The air tasted of ozone and screaming.
BOOOOM!
Another building folded in on itself, a plume of grey dust and shattered glass erupting into the already choked sky over West Tokyo. The ground trembled, not with the gentle rhythm of an earthquake, but with the brutal, stomping cadence of a nightmare made real.
"Line C is gone! I repeat, Line C has been completely overrun!" a voice shrieked over the comms, dissolving into a wet, static-filled crunch.
Rookie officer Daisuke gripped his rifle so hard his knuckles were bone-white. The standard-issue JK-2 rifle felt like a child's toy. Its high-caliber rounds, designed to punch through six inches of reinforced steel, simply ricocheted off the chitinous hides of the Yoju swarming them.
Sparks. All they make are sparks.
SKREEEEE!
A six-limbed creature, something like a praying mantis fused with a scorpion, lunged over a pile of rubble. Its movements were a liquid blur. Before Daisuke could even adjust his aim, a flash of silver light bisected the air.
SHING-SHING-SHING!
The Yoju fell apart in four perfectly symmetrical pieces, its ichor-like blood sizzling on the hot asphalt.
Vice-Captain Soshiro Hoshina landed lightly on his feet, not a single drop of the blackish goo marring his white uniform. He flicked his twin blades, the motion so fast it was almost invisible.
"Stay focused, rookie," Hoshina's voice was calm, almost casual, a stark contrast to the chaos enveloping them. "Their attack patterns are erratic, but not random. Observe, predict, survive. In that order."
Daisuke could only nod, his throat too dry to form words. Vice-Captain Hoshina was a living legend. The Blade Master of the Third Division. Watching him fight was like watching a surgeon perform a deadly, beautiful dance. He was everywhere at once, a whirlwind of gleaming steel that left only dissected monsters in his wake.
He's... not even breathing hard.
But Hoshina's mind was racing, a frantic tactical computer processing terabytes of battlefield data every second.
This is wrong. The sheer number of Honju-class Kaiju is unprecedented. They're using Yoju as cannon fodder to exhaust our ammunition and stamina. This isn't a mindless rampage. This is a coordinated assault. This is bait.
His eyes scanned the horizon, past the swirling dust and smoke. Something big was out there. He could feel it. A pressure in the air. A low hum that vibrated in his bones.
Suddenly, a new voice, crisp and filled with an almost arrogant confidence, cut through the comms.
"Clear a path, Vice-Captain! The fireworks have arrived!"
Hoshina didn't need to be told twice. "Third Division, fall back! Code 3-Delta! Create a kill zone at coordinates 45-B!" he commanded, his body already in motion, weaving backward through his own men.
The soldiers scrambled, their movements sloppy with fear but disciplined by training. They knew who that voice belonged to.
A shadow fell over the battlefield.
CRACK-THOOM!
Something landed with the force of a meteor, shaking the entire city block. In the center of the newly formed crater stood Kikoru Shinomiya, the daughter of the Director General and the Defense Force's most promising, and destructive, prodigy.
She held a colossal battle-axe in one hand, its head bigger than a car. The weapon was a numbered masterpiece, humming with barely contained power. Her custom-fitted combat suit glowed with golden light, energy crackling around her like a halo.
"Alright, you ugly freaks," she said with a grin, hoisting the axe onto her shoulder. "Who wants to play?"
She didn't wait for an answer. She became a golden comet, a blur of motion that smashed directly into the thickest part of the Kaiju horde.
The result was pure carnage.
KRA-KOOOOM!
Every swing of her axe unleashed a shockwave that liquified Yoju and sent Honju-class monsters flying. She wasn't just fighting; she was erasing them. The sheer, overwhelming power was a spectacle of terror and awe.
"Her combat power output is... it's off the charts," an operator stammered in the mobile command center. "She's already exceeding the suit's recommended limits!"
Hoshina watched, his expression unreadable. Incredible power. But reckless. She's burning through her energy reserves too quickly. She's treating a war like a schoolyard brawl.
