Hercules Chen, Zero Hunter: Toroka VS Mecha-Tsuyo, Part 14 of 17

The Ax Hand has set his trap, and Toroka has taken the bait: the city of Sapporo. Now, only the nihilistic pilot and the towering Mecha-Tsuyo stand between the beast and the deaths of thousands.

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This is Part 14 of Hercules Chen, Zero Hunter: Toroka VS Mecha-Tsuyo. If you’d like to avoid spoilers, read Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13 first.

Content warnings: violence, animal violence, gun violence, gore, death, self harm, drug use, mild swearing, creeps.

The Last Warrior.

MONDAY MORNING, AUGUST 2, 1943
ABOARD MECHA-TSUYO
SAPPORO, HOKAIDO, JAPAN

//Translated from Japanese.//

The Ax Hand searched the horizon through his binoculars, eager to catch the first glimpse of Hell approaching.

The men behind him prayed, relegating their fates to the whims of Buddha, their ancestors, and other disinterested entities. Zuboshi joined him at the rail, gazing across the still gray sea. From Mecha-Tsuyo's bridge, they could see for miles.

The mechanical titan stood hip-deep in the bay, waiting for its challenger to emerge. Like Takamoto, Mecha-Tsuyo's fate was under its own control. It did not rely on the long-dead to survive.

“Ping it again,” Takamoto ordered.

Zuboshi relayed his instruction to the bridge crew. The radio operator signaled the Type 42 Mockingbird rocket Takamoto had shot into Toroka's flesh, then timed its automatic response. The Kokuryūyari was moored further north, and did the same. Another Black Dragon ship completed the process, this one anchored in Mutsu Bay. The radioman calculated the three distances and triangulated the beacon's position. Zuboshi took that information to his wingman.

“Thirty-three kilometers west,” Takamoto read aloud.

His plan had worked. Every citizen in northern Hokkaido had donated their fish, some via patriotism, some at the point of a bayonet. Fresh, canned, dried, it made no difference. He had a million kilograms of oily paste and white flesh dumped into the ocean over the past three days, forming a rainbow slick that Toroka could surely smell from halfway across the Pacific. An animal of its size would need to feed constantly. An easy meal would be irresistible.

Takamoto picked up his binoculars again and stared at the stinking river of fish flesh that disappeared over the crimson horizon.

“Our planes are ready?”

“Yes, Onote,” Zuboshi replied. Their pulse-jet squadron had been packed into Mecha-Tsuyo's dorsal launchers. “Gaikotsu, Akainu, and Majo are prepared for combat launch.”

“And Eigami?”

“The boy is ready to become a hero of the Empire,” Zuboshi assured him. “Though he is... hesitant.”

“Hesitant? Is he a coward?” Takamoto snapped.

“We ask much of him.”

“Bring him to me.”

“Yes, Onote.”

Takamoto stared at the red horizon in silence for many minutes after Zuboshi left. He refused to look to the east.

The weak of Sapporo were in their fifth hour of evacuation. In their panic, they'd clogged the streets and waterways. Over-used bridges had collapsed, tunnels had become jammed, trains had derailed. Hundreds of thousands of people remained, waiting for someone to rescue them. No doubt praying to their long dead relatives, saints, and gods.

Takamoto entered the bridge proper. A dozen other men were monitoring the sea with binoculars, sonar, radar, the Type 42 signal triangulation; he'd know as soon as the beast showed its face.

Umihara Shou was hidden away in a corner, watching his former crew continue their work without him. His replacement, a sycophantic lackey, was nowhere near the captain Umihara had been, but he was loyal only to the Dragons, a quality Takamoto valued.

“Do you think your men are ready to face it again, Shou?” Takamoto asked the dour old man.

“The smiths did an excellent job repairing Mecha-Tsuyo, kaiken,” Umihara droned. “But many of my men died and many more cannot fight. This is no longer the crew I trained. I hope you trust in them.”

“We are ready, kaiken,” the lackey snapped, eager to draw attention away from his former captain.

“I am sure they are,” Takamoto snarled. “For your sake, captain.”

The lackey withered away at the implied threat, suddenly finding something very interesting to inspect over his sonar technician's shoulder.

“What say the Navy?” Takamoto asked, forcing the lackey to face him again.

“We have two destroyers, two cruisers, and eight gunboats at our disposal, kaiken. They are positioned between the mouth of the bay and Mecha-Tsuyo, prepared with their engagement orders. The detainment detachment is steaming our way and should reach their staging area in the next three hours,” he reported.

Takamoto snorted. There would be no need to detain the monster if the fools could not disable it.

“And the Home Defense force?”

“Forty percent of civilians have been evacuated. A company of artillery and anti-aircraft guns have been placed at the northern and southern ends of the bay, with more cannons spread along its circumference. A tank company waits at the docks, with another contingent of anti-tank gun. The minelayers finished laying the Ōnamazu several hours ago and have retreated. Our bomber flight is fueled and ready for take-off, payloads confirmed as awai tsuchi charges and tekkotsu dai chōkoku flechette bombs. They await your orders.”

“Then they shall have them. Launch the bombers and begin a circling pattern over the central bay. They are to drop their payloads on my orders, renga, none else.”

“Yes, kaiken.” The lackey parroted the instructions to the radiomen, who passed the directions on. Somewhere far off, a squadron of Ki-49 Donryu heavy bombers took flight at his whim.

Takamoto watched and waited. He imagined he could see the little men scrambling at their cannons, adjusting their sights, stacking their shells. Toroka was being led into a gauntlet.

The Type 42 rockets he had implanted in the animal’s skin relayed its position. They were not accurate, but they told him the beast was close. Takamoto’s muscle twitched beneath his skin in anticipation.

