Chapter 13: Everyone

November 5th, 7:09 AM

Lance struggled to open his eyes while he stretched inside the abnormally puffy, comfortable comforters in his bed on the floor. When he stretched out, nearly everything from his neck all the way to his toes cracked from being locked in a sunken shape of the squishy low bed on the floor, wriggling to his right to see uncle Akira still locked in deep sleep. Lance eyed the wall to his left; a large map of the Pacific Ocean with large amounts of sticky notes and red twine crossing in erratic locations, some over the Mariana's Trench, some over the map's expanse of the Pacific Ocean and Bonin Islands, and some over the Marshall islands. He couldn't read the writing on the notes from this distance, but could tell the notes and red twine were old and worn down in coloration.

He plumped to the floor, doing a quick, quiet set of twenty-five push-ups to wake himself up, yawning on the last one. Then he walked over to a desk with well-organized folders and science articles from Ishiro's variously published journals. He found a book on the table and read the cover to himself.

"Exceptions to Biomechanical and Physical Laws: An Inquiry."

He quietly exited the room, walking into a relatively large living space, larger than most apartment spaces. To his left down the hall an open door showed another bedroom, revealing Ishiro in as deep a sleep as Akira's.

Lance peeked inside the room. His wife, Akira's sister Masako wasn't with him. She hadn't come home yet, and Ishiro only left a message last night that he brought home two guests to stay with them, not revealing their identities.

He left to the kitchen to make himself a bowl of cereal, still only wearing his grey sweat pants and a baggy black shirt with an image of the Golden Gate Bridge at night, lit up with the lights on the road deck, cables and towers. His breakfast assembled, he sat down and began eating his Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal. It was his and his parent's favorite cereal to eat together when he was younger. His mind wandered to a memory of his parents when he was just ten years old, when they went swimming in the Russian River in Hacienda, California by the Hacienda bridge. They'd bring two boxes of it with a half-gallon of milk, eating to their hearts content on the beach in the early evening next to a camp fire.

Lance's eyes watered up without even knowing, just catching the tears rolling down his cheeks. He broke down for a few moments, then struggled to regain his composure, trying to scarf down his food in wet recovering hiccups. He was glad his uncle and Ishiro were still asleep and not here to see his fragility in play. He wiped his face and looked into the bowl of swirling particulates of cinnamon circulate around in elegant cycles. The slurry opened another feeling an emotion that quickly replaced his sadness…fury.

Rage. His body quaked with rage-filled red eyes that watered up but didn't leak out like before. Revenge festered in his mind. He wanted to gut and rip apart the monster that killed his parents. He began letting his mind drifting to dark thoughts, thoughts he never normally had, fantasizing himself as large as the creature. Lance wandered into internal fantasies of doing gory, horrible things to it, even though he had no conception of what Godzilla looked like, only that it took the form of a dark foggy silhouette that so needed and deserved to get its throat violently ripped to shreds by his own canines, only permitted to slowly, agonizingly bleed to death while Lance watched the life leave its eyes.

Lance violently shook his head trying to rattle and rid these thoughts out. His mind back, he reached the remote control for the TV. Turning it on, it automatically loaded to a news network. The news journalist, a young woman named Yukari was reporting on site in Tokyo's Yoyogi Park, with the National Olympic Memorial Youth Center to her left. It was an update story on the upcoming opening of the Museum of Earth and Human Sciences.

"That museum, is that the one Ishiro's professor friend said he was going to give a tour of for us?"

"Unconfirmed reports by local residents indicate that several electrical surges in the area stemmed from the power terminals near the museum. Officials are asserting it to be faulty wiring, while resident protestors contend that the energy use at the museum is stressing local energy grids, and are petitioning a government-mandated shut-down of the facility until further issues in the power supply can be resolved."

Lance flipped through another channel, finding a joint Japanese-American News Network. The reporter on screen was not too far off from the other young woman journalist Yukari's location. This individual, an older American reporter named Steve Martin speaking English, had a subtly Orson Wells-like quality to his narrative.

"It is still unclear whether faulty electrical wiring in the museum has been causing local power shortages. Shibuya prefecture officials are not commenting whether spikes in energy use registered with the museum are accounted for in the original energy-use plan. Furthermore, over one-hundred local residents are petitioning a halt to the project due to the sensitive nature of constructing a facility within the confines of this park, revered as a sacred, traditional green space. Its success at the government level appears to not be entirely likely, as myself and several reporters in the area, protesters and supporters have witnessed an enormous influx of scientists, government officials and large pieces of construction equipment shipped to within the confines of the building. One wonders, just how does all that personnel and equipment fit into such a tight space? More importantly, one may ask why all that personnel and equipment for such an endeavor, treating it as though it was some kind of energy plant in the heart of a Tokyo park? All that is certain is that the opening has been delayed to one month, pending further investigation related not to energy use, but seismic structural integrity, according to a statement from Director Dr. Kyohei Yamane."

"I guess we're not going on that tour for a while," Lance huffed out, continuing back to his cereal. Then he heard a noise, the front door unlocking.

Within moments, an older woman around Ishiro and Akira's age walked through quietly, wearing a light blue sweater and black jeans, holding a bag of portfolios and reports. She laid her items on the ground and began heading straight towards Ishiro's room without even noticing Lance sitting on the couch, eating cereal and watching TV. He sat frozen in surprise, not wanting to alarm her. She'd be expecting guests, but not specifically what kind of guests.

Lance heard her walking back towards him, until stopping halfway down the hallway. He couldn't see her peeking into Ishiro's study, but he overheard her.

"Oh, well this is surprising. I wonder who this gentleman is, an old friend of Ishiro's I'd suspect? I really wish he'd be more prompt in telling me about guests coming over, instead of while I'm gone on survey," she half-complained. "Having him sleep in your study is pretty senseless of you Ishiro. Defeats the purpose of a "private study," doesn't it, you silly?"

Lance heard silence for a few moments, before her voice became less annoyed and more stressed.

"I hope you found answers Ishiro," she said pleadingly out loud towards their bedroom, quiet enough to not wake up Akira but enough for Lance with the TV on mute to overhear. She came out and began walking down the hall, now focused on fidgeting with a cell phone, causing her to cast Lance out in her tunnel vision as she headed for the kitchen. Once in the kitchen space, she began fooling around with various items in the opposite wall cabinet.

