Chapter Text
"What? You're asking for temporary leave?"
"Yes, Mistress," said Sakuya, bowing deeply to the young vampiress to whom she pledged her allegiance. "I realize this has come at such short notice, but I feel that I need to-"
"Go back to the Outside World, non?" interrupted Remilia Scarlet, not looking back to her maid as she casually sipped her tea. Her younger sister, Flandre, looked up from her crude drawings at Sakuya with her wide ruby eyes from across the table. This was news to her, at least.
Sakuya blinked. "How did you know?"
"Please, Sakuya, it's been written all over your face all week," Remilia stated in a matter-of-fact way. "You have the eyes of someone being pulled by fate. As one who has fate wrapped around her little finger, I can spot it a mile away. Just call it the duty of a good mistress." A gasp came from across the table.
"Wow, big sis! You're really good at lying!" said Flandre earnestly. "So that's what you were laughing about when you read Sakuya's diary!"
Sakuya turned bright red in embarrassment. "M-Mistress, please!"
Remilia refused to meet Sakuya's gaze. "H-how dare you, Flan! I was not 'laughing' like some buffoon, it was a civilized, lightly amused chuckle befitting a lady like myself!"
"I-in any case, I do not need to peer through my servants' diaries to know what they are feeling at any given time! Sakuya!" she barked at her maid, who stood at attention. "You wish to visit the Outside World, do you not? Very well, do as you like! Go speak with Pache and have her open passage," Remilia said, banging her knife against the table decisively, hard enough to make Flandre mess up a stroke with her marker.
"Ahh! Regardec ce tu m'a fait faire, idiot!" Flandre shouted, holding up her ruined drawing of their gate guard, Meiling.
"Idiot?! Comment osez-vous!" yelled back Remilia, who stood up from her chair to confront her sister. Sakuya felt it best to not get in their way, and bowed quickly before leaving the room, in time to hear the situation explode into magic violence as she closed the door. She made her way to Patchouli's library, thinking about how much she'd have to clean upon her return to the mansion.
Sakuya knocked lightly on the great, massive doors to Patchouli's library. This mansion was as much her home as it was her mistress's, but the library was the domain of Master Knowledge, and the utmost amount of respect was to be shown to her as a result. The pause between Sakuya's knocks and the doors opening was palpable, as if the library was considering her worthiness to enter. In truth, however, it was mostly due to the somewhat slow reaction time of Koakuma, who was not known for her reflexes, despite her best efforts. The devil smiled sheepishly at Sakuya as she opened the doors.
"Sorry to keep you waiting, Miss Sakuya, I was on the other side of the library when you came. You don't need to knock, you know! Master Knowledge would never refuse your arrival," Koakuma said, busily dusting off her long skirt and shoving the papers in her arms back in place.
"Well, this is not my normal visit," said Sakuya. "I have come for Master Knowledge to seek her aid, you see. It does not hurt to be extra mindful in such case."
"Oh, my. Well please, follow me! She's just finishing up an experiment of hers. Something about indirectly manipulating light. It should be quite a treat to see, I think!" said Koakuma, beaming with pride as an assistant. With that, she flew ahead of Sakuya, beckoning her along. The maid had no trouble keeping up even in the legendary mess of Patchouli's library. Sakuya offered to clean for her many times, but Patchouli would never have any of it, insisting that in this chaos was a meticulously controlled environment, vulnerable to any change she was not aware of. The pair made their way through the library's vast expanses, a seemingly never-ending labyrinth of books encompassing everything around them.
As they came upon Patchouli's testing area, they were treated to an incomprehensible sight. In the large cylindrical area, Patchouli was suspended high in the air, reading from a large tome before her. Below her was a massive globe of water, shifting and swirling, disintegrating and reforming endlessly on itself. As Patchouli controlled this great sphere, lights seem to orbit around it, and where their luminescence touched the shifting mass of water many rainbows appeared at different intensities, their shape manipulated by the unusual situation from which they were born, a multicolored chaotic torrent of dancing lights. The scene continued for a minute before Patchouli seemed to be done, as she called the water and lights back into her book with a great cascading sound. Patchouli gently fell back into her chair, her descent as slow and light as a feather's. After a moment, she took notice of the pair who had been watching this grand display.
