Someone or something was kidnapping women – ones who were young, pretty, and traveling alone. Kenzaki Kazuma looked at the string of reports – from different countries, different time zones, in several different languages – and thought he could trace a fifteen-month route starting in Kyushu, going through Okinawa and past the Philippines before going through Indonesia and looping up to the Maldives, and then skating along the southernmost parts of the Middle East. It had gone up the Red Sea before crossing into the Mediterranean Sea, although Kazuma had no idea how whatever it was had gotten through the Suez Canal without being challenged. Maybe it had been.

Kazuma had only noticed the pattern because he'd seen a number of recent posters with the word missing along the coast of Cyprus, and he'd noticed the same thing when he'd been in Egypt. He knew that people went missing all the time, sometimes of their own volition. The posters caught his attention because of their similarity, and out of idle curiosity he'd started looking for connections.

The pattern, once he'd worked it out, seemed unmistakable; that or it was a series of amazing coincidence, and either way, Kazuma had nothing but time. While he'd been figuring out where the thing had come from – and it had taken dozens of women, an average of one a week since the first one he was sure of, in Kyushu – it had moved on to Greece. Kazuma followed it.

He'd almost caught up to it, had seen a wooden Spanish galleon of a type that hadn't been used for close to two centuries, but he hadn't been able to reach it from the shore. It had brought clouds and thunder with it, unexpected rain whipping the waves into froth. He thought it was heading in the general direction of Italy; if its pattern held, he had perhaps six days to find it.

Exactly one week later, Kazuma was on a Sicilian beach when a lightning storm knocked someone out of the sky. He didn't know at the time what had drawn him to Sicily as opposed to Italy, other than a general sense of wrongness. It wasn't an Undead, but it was something that wasn't supposed to be alive, something that had had its link to the real world severed and yet refused to lay down and die. Unlike anyone else who might have been watching, his eyes were good enough to see the light show that came bare moments after the lightning strike. A few minutes later and the ship-that-wasn't caught fire, and Kazuma could actually see someone take to the air.

The flying person was carrying someone else and heading for the beach – almost right towards Kazuma himself. Kazuma wasn't particularly surprised to see a Kamen Rider landing on the beach, pretty young woman in arms. He was a little surprised that the rider turned out to be the young man he'd seen in a German airport a few months previously, and more surprised when Hino – that had been his name, hadn't it? – promptly collapsed.

Kazuma debated briefly whether he should go give Hino a hand, or at least get him off the beach, but before he could make a decision one way or another, paramedics and police showed up. Kazuma called discretion the better part of valor and followed them at a distance. He found Hino asleep on a gurney in a hallway, handcuffed to the rails. Kazuma broke the handcuffs and woke Hino enough to get him out of the hospital and away from probably unwanted attention.

It took three hours to drive across Sicily and board a ferry for mainland Italy; Hino was limp against his back during the drive and slept on Kazuma's shoulder during the ferry ride. Kazuma gave up trying to drive any farther away and checked them both into a hostel. It took Hino another six or seven hours to wake up, during which time Kazuma seriously debated just leaving him where he was.

"You really don't have anything better to do," he said, just as Hino finally opened his eyes.

"This isn't a beach," Hino said groggily.

"You're welcome," Kazuma said. "What was it?"

Hino blinked at him uncomprehendingly, squinted, and said, "Mr. K-Kenzaki?" He sounded as though he was surprised he'd dredged Kazuma's name out of the depths of memory.

"Yes," Kazuma said. "And your name is Hino Eiji, and you're apparently a Kamen Rider."

Hino flinched at that, trying to move away from Kazuma and getting tangled in the blanket Kazuma had thoughtfully draped over him so he wouldn't freeze. "A-are you?" he asked.

"I used to be," Kazuma said. "It's a long story that I see no value in telling."

"I used to be," Hino said. "Used to."

"You say that, but you were wearing armor twelve hours ago, killing something, and rescuing a damsel in distress." Kazuma tried to smile reassuringly, but he wasn't sure it was actually working.

"It was left over," Hino said. "From before. I think it was Mezool's." He said that as if Kazuma had any idea who that was. "There were eggs, and I couldn't – the people who were already in there, it was too late for them. Once she puts them in the eggs, there's no way to get them out, not unless she takes them out, and she's gone. She's been gone for months." His voice broke at the end, and he didn't look Kazuma in the eye once during the entire speech.

"If there was nothing you could have done, then you did the right thing," Kazuma said softly. He didn't know if that was true or not, but he did know it was what Hino needed to hear. Hino stared at him with an expression Kazuma couldn't identify, and then his face crumbled into fear. Kazuma started and looked behind him, but there was nothing there. "What? What is it, Hino?"

"Where is it?" Hino reached under the blanket, frantically tugging it away until he could reach into his pockets. Right hand deep in one pocket, his shoulders sagged in relief. "You're still here," he said, so softly that Kazuma didn't think he was supposed to hear it.

Kazuma blinked, the vague misgivings he'd had before suddenly returning to the forefront of his brain.

"Thank you," Hino said suddenly. "I don't know exactly what happened, back there, but thank you." He looked Kazuma in the eyes for the first time, sincerity evident in every line.

"It was nothing," Kazuma said, uncomfortable with being on the receiving end of quite that much intensity. He hadn't thought Hino had it in him. "You, uh, want some coffee?" he asked, to change the subject. "I think there's a –"

"Yeah," Hino said. "I'll be right behind you."

Kazuma was halfway to the coffee stand in question before it occurred to him that he hadn't told Hino where it was, and Hino had been asleep on his feet when Kazuma had half-carried him into the hostel to begin with. He went back to the room, but when he got there, Hino Eiji was gone.