"Well, at least he brought home the tea I like this time…and some of that kind Erika likes too. What a sweet young woman."

She began making a batch of tea, leaving her cell phone on the counter playing morning interviews with famous economists in the greater Kanto region. Lance got nervous, not wanting to frighten her. He turned the TV off and slowly tip-toed towards the hallway to the study. She began fiddling with her cell phone again as he was a quarter of the way there.

"These texts from Ishiro…wait a minute? Two guests? Where's the other one?"

She turned around for a moment, catching Lance midway. A reserved gasp of surprise came from her, Lance wide-eyed and terrified, his right leg still in motion until the banded portion of his right foot struck a hard object on the ground, causing him to shout in pain while simultaneously cover his mouth, tripping on the ground and landing on his side.

"OH MY! Are you okay?" the older woman spoke loudly while rushing over to him now. Lance rolled over wincing in pain while grabbing his right foot, rocking side to side.

"OAHW, geez that hurt really bad! Uh…I'm so very sorry for startling you like that," Lance pleaded to her.

"Young man, are you and that older gentleman in the study Ishiro's guests?"

"Yes, Ms. Sato, although…oww, it's a bit more complicated than that," Lance groaned out, trying to get back up until he stumbled back down. The older woman pulled him up like he was a rag doll, even though Lance was a good foot taller than her, shocking him for a moment how a woman her age and size could have such strength.

"My goodness Ms. Sato, pardon me, but you and your husband seem extraordinarily fit for your age. Makes me look weak," he winced out in a combination wail and laugh.

"Thank you for the compliment, but let's get you to the couch. I'm curious as to your relationship to Ishiro, if you don't mind me asking," she asked while helping Lance over to the couch. She looked down towards his foot.

"I hope you haven't been walking on that. It looks broken."

"Oh no, not broken. I just had a really bad incision. I wonder what I hit," Lance asked, looking over to the ground where he tripped. He saw on a small tray on the ground a large piece of shiny rock with sharp conchoidal streaks and a deep black, glossy appearance.

"Is that Obsidian?" Lance asked.

"Yes it is actually. You know your rocks…that's very good. Are you a student in the Earth Sciences?"

"Only in high school; we went over mineral and rock identification a while ago. Obsidian was one of my second favorites."

"What's your first, if I may ask…what is your name? Sorry, I forgot to ask."

"My name is Lance Northwest. It's Icelandic Peridotite."

"Well isn't that something, that's mine too. I'm a geologist by trade, specializing in Volcanology and Geobiology. And, you may call me Masako if you like," she said in a restrained but obvious jovial tone to Lance.

"Really? That's cool," Lance replied, who was not feeling as much pain anymore in his foot.

A door creaked open down the hallway, followed by several erratic, loud thuds.

"Ishiro must be up trying to wake our neighbors and the elephants again," she said to Lance smiling, nodding to the hallway. "He'll get to explain to me why we're totally unprepared hosting two guests without better foresight or supplies," she huffed out, her tone good-natured yet serious.

Akira appeared from the corner hallway walking towards them, still sleepy with a dull expression, until he saw her. He stopped on a dime meters away, fully awake now and half-paralyzed. His expression was morphing from blank to absolute shock as he digested what he was seeing.

"Oh…well good morning. I am Ishiro's wife, Masako Sato," she said kindly to him. "I hope you had a pleasant, restful sleep."

"Uncle Akira?" Lance quietly called out, getting a feel for what was about to happen.

"He's your uncle? Really? That's quite surprising."

"Not blood relatives, I'm his adopted nephew."

Masako looked back and forth at both of them. Lance eyed him with a concerned expression while Akira continued looking on blankly at her.

"It's a pleasure to meet you Akira. My apologies for being a bit inquisitive about your relationship with Lance, I hadn't known this."

His face became sullen with a tinge of both sadness and happiness towards her. She stuck with a gut feeling and approached him.

"Lance, is something wrong with your uncle," Masako quietly asked Lance.

"He missed you," Ishiro said out of nowhere until he came full view, standing in the hallway with a huge smile on his face.

"Ishiro, what's going on here?"

"I've made a lot of ground in my investigations Masako. This was, and has been my greatest discovery to date yet."

"I don't understand Ishiro...this man?"

"Masako," hiccupped the old man still staring at her, his eyes puffy, "over sixty years ago I thought I saw you die. I...how I missed you," he croaked, before breaking down in her shoulder.

"Sixty years ago?"

"Here," Ishiro said to Akira, pulling him out of his crying and handing him a large piece of cloth.

Akira unwrapped the cloth and pulled out the Komabue. "This should jog your memory," Ishiro said warmly as he watched Akira wipe his face and begin playing.

It was a different melody than the one back in Trinidad, more reserved and peaceful. It lasted fifteen seconds, before he noticed the color in Masako's face drain, before it got bright red. Her eyes were getting red and puffy.

"My grandfather played that melody. He taught it to my brother...Akira."

She walked over and inspected his face, cataloging all the wrinkles and scars. She placed her hand on his lower face to where only his eyes and upper head poked out.

"All this time, I thought you were dead," she spoke with a flat, brittle tone, before pulling him into an extremely tight hug, sobbing in his chest.

"Brother!"

"Sister!"

Ishiro quietly joined in the hug to their sides. As Lance watched, a sensation rippled throughout his body, one he hadn't really felt for a while. Warmth.

12:53 PM

"Are you sure he's going to listen to you, and not blow you off yet again?" Hideo asked Emiko as he drove them through the storm-laden outskirts of Tokyo, to Mikata.

"I don't think so, judging by the number and frequency of these texts and calls."

"That was inordinately nice to call him back. If he was my boyfriend, I'd have kicked him to the side all together."

"Oh, so you've given it thought as to whether he'd make you a good boyfriend Hideo?" Emiko asked with a huge grin on her face. "Is there something about yourself you're not telling me?"

"GIRLFRIEND! You, you know what I meant!"

"Anyways, I had to call him back Hideo. He may be an aloof jerk, but at least he's not intentional about ignoring…or forgetting me."

