Gastrea – a mysterious virus that suddenly appeared before mankind. This virus enters the human body through bodily fluids causing infection. It alters the victim's DNA and form. Because of its contagiousness, it immediately spread throughout the entire world. After its breakout, Gastrea quickly took mankind's spot at the top of the food chain.

Second Shot: Connected Chords

"Oi, kid… what was that armour back there? It kinda reminds me of something," said Tadashima. He vaguely recalled seeing a television program in his youth that featured heroes in powerful suits based on insects and that white Armour triggered that memory.

"Well-" Before Rentaro could answer, he got interrupted by Enju.

"Rentaro, are you going to make it in time for the limited time sale?"

"Aw, crap!" Without wasting a moment, he took off down the street with his partner not too far behind him.

"Wait, where are you going?!" The inspector was shocked at how abruptly the duo left.

"Bean sprouts are six yen a bag!" shouted back the boy.

"B-bean sprouts?"

"He's got skewed priorities," answered the other youth that Rentaro had addressed as Masao. "That reminds me; you got the payment for the Gastrea job just now?"

"You're employed by the same agency?"

"More like a liaison." Masao flashed his identification card which identified him as a researcher with the Magata Public University with some additional info at the bottom linking him to the Tendo Civil Security Agency. "He's field testing some anti-Gastrea gear and weapons for me. If everything goes well, the data will be sent to Shiba Heavy Weapons so they can start production runs to get other Promoters outfitted with this hardware."

"What is that armour anyway? It kinda reminds me of something that I think I saw on TV once."

"Sorry, that info's classified for now."

Grunting once in annoyance, the inspector pulled out a payment ticket related to the job and handed it over. "Just show this to the bank and they'll deposit the money into whatever account you want."

"It was a pleasure doing business with you!" chirped the orange bat thing that circled around the young man's head before he took off on his motorcycle.

"So is there anything you want to say before you die, Satomi-kun?" asked the president of the Tendo Civil Security Agency with her arms crossed over her well-developed bust. Her hair was cut in the traditional Japanese princess style which covered her entire forehead and sides of her cheeks and jawline. As for her attire, it consisted of a connected, black dress, designed to resemble a flower at the end; petals slightly patterned and revealing her thighs. This was the uniform of Miwa Academy, a school where only the richest of females can enter.

Rentaro tried his best not to look directly into the eyes of his superior sitting in front of him. "I can't do anything about something that already happened."

"You idiot!" That was his only warning before he dodged to the right to avoid Tendo Kisara's punch which collided against the bulletin board behind him. Not wanting to give up, she chased him around the small office for at least two minutes before finally coming to a stop to catch her breath.

"K-Kisara-san?"

"Why did you run away?! You're infuriating!" growled the girl before settling back into her chair behind her desk again. "And call me President while we're at work!"

"Right…"

"So, in order to make it to the limited sale, you forgot to take your payment from the inspector. If it wasn't for the system we set up with Kurenai-kun, we would have gotten no payment at all!"

'True. At least half the money is better than none,' thought Rentaro to himself.

"And after all that, you only bought two bags of bean sprouts?" asked Kisara, pointing to the bags on her desk.

"You want one too?" This time, he didn't dodge her attack this time which was her simply throwing a bag right in his face.

"Listen to me, Satomi-kun. We're barely scraping by. Any revenue we're making is being used to pay the outstanding rent we owe plus all the other office expenses that were listed in Sasaki-kun's report! This is all because you're a big, worthless idiot! And more importantly… why did you not tell me there was a sale?!"

He really didn't know how to respond to that. The moment got even more awkward when her stomach began growling.

"Can't go on… I want steak…" Kisara merely slumped back into her chair.

"Oi, I feel the same too," grumbled Rentaro.

"Managing a company is harder than I expected. It's all because Satomi-kun's a worthless moron!"

He raised an eyebrow. "You're not blaming this on the company location? After all, we're located in a building where there's a gay bar downstairs, a cabaret on the same floor as our office and upstairs does… black market finance I think?"

"You don't get it. If we're a good company, location won't matter," shot back Kisara.

"Hm, I have an idea! You can go out in a maid uniform and hand out flyers!"

