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Who is Hikari Natsumi?
An interesting question.
In the story… she is nothing. No Rider, not until end moments. A lense to understand the Worlds, to understand Decade. She becomes a Rider to stop the villain and then all the heroes come back.
The villain, too, is Decade.
But then, this is not about him.
Hikari Natsumi is…
She is nothing. Or so the story says.
But isn’t the point of Decade that every nothing means something?
It starts like this: Her parents die in an accident when she’s 8 years old, and her grandpa retires from his job to take over the photo studio. She’s grateful, at least, that she isn’t displaced.
He sits her down and he tells her he’ll take care of her, that he knows how much she misses her parents and he feels the same, but that he loves her absolutely.
She believes him, of course, and, at the time, he means it.
Unfortunately, fate has bigger plans.
It goes…
She decides she’s going to take over the photo studio when she’s 12 years old and joins her middle school yearbook club. She leaves part way through, the group simply not feeling right for her.
It’s also around then, of course, that she realizes that she is a “her”, that maybe part of the reason she’s drifted since childhood is from being disconnected from herself.
She starts helping her grandpa at the store, more often. She sees the smiles on people’s faces as they see their best pictures, ones which show their best selves.
She doesn’t see herself there.
She takes up scrapbooking, instead. Pictures of the world around her, and, eventually, of herself, of her friends.
(From the beginning, her role is to chronicle, an truly, what does that say?)
She’s 13 and she decides that she’s a girl. There was never really another option for her, she thinks. It makes life suddenly much easier. It makes it a hundred times harder.
She has to transfer schools, but at least her grandpa supports her.
She makes friends, there, friends that imply a destiny. They’re dumb kids, but they’re happy together.
She’s beyond glad when they all get into the same high school.
She’s a high schooler, and Tanaka-Sensei explains they can continue this alternate learning plan through graduation, if they’d like to all stay together.
Everyone is excited about the prospect. But they go to more actual classes, anyways. They’re trying to Do something with their lives now, after all.
It’s during that time where she realizes she’s in love with Chinatsu and it seems the feelings are mutual. A relationship, for a time, makes her feel more important than she ever has. And she loves Chinatsu as best as an awkward high school girl can love another, too.
It doesn’t last forever, but it matters for a time.
She’s a high schooler, and her friends are discussing future plans. Chinatsu says she’s changing schools and doesn’t explain why, just says that she wishes she didn’t have to work for her family business - her family is, apparently, high up in there.
(Chinatsu says she doesn’t want to try long distance as girlfriends, and that hurts. But they’ve promised to stay friends and it feels real.)
“Well, what do you want to do?” Aoyagi asks.
“I don’t know,” Chinatsu says honestly. “But that’s why I’m here, for now.”
But really, Most of them still don’t know yet what they’re doing.
“I’m probably going to work at my family studio,” Natsumi says, and they all look at her… before Sato grins, and oh no.
“Three cheers for the only one here with their life together!” He exclaims, and the others cheer. Natsumi raises her thumb threateningly.
“It’s not like it’s a huge plan!” She points out.
“Well it is something,” Sakata says.
“I guess…”
(“Now, who wants to go looking for the Forest?”
“No!” Exclaims Chinatsu.
“Is something wrong, Chinatsu?” Natsumi asks. But Chinatsu shakes her head.
“It’s nothing,” she says.
“Don’t be a coward now , Chichi,” Sato says.
“…I have a few ideas,” offers Tanaka-Sensei. “If Chinatsu doesn’t want to go out there.”
A fate avoided, for now.)
She’s 19 and complaining about the annoying man she’d taken in.
“This Tsukasa continues to sound like The Worst,” Sato says agreeably over the phone. Natsumi groans.
“If I have to deal with him much longer,” she says. “I swear he’ll send my studio into debt!”
“Now that’s not true,” Sato says. “You’re good with money and I know you have a steady customer base. Not like me, trying my luck at pro dance.”
“Hey - you took a risk,” Natsumi says.
“Yeah,” he says with a laugh. “You could say that… but my question is why you even took him in.”
Natsumi sighs.
“Honestly?” She asks. “I don’t know. I guess I just felt sorry for him, when I found him out in the forest. And… I guess I’ve been missing forcing interesting things to happen alone. I miss you guys.”
“Yeah,” Sato replies. “We’ve all been so busy, it’s been hard to find time for any sort of group gathering.”
“We could change that,” Natsumi says. “I can call the others - we’ll see if Chinatsu can come from overseas…”
Their last long conversation had been strange, Chinatsu distracted for reasons Natsumi couldn’t begin to guess, but she still cared for the other girl. Even if it’s been a few months now since they properly talked.
“Sounds like a plan,” Sato responds.
