The odd group of five were now sitting at a café nearby after Joseph's suggestion to discuss the matter of Stands elsewhere. Joseph and Avdol were sat next to each other, opposite Y/n, Holly and Jotaro, and they were all sipping various drinks. The older woman clung tightly to her son's arm, frequently looking up at his face and sighing in happiness.
"Thank goodness, Jotaro's finally out of that cell," she said softly. Only Y/n nodded in agreement, somehow catching Joseph's attention by the movement.
"So, Y/n," the old man began, "I never got the chance to ask you anything about yourself. Tell me, how's it being my grandson's girlfriend?" The girl's eyes went wide at his question, and she almost choked on her tea in her shock. Joseph laughed heartily at her reaction, "Ah, don't worry, you don't have to disclose anything personal!" he said with a wink, dragging out the final word in a cheeky manner.
Vigorously shaking her head, Y/n rushed to disagree, "No no, Mr Joestar! We're not together! We're barely..." she racked her brain for the best word, "acquaintances!"
Joseph tilted his head to the side in confusion, "You're the one that Holly said was moving in, right?" He paused, waiting until Y/n nodded her head slowly, "So you live with Jotaro, but you two aren't dating?"
"No, we're not," she replied, shaking her head firmly.
"Bu-"
"Cut it out, Gramps," Jotaro interjected, who had until then been watching the entire interaction with a bored stare, "it's not like we sleep in the same room." Y/n flushed at his words, thinking back to the incident that they'd had not long ago.
Outraged at his choice of wording, Joseph turned to Jotaro, "Gramps!" After receiving no apology from his grandson, he sighed and turned back to the girl, "So forgive my asking, but why are you here then?"
Before Y/n could answer, Avdol spoke, "I believe I can answer that, Mr Joestar." All eyes turned to look at the Egyptian man. "That's why Jotaro said 'that makes three now' when saying he was surprised that I also had a Stand, right?" Joseph gasped as Jotaro grunted in agreement.
"So you're a Stand user too!" Joseph blurted out loudly, causing half of the café to swivel around and stare at their table.
Awkwardly nodding, Y/n quietly muttered, "Yeah."
"How do you even know about these evil spirits – or Stands?" Jotaro questioned, narrowing his eyes and pointing at his grandad.
"Right, that is why I came all the way here from New York," he sighed. "But to explain, I'll have to start from the beginning." With that, he pulled out a few polaroid pictures and started an impassioned explanation of how four years ago, there was a hundred-year-old coffin that had been pulled out of the Atlantic Ocean, from just off the African coast, and how after conducting some research, he had found that it was on the boat where his grandad, Jonathan Joestar had died. "The coffin was empty when opened, but I know exactly what was inside and Avdol and I are trying to locate him as we speak!"
"What?" Jotaro questioned sharply, "Him? You're making it sound like there was a person in there who escaped."
Standing up, Joseph slammed his gloved hand on the table, "He's evil incarnate, and his name's Dio!" Holly flinched at the loud sound and Jotaro scoffed, turning around to look outside the window. Y/n sat there staring at the old man, blinking slowly as she processed the bizarre information. "Jotaro! Don't act like this has nothing to do with you!"
"That's not why I'm turning around, Old Man," the delinquent scoffed whilst Joseph's eyebrow twitched and hand shook in agitation. "Do you really expect me to listen to your stupid story, say "Oh, I see" and go with it?"
"Is it really that far-fetched, Kujo?" Y/n slowly questioned.
"The young lady has a point," Avdol said with a small smile, "isn't is also a fact that our spirits are also quite unbelievable?" After a few seconds, Jotaro grunted in annoyance and dropped his argument as Joseph sat down.
Y/n turned to the American man, raising her eyebrows in question, "Mr Joestar?" she asked, "how do you know of these Stand things? So far the only one that can see them are the people that also have..." Trailing off, she looked at Jotaro in surprise, who was still glaring at Joseph.
"Exactly Y/n." Joseph snapped his fingers and Avdol pulled out a black camera from the inside of his russet robe, handing it to the other man. "It's the same reason how I know of Dio's existence! About a year ago, I developed a Stand myself!"
"What!" Holly cried.
