December 23, 1935. The doleful moon could still be seen lingering in the starless sky over the ashen summit of Mt. Fuji. To the east, past the haunted glade of Aokigahara, twilight shone on the Imperial capital. The darkened streets of Tokyo were deserted save for military cordons and patrols, the eerie echo of invisible soldiers marching in lockstep filling the empty boulevards. Many of the city’s inhabitants had already departed north. Those who remained hid in their homes, cowered in air raid shelters, or prayed at shrines for deliverance; their whispers were a sorrowful, melodic chant meant to keep the specter of fear at bay.

Within the Kyūden, inside the blessed walls of the Tenno’s Palace, the Imperial General Staff and members of the prime minister’s cabinet met to determine the empire’s fate. Those attending included the aged Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal Saitō Makoto, Chief of the General Staff Prince Kan’in Kotohito, Fleet Admiral Prince Fushimi Hiroyasu, General Shirō Ishii, Prime Minister Sugiyama Hajime, Baron Sadao Araki, and War Minister General Hayashi Senjūrō. The meeting had carried on tumultuously throughout the previous night and every man appeared haggard and exhausted, their gray heads bowed. They had failed to come to an agreement on how to save Nippon-koku from the beast. In the end, they realized any choice was futile. The abyss beckoned.

Those assembled wearily raised their heads when Tenno Hirohito emerged after a night’s meditation in his personal chambers. Standing at the head of their table, he quietly surveyed his servants before speaking. Their lord came bearing a sheet of paper from which he solemnly read, “Great Japan is the divine land. The heavenly progenitor founded it, and the sun goddess bequeathed it to her descendants to rule eternally. Only in our country is this true. There are no similar examples in other countries. This is why our country is called the divine land.” Hirohito lowered the paper and continued, “But our reverence turned to scorn and the purity of our divine land was tainted by greed. Humility turned to hubris. Men became beasts. For such disrespect, the heavenly progenitor has sent a messenger to take back the land. They have sent the aragami.”

Those assembled were struck dumb by the Tenno’s breaking of the tradition of Imperial silence on government matters, but none had the will to challenge his dire assertion.

“What can we do to stop this?” Kotohito finally asked after regaining his composure. “Surely there is something we can do.”

“Stop the will of yaoyorozu no kami?” Hirohito’s voice trembled. “No mortal has such power. Only the gods may save us and I fear they are deaf to our pleas. Numerous priests have performed the Kagura and I have prayed at the Ise Shrine, yet this evil still came and consumed all Ise, shattering the Yata no Kagami and tainting the holy shrine. If not even sanctified land is safe, then I fear nowhere is safe from the aragami’s wrath.” Hirohito sank into his chair, spiritually defeated.

Frustrated, Prime Minister Hajime jumped to his feet and had to be restrained when he tried to leap across the table to attack the Chief of the General Staff. “This is your fault, Kotohito,” he spat at his nemesis. “You have brought this evil upon our heads, you and your clique of the Kōdōha. Assassin!”

Kotohito sat stone faced, unable to meet the accusatory glare of the prime minister.

General Senjūrō shook his head, stubbornly refusing to accept either surrender or divine condemnation. Instead he hammered his fist on the table for order. “This bickering leads nowhere. We no longer have the luxury of time to waste on petty talk and rivalries. If we are to survive, we must act.” Senjūrō turned to Baron Araki. “Now, what forces do we still have at our disposal?”

“We still possess the Imperial Guard as well as several thousand reserve soldiers,” Araki replied.

“That is all? What of our divisions in China?”

“They are tied down by Nationalist forces. It is near impossible to extricate them without a collapse of the front.”

Senjūrō grumbled something beneath his breath. “What of the Jade Division? Surely-”

“It was lost at Kyoto. We have had no further contact with them since.”

Senjūrō nodded. “Then we must make do with what we have. What is the Guards’ status?”

“All our forces are in position. The men are entrenched. The lines are fortified. When the beast appears, we shall be ready for him. If we are to die, we shall perish facing death honorably.”

“Where is the aragami now?” Makoto asked.

“Aerial reconnaissance last sighted it near Chichibu entering the Oku-Chichibu Mountains. At the rate of speed it has traversed Honshu, the beast should reach Tokyo within the day.”

“Are evacuation orders in place?” When no one answered Makoto, he asked once more, “Well are they?”

“We have already evacuated roughly half of the city north to Nikko and Sendai,” Senjūrō replied.

“What of the rest?”

Senjūrō sighed. “We simply do not possess the resources to complete evacuation. Of those remaining, we have moved as many as we could to local air raid shelters. The rest are at the mercy of fate.”

“We cannot abandon these people to the beast,” Makoto berated.

“We have already found a solution to this problem,” Fleet Admiral Hiroyasu stated. “Those willing to fight will be armed. Old men. Women. Children.” When the admiral noticed shocked looks around the table, he quickly added, “We must use every body at our disposal.”

