The car glided along the coast of Morioh. Dio tilted his sunglasses down and hazarded a glance towards the light glittering on the water. The car's windows were also shaded, of course, but he could still see the shining gleam cutting through the glass haze.

Those poor vampires of the centuries prior— none had known the chemical embrace of a sunscreen and none had seen the sun in any context other than "fatal". Unless other vampires yet lurked in the shadowy corners of the Earth (which was unlikely, given the Speedwagon Foundation's penchant for finding and smashing the stone masks) he, Dio, was perhaps the only undead in existence to enjoy the daytime tourist's view of Morioh.

It was very pretty, he admitted. He missed the atmosphere of Cairo, but Morioh wasn't half-bad, he supposed. He knew a slimy tourist trap when he saw one, and yet he had found none in this town. There was some accolade to be given for that, he was sure, but he also kind of liked seeing idiot sightseers paying obscene prices for junk. Or a hapless businessman having his wallet plucked by some scrappy pickpocket. Or himself, taking someone by the hand and guiding them away from the bar and plunging his teeth into an outstretched neck—

All life is exploitation. Parasites feed on other parasites. There's no honor to be had in living. And so on and so forth.

"Mr. Sato," he said, and the poor man jumped.

"You seem like a man with a good head on his shoulders," Dio continued, and the man nodded in such a way that implied 'and I would like to continue to have that head on my shoulders, if it's all the same to you.'

"I simply want your honest advice," Dio said, and then, because he couldn't quite help himself, he added: "and I will know if you are being honest."

Mr. Sato nodded again.

"Do you think that a bad outcome can be excused by good intentions?"

He sweatily mulled it over. "I think it depends on how bad the outcome is," Mr. Sato answered. "How bad are we talking?"

Dio looked up as he concocted a few possible scenarios. "A wife accidentally poisons her husband thinking it will help his indigestion. He goes to the hospital and is released after several days."

Mr. Sato pursed his lips. "Sounds like a learning experience to me."

"So it is forgivable?"

"If the husband wants to forgive her, I guess."

"And if she would have killed him?"

Mr. Sato grimaced. "Then I suppose he wouldn't be around to forgive her."

"Does the meaning of this scenario hinge upon forgiveness?"

"I don't know." He frowned. "Sometimes things are just freak accidents. They can feel good or bad, or like divine justice, or like they have meaning. But the meaning for one man is often different from another."

Dio tilted his head. "The inverse, then. Is a good outcome valid when caused by bad intentions?"

Mr. Sato squinted. "Like the wife really did poison her husband but then all it did was help his indigestion?"

"Ha. Yes. Perhaps so."

"Then I would recommend them couple's counseling," Mr. Sato ventured.

"Do you believe that the wife would still go to heaven, then? Hatred was in her heart, but it did not harm another."

"Oh, er," Mr. Sato stammered, "I wouldn't know about that. I'm not very religious. It doesn't sound very good for her, though. I think it must be important to have a sincere heart, and she is not sincere."

Dio fell silent and peered out the window. He thought of Pucci.

"My friend just had a Christian-style wedding," Mr. Sato said to fill the silence. "And my friend's friend over in Nagasaki is a… protester. Protestant. One of those."

Dio rolled his eyes. "Do you like sports, Mr. Sato?"

"Sports!" he exclaimed. "Sports, yes, well. I love baseball."

"Say a baseball player is up against the biggest game of their life," Dio said. "The other team is undefeated. Do you believe that the baseball player has a better chance of winning if they— if they merely go through the motions, if they play perfectly adequate baseball, or if they put their entire heart and soul into it?"

"They have to give it their all, of course," Mr. Sato said. "Sometimes passion will earn you a win that skill alone never could."

"To mix our metaphors, then," Dio said as he tapped his nails against his thigh. "Would a person who did a good thing but didn't have their entire heart and soul involved break their way into heaven?"

"Er," Mr. Sato said. "Break their way?"

