"You're free to go."
He wanted to know who she really was. He wanted to know whether she had any knowledge of the disappearances and murders plaguing Morioh, or of the killer he was currently tracking—a man named Anjuro Katagiri. But Jotaro chose to respect her wishes. Everyone had their own secrets they couldn't share, and he wasn't about to force hers out of her.
"Huh? You're serious?"
Inori blinked in surprise.
"You're not suspicious of me anymore? You don't want to keep asking questions?"
"No need." Jotaro shook his head. "Because you're not a bad person."
Part of it might have been Inori's appearance, which was disarming to a frankly unfair degree. But more importantly, it was the impression their fight had left on him. Confronted by a stranger who'd come looking for trouble, she had not only announced her Stand's abilities openly, but even when she'd landed what she considered a clean hit, she hadn't gone for the kill.
Jotaro had met a lot of people in the past decade-plus. His gut told him this girl called Inori could become one of their allies.
"Even so, I..."
Inori hadn't figured out how to respond yet. The girl who'd just fought him blow for blow, whose fighting spirit burned fiercer than most men's, had transformed in the blink of an eye into a shy, reserved thing—as if the person who'd been trading punches with him were an entirely different personality.
She actually wanted to come clean with Jotaro. Of course, her version of "coming clean" was a story she'd rehearsed well in advance: lost her memories, only knew she could steal Stands, plus the two Stand abilities she'd already demonstrated. The goal was to latch onto the Speedwagon Foundation backing Jotaro, so she could openly ask for an allowance.
Jotaro raised an eyebrow, sensing the girl had something she was struggling to say. He was about to press further when an unexpected voice cut in.
"There she is!"
Jotaro looked up. Behind the girl, an odd pair had appeared: a tall male student with a bizarre hairstyle, and an abnormally short boy with gray hair.
Josuke Higashikata and Koichi Hirose. They'd been worried about Inori and followed her here. Josuke had caught the tail end of Inori's fight with Soft & Wet, and since the user of Soft & Wet turned out to be the same punk who'd mocked his hair and gotten pummeled for it earlier, everything suddenly clicked—he understood how this whole farce had started.
"Hey! Who the hell are you?"
Josuke walked over to greet Inori, but the moment he got close, he noticed she looked pretty banged up. And the man standing across from her had half his face swollen in the exact same spot as Josuke's own injury—almost certainly a mark left by Inori's Stand, King Crimson.
The area was littered with unconscious bodies, but most of them were just delinquents. Josuke glanced at them and didn't rush to help. In his mind, Inori was already the acknowledged "Big Sis," and he wasn't about to stand by and watch some stranger push her around. He stepped forward, thoroughly annoyed.
Jotaro didn't yet realize that the kid with the cow-dung hairdo standing in front of him was the very Josuke Higashikata he'd come to Morioh to find. He just gave a dismissive huff, wrote the boy off as one of Inori's friends, and ignored the provocation.
"Inori! Are you okay?"
Koichi saw the dried blood all over Inori and his voice cracked with alarm.
"Koichi, you came." Inori glanced back casually. Koichi's face was perfectly healed—not a scratch left. The almighty Crazy Diamond, efficient as ever.
"Well then, farewell, Inori."
Jotaro left her with those words and turned away without looking back.
Now Inori panicked. She hadn't exchanged information or built any trust with Jotaro yet. If he just walked away like this, that punch she'd taken would have been for nothing!
But someone beat her to it.
"Hey! I'm talking to you! Guy in the white hat!"
Josuke shoved his hands into his pockets and called out to Jotaro's retreating back.
Inori was delighted. Yes! Fight! Fight! I get to watch the uncle discipline his nephew! Hehe.
"...?"
The man turned his head and gave one cold look. A wave of raw menace washed over Josuke from head to toe.
