The lights of Seito University Hospital's familiar sign looked like the gates of heaven as Kamen Rider Utsura came in for a landing outside the emergency room entrance. The two med techs who came rushing out didn't seem surprised at all to see their patient draped over the back of a giant catfish who turned his head and gave them a measuring look, whiskers drooping onto the asphalt.
"What happened to this one?" asked one while the other bent down to examine the unconscious teen Utsura had been escorting to the hospital.
"Got hurt by some trap or something inside that video game castle downtown," Utsura answered.
The man nodded. "I heard about that. Anyone else get hurt in there?"
"No," Utsura replied with a shake of his head, and sighed. "He was the only one."
"Did you get this kid's name, mister?"
Utsura nodded. "Yeah. His name's Yoshoku Kasuga."
Suddenly a pink ball of light with shimmering fairy wings flew in between them, leaving a trail of shining dust that made the med tech cough. "Hey! Listen!" a girl's voice commanded from it.
"I see you, Kii-chan," Utsura said, patiently but obviously very tired. The ball of light made two sounds at the same time, a confused grunt and a soft feminine chuckle. "What's going on?" Utsura asked.
"It's the monster with the all plugs!"
"The Amal Corrupture?"
The light swirled urgently around Utsura's head. "Whatever! We just saw him about to steal another game!"
"Please take care of things here," Utsura said to the med worker, who nodded. Then Utsura's giant catfish rose into the sky, following after the ball of light.
A country road edged in by pixelated cherry trees had formed over a four-way intersection, and Utsura could see from the air that traffic backed up for three blocks in any direction. The closest cars had skidded off at angles to avoid driving into the Game Area.
He started circling down, lowering his fishing pole off his shoulder to be ready to fight. A dark shape appeared floating next to him against the darkening sky, but Utsura knew he didn't have to worry about an attack from its owner.
"Let me handle this," Rune admonished his fellow Kamen Rider.
"I'll be fine," Utsura replied while the ground got bigger and bigger underneath them.
"You had trouble standing up not too long ago," Rune said just loudly enough to be heard. "If your body's that strained—"
"I'll be fine," Utsura repeated. "I used one of those items from the treasure room back there to heal myself. I got the rest right here," he said, holding up a dented bait box. The catfish he was standing on landed in the middle of the transformed streets. Just off to the side of the road ahead was a four-pillared gazebo that had a Rider Gashat with a black case hovering inside it. At that distance he could just barely read the name: Giri Giri Chambara.
Reaching out for it was the familiar black and grey-armored form of the Amal Corrupture, his smooth black dome of a face turning to look the Rider up and down before he grabbed for his prize again.
"Hold it right there!" a voice called out to stop him. Utsura sighed as he recognized Rune floating down on his platform, his spiked frills of hair still swaying from coming down so quickly between the two of them. Was he that determined to keep Utsura out of this fight if he could? "Arise, War Room!" he commanded and laid down the new card showing the spider-like robot. A large wooden box appeared on the ground and a thin metal leg unfolded out of each corner.
But Rune wasn't done and laid down another card from his hand. "Arise, Sage Drake! Wielder of the Daggers of the Word!" A wireframe shape of an animal with stubby legs, a long tail and neck formed. Waves of light passed over it and filled it into the shape of a blue-scaled dragon wearing a pair of eyeglasses balanced on the tip of its snout.
Seeing Rune's forces appearing the Amal Corrupture stuck a white Gashat into his shoulder. He let out harsh a metallic growling sound, sending arcs of poisonous-looking purple energy shooting out from his body into the ground. Immediately withered green hands pushed out of the dirt and a group of four Corrupture Cells dressed in battered, grime-smeared samurai armor climbed out, tarnished kabuto helmets perched unsteadily on their large purple virus-heads.
"Attack!" Rune commanded his monsters.
Sage Drake fixed his bronze-colored eyes on the Cells next and the lenses of his glasses flickered with light. Yellow runes of numerous shapes streamed out from the dragon's eyes slammed into them like a wall and knocked the Cells somersaulting backwards with painful-sounding creaks and cracks from their undead bodies.
