“Wait a minute… What if we tried feeding it into its mouth?” he suggested.
Working together to operate the davit crane, Noda and Mizushima hoisted the second mine up and dropped it into the water. In just seconds, it floated right up to the edge of Godzilla’s chin. If they were to detonate it at this distance, Shinsei Maru would no doubt sustain heavy damage as well—but that was still preferable to ending up in the beast’s stomach. Taking cover beneath the machine gun emplacement, Mizushima twisted the key in the detonator—but there came no explosion.
The mine simply floated listlessly like an errant buoy in Godzilla’s gaping mouth. Glancing at one another in horrified realization, Noda and Mizushima quickly scrambled to reel in the electrical line that connected it to the detonator—only to find that the wire had been severed, shredded by Godzilla’s sharp fangs. Now the disconnected mine simply danced on the waves, just barely prevented from floating out of the creature’s mouth by the teeth that had somehow kept it fenced in thus far. But it was only a matter of time until the mine slipped through the gaps and out to sea. Their final remaining weapon was going to get swept away without even having a chance to fire. But they had no way of detonating it now that the wire was cut, and Godzilla was moments away from reaching the ship and swallowing it whole.
But then Koichi had an idea.
“Get down!” he shouted.
As soon as Noda and the others had taken cover, Koichi opened fire with the 13mm machine gun—taking aim directly at the mine inside Godzilla’s open mouth. He kept firing into the back of the creature’s throat, which seemed to anger the beast, as it started swimming even faster toward the ship. But just when all hope seemed lost, one of the machine gun bullets miraculously fired out at the optimal angle, and hit its mark.
Then, a massive explosion.
The blast was so powerful that it shredded Shinsei Maru’s stern and sent the whole ship airborne for a brief moment before gravity brought it crashing back down to the sea. A great torrent of water battered the deck like a waterfall. Koichi could only writhe helplessly in pain beneath the downpour, unable to breathe. A broken-off piece of the stern hit him straight in the head, leaving a large, bloody laceration all across one side of his face. Mizushima, too, was hit by debris, leaving him with a fractured bone in his left arm. The entire rear portion of the vessel now lost, Shinsei Maru rapidly became inundated with water.
The men clung to the sinking ship for dear life, all the while watching the giant cloud of mist and waiting for Godzilla to reappear. If they hadn’t managed to deal some serious damage to it with that last attack, there was no chance to make it out alive. When the haze finally cleared, they could see the beast floating limply on the surface of the water—with nearly half its face blown off from the explosion.
“Did we do it?” asked Akitsu.
“I think we might have,” said Noda.
But not a moment later, Godzilla’s immense powers of regeneration kicked in, and they could only watch in horror as the beast’s mutilated face began to reconstruct itself with unbelievable speed. In almost no time at all, everything from its giant eye to its enormous fangs was indistinguishable from how it had been just minutes ago, as if nothing had ever happened. Once it was fully healed, the creature regained its senses, then lifted itself upright to tower over the ocean as it let out a mighty roar.
Godzilla was unkillable.
And Shinsei Maru’s total destruction was inevitable.
Godzilla reared its head back, opening its mouth wide as if to crunch the tiny boat between its jaws—when all of a sudden, there came the sound of cannon fire whistling through the air. The beast’s body was pelted with explosive after explosive.
“What’s going on?” Noda exclaimed—then turned to see a truly unbelievable sight.
The heavy cruiser Takao had just arrived like a guardian angel coming to their rescue.
Godzilla cried out in anger, then changed course and swam to face Takao while her crew was readying the next bombardment. By the time the ship opened fire, the beast was already deep beneath the waves, and their shells were useless—simply exploding underwater like depth charges as Godzilla slipped lithely through the barrage. Before they knew it, the creature was already upon them.
“Oh no…” Koichi whispered.
