Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"This is the moment where you must end the tale of the beast who gets involved with a human…

Put an end to it now while you're still a beast."

The smell of sea salt was one I would never forget during my time at Rügen Island. The feeling of the warm sand beneath my feet as I sat next to her. The orange glow of the sunset helped highlight her pale skin, allowing it to give it the color that she wished it had.

The two of us sat, just listening to the waves as we watched the sun set. Her fingers traced over mine, feeling the tiny calluses that had begun to wear away. I watched her smile as the both of us knew this would be the last sunset she would ever see before…

"Hey… Jiro…"

I snapped out of my stupor before noticing the snapping fingers of my landlord.

"Hey, Jiro, you home?" He said. Immediately, whatever sort of bliss and nostalgia I had felt died and in its place was the tangy taste of pickled cabbage.

The face of my landlord was an even sharper contrast. Instead of a warm orange graced by the sunset, his skin had more of a pale yellow beset by years of smoking and instead of flowing locks of platinum blonde, his head had a matted mess of black hair that he only managed to keep a portion of the top in line. Aside from that, the only thing he shared with Lily was a set of clean, formal clothes as though he was ready to attend his own funeral.

"It's about this month's rent." He said. I swallowed his, admittedly well made, dish so that I could talk.

"Yeah, I already paid you, remember?" As I said that, he placed a stuffed envelope on the table.

"And this is the change." He slid it across the table before I stopped him.

"No… That's a tip." I tried to push it back, but he shoved it forward.

"A tip? Here? You gotta be kiddin' me. This is practically your entire salary!" He said.

"You need it more than me. Repairs, employees, water, electricity, gas…" I calmly stated.

"Food, travel, entertainment, I can list items you need too, ya know." As his hand left the envelope, I merely looked at it.

"… I can get by." My voice sounded distant and muted, which compared to Mr. Kozaki, was overpowered instantly.

"No, you can't!" Mr. Kozaki sighed, then got up. "Ever since you moved to this complex, you've been wasting away in your unit without any care in the world! You're even giving me more money than I know what to do with and you call that a tip?" There was a silence before he exhaled. Realizing he was done with his food, he took his tupper and made his way out. "Why… did you even move to Animal Town anyways?" Realizing he wouldn't get an answer, he frowned and left.

Animal Town… A place where humans and animals can live in harmony. It seemed like a peaceful place as businesses that cater specifically to animals set up shop all over the area, families known for breeding even the rarest types of dogs and cats made their name here, and it didn't seem to matter what sort of animal you liked, there's always something for everyone.

With that in mind, I thought of the one reason I moved to Animal Town:

I was looking to die in the place that Lily had spoke about endlessly, like a fairy tale…

Kamen Rider Garude

Hunt 1: GARU! The Beginning…

Mr. Kozaki wasn't the kind of person to let me stay cooped up in my room though. Shortly afterwards, he drove me to the local middle school for a volleyball match.

Although I wouldn't be officially a student for a couple more days, he talked with some of the staff to let me not only come to it, but to also participate… In reality, there was a clear reason why he wanted this and I knew it even before I stepped onto the polished wood of the gym.

I eyed my temporary teammates, noticing a mixture of boys and girls. Some seem to look back at me too. Each of their faces had a minute detail that gave off a different expression.

The boy at the front, the captain, had his eyebrows frowled. He knew I was a last-minute addition and is wondering how I'd throw off their entire game. The girl next to me had her hands trembling. I may have taken my stride a little too rough, causing her to feel intimidated. I relaxed my muscles and, in an instant, the shaking had stopped.

"Hey there!" Though, before I could properly gauge the third person who eyed me, she made the first move.

"Hmm?" I turned to her, trying not to come off as imposing. Well, as imposing as I could be to someone who was the same height as me.

"I'm Iroha Inukai, it's nice to meet you!" After seeing her peach-colored hair and lime-green eyes, I noticed a second too late that she was offering her hand to me.

"Oh, my name is…" Before I could shake it, the whistle blew, signalling the game to begin. Immediately, my attention turned to my opponents. Notably, they were about a year older than my team. Seniors? They were also the first ones to serve.

As soon as I heard their palm hit the ball, while everyone else scurried about, I stood firm. Despite not having played volleyball before, Mr. Kozaki and I watched a few videos, some were anime that showed off the sport while others were recordings of Olympic matches… In retrospect, it was an ingenious way to prepare me for this very moment.

That said, I didn't have enough of a grasp of the strategies, just enough to know I should volley the ball to another player to spike it. Even so, the other five seem to do just fine without me, passing the ball two to three times before delivering it to their captain as he spiked it down the gym…

Unfortunately, a player on the opposite side dove in and bounced the ball upwards. A fellow player passed it to someone in front, their captain… Their spike was more of a gentle push that nearly slowed all momentum in the ball.

"Crap…" Our captain said as he backed away to get the ball in time. While he managed to pop it up with his hands, it spun up into the air for a few seconds gaining little to no forward momentum. No one would be able to get to the ball in time before it landed… No one…

Save for me. I had a familiar yet eerie feeling in my body where my muscles just felt numb, as though the jump I made was a second nature. As I looked at the ball, my fingers and even thumb curled inwards, bringing almost all the surface tension towards the palm… And then, without any hesitation…

WHAM!

As though I had caught a fly, I smacked the ball out of the zone, zooming past two of the opponents who leaped up to block it just seconds too late. That slap caused me to blink as I watched the ball careening towards one of the players in the back, a girl. As I landed, I shut my eyes tightly, anticipating an anguished cry…

Only for the ball to hit the floor and the whistle to blow.

I opened my eyes to see the ball had harmlessly bounced a couple of inches away, not even close to her vicinity. A few players who hadn't noticed my arrival now turned to glance at me. Even a few of the teachers began to eye me, as though anticipating my next move.

"Holy crap! That was amazing!" The captain came over to congratulate me. All I saw was the other team get ready, though my eyes were glued to the person I nearly hit with that spike.

"More than that, you were wonderful!" Iroha took my hand and shook it. My eyes turned to see my hand as my breathing became stilted. Soon, the peach color of Iroha's hair became vibrant, as was the red on my hand…

"You were right, Kozaki, that kid has some hidden talent. Did you see that kill sho…" As I heard one of the teachers said that, I suddenly lost my hearing as well as any sense of color except one: red.

I could still tell that the person in front of me was Iroha, since I could see her bobcut hair and long locks, yet I couldn't hear what she said. There was a muffled shrill though, followed by subtle bangs.

I turned, expecting to see the gym… Instead, I saw an empty room with a few spotlights illuminating it and nothing but glass mirrors surrounding it. The six players in front of me… No… the girl I had worried about harming… She turned into a faceless blob at the end of that room. The muffles became louder and yet there was only one word that was clear in my head.

The moment I gagged; I could briefly hear the world outside this room…

"Come on! Go for the kill shot!" The teacher shouted. And yet, I couldn't comply.

I ran as the room broke apart. I didn't know where I was going, just that I put faith in my feet to take me to safety. The smell of a subtle dampness and overuse of chlorine acted as my salts to get me to recognize that this was the bathroom. I could see and hear again, yet I could still see only red.

"Jeez, think the kid got a case of aftershock?" The coach nudged Mr. Kozaki as one of the players approached the volleyball. Just as he was about to pick it up, the ball began to inflate at different points until the seams came apart and popped like a balloon, causing a small shriek to come from some of the students in the surrounding area.

"WOAH!" Other students, the captain included, commented. The loud pop caused the room to fall silent as most of the students were busy covering their ears.

Among them was a boy with greyish brown hair with red glasses. Though he too wore the standard gym uniform, he merely watched the match from the bleachers. A moment later, Iroha ran over to him.

"Hey, are you okay, Satoru?" Upon seeing Iroha, he gave a slight blush.

"Y-yeah. Just was a little spooked is all…" Satoru looked over to the others looking at the destroyed volleyball, causing Iroha to look that way as well. "Just… what was that? It couldn't have just popped like that…"

As the tattered remains of the volleyball fell, there were only two people who realized what was behind this sudden explosion. The first was Mr. Kozaki, who immediately ran in the direction that Jiro went…

The other was a man who watched the match from the sidelines with messy blonde hair, a trench coat over a white sleeveless shirt, jeans, and an eyepatch. Despite the rugged look, he seemed to be well into his early twenties if not younger. As soon as he saw Mr. Kozaki run off, he just smirked, flashing an odd set of sharp teeth.

"Got a pretty strong kid, huh, Natsume?" He said in Mr. Kozaki's direction, though he kept his voice to a mutter.

I approached the sink and began to wash up. At first, the sensation of water helped calm me almost instantly, and I would have spent easily a minute just relishing the cold flow over my skin...

Yet I saw an inky red residue leak from my fingers and pour down the drain... I knew this substance all too well and immediately reached for the soap. I lathered up so many times and rinsed, yet no matter what, that red liquid wouldn't stop seeping from my palms.

"Nononononono..." I kept examining my fingers to see where I missed as I began to hyperventilate. I scrubbed, and scrubbed, and scrubbed until...

"Jiro!" Mr. Kozaki pulled me away. I took a few moments to calm as I saw that the water had been clear. I looked at my palms... Clean all the way through... What's even better was that all color had been restored to my sight. My breathing, however, became erratic. It hurt my throat. "Jiro, did you hurt yourself?"

"N-no..." I fought against my own breath just to tell my landlord that. A moment later, I felt his palm brush over my head.

"That's enough for today... You did good, kid." I looked at Mr. Kozaki... The man had such a plain-looking face that it was hard to gauge his intent or even reaction. As such, I nearly flinched before he gently grasped my hand. "Come, let's head home."

"O... okay," I muttered as Mr. Kozaki led me home.

As we got home, Mr. Kozaki escorted me back to my unit, stepping aside to allow me to take out the key and unlock the door. I hovered over the doorknob for a bit before I turned to Mr. Kozaki.

"You're not… disappointed?" I muttered, turning to see he had taken out a cigarette. That said, he never once lit it.

"Not really. I had the idea you had some form of social anxiety, but… I didn't think it'd be that severe." He patted my back before I shook my head.

"It… It wasn't anxiety." I mumbled.

"I didn't say it was, I said it was some form." He took a moment before putting away his cigarette. "The students got a little spooked, but otherwise they have no idea what happened."

"But they'll figure it out eventually, and when they do…" I bit my lip.

"The average student isn't gonna figure out shit and if they do, the hell do you think they'll do?" Mr. Kozaki went over and gently observed my hand. While there wasn't any bleeding, there was a small tear in the skin right where the palm met the volleyball. "If anything, they're awestruck. Teachers, students, even the stray observer here and there, you've made the best first impression you could have made."

"Yeah, I demonstrated that I can make things explode with my palm…" I glowered.

"That's not what I mean. You showed them that you're strong, capable, and a team-player. Now when you get to class, they're gonna see you as…"

"A weapon." My words stopped whatever train of thought Mr. Kozaki had. He hesitated, as though mulling over what he wanted to say. "Sorry, I know you're trying to help and all, but… you saw what I did. This strength isn't meant to make friends… It's made to break them." I unlocked the door and opened it, deciding to shut myself from the world once more.

I watched her smile as the both of us knew this would be the last sunset she would ever see before…

"Jiro… It's time…" She looked to me. Despite the serene smile, she shed several tears. I looked to her and shed some of mine.

"I know… I'm… gonna miss you…" I said, placing the tips of my fingers on her chest, right where her heart was…

"Me too… I love you, Jiro…" She wasn't even bothering to watch, only staring at me in the eyes as I carefully lined up my fingers and soon, my entire hand. And then as I push my palm…

BLAM!

I suddenly wake up in a bloodstained hallway, a few people either cowering in fear or just dead. I could hear the sounds of punching and screaming coming from one end of the hall. Immediately, I ran towards it, but the end of the hall stretched boundlessly.

I tried to reach for it, but all I could feel was wet blood that spilled onto my hand and extended past my wrist.

"Lily! Lily!" I cried out for her, hoping she could hear me. Instead, I could see the hall be filled with more bodies and spider lilies to mark their graves. Suddenly, the end of the hall zoomed up to me and then…

SNAP!

I found myself in the volleyball court once more, though the floorboards were stained with a dark red finish. The volleyball having landed on the end of the court with a bloodstained hand and a heap of bodies. I stumbled back, only to be caught by Iroha.

"H-hey! Get away from me!" I told her, trying to step back.

"My, what big ears you have…" Iroha spoke in Lily's voice with a smile, her eyes an empty, vacant seaweed green. I began to shake my head.

"No… Please, stop!" I realized this was a nightmare, and yet I couldn't just manipulate it or snap out of it.

"What big eyes you have!" She instead approached me, extending her arms.

"Don't let me hurt you! Please!" I cried out to her.

"What big claws and teeth you have!" As she went to me, I clenched my eyes as I could only feel my arms and fists moving on their own, making the same palm that caused the volleyball to pop… That caused Lily's heart to…

"STOP!" I cried out.

I woke up in a cold sweat, tears streaming down my face. I wasn't allowed to let out a wail, and yet the image of Iroha approaching me would remain fresh in my mind, preventing me from getting up.

It took me roughly eleven minutes to convince myself that it was just a nightmare, but even so, I looked at my hands. The longer I stayed in this place, the more I'd get that nightmare… The more I'd remember my past.

So, I got dressed and headed out.

This was, surprisingly, my first actual tour through Animal Town. And, unfortunately, I didn't really have a general idea of where to go.

My apartment was close to the edge of town, being mainly for people who didn't have animals in the first place. As a result, it has a strict no pets policy to accommodate. It's compensated with low rent. Trouble was, it took a while to get from the edge to the main part of the town.

It did allow for me to take in some of what the outdoors had to offer, however. As I watched the collection of ducks, chickens, and cows from one side of the road at what seems to be a free-range barn, it brought me a bit of a smile to an otherwise bleak day.

By the time I actually got to the main part of the city, about ten minutes had passed. There, I came across a large shop… House? Whatever it was, the brand, Pretty Holic, seems to imply it was made mostly for women in mind. So not really my cup of tea. Besides, a casual glance from the windows gave me the impression, from the vacant shelves and packed up boxes, that it would be out of business had I not caught a few glimpses at someone unpacking them and carefully stocking the shelves.

Rather, it seemed to be two people, a mother and daughter telling from their hair and eye color. Though, my casual peeking had not gone unnoticed, as the mother spotted me. As soon as she was finished putting away a perfume, she turned to her daughter, said something I couldn't hear.

It had been a while since I could read lips, but given how the daughter looked at me, blushed, then ran off in a second flat, it might have been something akin to asking to say hi to me. I gave a sigh as the mother and I gave each other a glance before I took off.

As I was about to leave, I noticed a white cat look at me from one of the higher floors. I gave a wave to it before I noticed it turn to see someone and leap towards it. Given what I had saw prior, it's safe to assume it was the daughter's cat. I walked away, an otherwise random encounter that I might relay to Mr. Kozaki.

Though, I thought of something… It's often a sign of bad luck if a black cat were to cross my path, but what does it say about white cats?

My walk eventually stopped at what I could assume to be this town's landmark: a large stone, almost akin to a mirror with small bits of moss covering it. I didn't even need to guess what the name was as I looked at the sign to confirm that this was called the Mirror Stone. Though, that was the only thing I was able to read. The rest of the lettering was either faded or wasn't even a form of kanji.

The only thing that stood out was "wish"… So, my only assumption was that this was some sort of wishing stone?

I didn't believe in those sorts of tales… But… If that white cat glancing down at me was a sign, then…

I sighed. I shouldn't be putting a false hope on some tourist attraction. Besides, I came to Animal Town to fade away, not be one of its people. There shouldn't be a reason for me to think about what this stone can and can't do for me.

And yet, as I gripped my fist and as my memories of Lily came back to me, my words came rushing out.

"If you really grant wishes, then I wish you give me a reason to live today." I froze after I said that. Did… Did I just threaten a rock? I breathed a bit, tried to collect myself. I realized why I was so pensive today…

Today was the day I would…

"Oi!" I turned to see a man with messy blonde hair approach me. The eyepatch and trench coat immediately caused me to remember who he was.

"Ah, hey, Dai." I pushed away my thoughts for the time being as I greeted him.

"Been lookin' all over for ya. Can't exactly chop down those trees without you by my side." He gave me a jovial pat on the back followed by an awkward chuckle. We gave a look as we both knew he could do fine on his own.

Part of Mr. Kozaki's plan to make me be part of the city was to get me some work. He knew a guy and got me into the lumberjack trade. Figured it would give me a connection and some life skills not unlike how he tried to get me into volleyball.

"Come, there's still some daylight left." Dai pointed to his truck as I followed him.

For what it was worth, Dai wasn't that bad to hang out with as he simply minded his business, played his tunes, and let me chill by the window.

BANG! BANG!

The only thing that caused my eye to twitch was his arm out the window banging the side of the car in tune to the music and his vocalizations, though trying to tell him how his arm could suddenly get caught by a passing object and come off only fell on deaf ears.

His funeral, I guess.

"So, Jiro! Saw your big game today! Knocked their socks off!" After a while, he spoke up.

"You were there?" I mumbled.

"Heck yeah! You showed an amazing ability out there!" As he said that, I puffed my cheek.

"So, you saw what I did to that volleyball." I said.

"Of course. It's a fantastic technique ya pulled off." I couldn't resist the urge to grip my fists.

"It's dangerous is what it is…" I growled.

"Only if you think it to be…" We pulled up to our zone, a vast forest on Mount Miharashi. We got out of the truck as Dai got his equipment.

As paradoxical as it was to do some deforestation near a place literally called Animal Town, I looked over to the pathway surrounding the forest. Most of the trees we chopped down woulda grown too close.

"Hey, Jiro, over here!" Dai pointed over to a large tree, well within our required criteria of trees in our removal range. "Try doing that strike on the trunk…" I hesitated, as though it were the first time I even tried it.

Of course, as I subconsciously placed the tip of my middle finger at the slightest ridge of the wood, I knew that I had struck harder materials than oak…

WHAM!

Within five milliseconds, my entire palm collapsed into the bark of the tree, with an odd snap that could be heard only between me and Dai. Another second passed as there was a muffled pop, causing most of the tree's top to shift slightly off center. One… two… The seconds between my breaths was natural, as though counting the moments before…

Crrrrreeeeeee…

There we go. The tree began to fall over.

"T-TIMBER!" Dai shouted, not even sure how to react before he saw the true damage made onto the tree as it fell down. There was a large air bubble made right in the center, with several cracks surrounding it. As it landed with a quaking thud, Dai lost his footing and nearly fell before I picked him up. "H-holy shit!"

"Imagine that sort of force on a human." I wasn't even sure why I decided to say that out loud in front of Dai. To my surprise, he just chuckled.

"Yeah, that's the kinda strength we want." Dai said.

"… We?" I turned to ask him, though, I then realized…

He and Mr. Kozaki knew each other… And they knew what I'm capable of…

"I knew it…" I stood firm and glared at Dai. "You're just using me…"

"Woah, woah, woah, hold up! I'm trying to make a point here!" As Dai said that, I just stomped towards him.

"The point is that this 'strength' is too dangerous to be kept around! Today it's a volleyball, tomorrow it'll be some trees. That's how it always begins… Eventually, when I'm nice and comfortable with you… You'll just casually tell me to get rid of someone annoying in your way or a rival contractor… And before I know it… I'm a pawn…" I prepared my fist, not sure what will happen next…

"… Is that why you want a reason to live?" Dai asked me. Immediately, my fist eased up. "You keep insisting that your strength is dangerous, yet I just showed you an application of it that doesn't hurt anyone." On cue, a couple of squirrels scurried away from the felled tree, though, they soon stopped and looked at a certain direction. "Relatively anyone…" Dai raised an eyebrow as we both noticed the squirrels tense up and chitter aggressively in a direction pointing away from the mountain, directly into Animal Town.

"And how much longer before it does?" I asked him, trying to elevate my voice to overpower the squirrels' chittering. I was half tempted to see what they were so territorial over.

"Then…" We soon heard the noise of a loud animal off at the distance. Dai took out a monocular and looked at where the sound came from, coincidentally in the same direction that the squirrels were looking at. Though, noticing him closely, the timing between the roar and him finding where it came from seemed rather short. "… I think I just found your opportunity…"

"Opportunity?" I asked him.

"Come on, let's ride!" He ran off as I immediately chased after him.

"Mind telling me what's going on!?" I shouted at him as we drove down, barreling at almost ten percent past the speed limit.

"You remember about a couple of years ago when those androids started freaking out or when some dude with a god complex came out of a book?" Dai asked me.

"What the hell are you talking about?" I asked him.

"Come on! You at least gotta remember the DGP or even when the government made you take the Stamp!" As Dai looked over to me and saw my blank face, he shook his head and bobbed it to the back. "Oh for… Just grab the briefcase." I turned to see that, indeed, there was a briefcase sliding in the back of the truck.

After waiting a bit, I snatched the briefcase and pulled it onto my lap, briefly looking at the label embossed on the top, depicting an egg with two dinosaur feet poking out and two beady eyes looking at me. This egg creature sat in the middle of a G, which in of itself was in the middle of a word.

"Egg?" I asked, looking at the name.

"Nah, E.G.G. Earth's Global Guardians." Dai paused a bit before chuckling. "Name's a work in progress but…" As he continued to speak about whatever the hell this EGG group is, I opened the briefcase. Inside was a bulky belt and, resting in the middle, a purple metallic egg with what I believed had some sort of silver paint on it.

"No, it's Egg." I pulled out the egg to show him.

"H-hey! Be careful with that! We lose that and we lose our chance!" Dai pointed to me, not even paying attention to the road as I had to grab the wheel to ensure we got off the ramp and onto the main road.

"Our chance for what!? You're asking me these weird questions, there's this whole egg thing going on and-" Dai swerved, cutting me off from explaining more as he grabbed the egg from my hands.

"Alright, aright, the quick and dirty version. Those incidents involved heroes known as Kamen Riders and with this egg and that belt, you can become one too!" Dai smirked.

"Why me specifically?" I asked him.

"Because this would be a great way to put your strength into something that saves people." Dai said.

"… I see how it is…" With that, I looked at the belt and without any hesitation just asked… "I know how you're going to word it, and it's not gonna work."

"Excuse me?" Dai asked.

"A thousand people can be saved, but only if this one person has to die. That's what you're gonna tell me, right?" I took out the belt to observe it. A large metal three-prong claw, almost like a raptor's, was the centerpiece of the belt, yet I can see the small seam that suggests it can be split in two. The size as well also suggests that the egg could be held.

"Uh… Not really the kind of thing I'd say but…" Dai suddenly stopped his truck as we heard a tree fell, something we were quite accustomed to. "It's close." Dai grabbed the belt before getting out.

"Where are you going!?" I shouted as I hopped out of the truck.

I ran after Dai before he came to a stop, just as I did. We were at a park that some of its playground destroyed, with a thick purple miasma strewn about the area. The two of us were drawn to two different things despite them being in close proximity.

While I easily saw the large purple furred ram sporting a metal mask and blood red horns, my eyes turned more towards the girl it was menacing; a young girl with peach-colored hair and lime-colored eyes.

"Iroha…" I muttered as Dai came forward.

"Jiro, I'm gonna show you the ropes." Dai said before turning his attention to the ram. "OI! Gekijyu!" Dai called it out, causing the ram to focus at Dai.

"Garu…" The ram growled.

"Iroha! Get to safety!" I said to her.

"Y-you're that kid from the volleyball game!" Iroha said, though she didn't seem to move in the slightest.

"Shit…" I muttered.

"Watch closely, Jiro, I'm about to show you how to beat a monster!" Dai slapped the belt on his waist, activating it.

GARUDRIVER!

"The trick is to make it quick…" Dai took out the egg and tapped it against the topmost claw.

OVI-KRACK!

The egg suddenly lit up as the silver turned bright red, with the shell popping up to reveal that it too can be split in two. All the while, the ram, supposedly the Gekijyu, moved towards Dai.

"GARUGARUUUU!" It roared and charged at Dai. Dai cocked a grin, as though he anticipated this. He positioned his wrists so that they overlapped each other while he gave out devil horns.

"HEN-"

WHAM!

The Gekijyu rammed right into Dai's ribs, knocking him right into a tree and causing a loud crack. At first, I feared it was his spine, only to see the tree collapse behind him as he landed on his stomach. I turned to see Iroha, then, praying that the Gekijyu was distracted by Dai, I ran over to him.

"Dai! Are you okay!?" I saw the belt and egg were right next to him, still active.

"Ugggh… That thing packs a punch…" Dai struggled to get up, only to cough up some blood.

"Crap…" I looked to see that the Gekijyu had now focused on Iroha. "Craaap…" I winced.

"Heh… Looks like the commander was right… Taking them on now… was only gonna get us killed…" The moment Dai said that, all color faded save for four things…

The peach of Iroha's hair…

The horns and eyes of the Gekijyu…

The blood from Dai's lips…

And the red lights glowing from the egg…

"Kill… Why do you use that so… casually?" I muttered before taking the belt and putting it on my waist.

"W-what?" Dai asked as I picked up the egg.

"You and the landlord… Both underestimated something 'bout me: you assumed that I'm so passive that I wouldn't even hurt a fly…" I turned around and glared at the Gekijyu.

Immediately, Dai, the Gekijyu, even Iroha all felt as though their hearts had stopped beating. And yet, only Dai knew what this feeling truly was as I walked forward to confront the Gekijyu.

"Wait… I… I thought that only existed in manga and anime… Did you just… reveal your killing intent!?" Dai asked me.

"A thousand people will be saved if I killed this monster, right? Then…" I muttered. As I thought back to Lily at the beach, the bloodstained hands, the dream, I knew this would be just one more job… One more kill before…

"J-jiro…" Iroha looked at me, trembling as she wasn't even sure what was going on. There was a silence so quiet, the only noise that could be heard was a small dog's barking, something that Iroha turned her attention to.

"… Don't worry, Iroha…" I gave a faint smile before shedding a tear. "This will all be over soon…" After today, I won't ever see her again. "Dai, you watch closely now… This is how an assassin gets the job done…"

"W-what… An…" Iroha muttered, with Dai completing her thought.

"An assassin?" As he said that, I could hear the Gekijyu groan.

"And you…" I turned to the ram. "Take being my final target with pride…" With both Dai and Iroha having snapped out of their fear-driven stupors, it was only a matter of time before the Gekijyu could as well, so I had to act fast.

I opened up the claw and plugged the egg inside, a loud crunch being made. As a rhythmic growl came from the belt, I didn't even dignify this with an announcement, as just as the Gekijyu was about to shake itself off, I tapped the top of the belt.

HATCH-ING!

The egg split in two, revealing a small wide LED screen of a tiny raptor running. I soon saw two large aural egg shells appear on each of my side before they came together, encasing me.

PRIME! ORDEAL!

I could feel my arms and head pull into my body as my chest began to swell. Before I could freak out that I was trapped inside, the egg began to crack open. The raptor on the LED screen soon changed into a blob of pixels and then into a humanoid warrior.

PRIMORDIAL!

As I felt my body explode, so too did the egg. Thankfully, I was intact as I found myself having donned a sleek metallic purple suit of armor. Large red compound eyes in the shape of a lizard lit up to the tune of a roar. At the same time, I felt small spikes coming out of my back. I looked at my hands and saw silver bracelets, like some sort of punk rock aesthetic.

"Good weapons…" I glanced at the hot pink claws I had before looking at my prey… "Begin hunt…" I clashed my claws against each other. On cue, the Gekijyu rushed over to me as I stood firm in a fighting stance.

I dashed towards it. Despite having the claws, I pressed my palm forward, aiming right for the top of its skull just as it would hit me. Slapping against the skull, I could feel the momentum from the ram completely stop, even creating enough of a push that it caused the ground beneath us to give way.

The ram stumbled back, shaking its head as I stepped back. It wasn't yielding despite all the force I placed into that palm strike…

"Too big for hands…" The thoughts I had wanted to convey couldn't be expressed. As though the parts that needed to think, to process were all… missing. No.

As though they were hidden away.

And yet, I was still thinking about how to fight this monster… Rather… What my first instinct is in beating it, especially as it tried to crush me with its hooves.

"Claws will do!" I struck, cutting into the ram's fur, though not enough to cut into its skin. "You tough…" I growled, slipping through the hooves while I continued to cut through the fur. If I could cut through enough fur, I could find a means to access its chest. Once I do, I might be able to strike the chest and end it once and for all…

"GARUGARUUUUU!" I didn't see its hindlegs for a second as they struck me, followed closely by its forelegs kicking me up from the small crater. I landed onto the ground on my claws as they dug into the dirt. The ram then leaped up and was about to charge head first into me…

My head began to fire off…

Fight back! Fight back!

But I'm gonna die! It's going to crush me!

Fight! Fight! Don't give it a chance!

It's not letting me though!

Go for the eyes… Go for the eyes!

Without any other thought, I readied myself and aimed for its head once more. Its silvery mask might be a detriment to my last-second plan, but my racing heart and pounding head weren't gonna let me take an alternative.

"GARUUUU!" As the ram charged closer, I gave a roar of my own.

"GARUDEEE!" But before I can move, a large paw-shaped balloon appeared, seemingly cushioning the monster and bouncing it back. "Garu…de?"

"Thank you…" I soon noticed someone landing as she turned to greet me. It was odd to describe her, but from the pink dress and hair, as well as the tiny crown, my best guess was some sort of princess. Though, that comparison might be based off the game that Mr. Kozaki wanted me to play.

"For?" I asked her, though I trembled, not even sure if she's a friend or foe.

"Protecting Iroha for me until I arrived…" She gave a smile before confronting the Gekijyu. "You two though… Why are you both being Garugaru!?"

I wasn't sure what she meant, but… I did just scream out the same sound that the Gekijyu made…

"If you two don't listen, you won't get a treat!"

"No pet!" I coughed up those words immediately. I wasn't even sure who she was and already, she's giving me orders? I thought Dai was my supervisor for this… I'd ask him, but as I turned to see him, he was unconscious.

"Garugaru!" The Gekijyu, or, I guess the Garugaru, growled before it rushed over to me and the princess. While she jumped over the ram, it was clearly not stopping. I charged at it and chopped away.

"GARUDE!" I felt my claws cutting into the wool, bits of the dark purple cotton flying away, yet still no real blood being drawn.

"You two, stop fighting!" The princess shouted at us as she landed.

"Monster attack people! I beat monster!" I growled at her as I pointed towards the ram, just as it proceeded to charge at us once more. Each pass was the same, a jump from the princess, a cut from me, and a follow up scolding. I'd have half a mind to scold her back, but aside from my innermost thoughts, more than half my mind was already focused into taking the Gekijyu out.

That and, admittedly, I was getting rather tired, though, so too did the ram… There was an old saying from my mentor though…

"Humans have a massive advantage over animals when they hunt. Can you guess why?"

I remembered my feet, blistered and aching from the five hours we had climbing up the Himalayas.

"It's because compared to them, humans have boundless stamina. It is never a matter of if the human can catch their prey, but when."

That was the situation I saw before me, and once I realized my kill was within my grasp, I could feel the spines on my back begin to shake back and forth. I gazed at the monster…

"Ga… Ga…" I coughed on my own voice before I shouted out a new cry: "GIGIIIIIII!" I began to race towards the Gekijyu just as I watched its angered eyes shrink.

Just what I wanted.

"Waiiiiit!" The Princess shouted as she ran after the ram. I chased after it as well…

"W-wait… T-they're fast… Jiro, was… Was that really you?" Iroha asked, though Jiro was long gone.

"Heh," Dai mustered his strength and got up, "yeah… That… was Jiro's true voice." He smirked, eying the torn wool that laid about the destroyed park. Iroha saw it too and cupped her mouth to muffle her gasp.

She could only hope that other person, the pink-haired princess who seemed to know who she was, could keep him in check…

I ran after the Gekijyu and already, I felt my speed had increased twofold, though it would be more accurate to say that it was my stride that had increased twofold, as one sprint easily covered ten feet of movement.

Yet, I was dead last, only closing in on the Princess.

"Hehe! This is a race!" She declared. In a way, it was. I had no idea what her intentions were with this beast, but it was clear that we were both against it. Whether she intended to kill it herself was none of my concern. So long as it's out of the picture, that's fine by me.

SLAM!

The sound of smashed metal fences had us close in on where the Gekijyu was. My mentor was right… By the time we caught up, it was already fatigued and the small imprint left by a chain link fence didn't help. Perhaps my earlier palm strike could go off now and give it a concussion?

"Garugaru…" The ram's body began to emit purple energy… This ki… was something I was all too familiar with.

"I take him down." I said to the Princess as I approached, my body emitting this purple ki too. If I remembered how it worked, it got stronger the more negative emotions like fear and despair you absorb. Given the commotion earlier, it seemed to have drawn that from the victims at the park. I only have my own despair to draw from, and I doubt that counts.