The War Room opened the doors on the front of the box at its center. It sprayed porcelain geisha dolls into the air like missiles, and like missiles they exploded in billowing fireballs against the Corrupture Cells. Helmets and patches of their crusty armor went flying. Another group of geisha dolls came out, exploding against the minions just like before. With loud pops the Cells were reduced to clouds of purple smoke.
"All right!" Rune yelled and pumped his arm back in victory.
"Not bad," Utsura said. Rune looked back and chortled.
Then the purple clouds solidified into green-skinned zombies again. Amal looked over their shoulders at the Riders and made an echoing metal sound that sounded almost like laughter. Amal held the Giri Giri Chambara catrdige up high in one clawed hand as if to taunt the Riders, then plugged it into his leg, making a pair of yellow scythes with serrated pink edges appear in his hands
Amal swung his weapons from out at his sides to right in front of him in a scything motion. The Riders stared in disbelief as the monster hacked through his own followers, reducing them to puffs of smoke. The smoke spread and solidified again, and this time there were twice as many zombie samurai with shiny purple egg-heads facing them down.
Then the Cells came closing in on the two Riders, waving rusty wakizashi or just their bare hands.
Immediately the War Room jumped to its right and Sage Drake scuttled to his left to cover a wider field of fire as they launched a bombardment. Dolls flew and hugged the arms of the Cells before exploding while runic letters of all shapes shot out of the dragon's eyes, stabbing and battering the attackers.
A blue and yellow blur streaked through the air next to Rune's platform as he considered his next move, making him gasp as he realized it was Utsura holding his fishing pole in both hands and going right over the Cells' heads. "Idiot, are you trying to break yourself or something?!" Rune called, but the other Rider ignored him. Rune had enough to worry about on his own as the Cells exploded under his monsters' attacks, but again they reformed and divided into even more of their kind.
Utsura landed beyond the gang of Cells, the Amal Corrupture standing there as if waiting for him. "Give the games back now, let's try to do this without a fight for once," Utsura offered, but doubting it would do any good. Suddenly Amal lunged, swiping his scythes down at Utsura's shoulders. The Rider had been expecting it and lifted his fishing pole in both hands to block both blades like a staff.
The tip of Utsura's shoe connected with an armor-free patch of Amal's midriff. A small grunt of surprise was the only response from his attack, but before Amal could counterattack Utsura's oversized fish hook caught under his arm and yanked him off the ground. He flew over Utsura's head as the line from his fishing pole stretched out then crashed down again hard. Hard enough to scatter Rider Gashats all over the ground.
Utsura went diving for the closest one, Mighty Brothers XX. His fingers were an inch away from the grip when suddenly he stopped moving. Two Cells had grabbed him by the shoulders and were dragging him away, before two more of them grabbed his legs
Amal rolled over onto his front, got his feet underneath him and ran around gathering up his dropped games. Desperate not to let a chance like that slip away Utsura forced his hands together and slapped the buttons on the handle of his fishing pole.
In a flash of light the hook had changed into a weighted bobber Utsura swung in a circle around himself. The bobber slammed into the heads of the two Cells clutching his arms, knocking them on their backs. Letting out a yell Utsura jumped and went into a roll forward throwing off the Cells grabbing his legs.
Free of the pests he turned back to find Amal, but the Corrupture was running away down to the edge of the Game Area. Glancing over his shoulder, Amal held up a bright yellow Gashat and triggered it, making a bright yellow motorcycle appear in front of him that he climbed onto and zoomed away.
Utsura considered going after him for a second but looked his shoulder to see if Rune was in trouble first. The other Rider's monsters were firing at the undead Cells, who popped into clouds like they had before that sank into crack in the ground it could reach.
When Utsura looked back to where he'd seen Amal, the monster was nowhere in sight.
"You see him?" Rune asked.
"No, I don't see him," Ustura grunted in frustration as they passed each other after making another circle from the air. "What about you?"
"Nothing," Kiiko's voiced sighed from the ball of light. "It's like he just disappeared."
"Are we sure he can't?" Rune proposed. "Never really seen a monster like him before."
The ball of light made a thoughtful sound. "I kind of have," Asuna said a little distantly.
"Guess we should clean up that mess down there," Utsura said, loading a Doctor Mighty Gashat into his fishing pole.