Dio sighed again and stared out the window. "It may be necessary," he said. "I need to beat a God at his own baseball game."

Mr. Sato's only response was politely quiet bafflement.

The road took a turn; the sandy swimming beaches grew rockier as they approached a steady incline. Further up the coast, there would be no sand, only a high cliff face and a sheer drop to the water below. In the transition between the two beachfronts, there were water-worn stones, shallow tidal pools, and an unavoidable influx of detritus dragged over on the tide. Lost sunglasses, grimy food wrappers, the occasional entire pair of swim trunks— anything swept out by the current tended to end up here. A common school project was to visit the tide pools and clear out the trash. Children had found that there was much to be said about the crustaceans that made their homes in discarded bikini tops.

But the tide was now low, the pools were relatively clean, and there was a lone figure standing near the shoreline with his hands shoved in his pockets. A ghostly limb manifested, jabbed into the water, and scooped up sludgy wet sand.

Dio squinted at the sun.

"Mr. Sato," he said. "One last philosophical question for you, if you don't mind."

Mr. Sato shot a glance at the rearview mirror.

"Do you find that it is better to… what's the phrase," Dio said. "To rip off the band-aid quickly rather than slowly?"

"I'm actually more of a 'there's always tomorrow' person, myself," he replied with tentative hope.

Dio sighed. "Just pull over."

"Right."


Dio slathered on another round of sunscreen, leaned his umbrella against his shoulder, and then stared down at the seaweed strewn across the ground. His new boots gleamed.

With a sigh, he stepped onto the beach. The wet sand squelched. Jotaro did not move as he approached; he merely kept scanning the murk beneath the shallow waves.

Had Jolyne already told him about their escapades in another universe? If so, how catastrophic would the fallout be? Jotaro had not yet deigned to recognize his presence, which was good, because that meant that Dio was not at the 'being attacked on sight' level of trouble; but it was also bad, because now it was a matter of who would break the silence first.

Dio considered himself quite good at silent lurking. Jotaro, however, was an award-winning brick wall. The two stood in the shallow saltwater in complete silence until Dio felt the tip of his nose sizzling from the sunset.

With an ugh of disgust, Dio retrieved a silk scarf from his pocket and tucked it around his face as a makeshift mask. The burning relented. He took a step forward. "A fine evening, isn't it, Kujo?"

Jotaro held up his hand in the universal symbol for stop. Dio sneered beneath the silk.

"At your feet," Jotaro said. "Be careful."

Dio furrowed his brows and looked down. Under the water, he spotted a clump of several starfish huddled together. "Ah," he said, flatly. "Are they dangerous, or are you merely averse to me stepping on them?"

"I'm studying their behavior," Jotaro replied.

Dio sniffed and glanced around. One of the starfish had been stranded at the top of a rugged rock. It had probably been flung up there by a wave during high tide. Perhaps it would dry out and perish before another high wave could sweep it back to sea.

"Do you know that insipid little story?" Dio asked. "Where the young man is throwing the starfish back out to the water, and the old man comes along and says 'there are thousands of stranded starfish, what difference could you possibly make?'"

"And the young man throws another starfish back into the ocean and says, 'I made a difference to that one,'" Jotaro replied.

"I thought it was a rather stupid story," Dio said. "I may have killed the man that told it to me. But I suppose that is the difference between you and I. A Joestar throws the starfish back to sea."

"I also think it is a stupid story," Jotaro said, and Dio quirked an eyebrow.

"The butterfly effect," Jotaro said. "Except… starfish. Throwing one starfish back to the sea doesn't only change things for that one starfish. It sets off a chain of events that can grow like ripples in a… pond." He paused. "It's hard to make a ripple metaphor about the ocean. Because of the waves. I had to change bodies of water."

Dio squinted.

