Ultraman Legend of the Light Chaser

Zheping stared at the pile of surveillance images, almost scratching his head in frustration: "Nothing has been found so far, and no high-concentration energy reactions have been detected either."

"Thank you for your hard work. Keep monitoring going."

"Yes."

Shingo Sakami looked at Estend, who was frowning, and instead of feeling disappointed, he became the one comforting him: "Don't worry too much. At least from yesterday's condition, he is already recovering."

To be precise, Eistard detected through terminal data yesterday that Samuel's light particle activity had finally rebounded, even slightly exceeding the normal value—the only reassuring piece of news amidst a string of alarming data.

Estend nodded, slightly relaxing his tense back, and looked out the window at the clear blue sky.

Samuel's recovery ability has always been good, so he is not worried about that. What he is really worried about is the system that Mr. Fonte and his team have developed for Samuel.

Samuel was resisting it. It wasn't until the day after Estend woke up that he suddenly realized that if Samuel hadn't controlled himself, he would never have just had a small patch of hair smeared on his head, but would have had his head smashed by a punch.

Now that he's disappeared, did he realize something was wrong and decide to stay away, or... is it Mr. Fangte?

……

When Samuel regained consciousness, he found himself at the bottom of a pitch-black body of water.

A long, free-spirited fish swam slowly past him, and he looked up, somewhat bewildered.

When I woke up, my head was buzzing, probably because there was a broken communicator or something stuck inside, which was very noisy.

The voice, like a fly, kept repeating itself, urging him to hurry up and kill the "leader who has gone astray."

The nurse who was changing his dressing pushed the trolley in as usual and chatted with him about this and that, such as "This medicine has a sedative ingredient, so you can rest if you want to sleep," "Remember to ring the bell when the medicine is almost gone," and "You can call me if you want to go out for a walk, but you can only look around in the yard."

That afternoon, the sunlight was warm and gentle, and the dappled light and shadows of the branches and leaves shone through the window. Several patients in wheelchairs were already dozing off in the shade of the trees in the courtyard.

The nurse glanced at the nameplate on the hospital bed and suddenly said, "Aiba Yu... I just noticed that Aiba Kanade in room 102 is your brother, right? Aiba is not a very common surname."

"Hmm," he answered instinctively.

"Is your family from Chiba Prefecture? I had a classmate from when I was a child who also had the surname Aiba and lived in Chiba Prefecture. If you also live there, perhaps you are from the same family."

“No, my home is…” he answered instinctively.

Then, a strange sense of unease suddenly made him stop talking.

"Where is it?" the nurse asked, puzzled.

[Your name is Samuel, a key asset of the Seventh Research Institute.]

The room was just as monotonous, except that the white paint on the ward should have been replaced with the iron gray commonly seen in research institutes.

He opened his eyes, and Fang looked at him through the transparent hull. Standing beside him were Eistend, whose expression was unreadable, and Omarment, whose face was full of excitement.

"This is the M17 Nebula, star number 168385, the 6th planet." The guide, Eistend, solemnly introduced the research institute to him, then softened his tone and pointed to a distant location on the star map.

[This is... the Pillars of Creation of the M16 Nebula, star number 125311, line 4... no, the asteroid belt, Serene.]

Serene...

What's the name of your home planet?

In the same monotonous world, iron gray should be tinged with a heavy black. Pitch black, only faint, sand-like rainbow light dimly illuminates the apocalyptic world.

where is that?

[He should be called Suffer.]

Suffer?

That voice... was asking about his home planet...

Here, well, the most intelligent race is called the 'Werthers'.

A pale beam of light connected heaven and earth, and everything in sight trembled. He heard that voice's painful wail.

I've taken my power away. You'd better go with them; if you get too close, you'll be disintegrated.

"Why aren't you saying anything?" The nurse hung the IV drip on the support and checked the drip rate.

Do you regret it?

"It's nothing... I have nothing to regret."

"Huh?" The nurse didn't hear clearly. She turned her head and found that her patient was looking out the window.

