"They're talking about you."
Tomie looked across the table at Amamiya Rin, one eyebrow arching.
"When more people believe in the light with all their hearts, does that mean the night of this mortal world is lit at last by the radiance ordained at the dawn of creation?"
Amamiya Rin murmured it to himself, eyes on the television.
"Who on earth is supposed to understand any of that?"
The answer had nothing to do with her question, and Tomie let him know it.
On the family restaurant's TV, a run of street interviews was playing.
A reporter held out her microphone and walked up to a middle-aged man in a plaid shirt.
"Hello, we're with TV Asahi. Do you know anything about last night's Giant of Light incident in Nerima Ward?"
"Giant of Light?"
The man blinked, then scratched his scalp.
"I didn't see any giant. But the light — the light I definitely saw. A little after eight last night the sky went dark all at once, you couldn't even make out the moon, and then a pillar of light shot straight up and punched a hole clean through the sky. It wasn't until this morning I heard Ultraseven had turned up… This really isn't a joke? Not a prank?"
"A number of witnesses are already claiming that at eight o'clock last night, Ultraseven appeared in Nerima Ward and defeated a vengeful-spirit monster. Do you believe them?"
The man's face went complicated. He frowned, thought it over, and finally landed squarely on the fence.
"How should I put it… saying I believe feels a bit foolish. I've been around a good while, and Ultraman has always been a thing on television, hasn't he? But saying I don't believe — well, an awful lot of people saw that light yesterday."
The reporter smiled and nodded.
The picture cut. The next interviewee was a girl in a high school uniform.
"Excuse me, miss? About the Giant of Light incident in Nerima Ward — do you believe Ultraseven exists?"
"I believe it! Of course I believe it! My cousin was right there yesterday, he even got it on video. He says the moment that giant stood up, the whole street lit up, and the light was nothing like ordinary lighting, it was — it was the kind of light that makes you feel warm inside! He says he'll never forget it as long as he lives!"
Still babbling with excitement, the schoolgirl dug out her phone, opened a video and thrust it toward the camera. The footage was blurry, but there was no mistaking it: Ultraseven, rising into view, looking down at the people below.
A short-haired girl beside her leaned in. "Everyone knows you can't photoshop a video, so this has to be real."
"Ultraseven? Is Tsuburaya doing an Ultraseven movie or something?"
The third person stopped for an interview was a bespectacled middle-aged man in a suit, briefcase in hand — a salaryman by the look of him.
"Good morning, sir. Do you believe in the Giant of Light incident in Nerima Ward?"
The salaryman pushed his glasses up, his face grave.
"I trained in the sciences. Given my education, I find it extremely difficult to accept that an alien out of a tokusatsu show could appear in the real world. But after what I lived through last night, I have no choice but to believe."
He paused, and his tone gentled.
"Around eight last night, rain came down over in Sakuradai. Black rain. It felt bitterly cold, wrong — as though it carried some evil curse inside it. Once the rain fell, female ghosts in white appeared all around us. From what I observed, every single person, myself included, had one of those women in white standing beside him. If she touched you, a terrible weakness came over you, the feeling that you were about to die. And then…"
Emotions moved across the salaryman's face one after another. He sighed before going on.
"Ultraseven appeared. He released a beam of light from his fingertips, and the beam kept ricocheting and branching until it had caught every last one of the women in white… Honestly, I'm not a particularly upright man. I turned into one of those grubby adults long ago. But even so — I want to become light too."
The fourth interviewee was a housewife in her early forties, hair permed into curls, a bag of vegetables hanging from one hand. She stared for a beat, then waved a dismissive hand.
"I've watched Ultraman too, but everyone knows there's no Ultraman in the real world. It must be some publicity campaign by the Tsuburaya company, mustn't it?"
She gave her answer with a thoroughly puzzled look.
"We've heard that a great many people in Nerima Ward saw a light drive back the darkness last night. You didn't notice anything?" the reporter asked, mystified.
"A light that drove back the darkness — that's laying it on much too thick. I suppose I live rather far from wherever Tsuburaya held their event. Nerima Ward isn't a single street, you know. No matter how bright their floodlights were, they couldn't possibly light up the entire ward," the housewife said, entirely unbothered.
The picture cut back to the studio.
The anchor faced the camera. "According to information received by this station, last night's sightings of the Giant of Light were concentrated in the Sakuradai, Mukaihara and Toyotamakita areas of Nerima Ward — a zone roughly two kilometers across, centered on the site of the incident. Farther out, north of the Shakujii River, for instance, or along other streets in Nerima Ward, most residents report seeing no unusual light whatsoever, only faint sounds. So: was this truly the descent of an Ultraman, or some as-yet-unexplained man-made phenomenon? This station will continue to follow the story."
Inside the family restaurant, customers at several tables had turned toward the TV.
A young female student clapped a hand over her mouth. "Are you serious? Ultraman is real?"
"That many witnesses, all of them so specific — they can't all be liars, can they?" her companion said around a straw, eyes glued to the screen, the words coming out muffled.
"This is beyond ridiculous. Ultraseven… I don't buy it," said a boy in a plaid shirt, nudging his glasses up.
Seeing was believing; hearsay was worth nothing. Video or no video, if he hadn't witnessed it with his own eyes, he wasn't about to accept a thing like this.
"Ultraseven, huh. When I was a kid I parked myself in front of the TV every Saturday night for that show. So what's this, a remake? A theatrical release? And promoting it with a fake documentary, of all things," a middle-aged man said fondly — and he didn't believe a word of it either.
"Let's swing by Nerima Ward later. Even if it's just a Tsuburaya promo, we don't lose anything."
"Be great if we could land ourselves a walk-on part," a few young men murmured back and forth.
"Mom! I know about him! Ultraseven — he destroyed the Slit-Mouthed Woman at Shimokitazawa Elementary!" A boy who looked all of ten years old tugged at his mother's arm, bouncing on his toes.
"Huh? Oh! So that's what this is about."
The mother blinked, and then it clicked.
"You did mention something a couple of days ago — Ultraseven and Ultraman Leo went to Shimokitazawa Elementary and destroyed a monster called the Slit-Mouthed Woman… Now that I think of it, the Slit-Mouthed Woman and Ultraseven are characters from the same era, aren't they," the mother said with a nod, half convinced.
She didn't believe all of it. But if this wasn't the first time Ultraseven had appeared, then she couldn't dismiss it out of hand either.
____
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