"That one starfish," Jotaro continued. "Maybe it was the single starfish needed to lead to a future where after humans go extinct, a race of extremely intelligent starfish descendants thrive." He paused and stared out at the slowly setting sun. "Things may have been just as tenuous for the first vertebrate amphibian all those years ago." He finally glanced over towards Dio; his expression was that of his typical expressionlessness. "Why do you think the story is stupid?"

"It's a matter of natural selection, isn't it? Survival of the fittest? Every starfish for themself," Dio replied. "If a starfish manages to be washed into a place it shouldn't be, and it can't get back to the ocean by its own power, then death is what it deserves." He waved a hand dismissively. "Helping it only staves off the inevitable. It will end up washed back to shore again. I suppose only the stickiest starfish must survive."

Jotaro let out a flat hm.

"But you're the marine-biologist-to-be," Dio said with a sigh. "Go on, lecture me about how I must be wrong."

"Survival of the fittest," Jotaro echoed. "Every man for himself." He peered at the clump of starfish at Dio's feet. "I'm studying this species of starfish because they exhibit altruistic behavior. Starfish are typically solitary organisms. They do compete with each other for resources like food, but most do well to keep their distance the rest of the time. They don't even have to be in close contact with one another to mate. They simply release genetic material into their environment and the embryos are fertilized in the water."

Dio frowned. "Then what are they doing in this clump? Eating something? Eating each other?"

"There is loose seaweed in these tide pools, but there is no established sea grass," Jotaro explained. "When there is sea grass to hide inside, the starfish remain solitary. Predators have a hard time finding them. But when they are in more barren places such as this, they clump together. Starfish don't have brains, but they still understand that sometimes, there is safety in numbers." He tilted his head up towards the sky. "If I were a predator looking down at the sea floor, a single starfish would be easy to spot. But a group like that could be confused for an inedible rock."

"Still, there are predators, and they are prey," Dio said. "And their own predators may be prey, as well, all the way up the food chain."

Jotaro didn't seem too enthused. "The concept of the food chain is outdated. Food webs are the more representative model."

Dio shrugged. "In any model, there are still those who are eaten and those who do the eating. 'Though Nature, red in tooth and claw—'"

Jotaro stared at him. "Why do you want there to be a hierarchy so badly?"

Dio wasn't sure how to respond. It was an event that was happening disconcertingly frequently. He only hoped that his sneer was evident through his scarf.

Jotaro stood with inexhaustible silence.

"There is one," Dio insisted. So I can stand at the top of it felt like too direct an answer. So did the lengthier explanation of it's the only way life makes sense, because if it isn't all about clawing your way to the top so that you stop getting bitten at the bottom, then what have I been doing?

The look Jotaro gave him, while subtle, was certainly judgemental. His eyebrow may have even quirked. But he turned his attention back to the sea, and the waves quietly washed against the shore.

"Jolyne told me everything," Jotaro said.

"Ah."

"Do you have a plan for defeating yourself?"

Good, Dio thought. Jolyne being dragged into danger wasn't something Dio had wanted, but at least it had made Jotaro truly consider the power of his double. "I do," he said.

"Well?"

Dio grinned down at the starfish. "There's safety in numbers, isn't there?"

Jotaro grunted in vague assent.

Dio paused. The sloshing of the waves filled the silence.

"I need you to bring Holly here," he finally said.

The resulting silence was to be expected. So was the withering glare that Jotaro was now sending his way.

"When we spoke in Rohan's kitchen you offered to let me hit you," Jotaro said slowly. "I may take you up on that."

"When I say I need every Joestar on my side, I mean every Joestar," Dio continued. "Every Joestar I can feasibly gather, that is. None from before 1889, though I don't particularly consider those ones to be worthwhile—"

The impact was predictable, but it still hurt. Dio flexed his jaw to make sure nothing was broken. Star Platinum's hand faded away.

"I suppose I did offer," Dio said, sorely.

