Love Live! and Kamen Rider Chapter 18

"Uh... ah... aaaaaah... aaaaaaaaaaaaaah..."

The man suddenly let out a chilling scream. He curled up on the ground in agony, his face twisted into a grimace of pain.

Throughout it all, Medusa watched coldly. She had no fondness for the human before her, but there was one thing she did appreciate.

His naked ambition and greed!

But Medusa had no intention of staying any longer, so her body turned into a cloud of black mist and vanished.

All that remained was the man, half his body already 'devoured' by disgusting lumps of flesh, groaning in agony.

A few minutes later—

[Hehahahahahaha!]

A figure covered head to toe in blood-red armor that looked like flesh gazed at his new form and laughed maniacally.

[Kamen Riders, your end... has come!]

A new enemy—the Knight Hunter!

"Kashu, what are you doing?"

At home, Senba Gari stood curiously behind Kashu, watching him fiddle with his laptop.

"Oh, Gari, I'm learning about what people in this era do, and reading up on this era," Kashu replied without turning around, his eyes fixed on the dense lines of text on the screen. "After all, as someone from a thousand years ago, I'm having a hard time adjusting to this world a thousand years later. So I need to use this thing called a computer more often to learn about this era."

"Is that so? That's good, but you're going a little slowly. Maybe I should ask... Never mind, you can just keep learning on your own." Senba Gari had initially planned to ask Silver Phantom to teach his ancient sworn younger brother about the modern world, but then he remembered that Silver Phantom used to be such a capable assistant. But now...

Master! Master! ヾ(*ΦωΦ)ツ

"What is it?" Senba Gari asked, puzzled, as he looked at Silver Phantom, who was holding a flyer in his hand.

Master, look! There's a new game out this month. Could you maybe... hehe~ (＊＞︶＜＊) Silver Phantom handed the flyer to Senba Gari, its dashboard expression changing constantly.

Senba Gari glanced at the flyer. Yep, this was indeed a new game released this month. Judging by the screenshots, the graphics looked pretty good. The name... Robot Journey... What kind of name was that?! Robots playing robots? It felt so weird, but just imagining the gameplay got him excited, Senba Gari thought to himself.

And then there was the price... Ah, what terrifying thing was this? Why were there so many zeros? Ah, he knew! There had to be a decimal point in there somewhere, right? Right? Right...

"...No." After looking over the flyer carefully, from beginning to end, several times, Senba Gari finally answered expressionlessly.

...Huh? (òωó?)

"I'm not buying it. There are too many zeros..."

Master~ (?????)

"What?" Senba Gari had thought Silver Phantom had given up, but when he heard it call to him, he turned to look, puzzled.

I know your bank account details~ There are lots of zeros in there. (?????)

"..."

I can shop online~ (?????)

"You win! I'll buy it! I'll buy it, okay?!" Senba Gari agreed to Silver Phantom's request with a heavy heart. At that moment, there was only one thought in his mind—

Did Gaia send you to ruin me?! They absolutely did, didn't they!? Damn it!!! Sob... my bank account... I worked so hard to fatten you up, and now you have to go on a diet... Sob...

Beep?

Ziying curiously reached out and poked Senba Gari, who was crouching in the corner drawing circles, dark energy swirling around him. Seeing Senba Gari's heartbroken, tearful expression over the money, it suddenly remembered a special comforting technique it had learned from Silver Phantom a few days ago.

Beep beep beep~

Ziying gently stroked Senba Gari's head with its tiny mechanical arm. Feeling the cold touch on his head, Senba Gari looked up. Seeing Ziying patting him, he hugged it and cried into its shoulder.

"Waaah... Ziying... you're the only good one... Waaah... Phantom has turned into a shut-in, Cangqiong has been led astray by Silver Phantom and become a die-hard gacha addict, and that idiot Geki is a total lolicon. He even got dragged to the police station a few days ago. And Kashu keeps blowing up the kitchen... Waaah... I'm so tired... You're the only normal one among them... Waaah..."

Beep beep beep~

Master... do you really have to be so dramatic... ┑(￣Д ￣)┍

"Gari... you're breaking character..."

While the human and robot were still at a loss for words over the scene, Ziying and Silver Phantom suddenly froze in place. Senba Gari and Kashu noticed it too, their expressions turning serious. Silver Phantom spoke in a cold voice.

Master, an enemy has appeared. Cangqiong and Geki have already gone to deal with them.

"Understood!"

As soon as Silver Phantom finished speaking, Senba Gari and Kashu exchanged a glance and nodded to each other.

"Let's go!"

—Scene change—

In a park, a figure clad in blood-red armor that resembled flesh walked unhurriedly forward, holding a blood-red Serrated Sword.

