Disclaimer: Kamen Rider belongs to Shotaro Ishinomori and Toei. Not me.
Two days. Two whole days since the attack in Central Park. Two days since the monster and the red warrior appeared.
In those two days, the gray skies had been covered by snow. Ichijo, standing out in the hall, tried to eye them from behind the window. The gentle snowfall blurred out the other buildings and cars outside. It was a blanket of white, like the hall Ichijo stood in and watched the weather from.
Footsteps echoed off the hall's floor. Ichijo turned to the approaching Chief Brown and asked, "How is Jackson doing?"
"He's stable. For now," Brown said. He had wiped a hand over his face, sunken in and tired.
"Did anyone contact his family? Anyone close to him?"
"He doesn't have one."
Ichigo blinked once to gather his thoughts. He recalled the picture from two nights ago and how Jackson hid it away. "I see," Ichijo said after a moment. "Is he conscious right now?"
"... yeah," Brown yawned behind a hand. "He can keep conscious for a while. When he is, he won't stop talking about what happened."
Though he had been proven right, Ichijo never felt any urge to rub it in. He let the chief pass by and head back for the car waiting below. Ichijo stood in the hall for a few seconds before he went the other direction. He had already asked for the room number, and he knocked on the door after finding it a few feet away.
"Come in!" croaked a voice from inside, and Ichijo did with a restrained smile.
Ichijo almost stopped after entering. Jackson looked worse for wear, from the way he laid in bed to how his bandaged-wrapped legs popped from under the blanket. Even his dark face was covered in white bandages to hide the stitches. All of the white would have made Jackson blend in with the room and the snow outside the window. "Don't worry… it looks worse than it feels," Jackson grinned through the pain.
That assurance convinced Ichijo to enter and say, "And how are you? The chief didn't say how much better you were."
Jackson wiggled in his bed to sit up. "Hrgh… a bit better. At least, I'm still alive… Thanks to you," he groaned, bringing a restrained smile to Ichijo.
"I did what I could. Besides, I wasn't sure how bad it was. You shouldn't thank me."
"Maybe not…" Jackson shrugged. What he said next turned Ichijo's smile into a frown. "I guess I should thank that other guy. You know, him?"
Ichijo stared at Jackson. "What makes you think he was there?"
"Well, bullets didn't stop that thing, and no offense, I don't think you could do much either…" Ichijo would've interrupted if Jackson hadn't added, "That and, ow, I saw him. Barely, but it was him alright… he was just like the rumors say he was."
Rumors. A tinge of nostalgia crept to the forefront of Ichijo's mind as he reminisced those early days when monsters had been rumors too. Part of him wished it had been that. "You are right," Ichijo admitted. "It was him."
"Really?! What was he like? How did he-ow!"
Ichijo put a hand on a wincing Jackson's shoulder. "Easy," Ichijo said. "You need to rest."
"Yeah, I know," Jackson groaned a second later. "But I gotta ask, you know him right? What even is he? And heck, what's his name?"
"He has a few," Ichijo smiled as he stood and turned to face the window. He went on, watching the snow descend gently outside. "Unidentified Lifeform No. 4 was one. We gave him that name back home when we first didn't understand him. It stuck for some time."
Ichijo didn't need to look to know Jackson was staring at him. "You know him, don't you? Personally, I mean…" Jackson asked.
Leaning one shoulder on the wall, Ichijo spared a smile to Jackson. "When I first met him, I didn't know what to think. Overtime, he became a friend," Ichijo admitted again. As he stared at the window again, memories of a warrior of changing colors resurfaced…
White raised his arms defensively from monstrous claws...
"At first, he was just someone who put on an ancient belt and fought…"
Red struck with fiery fists and feet against his enemies…
"... Soon, he wanted to protect everyone. He didn't want to see anyone cry…"
Blue soared in the air, rod in hand to spear through a monster…
"... He fought and he fought. Everytime to protect everyone's happiness…"
Green kept his aim true and fired his crossbow upon his targets…
"... To protect everyone's smiles, he kept on fighting…"
Purple stood tall and proud as he slashed away with his sword…
"... But… it became too much. Too many times, he was close to dying, and he had seen so many suffer. It was too heavy for him…" Ichijo explained solemnly as the words and images of the final battle came to him…
"Now, have a good look… at my henshin…"
Black's spiky armor stood out in the falling snow. He gave a red-eyed glance over his shoulder…
… then, he ran off into battle for one last time…
"... and in the end, he had forgotten his own happiness."
Silence fell over Ichijo after he finished. He stared at the white snow once again, watching the flakes fall gently to the surface. It remained that way for several seconds until Jackson asked, "Do you know what happened to him?"
