Reno awakened suddenly in the middle of the night. Kafka’s bed was the next one over, and it was now empty.
Mr. Hibino’s not here? Maybe he went to the toilet or something, Reno thought, but he had a bad feeling that wasn’t the case. At Sagamihara, Kafka had squared off against Hoshina while transformed into Kaiju No. 8. Hoshina was a pretty sharp guy. If what had happened at midday during the interview were to reach his ears... Kafka wouldn’t be marched off into custody, but—
Iharu was snoring away in the next bunk. Reno tiptoed out of the room trying not to wake him. There was a light shining through a crack in the door to the room at the end of the pitch-black hallway. As Reno recalled, this was the reference room. After sneaking a peek through the gap, he opened the door. “Mr. Hibino, what are you up to?”
“Oh, Ichikawa!” Startled, Kafka turned around. In front of the chair where he sat were several books and a laptop PC. On the screen, a video was playing of an urban district somewhere.
“Lights-out time is already past. Have you been studying?” Reno asked. Many team members studied in their room after their tasks were finished. Kafka was one of them. But Reno hadn’t known that he kept going even after lights-out.
“Yeah. To tell the truth, I’ve been doing it for a while. To become a general officer.”
“You’ve already become one, haven’t you? Tomorrow’s the obstacle course. You’ll want to go to bed early,” Reno insisted.
“Nah, the way things are going, I’d just end up getting left in everybody’s dust. Studying late has gotten to be a habit too,” Kafka said.
“You’re not gonna slip up and partially transform due to sleep deprivation, right?” Reno asked.
“Geh, don’t say that! It makes me weak in the knees! Actually, when you get past thirty, your body really starts to feel it,” Kaka admitted. “These days I can’t even pull all-nighters like I used to.”
“That’s all the more reason for you to go to bed,” Reno insisted.
“Sure. I’d like to sleep, but right now I’m having fun.”
Reno’s eyes went round at the word Kafka had just spoken.
“Fun?”
“Yeah. Back when I was a dismantler, my life was a mess. I’d come home tired and worn out, flick on the TV, and drink a lot of booze. But now that I’m surrounded by all these talented young people, I enjoy this place where I can study. I mean, my body can take this, you know?” Kafka looked at Reno and smiled. “And that’s why I’m grateful to you.”
“I’m grateful”—when he heard those words, a thought bubbled up in Reno’s mind. “You’re wrong, sir. The one who’s grateful is—”
Just then, a loud noise rang out from the computer. The video was showing an urban district in flames. The resolution was low and the image staticky, so Reno could tell it had been taken quite a long time ago. “Mr. Hibino, is this video —?”
“Yeah, I pulled it off that shelf over there. From 1972.”
“So this is—”
“Yeah, Kaiju No. 2,” Kafka said solemnly.
In 1972, Asia’s first Winter Olympics had been held in Sapporo. It had been a massive success, but that joyful occasion had been eclipsed by a terrible disaster. The giant beast that had later come to be called Kaiju No. 2 had attacked and driven Sapporo to the brink of destruction.
“Since I don’t have much experience with cleaning up big kaiju, I thought I’d study up on it,” Kafka said.
Beyond the flaming buildings, Reno could see a colossal shadow that was likely Kaiju No. 2. The beast roared loudly, and the sound unleashed a shock wave. Glass windows in the buildings all around were shattered, tiles were stripped from roofs, and people were blown into the air. The image on the screen swayed wildly back and forth. Had the person filming this been hit by the blast as well? The image stopped in a sideways position, and there the picture froze.
“What happened to the person shooting this?” asked Reno.
Kafka silently shook his head. “Apparently the camera was all they found later. The images of No. 2 they captured on camera are a valuable record.”
“Nowadays, we could use a drone, but that was impossible at the time.”
At the end of the video, subtitles displayed the date it was taken, the place where the camera was found, and the name of the videographer. Most likely, that information had been put in later by the JDF. Kafka removed the disc and closed the computer.
“Well, I think I’ll go ahead and get some sleep. Sorry to worry you, Reno.”
“No problem. You take care of yourself. And, sir?”
“Hm?”
“Let’s do our best in the obstacle course tomorrow.”
Reno thrust out his fist.
Kafka grinned and gave that fist a little bump.
“You’re on!”