This was really too much for him to deal with! What was actually happening right now?
From the way that lady in that black and white dress was saying... all of them were in some kind of game, which sounded like a survival game of some kind. And what's with all those monsters wearing suits and maid dresses? Are they real? And those people who dressed the same as Ace were able to transform into some kind of superhero with animal faces?
And why did Ace seem to be so strong? Had he been playing this 'game' for a long time? And what the hell—were these vines around his neck actually alive?
xxx
"Over here—!"
Neon called over as Keiwa followed along with the other schoolgirl and Gramps, walking up the steps towards some kind of fancy corridor before hurriedly making themselves scarce when a few more of those monsters seemed to be 'patrolling' around to look for them.
"Ah-ah, my back—!" gasped the old grandpa as Keiwa hurriedly checked on the old guy. He could also hear Neon checking on the girl that she was protecting as the girl reassured her that she was fine. The old man then apologized to him when they were supposed to be the ones who should be 'protecting' him, and for some reason, Keiwa felt something odd about it.
Keiwa sneaked a glance towards the other side of the corridor again as those monster maids seemed to have already left the area.
He could hear another footsteps approaching him from behind as Ace immediately spoke out to announce his presence.
"The Jyamato hadn't caught up to here yet... so we're in the clear for now."
Keiwa immediately turned around and got up to his feet to face Ace. "What's going on Ace? What were those things? And why are you even—is this the reason why you occasionally disappeared without notice—?"
"K-Keiwa?" Keiwa immediately turned around to look at Neon. "Do you recognise Ace now? Do you still remember us?"
Keiwa frowned at Neon.
"Umm... sorry? Neon-san... how did you know my name?" He blinked in confusion as he turned his attention towards Ace and back to Neon. "Come to think, it was like this also earlier... most of you guys seemed to look at me with recognition, but I don't remember meeting any of you before."
.
"About that—" Neon started to say before Ace pulled Keiwa to his side.
"Ty—I mean, Keiwa... I'll explain everything later. Right now, it's more important for all of us to find a safe place to hide from the Jyamato and figure out a way to escape this place. Can you trust me until then?"
Ace and Keiwa stared at each other in silence for a brief moment before Keiwa nodded his head slowly. "Okay... I'll trust you. You'll really explain everything to me afterwards, right?"
"Yeah..." said Ace as Neon continued to stare at the two curiously. Why was Keiwa able to recognise Ace and not her? And... why did it seem like Ace was acting differently with Keiwa right now? And why were they holding each others' hands like that? And was it just her feeling... but had Keiwa's appearance looked slightly different than the last time she saw him? Did Keiwa have a haircut or something?
.
"For now, stay with Keilow while we figure out what to do..."
Keiwa blinked at Ace.
"Keilow? Who—"
"That'll be me... young man..."
xxx
Keiwa turned around towards the old man as 'Keilow' introduced himself properly.
Ace was called Geats, thus the fox mask. Neon was called Na-Go, which was based on a cat. Which kind of suited her? And then Grandpa Tanba was called Keilow, which explained the owl mask. And apparently, the forms that the three people had transformed into (including the other two) were called 'Kamen Rider'. So Ace would be referred to as... Kamen Rider Geats. It makes him wonder what about those other two 'Kamen Riders'. One looked like a... buffalo? And the other one was... was it a pumpkin or a bear? What would their names be? Kamen Rider Buffalo? Kamen Rider PumpkinBear?
Keiwa frowned.
Kamen Rider Geats...
Why was that name seem familiar to him somehow?
Suddenly he heard an oddly familiar jingle and turned his head around to see Ace, Neon and Grandpa Tanba taking out something that looked like a very bulky phone. A voice spoke out from the 'phone' as the 'Game Master' updated everyone on the current situation and informed the players of the extra assistance that would be provided...
.
They somehow came across a large room that looked like a huge dining room as Keiwa helped the old man sit down on one of the chairs. Thank goodness there was a place where they could sit down and rest, all this running was tiring. Grandpa Tanba took out his Spider phone again as it appeared that they'd received another notice.
"Oh! I guess our items are here..." exclaimed the old man as Neon leaned over to take a peek.
"Heh... but why were they moving?"
Keiwa stared at those two before turning his attention towards the two siblings as the older sister was trying to reassure the younger brother that they'd be able to escape this place soon. For some reason, he was reminded of Sara when he looked at the older girl. Did he used to look like that boy as well when he was younger?
As if noticing that they were watched, the girl turned her attention towards him as Keiwa hastily looked away.
And then Keiwa noticed that Ace had been going around the room, looking at the paintings and the strange inscriptions underneath the frames as if those paintings were something of interest. Ace really seemed to be so calm about everything, as if everything that was happening all around them had been something that happened normally. Somehow... Ace seemed like a 'superhero'. Even more... when Keiwa recalled some of the things that he had seen earlier. Seeing Ace fight in that red armour... as well as the 'musical' themed armour, Ace really looked like a very cool warrior. Come to think, about the idol 'concept' that Ace wanted him to incorporate into himself... that 'youth who dreamed for world peace', it felt now that the concept fit Ace better than him. Now that Keiwa had seen this other side of Ace, he wondered why Ace wanted him to use that concept. Because as far as he was aware, Ace's Star of the Stars of the Stars image had nothing to do with Ace trying to portray himself as someone heroic and strong...
