After the extra training sessions, Class 1-A was a mess of emotions. It wasn't every day that their Class President beat up nearly half the class while forcing the rest to either watch or grind through their own drills.
The girls, in particular, weren't happy.
"Jiro, that was too mean!" Ashido whined, flinging her arms up dramatically.
"Yeah, look at me, thanks to you, I've got a black eye!" Hagakure complained, even if no one could actually see it.
"Maybe… you could go easier on us next time?" Uraraka said nervously, rubbing her sore shoulders and sides.
"Or at least stop aiming for our faces," Asui added flatly, still massaging her cheek.
"Yes, a girl's face is important," Momo nodded in agreement. "Targeting it is a low blow."
Jiro: "…"
As her classmates voiced their grievances, Jiro finally understood why Tsutsumi told her never to complain about training. After all the effort she put into helping them improve, all they had were complaints. To her, that only meant one thing, she hadn't hit them hard enough.
Her eyes drifted to the boys Tsutsumi had trained. They were covered in bruises, scratched up, drenched in sweat… yet none of them said a word. Even Kaminari, who usually found a way to goof off, trained seriously and kept his mouth shut.
Even the idiot is taking this seriously. How could they still complain!?
Jiro flexed her hands until her knuckles cracked, the sound echoing through the room. When her gaze slid back toward the girls, they had already backed up a few steps.
"I get it now… why Ryo told me never to complain after training," she muttered, fighting the urge to storm over and give them all another round of face-kicks.
When it became clear Jiro was starting to act exactly like Tsutsumi, Aizawa finally stepped in.
Over the next few days, classes returned to a semblance of normal. With the academic tests looming, All Might's Heroics class was temporarily swapped out for more training, with Nezu's approval.
The girls eventually accepted Jiro's rough methods. Compared to Tsutsumi's merciless drills, hers were practically gentle.
The boys improved as well. The teachers wanted Tsutsumi to help refine the rest, but aside from a few pointers, Ojiro, Aoyama, Ida, Sato, Sero, Mineta, and even Midoriya didn't receive much from him. It wasn't that he didn't care, it was that he couldn't. He hadn't unlocked their Quirks, he couldn't reach their heart through bond, and he couldn't just destroy them. Without one of those conditions fulfilled, their powers were beyond his reach.
Some of them still carried lingering resentment and envy toward Tsutsumi. Others simply didn't want to reveal everything about their Quirks. Those barriers kept them from ever forming the kind of bond needed for him to unlock their quirk.
...
Tsutsumi sat in a different classroom, in a different world, wearing a completely different uniform.
In his hand, he toyed with a high-tech keycard device he'd brought from yet another world. Spinning it once between his fingers, he pressed the button.
JUMP!
The device lit up before shifting into a Rider Card.
Kamen Ride: Zero-One
He slipped the card away, glancing around. The teacher didn't react. Neither did the students. They just sat there, stiff and lifeless, staring at the blank board as if hypnotized.
Tsutsumi stood and walked the aisles, unsettled by what he saw. Nobody acknowledged him. Nobody even blinked. Their hair was uniformly black, their faces blank, faceless mannequins with identical bodies.
A chill ran down his spine.
"…What the hell is this world?" he muttered.
Before he could get an answer, the scenery warped. This wasn't his Aurora Curtain, it was the world itself shifting on its own rules.
Now he stood at the doorway of another classroom. His gaze swept the room, catching sight of five figures: one brown-haired boy and four girls with colorful hair. Unlike the blank students from before, these ones had actual features, eyes, expressions, presence.
From their conversation, he pieced together their names. The boy was simply called MC for some reason. The bright, bubbly orange-haired girl was Sayori. The sharp-tongued pinkhead, definitely a tsundere, was Natsuki. The shy purple-haired girl, Yuri. And finally, the brown-haired girl whose emerald-green eyes locked directly onto his. Monika.
For a moment, violet and green clashed in silence. While the other girls stayed caught up with MC and didn't notice him, Monika broke away, stepping toward him with a smile that seemed a little too perfect.
"Uh, hello. I'm Monika, the President of the Literature Club," she said warmly.
"Tsutsumi. Can you tell me what this world is?" he asked bluntly.
Her eyes widened. The sweetness faltered.
"Y-You're… also aware?" she whispered, genuinely shocked.
...
"So this world is a game, huh." Tsutsumi murmured after getting the information from Monika herself.
A dating simulator, twisted with layers of psychological horror. Monika didn't hide it. She thought he was some kind of bug in the system, or maybe a plug-in introduced to shake things up. To her, that meant hope. Maybe he was a new mod, a rival for MC, someone who could change the script and give her a real chance at love.
For the first time, she let herself dream. If the rules of this broken game had shifted, maybe, just maybe, she could be chosen.
