melodiesofeternity | Melodies' Bizarre Adventure:

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Melodies' Bizarre Adventure:

Who: Okuyasu Nijimura, Finn, and OPEN (please sign into the OOC comment if your character is joining)
When: During the Endgame Event
Where: Morioh, Japan (more locations to be added)
What: In Jojoland, Father Enrico Pucci has been alerted to the existence of the Soul Divider after Yoshikage Kira used it to kill off Okuyasu's friends and allies. Now he wishes to use it to further his goals in eliminating the Joestar family for good.
Warnings/Notes: Please see OOC post for information. Contact me on Discord or Plurk if you need help creating a Stand for your character.

[Okuyasu recognizes this place yet doesn't. This is Morioh, 2000. The streets are quiet. A dark cloud hangs over the citizens of the town ever since a group of highschoolers mysteriously disappeared one morning. Asking around will have them learn that this group included Josuke Higashikata, Okuyasu Nijimura, and Koichi Hirose. A visiting man named Jotaro Kujo was with them when they died, and a famous manga artist named Rohan Kishibe went missing as well. Some wonder if the outsider was the reason behind this.

There are a few places to check - the residential roads, Trattoria Trussardi, the local cafe, and Okuyasu's house. Despite the downcast atmosphere, the residents go about their daily lives as normal. Nothing is on fire. No mass killings. The sky is not red. Yet...readings point to this planet having an abundance of Soul Divider energy. Is is possible it's not in this town?

Only time will tell.]

((OOC: Put up toplevels for locations and for new scenes, but please check in with other participants if and when it's okay to threadjack. NPCs can jump in at various points, but most of all have fun with the goofiness of the story.))

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"This is..." it was Japan, right? Not any place Ren had ever been before mind you, but there was no mistaking that he was in his home country. Only everything looked... outdated. Maybe by fifteen, almost twenty years if he had to guess. He was in his school uniform again, his ninja gear having disappeared somewhere along the way.

After wandering for a short while, he stopped in front of a restaurant, looking up at its sign for a moment with a thoughtful, "Hmm..." Well. If there was any place to start gathering information, his part-time jobs had always helped him with tidbits before.

Maybe someone in this place had something to divulge... So with that, inside he goes, immediately hit a rush of... Italian aromas?

The interior of the restaurant was small, but the tables and decor had been meticulously selected to create a calm and refined atmosphere. Ren was the first customer of the lunch break, and the other table in the trattoria was unoccupied.

Upon hearing the door chime, a smiling chef stepped out from the kitchen and bowed.

"Welcome to my humble little restaurant, sir," he spoke in a thick foreigner's accent. "Please, have a seat. Is this your first time at Trattoria Trussardi?"

"Ah... sir?" awkward. Ren Amamiya had never been a sir once in his life. "Just Amamiya is fine, really." But he will take that seat; the first one he gets his hand on. Pulling it out slowly, his grey eyes sweep over the small space again as he eases himself down.

"It is. My first time in this town, actually." Maybe even his first time in this world, wherever it was. "Is it... usually so quiet here?"

"Amamiya, grazie." The Italian smiled, his eyes closed yet giving the sensation that they were sparkling. "My restaurant is a small and intimate business. I specialize in creating healthy meals specifically catered to my customers, which leaves me a limited amount of time if I were to entertain more guests."

He held out a hand. "I have spent the past decade researching all kinds of healing practices worldwide, from traditional Chinese medicine to chiropracy. Signiore, would you be so kind as to show me your hands?"

Mama mia, the way his name just rolled off of this guy's tongue! With the place more or less deserted, he probably wouldn't have much luck with intel, unless...

At the question, Ren's head tilted just slightly, but turned up his palms without much thought. "Foods that heal?" It wasn't so crazy, for a guy that was living on a 90% coffee and curry diet lately.

"Yes. Many of my customers are regulars who seek treatment to their ailments, which my specialized menus courses address." This was certainly suspicious, but as he took Ren's hands in his own and poured over his palms.

"Hm. You haven't been sleeping well recently, have you? It seems like insomnia or a busy schedule has kept you from getting a good night's rest. There's also a some soreness in your wrist and the beginning signs of a sore throat."

