Yo-Ho Blah (Josuke Higashikata)
| Yo-Ho Blah (Josuke Higashikata) | |
|---|---|
| Date of Cutscene: | 15 August 2017 |
| Location: | Morioh |
| Synopsis: | Josuke is exhausted after assisting with the defense and salvage of the cargo of the Urca de Lima. He is handed off to Jotaro at some point after he passes out, and wakes up on the way back home. Conversation ensues, and Josuke is given more homework! |
| Thanks to: | Captain Flint, Starbound Flotilla, Septette, Lyria Mason, Sombra, Priscilla |
| Cast of Characters: | 1119 |
Josuke woke to the sounds of traffic and the sensation of movement. He was in a car. He also felt like absolute crap. Like his soul had been forcibly yanked out of his body and then beaten with sticks. He could smell the traces of blood in his nostrils from a nosebleed, even. At least it was dry. Still annoying though.
About the last thing he remembered was trying to help the crew of the Spanish ship Captain Flint’s ship, the Walrus, had been facing for control of the crashed Urca de Lima’s treasure. He’d restored the ship to one piece, draining a massive chunk of his strength in the process. That’s not when the nosebleed happened, though. Several of the Spanish crew had surrendered rather than be rent asunder by the various Elites that had appeared. Probably smart, under the circumstances.
To tell the truth, Josuke felt bad for them. And admired them a little, too. The crew of the Spanish ship, that was. The Elites must have surely looked like devils to them -- massively tall flying women with fuzzy tails and scythes, metal skeletons that could use a man’s own skin as a garrote without harming him seriously, beautiful women in purple appearing out of thin air, blue-haired women who treated the sea like a mother’s embrace, a crew of various clearly non-human creatures (including one very angry bird)... In all that, Josuke must have seemed to most normal of the bunch. He certainly feels like it sometimes. But he’s not that, either.
And yet despite the fear that the Elites must have been evoking in them, the crew of the Spanish ship fought on anyway. He was glad their captain was smart enough to call them to surrender. He really didn’t want to hurt any more of the crew. He’d have preferred it if there had been a death toll of zero, but he’d take any victory he could get. It was less of a death toll than if they’d fought to the man.
But that’s what caused the nosebleed. Several of the Spanish crew were hurt, some seriously. After fixing the ship, Josuke’s strength was low... but he tried to heal as many of the crew as he could. Which wasn’t only made difficult by his nearly sapped strength. But many of the crew plain didn’t want him touching them. Which he understood; he must have been a demon to them, no different than the rest of the Elites. But he knew how injuries got infected so easily in the era these people lived in. He needed to make sure they weren’t hurt.
He hadn’t been able to get to all of them, though. He’d just run out of strength trying. Josuke should have stopped when the nosebleed began. But there were still more injured, still more people who needed care, even if they didn’t want to accept it. He didn’t want any of these people dying because he couldn’t...
And then his strength deserted him when he stood up to move to another wounded sailor.
Josuke kind of half passed out, dazed and vaguely aware that things were going on around him, but not being able to respond to much. It was a member of the Flotilla who’d seen that he got out of Nassau in one piece. Though he wasn’t sure exactly who. He’d have to thank them once he recovered.
And now that his brain had caught up with him, Josuke tried to open his eyes. It took some effort, but he dragged his eyes open with a groan. Well, one of them. He heard a voice to his right, a stoic baritone voice that was instantly familiar.
"...You’re awake."
"...Barely," Josuke replied, not bothering to turn in Jotaro’s direction. He closed his eyes again, but he didn’t go to sleep. He did, however, speak again. "Ouch."
Jotaro kept driving. "...So what happened?"
"People were hurt," Josuke replied.
"You overdid it."
"Mhm." Josuke wasn’t feeling particularly talkative for once, since he was hurting so much.
Jotaro sighed. "Good grief..." But he didn’t chastize Josuke for it. Because he had done the same in the past. And would probably do the same in the future, in a heartbeat, if he felt it was necessary. As much as Josuke wasn’t Jotaro, or Joseph, the three of them shared traits in common. Stubbornness was one of them.
A while passed before Jotaro spoke up again. "You’ve been gone for while. Your mother’s worried."
Josuke’s eyes opened again, and he drew a breath in, wincing. Though that could have been because breathing hurt, or because he realized his mother was going to give him an earful. "Crap. I forgot about that. She’s gonna ground me so hard my grandkids’ll have trouble leaving the house..."
The corner of Jotaro’s mouth twitched in something that might have been an attempt at a smirk. "You were on Speedwagon Business," he stated simply. "We needed someone with your particular skills for a job out of the country. It was an emergency." He paused, looked at Josuke’s disheveled state. "...With the way you look now? That’s definitely believable. Good grief..."
"Storms on a pirate ship suck," Josuke stated flatly.
This got Jotaro’s attention, and he turned a look at Josuke, before turning back to watch the road. "Pirate ship? What were you up to?"