"Are you saying this Tendo Kisara should act like a hostess?! Satomi-kun should run out into the crowd and scream 'Tendo Civil Security Company is over here!' before catching on fire or exploding!"

Seriously, he really didn't understand this girl at times. "That's just terrorism…"

Deciding not to get heated up anymore on this subject, Kisara turned to her laptop. "Anyways, the Gastrea you encountered today was an infected, right?"

"Yeah. I didn't encounter the infection source. It's probably the same kind of single factor spider type. I bet some other agency found it and got rid of it."

She frowned as her search results came up negative. "Unfortunately, there has been no report of a spider type Gastrea being eliminated filed by any other company. Not only that, there hasn't been any witness reports."

"W-what?"

"Thank you for coming!"

After doing a quick count to make sure everything was present, Masao took the paid for grocery bags from the counter before heading out of the grocery store. Although people stared at him strangely due to his odd looking attire and the orange bat perched on his shoulder, they went about their usual business.

Just as he reached his parked motorcycle, the orange Kivat started chirping. "Masao, over there! Over there!"

"Hm?" He could spot a crowd gathering around a large garbage bin close to a restaurant. Upon going over there and getting a closer look, he spotted a girl who appeared to be the center of attention. She was in a dirty white outfit and had short red hair but what made her stand out were the red eyes.

Unlike Initiators, the typical Cursed Child is unable to hide her red eyes behind the eye colour she would have gotten if not for the Gastrea virus. This unfortunately causes them to be easily identified in public. Considering they had superhuman abilities, one would think that they could easily escape a crowd or steal food quietly without anyone noticing but then again, it wasn't like these children had teachers to help them refine those abilities. Heck, he was surprised that they could develop decent language skills and mobility. After all, girls had likely been on their own since being abandoned by their birth mothers who typically went insane when they see those red eyes.

She must have entered this part of the Tokyo Area to search for food. That would explain her scavenging at the garbage. To be honest though, cases of disposed food disappearing from garbage were common so he was a bit surprised that she got caught. Perhaps her hunger overwhelmed her sense of danger in this instance.

"That's one of those Cursed Children!"

"You goddamn freak! I lost my dad because of you!"

"Go back to the Outer District, red eyed monster!"

'So this is the hatred felt by the Deprived Generation…' He had heard from his colleague Sumire, about the people who lost relatives in that war and were scarred for life with those memories. They often lash out at the Cursed Children. This is the first time he had seen this with his own two eyes.

Honestly, it was times like this that Masao wished he had his father's talents. Conflict mediation was something the previous Kiva had mastered, with a good chunk of that coming from the ability to play a beautiful song from the violin and calm nerves down. He himself didn't have strong musical talent so he would have to handle this situation his own way.

Masao recalled Rentaro's words about those who helped Cursed Children in public often ended up being alienated. If he wanted to continue his work, he would have to approach this carefully.

"Kivat."

The orange bat nodded once before getting into position while the young man put on his yellow glasses and reached into his pocket for a miniature flashbang, designed to focus purely on visual disruption since Kivat would need sonar to make his way over to the child and drag her out of there. He had been hoping to test this device on a Gastrea since having another weapon in Ixa's arsenal would be handy for a quick getaway or a timely rescue but at the least, this worked fine on humans.

And just before the crowd's anger escalated further, Masao tossed it out to the ground where it activated and blinded everyone.

"My eyes!"

"I can't see!"

By the time the people regained their eyesight, the girl was gone while the noise of a motorcycle leaving the area roared in their ears.

"The hell?! To not even have one witness report on the infection source is impossible! If that's the case, why didn't you send out a warning?"

"That's why we have our jobs," replied Kisara before placing her laptop monitor down. "Since it's not in the police's net, it won't be easy to find."

Rentaro sighed once. "We'll need an expert's opinion on this. I'll go pay a visit to Sensei."

"Good. In the meantime, I'll contact other agencies to see if they have any information. We'll hunt down the other sources of infection!"

"Roger that." The boy noticed her packing her things up. "If you're going home, I'll walk you partway."

"I have a hemodialysis appointment today so I have to go to the hospital." She then looked around the office for a bit. "Hard to believe that it's been almost a year since you became a Promoter and met Enju-chan and Kurenai-kun."

