Chapter Text
Last time on Kamen Rider Quiz!
The wicked schemes of the Enigma had put the Kamen Riders in a bad situation. In order to help out the overwhelmed Mondo Douan, Suzumi Yodogawa willingly took on the form of the Sword Enigma to strike down the crab-like monster in the blink of an eye! The malice chosen by the Mega Bag Enigma was defeated.
However, Quiz’s moment of weakness revealed his secret identity to his close friend, Taizou Bokuzen.
The Rose Enigma took this opportunity to rip the last two puzzle pieces from their hosts. He put the ancient puzzle together with the pieces at his current disposal under the direct orders of the mysterious voice behind the phone, and the Enigma Driver revealed itself!
The enemies are one step closer to their villainous goals!
Feeling betrayed by his dear friend, Taizou Bokuzen revealed his identity to our hero and transformed into the dreadful Kamen Rider Enigma! Its terrifying power overwhelmed Quiz, who could only bring himself to use his base form against his long-time partner and was swiftly defeated.
With the Enigma’s plan nearly complete and the new transformation device in their clutches, just how could things get worse from here?!
“Kenkou! Mondo! It’s Seijirou! He’s gone missing!” Usagi yelled out in desperation as she burst through the door of the detective agency. A feeling of fear and desperation immediately ran down their spines.
How will detective Jan and defense attorney Douan settle their differences?
What happened to Seijirou Kineko? What will be the Enigma’s next move?
Who will push Kamen Rider Quiz to fight against the dreadful Kamen Rider Enigma?
---
The quiet sound of footsteps crunching the dry leaves on the ground was the only thing that gave away Taizou Bokuzen’s location. The prosecutor felt so lost after betraying the person he trusted the most, Mondo Douan, his dear partner.
He never realized it, but they had been fighting each other for a long time now, as the Rose Enigma and Kamen Rider Quiz.
One day, they could be fighting on opposite sides of the conflict, pushing each other to become stronger and stronger for their next encounter. Next, they could be talking about their lives over a cozy cup of coffee, laughing about the anecdotes of their work.
Neither of them had any idea about their secret identities. But once they both found out, they felt devastated.
That strange and despairing feeling within Taizou Bokuzen’s heart came back to haunt him for the crime he committed. It was a feeling of emptiness, of walking without a goal or purpose in his life.
He thought that becoming a prosecutor would have been the perfect thing to fill his soul, but that sentiment only lingered. His line of work had taken a toll on his appearance, he looked slightly older than he actually was. His eyes stared tiredly into the distance thanks to many stressful and sleepless nights.
The idea that, maybe, he was destined to live as an empty husk roaming the earth started to settle in his brain.
That was until somebody gave him the exact words he wanted to hear.
One day at work, he received a phone call from an unknown number. Taizou answered quickly, thinking it had to do with an upcoming trial.
The voice on the other side was deep, inhumanly so. “Mr. Bokuzen…” It said with an intimidating and ominous tone. “I am sorry to interrupt your daily routine, you must be so eager to go back to your work…”
“Wh-Who is this?” Taizou asked. He was surprised, but tried to remain stern in that strange situation. “This better not be a prank!”
“Why would I do such a thing? I only called you because I wanted to help you… You feel empty, do you not?”
The prosecutor went silent. His gaze began scouting around every corner of his office, trying to find one of his co-workers speaking through the other side of the device.
“You haven’t been able to brush off the thought that you have been walking your entire life without a meaning. You’re just trying to find excuses to fill that terrifying, overwhelming void in your heart… But don’t worry, Mr. Bokuzen. I can give you a purpose…”
The tired man’s eyes immediately went back to his desk. A small puzzle piece with the design of a rose appeared on the hard wooden surface. That wasn’t there before. “All you have to do now is pick up the piece and follow my command, Mr. Bokuzen…”
From that day forward, Taizou became what he is now.
He had followed every command that the voice on the other side of the phone gave him. He created countless Enigmas just like him by using their weaknesses and insecurities. Taizou promised them exactly what they needed at that moment to do so, just like the mysterious being did with him. This path led to the trust of his master, who let him be the first person to use the Enigma Driver and transform into the dreadful Kamen Rider Enigma. Therefore, that honor led him to pummel his dear friend, Mondo Douan.
