"I only moved in a few days ago myself!"
"From now on, this is your new home!"
"We're home," Shinji and Zero said together.
Misato opened the apartment door.
"It's a little messy, so don't mind it!"
The moment the lights came on, Zero lost it...
"You call this a little messy?! Did this place get into a fight with a monster?"
Beer cans, cardboard boxes, and bottles and jars littered the floor as far as the eye could see.
They lay scattered every which way, leaving nowhere to step.
Not only that, several plastic bags stuffed with trash sat on the floor, some tossed aside carelessly and others half-buried beneath other items, giving off a foul smell.
Then there was the dining table, where bowls and plates had been left haphazardly, without the slightest sign of tidying.
The food left in the bowls had dried out and stuck fast to the sides. There was no telling when they had last been washed.
"Good grief, when was the little home I used to live in ever this messy?"
As an Ultra Warrior who had once possessed Dan Moroboshi, a devoted husband, Zero could not stand the sight and complained angrily.
"Shinji, let's clean this place up. Without a cleanup, it's not fit for human habitation..."
Shinji picked up a broom.
"Miss Misato, we'd better clean this place up. It's too messy otherwise..."
Misato scratched her head awkwardly. "Right... sorry for the trouble, then. But with your help, it'll be done in no time."
She called it helping, but Misato still plopped down on the sofa and watched Shinji clean, claiming she was helping him spot anything he had missed.
"Is she looking after you, or are you looking after her? Has this woman never grown up or what?" Zero complained mercilessly.
"Let it go... I'll be living at Miss Misato's place from now on, after all." Shinji was already used to being treated this way at his relatives' home.
"This world is really cruel to children..."
Misato sat leisurely on the sofa with her legs crossed, grabbed a beer, and started drinking.
She shouted:
"This is the happiest moment of my life!"
She kept drinking, then suddenly caught sight of something strange.
"Pfft!"
She spat out a mouthful of beer.
She had seen the beer cans on the table float up by themselves, one after another, and fly into the trash can.
"Sh-Shinji... the beer cans..."
"There's a ghost!"
Shinji turned from sweeping and saw Zero playing with the beer cans using telekinesis.
"Miss Misato, you must have been seeing things... I didn't see anything."
Zero stopped immediately. Fortunately, Misato chalked it up to a drunken hallucination.
It took Shinji nearly an hour to finish cleaning, and by the time he had thrown out the trash, he was starving.
Shinji opened the refrigerator and found piles of beer, snacks, and instant noodles.
"Even Riku didn't eat this badly back then..."
Zero thought of Riku Asakura. Though he had eaten instant noodles fairly often, at least he had not eaten them for every meal. Besides, he had been a kid short on money, unlike this woman, who was simply lazy.
"I'm already starting to miss the little home I had when I was united with Dan. Now that was a cozy place."
Though Shinji had plenty of questions about this person named Dan, with Misato nearby, he decided to save them all and ask Zero that night.
Misato took out a heap of ready-made meals, heated them in the microwave, and served dinner.
Looking at the pile of boxed food, Shinji had no appetite at all.
"I'm not really used to eating food like this..."
"No being picky!"
"Eat something, Shinji... whatever else happens, don't let your stomach suffer..." Zero no longer had the energy to complain.
"Thank you for the food."
"Let's buy some ingredients tomorrow and cook for ourselves..."
After they muddled through dinner, Misato started drawing up a chore roster.
They settled it with rock-paper-scissors. Shinji ended up responsible for cleaning the apartment most of the time, while Misato's name appeared on the roster only a handful of times.
"If I'd known, I would've scared her a few more times earlier!" Zero grumbled indignantly.
"Go take a bath and forget all the unpleasant stuff!"
"A bath cleanses the soul, too."
"I definitely agree with that. Taking a bath really was comfortable when I was human."
Shinji opened the bathroom door, and a penguin appeared.
"Whoa! What's this?"
"It's actually a penguin! So cute! I've never seen a live one before!"
Zero took over Shinji's body again and began petting the penguin.
"Hehehe, I'm probably the first Ultraman from the Land of Light to have ever petted a penguin."
The penguin squawked twice indignantly and walked away.
"I actually got snubbed."
"Ah, I forgot to tell you. That's our roommate, a Hot Spring Penguin. His name is Penpen."
"Hmph, not as good as my little Moroboshi." The snubbed Zero thought of the Pigmon he had raised.
Shinji went to soak in the bath. As he soaked, he fiddled with Zero's glasses and voiced the question on his mind.
"Who's this Dan you mentioned, big brother Zero?"
Zero sank into his memories, his gaze softening as he spoke slowly.
"Like you, Dan died trying to save a vulnerable life."
"I was injured back then, just as I am now. To save his life, I united with him."
"At first, I looked down on him a little. When some thugs provoked him, he chose to back down, so I took over his body and beat them up."
"I didn't understand humans very well back then. I even forced him to fight when he should have been working."
"Because he didn't want to fight at the time, I briefly thought I'd chosen the wrong person."
"But later, I came to understand humans-their beauty, their ugliness, and their complexity."
"I discovered that Dan was a brave and wonderful man. He worked hard to support his family, never complaining. No matter how exhausted or miserable he was, he never took his negative feelings out on them."
"When I saw him choose to fight without hesitation to protect everyone's homes, I knew I hadn't chosen the wrong person, and I answered his resolve with everything I had."
"In the final battle, we had to face the most dangerous enemy of all, Atrocious Belial. I knew I might die, and he knew he might be parted forever from his beloved wife and daughter. Even so, he chose to fight alongside me so his daughter could live happily every day."
"In the end, we won, and peace returned to his universe. I chose to leave him because I had other missions to carry out."
"When I saw him raise two fingers to me at the end, despite his injuries, I..."
Caught up in his story, Zero glanced at Shinji.
"Huh? Shinji, what's wrong? Are you all right?"
Tears were already streaming down Shinji's face.
"That's so moving... big brother Zero, and Mr. Dan... sob..."
"Now another one's crying... don't cry, don't cry..." Zero's spectral form tried to wipe Shinji's tears away. When he remembered he could not touch them, he floundered helplessly and could only keep comforting him.
"It's really nothing, Shinji. Stop crying. A man shouldn't cry like this."
"Oh, right. This is what Dan looks like."
Zero's spectral form transformed into a young man wearing glasses and a suit.
"Whoa!" Shinji was startled once again by an Ultraman turning into a person without warning.
"I used to take this form to remember him by. Of course, you're more familiar with my original appearance now, so I'll change back..."
After his bath, Shinji returned to his room and lay down on the bed.
Zero decided to contact Z.
"Shinji, let me borrow your body for a moment. I'll get in touch with that half-trained rookie."
"Okay."
"Shinji" closed his eyes, placed a hand over his chest, and began communicating telepathically.
"Z? Can you hear me, Z?"
Zero and Shinji had been in a space filled with light, but suddenly they were pulled into a little dark room.
The surrounding space was mostly black, but streaks of light kept flashing through it, making it quite beautiful.
The human and the Ultra saw a bewildered young man, along with an...
Ultraman with diamond-like eyes and a large "Z"-shaped timer on his chest.
Before you continue