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iltaimpi · 4 months

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JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Vento Aureo OC: Bella Donna Primavera

{ Base version. Might update later.

No idea why all my OC profiles are for Vento Aureo OCs, but here we go, my first OC of the year. I love what I came up with for this one.

One lovely spring day in central Napoli, a little girl was born. The circumstances of her birth were entirely normal. Her parents were normal people.

That's why things didn't work out in the long run.

Because the baby girl was not normal.

Little Bella Donna was born with some kind of power.

When she was an infant, this ability only manifested intermittently, sometimes causing her to "disappear", thus sending her parents into a panic, only to "reappear" right where they'd left her as if she'd been there the whole time, after they'd looked everywhere for her. They weren't neglectful, no, but it's hard to keep an eye on your child when you can't see her. At approximately 10 months old, Bella said her first word, and it echoed in the minds of her parents, which seemed normal at first—of course they would be excited about their baby saying her first words and dwell on it. That was, until the unrelenting repetition of the auditory afterimage became so dreadful and maddening that, convinced she was cursed, they reluctantly abandoned her, no longer able—or willing—to care for her, just hoping that there was someone out there who could.

Unfortunately, instead, she grew up half-neglected in (and out of) what was effectively an orphanage, some sort of children's home; generally not a great environment to grow up in, and that's just for the kids who can be seen!

Upon being taken in by the home, she was referred to by the surname of Primavera, though whether that was her original surname or one the staff ascribed to her, she would never know.

As she grew, the power got worse. She went invisible more frequently, often getting in trouble for "sneaking out" despite not having gone anywhere or, in school, for truancy or "skipping" when she was right there, sitting at her desk the whole class, but, at the least, they seemed to remember that she was supposed to be there.

She noticed that people sometimes had an adverse reaction to her voice, so she became a quiet child, and eventually, the afterimage effect she had seemed to go dormant from disuse; not that it made much difference, since she now spoke so infrequently and so quietly. In some ways, her reticence added to the problem as her ability became active more and more often, because, now, people would forget she was there, whilst she was too scared to make her presence known—and even when she tried, her voice was so quiet that people simply missed it. As her afterimage faded, so, too, did the acknowledgement of her absence and, further, existence.

When the ability was active (which, after gradually increasing frequency, eventually was constant), the only way that she could be seen was through focus, passion, and intensity. Things that she did not have a lot of, not least of all because unintended neglect resulted in a very poor diet, which in turn led to a lack of energy, which in turn led to more neglect due to her lacking the energy to manifest, in a sort of vicious cycle. She always felt she saw more vibrantly when she could be seen.

She relied, often, on other little kids to give her bits of their food (in particular, another little girl named Margherita, who slept a bed over from Bella). Although they shared their food, some of them didn't seem to realise that Bella was a living person. Some seemed to consider her a spirit and their sharing of food as 'offerings'.

While some kids barely acknowledged her, and a few did acknowledge her as a housemate who couldn't be seen for reasons beyond their comprehension, there were a select few kids who, as kids do, created an urban legend. They rumoured her as being a 'former resident', and said that by offering food, someone could "make her appear".

So, in a way, they weren't too far off. She often only appeared when she had the energy, though she sometimes simply had a good day where she was visible.

She never knew how to get people to see her and recognise her presence.

After a while of being treated like a ghost, her will weakened.

Eventually, she disappeared completely. There were no more days where she woke up visible, able to interact with others normally, be provided with a meal by normal means, able to be treated as a real person.

A week went by before she realised it was permanent. For the next three months, she was unseen and unknown. Even the kids who had been her 'friends' and the kids who had started the rumours seemed to forget about her. Everyone but Margherita, who'd always acted as if Bella was visible to begin with.

The urban legends became a tragic comedy;

She became a ghost.

During this time, she—oddly enough—"phased through" something, a quite ghost-like feat, having fallen under a bus she'd been running to catch, only to get up apparently unscathed. She couldn't figure out, however, how to replicate this by choice. It seemed to happen automatically if something heavy hit her.

After a while, when the other kids stopped leaving her scraps—Margherita notwithstanding—and the care workers started trying to give her bed to newcomers, Bella realised that she couldn't survive by trying to continue living like a normal kid.

She needed to steal.

She needed to take care of herself.

So she began stealing the food from others.

And when she found herself unable to do something on her own...

She began to speak.

