“Good work, Rinko Daimon.”
Kizaki adjusted his glasses after reading my report.
I secretly let out a breath of relief. It’s been a while since I’ve been assigned here, but I never fail to get nervous whenever I stand in front of this person.
Masanori Kizaki is a talented man who has, on numerous occasions, proved why he was selected to be a superintendent of Security Section 0. But at the same time, he can be a little awkward, and has an air about him that makes it hard for people to approach him. Back when I first met him, he often treated Haruto and me with disdain while having plenty of unpleasant things to say about us.
However, I owe a lot of things to this man. After all, it was none other than Kizaki himself who pulled the strings to allow a mere detective like me to transfer to Security Section 0.
Security Section 0, officially known as National Security Bureau Section 0, is a security force that’s higher up than the police who specialize in cases involving unidentified lifeforms such as Phantoms as well as other kinds of supernatural incidents. If the need calls for it, they even manipulate information so as to not disturb public order and resolve cases behind the scenes… It’s pretty much like a secret organization that the average person doesn’t even know exists.
Back when I was rescued by Haruto and first learned about the existence of Phantoms, I was in a dilemma where I couldn’t pursue the Phantoms freely due to my position as a fresh detective. However, after Kizaki recognized my efforts in assisting Haruto’s battles against the Phantoms, he allowed me to become a member of Security Section 0 who can protect the people against the Phantoms with pride.
That being said, almost all the Phantoms created by the Sabbath have already been taken care of by Haruto’s efforts. Our job is to see if there are any remnant Phantoms lurking out there in society, which mainly consists of investigating any documents or facilities related to magic that Fueki left behind, such as the underground room where I was attacked by that homunculus.
Kizaki spoke curtly as he looked at the report.
“Arrange for the underground room to be thoroughly investigated as soon as possible. Once all preparations are complete, take command at the scene again.”
“Understood.”
My talks with Kizaki are always quick and practical. I made a bow and began to walk out of the room.
“Wait.”
My legs jerked to a stop as I heard Kizaki’s voice pierce my back. Was there something wrong with my report? Maybe I shouldn’t have pulled an all-nighter trying to finish it while dozing off in the process… I started to break out into a cold sweat.
“How’s Haruto Souma doing…?”
I couldn’t help but let out a “Huh?” as I turned around. Kizaki, who was looking at me, made a cough as he returned his eyes down to the report.
“Is he still bed-ridden?”
“Yes…”
I nodded in slight unease.
The day after we went to that underground room, Haruto suddenly got a severe fever and has been in bed ever since. Maybe the same thing that got me feeling unwell ended up getting to him too, but I’ve been feeling just fine ever since then. Four days have passed and we still have no idea what could have caused his fever.
It appeared that Kizaki understood everything from my voice, and he spoke with his eyes still down on the report.
“I see. Tell him to take it easy and leave the rest to us.”
My eyes grew wide upon hearing him say something that was so unlike him. Actually, maybe it wasn’t that unlike him. This is just the kind of person he is. Even though he often takes a stern attitude toward those around him, he has a considerate side that peeks out every once in a while. But since he’s so awkward, it ends up being a little cute.
“…What are you smiling for?”
He glared at me from behind his glasses. Uh-oh. I guess my face loosened up a little too much from seeing how cute he was.
“I-It’s nothing. Excuse me.”
After fixing my face and bowing my head, I quickly left the room.
Once I exited Section 0, I headed straight for Omokagedo.
Omokagedo is an antique shop Haruto lives at, run by a nice old man named Shigeru Wajima. It’s an old shop with a really run-down… I mean, cultured atmosphere to it.
Wajima was also someone who ended up getting involved with the Fueki incident, and after feeling guilt over contributing to it all without knowing by crafting magic rings, he decided to let Haruto live in his shop.
Upon opening the door to the shop, Wajima poked out of his workshop and greeted me with a friendly welcome like always. He must have been working on a new handicraft, since his face was dotted with some the shavings of some kind of material.
“Hey, Rinko. Sorry to have you come here every day.”
“It’s no problem. How’s Haruto doing?”