Still, I need to put it out of its misery.

"Confrontation Beast Japanese Wolf Fist… Ringi…" I growled out the name of the technique as I pressed my fingers into my palm, readying my palm strike…

"Wait…" The Princess held her hand in front of me. "I think… It's in pain."

"Garu…" It seemed to confirm her theory.

"Must… put it… down…" I told her. She winced before shaking her head.

"There's no need for that." She reassured me with a smile before walking up to the Garugaru and proceeded to… hug it?

What are you doing?! You're gonna get yourself killed!

I wanted to say those words and yet they never came out of me. I felt myself wanting to race over there with all my speed… and yet… Why can't I move my legs?

That's when I remembered…

Dai…

He's still hurt badly…

I just went in and thought I'd be able to take care of this. But… Dai had been training for this and I only found out about this belt today! I don't know how it works or how to fight! Not only am I putting his life at risk, but if I'm not too careful, this princess might get hurt too!

But… if I can't fight… then… she might…

I soon saw Iroha catch up to us… Wait. What was she doing!?

Shit! She's gonna get herself killed too!

Kill…

Kill…

Kill…

That word repeated in my head nonstop as I remembered the dream I had play over and over… The hands stained with blood that I couldn't wash away… The fact that after today, the weapon that was me would cease to exist…

As I hesitated, I noticed the ram begin to glow white and seemingly fall limp. Did… Did it die? What just happened? I wasn't paying attention. Was the princess okay?

As I was thinking this, purplish black spores flowed from the ram's corpse and over into the GaruDriver, which had the LED display change to a lizard's face. It began to play an animation of the lizard eating before ending on it spitting something out, which the GaruDriver did for real. This one was slightly larger than the purple egg, but was silver with its highlights being yellow.

Thankfully, I saw the princess was perfectly fine…

Before she turned her attention to me.

"As for you…" She then approached me…

H-hold on… Damn it! Why can't I move!?

"You're trembling… You'll feel better if I do this…" The moment she told me that, I could feel myself nod. She came closer.

"Don't come any closer! Please!" My mind was just screaming whatever it wanted, without any filtering to a broken caveman-like structure. My mind was soon filled with the image of me attacking her, not unlike what happened with Lily.

I don't know why this was the case… But…

The moment I felt her wrap her arms around me… That all stopped. Everything became clear.

"Don't be frightened. I want to be your friend!" Once she pressed her head against my body, my metallic armor glowed a bright pink, and then the same white that the ram had.

"I… I can't be friends with you… I'll just hurt you… I'm just a monster… This world would be better off if I just disappeared." I growled…

"No, you're not, and you won't hurt me. We'll play games and have fun together… And this world… is already wonderful with you in it!" As she held me tighter, I began to shed tears.

Suddenly, my armor came apart in the same purple cloud of particles that the Garugaru had. She continued to hold me for just a bit longer as I blushed. She then pulled away and gave a smile.

"See? You're now you!" She said as I saw into her shiny purple-pink eyes.

"What just…" I muttered before I looked around and saw that the damage the Garugaru caused suddenly… vanished, along with the purple miasma. Just as I was about to ask the girl if she had any idea what happened, suddenly she glowed too, exploding into a different girl entirely. This time she was a brunette with a ponytail and a large pink hoodie. The only similarity was that they had the same small pouch with a colorful bow.

"Oh, Iroha!" She then just turned her attention to Iroha, who had just caught up with us, and began to explain the situation to her. So… I'm guessing this was just Iroha's friend that I didn't meet? Was she some sort of princess incognito? Or is she just disguising herself as a princess? Which was her true form?

I didn't want to overload myself with too many questions that I wouldn't be getting the answers to, so I went to inspect what became of the… I guess it's a Garugaru…

In its place was some sort of… weird sheep doll thing?

What the hell is going-

"ALL TOO WONDERFUL!?" Iroha shouted, taking the words right out of my mouth.

As I turned to see Iroha and the other girl, I also saw Dai limping.

"DAI!" I ran over to him and inspected him.

"Jiro! That was incredibly risky!" Dai glared at me.

"I… didn't know what to do…" I muttered.

"But… You managed to pull off your first henshin! Nice!" Dai patted me on the shoulder with a cocky smile. "And even beat a Gekijyu."

Yeah, Garugaru rolls off the tongue better.

"W-well, I didn't…" Before I tried to get Dai to talk with the two girls, he pulled me over.

"Let's hop over to your place and celebrate! There's some jam on toast with your name on it!" He said. I turned to see Iroha being hugged by her friend… In the exact same manner that I was hugged.

I turned back and looked forward, yet I felt a burning on my face…

"Huh? Hey, you okay? You're looking kinda red." Dai asked me.

"What? Uh…" Was it perhaps a side effect of using the GaruDriver?

"Yeah, this calls for the best toast ever!" Dai then picked me up and carried me over his shoulders. Whenever I felt this, I always felt a sort of rush of excitement… And yet…

There was still so much emptiness inside…

"For the last time, Daisuke, you can't just throw together all my spreads and call it 'super toast'!" Mr. Kozaki said to Dai as I sat on the couch at my place.

"Heeey, we're celebrating with the greatest bread the world has ever seen! No need to get all mad at us!" Dai chuckled.

"Peanut butter and jelly I get, but adding vegemite and Nutella!?" As the two bickered, I looked at a calendar that I had stuffed in the closet of my bedroom. Most of the bottom half of the calendar was torn off, with the final, legible date, today, being circled several times.

"And this world… is already wonderful with you in it!" I still remembered that princess' words to me… Her hug… Her eyes… Her voice…

"Hey, Dai… If I continue working with you, would I see her again?" I asked.

"Uuuh… Who?" Dai asked me… It seemed like I was the only one who actually saw her. Iroha might not even know her friend has this sort of double life.

"Never mind~" I dreamily spoke out as I went and threw the calendar out the window.

"E-eh!?" Mr. Kozaki suddenly ran off to see what I just threw. "Hey! What did I say about tossing stuff off the third story!?" As he looked at me, he paused. "W-wait, Jiro…" He noticed that, for the first time in a while, perhaps the first time since I even moved into his complex…

I was genuinely smiling.

"Hey, Mr. Kozaki… I think I'll stay here a little while longer." I said.

"What?" Mr. Kozaki raised an eyebrow as now it was Dai that paused, dropping a bread slice ever so precisely onto the other slice, completing his 'super toast'. As I looked to the setting sun, my thoughts were clearer than ever.

You have one year to prove that to me, princess.

In a lab that only a few dimly lit computers kept illuminated, a scientist observed the battle footage of the newly awoken Kamen Rider that was recorded via security footage from the park. They took a pause to observe the supposed princess and her contribution to the fight, though, otherwise paid no mind. Not when something much more interesting caught their attention.

As they noted Jiro's palm strikes, they paused the footage and rewound it back to when he glared at the Gekijyu. Upon pausing it, the scientist chuckled.

"How appropriate…" The scientist hid their face behind a fox mask, the glowing yellow eyes and garbled voice were enough indicators that it was higher tech than a traditional fox mask seen at festivals. "The one who stands in the way of the Gekijyu…" They soon typed away on a keyboard, causing the video's color to be desaturated.

Desaturated, save for a dark purple aura surrounding Jiro that took the form of a Japanese wolf.

"Just so happens to be its rival… Rinjyuken."

Chapter Text

I recalled the flames that burnt down Lily's home. The bodies that strewn about as my hands were stained with their blood. Whoever was coming next, my mind was set to take them out as well…

Ready?

My ears perked up and turned to see what would be my final challenge at Rügen …

FIGHT!

They were ready for me, though, as an armored figure rushed me down. They carried what appeared to be a chainsaw-sword hybrid with one hand, with their other hand being large with orange claws. Propelling them forward was a red harness on their legs that had special exhausts.

As they pushed me into the wall, I saw the helmet resembled a light blue wolf on the top half with a purple skull as their lower half, the latter's motif being emulated as their chest armor.

They said that the Grim Reaper often came in the form of a wolf, but this armor looked way too man-made not to have a human inside of it.

"Who are you?" I growled.

"Stop this bloodshed and come peacefully." The voice was feminine, though there was a sort of rough, tomboyishness to it.

"I can't stop… I can't… ever stop…" I said before striking at the armored figure with my palm strike.

BLAM!

I struck her point blank in the chest, gaining some space between me and her. While her claws traced where the blow was given, I noticed she wasn't immediately crumpling.

No shit, I thought, she's wearing that heavy armor. I tried to put all my training to try and destroy her armor, charging with my hands seized up into a claw pose.

Her sword blocked most of my attacks, with it looking no worse for wear. I just need to keep myself on the offensive.

"Confrontation Beast Japanese Wolf Fist, Ringi: Wolf Fang Claws!" My index and middle fingers pinched together to the thumb, forming a small point where it would use all the concentrated energy that I piled into it. I struck, not at her armor, but at the joints around the armor. Though, I managed to make her claw arm go limp before she immediately saw what I was doing, then kick me with her jet-propelled leg.

She then reached for a belt on her waist that contained a clawed hand reaching for the center, showing the symbol of a wolf's head, and a motorcycle handle. These two buckles were on separate sides of the belt, though, she soon flipped the belt, causing them to be on opposite sides.

Revolve on!

A large metal ring appeared over her as her whole body began to shift, her arms becoming her legs and her legs becoming her arms. Her torso came apart to become her thighs as her thighs came together to form her new torso, all while her head flipped over to the other side of her body.

Was she even human!?

I noticed that it was her left leg, appropriately having the orange claws now, that was now asleep. She still held her chainsword in her hands, though with the red harness now on her torso. The exhausts propelled her forward, as she slashed and cut into my body, knocking me into a wall.

My master had told me that there were some techniques that allowed a Rinjyuken practitioner to either gain armor or turn into a monstrous beastman. If I had that slightest edge, I'd be able to overcome this robotic assassin. However, I was still too inexperienced to learn these techniques, so I was left to my own devices.

"Confrontation Beast Japanese Wolf Fist, Ringi-" Before I could finish my technique, I was grabbed from behind.

"Sae! Knock him out!" It was another woman. I couldn't see who she was, all that I saw was a sleeved navy arm…

Wait… But my back is against the wall, how can they-

POISON CHARGE! BOOST! ZOMBIE! GRAND VICTORY!

I couldn't process my information before the mechanical reaper ran towards me, propelled by her harness, her sword ready to cleave at me…

I awoke in a cold sweat and shook. I had to breathe. I had to remember that those two didn't mean me any harm… I had to remember…

Those two were the ones who brought me to Animal Town.

Kamen Rider Garude

Hunt 2: VROON! Let Me Hear Your Voice!

The following morning, rather than a casual breakfast, I received the torn off calendar on my side of the table. Mr. Kozaki must have grabbed it from last night.

"I knew it…" Mr. Kozaki sighed, not even bothering to look further at it before he set down our breakfasts for the day, a lightly dressed egg salad.

"Knew what?" I asked back, only for Mr. Kozaki to sit down.

"You wanted to take your own life, right?" Despite the heaviness of what he just said, he bowed his head and got ready to eat.

"… Yes." I did the same. Kozaki took a bite before he spoke.

"I had my suspicions, but the calendar was the clinching point." His chopsticks tapped on the final date, yesterday.

"You're… not mad?" I asked him.

"You forget where we are, Jiro. If anything, I'm more disturbed that you were considering it at a young age. Usually most would wait until high school where they find out they can't get into the university they wanted." His slouched shoulders, deadpan expression, and overall casual way of eating the lettuce helped ease me.

"I'm… not sure how much Dai had told you about me but… I'm not a normal kid." I said.

"I knew as much. Dai had told me what he heard…" It was the first time I've seen a semblance of a smile. "A child assassin. You know, it explains a whole lot now." He paused, then nodded. "I guess I can understand now why you'd feel that way. Though, now the question remains…"

"Why didn't I go through with it?" I said his question out loud. I hesitated once I knew that was what he wanted to know, but I calmly said: "Someone… told me that this place was great because I was here." Those weren't her words exactly, but I couldn't exactly explain to him the circumstances of my battle.

"It was Iroha, wasn't it?" He gave a small smirk, having finished his salad. Do I lie and tell him yes?

"Nah, a friend of hers." I'd rather just tell the truth than have him try to get me together with her by putting me in more volleyball matches.

"I'm impressed. You managed to make a friend here." Mr. Kozaki gave a more genuine smile.

"I'm… not sure if I'd call her a friend just yet." I still remembered how she treated me more as some sort of pet or wild animal than an actual person.

"Eh, give it some time." As he said that, we heard a knock at the door in an odd pattern: one knock, followed by two fast knocks and then two stilted knocks, paced in a rhythm. "Goddamn it…" He muttered as he got up and opened the door. "What is it, Daisuke?"

"Is Jiro here?" I saw Dai at the front and immediately finished my breakfast.

"Yeah, yeah, he's here." Mr. Kozaki said as I approached his side.

"Cool, I'm gonna take him in for work if that's ok." Dai said.

"This early?" Mr. Kozaki asked.

"Yeah, new orientation and everything! It has to do with why we came home so late last night." Dai chuckled.

"… Ok, but don't be late, ok?" Mr. Kozaki asked.

"We promise." I replied as I went with Dai.

"So, without any conspiratal bullcrap, what happened yesterday? What was up with that Garugaru?" Dai and I were on the road as I asked him that.

"Gekijyu. Professor Inari coined the term." Dai said.

"Inari?" I asked him. Inari was usually associated with fox spirits, sort of like the statues that Mr. Kozaki had in his tomato farm.

"Yeah, the person who made the GaruDriver. They argued that they were fierce beasts, hence the name." Dai had his eyes focused on the road, a strange first for him.

"So, they anticipated this attack and created a means to counteract it?" I took out the GaruDriver and observed it.

"Yeah. We found an egg not too long ago and Inari was able to transform it into the GarudEgg." As Dai said that, I took out the egg in question.

"This, right?" I asked as Dai nodded.

"Exactly. And it seems like you've gotten another GarudEgg that Inari would like to take a look at. Hence why we're heading over to EGG right now." Dai said.

"You never did tell me what EGG really is." I said.

"Put simply, EGG acts as the public safety for… Well, Japan right now, but if we make a name for ourselves, the whole world! We'd be like… a suit of armor!" Dai said.

"Japan, huh? So why are you operating out of a glorified petting zoo like Animal Town? Why not somewhere major like one of Tokyo's Municipalities?" I asked him.

"W-well, Animal Town has the rare animal attack or even missing pet case, so we take those as starting small..." Dai chuckled, scratching the back of his head.

"… You guys have literally no budget, do you?" I asked.

"I mean… Do government handouts count?" As Dai cheekily asked that, he quickly noticed a small trailer. "Ah! There we are! EGG HQ!" He stopped his truck and got out, with me quickly getting out in tow.

"You operate outside of a small dingy car! How do you guys consider yourselves the 'global guardians'?" I chased after Dai as he walked towards the trailer.

"Hey, I didn't come up with the name!" Dai shouted back as he got into the trailer. As I followed him in, the first thing I noticed was how the interior was hollowed out, showing a small computer lab. And yet, from the monitors to even the mice and towers, they all looked like they were from 25 years in the past, right down to the yellowing of the white bezels.

"Oi, what's with the kid?" A burly guy with spikey dark brown hair stood up from one of the monitors and stared me down.

"He's the guy who took over my spot as Kamen Rider. I'm taking him through orientation." Dai said.

"H-huh? W… we're having a new member?" I heard a faint voice from behind the man before I noticed a girl with long, soft light brown hair peek out from behind the burly man. Both of them were wearing an identical black leather uniform with white lining, the symbol for EGG on their backs and sleeves.

"Let me introduce you to Sarutobi and Umahara. Don't worry, after a bit, they're pretty fun to be around." Dai said before he noticed a girl that's half Sarutobi's size move past him and towards Dai.

"So, this is the assassin I've heard so much about." Her hair had golden fleece-like qualities as her uniform was more of a simple open letterman jacket with a white shirt and a black pencil skirt.

"W-what!? HE'S AN ASSASSIN!?" This caused Umahara to flee to the back of the trailer and hide in a corner. Dai just chuckled as Sarutobi went over to comfort Umahara.

"And this is Commander Hitsujimaki." As Dai introduced me to her, she lightly chuckled.

"You can just call me Suzume." She offered her hand to me, though, moments passed before she realized I wasn't shaking it. "Hmmm? Are you shy?"

"No. It's because he's practiced a deadly art: Rinjyuken." I noticed the floor soon give way, opening to a lower floor as I saw a person in a white lab coat and a black jumpsuit. They wore a white fox mask with four slits that resembled eyes that were alit with white light. "From what I've heard, his particular style relies heavily on dim mak." By the time the person had fully came up the stairs that were hidden, I took full note of the person's height, comparing them to Suzume or Umahara.

"You… know what it is?" I asked them.

"It is, by all accounts, a dead form of martial arts, but a few people like yourself have kept it alive." The fox masked person grabbed my hand, then slowly caressed it as I noticed they wore a gloved hand. "Dim mak relies on hitting the right pressure points, and with Rinjyuken, you would need to put energy into it." They then firmly grasped my hand, making sure all my fingers were touching the back of their hand. "In short, if you do not intend on killing them, then you do not need to worry about shaking someone's hand." To make their point, they shook my hand vigorously before letting go.

"I take it you're Professor Inari." I hesitantly asked, holding onto my hand as though it were sprained.

"Indeed. Needless to say, you're the perfect user for the GaruDriver." Inari said.

"In what way?" Suzume asked.

"It's that very essence of Rinjyuken that was the 'missing link' for the GaruDriver." She paused, before they thought of something. "How versatile are you?"

"Excuse me?" I asked.

"Most practitioners I've seen from old footage only rely on one style their whole lives. Rarely do they branch out." Immediately, I realized what Inari meant.

"You mean… Do I know more than just one style?" I asked them.

"Indeed. The technology of a Kamen Rider has advanced far enough that it can adapt to any situation, but it can only do so if the user is willing to adapt with it." I nodded to Inari's statement.

"I know some techniques from other styles. Never a whole style in of itself. Though, my master taught me to go with the flow in learning the techniques…" I pulled out the Oviraptor GarudEgg from my pocket. "Something like what this egg gave me… I had to think on my feet with the claws and, I think it might have allowed me to harness a new style… Oviraptor-fist?"

"If what you say is true, the GarudEgg is allowing you to effortlessly learn an entirely new style without the years of effort." They paused, then nodded. "You obtained another GarudEgg from yesterday, right?" Immediately, I gave them the GarudEgg that I got from the Ram. "Mmm… Slightly bigger than expected. I'll incubate it right away…" As they turned around, I asked them…

"Incubate?" They stopped and sighed.

"Yes. I'm not sure what exactly happened, but it seemed that magical girl who interfered in your fight had greatly diminished the essence within the GarudEgg. Without any life to inhabit it, I would need to artificially insert essence into it so that it can function as an extension of the Kamen Rider's power." I nodded to their explanation before I stopped.

"Wait, magical girl?" Immediately, my mind thought to one person. "You mean the princess?" There was a pause before they turned around.

"You make such a presumptuous guess. Why?" They looked at me.

"W-well, they wear a crown and they seem to know a lot more about these Garugaru than even you do…" That was when Inari marched to me.

"Just because they wear a crown doesn't mean they are royalty and just because they called the Gekijyu some cute onomatopoeia doesn't make them well-studied in fighting them. Her appearance was a fluke, simple as that. Don't expect her to show up in your next battle." Their tone, though dry most of the time, turned serious with a hint of venom. After that, they stormed off into the basement and closed off access.

"Yeah, Inari's a bit… eccentric…" Dai chuckled.

"That's an understatement." I muttered before focusing back to the others. "So from what I can gather, we're trying to stop these…" I was about to say Garugaru again before I forced myself, "Gekijyu from wreaking havoc. I or that Princess defeat them, and then…" I looked at the GaruDriver, remembering how it spat out an egg.

"Oh, that. Inari was able to create a built-in filter that converts the energies that the Gekijyu held and turn them into GarudEggs." Suzume said.

"Yeah, once we found a way to convert that Oviraptor egg into one, it was easy to crack the code and repeat the process!" Dai smiled before he paused. "Well, we weren't able to find a sample to actually repeat the process… And the one time we did…"

"That's the aforementioned diminished essence that Inari talked about, right?" My question was met with a nod.

"Yeah. I think that's why they're a bit cranky." Suzume said.

"Well, I guess I can tag along for a bit. Gives me something to do for a year." I said.

"Great! Dai will show you the ropes and everything! We had him training to be our Kamen Rider before you came along, so he knows most of how the stuff works." Suzume said.

"Uuuuh, aren't you concerned by what he meant with a year?" Umahara asked her.

"Don't worry! A year is enough time for a Kamen Rider to make a name for himself! By then, he'll pass the torch down to the next generation and they'll take over from there! If we're lucky, this whole Gekijyu threat will be taken out by then!" Suzume smiled.

"I-if you say so…" Umahara blushed and looked away.

"Alright, Dai. Lead the way…" I walked over to Dai who nodded and took charge.

Dai drove us to the forest where we usually hang out at. There, he simply allowed me to practice some kata in the new Oviraptor-Fist style. Though, I couldn't for the life of me remember how my fighting style went.

I recalled several slashes with my hand, but when I did my chops, my muscle memory defaulted to basic palm strikes pulled straight from years of practicing Japanese Wolf-Fist. Maybe this was why most Rinjyuken practitioners only stick to one style, as trying to learn a new one only results in the old style forcing it out.

My master once spoke of a man who was able to use various Rinjyu styles flawlessly, something that he wanted both of us to attain. Aside from a few common techniques that one could claim to come from other Rinjyu styles, such as a whip kick from the Scorpion-Fist or an armbar suplex that's similar to the Crocodile-Fist's death roll technique, this mythical "Chimera-Fist" was merely that: a myth.

Dai, in the meanwhile, had his eyes glued to a gravure magazine, as though I had no idea what that even was. The only reason I didn't even pay half a mind to that was due to me wanting to figure out how to get my body to make that mental switch from palm strikes to straight up chops.

Mental…

That's when I remembered the other part of the Oviraptor-Fist style…

"Dai. When I became…" I paused. What exactly did I become? 'Kamen Rider' was what they called me, but what exactly did that mean? The face I wore didn't feel like a mask and I didn't ride anything… "Garude…" That was what I remembered screaming out as I fought the Garugaru. "My mind felt… trapped. As though I could only focus on my enemy. What happened?"

"Garude?" Dai asked. I nodded, then pointed to the belt. "Ah, yeah… I dunno. Best thing I can guess is that the mind just… fogs up. Inari would explain it better, but they're busy working on the new GarudEgg."

"Yeah, that's what it feels like…" I looked at the Oviraptor GarudEgg, then, had a chuckle. "Does… Does it mean I can only use my reptilian brain?" There was a pause. "Because it's a reptile?" Another pause. I shook my head once I realized Dai didn't know what I meant.

"I dunno, but… Just be careful, alright? And… don't do anything stupid." As Dai said that, I sighed.

"Let me guess, the ol' man told ya about the calendar this morning?" I put away the GarudEgg.

"Nah, I kinda figured it out on my own. What with yesterday and all…" Dai smirked and shrugged.

"Right… the Mirror Stone." I frowned. A moment passed before I spoke up. "Do you think that… it granted my wish?"

"Huh? What do you mean?" Dai asked.

"You heard what I wished for. I wanted a reason to live and then, out of the blue, this girl comes by and tells me all the different ways about how I should live." I said.

"You mean that Princess you and Inari were yappin' about?" Dai asked.

"Yeah, her. Truth is… That's why I wanted to continue working with you and EGG. Because I wanted to know if I'll encounter her again." My frown persisted. Dai came over and placed a hand on my shoulder.

"I don't really like Inari all that much, but there's one thing I'll agree with them on… That was a chance encounter and there's no guarantee that stickin' with us will get you to see her again. If you want to find her, you need to put in that effort yourself." Dai said.

"But… How will I…" I was about to say before I remembered how she approached Iroha as though she were a close friend. As though she knew her. I swallowed the empty air in my mouth as my frown faded. "I think I know… Thanks, Dai."

"Don't mention it." He smirked before he spoke up again. "No, really, don't mention it. I don't think Inari is particularly fond of that girl."

"Alright, well, keep it a secret then." I held out my pinky as Dai just chuckled.

"Jeez, kiddo, really with this?" Despite this, he tightened his grip on my pinky with his own. "Alright. Let's have you do a few laps around the road and call it for the day…" I responded to Dai with a nod and then ran off to do just that…

"Jiro… Nishioh?" I remembered Mr. Kozaki looking at me and repeating the name that was presented on a sheet of paper on the day she took me to Animal Town.

"Y-yes..." I nodded my head. The woman next to me, whose beauty I could only describe as almost divine, spoke up.

"He requested to be brought here and so I'm fulfilling his desire." She had short, curly brown hair with matching brown eyes, wearing a white sweater with a white dress skirt. What had me so nervous was the mere fact that her voice matched that of the person who grabbed me back at Rügen.

"Kurama… Wait… Isn't that the Conglomerate that shuttered a while back?" Mr. Kozaki scratched his head a bit as he continued to read the sheet, a sort of letter informing him of a situation that I had no idea of, though I assumed it was mainly telling him of what happened at Rügen. Attached to it was a sort of cobbled together "resume". In reality, my best guess was just a small biography of me based off what they've observed.

"For a bit. It restructured shortly after to join with the Zawame Accords." Zawame… My master spoke only of horror stories from that city…

"What's that got to do with me? I ain't exactly government material, as you can see…" Mr. Kozaki said.

"But you can keep an eye on him. That much you can do. Jiro has talents that he'll one day be able to use to help others, but he needs people to teach him that… People like yourself." With that, she patted me on the back, as though to prod me into the building that would eventually become my house.

"I guess the real question is… why me?" Mr. Kozaki asked.

"Because you're at the outskirts of town, away from the public eye. I wish I can say more, but that's the most I'm willing to divulge." She bowed, then went away, leaving me in Mr. Kozaki's care. We shared a glance before Mr. Kozaki eyed the spare luggage left behind.

"So… You like instant ramen?" Mr. Kozaki asked.

I stirred awake before checking the time. Six in the morning… Musta been a light sleeper.

As I got out of bed, I decided to browse some information on my phone, namely on EGG…

The most I got was a stub on Wikipedia maintained by a single IP address with several requests for a citation from registered users, some even moderators.

Jeez, EGG really is just some bottom feeder organization. Me joining the group was most likely the biggest break they ever gotten. However, I noticed a category at the bottom of the page: Zawame Accords Members.

I recalled that from my memories, and so I clicked it…

Immediately, I saw several big-name organizations that had pages of their own. Some were organizations that I heard of in passing, such as ZAIA Enterprise or Blue Bird, while others were complete unknowns or were just odd picks, like Deep Connect or Genm Corp. That last one made me raise an eyebrow. Wasn't that last one a video game company?

I noticed EGG was also linked onto this group, which, as I clicked on the Zawame Accords link and read up on what it actually was, now makes sense on what Dai meant when he said government handouts...

Apparently, the Government of Japan banded together after an incident surrounding Zawame gotten so out of hand it somehow went global and created a bill that necessitated several people and organizations to work with the government to prevent a disaster from happening. That said, with each passing year, there just happens to be a new disaster and with it, new additions to the roster.

For instance, the year Deep Connect joined, their launch of the Demia Project had an unknown incident, with uncited claims of people's faces changing, leading to their recruitment into the Accords alongside a paranormal investigation group… Then when Genm Corp joined, it was when their video game, Kamen Rider Chronicle, gave people diseases, with a medical team who specialized in curing video game-based diseases also joining the Accords…

Then there was the Kurama Conglomerate, which, while not one of the founding members, was a major sponsor of the Zawame Accords before its closure following the arrest of its CEO, Kousei Kurama, due to reports of corruption and manipulation of the media. Shortly after he allegedly busted out of jail, that was when the restructuring of the organization and proper joining of the Accords apparently began.

It seemed like most of these organizations outright caused these disasters and are only joining out of punishment, though the paranormal investigators and the medical team open up more questions than answers, especially regarding EGG…

Did they open their own Pandora's Box or are they the ones trying to close it?

I closed my phone, realizing I'd just fall down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories if I continued. Hopefully Mr. Kozaki is awake.

Sure enough, there he was in the tomato garden, having picked out some for what I can presume to be a tasty salad.

"Morning!" I shouted.

"Ah, mornin', kiddo!" Mr. Kozaki waved as he brought over his tomatoes. "You're up awfully early. Was gonna surprise you with breakfast in bed." He chuckled.

"Eh, I'm good. Hey, do you remember that Kurama organization?" I walked with him to the kitchen.

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Why?" Mr. Kozaki asked.

"Well… You know how Dai is part of EGG?" Wait, does he-

"Yeah?" Oh, good.

"What exactly is EGG?" I asked as Mr. Kozaki handed me a tomato and a knife.

"Well… he's kinda eager about it, but honestly, it's basically a sort of neighbourhood watch for Animal Town that no one really takes seriously." As I saw Mr. Kozaki cut the tomatoes, I followed his lead.

"But they're part of the Zawame Accords like the Kurama Conglomerate. So, isn't that a big deal?" I suddenly cut the tip of my finger with the knife. Mr. Kozaki's face didn't change, he merely pressed my fingers inward and showed how he cut the tomatoes, with his fingers pointing towards his palm and using the middle part as a sort of guard.

"Not really. Any organization can join them. The Accords are a wider neighborhood watch that no one takes seriously." Mr. Kozaki watched as I cut the tomato, this time I was able to cut them much more efficiently.

"So why does anyone bother? Outside of the organizations that seemed to be compulsed to join, why is there any reason to register?" I noticed that Mr. Kozaki already finished cutting.

"Because even though no one takes them seriously, a neighbourhood watch is still a group that watches the neighbourhood. And if they join a wider neighborhood watch…" As Mr. Kozaki said that…

"Then they can watch a wider neighborhood…" I said, finishing my batch of tomatoes.

"Exactly!" There was a moment where we looked at each other before I noticed a shift in Mr. Kozaki's eyes. "Ah, I see how it is…" He cleaned up. "You're wondering why you've joined EGG…"

"Well, I guess… I mean, I do know why, but… do I really want to be part of it?" I helped by putting away the cleaned knives.

"Will it help you achieve your desire?" Mr. Kozaki asked.

"…" That… I hadn't thought of. A moment of silence was all it took for Mr. Kozaki make his conclusion.

"Why don't you step outside and think about it. When you come back, I'll have the salad ready." He patted my back.

"… Thanks." I said before heading out.

As I went about my walk towards the main part of Animal Town, I came across the intersection that led towards Pretty Holic. I wondered if I should pass by it to see if I would come across the family, though that's when I saw the white cat resting on a cat bed atop of what seemed to be a fountain.

I slowly approached the cat, unsure if it was sleeping. The moment it swished its tail, however, I stopped. I wasn't sure why, perhaps I was just frozen with how beautifully snow white its fur was. I was half-tempted to pet the cat were it not for the fact that its eyes opened up, revealing bright blue eyes with heart-shaped pupils.

As it meowed, I almost felt out of breath. What if this cat was some sort of security and will alert the matriarch of my trespassing? It looked at me with its sparkling eyes, as though waiting for me to make the first move…

"She's very cute, isn't she?" A soft, elegant voice asked me as I almost jumped. I turned to see who it was and resisted the urge to sigh in relief as it was merely the daughter of the household.

"Y-yes…" I said as I watched her pet the cat, who seemed to move towards her hand.

"Yuki's fur is very soft. There was a shop that had so many cute ribbons, but…" She felt like a complete 180 from the last time I saw her, though given how I had seen her grab the cat before leaving, I could only conclude that the cat, Yuki, was most likely her therapy pet.

"You're shy about buying one?" I asked her, completely snapping her out of the trance. Once she realized she was having a conversation with me, her bliss-filled expression changed to the familiar tomato-red blush.

"Uh… Well… I…" As she stammered, I wanted to tell her so badly that I was also nervous about talking to her, though my reasons went beyond more than just 'I moved to a new town and now I am shy'.

I fidgeted my fingers, hoping she would end this conversation and go into the house, preferably with Yuki. It was already awkward enough that I passed by this house again, but to encounter not just the cat that lived here, but also its owner, it reminded me so much of…

The beach…

Her smile…

My hand…

The blood …

Ready?

I soon heard Yuki hissing. Shit! I heard about this sort of thing where animals detect evil intentions in people…

Except…

"Yuki? What is it?" As the girl asked her cat that, Yuki glared at a far-off direction, not unlike the squirrels did when…

FIGHT!

