Disclaimer: Ultraman and all associated characters belong to Tsuburaya Productions. No infringement of any of the rights of the creators or distributors is intended. This fanfic may only be distributed with explicit permission from the author and without any monetary value exchanged.


Splintered Secrets

an Ultraman Moebius fanfic by Hoshikage

Chapter 5.


Moebius's outstretched hand dissolved, the fingers streaming away into bits of light.

Ryuu looked around wildly for his gun to try and shoot the bands again, at the same time yelling frantically, "Do something!"

The arm splintered along the lines of red and silver and faded away.

Marina was crouched on the floor, hands clutched to her ears, trying to block out the terrible screaming. George was staggering blindly in the harsh light from the globe, his eyes streaming tears. Teppei was wrenching at the levers frantically. "They're stuck, it won't turn off--"

The chest was gone.

Ryuu made a grab for the bands again, but this time he couldn't even get close before he was flung away by the wild power. He looked around frantically. "Isn't there a power plug we can pull or something?" But he saw that the Captain had already thought of that and was wrenching at the wiring, but nothing he could do seemed to be of any use. He turned and ran for George, wresting his gun away from him, and ran back, just in time to see the silver mask dissolving, see the glowing eyes go dead and dark before the last tiny piece left exploded into sparks. The screaming stopped.

And then something exploded, and the crystals suddenly went dark, before Ryuu could even shoot. He blinked, staring as a last few fitful sparks of light drifted for a moment in the air and then fell lightly back onto Mirai's still body, extinguishing as they touched his skin. He glanced behind him, and saw Teppei staring at the control surface he'd been wrestling with as it burned, flames and sparks spitting from its surface as smoke curled into the air. Konomi fell to her knees, tears flowing down her face, her gun still held out and aimed at the control panel.

A heavy silence fell upon the room.

Ryuu dropped the gun and reached for a band again. This time the crystal was gray and silent, and as he touched it, nothing happened. He yanked, and the crystal shattered around his hand, as fragile and delicate as spun glass now that there was no power sustaining it. The Captain abandoned the wiring and came to help him, and in moments they had smashed the crystal into shards and Ryuu was free to gather Mirai into his arms.

He turned, then stopped again, helplessly. He didn't know what to do. Mirai was heavy and still in his arms, limbs dangling limply, lifeless as a broken puppet. Ryuu's thoughts kept tripping over what he'd seen. Mirai was Ultraman. It explained everything. He stopped his thoughts in their tracks before he could remember all the stupid little clues he'd seen and hadn't wanted to think about. He choked out, "Marina..."

She was already back on her feet and coming toward him. This time she had to lay her head on Mirai's chest, closing her eyes to listen. Ryuu barely breathed either, waiting frozen for her response.

Marina bit her lip and lifted her head. "I... I can hear his heartbeat, but... it's fading. He's dying."

"Why?" Ryuu groaned, as everyone else closed in, helplessly crowding close as though merely standing nearby would help. "Why, if all he did was... separate Ultraman from... from Mirai..."

The Captain shook his head regretfully. "Ryuu... there is no Mirai. There never was. Ultraman Moebius... he made that body."

Ryuu stared at him. He'd known. Of course... he'd known. Anger rose in him again, but he had no idea who to direct it at. Mirai for keeping the secret? The Captain for knowing what he hadn't? Himself?

He turned again, staring at the globe of light. Taller than a man, it swirled with violent currents of energy, and somehow in their twisting, writhing patterns Ryuu thought he saw pain. He clenched his jaw. Somehow, Ultraman Moebius was in there, in some form. Rent apart into pure energy perhaps, but without that energy Mirai would die.

He stepped closer. His best friend in the world... and all along he'd been lying with a smiling face.

"You don't get to die yet," Ryuu hissed under his breath. "You don't get off that easy from me!"

"Ryuu, what are you doing?" he heard a gasp from behind him. He didn't even pay enough attention to identify who it was. All he cared about was that in that globe was the energy he needed to get back. He took a deep breath, clutched Mirai tighter in his arms, and hurled himself forward, right into the globe.

"Ryuu!" someone screamed.

And then there was nothing but light.

*
Ryuu had expected pain. He'd braced himself against it, closed his eyes the instant before he passed through the outer shell of the swirling globe. And for an instant he was right. The light seared him, blinding him even through his closed eyelids, setting every nerve afire. But he didn't even have time to breathe enough to scream before the pain was suddenly gone.