"Only accidental…you still deserve better Emiko."

"I only hope this discovery of his he wants to show me will blunt what I'm about to tell him."

1:10 PM

Hideo parked across the street from Serizawa's residence. Emiko gave him a long hug before departing for the house.

"Goodness, have I ever fallen for her," he internally remarked watching her walk through the rain. He hadn't planned on such a development. It just happened.

"This didn't have to go this way Daisuke, you monumental idiot," Hideo said quietly while checking the time on his cellphone.

"Still hours before the conference. Hopefully our government will do something producti-" Hideo paused. He sidelined his vision towards Daisuke's home, and began feeling a tinge of pain in his abdomen. His throat became scratchy for a moment, causing him to involuntarily cough for over twenty seconds. He covered his mouth with the sleeve of his white hoodie. When he drank some bottled water and regained control, he wiped his mouth with the hoodie sleeve and saw a lot of little droplets of red on it.

"What the…blood?"

Emiko walked across the street through the pouring rain up to the front door of Daisuke's residence. The house was of average size, but unusual in that it had an extremely large basement level, much larger than the home itself. She recalled this was why Daisuke loved this house, a space big enough to have his own personal laboratory. His daily frugality sky-rocketed once his lab was established, only using it sparingly due to the high energy costs. He had to install a series of solar roof panels and additional generators just to power some of his experiments, which quite frequently cut into his food budget.

Before she could knock on the front door, Daisuke opened up, revealing a freshly showered, newly lab-coated, clean-cut frame, though the bags under his right eye and exhaustive mannerisms betrayed this manicured appearance. Emiko sensed he was starving himself of sleep for some time, more so than usual.

"Hi Daisuke."

"Emiko. You, you look, wow… radiant. Was your internship with your grandfather pleasant?" He asked shakily with a gentle yet oddly twisted smile.

"Let's just say it was an…interesting one. I see you've put on a new lab coat since we last talked."

"Yes, indeed. The other coat, well, it stayed on my person for far too long. Won't you come in? You must be soaked!"

"I was only out for a couple of seconds, but I stepped in a huge puddle just outside your door," Emiko pointed down, squeezing her feet inside her shoes, making a squishing sound.

"I'll get some towels…and a pair of socks."

As Emiko took her shoes and socks off and dried off in his bathroom, Daisuke went to the kitchen and nervously fumbled two cups of tea and energy drinks out of his fridge. He sat on his small couch and waited for her to return. He checked his phone to read a news report, staying up-to-date on a developing story of a North Korean official defecting with his wife and child into South Korea.

"Thank you," Emiko spoke up behind him, causing him to jump a bit in surprise. He handed her the energy drink as she sat next to him. She felt an odd mix of comfort and discomfort in sitting next to him again, this close after nearly several months of him giving barely any time for her. Her thoughts super-collided into negative feelings of being pushed to the side by his scientific obsession, relegated to a passing fancy with very little matter to his sphere of focus. Emiko felt cheated from the full relationship she sought with and from him. Daisuke was always a bit aloof, but never to the extreme as the last few months.

They stayed silent for a few moments, before she spoke up.

"Daisuke, I'm glad you've made a breakthrough in your research. I'm quite curious what characteristics of Oxygen you're studying, my grandfather especially."

"It…it was definitely hard Emiko."

"Did you know Hideo Ogata looks up to you like an older brother? Even though he's not in the same program, he looks up to your expertise."

"Hideo? Really? We're not that far apart," Daisuke grinned gently.

"Five years?" Emiko replied back with her own grin.

"Goodness, I didn't know I was that much of a senior to him. Okay, well, since we've known each other for a long time, I always considered him a friend of sorts."

"Just a friend Daisuke? From what he's told me, you two use to be quite close."

"In our youth, and maybe a couple of years ago, yes. But now?" Daisuke paused, looking into the blank dark screen of his flat screen T.V.

"I haven't been keeping in touch with a lot of people lately. My research has been…all encompassing…dangerous, so my socializing with my immediate circle took a severe hit."

"I have firsthand knowledge of that Daisuke. Your research takes a lot of your time. A lot!"

"Yes it does," Daisuke said aloofly, his mind wandering off on prepping a question.

"I wish I could fully understand it. I probably won't. But our relationship, I think we need to consider some things."

Daisuke continued staring on blankly, somewhat half-listening to her.

"I need to be honest with you Daisuke. I feel like….I think, we need to see-"

"Emiko! Would you like to see it?" Daisuke quickly interrupted, his eye dilating back from nervous, obsessed excitement.

"Your research?"

"It! The actual experiment. I've managed to find a way of controlling it on a smaller scale."

Emiko stood up with watery eyes. She looked away from him, trying to prep herself to tell him.

"Please Emiko. This experiment…this discovery, I've got to show you. It has to be a secret though. You're the only one I can trust, and I really want your thoughts," he pleaded.

"I really wanted you," Emiko whispered to herself facing the other room.

"Emiko?" Daisuke asked with a throaty ripple.

"Nothing. Yes, yes I'll see it, and I'll keep it secret. Then we need to talk."

"Whatever you need," Daisuke said half-attentively, walking full pace towards the stairs to his lab basement, Emiko following close behind.

When they got down there Daisuke grabbed a pair of laboratory-issued sunglasses and a biohazard suit, handing them over to Emiko, telling her to put the items on. A worrying, tingling feeling crept up her spine.

"It's only a precaution…the sunglasses at the very least," he trailed off, Emiko getting more concerned now.

Daisuke moved a sturdy wheeled table with a very large aquarium from the wall halfway to the center of the room. The table itself looked extremely heavy and durable, not counting the aquarium filled at its bottom of gravel rock, small cobbles and brimming with shrimp, aquatic snails and Showa Sashoka Koi fish.

Putting his own suit and sunglasses on, minus the biohazard head shield, he then placed a small, marble-sized metal orb as delicately as he could into the center of the aquarium tank. It sank quickly, bumping into several Koi fish before settling at the bottom, disturbing a few small pieces of gravel. Several small shrimp were in the metal orb's vicinity, delicately bouncing on those same pieces of gravel. Several centimeters away a smooth cobble stone was amassed in small aquatic snails.

