I want to become a Kamen Rider

I want to become a Kamen Rider! (This is a title/title of a novel/book.)

[Dansaburo Higashijima, Tina Hiiragi, and Ken Fan all want to become Kamen Riders]

What kind of expression lies beneath the mask?

[Traditional knight fiction; no prior knowledge of knights or crossover anime will hinder your reading experience]

"That day, the white ringed beast leaped onto my windowsill for the last time."

"'This is the last time. Sign a contract with me and become a Kamen Rider,' said the creature that called itself Kyubey."

"Okay, I agree."

"If this life is still of use and can help others in some way, then take it."

Chapter ? Hero

You have wasted your years, and the years have wasted you; you have yet to write a poem. — Jorge Luis Borges

......

......

"Come to think of it, I've never asked you why you wanted to become a hero."

"When I was young, I aspired to be a hero, not because I found any special meaning in helping others..."

At the highest point in Tokyo, Tokyo Skytree, atop a spire that is usually off-limits to humans, stands a human and a beast.

A pure white circular beast sat atop the man's shoulder, listening to him recount stories from his childhood.

"Just because I think it looks cool..."

His robes fluttered in the wind and waves at an altitude of 634 meters.

"He loves to daydream, wants to be in the spotlight, and craves recognition from others..."

The man spoke softly.

"It wasn't for any noble reason, just a childlike, innocent desire to be the center of attention."

The man, dressed in a tough and rugged style, seemed more like the kind of mascot that would appear in a little girl's whimsical fantasy, with a pure white and adorable appearance. He tilted his head.

"But why are you willing to go to this extent now?"

"Because they're all calling me... a hero..."

The jet-black gem was pulled from the pocket and tossed into the air, shattering instantly into countless black specks of light.

"If I run away, wouldn't the word 'hero' seem pathetic?"

Reaching out to grab the point of light, what he grasped in his hand was no longer shattered brilliance, but a silver belt.

The silver belt, which is said to only respond to the right heart, snapped shut the moment it was placed around the man's waist. Even though there were no spectators around, he still dutifully waved his arms and twisted his body.

Complete, the final transformation.

"You'll probably die after this transformation."

The silver-white armor was not applied piece by piece, but rather grew and spread from the waist like living coral, with blue-green arcs of electricity bursting from the joints, and the knight stood atop the tower.

With his movements, the cracks in the belt increased.

The mascot perched on the knight's shoulder, speaking in a cute tone about a reality that was anything but cute.

"Is that okay...? Tsk, even at this point, you haven't given up hope."

"So, it really was a losing deal, Cupid?"

"Indeed, it was a losing proposition... Hero."

The mascot let out an evil laugh that didn't match its posture, and the knight joined in with a hearty laugh. The laughter of the man and the beast echoed and intertwined at a height of over 600 meters.

“Do you remember?” His combat boots rolled over the frosted tempered glass at the top of the tower, cracks spreading like a spider web. “When we first met, I asked you for the power to become a hero. You said that what the people of this world need are miracles, not heroes.”

"But now you're even willing to abandon the human body."

“Because miracles are too lonely.” The knight raised his arm atop the tower. “As for heroes…” In the direction of Tokyo Bay, the outline of the behemoth’s dorsal fin tearing through the sky was becoming clearer. “At least they could hear cheers, right?”

The raised arm fell, the silver armor turned crimson, then from red to blue, from blue to purple, until finally, the purple returned to a bright red, and the red faded away.

All that remained was... complete darkness.

In the distance, the colossal beast roared, shattering rows of glass curtain walls. But even louder than the roar were the shouts of "Kamen Riders" echoing from the Tokyo Bay breakwater, rising into the clouds on the sea breeze.

Just as the cracked belt was fastened for the last time, the tempered glass of many observation decks beneath the Skytree shattered simultaneously, and the 41,000-ton steel frame structure bent into a perfect bow shape beneath its feet.

As the last piece of black armor clung to his skin, the man beneath the mask grinned:

"It's about to happen."

He knelt, and the entire tower collapsed.

With a single kick, the entire Tokyo Bay disappeared.

……

……

Dusk fell like a basin of cooled ink being poured into the living room.

The boy knelt on the tatami mat, his exam paper pressed under his knees. The old-fashioned CRT television was humming like electricity, reflecting rainbow-colored noise in his pupils.

"Transform!"

A crisp metallic clanging sound came from the screen.

He tossed aside the remote, stood up, and clumsily imitated the figure on TV.

The movements he's made are distorted and not at all attractive or cool, but for someone his age, he is, at this moment, a hero wearing a mask.

"Seriously, how many times have I seen this?"

"Because he's really handsome."

The mother's voice was shattered into pieces by the roar of the ultimate attack.

On the screen, the hero's knight kick traces a comet-like trajectory in the air, and he cranes his neck, mimicking the movements and shouting out the moves.

At the same time, the boy made a wish.

"When I grow up, I'm going to become a Kamen Rider."

Chapter Zero (Full Marks)

"When I grew up, I was unable to become a Kamen Rider."

"That's something we should have known and realized long ago: there are no Kamen Riders or heroes in this world."

The vibrations from the armored vehicle chassis rolling over concrete debris are transmitted into the spine through the shock-absorbing seats.

Like a man who stepped out of the Kamen Rider Kuuga movie set wearing a suit, he tilted his head and looked at his dead-fish-eyed colleague.

