Chapter Text
Hey everybody! The set up for this little sidestory is in Chapter 29 of the main one! If you haven’t read that far yet, please do!
Share and enjoy!
There was nothing.
And yet, somehow it all seemed so natural.
Kensei’s eyes, strengthened by the power of Kiiko’s merged with him, scanned over the storm of rippling beams of light all around him. One color one second, one shape, totally different the next. Through all the bright bands of chaos he could see shapes here and there. Houses, forests, cities. People, animals, the bottom of the ocean, the brown wasteland of a desert. Nothing that stayed in view long enough to be identified, even with the power of a Navi reinforcing his sense.
But there was one exception: there was a desert, with a bullet training driving through it. A bullet train with huge red windows on the front, and even more strangely, the tracks formed out of nowhere in front of it. Even as it passed over canyons and empty riverbeds.
His mind seemed to be going fuzzy as he floated through this chaotic attack on his senses of colors and input. Kensei could only register that he was “outside,” but outside from where, he couldn’t begin to guess.
Slowly he felt a power building up behind him, pushing him along through the morass of color. Maybe dragging was the right word, since he saw something strange then: a stream of bubbling purple matter, giving off an awesome power that seemed somehow familiar. A power that seemed like it had hooked him and was dragging him behind in its wake.
Then it was over.
XXX
He hit the ground and skidded until the rough bricks he landed stopped him.
Kensei gasped in surprise and pain as he pushed himself up. The skin on the bottom of his forearms had scraped almost away, but the shock of his sudden reappearance was the main thing on his blurred mind.
Everything was coming back in a hurry. He was Kensei Hidenaga, probably better known as Kamen Rider Utsura, a hero who got his powers from videogames, of all things. He’d been trying something with his friend Kiiko, who was a “game Navi,” to see if they could combine. To see if she could give him control of a measure of her special powers.
And then there had been something else… a wall of light, then he’d heard the bell of a train coming into the station, and he’d been pulled through a weird cloud or something of dancing lights and pictures.
Now there he was, on a street outside a skyscraper he was pretty sure wasn’t that far from his school.
And the street was empty, because a monster was smashing her way down it, knocking cars and bikes flying.
It was a short, clunky-looking robot covered in dull grey armor plating. The head on the shoulders looked vaguely feminine, with full lips under the soft blue LED eyes, but mainly thanks to the flat strips of metal like hair sticking out from the top. Instead of hands there was a fan built into a cage on the end of each of her wrists.
Powerful fans, though. The robot aimed one and a whooshing tornado whipped across the street, yanking cars and debris off the ground and pushing them down the street.
Right at Kensei.
Suddenly something slammed into him, but from the side, and he was rolling across the street a safe distance from the terrifying winds the robot had created. As they stopped, he realized it was a young man in a white doctor’s smock who’d tackled him. A doctor wearing red jeans and a shirt with the image of a red sports car speeding away, under the words Out Run.
Kensei recognized him. It was Emu Hojo. But the reassuring smile he was giving Kensei seemed new…
That wasn’t even close to the most surprising thing that happened to him then, because Emu wasn’t alone. Standing across the street was a young man, looking to be in the middle of his university years. His jaw was strong, his smiling blindingly confident, and his black tanktop revealing toned biceps. One hand was covered in a bright green plastic glove with a small pink lever on the back, and in his other hand was a darker green Gashat.
In that moment Kensei’s heart seemed to stop.
It was Yuuma Hidenaga.
Kensei’s brother.
“Is that all they called us down for? I can handle a little one like this myself, Emu!” Yuuma laughed before he hit the trigger on his Gashat. “Mighty vs. DYNAMighty!” it yelled. “Bravest versus BIGGEST! Chase and plan! Run and crush! Who’s the strongest?! Die-die-DynaMIGHTY!”
“Henshin!”
