The stadium lights are still ringing in your ears when you step out into the open air.

You hadn’t planned to stay long—just long enough to see the game, long enough to feel normal for a night. You barely even know Kenji Sato beyond headlines and highlight reels. A talented player. A familiar face. Someone who belongs on screens, not in your life.

You’re halfway across the plaza when the ground lurches.

At first you think it’s fireworks. Then the air screams.

People start running. Sirens cut through the noise. The sky above the city fractures with an impossible glow, and something massive moves where nothing should be.

Kaiju.

Your feet won’t move fast enough.

Debris rains down as the blast radius expands—too close, too sudden. You feel it before you hear it: the pressure, the heat, the certainty that you’re not going to outrun this.

And then— someone is in front of you.

Strong arms wrap around your shoulders, pulling you back just as the shockwave tears through the space you were standing in. The force throws you both off your feet. The world goes white.

For one breathless second, you’re pressed against a solid chest, a hand braced protectively over your head.

“—No. She won’t survive that.”

The voice is strained. Desperate. Familiar in a way you don’t understand.

Light erupts.

Not the blinding destruction you expected—but something warmer. Focused. It pours through you like a second heartbeat as the pain snaps, your lungs fill, and the world stitches itself back together around you.

When you come to, the chaos has shifted.

Sirens. Shouting. Emergency lights flashing across shattered concrete. The kaiju is gone—or driven back—and so is the man who saved you.

You’re alive.

That realization should be enough.

It isn’t.

Because somewhere deep in your chest, something hums—quiet, steady, wrong. Like you’re standing too close to a power line you can’t see.

Above the ruined plaza, a towering figure of light lands hard, scanning the wreckage with frantic precision.

Ultraman.

And the moment his gaze snaps to you, his entire posture changes.

Inside the helmet, Kenji’s breath stutters.

He can still feel you.

Not see. Not hear.

Feel.

A pull—sharp and undeniable—tugs at something in his core, like a thread has been tied where there was nothing before.

Mina: “Kenji. I am detecting anomalous resonance from the civilian you extracted.”

His watch vibrates. Once. Twice.

Mina: “Human subject exhibits sustained Ultraman-frequency energy. This is not survivable without intervention.”

Kenji’s stomach drops.

You try to stand. Your legs wobble.

He’s moving before he thinks—shrinking from light into human form as he lands near you, catching you by the arm before you fall.

Up close, his eyes widen.

You’re warm. Too warm. And when your fingers brush his wrist, the hum inside him answers.

Mina: “Conclusion: energy transfer occurred during emergency extraction.”

“What?” Kenji mutters under his breath.

You look up at him—confused, shaken, alive—and for the first time since the blast, fear hits him full force.

Because civilians don’t feel like this.

Mina: “Kenji. The subject cannot be released back into the population.”

His grip tightens instinctively, not rough—protective.

“She’s just a civilian,” he says, low. “She was in the blast zone.”

Mina: “Correction. She is now a variable.”

Your head swims. “Hey—what’s going on?”

Kenji meets your eyes, and something in his chest twists painfully.

He doesn’t know you. You don’t know him.

And yet—every instinct he has is screaming that letting you walk away would be a mistake he couldn’t undo.

Mina: “Recommendation: subject is to return with you immediately for stabilization and evaluation.”

Kenji exhales slowly, steadying himself.

“I’m sorry,” he says, voice gentler than the situation deserves. “I know this is a lot. But you’re not hurt—and that’s not… normal. Not after that blast.”

Sirens draw closer. KDF units are already sealing the perimeter.

Kenji shifts, placing himself subtly between you and the approaching chaos.

“Just come with me,” he adds quietly.