He'd heard the phrase "a scene straight of hell" before. It always sounded like bad hyperbole a writer trying too hard to earn an award would use. But as the corner of a building collapsed from the battle raging nearby and the air filled with smoke, Yuuma started to think otherwise.

Through the smoke he could vaguely make out the shapes of monsters he'd seen on the news, fighting shapes he could just barely start to recognize as the men who called themselves the Kamen Riders tried to stop them. All of that fighting between them was beyond him; all he knew was the warning he'd heard on the news not to play that new live action video game or he could die. Yuuma had no intention of ever getting involved in something so foolish in the first place. But as he spotted the woman ahead of him, her leg pinned under a pile of brick and concerete knocked loose by the fighting, there was something he couldn't ignore.

"Hold still," he said as he crouched and started slowly pulling the debris off her so he didn't make her injuries any worse.

"No, please," she gasped and touched his shoulder to interrupt him. "My son, he's the one who needs help. He played that game because he thought he could get famous if he won it…We've got nothing, he wanted to save us from that," she babbled, pointing to a spot a few meters away. There was no one there, just one of those black plastic cartridges with the clear rectangular head. The one the news said not to use, not even touch. Evidently, her son hadn't listened.

"He's gone," Yuuma said, hoping to be gentle with the news. But was there really a gentle way to say that?

"No, he isn't! They said they can bring back the people who were caught in the game! They said that! They can't lie! It has to be true! It has to be true!" the woman started to scream. She didn't notice a figure emerging from the clouds of smoke behind her, probably attracted by all the noise she was making. His clothes were all red and white, and he had a shiny red mask peeking out from under his hood. In one hand, his fingers like long curving claws, he held a wand tipped with a glimmering red jewel. A Bugster, he remembered these things being called.

Yuuma's eyes darted to the cartridge lying abandoned on the ground. The monster was holding up his wand like he intended to use it, and Yuuma had no doubt the two of them were easy prey. Unless…

A fireball shot from the monster's wand, and Yuuma went diving for the cartridge. The fireball exploded behind him and he could feel it singe his back, but his fingers wrapped around the cartridge's grip and his thumb rested on the trigger button.

Maybe Yuuma couldn't save the world from what was happening, but maybe he could save this one woman's life. Give her hope to see her son again when the real heroes did their job. If he had just a little bit of power, maybe he could achieve one little victory.

He hit the trigger.

The room seemed to echo with the powerful blow that had just connected with the opponent's body. He gasped and fell to one knee.

"You're hitting way too hard!" Jirou whined. "This isn't even a match!"

"I'm not hitting too hard, you're getting too soft!" Kensei said, but he was smiling a bit behind his mask. Regardless his friend took off his kendo mask and protective padding and started putting them away. "Hey, we're not done," Kensei said to try and stop him.

"What's the point? When was the last time Shintaro even came to a club meeting? And how may schools even have a club like this one anymore?" Jirou sighed as he finished putting his gear away. He always looked so skinny and unassuming out of it. As much as they might not have wanted to admit it, Jirou's build made it hard for him to excel at something as physical as kendo.

Kensei took of his mask too, exposing a young face thin but strong, dark brown eyes shining lightly. "Shintaro's just busy getting ready for college. He's graduating pretty soon, you know?"

But he already knew what Jirou would say to that. Their president wasn't coming to kendo club anymore because he had a new girlfriend. Because his parents were rewarding him for getting into some prestigious university in Austria with a trip to see the country ahead of time. Because he'd been losing interest in kendo club for a while.

And it seemed like their kind of club wasn't very big anymore. The school theirs used to compete against had been destroyed during the Bugster scare, and the students were relocated all over town.

"Face it, Kensei. Nobody cares about kendo club anymore but you," Jirou sighed. Then he walked out of the room. "Call the rest of us if you want to do something normal again sometime, okay?"

"Okay, sure," Kensei said. But he didn't want to do something "normal." He wanted to be accomplishing something, he wanted to be getting stronger. If he went home—to either one of them—there was nothing there but his family. And he'd been losing enough sleep because of them lately as it already was.

As he walked out of school Kensei passed a girl about his age sitting on a bench. She was thin and pale, and panting for breath. But she had the longest and prettiest black hair he'd ever seen dangling behind her.

