“What?” Finally, Kafka grasped the dire circumstance he now found himself in. “Whaaaaaaaat! What do I do? What’s gonna happen to me? What’s going on?”
“Those are our lines, aren’t they?” said Reno.
“The only solution is to delete the data somehow,” said Kikoru.
“Uhhh, uhhhhhhng—”
Lying against the wall where Kafka had set him down, the director suddenly came to. He saw Kafka and the rest in front of him, blinked his eyes several times, and said, “Where am I? A-am I alive after all? Did you rescue me?”
Without a doubt, it had been Kafka who had gotten him out of there, but he had done so in the form of Kaiju No. 8.
“Ah, no, um, that’s—”
As Kafka descended into gibbering incoherence, Kikoru pushed him aside and said, “All right, the important thing is that you aren’t injured. That being said, I’m sure that as a worker in public broadcasting, you’re well aware that this area is off-limits to civilians at this time, so I trust you won’t mind if we confiscate any images or videos you’ve taken here?”
Kikoru’s words were strong, forceful, and impossible to resist. Watching from the side, Kafka was impressed at her delivery. Still, the director had been shooting that footage at the risk of death or severe bodily injury. Kafka doubted the man would just hand it over without any pushback, but—
The director let out his breath and said, “Okay, fine. I’ll give you the video files.”
Kafka was surprised and thankful at how cooperative the man was being.
“Video I shot with these methods certainly can’t be broadcast. If it’s of use to the Defense Force, then by all means, take it.”
Kafka’s face brightened, and when they had all turned to go, he whispered to Reno and Kikoru: “W-wow! You did it, Reno! Kikoru! I don’t really get it, but things worked out fine in the end!”
“Don’t you ‘I don’t really get it’ me!” said Kikoru. “Next time, please be more careful with your little problem. But you won’t, will you? No matter what I say?”
The director was watching the three departing figures from behind as they whispered to one another.
Officer Kafka Hibino, eh?
If he were being honest, Kafka had seemed like a pretty unremarkable man when he’d covered him. Hoshina had coyly referred to him as the comic relief, he came in last in everything during drills, and the director couldn’t rightly see how or why the man had been hired in the first place. To think it was a guy like that who had ended up saving his life—but life itself was strange, and stuff like that happened sometimes.
There was only one reason he’d so obediently handed Kafka and the others those images he’d risked life and limb to record: it was because he’d already gotten what he’d come there for.
I wanted to film a kaiju. But that wasn’t all.
His father had lost his life at the scene of an emergence. If Defense Force officers had run to him then, maybe his father could have been saved. What the director had been looking for was a dramatic rescue of that sort.
I wanted to film Defense Force officers saving somebody.
That was the real reason the director had put in the request to cover the Defense Force, and why he had snuck into the emergence scene. As a result, he’d gotten himself into a terrible situation and would likely receive due punishment for it, but—
Ah well. As long as I’ve got this one, I guess it’ll be enough.
The director took a pen from his shirt pocket. At a glance, it was nothing more than an instrument for writing, but it had a tiny video camera attached to its tip. He pointed it at the departing trio as they continued talking and pressed the record button.
Reno was carrying the laptop computer they had confiscated from the director. When he looked back, he saw Kafka was walking along behind because he was helping to support the director on his still-wobbly legs.
“I checked the recordings, and Mr. Hibino wasn’t in them,” Reno told Kikoru. “He was just barely out of frame. I think we’ll be fine turning it in to HQ as is.”
“We were lucky,” Kikoru said solemnly. “It was pure chance this time. Sheesh, Reno. You tell him too—tell him till you’re blue in the face—not to ever, ever transform in front of people again. This time, he even transformed while a bunch of officers were around. It’s a miracle he didn’t blow his cover.”
“I’ve already warned him, dozens of times,” Reno said.
“Aah, that guy just—” Kikoru sighed.
“And you already know, Shinomiya. Mr. Hibino just isn’t the type you can get anywhere with just by telling him. If there’s a need to, he’s going to transform. Every single time.”
“You’re right. Like on the training ground.”
“And at Sagamihara.”
The two of them sighed at the same time. Both already knew very well what kind of person Kafka Hibino was. Before asking what would become of himself and what the consequences might be, that man was sure to transform, without hesitation.
That’s just how he is, thought Reno. So it’s up to me to make sure he doesn’t need to transform.
It’s unclear why Kafka Hibino turns into a kaiju or what the governing principles are, Kikoru mused. There’s even the possibility that his consciousness has somehow become part of the kaiju. Even so, I—that guy—
Although neither could fully put their thoughts into words, both Reno and Kikoru silently affirmed their intentions.
Because in all of the Defense Force—in all of Japan, even—they were the only ones who knew the truth about Kafka and Kaiju No. 8.
And it was in this way that the Lake Kawaguchi neutralization operation finally concluded.