She found that if she whispered in someone's ear, her words would overwhelm them, and she could get them to do just about anything she told them to (provided they were physically capable, of course). Initially, however, she found that this had lasting effects on the target. The first time she'd tried it, she woke up a taller boy she'd always liked in the middle of the night; she got him to get up and go to the kitchen, and urged him to climb up on a counter and open the cabinet to get something from the top shelf that she couldn't reach herself. After, she quietly led him back to his bed, to let him sleep.

The boy, however, began to exhibit mildly erratic behaviours come the next day, seeming to occasionally enter a trancelike daze and developing a compulsion to open any doors he saw.

They found his body a few days later; the last "door" he'd opened had been a window, from which he fatally fell. Of course, nobody knew what had happened. There were plenty of whispers and suspicions, but nobody could say for certain. Nobody else knew what Bella had done. And it still took her a bit to understand that it was a result of her own ability. She used it a few more times, which resulted in children suddenly experiencing 'idiopathic anacusis'—despite all insisting they still heard something—or 'auditory hallucinations' or other potentially-psychotic symptoms, generally causing turmoil. She didn't like it and then resolved to use the power only for purposes she found justified.

In particular, when she found out a care worker had abused Margherita, Bella, enraged, made them confess simply by demanding they do so, overwhelming them with guilt from her words, leading to their ultimate death—self-inflicted—and nobody questioned the suicide's reason, not after the confession.

And she knew she had caused it. She felt no remorse.

It wasn't until Margherita herself was affected by the ability, being declared 'deaf' because all she could hear was Bella's voice, that Bella finally figured out how to neutralise the effects. She realised she couldn't bear to stay in the home after that, knowing how much damage she'd caused, and not wanting to hurt the only person who'd seemed to care about her ever again.

Inundated with guilt, she left the home, never to return. Never to see Margherita again, presumably.

But she couldn't live out on the streets. She didn't know how to scavenge. She only knew how to steal.

To subsist, she began to sneak into other people's houses. She rarely stayed long—usually just long enough to steal food before making her way back out. She occasionally used her "power of suggestion" when needed but stayed away from homeowners as best she could. They never knew she was even there.

They were all normal.

She still only barely managed to get by, because if she took too much, she was sure they'd notice, even if they didn't know where it went. The anxiety of possibly becoming visible in the night kept her from actually sleeping inside any of the houses, instead typically sleeping in alleyways (getting stepped on once or twice, scaring the everliving fuck out of the passerby in the process). But when the cold months came—even though it wasn't too cold, it was cold enough—she considered staying somewhere for more than just a few hours.

Eventually, she decided on her temporary refuge.

She managed to slip in unnoticed, sneaking around to get an idea of the house's layout, figuring out where everything was best she could whilst cautiously keeping track of the homeowner, keeping her distance from him. The house was nice. To her, it seemed to be big enough for two people to exist in, hopefully without notice.

Although apprehensive, she decided she would stay, at least for the time being, and try to keep her shenanigans confined to whenever he was out of the house. He was a fairly busy man, it seemed. Yet, he was quicker to pick up on her activity than the other homeowners in the past (though she figured that might've been because, previously, she'd never stuck around to see a homeowner find out).

From her impression of the homeowner, he was a nice man, but he was odd. He lived alone, but she often heard him talking on the phone, sometimes casually, sometimes grimly, and sometimes, on rare occasions, harshly, perhaps angrily—as for what the calls were about, she typically didn't tune in to what he was saying. Living in his house without his knowledge felt enough like an invasion of privacy as it was, and she wasn't without decency.

She also occasionally witnessed him doing strange things, as well, pulling things out of seemingly nowhere or disappearing into thin air after she'd heard some kind of noise she couldn't quite place, a buzz of some sort.

He would also sometimes have people over, during which time she wasn't really too sure what to do. At first, curiosity won out over better judgement—the first time he'd had someone over during her time there, she'd chanced a look at the man. He had a strong build, long-ish, light-coloured hair, sharp eyes and a resting glare; he was much more off-putting, even scary to Bella, than the homeowner. She didn't stick around after that, keeping as far as she could until the man left.

But the second time he had someone over, she'd noticed that they were younger, closer to her age, and her curiosity got the better of her again, sticking around a bit longer to watch the visitor, an ashen boy with light hair and tired red eyes, converse with the homeowner. He half-glanced in her direction a few times, and then, after muttering something, he and the homeowner moved out of sight, and she dared not follow.

