming tea cup into his palms before rejoining the main body of the Stand.
“Oh… thank you.” Koichi looked up at the figure of Hierophant Green and politely took a sip of tea, trying not to feel intimidated and feeling so anyway. The Stand looked back down at him with metallic golden eyes, its expression unreadable. Koichi gasped.
“Oh!” he exclaimed. “We have the same eyes! Echoes, Act 3!” Kakyoin looked on quizzically as Koichi’s Stand emerged, the small green and white figure taking a fighting stance and looking up at Kakyoin with equally golden metallic eyes.
“Who’s this guy?” its robotic voice chimed out. “Master, let’s take this MU-THA-FUC-KER down!”
“Um, that won’t be necessary. Thanks,” Koichi said quickly, mortified.
Kakyoin didn’t seem to be offended, though. Instead, his grin widened in delight. “Oh, it talks! Wonderful!”
“Haha, yeah, but only in this form,” Koichi replied bashfully. “In its Act 1 and 2 forms, it doesn’t, but it has a longer range and can do different things. Well… I don’t think I’ve even come close to figuring out everything I could do with it.”
Kakyoin nodded. “You know, I may be outgunned from time to time when it comes to raw strength, but having a versatile Stand is a real blessing.” He smiled up at his Stand, which looked back down at him with an almost knowing tilt to its otherwise expressionless head. “Even over all the time I’ve had Hierophant Green, I’ve always been coming up with new possibilities. You’ve got that to look forward to, Koichi.”
Koichi met Echoes’ eyes and smiled. “It does feel great whenever I work out a way to solve a problem with it. Although I do wonder if I’m really smart enough to make the most of it…”
Kakyoin raised his eyebrows. “Let me guess - you don’t get on with school so well?”
“Well, I get on with it fine, I’m just… not great, you know?”
Kakyoin gave a swipe of his hand. “Ignore that. School’s not important.” He caught Koichi’s gaze and winced slightly. “Well. It is important. You should still totally study, I guess. But the point is, whether or not you’re good in school’s got nothing to do with whether you’re smart enough for your Stand. It’s an expression of your own fighting spirit. If you think you need to be sharp to figure it out then trust me, you’re already sharp. Don’t hold yourself back by thinking you’re not. Keep thinking outside the box, and you’ll keep surprising yourself with what you can do.”
Koichi beamed. “I will! Thank you!”
“No, thank you.” Kakyoin placed a hand on the book he’d laid down on the table, absently running his fingers over the cover. It was in English - Koichi wondered if Kakyoin found it easier to follow conversations with the earlier Joestars than he did. “You know, until I met…” He paused, eyes distant for a moment, before starting again a little more firmly. “Until I met Jotaro, Abdul and Mr. Joestar, I thought I was alone in the world as a Stand user - that there was no one who could understand me. After meeting them and Polnareff I had friends, true friends, for the first time. We fought so many other Stand users together. But now... “ He looked down at the turtle, from which a faint sound was emanating, like the sound of a crowded room heard from down a long corridor. “Now there’s so many more of us. A whole community, drawn together, all of these friends and allies I never dreamed I’d have. It’s amazing. Honestly, it’s a bit overwhelming too.”
“Sometimes you just need some peace and quiet, huh?” Koichi said. “Even if it’s your friends.”
“I guess so. I’m really glad we got to talk. I hope we can be friends as well.” Kakyoin offered a hand across the table, Western-style. Koichi felt a warm glow of happiness infuse him as he shook it.
“Me too!”
Kakyoin leant back and made a beckoning gesture with his hand, as if to draw Hierophant Green back to himself. But as he did so, there was a tremble in the ground, and the table rattled. The air took on a kind of static crackle that was starting to become all too familiar, and over on the other side of the street sparks of purple-tinged lightning indicated the presence of an oncoming enemy.
Kakyoin’s smile dropped into a disgusted expression. “Ugh, this again.” He swung his legs off the chair and got to his feet, looking down at his companion.
“Koichi. Let’s try not to interrupt that meeting in there if we can help it. How about we take these guys on together?”
Hierophant Green’s legs began to unravel, the Stand spreading itself defensively out across the street. As it did so, it extended a closed fist down to Echoes, who bumped it with its own.
Koichi rose from the chair in a burst of confidence. “Right! Come on Echoes, let’s show these guys what we can do.”
ゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴゴ
A POWERFUL FOE DRAWS NEAR!
⇐==== TO BE CONTINUED =====