Jojo's : A Bizarre Journey

A/N: Happy Christmas to everyone!

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Oh god, this is boring.

I already knew socializing and making connections would be boring, but I expected another kind of boring.

Out of all the thirty-something people in here, no one here gets to the point. It's all pleasantries and exchanges of subtle looks.

Even Apolonia is bored!

I'm also talking to someone, but I'm not registering whatever he's telling me.

Something about the day and the weather...

Not only that, but every now and then he slips in something more grand.

Like just now, he was asking about the well-being of my brother and family, and after that, he said something about the weather being a bother for the ships.

The commercial ships that are going straight to the motherland.

Yeah, he could've just asked ¨How's the business going?¨ and it would be so much better than going around in words.

From my point of view, everyone who does that is either way too careful, or just a coward.

Sure, there are some moments where using indirect speech is appropriate. But if every word that you say is just a laydown for using that sort of speech, then it goes way above the limit.

There's a line between roundabout speech and indirect speech

No one will ever hear me talk in riddles for the rest of my life. I'm a pretty forward person unless the situation requires another approach.

As a side note, Jojo is in here too.

He's on the other side of the hall though.

If the information that I've gathered from the subtle words and looks that some people give them is anything to go by...

Then that's the place of the outcasts or the secluded.

¨Outcasts¨ in the way that they aren't involved/interested in the political side of their family.

The ones that won't inherit the responsibilities of continuing the business of their family.

Not that it means that they will die so that they don't rebel against the heir or something, it just means that they aren't interested in the heavy amounts of power and responsibility that leading means.

Most of them will go to a nice school, study, graduate, get a family, and inherit a small(¨Small¨ for rich families) portion of the money that their father will leave them in the will.

Enough about them, though. Let's focus on my teammates.

Aethel talks with some people in a corner of the hall, he appears to be the youngest there. I've already established that there are some ¨factions¨ that seclude themselves, and the princess one is one of them.

Now I understand why Aethel left when we entered the event, if he was seen with two other newcomers, then everyone would immediately assume we're part of his faction.

We are, but it wouldn't do any good to go exclaiming it to people we can rip off.

Or to put it in his words ¨do business with¨.

As for the people around him, they are all around the age of the princess.

I wouldn't call them Aethel's friends, more like ¨people who he will spend a lot of time around so it would be dumb to take them too formally ¨.

Yeah, that.

Now, about the other one.

I've already talked about Apolonia, but to go into more about her situation...

She's surrounded by people who want to talk to her, she's Joseph's daughter, after all.

And Joseph was indeed someone who George considered a friend and a business partner.

So if Joseph is equal to George, and Apolonia, his daughter, is someone who is being annoyed constantly by people who are looking to have even an inkling of connection to her.

Then how am I so calmly explaining the politics of this place?

That's a good question.

Or not really.

I am not so calmly explaining, I am explaining.

As there are five other people at the same table as me.

The first is talking to me constantly. The second and the third are talking to each other, but sometimes they try to include me and the first in the conversation. The fourth and the fifth are talking with a sixth person who is standing beside them, but they are also sneaking some glances at me.

Glances that promise to be a bother later.

I don't even know what is the first guy talking to me about, I just say some things on autopilot.

Damn, I should've escaped when I could've...

...

..

...

The celebration came to a close not quickly enough after that.

I didn't make any significant connections this day.

I'm not worrying though, it's just the first day.

I can talk about business to everyone there, I just chose not to.

Now it's nighttime, around 9 pm. Aethel didn't say anything to me or Apolonia, so we just assumed that there weren't any remarks about our performance at the event.

That or we just did poorly...

"Anyways, now that is nighttime, it's the perfect time to sneak out"

"I get that, but my question was ¨Why am I here?¨"

"Comic relief"

"..."

"I'm just kidding"

Right next to me, wearing one of the multiple hoods that I packed, is Apolonia.

I'm wearing my artic/combat uniform and a hood too, by the way.

"Why am I here then!?"

"Obviously to cover my back, I can't do everything alone, even if I could"

Who knows what we will find?

She seems appeased at my answer, even if a bit annoyed at the fact that she is walking in the night, in an unknown country.

"Couldn't you have called Aethel? Or that girl you brought?"

"I don't trust either of them that much"

Aethel is self-explanatory and I don't want to put so much trust into someone I just met yesterday.

Between those three, she was the best option.

"I see..."

Hm? The atmosphere is weird now.

Oh, she's touched.

Let me look at her.

...

She's NOT touched.

That's a smirk.

We both stop walking.

She turns to me and shows me the biggest smirk I've ever seen someone do.

Like, not even Jack could do that.

I'm just standing there.

"...the fuck?"

"Hmmmmmmmm~"

"...what are you doing...?"

"Nothing~"

What is this?

Why is she smirking like that?

I'll just ignore it.

"Stop doing that"

"Doing~ what~?"

