Kamen Rider Kuuga: Chapter One

Rebirth

Egypt

Several archeologists studied their latest find, deep within a tomb outside of Cairo. They set up lamps and cameras along the tomb walls, etched with strange hieroglyphs no one recognized. The tomb stank of dust and sulfur.

Professor Natsume led the group, made up of the brightest archeologists from around the world.

They turned their attention to a stone casket in the center of the tomb. The casket sat upright, and its stone lid was etched with a single symbol: a bug-like mask.

"Open it slowly," Natsume said. "We don't want to damage it."

Five workers angled the casket backward, and another three men pried the casket open while sliding the stone lid aside. Inside was a mummified figure dressed in a strange belt that looked metallic. 

"Professor..." one of the team members said as he placed a hand on the professor's shoulder. "It doesn't say anywhere that we'll be cursed if we touch this thing, does it?"

"We've already touched it," Natsume said. "Now move your hand and stop being stupid."

Maya hunched over her computer within a small third-floor office. She shuffled through the papers on her desk, decorated with a sole picture of her younger brother Simon along with her friends Jason, Tommy, Zack, Billy, Trini and Kimberly. She missed them, but she had too much of her grandfather's desire for exploration and discovery to stay in America.

Maya heard footsteps from behind, and from the reflection on her monitor, saw a masked man sneak towards her. She would have been frightened, but she knew exactly who it was.

"I know it's you, Kouishiro," Maya said with a smile. "Nice try."

Kouishiro removed the Aztec mask. The young Asian man flashed a boyish grin and shrugged. "I do what I can...what are you working on?"

Maya turned back to her computer. "The latest dig site. It's...strange. A mix of characters I've never seen before."

Kouishiro leaned forward to look at her computer. "Can you translate?"

Maya nodded. "I think so...some of the symbols have characteristics I've seen in the data my grandfather left behind."

Various symbols scrolled across Maya's screen.

One of the glyphs caught Kouishiro's eye: a bug-like mask. He had no idea what it meant, but he somehow knew it was a powerful omen. A sign of dangerous things to come.

Professor Natsume and his team ran studies of the mummified figure and surrounding chamber. One of the men recorded all the findings, taking video footage of everything and anything that seemed important.

The camera man was looking over a line of symbols etched onto a rear wall when he heard a gut-wrenching scream come from further down the tomb. He turned, eyes wide with horror as he dropped his camera. His screams quickly joined the others that flooded the tomb.

Maya's cell phone rang, slightly startling her. She found cell phones annoying. Unfortunately, they were a necessity. The phone's caller ID let her know the call came from the dig site.

"Hello?" Maya answered.

She heard only screaming.

Maya's face grew pale as the line disconnected.

"What is it?" Kouishiro asked.

"The tomb site," Maya said. "Something's gone wrong."

Kouishiro grabbed his jacket and ran towards the door.

Kouishiro arrived at the dig site to find local police along with other officials. They dressed in various suits and trench coats and wore dark sunglasses. Scientists walked to and from the tomb's entrance while hauling away the remains of the research team's equipment.

Kouishiro casually walked towards the tomb's entrance, passing officers and scientists as if he belonged.

A Japanese man in a trench coat spotted Kouishiro. 

"Hey...hey!" the man shouted. He moved towards Kouishiro and blocked the youth's path. "You...who are you?"

Kouishiro looked over his shoulder as if oblivious, then looked back to the man. "Who? Me?"

"Yes, you," the man said. "Are you part of the research team?"

"Not officially, no," Kouishiro said. "Unofficially, yes. I'm with Maya Koji, she's one of the research assistants. She's absolutely amazing, you should see-"

"Take him."

Two officers moved in and grabbed hold of Kouishiro, but he shrugged them aside and ran towards the tomb.

Kouishiro stumbled over a stone and nearly fell, but the trench-coated man grabbed hold of him.

"Nice move, Mister...police man," Kouishiro said with a boyish smile.

The man sighed and let Kouishiro go. "Get out of here. Before I have you arrested."

"Not a problem," Kouishiro said while giving the officer a thumbs up. "I'll go. See? This is me...going."

