Another World - Chapter 7

[honou_no_izumi]

Before I forget completely to post this chapter even if it's been so long completed...

Title: Another World
Chapter: 7 - Call - Revelation and Reunion
Fandom: Kamen Rider Decade/Blade
Character: Kadoya Tsukasa, Hikari Natsumi, Tachibana Sakuya, Aikawa Hajime, Kenzaki Kazuma, a whole lot more people
Summary: Post series. Finally Tsukasa started on another journey.

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"Kenzaki... had always been a kind and selfless person. Even when at first, he wasn't as strong as he was now. He used to be easily shaken, when he thought that Tachibana-san had betrayed the BOARD or when he thought that his body could be damaged if he continued using the Rouse system. Despite that, there was always one thing about him that remained unwavering; that was his desire to protect everyone in danger."

"Since you see, Kenzaki's parents had died in a fire when he was small. Because of that, he vowed to protect everyone even at the cost of his own."

Shiori smiled as she turned towards Natsumi. "That was why, you should trust him. We do... still. Even if it had been a long time since all of us—his friends—have met him. Because we knew that even now, Kenzaki continued to fight to protect everyone. There must be a reason behind his every actions, thus you should have faith in him not to harm your friend. That was just not the Kenzaki I knew after all."

Tachibana shrugged. "Kenzaki was that naïve after all. Even if there was someone whose existence might lead to disaster—if he considered that person as an important friend, he'd do everything he could to save them."

Daiki looked at them unconvinced. "But the first time we met Kenzaki, he was nothing like you described! Tsukasa—He got hurt pretty bad!"

Yuusuke hastily spoke up. "But what did you guys said earlier..." he said before turning his attention towards the stairways leading to the basement, where Hajime had gone to earlier. "Two Undeads? Joker? Was Kenzaki-san an Undead? How can an Undead be a Rider?"

Tachibana exchanged glances with both Shiori and Kotarou. He shrugged.

"Well... Kenzaki's originally was a normal human. To save the world... as well as an important person, he relinquished his own humanity..."

xxx

Kenzaki gave Tsukasa a sideways glance.

"You haven't been paying attention all these times, have you? At least, not until my arrival it seemed."

Tsukasa frowned. "What do you mean?"

Kenzaki shrugged. "When your journey across the world started after that day, you were meant to do something to save your own world. And her world as well. That female companion of yours that was meant to become Kamen Rider Kivaara. That part at least, you seemed to follow correctly. It was what comes after that, which you have misinterpreted."

"What did you mean? Isn't saving the world means resolving the conflicts of the many worlds I've gone through?" Tsukasa asked as Kenzaki shook his head.

"That may be true for others, but it was not when applied to you. Your power was different, Tsukasa... you had the power to destroy Riders as well as the creatures residing in each of their worlds. You noticed, didn't you? In many of the worlds you passed through, you could easily defeat many of the non-human creatures in those worlds just by using Decade's power alone. Whereas for the other Riders, for them to fight creatures that didn't originate from their own worlds—that might take them a bit more effort than they would have normally."

Kenzaki glanced towards Tsukasa, as he played idly with a small, carefully wrapped box in his hand.

"For you, Tsukasa... in order for you to save anything—you need to destroy everything. That was the irony of your existence. There was no avoiding that fate."

Tsukasa hung his head low. As he had thought. It was true that he had been reminded constantly about him being a destroyer by many people. There was barely any moment that he was not. Even then... with how things had worked out now...!

"Problem started with you losing your memories. So instead of just having to destroy the worlds you passed through to save Natsumi's and your world, you needed to recover the memories of the Riders and restore the powers that used to reside inside those cards of yours. But after that, you should have destroyed those other Riders and moved on. That might be underhanded or despicable but hey... everywhere, sacrifices are always necessary to achieve something," Kenzaki cast him a knowing look before sighing. "You're such a softie for not destroying those Riders you met after getting to know them and taking their powers from them."

