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Kakogawa Hiryuu is not a pawn, which is why he decides to change fate.
Kakogawa Hiryuu has always been a fighter.
“This isn’t supposed to exist.”
“From you?” Woz asks. “I am… stretched thin. You must love to know that Tokiwa Sougo made a mistake.”
“End of the world, again?” Hiryuu asks. “Because another man he loves is dead?”
Woz looks away, he looks almost bitter.
“Not this time,” he says.
Hiryuu looks at the prophet carefully.
“The world ended twice in a month near the end,” he says. “Did he not save you himself?”
“I cannot be saved,” Woz says.
“That’s stupid,” Hiryuu says, grabbing the offered RideWatch. “Because that sounds like accepting a worse lot for Tokiwa Sougo. Of course you would.”
“I thought you said these were gonna be different!” Hiryuu shouts.
“They are,” Woz says. “These are Another Another Agito! They Target hurt Agitos.”
“Wait,” Geiz says. “Those are real?”
“Of course they’re real,” Hiryuu says. “People think I’m one of those dragons!”
“These are DRAGONS?”
“I’ll send you the pamphlet!”
“That’s so! Fucking! Stupid!”
I know! —ow! Fuck! These things also think I’m an injured Agito!”
“Rescue the false king!”
They’re sitting, the three of them. Reading the pamphlet.
“They still don’t look like dragons,” Geiz says.
“Not one bit,” Hiryuu says.
“The book said they were bugs,” Woz says. “Well, when it had words. And also the spawn of the light twin Yaldaboath.”
“Lucifer the light twin,” Hiryuu says. “Checks out.”
“Why do you know that?” Geiz asks.
“Ohma Zi-O kept me locked up for decades,” Hiryuu says. “I was bored. And yes, I have memory of all timelines, now. Probably because he forgot me.”
“He’s just stupid,” Geiz says. “Don’t hold it against him.”
“You don’t seem to,” Hiryuu says. “We both saw what he did.”
“You had your little temper tantrum, too. That was way more evil than anything this Zi-O ever did.”
Well, he can’t argue with that.
Fate decrees: he loses everything, and he’s the villain.
He decides… not that.
Sougo remembers.
“You changed?” He asks softly. Hiryuu jerks away when Sougo goes to touch him.
“You haven’t,” Hiryuu says. “Ruining my life, in every life.”
“Well, I’m back now,” Sougo says, “you don’t have to fight.”
“At this point?” Hiryuu says. “I want to.”
“Then I look forward to working with you,” Sougo says, and he smiles stupidly.
Hiryuu had watched him end the world from two camera angles. Watched him become obsessed with singular men at the cost of so many. He has also seen him play hero.
Worst comes to worst, he has to keep himself an obstacle, this time.
He remembers being a kid - the destruction, dead bodies. He wasn’t supposed to survive and no one was thankful he did.
He remembers being a teen - rage consumed him, jealousy. Sougo was a monster, a thief, a killer. Sougo apologized.
And then he ended the world.
He remembers being an adult, kidnapped yet protected. Forming a rebellion anyways. He had to fight. He lost, but he had to fight.
And—
He remembers being a teen - rage consumed him, jealousy.
He fought.
He lost.
He remembers.
“Memory is kind of a useless thing,” Tsukuyomi says, fresh off having finally gotten her own memories back in some convoluted series of events.
“Maybe,” Hiryuu says. “I think I know who made the Ridewatches, though.”
“Then why haven’t you said anything?”
“Because memories are useless,” Hiryuu says. “Why do you follow him? Why are you keeping me around?”
“I like to believe people can change,” Tsukuyomi says. “I like to believe people can be good - Sougo, Woz, you.”
“Sougo didn’t change,” Hiryuu says. “He’s always an idiot. Always too intelligent. He blunt forces solutions with a smile.”
“Is that a bad thing?” Tsukuyomi asks. “I think the real killer is loneliness. And now look where we are?”
“Fighting the same bad guys.”
“No, we’re fighting everyone but the same bad guys,” Tsukuyomi says, “something new.”
Hiryuu is silent.
He’s melting, but by bit. He knows it. He’s becoming used to this, to them, to…
“If Another Agito was a Kamen Rider,” Sougo says. “Does that make you an actual Kamen Rider?”
“I guess,” Hiryuu says.
Sougo grins dumbly. It’s half facade and half genuine stupidity, and it still drives Hiryuu a little crazy.
“I like that, then,” he says. “Kamen Rider Another Zi-O.”
“Mhm,” Hiryuu says. Neither of them mention where they are, which is good.
Having Sougo in his bed shouldn’t feel right after all that’s happened.
“Can I kiss you again?” Sougo asks, leaning against him. He’s still secretly jacked under all that fabric - he looks even more so as he grows. And yet his hands are still soft against Hiryuu’s skin.
Hiryuu pulls him in for a kiss.
“Do you think you could still kill him?” Geiz asks.
“Yes,” Hiryuu says. “You saw the world he created, but I saw the man he became, the world he destroyed. It’s not just jealousy.”
“It kind of is.”
“Yeah,” Hiryuu says. “And? I know you can’t kill him.”
“I love him,” Geiz says. “I feel like I’ve lost enough.”
“That’s a nice way of thinking about it,” Hiryuu says. “Want to go back to punching me?”
“It’s called training, asshole.”
Hiryuu huffs. He beats Geiz.
“I knew a Myokoin, once,” he says. “She was used up by Ohma Zi-O. Like everyone was, even if he loved them. Even if they loved him. It’s not enough.”
“Then why do you stay?” Geiz asks.
“It lasts, for now,” Hiryuu says.
He wants this more than he could ever say. He feels like it’s…
“A family, again,” Tsukuyomi says. The other three are tossing a puzzle message back and fourth. Another Gaim Rider. Again. Where do they keep finding more Gaim Riders to turn into Anothers?
“Family, huh?” Hiryuu asks. “I haven’t had one of those in a long time.”
“I had Woz,” Tsukyomi says. “We were both children with no memory found wandering - then we had Geiz. Then Woz left, and then he came back, for Sougo. Now I have you.”
“I had no one,” Hiryuu says. “And now I have you.”
He’s never said it that way before.
“It’s a nice feeling,” Tsukyomi says. “Better than my real brother.”
“Do you kiss your brother?”
“I don’t kiss Woz.”
“Woz is your brother?”
“We were raised together,” Tsukyomi points out. “I just haven’t pushed the issue, yet. Whichever way we let feelings fall, the five of us are… a unit, now.”
Hiryuu hmms.
“For now,” he says.
“The ending that wasn’t,” Woz says. “I feel I should confess - I helped make it.”
“Oh yeah?” Hiryuu asks.
“I did not, as I’m sure most assume, fall apart under Ohma Zi-O’s torture or his charisma,” Woz says. “I worked for a different Tokiwa SOUGO, to manipulate the boy I chose as my demon king.”
“So what changed?” Hiryuu asks. “You fell in love? Changed your mind?”
“I was promised a fixed timeline,” Woz says. “I mostly got it. But much like you, I exist differently, In Time. So I was not a part.”
“But you died.”
“The others brought me back,” Woz says. “To test my demon king.”
“And what do you think?”
“I think I’m glad I asked you for assistance,” Woz says. “What do you think?”
“I think the same thing,” Hiryuu says. “He… never became a monster for me, either. The men he loved… there was a friend, and his uncle. That’s who he burned the world down for killing. But he still tried to protect me. I bet our current little king did the same, for you.”
Woz clutches the book to his chest.
“I would only wish it so.”