Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

As The World’s fist pummeled into his abdomen, Kakyoin’s world shattered.

The impact sent him smashing into a water tank — his bones crushed, his nerves numbed, and his mind went blank. 

The shock burned hotter than fire. Kakyoin’s body convulsed. The sound of tearing flesh echoed inside his skull. He could taste copper in his tongue as splutters of blood gushed out of his mouth.

He can’t scream. Just breathing was a struggle. When he looked down, Kakyoin saw the wide, gaping hole in his abdomen. Skin and muscle were torn to the bone, blood vessels and entrails dangling down. Most of the flesh was gone, blasted away. His pants were saturated in blood, and the ground under him was slick with deep crimson redness.

The world tilted. Cairo’s rooftops blurred, and the light of the streetlamp stung his eyes. Kakyoin’s knees buckled. His pulse was pounding, slipping, fading, but one thought burned clearer than the pain.

‘Joseph-san, Jotaro… I need to tell them…’

DIO’s stand. The World. Its power. Time.

Time stopped. That was the secret. The one truth holding everything together.

If his comrades didn’t know it, they were going to die. And if they died, the world was going down with them.

With trembling hands, Kakyoin forced Hierophant to launch the final emerald splash. A flare of light cut across the sky, shattering the clock tower. His message was engraved in stone. 

‘My message… please see through it, Joseph-san…’

His world went into numbing silence. The afterthoughts that followed were smaller, softer. There was barely a whisper between his pulse pounding as his whole life flashed before his eyes.

It is midnight in Japan now. The image of his parents appeared in Kakyoin’s mind. The thought of them waking to the news of his death was unbearable. They hadn’t heard from him in two months; all he had left them with was a letter saying he was travelling to Egypt with friends. 

Yet now, he is dying. 

He could almost see his mother’s beautiful face shatter in grief, his father’s frail heart giving way at the cruel realisation that their only son would never return.

‘Dad, Mom, I’m so sorry…’

His thoughts drifted to his comrades. The days they spent together were crazy and unforgettable; the best days he ever had in his entire life.

He’d been so excited about his life after this bizarre journey. Everyone would eventually return to their ordinary routines. But Kakyoin knew his mailbox would stay full of letters, his phone constantly ringing with their calls. 

He wouldn’t be alone. Jotaro would be there. They would share school lunches, stop by the arcade on their way home, study for exams, dream about the future, talk about universities; growing up side by side, becoming adults together.

‘We can’t… grow up together now.’

As the words appeared in his mind, despair started to grip him. He didn’t want his life to end here; he was only seventeen. A few minutes ago, he might have believed he was ready to sacrifice his life for the world. However, as it happened, he was actually scared.

Kakyoin thought back on the bet with D’Arby. He’d staked his life on that game out of confidence, never truly believing he could lose. When he was turned into that creepy doll, he hadn’t felt fear; just acceptance. He’d told himself Joseph and Jotaro would win without him. 

Maybe that wasn’t courage after all, but resignation.

‘All I care about is getting Kakyoin’s soul back.’

To his surprise, Jotaro hadn’t left him behind. He fought for him, for his soul. It sounded poetic then; a noble act of loyalty between comrades. 

Yet, to Kakyoin, it was more than that. 

In that fleeting moment, he saw a spark of hope. Jotaro’s resolve to bring him back, his refusal to let any of them be lost before this journey ended — Kakyoin understood. He had seen the grief in Jotaro’s eyes upon learning about Avdol’s and Iggy’s deaths.

If one more comrade were to fall, if he were to leave Jotaro burdened with more guilt and sorrow — Kakyoin couldn’t imagine how his friend would endure the weight on his shoulders.

‘I don’t want to die.’

Suddenly, the air around him rippled. There was a sharp, repetitive crack echoing in his ears as emerald threads snapped into existence. The air stank of ozone; sparks of green light fizzed and popped as they spun outward, striking the floor and shattering the tiles.

‘… Hierophant…?’

His Stand’s threads whipped through the air, smashing the tiles to dust. Then, they coiled around his wrists, legs, and chest — each loop pressing broken pieces of tiles into his open wound. Kakyoin coughed in pain, trying to command his Stand, but his words were drowned in blood.

“St…op…!”

The cords didn’t stop. They twisted tighter and began to harden, hissing as green threads shaped into jagged shards. Each fragment slid into place, sealing the bloody wound with chill that numbed his nerves. The pain stilled, trapped beneath the surface.

The shield grew, layering over one another until the dim sky above was only a narrow slit. Kakyoin hammered with bloody hands, his nails scratching the surface but leaving no purchase. Sparks flickered along the seam, and a faint buzzing sound filled his head.

