Pov change
The flickering blue light from the screen cast a harsh sheen on Ace's taut features. His jaw clenched as he scrolled through the grisly footage, each clip of a Jyamato transformation twisting a knot of unease in his gut. They were evolving – rapidly, ominously – and the gnawing suspicion that some puppeteer lurked behind their twisted dance wouldn't let go.
He remembered, in flashes, a glimpse of an old man, eyes glinting with a feverish obsession, the architect of this gruesome ballet. But it was a fleeting impression, a wisp of smoke swallowed by the chaos.
"Ace-sama," Tsumuri's voice sliced through his contemplation, the tablet in her hand a silver rectangle reflecting the data-drenched room. "The attacks."
He looked up, brow furrowing. "What about them?"
"They've... stopped," she said, her voice barely a whisper. "Across Japan, the Jyamato attacks have... vanished."
Ace took the tablet, his fingers tracing the sudden dip in the graph, the void where screams and carnage should have echoed. Confusion warred with relief in his chest. Why a halt now, when they held the upper hand?
His eyes scanned the grainy images, then paused. A figure in the background, cloaked in black, a silhouette that tugged at forgotten corners of his memory. Something about the stance, the way the wind ruffled the fabric – a whisper of familiarity he couldn't grasp.
"What are they planning this time?" Ace muttered, his gaze glued to the phantom image. His gut thrummed, a low beat insisting he knew this man, even if his name remained shrouded in mist.
"Some of the infected..." Tsumuri began, her voice hesitant. "They're... being cured."
Ace's brow furrowed deeper. Déjà vu gnawed at him, a phantom taste of an encounter, a whispered conversation on the precipice of this very moment. His eyes met Tsumuri's, the question burning unasked.
"The timeframe," he finally rasped. "How fast did this unfold?"
Tsumuri consulted the tablet, her brow knit in concentration. "A day," she murmured. "Within one day, everything... changed."
A gear clicked in Ace's mind, the fog lifting with a suddenness that made him stagger. A smile, slow and deliberate, crept across his face. An old friend, he thought, the name a warm ember on his tongue.
He rose, a newfound purpose straightening his shoulders. "Tsumuri," he said, his voice laced with steel, "I need to meet an old friend."
As his footsteps echoed through the room, leaving Tsumuri in a bewildered silence, the question hovered in the air: who was this friend, and what secrets did their reunion hold?
Who exactly was this old friend that Ace spoke off...who exactly was he meeting.
Pov change.
The stark sterility of the laboratory was a punch to the senses. Razor-sharp metallic smells hung heavy in the air, punctuated by the rhythmic hum of life support machinery. In the center, a monstrous contraption glinted under harsh fluorescent lights, its chrome tentacles reaching out to cradle a broken figure within.
His face, a map of suffering etched in pale flesh and livid scars, was barely visible beneath the spiderweb of wires and the mask forcing reluctant breaths into his shattered lungs. Each desperate rise and fall of his chest was a defiant counterpoint to the monotonous machine keeping him on the precipice of existence.
Emerald vials, like morbid trophies, lined the shelves, pulsing with an unsettling internal light. The green liquid within them thrummed like a captive heartbeat, its purpose as obscure as the menacing shadows lurking in the corners of the room. A prickling chill settled on the man skin, drawing a fog of condensation onto the observation window as his gaze locked on the man – and the secrets trapped within his ravaged body.
Then, a flicker of movement in the periphery, a whisper of sound swallowed by the mechanical symphony. Was it a trick of the sterile air, or did another presence lurk in this macabre theater of pain? The question coiled around Kei, tighter than the tubes binding the man on the chrome altar. He knew, with a bone-deep certainty, that he had to unravel the mystery, thread by agonizing thread, before the emerald pulse of time ran out.
The rhythmic hum of the machine, once constant and hypnotic, devolved into a frantic blaring as a single eye in the metallic web blinked open. Then another, like two embers igniting in the pale desolation of his face. The man within the contraption stirred, a groan escaping his ravaged lips as bio-tubes pulsed around him, the emerald lifeblood within them shimmering.
