I want to become a Kamen Rider

Chapter 100 [Resistance]

The colossal monster strode proudly through the city's ruins, each heavy step sending tremors through the earth. Tumbling plumes of smoke, a mixture of ash and radioactive dust, obscured half the sky like an ominous curtain.

The steel jungle that humanity once took pride in is now nothing but ruins. Under Godzilla's towering feet, it is as fragile as a child's building blocks, crumbling into dust and fragments.

He stood there, atop the ruins.

With his arm half-raised, blood was already flowing from the man's face, from his facial features and orifices.

The spirit stone at his waist was riddled with holes, yet it still shone, stubbornly trying to respond to the fighting spirit of the man who had half-raised his arm.

Then came a very faint, yet seemingly soul-stirring, crisp sound.

Snap.

The spirit stone shattered completely.

Tiny, dull residue, like fragments of withered stars, fell from his belt, scattered at his feet, and rolled into the scorched earth and dust.

He maintained this half-raised arm position.

Like a sculpture whose soul has been taken away.

Then, Godzilla's destructive purple breath, like a world-ending torrent, carrying light and heat that annihilated everything, completely engulfed his tiny figure.

As the light faded, a bottomless crater of lava remained, its edges still hissing and emitting wisps of smoke.

But he was still standing.

Standing in the center of that giant lava crater, charred and deformed, emitting white smoke, his body swayed precariously.

He stubbornly and with all his might tried to lift his heavy, mountain-like arms again, attempting to take a step, even if it was just an inch forward.

A long, drawn-out sigh, seemingly traversing through time, echoed through the desolate ruins.

"This world... has also come to its 'end'."

"You haven't left yet."

He turned around helplessly, but instead of the cloaked figure, he saw Kuuga standing there.

It was exactly the same as the form he had taken when the spirit stone was still there, without any difference, but the empty self there was just an illusion.

He remembered; it was the figure who had asked him about his wishes back then.

Looking back now, it was just a procedure.

"You were the warrior who used 'prayer' the best, yet you still couldn't win. You were destined for destruction."

"..."

The behemoth continued to spew forth its breath, and purple light extinguished everything in the human world.

Even though we can't hear it here, there must be someone crying, in the shelter, under the collapsed houses, in the ruins.

He took a step forward, mustering his last bit of strength.

"Stop. It's over."

"Step aside."

He uttered two words.

"Let me tell you the whole truth, about the end that this world is facing, and about..."

"I asked you to get out of the way."

Kuuga finally looked at him, his gaze filled with incomprehension, confusion, and astonishment, as if he were scrutinizing an incomprehensible madman.

"If you won't save him, I will."

"It has ended."

"it's not finished yet."

He knelt down and picked up the crumbs from the ground bit by bit.

Then, he rushed forward.

“The ‘prayer’ has been shattered; it’s over.”

“I am a ‘monster,’ and I also have these fists and feet.”

The results speak for themselves.

Even when the spirit stone was still there, this body couldn't defeat the monster, and even after being strengthened by the spirit stone, it still couldn't defeat the monster.

He was easily knocked to the ground, crashing through the rubble of three crumbling high-rise buildings before finally landing in the center of a deep crater completely reduced to dust.

Smoke and dust filled the air.

He lay at the bottom of the pit, his bones feeling as if they were all shattered. He coughed violently, his lungs churning, and mouthfuls of blood mixed with fragments of his internal organs gushed from his mouth, staining the scorched earth beneath him red.

The phantom appeared silently at the edge of the pit, looking down at him from above.

In places unnoticed, in Fan Kang's palm, clutching the remnants of the spirit stone, in the deepest parts of his wounds, tiny wisps of black flame quietly ignited. They were not scorching hot, but rather carried a bone-chilling cold.

I stood there, watching him. He ignored my plan and stood up unsteadily.

This wasn't some kind of display of spirit and fighting will before the gods, followed by a loud shout to gain power and obtain divine artifacts; he understood this better than anyone else.

No one ever awards him.

That figure was just a program.

"You're clearly terrified."

"Of course I'm scared."

"You still want to live."

"I've always wanted to live."

This frank answer caused the otherwise cold and impersonal process to pause for a moment.

"Then why go there?"

"Because I am Kamen Rider Kuuga."

"You have lost the ability to pray."

"It has nothing to do with that kind of thing. I am standing here, and I am Kamen Rider Kuuga."

He gazed at the towering behemoth, the embodiment of the end.

Slowly, once again, he half-raised his arm, which was burning with black flames.

The black flames surged up like a tidal wave, no longer tiny flames, but transformed into a raging torrent, swirling around him, rising and roaring. This flame was not the radiance of the spirit stone, but pure burning.

I want to live, I want to live more than anyone else.

He was more afraid of death than anyone else.

Thinking of eradicating those weirdos and dark organizations, I thought that at least I could live a few more years of peace, and at least have more opportunities to feel the sunshine, to taste delicious food, and to... embrace the people I love.

As a result, it backfired.

