Motoyasu walked through a large corridor leading to an arena within the castle's walls, the fight he was in had been made official by the king himself and he was fighting to decide the fate of two beautiful women that was in the party of the Shield hero (and a guy but he didn't care for some dude), that Motoyasu assumed were part of against her will as why would they stick with a guy like the shield if he was a rapist? Obviously he enslaved them, just like his companion Malty told him

Emerging from the corridor he arrives at the arena alongside his opponent, which sports a delinquent Yankee-like appearance by wearing a short jacket over a T-shirt and styling his hair into a pompadour. This was Gentaro Kisaragi the shield hero, a guy Motoyasu once considered a friend, in the first day they were summoned, the guy was optimistic and overtly friendly, it was a bit much but Motoyasu didn't mind, but after he raped his beautiful companion Malty, he was his swore enemy and wouldn't stop until he filled him with holes with his spear

"I'll beat you and save those poor souls you enslaved!" Motoyasu shouted as he pointed his spear at Gentaro, he was determined to save those two girls with him, the raccoon girl and green haired timid one, honestly he could keep the dog man as he probably was not in danger of being raped and didn't practically interesting for Motoyasu

"I told you, they aren't my slaves! They are my friends! I'm only fighting you because th king forced me to!" Gentaro shouted back as he was already fed up with this whole thing, having the people he rescued and befriended be called his slaves, especially Raphtalia and Cahllot who he rescued from actual slavery was pushing his buttons

"Enough! Now prepare yourself heroes for the divine duel!" The king announced as Gentaro went and entered a defensive stance by putting up his side. He considered turning into Fourze but Rishia had suggested against it as she worried that the king would see it as cheating of some type and Gentaro kind of agreed since that old man seemed to have it against him for whatever reason since day one. Motoyasu on the other hand, took out three different colored bottles and began drinking them one by one

"Oi! He's doping before the battle!" Gentaro said as he looked at the king while pointing to Motoyasu, the king simply scoffed as he looked at Gentaro

"Only healing is forbidden, the heroes may boost themselves before the battle starts" the king said in a nonchalant tone as he had a small smirk on his face, having mages on standby ready to dispel any boost the shield hero placed on himself

"Ah, then power ups are allowed? Great!" Gentaro said excited for what that meant, everyone in the audience thought he was going to drink a potion or cast a support spell on himself but instead a strange device manifested in his waist as Gentaro had pulled out and inserted four Astroswitches into the Switch Sockets,

"Rocket." "Drill." "Launcher." "Radar."

He flips the red Transwitches down, turning on the Status Monitor with each thrown Transwitch, as it begins the countdown in a techno voice. "3...2...1!"

"Henshin!" Gentaro says as he pushes the Enter Lever on the side of the belt and raises his right arm in the air as a ring of energy appears above him before it shot down Cosmic energy, a Power that transcended beyond space and time as the force of the universe, the audience watched eyes wide in wonder as the energy stops as now Gentaro was outfitted into a new suit, His helmet was shaped like a rocket with antennas above bug-like eyes, his suit resembled a sleek astronaut suit, and he had giant gauntlets and boots. On his right gauntlet was a red circle, on his left a black square. His right boot had a blue X, his left a yellow triangle. On his back was some sort of jetpack. The shield was seemingly fused with his left gauntlet as it was much bigger than the other

"An Kamen rider..." The three other heroes mumbled under the breaths as they saw the striking resemblance of Gentaro's current form and the karate bug men they watched in their childhood. They wanted to know where he got that belt, and how they could get one. Gentaro pulled back his arms before shooting them upwards while screaming

"It's space time!" Gentaro's voice seemed to be carried by the cosmos itself as it echoed through the entire world to hear him as his shouting reached space

"What is that?! Shield hero, explain yourself!" The king shouted in angered confusion, he did not understand what the shield hero had done and that angered him, as he felt inclined to disqualify him right then and there

"It's just my armor, did you really think I was going to fight him with just a jacket?" Gentaro said as he looked at the king, his voice sounded smug as the king gritted his teeth as he was just about to disqualify him and order his men to remove that belt from his body by force, but a hand to his shoulder made him stop, as he looked at his friend and the pope of the country, with his smiling expression telling Aultclay silently to stay down and merely watch to see what the shield hero could do in this altered state

"Also when I'm like this, the name's Fourze, hero of the universe!" He replied as he did a pose, but no one there gave that attention since most of those people present didn't know what a universe was

"Whatever! I can still beat you!" Motoyasu shouted as he pointed his spear at Fourze, he didn't care if he suited up or powered up, he was a useless shield that had no way to defeat someone like him

