"Black Flash!"
Decade's fist, wrapped in black and red lightning, crashed straight into Geats's face with a force that was no longer something the Creator God could simply shrug off.
The impact staggered him backward and drove his feet across the ground, and by this point the repeated chain of Black Flashes had already pushed the power of every strike far beyond what it had been at the start of the fight.
After ten of them had landed in succession, even Geats's divine resistance had begun to fail under the pressure, because each punch had stacked on top of the last and continued building momentum until every blow carried enough force to make even a god feel the shock.
Inside the Domain, Geats's reality-warping power had been completely nullified, and with that gone, he had lost the trump card that had allowed him to control the pace of the fight.
What remained was a desperate struggle for survival against the Destroyer of Worlds, and for the first time since the battle began, Geats could no longer afford to act like he was in complete control.
Clenching his fist, Geats gathered energy around it and lunged forward with a punch of his own while his other hand pulled the trigger of his gun blade, firing a burst of energy bullets toward Decade.
In the state Decade was in now, his focus was so sharp that the bullets seemed to move in slow motion, and he stepped aside with just enough movement to let them pass by harmlessly.
Then his right fist began to glow with an ominous magenta light as he drew out both his Aura and his Cursed Energy, layering them over one another and covering his hand in a dense, dangerous pressure.
Decade answered Geats's attack with a punch of his own, and the moment their fists collided, black and red light erupted from his knuckles as another Black Flash triggered at the exact instant of impact.
The blow was enough to shatter the bone inside the Creator God's Rider armor before Geats was sent flying backward again.
He crashed into the holy barrier created by Luminosité Eternelle, and his already damaged armor slammed into the never-dying flames of La Grondement Du Haine. The fire clung to him immediately, and because it was fueled by Decade's rage and hatred, it showed no sign of dying out. As long as those emotions remained, the flame would continue burning.
Geats pushed his injured body back up with visible effort, and just as he did, Decade drew another card.
Attack Ride: Gate of Babylon!
He raised his right hand high above his head, and a golden glow spread outward around him, illuminating the ground beneath his feet as countless golden chains shot out from behind him.
The divine Chains of Heaven surged through the air and quickly turned toward Geats, who immediately tried to strike them away with his blade. However, against chains made to bind gods, his weakened attacks could not even make them tremble. The chains wrapped tightly around his arms, legs, torso, and neck, holding him in place before he could break free.
Geats struggled against them, but it was no use. After all, those chains could only be shattered by the hands of men.
Now, as he approached the bound god, a golden gate opened beside him, and he reached inside to pull out a strange-looking sword that did not resemble a normal weapon at all.
It had a grip and handguard like a longsword, but the rest of its shape was far too unusual to be mistaken for an ordinary blade. The section that should have contained the edge of a sword was instead shaped like a cylindrical pillar, drilled and spiraled into three independent rotating segments, each engraved with crimson lettering and ending in a dull, ominous tip.
"I shall perform this final blow as a parting gift to you," Decade said coldly as he slowly lifted the weapon and pointed its strange blade directly at Geats's face.
"Wake up, Ea."
The crimson lettering engraved on the blade responded immediately, glowing as though awakened by his words.
"I will tell you of the beginning. Heaven and Earth split. Nothingness congratulated Creation... and my sword cleaved the world."
As the chant continued, the three rotating segments began to spin faster and faster, and a violent storm of crimson wind started to coil around the weapon itself. The pressure building from it was so intense that the holy barrier around them began to crack, and the Domain barrier followed soon after, showing visible fractures under the force of the weapon's awakening.
"W-Wait! Hold up!" Geats shouted, his senses ringing with alarm as he struggled harder against the chains.
"Mortar of the stars... heaven's hell is the eve of creation's celebration!" Decade continued, his voice remaining calm as the storm around Ea grew more destructive by the second.
"My power is reality-altering!" Geats shouted desperately. "I can bring your sister back to life! If you kill me, you will never be able to see her again!"
He was clearly trying to buy himself time, trying to force even a moment of hesitation out of the Destroyer standing before him, but Decade did not care.
Not anymore.
"Die and be silent... Enuma Elish."
The crimson storm burst forward from the blade in a violent eruption of chaotic energy, and the instant it was released, the holy barrier and the Domain shattered at the same time. The blast continued driving forward without slowing, carving a path of destruction through everything in its way as though the world itself had been split open by the force of the attack.
When the storm finally faded, Tsutsumi lowered Ea and looked around at the result.
The once-busy city of Nagoya had been completely flattened.
There were no signs of the streets it had once had, no trace of the buildings that had stood there, and no evidence that the place had ever been filled with people just moments ago. The only thing left behind was the ruined remains of the city itself, stretched out in broken silence under the sky, as if Nagoya had been erased and left behind only as a grave marked by destruction.
Tsutsumi lowered his gaze toward the newly formed Kamen Ride: Geats card resting between his fingers.
Geats had fallen, and just like every Rider he had defeated before, his existence had condensed into a single card that could now be wielded as another power.
His fingers lingered on it for only a brief moment before he quietly slid it into the card holder.
Without another word, he drew a different Ride Card instead.
Holding it between two fingers, he looked at it for a moment before inserting it into the Decadriver.
Final Kamen Ride: Doom Geats!
