The victory was met not with cheers, but with a tense, professional silence. The members of the ATU, breathing heavily, slowly converged on the massive, steaming corpse of Kaiju No. 10. The dead zone, for a moment, felt eerily peaceful.
Kafka's monstrous armor dissolved, leaving him standing in his sweat-soaked undersuit, feeling the bone-deep ache of the battle settle into his muscles. The fight had lasted mere minutes, but it had felt like a lifetime.
Hoshina was the first to speak, his voice crisp and business-like, cutting through the aftermath. "Haruta, Kenji, maintain overwatch. Scan for any secondary threats. Kikoru, Hibino, with me. Let's examine the carcass. Recovery team is ten minutes out."
He walked over to the dead Kaiju, his blades already sheathed. His face was a mask of cold analysis, but his eyes held a glint of genuine excitement. This was a treasure trove of new data.
Kafka and Kikoru followed. Kikoru gave Kafka a brief, almost imperceptible nod as they walked. It was a silent acknowledgment, a shared moment of respect between warriors. You did good. It was more praise than Kafka had ever expected to receive from her, and it sent a strange, unfamiliar warmth through his exhausted body.
"Remarkable," Hoshina murmured, tapping one of No. 10's intact chitinous plates with the pommel of his blade. It made a dull, dense thunk, like striking a solid block of lead. "The molecular density is off the charts. It's almost like it's not made of organic matter at all, but some kind of bio-printed metallic alloy." He crouched down, examining the seams Kikoru had ripped open. "But the insides… pure organic machinery. The Architect builds his shells tough, but the guts are still vulnerable."
He looked up at Kafka. "That lure you ripped off. Where is it?"
Kafka pointed to the shriveled, dead-looking organ lying a few meters away. Hoshina walked over and nudged it with his boot. It was dry and brittle, like a dead leaf.
"A communications array, a sensory node, and a remote-control receiver, all in one," Hoshina mused. "The Architect was piloting this thing. That explains its tactical precision before you… unplugged it." His eyes narrowed. "Hibino, you said you felt its consciousness when you touched it. A direct link to the Architect. That is the single most valuable piece of intelligence we've ever gathered."
This was it. The moment Kafka had been dreading. The report. He had to give Hoshina the data he craved, but he also had to follow the orders of his true master.
[Tell them what they need to know, but not how you know it.] Jin-Woo's voice was a cold reminder in the back of his mind, the ever-present supervisor. [My existence remains a tactical secret. Your sudden flashes of insight will be attributed to your… unique connection to the Kaiju world.]
"Yeah," Kafka began, choosing his words carefully. "It was like… a blast of pure information. Not thoughts. Just… logic. Data. I got a sense that it wasn't trying to kill us for any reason other than efficiency. We were obstacles. Except for me. For me, it was… hunger."
"It was built for you," Hoshina finished, his gaze intense. He stood up. "This confirms it. The Architect knows about you, it has designated you a high-priority threat, and it is actively developing counters. This wasn't a random attack. This was a field test. We just crashed its party."
He turned to his comms. "All ATU members, take tissue samples, armor fragments, anything you can. The lab coats are going to have a field day with this."
As the team began the grisly work of collecting their spoils, Kafka felt a familiar, chilling presence in the back of his mind. A silent summons. He knew what was coming next.
[The core,] Jin-Woo's voice commanded, cool and possessive. [The creature's energy source. It is mine. A payment for my tactical support. Find it. Bring it to me.]
Kafka's blood ran cold. The core. Of course. In the heat of the moment, he'd forgotten about the Monarch's insatiable appetite for power. He looked around. Hoshina was supervising the collection of an armor plate. Kikoru was watching him, her expression guarded once more. The rest of the team was spread out. Stealing a Kaiju core from a Defense Force kill site, right under the nose of his own elite squad, was impossible. Suicidal.
'I can't,' Kafka projected back, a note of panic in his thoughts. 'They're everywhere. The recovery team will be here any minute. They'll secure the core for analysis.'
There was a dangerous silence on the mental line. The cold knot of the Shadow Vow in his gut seemed to tighten, a painful, physical reminder of his obligation.
[That was not a request, my soldier,] the Monarch's voice replied, the unspoken threat a tangible weight. [I will not have the fruits of my hunt scavenged by lesser beings. You will find the core. You will secure it. Or I will come to collect it myself. And you will not enjoy the consequences of that visit.]