With every time he had visitors over, she got a bit bolder in her curious observation—once even accidentally startling the scary man, and seeing him use some sort of ability from her hiding place—becoming less concerned about being discovered... until, during one of those visits, one of the ones closer to her age; a much scruffier (and quite scary to her due to his loud aggression) dark-haired boy; had raised the alarm about someone else being in the house while looking at some kind of odd eyepiece. He'd nearly tracked her down, too—nervewracking to the point that Bella, to steady herself and perhaps in hopes it would somehow make her more invisible, held her breath—until he suddenly seemed to lose her trail and irately called it off as a false alarm, subsequently yelling in argument at the tired pale one.

Though she'd been sure she wouldn't be found, it had made her too nervous to get any bolder, so after that, she instead kept away from the visitors as best she could.

She stayed in the house, invisible, for around a month, though it got progressively harder to sneak about.

Eventually, the inevitable happened.

The timing was a bit inconvenient, though.

Because, unbeknownst to Bella Donna, Bruno Buccellati was a Stand User, naturally more attentive to odd happenings than the average person.

Odd happenings like food going missing when left out.

Odd happenings like the faint sound of footsteps at night.

Odd happenings like Narancia's Aerosmith picking up on an additional unaccounted-for CO2 emission whilst visiting his house, only for Narancia to awkwardly call it off as a false alarm after clearly tracking down where the signal had been coming from with confidence and insisting that he'd seen something.

Like Fugo nervously muttering that he felt like someone was watching them (moreso than usual), glancing off in a particular direction, then saying that the feeling went away once they stepped into another room to continue the conversation.

Like Abbacchio swearing up and down that he'd seen a crooked painting straighten itself out and a slightly askew chair similarly move itself back to the table where it belonged—utterly convinced it was the doing of a Stand—but when they investigated, they found absolutely nothing, even when Abbacchio tried to use Moody Blues' replay.

At first, Bruno thought he'd just been hearing things.

He thought that maybe work had just had him more on edge than usual.

Mafia work had an expectation of constant guard, after all.

But then everyone else noticed it too.

He found the occurrences too innocuous for a Stand attack, too significant for an animal of some kind. He entertained the idea of a ghost. Being haunted wasn't out of the question, again, especially considering his line of work.

But then Narancia picked up on the CO2 signal.

The dead don't exactly need to breathe, now, do they?

It had to be a person, surely. Yet, he didn't really do anything about it at first. There wasn't much he could do without knowing what he was dealing with, much less where the supposed intruder was.

He tried setting up some simple 'traps', that is, leaving food out so that he could catch them when they tried to take it, but the food only disappeared when he wasn't looking. He guessed he expected that.

But to his fortune, the intruder accidentally decided to come to him.

Bella had never had trouble using her vocal ability. She just didn't much like using it. She'd never tried it on another Stand User. She didn't know there was a difference.

But she'd managed, somehow, to accidentally get herself outside, and the door was locked. Buccellati was there, walking away from the door.

So she tried to speak to him. But unlike every other homeowner she'd tried it on before him, he actually heard it, and reacted by sending a punch—Sticky Fingers-assisted, naturally assuming the culprit to be a Stand or its User—in the direction the voice came from. Catching her off-guard, the hit connected.

Bella had never been in a fight, much less punched before.

Fear was the first emotion she'd felt strong enough to turn her visible, intensified by accompanying pain.

In the terror of fight-or-flight, she froze up. Suddenly, there she was, the Stand User that had been "haunting" him for the past month; visible, clear as day, with a bloody nose and a zipped spot on her forehead. Her own Stand had summoned instinctively to protect her, crouched defensively in front of her, though it truthfully didn't look like much of a threat.

Regardless, though, it understandably threw him for a loop. When you're under Stand attack, you typically expect an enemy Stand User, something malicious—not a frightened (and frankly quite frail) kid.

Bruno, the inherently kind man he was, despite the transgression, was too concerned to just send her on her way, nevermind fight her.

She didn't say nor do anything, just stared at him, her Stand shielding her, or at least trying to, and after a pause of silence, he let his guard drop and pulled Sticky Fingers back.

If she'd wanted to do something, she would've done it already.

She was definitely no enemy.

As her fear subsided, her form became translucent, and soon, she was gone again, but her Stand remained in place, telegraphing her remaining presence.

