#another thing a person mentioned a long time ago when the ayumu chapter came out: senseis reaction to phoss new eye

[penebui]

heres a fun tip: reread hnk! if you read it once, great! now read it again!

hnk isn’t a manga that can be read only once, to fully comprehend it you’d have to reread it. You will miss certain foreshadowing/details in the first run, and even if it physically hurts to reread it (i know that feel) you should!

I am aware that the hiatus did set off a few things like the pacing (pacing was fast and sudden even before the hiatus, we just felt it more because of the long break), and a lot of things are left unexplored because of a shift in writing and storytelling OR they were addressed in the UNTRANSLATED Party at The End, as the bonus booklets help with additional character exploration, lore, and world building

[writingpaperghost]

Like Father, Like Daughter (Part 9)

A secret is revealed.

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22967815/chapters/81380860

It was a pleasant day, though perhaps a bit on the chilly side. The sun was out, but out in the way where it seemed to do little to warm anyone up. The weather had been becoming increasingly colder as the days went on. Overall, though, the day was rather pleasant. There were plenty of people out and about that day.

A perfectly normal, pleasant day.

Unless you were the Igaguri family, which was anything but normal, even on a good day. It was hard to call yourself a normal family when one member was known by the others to have been a host to the disaster known as Ultraman Zero and another was not known by the others, but still was also a host to the disaster known as Ultraman Zero. It was some degree of importance to note that Ultraman Zero was also apart of this family, but given that only one of them knew, at that exact moment, that he was present, it’s not terribly important information. At the moment, at least (it would be important later).

The point of it all was, it was a normal day, but the family that was currently indulging in it was not. It had been a while since the family had spent a day out together, between Leito’s work and Mayu’s school and after school activities – which had a few months ago grown to include Ultraman Zero and all that unfortunately came with him, alongside an entire baby – it had been hard to find time to spend all together as a family.

But this day together came with good timing, as to some extent Mayu was still reeling from the wild day she’d had a week or so ago, when the Alien Pitts had appeared, and she’d learned that her friend Ayumu – or Kurow – was not at all what he seemed. She hadn’t seen much of him since, he’d disappeared from school, which he hadn’t even done after Moa’s freak out. She thought she saw him out of the corner of her eyes, sometimes, but she was never sure.

She wondered if he had been avoiding her again. She wouldn’t be surprised. Though they’d had quite the argument, and then quickly made up, more or less, things had… Well in a way they’d changed. She knew he was an alien and they’d both made it clear just what extents they were willing to go for others. There wasn’t much more she could do for Kurow, though, not without him coming to her, or at least speaking with her.

It bugged her that he seemed to still be avoiding her, but today, she was choosing to set that aside. Other things she chose to ignore were Zero, to some extent, the fact that Riku had a little brother now, the looming threat of Emari, and whatever else came with Zero. Because as it turned out, when it came to Zero, you got stuck with a lot more than just an annoying voice in your head.

There was also the whole problem of how she was avoiding telling her parents about the whole Zero thing. Her dad had been Zero’s host once before, so it wasn’t like it would be all that complicated to explain. No, now the problem was she had avoided it for so long she had absolutely no clue how to tell them. That and she was running out of excuses to put it off much longer. She didn’t want to worry them, though she now worried that her change in behavior since Zero’s arrival has done just that.

How precisely did one tell their parents something like that anyway?

But today, she wasn’t going to worry about, not one bit. Or at least, she’d try not to. Knowing her luck, she probably wouldn’t succeed very much with that, but it was worth a shot. Though some of it had less to do with luck and more her increasing inability to keep calm about everything and not really worry about all of that.

Today would be, hopefully, a nice, relaxing day where she could just spend time with her parents. She felt that she wasn’t overstepping any boundaries in asking the universe that much. Then again, she’d been proven wrong before. With any luck, though, today would be relatively boring.

And by part way through the day, things were shaping up to look that way. Mayu and her parents had been enjoying themselves and were now sitting in a park. This was a different one than where Mayu usually went, a bit farther away. It had a cute sort of mascot, this huggable looking creature that was red and looked a bit spikey, but judging by the way children hugged it, it wasn’t. It held a bunch of balloons in its hand, giving them out to the children. Zero makes a sound when Mayu notices the mascot, but he doesn’t say anything else and Mayu doesn’t ask.

