Chapter Text
“Mori-Mori-Mori-Mori Morio Oh Cho Radio! Good afternoon, you are listening to Morio-Cho Radio! Kai Harada here, and I would like to extend a warm welcome to all of our new listeners from out of town. That’s right, with the sun out, the beach open, and the water beautiful, those of you choosing to vacation here in our wonderful town of Morioh will no doubt appreciate everything our little town has to offer. All we ask is that you keep things civil and respect our dear Morioh, and I guarantee you that Morioh will respect you right back!”
“Yo, Scarlet! Didn’t you say that this was a quiet town!” Vodka, said as she gestured out to the bumper to bumper traffic, although considering the scene in front of everyone, “parade” might be a more apt description. Even through the walls of Team Spica’s run down SUV, one could clearly hear what sounded like a million different people blocking out the road, all speaking a thousand different conversations at maximum volume. The smell of booze and gasoline choked out whatever fresh country air that may have been present. The road itself couldn’t even be seen due to the vehicles and people squeezed together, all with their own garish decorations and colors overpowering the humble town. The skyline was polluted with welcome signs and garbage, the handwork of a very hopeful tourism board and many very drunk tourists, no doubt. Even the sky looked to have a slightly ‘off’ color to it, but surely that one was an optical illusion. The pollution here can’t be that bad.
“Well, how was I supposed to know the town would become like this during tourism season!” Scarlet snapped to her tomboyish rival.
“Uhh, I dunno, the same way you knew about this town to begin with? Seriously, how did you learn about this place? There’s nothing here.”
“Oh, like you weren’t practically drooling to jump out of the car and meet those bikers that passed us earlier.”
“Okay, first of all, those bikers were the definition of cool. Second, that has nothing to do with this dump of a town!”
“Dump!” Scarlet shouted as she took Vodka’s bait without a second's hesitation, “It’s people like those biker hooligans that are making it look bad, how could you possibly think they are in any way ‘cool.’”
Vodka, being no better, took to her redheaded rival’s bait just as easily. “You take that back right now!”
Team Spica’s trainer, while not vocalizing anything, did agree with Vodka’s question. How did she know enough about this town to recommend it after their usual summer camp site got ravaged by a freak storm? Sure, Morioh had a lot of good things going for it in terms of training these athletes; it was close enough to S City to have all the supplies that these near superhuman horse girls need to train, it had more than enough affordable hotels close by so his poor wallet didn’t get too big of a hit, and a small enough population that he would be able to find a nice stretch of private beach to run the team through their paces. Although looking at the scene in front of him as traffic went to yet another standstill, he may need to reassess point number three.
He sighed in defeat. No point complaining about it now that they were already here with everything booked and paid for. Two out of three isn’t so bad, and surely people would move out of the way at the sight of a young woman pulling a tire the size of a small building, right? His train of thought was interrupted by the car in front of him honking its horn at a man drunkenly trying to pick a fight with the driver inside. It wasn’t even 2 in the evening yet…
“Ooh, ooh, Trainer, since we already stopped, can we stop by to visit that restaurant over there!” Yelled Gold Ship, the team's least predictable and most excitable member, “It says it’s serving Morioh’s signature miso flavored beef tongue! Come on, it’s not like we’re going anywhere!”
“I think that’s the third shop that said something along those lines.” Special Week mentioned with an uncharacteristic lack of enthusiasm. She had gotten distracted watching a new exercise channel she had found on Umatube and ended up leaving quite a bit for her to do in the morning. In the end, she barely had enough time to eat breakfast. She only managed two servings this morning, two! She was practically starving at this point, a fact that her constantly growing stomach seemed eager to remind the rest of the team in the car.
“Well, I did warn you not to leave packing until the last minute, didn’t I?” Silence Suzuka, Special Week's best friend and roommate, gently chided the hungry girl next to her. Still, she did pat her back as a small token of comfort. It was hard to do much else when Suzuka felt this claustrophobic. She was about ready to take her chances just running to the hotel at this point…
Not that Gold Ship cared, having already moved on to her next whim. “Look at those guys! I haven’t seen a hairstyle like that in forever!”
Toki Teio, being the only one with enough energy to even try to keep up with Gold Ship’s ramblings at the moment, decided to play along. “You mean the girl over there with the really long hair? I wonder what products she uses to keep it looking like that?”
