As a weirdo, I like being a Kamen Rider

"Power is the most corrupting thing." Saeko Kageyama picked up a wine glass and began to wipe it, her tone carrying a hint of melancholy. "You don't realize it when you have it in your hand, but once you lose it, even the most rational mind can be worn away completely."

Zhuomo suddenly sat up straight: "Speaking of which, what if he really persuades Kitazaki to cause trouble for the new president? What should we do? Should we really get involved?"

"Just watch the show." Saeko didn't even look up, her tone indifferent. "Although the new president protects humans and doesn't allow us to kill innocent people indiscriminately, he hasn't made things too difficult for us." Her fingertips paused slightly, and she looked up towards the doorway. "Murakami, on the other hand, is now blinded by rage and capable of anything. In the end, we might become his enemies first."

The saxophone music drifted through the bar, and neither of them spoke again.

At lunchtime, the atmosphere at the Kikuchi Laundry shop always carries a subtle tension.

Kusaka Masato and Inui Takumi sat facing each other, picking at their food with little communication. Occasionally, their eyes would meet, and because of what happened with Kiba Yuji, there was a tense atmosphere between them.

However, when Sonoda Mari brought up the matter of Kiba Yuji, the two of them were unusually in sync—as soon as Mari steered the conversation toward Kiba, the two of them would cut her off in unison, not giving her a chance to delve deeper into the topic.

Truth wasn't oblivious to the anomaly, but every time he pressed for answers, the two subtly deflected his questions.

He'd only finished clearing the dishes when his phone rang. It was Abe Rina, his friend from Meteor Academy. He answered, and after a couple of sentences, his nonchalant expression vanished, replaced by a grimace: "What did you say? Something happened to the Delta Belt?"

On the other end of the phone, Abe Rina's voice was choked with sobs as she described the situation in broken sentences.

Kusaka didn't ask any more questions, grabbed his coat and headed for the door: "I'll be right there."

"Kusaka! What happened? And what's this Delta belt?" Mari quickly caught up and grabbed his arm.

"You don't need to worry about these things, I can handle it myself." Soga shook off her hand, got on his motorcycle, and the engine roared as he sped away.

Zhenli wasn't about to give up so easily. He turned to Qian Qiao and said, "Qiao, let's go after them and see. I still feel uneasy."

Inui frowned. He didn't want to get involved in the Meteor Academy's affairs, but seeing Mari's anxious look, he finally nodded, mounted the motorized Pegasus, and followed the tracks to catch up with Mari.

When the two arrived at the abandoned warehouse where the Meteor Academy was gathered, with Soga, the scene was already a mess.

Several young people were pulling and arguing with each other, leaving debris scattered all over the ground.

It's not hard to figure out the reason from the argument: after the third knight belt, Delta, fell into the hands of the Meteor Academy members, everyone who came into contact with it was subtly influenced by its power and developed an extremely strong desire to possess it.

With red eyes, Tokumoto Kyosuke and the others said that it must have been member Kawauchi Yuki who suddenly attacked, snatched the belt, and fled alone.

The group was so focused on getting their belts back that they didn't even bother to look at their injured companions.

Kusaka glanced at the chaotic scene, his brows furrowing. He turned to look at Takumi Inui standing next to Mari, his tone cold and hard: "This is an internal matter of the Meteor Academy, it has nothing to do with you. You can leave."

"Now that I'm here, there's no reason for me to stand by and watch." Qian Qiao's tone was calm, but he showed no intention of backing down.

“I told you, you don’t need to get involved.” Soga took half a step forward, his attitude resolute. “The matter of the Knight’s Belt can be handled by the people of Meteor Academy.”

The two stared at each other for a few seconds, the air thick with tension. Finally, Inui Takumi snorted coldly, stopped arguing, and strode away from the warehouse. Mari wanted to persuade him, but Kusaka stopped her: "You stay. He's an outsider; there's no need for him to get involved."

Meanwhile, at Kikuchi Laundry, Kikuchi Keitaro looked at the mountain of laundry and sighed helplessly. The three of them had once again left without saying goodbye, leaving the shop short-staffed.

What bothered him even more was that every time something happened, they would invariably keep it from him, completely excluding him from their lives.

After a long silence, he took out a pen and paper and carefully wrote out a part-time job posting, which he then posted on the shop's glass door—he couldn't keep waiting for someone else to bail him out; he could support the shop himself.

A soft knock sounded on the door of the president's office on the top floor of Smart Brain.

