Chapter Text
The day it started was when Kiriko watched her fingers dissolve into light.
The Global Freeze , they called it, but that wasn’t what it was to her. It was that day she realized that monsters exist. The day that she learned that being police meant nothing if she was powerless.
It was the day she was saved. Scooped up in the arms of a figure dark in the rain.
( Proto-Drive , Krim calls him with a wistful voice. My finest creation. Kiriko felt the pressure of responsibility heavy on her shoulders.)
It was the day she swore to herself to toss aside her smile, to hammer out her soft edges until they became steel, until it weighed heavy enough to use as a weapon.
( He’s dead, Krim states matter-of-factly. Like a document stating the facts of the case.)
She considers quitting, that day. She had wanted to become a cop to bring justice to the world, but it all felt so empty, suddenly. The concept of justice - it felt unobtainable, an illusionary ideal.
So many people had died.
But it was the same day that she had seen that figure. Kamen Rider, she had heard him called by the monsters that threatened to destroy them. And if that was an illusion - she’d chase after it until it was real. Until she could grasp it in her hands.
It was the day she realized that monsters existed. And it was the day she realized that heroes had to exist.
If there were no heroes in this world, she’d be the hero that they needed. The hero that saved her life. The hero that saved her soul. For his sake, for the sake of those who were saved by him…
Kiriko’s hands tighten around her gun, and she aims at the target once more.
The Special Crimes Department was an afterthought. It was easy to see that from where they were stationed, a driving school on the edge of the jurisdiction, but the people there are smart. Kyu is reliable at getting information, Rinna’s inventions are invaluable at gleaning information from cold scenes, and even Tomari Shinnosuke’s deductions could be game-changing - when he got his head into gear. Even the captain could give good advice, if he felt like it.
Still - Kiriko has worked herself to the bone, grating down each kind part to herself that she could be something right enough to be able to call herself justice . It’s frustrating, that this was all it amounted to.
The Global Freeze changed everything - and the name feels heavy on her chest. The world stopped for her then, when she was weighed down with fear. Her hands have been shaking ever since, despite the will she has to keep them steady. Each step and moment has to be perfectly planned.
She threw away her smile for this. It has to mean something.
-- the abandoned car in the parking lot means something just the same. She knows that much.
According to the captain, it’s been there the whole time - Kyu couldn’t pull up any information on it, either. “Part of the driving school,” Tomari added, before returning to his milk candy, but it can’t simply be that. There are strange things in life, like the tiny plastic cars that dot the inside of the center, like the way she remembers similar ones creating roads in mid-air during that Freeze .
…she sounds a little like she’s going crazy, but Shijimas are excellent at dedication. And going without sleep.
A cop shouldn’t be staying awake for forty-eight hours, and a cop also shouldn’t be breaking and entering. But Rinna eventually agreed to her insistence to investigate the suspicious car, and a device ends up unlocking it from the outside (which led to a whole lot of questions about why Rinna even made something like that. But it wasn’t the priority - she was an enigmatic woman.)
“ You didn’t give up ,” a voice replied to her.
Kiriko slams her head on the ceiling of the car before the voice continues.
“Where are my manners?” A robotic face - on the dashboard - it swivels to stare at her. “I am Krim Steinbelt. I’ve been watching you for some time.”
None of that comforts her. But against her better judgment, the voice - it’s familiar. The same as a voice that called out from the figure of that day. So Kiriko closes the door to the car, and Kiriko listens, and Kiriko understands.
Roidmudes - the monsters that wrote fear into her heart she hadn’t felt in years. Krim’s voice goes quiet during parts of the story, and Kiriko knows that there’s secrets hidden behind that volume, but she doesn’t press. They all have their own secrets. They all have their own battles.
Drive is the name of what could stand up to the monsters. Drive was what could be considered justice in this world. Drive is something that could be a hero.
That could be Kiriko’s battle. That could be what she’s been reaching for all this time.
“I need to ask your help to find a suitable user for Drive,” Krim says, solemn.
“You have one,” Kiriko replies. “Make me Drive.”
