Vice-Commander Soshiro Hoshina's new office was less of an office and more of a tactical nerve center. It was a dark, circular room, the walls lined not with bookshelves, but with glowing, floor-to-ceiling monitors displaying a constant stream of satellite imagery, sensor network data, and public surveillance feeds from all over the Shinjuku ward. In the center of the room, a large holo-table projected a shimmering 3D map of the city. This was the den of the Anomaly Tracking Unit.
Hoshina stood before the map, a datapad in his hand, his eyes scanning the endless streams of information with an unnerving, predatory calm. Three other agents, hand-picked for their skills in data-mining and field reconnaissance, sat at their consoles, their faces tense with concentration.
The door hissed open, and Kikoru Shinomiya strode in. She was out of her combat suit, dressed in a standard-issue officer's uniform that did little to conceal the coiled power in her frame. Her face was set in a determined scowl.
"Anything?" she asked, her voice clipping the air. It was a question she had asked every morning for the past week.
"Good morning to you too, Shinomiya," Hoshina replied without looking up from his datapad. "And the answer is the same as yesterday: nothing. Absolute, infuriating, professional-grade nothing."
He swiped his finger, and the holo-table's map zoomed in on the Kyoen Commerce Tower, highlighting the rooftop where Kafka had performed his ridiculous cat-rescue jump. "Seven days since the 'Jumper' incident. No sightings. No energy spikes matching his chaotic signature. He has gone completely to ground."
He then tapped another location—the Umizu industrial complex. "And ten days since the Umizu incident. No Sovereign. No Architect. Not a whisper. It's as if gods descended for a brief, violent skirmish and then returned to their heaven, leaving us to clean up the mess."
Kikoru walked up to the table, her fists clenched at her sides. "They can't hide forever. They have to eat, sleep, do something."
"You are assuming they are like us," Hoshina countered, a faint, mirthless smile on his lips. "Sovereign might not need to eat or sleep. The Architect is likely not even on this planet in a physical sense. And our dear Jumper… our Jumper is the most frustrating one of all. Because he is clearly the most human, and yet the best at hiding."
He looked up at her, his dark eyes sharp and analytical. "The jump was an act of desperation. An amateur move. But the subsequent disappearance was professional. He knew our methods, knew we'd be tracking his energy. He has training, or an incredible natural talent for stealth. The two sides of him don't match. He is a walking contradiction."
Kikoru's scowl deepened. She hated puzzles, especially ones that made her feel foolish. "That ridiculous act with the cat… It felt like a diversion. An insult."
"Perhaps," Hoshina mused. "Or perhaps he is just… an idiot. A profoundly powerful, city-jumping idiot who is in way over his head." He pushed his datapad toward her. It showed a grainy, enhanced image of Kafka's face, captured by her suit's camera just before his leap. "Our only lead. We've run facial recognition against every database we have. National registry, military, even criminal databases. Zero matches. It's as if he doesn't exist."
"Which is impossible," Kikoru finished, her frustration mounting.
"Precisely."
An alarm suddenly blared, a soft, insistent BEEP BEEP BEEP, making them both turn. One of the data analysts swiveled in his chair, his eyes wide.
"Vice-Commander! We have a match!"
"A match?" Hoshina was at his side in an instant. "On the face?"
"No, sir," the analyst said, tapping furiously. "Even better. An indirect match. We've been running an experimental algorithm, cross-referencing public surveillance footage around the incident zones with employee manifests of local businesses. The goal was to find anyone who had access or was in the vicinity but shouldn't have been. It just kicked back a hit from the day of the first Shinjuku Phantom event."
He pulled a video file onto the main screen. It showed a blurry security feed of an alleyway, time-stamped just minutes before a Kaiju was found perfectly bisected. A garbage truck was finishing its rounds. And a man in a janitor's uniform was dragging a bin out.
The analyst zoomed in. The man's face was obscured by a cap and the poor video quality.
"It's nothing," Kikoru said, sounding disappointed.
"Wait," Hoshina breathed, his eyes locked on the screen. "Keep going."
The analyst forwarded the video. The janitor finished his work and walked out of the alley. As he passed under a street light, he briefly looked up, as if sensing the camera.
It was just for a second. The image was terrible. But it was there. The same tired eyes. The same jawline. The same profoundly average face from Kikoru's camera.
The analyst brought up a file next to the video. It was an employee ID. "He was working for the civic clean-up crew that day. His registered route put him in that exact alley at that exact time." He then brought up another file, his fingers flying. "And another hit… The day of the Yokohama Juggernaut attack. The initial emergency evacuation roster… One of the clean-up crew members was initially unaccounted for after the Sovereign event, only to be found later, unharmed, claiming he was knocked out in a shelter."
A chill went down Kikoru's spine. A clean-up worker. At multiple major incidents.
"What's his name?" Hoshina demanded, his voice dangerously quiet.
The analyst typed in a final command. A personnel file filled the screen. A picture. The same face, but younger, in a new recruit's uniform.
Name: Kafka Hibino.
Former Status: Defense Force Cadet Candidate (Failed).
Current Occupation: Professional Kaiju Clean-up, Monster Sweeper Inc.
Current Assigned Work Location: Japan Anti-Kaiju Defense Force, Third Division Base, Tachikawa.
The room went dead silent.
The name. The face. The job.
Kikoru stared at the screen, her mind refusing to connect the dots. The clumsy, friendly janitor who always greeted her in the morning. The man she and Reno sometimes joked with. The person who cleaned the very floors she walked on.
That janitor… was the chaotic, impossibly powerful monster they had been hunting?
Hoshina slowly straightened up, a look of profound, chilling realization dawning on his face. "Well…" he whispered, a slow, predatory smile spreading across his lips. "That is a truly spectacular contradiction."
The ghost they were hunting wasn't just in their city.
He was in their house.
Kafka sneezed. A massive, body-rattling sneeze that made the cleaning cart in front of him rattle.
"Jeez, Hibino-san," Reno Ichikawa said, handing him a tissue from his pocket. "Are you coming down with something for real?"
"I guess so," Kafka sniffled, wiping his nose. He felt a sudden, inexplicable chill, the old wives' tale that a sneeze meant someone was talking about you popping into his head. "Weird."
He was on his designated cleaning route, just finishing up the officer's wing of the main building. It was quiet. Most of the elite officers were in the new ATU wing or out on patrol. He just had to scrub the floor of the hallway and he could take his break.
He pushed his cart forward, rounding a corner. He was humming a stupid pop song under his breath, lost in the monotonous rhythm of his work, when he stopped dead.
Standing at the far end of the hallway, directly in his path, were two people.
Vice-Commander Soshiro Hoshina, leaning against the wall, his arms crossed, an unnerving, knowing smile on his face.
And Kikoru Shinomiya, standing ramrod straight, her expression a mixture of disbelief, fury, and something else he couldn't quite decipher. Betrayal?
They weren't moving. They weren't speaking.
They were just watching him.
The air in the hallway became thick and still. Kafka's heart, his human one, hammered against his ribs. The mop felt slick with sweat in his hands. He looked at their faces, at the intensity of their gazes.
He saw the way Hoshina's smile didn't reach his eyes. He saw the cold fire burning in Kikoru's.
This wasn't a friendly hello. This wasn't a coincidence.
The look on their faces told him everything.
They knew.