I want to become a Kamen Rider

"minister?"

"what."

Hiiragi Tina cautiously took a step closer and, imitating him, squatted down on the slightly higher step next to her so that the height difference between them wouldn't be so obvious.

"What...what are you sad about?"

She complained:

"Shouldn't you feel a sense of relief, like you've escaped judgment, dodged a hellish ordeal, and survived a disaster? You... scumbag."

The alley was quiet. Normally, a lone man and woman alone together would make her worry about her safety. But the man in front of her was the department head who bullied her all the time, the scumbag who abandoned two incredibly beautiful girls and dragged her away, and Kamen Rider Kuuga.

There was no eagerness to defend himself; he just spoke in a "believe it or not" tone.

"If I said I'm not a scumbag, that I didn't cheat on someone, not even one, would you believe me?"

"..."

Hiiragi Tina remained silent, clearly not believing it.

She saw the minister reach into his hoodie pocket, rummage around, and pull out a flat metal box. He roughly opened the box, pulled out a thin, white, strip-like object, and put it in his mouth without even looking at it.

He mumbled a "hmm?" as if he had just remembered there was someone else next to him, so he took out another one, and without looking up, handed it directly to Tina Hiiragi.

"Do you want it?"

Tina Hiiragi was startled, thinking he was about to start puffing on a cigarette, and quickly waved her hand and took a step back: "I don't smoke! Besides, Captain, as a high school student, it's not good for you to smoke!"

“Look carefully,” the other person’s voice carried a hint of helpless laughter as they brought the “cigarette” closer. “What I’m giving you is…”

Hiiragi Tina looked closely and saw that the white strip had a rounded top and was covered with a bit of icing sugar—it was the kind of cigarette-shaped candy!

"Uh……"

Hiiragi Tina was speechless for a moment, then awkwardly took it and put it in her mouth like he did.

A cloyingly sweet taste of saccharin filled their mouths. The two of them squatted side by side in the alley outside the family restaurant, each with a white "cigarette" in their mouths. The alley was quiet, with only the faint sound of traffic from the distant street. The atmosphere was somewhat stagnant.

If an unsuspecting passerby were to walk by, they would probably really think they were a delinquent couple staking out the place, the kind of pair of delinquent girl and delinquent? Hiiragi Tina thought to herself for no reason.

The minister, with a candy in his mouth and his cheeks slightly puffed out, still spoke in a muffled voice, but the sweetness of the candy seemed to have eased his tense emotions a little: "Don't worry, I don't smoke, drink, gamble, or do drugs. I'm very clean-living. Don't worry about me leading you astray."

"..."

She didn't know what to say, and just silently savored the sweetness in her mouth.

After a moment of silence, she finally mustered the courage to ask the question that had been lingering in her mind: "Captain... is he really Kamen Rider Kuuga?"

“Yes,” the man in front of me answered crisply, even with a sense of entitlement that “what’s the point of asking?” “What, feeling disillusioned?”

"It's so disillusioning!" Tina Hiiragi nodded vigorously, almost dropping the candy in her mouth. She quickly covered it with her hand. "The Kamen Rider Kuuga that I've always admired, who has been protecting everyone with his own hands since the cataclysm, so powerful and aloof... is actually you, Captain. It's really disillusioning."

She still can't connect the hero who protects everyone with the villain who robs and exploits the members; this sense of disparity makes her want to complain.

"Then just separate me from Kongwo." Fan Kang shrugged indifferently, his gaze turning to the distance again.

"Isn't the minister the one fighting?"

"It's me."

"How can you separate them?"

Tina Hiiragi found this logic strange. He was the one who fought, and he was the one who bore everything; how could they be separated?

The minister didn't answer the question again, but just silently sucked on the candy.

Tina Hiiragi had many questions she wanted to ask. About Venarita, about the Otherworldly Knight, about the weeping figure in her dream… each seemed more important than what she wanted to ask next. But perhaps it was because she was squatting next to the captain, seeing a rare, different kind of tiredness in him, unlike his usual shamelessness or playfulness, or perhaps it was the lingering effect of the farce in the restaurant earlier, but she inexplicably blurted out:

"What exactly is the relationship between the minister and those two girls in the restaurant?"

The minister seemed unsurprised by her question and answered quickly and calmly: "Ordinary friends and ordinary disciples."

