#I refused to call Kafka's potential new form He/Him or They/Them on grounds that -

[mechazushi]

Heart-To-Heart {A Kaiju Number 8 Short story.}

[Warning: Major Character Death] [Warning: Depictions of Gore]

It was a long drive back to the First Division base. It felt even longer since you could feel everyone collectively reeling from the news. It hadn't hit the front-liners just yet. The higher ups were waiting to see just how many were going to come back from the fight alive first. Mina and Soshiro couldn't bring themselves to tell Reno or Kikoru just yet either. They knew something was off when they rushed their friend into an armored truck as soon as the dust settled. They were just going to have to writhe in a lack of understanding for a little while longer. At least, just until the captain and vice captain could get a better understanding of what Kafka; or, they guess in this new situation, Kaiju Number 8, was now.

"You seem to have developed a new staring problem." Hoshina observed bitterly.

Him and his captain were riding in the back of a mostly empty armored box truck. Other than them, there was what was to be assumed to be what remained of Kafka. That being just... the kaiju itself. It wasn't clear what had happened to Kafka after the end of the fight, but that's why they were in here. Although, neither of them felt like getting a head start on questioning.

"Apologies. It's just... you, remind us... of someone. Someone... we miss." Kaiju Number 8 spoke as it cocked its head to the side, it's sight not leaving the commander's face.

It was strapped to a metal chair again, similar to the one they had placed their friend in three months prior. It's voice wasn't the same as Kafka's anymore. Even when Kafka was in his Kaiju form, you could still hear it and tell it was still Kafka, even if it had developed a deeper tone and a rolling grumble. Now... there was nothing of that jolly voice left. It sounded more like listening to a stadium of people talking in unison behind a closed door. It was almost hard to listen too... in more ways than one.

"We? All I see is the one knucklehead." Hoshina retaliated, his voice unchanging. A brief pause was filled with a low, clicking growl. Almost like thunder rolling over mountains.

"Was that a purr? He fucking purrs now?" Hoshina thought as he continued to return the stare down the Kaiju was giving back.

"Looks like... we, won't miss... him... for much... longer." Kaiju Number 8 said with an uncanny level of hope in its voice. It was an odd sight watching the kaiju speak. It moved its mouth like it was talking, but the movement didn't match the words themselves.

"We. You keep saying we. Why is that?." Mina spoke up for the first time since they entered the vehicle. They watched the kaiju as it took its time coming up with an answer.

"We are... gone. All gone. We are now... shame. Regret... Fear. Rage...Revenge." Kaiju Number 8 said cryptically.

"Well, that wasn't exactly helpful." Mina thought.

"Revenge? Against what?" Hoshina questioned on his turn.

"To finish... what we started. To kill... Kill all Kaiju." It said as it's voice became more threatening, dropping in tone and developing a deeper growl.

A harsh, wheezing laugh came from the vice captain as he got up to walk around the container.

"Great. The damn thing's turned you worse than a mindless, killing dog." He muttered to himself as he was turned away from both of them.

"Hoshina." Mina said with a warning tone, having heard what he had said very clearly.

"Oh, don't act like you're being okay about this! How is anyone going to be okay about this? How's he okay about this?" Hoshina suddenly became very shrill and his movements became exaggerated despite him still feeling the toll the back-to-back fights had put on him, "This is Kafka we're talking about! Or, well, at least it was Kafka."

"Our host... is still here." the kaiju interrupted, "He has joined... the others." There was a weighty pause as the information settled into the commanders.

"Is there... a way to bring him back?" Mina cautiously questioned, trying to not let her hope betray her tone.

"He was presented... a choice. To heal his own heart... and walk away. Or to let it become... our new core." It spoke longer now, gaining speed as well as confidence while it acclimated to it's new state. That harsh laugh rang out again from Hoshina's bruised lips as he tried to not shake his head at the absurdity.