"Come in." Lin Chen said without even looking up.

The door opened, and Sudo Kirihiko, dressed in a well-tailored dark suit, walked in with elegant and composed manner. He stopped in front of the desk: "I've become fairly familiar with this world over this period of time. President Hayashi, when can I begin my formal mission?"

Lin Chen didn't answer, but instead tossed a file in front of him. Sudo Kirihiko picked it up, flipped through a few pages, and his gaze fell on the origami cranes in the crime scene photos. He paused slightly, then murmured, "The origami killer... It seems this 'kindred spirit' has become completely addicted to his own power."

"The Orphnoch who is obsessed with power no longer needs to exist. Please get rid of him." Lin Chen leaned back in his chair, his tone indifferent.

Sudo Kirihiko closed the file and nodded slightly: "Understood."

Chapter 204 Meteor School

A yellow bus painted with green environmental graffiti drove onto a red arched bridge, swayed, and disappeared into a dark tunnel. The daylight outside vanished abruptly, leaving only the dim yellow ceiling light inside the bus swaying slightly. A loudspeaker, accompanied by a faint static, announced the next stop: the Second Primary School, reminding passengers to prepare to disembark.

In the last row by the window, Aki Sawada pulled down the brim of her black baseball cap, a silver headset hanging around her neck, as if the surrounding noise was shut out.

His face was expressionless as he skillfully folded the white paper with both hands, and in a short while, a small paper crane took shape. He struck a match, and the orange flame licked the edges of the paper crane, the faint light flickering in the dim light.

He let the burning paper cranes fall onto the empty seat beside him, watching silently as the flames slowly devoured the white paper. In the instant before the ashes fell, Sawada slowly stood up, and grayish-white bone armor spread and emerged from his skin, his ferocious and cold outline becoming even more sinister in the light and shadow.

Just as he was about to step forward to the front row, a hand firmly landed on his shoulder armor. The force wasn't heavy, but it felt like a thousand-pound lock, and no matter how much he struggled, his body remained motionless.

Sawada's pupils contracted slightly beneath the brim of his hat.

The dim overhead light cast a cold glow on Sudo Kirihiko's face, highlighting his sharp and distinct features. His impeccably pressed dark suit was without a single wrinkle. He maintained a composed posture, his hand resting on Sawada's shoulder armor, his tone as flat as if critiquing a poorly executed performance: "Using burning paper cranes as a death omen, that does have a certain ritualistic feel. It's just a pity they only target ordinary people; it's utterly tasteless."

Sawada did not respond.

His shoulder and back muscles suddenly tensed, and he swiftly raised his elbow to strike the other man's ribs, while his other hand slashed at his throat with a claw-like motion, the movements both fast and ruthless.

Kirihiko slightly sidestepped the elbow strike, raised his hand to grab Sawada's wrist, and with a little force, pressed the hand back. "Who I am is not important." He leaned slightly forward, his gaze sweeping over the ashes of the paper cranes remaining on the seat, his tone tinged with a hint of disappointment, "I just didn't expect that so-called kin would be so obsessed with this meaningless indiscriminate killing."

Sawada struggled with his wrist, his knuckles turning bluish-white.

He looked up at Wu Yan, his gaze as cold as ice, and only two words escaped his throat: "Get out of the way."

Wu Yan straightened up, slowly adjusting the cuffs of his wrists. The last trace of gentleness in his eyes vanished, leaving only a chilling coldness. He looked at the young man before him, who was enveloped in an obsessive and cold aura, and gently shook his head: "I was originally going to give you a chance to back down, but now it seems that I was just being presumptuous."

A ball of grayish-white light rose directly from his chest, its soft glow carrying an irresistible pull. In an instant, it spread out, enveloping both figures. Then, it rapidly contracted inward, disappearing along with the two figures into the dim depths of the carriage in the blink of an eye.

Only half a handful of burnt paper crane ashes remained on the back seats. The announcement over the loudspeaker continued to announce the arrival time, and the sounds of children playing and parents talking mingled together. Everyone on the bus was busy organizing their luggage to get off, and no one turned around to notice the strange situation in the back row.

A deserted coastline far from the city. The gray light dissipated, and Sawada stumbled into the soft, damp sand. Behind him, the dark waves surged endlessly, and the sound of the tide, along with the salty sea breeze, rushed towards him. The surroundings were empty.

He turned around abruptly. Without saying a word, he shifted his weight and assumed a poised stance.