Toroka made him wait for what seemed like hours. When it finally arrived, the world around him cracked.

“Disturbance spotted, dead ahead!” a spotter shouted. The radio crackled as gunners from every battery aboard Mecha-Tsuyo confirmed their target. The ship burst into chaos. Takamoto rushed to the front rail and stood on his toes. There was a bulge growing in the water. A massive form was surging forward, causing a wake that overran the tide.

“Inform all internal, naval, and coastal guns, target Toroka when in range. Free fire!” Takamoto could feel Mecha-Tsuyo's big guns rotating on their turrets, zeroing in on the growing wave.

“The mines, renga?” Takamoto called back.

“Confirmed, kaiken, Ōnamazu armed!” the lackey shouted.

Toroka closed to within ten kilometers when the first geyser rose to its right.

Tetsujin's own engineers had come to lay the Ōnamazu weapons, two variants of the same technology, strange devices unlike any naval mines Takamoto had seen before. In that way, they were not unlike the strange bombs the flight of Ki-49’s were carrying high above.

The Ōnamazu mines were more wire than explosive, with ceramic shells and pulsating membranes within. When the first of them burst, it hit Toroka with the force of a tsunami. The mines were sonic weapons, sending a pulse of force through the seawater that formed the liquid into a wave strong enough the shatter dams and snap aircraft carriers in half.

Toroka reared out of the water at the first impact, its massive body thrown back by the alien force. The monster roared, its golden stripes flaring in the morning sun. It lurched upward, slashing at air and water before crashing back into the sea.

The replacement crewman who had not been aboard Mecha-Tsuyo during their first encounter gasped in shock at the sight.

Another Ōnamazu mine went off, this one to the monster's left. It had the opposite effect of the first, instead of pushing Toroka away with an immeasurable force, it pulled the beast in. A whirlpool formed and sucked Toroka down then collapsed down on top of it. A scaly limb grasped at nothing then disappeared as it was slammed it into the seafloor.

More Ōnamazu exploded to the north, sending walls of dense water hammering into the struggling monster. Whirlpool mines actuated, perfectly placed to swallow the wave-battered beast. The pits in the sea screamed as unnatural winds whipped across their gaping black hearts.

The opposing forces alternated smashing and dragging the beast, pulping it over fifteen minutes and full kilometer. The Ōnamazu were designed to reduce fortified harbors to mud. Flesh and bone would offer little resistence.

The explosions ceased as suddenly as they had begun. The beast was still beneath the surface, dead or broken. The cascading waves died down to ripples and the whirlpools shrank until little remained but a gurgle.

Mecha-Tsuyo’s crew allowed little smiles to creep onto their faces whenever they thought Takamoto wasn’t looking. They were ready to celebrate. The glory of victory was welcome and infectious, and not even Takamoto was immune. He allowed himself a smirk.

Perhaps Tetsujin's machines had worked, perhaps the creature could be broken.

Toroka broke the surface again at less than six kilometers from shore, as if reading Takamoto's thoughts and defying them.

The creature held a white globe in its maw, one of Tesujin's mines. It chomped down, shattering the formed porcelain like an oyster shell. Acoustic force thrummed from the Ōnamazu, surging across the bay’s surface like a gale wind. Toroka was unfazed by the weird energies unleashed, as if it had done less that pop a balloon.

The beast lunged forward and beat its tail like a hungry crocodile, propelling itself between the rest of the bursting mines. It was oblivious to the cliff-sized waves crashing into it and the hungry whirlpools tugging at it. It had not been hurt before, merely surprised.

“Bombers are ready, kaiken!”

“Release!” Takamoto shouted back, breaking his trance. He could see the pinpricks in the sky, each Ki-49 pregnant with eight thousand kilograms of arcane weaponry forged by the most ingenious minds the Society had to offer. He peered at the empty sky through his binoculars, watching the near-invisible shapes of the falling bombs. A wall of explosions rose across Toroka and its path.

The carpet-bombed blasts cracked the sea.

The awai tsuchi charges were sonic weapons as well, a variation on the Ōnamzu technology. Instead of manipulating the properties of seawater, they could liquefy solids. Their reverberations broke down the strands connecting materials together. Whether it was reducing bunkers to sand or causing a tremor to level a bridge, their shattering rhythms would course through Toroka and render its bones, and armored scales, to slurry.

If that did not take, the flechette bombs and their razor storms of thosands of tekkotsu dai chōkoku-dipped needles would. They did not need Toroka whole; a calcified leg snapped off and floating in the bay might pacify the beast. A few drops of chōkoku poison could kill a man, and they had dropped nine hundred kilograms of the foul substance onto the beast.

Still, Toroka kept coming. It absorbed the awai tsuchi blasts, stumbling and splashing through the sonic assault. The strange waves rippling through its mass slowed it. Takamoto could not imagine the pain: Toroka’s tissues were shaking themselves into scraps inside the beast, yet still it stood, it fought, it hungered. Its roar came ragged and wet, with black blood leaking from its mouth and gills.

Flechette canisters airburst around the creature’s armored face. The ‘needles’ pelting it were nearly a meter long and loaded with gallons of tekkotsu dai chōkoku solution. The serum worked quickly to sprout calcium crystals within living fluids. The creature’s veins would become clogged with clustered stone, its joints grinding until they froze solid.

Toroka could see the poison at work even at such a distance. The golden edges of Toroka’s black scaly plates had gone dull, run through with white-yellow scaling. Cracks split open along their surfaces.

The creature would be easy pickings for the cranes and chains that the incoming detention fleet was bringing.

All they needed was a knockout punch.

“Fire on the beast,” Takamoto ordered.