"Why am I not surprised. Ohhh, I should have seen this coming." He sighed as he gently rubbed his face, "He didn't have to do any of this. I had that fight handled." the vice captain continued to mutter as he paced the metal box. This earned a disappointed look from his captain and a curious head tilt from the strapped down Kaiju.

"Oh, don't give me that look." Hoshina said quickly.

"You said he's... that Kafka is still around. Do you think that... it's possible he can hear us?" Mina continued to question cautiously, her heart quietly grasping at any straws that Kafka could have a chance. A chance to understand, to come back to them, or anything that would assuage the pain she felt in her chest, she didn't know.

"He can... He is." the Kaiju answered. Mina tried to prepare a statement, something that could have be reassuring to the both of them at the moment, but the words were killed on her tongue as Hoshina stomped over to their altered friend and slapped a hand on one of the metal arm cuffs while he rudely pointed his finger at it's chest.

"Good. Then that self-sacrificing, one-percent lump of dead weight can hear in great detail about how I'm going to jump down your throat and drag his hairy ass back into the sunlight the second the option seems viable." Hoshina was growling and practically frothing at the mouth by the time he finished his tirade. He took a deep and shuddering breath as he stared the unflinching Kaiju down before calmly turning his head to side-eye his captain.

"You've picked one hell of a friend, captain." he said, his tone unfortunately still harboring misplaced resentment. Mina's normally unflinching face cracked as her brows furrowed and her lips pinched as she got up from her seat.

"You're the one that wanted him on the force." her voice was dark and deceptively even as Hoshina rose to meet her eyes.

"You might want to rethink your tone, captain." He said, trying not to spit it back in her face. The tension in the air pulled tighter and tighter behind the sound of the road noise, only to be cut short as the Kaiju in the room spoke up.

"Kafka... Were you and Kafka... friends?" It asked softly. The two of them turned to face it with puzzled expressions.

"Did having him melt into your little hive mind not already clue you in to that?" Hoshina scoffed.

"It did." The kaiju answered.

"Then why ask?" Mina questioned slowly, becoming deeply curious as well as a little worried for the answer.

"He felt he had... lost the honor." it said as it's white pupils flicked away sympathetically, "He had... broken his promise."

Hoshina shook his head a little at the answer, not understanding completely what that would mean to Mina. He was already aware at this point that her and Kafka were childhood friends, but without any deeper knowledge as to what that friendship meant to each other, he just felt left out of the loop. What ended up grabbing his attention was a shallow, rattling breathing next to him. He turned to look at his captain and saw an emerging and disheartening marvel. Mina seemed to be on the verge of tears. Lips quivering and tears threatening to spill from her shocked eyes.

"Hadn't he?" the kaiju asked, tilting it's head again.

The final nail in the coffin it seemed. Mina spun around on her heels and sprinted to the container's reinforced doors as she put her finger up to her ear comm.

"Stop the vehicle." She commanded, her voice not betraying an ounce of what she felt at the time.

A brief pause was held before she commanded again, this time screaming the order into the comm. Hoshina quickly widened his stance against the force of the truck breaking suddenly.

"Mina?" Her voice captain called out as he watched the back doors fly open and his captain hop down and out of the vehicle.

He tried to rush forward and catch up to her, only for the doors to be slammed back in his face before he could leave. He banged his fist on the metal for a moment, hoping for someone to open them back up. All he felt was the truck rumbling back to life and continuing down the road. He shook his head in disbelief and concern, not knowing why his captain reacted like that.

"Do you believe... that this is not a good price... to pay?" that infinitely echoing voice rang out from the back of the truck.

"What?" Hoshina spat, not understanding the question.

"You continue to fight against... what has already been decided. Do you think that... this form... was not a good price... to pay?" It spoke slowly, not in intentional mockery, to be sure, but it felt like it to Hoshina.

"Pay? Pay for what?" he shouted back.

