KISMET ─ vento aureo.

▹ THIRTY-SEVEN ;

☆ ⁺ « NO BEARING ON THE GALAXY

★˚⋆ BACK IN THE GALLEY, YOU FELT Narancia's absence keenly. You tried not to let your apprehension show on your face. You didn't blame your pilot for his freakout, but you still wished he hadn't done it. Prince Giorno was nothing short of calm and collected all of the time. Donatello might pass this off as hysteria, but there had to be a part of him that was suspicious. You had hoped that there might be a chance Chariot Requiem's ability would wear off with Narancia being so far away, but so far, Giorno hadn't magically switched back to his body.

Bruno, Fugo, and Abbacchio had disappeared into the engine room to bang out a game plan. Technically, you should have been there too, but you were too pent up to do much thinking. You were still trying to get yourself under control. Still trying to pretend to be Bruno and figure out what the murderous pulsing in your chest was that demanded to get the Stand Arrow before anything else.

Chariot Requiem was lumbering around the barracks now, as unconcerned as ever.

"Narancia will be okay, right?" Trish asked. She looked pensively at Giorno. "Nothing will happen to him?"

"As I said before, it's unlikely Donatello will do anything to him now that word is beginning to travel. It will all be a matter of how he conducts himself." Giorno had one hand clamped over Narancia's bandaged eye. A faint glow emitted from where his Stand's hand superimposed itself and Giorno winced slightly as it did its work.

"Can you really heal his eye?" Mista asked.

Giorno removed his hand and carefully unwrapped the bandage. "It's only temporary. Healing injuries is one thing, but diseases can't be healed by just replacing the body part. In Narancia's case, much of the surrounding area and his blood have been diseased. I'm afraid there isn't much I can do about it." He closed his eyes briefly before opening them again.

You still weren't used to this blunt, straightforward prince. Hell, you weren't used to thinking of him as Prince Giorno at all.

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but I miss Coco Jumbo," Mista said. "I mean, it could probably spit out a hundred different plans to get us out of this mess, right?"

Trish directed her question at Polnareff, who was sitting on the table beside a few sticks of carrot. You couldn't even begin to imagine what he was feeling, stuck in the body of a turtle. "Is there nothing else you can tell us about Chariot Requiem?"

"You know as much as I do," Polnareff answered. "Its abilities seem to be centred around the Arrow. It can redirect Stand attacks and even partially control one's Stand. It does not react to outside stimuli unless it makes an effort to go after the Arrow."

"So it's basically unbeatable," Mista said, falling back in his seat.

"Everything has a weakness," Prince Giorno said. "We just need to find it." He glanced at Polnareff, and then did a double take.

"Dr. Polnareff, are you alright?"

You turned to look, then bit back a gasp. Something was growing from Polnareff's neck. A shrivelled, disfigured second turtle head with dead eyes and pus leaking from its mouth. Bile rose in your throat and you struggled to keep calm.

"What is that?" Mista said. "What's going on with him?"

"It looks like some sort of mutation," Giorno said, extending his fingers to prod at it. You grimaced.

Trish's eyes widened. "Mutation? From what?"

Polnareff didn't look alarmed. Likely he had been aware of the second head for a while and just hadn't said anything. "I think it might be an extension of Chariot Requiem's abilities. Not only does it switch souls, it mutates the vessel the soul is in."