Toroka was five kilometers away, at the far edge of Mecha-Tsuyo's reach. The big guns on the titan's bow roared, launching shells large enough to pierce a mountain. Toroka roared as it was pummeled, vomiting a green cloud. The blasts drove it back beneath the surface.

Rockets erupted from Mecha-Tsuyo's shoulders in waves, blinding Takamoto behind their walls of acrid exhaust. A thunder rose all around the bay: every Navy ship opened up, followed by the artillery batteries dotting the shore. Hellfire dropped onto the monster, concentrated like a blast furnace.

Toroka would be pummeled to meat, a victory like any other.

As the rocket contrails dissipated, Takamoto's triumphant smile slipped away as well.

Toroka was no opponent.

The barrage upended the ocean, shredding the idiot beast beneath. It floundered, neither running nor fighting. Entire sheets of calcified skin were blasted off of its back and to bob on the roiling sea like icebergs. Toroka flailed, terrified, no understanding of what, of who, had befallen it.

It was an animal. It thought no more of ravaging fleets than it did of defecating. The only challenge in fighting it was its size. It did not strive for excellence, it did not punish those found lacking. It swam, it ate, it shat.

It was pitiable, an alien concept to the Ax Hand. It deserved to be ground to nothing.

Takamoto let the barrage continue for full five minutes before ordering the cease-fire. Black smoke bubbled out of the water where the very seabed burned.

Every man aboard Mecha-Tsuyo looked exhausted but triumphant, like it had required everything they had to shoot an animal.

“Zuboshi!” Takamoto shouted. His wingman materialized onto the bridge. The huge man had disappeared during the barrage, preferring to stay out of the way while the crew worked.

“Yes, Onote,” he said, running back onto the bridge.

“We will be taking flight, I wish to inspect the corpse from the air.”

“Yes, Onote. What of Renga Eigami?”

“Let him quiver,” Takamoto replied. He handed his binoculars off to the lackey captain and stepped through the hatch to the ladder before the sycophant called out to him.

“Kaiken!”

“What?” Takamoto demanded without turning around.

“Is this right? Yes?” he confirmed with a technician. “Kaiken, we have a sonar contact.”

Takamoto's gut tightened.

“Range?” he asked.

“It's gone now.. wait... it cannot be this...” the lackey captain stammered. He yelped an objection and Takamoto turned to see the younger man shoved aside by his former commander. Umihara glared at the sonar readout for a long second.

“What do you see, Shou?” Takamoto asked.

“Brace for impact!” Umihara shouted. He latched onto the sonar console and held with all his might. Takamoto had just enough time to lock his arms and legs into the hatch before Mecha-Tsuyo lurched from a gargantuan collision.

Klaxons screamed and those too slow to brace themselves crashed around the bridge. The lackey captain bounced off his chair, snapping his forearm. He whimpered and slid to the deck. Tanuki screamed around him, scrabbling as they fought against their leashes.

“One-hundred-eighty degree turn, prepare for close combat. Yokozuna!” Umihara shouted. His sumo wrestler fought his way into the control harness. Takamoto left the drowned man in charge of the bridge and bolted down the ladder, Zuboshi in tow.

Takamoto could hear Mecha-Tsuyo transforming around him. Gears and pistons locked into place, creating new joints for faster movement or sliding armor plates over vulnerable areas. The crew was going mad to the sounds of howling tanuki as he dashed through each level, but none dared slow him.

Akainu, Majo, and Gaikotsu were waiting for him in the dorsal launch bay. The section looked more like a torpedo room than a flight facility. Each of their pulse-jet fighters had been folded up and placed into one of the vertical launch tubes, five for his squadron and one spare. Takamoto pulled his helmet over his head and strapped on his oxygen mask. He pushed past Zuboshi and climbed the rungs welded to the first launch tube.

“What are you waiting for? You are only gods in the sky!” he shouted at his squadron. As they scrambled into their own planes, he locked eyes with the harried launch officer. “You! Make sure Eigami receives his launch order. If he is not up there with us, I will kill you both.”

“Yes, kaiken!” the man stammered. He pressed a button on the intercom and sent a message to the bridge: “Ax Hand, launching in thirty seconds!”

Takamoto swung his legs into the dark hatch, twisting so his body was oriented upward. The hatch slid shut behind him. Takamoto began flipping switches in the dark, their locations long-ago memorized, warming up his rocket engine. The rest of his squadron would be doing the same.

The darkness was hot and suffocating. Takamoto rolled out his muscles, took a deep breath, then clenched his jaw. If he let the G-forces have their way, he could bite off his own tongue mid-launch. He had seen it happen, and though mildly interesting, it was not a fate he wished upon himself. A small bell chimed in the cockpit. Thirty meters above, the top of the launch tube slid open. Sunlight blinded him for a moment.

The steam catapult actuated three seconds later, flinging Takamoto skyward. He could feel his face rippling as the acceleration worked its way through his tissues. The pulse-jet roared awake a second later, greedily devouring the supersonic air and expelling it in sapphire flame and oily smoke. The sturdy fighter's wings snapped open on their rolled steel springs, locking into place the instant the black launch tube gave way to blue sky.

Takamoto came to at two thousand meters altitude. He leveled his plane off and twisted in his seat. His squadron rose to join him. Zuboshi took his place at his right, with Akainu on the flank, while Majo and Gaikotsu held the left side. They were the only planes in the air.

The Ax Hand picked up his radio and snarled into it:

“Eigami! Where are you?”

There was no response. The Ax Hand craned his neck, trying to find Umihara's hideous creation and the cretin behind its controls. Instead, he saw carnage.