Buccellati, on the other side of the situation, found it hard to fault such clearly desperate behaviour from a young teenager, but even beyond that, the whole situation was rather fascinating. He made a rather prompt decision.

So the second feeling she felt strong enough to make her visible was the speechless delight of the stranger offering her a meal—a real meal—at a restaurant. And while it would typically be poor judgement to follow a stranger somewhere, she could hardly consider Buccellati a complete stranger to her, considering. And so she took the chance to trust the man and followed him to the place called Libeccio's.

That day was the longest she’d been visible in at least a year, likely more.

And the most she’d spoken in several.

He asked her questions, about how she ended up in that situation, and she saw no reason not to tell him the truth. She was—and had been—benign. Benevolent, even, trying to maintain order even at the risk of revealing herself—often straightening out crooked furniture and decor (the very thing that had once alarmed Abbacchio), and putting misplaced things where they belonged or where they'd be seen.

A girl with a Stand ability that allowed her to evade detection, eluding Aerosmith's radar and even Moody Blues' replay; with her proximity to Buccellati as she'd lived secretly in his house, there were many things she could have done, being so subtle, not least of all being killing him. Despite all the dubious things this ability could facilitate excellently, she never used it for anything worse than stealing food. She used the ability to survive.

Buccellati wanted to help her, and there was one way he immediately knew how to; even as better judgement and morals would call the idea insane, which he certainly wouldn't argue. But in a situation like this, where she had nowhere to go, there was only one solution he could think of. She had done such a well-maintained stealth operation merely for survival—he couldn't help but feel there was so much more the ability could be used for, and there were many ways she could be helpful to the organisation despite her frailty and young age.

Bella was, however, slightly frightened when, suddenly, all those visitors Buccellati had had over also showed up at the restaurant. Though, naturally, they didn't know who she was—they'd never seen her. The only thing that made her look particularly suspicious was her visibly anxious behaviour—having always been invisible, she'd never learnt to hide her nervous tics.

Buccellati was quick to explain the situation, and while there was some level of hostility—or, in Narancia's case, he shouted, "I told you I saw something on the radar!"—Bella was surprised to find that these people she'd been so afraid of were actually relatively amicable. She would soon realise that she had found a place to belong despite her ability's hindrance.

It seemed most of Bella's troubles throughout her life could be traced back to one source; her Stand:

「Silver Springs」.

Silver Springs' ability is primarily detrimental at first glance. The User cannot appear to anyone unless she can muster the energy to manifest visually (bit of a Five Nights At Freddy's reverse-gravity door situation). The veils the Stand is draped in are the same material that near-constantly cloaks Bella.

There's more to the ability than first appears.

The invisibility is not exclusive to only Bella; anything covered by the veils, aside from the Stand itself, is rendered invisible or translucent. But that's only half of it; with this ability, Silver Springs can also make things (typically objects) as 'thin as a veil', making transport relatively easy.

However, there is an interesting caveat. While she is rarely seen, anyone who does see Bella never forgets her and, in many cases, finds themself haunted by her visage, sometimes to a debilitating degree if she's doing it intentionally. This sub-ability is termed "afterimage"; more often than visual, it is verbal; she's more often heard than seen, and her voice is known to ring and echo in the ears of people she speaks to (especially when she's invisible). The auditory afterimage can, at times, drive a victim to madness or affect their actions. Through the verbal afterimage, she wields the power of suggestion, urging people to do what she tells them to, usually using this to distract obstructors or get them to allow her and her teammates into a place they're not permitted to be. With this, she can not just non-violently infiltrate, but she can also coax information out of people, and all she has to tell them is 'Confess.'

Stand Users, by nature, are more resistant to the auditory afterimage, so it takes a bit more effort to influence them, and those of stronger constitution are generally harder to affect, so it's not foolproof.

Combatively, its capabilities are near-useless, but, well, who cares? Even on the off chance she were to be caught in a Stand fight, it's hard to hit something you can't see. Even harder if you can't stop seeing them where they're not.

Ultimately, she would—having nowhere else to go, after all—join Passione, likely as a part of Team Buccellati due to her history, becoming surprisingly prolific in espionage, theft and general support to others in missions. Despite her soft-spoken demeanour and mild manner, the moral quandaries of crime rarely seemed to dissuade her, although the more violent aspects oft made her somewhat nervous.

