Kamen Rider is playing the villain in Pretty Cure

Ash's words were a huge blow to Lily. Didn't they imply that her encounter with him, the help she received, and the heart-throb she felt for him were all a calculated scam from beginning to end?!

"Yes, it's just as you thought. I was waiting for you specially~ Yeah, it really took me a lot of effort."

"......"

The sound of rain coming from overhead was pouring down, getting heavier and heavier, and the crackling sound of rain hitting the two umbrellas kept echoing between the two people who had been silent for a while.

"If you still can't understand." The fingers that kept digging into his temple were removed and finally pointed at the illusion mirror in Lily's hand. "Use that to take a look at my heart flower."

"!" Lily didn't expect to be reminded of this. With her stiff fingers, she turned the dial on the surface of the phantom mirror to adjust the function. The flower in the man's heart was gradually reflected on the mirror facing Ash.

"...!"

It was a completely black flower, and the core of each pistil seemed to be dry due to lack of moisture. However, it was different from the feeling they often saw of people's hearts withering when they were disappointed. This lifeless flower seemed as "natural" as people breathing and blinking when their eyes were dry. It had been in this desolate appearance from the beginning.

"Black Lycoris radiata, also known as... the flower of the other shore." The same expression Lei had once displayed was repeated on Lily's face, and the woman continued to mutter mechanically. "The flower's language is unpredictable darkness, death, and..."

Wandering...love.

"Do you understand? Although we bleed the same blood and breathe the same air, as human beings," Ash maintained a smile, but beneath his skin, there was no trace of genuine laughter. "This is also the decisive difference between you and me."

The silver threads that kept falling did not look like raindrops, but rather like piercing silver hairs falling from the sky, light as boneless and endless.

"I really miss you. Six months ago, I met you here. I never did it this way before. Now that I think about it, it was a very fulfilling six months."

Today's weather seemed to be trying to take away the heat of the recent summer vacation. It was very cold, and the desolate wind was carrying water droplets. After the umbrella slipped away from the girl's hands at some point, it blew towards her from all directions, and blew towards Yueying Lily, whose eyes were dazed.

"Are all the things you did and said for me, Rei, Erika, Itsuki, and everyone else a lie?"

The shoulders of her school uniform quickly became wet, and her dark purple hair also showed signs of being wet by raindrops. A few dewdrops were dripping through her hair, and even her glasses were covered with mist, making her look unsightly.

"Were all the times we spent together just false illusions?!"

“It’s not all fake.”

Gradually approaching Lily, Ash held out his umbrella to her, just like he did that day when he shielded her from the rain.

What exactly is it like for me, as the manager of Nasta, to spend time with them?

At the beginning, I did approach them with impure intentions, wanting to make them shine more brightly and create more miracles through constant stimulation.

But since when? Gradually, as I get along with them, I find myself fascinated by their laughter. Sometimes, I can't help but feel anxious as someone around them. It's a feeling I couldn't understand in the past.

I said that I changed them, but they also changed me, didn’t they?

"It's not always like that. If I think about it occasionally, I'm not sure how moved I am, and how much I want to cry. And that so-called guilt... well, there's probably still a little bit of that."

Maybe I really am a pleasure-seeker just like the character in a gal game I played when I was a child. But unlike the pleasure I get from seeing others suffer, I prefer to see the dazzling moments of upright heroes, the way they correctly and righteously beat up the unreasonable evil, and the way they cry with joy after struggling to overcome countless darkness and finally welcome the deserved happy ending.

So even I can easily fall into it if I’m not careful?

But it doesn't matter anymore.

"So you understand?"

"I'm not your friend anymore."

Lily retreated back into the rain, her long hair stuck together in front of her forehead due to the rain, and the veins on the back of her hands were bulging. Her fingers, which were gripping the lid of the transformation pot tightly, creaked because she was holding it too tightly.

"My heart... is unforgivable. How long are you going to keep lying to me... What a joke!!!"

