Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Shadowed Suspicion Chapter 368

[madimpossibledreamer]

Main Points:
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure/Buffy the Vampire Slayer AU
Chapter Summary: They take shelter as the rainforest starts to flood.
Word Count: 1097
Note: HERE THERE PROBABLY BE BUFFY/JJBA SPOILERS

         They barely make it up the rotting boards of the staircase, already slick with rain, when it becomes a complete downpour, which is far more what Buffy expected from what she’s heard about the Amazon. It’s called a rainforest, after all. If she’d thought it was loud before, it’s now deafening, between the pounding rain on the roof and the fact that for some reason the animals seem to have decided they need to be louder, now. Like they’re trying to be heard above the sheets of rain so thick that you can barely see two feet in front of you.
         She also happens to notice the boa constrictor has gotten a little closer around Giorno’s body. “Need a hand or two?” she asks. She’s never had to wrestle a giant snake before as the Slayer (wait, no, there was that one snake demon at some frat party, right?) but she’s pretty sure she could take it, if she needs to.
         He just shakes his head, amused look in his eye, as he attempts to wipe the rain off the raincoat as best he can, and then turning his attention elsewhere; it looks like something had forced the hood down, messing with his hairstyle. With a look of slight disgust, he gives up on his hair entirely, letting the blond hair fall limply around his shoulders. He still looks kind of regal, but...bedraggled royalty, maybe. Buffy can nearly guarantee she doesn’t look any better. “No, he’s merely cold.” Despite his words, she notices that he’s having a little harder time speaking, voice cut off from how tight the snake is clinging, but she’ll let him call the shots for now. She won’t let him get crushed to death from his own hubris, though.
         “Well, we might be stuck for the time being,” Daniela states matter-of-factly from the doorway. Buffy peers past her and the water’s rising rapidly. It’s actually flooding. This location’s a bit of a trek from the actual river but apparently not enough of one.
         “Are the boats going to be okay?” she asks. They’d probably thought about that, but still.
         “We did wedge them in there, but it’s not a guarantee. The other Slayers will come rescue us if not,” Daniela responds, not at all bothered by the prospect—but then again, for her, this is probably just business as usual, because this is her life. It’s like how Buffy’s gotten used to the Slayer stuff, even though someone who lives a normal life would probably look at her risking her life on a regular basis as something really unusual. At least they didn’t leave the rest of the supplies down there too.
         “The name of this person we’re chasing is Rush, right?” Antonio asks suddenly, setting down some of the crates in the least leaky part of the house.
         “That’s right,” Giorno responds mildly, looking completely unsurprised about the veritable parade of animals seeking shelter behind them (and honestly, he wouldn’t be, given that he probably created all of them).
         “And he could control water, right?” the pilot continues, and suddenly the line of questioning makes sense. He’s worried about being trapped in a situation where Rush might not have even had to use acid or holy water or UV lights to try to kill them.
         Giorno had said that his animals could defend themselves. If that’s the case, maybe it’s a good thing they’re joining everybody like this. The more of them in one place that can fight, the better.
         Giorno himself sits down carefully on a carved wooden chair, crossing his legs. He’s still not relaxed, but he allows himself a little more calm. Particularly when it doesn’t just collapse and take him with it. Of course, this seems like more the calm he can have in the middle of a fight, which can be downright unsettling, but mostly because of the amount of control that implies. “Yes. Though I suspect it’s unlikely he has any control over the weather itself. If I understand correctly, potentially it’s possible if he has some sort of artifact, but even those do not allow a fine degree of control.”
         Buffy nods. On one hand, that’s a lot of specific information she wouldn’t expect from someone who supposedly just learned about this stuff would know. On the other, Giorno tries to make it seem much more natural, but he has at times an almost obsessive need to know things so he can control the situation, so she isn’t actually too surprised.
         “He’s used water to directly drown a few people. But he didn’t try to control the flood at Wolfram & Hart.” She doesn’t know for sure it was Rush behind the deaths of those Slayers, the Witch, and the Watcher, but she suspects.
         “That may not be a matter of ability, but rather, of desire. He didn’t want to be at the scene of the crime,” Giorno counters.
         “How can you talk about our possible deaths so calmly?” Antonio yells. Probably louder than he intends, since he looks a little embarrassed when they all turn to stare at him.
         “...Practice?” Buffy can’t really think of anything else.
         Giorno smiles serenely and nods.
         “I thought you said you couldn’t control your animals,” Ivete mentions, staring at the monkeys scrambling to the roof and, dangling, trying to hang palm leaves in the way. It doesn’t entirely work, but they do manage to at least direct the flow of water to one specific spot in the house, rather than it going through all the spots where the roof has holes thanks to the trees and vines growing through and attempting to break the house apart. Sudden disappearance of drips indicates that monkeys on the outside are doing the same thing.
         “This early into the process, I can’t. I did not lie about the matter.” Giorno’s smile does not waver. “This just happens to be to their own benefit as well. They could take shelter in the trees, but this is more convenient. We are incidental.”
         Given that even more monkeys appear at the door, some crowding and others walking in in single file, that does seem to be the case. Some of them then start to spread out to touch everything curiously, while others seem to be trying to wring out water from their fur. Given how much water comes out, he seems to have a point. Maybe it’s time they started trying to look through what’s left and see if there’s any clues here, though it looks even more abandoned than the last one they checked.