Wheel of Fortune
He looked down at the proffered item, the open case, a lump of plastic and metal imbedded in protective foam, the cartoonish image of a bear, a star decorating its right eye etched onto its surface. He hesitated, and then nodded.
"So, Goutokuji-san is dead, then?"
"That is correct," said the woman before him, dark fringe and a tight smile, the case held open in her hands.
There was no explanation, no details volunteered, just the confirmation of the facts. He smiled without mirth. Wasn't that always the way?
A year older than him, he had known Goutokuji Takeshi for as long as the man had been a Kamen Rider. The events surrounding their first meeting were hazy, and he was certain that he wasn't supposed to remember, but the magic of the Northern Base interfered with whatever spell the god of the shrine weaved, meaning that whilst he couldn't remember everything, he remembered a lot more than others. He assumed it was the same for the other swordsmen too, and made a mental note to thank Mei for her role in presiding over such things.
This god was a problem though, he thought, a being able to grant wishes. He didn't know enough to guess whether the deity in question was a type of being he had never encountered or a man possessed with extraordinary powers, and he wasn't exactly enthused about finding out.
"You want to tell me how he died?" he asked, looking up.
The woman's tight smile remained.
"No," she answered simply.
Great, he thought. This kept getting better and better.
"I'm guessing you weren't too happy with me knowing this stuff?" he asked.
"On the contrary, your knowledge of prior iterations of the world had no bearing on your selection."
There was a chance Goutokuji was alive once more now that the world had been reset; there was a chance that he was living well with no recollection of what had happened to another iteration of himself, no understanding that he had ever taken apart in the Desire Grand Prix, that he had ever been a Kamen Rider.
Amidst the vast library Sophia had left behind, there were numerous mentions of a being called only 'the Witch of the Fragments.' It was hard for him to get his head around, the idea that there were more worlds than the one he knew, but if he had learnt anything from past adventures, it was that some things could not be explained satisfactorily with the ideas of the present.
'You have to stop thinking in three dimensions,' Sophia had always said, 'and instead imagine the world as having four dimensions.'
Alternatively, maybe this version of the world was one in which Goutokuji had never existed at all.
He reached down, lifting the device from the foam, turning it over in his hand, immaculate white and mint green.
"White's not really my colour," he said, remembering the Wonder Ride Book that had emerged from the cursed tape left over by a former foe. He lifted his head, looking directly into her dark eyes. "Don't you have anything in orange? Grey maybe?"
Her smile did not falter.
"The Shirowe Rider Core ID has been selected for you," she said, just as she had before when first their conversation had begun.
"Do you have a tortoise one?"
"The Shirowe Rider Core ID has been selected for you," she repeated.
He nodded, wrapping his fingers about the device.
"Fine. I get it. Shirowe it is."
She smiled back at him with sudden warmth and enthusiasm.
"Congratulations, Oogami Ryo. As of today, you are a Kamen Rider."
Despite himself, he could not smile back in return.
"Great," he said simply, "big change there."
Beyond the empty street in which they stood, the world paused on the precipice of resetting once more.