I'm Kiyoshi Miyafuji. I made a living selling pirated movies. Five hundred yen a DVD. That was my price. The real ones cost between three and five thousand, so people didn't mind buying copies from me.
I was working late that night, just like I did every day, when a pair of brothers who regularly came to my shop picked a movie from my catalog. They asked me to burn them a copy of Gladiator, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Russell Crowe. One of the latest releases.
While I had my back turned to them, they struck me hard in the back of the head. I didn't die quickly. That was the worst part. I bled for a long time. Long enough to hear them moving around behind me. Long enough to hear them talking. I knew I was dying. And there was nothing I could do about it.
"We don't have much time, do we?" Kato walked at the front of the group, leading the way. No one had officially made him the leader, but it seemed like everyone had decided to follow him anyway. We found ourselves in an open area of the temple's western wing.
"About fifty minutes..." I pulled out my controller and glanced down at the screen. The map of the area was displayed, with the remaining time shown in the corner. I checked the time once more before answering.
"Fifty minutes? Surely we can win!" The fat guy in military gear grinned, gripping a weapon in each hand. He looked far more confident than he had any reason to be.
"Hey, isn't that the place over there?" The tanned adolescent pointed ahead. We all looked up.
There is a nighttime glow over the main shrine of temple. Its traditional wooden structure is framed by carved pillars and curved tiled roofs, while stone lanterns line both sides of the entrance staircase. Decorative banners covered in flame-like symbols hang above the entrance, making the whole place feel strangely spiritual... and unsettling. This is a place of worship for the deity that resides within.
"What do these symbols say? 'Through the wall'? 'Tomorrow'...?" the other adolescent asked, stepping closer. He squinted at the symbols carved above the entrance.
We had to go in. According to the map, we were standing right in front of our objective. Kato went in first, and the rest of us followed. I put my controller away and went in after them. As we crossed the entrance, several Buddha statues stood lined up on an altar. Four Shitennō statues guarded the corners of the platform, surrounding the primary deity: Senju Kannon, the Bodhisattva of compassion and mercy. Its many hands held various sacred objects and ritual instruments—dharma wheels, vessels of pure water, swords, and ornate lantern. The place was dead silent, casting an overwhelming air of reverence over us that made anyone hesitate to cause even the slightest disturbance.
For a split second, they stayed completely still while our group argued over what to do. Then, the main deity statue moved. It spoke, too—muttering in a strange tongue that was neither Chinese nor Japanese. The other Shitennō statues spoke as well. The scene gave me goosebumps, as they clearly possessed a certain degree of intelligence.
"Huh? I don't understand a single word they're saying... do we have to kill these things right now?"(1) The tanned adolescent asked, his voice cracking as he backed away from the stone figures.
"What do we do now, leader?"(2) His friend asked frantically, looking toward Kato for answers.
"Hey, everyone who isn't wearing a suit, fall back!" (Kato) He thrust a hand back, waving us away in a sharp, sweeping motion. But before anyone could process the order, the fat guy in military gear surged past us, driven by reckless impulse.
"I'll take these guys out myself!..."(fat military maniac). He shouted, stepping right up to the central altar and shoving his weapons directly into the face of one of the Shitennō statues.
""#%&(/"#""@"&" (Alien Shitennō ). The alien spoke as if questioning his action.
"Wait, don't do it!" I yelled out, taking an instinctive step forward to stop him. And I managed to stop him just in time.
The Shitennō statues levitate from their positions, floating in the air as they surround our group. Even though their words are incomprehensible, they seem strangely curious about us, murmuring back and forth among themselves. Kato stands indecisive, unsure of what step to take next. Then, out of nowhere, the fat reckless guy shoves me aside, raising his X-Rifles and aiming them straight at the main deity. But before he can even pull the trigger, one of the Shitennō statues lashes out, kicking the weapons straight out of his hands. In a split second, another statue delivers a lightning-fast kick to his side, snapping his neck with a sickening pop that twists his head clear around. It is completely disturbing.
