Answer Seeking: Case Two

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One of the worst parts of becoming the Ultimate Detective was the inherited caffeine addiction. Especially when you had to scrounge for money to find the cheapest hotel in town that gave out 24/7 free coffee.

On one hand it’s free coffee. On the other, it’s free coffee.

At this point, half the reason the watered down hot drink was keeping me up was the way it seemed to torture my tastebuds on every sip. Fuck, I’d learned to tolerate regular coffee, but this shit is completely different.

Or maybe it was the new brain giving me different taste buds. Ah, who cares, I have a serial killer to find.

What bits of evidence I’d already discovered, including the possibility of multiple killers being responsible for the mass disappearance of the people of Morioh Town, linked irrevocably to the invisible superpowers both Josuke Higashikata and Jotaro Kujo possess.

Now, while I may not have a concrete definition of what the fuck a Stand is, I can use whatever context clues I’d received to come to a conclusion.

By the fact Josuke didn’t teleport after whatever the hell he was talking to, it seems there is a difference in Josuke’s and Jotaro’s abilities. Either Stands all have unique powers, or there’s a skill-tree aspect to it, and those two and Angelo are on completely different levels.

Which… my inherited detective instinct is telling me that isn’t the case. After all, if my mystery killer(s) could teleport, why would they stick to this one area for their killings?

No, actually, serial killers may just have a favored… ‘hunting ground’. It’s very much possible that the reason these killers can’t be found is that other Stand Users just teleport into a different town to do as they please before leaving.

“Shit. Fucking invisible superpowers…” I spat out, before taking another sip of the battery acid these people called coffee.

Speculation isn’t helping, go back to what is actually available to you… the thing Josuke talked to after stuffing a knife in his stomach, was that a Stand? Can Stands actually talk, and only other Users can hear them?

Can other Users make themselves invisible as well? What are the limits of a Stand?

“Seriously, what the fuck is a Stand?!” I growled out, rubbing at my temples once I realized I have no possible ability to get answers to my question-

Right. 1999. Use a phone book, you fucking dumbass.

Raiding the drawers, I quickly found the downright massive book filled with various names, addresses, and phone numbers… then spent far too long searching for them, considering how fucking massive the book was.

And by the time I found the number, I realized it was like 3 am and I’d rather not deal with interrupting the sleep of a guy who surgically implanted a knife beneath someone’s skin for insulting his hair.

I also ran out of coffee, so… guess I’ll leave that for the morning. I hesitated to mark the page in case some bullshit occurred, so instead I did my best to remember the page number and went to sleep.

Reaching over to the side, I tugged the little switch on the lamp down and found the room plunged in darkness-

My entire body tensed as I suddenly made out a figure in the room. A man where there were no man-shaped objects previously. I kept my gaze away from the man, before flicking the light back-

Something crashed into the side of my jaw, knocking my skull into the wall behind me and sending me into a daze. Still, I glared up at the man.

“Ah, curious. For a wimp, you’ve got some balls.” And then he stomped his foot onto the arm that was still reaching for the lamp, a painful crack shuddering up the limb as I cried out. “Let’s hope you’ve got what it takes.”

And then he pulled out a bow and arrow, both looking like something stolen out of a museum. He notched the arrow back, and I frantically tried bucking him off. But, while Shuichi Saihara was a very capable guy, he wasn’t able to throw off a fully grown man standing on top of him while he was lying down.

A streak of gold suddenly passed between us, and without thinking I tried to block the arrow with my other, free hand.

I didn’t even get time to scream out as the arrow seemed to run through the flesh of my palm and thread the needle between the bones of my fingers. Yet even with that horrible wound, the arrow quickly found it’s destination in the middle of my throat.

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. The world seemed to shrink into a pinprick as blood flowed down the sides of my neck as I struggled to hyperventilate past the blood flowing into my throat.

Tears quickly filled my eyes, stinging my eyes as I laid face up on my back, incapable of feeling or seeing anything as darkness creeped in.

So this was it. Mystery unsolved, murdered on my first day. How pathetic.

Why did I even come to this place? A wish? What did I even wish for in the first place?

Right. “A happy life with all the characters from my favorite franchise, where no one had to die anymore!”

So naive. All of this for some bullshit slice of life with murderers and victims alike? Going to a school where graduation means ‘you’ll be set for life’?

What life? What life?!

What life could I possibly be fighting for, Shuichi Saihara-

[Musical Accompaniment: Debussy Jumpscare]

A song. A song I knew better than any other. A song like the moon being reflected in a pool of water.

A song with so many words behind it.

Even if it’s fiction, even if we’re all fictional… the pain in my heart is real! The sadness when I lose someone I love is real!

A song… she played to raise my spirits. The song to rally me up, to fight no matter how painful the truth may be.

Covered in blood and tears, on the verge of death, I grit my teeth as that piano played in my ear.

“Ah, seems you are worthy after all.” The mysterious man standing over me, whose face I have still yet to see, calmly gripped the shaft of the arrow. “Now, what kind of Stand do you wield-”

In one violent motion, the arrow was ripped out of my neck, my blood flying out like raindrops.

