JORGE JOESTAR Chapter 15: Beyond

FIFTEEN: Beyond (ビヨンド) is the fifteenth and penultimate chapter of the light novel JORGE JOESTAR. It returns to the perspective of George Joestar II after the events of Chapter 13.

Summary
Jorge wakes up lying on the road and sees that his injuries have healed up. He learns that he was sleeping on a large bed, a young boy next to the bed speaks in Italian, glad that he is now awake. Jorge replies while speaking Italian as well, surprised he was able to speak it; he asks how he knows his name and how he can speak Italian now. The boy explains that a Japanese man had come by with an ability that allowed people around including him to speak English, Italian, and Japanese. Jorge asks where he is, the boy explains that he is in a town called Morioh, he then introduces himself as Vinegar Doppio. He explains that his boss had saved him, he then reaches out for a book with its title being Pink Dark Boy, and curls it and holds it to his ear. He hums a weird sound and begins to speak to someone while completely ignoring Jorge. He explains to the other person that the Joestar boy is awake, he asks Jorge if he is able to get up. Jorge tries to get up but is unable to because of the amount of pain he was in. Doppio explains that he can feel better if he keeps moving, as Jorge refuses, the boy yells at him in anger. He threatens Jorge not to mess with him or he would shoot him with his gun. Jorge instantly feels better, he snatches the gun from him and points it at him, stating that he had been shot down by Germans and survived throughout an entire war. The boy grabs the book to his ear again, it makes a strange sound and begins to play music. The sound suddenly harms Jorge, causing lots of vibrations in his head. Doppio had somehow gotten the phone into his head, Jorge then points the gun to his head and shoots himself. The bullet gouges his skin and about seven centimeters long and seven millimeters deep into his skull. As the vibrations stop, he points the gun to Doppio and shoots him several times. None of the bullets hit him, instead, hit the wall by passing through him. A man with a hat standing next to Jorge asks him to knock it off. Doppio orders the man, whose name is Mista, to shoot Jorge. Mista points his gun to Doppio instead, telling him to get it together and then shoots him. Jorge sees little people riding on the bullets as they yell and kick the bullets around. The bullets only graze Doppio's cheeks making it look like he has whiskers. Mista laughs and makes fun of his scars, Jorge watches as the tiny people laugh with him.

A boy with blonde hair walks into a room, introducing himself as Giorno Giovanna. Jorge feels some sort of power within him, he learns that the wounds in his head had been healed again. He asks them what this kind of power was, Giorno explains they are called Stands, and they are wielded by Stand Masters. This reminds Jorge of the night when Mothman burned down La Palma's church, Lisa Lisa had mentioned something about the Hamon Warriors calling these abilities "Spirit Hamon". Giorno explains that a man named Rohan Kishibe had used his Stand to allow Jorge to see Stands and speak Italian. Jorge asks why he wanted to talk to him, Giorno explains how he heard about his time as a detective leading him to a new kind of power called Beyond. He reveals about his old friend Tsukumojuku dying here, and that his parallel self was in charge of solving the mystery for his murder. He then explains how the parallel Jorge had swapped places with him, leaving him in England of 1920, and this Jorge in Morioh of 2012. He has Rohan explain the case of the Three Murdered Detectives and how the other Jorge Joestar had come from Fukui. They also explain how Morioh had suddenly split off from Japan, and was now an island floating in the middle of the ocean, and based on another floating island, Nero Nero Island. The other Jorge Joestar had been sent to Mars with one of the gangsters, and had crashed down to Earth on Morioh, causing their ship to vanish because they had landed on top of the Arrow Cross House which had swapped their places. Now with Giorno as the boss of Passione, with Diavolo dead, they have Jorge solve the mystery of his murder.

Giorno tries to find a connection with the case between Diavolo, a man named Yoshikage Kira, who was also murdered, and the death of Tsukumojuku. With Jorge ignoring him, he grabs the Pink Dark Boy book and has them try to contact England. Doppio tries to use it, he tells him how the phone works and tries to call the Joestar mansion. After this failed attempt, Doppio grabs other items and tries to use them as phones. Another gangster by the name of Fugo points out the window, and claims that there aren't any stars or the moon in the sky, believing that something is floating or swimming above. As Jorge looks out the window, he sees the harbor with a few boats pointing their lights at the sky. There, they see a giant whale and a bunch of other fish floating upside-down, revealing that Morioh is actually floating upside-down in water. Jorge begins to think about how he would return to England, he tries to put his faith into his Beyond. Remembering what Tsukumojuku had advised him: an author is writing a story with Jorge as the main character, and he must create its 'narrative flow'. He decides to follow his given role as a detective solving the murder of the former Boss, and asks them to explain everything to him. A Stand under the name of NYPD Blue, belonging to one of the twins Jorge had saw, explains how they had to remove the bodies out of the house when the spaceship crashed. And then had to put them back in once it rebuilt itself, it then explains how much chaos the police are in right now. Rohan uses Heaven's Door to turn the bodies into books, though the pages were filled with the word "death" all over it. They have Abbacchio use his Stand, Videodrome, to replay their deaths. Rohan has him pause the moment before their throats were slit, and tries to use Heaven's Door to read them, but their pages were nearly blank. With information only regarding their Stand abilities and basic personal information. As they try to determine their times of death, NYPD Blue walks in and tries to help. Jorge notices Kira's face being covered in sweat, but dries up the second it drips onto his shirt. Using this clue, Abbacchio has his Stand constantly replay the two corpses as they are murdered. Jorge realizes that both of their Stands, King Crimson and Killer Queens' abilities had involved manipulating time. Jorge notices that the clock in Rohan's room had disappeared, which was his only way of telling time because the house was windowless. Jorge then realizes that the murderer must have sped up time, and had hid the clock so no one would notice. Even though this was his best answer, the sweat drying on their bodies had still confused Jorge. He believes that time flows differently inside their bodies than the outside, with the victims' Stands as proof.