“It looks like his fever’s finally starting to go down.”
“Really? Thank goodness.”
I walked toward the back of the shop with relief and made my way up the stairs to Haruto’s room.
Once I reached his room, I could see Haruto sleeping like a baby in his bed through the open doorway.
I silently stepped into the room, careful not to wake him up, and began gently wiping his sweat-covered face with the towel that was next to his pillow.
(…So this is what his face is like.)
It’s been quite some time since I began to work with Haruto, but I’ve rarely ever gotten a chance to get a good look at his face from the front. I’m only familiar with his profile from when he’s busy fighting, and whenever it’s just the two of us talking, it’s almost always something in regards to the Phantoms. I never had the leisure to just stare at his face.
Now that I think about it, I don’t think we’ve had many opportunities to just have a casual chat together.
Haruto has never been one to talk much about himself in the first place. It might be because he lost his parents at a young age and had to grow up living all by himself, but he’s always cracking light jokes with that carefree smile of his. He almost never shows any weaknesses, and even when he does, it’s only on rare occasions.
For someone like me who whines all the time while going through all kinds of ups and downs, I can’t help but really respect Haruto, but I still sometimes think that it wouldn’t hurt if he could at least try to show us more sides of him.
Haruto tries to deal with everything on his own too much. Like his responsibility as a magician, his battles with the Phantoms… and everything that went on with Koyomi too.
When Koyomi left Haruto with those parting words of “I want to rest in peace”, he ended up putting the ring of Hope that held her soul deep into his own heart. I can’t help but feel like ever since then, he’s been pushing himself more than ever.
Sora, and then Ogre… The fact that he’s had the Philosopher’s Stone stolen from him not once but twice must be subconsciously putting a lot of pressure on him. In fact, his fever right now might even be a result of his body finally breaking down from all those things he’s tried to carry all by himself.
(I wish I could lighten his load even by a little bit…)
But no matter how much I might wish for that, it’s just not possible for me. Not only am I unable to do anything, I even end up relying on him all the time. Quietly staying by his side like this is one of the only things I’m able to do for him. Cursing my powerlessness as I silently gazed at Haruto’s sleeping face, I let out a sigh.
“Rinko…?”
Haruto slowly opened his eyes.
“Sorry, did I wake you?”
I jumped a little and quickly pulled the towel away from his face.
“It’s fine. I should be the one apologizing for making you worry.”
“Not at all. Anyway, how are you feeling? Wajima said that your fever is coming down.”
“Yeah. My body’s feeling a lot lighter too. The pain I felt yesterday feels like a dream.”
Hearing Haruto say that, it really did seem like he was doing a lot better than yesterday. I felt a bit relieved.
As if trying to show that he’d gotten better, he slowly raised himself up and continued talking.
“It might be that Koyomi came to save me.”
An unexpected name left Haruto’s lips.
“Koyomi…?”
“Yeah. Last night… I had a dream about her.”
My heart made a small twinge upon hearing those words.
“What kind of dream…?”
I pushed myself to respond calmly. Haruto showed no sign of noticing the shift in my composure as he went to explain his dream.
“It was a weird dream. Koyomi was standing over my sleeping head. But she would just stare at me without saying anything.”
I was reminded of Koyomi’s black eyes that always looked at Haruto with a kind gaze.
“So I tried to call out to her multiple times, but she wouldn’t respond at all. And when I woke up, my fever turned out to have gone down.”
Watching Haruto talk about Koyomi with such affection made my chest hurt for some reason.
“What’s wrong, Rinko?”
Haruto noticed my silence and looked at my face with worry.
“Oh, it’s nothing. I was just thinking that it really was a weird dream… So basically, you’re saying that Koyomi might’ve taken away the bad stuff that was inside you, right?”
I tried to smooth over me temporarily spacing out, to which Haruto responded with a “Yeah” with a big smile on his face.
Trying to hold down the stirring in my heart from that smile of his, I changed the topic.
“By the way, I have a message from Kizaki for you. He said ‘take it easy and leave the rest to us.’”
Haruto snickered.
“That’s not like him. Knowing him, he’s probably planning on working me to death again once I get better.”