My brain soon made several connections of what this meant, but one remained so high on my mind that I said it out loud:

"Your cat is a good luck charm!" I said before running off.

"W-what?!" Was all I heard from the girl.

I had ran quite a bit before I reached the source of the commotion, which had several civilians fleeing from a grassy area just below a pathway. I had noticed from the purple miasma that this was definitely a Garugaru attack. As I went to the edge, I could see the monster I would be facing:

Like the ram, this creature – an ostrich – sported the similar purple feathers, pinkish red beak, claws, and eyes, as well as the silver bangles. To seal the deal, it too cried out "GARUGARU!!!"

"Target sighted… Commencing hunt." I said before pulling out the GaruDriver and slapped it on my waist.

GARUDRIVER!

Immediately, the ostrich turned to face me.

"Oi! Take being an assassin's hit with pride, got it?" I said before taking out the Oviraptor GarudEgg and cracking it on the top most claw.

OVI-KRACK!

I then placed the egg into the Driver and pounded the top of the belt to split the egg.

HATCH-ING!

As the egg formed around me, the ostrich leaped up and tried to peck at it with its beak. I could feel its whole head slamming into the shell as my head and arms retracted into my torso, beginning its transformation.

PRIME! ORDEAL! PRIMORDIAL!

The egg then exploded, knocking the ostrich back as I emerged in my armor. I looked at the beast as I readied my claws. I leaped down as the ostrich raised its leg to strike, only for me to give a kick in response. The two created a shockwave that further knocked back the ostrich.

"Gaaah!" It shrieked.

"Kick you?" I began to hop in place, recalling my training, the constant breaking of my shins to strengthen them for several leg-based styles such as… "Confrontation Beast Scorpion-Fist… Ringi…" I leaped into the air and somersaulted over, landing my foot onto the ostrich's head as I called out the technique: "Flying Vermilion Whip Kick!" I leaped over the ostrich afterwards and landed.

However, all it did was tick it off as it turned to face me.

"GARUGARUUU!" It charged and tried to strike.

"Confrontation Beast Beetle-Fist… Ringi…" I spun around and gave its head a roundhouse kick. "Heaven Walking Kick!" Aside from dazing the Garugaru, no real Confrontation Ki went into these kicks… As expected, though… I only knew the motions of these strikes, but not felt the beasts that embodied these styles. "Confrontation Beast Stag-Fist… Ringi: Face Washing Kick!" In essence, these were merely normal kicks. Even this jumping tornado kick did the same amount of damage as though a trained martial artist did it.

In truth, this ostrich could pick a fight with a mixed martial artist and wouldn't feel the difference. I wasn't entirely sure why I was holding back. Perhaps I learned my lesson from the last fight, that going all out with claws would only hurt me. Or perhaps…

"Best thing I can guess is that the mind just… fogs up." Dai's words were fresh in my head. The moment I thought of kicking, that was all I could focus on. Before, when I looked at my claws and found my palm strikes weren't working, I just defaulted to them. Even me calling out the techniques felt second nature. If I were to cause real damage, I would need to rely on either Japanese Wolf or Oviraptor-Fist attacks…

I recalled how Japanese Wolf-Fist had an offshoot, one that was based in a living form of Beast Fist that relied more on Muay Thai boxing than acupuncture boxing. Was it perhaps possible for me to attempt that style? The other idea was to tap into the Oviraptor-Fist. That was worth more of a shot…

With a scream, I channeled my Confrontation Ki into my body. I felt something grow from the back of my left foot… A spike… Was this a technique? In any case… I think I know what to call it.

"Confrontation Beast Oviraptor-Fist… Ringi…" I stopped immediately upon seeing another person enter the fray:

The Princess.

"You two! Stop right now! You're scaring people!" She glared at us, her arms folded. Her words caused me to numb as the claw on my heel retracted… And yet…

"GARU!" The ostrich didn't relent, instead growling at her.

"Stop being a Garugaru! Let's be friends instead!" She put her hands on her waist. Immediately, I trembled…

I recalled her words from yesterday, what Inari said about her not showing up, and what Dai said about putting in the effort…

Was there a way for me to cancel this transformation? For me to just be Jiro?

"GARUGARU!" The ostrich went to peck the Princess, causing me to move on my own and take the blow.

Despite my body looking like armor, I could feel the beak hit my backside. I saw the princess leap back as I gritted my teeth.

"Are you okay!?" She asked me.

"Fine! I… Beat it!" I then grabbed it in a headlock.

"No! Don't! You'll hurt it!" She said.

"It… hurt people… Must stop it!" I said.

"We need to rescue it!" She ran to me and the ostrich. I was confused with what she meant and that moment was all the ostrich needed to fling me off, sending me hurdling over several feet and causing me to land on my back.

"Ghhh!" I grunted. I soon heard the sound of a car pulling up. A familiar sound, given I rode on it almost every day.

"Jiro!" Sure enough, Dai came out of his truck as I got up. "Damn, this one's a toughie, huh?" Dai noted as I got up to see that the ostrich was now chasing the princess around and trying to bite her.

"Have to… save her…" I grunted.

"Good thing I brought this over!" Dai went to the back of the truck as I heard a heavy object be dropped off. I felt the vibration of the ground as it was clearly a smaller car. As I got over to look at it, I saw it was a motorcycle with two large golden ram horns acting as its chassis.

"Can't ride it…" I told Dai.

"You're a Kamen Rider! All of them ride bikes!" He paused. "Most of them ride bikes…" He paused again. "Well, few of them do after September…" Dai muttered. I looked back to the ostrich and the princess before I sighed.

"No choice…" I went over and got onto the motorcycle, only to find that on the handlebars was a large silver GarudEgg with golden horns. "This is…"

"That's right! That's the Ram GarudEgg, fresh off the press! Turned out there was a lot of essence that needed to be filled, so Inari had to create a machine to stabilize it. I suggested a bike and the rest is history!" Dai smirked as I pressed the egg, causing it to crack open.

MACHINE RAMMAR!

The bike's eyes came to life as I heard a ram's bleat. Twisting the handlebar, which was coned like a ram's horn, I rode off back into action.

"KNOCK IT OUTTA THE PARK, JIRO!" Dai shouted. I revved up the engine, the motorcycle jumping off the edge…

VROON!

As I rode down, I saw that the princess was knocked over with the ostrich seemingly giving a mixture between a caw and a laugh as it ran off. I stopped next to the princess.

"Need help?" I asked her. She looked up at me, then at the running ostrich.

"Yeah…" She got up, though it took her a moment or two of looking at my bike, as though trying to figure out how to sit on it. After a while, she scratched her head with both hands. "Moouuuu!" She then ran off after the ostrich.

"Komugi!" Before I could ask the princess if she needed assistance, I turned to see Iroha catch up to me. She stopped and saw me on the bike. "Jiro…" I looked down.

This was the first time since I transformed that we really saw each other, and here I am back in this Garugaru form… But… more than that…

I think I just heard the princess' name for the first time…

"GAAH!" We looked to see the princess, Komugi, get kicked over by the ostrich. Iroha flinched and yet, I didn't… Despite that attack, Komugi chased after the ostrich.

"Kou…mugi…" As I said her name outloud, Iroha snapped out of her daze and looked at me. "She… saved me…" I trembled.

"What do you…" Iroha tried to ask me before I tightened my grip.

"Now… I must… save her…" My mind focused on one thing: taking down the ostrich, whatever it takes.

I rode off as Iroha shouted for me to wait. I felt the speed overtake me as I caught up with the ostrich, though not overtake it completely.

"Garu!" It tried to strike me with its beak, but I pulled back and caused the motorcycle to pull up just in time for the horns on the chassis to block the attack. I then steered the motorcycle to push the ostrich away, putting it in my path. All that's left was a good, solid drive to ram into this ostrich.

"Stop!" Komugi grabbed the bike as though it were an animal.

"It… needs to…" I growled, unsure why Komugi is stopping me…

"Garugaru…" Worse still, the ostrich saw this as an opportunity to attack us, scratching the ground with its legs to prepare a possible kick strike…

"Why did you become a Garugaru again!?" Komugi asked me.

"To fight monster!" I responded.

"But you're no longer yourself! Doesn't this hurt you!?" Komugi teared up as I noticed her arms soon moved over to me…

Crap! She's gonna try to cancel my transformation while the monster's still around!

And yet… I can't help but agree with her… I don't feel like myself when I'm like this… It's to the point where I could feel my mind break whenever I battle…

And yet…

"Garugaru!" I saw the ostrich begin its charge… So long as monsters like the ostrich try to hurt people like Komugi…

"GARUUUUUDE!!!!" I couldn't let myself surrender to peace… I was about to ride off and charge into the ostrich…

However, all of us saw a bright light in the distance. It was similar to a light that appeared when I was fighting the ram, but back then, I was too warped in the idea of killing it to notice…

But now? Now I could see it clearly, almost blindingly. I turned to see that the light came from some sort of stone floating in front of Iroha…

Inari was in their lab, observing the battle on their computer monitor. It was a contrast to EGG's yellowing IBM personal computers that were built into metal tables, instead being three 49' OLED monitors that surrounded Inari, speakers softly playing the noise captured from miniature drones that were watching the battle. They too saw this flash of light.

"Hey, Inari, what's going on?" Suzume called to Inari from the intercom.

"I think I have an idea, but… Never have I thought they would truly exist…" Inari said as they saw Iroha grab the glowing object. As the glowing faded, it revealed itself to be a compact mirror. Inari chuckled…

"Wonderful Pact!" Was what Iroha called it… "Precure! My evolution!" Was what she announced.

"I guess I was on the mark when I called that princess a magical girl." Inari leaned back on their chair, it too being a contrast; a plush reclined computer chair with a backrest compared to EGG's plastic arm-restless chairs with a few cracks here and there. "A Kamen Rider who uses the powers of a Sentai's sworn enemy, working with Pretty Cure… My, oh my, how these pieces come together…" They pulled out a phone, looking over the screen as it displayed a primitively made webpage on a TOR browser outlining a profile for Jiro and the skills he has.

"Three… Two… WAN!" Iroha called out as she exploded in a flash of light. In her place was a girl with blonde twintails wearing a purple dress and a matching deerskin cap. "Everyone's smiles light up this world! Cure Friendy!" The lights around her faded as she held out her hand in the general direction of both me and the ostrich. "Let me hear your voice!"

I… was not sure what just happened, nor did I want to really know the answer. It could be my reptilian brain wanting me to just focus on the now, however… Komugi ran over and began to gush over her friend's newly obtained form as the ostrich and I assumed our fighting stances.

"Garugaru!" This time, I was prepared as its beak struck my palm. A special technique, at least when done on humans, is that when struck right at the bottom of the nose, could potentially kill someone. The issue is trying to find that exact spot for an ostrich.

That's when I noticed its long neck… Perfect spot!

"Confrontation Beast Japanese Wolf-Fist! Ringi: Jugular Strike!" I moved my palm, only for it to meet its beak. "Confrontation Beast Centipede-Fist! Ringi: Thousand Palm Strike!" I responded as I increased the speed of my strikes. Were I an actual practitioner of Centipede-Fist, I would be able to expend Confrontation Ki to make my strikes go faster… Instead, all I was wasting was my stamina.

Though, even it knew it was wasting its energy, kicking me away and off my bike as it went after Komugi and Iroha.

"Damn it…" I muttered. However, I saw the Ram GarudEgg was knocked off the bike as well… Grabbing it, I noticed how, while big, wasn't too big for the belt…

It was worth a shot…

Pulling the halves of the Oviraptor GarudEgg out, I placed the Ram GarudEgg in, then tapped the GaruDriver to split it…

HA-TTACH!

The motorcycle suddenly split into two halves of an egg before moving over to me.

RAM… RAM… RAMRAM!

They soon snapped onto me as the purple scales of my armor now had the white fur of a ram attached to it. My shoulders were emboldened with the golden horns while my heels had the black rubbery wheels. It also made my size nearly twice as large as my regular self, nearly comparable to the ostrich.

One look at me caused the Garugaru to back off, then run right into the two girls, who were quick to block its path. A simple leap over Komugi though, and the chase was back on.

As I ran, though, I felt myself go even faster. Perhaps it was the speed from my legs now that I had the ram attachment. While I felt myself being able to catch up with the ostrich…

"Wait!" I could hear Iroha call out to me as she ran alongside me. I guess if she's calling herself a different name in this form…

"Friendly…" I said to her.

"N-no, it's Friendy." She said before looking towards the ostrich. "That animal isn't acting like itself and we gotta stop it!"

"I will…" I nodded before Iroha shook her head.

"You said some things the other day that…" She frowned for a bit before looking at me. "Once this is over, please, tell me about yourself."

"… Then… Must defeat…" That was when Iroha held my shoulder.

"Jiro, we can save its life." She hesitated a bit, as though she didn't want to say the next words that came out of her mouth: "You don't have to kill."

Almost immediately, my mind cleared and all I could focus on was the ostrich…

But…

I never saw any red.

Even as I saw the Garugaru attack us, I didn't even have the instinct to strike back. Instead, I simply stopped my running and blocked it. There wasn't even an attempt for me to counter it with a strike of my own, nor my mind coming up with a deck of mimicked techniques for me to use.

For once in my life, I was told not to kill something…

"Thank… you…" And my body chose to follow that order to the letter. I resumed my running, this time leading it away from the others as the ostrich began to chase and peck at me. On times when it seemed like it would be within striking range, that was when I would leap over it.

As I landed, it stopped and gave a growl.

"GARUGARRRUUUUU!" It shouted as it glowed purple. Now I knew for sure what this was: Confrontation Ki.

In that case, it was time for me to fight fire with fire as my body glowed with Confrontation Ki as well.

"Confrontation Beast Ram-Fist! Ringi…" As I prepared my technique, the large horns on my gauntlets accidentally pushed the egg halves back together, then caused the GaruDriver to split them apart.

CRACK DOWN! RAM RAM… PRIMORDIAL DIABLEGG!

I held my fists out as they formed the head of a ram, complete with its horns.

"CHARGING IMPACT!" My Confrontation Ki poured into the horns as they fired off a purple aura of the ram's head flying forth and hitting the ostrich, though all it did was pin the ostrich's flailing wings in place.

"YEAH! ATTA BOY!" I turned to see Dai was cheering for me from the sidelines. "Now! Take it out with a Rider Kick!" He then extended his arm across, though, I only watched as the aural head of the ram I had fought merely held the ostrich in place as Friendy approached it.

"Thank you…" She nodded before hugging the ostrich. Komugi ran over to me, tackling me to the ground in a hug of her own.

"You can stop being a Garugaru now!" Komugi told me as my armor glowed pink.

"I… Will…" I was half tempted to hug her back before my armor came apart, reverting me back to my regular self. "Thanks…" I said, my arms staying in place. Komugi got up and, with a smile, went over to help Iroha hug the ostrich.

As much as I wanted to get up, my legs couldn't let me. I guess it was because of all the kicking I did… I hadn't overextended myself during the fight with the ram like I did here…

"Hey! What was that all about!?" Dai ran over to help me up.

"I… didn't have to kill it…" I smiled as I watched the two revert the ostrich back to a normal size with brown feathers, and then soon, they themselves return to their normal forms. The GaruDriver, like before, ate up the remnants of the purple energy and spat out a silver egg, this time having a brown crack line. This time, it was similar in size to the Oviraptor GarudEgg.

"But it was a monster attacking the people! Everyone would just call you a hero if you destroyed it!" Dai said. I smiled as I shook my head.

"No… Not everyone." I shed a tear as I tried to reach Iroha…

She needed to know… who I…

"Hey, this kid took a huge beating!"

"He's just fatigued from his bout is all…"

"I gotta say, he really outdone himself there…"

I could hear the voices of the members of EGG as I woke up and saw what I could easily say is the ceiling of a laboratory. There, I saw Suzume, Inari, and Dai looking down at me.

"Uuuugh… What happened?" I asked them.

"You passed out, bud. Overexertion." Dai said.

"I-iroha…" I struggled to get up.

"Woah there! First you gotta rest! Then we can talk about your girlfriend!" Dai chuckled before I shook my head.

"N-no… Her name was… Komugi…" My speech was starting to slur.

"Komugi… Hmph. The know-it-all princess has a name." Inari went back to their chair and sat there.

"Plus, we can't seem to find either of them." Suzume said.

"W-what?" I said.

"But! By the time you get better, I'm sure they'll be around. Besides! They came to fight the Gekijyu the first two times, so I'm willing to bet one of my nuts that they'll be back for the third!" Dai flashed his grin.

"G-gross!" Suzume stuck out her tongue, though her giggle didn't seem to reflect what she said.

"Dai, your crude sense of humor has no place in here. And as much as I appreciate giving our Kamen Rider a pep talk, I prefer to give mine in private…" Inari said.

"Ooof… Good luck, kiddo!" Dai elbowed me before he left.

"Try not to go overboard with any sort of experiments, okay~?" Suzume said to Inari.

"I'm not like those other scientists in the Accords. Whatever alterations he has will be of his own doing." Inari said as Suzume smiled.

"I was only kidding." She left as well.

"Good. Now that we're alone…" Inari pulled up a file and revealed it to me…

My master wasn't the type of person who uses tech, but in modern times, it was adapt or die. And adapt, he did. While most people browse on the internet, that's only the surface of the iceberg. Below it rests the dark web, a place where, if you look hard enough, one can acquire illegal services.

Among them was assassinations. What my master lacked in technological knowhow, he excelled in hiding in plain sight, giving our page dated features like frames, static backgrounds, and tiny gifs with artifacts, that only the people who knew what they were looking for would even know we were the real deal.

The only thing that would give away its authenticity was the currency sign being a capital B with two lines, a ₿, rather than a traditional $, ¥, or even €. Though, that was only because Bitcoin, the currency that was used, was the only universal currency on the dark web due to its pseudonymity.

And yet, like most money, all you have to do is follow it.

"I dug into your past, Jiro, and there's a remarkable story about a massacre that happened on Rügen… Does that ring a bell?" They pulled up a news article about an incident at a mansion. Immediately I shuddered before snapping at them.

"Don't you dare bring that up!" I didn't care if we were possibly below EGG HQ.

"I touched a nerve, haven't I? Have you done something you've regretted?" I only gave them my silence. "I'll take that as a yes." Their smug reply made me nearly get up from sheer rage alone. "You know how bounties work, right?"

"Yeah. People want someone killed or captured. Higher the price, the more that person wants them dead or alive." I tried to keep calm despite the chilled spine I felt.

"Assassins often get their pay from completing these bounties when they're not specifically hired to carry them out, but there's a catch…" Inari paused, as though waiting for me to answer.

"They have to confirm the kill in order to obtain the bounty. Is there a reason you're quizzing me on basic assassin knowledge?" I asked.

"Yes, because it seems you forgot that basic fact when you left Rügen." When they said that, that was when I got up, sitting on the edge.

"That was not a bounty. I was hired to…" I choked up.

"But then you got bloodthirsty and killed several people who had bounties on them… Bounties that had gone unclaimed. The funny thing about bounties is that it's like debt. It has a habit of following you if you don't take care of it." With that, I lost it, getting up and rushing over to Inari, confronting them as I glared at their cybernetic fox mask.

"What is your goddamn point!?" I shouted.

"What I'm trying to say, Jiro, is that their bounties have become your bounty now. And since those bounties compound… Let's just say that there's some international assassins who would love nothing more than to collect the lump sum." As Inari said that, my blood ran cold as I realized what they meant…

I was a target.

"Mmm…" Among these people was a middle-aged man by the name of Tasogare, who hid his assignment behind a newspaper. "Next target's a kid, huh?" He observed the details, hiding the document every moment or so by flipping the pages. "I see… The Tawanovitch Family had some pretty pennies on each of their heads… But because they hadn't been claimed…" He smirked once he saw the amount of money that Jiro was worth.

He folded the newspaper and took a silver briefcase with a simple logo of SMART BRAIN emblazoned onto it. He smirked at seeing the bounty of 98 million euros. He walked off the train as he adjusted his tie. He passed by an engineer who eyed him.

"Sir, may I see your tick-" Was all he said before his skin turned grey. His walking slowed before his body crumbled into ash. As he collapsed, the rest of the people on the train began to panic. Everyone save for Tasogare, who subtly had a tentacle retract back into an index finger.

There was a second person who didn't even flinch at this sudden unexplained murder: a young girl in a half-grey, half-beige school uniform with dirty blonde hair.

As Tasogare hummed to himself and thought about how the 98 million euros would be easy to obtain, he wasn't aware of the schoolgirl following him.

Once Tasogare got off the train, he went over to the station and set the briefcase down. He opened it, revealing a belt with an assortment of gear before taking out what seemed to be a gun melted onto a touchphone. He turned it on as a white triangle attached to a rectangular chip greeted him, followed shortly by a touchscreen. He quickly opened the GPS app and looked at the map to see where Animal Town was.

"Huh... Only an few hours away, huh? Well, that won't be too hard..." He closed the app, though as his finger motioned over to an app simply titled "JETSLINGER", he only noticed the reflection of a schoolgirl with dirty blonde hair. He turned around to see her. "Ah, hello there. Are you lost?" He asked, his tone lightening from the calm, calculating muttering he had made just moments prior.

"Yes... I'm looking for directions..." She said.

"Where are your parents?" Tasogare asked.

"... Dead." She calmly said.

"Ah... Well, I can't really help you. I'm about to head on a trip and, unfortunately, it's a one-man trip..." Tasogare wasn't sure whether he was even allowed to dust her like he did the engineer. Though, surely no one would miss an orphan, right?

"Would you be going to Animal Town, by any chance?" The girl asked. Tasogare flinched a bit, but nodded.

"Yes. I am. I guess you're going there too?" He sheepishly chuckled and tried to see if perhaps part of the bounty was slipping from the paper and that's how she managed to spot it. Though, Tasogare noticed the young girl had a satchel, but he had paid no mind to it, even as she reached into it.

It would prove to be his final mistake as the young girl pulled out a silenced pistol and aimed at Tasogare.

She nodded and did only what she was trained to do since being orphaned:

Erase.

Delete.

Destroy.

Beautify.

All that remained of Tasogare aside from a blue flames atop a pile of ash afterwards was the document outlining the bounty on Jiro's head as it and its mission remained safely in the hands of the young girl in the beige-grey school uniform.

Chapter Text

Inari’s words continued to render my bones hollow.

I would be hunted down and killed…

Had I learnt about this just a few days ago, I might have just outright invited these assassins, but… Now? Now, when I just began to have some reason to fight and live?

“… Can’t I just claim the bounty? If the money on my head is simply because I hadn’t turned in the hits, then all I need to do is just say I did it and-” I tried to continue, but Inari chuckled.

“You’ll need to find the person who organized the contract, which if I read your rap sheet correctly…” They gave a chuckle as I looked away, almost ashamed for what they would say next. “They’re among the people you’ve killed on that island. Not to mention the guilds who would love nothing more than to avenge the assassins that you’ve disposed of. All you accomplished was establish yourself as a valued asset at best and a dangerous threat at worst…” Inari stated as they showcased my wanted poster.

During my time at Rügen and even before it, I had picked up quite a lot of German, so I was able to read it without any fuss. There, I was forced to confront my past head on as I saw the prize that would be given if I were to be taken in or even taken out: 98 million euros.

Before I knew it, I fell onto the table, my heart heavy.

“A bit of a shock, I see.” Inari said.

“N-no… Just… I…” I looked at my hands… The red stains returned.

“You don't have to kill.” Iroha’s words echoed as my hands trembled…

That bounty… It wasn’t telling me that I had a target on my head…

It was telling me exactly what I was:

A murderer.

Kamen Rider Garude

Hunt 3: BOOM! A Warding Probe

An hour had passed while I remained in the lab feeling mostly shellshocked. The only thing that broke me out of my stupor was hearing voices upstairs.

“You told me this wasn’t gonna happen!” It only worsened my shellshock to hear it was Mr. Kozaki.

“He was the one who ran off into battle! Once we got confirmation that a Gekijyu attack was happening, I-” Dai was quickly cut off. A moment later, I heard a loud squeal…

Crap… Mr. Kozaki’s really pissed if he’s going for the nuts.

“Hey! Hey! Hey! He’s downstairs!” There was a gruff sounding voice. It was just now that I realized this must have been Sarutobi’s voice.

“Ugh… Right in the middle of incubating another GarudEgg…” Inari got up from their chair as they pressed a button on their keyboard. Suddenly, a large bay door opened to reveal the upper level of EGG HQ with stairs leading to the lab. Immediately, Mr. Kozaki ran down, carrying a plastic bag of what I had just remembered was my salad.

“Jiro! Are you hurt!? Are you alright?!” Mr. Kozaki hugged me.

“I’m fine, just a little winded is all…” I said.

“… Good.” Mr. Kozaki sighed. “You had me scared is all.”

“Mr. Kozaki, you’re doing it again.” I hated to point it out, but in times like this, I had to bring up the obvious.

“… Damn it.” Mr. Kozaki pulled away and set the bag down for me to grab my food. Mr. Kozaki then turned to see Inari and nearly jumped. “The hell?!”

“I don’t believe we’ve met. My name is Professor Inari. I am a contracted scientist for the Earth’s Global Guardians and creator of the GaruDriver. Your son has been a most excellent user and I hope he can continue being one.” They nodded their head.

“Oh, n-no. He’s not my son… He’s merely my tenant.” As Mr. Kozaki said that, Inari eyed the Tupperware that I had in my hands.

“A tenant that you feed and are overtly protective of.” Inari said.

“I was made his legal guardian by the Kurama Conglomerate, nothing more.” Mr. Kozaki said. Inari became silent before nodding.

“Ah, I see…” They returned to their computer as I had seen that on a table next to them was the Ostrich GarudEgg resting in a small tank that glowed orange.

“Hey, I’ll be fine, okay? I’m gonna stay here for a bit if that’s alright. I want to figure more stuff out about being Garude.” As I said that, Inari stopped in their tracks.

“Garude?” Both Mr. Kozaki and Inari said.

“I… wasn’t sure what to really call that thing I turn into and… Well, Garude kinda just… stuck.” I didn’t want to really tell Mr. Kozaki about how Komugi coined the name for the monsters that I used nor did I want to annoy Inari with mentioning her name. Then there’s also the fact that Mr. Kozaki doesn’t even know about me going into a reptilian brain state.

“…” Mr. Kozaki coldly looked at me, but then turned to Inari. He walked over to them, then got onto one knee and closed his eyes. “Please. Watch over him as though he were your own child. Protect him, teach him, but most of all, bless him…”

“Uh, what?” I asked.

“Ah, that was the ritual from that old kitsune caretaker tale, right? You flatter me, but this fox mask is only to conceal my identity.” Inari said.

“So, you have enemies you’re hiding from?” I asked them. Inari looked over to me.

“More like a life I’m hiding from.” Inari remarked.

“Why a fox then? Why not something more common like an airsoft mask?” Mr. Kozaki asked.

“… It’s to remind me why I’m hiding. Now, off you go.” Inari’s voice lowered before they sat on their chair and moved away. Mr. Kozaki got up and turned to me.

“Let me know when you’re home, ok?” He said.

“Yeah, I will.” I replied. With that, he left. Moments passed before the bay doors closed behind him and it was back to me and Inari. “… So, what exactly did you mean by…”

“Who were you hired to kill on Rügen?” Inari spoke up.

“… What?” I asked.

“I feel it’s only fair. You probe me, I probe you. We rip each other apart until we know each other’s deepest, darkest secrets.” Inari didn’t even pay attention to me as they worked on the GarudEgg.

“… Never mind.” I slumped onto the metal table.

“That’s what I thought.” Inari said. I laid on my side and closed my eyes…

Dai placed a pack of ice on his crotch before wincing.

“How are your nuts?” Suzume asked him as he sat on the plastic chair.

“They’ve handled worse.” He said through gritted teeth.

“Good, because they’re still being betted on.” She patted his head.

“Jeeeez, I was kidding with that…” Dai groaned.

“That guy was really mad…” Umahara trembled in the corner.

“Yeah, you seem to know him, Dai. What’s his deal?” Sarutobi asked him.

“Well, it’s as it looks. Dude really cares about Jiro.” Dai shrugged. “And given what we explained, who can blame him reacting that way? We kinda just told the guy to fight giant beasts for us and we’re lucky he only managed to get by the skin of his teeth.” Dai then noticed he dropped his icepack. He tried to grab it, only for Suzume to get the bag. Dai’s eyes widened as Suzume gave a smug grin before she shoved it right at his crotch. “IIIIEEEEE!”

“I-if it wasn’t for that magical girl, I don’t think he’d even survive…” Umahara looked away.

“She has a point. Inari’s reports from the recent fight cite that, up until those magical girls showed up, the kid was struggling against the Gekijyu and, afterwards, he either played second fiddle at best or was struggling against them at worst.” Sarutobi lamented.

“If that were the case, why doesn’t Inari just tell Jiro to pack it up?” Dai asked as he held the ice pack.

“Hate to say it, Dai, but your aptitudes compared to Jiro…” Suzume playfully winced as she pinched her fingers.

“Hey! I trained really hard to become a Kamen Rider! It was just a fluke that Ram Gekijyu caught me off guard!” Dai protested, leaning forward until he felt the coldness of the icepack again, then fell to the back of the chair as he too winced.

“Dai, I even ran aptitudes on middle schoolers like Jiro and found someone who would be a better fit than you.” Suzume coldly said as she held up a piece of paper.

“H-huh? You did, Commander?” Umahara asked.

“Yeah. Funny enough, he came to me following an incident at a volleyball game, asking us to look into something about an exploding volleyball.” Suzume chuckled before handing the paper over to Umahara. “In fact, I was considering him to become Garude’s understudy. Like, look at this.”

“W-woah… He knows so much about animals!” She said with a smile.

“Perfect for fighting berserking ones, if you ask me. Though, we’re gonna be putting him through the same wringer as Jiro, so I can’t exactly call him up and go ‘hey, wanna throw your life away and become a Kamen Rider?’.” Suzume sighed.

“W-well, also Jiro stated something about going berserk himself. Like, having a reptile brain or something.” Dai said.

“Ah, yeah, Inari warned us about that.” Suzume looked up and placed her index finger to her chin.

“This is the first time I’m hearing about this!” Dai shouted.

“Gonna be honest, it’s more likely you were told when training to be Kamen Rider, but you just didn’t pay attention.” Sarutobi said as Dai stood up.

“You take that ba- Aaaaah!” Dai flinched and then crouched, tending to his crotch with a half-melted bag of ice as Umahara began to stifle her laughs. Suzume looked away from the schadenfreude and instead towards the lab, wondering how Jiro was doing.

I remembered laying Lily on the bed, her smile had faded, yet retained that peaceful expression. I placed her hands on top of each other, then took a moment to silently mourn for her…

Though, it was a moment too long.

“Who’s there?” The voice of Lily’s grandmother startled me as I turned around. She stood there, leaning with a walking stick, not even bothering to turn on the light switch. The moment she saw me standing over her granddaughter’s body, she took a second to process what had happened.

It was no secret that Lily had been sick for a while, to the point where it wasn’t a matter of if she would get better but when she would succumb. That alone would have been the perfect alibi, if not the perfect assassin for the job.

Had the blood on my shirt not gave me away.

Another second to conclude my involvement. To realize foul play was involved.

That was one second enough for me to do what needed to be done…

“I’m sorry…” I turned and crumpled to the floor. “I’ve taken your granddaughter’s life… I… cannot let myself continue. Please… Do with me what you wish.” I said to her. That was when she turned the lights on…

And laughed.

“Finally, that bastard is dead!” She went over to me with a smile, her teeth pristine despite her well into her hundreds. Though, she then passed me. In that time, I had noticed she had taken her walking stick and, while managing to maintain her balance, was about to strike Lily’s body. “You ruined this entire family, you bit-”

Her voice was soon cut by a swift tackle from me.

“WHAT ARE YOU EVEN SAYING!?” I shouted at her, only for the grandmother to spit in my face and continued to laugh.

“It should have been obvious, boy! Her condition was a clear indicator that she’s a bastard child! Had she been a pure Tawanovitch, then maybe her heart would have been stronger!” My hands trembled as she shouted this out. How… How could she even say this about her own granddaughter? “Now… Shall you claim your reward?” Those words stunned me.

In my time on Rügen, I had forgotten why I had come. And now that she had said it, not only did it all come rushing back to me…

But I had just found out who hired me to kill Lily.

And in several different ways, my thoughts all began to flare up and turn into anger, a desire to change her laughter into fear. But overall, there was one thought that had boomed in my head the loudest…

“Humanity must be annihilated!”

Though, that may have been because within that very moment, we heard a third person utter that very phrase.

“Mmmmm…” I squirmed awake, feeling tears in my eyes before wiping them away.

“Had a good nap?” Inari asked me as I got up to inspect on them.