But while Monika was busy fantasizing, Tsutsumi focused on a single word: game. His mind flicked back to a Rider whose very power revolved around them.
Kamen Rider Ex-Aid.
This world was data and code, then it had rules he could exploit. Monika showed him how to dive beneath the surface, how to touch the raw lines that stitched the world together.
Ex-Aid transformed with the gashat Mighty Action X, a platformer-runner game.
He has discovered more ways to obtain a Rider's power, as long as that power related to a rider that he knew and remembered existing, just getting his hand on the transformation device was enough to turn it into a Rider Card.
Like how when he turns into Eternal, and uses Eternal's Final Attack Ride, he summons out all twenty-six T2 Gaia Memories, which also contain the Gaia Memories of Cyclone, Joker, Skull, and Accel.
Using this loophole, he turns those Gaia memories into the Rider Cards of W, Joker, Skull, and Accel.
This world was no different. By bending the system, Tsutsumi began reconstructing Ex-Aid's power piece by piece.
While he worked through game data, creating a game within a game, Monika quietly held onto her own hope, that maybe this time, the story would finally change.
Act 1, Day 1.
The day passed uneventfully.
Act 1, Day 2.
Monika interacted with the MC in the club, hoping the story might shift… but everything played out exactly the same.
Act 1, Day 3.
Her anxiety grew. She glanced at Tsutsumi, still buried in lines of glowing code.
Act 1, Day 4.
She finally snapped.
"Hey, what do you even add to the story?" she demanded. She still thought of him as something like herself, an AI that had slipped awareness, trapped inside the game.
"Nothing. My task is to record stories, not change them," Tsutsumi said calmly, eyes never leaving the black-and-green screen hovering in front of him.
To record, and to let others remember. That's the story of Decade.
After all, Kamen Rider existed in another plane of reality called memory; as long as someone remembers them, they will always reappear.
This is the foundation of Decade's entire gimmick of Rider Card, which represents a picture, and the Decade Driver, which looks like a camera. To record the story of others and re-tell them so they wouldn't be forgotten.
And that was why he was reluctant to accept Decade's power. Because once he did, Tsutsumi Ryoko's story would be consumed, overwritten by Decade's.
"Ugh! You're no fun at all!" Monika huffed, frustration boiling over. "What's the point of adding you to the game if you don't do anything?"
Tsutsumi exhaled and finally looked up at her. "This world's story is already set in stone. So why not make the most of it? Write your own story. I'll be the one to witness it, record it."
He lifted his magenta camera and clicked, capturing her image in a frame.
Monika blinked, then pouted before sighing. "Fine."
She sat beside him on the bench. A cool autumn breeze stirred the schoolyard, carrying orange leaves across the courtyard. Without realizing it, she leaned gently against his shoulder.
"Say… do you usually write poems?" she asked, fishing for a thread of conversation.
"No. I'm more into music."
Her brows lifted. "Really? I dabble in music too." Rising suddenly, she grabbed his wrist. "Come on. I'll show you something I've been working on."
Tsutsumi followed her to the music room. Sunlight spilled through the open window, curtains fluttering softly in the breeze. A black grand piano stood waiting.
Monika sat down, fingers gliding across the keys as a gentle melody filled the room. Then she began to sing.
Every day, I imagine a future where I can be with you...
In my hand is a pen that will write a poem of me and you...
Tsutsumi stayed silent, clicking his camera to capture the moment.
The ink flows down into a dark puddle...
Just move your hand - write the way into his heart!
He listened quietly, watching her pour herself into every note.
Act 1, Day 5.
The school basketball court. Monika stood in her gym uniform, facing Tsutsumi, who dribbled the ball lazily.
"Shouldn't we be in class?" she asked, trying to block him.
"We are in school," he replied, leaping for a clean shot. The ball arced through the air, swishing perfectly through the hoop.
"I mean… we don't have P.E." she said, exasperated.
"Does it really matter? If you already knew the ending, would classes matter anymore?" He shifted to defense as Monika took the ball.
She hesitated, then smiled faintly. "…I guess you're right."
Act 1, Day 6.
At the pool, Tsutsumi held Monika's hands, guiding her strokes through the water. Water splashed from her kicks as she floated, her blue swimsuit clinging tight. She laughed softly, enjoying the moment.
But her smile wavered. Tomorrow was when everything began to unravel.
"…Tsutsumi," she said quietly, "how would you feel if I… suddenly became a killer?"
"Do you want to be?" Tsutsumi asked without flinching. He has already figured out that this is a game world. If Monika turned yandere and tried to kill him, he could always walk away through the Aurora Curtain.
