Yuusuke peeked out at the outside scenery from a gap in the closed curtains within the room Keitarou always used.
It was fun seeing the clouds floating in the sky change shape.
The time flew by as he watched the blue sky, gradually dyed with the color of the sunset, and the swaying trees.
Yuusuke was hurt over the once kind Mari growing cold towards him all of a sudden.
Did he do something to bother her?
No matter how much he thought about it, he couldn’t find an answer.
There were times where Mari still tried her best to smile at Yuusuke, but they weren’t the same smiles as before.
It was a smile, yet at the same time, it wasn’t a smile. It held an emotion other than joy or kindness.
Yuusuke did his best to listen to Mari and not go outside.
He didn’t want to go against her orders and make her hate him even more.
Other than gazing out the window, the only thing Yuusuke really did at home was read books.
Yuusuke read pretty much anything he could get his hands on.
He had graduated from comics and picture books and began studying history and science.
He was only five years old, but his brain already held the processing power of a genius.
After reading through countless books, Yuusuke arrived at an extremely simple conclusion.
Humanity is horribly foolish, he thought.
Yuusuke knew full well that he wasn’t a normal person.
And that awareness was connected to a secret he couldn’t ever tell Mari.
Yuusuke never asked Mari or Keitarou about who his parents were even once.
He just thought of Mari, Keitarou, Takumi, and Naoya all being his parents collectively.
But half a year ago, when he started undergoing that rapid growth, he began hearing his mother’s voice.
It all started on a night when he couldn’t sleep well, when the voice rose from deep within his memories.
Yuusuke threw off his blanket and jumped up.
He could clearly remember it.
It was the dying cry of his mother that he heard while still in her womb.
He had heard the cry his mother Yuka made when she had multiple Kaixas slice up her Crane Orphnoch body.
Yuusuke felt pain run through his entire body the same time he heard the voice.
When he was inside Yuka’s stomach, he shared the same pain Yuka felt when she cried out, but now that pain had returned and was piercing through his entire being.
Yuusuke screamed internally as to not let Mari know about it.
Mari didn’t know.
Yuusuke had secretly gone outside multiple times whenever Mari wasn’t around or when she was sleeping.
Yuusuke always set off to wherever there were Kaixas fighting against Orphnochs.
He would sense the Orphnoch’s pain and follow the waves to the battlefield.
It wasn’t that he wanted to save the Orphnochs. He just wanted to defeat the Kaixas.
At first it was just a coincidence.
Guided by a voice he heard in the middle of the night, he jumped out the window and ran towards its direction. Sounds of battle could be heard beyond the fog he came across.
Sounds of fists hitting the enemy, beast-like roars, fighting cries, and swords slashing through the darkness…
When the fog cleared away like curtains spreading open, he could see a Kaixa fighting an Orphnoch.
When the Kaixa turned around upon noticing him, a sensation ran through Yuusuke’s body like an electric shock.
The very next moment, he transformed into something that was neither human nor Orphnoch.
His yellow diamond-like skin turned was hard and transparent, appearing as if a golden light was lighting his body up from within.
The Kaixa tilted his head as he looked at Yuusuke, unsure of what to take of the figure in front of him.
It was Yuusuke who moved first.
He instantly closed this distance between them and thrust his spear hand through the Kaixa’s stomach before allowing him any chance to react.
Yuusuke didn’t know why he attacked the Kaixa first and not the Orphnoch.
It was just that the intense pain from the revived cry of his mother ordered him to do so.
And just like that, the moment he defeated the Kaixa, he felt the pain leave him as if it was never there in the first place.
Yuusuke’s actions mirrored those of Yuka when she was still alive.
The echoes of the mad cries her mother let out when she was born had tortured her mind.
Yuka killed people again and again in order to appease those cries.
She had no other choice if she wanted to continue living.
Without any way of realizing it, Yuusuke had arrived at the same fate of his mother.
On that day, Yuusuke transformed into a shining being and fought against two Kaixas.
He sensed the waves coming from an Orphnoch as usual and rushed out of the house to the battlefield, coming across the Spider Orphnoch facing against two Kaixas.
The Spider Orphnoch used its wire-like threads to seal the movements of one of the Kaixas, but it was unable to defend the attack of the second Kaixa coming from behind, which knocked it down onto its knees.
The moment the Kaixa was about to deliver the final blow with the Blaygun at his hip, Yuusuke stood in the way and transformed.
Yuusuke crushed the two, three energy bullets that launched from the Blaygun with his hand.
Yuusuke’s body began to float in the air, the golden energy emitting from his body growing in intensity until it formed an arrow of light that pierced the Kaixa’s body.
The Kaixa’s body exploded from within, causing blue flames to rise up in the night sky like a large blooming flower.
The Spider Orphnoch bore its fangs into the Kaixa that had been rendered immobile.
The poison instantly flowed into his system, melting his body.
Blackish-red fluid poured out from the metal regions of the Kaixa’s neck, shoulders, elbows, and torso.
After confirming the deaths of the two Kaixas, the Spider Orphnoch undid its transformation and returned to its human form.
His black eyes glinted from beneath his long bangs.
“Who the hell are you?”
The man spoke while looking at Yuusuke.
It was Masato Kusaka.