Her mom made lunch, as even Mayu knew that her dad wasn’t always the most coordinated and often dropped and spilled thing when he was trying to cook. Such was just the way that Leito was, a bit clumsy at times. Regardless, Lumina was a wonderful cook – though that was Mayu’s totally biased opinion – and even sandwiches seemed so much better when she made them. Zero offered a single comment on the matter, and it was simply that it was “certainly better than anything he could do”, which was not reassuring in regard to Zero’s cooking skills. Not that Mayu knew if Ultras even had to eat, it sure didn’t seem like it, as far as she could tell.

“So what’s this new friends of yours like?” Lumina asks as the family eats their lunch.

“My new friend?” Mayu wasn’t entirely sure what she meant. Could she be referring to something to do with Zero? Was her mom onto her and she didn’t even come close to realizing it? (Please don’t let it be that)

“You mentioned to your dad the other day about a friend. It didn’t sound like you were talking about Noa.” Her mother explained, prompting Mayu to breath a metaphorical sigh of relief. Lumina was probably just referring to Kurow. Mayu could work with that.

She takes a moment to consider how to describe Kurow, in a way that doesn’t involve mentioning he’s an alien. Which is a lot harder than one might think, given she’s known him about as long thinking he was a human now as she had knowing he wasn’t. “Ku-Ayumu’s… Quiet, I guess. I mean, he doesn’t really talk.” She finally began explaining, hoping neither of her parents noticed her near slip up. After all, they still needed to think he was a relatively normal human teenaged boy. “I’d say we get along pretty well. We’re classmates, but we didn’t really interact with each other until we were paired up for a project together.”

“We’re glad that you’ve made a friend other than Noa,” Leito smiles, “I know you’re happy with the friends you have, but it doesn’t hurt to make more.”

It wasn’t the first time that Mayu had heard similar things from her parents. To some extent, she understood where they were coming from, given her dismal amount of friends. But on the other hand, she was quite happy with the number of friends she had. Even Kurow’s status as her friends was up in the air, not that her parents needed to know that.

“Yeah, I know,” Mayu sighs, “Though, you know, I like the friends I have.” Which was a nice way of asking them to please stop saying things like that every time she mentions a new person. There’s a sound in the back of her head that she recognizes to be because of Zero, but she once again chooses to ignore it. If he has something to say, he’ll be able to get her to listen, it’s not exactly like she can stop him from talking.

It’d be possible – and understandable – to notice that Mayu has been a bit… short with Zero, lately. It’s not so much to do with him as it is to do with her general tiredness about… well nearly everything, at this point. She was tired of all the crazy things, of worrying about what might happen. After everything that had happened with Kurow before, she just didn’t know what else to do. Zero wasn’t directly responsible for any of it, but every time he spoke up, she was reminded about it. Reminded that she probably wouldn’t be dealing with all of it if he hadn’t come along. (She’s not mad, she’s not upset… She’s not sure what she is.)

She’s grateful for what he’s done for her, but at this point she’s teetering on the edge of apathy and isn’t entirely sure what to do with herself to try to fix it. Or, as a matter of fact, if it could even be fixed at all. She’d gotten fairly good at tuning Zero out during class, so she just started doing that the rest of the time. A part of her was relieved to have managed to trick itself into thinking she finally had peace of mind, the other part felt a bit bad about it. She was aware it was rather rude; she just couldn’t figure out a better way to deal with things.

Zero, to his credit, didn’t seem to be terribly upset. Either because he didn’t care, or because he was very good at hiding it. Mayu wasn’t sure which would be worse.

Though back to the matter at hand, regardless of how Mayu felt about her parents in regards to her friends, her parents seemed happy. Leito, though, was the one to pose the next question, “Did the two of you make up? You mentioned before you had an argument.”

