章 4: CHAPTER 4
No matter how prepared you are, human ability is extremely limited and finite!"
Dio explained while shaking his head before looking straight into "my" eyes.
"Your Hamon training avails you nothing! It was useless, useless, useless, useless, useless, useless, useless!"
The air around the vampire starts to drop in temperature drastically, as his body heat dipped so low that even the air around him chilled into mist.
"A mere monkey can never defeat a lion. In comparison to my power, you are but a mere monkey, Jojo!"
With a sudden explosive leap, Dio pounced towards "me" with his arms reeled back, ready to strike "me" down with his inhuman strength, and sharp claws that could scrap away a diamond.
The feeling of heat permeating through "my" body, my resolve burning even brighter as "I" retorted with my soul behind my voice.
"You're wrong! With true conviction, the human race can overcome anything! Let me demonstrate to just what heights a human being can rise to, Dio!"
"I" yelled as "I" move "my" right arm behind my back, and channel as much Hamon that I could spare into my fist.
"Don't waste your time, a zombie is all you'll ever be!"
"My" heart resonates within "me"... Heat enough to burn even the darkest night! Feel its symphony, Dio! The razor sharp beat of "my" heart!
"Kohhhh~!"
Dashing towards Dio, "my" body rotates into spins as "my" right arm,, filled to the brim with Hamon, starts to burn through "my" gloves! This heat, is "my" resolve to show Dio the very heights that "I've" obtained!
The shock in Dio's eyes were clear, this heat burning through "my" blood was hot enough to get through his ice!
"When this business is done, which one of us will have fallen? We'll find out now, DIO!"
"I" said with passion as "I" placed both of "my" arms together and made a mad dash towards Dio, giving out a war cry.
" URSHA! "
" WRY! "
Dio stops "my" burning hands with his own arms covered in ice, desperately trying to stop "my" attack filled with Hamon. "We" both groaned at the straining bout, but "my" strength was stronger as "I" pushed through his defenses!
"Take this, Dio! ORYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! "
*BRRRRKKKKKK!*
A burst of flames erupted from Dio's back as he screams in pain, flying away from "my" powerful punch as he wails in pain.
"I-I'm disintegrating? I-It can't be!"
The sound of burning permeated the surroundings as Dio started to lose limb after limb, through disintegration of his vampire cells burned to ashes due to "my" Hamon.
"T-This pain, this b-burning! I can't — Uhragggh..."
Watching "my" brother fall to his death, I couldn't help but shed one final tear before my body lets up from exhaustion, "my" heart heavy with guilt for killing him. Maybe there was another way, another road that "I've" could have taken to stop "my" brother from going down the road he trail.
"... Dio ."
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3 Years Later...
Writhing on my body, I unconsciously gave out groans of discomfort as I moved about in my bed, still unconscious as the birthmark near my neck started to glow slightly with an omnious purple. My hand moved to the birthmark before starting to scratch it relentlessly, as if it was an itch that wouldn't go away.
*BAM!*
"Jo... Jo!"
A sudden weight landed on my body with a heavy force, causing me to choke on my saliva as my eyes shot open, now fully sober. Twisting my head, I looked at the culprit responsible for my sudden awakening.
"Y-You two...!"
Yang Xiao-Long stared back with a smirk on her mouth, while Ruby Rose was happily giggling at my facial expression. My eyebrow twitches as Yang explained with her smirk still on her face.
"Well, Dad tried to wake you up, but it didn't work, so she sent us in!"
"Yeah, yeah! You slept like a log!"
Ruby happily gave her piece before running out of my room.
"Mom, Dad, Jojo is awakeeee!"
I simply flopped back onto the bed before sighing. Raising my hand, I gave the remaining girl a "shoo" gesture.
"Ugh, I guess it's my fault for not waking up earlier... Now, shoo, I'm not wearing anything under the sheets!"
Her expression turned from smirking to a cringe expression as she gagged.
"Ewww! Mom told you not to do that! MOM! JOJO'S BEEN SLEEPING NAKED AGAINNNN!"
"EWWWWWWW!"
"JOJO? What did I say about wearing nothing when sleeping?!"
The shriek from Summer made me wince at the volume. This girl—!
"Oi, snitches gets stitches, Yang! You better be prepared later, you brat!"
I roared as I heard a conversation happening downstairs.
"Sleeping naked is actually a healthy thing for men, you know?"
"Tai! Not helping!"
Before exiting my room, Yang put her tongue out and pulled her eyelid down childishly before running away. I stayed staring at the door for a few seconds before a small smile crept up my face.