At first he thought she was just resting after a run, but after he'd past her he realized she was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. "Hey, are you ok—" Kensei started to ask as he turned to face her, but the girl was gone. He looked up and down the street, but there was no sign of her. The only weird thing he noticed was what he thought was a puff of purple, crackling smoke in the air above the bench. But after a second he wasn't sure he even saw that.

The lights were already on inside the house with the "Hidenaga" sign out front when he got there. He sighed and gave a silent prayer that only one of his parents was there that night. Maybe he could finally get some sleep then.

A tall, slightly overweight man with thick glasses, still wearing his grey suit pants and tie was getting out a high round pot as Kensei came in and took off his shoes. "Ah, there you are, Kensei-kun!" he called out with a smile. "Come in and help me get dinner ready."

"Hi, tou-san. You're in a good mood," Kensei said gently, trying gently to see if he could get an answer about if they were on their own for the night.

His father smiled. "Why not? I had a good day, let's have a good meal! You haven't stopped liking curry, have you?"

"Nope!" Kensei said, and for the first time all afternoon he smiled.

"Sooooo…how was school? Learning any new moves?"

Kensei shook his head, smiling fading, but he opened the pantry and helped line up a row of ingredients. "Nobody's coming anymore. The school's probably going to close the club at this rate."

"Oh? Thought about any others you might want to join?"

"No, tou-san," Kensei said quickly, hoping to end the discussion. His father shrugged one shoulder and twisted the dial on the stove and one of the burners came to life. "So, is…the divorce going okay? Is kaa-san keeping that thing?"

"Yes, she is," his father sighed. "She says it's an important memento. Personally I think the police should've confiscated it, but—"

"The owner's mom didn't want it around, and I don't blame her," Kensei finished for him. "Don't know why we should keep it, though."

His father cupped his shoulder, and gave him a firm squeeze. "I don't know either, but that's enough. That whole mess with the Bugsters was rough on a lot of families, not just ours. Your mother and I just can't be around each other anymore, and we need to make the best of things as they are. You understand that, right?"

"I'm trying to, tou-san, I'm trying," Kensei answered. "Let's just focus on making the best curry in the world right now, okay?"

His father smiled. "I think I can handle that, at least."

Soichiro Hidenaga stopped in his tracks when he saw what was coming down the stairs at him the next morning.

Then he smiled.

"Going to bike to school today, huh?"

"Yeah," Kensei replied. "Nothing against the train, but at least this way I'll get some activity."

His father nodded. "Well, try hard at things besides kendo club, okay? You've got your whole future to think about. I know that just makes me sound like an old fart, but…"

"No, I know. Yuuma had his whole future too, I know how it important it is to think ahead," Kensei said and walked the rest of the way downstairs, his father following him outside.

"See you tonight, Kensei-kun."

"See you tonight."

They went down the road in opposite directions.

Neither of them was around when a delivery truck stopped in front of their house and bring out a package with big black letters—GENM—stamped on the return address.

As he locked his bike up, Kensei had a feeling that something big was coming that day. Not that his club was about to be closed down, but something even bigger. He figured the answer was there when he entered his classroom and "NEW STUDENT" was written on the blackboard in giant kanji.

And sitting in the back, all by herself was the pale girl he'd seen catching her breath on a bus stop bench the day before, wearing the school's uniform of dark blazer and skirt.

Kensei stared at her for a second, then when she started to turn to make eye contact with him he looked away and walked over to his own seat. A few minutes later the room had filled up as it always did with chatting students. Then door opened again and Miss Hikomori came in, pinched little smile and thick glasses in place as always.

"Good morning, students!" she called out, waiting for the scripted reply she'd given them at the beginning of the year.

"Good morning, Hikomori-sensei!" everyone responded in perfect but bored synch.

She set down her bag and raised her arm to point at the writing on the board. "As you can see, we have a new student starting today! Mishiranu-san, would like to come up to introduce yourself to the class?"

"Not really," came the immediate reply, and Kensei wasn't surprised to hear it come from the pale girl in the back. Her voice was hollow as she answered.

Miss Hikomori sputtered in surprise, then repeated her question a little more shakily. "Mishiranu-san, would you please come up and introduce yourself to the class?"

"If you insist," the girl answered. She got up from her seat and walked to the front of the classroom, turned and faced the students. "Hello," she said flatly, then bowed suddenly and sharply for a second, flinging her hair forward so it draped over the front of her head. Then she leaned back suddenly and it whipped back again. "I am Kiiko Mishiranu. It's a pleasure to meet you all," she said as flatly as before.

