[A/N] As part of an intended double-header, I present the second part of the Kuuga Arc! ^_^ Enjoy! HYAZUU~!

=KAMEN RIDER DECADE: GEKIJOBAN=

=GAIA AFTERSHOCK=

CHAPTER 3: WATER OF LIFE

It took Tsukasa a few minutes to help Toshio calm down and compose himself. When he did, the boy seemed to smile a bit, as if finding a faint bit of hope in his utterly hopeless situation. Tsukasa waited; he was certain he could learn a bit about his ultimate opponent from Toshio.

Finally, Toshio nodded slowly and looked Tsukasa in the eyes.

"You want me to tell you a bit about that bastard, don't you?" He asked solemnly. Tsukasa nodded.

~ELSEWHERE~

DiLord sat atop his throne, watching his remaining field agent in his crystal scepter. He frowned when Toshio referred to him as a "bastard".

"Huh…" DiLord said to himself, waving his fingers over the ball in an arcane fashion, as if casting a spell.

~ELSEWHERE~

Toshio was about to start talking again when he felt a pull on his mind. He shook visibly, trying to shake off the effect, but with an ever increasing lack of effect. Tsukasa watched as Toshio grabbed his face with his fingers and pulled down, as if trying to pull the skin off his skull… and then just stopped. That's all… he didn't slowly drop his hands to his sides or walk forward… he just stopped.

Suddenly, he looked at Tsukasa through his fingers, and Tsukasa backed up a few spaces; the boy's eyes had turned blood red, and the slit pupils he sported had turned gold.

"UNFORTUNATELY FOR YOU… I'M NOT TELLING~!" Toshio said in a sing-song voice while taking out a single card. He reached for the access slot on his sword and slid it down. Tsukasa activated his own buckle out of reflex and watched as Toshio stood straight up, holding his sword defensively in front of him at an angle, the blade's tip resting just over his left shoulder. The boy slid his card into the open slot and slid it shut. The sword blinked yellow once.

"KAMEN RIDE…"

With a demented grin and a look of determination, Toshio and Tsukasa shouted the exact same word…

"HENSHIN!"

"DECADE!"

"DEFIDE!"

Tsukasa's armor formed and his Signal Pointer flashed a faint yellow and his eyes soon peered through green-tinted lenses. It was through these lenses that Tsukasa watched his soon-to-be opponent's transformation.

The first thing Tsukasa noticed was that the boy had summoned afterimages of his armor, as had Tsukasa, but instead of being the multicolored ones Tsukasa had called, Toshio's were all a striking shade of canary yellow, and they all seemed to stack on top of him instead of fusing to his body. The bars that formed the design on his chest formed, extending his armor across his body.

The part that startled Tsukasa, though, was the helmet; the cards that formed the pattern on his face were twice as long as they should have been.

Well, that and the fact that there were a total of eight of them, with two slamming into the helmet to form a standard "X", while the rest sailed into place and formed the exploding pattern. It was with a slash of his sword, which readied the Access Slot on the blade, and a flash of the armor's lime-green Signal Pointer. The Rider known as DeFide slid his hand along the sharp edge of the blade and twitched his head violently to one side.

"Toshio-san, SNAP OUT OF IT! I KNOW THIS ISN'T YOU!" Tsukasa shouted, dodging at JUST the right moment to avoid being chopped into mincemeat. His attacker kept up the assault, swinging in short, direct arcs that kept Tsukasa in constant motion. He could barely even get his own into play, as he barely had enough time to switch actions.

Eventually, Tsukasa found himself with his back against the wall and dodged a particularly violent swing that lodged DeFide's weapon in the cave's wall. Tsukasa ducked away, pulling out the RideBooker and switching it to Sword Mode. He held his weapon ready, quickly sliding a card out of the open book and into his buckle.

"ATTACK RIDE: SLASH!"

Without warning, Tsukasa swung his weapon down, catching his assailant across the back. The attack held enough force to drop DeFide to his knees. Tsukasa backed off, holding his sword ready for a block. When DeFide manage to pull his blade from the wall, he swung wide, holding the blade toward the ground. Tsukasa, being a veteran of battle, hopped over the blade as it travelled past his legs and brought his own down in a quick strike. DeFide staggered back from the force of the hit. Tsukasa stood ready, sword in hand as his side.

