Hoshina's office—the ATU's nerve center—was a sphere of suffocating silence. The glowing world maps and cascading data streams on the walls seemed to watch, a thousand unblinking electronic eyes, as Kafka stood at rigid attention in the center of the room.
The door was sealed. The audio surveillance was, Hoshina had assured him with a predatory grin, temporarily offline. This was not a formal debriefing. This was a private conversation between a spymaster and his most volatile, untrustworthy asset.
Hoshina sat behind his sleek, obsidian desk, not in his usual relaxed slouch, but ramrod straight. His twin blades lay unsheathed on the desk before him, perfectly parallel, their polished surfaces reflecting the crimson glow of the tactical displays.
He was not smiling.
"Sit," he commanded, his voice flat and devoid of any of its usual cheer. It was the voice of the Vice-Commander, the blade of the Defense Force, and there was no room for argument.
Kafka sat in the single, spartan chair opposite the desk. The silence stretched, a tactic Hoshina was a master of, designed to unnerve, to make the subject eager to fill the void.
Kafka said nothing. His dreamscape training with the silent Monarch had, if nothing else, taught him a grudging patience.
Finally, Hoshina spoke. "I have read your preliminary report on the… 'Shadow Spike Projection' ability." He picked up Kafka's datapad, which lay on the desk. He didn't look at it. His gaze was locked on Kafka's. "It is a masterpiece of creative fiction. You mention 'condensed bio-carbon projectiles' and 'high-tensile subdermal filaments.' You have a future as a writer, Hibino-san."
He tossed the datapad onto the desk with a clatter. "Now, tell me the truth."
Kafka's throat felt like sandpaper. "Sir, I reported the functional nature of the ability as I understood it…"
"Do not insult me," Hoshina's voice was a low, dangerous hiss. "I held the residue of that attack in my hand. It had the same energy signature, the same absolute-zero temperature profile as the aura of the being who calls himself Sovereign. That was not your power. That was his. So, I will ask you again. How did you, a lowly janitor in a monster suit, use the magic of a god?"
The question was the blade's edge pressed against his throat. Kafka knew he couldn't tell the whole truth. The Shadow Vow, the silent leash on his soul, was a concept so alien and absolute he knew they would never understand. And he suspected, with a deep, chilling certainty, that the Monarch's magic might even prevent him from revealing its deepest secrets.
So he told a partial truth. The only one he could.
"After the fight on the rooftop… when Sovereign healed me…" Kafka began, his voice a low murmur. "He said he did more than just heal the wounds. He said my energy was… chaotic. Unstable. He said he 're-calibrated' me. He… stabilized my power by infusing a piece of his own into me. To act as a… a framework. A governor on the engine."
He watched Hoshina's face for a reaction. The Vice-Commander's expression was unreadable, a mask of pure, intense focus.
"So you are contaminated," Hoshina stated, his fingers tapping a soft, rhythmic beat on the desk. "A hybrid, in a way we hadn't anticipated. You're not just a man merged with a Kaiju. You're a man merged with a Kaiju that has been, in turn, forcibly merged with a god."
It sounded insane when said out loud. It was also, terrifyingly, the truth.
"This 'framework' allows you to access his abilities?" Hoshina pressed.
"I… I don't think so," Kafka stammered, now entering the realm of educated guesses and desperate improvisation. "I didn't tell it to do that. I just wanted to save the cadet. The power… it acted on its own. It used the most efficient method possible. It… it borrowed a technique."
This, at least, felt true. Blackwing had acted, not he.
Hoshina leaned forward, his eyes burning with an unnerving intensity. "It acted on its own? You're telling me your suit now has a mind of its own? A mind infused with the will of Sovereign?"
The sheer tactical horror of that implication hung in the room. A weapon that thinks. A weapon that thinks like your enemy.
"I'm still in control!" Kafka said quickly, perhaps too quickly. "It's my will. My desires. It just… it has more options now. More tools in the toolbox."
"One of those tools happens to be shadow-spearing people from fifty meters away!" Hoshina's voice rose, a flicker of his control finally breaking. He stood up, pacing behind his desk. "Do you understand the position you have put me in, Hibino? I am harboring the Defense Force's greatest asset, who is also its greatest existential threat. You are a walking, talking Trojan Horse with the key to our destruction rattling around inside you. And your excuse is, 'I didn't mean to'?"
He stopped pacing and leaned his knuckles on the desk, his face just a couple of feet from Kafka's.
"I need to know, Hibino. Right now. Are you loyal to the Japan Anti-Kaiju Defense Force? Or are you loyal to him?"
The question was a singularity. The Vow in his soul felt like a block of ice. The leash was there. He knew he could not defy a direct command from the Monarch. His loyalty was not, as Jin-Woo had said, a matter of choice. But Hoshina didn't know that.
"I am loyal to protecting people," Kafka said, meeting the Vice-Commander's gaze. It was the only honest answer he could give. "My loyalty is to Mina Ashiro. To Kikoru Shinomiya. To Reno Ichikawa. To the cadets who were about to die in that hangar. Sovereign wants to hunt the Architect. For now, our goals align. But if he ever threatens the people I want to protect… I will fight him."
Even as he said it, he felt the cold irony. Could he fight him? Could he defy the Vow? He didn't know. But he had to believe he could. It was the only thing keeping him from falling into complete despair.
Hoshina stared at him for a long, silent moment, searching his face, his posture, his scent for any hint of deception. He saw only a terrified man, burdened by an impossible power, speaking a desperate, partial truth.
Finally, Hoshina straightened up, a long sigh escaping his lips. He walked over to the window, looking out at the brightly lit base.
"Sovereign, the Architect, Kaiju No. 8… three kings fighting for a throne," he murmured, more to himself than to Kafka. "And we are the board they're playing on. Sovereign is the Black King. The Architect is the White King." He turned back, his expression now one of weary pragmatism. "And you, Kafka Hibino… you're the wild card. The mad queen that belongs to neither side, but could destroy either one."
He walked back to his desk and sat down. The interrogation was over. A new, fragile, and deeply compromised understanding had been reached.
"Alright, Hibino," Hoshina said, his voice returning to its normal, if now more strained, tone. "We will proceed with the official story. Your bio-suit has a new, unpredictable 'projectile' function. I want you in the training yard every day, under my direct supervision, until you can control this 'function' on command. I want to see you summon those spikes, and I want to see you banish them. If you are to be our weapon, then I will be the one who knows how to aim you, and how to enact the safety protocols."
It was an order. But it was also a lifeline. Hoshina wasn't going to expose him. He was going to control him. He was going to try and turn Sovereign's Trojan Horse into his own personal siege weapon.
"You are dismissed, Private," Hoshina said, picking up his datapad, already moving on to the next crisis.
Kafka stood, gave a clumsy salute, and walked out of the office, the heavy door hissing shut behind him. He stood in the empty corridor, his heart still pounding.
He had walked the blade's edge of the lie and survived.
But as he looked down at his own hand, he couldn't help but wonder. Hoshina had called him the mad queen. It was a fitting analogy. But in chess, the game always ends when one of the kings falls. He was caught between two of them. No matter who won, his own fate on the board was anything but certain.