While Bella is still usually invisible, she can often appear—if only slightly or occasionally—around her friends and teammates (presumably from the joy of having friends and teammates or just improved focus or control); she also may use her Stand as a visual proxy for her, especially when she's particularly exhausted. As such, it doesn't really appear to have a personality of its own, generally acting on instinct to protect her or mirroring her own actions.

While she has a tendency to sneak up on and startle the fuck out of her teammates and allies, unlike Zatta, she never does so intentionally or only rarely does it out of playful mischievousness.

It sounds funny, and it is… until it comes to Mista's hasty trigger finger.

At this point, though, she's stopped apologising for it.

Bella Donna Primavera stands at about 5' even and is steadily approaching a healthy weight from her previously malnourished state.}

#jjba oc #jojo oc #fanstands #Narancia #Narancia Ghirga #Leone Abbacchio #Bruno Buccellati #Guido Mista #Bruno Bucciarati #Pannacotta Fugo #Fugo Pannacotta #Bella Donna Primavera #Vento Aureo OC #Character Profile #Character Design #Ilta Piirtää

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iltaimpi · 4 months

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JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Vento Aureo OC: Zucca Korhonen

{I've been working on this for several days. While I will keep the old post, which has also been updated, up, I'm posting this as a new post.}

{Notice: Contains body horror, mention of suicide, general light gore, lots of blood.}

{Hildá Áile Gurbbet, legally Kurpitsa Lauri Kemppainen, born in the Suomi area of Sàpmi but moving to Italia at a young age and subsequently being raised there, was a... relatively normal child, all things considered.

Their general home and guardianship situation had some oddities, as they were frequently passed awkwardly between various legal guardians due to hectic family affairs and other assorted tragedies.

This trend of frequent relocation started when they were very young, still living in Sàpmi, after the suicide of their mother; the ensuing mental disintegration of their father made him a danger to be around for both himself and others, not to mention more than unfit to care for a very young child. Kurpitsa was thusly moved to live with their very Christian grandmother and less religious aunt in Helsinki.

This lasted briefly, perhaps a year or so; one day, they got home from school to a fleet of emergency vehicles. They were never told what had happened to their grandmother and aunt, but they'd heard in passing that there had been a gas leak, and they were left to fill in the blanks from that. They were effectively hauled off to stay with their aunt-in-law—their uncle's widow—in Italy, far from home (though they could never quite remember where in Italy it had been), until she, too, ended up dead; the death officially alleged to be the result of her actions following a psychotic break, even though she'd never been reported to have shown any symptoms of psychosis. They attributed it to a "very rare byproduct" of the grief of losing her husband. Kurpitsa wasn't sure they ever really believed it, but they hardly knew the woman anyway, so they didn't feel compelled to dwell.

Somehow, Kurpitsa seemed to skirt most of the direct trauma or grieving periods that one would expect to result from the deaths. This was perhaps due to factors such as them being too young to understand the death of their mother, much less the concept of suicide; never having seen the bodies of their grandmother (whose behaviour may have actually been more traumatic than her death, though it didn't seem to stick with them either) or their aunt when the two presumably died; and not having particularly close with their aunt-in-law—the woman wasn't even directly related to them and lived all the way in Italia, for crying out loud! Kurpitsa barely knew her, nevermind had any kind of relationship with her.

Perhaps, though, it was also because, instead of grieving—a natural and healthy thing to go through after such things—and dealing with trauma that should've theoretically originated from all the death surrounding them, they just got used to it.

The trend of these relocations was that they allegedly happened due to general mental instability within the older adults of the family or the vulnerability of more stable ones due to (occasionally supernatural-seeming) hazards of the area they lived in. Or otherwise, just in general terribly bad luck.

So it was a while until they finally settled to live in Napoli with their cousin, Rutabaga (who had changed her name from Lantuu to 'sound more Italian' and usually went by Rita) and uncle, Nauris, who kept his Finnish name and usually still called Rita "Lantuu".

The Korhonens were who they managed to stay with the longest, from between the ages of around 10 to 15, coming to see their cousin more like a sister and building a real relationship with the two. Ultimately, Kurpitsa took the surname of Korhonen—to attach themselves more meaningfully to their family—and, at some point, the forename Zucca, presumably to better fit in with their Italian peers, similarly to Rita, as they felt insecure with their distinctly Finnish name.

When Zucca was around 14, Nauris died—relatively peacefully, it seemed at the time—of "health complications", but ones that Rita swore up and down that her father was too young to have, so foul play must have been involved; she swore she was going to figure out what actually happened. Her opportunities and capability for this mission were, however, minimal.

