The Ludicrous Escapade Pt.4

To Die, To Sleep

By the time you arrived in Morioh, it was already too late.

Too much precious time had passed between the moment of him writing the letter and your receival of it. Not to mention the time it took for you to act on its contents and travel from Italy to Japan. You had never even had the chance to see the letter he sent shortly afterward about his decision on how he would handle the situation.

When you and Gyro first made it to Morioh, your first destination had, of course, been Rina and Johnny's house. The only issue was that the inhabitants of the house were nowhere in sight.

After asking the neighbors, they said they saw them take a carriage down the road.

Without any other leads to follow you started heading down the path. You sent Narancia upward to see if he could catch a glimpse of them anywhere. And, while he hadn't spotted Johnny just yet, he did see what looked like a horse running toward you.

You jogged up to the horse, noticing how frightened it seemed. "Where's your rider?"

Gyro looked the animal over closely. "I think it may have been pulling the carriage Johnny was on. Its hoof prints match the ones that passed through here earlier. At some point he must've switched to riding it himself. If we follow the prints it left behind, we should be able to find him."

"Good idea." You were a little more worried now than you had been before. Something wasn't right. "And Narancia, are you sure you didn't see Johnny anywhere?" You moved and talked at the same time.

The Ghirga hesitated before nodding his head. "Not that I could tell. Unless his appearance changed a whole lot since we last saw him. Maybe he's not outside anymore?"

"Maybe..." You could only hope the situation wasn't as bad as your instincts told you it was.

You eventually made a turn into a side street where the ground was covered in yellowed ginkgo tree leaves.

Oh.

Perhaps that explained why Narancia hadn't spotted him. Johnny Joestar was dead on the ground with his head crushed by a large rock.

"Oh my God..." Of all the things Gyro expected to see, this had not been one of them. He turned to see how you were handling this new information, but you had already dropped down to the Joestar's side.

You carefully lifted Johnny's arm, paying closest attention to his hand. His skin had hardened and become patterned with origami-like lines. The same symptoms he had written about in his letter when explaining his wife's condition. Had the illness been contagious after all? Or maybe all of it was the result of some kind of Stand attack?

"Are you George?" Asked Gyro, noticing the stunned child that was leaning on a rather large suitcase. The kid had been even younger the last time he saw him, but he was still certain on who it was.

The boy didn't even respond. All he could do was stare at his father's dead body.

So the Zeppeli quickly scooped up George, keeping the kid's head from looking back to Johnny. The boy was probably already traumatized.

You still felt out of it. Shaky. Your mind not yet fully processing the sight before you. Moving away from the Joestar, you decided to take a look at the contents of the briefcase. Perhaps it would provide some insight on the situation. As soon as you had opened it, you closed it again.

"What is it?" Gyro was admittedly a little confused by your behavior.

"The corpse." You continued to hold onto the briefcase. You couldn't just leave this out in the open for anyone to take. "Johnny must've brought it to save Rina. But the corpse doesn't simply remove bad things. It sends the misfortune somewhere else." You were starting to piece together what happened.