This was the result of V-Rex's earlier efforts. He was no Hideki Go, and taking on two enemies at once was hardly a safe choice. So while V-Rex and Ash had split up, with Ash holding off the other Doomsday Monster, V-Rex lured this one beneath a nearby building, then destroyed the empty structure with massive missiles and buried the monster beneath it.
After its crucial supports were blasted apart, the precarious heap of reinforced concrete finally collapsed amid the shrieks of bending and snapping steel.
"Doomsday Monster! (I'm doomed!)"
Amid the thunderous roar of the collapsing building, the Doomsday Monster's roar sounded helpless and despairing. Finally, as the high-rise became complete rubble, even the monster's last cries vanished.
"All right, everyone, the Doomsday Monster is dead. You can come out now."
Ash dramatically spread his arms and openly turned in a circle toward the surrounding area.
"..."
There was no response. Ash continued looking around, but no curious lucky little heads poked out for him to take a swing at. After all, not everyone had the courage to drive a gas tanker straight at a monster. This world had no TPC, either. Faced with a Doomsday Monster that could nullify all conventional weapons, people could do nothing except cheer for the Pretty Cure.
And now that the Pretty Cure had been replaced with him, Time Fire, there was not even anyone left to cheer.
"Very good. Looks like you've mastered the proper way to evacuate and survive. Keep it up next time."
There was probably no one around. Ash had no idea who he was speaking to; perhaps he simply had a compulsion not to leave a sentence unfinished.
"No one's here, then I'm leaving."
Ash turned around, but V-Rex did not lower its head to let him climb up. Instead, it nudged its snout toward a certain direction.
"Wait, you can't leave!"
The sharp cry from behind made Ash draw his gun from its holster and spin it between his fingers in a flashy flourish that could kill a mosquito.
It was the voice he had already remembered: the small but fiercely determined Pretty Cure named Cure Yell.
"So it's you. You're late. I've already taken care of this Doomsday Monster for you." Ash grabbed a protrusion on V-Rex's body and used both hands and feet to "jump" onto V-Rex's head.
"So, miss who just enjoyed the show, what score would you give my showtime? If possible, I'd really like you to thank me."
I actually helped an injured, sick hero protect her city once. Ah, just thinking about it brings tears to my eyes. I'm so moved by myself.
V-Rex's tail swept across the ground. The "doll" left behind by the Doomsday Monster that had been hit by [Re-Freeze] was collected by the flexible grasping device attached to the tip of its tail. Then it raised its tail into a gentle slope, allowing the "doll" to slide from the tail tip down to its main body, where Ash picked it up and tossed it into the capsule container in his hand.
"Y-You... what did you do?!"
"What did I do? Isn't it obvious? I defeated the Doomsday Monster and restored peace to the world."
"Then what about this?!" Yell raised a hand and pointed at the ruins.
What is this supposed to be? I saw you destroy this building with my own eyes!
"Oh, you mean this? V-Rex trapped the Doomsday Monster with it earlier, so I made use of it. That Doomsday Monster should be crushed to death now, right?"
I scanned the place before firing. Everyone inside had definitely escaped. I'm so conscientious that people ought to give me a medal!
"You—" Hearing Ash's words, Hana flew into a rage and pointed at the ruins beside her. "There—there may not have been anyone inside, but that was still where people lived! You just let it be destroyed! How are they supposed to go home now?!"
"How is that my problem?" The DV Defender tapped against his shoulder with a crisp sound, while Ash's voice grew even more innocent. "Or are you one of those idiots who blame Ultraman whenever Ultraman and a monster fight, saying it's all Ultraman's fault the city got wrecked like that?"
"The monster was the one causing trouble. I defeated it as an ally of justice. Having to pay some price to defeat the enemy is already an expedient measure. People should be thanking me. Wouldn't it be stranger to blame me instead?"
"Besides, it's not like I wanted this. Nobody wanted this~"
"You—cough, cough, cough!" Her rising blood pressure made the increasingly furious Nono Hana unable to suppress her coughing. The other party's shameless voice filled her with rage, but when she thought about it carefully, what he said somehow seemed to make sense.
But even if he was right, did that really make it okay?
Nono Hana did not know. She only knew that she always tried her best to avoid things like this in battle, and she had been injured several times because of it.
"Besides—"
"Don't you have restoration powers? Just fix it."
Otherwise, why do you think I used a fighting style that would make Dragon furious and Mirai exasperated?
With such a convenient ability, wouldn't it be a waste not to use it?
"You kind of person—!"