Daisuke got his laptop prepped and ready, walking towards the entrance to his lab. Emiko still stood close to the aquarium. She looked to her right in the corner lab and saw a hole in the concrete basement floor, all the way into the underlying soil foundation about half a meter deep. The holes, each about a meter in width or less, were perfectly formed, the rims smooth and glossy with no edges or angularities. She quickly placed her gloved hand over several spots along the exterior rim. They were such clean cuts, not even a concrete saw could have done it.

"STAND BACK!" Daisuke shouted, pulling Emiko hurriedly away from the room's center. Her eyes widened as he held her in a semi-tight embrace, his single eye wide, pupils dilated, focused on the aquarium. He placed his laptop on the staircase leading up the first floor.

"Commencing OD test five," he sternly said towards his laptop, presumably into the audio recorder. Emiko briefly surveyed the concrete basement floor. Besides the one she inspected, there were three other holes in the ground smaller than the last; four perfectly circular holes in the ground of varying width.

"WATCH!" Daisuke yelled out in exacerbated horror. Emiko watched the aquarium for several seconds. Nothing but silence, until something stirred at the bottom of the aquarium, right where the small metal orb was dropped.

Then, the metal orb's small slot opened up, releasing a small stream of bubbles. The entire upper water body and surface pulsed up and down in conchoidal pulses, disturbing the Koi and shrimp in a violent water tug. The Koi struggled towards the edges while the shrimp attempted to regain their footing.

Suddenly the metal orb and immediate few pieces of gravel began slowly withering away. Intense bubbling heat radiated throughout the surroundings of the tank, easily increasing the water temperature by several degrees within less than a second. The heat caused a momentary pocket of superheated gas around the exact vicinity, before it caved inwards on itself into oblivion. The entire body of water began sporadically dropping inwards towards the center of the aquarium, this time in an even more violent fashion.

The snail shells on the smooth cobble rock close to the now-non-existing orb slowly degenerated to nothing, exposing their writhing exposed bodies until they too withered to nothing. The cobble rock followed suit within seconds.

"WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING? SERIZAWA?"

The mix of horrific intrigue, glued on Daisuke's face only allowed him to stare on and mumble, "Keep watching."

The water further pooled down towards the center of a powerful whirlpool, the tip below disappearing into nothing as further pieces of gravel and snails were sucked in, quickly degenerated to nothing, until the current became too much for the fleeing shrimp and Koi. Suddenly they were all sucked up into the whirlpool, their flapping and struggling bodies still trying to resist the current, before their bodies too began dissolving. Slowly one by one their exteriors melted away, leaving Koi skeletons and the shrimp's fleshy interiors before they too withered away.

Emiko screamed at the sight, Daisuke still holding on, even tighter than before with a possessed look.

The aquarium glass suddenly shattered inwards on itself, yet not a shard left the table or confines of the aquarium's area. The turbulent centrally moving mass of withering water, gravel, glass shards and tissue remnants of aquatic life began affecting the table, dissipating the center span, all the way to the legs before it collapsed to the ground hard. Within seconds a wave of extremely hot light pulsated throughout the laboratory, causing Emiko, Daisuke and everything else to glow incandescent for a moment in a brilliantly exact blinding white, with subtle shades of purple, blue and red. The illumination was so bright both were temporarily blinded even with their sunglasses. Then a wave of heat knocked them off their feet into the stairs and anything not bolted down to the ground. Emiko dove on top Daisuke and wrapped herself around him, pulling his head into the bosom of her suit, trying to keep his exposed head out of the few seconds of oven-like heat.

One more flash of light, more gentle and serene pulsed for several seconds from the spot before it went away slowly. Under it revealed the concrete basement floor, now showing a new, clean-cut hole all the way into the underlying soil, perfectly smooth, but this time the hole was not exactly spherical, more of an oblate spheroid. Even with the different shape, the hole in the concrete, now around two meters in width at its widest, and probably deeper, had no blemishes like the other ones.

Emiko cried out in horror, leaping off Daisuke and running upstairs, nearly smashing his laptop under her trembling feet. Daisuke snapped out of his trance and followed her upstairs.

"EMIKO!" he cried out in concern, looking around until he saw her ripping her suit off, tumbling them off the side of the couch, still extremely hot to the touch. She dropped into the couch, violently shaking and quietly crying into her hands.

"Emiko," he whispered, slowly walking over to her.

"Serizawa…what did you do?" she croaked out, wiping the few tears on her cheek. "What did I just see?"

"That was the result of what I've been working on for a long time. A strange, new phenomenon."

"WHAT? ANTIMATTER SERIZAWA!?"

"No Emiko. It only appeared that way. I don't know want to get too specific, but it's a type of sub-atomic particle I discovered that, when under certain conditions, does what you've just seen."

"Daisuke…" Emiko trailed off, giving him a horrified look of fear, and oddly, curiosity.

"That? I don't…how? A new particle?"

"Why I've been working so hard these last eight months, particularly the last few."

Daisuke made a quick batch of sweet-tasting tea for both of them. While he gently sipped, she drank the entire cup, quickly regaining control and cooling herself down, though the worried, horrified look on her seemed plastered, her eyes still red and vein-laden.

"Why Daisuke?"

"I'm not sure if I fully understand why myself. It's…complicated."

"Complicated? Daisuke, what you've just done…five times if those depressions in your floor are any indication…disintegrating that metal ball, the rocks, snails, shrimp…the Koi skeletons just…my god Serizawa, the whole aquarium, the table and part of the ground…all to nothing. Where did they and all that material go, or, is it even still part of this world?"

"Broken down into a stew of subatomic particles, photons and thermal activity that's now as permeable as neutrinos. I haven't violated the law of mass conservation Emiko."

"I still don't fully understand. Daisuke, have you told…or showed anyone else this?"

"No. You're the first…the only one I absolutely trust."

"Oh…"

"I'd trust you with my life and fate for all eternity Emiko. I have a feeling you'd understand what my findings, research and experiments could lead to, should they ever got released."

"You mean…the applications."

"You must promise me Emiko. Please! This must be strictly confidential. No one can know, not anyone!"

"Daisuke, I…I promise. I won't tell anyone."

"Not even Hideo or your father?"

"Not even them."