“…” I didn’t wish to say anything, instead picking up the GarudEgg that was created, taking it out of the now clear tank. Now that it was fully complete, I could see the brown line fully colored on the otherwise silver egg. “Ostrich.”

“Yes. I have good news and bad news. Good news is that the egg was much easier to complete compared to the Ram GarudEgg. The bad news is that the Magical Girl’s friendy had diminished its power too. Expect it to be a dud.” Inari slouched on their chair and gave a sigh.

“I don’t mind not getting a new power. I can try to use what I have.” I said.

“Have you heard of escalation? It is a natural arms race, competing to be stronger than your enemy, lest they topple over you. Even your Rinjyuken has a higher form of Ki to match its enemies.” As Inari discussed this, I recalled what my master had spoken about this. Angry Confrontation Ki was what it was called. I had never had attained such a height like that before, but I know what they meant.

“Your idea of strengthening me is to give me trinkets. And, needless to say, but I doubt that the Ostrich-Fist will…” As I looked at the egg, I did remember something my master taught me about the style…

I recalled myself being out of breath as my master Hakubi, aptly named for his white eyebrows and flowing white beard, had finished a bout with me. He pulled me up as I had noticed a bruise on his chest.

“Wait… Is that?” I asked him.

“Indeed… Your first true hit…” He and I shared a smile… Before he struck me in the sternum. As I keeled over and coughed, he looked down at me. “But that was only because I let it happen. This is the Ostrich-Fist’s signature Ringi. It is a necessary technique for building the ultimate Confrontation Beast Fist style.”

“Gnnn… That strike… Any closer and I…” I strained my voice as Hakubi sighed.

“Our lessons will conclude for today, young wolf. Your homework will be to figure out the power behind this Ringi.” Hakubi walked away, leaving me to struggle.

To this day, I hadn’t had the slightest clue what exactly was the secret behind this Ringi…

That is until I saw the egg and thought back to that moment…

Why did he let me hit him? Why did his strike feel so similar to my own? And most important of all…

Why did he say it would be a necessary technique for what we mutually called Chimera-Fist?

“Perhaps some Confrontation Ki could wake it up?” Inari tossed me the GaruDriver.

“W-what!?” I exclaimed before plopping it on.

“I modified the belt so now the other prongs have a function aside from prying open the GarudEggs. For instance, tap that egg on the left claw.” Inari pointed appropriately as I did so.

“… Okay…” I did, striking the egg right on the knuckle.

IN-KI-BATE!

Dark purple energy flowed into the egg as I could feel its ki emanate all over it. The crack on the egg began to light up, though nothing else seemed to happen.

“What… was that?” I asked them.

“The belt is now attuned to your Confrontation Ki. Think of it as a sort of siphon.” As they said that, the glowing egg now made sense.

“So now some of my ki is in this?” I asked them.

“You catch on quick. Though, I assumed it would be able to unleash the full potential of the Ostrich-Fist… Seems instead we have nothing… At the very least, it’s fueled up for the other claw.” With that prompt, I tapped it onto the right most claw.

CRAC-KRUIT!

The GarudEgg then split itself, the shells folding out into the shape of a crystalline brown ostrich that was the size of my palm. It gave a small screech as I merely looked at it.

“… What is the purpose of this, exactly?” I asked Inari.

“An assassin needs their reconnaissance, do they not? Besides, a Kamen Rider often relies on these sorts of devices.” There was that term again; Kamen Rider. I wasn’t entirely sure of what it truly meant, but given I was apparently one…

I guess I had to play the part.

“So, if you were Garude,” a soft hum came from Inari as I asked them that, “what would you do with this?”

“Simple. I would send it out to search for eggs.” There was a pause as I stared at them blankly. Before I could even ask what they meant, they pulled up a picture of a large black egg with yellow markings that resembled a scary face. “These were what the GarudEggs originated from. The idea would be to obtain an unhatched egg and then incubate them into GarudEggs.”

“So, if they hatch, they end up losing their power… That’s why the Ram and Ostrich GarudEggs end up like this, right?” I showed them the Ram GarudEgg for comparison.

“Exactly. You’re lucky the Ram GarudEgg had a significant amount of energy that it could be turned into a bike, but the Ostrich, not so much. I’d even call it a dud, and it’s all thanks to them…” I knew exactly who Inari meant. “So, I’d appreciate it if you were to get to the Egg first this time around.”

“Well, if you say so…” I knelt to the Ostrich. “Um… Will it take my orders?” As I asked them that, the Ostrich immediately pecked the ground, gave a screech, and then ran off. “Woah!”

“Your Confrontation Ki is tied to it, and so, its will is tied to you. It already knew the order before you gave it. Unfortunately, you don’t exactly have its eyes and ears. That said…” Inari began to type away at the computer as I noticed it was code for a program.

“Wait… Is this…” I asked, realizing that my phone was on the table before I checked my pockets.

“Most Riders often have their own custom-made phones, few even have them turn into bikes. Unfortunately, EGG doesn’t have the budget to do that and you already have the Machine Rammar, so you’ll make do with a simple app that I modified from this off-the-shelf parental spyware.” As Inari said that, I noticed a framed photo near my phone. I took the framed picture and inspected it. There, I saw two kids, a brother and sister, with the two of them holding up a large fish.

Immediately, I knew one of them had to be Inari, though the question was who? I couldn’t also leave out the possibility that they were Inari’s children… Or possibly-

“Do you find that photo sweet? Does it remind you of your time on the island, living under the same roof as your mark?” I suddenly turned to find Inari holding my phone and glaring at me with their yellowish orange LED eyes.

“… I’m sorry…” I placed the photo back behind the monitor. I was about to lower my head, only to see Inari’s hand, their two middle fingers pressed towards the thumb. If I recalled, this gesture was to emulate a fox’s head.

“You probe me, I probe you. I don’t think you understand what that means. In case you haven’t realized it, I’ve dug up my fair share of dirt on you. Because you’ve taken a tiny peek into my past, let me take a tiny peek into yours. How did it feel to live with your target?”

“… I…” I began to tear up. “I would give anything if that lasted forever.” I said before taking the phone. Inari remained silent as they took the photo before taking a glimpse of it.

“… That is my feelings towards this photo.” Another pause as they tucked it away, behind the monitor. Their voice was subdued, though lacking any venom. “Right, that’ll do it for today. Your ‘daddy’ is going to be worried sick if I keep you any longer.”

“He’s not my dad… Just my landl-” I stopped myself as Inari chuckled.

“One day, you’ll understand how much someone cares for you. I just hope that, when that day comes, it’s not too late.” They looked longingly at the photo before I gave a smile.

“I… Think I understand.” I smiled and shed a tear before sharing that same fox-headed hand puppet gesture. “Take care, okay?” I said before leaving.

The sun had begun to set as I had left EGG. Dai was too busy recovering from the nutshot to drive me back, so Sarutobi opted to drive me back.

Having him in the driver’s seat really helped showcase his stature compared to mine, a large, almost muscular build compared to even professional killers I came across.

“So… How are you liking this job?” He asked me.

“Honestly? I can get used to it.” I nodded, though mostly because I was letting the intimidating muscle get to me.

“We don’t expect you to ‘get used to it’, you know?” He said.

“What do you mean by that?” I asked him.

“You’re a Kamen Rider now. What you’re assigned to fight aren’t just unsuspecting targets. They’re monsters. They’re prepared for a fight.” He responded.

“No, they’re not monsters.” I shook my head. “From what I’m told, they’re just animals…”

“But they’re still monsters all the same, and a Kamen Rider’s job is to defeat them before they hurt civilians.” Sarutobi said.

“You mean kill.” It was the first time I said it off the cuff like that, yet I still tasted the venom and acrid acid that it carried.

“You know what my dad would do when a rabid dog was in the middle of the street? POW!” He slammed his hand on the wheel, causing me to jump. “Right between the eyes. He didn’t regret it then, and if he were here with us, he wouldn’t regret it now.”

“If I were to be honest, Mr. Sarutobi, that’s what I would have done too.” I said as my body tried to detense.

“So why stall? Dai told us how you used your powers to hold the Ostrich Gekijyu down rather than finish it off.” He asked. I gave a moment to ponder before coming up with an analogy.

“If we came across a rabid dog right now, what would be the response?” I asked.

“Honestly? Ram into it.” He casually said, though the two of us mulled it over given the laws discouraging running over animals.

“There’s that option, yeah, but what if I or someone else had the cure for rabies and that, if we injected it into the dog, they’d be instantly cured and back to their normal selves?” I asked him.

“Is it easier than putting it out of its misery?” Sarutobi asked.

“…” I shook my head.

“There’s your answer.” As he said that, we pulled up to the Pretty Holic store.

“Ah, could you drop me off here? I can walk from here.” I said. He pulled over, though, as I was about to open the door, Sarutobi spoke up.

“Look, kid, you probably know the spiel by now, great power, great responsibility, the whole nine yards… I’m gonna cut the crap and tell you something from the heart. I’d give anything to become a Kamen Rider and protect people.” Sarutobi looked at me.

“You’re very noble and, had we met just a few days before, I’d commend you for a lot of things… But…” I looked at the Garude Driver. “This… isn’t Kamen Rider.” With that, I got out of the car. Even without knowing about the Garugaru, I didn’t want to subject Sarutobi to having a reptilian brain.

The car drove off as I noticed that Pretty Holic seemed to have been closed for the time being. Not even Yuki was resting at her bed. Shame, would have loved to have some more good luck.

There was a sign posted up outside that mentioned its grand opening would be tomorrow, though… I wasn’t exactly into buying any sort of makeup, however.

Maybe as a gift for Komugi? Though, I’d have to actually find where she is. Can’t exactly give the gift to her midbattle and I’d probably be too busy focusing on the Garugaru to really think about it.

There’s also my funds to worry about. I checked a bank account that Hakubi opened in my name. There, my arm flinched as I saw the 9.8 million yen I had in my account. Most of which was converted from Euros and a majority of which came from the bounty on the one person I was sent to kill…

“My, my, you keep stopping here often.” I turned to see the owner of the shop having come out to greet me.

“It’s… sorry, seems like a bad habit.” I chuckled before drying my eyes.

“It’s not that bad. Just earlier, Mayu and you were having a pleasant conversation.” Mayu, that must be her daughter’s name.

“I wouldn’t exactly call it a conversation but…” I chuckled, though the mother frowned.

“Mayu is rather shy, yes. But give her some time, and perhaps you two could be close friends in no time.” As she smiled, I merely looked away.

“I’d… like that, but… if we’re being honest, I think I’m the shyer one here.” She raised an eyebrow as I said that.

“Hmm?” She asked.

“Let’s just say that… I didn’t have a good ending to my previous… relationship… That’s… why I was crying.” Moments passed before the mother began to give a smile.

“Ah, I see… Well, in that case, you can always start this new friendship off slow…” She then extended her hand. “Especially if you keep passing by this store. You can call me Ms. Nekoyashiki.”

I hesitated for a bit before she grasped my hand and shook it enthusiastically.

“M-my name is Jiro.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Jiro. I hope to see you at tomorrow’s grand opening!” With that, she waved me goodbye and headed back into the store. I sighed before I walked to my apartment.

It became nighttime when I arrived. I noticed Mr. Kozaki discussing something with a man in a white long coat with a matching cowboy hat. As I approached the two, the man, who looked around 16, tipped his hat.

“Pleasure to make this arrangement then, Natsume.” He said. Natsume was Mr. Kozaki’s first name, though I often referred to him by the surname.

“See Monday.” Kozaki waved to him as the cowboy turned around. He had a fair tan to his skin as he passed me, dark hair curling downwards as he glanced at me with blackish brown eyes.

“Hmm? Your son, by any chance?” Seems like that assumption wasn’t gonna die down anytime soon.

“No, a tenant, like you.” Kozaki gruffly said while hiding his face behind a newspaper.

“Then I suppose we best introduce ourselves.” The man offered his hand… No, he presented it. “Hamegg III.”

“… Um…” I wasn’t sure if that was his name or his favorite dish. “Jiro?” It was to the point where I didn’t even know if my handshake was made with my fingers curled inwards, the signature pose of the Japanese Wolf-Fist strike. He gave an affirmative hum before nodding.

“Well, Jiro, I do hope we get to meet each other in the future. Something tells me we’ll be great… buildingmates is a word, right?” He turned to ask Kozaki.

“Sure, I guess.” He shrugged.

“That.” Hamegg shrugged back before leaving. I took a few moments after leaving to give my comment.

“What was that all about?” I asked.

“What does it look like? New tenant. And like you, he pays way too much for my liking.” He held up a cheque to prove his point. “A whole year’s worth. I only asked him for half the month! How the hell am I explaining this to the NTA?!”

“Just say it’s rent money.” I shrugged before going to my unit.

“Y-you know what I mean!” I could hear Kozaki mutter a sentence before I entered my room, “seriously, how do these kids come up with this cash!?”

Later that night, at a pawn shop, Shino Minami, a 35-year-old with short, greasy black hair and a stubble, had been finely dusting off a collection of prop weapons he got from a recent acquisition in Shibuya. He took a moment to glance at how authentic the guns looked.

“Mmm…” He took one of them and examined it carefully. There was even a careful sheen of metal that made it give off that gun feel. The only way it gave away that it was fake was the barrel being the mere size of a BB pellet. “How can I make this stand out…” He then heard the sounds of his bell ringing, indicating someone had entered. Immediately, he sturdied himself and placed the gun in the package.

“Hello, and welcome to Solus Supplies! You sell it, we buy it!” He gave a smile before he glanced down at his customer, a school girl with dirty blonde hair who placed a Smart Brain briefcase on the table.

“How much?” She asked.

“Woah, woah, woah, I don’t sell to little…” Shino’s eyes narrowed, recognizing the half-grey, half-beige uniform that the girl wore. “Oh… Oh shit…” Shino cleared his throat before looking at the briefcase. “And um… Where did you get this from exactly?”

The girl handed him a paper outlining the profile of Tasogare. Attached were two photos. One was his face while another was a blurry screenshot of a grey colored lizard-like monster with spikes protruding outward of his body. The only thing that was made clear was a faint, sickly green shadow that resembled a shirtless Tasogare.

“Consider his bounty claimed.” She held out a fist and let go, revealing a small pile of ash that landed on top of the paper.

Shino looked to the left, then the right, before moving over. Despite his somewhat chubby physique, Shino was mobile enough to quickly go over to the door and lock it. He went back to his register and pounded a few keys. The next thing the girl knew, a hidden compartment underneath the desk opened up before Shino took out a white plastic square.

“You know how this works, right?” As Shino asked, the girl nodded and took out a phone. After holding it over the square for a bit, the two heard a loud ding. The girl looked over her phone to see that 0.321 Bitcoin had been transferred to her account. “Sorry for the meager amount, but Orphnoch like him aren’t exactly a threat nowadays…”

“But he was still a threat…” The girl looked at her phone before pressing a few buttons. “Besides, 2 million yen is a decent amount for me to claim as ‘inheritance’.” She looked at her screen, having already converted the Bitcoin into yen. She smirked back at Shino. “Keep the change.” Shino looked at his phone as his eyes widened to see forty-nine hundred thousand Yen was in his account.

“The hell?! You’re not getting paid enough already?” He said as the girl supplied him with another profile.

“Hard to when you’re written off as dead. Now, that payment is for information on this individual…” She said as Shino looked at the profile belonging to one Jiro Nishioh.

“Holy shit… Look, lady, I dunno why you’re interested, but this guy has a target on his-”

“I know.” She cut Shino off. “The only intel I have is what’s on the bounty. A dangerous assassin with a deadly martial art that’s worth the combined bounties of the Tawanovitch family. Other than that, he’s located in Animal Town, gleaming from the data off Tasogare’s phone.”

“Pho…” Shino looked over the briefcase. “Nononononono…” He opened it up to see a fully decked out belt. The moment he saw a state-of-the-art smartphone-gun hybrid with a white triangle as its logo, he screamed. “DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT THIS IS!?” He shouted.

“Don’t know, don’t care. Give me dirt on Jiro. Reconnaissance from other assassins, feats he pulled during hits, even rumors will do. I’ll throw in that briefcase as a bonus if you give me his weaknesses.” She said.

“This belt is a next generation Driver! This… This is top secret stuff!” Shino stammered. “They… They were supposed to bring this up to the Zawame Accords but there’s no such leaks about this!”

“Right, that was another thing I heard on the way here. Supposedly the reason his bounty is so high is due to him being under their protection. Why is that?” She asked.

“Hell if I know! Maybe they want some weird animal kung fu assassin on their side?!” Shino threw his arms up.

“So, you know nothing? Shame. Well, at the very least tell me the value of this briefcase.” As she said that, Shino immediately slammed the case shut.

“PRICELESS! If Smart Brain knows I have this, who knows who they’ll send at me!” He shoved the briefcase at the girl.

“Well, I don’t wanna be lugging around a useless hunk of junk around! I only wanted Jiro’s intel” She shoved it back.

“It’s not junk!” He shove it right back, knocking her down. “S-shit! S-sorry!”

“It’s alright…” The girl muttered before lugging the briefcase back up. “Just give me what little intel you have, and I’ll be outta your hair.” Shino sighed.

“Fine, here’s what I know, but it’s definitely not worth the lump sum of Yen you paid.” He typed on the register before she saw a receipt being printed off. Shino took it and presented it to her.

“Hmm… I see…” She glanced at the receipt, reading the only sentence there was:

‘JIRO NISHIOH IS TO LIVE AT THE REN APARTMENT WITH NEON KURAMA’S SPONSORSHIP’

“Kurama… I knew it. So, the Accords are involved.” She muttered. “Thank you for your help.” She bowed before turning to leave.

“Oi! I gotta warn you something, okay?” Shino said as the girl stopped. “If you do succeed in taking him out, I suggest you skip town immediately. Neon may not be like her dad, but I doubt she lacks his claws… If she were to catch wind of you taking Jiro out…”

“I’ll take her out too…” She opened the door.

“Oh, then you’re gonna invoke daddy Kousei’s wrath. Word of advice? Keep that briefcase in case you choose to tango with either of them. It’s not just worthless junk, you know. That triangle’s most likely the symbol for Delta.” Shino said.

“Delta?” She turned around and tilted her head.

“I won’t bore you with the details, but long story short, you don’t need any special genetics to…” He cleared his throat and leaned in, “change, if you catch my drift.” The girl took a look at the briefcase, then gave a smirk.

“So, a new gun for me to toy with?” With that, she took her leave, with Shino sighing.

I heard the default ringtone coming from my phone… Musta forgot to put it on vibrate.

Struggling to get up, I placed my hand over the phone and rushed in unlocking it to answer.

“Yeah?” I sluggishly asked.

“Where were you?! I’ve been trying to contact you since 7 AM!” Immediately, I pulled the phone away from my ear as Inari shouted. Checking the time on my phone, it was around 9 now.

“What is it? Where’s the fire?” I asked.

“Gekijyu, and it’s in the forest! You would have known by now if you had checked your app!” A moment passed before I noticed a notification. Opening it, I saw that there were some snapshots of a large black egg lying on the grass, presumably taken by the Ostrich. There was also some video footage, recorded somewhere around 8:30.

As I played it, I saw that it recorded the egg’s hatching, spewing out that purple miasma before the feed cut out. The status of the Ostrich GarudEgg was recorded as unknown.

“Crap!” I said, seeing the coordinates of its last known location onto my map and throwing on what last minute clothes I could.

Running out of my apartment, I just finished slipping on my shirt as I held the phone to my ear.

“How do I summon that bike?” I asked.

“Strike the horns on the Ram GarudEgg to the left most claw.” Inari, having calmed slightly, said as I did just that.

CRA-KRIDE!

The GarudEgg lit up as within minutes, I heard the sounds of a motorcycle running. I looked out to see the Machine Rammar had drove itself to the front of the Ren Apartments entrance. Though, at the same time…

“What the hell?!” Mr. Kozaki was also there to see it.

“A-ah!” I looked at him as he shared a glance.

“Jiro, what is-” I then hung up.

“…” Mr. Kozaki blankly looked at me as I saw he was holding a lit cigarette that was halfway smoked.

“… There’s another one. I gotta go.” I turned and was about to go.

“Hold it.” His voice caused me to stop. “You’re far too young to ride that.” I looked at the map. It would have taken me twelve and a half minutes to get there on foot… I could hoof it, but what would be the chance of the Garugaru going loose? It had already been about half an hour since it hatched…

“Who do you see me as?” I asked him.

“Hm?” Mr. Kozaki raised an eyebrow.

“Am I your tenant or your son?” I turned to face him. The look on his face remained still, yet I could see the embers of his cigarette shift closer to the end.

“Jiro… That…” He looked out onto the pavement, a sort of border between the outskirts and the rest of Animal Town.

“I don’t think these attacks are gonna be going away anytime soon… Until we find the perpetrator behind them and…” I choked up. After saying it yesterday to Sarutobi, I didn’t want to feel that toxic word exit my mouth for a long time. “This is going to be my job and I’ve been in tougher scrapes before…” I stood next to him and watched as the sun continued to rise.

“I know that, kid. You remember the time you locked yourself out of the apartment and you just decided to sleep outside your unit?” He chuckled.

“Was trained to sleep on hard floors. Granted, those were wood and not solid stone.” I chuckled back.

“It’s just… it scares me. We share dinner, you help me with chores, I help you with any issues at the unit, and… there’s this attachment.” He flicked some of the ashes that were building up.

“You don’t know what to do if you lost it.” My answer caused him to think, then nod.

“Yeah… I guess that’s how you were feelin’ right? Back at Rügen?” He asked.

“…” I just nodded back. There was a moment of silence before Mr. Kozaki tossed the cigarette away.

“You’re neither, Jiro. You’re my ward. Come, we’re taking my car.” He went off as I followed.

“Alright, Mr-” I said before he held up his hand.

“You can call me Natsume, if you want.” He said as we got to his car, a beat up yet still shiny and chrome Pontiac Firebird.

“If you want, Natsume.” With a smile, I jumped into his shotgun as we drove off to the destination.

Within a few minutes, we were shy of the forest’s edge, no longer following the directions of a synthetic voice but rather the fleeing of birds.

“It’s here.” I said before I got out of the car.

“Don’t get yourself…” He stopped himself as I looked to him. Natsume and I shared a look before I nodded.

“Got it.” I gave him the thumbs up and ran off into the trees. All I had to do was listen to the roars of the Garugaru. In that while, I took out the GarudEgg and cracked it.

OVI-RACK!

Setting it in the belt, I struck the top claw.

HATCH-ING! PRIME! ORDEAL! PRIM-

Though, maybe I shouldn’t have been transforming while running, as I had tripped, causing the egg to roll over…

I only stopped once I was struck with a powerful blow, causing the shell to explode and allowing me to escape, thankfully as Garude.

“What?!” I glared at the cause of that blow; a large rabbit Garugaru this time. The shells around me had begun to crumble to dust.

“Don’t let its beam hit you!” I saw that Friendy was helping me up.

So, wait, this beast has projectiles? This is going to be tough… A lot of my techniques require close range…

“Must get stronger!” I took out the Ram GarudEgg and cracked it.

KU-RACK!

Before setting it into the belt and splitting it…

NON-VIABLE!

“Eh?” I asked, noticing it didn’t have an effect before seeing the Garugaru begin to charge up again…

“I caught it!” In the distance, I noticed Komugi having grabbed it by the spike of its tail. It began to shake her off while I noticed a ringing inside the left side of my helmet.

I shook my head as my vision, which was usually a cloudy purple with my most immediate surroundings colored, suddenly having a small video screen of Professor Inari. Oddly enough, their video feed wasn’t seen through this sort of filter.

“Idiot! You left the bike at the apartment! You need to summon Machine Rammar, then you can fuse with it!” Inari shouted.

“Grh! Too hard!” I tossed the GarudEgg away.

“DON’T TREAT THEM LIKE THEY’RE TOYS!” As Inari continued to shout at me, I shook my head again, causing the video feed to end. Though, that’s when I saw Friendy again.

“Garude, leave this to us. Do you see that boy over there?” She turned me around and pointed to a guy standing seemingly in the middle of the battle.

“Save him?” I asked, to which she nodded. We went our separate ways as I went over to the boy.

He was somewhat taller than me in a well-dressed orangish white dress shirt with hair that was greyer than mine. He also wore a pair of red-framed glasses. I stopped just a few feet ahead of him, just to see if he would freak out with some lizard monster guy chasing him…

The moment I noticed he wasn’t budging and was instead looking at me, I glared.

“Go.” I told him.

“You’re not like the other monster… And Iroha seems to know you.” Seems I don’t need to stick to using her codename.

“Me Garude. That Garugaru. We hunt Garugaru.” As much as I wanted to just take the GarudEgg off and explain in full Japanese, I was sort of ‘on call’ to wear this armor until the monster was dispatched.

“You mean…” He watched as the rabbit swiped at Iroha and Komugi, only for Iroha to protect the two with a large aural bow for a shield. “But… it’s dangerous!” He said.

“Yes, you go.” I walked towards him. I could see his legs tremble before he straightened up.

“I should be saying that to Iroha and Komugi!” He tried to run to them, but I grappled him. “Let me go!”

“We only hunters! We go, Garugaru hurts!” I wasn’t sure if I meant it would hurt other people or itself. “We stop Garugaru here.” At that moment, I recalled what Sarutobi told me. Perhaps he had a point…

If by stop, I actually mean to take it out rather than allow Iroha and Komugi to hug it, wouldn’t that just solve the problem all the same?

“That animal isn't acting like itself and we gotta stop it! We can save its life. You don't have to kill.”

No. There was an alternative. That’s why I’m Garude and not a Kamen Rider.

“We save animal.” I spoke out to him.

“Animal?” He stopped struggling, as though trying to mentally translate what I meant. He then looked at the Garugaru. At that same moment, both it and the two girls were at a standstill. Once he saw the monster, he shouted out.

“Iroha! Don’t fight it like it’s a giant monster.” Iroha looked at him in confusion. “Pay close attention to its foot. See how its thumping?” The two of us watched as, like a rabbit, it was occasionally thumping, causing small quakes as it did. “Rabbits tend to do that when they’re weary. It’s… behaving a lot like a rabbit, in fact…”

“That’s because it most likely is… Or, rather that’s its true form…” Iroha said.

“They tend to get easily startled… But they’re often friendly.” The boy said. Once Iroha realized what he meant, she smiled.

“Thank you, Satoru.” Iroha then approached the creature.

Error.

“We didn’t mean to scare you.” Iroha calmly walked towards it as it tensed up, a pink jewel on its forehead glowing bright. I noticed both the Ram and Ostrich GarudEggs on the grass and I slowly inched over to pick them up just in case. All the while, she gave some soft talk about visiting a garden and how she wanted to take the rabbit with her. Komugi soon followed suit.

Error…

“Wait… anyone else hearing that?” Satoru looked around to try and hear what I had also noticed. The voice sounded artificial and almost calm.

“Rabbits like to be stroked, from their head, all the way to their…” Iroha tried to comfort the Garugaru… Though that voice spoke up.

ERROR! Too many attempts, self-destructing in 3… 2… 1…

I was the first to notice what looked to be a smartphone with a gun’s grip and barrel fused to both ends flying towards our general area as electricity fizzled around it before it exploded into a small fireball, causing the Garugaru to freak out and fire a pink and purple beam at the source of its explosion.

Fortunately, it hit a tree, causing it to shrivel up and die, allowing us to scatter with Iroha taking Satoru in tow.

“What happened!?” Komugi shouted.

“An explosion?” Satoru muttered.

“GARUGARU!” All while the Garugaru began to fire indiscriminately. It aimed its beam at Komugi.

“No!” I shouted, jumping in front. As the beam hit, the hand holding the Ostrich GarudEgg was right in front of my chest, becoming the prime zone for where it struck. The impact pushed me and Komugi back, knocking the two of us down.

“Jiro!” Iroha shouted, set Satoru down, and ran to me.

“Wait… Jiro?” Satoru muttered.

“Are you okay?” She asked. To my surprise…

I was… And the GarudEgg looked no worse for wear. In fact, it didn’t have any damage whatsoever…

I then thought back to what Inari said, regarding the Ostrich GarudEgg’s full potential, and suddenly what my master told me about its signature Ringi became crystal clear.

“Very.” I stood up and slammed the GarudEgg onto the top.

KU-RACK!

Placing the GarudEgg into the belt, I then tapped the top of the belt to split it.

HA-TTACH!

The aura of the Ostrich Garugaru manifested behind me, giving a caw before splitting into two halves of brown armor that clipped onto the Oviraptor Armor.

OST… RICH… OSTRICH!

The top portion of the armor gave me large dark brown wings that fitted over my arms, acting as shields, while the leg portions added sleek pink leggings that went down and added silver claws.

“Hold it, me get hit!” I told the two as I held up a, admittedly, comically huge wing shield.

“What!? But if it blasts you…” As Komugi told me, I shook my head.

“No worry!” As the Garugaru began to stomp its foot and looked around anxiously, I readied myself. “Go, now!” The two went off as I ran at the Garugaru.

Already, I found myself faster, almost as fast as the ostrich I fought, though, I only ran in circles to try and keep the Garugaru in one place. When it was ready to jump, I came to a screeching halt and allowed it to aim at me.

“Garugaru…” It growled.

“GARUUUDEEE!!” I taunted it… The rabbit fired out the beam from its head, which I blocked with my wings.

“Confrontation Beast Ostrich Fist! Ringi…” Feeling my arms begin to give way, I remembered how I charged up the aural ram horns last fight and proceeded to push the egg halves back, then smack the middle claw to activate them.

CRACK DOWN! OST-RICH… PRIMORDIAL DIABLEGG!

With my arms charging with Confrontation Ki, the aura of the Ostrich Garugaru appearing behind me, as though guarding me with its own wings.

“ABSORBING RECEPTION!” I spread the wings out, dispersing the energy across my entire body and exploding the area, with my body looking no worse for wear. The Garugaru seemed surprised, catching it off guard as Iroha and Komugi held it. I collapsed onto one knee as my armor came apart into purple smoke, causing the Garugaru to lower its guard as the two girls began to pet the bunny.

The Garugaru faded away, as did the miasma, though rather than an animal, it seemed to be an odd bunny doll. My mind thought back to that larger sheep doll from the first time I became Garude.

Perhaps whoever is controlling these monsters is flipping between stuffed animals and real-life animals? Or were they two people who have different methods of creating the same monsters?

“Where am I?” … And then it spoke.

“…” I had seen some odd things in my life, I’ve fought some weird things in my life, but I think that takes the cake.

Though, a glint caught my eye and distracted me from talking directly to this strange bunny doll thing. I picked up the object and saw it was a pink GarudEgg with rabbit ears and feet on the top and bottom. Unlike the other eggs, however, this one had a crack line resembling a line of hearts, in which the middle section was hollowed out, allowing me to see a small, unlit pink core.

As I wondered why this egg was fully complete compared to the other two, I noticed the glowing from the Ostrich GarudEgg had faded while the Rabbit GarudEgg’s shimmering only increased, until they were the same luminosity.

Was this… a secret Ringi? Perhaps this was what my master wanted to tell me…

That’s when I began to feel faint… Which I couldn’t find an explanation for. The last two times I understood, but here, I barely did anything except tank a blow. Was it that powerful? Just as I was about to fully wipe out…

“There, there!” I felt a soft hand ruffle my hair as I saw Komugi, still in her Princess form. She handed me what looked to be a pair of paw-shaped gummies. Each paw was colored a shade of purple, with one being pinker and the other being just straight up purple. “If you eat this squishy thing, you’ll feel a lot better!”

With a smile, I pulled the purple paw apart from its pink counterpart, almost like they were cherries, and ate it. The surface of the bump definitely felt like a dog’s paw with how rough it was, but flavor wise, it was more like biting into a grape.

Though, as I continued chewing, I felt my synapses firing off and my muscles no longer aching.

“Damn!” I heard of magical healing food, but they were mostly in legends and a certain anime. Now you’re telling me someone has them as what are basically gummies!?

Komugi giggled as she ate the pink one. We shared a smile before I suddenly remembered…

“Why did you become a Garugaru again!?”

“… I’m sorry.” I looked away, though Komugi only cocked her head.

“Hmm?” She asked.

“I… transformed again. It… It does hurt when I fight. And when I talk, I can’t say what’s really on my mind… But…” I struggled to find the right words to say… To say how I wanted to keep being this despite all those cons…

“You’re using that power to save these animals.” Iroha walked by, cancelling her transformation and returning to her ordinary, peach-haired self. “It must be scary for you to charge head first like that.”

“No. It isn’t.” I quickly responded, causing both Komugi and Satoru to freeze up.

“Once this is over, please, tell me about yourself.”

