The silence after the rampage was louder than any explosion.
The ruined street, a canyon of shattered concrete and twisted metal, was a testament to Kafka's momentary loss of control. The surviving ATU agents, huddled near the wreckage of the convoy, weren't looking at the dead wolf-kaiju. They were staring at him.
Kafka stood in the center of the devastation, his huge, monstrous form still steaming with residual power. But the wild, bestial rage was gone. His posture was no longer that of a rampaging beast, but of a disgraced soldier. His head was bowed, his massive shoulders slumped. He had failed. In a critical moment, the monster had won.
He slowly, deliberately, let the transformation recede. The massive muscles shrank, the extra arms dissolved, the obsidian hide melted away, revealing the man inside, standing alone in his tattered undersuit amidst the carnage he had wrought. He looked small, fragile, and utterly ashamed.
No one spoke. What could they say? They had all seen it. The terrifying truth, stripped of all military euphemism and convenient lies.
Hoshina was the first to move. He walked calmly, deliberately, into the center of the street, stopping a few feet from Kafka. His face was unreadable. It was not anger, not fear, not disappointment. It was the calm, neutral expression of a man re-evaluating an entire war on a single, flawed data point.
"Is it over?" Hoshina asked, his voice quiet. He wasn't asking about the battle.
"Yes, sir," Kafka replied, his voice a hoarse whisper. "I'm… I'm back in control."
"For how long?" an angry voice cut in. It was Haruta, the ATU sniper, her rifle still held at the ready, though now it was aimed not at the sky, but vaguely in Kafka's direction. "What happens next time? What if that thing shoots you with its… mind bullet, and we're in the middle of a city? Standing next to a school?"
The question hung in the air, sharp and poisonous. It was the fear they all felt, now given a voice.
"That won't happen again," Kafka said, but the words felt hollow even to him. How could he be sure?
It was Kikoru who stepped forward then, her axe held loosely at her side. She had seen it all. She had been the target, and she had seen him take the hit for her, even after regaining control.
"The Architect's sniper… it forced him to lose control," she stated, her voice firm, directed at the other agents. "And then, even after going berserk, he still regained control in time to protect me. He's not the enemy here. He's the target."
Her defense was unexpected. It didn't absolve him, but it reframed the narrative. It wasn't a bomb that had simply detonated; it was a bomb that someone else had tried to remotely detonate, and had ultimately failed to.
Hoshina's gaze shifted from Kafka to Kikoru, then back again. He took a deep breath. "She's right. The Architect has shown its hand. It can't beat him in a straight fight, so it's resorting to tactical and psychological warfare. It's trying to turn our own weapon against us." He keyed his comms. "This is Hoshina. Mission is compromised. Convoy is a total loss. We've neutralized all hostile forces, but our primary asset is… unstable. Requesting immediate extraction and a full lockdown debriefing. Level-seven classification."
The message was clear. The secret was out. Now the secret needed a much, much stronger box to contain it.
The debriefing was not in Hoshina's office. It was back in the Vault, in the cold, sterile observation room outside the empty stasis pod. This time, General Koichi Kanamori, the stoic, iron-willed commander of the Japan Self-Defense Forces East Division, was present, his hologram shimmering ominously at the head of the table.
Kafka, now dressed in a simple, gray detainee's uniform, sat at the table, flanked by Hoshina and Mina Ashiro. He felt less like an operative and more like a defendant at his own court-martial.
"…and that concludes my report," Hoshina finished, his tone clinical as he recounted the events of the ambush, leaving out no detail of Kafka's berserk transformation. "In summary, the Architect has a new weapon capable of inducing a temporary loss of control in Special Operative Hibino."
The hologram of General Kanamori was silent for a long time, his stern, lined face a mask of deep thought. "'Temporary'," the General finally repeated, his voice a low rumble. "A rampage that destroyed two city blocks and a billion-yen convoy is your definition of 'temporary', Vice-Commander?"
"It lasted approximately ninety-four seconds, sir," Hoshina replied, unbowed. "And it ended with him saving the life of Officer Shinomiya and the rest of the unit."
"He saved them from a disaster he himself created!" the General shot back, his voice rising. "For weeks we have been placating the Joint Chiefs, assuring them of your 'pet apocalypse's' stability. This charade is over. The weapon is uncontrollable. It is a liability beyond measure."
"With all due respect, General," Mina Ashiro interjected, her voice cold and steady, "we have been approaching this problem from the wrong angle. We have been trying to control the monster. We have been treating Hibino as a leash. But the problem isn't the monster. It's the man."
All eyes in the room, including Kafka's, turned to her.
"The Architect didn't target the Kaiju," Mina continued, her gaze locking with Kafka's. "It targeted Kafka. It used a psychic attack, but what it was really attacking was his fear. His doubt. His emotional instability. His desire to protect his friends is his greatest strength, but it is also the trigger that the Architect is now pulling."
She turned to the General. "We don't need a stronger cage for the monster. We need to forge the man into a better keeper. He needs training not just of his body, but of his mind. He needs to learn to control not just the power, but his own emotional responses."
The General stared, intrigued by this new perspective. "And how do you propose we teach a man to control his mind against a psychic attack from a god-like entity, Commander?"
"The same way we train our finest soldiers," a new voice said. Soshiro Hoshina stood up. "We break him down completely. We push him past every mental and emotional limit, again and again, until his fear and doubt are burned away, leaving nothing but pure, disciplined focus. He survived his nightmare boot camp with Sovereign. Now he gets to survive mine."
A chill went through Kafka. Hoshina's physical training was hell. His psychological training was something he couldn't even begin to imagine.
"Hibino is not just a weapon," Mina concluded, her voice ringing with a conviction that silenced all argument. "He is a soldier. A member of the Third Division. And we do not discard our soldiers because the enemy has found a new way to attack them. We adapt. We reinforce them. We make them stronger."
Her defense was absolute. It was not the plea of a friend, but the cold, hard tactical decision of a Commander who had decided that her asset was worth the astronomical risk of reinvesting in.
General Kanamori considered her words, his stern gaze unblinking. "This is an incredible gamble, Commander Ashiro. If you are wrong… if he loses control again…"
"I will be the one to put him down," Mina said, her voice dropping to an icy whisper. The promise was not a threat. It was a solemn, heartbreaking vow. "That is my responsibility. As his commander, and as his friend."
The finality in her voice seemed to settle the matter. The General gave a slow, deliberate nod. "Very well, Commander. Proceed. You have one month. One month to turn this… liability into a stable asset. If there is another incident, your unit will be disbanded, and Special Operative Hibino will be permanently decommissioned. Understood?"
"Understood, sir," Mina replied, giving a sharp salute.
The hologram vanished, leaving them in the silent, sterile room. The verdict was in. Kafka had been granted a reprieve. A stay of execution.
He had one month to master the storm inside him. And his only guides would be a spymaster who viewed him as a fascinating weapon, and the woman who had just promised to kill him if he failed.
He looked at Mina, at the immense weight of the burden she had just taken upon herself for his sake. His shame and guilt were now compounded by an overwhelming debt. He wouldn't just be fighting for his own life anymore. He would be fighting for her career, her honor, and the promise she had just made. The stakes had never been higher.