Despite his words, Haruto actually trusts Kizaki from the bottom of his heart. I know that even though their personalities and methods might differ, they still respect each other for sharing the same desire of wanting to protect people.
“I know it’s partly my fault for calling you all the time, but you seriously overwork yourself. You should just focus on resting and let Mayu and the others take care of the rest.”
Mayu Inamori is a magician just like Haruto. Yuzuru Iijima and Masahiro Yamamoto as well. The three of them all are people with strong hearts who managed to resist falling into despair when they got attacked by Phantoms. They all became magicians as part of Fueki’s scheme, but just like Haruto, they’ve been assisting Section 0 for the sake of protecting the people.
“I guess I’ll take you up on that and just rest for now. Tell the three of them to do enough so that Kizaki doesn’t have to work me to the bone.”
Maybe it’s because he’s feeling a little better now, but he ended up cracking one of his usual light jokes.
When I walked out of the room, my eyes went to the end of the hallway. There was a closed room down there. The room that Koyomi used.
Wajima told me that Haruto asked him to keep her room as is.
I recalled the dream that Haruto had of Koyomi.
Koyomi’s place in Haruto’s heart is still as strong as ever…
I started to feel emotional and quickly ran down the stairs.
The incident occurred that night.
One of the magicians, Yamamoto, got attacked by someone.
He got caught up in the incident in the middle of heading home after going shopping. There were witness reports of the perpetrator fleeing the scene as well. However, Yamamoto is a magician. He may not be a professional when it comes to combat, but he’s still not someone that could get taken down by your average ruffian.
After learning about what happened, I rushed to the hospital where Yamamoto was brought to.
I asked about the details as I made my way there.
“How’s his condition?”
“No notable external wounds and his brain seems to be fine, but… he’s unconscious.”
“What does that mean…?”
“I don’t know. The only thing that’s for sure is that he’s physically drained to a considerable degree.”
It didn’t seem that the nurse knew any more than that. I hurried to his hospital room.
Upon entering the room, I could see Yamamoto in a comatose state in bed receiving drip-feed, with her wife next to him carrying a small baby in her arms.
When his wife saw me come in, she let out a voice that sounded like she was about to cry at any moment.
“Will he be okay? What in the world happened to him…?!”
“We don’t know the details yet, but I’m sure he’ll be fine, so don’t worry.”
The wife then sat back down on her chair with a big sigh.
I took another look at the bed-ridden Yamamoto.
He really did seem to be lacking in external wounds for someone who had been assaulted. In fact, when looking at him like this, he didn’t look any different from someone just taking a nap.
(There was once a Phantom who destroyed people’s hearts by jumping into them. Don’t tell me it’s the same thing this time around…)
A bad feeling started to spread through my head.
I then heard a sharp whining voice from behind. Upon turning around, I saw that the baby in the wife’s arms had started crying loudly.
“It’s okay, Daddy will get better soon. It’s okay, it’s okay…”
As she said that, her eyes overflowed with tears as they gazed at Yamamoto laying in bed next to her, and the hands carrying her baby were trembling slightly.
Worries like this are probably commonplace for anyone with a magician as a partner. My chest squeezed as I related with the wife on a deep level.
The incidents continued to happen.
The next day, this time it was Yuzuru who was attacked by an unknown entity, in broad daylight at that.
Apparently, he was targeted when he was alone after he split off from his friends on his way home from middle school. However, just like Yamamoto, he had no apparent external wounds, and was left in an extremely exhausted unconscious state.
When I arrived at the hospital, I found Yuzuru lying on a bed right next to Yamamoto’s. Yamamoto’s wife wasn’t here today, but in her place were Mayu and Nitou who had rushed here after hearing the news.
Nitou was gritting his teeth with his fists clenched.
“Yuzuru’s just a damn kid! I don’t know who the hell’s behind this, but I swear I’ll make them pay!”
Nitou’s anger was palpable, being that he’s someone who cares for Yuzuru more than anyone else.
Nitou Kousuke is a magician, but he’s a bit different from Haruto and the rest.