This was my chance. Not just to Iroha, but also to Komugi…

“I…” Just then, we heard some rustling. Komugi and I stood ready…

Only for it to be Natsume, having stumbled into the clearing in the woods.

“Jiro! There you are!” He had a hand to his side and his voice sounded strained. “The hell happened?”

“Um… Monster got startled but… we took care of it.” I nodded. He took a look around, then sighed.

“Well, that’s a relief…” He paused before noticing something. “Wait,” he looked at us, then to me specifically, “are you all part of EGG?”

“Egg?” Iroha asked.

“I want mine sunny side up!” Komugi exclaimed.

“No, EGG. They’re an animal support group that sell themselves as a global task force. Actually, I’ve been in contact with them for a while now in the hopes of being able to do some volunteer work there.” Satoru said.

“That’s wonderful! You’re extremely knowledgeable with animals, so they’d definitely appreciate someone like you on their team!” As Iroha praised Satoru, I gave a glance to Natsume as he just scoffed and shook his head.

“Well, you’d make a good colleague if they accept you. This is actually my job at EGG.” I tapped on the belt.

“Wait, you’re…” Satoru glanced at me. Come to think of it, I may have seen him during the volleyball game…

“… Yeah. I’m that guy. S-sorry for the ball…” I bowed.

“… I don’t mean to pry, but… I’ve done some research of where that strength came from and… what you did today… That confirmed my suspicion.” Satoru’s eyes soon shifted to a glare. I glared back, wondering what he would say. “I didn’t know you had quite the work out.” He smiled as his glare disappeared almost disappeared.

“Uh, what?” I asked.

“Huh? You know, daily push ups, sit ups, squats?” I was tempted to just laugh. That sort of training would be considered child’s play compared to the training I took.

“Oh, haha, that…” I could only give a chuckle, resisting the urge to give more of an uproar over the idea that daily workouts would result in me exploding a ball like that. Komugi jumped in and spoke up.

“So, if you join up with Egg, you can keep a close eye on Jiro in case he becomes a Garugaru! Wau wau! Wonderful!” Komugi raised her arms and, in a rush of excitement, tripped over and accidentally hugged me. I only smiled and let it happen.

“Ah, I see now…” Natsume approached me and Komugi. “So, this is the person you told me about.”

“Y-yes…” I gave a sheepish grin. “Mr. Kozaki, this is Komugi. Komugi, this is Mr. Kozaki.” Komugi let go of me, then went to shake Mr. Kozaki’s hand.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Gosaki!” She beamed.

“Mr. Kozaki… You got a little magical girl cosplay going on or…” He looked at her.

“Actually, it’s because I’m a-” Iroha then rushed over and grabbed Komugi by the mouth while keeping the small talking rabbit doll secure in the other hand, away from Mr. Kozaki’s eyes.

“Wow! Would you look at the time! We better get going. Thank you for stopping by, Mr. Kozaki!” Iroha chuckled as the two walked away, with Satoru following them. He turned around.

“Aren’t you coming with?” He asked.

“Nah, you go on ahead.” While I wanted to fill them in on my side of the story, at the same time, it seemed clear they had other matters to attend to. I instead went with Mr. Kozaki as we left the forest and returned home.

The drive home was rather awkward, if only for one brief exchange.

“So… Sit ups?” Natsume asked me.

“… Yep. Don’t forget that daily 5 kilometer run I do.” At a stop light, the two of us couldn’t handle it and cracked up laughing. Though the laughter stopped as Natsume coughed. As I tried to see if he was alright, he just waved me away as he coughed harder. He wiped his hand on a tissue before tossing it out.

As soon as we stopped, Natsume flinched a bit before opening the car door. He had been holding onto his side for the past while… Ever since he went into the forest.

“Hey, you alright?” I asked him.

“Yeah, yeah, just tripped and sprained a rib is all.” He was holding the side of his stomach, not his chest…

“And that cough?” I asked.

“Laughing does that, you know?” He seemingly ignored me as he walked up the stairs. “Hey, is it alright if you’re on your own for dinner tonight? Think I’m gonna head in early.”

“… Nah, it’s fine. I can whip something up.” I said.

“Good, good…” His walking was a bit slower than usual… To the point where I helped him to his apartment. “Ah, thanks…”

“No problem.” I made sure to lean onto his bad side. His apartment was on close to mine, on the third floor, so I had plenty of time to closely observe, even feel around myself with a stray finger to see what he was holding. When we got to his room, I dropped him off. Seconds later, I carefully observed the tip of my finger.

I had smelled it the moment we got in the car when it was just the two of us, but to see it up close for myself caused all my vision to lose color save for same shade as what I had felt:

Blood.

Natsume stumbled a bit, unfolding the futon and crashing on it. There, he dug his fingers in deep and bit into the futon before pulling out a bullet, its tip collapsed as it had struck his abdomen.

As he let the bullet drop on the floor, he went to clean and dress his wound, recalling the person who shot at him…

The forest had resumed to a quiet tranquility in the middle of the night… Quiet, save for one person…

“USELESS JUNK!” The school girl tossed the briefcase as the belt fell over, missing its phone-gun hybrid. “Why didn’t he tell me it was voice locked or that it would self-destruct!? Damn thing nearly got me caught!” She muttered as she pulled out her gun and checked the bullets left in her magazine.

A 32-bullet magazine, made with a special hollow point that would penetrate the skin of most monsters. Two of them were used to take down Tasogare. The other one was a warning shot that struck what she believed to be just a simple human who ran into the forest shortly after the phone-gun exploded.

“29… Just enough to take him down…” She loaded the magazine back into her pistol and cocked it. Soon, she’ll be able to take out Jiro…

And avenge what she had lost.

Chapter Text

Admittedly, I had a rough sleep last night. Mostly because I worried about Natsume's wellbeing. Once I saw the sun, I immediately got up and rushed over to his place. Last thing I wanted to see was an ambulance.

"Hey, kid, what's your fire?" To my surprise, there he was, chilling at his usual balcony like it was just a normal Monday morning. He wasn't even holding his side, instead, he was casually chomping his cigarette.

"…" What made this all the weirder was that there was no sign of any injury from him. As though whatever caused him to bleed just… didn't happen. So now I have to make up an excuse for me rushing out.

Do I just go out with it and tell him that I knew he was injured? No. He would deny it. Though, that's when I remembered something else happening Monday that could be a good alibi…

My phone went off, as though to distract me from having to confess. I went to answer it.

"What's up?" I asked.

"Jiro, the commander's requested an all-hands-on deck mission! I'll swing by the apartment and pick you up!" Dai's voice was on the other end. Huh, saved by the EGG.

"Damn. Even Inari's getting involved?" I asked him.

"Eeeeh… We asked them, but they said they're busy today…" As Dai sheepishly chuckled, I pondered… I did sort of promised Mrs. Nekoyashiki that I'd swing by for Pretty Holic's grand opening.

"Is this mission a Garu… Gekijyu matter?" I asked.

"Erm… Hold on." I could hear some muffled speaking on the other end for about a few seconds before I heard his response. "No."

"Eh, I'm sure you guys can handle it fine without me then. I have some plans today. If it's urgent, I'll be at Pretty Holic." With that, I hung up.

"W-wait!" That's all he said before I ended the call.

"Jeeeeez… Well, Jiro's not coming either." Dai said to Suzume as he and the others were at the EGG Headquarters.

"It's fine, we can manage with just the four of us." Suzume had finished printing off some instructions from her computer.

"Um, what exactly is this mission anyways?" Umahara asked Suzume as she approached the computer and noticed it was a map of Animal Town.

"I'm glad you asked!" Suzume stood up triumphantly with her hands on her hips. "Our mission is to be the first ones at the grand opening of the esteemed make-up store, Pretty Holic!"

"… WHAT!?" The three shouted in unison.

"Do you realize how long I've waited for one to open up in this town!? I'm not missing this chance to witness such a spectacular event!" Suzume said before pulling out a pink flyer detailing the event. "What's more, the esteemed Three-Star Sister is said to make an appearance! In person!"

"You called us all the way here to go shopping for makeup?" Sarutobi asked.

"And meet a celebrity!" Suzume pointed her finger directly at Sarutobi's face.

"… Does this further any of our goals at EGG?" Dai asked.

"Huh?" Suzume's confident aura waned.

"Like, is makeup going to make our job at EGG easier or…" As Dai continued asking, Umahara went in and grabbed him by the collar.

"Hey, some of us would love to buy the highest quality makeup! And we're talking about meeting with a top tier celebrity here! We get her to sponsor EGG and we'd have cash flow for days!" Umahara said.

"Um… Yes! That's the true purpose of our mission! We get sponsored!" Suzume bashfully chuckled.

"Well, it's settled. Let's take the van, it's a lot more civil-looking than Dai's truck." Sarutobi said before taking off.

"H-hey! My truck's built to last, unlike your Pinto-ass mini!" Dai followed him.

"Hey, Umahara… Nice save." Suzume blushed as she told Umahara.

"Huh? N-no, I honestly want to go to Pretty Holic myself." Umahara blushed back as she closed her eyes, scratched the back of her head, and chuckled. The two then left to Pretty Holic.

Atop the roof of the Ren Apartments, the school girl watched Jiro jogging out into Animal Town. She bitterly scoffed, recalling yesterday when she nearly had him in his sights…

She held the newly acquired phone-gun in her hands, aiming it at Jiro. She had followed him through the woods from the apartment, only to witness him transform into this lizard-like monster in the middle of a battle between a large rabbit and two magical girls.

She bided her time and waited for a good chance to shoot at him… But when she pulled the trigger, no bullets came out. As she inspected the screen, she noticed a notification telling her that she needed to speak into the phone, with a list of commands. Picking one, she said it:

"Fire." She whispered and aimed again.

Error.

She looked at the phone again, noticing another notification, warning her that her voice didn't match the one locked to the phone. Perhaps a fluke? Just to be safe, she recalled her training, deepening her voice to mirror Tasogare's.

"Fire." As she aimed it…

Error.

Perhaps it was too advanced for the mimicry. She looked at the list for other commands, for possible alternatives, in case her voice could at least activate one of those. She picked one that reminded her of her chat with Shino.

"Henshin." This time, it activated a new sound…

ERROR! Too many attempts, self-destructing in 3… 2… 1…

In a panic, she tossed the phone-gun right into the clearing. It exploded, resulting in the large rabbit to go berserk. As it fired a beam at the tree she was hiding behind, the school girl ran out of there.

She ran for a solid minute before bumping into a middle-aged man.

"Huh? Who are-" She didn't want to be caught by him and, on instinct, she pulled out her gun and fired off a bullet into his side. As he went on his knees and clutched his stomach, giving off a wince, she realized, from the blood that came from the wound and no extra flare like blue flames or a sudden explosion, that she just shot a normal human.

She took this momentary distraction to run out of there, hoping the guy didn't see her face.

She checked her belt before taking out a grappling hook. This time for sure…

She was going to take out Jiro…

Kamen Rider Garude

Hunt 4: DOKIDOKI! Operation Prettyholics Anonymous

I was within a stone's throw from the Pretty Holic store… Only to realize that aside from me, the only other people there were those who live there, as I noticed Mayu standing outside.

I'd effectively be the first customer of a shop that I didn't exactly have an interest in outside of the brief bond I had with the Nekoyashikis. Do I just walk around, kill some time, and come back when there's more people?

No, there's always the possibility that I'd be the only customer there today… So, with a deep breath, I decided to go ahead with greeting them…

At least that's what I had intended until I saw a large dust cloud heading towards the store. My body tensed up before I noticed that, ahead of the cloud was…

"Iroha?" I muttered. I couldn't confirm for sure if she was running towards the shop or if the small puppy dog that she was walking was the one doing the running and she was just being pulled along. A small moment of hesitation was all it took, as I saw the two come to a screeching halt in front of Mayu.

I gave a sigh of relief. Seems that she's taking the proverbial cup of being the first customer from me. I can resume my normal plan of walking around for an hour before coming back.

Of course, now comes the awkward situation of how I'd withdraw from the area without being spotted. Obviously, I can't pass them, Iroha would most likely notice me. If I go backwards, Natsume would ask me what the hell I was in a rush for and I'd have to tell him the truth.

"Wan!" Crap. I forgot about the dog! Before I had any time to strategize, it spotted me and alerted Iroha.

"Ah! Jiro, I didn't know you were coming to the shop as well." Iroha said.

Well, I was gonna face some music.

"Yeah, though I was gonna come by at a later time… Felt it was too early, you know?" I scratched the back of my head as I approached Iroha and Mayu. "Hey," I gave Mayu a brief wave, only to notice her blushing.

"We were just talking about Mayu's cat, Yuki." Iroha said. Hoping to come across her to have some good luck.

"Speaking of, is this dog yours?" I crouched to look at the puppy. Such a small yet cute thing with brown and white fur, outfitted with a pretty pink harness for a leash. It looked at me with an almost fond look.

"Y-yes, she is." Iroha said. I wasn't sure why exactly she felt so caught off guard by my question.

"Oh, that's cool! What's her name?" And yet, I asked her another question that would most likely cause her brain to fry.

"Um… Well…" Called it.

"You said it was Komugi, right?" Mayu said… Wait, Komugi?

"That's really sweet!" I just smiled, stood up, and turned to Iroha. "You named her after that friend of yours!" Honestly, I had no idea what her relationship with the person Komugi was beyond magical girl partners, but closest I can think of was friends.

"Y-yeah…" Iroha was sweating bullets. As though the lucky cat had graced her presence, the potentially awkward conversation came to a swift end as Mrs. Nekoyashiki came out of the store.

"My, some customers?" She asked.

"Hello! My name is Iroha Inukai, and I'll be your first customer!" Well, that settles that. I'll just hang back, wait an hour and-

"Wait, my apologies, but for the dog's safety, they can't go in… If they ate any of the products or reacted to any strong scents…" Ah crap…

"Ah, I understand. I'll be back." As Iroha said that, I held my breath as I was now in the awkward spot of being the first customer once more. To add to this piling awkwardness, the dog gave an odd sound that felt more like a bleat than an actual bark. "Uh, excuse me for a moment!" Which was soon followed by Iroha picking up dog Komugi and walking off.

"… Uuuuhhhh, you know what? I'm gonna be back as well… No offense, just respecting her wish to be the first customer and all…" Perhaps this was a blessing in disguise as I backed away.

"Oh, well… Hope to see you soon." Mrs. Nekoyashiki said.

"Eheh, yeah…" I didn't want to start running until I knew for sure that they didn't see me…

Once I noticed they turned away, off I went.

The school girl watched as Jiro ran off, having sat from a nearby bench. The thought of shooting him right then and there had occurred to her, but she knew better than to cause a scene. Though, there's a silver lining…

She now knew the place for which Jiro will die…

The place where vengeance will be hers.

I spent the next few minutes pacing up and down the street, wondering what exactly to do now…

Both Iroha and the Nekoyashikis are expecting me to be at a store that I have no real interest or investment in… I wondered how long I should even stay for. Five minutes seems like it would be too short but would it even be realistic for a boy my age to be at a makeup shop for over an hour?

That's when I noticed Sarutobi's van pull up into a parking lot.

"Huh?" I raised an eyebrow as I saw Suzume get out of the shotgun of the van.

"Alright, coast is clear. Go! Go! Go!" On Suzume's cue, Sarutobi, Umahara, and Dai all got out of the van as well as they were about to run, only to notice me. "W-wait, Jiro? I thought you were busy!"

"Well, somewhat? W-wait, what about you? I thought you'd be somewhere else doing some big mission." I said.

"We are! And that," she pointed to Pretty Holic, "is our objective!"

"Um… I don't follow." I muttered as Umahara grabbed me by the biceps and stared at me.

"GRAND OPENING SPECIALS ON COSMETICS!" Her voice boomed across the empty lot, perhaps even reaching the store itself. "This is do or die, Jiro!"

A shiver ran from my neck to my toes. Not even the monsters I fought at Rügen had made my throat go this dry. I had been adjusted to the meek Umahara who hid behind Sarutobi, but this? My heart was now hammering against my ribs.

"Waddya say, Jiro? You in?" Dai poked his head to the side, in between me and Umahara.

"W-well, I was gonna go to the store anyways…" Well now I have to go.

"Then it's settled! EGG, Operation Prettyholics Anonymous is officially underway!" Suzume declared as she led the way. At that same time, I noticed Iroha and the person Komugi were already at the shop talking with the Nekoyashikis.

Okay, Yuki is officially blessing this shop with good fortune because if Inari decided to join, I'd most likely be in a boiling pot right about now.

But, this is good. The first time that EGG gets to meet the princess who had helped me join their group face to face.

"Hey, Komugi!" I waved over to her as she turned to greet me.

"Hello, Jiro!" She waved back.

"Ah, so you're that friend Iroha named her dog after." Mayu said to her.

"Y-yes! She is!" Iroha blurted out, her face almost as red as her hair.

"My, you didn't tell me you were bringing friends, Jiro." Mrs. Nekoyashiki turned her attention to me and EGG.

"I didn't know I was bringing them." I mirthfully chuckled as Suzume stepped forward.

"My name is Hitsujimaki Suzume and I represent the Earth's Global Guardians!" As Suzume pumped her fist and pressed it against her chest, I patted her on the back.

"We're going to be doing some shopping, not saving the world here… Aha…" I guess I'd be leading them in, following Iroha into the store.

Despite being invited by both the owner and EGG, the decorations, the glittering designs of the makeup, and even the smell of the perfume gave me an air of unbelonging. Then again, with places like these, I would usually be casing the joint to find vulnerable places to break in later.

Perhaps that's why I felt so many chills whenever Mrs. Nekoyashiki's eyes glanced over to me. Everyone else seem to be enjoying themselves just fine though…

Dai and Sarutobi hung back, but were making small talk looking at some of the paintings, Suzume and Umahara were already picking out some compacts to buy, Iroha was adoring the perfume and Komugi was outright sniffing them.

I was the only one that just… stuck out.

"You're having trouble deciding?" I had to force myself from not jumping at Mrs. Nekoyashiki's voice.

"Y-yeah… Last time I went shopping for makeup was…" I heaved a sigh. Truth be told, I did go shopping for makeup once before.

Back at Rügen.

"Ah, I see. So, this would be your first time shopping for yourself?" She asked.

"I… guess so." Unless I wanted to buy a perfume for Komugi… She really seemed to enjoy them.

"It can be overwhelming to figure out what to buy when all you see are products that don't fit you." She took my hand and led me to a small stand that had bottles of foundation. On them rested small golden statuettes of animals and insects, ranging from grasshoppers to lizards to even foxes. Despite the appearance, they all had a jeweled heart that had a myriad of colors. These bottles were among some other products.

"Woah…" I muttered. The colors of the foundations were much more subdued than the makeup in the store. Rather than pinks or blues, they were closer to light pinks to dark browns, almost akin to the colors of skin.

"While they are subtler, men's makeup do exist." She said. I picked up the lightest one of the foundations, a baby pink bottle that had a golden tyrannosaurus rex and a baby blue jewel heart. "Ah, that suits you well!" She smiled.

"Yeah… I think I'll take this. Do you take credit?" I asked her.

"We do!" Mrs. Nekoyashiki nodded.

"Thanks!" As we returned to the register and I paid for the foundation, Iroha approached her and made her own purchase. I looked back to the perfumes, the thought of buying one for Komugi still lingering.

Though, my stray thoughts were interrupted when the door opened. Inside stepped a young woman with blunt short black hair, wearing a black jacket. She took off her sunglasses and looked around.

"I'm here as you asked, Mrs. Nekoyashiki…" She said. Immediately, Suzume stopped admiring the products.

"There she is!" Suzume sprung to her. "The Three-Star Sis-" And just as quickly, the woman pushed her away.

"Save your breath. It's just Kuin." She scoffed. Kuin took off her jacket, revealing a white tank top and black pants. As she hung it on a coat rack, she entered the store before looking around.

"Ah, welcome to the store…" Mrs. Nekoyashiki looked over to Kuin, then back to me and Iroha. "Say, my daughter is good at makeup, so she can teach you two." She smiled.

"E-eh!?" Mayu blushed. Great. All this because I'd rather do this than tell my landlord that I knew he was shot…

Several more people came in, a few elderly women and a young girl that I believed was one of their granddaughters…

But, as I eyed the odd pattern of a half-beige, half-grey school uniform… My breathing became stilted. I had seen this exact pattern before and knew what it was hiding…

"That sounds like a great idea!" I purposely raised my voice and stood on my tippy toes, before glancing over. As soon as I made eye contact with the school girl's navy-blue eyes, I saw her glaring…

Me…

She was after me.

"W-well… If you insist…" Mayu led us away as I saw the EGG members begin to crowd Kuin. This, followed by Mrs. Nekoyashiki going over to greet the new customers, thankfully gained some distance between me and the assassin dressed in urban camouflage.

As we got into a small dressing room, Mayu sat me down and adjusted a white cloth over me, her hands trembling over the ribbon that would secure it.

As much as I wanted to reassure her or outright tell her I could apply the foundation myself, I'd defeat the purpose of why I was even here in the first place… Then again, the only reason why I was ever here in the first place was to avoid trouble.

"So… for the foundation…" Mayu hesitantly took the foundation bottle I purchased and gently squeezed out a pea-sized amount of peach pink onto a brush. "Y-you'd want to gently… press it…" She took the brush and dabbed a bit on different parts of my face.

Immediately, I gave a smile and tightened my grip on the armrest as her quick touches on my cheek felt almost like feathers. This, coupled with Mayu's face flushing red, almost made this worth the trip. I had to keep calm, for her sake.

"Hey, what grade are you two in?" Iroha asked us, giving me a momentary distraction.

"Junior high, second year…" Mayu kept focus on my face, though the redness of her cheeks faded.

"Huh, me too-hoo…" I had to stop myself from giving off more of a laugh from the unintended tickling Mayu was giving.

"Wait, are you two going to Second Wangan Junior High?" As Iroha asked that, I recalled Natsume bringing me over to the school's volleyball game where I would showcase my talent. I realized that was also his way of me acquainting with my soon-to-be classmates…

"Yes…" Mayu answered.

"How wonderful! I can't wait to see you two at school!" Iroha smiled. Around this time, Mayu finished brushing around my neck and I took a few moments to breathe.

"Alright, I think that'll do it…" Mayu had put away her brush and taken off the white cloth. "Do you know how to do it yourself now?" She asked me.

"Y-yes… Put the foundation on the brush, then apply it to the face for an even coat." I stood out of my chair and wobbled a bit as Mayu caught me.

"And remember, not a lot, just a small amount will do." Mayu handed me the foundation bottle and a small brush. It took a moment before she realized she held me, though by that time, I had already stood upright and nodded.

"Will do. Erm… Should I watch you apply makeup to Iroha or is it best to leave you two be?" I asked her.

"You can stay if you'd like." Mayu said.

"Ok." I sat on another seat while Iroha took my chair. I looked over the door and frowned, wondering if that assassin was still in the store.

Kuin was left to be in care of the store while Mrs. Nekoyashiki attended to the three elderly women. There, she looked at a few of the vials of makeup, taking notice of the golden animal statuettes.

"Cute…" She muttered.

"So, Kuin, was it?" Suzume approached Kuin.

"Yeah…" She turned to her.

"It's a pleasure to make an acquaintance. My name is Hitsuji-"

"-maki Suzume, yeah. You're with EGG, right?" Kuin asked.

"Oh, w-well… How did you…" She asked before Kuin turned around.

"Before coming here, I took a look to see if the town had any organizations from the Zawame Accords who've planted themselves here. You call yourselves the… what? Guardians of the Globe?" Kuin closed her eyes halfway and coldly looked at Suzume.

"Umm… It's… Earth's Global… G-guardians…" Suzume stammered as Kuin's gaze didn't shift.

"Same thing." She scoffed. "Was that the best title you can come up with?"

"Well… That's what I thought up when I first made it a few years ago, a-and it stuck!" Suzume said.

"Honestly, it sounds like a parody of a taskforce than anything legit. Do the others take you seriously?" Kuin asked.

"… I…" Suzume stuttered, tears forming.

"Hey! I'll have you know that we may be literal bottom feeders…" As Dai stepped in, Kuin looked at him.

"Ah, so you're opportunists who profit off of misfortune?" Kuin's words shut Dai up for a moment before he attacked the issue from another angle.

"N-no! Like, we're practically the bottom of the food chain! Even the Zawame Accords barely give us enough to function! But, with you sponsoring us, we can…" Dai noticed Kuin barely pay attention to him.

"So, that's what this is about." Kuin looked away, her eyes focused towards the makeup. "I didn't get where I was by having someone give handouts, so why should I do the same for you?"

"Then we're peas in a pod then! Just some common folk wantin' to make a difference in our community!" Dai smirked as Kuin coldly stared at him.

"You lot are a bunch of back-alley kids thinking you can become part of the big leagues. I merely want to support my family after my older brother left us for stardom. We are not the same. What exactly would a model accomplish for your group anyways?" Kuin asked.

"Well… Your brother, right? Even without his fame, the Zawame Accords recognize him as-" Dai's words were immediately stopped with a hard and loud STOMP.

"… Don't you dare bring his name up." The muscles in her hands began to seize up. "I am nothing like him." She nearly stormed off before Umahara came over, almost blocking her exit.

"E-excuse me, but… could you sign my book?" She showed a book highlighting a photoshoot that Kuin did a few months ago in Sorashido City. Her anger almost faded away as she saw the first picture that was the cover. On it was her and someone who was a frequent customer of the store, a girl her age with long auburn hair with purple eyes, in front of the store. She warmly smiled at it before opening the book and signing the first page with her full name, the I's dotted with crowns:

'Ukiyo Kuin'

"There we go. I appreciate a fellow fan of mine coming out to meet with me." She put away her pen and shook Umahara's hand.

"W-wh-what!?" Umahara's face flushed.

"Huh? What's the fuss? I'm a model, not some idol." Kuin said with a matter-of-fact tone, eyes barely focused on anything but the hands shaking. She let go as Umahara just looked at her hand.

"… I'll never wash this again…" Umahara smiled.

"Now, if you excuse me, I gotta chat with the owner about how to go about the promo shots." Kuin made her way to the entrance of the shop before turning to see Suzume. "I'll be around town for the next little while, so maybe you'd like to reflect on what exactly your ambitions are." She then just gave a soft, cheeky grin. "Of course, I'm always up for an autograph and handshake, like you just saw." She turned to open the door and made her way out.

"Damn… We haven't even told her what our main objective is!" Dai pounded his fist against the palm of his other hand.

"But… I didn't even…" As Suzume wanted to say more, a cry broke her concentration.

"I said let me go!" The three turned their attention to a young school girl, who Sarutobi was holding by her shirt collar.

"I found her trying to break into the makeup room with this in her hands…" He revealed her silenced pistol before placing it on the ground and kicking it towards Suzume.

"Wait, didn't Jiro go in there earlier?" Umahara asked.

"Hold on, since when did a school girl pack heat?" Dai asked.

"…" Suzume picked up the silenced pistol, carefully looked at it, then put it away before glaring at the girl. "Start. Talking." She glared with little to no joy in her voice.

As Kuin left the shop, Komugi raced inside, almost pushing past her.

"H-hey!" She exclaimed. She sighed before turning her attention to Mrs. Nekoyashiki.

"Ah, Ms. Ukiyo, are you finding the shop to your liking?" Mrs. Nekoyashiki smiled.

"Y-yeah… As per the contract, I'm to model for this shop for about a year until a new franchise opens up, so name the product and I'll pose with it." Kuin then turned around to see the front of the shop. "Ideally, we'd start with the shop itself, as a sort of 'we just opened a new one' message to any fans of the brand."

"Ah, that sounds lovely!" Mrs. Nekoyashiki took Kuin by the hand and dragged her to a small stone beam where Yuki was resting on a bed. "Here, why don't we pose with Yuki? A cute cat would be a really good money maker!"

"S-sure…" As Kuin went next to the bed, Yuki gave a low-pitched meow and swatted at her. Kuin backed away as Yuki gave a small hiss. "What the…"

"That's odd…" Mrs. Nekoyashiki muttered before going next to Yuki. "I think you were standing too close… She needs her space, after all."

"Ah, right… So, like this?" Kuin stood a few feet away as she took out her phone.

"Alright, on three… One… Two… Nyaaan~!" Mrs. Nekoyashiki then posed with her fingers curled inwards like cat paws. By the time Kuin realized what she was doing, she had already taken the photo. A moment later, the two saw the result:

Kuin looking at Mrs. Nekoyashiki with widened eyes and a dropped jaw with Mrs. Nekoyashiki acting like a total cat, all while Yuki was in the middle just resting on her bed.

"That looks purfect~!" Mrs. Nekoyashiki took the phone and looked at the picture intently.

"N-no! I wasn't ready! W-we can have a do-over and I'll be ready for it this time!" As Kuin said that, Mrs. Nekoyashiki handed her back the phone.

"But that's exactly why it's the perfect first photo. So that when we take our final photo, you will be." She gave a smile that, as it curled, almost resembled a cat's lips.

"…" Kuin looked at the photo and paused for a bit, remembering the cover of Umahara's book. As Mrs. Nekoyashiki returned to attending to the three elderly women, Kuin gave a slight chuckle.

Never thought I spent today, or any day for that matter, watching girls applying makeup, but my alternatives were either face off against an assassin inside a shop or face the music and tell Natsume what I knew.

Yet, what caught my attention was Mayu. While she seemed rather touchy when applying makeup to me, with Iroha, she was entirely in the zone. Not a single peep came out of this room aside from Iroha trying to make light talk.

If anything, I heard more racket from outside.

The way Mayu also methodically selected which tool to use at what time was almost precise. It seemed even she wasn't aware of this hyperfocus, as the moment she was done, Iroha complimented her good work, to which she began to get flustered all over again.

The door soon opened up, cutting any focus that we had abrupt.

"Iroha!" While I had briefly heard her the past few days, I recognized Komugi's squeaky voice as she slid inside. For the first time since stepping into this store, I was now within talking distance with her…

"Ah, Komugi! What do you think? Do I look cute?" As Iroha showed Komugi the fruits of Mayu's labor, I realized I had been so distracted with Mayu's work that I hadn't actually noticed her work.

And yet, the only word I could use to describe Iroha was pretty… Cute felt reserved for someone else…

"Very cute! I wanna look cute too!" As Komugi said that, Mayu handed her some eyeshadow and, immediately, she went to work…

By rubbing the eyeshadow literally over her eyes and creating visible rings around them.

"Well, am I cute?" She asked. I could feel my heart begin to swell up, as though compelling me to agree, even though my mind was telling me every contrary reason.

Yet, that word kept running in my mind even before she applied the makeup… That was who the word cute was for…

And with that, I realized as Iroha and Komugi laughed off this incident… From the moment Komugi held me on that day and told me how important I was…

That the entire reason I decided to continue becoming Garude…

Was that I… might have fallen in love…

We soon left the room before I saw the members of EGG surrounding the school girl. Heaving a sigh of relief, I looked over to the perfumes once more. Noticing that Komugi and Iroha were distracted with talking to each other and that Mrs. Nekoyashiki had entered the store with that other lady, Kuin, I made my decision.

I went over to pick up a pink perfume, one with a golden dog on it, then went to the front.

"Hmm?" Mrs. Nekoyashiki went to the desk and scanned the perfume. The price was, frankly, negligible compared to prices I've seen in Rügen, so I had no problem buying it. "Would you like me to gift wrap it?" She asked.

"Yes, please." I calmly answered. I noticed that there were a few small cards with animal-themed stationery. Picking a matching pink card with a small dog running at the bottom, I quickly wrote out a small thanks to Komugi before pausing… Those feelings of love returned, but as my heart swelled… They began to ache too…

"I love you… Jiro…"

I recalled Lily's final words to me as I put the pen down…

'Thank you, Komugi, for bringing me out of a bad time…' It only covered half of the card, clearly leaving room for more… Biting the inside of my mouth, I wrote my name to take up as much of the other half as possible. By the time I was done, Mrs. Nekoyashiki had finished boxing the perfume. She handed me both the box and the receipt.

Holding them in my hands, I headed to Komugi.

"Um…" That caught both her and Iroha's attention. The more I thought about the perfume in my hands, the more I thought back to Lily…

"Thanks for coming along, Jiro!" Lily's voice was one I would never forget. I looked back to a fond memory of me carrying almost a literal ton of gifts that we had purchased on our small excursion into the city of Binz.

"Hey, Jiro, something up?" Iroha asked me.

I was basically now just doing the same thing… Shopping with someone who I had fallen for… Being pulled into fights in order to protect them from monstrous threats… And soon…

THUMP!