DeFide roared and rushed in, going for a lunging stab. Tsukasa was ready; ducking under the blade, he swung his own in an upward arc that caught DeFide's blade in a parrying blow and sliced his arm at the same time. Tsukasa regained his stance a second later, waiting to see what would happen next.

Sure enough, DeFide's anger was getting the better of him. He turned around, ready to bring his blade down on Tsukasa's head once more… but stopped midstroke, twitching madly all the way from his waist to his neck. Is arms stopped moving, save for minute spasms.

Tsukasa couldn't understand this… until he caught sight of the crown-shaped marking on DeFide's armor. One moment it was there, the next it wasn't. It began to flicker in and out of being, finally settling on vanishing altogether. Tsukasa took a step back, waiting.

"D-Damn… him…" Toshio's voice hissed through his helmet as he lowered his arms and ejected his card from the sword. Within a second, he'd reversed the transformation and stood before Tsukasa's armored form as a human once again. Tsukasa did the same.

"I'm sorry I attacked you, Kadoya-san…" Toshio said. Tsukasa shook his head.

"Don't bother apologizing; you weren't yourself. I understand… It was the same with me when I led Dai-Shocker those times…" Tsukasa said musingly, almost as if he were trying to convince himself. Toshio nodded.

"I'll go back and tell the "master" that you're undecided still. He'll probably send out another two people in the next world to follow up, and on and on like that until he either tires of seeking your aide… or you agree," Toshio stated, holding out a hand to the air and forming a portal of distorted space, "I just hope you DON'T agree. It'd be sad to have to add YOU to my list…" With that, Toshio Mojigata stepped through the portal to nowhere, vanishing from sight as if no more than a specter.

Tsukasa looked around to see Yuusuke still sound asleep against the wall. However, something seemed … odd.

For one thing, Yuusuke had born a peaceful expression before the arrival of Legend and DeFide. Now, he looked like he was in pain… a lot of it. And he was sweating profusely.

And… there was blood trickling down the side of his mouth that hadn't been there before.

Tsukasa panicked and set about finding something to help his friend, all the while praying Yuusuke would pull through.

What he didn't know was that Yuusuke wasn't sleeping. He wasn't even daydreaming.

He had started his battle… and there was little Tsukasa could do to help him now.

~WITH YUUSUKE~

Yuusuke floated along, having found himself in a strange place only moments after passing out under Tsukasa's watch. He couldn't help but wonder what was going on now…

His thoughts were forced to the back of his mind as a powerful jet of water struck him in the face, making him sputter. He opened his eyes and took in what little there was to see.

Now that he actually looked carefully, he was still on Mount Hiroki… just on the opposite side of the mountain. Not only that, but everything seemed to be dead and withered. The trees, black against the crimson background of the sun setting on the horizon, looked about ready to fall from their roots on their own.

Looking around further, he saw the city. Or, at least, what ruins remained of it. And even then, it was difficult to make out the conditions of most of the buildings when the town was submerged up to the tops of the buildings.

"W-What happened here?" Yuusuke asked himself, staring intently at every building in turn before his eyes slammed shut; another harsh burst of water, ice-cold, struck him along the side of his face, causing him to sputter and turn in the direction of the source.

Yuusuke found himself gazing into the eyes of an almost perfect mirror image of his own self. The only difference is that his mirror self had black sclera and teal irises, and, aside from a pair of tight-looking shorts and an opened, blue, zipper-front vest, was wearing nothing in the way of clothing. Around his mirror self were several tongues of water that resembled undulating tentacles, while a smaller vortex sat under his feet, seeming to hold him up as he floated in midair.

Yuusuke knew it was a stupid question, considering the hard, physical evidence floating before him, but he still couldn't stop himself from asking, "Who ARE you?"

The figure seemed to chuckle, its voice pebbly and dark.

"I am you, Onodera Yuusuke," the figure said, "Only better. I am the personification of your new powers." Yuusuke's eyes almost exploded from his head.

"S-so… You're the one who did this to the city?" Yuusuke asked. His mirror image heaved a deep, breathy laugh and bent at the waist, his eyes rife with disbelief while squinted almost completely shut.