"No more lost lives... No more shattered families... No more broken promises." It spoke, leaving the idea open ended. It didn't need to expand further anyway. Hoshina got the idea pretty well as he calmed down.

The only thing worse than a predictable friend, was knowing how predictable you were yourself. Because Hoshina asked himself the same hypothetical question and found himself coming to the same answer. A heart for a core... a thousand times over.

‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿

"Epidermis breached. Eight, you're up!" Soshiro called as he leapt back from the entry wound he caused in their newest threat.

Some sort of bastard child of the Meraki Kaiju a year earlier. It hadn't developed Number Nine's shape shifting abilities or possessed any way of speaking, but it damn sure inherited its intelligence. Emerging without warning in the northern part of Japan, it made it clear it still had an ax to grind. A writhing mass of acidic smelling meat, tentacles, and eyeballs, it looked the part to start a spaghetti monster themed cult.

Kaiju Number Eight made a mad dash from the sidelines, focusing solely on getting to the gaping wound the Vice Captain had started. Getting to the weeping slash, it pried the edges of it apart with as much force as it could muster, sending violent arterial sprays of acid around, over, and behind it. From then, it was just a fury of movement. Strong claws ripping and yanking large chunks of hazardous flesh from the threatening mass of black and sending it away from them so it could dig ever further to its center. An example of perfectly honed equilibrium comprised of streamlined intent and raw berserker rage. A flicker of bright, webbed strings of multi-colored light let it know that its destination had been reached. Quickly scrapping the muscle around the core, the Kaiju noticed that the monster had picked up another thing from its progenitor; a hard-light barrier around the core.

"Core two of three located. Beginning demolition." Eight called out loud enough to be picked up by its custom ear comm.

"Core sighting confirmed. Begin neutralization." Okonogi had said on the other end of the link.

It reared back its fist as it felt the thruster tubes in its forearm slide out and into position. It waited for the jets to build up sufficient pressure before letting it send its fist rocketing forward to the shield with each punch.

First hit.

Second hit.

Third hit. Shields gone.

Fourth hit.

Fifth hit. Core shattered.

"Energy readings dropped. Core Destroyed! Good work Kaf-I mean, Eight!" Okonogi let out a reserved cheer as she read out the information at her station.

That wasn't the only surprise the monster had in store it seemed. Just as Eight turned to launch itself out of the slowly enclosing wound, a barbed tentacle shot out from behind the broken core and propelled through its chest with enough force to send its body flying out and down the street. When the tentacle stopped moving, Eight's body flew off of it, feeling the barbs rip through its flesh as it tumbled through the air. Eight hit the asphalt, hard. Would have sent any ordinary officer unconscious with a concussion even if they had the suit's shield. It felt itself rolling down the street and over the harsh edge of a curb. With the wind knocked out of it's lungs and the very obvious sign that it's blood was pouring out from its chest, it made the now monumental effort to prop itself against a solid surface and take a mental rundown of the damage. Bringing a clawed hand to its chest, it made the devastating discovery.

"Well... shit."

On the other side of the offending mass of destruction was Mina and Narumi, tag-teaming their attacks to crack the first layer of the Kaiju. Dodging the slashing appendages coming for them left and right, they felt they weren't any closer to breaking its resistant shell. The fight had been going on for so long that the both of them could feel their fortitude percentage dropping with every twitch of muscle. Out of nowhere, Mina saw her vice captain drop from the air in front of them and plunge the sword in his suit's tail to cut a deep gash in the beast top-to-bottom.

"Heard ya'll were having some trouble." Hoshina panted with a bloody and cocky grin.

"Hoshina! You're supposed to watch Eight's back!" Mina yelled as she shifted her cannon's muzzle away from him.

"Kafka got his mission handled. He should be on his way." Hoshina replied as he dashed in a circle around her, dicing up any tentacles shooting out her way.

"About that! Eight's vitals just dropped off the map!" Okonogi cried in panic, watching the screens turn red.