"Ah, it's you two," said Patchouli Knowledge, with as much enthusiasm as Sakuya had come to expect. When you work with someone long enough, you learn to pick up on subtlety. Her tone carried a sense of weariness to it, indicating the success of her endeavors. Whatever she had been experimenting, it had clearly been going on for a while, and she had made little progress with it.
"What brings you to the library, Sakuya? Is it noon already?" Patchouli asked genuinely. She checked her pocket watch just to make sure.
"No, I'm not here for lunch, Master Knowledge. And besides, that was six hours ago," said Sakuya.
Patchouli blinked. "Ah, yes. Right. It was duck, wasn't it? Or was it pheasant? Bah, who cares. Anyhow, what brings you to my humble dwellings?" Patchouli rubbed her eyes, and when that didn't seem to accomplish anything she wiped her spectacles with a small cloth instead. She didn't seem satisfied by that, either.
"Well, I have a favor to ask of you, Master Knowledge. I would like to gain passage to the Outside World," said Sakuya.
"Ah, satisfying one of Remi's requests, are we?" replied Patchouli wryly. "You might find the usual channels are a touch out of place, today."
"No, actually. I'm here for my own purposes," said Sakuya. "I feel it is important for me to get to the Outside World as soon as possible."
Patchouli chuckled lightly. "Huh. It's rare I field a request from you that doesn't have something to do with Remi. One moment, please."
Patchouli snapped her fingers. In a moment Koakuma brought forth a large scroll with ornate handles and handed it to Patchouli. She opened it and peered at it for a moment, humming to herself thoughtfully. As she looked at it, her expression changed to one being greatly troubled.
"My god... I'm afraid it's worse than I thought, Sakuya," said Patchouli, the worry making itself plain on her face. "I believed that the position of the planets and stars was out of alignment, and it would be difficult to open a hole wherever we chose, but this..."
Patchouli turned the scroll to Sakuya, and saw the images on the magic scroll were wildly changing in ways they hadn't before. The planets were rotating around the sun at incredible speeds, and the universe itself seemed to be shifting. Sakuya's stomach seemed to twist in on itself. Whatever was happening, this feeling pulling her to the Outside World was growing stronger looking at it. A word appeared in her mind: Gravity.
"W-what's happening?" said Sakuya, unable to hide her unease. "Is something wrong with your scroll?"
Patchouli shook her head. "I've calibrated this thing over and over again. No, whatever's going on... my celestial scroll is only showing the truth. I don't know what's going on, but in good conscience, I can't open passage to you now. I will need more information to-"
"NO!" shouted Sakuya, without meaning to. She covered her mouth, surprised by her own rudeness. Patchouli was surprised too, but her face hardened into a tough visage of concern.
"Don't be ridiculous, Sakuya!" Patchouli said, standing up from her chair with a mighty slam from her cane as it struck the ground. "If I opened up passage now, who knows what might happen to you! You might get flung out into the depths of space, never touching the earth for a second! Do you even know what's happening, here? Whatever you need to go to the Outside World for will have to wait!"
"It can't wait!" Sakuya said firmly. "I... I have a feeling, that whatever is pulling me to the Outside World is related to this! I have to be there now more than ever!"
Sakuya was never so forceful in her beliefs. Patchouli was taken aback by this, but the conviction in Sakuya's words swayed her. Rational thought had its place in Gensokyo, but such a strong intuition always took priority. Patchouli sighed.
"...Very well, Sakuya. I don't think you're gonna be listening to reason any time soon, so... I have one way. It's a damn fool thing to do, but pleasing damn fool requests seems to be all but my job description, anyway," said Patchouli, grumbling to herself. She rapped her cane on the floor once more, calling forth several books from the shelves around her, suspending themselves in the air with her magic. She seemed to be reading from all of them at once.
"It'll be tricky, and it will require exact timing on both our parts. I'm going to be flinging you to Earth within the solar system's warped gravitational pull. If we miss our window, you might end up being sent to the depths of space, or being trapped in the Earth's outer atmosphere," said Patchouli. "The risk is enormous. Are you still prepared to take it?"
Sakuya nodded decisively. "I am."
"Fine. You'll need to follow my instructions to the letter, then. First, I'll need you to set that watch of yours to count down fourteen days, six hours, forty-seven minutes and twelve seconds. The strange effects in the universe seem to be attributed to the rapid acceleration of time itself, so that countdown will go by like that," Patchouli continued, snapping her fingers for emphasis. "By my calculations, that should be the right time for you to halt the flow of time. With your position and the universe being stopped, your continued trajectory will allow you to enter the Earth from space."