Kouishiro backed away and walked from the tomb. He didn't understand what had happened, but whatever it was had everyone freaked the hell out.

A scientist bumped into Kouishiro while rushing past him from behind. The man carried a thick-plastic bag with an odd belt inside. The belt looked thick and metallic. It had to have been one of the researcher's pieces of equipment, because it looked too high-tech to be an artifact. At the same time, the belt had a rusted, ancient look, as if left untouched for hundreds of years.

The belt caught the sunlight, which reflected at Kouishiro, catching his eye. He stumbled back. Images flashed through his mind. He saw a shadowy figure battle creatures in front of an ancient temple. The scene flashed like static, then stopped.

Kouishiro shook his head to clear away the vision. What was that...?

Kouishiro met Maya back at her office just as she was getting off her phone.

"That was one of the investigators," Maya said. "They want me to go to the police station for questioning. How bad was it?"

"I couldn't get close," Kouishiro said. "But it had to have been pretty bad. I've never seen grown men act so jumpy before."

"I want to know what happened," Maya said as she grabbed her purse.

Kouishiro went with Maya to the police station. They arrived at the building and walked towards the entrance, and one of the detectives met them outside. Kouishiro recognized the man immediately.

"You," Kouishiro said. "Mr. Policeman."

"It's Ichijo," he said as he extended his hand. "Kaoru Ichijo."

"Karl?"

"Kaoru..." he said with the slightest hint of annoyance.

"It's nice to meet you," Maya said.

"You as well," he said to her. "I was a fan of your grandfather's work."

"Really?" she asked.

"Yes," he said. "He was a great man."

"So who are you again?" Kouishiro asked.

"I'm an agent with U.S. Intelligence," Ichijo said. "I'm with a covert division called Section 31. We investigate...anomalies...like the incident at the dig site."

"So you're a Japanese U.S. Intelligence agent in Egypt?"

"...yes."

"...OK, just checking."

"Yes, well, come inside," Ichijo said. "We have a lot to talk about."

Ichijo led Maya and Kouishiro into a large conference room. Maya and Kouishiro sat around a U-shaped table, and Ichijo stood on the opposite side of the table while holding a DVD.

"We salvaged this recording from the dig site," he said. He pulled a remote from his pocket and turned on a flat-screen television mounted on the wall. "I made a copy for you to see..."

The footage showed a darkened tomb, dimly-lit. Maya and Kouishiro watched as the digital video distorted. Through the distortions, they saw a shadowy figure hurl screaming workers left and right. The figure looked man-shaped but monstrous, with curled hair and claws for fingers. 

The monster snapped Professor Natsume's neck and tossed the body aside. The professor's lingering scream echoed in the tomb, and then all fell silent. The man-shaped creature hunched and limped towards the tomb's exit.

Ichijo turned off the video. "We don't know what that shadowy figure is," Ichijo said. "But we think we have the key to unlocking that secret."

Ichijo pulled a suitcase from the floor and placed it on the table in front of Maya. He opened the suitcase, and inside was the belt Kouishiro had seen at the dig site.

"We've never seen anything like the glyphs on this belt," Ichijo said. "We have our best people working on deciphering the language, but I'd like you to have a look too."

Maya's eyes opened wide with excitement. "That's incredible," she said as she lifted the belt from the case. "This shouldn't be too difficult. I've already made progress with the glyphs in the tomb."

"Really?" Ichijo asked.

Maya nodded. "Like this glyph here..." she said as she pointed to a character on the side of the belt. "This was in the tomb, and I think I know what it means."

"What?" Kouishiro asked.

"Power," she said. "It means power."

An officer walked into the room and pulled Ichijo aside. The officer whispered into the detective's ear, and his face whitened. Ichijo nodded and sent the officer away. He looked back towards Kouishiro and Maya.

"I'm afraid there's been somewhat of a disturbance in the city," he said. "I have to go, but I'll escort you out." 

Police cars swerved to a stop, to where webbing had grown to connect two buildings on opposite sides of the street. Officers stepped from their cars and fanned out. They drew their guns and looked up, to where a humanoid creature crawled on the webbing, about 10 stories up.