The only color I could clearly see now was the peach coloring of Iroha's hair. I began to tremble before rushing back, my eyes closed as I placed the perfume on the counter. When I opened my eyes, I turned to see EGG, still talking with the school girl…

That's when I remembered when I last saw her…

I remembered her partner…

How she unloaded every bullet in my path…

How she managed to dodge every one of my blows…

How the one blow I managed to land was guaranteed to…

And that was when I realized why she was here…

"H-hey! Jiro!" Iroha called out to me as I beelined towards Suzume.

"You came all this way to Animal Town just to try and assassinate Jiro?!" Suzume already confirmed what I had suspected.

"Yes…" The schoolgirl spoke up as she turned to see me once I made myself known.

"… Well, here I am." I turned back to see that now Mrs. Nekoyashiki, Iroha, Komugi, and even Mayu were noticing this, all while the EGG members were trying to restrain the school girl. "Let's take this outside." I said to her before storming out of the shop, not even paying any mind to Iroha or even Mrs. Nekoyashiki's demands for me to stay.

Sarutobi complied in taking the girl outside the store while I explained to the others that it was part of EGG business. I wasn't sure how much info I should divulge, but at the very least I shouldn't involve Iroha and especially Komugi into the world of assassins…

But it didn't really help how we set ourselves up to interrogate this assassin. The way we surrounded the schoolgirl, it almost seemed like we were about to haze her or some form of gang gathering…

As much as I wanted EGG to back off, I know that wasn't something I can easily request.

"So, you've come for my bounty?" I asked her.

"No… I've come for your head." She struggled to get out of Sarutobi's grasps. "The money that comes from your death is just the bonus."

"I… don't know whether you coming here is good or bad timing now." I almost resisted the urge to laugh.

"Huh?" Dai looked over to me.

"Had you come just a little sooner… I'd have let you put one…" I pointed to my forehead. "Right here."

"Woah, woah, woah!" Suzume's jaw dropped as she tried to get in between me and the girl, though I held my hand up.

"And… I'm kinda having that thought return to me…" I bobbed my head a bit. "But… I can't let you do that now… I've sworn a duty to someone I've…" As I hesitated on my words, she immediately took that weakness.

"I see how it is… Another victim that you're planning to murder?" Of the people who've heard her say those words, I don't think anyone felt so numb or cold as I was. "You killed so many assassins who've gone after that family, you even went as far as to avenge the family members that were successfully assassinated… All so you could have the honor of murdering the few surviving members of that bloodline yourself? You make me sick, Rügenwulf."

Rügenwulf… I hadn't heard that name before since I was on Rügen. It seemed almost like an urban legend, but recalling the name, I trembled as though it were a scary folklore monster.

"Thank you very much for stopping by!" I saw Mrs. Nekoyashiki greet us as Iroha and Komugi leave the store. As the two girls passed us, the schoolgirl glanced at them, then to me. "Please come again!"

"We will!" As Iroha replied to Mrs. Nekoyashiki, the schoolgirl leaned in.

"Why don't I cut to the chase then and do your job for you?" She whispered. My arm freezed up.

My normal instinct would have been to unleash a Confrontation Ki-fueled thrust at her throat, but I hesitated… Was it because I was among witnesses?

"Hey, Jiro, if we don't meet up again soon, we can meet up at school, okay?" Iroha said to me. She then noticed the crowd I kinda surrounded myself with. "Um… I don't think I've met you all." She scratched the back of her head.

"W-well, this is my group at work. You know, EGG?" As I said that, Komugi rushed forward.

"Ah! So, you make eggs!?" Komugi asked the schoolgirl.

"I… W-what? Wait, I'm not with-" As she stammered, that was when Sarutobi spoke up.

"We sort of do. But not the kinda eggs you eat. We found this young'un, Takeshi Shizuka, trying to shoplift so we're making a citizen's arrest!" As Sarutobi declared the schoolgirl's name, her own eyes widened.

"W-what!? B-but how did you…" She looked around frantically before looking up to see Sarutobi waving around a wallet with an ear-to-ear grin.

"Oh, if she was trying to steal, then perhaps I should call the authorities." Mrs. Nekoyashiki said.

"No need, leave it to EGG to set her straight. She's a kid, after all." As Sarutobi dragged her away, Umahara hesitated, looked to Mrs. Nekoyashiki before bowing, then followed him.

"I couldn't believe that happened…" Iroha muttered.

"Yeah… Me neither…" I noticed that Mrs. Nekoyashiki's tone didn't shift compared to Iroha's. If anything, she sounded more inquisitive than she normally was.

"Well, we should get going. See you all later!" Iroha waved to us, looked to me for a moment, and left.

"Yeah, I think I'm gonna go home too." I said.

"Wait, aren't you forgetting this?" Mrs. Nekoyashiki handed me the boxed perfume.

"… Thanks, but… I think I'm gonna hold off…" I shook my head. I should have said it in a more upbeat tone because immediately after, Mrs. Nekoyashiki noticed my sulked head and nodded.

"I understand." She said before taking the perfume and heading back into the store.

"Come on, let's head back…" Suzume said, almost in the same deflected tone as mine as she walked off. Dai rushed after her, asking her to wait. I wasn't sure where Kuin was, nor did I really care.

The only one who was outside aside from me now was Mayu. As though fate itself pushed our pieces together to this moment. I had a few chats with her here and there up to this point, but this would be the first time we were alone together. No cats to pet, no makeup to put on, just me and her.

"… Thanks for the makeup." And all I could muster was gratitude.

"Y-you're welcome…" What didn't help was her body turning, intent on wanting to leave this topic altogether. Though, she didn't move, instead, she asked. "Um… Who was that for?"

"… Does it really matter at this point? I'm probably just gonna ruin it like I did my last relationship." That was the moment I decided to end my day and head off…

And that was the moment fate wanted my day to go on just a little while longer.

"H-Hey! Jiro! There's a Gekijyu sighting!" Dai ran over to me, becoming extremely out of breath once he stopped.

"A… fierce beast?" Mayu asked.

"Really? Now of all times?" I asked.

"Yeah, and what's worse is that we can't get a hold of Inari! That's never happened before!" Dai said.

"What's going on?" Mayu turned to me.

"Just my job… I'll see you later, okay?" I gave a sigh as I went with Dai.

"Oh… okay…" Mayu muttered.

A few minutes later, we were on the road, driving off in the direction of the Garugaru.

"L-let me go!" All while the schoolgirl was screaming next to me in the very rear, her hands zip tied behind her back. I had to look through her wallet to confirm that, yeah, her name was Shizuka and that it wasn't something she made up for her hit.

"Guys, is it really necessary to bring her along? We're practically kidnapping her!" I said to them.

"She's an assassin trying to kill you! And you're okay letting her do you in!" Sarutobi turned to us, sitting in the middle row next to Umahara, and shouted.

"I dunno if Inari told you all, but there's gonna be a lot more of that for the foreseeable future!" I said.

"Speaking of, where the hell are they!? It's not like them to be absent like this…" Dai was typing on his phone. "Hey… Inari… where the hell… are you… question mark."

"Wait, what do you mean 'the foreseeable future'?" Umahara asked me.

"Should you tell them, or should I?" Shizuka answered ahead of me. I sighed, not sure how to best explain. The only idea I had was a shorthand explanation…

"I have a bounty on my head." I hoped that was enough to let them know…

"But why?" Shizuka glared at me. Just as I was about to answer, Dai shouted out:

"SUZUME, LOOK OUT!" Immediately, Suzume swerved out of the way as I could see the familiar purple fur of a Garugaru. Just as we were about to crash into a guard rail, a large paw-like balloon appeared and cushioned the van.

"Wait, what's going on!?" Shizuka asked as I heaved a sigh, realizing that I couldn't exactly avoid Komugi as much as I wanted to. She then looked out to see a monster. Shizuka flinched, but that was it as far as her reaction went.

"Holy crap, so that's a Gekijyu? It's so cuuuute~!" Umahara stared out of her window. To my surprise, it was actually smaller than the Garugaru I faced, being a slightly larger tanuki.

"GARUGARU!" It roared as it tried to claw at the car. Umahara shrunk back with a shriek.

"Alright, I'm going!" I opened my door, which knocked the Garugaru out of the way, and got out of the car before putting on my belt.

"Oi! Jiro! You gotta do the thing!" Dai rolled down the car window and shouted.

"What thing?!" I said as the Garugaru crawled on all fours, seemingly sizing me up.

"Like what I did back when I fought the ram! You gotta do a pose!" He said.

"Are you kidding me…" I muttered.

"And you gotta say 'Henshin!' when you do it, too!" Dai continued.

"What purpose does it serve!? If anything, it's going to make me a bigger target! Need I remind you that your attempt failed?" As I turned my back to Dai and argued, I could hear the Garugaru chitter. "I can do things just fine by just putting this egg on this belt…" As I went about the motions.

OVI-KRACK!

"And activating the belt!" Placing the egg into the belt, I slammed it open, initiating the sequence as I was covered in a protective eggshell, which blocked an oncoming swipe from the Tanuki Garugaru.

HATCH-ING! PRIME! ORDEAL! PRIMORDIAL!

The eggshell exploded, knocking back the Garugaru.

"See? No need!" I turned to see that the Garugaru had ran off and that both Komugi and Iroha had given chase.

"W-wait, are you just gonna let it get away!?" Dai shouted.

"No…" I took out the Ostrich and Ram GarudEggs and weighed them equally. "Legs make me fast… but bike also fast…" I paused before taking out the newly obtained Rabbit GarudEgg.

I hadn't even taken it to Inari to have it analyzed, nor do I recall any Rabbit-Fist Ringi that Hakubi taught me, so I would be shooting in the dark to use it… And yet, this color was comparable to the regular Oviraptor GarudEgg in that it was the only other colored egg…

"Um… Jiro, what are you doing?" Dai asked.

"… Experiment…" I muttered as I cracked the pink GarudEgg onto the belt.

RABBI-TRACK!

The egg glowed pink, opening up and revealing a line of hearts dotted across the egg. I was suddenly engulfed in another eggshell, this one having a more metallic, foil-like sheen.

"Huh? What…" I muttered. I wasn't expecting this to happen… But… I couldn't give up halfway.

So, I replaced the Oviraptor GarudEgg with the Rabbit GarudEgg, then opened the belt…

HATCH-ING! EON… SCENERY… EOCENE!

I began to feel the swelling once more as my armor changed. Mirroring that of the egg, my armor had a soft white bodysuit with bright pink armor, the chest piece of which formed into a heart. The metal bands were instead replaced with pink ribbons that resembled bunny ears and the spines on my back were instead replaced with a rabbit's fur.

As the egg exploded and revealed my new form, everyone in the van looked at me.

"… PFFFFFTTTT…" Dai cracked up as I looked at myself.

"Sothiseggchangesmyforms?" I asked. Immediately, I noticed a change. While I no longer spoke like I was some caveman, the issue now was evident. But that was just the warning sign… Immediately, my mind and heart began to go as fast as my words, until Dai's laughter slowed down to what I could imagine to be a dragged out hah.

I walked to the van, only to find I had made a sprint. Dai noticed I had arrived to him and I could see his eyes widen in slow-motion.

"IguessIdon'tneed thoseeggsthen." I said before I calmly walked to the direction the Garugaru went, with one step feeling like five feet.

Although… What if I were to use them? My mind began to think of how the two eggs I had would be useful, creating different scenarios in my head as my paced walk easily cleared about thirty feet per second. There were hundreds, if not thousands of questions that kept my brain working…

One stuck out: 'can the eggs stack?'

I tossed the Ram GarudEgg just after activating it and, as the bike raced to my side, I cracked open the Ostrich Egg and placed them on my belt before activating it.

HA-TTACH! OST… RICH… OSTRICH!

The pieces of the Ostrich Armor attached onto me just as the bike arrived. I got on and, as I revved up the engine, I felt my body soar.

"What… Was that?!" Shizuka's eyes were glued to the window as she witnessed the object of her vengeance transform.

"Holy crap… Hey, did we know the Eggs can do that!?" Dai exclaimed as he looked to Suzume.

"… I'm not really surprised at this point…" Suzume muttered.

"We gotta bring this up to Inari! Now Jiro's doing form changes like an actual Kamen Rider!" Dai smiled as he watched outside, despite Jiro having been long since gone from the area.

"Kamen… He's one of those guys now?" Shizuka's hands trembled as she remembered her friend cradling her in the rain…

The internal wounds that Jiro had inflicted on her…

If he was strong enough to end her friend's life…

Just how stronger is he now that he's taken the powers of one of those people?

It took no time catching up to the Garugaru and, in fact, it was essentially crawling compared to my pace. Once it realized how fast I was going, it tried to swat at me, only for me to block with my large wing-like shield. However, with how slow his claw was going, it was never a matter of if I was going to block, but when.

While I wasn't sure what the Rabbit-Fist Ringi could do, I was more than certain of what Ostrich-Fist's Ringi were. Question is whether it made sense for me to use its power against something rather… miniscule.

Compared to the sheer strength of the Ram, the speed of the Ostrich, or even the deadly laser beams of the Rabbit, the latter I'm trying to figure out how to access, this Tanuki barely put up a fight as it only took a second before I was able to feel nothing from his claws.

"Garude!" I turned to see Iroha running after me. I realized that I was running in pace with the Tanuki, not even outrunning it. Yet, like with seeing the Tanuki's strikes, her voice sounded stretched out. "Catch it!"

As I processed what Iroha was trying to say to me, I suddenly began to hear other things too. The honking of cars not too far away, the claws of the Tanuki's paws on the asphalt, Komugi catching up to me…

By the time she tried to speak to me, I could feel all these noises and more begin to echo incessantly until I couldn't even process what was happening in front of me.

"GARUGARU!" Ironically, my own armor was as numb as my head as the claws just pressed against my armor. The noises began to coalesce into a droning buzz as my chest began to pound. I saw Iroha rush over to the Garugaru and hold it, though my vision began to blur.

"Jiro…" I could hear Lily's voice… "Let's go to the garden…" My mind wanted to return to that moment when Lily and I would explore the manor's garden, but the buzzing made it hard for me to imagine or remember…

"Jiro…" Every single instance of her calling my name, asking for my attention… It was the only thing I could focus on aside from the ringing sound of a bell… "Go on home…" Wait… But… I remembered that I lived with Lily's family during my time in Rügen…

"Jiro…" The worst part was that I could pinpoint each and every time Lily called my name. The final one I could clearly hear was, appropriately enough, part of her final words to me before…

"Jiro!" Before I knew it, the buzzing stopped as I could only tremble. My body's movement was restrained. I saw Komugi holding me as my armor had already vanished. Between us was a newly made GarudEgg. "Are you okay?" Komugi asked.

"I…" If anything, I felt tired. My head swayed to the side, wanting to hurl… Wait, I didn't even have any food! That may have added to my dizziness. If anything, I wanted to feel still…

But I had also felt myself trembling, something that I could only feel was subdued with Komugi's hug.

"Why do you keep turning into a Garugaru?" Komugi asked me.

"…" Unfortunately, I didn't have any real counterargument to that… I didn't even know what happened. One minute I had assumed a new type of armor and the next my mind fired every single synapse all at once. "… Because I chose to-" And my only response was cut off…

"Why are you choosing to go through this!? I don't understand!" Now it was Komugi who was beginning to tremble.

"…" And with that, I had no real response. Nothing that would justify my transformations.

"Jiro, are you able to stand?" Iroha approached us and offered her hand to me. As much as I wanted to, I didn't want Komugi to let go of me just yet…

That was when I noticed Sarutobi's van arrive. Surprisingly, the first to exit was Umahara.

"Eeeeee! I get to shop at the best makeup store, get an autograph from my favorite model and meet magical girls in the same day!? THIS IS AMAZING! P-please sign my book!" Umahara took out that same album and held it out to Iroha along with a pen. She turned to notice and gave a half-cocked smile.

"Uh… Okay?" She began to sign on it.

"So, what's your motif? Are you a detective? Is it true that magical girl teams work like gangs and have their own turfs? Is that princess part of your team or is she independent? Are magical girls independent? Are you part of some company?" Umahara began to rattle off questions like these, which only caused awkward laughs from Iroha.

"Uh… I just got started the other day… So did Wonderful…" As Iroha said that, Komugi stood up and affectionately held her.

"But we are a team! She's my own-" Komugi was about to explain more before Iroha covered her mouth.

"Own kouhai! Yes!" Iroha's laugh was similar to when I first met her at the shop earlier today. As I felt the strength to get up, I saw Dai and Sarutobi approach us as well.

"So, you two are the girls that Jiro's eager to work with. Pleasure to meet you face to face. Name's Dai." Dai offered his hand to Komugi, only for her to place her hand on top of his.

"Aaah…" Iroha looked at this, then quickly placed her hand over theirs and shook. "It's great to work with Jiro!" Her smile quickly faded as she looked at Dai. "But… I've been wondering… Why does he look like those monsters when he…" Iroha spaced out, possibly trying to figure out what exactly she wanted to say.

"Ah, that. Well, that's what the egg gave Jiro for his armor… Inari would give you guys a more comprehensive talk, stuff like how we got the egg or what it does when activated but…" Dai mumbled a bit as Sarutobi spoke up.

"We can't get a hold of them. If we did, we would have been able to figure out the limits of Jiro's new form." Sarutobi said. Iroha's hand slipped, allowing Komugi to speak up once more.

"You mean the pyonpyon form?" Komugi asked.

"Uh… y-yes…" Sarutobi asked.

"It… didn't feel pyonpyon though… It felt more… Dokidoki?" That's how I would explain my heart beating rapidly from remembering my past. That also caused a small moment of silence as Komugi asked the question that I knew she would be asking EGG if she knew my connection to them.

"Hey, could you stop making Jiro become a Garugaru?" Komugi asked.

"You mean a Gekijyu? Jiro doesn't turn into one…" Sarutobi said, only to see Komugi pout.

"It looks like he does to me!" She said.

"Point being, he's not a Gekijyu. If anything, he's their antithesis." Sarutobi noticed Komugi just cock her head.

"Anti… Auntie… Ants?" She asked.

"… He's made to counterattack the Gekijyu and-" That's when I stepped forward and spoke out loud, cutting off Sarutobi.

"Enough!" I panted… Even getting up took a bit out of me. "It's… been a long day… Let's get the eggs scanned by Inari and see what we need to do. I'll take some time off being Garude for the time being until I get a response." I handed my belt over to Dai.

"Woah now, let's have you keep it for now! You may need it given who we got in the van!" Dai held up his hands.

"If he doesn't want to be a Garugaru, then let him stop being a Garugaru!" Komugi interjected.

"He's not a Garugarugaru whatever you call it! He's becoming a being made to kill them!" Sarutobi raised his voice, causing Komugi to flinch. "And it seems you two made him soft…" He then stormed off to the van.

"Jiro… is… is that true?" Komugi asked me.

"… Yeah." I could feel my arms shake. "That… is my job as Garude." As much as I hated to say those words… It may be for the best considering the pain I would endure if I had decided to stay… I walked to the van as well.

"No! That has to be a lie! You helped Friendy save those animals!" Komugi barked at me as I tried to shrug it off. "Doesn't that mean anything!?" I headed into the van, trying desperately to cram the one voice I wanted to shout out…

I was helping you save those animals…

"Let's get out of here…" I said once the others returned.

"… Okay." Suzume said as she drove away from the two. I looked away as I saw Iroha holding back Komugi.

It was a long silence on the drive back. The proper course of action was to drop Shizuka and the GarudEggs off first, then me, for my own safety. However, as the sun had begun to set by the time we drove back to town, the better course of action for both me and Dai's nuts was to take me straight home.

Though, we stopped just short of a five-minute walk away from the apartment just to make sure that Shizuka doesn't know the exact route.

… Well, as exact as "just go in a straight line past the edge of town" as a route is.

As I looked to Shizuka, she kept a glare at me, though it had somewhat softened. Her muscles were still tensed, but her eyebrows were more relaxed. I couldn't really tell what she felt, but it was hardly a positive emotion.

"So, what will you do with her?" I asked Suzume.

"… I dunno. We can't exactly let her off with a slap on the wrist knowing who she is, but we can't really hold her against her will like you said." Suzume's voice felt rather dower compared to how she usually sounded.

"…" I looked over the van, then back to her. "Take her to the other side of town and drop her off there. We can give her a hint at least."

"I'm just gonna come back." Shizuka grumbled.

"And take any gear she has off. That'll at least waste some of her time trying to get new resources…" I whispered to Suzume.

"Got it… You best run off now." Suzume rolled up her window and promptly drove off without even caring if I would even turn to walk home.

With a pause, I did just that…

After five minutes, I arrived close to 6:30 PM. Walking upstairs, I saw Natsume walking back from the garden, hauling a few potatoes for dinner.

"Ah, welcome home! Guess you hung out longer than expected?" And yet he sported a grin like it was just a normal night…

"…" Without a single word, I ran over and hugged him.

"Woah, woah, hey, something up?" He asked as I just began to sob.

"I should have just told you…" I muffled my voice into his chest.

"Told me what?" His jovial voice soon shifted to the usual dry yet serious tone.

"I…" I had to fight my cries just to get what I had hidden out of my chest: "I know you were hurt yesterday!"

"You knew I…" He took a moment before looking over. I looked at the same spot and saw a few red marks, almost like stained rain droplets. "Don't worry about it! I'm fine now! All it took was a little bed rest and-" He chuckled before I interrupted him.

"You were bleeding! I saw it with my own eyes! Who hurt you!?" I began to cry harder, to the point where my voice couldn't even be legible.

"Jiro, calm down, I'm okay…" He paused before he sighed. "That was why you rushed out this morning, wasn't it?" All I did was nod in his arms. "… Come, let's have some dinner." He patted me on the back and escorted me to my apartment.

I didn't really eat a lot of French fries despite how crispy the exterior was or how fluffy its interior was. It was as like how it was back during the days I first moved here… Before I met…

My hand froze, barely bothering to pick up another fry.

"… I… guess I haven't been honest with you about somethings either, huh?" Natsume asked me.

"Meh. I kinda just kept my distance about it… Probably for the best." I mumbled. Natsume took a moment, then picked up a knife. A simple butterknife with a small edge for making dull cuts.

"Don't panic… This is probably the best way to demonstrate this…" He clasped his free hand over the knife's edge and quickly pulled the knife out, slicing his palm.

"W-what!?" Immediately, I sat up straight. Sure enough, the cut wasn't deep enough to cause a severe wound, but it still drew blood.

"Watch carefully…" He held his hand out as I watched his palm emit a soft blue flame. Slowly, the cut began to stitch itself back together before returning to normal.

"What the…" I muttered.

"This is the exact thing that happened to my wound yesterday. You don't need to worry about me for quite some time." Natsume said.

"… You could have told me you had a healing factor…" I muttered, burying my face into my palms.

"It's not a healing factor. Think of it more as… longevity. All life has a set amount of it and I happened to have… well, let's say I got more longevity than others." Natsume said.

"So… you're immortal?" I asked.

"Did you even know what I just said? Lon-ge-vi-ty. I can still grow old and die like any other person, but it's just… slower. The trade off is that a stab that'd normally..." He gave a pause, allowing me to get the memo. "Well, for me it'd be... I guess a punch to the gut?" Natsume shook his hand after it fully healed. I was about to open my mouth before he quickly spoke up. "And before you ask, no, I am still human."

"Well, are you a modified human then? A lot of people I met back in Rügen were simple humans that were modified, either by devices or…" I asked

"Like… a cyborg? No. Well, somewhat… I guess the best way to say what it is… Hmm…" He leaned back, thought for a while, and then shrugged. "I was granted it."

"By who?" I leaned forward, as did Natsume. As I grinned ear to ear, Natsume looked closer… And then…

"Another story for another time, I'm afraid… Because I'm more curious about your story! How did your trip to that makeup shop go?" Natsume gave a small laugh.

"… Well…" I began to remember the few fun moments I had there; Mayu giving me makeup, watching her methodically apply some to Iroha, just exploring the shop with Komugi…

Once I remembered her, I then remembered everything else. Lily, the overwhelming powers of my new form… Komugi confronting me about becoming Garude once more…

"… It went… Well. But… I don't think I'd be able to keep my friends…" I held the GaruDriver in my hands. "At least… not so long as they still run amok…" And yet, my palms quaked as I stared at the metallic claw. I knew why I had this deep, growing pit at the bottom of my stomach…

This was the exact feeling I felt when attending the funeral of Lily's mother. That feeling when I realized she was murdered by an assassin…

The van stopped just by the borders of Animal Town, about a few miles from Pretty Holic, as Sarutobi got out and dragged Shizuka with him.

"Consider yourself lucky. Were it up to me, we'd be having a nice, long chat…" Sarutobi said to her before tossing her onto the ground.

True to what Jiro had requested, she quickly felt herself and found that, aside from her wallet, phone, and the clothes on her back, she had been left with nothing on her person. She tried to race back to the van, but it drove off.

"This isn't over, Rügenwulf! When I come back, I'll kill ya!" Shizuka shouted.

Sarutobi sat back in the van and groaned.

"Dai, did you call up Inari?" Sarutobi asked.

"They haven't picked up ye…" Dai said as he held his cellphone. Suddenly…

"Sorry for the delay…" The group noticed Inari's voice on the other end, albeit a bit deeper and glitchier than usual.

"INARI! Thank God you're okay! Where were you!?" Umahara asked.

"Busy. There was a matter I had to attend to that, unfortunately, will be more frequent. I'm afraid I will have to renegotiate my contract with you as your scientist to reflect this." Inari stated.

"Well, that blows because we kinda need you more than ever. Jiro's got a new egg that made him go super fast and we don't know anything about it! We're bringing over that egg and another." Dai said.

"… Understood. Forgive me for the abrupt absence. I swear, it will not happen again." Inari said.

"Hey, this is all for Jiro's sake, remember. You're making these to help him, got it?" Dai said.

"Yes." Inari then hung up as Dai looked at his phone.

"Jeez, must they always be this standoffish?" Dai asked.

"I… don't think they were." Suzume said.

"Huh?" Dai asked.

"It sounded… like they had a commitment that seemed more important than us…" Suzume frowned, though she continued to drive back to the headquarters.

Inari hung up, then swiped away a voice modulator app as they stood just outside EGG HQ.

"… I knew this would be troublesome…" Inari spoke clearly, without any mask or app to obscure their distinct feminine voice. Inari then donned her familiar lab coat and mask before entering the HQ.

Chapter Text

I remembered the garden at Lily's mansion. She loved visiting that place so much, that it almost became a safe haven for the two of us. There was a dedicated patch named after her in which most of the flowers grown were lilies. Among her favorite was the lily of the valley. The colors, the smells, and even the warmth of both the air and the hand I held gave me an air of calm.

"Jiro, look! This one has fruit!" Lily said to me as I went over. Sure enough, one of the lilies instead had some red berries. I carefully touched some, feeling if they were ripe enough. Hakubi told me all the different ways plants can be an assassin's tool, and the lily of the valley was no exception. I plucked a few and cupped them in my hands.

"It's not much, but I think your father would take what he can get." Her parents lived humble lives despite their wealth, having taken a calling to agriculture.

"Okay!" Lily nodded. Just as I got up to head back to the mansion, I heard a bark and turned my head to the source of the noise. There I saw-

"K-Komugi?" I saw her in her princess dress running past me on a large grassy field with only a black void to call a sky.

"Jiro, who was that?" I wasn't sure how to answer Lily's question… Were my memories blending together?

"… She's…" I noticed my hand being wet… Crap! I accidentally squished the berries! I opened my palm and saw…

Red…

A familiar red stain…

"Someone you're going to kill, right?" I turned to Lily, her elegant frilled dress now replaced with a simple white dress, stained with a few bits of blood. That same blood that dripped from her lips. "Like me?"

"N-no!" My breath shortened as I tried to run as fast as I could away from the garden…

But as I did, the patch of lilies just stretched further and further, as suddenly rotting limbs erupted from the ground and tried to grab at me.

"AH!" I shouted. Some of them tried to strike at me with weapons. I turned back and saw some of them had begun to rise out from the ground. I had recognized a few as assassins I had to kill back in Rügen.

All of the sudden, my leg was suddenly severed. I fell over and gave a large scream before seeing a metallic monster with four arms approach me. Strings began to pull me up by the arms as a spider-like robot monster had the same idea.

Within seconds, I felt several hard punches in my abdomen, the strings keeping me in place. Blow after blow, Shizuka's friend continued to beat me down, all while Lily watched. A sniper's fire cut me down as I laid there, trembling.

A robot in red, dodo-themed armor picked me up, staring into my eyes as I was forced to look at its skull face. I blinked before noticing the face briefly changed to the skull-faced wolf Rider. Lily approached me, her skin pale as a man in a black long coat stood behind her.

"It's going to happen again, isn't it? You're going to kill so many people before you put her out of her misery, just like what happened to me…" Lily frowned and looked away.

"No! I… I don't have to…" I strained my voice as the dodo-skeleton robot began to choke me.

"You're a beast. Your instinct is to kill. And one day, your fangs will sink into Komugi's heart…" As Lily said that, the man took out a sword and thrusted. While Lily disappeared into a cloud of flower petals, the nail-like blade made a b-line right to my chest…

"No!" I shouted, pulling myself up from the bed a trembling mess. Immediately, the world around me was all grey save for that one red spot… I held my covers, not even wanting to see the "blood-soaked" palms.

I hadn't known how long it had passed before I heard a knock. Seconds later, the door unlocked.

"Jiro! Hold on, are you alright?" Natsume rushed over and held me. "You're here, you're here, you're here…" He hushed me down, enough for me to realize I had been squeaking out 'no' for the past five minutes. Once color had been restored to my vision, I began to tear up and cry into the covers. Natsume patted me on the back and stayed by my side for several moments.

After another five minutes, he let go of me as I had almost lost my voice crying.

"Another one of those nightmares?" He asked me.

"…" I shook my head. "No, this one… It… started as a memory but… It warped itself. I… I saw all these people I killed and…" Natsume shushed me as I began to hyperventilate.

"Jiro, this is about what you said yesterday, right? About not being able to keep your friends?" Natsume asked.

"…" I just nodded. Natsume sat next to me.

"The thing about friends is… they don't last forever. It's harsh, but it's the truth…" He sighed.

"I doubt you lost any to violence…" I muttered.

"…" Natsume looked away.

"S-sorry… I didn't mean to-"

"I did. Long ago. There isn't a single year where I don't think about them, even as a passing thought. It's an old wound, but… It's still a wound. The most we can do is patch it up and move forwards." As he was about to get up, I rugged at his sleeveless shirt.

"Hey… Were you… able to make friends after…" I bit my lip.

"… Not for some time but… Yeah. I did. And it helped me…" With that, he left my room and locked the door…

Within the hour of waking up, I struck the Oviraptor GarudEgg onto the belt.

CRAC-KRUIT!

The egg soon folded into a small crystalline purple oviraptor.

"Oi, scan the town for any of those large eggs, got it?" I showed it the picture of the black and yellow egg that the Ostrich GarudEgg had captured a while back. The oviraptor screeched before hopping onto my bed, then out of the window. I looked outside as it landed several stories below and raced off.

I figured to use my main GarudEgg rather than the ones that just gave me attached armor purely to discourage me from transforming. I wasn't entirely sure if I was even able to transform straight into Garude using the Ram or Ostrich GarudEggs, but there seemed to be a high doubt of it.

I continued to watch the Oviraptor rush off into the woods. It was one of the few times I saw the town as a whole and while I was at the outskirts, obscured by tons of woods, there was still a clearing that allowed me to see some of the high-rises. My mind returned to the nightmare as it tried to dig up something from the past… A promise…

"Lily… I'm here. Like you wanted…" I sighed, my fingers on the edge of the windowsill. "Yet… I can't quite feel that magic you said it had… Do I… really deserve this?"

Kamen Rider Garude

Hunt 5: YABEI! Overflowing Fever

At that same time, Iroha, along with her dog, Komugi, had made a stopover at Pretty Holic…

"Mayu, Yuki, it's nice to meet you two!" Iroha said as she had handed Mayu a walk bag, something she had wanted to do yesterday before the subsequent Garugaru attack put that on hold. "See you later!" As she went with Komugi to resume their walk…

"Ah, wait…" Mrs. Nekoyashiki came to the door, giving the two of them pause. "If you come across your friend, Komugi…" She looked down at the dog before giving a soft chuckle, "Well, you know which one… Would you give her this? I believe a certain someone would appreciate it." She held out a giftwrapped box.

"Oh, well… Sure." Iroha took the box and smiled. "I'll let her know as soon as I can!" Iroha turned to leave, almost at a faster pace than normal. Mrs. Nekoyashiki smiled for a bit before it faded.

"Mom, what was that about?" Mayu asked her.

"Sometimes you have to set the stage… You'll understand soon." Mrs. Nekoyashiki said.

