Suddenly, a transmission for Hoshina came through. At first, he thought it was the analysis unit, but the sender turned out to be Kafka. “Vice-Captain Hoshina, have you got a second? I have something to report.”
He could sense urgency in Kafka’s voice. “Make it quick. What’s up?”
“I dismantled a kaiju’s corpse, and the core is not where our preliminary intel said it would be.”
“Way to go. I’ll share this info with everyone. Can you go ahead and tell me the location?” said Hoshina.
“Yes, sir. It’s a bit higher than the reported position, above the plates protecting its gills.”
“That’s quite a ways off,” Hoshina said. “Is it a subspecies?”
“No, sir, I don’t think so,” Kafka replied. “Which means this kaiju is most likely still a juvenile.”
“Wait. Did you say ‘juvenile’?”
Hoshina put a hand on his chin and listened carefully to Kafka’s next transmission.
“Yes, sir. Adults and juveniles of this kind have their cores in slightly different positions. As they grow, their lungs develop, and that puts pressure on the nearby core and causes it to move into the lower body. The core position that the analysis unit sent us was from a mature individual. But in the one I dismantled, at least, the lungs were not yet completely developed. It’s a juvenile. And since the core was still in its upper body, it didn’t die when it was shot through the lower body.”
“That’s a bit hard to swallow,” Hoshina said. “Like I explained in the briefing, this kind of ichthyoid kaiju doesn’t go on the move until after it matures. If your hypothesis is on the money, that would mean they’re coming ashore as juveniles now. And if they come ashore at a stage where their lungs are still underdeveloped, they should have a hard time breathing.”
“I have some corroborating evidence,” Kafka said excitedly. “It isn’t just the lungs. The reproductive organs are also immature. At any rate, the ones coming ashore are mostly juveniles. Please correct the core location info!”
Hoshina had to agree. “All right. It seems they’re confirmed to be juveniles.”
From off toward the lake, Hoshina heard the sound of something being smashed apart. Looking toward the source, he saw a house standing near the shore being batted aside. An ichthyoid kaiju was approaching, one so large that the yoju they’d encountered thus far did not even compare.
“Speak of the devil. Is that a mature one, then?” Hoshina asked.
Even though officers near the kaiju were shooting it, their rounds were doing practically no damage to its armor-like scales. Paying no heed to the officers, the kaiju advanced toward the urban center, obliterating houses as it went.
“Hold your fire!” At Hoshina’s order, the officers stopped shooting. Hoshina leapt straight at the adult kaiju. That was when another, smaller individual showed itself from behind the shadow of a building. Going by its size, it was probably a juvenile.
Acting on Kafka’s intel, Hoshina pierced it with his katana through the upper half of its gills. “Out of my way!” he shouted.
The yoju fell to the ground with a massive thud.
Without losing momentum, Hoshina closed on the adult, but unlike with the juvenile, his sword flashed across the lower half of the gills this time. Bloody foam spurted from the creature’s mouth as it collapsed onto the ground, truly dead.
Juveniles had their cores in the upper half, and adults had theirs in the lower half. That much seemed certain.
“Miss Okonogi,” Hoshina said. “Kafka has located their cores.”
Okonogi communicated the core intel to the other officers.
“Kafka, good job!”
Kafka said “Thank you very much!” and pumped his fist triumphantly as he ran.
I did it! It was all I could do, but I was able to help the others again!
“Great job, Mr. Hibino!” said Reno, who was running beside him with one hand pinching his nose.
“Do I still stink?” Kafka asked warily.
“I’m sorry. You do,” Reno replied.
“And don’t you dare get close to me!” yelled Kikoru, who was running ahead of Kafka, keeping her distance from him.
The trio was headed toward Neutralization Zone Delta. Two other new recruits, Haruichi and Aoi, were stationed there. Even now, many yoju were still coming ashore. Up ahead, a single yoju appeared from behind a building. It didn’t appear to have noticed them just yet.
“I’ll take this one,” said Reno. He aimed his rifle and squeezed the trigger. The round his weapon unleashed penetrated the core with great precision. Spurting blood, the kaiju tilted over and fell to the ground.
He one-shotted the thing!
Kafka was amazed at the precision, as well as the power, of Reno’s marksmanship.
It’s incredible, Ichikawa. You keep getting better and better.
But Reno, not conceited about his skill in the slightest, just looked at Kafka and smiled. “Mr. Hibino,” he said. “It’s thanks to you I could shoot through the core and safely eliminate it.”
“Me?” Kafka asked. “No way, it was your skill at shooting that did that.” The real problem for Kafka was that even if he knew the core’s location, he still lacked the skill to shoot it.
“I’ve still got a long way to go,” Reno said humbly. “Still, who’d’ve thought we’d get faulty data from the analysis unit?”
Kafka remembered some old data he’d come across in the reference room. “It wouldn’t be the first time,” he said. “They made judgment calls based on photographic evidence, and the intel they gave was faulty. In this case, there was also the fact that the juveniles had never been come onto land before.”
The members of the analysis unit were pros when it came to judging the characteristics of kaiju. They had a lot of data, and their knowledge of kaiju might well have exceeded Kafka’s. But Kafka, with his many years handling kaiju corpses, surpassed them in terms of field experience, and today something had just felt a little off to him. That hunch seemed to have paid off this time.
My strength is that I can actually go into the field and reinforce our intel.
Kafka, Reno, and Kikoru reached their destination point. The other new recruits were already engaged in fierce combat there. Countless yoju carcasses lay sprawled on the ground, and the sound of gunfire continued unbroken.
“Sorry we’re late!” Kikoru said, and started shooting. The kaiju that had been closing in on the officers were blown away one after another.
With his gun at the ready, Haruichi looked over at them, grinned, and said, “Looks like the cavalry just showed up!”
“Don’t let your guard down just because some of our guys have shown up,” warned Aoi.
“I know that, Aoi.” Firing his gun, Haruichi shouted, “Reno! Cover me!”
“Roger!” Reno leapt forward and took cover.
Incredible.
Kafka was watching from a distance. A kaiju could bounce the rounds he fired right back at him without even breaking a sweat. If he were to jump into the fight, he’d only get in the way.
Never mind, it’s only strangers who are watching.
Kafka looked at the ground near his feet. A kaiju with a hole in its belly was trying to get up. There were way too many yoju, and some of them hadn’t been hit precisely in their cores. They could still pose a threat if they were to attack the officers from a blind spot.
If there’s an open wound, even I can manage this!
Kafka stepped back a bit, took aim, and fired his gun into the hole in the creature’s body. The wound widened even more, and this time the kaiju crumbled to the ground.
Kafka shouted at the top of his lungs toward the officers engaged in combat, “I’ll make sure the fallen kaiju stay down!” Again, he raised his heavy weapon, trained it on a half-dead kaiju that was trying to start moving, and fired.
I-I’m gonna do what I’m capable of!
Just then was when it happened. The air was shaken by the boom of an explosion.
“Whaaa—?”