Ryuu blinked his eyes open unsteadily, but all he saw was light. It flowed in every direction, patterns like waves and ripples roiling through the currents of red and silver light. Ryuu could see himself, see Mirai who still lay lifelessly in his arms, though now he seemed to weigh nothing. But there was no ground, no solid surroundings; Ryuu stood as steadily as if he were on stone, but could feel nothing beneath his feet. There was no curving wall of the globe visible, no boundary of the light; it seemed to stretch into infinity.

Ryuu looked up and behind him, trying to see anything he could make sense of, but nothing but more patterns of light met his gaze. Then as he looked forward again, he started.

Another figure stood opposite from him, one that had not been there a moment before. Glowing eyes stared steadily at his, set into a silver head that swept up on either side into curving horns. A cape flowed in the light as though in a strong wind, sweeping back from silver shoulders. In his red arms he held Ultraman Moebius, cradling him in a mirror image of how Ryuu held Mirai. Ryuu stared. The emblem on Moebius' chest was dull and dark, not even blinking with a hint of red, and his eyes were just as gray and lightless.

Ryuu stood frozen, with no idea what to do. The other Ultraman - because clearly he had to be one, though Ryuu didn't recognize him at all, and he stood no taller than Ryuu himself - just stared at him steadily for a long moment, though Ryuu felt strangely that no time was actually passing, that it was stretching in impossible ways while he stood in this bizarre space. He swallowed and stared back. The blank glowing gaze was somehow measuring, though Ryuu had no idea what it was searching for. He clutched Mirai more tightly against his shoulder, reflexively, as though the tiny gesture would somehow prove his good intentions.

From behind the unknown Ultraman, another figure appeared, slipping to the side to stand by him. This one was clearly female, curving and slim, and instead of horns, her head bore silver curved shapes on the side of the head like fins, or perhaps furled wings. Ryuu just watched silently. He couldn't even think of anything to say, anything to ask, overwhelmed with the feeling that he was seeing something that no human had been intended to see.

The two Ultra looked at each other, excluding Ryuu for a moment from their unreadable glowing gaze. And then they turned back to him, and the Ultraman with the cape and horns stretched out his arms. Moebius floated from his grasp, hanging motionless in the space between Ryuu and the other Ultraman, who then merely lowered his arms and waited.

Ryuu swallowed, then slowly, uncertainly, lifted his own arms. He felt nothing, no invisible hands that took Mirai from him, but Mirai floated limp from his grasp and toward the still image of Moebius. As the two bodies touched there was a flash of light, and they overlapped, melding into each other before the image of Mirai faded completely into Moebius, leaving only the Ultraman form behind. Ryuu felt his hands clench into fists and he almost turned, almost tried to fling himself out of the light and back out of the globe. So that's how it is...

He stopped as he saw the other two Ultra move. They lifted their hands, palms up, and the swirling currents of light all around them suddenly redirected, sweeping up into a twisting spiral overhead, like a miniature galaxy of light. Ryuu stared up at the light, watching as a tendril of light slowly stretched down and lightly touched the dull gem on Moebius' chest.

The dark eyes flared with sudden light.

As if some tension had been suddenly released, the light swept down in a rush, cascading in a torrent of brilliance into Moebius' chest. Ryuu squinted against the light, trying to see, but all he could see was a vague shape, Moebius' back arching as if in pain. The light grew brighter, blinding, and Ryuu had to turn away, had to put a hand over his eyes to shield them. He heard Mirai cry out -

Except it couldn't be Mirai. But the voice... it was the same.

Ryuu turned back and blindly pushed his way forward, his hands outstretched. He felt a hand grab his, even though he could see nothing, and then all at once the light died away and suddenly Ryuu was standing with Mirai in his arms again, blinking in the darkness. He stared ahead at first, trying to make his eyes adjust, before he realized that it wasn't darkness he saw, but emptiness. The two Ultra that had been there were gone.

He looked down, and started, realizing belatedly that it wasn't Mirai he held after all, but Ultraman Moebius. The red and silver form was curled in on itself, face buried in Ryuu's shoulder, trembling as though still in pain. Ryuu swallowed. "Mirai..." The words echoed strangely, hollow and faint in a way that rang more inside his head than in his ears.

Moebius stopped shivering, and began to uncurl, revealing the gem in his chest was still bright blue. Slowly the head lifted, the glowing eyes hesitantly raising to look at him. Ryuu-san... he heard ringing in his mind, and it was all the same. The voice he knew, the way he looked up at Ryuu sorrowfully, that same kicked puppy look Mirai used to give Ryuu after a joke except with glowing faceted eyes instead of warm brown. Ryuu dropped his head. He might have wanted to think that the Captain was wrong, before, when he said there was no Mirai. Not anymore. Now he believed.