“-Shuichi Saihara?!”  

A hand of blue and purple launched itself at the man, hitting him in the chin with all its might, and I could feel the force of the blow shake up my bleeding hand up to my arm and into my shoulder. The man shook his chin, touching the bruise, and looked down on me. “Not strong enough.”

The way he looked at me, with such utter disappointment… it pissed me off to no end. So, considering that and the fact he was still standing over me…

This time, a blue and purple leg went straight for his crotch with all the force it could muster. The man doubled over, and two sets of arms reached out and wrapped around the man’s… neck…

The world was getting fuzzy and dark like before. I couldn’t… right. Bleeding from my neck.

I spat out a mouthful of blood, the burning pain in my arms and neck draining me like the blood was drained from my body.

The arms let go, turning more transparent by the second. Still, I glared up at my attempted murderer, who stepped off and away from me.

He sucked on his teeth in annoyance, before shaking his head. “Ah, who cares. You don’t have the strength for what I needed. Bleed out for all I care.” And then he was gone, like he’d never existed in the first place.

The sound of Clair de Lune left my mind as my weakness became undeniable. I couldn’t even turn my head, much less scream loud enough for someone to come, thanks to the hole in my neck.

… shit. An exhaustion began to wash over me, and I knew I wouldn’t wake up if I didn’t do something immediately-

“Hello?” Someone said in the room, and I frantically moved my eyes to spot them as I recognized that voice.

Even on the edge of death, I’d never forget it.

“Please, help! Someone’s been stabbed in the hotel! They’re on the second floor, room 219. Hurry, he’s been stabbed through his hand and neck, and he’s falling asleep as we speak!”

“K… Kaede?” I asked, the woman Shuichi Saihara loves dragging the strength to speak out of me with ease. “A-are…”

My eyes couldn’t stay open anymore. I saw nothing, but heard her piano ringing out in my ears as the dark overtook me.

‘...Get up already.’

I nearly jumped up at the voice, spoken exactly like I remembered it, only to be held back by something.

Blinking, I noticed the fact that I was in a hospital room, the smell of disinfectant and the beeping of a heart monitor acting as evidence.

Well, either that or I was kidnapped by extremely wealthy sociopaths… so I’d keep an eye out for the worst case scenario.

Shifting up, I noticed that for someone who’d recently had a hole in his throat I seemed to be breathing regularly. Steeling myself, I gently brought my hand over to my neck, lightly brushing for any sign of injury instead of potentially jabbing myself in the near-fatal injury.

Nothing but bare skin.

What.

“... Finally awake, I see.” I damn near broke my neck as I turned over to M-

…What?

There was a floating metallic man covered in dark blues and bright purples to my side. Countless panels and seams covered his body, like he was completely capable of taking himself apart and putting himself back together.

Behind a completely black visor on his otherwise utterly featureless face, I felt as if I were staring out into a mirror.

“How the fuck do you know-”

“Miss Ultimate Assassin?” Ignoring the red tubes connecting from my arm, I reached out and grabbed the thing by his neck with all the trivial force I could muster. I doubtlessly ignored the pressure on my own throat, most likely from my own injury, to instead glare into the reflective surface of it’s visor.

“How the fuck do you know their voices?” Koichi and I, both ‘the player’ and Shuichi, had a very volatile relationship. So speaking in his voice won him no favors from me, even if he had used Maki’s before that.

“-you know their voices-” It copied my own words back to me, stopping and starting like a tape being rewound. “I-Am-Your-Stand. And-Yes-This-Is-A- Motherfucking Persona Reference.”

“...” I looked down at where he was clearly floating in the air, then back up at him. “What makes you a ‘Stand’?”

“Sometimes a- Name- is just a- Name. Mine is-” And then a familiar song began to play, and I knew his name.

[Musical Accompaniment: The Stand’s Name]

“New World Order?” Even with tubes in my arms, a psycho-murderer after my life, and multiple serial killers on the loose… a smile still came to my face as the familiar song rushed through my veins like lightning.

This song was one I knew all too well. It was a song of gaining the upper hand, of a piece of the bigger picture coming into view. It was the truth being made clear, despite all the wool shoved in front of your eyes.

“Yeah, that fits.”

“-like a glove.- Now, let’s get down to business to defeat- our mystery killer.” [New World Order] spoke confidently, and as I felt a click in the back of my mind and a river of information began flowing from him to me and vice versa… I suddenly felt very good about my odds.

But first, let’s see exactly why non-Stand Users weren’t allowed to be part of anything, according to one Jotaro Kujo.

A/N: Had to rewrite the back half of this chapter, mainly due to basic Fanfic bullshit coming to head- ie the main characters getting stupid involved for no reason.

Hope everyone enjoyed the music I added, always enjoyed stories that add stuff like that, and felt Danganronpa’s killer soundtrack was a good enough excuse to do so.

Thank you all for reading, peace.