Chapter 22: Monster In The Docks

Panic is a poor navigator.

Kyle’s lungs burned, each breath a serrated blade in his chest, as he tore through the labyrinthine streets of the city. The neon glow of central Tokyo had faded, replaced by the salt-crusted air and low-slung warehouses of the harbor district.

He skidded to a halt, his bare feet stinging against the cold pavement. He was lost. Without a phone, without a map, he was a stranger in a neighborhood of docked fishing boats and rusted cranes.

“Kotomi!” he roared, his voice swallowed by the crashing of the tide against the pier.

The wind swallowed his voice, offering only the stench of rotted fish and burnt oil in return. He felt a sudden, sickening twist in his gut. His left arm, the one that usually felt the weight of Sunbreaker, began to throb with a rhythmic, heat-sync pulse.

It wasn't just a tingle. It was a burn. His Chi was reacting to a massive, unstable flare of energy nearby.

BOOM.

The sky above a corrugated iron warehouse three blocks away didn't just brighten—it fractured. A pillar of violent, jagged jade light erupted toward the clouds, turning the falling soot into emerald sparks before snapping back into the earth.

Kyle didn't think. He pushed off, his muscles screaming as he followed the fading green streak.

He rounded the corner of the pier and stopped. The air here was different. It didn't smell like the ocean; it smelled like an electrical fire in a morgue. A dozen Men in White were scattered across the asphalt. One man was embedded three inches deep into a brick wall; another’s high-tech baton had been snapped like a dry twig.

In the center of the wreckage stood Kotomi.

She wasn't the girl who had cried over cold tea. Her jade aura wasn't a soft glow anymore—it was a frantic, vibrating cage of energy that hummed with a sound like a swarm of angry hornets.

“Kotomi! Stop!” Kyle shouted, reaching out for her. “You’re injured, you need to—”

She whirled on him. Her eyes weren't green; they were two hollow pits of incandescent light. Blood trailed from a cut on her forehead, but it didn't drip—it evaporated into green steam before it could touch her chin.

“I didn't ask for your help, Kyle!”

She whirled on him, and he recoiled. The frightened girl who had trembled in the kitchen was gone. In her place was something ancient and feral. Her eyes weren't just green; they were glowing with a hateful, incandescent light that seemed to vibrate with the sheer force of her rage.

“They took him!” she screamed, her voice cracking. “They tortured my father! All because they want me? Fine! Here I am!”

She turned back to the remaining Men in White, her fists clenching so hard her knuckles bled. “Tell me where he is! NOW!”

The lead guard, Nanashi, fumbled for his belt. He didn't reach for a gun. He reached for a heavy, black transmitter. His eyes were wide with a terrifying realization: they hadn't captured a girl; they had poked a sleeping god.

“Central… this is Unit 4,” he wheezed into the device. “The target is… she’s too strong. Release the subject. Release Subject #108.”

There was a long pause of static. A voice crackled back, thick with apprehension.

“Are you certain? The containment is unstable. #108 might go on a rampage. He won’t distinguish friend from foe.”

“Do it now!” the leader shrieked. “Open the box!”

In the shadows at the far end of the pier, a massive, upright container—resembling a high-tech Iron Maiden—began to hiss. Thick, freezing vapor poured from its seams. The heavy metal bolts holding it shut began to groan as something on the inside hammered against the steel.

The sound of the hammering wasn't rhythmic; it was the sound of a beast trying to tear its way out of a cage.

The heavy iron doors of the container didn't just open; they were blown off their hinges by a pressurized burst of freezing nitrogen. From the roiling white fog, a sound emerged that made the hair on Kyle’s neck stand up—a wet, rhythmic slapping of meat against stone.

“Licky… licky…” a voice gurgled. It sounded like a man drowning in his own saliva.

As the vapor cleared, the horror was revealed. It was a nightmare pulled from the pages of an ancient scroll and fed into a meat grinder. The creature stood six feet tall, its skin a sickly, translucent white that stretched tight over a hulking, misshapen frame. Its fingers ended in jagged, obsidian claws, and its eyes were twin pits of burning crimson.

But it was the tongue that defied logic. It was thick, muscular, and pulsated with blue veins, trailing behind the creature like a grotesque ribbon nearly twelve feet long.

“An Akaname,” Kyle breathed, his stomach churning.

Before the word had even left his lips, the creature moved. The tongue lashed out—a blur of pink muscle that hummed through the air like a whip. The Man in White closest to the container didn't even have time to scream. The appendage caught him at the waist, the sheer speed and abrasive surface of the tongue shearing through his ceramic armor and flesh as if it were wet paper.

“Where is Shiraishi?!” Kotomi’s scream tore through the silence. She didn't look at the dead man; she didn't look at the monster. Her eyes remained locked on Nanashi. “What did you do to my father?!”