The captain and her vice immediately looked to each other as their faces turned to shock. Okonogi could only watch as she witnessed everyone's vitals go haywire at the news. Mina could just barely bring herself out of her nightmarish thoughts and leveled her cannon at the kaiju's gaping wound, making sure it stayed open a little longer.

"Go to him! Me and the Bowl-cut Bastard can handle this!" Narumi cried as he fought off his own barrage of barbed obstacles.

Mina looked over to her vice as he reassured her with a quick nod before jumping into the fray with Narumi. She whistled hard and loud, calling her faithful tiger to her aid. She leaped onto its back and held on tight while they tracked down their fallen comrade, trying not to think the worst.

Back on the other side, Eight had managed to prop itself against a shockingly still intact dumpster next to one of the few miraculously standing buildings this close to the fight. Black rivulets of blood trailed behind it and stained its path to false safety. A jagged tunnel had been left behind from the tentacle's blow, acting as the main source of agony and fear for its health. This kind of an injury wouldn't normally be a problem, even the acid melting away at his chest wouldn't have raised any concern. It's healed from worse before, but not this time. No, this time was a problem as it could feel where the barbs had ripped and shredded its way through its core and the acid making quick work of whatever was left to touch.

Inside the dark, flesh textured walls of their mind, Kafka's presence manifested as a battered and broken soldier. Redder blood leaked from various gashes on his face and body. Dark, angry bruises littered his sore chest and limbs. Outside of the pain, he mostly felt numb. At most, a dull ache in his chest where his heart-turned-core would have been. He turned to one of the other presences in his mindscape, the samurai soldier that held his powers before him, and smiled a weak smile. He couldn't tell if the samurai was as badly battered as he was, but he could tell in the way he held his chest they at least felt the same pain. Kafka chuckled raspingly as he turned and shuffled toward the last being in the brain, the big Kaiju bug that held all the power, and painfully shambled his way over to it.

"So... Was that a damn good last run or what?" Kafka playfully mocked as he carefully settled himself to the floor, leaning back against the equally battered Kaiju bug.

"No... We're not finished. We have to finish the fight!" The samurai shouted wheeling around to Kafka, still clutching his chest.

"Can't do that if there's no more fight left in us, Papaw. Face it... We're fucked." Kafka panted from the pain as it spread more viciously and his muscles released its tension.

"How dare you call yourself an officer! There are still lives on the line back there!" the samurai angrily shouted at him.

"AND HOW DO YOU EXPECT US TO CONTINUE WITHOUT ANOTHER FUCKIN' CORE, HUH?" Kafka screamed back with more rage than the samurai could ever express.

There was a lot of words that both of them wanted to say, things to be said in anger and fear, in hopelessness and tiredness. But they were getting tired themselves, feeling the energy being sapped from their muscles and the warmth being leached at the same rate as their blood. There was no denying that this... this was it. No more hearts for cores, no second chances, no turning back the clock. Kafka never got to feel what it was like to be by Mina's side. The Samurai won't get to see other people live a life without fear from otherworldly threats. The kaiju that made all this possible will never know what a quiet mind could have felt like.

"But we got close though, didn't we?" Kafka softly begged, "Tell me we got close, Papaw."

The samurai looked down for a moment, seeming to think his response over, before looking away entirely.

"Even if one fails to reach the moon, one still lies among the stars." He finally said, still not looking back.

Kafka gave a soft smile in return, leaning his head back as his head grew heavy with a lead-like feeling. He knew he didn't mean it, but appreciated the effort anyway.

"And not a night sky to be seen." Kafka muttered to himself as the dark started to overtake his sight.

Something in the back of his mind wouldn't let him rest completely, however. He could sense something coming closer and moving in rapidly. He could tell it was a kaiju, but a smaller one giving off an abnormal but familiar signature. Mina's tiger, no doubt bringing its owner along with it.

"Shit. Can't let Mina see us like this." Kafka groaned painfully as he tried to stand both inside and outside the body, "She doesn't need to see this."

