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“This is the end of your story, little monster.”
The vampire shivered in terror. “Please, lord,” he said. “I beg for your mercy. I will be your servant, your slave…”
Dio said, “How foolish.” The vampire was silent. It had learned not to interrupt. “You claimed to be my equal . Do you imagine that I would have any use for such a stupid slave?”
“Forgive me, Great One. I should have known. I should have seen that you were not merely a vampire, but a god. You can have no rivals.”
“But I did.” The words came unbidden, and Dio frowned. A failure of self-control was unacceptable, even if this wretched thing would not live to speak about his mistake. He should have agreed with his would-be rival, the old monster that had been foolish enough to stand against him. He should have said that a god has no rivals.
He should have lied. Yet somehow, the thought repulsed him. It was foolish for a god to admit weakness, but it was contemptible to deny the memory of his only true enemy.
Dio said, “His name was Jonathan Joestar.” The vampire tilted its head to look at him. It was a pale, ugly thing. Worthless trash to be discarded. Once he had viewed Jonathan the same way.
“Another god, Great One? An ancient lord of the Midnight Aristocracy?”
Dio chuckled. “Jonathan was not a god. Not even a vampire. I suppose he was an aristocrat, but he never cared much for any title. He was a gentleman.”
“A…human, Great One?” Somehow, even in utmost terror, the vampire managed to sound skeptical. It tilted its head to stare at him, questioning. Doubting his divine words.
Honestly, Dio didn’t blame the beast. The very idea that a human could stand in his way was an absurdity. An impossibility. Unless you met Jonathan Joestar, and then it made perfect sense.
Dio said, “I felt the same way. He was a foolish man. Always trusting when he really shouldn’t. Bound up in a ridiculous code of ethics, fighting to defend the weak rather than taking what he desired. An utter fool, and yet he was the only one I ever truly feared.”
The vampire said, “Forgive me, master. I don’t understand how a human could fight a god.” It was playing for time, but Dio didn’t mind. He found himself looking forward to the explanation.
“Neither did I. Time and time again, I told myself that he was no match for me, that I would trample him underfoot. But no matter how often I terrorized him, no matter how often I outsmarted him, he always endured.”
Eventually, he even prevailed. Dio had spent his entire existence laughing at the soft, weak “virtues” of cowardly hypocrites, but Jonathan was different. Even in the beginning, there was a paladin hidden with the soft, spoiled child. A hero waiting to be born.
Dio said, “He beat me. He almost killed me.” Trapped at the bottom of the ocean, with only Jonathan’s skull for company. A hundred years of night.
A lesser man would have gone mad. Only his iron will kept him sane. It was proof that he was worthy, proof that destiny had chosen him to stand above lesser beings. To be the only true god of this world.
Perhaps he should hate Jonathan for defying him. He certainly had before. When Jonathan revealed him as a poisoner, when he defeated a newly risen vampire with nothing more than strength and unflinching determination, Dio had loathed him. He had been unable to understand how this soft aristocrat could stand in his way.
He had been a fool. Most people were nothing but cattle, suitable only as disposable minions. Or food. A few special beings might become faithful servants, loyal instruments of his will, but they were not equals .
Only Jonathan. Jonathan, denying his right to do as he desired. Jonathan, the ignorant fool, defeating his clever plans. Jonathan, meeting him in battle and triumphing over the man who was destined to become the only true god of this world.
“I think…I think I loved him,” Dio said. “I am as I must be, of course. We could never be anything but enemies. I was born to be what the sheep call ‘evil’, and he was always good. We could never have been allies.”
We could never have been friends. He had never desired it. Not until Jonathan fought him in the burning ruins of the Joestar estate. Dio had been sure that he would prevail and Jonathan would die there. He had been wrong, of course, but in that moment he had felt an emotion he did not recognize at the time. Only later had he realized that it was regret.
Regret was weakness. Doubt was weakness. Dio was not weak. But in that endless midnight, trapped and starving, he had wondered if there might have been another path. Just for a moment, or an eternity. The two had been much the same in the coffin.
“Great One,” the vampire said. “Great One, please.” It strained pitifully against the iron spikes that pinned it to the roof of the manor, fighting to escape its doom. The sky was slowly growing lighter, and Dio sighed. He had been enjoying their talk.
“Jonathan had a son,” Dio said. “His bloodline continues, and I know I will destroy them. Yet I think I will regret the day when there are no more Joestars. The world will be…less, for their absence.”
The creature was screaming now, begging for mercy, crying out for a long-dead mother. Praying to an imaginary God, as if the Good Lord would save an ancient monster. Pathetic. When he fought the Joestars, they would not ask for quarter. They would fight to the bitter end, and when death came for them they would greet it with a smile.
Dio went to meet his destiny, leaving the beast to the sunrise.