Ultraman Legend of the Light Chaser

“Muzhen Alien,” the woman interrupted Ralf, “thank you for telling me the captain of the Victory Team is coming. I’m glad to have new prey.”

After saying that, she threw the phone aside, ignoring Ralf's "useless threats" on the other end, and said to Sosuke, "Next, I'm going to choose a part of the internal organs and crush it. You'd better scream loudly and miserably so he can hear it... I'll give you a choice: heart, liver, spleen, lungs, or how about the intestines? If you only pull out a part, you might still have a chance to live."

Sosuke seemed not to hear her words, staring only at the pile of bricks and cement blocks that had buried Yota. They were stacked into a small mound, and the dust that rose up reached his feet.

"I should have known better than to bring him along," Sosuke thought. "Am I just bad luck with my teammates?" The captain who brought them in was now the former captain, and he was the only one left from his class, all standing in front of him.

The woman figured he was probably terrified and, finding the situation boring, decided not to wait for his choice. She figured she could just make a hole in his body; he wouldn't survive more than a few minutes from the massive internal bleeding anyway. She released her grip on him, but Sosuke didn't struggle or try to escape.

"Since we can't escape anyway, it's not so bad to die together." Sosuke thought blankly. For some reason, he remembered that many days ago on the TPC-1 plane, Captain Aiba helped him straighten his crooked uniform and said to him, "Would it be a hardship for you to die with me?"

Of course he felt wronged. Sosuke wanted to say that the one who felt wronged wasn't himself, but the new captain. If that thunderstorm had caused the plane to crash, he would have been cursed to have two captains die in a row—it's better for classmates to be buried together with classmates; they can't train in mixed classes, or they'll fall behind.

The woman's claws cleaved through the air; Sosuke heard the whistling wind and saw a blurry afterimage. Surprisingly, he felt no pain; the woman's technique was undoubtedly skillful. Then, everything went white…

"Is this the 'returning light'?" Sosuke's mind was working very slowly, as if it was filled with so many images that he couldn't move.

"Ah—!" He heard a scream.

Is that my own voice? Why is it a woman's voice?

The white light faded, and he blinked, touching his chest in disbelief before realizing that he hadn't been pierced by the claw. The scream had indeed come from the woman; she was clutching her hand and slumped to the ground.

Black smoke drifted out from between his fingers, and he saw a thick, blue liquid dripping down.

Something in my pants pocket is getting hot.

He took the heat source out and realized it was his own teru teru bozu (a Japanese doll that brings good weather)... It had been confiscated by the captain from TPC-β that day, and in his haste, he stuffed it into his pocket and forgot to put it back in the dormitory.

"A miracle?!" Cang Jie's mouth dropped open. The teru teru bozu really did float up slowly, the cloth puffing up like a hot air balloon. It was probably a little too hot. Cang Jie stared at it in disbelief.

He burned himself up.

"Wow, you're a god..." The piece of cloth that had been burned through fell to the ground. Sosuke didn't know whether he should pick it up or not. Only a small, shiny pebble remained in the air.

He had no idea that there was such a small pebble inside his teru teru bozu doll; the doll's head should have been...

"A magnet god?" Sosuke's pupils dilated in shock.

"Damn it...light!" The woman kicked off her troublesome high heels and stood up barefoot. The damage from the "magnetic fairy" seemed to be quite significant; her arms were trembling.

She vaguely recalled the Kirieloid's warning, that guy who was unreliable but whose intelligence was generally dependable, saying on the other end of the communication: "It really is that monster! Now I finally know why you guys always fail at sneaking up on TPC's core members!"

The reason... she needs to leave quickly! The sooner the better!

These two Earthlings she casually picked up to play the hunting game have made contact with the GUTS team! The monster lurking in the TPC must have received the news too!

Just then, the pile of bricks behind her moved. Normally, she wouldn't have given it a second glance, but now she turned around like a startled bird, only to see a hand reaching out from the pile of bricks.

Earthling's hand.

"Yota!" Sosuke saw the hand moving, crawled over and grasped it. It was still warm, and he could feel its vitality. He exclaimed with joy, "Yota!"

Before he could even hesitate about digging the person out and whether it would worsen the injuries, Yang Tai had already poked his head out and spat out a mouthful of ash: "I almost suffocated."

