As Godzilla reared its head back, Koichi could see fumes illuminated by that same bluish light beginning to steam from its open mouth. Then, all at once, the extended dorsal fins jammed themselves back into the creature’s spine, as if to apply some sort of triggering pressure, like the implosion mechanism of an atomic bomb—and a ray of blinding, bluish-white light shot forth from Godzilla’s mouth and screamed through the air in the direction of the National Diet Building.
For a split second, the world went silent.
The extreme high temperatures of Godzilla’s heat ray vaporized the entire building in an instant, skipping over the liquefaction process entirely. The edifice turned from a solid directly to gas. This former solid mass swelled to an enormous volume, resulting in a form of steam-blast eruption beyond all human knowledge or comprehension, creating a massive fireball that expanded with supersonic velocity, utterly engulfing everything in its path.
The resultant blast tore the surrounding buildings to shreds like papercraft, reducing everything in a six-kilometer radius to dust. Seeing the oncoming danger as the massive cloud of debris rushed toward where the two of them were standing, Noriko shoved Koichi as hard as she could into a narrow side alleyway behind the K. Hattori building—just moments before the giant shockwave swept her away along with all of the other rubble and debris, leaving nothing in its wake.
The rapid expulsion of air created a vacuum at the explosion’s hypocenter, resulting in a subsequent backrush of air that sucked all of the shattered building fragments and debris back toward ground zero like a violent wind. Koichi curled up in the small alleyway and braced himself against the storm, praying this raging tempest would pass him by—until, at last, the air was calm once more.
After staggering to his feet, he emerged from the narrow alleyway and stumbled out into a world he no longer recognized. He couldn’t see a single other breathing body anywhere around him. He turned his head down the street toward Miharabashi, looking for any sign of Noriko. But all he could see was the fallout from the blast that had taken her—layers of smoking rubble on top of rubble.
“Noriko… Noriko!” he cried out, his voice trembling.
But he knew there would be no answer.
Looking back over his shoulder, he could see Godzilla still towering high above the wreckage, standing in place as its body healed the damage it had inevitably sustained simply by firing such a ray of devastation. Behind the beast, a giant mushroom cloud was billowing up into the sky where the National Diet Building had once been.
Then, slowly, the beast began sauntering its way toward Shinagawa—just as an ominous black rain began to fall. As the tar-like droplets pelted his face, Koichi let out a screaming, curse-like howl at the top of his lungs as Godzilla walked away, utterly indifferent.
“Estimates of the damage dealt by the gigantic creature that made landfall yesterday now place the number of casualties at nearly thirty thousand dead or wounded, with no less than twenty thousand homes and buildings completely or partially destroyed. Rescue workers in the immediate wake of the disaster have also detected dangerously high levels of radiation along the path of the rampage, which will no doubt hamper recovery efforts.”
Beneath a sky so bright and blue it almost made the disaster from the day before seem like nothing more than a bad dream, Tokyo police were now stationed around a circular exclusion zone twelve kilometers in diameter that had been cordoned off around Ginza. It was all they could do to hold back the crowds of people—which had to number in the tens of thousands total—who had parents or children in the area, or husbands, wives, or lovers that had never come home the night before. All of them were desperate for answers. Desperate to know if their loved ones were safe.
“Based on the fact that the creature appears to be radioactive, experts now believe that it’s highly likely the beast was mutated somehow by the series of nuclear weapons tests conducted last year at Bikini Atoll, which may also explain how it grew to such an enormous size. Researchers are eager to analyze what appear to be fragments of the creature’s carapace-like hide that have been discovered among the wreckage, but which have yet to be salvaged due to the high levels of radiation they give off.”
Just beyond the police line, a small group of investigators in protective clothing were measuring said levels of radiation in the nearby rubble—the numbers on their Geiger counters almost too harrowing to be believed.
It was a night of soft rains over the Shikishima household.