Yuuma slid the game’s circuit panel into a slot on the back of his gaudy glove and pulled the pink lever, making it emit a loud “Ga-CHAN!” Armor started forming on him, block shapes crawling together and spreading across Yuuma. The same chestplate and track shoes combination as most all Kamen Riders, but huge green fists like boxing gloves formed over his hands, and curved quills over the forehead of his mask like Ex-Aid had, but even taller and leaning even farther over to the right. Huge green spikes, their tips bent forwards, stuck out of his shoulder armor.
“Kamen Rider Bruiser! Crushing Bugster infections!” Yuuma said, a laughing tone to his words just like before. Just like always. “You’ll never blow this Rider away, Vorutekka!” He ran straight at the robot, swinging his giant fists like windmills.
“I can blow harder than any Bugster you ever fought, Rider!” Vorutekka replied, the words almost impossible to understand under the metallic whine of her voice.
“Keep it down! Somebody might hear you and think you’re coming onto me!”
Emu pulled on Kensei’s arm. “We have to get you to safety,” he warned. Kensei didn’t even hear him.
He yanked his arm out of the doctor’s hands and ran down the street to where the fight was picking up, his Dual Gashat in his hands, the knob seeming to twist on its own with his need to join in.
“Demon Ninja!”
Another tornado, even bigger than before with Vorutekka holding both of her fans together, ripped down the street and covered Kame Rider Bruiser. He dug in his feet and held up his big fists in front of himself in a defensive posture until the tornado finished roaring past. A few dead leaves and pieces of trash paper were impaled on the spikes of his shoulders and the quills of his mask, but Bruiser himself hadn’t budged an inch.
Suddenly Bruiser crouched down and launched himself at Vorutekka, giant-fists-first. They crunched into the middle of her torso and left a terrifying dent in the metal. Vorutekka pointed her fans at the ground and created another tornado that pushed her off the ground. She swung her right arm forward and the column of wind sliced through a building. The top half tumbled down on top of Bruiser, who crouched and jumped straight through the falling edifice, his large fists shattering most debris before it could hit him and do much damage.
As Bruiser came exploding out of the other side of the toppling building and it smashed into a heap of rubble in a horrendous cacophony of dust and concrete, Vorutekka pointed her fans forward and flew away from the battle. “I’ll blow down the whole world…after repairs are complete!” she declared. She didn’t seem to see Kensei, who was right under her by then with Emu chasing after him.
“You’re not supposed to be running closer to the Bugster!” he called, leaning forward to try to grab Kensei’s shoulder. Then suddenly Kensei stopped, and Emu ran into his back, bounced off and landed hard on his own back. “That hurts…” the doctor moaned almost comically. He stared then as he recognized the Gamer Driver Kensei was fastening around his waist.
“Henshin.” The Dual Gashat in his hands locked into its slots on Kensei’s belt. In a flash Kensei was clad in black and purple armor, clutching a pair of kusari-gama with gleaming curved blades in his hands. “Let’s play,” he said in a menacing whisper.
He jumped to a car, jumped back off at an angle that carried him to the wall of a building and vaulted off of that so he was coming up at the hovering robot. Vorutekka had just finished tracking Utsura’s movement when he slammed into her. He dug the blades of his weapons into the already big dent Bruiser’s punch had left there and pulled.
Utsura’s blades tore into her armor exposing the wires and dull the grey endoskeleton underneath. Just as Vorutekka had finished her metallic yelp Utsura had already jumped away, the blast of wind meant to obliterate him only tearing the corner off a building down the block instead.
And while her attention was focused on that, Bruiser hit her from behind like a wrecking ball and knocked her out of the air.
A short distance away Utsura landed, swinging down from the cord on one of his kusari-gama used as a grappling line. He didn’t even have a chance to pull it free before a huge shadowy shape came down from a jump right in front of him.
It had thick arms and legs, ending in big pink fists and neon green track shoes. At the elbows and knees were golden spring-like coils against the black armor covering the rest. In the chest itself stared out a pair of giant angry orange eyes, below rows of golden spikes on the shoulders.