“No, no, just around that corner!” Gold Ship screamed in response, the only thing keeping her in the car was an overwhelmed Kitasan Black holding her back in a desperate attempt to help keep the peace, “I swear that someone with an honest to goodness pompadour just turned the corner! Man, it must have been the 80s since I had seen something like that!”
“… what do you mean the 80s...?”
Team Spica’s trainer sighed again. All these girls were very accomplished athletes in their own right, but man, were they a handful. He supposes that’s what happens when you pack this many big personalities in such a small space for an over 5 hour drive. It was times like this where he really appreciated his ever helpful newest recruit, Kitasan Black, and the ever serious Mejiro McQueen. While he did think the presumed heiress to the Mejiro family often took on far too much responsibility, he appreciated that calm demeanor of hers now more than ever. He turned his head toward the one bastion of peace and- wait, scratch that. It seems McQueen was currently fighting a battle between her pride and the crepe stand they were parked next to.
He looked ahead and sighed. While this was all very stressful, at least most of it seemed like something he could plan around. Sure, finding a private spot to train would be a trial. Sure, with this many people here, the press would find out where they were sooner or later and begin harassing his trainees. And sure, he would need to wildly improvise how to do all the training he wanted the girls to do given the sudden shift in location, but he assured himself it would be fine. As long as nothing truly bizarre came up, he knew he could salvage this summer camp.
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Yoshihiro Kira was a man on a mission. He had failed his poor son once before, watched as those hooligans ransacked his son’s home and made a mockery of his defense with their special abilities. Stands, if he recalls the name correctly. While his own spirit photography ability had kept any unfortunate burglars from discovering anything they shouldn’t have in the past, he really had no chance against these Stands! No, he only stood no chance by himself. He reminded himself of this fact as he gripped the arrow, the very same arrow that had granted both him and his son their own special abilities. If that old hag Enya was to be believed, allowing the arrow to be fired upon whoever it desired would not only give them their own Stand ability, but would make them his ally as well! Yes, he may have failed, but that doesn’t mean hope was dead!
So Yoshihiro, reduced to a ghost stuck in a picture floating in the wind, allowed himself to be led by the arrow. But he had flown over so many people already. Why were they not being chosen? The only reason that he had failed was because of Josuke’s ability to repair things, so all he needed was a different ability to counteract it, right? He had already flown over most of the town and was on his way to its edge, and none of the thousands of people he passed over were worthy in the arrow’s eyes? Was he simply being carried by the wind, bound to become a piece of trash in the ocean? No, he must have faith. Enya was correct about the Stand abilities granted by this arrow, he had no reason to doubt her words now. He just needed to have faith that destiny would take him where he needed to be. He felt himself lower as he approached a hotel on the water’s edge. Could this be it? Is this what the arrow chose?
Yoshihiro felt his excitement rise as he watched an old SUV open up to reveal its passengers. Yes, he understood now why the people of this town were no good! He needed someone who not only had the special abilities that only a Stand could provide, but also enough physical strength to overpower those no good low-lives! So of course, who could be a better ally than one person who could do both, an umamusume! A group of people, very similar to regular human women, but with triangular, rotating ears on the top of their heads in place of normal ears, and a wholly unique hairy tail. While legends say they were born with a desire and ability to run, they could do so much more! He had heard stories of umamusume who could crash through walls, compress metal with nothing but their bare hands, and carry incredible weight on their backs while still keeping up impressive speeds! Yes, someone as strong as an umamusume with an ability like his or his son’s, surely there would be nothing that could stand in the way of such power. He lowered himself toward the car as the arrow found its target, the first one to leave the SUV, a large woman with silver hair and boundless energy. Yes, Yoshihiro wouldn’t have been able to find a more perfect match if he searched all of Japan! Destiny truly was on his son’s side! He swooped in for what would surely be the start of his revenge against the Joestars for what they did to his son!
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“Ahh, free at last!” Shouted the silver haired umamusume Gold Ship, having long grown bored of pointing out the strange tourists in town. “Smell that air! Can’t you just drink it like b- GUAAH!” The creature of chaos was interrupted by a piece of litter smacking her straight in the eye. “Why there! Why now! Has my eye been decreed a pincushion by the unfeeling hand of destiny!”
“Oh no, is it bad? Do you need eye drops? A bandage? Ointment?” Kitasan fussed over her teammate, her short black hair waving every which way as she desperately searched for something she could do to help.
