- Written By: Kento ShimoyamaDirected By: Satoshi Morota
However, there are those who wish to see the canonical course of history altered.
Geiz and Tsukuyomi, who hail from the same point in time as I.
Should they befriend my overlord, the path of history will diverge.
But now, they make contact with a certain magic-wielder--
Oh, but I suppose these events have yet to come to pass for you...
In Christmas of 2012, a stage magician is trying to do a performance to an audience of just two people who are ignoring his performance. The theater owner, Ms. Kaori Kinoshita, enters and sees her performer failing to draw a crowd again, thinking this could be the end of her theatre. The stage hand, Hayase, tries to reassure her he is working as hard as he can to make the magician seem entertaining. Kaori then heads to the bank to ask for a loan to keep the theater open, Hayase tries to follow but trips over a light. Heure freezes time and tells the stage hand that he will be out of a job soon as in the near future the theatre will shut down (meaning Kaori was rejected by the bank for her requested loan). Heure offers a way to save Hayase's job in exchange for using the power of Kamen Rider Wizard to change history.At Kujigoji-do in the present, Sougo arrives home from school to witness his uncle repairing a device he has never seen before for a customer, a VCR. Once again, Junichiro comments that he is willing to fix it despite his store being a clock repair shop. Tsukuyomi wonders if any of Junichiro's customers bring in clocks at all for him to fix or just random devices. Geiz notices he hasn't seen a clock come into the shop either. Junichiro tells the youths that he gets at least one clock in his shop every three months or so. He thinks it is because the folks in town gossip that he can fix things and they assume Kujigoji-do is a full on repair shop, but he does not complain too much as it keeps him in business. Sougo is impressed with his uncle's repairing skills, but Junichiro humbly says he cannot fix everything as he once turned down an offer to fix a vase as it was beyond his skill to fix. He commented to the customer that he isn't "Wizard Hayase", a well known stage magician. He tells more about Wizard Hayase to Tsukuyomi when she asks about him, which interests Sougo, wanting to go see one of the magician's performances. Geiz whispers to Sougo that he and Tsukuyomi are not going to have fun, they are not his friends and Sougo is their target. Sougo flips the argument in his favor by reminding Geiz that they are to observe him at all times and so they must go to the magic show to keep an eye on him, handing Geiz his Ridewatches as he heads upstairs to change out of his school uniform before they leave.
At Magic House Kinoshita, Woz appears to greet Sougo when he goes to get drinks. Sougo says hello and tells Woz he is excited to see his first magic show, much to the annoyance of the prophet, who tells Sougo he is concerned how close his future lord is getting to Geiz and Tsukuyomi. Sougo disagrees as they are still unable to trust him fully and are cautious around him. Sougo tells Woz not to worry and promises he will be a good overlord still. As Sougo leaves, Woz says that is exactly what concerns him.
Sougo hands Tsukuyomi and Geiz their drinks and sits down in his seat, with all three watching Wizard Hayase's magic show. The trio states that Hayase's magic is neither illusions or tricks of the mind, but real magic. Hayase demonstrates by making his hands catch fire, but not burning them, and changing the flames into small flying firebirds that set a bouquet of flows ablaze and break a vase. Hayase then reverses time to restore the vase and the flowers and levitates the flower towards the audience. Geiz becomes suspicious of Hayase, remembering that there was a Kamen Rider who could do real magic, Wizard, suspecting Hayase's skill in magic is the result of the Time Jackers taking Wizard's powers. Tsukuyomi agrees that maybe they should investigate. Ms. Kinoshita thanks everyone for their hard work, especially Hayase, saying her late father would have been proud. Hayase humbly says that all he wants is to keep her theatre in business and make her happy, but he gets shy and mumbles the last part so she cannot hear it. She then tries to tell him something, but Hayase leaves out the back before she can get a word in.
Sougo, Tsukuyomi and Geiz meet with Hayase as he leaves with Sougo asking questions, but Hayase denies that what he did was an illusion and tries to walk away. Geiz on the other hand goes for more rough interrogation tactics, pushing Hayase and changing into his Rider form. This scares Hayase, who becomes Another Wizard to defend himself, saying he didn't do anything wrong. Geiz does not care and prepares to attack some more,but Hayase uses Wizard's Gravity Wizard Ring power to hurl barrels at Geiz to make a quick escape. Geiz uses the Zikan Zax in Yumi mode to try and stop him, but Hayase uses Wizard's Defend Ring power from Land Style to block the oncoming fire. Once the wall breaks, Geiz switches his weapon to Ono Mode and Sougo seemingly assists as Zi-O, but shocks Tsukuyomi by fighting Geiz as he wants him to stop attacking Hayase with the seeming intent of brutally beating him up. This brief bit of quarrel allows Hayase to use Wizard's Liquid Wizard Ring power to make his getaway. Sougo tries to justify his actions by admitting that Hayase was right, he didn't do anything wrong yet and thus there was no reason to attack him. Geiz sees this as naive and weak, as the Another Riders are dangerous by their very nature as anomalies in time. Geiz is going to find Hayase again and make him talk about when and where the stage magician got his powers as Another Rider and runs off. While Tsukuyomi sympathizes with Sougo's kind heart, she also tries to get him to see it from Geiz's perspective. Sougo says in that case he will try to get answers his own way and asks Tsukuyomi for her help.