Cang Jie turned around excitedly: "Thank you, Magnet God!"

"What the hell are you thanking..." Yang Tai looked up inexplicably, following his gaze, and saw a small, glowing, and hot stone making a crackling sound. A few seconds later, it fell to the ground and bounced off like an ordinary stone, landing in front of the two of them.

Sosuke's eyes instantly reddened: "A god has sacrificed himself."

"Don't be superstitious." Yang Tai sat up with the help of the man pulling him, and touched the pocket on his chest where something was digging into his skin.

The woman had climbed more than ten stories high, clutching her charred paws, with blue blood splattering all over the ground.

"I'm not superstitious, it was the Magnet God who scared that alien away..." Sosuke said, tears welling up in his eyes, silently mourning the Magnet God. He saw Yota pull out the air force badge from his pocket, and his words suddenly stopped halfway through.

“With things escalating like this, the captain must know we secretly ran away,” he said.

“It’s not just this,” Yota said after a long pause, turning the badge over to show Sosuke: “It’s cracked.”

Chapter Fifty-Eight: The Director's Tea

When Megumi arrived, she only saw two air force members sitting on a pile of bricks, looking dazed.

"Are you alright?" She saw blood all over the ground, blue in color, but the two dazed people, though disheveled, hadn't suffered a scratch.

"Ah, Captain Gijō!" Sosuke reacted quickly. He carefully put away the magnet fragment and pointed to a rooftop: "The aliens who attacked us, who called themselves the Mokujin aliens... jumped up there."

Jujian Hui looked up in the direction he was pointing.

A dozen or so stories high rooftops, flocks of crows flying overhead, a beautiful expanse of blue sky and white clouds.

Megumi lowered her head, and Yota made an arc like a flea leaping: "She jumps very high. When she was chasing us, I didn't see her run over many times. She would just fall down from the sky with a 'whoosh' and without even panting, and she was wearing high heels... Just find someone wearing a black suit skirt with blue blood on her injured hand, medium-length hair, and very pretty."

Sosuke nodded like a chick pecking at rice: "By the way, Captain Gijō, do you all have a pretty good relationship with each other?"

Iruma Kei: “?”

Seeing that she didn't deny it, Sosuke continued, "Could you put in a good word for us? We were terrified and almost lost our lives, but we bravely fought the aliens and successfully drove them away. Could you please ask our captain to be lenient and not hold it against us... uh, reduce the punishment for sneaking out a little?"

Kijima smiled gently, and Sosuke smiled along with her.

"I can't interfere in internal affairs, you two talk to him yourselves." With that, she left the two stunned air force team members behind and chased after them in the direction Sosuke had pointed.

Yota wiped the dust off his face and patted Sosuke on the shoulder: "Let's go back and prepare a sincere self-criticism as soon as possible. I suggest you write it by hand."

……

Nerima Ward, Tokyo.

A leaping shadow was intercepted halfway and crashed down into the narrow alley in the shadows.

The loud noise attracted the residents, who opened their windows and looked curiously at the billowing smoke and dust below.

“Like a car with a flat tire, but…” The residents looked at each other across the narrow alley. As the dust settled, they saw only a shallow crater. Gravel was scattered outside, and chunks of cement were strewn everywhere.

The woman's arms trembled even more violently, her blue blood freezing into ice. She shook her head, and snowflakes drifted past her eyes.

“Chapter 14 of the Special Life Form Management Regulations, Article 3 of the Regulations on the Security Management of Extraterrestrials, states that the use of abilities is prohibited without registration and filing,” a voice said, accompanied by a scorching wind.

The woman looked up and saw a face that appeared to be human—scales eroded the cheeks, and animalistic eyes stared at her. A hot wind blew from him, and a mist of rising steam blurred everything.

But the woman noticed his uniform, with three letters embroidered on his chest: TPC.

She instantly recognized who it was. Unlike her clingy, scrambling pursuit of prey, her reaction now was crisp and decisive: "Don't kill me!"

“I won’t kill you,” the man said. “You should be handed over to the TPC’s extraterrestrial administration department for trial.”

Trial? Then he should still be alive, right? The woman was confused, and then she noticed that he was carrying someone else in his hand—also a female Earthling, carrying a basket and dressed like a farmer.

