Kamen Rider Is Playing the Villain in Pretty Cure

"Then today's first song, 'Dark Crow'!"

As Emiru launched into a powerful, passionate guitar solo, accompanied by the girl's shout, the atmosphere onstage was immediately driven to its peak.

"Let's Rock!"

The woman who might spend the rest of her life accompanying elegant piano music once again made that rock gesture.

Case File 86: Date (5)

"Eh, wait!" Standing in the center of the stage with her guitar slung over her shoulder, Emiru, whose heart was overflowing with passion, suddenly remembered a "small" problem.

"What were we supposed to play, exactly?"

[Dark Crow]? I'd never heard of that song before. No matter how hard Emiru racked her brains, she couldn't figure out which song Ash meant by "Dark Crow."

Come to think of it, dark crow—black crow. Would anyone really use such an ominous, calamitous name for a passionate rock song?

"We haven't heard it either, and we couldn't find it online, but it's fine—" Nono Hana hurriedly stepped onto the drum pedal beside her. While quietly comforting the dumbfounded Emiru, she flashed her teeth and gave a thumbs-up.

"As long as you have a rock 'n' roll heart, just sing along however you want."

"That's what Ash said."

Just sing however we want... Who are you trying to fool? Even if we're just a makeshift band—this is way too casual! What is this, some music anime plot or something?!

"Seriously—there's a limit to how reckless you can be!" Her inner snark exploding wildly and her head aching, Emiru shouted at Ash in near-collapse.

"It's fine." The one who answered her wasn't Ash, but Saya, who turned back with a confident smile. "It's like learning to ride a bicycle. The most important thing is that everyone has fun."

Just as Emiru was about to keep ranting, Ash made a gesture to begin and picked up the harmonica that had somehow appeared around his neck.

The melodious harmonica seemed to defy the expectations of the onlookers. Seeing the flamboyant, wild-looking instruments in Ash and the others' hands, the audience, who had been prepared to be blasted by rock from the very start, seemed rather stunned.

Even Hana looked incredulous. She had never seen Ash so peaceful and focused before. That sight stirred a subtle feeling in her heart, and unable to close her smiling lips, Hana happily thought again.

My boyfriend is such a handsome guy~

The man played the harmonica. Its melodious, ancient tune seemed to take people back to an age before technology, to a grassland brushed by a gentle breeze. It sounded like the melody that would surround a hero recorded in history as he made his entrance.

But very soon, Ash's mellow harmonica was replaced by the soaring roar of electric guitars. As though they had heard a signal, Hana, Saya, and Homare began accompanying him in perfect sync. Emiru, seemingly infected by that telepathic coordination, instinctively began the movements she had practiced countless times in her dreams. Her metal pick scraped across the strings, producing a melody that fitted perfectly with everyone else's.

"Keep walking beneath the night sky."

"There is a crow."

"Cawing as though urging me onward."

Ash's young voice sang with a weathered quality completely at odds with his age and usual manner, yet no one present found that roughness and hoarseness out of place.

"In memories that seem from another lifetime, there is the shadow of a skeleton, sneering."

"Staring at my face, sneering without end."

"Oh ohohoh!!!"

The threads of desolation and resignation in Ash's singing seemed to clash slightly with the frenzy of the two electric guitars answering each other. Emiru, who had just picked rock music back up, was trying hard to match that rhythm.

How could rock music fit such bleak lyrics this well? How did he do it?

Emiru thought as she looked at Ash's back, but she soon had no room left to think. Ash's pace suddenly accelerated into a rap section, and they could only desperately alter their movements and tempo to keep up.

Maybe he wasn't merely singing.

Emiru couldn't help thinking that.

"My blood runs freely, yet I feel the life within. I slaughter you all, yet this blade still keeps faith."

"I bear my oath until the last bolt of the crossbow. A thousand feet above heaven, a thousand fathoms beyond the sea."

"----"

The voice screamed. The voice roared. The others' performance also became increasingly synchronized with Ash's.

Were these really rock lyrics?

Rumi E thought so. Compared to the positive, uplifting lyrics she had heard in the past, this Dark Crow that Ash seemed to have written was more like—

Right. He wasn't just Ash. He was also Time Fire.

Then... was this him singing out his story as Time Fire?

Or was it the future they were going to face?

