Chapter 392: Scapegoat

When they came out of the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher's office, Harry really wanted to say something to someone, but in the end, he didn't say anything.

Tsugami Shouichi's appearance clearly wasn't the truth. Harry easily guessed that he still possessed the ability to transform, and that Kamen Rider known as Agito was enough to easily defeat the enemy they were facing. However, he clearly also knew the entire plan, which was why he said things like "my body is already riddled with holes" in front of Luo En.

He knew this thought wasn't suitable to tell Luo En, but it wasn't convenient to tell Zhang Qiu either—that would only make everyone awkward—just like that old Chinese saying, "see through but don't speak through."

When they returned to the common room, there weren't many people there. Luo En glanced in the direction of the dormitory, then stammered, "Um, Harry, shall we sit outside for a while?"

"Sure." Harry felt that his good friend also seemed to be harboring some worries.

"I was just thinking," Luo En said somewhat embarrassedly, "how should we deal with that Crimson Rider?"

Harry didn't speak. He hadn't thought about this problem in detail, because in his view, these storms were nothing, after all, there was Agito to back them up.

"I have no way to crack his skill that is similar to acceleration. I think the only way is to use acceleration to counter acceleration." Luo En glanced at the dormitory door with a guilty conscience and continued to lower his voice. "I think we should let Neville deal with him."

"But Neville—oh." Harry understood a little. "You want me to give the belt to Neville?"

"Or just try it." Luo En said unnaturally. "If Neville really has talent, perhaps he could use time-up in the transformed state, then..."

"And I can't use it anyway, is that what you mean?" Harry didn't feel depressed or disappointed, just a bit emotional.

"Sorry." Luo En lowered his head.

"No, no, you don't need to feel sorry at all. I understand completely, even I was considering this matter myself." Harry grabbed his shoulder and tried his best to use the most sincere tone he could muster. "This is the optimal solution for our current situation. I'm just a little worried, I'm wondering if you thought of this yourself, or if someone said something to you. If it's the latter, we have to consider whether there is another conspiracy behind this, that's all."

"No, I thought of it myself." Luo En answered subconsciously.

"Then, I think that's it, the matter is very clear. You need to try to see if you can become stronger. If it's too late, we'll try to let Neville transform." Harry concluded.

Luo En agreed with a complex tone.

The next morning, when Harry was dragging Luo En to do homework in the library, he suddenly felt his left thumb getting a bit hot. Looking down, the phoenix was wagging its little tail, guiding Harry to go in a certain direction.

"Who's rubbing it?" Harry said subconsciously, then suddenly remembered something and immediately turned to Luo En. "Is your ring heating up?"

"Ah? No, right?" Luo En immediately put his hand into his pocket. "Indeed not."

"Then it's troublesome, it means it's Draco who is in danger." Harry stood up. "We have to go save him."

"Why?" Although Luo En muttered reluctantly, he still followed Harry's footsteps.

"I agreed with him last time that if we encounter a hostile Kamen Rider and can't beat him ourselves, we should rub the ring to notify the other party." Harry explained while walking quickly. "It's very difficult to rub the ring after transformation, so it was Pan Xi and I who concluded the magic."

"Alright, this is not hard to understand, and facing the enemy outside the school together is also the right thing to do." Luo En sighed. "But once I think it's Malfoy, I have no motivation."

"He's just a useless little young master, you are the only reliable Kamen Rider." Harry said.

"But there's still Neville?"

"You can't pin your hopes on Neville. Whether he can transform is an unknown, and whether he can release time-up after transformation is even more uncertain. After all, time-up is a spell, and you can't cast spells after transformation." Harry said this deliberately, hoping to let Luo En fight with stronger determination. "Professor Tsugami is injured, the only one we can rely on is you, Luo En."

"Phew." Luo En patted his fist. "Alright."

They walked quickly to the outdoors and saw a peaceful lawn. Harry looked down at the ring again, having a vague guess in his heart.

"In Hogsmeade." Harry said and started running. "It's very likely that Crimson Rider again."

"Then we should still call Neville." Luo En's pace slowed down all at once, and he looked back unnaturally.

"It's too late, Luo En!" Harry shouted at him. "Don't count on others, you are the strongest Rider!"

Luo En glanced at him, then patted his fist again. "Let's go!"

The road from the school to Hogsmeade village is not short, and there are two or three ways to walk, but at this moment, Harry judged based on the direction of the ring that it was very likely they were fighting in the same place as yesterday, so they ran directly there.

