The Monster Sweeper Inc. locker room smelled of sweat, disinfectant, and broken dreams.
It was a smell Kafka Hibino knew better than his own. He slowly pulled on his bulky, orange hazmat suit, the familiar weight a comforting, yet suffocating, presence. Each buckle and strap he fastened was another link in the chain that tied him to this life.
His co-workers chattered around him, their voices a mix of exhaustion and morbid excitement.
"Did you see the size of the thing's arm? They said we're on viscera duty for the Shinjuku crater. Gonna be a long day."
"Nah, the real money's in the small intestine. Miles of it. Think of the overtime!"
"Forget that. I heard Captain Ashiro's 'Heaven's Hammer' just vaporized the main body. Cleanest big job we've ever had. We should be sending her a fruit basket."
Kafka tuned them out, his mind still reeling from the video he had watched on a loop all night. The comforting lie of "Heaven's Hammer" had already become an accepted fact, a piece of modern mythology. And he, a nobody janitor, was one of a handful of people on the planet who had seen the glitch in the story.
He felt a sharp poke in his ribs.
"Oi, Hibino! Spacing out again?"
Kafka turned to see Reno Ichikawa, his young, perpetually unimpressed partner, already fully suited up. Reno was eighteen, sharp-tongued, and still held the fiery ambition to join the Defense Force that Kafka had long since buried.
"Thinking about applying for the Force again?" Reno asked with a smirk. "What's the age limit, like, thirty-three? You've still got a year. Don't want to break your record for most consecutive failed attempts, do you?"
Kafka managed a weak smile. "Just tired. Long night."
"Yeah, for everyone," Reno said, his tone softening slightly. "That 10.0... it was something else. Makes you feel small, you know?"
You have no idea, Kafka thought.
As they piled into their transport truck, the company foreman, a grizzled veteran of a hundred Kaiju cleanups, stood on a crate to give his morning briefing.
"Alright, listen up, maggots! As you all heard, the big boy in Shinjuku was handled by the best of the best. Our job is the Daigo's opening act—the Yoju and Honju swarm that hit the western wards. It's a mess. Lots of small-fry carcasses, acidic blood, the usual. Standard protocols. Don't touch anything without your gloves, and if you find a twitcher, you call it in. You don't play hero. Got it?"
A grumbled "Got it!" echoed from the assembled crew.
The work was as gruesome and thankless as ever. They moved through the ruined streets, their power saws whining as they dismembered the smaller Kaiju corpses. They sprayed neutralizing foam on pools of black ichor and shoveled unidentifiable chunks of monster into biohazard containers.
It was a butcher's work, stripped of any glory.
Kafka moved on autopilot, his mind elsewhere. The image of the bald man's casual punch was seared into his brain. It was a power that defied every rule he had ever known about Kaiju, about the Defense Force, about the world.
He found himself working next to Reno, who was unusually quiet.
"Hey," Kafka said, hoisting a severed insectoid leg into a container. "You're thinking about it, aren't you? The entrance exam."
Reno didn't look at him, focusing on sawing through a thick chitinous plate. "The next recruitment drive is in a month. I'm going for it."
"Yeah?" Kafka said, a familiar ache in his chest. "You'll pass. You've got the right stuff."
"Damn right I will," Reno said, a flash of youthful fire in his eyes. He finally stopped and looked at Kafka. "Why don't you? Seriously. One last shot. What have you got to lose?"
"My dignity?" Kafka joked, but it fell flat. "Look at me, Reno. I'm old. I'm tired. My time is past. My job is to clean up. Your job is to go out there and make the mess."
"That's crap and you know it," Reno shot back. "You know more about Kaiju anatomy and weak points than half the guys in the Force. You've got the knowledge. You've just given up."
Before Kafka could respond, a shout went up from down the street.
"We got a live one! It's a twitcher!"
Kafka and Reno's heads snapped up. A seemingly dead, beetle-like Honju, its lower body mangled, was stirring. Its legs kicked feebly, and its mandibles began to click. Worse, its abdomen was swelling, a sickly green light pulsing from within.
"It's gonna blow!" someone screamed. "Aftermath-type! It'll release a cloud of corrosive spores!"
Panic erupted. The sweepers, equipped for cleanup, not combat, scrambled for cover. The foreman was already on his radio, frantically calling for a Defense Force squad, but they would be minutes away. Too late.
The Honju's abdomen swelled to a critical point. The green light intensified.
Reno stood frozen, caught in the open, directly in the projected blast radius.
Kafka's blood ran cold.
There was no time. No choice.
"Get down!" he yelled, shoving Reno behind the meager cover of their truck.
In the split second that all eyes were on the pulsing Kaiju, Kafka slipped into the shadow of a ruined building. He closed his eyes, his heart pounding a frantic rhythm against his ribs.
Not for me. For him.
He let the monster out.
The transformation was faster this time, more fluid. He felt the familiar, horrifying stretch of bone and muscle, the hardening of his skin. He didn't grow to his full size, just enough.
He burst from the alleyway, a grey-and-blue blur of monstrous power.
The sweepers who saw him screamed, thinking a new Kaiju had appeared.
Kafka—as Kaiju No. 8—ignored them. He moved with a speed and purpose that his human body had never known. He covered the fifty meters to the twitcher in a single, ground-eating bound.
The Honju's abdomen finally ruptured.
FWOOOOSH!
A massive cloud of glowing green spores erupted outwards.
But it didn't spread.
Kaiju No. 8 stood over the monster, his massive hands cupped around the point of rupture. He took the entire blast point-blank. The corrosive spores washed over his hardened body, hissing and steaming, but his Kaiju form held. He absorbed the entire attack, shielding everyone behind him.
The green glow faded, and he was left standing in a cloud of harmless, dissipating smoke.
He had done it. He had saved them.
A wave of dizziness washed over him. The transformation took a toll. He had to get out of sight before he reverted, before anyone saw.
He turned to leap away, but his eyes met Reno's.
The young man was peeking over the edge of the truck, his face a mask of pure, unadulterated shock and awe. He had seen it all. He had seen the mysterious new Kaiju appear from nowhere and save them.
Then, a new sound cut through the air. The whine of high-tech engines.
A Defense Force transport vehicle screeched to a halt at the end of the street. Several armed officers in combat suits jumped out, their rifles immediately aimed at Kafka.
"Hostile Kaiju detected! Open fire!" a squad leader commanded.
Kafka's heart, or whatever passed for it in this form, sank. He was trapped. He was about to be gunned down, and no one would ever know he was human.
He braced himself for the impact.
But before the soldiers could fire, a new voice, filled with an arrogant, familiar confidence, rang out.
"Stand down! That one's mine."
KRA-KOOOM!
Kikoru Shinomiya landed between Kafka and the soldiers, her golden suit shimmering. She held her massive axe, her expression a grim, determined mask. She looked different from the day before. The easy confidence was gone, replaced by a cold, sharp focus. She had a new, terrifying benchmark for power now, and she was desperate to prove she could still measure up.
She looked at Kafka, not with the analytical eye of a soldier, but with the hungry gaze of a predator.
"I've never fought one that looked like you before," she said, a dangerous grin spreading across her face. "Let's see if you're any fun at all."
Kafka stared at the prodigy of the Defense Force, then at the soldiers flanking her, and then at Reno, who was still watching, paralyzed.
He was caught between the heroes he'd always admired and the secret he could never reveal. His life had just gone from bad to irrevocably complicated.