Yell's sword was Time Fire's answer.
Pure white light flashed, and a fierce sword aura swept down. Battle instinct made Ash bend backward and evade it just before the slash could send him flying.
After passing him, the sword aura cut through three buildings in succession.
"Ah, look at that. You're getting angry at me, but even though everyone nearby had already evacuated, aren't you going too far?" Ash straightened himself while rubbing his waist. Sudden backbends were still not very good for the body.
"Ah!"
Realizing what she had done, Yell immediately reversed the Melody Holy Sword and drove its hilt into the ground beneath her feet. She activated the Tomorrow Energy within her, and the buildings damaged by Time Fire's earlier battle, along with the ones Yell herself had destroyed, were restored beneath streaming light.
"Doomsday Monster!" Along with them, something else was restored—the one Ash had previously thought had been crushed to death.
"Precure! Sacred Sword!"
She drew her sword, turned, and swung. Light flashed once more. The Doomsday Monster's ill-timed second appearance after escaping death was dispatched in a timely fashion. Amid screams within the light, the Doomsday Monster was completely vaporized.
"Hey! You!—Huh?"
Yell turned back, only to find that Time Fire and the giant mechanical dinosaur had already vanished.
After standing there blankly for a while, she finally realized that he had run away while she was restoring the city and destroying the Doomsday Monster.
"Waaaaah! Just you wait!"
The only thing that echoed through the empty buildings was Cure Yell's unwilling cry.
Side Story Case File 12: Searching for Nono Hana
The crimson battle suit flowed away from his body like water, finally surging into the V-Commander on his wrist amid a flash of light. Feeling refreshed after a fight, Ash held his neck and twisted it from side to side, producing crackling sounds that made one's whole body tingle.
Though I'm the kind of person who won't stand when I can sit, and won't lie down when I can sprawl, a little proper "exercise" is still pretty necessary.
"Sure enough, that surging, heated thrill of fighting heroes and strong opponents really gets me hard!"
Anyway, there's no other reason for me to stay.
"Recommendation: Due to the tight material of the Time Fire battle suit, the probability of Cure Yell noticing evidence of your erection during battle is—"
"No need to calculate that!"
The Super AI was good at everything, but because it was too intelligent, it could also be far too blunt. After all, the hearts of artificial intelligence and humans were quite different.
"I didn't expect her to forget all about me after just a little misdirection. That sword looked pretty strong, but its wielder was way too gullible. Seriously... who was that like again?"
Even with his selectively missing memories, Ash could still recall what his old friends looked like while fighting, but he easily forgot their names. What were the names of that Ultraman who always turned red and got beaten up, and his human host whose face practically said, I'm easy to fool?
"Based on your description, this unit infers that it is Zeta Ultraman and his human host, Haruki Natsukawa."
"Oh, Oss." Ash struck his left fist against his right palm, wearing an expression of sudden realization.
Though he could not quite remember the names, the catchphrase more deeply ingrained than the names themselves left a stronger impression on him.
"Correction: Haruki." V-Rex spoke up to correct Ash's casual habit of giving people nicknames.
"Forget it. Whether he's Oss or Ozu, change back first. That size makes you easy to spot." Ash patted V-Rex's head beneath him, producing a metallic clang, signaling it to transform back.
"Roger." After Ash jumped down, V-Rex's body began shrinking rapidly. There was no change in its mechanical structure; the mechanical dinosaur's built-in mass conversion device forcefully bent the laws of physics at this moment—sent them packing! The entire body shrank proportionately until V-Rex was the size of a DX toy that could stand on Ash's shoulder.
"Roar—"
After shrinking, V-Rex no longer spoke much human language. It roared at Ash, then hopped off toward the clinic on its own.
"All right, it's already noon. Where should I go to get something to eat?"
I'm a little hungry. I wonder if there's McDonald's or curry rice around... Hmm?
After releasing his Time Fire transformation, a powerful melody blared from the pocket of Ash's surgical white coat.
"Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo?!?—!"
The moment the intense dance music began, his body reacted instinctively before his brain could. His legs began moving on their own—crossing, jumping, spinning—together with his upper body to form a standard, passionate samba.
By the time Ash came to his senses, he was already holding his phone in one hand like a gun pointed at the sky, just short of shouting "fire."
"Ah, uh, why hasn't this thing been changed after all this time? Why do Earth's tunes work in this world too?"
He used complaints to ease the embarrassment of dancing passionately in public, while his eyes darted madly from side to side, searching the surroundings with an almost dead gaze for any possible witnesses.