Trainer, after making Gold Ship open her eye, found no damage. “You’ll be fine, this isn’t nearly as bad as a lot of your other injuries.”
“But it hurts!”
“Look, why don’t you come with me into the hotel and we’ll see if the staff have anything to help, or at least a warm towel to help the pain. The rest of you!” Trainer’s voice raised as he turned his attention to the dispirited team Spica “Start getting all the bags out of the trunk. I’ll check us in. Meet me in the lobby once you are done and I’ll hand out your room keys.” The rest of the team gave an unenthusiastic salute as the trainer and Gold Ship entered the hotel, with Gold Ship complaining all the while and a piece of litter following in their wake.
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Gold Ship was mad, for many reasons. Her eye, for one thing, and now that she was here, she was kind of upset at just how many people were here. It was fun doing people watching on the way over. Sure beat the large stretches of beautiful nothing and subpar gas stations they stopped at on the way over here. But now that she was here, in a side room of a hotel with a towel wrapped around her eye, it kinda sucked in a lot of ways. Yes, the people were interesting, but she got access to plenty of them back at Tracen and the surrounding city whenever she wanted, so having a good supply wasn’t all that unique to her. Having people around had so many problems too. It was hard to get a good frustration destroying run going when so many people blocked her way. More people means fewer chances at finding any cool treasure lying around, and it means a much greater chance someone will report her to the police for one of her pranks. Worst of all though was the noise. She may not seem like it, but sometimes she really did need to just do nothing, even if only to build up her own frustration or just to cool down after releasing her frustrations. She was looking forward to a place that she could just, exist, for a while as she thought of her next scheme.
Well, she supposes that this room is relatively private, but it’s hard to appreciate that at the moment. She could still hear the throngs of people outside the door (and quite frankly, their being muffled made it worse. Now she just wants to know what they are saying. Her eye still hurts, and she can feel a fever coming on. Really, how could the trainer not have seen anything? This freaking hurt!
Gold ship took in a shaky breath as heat seemed to radiate out of her eye. What the heck was it that hit her anyway! It looked like an old timely picture, but that couldn’t be all it was. This was such a different heat to the usual burning pain or flames of righteous indignation she felt when fate messed with her eyes normally, this was different, almost alien. While the litter had only poked her eye, it felt like something was trying to burrow its way into her, or maybe pull something out of her. She lowered her towel, no longer hot enough to provide comfort, and saw…
She supposed “her” would be the best place to start, the figure was vaguely feminine after all. The figure seemed to be someone wearing a gray-white body suit, at least what she could see of it. It had patterns cut into it that looked to her like they were green-screened out of reality. The patterns, what she could see of them, seemed wrapped around a line that also was edited out of reality running all along the figure's front, dividing her neatly in half. She would have noted what the patterns were, but they seemed to change at least a little bit every time she blinked. The line of nothing fell from where the neck should be, the neck itself having been erased in its entirety. The entire head was visible, albeit featureless save for a face poorly drawn on with a marker and very round glasses resting on it.
The creature looked like it must be wearing a corset underneath the body suit for how much of a literal hourglass figure she had. Straining her neck to look at the other side, she found the pattern of visible and invisible was flipped, at least from the neck down. The head was still there, and the neck still wasn’t, but the only indication of the body was the gray line and the patterns that danced around it. The arms and hands looked normal, fingertips aside. Those were all lined with what looked like paintbrushes, each bristle seeming to be either the gray of the body or the strange, see through of… the other parts of the body. Half gray half clear legs with a black ballerina shoe completed the look, and honestly…
It was kind of a good look. It needed something to make the arms and hands stand out more, but otherwise, this is probably exactly the kind of thing she would come up with. Well, what she would come up with if she ever got the patience to video edit that is. That was kind of the thing though, it looked EXACTLY like something she would come up with. Right down to never being satisfied with a final look, this had “Gold Ship” written all over it. It was stupid, it was strange, it was familiar, it was…
“Ahh, I see your Stand has already manifested, most excellent!”