Rumi E interrupted her thoughts once again. As Ash's English rap sped up and emphasized heavier syllables, the rhythm grew increasingly regular. Just as Emiru seemed to be getting the hang of it, Ash's sudden shift and pause nearly threw her off again.

"All who provoke me shall become dust in my hands. Those who stand by and watch, I witness your fall at this very moment."

"Life and death, who dares hold them in another's grasp? Only I pronounce the hour of my death."

The climax of the rock song crashed down. Ash's roar grew less and less like simple singing, instead sounding more like some kind of declaration—

"Only I pronounce the hour of my death! I'm the one who makes my final call!!"

Almost in an instant, fierce emotions and a mad wave of notes crashed toward them. After two consecutive changes in tempo, the bewildered audience finally heard the part they had wanted most. Cheers and shouts erupted with the rising rhythm, and Emiru, who had previously felt constrained, found something amid those cheers.

"That's it, that's it, that's it!"

Her picking grew faster and faster. The falcon head gleamed enchantingly beneath the lights, and she seemed to become one with her guitar as she poured out her rebellion, her will.

She wanted to live—not merely survive!

"This is rock!!"

This was the music I truly loved!

As Ash's gaze swept across the ecstatic expressions of the people around him, following the arrival of the climax, the smile on his face could no longer be removed.

If this was merely a fleeting flash of light before the future I was destined to face, even if that future was an unchangeable certainty—

Then I had to enjoy the present properly with the people important to me!

Case File 87: Buoyancy Shot? Fanservice Shot!

In the private pool behind the Aisaki residence, Ash and his cheerful companions were enjoying the pastime of the wealthy. The ladies' slender, graceful figures cut through the water like swimming fish, and the sight of these beautiful girls playing and splashing around together was truly pleasing to the eye.

However, Ash, the only male member present, did not join them. Wearing nothing but swim trunks and sunglasses, he lay by the pool like an old fisherman sunbathing. Occasionally, he glanced at the ladies in the water as they cried out in surprise. After all, he wasn't some herbivore, eunuch-like light novel protagonist. He rather enjoyed the buoyancy shots and fanservice shots before him.

"Splash~"

He tried putting his feet into the water. A cool sensation rose from his soles, and the soft, formless water buoyed up his weight.

Ash, who was idly paddling and slacking off, took a deep breath.

He really did feel like immersing his entire body in the water and enjoying the sensation of being wrapped within it. But after thinking for a moment, he decided it was better not to get in.

"Because..." The feet that had been soaking in the water instantly lifted. Using his hips as a pivot, Ash raised his legs and pulled himself closer to the pool's edge. Then he reached out with his left hand and tightly grabbed a hand that had quietly emerged from the water.

His suspended legs exerted force as they stepped down, and the resulting momentum pulled up his entire upper body. Ash's unusually developed back tensed, driving every muscle fiber, and in an instant, he pulled himself from his reclining position back into a normal standing posture.

"Waaaahhh!!!"

As he completed that series of gymnast-like maneuvers, he also yanked the owner of that hand from the water as though pulling up a radish.

Apparently, Nono Hana, who had secretly swum over intending to prank Ash by grabbing him and dragging him into the pool, was instead hauled out of the water by Ash like a kitten caught by the scruff of her neck.

His right arm naturally wrapped around Nono Hana's waist, drawing her briefly floating body into his embrace. Though it was rather undignified, Nono Hana's chest, which might leave a child hungry, smacked squarely into Ash's face.

Beautiful girl, outdoor swimming pool, wet swimsuit—put those words together, and they formed a fantasy that could make even a grown man's eyes shine. But for short Nono Hana, that string of rather suggestive words was still a little too much. In terms of feminine physical charm, this Pretty Cure who was always good at cheering others on still had some growing to do.

In short, it hurt a little. The bridge of his nose hurt a little.

"Since you wanted to ambush me, you could at least have reduced the bubbles rising to the surface. I almost thought you were drowning."

The man's fingers pressed against the fabric of her school swimsuit. The thick pads of his fingertips rubbed against the one-piece suit, constantly making sounds that stirred one's imagination. Ash moved his hands over her, and only after seeing the flower freshly risen from the water bloom even more vividly did he ask.

"I've learned how to swim, at least... Don't really treat little Hana like some useless idiot!"

