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“I cannot believe you’re falling for this.”
“I cannot believe you’re working for Foundation X.”
Daiki points to the robot he found wandering the streets in confusion.
“Net positive,” Daiki says. “I mean, look what we got so far.”
“That’s… who?”
“His name is Horobi,” Daiki says. “You know those new portal things for losers? Yeah they got one set up to World of Zero-One.”
“I’m… on another World?”
“They mixed very well,” Daiki says. “You could never notice. They even have Humagear.”
Horobi stares, whirring.
“So what do I do now?” He asks.
“Excellent question!” Daiki says. “But it is not my problem. This is Saiba Nico, she scares me, and she’s trusting a rogue AI and the dumbest man I ever met.”
“He seems fine-”
“Stupidest. Man. I. Have. Ever. Met,” Daiki says. “Or maybe I’m biased since we both source from the same stories. Anyways, my contract is done. You can handle whatever else Foundation X and the inevitably creepy AI do, I did my civic duty of probably killing Ouja for a week. Bye!”
Daiki has opinions about one Tachibana Sakuya, Kamen Rider Garren, and very few are positive. He knows it’s petty, he knows it’s spiteful, but he also knows the Riders of his home world splintered off of another Blade’s life.
He knows this man is an idiot who runs an entire organization , and so he leans casually on the side of the consoles, poking things.
“Kamen Rider DiEnd?”
Daiki waves.
“Hey,” he says. “The fuck are you doing copying me and Tsukasa’s treasures?”
Garren reaches for his belt, and Daiki raises his hands.
‘Whoah,” he says. “I’m not here to fight, I’m here to warn you.”
Garren tenses, but he lowers his hands.
“What about?”
“Don’t trust Zein,” Daiki says. “Whatever it promises, it’s not really going to protect this world.”
Perhaps it would have been better if Asakura beat the thing. A murderer is easier to deal with.
“I don’t need your help,” Garren says. Daiki shrugs.
“So be it, then,” he says. “It was just advice. We’ve got enough problems right now.”
He knows he’s being petty, and there are other problems outside himself. But Zein - an AI, a force above humanity supposedly to protect it…
It stings, so yeah, he played along with Foundation X. He’ll go steal from them later to keep them on their toes, but hey. Better that than whatever the evil AI is planning.
He hopes Nico and Horobi are handling things well enough.
“So how’d you even end up here?” Nico asks. For lack of a better idea - going to GENM or CR or even Taiga with a Humagear will cause questions she doesn’t have answers to - she takes him to her apartment. He stands in the corner, arms loose. “Get comfortable if you like - or are you? Most of the AI I know are like… part human?”
“…So this really is a different World,” Horobi says. Nico nods. She grabs a snack and plops down on her sofa.
“You get used to it,” she says. “This one’s a Sentai thing, so I didn’t really pay attention.”
“Sen… tai?”
“Teams of colorful heroes,” Nico says. “This is really the only World with us Riders and Sentai. Hence World of Heroes, Herotopia… whatever. You’re from World of Zero-One, what’s your story?”
Horobi looks around her apartment.
“This place is… simple for someone who owns a successful company,” he says. “Reminds me of Zero-One.”
“Oh yeah?” Nico asks. “Yeah, I’m not too worried about that kind of thing. My doctor works out of an abandoned hospital and I used to sleep there.”
“Your… doctor?”
“Long story.”
“So is mine.”
“Take turns?”
“…Sure.”
His son is dead. His family is dead, taken out to try and keep his kind at large from being hated, and Neon is going to start shouting the next time she hears about genuinely good AI people dying because of human greed.
But he’s interesting. He’s surprisingly stable, and determined to make the world better.
Nico won’t lie, she kind of agrees with DiEnd, this whole thing is shady as fuck. But Horobi seems to think it worth a shot, and he seems in control despite going through hell.
She can work with this. For now.