“GAARGH! Damn it, I lost my train of thought!” Internal monologue now thoroughly ruined, the chaotic umamusume looked around the room for whoever was to blame, and found… nothing. Huh, did her train of thought get interrupted by another thought of hers? No, she clearly heard someone, and the voice in her head had a much cooler voice than that. But who…
“I’m up here,” said a passing photograph. Getting a good look at the hovering strip of film, Gold Ship noticed its contents: a balding man with white hair, a mustache and goatee combo that surely must have been dyed for how jet black they were, an utterly boring suit, and, wait a moment, was that-
“Hey, you're the piece of trash that stabbed me, aren’t you!” Gold ship screamed as she recognized the golden arrow poking out of the picture frame.
“Yes,” Replied the picture with no sense of self preservation, “but it is very important that I did so. For you see, destiny- HUGH”
Whatever the picture was about to say was interrupted by a very pissed off horse girl grabbing him in a fist. “You dealt a serious blow to my eye AND my pride. A piece of trash like you, striking the invincible Gold Ship. That’s the kind of thing that gets people talking, you know?” Gold Ship opened her fist slightly to let the crumbled photograph of Yoshihiro look upon her glorious form, “It’s the kind of thing I can’t let slide, lest people think I’m going soft.” She re-clenched her fist, this time allowing the head of the photo to stick out so that she could look him in his terrified eye as she made her demands. “Here’s how this is going to work: you either give me tribute, or I nail you to the wall so hard that whoever pulls you out is going to be crowned the King of England!”
Yoshihiro Kira had not gotten a good look at who destiny had chosen to be his son’s champion, but here, he could see nothing else. The woman had long silver hair with blunted bangs and long, thin ears poking out, both folded back in an expression of anger. She had a blue bow decoration on her right ear and a ridiculous brown hat that had some indistinguishable emblem on it. The hat was attached by straps that wrap around her chin and has what looked like two brass bowls covering where her ears would be were she a human. And yet, despite all there was to see, Yoshihiro could only truly see one thing: her eyes. He had heard before that the eyes were a window into one’s soul, that you could tell everything you needed to know, and Yoshihiro knew this to be true. It was, after all, how he learned of his son’s true nature, and how he knew he finally embraced his true nature that fateful night. It was how he knew the kind of woman his wife was, and that they would be happy together. It was how he knew, looking into those off pink-magenta eyes, that destiny had made a fool out of Yoshihiro Kira. These were not the eyes of a guardian, a savior, or even a useful thug. In those eyes, he saw one thing.
Chaos.
The tall umamusume that stood before him had a look in his eyes he had only seen before now in a flooding river. A force of nature that man had no hope of taming despite thousands of years of attempts. One could maybe direct it to an extent, even hold it back with a dam, but in the end, mankind was nothing to the storm, and nothing to this creature he sees before him. “No, please, not after I just got out! Not when I have so much I need to do!”
“Then you'd better start offering some pretty hefty tribute if you don’t want to end up in the incinerator!”
He thought she was going to nail him to a wall… No! Focus! Now was his chance to escape the worst of things. “A-ahh, b-but you see, I already have! For with this arrow I have drawn out your latent abilities, a power unique to you and you alone!” Gold ship took her terrifying eyes off him and onto the thing that had manifested before her. “What you see now is your Stand, a power pulled from your very soul, your unique fighting spirit made real!”
Gold ship gave the thing another once over, still slightly upset that she couldn’t finish whatever thought she had before being interrupted, turned to the picture. “Sooo, what does it do?”
“That” was what he was afraid she would ask, “is not for me to tell you. Who am I to dictate how your soul manifests itself to the world?”
Yoshihiro thanked every god he could think of that she seems to have bought that. Her eyes shifted from a destructive fury into a calmer curiosity. Perfect, he just needed to close out the pitch and he was home free! “The exact powers vary wildly from person to person. I have seen people with the ability to stop time, repair anything, even turn ordinary objects into a bomb in the case of my own son.” He couldn’t help but smile in pride over his son’s strong will. “The power in each Stand is utterly unique, for me to even guess would be tantamount to guessing the true nature of your very soul!”
His smile widened as Gold Ship relaxed her death grip on him and turned to look at her Stand. Yes, he’s so close! “You need only to listen to your soul to know what you are capable of.” Gold Ship didn’t let go, instead choosing to approach her Stand, now with wonder in her eyes as opposed to violence.
For the entire time, the strange feminine form simply stood there, no movement evident except for a gentle rocking back and forth, as if this thing were seaweed following the waves above it. Gold Ship reached out and touched it, not quite solid, but it was there. She removed her hand and asked “How? How do I…”
“Don’t think, feel. This is your own soul after all.”