Sakuya did as she was told, but she had a question nonetheless. "Why can't I teleport directly to Earth, like we normally do?"
"Because normally the universe isn't spinning itself out of control," grumbled Patchouli. "Besides, we never teleported directly to Earth. That 'waiting room' we usually make use of is a pocket dimension inside of a tortoise. Its position close to Earth provides a fixed point for us to enter the Outside World normally from. Due to this temporal anomaly of ours, it's nearly impossible to reach it at the moment, so launching you to Earth from space is actually the easier option in this scenario. We simply have to lead our shot. Koakuma!"
Koakuma stood at attention, previously transfixed by her master's explanations. "Y-yes, Master Knowledge!" Patchouli tossed the celestial scroll to her assistant.
"Keep watch of this scroll. I've marked points for the planets in the solar system to be in based on their speed and revolutions. When they've reached them, tell us immediately. If you have time to think about it before you say it, we'll be too late. Say it the moment it happens. Can you handle that? Sakuya's safety depends on you," Patchouli said firmly.
Koakuma gulped, the pressure weighing immensely on her. "Y-yes! I won't let you down!" She opened the scroll, gazing at it intensely.
Patchouli nodded. "I'll need a moment to set up the portal. When the time to go in comes, you'll need to leap in in an instant. Be ready, Sakuya." Patchouli took a deep breath from her inhaler, and began to speak incantations aloud from her books. Magic circles appeared around her, information displayed on them that only she understood. Celestial bodies came into view in an ethereal magic form as the air charged itself with magic. Patchouli's power was certainly a sight to behold, Sakuya thought to herself. The atmosphere was nearly disrupted by a sudden bursting open of the doors to the library. Sakuya looked back, to see her two mistresses and Meiling running into the room.
"Sakuya!" Remilia cried, flying over to her maid. "Don't think you can leave without saying goodbye to us!"
"Is it true you're gonna be flung into the stars? That's amazing, Sakuya!" cheered Flandre, who was riding piggyback on Meiling.
Meiling gave a knowing wink. "Come back soon, alright? It'll be awfully lonely without you here."
Sakuya's heart had been filled with urgency, trepidation and fear, but seeing the people who she thought of as her family brought a sense of peace to her once more. She smiled earnestly, and pulled them all in for a group hug.
"Don't worry, I'll be back soon," Sakuya said. "I promise."
"Of course you will be," Remilia said proudly. "No maid of mine is going to die unceremoniously in the Outside World! Be sure to bring me back a nice souvenir, alright?"
"Of course, Mistress. For you and Flandre both," she said, getting somewhat misty-eyed. The portal opened behind Sakuya, but she kept looking back at her loved ones.
"Look alive, Sakuya. It's not goodbye, after all," said Patchouli, her tone compassionate. She tossed over a small silver bell, the one she used to ask for Sakuya's help daily.
"Just ring that bell whenever you're done with whatever you need to do, and we'll bring you back. Happy trails, Sakuya. Bring me back something too, will you?"
Sakuya nodded, and faced the portal. Koakuma's eyes remained firmly planted on the magic parchment before her, but she gave Sakuya a thumbs up with a free hand.
"Almost there!" Koakuma shouted. Sakuya assumed a ready position to leap in.
"Almost..." The tension was palpable. Sakuya could have sworn she had stopped time, the air was so still. Everyone's eyes were on her, waiting for the explosive moment on action.
"GO GO GO!" Koakuma shouted with great urgency. Before she could finish, Sakuya had already leapt into the portal. In a nearly imperceivable moment before she disappeared, Sakuya waved back one last time before the doorway to the infinite abyss closed in an instant. Sakuya was gone, into the unknown once more.
Sakuya drifted through the great field of stars at a speed she wasn't entirely aware of. It was difficult to get a sense of how quickly she was moving in space, much less one being warped by the accelerated advance of time itself. She had been protected by Patchouli's magic, but in the Outside World, there was no telling just how long that would last. She had learned some things about space from Patchouli, namely that there was no air to breathe in it. If this magic field around her had dissolved, it might not matter whether she landed on earth or not. She checked her watch, and true to patchouli's word, the numbers were rapidly declining. Time was affecting the speed of the watch and everything around her in ways she couldn't fathom.