Breathing came shorter. One lung rasped and failed; wet, choking sounds rose from his throat. Dammit, this was not how he wanted it to end!

‘Hierophant, STOP! I can’t breathe—!’

But his Stand didn’t answer.

It moved without his control; too fast, too wild.

Green tendrils closed in around him, wrapping tight like a cage. He hadn’t told it to do so.

Kakyoin’s chest burned, and each breath came in short, shaky bursts. He thought he heard a hiss, or maybe it was just the blood rushing in his ears.

‘What the hell are you doing?!’

He couldn’t tell if the question was for himself or his Stand.

The shards slammed shut one after another, locking him in a shell that no longer listened.

Darkness pressed in. His last scattered thoughts drifted to his parents waiting at home, to his comrades still fighting, to Jotaro, who was blinded by the grief and rage of losing his friends in the battle.

‘I don’t want to die!’

Hierophant didn’t listen.
It didn’t stop.

The tendrils tightened quickly, weaving into rough shards until the air trembled from the pressure. Sparks burst from every gap, leaving a sharp, metallic taste on his tongue. The green light was so bright it blinded his eyes.

“Jo…ta…ro…!” Kakyoin choked, blood bubbling past his lips. His words drowned under the grinding noise, like glass and stone being crushed to dust. 

He had one thing to say, but the pressure built. His ribs screamed for air. The emerald shield vibrated harder, fracturing; not outward, but inward, folding in on itself.

“I… d-... I d-... dun… wa… ugh–!” He felt tears in his eyes. Damnit! He wanted to see Jotaro! There was one thing he wanted to tell that guy – just one – and he couldn’t even do that. What a loser! “Luh… ouuu… Jo… jo…”

The light flared. Too bright. Too hot. The sound deepened into a groan that wasn’t stone or metal, something more profound. The world buckled.

‘Jotaro!’

“Star Platinum!”

The emerald shell shattered, shards exploding outward in a spray of green light. Kakyoin tumbled forward, vision drowning in sparks, every nerve screaming at the sudden breath in his lungs.

“Kakyoin!”

A voice; sharp, desperate.
Familiar, but wrong.
Too deep. Too heavy.

Through the haze, half-opened amethyst hues saw white: a hat, a coat, a scowling mouth drawn tight.

‘Jo… Jotaro…?’

“Josuke, now!” 

Warmth spilt through his chest, golden light threading the wound closed. It stung; sharp, searing, but underneath the pain was something steady — almost gentle. For the first time since the emerald prison shattered, Kakyoin’s breath no longer felt stolen from him.

Kakyoin gasped for air, trying his best to keep his eyes open, searching the blur above him. He saw a white hat, a grim face he thought he knew. Another figure close by, hands shining with impossible light. 

His thoughts slipped, tangled. Is it Jotaro? No… not quite.

The haze thickened. He blinked once, twice, fighting to hold on, but the weight pulling at him was strangely soft, almost inviting.

“…what… happened…” His voice broke apart, swallowed by the air.

And then he let go. The ache dulled into quiet. His chest rose, fell, steady now, as if the world urged him to rest.

“Kakyoin… Kakyoin…!”

The man’s voice was broken, as if his name were the first gasp of air he took after holding in for too long. The warm breath brushed against his ear as Kakyoin was lost in the warm embrace. 

Confusion was the last thing he felt before he sank into a sleep deeper than dreams.

Chapter Text

The world stopped.

The World.

Kakyoin’s vision was filled with the rush of impossible speed, DIO’s shadow blotting out everything. The blow tore through his chest, white-hot and final. He felt his ribs snap, his lungs collapse, air turning to blood in his throat.

He staggered back, clawing for breath desperately, for anything. He thought of his parents and comrades, about the life he couldn’t have, about Jotaro. He wouldn’t make it. His last thought should have been relief, the knowledge that his death revealed DIO’s Stand power.

But it wasn’t.

I don’t want to die.

Emerald light burst from within him, violent and uncontrolled. Threads coiled around his body, weaving, hardening, trapping. The prison formed around him, closing tight like a clenched fist. At first, it numbed the pain, freezing the wound. But then...

The air was gone; no space left. The emerald crystal pressed into his skin, cold and suffocating. His hands slammed uselessly against the walls as his vision tunnelled, his scream cut short in his throat.

He couldn’t breathe.
He couldn’t move.
He couldn’t—

Kakyoin jolted awake with a strangled gasp. The sterile white ceiling above him spun into view. His chest heaved, his lungs burned as if DIO’s fist were still lodged there. He clutched at his shirt, eyes wide, tears and sweat slicking his skin.