"He went to see the world again, but that was nine years ago. I haven't heard from him since. You seem to know just as much as I do at the moment," Ichijo said, walking to the stand beside Jackson's bed. On it was the same picture Ichijo had seen in the car during the night of the attack. And in that picture was Jackson and a woman standing side-by-side.
"And what about that monster?" Jackson asked, his voice almost hardened.
Filing the picture in his mind, Ichijo told Jackson. "That's something I should share with your chief. For now, focus on getting better. The sooner you're out, the sooner you can know."
"But I-" More pain stopped Jackson from sitting up. Lying back down, he conceded, "Alright, you win… just don't keep me out of the loop forever."
"I won't," Ichijo nodded, even if he didn't fully understand the saying and left the room. Soon enough, he left the hospital altogether and walked back out into the snow once more.
A low growl flowed on the chilled wind and across the sidewalk full of people. Though disguised in his human form, the monster stuck out like a sore thumb in the crowd. From the way he walked to how he held a hand to his head, he caught a number of eyes on him. Those didn't matter. They would be dead soon enough. What mattered was the splitting headache.
Ever since meeting that accursed woman, the monster had trouble gathering his thoughts. While he walked one way, he felt another mind-identical to his own-walking the other way. A third mind kept close to the shadow of the sewers, a fourth one stuck to leapt across lowrise buildings, and so on. However many there were, the monster knew all of those kinds obeyed his, and they carried out their orders.
The monster almost froze when he heard something. It wasn't a police siren, those ost by him easily. This was the loud engine of a motorbike. And it stopped at a light. The snow almost hid its sleek frame and the golden highlights, but the monster froze seeing the vehicle used to kill his brethren. The rider on the bike, dressed in full on black turned his helmed head, as if searching for something… or someone.
A second later, the rider, or better known as Kuuga in his other form, had passed by. The monster held in a sigh of relief. Good. Now he could get back to his mission: hunt down the one who knew Kuuga.
Staggering through the crowd, the monster clenched his teeth. The sight of Kuuga as a human motivated him to focus through the pain. His mind seeped into his counterparts-the duplicates that woman pulled from his body. More would appear, more minds splitting and doubling the number every time. To focus, the monster kept on the past, on himself.
Once, he had been Be-Jimin-Ba, a lowly member of his Gurongi tribe of killers millennia ago. Not even regarded by their leader as worthy enough to be killed. But out of them, he went unnoticed and survived. And now, these humans-these Linto, in his tongue-walked about in the city of skyscrapers and appeared on their mechanized screens. On a few of them, he heard the term "Unidentified Lifeform," referring to him. That included the few cops in front.
"So how long do you think it will take to find him?" asked one cop standing by a white car.
"I dunno," said the other. "I'm just freaked out by all of this. I mean, monsters in New York?"
"Anything's possible, I guess."
"Including Jackson being right," said a third cop, chuckling with her colleagues.
The monster eyed the trio of cops carefully. He watched them get in their car and drive off from the corner. While watching them leave, he reached to his other selves. He peered into their minds to see if any of them had found anything.
And one had. Specifically, a man in a trench coat walked out of a hospital. A hospital that held another man with darker skin…
The monster smiled, showing his teeth. He had his target. Now, it wouldn't be long before he completed his mission. All he needed was to call on his copies and make a little distraction.
A few minutes later, he heard the same car from before loudly crash and deathly screams filled the air. All the monster did was walk in the other direction, heading towards his hostage-to-be.
Ichijo found the police station to be active as it had been for the past couple days. One phone was put down for another to ring, fingers clattered on several keyboards, and officers shouted from one end of the room to the next. None of it died even when the chief walked alongside Ichijo.
"... Another day of this, and I swear I'll go crazy," Brown huffed. Though Ichijo somehow heard the words, he silently followed the chief into his office. Brown collapsed right in his seat, downright annoyed at the situation and the stacks of files on his desk. "Alright, let's see what's here… "
"Excuse me, chief, but has there been anything new with the search?" Ichijo asked.
"Nothing yet. I've been reaching out to the other districts to extend the search. Sadly, they say 'there's been enough trouble on their end.'" Snorting, Brown let the sarcasm settle as he tossed a file of people aside. "Yeah sure… Just not interested in looking into this whole Goronji business."
"Gurongi," Ichijo corrected. "Have they seen the files?"
"They have. You can guess their response." To emphasize his point, Brown tossed aside another file. "Then again, you haven't exactly come clean to these guys yourself."
"I don't know what you mean."
In spite of Ichijo's insistence, Brown did not buy it. "Look," he said, "I don't know everything, but I do got an idea. Jackson's the one who suggested you come over here to begin with. And he told me about your... experience."