At the same time, in the aftermath of the death, Zucca's cousin insisted that unless something better could be arranged, she was capable of and willing to responsibly care for Zucca. Her insistence was an attempt in earnest to offer some sense of stability to Zucca, allowing them to remain in the place they'd lived in the longest, with someone they'd lived with the longest, instead of dragging them off to some other family member (or worse, the system) instead.

Unfortunately, veneered stability could only do so much against alienation and mental instability; Zucca had hit the point where, despite their efforts to fit in with their Italian peers, feelings of isolation became a rampant issue, and the other chemical imbalances were becoming prominent. Being at the age of typical teen angst with a family history of Issues, even if their peers didn't alienate and ostracise them, the rut of anxiety and despair they'd hit was inevitable, and in a vicious cycle, being seen as "troubled" made them more alienated and ostracised.

But when they dared to finally tell Rita why their mood had tanked, Rita responded well with support and understanding to further foster the trust between them and (with the help of some... very low-end counselling they could afford) help Zucca find some foothold, at least some solid ground to stand on while travelling through teenage social darkness.

As far as anyone could tell, Zucca had finally met equilibrium and was in a relatively stable mental state, which was more than they could say for quite a few of the other people in their family, sadly.

But there was one hitch: Rita was a Stand User, whereas Zucca was not. Though they had no Stand of their own, through experience with Rita, Zucca developed at least some general awareness of Stands from Rita; they knew plenty about what, loosely, Stands "were", and, most importantly, how they were typically used for extreme and supernaturally-charged combat. They also had some idea of their cousin's Stand ability, or at least what it could do.

「Heart Demolition」, Rita's Stand, was rather intense. The way that Zucca understood it, through the transmission and reception of information, such as that spoken by mouth or written on paper, a fire could be ignited—the more upsetting the words, the more intense—either burning the mouth of the speaker, to great suffering; effectively allowing the speaker to "breathe fire", still to great suffering; or otherwise simply setting the paper alight, which really didn't bother the paper much although it certainly did it no favours.

Unfortunately, being an older-teen, younger adult Stand User in that area of Italia, living an admittedly quite challenging situation, especially in terms of finance, and most of all still particularly searching for answers she'd not had an opportunity to reach, Rita was led to the seemingly inevitable: attempting to join Passione. With the suggestion of a "friend" of hers, though Zucca wasn't sure which one—they'd later wish they did, they’d love to give them a piece of their mind—Rita had supposedly met with the so-called 'Polpo', and, as many others had, attempted an initiative test... omitting the fact, of course, that she already had a Stand, much like a to-be preeminent "Gang-star" later would, but with a far-less-victorious outcome.

Zucca, by then at the age of perhaps 15, like with Stands, had at least some vague awareness of what Rita was getting herself into; in fact, they knew a little more than they probably should've, to the extent of understanding the dubious nature of Passione, but still having faith enough in their cousin not to cast doubt on her decision.

When Rita explained what this test entailed, Zucca respectfully tried to keep their distance from the lighter so as not to interfere. Inevitably—though Rita had, at the last second, realised and attempted to salvage the flame—the lighter burnt out when her attention drifted for a few seconds too many.

Zucca, clueless as anyone else in their position would be, suggested that the lighter ‘hadn't burnt out, just very low’ and that, 'technically', if the flame was ‘fed’ without striking the spark wheel, then there would be no harm, no foul, surely, right?

They didn't have any matches in the house. Or other lighters, for that matter. Both were rarely a necessity. So Zucca instead suggested that Rita use 「Heart Demolition」, offering to write something on a paper for Rita to set alight, mostly just out of a desire to feel like they were helping. Rita, none the wiser and happy enough to let her cousin feel useful, so to say, attempted as Zucca suggested, setting the paper alight with a tiny flame.

Though the spark wheel had been untouched, the reignition of the flame, of course, summoned 「Black Sabbath」. A confrontation began, and Rita, though she tried her damned best, didn't have much room to escape or otherwise manoeuvre about, considering they were indoors. However, though they couldn't see what was happening and had no means of protecting themself, Zucca intervened anyway, trying to protect Rita or at least give her a fighting chance. Because they got in the way—perhaps trying to act as a distraction somehow—the Stand, it seemed, refocused on Zucca, ultimately piercing them with the Stand Arrow, to Rita's—and, well, surely their own—dismay.