That is...a rather accurate statement, save for the sore throat, but maybe Tonio is just a good doctor?

"I can prepare a meal to address all of that, Amamiya." He let go of his hands and smiled. "It would take some time to prepare all of the dishes, but I hope that you will find them wonderful and true to my Italian heritage."

As he spoke a small group of little ghost tomatoes materialized around Tonio's hands. They weren't doing anything, just watching Ren and standing guard.

For his part, Ren watches as the man studies his hands, unmoving, wondering just what he may be concentrating on... and being reminded of a certain fortune-teller all the while.

"Well..." he could practically hear it, You must be tired... you should go to bed. Life was hard on a different world when you didn't have your cat harping on you to go to sleep, okay? "I probably haven't... been going to sleep early enough." The accuracy doesn't seem to scare him off, at least. Good thing he's had practice with these clairvoyant types.

He'll take his hand back, setting them back in his lap as he sits back— just as the tomatoes seem to take shape in front of him? "Ah—" Maybe— maybe this was normal?! Maybe this was his staff?! "F-... friends of yours?"

Because it was totally common to have ghostly tomato friends that came from someone's hands— thought the guy who summoned ghostly demons from a mask.

Tonio's relaxed smile disappears, and his eyes widen slightly.

"You can see them? My 「Pearl Jam」?" The ghost tomatoes swirl over the table, making hissing noises. "Are you - what do they say - a Stand User?"

Pearl Jam? "Ah... if you mean the tomatoes dancing around then," Ren nods. He can see them all right. Though whether or not that's a good thing, he's not entirely sure of yet.

"Sorry could you explain? A Stand User? Is that what these guys are?" and he points at one as it twirls near by, about the same time that it hisses at him.

"I'm not sure they like me."

He shrugs. "That is their only method of communication. They are quite friendly." The tomatoes return to Tonio and hover over his shoulders, watching Ren intently.

"Ah, so you too haven't met someone like me before! I thought I was the only one with this ability - this power to add special properties to food outside of the realm of reality - until I met two boys in this town."

His face grew somber. "This town has many such Stand Users...but many of them have disappeared. I fear they were also targeted by a killer residing in this town."

If it wasn't for the shroud of gloom and despair hanging over the town like a mourning shroud, Frisk could really get used to the scenery. The rustic air, the quaint shops, the friendly if a bit depressed people... it's nice. They can see why Okuyasu loves this place so much.

Smiling blissfully, they forget that quaint rustic country towns have very few stoplights and walk right in front of a moving car.

Everything slows to a near stop as Frisk's life flashes before their eyes. Man, this sucks. They always figured they'd go out doing something cool, like fighting a monster or skydiving. But no. They're about to get flattened by a car because they forgot to look both ways before crossing the street. Ugh.

...waitaminit. Shouldn't they be dead by now? Frisk peers at the car moving in slow motion and cautiously moves out of the way. A scant second later, the car accelerates to several times the speed limit and disappears into the backstreets of Morioh. Frisk blinks rapidly, bewildered, before remembering that they're still in the middle of the road and that they need to hustle to the sidewalk.

Shivering from the near-death experience, Frisk looks over their shoulder to find a holy shit what the hell is that? A glowing-gold humanoid hovers behind them, a muscular porcelain frame covering thousands of intricate gears working in impossible directions within its body. Clocks cover every inch of its plating in a variety of sizes, and atop its blank head is a beautifully-made crown.

"What the heck?" they mutter, reaching out to touch it. They probably look really weird to any passerby right now, but this is waaaaay too cool.

Down the road, an elementary school student yells as the car speeds past him. Judging by the backpack he wears and his yellow hat, he must be on his way home from school on this afternoon. He glances at Frisk, the only other person on the street and straightens up nervously.

"Sorry," he mutters quietly. "I- I wasn't paying attention the road." He looks down at his shoes, but with his careful glance at the stranger before him, he appears to be worried about Frisk as well, though too shy to ask.