If necessary, I can only perform some 'Class a memory erasure.'
After confirming that there was no living creature over ten pounds around except himself, Ash took out his phone.
"Hello, is this... Dr. Ash?"
A clear female voice came from the other end. Ash remembered her as well. She was Nono Hana's younger sister, Nono Kotori, whom he had met yesterday, now a university student.
"It's me. What is it, Miss Kotori? Hana doesn't want to take her medicine?" Thinking that this was the only possible reason she would call him, Ash asked in return.
"Dr. Ash..." Nono Kotori's voice on the other end sounded weak and hoarse, as though she had just barely escaped death.
"What happened?" Ash considered the possibilities. Had Nono Hana refused to take the medicine and gotten into an argument with Nono Kotori, leaving the latter to come to him for comfort? Or did she sound like this because she had caught a cold?
"I just tasted the medicine you gave my sister, and my tongue is still bitter and numb. It feels awful... What should I do?" The voice on the other end gradually took on a tearful edge. It was clear just how badly Ash's special medicine had messed Nono Kotori up.
Drool dripped onto the table from the tongue she had stuck out and was waving in the air. Nono Kotori was on the verge of tears. Apart from the lethal taste that felt like it would kill half of her, her tongue could no longer sense anything else.
"What about the sugar? Didn't I give your sister some sugar earlier?"
"I've already eaten almost half a bag of white sugar. It didn't help at all."
"That was specially refined fructose. If you can't take it, just go get the bag of sugar your sister has."
Hearing the thumping footsteps from the other end of the call, Ash could not help sighing. Young people these days really had no spirit for enduring hardship—physical hardship.
Just as he was thinking that, after a while, Kotori's miserable voice came through again.
"Um, Dr. Ash... My sister ran out right after she drank the medicine for some reason, and she forgot that the sugar bag was always hanging from her... So, Ash-sensei, do you have any more of that sugar?"
"Naidesu."
That sugar had been made from several pounds of sugar water he had painstakingly stirred by hand. How could it be mass-produced so conveniently?
"Huh?! Then—then doesn't that mean I...?"
No! I don't want to die from my sister's medicine because it was too bitter! That's such an embarrassing way to die! Big sis, how did you endure this?!
"There's nothing to be done, then. Anyway, this Kusunoha Juice is only good for the body, never harmful. Suffer a little, endure it, and it'll pass."
"No, Dr. Ash, save me—!"
"Honestly, as expected of sisters. This airhead trait really does run in the family." After hanging up, Ash muttered a complaint, then tapped the little head of V-Rex, which had returned at some point.
"V-Rex, help me find where Nono Hana is right now."
Still, Ash was somewhat concerned by Nono Hana suddenly running out. After all, he had specifically told her to rest properly at home and report to him regularly. Disobedient "children" who did not listen to doctors needed their butts spanked.
"She is at a café at 43 Yanagi District, Nursery City. She appears to be gathering with someone."
"She just got better, and she's already out partying? Is she that fearless?" Ash found it somewhat unbelievable. She had only escaped mortal danger a few days ago, and she was already out having fun. Was she unhappy that her body had recovered?
If that was the case, he really would have to learn from his medical teacher and give her a proper lesson.
"No, it is not the sort of party you are imagining. Based on the information this unit has obtained and intercepted Nursery City call records, it is more likely a tea party among close female friends or a class reunion."
Having searched through the entire planet's databases to enrich its computer chip in half a second, V-Rex unexpectedly possessed more common sense than its master.
"A class reunion, a tea party with girlfriends? She really is carefree." In Ash's own world, he had no classmates whose names he could remember, nor did he have anything like girlfriends. Unlike peers who spent every day agonizing over the wisdom of ordinary people and obsessing over meaningless things, the world he adored—a mixture of his heroes, technology, conviction, passion, and darkness—was vastly different.
People from other worlds had invited him to similar events under all kinds of banners, but after trying it once, Ash had dismissed such things with disdain. Activities whose appeal he completely failed to get were far less interesting than playing on his phone or closing his eyes and simulating a battle in his mind.
"In any case, Master, if you go there, you will definitely find her."
"That's enough. I'll go take a look."
Ash walked in the direction opposite his clinic, but after a short while, he returned to V-Rex. Seeing its master staring at it, even the Super AI could not analyze his intentions, and V-Rex tilted its steel dinosaur head.
"What is your purpose?"
"I didn't remember the address you just gave me. Tell me again."
Side Story Case File 13: What a Wonderful Gathering
In truth, Nono Hana's memory had been steadily deteriorating.
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