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The thing is: it had been a normal world.
It wasn’t unique, some dystopia or other that hadn’t even given Tsukasa anything interesting. A random choice, some simple task to do instead of going somewhere on a pull of his newer abilities.
Except…
Except that it had been so close to their anniversary.
“Let’s get this world helped quickly,” Yuusuke jokes. “I mean, I would rather not have a repeat of Zombie World.”
It wasn’t unique but for timing.
It wasn’t unique but for what was to come.
Daiki showing up had been an honest treat, because he’s been doing it more and more over the past two years. And… beyond the frustrations, Tsukasa loves him, even if it’s in a different way than Natsumi or Yuusuke.
Well… even if it was.
It had been a normal world. Some Riders making up some kind of rebellion.
The thing is: it had been nothing special until Yuusuke went still in his arms (impossible. He was Kuuga ; it shouldn’t have been possible). It had just been another fight.
Another world.
It had just… just…
(He didn’t see it happen, not until he heard 3 flavors of agonized cries from the three people who make up his very being.
Yuusuke’s cut off, mid-scream)
He was angry. And when you’re angry, you fight stupid. Even if you’re a former multiverse conqueror and destroyer, you fight stupid.
It’s Natsumi who stops him.
“Tsukasa, no,” she says. “We have to… we have to go, for now.”
“I…”
“Please.”
Her face is as heartbroken as Tsukasa feels, almost as hurt as when he himself had been forced to kill Yuusuke, in the Rider War.
Tsukasa, forcefully, makes himself nod and follow.
Daiki has already picked up Yuusuke’s corpse.
They run.
They need to make a plan. There are Riders in this world, some not in the core world, but they also lost someone.
This is why they were terrified, Tsukasa thinks. The kind of power needed to kill Kuuga, well…
Well, he’d had it, but it had been the power of the Destroyer, violent and made to destroy until he fell.
Well, Tsukasa is feeling ready to destroy.
Could it be enough?
But planning comes later. At first, it’s just… grief. Something rawer than when Natsumi’s grandfather had passed a few months after the start of their new story.
Because…
Yuusuke had gotten in front of a blast for the rest of them.
And they all would have, if given the chance. Or at least Tsukasa would, because his existence is no longer, without them.
He can feel something different already, without Yuusuke, something he can’t define.
And there’s the human emotion. The way Daiki runs. The sadness in Natsumi’s eyes that Tsukasa has only ever before seen when he was doing something that was, by all rights, unforgivable.
The way that it hurts more than ever to not have Daiki close, and he clings to Natsumi in a bed to fit four.
The photo of this world had not been of anyone they met, and it sits in his hands because it is Yuusuke and Natsumi, smiling at something out of the shot.
(He thinks about declaring he would protect Yuusuke’s smile and almost laughs.)
Overexposure from the sun hides their eyes, the tops of their heads.
(He doesn’t let himself think about Natsumi next to Yuusuke.)
They’ve been in this world for a month.
Tsukasa has chosen what his story will be, and he will kill the monster that had murdered Yuusuke.
He won’t put Natsumi in danger. He knows that he can’t lose her too without breaking, and he knows that she deserves better than to die because he’s not strong enough.
He doesn’t know if he could leave her, though. Not when he doesn’t know if he’s coming back.
She deserves better than that, too.
Daiki, to Tsukasa’s surprise, eventually does come back. He doesn’t say anything about it because it is both a blessing and a convenience. None of them explicitly mention who’s missing, but if all three stay close, well, no one says anything, at least for the first three days.
“Why don’t we just leave this world?” Daiki asks. “Let it fend for itself.”
“Daiki…” Natsumi chastises.
“We still have a purpose, here,” Tsukasa adds, in part by force of habit.
“And what is it, Tsukasa?” Daiki asks. “We lost a treasure we can’t get back.”
Tsukasa… says nothing because, in all honesty, he doesn’t know.
He doesn’t know.
“Do you really think you can sneak out alone?”
Tsukasa freezes with his hand still on the door. He doesn’t bother to
“Kaitou…”
“And to leave her alone again?” Daiki asks. The and leave me alone? is silent but not unheard.
“I have a task in this world,” Tsukasa says, simply. “I don’t plan on not coming back. She’ll have you.” You’ll have her, too.
“And if you don’t?” Daiki asks. “You weren’t there when you found your way back to your world, during the Rider War, I— we—”
“I’ll be back.”
The foe is still formidable, but Tsukasa will fight him. He’s not necessarily the biggest danger in this world, he just had a power made for killing. He knows this because the Riders of this world had lost three to him.
Tsukasa had lost one, but all that makes him is angry, and he’s had enough time to turn that anger calculated.
This monster had killed the person he kept his own moral code by, after all.
And he isn’t quite losing, but he isn’t quite winning.
Until…
“Decade.”
The two remaining Riders of this world. He turns to them.
“You were right,” one says.
“We were afraid,” the other continues. “But we don’t want to be, anymore. Our world needs us.”
“You lost someone, too,” the first finishes. “And yet you’re here.”
After that, the fight is almost easy.
Until.
There are too many “buts” in this story.
“The girl that you travel with came to our base, she was… really injured. Says she forgot her Driver.”
Natsumi dies in his arms and this time he has no way to stop it.