During that time, Iroha took the small stationary from the box and opened it up…

"Thank you, Komugi, for bringing me out of a bad time…" She read aloud to her dog before reading the name, "Nishioh… Jiro…" Iroha could only look at the name in large font as she remembered her conversation with him…

"Once this is over, please, tell me about yourself." And yet, they never once had that chance…

Without realizing it, I had spent the past few minutes crying over the window. I tried to distract myself by looking to see if the Oviraptor had found any eggs, but all I saw was it just running across fields and forests.

Just then, I felt my phone vibrate. The caller ID was unknown, though it presented itself as a common Japanese phone number, right down to its area code being within the Animal Town region. Instinctively, I answered it.

"Hello?" I sniffled, trying to not sound like I just watched some depressing romance about a terminally ill girl.

"Hey, Jiro, right? We spoke the other day." I remembered his voice, but he wasn't really ringing a bell.

"Y-yeah…" The guy sounded friendly enough, but why did he call me of all people?

"Remember when I said I'd be volunteering at EGG?" I slowly began to piece together a memory of someone alluding to that.

"Oh yeah, I think I know you now…" And yet I forgot his name.

"They've hired me on the spot and have assigned me to be a professor's assistant. They want me to work closely to you, so that's why I have your number." He said.

"That's… kinda clever. Hey, how are the eggs going so far?" I asked him.

"Huh? Eggs?" He asked back.

"… Never mind. I'm guessing you still need to go through orientation." I said.

"Yeah… Actually, where are you at the moment? They want you to come over since there's going to be an inspector coming shortly." He said.

"… I dunno…" I laid down on my bed. As I slowly remembered the bespectacled boy talking to me over the phone, I also remembered something else that occurred…

"It must be scary for you to charge head first like that."

"… Hey, you're friends with Iroha, right?" I asked him.

"Y-yes…" He said.

"You got her number?" I continued to ask, staring at the ceiling.

"I do… I'm guessing you don't?" He asked.

"Can I ask you to tell her something?" I closed my eyes, knowing full well what to say next.

"What's that?" The voice asked me.

Iroha sat by a tree in the park, reading the stationary over and over as her dog laid just a few feet by her side. The next thing she said was the same thing that Jiro decided:

"We need to talk…"

"I deeply apologize for my absence yesterday. I was busy with a prior commitment and I was sidetracked." Inari bowed to Suzume and the others at EGG's Headquarters.

"Well, have you made any progress on those eggs?" Dai asked them.

"Yes. The Tanuki GarudEgg is calibrated properly and ready for use. But there's the issue with that other GarudEgg. The problem Jiro seemed to have experienced is a theoretical flaw in speedsters." Inari went over and pointed to the computer. "Jiro's processing power became as fast as a…" They paused as they looked at the yellowed plastic. "Modern computer, but the issue comes in trying to perceive information. Couple that with his sensory nervous system being replaced with that of a rabbit's and…"

"I'm sorry, but can you… Um… process that for us non-computer people?" Dai asked.

"What they're saying is that Jiro is able to think and move faster than normal, but his perception is also faster than normal. He's overwhelmed easily." Dai turned to see a boy with short grey hair and glasses dressed in the EGG uniform. Cupped in his arms was a white furred rabbit with two large grey spots on the top of his head.

"Uuuuuuhhhh… Who this?" Dai asked.

"Do you remember that kid who asked us to look into that exploding volleyball?" Suzume said. Dai nodded.

"Yeah, and how I said that I already know the culprit?" Dai said. He was about to talk some more before the boy spoke up.

"You're referring to Jiro, right?" Suddenly, Dai jumped up. "It's alright, we cleared that up already. My name is Toyama Satoru. This is my rabbit, Daifuku." Rather than extend his hand, Satoru instead extended his rabbit.

"Ah, well… Welcome to the crew. Erm…" Dai turned to Suzume and asked, "Are we paying him?"

"I'm volunteering, so you don't need to worry. I was told you were handling the Garugaru with Jiro and I had sent in my application." Satoru said.

"I was the one who fast-tracked his employment. He'll learn how to create and manage GarudEggs under my watch to assist and eventually understudy our Kamen Rider." Inari said.

"Understu- DUDE! You've put him above me!?" Dai asked.

"From what he has told me, he's closer to these Gekijyu than you ever had… and didn't get knocked out." Inari scoffed.

"Now, now, Professor, I can understand why Dai is upset. From what I'm told, he was meant to be Jiro's replacement, right?" Satoru asked.

"Yeah. And I ain't gonna let some-" Before Dai could finish, Satoru held out Daifuku, causing Dai's hand to brush against his fur. He soon calmed.

"I'm not interested in becoming a Kamen Rider any time soon. I would rather help both him and the Pretty Cure from the side." Satoru said.

"Well, that's a relief… Wait… Pretty Cure?" Dai asked.

"Yes, that was something I wanted to bring up for a while. The Zawame Accords has made several reports on Kamen Riders and a few on groups collectively called Super Sentai, but there are very few public records of magical girls like we see. But of the ones we do see, they seem to go by the name of Pretty Cure." Inari motioned to the computer, but once they saw the keyboard lacked several keys, instead having a few soft plastic knobs, they got up. "We're in the presence of something extraordinary. If you wish to make something out of EGG, then it's a safe bet that making first contact and inducting them into the Accords will skyrocket our relations."

"I… don't think that bringing them into the government would be suitable. Iroha is still in junior high and Komugi…" As Satoru tried to explain, the group heard the front door open.

Inside stepped a simple police officer with short black hair and a young-looking face. Once he finished walking into the headquarters, he stood firm and gave a salute.

"Transfer complete. As of today, I will be overseeing the operations of EGG!" He said with an almost jovial expression.

"Ah, right on time…" Suzume got up and went over to the officer. "I had requested the Accords for an inspection."

"Why exactly?" Inari asked.

"Well… We now have our own Kamen Rider and a better idea of how to handle the Ga… Urm… Gekijyu." As Suzume chuckled, Inari glared at her. "I figured we should get evaluated, see if we get a better spot at the Accords…"

"Why would that matter?" Inari muttered as Suzume hesitated.

"… You weren't there yesterday… But… We tried to get a sponsor for EGG." Suzume's words caused Inari to freeze. "She made me realize… I'm not taking EGG as seriously as it should be. That's why I need to defer advice to an expert." She nodded to the officer.

"Thanks, but I just got promoted to Inspector last month… My name is Ryuzaki Haga, but most refer to me as Haga." He blushed before scratching the back of his head.

"Well, hope this evaluation goes over well…" Dai mutters.

"… Toyama, let's examine the GarudEggs. The sooner we get them analyzed, the better." Inari went to their secret passage as Satoru followed.

"So… What exactly do you do as an inspector, Haga?" Dai asked.

"Well, you guys said you had a Rider, right? I'd like to introduce myself to them first." Haga said.

"Huh? Oh, yeah, sure. Let me call him over." Dai said before taking out his phone.

I went over to my landlord's for some breakfast. It had become a routine, even after I procured my own food and means to make them. Natsume never seemed to mind, in fact, he often encouraged me.

This time was different. Part of my reason for coming over was to personally thank him for comforting me the past hour or so ago. Yet, that thought passed away when he greeted me as though those events never happened, setting a fresh plate of rice pressed into a bite-sized ball…

"You know, I don't think I've ever had a repeat dish of yours…" I sat down and looked at the onigiri, having recalled that we had a more western dish last night. Next to it was the morning paper, citing the headline of a long missing dog finally having been found in Animal Town.

"I like to try something new every day." He sat down and dug into his onigiri.

"Well, with your… um… Elongation…" I squinted before Natsume swallowed.

"Longevity." He said.

"Yeah, that. You must have tried something at least twice." I said. My eyes glanced at the other headlines, carefully noting other ongoing events in the town in case any mentioned the Garugaru or me. So far, the only sort of monster attack was some sort of blurring entity?

"That's true. I have my favorite dishes and a few that I know how to make on repeat, but the trick is to vary it up." As he said that, I took my bite. After a few chews, I realized what he had meant before I swallowed an entire mouthful of white rice.

"… You know an onigiri is supposed to be filled with something, right?" I said.

"It does?" He raised an eyebrow before I slacked forward.

"YOU NEVER TRIED ONIGIRI!?" I exclaimed.

"I've seen people eat it, but I never tried it myself…" Natsume shrugged.

"Not in all your…" I paused and thought of something. "How old are you?" I asked.

"Hmmm… Legally I'm required to say I'm in my fifties… but between us…" He sat down before I felt my phone vibrate. Immediately, I pulled it out.

"Let me guess, work?" Natsume asked as I looked at the ID.

"No… Another unknown…" I muttered to myself, recalling what I asked the boy earlier this morning. Without hesitation, I answered. "Hello?"

"Jiro?" Sure enough, I heard Iroha's voice on the other hand.

"Hey, I was expecting you. Do we wanna chat over the phone or…" I trailed off.

"Actually, I think it may be better to meet in person. Do you remember the park where you first met Komugi?" Iroha asked me.

"I have some loose recollection, but I believe so…" I said.

"I'll meet you there. See you soon." She said.

"See ya soon…" With that, I hung up.

"Ah, got a date?" Natsume asked.

"… Somewhat. It's… something I've been putting off for a while." I took another bite of the all-rice onigiri before I notice my phone go off. Swallowing, I answered the phone. "Yeah?"

"Hey, Jiro, we need you at EGG ASAP. We're undergoing an inspection and they want to meet with you." Dai said.

"Can it wait? I've already made plans." I said.

"N-no! This is important, Jiro! If this goes well, we'd most likely get a lot of support from the Accords!" Dai harshly whispered.

"Well, I need my own support first. This won't take too long…" I said before hanging up.

"It's that important, huh?" Natsume asked me.

"… Hey, can I have some to go?" I turned to ask Natsume, shedding a tear.

"Damn it!" Dai squeezed his phone.

"How long as he been a Rider for? Have you recorded his fights? We can go over the footage at least." Haga said.

"Ok, fine… But, he's a really good guy! He's just been… flaking recently." Dai went over to the computer.

"How old is he? From what I was told, he was about 14?" Haga asked.

"Yeah." Dai opened up a folder before he saw Haga writing in his notebook. "Um…"

"How many hours is he working, mind me asking?" Haga asked.

"W-wait, he's not full time! We only call him on whenever we get those monsters!" Dai shouted.

"What about yesterday? We took him out on our mission to Pretty Holic and that lasted the whole day." Umahara said.

"AAAAH!" Dai looked over to Umahara.

"So… Eight hours then?" Haga wrote down.

"N-no! Five hours and then a Gekijyu attack made that… GAAAAH!" Dai pulled his hair as he saw Haga continue to write.

"Relax, Dai. He's only been a Rider for a few days, so his 'work schedule' isn't that long." Suzume went over to Haga before noticing he had logged a few more hours on other days too, including the time Jiro had stayed over due to being fatigued fighting the Ostrich Garugaru. "… W-we don't count that, right?"

"I'd say if he's with EGG rather than with friends and family, then it's safe to assume he's on the clock." Haga said.

"T-That's not fair! Jiro can vouch for me being his friend!" Dai said.

"A friend at work isn't the same as a friend in general." Haga noted.

"G-gak!" Dai fell onto his chair, stonefaced.

"Now, let's go over his fights, okay?" Haga said.

A minute or so after Jiro left, Natsume sighed before taking a bite out of some onigiri and looking inside.

"This is supposed to be stuffed with something?" He muttered before he heard a knock at the door. Natsume got up and went over to open it, seeing Hamegg at the other end.

"Hello there!" He said.

"Ah, right. Was expecting you. Come." Natsume allowed Hamegg in as he hung up his coat and hat. "You're settling down okay?"

"More than okay. The view is excellent!" Hamegg sat down before Natsume took a pair of keys and tossed them at Hamegg. He caught them without hesitation.

"Don't flatter me. The only use this apartment is good for is being a quick and cheap place to live close to the main attraction." Natsume sat down and took another bite of his onigiri. "So," he spoke in between chews, "what brings you to Animal Town?"

"Hmm… How do I best put it…" Hamegg sat in front of Natsume. "Have you ever played a video game where it requires you to tackle the side quests before taking on the main mission?"

"Can't say I've played video games, but I get the analogy. You're looking for some side hustles." Natsume said.

"More or less. A friend of my dad's talked about the town, had some family that just moved there. He's spending his time exploring the world so he suggested for me to provide them company." As Hamegg said that, Natsume sighed.

"So why not just move in with them?" He asked. Hamegg took a moment to respond, the fingers on his right hand beginning to twiddle almost autonomously.

"Well, I don't exactly want to intrude on them… Might be better to just keep watch from a distance." Hamegg chuckled.

"Not really a 'side quest' then, is it?" Natsume muttered.

"No, what I mean is that I've been keeping myself busy in the meanwhile by handling some of the town's… unusual cases." Hamegg picked up the morning paper. Natsume tensed, wondering if he would refer to anything relating to Jiro's… 'job'. Instead, Hamegg pointed to a headline bringing up heartwarming news of a dog that was missing for twenty years suddenly returning.

"How long do you think dogs live?" He asked.

"Depends on how well kempt they are." Natsume said.

"Ok, let me rephrase that. How long do you think normal dogs live?"

"… Depends on how well kempt they are." Natsume side eyed the paper. Hamegg sighed.

"Telling from the breed of this dog, the Shiba Inu, an average of about… twelve to fifteen years. Animal Town? Let's add another two." Hamegg then pointed to the date that the dog went missing, then to a small picture of the dog by the side taken a few days prior to its disappearance. After tapping on the picture, he then tapped on the larger picture that was taken of the dog a day or so before the paper.

Both dogs were depicted being of the same age.

"If this dog went missing and did their best Littlest Hobo impression for a decade… Wouldn't it be weird that they hadn't showed any signs of aging?" Hamegg asked.

"…" Natsume said nothing, instead observing the newspaper, noticing one of the titles for the table of contents talking about something running at a blurring speed. "Hey, you believe in monsters, right?"

"Huh? Y-yeah. Who wouldn't these days? You'd have to be completely senile or brainwashed to think otherwise. Why?" As Hamegg asked that, Natsume flipped over to the article, where it talked about the blurring entity in question.

"Let's go with one of your analogies. You ever watch that cartoon with the meddling kids and their dog, and at the end of every episode, they find that the monster was just some human dressing up as a monster?" Natsume asked.

"Yeah?" Hamegg nodded before looking at the words carefully.

"Well, for a while, it was quite the opposite. Back then, it was the monsters dressing up as the humans…" Natsume then looked directly at Hamegg. "Or in this case…" Hamegg looked at Natsume, who slowly nodded.

Most people often pointed to Kaihin Park whenever I asked passersby for the description of 'dog park'. Well, dog park was kind of a misnomer in a town like this given that people seemed to have taken all sorts of domestic animals out for a walk.

As I scanned the area, it looked more and more like the place I first became Garude, albeit cleaned up from the carnage that the ram had caused. I had carried a small knapsack full of onigiri. As annoyed as I was with the filling, or lack thereof, the rice's seasoning was decent enough that it was worth it.

"Jiro! Over here!" I turned to see Iroha sitting on a park bench with her dog lying on her lap.

"Hey." I said. Iroha scooted over as I sat next to her. "So…" I looked up at the blue sky, wondering exactly what I should open with. "What exactly do you wanna know about me first?"

"… I… I don't know where to begin." Iroha said. I noticed she held a slip of paper with dogs printed on it.

"Huh? Wait…" I looked over and saw my own handwriting… The thank you note I put on my gift. "… When did you…"

"Mayu's mom asked me to give it to Komugi." Iroha said. Her dog's ears perked up, as though she wanted something, even turning to me, though Iroha gave her a pat on the head.

"… Are you and her close?" I asked. I could see the dog Komugi nearly jump with joy as I asked that, though Iroha held her down and, oddly enough, closed her mouth…

"Y-yeah. We're very close." Iroha said.

"I guess so if you've named your dog after her." I said. It seemed to calm the two down, though Iroha gave a silence that didn't really seem to confirm or deny what I said. "Or… was it just a coincidence?" With that question, she immediately turned her head to me.

"Yeah! Totally!" She gave a forced laugh, though I couldn't help but laugh along with her. Once she stopped, she soon asked. "Though… When you said she brought you out of a bad time…" There we go. I had to answer that to her… I had wanted to tell Komugi that, why I appreciated her hugs…

But at the same time, I owed Iroha my voice. She needs to know just as much as Komugi.

"You remember when I first fought as Garude?" I asked her.

"Yeah. You said how you…" Her eyes widened before turning to me. "You… You weren't thinking of…"

"… Had she not shown up, I probably would have just fought that monster to the death." I said. I soon felt a small paw on my hand and saw Komugi the dog looking at me.

"Wan…" She winced.

"You… also said you were an assassin, right?" Iroha asked. After a small moment's hesitation, I nodded.

"Yeah. I was…" I bit my lip, not sure what she was going to ask next or how she would react.

"What… What did you do as an assassin? … Who…" Iroha seemed to allow Komugi to seemingly 'hug' her, having her paws pressed against her abdomen.

"… If this is uncomfortable, we can-"

"No!" Iroha gave a shout that caused me and Komugi to freeze up. "Please… I want to know who you were…" She looked at me. "When I found Komugi, she was hurt, cold, angry… but most of all, she was scared and alone… When you were saying all those things to us yesterday, you were expressing those exact feelings too, weren't you?"

"…" I… hadn't realized that until now… Those days where I had wasted away in my room aside from eating with Natsume or helping him with his chores… Or even going to cut down some trees? Up until that fateful encounter with Komugi, I thought I felt empty…

But…

"They'll figure it out eventually, and when they do…..." I was scared…

"You're just using me…" I was angry… But worst of all…

"If you really grant wishes, then I wish you give me a reason to live today." I was hurt and alone…

"… Yes…" Before I knew it, I heard myself sobbing, my voice muffled in Iroha's arms as her dog laid her head on my lap. It didn't feel as pleasant as being held by Komugi for the first time, but as I let out more of my cries, I felt a much more needed catharsis. I had traded security and comfort for trust and understanding, but I felt okay with that…

"Please… Let me hear your voice." Iroha softly said. She allowed me to cry for a few more moments before I calmed. As soon as I could muster a few sentences, I looked at her.

"Ok…" I nodded, though, I wasn't sure where exactly to begin. Do I say what my fighting style is? Do I discuss a story to her? The last thing I wanted to say was reveal how I killed a girl her age… "Where… do you want me to start?"

"Well… When you made that volleyball go KA-BOOM!" Oh. Right. That. It caused me to chuckle a bit, alleviating a bit of my sorrow.

"That's part of my technique. It's… a bit complex, but it's essentially animal kung fu. My master told me that there used to be one school that taught a plethora of these styles before it branched into two rival schools." It had been a while since my master taught me about the two schools, so the memory was fuzzy how Rinjyuken's rival differed…

"So, that's how you were able to destroy that volleyball?" Iroha asked.

"Yeah… Master Hakubi told me I had a natural affinity to Japanese Wolf-Fist… It's a close quarter fighting style that…" I didn't want to bore Iroha with the gruesome details. "Well, you saw how that volleyball ended up… Imagine that on a human…" I saw Iroha squirm a bit, shiver, then realize something.

"Wait, you were trying that on the Garugaru! What if they…" She asked, though I already had the answer in my head.

"Animals, especially of that size, don't have the same… makeup that us humans do. How many times have you seen the anatomy of a human body?" I asked her.

"Well… Quite a couple of times in school…" Iroha said.

"And the number of times you've seen the anatomy of an animal?" I asked again.

"… Well… Just a few really common ones at my house…" She sighed.

"The fighting style wasn't really attuned to anything but other humans… And volleyballs, apparently." We shared a small laugh.

"So… have you… Well…" Iroha asked me.

"… Yeah. A few times, In fact. Sometimes to fulfill a contract, sometimes to protect myself… One time, it was to avenge someone…" I made such an offhand comment that I didn't realize I said it until Iroha brought it up.

"Wait, avenge? What do you mean?" Iroha asked me.

"…" At that moment, I knew I would have to peel back a band-aid, all in the name of healing…

News of Natasha Tawanovitch's murder became the local chat in the city of Binz for numerous reasons, ranging from her being high-class down to how gruesome her death was. After a closed-casket funeral, I left Lily to grieve for her mother.

While a part of me wanted to comfort her in this time of need, a larger part of me commanded me to look into matters. It wasn't normal for someone to be hacked apart like they were in a slasher film, nor should it be something their daughter should have to witness the aftermath of…

Using an onion browser on my phone, I looked through the usual assassin sites to see if there was any discussion on the matter. When I was given the details on Lily and the hit put on her, one of the reasons was due to her family. It'd come as no surprise then that Natasha would most likely have a hit on her too…

Sure enough, I found an entry for her offering close to five million US dollars… About a third of what Lily's was worth. Worse still, I noticed Natasha's entry was claimed. It had been marked with yellow, however. Looking at the database, yellow usually means that the hit was in the process of being complete or having been confirmed…

Which meant that her killer was still on the island. The next step was to find where exactly they would be…

When cashing in a hit, especially one that offers cold hard cash, there's often a pick-up point for someone to confirm the hit before making the exchange. It would also need to be a place that would allow for easy laundering.

Master Hakubi had taken me on a few trips to teach me the ropes of how this worked. As I saw a high-rise hotel, I recalled some advice he had given me…

And walked past it. While it would be the easiest place for assassins to conduct their business and stay over, it was always about maintaining as low a profile as possible, especially if multiples were on the same island.

Once I heard the ringing of some old, rusted bells, I realized just how low that profile could go and rushed for the docks…

Inari looked at the pink GarudEgg and carefully studied it in their lab, all the while, Satoru had to lean in to look at it.

"So, these are what power Jiro?" Satoru asked.

"At first… But… Looking back at the few fights he had, it seems like the opposite…" They laid the egg down, then pulled up footage of Jiro's fight with the Ostrich Garugaru. "Rather than the GarudEggs powering him, he's powering them." They demonstrated Jiro activating the belt's finisher function to create an aural ram's head to hold the Ostrich in place. "So… looking over this…" They then played the footage of yesterday's battle.

Jiro, in his Rider form, chased after the Tanuki. However, shortly after he exchanged a glance with Iroha, he slowed down, then began to clutch his head in pain. The "battle" quickly came to a halt as Iroha and Komugi held the Tanuki and Jiro respectively, causing them to revert to their normal selves. Inari rewound the footage and stopped right as Jiro collapsed.

"Why exactly did this egg give him trouble?" Inari asked. Satoru carefully looked at Jiro and noted something…

"He… looks like that rabbit." Satoru muttered.

"Hmm?" Inari asked.

"Ah, well, you see…" Satoru hesitated before he cleared his throat. "He looks like a rabbit, so it goes without saying that he took on a rabbit-like form…"

"… Go on." Inari spun their chair to face Satoru.

"A rabbit's biology is different in a lot of ways." His hand stroked Daifuku's head, causing Inari to focus over to him. "Their ears hear a lot more than humans and they have a faster heart rate. What's happening might be him experiencing an anxiety attack."

"So… this egg is no good then." Inari glanced at the Rabbit GarudEgg.

"I didn't say that. What I said was that if it made him more like a rabbit, he will behave more like a rabbit." As Satoru explained, Inari tossed the Rabbit GarudEgg across the room.

"What good is a tool if all it does is hinder its user!?" Inari shouted as they heard it clatter across the floor.

"He needs to learn to control it." Satoru set down Daifuku before going over to pick up the GarudEgg. "It's not every day a human becomes an animal…" Satoru chuckled before he tossed it back to Inari.

"He doesn't." Inari caught it with their hand. "His mind just thinks like one." With their right hand, they went over and showed blueprints for the GaruDriver, namely a sketch of the Oviraptor GarudEgg and a sketch of a human brain. "Do you know the myth that we humans only use 10 percent of our brain? There's some truth to that. We use parts of the neurons of our brain to do stuff every day but… in the heat of battle, you need to focus on those structures in your head that are capable of fighting, surviving… And yes… even killing."

They showed the sketch animating, with the GarudEgg opening and the brain glowing, only for it to be reduced to all but the absolute middle of the brain.

"In the case of the egg we secured, it would shut down the other processes in a person's brain and focus entirely on the basal ganglia. They would be reduced back to a primordial age of human instinct… And yet…" They looked down to the Rabbit GarudEgg. "This seems to access a different part of those instincts…"

"The instinct to flee." Satoru finished Inari's sentence. "Rabbits are perfect prey out in the wild, so they developed instincts to flee from anything they perceive as a threat."

"But… those instincts aren't part of Jiro…" Inari then went over to the computer and opened up a custom-made program showing blueprints for drivers and devices. As Inari typed away, they created a new schematic that showed the Rabbit GarudEgg alongside the brain. Though Satoru wasn't sure what the brain was doing, Inari explained everything as they went. "We need to create a means for the egg to awaken those instincts."

"What do you mean?" Satoru asked.

"Part of the benefit to working with the Zawame Accords is access to a plethora of schematics that won't reach public eyes… I've even seen some for devices that were peddled out by terrorists." Inari laid out a few blueprints for items that Satoru eyed, ranging from USB memories to handheld switches to what looked to be fruits with a latch on them. A few of them had a signature 'wax seal' design of a swan at the bottom left of the paper.

"Is… Is that ethical?" Satoru asked.

"Kamen Riders use the powers of their enemies, especially recently. It's a sad but dirty truth of them that I despise…" Satoru heard Inari's voice lower, almost being forced through gritted teeth. "But, those same weapons can be used in our favor… I believe this one will do nicely." As they finished typing and sat back, Satoru looked up and saw the outline for what they intended to do with the GarudEgg…

As I approached the docks, I saw several people making their usual commute. Trying to sus out the killer would be tricky, given how often they would disguise themselves among the locals. However, there was one that stood out, one I recognized: a man in a white hooded trench coat.

While assassins needed to stay low to the ground, there was also a need for common, unspoken communication. A symbol to let people know who to turn to.

To process a kill, an assassin would have to present proof of the deed to a representative of either the client or an organization. If the proof is solid, then they will be paid, usually in coin, though there's the occasion they'd request either local cash or even a favor.

Knowing who this person was waiting for, I made my move, sneaking through crowds of people before hiding behind a crate that the hooded figure was waiting by. Within a moment's notice, I grabbed him, knocked him out, then took his jacket to wear for myself.

From there, I took his spot and began to wait. About a half-hour passed before I noticed a woman with long dark hair. The immediate warning sign was the tight business suit that, had this been a school, would have fitted her better. As my eyes trailed her, I could see the usual 'gestures' that assassins would do…

She straightened up her suit and adjusted her glasses, subtly glancing around her as though checking to see if she had been followed. Once the coast was cleared, she beelined right to me.

My knowledge of other assassins was, admittedly, very slim. Knowing her geddup, my suspicion is that she was the type to seduce men and lure them for a quick kill. If so, then she would most likely just inform me of an unrelated kill.

Immediately, I dug into my pockets and felt plastic in my left pants pocket. Good. Without that square, I might have had my cover blown. Once she approached me, she leaned in.

"The hibiscus flower has bloomed…" She whispered to me.

"And thus kindly, it scatters…" I whispered back. She gave a nod before taking out her phone. I had to know the passphrase myself for when… if I would kill my mark, then no doubt it's gonna change.

"Excuse me, the square?" She asked me. The square I held in my pocket would complete this transaction… But…

"Let me verify your kill." I asked her.

"If you insist…" She said. She unbuttoned her shirt to reveal a small compartment near her shoulder. I noticed a rather large tattoo near her neck, looking oddly like the markings of a computer's circuit board.

She pulled out a whole hand. "I would have brought more evidence, but I think leaving her as a bloody mess sends a powerful message." Those words hit me at the exact same time as I saw the fingernails. They were the exact shade of aqua that Lily's mom preferred to paint them… And… sure enough… I saw a diamond ring on her finger that the woman didn't bother to take off…

"And that message being?" I trembled as the realization slowly hit me…

I had found my target.

"That her family will never know peace… Especially her bastard daugh-" Without any second thought, I struck her straight in her stomach. The impact caused any commotion at the docks to silence as all eyes were now on us.

"You leave them alone… The fact that you've made her family cry… Is unforgivable…" I growled as I could feel my Rinki building up.

"Shit… You're not…" She glared at me as I readied myself, discarding my disguise.

"I'd warn you to leave, but I'm afraid we're past that now…" I curled my fingers into my palms.

"Tch… A brat like you wouldn't know the art I've put on display!" She gave a smirk, wiping the blood on her lips and having it mix with her lipstick. "Perhaps you would like to see my craft first hand?" She reached into her breast pocket and pulled out a USB stick with a ribcage mold on it.

Adding to the eeriness of this device was its label, a single S made of a pair of scythe-like blades… Though, upon closer inspection, I realized they were more like…

SCISSORS!

A booming voice played out of the USB's speaker as the woman pressed a button. Without any hesitation, she then jammed it into her tattoo. I realized too late that the design looked like a USB port, as it dug itself into the center. Her body then began to morph as her arms began to split into two pairs of cut up arms.

The rest of her body turned into a shimmering, metallic form that also had its own cuts with a long horn on the top of its bell-like helmet. Several people backed away, a few even took pictures.

"I'm going to bathe these docks with your blood!" She laughed before snipping the air with her hands and pointing directly at me. I felt something off and rolled out of the way, hearing a short whizzing in the process. When I looked over, I saw that a boat behind me had been cut almost in half, the crowd shrieking at the damage it caused. As it sank, I looked back to this four-armed monstrosity.

"Heh… So, it's no different than Mantis-Fist?" I extended my arms as though they themselves were blades. While I could do the kata of Mantis-Fist, doing the actual techniques was another story.

But for the sake of avenging Natasha… To make sure this monster pays for making Lily cry…

I have no other option.

Shizuka didn't realize just how large Animal Town truly was until she was a few hours into her trek. As her feet began to ache, she went over to rest by a tree near a park. She grumbled, not even sure how to take on Jiro now that she knew what he was capable of.

"You lost?" She looked up to see a woman with long, shaggy brown hair. She wore large, baggy clothing that hid a lot of herself aside from her face.

"What's it to ya?" Shizuka looked away as the woman sat down beside her. Shizuka noticed that she had a white, papery stick fixated in her mouth that she chewed away.

"I am lost myself. Have been for some time…" She mused.

"Tch, well, you outta luck. The only part of this place I know is on the other side of town…" Shizuka muttered.

"So why did you come here?" The woman leaned her head.

"… None of your business." Shizuka sighed before getting up.

"What will you do once you've done your business?" The woman's words caused Shizuka to pause.

"…" Shizuka never once thought of what her life will be like once Jiro was slain. For the past few months, she had been trying to track down Jiro. And now that he is within her sights… What would happen if she managed to do it?

"If you do succeed in taking him out, I suggest you skip town immediately." That shopkeeper's words haunted her with a question she didn't want to ask…

Where would she go?

"You could always turn back and leave. You don't have an obligation to finish this and there isn't a prize to be won at the end of your quest… So why persist?" Though as the woman asked that, Shizuka snapped back to her.

"… The only reason I have nothing… is because of him. This… is all I have left…" Shizuka stormed off as the woman sat up and looked to Shizuka. Her expressionless lips soon curled into a grin as she pulled the paper stick out of her mouth, revealing a partially chewed lollypop on the other side.

"And yet… she damns herself…" She muttered before devouring her lollypop.

Long, extended arm motions to emulate a mantis' scythe-like arms… That's the kata of Mantis-Fist. The only problem was getting close to the monster, as they would take every opportunity to cut me down to size.

I ran over and tried to throw my arm while dodging her snipping, though she managed to use her other arms to not only block my arm but try to push me in the path of her snipping hand. To her credit, she was pretty quick with her attacks, though all she had to do was just 'snip' with her fingers. The one opening I did have…

"Hill Splitting Fist!" I had to divert the direction of my arm just to avoid her snip.

"Damn kid… Get hit already!" She shouted. I soon heard a scream as I saw someone fall onto the ground, their foot cleanly severed off… My eyes darted back to the monster and saw that her hand had clearly pointed in that direction.

"So… that's how you killed Lily's mom…" I muttered.

"Who? Oh, you mean that bastard?" She took this moment to put her scissor gesture to my neck… My arm shook… "Right… She's next."

I shook as I realized that this wasn't just to avenge someone's death… This was to prevent another death… Lily's.

As my heart stopped beating, so too did my perception… And all I could think of was making sure she would never harm anyone ever again… And I had become so damn slow that she put her scissors motioning hand to my neck…

"Rise…"

A deep voice inside me spoke up as I gritted my teeth. Just as she was about to 'snip', I swiped my arm across, striking her right at her neck where she had inserted the USB.