In its usual enthusiastic voice the Gashacon Catcher announced, "Doctor Mighty Critical Finish!" Utsura whirled the line out in a wide circle, scattering a storm of rainbow-colored particles from the trail of his hook all over the country roads and cherry trees lining the street. After a minute the power was spent and Utsura reeled his hook back in.
"Hidenaga, look!" Rune called, pointing down. Utsura looked.
The cherry tree-lined country roads were still there.
"Maybe we're too high up," Rune suggested.
"Yeah, maybe," Utsura sighed softly, getting more annoyed at how long the day was turning out. "Let's try it from lower down."
The fourth blackened, spent Doctor Mighty Gashat bounced as it hit the street. Utsura was standing right in the middle of where the Game Area spread out from. Over his head the branches of cherry trees swayed in a breeze that ended at the edge of the Game Area, shedding a few loose petals onto the Kamen Rider's shoulders and hat. The line on his Catcher was sizzling faintly from all the power it had released, all for nothing.
"That was the last one I had," Utsura sighed. "What the hell's going on here?"
"I don't know," Rune shrugged, sounding a little helpless. "When has a Game Area ever stuck around after the fight?"
"Yeah well, when did Cells ever come back to life and split into new ones from getting hit?" Utsura muttered. "I had a chance to get back a bunch of the games he stole, but those things jumped me and he got away again."
Rune floated down and pulled his game free from the device on his arm where it was connected. In a soft flash of light his armor was gone. Another flash followed and Utsura was gone too, reverting once again to Kensei Hidenaga.
Doku looked up at the the winged ball of light fluttering around their heads. "What about her, though? Them? Which is it?"
The light circled around the two of them, then there was a sound like glass cracking before Kiiko and Asuna formed next to them. Both staggered around for a few steps. Kensei reached out to catch Kiiko while Asuna steadied herself on her own. It was a minute of Kiiko sucking in short breaths before she stepped back and managed to stay up on her own, as if whatever had happened to them had been harder on her than on Asuna.
"Are you okay?" Kensei asked to Kiiko's back. "What was that?"
"It was so intense," Asuna breathed. "It was like we were just one person, but it was like we were the Game Area at the same time while we were in there."
"He asked me," Kiiko interrupted with a sigh and turned back around, but Asuna only snickered.
"Well, sure. Are you okay?" Kensei repeated, smiling a little at Asuna's reaction.
Kiiko shrugged and said, "I'm fine. I'm tough, remember?" Asuna snickered a little louder and hid her mouth behind her hand.
Kensei walked over to Kiiko and patted her strongly between the shoulders, smiling across at her. "You sure are," he said, and Kiiko stepped ahead abruptly, probably so he wouldn't see the pink glow to her cheeks that was suddenly there. That only made Asuna snicker one more time, but Kiiko seemed too distracted to notice the woman's reaction.
"Look, maybe we should go check on Kasuga?" Doku sighed. "God, this night just gets more and more confusing…"
"It's probably not going to get any easier," Kensei gently pointed out from his own exhaustion at what had happened.
"Don't remind me, okay?" Doku grumbled.
The monitors in the wall went blank one by one. The blinds to the window that made up the entire rear wall slid closed. Ayatsu Shuugouteki didn't want any distractions for the conversation he was about to have.
Even though he already knew better, with the person he was expecting in his office any minute.
There was a heavy knock at the door and Ayatsu linked his fingers in front of his face before he answered: "Come in."
The door opened and through it came a huge man with a thin little beard and a buzzcut on his smooth round head, wearing opaque sunglasses and a featureless black suit. "There's no-one in here but me, Kedamono," Ayatsu said. "Just show him in."
A quick nod was the huge man's only response. He stepped aside, and let Suihei Shuugouteki step through the door, a frustrated scowl on his young face. Suihei sat down and shoved his arms together over his chest.
"Didn't go so well, did it?" Ayatsu said slowly.
"Hey, if you're going to assign blame, what about Maximum Inc. and that crappy android they built?" Suihei immediately responded, probably having been going over what he'd say the entire trip to their headquarters.
"I'm sure you're not telling me it was a bad idea to show them a fearsome enemy," Ayatsu replied darkly. "That Graphite character was one of the worst ones the other Kamen Riders ever fought."