"Well, that was…pleasant, Mishiranu-san," the teacher said, looking slightly rattled by the new student's abrupt introduction. Miss Hikomori sucked in a quick breath and went on, "Well! She'll need someone to help her learn her way around. Why don't…Hidenaga-san! You can be her guide after school."

"I…I guess so," Kensei answered. It wasn't as if he had a club meeting that day after all. Kiiko turned suddenly and locked eyes with him, giving the deepest, most probing look he could ever remember. But then she did something that completely confused him. She went back to her desk, picked up her bag and walked to the seat next to Kensei's. She fixed her eyes on the boy already sitting there, until he got up and walked back to the seat she'd been in at the beginning of class, shooting worried looks over his shoulder at Kiiko.

With the seat open, Kiiko sat down and stared straight ahead, not even looking at Kensei even with making sure she'd gotten the spot next to him. "So…where are you from?" Kensei asked, although he felt a little pathetic not being able to think of anything else to say.

"Far away," she replied without looking over at him, or having any kind of tone suddenly either. "You probably haven't heard of my town."

"Try me," he said with a slight smile and playful challenge in his voice.

Again she didn't even look at him as she answered. "Class is starting. We can't talk now."

"I guess we can't," Kensei said and sat back. Something big was happening to him that day after all.

Where was he going? To find something. What was he trying to find? A thing…a very important thing. What was the thing? The goal. To win. If he found it, he and the others would win.

What would they win? Power. What kind of power? What kind of power…he couldn't remember. But it was power they needed, he remembered that at least.

A mother pushing a baby carriage saw the wild-eyed, unshaven man walking up to her in his tattered coat and pants, and crossed to the other side of the street as fast as she could. The wild-eyed man didn't even notice her go. She wasn't the thing he was trying to find, after all. What was he trying to find? Something important. He'd know it when was near it, that was what the others told him.

He staggered on farther, bumping into another man without noticing and continuing on down the sidewalk. "HEY!" the other man yelled in irritation as he recovered from the wild-eyed man running into him. "What do you think you're doing?" the wild-eyed one didn't answer, only dragging his feet down the street.

His victim ran over to him, grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around. "What's your problem, huh?!" The wild-eyed man giggled, and suddenly his eyes flashed with white light and a weird crackling purple fog seeped out of his mouth.

"Corrupt! Corrupt! Open the breach!...Open the breach! Corrupt! Open…THE BREACH!" the wild-eyed man laughed, his eyes becoming even more wild even as the light faded.

The other man gaped at him for a second, then turned and ran down the street away from him. The wild-eyed man just turned and shuffled the way he'd been going before. That hadn't been what he was looking for either. But he'd find it…he'd find it soon.

"Open the breach! The breach! Corrupt! CORRUPT!" he laughed like a lunatic.

As the final bell rang for the day all of the other student gushed like a stream of water out of the classroom, already talking about everything they could that had nothing to do with school. Kensei looked over at Kiiko, his responsibility for the afternoon, and she was still staring straight ahead like she had for most of the day's lessons.

Then she turned to Kensei, stood up and picked up her back. "Will you show me around now?" she asked him.

"Yeah, of course," Kensei said, studying her carefully as he stood up but trying not to look like he was studying her. "Where did you say you were from again?" he asked lightly.

"I didn't say."

"No, but you said you'd tell me if I asked later."

"Technically, I never did."

Kensei sighed. "Okay, fine. Why don't we go downstairs and I'll show you the school?"

Kiiko stood up. Or more like she stood so fast she seemed to flow up. "I've already seen the school. Show me the town instead, won't you? We can get juice before we leave. I have money."

"Uh…yeah, okay," Kensei said, taken by surprise by her unexpected generosity. Kiiko just nodded then and strode purposefully out of the classroom. Kensei followed her down to the gymnasium building where a red vending machine he'd seen every day but never really noticed before then was waiting. Two cans dropped into its slot, and Kiiko passed on to him. "Thanks," Kensei said, looked at her uncertainly for a second, then popped the can. "So, why did you transfer to Anagakuen?" he asked.

"My…family is splitting up. We came here, and they said this was a pretty good school," Kiiko answered. She didn't open her can and just watched as Kensei sipped from his.