"Aahhh!"(Kato). Our leader screams in rage, aiming his Y-Gun at Senju Kannon just as another Shitennō statue strikes him, making him drop the weapon. But Kato blocks the blow and grabs the X-Gun holstered on his leg, managing to fire a shot at the deity. The alien's head nearly explodes outward, but somehow the damage halts, restoring its unfazed appearance. One of its multiple hands splashes liquid from a vessel, drenching Kato's legs and horribly dissolving them. Right then, I feel my life in immediate danger. I shoot the Shitennō statue beside me, aiming to rescue Kato and get out of the main shrine. The teenagers flee alongside me, but a laser beam slices right through their heads. Finally, I use the suit's enhanced strength to jump over a structure, putting distance between myself and the aliens.
"Kato, say something!" I say, urgent and worried.
"I'm so cold... so cold..." Kato whispers. He looks incredibly weak, and his corroded legs are still bleeding, though very slowly.
"Shoot my wounds with the X-Gun... maybe that can stop the bleeding, I don't know for sure..." Kato manages to say weakly.
"Got it... I hope you forgive me, Kato... It's not bleeding anymore" I say, following his instruction. I grab my X-Gun, adjust the dial on top that controls the blast level down to the lowest setting, and fire. Kato screams at the top of his lungs. And the blood stops flowing.
From that moment on, I'm completely on my own. I hook the controller up to my suit and start messing with the settings, discovering the frequency-shifting mechanism that turns a hunter invisible. After stashing Kato in a safe spot behind a structure near the bell tower, I scout from a distance. Out in the open courtyard, the Senju Kannon alien paces around. Suddenly, the sniper takes his shot—the top half of the alien's body detonates first, followed immediately by the bottom half. He actually killed it! My heart stops the very next second. Before my eyes, every single shattered piece of its body begins to crawl back together, reassembling itself. The Senju Kannon alien raises the ornate lantern held in one of its many hands. The alien fires a searing laser beam straight at the sniper's position. From where I'm hiding, I watch as he dives flat onto the roof, taking cover just in time. The beam scorches the tiles inches away from him, but he emerges completely unharmed. I can see where he's fleeing to, so I head over to him so we can team up and try to survive.
Suddenly, I hear a scream ""LET'S TAKE A TRIP... THIS IS GONNA HURT...!!!" followed by what sounds like a collapsing structure. I can see the pagoda in the eastern wing crumbling down, even though I'm on the opposite side of the temple. Could that be the other guy... Kurono?.
Either way, I manage to regroup with the soldier. We exchange a few quick words—I bring him up to speed on what happened to our group, and he shares what he spotted from his vantage point. The aliens can regenerate, but he tells me it isn't infinite. He watched the lesser Buddha statues finally stay down after being killed four or five times.
However, there was another one just like the Senju Kannon I encountered. In other words... there are two Senju Kannons. To my utter dismay.
He also mentions that he saw the Kurono kid pull off superhuman feats, even bringing down a colossal Daibutsu alien. But that very same creature regenerated once more—shapeshifting into various statues until it finally morphed into a second Senju Kannon to fight the other team. Which brings us to the current situation.
"In other words, you and I have to kill that other thing," the soldier says, his voice dead serious as he grabs the bottom of his shirt and pulls it over his head. Muscles tense across his bare torso as he wraps the fabric around his fist. "What we'll do is ambush it—maybe if we choke it out, it'll finally stop..."
He steps forward, ready to throw himself into a suicide run against a monstrosity.
"No! Stop right there," I interject, grabbing his forearm to hold him back. His skin is slick with sweat, his body wired for combat. "If we go in like this, we're dead for sure."
A sudden realization washes over me as my eyes drop to my empty hands, then back to his intense glare.
"We can use the Y-Gun," I say, the idea taking root. "With that weapon, we don't actually have to kill it—we can capture it and trigger the teleportation. Yeah... that's the key!"
Togo stops, narrowing his eyes as he processes the option. The tension in his shoulder eases just an inch.
"Can you hand it over to me? I've got this," he says with absolute conviction, extending an open palm toward me.
I freeze, my throat going dry. I start replaying the horror of the main shrine in my head: the sickening crack of the fat guy's neck, Kato firing his weapon, and then the Shitennō statue knocking the heavy gun straight out of his hands before dissolving his legs.
It's still sitting on that cold stone floor.
"No... I don't have it on me, but I know where it is," I say, swallowing hard as I look him in the eye. "What's your name, by the way?"
Togo doesn't waste a second on pleasantries. He tightens his grip on his gear, his expression turning sharp as steel.
"Then let's go get it! The name's Juzo Togo," he says bluntly, turning his back to lead the way into the dark.