Across the sterile expanse, a figure materialized from the shadows. He moved with practiced ease, the hum of the machine seeming to bow to his will as he adjusted dials and calmed its panicked symphony. As he neared the glass, his voice cut through the mechanical din, smooth as oil, yet holding a razor's edge.
"Suel-sama," it purred, a sardonic twist of respect lacing the name. "You've finally graced us with your return."
The man inside rasped, his voice like dry leaves crunching underfoot. "Zitt... how long?"
Zitt smile, if it could be called that, widened, a chilling revelation of teeth in the gloom. "Long enough, Suel-sama. Long enough to see your masterpiece almost come to fruition. Long enough for the world to tremble on the precipice of change."
"You seem as if you are not fully sure,tell me the truth"Suel said looking at Zitt who replied "The Jyamato have been taking care of by someone and we couldnt get our hands on the goddess of creation"
Suel looked midly annoyed at this,how was he supposed to get healed back to his prime power if the goddess of creation wasnt in his hands,however he had plan for that.
"How about the second one"Suel asked looking at Zitt who just replied.
"She has not awakened the goddess powers,she show no sign of awakening it"
"So why did you not force it out"Suel added looking at Zitt who bow his head saying "I did try as one of the kamen riders was mentally unstable due to his sister being mentally unstable,i tried to manipulate him into forcing the goddess power out of Tsumuri but something happened and stopped it"
"What happened"Suel said looking at Zitt with very judgy eyes.
Zitt shook his head, frustration twisting his features. "We don't know. The threads leading to her cure, they... vanish. It's as if someone intervened, erased their tracks like ghosts in the night."
Suel's chest tightened, an iron band squeezing the air from his lungs. Zitt's words, "ghosts in the night," echoed in his fractured mind, each syllable a hammer blow against his already crumbling sanity. His breath hitched, turning into a strangled gasp, the emerald glow of the vials momentarily dimming as his body seized with an unseen horror.
His eyes, once burning with ambition, turned inward, replaying a scene seared into his memory like a brand. A dark figure, skin like polished ebony and eyes like burning embers, materialized in the swirling miasma of his PTSD. The man's laughter, sharp and cruel, sliced through the sterile silence, each cackle a fresh barb tearing at Suel's tattered psyche.
He saw the twisted grin, the deranged glint in those amber eyes, a bottomless abyss reflecting the madness that had consumed him. It was a look Suel knew all too well, a mirror reflecting his own descent into darkness. Fear, raw and primal, flooded his veins, the icy tendrils of terror coiling around his heart. It was the fear of the predator facing its apex predator, the hunted recognizing the monstrous hunger in the hunter's gaze.
His muscles clenched, phantom pain screaming through his broken body. He tasted bile rising in his throat, the metallic tang mocking his failed grandiosity. His mind, once a fortress of ironclad will, crumbled brick by brick under the onslaught of the past. He was back there, trapped in that moment of utter defeat, his legacy shattered, his ambitions laid to waste.
The rhythmic hum of the machine became a death knell, each pulse a reminder of his dependence, his pathetic vulnerability. Zitt's voice, once a grating annoyance, was now a lifeline, the only tether to reality.
"Zitt..." Suel rasped, the word a tortured whisper. "Who... who was it?"
His voice, once commanding, was now a broken plea, the echo of a fallen king begging for salvation. The sterile lab receded, the emerald vials blurring into a maelstrom of fear and despair. Only the image of that laughing face, that embodiment of chaos, remained tethered to his dwindling sanity.
A suffocating silence descended upon the sterile lab, broken only by the rhythmic hum of the life support machine keeping Suel tethered to a precarious existence. Zitt's voice, usually barbed and venomous, held a sliver of genuine confusion.
"I searched, Suel," he admitted, his words echoing starkly in the white expanse. "Every trace of her vanished the moment the girl... recovered. It's as if someone erased her steps themselves."
Suel's mind, however, was a storm of internal denial. "No," he rasped, the word a desperate refusal. "He can't be here. Not him."