"Well... there’s this pirate in Nassau," Josuke began, slowly shifting in his seat and looking at Jotaro. "Flint is his name. As far as I know, both England and Spain are both pretty much the worst during the time that world’s in. So he wants to start a life with his girl. But England and Spain being what they are at that time, they lost everything. So now he wants no part of either one of them. What he wants is to make it so neither can possibly have any hope of attacking Nassau, so they’ll leave him and his girl alone."
"...So he said?" Jotaro asked, one brow twitching upward in approximation of a skeptical brow-raise.
Josuke shrugged. "I have no reason to disbelieve him." Here he winces. "Well... yeah, I kind of do... but he’s a pirate, you can easily say he can’t be trusted because of that."
"Exactly," Jotaro stated.
With a frown that edged on being a pout, Josuke replied firmly, "Until I have proof that something different’s going on, I’m for helping him." Here he grinned. "Besides, he’s gonna let us keep a little of the gold from the ship we found -- real pirate gold, Jotaro! How awesome is that? He rest he’s gonna use to improve the town and make it so England and Spain can’t attack."
"Or that it would be so costly they wouldn’t bother."
"Yeah."
Jotaro paused. "You ‘found’ the ship?"
"Well... it was part of a lot of ships that were carrying Spanish gold," Josuke explained. "It sank, uh... I think we were near Florida?"
Jotaro froze. After doing a few mental calculations, he quickly pulled the car over to the side of the road, swerving wildly. "Whoa!" Josuke complained, and then winced. "Careful, that hurts!"
Paying the complaint no mind, Jotaro turned fully to face Josuke. "That ship. What was it called?"
Josuke blinked, suddenly confused. "Uh..." He tilted his head up, rubbing his chin in thought. "The... <Urca de Lima>." He mangled the pronounciation a bit, though. His skills in English were bad enough, his Spanish was dreadful.
Again, Jotaro froze, this time emitting a very quiet "--Gh." He knew about that ship! "...Urca de Lima." It was hard to tell if he was asking, confirming, or correcting Josuke's botched pronounciation. Either could have been the case, Jotaro’s Spanish was better. "...It wasn’t carrying treasure. Just luxury goods. Hides, chocolate, and spices. The only treasure on board was personal silver. The other ships in the fleet were carrying the treasure."
This seemed to confuse Josuke. "There definitely was gold there, and the crew of the Spanish ship was definitely fighting to keep it away from us," he notes. He tilts his head, shrugging a little. "Maybe it was different in their world. Things don’t always follow one world’s history perfectly. I mean. There’s a world with talking..." Pause. "...Actually I’m not sure what Mortimer is. His head is on fire all the time. Literally."
Jotaro stared at Josuke flatly, though the teen could just barely see the very slight raise of a brow in confusion. "Oh, right! I have proof." Pausing a moment, to dig in a pocket, he drew out one bright golden coin. "I managed to snag this before it all got hauled off -- see?" He offered he coin to Jotaro, who all but snatched it from his hand. Josuke paid the older fellow’s rough behavior no mind; he was always like that.
Holding the coin up to the light, Jotaro slowly turned it over, examining it. It looked authentic in all ways... except that, of course, it wasn’t as old as a Spanish gold coin would be. (‘And the material composition is probably exactly the same as a Spanish coin made about that time too...’) He looked at the coin a moment longer, before returning it to Josuke. "I want to see the rest."
Josuke nodded, offering a grin. "Shouldn’t be a problem, assuming I get my share of it." Despite the words, his tone didn’t sound like he particularly doubted he would.
Jotaro didn’t speak, he just put the car back in gear and drove back onto the road. He was silent a few long moments more before he spoke up again. "...What are you going to do with it?" he asked. "It’s not as if you can just buy things with it here."
"...I actually didn’t think of that," Josuke replied, raising his hand to rub at the back of his neck. "I mean... even if the currency’s not right, the metal itself is worth something, right? Maybe a museum would want to display a bit of it?"
"They wouldn’t be able to date it back far enough to consider it authentic," Jotaro pointed out. "The time periods are different. It’ll read as too young."
"...Crap... you’re right, it would," he realized. "It’s not that old in the world it came from. But the metal..."
Jotaro slid Josuke a look. "Even if the coins were in the same material composition, they’d still be considered fake because it’s not old enough. You’d never get a decent price for it. And you’re NOT going to a fence." That was a tone that brooked no arguments. Josuke pouted. "...But you should be able to use it if you go back," he continued. "The currency’s legal there."
"Yeah, there’s that," Josuke said quietly. "Though I’m not sure what’s there I’d want to buy."
Another moment of silence. Then Jotaro spoke up. "...Take a camera next time. It could be useful."
Josuke smirked. "Also you wanna see the ships, right?" Jotaro said nothing, but Josuke saw the twitch of his jaw.
"The Speedwagon Foundation wants to start mapping the Multiverse," Jotaro said. "And you go out in it fairly often. Might as well start with places you’ve already got some knowledge of. Keep a camera with you, and I want to start getting reports."
Flopping back in the seat, Josuke groaned, draping an arm over his eyes. "Aw man... more homework..." Jotaro said nothing, but smirked ever so slightly.