"To tell the truth, I wasn't either. It's no problem." Frisk laughs, rubbing the back of their neck. "I'm still new in town, so not having a bunch of stoplights everywhere is a bit of an adjustment." They give the kid an appraising glance and internally wince. Oh boy. Frisk knows that look. They wore it for a long time when they were in school back on their Earth.

Turning up the charm, they offer a brilliant, kind smile and extend a hand. "I'm Frisk. What's your name?"

Hayato looks at the kid a little over his age. They don't look dangerous, and being young manages to make them less scary. It's also less likely that they are a Stand user out to get him.

"Hayato. Hayato Kawajiri." A sigh. "Jeez, that guy almost ran over you!"

"Yeah, that was a close one. Good thing my reflexes are crazy good." Even without ridiculous ninja flashstepping powers or weird symbolic ghosty things, Frisk can dodge with the best of 'em. Comes with the territory when you have to deal with the personal problems of monsters who express their emotions with bullet patterns.

"Hey, could I ask you a favor? Like I said, I'm really new in town. Obviously." They jerk their head towards the stoplightless road. "And I admit I am kinda lost right now. Could you show me around Morioh? You know, cool places to hang out, tourist traps, weird local phe-" Right, not every kid hangs out with a skeleton who eats a thesaurus for breakfast every day, "-um, stuff."

"Uh..." Hayato is young, likes to stay at home, and has never been approached by a stranger who wasn't trying to catch a serial killer or was the serial killer. He thinks of the places he likes to hang out and where his mom goes.

"There's stores by the city square. And the school I go to." He looks around the intersection. "Are you staying at the hotel?"

"I juuuuust got here, like, a few hours ago. So. Directions to the hotel would be pretty nice, actually." Not technically a lie! Plus, all the gil Frisk got from their days in the fields translated almost directly to Japanese yen as soon as they arrived in Okuyasu's world. Since it's a distinct possibility that they might need to stay here for a while, wouldn't hurt to crash in a cushy hotel room, would it?

"It's down this street, and then you go to the left and take the 62 bus." He thankfully memorized that line back when he was looking for help to stop Kira. Now, though...

"Why did you end up here? There's nothing in this area except houses."

"If you mean why I'm in this neighborhood in particular, it's 'cuz I wanted to explore the town a little bit, aaaaand I got kind of hopelessly lost. Learned my lesson to not mess with country backstreets, I guess." They shake their head helplessly. Also definitely not a lie. Frisk's natural habitat is a big city, not tiny rural villages.

"As for why I'm in Morioh overall... well. One of my friends who lives here disappeared a little while ago. I'm not exactly a police investigator, but, well. I wanted to see if I could uncover anything. He's kind of a delinquent, but this has gone on too long for it to be just an extended game of hooky. I'm worried." Frisk had gathered that Okuyasu and his posse had vanished from the local newspapers. That seems to be the main point of divergence in this timeline; if they get to the root of whatever caused that, then they'll probably find the Soul Divider.

Edited 2019-09-18 01:45 (UTC)

At this, Hayato stiffens - a reflex from the days of Bites the Dust - and shuffles to the side. There were many disappearances in Morioh, but the two most recent were of the two high school students that sure looked like delinquents. Josuke and Okuyasu. They were killed, them and the people they were with. He wonders if Frisk is also going to disappear.

"...Lots of people go missing here. The police never find a lot of them." Frisk would run into someone who could use a Stand and disappear just like the rest of them. "

Frisk hesitates for a moment, unsure of how much to reveal to Hayato. While telling the grade-schooler about their magical adventures on two other worlds was bound to make them seem completely insane, Hayato might know something. They might be reading too much into things, but he seems more afraid than anxious now. And Frisk does need as much information as they can get.

"The newspaper said that it's eight times the national average. Okuyasu told me something about that; he discovered a serial killer? And..." Frisk digs through their memory, searching for any more details. Then they remember the tournament, that one stage based off of Okuyasu's hometown specifically. And all of those explosions. "Something to do with bombs, I think?"

Edited 2019-09-19 17:53 (UTC)

"Okuyasu?!" Hayato jerks away in surprise. "What-- How did you know about the bombs? The killer? Who told you?"