"I guess I know how that goes," he muttered.
"Oh?" Kiiko said. She looked at him intently, silently prompting him to go on. Well, why not, he thought. Maybe if he told her a little about himself, she'd finally loosen up and say something about herself.

"Well, my parents are getting a divorce. It was a big shock to all of us when my brother died. That happened a while ago now, and my dad thinks Yuuma would want us to move on. My mom thinks if we did, we'd be insulting everything he did when he was alive. She's even gone to talk at elementary schools a couple times about how he was a hero too, like the Kamen Riders"

Kiiko canted her head. "Oh? Did he do a lot of good things?"

When he heard that Kensei couldn't help smiling a little. "He was the best baseball player this school ever had. I'll show you all the trophies if we go back inside. Girls were always following him around everywhere. But then they had that 'Kamen Rider Chronicle' thing happen, something like a video game came to life for real and there were monsters running around everywhere…"

"Yes, I heard about that," Kiiko nodded, sounding a little more casual than Kensei would've expected, but he was too caught up in his memories to pay it much attention.

"Well, the police said he was out and tried to help some lady who was about to get killed by one of the monsters. He tried to use one of those Kamen Rider Chronicle cartridges, but he wasn't strong enough to beat the monster and he…he died. My mom actually still has the cartridge, even though it's broken now. She says it's proof of how brave Yuuma was. She even put it in a frame and hung it up on the wall so she always sees it as soon as she wakes up."

"Really? She sounds very proud of what he did," Kiiko said.

Kensei took a long drink on his juice, realized he'd finished it and dropped the can in the recycling bin next to the vending machine. He looked over at Kiiko and saw she still hadn't even opened hers. "I'm not thirsty," she said as if she could read his mind. "Do you want it?"

He didn't answer her. Over her should he spotted a quick flash of light out of the corner of his eye. Shuffling by past the fence around the school was a crazy-looking unshaven man with ragged clothes on. He mumbled something to himself as he walked, then suddenly he whipped around and stared Kensei straight in the eye. The ragged man's eyes lit up bright white and for a second Kensei felt like he was looking straight into the sun. He gasped and flinched away as his eyes filled with flickering spots.

While he was distracted by the flash the ragged man smiled like a fiend and easily jumped the fence, landing a few feet away from the two of them. "CORRUPT!" he laughed. His body seemed to flicker for a second, turning blocky…pixelated. "Open the breach!" He staggered closer to them, grinning wider and more crazily than ever.

"Buddy," Kensei said as his vision cleared and he managed to focus on the man again. "You better back off. Now."

"Open the breach!" the man laughed, then grabbed at them with bony fingers. Kensei clenched his teeth, then slammed a fist into the man's stomach. He gasped as the wind was knocked out of him, but as he did a small purple cloud of crackling smoke gushed from his mouth. Kensei gasped in surprise as his skin started to tingle where the cloud touched him, then yelped in pain as it started burning against his skin.

He yanked his arm back and spun suddenly, hooking his leg around the wild-eyed man's and pulled, yanking the man off his feet. Kensei turned to run back to Kiiko, but she seemed to become a blur as she ran past Kensei instead, then stopped and waved urgently for him to follow.

For a second Kensei glanced down at the man he'd just knocked flat. The man flickered again then, and as he came back into focus he had changed into something different. Something…terrifying. His clothes had changed, and now he only had on a tiger-striped kilt.

Then he stood up, seeming to grow and grow until he towered over Kensei's head, a studded iron club, a tetsubo, melted out of one of his powerful hands. Then as if to complete the transformation a shiny red shell formed over the man's face and scalp like the color the rest of his skin had turned. A pair of curved horns jabbed out of his forehead and his eyes seemed to turn to two tiny balls of fire in the sockets. Then his jaw stretched downward until his mouth was big enough to swallow Kensei's head whole. He looked like…an Oni?

The rush of air as the club swung down toward his skull was like a thunderclap, but Kensei was already running after Kiiko as fast as he could go. Behind him he heard the ground crunching but just kept running for all he was worth. Whatever that thing was, it was more than he felt like taking on with what he'd learned in kendo club.

They ran out the nearest gate and down a corner as they heard the man, or monster or whatever he was crashing through the fence. After another second Kiiko started to slow down, then stopped totally and panted for breath. Kensei took her by the arm and led her out of the street and into the shadows of an alley next a Big Bang Burger. The thing chasing them stomped by and after a minute the loud footsteps disappeared into the distance. Kensei peered out and froze as he saw two-inch-deep footprints gouged in the concrete of the sidewalk where it'd gone just a few feet from them.