The samurai just eyed his mental roommate from the unchanging confines of his mask and made no move to help the struggling Kafka up to his feet. In their mind's eye, they watched as Mina dismounted and bolted forward to their devastatingly injured remains. Her voice was muffled, but they could definitely sense the distress in her tone as she dropped to her knees by their side.

"Oh God! Nonono, KAFKA!" Mina cried as she harshly dropped to her knees beside his still body. She brought up a hand to its chest wanting to slow the profuse bleeding, only to feel the massive opening staying warm through the power of the acid alone. It became all too clear to her that at this moment... that her friend couldn't be salvaged

"Mina... please. You need to go." Eight muttered out as more blood dripped from its teeth.

"No, Kafka, this can't be it! Not like this. I can't lose you again." Mina's eyes rained its tears freely, taking advantage of their privacy to stop holding back in this vulnerable moment.

She could barely hear the sounds of the on going battle in front of them through her wet sniffling and ragged coughing. She held on tight to its chest and shoulder, trying to focus her thoughts away from another time. An earlier time where this had happened before, where she lost the last pieces of her long gone friend. Her cheeks were hot with anguish as she bowed her head against its shoulder, thinking of any and all prayers she could think of. She didn't want this moment to finish and take the last shreds of hope she had with his passing.

Back in the dark passages of their mind, Kafka had only managed to drag himself to his hands and knees as he tried to speak to Mina. He barely had enough strength to keep himself upright, let alone to project his voice out of the confines of his mind. The samurai just stood still as it quietly watched this all go down.

"Mina... Mina I'm so sorry *cough* for everything... I... I know this is going to be hard... but I know that... you can be strong-" Kafka coughed again and almost landed on his face from exhaustion. Planting his trembling arms as firmly as possible underneath him, he tried to look over at the samurai standing next to him.

"For fuck's sake, Papaw! Can you help me up sometime today, please?" He called out as he managed to lean back onto his legs somewhat.

He watched as the samurai continued to ignore him, not even bothering to look his way. As Kafka busied himself with finding the strength within him to push Mina away in any way he could, he missed the telltale sound of a sword being pulled out of its sheath. As Kafka got off of one knee, he felt something hard and sharp push its way through the back of his neck and out of his mouth. He instantly felt all of his limbs going numb in that second and all of his weight being carried by what was shoved through his neck.

As the sword pulled itself back out, Kafka felt warm trickles of his blood start running down the back of his throat. He couldn't swallow the blood into a different direction and could only feel it all sliding right into his lungs, making him choke reflexively. As he fell onto his face, he felt the growing pain from the wound grow from the back of his head and slowly turn into the worst, practically splitting headache he had ever felt before now. Feeling his body twitching from the numbness and his lungs quaking in the fight against being able to breathe, he just laid there and saw his Ancestor flick his sword and clean it on his sleeve before placing it back into the sheath. Had Kafka not been choking on his own blood or had enough feeling in any of his limbs, he would have certainly returned the favor. What happened instead was the feeling of the floor opening up underneath him and dropping him down into that familiar, watery, bottomless pit in their shared conscious, eyes and mind growing darker the further down he drifted.

Back up top, his Ancestor took control of the body and started talking to the grieving Mina.

"Mina..." He called out.

"Kafka? Kafka, are you still with me?" Mina cried out desperately as she continued to hold the body close.

"We need... another heart." He asked, trying to stretch out whatever remaining willpower he had left to finish his request.

"A heart?" Mina questioned in the interlude, slowly gaining control over her tears.

"Yes... Another heart... for another core." He finished, hoping for Mina to understand what he was asking of her.

"A... a heart." Mina reiterated as the request she began to realize what was being asked of her, "I-I can't... I can't ask something like that from anyone..."

"You don't have to ask... If they're not here to question..." He answered, hoping he wouldn't have to spell it out further than that.