Sakuya resisted the urge to stop time now, to slow everything down and give her room to think. But to do so would drastically upset her plans, and possibly kill her. She looked at the watch, before seeing a great blue visage reflected on its glass surface. The Earth had suddenly appeared next to her, vast as it appeared to be, and yet so small compared to everything else. The watch was almost done counting down. Fourteen days had passed in the blink of an eye.But before she could stop time, the unfathomable happened: time stopped all on its own. Everything, Sakuya included, was at a standstill. What on Earth was happening?
"NOW! STOP TIME-"
Annasui's command was silenced as quickly as it was bellowed. Both from time stopping, and the spectral hand plunging through his heart. Jotaro couldn't believe his eyes. Pucci was fast, but he had no time to waste. He grabbed the Stand's arm in the stopped time.
"I've got him! Take this, Father Pucci-" Jotaro said, interrupted by the realization that he was not grabbing the arm of Made in Heaven, but Stone Free, his daughter's Stand.
"What?! He used Jolyne's stand to..."
Jotaro was stunned. Pucci had manipulated Jolyne's stand into punching a hole in Annasui's chest. He was just a "step" too late. There were only four seconds left in the stopped time. If he couldn't defeat Pucci then and there, it would be too late. He would hide in the accelerated time once more, and then there would be no defeating him. Three more seconds while Jotaro moved his way through the mess of bodies towards Pucci. Two more seconds.
And then Jotaro saw it. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the result of Pucci's desperate struggle. A single knife, ready to kill Jolyne. An ultimatum. Kill Pucci and save the world, but lose his daughter; or save Jolyne, but have less time to kill Pucci. Jotaro had no time to think. His body reacted on instinct, and as he moved his way towards Pucci, he took one "step" to knock Jolyne's body out of the knife's path. One second left. She would be safe. But Pucci was so close! He readied a fist, and sent it flying towards Pucci's face. Jotaro pleaded silently to God or anyone else that was listening, hoping against hope that this punch would be enough. Time was already stopped, but it felt like that one second slowed an eternity.
All he needed was one second.
Sakuya was shocked and terrified by this turn of events. For a few seconds, she couldn't move in the stopped time. And then suddenly, her trajectory continued. Sakuya moved in stopped time, before she was ready to do so. The watch's hands spun with increased speed, making Sakuya's heart beat with the intensity. Time was free for but one second when Sakuya stopped it one more time. With fear of oblivion sending her into instinct, Sakuya shouted the name of her ability.
"THE WORLD!"
"Two 'steps'," said Father Pucci. "You were late by two-"
He didn't have time to finish his statement, because time was stopped once more. Jotaro didn't have time to think about it. He had no time to ask how time had stopped, or who could have stopped it. His head was clouded by urgency, the need to stop this man once and for all. Jotaro didn't think, he just let his fists be guided to their target. Pucci was behind him, and in that desperate instant, Jotaro sent his strongest, most fearful punch directly into Pucci's head. One punch, and then another, and another, until a whirling torrent of punches was unleashed from Star Platinum into the twisted priest. Jotaro and his Stand shouted in tandem, punching Pucci's body into oblivion with every painful emotion Jotaro had unleashed. He felt every crunch of bone, every tear of flesh, every globule of blood being splashed from Pucci's body. He felt the life leave Pucci's body, the death of this man who had caused so much pain to the world and those precious to him.
Before he knew it, time had resumed. Jotaro splashed into the water, its surface tension no longer supporting his weight in the stillness. Pucci was knocked high into the air, before he crashed into the sea in a bloodied mess. He was already dead. There would be no last words, no desperate actions. There would be no going to Heaven. Jotaro's companions splashed in the water behind him, and he could swear he heard them screaming about Annasui, and asking where Father Pucci was. Jotaro could barely hear them. The adrenaline and energy in his body was fading, and all he wanted was to rest. Jotaro felt his eyelids weigh heavily, barely having the strength to keep them open. As he floated on his back, he looked up, and saw one single pinprick of light streak across the evening sky.
"A shooting star, huh?" he coughed. "I guess wishes really do come true."
Jotaro closed his eyes as the sound of his companions faded away deeply into his unconsciousness. Floating in the sea in the wake of a desperate struggle, the last thing Jotaro felt was a deep sense of relief.
The Earth was safe, truly and finally.