"Let's start this fight with a blast off! Mano-a-mano!" Fourze exclaimed, throwing his hands into the air before pointing his right fist at the spear hero. Both didn't wait for a reference to announce the beginning of the fight as they rushed towards each other

"[Multi spear]!" Motoyasu shouted a skill name as his arms and spear glowed as he started to do a series of rapid pokes automatically, Fourze lifted his arms up to protect himself, receiving little knock back and damage as he stumbled backwards by the end of the move

"Huh, that somehow hurt less than I expected but to make sure, [Defense up]!" Fourze shouted as his body was covered by a green glow as his defense went up. But then a purple energy washed over him and it went down to normal, then it was lowered a bit

"What the heck?! My magic was nullified?" He said as he looked at his hands and surroundings, seeing a man in the audience with his hands in front of them as they glowed a bit "Oi! That guy is-"

"[Chaos spear]!" Motoyasu shouted as he launched a thunderbolt from his spear at Fourze, causing him to be shocked in place

"Ouch, dude time out! There's someone in the audience sabotaging me!" Fourze said as he then was hit by another wave of purple energy washing over his body as his he saw his agility be lowered "Hey king you seeing this right?"

"I see nothing unusual, shield. Perhaps you're just delirious" the king said with a face so smug and with a cocky smile to boot. He knew full well that Fourze was having his stats lowered by the same men he had positioned to remove any buff he would apply on himself, he didn't expect them to try and weaken him but he guessed that they saw that flashy suit up he did and got scarred, but he wasn't going to complain if that guaranteed the shield's loss

"Are you serious? You're behind this aren't you-" Fourze was once again interrupted by Motoyasu throwing a [Chaos spear] at him, this time blocking it with his left hand

"You should focus on the battle, or kiss the ground!" Motoyasu teased as he did not believe something was amidst the duel, believing Fourze was making stuff up because he realized how weak he truly was. Everyone in the audience wasn't as oblivious as Motoyasu, but none wanted to speak up considering the king stated his opinion on the matter meant that speaking against it could be met with consequences, even Itsuki and Ren didn't want to speak up, rather they wanted to see what Gentaro did in such situation

"You know what? Fine! I'll beat you before these guys can weaken me further!" Fourze said as he pressed down on one of the switches in his belt, the grey one

"Radar. On." A radar dish with a screen appeared on Fourze's left arm, and he lifted it to his face.

"Target set and locked, now..." He said as he pressed down the blue switch, causing a blue box to appear on his right leg as a techno voice said "Launcher. On."

He stomped his right leg, firing missiles from it that went towards Motoyasu, who instead of dodging out of the way like a normal person, stayed still like a reindeer staring at car lights. But from the crowd, a gush of strong wind blew the missiles away from Motoyasu... And into the crowd on his left, as the people in the audience tried to get away before the missiles hit, some managing to avoid a direct explosion while some were blown away, not too severely injured but still getting hurt

Everyone with the exception of Motoyasu who had covered his eyes in anticipation of being hit and blown up, looked at the source of the mysterious wind. Seeing Malty Q Melromarc, daughter of the king and Motoyasu's companion at the far end of the arena with her hands stretched out forward as they had a faint glow from casting a spell

"... Shield hero! How could you attack the audience!" The king screamed as everyone looked at him shocked, the pope sitting by his side lowering his head as he covered his face with his palm, shaking his head disappointedly. Motoyasu opened his eyes at that and looked to see he wasn't dead, just to look to his side to see what might have become of him

"Okay cut the fucking crap, everyone including you saw that your daughter was the one to fucking redirect Gentaro's attack, had she not have done that, innocent civilians wouldn't have been hurt" Itsuki said thoroughly outraged at this act of the king, as much as he was sending envious looks at Fourze for having a super hero suit, seeing the king d say something so unjust after he simply allowed people in the audience to directly interfere by weakening Gentaro, trying to pass the blame on a action his daughter did, which hurt people he was just chatting to in the party moments ago like friends on to Gentaro who's only fault was launching a attack that was meant for a target not in the audience was enraging

"Your bias altitude is really revolting, trying to pass the blame of your daughter's actions to someone else is despicable, especially since people got hurt" Ren added in as he didn't bother looking at the king, just looking down with his eyes close and arms crossed

The king could hear the nobles in the audience and some of the knights there start to speak in agreement with the heroes as what the princess did was a bad move, sure most of them hate the shield hero but everyone saw the princess directly put the audience in harm's way with some people getting hurt, the king grunted as he had to save face

"I... Okay, guards escort her away, so that the duel may continue without further interference. Have the injured taken to receive medical attention" the king said as he waves his hand, as a knight has to guide a reluctant Malty out, as some other knights help move out the injured

"Huh?! Myne didn't do anything! She's a saint! Gentaro probably did that on purpose!" Motoyasu said as he couldn't believe Malty would have done such a thing, believing Fourze had intentionally attacked the audience in some grand plan

"Dude, you really are defending her? And people call me dumb" Gentaro commented as some took that as a self burn, but Motoyasu was fuming at that remark

"Why you!" Motoyasu said as he went and rushed towards Fourze as the space Kamen rider flipped the Launcher Switch down, pulled it out, and replaced it with a new Astroswitch, which he immediately flipped. "Chainsaw. On." The blue Launcher disappeared, only for a cyan chainsaw to replace it.

