Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Shadowed Suspicion Chapter 207

[madimpossibledreamer]

Explosive lotuses might be borrowed from another self-sacrificing semi-yandere-slash-tsundere…
That one fact is not an error, it’s placing where Dio was plucked from in the timeline. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, don’t worry about it.
Honestly, I think half the reason I started writing from Dio's POV is that it's such a role-reversal, because this time, it's him that has to enter a place with the 'menacing' sound effect.


Main Points:
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure/Buffy the Vampire Slayer AU
Chapter Summary: Dio takes the bait.
Word Count: 1161
Rating: Teen (Buffy|Jojo's level violence)
Note: HERE THERE PROBABLY BE BUFFY/JJBA SPOILERS

          Dio had previously explored these caverns briefly before discarding them as useless to his goals. After watching Jojo’s fight with Bruford, he had learned that water carried the man’s annoying Hamon rather well. It’s likely that, ‘imposter’ or not, this new Joestar had studied something of the art, and that’s why he had chosen this as the battleground for their fight. In fact, he wouldn’t be surprised if traps had been set up.
          Jonathan, of course, would never think of such a thing, but he was a gentleman, through and through, and would try for as fair a fight as could be managed between a man and a vampire. The new Joestar, though, had emphasized that he hadn’t been born into the family. Even if it was likely, with such bleeding hearts, that they had merely taken in yet another child, especially as he’d seemed to imply the process didn’t require any schemes, that still meant that the new Joestar was attempting to give off the impression of being underhanded, which was in of itself a misdirect. The extent is unclear, or how good he is at it, but the intent itself is clear. It’s likely he’s fully aware of such things, too, so it’s not entirely clear whether this is cleverness or desperation. While he might consider this one a pale imitation of Jojo, though, he should know better than to underestimate even one merely adopted by the Joestars. He’s done letting the members of his own adoptive family catch him unawares.
          So it’s with quite reasonable caution he peers into the entrance, a human-made route with stairs hewn out of the rock. And while it’s quite possible the area would have changed since he’d seen it last, he doesn’t remember quite that amount of moss covering the steps and walls.
          Dio would have preferred an actual minion, but if there’s nothing else he learned from his years fending for himself, he’d learned to improvise. He’d caught one of the zombies wandering the streets and tore out its throat before it even knew what was happening, proceeding to carefully disable it. The most important part was the throat. He had to make sure it couldn’t give away his approach easily. Not until he could use it to test for traps, at any rate. He tosses it into the middle of the moss and is rewarded as a gold energy crackles across the corpse, crumbling and melting it as Dio has seen before several times. Without a throat, it can’t even scream as it dies. It’s uninteresting, but does confirm that the new one had learned Hamon, too. Not really a surprise, given the chosen location, but it’s good to have confirmation. The interesting part is that the moss starts browning and dying all around the body, suggesting that it was only the Ripple keeping it alive, which confirms that this is a new use of Hamon Dio hasn’t seen before. The new Joestar can’t be continually feeding Ripple into the plant, or it wouldn’t have died, and that would require a path of moss leading straight to the man. He’d designed an actual trap with Hamon.
          It’s possible Dio could freeze it before the Ripple could hurt him, but it’s not worth taking the risk. He’s never tried it on a living being before—well, not an enemy, anyway, and certainly not one that used Hamon—and now doesn’t seem to be the time to start. Lanterns, however, line the side of the passageway, and it takes merely a moment to find that unlike some of the so-called ‘progress’ humanity has made in the time since Dio was last awake, these still worked off the same principles as a candle. It’s easy enough to snatch up one, two, three from the wall and smash them on the moss. The first doesn’t cause a big enough fire, but the more he adds, the more it burns, until the entirety of this first obstacle in his path is turning to ash before him. How fitting, given the fire at the mansion—but it’s a good reminder, too, that he must not be overconfident. This new Joestar is not Jonathan, but he, too, is somewhat clever.
          Any chance of an unannounced or surprise entrance is gone now. Other entrances probably exist, he supposes, and if he’d gone through effort trying to find them, he probably could have done so, but getting lost would be undignified and if he set off these traps before even starting the fight, he would have a better idea of how this new Joestar operated. “Oh, Joestar….” he purrs, a predator on the hunt, letting his voice ring through the tunnel downward.
          No answer, but, perhaps even the advanced hearing of a vampire can’t hear a reply with how deep the human is within the caves. Or, perhaps, he’s hiding, attempting to catch Dio unawares. This opponent seems to understand that being alive is more important than any so-called sense of morality—but then, maybe humans were so concerned with ‘good’ or ‘evil’ because they weren’t immortal, and had to believe in some sort of afterlife to give them any sense of living on.
          The descending stairs give way to a tunnel, still lit by lamps, but after a bit they’re joined by a string of lighting, another human invention in the meantime. Another characteristic of humanity—while egotistical, believing themselves at the top of the food chain, when it came to actual danger, or adapting their environment to suit their own needs, they could be very creative.
          Speaking of which—the tunnel opens up. If there’s another trap, and Dio will honestly be a little insulted if there isn’t, this will be a good location for one. A human would probably describe it as pretty, but the aesthetics matter little when it’s likely the area will be destroyed soon. The underground lake is natural, with cracks out of sight that a lifeform could secrete itself, while the platform and some of the linked passages are clearly not.
          He steers clear of the moss growing along the side, just in case, and pauses mid-step. Because they might be hard to see, but with a slight change brought by movement, the slight shimmer serves as a warning. Clever, if strange—yet another use of Hamon he didn’t know. If he hadn’t had the vampiric vision, he wouldn’t have seen the outline of—he cocks his head. Yes, a lotus, made of water. Or rather, an entire room full of them, because he gets just the slightest hints of shimmering as he looks over it. As for his next move…while it’s not living, it should do. He retrieves one of the lamps and throws it at the first lotus he noticed. It expands immensely, unfurling, and it takes a moment to realize it appears to be exploding, and it’s hardly as intangible as it looks, because the ceiling begins to collapse.