Between those giant golden spikes was a face he had seen before, the oversized eyes and the curved pink quills on the forehead of the mask of Kamen Rider Ex-Aid.
“Slow down there!” said Emu Hojo’s familiar voice. “Just who are you?”
“I’m Yuuma’s brother, Kensei!” Utsura answered.
Ex-Aid’s big eyes seemed to get even bigger. It felt like even the eyes in his torso were staring wider at Utsura in disbelief. After a minute Ex-Aid seemed to find his voice. “Yuuma’s brother isn’t a Kamen Rider…”
XXX
Down the street Vorutekka leveled one of her fans at Kamen Rider Bruiser’s face, who smashed a fist into the weapon and turned it into a twisted piece of wreckage.
But that gave her a few precious seconds jab the other fan right up against Bruiser’s mask and cut loose with all the firepower she had left at point-blank. The cone of a tornado whipped up right around his chin and his head was surrounded by an explosion of countless tiny HIT graphics from the cutting winds.
Bruiser’s cry of pain was drowned out by the roar of Vorutekka’s tornado. He was blown into the air and hit the side of a building hard enough to leave a crater then slipped off and landed in a hedge on the ground. Vorutekka took aim with another air-blast to finish him off.
Suddenly there was a *crunch* of metal caving in and her arms were yanked up toward the sky. Curved blades stuck out from her shoulders, and her arms creaked and snapped off as the blades recoiled back to the armor between Kamen Rider Utsura’s shoulders. He pressed his index fingers together, one over and one under, and said, “Fission Jutsu.”
Two clouds of smoke appeared on his left and right, and two more Kamen Rider Utsuras appeared out of them. In perfect synch all three of them detached the giant golden shuriken on their chest armor. In perfect synch all three of them threw them, impaling Vorutekka between the shoulders and through each leg at a precise point to paralyze her.
On the other side of the street Kamen Rider Ex-Aid stood and watch, shaking his head in disbelief. The Rider was fighting on their side, but…
“I will—blow—you—all—” Vorutekka rattled helplessly.
“That’s enough of that!” Bruiser cut her off. He awkwardly moved the lever on the back of his right arm with his boxing of a hand. “DynaMighty Critical FLATTEN!” it shouted. He lifted his right arm and brought it down on top of the immobilized Vorutekka like a jackhammer, pounding her down into a flat square of metal.
Over Bruiser’s head the familiar graphic appeared: GAME CLEAR, with its familiar little victory tune playing along with it.
He wasn’t looking at it, though. Instead he was looking at the ninja Rider who’d appeared out of nowhere. “Who are you?” Bruiser asked, his voice slow with curiosity, not suspicion at what he’d just seen.
“That’s a question I’d like answered too,” Ex-Aid said, jogging up in his bulky mecha suit. “Because I’m not sure I can quite believe the answer he gave me.”
Both of them stared at him their suits’ giant anime eyes. Utsura pulled free his Dual Gashat and let his armor disappear with a strangely tense “Gashuuuun” from his belt. Bruiser looked at him hard for a minute before pulling the Gashat out of his own gear and turning back to normal, a confused look on his face. Ex-Aid was the last, seeming satisfied by his ally letting down his guard, but looking just as confused as Yuuma did.
It wasn’t helped when a pink light flowed out of Kensei’s ear and formed into a nervous-looking girl wearing the same school’s uniform as him.
“Kensei?” Yuuma asked and walked in a circle around him, taking in every detail. “You are Kensei…kind of. But Kensei isn’t a Kamen Rider. Is he?” Yuuma looked over at Emu, who shrugged. “What’s going on here?”
XXX
Kiiko’s hand squeezed Kensei’s again as the clock ticked past another minute and their wait in the examination room officially passed half an hour.
“When do they let us out of here?” she asked.
