Chapter Text
Anasui could still feel the sensation of an arm being impaled through his chest as he was plunged into darkness, he wondered to himself if this was what death really feels like. He pondered if the lack of pain was shock, or an impending sign of his end. There was rage and surprise that burned through his core in that defeat, but with no energy to utilize it. He wanted to pick apart the moments that led him to this point in life, but he felt as if they were slipping away too quickly to recall. His mind could only echo the same conclusion he was forced to confront, that he had failed. Anasui closed his eyes for the final time, watching the sky rapidly shift between day and night, waiting for the cold embrace of the ocean he stood in.
He opened his eyes again when his head crashed onto a hard tile floor. Anasui gave a yelp of pain as he cradled his head in his arms for a moment, confused as to where the water went and why everything was suddenly purged into darkness. Is this what the afterlife was? Why was he capable of feeling pain? Is this Hell? Anasui half chuckled at the thought. Though after the initial shock, he realized the pain searing through his chest was gone.
One of the hands holding his head quickly shifted to his chest, only to find that the gaping hole there only moments ago had miraculously disappeared. Anasui quickly sat up and continued to pat around his body, feeling for the fatal injury, only to come up with nothing. Hands finding themselves on the cold tile once more, he looked around the darkness in an attempt to see anything at all, when his eyes caught a beam of light coming from a crack near the floor. Anasui carefully crawled up to it, and felt around to discover a door in front of him. He slowly stood up, finding the doorknob, though right as he was about to twist it open, he heard a voice with a distinctive accent he couldn’t exactly place on the other side.
“You’re in room twelve, aren’t you? On the twelfth floor? Get Kakyoin and Jotaro, too, will ya? Later!”
Anasui’s eyes widened at the mention of Jotaro, and pure instinct took over as he quickly slammed the door open, a flood of bright light invading his senses. It takes a moment to focus on the fact that he’s clearly in some sort of hotel room, with a very surprised man yelling at him in some foreign language from the other side of the bed.
“Ce quoi c'est bordel?! Un autre idiot?”
Ah, French, that was the man’s accent. Anasui doesn’t have much time to process before a rapier is pressed against his throat, the culprit, a large silver knight-looking stand hovering near him. He sighed, even if he could take this guy, which he definitely thought he could, this man possibly had information on Jotaro’s whereabouts, and by extension, Jolyne.
“So you can see my Stand then? You lackeys are crawling all over the place!” The french man groaned, obviously annoyed.
“You know Jotaro Kujo? I heard you over the phone, where is he?” Anasui snapped back.
“Why should I tell you anything? You think you can just waltz in here and ask for information like that? Buddy, I’m the one who has a sword to your throat, I’m the one asking questions here!”
“Jesus, can you just shut up? Just tell me where Jotaro is, and I won’t have to kill you. It’s not that hard.”
“Kill me?!” The French man laughed for a moment, “ That’s a rather stupid thing to say when I clearly have the upper hand!”
“Listen fuck-” Anasui didn’t have the chance to continue before a small shadow popped up from under the bed and attached itself to the french man’s shoulders, he held a knife while laughing manically. The poor guy whirled around a few times, trying to grab what looked like a small child. It takes Anasui a moment before he realizes what he was looking at is a doll. A rather disgusting looking one, trying to kill the only lead Anasui has to find the others.
He quickly sprang into action, jumping over the bed and forcefully ripping the doll from the man’s shoulders, throwing it at the opposite wall. All parties took a moment to process what had just transpired before the doll slowly turned it’s head to Anasui and began to yell at him in a furious tone.
“What are you doing?! Aren’t you here to kill them?!? Why were you hiding in the hotel bathroom if you weren’t going to try to kill Polnareff?!”
Anasui scowled at the doll, “What the fuck are you blabbering on about?’
The doll paled for a moment before the man Anasui assumed was named Polnareff took out his stand and proceeded to violently tear the doll into ribbons.
“Jesus, Can I get two seconds to myself without you all trying to kill me?!” Polnareff’s stand quickly returned to holding the rapier next to Anasui’s throat, who in turn, rolled his eyes.
“Did I not just save you? I would’ve thought that would clear me.” Anasui groaned.
“Yeah, you could have done that just to gain my trust! DIO’s lackeys are more than willing to screw each other over to get what they want!”
“Uh- who the hell is DIO?”
Polnareff blinked in confusion, “So you’re trying to tell me you’re a stand user who just so happens to be hiding in my bathroom while I’m being attacked by another user. We’re all being targeted by a guy who is specifically sending stand users to kill us, and I’m supposed to just believe you don’t know who DIO is?”
“How the hell was I supposed to know you’re being attacked? I just popped up in that bathroom two minutes ago!”
“Then how do you know Jotaro if not through DIO?”
“Why am I supposed to know who this DIO guy is? Look, if you’re not going to tell me, then I might as well just kill you for putting me through the trouble. Jotaro’s location or your life, buddy.” Anasui snarls.
“Why would I tell you when you clearly intend to kill him?” Polnareff scoffs back.
Anasui is taken aback for a moment, “Why would I want to kill Jolyne’s dad?”