Mina's eyes grew wide as the tears threatened to spill over again. He was asking for her to drag over an already dead body? Just to continue fighting? Warning lights went off in her head as this ask dawned on her. Kafka would never ask for something like this, it was too underhanded. But then again... Maybe this wasn't Kafka talking anymore. Maybe Kafka was gone, and it was whoever made Eight was talking now. It had to have been, because Kafka's hate for the Kaijus was never deep enough to warrant this.

Still... some part of Mina refused to give up on him. Even if he wasn't the one talking right now, Eight was all she had left of her friend. Mina was strong, she led the forces, she joined the Division because of Kafka. She had watched him struggle year after year to catch up to her, falling back to square one every time. This Kaiju helped him on his last chance to get his foot in the door, and she hated to admit that it was probably the biggest reason as to how he managed to stay this long.

It wasn't the only reason, however. If the Kaiju helped him physically, his promise to her helped him in every other way. All he wanted was to be by her side, and even after every roadblock and setback and debilitating snag he hit, he got to this moment... this fight, and it was the closest he had ever gotten to fulfilling it. But one can't be expected to carry that kind of fight alone. She knew that well enough after blitzing through the ranks to Captain. At some point, a hand needs to be extended, a branch to hold on to, a sign that this isn't a one sided fight. That someone else wants what they want too, and wants to see that dream realized for them... with them. It took both of her hands to muscle the slackened arm up to her chest and placed the bloodied and acid-stained hand over her own heart.

"Take mine... You can take mine." She said, her voice betrayed no cracks, only a solitary hiccup.

"Mina... no. Anyone else..." The ancestor argued, knowing well enough that this would hurt more than just Mina.

"Well, you're not getting anyone else, goddamnit!" Mina screamed, " I've wanted too damn long for you to be by my side and watching you sacrifice everything on the dotted line, just for it all to stop here! I'm tired of waiting. I'm done waiting."

She placed her head back on its shoulder, waiting for it to decide. She worried that she took too long and that there wasn't any life left within it to finish the task. Eight found enough strength to bring his head over to the top of her's and lightly placed his closed mouth on it. For he had no lips to kiss away her fears, or a voice left to reassure her that everything would be okay. All it could give was a low, throaty rumble as her tears fell down like a storm.

'I'm sorry... for everything.' It thought.

A loud squelching noise was heard in tandem with a dull ache suddenly spreading out in her chest. Mina looked down and could see that Eight's hand had pushed itself through the barriers of her suit and was now being drenched in warm rivers of red blood. Her lungs spasmed irregularly as that dull ache started to feel more and more staticy. As she coughed, she felt a little spurt of blood splatter out of her mouth. Eight waited for her eyes to roll into the back of her head and for her body to grow limp before he sucked her heart out of her chest. Warmth began to travel down its arm and flowed freely into the rest of its body. It shed one lone black tear as the cavity in its chest began to close up.

Soshiro and Narumi's fight with the Daikaiju had gotten only a little further than nowhere in the time that Mina had left them. Soshiro had managed to keep the wound that he had made earlier open and could only stand by and watch as Narumi ventured inside it while slicing his way deeper in. A weighty moment had passed before he saw that back of Narumi's suit being propelled toward him at unbelievable speed. The two of them made contact and were sent flying backwards. Hoshina took his own fair share of damage as he ended up getting abruptly sandwiched between a broken piece of a stone wall and the full weight of Narumi in his numbered suit and weapon.

"Augh! What the hell, Narumi?" Hoshina cried out in pain as he rubbed the back of his head.

"Damn thing must have learned from the last two times we hit its core! It tried to skewer me with a tentacle and launch me backwards. I managed to deflect it with my weapon, but Jesus! That acid stings!" Narumi yelled as he shifted off of Hoshina's lap, trying to use his now ruined jacket to wipe off the rest of the acidic blood from the suit.