"Of course, while that could have made saving the Original Rider worlds and the other worlds much faster—at the expense of the alternate ones—that, would have made your story a lot shorter and uninteresting. So, while I don't particularly liked the way things have end up to... I had to accept it as it is. My comrades and I ended up having to improvise our approach and force you to fight. The fact that some of the Alternate Riders that had been destroyed notin your hands have been giving us problems after all."

Tsukasa eyed the man warily.

"You... don't really like me, don't you?"

Kenzaki glanced at him. "Well, that's pretty obvious... isn't it? And all of us had a pretty good reason for that. Right after all of my comrades and myself gathered, we've been shown of the things that you've did in the past. Either by travelling back across time or dimensions, we have seen how your actions of forcibly entering our worlds affecting the worlds' stability and causing creations of some other parallel worlds. If that was not enough to make us wary of you, I don't know what else would. Yet, regardless of that... we cannot destroy you. Yet. Since the only person who could have set things right again, was the very one who started the whole mess. You."

Tsukasa looked away ruefully. That was true. Even if that part of his memory was lost to him. So even if he could not remember what he did that caused everything to happen the way it had, he still needed to fix it. And even now after he had... prevented the bad outcome from happening, he still needed to keep himself on check as to not let it repeat.

"But you know, a part of me was a bit thankful."

Tsukasa looked up to him in confusion as Kenzaki kept staring towards the sky. The man sighed.
"Because of the worlds strange phenomena, I ended up going to other worlds apart from my own to try to keep them safe. I ended up seeing an outcome of reality of what could have happened should I haven't followed my own instinct. As I thought, my way of concluding the Battle Fight was the best one." Kenzaki leered towards Tsukasa. "That aside, I was thankful that you did restore the order of the worlds. While now they were all properly connected unlike before, at least this world and the others are safe again. Thank you."

Tsukasa held his breath in surprise as Kenzaki suddenly smiled to him. The man took out an envelope from his coat pocket before giving it as well as the small box of present to Tsukasa. 

"Give those two things to Hajime and Amane-chan. It was so belated but better be late than sorry."

Tsukasa stared at him puzzled as Kenzaki started to turn back. He grinned.

"Come on, it started to get a bit late."

xxx

"In this world... Joker existed? And that man Kenzaki was also one?" Yuusuke gasped in surprise as Kotarou looked at him curiously.

"Is there something wrong about that?" he asked as Natsumi explained.

"Well... in the past, we've been to another Blade world..."

"And in that world, the Joker card only existed when the man who worked with Paradoxa Undead combined all the card decks power into one. The man used that card to become Joker himself," Yuusuke added.

Tachibana, Shiori and Kotarou stared at them with surprise. Kotarou suddenly shivered.

"Eeek! There's actually people who wants to become Joker! I don't get that."

The bell rang as another customer entered the café. Tachibana took a glance as he noticed it was Mutsuki.

"Ah, Mutsuki. Took you so long, come over here!"

"Mutsuki?"

Tachibana and Mutsuki turned their attention abruptly towards Yuusuke.

"What is it?" the older man asked. Yuusuke shook his head hastily before explaining.

"It's nothing. It's just... in the other Blade world, there were also with similar names there. Though their surnames were different. Over there those people are—" Yuusuke paused before looking up towards Tachibana and Mutsuki. "Could it be... you guys are also—?"

Tachibana eyed them with amusement. "Kamen Riders? Yes, finally you guys realized it?"

Mutsuki rapidly glanced between Tachibana and Yuusuke as he frowned. "Is there something I'm missing? What's this talk about another world?" he asked as Kotarou pulled him to his side to explain things. Shiori whistled.

"Hmmm! That was interesting. There was another world like ours out there with people similar to us here. I wonder what that was like."

Natsumi hastily waved his arm around. "No, no, no! It's not that interesting. You guys are totally different in personality and appearance!"

Tachibana started to laugh at them. "You guys are a funny lot," he said before something caught his attention. He immediately grabbed on Mutsuki's arm.

"Mutsuki! Hurry and call Hajime back up here!"

The younger man looked at him blankly before noticing something from the balcony. He hastily ran down towards the basement as Shiori and the rest of them turned to see what was it that caught Tachibana's attention.

