Standing on top of Nue, Tsutsumi soared through the sky toward Mistral, the massive shikigami carrying him effortlessly through the clouds. The wind blew past him as he looked down at the cards in his hand, going through the different combinations in his head and trying to decide which one would be the most useful for what was waiting ahead.
"So, your power basically lets you take on the appearance and abilities of other people?" Morgan suddenly asked from behind him.
Tsutsumi didn't even turn around.
Morgan had materialized behind him and was casually leaning forward, her chest pressed against the back of his neck as she folded her arms over the top of his head and rested her chin on them, apparently having decided that Nue was as good a place as any to relax.
"Close, but not entirely," Tsutsumi replied, his eyes still focused on the cards in his hand.
"Ryo's power didn't come from his Driver."
A third voice suddenly spoke between them.
Both Tsutsumi and Morgan raised an eyebrow.
Priestess had appeared directly between Tsutsumi's arms, floating there as if she had always been present.
This was the first time she had actually materialized and interacted with him.
The spirit had been haunting him for quite some time, but until now, she had never bothered to manifest herself or directly speak to him. The Priestess standing before him wasn't the actual Priestess from his future self's past, either. She was a collection of the memories and experiences belonging to the Priestess who had once bonded with the future Tsutsumi Ryoko. Those memories had been preserved within Originium before eventually being transformed into a Rider Card.
He already knew that traveling back in time and directly changing his own history would only result in his current timeline being erased. Because of that, he didn't try to return to the erased timelines, knowing that he still had unfinished goals and he simply can't give up just yet.
Every loss is a chance for him to grow; there is no point in getting erased only for the younger self to make the same mistake again.
When the future Tsutsumi eventually returned to the past, he deliberately pushed his younger self onto a different path, changing history and, in doing so, erasing the future version of himself that had made that journey.
He had known that he would eventually disappear.
So, before that happened, he deliberately left behind the Cards that his younger self had not yet obtained.
The Kamen Ride Cards were the exception. Those required his direct interaction to function properly. Without that interaction, they would only be temporary, one-time transformations before losing their colors and becoming useless.
"Can you elaborate?" Tsutsumi asked.
Surprisingly, he was the one who asked instead of Morgan.
He already knew that Priestess hadn't originally been obtained by him in the normal way. Her Card had come from an alternate future version of himself, which meant there were things that even he didn't fully understand yet.
"Oh? Ryo, you still haven't figured it out?" Priestess asked with a teasing smile.
Tsutsumi simply stared at her.
Seeing his expression, Priestess quickly realized that he wasn't in the mood for her usual teasing. More importantly, this was not the Ryo she knew. This was his younger self, someone who had not yet gone through the experiences that had eventually created the version of him she remembered.
"Well, since you asked nicely, I don't mind telling."
She floated out from between his arms and moved to his side, keeping pace with Nue as they continued flying toward Mistral.
"Your future self, the future Ryo that I knew, possessed a Reality Marble."
"I already knew that," Tsutsumi replied flatly.
He had obtained that knowledge from one of the worlds he had traveled to and one of the identities he had gained there. That particular version of himself possessed a Reality Marble, although it was incomplete and had never fully developed.
He could only use it as a storage space.
He couldn't project it into the real world or turn the world around him into his inner landscape. Instead, he used the incomplete Reality Marble to store almost everything he didn't want to carry around normally.
His different outfits and equipment were kept inside it, along with his Cards, Ride Booker, Machine Decader, cameras, pictures, Nameless, Arayashiki (Ryoshu's odachi), Azu, ClusterCells, Pyrrha's ring, and the three Relics.
At this point, calling his Reality Marble a personal storage room wasn't even wrong. It was basically an entire inner world that he had turned into a giant storage bag.
"Oh? Then can you cast it onto the world?" Priestess asked.
Tsutsumi's eyes narrowed slightly.
She already knew the answer.
He couldn't.
He hadn't reached the same conclusion that his future self had.