"Old Man, what do you-"
Suddenly, Joseph slammed the camera onto the table, and raised his hand up into the air, "I will show you the power of my Stand: Hermit Purple!" Y/n could see a golden glow emitting from his hand, whilst purple thorns sprouted and moved freely in the air. Bringing his hand down, he shattered the camera into two pieces, small plastic chips flying away due to the impact. Everyone stared at the broken remains for a few seconds, Y/n half thinking that it would burst into flames or something. Eventually, a soft whirring sound came from the smashed object and a photo came out from the rectangular slot. A little anticlimactic, Y/n thought with a small frown.
"Did you see it?" Joseph asked eagerly, "the purple thorns, that's my Stand! Its power is to take spirit photos from far away places." He grabbed the picture and held it up, showing it to the three people that did not know of his Stand's existence.
"But he has to smash a thirty-thousand-yen camera every time he does it," Avdol added, smirking and rolling his eyes.
"Sir!" a waiter yelled, barrelling towards their table at the front of the café. "Is everything okay?"
"Yes, we're fine. You can leave," the Egyptian man dismissed with a wave of his hand, sending the waiter away.
"Whatever vision appears on this picture, will be the decider of the Joestar fate!" Joseph shouted, thrusting the photo in Jotaro's direction.
The teenager released his held breath, staring at the slowly forming image to try and get a good look at it, "What?"
Sitting down, Joseph instructed Holly and Jotaro pull down the collars of their clothing. Y/n glanced at the base of Jotaro's neck, noting the pale pink, star-shaped birthmark that she had seen before. And touched... she added mentally with a grimace.
"What does that mean, Old Man? I won't ask you again," Jotaro questioned sharply, pointing an accusatory finger at his grandfather.
"I asked my mother about it, and she said that my father also had one. Apparently, all of the Joestar bloodline have this birthmark in the same place."
"I'm asking about the picture. Show me what's on it!"
Joseph's eyes went wide as he exaggeratedly threw his arms outward, "It's our destiny, as yet undiscov-" Y/n sighed and plucked the photo from the older man's hand, cutting him off mid shout and handing it to Jotaro.
She shrugged as Joseph looked at her with a small pout, "The suspense was too much," she said innocently, batting her eyelashes.
As he examined the picture, the delinquent's eyes widened fractionally and he slowly set it down so the others could also look at it.
"Dio," Joseph muttered darkly, glaring at the picture. There was a muscular man's back being shown, with his head slightly turned to show a quarter of his face and his blonde hair was hanging loosely over his neck. The entire picture was set in shadows, so it was difficult to pick anything out from it, but leaning closer, Y/n could see that the man had bright crimson eyes, but more shockingly, he also had the Joestar birthmark.
"Dio's a Joestar...?" Y/n asked slowly, her eyes still glued to the picture.
"NO!" Joseph shouted. "From the bastard's neck down, is the body of Jonathan Joestar, which he has taken over!" The stunned silence that fell upon them was almost deafening, and Y/n's head swam with questions. What? But how? How does one simply take over a fucking body? "I only know what I've been told from my grandmother Erina, but one hundred years ago, an incident occurred in the Atlantic ocean and Dio somehow took over my grandfather's body and survived!"
"The one thing that is certain is that he's currently hiding in this world, plotting something," Avdol said, frowning. "That's the reason why Mr Joestar's and yours," he looked at Jotaro, "evil spirits have come into being! I've had my Stand since birth and I'm not sure how Y/n attained hers, but yours are definitely linked to Dio!"
As the two men began to leave, they discussed how they could find out Dio's whereabouts. Y/n turned to the mother-son pair and saw that Holly was still clinging onto Jotaro's arm, a worried look plastered all over her face. Poor Holly, this is so much information at once. Looking up at Jotaro, she saw his usual scowl gracing his face before he started to walk away himself, Holly in tow. Massaging her temples, Y/n groaned internally as she followed suit, stomaching the crazy story that had just been told to her.
***
"I felt it, again," the blonde man said. He slowly pushed himself off the plush four-poster bed in the shadowed room and rubbed a horizontal scar on the back of his neck, "As though someone was watching me." He walked past a naked woman lying limp on the ground, two bloody puncture marks on her throat. "It is Jonathan's descendants after all. Fate," he sneered slightly, "a fate that I must be rid of."
A/N:
*Joseph tryna play cupid*🏹 And Dio has also now been introduced! Let me know what you think of the story so far!
Thank you all for reading and please consider giving this chapter a vote if you liked it!
:) - Angel