Suihei visibly winced away from his father's reprimand but forced the scowl back onto his face. "What good's a fearsome enemy if it falls apart easier than the original? Those cheap American androids…"
He almost fell out of his chair and Kedamono's head whipped forward to see what was going on, before both of them realized Ayatsu was laughing, not yelling. "Cheap American androids! Good lord, what a thing to say!...You always were the spirited one, Suihei-san."
"I…ah, thank you, sir," Suihei replied, still a little shaken from his father's unexpected outburst, even if it had been a laugh.
Ayatsu rested his chin in his hand and tapped his fountain pen against the top of his desk. "Still, there's no way we can use that display back in the castle as proof of our company's superiority to GENM's Riders. It seems like you're more valuable as a fighter than the one controlling the Game Area after all."
Suihei's smile went rigid.
"So next time we record a battle, you'll be helping our forces directly instead," Ayatsu went on.
"Sir, is this really necessary—"
"Yes," Ayatsu cut his son off sharply. "If we're going to succeed in our plan, we have to get the people to trust us. We have to make sure they think of Machina Vision as the only ones who can deal with this Corrupture problem. You know that, you've heard it a thousand times. Suihei, I've given you one of the most critical parts to play, show some pride in that."
His son's fidgeting in his seated lasted for a few seconds before Suihei managed to form a reply. "Of course, sir. For our greatest goal."
Ayatsu nodded grimly. "Always. For our greatest goal."
It was almost like they hoped the force of their combined stares would get Yoshoku to move as he lay in a hospital bed, but the youth was completely motionless despite his allies looking over him.
"How bad is it?" Kensei was the first one to ask.
Slowly Asuna stepped away from the rest of the group. "I'll see if I can ask someone and find out," she stated, looking over the other three before she turned and walked out of the room.
Once she was gone Kensei turned around and faced Doku. "Maybe you can explain something to me," Kensei said, a harsh edge to his voice that Doku thought seemed out of place coming from him.
"…what's that?" Doku asked, bracing himself for what might be coming next.
There was a glint of anger in Kensei's eyes, but it quickly faded. "Look, when we were in the castle and I started giving out from the poison in my arm, Yoshoku had a bunch of healing items already that he used on me. I was sure he'd been saving those. Do you know why he would've done that?"
Doku sank into a chair and sighed before he answered. "Because we knew how bad you were getting. Between the poison spreading and your body wearing out from using the glove too much to power you up."
"We?"
"Yeah…him and me," Doku nodded. "So we started stocking up on those healing items. We were hoping if we got enough, it might be able to heal you instead."
Kiiko slapped Doku across the shoulder. "Why didn't you say so before?" she demanded before Kensei could ask himself.
"Because we didn't know if it would work, okay?!" Doku snapped back. "You'd been getting so bad lately, we didn't want to get Hidenaga's hopes up before we were sure it would actually do anything."
"So…you didn't tell me because you were afraid of giving me false hope, or something?" Kensei asked, his voice gentle again.
Doku waved his hand back and forth at the question. "I tried to imagine what it'd be like if that happened to me, and I just couldn't deal with the thought of that. I just thought it'd be best if…we couldn't really figure out how to explain it without allowing for how it might not work. I mean, those were healing items, but poison's a status effect—"
He stopped talking abruptly as Kensei looked out the window, the others looking at him quizzically until he shrugged and replied, "I guess I hadn't really thought about it," Kensei said.
"…you hadn't thought about it?" Kiiko asked, her jaw dropping.
That made Kensei chuckle as he shrugged. "It hurts like hell sometimes, but I figured soon we'll get the old Riders to help, and they'll help us figure out what to do. Didn't really think about how I might lose my arm or something that bad."
Doku slumped back even harder in the chair. "I don't believe it. Somebody like you can't really exist, Hidenaga," he breathed.
Next to him Kiiko shook her head, but she was smiling. "That's the game's hero for you," she said with the tone of it being confirmation of what she already knew.
Kensei shrugged again, but smiled. "Look, we know it works at least kind of, right? Shouldn't we be focusing on something else, like what we're going to do about Machina Vision? Or how now it seems like we can't kill Corrupture Cells anymore?" He saw Asuna lean her head back inside the door and she was staring hard at him. "Uh, sorry, I say something?"
