Ultraman Legend of the Light Chaser

The group exchanged glances and then stumbled towards the entrance of the passage, leaving the guy fiddling with the machine behind them.

"Fujiko? It's Fujiko!" came the aged woman's voice. She hugged her daughter, and the two wept together in the icy water.

"Yuta, Yuta, I'm here!"

"Don't just stand there! We're still alive, Ayumi, grab my hand!"

The lights illuminated the pitch-black passageway, revealing what was the most "strange" yet also the most fortunate sight Matsuo Renji had ever witnessed.

Many people basically bring Duoduo.

With only minor scratches, they gathered at the entrance of the passage. Their near-death experience made them spontaneously express their various emotions when they saw each other, turning the originally gloomy place into a bustling marketplace.

When asked how they escaped, they all looked confused, as if they didn't quite know how they suddenly went from the suffocating depths of the water to the oxygen-rich passageway.

“I was swept a long way and hit a pillar, then I couldn’t swim anymore,” a woman said. “Then it felt like someone grabbed my hand… and in the blink of an eye I was here.”

"Me too, but I was dragged up by my belt. I still feel a bit nauseous. It was too tight."

Some people, who were half-dizzy, actually vomited some water: "Ah...where am I?"

Renji Matsuo wasn't so oblivious as to think that someone who had lost the ability to save himself would be lucky enough to "float" to the entrance of the passageway. If the current was right, he should have been swept to a deeper place and then drowned in the garage.

Someone asked before they could, "Didn't you rescue us?"

The team members who were fiddling with the machine outside the passage were about to pack up and go down to look for someone when, before they could turn off the machine, a strange voice suddenly rang out in the air.

“At your 3 o’clock position, 127 meters away, there are survivors,” a young voice said, but it wasn’t anyone he recognized. “They’re under the concrete slab of a three-story building, in the northeast corner of the foundation. It’s not too late to dig now.”

"Huh?" The team member heard it clearly, but seeing that no one was around, he got goosebumps all over. He tentatively pointed the instrument at the three o'clock position, locking onto a location about a hundred meters away, and sure enough, a faint reaction came from there.

"Who are you?!" The team members immediately reported what they had learned, and the teammates at the entrance of the passage received new information about the location of the survivors.

He held his breath and looked around, but there was no echo in the air.

……

"You can dig him out yourself, why don't you do it?" Behind the ruins, the short-haired cat nestled in the blue-clad man's arms, slowly grooming its fur, which had been blown about by the wind.

“Those drowning in the water will really die if I don’t do anything. But those under the rocks, they can manage,” Aiba Yu said, looking down at the cat curled up in a ball, licking its front paws. He couldn’t help but reach out and stroke its fur. “You’re better off like this.”

The shorthaired cat paused, staring at its cleanly licked front paws, and suddenly realized, "Why do I lick my fur like a real cat?!"

Aiba Yu chuckled: "Hmm, why?"

The short-haired cat glared at him, then its form dissolved, a soft light flashed, and it turned back into a salted fish. The salted fish kept twisting its body, trying to flick its tail at his face.

The warm embrace vanished in an instant, and the salted fish found itself suddenly lifted into the air, then tumbling to the ground in the blink of an eye, its body half-covered in sand and dirt.

He froze, tears instantly welling up in his eyes: "What...what are you doing? Are you going to abandon me?"

“Saltwater, too fishy,” Aiba Yu cleaned his clothes, which were stained by its wet scales, and said without turning his head, “I’m going to keep looking for survivors.”

"Don't think I won't be angry just because you went to save my child and abandoned me!" Pito roared from behind, his eyes almost melting with tears of frustration: "Ah! I'm angry! I'm really angry!"

The blue-clad figure receded into the distance.

"...It's terrible when Father Earth gets angry!" The salted fish used "Water Splash Leap" and launched itself forward with a "da da da" sound, drawing arcs one after another, but the blue-clothed man still didn't turn around.