The fact that Frisk wasn't exploding this very moment assured him that Bites the Dust was no longer in effect, but hearing that this kid came from outside Morioh with specific information was freaking him out. Was it a trap? Were they telling the truth?

Clearly, Hayato knows something, but... he might bolt if Frisk presses too hard. And something tells them that the grade-schooler might be in real, actual danger, judging by his reaction to all of this. Frisk pulls back, giving Hayato an easy, if nervous smile. Time for their specialty: improvising straight out of their ass.

"Woah, woah. Calm down. I met Okuyasu when he went to the city a while back. We hit it off, and decided to keep in contact. He sent me a few... letters, I guess. If you could call them that. They weren't very readable. Anyways, I think he was talking about some sort of magical mystery? I figured that he was making stuff up to impress me, but after he disappeared... I started to think maybe he wasn't imagining all of that. So I came here to check things out."

"Huh..." Hayato knew nothing about the delinquent, but it should make sense that he had friends, especially those from the city he moved from. Did anyone ever mention that he moved in?

"Well. It's too late now. His killer's dead, and that's it."

Frisk sighs, slumping. A cold lead. False lead? Eh, whatever. Point is that Hayato clearly doesn't know more than Frisk already does. Maybe he can show them around... wait.

"How do you know that the killer's dead? The police here still don't have any suspects."

Because I saw him die.

[Hayato looks at the ground.]

I couldn't tell anyone because he...said that he would kill them. [Frisk is just a regular human to him. Explaining Stands would make them want to question him further.] No one else knew it was him, but his death was in the news.

Frisk stands there, shocked. There goes their only lead. If the killer Okuyasu was chasing is dead, then who could've constructed the Soul Divider? And if they don't find it, then they won't get the chance to fix Okuyasu's world and...

They slump against a stop sign, staring blankly ahead. "I... I thought... then how..." they mutter, frantically trying to think of anything else Okuyasu told them. They love their friend dearly, but damn if he isn't an idiot.

Hayato looks at Frisk with concern. "Are you...okay? Hey..." He reaches out for them, hovering over their arm for a moment, then lightly touching their shirt. "What's going on?"

This was getting confusing, and when things get confusing, Stands might be involved. When Stands are involved...

Hayato jerks his hand back. "You're not- you're not also someone with powers, are you?!"

That snaps Frisk out of their stupor. Right. Hayato. They still have a kid who knows way too much to talk to. Frisk cocks their head to the side. "Um... well, I've noticed a few weird things since I've arrived here? Like things getting really slow when I'm in danger then speeding up really fast afterwards, and this weird clock person that kind of hangs out behind me. I only noticed it when I came here, though, and I didn't want to freak you out. What do you know about these powers?"

"Clock person?" He looked confused at the description. "I don't know! But the killer who was pretending to be my dad could make bombs, and...and Josuke and Okuyasu could do something weird..."

Unfortunately, the boy didn't have said powers and couldn't say much about them except that they were dangerous. People die.

"Do you think someone's making time weird for you? Or...oh no, is there another killer on the loose?!"

S'reee shouldn't have wandered off on her own, realistically speaking. Her arrival on this world had given her a human form of a teenaged girl -- albeit one wearing the Red Mage Asterisk costume unless she remembered to borrow clothing from someone. Her work on her custom job had given her enough experience with walking speaking and dealing with human vision and hearing and scent. And her time on Vaikuntha gave her some idea about how towns with humans in them were laid out.

That didn't mean she was good at it. Or looking natural when she'd mostly observed human body language from the outside. She stopped to look at the cafe, figuring out if they had gotten any money. It would be a place to make conversation... and she was getting hungry, though eating in front of people might not be the wisest idea until she practiced.

"Bright Powers, I should have planned ahead and practiced."

In this universe, S'reee's human form drew no attention from the other people at the cafe. She was simply a stylish patron from somewhere else.

One young couple stepped around her to get inside. Her indecision drew the attention from one Morioh resident, who looked around, then decided not to take the time to explain how a cafe works to a foreigner.

