non non non all day long

As comforting as Polnareff was, she can’t bring herself to feel any better. She still felt jealous over Jotaro’s and Seventh’s relationship no matter who dealt with it. Actually, this comforting nature was reminding her of several things she set out to forget and she didn’t want to start feeling that way again any time soon. She looks away from him but decides to leave the hand on her shoulder alone, just for a little while.

But even with her gratitude, she still seemed...frustrated, sad even. So he’ll just move his hand from her shoulder to her back and step forward to wrap his other arm around her.

She sighs heavily. Though Polnareff’s words do seem to ease her a bit, she’s still a bit frustrated.

He laughs at her words, he can’t help it. “I can relate quite strongly to that, ma cherie! She’s all he can talk about on some days too! ...if he even talks on that day.”

She jumps a bit at the name. She expected him to make the connection, she piratically made it obvious, though it still felt strange to hear it.

“Their time together meant a great deal to both of them, I’m sure you know that. Can you blame either of them for thinking of each other more than they would think of everyone else?” There’s a small hint of a chiding tone to his words, but maybe a hint of resentment too.

“So you wish you could be as close to Seventh as Jotaro was?”

That’s right, this Polnareff doesn’t know anything about that. Not many people did and she had no intentions of letting too many know.

“GAH–” She calls out in surprise, only to see that Polnareff was here again. She sighs a bit in relief. Being caught off guard was always something that killed her pride a bit, but if it was him she supposed that it was okay.

He can’t help but grin at her. “Why yes, it’s just me.”

"Good thing I picked out this outfit then, thanks! I did go over a few...changes over these past few loops. Kinda hard to not notice, I guess.”

She grabs a chair and sits down in font of him, seeing as this would be a much easier way to have them at eye level. Her feelings from earlier were starting to subside, probably just and after effect of what had happened.

He offers her a sympathetic look at her mention of "changes". The loops were hard on them all, and he could relate to that. Not to mention he had seen Seventh go through changes as well. As for his own loops with the rest of the Crusaders...

"There's not much to report on." He shrugs. "We're very used to this journey already, after all."

Of course, they've been doing a lot of things that aren't exactly supposed to be done during these loops. He chuckles at the memory of a few of them.

Ah, that’s right. She never did give him a name, did she? 

"Um, you can call me Nanaya…"

She wonders how much he could see through her. She did look fairly different from last time and her attitude has changed a bit too. Her own Polnareff could read her like a book at times, could this one do the same? Wait, why does she care? It’s not like it matter what he thinks.

"Ah, that's too bad. I suppose I'll just have to keep coming here again and again until I chance upon her, oui?"

He walks over to one of the armchairs, then flops down onto it. "I hope you don't mind if I stay here for a little though." One hundred and twenty-three loops later and Steely Dan's shitty flirting with everyone was still annoying.

Well, she wasn’t expecting to see him again. Granted, he said he would come back but that was awhile ago. Nanaya had started to think he was just kidding around by then. Yet, here he was. In the flesh. Alive. Breathing.

She shouldn’t think about those things. After all, this was Seventh’s Polnareff, not her’s. Yet, she seemed a bit stunned for some reason.

Oh, there she was! He grins at her as he walks right on over to her. "Ma chérie! I'm glad to see you're around."

He winks at her, unable to help himself. It's not like anything was coming out of this, of course. It was just some harmless flirting. Abdul and Kakyoin would murder him from every single loop onwards for cheating on them.

"—!!?" What just happened? Where did Jotaro—

Time had stopped right now, didn’t it? Of course it did, how she forget that Jotaro would probably remember having that now. How long exactly could he stop time for now, and what did he just do?

When she hears what he says next, she almost gives out a sigh of relief. Finally they were going to comply, it’d be safer that way. The way he put it, however, kind of irked her. She just wanted them back for their own safety. After all, if the Creator came by, who knows what could happen. They couldn’t do anything about it so they shouldn’t persist.

Polnareff huries over to Jotaro's side, but turns back to Nanaya for a moment. "Hey! Don't think we won't be back! I'd like to see your cute face again."

"It’s not that I’m doubting you…it’s just that you really shouldn’t. She was here one time in who knows how long. What if she never comes back? We can’t get to where she is anyway…"

"As for the whole killing thing, you’ve got to be kidding me! Trust me when I say that the Creator is not someone you just wanna mess around with! There’s no actual way to kill him. Are you that stubborn? You might be able to defeat him once or twice, but what’s that going to do for you? He’ll just trick you like he tricked Seventh."