Even as the thought crossed his mind, a massive, ape-like Honju burst from a collapsing skyscraper, aiming a club-like fist at Kikoru's blind spot.
She wouldn't have time to react.
The world seemed to slow down.
Then, a beam of pure, white-hot energy, thicker than a subway train, descended from the heavens.
VMMMMMMMMMMMM-FWOOSH!
The sound was a deafening roar that tore through the air. The beam struck the ape-like Kaiju dead center, and for a split second, its entire form was illuminated, its skeleton visible through its flesh.
Then, it and a dozen other Kaiju around it simply… evaporated.
They didn't explode. They were unwritten from existence. A perfectly circular, cauterized hole was left in the ground, glowing like the mouth of a volcano.
High atop the ruined shell of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, Captain Mina Ashiro lowered her gigantic rail cannon. Her white tiger, Bakko, growled softly beside her, its fur bristling.
Her voice, calm and authoritative, echoed across all channels, a balm to the frayed nerves of every soldier.
"Status report, Vice-Captain."
Hoshina let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. "Captain. Your timing is, as always, impeccable. Kikoru was overextending. The horde is thinning, but my gut tells me the main event hasn't started yet."
"I agree," Mina's voice replied. "Scanners are picking up a massive energy signature building beyond the Shinjuku ward. Fortitude readings are… unstable."
As if on cue, a terrifying silence fell over the battlefield.
The remaining Yoju and Honju, creatures of mindless aggression just seconds before, suddenly froze. They turned their heads in unison, looking east. A primitive, instinctual fear radiated from them.
Then, they began to scream. It wasn't a battle cry. It was a sound of pure terror.
The ground began to shake violently. It wasn't the stomping of an army anymore. It was the slow, ponderous tread of a moving mountain.
The sky darkened.
Slowly, impossibly, a shape rose above the tallest remaining skyscrapers. It was colossal, a being that defied all known biology. Its form was vaguely humanoid but twisted, with multiple arms ending in razor-sharp talons and a hide that looked like jagged obsidian. Spines of pulsating, sickly green energy ran down its back. Its head was a featureless mask of bone, with a single, massive, glowing red eye in the center.
An aura of absolute dread washed over the city. It was a physical force, pressing down on them, stealing the air from their lungs and the courage from their hearts.
In the command center, every alarm blared at once.
"FORTITUDE READING IS SPIKING! IT'S AT 9.6! 9.7! 9.8!"
"That's impossible! No Kaiju has ever broken 9.5!"
"It's not stopping! 9.9!"
Daisuke, the rookie, fell to his knees, his rifle clattering to the ground. His mind simply couldn't process the scale of the thing before him. It was a god of destruction.
Kikoru Shinomiya, floating in the air, her golden aura flickering, felt a tremor of fear for the first time in her life. Her suit's advanced targeting system was screaming at her, a wall of red error messages.
Target... too large? Energy signature... unquantifiable? What... what is that thing?
Hoshina stood his ground, his hands gripping his blades, but a cold sweat beaded on his forehead. All his strategies, all his techniques, all his speed... they were meaningless. It was like a master swordsman facing a tsunami.
High above, Mina Ashiro gritted her teeth, her knuckles white on the grip of her cannon. "Bakko, full power!"
Her tiger roared, and its energy flowed into the weapon. The rail cannon began to glow with an intensity that outshone the sun, the air around it warping with heat.
"All operators, focus fire on the target's central eye! This is it! We hold the line here, or there is no line left to hold!" she commanded, her voice unwavering, a pillar of strength in a world about to crumble.
The colossal Kaiju, the Cataclysm-Class, slowly raised one of its massive arms. Green energy, dark and corrupt, began to swirl and condense in its palm, forming a sphere of annihilating power that promised to wipe the entire ward from the map.
In the command center, the final, dreaded number flashed on the main screen.
FORTITUDE: 10.0
The operator stared, his face pale, his voice a choked whisper.
"It... It's a ten..."
The world held its breath.
The Kaiju's arm descended.
Mina fired.
The end had come.