THE STEALTH ENTERTAINER!
NINNINCOMIC!
Kamen Rider Build charged ahead, shoving the newly transformed child aside and launching a relentless assault on Blood Stalk. He alternated between a standard and reverse grip on his sword, keeping the pressure on without letting up.
The Smash stopped stumbling and recovered from the strong push it had received from Build, turning around to attack him alongside Blood Stalk, backing him up.
Build swiveled to dodge a claw being swung at him and positioned his sword backwards over a shoulder to block a blow being delivered from behind by Blood Stalk, Build was laser-focused now, messing with a child had really pissed Sento off, and he was now fighting the two evenly.
After a few exchanges, Build rolled under a horizontal strike and kicked the Smash away several feet and clashed with Blood Stalk again. They smashed their blades together many times times, with Build coming out on top in most of the clashes.
The blue and Back colored Smash paused for a moment after being kicked away, it looked over towards Ryuga and Miss Katsuragi, suddenly hunching over and a thin cloud appeared in front of it.
"Look out!"
Ryuga's eyes opened wide and he moved instantly while shouting, dragging the woman beside him down with him to hunch and protecting her with his back and shoulders.
Whizz Whizz Whizz Whizz Whizz Whizz!
Not even a second later, six 3 inch thick and 8 inch long icicle daggers flew by them right where they had been standing before Ryuga pulled them down.
"Arg! Ugh..."
Ryuga winced in pain, one of the icicle projectiles had skimmed past his shoulder, ripping open his sleeve and causing blood to drip.
Build rolled away from a diagonal attack and brought the yellow and purple blade up to block the follow-up attack right away.
Clang!
Sparks splashed everywhere and Build supported his blade from beneath while Blood Stalk tried to use his weight, gravity, and the higher position his body was at to leverage on the still-kneeling Kamen Rider, trying to press him into the ground.
DUPLICATE SKILL!
Kamen Rider Blade twisted his sword a little and activated one of its abilities.
As soon as the ability was called out, Blood Stalk retracted his weapon and brought it back down immediately again, trying to cleave Build in half before he could escape from under him.
Bamf!
Build became covered in a large puff of smoke instantly, Blood Stalk's bayonet blade swung down again, all it managed to cleave through was the smoke, which billowed to both sides of the blade.
Blood Stalk tilted his head slightly for a moment in confusion while scanning around for Build.
He quickly jumped to the side and guarded his flank, and just in time as a yellow and purple slash connected with his weapon, pushing him back a little.
The two halves of the smoke cloud had both become Build, one the original and one a ninja clone!
One Build clashed with Blood Stalk and the other one tangled with the Smash, stopping it from targeting the other children present, or Ryuga and Mrs. Katsuragi.
Bang Bang Bang!
The four fought intensely, with the two Builds maintaining a slight upper hand due to perfect coordination and teamwork, seeing as Build's his partner was himself!
CONCEALMENT SKILL!
Bamf!
More smoke suddenly replaced the Build that was fighting the Smash and he reappeared in front of the two other children that were nearly right underfoot, in proximity of the melee happening.
He grabbed them and disappeared into smoke with them again while the other Build held off both Blood Stalk and the Smash.
Bamf!
The three reappeared in front of Miss Katsuragi and Ryuga, who was clutching his still bleeding shoulder.
"Take care of them!"
Build jumped up and flashed back to join his counterpart, while Ryuga rushed forward to shelter the two boys, consoling them, "It's gonna be okay."
The four fighters clashed intensely, holding their ground for half a minute until the Build facing the Smash outsmarted it and delivered a solid kick to its chest, knocking it back. It hesitated, choosing not to charge forward, and instead unleashed the same icicle attack it had used to injure Ryuga.
"Hmmm, how about this then?" Build faced down the Smash, which was creating a bunch of ice particles in front of its face, preparing to condense them into projectiles to launch.
He pulled the trigger on his blade and the second panel lit up.
FIRE SKILL!
Thwip! Thwip! Thwip! Clang! Clang! Clang!
Build intercepted each and every icicle, his now fiery blade evaporating the pieces of ice as he blocked them all.
The fire surrounding his sword grew stronger as he dragged two fingers along the length of its blade.
BLAZING SLASH!
Build stabbed towards the Smash, and a thick pillar of fire shot out and engulfed the monster in an instant!
It roared before hitting the ground, then rolled around for a little bit, it was clearly down for the count right now.
"Yes!" Ryuga pumped a fist in excitement, cheering as the Smash went down.