The swimsuit she had casually bought before coming here was clearly not made of very good material. Ash's sensitive nose could even smell the cheap polyurethane and the chlorine odor produced by contact with the pool water. Yet that slightly irritating scent mixed with the body fragrance drifting from Hana's wet body beneath the sunlight, producing a subtle, vivid "fishy smell."

Swimsuit Hana.jpg

"?"

She raised a hand and brushed the wet bangs before her face behind her ear, tilting her head. Her pink-and-white eyes blinked as though wondering why Ash was holding her up without moving.

Feeling a wicked fire within him beginning to stir, Ash hurriedly recited the Ice Heart Formula in his mind. He released one hand and shifted his grip, lifting the weighty softness of this Pretty Cure who had disturbed his Dao heart higher onto his stomach, changing from a near chest-smothering posture into one where she faced him.

"What were you planning to do by pulling me in?"

"Hmm... You looked like you didn't plan to get in the water, Ash, so I thought it would be fun if I dragged you in?"

Dr. Ash was always teasing and making fun of me before. This time, it's my turn to get revenge with a prank!

"Oh, so you've learned to draw inferences from one example, Miss Nono~"

Her face had never looked particularly clever to begin with, and after getting wet, she looked even more like an idiot. Even her reply was so silly that anyone could see right through it.

"Oh, so you've learned to draw inferences from one example, Miss Nono~"

Still, Ash praised her with a grin.

"Hana, I told you that you couldn't possibly succeed." Saya, still in the pool, wiped away the water that had splashed onto her eyebrows while floating. Compared to Hana's silly appearance, Saya's skirted swimsuit was clearly much more mature. Ash could clearly see beneath the wet, semi-transparent skirt... Naidesu.

Ah, as expected of a Pretty Cure's friend.

"Hehehe, Ash, are you really not coming in?" Homare lay inside a giant turtle float. Seemingly trying to provoke something, she challengingly pulled down the zipper of her athletic swimsuit, revealing a glimpse of snowy cleavage.

"Glub glub~" Emiru, pretending not to see her friends' shameless behavior, submerged herself up to her neck and kept blowing air from her mouth to the surface.

Ughhh—having a man around is really such a big deal?! I'm so jealous...

"Want to come play with us? It's pretty nice over here."

"Homare!!" That was the possessive cry of a certain silly pink-haired idiot hanging from Ash.

"Aren't you afraid I might be some kind of assassin who melts in water?" Ash put on a serious face for Nono Hana.

"But Ash, you were swimming so—mmph!" Just as Nono Hana was about to reveal what had happened that night in front of the others still in the pool, Ash promptly sealed her mouth tightly with his own.

She didn't just look more like an idiot. She had truly become dumber than before.

When they separated, Nono Hana had become safe and quiet, able only to pant with a flushed red face.

"She's become a woman."

"She's become a cute woman."

"Hana-senpai... really is a woman."

The three in the water nodded together, feeling as though their mouths had become overwhelmingly sweet and wanting to find some black coffee.

"Oh, come on, I was always a woman..."

"Then we'll go change first, so we won't disturb you."

After spending enough time in the water, the others offered "blessings" with their eyes and temporarily bid farewell to the lovey-dovey pair. The entire poolside backyard was now left with only the two of them facing each other, their breaths falling upon one another.

"Why is the heart confused, so the mystery of time~"

Just as Ash was about to say something, the phone he had placed beside him suddenly rang. Considering that not many people in this world knew his number, he was about to answer when Hana pressed his hand down and, in one smooth motion, tapped decline and powered it off.

"Hana?"

"Just now, you were looking the whole time, weren't you? At Saya, Homare, and Emiru besides me. And you looked at them longer than you looked at little Hana, didn't you?"

"Well... I've already seen Hana's body from beginning to end and memorized every bit of it." Feeling her direct gaze piercing him, Ash weakly lifted his head to look at the sky.

"I'm a man too."

"Scumbag."

Just as Ash sensed trouble, he saw something even more troubling: she actually placed one hand against the side of the lounge chair and leaned against him as though she were about to fall over.

"Hana, are you serious? Do you know where this is?"

"I know~ I've come here to play at Emiru's place several times before. There aren't any security cameras here, and aside from the scheduled times when the water is changed, no one else comes here."

At such close distance, practically pressed against him, Ash could clearly see the desire in her slightly dilated pupils beneath her wet pink hair. An even clearer scent entered his nose with the fishy breeze, making him want to rise in excitement from the inside out.

"Phew~"