Chapter Text
XIO’s command room was too calm.
Calm had weight now. It pressed at the edges of Ozora Daichi’s awareness—like the room was waiting for an alert that refused to trigger.
He sat at his station, fingers hovering uselessly above the console.
The X Devizer was warm against his chest.
Not glowing.
Just warm.
“X?” Daichi murmured under his breath.
Normally, the answer came instantly. Not always words—sometimes just reassurance, a subtle alignment of awareness—but something.
This time, there was a delay.
“…Daichi.”
The voice came faintly—compressed, stripped of the quiet resonance that was always there. Like it had traveled too far too fast.
Daichi straightened. ‘Hey—what’s going on? I’m picking up movement across multiple Ultra signatures. Are you—’
Silence flickered between them—unsteady, but not gone.
“I am being… redirected,” X said carefully.
The mental presence Daichi knew so well felt thinner, stretched across something vast and hostile.
“A large-scale convergence event. Multiple New Generation Ultras are already responding.”
‘Responding to what?’ Daichi demanded.
“…A call that does not permit partners.”
The words didn’t make sense.
Then they did.
Daichi’s hand tightened around the Devizer. ‘What do you mean doesn’t permit—’
The connection jolted—not cut, but pulled.
Daichi sucked in a sharp breath, vision blurring for half a second as vertigo slammed through him.
‘X!’
“I am still here,” X replied immediately—but weaker. “However, my output capacity is being reallocated. This battle requires full conversion.”
Daichi’s pulse spiked. ‘You’re giving up your power.’
“Yes.”
No hesitation. No consideration.
Already happening.
“No,” Daichi said, it came out wrong. Too sharp. Too late. ‘Wait—X, you can’t just—what happens to you? What happens to us?’
The silence stretched longer this time.
When X spoke again, there was strain in it now. Not pain—X didn’t frame experience that way—but cost.
“Our bond will persist,” X said. “But my ability to communicate… may not.”
The Devizer cooled abruptly against his palm—like something had let go.
Daichi flinched, fingers tightening too late.
“…X?” he whispered.
For the first time since they’d merged, fear drowned out everything else
‘You said persist,’ Daichi said quickly, too quickly. ‘You said persist. That doesn’t mean disappear, right? You’ll still hear me. You’ll still—’
“Daichi.”
X said his name with absolute clarity.
For one brief second, the connection became perfectly clear.
“You must not mistake—”
A flicker.
“—silence for absence.”
The bond flickered once more—
—then nothing.
Not fading.
Not breaking.
Just—gone.
Daichi froze. His breath hitched, lungs refusing to cooperate as his mind reeled against empty space where a presence had always been.
“…X?”
No answer.
The Devizer lay against his chest, inert. Dark. Cold.
“No—no, no,” Daichi muttered, hands shaking as he yanked it free and stared at it. ‘This isn’t funny. X, respond. Any signal—any—’
The familiar hum never came.
Daichi stood so fast his chair skidded back. He raised the Devizer automatically.
“X, unify—” The command came out on reflex—before he could think better of it.
Nothing answered.
No light.
No resonance.
Not even rejection.
His hand stopped halfway through the motion.
“Daichi?” Asuna called from across the room. “What’s wrong?”
He didn’t answer.
Someone across the room confirmed a telemetry reading.
Another operator laughed softly at something Daichi couldn’t process.
The command room kept moving.
He couldn’t hear anything except the roar of his own heartbeat and the awful, hollow quiet where X should have been.
This wasn’t like interference.
This was silence.
Daichi felt like it had stopped breathing.
“X,” he said again, louder now, voice breaking. “Please.”
Nothing answered.
The sky outside XIO darkened.
Not storm clouds.
Something deeper. A distortion forming without violence, without warning—space folding in on itself like a held breath finally released.
The room’s alarms hadn’t triggered yet.
But Daichi felt it.
Before the light fully formed, he already felt himself being observed.
A presence.
Heavy.
Not hostile—
but not gentle either.
Familiar enough to make his spine straighten.
Light bled through the air above the platform—red and silver, sharp-edged, controlled.
A figure stepped out of nothing—as if it had always been there.
Arms crossed.
Posture relaxed.
Ultraman Zero surveying the scene with a sharp glance before focusing fully on Daichi, “…Yeah,” Zero muttered, more to himself than anyone else. “That answers it.”
Daichi stared up at him, throat tight, words scraping their way out.
“Where is he?”
Zero’s expression didn’t soften—but it steadied.
“Fighting,” he said simply. “He’s holding the line.”
Daichi’s knees almost gave out.
“And I’m guessing,” Zero added, uncrossing his arms at last, “you just felt the quiet.”
Daichi nodded, jaw clenched hard enough to hurt.
Zero stepped closer, light humming faintly around him—not threatening. Anchoring.
“Yeah,” he said. “Then it’s time we talk.”
The sky held open.
The silence was unbearable—
but beneath it, impossibly faint,
something still remained.
Not words.
Not thought.
Just warmth—faint, but unmistakable.
To be Continued.
Author’s Note
One of the main ideas behind this fic comes from the unusual way Ultra Galaxy Fight: New Generation Heroes (2019) and Ultraman Taiga the Movie: New Generation Climax (2020) portray Ultraman X and Daichi.
In UGF, X appears and participates in battle — but Daichi himself never appears on-screen. There’s no transformation sequence, no direct dialogue from him, and no confirmation of his physical presence during the conflict. X acts entirely in an Ultra-centric context.
This is actually consistent with how UGF treats several New Generation Ultras: the story focuses on the Ultras operating at a multiversal scale, while the human remain implied rather than visible.
Then, in Ultraman Taiga the Movie: New Generation Climax, Daichi reappears clearly alongside the other New Generation hosts — even though the X Devizer has lost power and X himself is no longer actively responding in the same way.
That contrast became the foundation for this story.
Canon already suggests a few important things:
- X can continue operating without Daichi physically present on-screen
- the bond between them persists even when transformation is impossible
- silence does not necessarily mean separation
So this fic interprets the gap between those two appearances as a gradual transition rather than a contradiction.
During Ultra Galaxy Fight, X is acting in an Ultra-only capacity while Daichi remains Earthside — still bonded to him, but unable to participate directly in the conflict. As the repeated lending of power continues, X’s ability to manifest and communicate begins to weaken, eventually leading into the state seen in Taiga the Movie.
In other words:
- X never stopped being Daichi’s partner.
- The bond simply changed form.
One of the recurring themes across the New Generation era is that power is temporary, but connection endures beyond transformation itself. This fic is built around that idea.
Or, put simply:
- During Ultra Galaxy Fight, X fights so Daichi doesn’t have to.
- During Taiga the Movie, Daichi stands so X can finally rest.
Of course, I don't know that this theory fit with Canon or not.