"Oh no… YOU DID," the Mirror Yuusuke said, smiling wickedly as Yuusuke's face twisted into a look of denial and rage.

"I … I COULDN'T HAVE!" Yuusuke bellowed, his anger boiling over. He transformed without a second thought and was just about to strike his mirror image in the face with a straight punch…

But his fist wouldn't budge.

When he thought about it, he couldn't move any part of his body, no matter how hard he struggled to. In fact, he hadn't even transformed; he'd gone to make the motions, but had been stopped before he could even summon the Arcle. He didn't understand this at all.

"I bet you're wondering why you can't move?" Mirror Yusuke said, smirking evilly.

"I'll tell you: It's part of your powers. Using the Power of Water, you can control not only water until it either evaporates into air or freezes into ice, but also control the fluids within ANY living organism. Where do you think most of the fluid in that pool out there came from?" A wicked, sadistic glint shone in Mirror Yuusuke's eyes, and, as Yuusuke looked out to the flooded city once more, he realized what his mirror self meant.

Floating in the roof-high flood waters were the bodies of every one of the city's citizens, and in varying states of decomposition. However, they weren't all whole… some seemed to be… missing pieces here and there…

Mirror Yuusuke laughed maniacally as a look of grief and pain swept over Yuusuke's face.

"IT WAS SO MUCH FUN WATCHING YOU MAKE THOSE POOR, INNOCENT PEOPLE GO BOOM FROM WITHIN!" Mirror Yuusuke cackled, bending backward at the waist in hysterical laughter. Yuusuke looked down at the ground beneath his feet and saw a single flower.

GROWING.

A single flower, underneath his foot, was growing. He soon understood why: the waters within his now free-falling tears were providing instant nutrient boosts in the soil.

That's when it hit him.

Exerting his own will, he managed to slip through his mirror self's liquid control by contorting that link and turning it on its user. Thus, when his Mirror Image seemed to buckle, his arms shooting out to his sides and dislocating at every single joint, Yuusuke smirked and forced a little more focus into his control. The same thing happened to his Mirror Image's legs; Yuusuke watched as the Mirror Yuusuke's pelvis straightened and frowned when he heard multiple crunching sounds as each hip, knee, and ankle joint dislocated. Even as the Mirror Yuusuke's floating water left him and moved to swirl around the real Yuusuke, the fake continued to float in the air, held in place by Yuusuke's control.

"I-IMPOSSIBLE!" The Mirror Yuusuke shouted in outrage, "HOW COULD YOU HAVE FIGURED IT OUT THIS QUICKLY? YOU'RE WEAK! YOU'RE NOTHING! NOTHING!" Yuusuke shook his head. He then stepped back, revealing not only the drying stream of tears on his left cheek… but also the budding flower on the ground. Mirror Yuusuke stared at the flower in disbelief.

"I suspected something was off when I saw that flower," Yuusuke said, smiling," You say I did this to the city… but it was my own tears that made this little flower grow. If I did both, then that means my powers are two-fold… and that YOU control the darker half, the part that surfaces when there is a lack of proper control. You're the destructive side of my powers… and I aim to make all you are a part of ME."

With that, Yuusuke held his hand out, his palm flat and his fingers spread like a fan, with his palm facing his mirror self. He watched as Mirror Yuusuke struggled against him, but to no avail; in moments, something began to jab at the mirror copy's chest, right behind the center of its ribcage. Turning his palm toward himself calmly, Yuusuke pulled his hand toward his own chest and slowly curled his fingers into a fist. He watched as the Mirror Yuusuke screamed in pain as whatever was jabbing and forcing at his ribcage suddenly exploded from it; it was a small, teal-blue crystal that resembled a raindrop with a dent toward the tip; a clown's tear-drop tattoo.

He walked toward his Mirror Self, reaching out his hand to grab the small object, listening vaguely to his other self's dry pants and heaves of air. Grabbing it, Yuusuke pulled it away from the Mirror Yuusuke and placed it against his heart, instantly absorbing it in a flash of blue light. He watched as the Mirror Yuusuke's eyes dulled and glazed over, gaining a listless, vacant stare as his head dropped to stare blankly at the ground. Releasing his control over the Mirror Copy's body, he watched, almost bored, as the body fell from where it had been and tumbled like a ragdoll down the side of the mountain. He touched his face and noticed a bit blood on his fingers. He smiled; moments from now, he wouldn't have to worry about that.