Jotaro was twenty-eight, well past the age of picking fights over pride. He'd intended to leave things here, to stop prying into Inori's secrets. Pushing the fight further when neither of them knew who'd come out on top served no purpose—there was no reason to go all-out against a powerful Stand user who wasn't going to become an enemy.
But letting some brat disrespect him without so much as blinking? That wasn't his style either.
—Tall... has to be over 190 centimeters (about 6'3"). Never seen anyone like this in Morioh. An outsider? If he can hurt Big Sis Inori, who wiped the floor with me, he's probably a dangerous Stand user too.
—What do I do... do I fight him?
One look from Jotaro and Josuke's confidence evaporated. But slinking back with his tail between his legs in front of a girl? Way too embarrassing. He stole a glance at Inori and caught what looked like a grin on her face. Damn it, what's so funny? Is she hoping to see me make a fool of myself?
"Josuke, that man doesn't seem like a bad guy either... don't do anything rash."
Then Koichi spoke up out of nowhere, and Jotaro's expression changed instantly.
"Josuke?... You're Josuke Higashikata?"
"Yeah, so what?" Josuke shot back, deliberately roughening his voice.
Inori kept smiling, but inside she was bitterly disappointed. She'd been hoping to watch two JoJos throw down right in front of her. She shot Koichi a glare. This is your fault, you little loudmouth. Still, if they really did fight, Josuke would definitely lose. Getting beaten twice in one day might genuinely hurt his pride. Better to let it go.
"Josuke Higashikata. Born in 1983. Lived in Morioh his entire life. At age four, hovered between life and death for fifty days. Mother's name: Tomoko Higashikata. Father's name: Joseph Joestar."
—Old man, you're the worst. Over sixty and still out there having affairs and fathering secret sons!
Inori watched Josuke's dumbfounded little face and couldn't help roasting Joseph silently.
Josuke was stunned. The anger he'd felt on Inori's behalf dissolved on its own. He couldn't understand why this stranger would suddenly start listing these details. He knew about his father, of course—Joseph Joestar, the famous real estate magnate in America. But the man was already seventy-eight, even older than Josuke's own grandfather.
Josuke had never once met him. And he had absolutely no desire to acknowledge that deadbeat as his father.
"Strange as this may sound, my name is Jotaro Kujo. By blood, I'm... your nephew."
"Nephew... hi."
One moment the man had been someone Josuke was ready to fight—a guy more than a decade older, suddenly claiming to be his nephew. Nobody would find that anything but surreal. Josuke just nodded and gave a polite greeting.
"The old man didn't even know you existed until recently. It only came out when they started dividing the inheritance and discovered he had a son... Grandma Suzi Q blew her top. The whole Joestar family's in chaos right now."
Jotaro tugged at his hat wearily. If he'd had any choice, he never would've come to do this. The old man's youthful indiscretions—and now it was his grandson getting stuck cleaning up the mess.
"Chaos, huh..."
"Yeah." Jotaro nodded, and something bitter crept across his face. "Grandma and the old man have been married sixty-one years. It's the first time she's ever gotten that angry."
"I'm sorry! It's because of me that all of this—"
Josuke bowed deeply. He was a genuinely polite kid. In a situation like this, the one who should be apologizing was the representative of the Joestar family—Jotaro.
"Wait! What time is it now?"
But another, far more urgent matter had just hit him.
"8:51."
Inori checked her watch and answered with a smile.
"Oh no! Nine minutes left... today's the opening ceremony! If I'm late on the first day, Mom's gonna kill me... Koichi, let's go!"
Koichi was startled—first because he was about to be late too, and second because he hadn't expected Josuke to invite him along. Just moments ago, he'd still been treating Josuke as some dangerous delinquent.
"I'll hear the rest later, Mr. Jotaro!"
"Hey... school can wait—"
Jotaro frowned. Inheritance was a major issue. Being a few minutes late to school shouldn't matter, right? He thought back to his own student days and arrived at what he considered a perfectly reasonable conclusion.