“What!?” My yell spurted out plasma.

I shook my head. My tail writhed. I was so overcome by the revelation that I lost my grip and slid a good way down the side of Mt. Aoi. My body scraped against the earth, triggering landslides that swept down the hills in waterfalls of stone that flattened forests in their wake. Things only got worse as I dug in my feet to stop my slide.

“There’s so much going on, Kosuke,” the kaiju said. “I’m not powerful enough to convey it all, and even if I was, that wouldn’t be enough. It needs to come from Kléothag, or they won’t believe you. I have his message for you, and for them. Come to me, and I’ll give it to you. You need to get Kléothag’s message to his allies. They need to know he wasn’t betrayed. You have to stop the war, before it’s too late.” Kosuke shook his head. “I don’t know how long it will take for this message to reach you,” he said, “or if it ever will, so… I’ll just keep repeating it for as long as I can.”

I stared at Mr. Himichi for a moment, not knowing what to do.

“Please tell me there’s more,” I said.

Desperate, I turned to the kaiju on the sky, hoping he had more to say, but, unfortunately his message just began from the beginning all over again:

“Listen! Please, Kosuke, if you can hear me, listen! You have to remember my words!”

“Fudge,” I muttered.

Mr. Himichi stared at the ground as he sat down on Mt. Aoi. The mountain’s broad, flat summit made for the perfect kaiju-sized chair. He looked me in the eyes. “I don’t think I’m cut out for this,” he said.

I looked up at him. “Neither did I, but look at me now!” I spread my arms to either side.

Mr. Himichi shook his head. “I… I don’t understand, what does he want me to do?”

“He wants to give you Kléothag’s message!” I said. “Mr. Himichi, the Hallowed Beast wants to talk to you personally!”

Mr. Himichi snorted, spewing plasma out his nostrils. “Lucky me,” he said, sardonically. “But… how? How do you talk to God?”

I pursed my lips. Some of my fangs stuck out of my mouth. I was about to suggest that he start praying when Andalon spoke up, tickling the insides of my ear.

“Mr. Genneth! I feel something,” she said. “Over there! It’s over there!”

“Over where?”

“The big water!”

I looked toward the horizon, where Kosuke loomed, still repeating his message. But it wasn’t the kaiju that I was looking at, but rather, a pillar of light that had appeared in front of him.

The radiance plunged into the waves.

“That wasn’t there before,” I said.

“What wasn’t there—” but then Mr. Himichi cut himself off as he sat up and turned to look. “—What is that?” he asked.

Kosuke told us to come to him, and that pillar of light sure looks like an invitation to me.

“Yeah, yeah, it’s there!” Andalon said. “Somethin’s there! It’s strong, Mr. Genneth. It’s really strong!”

“Andalon agrees with me. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the way to Kléothag’s message!”

Some explosions went off in the distance as more missiles detonated. Thankfully, it looked like Yuta and Geoffrey were handling it well enough.

“Aren’t you worried about not having control over this environment?” Mr. Himichi asked. “You said the fungus wanted to stop us from learning what Kosuke had to say.”

“I now believe it wants to stop us from learning what the Hallowed Beast has to say.”

Mr. Himichi shook his head. “Whoever it is, I doubt the fungus will let us waltz up to the word of God.”

“I don’t care,” I said—and I meant every word of it. “I just found out that one of the Godhead’s three hypostases really is buried under the earth, and has a message for you. When there’s a war in Paradise and God personally asks you for your help, you’re behooved to give it a listen.”

“Well… yes,” Mr. Himichi said, “but—”

“—Then come on,” I said, waving my claws, “let’s go.”

I was barely two steps down Mt. Aoi’s slopes when Andalon sent a scream needling into my brain.

“NO NO NO NO! IT’S HERE! IT’S HERE!”

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I was still wincing at her scream when the earth shook. Violently. Fissures opened across the ground, cutting through the forest and the city beyond. Trees and ocean spilled over the fissures’ edges, falling into the yawning abyss. The earthquake stole my footing, sending me sliding down the mountainside once more, this time with my belly facing the rock. Looking over my shell, I saw a chasm open down below, directly in my path. With a yell, I scraped my claws against the mountain’s slope, desperately to slow my descent. But then a hand grabbed me in the least expected place: by one of my horns.

For a moment, the world spun as Mr. Himichi threw me to the side. I rolled down the wilderness, eventually coming to a stop on my shell, its spikes caught in the urban fabric. Mr. Himichi came over and helped me up. I shook out power lines and steel rebar.

Another explosion rocked the earth.

I turned toward the sound.

“By the Godhead…” I muttered.

Mt. Aoi was erupting. But there was no smoke, nor lava or lightning. It was a pyroclasm of shadow, neither gas nor liquid, but something beyond both. The darkness geysered up from the mountaintop, triggering landslides even bigger than the ones Mr. Himichi and I had left in our wake. The blasts of shadows rushed through the many fissures along the earth, rising up from the crevices like flames as the cataclysm barreled toward us.

“Run!” Himichi yelled.

We ran.

At this point, I didn’t bother with caution or tact. The city was doomed; a few more kaiju-related disasters wouldn’t make a difference one way or the other.

Waves of darkness erupted from the earth in a sequence of bursts, like water mains breaking. Whole sections of the city were blasted into oblivion as the geysers of shadow broke through to the surface.

