Fanfic / A Quiet Life

"Need a ride, sir?"
I blink, 'English? Am I in America? That would explain the landscape. At least I studied English as my secondary language in school.' I clear my throat, "Ahem. Yes. If it's not too trouble, miss."
She ponders for a moment, "Hmmm. Well you don't look like a killer. Too normal looking for that...so hop in."
I gladly open the door and sit in the passenger seat. As I expected, the seat is just as coarse feeling as the car is beaten down. "Thank you."
"No problem. You don't mind heading to Brockton Bay?"
"That would be no issue." I fasten my seatbelt and we're off to this [Brockton Bay]. 'From the sound of the name, I can infer that I've somehow ended up in America.' Yes. America. An entirely new country away from Japan. Away from Josuke.
My thoughts leave me once the woman begins small talk, "The names Annette Hebert. What's yours?"
I smile. "Yoshikage Kira." I fix the loose thread on my coat button and my mind fills with hope. 'Aaah. Much better. That really was bugging me the entire time, but I just had to know if I was alive before I could fix it.' Step one towards a new [Quiet Life].

— Kira's first conversation on Earth Bet

A Quiet Life is a crossover between Worm and JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.

After being crushed to death by an ambulance and subsequently being Dragged Off to Hell, Yoshikage Kira wakes up on the outskirts of Brockton Bay and hitches a ride with a certain Annette Hebert. After saving her from her canon death by car accident, getting new identity papers and documentation, and doing some research on his new world, Kira settles down into his normal routine.

Brockton Bay being Brockton Bay, Kira gets dragged into the gang politics of the local supervillains, forcing him to use Killer Queen more frequently than otherwise. Along the way, he befriends the Heberts and Barneses, works with Carol Dallon, and acquires a living Yandere Girlfriend.

Sadly, the last update was in 2017.

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A Quiet Life provides examples of:

