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"I have to believe I can." He stepped forward. The air around him shifted, carrying a strange, natural pressure that seed to weigh on everything nearby.
At the sa ti, he suddenly raised his arms in an odd, deliberate pose.
The skeleton tensed, bracing itself, certain he was about to unleash a spell or skill.
However...
"HEN...!"
"...?"
"SHIN!"
He crossed his arms sharply afterward, but nothing happened.
Absolutely nothing—no transformation, no beams from his eyes, no visible change at all.
"Huh? What was that?"
The skeleton stared, utterly baffled by whatever nonsense it had just witnessed.
Yet inside Keitaro... sothing had indeed shifted.
"Hoooo..."
He exhaled deeply, steadying his breathing as his aura intensified.
What had once been nearly invisible now burned with undeniable presence.
"...?!"
The skeleton finally sensed it within Keitaro.
That mana-less heart blazed with the fiercest flas imaginable.
His eyes sharpened. He thrust both hands forward, pulling his right elbow back into a perfect fighting stance.
And then...
"Co."
He beckoned the skeleton to attack.
"Hah... Hahaha... HAHAHAHAHA!"
The skeleton laughed wildly, leveling its axe at him.
"What a pathetic human! I knew it! You’re Manaless! You don’t even have a Skill, do you? You’re not even Awakened! What kind of idiotic fool are you?!"
"I...! AM SUPER RIDER!"
RUMBLE!
The ground quaked as the skeleton charged in an instant. Its aura—woven from a thousand wailing souls—echoed through the deserted streets.
"Then die."
The axe descended in a deadly arc. For a heartbeat, Keitaro felt his body split in two.
But the vision snapped away a split second later.
A premonition... or rather...
"Super Rider’s Battle Sense?!"
In the old TV show, Super Rider possessed a special "Battle Sense" that let him glimpse dangerous futures—and avoid them.
CRASH!
The axe buried itself deep in the pavent, sending cracks spiderwebbing outward and bursts of ghostly fla exploding around it.
Keitaro had already spun behind the skeleton at impossible speed.
"SUPER...! RIDER...! KICK!!!"
With every ounce of strength he possessed, he drove his foot downward, smashing the skeleton’s head into the asphalt and shattering half its skull.
BAAAAM!
"Gaaaah?!"
The skeleton shrieked in disbelief. It recovered instantly, seizing Keitaro’s leg and trying to hoist him upward.
But...
"Huh?!"
It couldn’t lift him.
"W-What is this weight?! How heavy is he?!"
The undead monster strained in vain against this supposedly pitiful, mana-less human.
This ordinary man.
This insane son of a bitch who genuinely believed he was an 80s hero.
Then it felt it.
"...!"
Keitaro’s aura had transford completely. Sothing around him had changed.
He felt immovable—like an unyielding mountain.
Three decades of relentless training had forged him into this.
And he was not alone.
Sohow.
In so impossible way.
Keitaro’s madness had birthed a "power" that defied even a monster’s perception.
"What is that thing?!"
The skeleton glimpsed sothing Keitaro himself could not see.
A tall figure clad in dark green, red, and blue armor, its mask shaped like a demon.
A long red scarf billowed dramatically in the wind—looking utterly aweso.
"Huh? What’s that—"
"SUPER... RIDER...!"
"Wait!"
"PUNCH!!!"
Keitaro didn’t hesitate. He thrust his fist forward, smashing the skeleton’s face and obliterating its skull while hurling the creature backward into a building.
BOOOM!
"G-Gaaahhaa...?! Gaaaack...!"
The skeleton still wasn’t finished. It rose slowly even with its skull destroyed.
At the center of its chest pulsed a core—now swollen with many absorbed cores.
"Y-You... human...!"
Its ghostly voice reverberated as cold sweat drenched Keitaro’s body.
This thing truly was a monster.
An unnatural being from another world.
He clenched his fists tighter.
"I’LL EAT YOUR SOUL BEFORE I GO!!!"
The skeleton roared, charging one final ti. Its ghostly axe exploded into countless razor-sharp tal shards that flew straight toward Keitaro.
"Keitaro! Avoid! Jump!"
He was already moving—leaping skyward with explosive strength, evading the deadly projectiles that cratered the buildings behind him.
Then he descended, legs extended, arms raised high.
"SUPER...! RIDER...! COT KICK!"
"Cot what?!"
CRAAASH!
Blue flas erupted around Keitaro for an instant. His kick slamd into the skeleton’s rib cage, shattering bone and annihilating the core in one devastating strike.
BOOOM!
An explosion of wailing souls burst outward, scattering into the night as the undead monster collapsed in lifeless silence.
"A-Ah... you damn... human..."
Keitaro stood motionless, staring in awe at what he had accomplished with nothing but his own strength. His breathing ca in heavy gasps.
"I-I did it...?!"
"You did it, Keitaro!"
"Hahaha, I really am insane—why am I hearing a voice in my head— Aaaahhh!"
Keitaro scread in disbelief as a figure materialized behind him out of thin air.
It was...
Without question.
Him.
"S-Super...! SUPER RIDER?!"
"Well done, Keitaro! I believed in you!"
"Oh no, I’m truly losing my mind now— Ah, my phone, I have to get out of here!"
Keitaro ignored the Super Rider standing right in front of him, convinced it was a hallucination born of his own delusion. He rushed to the clerk, helped her up as sirens wailed closer, and the ambulance and police arrived.
"Thank you..." she whispered. "Can I know your na?"
"I can’t reveal that—it’s my secret identity," Keitaro replied with a confident grin.
"...Eh?" Her eyebrow twitched as Keitaro slipped away quietly with his phone.
When authorities later questioned her about the General-Rank Skeleton’s defeat, she recounted everything she had seen.
"Y-You an a single man took down that skeleton, boss?!"
"That’s what she said before they took her to the hospital. Luckily her legs aren’t broken—they’ll heal in a few months to a year."
"That’s a relief, but... who was that guy? He just vanished? Why would soone that strong disappear? Wouldn’t they want to register as an official Hunter?"
"...Unless he doesn’t want to."
"...?"
The old policeman sighed, lighting a cigarette as he studied the shattered remains of the skeleton—clearly pulverized by bare fists and a single devastating kick.
"That man was anything but ordinary. We might have an S-Rank Awakener on our hands."
"One who wants to hide his identity?!"
"A... masked vigilante, maybe?"
"Hahaha! What? What kind of joke is that?"
"Hm. I wonder the sa... what kind of joke is that man?"
The policeman gave a faint smile, then walked away, leaving the scene to the rest of the authorities.
anwhile, Keitaro faced a far bigger problem than any of that.
When he reached ho, this "illusion" born of his supposed insanity was still there—still sticking around!
Keitaro wasn’t foolish. He had accepted a decade ago, at age thirty, that Super Rider had never been real.
So this entire situation felt beyond bizarre.
"Are you so kind of demon or sothing?"
"...I am Super Rider."
"No way. He’s not real."
"I am real, aren’t I?! Aren’t you looking right at , Keitaro?! You’re hurting my feelings right now!"
"A-Ah, sorry, I just... you’re tangible?!"
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