Wu Yan took two slow steps forward, a pair of butterfly wings unfurling behind him. Bone-white streamlined armor clung to his body, his cobalt-blue compound eyes reflecting the shimmering light of the sea, and the sharp bony edges of his wings gleamed coldly in the sea breeze. His tone was calm: "It was too much of an eyesore to fight on the bus; this is the perfect place to settle things. I want to see just how much weight those of my kind, so determined to tear people apart, truly hold."

Before he finished speaking, Sawada's Spider Orpheus Eight-Directional Shuriken, swirling with cold light, flew out of his hand, drawing a tricky arc in the air and slicing straight at Kirihiko's flank.

In the same instant, he extended his knee joints, and his body leaped several meters with the force of the push-off. His toes gripped the rock crevices as if he were climbing a wall, and he quickly moved sideways, circling behind Wu Yan in an instant.

With a slight flutter of his wings, Kirihiko spun around, the bone blades on his wings precisely striking the side of the shuriken. The crisp sound of bone blade colliding with the spike echoed in the sea breeze. As he tilted his head to avoid the tentacles, his fingertips swept out a cloud of blue scale powder. Using the flexibility of his knee joint, Sawada suddenly ducked and dodged, retrieving the shuriken and throwing it again at his opponent's lower body.

After several exchanges, neither fighter could gain the upper hand, resulting in a stalemate.

After another fierce battle, the two tacitly separated and stood facing each other on opposite sides.

"Very strong! But I still don't like fighting in this posture." The next second, the blue light around Wu Yan slowly subsided. The butterfly wings and bone armor gradually faded away, and he returned to his human form in a dark suit. His cuffs were neat, and his posture remained composed, but the coldness in his eyes had faded a bit.

He pulled out a Kaixa belt from somewhere, a smile playing on his lips: "I'll use this to send you off!"

Flip the Caesar phone.

"9-1-3!"

"Standing By!"

Kirihiko raised his hand to fasten the belt around his waist, used one hand to insert the phone into the card slot, and pushed it down.

"Transform!"

"Complete!"

Orange-yellow photonic blood gushed from the driver, and scalding light surged through the veins of his limbs, but Kirihiko did not stop after transforming. Next, he pressed a device with a striking golden X mark onto his chest.

The soft afternoon sunlight streamed through the glass windows of Kikuchi Laundry, illuminating a row of neatly hung, clean white shirts, filling the shop with a faint scent of soap. Keitaro was tidying the neatly stacked clothes when the shop's door chimes tinkled, and a slender figure slowly entered.

The young woman, Saya Kimura, stood at the doorway, her eyes gentle and kind, radiating a quiet and serene aura. She lowered her head slightly and spoke softly, "Hello, I saw the job posting at the door and came to apply for a part-time position."

Keitaro looked up abruptly, his gaze falling on the girl. His heart skipped a beat, and his cheeks flushed uncontrollably. He hurriedly put down the clothes hanger he was holding, awkwardly wiping the foam off his hands, his enthusiasm bordering on excessive: "W-Welcome! Please come in and sit down, let me get you a glass of water!"

Kimura Saya nodded gently, her gaze slowly sweeping over the rows of clean, white clothes in the shop, and said softly, "I've always loved clean and white things. Seeing this laundry shop full of neat clothes makes me feel especially comfortable."

These words struck a chord with Keitaro, his mind buzzing with the image of the quiet and gentle girl. He was so focused on entertaining her that he completely missed the commotion outside the door.

The roar of the motorcycle stopped outside the shop, and Inui Takumi pushed open the door and walked in. He was already feeling frustrated after being forcibly driven away by Kusaka. As soon as he entered, he saw Keitaro busy attending to a strange girl, and he couldn't help but frown. When Keitaro finally had a moment to spare, he pulled him to a quiet, secluded corner in the backyard of the shop.

"Why are you suddenly posting job ads? Haven't Mari and I been helping out at the shop all this time?" Inui asked, his tone puzzled.

Keitaro slumped his shoulders and complained in a low voice, "What else could it be? Every time there's an emergency, you and Mari abandon the laundromat without saying a word and run off on your own. All the work, big and small, falls on my shoulders. I can't stay here with an empty shop forever."

Upon hearing this, Inui Takumi choked on his words. Looking at Keitaro's aggrieved expression, he couldn't find a single word to refute him and could only silently look away.

The two returned to the front hall, where Kimura Saya was sitting quietly at the table waiting. The group poured tea and chatted.