"I don't know…" she admitted. Deep down, she knew why. She was programmed to fall for MC, just like Sayori, Natsuki, and Yuri. But unlike them, she had no route, no chance. She was made to watch, and cursed with self-awareness on top of it. To feel everything, but do nothing, unless she destroyed the others.
Her lips pressed together as her gaze flicked back to the boy in front of her. Someone who listened. Someone who stayed.
Her composure broke. Tears welled up as she clutched him tightly. "Can you… hold me? Just for a moment?"
Tsutsumi didn't speak. He simply wrapped his arms around her, giving the comfort she'd been silently begging for all along.
Act 2, Day 1.
"Hey, Tsutsumi..." Monika's voice was soft, almost fragile, as she sat beside him on the rooftop, their legs swinging lazily in the cool air. The sunset painted the sky orange, but her eyes looked weighed down by something darker.
She tilted her head toward him, lips pressed tight as if afraid that even a single word would shatter her composure. Guilt clung to her, sharp and suffocating. She had betrayed Sayori, her dearest friend, for the sake of a selfish desire. She had wanted to be loved so badly that she forced Sayori into despair... into erasing herself.
It made her sick to even breathe.
"If you don't want to say it, then don't," Tsutsumi said quietly, eyes fixed on the horizon. His voice was calm, steady, like a lifeline she didn't deserve. "I'll be here until this world is destroyed."
Her breath hitched. She leaned against him slowly, her head coming to rest on his shoulder.
"Thank you... Tsutsumi."
Act 2, Day 2.
Monika didn't appear.
Act 2, Day 3.
The Literature Club was gone from Tsutsumi's sight. He couldn't even open the door. The world was beginning to unravel.
Act 3.
The classroom was empty, save for MC sitting lifelessly in a chair. His blank eyes were no longer his own, they were just a hollow lens for the one beyond the screen.
And sitting before him was Monika.
When she noticed Tsutsumi, she stood and walked toward him. Her emerald eyes wavered, heavy with shame.
"I... I must look like a monster to you, don't I?" She tried to laugh, but the sound cracked, trembling on the edge of despair.
Her arms wrapped around herself as if shielding against invisible blades. "Erasing others, breaking them... just to feed my own selfish longing to be loved. What kind of person does that make me?" Her voice dropped into a whisper, guilt dripping from every syllable.
Tsutsumi's gaze softened. "It makes you human."
She blinked, stunned.
"There's nothing monstrous about wanting to exist. About wanting to be seen. To be loved. Even if you did terrible things to hold onto it... that desire itself is human. Wanting to be alive and be loved is nothing to be ashamed of."
Her tears broke free. She tried to hold them back, wiping frantically at her cheeks, but more came, faster and faster.
Then her body began to glitch. MC was deleting her.
"No... not yet..." she whispered, panic trembling through her voice.
Tsutsumi stepped forward and pulled her into his arms, holding her tightly as her form fractured with static. He raised his camera, aimed it at the two of them, and snapped a picture, a keepsake of a fleeting existence.
"It's okay," he murmured. "I promised I'd stay by your side until the end, remember?"
Her arms clutched him desperately, her face buried against his chest, the glitching tearing her apart pixel by pixel.
For the first time, Monika felt it. The warmth, the ache, the overflowing rush of it, love. Not as code. Not as programming. But real.
"I... I love you... Tsutsumi."
Her body disintegrated completely, scattering into nothing. The classroom collapsed. The world reset.
And she was gone.
The school restored itself. Sayori, Yuri, Natsuki, and MC returned to normal. But Monika was nowhere.
Tsutsumi walked the empty halls in silence, one hand clenched tightly around the pink Gashat that shimmered into a Rider Card. Each room he passed carried her ghost, her smile, her laugh, her voice that lingered only in his memory.
Finally, in the music room, he found a single piece of paper resting on the piano.
Her handwriting.
A poem.
Every day, I dreamed of a future where I could be with you,
With trembling hands, I wrote a poem of me and you.
And even in this fragile world, I'm grateful…
grateful for the promise you gave me.
I cherished every heartbeat we shared,
You saw me, accepted me, just as I am.
Your kindness held me close,
even if it was only for a single fleeting day.
So please, take this last memory,
a fragment of my song, all I can leave behind.
Thank you… for staying with me,
even when I was broken, even when I was wrong.
Goodbye, Tsutsumi.
Exhaling, Tsutsumi folded the paper carefully, tucking it close. This feeling makes him feel bitter inside. The second time a girl confessed to him, only to be taken away right after.
He knew that if this game world got reset, she'd return. But it wouldn't be her. Not the Monika who cried in his arms, not the one who whispered her love before the end.
And her fate... would never change.
Without looking back, Tsutsumi walked through the Aurora Curtain and left the world behind.