What scared him more, though, was tiny purple blotches he saw in the monster's footprints. He leaned over for a closer look and his skin crawled as his suspicion was confirmed: the blotches were growing, spreading themselves up onto the sidewalk like some of infection.

"What do we do now?" Kiiko whispered.

"I don't know! Do I look like I know anything about monsters?!" Kensei hissed. "We should probably find a place to hide, or tell the police, or—"

"GOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOME…" a wheezing voice suddenly interrupted. A chill went up Kensei's spine as he though he recognized it.

"Aniki?"

In front of them, just for a few seconds, appeared the transparent shape of a boy a few years old than the two of them, his features obscured by a cloud seemingly made of squares that faded in and out around him. "POOOOOOWEERRRR…NEEEEEED REEEEEEEAAALL POOOOOOWEEERRRR…" he moaned, but the effort of talking seemed to drain his energy. Before either of them could say anything, he faded out of sight.

"You saw that too, right?" Kensei asked a second later.

"Someone said we needed power. Real power," Kiiko answered him, looking straight at where the ghost had been.

Kensei took a breath and gripped Kiiko's hand. "Then I think I know where we need to go."

Any doubts Kensei had about the meaning of the ghost's words were gone when he saw the small cardboard package stamped with the ominous GENM logo laying next to his front door. That had been the company that made those video games that came to life, hadn't it? They'd have plenty of power to give out, wouldn't they?

Hopefully more than Yuuma had…

After making sure no one was following them Kensei waved Kiiko inside and kicked the package through the door, then thought he probably shouldn't be kicking things around that had "real power." He locked it, then let out a long sigh. The tension of being chased by a monster seemed to leak out of Kensei's body through his feet. "Um, can I get you something to drink?" he asked.

"Shouldn't you open that box?" Kiiko reminded him.

"Oh, yeah, I guess I should," he answered. He was holding it tight to his chest, but realized in the back of his mind he was kind of hoping they hadn't really been attacked by a psycho with the face of an Oni, and that there wasn't proof that someone had seen this coming in his hands.

He tore through the tape with his fingernails, earning himself a papercut on one fingertip, but froze and stared at what he saw inside. Lying in the middle of the packing paper was a neon green box with a bright pink lever over the front and two slots like a toaster off to the side. Pulling back on the lever Kensei revealed a little decal on the inside that said "GAMER DRIVER," and showed a picture it'd been hiding of someone with giant eyeballs wearing light samurai-like armor, a skewed crescent attached to the brow of his helmet. As soon as Kensei let go of the lever it snapped back into place.

It wasn't the only thing in the box. Next to it was a red plastic cartridge with one side molded into a grip like a pistol, with a start button for where the thumb would be. Sticking out of the top was a clear rectangular circuit board. It looked just like the one Yuuma had tried to use to fight back against the Bugster.

On the front was a label showing a figure in red and black samurai armor with a screaming demonic face on the front of his horned helmet and wielding a pair of swords, one long blade above his and one short blade while screaming with rage. Written next to him were the words "En En Chambara."

"Isn't that what those Kamen Riders had? The things that gave them their power?" Kiiko asked.

"I think so," Kensei answered. "All I really knew about what they did was to run if I saw a monster. They said on the news not to play that Chronicle game, but I hadn't been playing video games in forever by then anyway.

"But…they said the people who died in that game could be brought back," Kensei went on. "At least they thought so. If they figured that out, they still haven't told anybody."

"That was your brother just now, though, right? You said he was one of the people who died playing that game," Kiiko pointed out to him. "Something must've changed, then?"

It had to, Kensei admitted to himself. If somehow Yuuma had managed to talk to him and probably send this machine to him, something had to have gone wrong, those monsters had to be coming back. And if Yuuma had really made sure sent this to him…did that mean the Kamen Riders who had always taken care of those monsters before now couldn't anymore, for some reason?

Then, all of a sudden the ground shook, sending them half an inch into the air. A second later it shook again but he heard the sound of metal caving in and glass crunching, and guessed somebody's car had just been smashed. It had to be the Red Oni, but had he tracked them down somehow, or was he just nearby? It didn't really matter, though. Somehow he had to keep that monster from finding this was where he lived and letting the monster ruin his family any more than its kind already had. Kensei took a breath, shut his eyes and picked up the Gamer Driver and the weird little cartridge it had been sent with.