That version of Tsutsumi had accidentally destroyed his own world and was subsequently hunted by another future version of himself who had reached the conclusion that Tsutsumi Ryoko himself had to die. The two had fought multiple times, and with every encounter, something strange began to happen.
Their experiences started bleeding into one another.
The memories, knowledge, and experiences of the older Tsutsumi gradually transferred to the younger one, allowing him to understand things that he had never been capable of understanding before.
Eventually, that knowledge allowed him to cast his Reality Marble into the world.
The current Tsutsumi hadn't fought his future self for the same thing to happen.
And that future Tsutsumi had no intention of meeting his younger self again.
If he did, there was always the possibility that he would lose control and actually kill the younger version of himself before the timeline could reach the point where he was supposed to disappear.
"Not really," Tsutsumi answered.
Priestess smiled.
"Then have you ever wondered what it looks like?"
She gently moved a strand of her side bangs behind her ear as she leaned slightly closer to him.
"Not really. A Reality Marble is an inner world, a reflection of someone's true self. Knowing what my future self's Reality Marble looks like won't magically give me access to one."
His tone made it clear that he didn't consider the subject particularly important.
Morgan, however, clearly disagreed.
"Hey, hey, wait a second."
She lifted her head from Tsutsumi's head, looking between him and Priestess with an increasingly annoyed expression.
"Can someone explain what a Reality Marble actually is? And what exactly is this future-self business? Can you travel through time or something?"
She looked especially irritated at being left out of the conversation.
Apparently, living inside Tsutsumi and having some roommates did not automatically make her privy to all the strange things happening around him.
Tsutsumi finally looked down. Far below them, the landscape of Mistral had begun to come into view, and a small bandit camp was visible in the distance.
"I'm the Destroyer of Worlds. It's simply that."
Morgan stared at him.
"That doesn't explain anything."
Tsutsumi ignored her. They were almost at their destination.
Priestess, meanwhile, seemed far more amused by Morgan's frustration.
"You'll find out sooner or later."
She gave her a smug smile before her body began fading into light, disappearing back into his body. Morgan watched her disappear with an annoyed expression. Then she sighed and also faded away, returning to Tsutsumi's body as well.
She clearly wasn't done with the subject. If anything, she now had even more questions for her roommate.
Tsutsumi paid neither of them any attention as Nue descended toward the ground.
Once they reached the outskirts of the bandit camp, Tsutsumi stepped off the massive shikigami. Nue disappeared back into his shadow the moment his feet left its back, while Tsutsumi dropped the remaining distance and landed firmly on the ground below.
Currently in Anima, one of the continents of Mistral, Tsutsumi's cold eyes were locked onto the bandit camp in the distance. He didn't bother getting too close. Using Misdirection mixed with Tranquility, he suppressed his presence to the point that most living beings simply failed to notice him. Without releasing his Cursed Energy or directly interacting with anyone, Tsutsumi was practically invisible to them, allowing him to walk through the forest without attracting the attention of the Grimm or the bandits guarding the camp.
He calmly continued forward as he pulled out a card and placed it into his Decadriver.
Form Ride: Kal'tsit!
His appearance shifted immediately. His hair became a short pale green, with a pair of cat ears appearing on top of his head, while his eyes changed into a sharp emerald green. His clothes transformed into a green dress that left his shoulders and back exposed, covered by a custom white doctor's coat that hung loosely over his upper body. Dark green heeled boots formed around his feet, completing the appearance.
Tsutsumi didn't stop walking.
His hands moved into a familiar hand seal.
"Merged Beast: Mont3r-Eto."
A massive creature suddenly materialized behind him.
Mont3r appeared as she normally did, her body formed entirely from crystallized Originium, but this time her shape immediately began to change. Her body stretched into the long, serpentine form of the Great Serpent, while Nue's massive wings spread from her back. Large antler-like horns resembling Round Deer's appeared from her head, while the sharp tips of Piercing Ox formed along her body.
Tsutsumi had used his ability to merge his Shikigami together, combining their traits with Mont3r and greatly increasing her size while granting her the abilities of the Shikigami that had been merged into her.
