The return to base was a blur of debriefings and medical check-ups. Kafka navigated it all in a haze, the stolen Kaiju core a heavy, humming secret nestled within him. Every diagnostic scan he was put through made his heart hammer in his chest, terrified that the anomalous mass inside him would be discovered. But Sovereign's energy, which now permeated his entire being, seemed to act as a natural cloaking device, masking the core's signature as part of his own chaotic biology. He passed every test, a wolf in sheep's clothing walking amongst blissfully ignorant shepherds.
The ATU was lauded. Their first mission was a spectacular, if messy, success. They had not only defeated a brand new, high-Resilience Numbered Kaiju, but they had also recovered invaluable data and the first-ever physical proof of the Architect's bio-engineering. The only thing missing, the medical examiners noted with some frustration, was the creature's primary energy core, which seemed to have catastrophically detonated during the final, chaotic battle, leaving behind nothing but trace energy readings. Kafka, when asked, just shrugged and said it must have happened during Kikoru's final, explosive strike.
He lied. And they believed him. The guilt was a heavy, indigestible stone in his gut, a feeling far worse than the alien organ sitting next to it.
That night, sleep offered no escape. His dreams were the Monarch's classroom. He was forced to re-live the battle with No. 10 a hundred times, not as a fight for survival, but as a tactical lesson.
[Your movements are still wasteful,] Jin-Woo's voice echoed as Kafka's dream-self dodged a spectral claw. [You relied on brute force to create an opening. A more elegant solution would have been to use your enemy's own momentum against it. You think like a battering ram. You must learn to think like a virus.]
He woke up more exhausted than when he'd gone to sleep, his mind and body aching from the spectral boot camp. The Monarch's orders were clear. The delivery was to be made tonight. Midnight. At the same derelict waterfront complex where his training had begun.
Getting off-base was a challenge. He was still under heavy surveillance. But his new "Special Operative" status, a designation Hoshina had grudgingly approved, gave him a small amount of leeway. He fabricated a report about needing to investigate "residual energy fluctuations" from the Shinjuku Phantom events—his own previous handiwork—and was granted a three-hour window, with two invisible ATU agents assigned to shadow him from a distance.
He knew he was being followed. He could feel their faint energy signatures, a kilometer back. It was a calculated risk.
He arrived at the Umizu industrial complex. The air was cold, the moon a sliver in the overcast sky. It was exactly as he'd left it, a graveyard haunted by the memories of his first lesson.
"I'm here," Kafka whispered to the empty night. "Where are you?"
[I am already here.] the voice replied in his mind.
A section of the deepest shadow, cast by one of the giant, rusting tanks, began to ripple. It was not a man stepping out of the darkness. The darkness itself was coalescing, rising, taking on a form. Sung Jin-Woo materialized before him, not as a physical being, but as a perfect, semi-translucent replica made of pure, solidified shadow, his violet eyes the only points of solid light. A shadow clone. He hadn't even deemed the meeting important enough to attend in person.
The shadow clone extended a hand. [The payment.]
Kafka took a deep breath. This was the moment of truth. He focused his power, forcing the internal cavity he'd created to open. It was a grotesque, unnatural process. His abdomen bulged, and with a wet, sickening sound, he regurgitated the massive, crimson core into his own hands. The glow from the core cast his face in a hellish red light.
The shadow clone took the core. It didn't seem to have weight or mass in its incorporeal hands. The clone simply held it, and the core's energy began to drain away, siphoned into the clone and, through it, to the true Monarch, wherever he was.
[The quality is… acceptable,] the Monarch's voice emanated from the clone. [The Architect has learned to create more efficient energy sources. This will be a substantial boon to replenishing my strength.]
The core's light faded completely in seconds, becoming a dull, gray rock, which the clone then casually crushed into dust with one hand. The transaction was complete.
"So that's it?" Kafka asked, wiping a trickle of black goo from his lips. "I risk everything, lie to my friends, and turn myself into a biological smuggling mule, and all I get is an 'acceptable'?"
The shadow clone tilted its head. [You have misunderstood. You receive no grade. You are a tool. A tool does not get praised for performing its function. It simply avoids being discarded.]
The cold, brutal pragmatism of the Monarch was like a slap in the face.
[However,] the clone continued, a new, different energy beginning to coalesce in its other hand, [a tool that performs well can be… upgraded.]
A small, black, perfectly spherical orb, like a marble of pure night, formed in the clone's palm. It radiated no light, only an intense, sucking cold. It was an object of pure shadow magic.
"What is that?" Kafka asked, his instincts screaming at him to back away.
[This is a distillation. An elixir,] the voice explained. [I have been studying the structure of your… 'Kaiju No. 8' entity. It is a powerful, but primitive and chaotic, lifeform. Its greatest weakness is its lack of intelligence, its reliance on brute instinct. My power is one of control, order, and intelligence.]
The clone floated forward, the black orb held out. [I have condensed a minuscule fraction of my own essence, a drop of the Shadow Monarch's authority, into this sphere. It is tailored to your unique biology. When you consume it, it will not give you my powers. It will give your own power… a mind.]
Kafka stared at the orb in horror. Consume that? He'd just gotten a Kaiju core out of his stomach, and now he was supposed to eat a piece of a shadow god?
"What do you mean, 'a mind'?"
[Your biological armor. Your claws. Your blades. They are clumsy extensions of your will,] the clone explained. [This elixir will grant them a low level of sentience, a subordinate consciousness that is utterly loyal to you. Your armor will harden itself before a blow lands, without you needing to think it. Your blades will seek out weak points on their own. The monster inside you will stop being a raging beast you must tame, and will instead become your perfect, silent, intelligent partner in battle.]
The promise was seductive. Utterly, terrifyingly seductive. The power he was struggling so hard to control would… control itself? For him?
[It is your reward for a task well-done,] the Monarch stated. [A tool upgraded for the next, more difficult, hunt. Consume it. Integrate it. Evolve.]
The clone offered the black orb. It seemed to whisper to the Kaiju part of Kafka's soul, a promise of perfect harmony, of an end to the chaotic internal struggle.
But Kafka hesitated. Every upgrade, every gift from the Monarch, had come with a price. He'd gained power from the cores, but it had made him more monstrous, more of a target. He had been healed, but it had cost him his free will.
What would this cost him? What piece of Kafka Hibino would he have to sacrifice to turn his own power into a sentient being?
"What's the catch?" Kafka asked, his voice strained.
The shadow clone's featureless face seemed to smile. A cold, knowing smile that was more terrifying than any frown.
[The catch… is that once you invite a piece of the shadow into your heart, you can never truly be sure where you end… and the shadow begins.]
The clone pressed the orb against Kafka's chest. It didn't wait for him to eat it. The orb of pure night dissolved on contact, passing through his skin, his muscles, his bones, like a ghost, sinking directly into the very core of his being, a drop of intelligent darkness into the raging sea of his power.
An agony, colder and sharper than any pain he had ever known, erupted in his soul. He fell to his knees, screaming, as the Monarch's 'reward' began to remake him from the inside out.