Toroka had abandoned the staggered Mecha-Tsuyo and attacked the waiting ships in the bay. While the walking battleship lumbering its way around to face the faster beast, Toroka had had its way with the clustered cruisers and destroyers. Two were burning, and another had been sheared in half, with both parts sinking into the oil-slicked waters.

The great monster snapped a gunboat up in its jaws, lifting it out of the water to shake its steel prey like a dog would a rope. From this distance, Toroka looked unharmed, even vital. Black scales shone like obsidian while their gold edges caught and reflected every spare sunbeam and muzzle flash.

It looked healthier than before the calcifying poisons had infected it, like a snake that had shed its skin.

With a great thrashing swing of its head, Toroka loosed the gunboat. It tumbled end-over-end to crash into the bridge of the last functioning cruiser. Both ships' ammo stores went up in a blast that made even the monster flinch.

“Kaiken, Silver Arrow reporting, sir!” an uneasy voice crackled over the radio.

Mecha-Tsuyo paused where it stood and reared back. A small door slid open beneath its flexible neck turret and a clunky streak shot out. The gray plane barely held itself together as its inexperienced pilot fought it for control.

Mecha-Tsuyo's forward hangar door slid back shut and the titan continued its slow spin to face Toroka.

The Ax Hand and his squadron loitered above the battle as the two gargantuan combatants clashed into each other. Toroka went low, its sharp beak snapping at Mecha-Tsuyo's vulnerable hip joints.

Umihara ordered a full fusillade, catching the monster point-blank in the flank, sending one giant stumbling from the blast while the other reeled from the recoil. A diamond-edged drill the size of a locomotive swung in a clumsy haymaker at Toroka, but the creature was too fast. It swung away, bringing its oar-shaped tail around like an ax.

The collision sent Mecha-Tsuyo sliding back fifty meters, the ringing of scale on metal loud enough that the Ax Hand could hear it in flight. The tidal wave caused by the blow swept over the shoreline, sucking a dozen artillery pieces and their crewmen into the swirling bay.

“Kaiken, I am here, sir,” the reedy voice offered again. The Ax Hand looked over his shoulder to find Eigami had settled into his formation, swerving in and out of place in a desperate attempt to keep his over-powered plane under control.

Umihara had called his monstrosity of an aircraft Gin Ya, the Silver Arrow. It had the fuselage and twin prop engines of a Ki-45 Toryu fighter, but that where the similarities ended. The plane's weapons had all been removed and replaced by a folded steel nose, pointed like a lance and sharp as a pin. Every safety measure and backup system had been removed including its landing gear, and was replaced by shaped high explosive. The plane was a flying bomb.

As the Ax Hand and Mecha-Tsuyo had learned, bombs did little to deter Toroka. That is why the Silver Arrow had eight German jet engines bolted around its slender waist in a wide ring.

“You are hero of the Empire, Renga Eigami,” the Ax Hand told him. “Henceforth, in the great codices of the Black Dragon Society, you shall carry the rank of jitte.”

“Thank you, kaiken,” Eigami warbled. Takamoto was nearly able to avoid rolling his eyes at the easily-manipulated young man's eagerness for glory.

“As eternity, as in death,” the Ax Hand's squadron intoned as one.

“As eternity, as in... death,” Eigami whispered.

“Do you remember Umihara's instructions?” Takamoto demanded.

“Yes, kaiken, six kilometers at least, kaiken,” Eigami said.

“We will distract the monster, and you shall deliver the killing blow. Signal when you are in position.”

“Yes, kaiken.”

Eigami broke off from the squadron and traced a wide arc away from the bay, out over the sea. Takamoto smirked, then tuned his radio to the region-wide channel.

A cacophony of screams and explosions rattled his eardrums. Men were crushed, drowning, mutilated, burning, and choking, and they all had something to say about it. Takamoto switched his radio to Mecha-Tsuyo's frequency

“Mecha-Tsuyo, this is the Ax Hand,” he said.

Far below, Toroka had shoved Mecha-Tsuyo back once again, this time onto the piers. The giants' mighty stomps leveled leveled warehouses and factories, crushing more terrified men and women. Each thunderous hit from Mecha-Tsuyo's drills elicited another venomous, belching exhalation from the monster. Walls of green gas rolled through streets crowded with evacuees, choking and poisoning everyone they touched. Toroka's tail swept aside buildings, cars, and crowds with each swing.

Hundreds died as the giants fought.

“Mecha-Tsuyo, do you read?” the Ax Hand demanded again. He was not prepared to ask a third time. “Silver Arrow, ready on my orders.”

“Yes, kaiken.”

The Ax Hand set his jaw. He cared not whether the Mecha-Tsuyo moved out of the way. The Silver Arrow would pierce through its skin as well, on its way into Toroka's heart.

There was a long pause as the titans continued to trade quaking blows below. Each whirring diamond-edged drill chipped into Toroka's bone armor, while each savage bite and slash peeled away steel.

“Ax Hand, Mecha-Tsuyo receiving,” a harried voice shouted through the radio. Takamoto could hear the screams of the panicked crew, groaning metal, and blaring klaxons.

“Disengage target. Make way for the Silver Arrow attack,” the Ax Hand ordered. There was a pause while the radio man passed on his orders.

“The captain is concerned for the evacuation,” the radio crackled. The Ax Hand jerked back on his controls, bringing his plane higher.

From there he could see the long ant-lines of civilians crowding Sapporo's tight streets. Buildings burned around them while wisps of Toroka's venomous breath snaked through alleyways and avenues. Trucks were running people down in their desperation to escape west, while tanks crushed cars and wagons under their treads as they moved in from the north and south. The coastal units the Black Dragons had placed up and down Hokkaido's western shore were closing in. Their orders were to let nothing slow them.

Each minute brought another dozen cannons to bear on the monster.