“Are you mad?” Hajime blurted. “You would be sending them to certain death.”

“Better to fight for one’s life rather than to cower and beg for it.”

“Does it matter how we fight?” Kotohito interjected. “If we fail to stop the aragami here then it will not matter. The remainder of our infantry, artillery, and armor are positioned to preserve Tokyo. If our forces fall, then Honshu will surely follow and Japan shall be no more. If the people wish to join our soldiers, then let them. It is their choice. Perhaps the last choice they will ever make.” A moment of quiet overtook the room as the enormity of Kotohito’s pragmatic words sunk in.

“Should it prove necessary, the Navy is prepared to shell the capital at your order,” Hiroyasu informed his commander.

Kotohito stole a long breath. “Let us hope it does not come to that.”

***

“Aragami,” a soldier yelled, the word repeated through the ranks to rouse the battalion to action.

A flare blazed into the air illuminating the area in a flickering scarlet. As Li Chen approached the south bank of the Tama River, Imperial forces on the forested north bank caught sight of him. Assembled against Li Chen’s advance were numerous pieces of artillery. Scores of barrels belonging to Type 94 and Type 41 75 mm Mountain Guns were pointed at the opposing bank interspersed with Type 90 and even antiquated Type 38 75 mm Field Guns.

Li Chen reared back and shrieked horrifically at the Japanese.

“Turn him to dust,” an artillery captain ordered.

The entire north bank lit up as salvo after salvo of armor piercing and high explosive shells shot across the Tama. Firing crews feverishly fed rounds into the guns to ensure a non-stop barrage of steel on target. To their rear, Type 94 90 mm mortars coughed up arcing ordinance. The south bank was engulfed with fire as rounds exploded all along the river chewing away at the shoreline. Shrapnel whistled through the air slicing into wood and churning up plumes of water.

As the salvo continued, Li Chen’s sighting was telephoned back to the rear batteries situated in the western environs of Tokyo. Once notified, Type 38, Type 14, and Type 42 10 cm Cannons all opened up with rolling booms. Windows throughout Tokyo rattled with the combined force of Japan’s remaining artillery. The whispered prayers of Tokyo’s citizens halted at the rumbling sound of the muffled blasts of the guns. Those as far away as the Atago Shrine could see the fiery tongues of cannon fire and the explosions that followed in the western wilderness, fierce sun blossoms that bloomed into smoky pillars.

The Tama’s south bank literally crumbled beneath the onslaught. The thick beech trunks splintered and burst as artillery rounds scalped the opposing shore uprooting trees as old as Honshu itself. Dust, dirt, and smoke soon obscured everything, but the artillery kept raining down purifying fire. The deafening blasts left men gritting their teeth and struggling to stay upright as the earth convulsed beneath them, some so disoriented they clung to one another for wavering support. So powerful was the sound that many soldiers’ ears bled. The barrage continued for thirty minutes until finally the order came to hold fire. As the acrid fog cleared, the blackened, cratered shore slowly emerged through the pungent haze revealing a hellish portrait of wanton devastation. Flares were fired only to reveal no sign of Li Chen in the faltering crimson glow.

“Do you see him?”

“Nothing could have survived that.”

The soldiers watched the south bank anxiously for movement. Many tensed up at the sound of wood snapping. Several men approached the bubbling river waters to get a better look across the Tama. A tree collapsed a dozen meters behind what remained of the ravaged woodline, groaning as it crashed to the ground amidst the fractured timber. The soldiers jumped back but quickly collected themselves. Nothing else dared stir.

“Where is he?”

Private Akio Ohtsuka turned and triumphantly shouted back, “I think we killed it.”

Li Chen erupted from the Tama seizing Ohtsuka and eviscerating him as his comrades fled back to the fortified line. Mass confusion followed as Imperial troops grabbed their Arisaka rifles and fired wildly in every direction. Random shots pinged off Li Chen’s armored hide, the sparking ricochets zinging through the air. Li Chen drove into the center of the artillery line ripping into those hapless souls manning the cannons. Desperate and disorganized, one gun was hastily misloaded and exploded when the crew attempted to fire it overturning several nearby pieces and wounding a score of soldiers. Defending his men, an officer charged Li Chen screaming, “Banzai!” only to be knocked viciously aside into a tree with a sickening slap. Panicked, numerous soldiers frantically struggled to turn their mountain guns toward the center to fire on Li Chen committing fratricide as they mistakenly blasted their comrades in the darkness.

As all discipline dissolved, Li Chen tore the protective shield off a nearby Type 94 and wrenched the barrel from its carriage. Using it as an oversized bludgeon, he swung with reckless abandon. In titanic sweeps, he knocked soldiers aside breaking their ribs and caving in their skulls.

The situation rapidly deteriorating, Colonel Eiji Tsuburaya pushed his radioman aside and snatched the field telephone’s handset. “The aragami has crossed the Tama. I repeat the aragami has crossed the Tama. We cannot contain him. Taking heavy casualties. Request reinforcements.”

