Chapter Text
Vivi Mirtillo.
Fresh out of college. Right-handed, blood type B, living alone in the cheapest possible flat in Naples so he can afford a good gaming set up.
In the darkness of his bedroom the light from his PC faintly illuminated his face enough to check his skin before heading to work. Matte white paint coated his pale skin, a small makeup brush on his messy desk was still covered in blue powder from drawing on round eyebrows and placing a round dot either side his white cracked lips. A real 21st century schizoid man.
His pale eyes stung after he flicked on the main light. Looking himself up and down in the mirror. Mirtillo ran a hand through his choppy dark fringe, fingers riddled with obvious stitches protruding from cold, stiff flesh. In his white cost and dark dress pants he felt presentable for his first day at work - though his hands, obviously fresh stitching like a children's taxidermy, it was too obscene not to wear gloves.
The hands, a result of his stand.「BLACK CHERRY」a long range stand affecting the user, or anybody in direct contact with the user, rendering them invisible. This state would remain until the individual is incapacitated with shock. A physical shock. At first he'd desperately tried electricity, sudden changes in temperature like icebaths or boiling water, but the most effective way was with a simple scalpel to a digit.
Mirtillo had his stand since he was a young adolescent boy, if crowds were too much that he couldn't stand it he could now simply disappear. If he wanted to get nasty payback on a bully nothing worked better. And of course when he walked alone in the streets at night back home from college and a disgusting old man would grope at his thigh in a crowd he was lost in less than a second if nobody else could see the man, trampled underfoot instantly. Most of them had to find out how to see themselves again the hard way, and Mirtillo had watched it take an awfully long time for some of them. A useful stand.
Before leaving his room Mirtillo slipped his wallet and phone in his pocket, deciding to dorn simple surgeon's gloves to hide the feedback from his stand beneath the plastic. Those characteristic baby blue medical gloves would fit in perfectly anyway for his job. He loved learning of religious practices, seeing people brought together in ceremony and, of course, human embalming. So when Mirtillo had his application reviewed and passed his job interview with flying colours for once in his life he was jumping with joy at the prospect of one of the largest morgues in Naples hiring him as a Mortician.
He'd worked for funeral homes, been understudies for many undertakers all over Europe, but a comfortable bus ride away with a good view and even more suprisingly good pay was an opportunity to absolutely die for. Mirtillo stood at his doorstep in his black derby shoes and clean sleek suit pants to match, proud of himself for once.
~~~~
"ONLY STAFF PERMITTED PAST LEFT WING DOOR THREE, THAnkyou*"
The intercom on the ceiling crackled with an announcement. God he loved his new working space. The peace and quiet, only the sound of his metallic instruments hitting the icy sterile workbench with a satisfying plink whenever he changed tool. And the sound of soft music pouring into one ear from his cheap cracked earbud with a muffled filter over it.
"VICTOR MIRTILLO PLEASE REPORT TO RECEPTION, VICTOR MIRTILLO PLEASE REPORT TO RECEPTION."
Mirtillo flinched at the unexpected sound of his name over the speakers. Changing gloves and resterilizing himself before hurrying out of his haven, closing the thick baracade doors behind himself. Swiftly walking down the main hallway past nurses in full scrubs growing in amount until he reached the hospital reception area. A tall blonde nurse with wonky false eyelashes trotted over as soon as she saw Mirtillo looking both ways in confusion. She embraced his hands warmly and bowed her head, her voice sweet and nasally.
"Ah! Mirtillo, yes? What a cute name oh my, welcome welcome, you totally have a job, like, right away! You mind picking up a cadaver found out the back alley of the local sportsbar?"
Mirtillo bowed his head back and nodded compliantly, his voice slightly horse from how little he'd spoken to other people recently, other than in gaming lobbies.
"Uh yes, sure, if the police are already at the scene I'll just pick the cadaver up and bring them to the morgue."
"Thanks love I knew I could count on you, you seem so so much better than our last guy it's such a relief haha."
He paused and laughed her comment off awkwardly, hesitating before leaving.
"Last guy must've been pretty bad huh?"
The woman nervously smiled.
"Dr. Cioccolata was a... Character."
She waved casually before backing away to deal with a stack of paperwork behind the reception desk.
Mirtillo blinked letting go of the conservation, heading through the crowds of bustling staff, moving around doctors and nurses until he reached the automatic doors, the fresh midday air hitting his olfactory receptors like a refreshing cold glass of water. Digging through car keys out his pocket as he reached his work car, a long sleek build with a deep boot that would soon snuggly fit a cadaver.
The drive was brief - the car faintly musky, the hum of the engine barely muffling the nostalgic tune of 'while my guitar gently weeps'. As Mirtillo approached the location a police car caught his eye outside the alley beside the sportsbar. He pulled over and opened the driver's door, stepping off the curb onto the pavement, the scene was unusually quiet. The cop car had one window winded down halfway, a middle aged officer sat with his seat reclined practically horizontally. His expression half-awake, his neck had unflattering rolls of fat that his chubby sausage-fingers itched.
