The Ludicrous Escapade Pt.4

Dark Urge

Norisuke parked the car along the side of the road. Joshu and Gappy clambered on out of the back seats. You, who had taken the passenger seat, were stopped as your hand touched the car door.

"Take this, (Y/N)." Norisuke placed some cash in your hand. "It's for Josuke's bus pass. If I gave it Joshu he'd probably just spend it on something else."

"Okay, thanks." You pocketed the money and got out of the car before he drove off to work.

Currently, Joshu was trying to test Josuke by having him solve some of the math problems in his workbook.

"Ew." That was Dio's first reaction, having not looked at Joshu properly during breakfast. "He's the creep, isn't he?" His face contorted in disgust. "How is his father not ashamed to have him leave the house with a haircut like that? Are you sure you don't want to just kill him right now? It'd be easy." He had his thumb and pointer finger close to his eye, pretending to smoosh Joshu's head. "Like crushing a grape. Honestly, I'd be doing the world a favor."

You let out a low hum, genuinely considering it. "It is tempting, isn't it?" You mentally responded. "But we'd still have to deal with the consequences. Norisuke would probably find out if it was my doing in one way or another." You didn't feel like fighting the whole Higashikata family.

"Consequences? Who cares about those?" Dio placed his hands on your shoulders from behind. His tone of voice made it clear he was just joking around. "We could make this the start of your villain arc! Wouldn't that be exciting?"

"Oh? Should I take up your plan, then? Achieve Heaven and all that?" You waited a moment before shaking your head. "But I guess you don't really have any more body parts of yours lying around. What a shame. No villain arc for me."

"Well, do let me know if you change your mind. I'm sure I could cook up something even better than the Heaven plan." The vampire continued to float in the air this time. Joshu couldn't seem to see him so he felt there was no point in staying hidden. The one hour restriction had been removed a long, long time ago, so he was free to enjoy as much outside time as he liked.

"I told you before at the wall eyes. About Yasuho." Joshu was trying to lean over Gappy while he talked. "Yasuho is my woman. She even let me kiss her. It was a deep and hot one." He started wiggling his tongue. "Relorelorelorelo..."

"Joshu, Yasuho doesn't like you." You decided it was time intervene.

He scoffed, combing a hand through his egregious hair. "I get it, (Y/N), you're jealous of her. But just because I'm dating her doesn't mean I can't date you, too. There's plenty of me to go around."

You grit your teeth. Dio's offer was looking more and more appealing.

Joshu harshly poked Josuke. "Listen, back at the wall eyes I tripped on the ground and fell. Then some germs got into my foot so I lost consciousness. So there's no way in hell I lost to you or any shit like that... and I never will. So don't screw around with my Yasuho."

Gappy stared at the Higashikata intently, wondering if the man was at all capable of backing up his words. Did he need to be worried about him or was he just an idiot?

"Hey, Josuke. You don't seem like a middle schooler. Look." Joshu pointed at the road ahead. "It's curved, so you can't see the other end. But if you go down it, the path ends in about 150 meters. Hasekura High School is at the end of that road. Wanna go?"

"If there's a school there." That's really all Gappy cared about.

You looked to the ginkgo trees and the many yellow leaves scattered on the ground. This was the same street Johnny had died on many years ago. You had walked through it a few times since then when visiting his shrine. Each time, the street was always a bit different than before. Speaking of, the reason you had come back to Morioh at all was to visit the statue. You still had yet to do so.

"I go to a different school in S City. And I just remembered something." Joshu's voice began to waver, his nervousness peaking through. "A few years ago, I got my money extorted from me on this road. Those guys fucked with me... so now I'm gonna get revenge for back then. And you're gonna help me out, okay?"

"Help out...? Me?" Gappy was pretty sure Joshu hated him and couldn't understand why he'd ask for his help.

"Ya know... You wanna go to school, right? Do you want to go to high school or not?" Joshu had already decided that he wouldn't help Josuke go to school unless the guy helped him deal with the people who extorted him.

"Yes, I want to go." Replied Gappy.

"Then you're definitely going to get your money taken." And honestly, Joshu didn't really care too much as long as it was someone else getting picked on.

"Are the students the ones extorting people?" If so, you felt it better to just send Gappy to a different school.

"No, nothing like that." Joshu tried to place a hand on your shoulder but you immediately pushed it away. "The standard scores for the school are pretty high. Of the guys I know there, not one of them is a bad guy. They're all pretty nice." Not that you really trusted his judgement. "But for some reason, people get shaken down on that road. So was I. This era is all about appearance. People only pretend to follow rules. They just dress things up so the surface is pretty. You're better off beating them up before you get beaten up yourself, right? Someone like Josuke will get teased for sure. So instead he'll be the one ripping them off."

"Did he just say something decent?" Dio was worried he could be starting to agree with some of Joshu's philosophy. "I suppose even a broken clock is still right twice a day..."

"Yeah... I guess you're right. Okay!" Josuke took a purposeful step forward. There were several groups of people scattered about the sidewalk. All of them seemed to be watching him from the corner of their eyes. "So people stole money from you in a place like this? Every time?"

"Well..." Joshu kept trying to get closer to you as he walked. "I don't go down this road every day or anything. But it's something pretty much everyone in this town knows about.

"I wonder how recently this started..." You said, mostly to yourself. No one had ever tried to mug you or anything on this street before.

"The group of three people, is it them?" Josuke was talking about the guys standing on the corner of the street.

Joshu shook his head. "I don't think so. Maybe?"

"Um, do you have a minute?" A woman with wavy brown hair walked up to the three of you, carefully avoiding the leaves scattered on the street. "If I've made some mistake, I'm terribly sorry. I apologize from the bottom of my heart. But... I believe you stepped on something, yes?" Her eyes narrowed slightly, revealing a certain smugness that she was clearly trying to hide. "It's just... I was looking at a store window and it happened in an instant, but there can be no disputing things that are certain. Please listen to your conscience."

"So that's what's going on here..." Dio propped up his chin with one hand.

"Yeah..." You mentally replied. "They all seem to know about what happens when you step on the leaves. Even if none of them are Stand users, I suppose it makes sense for them to notice the phenomena. They're all just here to prey on those who aren't aware."

"It's too bad for them that they picked on the wrong people." A smirk had settled on the vampire's face. He had feeling he would have the opportunity to stir up some trouble real soon.

As Joshu and the woman continued arguing about who did what, you crouched down to pick up the toy compact that Joshu had been led to step on. "What the hell...?" In the spot where the makeup would be was a plastic copy of the red stone of Aja. What a strange coincidence.

"Hey, get your hands off it!" The woman tried grabbing you by the shoulder. "Your friend already broke it. Haven't you done enough harm?" She still had an edge of confidence to her voice. She knew the other people on the street would back her up. After all, they were doing the same kind of schemes.

"My magic compact that Santa gave me!" The little girl sitting on the bench was balling her eyes out. She, at least, appeared to be genuinely upset. It was pretty scummy of the mom to have her kid's things broken for the sake of some cash.

"Freeze time." Your nonverbal order was immediately followed through. Dio looked at you expectantly, just waiting for you to give the word.

You returned the vampire's sinister smile. "Let's give them a taste of their own medicine, shall we?