That was a good question. Too bad Mayu wasn’t entirely sure of the answer herself. It would be easy to lie and just say yes, but Mayu didn’t really like lying to her parents. That and she was a terrible liar. She understood that Kurow was trying his best, but he’d probably never act exactly like a human. That was okay, he didn’t have to. But his whole thing with half having emotions, mostly the negative ones, probably wasn’t good. Mayu had more or less forgiven him, but had he forgiven her? It was hard to say, given he’d been avoiding her, probably. She was inclined to say he hadn’t, but Kurow worked in mysterious ways that she didn’t understand. Has he actually been avoiding her, or was it something else? Who knows?

“I guess,” She finally answered, after her deliberation, “He’s been busy so we haven’t seen each other much since. But I guess we have.”

Her mother frowned but didn’t comment. Once more, it was Leito who spoke, “Well, I’m sure it’ll clear up eventually.” Mayu wasn’t as sure, but she didn’t say that to him. Kurow was a degree of her social life that her parents didn’t need to know the details about. (The fact that the details about Kurow were only known by Mayu, Zero, Noa, and to some lesser extent, Moa, was not necessarily important at the moment – nor would it really be important until a bit later. There were quite a few things that were not important at this moment but would become important sooner or later.)

They returned to their peace, talking about one thing or another. Mayu doesn’t recall what exactly, mostly because her attention was, rather rudely, pulled towards something else. This attention stealing was, of course, performed by Zero, who called her attention towards something or other outside her vision.

“Mayu,” He called and, to his credit, he did sound concerned. Still, Mayu couldn’t say she was happy that something was interrupting her day with her parents. She can’t see what Zero sees, but she figured that with how quiet Zero’s been all day, it’s probably important, no matter how annoyed by it she is. “It looks like there someone unusual over there.”

Doing her very best to conceal her frown, Mayu responds, “Whatever you’re seeing, Zero, it’s too far away for me to see.”

“I’m… realizing that,” He comments, “Well it looks like there’s some suspicious guy.”

“How descriptive,” Responding dryly, Mayu wondered if it was too late to go back to bed, “Anything else? Like an actual cause for concern?”

“You’re not taking me seriously are you?”

“’Suspicious’,” Mayu began, “Is not necessarily a cause for concern.” If they worried this much about every suspicious person they saw, they probably wouldn’t get much done.

“I just have a really bad feeling, alright?”

Mayu held in a sigh, “I don’t think a feeling’s enough to-“ Unfortunately for Mayu, she wasn’t exactly able to finish her thought, as out of the sky appeared some kind of robot. A rather large one.

The robot resembled a dinosaur or lizard of some kind. In place of hands were pincer like appendages, with another attached to the end of its tail. Primarily, it was colored white, with small amounts of black and gold here and there. At the center of its chest was a bright glowing red light, the same as the one in its eyes.

“What is that?” Mayu couldn’t help but say out loud. In the distance, she could hear screams.

Her parents looked at the robot, surprised. But there was something else on Leito’s face. Not entirely surprise, there was a glimmer of something that wasn’t exactly fear, but was close. (That was far more scary than any monster that had appeared so far.)

As the three stood up, Zero gives the answer to her question, “Galactron,”

“We should-“ Leito began, “We need to go. Obviously.”

Lumina spared him a worried glance, something wasn’t quite right about it either. It was like there was something here, something to do with Galactron that Mayu didn’t know about. She’d ask, but the mere presence of something like Galactron made it not a good time for that. Besides, she still needed to figure out how to how to get away from her parents in the least worrisome way possible, so Zero could go fight this robot. She wasn’t sure if it was because of the way her parents were reacting or what, but somehow, she didn’t think that Geed would be able to handle Galactron on his own. (She’d been proven wrong before.)

“We’ve fought Galactron before,” Zero began and it doesn’t take Mayu long to figure out that “we” probably meant him, Leito, and Geed. “It was the day that we got the Ultra Capsules for Zero Beyond. Leito had been in danger, and I had to protect him. For a moment, I think we’d both thought I’d died.” There’s something solemn there, in Zero admitting that even he was capable of actually dying. That there had been a time when he’d thought he had. (That Zero could have died ten years ago and everything from that day on would have been totally different. What would that world be like?) That Zero had felt that he’d rather die and protect Leito than anything else. Yet Zero sounded a bit… off, as he spoke. A bit quieter. “But that was the moment that I think Leito really understood what it was all about. I knew, when I felt his conviction, that it couldn’t be the end, that we had to do more.”