During his explorations as an archeologist in the making, he found a belt in an ancient ruin he was investigating, which allowed him to transform into the Ancient Magician known as the “Archetype”.
For some reason, he sees Haruto as a rival, and due to his freewheeling personality, he mainly operates on his own, taking an “I’ll help out if I feel like it” stance in regards to assisting Section 0. But since he’s a kind-hearted person by nature, he never fails to come rushing onto the scene when the need calls for it. He especially feels responsible for not being strong enough to prevent Yuzuru from becoming a magician, even though that was the result of Fueki’s schemes, and that’s why he came here as fast as possible.
Mayu looked at the two comatose patients as she opened her mouth.
“Since they’ve both been put into the same state, I suppose we can assume that they were attacked by the same person. But why these two of all people…?”
“Why indeed…”
I actually had a guess in mind, but I refrained from saying it out loud.
“Was it because they’re both magicians…?”
But she ended up coming to the same conclusion as me anyway.
That’s right. The perpetrator is most likely attacking magicians… I didn’t want to worry Mayu any more than necessary, but being as smart as she is, she already arrived at the answer.
The high schooler Mayu is quite mature for her age, and she has a strong desire to prove her worth as a magician as well. But in the end, she’s still a normal girl. I could see her face crease with worry realizing the imminent danger that layed in wait for her.
“We still don’t know that for sure, but you can never be too careful. I’ll stay with you tonight so don’t worry.”
I don’t know if my words helped put her mind at ease, but she responded with a small nod.
“All right!
Nitou, who had been quiet for a while, suddenly stood up with a shout. He then proceeded to head straight out of the room, but I called out to him.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m gonna find the guy that did this to Yuzuru.”
“But-”
“Lemme stop you right there.”
Nitou cut me off with his usual line.
“You were probably gonna say that I might get targeted since I’m a magician, right? A pinch is a chance. It’ll make things easier for me if they decide to show up in front of me.”
He then said goodbye with a pompous hand gesture and left the room.
Geez… Nitou’s always like this. He never bothers to completely listen to what someone has to say, choosing to instead fill the rest with his own interpretation and going off to do his own thing. I just wanted to tell him not to go anywhere since it’d be safer if we all stuck together.
Mayu made a wry smile as she saw me let out a sigh.
By the time we left the hospital, it was already completely nighttime.
I was walking to my car in the parking lot so that I could give Mayu a ride home. Mayu said that she wanted to get something to drink so she was currently buying a soda from the vending machine at the corner nearby.
I got in my car and was about to turn on the engine.
Just then, I suddenly heard a scream. It came from the corner that Mayu was at.
I jumped out of my car and rushed in her direction.
When I turned the corner, a running Mayu slammed into me. She trembled in fear as she grabbed onto me.
“What happened? Why’d you scream?”
“Look…!”
The dark silhouette of a person stood in the direction of Mayu’s pointing finger.
I couldn’t tell if they were a man or a woman. After all, they were covered with a black hooded cloak that stretched from the tip of their head all the way to their feet.
“Who are you…?”
I put Mayu behind me as I made a step forward.
“Oh geez. And here I thought she was alone.”
I couldn’t see his face because it was mostly covered by the hood, but his voice told me that he was a man.
“Answer me! Who are you? What do you want with Mayu?”
I could see his mouth at the bottom of his hood soften in response to my question.
“You really are a feisty one, Rinko darling.”
R-Rinko… darling?
I found myself stunned at his overly-familiar way of addressing me.
“What?! I have no idea who you are, but you have no right to be calling me something like that!”
The man then responded mockingly.
“Sorry, but I don’t have the time for a lover’s quarrel right now.”
A lover’s quarrel?! Don’t give me that! Having completely lost my cool, I walked right up to the man’s face without thinking.
He then took out a hand from underneath his black cloak and knocked me to the side of the street with a shockwave.
“Sorry, I’ll be more gentle next time.”
After directing that remark to me, he began slowly walking to Mayu.
I tried to get up, but the damage from getting knocked aside meant I wasn’t able to do it right away.
“Run!”
I screamed to Mayu.