Making sure that the door was closed with the help of ⌈Silver Bullet⌋, I got up from my bed and headed to my wardrobe to prepare for the day. The toilet was a few rooms away, so I had to dress up before getting the chance to get to the toilet before I can take a shower.
My eyes glanced at the mirror on the wardrobe door, and damn was I tall. I'm closing in on 8 years old, yet my height and body was as if I was a fit 12-year-old that frequently body builds, even if when I only jog 4 times a week.
This is some weird stuff, must be the Joestar bloodline or something.
*BANG BANG BANG!*
"Jojo! Hurry up and get ready, school about to start and Tai needs to get there early today!"
Summer yelled from the door, causing me to quickly wore a t-shirt and my boxers.
"Alright, I'm going, I'm going!"
Jeez, what a hectic family I have.
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3rd POV
"This is..."
Ozpin mutters as he read the recent document sent by the chief of Vale's Kingdom Police Department and frowned. Scrolling through the document, his heart sank at the last few sentences of the report.
[Observation: There may be a chance that artificial Stand Users are being created.]
"Oh dear..."
Quickly doing more research with the past few reports, Ozpin leaned back into his chair before closing his eyes, breathing out a heavy sigh of stress.
Stand Users are a rare commodity to begin with. In the ratio of Aura Users to Stand Users, it is about 500,000 Aura Users to 1 Stand User, and Vale has a population of just under 1.6 million.
You cannot just make a Stand User, Atlas have certainly tried. Stand Users must have the potential to wield it, or else all the methods would just create an Aura User instead. Even with the current technological advancements, all Kingdoms have failed to procure a way to trace said potential.
Even so, the odds of a person being born with potential is drastically low, that's why
Usually, Stand Users are supposed to be registered and recorded into the system, to be monitored so that they wouldn't abuse their powers. Currently, there are 23 Stand Users registered as Vale residents in the system, yet there are crimes that are happening too frequently with a... bizarre aftertaste.
Mysterious killings that ended up in limbless bodies, kidnappings that happen without even a trace of witnesses and evidence, robberies that were conducted without any trails, cases of drug abuse when Vale had quite the restriction to it, and even normal pickpocketing in broad daylight without catching any attention until a few hours later.
Not to mention that rumors of a gang in Vale made out of many Stand Users that were roaming around the underground scene of Vale for quite a few years now...
The number of Stand Users are too high, from the latest report written... This is a very bad sign.
"Judicator..."
A Stand User's Type, Ability, and Parameters are very unpredictable. But it is proven that no Stand is weak, only the Stand User's imagination and use of it. This makes a normal Stand User a threat that needed at least a team of Huntsmen to handle, for the least amount of damages caused.
The new gang, Judicator, had an estimated threat level of 8 or more Stand Users, 3 ex-Huntsmen team, and more than 150 followers by what the VKPD chief mentioned. The numbers are not that high compared to the other gangs in Vale, but the quality of men in the gang was what horrified him.
Vale cannot simply use so much of the Huntsmen task force for such a gang, but he had to get rid of this dilemma before they grow larger. They'd already made a mistake with the Red Axe gang a few decades ago, a simple gang with less than 50 members suddenly flourishing into a gang with over 10,000 members around Vale and other Kingdoms.
The only reason why the Council don't take action was because of their leader, Hei Xiong the 2nd, or Junior, for short. The Red Axe gang was more of a pacifist that had higher regards towards moral and ethics compared to the other dominant gangs.
Yet the gang had a sought out role in the underworld, making even the Council need their services.
They were the reigning source of information.
With money and favours, anyone could ask for information about nearly anything that's occurring in Vale and the surrounding Kingdoms. Their reach in Kingdoms were large and impactful, and the amount of blackmail they had on politicials were existential. That's why the Council hadn't forced anything, one mistake and their actions would be leaked to the CCT.
They are however, for a better word, neutral in a sense, if you'd ignore their services of loaning human resources to anyone with money.
Even he uses their services sometimes to spy on the incoming premium-grade cocoa beans from Vacuo, the competition to get them from the whole world is what keeps him going at times, he admits.
The point stands, that a growing gang is an issue, and should be nipped out of the bud before it grows too high for normal authorities to handle...
Another heave sounded from the Headmaster before he made his decision. He may not like it, but the wait-and-see approach is still the best option he had. Vale simply cannot expand more resources at the moment, especially when the Vytal Festival is coming up in the next few months.