Build glanced at Ryuga for a moment and then produced an empty full-bottle.
"Banjo! Take the essence!" Build tossed the bottle to Ryuga, who immediately turned it on the Smash. Blue, white and purple particle rolled off the Smash, turning it back into a kid almost instantly.
He lay there for a moment then weakly coughed, prompting Ryuga and the rest to run over to him.
"Takehiko!"
Miss Katsuragi cradled his head while holding her tears back.
"Teacher... It hurts..." Takehiko spoke softly. "... It's hard to breathe..."
Ryuga nodded knowingly, with a deep look of concern in his eyes. "He's just a kid, so the damage is much worse than usual."
He reached down and grabbed Takehiko's collar and shook him very gently. "Hey! Hang in there!"
"Am... Am I gonna die?"
Ryuga smiled kindly and reassured the boy, "What? What are you talking about? You wanna be like your teacher when you grow up, right?"
"...Y-Yeah..."
Ryuga's smile deepened and he squeezed Takehiko's hand lightly, "Well, when you get there how about you teach me too?"
He moved their hands into a pinkie swear position and shook them up and down.
"There! It's a promise!"
Miss Katsuragi looked back and forth between the two, not sure what to believe anymore.
"Okay, lets get you outta here!" Ryuga picked the boy up and all five of them ran to the side, further away from the battle.
At this point, the two Builds had merged back into one, the duplicate skill had run out of time and now he was exchanging blows with Blood Stalk evenly.
In the middle of a clash, Build's hands moved like lightning, swapping out his bottles before kicking Blood Stalk back.
PANDA!
GATLING!
He quickly turned the crank and got into his stance again.
ARE YOU READY!?
With a flash of light, the armor changed and the purple and yellow katana disappeared, in its place was the hand held gatling canon.
Kamen Rider Build stood in place and simply raised the firearm, spraying Blood Stalk at close range.
Every time Blood Stalk rolled or jumped, Build would try catch him right after with a stab or swipe with the massive white claw currently attached to his entire right hand and fore arm.
On the seventh attempt at a combo, Build finally caught Blood Stalk and sent him tumbling away in a wave of sparks.
"Ugh!" Blood Stalk coughed a few times before rising to his feet and clapping his hands once.
"Nice attack!" He quickly split the steam weapon, which had been in the form of a dagger or dirk, extended a slide on one piece, flipped it around, and reattached them to form his bayonet steam rifle.
RIFLE MODE!
"Is that?!" Build wondered if this was the same attack Blood Stalk had launched at Ryuga and him earlier, which had somehow turned around to strike Night Rogue instead.
FULL BOTTLE!
"How about this attack though?"
A dark purple bottle was slotted and a holographic image of a rocket appeared for a second before disappearing.
Blood Stalk aimed directly at Build, not hesitating before pulling the trigger.
STEAM ATTACK!
Bang! Whooooooooosh!
It was indeed the same attack! A rocket shot towards Build and when he tried to step aside the rocket turned 90 degrees and shot into the air, performing a bunch of loops and spins before turning back down towards him.
"Oh crap! It's a guided rocket!" Build tried to sprint away but he wasn't any match for the incoming projectile.
He managed to dodge two times before the rocket managed to tag him, causing a massive explosion.
The explosion was enough to undo Builds transformation, a very singed Sento winced as he rolled on the concrete and he only managed to catch the Panda bottle, while the Gatling full bottle rolled ten feet away from him, landing between himself and Blood Stalk.
"Uhhhh... Damn it!" Sento gasped and struggled to rise while holding onto his chest in pain.
"Sento!" Ryuga quickly pulled the Dragon full bottle out of his pocket, shook it and charged towards the now approaching Blood Stalk, who had his rifle slung across one shoulder in a very cocky fashion at this point, treating everything like a casual joke, as per usual.
This added to Ryuga's rising battle spirit.
"Yaaaaaa!"
Ryuga threw a strong right straight, followed by a swift left cross.
Blood Stalk dodge both with minimal movement, raising a hand to catch Ryuga's third shot, which also happened to be a right.
He flung Ryuga to the side with his captured arm, causing him to roll on the hard ground as well, however, despite being flung over ten feet away and landing hard, Ryuga acted like he didn't feel a thing, turning his roll into momentum to hop right back up.
The little robot that Sento had made for him Cross-Z Dragon, also flew into action, emerging from out of the billowing clown suit on Ryuga and swooping down to grab the gatling full bottle. It threw the bottle up into the air, which rotated and then landed neatly in the slot on its back.
