Kenji felt the adrenaline spike, his blood beginning to simmer, yet his mind remained unnervingly cold. He and Qingyi stood back-to-back, a small island of order in a rising sea of Ethereals. These things had no consciousness; they were driven only by a primal urge to tear apart anything that wasn't one of them. Their assault was a chaotic, mindless frenzy.
Kenji raised his PSB riot shield, catching the snapping jaws of a beast-type Ethereal. He didn't hesitate. He gripped his one-handed sword and cleaved downward. The blade, forged from specialized high-tensile alloys designed to disrupt Ether-structures, proved its worth instantly. With a single, fluid swing, the beast's head split in two. Its body dissolved into a dissipating cloud of gray mist.
Aim for the head. Always the head.
"Phew."
Kenji took a deep breath, forcing his heart rate down after his first kill. To be honest, if he didn't have a Kamen Rider Driver as his ultimate insurance policy, he wouldn't be this calm. It was the knowledge that he had a way out—a god-like retreat—that allowed him to face the swarm without his legs turning to jelly. To an ordinary rookie, this would be a death sentence; to him, it was a tactical problem.
"Nice work."
Qingyi noticed his efficiency and flashed a quick, sharp smile. She realized the Public Security Bureau had struck gold with this recruit. Skill could be taught, but Kenji's unnatural composure in the face of a slaughter was a rare, valuable asset.
Within minutes, over a dozen Ethereals lay shattered at Kenji's feet, but the swarm felt infinite. He risked a glance toward Zhu Yuan; she was being suffocated by the numbers. Even with her legendary reflexes, the Durahan was a relentless predator, its cleaver narrowly missing her with every swing.
Kenji knew they were hitting a wall. Ethereals didn't get tired; humans did. If this became a war of attrition, they were dead. Ignoring Qingyi's warning shout, he broke formation and sprinted toward the Captain. It was time for a little "self-sacrifice."
Zhu Yuan was struggling. Her pistol roared, its rapid-fire shells keeping the immediate circle clear, but her heavier ordnance was proving difficult to reload under pressure. The Durahan used the smaller Ethereals as living shields, closing the gap every time she stopped to chamber a round.
Just as Zhu Yuan kicked a humanoid monster away and reached for a fresh magazine, the Durahan's void-head loomed in her peripheral vision. Her adrenaline surged. The monster had used the swarm to mask its approach, choosing the exact moment her guard dropped.
The Durahan's heavy blade whistled through the air, aimed squarely at her waist. In that split second, a shoulder slammed into Zhu Yuan, knocking her clear of the strike. The sound of metal screeching against metal echoed through the alley as a riot shield caught the cleaver's edge.
"Kenji?"
Zhu Yuan looked up in shock at the junior who had just saved her life. She had explicitly ordered him to stay back.
"Officer Zhu Yuan... that's about as much as I can do for you," Kenji groaned.
The Durahan didn't wait for a conversation. As its blade was parried, it followed through with a brutal, high-impact kick. Kenji took the full force of the blow on his shield. He felt the vibration shatter the handle; then, he was airborne. He crashed through a storefront window and disappeared into the rubble of a collapsed office.
"Kenji!" Zhu Yuan felt a sharp pang of guilt and grief. He'd thrown himself into a death blow for her. She could only pray that his "Legendary Tank" reputation wasn't just academy talk.
"Kenji? Kid? You still with us?"
Qingyi reached the ruins first, finding him slumped amidst the wreckage of a broken desk. He looked strangely relaxed.
"No elders... no kids... remember... the survivor benefits... send them to my card..."
Kenji weakly raised a hand, gave Qingyi a shaky thumbs-up, and then his head lolled back as he "fainted." Qingyi panicked, checking his pulse, but found him merely unconscious. The kid was as durable as a block of concrete.
She pulled a roll of stealth-shroud cloth from her utility pouch and draped it over him. It wasn't a burial shroud; it was designed to mask a human's heat signature and Ether-trace. As long as she kept the Ethereals busy outside, they wouldn't notice a "corpse" in the rubble.
The moment Qingyi turned back to the fight, Kenji opened one eye. Being covered in a black cloth was a bit dramatic, but it gave him the cover he needed.
His partner had arrived.
Substitute Cloth, his modified Bangboo, crawled through the debris. Being a machine, it had a negligible Ether-trace, allowing it to navigate the Hollow like a ghost. Under the cover of the shroud, Kenji initiated the switch. The Bangboo's body elongated, its chassis shifting and molding into a perfect replica of Kenji's human form. Within seconds, a flawless substitute lay in the rubble.
With the decoy in place, Kenji triggered the Bangboo's secondary function: an Ether-mosaic field. To any observer, Kenji now looked like a shimmering glitch in reality—a "Mosaic Warrior." His height and gender were discernible, but his face and clothing were a blurred mess of pixels. It was the ultimate identity protection, powered by the very "quantum mechanics" of the Hollow itself.
He slipped out of a rear window and circled back toward the main battle.
Zhu Yuan was reclaiming her rhythm. As an elite, she was near-invincible in a fair fight, but the sheer volume of the swarm was exhausting her. She was preparing a tactical retreat when the Ethereals suddenly froze.
A red blur streaked across the battlefield. It moved with a metallic hum, trailing sparks as it collided with several Ethereals, shattering them like glass. The projectile performed an arrogant mid-air drift before landing in the outstretched hand of a figure standing on a nearby rooftop.
Zhu Yuan stared. The stranger was human-shaped, but his features were obscured by a shimmering digital distortion. The only clear thing about him was the heavy metallic Driver at his waist.
"Now... I grasp the future in my hands."
The figure held up a red mechanical beetle—the Kabuto Zecter. Before Zhu Yuan could demand an ID, he slotted the beetle into the Driver.
"Henshin!"
The voice was electronically processed, cold and echoing. Hexagonal energy plates swirled around the figure, locking into place. When the light faded, a Knight in crimson and silver armor stood atop the ruins.
Kamen Rider Kabuto had officially entered the Hollow.