As the fire began to die out, Solaris pushed aside the collapsed wall that had sealed everyone safely within the church's crypt. It had been a rushed evacuation, but everyone had made it, shoving aside knights and racing to the crypt the moment the King had taken Eiji.

"They're gone," she said, her voice hard.

A few parents—those who had not done so already—collapsed in grief. Their children were gone, undoubtedly to be killed by the mad King. And the one man who possibly could have done anything to stop him was also captured, far weaker and sicker than the children had been.

What little was left was still burning, slowly being consumed by flames. Gerhild saw Eiji's shawl, charred, and murmured, "This is all my fault."

"For trusting the King?" Solaris asked. "Probably. But nothing you could have done would have saved anyone this time. He never would have sacrificed everything he'd worked so hard to gain. This was a test—one that would have ended up the same no matter what we did."

"But our children..." a mother insisted.

"For now, probably still safe at the castle," she answered. "It's Hino he wants. The children are most likely bargaining chips, to make sure he'll do what the King says."

"And will he?" a father asked.

"Unfortunately, yes," she replied. "Which means we have to work quickly. As long as Hino is unconscious, everyone is still safe, but he has a disturbing habit of putting himself in extreme danger if he thinks it will help someone else. He'll get himself killed trying to save them, and he'll fail."

"We have to save them," another man said.

"I'll take care of that," Solaris insisted. "One person can get in a lot easier than an angry mob."

"You won't be able to take all the children by yourself," Gerhild argued.

Solaris glared at her, and Gerhild realized that rescuing the children wasn't her goal. Saving Eiji was. Everyone else could burn.

"There are still innocent people in the castle," Gerhild tried. "They can help get us in. We can raid the kitchens, get supplies we need to leave."

"You're making this more complicated than it needs to be," Solaris said.

"It'll buy you time," Gerhild protested.

"And when the King slaughters all of you?" Solaris challenged.

Gerhild wasn't about to back down, not with everything at stake. "It'll draw him away from Eiji. And the children."

Solaris bit back a swear. How was it that everyone Eiji came in contact with ended up just as stupidly stubborn as he was?

She picked up one of the Cell Medals littered around and summoned her energy—a mix of dark cosmic energy and experiments they'd done with the Medals and Gaia Memories. It flared around her hand as she held the Medal, and everyone stepped back in shock.

"What are you doing?" Gerhild gasped.

"Giving you a fighting chance," Solaris said, snapping the Medal in half. A Trash Yummy formed in its wake.

Subtlety was no longer an option; this was all-out war. The villagers immediately gathered all the Medals they could, generating their own army. Nothing in heaven or hell would stop them from bringing back their children, and it was time the King learned there were some things he just could not have.


Kazari had finally reached the forest when the other Greeed caught up with him. A blast of water hit him suddenly, followed by green electricity. Before he had the chance to recover, Gamel barreled in, taking out six trees as he tackled him to the ground.

"Hold him there, Gamel," Mezool ordered, blasting more water at him.

"Okay," he agreed.

"You can't be mad about me retreating," Kazari replied once he had enough air to speak. "It was a strategic move."

"You abandoned us!" Uva shouted, blasting him again, but being sure to aim his attack away from Gamel. "We could have been destroyed because of you!"

"Like Ankh," Gamel added.

Kazari looked at him in surprise, and Mezool said, "He covered our escape, but the King defeated him."

He was dumbfounded. That was...surprisingly and uncharacteristically generous of Ankh, of any Greeed. Even if it had been in his own self-interests, the fact that he'd tried to give everyone a chance to get out first...

But Kazari was smart enough to know how to turn this to his advantage, and he said, "Exactly why I ran."

"What?" Uva asked.

"If you'd please," Kazari asked Gamel, who got off of him in confusion. He stood up and brushed himself off, explaining, "I knew it was only a matter of time before one of us was destroyed. Better that someone remains to revive you."

"To save us?" Gamel asked, completely confused.

"Of course," Kazari insisted. Gamel would be easy enough to win over; Uva and Mezool far less so, but he was a skilled deceiver. "Unfortunately, by now, the King's probably taken Ankh's Cores. It'll be hard to revive him unless..."

Mezool caught on. "Unless we attack the castle directly."

"Exactly," Kazari said.

"Wait," Uva interrupted. "That's been your plan all along."

"You still feel that aura, right?" Kazari asked. They were silent—the awful, half-formed sensation was still there, like a heart beating without a body. "It's coming from the castle now."