He didn’t say it directly, but Mayu understood. That was how Zero Beyond had first happened, after they both held the thought, the fear that Zero was dead. That sort of thing wouldn’t happen again (not here, not with her) but it wouldn’t need to. He already had Zero Beyond and whatever else he had access to, with Geed’s help, no one had to nearly die.

“But what do we do?” Mayu couldn’t help but wonder. She hadn’t meant to think it in a way that Zero could hear, but she realized too late that she had. Mayu wasn’t her father, far from it.

“Well we fight Galactron, hopefully Geed will be here soon,” Zero answered, “We probably shouldn’t waste any more time, though.”

Therein lied the problem, though. Her parents were right there, about to move, to get as far away from Galactron as possible. The logical thing to do, if you didn’t have an Ultra hanging out in your head. The solution to the problem was obvious (goodness did she hate it though).

Shouldn’t waste any more time. Hah.

“So, this is… not ideal,” Mayu finally said, though a lot less time had passed then it felt like. Conversations with Zero could be strange like that (She was getting too used to it). “Um, but like. Galactron.” She gestures towards the robot, which hasn’t started moving yet, but still stood imposingly. Then Geed shows up, a moment later, and Galactron begins to move.

Leito looks surprised that Mayu even knew the name of the robot. She continues, pulling out the Ultra Zero Eye, “Um, Zero says hi, by the way,” Then she adds, as an awkward addendum to an already awkward conversation, “Probably.”

The last thing she hears before Zero takes over and transforms is Leito gasping, “What?”. Then, there becomes more pressing matters. Like the robot that was currently trying to squish Geed. Geed was in a primarily blue and white form, which Zero helpfully supplied as being called Acro Smasher. Dodging out of the way of Galactron’s tail once more, both Geed and Galactron notice that Zero has now arrived, skipping straight to Zero Beyond.

“Zero!” Geed notes, clearly happy that Zero had arrived, “Er, Mayu’s probably annoyed about this, huh?” Annoyed was an understatement, but at least Zero didn’t comment on it. (If he had, Mayu would probably figure out a way to strangle him.)

Instead, Zero turns to face Galactron, “Sorry, Galactron,” He then points at the robot, “But you’re twenty thousand years too early to beat me!”

Galactron did not take too kindly to such a boast. One of its hands switches to a blade and it lunges towards Zero, slashing. Zero dodges out of the way and retaliates by punching it. Geed comes in, switching forms to one that had similar markings and colors to Zero, but also very large horns. Magnificent, Zero provides, briefly.

Mayu has a feeling that it’s probably the form that uses Zero’s Ultra Capsule, given the similarities. She doesn’t know much about any other Ultras, but she imagines that if she saw the other Ultra whose capsule was used in this fusion, she’d probably be able to tell. She really doubted that many Ultras had that big of horns. Or horns at all, probably.

Between Geed and Zero, they’re probably making good headway into defeating Galactron, it’s only been a minute-ish so they still quite a bit of time even if they weren’t. After another attempt at shooting at the pair, and another attempt at grabbing one of them with its braid thing – it only succeeded in grabbing a piece of a building – Galactron stops, a good distance away from the two Ultras. The light in its chest begins to glow.

“What’s that?” Mayu asks hesitantly, though she’s often found that such glowing things are never good. Some part of her was hoping that this was an exception (It’s not).

“Geed!” Zero called out, quickly and clearly concerned, “Don’t let that beam finish charging! Remember what happened last time!”

Mayu wasn’t sure if she wanted to know what happened last time. Still, she asked. Zero response was plain and simple, “I nearly died,” he said.

Mayu didn’t want to know anymore. (She was too scared to.)

Switching forms once more, this time to one that was gold and purple and had a cape, plus some kind of weapon, Geed attacks Galactron with what was clearly much effort. His goal was clearly to stop it, one way or another. Zero threw several of his Sluggers at it, but Galactron seemed unphased, its beam still charging.