"Yes, your double is a threat that must be dealt with," Jotaro said. "But you seem to be forgetting that there is still a serial killer in Morioh. One that is retaliating against Joestars or anyone associated with one all because we may figure out his identity again. Having Jolyne here is already more risk than I am willing to bear. Having Erina here is sheer insanity. Bringing Holly here is impossible. It's not happening."

"And if the serial killer is gone, what then?" Dio asked. "How hard could he possibly be to find? You all found me and I was a continent or so away." He furrowed his eyebrows. "Joseph was keeping an eye on me, here, in Morioh. Why can't he search for the killer?"

"The balance between Stand power and Hamon energy takes careful maintenance," Jotaro replied. "For some reason, it seems the old man has fully revitalized his Ripple. Hermit Purple has adjusted accordingly. It's possible that he can still produce a photograph of the killer by smashing a few cameras, but the overexposure caused by Ripple interference has made it impossible to see anything but a bright white square."

Dio sighed and crossed his arms. "If I still had my… borrowed body, I would have been able to do the same. A pity it wasn't a priority to me at the time. But my question still stands. Once the killer is defeated— what then?"

"I don't want Holly to know that you exist," Jotaro snapped. "She doesn't know much about the history of the family. She doesn't even really know about Stands. All that I think she remembers is that she got sick and that Joseph took me for a trip. We haven't even fully told her about this trip because Suzi—" He cut himself off and then clenched his fists.

"She hasn't been told that she has a half-brother here?" Dio asked.

"In any case, it's not your business," Jotaro said.

"I see," Dio said. "That's a pity."

"Drop the topic."

Dio hummed. "Fine. But speaking of Cairo… if Jolyne told you everything about our escapades in the other Morioh, then you also know that rescuing someone from a preordained death is quite an ordeal."

Jotaro was silent, but his glare was intensifying.

"I have limited opportunities available to me," Dio said as he recalled the increasingly ragged state of the calendar. "But those three— they all perished within a few hours of each other. Once I figure out a way to… fulfill certain requirements, I should be able to recover them in one fell swoop."

Jotaro blinked. "Three," he said faintly. "I'm surprised that you remembered Iggy."

"That awful mongrel impressed me greatly," Dio stated.

"He was a Boston terrier," Jotaro corrected, but there was no scolding in his tone.

"The state of being a terrible little creature transcends breed."

"You said you wanted Joestars here," Jotaro said. "Why are you going to try to bring them back, too?"

Dio grinned. "Well, when I said I wanted every Joestar on my side, I also meant every Joestar on my side. Heaven knows I haven't done much to earn your approval before now. I want you all to assist me in defeating my double and saving my undead hide from oblivion not because I ask you to, or because you feel you have to, but because you want to. A very wise man just told me that it is important to have a sincere heart in order to get into Heaven," he added with a laugh. "When we do finally storm said pearly gates, I intend to do so sincerely."

Jotaro stared at him. Dio could practically see the complicated machinery of his thoughts churning behind his eyes.

"You're including yourself in this...sincerity?" Jotaro asked.

Dio's smile went empty.

"I know that you're motivated to save yourself," Jotaro said, and he frowned. "And that you've shown... unexpectedly altruistic behavior. Jolyne is here and alive. So is Josuke. That is what matters. But I cannot deny the feeling that you are gathering us up to throw us at your enemy without much thought put towards what would happen if we fail."

"You wont fail," Dio snapped. "You don't fail."

"I failed somewhere," Jotaro said quietly. "Isn't that why you're in this mess in the first place?"

Dio glared at the ocean. The sun was nearing the end of its descent. The orange and pink swathes of the sky were fading into nighttime blues.

"I'm very sincere," Dio said. "But I'm also very selfish. When I say I want to save myself, of course I mean it. But I've had the lives of others held in my palm many times, and have felt nothing whether I have crushed them or set them free." He sighed. "My brother told me long ago that I had the makings of a good man, if I were to only try to be one. I am not saying that he is right, or wrong. Nor am I saying that I am broken or missing some fundamental organ needed to recognize common morality. But I am quite new to looking at a dear and trusted friend and appreciating them for anything other than how they may be useful to me."