“Push Toroka back into the sea, then disengage from close combat!” the Ax Hand ordered.

Once the beast was in the bay, the tanks, artillery, and Mecha-Tsuyo's own guns would be enough to keep Toroka in the water, out of the city and open to the final attack.

“Orders received.”

Mecha-Tsuyo responded by churning backward, its city-block-sized treaded feet demolishing an entire cannery as it made space between itself and Toroka. It slammed both of its drills down, slapping the ground like a gorilla, Then it rose up, bringing its spinning weapons together. Blinding sparks flew out, so bright that Toroka recoiled in shock.

Mecha-Tsuyo charged.

The great mechanical monster slammed into the creature as it swiped at its tiny eyes, dazed. Mecha-Tsuyo came in low, catching its shoulder beneath Toroka's ribs. Its treads howled and dug into the earth, throwing an avalanche of shattered concrete and bricks up behind it that buried tanks and people under cascading tonnes.

Toroka roared, an enraged, shocked howl that burst glass for kilometers around. The Ax Hand could hear his canopy creaking, straining against its metal frame. The cry cut off as Mecha-Tsuyo shoved harder, knocking the beast backward and sending it stumbling over its own feet into the roiling bay.

Mecha-Tsuyo broke away and hunched over to fire a full fusillade at the flailing monster. The congregating tanks and self-propelled guns joined in, launching salvo after salvo.

The beast thrashed beneath the attack, almost disappearing under the myriad explosions. The remaining fleet closed in behind Toroka, cutting it off from the sea before opening with their own broadsides. It was like a man being mobbed, overwhelmed by kicks and punches. Not so much that the blows would kill it, but enough to keep it down.

“All units, this is the Ax Hand, hold fire,” Takamoto ordered. The ships, tanks, and even Mecha-Tsuyo kept up their barrage, blasting with every caliber of cannon, even launching rockets and depth charges. Rage flared in the Ax Hand's chest like a stoked boiler. He snarled into his radio: “This is Kaiken Takamoto Haruto. Cease fire now!”

It took nearly a minute for the order to filter through the attacking forces, but finally the last gun went silent. Toroka squirmed in the surf, then went still, its chest filling with shuddering breaths then exhaling in jade. It lay still for a second, dazed, then its head popped up, golden eyes furious and frantic. It shoved itself up out of the water, shook the sand and foam from its scales and surveyed the forces surrounding it: the ships, the tanks, Mecha-Tsuyo. Then its gaze drifted upward, settling on the distant squadron of screaming jet fighters.

It saw the Ax Hand.

“Silver Arrow,” the Ax Hand said over the airwaves, “Are you prepared to engage Toroka?”

“Yes, kaiken,” Eigami said. The radio interrupted their exchange.

“Ax Hand, this is Mecha-Tsuyo. Ground-based radar reports contacts incoming from west-north-west.”

The Ax Hand ignored the report. Nothing could stay his hand. He would be the one to push the arrowhead through the heart of the monster. He continued:

“Jitte Eigami, your name will be carved on the Great Door within the Hidden Fortress. Fly in glory.”

Six kilometers away, the circling plane straightened out, its flight path lined up on the growling beast.

“As eternity, as in death!” Eigami shouted. He pushed his aircraft to its limit, only for the plane to top out at five hundred kilometers-per-hour. The Silver Arrow’s wings snapped off and the first pair of the eight Junkers jet engines shrieked to life, spewing a gout of toxic smoke.

The spear-tipped plane rocketed forward at at over one thousand kilometers-per-hour, with enough G forces to drive Eigami to unconsciousness. A white cloud burst out from around the plane as it transcended the sound barrier. Umihara's stabilizer would keep the plane locked into its path.

The Ax Hand watched in awe as his arrow was loosed. He would save the Empire, not with obsolete bushido but with brutality and ruthlessness.

He would be legend.

The Drowned Captain.

MONDAY MORNING, AUGUST 2, 1943
ABOARD MECHA-TSUYO
SAPPORO, HOKAIDO, JAPAN

//Translated from Japanese.//

“Hold steady,” Umihara grated. He held the ceiling strap, leaning into it to relieve some of the pressure from his knees. He could see the Silver Arrow accelerating toward Toroka. Its great white tail of super-heated water vapor traced its path, a tear in the sky.

The pilot should have blacked out already, the blood pushed from his brain by the forces coursing through his body. There was no way to stop it.

It would take two more seconds for the second pair of jets to kick in, pushing the plane to over two thousand KPH. The beast stayed in place, extending its gills and rattling its armored scales. It swung around, menacing the armies encircling it, blind to the silver death coming for it.

The Arrow’s third and fourth pairs of overclocked jets actuated. Sonic booms flared, shaking the very air. According to Umihara's calculations, the Arrow would be flying at nearly six thousand KPH, faster than a point-blank Yamato salvo.

Mecha-Tsuyo rattled to its bulkheads at the Silver Arrow shot past. The modified plane's flight surfaces were peeling away like yuzu rinds, but its spearhead nose held.

Had Umihara longer than a few days and more resources, he could have made the weapon sturdier.

The Arrow made contact with Toroka just ahead of its left hip.

It hit like a meteor. The great beast’s armor did little and less against the impact, like a spear driven through a melon. Blood and viscera erupted from the other side of the beast, following the Arrow.

What remained of the plane struck the eastern edge of Sapporo with an impact that rivaled the largest bomb. Earth, cars, and buildings lurched skyward. Hundreds more died in that instant. The crater it left cut down to bedrock.

Toroka staggered, dazed. Smoke, and flame boiled out from both ends of the hole through its torso. Its head and tail dropped. Purple-green-black blood poured down its gold scales and drained from it, darkening the surf. Its gills hung lifeless from its neck but it stayed on its feet.