"I can't believe this is happening."

"Do you believe?" Kiiko asked him.

"I gotta believe," Kensei answered breathlessly.

"Turn it on," Kiiko replied.

He looked down at the Gamer Driver again and saw a pink button stamped "POWER" across the top, and pressed it with his thumb.

"REFORMAT. Initiated," said a blaring voice from the Driver.

"…reformat?"

Suddenly his fingertips on his hand started to itch, and then to Kensei's horror tiny bits of drifted away as tiny dots. Within seconds it had spread up his arm. He opened his mouth to scream but the entire half of his body had already dissolved away. He expected to feel pain, but all he felt was a dull tingling as his body continued to break down into a stream of colored dots. As he watched though, he realized they were actually small cubes. Pixels, the word entered his mind from somewhere. Everything went dark as his face broke down…

…then he could see where the stream of pixels was going, and his hand reforming at the end. Then his arm, and then the rest of his body. The weird green and pink box traveled along the stream of dots until it came to rest in his other reformed hand just where it had been before. A second later his body was complete again as if nothing had happened at all.

Had it? Something felt different in him now, like he could see more clearly suddenly, and could count the stripes in the wood of his front door. His fingers tingled at the faint power in the En En Chambara game waiting to be sparked into something incredible.

Without saying a word he went out the back door.

"Hey!" Kiiko called out, a little surprised at being left behind.

Kensei stopped by the back door and gave her a steely look. "I'm on a mission right now," he replied, and walked out.

A neighbor's dog barked uselessly at the Oni monster, whose skin had taken on the color of his face. He raised his tetsubo and the animal yipped and ran away, and he held out the club at arm's length, smashing into the cement wall that blocked off the back of a row of houses from the street. Then he started running, tearing up giant footprints with his massive stomps and digging a rough gash in the wall with the tip of his club.

A young couple saw the monster coming and ran down another street. The Red Oni spun with his weapon held out, smashing over two streetlights and ripping the roof of a parked car. He threw back his shiny red head and laughed a demonic, piercing laugh that shattered windows half a block away and sprayed purple flecks from his that started to spread as soon as they hit the ground. "CORRUPT! CORRUPT!" he screamed.

"Not my neighborhood!" someone shouted. Red Oni stopped his spinning and laughing, and turned to see Kensei standing down the street, wearing the Gamer Driver on the front of a belt around his waist. "Stop this, or—"

"Or you'll have to make me, little Rider!" Red Oni sneered at him.

"I guess I will," Kensei whispered. Kensei gripped En En Chambara, and squeezed the button on the side with his thumb.

"En EN…ChamBARA!" the tiny device yelled, and Kensei almost dropped it in surprise at what happened next. Giant colorful coins sprayed out from the top and landed on their edges all over the street. Above him a giant screen appeared reading "EN EN CHAMBARA" in fiery letters with the demon-faced warrior on the label next to it, showing silhouettes of soldiers with swords and spears fighting in fields of fireFmetch. Kensei guessed what he was supposed to do with the game, and turned it upside down and shoved the clear circuit board into the first slot on the Gamer Driver.

"Let's Game! Metcha Game! Mucha Game! What's Your Name?!"

"What…?" Kensei asked, left speechless partly by the bombastic introduction the Gamer Driver was making, but also by the feeling of awesome strength starting to fill his body as a ring of icons showing masked faces with gigantic eyes appeared around him. Without really thinking he reached out to touch the one with a skewed crescent attached to the forehead of its mask.

As if answering his question it yelled out, "UTSURA!...I'm a Kamen Rider!" Then the light covering him faded, and Kensei had transformed.

"Something…doesn't feel right," he said to himself, and the Oni laughed. Kensei was indeed quite a sight; his body was covered in strips of black and white armor, but stubby arms and legs stuck out of a masked face with googly yellow eyes behind giant goggles that had a thin crescent ornament stuck to the forehead and tilted slightly to the side. Across his chest was a piece of armor with four colorful buttons—yellow, red, green and blue—arranged in a diamond pattern on the left side while on the right was a long line of small colored marks like a video game's health bar. It skewed upward above two square icons, one of a long katana and the other of two swords with shorter blades.