Again, no answer. It was just too unsettling, and even though they were curious, there was still the matter of Kazari's actions.

"But what about Ankh?" Gamel asked.

"We'll have to be ready for his combo when the King attacks," Kazari said. "His plan for a Yummy army was good, but it cost us the element of surprise. If the alchemists are doing something that involves that weird sensation, then they're probably too busy to notice us attacking."

"Gives us the advantage," Uva realized.

Mezool was having none of that, and she pointed out, "The King already knows we're going to attack. He'll be ready."

"How ready?" Kazari asked. "He thinks we've been defeated. He won't expect us now."

It almost sounded like a good idea, and as they mulled it over, he added the one thing that would cement it:

"Ankh wanted us to continue the plan, after all."

"Fine," Uva grumbled. He held his claws up to Kazari. "But if you double-cross us again..."

"I would never," Kazari insisted.

"We'll be the judge of that," Mezool retorted.

They didn't dare let him walk behind them as they marched for the castle, but it didn't matter. He had no intention of letting the King do to him what he'd done to Ankh. And there was the matter of all the power that could be found at the alchemists' disposal. Whatever that hideous aura was, it was strong, and Kazari wanted a piece of it.


He was nineteen again.

The dream brought Eiji back to Africa, nineteen, hungry, and weak. There was a little girl in the distance, crying as rockets were fired on her, and no matter how far he reached his arms out, he couldn't save her.

He could hear Date's voice, words from almost two years later: "What can you grasp with those hands? What can you protect?"

His hands were fading into pale gold energy. Ahead of him, the rockets had struck, and the girl was gone, rubble all around.

He collapsed to his knees, screaming and crying, just as he had years ago. But behind him, he heard a voice asking, "Do you really think you can change it?"

He turned. There stood OOO—Kamen Rider OOO, with his voice, not the King's. He watched patiently, calm amid his other's self's grief.

"I don't want this to happen again," Eiji insisted. "I want to do everything in my power to stop it."

"I know," OOO replied. "But do you really think you can change the past?"

Eiji glanced back at the rubble. A broken Core Medal and a red feather sat atop the wreckage.

"No," he admitted, painfully.

"Then stop trying to act like you can." OOO's words were harsh, but his voice was still kind. "You can't change everything, no matter what kind of power you have. That's what made the King lose control."

"He wanted to be a god," Eiji argued.

"Isn't that the same as wanting the power to change everything?" OOO asked. "You're focusing on things you can't do, instead of what you can. That's why you're hesitating against the King."

Eiji shook his head. "I can't save him."

"No one can," OOO said. "I'm not saying you shouldn't try to save everyone you can, but you're getting stuck, focusing on things you know will never happen. You keep trying to change the King and Solaris, and you can't."

"I changed Ankh," he argued.

"Ankh was different," OOO reminded him. "He wanted to be more human. And he changed you."

Eiji looked down at his wrist. Dream physics were funny that way—despite the Medal being on the ruins, it was also on his wrist, tied to him with his bracelet.

"If you really want to prevent this from ever happening again, you can't hesitate," OOO warned. "It's hard to move beyond the past, but you've got to try."

"It'd be easier if my friends were here," he admitted, looking down. He couldn't look back at the rubble again. Instead, he only saw smooth, white rocks—completely at odds with the wreckage all around him. The rocks were just like the ones she'd shown him when he first arrived, the rocks that had been near her school before it was destroyed.

"I can't remember her name," he admitted quietly. "I don't know why. Everything else, I can remember—the way she looked, the way she cried, the way she smiled when I played with her. I can even remember the rocks she used to show me. But I can't remember who she was."

"There's more to who you are than just your name," OOO reasoned.

"I know," he admitted. "But I lost hers. I'm scared the King's going to take mine away too—take everything away. Make me forget who I am."

OOO was quiet for a moment before asking, "Do you remember what a Kamen Rider is?"

Eiji sighed, "A hero of justice."

OOO shook his head. "That's not enough. A Kamen Rider is someone born from pain—someone who had something awful happen to him who decided he was never going to let it happen to someone else. That's why Kougami called us that. That's who you are."

"I'm doing that," Eiji insisted.

"Almost," OOO said. "It's fine to try to save everyone. But you have to be able to save yourself."

"But I..." he protested.

"You're never alone," OOO insisted. "Every friend you've made, everyone who's tried to help you—they've left part of themselves in you. It might not be enough for some of the scars, but it'll help you through the pain. They're never gone."