It all felt so wrong. The defense attorney once shared that exact same sentiment that the prosecutor felt. But unlike the prosecutor, he managed to fill his heart with something. Taizou felt comfortable and warm around his presence. As he walked towards the accorded location, he cursed fate and the stars above his head for putting them on opposite sides of the same conflict.
Mondo’s kind and charming laughter began to mix in with Quiz’s intense glare from beneath his helmet. Those aspects that were burned into his brain and kept him pushing forward were now becoming a despairing and hopeless amalgamation of fake memories and lies. Were those moments genuine? Is his feeling of betrayal playing tricks on him? Will they be able to go back to what they were? Questions roamed his thoughts, filling Taizou’s mind with doubt.
The voice on the phone congratulated him for pushing its schemes forward. It was so satisfied with his work up until now that it decided to reward him by meeting with him in person. A blessing that no other Enigma had the honor to receive. Not even the two highest-ranking Enigma had seen its physical form before, they had only communicated with it through that old rotary telephone.
Taizou was told to meet the puppetmaster at an abandoned warehouse. He was swallowed by darkness as he walked inside of the monster’s domain, the sound of crunching leaves being replaced by his soles meeting the concrete.
The prosecutor was going to meet the terrifying being who had been moving the pieces all along, the person who made sure to leave no traces of its identity behind, the monster whose aura made even the bravest of warriors tremble and fall before it. The first thing it said to him was…
“Congratulations on a job well done! Now turn that frown upside down! Give yourself a pat on the back! You should feel happiness and joy!”
The figure in front of Taizou talked in a cheerful and upbeat tone, waving his hand quickly like an excited child.
Instead of being greeted by a monster fit for that intimidatingly deep voice, Taizou stared upon a short humanoid figure that belonged to someone who had just entered their adulthood. Its body was covered in black and red robes, and its face was hidden behind a mask with the design of a butterfly.
This was the physical form of the Perfect Enigma, the voice on the other side of the telephone.
The prosecutor just stared at them, completely dumbfounded. “Uh, y-yes, sir…” That was the only thing that he could bring himself to say. Taizou followed his master’s orders and gently patted his right hand on his left shoulder.
It let out a childish giggle at the little gesture he made. “Good to see you are as obedient as ever, but you know you don’t need to follow every single order I give. You wouldn’t be here if that were the case!”
In the blink of an eye, the Perfect Enigma disappeared from the prosecutor’s line of sight.
“Your cunning and intelligence got you the Enigma Driver! That’s a much bigger achievement than whatever the Mega Bat and King Cobra Enigmas have done up until now…” Taizou quickly turned around to the source of the voice. His master was now sitting on top of a pile of debris behind him, swinging its legs back and forth. “By the way, you brought it with you, right?”
“Y-Yes, sir…” He reached behind him and pulled out the device. Despite what it meant for the grand scheme of Perfect Enigma’s plan, the belt felt like a reminder of his crimes up until now. It was a haunting symbol of his betrayal against Mondo Douan. He let out a conflicted sigh as he stared longingly at the dark belt.
The Perfect Enigma groaned loudly at the expression on his subordinate’s face. “You are still bothered about taking your little friend down a few notches? Get over it already! I already blessed you with my grand presence, is that not enough to cheer you up?”
“Sorry, sir. I promise I won’t let this distract me from--”
Before he could finish his sentence, the short robed figure appeared just a few steps from the prosecutor and snatched the Enigma Driver from his hands.
“Everything was too perfect to be true… Whatever.” His cheerful tone had been replaced by a brattish, grumpy voice. “I was gonna ask you to do something else, but it looks like you’ll need more encouragement from now on”.
“Sir, I promise that I will not fail you with whatever you need me for.” Despite showing his loyalty to the Perfect Enigma, it only responded by giving him a menacing glare from beneath the butterfly mask. Its mind was already made up. Taizou couldn’t see its eyes, but he felt a chill run down his spine. The only option he had was to go along with his master’s decisions. “A-Are you gonna summon the Mega Bat and King Cobra Enigma, or is this new ally you mentioned before getting involved?”