(That’s the first day in a long time that she asks for something for herself.)
“What happened to dad?”
It’s the first time she’s asked since her mom took her away. Gou’s too young to remember, really, just knowing someone with a sharp smile and sharper words - their father wasn’t one for kindness.
That’s what got them into that fight, Kiriko thinks. She doesn’t remember it too well, holed up in their room with Gou on his game system, both of them trying their best not to hear thrown words from across the hall.
Her mother turns to look at her, and she seems so sad. It’s then that Kiriko knows not to ask so clumsily. Something like that is dangerous, a live wire in their hearts.
Kiriko doesn’t ask again.
Drive feels clumsy on her body. It’s thick, unwieldy, the power flowing through her veins but with no real way to channel it, Kiriko feels lost.
“The transformation’s holding,” Rinna states - and of course it would be her who already knows about this, her only answer to Kiriko’s questions being a wink and a grin - but she’s frowning. “Kiriko, why aren’t you moving?”
This is the same body that carried her that night. Kiriko suddenly knows it intimately. Is this what that dark figure felt like? Powerful, like everything else in the room was made of paper? She could break through walls if she wishes. Krim, Rinna, the Tridoron sitting in the middle of the room, the Special Crimes Department upstairs - all of them are the same level of breakable, suddenly. Glass. Each class she took about gun safety drowned out by the sheer buzz in her body.
Kiriko’s fingers curl in and out.
“This is made to destroy the roidmudes,” Kiriko states. Her voice feels hollow. Is this what they need, to do such a thing? There’s fire in her fingertips. Each etch of her fingerprint could burn.
“ Yes,” Krim replies, and there’s such certainty in his own response. Is that why he didn’t want her to do it? Because he somehow sensed she would hesitate? “Unlike the previous model, Drive has the ability to destroy cores. Any roidmudes you destroy will be unable to come back.”
Unlike the previous model. She knows Krim cares, but it feels like her hero’s been tossed aside, and she’s been raised on a pedestal in his place. It’s heavy on her body. There’s lives on her back and blood on her hands, and she hasn’t moved yet.
“Why?’ It’s a stupid thing to ask. She’s meant to be justice , she’s meant to be strong , but she still asks such childish things as why .
“They’ll take more lives if we don’t.” And that should be the only reason, but Kiriko can’t understand it. Why it has to be balanced in lives for lives. Why sins have to be repaid in sins.
Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe it’s too much for you. But Kiriko will bear it, just as she bore it in the past, and take the sins upon herself.
The armor feels a little lighter. Maybe it’s become part of her at last, the weight settling.
She moves.
“What are you working on?” She’s not allowed to go into the lab, but she can catch her father as he exits. He frowns for a moment, scolding her for going near the equipment, but it’s close enough to attention that she beams regardless.
“My finest creations,” he eventually says. “They’re going to change the world.”
“Just like us!” Back before he got involved with the man he spends all his time with, father used to tell her and Gou that they would be extraordinary. That anything he made would be.
(That’s why they could never disappoint him. Because they were going to be extraordinary.)
“Yes,” he says, but there’s distance in his voice. “Even more so.”
Kiriko runs to catch up -
“Transform.”
The armor forms around her as she steps forward, matching around each limb like it was made for her. Funny, that all it took to feel comfortable was to remember the last time she was chasing after someone.
(How did that work out ? She can’t remember. )
But maybe it wasn’t that. Maybe it was the responsibility. She’s standing on millions of lives with each step, heavy with the hopes and wishes of them all.
She can’t hesitate. She won’t hesitate. She won’t think at all. In order to save someone -
In order to save her from that day, she’ll move.
“Who the hell are you?” hisses a roidmude.
Tomari Shinnosuke hides behind the Tridoron, gun in his hand and eyes sharp for the first time Kiriko’s ever seen. Krim’s warm on her midsection, and his fury bleeds through the suit.
Kiriko Shijima stands tall.
“Kamen Rider Drive,” she declares, and the name of hero feels right. “And you’re coming along for the ride.”