"Mantis Flash Cut!" I shouted as I could see my arm course with a ghostly image of purple flames… This wasn't Confrontation Ki but… it felt like it…

Wait… Mantis-Fist wasn't my style! How was I able to do this?! To add to that, I saw my arm had created a blade of wind that immediately cut into the monster's arm. She reeled away and screamed.

"GRAAAAAH! YOU BRAT! WHAT… WHAT DID YOU DO!?" She looked at her arm as I noticed the USB began to leak out of a gash I had made, crumbling as though it had been crushed on the inside. Her body began to seize up as she tried to snip at me, only for her arms to jerk about. Even though it felt like her other hands could do the same trick, she seemed to prefer her upper right hand…

However, despite her arm being broken, she tried to cut at me, only for the muscles of her bicep to twitch, causing her to cut wildly at other objects and even people.

I had to end this now before she hurts or even kills anyone else… As I saw the purple flames nearly consume my arm, all I could feel was absolute hatred towards this monster for sadistically taking away so many lives… As I lowered to the point where my knee nearly touched the ground, the very few people who were still around pointed to me.

I looked behind me to see what looked to be a ghostly cowled figure… I was shaking with fury that I wasn't sure what sort of species it was, thinking it could have been a bat with its fangs and long pointy ears…

And yet, I was not afraid. If anything, I felt confident. Hakubi told me that some people mastered their Beast Fist so much that they were able to manifest spirits taking the guise of their animals… With that, I realized that looming over me was my Rinjyu, fittingly a Japanese wolf…

"That is my art in full display. But now, you'll see the masterpiece…" My fists tightened as I tapped into that surprise Confrontation Ki. My arm became coated in the demonic fire. "Confrontation Beast Mantis-Fist… Ringi: Sickle Cut!" I then threw a blade that caused the fire to extinguish and turn into a sharp air current, slashing her across the body as it caused her unstable form to explode.

She reverted to her human form as the remains of the USB fell to the ground, smoking to the point where some of the pieces began to be set on fire. One detail briefly caught my eye, a swan etched onto the charred motherboard… An easter egg to the developer, but a calling card for an assassin…

The flames disappeared, as did the cloaked wolf. I knew that once I returned to Hakubi, I would show it off to him and see what he makes of my ability to manifest a Rinjyu.

"That bitch… gave a… piece of shi-!" The woman began to choke and gag, falling to the ground as I merely walked past her.

"Consider that my message. If you or anyone else wish to make the Tawanovitch family your target, you will need to get past me…" With that, I took my leave…

"Bastard… I'll…" She tried to get up, though that was when she clutched her stomach. This was perhaps the painful part of Japanese Wolf-Fist… As once my fists had landed…

"You're already dead." I sighed and looked away as she began to cough up blood. No doubt she's feeling my punch from earlier now having the Rinki I infused tear her apart from the inside. Her transformation only delayed that inevitability.

"People associated me with my Rinjyu and that's how I became known as the Rügenwulf." As I finished my story, I looked over to Iroha to gauge her response. She hadn't moved away from me or flinch or any sort of reaction I would have expected… Granted, I left out that last part about my punch killing that assassin, but a lot of the other details remained the same…

"So… Even back then, you were devoted to protecting people…" Iroha muttered as she stroked her fingers through her dog's fur.

"… You could say that." I didn't want to give her more details on the matter. Last thing I wanted was for her to find out that I would later kill the remaining family on my final night there.

"Is that why you become that monster?" Iroha asked.

"… I… I think so." Truth be told, that's how it was in the heat of the moment… But at the same time, I also looked to the ram and trusted it to be my executioner. "Then you and Komugi told me that I can help save the Garugaru and…" I mumbled a bit as I remembered my falling out. "Given what my powers are for… I know we can't fight together." I felt Komugi's paw press against my leg. As I looked at her, she gave a small whimper as I petted her head. "From now on… Please… Consider me your enemy. It might be easier that way." I lifted Komugi up and handed her to Iroha.

"Huh? What do you mean?!" Iroha asked me as I got up.

"I'm going to fight the Garugaru by myself… I'll try to save them, but I don't think EGG will share the same idea… So… Just assume that I've gone off the deep end… and…" I began to tremble as I considered my next words. "Please tell Miss Komugi… Thank you for saving my life… Even if all it did was put me on this path…" I turned my back towards her and walked away. There were a few moments of silence before…

"Jiro! Don't let Egg tell you want to do! Do what you want to do!" I froze as I heard Komugi's voice. Wait… was she here this whole time, just… hiding out? Maybe she was eavesdropping in on our conversation or didn't want to personally talk to me face to face. That last part felt fair, given our blowout yesterday. Though, from how Iroha quickly told Komugi to quiet down, it seemed like even she was unaware that she would step in.

"… So long as I keep using this power, what I want is impossible." I had wasted my perfect opportunity to confess everything that had been building in my heart to her if only to give a barbed remark. I should have realized back on Rügen that I needed to have a hardened heart in order to carry out this mission.

Any attachments would only break me.

Inari finished their work on the Rabbit GarudEgg, having adjusted the final screw to secure the added metal pieces into place. Satoru tilted his head as he saw the makeshift button that was fastened to the top half of the egg. All the while, Daifuku rested on a metal table. Inari took the Rabbit GarudEgg and pressed it with their thumb.

RABBI-TRACK!

The two halves of the egg began to split by themselves, the crack being made giving a soft pink glow. Inari pushed the two halves back in, which caused the button to pop back out.

"According to the notes provided, after prolonged use in combat, the user will get overstimulated and eventually shut down. In other words, a kill switch for Jiro." Inari said.

"Wait, kill switch? You don't mean…" Satoru looked at the screen. Most of the text was in English, a language he had some familiarity with.

"No, it will merely disable the Rider System. It would be risky if he's in the middle of battle, but assuming he's going to butt his head into… them…" Inari muttered the last part before clearing their throat. "Then I am to assume that he can leave the rest to them."

"… I take it you're not a fan of them." Satoru's right arm stiffened.

"In a way. We share a common objective in taking down the Gekijyu, but not the same methods. That's a sentiment that's been common for most of us here at EGG." Inari glanced into the GarudEgg, looking for any imperfections.

"The Gekijyu… They're hurting and…" Satoru felt his right arm tremble now. "I believe their method is best for that situation." Though, he managed to stop it as he stood next to Inari, glancing at their glowing eye.

"But it's not beneficial for us. The only specimen that we were able to get a full sample of was the Oviraptor Gekijyu. As a result, we were able to get a full idea of what sort of powers and abilities Jiro could do as a Kamen Rider, as well as the effects the GarudEgg can do to the human psyche. If we got rawer and more intact GarudEggs, we'd be able to find out more about them… Maybe even figure out their origin and soon…" As Inari spoke about that while setting the Rabbit GarudEgg down, Satoru nodded.

"The ones responsible for them being made…" Satoru said.

"Except we can't get that when those magical girls are hugging them and reducing their potency by more than half. Even our Kamen Rider's projected output is diminishing from this. If their generals are even just as powerful as them, then… Well," Inari shrugged, "The Zawame Accords aren't entirely famous for calling Kamen Riders to assemble whenever, say, the end of the world is happening."

"What's the alternative then? To let Jiro hurt them? I don't think he would ever want to do something like that." Satoru said.

"Unfortunately, I'm starting to see that as well." Inari went back, readying to close up the schematics. Satoru had glanced at the words for a while. They seemed familiar, but he didn't quite brush up on English to really understand half of it. He carefully took out his phone and quickly took a picture of the screen before Inari closed out of the window. "I'm wondering if they had tamed Jiro…"

Satoru heard Inari growling upon mentioning Iroha and Komugi. On the surface, he gave a calm smile, though Daifuku noticed that his fists were balled and shaking, ready to try to break that mask in two.

"Or… if Jiro just wanted to give up his way of violence altogether, regardless of what happens…" As Inari took out a framed photograph, Satoru's hands eased before going over to see what they were looking at; a brother and sister holding up a fish. "I can feel you breathing down my neck, you know." This caused Satoru to squirm out of the way as Inari got up, Rabbit GarudEgg in hand. "Now, let's give this to Jiro to experiment with."

I was about five minutes into my walk, further into the woods, before deciding to take out my phone to see how the Oviraptor GarudEgg was doing…

Only for it to leap into my hand, knocking my phone out.

"H-hey! What's your fire, man?" I asked it before I looked ahead to see what it was running from. That's when I noticed a Shiba Inu chasing it. "Woah, woah, relax, it's just a-" I soon noticed its fur shimmering with a white, almost watery light, before it changed into a strange, dark green creature.

It kept its two hind legs, but the two front legs were instead molded and forced right onto its skull-like face, seemingly clawing its own eyes out. The fur was instead replaced with a large green carapace, making this more like a mobile pupa. It hissed at me, trying to ram into me as I rolled away.

"WHAT THE HELL!?" I shouted. This was definitely not a Garugaru. And yet, it was still a monster. I spent some time shifting the Oviraptor back into its Egg state, all the while punching the pupa monster away from me. The teeth seemed to be sculpted in place so I don't have to worry about it biting me.

I slammed the egg onto the claw.

OVI-KRACK!

Then placed the cracked egg into the Driver before splitting it.

HATCH-ING!

As the egg sealed me up, the pupa tried to attack the shell, but to no avail. If anything, its attempts to break it only made it so that I would be able to get out earlier.

PRIME! ORDEAL! PRIMORDIAL!

And so, once I broke out, punching my way through the pupa as though it were a boxing bag. However, I didn't account for the legs as they scratched at my armor and knocked me back.

"Strong legs!" I exclaimed before taking out the Ostrich GarudEgg and activating it.

KU-RACK! HATCH-ING! OST-RICH… OSTRICH!

Equipped with the Ostrich armor, I was able to block the clawed feet with my winged arms and kick back with my own legs, now enhanced with enough strength to push the pupa several feet back and even rupture the carapace.

"Squishy bits!" I recalled how, when bugs enter a chrysalis state, often they go into a weird metamorphic soup, so the theory was if I broke that carapace, then chances are I would leak out whatever this pupa's insides were and take it out.

"You don't have to kill…"

And yet… Did I want to take it out? It seemed to attack me unprovoked though, but… What if this was another case like the Garugaru?

"He's becoming a being made to kill them!"

This is what Garude is made to do…

I soon noticed that the dark green carapace had turned amber… The pupa stood firm as the carapace melted off of its body, revealing a violet and pink monstrous butterfly-moth hybrid. It began to stand on its hindlegs and awkwardly walked before holding out two fresh clawed arms. It sported two large spotted butterfly wing-like capelets. It began to grunt, sounding like a series of fast, high-pitched dog barks.

As the capelets began to flutter, it ran towards me, only to blur and rush over to me. I lost track of the monster as it knocked me up into the air, then kicked me over to a tree where its trunk broke both my momentum and nearly my back. It continued to make its grunts as it slowly approached me.

"Hmm…" Haga had finished watching the last of the fights, in which Jiro spent a few seconds blocking the Tanuki Garugaru at blinding speeds. However, a stray scratch from the Garugaru caused him to crumple into a fetal position. From there, Haga watched as Komugi held Jiro while Iroha held the Garugaru, eventually causing the two of them to revert back to their normal forms.

"Well, that was a newly made form, so he's working out the kinks!" Dai spoke up.

"Ms. Hitsujimaki, I have but one simple question." Haga muttered.

"Hmm?" Suzume looked at Haga.

"Why is it that you're forcing this kid to battle these monsters, to take the brunt of their attacks… Only for some other kids to take them down?" Haga asked.

"That's a major problem we're facing right now. Jiro's refusing to make the kill and is letting them call the shots." Sarutobi said. Haga wrote down a bit before turning to Suzume.

"Is this true?" He asked her.

"Well… Yes. At one point, he even allowed them to pacify a Gekijyu rather than finish it off personally." Suzume said.

"So… the whole reason you wanted me to evaluate your organization, the mere fact that you have your own Kamen Rider protecting the city… And it turns out that he's just a kid who's deferring the work to other kids? I wasn't expecting a Rider that's able to hold down a company or solve mysterious cases, but at that same time, I'm not expecting the Rider to be Tom Sawyer." Haga said.

"Uh… Huh?" Umahara tilted her head.

"He's saying that Jiro's so incompetent that he'd rather just let two magical girls do his work." Suzume said.

"That's a fair assessment. But what's a fairer assessment is the fact that he's doing this because he was pressured to do so." As Haga said that, Dai sat in front of him.

"The hell do you mean!?" Dai asked.

"From what I gathered, you guys pressganged him into this organization the moment he became a Kamen Rider in a life-or-death situation and rather than actually let him work on your surface job of helping the town, you instead try to get him to either fight monsters or train his powers. For all I know, these two are the only kids his age he's hanging out with." As Haga said that, Dai stood up.

"Hey! School hasn't begun for him yet!" Dai shouted.

"That's another thing. What if this continues while he's going to school? How do you people expect to compensate him?" Haga asked. The group became silent as Haga sighed. "Forgive me if this is a newbie's assessment of the situation. You may feel free to ask for a second opinion, but I can't for the life of me recommend an organization that recklessly endangers a child to go any higher up in the Zawame Accords…" Haga wrote down on one final page before setting his pencil away. "In fact, I'd even recommend them to close this organization."

"Wait! You can't do that! We're just getting started!" Dai shouted as Haga took out a form.

"Now, because there's this pre-existing threat of Gekijyu, I can defer them to a task force that can handle it." He paused for a bit before tapping the pencil on the clipboard. "The Gekijyu aren't spacefaring, are they?"

"We don't know where they came from!" Dai said.

"Hmm… Well, that knocks out the ISA…" Haga scribbled a note or two down.

"W-wait… Suzume, we know more about the Gekijyu than anyone this douche is going to bring in! Can't we at least leverage that!?" Dai asked.

"Yeah, but…" Suzume shrugged. "As far as I know, those two magical girls got a better grasp of it than we do."

"I really don't want to make kids the heroes of this city." Haga grumbled.

"What's wrong with kids, dipshit!?" Dai barged in front of him.

"They're not supposed to be fighting monsters, dumbass!" Haga barked back.

"Well, maybe if we got some goddamned funding, we can actually fight them in their stead!" Dai nearly headbutted Haga.

"You'd most likely blow all that funding on cheap booze!" Haga grabbed Dai by the collar.

"Hell naw! It's all going to the best damned udon in the world!" Dai grabbed Haga's collar back.

"YOU JUST PROVED MY POINT!" Haga shouted as Dai pulled back his leg, ready to pull off a tried-and-true classic attack…

That was when the doors opened as Inari and Satoru came out.

"… You're still here?" Inari asked Haga.

"Ah, yes, another thing. Professor Inari, is it? That's another dock against your evaluation. How exactly did you come across them, Ms. Hitsujimaki?" Haga asked.

"Well, they came to us um… Well, not too long ago, really…" She put a finger to her chin.

"Shortly before Christmas, back when they were merely just teenagers with attitude playing park ranger." Inari held up the Rabbit GarudEgg. "With my help, I am able to make them into powerful park rangers."

"And how exactly did you come across EGG?" Haga asked.

"I spotted them when I relocated to Animal Town." Inari said.

"Relocated? From where?" Haga asked, staring into the LED lights that made up Inari's eyes.

"A mask is used to hide one's identity, Inspector. All you need to know is that the city I was in made me forget my ambitions." Inari had an almost bitter tone to their voice.

"… And those ambitions are…?" Haga continued to stare, hoping to see their true eyes… Only to hear klaxons. Umahara immediately went to the computer and loaded up video feed showing on a wide screen. There, it presented a drone livestreaming Jiro getting beaten by a blurring monster.

"Another Gekijyu attack?" Suzume muttered. Inari glared at the screen before pausing the footage, getting a blurred yet somewhat clear shot of the butterfly monster striking Jiro.

"No… Telling from its agile speed and bug-like appearance, we may be dealing with a Worm…" Inari said.

"Wait, that's ZECT's jurisdiction! We need to contact them and-" As Haga said that, Inari sighed.

"By the time they send someone here to take care of this, the Worm will most likely have killed the only protection this town has and more." They then clutched the Rabbit GarudEgg. "With this though, I feel that Jiro would be able to give you a front row seat to why EGG should continue this project."

"Absolutely not! You're going to break Section 26K of the Zawame Accords! Absolutely no other Rider is to fight a monster that they are clearly not equipped to defeat! Unless your toy allows him to Clock Up, I suggest you let me-"

"Clock Up is the process where a person's perception of time slows down. This GarudEgg matches that exact process to a T. Let us give it to Jiro, or you will be enabling the deaths of him and several others…" Inari said.

"…" Haga's fist shook before giving a shout. "Mooouuuu! Fine! I'll look the other way, just this once. But we need to make it convincing…" Haga said.

"Understood… Toyama, you'll be the one to hand this to Jiro." Inari said.

"W-what?!" Dai shouted. "H-hey! I'm like, right here!"

"I get it… It makes more sense for a friend of Jiro's to have snuck in and stole the GarudEggs…" Satoru said.

"Exactly. Hopefully you can avoid… trouble." Inari handed both the Rabbit and Tanuki GarudEgg to Satoru.

"… I'll try." Satoru clutched the GarudEggs in his hands, then ran off.

"…" Haga bit his lips as he watched Satoru leave… Another child going into battle.

I struggled to get up, taking out the Ram GarudEgg and cracking them.

KU-RACK! HA-TTACH! RAM… RAM… RAMRAM!

Immediately, the Machine Rammar drove forward and knocked the Butterfly Worm away before splitting apart and attaching itself to me as its armor. The Worm rolled over a bit before getting up to fly at mach speeds. The wheels on my leg roared as I raced forward.

While I was slower than the Worm, I was now able to dodge some of its strikes simply through drifting around. However, I was still moving a tenth of the speed that it was. It wouldn't be a matter of if but when I would get struck with its clawed hand and tossed over.

As I flipped into the air, the Worm flew up and kicked me down onto the ground, then zipped and punched me up, proceeding to juggle me around. I couldn't even think of a way out without the Worm outmaneuvering me. All I could do was crack the Ostrich Egg, and even then, I had time to only slip one of the halves…

And hoped for the best.

KU-RACK! HA-TTACH! OST… RAM… OSTRAM!

The top half of my armor disappeared, with the Ostrich's large wings on my arms taking the place of the Ram's large horns. Instinctively, I shielded myself as the blows managed to barely have the same impact now. It seems the Ostrich Ringi kicked in almost instantly as now I was able to block each blow with the oversized wing-like shields.

Though, it doesn't help me much with how I would be able to attack back. The most I could do is kick it away with my wheely boots, but that wouldn't be enough to really take it out… Seemed the Ostrich GarudEgg needed its other half to be fully functional in terms of offensive output…

"Jiro!" The Worm stopped its attack as it and I turned to see that boy from the other day… Satoru. "Use this!" He tossed two GarudEggs over to me as the Worm rushed to grab it.

"No!" I shouted back, only to hear a strange gunshot ring out, as though a bullet hadn't been fired out but rather…

I saw the Worm stop his blurred speed, having tripped over, its legs tied in what appeared to be a thin lace-like rope. I took this chance to catch the Egg, recognizing the heart pattern as the Rabbit GarudEgg. I looked over to Satoru, who had frozen a bit before looking at me.

"The professor took a look at the Rabbit GarudEgg and seemed to have found a means to counterbalance your hypersensitivity!" He said. With that, I took a look and saw a big red button on the crack, as though keeping the egg together.

However, I simply cracked it over the top claw.

RABBI-TRACK!

Taking out the halves of the eggs, I replaced them with the Rabbit GarudEgg, then opened it up.

HATCH-ING! EON… SCENERY… EOCENE!

Like before, the metallic egg shielded me as my armor changed, shedding the attachments and unveiling the rabbit-like pink armor that replaced my Oviraptor form. As the egg shattered and I emerged, the Worm broke out of its bindings and flew towards Satoru.

My legs picked up and suddenly, I saw that the Worm and I were both moving at the same pace, all the while Satoru was turning at a snail's crawl. I took this time to give a satisfactory punch right into the Worm's face, knocking it away from Satoru. This was followed by several more punches.

The Worm stumbled back, then observed me, as though wondering what exactly changed. It buzzed, then flew up. I leaped up before giving the Worm an axe kick back down.

"Yourestayingrighthere!" I shouted as I landed. The Butterfly Worm got up, staggered away, then proceeded to retreat, only for me to chase it. It soon flew off as I tried to do my leap once more…

Only for me to just come down landing as soon as I reached about twenty feet while the Worm was well past that. As I landed, several thoughts stirred in my head of whether to just let the Worm go or not.

That was perhaps one of the benefits for the Rabbit GarudEgg, as it allowed me to play out different scenarios in the matter of seconds… However, I could feel my own brain beginning to slow after about ten seconds…

Ten seconds.

That could be enough time for the Worm to get away and hurt someone else…

Or worse…

Kill …

As soon as I thought of that magic word, more thoughts became flooded, to the point where they became a buzzing in my head… The images stopped becoming strategies for how to take out the Worm but rather what the Worm would do if I just let it escape…

"Jiiirrrroooo…" My eyes slowly glanced over to Inari at the corner. Seemed they had been trying to contact me for what seemed like hours in my brain time. "Puuush… the… buutttoooonnn…" They said. I looked down and saw the button…

Without any other option to stop this constant feedback loop of negative thoughts, I pushed the halves in to pop the button back up, then pressed it back down.

DRRRR… INSTINCTS AWAKEN!

Immediately, the droning in my head cut out. And all that was left in my mind…

Was silence.

Without a second's thought, I inserted the Tanuki GarudEgg.

HA-TTACH! TAN… UKI… TANUKI!

The aura of the Tanuki Garugaru appeared next to me before transferring its large claws and tail over to my armor. Overall lighter compared to the other two armors from these sorts of GarudEggs, but a lot better for the situation.

With another leap, the tail whirred to life, acting as a propeller that sent me flying, allowing me to catch up to the Butterfly Worm in almost no time. There, I ripped and tore out its wings with my claws, causing it to crash in a speed that decreased from mach-3 down to nearly nothing…

Satoru watched as Jiro mercilessly clawed at the back of the Worm. Upon seeing the tattered remnants of its silk wings fluttering downwards, he saw how Jiro and the Worm descended in a trajectory in the direction of a nearby freeway. Hopping on his bike and putting on a helmet, he rode off…

Past Hamegg, who had watched that same carnage unfold from the privacy of several bushes. He tapped the side of an orange barreled gun against his wrist.

"So… the Rügenwulf is a Kamen Rider, huh?" Hamegg smirked as the barrel shook off what looked like a strand of small, lace-like fluid. "Makes this hunt just a little more interesting…"

We fell right onto the road of a freeway. Not wanting to let it get away further, I dug my claws right into its back and drove it down right onto the ground.

As we impacted, the Worm struggled to get up and fly, only to find its wings were far too damaged to get out of there.

I got up on land soon after as the Worm turned to me, giving out pained barks. I wasn't sure if they were aggressive or even just pleas of mercy…

But in my mind, there was no room for either scenario as I took out the Tanuki halves and put in the Rabbit halves once more, pressing the button again.

WILDERNESS UNLEASHED!

My body filled with Confrontation Ki as the Tanuki claws and tail disappeared, instead turning into dark purple flames. Placing the halves back together, I cracked them once more with the middle claw.

CRACK DOWN! EOCENE DIABLEG!

As I crouched down and allowed the flames to enter the rabbit feet-like paws, I ran over and kicked the Worm upwards, then leaped up into the air with a burst of purple flames. Each kick I placed on the Worm became a springboard for me to land another kick, and another, and another, and another.

I was basically flying all over the Worm landing kick after kick as I shouted out what I believe to be the sole Ringi for this fighting style:

"Confrontationbeastrabbitfist! Ringi… Rotationkick!" One final kick caused the Worm to fly right back onto the ground as I landed right down on my feet seconds before it. Then, with a spinning side kick, the belt announced the final blow.

YABEIII!

As my kick landed onto the Worm, purple flames erupted from my foot, followed closely by lighter, violet flames that came about from the Worm's explosion.

As the smoke cleared, I was able to hear cars passing by, birds flapping their wings, even the occasional gust of wind… All at a normal pace…

I noticed I was back in my human form as the two halves of the GarudEgg formed together again. And yet… A headache began to form…

In the past minute, I had obliterated a monster without a second thought… Hell, two minutes ago, I was at a park and now here I am at the freeway! Everything happened so fast that the mere moment that I began to process what was going on, I noticed blood drip from my nose…

"Shit…" I sat down, blowing my nose and trying to find some means to staunch the flow. I spent some time wincing as I waited for it to just stop… After about fifteen minutes, I noticed someone offering a hand.

"You okay?" I looked to see it was Satoru…

"Yeah…" Grabbing his hand, he pulled me up as I dusted myself off. "How did you know I was-"

"EGG told me where you were." Satoru said.

"Well…" I looked around. "Any idea where to head home from here?" I asked him as he nodded.

"Well?" Inari asked Haga as they saw the aftermath of the fight from the screen. He turned away with a glower on his face.

"… I'm putting a notice to the Zawame Accords to send in a Kamen Rider. It's clear that yours is too green for the dangers that are ahead." Haga muttered.

"After all that, you're still shutting us down!? Come on, man!" Dai stood up before Haga turned around.

"You're lucky I hadn't decided on that." Haga showed Dai the paper that suggested their shutdown before ripping it right in front of him. "I recommend you give them the same equipment as Jiro so as to comply with Section 26K." Just as he was about to take his leave, Suzume stood up.

"If I may make a recommendation…" Suzume spoke up, then froze a bit. "While Jiro is our Rider, he's currently under sponsorship by the Kurama Conglomerate." There was a pause as Haga nodded.

"I'll see what I can do, but I make no promises…" Haga said before departing.

"Uh… What was that about?" Umahara asked.

"Is it truly wise to leverage Jiro's connection to them, though? We don't know the full extent of his sponsorship…" Sarutobi asked.

"Ah, I get it!" Dai tapped the bottom of his fist to his palm. "They're one of the highest companies in the Accords! Asking for a Rider from them will no doubt increase our relationship!"

"You're naïve. The Kuramas don't just have Riders…" The members of EGG soon heard a strained voice from Inari. "They are Riders. Ms. Hitsujimaki, I hope you realize the ramifications of what I can best sum up as signing your soul away to the devil." Inari said before they stormed off downstairs.

It was about a thirty-minute trek, but eventually, we made it back to the town square. Along the way, I had explained to Satoru what happened between me and the Worm…

"So… some monster took the form of a dog?" Satoru asked.

"Yeah… It wasn't like a Garugaru at all. More like… a shapeshifter or some sort of body snatcher…" I told him. I only heard of legends of these sorts of monsters, though they often seem to be tall tales until today. "I'm sure that if I had just been more patient, allowed it and I to come to terms…"

"From what EGG were saying, that monster wasn't intent on leaving things be…" Satoru frowned. "That said, I wished we could have found a way." I bit my lip before asking a question deep inside my heart.

"… Satoru… Be honest… Am I… a monster?"

"No." And yet, that answer felt more like a stab in the back than the one I expected… "You may look like a Garugaru, but you're still a human in the end. You fight to protect both the people and the animals."

"But how long until I'm not some defender, but rather… a weapon?" I asked him.

"You're not. It's easy to see yourself as one, but even weapons can be used for defense." I looked back to what Satoru said.

"For defense… Heh… That's how it starts. But… I don't think it's gonna last…" I muttered before walking off. Satoru didn't seem to follow me, though given my mind playing back all the conflicts I had with both EGG and Komugi, I'd rather not have him lest I go against him too.

Satoru watched Jiro leave before he frowned.

"So… that's why they warned me to keep a close eye on him…" Satoru muttered. He took out his phone and opened up the list of numbers. He glanced at two of the more recent callers, Iroha and someone by the name of Mey-Mey. His thumb hovered over the call button for either.

That was when he remembered just how ruthless Jiro was… That other time, he took more dedication to not only make sure he was safe, but managed to tank at least two blows that could have killed him…

He recalled something as he looked over the photo he took back at the lab, reading the notes of the schematics for the device added to the Rabbit GarudEgg. So far, everything Inari claimed was accurate…

Until he got to the part where it talked about just how the brain would shut down:

"The brain would lose all sense of rationality and instead be overcome with a desire to destroy everything in sight…"

His jaw dropped and he nearly let his phone drop too before he safely secured it. With that in mind, he knew for sure who to call…

I passed by the Pretty Holic shop, right on the podium where Yuki rested. I took a moment, not even sure if my hands were capable of petting her, even as they hovered over her white fur. My fingers trembled. Although my fighting style was primed for human pressure points, I never ruled out the possibility of it applying to an animal…

Eventually, I saw Yuki not as some pet but rather a fragile statue that would decay upon my very touch, or even worse…

A soft meow broke the dark images I had as Yuki pressed her head against my palm, rubbing against me as I felt a slow vibration from her throat… A purr… I closed my eyes and shed a few tears before muttering…

"Yuki… what am I going to do?" My head sunk into the stone podium. Moments later, I felt Yuki's paw swatting at my head. Though, these strikes weren't at full force, nor did I feel any claws, rather… It felt almost like she was trying to pet me. The two of us looked at each other… As though trying to figure out what the other one is thinking. "I… don't know if you'd understand this but… I feel torn between my duty and my friendship… Again…" I shed some more tears as Yuki continued to 'pet' me. How pitiable of me to ask someone's cat for advice… "What… should I abandon?" As I asked that, Yuki stopped before stretching. She then leaped off the podium.

I looked ahead to see that Mayu had left the shop.

"Jiro…" Mayu said before picking up Yuki.

"M-mayu!" I sputtered. "H-how long were you…"

"I just got here… Is everything okay?" Mayu asked me.

"… Y-yeah…" As I said that, Yuki moved in Mayu's arms to give me a cold glare. "Well, not really… Komugi and I got into a fight over my job and… I don't know whether to drop out of it or continue it and lose her friendship…" I saw Mayu pause a bit, her lips trembling before she spoke up.

"Please… try to reconcile with her…" Mayu muttered. I could have sworn she had begun to tear up before holding Yuki. "Otherwise… you and her…" I paused on her words before giving her a nod.

"I'll try… but…" I bit my lip. How exactly can I avoid that same tragedy? "Goodnight, Mayu…" With that, I took my leave back to my home.

Shizuka stopped to stay at the park now that it had approached closing time. Sneaking past the people who made their leave, she overheard two voices…

"I hope Jiro is doing okay…" To her surprise, one of them belonged to Jiro's friend…

"There was that weird 'garumph' smell that just vanished as quickly as it appeared…" Scratch that… both of them were here.

"But… we didn't notice any animals reacting like the other Garugaru…" Yet, as Shizuka looked over, she could only see one of them; the girl with short peach colored hair. Where was the other one? "You think that… maybe that was Jiro?" The peach-haired girl asked… no one? Shizuka heard a whimper.

"Yeah… his scent is different from the other Garugaru… So… it must be…" Despite that second voice, Shizuka couldn't see anyone else beside a dog that the peach-haired girl was walking.

Even without her gun, Shizuka was still a dangerous weapon... yet was it worth causing a scene? Even if it was to take an eye from the Rügenwulf in trade for the eye he stole from her?

Before she could make her decision, the girl and her dog were gone.

"Tch…" She muttered before walking off to find a place to stay.

At least, for five minutes before she came across what was the aftermath of a battle. A crater here, some broken tree trunks there, torn up grass kicked up from sudden movements… The telltale signs that a scrap took place.

And in the middle of it all, a woman wearing an all-white suit with silver linings. The woman had brownish blonde hair that extended down to her shoulders.

"Hmph… So much for that experiment…" She muttered. Shizuka placed her hand on the gun in case things went awry… "To think the Rügenwulf would be here…" Upon hearing that name, Shizuka gritted her teeth.

"You're here for his head too?" This caused the woman to turn around. Shizuka nearly froze as she saw the woman's sunken wine-colored eyes.

"Hmph… No. He has just been… a thorn in my side." She muttered before looking back at the battlegrounds. "This was just another experiment of mine he dismantled… I think he has it out for me." Her voice was just as dull and lifeless as her eyes.

"You're a scientist?" Shizuka asked.

"Mmm… More like a… merchant." The woman bobbed her had to the side. "I can't see how a product would sell if I can't test it first, can I?"

"Then… do you have anything for me to try? I'll be your guinea pig. In trade, I'll hunt down the Rügenwulf and kill him!" Shizuka walked next to her and gripped her fists tightly.

"How foolhardy… But, I can't resist such a willing victim… You want to be a trial? Then I've got something for you to try. A refinement of something that he scrapped long ago…" The scientist merchant took something out of her pocket and handed it to Shizuka. In her hands was a red-tipped USB Memory with a label showing two scythes making an S…

Her eyes widened as she held something she thought was now almost an urban legend…

A Gaia Memory…