It had always been Ultraman, every moment, every word. Ryuu felt like he wanted to mourn, wanted to feel sorrow for the Mirai he'd known that was gone. But he wasn't gone, even though things could never be the same...

More like, he'd never really been there to start with, just an illusion that everyone had wanted to believe in...

The glowing eyes dropped again. Ryuu-san, I...

Suddenly Ryuu didn't want to hear whatever was going to come next. "Idiot," he said, his words ringing hollowly again. "Let's go back already, everyone must be out of their minds with worry."

He had no idea how to do that, but it didn't matter. No sooner had the words formed than something hit him and shoved, and he was clutching only emptiness as he fell...

*
Marina didn't have time to do anything but panic. She didn't even have time to realize that Ryuu was going to do the insane, impossible thing before he'd done it, leaped straight into the globe and disappeared, leaving the rest of them staring stunned and helpless at the roiling energy currents.

She wanted to scream. He and Mirai - Ultraman - no, whoever, it didn't matter - were both lost, gone, leaving the rest of them behind, the ones who'd never wanted to be part of this crazy life to begin with. But she couldn't, she could only stare, clutching at Konomi in horror.

And before the moment of paralysis released any of them, the light inside the globe suddenly imploded in on itself, sucking into the center of the globe and disappearing. And just as it did, the shell of the globe distorted, and then suddenly Ryuu and Mirai were flung back out, as though they'd been hurled from the inside with terrible force. Marina staggered backwards as she and Konomi found Mirai suddenly falling limply on top of them, but although she tried to catch herself, she fell backwards and landed on her rear, taking Konomi and Mirai with her so they all fell in a heap. The others fared no better; George and Teppei found themselves suddenly burdened with Ryuu and landed in an equally undignified heap on the floor.

The Captain, Marina noted resentfully, had somehow managed to be the only one clear. But at least he didn't laugh. Instead, he reached down to try and help everyone sort themselves out. Marina reached for his hand, but then lowered it again to clutch at Mirai's shoulder as he stirred where he'd fallen on top of her. "Mirai-kun?" she gasped, and realized that she was hearing him breathe again, and his heartbeat was strong and steady in her ears.

Ryuu groaned, sitting up, then he looked around frantically. When he saw Mirai, he paused, tangled emotions written plain on his face. Marina honestly didn't know what to think now herself. She watched as Mirai blinked his eyes open, looking bewildered and stunned. He stared at his own hands in confusion, flexing the fingers as though he hadn't expected them to look like that ever again. Marina wondered what would have happened if that body Ultraman had created for himself really had died before he could go back to it... Then she forcefully decided that she wasn't going to think of that now - maybe not ever - and asked, "Mirai-kun? Are you all right?"

Mirai blinked at her, and then horrified realization spread across his face as he figured out that he was sprawled on top of her. He flushed bright red and hastily scrambled upright. "Marina-san, I--"

Marina burst out laughing.

Mirai stared blankly. "Uh--"

"You never change, weirdo!" Marina laughed, pulling herself back up. "You nearly die on us and you think I'm going to be mad at you for falling over in my lap?"

Mirai turned even redder, which she hadn't thought was possible. "I, uh--"

Konomi ran to hug him. "Absolutely, don't be silly! We're just glad you're alive!"

Mirai just stood there and blinked as Konomi let him go. He looked completely flummoxed. Marina bit her lip to keep from laughing again at his expression. Teppei crowded close next. "That was really mean of you though, Mirai-kun. You could have told us sooner. I mean, how cool is it to have Ultraman on our team?"

"Fanboy," George muttered, and smacked Mirai's shoulder. "Plus it would have made all those strategy sessions a hell of a lot easier, brat. Did you ever think of that?"

"Uh--" Mirai still didn't seem to have a command of coherent speech yet. He looked in confusion at the Captain, who merely smiled and patted him on the shoulder.

"Well, I suppose you won't have to come up with excuses anymore."

Mirai flushed and looked away, but froze as he saw Ryuu staring at him. Marina bit her lip, hoping Ryuu wasn't going to indulge his fiery temper right now. Mirai seemed to be having much the same thoughts, but the apprehensive expression on his face seemed to be giving Ryuu pause, and in the end the silence was long enough that Mirai spoke first.

