Ultraman Legend of the Light Chaser

"Okay!" The child ran off excitedly.

……

“My daughter’s family should be settled by now, that’s enough. My old bones aren’t worth your time.”

An old man dressed in a kimono sat in the courtyard, gazing up at the shattered sky.

“The old man has difficulty walking,” he said, gesturing to the tea set in the living room. “If you’re so kind, please bring me my teapot and teacups, and then you can leave.”

Having said that, the stubborn old man ignored the young man's expression and, accompanied by the wind mixed with the smell of gunpowder, slowly recited in the stone courtyard before the end of the world: "Autumn comes, the dew on the awns disappears; thinking of it, I too will leave this world."

"Snapped!"

The clear tea was spilled on the ground. This was the first time the old man, who had always loved elegance, had received such a rude guest at home.

The guest spilled his tea, leaving a water stain in the meticulously maintained stone courtyard. The old man glared angrily at the guest for his actions.

The other person approached him without any politeness and grabbed his arm without saying a word.

His cherished kimono was left with large wrinkles from such rough treatment, and the guest yelled, "Stop being so pretentious! If all elderly people were to commit suicide like you, what would be the point of our rescue team!"

"Let go! You reckless brat!" The old man looked at the middle-aged man who was probably the one who had spoken.

Just as he ignored the young man, the middle-aged man also ignored him and opened the communicator to say, "The stranded people in Songzhu District have been received and are now returning to the Gechuan Shelter."

"This old man is only in his twilight years; he's not worth the risk to you young people." The old man tried to break free, but the young man in the blue uniform was strong and muscular. He and the middle-aged man grabbed the old man from both sides and put him into the red-painted rescue vehicle, making escape impossible.

Inside the courtyard, one could only see a patch of sky, but now that they were outside, the old man could easily see the battle on the horizon through the car window.

A crimson abyss split open in the gray sky, from which a monster crawled out, its body covered in scales, its sharp claws and long tail gleaming with a cold metallic light.

Human fighter jets are small yet resilient in the face of them, struggling to entangle with them, reminding the old man of a swordsman teetering on the edge of a knife.

Life and death hang in the balance. If they are hit even once, the young lives of those piloting those fighter jets should disappear like the dew on the awns in the waka poem, merging into this world of lead gray and crimson.

"Qitai, how's it going on your end?" The middle-aged man asked the other teams as he drove the rescue vehicle.

The communication was very noisy on the other end, and Kobayashi Keita's reply was almost drowned out by the background noise: "Captain? We received the target, but..."

"Get out of the way!!!"

"Zi-ZiZi-"

Hasegawa Hayato's expression suddenly changed. He ripped off his headset and threw it aside. Under the questioning gaze of Nahara Sora, he slammed on the gas pedal, forcing the heavy rescue vehicle to race car speeds, and drove towards the Kazukawa shelter like a red ghost.

At the other end of the Songzhu District, Keita Kobayashi led Rikuto Yamashita to their escort target.

A white-haired professor sitting in a wheelchair, and his student with an unfriendly expression—Kaoru Yamashita.

Rikuto Yamashita was equally at a loss for words. His superiors had only said they were going to pick up Professor Sudo, whose trip had been delayed due to the preservation of important observation data. He hadn't expected that his student would also be stranded here, and that it would happen to be his sister who had been away from home for many years.

"If only Kawashima were here, he could be invisible," Yamashita Rikuto thought. "And where is Aiba Yu? Could he have ended up in the hospital like Kawashima?"

Despite his wandering thoughts, he didn't slack off on his work. He naturally took the professor's wheelchair, and Kobayashi Keita, being quite perceptive, stepped between him and Yamashita Kaoru, finally easing the tense atmosphere.

The entrance to the laboratory building where the professor was staying was very narrow, so heavy rescue vehicles couldn't get in, and Sugiyama Mao could only wait for them outside.

Her hands, gripping the steering wheel, were drenched in sweat; with each distant, deafening roar, her body trembled.

Give it a shake.

She could faintly hear the roars of monsters. She felt like a snail huddled in its shell in a not-so-safe "home," its eyes fixed on the scarred sky, like a snail tentatively reaching out its tentacles from its shell.

"Hey, we found one alive."

A murmuring, unidentified language.

A beam of light shattered the road surface, revealing the foundation, and the smell of burning and black smoke rose and swirled into the gray background.

The four people, who were still on their way, were suddenly stopped by the brakes. A faint green light shone in their pupils, and two red figures blocked their way.

"Hey Earthlings, you should all be hiding, right? Take me to the settlement, and I'll let you go."

The four people looked bewildered as they listened to the babbling.

“Ah, I forgot you can’t understand,” the red guy pulled out something and pressed it, and this time the chattering voice turned into Japanese: “I’ll repeat myself, Earthlings, if you don’t want to die, take me to your settlement.”

As they were talking, another red-clad figure waved to the spaceship above them, which immediately took off again and continued to patrol the edge of the battlefield, searching for living humans.

Mao Sugiyama pressed herself against the steering wheel, barely daring to breathe, until the ghostly spaceship disappeared from sight. Only then did she hear her heart pounding like a drum, her mind a jumbled mess.

One Yabo man stared at Kobayashi Keita and his group of four, while another Yabo man slowly walked toward the rescue vehicle.