He leaped onto her back.
"Go."
Mont3r-Eto surged forward.
The massive fusion beast tore through the forest, her long body slithering between the trees while the power of Piercing Ox continued building with every moment she charged. The trees in her path didn't stand a chance. She smashed through them one after another, sending broken branches and chunks of wood flying through the air as she accelerated toward the Branwen Tribe's camp.
The bandits guarding the entrance barely had time to react.
A massive crystallized beast suddenly burst out of the forest and charged directly toward them. Before any of them could properly understand what was happening, Mont3r-Eto crashed through the front gate of the Branwen Tribe, sending several guards scrambling out of the way.
Some of the bandits tried to reach for their weapons, while others attempted to run deeper into the camp to raise the alarm.
They never got the chance.
Mont3r-Eto let out a monstrous roar as green electricity erupted from her body. Her massive tail and body swung through the entrance, slamming into several bandits and sending them flying across the ground. The electricity coursing through her body scorched them and left them stunned, but none of the attacks were meant to kill them.
Even though they were bandits and certainly weren't good people, they had never been Tsutsumi's actual target.
His eyes immediately searched through the chaos.
Then he saw her.
A woman wearing a red dress and a white mask was fighting against Mont3r-Eto alongside several of the other bandits. Her movements were far more skilled than everyone else around her, and the moment Tsutsumi's gaze settled on her, he knew exactly who she was.
Raven Branwen, the Leader of the Branwen Tribe. And the current Spring Maiden.
She clearly had no intention of holding back.
She raised one hand, and the power of the Spring Maiden erupted around her. A violent wave of freezing air spread across the battlefield, quickly turning into a massive blizzard of ice that rushed toward Mont3r-Eto.
The fusion beast didn't retreat.
Mont3r-Eto pushed forward through the attack, using Reverse Cursed Technique to repair the damage being caused by the freezing attack while the heat and energy generated from her body melted the ice around her.
Then she lunged. Her massive jaws opened as she charged directly toward Raven.
Raven's eyes widened slightly. She immediately used the simple transformation magic granted to her and her brother by Ozpin, her body changing into a black raven just before Mont3r-Eto could bite down.
The small bird shot upward, escaping the fusion beast's jaws and attempting to create some distance. Suddenly a hand reached through the air, closing tightly around the raven's neck.
Raven's body instantly became useless as the hand held her small, bird-like body firmly in place, leaving her unable to fly or even move properly.
"From now on, you'll become one of my Shikigami, acting and functioning under the same principles as the Shikigami of my Ten Shadows Technique, with all the benefits that come with being one. In exchange for this power, your entire existence will now depend on me, just like the Shikigami of my Ten Shadows."
Tsutsumi didn't wait for a response as he tightened his grip.
The black raven in his hand was crushed, her body bursting apart and dissolving into black and red liquid that slipped between his fingers before flowing into his shadow.
Under the complete control of Black Bird Manipulation, Raven had no ability to refuse the Binding Vow Tsutsumi had forced upon her. She couldn't resist it, break away from it, or even reject the conditions he had imposed. Her existence had been forcibly converted into that of a Shikigami, leaving her completely bound to him.
Mont3r-Eto disappeared soon afterward, her massive body breaking apart and sinking back into Tsutsumi's back as he dropped down onto the ground.
Tsutsumi landed in the middle of the destroyed bandit camp.
The area around him was a mess. Broken trees and pieces of the camp were scattered across the ground, while the surviving bandits lay injured around the area, too beaten down to continue fighting. Tsutsumi barely paid them any attention. His target had already been dealt with.
His appearance shifted back to normal, returning him to his original form. He raised one hand and formed a new hand seal.
"Raven."
His shadow suddenly bubbled, and something began to rise from it.
Raven Branwen emerged from the darkness in her human form, stepping out of Tsutsumi's shadow as if she had simply been waiting there the entire time. Her appearance had returned to normal as well. She was still wearing her red outfit, her weapon resting at her side, while her white mask covered her face and her long, messy black hair cascaded down her back.