Hoshina tried to get back onto his feet, but could only manage to slowly shift himself onto a knee. Bracing himself against the wall, he leveled his one undamaged eye toward the hulking monstrosity before them. He panted heavily as he weighed his options, finding all of them to be far from satisfactory plans to finish this brutal beast once and for all. Still, no one could rest until that thing was put down for good.

"Get up Narumi." Hoshina growled through his pain, "We need to finish this." Narumi just squinted up at him with a question on his mind, before deciding that the smack talk back wasn't worth the effort. As they propped themselves to their feet as best they could, an unearthly voice came over the ear comms.

"Hoshina. Narumi. Stand down and head to safety." the voice commanded with easy authority.

Hoshina peered his head over the chunk of wall first. Off in the distance he saw a slim figure walking towards them. The sound of metal dragging over asphalt matched the sight of the stilted silhouette and its heavy looking object it brought with them. He grabbed Narumi by the shoulder and dragged them both off to the side of the street to hide behind more rubble. Leaning against a shattered chunk of roadblock, Hoshina watched with great interest as the figure got closer and closer. The sound of metal being dragged got replaced with the sound of metal being loudly pried apart, sheets and gears popping and buckling under great pressure. He studied the new arrival as best he could from his distance and made one startling discovery after another.

The being that approached looked almost like Eight and carried Mina's cannon. Only now that cannon had looked like it was caught in a tangle of thick, black, jungle vines that had wound itself into every part of the complex machine. The body that was connected to the cannon looked very different from what he remembered as well. Eight looked taller, leaner, and not as wide. And he certainly knew that Eight didn't have a full head of long black hair.

Narumi watched the new figure as well, but was focused on a very specific part of them. He watched the new kaiju open one set of eyes, then a second set below that, then a third set above them both. It only got stranger as he saw the borders of the eye's sockets stretch and lengthen out to the borders of the other eyes. Once the edges touched, the sides popped open and the eyes melded into each other, forming one long, glowing, teal band extending across the width of its face.

The tentacles on its arm had finished their job of weaving their way through the cannon and lifted the whole mess level with its target, the Kaiju everyone had been fighting. Hoshina watched on in slowly dawning horror as he heard the voice on the comms match to the movement of the teeth on the new Kaiju warrior in front of them.

"All should know better than to be caught in their Captain's line of fire."

Inside the mind of the new beast, Kafka could feel his mind turning on to a sense of alertness. It almost felt like waking up from a paralyzing nightmare. As he blinked his eyes and got them to focus, he tried to recall what had sent him sprawling over the floor in his own mind. His memories slowly worked their way forward from the moment he entered the fray, to when he felt the acidic sting of the tentacle pierce his core. He rolled onto his side and brought up a hand to rub his face, trying to dislodge anything more important or at least relevant. Even moving around in his listless state, he could instantly tell he felt different. His arms didn't feel sore or bruised, his chest had lost its weighty pain that had settled deep in his core. His core. If that had been broken, then how was he still able to think? As Kafka landed on his back and pushed himself up onto his hands, a deep, reverberating thump rattled in his chest as more recent memories started to crop up.

The fight. The killing shot. Crawling away to hide his shameful death. Mina... Oh gods, Mina! She found him, and... and... His Ancestor, the samurai. What did he do to him? Kafka felt his chest tighten as his breathing became labored and ragged, quick puffs of angry air sucking its way past his teeth. He shot up to his feet quickly, the lack of pain making him all the more angry at the thought of his Ancestor committing some atrocity that somehow fixed this. His only reasoning for this being that if it wasn't supposed to be a bad decision, then why bother silencing Kafka at all?

"WHERE ARE YOU?" he screamed out into the vast space of his mind, "FACE ME AND EXPLAIN, YOU COWARD!"