Zucca's next memory was a blast of heat and blinding light, coupled with a wild burst of, perhaps, blood, from behind them. As if in ignorance of the situation, they turned their head; behind them, they saw Rita, standing for a brief moment—covered in bewildering lacerations from which bloodied razor blades of varying sizes appeared to emerge—before crumpling to the ground, motionless, the blades disappearing, her body seeming to dehisce from itself where the deepest wounds were. Odd movements came from some of the slices on her body, like eyes opening on her flesh—on second look, Zucca found that they were eyes, and making "eye contact" with one of these, they could see the memories of their cousin, leading right up to the memory of what had just happened, what Zucca's brain had failed to process, and at that, Zucca fall apart—literally.

With a burst of blood and a deep, internal, slicing agony through their whole being, Zucca—somehow still alive—collapsed as their own body, like they witnessed with Rita's, fell asunder, turning them into a shattered mockery of a human form. Despite this, they found themself still both completely conscious, cognisant and even able to move, though barely, between their body not being attached to itself and the combined numbness and immobilisation of the agony. Their ears rang, and where their vision landed first was upon the Stand that had attacked, remaining for a brief moment amongst firelight before it appeared to vanish.

The entire room had effectively been shredded to fragments and utterly torched, still ablaze, even, to the extent that the outer wall had a hole in it, the window blown out. Yet, somehow, nobody seemed to have caught on to the fact that anything had happened at the time despite the noise that they had so blatantly been deafened by and the fire, to Zucca's fortune and misfortune alike. The only thing left unscathed, it seemed, was the lighter, which Zucca reached out to, grabbed, and tossed into the inferno, not affording it a chance to burn out again, like it meant anything to them.

Somehow, they managed to get up partway, limbs reattaching as if they'd never come off, the places where the dismemberment had occurred marked only by pain and protruding razor blades, and pulling those out proved futile and agonising. They barely managed to lug themself over to their cousin, praying to find her alive, reaching out to touch her to... shake her, wake her up. But any chance of her survival was soon obliterated; as soon as a blade stuck in the palm of Zucca's hand came into contact with Rita, the razors that had retracted into Rita's skin suddenly re-emerged, ripping through her body entirely, completely dismembering her, to Zucca's abject horror.

Zucca remained in the wreckage amongst the flames, frozen in bewilderment, staring at the dismembered pieces and hoping one of the two of them would wake up. They were utterly unable to process after seeing what had just happened. But finally, from the corner of their eye, a glint off the metal of the lighter they'd thrown in their frenzy caught their peripheral and seemed to give them a twisted motivation.

Rita and 「Heart Demolition」 had passed the torch to them.

They manoeuvred over to collect the lighter despite the flames and stayed by the body, immobile and mourning, until they heard distant sirens at early daybreak as the fire had already dissolved to ash and, somehow, they were still alive. Whether the sirens were approaching them to finally investigate whatever unholy disaster had occurred in the Korhonen household or whether it was a coincidence, Zucca decided it was in their best interests not to find out. Besides, they had something to take care of.

Dazed, they somehow managed to stand, now whole again, yet the evidence of their wounds was still visible, the blades still lifting slightly from their flesh, but now hardly more prominent than thorns on a rose. Aside from the slice marks, they blatantly showed damage from the proximity to the fire, though this, too, was more subdued than it realistically should've been. Because, of course, between the fire, smoke, heat and dismemberment, they should have been dead.

Stepping through the ash and smoke, staggering as they struggled with the pain and the inability to focus, they made their way to their room, which the fire seemed to have failed to completely engulf. The clothes they'd had on were torn and scorched, and, setting the lighter down with no concern to further damage it could cause if something else caught alight, they did their best to put something less conspicuous on, only to tear up the new clothes in the process of putting them on. And giving up as the sirens were now fully audible, getting closer, they grabbed their longest coat, covering their head.

By the time anyone could be bothered to actually investigate the long-burnt-out fire and commotion—whether the delay had been out of fear or genuinely nobody had heard or seen anything—someone had already left through the hole in the wall instead of the door, gone to finish what someone else started.