"If that's the case, what kind of armor are you wearing now?"

"It's just an outfit, Hachiman."

Fan Kang tapped the composite steel ceramic plate on his chest with his index finger, then shook his head with a smile.

Outside the bulletproof glass windows, the wreckage of the tilted office building is flowing backward, with the steel bars on the top floor hanging down to the street like withered vines, and the neon words "New Shibuya" still recognizable on the burning billboards.

"What determines whether you're a Kamen Rider—this outfit or that belt?"

"neither."

"Then get up."

The armored vehicle stopped, the doors swung open, and a colleague named Hachiman Hikigaya, wearing a mask that replaced his dead fish eyes with Agito's crimson ones, extended his hand, pointed ahead, and invited him:

"Let's become heroes."

Taking the arm, Fan Kang took a deep breath and jumped off the armored vehicle.

……

……

"D Squad, Kuuga, Agito, I'm counting on you!"

The shouts in the headset pulled me back to reality.

The clattering sound of the radiation rain hitting the armor grew more and more intense. Known as Kuuga, he wiped away the green acid dripping from his visor, revealing glaring red text flashing on his retinal projection: Armor Integrity 91%.

Three hundred meters away, the dorsal fin of that colossal beast was cleaving through the leaden-gray clouds, each bone spur gleaming with a blue light like a nuclear furnace.

"Crossfire!" Hachiman's roar blared through the communicator.

With the Gauss rifle pressed against his shoulder, he rolled to dodge the sweeping tail of the attack, concrete fragments grazing his head like shrapnel.

My heart was pounding violently, and my abdomen felt as heavy as if it were filled with water. Looking up and back, I saw a giant beast plowing through the high-rise buildings made of reinforced concrete and dismantling the earth paved with mud, stones, and bricks. The heavy footsteps were right behind me.

It was an unfathomable, endless abyss, an ancient darkness beyond the comprehension of these eyes, an unspeakable terror and trembling. In the darkness, a huge, scarlet demonic eye quietly opened. He could sense that the scarlet, fiery pupil, though merely open, seemed to be burning fiercely, and was staring at him.

The crimson light failed to illuminate the space, but it was enough for him to vaguely discern... what a terrifying monster the owner of those eyes was, with a body as tall and majestic as mountain peaks, covered in scales and armor, and scarlet demonic eyes that shone with an eerie light. Step by step, as the heavens and earth trembled, the behemoth approached.

"Are you kidding..."

Looking at such a monster, humans, who have fallen from the top of the food chain, simply cannot muster the courage.

He was already unusually remarkable that he could barely stop trembling, suppress his instinct to submit to that awe-inspiring light, and resist the urge to give up and wait for death.

"I will create opportunities."

"Hikigaya!"

A farewell voice, mixed with noise, came through the headset, and then the signal connection with Agito was cut off. He turned his head and saw only a figure walking forward.

The knight raced through the destructive breath of the behemoth, carving out a path of hope for his comrades to continue their journey.

He witnessed Agito's right arm armor vaporize in a stream of blue-white light, and his staggering figure was swallowed by the overturned asphalt road.

Roar--!

A deafening roar resounded before our eyes, shaking the heavens and earth, and shattering the world.

He clenched his fists and took a step forward.

Not only him, but almost every colleague who took over the knight's armor and became a "knight" complained more than once that this kind of work, with such enemies, should be the job of the Giant of Light.

However, the distant M78 nebula offered no help, and humanity had to rely on its own courage to become "knights."

"Kuuga, Kuuga, Agito has lost contact..."

“Agito is dead. I will take over the rest of the work.”

Simply responding to the call in his headset, he pulled out the carbon grappling hook from his tactical belt, the new nanofibers drawing a bright silver arc in the radiation rain.

When the grappling hook gripped the giant beast's fifth dorsal fin, its entire skeleton creaked under the force of gravity.

"Worked! Continue..." The squad leader's cheers came to an abrupt halt.

As the roar ceased, molten lava-like spots of light suddenly emanated from the beast's chest cavity, and the atomic breath that had once destroyed Yokohama Port was taking shape.

He released the grappling hook and leaped in the opposite direction of the surging blue-white light.

The sounds of objects breaking and disintegrating echoed one after another, the sounds of the behemoth tearing apart everything that dared to stand in its way. And these sounds grew closer and closer, announcing his imminent fate of being overtaken by the behemoth.

The shadow of death loomed over him, but his movements did not become sluggish. Whether it was the terrifying roar of a behemoth or the breath that seemed to crush everything, he tried his best to suppress the fear in his heart.

Humans cannot eliminate their fears and forge ahead. There are no fearless people in the world. Even the bravest person can only move forward with their own fears.

The armored joints emitted a dying groan.

Looking up at the surging nuclear energy spots in the giant beast's chest, I recalled how, at the knight training base, almost every instructor would tirelessly repeat the same thing over and over again: "Remember, when it begins to accumulate energy, these coral crystals will temporarily lose their biomagnetic field protection."

At this moment, the fluorescent green symbiotes were violently trembling on the surface of the giant beast, as if countless miniature volcanoes were erupting in unison.

"Maximum power of the carbon fiber hook!"

With a roar, he inserted his left hand into the emergency connector at his waist, and the nanofibers instantly taut into silver strings.

Like a tidal wave, atomic breaths tore through the rain curtain, weaving into a dense map of weaknesses in his retinal projection.