“Nah,” the leader of the Enigma answered. “Those two are already doing something else, they are gonna be busy for a long while. And the new guy is doing his own thing right now, he said he had a plan to fool Kamen Rider Quiz… I’m gonna need someone else”.
The young-looking figure placed the Enigma Driver on its waist, ready to give its new toy a test run. “I’m gonna need someone who desires knowledge as much as I do, someone who would do anything to have a fraction of the power and control I have, someone who could be easily manipulated into doing my bidding… We need another Kamen Rider.”
The leader of the Enigma pressed the handle on the left of the golden device. Suddenly, an overwhelming storm of darkness released from its short body, like a black tempest that was ready to swallow everything it could grab onto.
Taizou raised his guard, trying to not get pulled in by the sudden rush of power coming from his boss. The wave of sorrow and pain reached all around him, it was much stronger and intense than anything the Rose Enigma had seen up until now.
His eyes darted around the area, and saw debris and empty barrels that laid around the warehouse being lifted with tremendous force and thrown across the area. The chaos was making so much noise that it would definitely alert anyone who lived near the unoccupied building.
From the eye of the hurricane of gloom and despair, the Perfect Enigma uttered: “Kamen Rider from another world… Come into my grasp.”
---
The sound of battle roared throughout the quarry as the desires of two Kamen Riders clashed against each other. The ground was lit on fire as waves of purple energy missed their target.
A chainsaw had reached the torso of its victim. The target tried to defend himself from the onslaught, but the buffalo-themed warrior kicked his opponent away, backing him up against the hill behind them.
The cornered, bird-themed fighter pressed the large button of his monster buckle twice. “Monster Strike!” his belt, the Desire Driver, announced, as he launched a large energy projection of his gauntlet towards the enemy. That attack should have been enough to send his opponent flying back, but once the dust had settled, the helpless bird could see that Kamen Rider Buffa was completely unharmed.
Daichi Isuzu, also known as Kamen Rider Nadge-Sparrow, was infamous for using all kinds of schemes, tactics and strategies. The proclaimed Quiz King of the Desire Grand Prix wasn’t that strong compared to other fighters, so he would pick his fights carefully and make his foes eliminate each other through manipulation.
This was not the case.
The sparrow could try to flutter and avoid the buffalo for as long as he wanted, but he will get tired eventually. That’s when the bull would strike and ram into him with its deadly horns.
He tried to retreat from the battle to find his opponent’s weakness and continue this encounter another day. The chainsaw sword quickly smashed into the wall beside him, barely missing the bird by a few inches. He tried to run away in the opposite way, but his path was closed by two large claws that erupted from the ground.
“What are these?” The Quiz King asked himself, realizing he was running out of options.
The bird looked at his opponent from over his shoulder, feeling his overwhelming glare on him. How could he even find a weakness when his opponent was a walking, impenetrable fortress that attacked with the ferocity and brutality of a feral beast?
Without anything else to do, Nadge-Sparrow desperately went in to fight against Kamen Rider Buffa, Michinaga Azuma, but every single one of his punches was absorbed by his armor. How could he ever dream of standing up against him when he was protected by the Goddess of Genesis herself?
“Those who push their greed too far, fall first. That’s how life works!” Buffa said, before quickly pushing him away with a backhanded strike to his helmet, like Daichi was just some dust he could just brush off.
While he tried to keep his balance and recover from the attack, the opponent retrieved his chainsaw sword and slashed him twice with its sharp edges, forcing Nadge-Sparrow to fall face first into the dirt beneath him.
Daichi struggled, attempting to get back up and run away from the scene before the invincible buffalo claimed his desire, just like Buffa had done with other Kamen Riders before him.
Before he could accomplish anything, the unmovable warrior kicked him on the ribs with the sharp claws on his boot. Michinaga pressed his chainsaw blade against his back and used the pieces of Nadge-Sparrow’s armor to pump the foregrip back.
“Poison Charge!” The weapon announced with a terrifying voice. “Tactical Break!”
Buffa kicked Nadge-Sparrow once more, sending him flying high up like the helpless, greedy bird he was. When he came down, gravity pulled him onto the blades of the Zombie Breaker. Daichi let out a painful scream as he felt every single edge of the weapon slash his armored torso, over and over again.