"Officer, Victor Mirtillo, mortician. May I proceed with extraction of the corpse?"
Mirtillo introduced himself with a monotonous voice, pulling his wallet out his pocket and showing his licence. That man gave a halfhearted nod and closed his eyes, snoring began soon after. The scene was eerily quiet.
"...Sir is your partner with the body?"
The man did not respond. Out like a rock, snoring like a foghorn.
Mirtillo took a step toward the alleyway. Narrow with the roof of the sportbar blocking any sunlight that could attempt to deep through despite the tall brick walls either side. He was going it completely blind, he was the first responder, there was no report written on the casualty. Suicide. Murder. Heart attack. Stroke. Nothing was off the table as he walked into the dark path. It was longer than he thought, after a few seconds his foot tapped against a small flip phone with a shattered screen. It looked as if it had been stopped on with great force.
This worried him intensely, it felt as if his ribcage squeezed in on his heart and lungs, on this side of town - with the rumours that go round - the mafia was not out of question.
A faint movement a few metres away caught his eye.
"Hey, are you an officer, I'm the mortici-"
The figure audibly gasped as if his footsteps against brick hadn't been obvious enough of an approach. A man walked slowly out the depths of the shadow. A second figure draped stiffly in his arms. Mirtillo's pulse elevated until the figure stopped walking - a metre separating the two of them.
"...how long have you been here."
His voice was from the pits of hell. Deep and rumbling, raspy yet with an uncomfortably heavy bass. He dropped the body. The back of the head whacking the tarmac of the path with a sickening crack, the too limp to be in rigor mortis, this was not the corpse he was looking for.
He needed to run.
"I said how long have you been here."
He sounded uneasy, confused. As if he hadn't thrown a human body to his feet, out of the shadow Mirtillo slowly backed away, his body freezing in terror. He did not respond. The man angrily grit his teeth and appeared behind him, pushing Mirtillo back into the alleyway blackness.
"My Doppio...so sweet yet so foolish, taking care of traitor and struggling so much with the second. I'll have to punish him for taking so long a mortician arrived."
Mirtillo yelped and squeezed his eyes shut, hands trembling in fear, goosebumps raised all over his body like a prey animal. A familiar buzz began behind his eyes, Black Cherry appeared between them for an instant. A ghostly sphere with a fog-like body taking form around it. Then Mirtillo disappeared.
The man blinked in confusion. Whipping his head left and right searching for Mirtillo, long hair falling over his face as he desperately twisted around looking for him. The man stumbled towards the light out of the alley, leaving the two corpses he had created in the shadows.
In the light Mirtillo saw his true face. A tall man with long thick pink hair, dark patches throughout like a bad dyejob or possibly just dark regrowth of his natural dark hair.Tan olive skin and a Roman nose, light freckle-like moles on his cheek and neck. He wore ugly purple pants and a casual grey t-shirt with a purple sweater wrapped around his waste haphazardly. His arm had a detailed sleeve of tattoos, he looked a mess. A confused mess. Confused as if it wasn't him who did this.
It was when a humanoid stand appeared beside him with beady green eyes like a demon, similar to his own, that Mirtillo felt real terror - and morbid curiousity. A stand user killed two men. Standing infront of him invisible Mirtillo watched the man the man... change. The blinked, eyelids fluttering like the daylight burned. He took the sweater from his waist and slipped it over his head. He stopped looking around as if he'd completely forgotten what he was doing - and began tieing back his hair. Braiding the strands meticulously. Once he finished it was as if even his posture had changed. It looked like a new man - then the stand vanished.
"Tururururururuurururu"
The man mumbled to himself.
Curiosity took over and Mirtillo watched, mortified, as the man walked out on the street to the police car with the sleeping officer inside. He reached in the half-open window and pulled out an empty McDonald's milkshake cup, holding it to his ear like a flip phone.
"Boss? Boss it's me, Doppio! I did it, I killed them both."
Mirtillo felt sick to his stomach watching on at this insane man talk to himself.
"Wha- what do you mean? Nobody saw me."
He waited silence before stammering out a response.
"....what...? I don't see anyone, are you use you saw somebody boss? Where were you? He...he saw your face?"
Doppio nervously bit his nails and nodded to himself before pretending to hang up, then crushing the drink in his hand and letting it fall into the gutter.
He ran away and Mirtillo didn't stop him. There was nothing he could do right now. Mirtillo walked back into the alley and took a shakey breath, drawing his own phone from his pocket to his mouth, whilst still invisible. Calling the emergency services.
"Hello- yes, I'd like to r-report a double homicide."
