The sewers, once a simple conduit of waste, had become a cathedral of stolen technology and twisted biology.
Kaiju No. 9 had returned to its lair, not in triumph, but in a state of cold, analytical fury. Its primary mission had been a failure. The explosives had been disabled. The assassins it sent had been eliminated. And most importantly, its primary specimen, Kaiju No. 8, had vanished, spirited away by the Anomaly-Alpha himself.
But the mission was not a total loss. Failure was, after all, the most valuable data.
Its fluid, pale form coalesced before its bank of monitors, which now displayed a single, looping image: Kafka's transformed arm, seconds before it obliterated the obsidian Kaiju.
Its internal monologue was not the roar of a wounded beast, but the meticulous dictation of a research paper.
Thesis: The Hibino-Kaiju synthesis is not a simple parasitism. It is a symbiotic fusion at the genetic level. The human host retains its consciousness, its tactical mind, and a degree of control over the transformation. The Kaiju parasite provides the biological framework for immense power and regeneration.
The creature extended a tendril and played another clip: Genos, the cyborg, disabling one of its bombs with a nano-drone.
Hypothesis: The arms race has escalated beyond the purely organic. The 'Chrome Demon' represents a technological apex that current Kaiju cannot overcome through simple biological adaptation. Sheer force is insufficient against a foe that can wage war on a microscopic level and deploy city-level firepower.
Then, the final, most damning piece of footage: Saitama, taking the blade-strike to the back of his head, the weapon shattering against his skin.
Conclusion: Anomaly-Alpha is not a variable to be fought. It is a universal constant to be avoided. Its existence represents a 'Game Over' state for any strategy predicated on direct confrontation. To engage Alpha is to be deleted from the equation.
Kaiju No. 9's form rippled, the logic coalescing into a new, terrifying grand strategy. It was a three-pronged approach.
First, Replication. The primary objective was now to capture Kafka Hibino. Not just to dissect him, but to understand the process of his perfect symbiosis. If it could replicate that, it could create an army of true monster-soldiers, each one as cunning and capable as a human, but with the power of a Kaiju. An army to bog down the world's conventional forces.
Second, Adaptation. It had witnessed the future of warfare in Genos. Kaiju could no longer be simple brutes. The next generation it would create would be smarter, more refined. It would begin integrating the stolen technology it had reverse-engineered. It would create Kaiju with jamming capabilities, with energy-dampening armor, with integrated projectile weaponry. It would build its own chrome demons from flesh and bone. An elite force designed to counter the new weapons humanity was surely developing.
Third, and most chillingly, Isolation. It could not fight Anomaly-Alpha. Therefore, it had to remove him from the board without a fight. How? By destroying everything he cared about. Which, according to its observations, seemed to be very little. But he had taken an interest in Kaiju No. 8. And he seemed to be motivated by... conveniences. Supermarket sales. A quiet life.
New strategy: Do not attack the god. Attack his world. Cripple the infrastructure. Destroy the society he passively enjoys. Make his world so loud, so chaotic, so inconvenient that he either leaves in frustration, or is forced into a conflict on a scale that will reveal his true nature to the world, shattering humanity's fragile morale.
It would not try to kill the god. It would try to make him so profoundly annoyed that he would break his own toys in a fit of pique.
Kaiju No. 9's lair was no longer just a hiding place. It was a laboratory and a war room. It began a new, grotesque process of creation. It took the biological slurry from the captured specimens, the salvaged parts of its own failed assassins, and the scraps of technology it had stolen.
In bubbling, organic vats, new forms began to take shape. A creature with wings like a stealth bomber, designed to emit a low-frequency psychic drone that would induce mass paranoia. A burrowing monster that didn't just tunnel, but phased through solid matter, perfect for infrastructure sabotage. A swarm of small, insectoid Kaiju designed to devour and replicate digital data, to cripple humanity's information networks.
The war was about to escalate. The monsters would no longer just be a physical threat, but a psychological, technological, and strategic one. They would be custom-designed nightmares, each one a scalpel intended to cut a specific tendon of human society.
The opening salvo was already in motion. One of the new, phased-burrowing Kaiju was already on its way, its destination not a military base or a crowded city center, but a remote, heavily-guarded facility. The central server hub for the nation's financial and power grids.
It wouldn't be a loud, spectacular attack. It would be a quiet, crippling blow designed to cause maximum chaos and inconvenience. An attack designed not to draw the attention of the Defense Force, but to specifically, personally, annoy a certain bald man who just wanted to use his microwave and buy things with the unlimited credit his cyborg disciple had arranged for him.
Kaiju No. 9's war had become personal. And it had found the most insidious weapon of all: Saitama's own pet peeves.