"This…might present a problem."

Those were the words out of Emu's mouth when he saw where Kiiko's vision had led them.

In front of them was the new GENM Corp building, built on the site of the old one that had been destroyed by Corrupture so long ago, now. There was even a rigging where a crew of painters were putting up the familiar pink logo on a high corner of the building.

The company's new headquarters was almost complete.

It would be a nightmare trying to find Hyper Muteki in there now.

"Well, we might as well go in," Kensei suggested. "It's not like they've got any reason to keep us from looking for it, right?"

"I mean, Riders haven't exactly been the best for their bottom line," Yoshoku pointed out. "Definitely not the insane ones who ran the company as a front to take over the world, you know?"

Rei squeezed his shoulder. "He knows, Yo-chan." Yoshoku blushed and shut up.

Kensei was right in that nobody tried to stop them from coming in, at least when they saw the Gamer Driver still strapped to his waist. The security guards outside eyed them, but most of the people running back and forth were running final checks on important parts of the new building with plenty on their minds already. A few men even stopped and looked as the group of teenagers, accompanied by a doctor, walked into the new headquarters of a video game developer.

Kiiko was unusually quiet as she followed behind the rest of the group. It didn't take long for Kensei to notice their navi had fallen behind, and he went back to get her. "You sensing anything now that we're here?" he asked. She shook her head. "Okay, let's split up. I'll go with Kiiko and check downstairs. You guys try upstairs."

"Sure thing, Hidenaga," Yoshoku said, with absolutely no trace of sarcasm. He put his arm around Rei's shoulders and started leading her down the hall. For a few seconds Emu hung back, watching as Kensei and Kiiko went the other way, until Yoshoku grabbed his arm and dragged the young doctor off.

Room after room passed the teens. Most were empty, but a few had computers and drafting tables set up like they were being ready for artists to use them. "GENM's not wasting any time, are they?" Kensei asked with a gentle smile, trying to break the ice with Kiiko, who'd been silent ever since they'd left the coffee shop to go looking for the Corrupture.

"No, guess not," was all she said.

"Look, what's wrong, Kiiko-chan?" Kensei said, putting a hand on her shoulder. "You're starting to worry me a little. Why are you so down lately?"

She looked at him, then looked away. "It's nothing."

But Kensei stepped in front of her and put his hands over both of her shoulders. "Yes, it is. Come on, Kiiko. You trust me, don't you?" he asked.

She nodded.

"And if you trust me, don't you think you can tell me if something's wrong?"

"…not if it's something you think is really important for us to do."

"You mean like beating the Corrupture?"

"Don't be dumb, of course we have to beat the Corrupture," Kiiko said, then sighed. "But I'm worried about how strong Hourakou is."

Kensei smiled and shook his head. "We beat him last time, no problem."

"I know, but…"

"Kiiko, we came this far," Kensei said, trying to sound reassuring. "We have to go all the way to the end, don't we?"

"But the end boss is always so strong in games," Kiiko protested weakly. "And I don't think Hourakou really cares about being fair…even with the way he talks all the time about the way game enemies act. What if he kills you? You'll turn into a Corrupture like the Riders from Machina Vision, right? Like your brother…that'd be worse than if you were dad."

Kensei brushed one hand over her cheek. "Kiiko, it's not like Yuuma's dead," he said quietly. "He's a prisoner, and we just have to beat the guy holding him, and everyone else. Lots of people will get reunited with their loved ones when we do that. I just wonder how much faster this would all be over if Yuuma was here."

"What a touching story," a voice said over Kensei's shoulder.

Both of them turned around saw a boy around their age peering out of a room a few feet away, shining a silly smile in their direction. His hair was a light brown and he had on a red jacket. What the pair really noticed about him was the sketchpad he was holding in one hand, and drawing furiously on it with the other.

Kiiko frowned. "You shouldn't listen in when people are having a private conversation."

The boy's mouth opened wide in horror and he covered it with the hand holding his pencil. He clapped his hands in front of his face and bowed repeatedly at high speed. "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! I didn't really mean to, it's just that it's taking forever for my new boss to get back and get me set up down here. I heard other people out in the hall, and I thought maybe it was him."

"…boss?" Kiiko asked with a tilt of her head.