Geiz is running though the city and searches for Hayase on a rooftop, only for Sworz to freeze time. He greets the young Rider, eager to meet one of the people interfering with his plans and using telekinesis to push Geiz from his spot and have him hover in the air. Sworz asks for Geiz to stay out of the way of the Time Jackers and won't take no for an answer, restarting time and sending Geiz plummeting towards the street, only to be rescued by Woz. Sworz is surprised, wondering if Geiz is "working with him" and vowing to return to eliminate Geiz another time. Geiz wonders why Woz saved him, to which the prophet simply states he is doing a favor for someone and insists that the impulsive youth reconcile with Sougo as his future master values Geiz as a companion. This riles up Geiz, who wants to fight Woz for assuming he is friends with someone he only views as the killer of those he loved. Geiz then attacks him but Woz uses the ability to fly to evade him and outmatches the hotheaded youth in combat, before perching on the rooftop above Geiz. Geiz shouts he will never be Sougo's friend and Woz is crazy to think otherwise and leaves. Woz smiles, sarcastically saying that is such a pity.
Hayase frantically runs back to his apartment, locking the doors and windows and closing the drapes and goes to wipe the sweat form his brow. Ora appears and startles him, telling Hayase she is a Time Jacker. Recognizing that and asking if she knows Heure, Hayase begs Ora to help him as "two people with powers like him" are after him. Ora explains they are Zi-O and Geiz and all Hayase has to do is avoid them. Ora then shocks Hayase by proclaiming that someday he will be a king, but he needs a "deeper wound" to accomplish that. The doorbell rings and Nagayama, Hayase's co-worker, drops by to talk to him. Paranoid, Hayase tells Nagayama they can talk somewhere else.
At Magic House Kinoshita, Sougo is talking with Kaori about Hayase, who tells him that Hayase used to be just a stage hand until six years ago on December 25, 2012 when he showed her he could do magic tricks. Kaori also reveals that was the day she was proposed to, much to the surprise of Sougo and Tsukuyomi.
Hayase tells Nagayama he cannot perform for a while and won't explain why. Nagayama says that is good timing, as he plans on getting married to Kaori and they both want to close the Magic House down as she no longer wants to operate the business. Hayase is in disbelief and upset.
Kaori tells Sougo she inherited the theater from her father when he died, who asked on his deathbed to try something new with the place. However, the property became a financial money pit as attendance kept slipping. On Christmas Day 2012, Hayase pleaded to her not to shut down the theater and showed her a magic trick. Thanks to his hard work, the theater became profitable again and they are grateful. Nagayama says they think Hayase should go bigger and better given his talent, he isn't achieving his full potential by working at a small time venue and could make more money by performing on tour. Kaori finally accepted Nagayama's proposal after six years of waiting and they will finally live happy together. Hayase angrily shouts that he sacrificed everything for Kaori to keep her theater open and changes into Another Wizard to chase down Nagayama. Ora watches these events from a distance, happy that the "wound" opened up more for Hayase to rampage.
Nagayama flees from Another Wizard, but he uses Wizard's Connect Wizard Ring power to grab Nagayama's neck to grab him and then burns him with a fireball which knocks him down a flight of stairs into a field of grass. Nagayama screams for help, which Geiz hears and comes to his aid. He comments that Hayase is just the kind of man he thought he was, drunk on power and willing to harm others. Hayase shouts that the power given to him is rightfully his. Before Geiz can transform, he notices someone is behind him, who tries to hide behind a tree and has two Ridewatches on his person. The mysterious observer flees upon being spotted and Geiz is forced to let him go as Another Wizard is preventing him from chasing after the fleeing bystander and changes into Kamen Rider Geiz to engage him.