"..."

"Okay, okay, I'll stop"

It's good that she can joke around like that, our relationship isn't too close per se.

She helped me, so I'm helping her, not that I'm fulfilling my word too much, as she also had to join the princess's camp.

Still, it's good to know that our relationship is going forward.

Now that I think about it, I don't have many friends...

For my first year is understandable, I was focused on surviving in a world without child protection services.

And even if I didn't talk about it too much, I also panicked a lot when I first came into this world.

I mean, I was in a body 7 years younger, in another era, in another country, in another world...

Yeah, let's not talk about that.

Now I don't have any reason to lack friends.

It's been half a year since I was adopted, so it's been a year and a half since I came into the world.

And my only friend is Jack.

I should change that, especially considering I want to have more connections to the people around me.

Still, we should focus on the matter at hand, as that will result naturally.

"You've answered why I'm here, but not why are we out in general"

"You didn't ask that"

"Well, now I do, Why are we out?"

"I'm just testing something..."

"What is it?"

"I'm seeing if something weird is going to happen"

"What does that-?"

*BAM*

We hear something heavy and metallic fall to the ground.

"Hide!"

I tell her urgently, but not loudly, and push her behind the boxes in the street.

I already said this before, but why are there always boxes in the most convenient places?

The answer is surprisingly simple, they are the equivalent of garbage boxes in modern times.

People just throw their garbage into the box, and then the garbage man comes and takes it.

*THUD*

Oh, right, this thing too.

"Argh!"

Someone said.

"This...!"

While not fully clear-minded, Apolonia understood what was going on.

And so did I.

"Let's go"

She nodded.

We got closer to the alley as silently as we could.

Well, as silently as she could, I'm a master at stealth.

We peeked with our heads out, in scooby-doo fashion.

There we saw a man holding a woman by the throat with his hand, and the other one holding a knife that he was putting over her hand.

She is frightened, even though she tries to appear calm and strong, the subtle movements of her body are still giving her out.

The man is also nervous, but he is basking in the sense of power and domination that he has over someone.

"H-hel..."

No words were needed after that.

"Turn-!"

The man wanted to say ¨Turn around and walk away¨ but before that, I ducked down and jumped. My knee made contact with his chin and he passed out.

I didn't expect an Atelia-level fight, but that was disappointing. I didn't even get to use my stiletto-type needle/knives.

Well, in hindsight. He didn't have any form, any preparation, any semblance of an athletic body, hell he didn't consider me a threat until it was too late.

Whatever.

Apolonia wasn't stun-locked and helped the lady get to her feet.

Her stand was overlapping the body of the victim.

That's a creative way of checking if she has any injuries.

Anyways, what do I do with this guy?

I don't need to kill him, but I can't just leave him here, right?

"Hey Aroa, come here just a sec"

"Sure"

Apolonia called me on behalf of the girl, who just wanted to thank me and all that.

We told her to not go out so late and that.

She went to her house then, hopefully she won't get attacked again.

"Did you know this was going to happen? Was this your objective when you went out?"

"Not really, I thought something weird might happen, but I didn't expect it to be a crime scene"

"..."

She's thinking about it.

I don't know what she's thinking though.

"Hey, so what do we do with the guy?" I say, interrupting her thoughts.

"...Maybe we should leave him here to be found by the cops or something"

"I'm not sure..."

As I said before, I don't want to kill him.

It's not like I would lose sleep over it, but I would rather not do that.

Is this hypocrisy? I experimented on humans with the properties of an ancient artifact that removes the humanity of the ones affected by it, but I don't want to kill.

Why? What's the difference?

My experiment subjects and this guy were both criminals.

Ugh, what a bother.

I should think about this.

"Yeah, let's just do that"

And so we did.

All in all, this was a productive night.

Saved someone, a friendship with Apolonia, and I also tested my theory.

My theory was about how the events happen around me.

My first year was an uneventful one, then I met Dio, then I met Jojo, Jack, the Hamon masters, Apolonia, the princess, Aethel...

But all of those things happened by coincidence.

By a chance meeting.

By fate.

So I'm testing if weird or uncommon events may happen around me.

And I think that I proved my theory right.

Oh, my tab appeared!

Daily quest...

Oh yeah, that worked right?

Six item tickets...

Ugh, It feels bad seeing my low amount of tickets.

Especially since I didn't use the scarfs that much.

It was useful, but I could've survived without it.

I don't know about Jack though.

Well, if it helped Jack survive one more second which I used to get to my supplies, then it was worth it.

Still...

"So what now? Do we go back?"

Do we need to do anything else?

Not really.

Ah! But we can look for something...

"Not yet, let's go to an interesting place"

"I don't do drugs"

"Neither do I, so shut up and move"

Drug use is lax at this point in history.

Opium and such things are considered normal.

She's messing with me though.

Anyway, let's search for that place.

The train station.