"They...like you, don't they?"

"Yes, they like me."

"So...Minister, do you like them?"

The minister paused in his chewing, looking down at a tiny blade of grass stubbornly pushing its way through a crack in the ground. In the shadows, his voice was deep and clear:

"I can't like them."

He didn't answer whether he liked it or not; he simply said "no."

Tina Hiiragi considers herself to have some knowledge of the habits of the ultimate creature named Fan Kang, knowledge honed through long periods of oppression and exploitation.

A transfer student from another country, the top of the seven ghost stories of Soubu High School, the man of school fear, with a series of titles, and in private, he is a man with a limited identity as "Kamen Rider Kuuga". Her captain is very similar to Yukinoshita, a person who almost never lies and almost never runs away. No, the captain is much more outrageous than Yukinoshita.

Generally, he only goes against his nature on very rare occasions.

"Why not?" Tina Hiiragi asked, puzzled. "Does becoming a Kamen Rider mean I can't date?"

“Of course.” The minister’s tone carried an all-knowing calmness. “My colleagues, the other knights, many of them work while studying, live ordinary lives, enjoy their youth, and fall in love. Some lazybones and slackers only go into battle when the seed of knighthood is almost completely corrupted, or when disaster truly strikes. In their world, battle is an interlude, life is the main theme.”

"Then... is the world still at peace?" Hiiragi Tina asked, following his words.

“Yes, that’s right.” Fan Kang nodded, finally chewing the candy in his mouth with a crisp “crunch.” He looked up at the sky, which was gradually being dyed deep blue, his voice soft yet carrying an undeniable weight:

"Because I'm fighting."

For some reason, she reached into her bag for the Alien Rider Driver, even though she had already made up her mind to hand the Alien Rider Driver over to the department head and stay away from all of this.

She longed for a real Kamen Rider, not that kind of monster.

"If we don't consider whether it's possible, but only ask whether you want to, whether you like it, does the minister want to be in a relationship?"

"You ask me if I want to, if I like it? Then I can tell you very clearly: I not only want to be in a relationship, I also want to be surrounded by lots of beautiful girls, to maintain ambiguous and complicated relationships with lots and lots of beautiful girls, and to enjoy the youthful daily life of being pursued and admired."

"Ugh...so disgusting!" Hiiragi Tina was so shocked by this blunt and rude declaration that she blurted out, her face full of disgust.

"Yeah, it's disgusting, isn't it? But that's how men are. There's nothing shameful about admitting your desires. What determines a person is their actions, not their thoughts. But if you ask me if I want to, I can tell you with absolute certainty, yes. If you ask me if I like it, the answer is definitely yes. I want to date Ms. Toyokawa, I want to date Mizutani Miyuki, I want to date many beautiful girls. Even you, Maitina, in my eyes..."

His gaze swept over Tina Hiiragi, and just as Tina subconsciously shrank her shoulders in fear, thinking she had entered the captain's hunting range, he suddenly changed the subject:

"Well, okay, you should just forget about it."

Tina Hiiragi instantly exploded: "Captain, that's going too far! I'm a girl, after all!"

Even if she isn't as dazzling as those two, being so directly dismissed is still too hurtful!

"It's not that I dislike you, but Wu Tina is actually very cute."

"Humph."

"How should I put it? I always feel it's because you are so much like I used to be. I lacked courage, I was hopeless, I only knew how to fantasize but never took any action... until I lost those things that I absolutely could not lose."

Fan Kang's voice returned to its usual calm tone, tinged with a hint of reminiscence.

"Although I don't dislike my club member Tina Hiiragi, who can provide me with countless comics and magazines every day, I hate my past self. I hate his laziness, his arrogance, and his mediocrity. I grew up hating that kind of man, and ended up becoming that kind of man myself..."

Just as she was about to habitually retort, "How old are you, Minister?", Hiiragi Tina froze, because the man in front of her naturally uttered the second half of his words, as frank and direct as ever, and as cruel as ever.

"That's why... I chose you to pretend to be my girlfriend. Because I'm confident I won't fall for you."

That's going too far. Given the role the department head assigned to herself in the Service Department as the straight man and the one who makes the sarcastic remarks, she should be making sarcastic remarks in a timely manner and loudly attacking the department head instead.

