I was lying down, my eyes closed, but I could feel something beneath my back.
When I opened them, all I saw was a dark sky filled with stars. I groaned and cracked my neck as I sat up, stretching my body with a frown. I had expected to be back in my apartment after the trouble we got into, but that clearly wasn't the case.
I turned my head from side to side, trying to make sense of where I was.
Taking a better look, I realized there was nothing around me except countless flowers in shades of purple, red, blue, gray, green, and yellow blooming around my feet. There was nothing else in sight. No bugs, no small animals, not even rocks.
"Is there anyone here!" I shouted, raising my voice as I slowly moved my foot. "If you're pranking me, Isadora, it's not funny!"
After some time passed with no response from anyone or anything that could even remotely be considered alive, I started to feel uneasy. It would have been at least a little better if Isadora were here with me right now, but that clearly wasn't happening.
The flowers were pretty, though a little strange. Each of them emitted a faint glow that matched the color of their petals.
The last thing I could remember was a sudden wave of dizziness hitting me after I undid my transformation. After that, everything went blank. My partner really hadn't been kidding when she said the combo would take a huge toll on my body. I only felt the consequences after I removed the suit, the exhaustion crashing into me like a speeding train.
Squinting both my eyes, I noticed something in the distance that caught my attention.
A Tombstone.
Three of them actually.
Compared to the strange glowing flowers brushing against my feet, it looked completely normal. Instead of feeling relieved, that only made me more suspicious. It was far too normal compared to everything else around it.
"Nothing to do here anyway," I said with a shrug. "I guess I'll take a closer look."
What's the worst that could happen?
As I walked closer, I was met with absolute silence the entire way. Honestly, it made the place feel even creepier. I still had no idea where I was, or if getting out of here was even possible.
Don't tell me this is the afterlife?
Please, God, no. I still have a lot of things I want to do with my life, and I still haven't even seen the upcoming Evangelion movie.
"Hold on."
I stopped the moment I reached it. Placing my hand on its rough surface, I noticed something carved into it. Something very familiar. Three Core Medal symbols were embedded in the tombstone, but unlike the ones I usually saw, these were completely different. They weren't marine animals, mammals, or even birds.
"A dinosaur?" That was the only word that slipped out of my mouth.
I wasn't a big fan of dinosaurs when I was a kid, but I could still recognize these easily. One of my classmates in elementary school had a toy set of them, along with a book that featured the same creatures.
A T-Rex, a Pteranodon, and a Triceratops. Three ancient beings that roamed the planet countless ages ago.
My memory wasn't the best, but I was pretty damn sure she had mentioned Core Medals with these three dinosaurs on them before. They were connected to the previous Kamen Rider OOO, and that guy named Dr. Maki who turned into a Greeed after assimilating with them.
She once explained that these weren't part of the usual set of medals like the ones I used. They couldn't be paired with normal Core Medals and could only be used as a complete combo.
One thing had been made crystal clear to me. These Core Medals were never meant to fall into the wrong hands since the three of them were dangerous as hell.
So why were they right in front of me?
"What the actual heck is happening right now?" I groaned, scratching my head. Instead of answers, all I seemed to find were even more questions.
As I glanced to my left, something suddenly entered my view.
Someone was sitting beside the tombstone as if she had been there the entire time, gazing up at the sky without a single care in the world.
It was a woman.
A familiar looking woman who had been with me for quite some time now.
But there were clear differences. Instead of her usual red hair, it was now a deep shade of purple. She wore a ceremonial robe rather than her usual gothic dress. Her eyes matched the same shade of purple as her hair, and her lips carried the soft color of lavender.
Aside from that, her face and skin tone were exactly like Isadora's.
But I knew immediately that she wasn't my partner.
The atmosphere around her alone made that obvious. Her expression was completely stoic, the total opposite of Isadora's usual cheerful smile and warm presence.
Those eyes.
They were empty and lifeless.
As if nothing in this world meant anything to her at all.
"Who are you?" I asked, my caution at its peak. I didn't have my belt or any way to defend myself if she turned out to be something like a Greeed like my partner. Still, staying on guard was better than doing nothing.
The woman let out an empty smile.