After Noriko’s colleagues from her department store job had all paid their respects and left, the only ones who remained after the wake were Sumiko, Akiko, Shinsei Maru’s crew, and a despondent Koichi who looked as if his soul had been gouged out of his body. On the altar stood the photo of a smiling Noriko that Noda had taken at the housewarming party, now serving as a memorial portrait of the deceased.
“What a damn tragedy,” said Akitsu. “Gone way too soon.”
Koichi didn’t even acknowledge these condolences. He just kept gazing into thin air, clutching his bottle tightly.
“So what’s gonna happen to Akiko now?” said the captain, trying again.
When Koichi still refused to speak, Sumiko stepped in to answer for him.
“When times are tough, we all have to come together and help each other out,” she said. “You don’t mind coming to play at Aunt Sumiko’s house while your daddy’s away at work, do you, Akiko-chan?”
“Where’s Mommy?” asked Akiko.
Sumiko leaned down and held the girl close, stroking her hair. “Don’t worry, Akiko-chan,” she said. “Your mom just had to go away for work for a little while. But I’ll be here with you in the meantime, okay?”
“But I want Mommy!” said Akiko. “I don’t want anybody else!”
As the child started bawling, Koichi lifted his leaden body up off the floor and dragged himself over to the next room, as if trying to escape the sound of his own responsibility. Just then, his knee bumped the corner of the wooden box on which the bundle of photographs had been laying, scattering them across the floor. He looked down at the faces of the soldiers and their family members, all of them staring right back at him.
“So you won’t let me off that easy after all. Is that it?” he said aloud.
Suddenly, Koichi began to laugh—cackling almost, at first. But then slowly, his laughter took on a more pitiful tone and sounded more like a whimpering wail.
“This is all my fault…” he murmured. “I never should have let myself believe this could be more than just a dream…”
Just then, Noda came in from the other room. “As it happens, Shiki-san…” he said, leaning in to whisper in the other man’s ear. “There’s currently a top-secret operation under development in the hopes of eliminating Godzilla once and for all. Mind you, the whole thing’s being spearheaded by private citizens with little to no government involvement, and there’s no guarantee it’ll even work, but…would you be interested in taking part?”
Koichi’s eyes lit up.
SPECIAL DISASTER COUNTERMEASURE SYMPOSIUM read the signboard at the entrance to the venue as Koichi filed into the auditorium and took his seat. Captain Akitsu, Noda, and Mizushima were there as well, the latter still wearing a sling around his broken arm. He tried calling out to Koichi when he saw him enter but quickly lowered his good arm mid-wave upon seeing the grim expression on the other man’s face. The captain, meanwhile, was looking around the assembly hall, sizing up the other attendees.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. “Looks like everyone here but us is—”
“Yes, they’re all ex-naval officers,” said Noda, interrupting.
“Yeah, exactly. Good eye, Doc. Surprised you can tell.”
“Whoa. No kidding?” said Mizushima, glancing excitedly around the room.
Just then, a hushed stir ran through the audience as a group of four ex-Navy captains entered the room, led by Captain Hotta of the destroyer Yukikaze—followed by the captains of Hibiki, Yukaze, and Keyaki in turn. Captain Hotta signaled the men, who’d reflexively risen from their chairs, to sit down, then began to speak.
“Good afternoon, everyone,” he started. “My name is Hotta, and I was once the captain of Yukikaze. As you’re all aware, our great city of Tokyo recently suffered a cataclysmic attack by an enormous creature of unidentified origin and is now in a state of crisis, with no telling when the monster might return for another rampage. And yet, our country no longer has its own defense force capable of protecting its citizens, and any military action taken by Allied occupation forces will inevitably run the risk of escalating tensions with the Soviets, and is thus considered completely off the table. In other words, we have no choice but to stand and face this threat ourselves as a private citizens’ militia.”
The notion sent the audience astir with doubtful murmurs.
“That is why you’ve all been gathered here today,” Captain Hotta continued. “After negotiating with the government, the most assistance we were able to secure was the provision of four decommissioned destroyers, which had previously been repurposed for use as repatriation vessels. But that is all we can expect.”
Another commotion ran through the auditorium.