Ichijo watched Brown, who continued, "Tell me if this sounds familiar: nine years ago, an archeological site was discovered. Soon afterwards, a series of murders spread across all over Japan. Only these murders can't be humanly possible. But that's not all. The news reports someone helping the police. A hero, defeating the monsters and saving lives. Eventually, by the following year, all the bizarre murders end... Am I right?"
Ichijo stared at the chief, whom he once saw as a man who ignored his warning out of disbelief. Now, Ichijo saw the other man in a new light as he said, "You have done your homework."
The chief sighed. "Jackson repeated it to me so many times I've memorized it by heart, but that's not what worries me," Brown told Ichijo, looking him in the eye. "If any of what I've heard is true, I don't know what to expect. There could be mass panic everywhere. Worse. I know I seem dismissive, but I'm not going to put my head in the sand while monsters show up… Not after what happened to Jackson."
There it was again. Jackson. Whatever it meant, Ichijo's eyes fell on the chief holding his cap tightly. Brown was afraid. Rightly so. However, Ichijo was not willing to give up. "There might be some hope."
"That hero of yours?" Brown snorted softly. "Maybe, but we don't know where he is. We'll need real men for this-"
Loud and rapid knocks cut him off. "Sir!" called the female officer on the other side of the office's entrance.
"Would it kill to have some…" Brown stifled the rest of his sentence and gestured for the woman to enter. "Well, what is it?"
"Sir, you need to take a look at this!" Was all the officer said before she went back out.
Brown followed her and Ichijo followed him out of the office. The incessant noise from minutes ago had vanished, since everyone in the police station had paused their business to watch the television hanging above. "Just what is going on he…" Brown stopped his complaint when he looked up to the television.
Ichijo saw, and his mind raced back to nine years ago. Like then, a male news reporter stood in the middle of a street of halted vehicles and gasps. "... coming in live! Every single car on the entire street has stopped! Everyone has been running away, but from what? No one has any idea for what is going on and-" the reporter said and was cut off by a loud scream as the body of a police officer slammed into a nearby car.
Ichijo's heart stopped for the briefest second. He hadn't even noticed Brown shouting for a phone. His eyes kept on the screen showing a figure of what could only have been the Gurongi crouched atop a vehicle. That had been the last image before human screams of fear and death killed the feed. "What the…" said an officer standing by Ichijo.
His thoughts racing, Ichijo turned to Brown. He could hear the other man's voice over the news report, all but shouting, "... What you mean everyone's been busy?! … Are you serious? Near Central Park too? But there was one by... Well, send what we've got! And bring back up while you're at it!"
After Brown slammed his receiver back down, Ichijo told him, "Did a package come in yet? It should have something to fight this."
When Brown barked for someone to get "the box," Ichijo assumed yet. However, the chief's sour expression said, "Hopefully, it'll do some good. There have been multiple sightings of the same creature. East Street, back in Times Square."
"At the same time?" Ichijo asked, surprised.
"Yeah. You haven't gone up against anything like this?"
Ichijo shook his head, much to the chief's consternation. Brown's next words were silenced by someone bringing a delivery box. "Here ya go, chief!" said the man who placed the box on the desk next to Brown.
Ichijo would've gone for the box, if not for another officer-the same female one who knocked on Brown's door earlier. "Sir, we've got another news report coming in!" she said. "There's one in Emmet's Road."
"Emmet's Road? That's where Jackson is!" Brown said, to Ichijo's shock. "Change the channel, da-!"
Another officer had, and the new reporter on-screen spoke before Brown could finish. "... can't believe this! Some… thing just crawled up the side of the hospital and is… Wait, is it… carrying someone out of the window?!"
Ichijo didn't need to hear the rest. He saw it with his own eyes, as the camera focused on the side of the hospital. Crashing through one of the windows was the exact same Gurongi shown a minute ago. Despite the slightly blurry and out-of-focused image, Ichijo knew Jackson was the one being carried away.
Silence settled in the station for a few seconds. Then, there was only the sound of Ichijo ripping the tape from his box and pulling out a tinier container from it. He opened the casing to find two rows of special bullets. The same ones he had used nine years ago against the Gurongi.
For once, Brown didn't raise his voice. "Got anymore to spare?" he asked seriously.
Ichijo answered by handing Brown a second and third box of bullets.
AN: Boy, I don't think I've touched this in a while. Basically, it's a preview for my old Kamen Rider: Heisei SPIRITS fanfic, which I have not touched in two or three years by now. I still have more to go with the story arc this tidbit is apart of, but I hope I can finish it before the end of the year. Until then, take care.
Raika out.