"We're only part way to our goals… although I guess the belt Masao built for me will help speed up my progress," mumbled Rentaro. "I wonder if I can live up to the faith he placed in me. Can I really carry that title of Kamen Rider?"

"I think you'll be fine." Kisara gave a soft smile. "You know, you've changed quite a lot. You smile more and you cook now. I couldn't imagine the old you doing such things."

The motorcycle came to a stop before Masao dismounted from the vehicle and helped his passenger get off as well. "U-um… thank you."

"Come on, it's not too far from here." She followed the older man as he reached a manhole cover and knocked on it a few times. About fifteen seconds later, it popped open to reveal another small girl with short black hair and red eyes.

"Masao-nii!"

"Hey, I'm here to drop off the supplies. I also brought along a new friend who needs a place to stay for a while. Is that okay?"

"It's fine! You can talk to Elder!" She eagerly made room so that Masao, Kivat and their Cursed Child companion can enter the underground sanctuary. It didn't take him long to spot the old man in charge known as Matsuzaki.

"Ah, Masao-kun! How's everything?"

"I got your supplies for the week. Also brought along someone who could use a home," answered the young man while being mobbed by the Cursed Children who were happy to see him. Thankfully, Kivat distracted the girls so he could have a proper chat with the other man.

"Of course, she's more than welcome here. But I've told you before; this really isn't a proper place for her to grow up regardless of how safe it is."

"I don't know who else could take her. I mean, I could ask the IISO to take custody but…" He trailed off, looking rather uncomfortable.

Matsuzaki nodded in understanding. "Not every Cursed Child is fit to be an Initiator. And even then, there's no guarantee that they would be paired up with a good Promoter who would genuinely care for their overall well-being. You know, have you ever thought about becoming a Promoter yourself?"

"Hey, that's a whole new field of work. I'm more needed where I am now." After all, the IXA system wasn't going to fine tune itself and he had to quadruple check his work, making sure that everything worked properly with this world's technological constraints before submitting the data over to Shiba Heavy Weapons.

"Masao-nii, Masao-nii! Show her that cool thing that you can do!" In a split second, Masao's attention was turned to the Cursed Children.

"What are you talking about?" asked the redhead in confusion.

"He can transform into a superhero! It's the awesomest!" exclaimed another small child. "Masao-nii, please show her!"

Masao merely sighed before glancing back at Matsuzaki. "Work calls."

"Then you better get to it, young man! After all, bringing smiles to the faces of children is part of being a Rider."

"Kivat!" Without wasting a moment, Kivat flew into Masao's open right hand. Then he brought his left hand right to the orange bat's open jaws.

"GABU!"

The red haired girl watched stained glass tribal markings appeared on her rescuer's face as Kivat let out a hypnotic sonar noise. Ghostly chains appeared around his waist and wrapped around it before melting and becoming a blood red belt.

"Henshin!" After he attached Kivat to a perch in the front of the belt and left him hanging upside down, Masao was instantly covered in quicksilver that morphed and then shattered to reveal the armor that had a full black bodysuit as the base. The torso armor looked like a silver vest with a high collar and a blood red chest plate that mimicked muscles. The shoulder armor resembled folded bat wings that were held to the armor by thin chains.

He wore red armored gloves and the wrists sported silver bracelets. The right leg was covered with a silver iron boot that reached his knee and was wrapped tightly with chains, as if to hold something back. The left leg was unarmoured save for a silver bracelet around the ankle. Then the head was covered with a black helmet with the visor shaped like a pair of yellow bat wings edged in red. In between the top points of the wings was a red ornament, resembling a bat's head. The mouth guard was silver and framed by black fangs.

"Ta-daa! Well, what do you think?" asked Kamen Rider New Kiva as he posed for the audience.

"WAAAAIII!" The scene brought a smile to Matsuzaki's face as the girls mobbed their armoured big brother figure.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Wow, I actually came back to this story. As usual, this is low priority and will be written when I feel like it.

I will attempt to make Masao an interesting deuteragonist since this is still essentially Rentaro's story. Of course, finding some good plot points to use will be a challenge so if anyone's got any interesting ideas, feel free to mention that in your review.