At the Meteor Academy camp, Masato Soga's phone vibrated urgently. He answered it; the caller was Yuuki Kawachi, who was pleading for help. Soga's expression turned serious. Previously, it had been said that Kawachi had stolen the belt, but now it seemed that wasn't the case; otherwise, Kawachi wouldn't have proactively asked for his assistance. Without delay, he grabbed his jacket, hopped on his motorcycle, and sped off according to the GPS location.

As Kusaka followed the location and rushed into the underground tunnel, Kawachi collapsed to the ground, his chest rising and falling weakly. An Orphnoch frog stood beside him.

"You bastard!" Kusaka's eyes flashed with anger as he quickly pulled out his Kaixa phone and fastened his belt.

He quickly transformed, drew his Caesar Blade from his waist, and charged towards Frog Orpheus.

Frog Orpheus didn't flinch. He raised his hand and pulled the trigger of the water gun, and a large gush of thick dissolving liquid gushed out, pouring onto the blade of the Caesar Blade. A piercing corrosive sound exploded, and the blade melted and crumbled at a visible speed. Kusaka was left with only half of the gun handle; his melee weapon was completely destroyed.

Using the terrain, the frog Ophie maneuvered and pulled, eventually finding a gap and leaping into the depths of the tunnel, disappearing completely.

Kusaka, however, did not give up and continued to chase after them.

Takumi Inui also received a call from Mari Sono. Upon hearing that something had happened, he immediately rode his motorized Pegasus to the scene.

The motorcycle drifted to a stop at the tunnel entrance. Takumi had already transformed on the road. He got off the motorcycle and looked up, just in time to see Kusa standing alone in the middle of the tunnel. His feet unconsciously took a slow step back, his back tense, as if something terrifying and irresistible was hidden deep in the tunnel.

Takumi's heart tightened. He went to Kusaka's side, his right hand instinctively resting on the FaDriver at his waist, his eyes fixed warily on the dark tunnel. A short while later, staggering footsteps came from the shadows. Frog Orpheus walked out unsteadily, his body suddenly bursting into intense crimson flames. The flames engulfed his entire body, and his body turned into fine ash that scattered in the wind.

Takumi and Kusaka exchanged bewildered glances. Kusaka stared at the empty space where the Orphnoch had vanished, his voice low and menacing: "It was Delta. Only Orphnochs killed by Delta would ignite with this kind of red flame."

The two hurried back to where Kawachi had collapsed. Tokumoto Kyosuke and Arai Kensuke tightly surrounded the dying Kawachi, showing no concern for their companion's imminent death. Instead, they relentlessly demanded to know the whereabouts of the Delta belt. With his last ounce of strength, Kawachi managed to utter the word "Sawada" through his throat. As soon as he finished speaking, the sand patterns on his body dissipated, and he vanished into ashes.

Kyosuke and Arai showed no grief whatsoever. Having learned of the clue, they turned to set off to find Sawada. Sonoda Mari and Abe Rina quickly stepped forward to stop them, their voices filled with disappointment and anger: "Kawachi just died. Are you only concerned with the belts and completely disregard the lives of your comrades?"

The two sides argued incessantly, and a fierce conflict was imminent.

Looking at this group of people who were completely blinded by power, Inui felt disgusted and looked at Mari beside him: "I don't want to get involved in their affairs anymore. You should also sever ties with Meteor Academy as soon as possible."

Ke Zhen, cherishing their past friendship, couldn't bear to abandon everyone, so she gently shook her head and declined Qian Qiao's suggestion.

Seeing this, Qian Qiao didn't want to get entangled any further and turned to leave on his own.

Chapter 205 The Executed Spider Orpheus

During lunchtime, Kikuchi Laundry serves delicate flowing somen noodles.

Keitaro made special preparations in advance, explaining to Takumi Inui and Saya Kimura that it was to take into account their habit of being afraid of getting burned, but in reality, he was full of thoughts of pleasing Saya. He kept getting close to the girl and trying to find all sorts of topics to get closer to her.

Saya, however, always subtly steered the conversation towards Inui Takumi, and it was obvious to everyone that she was more interested in him. Inui Takumi noticed this and each time he responded briefly and perfunctorily, unwilling to engage in further conversation.

Inside the Meteor Academy's temporary base, Kyosuke and Arai repeatedly dialed Sawada and Kimura Saya's contact numbers, but neither answered. The two were convinced that Sawada had escaped after being silenced, and that Saya had also been murdered.