And while it was unclear why the fact that she was a different person entirely seemed to be glossed over, nevermind how she managed to accomplish the heist-like task in the first place, Zucca left a member of Passione... and would very shortly thereafter, by chance, meet a very concerned young man known by most as Buccellati—concerned, no doubt, due to the fact that the young teen was... visibly not in a fantastic state at the time, on account of the whole 'not-really-doing-anything-about-the-injuries' thing, and probably looked entirely lost as her brain was now catching up and she had started to realise she didn't exactly have anywhere to return.

Zucca would soon learn that she now had a Stand.

「Razorblade Meltdown」.

Zucca Korhonen's deeply disturbing Stand, 「Razorblade Meltdown」, is a Close-Range Power Type humanoid Stand. Despite being a power type Stand, the type most typically suited for Stand-to-Stand combat, 「Razorblade Meltdown」 is actually quite rarely seen... as the Stand's ability makes Zucca herself quite the dangerous entity, and that's usually enough.

By use of her Stand, Zucca can bare dangerous razor blades that create deep slices in and extrude through her flesh, even to the point of dismembering herself, which she uniquely can survive and reconstruct at will, though, unsurprisingly, it does appear to be quite excruciating to do so.

This effect is typically inflicted upon others—often on a non-fatal scale—to make use of the 「Razorblade Meltdown」's actual primary ability; when a victim is subject to the slicing effect of the Stand, these slices open into eyes, and making eye contact with these allows you to see the victim's memories.

The effect and, subsequently, the ability, is typically inflicted through contact with the Stand or, more commonly, contact with the blades (or sometimes her blood) when she's using the ability on herself.

The most direct way to inflict the effect upon a victim is when the victim makes contact with the blades coming out of Zucca's skin, which will typically impose a critical-severity full-body impact, and if Zucca is not focused on controlling the ability, can often lead to death. Making physical contact with her blades twice will almost always kill someone immediately via dismemberment. The ability's effect can be undone—though the injury and pain will still be evident—but whether this happens can be case-to-case.

The drawback of her potent ability lies within one simple fact: she must have a genuine mental breakdown or panic attack to effectively use 「Razorblade Meltdown」 (especially to utilise the ability in, say, combat). Typically, in doing this, she extends the effect through every available spot of her body, and the razors extrude to a severe degree, sometimes even "shooting out" and damaging everything around in the most extreme of circumstances.

While her ability is massively powerful and a great asset to have both for combat and for interrogation, it also makes her insanely dangerous to be around while active; she cannot be safely approached until the ability deactivates, but the ability won't deactivate unless she mentally stabilises / calms down or passes out; so it's a bit of a catch-22 in that regard, and she can be seen as a liability because of it... There's also often a lot of screaming. Again, it's quite painful.

Though she is prone to cry while using her Stand, this isn't generally as well-known as the very obvious screaming; often, by the time anyone approaches her, once her ability has been neutralised, she's already stopped.

She can be a bit concerning to be around for those with a touch more empathy, such as most members of Buccellati's inner circle; because her ability requires her to have a breakdown or be pushed past her limit mentally to be used effectively, she often keeps herself on the brink of hysteria or keeps traumatic wounds fresh so she can send herself into a mental or traumatic breakdown if ever she needs to use her ability, instead of trying to figure out if she could learn to use the ability in a stable mental state.

As a result of this self-destructive "necessary evil", she's easily spooked and often struggles to control her own tears seemingly at random. Though she can be pretty friendly and fun to be around, she also, at times, zones out, struggles to even speak and suddenly isolates herself from a conversation group out of fear, anxiety or general self-consciousness. If she doesn't seem tense, she usually looks quite tired instead, which she attributes to the frequent blood loss that comes with using her Stand.

While not necessarily a member of the immediate primary group associated with Buccellati, she falls within the same sort-of "sector", to put it loosely; she at the least works with them frequently but possibly belongs to a 'parallel' group. It would seem that Buccallati's group is, perhaps, a bit more compassionate to her than her own group, which might be the thing that's starting to balance her out.

Initially, her intention lacked the desire to be involved with the organisation. Something of the opposite, actually; on a surface level, she blamed 「Black Sabbath」 - and Passione by extension - for her cousin's death despite holding significantly more turbulent feelings buried within her regarding the event. Still, despite joining with a hunger for revenge, she instead found a sense of family to substitute for the one that had been taken from her and soon lost the will to harm them.}

Update 19.12.2023: Polished up and refined the story. Changed some details and corrected some unclear wording. Update 10.1.2024–16.1.2024: Added new pictures. Still a bit hasty, but better.

Update 4.5.2024: Grammatical revisions.

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