"Ryuu-san..." A note of wonder entered his voice. "You... saved my life."

Ryuu blinked, and then looked embarrassed. "Well... what the hell, I guess you've done the same for me often enough, now that I know it was you. Besides, what are friends for, anyway?"

Mirai's face lit up, like the sun emerging from behind a cloud, that silly grin of his threatening to split his face open. Marina breathed a sigh of relief that for once, just once, Ryuu had suffered a timely attack of tact and good sense.

"Well, since we're all agreed that we're quite happy you're alive," the Captain said dryly, "Perhaps we should continue this discussion back at Phoenix Nest. For one thing, it's the middle of the night by now, and you're not exactly dressed for the cold." He raised an eyebrow, and Mirai blinked at the T-shirt and shorts he was wearing as if only just realizing that the uniform he was supposed to be wearing over them was missing. Marina suppressed the desire to sigh at how utterly clueless Mirai could be. Then again, Ultraman obviously didn't wear clothing so maybe he wasn't used to noticing it...

Marina decided she needed to stop that train of thought before she could speculate much on Ultra clothing or lack thereof. There were some things that mankind was just not meant to think too hard about.

"Yeah, come on," she said with a smile. "Let's go home."

Mirai's expression changed to something Marina couldn't quite place, something thoughtful, yet somehow melancholy. "Home..."

A crunching, scratching noise--

Marina stiffened with a gasp.

"Marina?" Ryuu asked sharply, but Marina was already whirling around toward the shattered control panels. It couldn't be -

But the alien was rising up again, shoving debris aside. Marina raised her gun again as everyone automatically moved to place themselves in front of Mirai. He clearly found this ridiculous, since she heard him immediately protest, "Wait, everyone!" but she didn't care, and evidently the others didn't either since no one moved.

The alien shoved itself painfully upright, dripping blue blood everywhere. Crystal shards were stabbed through its skin, the gunshot wounds still smoking and blackened. Marina flinched. It didn't seem possible that the creature could still be alive...

Mirai shoved past her. "Urzan," he said urgently. "You must understand you've lost..."

The alien coughed out what sounded like a bitter laugh. "Indeed. But I will not let you savor my failure." He swatted a paw down on top of a table littered with debris, as though searching for a weapon. Marina tried to push Mirai out of the way of her shot, and saw George doing the same, but Mirai stubbornly blocked them with his arms.

"Wait!" he pleaded. "Why won't you let me try? What do you have to lose now?"

"What on earth are you babbling about?" Ryuu grumbled, but Mirai ignored him, focused on the alien, who turned bloodshot yellow eyes to glare balefully at them.

"Nothing," he snarled hatefully. "All is lost. So share my loss, my despair! Savor the sour taste of your victory - I will take everything I can from you!" With a roar, he snatched up something from the table, something that glittered, sparkling liquid inside a crystal housing, and drove it into the bloody skin of his chest.

"No!" Mirai cried.

George pushed Mirai out of the way and fired, but the shot struck in a hail of sparks against skin that was stretching and expanding, boiling up into enormous spikes. Marina stared in horror as Urzan's form grew impossibly huge. In instants his head smashed through the ceiling and a lash of his tail shattered the walls. Marina threw up a hand uselessly to shield her head as the ceiling exploded into a deadly rain of concrete, cringing as she expected any moment to feel the building crushing her beneath its collapsing weight.

A flash of light blazed against her closed eyelids. Over the roar of destruction Mirai's voice screamed, "Moebius!"

Marina paused, blinking as she felt none of the crushing pain that she'd expected. Slowly she lowered her arms and raised her eyes.

She stared up at red and silver skin and an enormous blue gem, glowing like a lamp as tall as she was. Everyone else came out of defensive crouches at the same time, staring up in wonder at the giant form that had curled on top of them all, shielding them from the collapsing concrete with his enormous body.

Ryuu swallowed. "Mirai..."

Ultraman Moebius' enormous glowing eyes appeared, peering between his curled-up arms as though to reassure himself that they were all right. The light from his eyes and the gem lit their pocket of space up nearly as bright as day. Konomi beamed. "Thank you, Mirai-kun!" she gushed, ignoring the fact that it sounded really weird to refer to Ultraman that way. Marina winced, then at the sound of a deep boom from farther away she shook herself into sense.

