[Founder of the Golden Spirit: Oh, I found it — it's this one.]
[Founder of the Golden Spirit has started a group livestream.]
[Lord of the White Holy Throne has joined the livestream.]
The moment Jonathan started the stream, Anthony tapped in and joined without a second's hesitation.
Fishing time — a rare chance at some genuine entertainment, and he wasn't about to pass it up. Besides, just looking at the lineup was already leaving him at a loss for words. The squad had gone straight to Yoshikage Kira's front door. No Bow and Arrow as a trump card, no Cat Grass, no Bite the Dust — Kira was walking into this with his entire profile exposed, about to face Jonathan Joestar with his Stand in full, Joseph Joestar before the senility set in, and peak-era Jotaro Kujo in his prime.
Holy sh—, bro. I need to see how this plays out.
Anthony settled comfortably into his fishing spot and looked up at the livestream.
[Let Night City Burn has joined the livestream.]
[AAA City Female Ghost has joined the livestream.]
[Wordsmith of the Great Yan has joined the livestream.]
[...]
Within three seconds flat, every single member of the group had piled into the stream. The corner of Anthony's mouth tugged upward despite himself.
So everyone's been lurking in the group chat all along, huh.
The moment the stream's video feed came through, the first thing Anthony heard was Jonathan's voice:
"Joseph — for a gentleman, loyalty is an absolutely essential virtue!"
"What happened to the Golden Spirit? Where did your Golden Spirit go?"
[Lord of the White Holy Throne: Couldn't hold it together — first thing I see is Big Jo lecturing Second Jo.]
Anthony fired off the comment and turned his attention back to the feed.
On screen, the old man's face was a portrait of quiet desperation. He pressed a gloved hand to his forehead with all the helplessness of a man facing a firing squad — but he didn't dare say a single word back to the blue-haired young man currently giving him a thorough dressing-down.
A little to the side, Jotaro silently tugged his cap lower over his eyes and walked along beside the two of them, not saying a word.
Don't talk. Whatever you do, don't say a single thing.
Jotaro kept repeating the reminder to himself internally.
In a situation like this, the smart move was to let Joseph absorb all the fire on his own. The moment Jotaro opened his mouth, there was a very real chance some of that fire would redirect straight onto him.
As for Joseph himself — faced with Jonathan's finger-wagging, he had absolutely no recourse. What was he supposed to do? He was desperate too!
He couldn't out-argue him, and he didn't dare talk back. Everything Jonathan was lecturing him about, Joseph had genuinely, personally, one hundred percent done himself. And on top of all that — this was his grandfather.
Every time Joseph remembered that he was getting on in years now — a man well into his sixties — and then glanced back at his grandfather standing there in the full bloom of his prime, he felt the sky caving in on him.
Whose grandson ages thirty-plus years ahead of his own grandfather? How is this my life?
A short while ago, the three of them had arrived in Morioh aboard a Speedwagon Foundation helicopter. According to Jonathan, there was an Arrow here that needed to be recovered and destroyed.
Ever since they'd touched down, Joseph had been regretting one decision with every breath he took.
Namely: why, why, had he agreed to tag along to Morioh?
After they landed, his grandfather had suddenly, for reasons Joseph could not even begin to fathom, turned to him right there on the open street and casually asked:
"Ah, Joseph — you have an illegitimate child here in Morioh, don't you?"
And then everything had gone catastrophically sideways.
After a great deal of sputtering and hedging, Joseph had been forced to admit it, with the face of a condemned man.
Which brought them to the present situation.
[AAA City Female Ghost: Oh this is FRESH tea.]
[Let Night City Burn: I honestly never would have imagined... Mr. Joseph had a story like this hidden away...]
Jonathan glanced at the scrolling comments in the group feed, let out a sigh, and finally brought the lengthy lecture to a close — delivering one last piece of parting advice:
"We'll leave it at that for now. But once this is resolved — you are to go and bring that mother and child home, and you will treat them properly. Understood?"
"Yeah, yeah, I know," Joseph muttered, nodding with all the sulky compliance of a scolded schoolboy.
Jonathan looked at him for a moment with an expression that hovered somewhere between helpless and resigned, then finally sighed and pivoted to the matter at hand:
"Now then — back to business. The targets for this Arrow retrieval are two rather troublesome individuals. And both of them are deeply, thoroughly wicked men."
Flipping through the documents he'd compiled, Jonathan's brow furrowed.
The file had been assembled from the intelligence Anthony provided, cross-referenced with information Joseph had gathered through Hermit Purple — photographs of Yoshikage Kira and a triangulated position.
A serial killer. Every single murder driven purely by personal obsession and desire.
In Jonathan's eyes, this was something far beyond simple criminality.
This sort of person — they had to be evil to their very core.
Perhaps not as monstrous as DIO — but a form of evil that was just as pure, just as absolute.
Whatever it took, this evil had to be cut out at the root.
As that thought settled in Jonathan's mind, Joseph beside him seemed to visibly relax — the tension draining out of his shoulders, replaced by the unmistakable look of a man who had just been handed a pardon. Then he raised his head, looked at the building in front of them, and spoke almost immediately:
"We're here."
"Already?" Jonathan blinked and looked up at the building ahead. After a brief pause, he moved to step forward.
"I'll get the door."
Jotaro volunteered, stepping ahead, just about to call forth Star Platinum and push the door open — when Jonathan shot him a weary, withering look.
"Don't tip him off."
Jonathan sighed at last and took the lead himself, stepping forward and knocking on the door.
From inside, the sparse, irregular sound of approaching footsteps followed.
Then the front door swung open.
Behind it stood a lean-faced blond man. He looked at the three hulking figures on his doorstep — and his expression froze.
Not because he recognized any of them. It was more that—
It's the middle of the day and three massive guys just walked straight up and knocked on your door. Anyone would know something was very, very wrong with that picture.
Almost on pure reflex, Yoshikage Kira started to say:
"I'm sorry, I don't know you — I think you must have the wrong address."
And immediately moved to shut the door.
Faced with that, Jonathan simply let out one quiet sigh.
Not that it mattered at this point. The door was already open, after all.
In the next instant, Star Platinum materialized from behind Jotaro, gripping the door in an iron lock, while Jonathan spoke in a perfectly calm, unhurried tone:
"No. You have the right address."
"Or rather — we have exactly the right person."
And then, a moment later, The World emerged behind Jonathan. He looked at Yoshikage Kira standing before him — but his mind was already somewhere else entirely.
Let's wrap this guy up fast. I've still got the whole mess with Joseph's illegitimate child to clean up afterward.
Jonathan glanced at the scrolling comments and couldn't quite suppress a wry smile.
[Lord of the White Holy Throne: Perfect — my favorite show, KiraTV, is finally on the air.]
Ah... some things never change. But if that's how it was, then — let's begin.
And so, Jonathan turned to Yoshikage Kira one final time, and asked him a single question:
"When you committed your crimes — did you ever stop to think about how it would all end for you?"
At that moment, Yoshikage Kira looked at the three enormous men standing before him. He took in the Ripple energy coiling around Joseph's hands — still charged with the resentment of a man who'd just been loudly scolded. He took in The World looming behind Jonathan, wrapped in a corona of Ripple. And behind that invincible-looking teenager, he saw Star Platinum gripping the door in one fist.
Cold sweat began trickling down his forehead.
Folks — do you think I'm making it out of this one alive?
____
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