The Innocent Runaway, End

After rolling once or twice, Build disengaged himself from Ryuga. Ryuga pulled himself up sluggishly, while the Kamen Rider sprang up with one hand, seemingly unaffected from the fiery attack and subsequent shielding of Ryuga.

The Smash was walking towards them, the hand that wielded its flamethrower was leveled at them again. Build slightly crouched and pushed off the ground hard with his left foot, sprinting to close the distance between himself and the approaching monster.

Ryuga knew what he was trying to do and yelled out in pained desperation. "Stop it! That's Kasumi!"

Build glanced back at Ryuga while sprinting, observed his sincere and pained expression, and consequently slowed down significantly.

He tried to ease Ryuga's concerns, accepting the man's claim with complete trust. 

"If I can remove the Smash essence, she should turn back to normal!!"

Build resumed his dash toward the Smash, but high-caliber rounds bouncing off the ground near his feet forced him to dodge sideways.

Night Rouge reappeared fifty meters from the Smash on a nearby grassy hill, his personal weapon drawn and aimed at Build, poised to shoot once more.

"Think carefully, you do that, and she's gone."

After Night Rouge finished speaking, he casually raised his weapon, appearing sure that Build would remain still. He tilted his helmet slightly to gaze down at Ryuga. Even without seeing the man's face, it was clear he was taunting Ryuga.

Build stood motionless, appearing stunned by Night Rouge's claim, and asked, "What do you mean?"

"It's simple...'Hazard Level 1'...People in sub-optimal health die the minute they're gassed."

The Smash remained motionless as Night Rogue explained, seemingly attentive or perhaps being controlled somehow by the dark Rider.

"If you remove the Smash essence, her body and soul will begin to break down immediately."

He waved his hand dismissively towards the Smash.

"There is simply no way to save her now."

Ryuga's expression turned to one of shock at the revelation. "No... It can't be true..." he murmured. Nearby, Build also let out a loud, noticeable gasp.

Night Rouge gave a nod to the Smash and then disappeared in a cloud of dark smoke again. 

The Smash began to launch a barrage of fireballs at Build. He deflected each one with ease, no longer needing to shield Ryuga. After repelling a brief onslaught, Build chose to counterattack. Meanwhile, Ryuga dashed back to his side and, in a surprising maneuver, placed himself between the Rider and his transformed fiancée. 

"Please, stop!"

The Smash started to build up another attack, and what happened next shocked everyone. It grabbed it's own arm right before discharging the fiery orb and yanked the limb upwards, seemingly against it's own will. The blast hit it's own face, instead of heading towards Ryuga!

The Smash blew itself to the ground, rolling several times! Another fire blast started to charge up, this time was the same. It grabbed the flame launcher with it's other arm and held it downwards this time, discharging the blast down at it's own feet! A colossal fireball exploded directly in front of it, propelling the Smash backwards by several meters.

Build and Ryuga both stood motionless, watching the strange actions of the Smash. Ryuga looked especially confused. "What's going on!?"

Build sounded thoughtful as her answered. "Turning into a Smash should cause a loss of identity...But she's hurting herself, to try and avoid hurting you."

The Smash was rolling around the ground, making painful grunting noises after it had singed and burned itself.

"Why?" Ryuga looked as sad as he did confused now. "Hey..."

He turned to look at Build. "...Is there no way at all to save her?"

Build lowered his head slightly and remained silent. The runaway boxer, interpreted this silence as Build's response.

"In that case...At least turn her back to normal...please!" He bowed slightly towards Build and tears welled up in his eyes. "Please!" Ryuga closed his eyes, tears starting to leak out the corners of them.

Several white, complicated equations manifested into reality around both of them again.

Build pulled out two more bottles, placing them into the driver slots as his response.

RABBIT!

VACUUM!

He started to turn the handle again.

ARE YOU READY!?

"Build up!" Build was encase with a new armor form. 

His one arm had what seemed to be a vacuum attachment on it now, he started drawing in all the fire that had been self inflicted upon the Smash, alleviating the creature's pain.

