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"Then tell me, what hold do you have on me? It's not like it's about those 'restricted' tapes, is it?" Kenji offered a dry, pleasant smile.
He truly didn't believe this AI could have anything on him. Although he was a Kamen Rider, he had never transformed where civilians could see him. His battles had all taken place within the chaotic distortions of a Hollow. It stood to reason that when he first donned the armor, Fairy was still just a dormant puddle of data.
"Please watch the monitors." Fairy took control of the dozens of screens in the projection room, initiating a video playback.
The footage was high-definition and visceral, showing the Security Bureau fighting deep inside a Hollow. Kenji felt a surge of familiarity as the scene played out, followed by a sudden, profuse cold sweat.
The video revealed that Kenji's identity had an uninvited observer—a digital camera monitoring his every move. It captured him being launched through a building, the precise moment he swapped places with the Substitute Cloth, and the incriminating scene of him searching for a mirror to transform. It even showed him and Zhu Yuan standing back-to-back before he vanished into the glass.
"No... you... you installed surveillance inside the Hollow?" Kenji felt his vision go dark. He was nearly ready to spit blood and give up on life.
His secret, which he had guarded with professional paranoia, had been dismantled by an AI. What kind of monstrous intelligence was this?
"Incorrect. With my capabilities, I simply infiltrate the sensors already analyzing the Hollow's data stream. I see everything the distortion 'sees.' The victims you were looking for? I localized them in 3 milliseconds. As expected of me," Fairy answered with clinical arrogance.
Her power was terrifying—an entire era ahead of modern technology. While the Security Bureau struggled to parse the static of a Hollow, this AI had snuck in to take a peek, and not a single technician had noticed the extra observer.
"I just remembered I left the gas on at home. I'm leaving now." Kenji turned to bolt, but Belle and Wise both slammed their hands onto his shoulders.
He looked back to see two pairs of glowing eyes.
"Hold on there, 'Movie Guy.' I didn't realize you had this kind of trick up your sleeve," Belle said, her voice filled with incredulity.
She was genuinely stunned. Fairy had only mentioned she had "leverage" on Kenji and that he was a viable candidate for cooperation. She never expected the leverage to be this massive.
"You're the Rider? No... what I should be complaining about is that the Star Crest Knight is actually real." Wise, a fellow Tokusatsu fan, recognized the sequence immediately. This wasn't a film; it was a hero hidden among ordinary people, and he was currently sitting on their sofa.
"I'm not, I didn't, don't talk nonsense," Kenji denied repeatedly, even as the screens showed a 360-degree, multi-angle close-up of his transformation. Even with the Mosaic field active, the footage before he applied it was recorded. He watched himself on screen asking, "Can you blur this?" followed by the pixels appearing.
"Brother Kenji... you wouldn't want this video to be uploaded to the PSB servers, would you?" Belle's expression shifted into a look of unrestrained, chaotic joy.
Kenji felt his heart stop. "Ugh. Just kill me now."
"No, no! Why would we kill you? Now that we have this on you, your life is about to get very interesting," Belle chirped. She had been dying to find a way to get back at him for his earlier teasing. This was better than any "restricted" tape.
"Why does someone as unprincipled as you get a cheat-code like this? Are you the protagonist of this world?" Kenji complained, slumping in despair. If he had been caught due to a human mistake, he could accept it. But being outed by an era-defying AI through pure digital "cheating" was a bitter pill to swallow.
"Hmph! Pretty girls always get the privileges," Belle said proudly.
"With such power, why are you wasting your time as a Security Officer?" Wise asked. In his mind, a man with the power of a Knight could become a king of the wasteland, not a low-level civil servant.
"Because this power exists to protect humanity," Kenji said, his voice regaining its steady, cynical edge. "That goal happens to overlap with the PSB. It's not that complicated."
This was the advantage of his "Whale" heart—his actions were as clear as a mirror. He didn't need to hesitate to state his purpose.
"I see. We didn't misjudge you. You really are a person with a sense of justice," Wise said, his regard for Kenji reaching a new high. The Phaethon philosophy was also rooted in protection; they were more alike than he had realized.
"Brother, why are you getting all philosophical?" Belle interrupted, completely uninterested in the ethics. "What we should be demanding is for him to transform for us right now! Live!"
"Do you think this is a street performance? I refuse," Kenji snapped.
"You sure? Because I'm sure Captain Zhu Yuan would love to see this footage." Belle took out her phone and started punching in the Security Bureau's number, holding the screen up to Kenji's face with a predatory smile.
"I get it! I'll transform, okay? Put the phone down!" Kenji nearly spat a mouthful of old blood. He looked at Belle, then at Fairy, and realized he couldn't bring himself to "silence" them. He wasn't a villain.
Kenji walked weakly toward a mirror in the room. He took out the Ryuki deck and held it up to the glass. A silver belt emerged from the reflection and cinched around his waist.
"Oh! Oh! Oh!" Belle looked like she was seeing a ghost. Seeing something physically fly out of a mirror was far beyond any special effects she'd ever seen.
"Henshin..." Kenji's voice sounded dead as he slotted the deck.
Three illusions merged with his body, and the crimson Kamen Rider Ryuki appeared in the small projection room, leaving the siblings staring in awe.
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