Chapter 12: The Door

He had just gone for a night run, but by the time he returned home, it was already half past one in the morning.

Yuxing hurried to take a quick shower and prepared to sleep. Tomorrow was a workday, and there was likely a fierce battle ahead—he needed to be well-rested for that. Still, when he thought about facing a tiny being over sixty meters tall, he wondered what he could possibly do.

Even if he tried to distract the little one with games from their childhood, stopping its rampage, once Tregear made a move, everything would be over in an instant.

Yuxing wiped the droplets from his neck with the towel draped over his shoulders and stepped out of the bathroom. Then he noticed something odd on the small table in the living room.

A piece of paper was pressed under the tissue box, its corner peeking out.

It wasn't especially obvious, but Yuxing still spotted it. Confused, he walked over. As he drew closer and saw the material of the paper, an ominous feeling rose in his chest.

Could it be… the very sheet he was using to decipher the Land of Light script?

Yuxing sucked in a sharp breath. He was sure he hadn’t made the classic protagonist mistake—leaving something so important out in plain sight just to trigger the plot, like a careless character in a TV drama!

That page was from a loose-leaf binder, and he had definitely tucked it away neatly in a drawer, hidden among countless doodles, drafts, and sheets for tracking mission progress.

And why not carry it around? Because keeping something so important on his person would be begging for a “search” scene. Besides, he wasn’t some secret agent or a photographic-memory superhuman, nor could he just destroy a draft he hadn’t even finished deciphering.

…

Hesitating, Yuxing finally pulled the sheet out from under the tissue box.

It had been folded neatly in half—so precisely that he suspected Tregear, with his compulsive tendencies, might have done it.

He unfolded it and blinked in surprise.

Half of the Land of Light script was written in Yuxing’s black pen, marked with corrections and erasures—inevitable missteps in the process of deduction. He had hypothesized several correspondences between the Land of Light script and the kana, but as he proceeded, he realized something was wrong. Retracing his steps, he discovered he’d mixed up two kana, and once he reversed them, the entire code became clear.

But about twenty squares remained undeciphered, missing the corresponding Land of Light characters. Yuxing had left those blank, intending to fill them in once he unlocked more abilities in the Taiga Light Key and encountered those characters again. But now, all those squares had been completely filled in with blue ink, by someone else.

And the handwriting was impeccable—elegant and upright.

Though it was written with a pen, it had the sharpness and precision of a fountain pen stroke.

For a long moment, Yuxing was at a loss for words.

Thank you, some Ultra Warrior?

His gaze caught the lower right corner of the page, where a symbol, utterly different in style from the rest, had been drawn in the same blue ink.

Yuxing guessed—it was an Ultra signature.

As if the Ultra Warrior who’d done this “good deed” was afraid Yuxing would misunderstand, and so signed their name to clarify it was their handiwork.

Unfortunately, Yuxing didn’t recognize this Ultra signature.

He was a bit embarrassed—on his Earth, “Yuxing” could only recognize two Ultra signatures. One was Tregear’s, because his had a large, distinctive “V” shape. The other was Gagula’s. Yes, the Illusion Demon, Gagulas Gagula.

He had a Gagula-themed messenger bag; on the front was a red moon, and on the back was a big symbol—Gagula’s Ultra signature.

Gagula, are you still insisting you’re not an Ultra Warrior?

As for this signature, Yuxing felt that many Ultras’ signatures were of this indistinct style, unlike Tregear’s, which was immediately recognizable. So he couldn’t quite remember or place it.

He took out his notebook from the drawer and copied the script he’d seen today from the “pinnacle point” onto a blank page. Then, using the completed reference chart, he deciphered the three characters.

—Bond.

Bond?

Yuxing paused, then realized how fitting the answer was.

After all, the Taiga Spark and its entire set of transformation devices operated on this vague, metaphysical force called “bond.” For someone like Tregear, who completely denied the existence of bonds, to develop a device based on such a force—perhaps it was fated in some mysterious way.

Besides, how would one even test or verify such a device?

If it couldn’t be quantified or measured, how could one confirm the existence of a “bond”?

But now, wasn’t it something that could be quantified?

Yuxing gripped the Taiga Light Key and opened the panel. The unallocated points now showed three ones and a zero. These weren’t “pinnacle points” after all, but bond points—or perhaps, bond values?

Was it similar to the reputation system in World of Yamaguchi? Once you spoke to someone, your relationship would move to neutral; help them with tasks or provide needed items, or assist in fighting their enemies, and your reputation would rise. In short, you had to interact, and as the interactions deepened, so did the relationship.

But there were differences. Bond was a neutral term, wasn’t it? Unlike the reputation system, where worsening relations meant fewer interactions, declining from “neutral” (where at least they’d talk to you) to “cold” (where they wouldn’t), or even to “hostile,” where they’d attack on sight, and no other interactions were possible.

But bonds could exist between both enemies and friends.

It was only now that Yuxing realized—since the Taiga Spark drew on the power of bonds, could it be that he couldn’t contact Taiga or transform into Ultraman Taiga because… Taiga’s bond was with the previous “Yuxing,” and now that he was a new soul in this body… he was unable to transform due to insufficient bonds?

But that didn’t seem right.

At this thought, Yuxing shook his head.

Before his first transformation, he hadn’t even known there was a Giant of Light within him—so how could he have formed any kind of bond with it?

Yuxing frowned. It felt as though he was on the verge of grasping an idea, but it slipped away, leaving only a vague confusion in his mind.

…

He rubbed his forehead, deciding not to dwell on it for now, and turned his attention back to the light screen—where the right side of the page was glowing faintly, as if urging him to flip ahead. Yuxing traced his finger in the air to turn the page and saw that the skill slot representing “settings” was glowing… Had he unlocked the first skill by reaching the third bond value from Officer Sakura?

Indeed, when Yuxing tapped the glowing slot, a new interface appeared. The upper-left box, previously shrouded in gray, now lit up, and beside it appeared another gray-shrouded box.

He gently tapped the unlocked slot, and the screen instantly filled with the script of the Land of Light, making his scalp tingle. Still, he resisted the urge to flee, copied the first three lines, and began painstakingly translating them.

Since he was going to equip it, he needed to know what the skill was.

But as soon as he translated the skill’s name, his pen halted, and he didn’t dare write further.

Because the name of the skill was—

“Gateway.”