Kamen Rider Buffa swung his weapon, launching him back into the air. The Quiz King couldn’t come up with another scheme, he could feel his wounds send waves of pain across his body, and the lack of ground beneath his feet clouded his mind with panic and despair.
It wasn’t enough for the buffalo, not after everything Daichi had done up until now, how he had taken advantage of the goodwill of other countless Kamen Riders that sought to make their dreams come true. People who would never experience the same happiness thanks to Nadge-Sparrow’s greed.
“Hyper Zombie Strike!”
The claw on the invincible buffalo’s left hand lit up with a fiery orange color. He turned around and swiftly struck the pathetic bird. As he landed back on the dirt below, Nadge-Sparrow’s transformation turned off.
The armor had done a good job at absorbing some of the pain, yet Daichi’s wounds barely allowed him to move a muscle. He continued to struggle and squirm to get back up, to flee the scene and live another day. His eyes opened to see Kamen Rider Buffa’s intimidating silhouette looming over him. The undisputed victor reached down, grabbing onto the core of the bird’s belt.
“Stop! Get off!” Daichi screamed in desperation, holding onto Buffa’s armored hand and using every ounce of strength remaining to pull him away from it. The buffalo-themed Kamen Rider struck his face with his hand. The back of the bird’s head hit the floor and forced him to let out a pained and sharp breath.
The masked hero grabbed his collar and pulled him closer, forcing Daichi to stare into the piercing yellow visor of his helmet. “You will never be a Kamen Rider, ever again…” Buffa expressed.
The Quiz King could only answer by letting out a tired, nervous chuckle.
Daichi was pushed back down. He felt the core of his belt, the item that allowed him to be a Kamen Rider, being pulled away from him. It felt like his soul was being ripped straight out of his body.
Buffa crushed it in his hand, leaving no chance for the pathetic, manipulating, greedy bird to take on that heroic title ever again.
Kamen Rider Nadge-Sparrow, if he could even call himself that anymore, looked in horror as his desires were shattered right in front of him. His body began to vanish, turning into bright blue static as his consciousness faded away like water flowing between his fingers.
“Don’t think you’ve seen the last of me yet!” That was the last desperate claim Daichi could yell out before collapsing. It was a terrible promise to the man that had robbed him of his quest for ultimate knowledge.
“Retired.”
---
All Kamen Riders who were defeated in Michinaga Azuma’s rampage would wake up the next day without a single memory of their time as a Kamen Rider, and the deepest wish they wanted to fulfill through victory in the Desire Grand Prix would be erased entirely.
Daichi Isuzu should have woken up in his bed, ready to continue his life as a college student. Instead, he was greeted by the streets of a strange and technologically advanced city. The Quiz King had no idea what brought him there or why he still had his memories.
The little investigation he did with the people walking by revealed that Nadge-Sparrow had been transported to the distant year of 2040.
Everyone seemed to wear some rather fashionable clothing. It would make his tattered Desire Grand Prix uniform feel out of place among the people from the future. Thankfully, whatever force had pulled him into this period had given him something more presentable: a gray turtleneck shirt, a black wool sleeveless vest and what seemed to be a corset over it. To compliment the look, Daichi undid his ponytail, as he needed to take on a brand new identity within this strange world he found himself in.
Despite it all, it felt oddly comfortable.
Whatever brought him to the future also made the effort of giving him his Desire Driver, and the respective ID Core that he needed to transform into a Kamen Rider. While the identification item was still whole, it looked unstable and fragile thanks to Buffa crushing it in his hand. Daichi restrained from using these devices again, afraid of what a shattered core could do to his body.
“Better be safe than sorry,” he thought to himself.
He settled down in a discarded greenhouse. Its glass panels faced directly to the “communications tower”, as the people of this era called it: a massive building that allowed for the immediate flow of information and precious data that allowed everyone to keep on with their everyday lives. Beams of light rapidly shoot out of the complicated machinery at the very top. The structure gave every person a beautiful light show during the day, and acted as a second moon during the night.
Daichi would stare at the structure while surrounded by the remaining plants and seeds within the greenhouse, intrigued by it and its importance in the culture of 2040.