And he needed Qrow to keep the trail of the Autumn Maiden fresh, so he couldn't move Qrow to cleanse the gang before it grows.
Taking a sip from his mug, he breathes out and looks at the scenery from his window.
Such bad timing, indeed. If the speculations of some kind of device that can create Stand Users, then he must contain this information as closely as he can. If Salem gets word of it... It would be a disaster to the whole world of Remnant.
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1st POV
A sudden pain behind my neck caused me to quickly touch the birthmark. Giving out a hiss, I looked at the palm that touched the birthmark to reveal no blood at all.
The action caused Yang, who was sitting next to me, to look with concern.
"Are you OK, Jojo?"
"Yeah... I'm fine."
Frowning, I took a deep breath and tried to focus on class, but my thoughts kept wondering to the sharp pain.
... Something was coming, I could feel it within me. Like a sixth sense, I know that something bad was about to happen, but I don't know what it is, that is the concerning part that kept ringing in my head.
Keeping in mind to be more observant, I pushed the feeling deeper into my mind before straining my attention to keep up with the biology class.
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Later the Same Day...
Summer, who just returned from Beacon Academy, entered the house with a smile. The two step-siblings of mine who were bundled up next to me watching television under blankets screamed "MOM!" before immediately ran towards their mother and hugging the mother figure.
Summer retired from her Huntsman job a few weeks after I was adopted. It was for the best in my opinion, sometimes I could see her wince from phantom pains when the kids touched the delicate areas where Tyrian's poison infected. And since I was a light sleeper, I could hear her screaming sometimes due to a nightmare, even 3 years laters.
She clearly had PTSD from that experience, so after talking with Tai, she decided to retire and instead work in Beacon as their Outdoor Survival Class instructor where she teaches outdoor survival classes teaching on how to survive in the wild without equipment.
Using ⌈Silver Bullet⌋, I extended its reach to its optimal range limit of 5 meters before grabbing her work bag for her, her muttering a "thank you" to my Stand before entering the living room.
"Hey, Summer."
I greeted her standing up from my seat as the lady stopped her hugs of the two children and pouts at me with her cheeks puffed.
"Jordan, how many times do I have to say, call me "Mom"!"
"Yeah, no chance, Summer."
I shot it down instantly without any hesitation. This dance has been going on ever since I was adopted, and she clearly doesn't back down from a fight. With a click of her tongue, she huffed and crossed her arms.
"One day, you'll slip, Jordan! I will be recording when the day comes, just you wait, mister!"
She says promisingly before using her Semblance to zoom past her kids and me to the kitchen. Since she opted to stay back home instead of living in Beacon Academy's dormitory, she comes back a little later than most people at around 7 to immediately start dinner.
"Is Dad coming back late again? I wanted him to cook today..."
"The only reason why you even want your father to cook is because of his insistence of adding so many spices, Yang. They're not good for your health, you know?"
Summer says while shaking her index finger towards Yang.
Tai, who was a teacher in Signal Academy's High School, was still in school grading and doing some paperwork along with planning his own classes for next week. Usually he comes back quite late on Fridays, but usually it is Tai who cooks our meals.
And I made it my mission to help out in the kitchen, especially on Fridays. We students come back home at around 2 in the afternoon, so I had more than enough time to prep dinner for Summer to cook the meals.
I, at one time, suggested straight up cooking for the family since I read up on cooking recipies and techniques during my down time, but was shot down instantly due to my age. Damn you, 8-year-old body!
Grabbing the large blanket on the carpet, I tucked it away on the couch before walking to the counter where the two children were watching their mother cook up a storm. I was basically their babysitter at this point, until they grow older at least.
Swatting Ruby's hands that kept creeping towards the cookie jar, and making sure that Yang wasn't going near the stove area while Summer was cooking, I mentally thanked the grim reaper for my Stand. It was just so useful to multi-task with it.
["— Pickpockettings have been occuring to locals and tourists in Sector 8, so it is advised that one keeps his belongings close to their bodies."]
The newsa caught my attention, so I watched the television. Summer, who was chopping vegetables hummed.
"Yes, I heard about it too. Yang, Jordan, next time we go to Vale, make sure that your wallets are secure, alright? I heard that too many pickpocketing is happening all around Vale."
"OK!"
Yang answered as I simply stared at the television, the feeling returning with a heavy kind of storm behind it.
"Yeah..."
I'll keep a closer eye on Vale the next time we explore the Kingdom...
◀——–– To Be Continued
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