Standing before him, a Kamen Rider gripped an unusually shaped blade and watched him warily. His body was dark blue, and his armor was silver-white. Red lines outlined the spade symbol from a deck of playing cards on his chest, while gold accents adorned the lower edges of his shoulder armor. The horns on his head resembled those of a rhinoceros beetle, and he had a pair of distinctive red compound eyes—Kamen Rider Blade.

[Give it up. You Kamen Riders are stepping stones to my new world order. Only by killing you can I rebuild the world without any worries!]

"No. We won't let you change the order of this world as you please!" Blade's voice came from beneath his mask, though it sounded somewhat weary.

[It doesn't matter. You're about to die, just like the others who came before you!]

With that, the blood-red armored figure said no more. He raised the Serrated Sword and lunged at Blade, aiming to kill him in one blow.

But he had underestimated Blade's years of combat experience. Blade held his sword upright in front of himself with a reverse grip, bracing the back of the blade with his other hand. A crisp metallic clang rang out as Blade's Blay Rouzer met the enemy's Serrated Sword in a 'friendly' clash. The trembling of both blades showed just how much force the two were exerting.

After less than a few seconds of struggling, Blade and the blood-red armored figure both retreated several steps, giving themselves a moment to catch their breath.

[Not bad. No wonder you're Kamen Rider Blade, the one who gave up his humanity and fought against fate. But in the end, you'll meet the same fate as the other Riders. You'll die!] As he spoke, the turntable on the blood-red armored figure's belt suddenly began to spin.

[—Kabuto!]

When the turntable stopped on the image of a rhinoceros beetle, the blood-red armor covering his body suddenly turned soft as mud. It squirmed over him bit by bit, and before long, his appearance had changed completely.

If you ignored the blood-red, flesh-like armor, his belt, and his green compound eyes, his current appearance was identical to that of a Heisei Phase One Kamen Rider—Kabuto!

"N-no way! How do you have the same ability as Tsukasa? What... what did you do to him?!" Blade asked in disbelief. The only person who could transform into other Kamen Riders was Kamen Rider Decade—Kadoya Tsukasa. The fact that the enemy before him had the same ability filled him with unease.

"Tsukasa? Oh, you mean Kadoya Tsukasa, Kamen Rider Decade, right? Unfortunately for you, he's alive and well. As for why I can take the form of other Riders... I'm afraid I don't have the patience to reveal my secrets to a dying man. Besides, you know a little too much..."

As soon as he finished speaking, everything around him suddenly slowed down, as though time had stopped. Only he could move at a normal speed.

He walked slowly up to Blade and struck with a sudden, swift punch. One powerful blow after another landed on Blade, then he swiftly kicked Blade in the stomach. Blade flew backward in slow motion as the Serrated Sword in the blood-red armored figure's hand squirmed and changed shape. Before long, it had turned into a kunai gun.

He aimed the kunai gun at Blade, who was still flying backward in slow motion. Several laser beams shot from its muzzle and drifted toward Blade.

Then the blood-red armored figure suddenly ended his acceleration, and everything returned to normal. Blade felt wave after wave of pain, and saw several laser beams shooting toward him at high speed, but it was already too late to dodge.

—Bang, bang, bang, bang!!!

Several laser beams struck Blade. Sparks burst from his body, and he toppled to the ground. Thick white smoke billowed from him—his enemy's attack had clearly caught him completely off guard.

Blade was already far weaker than he had been before, and now even standing up was difficult.

Meanwhile, the blood-red armored figure walked toward Blade one step at a time, his appearance already back to normal.

[Hehehe. It seems Kamen Rider Blade isn't much after all. Now, you can go to hell...]

—Whoosh!

Just as he was speaking, an arrow made of flames suddenly shot toward him. The moment it struck the blood-red armored figure's chest, it burst into bloom, blazing like a lotus of fire.

Then came the roar of an engine. A red figure on a motorcycle pulled up between Blade and the blood-red armored figure, completely cutting them off from each other.

"Blade, are you all right?"

Spirit nimbly jumped down from Golden Firmament and stood in front of Blade, asking with concern.

"I'm fine. Be careful, he's strong!" Blade said weakly.

"Got it."

[Spirit, huh? You and Divine and Chievil are my next targets. Since you're here, I take it the other two are here too.] As he finished speaking, the roar of engines came from the distance. Divine and Chievil then arrived beside Spirit, riding Silver Phantom and Ziying.

"Is this the guy? There's something about him that makes my heart tremble." Divine climbed down from Silver Phantom and looked at the blood-red armored figure. With his body beginning to transform into a Mlortha, he could faintly sense something unnerving about the enemy.