The reliance on that large edifice reminded the schemer of the details about Beroba’s future. Everyone from her time period had turned themselves into digital beings to survive extinction from the claws of the rampaging Jyamato. These people haven’t reached that point just yet. There were no plant creatures to be found, and he was sure that all the denizens of 2040 were made of skin and bone. Yet that large building felt like an omen of a fate yet to come.
The grim reaper, Kamen Rider Buffa, had gone on a rampage to rid every other masked warrior of the burden of fighting for their dreams through the oppressive system established by the Desire Grand Prix. Nadge-Sparrow could have used this chance to discard his titles and move on with his life in 2040, finish his studies and become a famous scholar. But his greed and ambitions took a hold of his heart.
The Quiz King’s last words were not a lie. Ever since he met Archimedel, Daichi had been examining the Jyamato and how to raise them. Something about them had caught his attention. Perhaps it was their evolution into sapient and intelligent beings, or that their infinite potential was being wasted to become pawns of the DGP, instead of being respected like they craved to be.
While the old gardener wasn’t looking or was too busy taking care of the injured plant creatures, he gathered some fertilizer, seeds and anything that would help in growing his own. He kept all of that in a small plastic container, and thankfully, it all came with him to the future.
He spent hours finding a way to raise the Jyamato in secret. There was so much trial and error, but his efforts gave fruit when a small tiny Jyamato had bloomed from the soil. It wasn’t a baby Jyamato like the ones he had seen in the Jyamar Garden, but rather a child-like plant creature that shrunk down to the size of his hand.
When that happened, Daichi couldn’t help but feel like a proud father seeing his first child grow up. It wasn’t exactly what he was hoping for, but it was the first step into something greater. Besides, that Lil’ Jyamato was the only familiar face that could keep him company in this unknown time period. It was the only being that helped him fight against his loneliness.
The Quiz King developed a certain fondness for that little creature, and continued to feed it with the necessary nutrients so it could grow into a healthy, fully-grown Jyamato in future. He would try to communicate with the sprout during the day to develop the father-son bond they had.
Days would pass, and it seemed like Kamen Rider Nadge-Sparrow had settled down comfortably in the future. The only thing he needed to figure out was a way back to 2022, but did he really want to do that? He could continue with his life in 2040 without worrying about the Desire Grand Prix, without worrying about the unreasonable expectations that the people of the present had placed upon him.
His desire only became grander, deadlier and more ambitious after his defeat at the hands of Kamen Rider Buffa. Daichi was so blinded by the idea of a higher-than-life end goal that he couldn’t see the value of a boring, peaceful life.
At least, not yet.
He needed to match the view everyone had of the Quiz King first.
---
Daichi began the morning of his third day in the future by tending to the plants he was growing inside the greenhouse. He poured water over the soil so the flowers would grow big and beautiful, while the vegetables and fruits would become healthy and delicious.
The place was abandoned, but it didn’t take long for the rookie gardener to get some of the plants back to health and rip out the weed that had been growing. The conservatory felt lively thanks to all the new vegetation.
He went down each aisle, making sure to say a few kind words each time he tended to the soil. At least, the kindest words he could muster. Daichi heard that saying nice things to the greenery would help them grow, so he had to give it a try at the very least, as ridiculous as it may sound to him.
“Jya!”
He heard a small cry coming from the other side of the aisle, he recognized those little noises as the excited voice of the lil’ Jyamato. With his new parental instincts taking over, Daichi made his way over to the small sprout to give it the right amount of attention it deserved. It always tried to catch his attention to show him something, like when it found the petal of a flower that had withered, or when it found out it could climb up some of the tallest plants in the conservatory.
“Hey there, little guy. How are things going for you so far?” The bird crouched down to be at eye-level with the plant creature. The Jyamato had developed their own language back in 2022 thanks to the efforts of Archimedel, but the little creature was still a child, so it could only communicate non-verbally and by saying “Jya”.
The tiny sprout waved happily at him, gesturing towards the pile of dirt and soil that he had made during the night. It must have found something fun to do while Daichi worked on the other plants and sold the prettier flowers of his garden.
“I see… You made this all by yourself?” He asked, trying to follow the same logic of using nice words while taking care of plants.