“Is it dead?” Takamoto demanded over the radio. Umihara limped from his post to the window, tanuki skittering around his feet. He stared at the still monster. Its golden eyes had gone dim.

Mecha-Tsuyo groaned around him. Toroka had battered Umihara's creation. Its claws had cut deep furrows into solid steel. The port-side rocket battery was smoking. Fire-control teams were scrambling, desperate to prevent an ammunition cook-off. A slap from the creature's tail had knocked the main cannon battery out of alignment. Tanuki in every section were finding chemical leaks.

Still, they were standing. Umihara was not sure if the ship remained watertight, but their enemy was dead and they were on a home island. They would not have to sail anywhere.

“Is it dead?” Takamoto demanded again. His snarl made it clear that he was not used to asking twice for anything.

“Yokozuna, bring us forward,” Umihara ordered. The sumo master lumbered forward, walking on his knuckles like an ape. Mecha-Tsuyo copied his movements, grinding through beached fishing boats and burning buildings.

Mecha-Tsuyo stopped within reach of the swaying beast. The oozing black hole the Arrow had left was wide enough to drive a truck through. The surf churned around the creature’s ankles: sharks were fighting over thick fleshy chunks and the oily chum that choked the water.

“Tell the kaiken that Toroka is not moving,” Umihara said. His radio operator complied. “Jitte Eigami was successful.”

“Eigami was an arrow to be aimed. I fired the shot and I will have its head,” Takamoto declared in response. Umihara could not help but roll his aching eyes.

“Sir, there is an anomalous transmission,” the radio operator reported.

“What is it?”

“It is coming from the direction of the unidentified radar contacts.”

Umihara had forgotten the incoming aircraft. They had detected the intruders some time before but could not focus upon them during the melee with Toroka. With the beast finished, buzzards were coming to swarm its corpse.

“Number and position,” Umihara demanded.

“Still incoming, west-north-west, steady airspeed of two-hundred-twenty KPH, sixty kilometers away,” his radar technician answered.

“And number?” Umihara asked. The technician stared at the screen, hesitant. “Lieutenant?”

“It appears to be one large aircraft. But it is varying in size. It could be a very tight formation.”

The radar technician's commanding officer leaned over his shoulder and stared at the screen.

“No one can fly that close. It is one large aircraft,” he determined. “An American heavy bomber.”

“Ready our anti-aircraft batteries, inform the ships and the land forces. And the kaiken.”

“Yes, sir.” The radio operators relayed his orders.

“Lieutenant,” Umihara said. “Play the transmission.”

“It seems to be propaganda, sir. Or psychological warfare.”

“Play it.”

A woman's voice warbled out of the bridge's speakers, curt and cold in fluent Japanese:

“- to prevent the further loss of civilian life. They are not on a military mission, but a humanitarian one. They will not engage any targets save the animal known as 'Toroka.' Please stand down, they come to help as fellow people, not enemies. This message will repeat.”

“Patch this through to the kaiken,” Umihara ordered. His operator flipped a few switches, then nodded as the message restarted:

“This is Specialist Eun Hye of the Royal Air Force. Captains Hercules Chen and Jagat Dubashi are en route to your location with a weapon capable of disabling the Toroka creature. They will be flying with no cover, with no defensive capability. Their only goal is to prevent the further loss of civilian life. They are not...”

Umihara’s mind ran. The woman's words, 'fellow people, not enemies' cut into him. He clutched the wadded paper in his pocket, the note the Korean woman had forced into his palm aboard the Smith’s plane. Those were the words written on it. It implored him to leave the Dragons, to use his knowledge to stop the Tetsujin and the Nazis.

The transmission was meant for him alone.

“Jam that transmission,” Takamoto yelled over the radio. “It is a trick. Even were it true, I have already slayed the beast. These are nothing but half-breed assassins and spies.”

The transmission cut off before Umihara issued any order.

“All batteries, prepare to engage incoming aircraft,” Takamoto ordered. Every radio in the region was receiving him loud and clear. The Allied pilots, whatever their intentions were, would be greeted not with gratitude but by thousands of airbusting shells and clouds of shredding flak.

“Sir!” one of the gunnery officers shouted. He was standing at the windscreen as well, staring down at the fallen beast.

“What is it?” Umihara asked. He trusted the kaiken’s crew enough to mount a defense against a single bomber, so he left them to it and joined the officer at the window.

“There, sir, its blood.”

At first Umihara only saw the blood's nauseating color. His officer was not pointing at the drifting black clouds in the water or the great schools of sharks thrashing in it, but instead at the monster's wound. Ichor no longer poured from it. Instead, it gurgled and frothed, solidifying into a slurry in the places it had yet to coagulate over.

Toroka was not bleeding: its wound had sealed itself shut.

“Pull back, double speed, full barrage!” Umihara shouted. His men scrambled to comply, but it was too late.

Toroka's great gold eye snapped open.

They were too close. It surged forward, slithering in below Mecha-Tsuyo's guns, lower than they could decline, faster than they could track. It hit them with the force of a tsunami.

Toroka's tail hammered into Mecha-Tsuyo's midsection, punching in the portside bulkheads two meters. Three crewmen were crushed to death instantly, another two would die before repair crews could extricate them. The dent pinched steam pipes which burst in the right arm engine room, blinding one man and scalding two more. The arm instantly lost power and hydraulic pressure, sending Mecha-Tsuyo floundering as its myriad tons fell limp. Steel screamed and sheared in its protesting shoulder joint.

Umihara did not have to give the order: every remaining gun battery opened fire. All the captain could do was find a handhold and ride it out.