Kafka made a slow turn, viciously eyeing down any shadow in the dark recesses of his mind that could have been his murderer's form. Spying a dark shape off in the distance behind him, he turned and ran toward it, thinking it to be the samurai. As he got closer and closer, it became very clear that this new person wasn't the samurai. His Ancestor didn't have a flowing curtain of black hair, nor did it wear a defense force suit. He slowed down his pace for a second, becoming worried and praying that his mind had just decided to play a cruel joke on him, now of all times.

"Mina?" Kafka hesitantly called out, a thousand prayers for salvation from this fear echoed in his heart.

He watched on in horror as the familiar shade turned to the sound of its name and faced him with shock in her eyes. He picked up speed again, this time not with intent to maim and harm, but to approach this mirage of agony faster with the hopes that he'll just run right through it.

"No. No, no, no, nononono, MINA!" He cried as he got close enough to see that this wasn't a horrible joke, but a nightmare made flesh.

Carelessly plowing right into her, Kafka held her tight as they fell to the softly giving floor. Sobs racked his ribs and shuddered his lungs as he scrambled to his hands and knees. His hands roughly busied themselves with pulling her onto his lap and brushing strands of hair out of her face, chanting that simple word over and over. They slowed as the realization of this, of her physically being in his mind really meant, began to chip away at his already war-torn heart. He could feel himself rocking back and forth, cradling Mina's warm body close to him as he looked into her unbothered expression with his being stained with a flood of tears. He supposed it was him trying to bring comfort to Mina, but as her gentle hand placed itself on his cheek and stroked with her thumb, he knew that this was all to comfort him.

"No, Mina why? Why would you do this? You had to have known, right? I would never ask you to do this, you had to have known that it wasn't me! Why, Mina? You didn't have to do this." He whispered

Kafka could barely get the words out over the snot and bile building up in his throat. His tears soaked his cheeks and fell like rain onto Mina's hand. His face felt like it was on fire as he sniffed hard and tried to clear his throat. Holding her in his hands made any attempt of composure in vain as it just reaffirmed to him that what was done was irreversible. The Third Division lost its captain, but it certainly didn't feel like he had gained back his friend. He tried to restrain his violent sobs as he felt her arms tighten around his neck, pulling his body down over and closer to Mina. His arms tightened in return as he felt the other hand come up to play soothingly in his hair, the other rubbing gentle circles over his spine.

"My heart... was already yours." She whispered into the crook of his thick neck, the vibrations of the words sending small shockwaves through his torso.

All Kafka could bring himself to do was cry. Cry and scream and cry again until his voice became shot and he had no more tears to shed. Hands forever tight around his new heart.

‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵‿

(Some thoughts I had while writing this that won't fit into tags well)

Real quick, I just wanna mention that this is based off of a recent theory that I developed after reading chapter 118 and its that Kn8' true power isn't that fact that he's a shape shifter, or that he's got super strength or a sonic screech or anything else.

His true power is that he can turn hearts into cores, indirectly making itself partially immortal. (we could be immortals, immortals...)

So I see the end of this story going one of two ways:

One: Once the Third Division finds out what happened, they all come to a mutual agreement that they want their hearts cryogenically frozen after death so that Kaiju Number 8 is forever supplied with back-up cores. This ending kinda gives off this lovecraftian feel where in the future, Kaiju Number 8 stops being considered a Kaiju at some point and is more of an amalgamation of undying spirits that haunt the base forevermore.

Two: Kafka pulls a Hellsing Ultimate Abridged. He fights against Papaw first and then proceeds to fight and kill every soul that inhabits his core, ultimately evicting the collective consciousness that made his powers in the first place and distills it into himself. The only better way I think I can explain this is "Imagine Venom bonding to Eddie and then something happening to Eddie, causing Venom to sort of... recreate Eddie. But it's just Venom, so now it's like if Venom was his own host." Kafka is now Kafka, the parasite, and the Kaiju all at once. (He also somehow figures out a way to spit Mina out into her own body so she's fine.)

He's not a human that can turn into a Kaiju or the other way around. By Legal Definition he is, technically, the first, true, Human Kaiju.