“Jya! Jya!” The sprout walked backwards, gesturing over to something else that laid on top of the soil, it was Nadge-Sparrow’s Desire Driver with its respective ID Core inserted in the middle. Daichi had left it there thinking that it would help more Jyamato grow. After all, the older gardener used the abandoned cores as fertilizer for his plant children, but the newer one was too attached to his desire to use it in the same way his predecessor did.
“I see… So you’re trying to grow your own plants now? You are so smart,” he praised the sprout. Some children seemed to learn from imitation, and seeing him try to replicate his actions made Daichi feel like he was going on the right track with his first Jyamato. He felt proud of it and smiled, reaching forward to pet its tiny head with his finger.
However, what the sprout revealed right after sent a chill down his spine.
It dug down on the pile of dirt and soil it had made during the night, throwing small chunks of dirt and fertilizer out of the way. Nadge-Sparrow had clearly underestimated its intelligence. It only took one night for the plant child to create something haunting as a way to keep itself occupied.
“A Jyamato Buckle?”
Daichi had seen the Jyamato use these devices with Desire Drivers to rebel against the participants of the Desire Grand Prix. Even Kamen Rider Buffa used one back then. He never found out how they were made. The little sprout must have spent too much time with his Desire Driver and found a way to make its own Raise Buckle from the ground up.
“How… How did you make this?” He asked, surprised and slightly disturbed at this development.
The lil’ Jyamato could only respond by leaning its head to the side and giving him a confused “Jya?” It was concerned with the gardener’s reaction.
Before he could begin studying the small plant and how he could have created such an intriguing and dangerous device, the Quiz King was interrupted by screams of fear and panic coming from outside of the greenhouse.
“Stay right here. I’ll be right back, okay?” Daichi reassured the sprout while taking the Desire Driver with him, placing it in one of the pockets of his outfit.
Outside, civilians were running away, desperately trying to find anything or anyone that would keep them safe from the strange creatures running after them. They were made out of pure darkness, like smoke given a physical form to roam around the city and cause mayhem. Their entire body was jet-black, but they wore a silver bone-like armor on their forearms and shins, with a matching mask placed right where their face should be.
“Jyamato? Or not…?” Daichi asked himself while trying to analyze the situation and what those beings were. They definitely looked like a variation of the common obstacles of the Desire Grand Prix. “Are these the unidentified life forms that appeared on the news?”
Suddenly, a new factor joined the equation, announcing his gallant arrival by shouting a very familiar word: “Henshin!”
“Fashion! Passion! Question!” A female voice exclaimed after the transformation command. “Quiz!” A hero, covered in red and blue question marks, made its triumphant appearance with a familiar gleam. A brightness that resembled the desires of the competitors of the Desire Grand Prix, which the Goddess of Genesis used as fuel.
He immediately began guiding the people to leave the area so he could take care of the Enigma Combatmen before anyone would come to harm. As soon as a pair of the monsters tried to approach a civilian, he stepped right in between and delivered a powerful left hook to one of their masks, followed by a roundhouse kick from the left to the second, turning them into nothing but a puff of smoke.
“Saving the world and obtaining the right answer.” He exclaimed while gesturing towards the crowd of enemies in front of him with both hands. His arms quickly swung in front of him, forming a square shape, before they moved outwards to strike a strong-looking pose. “Kamen Rider… Quiz!”
The hero of the year 2040 had arrived.
It was another warrior carrying the title of Kamen Rider, but their equipment looked so different, their form didn’t resemble any of the forms Daichi had seen before, and that belt was nothing like the Desire Driver he was holding.
The bird turned to gaze at his own transformation device, pulling out the shattered ID Core from its socket. His mind went blank as he stared into the cracked item, almost as if a wave of insecurity and doubt took over him, the words once uttered by Buffa echoed through his mind:
“You will never be a Kamen Rider, ever again…”
While he had mocked that claim before being retired by the invincible Jyamashin, something about them felt true deep in his heart, like he had lost the privilege of having that name right at the moment.
His brain, usually brimming with all kinds of schemes and calculations, was now overwhelmed by dark thoughts and claims that reaffirmed those last words. How dare he even call himself a Kamen Rider? Was he really considering using the Desire Driver again? He didn’t have the willpower to risk the pain of transforming with that faulty ID Core.
He was cowardly, greedy and selfish, just like Buffa had said.