"OH!" the boy said and bowed apologetically again. "My name is Juru Atsuta! I just started interning here to learn about art design in video games."

Kensei made an amused little 'pffft' sound. "Hiring interns already? GENM isn't wasting any time, is it?"

Juru came over to the two of them, and they could see what he'd been sketching. It was the two of them; Kiiko with a worried look on her face, but Kensei putting his hands on her shoulders and giving her a reassuring smile. He noticed them looking, then held it up for the two to inspect. "Ah…sorry. I couldn't really help myself," Juru said with a soft blush. "When I see something really artistic I just have to…draw it."

Kiiko eyed the sketchpad, and noticed the front cover peeking out from about three-quarters through. "You look like you use that a lot," she observed. "Do you draw everything you see?"

With a nod and a goofy smile, Juru replied, "Everything! I can't really help it! No wonder GENM's letting me intern for them!" He flipped back a few pages on his pad for them to see his art.

Some of the pictures were nothing special. Buildings. Bridges. Streets. One was a high school, the sign on the outer wall reading "Hikarigamini" in crude kanji, that Kensei assumed was the one Juru attended. One or two were of a girl with long dark hair, who Kensei guessed was a classmate. Maybe a crush?

But then he saw something in Juru's work that caught his attention. One of his pictures showed Kamen Rider Brave and Snipe, both of them in their Level 2 forms. The first ones, that that public knew them best from. Snipe was aiming his gun off the side of the picture, his muffler blowing out dramatically behind him. Brave had this sword held dramatically over his head, flames surrounding its orange blade.

Juru flipped past that picture to one with a pair of figures Kiiko and Kensei were more familiar with. Kamen Riders Rune and Sling, in their own Level 2 forms. Like Snipe, Sling was firing his gun off the edge of the page while his poncho blew dramatically around him. Rune was lifting his staff, its top surrounded by a web of green energy.

"That's pretty good," Kiiko said. "Aren't you forgetting somebody, though?"

"Nope," Juru said with a smirk and flipped the page over to show another pair of Kamen Riders: Utsura and Ex-Aid himself, in his familiar pink armor and lifting his Gashacon Breaker, still in its hammer form. Next to him was Kamen Rider Utsura, clad in the light samurai armor he'd begun his career wearing into battle, and wielding both of his gaudily-colored swords.

Kiiko nodded slowly in gentle approval, but Kensei was grinning at all the pictures of the Kamen Riders. "Seems like you're a pretty big fan of the Kamen Riders, huh?" he asked.

A blush colored Juru's cheeks. "Don't tell anybody, that's the main reason I tried to get hired at GENM," he admitted. "I think that's the best part of studying the heroes. The ways they grew and became friends thanks to their adventures…Didn't you say something about someone named Yuuma? He sounded like a real hero."

"He was," Kensei replied. "He was an amazing Rider."

Immediately he realized he said more than he should've, since Juru started gaping at him in shock. "Eeeehhhhh?! You knew a Kamen Rider? What was his name?!"

"…Bruiser," Kensei said, a little against his better judgement. "Kamen Rider Bruiser."

Just as suddenly as he'd gotten an expression of shock, Juru frowned in confusion. "Bruiser? I've never heard of that one."

"Yeah, not a lot of people did. He was a great hero while he was around, though," Kensei said, looking distant. "And I hope he'll get the chance to show it again someday."

Juru's frown turned thoughtful, and he nodded. "We can always use more heroes."

Kensei nodded. "We can."

Suddenly he felt Kiiko slip her hand through his. "Kensei-kun? I have something I need to talk to you about."

"Excuse me sir, you haven't seen anything like this lying around, have you?"

Rei showed the construction worker the image of the Hyper Muteki Gashat she'd pulled off the internet on her phone.

"Sorry, kid. Ain't seen nothing like that…Are you sure you and your boyfriend should be up here anyway?"

Yoshoku, who was showing the same picture to someone on his phone too, didn't miss the remark. Emu smiled behind his hand, which Yoshoku did manage to miss.

"Hey," someone said over the worker's shoulder, and both Rei and the man she'd been interrogating stood up straight. "I think I saw that. We dug one out of the ground when we were setting up the basements. The boss took it up to his office and cleaned it up to put it on his shelf," explained an office lady. She squinted when she realized Rei and Yoshoku's ages. "Aren't you a little old to be losing toys?"