"Kenzaki-san!"

Amane suddenly shouted as she ran out to greet the man.

xxx

"Kenzaki-san!"

Kenzaki looked up as a young girl ran up to him and embraced him at once. He chuckled as he immediately recognised the girl.

"Amane-chan!" he started to say. "How you have grown..."

Tsukasa stared at Kenzaki long as he noticed the man's expression changing. Yet, despite the man seemed saddened... there was no hint of tears.

"Tsukasa! You're alright!"

He looked up to see Natsumi and the others coming out to the balcony, alongside those other people who appeared to be Kenzaki's friends. He glanced towards Kenzaki as he and the girl pulled themselves apart.

"Kenzaki idiot! Have you forgotten us all these times?" asked Amane as Kenzaki smiled weakly.

"There's no way I could forget all of you—"

"Kenzaki!" "Kenzaki-san!"

Kenzaki snorted to himself as he looked up towards Tachibana, Mutsuki, Shiori and Kotarou. As his eyes set on Hajime, he smiled weakly.

"Hi again... Hajime!" said Kenzaki as his voice shook. "The other day I haven't even had the chance to ask about you. You're doing okay... right, these past years?"

Hajime grinned. "Of course, who did you think I am?"

"Kenzaki!" Tachibana started to say. "Good to see you again."

Kenzaki nodded as he turned to look at the rest of his friends. He sighed. "Well, I better go now," he said as his eyes met Hajime's again. He turned towards Amane.

"Watch over Hajime for me, okay? And tell Kotarou to not drink milk too much, how old did he think he was already? And take care of yourself too."

Kenzaki started to excuse himself as Amane grabbed his arm.

"Amane-chan!" cried some people from the balcony as Kenzaki turned around. Amane looked miserable.

"Why? Why must you leave? Last time... last time when Hajime-san disappeared, you said you'd bring him back. And he did. Hajime-san came back. But then you disappeared!" Amane started to cry. "Now that you just came back... you're leaving again!"

Kenzaki smiled weakly at her before gently releasing her grip from his arm. Tachibana hastily ran down to Amane's side to keep her away.

Tsukasa silently watched the scene in front of him as he tried to etch what he have seen and heard throughout the day into his memory. Few days ago, he have met with Kurenai Wataru. And shortly after that, he also met with Sakurai Yuuto... as well as Nogami Ryoutaro from the past. And even when his encounters with them had been brief, he could feel that their past, their stories... there was something more about them that was important; greater than his own.

Even now, he felt the same about Kenzaki.

Could this... what it truly meant, about him having no story? Even without his presence, these Kamen Riders who had existed before he became Decade; their stories could stand on their own. But for him, without them... his story had no meaning. No purpose. Compared to the other stories, his was not as important.

Before this, he thought that Kenzaki Kazuma was just another cold guy who hated his existence and only wanted to destroy him. But in truth, he was not... just that. It was similar to how he felt about young Wataru as compared to Kurenai Wataru. Kenzaki Kazuma was very different than the Kendate Kazuma that he knew.

That cold person he thought Kazuma was, who slightly intimidated him before when King form had defeated him badly; in actuality was not the person he thought he was. Same as Kurenai Wataru, the words they have spoken to him before... all had an underlining message that he failed to understand. Yet even when he could barely grasp on the reasoning behind the actions of these other Kamen Riders—the ones from the original worlds—perhaps this time, he could finally understand it. Because, regardless of what action... or decision that they chose; all of them had a similar goal. To protect the ones important to them.

Yet... that still leave another question. In these grand scheme of things, how did Narutaki fit in this? Earlier, Kivaara said that she only manipulated Narutaki for her own mission. But she never said anything if they were even allied with Narutaki. So how... who...?

"Ken... zaki-san?" Tsukasa started to say before realising the man had already left. It seemed that while he was deep in his own thoughts, the man took his leave quietly. He sighed.

Cheeky guys... these original Kamen Riders...

"Tsukasa!" Natsumi started to call him as Tsukasa looked up. "Come inside already, the food gonna start getting cold."

Well, guess he had to save that question for another guy...