Thankfully, a visiting priest stepped up and spoke to her in English. He was in the 40's with the look of a tired man who carried a lot of wisdom, who felt the need to help out someone despite having someplace to be.

"You appear to be in distress, my child."

S'reee smiled. "Just considering that walking alone in a new country without waiting for my friends was slightly silly of me."

The priest nodded, though he felt sorry for the new arrival not knowing what to do.

"It is best to find a seat before all are taken. Do you have someone to translate the menu?"

"I don't have trouble with languages, usually," S'reee answered. Mostly true... assuming she had access to her wizardry, which she didn't. "But, I would appreciate some help. I wasn't sure if I had enough money to order anything, though, so I was just browsing."

The man nodded and looked up at the menu. "From the left, we have the list of drinks. The board on the right describes general pricing for the food items." With that, he slowly went through the list, describing the difference between a mocha and cappuccino, ending with the sweets on display.

When finished, he gave the roast a thoughtful look. "Coffee was once considered to be a miracle drug when first discovered in the middle east. A man was searching for food while in exile and found the coffee beans. Desperate to stave his hunger, he experimented in their preparation - roasting and boiling them in the hope they would be appetizing - to find that the liquid he produced sustained him for days. Coffee is found to suppress one's appetite while being a source of caffeine, but he did not know that beforehand.

"It's incredible how humans can find ingenuity though bravery, desperation, and diligence. In any other circumstance, that man would not have ventured to eat this unknown food, yet his exile and suffering changed the course of history. His poor situation was fated for this discovery."

"And, yet, the reason that humans now drink coffee is that the man survived and was able to share his discovery with others because he found actual sustenance," S'reee answered. "I would add that the ability to cooperate and communicate is another aspect of ingenuity. It would mean the second human to find themselves in that situation, would not have to guess which of the plants at hand would be beneficial, and which would be toxic."

"That is true, but cannot birds communicate? Cannot whales express themselves through song?" He looked at some point in the distance, above the treeline.

"There is something that divides man from animal, my child. The「soul」gives us desires outside of survival."

[Considering the stories he's heard about this place, Miles was kinda expecting Okuyasu's world to look a little more... outlandish. It's unfamiliar, sure— he'll always be a city boy at heart— but it's just... a place. And he hasn't heard word of a single supervillain running around, which might be the weirdest thing about it. It's peaceful.]

[And now he's standing out in front of Okuyasu's house, bouncing nervously on his toes like he's just psyching himself to visit a friend, and not trying to solve a mystery. Actually, maybe it'll help if he DOES acknowledge that he's solving a mystery? That's one of the things Spider-Man does, investigating stuff to save the world.]

[He's also muttering to himself a little. And by a little I mean a lot. He hasn't realized that he's thinking out loud just yet.]

"...Do I just walk up and knock, or do I gotta break in? Did he live alone? I can't remember if he ever mentioned..."

[Okuyasu followed Miles to the residential streets where he lived for months. Where he met his best friend. Where he finally started going to high school. He made sure to avoid the street passing by Josuke's house. He wasn't sure if his mom would be okay with seeing her kid's dead friend come back to life.

He watches the American kid stand nervously before the dilapidated house. Would his counterpart have left anything in here? Did a new set of squatters move in?

He grunts.] My old man might've escaped, but no one else should be in there. It's a shit old house.

[All the food would have gone bad. There'd be no place for Miles to get comfortable.]

[Miles jumps a little. He forgot Okuyasu was with him for a moment. Still, that does kind of answer his question... kind of.]

"Well, we might as well check, right? I mean... there could be some kinda clues, or evidence or whatever."

[Miles starts walking towards the front door as he talks. Might as well get this started already, right?]

[The door creaks on its hinges, having not been locked for months. The floorboards should have been replaced decades ago, and the musty air does not belong to a house that has been on the market for ages.

Okuyasu enters as if fears nothing about this place. This was his home.]

Dad?

[No answer.]

Maybe he's upstairs...

[Miles isn't quite as confident as Okuyasu when he experiences the conditions inside, pausing for a moment to let Okuyasu enter first. He winces a little at the way the floor creaks under his steps, and tries to step lightly once he follows.]