Seeing Lily raise the transformation device, Ash smiled with relief and let go of the umbrella, letting it roll into the rain between them.

"Don't you understand it very well?"

"[DESTREAM DRIVER]!"

Facing Lily, whose expression could not be seen in the rain, Ash also held the new driver he made after removing the dangerous trigger.

"Precure Open My Heart!"

"Henshin."

In the hazy rain and fog, two completely different lights enveloped the two men, transforming them into two completely different inhuman warriors.

Chapter 146 Evolution

"boom----"

The merciless silver moonlight hit the knight's chest, knocking him and his belt through two walls and continuing to fall backwards.

"As expected of you, Lily. That power is constantly rising!" Catching Lily's straight punch and feeling the rising power in his hand, Ash could only sigh that his idea was indeed correct.

"Shut up!" More power was triggered according to Lily's wishes, but she would rather not have the power at this moment. The girl pinched her wrist armor with both hands, and the sound of it crackling made her fight gracefully and agilely. This time, she abandoned all her style and vented her anger with her fists and feet towards the man frantically.

Although he wanted to fight back, the gap was too big. Moreover, Lily was fighting with all her strength this time, and her strength was even increasing. Even Ash couldn't reverse such a huge gap.

"Qi, the power of the belt has increased, but if it's a transformation item——"

So he could only fight and retreat, crashing into the industrial warehouse on the side, and Ash continued to retreat in a certain direction.

"Hah!"

A punch burning with silver-purple light blew up the spider web armor on his chest. Seeing the scarlet fragments flying in front of him, tears could not stop flowing from the corners of his eyes.

"Although I can't do much more, I can still do it if you call me when you are sad and share half of my energy with you."

Scenes from the past with him, sad times and happy times, all flashed before my eyes.

"Well, that ring looks pretty good on you."

When the other party said he would help me, when I was almost killed again, and when the store manager hugged me and said he could share half of his energy with me, I was so happy and blessed, with a long-lost feeling of being touched and at peace from the bottom of my heart.

'Welcome back.'

The last scene was frozen at the moment when he said the words that reassured her for the last time.

Obviously, thanks to that person, I can smile from the bottom of my heart, and because of that, all those touching moments are... Why, why can't I stop crying now?

"Lily, you lost your father, so you long to fill the void in your heart with other emotions."

Slowly turning over and sitting up from the ground, Ash narrated calmly and coldly, as if he was not the one who was beaten.

"But I am destined not to be a part of your life. I am who I am and cannot replace anything else."

"Anyway, you are a big liar who is deceiving our hearts!!!"

With one punch, Ash, who was sitting up, was knocked down again. The Pretty Cure with two tear marks on her face pulled the knight up from the crack in the floor.

"There's nothing unsatisfactory about strength." Ash, who was lifted up by the collar, spoke in a frighteningly calm tone, still showing no sign of weakness, as if he was the winner.

"But your heart is too weak—and this way you can't defeat the real enemy."

"Shut up, shut up, shut up!!!" Six months of memories seemed to be completely ignited by a lighter in front of her face. The heart-wrenching cruel pain took away the last trace of intellectual expression on Lily's face.

"You've said so much, don't act like you know it all!"

Another punch, and Ash felt an explosion behind him and was thrown out of the warehouse.

"It's raining so hard, why did the store manager ask me to come out and deliver this?"

Holding the umbrella in her hand, Lei looked at the seal of sin in her hand with some confusion.

"Although it's a rare request from Ash."

Lei smiled awkwardly, her fingers still stinging, so she couldn't help but wipe them on the embossed spider, but ended up staining it with her own blood, making the spider look even more enchanting.

"Click——"

As they were talking, a figure rolled out from the exploded wall in front of them.

"Timmons!"

"Hey, it's you." A pillow was brought to him just when he was dozing off. Ash, who was being hit by rain, waved to the extremely nervous pink-haired boy.

