The air at 0500 hours in the Third Division's primary training ground was cold enough to see your breath. Giant, cratered durasteel walls enclosed a vast, kilometer-square field of churned earth and shattered concrete—a permanent testament to the destructive power of the Defense Force's finest.
Kafka stood in the center of this man-made wasteland, feeling completely out of place. He wore a standard-issue, black fiber training suit that felt too tight in the shoulders. His muscles, even at rest, now had a density that standard human apparel wasn't designed for.
Across from him, the entirety of the Anomaly Tracking Unit was assembled. It was a small, elite group of six, including Hoshina and Kikoru. The other four members were veterans, their faces hard and their eyes sharp with a mixture of curiosity and deep-seated suspicion as they looked at the new "rookie." They knew he was different. They didn't know how different, but the Commander's orders had been absolute: treat him as an asset, but never, ever trust him.
Soshiro Hoshina stood before them, a wicked grin on his face. He was in his element.
"Good morning, ATU!" he chirped, his voice deceptively cheerful. "For our new members, welcome! For our veterans, sorry you have to be up this early. And for our special new asset…" His gaze landed on Kafka, and the cheerfulness in his eyes was replaced by a glint of surgical steel. "Welcome to the meat grinder."
He began to pace. "Our unit has a unique and impossible mission: to track, analyze, and, if necessary, engage entities that defy our understanding of warfare. That requires us to be faster, stronger, and smarter than any other unit in the Defense Force. Our training will reflect that. We start with a simple diagnostic."
He pointed directly at Kafka. "Private Hibino. Your file states you are the user of a new, experimental bio-weapon. It also states the weapon is… temperamental. Show me."
Kafka swallowed. The other ATU members took several steps back, creating a wide circle around him. This was it. A demonstration. A test.
'The Monarch will be watching,' he thought, a cold knot of dread and performance anxiety twisting in his gut.
He took a breath and focused, reaching for the now-familiar sea of power within him. He remembered Jin-Woo's lessons. Control. Precision.
The emerald energy flared. Instead of an uncontrolled explosion, he channeled it with practiced intent. The black-green biological armor flowed over his body like liquid obsidian, forming a sleek, segmented carapace over his chest, arms, and legs. It was faster, cleaner, more refined than the crude version he had manifested in the hallway fight. Two small, dormant fins, hinting at the extra limbs, rested on his back. He didn't form a helmet, leaving his human face exposed. It was a deliberate choice—a small, desperate attempt to retain his humanity in this monstrous form.
The other ATU members gasped. It was one thing to hear about it; it was another to see a man spontaneously grow a Kaiju-like exoskeleton.
Hoshina's grin widened. "Impressive. Very impressive. Resilience looks high. Let's test its durability." He turned to Kikoru. "Shinomiya. Thirty percent."
Kikoru, already in her full combat suit, nodded. She hefted her massive axe, its jets firing with a low hum. "Understood, Vice-Commander."
Kafka's eyes went wide. "Wait, thirty percent of what—"
He didn't get to finish. Kikoru was a blur of motion, crossing fifty meters in a heartbeat. Her axe, glowing with contained power, swung in a devastating horizontal arc aimed at his chest. There was no hesitation. This was the proctor of his exam.
Kafka barely had time to cross his armored arms in front of him.
*BOOOOM!*
The impact felt like being hit by a freight train. He was blasted off his feet, skidding backward for a hundred meters, carving two deep trenches in the earth with his heels. His arms screamed in protest, and the armor on his forearms cracked, spiderwebs of green light appearing on its surface.
He looked up, stunned. That was only thirty percent?
"Armor integrity compromised but not breached by a force equivalent to a Resilience 7.4 Honju's strike," Hoshina observed aloud, as if dictating a lab report. "Regenerative properties…?"
Kafka looked down at his arms. The cracks were already sealing themselves, the green energy knitting the armor back together as if it were living tissue.
"Exceptional," Hoshina noted with a pleased hum. "Now for speed and reaction." He drew his own twin blades. "Engage."
And then he was gone. Hoshina moved with a speed that was simply unfair. He wasn't just fast; he was teleporting, creating after-images, his blades coming from every conceivable angle.
CLANG! SHRIINK! PING!
Kafka was thrown into a desperate defense. He morphed his right arm into the serrated blade from his training, parrying a strike that would have taken his head off. He formed a shield on his left arm to block a flurry of jabs at his legs. He was bigger, and arguably stronger, but Hoshina was a master artist of combat, and Kafka was still just learning to paint by numbers.
For every blow he blocked, three more got through, a shallow cut here, a gouge there. His armor was constantly cracking and regenerating.
"Too slow!" Hoshina taunted, his voice echoing from everywhere at once. "You have the power of a sledgehammer, but you move like you're swinging it through mud! Anticipate! React! You're not just a brute; I saw it in the crawlspace! Where's that cunning?"
'He's right,' Kafka thought, his lungs burning. 'I'm being overwhelmed. I'm thinking like a brawler.'
His mind went back to the dreamscape boot camp. Jin-Woo, a silent, terrifying instructor, forcing him to dodge ethereal shadow strikes for what felt like an eternity. [Do not just see. Perceive. Feel the flow of intent.] the Monarch's voice echoed in his memory.
Kafka closed his eyes. Just for a second. He ignored the blur of motion and the scream of his overloaded senses. He reached for his Kaiju side, not for its strength, but for its perception. He tried to feel the air, to sense the shifts in pressure, to feel the cold, sharp killing intent of the man hunting him.
He saw it. A flicker in his mind's eye. A line of intent coming from his lower left.
His eyes snapped open. He didn't try to block. He let Hoshina's blade come, and at the last possible nanosecond, he sidestepped, the blade missing him by a millimeter. At the same time, one of the dormant fins on his back erupted into a fully-formed third arm, lashing out like a whip.
Hoshina, caught by surprise mid-strike, was forced to use his other blade to block the unexpected counter-attack.
*CLANG!*
The force of the blow actually pushed the Vice-Commander back a step.
Silence fell on the training ground. The other ATU members stared in disbelief. No one, ever, pushed back the Vice-Commander.
Hoshina landed, a slow, genuinely impressed smile spreading across his face. "There it is," he said, his voice filled with a newfound respect. "The monster's instinct."
Kafka stood panting, his third arm retracting back into his armor. That single exchange had taken more concentration than the entire rest of the fight.
"The test is over," Hoshina announced, sheathing his blades. "Hibino, your performance was clumsy, brutish, and you have the footwork of a drunken bear. However," his eyes glinted, "your potential is… terrifying. You learn on the fly. You have passed the diagnostic."
Kafka let his armor dissolve, feeling a wave of exhaustion so profound his knees almost buckled. He had survived.
"Don't get comfortable," Hoshina said, his cheerful menace returning. "This was just the welcome party. Tomorrow, we hunt."
"Hunt?" Kafka asked, his stomach sinking. "Hunt what?"
Hoshina grinned and pointed to the main display screen on the wall of the training ground. An image popped up. It showed a map of the F-Area of Tokyo, a quarantined, Kaiju-infested dead zone. A new, red icon was blinking in its center.
"A new Kaiju signature appeared an hour ago. Designated Kaiju No. 10," Hoshina announced to the whole squad. "Intelligence believes it's another one of the Architect's custom creations. And our first official mission as the ATU is to go into the most dangerous place on Earth, find it..."
He turned, his gaze landing squarely on Kafka, and his grin became a predator's smile.
"…and see what it does when it meets you."