The beast was angry. It clamped onto Mecha-Tsuyo's flexible 'neck' with its powerful jaws and twisted, forcing the ship around as it fired its guns. Shells and rockets raked the city. Fire swept through the still-standing buildings. The tanks and guns ashore retreated in panic. A few fired, but their shells weren't powerful enough to slow either titan.

Klaxons sounded from another section as Toroka stomped down on one of the massive tanks that carried Mecha-Tsuyo's mass on its treads. More dead, and the blow sent a shudder up the ship's frame, like the first thunking bite of a woodsman's ax.

“Pull back!” Umihara ordered again. “Yokozuna, close defense!”

“Port foot is not responding, no response from its chief,” the engineering chief shouted.

“Then get down there and help them!” Umihara snapped. He lurched back across the bridge and wrapped his arm in the dangling strap that waiting for him. Another hit from the monster flung him around like a windsock. A bank of medium cannons ripped away from the port side. Crimson flame danced in Mecha-Tsuyo's superstructure. He shouted again: “Yokozuna!”

The sumo wrestler was drenched in sweat, battling against dead controls.

“It will not move!” he cried.

Mecha-Tsuyo shook again and Umihara looked out the window in horror to find Toroka's head buried in the ship's guts, up to the beast's neck. It was peeling back layer after layer of bulkheads as it dug open a hole, trying like a scavenger to break open Mecha-Tsuyo's ribs and feast on the machinery and men within.

“Captain, what do we do?” a bleeding officer shouted. Steam and sparks jetted across the bridge from every direction. Black smoke was pooling on the ceiling, stinging Umihara's aching eyes. The old pain was back, beating upon his taut dry brain tissue with a taiko drumbeat.

Umihara forced himself to think through the cacophonous haze.

“Ignore the planes, order all friendly guns to open fire on the monster!” he shouted.

“But, sir...” his communications officer yelped, too cowardly to finish his thought aloud. Blood was running across his face from a rent at his hairline.

“I would see us reduced to scrap if it means keeping this creature off of our shores,” the captain growled. The fear on the comms officer's face was replaced by grim determination. He was a defender of the home islands, a warrior fighting, dying, in the name of his emperor. The kaiken's orders were overridden. He shoved the radio operator out of the way and took the microphone in his own hand, yelling:

“This is Captain Umihara: all batteries, free fire on Toroka!”

The remaining tanks and cannons onshore erupted as one. Their target was too close to Mecha-Tsuyo to do anything other than hit it, too. Shells skipped off its portside armor or burst against it. Each explosion rattled the titans but did little else.

The surviving fleet took up the barrage seconds later. If Toroka noticed or cared, it did not show it.

The great beast gripped Mecha-Tsuyo’s engineering decks in its jaws and ripped them free, spilling machinery, diesel oil, and flailing men into the shattering, shrapnel-scoured air. It threw its prize aside in a crushed ball larger than a building. The scraps smashed through an arriving column of combat engineers, reducing their packed trucks to flattened wrecks.

Toroka roared again, loud enough to snap hairline fractures in Mecha-Tsuyo’s bomb-proof bridge windows. Umihara turned off his hearing aid and watched. He men curled into balls at the continuous din, hands clamped over their abused ears. Toroka reared back, puffed out its barrel chest, then expelled a torrent of green gas into the hole it had torn into Mecha-Tsuyo's belly.

Jade vapors rushed through the ship, blossoming out of each crack, tear, and popped rivet within three decks of the hole. The men who had escaped the creature's jaws died slowly, their lungs melting as the aerosolized acid scoured them to bubbling meat.

A bank of warning lights lit up above Umihara's head. He reactivated his hearing aid as he counted the disabled stations: starboard arm, starboard land propulsion, starboard anti-air batteries, starboard rocket batteries, port rocket batteries, port medium cannons, coolant dispersion, bow flexor, chest hangar, fuel reserves, main drive alternator.

Each light represented trapped men, suffocating men, poisoned men, burning men, crushed men, blinded men, men drowning in icy freon, hot fuel, and boiling water.

His ship was lost.

This creature, whatever it was and wherever it had come from, was too powerful even for the insane dreams of a dead man.

Umihara ignored his broken ship. He forgot about the men he'd sent to their deaths. He forgot about the furious kaiken in the air, and the old pain raging within him. Instead, he looked to the shore. It was not the Tetsujin, or the Navy, or even the Emperor for whom he fought. It was his nation, the proud, hard-working island rich with community and history, a loving place full of people who cared about him.

Beyond Toroka, flames had spread into Sapporo faster than the evacuees could move. The great trains of wagons, trucks, and people on foot were being consumed as the seaborne winds whipped the fires into raging infernos. Even as they burned, tanks were charging into the city to join the fight, as many arriving as there were running away.

The battle had ruined Sapporo Bay and the entirety of the city's port. There would be no more trade there, no more fishing. The city would burn or it would wither. If Toroka could not be stopped there was nothing to prevent it from doing the same to every other city and town on Hokkaido.

“I have a new order,” Umhara shouted to his comms officer. The man's lips moved, but no sound emerged. Umihara did not care, he needn't hear what he was saying, he only needed his obedience. “Call in the kaiken for assistance, then jam his transmissions. Under my authority, order all assets to allow the unidentified aircraft to proceed unhindered. Send the incoming aircraft a message relaying this information.”

The officer objected, but Umihara spoke over him:

“We are not here to collect the kaiken’s trophy. I will take responsibility after. We are here to save a city, to protect our home. We cannot do that with all of our guns, with all of our strength. We must allow another to help. Survival is greater than honor. So do as I say, now.”

The comms officer and his radiomen got to work.