Daichi was snapped back into reality as one of those foot soldiers’ smashed its fist right through the window, reaching out for him. More of those creatures began hitting whatever entrance they could find, trying to force their way inside of the greenhouse.
The rookie gardener took a few steps back, terrified of the sight. The horde of shadow monsters had changed their objective, from spreading chaos and fear, to capturing Nadge-Sparrow at all costs.
Before he could think of an escape plan and what he should take with him, the door was pushed off of its hinges and fell down on the floor with a loud crash.
Daichi could have sworn he heard a scared “J-Jya…” coming from the back.
The monsters began rushing inside, heading towards him. The amount of creatures grouping in on him was enough to block the entrance.
He tried to head out and find an exit through the back, but he felt the strong hands of the combatmen pull him back. “L-Let me go!”
There he was, struggling yet again under the grip of the enemy. This time, they were trying to bring him outside of this new place he called home. Daichi pressed his boot up against the torso of the monster holding him and kicked forward, forcing it to release him as it fell back onto the swarm of monsters.
All of the Enigma Combatmen continued rushing down towards the cowardly bird, and he desperately tried to hold his own against them, hitting their dark silhouettes to, at least, put up a fight.
He threw punch after punch, helplessly striking the enemy that was out to get him and desperately trying to push them back while calling back to his pugilist fighting style with the Monster Buckle.
But there was no end to the shadows. They kept on coming, getting closer and closer, grabbing onto his clothes as they tried to bring him with them.
He was just a human now. He had no powers nor weapons to defend himself. All he could do to give himself room was take step after step backwards, losing ground and space to move or think.
Unless…
Daichi threw a front kick to the nearest combatmen to give himself some space. He quickly placed the Desire Driver on his waist. The belt automatically fastened around his waist as straps shot out from the sides of the device.
A shudder went past his lips, his hand shook with a mix of fear and frustration as he held onto the ID Core. He swung the item behind him and smashed it into place with all his might.
“Entr-Entr-E-E-Entry”, a glitchy and distorted voice exclaimed, deepening with each stutter.
His entire body was hit by lightning that fired from within the belt as it tried to work with faulty equipment. Each strike sent a wave of pain through him.
A mechanical circle appeared around his waist and quickly separated into two segments, one moved up and the other moved downwards, covering Daichi with the blank armor of his Entry form. The Nadge-Sparrow helmet swiftly placed itself on top of his head, but the right eye seemed to have a crack on it.
Despite it all, this wasn’t a display of heroism on his part. This was a sign of his own cowardice. Daichi was reduced to a helpless little bird that had no other choice against the foe in front of them, yet again.
He reached back and grabbed onto one of the tables, trying to keep his balance as sparks continued to fly out of the Desire Driver. He groaned and squirmed.
As his armored form tried to keep itself together, it made his entire body ache. Daichi struggled to move, every slight gesture meant more of that same burning, painful feeling.
The relentless Enigma Combatmen were closing in on him again.
Kamen Rider Nadge-Sparrow tried to endure the pain. He wound his fist back before punching one of those monsters. This time, it actually worked to push them back as the shadow stumbled backwards.
His breath felt heavier and sharper after putting so much effort in enduring the pain. But just that move alone, which should have been nothing before, meant that lightning from the Desire Driver struck him and burned him through the armor.
“Another Kamen Rider?” A kind yet defiant voice called out.
It was the red and blue hero from before, he had managed to get through the shadow monsters that were blocking the entrance while Daichi was writhing in pain against the wall. Quiz quickly grabbed onto one of the Enigma’s arms and crouched down, swinging the monster over his body and launching it onto the crowd.
He made quirk work of the enemies that Nadge-Sparrow was struggling with. A single strike by the gallant hero resulted in three of those shadows getting reduced to a puff of smoke.
This was the best that 2040 had to offer, a hero who could fight whatever enemy was in front of them to protect humanity. The cracked visor in the bird’s helmet painted a silhouette of the Kamen Rider battling to save him: the goodwill of the tanuki combined with the righteous revenge of the buffalo.
It felt like an insult to Daichi.