• Accidental Kidnapping: At one point, Kira gets shoved into a van with a bunch of ABB goons going out to raid a Merchant stash house. Kira blows them all up and then blows up the Merchants.
• Adaptational Badass: Emma Triggers in reaction to the Locker incident with a Thinker power.
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • Kira manages to be this without changing his character, simply because of how Earth Bet is a Crapsack World with numerous Asshole Victim targets of opportunity.
  • Thanks to Annette's continued survival, Emma Barnes remains Taylor's BFF, trying to diplomatically get Taylor and Sophia to become friends, and Triggers in the aftermath of the locker incident.
  • Rachel Lindt is saved from joining the Undersiders by Kira's intervention.
  • Emma becomes an evil-detecting Thinker that can track down villains from across the city.
• Affably Evil: Kira is a mild-mannered middle-class serial killer who blows up women to collect their hands. He's still on good terms with the Heberts, Emma Barnes, and Rachel Lindt.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: Yoshikage Kira, whose main goal is a quiet life, is this in a city with Neo-Nazis, Asian gangsters, drug dealers, and a wannabe Bond villain.
• Ascended Extra: Annette is a Posthumous Character in canon; here she gets her own POV interlude.
• Asshole Victim: Kira blows up numerous people who deserve it- Skinheads, ABB goons, Merchants, Victor, Circus (albeit in a timeline collapsed by Coil), Coil, Miles Kennedy (repeatedly thanks to Bites The Dust)....
• Beneath Notice: Kira's MO, made easier by the loud, noisy, conspicuous gang violence of E88, the ABB, and the Merchants.
• Berserk Button: Disrupting Kira's quiet life tends to end badly for those who do it. Victor, Coil, and several assorted henchmen get killed for it, and Circus and Aya barely escape.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Yoshikage Kira is a mild-mannered middle-class worker who just wants a quiet life. His Stand, Killer Queen, can blow up interlopers in three different ways.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Aya's Yandere attitude towards Kira is heavily implied to be the result of her Trigger Event (via her Shard's Conflict Drive).
• Bullying a Dragon: Trying to discern Kira's lifestyle is a very bad idea. Coil finds out the hard way.
• Came Back Strong: Kira starts out with all three of his Stand's bombs- Killer Queen, Sheer Heart Attack, and Bites The Dust.
• Cassandra Truth: In one timeline, Coil tries to alert Rachel that Kira is a serial killer, but Rachel reacts so poorly he collapses the timeline.
• Character Development:
  • Kira goes from aloof and uncaring about anyone- up to and including preparing to use Killer Queen on his own allies- to a family friend of the Heberts and Aya's affectionate boyfriend.
  • Rachel Lindt goes from a socially inept street urchin to one of Taylor's friends.
• Chekhov's Gun: On the way to the Library, Kira transfers Killer Queen to Danny Hebert to check if he still has Bites The Dust, then recalls his Stand after the successful test. He uses it on Commander Kennedy in his takedown of Coil's base.
• Chekhov's Gunman: During Kira's attack on a Merchant stash-house, he discovers a captive prostitute and tells her to go free. 19 months later, she breaks into his apartment as a Stalker with a Crush and becomes his partner-in-crime the Cleaner.
• Combat Medic: One of the applications for Aya's Cleaner power is to heal injuries.
• Combat Pragmatist: Kira's default response to danger is to start blowing things up with Killer Queen. If that doesn't work, he sends in Sheer Heart Attack.
• Contrived Coincidence: Kira arrives in just the right time and place on Earth Bet to prevent Annette from dying in a car crash.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • Almost every fight involving Killer Queen will be this in Kira's favor. Uber and Leet, skinheads, ABB goons, Merchants, Victor, and Coil all get blown up with minimal resistance.
  • Aya D. Chapman is a Cape whose Stranger and Striker powers are a Hard Counter to Kira's Stand, and gives Kira his only defeat.
• Dead Fic: Not updated since February 22nd, 2017.
• Dead Man Walking: Coil's status after Kira activates Bites The Dust is "Fated To Die".
• Death by Adaptation:
  • Uber and Leet are unceremoniously blown up after Kira gets his documentation.
  • Victor is blown up by Killer Queen as part of Kira's Leave No Witnesses policy.
  • Kira goes after Coil when the latter starts spying on him, and brings Killer Queen, Sheer Heart Attack, and Bites The Dust to bear on Coil's base.
  • Narrowly averted for the Undersiders; Aya memory-wipes Rachel and Lisa stops her Thinker power's train of thought to prevent them from getting blown up by Killer Queen.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Kira falls in love with Aya D. Chapman after catching the latter spying on him and she manages to No-Sell Killer Queen's first bomb.
• Detect Evil: White-Tail (AKA Emma Barnes) has a Thinker ability that allows her to track down villains.
• Dramatic Irony: Annette says Kira doesn't look like a killer. Kira was the main antagonist of Diamond is Unbreakable and has killed dozens of people.
• Establishing Character Moment:
  • Although Kira's personality was established in canon, it's re-introduced gradually:
    • His desire for a quiet life is introduced in his car-ride with Annette.
    • When he and Annette get car-jacked, he turns the wallet into a bomb with Killer Queen, hands the wallet over, and then blows up the mugger, showing his willingness to use lethal force when inconvenienced.
    • He settles into a regular apartment with a mundane job, demonstrating his obsession with mediocrity and aversion to drama.
    • When mugged a second time, he makes the severed hand of one of his assailants into his first 'girlfriend'.
    • When kidnapped by the ABB and dragged into a fight with the Merchants, he immediately decides to kill everyone with Killer Queen.
  • Aya's moment is when she realizes she was rescued by a murderer, Triggers, and then immediately resolves to cover up her crush's killings.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Kira finds the gangs of Brockton Bay abhorrent.