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Anasui and Polnareff continued to walk down the hallway to the room Joseph had designated them to meet at for the purposes of discussing strategy to defeat the puppet stand the two had just killed. Anasui noticed Polnareff was walking a bit lighter, clearly delighted he had done so well to defeat the enemy stand. Which was a little annoying, considering he would have been far worse off or dead if Anasui hadn’t stepped in.
When Anasui had asked about Jolyne, Polnareff had looked completely dumbfounded. Anasui almost wondered if this random french guy was just allied with a different Jotaro who also just so happened to have a stand. Polnareff seemed to be convinced that was the case, though that seemed too specific to be true.
Still, despite the fact that Polnareff seemed to be dead set on keeping Anasui hostage, at least he had agreed to let Anasui talk to Jotaro. Anasui shook with anticipation and fear, though tried to dial it down in order to not let the anxieties show. How could he not be in such a state, though?! He thought he had been killed less than half an hour ago, not to mention separated from the group. And the magnitude of events that were taking place at that moment…
“Wait…” Anasui paused in front of Polnareff so suddenly that the man nearly ran him over.
“What is it now?” Polnareff groaned.
“Was the sky being uh… weird earlier? Like, as if it was hopping between day and night by the second?”
Polnareff was silent for a moment before he began to burst out in laughter. Anasui glared daggers at him as he held his stomach while he howled. “Hold on, repeat that again?”
“So you didn’t see it.” Anasui grit his teeth, “Let's keep moving.”
“Oi, oi, oi, wait right there!” Polnareff snapped out of his fit, “When did I say you could start moving without me?”
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If Anasui wasn’t sure if he wanted to snap Polnareff’s neck before, he had made up his mind when the man shoved him through the hotel door as if he was a prison guard from Green Dolphin Street throwing Anasui back in solitary. It seemed the two’s less than graceful entrance had interrupted whatever conversation had been taking place beforehand, and as he scanned the room, counting four men all staring at him and Polnareff. Though there was one man in the back, dressed in a long black coat, pants, and hat. The two locked eyes, and Anasui immediately knew he had found the right Jotaro.
A sense of relief washed over him before it was abruptly cut short by another shove from Polnareff. And that was more than enough of a reason for Anasui to spin around as he summoned his stand in a rage.
“Will you LAY OFF?!” He yelled, “I have done nothing but help your dumbass since I landed on the tile floor of that shitty bathroom, and I have to walk around with that sword attached to my neck?!” He whipped around, while he noticed the others were clearly on edge, he frankly didn’t give a shit. This situation was too weird, too annoying, and he had been away from the others for far too long, as far as Anasui was concerned, he had just as much of a good reason to be on edge as the others. His hand shot up as he pointed at Jotaro.
“YOU!” He shouted, “Why are you here? Where’s Jolyne, and what the fuck is going on?!”
The room is plunged into silence for a few moments. No one dares to speak, though the attention is clearly on Jotaro, awaiting his answer to such an accusatory question.
“What the fuck are you talking about? I don’t know anyone named Jolyne.” Jotaro bit back in a blunt manner.
Anasui was taken back yet again, wondering what kind of situation he had been thrust into. He had half a mind to turn his stand on Jotaro for daring to forget his own daughter, though when he looked into Jotaro’s eyes, he couldn’t help but notice something. For the few moments Anasui had known Jotaro before this mess, he couldn’t help but notice the prominent wrinkles under his eyes, bags laid heavy as if the man had held the world’s weight on his shoulders.
The bags and the wrinkles, they were gone. This Jotaro didn’t look as if he had a nineteen year old daughter, he looked… fresher.
“Sorry to butt in on this… whatever this is… but who the hell did you just drag in here Polnareff?” Anasui looked over to see an old man was the one who had piped up. He almost cringed at the amount of beige this guy was wearing.
“I don’t know his name or anything, but after I called you earlier he just popped out of the bathroom in my hotel yelling about how if I didn’t tell him who Jotaro was, he’d kill me!” Polnareff huffed, “Then that other stand user came back to finish the job, we took care of him, but afterwards this guy was back on the same script!”
The others all exchanged glances, Anasui’s eyes were trained on Polnareff.
“I asked him if he was working for Dio, and apparently he’s never heard of the guy! Then he goes off spouting about Jotaro’s daughter or something!”
That was when the room erupted into a symphony of vocal confusion. Through the sea of noise Anasui could make out a particular comment from the old man.
“But Jotaro is only seventeen!”
Shocked, Anasui attempted to quiet the room, “WAIT!” He yells, getting the others to calm down some, “seventeen? What year is it?” He asks cautiously.
The red haired man is the one to answer him, “It’s 1989…”
1989. He was three years old in 1989...
Anasui sank to the floor, his hand came up to feel that particular area in his stomach once again. He’d forgotten the particular pain, sure, but he would never forget the feeling. Because while the physical hole was gone, what he had in its place was the sinking panic and utter confusion of his current situation. In the most critical moment, he had lost his place, seemingly in time itself. Why was this happening to him?
Movement in his peripheral jolted him out of his train of thought, and as he looked up, the old man had kneeled in front of him with a very serious look on his face.
“Look, I have to ask you something. Are you here to cause us any harm?”
He made sure to look the old man in the eye, “I have no reason to.” He answered.
The old man nodded and stood up, “In that case, can I offer you a room tonight? It’ll give us a chance to sort everything out, and it’ll give you some time to think.”
Reluctantly, Anasui nods.