The suitcase didn't contain clothes.
It contained a man.
Curled into the cramped shell like something discarded, an emaciated old man lay soaked in his own blood. Countless shallow wounds mapped his body, each one weeping steadily into the fabric lining. His face was ashen, lips cracked, breath coming thin and rattling through his teeth.
Shintaro recognized him instantly.
The true body of Gray Fly.
The moment the zipper fell fully aside, the figure convulsed.
The old man dragged himself out of the suitcase, fingers scraping the cockpit floor as his head rolled upward. Blood frothed at the corners of his mouth as a ragged, broken laugh tore through his throat.
"That's right... I am the Stand of the Tower — omen of calamity, the end of all journeys!" His trembling finger swept across their faces one by one. "You will never reach Lord DIO's location!!"
Jotaro's pupils shrank.
The old man's wounds burst open all at once, spraying a fine mist of blood into the cockpit air.
"Even if you're lucky enough not to die in the crash..." His voice was fraying at the edges but the grin stretched wider with every word. "From here to Egypt there are still ten thousand kilometers... and Lord DIO's loyal generals — those who have pledged their lives — will be hunting you every hour of every day..."
He coughed violently, crimson staining his teeth.
"There are Stands in this world you cannot imagine... and Lord DIO possesses the strongest of them all... You will absolutely never reach Egypt... Ha... ha..."
The laughter stopped.
His body stiffened and fell straight back into its own pooled blood, and didn't move again.
Silence took the cockpit.
Jotaro stepped forward without expression, crouched beside the body, and pulled the skin at the man's forehead aside with Star Platinum's fingers.
"No Flesh Bud."
He straightened.
Avdol's voice came measured and low. "The Tower of Gray was never DIO's devoted servant. That Stand was a mercenary's instrument — a tool for manufacturing profitable disasters. Greed made this man predictable, and DIO exploited it."
"A fitting end," Kakyoin said quietly from the doorway. He stepped fully into the cockpit and looked at the body with the flat, unflinching gaze of someone who has decided the weight of pity here is misplaced. "Where there's a sickening Stand, there tends to be a sickening user."
Nobody disagreed.
The two flight attendants materialized behind him, faces drained of color, hands pressed firmly over their mouths. Their eyes moved from the co-pilot's wound to the old man's body and back again. Neither screamed. Their training held — by a thread, but it held.
Jotaro glanced at them once.
"Good composure," he said flatly. "Your task: go notify every passenger immediately. Life jackets on. Seatbelts fastened. We're making an emergency landing on the sea."
"O — okay!" They turned and fled back into the cabin before he'd finished the sentence.
Jotaro moved to the co-pilot's seat.
He hadn't even formed the question when Joseph spoke, both hands already on the ruined controls.
"...Propeller planes," he said. "I've flown them a few times."
Kakyoin's brow creased. "Propellers?"
"Mr. Joseph —" Shintaro stared at the destroyed instrument panel — screens shattered, gauges bullet-punched, exposed wiring sparking, cascading fluorescent warning lights painting everyone green — "half the instruments are completely destroyed."
Joseph glanced at the panel. Then at Shintaro.
He grinned.
"Who said I need instruments?"
Purple thorns erupted from his sleeve and plunged into the exposed circuitry, threading between broken connections with deliberate precision. A handful of sparks crackled, and several warning lights stuttered haltingly back to life.
"Hermit Purple as a temporary circuit," Kakyoin said, exhaling slowly. "That's... genuinely impressive."
"Of course." Joseph rubbed his nose. "Although —" He paused, his expression sliding somewhere between sheepish and philosophically resigned. "This would, technically, make it the third plane crash I've been involved in over my lifetime."
The cockpit went completely silent.
Every set of eyes settled on his face simultaneously.
"Three," Shintaro said, very carefully.
"In a single lifetime," Joseph confirmed, with the practiced calm of a man who has made peace with a particular pattern in his personal history. "Is there anyone as fortunate as me?"
Jotaro's expression had darkened past the point where conventional descriptors applied. A long, weighted silence followed.
Then, through his teeth: "I will never — I will never fly with you again."
Shintaro turned his face sharply toward the shattered windshield.
The corners of his mouth were doing something that required immediate suppression.
Vehicle killer, certified by his own grandson. On this very flight. This is entirely too much.
Under Joseph's grip — surprisingly steady, uncommonly skilled — the violent jolting gradually smoothed into a controlled, deliberate descent. The dark sea rose toward them in the windows.
"Your skills are genuinely impressive, Mr. Joseph," Shintaro managed.
"Oh? Really!" Joseph's eyes stayed fixed on the Hermit Purple-threaded console, but the corners of his mouth curved upward with barely contained satisfaction. "After I retire, perhaps I should consider becoming a commercial pilot."
Shintaro went still.
He had made an error. He understood that now. He had said something irrevocably encouraging to someone who should under no circumstances be encouraged in this specific direction.
Joseph Joestar at the controls of a commercial airliner. This would not be a business decision. This would be a mass grief event for the global insurance industry.
"Give it a rest, Old Man." Jotaro's voice arrived flat and final. "If you actually went into aviation, half your passengers would write their wills in advance."
The tension in the cockpit fractured. Several people could not entirely contain their reactions.
Joseph's face fell with the wounded dignity of a man receiving a review with zero stars from someone whose opinion genuinely stings. "Are you really my grandson? Always so merciless—"
"Yare yare."
Jotaro had already looked away, eyes fixed on the approaching water.
"I'm not capable of listening to an old man boast with a smile," he continued, with the detached air of a judge delivering a verdict he has already decided. "Unlike certain others."
Shintaro felt a very specific chill travel down his spine.
"...Why am I being referenced."
Joseph tutted — then looked sideways at Shintaro with an expression that was, underneath the theatre, genuinely regretful.
"Shintaro," he said. "If only you were my grandson."
Shintaro jolted. His denial was immediate, physical, and entirely disproportionate — arms waving, head shaking, the full performance — large enough that his elbow nearly caught the console.
Avdol caught him.
"I do not have a hobby of randomly adopting grandfathers. That's a firm no. Absolutely not."
Joseph let out a long, theatrical sigh.
Then, in the same breath, his entire bearing transformed. Back straight. Voice hitting like a starting gun.
"Everyone — hold on tight! Prepare for emergency landing!!"
"YES!!"
Three voices answered together.
And Jotaro, as always, tugged the brim of his hat down, gripped the fixed bar at his side, and contributed only what was necessary.
"...Yare yare."
_____________________
support me on patreon for 95+ chapters
https://[email protected]/mrSOMEONE01234? [replace @ with a]
>>>>>I'm a student, and I'll try my best to keep uploading chapters regularly <<<<<
thanks for your support
[[READER TIER 1: translates stories {15$} ]] { RECOMENDED }
[[READER TIER 2: translated & original stories {20$} ]]
[[[[Please at least visit my patreon so I can have some traffic]]]]]