Giorno’s voice was calm, as if he were telling a story that had nothing to do with him.
“It happened many years ago.”
He gently stroked the brooch in his hand, his eyes reflecting the dancing flames of the fireplace.
“My father—Dio Kent…
he died.”
“?!”
Clark bolted to his feet, his chair scraping violently across the wooden floor.
Dio…
would die?
His blue eyes widened into circles, his lips trembling as he tried to speak, but he seemed to have lost the ability to form words.
For eight-year-old Clark, death was something he couldn’t fully comprehend.
Yet even so, the sheer weight of the word pressed down on him immensely.
The brother who lived beside him day and night, his closest friend…
could die?
On the other side, Dio was visibly more composed, though the fingers gripping the sofa armrest turned white, betraying his inner turmoil.
No one could remain indifferent upon learning of their own demise, least of all an eight-year-old Dio.
“Giorno!” Rock couldn’t help but interject.
“Don’t joke about something like that!”
How could he ever let such a thing happen?!
“I’m not sure of the details either.”
Giorno glanced at Rock’s tense profile, seemingly reading the question written on his face.
He continued, “That day, Grandpa, you only said you were ‘going out for a bit,’ and you never returned.”
“The only one who came back was Uncle Clark.”
“I asked him countless times…” Giorno’s voice carried an exhaustion unnatural for his age.
“But Uncle Clark remained tight-lipped about the truth behind those two events.”
“Later, Uncle Clark sent me to Italy—to my birth mother’s home.”
“A year later, he suddenly reappeared out of nowhere and brought me to Metropolis.”
The flames in the hearth suddenly surged, casting Giorno’s shadow against the wall, twisting it into a sinister shape.
“On the top floor of the Manhattan Building in Metropolis, he pressed his hands onto my shoulders, pointed down at the brightly lit city below, and said—”
Giorno cleared his throat.
He mimicked the cold voice from his memory:
“The The World will ultimately belong to the Kent family.”
“Giorno, Dio would be proud of you.”
Dio’s red pupils shrank as he turned to look at Clark in sheer disbelief.
This big dummy was *that* formidable?!
“For the next eight years…” Giorno shook his head with a bitter smile, “Uncle Clark ruled almost the entire The World with absolute power.”
“He proclaimed himself Emperor and Supreme Commander of the ‘Kingdom of Heaven,’ ruthlessly suppressing all resistance with an iron fist, claiming he would cleanse humanity of the seven deadly sins!”
“Mm…
he used the most brutal methods imaginable.”
“Under his supreme will, everything in the The World became regulated, quiet, and peaceful.”
“No one could stand it—least of all me.”
“So after I secretly escaped, I joined the resistance fighting against the Emperor…”
“The Anti-Injustice Society Republican Party.”
A flash of lightning split the night sky, instantly illuminating the living room and casting shifting, shadowy light across their faces.
Outside the window, the heavy rain beat down even harder, large drops pounding against the farm’s tin roof with a deafening rattle.
The howling wind swept walls of rain across the wheat fields, flattening the unharvested golden stalks to the ground.
An eerie silence hung over the living room, punctuated only by the crackle of burning logs in the fireplace and the rhythmic roar of the storm.
Rock stood before the hearth, his tall figure projected onto the wall, swaying with the flickering light.
Sitting awkwardly at the dining table, Clark nervously fidgeted with the bouquet Giorno had created.
His super-senses were growing sharper by the day; the rain outside, the distant creaking of the barn’s metal roof in the wind—everything rushed into his ears.
But none of it matched the crushing weight of Giorno’s words.
Even though he didn’t fully understand all of it…
he could still tell.
In the future, he was going to turn into a very, very bad guy.
Having Star Platinum brew a cup of hot cocoa and place it in front of Giorno, Rock looked up at the family portrait hanging on the wall—Dio pulled into an arm-bar by Rock with a reluctant expression, Clark standing beside them with a goofy grin, and Martha and Jonathan standing behind them on either side.
Speaking of which…
“Giorno,” Rock hesitated for a moment.
“What about your other uncles…
or aunts?”
Giorno tilted his head, the three golden hair loops on his forehead swaying slightly.
A look of confusion washed over his face.
“Other uncles?”
Wasn’t his father’s only brother Uncle Clark?
His eyes suddenly went wide, and the hot cocoa in his hands nearly spilled.
“Wait…
Grandpa, did you leave me another trump card?!”
“God knows how severely short-handed our organization is right now!”
He stood up excitedly and began pacing back and forth in the room.
“Right now, Professor Charles is carrying the entire faction on his back alone.
If there are other uncles…
Just one Uncle Clark was powerful enough to rule the The World, so if there are others…”
“Hey!
Kid!” Dio couldn’t help rolling his eyes.
“Aren’t you overthinking things?”
He pointed at himself, then at Clark.
“It’s just us here.
Where are these ‘other uncles’ supposed to come from?”
Giorno was completely deaf to his words, lost in his own thoughts.
“If we defeat the dictator Clark, The World peace will—”
“Stop!”
Rock rubbed his temples, and Star Platinum appropriately reached out to hold Giorno’s shoulder.
“Calm down, kid.
I was just asking offhand.”
However, Rock was starting to understand.
The timeline Giorno came from probably…
maybe…
wasn’t the same as theirs.
a multiverse?
After all, the system stated it would send him a child every few years.
How could Dio be his only son in the future?
It couldn’t be that the system glitched again, could it?
Remembering the Charles mentioned by Giorno, Rock grew curious.
“So Giorno, how did you travel—”
“I—”
Just as he was about to speak, Giorno’s body suddenly flickered with a faint golden light, his outline growing increasingly transparent.
Even Gold Experience dissolved into a mist of golden dust and vanished into nothingness.
“I’m sorry, Grandpa.”
He looked down at his fading hands, a helpless smile tugging at the corner of his lips.
“My time is up.”
Looking up at Rock, Giorno’s golden eyes were filled with reluctance.
“Grandpa…
Perhaps the future has already changed, or perhaps my time has simply run out…”
“In any case, listen to me first, Grandpa.”
“Watch out for our barn.”
“Today is a critical junction.
The Professor said that right in the middle of this rainstorm, my never-before-seen Grandma Martha and Grandpa Jonathan, they—”
Giorno’s voice began to drift, his figure rippling like a reflection in water.
He sighed regretfully.
“It seems I can’t say any more.
I’ll leave it at that, Grandpa.”
“I hope that when I wake up again…”
*BOOM!*
Lightning flashed, illuminating the boy’s fading, smiling face.
“…I’ll be able to see a bright future.”
*Snap—!*
His figure completely dissolved into countless golden specks of light, floating up toward the ceiling like rain flowing backward before vanishing into the air.
Silence returned to the living room.
Only the half-finished cup of cocoa and the lingering warmth on the sofa proved that the boy with the hair loops had ever truly been there.
“Uncle Rock…” Clark’s voice sounded tight.
“Am I really going to become a villain like that?”
Without answering immediately, Rock simply bent down and picked up the blue ladybug brooch Giorno had left behind, his thumb gently rubbing over the intricate pattern on its back.
Hmm…
It was alive.
Pinning it to his own chest, Rock said softly, “No.”
“Because starting right now, history has already changed.”
Summoning Star Platinum, he pushed open the front door.
His gaze pierced through the sheet of rain, locking onto the barn a short distance from the house.
There…
A massive dark silhouette was rising silently into the air.