Crusader of Life III: Tales from Passione

Bongiorno, Naples!

"Don Giovanna, there's a message for you."

"Who's delivering it?"

"Andrea, sir."

Giorno furrowed his eyebrows. Mista was on a mission with Andrea, and the two of them were told only to come back once they completed that mission. Mista wouldn't have let anyone come back until the job was done.

"Let him in," he said. "I need to have a word with him."

After some time, Giorno's bodyguards finally delivered Andrea to the main room.

"Why is it that you came back without Mista?" Giorno demanded. "If he hasn't returned, it means the mission isn't complete."

"Forgive me, Don," Andrea bowed. "Our target saw us coming, and... well, this is what I've come to tell you, but... Mista... Mista was killed."

"What?" Giorno shouted. He shot up from his chair. "No, there's no way anyone can kill him! He's our best gunman!"

"I don't know how it happened, Don," Andrea shuddered. "It was like an invisible force killed him. I'm sorry, but I ran in fear. I'm not equipped to deal with the supernatural."

As Giorno tried to hide the tears in his eyes, he calmly sat back down. "You're forgiven," he murmured. "You can go now."

As Andrea bowed and left, Giorno slammed his fist on the arm of his chair. "Send this message to the strongest Stand users in our organization:" he ordered the bodyguards, "find the man who killed my last living friend."

***

It was a very busy day at Naples's biggest airport. Not much busier than normal, of course, except for a girl pushing her way through the crowd. The girl would normally stop and apologize, but there was no time for that right now. She couldn't slow down, not even for a second. Not with the threat at stake. The girl's bright red hair flew as far as it could from its owner, given it only reached down to her chin. Her blue eyes darted around, looking for somewhere to hide. That's when she saw an open door following into an empty room. She ran towards the door, and slammed it behind her. Breathing heavily, she hovered her head over the toilet and gagged.

A knock on the door startled the girl. "Emily?" a man asked. "Did you make it?"

Just as Emily was about to answer, her stomach turned inside out as she threw up in the toilet.

Outside the bathroom, two boys stood waiting. The taller one shared a resemblance to Emily, with his fair skin and red hair, but with purple eyes instead; the shorter one was strikingly different, with short, jet black hair that was pulled away from his similarly-colored, almond-shaped eyes, but he still shared a similar shade of skin.

As Emily walked out of the bathroom, she muttered, "I hate plane rides."

"At least you didn't barf on someone this time," the shorter boy snickered.

"Daichi!" the older one scolded.

"Sorry," Daichi said as he dipped his head and cracked a smile.

When the three finally pushed their way through the crowd, Emily breathed in fresh air, basking in the clear, Italian sun.

Then, her stomach growled.

"Dad, can we stop somewhere to eat?" Emily asked.

"Not yet," the older man said. "We need to get our stuff to the apartment first."

Emily grumbled. "Fine."

"Lucky for us, we have a person ready to drive us there," the man said. "We just need to find him... ah! There he is."