"Let me squash you flatter," Red Oni sniggered, spraying those flecks of purple that started spreading wherever they landed. He ran at Kensei, or now Utsura, whirling his club over his head. Inside the mask, a red point of light appeared on Red Oni's middle, and as he came close enough to start bringing his weapon down on Utsurua's head the new Rider threw a punch that connected with the target he saw on Red Oni's body with an incredible CRACK. Red Oni stumbled backward and almost dropped his weapon, coughing and dribbling more purple all over the ground.

Utsura had been in enough mock combat to knew to press his advantage when his opponent was knocked off-balance. A string of glowing letters appeared in his vision, "OPEN INVENTORY GASHACON ZASHI." He held out his hand and a ring formed in the air like just before he transformed, but with only two icons appearing this time. He touched the first one, of a short-bladed sword, and as he pulled back his hand the weapon had appeared in it.

But he sputtered behind his mask as he saw it; the thing looked like a toy. It was a wakizahi, a samurai's short sword, but built into the hilt was a boxy crossbar with a bright blue button marked A and a red button next to it marked B. The blade was bright green.

It was all he had to work with, though. He ran and shoulder-checked Red Oni, then spun and slashed across the spot where he'd hit the monster before, lit up with a bright red spot again, but his attack was slow and awkward thanks to his bulky shape. Utsura's vision flashed red as Red Oni yelled in pain and anger, and an upward arrow appeared right before the tetsubo came down on his head. Utsura dodged to the side but he was a second too slow and Red Oni's weapon clipped his shoulder.

Before he could recover Red Oni's giant fist crashed into his face and for a second his vision filled with static. He cried out as Red Oni bit down on his head, crunching on the armor with his huge jaws, then actually lifted Utsura off the ground with his teeth and tossed him eighty feet down the street where he smashed through the wall obstructing a family's backyard.

Utsura groaned and tried to roll onto his back to get up again, but his bulky form and stubby arms and legs made it hard. As he struggled the first third of the marks on his health bar flared and disappeared. There had to be something he was missing. This wasn't how it worked for those other Kamen Riders, he was sure they hadn't looked like this when he saw them on the news.

"Wonder what pounded Kamen Rider tastes like," Red Oni mused, licking his tetsubo with a two foot-long tongue. Utsura groaned, then stopped as more typing appeared in front of him. "PULL BACK LEVER." He managed to hook a stubby finger behind the top of his Driver's lever, then pulled it open. This time it didn't snap back, and a weird feeling came over Utsura's body. "Kenjutsu Level 2," the Driver said.

He blasted into the air like a missile and the arms and legs shot off from his awkward armor, leaving just the head. Then his body uncurled from behind it, and stood up in a new less restrictive suit of armor, yellow in color with black circuit-like patterns running up the torso, arms and legs. Plates of thick red armor attached to his hips, around his legs, on the backs of his arms and onto his shoulders, forming around the chestplate with the colored buttons and health bar. A helmet with sloping sides and a tilted crescent on the front came spinning through the air and landed on top of his head, contrasting the giant googly eyes his mask still had, completing his new transformation.

A booming noise echoed down the street. A second later it came again, and Utsura looked over to see the noise come one more time as Red Oni made a slow, sarcastic clap. "Your corpse will look a little less stupid now!" he jeered and whirled his tetsubo through the air again. Utsura clutched the Gashacon Zashi which looked so tiny and weak in comparison to his opponent's weapon, but without all that armor on he knew he could move again, and the lessons from kendo practice were already coming back…

He waited for just the right moment to attack, Red Oni spinning club through the air so fast Utsura was almost blown back a step by the rushing air. Then Red Oni stopped and raised it like a baseball bat, and Utsura flinched back in what looked like fear. Red Oni sneered and swung with all of his great strength.

Right before it could hit him Utsura suddenly reached out and grabbed the head of the tetsubo. Its studs dug into his hand and he knew he wouldn't be able to hold it for long, but already a blip had appeared on Red Oni's unprotected side and Utsura swung his short sword in a fierce arc that connected in a shower of sparks.

Red Oni howled in agony, more purple spit spraying from his mouth and a sheet of it splattering Utsura. His skin crawled inside his armor at the idea of that horrible stuff spreading over his body, but to his surprise and relief it started burning off as soon as it touched him. This armor could protect him from whatever the purple filth was?