"I'm sorry for doing this to you Emiko."

"I understand Daisuke. How you came about this is incredible, but please, please don't be reckless and kill yourself."

"I try to maintain extreme caution, yet my experiment killing me would be the least of the worst possibilities. Japan's on the other spectrum."

"What does that mean?"

Daisuke left for a moment to the basement. He brought back a rolled-up map, uncurling it on a coffee table and showing it to Emiko.

"A map of Japan and the Tokyo metropolitan prefecture Daisuke, so wha-…wait. Daisuke. This huge circle encompassing most of Tokyo, what is this?"

"This is what could have happened in my first experiment if one variable was off," he replied with a solemn, depressed tone.

"Daisuke, you don't…you're not saying-"

"That almost all of Tokyo could have been degenerated into nothing but particles and heat in my stumbling of the first experiment, yes."

Emiko's face stayed blank, looking over the map again and again. She grabbed a pen and put dots in several places of the shaded area around the Kita prefecture.

"When did you do this? When did you discover this?"

"Several days ago."

"My family…everyone I know would have been in the radius…Daisuke, if there's one thing I ever ask of you, it's this. Promise me you won't do these experiments again…ever!"

"I promise Emiko. If I could attempt to inject some normality into this situation for a moment, what was it you were trying to say to me?"

Emiko froze up. She quickly ran a possible scenario of what Daisuke would think and do if she told him she was moving on with Hideo, right after showing her a possible doomsday weapon. He was already in a questionable state. She had to think. Stall, wait for another opportunity.

"Oh…nothing. Nothing at all. Daisuke, I'm afraid I can't stay any longer. I have prior commitments that I need to attend to."

"Emiko? You just got here?"

"And this internship I have is no longer an internship. I'm going to be honest. I'm basically drafted into service for the government because of my involvement in this investigation with my grandfather."

Daisuke looked a trifle confused.

"This doesn't change my promise to you. I just won't be able to be in contact with you for a while. I only managed to allocate the little time I have to this."

"I hope you know what you're getting yourself involved with Emiko."

"You're one to talk."

"Touché."

Daisuke walked over and gave Emiko long hug before giving her a brisk kiss on her forehead.

"I'm going to be doing more modeling and analysis…no experiments as you said. I need to find a humane application for this discovery. I'll call you only when necessary, alright Emiko?"

"Alright Daisuke. Take good care not to kill yourself."

"I've lasted this long Emiko," Daisuke said with an uncharacteristically comical way.

"It's not just you Daisuke. All of Tokyo is now yours and my concern."

"Yes, indeed. Goodbye Emiko."

"Goodbye Serizawa."

Emiko walked out the door back into the pouring rain towards Hideo's vehicle. Daisuke noticed it was Hideo in his car across the street.

"Well that was nice of Ogata. Waiting this whole time for she and I to finish," he said blissfully unaware.

Daisuke retreated back inside his home, wondering how he was going to try and control this discovery…how to use it for the benefit of mankind, and most personal to himself, to the safety of Japan.

He walked down to the basement laboratory. He noted how the mess from these experiments was near-nonexistent; omitting the holes in his concrete floor he'd have to fill in most likely. He went to straighten up the corner items and equipment that was disturbed and knocked-down from the shockwave. He found the torn photo of the small boy and young woman lying by his desk.

"It all seems like a bad dream, so long ago," he huffed out, scratching the itchy part of his left eye patch. He leaned over the desk and pulled out another map next to the one he brought out for Emiko minutes ago. Unraveling it, it showed Awashimaura Island off Japan's central west coast. His demeanor calmed down when he looked at both, closing his eye and letting his memories drift him back in the past for a few moments, before a small frown trickled onto his face.

He turned his head backwards towards the weird cylindrical machine with the central round metal orb held inside by two side-by-side metal poles. Suddenly the grin he had when he first verified the experiment erupted back.

"Everything's worked this far. I'm sure with my new control… continued precautions…maybe once."

Emiko collapsed into her seat in Hideo's car, staring onwards into the flooding street.

"Is everything okay Emiko?"

She was still silent, thinking about what she witnessed, her feelings muddled and mixed, almost tempting her to tell Hideo on the spot.

"I can't believe I'm dealing with one actual monster…and a semi-boyfriend who's skirting the line of becoming a monster."

"Emiko, you want me to talk to him?"

"NO! I mean, no. We're going to not speak to each other for a little while is all."

"Does that mean…you've reconciled and separated with him? Is he going to be okay?"

"He's got more important things to worry about than us. Let's just head to the meeting."

"Okay Emiko. I'm here if you need to talk," Hideo said with a nurturing tone. Emiko noticed a subtle dark color on Hideo's hoodie sleeve.

"Hideo… is that blood?"

"Oh…yeah. While you were with Daisuke I had a nose bleed."

8:50 PM

The group, now reassembled and prepped for their presentations, testimony and discussion, made their way inside the Tokyo Metropolitan Building. Midway up the skyscraper housed a huge conference room. In the room, sitting around a descending series of circular desks enclosing a presentation board was a mixture thirty of Japan's highest government, military and scientific officials, some the Japanese population didn't know were pulling strings in the backdrop of Japan's geopolitics. All were reading the dockets and reports provided by Yamane prior to their arrival.

Yamane and Ishiro sat along the table closest to the front board to present their findings for the overall investigation, followed by Shinzo and Erika who would present details glossed over by Yamane and Ishiro, then lastly, witness testimony from Akira and Lance. Akane, Emiko and Hideo sat at the far end of the table, the dividing line being one chair between Lance and Akane who kept giving each other pacing glances.

As Yamane was getting up to start the conference, a sitting Ishiro pulled his cuffed sleeve, waving him to bend down and talk.

"Yamane, those two in the back row on the left side named Daiku and Shinjo...who are they?"

Ishiro asked while covering his right hand pointing towards them under his left hand. They were whispering between themselves while the other present government and military officials were skimming their folders.

"Those two individuals? Why?"

"Most of these people I recognize, and the few I didn't, I just looked up in the government employee database. Those two though...I can't identify their names or position in the database, or anywhere."

"My guess Ishiro is that they unofficially work for the Japanese government."