Jorge asks Rohan if the room had been left empty during the morning for about an hour, Rohan replies saying that the room was flooded with cops because of Tsukumojuku's corpse. Jorge theorizes that if the murderer could compress eight hours into a minute, it would take about 2.5 seconds to murder the two because it was a time span of about twenty hours. After their deaths, it could have taken 1.5 seconds to kill them since it happened twelve hours ago. Jorge then asks Rohan for a body thermometer, planning to do an autopsy. With NYPD Blue and Abbacchio's help, he cuts open through the corpses eyes and checks their temperatures. Jorge continues with his theory, now believing that the killers ability to compress time had only applied to those who can perceive time. Jorge then comes to believe that Kira and Diavolo had been fighting the whole time, with Kira activating his Bite's the Dust trying to kill Diavolo. Diavolo's future sight had prevented it, but the bomb set time back an hour. This continues with Diavolo erasing his death and Kira rewinding time, leaving them both in an infinite time loop. Jorge then wonders why everything happened in the Arrow Cross House, he asks Rohan to gather clocks from the house. As everyone does so, he notices that they all show the time 8:13 PM. Jorge checks his watch and it shows the time 11:15 AM, the time he was supposed to be at his wedding. He turns to Reimi and asks her some questions about the Cube House. They discuss how the Cube House had been moved to Morioh, and how Reimi had lost her memories when it happened. He understands that she is an unusual type of Stand, and that she has forgotten her Stand master as she evolved. She thinks of it as something shocking happening to someone, which reminds Jorge of Wounds because sustained trauma and harm could give you power.

He asks her if she had ever been injured or had suffered in any way. She mentions her back had been hurting for a while, when suddenly, she shuts her eyes and begins to grit her teeth; her skin becoming a beet red. Rohan asks her what's wrong, when she suddenly jerks back as if being stabbed. She removes the straps of her dress and shows her back, revealing an arrowhead inside of her. She screams in pain as the skin on her back rips open, with the arrowhead sliding out of her; although there was no blood, it drops onto the floor and Reimi collapses. As Rohan rushes to her, she explains that she remembers everything about her and her Master. She had been asked to keep the arrowhead to make sure no one else had it, and had locked herself in the Cube House but had accidentally stabbed herself. She turns to Jorge, saying that it has been a while since they've met. Jorge asks how she knew him, she explains that she had come to Morioh looking for him and waiting for him. She explains that she loves him, shocking everyone around them, she rephrases that her Master loves him. Jorge asks who her Master is, she reveals that her Master is Penelope de la Rosa, and that they should get back to her. Mista and Fugo interrupt them, claiming Jorge still has to find who had killed Diavolo. Reimi states that he shouldn't have to, angering them. She reminds them that they are all still inside of her body. Giorno rises up and assumes Jorge already has the answer and asks him to share who had done it. He explains everything about how the killers' ability was to speed up time, although he doesn't know his name. The killer had lured Kira and Diavolo into the Cube House. Kira had used Bites the Dust on himself. The killer set them against each other, had them attack, and King Crimson deleted the moment where Bites the Dust blew him up. While both were still alive, Bites the Dust turned back time an hour, and brought the same fate around again. As time began to loop, the same events happening again and again, the killer sped up time, compressing it until neither of them could move at all and then slit their throats. Giorno appears to be shocked, Jorge asks him if he knew about a Stand that could speed up time. Giorno says he does not, Jorge then asks why he had seemed so surprised. Giorno replies that it hadn't, Jorge then notices that there was a sadness in his face, he then turns to Bruno and asks if he is lying. Hearing them, Giorno turns around and looks at Bucciarati, Bruno states that he smells something he shouldn't be smelling from him, or from any of his gang members. Giorno says he is imagining it, Bruno yells at him, stating that he is lying again and is keeping something from them. Giorno explains that he was just thrown off because you couldn't fight a Stand that could accelerate time. Jorge notices that sweat off his shirt had immediately dried up. Bruno says that he's lying, and summons his Stand, Stepmom, and begins to sew his mouth shut. Giorno yells out that he hadn't been lying, but was lied to. Before Bruno could ask who had lied to him, he falls silent. Behind them, NYPD Blue notices that Diavolo's face had opened up from Rohan's Stand. Jorge notices that the page numbers were odd, and learns that the pages were all in odd numbers. He picks a page and reads that the front says page 323, and the back says 325. Rohan reminds them that he had the word 'death' written all over his pages earlier, revealing that he had a split personality. Bruno looks at Giorno and asks him who had betrayed him, Giorno's eyes become hollow, he claims that he doesn't know. Bruno adds more stitches to him, and asks him again. Giorno replies again by saying that he had been betrayed by God, Bruno punches him. Tears and blood run down Giorno's face, which then dried up instantly. Rohan explains that he had looked inside of everyone's pages to make them speak three languages, he then reveals that he had not looked inside Giorno and Doppio. They look around for Doppio, with him nowhere to be found, Muryotaisu sends out his Grand Bleu dolphins to search for him. Abbacchio decides to just call him instead, he easily answers, the dolphins bring him back with the phone in his hand. Rohan uses his Stand on Doppio and looks through his pages, they find nothing. Everyone looks at Giorno, who continues to say that God had betrayed him. The bodies on the floor begin to rot, time in the Cube House had begun to speed up again.

Suddenly, a man had been standing behind them, stating that God is very disappointed in Giorno. They look to see that it is Enrico Pucci, who says that God has forsaken him. Giorno wipes his tears and says that he will be the one to finish Pucci, and that God has forsaken him instead. He says that his father had never expected anything from him, and that he has been used.