But he was distracted just a second too long and Red Oni kicked him hard in his lightly-armored middle. Utsura was knocked off his feet but in midair he tucked his sword parallel to his chest and folded his arms up so when he landed he rolled on his side to ride out the force of Red Oni's kick. As he got his feet underneath him half of his health bar was gone, but he was sure he was starting to get the hang of this.

"You're in trouble now, little Rider," Red Oni sneered, pointing at Utsura's depleted health bar with his weapon. Utsura just clenched his sword and went into a defensive stance, not going to make the amateur mistake of letting his opponent bait him. Red Oni snapped his jaws open and closed a few times but when Utsura refused to make the first move, he growled in anger and the fire in his eyes started to glow brighter, his horns growing even longer. He snarled a word in a language no human was meant to make and a streak of fire ran up his tetsubo. A tingle ran up Utsura's spine as he saw his enemy prepare to go all-out.

Utsura also knew that would make it easier to catch him in a mistake.

Red Oni screamed and charged at him but as he tried to jab Utsura with the end of the weapon, the Rider suddenly jumped up, one foot touched the flaming club for just a second and a mark disappeared off his health bar as it burned into his leg. But then the jumped and kicked Red Oni hard on the chin. The monster reeled for a second and as Utsura came down from his jump he slashed at the red shell covering Red Oni's head with his sword, cracking it down the middle.

For a second Red Oni stopped in his berserk charge, touching the crack Utsura's attack had made and causing a few shiny red chips to fall off, revealing soft skin underneath. He screamed and charged Utsura again, swinging so fast Utsura was almost buffeted back. Utsura jumped back as Red Oni closed in, planted his foot on the side of a wall and vaulted off with all of his strength, going high into the air at an angle. He came down with his armored boot aimed at the crack on Red Oni's head and slammed the heel down as hard as he could. Then his other heel, and in seconds he was drumming his feet so fasts his legs became a red and yellow blur.

Red Oni yelled and swatted his attacker away, flames singing at Utsura's armor and another fourth of his health bar disappearing. But as Utsura landed in a crouch another message appeared in his view, and he knew what to do. He pounded the B button on his sword, the green blade lighing up starting at the hilt and climbing higher until he'd hit it enough times for it to get to the tip. Then he slipped En En Chambara into a slot on the side of the hilt, and slapped the A button. The sword in his hand flickered for a second and then Utsura held another one like it in his other hand.

"En En…Critical FINISH!" the Gamer Driver yelled and the glow around Utsura's blades turned into a flickering green flame.

"You think I should be scared now that you have two little swords?" Red Oni spat as he shouldered his tetsubo for one last charge.

"I think I'm giving you an honorable end," Utsura replied. "Even if you don't deserve one." Red Oni screamed and swung at Utsura, who jumped high and slashed down with both swords at the vulnerable crack on the top of the monster's head. Giant glowing blades extended from his swords and cleaved right through Red Oni's body.

The monster went totally still and silent for a second. Then his head started to disintegrate into a stream of pixels that floated away into the sky, and the rest of his body flowed away a few seconds later. Then once Red Oni was gone the swelling patches of purple all over the ground and walls disintegrated and flowed into the sky after him. Above Utsura's head appeared giant red and yellow letters: GAME CLEAR, and just next to them was a huge image of his En En Chambara game.

Utsura sighed and lowered his swords, glad it was finally over. But then he heard, "You barely survived a tutorial battle! Why would they send you a Gamer Driver?!" a deep voice demanded in disbelief. Inside, Utsura groaned and turned to where the voice had come from, expecting another fight.

Facing him, though, was someone else wearing armor like his, with giant googly eyes behind his goggles as well a chestplate with a health bar just like Utsura's, except the icons underneath showed a wand and an upside down star inside of a circle. Over a green suit with black circuitry lines Utsura's own he had on a wine-colored robe covered in weird zodiac-like symbols of different metallic sheens. The hood was pulled up over his head, and in one hand he held a neon green wand with a ball of shimmering energy on the tip. Probably why he wasn't wearing a Gamer Driver himself.

"If you're hoping I'm in the mood for another round, I'm going to have to disappoint you," Utsura told him.

"Oh, I'm not here to pick a fight," the other Kamen Rider replied. "I'll do you a favor and tell you that if you can barely handle a tutorial boss like the Red Oni, you'd better just give up now."