He was trapped. Caught between the unbreakable command of his shadow master and the watchful eyes of his military superiors. Failure in either direction was not an option.
He had to create a distraction. A big one.
His eyes darted around the dead zone, searching for an opportunity. He saw the feral Yoju, still skittering in the ruins, kept at a distance by the ATU's powerful presence but drawn in by the smell of No. 10's fresh blood. An idea, a terrible, reckless idea, sparked in his mind.
"Vice-Commander," Kafka called out, his voice laced with a carefully manufactured urgency. "The lure… it's starting to glow again."
Hoshina spun around, his hand flying to his blades. "What?!"
Kafka held up the dead organ. He was discreetly channeling a minuscule, almost undetectable amount of his own power into it, causing the dead tissue to pulse with a faint, residual crimson light. It was a cheap parlor trick, but in the tense aftermath of the battle, it was enough.
"Is it a failsafe? A self-destruct?" Kikoru asked, taking a step back, her axe at the ready.
"Get back! Everyone, fall back to the perimeter!" Hoshina ordered, his tactical mind immediately going to the worst-case scenario.
As the ATU members scrambled for cover, Kafka created the second part of his distraction. While their attention was on the "glowing" lure, he subtly let out another, very specific pulse of his Kaiju energy. It wasn't a wide broadcast. It was a targeted, silent command. Not one of aggression, but of invitation. A psychic whisper into the dead zone, speaking the language of monsters.
Feast. Come. Distraction.
The effect was instantaneous. From the shattered buildings and dark alleyways, the feral Yoju, dozens of them, which had been cautiously watching, suddenly swarmed into the open. Drawn by the smell of blood and now galvanized by a signal they instinctually understood, they charged the massive corpse of Kaiju No. 10, their collective hunger overriding their fear of the Defense Force.
"Yoju swarm! Where did they all come from?!" Haruta yelled from her perch.
"They're after the carcass!" Hoshina shouted. "Dammit! Open fire! Protect the samples!"
The scene erupted into chaos. The ATU was forced to engage the swarm of lesser Kaiju, their gunfire and energy blasts lighting up the crossing.
And in that perfect, orchestrated chaos, no one was watching Kafka.
He ran to the main body of No. 10, feigning a defensive posture. He knew from his training where the primary power source of a Kaiju was typically located: deep in the center of the thoracic cavity. Using his knowledge of Kaiju anatomy, gleaned from his old janitorial job and his new monstrous instincts, he found the spot. Kikoru's final, devastating attack had torn a massive gash right next to it.
He plunged his arm into the warm, gooey innards of the dead monster. It was a grotesque, revolting act, but he was driven by the Monarch's cold command. His fingers brushed against something hard, smooth, and humming with a residual power that made the hair on his arm stand up.
The core.
It was larger than the others, the size of a bowling ball, and it pulsed with a deep, crimson light. He pulled it free with a sickening squelch.
Now for the final problem. How to hide a glowing, bowling-ball-sized object?
He had one option. It was disgusting, but necessary.
He channeled his power, forcing a section of his own abdomen to become… pliant. Malleable. He created a temporary, internal storage cavity in his own monstrous biology, a grotesque parody of a marsupial's pouch, but on the inside. With a surge of nausea, he pushed the massive core into his own body.
His stomach distended unnaturally for a moment before he forced his flesh to seal over it. The core's light was now hidden within him, and its energy signature was masked by his own.
He was a walking, talking biological smuggling container.
He pulled his arm out just as the last of the Yoju were dispatched. He rejoined the defensive line, his face a mask of exertion. No one had seen a thing.
"Report! Everyone alright?" Hoshina asked, surveying the now-littered battlefield.
"We're clear, Vice-Commander. Swarm eliminated," an agent reported.
Hoshina nodded, then looked over at the lure, which Kafka had now let go completely dark. "False alarm. Must have been a residual energy discharge." He shook his head. "Alright, let's finish up. The Architect doesn't give clean-up an easy time, does it?"
As the recovery team finally arrived and began the formal, and now far less interesting, process of dissecting Kaiju No. 10, Kafka stood apart, a cold sweat on his brow.
He had done it. He had played both sides, deceived his own commander, and successfully stolen the prize, right from under their noses.
He had a Kaiju core the size of a bowling ball currently sitting in a makeshift pouch next to his own intestines.
He had obeyed his Monarch.
And he felt, with a sickening certainty, that he had just taken one more irreversible step away from being Kafka Hibino, and one step closer to being a true monster.