"Heya!" Gentaro said as he began to do kicks and leg swings at Motoyasu, who tried to block some while getting hit by others, the chainsaw didn't go through his armor or cut him too deeply but it still hurt. Gentaro mixed it up with a punch to his face and a leg swipe to make his opponent fall, as he went to stomp on him but Motoyasu had the good sense to roll out of the way and get up

"Damn, how can he be better at close range than me?! Whatever, skills are better at dealing damage any way" he said as he threw out another Chaos spear, only for Gentaro to dodge it and the consequent attacks in a somewhat goofy manner just as the attacks were about to hit, the impressiveness of such feat not being lost by some of the audience that knew how hard it was to dodge lightning

'His dodging lightning? How big is his agility stat?' Ren pondered as he watched the fight with much intrigue, he wondered if that Fourze suit granted any set of bonuses, clearly it wasn't a ordinary suit if those switches were anything to go by, he wanted to try it out for himself, specially since it seemed to bypass the weapon's rule of only being able to use a certain type of weapon, though he wondered how he obtained that

Realizing Motoyasu was trying to keep some distance between them, Fourze decided to not give him the chance, swapping out the Rocket Module with the Chain array Module and activating it, causing a flail with a spiked ball to appear in his right hand as he began to swing it at Motoyasu as the chains holding it began to stretch, the spear hero steps to the side to avoid the blow only to see the thing make a dent in the ground with a heavy thud

Fourze pulls it out and prepares to swing it again only for another wave of purple energy to wash over him as he felt weak and dropped the flail, he looks and once again someone in the audience was weakening him

He just scoffed as he changed and equipped the Giant foot Module, as he lifted up his feet before stomping the ground, making an energy above Motoyasu, he dodged out as the foot crashed down only to feel heavy as a boulder

"What is this?!" Motoyasu screamed as he tried to get up, but his body felt too heavy to even move an inch

"Just some Gravity! Now get ready to be finished!" Fourze said as he started to rush towards Motoyasu to knock him out, tempted to use an actual finisher like Rider rocket drill kick but judging that was too much since it could end up killing Motoyasu

Each step he took, a wave of purple debuff magic was applied to him by the king's men in the audience, Gentaro felt himself get weaker and weaker, as the magic affected his body making him feel exhausted as it stacked up but his determination kept pushing him to continue, to win for the sake of his friends

"Come... on... I... Can... Do... This!" Gentaro said as he was just at the side of the spear hero, lifting his flail to strike him, only to fall unconscious as one last debuff was applied to him, making him fall backwards on the ground, de-transforming due to exhaustion as the crowd goes silent

"Huh?" Motoyasu mustered as he doesn't feel like his body weighted a ton anymore, getting up to see Fourze on the ground passed out "I... Won?"

"And the spear hero has won the duel!" The king said as he jumped out of his seat and clapped, making it so the audience clapped in hesitancy, with the exception of Itsuki and Ren who are just baffled on what has occurred

"What?... I won!" Motoyasu said cheerily, unsure how he went from getting his butt handed to him to winning but not carrying anyways as he took in the crowd applause

"Now bring the shield's slaves! So that they can be freed!" The king announced as in a few moments, Raphtalia, Rishia and Cahllot, being forced by ropes, the mages went and applied the magical ink on their chest to unmake the slave seals... Only for nothing to happen

"It's probably on their backs, do it again" the king said as the mages did it again, trying out different body placements only to come out with nothing

"What's the meaning of this? Where's their seals?!" The king asked angered as Motoyasu looked at it confused as well

"We don't have it! Gentaro didn't apply a seal on us! Because we're friends!" Rishia, usually the shy and quiet one spoke up, what she said seemed to be true considering their lack of a curse mark

"What?! Then why are you two following him?! He's a rapist fu-" Motoyasu was silenced by Raphtalia as she quickly went and slapped him in the face before looking at the spear hero fiercely, having broken the rope holding one of her arms with an surge of fury

