The silence was a thin, fragile shell.
It held for one more second, two, stretched taut over the entire base. Akira's hand rested on the hilt of his new katana, his senses, both natural and augmented, screaming a warning that was so loud it was almost silent. Reno's finger hovered over the trigger guard of his rifle, his breathing shallow. Kafka stood slightly ahead of them, his fists clenched, a low, almost inaudible hum of desperate energy radiating from him.
The shell shattered.
It wasn't one sound, but a symphony of destruction erupting from three different points at once. The primary alarm blared, but it was almost drowned out by the specific, shrieking breach warnings from Sectors 2, 7, and their own—Sector 4-West.
[Ravan: Catastrophic-level bio-signatures detected. Breach at Sector 2. Fortitude 7.1. Breach at Sector 7. Fortitude 6.8. Breach at Sector 4-West. Fortitude 5.9. Assault is coordinated, tactical. Probability of primary objective: Sample acquisition at Central Storage. Host is at the primary objective point.]
"It's a distraction!" Reno yelled, his rifle snapping up as he scanned the shadows of the old storage buildings. "They're hitting everywhere to pull forces away!"
From the far side of the base, a colossal roar shook the very foundations of Tachikawa. The Breacher had arrived. They could hear the distant, frantic staccato of heavy artillery and the unmistakable, sharper crack of Vice-Captain Hoshina's supersonic strikes. A flash of silver and a whirlwind of blue—Kikoru was in the fight too. The main force was engaged.
Then, the lights flickered. A series of wet, sizzling thwumps echoed from the direction of Sector 7, followed by the frustrated shouts of recruits and the dying whine of automated turrets. The Saboteur was doing its job. The base was going dark and deaf.
But here, at Sector 4-West, it was still quiet. A wrong, predatory quiet.
"It's here," Akira whispered, his eyes fixed on a patch of darkness that seemed deeper than the rest. "The quiet one."
The shadow moved. It didn't charge; it flowed. One moment it was a part of the wall's ruin, the next it was a sleek, panther-like nightmare of obsidian flesh and vibrating claws. It was all lethal grace and silent purpose—the Infiltrator.
It moved so fast it was a blur. It bypassed Kafka entirely, its target clear: the reinforced door to the central sample storage behind them.
Reno didn't hesitate. He didn't aim for the body; he aimed for the path. A controlled burst of plasma fire tore up the ground in front of the creature, forcing it to check its sprint for a microsecond.
"Its left side!" Reno shouted, his voice steady despite the adrenaline. "It's favoring the left! It's got an old injury!" His eyes, sharpened by desperation and countless hours reviewing footage, had caught what others would miss.
The Infiltrator turned its head, its faceless, smooth head seeming to regard Reno with an insectoid curiosity. Then it moved again, this time towards the source of the annoyance.
Kafka saw it lunge, a black bolt of lightning aimed at Reno's throat. The fear was there, icy and paralyzing. But louder than the fear was Reno's voice in his head: "Be the guard dog."
He didn't think. He didn't try to be precise. He threw himself forward, not with a punch, but with a raw, unfocused eruption of power. A wall of brilliant, crackling blue energy bloomed in the space between Reno and the kaiju. It wasn't a weapon; it was a shield.
The Infiltrator hit the energy field and was thrown back, skidding across the concrete with a shriek of frustration. Kafka stood panting, the blue energy receding back into his skin, his arms smoking. It was messy, wasteful, and utterly effective.
The creature rose, its form shimmering with agitated power. It focused on Kafka now, recognizing him as the greater obstacle.
This was the opening Akira needed.
He didn't use his raw, overwhelming 99% power. His body, still humming with the echoes of recent injury, couldn't sustain that yet. Instead, he became a symphony of stolen strengths.
[Ravan: Activating assimilated abilities: Tiger Beetle Burst Acceleration. Mantis Precision Targeting. Hardened Carapace Reinforcement.]
The air cracked as he closed the distance in a micro-burst of speed. The Infiltrator was fast, but Akira was instantaneous. His katana, the dark blade a seamless extension of his will, didn't slash wildly. It moved with the Mantis's impossible precision, aiming for the microscopic fissure in the creature's armored hip that Reno had identified.
The Infiltrator reacted, a vibrating claw slicing towards Akira's head in a blow that would shear through metal. Akira didn't dodge. He brought his free arm up, and the material of his suit glowed momentarily with a rocky, grey texture. The Hardened Carapace ability.
CLANG-SHIIING!
The claw screeched against the reinforced arm, throwing sparks but not drawing blood. The force of the blow was immense, driving Akira back a step, but his guard held.
In that same moment, his katana found its mark. The tip slid into the flaw in the kaiju's armor with a sickening, precise pop. The creature shrieked, a sound of pure rage and pain, and backflipped away, dark ichor dripping from its hip. Its movement was slightly slower now, slightly less sure.
The three of them stood in a loose triangle around it—Kafka, the immovable barrier; Reno, the unerring eye; Akira, the unstoppable blade. They were breathing heavily, but they were working as one. The Infiltrator paced, wounded, calculating.
And then, it stopped.
It didn't look at them. It turned its head towards the breached wall and bowed its head, like a subject awaiting its king.
The temperature dropped. The air grew thick, heavy, charged with a pressure that had nothing to do with the battlefield chaos elsewhere. It was a presence, cold and absolute, that demanded submission.
A figure landed silently in the rubble behind them. No crash, no impact. It was just… there.
Kaiju No. 9. In its original, horned form. But it was changed.
Gone was the purely biological horror. Integrated into its chest and back were glowing canisters of churning, emerald-green liquid—the stolen pharmaceutical tech. Its arms were sheathed in a shimmering, metallic alloy that seemed to drink the light, and its claws crackled with a new, vicious energy that made the air smell of ozone and rot.
It ignored Kafka. It ignored Reno. Its multifaceted eyes, glowing with a cold, alien intelligence, locked directly onto Akira.
A voice, dry and rasping like sand on bone, echoed not in their ears, but inside their skulls.
"The anomalous synthesizer."
It took a step forward, and the ground seemed to tremble. The power radiating from it was orders of magnitude greater than before. The Infiltrator whined softly, keeping its head low.
"You are not a thief of essence. You are a creator. A blender of powers. A beautiful, chaotic variable."
Another step. The pressure intensified, a physical weight pushing down on them. Kafka grunted, his knees buckling slightly. Reno brought his rifle up, but his hands were shaking, the barrel wavering uncontrollably. Only Akira stood unbent, his eyes narrowed, Ravan streaming a cascade of terrifying data through his mind.
[Ravan: Warning! Target fortitude level unmeasurable. Energy output exceeds all previous parameters. Composition includes advanced bio-enhancements and synthesized alloy. Threat level: MAXIMUM.]
Kaiju No. 9 raised a claw. The energy around it didn't just glow; it coalesced, forming a spinning vortex of distorted space and black lightning above its palm.
"Your data will be the key to my perfection."
The vortex pulsed, and the world seemed to hold its breath. The sounds of the distant battles faded into nothingness. There was only the three of them, the wounded Infiltrator, and the perfected monster before them, its gaze fixed on Akira, ready to erase the variable it could not understand.
The real fight hadn't even begun. It was about to.
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T/N :
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