His fist tightened in anger and impotence. He barely managed to take a step forward and delivered a punch, it was enough to make one of those foot soldiers lose its balance, but the impact felt like he smashed his hand into an unbreakable concrete wall. He tried to power through the pain, dashing forward to push the Enigma back onto some of the tables and flowerpots that had adorned the conservatory
Why was he so helpless again? Why was he completely vulnerable, just like he had been up against Buffa? Those questions filled his brain, nullifying any chance of coming up with a plan to deal with the swarm of Enigma Combatmen.
Quiz continued his heroic fight. Those monsters were defeated by the skilled hands of the question warrior, but the hordes didn’t seem to stop coming, more of them kept breaking inside of the greenhouse through the windows and the entrance, their sights set on Nadge-Sparrow.
While Daichi struggled to move, some of those Enigma grabbed onto his limbs, trying to bring him out of the area. He made the effort to pull himself away from them. As their grip gave in, the cowardly bird came crashing down onto one of the tables, falling on his rear as he laid with his back against the opposite wall.
As wooden furniture and plants crumbled around him, a haunting item fell onto the ground alongside them. The Jyamato Buckle laid just at an arm's reach of him, no sign of the Lil’ Jyamato.
Daichi quietly wished that it had run away as soon as the foot soldiers broke in.
If he wanted to stand a chance against the enemy, the Jyamato Buckle made by the sprout seemed like the only option. But Daichi was aware of the effects it had on a human body, he remembered Buffa’s transmutation after using it against the other DGP Riders.
“Don’t worry!” Kamen Rider Quiz called out as he delivered a powerful front kick to the torso of two Enigmas, making them vanish as his leg seemed to pierce through them. “I’ll help you out, just run away and let me handle this!”
Those words stung him more than the aching feeling all over his body. How dare someone like him look down upon him when he was doing everything in his power to fight? Daichi thought to himself. Who did he think he was? He was just another Kamen Rider that could be manipulated, and he was the Quiz King of the Desire Grand Prix, the person who would reach omnipotence by taking all of humanity’s memories!
The schemer felt insulted and taunted. He could tell himself all these grand delusions to himself, but at the end of the day, he was just a human.
But he didn’t need to be.
“Don’t you dare look down on me!” Daichi spat out and grabbed the Jyamato Buckle. In his sudden impotence-fueled rage, he placed the item on the left side of the Desire Driver.
It was never meant to be used by humans.
The eyes of his helmet swirled with a dark green color, as his body painfully tried to adjust to the form that could only be used by the plant creatures. The bird let out a painful scream as he squirmed on the floor, every inch of his skin was overrun by what felt like plants and roots running through his veins.
He groaned and yelled in agony as a sinister tune came out of his belt, a looming and intimidating jingle that he knew too well from his time in the Jyamato Grand Prix. His right eye visor turned to a bright yellow color.
The lightning that was once burning his body was replaced by a swarm of vines that shot out of his waist. They all wrapped around each other, solidifying into an armor covered in those same spiky plants before it quickly attached itself to his torso.
The glitchy voice of his Desire Driver turned into a deep growl that said the name of the monster Daichi had become: “Jyamato.”
Kamen Rider Nadge-Sparrow let out another scream and everything stopped around him. The Enigma were shocked at the painful transformation he took on, and Quiz was still in the middle of a fight when he heard those painful noises.
“Stop!” The question warrior called out.
He tried his best to make way through the multitude of Enigma to pull the Quiz King of the Desire Grand Prix out of there as quickly as he could.
Daichi brought himself to his knees, barely managing to endure every aching inch of his body. He slammed his fist onto the button on the Jyamato Buckle and let out one last pained yell.
“Jya-Jya-Jya Strike!” The deep voice in the Desire Driver announced.
The man that called himself Kamen Rider Nadge-Sparrow raised both of his fists high in the air before slamming them down onto the floor, creating a small crater from the hard impact.
Thorns and vines shot out from underneath the ground, launching themselves in all directions and impaling every single Enigma Combatmen. All of the enemies were defeated in the blink of an eye, leaving behind a cloud of smoke that covered the disaster his attack had made on the greenhouse.
The tables and plants had been turned to shreds and the pieces were scattered all over the area. Quiz barely managed to dodge out of the way of the chaos unleashed upon the abandoned conservatory.
Daichi couldn’t process anything about what had happened. He collapsed on the floor and everything went dark, his consciousness fading away.