Fictions Mentioned:


Episode 5


OP Song:

仮面ライダーBLACK RX (RIDER CHIPS Ver.) · RIDER CHIPS


Insert Song: Start

MGS3 Don't Be Afraid - Elisa Fiorillo [With Lyrics] MGS3: Snake Eater OST


Flashback

Kuoh.

An ordinary average town in Japan. One would think that nothing happens there except for the fact that people would tend to get on with their lives, not knowing what lies beneath the dark. For this world among other places in the Multiverse is known to be a place where the definition of a Fantasy Kitchen Sink may come into play. Pick or choose what you wanted to believe. It really doesn't matter. Angels, Fallen Angels, and Fevils may be the most well-known and noticeable, but there are others as well. There are gods, dragons, monsters, you name it.

And somewhere in this quiet town that seems to be buzzling with more than a few hundred thousand people was a simple bar where a certain Governor-General was quietly drinking his wine, not out of a sense of wanting to get drunk as his metabolism pretty much covers it, nor there is a sense of drowning one's sorrows since it was practically useless and futile anyway. It wouldn't make the pain go away no matter what. Rather, he seems to be recalling something. Memories. Experiences. Things that he'd like to forget, but couldn't, because once you'd get a taste of what he'd seen, you could never be rid of it.

War.

What was war if not an epic cosmic joke that was both a laughing tragedy and a point of no absolute return?

For Azazel, after everything he'd been through the definition of war had completely changed from his point of view. No longer was it merely an endless series of proxy battles and wars where unofficially one side deals with whatever they have while washing themselves clean of the other to the point of being expendable. It wasn't just about ID-tagged soldiers carrying ID-tagged weapons and use ID-tagged gear. It wasn't just about the various takes on the concept of nanomachines that could be used to enhance the bodies of individuals, in most cases justifying it as cures for the everlasting bane that was cancer. Neither is it about genetic control, emotional control, or battlefield control.

No, it was far more than just that.

One can control the entire concept of the battlefield by merely being outside of it entirely. If that doesn't make much sense to people, then they're misfortunate, since concepts are the key ingredients to the conflict that he had fought. When you can use Space and Time as weapons, most couldn't do much if at all. And this had become a once-in-a-lifetime routine before it finally ended with a Moment. They say he who controls the battlefield controls history. In this case, that was exactly that. The clashing of actual histories. And that was one larger part of a conflict that saw Space and Time broken down to infinity.

Azazel was the Last Angel, if one were to be quite frank. His entire universe had been destroyed so thoroughly that there was not much left to salvage. The only thing that could be done is to draw out the elements of his destroyed universe along with various destroyed others and borrow a couple of things from existing universes, and combined them to form one single new universe, or the New World as those like him tend to call it. And now, his entire history was transposed here. So the peoples and races and events that may exist in his old world were transposed here, but they wouldn't be the same people that he knew.

Dressed in a black suit, a buttoned white-striped shirt, and a black necktie accentuated by a dark-blue trenchcoat. A tall man looking to be about a cross between his twenties and thirties, with black hair and former golden bangs that have now turned white over his advanced age, and a black-white goatee. The wine that he was drinking was something likened to the pronounced and complex aromas of grapefruit, lemon, and elderflower leaping from the glass. Great fruit concentration in the mouth with grassy and pineapple flavors. Fresh with an uplifting finish.

Right beside him was Shidou Itsuka, wearing his Raizen Middle School Uniform which consisted of a white long-sleeved shirt with a blue tie with black and grey stripes, a black blazer with the school emblem "R", grey trousers, and black shoes. Instead of wine, he's drinking milk. Well, he could have preferred wine, but that would be illegal technically since the legal drinking age of Japan was still 20 as far as he was concerned, despite the fact that he was technically past twenty years of age at this point. Plus, Kotori would probably hit him in the head and instead make him drink more nutritious things and the whole "No big brother of mine is going to end up like a lazy drunkhard bum with no job or future to think of" or so she would say.

They were all sitting nearby a table, overlooking the outside, and the inside of the bar look like something out of a fancy diner. The table was prepared with fancy utensils and plates. They had just eaten their fair meal for the day. Traces of the eggs can be seen on the plates, along with crumbs of bread. There was no one else around. The only music playing was coming from a jukebox. The song was called Don't Be Afraid. Even the lyrics would twitch Shidou a bit because it was way too close to home.

In a sense, this is basically a part of Shidou's psychological therapy...from an actual Time War veteran.

Some part of Shidou thought that he never needed this kind of thing, but with ever much constant convincing from Kotori, plus the aforementioned therapist Azazel who like him had lost his entire world due to the same exact cosmic war and thus literally one of the few people who could understand just what he's going through, plus his sensei Kohtaro Minami insisting that this is for his own good in order to keep a level head when it comes to being a Kamen Rider, he had no choice but to submit.

"So...Shidou," Azazel smiled a bit, tasting his wine. "How's school lately?"

