Answer Seeking I

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When I came to, I was sitting outside a coffee shop at one of the outside tables, and holding a goddamn newspaper in my hands. My eyes were naturally drawn to a specific part of the still open page.

Morioh’s Missing People Reports Through The Roof!

… Alright, guess I’m on the case. Where do I even start, though?

Constantly readjusting the cap my body apparently came to wearing, I focused my breathing and rolled my situation through my mind like a marble.

Alright, made a deal with a… thing, and now I have to solve a missing person’s case in the body of Shuichi Saihara. 

Pretty cut and dry, it was particularly unfortunate any prior recollection of the ‘mystery’ was considered cheating. But hey, for a town chock full of probable murders, Morioh was a beautiful town.

… bit weird the sky is yellow, but the bodysnatcher doesn’t really have the right to complain, huh?

Eventually I found my way to a local library- the people here are extremely friendly, considering the old woman I asked for directions was so helpful. Even gave me some old-people candy from her purse.

Anyway, sitting in front of…

Why the fuck does this computer look older than I am? The small, box-shaped monitor sat on top of the desk in front of me, and I could practically hear dial-up noises just from looking at it.

Doing my best to keep from hanging my head, I got up and went to the librarian up front.

“Excuse me? I’m doing a school report on Morioh, is there a way for me to access some public records on the people who live here?”

Resolving to never take Google for granted ever again, I was finally able to gain access to mass reports of the missing people throughout the town after about 45 minutes of scrolling and loading.

Alright, just from scrolling through the vast majority of the missing people were female. No surprise there, but was odd was the sheer number of people that went missing. I’m talking at least three a month for years, some of them spiking heavily for various reasons, but still.

The issue is, Morioh is a small town, only recently being practically refurbished due to the region going through a boom in industry and wealth barely a decade ago. There is no way someone could hide that many bodies, or feed that many people for this amount of time.

Right now, the question of who the suspect could be is blaring overhead, but the best way to answer that is to consider- how are they getting rid of this much evidence? Despite what edgy jokes on the internet will tell you, moving a body is difficult. 

Stealthy or not, alive or not, a living person doesn’t suddenly gain or lose weight unless you start shearing off limbs. So you were usually dealing with awkwardly built, fleshy objects weighing over 100 pounds. And most people don’t hang around trash compactors or wood chippers, so it’s not like you can take care of it on site.

Burying a body would work, except for the fact this is a small town and people have eyes. You could possibly get away with one trip, but the second you go on multiple and anyone starts taking notice you’re finished.

Because these people aren’t unaware that their neighbors are disappearing, and there have been thousands upon thousands of ‘false reports’ from people who saw something suspicious and feared the worst.

Eventually, I was politely asked to leave due to the elderly people manning the library wanting to call it a day, and after being sternly denied the opportunity to help clean up after myself I was back out onto the streets.

Rubbing at my temples to try and absorb the fucking mass of information I’d just crammed into my head, something in my front pocket buzzed. I immediately fished the thing out, finding what I assumed to be a sleek PDA in my hand.

Ignoring the ‘Upupupu…’ coming from the device as I let my body’s muscle memory unlock it for me, I checked a tab titled Evidence and found a quick summary of the information I’d gained.

Throughout the years, Morioh’s number of missing people has been substantially larger than anywhere else in the region.

The victims were primarily women, of significant attractiveness, which is standard.

The sheer number of bodies, along with the heightened vigilance of the residents, make it unlikely the victims have left Morioh in any form.

I paused at the addition to my observation- attractiveness. The pictures varied in quality and age, but I could see where attractiveness could lead into it.

Along with that, the majority were at least high school age- so the motherfucker wasn’t a pedophile at least. Well, by Japanese standards.

As the sky bled red, I rolled what little information I could find around in my head.

Considering how standard the perpetrator(s)’s chosen victims were compared to the average kidnapper/serial killer, it wouldn’t be incorrect to assume that they were actually an adult male. Most likely lives alone, history of concerning/deviant behavior throughout childhood-

I noticed there was a crowd gathering in the vicinity, and without a shred of shame dug and shoved my way through the mass of bodies. Throughout the sea of bodies, I finally came out the other end, accidentally nudging some blonde guy in a striped purple suit. I muttered and apology, turned towards the center of attention-

And saw some teenager with a pompadour staring down a thuggish man holding a knife to the neck of a woman. Soon after, the delinquent with- gold hearts pins littering his uniform- grunted aggressively at the man.

So aggressively blood flew out in the air, causing both the hostage and the criminal to gasp like they’d just been impaled. Pompadour pulled the woman away while saying something I was too far too hear, and… the man had his knife beneath his skin, as if it had grown in there.

What the fuck?

He screamed out that he had a knife in his stomach before collapsing onto the sidewalk, and… his jaw unhinged and drool pooled out from his mouth.

What the fuck?

The delinquent looked intensely at the space in front of the comatose criminal, looking over to a runoff drain and calling it a… bastard?

And then the police officers finally grew a pair and tackled the guy to the ground. Meanwhile, I almost fell down myself as I realized I was 100% in an anime. Seriously, what was that haircut if not protagonist hair?

And apparently attacks are invisible or something, considering none of the blood from the two’s wounds ever met the ground. Did he just heal the damage after he made it? Why didn’t the other guy attack?