"You had Jolyne and Josuke's lives in your hands in the other Morioh," Jotaro asked. "How did that make you feel?"

"Nothing particularly warm and fuzzy, if that's what you're after," Dio replied.

"I'm not."

Dio scowled. "Terror," he finally answered. "Sheer terror. I had only ever felt it for myself before."

Jotaro smiled. It was fleeting, but Dio definitely caught sight of it before it disappeared. "That's exactly how it should feel," Jotaro stated. "Anyone who holds the power of life and death in their hands should feel terrified. Anyone who doesn't is someone who doesn't deserve that power in the first place." He paused. "Or, they're a very confident surgeon. But they start out terrified. So. My point still stands."

"Wonderful," Dio said flatly. "Terror it is, then. I expect that I'll be in desperate need of a stringent regimen of benzodiazepines when this is all through."

"You can metabolize those?"

"No, but not for lack of trying."

"You've tried them?"

"I've tried everything. It was the eighties. In truth, they would have been rather tame experiences even if they had worked. Back in my day, if we felt badly, we just did opium about it."

Jotaro pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.

Dio peeled the lone starfish from the rock, pulled his arm back, and threw it as far as he could. It flew with such force that he saw it distantly skid across the ocean surface, sending little splashes of water above the waves before it finally slowed and sank.

"I still think you Joestars are parasites," he said, and Jotaro looked at him sidelong. "I say that with as much endearment as I can muster," he clarified. "Though, I admit, at first I thought you were all merely parasites leeching off the good fortunes of your past. But when I learned of the food chain— plants to herbivores to carnivores, everything moving up to the apex, I was enthralled by that little arrow on the side. Death is one great equalizer; the dead lion and the dead lamb alike are both eaten by worms. But the other equalizer— parasites— why, they'll thrive in anything. They can always find a way to survive. And if a human can be brought low by some simple bacteria, then, well, why not a god?"

"You're saying my family is like… a bacterial infection," Jotaro said carefully.

"I'm saying that I suppose I have a very rigid way of looking at things that doesn't often translate well to the complexities of the real world," Dio replied. "Perhaps we have one thing in common. Our metaphors are not the most succinct."

Jotaro huffed. It may have been a sort of laugh.

"I'll have to sit in on one of your lectures, Dr. Kujo," Dio said. "I need to learn more about these so-called food webs."

"I don't have my doctorate yet."

"One day."

"Don't tell me things about the future. We're risking enough paradoxes already."

"Quite right." He spun his umbrella jauntily. "Well, I'll be returning to my vehicle. You're keeping up with the police reports, aren't you? If you hear anything about a bank robbery, do try to ignore it."

There was a sigh. Dio grinned; ah, there was the usual aura of frustrated annoyance returning. Dealing with a more genuine Jotaro had been almost unsettling.

"Your vehicle," Jotaro said with a frown. "You're driving?"

"Of course not. I have a driver."

"Let the man go."

"I'm paying him very well and he's not hypnotized or anything."

Jotaro grumbled something under his breath.

"And if you find the time, could you ask around at the Speedwagon Foundation for any known Stand user that can create clones? Otherwise, I might take the arrow for myself and start shooting until I find one."

Jotaro furrowed his brows. "Clones?"

Dio waved his hand dismissively. "I have to pay fate's debt somehow, but I might be able to get a discount on the price. I can generate one particular Joestar body if needed, but when it comes to, say, a small Boston terrier, I'm out of luck."

His eyes were still narrowed, but he seemed more accepting of the idea. "I'll make a call," Jotaro said.

"Thank you so very much." Dio looked up towards the idling car. "I'll be going, then. My sons attempted to bake something today and I can only hope that the house is still standing."

Jotaro rolled his eyes and returned his attention to the ocean. With a grin, Dio ambled back to the road.