MAGO - Stardust Crusaders X OC

Chapter Eleven: December 4th-11th

And so the journey began. The group spent the first twenty-four hours on a train. Nothing much happened then, just looking out of the window and pleasant conversation. Mr Avdol lent Sana a book of his, about fortune-telling and tarot. Sana wasn't sure she believed in it, but it was certainly interesting to learn about nonetheless. Polnareff tried to flirt with the attendant that brought the group their food. He wasn't successful. Mr Joestar snored a lot. Travelling always made him tired, he said. He'd never gotten over that. Jotaro tried his very best to ignore everyone, and Noriaki kept pointing out interesting things outside the train. Sana ate up the trivia every single time.

The journey still flew by, nonetheless, and soon it was time to take another boat trip. After spending that day on the train, they had to drive up to the harbour, and when they got there, it was four am and completely deserted. Mr Avdol suggested to Sana that she begin to train her Stand there.

So it was then that Sana began her training. Sana took her place at one end of the harbour, and Mr Avdol stood at the other end and placed a rock right on the edge. He walked back over to her. "Please, Hayashi. Use your Stand to destroy that rock."

It was barely ten metres away, and so not a stretch. Sana was sure her Stand's range was over twenty metres, but she'd never had the chance to test it. Still, Sana manifested The Sun, and shot the rock, just as she had before. It wasn't difficult, but she'd only just used enough power to destroy it. That was the balance: the charge time and damage output. She had to figure out how to reduce the charge time and keep the same damage output.

"So, your Stand is primarily long-range," Mr Joestar said. "But that's not always gonna be useful. Do you have a medium or short-range attack?"

Sana shook her head. She'd never considered that. "No. I've never even thought about that."

"Hm," Noriaki said, glancing at The Sun. "Perhaps a medium-range one would be more comfortable for you. What do you think, Avdol?"

"Yes. I agree," Mr Avdol said. "You should try and develop a medium-range attack. However, I don't know if it's going to be easy."

"How exactly do I go about this..?" Sana asked. It was one thing to shoot something at a shorter range, because she could do that, it was fine, but to create a whole new attack...

"Perhaps you should focus on attacking a wider area instead of only one spot," Mr Avdol suggested. "That would be a good place to start."

Sana was ushered closer to the rock and told to attack it, but not how she had before. She wasn't quite sure how to go about that. Stands were a manifestation of the soul's fighting strength. She had to reach deeper within herself, then? She had to create something new, all for herself. And so, how should she destroy that?

Sana stared at the rock, all too aware of everyone's eyes on her and the time constraints. They didn't have all day to do this, just another ten minutes or so until their boat arrived. She had to not destroy everything, just the rock. Just the rock. She had to reach within herself, and-

A medium-range attack. Over a wider area, that was it, yes- like a wave, right? If the last one was a bullet, this was a wave. She had to smooth over the rock until it was gone, like that, like tidal erosions, that made sense, but the question was, could she do it?

Everyone was watching her. Sana took a breath, and closed her eyes. The sun was rising on the horizon, over the water. She felt the sun on her face, soaked it in, and then-

It was all suddenly so warm, like a hot wind had just passed over her. Sana opened her eyes. The rock was in little pieces, and the harbour was singed. Sana glanced back at the others, like she'd done something wrong. Because technically, she had no idea what she'd done, and everyone was so quiet-