"They're in the government, just not publically or officially? So, covert operations and Intel, I presume? They deal in secrets on the scale of the one we're in right now?"

"Your words, not mine...no one except the most relevant and necessary officials are here."

"This is a secret conference, right Yamane?"

"Yes."

"It's just...strange, given their lack of any identifiable affiliations. One more thing Yamane, and I mean no offense, but are there other secrets you're hiding back that are relevant to Godzilla?"

"I could quite easily ask you the same Ishiro," Yamane replied back with a smirk, Ishiro shooting back with a warm smile.

"I take that as a no then?"

Yamane nodded in reply before saying, "We should get started. They're getting restless up there."

"One more moment," Ishiro hurriedly said before going one-by-one with the others in the group, personally ensuring they were ready to present their findings. He noted Erika's tense but confident tone while Mafune seemed desensitized to the whole situation. He wittingly opinioned that for him it was no different than a glorified seminar to a bunch of old people in charge of his grant money that didn't understand the basics of his science. This made Ishiro chuckle, before he moved on to Emiko, Hideo and Akane, each for several seconds. Akane and Hideo were on point, but Emiko seemed unusually distracted. Ishiro saw Hideo taking several Ibuprofen pills in the corner of his eye. Then came Lance and Akira.

"You two are absolutely sure you can give the eyewitness testimony? I will not blame you at all if you want to back out now, if you're not at all comfortable in sharing these experiences."

"This is my chance to tell the truth Ishiro, to be a part of destroying a lie," Akira said stride and intensity. "I'm hell-bent on this, and nothing will stop me in telling our tale from so long ago, even if I was on my deathbed. I'll testify to my last breath."

Ishiro looked over to Lance and asked, "You too I guess?"

"As my uncle put it, hell-bent!"

Ishiro radiated a confident yet small smile as he left them to join Yamane at the podium, who initiated the start of the conference.

Beginning with the presentation without specifics, Yamane brushed on the basics of the conference, then, as a point of order, asked permission to begin the conference with several pieces of assembled recovered footage. The members unanimously agreed, so Yamane had a technician turn the lights off and prep the large screen behind the projector board. Yamane began playing the footage, beginning with Trinidad, California. Ishiro looked over to the group, noting everyone was watching except Lance, whose expression was stoic but body language controllably unhinged. His face didn't register any anger or shock like the other group members, but his eyes appeared empty. Akira placed his hand on his shoulder for support while the ending pathfinder scene on the beach played. Lance began noticeably shaking for a few moments, prompting Akane to jump over the next chair to hold his hand.

Nearly all members in the conference gasped and gossiped at the sites, the chaos in the small town, the violent destruction, the oil tanker…the pathfinder scenes. Yet all paled when towards the end of the footage it popped up, the silhouette in the dark, smoky fog. Many pointed at the cloaked yet discernible jagged spikes on its back, and the colossal tail waving around as though it was a separate entity. One official thought the spikes looked like shredded maple leaves, while another remarked at its monumental size. Then they all went silent when it made that loud, ghoulishly monstrous roar, something seemingly primeval and terrifying, echoing loudly over the speakers.

More pieces of footage closely followed. One video was from one of the large ships attacked in the Pacific, the cargo ship CGM Benjamin Franklin. A cameraman on the deck was filming the sunset over the horizon before the ship's horn blasted loudly. Then the ship jolted on its side, causing the cameraman to fall down, the camera hitting the ground hard, before a view of the ocean showed an enormous row of spikes jetting from the underside of the ship, ripping out the middle insides of the ship, leaving a moaning, weakening ship taking on water fast. The ship's middle metal haul caved inwards faster and faster, while the large cargo metal containers were dropping onto the deck and open ocean waters in mass, creating a rippling effect and damaging sides of the ship still intact. Several large explosions echoed in the distance by the bow. The camera refocused on the spikes momentarily, seeing them drop back under the surf.

Yamane quickly pointed out, "This ship sank into the sea twenty-one hundred kilometers (thirteen-hundred miles) northwest of the Hawaiian Islands several days ago, with surprisingly no loss of life, though the men are being held indefinitely by the U.S. government. Unfortunately, eighteen-hundred kilometers (eleven-hundred miles) southwest the Hyndai Cargo ship," Yamane paused before pulling up a small ten second, grainy video, "was flipped completely upside down." He clicked play, and it showed an enormous cargo ship being quickly overturned in one steady motion that lasted several seconds as the hundreds of cargo containers on its deck splashed into the waters."This ship gentleman is now at the bottom of the Pacific, presumably with all forty-seven men aboard, though search parties are still combing the area."

Yamane clicked out of the footage and pulled the PowerPoint screen down again to further articulate several points. The others, including Lance, now seemed to be more interested into viewing the presentation.

"These were the largest ships attacked on the open ocean by Godzilla, but they were not the only ones. Over two dozen boats ranging from fishing trolleys to personal yachts have gone missing between the Hawaiian Islands and Guam, the highest numbers occurring west of the Marshall Islands. Only two have been found…there wreckage, I should specify. We strongly suspect that this massive increase of lost ships in such a small amount of time and over a large area of open water is not coincidental. If one assumes these phenomena to be related, we get the following."

On screen a large GIS map showed the locations of the several dozen missing and two wrecked shipping vessels in the western Pacific Ocean.

"The westward trajectory is unmistakable. I, Dr. Sato and my team have interpolated the most likely key details based on the location and timing of the missing ships. It crossed the antemeridian line several hours after taking out the Hyndai Cargo ship. Its direction shifted southwesterly, eventually settling on a direct westerly track at the North thirteenth degree line of latitude with little variation, until it made a complete northerly shift along the vicinity of the Mariana's Trench. From that point onwards, it's been heading the same direction, with two deviations. One was the freighter, the Eiko Maru…no survivors. Before it went down, the freighter did report seeing 'a bright flash of light, and the sea and ship suddenly bursting into flames.' The wreckage corroborates this testimony, when we found the charred remnants fifty-three miles southwest of Iwo Jima. Then…"

Yamane stared at the podium in an imaginative trance, and his expression was not pleasant, as though he just learned of a family tragedy.