Unable to resist its nature, the Smash hurled several fireballs towards Ryuga and Build, which were promptly absorbed by Build's vacuum form before they could make contact.

It looked somewhat surprised, launching a volley of that same fire towards Build with the same effect occurring time and time again. Not once could the attacks reach him. Build pulled all of that energy inside his own body. His shoulder on the vacuum side had what looked like a clear canister as it's pauldron. Each shot filled a little bit of the clear container until it neared the top. 

After a few more seconds of the attacks, the Smash suddenly fell to it's knees and dimmed in color slightly. It was as if the Kamen Rider had sucked all of it's pyrokinetic energy away from it. His shoulder was a bright orange blaze! 

Click!

Build pressed a button on his vacuum arm and a fiery tornado of energy suddenly created a pillar, stemming from his shoulder!

He pulled out another two bottles and inserted them into the driver as the fiery vortex swirled in place beside him violently!

GORILLA!

DIAMOND!

BEST MATCH!

ARE YOU READY!?

THE DAZZLING DESTROYER! GORILLAMOND!

He extended his diamond-side hand, transforming the pillar of fire into a multitude of tiny diamond fragments. It appeared as though the fire had metamorphosed into diamond dust! With the gorilla strength of his transformation, he scooped up the shimmering dust into his colossal palm and compressed it into larger chunks of diamond.

Build then hurled them at the Smash!

READY? GO!

VORTEX FINISH! 

YEAH!

The Diamond dust swirled around the Smash, doing tons of damage to it! The Smash started to rotate quickly, caught up in the diamond dust tornado, as the vortex raised away from the ground; it pulled the Smash essence away with it, leaving Katsumi's human form behind to fall to the ground!

Build rushed forward and held the Smash essence back, it was trying to come back down to reform on the collapsed woman.

"Kasumi!" Ryuga ran towards his love, who was laying underneath the Rider with a mysterious golden glow cast on her entire body. Ryuga dropped to one knee and gently touched her shoulder. 

"Kasumi?" 

The woman slowly opened her eyes and peered up at Ryuga.

"Ryuga..."

Ryuga looked shocked that she was able to say something, he had thought she was dead after what Night Rouge had said earlier.

"How...? She's breathing..."

Build looked down from his standoff with the Smash essence towards Ryuga and Kasumi. "This is all I can do for her!"

"Ryuga..." Kasumi called out weakly for the man she loved.

"I'm so sorry...I lied to you..."

Ryuga dropped his other knee down now, he cradled her head in his arms and started to cry. "It's fine! Don't talk!"

She carried on despite her pain, she wanted Ryuga to hear this. 

"A man named Nabeshima had me send you to the scientists apartment...He promised that he could get your boxing license reinstated..."

Ryuga pulled he up into a more comfortable position, and she started crying weakly too.

"If you had never met me...Your life would've been a happier one...I'm sorry..."

Ryuga held her tightly. "That's crazy! I couldn't ask for a better life!"

He took a second to wipe both their tears.

"Meeting you made me the happiest I've ever been..."

The golden glow of her body got brighter, it was starting to turn into little particles, slowly but surely floating away piece by tiny golden piece into the air around them. 

"Thank you...I love you..."

"AARRGGH!" Build grunted, straining to hold off the Smash essence.

Kasumi's body started to come apart more rapidly and turned into more golden particles, she smiled at Ryuga one last time and closed her eyes.

The process suddenly accelerated tremendously, until nothing was in Ryuga's arms anymore but a few golden dust specs.

At this point Build was nearly forced to his knees from the pressure he was fighting, yet he didn't buckle.

Now that Kasumi was gone, he stepped back slightly and punched the shell of the Smash away from him and Ryuga. He straightened his back and cracked his neck.

"Why?..."

Ryuga sat on the ground beneath the Kamen Rider, with tears now streaming down his face.

"...I thought we were gonna see the cherry blossoms together again..."

