He was suddenly reminded of some of the archival records and recreated footage that he used to look up when the term first came to his attention. Ninja. People trained in martial arts and were often used for espionage and assassination during the ancient age. Due to the nature of their professions, ninjas often end up accumulating a lot of information... thus during warfare, it was very important for them to not let themselves be captured by the enemy. So if ever they were captured, ninjas were trained to be prepared to even sacrifice themselves to prevent the enemy from gaining anything from them.

Kekera let out another small chuckle as he stared at the current state of his 'favourite' Kamen Rider. He had been watching after all; of Jitt's earlier 'teaser' as the Game Master tried to taunt the other Kamen Riders to come to his fave's rescue. Sakurai Keiwa had no hesitation to try to kill himself—to prevent himself from being used as a hostage—which Jitt had fully anticipated and put a stop to it. So now instead of just being chained and bound to this spot, Sakurai Keiwa had to also be gagged to prevent the man from biting his own tongue and choke and bleed slowly to death.

How very... ninja-like.

When Sakurai Keiwa first acquired the use of Ninja buckle in his arsenal, he didn't really think much about it except that it was expected. After all, the ninja buckle was meant to be highly compatible with Tycoon, given the similar colour scheme and theme. There was nothing else 'special' about it... except how he later realizes that Sakurai Keiwa had been even more ninja-like than he had ever expected. He hadn't thought about this before, but now he wondered if this ninja-like behaviour was something Sakurai Keiwa had consciously emulated into his life... or was it something that Sakurai Keiwa had done unconsciously.

Because it explained a lot of Sakurai Keiwa's past behaviour, the more he thought about it. How Sakurai Keiwa had preferred to play the supporting role, letting Geats or any other players take the main offence while they fought in the background... unless the offence required the use of their own covert skills. And he had noticed it, as much as Sakurai Keiwa do not usually resort to the use of trickery and deception during the Desire Grand Prix rounds—unlike a certain fox who always made use of that ability against the tanuki—the man was exceptionally adept in using his own brand of a show of cunningness.

The only reason that Sakurai Keiwa did not always make use of his own hidden ability to excel during the DesiGra tournaments, was solely because of his own sense of righteousness. To which, once Kekera was able to remove that from Sakurai Keiwa's psyche, he was able to witness Tycoon display more of his brutality... the true ability of Sakurai Keiwa that had always been kept hidden.

He continued staring at the unconscious man.

So was this the end for his fave? Just when he thought he'd be able to see his 'grand creation' come to full completion, his enjoyment ended up being cut short. And with what stunt Jitt had done earlier, perhaps his fave was now completely broken. Just as he thought that he had been able to drive Sakurai Keiwa completely mad; so that the man could abandon his own morality and go on a rampage of his own, and then give him the satisfaction of seeing the ultimate vision of a Kamen Rider that he wished to see.

"Is this all that you've got in you, Sakurai Keiwa? After all of the fighting spirit I've tried to instil in you, while also trying to remove any obstacles that may hinder you from completely unleashing your full potential! Is this all that's left of your worth?"

To be fair, Kekera didn't think that this small bit of taunting was enough to make Sakurai Keiwa get back on their feet and fight back. But suppose there was still that small bit of supporter pride that didn't like to see his fave being defeated poorly, so he thought of trying to test if Sakurai Keiwa still had something inside them to allow them to turn this situation around and 'win'. Even though given his current affiliations with the management, Kekera 'probably' shouldn't do anything that could prove disadvantageous to their side.

But suppose, there was no reaction—!

There was a slight twitch—he barely missed seeing the small movement of Sakurai Keiwa's fingers as the man started to regain consciousness. And then he could see the man trying to move his body... but barely able to—but of course, how could the man still have any strength left after being detained so long without food or any drop of water? Kekera took out a small squeeze bottle with a tube attached to the top of it and started to squirt some water in between the gaps in Sakurai Keiwa's gagged mouth. Half of the water flowed back out of the corner of Sakurai Keiwa's mouth but Kekera had also noted the small movement of the young man's throat—indicating that Sakurai Keiwa was able to swallow some of the water that had been supplied to him.

To Kekera's delight, Sakurai Keiwa's head had lifted up slowly... and the man's eyes started to flutter open. And Kekera found himself on the receiving end of Sakurai Keiwa's—no, Tycoon's, these were the eyes of the man whom Kekera had awakened not so recently—venomous glare. Kekera smiled.

"Hello, there..." greeted the sly frog.

Hello again... my little demon...

xxx

He knelt down in front of Sakurai Keiwa who had been utterly defeated by the Game Master Jitt after being forced to witness the death of his family multiple times to the point of breaking. The dark man let out a long sigh. Honestly, this was not the kind of torture he wanted the other man to have to endure on his own.

And he was supposed to be the one to protect the man from coming to harm, mind and soul.

"Wake up... Sakurai Keiwa. Wake up from this forced slumber! Aren't you going to do anything against this insult placed upon you?"

He snarled at the man.

"Or... did you just want to lie here doing nothing like a weakling and let someone else come to save you again?"

The man in front of him started to lift their head and stare back towards him. But the man's eyes remained blank.

.

It took him a bit of time to try to identify who was it that was trying to get his attention at the moment. And then once he was able to, he was left confused... because how could the person in front of him be 'Sakurai Keiwa' when he himself was Sakurai Keiwa?

Was this a dream?

"—ke up already! How long did you want to stay asleep? Sakurai Keiwa!"

Ah... so this person already knew that he was Sakurai Keiwa. But then who was this guy then? Why did this person look like him? Are they in his subconscious or something?

As if they already read the thoughts in his mind, Keiwa's mirror let out a smirk at him. "—I suppose since it was my bad decision that led us down this terrible path, you might feel that you needed to pay for those sins yourself. And you might even feel that you deserved to receive all this punishment right now."

"But I'm telling you this, you're not going to be defeated by these people here! Do you hear me, Sakurai Keiwa?"

Keiwa frowned at the 'person' in front of him before noticing that their body started to dissipate into smoke. The inner demon in front of him started to smile before whispering a few words to him...

"Wake up—!"

.

Before he knew it, Keiwa found himself wide awake, still chained in place at the centre of an almost empty hall... staring up towards his former supporter. Looking at Kekera's lopsided grin, Keiwa was suddenly reminded of something Nadge—no, Isuzu Daichi—had tried to tell him before...

"—Both of us were played by Kekera!"

Suddenly, a bunch of past memories started to flash into his mind. That time when Kekera had intentionally let himself find out that his sister had joined the DesiGra, the multiple attempts on Sara's life—from that Jyamato gardener, Daichi and ending with Michinaga—which ultimately led to her death, Kekera goading him to betray Ace and take away Tsumuri, that fight where he almost kills Daichi... with Kekera cheering him from the sidelines!

Everything was connected!

From the very beginning, he had been dancing along to someone's tune... and he had never realized it! Just like a puppet who had never realised its actions had always been controlled by someone else.

Keiwa glared at the 'frog man' in front of him.

There's no way he would let himself be defeated without a fight!

A/N: Do leave Fav and/or comments if you like this piece 💖

Because I still wanted Keiwa to still get some fight out of himself...