"Finding a live, young child is quite difficult." Yapool looked at Professor Sudo with disdain. He raised his hand, gathered energy, and intended to deal with this troublesome fellow on the spot.

"Hey! Elderly living organisms also have research value!" his companion shouted back at him.

"A garbage specimen is still a specimen?" The Yabo man rubbed his head in annoyance. "Alright, alright, hey you guys over there, you inferior beings, I'm talking to you—are you scared out of your wits? Why aren't you answering?"

"Beep beep, beep beep..."

The Yabo people's attention was drawn to the source of the sound.

Keita Kobayashi pressed the communication button: "Captain?"

The moment my gaze was drawn to it, a gust of wind swept past my side!

"We received the target, but..."

Lu Dou rushed up the mountain like a hungry tiger pouncing on its prey, knocking the Yabo man to the ground. The beam of light he fired in haste burned through the hem of the man's clothes, and a piece of flesh on his left leg was charred and carbonized.

He gritted his teeth and clung tightly to Yapool's hand. Yapool pressed his still-unrestrained hand against his waist, and a ball of light condensed. Sensing the scorching heat, Yamashita Rikuto headbutted Yapool's bulging eye on the side.

The Yapool man's head was slapped by the horn on the side of his face, drawing blood. The Yapool man reflexively covered his eyes.

His companion turned around upon hearing the strange noise, and in the blink of an eye, something black flew towards him. He fired a beam of light and shattered it. Before he could even get a good look, he was suddenly slammed in the back and then lifted into the air, as if being carried by a raging monster. Human buildings were rapidly approaching in front of him!

Keita Kobayashi threw his communicator to distract the other Yapool, then rushed up to assist Rikuto Yamashita, grabbing the neck of the Yapool who was about to break free. Kaoru Yamashita was stunned for a moment, but immediately reacted, pulling out the folding cane hanging next to Professor Sudo's wheelchair and swinging it hard at the Yapool's head without thinking!

At that moment, the roar of an engine like a runaway buffalo, accompanied by the cracking sound of grass and branches breaking, rapidly approached as a red heavy-duty rescue vehicle rumbled in!

"Get out of the way!!!"

The heavy rescue vehicle hacked through the undergrowth, smashed through a bunch of green shrubs, and squeezed into the narrow passage. Its engine revved wildly, like a runaway horse galloping toward the still-standing Yabo man.

"Oh!"

"Aaaaaah—!!!" The "victim" made no sound, but the "violation" screamed all the way.

The front of the car was dented, and the passenger seat was obviously deformed. Instead of slowing down, Sugiyama Mao continued to press the accelerator to the floor and swerve the steering wheel. The huge car narrowly missed the people who were struggling to avoid it, and drove against the flow of traffic up the steps with the stunned people on its back.

The glass door was shattered more like it was blown apart than smashed. The red mad bull grazed the pillars in the lobby, denting one side of its body, and finally, amidst the tremors felt throughout the entire building, it embedded itself into the wall.

Glass shards and brick fragments littered the road. Sugiyama Mao pried open the airbag and struggled to open the deformed car door a crack: "Hello—is anyone there? I'm stuck inside!"

No one answered her.

The guy stuck between the rescue vehicle and the wall didn't answer.

Meanwhile, Rikuto Yamashita and Keita Kobayashi were busy battling the Yapool, while Kaoru Yamashita was putting all his strength into smashing things.

"Inferior, pfft!"

"Boom!"

“Bio... Ugh, you pfft! You guys…”

"Bang! Bang!"

"Bang bang bang!"

Professor Sudo felt his blood pressure was a bit high, and he was taking out his medicine bottle and trembling as he poured himself some nitroglycerin.

Meanwhile, the Yapool spaceship, which had flown a short distance away, was blocked by its "compatriots".

"The Vantonians? At this time... do you want to start a war with the Yapools!?"

“Hey, don’t bring this up in diplomatic terms all the time,” the Vantonian grinned. “I’m just speaking for myself.”

"have a finger in the pie!"

"Don't get so agitated. You haven't experienced it, so you don't know how difficult it is to get rid of a food shortage. I'm just speaking on my own behalf and want to return a favor."

……

Meanwhile, GUYS

New energy fluctuations have been detected in all operational areas around the world.

Then there's a babbling language that Earthlings can't understand, but we should be able to understand it in the future—a universal language.

"Van, Dun, Star, Man!!!"

"On behalf of myself, I would like to express my gratitude to the benefactors who helped transport the food."

"What about you?! I don't have time for your pranks!"

“This isn’t a prank,” the kid in school uniform said, sitting on top of the Vanton aliens’ spaceship with his legs crossed, rolling his eyes at them. “I just don’t like you guys. You’ve ruined this place, where are we supposed to go to relax, you trashy Yapools!”

"I'm just trying to ruin your plans! If you're unhappy, come and hit me!"

The schoolboy snapped his fingers, and the soil swirled and solidified, causing a lizard-like monster to rise from behind him, its enormous shadow looming over the Yapool's spaceship.

The laughter of the Sakkino aliens rang out at just the right moment when the Yapool people were seething with hatred:

"Hahaha, you're always the ones who send monsters to beat up others, and now you're getting beaten up by other people's monsters. How does that feel?"

At the spot where he was fighting Lunatics, Mebius looked with surprise at the shimmering blade lying across his body.