Build looked down at Ryuga in front of him, you didn't need to see through his mask to know that he was sad for Ryuga. He glanced at the motionless Smash laying on the ground in front of them. Now that the host was gone, it laid lifelessly. 

The Kamen Rider pulled the two bottles out of his driver, releasing his Build transformation. He pointed an empty bottle at the smash and started absorbing it's essence as until there was nothing left in front of them.

Sento glanced at the golden bottle with a sad, yet thoughtful look on his face. He turned to Ryuga, who was clutching his knees, head lowered and still weeping over his tremendous loss. Sirens could now be heard in the distance, they were starting to draw near.

"Come on, let's go." He started to walk away at a brisk pace.

Ryuga shook his head, not even looking up. "It's fine...It doesn't even matter anymore."

"Huh? What?" Sento froze up at his words.

He strode back to Ryuga and crouched to meet his level. Clutching the center of Ryuga's shirt in one hand, he pulled until Ryuga's gaze met his own, which was ablaze with intensity.

"What's fine about this, huh!?" 

He yelled at Ryuga, shaking him.

"Nothing is fine about this! If you get caught now, you're going back to being a murderer!"

He shook Ryuga some more.

"And you think that that's fine?!" 

It was hard to tell who was more upset at this point. He gripped him with his other hand now too, so that he could shake Ryuga even harder.

"You think that's what she'd want!?"

He slapped Ryuga in the face and sprang up, letting the man fall to the ground. Sento marched away from Ryuga towards his motorcycle and started putting on his helmet.

Ryuga, with tears still rolling down his eyes, also got up from the ground and walked to his own bike, not looking over at Sento. 

The tiniest smile found it's way onto Sento's face.

Ryuga kicked the bike over, dumped the clutch and spun 180 degrees, taking off away from the approaching emergency vehicles that sounded much closer to them now. Sento followed closely behind, keeping pace with the innocent runaway.

...

Back at the café, Soichi looked at a news report about Kamen Rider Build on a tablet device.

"The fugitive Kamen Rider, huh?"

The next moment, his hands moved around the device in a weird manner until they became a blur. The tablet device followed form and its shape also became blurry. Soichi reshaped it into a long blue rod with a small hook on the end of it. He proceeded to use it to scratch a simple itch on his back.

"Aaahhhh, much better..."

...

Down in the lab, Sento sat on a chair backwards, head drooped down in thought. 

Ryuga walked towards him, and stopped to talk to the thinking man's back.

"I was able to say goodbye to Kasumi, with your help...Than you."

Ryuga didn't get a response, so he walked to the front of the chair and looked at the closed eyes Sento.

"He's asleep!"

DING!

The bottle machine went off, indicating a bottle had been purified. Ryuga jumped in surprise along with Sento, who was now wide awake.

Sento looked at Ryuga. "Bottle!" He rushed over and opened the door, steam rolled out as he reached in and retrieved the finished item.

The brightly blue colored bottle had a fierce serpentine look to it. 

"Dragon?" Sento cocked his head at it.

Misora exited the man door of the machine after it slid open, and smiled at Sento and Ryuga as she walked by them, she sat down at one of the computers.

"I guess that's Dragon in 'Ryuga'..."

He tossed the bottle towards Ryuga, who caught it and started examining it.

Sento softly explained to Ryuga.

"That one was made from the essence I extracted from her...you should hold onto it."

He walked away from the machine and up to Ryuga, patting him on the shoulder.

"You can thank me after we clear your name."

Ryuga looked up from the bottle and both men smiled at each other.

A set of footsteps came down the stairs into the lab and interrupted the moment

"Hey, I've got the name of the guard who knocked Banjo out in prison."

It was the reporter, Sawa Takigawa.

She looked down at the notepad she was carrying with her. "His name is Nabeshima Masahiro..."

"Nabeshima..." Sento remembered the name that Kasumi had used earlier and a serious, determined look emerged on his face.

"...That's our link between Ryuga's escape and the murder."