"You and I are the same, OOO," she said, touching her lips with a finger. "I don't know who I am, nor do I know the purpose of my existence. All I know is that I am meant to destroy desire and return everything to nothingness."
I frowned, confused by her statement.
She stepped down from the tombstone and walked toward me, stopping just inches from my face.
Shit. I couldn't move.
My body had frozen in place even though every instinct in my head was screaming danger.
She raised her hand and gently placed it against my cheek, slowly caressing it.
A soft, mocking giggle escaped her lips.
"Look at you. Poor thing. You don't even realize that the path you're walking isn't sunshine and rainbows," she said with a creepy, ominous smile. Her purple eyes looked like they could tear me apart if I stared into them too long. "Do you really think you can save everyone just by being a Kamen Rider?"
Seeing that expression, I instinctively swatted her hand away.
Even if she had Isadora's face, the way she was acting right now was far too unsettling.
"What are you?" I asked as I slowly stepped back.
She glanced at the hand I had slapped away and slowly opened and closed it.
"Interesting," she said in a monotone voice. "So that's what it feels like when someone rejects me."
"Answer my question!" I scowled, forcing the words out after gathering every last scrap of courage I had left. My voice came out sharper than I expected, but at that moment, I didn't care. I just needed an answer.
She didn't respond right away. For a second, she simply ignored me, her gaze drifting elsewhere as if my demand wasn't even worth acknowledging. Then, slowly, her eyes returned to me, calm and unreadable, which only made the silence feel heavier.
Without saying a word, she raised her hand and opened her palm.
A faint metallic sound rang out, and in the next instant, three objects shot out from her hand as if pulled by an invisible force. They spun briefly in the air before she caught them smoothly between her fingers, as though she had done it a thousand times before.
"See these Core Medals?" she said, holding up the three purple medals where I could clearly see them. Their surface reflected a strange, ominous glow. "You should be relieved that I'm existing here right now because otherwise—"
Before she finished her sentence, the medals sank back into her hand, as if her skin had swallowed them whole. This time, however, the moment they disappeared, a sharp clinking noise echoed from inside her arm. The sound of Cell Medals rattling together spread through her entire limb, unnatural and wrong, like something mechanical was moving beneath her skin.
"It would be you who'd end up like this instead of me."
Her arm changed.
The color drained from it, turning pitch black, the surface twisting into something that looked nothing like human flesh. Sharp, purple claws extended from her fingers, long and jagged, catching the light with a cold gleam. She raised the arm in front of me as if showing off a trophy, turning it slightly while staring at it with clear pride.
My body froze.
A real, unmistakable fear crawled up my spine when she reached toward me with that hand. Every instinct screamed at me to move, but my legs refused to listen.
Just before her claws could touch me, the arm shifted back to normal, the black surface fading as if it had never been there in the first place.
Only then did I realize I had been holding my breath the entire time.
"This isn't so bad for our first meetup."
"Why do you have that medal?!" I shouted, my voice echoing louder than I intended. The question burst out of me before I could stop it, driven by equal parts confusion and panic.
She didn't flinch. Instead, she calmly pressed her hand against her chest, as if my reaction had been completely expected.
"You are mistaken, my dear OOO," she replied with a faint smile. "It is not I who has the medal… it is you."
My breath caught in my throat.
"You may not realize it yet," she continued, her voice steady and almost gentle, "but we are inside your consciousness. If you prefer another term, you could call this your inner world."
She slowly raised her hand, her fingers moving with deliberate elegance.
"I am merely a being that was formed because of the medal. My existence is what prevents your transformation into a Greeed."
"….."
No words came out. My mind tried to process what she had just said, but the meaning refused to settle properly, as if my thoughts themselves were slipping through my fingers.
"But it is still not the time to share everything," she added, her tone turning quieter, yet far more serious than before.
She snapped her fingers.
The sound rang out sharply, like glass cracking in an empty room.
"Until the next time we meet…Kamen Rider OOO."
Before I could ask anything else, before I could even move, the world around me began to fall apart. My body felt strangely light, as if it were breaking into pieces I couldn't see. The sensation spread from my fingertips to the rest of my form, my vision fading along with it.
I tried to speak, but no sound came out.
All I could do was watch as my own body slowly disintegrated, dissolving into nothing before the darkness swallowed everything.