Getting out of the base for an unsanctioned, solo mission should have been impossible. A week ago, it would have been. But now, Kafka was the ghost hunter, the anomaly specialist. The ATU was, under Hoshina's carefully crafted narrative, giving him a longer and longer leash to investigate "ethereal energy signatures" that only he could perceive.
He submitted a falsified report—a 'gut feeling' about residual IDP energy near Mount Fuji—a vague, untraceable mission that would give him the eight-hour window he needed. It was a flimsy excuse, but Hoshina, with a knowing, unreadable look, approved it. It was a silent acknowledgment. I know you're doing something for your other master. This is me, letting the leash out. Don't make me regret it.
The ride into the Hakone mountains on a high-speed, silent motorcycle was a journey into a different Japan. The glittering techno-spires of Tokyo gave way to ancient, mist-shrouded forests and winding mountain roads. The air grew heavy, thick with the smell of sulfur and old, sleeping power.
He found the decommissioned geothermal plant nestled in a volcanic caldera, a rusting, skeletal ruin being slowly devoured by nature. It looked abandoned, but Kafka's enhanced senses, now attuned to both Kaiju and shadow, felt the wrongness of the place. A faint, almost undetectable hum of advanced technology was still active, deep beneath the earth. And beneath that, something else. A vast, deep, and impossibly slow heartbeat. The rhythm of a slumbering mountain.
Following the Monarch's precise instructions, he found a hidden maintenance hatch, rusted but unlocked. He descended into the earth, into a world of cold, damp concrete and buzzing emergency lights. The official facility had been stripped, but the deeper he went, the more he saw signs of a different kind of construction. The walls were reinforced not with steel, but with a strange, black, non-reflective alloy. Sigils and equations, related to dimensional energy suppression, were subtly etched into the floor. This wasn't a power plant. It was a prison.
He also found signs of a recent visitor. Laser-cut holes in security doors. Neatly disabled automated sentries. And a faint, lingering energy trail. The Architect, or one of its puppets, had been here. It had moved through this place like a surgeon, bypassing the old human defenses with contemptuous ease.
Finally, he reached his destination. A colossal, cavernous chamber, a thousand meters underground.
It was a temple of containment.
The chamber was a sphere of the same black alloy. In the center, suspended by a web of colossal energy conduits, was a "thing" that defied easy description. It was a Kaiju, but it was unlike any he had ever seen. It was not a creature of flesh or chitin. It was a being of rock and metal, a twenty-meter-tall, vaguely humanoid golem. Its body was a fusion of obsidian, granite, and a strange, crystalline metal that pulsed with a faint, internal, orange light. Its form was archaic, powerful, covered in carvings that resembled ancient Japanese script.
It was completely inert, its massive head bowed as if in slumber, the light within it slow and rhythmic as a sleeping heart. This was the relic. Daitetsu. The Sleeper under the Mountain.
And standing on a catwalk before it, tapping away at a holographic console it had interfaced with the ancient containment system, was a slender, humanoid figure in a shifting, chameleonic trench coat. A puppet of the Architect. Kaiju No. 9.
"I am impressed you found this place," the creature's synthetic voice echoed in the vast chamber, not turning around. It had known he was there the entire time. "Though I suppose your master's senses are not bound by mere physical limitations."
Kafka's Blackwing armor flowed over him, sleek and silent. "What are you doing here?" he asked, his voice low and steady.
"Learning. Adapting," No. 9 replied, its fingers flying across the holographic display. "My previous creations, my art, were flawed. Designed to fight you, your comrades, and your mysterious master. But I was building from my own library of knowledge. I was trying to write a new book, when there was already a masterpiece, gathering dust on the shelf."
It gestured to the slumbering giant. "This creature. Daitetsu. My analysis of your archives suggests it is not a 'Kaiju' in the way you understand them. It is older. A native defense mechanism of this planet. A 'guardian', if your mythology is to be believed. A being of pure, terrestrial power. Its resilience is, theoretically, immeasurable."
A native defense mechanism? The concept was world-altering. Kaiju weren't just invaders. The planet itself could create them.
"My creator made me to deconstruct and rebuild," No. 9 continued, a note of artistic pride in its voice. "But this thing… its biological and geological structure is a work of genius. It is not powered by a simple core. Its entire body is the energy source. It doesn't regenerate; it reforms. To fight it is to fight the mountain it is made of. A beautiful concept."
"You're going to wake it up," Kafka stated, his hand forming into a blade of black and green.
"Oh, no," No. 9 said with a synthetic chuckle. "That would be crude. And foolish. I am not a vandal who smashes a beautiful statue. I am a connoisseur." Its holographic display flickered, showing complex DNA-like helixes, intertwined with geological fault lines and energy readings. "I am not here to unleash it. I am here to copy it. I am taking a sample of its core programming, its structural data. I am learning how to build my own guardian. A Kaiju that is not an invasive species, but a child of this very world."
The sheer, diabolical genius of it hit Kafka like a physical blow. The Architect was going to build its next monster using Earth's own blueprints. A monster that would be stronger, more resilient, and perhaps even seen as 'natural' by the planet itself.
"The Monarch's power is… ethereal. Based on death and shadows," No. 9 mused. "An external, cosmic force. What better to counter it than with a creature born of the planet's own unyielding life force? A thing of stone and magma. How can a shadow fight a mountain?"
The data transfer on its screen reached 99%.
"I cannot allow that," Kafka said, taking a step forward.
"I did not expect you would," No. 9 replied, finally turning. Its single red eye glowed. Its trench coat fell away, revealing a new body. It was sleeker, faster-looking than the one from the waterfront. A Series 2 puppet. "You are to be the first field test for my new, hybridized upgrades, combining my own technology with the feral cunning of the wolf-kaiju."
It crouched low, its limbs elongating. "My master wants your master's power. To get it, I must first deconstruct you. Piece. By. Piece."
100%. The data transfer was complete. An alarm, a deep, resonant KLAXON, began to blare through the containment chamber. The containment field around the slumbering Daitetsu flickered.
"Oh dear," No. 9 said, a fake innocence in its voice. "It seems my data extraction has caused a minor instability in the five-decade-old containment system. A completely unforeseen consequence, I assure you."
The orange light within the stone Kaiju began to glow brighter. Its slow, steady heartbeat began to speed up. A deep, grinding groan echoed through the chamber as stone ground against stone.
No. 9 had lied. It hadn't just copied the data. It had initiated a wake-up call. It was unleashing a god-tier monster as the ultimate distraction.
It then vanished in a blur, reappearing at the far exit. "I have what I came for. This relic and you are now free to sort things out amongst yourselves. Do try to survive. The data will be more interesting that way."
The puppet disappeared, sealing the door behind it.
Kafka was left alone in the vast, echoing chamber, the klaxons screaming, as the colossal, ancient Kaiju relic, the Sleeper Under the Mountain, slowly began to raise its massive, stony head. The light in its eyes, a deep, burning magma-orange, flickered to life. And they were staring directly at him.