"Earthquake! Volcano! Tsunami! Super scary!" Pito bounced over to his side, his dead fish eyes gleaming eerily: "Call me Daddy!"

Aiba Yu suddenly stopped, but Pito couldn't stop in time and crashed into a broken piece of cement with a "thud," getting covered in mud and dust again, with a water stain on the broken piece.

Pito flipped himself over, intending to give him a whack on the back of the head with his tail, only to see Aiba Yu's hands resting on a collapsed concrete pillar, seemingly trying to lift it up.

The light was woven into silver threads, which spread from his hands along the cement pillar. The small bricks around him, which might roll down when the pillar was lifted, were all rolled up by the silver threads and bound to the cement pillar. He gave a light shout and exerted his strength. Light fragments burst out from the cracks in his waist, shoulders and elbows, and he moved a passage through the ruins of the building.

Pito looked into the passage, and silver threads illuminated his unfocused eyes from the outside in.

The Seagulls detected new signs of life, but when they arrived, they found only one injured person sitting against a rock.

In the distance, on the river, an unknown giant unleashed a beam of light that annihilated the monster, its red body returning to the radiance.

Chapter Eight: Yokai Picture Book

"Electric scooter... electric scooter with pedals."

At Kinoshita Cafe, two employees were cleaning up the mess left behind by customers, glancing at the counter as they went.

Kinoshita Kei, the grandson of the boss Kinoshita Maho, was frantically pressing buttons on the computer.

"Return to zero."

"Matsui's is more expensive than Kojima's, but it comes with pedals. Mihiko's is cheaper than Matsui's, but the shock absorption is poor and it hurts your butt. Hisayuki's spokesperson is prettier than the others. Hmm... I've decided!" Kinoshita Kei slammed his hand on the table, and after both employees looked up at him, he announced with a grin:

"We'll buy Jiangtian's bikes! They have footrests, a back seat, and a large front pocket! Most importantly—they're cheap! And durable!"

The two female employees hesitated, as if they wanted to say something but then stopped.

"The expenses are covered by the store, and the benefits are for employees."

The two female employees were put back to work.

"But the insurance premium is included in the salary."

"Deduct it," Kinoshita Kei said, unfazed by the other party's glare at his unscrupulous boss. "Next time a monster comes, you'd better hurry up on your electric scooters. If I wasn't there, please give your boss a ride. He's signing the contract with the insurance company the day after tomorrow."

By the time the coffee shop closed for the night, it was nearly midnight, and Kinoshita Kei was far from sleepy.

As expected, Salty Fish and Shadow were playing tricks in his room. When Kinoshita Kei opened the door and saw Salty Fish sprawled out on his bed again, he held his breath, but not wanting to disturb his grandmother's sleep, he suppressed his voice and said:

"Where did you come from, monster? What are you doing bothering me? Or what is your purpose in coming to Earth? Ah, whatever your purpose, let me tell you—the spirits of monsters who tried to do evil and got killed are watching you from heaven!"

Pito: @%＃*^＃*…… (Why does he think I'm a monster? Is there such a thing as a lazy monster like me?)

Aiba Yu, who was dozing off to the side, said, "Now we have it."

“Sigh,” Pito saw that Kinoshita Kei looked confused again, and knew that he still couldn’t understand what he was saying: “Gaia and Agul have both found good children, but Uranus still hasn’t been able to contact Kei, even though he’s been in his body for so many years…”

As he talked, Salty Fish started to shed tears again. It seems that when Pito transforms, it takes on some characteristics of the target form. For example, when he is a short-haired cat, he will groom himself for no reason, and when he is Salty Fish, he is always prone to crying.

"Boom!"

The tear-stained leather bag was thrown to the ground again. Kinoshita Kei, the culprit, had veins throbbing on his forehead: "You've ruined all my sheets! Even the duvet cover is stained!"

"Waaaaah—" The salted fish rolled around, crying, "Moussal! Mommy's so sad!"