"He was probably the one who made other versions of you faint here in the first place! I bet you haven’t yet because he’s not here right now. He’s not even going to let you touch him, believe me. You’re kind of stuck."

Absolutely none of what she was saying was getting through to Polnareff, of course. "We'll find a way! We always do!" He's shouting now, all fired up as he is from the knowledge of a challenge ahead of them.

"If you've really traveled with us, then you know exactly how we work. We're going to kill him, no matter what you or anyone--"

{ TIME STOPS }

Jotaro had had enough of this arguing. He hadn't even had the chance to ask all his questions and this meeting was already ruined. Any answers he got after this would be tainted by the girl's knowledge of what they planned now to do, even if they hadn't exactly formed a solid plan of attack yet.

...And now he had three hours to waste.

He was always forgetting he could stop time for that long now. Well, there was nothing to do but explore a little. Things should be fine as long as he didn't use any of the doors and exit.

And two hours later, Jotaro had more or less memorized the ghost house's layout, as well as the faces of the few other kids in here. A silver haired boy, a short brown haired girl, a boy with weird blue hair, and someone with blonde hair he wasn't sure of. Had all of these people traveled with their own versions of him and his companions? Jotaro had been quick to abandon that line of thought.

At a quarter past two hours, he had messed with the radios in one corner of the room, then realized they were all exactly alike. So each of the "seventh persons" got their own radio.

At the two and a half hour mark, Jotaro had found himself standing in front of a long steel table, sitting in a corner beside one of the doors. The table was mostly covered with random trinkets, but what interested him was the sign indicating who owned this table and all the trinkets on it.

"Why can't you just bring any of this with you in that ratty old bag of yours?" He reaches for one of the candies on the table and unwraps it, despite the sign also warning anyone who cared not to touch it.

"Looks like you're gonna have to come after me now." Well, maybe he should leave something, in exchange for the candy.

{ TIME RESUMES }

"--says! You got that?" He turns to Jotaro. "Go on, Jotaro, tell her!"

He stops. Jotaro was no longer beside him or Nanaya, but was standing at the exit of the ghost house.

Polnareff immediately knows what had just happened, of course. He was used to the other Stand user's abuse of his ability. He glances at Nanaya, trying to figure out if she had realized what had just happened.

"Well there’s a few things wrong with both of those things…"

Hopefully the two would be understanding of the situation, given how they can’t do much. If anyone is going to fix this, it would probably have to be Seventh herself. She prepares for the next set of explanations.

"You see, the person you would have to kill can’t exactly die. They…sorta created everything. And they’re probably the driving force of fate incarnate at this point. I’m pretty sure if they spotted you, something really bad would happen. So, there’s go that idea. As for waiting…."

"What...don't underestimate us! We'll kill him even if he's God!" Polnareff can't believe what he's hearing. Did this girl think they would care how powerful their enemy was? They would take down anyone, anything. He was confident they could.

Jotaro advances on her without thinking, going back into his intimidation mode. As far as he was concerned, this girl was here solely to answer their questions. He didn't care about her opinion on what they could and couldn't do.

"Like Polnareff says, we'll kill him. I'll kill him. God owes me a huge debt for this shit he's putting us through. As for waiting...we've been looping for thousands of years."

"Well I know because she came here once! We got into a really big fight but that’s besides the point. Anyway, she has access to the ghost house but we have no access to where she is. Which is the same for all of us; none of us can invade each other’s timelines yet we can all meet up here. The same goes for Seventh even though she’s apparently not a part of a timeline anymore? Her situation’s kinda confusing…"

It takes a quite a bit of willpower to not immediately demand more answers about Seventh. Instead, he focuses on the other topic of their discussion.

"Who is it then? Who do we have to kill?" Because he was going to eat his hat if they didn't kill the asshole behind all of this when they found him. 

Of course, Polnareff wasn't going to go easy on Jotaro. He suddenly butts into the conversation again.

Vins? That lying bitch.

The vampire hadn't told them everything after all. Just as well they never really trusted her. You couldn't trust someone who didn't remember the loops. In any case, the bag sitting in one corner of his and Kakyoin's hotel room was going to have a nice talk with Star Platinum later.

But that would be later. For now, most of his suspicions had just been confirmed - that Seventh was in fact the cause of the looping. Or at least, in light of their discovery of this house, her role.

And speaking of Seventh...

He pulls back, straightening himself. The girl was cooperating, there was no need for intimidation tactics, for now.

"So that's why Seventh changed so much." He'd heard all about this "two Sevenths" thing, and while he had easily understood it, there was something that bothered him.