"Yeah, I feel it too. It's like Chimera doesn't like his scent. Actually, it really hates it." Chievil, who shared a strange connection with his Beast Soul Chimera, felt an instinctive dislike for the enemy before him, though he had no idea why.

"What are you two talking about? I don't understand." Unlike his two companions, Spirit was completely baffled by what they were saying.

Just then, the blood-red armored figure suddenly laughed and spoke.

[Hehahahaha! You're all here, Divine, Spirit, and Chievil. The three of you are finally together. That saves me the trouble of hunting you down one by one.]

"Who are you?"

Seeing the enemy suddenly laugh, the three of them hurried to protect the injured Blade and watched him warily, afraid he had some other trick up his sleeve.

[Hehe, me? I'll be the one to create a new world order! But for now, I'm just a 'hunter' who specializes in hunting Kamen Riders. You can call me—the Knight Hunter!]

A crushing defeat for everyone

"A hunter who specializes in hunting Kamen Riders..."

"The Knight Hunter."

Faced with their bizarre enemy, the three stayed on high alert, not letting their guard down for even a moment.

The Knight Hunter paced back and forth among the three, holding his Serrated Sword, then slowly spoke.

[I was planning to save you for last, but since you've come straight to me so soon, I don't mind taking you all out at once.]

"Tch, anyone can talk big. Let's go!" As soon as Spirit spoke, he charged straight at the Knight Hunter without waiting for the other two, and started fighting him.

"Gari, what should we do?" Unsure what to do, Chievil asked Divine.

"What else can we do? We'll just have to tough it out. That idiot Geki can't handle him alone." Divine sounded rather helpless, then turned to Silver Phantom and the others. "Phantom, I'll leave Blade in your care."

Understood, master. ()?

Leave him to us.

Beep beep!

"Kashu, let's go." After the three robots replied, Divine charged forward with the Flame Feather Blade in hand.

Chievil, meanwhile, rotated the Shadow Soul Driver on his belt ninety degrees to the left, revealing a hilt concealed inside the driver. He gripped the exposed hilt and yanked it hard.

Chievil's belt slipped off his waist like a nimble snake, revealing another belt cinched beneath it. With the Shadow Soul Driver serving as a guard, the small arrow-shaped metal plates on the belt connected one after another to form a slender purple double-edged sword—Thunder Chain.

Chievil then raised Thunder Chain toward the Knight Hunter, who was fighting Spirit, and hurled it at him. The sword's blade immediately split into a series of arrow-shaped metal plates that shot toward him like a lifelike snake, with unstoppable force.

But when the Knight Hunter saw the blade flying straight toward him, he hurriedly kicked Spirit away and used the momentum to leap backward, dodging it.

Before he could catch his breath, Divine suddenly appeared behind him and swung the Flame Feather Blade at him with unstoppable force.

Knowing there was no way to dodge it normally, he used another method.

The turntable on his belt spun rapidly, finally stopping on an image that looked like an eye.

[—Ghost!]

The armor on the Knight Hunter's body squirmed like a lump of clay, freely reshaping itself. At last, his armor changed once more. It remained red, but its shape had transformed completely into that of a Heisei Phase Two Kamen Rider—Ghost.

In Divine's eyes, the transformation took less than a second. Just as the Flame Feather Blade was about to hit the Knight Hunter, it passed straight through his body in a bizarre fashion.

"Wha...?!"

[—Hibiki!]

As Divine was still stunned that his attack had passed through the Knight Hunter's body, the enemy transformed again, this time into another form—the sixth Heisei Kamen Rider, Hibiki.

Before Divine could react, the Knight Hunter snapped the Serrated Sword in his hand in two. The broken pieces wriggled and turned into a pair of thick drumsticks.

—Whoosh!

A ball of crimson flame suddenly burst from the end of one drumstick. He swung both drumsticks at once, sending the flames flying down onto Divine's back.

Two crimson flowers of flame bloomed on Divine's back. The force of the flames sent him rolling to the side, right beside Spirit, and the Knight Hunter's appearance once again returned to its original form.

"Are you okay, you idiot?" Spirit asked.

"I'm fine. His attacks are pretty weird. I won't be able to beat him unless I get serious."

As he spoke, Divine showed Spirit the Beast Soul Bracelet that had appeared on his wrist earlier. His meaning was obvious.

Spirit responded by showing Divine the Beast Soul Bracelet on his own wrist. Clearly, he meant the same thing as Divine. Chievil, seeing the bracelets in their hands, guessed what they were planning, so he charged at the Knight Hunter without a word, intending to distract him and keep him from focusing on the other two.

—Clang!

The purple whip sword reassembled into a slender blade and came straight at the Knight Hunter. He raised his blood-red Serrated Sword and blocked Chievil's slash.