“Kakyoin,” A hand grasped his wrist, trying to ease his unease.  “Easy, deep breath...”

The voice was too calm, too deep, too familiar. Amethyst hues snapped sideways, landing on the man dressed in white. He would never forget those beautiful blues, but why was the face that he remembered so vividly now look different? They were older, harder, lines etched across his face like scars of years Kakyoin didn’t remember.

“Jo… Jotaro…?”

“It’s me,” Jotaro nodded, tightening his grip on him. “You’re safe now, Kakyoin.”

The teen furrowed his brows, squinting his eyes at the man in front of him. Somehow, despite the slight differences, he just knew that the adult wasn’t lying to him.

His mind told him otherwise; to stay alert, to recognise this man as an imposter who wasn’t even doing a convincing job of imitating his friend. 

Kujo Jotaro was seventeen, not an adult.

Yet, his heart… his heart knew better. The steady thump of his heart, the warmth still lingering where those calloused fingers had gripped his wrist, the accurate shade of blues in those sincere eyes — he just knew that he could trust this man.

“You… look older than I remember, Jotaro.”

He noticed the slight twitch at the corner of the man’s lips. Jotaro loosened his grip and pulled the tip of his hat lower, covering his eyes. 

“Of course I do, Kakyoin,” The man murmured, his tone grim. “Eleven years have passed since Cairo.”

'Eleven… years…?'

“W–Wha… how?!” Kakyoin pushed himself upright, a sharp cough tearing from his chest as the sudden movement knocked the air from his lungs.

“I don’t know,” Jotaro sighed, passing a glass of water towards him. “One moment I was checking on your heart rate, and then — there was this crack in the air, a flash of green light that blinded the whole room. And suddenly, you were there — alive, moving, gasping for air, trying to break through. I shattered your shield with ease… something I failed to do for the past eleven years.”

Kakyoin accepted the glass of water, taking greedy gulps to soothe his sore throat as he tried to process the words.

‘Eleven years have passed since Cairo.’ 

Jotaro’s voice echoed in his mind. 

Eleven years.
Eleven fucking years.

Yet the memory of Cairo, of fighting DIO, of his death was still fresh in his mind, like it was just yesterday.

There were so many questions clawing at him. What is the physics behind this time-travel? Why was he alive when he remembered dying? How had the hole in his abdomen somehow been patched?

But above all…

“...Did we win?”

Had his message reached them?
Had his sacrifice meant anything?
Had he saved the world — saved Jotaro?

Their eyes met. Kakyoin searched those familiar blues for an answer, for something honest. But all he found there was exhaustion — deep, bone-weary exhaustion that made his stomach twist.

“...We did.”

There was no triumph in Jotaro’s voice — only emptiness.

“... at what cost?”

The air thickened with silence. Jotaro opened his mouth, as if the answer were ready on his tongue, but no sound came. He leaned back against the wall, head tilting toward the white ceiling.

“...Half of Cairo, Avdol, Iggy and...” A long breath escaped him, as if even saying the last name was too heavy. “You.”

“W–Well…?” Kakyoin stammered, heart hammering. “What happened to… me?”

He wasn’t naive. He knew he should have died — when The World’s fist tore through his flesh, when the blood wouldn’t stop, when the burned tissue left nothing to save. No doctor could have pulled him back from that. And yet, from Jotaro’s words and from the fact that he was here, it seemed his ending hadn’t been as simple as death.

“You were... confined by Hierophant Green,” Jotaro said, eyes shifting toward the narrow window beside the bed. He couldn’t meet Kakyoin’s gaze. It was as if looking at the teen might shatter what little composure he had left. “After the fight with DIO, the Speedwagon Foundation found your body encased in emerald crystal. We didn’t know if you were alive or dead. It was impossible to break you free. Not even with Star Platinum.”

The scattered fragments of memory began to realign. Goosebumps pricked Kakyoin’s skin as he recalled the moment his Stand had acted on its own — the veins coiling around his limbs, sealing the wound with alien emerald shards, the air thinning until he couldn’t breathe, the world closing in on him.

'Damn it, stop.'

Kakyoin clutched his right wrist, trying to still the tremor in his hand.

“For eleven years, you didn’t eat or drink. You didn’t even age,” Jotaro continued quietly. “But neither did you ever wake up.”

“So, all this time… I was just sleeping?”

Jotaro nodded. “In a way... You were like a real-life Snow White or Sleeping Beauty.”