As Sougo and Tsukuyomi leave Magic House Kinoshita, Woz greets them both from above and manipulates them into believing that Geiz has gone berserk and is attacking Hayase again without provocation to do so. Sougo and Tsukuyomi rush off to stop Geiz. Geiz and Another Wizard fight in an industrial steel shipping warehouse with Another Wizard using Gravity again to hurl girders at Geiz, who deflects the barrages with his Zikan Zax. Another Wizard then uses Wizard's Flame Ring power to bombard Geiz with fireballs while cackling insanely that he enjoys using his powers like this. Geiz equips the Faiz Armor with the Faiz Shot Shot already equipped to punch through Another Wizard's Defend barrier and powers through, finishing off Another Wizard with the Exceed Time Burst and de-powering Hayase back to normal. Geiz, still transformed, begins a brutal interrogation so Hayase will reveal the information of when he got Wizard's powers, tightly squeezing Hayase's left shoulder with his Faiz Armor's enhanced strength to force him to talk. Zi-O arrives and holds back Geiz, pleading for him to stop. Geiz says that Hayase was attacking people so he had to stop him, doing what Zi-O doesn't have the guts to do. Zi-O rejects this excuse as this is taking justice too far and he might have really hurt Hayase. Since Zi-O won't listen to him, Geiz decides it is finally time to fight him. Fortunately, Tsukuyomi arrives puts a stop to it before anything happens and the two de-transform. Geiz tells Sougo that no matter how much he protests, this is how he fights as a Rider and reaffirms that they are not friends at all. Tsukuyomi tries to go to them to get them to stop antagonizing one another, but Ora freezes time to halt all three of them. Ora then restarts Hayase's Another Wizard Ridewatch so he can resume his rampage, instructing him to use his hate as the fuel of his magic. Once time restarts, Tsukuyomi tries to shoot Hayase with the Faizphone X but gets hit with the Sleep Wizard Ring power, which puts her in a coma as the boys race to her and try to wake her up.
Woz observes these events from a distance and mocks Sougo's efforts for companionship as a "poor fit", wondering when his master will claim the power of Kamen Rider Wizard for his path to becoming Oma Zi-O with a wicked smile as he waits in anticipation....
Episode Tropes:
- Cliffhanger: Another Wizard puts Tsukuyomi under a sleep spell, distracting the riders while he goes off to commit more havoc.
- Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: Woz saves Geiz from being dropped off a building by Swartz, only for Geiz to then try to pick a fight with Woz.
- Despair Event Horizon: Hayase only keeps the Another Wizard powers around because it would keep his crush's family theater around. After learning that Kaori is selling the place despite that, and that she's marrying his co-worker, Hayase goes off the deep end and attacks Nagayama.
- Drunk with Power: Geiz's reason for aggressively attacking Hayase is this: even if Hayase hasn't attacked anyone yet, with the power of a Rider at his fingertips, it's inevitable in Geiz's eyes that Hayase will give in to temptation.
- Failure Is the Only Option: Hayase became Another Wizard in order to impress his crush and keep the family theater in business. What he didn’t know is that she was already engaged and that thanks to his increasing fame, the theater gets closed down anyways because Nagayama doesn’t want it to chain him down.
- Headbutting Heroes: Sougo and Geiz almost come to blows over their different methods and perspectives, with Sougo trying to peacefully deal with Hayase while Geiz believes that Another Riders have to be destroyed, no matter what.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Even if Sougo's argument at the time was that Hayase had not done anything wrong, Geiz's argument that the Another Riders are too dangerous keep around is also true. Considering that Geiz caught Hayase about to burn Nagayama alive later on, he was not wrong (though he had no idea what the true story was).
- Not to mention that every other Another Rider the trio has encountered up to that point has been attacking people—so the evidence heavily indicates that even if he has decent intentions, Hayase will eventually snap, which is exactly what ends up happening.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: While Hayase did accept becoming Another Wizard, he didn't try to assault people with his powers until after Geiz attacked him.
- Though, admittedly, there were other factors involved.
- No-Nonsense Nemesis: Swartz attempts to kill Geiz by catching him in Time Stands Still before simply dropping him off a building.
- Not What It Looks Like: Helped by Woz misleadingly suggesting that Geiz is on a rampage and their earlier disagreement, Sougo finds Geiz grabbing Hayase by the collar while he's transformed and Hayase isn't, giving the impression that Geiz stumbled across him and immediately attacked (when in fact Geiz only found Hayase because he snapped and attacked Nagayama).
- Poorly Timed Confession: Hayase's co-worker Nagayama only tells Hayase that the theater's closing has been decided on and that he had proposed to Kaori (the theater manager) after Hayase was stressed out from escaping Geiz. To say that he took it poorly would be selling it short.
- Real Men Wear Pink: Sougo wears a pink long sleeved shirt under a green short sleeved shirt this time around.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Woz is clearly concerned that Tsukuyomi and Geiz are causing this to happen by steering Sougo away from becoming the tyrannical overlord history says he'll become.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: While Sougo has clearly grown used to Woz's sudden appearances, the crowd for the snack stand he's at don't seem to notice Woz just appearing either.
