Jotaro broke the silence first.
"Explain this properly, Old Man."
As he spoke, he stepped toward the open cell door, hands already sliding into his pockets.
Joseph glanced around the corridor and shook his head.
"Either way, this place is no good for a conversation like this." He adjusted his sunglasses, tone finally turning serious. "Since you're willing to come out, we're changing locations. A gloomy cage like this is no place for a gentleman."
Jotaro tugged the brim of his hat down. His expression remained sour, but for once he didn't argue. With long, unhurried strides, he walked straight out into the corridor.
Holly immediately hurried to his side, joy breaking across her face as she wrapped both hands around his arm. Jotaro clicked his tongue in clear irritation — but notably, didn't shake her off.
Shintaro watched quietly from a few steps back.
Alright. He composed himself. Time to secure a legitimate reason to stay with this group.
Following silently would get him treated as a liability and dropped at the first opportunity. Acting too aggressively would raise suspicion. The balance had to be just right.
He stopped at the cell door, shoulders slightly hunched, wearing an expression of practiced confusion and helplessness.
"Um... Mr. Joestar."
Joseph paused and turned back. "Hm? What is it, kid?"
"Well..." Shintaro lowered his head, letting his voice go a little dry. "I don't actually know where to go. Like I said earlier, I woke up in this cell. I don't remember who I am, or where my home is."
He hesitated — just long enough to make it seem real — then added more quietly, "The only thing I can remember... is my name."
Amnesia might be a tired device, but in a world where psychic manifestations could punch clean through prison bars and steal guns, it was the most reasonable explanation imaginable.
Shintaro raised his head and looked directly at Joseph. His gaze was sincere.
"Mr. Joestar, you clearly understand this 'Stand' power very well. Since I've awakened one myself, could you help me? At least tell me what exactly happened to me."
He paused deliberately, watching the old man's expression.
"And... although you look very old," Shintaro continued carefully, "you give off a remarkably reliable feeling. My instincts tell me that if I stay close to you, I might find clues about my past."
Especially since you own a vehicle, he added in the privacy of his own head.
Joseph's expression melted.
The tension left his jaw, his shoulders, the cautious set of his mouth. He straightened his collar with his mechanical hand and broke into a laugh that was probably heard two corridors away.
"Hahahaha! Reliable? You've got good instincts, kid!" He puffed out his chest with the enthusiasm of a man who had been waiting for exactly this compliment. "That's right — while I may just be a real estate man these days, when it comes to bizarre incidents, no one on this planet has more experience than me!"
Beside him, Avdol shook his head with the patient tolerance of a man who had heard this speech many times.
"Alright then!" Joseph waved a hand grandly and landed it on Shintaro's shoulder with enough force to rattle his teeth. "Since you're also a victim and have nowhere to go, the Joestar Family can take you in for now. Come! Let's go get some real coffee. This place smells like mold and despair, and it's assaulting my nose."
Shintaro let out a quiet breath of relief.
"By the way," Joseph added, already walking, "what's your name?"
"Shintaro."
"Huh. Strange name," Joseph laughed. "But it matches Jotaro's somehow, doesn't it?"
"...Enough, Old Man. Yare yare," Jotaro muttered.
Half an hour later.
A quiet, upscale outdoor café somewhere in central Tokyo.
Sunlight filtered through the overhead leaves, dappling the table with warmth — a complete contrast to the oppressive grey of the detention center they had just left behind.
Jotaro sat at the edge of the seating area, holding a glass of iced cola, gaze fixed somewhere out beyond the café and the street. Holly sat close beside him, her expression peaceful now. As long as her son was out of that place, nothing else needed to matter right now.
Joseph ordered black coffee.
Then, with deliberate care, he placed a Polaroid photograph in the center of the table.
The mood shifted immediately.
"Alright," Joseph said, his voice dropping. "Since everyone's here, I'll get straight to it."
He tapped the photo — the figure with the star-shaped birthmark on its neck.
"Shintaro, you don't know why your Stand awakened. Jotaro, you think this is an evil spirit causing trouble." His jaw tightened. "But this isn't coincidence. And it isn't an illness."
He breathed in slowly.
"The one behind all of this... is a man called DIO."
Shintaro leaned in appropriately, putting on a puzzled expression as he studied the photograph.
"About four years ago," Joseph continued, "a coffin was salvaged from the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Africa. Carved into it was a single name." He paused. "DIO. A nightmare that had been sleeping for a hundred years."
Joseph's voice hardened as he pressed forward.
"A century ago, DIO attempted to steal the Joestar Family's fortune — and my grandfather's body. To accomplish this, he became a Vampire. My grandfather, Jonathan Joestar, fought him aboard a ship in the Atlantic. They perished together... or so we believed."
Joseph's fist closed on the table. His mechanical prosthetic emitted a faint creak.
"But DIO didn't die. He stole Jonathan's body, concealed himself inside that coffin, and survived for a full hundred years."
Jotaro turned his head slightly, eyes settling on the neck area of the figure in the photograph.
"...Stole the body?"
"That's right," Joseph said through his teeth. "That star-shaped birthmark on his neck exists because the body originally belonged to the Joestar bloodline. To be precise — your great-grandfather, Jonathan Joestar."
Avdol spoke then, his tone calm and explanatory.
"Because DIO usurped Joestar flesh and blood, when he awakened and manifested his Stand, that activation echoed backward through the bloodline."
"Echoed?" Shintaro asked.
"Like a signal," Avdol said. "A resonance. When DIO awakened, that resonance forcibly activated the dormant potential within all remaining Joestar descendants."
Joseph nodded. "That's why both I — and Jotaro — suddenly manifested Stands."
His gaze shifted to Shintaro. Sharp, searching.
"As for you," he said slowly, "you're not a Joestar. Yet your Stand awakened at the same time."
Joseph folded his hands. "There are two possibilities. Either you possess exceptional innate potential and were swept up in this global Stand awakening — or you have some connection to DIO himself."
Shintaro immediately grabbed his head, expression twisting as if in pain.
"I — I don't recognize that name at all!" he said quickly. "But I can feel it... something in me is unstable. If this situation isn't resolved, that black thing inside me might go out of control again."
Joseph studied him for a long, measuring moment.
Then he nodded.
"I see."
He slammed his palm onto the table.
"Defeating DIO is the mission of the Joestar Family!"
Jotaro turned his head away and sighed.
"What's that look for?!" Joseph snapped. "Don't act like this has nothing to do with you!"
Jotaro cracked his neck slowly.
"This look," he said flatly, "just means I think your story sounds completely stupid. And extremely hard to believe, Old Man."
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