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Shu is transferred shortly after Woz is given his command, but he keeps one of the datapads he’d helped Woz and Tsukuyomi steal. He keeps in touch with all of them through it.
About two months after, however, his messages stop.
He’s far enough away that it takes over a week for the confirmation to reach them.
Two things happen in quick succession, after that.
The first is that Keito talks Tsukuyomi and Woz himself into sneaking into a nearby Oma Zi-O outpost and legally change his name. He writes it “Geiz” in Roman letters, for reasons that Woz can’t hope to understand.
Woz is tempted to tease him about wanting a “cool” name but he has enough sense not to poke the grieving teenager who he does in fact care about.
Instead, he gets more focused, and so do… so do Geiz and Tsukuyomi.
The second is that Woz sees another guy in the same outfit as that man he’d met some time ago. And he asks him the hard questions.
“Zora told me about you,” the man says. “You’re a stable time anomaly.”
“That is not what I enquired,” Woz says. “ How did the Heisei Riders cause the rise of Oma Zi-O.”
The man looks him up and down.
“Maybe you aren’t as settled as we were told, however,” he says. “Follow me.”
The Heisei Riders, the Heisei Era, all of it made by time paradoxes and dimensions merged badly. There are no less than five terrible futures existing in parallel out of the era’s end.
Woz listens to what Tokiwa SOUGO tells him and begins to offer a plan.
Tokiwa SOUGO gives him his most prized possession. It contains all information on Kamen Riders and those connected to them. It tells of how Tokiwa Sougo, coincidentally named, rose to power in Woz’s arguable home timeline. A perfect chance to make things go his way, as he collected all but two main Heisei Rider RideWatches.
It merges with Woz’s book and instead of appearing on the page appears in his head, called to mind as he flips through still-empty pages, the title on the book, previously empty, now reading “Oma Advent.”
Another of the Quartzer’s number is setting in motion a way to collect them all.
Tokiwa SOUGO gives him three months to consider, though Woz now often sees Quartzers in his camps.
“Tsukuyomi,” Woz says. “What if there was a way to fix… everything?”
“I’d take it in a heartbeat,” Tsukuyomi says. “I feel like… there’s something wrong here. I don’t know how I know, but this is wrong, and it’s not just all of the suffering I’ve seen.”
Woz tries very hard to hide his emotions at those words because he very much does know. Tsukuyomi sees through it in seconds.
“Woz, what aren’t you telling me?” She asks.
“It’s truly nothing, Tsukuyomi,” he says. “Merely an idle wondering.”
Tsukuyomi stares at him like she doesn’t believe a word he says, but she doesn’t ask again.
“Wouldn’t you too, Woz?” Geiz asks, when given the same question.
“Of course I would,” Woz says. “I was just… wondering if others felt the same. Thank you for confirming my hopes.”
Geiz smiles.
“You’re welcome,” he says. “Really, though. Of course I’d take it. Oma Zi-O destroyed the planet, killed half of the population, and leaves at least 85% of us to live in the wastes cowering that he might one day take whatever place we carve out a life in for his own little kingdom. And th people in that kingdom are either perfect or they die.”
“What if it erased us all?” Woz asks.
“It would save billions,” Geiz says. “I’d still do it. Besides, fixing everything would include us, as far as I’m concerned.”
“Ah,” Woz says. “I guess so.”
If only that were true, in this scenario.
Woz, all but born in and raised for this fight, wants desperately to laugh at the irony of swearing loyalty to a king. However…
“My Demon King,” he says. “How, exactly, will the world be rewritten?”
His new King explains.
“Besides, fixing everything would include us, as far as I’m concerned.”
He doesn’t know if he can save his entire command, but he needs to get at least Geiz and Tsukuyomi back with him.
Now he just has to go undercover right under Oma Zi-O…
Exactly like his family had tried and failed to do.
Had died doing.