His shouting was just a bunch of annoying gibberish to Kinoshita Kei's ears. The latter angrily said, "I told you I don't understand what you're saying. Keep your voice down and don't disturb my grandma's sleep!"

The salted fish smacked and splashed water everywhere: "She can't hear me! No matter how loud I shout, no one can hear me! It's been like this for billions of years! I have so many children, but very few of them can talk to me!"

A few water droplets splashed in front of Aiba Yu. He looked at the two of them talking at cross purposes, sighed, and squatted down next to Pito.

Dead Fish Eyes sensed a shadow looming over him and suddenly stopped yelling. He stared intently for a moment and said, "Oh, you can talk to me."

Kinoshita Kei couldn't stand the salted fish's inexplicable shouting and crying. When he vaguely saw Shadow Brother approaching, he assumed he was about to be subjected to double the ear-piercing noise. In a moment of panic, his mind raced: "Salted Fish King, can you read? Can you turn into a writing board? Write whatever you want to say!"

“…Wu?”

The tears of a salted fish blocked the traffic.

……

Ariel Base.

XIG welcomes a new member, Takayama Gamu. A highly educated intellectual from the Alchemy Star, although he has never received pilot training, he managed to silence several proud, active-duty elite fighter pilots with his knowledge of Fighter.

The members of the Lightning Team are undoubtedly the elite among human fighter pilots, the top group. However, they only treat the Fighter as a machine that is faster and more powerful than conventional fighter jets. They lack understanding of its new and unprecedented performance. Operating it is no different from holding a Gatling gun to a bayonet or using a stealth fighter as a trainer.

Therefore, in the battle with Gob, both SGs failed to play their due role and were destroyed. Only the pilots successfully parachuted and were unharmed, which was a small consolation to the nervous logistics team.

Takayama Gamu found his place in XIG, with members of Team Lightning and Team Falcon behind him, watching him operate the simulator while explaining the Fighter's mobility.

In their first encounter with the enemy, each group within XIG was busy summarizing the gains and losses of the first battle.

At the Seagulls' base, Renji Matsuo stared blankly at the video footage from that day.

"Still analyzing that underground parking garage incident? You can't tell anything just by looking at it. Anomaly investigations should be left to professionals." His companion tossed him a book, and Matsuo Renji flipped the cover over to find it was a picture book about yokai (supernatural beings).

Why are you giving me a picture book?

"Instead of just staring blankly at the sky, why don't you look for the answer in the legends of monsters? They're all just..." His companion shrugged: "It's all nonsense. The Seagull Team is only responsible for rescue. We don't have the equipment or the system. Do you want to watch videos all night and wait for it to tell you the answer in its dreams?"

Renji Matsuo threw the monster picture book back and said, "Something else was detected in the direction the monster was traveling. There were no ground troops in that direction. The defense team's intelligence indicates that there were 'citizens' in front of the monster, moving so fast that helicopters couldn't catch up."

His companion sat down and listened to him speak slowly.

"And then there are the people we encountered who were inexplicably rescued... There are 'people' helping us."

"It sounds more like a kind-hearted monster."

"Idiot! Don't just throw up random topics!" Matsuo Renji pretended to hit him, but suddenly the lights flashed and alarms came from loudspeakers all over the base.

"At the site of yesterday's battle with Gobu! Coordinates (335, K1)," Sasaki Atsuko quickly confirmed the situation. A bright red dot appeared on the screen: "It's an abnormal heat movement underground, and it's very large..."

"The same place as yesterday?"

"Yes! Oh, and there's more!"

The others couldn't help but step forward, all looking at the image displayed on her screen—another point of light, a body

The positive value is small, but the indicator value is surprisingly high.

It gradually brightened from darkness, appearing directly above the underground abnormal heat marker, like two pairs of eyes, or two creatures beyond human records, gazing at each other across the strata.

"The abnormal heat source underground... has ceased operations." Sasaki Atsuko's report echoed in the silent command room.

Chapter Nine: An Adventure That Ends as Soon as It Begins