"You said something about monsters you can't kill?"
Doku nodded. "Yeah, that monster who use Gashats when he plugs them into themselves. He got this one that lets him create zombies, and they just come back to life after they die now."
Asuna nodded slowly, fearfully. "Did you notice what the name of that game was?"
"Yeah," Doku said. "It was Dangerous Zombie."
She nodded again. "I remember that. It made Kuroto so he always came back to life…but then Emu-kun got a Gashat that let him rewrite Bugster code and took that power away."
"We don't have any games that do that," Kiiko pointed out.
"It would only work for Emu anyway," Asuna replied but still looked away thoughtfully. "That just means we need to get something else that can fight zombies." She looked up at the three, meeting their uncertain expressions.
"And I know where to find it," she said.
That had been all Asuna had said about her plan, just that she had an idea and needed to go talk to someone to make sure she was right.
Then the three of them left the hospital, not talking about much before they broke apart on their own ways home. To Kensei's relief the house was dark and there was a note on the kitchen table waiting for him when he got there, saying his mother would be out late with some of her old university friends. After a day that exhausting, telling her every detail about his newest adventure wasn't something he was ready to face.
Although that made him wonder with, as dangerous as things were getting, he should be telling anyone besides outside the people who actually helped fight.
Thoughts like that didn't make for easy sleep, but to Kensei's relief the pain from his arm stayed down for most of the night. It was lunch before he had to use the Mighty Hand to inject himself with a boost of power to force down the pain from his poisoned wound.
To his surprise, as Kensei was sucking in slow breaths to beat down the last of the pain, he heard another plate slide onto the table where he'd been sitting alone. It was Doku, who ripped the wrapper off a serving of melon bread.
"Do you think we should tell Kasuga's parents?" he asked, a worried undertone to the question Kensei didn't remember ever hearing from him before.
"The hospital must've called them already when he showed up there in a coma," Kensei coughed.
"Not about that, genius," Doku said, but he laughed a little. "I mean, do you think we should tell them about him being a Rider. So they know how he ended up in the hospital."
"I don't know," Kensei replied. "I mean, that's not really our secret to tell."
"Yeah, you're right…" Doku trailed off. He wolfed down his bread, then a thoughtful look covered his face. "Hey, where's Mishiranu? Isn't she always with you?"
Kensei shook his head and shrugged. "She said she had something to do. I think she went to talk about helping Asuna-san with whatever she's doing. I hope she has a great idea. I mean, GENM's in deep shit, right?"
Doku nodded. "What can we do, though? Corsair tried to trick us with a fake game and a fake old monster. They've got to be up to something, and we should find out what."
"Why, though? Shouldn't we be focusing on saving people from the Corrupture? Think about last night: that Game Area from yesterday's still there, I checked. They've even been directing traffic around it. Obviously the Corrupture are getting stronger."
Doku stroked his chin. "But what can we really do without stronger games or knowing where to find them? Asuna-san has a plan, let's wait and see what that is."
He started in surprise as he realized Kensei was chuckling. "What's so funny?"
"Us," Kensei answered with a grin.
"Us?" Doku asked. "What about us?"
"Just listen to us," Kensei chuckled again. "When we started doing all this, we were trying to beat each other to get recognized. Now we're doing it to stop Machina Vision from getting recognition."
Doku glared at him. "They're up to something!"
"And here we are, sitting around a table talking about how we're going to do something about them like friends or something," Kensei smiled lightly.
Hearing that, Doku sat down hard in his chair, and he laughed quietly. "It feels kind of weird to hear that out loud," he said, looking down at his hands, then looking up to meet Kensei's eyes. "It kind of is like a game, you know," he mused. "The underdog heroes with a million-to-one shot at stopping the big strong villains with the doomsday weapon or the legendary power, or whatever." He paused. "They even took out one of our guys…"
Kensei gripped Doku's shoulder. Hard. "No, they didn't. Yoshoku got hurt, but he isn't gone. Not for good. And we owe it to him…we owe it to ourselves to keep going to find out what's really going on here."