Memories, sharp and brutal, flickered behind his pale eyes. The obsidian blade carving through flesh, the crimson bloom staining the sand, the final, mocking laugh echoing across the desolate battlefield. He had seen him fall, seen his body disappear in a blinding pulse of light. The monster who had shattered Suel's ambitions, who had left him a broken husk on this machine, couldn't possibly be alive.
"He's dead," Suel hissed, the word a mantra against the rising tide of fear. "Dead and damned. I saw him vanish. You couldn't have missed it."
Zitt's silence spoke volumes. His gaze, usually cold and calculating, flickered with something unsettling – a touch of unease, perhaps, or even... fear. Could he understand the gnawing dread twisting Suel's gut? The terrifying possibility that the nightmare hadn't truly ended, that the abyss had vomited its most fearsome creation back into their world?
The machine shrieked, the emerald vials in its heart pulsing with a frantic rhythm. Suel clutched the bars of his cage, his broken body wracked with a phantom chill. The echo of that horrifying laughter played on repeat in his mind, a cruel reminder of the chaos that stalked him even in this supposed sanctuary.
"Find him," Suel spat, the fear hardening into a steely resolve. "Find him and leave no doubt. If he breathes, if he crawls, if he exists in any form – bring him to me. This nightmare ends when I have him face my vengeance, not a moment sooner."
Meanwhile.
Aaron crouched in the shadows, his dark cloak blending seamlessly with the gnarled ivy clinging to the old brick wall. His gaze, sharp as a falcon's, was trained on the scene unfolding before him. Keiwa and Sarah, reunited after months of agonizing separation, stood bathed in the soft glow of the setting sun. They embraced, a silent symphony of relief and joy playing out in their tear-streaked faces.
Keiwa, once stoic and reserved, held Sarah close, his normally steady hands tracing delicate patterns on her back. Sarah, her fiery spirit momentarily subdued, buried her face in his shoulder, her sobs muffled against his worn leather jacket. Aaron, who knew Keiwa better than anyone, saw beyond the tears. He saw the raw vulnerability etched in his brother's features, the unspoken fear and doubt finally laid bare.
A soft smile touched Aaron's lips, a fleeting bloom in the twilight shadows. At least one person, he thought, one precious soul had been spared the darkness that consumed his own life. Keiwa, once destined to follow in his footsteps, had found his way back to the light, guided by the unyielding love of his sister.
He watched as Keiwa gently pulled away, cupping Sarah's face in his calloused hands. Their laughter, soft and hesitant at first, soon filled the air, chasing away the remnants of fear and sorrow. They spoke in hushed tones, sharing secrets exchanged only between siblings who had stared into the abyss and emerged, scarred but unbroken.
Aaron felt a pang of something akin to... joy. It was a foreign emotion, one he had long deemed unworthy of his tainted existence. Yet, seeing Keiwa's genuine happiness, the warmth radiating from Sarah's smile, he couldn't help but be swayed.
Perhaps, he thought, a flicker of hope dared to ignite within him, perhaps his path wasn't entirely sealed in perpetual darkness. Perhaps, somewhere in the twisting labyrinth of his past, there was a thread leading back to a semblance of light.
But for now, he contented himself with watching from the shadows, a guardian unseen, a silent testament to the enduring power of love and family. Keiwa deserved this solace, this fragile peace. And Aaron, even from the periphery, would ensure its survival.
Aaron's contented smile faltered as a shadow stretched across his path. He looked up, his eyes narrowing in recognition. Ace, a figure from his past as sharp and familiar as a shard of obsidian, stood before him, hands nonchalantly tucked into his pockets.
"Long time no see," Ace drawled, his voice a smooth melody laced with an edge of amusement. "Didn't expect to find you brooding in the shadows, watching a family reunion."
"Do i know you"Aaron said trying to act as if he didnt know who that was.
"Don't even try it"Ace said clearly not buying it.
"I tried"Aaron said as his costume slowly vanish to reveal him in the flesh without his suit on.