"Well, uh, it's your house. Lead the way."

[He walks up the old stars, past a sparse bedroom, coated in months' worth of dust. To a door on the end of the hallway. Okuyasu stops at the front and waits. Listens.]

Dad?

[There's a scratching noise from inside.]

Oh. I think--

[He pushes the door open to reveal an empty room save for a chest at the corner and something lumpy curled up beside it. It makes a noise and turns to Okuyasu's entrance.]

Dad! This is-

[A creature, half of Okuyasu's height, lumbers across the room at Miles.]

Ena walks along the narrow roads, her hand gently brushing against the concrete walls surrounding the houses here, and her gaze absently drifting from the sky above her to the empty streets. Was this really the right place? She remembers this scenery from the first time she entered Okuyasu's dream, but compared to then, it was much more...quiet. She wasn't sure if "peaceful" was the right word either, but there wasn't the sense of urgency that she had felt before. At least this meant this gave her the time to look around.

She comes to a crossing and stops, her hand still on the wall. A car speeds through an intersection farther down the road to her right, momentarily breaking the silence. Without her magic or her asterisks, she wouldn't be able to follow the car, but maybe if she headed in its direction, she might find something. Or at least another person.

She turns right, still right up against the wall. As her hand brushes against the concrete, the sensation on her fingertips briefly goes cool. She stops in her tracks and looks to see that she was now touching some sort of bronze plaque, engraved in a complicated series of lines that made no sense to her. A little farther down was a break in the wall, an iron gate in place of concrete. She looks back at the plaque, gingerly brushing the deep grooves. Maybe this was the name of the person that lived there? Maybe they knew something about the Soul Divider?

There was a nice home beyond the gate, nothing too big or too small, and a quaint little yard, too. There was also Finn sitting on the doorstep as if he'd been waiting for someone to come along eventually. His eyes are still purple, clothes still dark, and it's probably obvious that he's still taken by the Calamity. Considering this is the first time anyone's seen him since that whole thing with Balahaka on Crystallis, he's kind of hoping they didn't forget about their extra enemies.

So, yes, he's sitting there and waiting for someone to show. There's a dark figure standing behind him, something inhuman yet vigil.

But between Finn and the gate is a deep chasm cut straight into the pretty yard, a pit that goes so far down that it's impossible to see the bottom. One would think it would cause more of a ruckus in this nice little neighborhood, but Finn doesn't seem too upset about it so there's probably nothing to worry about.

"Hey, Ena. Everyone doing okay?" He can't control himself but he can still talk on his own. The silver lining, he supposes.

Ena makes her way slowly down the wall, her boots clacking on the pavement--Finn certainly would have heard her coming. When her fingers depart from the concrete and come to the iron gate, she catches a figure inside out of the corner of her eye and it almost makes her jump. Considering how quiet and deserted everything had been so far, the last thing she was expecting was for someone to be sitting on the steps.

"Finn!" she exclaims, gripping the bars on the gate and peering into the property. Her eyes drop to the chasm, and then back up to Finn. She could see his eyes were still purple--not a good sign. She still had to be careful, even if she could detect the earnestness in his voice.

Regardless, she's still a little too distraught by his presence, in many ways, for her to answer his question, so she poses her own. "What are you doing here? How did you get over there?"

"The Calamity has different ways of getting around," he said with a shrug. "We can go to any of the worlds pretty quickly, much faster than an airship."

He stands up with a sigh, patting himself off. "I'm supposed to be protecting the guy that's helping along the Soul Divider here. He's kind of-... Well, you'll see. He's a lot to be around." Putting mildly.

He also noticed that she didn't answer his question but he was too scared to ask twice.

"Anyway, it'd probably be best if someone took me out of the picture sooner rather than later..."

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Melodies' Bizarre Adventure:

trattoria trussardi ( threadjacks welcome )

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Residential Roads

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sorry for being late, this tag got lost in the shuffle

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the local cafe

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Okuyasu's House

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residential roads

surprise!

ahhhh!

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