She’s 20 and she watches her World go up in frozen flames. She’s been running for what feels like hours, but she gets no time to stop. They’re off, helping this other World - and god, another World how does she even begin…
She’s in her room that night, staring up at the ceiling, and she thinks… Tsukasa, selfish, arrogant, and simultaneously anxious Tsukasa, is the only person who can save the World.
They’re practically doomed.
And all she can do in all of this, really, is watch. How can she even begin to help?
(She’s a convict, and it’s up to Tsukasa to save her.
She couldn’t help. And what chance does he have of winning in this messed up system, anyways?)
(She will not remember this, and yet…)
It’s late at night and she’s tired. She thinks she’s alone right up until she realizes Yuusuke has sat down next to her.
“Is something wrong?” He asks.
“I just realized I can’t go back to my World,” she says before she realizes what she’s saying. “At least… not yet.”
“Hey,” Yuusuke says. “We only have two Worlds left to go. I’m sure Tsukasa can get us through those.”
“I just wish I could do more,” Natsumi says, and Yuusuke takes her hand.
“You’re an important part,” Yuusuke says. “Of this. You know that, right? Without you, I don’t know if I could have accepted Ane-San’s death. You believed in me even before Tsukasa. And hey, you helped on World of Blade - we really did look good…”
Natsumi laughs, despite herself.
“And I don’t know about you, but I know this’ll all end well, because I know Tsukasa wants to get you home,” Yuusuke says. “And I want to get you home, too.”
It’s too much, and he’s too nice, too open, and she just…
She quickly excuses herself to her room.
She really, really hopes this is over soon. Her life seems to become, more and more, an extension of Tsukasa’s.
This other Natsumi is 20, but she is ragged. If Natsumi focuses, she can see that the other is thinner, her shape slightly off in a hundred different ways. Her eyes put Natsumi’s own sadness to shame.
All her friends are dead, but they’re not her friends, because this isn’t her World .
And she realizes she might never get to go home, actually.
But maybe that’s okay.
For now… she has to focus on the journey.
(She still can do nothing. Her role remains, simply, to watch Tsukasa. And one day…)
“Maybe I can’t go home at all,” Natsumi says, and this time she’s somehow found herself leaning into Yuusuke, who is warm, who is caring, who is here unlike everyone she has ever known.
He says nothing. He lets her stay like that until morning, if fact.
She’s glad to have support, in that moment.
“That’s why I say ‘welcome home’.”
Because it’s all she can do. For now, a watcher, can offer a soft support. And Tsukasa takes it, of course. Kisses her gently and she’s holding him close, and he takes the support until the next day where all morning he keeps staring at his hands like he doesn’t understand.
“That’s not how this goes,” she hears him murmur, and when she walks up to him, he moves away.
Such a sudden switch, and what does he know ? Why can he never make enough sense? Why can she never exist outside of him, anymore?
At least… at least she can take an attack in his place.
(She’s dying, and all Tsukasa can think as he saves her is why giving his life to her feels right when kissing her had felt so wrong. )
She’s alone more than ever and he’s begging at her door but she still says “no.”
She’s running and it’s Daiki who finds her, finds her before anyone else, as she runs, as she watches.
He’s not helpful, that’s not his role , but he’s there and maybe these subtle alterations of who they Should Be are the most important thing.
And this time when they reunite, Tsukasa seems… okay, finally. For a moment. And so she responds in kind.
It can’t last.
It’s the end of the Rider War and she finally understands.
She’s 20 and she’s suddenly realized her role is not the watcher. Her role is the killer. The destroyer of destroyers.
Her role is the true end.
She can’t accept it up until it happens and yet it makes everything fall into place in the worst way. The way Tsukasa had felt Off after they first got together. The way she could never fully understand or trust in Tsukasa.
She couldn’t.
But when he’s dying in her arms, when he says “I’m glad it was you” and “I only bring destruction - that’s all I can do”… all she feels is grief, is loss, is the knowledge beyond this engineered tragedy that this is wrong .
That she wishes she could scream from the losses, but she can’t.
that’s not her role.
She’s told Decade has no story.
This is a lie. This whole thing has been some twisted story, but it has been theirs and it has been Tsukasa’s most of all. It is not hers, and she lives with this every moment.
But she doesn’t care .
She will make it so even if she has to drag Tsukasa back from hell on the world’s stupidest hope, because Tsukasa matters and she will make all of this MATTER.
She hold a photo up to the sky, and she prays.
She is the destroyer of destroyers. She is the watcher.
She is…
Who is Hikari Natsumi?
An interesting question.
In the story… she is nothing. No Rider, not until end moments. A lense to understand the Worlds, to understand Decade. She becomes a Rider to stop the villain and then all the heroes come back.
The villain, too, is Decade.
But then, this is not about him.
This is about Hikari Natsumi, the woman who broke the rules to fix this story.
This is who she is.
And if this is his story… then she’s the one who writes it’s ending.