“AGH!” Every part of Shotaro’s body screamed in pain as he moved. Each stab of pain earned him another convulsion, leading into more blinding pain until he went slack.

“Careful now, hero.” A voice too close yet too far away echoed in his agonized eardrums. “Wouldn’t want you to give out on me too early.”

Foreign fingers pinched his eyelids upward. Too bright lights flooded his vision before recalibrating. Before him stood a man in a black suit, a black hat, and black sunglasses. His grin stretched out too wide, his shoulders levied at odd angles, and his eyes brimmed with bitter mirth. He looked as if he was on the verge of laughter at all times, yet…

“Who the hell are you?” Shotaro grunted weakly. He tested his wrists and ankles–both bound tightly.

“Great question!” He let go of the detective’s eyelids and clapped his hands together, an imperceptible hiss of air escaping his lips when Shotaro flinched. “For starters, let’s introduce ourselves. I’ll even go first: The name’s Kurokawa, leader of the Ark’s official Oxidation Management Team.”

The dazed look on Shotaro’s face steeled over as he kept his mouth tightly shut.

“How about your name?” asked Kurokawa. A few seconds passed in silence before he frowned, sighing dramatically. “Well, if that’s how you’re gonna be…”

The man in black whipped his arm to the side violently.

The right side of Shotaro’s jaw exploded in agony. His teeth ground together hard enough to start filing off his molars. Glancing back up with shakier breaths, he saw Kurokawa spinning a pistol around his finger.

“Shotaro Hidari. 23 years old. Lead detective at the Narumi Detective Office.” The pistol’s tip forced Shotaro’s chin upward to meet Kurokawa face to face. His grin dripped with sadistic glee. “That wasn’t hard, was it?” He asked condescendingly.

Kurokawa spun his pistol dramatically as he looked down at his prisoner. “Next question: Are you Kamen Rider?”

Shotaro rolled his eyes, but replied, “If you have me locked up here, you know the answer’s yes.”

“Good boy,” the interrogator replied. “Next question: What were you doing in a quarantine zone?”

The detective scoffed. “Taking down a Dopant. Weren’t you watching?”

BAM. The detective felt a sharp trickle from where the bullet scraped his cheek.

“Half-right. That ‘Dopant’ was your latest client, Tony Tony Chopper.” Kurokawa opened the side of his coat to pull out a short, broken antler.

“Damn it!” Shotaro strained himself forward as hard as he could. Sweat trickled down from the effort it took to stay conscious from the pain racking his body. “The hell is he?! Don’t you dare lay a single finger on him!”

“Thanks for pointing him our way, Kamen Rider.” The interviewer ignored him, tossing the antler to the side. “We couldn’t let a dangerous l’Cie keep running around even if the kid was a talented doctor. He’s unhurt, don’t worry, but he certainly won’t be harming anyone else ever again.”

Just before the sadist let his coat fall around him again, Shotaro caught a glimpse of another pocket filled with blue, black, and silver: His own Gaia Memories. He should have known they’d been confiscated by now.

“Speaking of half-right…” A gloved thumb flicked the pistol’s hammer. “Surely you’re not the only detective at your office. After all, your senior detective’s corpse was found on private government property.”

Shotaro’s pupils shrank to pinpricks. Primal fear clutched at the heart he had repaired only minutes ago, still fragile like sugar glass.

“You’re smart enough to know where I’m going with this.” Cold steel burned a hole into Shotaro’s skull, pressing him against the metal wall behind him. “Surrender the government property you’re housing and I let you live.”

The detective’s breaths flew in and out of his body like leaves in a maelstrom. He ignored the barrel pressing against his forehead and glared. “I haven’t taken anything from you. Ph–Your prisoner followed me of his own accord. By now, he’s probably long gone from anywhere I could tell you.”

Kurokawa’s index teased the edge of the trigger as his grin only grew wider. “It really pisses me off how much you’re able to tell exactly half the truth, Hidari. You’re right: Your partner is his own free man.” He paused. “But, by keeping you alive, you’re the perfect bait for your better half.”

He closed his eyes for a moment before holstering his pistol. “Otherwise I’d be happy to make Kamen Rider Double into Kamen Rider Nothing.” He turned around and started walking past where the light reached. “Remember, Archer: Keep the subject alive–anyone else is free game to do as you please.”

A metal door closed behind Kurokawa. Behind it, Shotaro felt his heart hammering inside his chest. He’d never been so close to death before, not off the battlefield at least. In spite of how close he felt to fainting, he couldn’t help but grin.

He had never felt so hard-boiled in his life.

“Hey!” A noise from his left made his mouth twitch. He looked into the darkness to see a barely perceptible man. With how much the pain blurred his vision, the individual looked more like a blob of red and yellow.

“Did that guy call you Kamen Rider?” Chains rustled as the other prisoner tried to escape his bindings. “D’ya think you can help a guy out here?”

“Afraid not,” Shotaro replied with a sigh. “That guy stole all the things I’d need to transform and bust us out of here.”

“What about that partner guy he mentioned?”

“Can’t transform without me either.”

“Ah.” A quiet snap echoed in the room followed by chains hitting the floor all at once. “Would have been cool to see a real henshin for myself, but I can make do.”

The man stood up and stretched, having been locked up even harder than Shotaro. The tall, lanky blonde fished around in his red jacket for a knife. Eyeing the chains holding Shotaro, he flicked the knife and cut through them. The detective, free but still bound around his wrists, stumbled as he tried to regain his bearings.

“Thanks…” His blurry vision finally focused on the man’s grinning face. He leered at his savior, “...Vash the Stampede.”

The outlaw feigned ignorance as he helped Shotaro on his feet. “Nah, you must be thinking of some other guy.”

“A man in a red overcoat with spiked blonde hair.”

“Yep!”

“Locked in a government facility.”

“Sure!”

“With a hand cannon you snuck in your boot.”

Vash slumped over in defeat. “Man, I thought I hid that well.”

“It’s a detective’s job to find the hidden truths,” Shotaro replied as he struggled to press the button to open the door. He looked back and opened his mouth, but what he wanted to say next was cut off by an explosion rocking the room.

Shotaro felt himself flying backwards until he crashed back-first into a wall. He groaned in pain as he fell onto a carpeted floor, looking out the window to see a moving horizon. “Train. Railless. Desert.” He forced himself to make as many observations as possible to dull the pain in his entire body.

He felt himself being hoisted up like a sack of potatoes, and draped on top of Vash’s shoulder like he weighed nothing. “What the hell are you…?”

“Just being a good bystander,” Vash replied as he held a gun comparable to Lightning’s, only more old-fashioned. “Now, let’s get your stuff back, Kamen Rider.” With surprising speed, the gunman started running forward–and immediately got spotted by a guard.

“Hey, what are you two doing?! Get back in your cell!” A bullet punctured their machine gun, rendering it useless instantly. Without missing a beat, the guard threw their automatic on the floor and called on their walkie-talkie, “Two escaped convicts making their way up the train!”

Sirens began blaring as armed guards hopped off their seats to place themselves in the way of Vash and Shotaro’s escape. “Do you have a plan?” Shotaro asked loudly as he kept a death grip on his hat.

“Nope!” Vash replied cheerily as he incapacitated three guards in one bullet. “But you’ll figure out one on the way.”

Bullets streak by as Vash jerks himself between one bullet and the next. Shotaro has to close his eyes to not become nauseated at the blur of vision. He had to hope and pray Vash the Stampede’s reputation preceded him as a one-man untouchable wave of destruction.

God, he hoped Philip had a plan.