CROSS FLAME!
Both man and machine raced towards Blood Stalk again, one throwing fists and the other tossing rapid fire balls of blue flame.
The two lay down a siege of blows upon Blood Stalk, with most of the damage being delivered by the little robot spitting out tons of blue fire.
"Enough!" Blood Stalk, irritated by the relentless bombardment, backhanded Ryuga away. But as he did, Ryuga managed to snatch the bottle lodged in Blood Stalk's weapon, stealing it as he was sent flying and tumbling across the ground once again.
Ryuga looked down at the bottle in his hand. It was a deep purple and had a tall rocket inscribed on it.
He looked over at Sento, who had risen to one knee at this point and shouted at him, "Use it!" before throwing the bottle in his direction like a major league pitcher.
Sento caught the bottle and nodded his head, shaking it and the Panda bottle fiercely, he slotted them and started moved his hand down to start cranking the level on his driver.
PANDA! ROCKET!
BEST MATCH!
Sento paused for one second, pleasantly surprised.
"A best match!? Nice!"
He started turning the lever with gusto, a defiant smile directed towards Blood Stalk.
ARE YOU READY!?
"Henshin!"
BLASTING OFF IN MONOCHROME!
ROCKETPANDA!
"Yeah...Let's go!"
Kamen Rider Build darted towards Blood Stalk and swung his massive white, clawed right arm towards his enemy, which was narrowly dodged, the next incoming blur of light blue was not however.
Bang!
Build's left arm, which had taken on the shape of a rocket-like gauntlet, spewed flames and propelled his fist into Blood Stalk's chest - faster than the pink menace could account for.
As with all perfect full bottle matches, the white and light blue armor it produced complemented each other, making Build look amazing as sparks danced off Blood Stalk's armor.
While Blood Stalk was still falling backwards, Build activated the secondary effect of this new bottle, launching a projectile attack of his own - getting back at Blood Stalk for earlier.
Boom!
The attack landed and a decent amount of damage had clearly been taken. It was now Blood Stalk that was huffing and puffing on one knee.
"Well, it looks like I've got the winning formula."
His right polar bear claw equipped hand fell to his waist and started twisting the lever again, preparing to perform a finisher.
READY? GO!
This was different than normal, the white math constructs made an appearance like they always do, but this time they were shaped much differently.
Normally, it was the trajectory of a Rider Kick, always holding the target fixed in place. This time, however, the lines wrapped around Blood Stalk in circles, and before he could even look around, Build launched forward, taking flight with the rocket booster on his left arm.
VORTEX FINISH!
Build raced around Blood Stalk, circling him and clawing at him with each pass. Smoke and sparks quickly built up from the number of times his armor had been slashed until his figure was obscured.
Blood Stalk screamed as he flew through the air, he had been clawed upwards in a vicious, final uppercut and landed fifty or so feet away from everyone.
He rose to his feet and breathed heavily, both hands resting on his knees for support.
"Huff... Huff... Ha... Hahaha!... You've gotten stronger again."
Ryuga walked up to stand beside Build, both stared him down with hatred in their eyes but didn't rush after him, since he was now so far away.
"Since that was fun, I'll let you in on a little secret... about good old Takumi Katsuragi."
Ryuga's eyes opened wide upon hearing this, you could tell by Build's body stiffening up that he was similarly affected.
"...He's actually the creator of the Smashes...Yes, that's right! Takumi Katsuragi is the very man who founded Faust!"
Blood Stalk raised his arms as if telling them this was some sort of triumph, shouting out the last sentence in a deep voice for added effect.
"What!?" Build couldn't stay quiet, ready to barrage Blood Stalk with questions instead of fists.
But before he could, Blood Stalk turned around and spoke first.
"Now... What will be you next move?"
With that, he turned into a ball of red energy and steam, rapidly retreating into the nearby woods like a phantom.
Both Build and Ryuga just stared, not moving, as he raced away, disappearing.
After a moment or two of shock from the revelation, Build undid his transformation, becoming Sento again.
Ryuga broke the silence after they both stood like that for 10 seconds.
"Well? Do you think that's true? Did Katsuragi really create Faust?"
Sento's eyes darted back and forth as he pondered the question. Suddenly, they froze and widened in shock. He slowly turned to find himself locking eyes with a terrified and bewildered Miss Katsuragi, who had been there the entire time, clearly hearing every word Blood Stalk had spoken.
"Faust? Takumi did what?!"