Eiji looked behind him, hoping to see some sign of Ankh and the girl, or Hina, Shingo, Chiyoko, Date, Goto, Kougami, Satonaka, or any of the Riders. There was nobody.

"Even when they're not there, it doesn't mean you're on your own," OOO said. "That's always going to be inside you."

He was twenty now, wearing the OOO Driver for the first time. King OOO, armed with the Medajalibur and his shield, stood ahead of him, ready to attack. Once upon a time, it had been a praying mantis Yummy, and Ankh had given Eiji the Driver and Medals. Now, instead of Ankh, it was his own OOO who stood beside him—the Hino Eiji that had been created from that bond.

"The only way to survive is to defeat him," Eiji said, echoing Ankh's words.

"Three Medals," OOO agreed. "But they're inside you now. Don't let him get them."

Eiji looked at OOO in confusion. "But how am I supposed to do that?"

The thing about dreams is that while they can sometimes help bring your thoughts and worries into sharper focus, they don't do such a great job of offering a full solution. Only an awake mind could manage that, and so that usually meant it was time to wake up, and once again, to the children's worried questions.

"Is he dead?" one of the boys asked, scared.

"No," another boy answered. "He's crying. If you're dead, you can't cry."

Again. Eiji tried to wipe his eyes, but his arms felt heavy and sore.

"He's waking up!" a girl cried.

He squeezed his eyes tighter and focused on sitting up. He couldn't manage it alone, so some of the children helped him up.

"Thanks," he breathed, his voice scratchier than before from the way the elixir had burned his throat. He felt nauseous for a moment, but nothing would come up. The alchemist had been right—it sat in his stomach better than before.

"Are you okay?" one of the smaller girls asked.

He was able to wipe his eyes this time, and a dreamlike thought hit him—no more crying. The King didn't deserve his tears.

"I'll be okay," he promised, knowing it was a lie. "How's everyone else?"

"We're okay," the oldest boy insisted.

Eiji looked at the boy and smiled at him. He wondered what would happen to him—to all of them. Only one of them would prove to be Kougami's ancestor, and that would be one of the silver-eyed children anyway.

No matter what, he was going to make sure that all of these children had a future.

He tried to review their options. There were probably at least two guards right outside the door—most likely the homunculus knights. Assuming he could summon the power to blast the door off, he wouldn't make it past them. Even if he somehow managed to conserve his strength and take out the knights as well, they were likely in a tower, and it would be a long climb down; he'd never make it. There were way too many small children to make the trip, especially without him to help carry them. Right now, newborn kittens were strong enough to take him out.

But the King had said that the power of humanity—its ability to create and speak—was within him now. And even if he had to wait, maybe he could do something. He took out his notebook and started writing everything that happened to him—starting in Japanese, and slowly straying into other languages.

He started writing a letter to his friends before he realized what he was doing, much less that it was in what he suspected to be Nahuatl. He crumpled it up and barely tossed it over, and the youngest children started tossing the paper ball around as a toy.

That gave him a better idea, and he started to draw.


It was coronation day, and the King would be crowned anew.

The alchemists were doing well. A throne of Cell Medals was set in the middle of the dovecote lab, and beside it was a roll of undyed silk, atop which were the three crown jewels that would be necessary for the coronation: copper-colored greaves, silvery gauntlets, and a golden crown—meant to sit low on the forehead and sweep up and to the sides, much like the eyes on OOO's mask. But for all they appeared to be made of increasingly more precious metal, from common copper to royal gold, all three were forged of gold—colored alloys from alchemical processes. All perfect for Eiji's ascension to the power for the King's godhood.

He would need to be prepared again, just as at the banquet. The King almost regretted having to coerce him the way he had in the cell, but time was running short, and he needed Eiji's cooperation. He would be treated as the king he truly was soon enough.

A single Medal fell from the throne. It had been so perfectly balanced that the King noticed the fall immediately, and he drew his sword.

"We are being invaded," he said. "Willeson!"

The alchemist came over with another ruby glass goblet. "The elixir is ready, Your Majesty. One final dose should be enough to begin the process."

"Not now," the King replied. "It can wait until we've weeded out their ranks a little."

Willeson had a horrible sense of dread at that statement and repeated, "We?"

"Consider this a test," the King advised. "Join me in battle, and I'll forgive your transgressions, questioning my authority."

It was asking him to commit suicide, and he knew it. Still, he stood a better chance agreeing than refusing, and so he bowed, replying, "Yes, Your Majesty."