Not getting crushed was obviously great, but they still had a rampaging alien to think about. "Can you hold him until we can get back to Phoenix Nest and come back you up?" she called up toward the glowing eyes. They shifted in her direction, and despite the fact that Moebius said nothing as ever, and the silver mask could not change expressions, she somehow thought that the look he directed at her was incredulous.

Apparently Ryuu read it the same way. "What, you think we're going to let you fight him alone?" he snapped. "Like hell!"

George snorted. "It's not like we've been sitting aside and doing nothing all this time, you know."

Teppei grinned. "So what makes you think we're going to start now?"

Captain Sakomizu smiled. "I think you're outvoted," he added mildly.

There was a brief pause while Moebius stared at them, and then he nodded his massive head decisively, and pushed himself up in one swift movement, showering broken concrete off his back. Clouds of dust billowed up from the ground and Marina squinted her eyes shut as she started for the only somewhat clear path through the debris. Far above her head, Moebius' glowing eyes followed her progress for a moment, and then he turned to face the alien, stepping carefully over another building and into an empty street.

Marina turned away, running through the streets for all she was worth, the rest of the team's footsteps blurring in her ears with her own into a continuous thunder.

*
Urzan! Moebius shouted, standing in the path of the giant alien waving its claws threateningly at him. Stop this, it's pointless! I still want to help you! Why won't you listen?

The giant jaws opened, dripping slime, but all that emerged was a scraping roar, a mindless cry. The yellow eyes were empty, the pupils shrunk to jagged black lightning. Urzan swept his tail and smashed it through a building, reducing it to splintered rubble. Moebius winced, even though he knew the district had already been evacuated earlier when the guns were wreaking havoc.

I don't want to fight you! he tried again.

The yellow eyes blinked. The head dropped, the lashing tail stilled. Hopefully, Moebius moved forward a step. Urzan, please...

The spiny head whipped back up. The slavering jaws opened wide and a torrent of blue-hot energy exploded from the open mouth, flinging Moebius backwards to crash helplessly on top of another building that disintegrated beneath him, leaving him sprawled in a pile of dust and crushed concrete. Urzan threw his head back and howled, an animal roar of triumph that held no words, no sense, not even something as coherent as a laugh.

The Earth poisons us, he'd said.

Moebius picked himself up out of the rubble, and Urzan dipped his head again and snarled, smashing another roof in with a swipe of his claws. Moebius clenched his hands into fists.

I don't want to kill you...

Urzan roared again and sprang at him. Moebius hastily raised his arms to block, backing away, but Urzan lashed out and snatched one of his wrists with his claws, yanking Moebius off-balance. He twisted, bringing up his other hand to punch Urzan away, but his punch was met by a mouthful of sharp teeth as Urzan clamped his jaws shut on the gold-and-red brace on his wrist.

The teeth dug into the brace, sparks exploding from its surface. Moebius screamed, reeling in agony, trying to wrench himself free. Urzan only bit down harder, teeth screeching against the brace and sending more flurries of sparks fluttering toward the ground. The blue gem on Moebius' chest turned red and began to blink as he struggled, yanking himself backwards with a wild kick at Urzan that only overbalanced them both and sent them both careening through a last row of buildings and into a pond in the middle of a park.

Moebius fought blindly, barely noticing time ticking down as the teeth digging into the brace drove pain through him. He knew, somewhere far beneath the pain, that as they wrestled and rolled, buildings were smashed to dust, fountains crumbled into piles of rock spouting water aimlessly into the air. Street signs snapped like matchsticks, power lines snarled into twisted string. Frustration was building, helpless fury that it had to come to this, but Urzan's teeth would not release, and one of the teeth was clamped on the red gem, sawing against its surface the more he struggled, the pressure nearly causing it to crack... He could feel it about to give way, like a bone about to snap...

And suddenly, beams of light struck the back of Urzan's neck and he reared back with a roar, his jaws releasing. Moebius yanked his arm back, cradling his wrist in his other hand as Urzan twisted his head to look at the shapes of the approaching fighter planes. Urzan opened his jaws again and Moebius saw the blue light sparking between the teeth, and remembered the huge torrent of energy that would flow forth. They couldn't dodge a beam that huge, only the Meteor would have given them the speed, and they didn't have it activated -

Moebius scrambled to get up, to somehow stop Urzan, but even as he hurled himself at the spiny blue back, Urzan lunged his head forward out of his reach. The enormous blue beam burst forth and streaked across the sky at the three tiny planes flying directly in its path.

No!


--To Be Continued--

Back to Splintered Secrets, chapter 4

On to Splintered Secrets, chapter 6

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