DORA!!



CRAZY DIAMOND bursts out from its user and jabs, knocking the metal blade away. The Stand punches at the old man’s head and misses, driving its armored fist into the engine. The punch dents it, sending echoes throughout the room.

The old man cackles momentarily. Suddenly, Josuke feels a hand on his shoulder. He turns on his heel.

DORARARA!!!

CRAZY DIAMOND’S barrage actually lands a hit on the old man right on the jaw, who misjudged the speed of the police officer’s Stand. He goes gliding away into the engine with a clang. Sanjo slides down, falling between the metal struts, and doesn’t move. Josuke immediately moves his attention back to Shizuka

“Are you OK? Did he cut you anywhere?” he asks, attending to his sister.

“…uh, just on my face. I don’t think it’s bad…” she responds, tapping her cheek. He touches it gently, feeling the warm trickle of blood running down from her cheekbone. CRAZY DIAMOND motions towards the cut, healing it instantly.

The policeman scowls, looking at Sanjo’s motionless form with contempt. “Asshole,” he spits, “after all that crap, he really thought he could take the both of us on his own.”

Shizuka says nothing to this.

“Hey, come on. We better restrain before he wakes up. Then we can…Shizuka?”

Shizuka suddenly snaps out of whatever trance she was just in. “What?! Oh, yeah, yeah… restrain him, and…”

“Are you sure you’re ok? You don’t sound so good…” And only then does he notice what’s wrong.

The smoke. The smoke is still hanging in the air. The sick from Sanjo’s stand, which should have disappeared when he was knocked out. Only now does Josuke notices, squinting through the pitch blackness, that Shizuka doesn’t have her respirator on.

“Bro, y… your mask…!”

Too late, he smells it. The stench of something acrid and foul. Then the sound comes, like something shriveling up. Inside his mask, the cloth filter inside is wearing down at an incredible speed. The masks begins to be soaked up with toxins, past its limit. Josuke tries to hold his breath, but it’s too late. The toxins have already made their way into his respiratory system.

The policeman feels something in him slip. As if suddenly submerged in water, he feels a pressure on his skin. He sways forward, steadying himself, then sways backward stumbling against the engine. Through bleary eyes, he sees Shizuka going through the same thing, trying to support herself against the wall.

“What’s happening?” he says with a numb tongue.

“SMOKE ON THE WATER…”

Josuke looks and sees Sanjo dragging himself up, clearly still woozy from Crazy Diamond’s attack. He puffs on his calabash pipe as he holds it close to him, the embers still smoldering. The old man inhales, then exhales, as his vitality appears rejuvenated, whilst the fire embers glow.

“I told you,” Sanjo sneers, watching Josuke fall to his side trying to reach him, “Patience. My powers get stronger the longer I use them. It takes a while, but if I keep it going long enough, I can convert the smoke’s composition into… anything I want, really. Any sort of drug.

“That’s how you manipulated… the people back at the neighborhood…” Josuke growls. Sanjo straightens himself up, brushing off whatever damage CRAZY DIAMOND inflicted him with.

“Little bit of psychoactive. All I did was blow the smoke, then their hatred for the authorities did the rest. You wouldn’t believe how powerful a few chemical reactions can make a man. In your case, you’re breathing in the equivalent of every opiate and downer that ever was, all at once.”



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(Sorry for the long break! One of us was out of the country for a while, but now we’re back!)