"Lei, it's been a long time since we last met. Please give that thing back to me."

"No....."

She subconsciously hugged the blood-stained seal, but there was another thing that Lei didn't react to for a moment.

Why is Ash's voice coming from Timmons?!

Just as the knight was approaching the retreating Lei, a silver-purple figure rushed towards him amidst the rain and dew.

"Your opponent is—me!"

"You're so clingy, Lily!"

"[Spider! Stamping Strike]!" The stamp breaker who had killed Eddie not long ago and was back at work shot a spider beam from the stamp mouth towards the girl, but Lily used her backhand to gather two balls of silver energy to resist the energy and threw them towards Ash.

"Moonlight Reflection!"

Ash, whose chest was exploded by his own attack, was wrapped in electric currents. He rolled twice in a burst of illusory light particles and then revealed his disheveled true form, which landed right in front of Lei.

"!"

Lei's eyes widened in an instant, and the twin ponytails behind her stood up according to her owner's wishes.

When the disbelief in her eyes reached her thinking circuit, it even caused her originally active brain to stop working for a moment.

Simply because she couldn't reconcile what she saw with her memories.

"Ti-Timmons? Ash? Manager?"

Why, why is the store manager inside Timmons? No, why is the store manager wearing that belt? Why did the store manager transform into Kamen Rider and fight Lily-san?!

Ten thousand questions but not even one answer.

"Ash!?"

The increasingly heavy rain fell from the sky, sticking the man's hair to his face, making it impossible to see his eyes.

Lei's footsteps subconsciously moved towards the man.

"Hurry up, give me that, give me that seal of sin!"

“B-but?!”

She was totally confused. Even though she had the courage to fight the Desert Apostles as a Pretty Cure, Lei's heart was now filled with panic and unknown fear after being interrupted by the man's roar. She was like an ant on a hot pan, looking at the seal in her hand that was getting hotter and hotter, at a loss as to what to do.

"Hanasaki Rei!"

The moment her full name was called out, Rei, who was in an infinite tangle, followed the throbbing in her heart. Finally, she closed her eyes and made up her mind. Without even having time to listen to what Lily said, she obeyed her heart.

He threw the seal of sin in his hand towards Ash.

"Snapped."

Looking at the Sin Seal in his hands, whose internal energy circuits had already synchronized to a "perfect match", Ash, with trembling hands, held the seal high in ecstasy.

"Finally, it's finally back in my hands!"

In front of the two people who were still standing there despite being drenched by the heavy rain, Ash readily pressed the seal on his hand.

"[Scarlet Spider]!"

In an instant, a scarlet bloody sandstorm swept over him. The frenzied energy even instantly evaporated the wet parts of his body and the rainwater within a semicircle around him into the purest water vapor.

After releasing his hand, the seal actually flew automatically to the top of the belt in a cloud of scarlet dust, and completely covered the injector by itself.

"[Control]!"

"Henshin."

He grabbed the flying seal with both hands and pressed it on the scanning panel in the center.

"[Soul Up! Splash! Spark! Sacrilege! Sacrifice! Kamen Rider Scarlet Demons!]"

The sci-fi virtual panel swept across Ash's body, and the pure light and deep darkness simultaneously transformed into a sandstorm that enveloped Ash's body, and finally formed a sand and dust shell on his shell like some kind of spider monster.

A fist covered in crimson armor punched through the shell from the inside, and then, a bloody sandstorm transformed the spider monster's sand into a spider web shawl, which condensed and pressed on the knight's left shoulder.

His entire body was covered in a large area of ​​crimson armor. The two pairs of compound eyes on his chest opened one after another, and the plasma cannon in the center slowly lit up. The top of his helmet was bent into the shape of a crown, but only the goggles on his right eye were the only dark blue on his entire body, which seemed a bit out of place.

Ash raised his index finger and quietly swiped it across the extended blue eyepiece.

"This is Kamen Rider Scarlet Demons."

"Finish."