"("Again with the basic questions, sensei?")" Shidou thought to himself rather exasperatedly. This kind of conversation never seem to get old. It had always been about the more casual topics first before the main course. "I'm fine...for the most part that is, if you don't count all of the times where I fight Gorgom or Crisis Empire, or saved the world a few times."

"Well, that's good. Any potential for romance lately," Azazel asked with a smile.

"None," Shidou deadpanned. It was more emphasized than it should have been, with a hint of subtle irritation. "I don't have time for that kind of life, but plenty of my classmates do have some kind of love life, and in fact, I may have helped some of them in this case."

"...It's not good being alone you know," Azazel pointed out.

"Don't you think I know that!" Shidou spoke softly, but with emphasis. He knew what Azazel was talking about. But...he just couldn't. Try as he might, there was a part of his heart that just could not let go of the one woman that he genuinely had feelings for. Rinne Sonogami. The woman that he had a daughter with. Not like that would matter much considering they and probably the others are long dead.

"...Sorry," He apologized after being silent for a moment, with Azazel giving him an empathetic look. "It's just...I don't...I don't really think that I could love someone else like that...There was only one woman that I loved...but she's gone...isn't she...?"

Azazel smiled a bit. "...Ah, true love. Never really easy to let go of once you actually had gotten a taste of it. I should know...since meeting my wife."

"Of course," Shidou made an exasperated expression, rolling his eyes out.

"Still though, in regards to your...umm, other girls," When Azazel was subtly bringing up the question about the versions of the Spirits that Shidou knew back in his previous world that are effectively different people in this new world, Shidou would just grimace a bit, focusing on drinking the milk on his glass. There was in fact a pitcher on the table that has a lot of milk and Shidou had been essentially using it to refill his glass.

"...Well, my relationship with the other girls is fine," Shidou muttered while drinking milk.

"But they aren't your girls though," Azazel spoke with empathy.

"...I know," Shidou muttered. He knew that the girls that he knew back in his previous world are completely different people in the new world. That's why as a man and as a Kamen Rider, he intends to make sure that the girls of the new world don't suffer the same fate as their long-dead counterparts, to give them a much better life than their other selves had in this new world.

"...Is that why you care for most of them? Most of the girls in this new world that is? Like I pointed out, they are completely different people from the Spirits of your world," Azazel explained.

"That's why I want to be there for them, for my sister (Kotori) whose truly my sister now, for my best friend (Origami) that I've befriended even before I managed to regain my memories, for the other girls who may be different people, but still, I've become good friends with over the years," Shidou explained.

"And yet...that's only a matter of perspective, isn't it? When you slowly gained your memories again, you would see for instance your sister and your best friend in a much different light compared to how you used to see them when you didn't have your memories. So would you not say that what you answered was merely your perceptions being influenced by the memories that you would slowly regain, and that without them, you may possibly treat them differently?" Azazel pointed out.

On that, Shidou had no answer, except to remain silent. Now that's the question, isn't it? If he did not have the memories that he has now, he may have possibly seen them differently. That without his current knowledge, he may never even know some of them, much less be anything more than mere passing acquaintances.

"...You have a point...But...I can't think of such hypotheticals since I don't know how to answer any kind of what-if. Instead of what's happening right in front of me right now," Shidou explained slowly.

"But I recalled that you have conflicting thoughts about the future, correct?" Azazel said, noticing Shidou's twitching grimace.

"...Yes," Shidou muttered as he recalled many of his memories, of how he once had a brighter and more optimistic outlook for the future. But then, of course, the War had happened, and it shaped and may have warped him. Maybe he may no longer be the same man who used to save the Spirits. He considered himself a kind of realist sometimes. End one war, and the next comes along. Don't mistake him for being a pessimist, he's just being careful of seeing the long run. People tend to fight each other for the pettiest of reasons. Isn't that why people like him exist right now? So that they can fight the never-ending fight between light and darkness?

"...Sometimes...I wonder why I'm even still alive, walking while everyone else had bitten the dust long ago," Shidou muttered.

"...You know, I thought the same thing myself," Azazel muttered with a bitter smile, lightly sipping his wine. "Like...oh sure, I was so close, me and Michael and Sirzechs, we were this close to bringing about true peace between us three, to let bygones be bygones, and we eventually succeeded. Come what may and any enemy that shows up on our doorstep, Issei and the kids would swoop in and deal with it at the last moment. That's what usually happens back in my old world. We always trusted the kids to fix the mistake of the adults...Looking back at it, maybe I just simply forgot that...at the end of the day, they were still kids and it was the job of the adults to handle our own messes."

Azazel takes another sip of his wine. "...I, we, myself, my brother Michael, and Sirzechs entrusted the future to these children, and I alone knew of the future to come when their future children went back in time, so I could have been assured that if at some point, we would bit the dust, the future would be in good hands..."

