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iltaimpi · 3 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—though they'd later wish they did—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-emerging and 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.

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