Chapter 40 Crash Landing

Kaiju barely had time to register what happened before the air around them turned into a hurricane of metal and death. Screams. Blood. The smell of burning wires. Bodies slumped over, motionless. The black sky swirled violently as Kaiju’s helicopter lurched, tilting, alarms blaring, red warning lights flashing like a death sentence. 

Ichiban remained stone-cold, her grip still tight on the cyclic, her gaze never leaving the wreckage she had just created. Akarui’s voice was hoarse, shaking.

"What the hell did you just do?! We are going down! We will crash!"

But Ichiban didn’t answer. There was no time, both helicopters plummeted to the ground. Alarms shrieked inside the cockpit, red warning lights flashing in every direction, painting the interior in an eerie glow. The dashboard flickered, the engine coughing and sputtering, but there was no saving it—their aircraft was a dying, and the ground was rising to claim them.

Below, the ocean glistened like a cruel mirage, so close yet impossibly far. The docks, the bay, the ocean—within arm’s reach.

And yet—they were falling.

Kaiju’s helicopter was worse off.

The entire side had been shredded open, sparks spitting from severed wires, fuel spilling from the ruptured tanks. Inside, the remaining soldiers who hadn’t been shredder by the rotor blades were now scrambling to stabilize their descent—but it was hopeless.

Kaiju, still dazed from the near miss, clawed his way upright, his ears ringing, his vision blurry with the sight of blood-soaked steel.

"Conor! Do something!"

He was already moving, grabbing the emergency latch, eyes flicking between the controls and the hell storm outside.

"We’re going down! Brace for impact!"

Then—

BOOM. A fuel line erupted.

The right side of Kaiju’s helicopter vanished in an explosion of fire and shrapnel, the blast ripping apart what little stability remained. The entire aircraft jerked violently, spinning out of control, tumbling toward the earth like a burning meteor.

And yet—Ichiban’s face remained cold. Expressionless. As if she had planned this all along.

Akarui fought the controls, his face twisted in a mix of rage and terror.

"Goddammit! The rotors are locking up! I— I CAN’T—!"

Shachiku held onto his briefcase for dear life, his entire body slammed against the side of the cockpit, eyes wide with unfiltered panic. Shujinko clawed at his harness, his breath coming out in gasps.

"We’re gonna crash! We’re gonna—"

IMPACT.

The first hit slammed through the chassis like a freight train, the belly of the helicopter clipping a concrete barrier at the edge of the docks.

Metal shrieked—

Windows burst into shards—

The tail rotor snapped off completely, sent cartwheeling into the ocean in a spectacular spray of foam. The aircraft skidded, tumbled, crashed, then—darkness.

Later, no one know how long.

Shujinko’s mind swam through a thick haze, consciousness clawing its way back like a man trapped under ice. His eyelids felt like stone, heavy and uncooperative, but slowly, they fluttered open.

Blur.

His vision struggled to focus, the world around him shifting between light and shadow, broken shapes flickering like a dying film reel. His body ached—a deep, bruising pain radiating from every limb. He tried to move, but his muscles screamed in pain.

The air reeked of smoke and burning metal.

Then—sound.

A distant, muffled crackle of fire, the groan of twisted steel settling, and a rhythmic drip, drip, drip of something leaking onto scorched earth. His breathing was shallow, chest rising and falling with effort.

The crash.

It all came flooding back—the helicopters colliding, Ichiban wrenching the controls, the chaotic descent, the gut-wrenching impact. His vision sharpened, just enough to see the carnage around him.

The helicopter was in ruins, its frame a smoldering carcass, broken in half with one rotor blade half-buried in the dirt. Fires flickered around them, embers glowing in the dark like the remnants of some dying hellfire.

Bodies.

Akarui. His motionless form slumped against a rock, still strapped into a twisted chunk of the pilot’s seat. Shachiku. Face-down in the dirt, his precious briefcase somehow still clutched in his trembling fingers. Then—

Professor Ichiban—She was leaning over him, her figure shrouded in the flickering orange light of the wreckage, her back slightly hunched, her posture stiff, as though she were frozen in place, shielding him from wreckage.

At first, she seemed fine, a disheveled appearance, clothes torn, hair matted with dirt and soot. But then, Shujinko noticed something—the way she held one hand pressed firmly against the side of her face.

Her fingers were digging into her skin, as though she were trying to hold something back. The tension in her body, the stillness of her posture. And then he saw it. Through the gaps between her fingers, something red was dripping down her face. Thick, almost too thick. Blood? It seemed to pool underneath her hand.

"Professor, are you hurt?"

Ichiban’s voice was calm, almost eerily so, as she looked down at Shujinko with hollow gaze.

“I'm fine and so are the others. I made sure. But there is no time for that. You need to do this. The cure—throw it into the ocean, before it’s too late.”

Her gaze turned away for a moment, her eyes narrowing as though already anticipating the impending danger.

“Kaiju and Conor will be on us in seconds. We’ll hold them off, but you—you must do this. They don't know you have it. They won't suspect you. I will be the bait, stall them. Pretend I have it. Shujinko, get the cure into the water. You must. No matter what.”

She leaned in closer, her voice low, filled with an urgency that only barely masked the coldness of her words.

“Go. Now. Don’t look back. Do it for them—everyone who gave their lives. For the world. For the future.”

Shujinko hesitated, his heart heavy with the weight of her words. He had always been the one to try and find a peaceful resolution, to fix things without violence. But this—this was the sacrifice. The one final action that could save the world from the decay that was creeping ever closer.

As he stepped back, ready to carry out her wish, a sudden shout pierced the air—loud, harsh, and filled with hate.

“You goddamn bitch! I’ve had it with you!”

Shujinko’s heart skipped a beat, and his blood ran cold. He turned sharply to see Kaiju standing there, his eyes burning with rage, his voice laced with fury. The 50cal pistol he was holding in his crystal hand glinted menacingly in the sun’s dying light, the crystals embedded in his arm pulsating as though they were alive. He stood tall, unfazed by the carnage around him, like a demon risen from the wreckage.

"Young Kaiju," Ichiban whispered under her breath, but there was no hesitation in her voice, no fear. 

Shujinko barely had time to process the scene before him. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion—Kaiju’s steps, deliberate and dangerous, bringing him closer. The pistol in his hand, ready to fire, the barrel gleaming as he aimed it directly at Ichiban’s heart.

“I’m going to kill you for everything you’ve done, you damn bitch. This is where it ends—you and your precious compound.”

But Ichiban didn’t flinch. Her eyes flickered briefly to Shujinko, silently urging him to move, before her gaze locked with Kaiju’s. Just as Shujinko was about to turn and rush toward the ocean, hoping to fulfill Ichiban's wish, the searing sound of Kaiju's voice pierced the air.

“And where the fuck you think you’re going, huh? You little shit!” 

Kaiju’s voice was full of hate, his eyes burning with rage as he closed the distance between them. His body was rigid, his crystal arm twitching slightly, but the anger in his tone drowned out any concern he might have had for his condition.

 “I'm sick of you idiots getting in our way of dealing with this—Ahh, fuck it!”

Before Shujinko could even process the threat, Kaiju raised his gun, aiming directly at him. There was no hesitation, no second thoughts. Kaiju fired.