After having his limbs and lower jaw torn off by the Horse Orphnoch and tossed aside like trash, he was saved by Saya.
She rested Masato, who had been reduced to a daruma-like state, onto a bed and nursed him like a baby.
She took care of feeding him and handling his waste, and she talked about all kinds of things with him while gently stroking his head.
The change in the seasons, how her day was, memories of Ryusei School, and so on…
Masato listened to Saya while his consciousness threatened to fade away with no chance of ever returning.
He thought of Mari as he listened to Saya’s stories of Ryusei School.
Mari was like a light to him.
By thinking of Mari, he gained the courage to hold onto his life.
One day, Saya disappeared.
It happened when she was carrying food to Masato’s mouth.
Her smile crumbled from the wind blowing from the window.
Her face turned into ashes and was carried off by the wind.
Goodbye…
It looked as though that was the last word her mouth formed.
Saya disappeared in front of Masato, and the spoon that was left in the air fell onto the ground.
Masato had been left alone on his bed with no way of moving.
He simply laid there like some kind of object, covered in feces and urine, with pus leaking out the bedsores in his back.
His throat was dry and his body convulsed in hunger.
Even after a month, Masato remained alive.
After two months, Masato began to feel his body melting from the inside.
It was as if his starving body had begun digesting himself.
His body shrunk at an incredible rate.
After three months, what was left on the bed couldn’t even be considered Masato anymore.
It was a bizarre brown object resembling a hornet nest.
And then Masato was finally allowed to die.
After some time, suddenly Masato returned from the blackened world of the dead.
It was like a sense of vitality like no other was guiding him.
Masato’s body slowly began to regenerate.
After limbs grew out of his hornet nest-like remains, his eyes opened.
His body warped as he reclaimed his former shape.
And so, Masato returned to the world of the living by being granted the life of an Orphnoch.
After rescuing Masato from Kaixas, Yuusuke began to run into him occasionally.
“Who the hell are you?”
That question struck a chord within Yuusuke.
Yuusuke wanted to know the answer to it more than anyone else.
He had interest in what exactly Orphnochs were as well.
He was neither human nor Orphnoch. Or to put it another way, perhaps he was both human and Orphnoch at the same time.
While Masato may have questioned Yuusuke’s identity, he had already known about his existence since a little while back.
The first thing Masato did after he revived as an Orphnoch was to visit Mari.
But he was unable to show himself in front of her.
If he appeared in front of her after being horribly torn apart by the Horse Orphnoch, she would immediately learn of the truth. There was no doubt that she’d realize he was an Orphnoch.
He was hesitant over having that happen.
Mari might have feared him as an Orphnoch.
Not just that, Masato was scared of the instinct that rose from deep inside him.
Kill them… Kill them…
He was scared that he would get consumed by that voice and murder Mari.
Masato instead chose to watch over Mari from the shadows.
He would be able to keep the voice inside him in check if he kept his distance, and he would be able to protect her from other Orphnochs as well.
As Masato protected Mari, he eventually learned of Yuusuke’s existence.
Takumi and Keitarou and Naoya had all disappeared, and a young man he had never seen before was now living with Mari in their place.
Masato found interest in Yuusuke.
By putting together the pieces, he was able to easily figure out that Yuusuke was a human and Orphnoch hybrid.
Masato recalled Yuka.
He knew that Yuka had a human child inside her.
Back when he was Kaixa, he was supposed to capture her due to her status as a precious sample, but her unexpected resistance led him to kill her.
Perhaps that child from back then had survived.
When asked “Who the hell are you?”, Yuusuke responded with…
“What are Orphnochs? What are humans?”
The ends of Masato’s lips twisted into a smile.
And he laughed mockingly inside his head.
I see, looks like this kid’s an idiot.
Masato sent out a wave that only Orphnochs could hear and brought Yuusuke to a park not too far from his house to talk to him.
“Humans are the darkness.”
Every time they met, Masato would poison Yuusuke’s mind little by little.
“You should know. Humans carry the darkness known as ‘themselves’.”
A maidenhair tree thought to be over three thousand years old stood in the middle of the park.
The park was colored with a vivid yellow from the innumerous wilted leaves that fell from the tree.
The overwhelming fermented smell the fallen leaves gave off of was enough to induce vomit if one were to breathe it in for too long.
“The humans are devouring this world. They can’t survive without eating it up. One day their darkness will cover the entire world.”
“Then what are Orphnochs?” asked Yuusuke.
The autumn wind blew with a crisp sound, creating the illusion of the yellow leaves gathering at Yuusuke’s feet like ripples.
“The light,” responded Masato.
“Orphnochs cut through the darkness of the humans. They tear apart the darkness and bring light.”
“Then what am I?”
Yuusuke asked while looking up at the sky.
He suddenly thought of Keitarou as he stared at the clear night sky.
He couldn’t remember Takumi or Naoya very well because he was too young at the time.
But for some reason Keitarou’s smile would occasionally show up within his heart.
“That’s for you to decide,” responded Masato.
“Right now you’re in between the light and the darkness. Are you the dawn or are you the dusk? Are you heading to the darkness or are you heading to the light? You need to be the one to decide.”
He’s right, I’m not really anywhere right now, thought Yuusuke.
Am I the dusk or the dawn?
Kamen Rider Novel Translations 