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Night was falling. The sky, already choked with dark clouds, sank into a deeper gray.
This stretch of the city had been the battlefield. Godzilla and the MUTOs had fought here, and the evidence was everywhere — building fragments scattered across desolate streets, office towers that had once scraped the sky now standing gutted and broken, the claw marks of giant beasts gouged into their faces like old wounds.
After the battle, official crews had sent people in to search for personal belongings. Scavenger work, essentially. The lighting equipment they'd left behind still dotted the abandoned streets, casting faint pools of light in the dark.
"Pretty overwhelming, isn't it?" Jared held a flashlight, picking his way across ground thick with green moss, walking with Natsuki through the ruins.
The beam swept over rusted-out cars, storefronts caved in beyond recognition, trash piled high enough to swallow the curbs.
"This is what happens when Titans fight."
"If that 2014 battle had gone on any longer, all of San Francisco would look like this." Jared said it quietly, like he was remembering something he'd rather forget.
This was a city that had survived the end of the world.
"Yeah." Natsuki nodded, eyes moving across the wreckage. "Once giants start fighting, any human caught in the middle doesn't stand a chance."
He knew that better than most.
His battle with Super Gubira , if he hadn't been actively shielding the city the entire time, the shockwaves alone would have leveled Tokyo-2. Fighting Kaiju on Earth wasn't just about fighting the Kaiju. It meant splitting your focus, diverting power, protecting every innocent person who had the bad luck of being nearby.
As long as an Ultraman fights on Earth, he can never go all out.
Their battles are for protection. Not destruction.
"That said..." Natsuki glanced at a crater in the ground not far ahead. A footprint. Massive, deeply sunken, the buildings around it ground to powder. "The Kaiju in this world are no joke."
From the depth of that impression alone, the creature's weight had to be in the tens of thousands of tons. Maybe a hundred thousand. A completely different category from the Kaiju in the Pacific Rim world.
There was a reason they called them Titans.
"No joke?" Jared looked at him. "I'll give you the abilities — those are something else. But raw destructive power? Titans are actual natural disasters." His voice was flat and certain. "Trust me. See one in person, and it'll follow you into your sleep."
Some things you can't understand until you've seen them. The same way only someone who's lived through a war truly knows what war costs.
"Noted." Natsuki smiled.
They kept walking through the silent, dead streets. Another two kilometers, roughly.
Then a light caught their attention.
"Hold on. People." Jared raised a fist, signaling Natsuki to stop.
They ducked behind an abandoned sedan and looked through the shattered window.
A subway entrance. Half a dozen soldiers in black tactical gear stood around it, rifles up. Barbed wire sealed off the path behind them. Bright searchlights swept back and forth across the empty streets in slow, methodical arcs.
Guards. Here.
"God..." Jared stared. Whatever doubt had lingered evaporated. Natsuki had been right. There were Kaiju eggs down there. "These crazy sons of bitches."
A searchlight swung toward them. He yanked his head back.
He pulled a stun gun and a pistol from his jacket. Leaned out again.
"One... two... six."
Six guards, well-equipped, alert. Breaking through the front wasn't an option. The other side had rifles and night vision. His side had one retired soldier and an alien whose main weapon was, functionally, a water gun.
"Frontal approach is out."
"Need to find another way in." Jared turned it over in his head. Get underground. Gather intel. Figure out the next move from there. Stopping the operation outright would be ideal, but two people weren't enough for that. And his old contacts inside Monarch , he didn't know if they'd been caught up in this mess. Reaching out blind meant not knowing whether friend or enemy would show up at the door.
Powerless. Genuinely powerless.
"The other passages are just as covered," Natsuki said, still looking out at the surrounding streets. His Ultra telepathy had already spread through the ruins, mapping every position.
Jared raised an eyebrow. "That ability of yours is absurdly useful."
Human-shaped radar. No — better than radar.
"What's the play?" he asked. When you're out of ideas, you ask your teammate. They were a team now, after all.
Two old men. Quite the squad.
"Well..." Natsuki straightened his floral shirt. "Obviously, we infiltrate."
"I'll take point. Stay behind me."
He stood up from behind the car and walked directly toward the soldiers.
Jared's brain stalled.
His mouth opened. Nothing came out.
"WHAT!?"
You call this infiltrating?!
The searchlight is literally on your head!
"Who's there!?"
"Who is it!?"
Natsuki walked out into the light, fully illuminated, hands already going up. The guards locked onto him immediately, rifles snapping to their shoulders.
A man in a floral shirt. Standing in an apocalyptic wasteland. Looking like he'd just stepped off a beach.
Where did this lunatic come from?
"It's me," Natsuki said calmly.
"Pacific Rim Joint Defense Force. Jaeger pilot, operational advisor on secondment."
His eyes were steady. Utterly committed. Like he'd stepped back into that other world , the one where he actually was an excellent Jaeger pilot.
"...What?"
The guards exchanged glances. A beat of pure confusion.
Pacific Rim Joint Defense Force?
Never heard of it.
"Stop right there! Don't move!" The lead soldier raised his rifle higher. "There's severe radiation in there. You need to leave. Now."
Vagrants wandered into this zone sometimes. Running them off was part of the job.
"Ahem." Natsuki cleared his throat.
"Actually, I'm the Unit-01 pilot from NERV Japan Headquarters. Operations advisor to the Commander's office." Different voice. Same completely straight face.
Guards: "??"
...That one didn't land either?
"Alright, I'll stop messing around."
"I'm the squad leader of Japan's Third Anti-Kaiju Defense Unit. I'm here to eliminate the Kaiju." He delivered it like he was reading a report.
CRACK!
A single shot. The bullet cracked into the pavement at Natsuki's feet.
"Final warning." The lead soldier's voice cut through the dark. "I don't care who you are. Get out of here."
Oh.
You've gone and annoyed the old Ultraman.
➤ Next: MUTO Egg
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