The corner of Kakyoin’s lips twitched upward. He appreciated the little humour — awkward, maybe, but unmistakably Jotaro. It loosened the tense atmosphere, even just for a bit. 

“Guess it takes more than a prince’s kiss to wake the dead, huh?” 

Jotaro huffed, the faintest breath of amusement ghosting past his lips before vanishing as quickly as it came. “Yeah, you broke the spell yourself.”

“...I did?” Kakyoin looked up in disbelief.

“When the air split open, your Stand reacted first. The green light... it came from you.” Jotaro’s gaze flicked to his wrist, where the faint glimmer of emerald still pulsed beneath the skin. “It was like you were fighting your way back.”

Kakyoin followed his eyes, watching the faint shimmer trace the veins under his skin. It pulsed; steady, alien, alive.

Alive.
The word left a bitter taste on his tongue.

He should be grateful. He should. This is a miracle happening to him for the severe injury he suffered. And yet —

I don’t want to die.

He remembered the words that had flashed through his mind; the fear that clawed its way up from his chest. Hierophant Green was his Stand; their emotions were one. It must have sensed his terror and acted on its own. The fear of dying — that was his truest, rawest desire, the one he couldn’t face, the one his pride refused to admit.

“I… wasn’t ready to die.”

The words hung in the sterile air, raw and trembling. 

“I was a coward. I retreated at the last second while everyone…” The image of his comrades appeared in his mind, and he clawed the blanket – his knuckles whitening. “Hierophant sealed me because it read my mind. It saved me because I must have begged it to, somehow.”

His voice cracked; half-laughter, half-choke.
“Some crusaders I am, right?”

What a joke.

“I couldn’t even face death properly.”

The emerald shimmer pulsed faintly. Hierophant's tendrils, timid and uncertain, emerged from the air around him.

“Don’t.” Kakyoin hissed; his tone came out harsher than he meant. He pulled back before the thread could touch him. “Just... don’t. I don’t want to see you right now.”

Hierophant recoiled like a scolded child and vanished. The sudden emptiness made the room colder.

“I should be ready to face death. I had fought to my very last breath, I had fought until I couldn’t move – I should have kept fighting and never surrendered.” Kakyoin covered his face with his hands. His chest heaved, breath stuttering.  “I… I should have died like an honourable warrior. But I wasn’t ready… I didn't want to die.”

When he finally said it aloud, the words came out barely a whisper. The shameful truth broke him more than the near-death experience ever could.

He felt Jotaro’s gaze linger on him — steady, unreadable. Then came a quiet rustle, and in the next moment, the man pulled his chair closer, his hand closing around Kakyoin’s arm in a firm, grounding grip.

“... and I’m glad you didn’t.”

The teen tilted his head up, amethyst eyes wide in disbelief. 

“You survived, Kakyoin. That’s all. It wasn’t cowardice. It was human.”

The simple words cracked something inside him. The teen didn’t realise he was crying until the tears blurred his vision. The warm fluid slipped down his cheeks, leaving gleaming trails that caught the light.

“Sorry... I… I…” Kakyoin inhaled shakily, turning his face away from the other. “ Can you just give me a moment for myself?” 

“... sure.” Jotaro released his trembling arm and rose to his feet — quiet but grounded. “You must be hungry. I’ll get you something to eat.”

Kakyoin managed a faint nod. When the door clicked shut behind him, the silence that followed wasn’t heavy anymore.

He sat in bed, wiping his eyes, trying to steady the uneven rhythm of his breath. Then, a faint shimmer pulsed at the corner of his vision — hesitant, but gentle.

Hierophant.
The tendril curled loosely near his hand, not touching, only waiting.

Kakyoin stared at it for a long while. His lips trembled, but this time, he didn’t flinch away.

“... not now.” he whispered, voice hoarse. “Just… give me a little time. Alone.”

Hierophant retreated, its glow dimming to a faint heartbeat of green.

And for the first time since Cairo, Kakyoin allowed himself to cry — freely, unashamedly alive.

By the time Jotaro returned, the teen's tears had dried up. Kakyoin straightened his posture, brushing his face with the back of his sleeves, erasing any trace  of weakness.

Jotaro set a tray on the bedside table — miso soup, rice, a soft-boiled egg, and a cup of tea still faintly steaming.

“Eat,” Jotaro said simply. No questions, no preamble.

Kakyoin lifted the bowl of soup to his lips. The salt lingered on his tongue, the warmth soothed the ache of his throat and filled his empty stomach.

He was alive, really alive.

Miso soup had never tasted this delicious before.