A CD clicks into place: Made In Heaven ★ Freddie Mercury

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If the priest wants to go to Heaven so badly?

Then he can rip it right out of your hands.

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You hear it before you see it:

"You're two steps behind."

Your body is being held by the ocean water, and there's a sharp sting at your neck, the smell of blood. You barely know where you are for half a second, just that you can see him, your father, his face poised in stoic disbelief before skin parts and blood begins to seep out from a vicious vertical slice over his face.

"D...ad..." you whisper.

"Jolyne..." he says back, barely moving his lips.

Your eyes sting. It's not just the sea water, but you blink them away weakly. The water is rushing, louder and louder in your ears. You're bleeding. "Dad... you'd do whatever it takes... to save me... Dad... you..."

His skull opens, bone, brain, blood, all of it, spilling out into the water.

And he falls backwards into the sea... with the rest of you. Ermes, both of her arms severed, Anastasia, punched through the chest by your own Stand so his body floats now in a puddle of hot pink hair, and your father, sinking to the bottom of the ocean that he loved so much (but not more than you, never more than you, you know that now... he loved you. he loves you.) You don't have the energy to scream or to cry or to kick. Instead, your hand is inching slowly towards where one of the knives that had attempting to rain down upon you has buried itself in your stomach, deep enough that with every breath you can feel that you're running out of time.

You're bleeding out

—and Emporio is screaming.

He's screaming for all of you in his trembling, boyish voice. You can hear the clicking of his gun, empty chamber, empty chamber, empty chamber, as he tries to empty his violence into the priest that's attempting to remake Heaven on Earth.

"I'll put an end to all of you, I feel... no remorse. No pity." The looming silhouette of Father Pucci casts a shadow as the sun continues to rise and set, as the waters wash rapidly over your bodies. The shallows become less shallow, beginning to bury all of you under water, and you quickly stretch out your influence over Stone Free, grasping Emporio by the ankles with one thread, and a dolphin in a nearby pod with another. With the last, you rip the knife from your gut and in a flash—you've thrown the knife right at Father Pucci's eye, burying it hilt deep. You grab Emporio and the dolphin and then...

You go under.

Everything is silenced here save for the last breath of air ringing in your ears, pinching your lungs with heat. Emporio is screaming for you to use Stone Free to reel yourself in, to clutch the dolphin that's speeding along. But instead, you let the string around Emporio grow to tether him more tightly to the dolphin. You're dead weight at this point, holding with your white-knuckled grip to your string.

Made In Heaven may cause time to speed along, but all things living will survive the changes, and that includes both Emporio... and the dolphin. You know that if you let go, if you give Father Pucci the prey he so wants, you, that Emporio will be safe. It's not the speed that matters, you see, it's the distance. Everything has range, after all.

Stone Free gives you the breath to speak, as though you are one, and you laugh under the water weakly before speaking through the abilities granted to you by your Stand.

"How many meters can you keep swimming for, Father, before you get tired? 500 meters? Maybe even 800?" You look and you can see it, the rage in his single eye, the other squeezed shut where you've wounded him. Enough. You then shift so that you can meet Emporio's eyes. Time is running out. "Emporio... The ones who died so that you could live are Anastasia, our friend Ermes, and my father, Jotaro Kujo."

You're afraid. But you aren't. The future holds bright things for Emporio, even in the dark.

"So... keep on living! You're our only hope!"

Emporio's hands clutch tightly for purchase, one on the speeding dolphin's fin, the other on your string. He's sobbing and somehow, even this far away from Burning Down The House, from the ghost room, he screams beneath the water and you can hear him.

"I don't know what the heck you're even talking about!"

Painfully, you begin to forcibly tear through the thick tether he's holding onto, the last connection he has to you.

His tears are indistinguishable from the seawater, but you can tell he's crying. His voice is rattling, whimpering.

"No! Please! Don't go—Jolyne!" You fray the string. "Wait! I said wait!" He sobs. "Sis! Stop! Don't leave me! Hurry and pull yourself up the rope already!"

As he says this, you turn your back and you see him, Father Pucci, using his last burst of speed to try and catch up to you.


That's the signal that it's time, that he's giving it his all in this one final burst of speed. You've got him on the ropes, so you sever yours just so that you don't have to hear Emporio wailing so close to you, so that your heart doesn't break. You have to be tough, you have to be brave. So you turn in the water with a kick and reassume your fighting position with a grin. "Bring it, Father Pucci...!"




The final track ends. And then shatters.