Without Tsutsumi needing to give her another command, Raven's hand moved to her weapon. She drew her blade in one smooth motion and swung it through the empty air. A crimson portal immediately opened in front of her.
Raven stepped toward it, sheathing her weapon as she walked through the portal. Tsutsumi followed directly behind her, and the moment they had both passed through, the crimson gateway closed behind them.
The ruined bandit camp was left behind.
By the time anyone could recover enough to understand what had happened, their leader, along with the attackers, were already gone.
...
In the abandoned town of Oniyuri, Qrow Branwen and Taiyang Xiao Long were guiding Oscar, Ruby, Yang, and Jaune Arc toward Haven Academy when their path was suddenly intercepted by Tyrian Callows.
Qrow was already busy fighting the deranged assassin, doing everything he could to keep Tyrian away from his nieces. Taiyang stayed nearby, ready to step in whenever Qrow needed help, while also making sure Tyrian didn't charge toward the others behind him.
Things had already become complicated enough before Tyrian showed up.
After Ozpin suddenly appeared inside Oscar's body, the young farm boy had been forced to deal with the existence of an older soul living inside him. With Ozpin's guidance, Oscar eventually contacted Qrow and Taiyang for help, although convincing the two Huntsmen that Oscar really did contain Ozpin's spirit had been far from easy.
Eventually, they managed to convince them.
Ozpin then led Oscar and the other to one of the hidden magical artifacts he had prepared long ago, something he had kept hidden in case he ever died and needed to quickly recover part of his magical power.
Unfortunately, when they reached the altar, they discovered that the seal had already been broken.
The altar had been protecting a Mystical Beast known as Chimera, along with a large amount of magical energy that Ozpin had stored there for himself. The three of them had been horrified to discover that the seal had been broken because of Jaune, a boy from the Arc family who had accidentally stumbled across the hidden altar while trying to run away from home.
In his attempt to escape, Jaune had accidentally broken the seal on his run. And in doing so, he had gained the power of Kamen Rider Beast.
Of course, gaining Chimera's power wasn't exactly a blessing. The Mystical Beast required a large amount of mana to survive. If its hunger wasn't satisfied, Chimera would eventually begin consuming the soul of its own user instead. Jaune hadn't even unlocked his Aura yet, which made the situation even more dangerous for him.
Qrow, Taiyang, and Ozpin couldn't simply abandon him.
If Jaune died, they would lose Chimera as well, along with the power they might need against the threats waiting for them. So, despite the circumstances, they reluctantly took the boy with them and made him part of their mission.
None of this was how they had planned things, but they didn't have much of a choice but to push Jaune into growing early; otherwise, his power would eat him alive.
Mixed with Tsutsumi Ryoko's Danger-Level now reaching 10, time was running out. They needed every piece of combat power they could gather and every person they could still trust.
That included Ruby, who had been blinded and now possessed Atlas-made artificial eyes. It also included Yang, who had lost one arm and now possessed an Atlas-made prosthetic. And it included Jaune, who had become the unwilling wielder of Kamen Rider Beast.
They had gathered everyone they could and were making their way toward Haven Academy, hoping they could somehow prepare themselves for what was coming.
But even with everything they had gained, none of them were prepared for what happened next.
Back in the present, Tyrian let out another frantic laugh as he clashed with Qrow and Taiyang. His movements were unpredictable, forcing the two older Huntsmen to remain focused as blades and fists collided between them.
Then a crimson portal suddenly opened in the space between the three men.
Qrow and Taiyang immediately reacted, both of them leaping backward as Tyrian also pulled away.
The three men stared at the portal.
Qrow's expression changed almost immediately. He knew what that portal meant. So did Taiyang. The children, however, had no idea. The crimson gateway remained open for only a moment before someone stepped through.
Raven Branwen emerged first. The sight of her alone was enough to make Qrow's expression harden.
But before anyone could even say her name, another figure stepped through the portal behind her.
The moment Tsutsumi Ryoko appeared, the entire atmosphere changed, and the balance of power shifted completely.