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Half an hour later.
"Wait... you're really not joking?"
"You... you actually came from outer space?" After listening to Natsuki explain everything, Jared had to admit , the way the guy talked about alien civilizations didn't sound like a lie. He knew the living habits of multiple alien species, rattling them off like someone recounting their morning commute. And then there was the whole bizarre entrance to consider.
Against his better judgment, he was starting to believe him.
"I already told you, I have no reason to lie to you." Natsuki looked at him and raised a finger, pointing it his way.
A gentle, brilliant point of light lifted from the fingertip and drifted toward him.
"What — what is that!?"
"What are you trying to do to me!?" Jared's hand shot toward the shotgun , but the light reached him first, sinking into his chest before he could even close his fingers around the barrel.
"Hss..."
"This feeling... I haven't felt this calm in a long time."
The moment it merged into him, the dull throb of his hangover simply vanished. Something settled in his chest , a quiet he hadn't felt in years. All the noise in his head, all the weight he'd been carrying, receded like a tide going out.
The fear drained from his face. Something closer to peace replaced it.
The shotgun lowered slowly.
"You really are an alien." Feeling that strange, inexplicable warmth still humming through him, Jared was certain now. Whatever this guy was, he wasn't human.
And a Titan? No. He'd never seen a Titan that small, or that human-looking. Even Kong , probably the sharpest mind among them , still looked like a giant gorilla.
"Good lord... something like this actually happens to me."
"An alien space cop tracking down criminals." He set the shotgun on the ground and looked at Natsuki with an expression he couldn't quite name. "If anyone else heard that, they'd think it was a sci-fi novel."
"From your perspective, I'm sure it sounds unbelievable," Natsuki said. "But that's just how it is."
"Speaking of which — what's that?" Natsuki was already looking past the collapsed wall, eyes on the graffiti covering a distant surface. "This world has Kaiju too?"
The mural was unmistakable: a massive dinosaur-shaped figure locked in combat with something that looked like a giant insect. Definitely Kaiju.
He needed more information about this world. And the man in front of him , the one dressed like a vagrant , clearly knew more than he was letting on.
"Kaiju?"
"Sure, some people call them that."
"But most of us call them..." Jared stepped over the shattered planks and came to stand beside him, eyes fixed on the graffiti, brow furrowed. "Titans."
Something shifted in his expression as he said it. An old memory surfacing, maybe. Not a good one.
San Francisco. The very city they were standing in. This had been the battlefield.
"Even if you're an alien, I wouldn't recommend going anywhere near those things. They're taller than skyscrapers. Every step they take is a disaster." He kept his voice level, but the warning was serious. "You'd run up to one and you wouldn't even be worth the gap between its teeth."
Five years ago , 2014 , Titans had stepped into the light for the first time, and humanity had been forced to reckon with something it had never truly considered: that humans might not be the apex of this planet. Every weapon, every military asset they threw at those things had done almost nothing.
"That just makes me more curious." Natsuki rubbed his chin, still studying the mural. "Why did they fight? Who won?"
That settled it. Jared was absolutely certain now , this guy was an alien. That battle had consumed global news cycles for months. There wasn't a person alive who didn't know about 2014. It was the moment everything changed.
"That battle..." He looked at Natsuki's genuinely curious expression, hesitated for a beat, then turned and picked his way through the rubble. He dug around until he found a bottle that hadn't shattered in the collapse, cracked it open, dropped onto a section of intact flooring, and took a long pull. His eyes went a little distant.
Then he started talking.
"Five years ago."
"That thing , the one that looked like a bat crossed with an insect. We called it the MUTO." He turned the bottle in his hands. "They came in two types , female and male. Fed on radiation. The smaller one was over sixty meters tall. The bigger one, over ninety. Human weapons barely scratched them. A lot of people died."
He paused. Took another drink. His gaze drifted to the other figure in the mural.
"And the thing that fought them... that oversized dinosaur."
"Stronger than both of them put together. Once it killed the MUTOs, it walked back into the ocean. Like it had done what it came to do."
"We call it — Godzilla."
His eyes lingered on the graffiti. Something in them flickered , like a man who'd seen that silhouette in real life, roaring against a night sky, and never quite got over it.
"They're all Titans. Every one of them." He leaned back slightly. "And there are more of them. A lot more, living somewhere deep inside this planet."
"You know... before any of this, we thought humans were in charge here. We were so sure of it." He exhaled slowly. "Then we watched those things fight, and we understood. We'd been wrong the whole time."
"They're the real masters of this planet."
Natsuki was quiet for a moment, processing.
So this planet had Kaiju , and from the sound of it, most of them were underground. Godzilla had shown up specifically to destroy the MUTOs. If it had any hostility toward humans, San Francisco wouldn't be a ruin. It would be dust. The relationships between these creatures were more complicated than they looked.
"Bad timing, coming to Earth right now," Jared said. He gripped the bottle tighter. "If I'm reading things right, certain people are going to start waking the Titans up. A lot of them."
His voice had an edge to it now. Not quite anger. Something older than that.
"This planet... is going to become humanity's hell."
"What organization?" Natsuki asked.
He'd already suspected this guy's background wasn't simple. And from the way he talked about it , that bitter familiarity , he'd been on the inside once.
Jared had expected the question.
He tore a strip of wet cloth from his ragged jacket and dragged it across a wooden plank. The water left a mark , a shape like an X, sealed at both ends.
"They're called MOnarCh. You can find them in the news." He stared at the mark for a moment. "Their stated goal is finding a way for humans and Titans to coexist."
"But the organization isn't what it used to be. There are too many voices now, pulling in too many directions."
He looked up.
"Some of them want to steal the Titans' power for themselves."
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