chsdbacks Chapter 39: Ultraman Tiga receives adoration from the ancient fandom... but the one truly suffering
Chapter 39: Ultraman Tiga receives adoration from the ancient fandom... but the one truly suffering
Kaul keenly sensed that something was amiss.
He felt as if the temperature of the entire cave had suddenly dropped to freezing point.
The giant of light, who had his back to him, froze in his act of roasting meat. Kaul could even see the giant's latissimus dorsi muscles twitching, and a visible, tangible black resentment emanated from him, almost burying the flames of the campfire.
The skewer snapped instantly, and the giant slowly turned his head. His eyes, which should have shone with a soft yellow light, were now burning with rage.
Only then did Kaul truly see the giant's face clearly.
This face does indeed have a 90% resemblance to Tiga, even the outline of the eyes is exactly the same, but the stripes on his body are not the classic red, purple and silver three-color interweaving of Tiga's!
Instead, he was dressed in red and white, and he didn't have the compassionate and gentle tolerance of Tiga. Instead, he showed extreme impatience and irritability when he heard Tiga mentioned, as well as resentment that seemed to have been pent up for years and had nowhere to be vented.
"This doesn't seem to be the powerful Tiga..." Kaul felt like he had stumbled into a den of thieves. Could the person in front of him be the evil Tiga...? But why did he feel so angry and dark whenever he mentioned Tiga?
A flash of white light, and the gigantic giant of light vanished.
The next second, a human man dressed in ancient civilization clothes, with wild hair and a wildly handsome face, arrived in front of Kaul at top speed.
The man grabbed Caul by the collar, which Gady had already torn, and lifted him up like a chick, slamming him against the wall behind him.
"Ouch, ouch, ouch..." All Kaul felt was pain; he hadn't done anything!
"What did you say?!"
The man's eyes were bloodshot with anger as he stared intently at Caul's face, each word spoken with the utmost emotion.
"Try saying that name again!"
Kaul was being strangled so badly his eyes rolled back, and he desperately pounded on the man's arm with both hands: "Cough cough cough! Big brother! Big brother, let go! Let's talk this out! I'm injured, I'm about to die!"
"Can't we talk this out?"
The man didn't let go; instead, he became even more emotionally distraught, feeling extremely wronged and angry, and finally let it all out.
"Remember my name! Daga! Not Tiga! Da-ga!"
"Are you bunch of brainless fans ever going to stop?! Do you all have face blindness?! Are your eyes just for venting your anger? If they're useless, go donate them!"
Daga, like a dam releasing water, began to unleash a frenzied barrage of attacks on Kaul:
"Tiga is silver, white, and some gold! Do you understand? That kind of color scheme that caters to the masses is nothing like me! I'm noble red and white! Red!"
"And my eyes are definitely more beautiful! The patterns on my breastplate are the same too! What's the difference? Tell me!"
Kaul was completely disoriented, his head buzzing, and in his mind he was furiously complaining: "Dude, honestly, apart from the different colors, your molds are practically from the same factory! It's just a matter of changing the leather case and painting! How am I, someone who just transmigrated and still has a concussion, supposed to tell them apart in that dim light?!"
But Daga's complaints were clearly only just beginning; he seemed determined to pour all the bitterness of his life onto this innocent stranger.
"Do you know how miserable I am?! Just because I look like him, when I walk down the street in the city and buy a steamed bun, I get surrounded by a bunch of crazy fans shouting, 'Lord Ultraman Tiga, you've worked hard, here's a steamed bun for you!'"
"I went to a pub for a drink, hoping for some peace and quiet, and a bunch of kids surrounded me asking for Ultraman Tiga's autograph! I signed Ultraman Tiga, and they started crying, saying I misspelled it!"
"That's nothing. Last year, a priestess delivered a love letter to my house, saying she liked me. When I opened it, the first sentence was, 'My dear Lord Tiga, the gentle silver stripes you wear during battle captivate me!'"
"Intoxicated? But I don't have a single silver hair on me!"
"The most annoying thing about you brainless people is your endless pursuit of one person. Before, every day and night, countless people would surround my house shouting 'Tiga-sama!' 'Tiga-sama! I love you!' Even though I also participated in the fight against darkness, and I am also a giant of light, even if I don't ask for anyone else's affection, please stop torturing me like this, okay?"
"I am who I am, not a substitute for someone else! We are two separate people; it's just that handsome people all have something in common. If you want to find Ultraman Tiga, go to the Earth Planet Garrison yourself!"
"The most conspicuous building in town is... Stop torturing me! I've had enough of this messy fandom behavior. Some people even steal Geddy to blackmail me into seeing her!"
"I've already isolated myself from everyone in the world with Gedi, I've cut off all social interaction, why...?"
"Why does my dog bring home a brain-dead, blind fan when he goes out to play, and he thinks I'm Ultraman Tiga in my house... When will you guys ever stop...?"
By the end, Daga was completely exhausted. He even felt wronged when he recalled the events of the past. Before this incident, he and Tiga had a good relationship, and he had even performed exceptionally well in fighting the darkness. However, the ignorant and conformist fans even attributed their own achievements to Tiga.
This led to him becoming a complete substitute for Tiga, which in turn caused various fan incidents. Some people didn't even understand the difference between themselves and Tiga, and would just shout "Tiga, Tiga!" whenever they saw someone handsome...
As for Caul, who was being carried, he felt that the amount of information he was receiving was enormous, and even more complicated than he had imagined.
He was still confused because of his injury, but after listening to Daga's long, breathless, and tearful accusation, which lasted for several minutes, his dual-core CPU started to work.
"So, the person before you is Evil Tiga, but the original ancient form, not Masaki Keigo. Because this person is much more handsome than Masaki Keigo, but he does look very similar to Daigo in some ways. If you don't look very closely, you really can't tell them apart. So, what kind of relationship do these two human forms from the ancient times have? Could this Tiga be Daigo's reincarnation? That's why they look exactly alike?"
However, the Daga in front of them is clearly a "substitute" for a top star who was forcibly taken as such by the ancient masses because of his overly similar appearance.
Long-term exposure to online bullying and misidentification by fan groups has led to social anxiety, and even some arrogance? And perhaps a lack of love? But in the end, he angrily took his beloved pet to a deserted area and became a miserable, older single man.
So they had to live alone with their dog.