But she didn't; she simply changed the subject.

A piece of candy fell to the ground, wetting the soil.

"So, in the past and in the future, when a girl confesses her feelings to you, what does the minister actually do?"

"Even if a girl confesses her feelings to me, I can only refuse her."

"Because we have to go to battle?"

"Because we have to fight."

Hiiragi Tina suggested:

"Why don't you just reject those two girls in the restaurant too? That will completely put an end to their hopes!"

Why are you so agitated? Have you considered the possibility that... even if someone is rejected, they still like you and want to wait for you?

Hiiragi Tina was discouraged.

"Then there's no way."

"Yes, then there's nothing we can do."

Fan Kang sighed.

"All I can control is to avoid responding and not to start anything. As for their feelings... I can't just trample on them, can I?"

Just then, Fan Kang raised his hand and glanced at it.

Tina Hiiragi is very familiar with this gesture. The creature named Fan Kang has a habit of having an air watch on his hand. Every time the captain makes this gesture, it means that he is going to find an excuse to skip class.

But this time, she actually saw the "air watch" in the minister's hand.

The watch is jet black, shaped like an electronic watch, and is now flashing red light rapidly. Several red dots are spreading along the edge of the dial.

The minister who had been squatting beside her, complaining and feeling melancholy, had disappeared. What stood up again was a drawn blade—no, the sharpest thing in the world.

"I'm going to fight."

"Huh? Oh! Oh!"

She also instinctively and hurriedly stood up.

"Please tell Ms. Toyokawa and Mizutani Miyuki that they understand I left because of the battle. Also, please tell Mizutani Miyuki, the one you nicknamed 'Bento Girl,' that I'll come back to her after this is over."

"So, who was it that said 'try not to respond or start anything' before?"

"I just do what I say."

Does "keeping one's word" refer to any promise made to the bento girl? Or does it refer to... his destiny as a Kamen Rider, which necessitates fighting?

The minister... no, the one who stood up wasn't the minister she knew, but Kamen Rider Kuuga. Kuuga left behind this thought-provoking remark and then walked away.

She could only watch his back.

The person quickly disappeared into the shadows in the narrow, dark alley.

Then, the flames illuminated the entire long alley.

……

……

Hiiragi Tina straightened her clothes, which had been slightly disheveled by the department head's tugging, turned around, walked out of the back alley, and looked again at the glass door of the family restaurant, which was warmly bathed in the afternoon sun.

She chatted with the minister for a while, but not for too long; the two girls were definitely still there.

She stood a few meters away from the door, took a deep breath, and tried to encourage herself: "It's okay, Tina Hiiragi, it's just passing on a message... The captain said they'll understand..."

Despite being adept at yelling, complaining, and grumbling at the creature named Fan Kang, she was still the most timid and quietest member of the Service Department. Asking her to directly talk to two strangers, especially strangers who might be hostile to her because of Fan Kang, was indeed a bit difficult for her.

After much mental preparation and mental preparation, she hesitantly walked towards the door.

Just a few steps away.

She could even faintly hear the clinking of cups and saucers and indistinct laughter coming from inside the door. Then she raised her hand, her knuckles slightly bent, ready to pull open the separating door.

This is the moment.

The world was torn apart before her eyes.

Without warning, without alarm. It was as if an invisible giant hand suddenly gripped the entire space and then ripped it apart.

"boom--!!!"

The family restaurant exploded.

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Howling Abyss (3K)

one day ago.

The deep blue abyss four thousand meters below the Pacific Ocean proves that even when facing an overwhelming power that dominates an era, there are always those who dare to draw their swords for their own ambitions. If they are all weaklings and cowards, then they have no right to consider themselves enemies of Kamen Rider.

A man in black, holding a military knife, stood there, with a huge dome above his head.

The holographic star map slowly rotated on the dome, and the blue sphere representing Earth was covered by densely packed monitoring nodes representing "minions" and scarlet dots representing "friendly forces," that is, the surviving strongholds of the dark organization, as if the planet had contracted a deadly hemorrhagic fever.

In a certain region of East Asia, a stag beetle mark, burning with golden flames, flashes and enlarges continuously. With each flash, countless red dots are cleared and erased, and with each enlargement, countless "claws" are pulled out and destroyed.