And it Doku's turn to chuckle lightly. "Not getting your arm fixed? Not because we all have someone who made sure we got something so that we'd be able to fight?"
"I'm trying to think in terms of the big picture," Kensei replied. "I figure that's what a real superhero should do."
"Who said we're not real superheroes?" Doku asked.
Both laughed. Then their phones rang at the same time. "Hello?" both answered together.
"Meet us at GENM headquarters," Asuna told Doku.
"You have a new power-up!" Kiiko exclaimed, almost knocking Kensei down with how loud she squealed.
The feeling of his armor forming around his body was strange, after the power of being connected to every part of the Game Area like he'd been last time.
Yet, when Suihei—or rather, Kamen Rider Corsair—clenched a fist around the familiar hilt of his cutlass, he knew beyond a doubt it was the type of power he preferred. Inch-long spikes sprouted from the front of the blade, and he grinned behind his mask. The upgrades to his Gashat had worked.
"I am Level 35 now!"
"That is good news! Our little drama needs a dashing hero for the people to adore, doesn't it?" asked another voice over his shoulder.
Corsair scowled inside his mask. "Jealous father gave me that role?" he asked.
Walking across the empty quarry behind him was another man, looking a few years older than Suihei with the same smooth aristocratic features and superior angle to his smile. He wore a dark suit with a blue shirt and white tie, but he was sporting a thin beard and mustache. Around his waist, over his suit jacket, he wore a black belt with a bright green plastic box on the side. A label on the front in tilted pink lettering said "Machina Brainer."
In his hand was a Rider Gashat with two circuit panels side by side. The label showed a rollercoaster car with a grinning demon's face painted on the front going through a loop-the-loop. Above it was a logo that said "Scream Park."
"You've always been a great athlete, little brother. But there's more to running a business than doing poses for ads," the man said.
"Just load that stupid game and let's start the test, Senjou," Corsair growled, and that only made the man grin. He loaded the Scream Park cartridge into the box on his belt and hit its switch.
"Welcome all thrillseekers! Traipse the midway! I WANT TO RIDE THE BIG COASTER MOM!"
Immediately a bubble of light surrounded Senjou's body. The ground around his feet change to a bright pink and started to spread outward from him in a spiral. A two-floor merry-go-round with dragons and butterflies alongside the horses on its poles formed behind him. A snack stand jumped out of the ground over to his right, a cotton candy maker whirring noisily.
More and more attractions of an amusement park popped up all over the quarry. The circular shape of a Ferris wheel formed and started spinning in front of them. Off to their left was the towering structure of a giant drop ride. An elevated spinning ride with cars shaped like rocketships pushed itself skyward.
Almost as a finishing touch the twisting frame of a rollercoaster's tracks rose and dipped as the wireframe solidified into the hills and loops just in front of the car shooting along it at high speed.
Senjou looked down at his watch and smiled. "All that in eleven seconds! Beat the projections by three!"
"You'll be really helpful the next time father needs a theme park designed in less than a minute," Corsair muttered.
His brother ignored the remark, still too pleased at the speed with which he'd created the amusement park around them. "See how high you can jump now. Try it over by the giant drop ride over there," Senjou instructed.
Grumbling to himself, Corsair ran over to the spot his brother had pointed out. As he crossed an open street there was suddenly an explosion in front of him that tossed Cosair on his back.
"Senjou, if this is some stupid joke—" Corsair snarled, but then saw the explosion had nothing to do with his brother.
Standing on top of the grinning face of a clown framing the door to the funhouse, there was a figure in a black bodysuit. Over his torso was a purple chestplate with a neon green crosshairs designs glowing a shiny oblong screen across the armor. Over the front of the armor on his shoulders was a blue number 0. Giant purple-colored eyes peered out of his mask over a shiny purple mouthplate, the rest smooth and featureless except for a metal ring attached to the back. Thin plates of purple armor covered his shins and knees over armor like track shoes on his feet. Another Kamen Rider.
And in his hand was a golden pistol with a long barrel.
Aimed right at Corsair's head.
"It's impossible," Corasir gasped, "you're dead…"
In a mechanically distorted voice he said, "Hand over those games you filthy thieves, or I'll kill you both."
His finger tightened around the trigger.