Unlike Jotaro, who treated gratitude like something vaguely irritating that he'd prefer not to acknowledge, Shintaro lifted a hand and gave Polnareff an easy wave.
"You're welcome," he said. "My French friend."
Polnareff returned it with a smile — and then turned to Joseph Joestar. The lightness drained from his face almost immediately, replaced by something steadier and heavier that sat oddly against the morning brightness behind him.
"There's one more thing," he said. "A question I'd like to ask. It might sound... unusual."
Joseph raised an eyebrow, pinching his chin. "Unusual? Now I'm paying attention."
The harbor breeze moved through Polnareff's improbable silver architecture as he crossed his arms.
"Forgive the intrusion," he began. "But since yesterday I've noticed — you've kept your gloves on throughout. While eating. While fighting. You haven't removed them once." His finger rose, pointing at Joseph's hands. "Is it possible that both of your hands... are right hands?"
The air stiffened in a quiet, particular way.
Joseph blinked, then held up his hands and turned them over as though encountering them for the first time.
"Both right hands?" he said, genuinely baffled. "That is a strange question. What exactly are you getting at?"
The smile left Polnareff's face.
A stillness settled over his features — the kind that comes from a story carried a long time and now being brought out carefully.
"I'm searching for the man who murdered my sister."
Everyone except Shintaro went still.
"I don't know his face," Polnareff said. "I don't know his age or his voice. The only clue I've had for three years — is that the murderer has two right hands."
Joseph was quiet. Then, without a word, he reached up and slowly pulled the glove from his right hand.
What lay beneath was not flesh.
A mechanical prosthetic caught the morning light — polished metal, cold and precise, a hand that had been iron for fifty years.
"This," Joseph said evenly, "is a badge of honor."
Polnareff looked at the prosthetic for a long moment. Then his head dipped.
"...I'm sorry," he said quietly. "That question was rude."
"If it isn't too painful," Shintaro said gently, stepping in before the silence could deepen further, "could you tell us what happened?"
Polnareff turned toward the harbor. The sunlight on the water had no business looking as unconcerned as it did.
"Three years ago," he said. "My hometown in France. A small country road."
"My sister was walking home with a classmate. It was raining." A brief pause. "They saw a man standing ahead of them with his back turned. The rain didn't touch him — not a single drop. As though something invisible curved it away from his body."
His fingers tightened against his arms.
"My sister's classmate took a wound to the chest from nowhere. Collapsed instantly." His voice stayed even, carefully controlled, the discipline of someone who has carried this account long enough to learn how to get through it. "My sister tried to run. She didn't make it. After being violated by that man — she was murdered."
The harbor sounds continued. Waves. Distant cranes. A gull moving against the wind.
"The classmate survived," Polnareff said. "She couldn't describe his face. But she told me one thing." He turned back. His eyes, which had been carefully empty, had filled with something raw and burning. "He had two right hands."
"Nobody believed her. But I did. Because I knew — a man who turns rain aside with his presence, who inflicts wounds from nothing visible — that man carries an ability like mine."
Then something shifted.
The grief lifted from Polnareff's bearing in a single sweeping movement. His arm drove forward and upward in a declaration aimed at the open sky — the kind of pose that makes the world feel obligated to pay attention.
"I swear it!!"
The shout rang out across the pier.
"I will reclaim my sister's dignity with that bastard's death!"
His hand drove against his chest.
"With my Stand — I will execute him myself!"
ゴゴゴゴゴ...
The pressure of old grief made the air heavier for a moment. Real. Undeniable.
Then Polnareff straightened slowly, the performance cooling into clear, cold resolution.
"One year ago," he said quietly, "I met DIO. And he..."
When the telling was finished.
Avdol's expression had gone dark and still. "Even with the Flesh Bud doing its work, make no mistake — DIO sees into people and knows precisely which wound to press. He used your grief as a door."
Kakyoin nodded. "If DIO spoke to you about this man, it almost certainly means he's already found him and placed him among his subordinates."
Before Polnareff could respond, Shintaro stepped forward.
He extended his hand.
"Then it seems we share a common enemy," he said. "Come with us to Egypt, Polnareff. Find DIO — and you'll find your sister's killer."
Polnareff looked at the outstretched hand. Something moved through his expression — gratitude and grief and stubborn, furious hope compressed into a single instant.
He took it.
"I look forward to working with you," he said. "Shintaro."
The others exchanged looks and nodded. No objection from anyone.
And so — the French swordsman who had spent ten relentless years at the self-appointed University of Silver Chariot; whose Stand fired a single blade and wore armor designed purely to be discarded; who laughed too loudly at the wrong moments and kept his grief behind performance like a man who hasn't found a better place to put it — Jean Pierre Polnareff officially joined the company travelling toward Egypt.
Just as the moment had settled into something warm—
"Excuse me\~ sorry to bother you\~"
Two women in bright vacation dresses approached, smiling, and aimed themselves directly at Jotaro Kujo.
"Handsome — could you take a photo for us? With the sea behind us?"
Shintaro glanced sideways at Jotaro's face, which darkened like a sky before a squall.
I know exactly what happens next.
"Yakamashi! Get lost, you annoying women!"
The tourists froze.
Polnareff was already in motion — sweeping in from the side with a smile that seemed to originate from an entirely different atmosphere.
"There, there\~ Leave photography to a professional!"
He guided them toward the railing with practiced ease, arms light on their shoulders, camera already rising.
"Relax\~ I'll capture your beautiful legs and the whole seascape perfectly—"
Click.
"Magnifique\~ I truly wish I could capture your hearts as easily as I press this shutter\~"
The tourists blushed, giggling, the earlier awkwardness dissolving into the sea air as though it had never existed.
Avdol watched and shook his head slowly. "His personality is genuinely difficult to categorize."
"His mood changes faster than weather," Shintaro offered.
"Less mood," Joseph said, chin in hand, wearing the knowing smile of a man who has been young and recognizes the symptoms, "and more that his lower body doesn't consult his brain before making decisions."
"Yare yare..." Jotaro had already turned away.
Kakyoin watched quietly from the side, a small knowing light in his violet eyes. Frivolity, he understood, was Polnareff's carrying mechanism — the thing between him and the weight he refused to stop hauling.
Morning light touched the gauze on Polnareff's cheek and showed the faint, still-healing burns beneath it.
The ship's horn sounded across the harbor.
The SPW Foundation's vessel had arrived.
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