"Good," the King said. "Then, to battle."

Indeed, the Trash Yummies had arrived, acting as the front lines. Willeson threw bombs at them, and the King cut down many more, but Solaris continued generating them, constantly replenishing their supply.

"Move in!" she ordered, shifting forms as she charged in.

"This way, follow me!" Gerhild insisted, leading the villagers past the chaos toward the entrance.

A barrage of knights tried to block the entrance, but the Trash Yummies engaged them in battle, preventing them from holding the villagers back. They pushed up the portcullis and broke their way through, finding servants standing around, frightened and confused, but ready to fight.

"Listen, there isn't much time," Gerhild said, taking a maid's hands. "The traveler, Eiji—he and the children were captured and brought here. Where would they be?"

"The tower, most likely," she said. "I brought one of the alchemists some food..."

"Thank you," she replied. Looking to half of the villagers, she said, "Get to the kitchens and get food we'll need for a journey. We're all getting out of here."

"What's going on?" a footman asked.

"The King's gone mad," one of the fathers explained. "He's taken our children—he'll kill them."

"We need to rescue them now," Gerhild insisted.

The servants—already highly disturbed by the events going on that week—wasted no time in splitting up with the villagers and leading them through.

Up the stairs to the tower where Eiji and the children were being held, and the knights readied to attack. Nothing would keep the parents from their children, however, and they plowed into the knights, bashing them against the walls before throwing them down the stairs.

Eiji heard the crashes inside the cell and put his notebook away.

"What was that?" a girl asked, and other children started to cry.

He forced himself to stand, despite how lightheaded he was, and insisted, "Everyone, stay behind me."

The door opened. He was ready to let out another blast of the golden power when he saw multiple figures in the light and heard the children behind him cry, "Mama! Papa!"

He breathed a sigh of relief, almost collapsing as the parents ran for their children, hugging and kissing them. Gerhild walked over to him and helped him stand.

"This way," she insisted in her limited Japanese.

"No," he argued, trying to push away. At this point, he no longer knew what language he was speaking. "Gara's tower—the Medals..."

The parents looked at him, wary, holding their children tighter. Carefully, Gerhild said in German, "Eiji, I understand what you're saying."

He nodded. "The King...did something to me. His elixir. I'm speaking more languages than I knew existed."

"I'm getting you to Solaris," she insisted.

"There's no time," he argued. "I can't let the King have those Medals—I've got to get them to Japan."

Gerhild turned to the parents and instructed, "Join the others in the kitchen, then escape toward the forest."

"Head east, as far as you can go," Eiji added, remembering that eventually, one of those children would be one of Kougami's ancestors.

Finally, one of the fathers nodded. "Good luck."

At this, the children who could broke away from their parents and hugged him. Eiji winced—the proto-Medals flared inside him from the contact—but he patted each head before they left.

"Which way do we go?" Gerhild asked.

"This way," he insisted.

They headed down to the great hall, then through the mirrored walkway in the fireplace that led to Gara's tower. It wasn't in nearly as good condition as when he'd been there last—the pit was there now, and it looked like a small battle had happened there.

Eiji was breathing heavily from exertion, so Gerhild sat him down and said, "I'll look for them."

He nodded, and started flipping through papers Gara had left behind. The more he looked, the more things started to make sense—and that scared him, so he grabbed a couple of pages the Kougami Foundation didn't seem to have and folded them and stuffed them in his pockets. Hopefully, stealing from history would pay off down the line.

"I think I found it!" she cried, pulling out a silver box. She opened it and saw the orange Medals. "This is it!"

"Good," he answered. He tore the last page out of his notebook and wrote carefully, "To Matsudaira Motoyasu," and the year he would eventually become shogun, then drew the crest of the Tokugawa clan. She brought over the box, and he placed the note inside.

"Okay," he said, "we need to..."

He stopped suddenly, realizing something was even more wrong than he'd thought. The cobra tank on the side of the lab was empty. Fear far worse than his phobia ran through his veins, and he insisted, "We need to get out of here."


The knights were wearing thin; they were stronger than the Trash Yummies, yes, but they were quickly mobbed by the greater numbers, and Solaris could easily create more with the Medals from each destroyed knight.

The hard part was the King. Solaris knew she didn't stand a chance against him, and tried to overwhelm him with more and more Trash Yummies, but he was cutting through them with ease. She had to get the sword away from him somehow, and figure out where he had the Super Medals.