In the end, he neither felt the sunshine nor tasted delicious food, and he did not live the life he wanted.

I thought I could at least hold on until the time Tina Hiiragi saw in her dream, but the future really changed, leading to an even earlier end and a deeper despair.

"What else do you want to do? Wouldn't it be better to hear the whole truth, say goodbye to your loved ones, and face the end of the world?"

He sprinkled the remnants of the spirit stone from his hand and threw them into the air. They shattered instantly, scattering into countless black specks of light that reflected back like black stars flowing against the current.

A huge black shadow enveloped him, and a black mask covered his blood-stained face.

"I told you, it's not over yet."

He burned away the last remnants of the spirit stone and put the clothes back on. There would be no further increase in power, but he wanted to go all the way in this manner.

Just like when I first became a forger, naive yet determined, I embarked on a long journey.

A man at the end of his road, a man who has long stood at the end of a long road, takes a step forward. Naturally, there is no way out, so beneath the mask lies blood, but no tears.

The only difference was that there was a touch of gold in the center of the belt.

Without needing anyone's help, the warrior assumed the most basic starting stance of Kuuga and took a step forward.

"Why can't you understand? He is far more powerful than you, and the end has already been declared."

"I understand."

"What do you understand?"

“I understand… Even if He is stronger than the vast starry sky, stronger than this universe, stronger than all the heavens of this world, so strong that there is no point in discussing it, so strong that words cannot contain or express it, what I want to do will not change.”

"..."

"Because I stand here, in this place, symbolizing human resistance."

A huge, black fire broke out.

He staked everything on his life, his flesh and blood, his soul, and everything else, and threw a punch once more.

Facing the darkness before them, facing their doomed fate.

Chapter 101 [Ending the Tragedy]

The right arm of the Milky Way, Centaurus, Proxima Centauri, Proxima Centauri b.

Proxima Centauri is the closest star to our solar system, only 4.25 light-years away. Therefore, for the Proxima Centauri inhabitants, observing the solar system and searching for possible traces of other civilizations became a very important astronomical task.

As a miraculous habitable zone planet that simultaneously possesses a solid iron core, a liquid outer core that generates a magnetic field, and a convective mantle that drives plate tectonics, Proxima Centauri, the third planet from Earth, has naturally attracted much attention from the planetary inhabitants. Whether life and civilization exist on Earth has always been a hot topic since Proxima Centauri entered the era of psionic discoveries.

As an astronomy student at Imperial University, one of the major assignments for Tato every academic year is to observe the third planet in the solar system, but today, he messed it up.

The professor stood on the podium and roared at him, all because of a chart he had recently submitted showing observations of the third planet in the solar system.

As we all know, when your teacher starts to lose their temper and vent, never talk back. Keep quiet, bow your head, admit your mistakes, and adopt the correct attitude.

"Tato, do you think I'm senile and can be easily fooled?!"

"..."

"You actually dared to submit such a scribbled-on observation chart as homework?!"

"..."

"You've been studying astronomy at the Imperial Capital University for forty-two years, and you don't even know the basic fact that our solar system is a single-star system?!"

The professor pulled out the spectral chart from the assignment, slapped it in his face, and yelled:

"[Proxima Centauri profanity] Look at the state of your spectrum! [Proxima Centauri profanity] So there are two stars in the solar system, huh? Oh, a third planet has become a star, huh? And the radioactivity in your snapshot spectrum is two orders of magnitude higher than the Sun?!"

"..."

Tato was speechless with frustration. The AI ​​he usually used for writing papers, assignments, reports, and surveying had never malfunctioned in over twenty years. When he used the AI ​​for surveying before, he only glanced at it to make sure the instrument was working properly and didn't pay any attention. Who would have thought that such a technologically advanced AI would make such a basic mistake?

From beginning to end, whether it was the authoritative astronomy professor from Proxima Centauri or the college student Tato, who was a master of AI homework, they all chose to doubt their students and the AI. No one believed the assignment Tato submitted.

The logic is simple: radiation emanating from a star two orders of brightness higher than a standard star would inevitably destroy the third planet's ecosystem and the planet itself in an instant, unless…

—This light has no warmth.

.........

……

Fan Kang had no idea, nor could he have known, that 4.25 light-years away, an unlucky alien college student had ruined his assignment because of a punch he threw. Of course, even if he did know, he would only clap his hands and shout that he was lucky to be dead.

However, he no longer has the strength to speak.

Because he was going to die.

My consciousness drifted, and what I saw before me was neither the sulfurous inferno of hell nor the holy light of heaven, but an endless expanse of pure white that was so pristine it was breathtaking.

This is a pure white world, not an independently created space. He no longer has that power. The reason why it is pure white in front of him is probably because he was surprised to find that the first half of the lantern was empty as the lantern was moving.

Perhaps we should have realized something was wrong much earlier, but because of the relentless struggle, we forgot and ignored most of the irrationality, and lost the opportunity to explore the truth.

"Boss, boss, you're going to die!"