Zero grumbled as both his and Geed’s timers began to blink and beep. Hesitantly, Mayu offered up her suggestion, in the same way someone who recognizes that they don’t know much about what’s going on would, “Maybe you need to try something else?”

“Something else?” Zero repeats, “Maybe another form.”

It shouldn’t surprise Mayu that Zero has another form other than his main one and Zero Beyond. Zero continues, “Yeah, let’s try Strong Corona and see if we can’t knock some sense into this guy.” Mayu doesn’t know what “Strong Corona” is, nor does she know if it’ll be more effective against Galactron than Beyond. Zero returns to his normal form, then, with a shine of his bracelet, changes. His actually body doesn’t really change, just his colors. Now, he’s entirely red, with gold and silver accents, his Sluggers now gold.

With a swift kick to the chest, Galactron is sent flying into a nearby building. Mayu cringes at the damage, but supposes it’s probably better than whatever would happen if it fired its beam. Whatever the change that Strong Corona brings, it seems to be doing better than Zero had been with Beyond. Zero wastes no time in rushing towards Galactron, with Geed following not long after. Zero follows up with a punch, and Geed attacks with his weapon – Mayu still isn’t sure what to call it.

With a double attack of the two Ultras’ finishing attacks, Galactron begins to spark. Zero turns away, because he thinks he’s a cool guy and cool guys don’t look at explosions. Then, behind him, Galactron explodes.

“How many action movies have you watched?” Mayu couldn’t help but ask.

“That’s not important,” Zero answer and while it’s a non-answer, it is, in itself, an answer. The answer being “probably way too many”.

In a flash, Mayu finds herself not to far from where she’d been when Zero transformed. She looks around, then notices her parents running towards her. Oh boy, this was probably not going to be a fun conversation.

“Mayu!” She hears Leito say, before the two arrive and Mayu finds herself in a hug. As nice as hugs are, she can’t help but find herself still dreading the inevitable conversation.

“How long has Zero been here?” Lumina asks, even though all three of them know the answer. Well, four if you count Zero himself.

Mayu gives a shrug, because she knows that they know the answer. “I’ve been… meaning to say something,” She says and she really does feel bad about keeping it from them, “I just… wasn’t sure how. And then it kept feeling like it would be really awkward and weird and just seeming like it would be more and more so. But this is also awkward and weird and terrible and so that didn’t really help much either way and-“

“Breathe,” Leito says, rubbing her back, “It’s… It’s alright, Mayu. We were worried, but…”

“If anyone will manage to keep you safe,” Lumina laughs lightly, “It would be Zero.” She gives Mayu a pat on the head and a mischievous look, “You should have heard him, back when he was with Leito. He was really fond of you.”

“Oh no…” Zero sounds a mix of mortified and nervous. Mayu really wanted to hear what her mom meant by that.

“What do you mean?”

It was Leito’s turn to laugh, “Oh yeah, what was it?” He wonders aloud, before parroting what was clearly something Zero had once said, “’Nobody hurts my daughter’?”

“Leito please,” Zero pleads, even though Leito can’t hear him. “My dignity. Mayu still thinks I’m cool.”

“I haven’t thought you were cool in months, Zero.”

Leito releases Mayu from the hug with a chuckle. He puts his hand on Mayu’s shoulder and says, “Alright, I think that’s all been enough excitement for today. Let’s head home.��

Mayu laughs a little and nods, “Yes please!”

---

Elsewhere in the park, the mascot, named Masami, looks around. Today hadn’t been terribly unusual, up until that robot had showed up. But that wasn’t what was bugging him. There’d been a family that had shown up, they had an older girl, a teenager, so they hadn’t come close. But Masami could tell there was something off about… Well one of the members, they were too far away for him to tell for sure.

It kind of reminded Masami of his friend, ‘Boshi’s, friend, who he didn’t know the name of. But Masami wasn’t sure.

On a similar topic, Masami should probably see about getting in contact with ‘Boshi soon, they hadn’t talked in a long time and… Masami had kind of forgotten that he was supposed to keep in touch with him. Well, it probably wasn’t a big deal, all things considered. ‘Boshi and the person he was working with were probably too busy to really notice that it had been months since Masami last was in contact with them.