Not a moment later, Godzilla burst forth from the water directly beside Takao like a breaching whale—then used its falling momentum to deal a heavy blow to the ship as it came crashing down onto the bridge, crushing the captain and crew members within. Godzilla thrashed with its mighty claws and dug its teeth into the conning tower, ripping it root and branch. Its central systems disabled, the crew scrambled to rotate the six 20.3cm guns on Takao’s foredeck to take aim at the beast, then opened fire…
Even a behemoth like Godzilla could not withstand a point-blank bombardment from this caliber of cannon fire, and after a moment’s delay, the creature relinquished its grip on the vessel and fell backward into the sea, sinking deep into the ocean’s depths. Takao, though battered and bruised beyond recognition, had emerged victorious.
The surviving crew members on deck let out a triumphant roar. They’d made a grueling voyage from Singapore and just lost their captain and so many of their fellow shipmates in an instant—but they’d paid the creature back in kind. The crew of Shinsei Maru offered silent eulogies to the brave sailors of Takao who’d just given their lives to stop Godzilla’s rampage in a battle that seemed to be unwinnable.
But then…
From somewhere deep below Takao, a bluish light began to glow beneath the waves, growing brighter with every second. First there was just one light, but then came another and another, like a string of rosary beads. It was like they were witnessing the birth of a divine dragon as the lights coalesced to form a single, curving silhouette. It was an awe-inspiring sight to behold.
“Wh-what’s that?” Noda breathed as he trembled with some primal brand of fear.
In the next instant, a great pillar of light shot forth from the water, piercing straight through Takao’s hull. The pillar expanded, engulfing the entire ship in its light. The cruiser’s hull buckled, then burst to pieces.
This was not the sort of explosion one would expect to see if the ship’s magazine had simply caught fire and all of the munitions on board detonated simultaneously. No—this was a different type of explosion entirely. It was as if all of the iron and other components that comprised Takao’s hull had superheated so rapidly that the ship almost instantaneously changed from solid to gas—the ship evaporated and fizzled away in a single phreatic eruption.
What little remained of Takao’s flaming wreckage and her crew was quickly swallowed up by the sea; a moment later all that was left of was a billowing cloud of smoke on the water—from which Godzilla then slowly emerged, its whole body covered in bright-red sores.
Just what were those bluish beads of light anyway? And how had Takao been completely vaporized in a matter of seconds? And for that matter, what had happened to Godzilla down there, to leave it so badly seared and scarred…?
Perhaps due to the injuries it had sustained, Godzilla seemed content to abandon its rampage for the time being and promptly retreated back beneath the waves, leaving only a giant column of water in its wake. Shinsei Maru was now all but wrecked, struggling to stay afloat as her crew hung on for dear life.
A few moments later, Koichi lost consciousness.
When he next awoke, he was lying in a hospital bed.
Seeing that he’d finally come to, the visitors at his bedside—Captain Akitsu, Noda, and Mizushima, whose arm was in a sling—all turned to look at him.
“’Bout time you woke up,” the captain said with a sigh of relief.
“Where am I?” asked Koichi.
“A hospital in Yokosuka. We all got airlifted here right after you passed out.”
“Were there any survivors from Kaishin Maru or Takao?”
The captain simply shook his head.
So many lives had been lost.
“And what about Godzilla?” asked Koichi. “Did it escape?”
“There’s been no sign of the beast since then,” said Noda.
“Wait… But it was headed straight for Tokyo! If they don’t put out an evacuation order right now, we’ll have another huge disaster on our hands!”
“I’m afraid the government has no intention of telling the public.”
“Why not? Don’t they have a right to know they’re in danger?”
“Most likely they’re hoping to prevent widespread panic and hysteria.”
“What? They should be panicking! If we don’t evacuate soon, we’re all done for!”
“Perhaps, yes. But it seems no one wants to take responsibility for the mayhem that will surely ensue,” said Noda.
“Information control’s the one thing our government’s good at, after all,” the captain said derisively.
Just then, a pale-faced Noriko rushed into the hospital room with Akiko in tow.
“Oh my god, you’re awake!” she cried. “Are you feeling okay?”
“Yes, of course,” said Koichi. “Now, please—there’s no need to panic. I’m just fine, as you can see.”