Golden light erupted from the Decadriver like a pillar reaching toward the heavens, swallowing Tsutsumi's entire body. The brilliance continued expanding until it illuminated every ruined street and every collapsed building around him before finally exploding outward in a wave of divine radiance.
When the light finally faded, his appearance had completely changed. He now wore regal golden clothing with a long nine-tailed cape swaying behind him, while an ominous red glow rimmed his eyes and a pair of sharp golden fox ears with black tips had appeared on top of his head.
Even his natural purple and magenta hair had turned a pure godly white, making him look less like a man and more like some kind of divine king standing at the center of the ruined world.
He spread his hands slightly, and nine bright golden pillars rose around him one after another, their light flooding outward until everything around him was swallowed in gold. The glow spread across the shattered city, across the broken roads and collapsed buildings, across every ruin left behind by the battle, until even the air itself seemed to shimmer under the force of his power.
Then, little by little, the light faded.
When it was gone, the destroyed city had already returned to how it had been before everything happened.
The broken streets were whole again.
The collapsed buildings stood tall once more.
The people who had vanished from that ruined world now walked through the streets without fear or memory of the destruction that had taken place not long ago, continuing their lives as though nothing had ever happened. The world had been restored, perfectly and completely, and Tsutsumi stood in the middle of it.
Soon after, he was walking through the street again, this time back in civilian clothes. The morning wind drifted past him, gently moving his somewhat long purple hair as he moved through the city at an unhurried pace.
That was when he saw Ryoshu again.
Unlike the version he had known, this Ryoshu wore an elegant black suit beneath a long crimson overcoat. Several well-dressed bodyguards followed a respectful distance behind her, their sharp eyes constantly scanning the surroundings as they escorted their boss through the city.
She looked exactly the same.
Yet... She wasn't the Ryoshu who had protected him. She wasn't the older sister who had shared dinner with him. She wasn't the woman who had forced him to smoke beside her on the apartment balcony. Nor was she the one who had smiled while sacrificing herself to save him.
She was another Ryoshu.
A different person living a different life.
Slowly, Tsutsumi lifted the camera hanging around his neck and took a picture without saying anything.
In the noisy street, the soft sound of the shutter was almost nothing, yet somehow Ryoshu noticed it anyway. Her head turned in his direction, and when their eyes met, something in her chest gave a strange, unfamiliar skip that she could not immediately explain to herself.
It was simply... An indescribable sense of nostalgia. Like discovering a forgotten photograph from a childhood she couldn't quite remember.
After all, this is a completely different new world.
There was no DGP here, no Riders, and no memories of the event that had happened in the previous world. In this place, Ryoshu was a mafia boss, and she seemed to fit that role naturally. And finally... Tsutsumi Ryoko did not exist here.
When her bodyguards noticed her turning toward a stranger with a camera, they started to move almost at once, clearly intending to deal with the situation for her, but Ryoshu reached them first.
Her boots clicked softly against the marble street as she walked directly toward Tsutsumi and stopped right in front of him. Their eyes met once more, and the space between them seemed to narrow for reasons neither of them fully understood.
"You..." she said, then paused as if even she was surprised to hear herself speaking first. "Like taking photos?"
The question came out more naturally than she expected, and that only made her frown slightly, because she could not understand why she had chosen that of all things to ask a complete stranger. She did not know him. At least, she thought she did not know him. There was a vague feeling in the back of her mind that she should remember something about him, but every time she tried to reach for it, nothing came up.
Tsutsumi smiled faintly. "Yeah. It helps me preserve memories. So no matter how much time passes... I won't forget the people I met."
His voice remained calm, yet every word carried a weight only he understood.
The power he carried often felt more like a curse than a blessing, but at the same time, it was also what allowed him to keep moving forward.
As Decade... He is the link that connected everything and destroyed everything.
He was the traveler connecting countless worlds.
The destroyer who erased them. The witness who remained after everything had disappeared.
Creation could only begin after destruction.
Even so, for all the people he had lost, he never wanted to replace them with another version of them from some other timeline. That would only make it feel like he was trying to fill the same empty space with a look-alike instead of the real person he had once known.
They might resemble the ones he had lost, and they might even share the same face, the same voice, and the same habits, but they would still not be the genuine person who had shared those moments with him. He knew that better than anyone.
So even if no one else remembered the original world, he would be the one who remembered it.
He lowered the camera slightly, then added with a small smile, "Although I'm not very good at taking pictures."
Ryoshu looked at him for a moment longer, her expression unreadable as she studied him in silence. Then, without warning, she reached out and took the camera from his hand. Before he could react, she stepped closer, pulled him toward her, and lifted the camera up so it pointed directly at the two of them. The shutter clicked a second later, freezing the moment in place.
When she handed the camera back, her expression had already returned to its usual calm, though there was something softer hidden beneath it now.
"Here," she said. "Try not to forget me."
She didn't know why she had said those words.
They simply came out naturally.
Almost instinctively.
Before Tsutsumi could answer, she had already turned around and resumed walking.
Her bodyguards hurried after her, each one exchanging bewildered glances, none of them understanding why their boss had stopped to speak with a complete stranger, let alone take a photograph with him.
Tsutsumi quietly stood where he was, watching her figure gradually disappear into the endless crowd.
He looked down at the camera resting in his hands.
A small smile appeared on his face.
"...I won't." His voice was barely louder than a whisper.
Without looking back again, Tsutsumi disappeared from this world, carrying the memories of a world that no longer existed.