"He is no such thing! I know that he would never do such a thing to any of us! He almost died defending us, worked himself to exhaustion in unfair conditions just to get us food and medicine! And you say that when you don't even know him!" Raphtalia replied as she screamed from the top of her lungs, remembering how nice and fairly he treated her when he rescued her, how he would go out and work 2, 5 even 10 times as hard to get the money to help her recover from her sickness, all with while keeping that beaming smile, it filled her with hope and the desire to protect that smile with her life, he didn't force her or anyone else to fight for him, she chose to be his ally and protector just as he had chosen to be her friend, with no hesitation

"I feel safer with him, than I would ever feel with you!" Raphtalia said as she looked at the spear hero with disgust, for him she and Rishia were just two juicy steaks for him to add to his plate, and the fact he didn't acknowledge Cahllot like he did Rishia and her just proved to the raccoon girl that he was as worried if they were slaves or not, only if they were attractive slaves

"... Fine! Then I'm getting his belt as a prize!" Motoyasu said in a huff as he walked towards Gentaro and ripped out his belt, placing it on his waist. Itsuki and Ren jumped out from their seats in the audience to try and take it from Motoyasu, though they stopped when they realized how what he said and his attitude when the two girls he was fighting this duel for rejected seemed like he was in deed treating them as trophies to be gained, specially considering he seemed to always ignore the animal man along side them that he seemed less enthusiastic on freeing

"Now what did he do? Right, Flip the switches, pull the lever and shout "Henshin"!" Motoyasu said as he imitated what Gentaro had done, but instead of turning into Fourze, he was hurt by blue energy as the belt separated from him and he fell to the ground grunting in pain as he seemed to pass out

"What happened?" Itsuki asked as he and everyone there wondered why it didn't work for Motoyasu but it did for Gentaro

"His belt is sort of sentient, it decides who wields it or not" Cahllot explained as he remembers that Gentaro had explained that the belt was his friend or how it could only be used by people who match its standards, not even Gentaro knew how to put it into words but the belt was the only one that chooses who becomes Fourze

"Grrh!" The king grunted as he looked at the belt and tried to smash the Fourze driver with his foot but the belt had a blue force field manifest around it, stopping him as he tried again and again before getting too tired

"Lock this stupid thing in a vault!" The king commanded it but as a knight went to retrieve it, the belt disappeared and reappeared on Rishia's waist, the knight went to grab it from her but she was protected with the same force field as before, frustrating the king further

"Arghhhh! Fine! Stay with that devil and his evil belt! Just remember that I showed you three mercy today!" The king said as he waved his hand, the three friends of Gentaro had their bondages removed and they immediately went to check on the passed out Kamen rider, while the king had the spear hero taken to receive medical help

"He's fast asleep" Cahllot said as he checked Gentaro before picking him up and placing him on his shoulder, the trio and their passed out hero went to walk away.

"So it's a Mjölnir situation? "Only thou whose worthy may wield its power"? Shame" Ren said as he and Itsuki watched the group departing, he wasn't sure on the whole living belt thing, more so believe that it perhaps becomes bound with the first person that uses it but he had no way to prove that theory, still he lamented not being able to possibly use the suit

"I think I can pull it off, I'll see if Gentaro will let me try it once he wakes up" Itsuki said as he was confident that he had to be worthy of using the thing, Motoyasu clearly wasn't considering his performance today and it appeared on the waist of that green haired girl Rishia, indicating that she could perhaps use it and as such multiple users were possible. He decided it was best to wait for Gentaro to wake up and ask him permission since his party members probably wouldn't allow him to even touch the thing

"You think he would just let you?" Ren said as he looked at Itsuki knowing full well that if he had that belt, he would no one touch or use it, heck he probably wouldn't allow for anyone to breath on it

"Are you kidding me? He seems easy to convince and different from Motoyasu, I didn't announce myself as his enemy" Itsuki said as he was sure he could convince Gentaro to let him try the belt, the guy didn't seem dumb but very trustworthy of others, plus last time they saw each other they were in mutual terms, Itsuki just demonstrated disappointed with the accusation so he could work that around to him believe in Gentaro's innocence due to more time to think and this recent incident, which was actually true in his part "Plus... After today? I'm thinking that perhaps that whole trial was bullshit..."

"Yeah..." Ren said as he agreed to that point, they had a lot to think of from today

[Author's Notes]

I kept the astro switches even though they are a violation against the rules of the legendary shield because that's Fourze's main gimmick and it would feel lacking without it

Made it so the belt has some protection to prevent it from being destroyed or stolen permanently for this setting since Shadows are a thing. Chalk it up to the Cardinal shield wanting to keep a useful tool around

The male dog demi-human is an OC I made so it doesn't just seem like Gentaro is making a harem