Gold Ship nodded and reached out again, this time her hand stopped at a much more solid form. She removed her hand and raised it above her head. The Stand followed. Gold Ship was smiling in amazement as the Stand started moving independently. It was a simple movement, all it did was lower its hand as Gold Ship’s stayed raised. Then, as clear as day, a name came to her, a name she always knew, perhaps, but never vocalized until this very moment. “Inexplicable.” Despite the creature's crude face, it was clear to see a sense of elation at being acknowledged at last. Her other hand went slack as the Stand disappeared from view with a joyful bow.
Yes! It worked! He had successfully distracted her enough to make his escape! He slid out of Gold Ship’s relaxed hand and flew towards the door, but he didn’t get far before the creature’s attention was focused right back on him.
“This is amazing! You gotta tell me more! What else can these things do! How do I summon it again! Where did they come from! Who-”
“I’m afraid this is all the time I have for you today.” The picture said in his best sad voice. “Sadly, I am but a humble servant of this arrow, and I must be off. You are not the only one who is to be gifted today. Now, if you excuse-”
“I’ve got time!” Gold Ship squealed with a manic look on her face, “Actually,” She continued as she grabbed back onto the photo at frightening speeds, “You said there were others, can you poke my friends! I wanna know what their souls look like!”
Oh no, not again. It seems the calm was not meant to last, as once more those eyes bored into his soul with the fury of a typhoon. “W-well, as I said before, the arrow chooses, not me, so-”
“Then you gotta tell me more! How many Stand users are there?! How are they chosen!? What are the limits, the capabilities, the everything!”
“L-like I said before, each Stand is unique, so there is only so much I can say.”
“So there is something you can say!” The gray horse girl let out a cheer of victory, either not understanding or choosing to ignore what he actually meant. “Look, creepy ghost photograph, I need to know EVERYTHING!” Of all the things Yoshihiro thought this girl would do next, she defied his expectations by doing the one thing he thought someone like that was incapable of doing. She went down on her hands and knees, and begged. “I’ll do anything! I’ll straighten out your wrinkles, I’ll find a way to iron your ghost clothes for you!” Wait, how did she know he was a ghost? He never- “I’ll be your pupil if only you would be my master and teach me everything there is to know about Stands!”
Yoshihiro couldn’t believe his luck; someone as strong as this, as chaotic as this, as proud as this, on her hands and knees, begging for the opportunity to serve him for just a chance at information he said not a moment ago he didn’t have. No, he reminded himself of Enya’s words back in Egypt, not luck, but destiny. Whoever the arrow pierced would become his ally, for fate had decreed it so. Yes, this was going to work perfectly.
“Do you truly mean that?”
“On all the ducks I have ever taken from Tracen’s pond, I swear to you I meant every word.” Okay, so she was still crazy, but crazy fanaticism was something he was happy to work with.
“Then rise, Gold Ship. Stand proud as my apprentice, as fate has decreed you worthy.”
“AWWW YEAH! I’m finally going to be a superhero!” Is… is that what she got from all this?
A soft knock interrupted the celebration as Gold Ship’s trainer, a somewhat stringy man in a yellow shirt and messy hair with his left side shaven down, opened the door. “Judging by that scream of joy, you must be better now. Good, help the other girls get our luggage into the hotel and -”
“I’m going to stop you right there and just tell you that’s not happening, because Golshi-” she emphasizes her point by holding the picture of a slightly panicked old man “just got herself a superhero backstory.” She pocketed the picture and smugly nodded as though she made any point at all. “So as you can see, I’m going to be very busy for the next few weeks.”
“But what about-”
“No time for any of that, adventure awaits!” And that was all Gold Ship’s trainer and theoretical guardian during this trip got before the woman bolted out of the room and, if that shattering noise was any indication, through a window to the great outdoors.
He sighed. Honestly, this behavior was typical for her, and he really should have expected this given how long he had forced her to sit relatively still in the car ride over here. He knew she would come back eventually, it was just a matter of time. He just hoped that he didn’t break one of the large, expensive looking windows at the front of the hotel when she made her escape.
Still, something bothered him about all this. While everything Gold Ship had just said and done was within expectations, Team Spica’s trainer could have sworn that, just for a moment, there was something standing at Gold Ship’s side.