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Tsukasa knows exactly who he is, actually. He knows how good he is. He knows he’s handsome, he’s intelligent. He can speak most languages he hears, and he’s an incredible fighter, and he’s…
He’s…
(He’s lonely. He’s young. He’s…)
He’s the Great Leader of Dai-Shocker, and he is Kamen Rider Decade. And neither title upsets him.
(He likes Decade better.)
And call him a monster but he knows that already, and he doesn’t care.
(Except that he does.)
Kaitou Daiki shouldn’t be anything special to him. At first he simply wanted to know why this man was the only criminal in this World that he could tell in moments ran on insidious control.
(And he despises insidious control. If you’re going to cause harm or use others or otherwise commit “evil”, be open with it, loud and noticeable.)
(Heroism is quieter, more often than not. But so is suffering.)
But the fact of the matter is that his Kaitou… Daiki is different. Broken, perhaps, but he’d really believed in doing good. Even if now his denials to Tsukasa grow weaker.
Reality broke him.
(This is why Tsukasa hates evil that is insidious.)
There’s probably a million like Daiki, out across the multiverse. Heroes who fell. A billion like Tsukasa, too. Riders who don’t use their powers for good. But Tsukasa likes Daiki, regardless. His pout. His skill, and his arguments even though he let Tsukasa bring him here.
Tsukasa thinks this might be what love feels like, this knowledge that if Daiki wanted to leave, Tsukasa would let him.
But he doesn’t. Leave, that is.
Tsukasa is the Great Leader. He’s powerful, he’s dangerous, and he’s done awful things since youth. He’s still youth, he supposes. Just turned 19. But he doesn’t mind his place, in life. There’s nowhere else to go, and here, he has everything he can desire.
“You’re a monster,” Daiki says, and Tsukasa shrugs.
“Perhaps,” he says. “On my spawner’s side.”
A terrible joke. Still easier than the truth.
(Because it’s not true. Not in the way Daiki means. Tsukasa reaches for light without words. For heroes without understanding. For Rider because a part of him he doesn’t yet recognize reaches for the only heroes he would naturally be a part of.
His parent was kind, was a victim of circumstance. They gave Tsukasa his first camera and they died trying to make this World better. Teaching Tsukasa the wrong lesson in the end, that heroism was futile.
But Tsukasa is no monster, not in his heart.)
More petty words that mean nothing. Watching Daiki slowly agree with him, over time…
Was it what he wanted?
(He doesn’t know what he wanted.)
Why does agreement feel worse?
(Daiki breaks further, and Tsukasa doesn’t know what to do with it.)
Tsukasa hasn’t visited World of Heroes yet, at least not to meet the newest Rider, the newest Rider who ties to the heart of the Something he’s searched endlessly for, who must be appearing soon.
He’s met Den-O, and the component parts. He’s met Kabuto and Gatack, both of whom are close to the Something. Hibiki, living a normal life despite being an Oni, despite being a Rider. Blade’s tragedy which he watched from afar. Faiz, in many ways the most familiar. Only a monster can be a Rider. Ryuki, when the words, Kamen Rider, which began to tie it all together first appeared. Agito, the seeds of the devil, and a hero who chose to forget. Kuuga…
Kuuga was special.
He should soon, but now, with Decade in hand, it feels almost perverse, to touch that World. So he doesn’t.
He goes out more. He begins to ignore everything.
(He is not made to be Great Leader.)
He is…
He knows who he is, doesn’t he?