~BACK WITH TSUKASA~

Tsukasa had laid Yuusuke on the ground on his back. He pressed a cold wet cloth against his friend's forehead, hoping the cool sensation would help the fever he was feeling pass. He was so focused that he didn't feel the cloth dry out… but he certainly noticed as the brown-haired boy sat up and grabbed his hands.

Yuusuke smiled and said, "Watching over your friends again? Will you EVER stop changing, Tsukasa-san?" Tsukasa smiled back.

"Good to have you back, Yuusuke. I don't know if I was any real help, but… I did what I had to do," Tsukasa said. Yuusuke smiled again.

"All I know… Whoever comes after us is going to be in for a MAJOR case of a pain in the neck!" Yuusuke said. Tsukasa didn't understand, but, as the sun came up and illuminated the dull, stony walls of the cave, he saw a determined look in Yuusuke's eyes that made him feel just a little more at ease.

'Soon,' Tsukasa thought, 'I'll understand. Wait for me, Natsumi… I'm coming to get you!'

~DILORD'S CASTLE~

Toshio walked into the dining hall and grabbed a Granny Smith apple from the fruit table. Without so much as a word to anyone sitting at the table, he walked right back out, taking a nice, deep chunk out of the fruit's side with one chomp.

Kotara watched him leave, a scowl on her face. She let out a low growl and returned to focusing on her slice of lasagna.

It had never been a point of concern for her on how they came to have delicacies from nations outside of Japan, given that their world was connected to the others solely through their master's powers. Kotara was just pleased that she could enjoy her favorite dish in peace, without the sword-wielding Rider around to mutter to himself and stir up dust and debris.

'For once, I can thank him for something…' Kotara thought as she closed her eyes with a small smile. She opened them to find a gloved hand over her plate, lunging down. Her eyes widened comically as the hand plunged into her dish and scooped up a large handful of the meat-and-cheese-filled sauce-covered pasta and pulled it out of her vision. She turned when she heard the sound of heavy, metal-plated boots retreating slowly from the room and saw a familiar head of shaved black hair.

Her peace destroyed, she grabbed the edge of the table and moved forward, lifting upward and flipping the table with a scream of rage.

"DAMN YOU TO HELL, GAOH! THAT WAS THE LAST PIECE UNTIL NEXT WEEK!" She screamed, storming toward the door. As she passed the copper-armored man, she reached over and grabbed his hand, forcing it up and into his face, splattering the messy glop of food all over him.

She stormed off with a scream of "I HOPE YOU CHOKE ON IT!", leaving everyone in the room to stare after her. How anyone could be attached to FOOD like that, they would never understand.

~ELSEWHERE~

Natsumi Hikari awoke, resting her back against her cell wall as she stretched with a depressed sigh.

"So they got you too, huh?" came a voice she recognized all too well as her own.

This scared her though… why was her other persona from the Negative World here?

"Natsumi-san? Why are you here?" Natsumi asked her other self. All she got in reply was a soft chuckle… followed by a series of light breaths signaling that the girl had fallen asleep.

Natsumi shook her head and leaned against the wall, resting her head against her chest as she fell asleep again.

~ELSEWHERE~

A young man sat alone in a small room that seemed to shift between the many colors of the visible spectrum, his left hand on a buckle on his waist. He pulled the buckle off his waist and turned it over, ignoring the open slots on the front to look at a gauge on the back. A small red line just barely scraped past the bottom of the gauge.

"Not even five percent power yet?" he asked aloud, chuckling a bit.

"That's fine… it shouldn't be much longer anyways… even at twenty-five percent power I can put up a decent fight…" he mused, resting his head against the wall and falling asleep… deep into a nightmare-riddled sleep.

For he knew instinctively that every moment he remained in this pocket dimension created to trap him by DiLord was one more moment the Kaijin in his world was using to exterminate the human race… and they'd probably start with his precious people.

"Everyone…" he muttered in his sleep, "Please… hold on just a little bit longer…"

_TO BE CONTINUED…_