Willeson splashed acid on her arm, but her Mutamit form was more durable than he'd expected, and she shook off the pain, grabbing him by the throat.

"You people already are my least favorite around here," she growled. "Undo what you've done to Hino, and maybe I can forget that for a little bit."

Suffocating, Willeson rummaged through his pouches, trying to find something to help him fight. She didn't give him a chance and butted him with the hilt of her sword.

"I'm running out of patience," she said. "I'll figure it out eventually, but this is going to be a lot easier on the both of us."

But her threat left her open for a few precious minutes. The King came up behind her and stabbed her with his claws. It wasn't lethal—for her, anyway—but it meant she collapsed to the ground in pain, reverting to human form.

"Thank you, Your Majesty," Willeson gasped, clutching at his throat.

The King stared at him impassively, then handed him a leather pouch. Willeson stared at it in horror before saying, "You can't mean..."

"Finish it," the King insisted. "I have more important matters to attend to."

Willeson took the pouch, hanging his head. The King walked off, ignoring the rest of the battle, intent on getting to the castle. As Solaris looked up, reaching for some kind of weapon, Willeson opened the pouch, revealing the missing cobra and a vial of some kind of orange potion. He poured it into the cobra's mouth, then let it bite him.

The transformation was awful. Willeson screamed at his skin bubbled, becoming scaly as it fused with the snake. His teeth narrowed into fangs; his tongue narrowed, lengthened, and forked. His head flattened, and his body elongated, tearing out of his clothing and becoming completely snakelike—except for the all too human-like hands, which were still bubbling as they reached for Solaris, who did everything she could to dodge.

The villagers were escaping from their raid on the kitchen, supplies in hand and children on their backs. At the same time, Eiji and Gerhild made their way out, only to run into the King.

The King looked at Eiji for a moment, and Eiji suddenly started screaming again, the proto-Cores in his body reacting to a strong Greeed presence nearby.

"Ankh!" the King shouted. "The villagers!"

Ankh appeared in the sky and blasted fire around them, cutting them off on all sides. Gerhild struggled to keep her hold on Eiji as he convulsed in pain, gasping for breath and trying his hardest not to cry out again.

"I get what I want either way," the King said. "But I'm generous enough to give you this much. If you give yourself over to me, they will live. I have no use for them."

Eiji was in no state to answer yet, so the King waved Ankh off. With the Greeed's departure, he started breathing more heavily, starving for air.

"Your energy is almost depleted," the King warned. "You stand no chance in a fight. Everyone will be saved if you do this one thing."

Eiji watched the Cobra Inhumanoid grab Solaris with its tail, squeezing her tightly. He listened to the screams and cries of children who'd just moments ago thought themselves saved.

"Head east," he reminded Gerhild as he pushed himself away from her. The King did not notice the box she kept hidden in her surcoat.

He took a few steps forward, and the King waved the sword at the villagers. For a moment, Eiji stopped in his tracks, but the sword only extinguished the flames—like blowing out the candles on a birthday cake. Gerhild ran her way over, and Eiji gave them a few minutes to begin running away.

"Now, come to me, OOO," the King urged.

"Stop calling me that," Eiji insisted. "I'm more than just OOO. I'm Hino Eiji, Kamen Rider OOO."

The King looked at him in amusement. "And what, pray tell, is a Kamen Rider?"

"It's a promise," he said. "That I'm going to save as many people as I can."

"A noble aspiration," the King noted. "Are you going to try to save me too?"

He closed his eyes briefly and shook his head. "I wanted to. I really did. Even knowing what you do and what happens to you—if I could stop it from happening, I would."

Eiji watched Solaris struggle within the Inhumanoid's grip, watched Gerhild and the others run for safety, watched the King reach out for him. He stepped forward.

"But I can't save anyone who doesn't want to be saved," he admitted. "I can only reach as far as my hand will go."

And right now, he could still reach the people here.

The explosion of golden energy was large enough to take out one of the walls of the palace, causing parts of it to crumble. The Greeed saw the light and halted their advance.

"Was that the King?" Uva asked, shocked.

"Let's hope not," Mezool insisted, and they continued their approach.

The King caught Eiji before he could fall. His breathing was shallow, and he'd fallen completely unconscious.

"It was a brave attempt, but my Medals are too strong for that to harm me," the King complimented.

He picked him up and carried him, like a father would carry his child, to the dovecote and his awaiting coronation.


Title from a line in Eyeshine's song "Deciding So Blindly."