The Night Raiders base hummed with unusual quiet that afternoon, most operations suspended pending new intelligence reports. Komon sat alone in the break room, his thoughts drifting inevitably toward Riko as they had with increasing frequency lately.
Strange, he mused, turning his coffee cup absently between his palms. We've been together so long, yet I've never met her family. Not once.
The realization struck him with uncomfortable clarity. When Riko had mentioned wanting him to meet her relatives, he'd deflected with work excuses and mission priorities. Perhaps it was time to remedy that oversight—to take their relationship beyond stolen moments between space beast alerts.
His contemplation shattered as his communicator chimed with an incoming message. The display showed no sender identification, just a single, cryptic line:
"You're going to lose something important."
"Something important?" Komon stared at the screen, unease crawling up his spine like ice water. The words carried weight beyond their simple construction—a certainty that made his chest tighten with premonition.
Riko.
The thought struck like lightning, galvanizing him into motion. Without conscious decision, he bolted from the break room, military training overriding civilian panic as he navigated corridors at full sprint.
His headlong rush collided with Mitsuhiko Ishibori near the main exit, both men staggering from the impact.
"Komon! Where's the fire?" Ishibori steadied himself with characteristic calm.
"Sorry—emergency—can't explain—" Komon barely paused, already pushing through the exit doors into afternoon sunlight that suddenly felt too bright, too normal for the dread consuming him.
The drive to Riko's treatment facility blurred past in a haze of traffic lights and honking horns, Komon's Night Raiders uniform drawing stares he barely registered. His hands gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles went white, every instinct screaming that time was running out for reasons he couldn't articulate.
He burst through the hospital's sterile corridors with barely contained desperation, heading directly for Riko's ward.
"Looking for Riko?" The memory police officer Shuto appeared as if materialized from shadows, her expression carrying professional detachment that made Komon's blood run cold. "She's not here. Could be someone took her, could be she left on her own. Either way, the room's empty."
"Someone's targeting her because of me," Komon said, self-recrimination thick in his voice. "This is my fault—"
He spun toward the exit, but Shuto's voice stopped him.
"Where do you think you're going?"
"To find her!"
"No point checking her house. She went home briefly, but reports confirm she's not there now."
"I don't believe you." Komon's voice carried desperate defiance. "I need to see for myself."
"Have you ever actually been to her house?" Shuto's question landed like a physical blow.
The silence stretched between them, heavy with implications Komon didn't want to examine.
"Here's her address." Shuto produced a slip of paper with clinical efficiency, her expression unreadable.
Komon snatched the paper without thanks, already moving toward his vehicle. Whatever game the Memory Police were playing, whatever truths they were concealing—none of it mattered next to finding Riko safe.
The address led him through increasingly desolate neighborhoods toward the city's industrial outskirts. As his car crested a low hill, Komon's foot slammed the brake pedal, tires screaming against asphalt.
Dark Faust stood beneath the overpass ahead—not the towering giant from previous encounters, but human-sized, waiting with predatory patience in the shadow of concrete and steel.
Terror should have paralyzed him. Instead, Komon felt only burning determination as he threw open the car door and leveled his Difai gun at the dark Ultra.
"Get away from here!" His voice carried none of the rookie fear that had once crippled him in combat. Months of space beast battles had forged that weakness into steel resolve. "Now!"
"Humans have no right to choose," Dark Faust replied, the distorted voice carrying mockery and menace in equal measure.
"What?"
"Everything is futile. Accept your fate and submit to me."
"Shut up!" Komon's finger found the trigger without hesitation. "What did you do to Riko? Give her back!"
The energy blast struck Dark Faust's raised palm and dissipated harmlessly, but Komon felt no despair—only escalating fury.
"Riko?" The dark giant's laughter was grinding metal and breaking glass. "That woman will disappear soon enough. Hahaha."
"What do you mean?"
"You should disappear with her!"
Dark Faust's fist descended like a falling meteor, but brilliant light erupted between them as Jun Himeya materialized with perfect timing. His energy blaster intercepted the attack, deflecting the blow that would have crushed Komon like an insect.
"Komon! Get out of here—now!"
Camearra's supernatural senses had detected Dark Faust's presence, alerting the entire team to converge on this location. While Gustave and Daigo followed in support, Jun had reached the scene first .
Relief flooded Komon's features at the sight of his ally, but concern for Riko overrode gratitude.
"Mr. Jun!"
"Move!" Jun commanded, already activating his Evoltruster as silver light engulfed his form.
Nexus manifested at human scale, his red juvenile form blazing with heroic determination. The Meta Field expanded like a soap bubble of starlight, engulfing both Ultras and removing them from the physical plane.