"We're collectors," Yoshoku replied. "There's nothing wrong with it. Please, tell us where you boss took it. It'd mean a lot to my girlfriend to have the whole set, and that's the last thing we need."

The lady gave them directions to her boss's office on the next floor. With a quick thanks, the trio ran as fast as they could to where their prize, hopefully, was waiting for them. When they got there, the door the lady had indicated was standing open, and Rei didn't wait to duck inside.

Just like the rest of the building, the office was still being set up. X's on the floor, made of colorful tape, marked out where a desk was probably going to be placed when the building was closer to being finished. A set of glass shelves had already been set up in a little niche in the wall opposite it. Sitting on the shelves were figures of characters from the games GENM had made in the past.

There was one of Mighty, one of Wighty, and the familiar blue figure of Flighty between them. A model of Buddy Bike. Even a large round model of Pac-Man himself sitting on the top shelf, a reminder of GENM's brief publicity partnership with Bandai Namco after a supervillain calling himself Dr. Pac-Man had attacked the city, to restore the classic gaming mascot's good name.

And in the middle, more than a little anticlimactically, was the gleaming golden case of the one-of-a-kind Hyper Muteki Gashat.

Yoshoku automatically grabbed it and held it out for Emu to take. "Of course," Yoshoku muttered, an edge of annoyance. "Byougen hid it under the GENM building, where all the Rider Gashats came from. The most obvious place it possibly could've been…"

"What do you think you're doing?"

It took a couple of seconds for Yoshoku to realize it wasn't Emu himself who'd said it.

Instead, it was a somewhat older man, wearing blue slacks and a white button-up shirt, who'd come in through a door at the back of the room. Even from where he stood Yoshoku could see it was narrow, but the white tile and subdued lighting told him it was a private bathroom. "Who are you people?" the man asked. "What do you think you're doing in my office, stealing my decorations?"

"This isn't yours," Yoshoku said. "This belongs to Kamen Rider Ex-Aid."

"Don't be an idiot," the middle manager groaned. "That's a toy. Kamen Rider Ex-Aid has the real one. Who else would?"

"No, he doesn't," Rei interjected. "Nobody ever made a game based on that. There's only one. That's why we came to get it."

Unsurprisingly, the manager fixed her with an unimpressed eye. "You know Kamen Rider Ex-Aid?" he snatched the golden Gashat out of her hands. "Get out of here, you."

Rei turned around. "Tell him, Emu."

All eyes in the room were suddenly on the young doctor, who opened his mouth as if to stay something, then closed it again as if he couldn't think of what to say now that everyone's attention was focused on him. He started walking closer to the middle manager, tripped on his other foot and crashed into the manager instead, bringing them both down in a tangled heap on the carpet.

Sputtering angrily, the middle manager pulled himself out from under Emu, his hair and clothes crooked from being all but tackled by the young doctor. "If this is some kind of joke, it isn't funny!" he roared. "Put that toy back and get out of here before I call security!"

Rei didn't put the game back. Instead, she reached inside Emu's doctor smock and got out his Gamer Driver, then fastened it around the dazed doctor's waist for him. As he saw it the manager's expression started to shift to awe as the situation dawned on him.

Yoshoku smiled a little.

Next, Rei helped Emu to his feet and shoved Hyper Muteki into his hands. "Forget it," she said. "Show him, instead."

"Okay," Emu replied, still sounding a little dazed, and affixed Hyper Muteki to the middle of his belt. "Henshin."

Rei and Yosoku turned away from what happened next, knowing what to expect. A dazzling golden light engulfed the room, and the manager was a little too late to catch on and cover his eyes in time.

It was a minute before he could see clearly enough to realize what'd happened. But when he did, he opened his mouth, but no sound could come out.

Standing in front of him was a majestic figure covered in golden armor. Large star-shaped designs covered his shins, arms, chest, and a crown of spikes extended from his forehead, framing a small turquoise crystal. Pink and blue lines ran from his chest down to his knees. From the back of his head were hanging a collection of long cords.

The invincible Kamen Rider Ex-Aid had truly returned.

See You Next Game