“Follow the river!” Himichi said.

I did.

The Noyoko river was up ahead. A massive office building spanned the river.

“Jump!” Himichi yelled, with a spurt of plasma breath.

Racing forward, Mr. Himichi and I leapt off the riverbank, hoping to vault over the bench-like structure.

Neither of us made it.

The office building hit my tail, which tore through it like the kaiju-sized wrecking ball. The impact rocked my spine. Mr. Himichi tripped over a suspension bridge, launching cars and buses through the air. The bridge’s cables had gotten caught on Mr. Himichi’s toe claws and on the spikes on the lower part of his shell. River water splashed at our shins, displaced by the collapsing structures’ mass and our own colossal body weight. The water ripped through the trees and parks on the riverside, adding to the damage wrought by our tails. Himichi’s tail spikes scraped against my belly scutes as we struggled to pull him free from the suspension bridge. I ended up having to toss the bridge aside after having ripped it off him like it was some kind of giant clothes-hanger. The thrown chunk of bridge plowed into the corner of another office building, which broke the bridge in two, one half of which kept flying, hurtling through the air and landing on the streets where it slammed into some oncoming military vehicles, triggering a chain of explosions, which vanished from sight as the dark tsunami swept up everything in its path.

“Yuta! Geoffrey!”

The warriors heard my cry, because they answered with fresh displays of their powers. Long bolts of lightning lashed at the approaching darkness. A swarm of tiny—I zoomed in—kana—slicing through the wall of shadows. The darkness burst where they struck it, falling like a collapsing wave.

Mr. Himichi grabbed my arm and pulled.

“Wait!” I yelled, spitting out plasma, struggling against his pull, “what about—”

His gaze drilled into me. “—Do you want to die, too?”

I stared at him for a moment.

“Call them back, Mr. Genneth!” Andalon said. “You gotta call them back!”

I wish I had the time to slap myself. Instead, I charged ahead, wading through the river as quickly as I could. Focusing on Yuta and Geoffrey’s presences, I willed them to return, causing two trails of light to launch up from the city behind us and whipping through the air as they zipped board me and flowed into my body. I felt the spirits’ surprise as they returned to me.

“We’re almost there!” Mr. Himichi yelled.

He was right. The river had broadened to the point where we could both fit inside it. Factories and warehouses sprung up as we neared the sea. Great cranes and transport ships hung from the city’s coast. Entering the harbor sent massive waves shooting onto the land, drenching Noyoko’s wharves with mini-tsunamis, beheading cranes and capsizing container ships, dashing their contents into the sea.

Behind us, the darkness had crested into a tsunami of its own. It rose up impossibly high. I might have been taller than an office building, but, looking up at the wall of vaporous shadow, I felt tiny—like an ant beneath the shadow of a boot.

“We’re almost there!” Mr. Himichi said.

I turned my gaze forward. The pillar of light loomed up ahead, glowing beneath and in front of the image of Kosuke the kaiju looming at the horizon.

The darkness displaced the ocean, sending water hurtling toward us. Waves crested over my shell as the sea level suddenly rose to the middle of my chest.

“Can you swim?” Mr. Himichi asked.

“Can you?” I said.

Flicking my tail, I leaned forward and paddled with my arms and legs.

Andalon shrieked. “Mr. Genneth!”

In front of us, the water level dropped, rising behind us, cresting up in an ever-heightening wave. I tumbled forward, leaping away from the rising tide. The sea level had dropped so much that my elbow skidded against the seabed as I fell.

Amorphous forms rose from the sea as I pushed myself up off the ground. The things were made from sea. Water grew into bouquets of shapes like morning stars and mace-heads, barbaric limbs that flung the water into the air as they thrashed and struck. Broad sheets of seawater soared overhead, freed from gravity’s moorings. They sliced through everything in their path: office buildings, skyscrapers, even the distant mountains.

Concrete flesh sloughed off the city’s wounds, only for it all to be swallowed up by the giant wave of shadow.

“Genneth!” Mr. Himichi roared. “Go!”

Planting his feet in the shallow sea, Mr. Himichi stood up tall and spread his arms, opening his mouth wide.

I ran around him right as he blasted out a coruscating stream of emerald plasma. The beam’s cross-section had to be as big as my face!

And he aimed it directly at the water creature.

The amorphous thing stretched up and up as Mr. Himichi’s plasma blast blew a hole straight through its core. The cursed water flailed about, launching pieces of itself in arcs and waves. The shadow-water cut deep. It gouged through Mr. Himichi’s scales and scutes, drawing up blood.

“What about you!?” I screamed.

“Go!” he yelled, widening his maw even more.

Noyoko was gone. The great shadow had consumed it all. It loomed over us, mere seconds from Mr. Himichi. From off to side, the water monster leapt. Darkness closed in on him from all sides, ready to entomb him.

But still, his plasma beam shone. Mr. Himichi twisted his head this way and that, slicing through the darkness with calligraphic grace.

“Mr. Genneth!” Andalon shrieked.

Swallowing hard, I ran, my toe-claws pitting holes into the seabed. The Kosuke-Kaiju towered over me, as big as the sky itself, the light-pillar shining in front of them

I reached for the light. As I touched it, all the noise fell away. The shadow waters, the screaming plasma, my childhood hero’s unwavering roar—all of it vanished, silent and still.