Though worry for Jun gnawed at him, Komon's desperation to find Riko won out. He gunned the engine toward the address Shuto had provided, leaving behind the dimensional battlefield where his friend faced unknowable dangers.
Within the Meta Field, Nexus surveyed the ethereal landscape with practiced vigilance. Light bullets suddenly rained from above like falling stars, forcing him to manifest an energy barrier that deflected the barrage in cascades of sparks.
Dark Faust materialized behind him with lethal grace, driving a flying kick into Nexus's back that sent the silver giant stumbling forward.
"Flying solo this time?" Dark Faust taunted, circling like a predator. "Where's your golden partner? Last time took two of you to handle me."
Nexus offered no verbal response, instead launching himself forward in a direct assault. This wasn't the perpetually injured Jun Himeya of previous battles—this was a healthy, fully powered host channeling Nexus's complete strength.
The transformation's effectiveness correlated directly with the host's physical condition, and Saida Riko's body remained damaged from their previous encounter. Dark Faust's forced manifestation operated on borrowed time and failing strength.
Within moments, the tide of battle shifted decisively. Dark Faust's movements grew sluggish, desperate, increasingly defensive. Nexus's flying kick connected with devastating precision, sending his opponent crashing to the dimensional ground.
Knowing the puppet master remained hidden, Nexus deliberately created an opening for escape. His Cascading Storm technique deliberately missed its intended target, instead clipping Dark Faust's right shoulder—painful but not fatal.
As expected, the wounded dark Ultra immediately fled the Meta Field, vanishing into whatever shadows had spawned him.
Following Shuto's directions, Komon arrived at an unremarkable house in a neighborhood that felt abandoned by hope itself. The building sat dark and lifeless, its windows like empty eye sockets staring into gathering dusk.
The interior matched the exterior's desolation—dust motes dancing in weak light, furniture covered in neglect's shroud, air thick with the weight of absence.
Komon pushed deeper into the house, drawn by instincts he couldn't name toward a tightly sealed door at the corridor's end. The handle turned with rusty protest, revealing—
Horror.
Every surface—walls, tables, easels, floor—was covered with artwork that defied rational description. The paintings writhed with dark energy that seemed to move when observed directly, their subjects twisted amalgamations of flesh and shadow that violated natural law. Depression and terror radiated from each canvas like heat from flames, transforming the room into a gallery of psychological torment.
"Did... did Riko paint these?"
The question emerged as barely a whisper. In his memories, Riko's art had always carried warmth and hope—gentle landscapes, smiling portraits, scenes that celebrated life's beauty rather than mocking it.
These abominations bore no resemblance to anything the woman he loved could have created.
His breathing became ragged as the room's oppressive atmosphere pressed down like a physical weight. Cold sweat beaded on his forehead, his hands trembling as he backed toward the door.
"AAAAHHH!"
The scream tore from his throat involuntarily, born from recognition that the woman he loved had never existed—or had been replaced by something wearing her face.
Deep in the forest, barefoot and clad in a white dress that seemed to glow with its own inner light, Riko stumbled through undergrowth that caught at her garments like grasping fingers. Blood seeped from her right shoulder where Nexus's deliberate miss had still found its mark, her left hand pressed against the wound in futile attempt to stem the flow.
"Who am I?" she whispered to the uncaring trees. "What am I?"
Her memories came in fragments—parents, a younger brother, a happy family home filled with laughter and love. But those images felt increasingly distant, like reflections in disturbed water that shattered when examined too closely.
"You are nobody."
The voice emerged from everywhere and nowhere, carried on wind that shouldn't have existed in the still forest air.
"You died long ago. Now you're just a puppet dancing to my strings."
"I'm... already dead?"
The words fell from her lips with mechanical precision, her eyes growing dull as programming overwrote conscious thought.
Memory struck like lightning—a family car on a dark road, an space beast emerging from shadows with hunger in its alien eyes. Her parents' screams cutting off abruptly, her brother's terrified whimper silenced forever, leaving only her own voice calling their names into darkness that gave no answer.
Then the figure in Night Raiders gear had approached, and she'd felt such relief—salvation arriving just when hope had abandoned her. The gun in his hands would destroy the monster, would bring justice for her murdered family.
Instead, he'd turned the weapon toward her and fired without hesitation.
"NO!"
The truth crashed over her like a tsunami of despair. She collapsed to her knees in the forest loam, understanding finally flooding through her fractured consciousness.
She was dead. Had been dead for longer than memory could encompass. Everything she thought she knew about herself—every moment with Komon, every smile they'd shared, every promise of a future together—was elaborate fiction wrapped around the corpse of who she'd once been.
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