"Alright, tonight when we get back, you can bite me wherever you want," Raven said, looking at Natsumi Hikari.
"Pah! Where exactly do you think you're biting?" Natsumi snapped, immediately releasing her grip. Her face flushed a deep crimson as she instantly caught the subtext of Raven's words.
Meanwhile, Tsukasa Kadoya noticed the Faiz Driver lying right at his feet. He reached down and picked it up.
So this is the Faiz belt? It seems using it requires meeting certain conditions, Tsukasa mused.
"Tsukasa, hand that belt over to me."
Daiki Kaito rose from the fountain pool, looking slightly disheveled, and approached Tsukasa.
"I told you before… I'm going to be a thorn in your side."
Tsukasa, naturally, had no intention of handing it over. He flicked out an Attack Ride card.
[ATTACK RIDE: SLASH]
Across from him, Daiki Kaito was forced to pull out his own card.
[ATTACK RIDE: BLAST]
The two immediately engaged in their first real clash, testing their marksmanship as they traded shots.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
"What do you even want with the Faiz Driver?" Tsukasa asked curiously mid-skirmish.
The man could already transform into a Kamen Rider and even summon others to do his bidding. Why was he so fixated on a belt with such strict usage restrictions?
"The Faiz Gear was developed by a certain corporation in the past. It is an extremely rare treasure," Daiki Kaito replied, his obsession with rarity bordering on the abnormal.
"Treasure?"
"There are many precious treasures sleeping in this world, far beyond our imagination," Daiki continued. "And I intend to make them all mine."
"So, you're just a thief," Tsukasa said flatly.
Daiki Kaito fell silent for a few seconds upon hearing that, then lunged forward, launching a fierce assault on Decade. However, Decade was no pushover. After a brief exchange of blows, neither could gain the upper hand.
Just as Daiki prepared to summon some "muscle" to tip the scales, he saw Raven and Natsumi approaching from the distance. This sparked a sudden urge to retreat. He could tell that Raven's previous show of dominance wasn't reliant on the Faiz belt alone.
"Tsukasa, I will have that belt."
Slapping an Invisible card into his Driver, Diend vanished into thin air.
…
That evening, the group returned to the Hikari Studio.
Yuri Tomoda arrived, bringing with her the pink camera that Tsukasa had left behind at their club earlier.
"Here."
"Thanks." Tsukasa took his beloved camera back.
Natsumi invited Yuri to sit down for some tea. They began to talk about Takumi Ogami.
"I don't understand... why would he transform into Faiz to fight his own kind?" Tsukasa asked, genuinely puzzled.
"I... I don't know," Yuri replied, her voice trembling. It was clear she hadn't yet processed the day's revelations.
She opened the photo album in her hands. It was filled with pictures of Takumi she had taken herself.
"Takumi looks like he's having a lot of fun in these photos," Natsumi said, sitting beside Yuri. She was dressed in black over-the-knee stockings, leaning in to look.
"But it was all an act," Yuri said, her voice laced with hurt. "I didn't know anything. I didn't know he was Faiz, and I certainly didn't know he was an Orphnoch."
"The Takumi I knew... wasn't the real him."
Tsukasa felt a stir of emotion hearing those words. He raised his camera and snapped a photo of the album in Yuri's hands.
"The real face, huh?" he muttered softly.
"Eh?" Yuri looked at him, confused.
Tsukasa shifted into his "Life Mentor" mode, speaking with the gravitas of a teacher.
"No matter how many photos you take, you'll never capture the exact same expression twice."
"You can't recreate a single moment, and that's exactly why we take pictures, isn't it?"
"Takumi's... expression..." Yuri looked down at the photo of Takumi again.
"It's actually quite interesting. Suddenly, I really want to go and capture that guy's expression," Tsukasa added.
…
The next day.
Tsukasa, carrying the Faiz Driver, found Takumi Ogami in a park. Just as he was thinking of how to encourage the boy to step out from the shadows, that stalker Daiki Kaito appeared again.
"You again," Tsukasa said, sounding annoyed.
"Tsukasa, I told you. I'm getting that belt," Daiki said calmly. "Are you planning on giving it back to him?"
"I just came to take a picture of his face," Tsukasa replied nonchalantly. "Besides, even if I gave it to him now, he probably wouldn't want it. To him, there's something much more important than this."
"Something far more important than the Faiz Gear... something that must never be discarded."
Takumi froze, his heart a whirlwind of complex emotions. Daiki Kaito, however, completely misinterpreted the sentiment.
"Something more valuable than the Faiz Gear? Impossible," Daiki dismissed the idea. He leveled his Diendriver at Tsukasa. "Give it to me, Tsukasa."
Tsukasa reacted instantly, reaching for his Ride Booker to retaliate.
Bang! Bang!
But Daiki was faster. His shots were precise, knocking the card case right out of Tsukasa's hand and into the air. With a series of expert trick shots, Daiki juggled the device through the air with bullets until it landed perfectly in his grasp.
"Not such a great treasure after all," Daiki remarked, glancing at the Decade card case.
Tsukasa's face darkened as he stared Daiki down. Suddenly, a shimmering curtain appeared behind him—a Dimensional Wall.
The wall swept through Tsukasa's body, forcibly pulling him through the rift and depositing him on a beach in a completely different world.
At that moment, a man who hadn't shown his face in a long time, the ultimate Decade hater, Narutaki, finally emerged.
"Narutaki," Daiki Kaito noted, eyeing the man.
On the other side of the rift, Tsukasa pounded desperately against the Dimensional Wall, but to no avail. At this stage, he had not yet awakened his own ability to control the walls. He was stuck watching as others used his signature move with frustrating ease.
"Thank you, Diend. Thanks to you, I've finally dealt with that nuisance."
Narutaki stepped through the Dimensional Wall to face Daiki. Then, the wall behind him began to move, carrying Narutaki away until they both vanished.
———————
Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over here ——— pa-tre-on.c-om/AlexandrusTL [remove the hyphen for normal access]