Chapter 5: Ogasawara Eastside

Chapter 5:
Ogasawara Eastside

 

THE ENORMOUS COLUMN of seawater rushing up toward the space lens collapsed as the moon on the other side changed positions. The island was visible now, though thick clouds remained after the dispersion of salt-saturated mist.

“Landing point sighted. Beginning approach.”

It feels like every hair on my body is standing on end at the thought of landing on this island. Is it just me?

Warrant Officer Endo glanced around the cockpit from his command seat. His other three companions looked about as worried as he was.

<<Copy that, 409. Standing by underwater.>>

<<Roger that, Chichijima base camp.>>

Akashima, the JSSDF’s mobile weapon, had left the support submarine I-409 Revamped ten kilometers under the sea and was now approaching Yomotsu Hirasaka, the island that used to be part of the moon. As they approached the bay, they couldn’t shake off their encounter with the black monsters from the other day.

There was something on this island.

The Akashima approached from the outer rim, through strong ocean waves, and was now climbing up the crumbly terrain. Endo smacked the display on his console repeatedly within the shaking cockpit. “It’s not going away.”

“Don’t break it, sir,” the communications officer said.

“This thing came from the moon, remember? So what’s this chlorophyll reaction we’re getting from the center of the island? Maybe our sensors are broken.”

“The Americans reported seeing a forest through their UAVs inside the island.”

“Shrikes One and Two passing overhead.”

Two Platypus-2’s flew over the Akashima, one of them the vessel Kasuga had used earlier. They flew in from the west, near Chichijima, where the JSSDF had set up a command center for the Akashima unit. Kasuga was there as well.

Unfortunately, the base at Iwojima hadn’t withstood the waves. Yomotsu Hirasaka had creased the Pacific Plate, and the Philippine Sea had risen over the Ogasawara Islands. It would be some time before Iwojima resurfaced.

“Shrike Two to Shrike One. Flock of birds making their way to high altitude. Watch out.”

“Shrike One to Shrike Two. Say again?!”

All birds capable of flight were supposed to have disappeared on the day the great flock formed a belt that covered the skies. Their innate navigation had gone haywire because of the geomagnetic disturbance, which had started when the Longinus Ring began expanding as it orbited the Earth. All over the world, people reported birds descending into a frenzy and destroying themselves.

Then Armaros had spoken through the Ayanamis. He said it was time for the Human Instrumentality Project to be fulfilled. The moon would be the new stage for creation, once it traded places with the Earth. Most of the world wouldn’t have understood what this meant, even if someone had explained it to them.

But one thing was for sure. Across the globe, birds had disappeared without leaving so much as a corpse. People began whispering to each other that they’d gone to another world. Humanity had developed its own set of instincts from observing other species, and this instinct had led them to the truth.

“The birds are back!”

“Wow!”

But…are they really?

The pilots couldn’t shake the foreboding they’d felt since entering the island’s airspace.

What if this is the other world the birds flew to?

“Hold. Akashima to Shrike One. Detecting errors in terrain data from your flight information.”

The Shrike, the JSSDF’s Platypus-2, used extremely powerful synthetic aperture radar to penetrate clouds and other gases that would normally block radio waves, in order to plot out a flight path for the Akashima.

<<We’ll do another sweep. Requesting grid number.>>

“From A-3 to A-5—”

“Doppler radar’s picking something up! That mountain is moving! Is it a landslide?”

Low vibrations rumbled through the valley, though they weren’t powerful enough to be an earthquake. Alarms started blaring inside the cockpit.

“A.I.’s detecting something… Giant threat?!”

“What?!”

“Picking up quadrupedal movement that doesn’t belong to the initial vibrations.”

“Stop the Akashima! Shrikes One and Two, shut off your active sense oscillators and pull out. We might be up against the monster sighted by the American UAV.”

The two Platypus-2’s pulled out shortly after receiving the notification. They’d been told to suppress their common sense before being dispatched to the island. Shrike One took the initiative and charged its positron cannon. They broke through the thick clouds that had gathered like cream soup.

<<Akashima to Shrikes. Be warned. Bogey looks like it’s about to head up.>>

The monster was facing the sky? The Shrikes fled to even higher altitudes, passing through another gas cloud. The creature broke through the clouds like a fish breaching the surface of the ocean. They couldn’t tell whether the thing had a face, but it looked like it was scanning for something.

“Shrike Two to Akashima. We have visual on the bogey. It looks like a big dog. No, like a wolf with armor. And it looks like it’s melting.”

Shrike One shouted in shock. <<Shrike Two, look at its crown! Behind the horn!>>

The pilot of the Shrike Two zoomed in on the gun camera. There was a red protrusion sticking out behind the horned forehead.

“Hang on…that’s a humanoid with its arms stretched out!”

<<Is that one of Nerv’s Evangelions?>>

The giant beast with a red Eva slapped onto its forehead barely noticed the tiny Platypus-2’s. It continued to rise above the clouds.

<<A red Eva… That would be Unit T—>>

KROOOOOWL!

The Eva’s roar rolled like a thunderclap. The JSSDF pilots winced at the sudden shock wave, the air around them crackling.

ROOOOOAAAAR!

Noise flooded the HMD, a long and distant howl. Then the giant sank beneath the clouds once more.

Shrike Two’s pilot shook her head. “That was no dog. That was a wolf.”