  • Even Kira's partner-in-crime Aya is disturbed by Kira's willingness to blow up teenagers to cover his tracks.
  • Coil is disturbed to realize that there is a superpowered serial killer on the loose in Brockton Bay.
• Evil Is Petty: Kira sets up Josuke as the man who purportedly mugged him of all his valuables and documentation.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!:
  • Kira's initial Wiki Walk in the library leads to him panicking about the Endbringers.
  • Aya D. Chapman Triggers after realizing she was rescued from a Merchant stash house by a murderer.
  • Tattletale realizes she better turn down her power to avoid either getting memories erased by Aya or getting blown up by Bites The Dust.
• For Want Of A Nail: Kira's arrival in Brockton Bay lets loose several butterflies:
  • Annette is prevented from dying in a car crash, which keeps Taylor (relatively) happy.
  • Annette's survival means Emma is still Taylor's friend, which results in Emma Triggering during the Locker incident.
  • Uber and Leet are unceremoniously removed as petty nuisances.
  • A Merchant stash-house is taken down and the Merchants inside get blown up, resulting in a prostitute inside Triggering after being set free.
  • Rachel Lindt is given a loving household under the care of the aforementioned former prostitute.
  • Victor is killed when a raid on a dog-figthing ring has explosive support.
  • Coil's inquiries into Kira get himself blown up and also results in Noelle being cured and the Undersiders being freed.
• French Maid: Aya's Cape costume is a maid outfit, as befitting her "Cleaner" powers.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: Realizing she was rescued by a murderer is enough to cause Aya's Trigger Event.
• Go Mad from the Isolation: Miles Kennedy Triggers and gets Dissociative Identity Disorder after becoming the victim of Bites The Dust.
• "Groundhog Day" Loop: Kira has Bites The Dust. he uses it in his attack on Coil.
• Heart Is an Awesome Power: Kira's eventual girlfriend Aya D. Chapman, Cape name "The Cleaner", is a Striker able to 'clean' various things, including undoing damage to objects, healing injuries, treating physical and mental health conditions, removing memories, removing Killer Queen's bombs, curing Noelle...
• He Knows Too Much: Kira uses Killer Queen as his default response to this trope. Aya and her Cleaning power give him a non-lethal witness removal option.
• Hidden in Plain Sight: Nobody other than Coil, whose poking around gets him blown up, and Aya, who is Kira's partner in crime know about Kira's Serial Killer tendencies.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: A common occurrence with Kira's enemies.
  • The ABB goons who drag Kira into their fight with the Merchants get blown up by Killer Queen.
  • Coil sends men to poke around Kira's apartment. Kira, naturally, reacts to being spied on fairly poorly.
  • Narrowly averted by Lisa, who reins in her Thinker power after meeting with Aya.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Kira briefly turns Danny Hebert into the host of Bites The Dust just to see if his Third Bomb still works.
  • Kira uses a stray cat as a Killer Queen bomb in his fight with the Merchants.
  • If not for Aya, Kira would've used Bites The Dust on Rachel just because she witnessed him blowing people up.
  • Averted with actual dogs due to Rachel's interference.
• Leave No Witnesses: Kira's MO regarding his uses of Killer Queen. Aya's "cleaning" of memories is a non-lethal variant.
  • Kira is so sensitive about his privacy that Aya has to talk him out of using Bites The Dust on Rachel, and covers for him by wiping her memories of the incident instead.
• Literal Split Personality: Miles Kennedy Triggers with a Changer/Stranger power that allows him to shapeshift into whoever he thinks he is, and he also has Dissociative Identity Disorder as a result of being the host of Bites The Dust.
• Logical Weakness: Killer Queen can turn anything into a bomb and then remotely blow it up. A "cleaning" Striker power can remove the bomb.
• Mr. Fanservice: A skinhead outright refers to Kira as "Japanese David Bowie".
• Mugging the Monster: Kira keeps getting accosted, resulting in this trope.
  • A car-jacker who mugs Kira and Annette is the first person on Earth Bet to get blown up by Killer Queen.
  • Three skinheads accost Kira while he's shopping for nail clippers. Killer Queen blows them all up, and Kira gets his first severed hand Girlfriend.
  • Kira's apartment is broken into twice, once by Aya and once by Circus. The former only survives due to her Hard Counter to Killer Queen's first bomb, and the latter broke into the apartment in a Coil timeline that gets collapsed.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Words are emphasized in bold and in brackets, similar to in the JoJo manga.
  • Kira's routine is narrated in a similar manner to his monologue to Shigechi in canon.
  • Kira uses a stray cat as a weapon in one fight.
  • Rachel becomes one of Taylor's friends.
  • Kira isn't above blowing up teenagers to hide his lethal tendencies, though Aya intervenes before he can follow through with it.
  • Miles Kennedy's condition is very similar to Diavolo's.
  • Lisa having a similar power to Heaven's Door means she gets a similar warning as Rohan did; unlike Rohan, she doesn't inquire further.
• No Body Left Behind: Coil is so completely obliterated by Bites The Dust and Aya's cleaning power that not even Emma's Thinker Power can find him.
• No-Sell:
  • Aya's Striker and Stranger power No-Sells Killer Queen, so Kira resorts to Sheer Heart Attack.
  • Bites The Dust no-sells Coil's ability to branch and collapse timelines.
  • Aya's "cleaning" of Coil's presence is so thorough that when Emma tries to find Thomas Calvert with her Thinker power, she can't find anything.
• Nothing Is Scarier: Coil becomes unnerved when his research into Kira results in random explosions and timelines spontaneously collapsing with no explanation.
• Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: While a powerful Stand in its own right, Killer Queen was no match for Star Platinum: The World in a direct confrontation (nor could it protect against getting tag-teamed by Crazy Diamond, The Hand, Echoes, and Heaven's Door). As the only Stand on Earth Bet, though, it was more than enough to elevate Kira to a Person of Mass Destruction.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Anyone who witnesses Killer Queen blow something up
  • Kira has this reaction to waking up on Earth Bet.
  • A skinhead named Mary has this reaction after watching her partner get blown up by Killer Queen. She becomes Kira's first "girlfriend" shortly afterward.
  • The ABB goons have this reaction to finding they picked up Kira instead of the guy they were looking for.
  • Kira freaks out when his toothbrush is covered in chocolate and outside its holder- he never consumes chocolate and always puts the toothbrush in its holder, leading him to discover there was an intruder.
  • Othalla breaks down after Victor goes missing.
  • Coil has several of these as Kira and Aya blast their way through his base, culminating in Bites The Dust obstructing his powers.
  • Commander Miles Kennedy, one of Coil's lieutenants, has a mental breakdown when he becomes the host of Bites The Dust, resulting in him Triggering as a Stranger and developing Dissociative Identity Disorder.
  • Lisa has one when her powers discern Aya is keeping a secret. Unlike Rohan in canon, she knows better than to read further.
  • Sophia Hess has one when she noticed Emma has become an "apex predator".
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • It's noted in canon that prior to Annette's death Taylor was a "happy-go-lucky chatterbox" (as one SB commenter put it); Taylor acting as quiet and subdued as her Winslow-era canon self shows she is creeped out by Kira.
  • Kira's obsessive compulsive tendencies makes it easy for him to notice when an intruder was in his apartment- they brushed their teeth after consuming chocolate (which Kira doesn't eat) and didn't put the toothbrush back in its holder (which he always does).
• Opposing Combat Philosophies: Parahuman violence is normally loud and conspicuous. While Kira's Stand creates a lot of explosions, he prefers to use violence in a stealthy manner and can hide under the radar amongst all the noise.
• Outside-Context Problem: Kira is the only Stand user on Earth Bet. He is a serial killer who does not know of or care about the Unwritten Rules, blows up witnesses to protect his identity, and for anybody other than his girlfriend, Aya D. Chapman, he is extremely dangerous.
• Person of Mass Destruction: Kira's Stand, Killer Queen, is capable of blasting its way through almost every obstacle presented so far.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Kira becomes a friend of the Heberts, the Barneses, and Rachel.
  • Brutus the dog is friendly with Kira.
  • Emma tries to be friends with both Taylor and Sophia. It doesn't work, and she Triggers during the Locker incident.
  • Aya becomes one of Rachel's caretakers.
  • Noelle is cured during the assault on Coil's base.
• Properly Paranoid: Kira does not take nosy neighbors well, and since he doesn't follow the Unwritten Rules he tends to use Killer Queen at the slightest provocation. Coil learns this the hard way.
• Secret Identity: Whereas a Cape would wear a face-concealing mask and rely on the Unwritten Rules, Kira's idea of secrecy is a bit more direct.
• Secret-Keeper: Aya is this for Kira the way his father was in canon.
• Serial Killer: Yoshikage Kira, a man with a body count in the dozens but just wants a quiet life.
• Shout-Out:
  • In keeping with Kira's Music/Queen theming, chapters are named after Queen tracks.
  • The Cleaner, Aya D. Chapman, was named after the man who killed John Lennon, Mark David Chapman.
  • In a fight between Kira and some skinheads, someone says "Fuck you, asshole".
• Spared by the Adaptation: Annette is prevented from crashing by Kira.
• Stalking is Love: Aya D. Chapman has this approach to pursuing Kira. Kira retaliates with Killer Queen and Sheer Heart Attack before Aya confesses her love.
• Stalker with a Crush: From the moment she Triggers, Aya D. Chapman, Kira's eventual partner in crime, is this towards Kira.
• Straight Edge Evil: Kira retains this trait from canon.
• Stuff Blowing Up: Killer Queen's three abilities all revolve around this.
• Supreme Chef: Taylor and Annette are impressed by Kira's cooking.
• Villainous Breakdown: Coil has one in response to Kira's explosive retaliations. Commander Kennedy melts down to the point of Triggering after Bites The Dust is used on him.
• Villain Protagonist: Yoshikage Kira embodies this even more than Taylor did in canon.
• Wham Episode: Interlude 1, where a woman rescued by Kira, later revealed as Aya, has a Trigger Event.
  I get up from my ratty mattress. Why didn't he take me or kill me? Is that a letter?
  "You're free. Leave immediately."
  Did that guy just save me? He even left me some money. Is...
  Is he my savior?
  What's his name? How did he save me? What does he look like? Who is he?
  I have to know. I need to know. I need to know the only person left in the world who was willing to save me.
  I immediately leave the warehouse only to find ash and burn marks on the ground.
  Does this mean he uses bombs? Where are the Merchants? Did he...kill them?
  ...
  Is my savior a killer?
  ...
  [Destination]
  [Agreement]
  [Trajectory]
  [Agreement]
  I can't let anyone know. No one must find out that such a beautiful man killed. I'll be the one to protect his killings. I'll clean up after his mess for him.
  No one will harm my future [Lover].
• Where's the Kaboom?: Kira has this reaction after Aya removes a Killer Queen bomb.
• Would Hurt a Child: Kira nearly makes Rachel Lindt the host of Bites The Dust and has to be talked out of it.
• Would Hit A Woman: How else would Kira get his severed-hand "girlfriends"?
• Wrong Context Magic: Kira's Stand is dramatically different from Parahuman abilities (even Projections like the Siberian) and he uses it in a drastically different manner from the Unwritten Rules.
• Yandere: Aya D. Chapman, oh so very much.