Umihara stared out the window, over the heads of his battered, bloody crew, past the curling smoke and through the cracks, out to the horizon. Toroka was still tearing at Mecha-Tsuyo, shredding men and sections of the ship with each blow, but out there, further than he could see, there was perhaps salvation.

If only he could distract the beast for a few more minutes.

“Yokozuna, you still have one arm. Use it,” he ordered.

The sumo wrestler wheezed, wiped blood and sweat from his face, then resumed his attack stance. Mecha-Tsuyo raised its remaining arm. The drill spun to its full six-thousand RPM then came crashing down onto the monster's back. Skin, bone, and blood misted the air.

Toroka stumbled back, shocked that its prey was still alive and able to hurt it.

“Gunnery, order all able batteries to open fire. Hit it again!” Umihara shouted. He watched his men scramble at their stations, coordinating each remaining cannons and gun. Shells and tracers burst against Toroka’s scales. The wounds sizzled and sealed as fast as their combined assault could open them.

Toroka roared again, billowing green, then charged. Umihara braced himself. Mecha-Tsuyo met the beast with one leg and one arm, drill and guns against jaws and talons.

A flash of red caught Umihara's eye through the chaos: the Ax Hand’s fighter, followed close by his squadron. A flurry of rockets pounded into the side of Toroka's face, distracting the creature long enough for Mecha-Tsuyo's drill to dig into the thick ventral plate covering its chest. The stink of burning bone filled Umihara's nostrils.

Toroka shoved itself away, pulling the diamond-edged point out of its chest and taking a defensive stance some six hundred meters away, further than Mecha-Tsuyo could quickly travel with only one working leg. Blood gushed out of its breastbone, then slowed as it frothed and hardened.

The red flash came around again before the beast was fully recovered.

The kaiken and his pets whipped through the battle in their pulse-jet fighters, his crimson plane in the lead. Their cannons winked, adding their shells to Mecha-Tsuyo's own. Blasts stitched up and down the staggered beast's body. Toroka roared again, swiping at the stinging insects plaguing it.

“Hold fire!” Umihara ordered.

He was already disobeying the kaiken's orders, and he knew what his fate would be. If he accidentally ordered the man's death, he couldn't imagine what the Society would do to him, or his crew.

He watched the fighters do their dance with the monster, peppering it with automatic cannon fire and launching their anti-aircraft rockets at it. The honeycomb missiles burst like a shotgun blast, firing a hundred twenty-millimeter shells in every direction. It was like boxing the monster's ears.

He watched his wearied crew follow the dogfight, how the kaiken's bloodthirst masquerading as bravery enlivened them. Each pass brought the maniac squadron closer to the monster. Each ineffectual, arrogant, valiant strafing run raised a louder cheer from Mecha-Tsuyo's crew.

The kaiken was careful to avoid the poisonous cloud it spewed with each labored breath, but was not hesitant about flying within its reach. Takamoto himself barrel-rolled his plane between Toroka's legs while his wingmen skimmed the monster's ridged spine.

Another alert light began blinking on Umihara's console, a slow, steady flare that was almost calming compared to the madness around him. The radar proximity alarm.

The Office's plane was within five kilometers.

The Ax Hand's squadron circled again, coming in for a close run on the creature's face. They released their final rocket salvo in unison, flying slow and low so their aim would not waver. Toroka swung around to confront the incoming threat only for the high-explosive barrage to impact its beak. Flame and smoke billowed as it reeled, scraping its hand across its eye in panic.

The kaiken brought his squadron in close to inspect the damage. Umihara rushed the window. He yanked a set of binoculars out of a spotter's hands so hard he snapped their leather strap. He focused on the monster's damaged eye. It was blackened, scorched, and scraped; steam rose off its surface. But the orb itself was intact.

As the squadron reached the closest point of its pass on the wounded monster, Toroka’s blackened eye slid back in its socket like a swallowing shark’s. When it popped back out the scorched muss was wiped away as if it were nothing more than spilled sake on a hardwood table.

It glared at the circling planes with golden rage and struck.

The kaiken was barely fast enough to swerve around the enraged monster's slashing claws. His squadron was not. The beast made contact with two planes, shearing one in half and taking the wing off another. The fourth plane in the flight squeezed through but the fifth banked so hard it went into a flat spin and stalled before disappearing into the smoke rising from the city.

Toroka chuffed with satisfaction. It looked around for more airborne threats, but the squadron had dispersed, without even Takamoto's red plane in sight.

“Sound the horn,” Umihara ordered then turned off his hearing aid for the second the airhorn blared.

His crew complied, letting off a blast from Mecha-Tsuyo's airhorn that made each of them wince. Toroka's attention snapped back to its half-crippled opponent. The beast leaned forward and extended its scarlet gills in a squirming halo around its blocky head, than roared back.

“Yokozuna, meet the beast,” Umihara growled.

Mecha-Tsuyo limped forward, a dragging half-step toward the seemingly-invincible beast. Toroka watched for a second then thought better of it. It snaked away faster than even a fully-intact Mecha-Tsuyo could hope to catch it.

It did not go to the sea as Umihara expected.

Toroka knew that nothing it faced could hope to stop it: not the artillery, not the ships, the planes, or even Mecha-Tsuyo. It could ignore all of them and do what it had come to do.

The beast thundered its way into the burning city. It leaned down as it ran, scooping people, horses, and cars into its maw, entire streets at a time. The congested city was a feast. The island was a stocked larder.

“Follow it,” Umihara ordered, though he knew they would fail even if they were able to catch up to the monster. He cleared his throat, adding:

“And repeat my orders to all forces on all frequencies: let the unidentified aircraft through.”

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Copyright © 2024 Daniel Baldwin. All rights reserved.

Written and edited by Daniel Baldwin. Art by Dudu Torres.