The answer came a second later when the door opened and Emu came in carrying a clipboard, Yuuma behind him but also a pair of doctors they recognized, Hiiro Kagami and Taiga Hanaya. “Well, somehow it’s true,” Emu announced. “Everything checks out. Height, weight, blood type, fingerprints, DNA…he’s Kensei Hidenaga. Even the family addresses you told us match. That is, one of them did. Your parents are still married, Hidenaga-san.”
Kensei nodded slowly. “Well, a lot of things seem different.”
“That’s a crazy story you told these two, kid,” Taiga said, proud and dismissive just like Kensei was used to hearing from him.
“But the evidence doesn’t lie,” Yuuma went on and stepped forward from the doctors. “You really are a Kamen Rider too, Kensei-kun.”
Emu spoke up. “Please understand, we’re not mad or suspicious of you,” he said with a friendly smile. “We’re just very confused. Yuuma’s been a Kamen Rider with us for just a little over a year, to help deal with Bugster appearances when we’re unable to respond. You say where you’re from he’s a victim of game monsters called…Corrupture, though? Not Bugsters? And you have two other Riders who help you fight them?”
Kiiko squeezed down on Kensei’s hand again, and he squeezed it back in support.
“Right,” he answered, then swiped through a few pictures on his phone. Showing himself, Kiiko, and his allies Doku and Yoshoku sitting around the meeting area in the CR Ward, the Kamen Riders’ secret base under the hospital.
The one, he’d been told, the old Riders had used to treat victims of the virus that created game monsters. Maybe they’d buy his story if they saw he’d been there already with his friends…?
Yuuma suddenly stepped behind the chair was Kensei was sitting and clapped his hands on his little brother’s shoulders, and smiled down at the surprised Kensei. “Let me worry about him, guys.”
“You’ve got enough to worry about already,” Hiiro pointed out. “You’re the one who’s on-call in case the rest of us can’t respond.”
Yuuma punched Hiiro playfully on the shoulder, and the stone-faced doctor actually smiled. “Hey, I’m not exactly babysitting them. It’s another Rider! Having him around will make us more powerful, not distract me having to look out for a civilian!” Yuuma explained. He looked down at Kensei again. “Besides, I have to. This is family.”
“If Yuuma’s vouching for you…” Taiga muttered.
“…then welcome aboard!” Emu said with a grin, extending his hand for Kensei to shake.
Smiling back, Kensei did.
XXX
“This is weird, but…cool!” Yuuma said and squeezed his brother’s shoulder as they walked down the city street. On Kensei’s other side Kiiko walked along, smiling, but Kensei could see an uncertain look in her eyes.
She had gotten more reserved lately, when she used to be the most bombastic cheerleader he’d ever seen. Had Kiiko gotten that shaken up when he’d been poisoned?
“Well it’s weird, yeah!” Kensei agreed. “I have no idea what I’m doing here…or…”
Yuuma clapped him on the back, and Kensei stumbled. Kiiko caught him with a hand on his chest, and looked up at Yuuma with surprise on her face.
He laughed again and shook his head. “I’m sorry! I’m just really excited! I’ve been telling CR that Kensei-kun would make a good Rider when he finishes school, and here he is, and he’s an even better Rider than I am!”
Kensei blinked and looked away, his eyes wide like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“Are you okay?” Kiiko whispered to him.
“Kind of?” Kensei asked in reply. “I mean, this is all a lot to take in, isn’t it?”
She nodded slowly in understanding. Yuuma nodded too, his earlier excitement fading. “Back where you’re from I’m gone…but I’m not really dead, right?” he asked his brother.
Kensei nodded. “Right, because the Corrupture use their victims as host bodies when they attack, but when they’re defeated they go back into this kind of ‘space’ until later.”
“Like the ghosts in Pac-Man,” Yuuma suggested.
“Something like that,” Kensei replied.
Yuuma squeezed his shoulder and gave his little brother a supportive smile. “It’s okay, we’ll figure it out. Sounds like one of those parallel universes or something, you know?”
But Kensei didn’t answer him.