Neon walked over towards Ace at the other side of the room, as Keiwa wondered silently about what the two talked about with each other.
xxx
The vines around his neck suddenly started to become tighter as the double doors nearby opened to reveal the monsters, trying to get in and capture them. Keiwa struggled to get up and escape, as Grandpa Tanba and Neon tried to help all of them to run away. Keiwa turned around as he looked on in alarm at Ace who was trying to block the monsters with a long hanging hook pole.
"Get away from here! Run as fast as you can!"
Keiwa stopped walking even as the vines around his neck continued to strangle him before Neon dragged him away. As his vision started to clear a bit with the vines, he kept turning around to see if Ace had been following behind them. Neon kept telling him to keep up with the others.
"—but what about Ace?" Keiwa exclaimed as Neon kept pulling his arm away.
"He'll manage it!" cried Neon as they ran towards the direction Grandpa Tanba and the kids had gone. Only once Keiwa saw Ace gradually catching up towards them that he really speed up to escape the pursuit of those strange monsters...
.
"Gosh... just when I thought my luck was starting to get better—what did I do to deserve this kind of bad luck!"
He said it aloud without thinking, mostly because he was getting tired of running and being chased around by some monsters. He could argue that he could use this chance to get his stamina up for his idol training; but when you had to keep constantly running and getting strangled to the point of blacking out whenever those armoured monsters started appearing, it's really hard to keep being positive about it.
"I just want to go home now...", he sighed mournfully.
"Pull it together!" Keiwa glanced up as he stared back towards Grandpa Tanba. "Even the young'uns are keeping it together—", reminded the old man as Keiwa turned his glance towards the kids...
"This wasn't like the Keiwa that I used to know..."
His ears suddenly perked as Keiwa caught Neon talking about him. What's that supposed to mean?"
.
"It can't be helped." Suddenly Ace spoke out loudly as if he wanted him to hear what they were talking about as well. "Obviously, once you get eliminated from the game you'd lose your memories about everything... but there's more to it than that."
"What? What else do they lose?" asked Neon as Keiwa got up to his feet to face the two.
What did Ace mean? Are they trying to say that he used to be part of this dangerous survival game before?
"Wait..." Keiwa spoke out as Ace and Neon turned around to face him. "What are the two of you talking about right now? Ace... that thing you said you're going to explain to me after we got out of this place, was this it?"
But before Ace could open his mouth, the vines around his neck started to tighten up again as Ace told Grandpa Tanba to take them away and keep them safe. And as much as Keiwa wanted some answers from Ace, he ended up following the old guy as they tried to run away from the monsters...
xxx
"This is my cue..."
Somehow with 'Kamen Riders' fighting the monsters, their pathways had started to clear as the monsters seemed to have forgotten about them. So Keiwa led the kids to go around the longer way to get themself downstairs—and then he heard Neon cry out towards Grandpa Tanba. But of course, what were the chances for the old man to even be able to fight those monsters by himself?
"Old man!" he cried out as he ran up towards where Neon and Grandpa Tanba were at. Neon immediately told him to watch over the old man as Keiwa knelt down to check on him.
"What did you do that for?" Keiwa asked as he looked at how frail the old man had looked after trying to fight the monsters by himself.
"I can't just let any of you kids get hurt and die... not before an old man like me..."
For some reason, hearing the old man's words surprised him for a bit. They barely knew each other before this... yet the old man was still determined to keep protecting all of them and keep them from harm.
A̶n̶d̶ ̶a̶n̶ ̶e̶v̶e̶n̶ ̶s̶m̶a̶l̶l̶e̶r̶ ̶v̶o̶i̶c̶e̶ ̶s̶e̶e̶m̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶q̶u̶e̶s̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶h̶i̶m̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶w̶h̶y̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶h̶e̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶f̶i̶g̶h̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶i̶n̶s̶t̶e̶a̶d̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶o̶l̶d̶ ̶m̶a̶n̶ ̶w̶h̶o̶ ̶b̶a̶r̶e̶l̶y̶ ̶a̶b̶l̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶s̶t̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶t̶w̶o̶ ̶f̶e̶e̶t̶.̶
.
"Don't brace yourself for the inevitable death yet..."
Ace's voice suddenly pierced through his heart as Keiwa looked up towards the fox rider. "Believe that you will win this battle instead!"
Keiwa held out a breath as Ace took out a new shiny buckle and attached it to his belt. And somehow that new buckle worked like a tiny slot machine as an electronic voice cried out Jackpot and Ace's rider form started to change... and now Ace's rider form had new red armours on both the top part and bottom half of his body with the golden shawl wrapped around his neck,
"—That's how you get Lady Luck on your side..."
For some unexplained reasons, Keiwa felt his heart flutter...
.
Watching Ace fight all of the monsters by himself—even that one single armoured one—fascinates him so much in ways Keiwa couldn't quite explain to himself. He couldn't quite take his eyes off Ace, even when the vines around his neck started to tighten up again when the armoured monster showed up again. When Ace finally defeated all of the monsters into piles of burnt ashes and soot, Keiwa almost regretted seeing that the fight was already over...
"Oh... crap," Ace suddenly gasped before the red buckle suddenly shot out from Ace's belt and started flying wildly around—and almost hit Keiwa squarely on the head if he hadn't evaded it.
Keiwa somehow managed to laugh it off as if he hadn't just barely escaped a life-threatening event.
"Heh... somehow, I can't help feeling a sense of deja vu..."