Then his expression turned grim. "...But then...the War happened. It completely erased that future...erased everything...everything was just gone...My brothers...My sisters...Every single one...Except me...The people who fought with me in the War called me the Last Angel of Heaven...And well, they'd be right...I was the last...Didn't matter if I was fallen or not...I was just the last of my kind...The troubling part is...when I look at this new world, I know to myself that the Angels and the Fallen Angels who reside here aren't them, the old them. These people...I don't even know them at all. They are fundamentally completely different people, and they wouldn't know about what I know, about what I saw. When I look at Michael, I know it's not my Michael. When I look at Gabriel, I know that's not my Gabriel. When I look at Baraqiel, I know that's not him. Everywhere I go...I know it's not them...But that's just it with people like us, Shidou. We're both alike because we're the survivors. We're the ones cursed with this kind of knowledge, and we're gonna have to live with the fact that we've ultimately had our own happiness drown into the fires of war. And also..."

Then his eyes were looking at the glass that he was holding. "...And also, we make absolutely sure that something like that would never happen again. It's why I try to be better, to try to learn from the mistakes I had done in the past, to try to learn how to actually be the father that Vali needed...and well, by extension, Sousuke, and a few other kids that I adopted along the way."

Shidou smiled a bit, with only a bit of sadness. "The difference between the both of us sensei is that...you were a soldier long before the War while I was just...a normal person with some kind of special power to seal Spirits. In fact, everyone else did the heavy-duty while I just simply add the finishing touch most of the time. Back then, I was a civilian...But now..."

"Now you're a soldier, like me," Azazel muttered softly with an empathetic smile.

"I didn't ask to be one," Shidou muttered bitterly, still maintaining his sad smile.

"No, you didn't," Azazel agreed. "But reality tends to force us into things we do not want to be in, and we don't get much say in the matter. Hell, I may have been a soldier, but I wasn't ready for the kind of war that War would have to bring."

"...Some part of me...Some part of me wished that I could have done something, anything to prevent what had happened," Shidou muttered.

"So did the Doctor, so did Paradox, so did Strange, so did everyone else that mattered at all to be worth a damn really," Azazel pointed out. "In the end, there was only so much that they, and we, could all do to prevent the War from happening. There was just too much getting in the way. And that's not even getting into the fact that you wouldn't even know where to start trying to prevent the War because of how it has several origin points. Many yahoos keep saying that it was the Doc's fault because he didn't wipe the Daleks out, but honestly, I doubt even wiping those monsters off on that event would've mattered when other monsters are just more than eager to manipulate things back to how the Daleks used to be and put the war back on track, not even gonna bother bringing up other cosmic stuff like those Photino Birds and what not."

It was true, Shidou thought. There was just only so much that a mere human being could do in a war that was fought by literal gods. There was only so much...

...But even so, the guilt would not just go away. The question of "How comes he was still alive when everyone else is dead?" would still haunt him. How in the hell does one get over something like that? Imagine your family and your friends, your entire home, gone in the blink of an eye. That's literally what happened to him. But that was not the end. No, if anything, he just had to experience several forms of death as time broken down around him.

"...I just...I just wished that they were still here..." Shidou spoke with a depressed tone.

"...So do I when it comes to my family," Azazel smiled empathetically.

"...I dream about them, you know," Shidou muttered with a deprecating smile. "I dream about my Kotori, talking as we prepared the dishes. I dream about my Tohka showing me another one of her shows on tv. I dream about my Origami doing weird stuff just to get my attention. I dream about my Yoshino and my Natsumi cheering me up whenever I'm down. I dream about my Kaguya and my Yuzuru who would drag me by the limb to various places. I dream about my Miku who would sing just for me. I dream about my Nia, helping her out with her manga. I dream about my Mukuro who would try out various clothes. I dream about Kurumi who always appears when I'm at my lowest and didn't know what to do. I...I keep having these dreams, these flashes...They never go away..."

"But you don't want them to go away, do you?" Azazel asked.

"...No, I don't," Shidou muttered softly. He felt like crying, but he did not want to. He just kept drinking the milk in his glass. But still, he could not help but shed a few tears that he would gently wipe away with his free hand. "...I...I missed them so much. It...It just isn't fair."

"Life isn't fair, is what humans tend to say," Azazel said.

"But this is the Time War we're talking about, sensei," Shidou gritted his teeth for a bit before subsiding. "Life doesn't matter at that point. It was just pointless death and destruction."

"I know, but it counts for something that there will always be bad things that, despite everything, would be beyond even our own control. You and I...we aren't gods, Shidou. Despite everything, despite our power, we are most definitely not omnipotent gods. We are men, who for whatever reason have been given extraordinary abilities. So now the question remains on this...on what kind of hero do you want to become, on what kind of Kamen Rider do you want to be? Are you just going to let the guilt consume you as you wallow in your own mistakes and drive you to the point of no return...or are you planning to fight and live...for the sake of everyone that still cares for you, right here, right now?" Azazel explained.

That made Shidou pause for a bit, still holding his glass. He couldn't answer as he thought over the question in a pondering manner. And the rest of the minutes that had passed was simply Shidou and Azazel drinking their respective drinks.


Insert Song: End


ED Song:

Dareka ga Kimi o Aishiteru