"-then I got word that it returned to Odo island, last night around midnight during an extremely bad storm over the region…while my team was still investigating the island. An emergency sweep of the area only found my colleague, Professor Kono Otani still alive. Everyone else…according to Kono, they were all in the tent sleeping when it happened. He wandered off to use the latrine in the outskirts before he felt the ground shaking in huge rhythmic steps. Kono ran back and found the entirety of our team…our friends and colleagues, inside several newly-made giant theropod-like footprints."

Everyone, including Ishiro were aghast as this info. They all know it visited Odo and there were few survivors, but they didn't know Kono was the sole survivor. This was the first time Yamane revealed these key Odo Island details to the team.

"The island was once again visited by Godzilla…but it was not the only one last night, as you are all keenly aware of by now."

Yamane had the technician flip the screen down again. The next footage came from Aogashima Island. The footage showed it was around 12:30 AM during the middle of a raging storm. The pixilation was extremely blurry with the darkness and rain, but the view of the forested mountainside inside of the caldera cone was unmistakable. Part of the mountainside was moving up and down. Then the spikes rose behind the large hillside, a tail waving around intermittently. Then a head with theropod and serpentine characteristics popped into site for several seconds, before a bolt of lightening struck the area near the camera operator's location, prompting this individual to huddle back into the confines of his home. Even with intense winds and rainfall, the house shook in rhythmic beats from the continuous steps of the creature.

The low earthy hum of crumbling rock and hillside became apparent, prompting the individual to poke the camera outside their window. Multiple roofing tiles fell off towards the person, prompting the person with the camera to pull back inside slightly. Even with all these factors, the sites were still visible. Several fires burned in the distance, occasional slurries of gunshot echoes and one lone police siren wailed lowly through the soaked, windy green landscape. It was out of site, but part of the hillsides were scarred with the wake of the creature's path; torn trees, shredded homes, flipped and flatten cars and several people in the distance running around like frantic ants.

"LOOK HOW ENORMOUS THAT THING WAS NEXT TO THOSE HILLS!" a government official loudly exclaimed in the corner right before quickly quieting.

"Gentlemen, the death toll on Aogashima Island is twenty-three. Hachio-jima, the next island, was more populated, and suffered hundreds of deaths," Yamane paused, scrolling to the next footage.

It cut to a barely-lit interior of a van holding several people screaming, the driver frantically swerving through the myriad of people and lights swarming in all directions around him in the dark landscape. Few street lights were on, most just barely flickering. Then the camera zoomed in on a car wreck in front of them blocking the whole road, one car flipped over while another was on its side; several people were slowly getting out of the cars. The footage turned to a tire shop on their left, a small stream of water flowing down from the gravel pavement and huge puddle forming in the center. They all ran out of the van, several of them trying to help the people inching themselves out of the cars. Sparks flew out in corner screen. The shot rotated violently backwards to look upwards.

All the telephone poles and lines rocked violently as though they were being either pulled or pushed from the far distance. Then a rotary engine sound came from high above. A small plane came into sight, heading towards their location. The group quickly assembled and ran towards the corner building, just getting view of the plane crashing into a Panasonic store, parts of the small plane's engine smashing into the telephone pole right next to it, splitting the wires and causing an electrical explosion. The lights on the street permanently blacked out. Several cars came falling down from the sky, crashing near them and into the roofs of the buildings they huddled around. The roof of a building flipped high in the sky before landing on top of the buildings they huddled between. As they made a break for it, the thunderous steps now familiar to the conference members echoed harshly before the camera rotated back down the street. Looking higher up towards the left, huge clawed toes smashed through the buildings, the tops of these huge clawed toes higher than the second story buildings around them.

They were attached to a dark-black figure that was extremely hard to discern against the stormy backdrop of black-purple clouds, made even more difficult with no streetlights working. The camera could catch a general outline with the incessant rains still pouring down around it, small jetting waterfalls coming off its sides etching a watery outline that seemed to reach almost indefinitely into the sky above. Its motion paused; the leg of this figure was now standing still. The camera zoomed all the way to an extremely poor-quality look of the underside of its theropod-like head and jaws. Its head moved slowly, as though it was just surveying the sites, until it made a low yet reverberating growl that broke the remaining glass windows of the buildings around it.

The footage kept on the scene as the cameraman and the people around him ran the opposite direction away from the huge formation, another massive leg. Even with the rattling and back and forth motion, its speed was abnormally fast for its enormous landscaped-size. It's giant foot smashed into a Idemitsu gas station to their left as they hid behind a small shack with a coca cola vending machine. Multiple cars, theirs and the prior ones, careened all over the road, their bodies smashed inwards, tires and metal bounding in all directions towards and away from them. Then the footage cut out.

"There is more, but time constraints limit what we can show. No other islands have been struck thus far. It is most likely hiding in the various canyons off our coast, and the JSDF is covertly using several new deep-sea drones and submersibles, running various bathymetric scans using sonar and radar techniques to locate its exact oceanic position. Thusly gentlemen, we conclude from this data and sequence of events that Godzilla's trajectory is now incontrovertibly putting it on a path towards Japan…one model predicting landfall somewhere in the greater Kanto region."

Yamane had the technician turn the lights back on as the various men and women in the desks discussed. Then he heard a couple coughs from several of the officials in his vicinity.

"Now, I'd like to permit the witnesses of the Trinidad, California event to speak on the experience," Yamane said with a brow on his face, trying to recapture their direct attention, then towards Lance and Akira, looking at them gently compared to the conference members.

"We may Dr. Yamane," an official said in the middle row, a man in his late forties, the life of public service already taking a noticeable weary toll on his face even when next to some of the more spritely yet far older generals and representatives.

"However," he continued on, "I'd like to ask if this footage…eh, I presume you've acquired it from those who experienced these events, thereafter leaking it on the net. You and several of this conference's member's teams are presumably trying to keep this hush-hush, but are you confident these pieces of footage won't be seen by a lot of people? The Trinidad footage I heard acquired over three-thousand views, and the Aogashima and Hachio-jima are being taken down and spontaneously reloaded multiple times with thousands of reviews per time. Just how are we covering this up without the population at large knowing what's going on?"

