Kagami Yuto fell silent.
He had not thought the citizens he was protecting felt the same as he did.
Everyone took him for a savior, and believed only he could save humanity when the monsters came.
Though that was the fact as well, but… this recognition and this hope were an even heavier burden to him.
“Do you think the giant came to protect humanity.”
After a long while, he asked the owner before him a question.
“Protect humanity? I don’t know. But I hope he did.”
“After all, only he can save Minamihara City now, so I’d rather believe he was sent from above to save us.”
“Even my daughter likes him a lot. She says she feels safe when she sees the giant appear. Anyway, no matter what he came for, at the very least he helped us humans beat the monsters. In my eyes, he’s a hero.”
“Is that so. You all think he’s a hero…”
“Mm. Right, young man, how do you think my noodles taste?”
Kagami Yuto raised his head, his gaze complicated, and met the stall owner’s enthusiastic face.
“Ah. Very… good.”
“Good is enough. Here, I’ll give you an egg too.”
“Eh, no, there’s no need.”
Unable to withstand the man’s kindness, in the end, when he left, he quietly tucked some change under the bowl.
A bowl of ramen in his stomach lifted his spirits a little again, but the talk with the owner had also brought him a few new threads of melancholy.
“Have you ever had this feeling, Roa.”
“Facing a crisis all by yourself, and not being allowed to lose. How do you see that kind of pressure?”
On the way home, he suddenly could not help saying it.
“What’s wrong, Yuto? Why did you suddenly grow so worried?”
“Nothing. It’s just… I have a few more things I can’t let go of.”
“And I found I seem never to have thought about losing. Every time I go out, I fight with the belief that I have to win. Though in the end I really did beat the monsters, but…”
“Lost confidence in yourself?”
“Or… because of the Evil Beast Lock.”
Roa’s words carried a few threads of concern and guilt.
“Not that. You can take it as me being afraid of failure. That doesn’t conflict with wanting to win. I just feel it would be good if I could fight the monsters every time without any worries.”
“At the very least, if I had something to rely on so I wouldn’t be afraid even if I failed, maybe I could fight with everything I have. Can you understand this feeling.”
“…Mm.”
“Bearing the fate of all your kin alone really isn’t an easy thing. I can understand that worry of yours.”
“Well, I’m not really trying to complain.”
“It’s just that, compared to sacrificing myself, I’m more afraid of giving everything I have and still failing to protect what I want to protect. So every time I fight, I have this fantasy. I’m afraid I’ll lose. If I lose… what will this world become.”
“Though this lets me give everything I have, after every battle ends I always can’t help worrying about the next one. I know I’m not invincible. The enemy will always be stronger than the last time.”
He sighed, and deep in his heart a figure always surfaced of its own accord.
If he could not give her salvation of the heart, then at the very least he would not let her live in a world like hell.
This was perhaps the only thing he could do for her as a teacher.
It was also a promise he had long since secretly made in his heart.
There was more than one teacher who could save a wounded child’s heart.
But the only giant who could stop the destruction the monsters brought was him, the Ultraman’s human host.
Precisely because he understood this, he did not want to lose.
“Just do your best. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself.”
Roa, who did not know how to comfort someone, could only say this.
“Mm.”
Once home, Kagami Yuto lay on the sofa, body and mind both exhausted.
But he did not dare let himself sleep too deeply.
At this juncture, with crisis constantly brewing, he had to stay ready at all times to deal with anything.
But the human body has its limits.
Even though he tried to keep himself awake, drowsiness rose, and he still could not help closing his eyes.
Of course, before that, he had already returned to his room.
The bed still held a faint, indescribable freshness like lavender, and a sweet, mellow fragrance like cream, as if the whole quilt had fallen into a bucket of milk.
Fragrant.
For a scent like this to appear in a man living alone’s home would seem strange to most people.
But lately his attention had always been elsewhere, and he had no time to think about it.
As it happened, he liked this scent too, so every night he simply fell asleep smelling it.
To him, it was a rare medicine that could heal the spirit.
Minamihara City had fallen into a strange calm.
A week had passed since the aura of the Evil Beast Lock appeared, but the crisis he had expected had not come.
What kind of monster could hide like this, and what the other’s purpose really was, had become questions Kagami Yuto had to think about every day.
Of course he did not think the other had a change of heart, and that was why the attack was so slow in coming.
He would rather believe some unknown plot was hidden behind it.
His mind kept turning, so much so that he did not quite notice what was in front of him…
“Ah!”
A fragrant wind swept in, and by the time he reacted, all he felt was a soft impact against his chest.
“?! Classmate, you, are you all right…”
Kagami Yuto was quick, and steadied her.
One of his hands even instinctively gripped her shoulder.
Yet the moment he saw the face of the person before him clearly, his expression could not help going blank.
“It hurts…”
Tsukimi Ryuune raised her head.
A pair of golden eyes met Kagami Yuto’s somewhat startled gaze.
She had never thought she would meet him again in a way like this.
In the corridor, the two of them collided full on, and both of them seemed to have been lost in thought.
He felt the same inside.
Though he had always been on campus, he had not taken the initiative to approach her in a long time.
If not for today’s accident.
“Ryuune…”
At those words, Tsukimi Ryuune froze.
Then she swayed, and forcefully struggled free of his hand.
“Sorry. Just now I wasn’t watching…”
There was no further exchange.
She did not even give him the chance to finish.
She only shot him a cold glance, then brushed past him and left.
Kagami Yuto watched her back as she turned away, a look in his eyes he could not quite name.
Since the last incident, he had found the distance between the two of them seemed to be growing farther and farther.
So far that it was not even as close as the first time they met.
At least back then Tsukimi Ryuune had still been willing to call him Teacher.
Now she would not even acknowledge him.
As if she had already taken him for a complete stranger.