Oh my God, I’m going blind through a shonen about murderers… And I don’t have a place to stay.

Once again, my PDA was a convenient spot to check after I’d received new information.

There are people capable of using bizarre abilities, and they seem to be in conflict with each other.

One teenage delinquent, who looks like a watered down Mondo Oowada, is capable of undoing damage he inflicts.

Whatever occurred between Pompadour and Knife Guy, it isn’t over.

I quickly shoved it back into my pocket, and instead pulled out the wallet I’d found in my pocket after realizing how fucked I was. Eyeballing it, I had enough money for maybe three days in a hotel room, but after that I’d probably need to find a job.

… So I needed to solve this mystery in three days.

I sighed, leaning back into the metal bench, and rubbed at my temples. How the fuck am I supposed to investigate a series of disappearances/murders when I can’t even see the most damning pieces of evidence?!

… Well. I know someone who definitely can see what I’m looking for. Let’s just hope he isn’t one of those edgy protagonists…

“Oi.” A deep voice called out, coming from a guy who definitely had no reason to be as large as he was. Easily over six feet tall, wearing nearly all white with a white cap that faded into black on top of his head, and a piercing blue stare.

Holy shit, is this the antagonist? He’s certainly built like a final villain.

“Yes?” I asked the man, standing up off the bench. He looked at me searchingly for a moment, and I got the odd feeling I was failing a test without knowing about it. “Can I help you?”

“People have been telling me you’re looking into the disappearances going on in this town.” … Ah, that makes sense. Stranger digging through the town’s twisted history is sure to grab someone’s attention.

…Like the killer themself.

“Yeah, I did that.” I didn’t take my eyes off the man for even a second. “No one said it’d be a problem if I looked into something as suspicious as that.”

Unfortunately I wasn’t particularly good at guessing people’s ages based solely off appearance, especially when this man appeared built like an NBA star with the softest face imaginable, but I couldn’t be certain he was the culprit based on the probable age-range.

No matter how evil a child can be, I don’t expect them to be able to deal with all this so easily. Or single-handedly.

“... Ah, do you think I’m the culprit behind these events? Considering we’re both new to town, I could say the same thing about you.”

… New? No, that couldn’t be possible. Even with… invisible superpowers being a thing, someone would notice a person constantly appearing and disappearing around the time of the events.

And new? What murders is he talking about? Wait…

“You know who the culprit is?” He dismissed the suspicion towards me, and mine towards him with a fact about the criminal. A fact that was inconsistent with the sharp increase of disappearances in this town, meaning either he had gotten the culprit wrong…

Or it’s a string of criminals, with the same invisible power that leaves little to no evidence. Like Pompadour’s, with multiple people picking up the slack…

That could explain why there was no identifiable similarity among the victims beside ‘attractive woman’. So many people taking part ended up disguising it as one general killer.

“Angelo, a scumbag who escaped maximum security after surviving his execution. He’s been raping and killing since he was twelve, and my source says he’s in this town right now.”

… “Is he the type to hold a woman hostage in front of a crowd in broad daylight?”

“... Was there a delinquent kid with a pompadour involved?” I nodded severely. “Yare yare daze…”

What? Why the fuck didn’t that translate? Doesn’t that mean ‘Good grief?’ Does my body’s translation only work for words I already know?

“Where’s the nearest telephone!” The behemoth of a man barked out, and I pointed to the other side of the-

Park… Where did he go? 

Ah fuck, he’s got it too. And teleportation? Fuck, I wish I had whatever he’s got.

Eventually, the White Titan returned, looking oddly surprised to see me. “I didn’t expect you to stick around.”

“Eh, don’t have much else to do. You call Pompadour?” The man… grimaced.

“Word of advice, kid’s super sensitive about the hair. Say anything vaguely insulting about it, he’ll do the same shit he did to the mugger to you.” Breaking out into a cold sweat, I nodded. “Anyways, my name is Jotaro Kujo. The brat is Josuke Higashikata.”

“Ah, my name’s Shuichi Saihara, nice to meet ya.” I held out a hand to the man, which he grabbed and shook- surprisingly firm without trying to crush my hand. Though considering his size, he’d probably cripple me if he tried that.

“Hm.” He responded simply. “I warned Josuke about the kind of guy he’s messing with, and that his Stand was probably controlling the guy he beat earlier.” He looked at me intently, and I could only tilt my head curiously.

“What’s a Stand?” Jotaro squeezed his eyes shut, visibly contemplating whether he’d wasted his time introducing himself. I could tell by the way his knuckles popped.

“Never mind, forget about all of this. You’ll only get in the way.” The jackass turned his back on me and began walking away. I reached out to him in aggravated confusion.

“Wait-

what…?” He was gone.

Seriously, what the fuck is a Stand?!

A/N: New story dropped, chock-full of references and mystery, as well as excuses to rewatch Part 4!

SI!huichi Saihara drops into JoJos Part 4, with the goal of identifying Kira and putting a stop to his bullshit.

This is a story about discovery, investigation, and accomplishment. Detective work is both crazy fast and horrifyingly slow even without superpowers, so expect the pacing to vary. 

There will be Danganronpa references abound, so be prepared!

Thanks for reading, Peace!