"Of course sir, we're acquiring and taking all incident footage and testimony online from these attacks," Yamane echoed confidently to him, "but we realize even with the best re-acquisition methods from our computer and internet specialists, not all footage and content is controllable. In fact, it's miraculous Godzilla hasn't been fully scene in the known catalogue of footage, these incidents taking place during fog, night, rainstorm or some combination of these. That is why the Prime Minister came up with an ingenious solution. Permit those few leaks."

"WHAT?" the official asked, almost all those present now murmuring loudly to one another nervously.

"It's quite simple. He's acquired the participation of a major Tokyo film-theater production-distribution company to take the responsibility for saying these are leaked pieces of footage of an upcoming disaster and giant monster movie. This studio is now saying that with cooperation of government officials, it is taking these leaked pieces of footage offline due to copyright infringement. Thusly, any at all footage still online that we're not aware of can be linked publicly as leaked movie footage to a false movie. Leaked footage and pirating is such a prevalent phenomenon now that it has a high degree of effectiveness on people in Japan and, in particular, on those in America, though with the latter there could be more trouble with the conspiratorial sect they have."

"What film studio, and what do they get in return?" a military official asked.

"Toho and they get full rights to utilize all the footage we recover if they can keep this face till we get this situation under control. Now gentlemen, if we could get back to the eye witness testimony, and hopefully, military measures-"

"Dr. Yamane," Daiki announced suddenly and sternly towards him in a grating, indifferent tone, "we appreciate the presentation of what to expect should Japan's mainland be visited by this beast. That, I submit to the conference, is all we needed. The testimony from these two individuals is quite unnecessary at this point. Precautions are being met right now."

"You fool…YOU FOOLS! DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?" Akira shouted at the audience, now raised in and pointing to all of them, Daiki in particular.

"It found us once. Then, I don't know how, I don't know why, it managed to find me twice! Every experience I've had with that thing, people died…my neighbors, my... my family, my friends…this young man's parents," Akira motioned to Lance mid-rant, who momentarily looked over the conference room of staring eyes. Ishiro and Yamane tried to settle him down, only for him to brush them off.

"Mr. Tanaka, I understand exactly how you feel," Daiki said unconvincingly, "and the tragedy of this ordeal makes it that harder for you to understand that we get it. Testimony is simply not necessary." Yamane glared at him viciously.

"This is a question of necessity? Fine! I'll give a cold, hard, necessary fact. You are all unprepared, and you're going to cause the deaths of millions! The footage from America with those two men walking by a crushed vehicle on the beach, those bodies…THOSE WERE HIS MOTHER AND FATHER…MY FRIENDS!"Akira roared out towards them. "I WILL IN NO WAY TOLERATE YOU STATING YOU UNDERSTAND HOW MY NEPHEW, OR I FEEL! YOU KNOW NOTHING, NOTHING OF THIS PAIN WE'RE CURSED TO LIVE WITH! AND…and you won't know the meaning of hell until it comes to Japan, and I don't mean just the islands off coast. Godzilla killed my mother, and for a very, very long time, I thought it killed my sister, Ishiro's wife, and his sister. It killed Ishiro's grandmother…it killed Lance's parents. If you value the safety of your country, your loved ones, you know what you need to do. Find Godzilla, stop it, and kill it!"

"As it happens, Mr. Tanaka," a JSDF general said in a very understanding and proud manner, "we are taking every precaution, along with complete cooperation of the military forces and government of the United States. They are willing to waive sections of our treaty for the next few months regarding restrictions of retaliatory measures in lieu of the fact that it came to their shores first."

"What is it that you plan?" Ishiro asked. "How will the international community permit such a policy waive? Will they believe it?"

"I think you'll be pleasantly surprised if you turn the news on right now," the general smiled self assuredly. Yamane prompted the technician to turn on a local news broadcast. The same woman Lance saw earlier was on again, reporting in Yokosuka.

"…unprecedented in scope, this joint-military exercise will be the largest show of military force in Japanese history since the ending of World War Two. All JMSDF and active U.S. naval Yokosuka forces will engage in these series of joint-military war games near the Kanto region of Japan. In particular, all available naval fleets and submarines from the eastern Honshu and Shikoku islands are heading towards the Uraga Channel, spanning a zone from the exterior Uraga all the way to the center interior of Tokyo Bay. It is also being reported that the United State Navy is sending several large cruisers and battleships from Honolulu, Hawaii to partake in these exercises as a sign of our country's growing international economic and geopolitical reliance with one another. The Prime Minister has denied giving further details on the nature of this unprecedented scope of military demonstrations. The U.S. President has also denied further comment."

The footage cut to vast numbers of huge, standard and multi-class destroyer warships, sailing en masse over large stretches of the Japanese ocean, presumably towards the Kanto region's waters. The sights of submarines poking out while going full speed came into view too. Then along the coastlines, JGSDF hardware assembled in large numbers too, with thousands of uniformed soldiers alongside an armada of battle tanks, self-propelled howitzers, multiple rocket launchers and anti-aircraft guns flooding in all directions from the north, west and south towards the Kanto region. Then the camera looked upwards as dozens upon dozens of attack helicopters and multiple fighter jets circling the skies above Mt. Fuji in an elegant show of air force might.

"Mr. Tanaka," the old general said, walking down from his seat over several seconds until face-to-face, a man almost as old as Akira, "-you and I, and Dr. Sato have had different experiences, but I've seen hell just as well as the both of you have…and the young American man there, maybe not as a victim of a giant monster's rampage, but from my life as a soldier to my country. You are understood, maybe not in exact terms, but in spirit with me and several in this conference…as will many in this great country of ours who have, and those who will know tragedy."

Akira nodded warmly to the general. To him, the general seemed trustable among the nameless bureaucratic faces in the audience, someone who could actually sympathize with the experiences in a not-so demining and callous manner like Daiki. Yamane decided to cut the conference short per Daiki's recommendation, while still keeping everyone inside the room for further questions Ishiro could answer.

"Sir, what is your name?" Yamane asked while Ishiro was responding to a question on Godzilla's first attack on Odo.

"Commander Takaki Aso. Tell me Mr. Tanaka, can we fight it?

"That is for you, Ishiro, Yamane, your committee and the JSDF to determine. Earlier you remarked 'who will know tragedy?"

"And Mr. Tanaka? Who?"

"...everyone."