Before the woman could speak, the man suddenly clenched his fist with his other hand and punched her. Before she could react, she was punched out of her original form as a Muzhen alien and rolled five or six meters away. Needle-like energy raged through her body, and she fainted on the spot.

“It’s on my way.” Xiangye You stepped forward and put a pair of handcuffs on the Muzhen alien.

The handcuffs were meticulously crafted by the Equipment and Repair Room, incorporating some of the Reicuran aliens' spaceship hull material. They are incredibly tough, platinum gold in color, understated yet luxurious, and exclusively for dangerous aliens.

Yu Aiba received a sample intended for testing by the police department, and he didn't expect it to be used so quickly.

A few minutes later.

A scaly monster steaming with heat broke into the TPC Far East base.

Knowing every nook and cranny well, he didn't trigger any alarms. He only stepped through a window at the very end, and the sound of a heavy object falling to the ground startled someone who was looking down at documents.

Director Sawai.

He was only surprised for a moment when he saw Aiba Yu come in through the window, but he didn't care about the other person's appearance at that moment, and only said, "It's you."

“I’ve captured the Muzhen alien and locked her in the dangerous alien isolation room, just like the Reicuran alien,” Aiba Yu pointed to the unconscious guy lying on the ground and carefully put down the farmer in his hand: “She’s being controlled by the Kirieloids. It would be best to have the medical department check her up.”

"And you?" Director Sawai asked.

Feeling uncomfortable being stared at with such kind eyes, Aiba Yu slightly turned his gaze away and said, "It's alright, it'll be fine in a little while."

As they were talking, Director Sawai stood up: "Would you like a glass of milk? Or honey fruit tea? You might want it chilled?"

“Your office is frequently visited!” Aiba Yu said, “I’ll leave right away. Please contact Commander Yoshioka to bring some people over and tell them…”

“A friendly Earth monster saved a human and knocked out a wicked alien. I got the handcuffs from him,” Director Sawai said, taking a concentrated powder from the cabinet. “Then I served him a cup of tea.”

Aiba Yu watched as he opened his small refrigerator, which was supposed to contain emergency medications, but instead he scooped out some edible ice cubes.

“When you told me these things, I thought this day would come,” Director Sawai said, noticing him staring at the refrigerator. “I bet you’ll still ring the doorbell when you emerge from underground, or one day you’ll just say, ‘Oh no, my identity has been exposed, Director, please help me persuade the people at the Life Science Research Center to go back.’… Climbing through the window wouldn’t be bad either.”

Aiba Yu wanted to say that he wouldn't speak in that tone, but when he saw that the other person was going to find the water dispenser—the only place with cold water—he quickly stepped forward and said, "I can get it myself."

“Hey,” Director Sawai waved his hand to stop him, “You were on Delta Force too, weren’t you? 278 people, and tens of thousands of researchers from the New Energy Development Center to the Space Development Center at TPC working day and night… I heard that your team member… Fujisawa Sousuke, is that the name? He said the General Staff should give you two salaries.”

Aiba Yu's face darkened: "Then let him practice more."

“No, I just meant,” a crystal-clear cup of tea was handed to him, the ice cubes clinking, and Director Sawai said softly, “thank you for your hard work.”

"Also, remember to return the cup to me after you're done drinking."

Aiba Yu's emotions, which had not yet fully developed, were abruptly interrupted when he saw Director Sawai turn back to his seat with his hands behind his back, saying, "These are souvenirs they gave me when I established the West Asia branch. There's only one pair, and once it's gone, it's gone forever."

Chapter 59 The Captain is a Nightmare

High, snow-white clouds stood in a secluded corner, while white birds skimmed across the sea without disturbing a ripple.

Today the tide is flat and the sea is wide.

Another "bird" arrived, and he fell like a kite.

At a sufficient altitude, one can see the curved horizon. The horizon is bright, and further away lies the Arctic Circle, a paradise of glaciers. Every swirling wind weaves sunlight, the sea glistens, and ice floes lie leisurely in the distance, appearing gentle and harmless.

Fujisawa Sousuke knew that in a few seconds he would be smashed into a pulp by the gentle, harmless sea.