“But…”
The moment Mayu looked at me with a face that said “I couldn’t possibly leave you behind”, the cloaked man quickly drew close to her and pulled something out from her pocket. It was the ring that summons her magic belt.
“What are you doing?! Give those back!”
“I’m just borrowing it for a bit. I’ll give it back soon enough.”
The man cloaked in black grabbed the struggling Mayu’s hand, and after sliding the ring onto her finger, he waved her hand over her hand-shaped buckle, causing her magic belt to manifest around her waist.
“You’re forcing me to transform…?”
Mayu’s face twisted in fear.
“Don’t be silly. You’re way prettier when you’re not transformed.”
After spouting that creepy line, the man pulled out his other hand from under his cloak.
“How…?!”
I ended up shouting out.
On the cloaked man’s finger was the ring of Hope. The ring containing the Philosopher’s Stone’s power to create life out of nothing… Since it holds Koyomi’s soul, Haruto was supposed to have put it deep within his heart so that no one would be able to get their hands on it. So why does that man have it…?
The ring of Hope sparkled in the moonlight as the man was about to hover his hand over Mayu’s magic belt.
Right that moment, a shadow came leaping in out of nowhere with a spirited cry, letting out a kick against the cloaked man. The cloaked man nimbly dodged it, and the shadow moved to protect Mayu who had been freed. It was none other than Nitou.
“Nitou?! Why are you-”
“Lemme stop you right there.”
Nitou cut off my words as confidently as always.
“Sometimes you have to fool your allies in order to fool the enemy. I pretended to go off on my own, but I’ve actually been watching over Mayu the whole time. I had a feeling the guy who attacked Yuzuru would show up in front of her.”
Filled with both gratitude and exasperation, I couldn’t help but retort back.
“Then why couldn’t you have shown up sooner!”
“Sorry, sorry. I had to go pee, so I ended up losing sight of her for a second.”
It was just like him to do something like that, but it still annoyed me a little.
“Oh geez. Now Mayonnaise is here too?”
The cloaked man addressed Nitou in a familiar manner as well.
“Since you know about how much I love mayonnaise, can I take that to mean you’re a fan of mine? But you’ll have to answer my questions first before getting my signature. Are you the one that attacked Yuzuru?”
Instead of answering his question, the man thrust out his arm.
“Watch out!”
At the same time I shouted, the man let out the same shockwave that had launched me away. However, Nitou skillfully dodged it with a roll and quickly assumed a stance.
“Oh, I get it, so you’re a magician too. Guess that means I won’t have to hold back.”
Nitou took out a ring and inserted it into the ancient belt on his waist. The buckle then opened up like a gate alongside the roar of a beast, revealing a golden relief in the shape of a lion’s face. When the magic circle that shot out of the lion’s mouth enveloped Nitou’s body, he transformed into the Ancient Magician, Beast.
“Now then, it’s lunchtime! Wait, it’s night right now, so I guess it’s dinnertime!”
Nitou, now as Beast, flipped the mantle on his shoulder and launched a kick with a ferocious intensity befitting of his name.
The cloaked man quickly dodged Nitou’s attack and let out shockwaves one after the other. However, that wasn’t enough to take down Nitou. Each of the shockwaves was deflected with the sword he brandished, the Dice Saber. After making a large swing with his weapon, he launched an intense wave of flame toward the cloaked man, which wrapped around him and instantly set him on fire.
“I’ll make sure just to cook you rare. I won’t be able to see your face if I burn too much off, after all.”
Just like Nitou said, only the black cloak ended up getting burned away. When the burnt cloak scattered away in ashes, the man’s face revealed itself under the moonlight.
“You’re…!”
Nitou couldn’t help but raise his voice.
No, it wasn’t just Nitou who was surprised. Mayu and I were as well. We were all speechless upon seeing the man’s face.
After flashing us a smile, he ran off.
Still caught in bewilderment, we failed to give chase.
After a while, Mayu was the first to say something.
“Rinko, wasn’t that…”
“Yeah…”
That was all I could say in response.
The man who attacked Mayu and the others and disappeared right before us was without a doubt… Haruto.
Kamen Rider Novel Translations 