Sure enough, when they followed the path to the small woods from yesterday, they immediately saw two figures fighting. The foreign Rider with red pipelines on his body, whom they had seen yesterday, was constantly launching attacks. And opposite him, a blue-gold Rider was holding his head with both hands, barely parrying.

Luo En completed his transformation while running. He brandished his long sword and immediately rescued Draco from the fierce attack like a storm. Just after he pulled a little distance from the enemy, Draco collapsed to the ground and deactivated his transformation.

"Ah, you finally..." he said weakly. "He's too strong..."

Pan Xi rushed out from the small woods nearby, grabbed Draco's body, and dragged him backward. Seeing this, Harry also stepped forward to help her, and the two of them moved Draco to a safer place together.

"Thank you, Harry." Pan Xi said in a tone of relief. "We were attacked by him when we came out of the Three Broomsticks. Draco was no match for him at all."

Harry looked back at the battlefield. Luo En was constantly launching attacks with skilled swordsmanship, but this time the Crimson Rider didn't draw his light sword, nor did he activate acceleration, just bare-handed, using a near-crazy fighting style, directly trading injuries for injuries with Luo En.

"This isn't right." Harry said. "He wasn't like this yesterday."

"Yesterday?" Pan Xi was about to ask, when suddenly her eyes widened.

"DragonWonder!"

A huge explosion sound came. Luo En actually punched the Crimson Rider away. He struggled on the ground a few times, and then, amidst a crackling sound of sparks, deactivated his transformation.

Harry immediately raised his wand, wanting to conjure some ropes to control him, but he froze for a moment, because the person appearing in front of him was a familiar stranger: Karkaroff.

It was also this moment of hesitation that Karkaroff noticed Harry. His lips were twitching, his face full of terror and craving. He tried hard to squeeze out a word, but in the next second—

A living person, under the gaze of four pairs of eyes, quickly turned gray and finally turned into a handful of fine sand.

Luo En, after deactivating his transformation, also showed a bewildered expression at this moment. He looked at his right hand, which was still maintaining a fist-clenching posture; at this moment, this hand seemed not to belong to him.

"I just, I felt I could mobilize some magic power, but I didn't expect—" Luo En's tone was completely distorted.

"Calm down, Luo En, calm down, this might not be your fault, right, you calm down first." Harry was also a bit panicked, but after saying "calm down" three times, with the help of Occlumency, he did calm down. At this moment, some suspicious points began to emerge one after another.

"Karkaroff, why is it Karkaroff." Harry walked up and put his arm around Luo En's shoulder. "And did you notice, the Rider encountered today is different from yesterday's, he fought very crazily."

"This, what does this mean?" Luo En had already given up thinking and followed Harry's line of thought completely.

"I suspect he is cannon fodder, thrown out by the previous Rider just to shake off his own suspicion. He might have been placed under a death curse long ago, or some kind of human body modification," Harry said. "Right, it's possible he is just a modified Smasher, because look, his fighting style today is a bit too crazy."

"Yes, I feel like he doesn't care about his life." Luo En chimed in.

"We'll go back and ask Zhang Qiu, this matter is very strange." Several conjectures flashed through Harry's mind, but he couldn't distinguish which one was closer to the truth, because Karkaroff was clearly just a discarded pawn, and could be a discarded pawn of any force.

"I killed him." Luo En still hadn't turned the corner. "Anyway, it was I who killed him."

"No, we need to ask Zhang Qiu first." Harry repeated. "You only hit him until he deactivated his transformation. Zhang Qiu told us that deactivating the transformation is a kind of protection of the Rider system. Even the strongest attack will at most just make him deactivate the transformation, it won't kill him directly."

"Either Zhang Qiu lied to us, which is almost impossible." In order to stabilize Luo En's state of mind, Harry made an arbitrary conclusion. "Or, he was already dead before he transformed."

"Or there is another possibility, that the act of transformation killed him." Pan Xi interjected. "Draco told me that if someone without the qualification to transform forces a transformation, there will be life danger."

"Force? How to force it?" Harry frowned. "As far as I know, people without the qualification to transform can't even buckle the belt."

"I don't know either, but that person did say this point." Draco said weakly. "And, Karkaroff might not have transformed using a belt. Look, he didn't leave a belt either, right?"

Harry cast his gaze back to that pile of gray sand. Indeed, there was nothing else inside, and... he recalled with some uncertainty, his belt seemed to be different from Luo En's and Draco's belts? ===== CHAPTER 393 =====