"Do you want to go out?" she asked.

The patient just stared at the sky, ignoring her. "Is he in a bad mood..." she thought to herself, and tiptoed out of the ward.

Occasionally, a plane flies overhead, its impressive roar leaving a trail of flight in the eyes of those who look up.

In Samuel's eyes, it left a phantom that swirled with a ghastly green glow.

It should have been a collapsed wall, but Samuel reached out and touched an intact white wall.

The wind should have carried the smell of blood and scorched earth, but what lingered around my nose was the languid, smoky air of a lazy afternoon.

There should have been a voice guiding him, telling him where to go and where he was needed. But Samuel couldn't hear it; only a fly buzzed around him, calling him "the guide who eliminates threats."

He transformed into a streak of light and soared into the sky, seemingly plunging into the billowing black mist, only to embrace the snow-capped rain clouds.

That voice...

"Pasifica".

He unconsciously uttered those words, thinking to himself: It should be closer, much closer...

That's how I can hear her voice.

And so the light shifted and sank into the deep sea.

Samuel, no, Fos-001, looked up blankly and lostly.

Soil, air, rain clouds, Pasifica—nothing remains.

Except for that one fly that never leaves your side.

Chapter Sixty-Six: Heart Fire

The waves, laden with foam, rolled towards the reefs. The sky was rather gloomy today, and even the dawn's glow failed to add any beauty.

Children from families living by the sea are collecting seashells on the beach while the tide is high. If they can collect a lot, they should have a good lunch today.

The child wiped the sand off the seashell and tossed it into the small basket.

"Hey, what kind of fish is that?"

Hearing his companion's shout, the child looked in the direction he was pointing and saw a blurry dark figure.

He had heard stories of whales stranding themselves while searching for food, but the shadowy figure was clearly too small, and its shape didn't resemble a fish at all; it looked more like…

"Water ghost?"

The dark figure turned around, seemingly looking at him.

In a moment of stunned silence, he suddenly realized what was happening, grabbed his bewildered companion, and turned to run wildly into the village.

"Hey, Shell, why are you running away?"

"If we don't run, the water ghosts will catch us!"

"Isn't that a person? What kind of water ghost is that?!"

"Idiot! There are strong currents everywhere near this beach. Nine out of ten people who dare to go into the water here have died! Let alone him climbing out of the sea at this hour!"

"But water ghosts aren't just a legend..."

"If monsters are appearing, what's so strange about the legend being true?"

"..."

The "water ghost" watched the two children run away, puzzled. After thinking for a moment, he went over and moved the bamboo basket they had left on the beach a short distance further ashore to prevent it from being washed away by the rising tide.

He crouched down, supporting his head with one hand, his movements somewhat labored. After doing this, he slowly walked towards the woods, far from any human habitation.

It wasn't that he didn't want to get closer to the village, but he only glanced at it from afar. One second the village was peaceful, and the next second it turned into ruins in his eyes, followed by a tidal wave of boundless anger.

The village was not reduced to ruins; what he saw was merely an "illusion."

"what is going on……"

As he stepped into the woods, the branches and leaves quickly ignited in his eyes, charring and curling until the entire forest turned into a dazzling sea of ​​fire.

These are all fake, yet they seem strangely familiar.

Samuel watched silently as the fiery inferno churned and ravaged, the "flies" still buzzing incessantly in his ears.

“Shut up,” he said.

The fly did its job well, so naturally it didn't get what it wanted.

Samuel simply closed his eyes.

The light pierced through the branches and leaves, shooting straight towards the dawn sky.

……

"So... Kanade got poached to be a researcher, and even Yu left?" Yonahara Sora practically jumped up, his eyes wide. "GUYS? This is outrageous! The rescue team already lost a bunch of people because of the monsters, and they're still poaching people here!! Our team is understaffed again, Captain!!!"

“Yeah, it’s really too much that they get to get up close and personal with the latest fighter jets while you can’t.” Yamashita Rikuto scoffed.

"Hey you……"