Through the crowd, Kensei saw a man in a dark suit with dark red hair. The flow of people seemed to part around him as if they automatically knew they should. He was fiddling with some kind of device: a box that was pink on the front with two circles that looked like lenses, and black on the sides. The man looked up and locked eyes with Kensei then, and it was like a magnet was pulling their heads to look at one another.
Without warning the feeling of the pull was gone and the man vanished into the crush of pedestrians.
XXX
When Kensei finished their second round of tea he was managing to smile more.
“You feeling okay now, Kensei-kun?” Yuum asked anyway, a look of gentle concern punctuating the question.
He nodded. “Yeah. I don’t think I’m ready to meet mom and dad yet, though. Definitely not ready to meet…me yet.”
“Where will you stay?” Yuuma asked him.
“In CR. I know how to get in,” Kensei answered.
Yuuma waved as Kensei stepped away to head back to Seito University Hospital. “I’ll check in with you tomorrow, okay little brother? This is so cool!”
Kensei waved to his brother until Yuuma got down to the end of the block and turned around to start jogging home. He turned away from the vanishing shape of his older brother and back in the direction of the hospital, but suddenly Kiiko grabbed his arm.
She whispered to him, “Kensei-kun, I don’t like this place.” Kiiko’s eyes darted around nervously, like she was expecting an attack or some other danger to appear suddenly.
“Why? What’s the matter?”
Kiiko look around again and clung to his arm. “Something’s wrong with it, I don’t really know how to say it. Like there’s no foundation and it’s shaking around when we walk, maybe.”
“Really?” he asked, but she sighed a little in relief when she recognized the cautious undertone to the word. “You can feel it or something?”
She clung a little tighter to her friend, the hero, the only thing she knew could rely on in this strange world. “Yes. I didn’t want to say anything before since you were so happy to see your brother again, but I don’t think it’s safe for us to be here…”
“All right, I’ll be careful, but what can we do? We don’t know how we ended up here, so how would we get back?” Kensei asked, cupping her cheek as he did to help her stay calm. “I’ll keep an eye out for anything that’ll help, I promise, but…”
“Please,” she said and looked up at him with a pleading glimmer in her eyes.
“I will. I promise,” he said again.
She shut her eyes and nodded with her cheek rubbing against his arm.
XXX
Just on the border of the district, a lady stepped out of a cab and carefully re-secured her flu mask. Right before she coughed violently right into it, and a flickering wisp of dark orange escaped and whirled away on the wind.
It passed through a park, empty with the oncoming evening. The wisp curled and danced through the air, almost as if searching for something. Or someone.
Even then, after the Kamen Riders emerged victorious over its worst manifestations, the Bugster Virus had not been completely eliminated. Like any virus, its greatest drive was to find a place where it could spread.
Something spread to it instead.
From out of the sky a spiral of bubbling purple particles spun around the tiny cluster of Bugster virus. It dove right through, absorbing the orange fleck before speeding away into a dark corner to swallow.
Orange and purple static wrestled over each other as the purple stream piled on top of itself into a floating blob.
The blob was made of the new strain of the virus. It had evolved more than the virus in this world. However even evolved, its survival was threatened by its enemies growing more and more powerful. It needed a previous example of its kind, so that excample could deliberately be evolved into something greater.
Something the Kamen Riders would never expect…
The blob shook, pockets of sludge falling off it all over the ground, then the top popped open and spewed something out of the top that splattered on the ground a few feet away.
Right away the wad of sputum stretched up, solidifying into a grey-clad ninja warrior. His bare fingers and the slit for his eyes showed cracked orange skin and bloody red eyes marked with only a black sclera. Across his chest was a bandolier slung with shuriken of a dozen shapes but all gleaming like new. In both hands he held a dark metal kunai dagger.
Then, incredibly, the blob spoke to him. “G. Ninja, legendary dark warrior representing the great game of Knock-Out Fighter,” it said in a powerful voice. The voice of Hourakou Byougen, the heart and mind of the Corrupture Virus. “You’ll be the first…”