The leader of the squad, Nanashi, gasped, his mask falling away entirely. “How do you know that name? Who told you about the Commander?”

Kotomi launched herself.

“I’ll tear it out of your throat!” Kotomi shrieked.

She was a jade streak, her fists wreathed in emerald lightning. She moved with a speed that should have been untouchable, but the Akaname didn't need to be fast—it only needed to be precise.

The tongue coiled through the air like a sentient whip. It intercepted her mid-flight, wrapping around her torso and arms in a crushing, wet grip. The moment the slime touched her jade armor, a series of blue electrical sparks hissed at the point of contact.

“What is this thing?!” Kotomi cried out, her jade light flickering.

She struggled, but as the tongue tightened, a thick, translucent slime began to ooze from the creature’s pores. The moment the substance touched her armor, her movements slowed. Her eyes went wide, her pupils dilating as a paralyzing numbness crept through her limbs.

“Unbelievable,” Nanashi muttered, a twisted, fanatical grin spreading across his face. “Subject #108 is even more effective than the simulations predicted. The Commander will be ecstatic to see how a ‘Successor’ reacts to the paralysis enzyme.”

“Licky… lick…” the creature moaned, the grip of its tongue tightening until Kotomi’s armor began to spiderweb with cracks.

“What do you mean, ‘Human Test Subject’?!” Kyle yelled, his Chi flaring in his fist as he stepped forward. “What did you do to that man?!”

Nanashi looked at the hulking, pale beast and smiled—a thin, cruel line.

“This is your fault, Hero. Your interference forced us to accelerate the timeline. We couldn't wait for natural evolution.”

He gestured toward the hulking, white beast that was currently crushing the life out of Kotomi.

Kyle felt a wave of nausea. This wasn't just magic or science—it was the absolute desecration of a human life.

“You bastards,” Kyle whispered, his voice trembling with a different kind of rage. “You actually turned a human into this.”

The harbor air was thick with the scent of ozone and the copper tang of blood. Kyle and Kotomi were fighting a war of attrition they were destined to lose. Every strike Kyle landed felt like hitting a wall of wet clay; the creature simply absorbed the impact and surged back.

"Move back, Kotomi!" Kyle roared. He centered his gravity, pulling the flickering remnants of his Chi into his fingertips.

"Chi First Stance: Scattering Sakura Blossom – Thousand Petals."

In a blur of motion, Kyle’s hands became a whirlwind. A thousand invisible strikes, sharp as razors, shredded the air. The Akaname’s massive tongue was caught in the center of the storm, sliced into a spray of translucent ribbons.

For a second, there was hope. Then, the meat began to knit. With a wet, nauseating sound, the ribbons fused back together, the tongue regrowing to its full, grotesque length in heartbeats.

“Licky… lick…” the creature gurgled, its red eyes fixated on the Jade light.

With a sudden, explosive snap, the tongue whipped across the pier. It didn't coil this time—it struck like a battering ram. Kotomi barely had time to cross her arms before the impact sent her hurtling backward. She smashed through the corrugated metal wall of a nearby warehouse, the structure groaning as it partially collapsed over her.

“You idiots!” Nanashi screamed, clutching his radio so hard his knuckles turned white. “The Commander was explicit! The Magical Girl is the prize! If you kill her, you are the next ones to be the human guinea pigs!”

“We can’t control it, sir!” a grunt yelled, his voice cracking as he scrambled away from the beast. “Subject #108 is unresponsive to the neural dampeners! He’s hunting!”

Kyle looked at the wreckage of the warehouse. Kotomi wasn't moving. The Akaname was already turning toward the hole in the wall, its tongue dripping with that paralyzing slime.

I can’t fail again, Kyle thought, his vision swimming. Not another one.

He didn't think about his lack of a sword. He didn't think about his exhausted Chi. He simply charged, putting every ounce of his soul into a single, desperate sprint. He aimed for the creature’s throat, intending to rip the vocal cords out of the thing that used to be a man.

He was fast, but the Akaname was faster.

“Ah…” Kyle’s voice was a soft, confused exhale.

A flash of pink muscle blurred through his peripheral vision. There was no pain at first—only a sudden, terrifying lightness and a sound like a wet branch snapping.

Kyle’s momentum carried him forward for two more steps before he collapsed. He looked down, his brain struggling to process the image. His left arm was gone, severed just below the shoulder by the abrasive, high-speed edge of the tongue.

The world began to tilt. The grey concrete of the pier rushed up to meet him. As his cheek hit the cold ground, the sounds of the battle faded into a dull, underwater hum.

Through the haze of his failing consciousness, he heard it—a high, piercing scream of pure agony. It wasn't his own. It was Kotomi, her voice echoing through the ruins of the warehouse as the shadows closed in.

“Kyle!”

Then, the darkness claimed him.