The Imperial General Staff answered Tsuburaya’s request by having the rear batteries readjust fire and unleash a new barrage on the colonel’s position.

***

“Report,” Akkad demanded, agitated by his inability to construct a complete picture of the Honshu battlefield from the nebulous strategic information playing out on the amber holographic display shimmering in front of him.

A laelap hovered toward the daimōn and halted several feet in front of its master. “Your proxy makes steady progress toward the terrestrial settlement called Tokyo. Despite their best efforts, the native forces cannot halt his drive incurring grievous casualties. Even now they retreat despite the threat posed to their northern settlements should their lines falter. Assessment. They do not possess the strength to defend what territory remains to them. What organized resistance that remains upon the island will falter and your proxy shall finish the campaign with their complete annihilation. Only the Therian’s proxy may save them from extinction. He must aid them-”

“Or suffer the guilt of sacrificing them to the genocidal wrath of my proxy.” Akkad’s hacking laugh filled the command chamber. Just as suddenly, all sign of emotion ceased from the daimōn. “I tire of this display. Numbers and statistics. How am I to discern the situation from data? Show me. Initiate a sensory uplink.”

“As you command.”

The sanguine illumination of the chamber faded to black. From the periphery of the inky cavern a dozen laelaps converged upon the daimōn in the shadows creating a perimeter around Akkad. The twelve established a single wireless network synching their ersatz consciousness before sending a link query to the planet. Through the reconnaissance mech that had been following the Cthon’s proxy on the surface, the laelaps established a connection to the nanocytes swimming throughout Li Chen’s bloodstream. His chemical, electrical, and other biometric data was digitized and relayed through the atmosphere back to the twelve whose illumination pulsed at a faster and faster rate until they gleamed faintly revealing the Cthon who watched from the periphery like demons at the lip of the Deep. Once the received data had been translated, the emerald mechs began to hiss releasing various manufactured chemicals into the air. Akkad’s tongue flicked out to taste the odors when the laelaps initiated supporting protocol, throbbing and shivering to ensconce the daimōn in a stereophonic representation of the area around Li Chen, enhanced by the acoustical qualities of the cave. Akkad’s radar-like auditory senses picked up the vibrations and, coupled with the chemical vapors released by the laelaps, assembled Li Chen’s current physical situation. A phantom world emerged in the murky cavern of vague, immaterial shapes solidified briefly by sound awash in a pungent efflux of scents and odors. Flickers of men materialized within the dark chamber. The daimōn could taste their ephedrine fueled fear interlaced with the acrid smell of gun powder and the sweet burning fumes of beech trees. He watched the sketchy outlines of men flee before him disappearing in the atramentous void. The spicy smell of so much adrenaline inflamed the daimōn. His nostrils flared while his tongue flicked out rapidly to savor the hormone. Akkad thrilled at the alien, high pitched screams of natives being torn apart, tasting the salty tang of their blood that floated around him like a mist. He became intoxicated by it, the euphoria rushing through his veins. The daimōn clenched his fists and went rigid, his heartbeat pounding with the drumbeat of a warrior engaged in full combat. He lost himself in Li Chen’s instinctively savage acts, relishing the carnage and destruction.

“How I’ve missed battle,” Akkad rasped wistfully, slipping from the illusory fugue of blood lust.

“Shall we sever the connection, daimōn?” the concerted voices of the laelap network asked.

“No,” Akkad harshly replied, refusing to relinquish the high of battle. “I wish to witness the struggle with the Therian’s proxy firsthand.”

***

Facing the brunt of Li Chen’s murderous rampage, the defensive line guarding the western approaches to Tokyo buckled and eventually gave despite the heroic efforts of Japanese soldiers to hold the front in the chaos that raged several kilometers east of the Tama River. Star clusters shimmered in the dark sky revealing the nightmarish battle seething below, their wavering light punctuated by the flash bang of artillery fire. The valor displayed bordered on the fanatical as desperate men instinctively sacrificed themselves to save the empire, surging in waves across the cratered fields, bayonets at the ready when their ammo ran out, the name of the Tenno stealing their last breath. Despite their best efforts to halt his drive, Li Chen carved a bloody swath through the Imperial ranks, pressing into the lowlands of Azabu and entering the fringe ward of Tokyo beneath the pounding of howitzers and field guns.

Before the coming of the beast, Azabu had been famous for its many popular theaters, fashionable department stores, and its lusty red-light district. Once the pulsing entertainment quarter of the city, thriving with numerous temptations, excesses, and diversions, it was now a fissured dystopia crushed beneath the weight of war. Gone were the swollen crowds and laughter dispersed by the approaching wrath of Li Chen. Every building’s façade was scarred and shattered, many on the verge of crumbling. The flashing lights had dimmed leaving the streets dismal and gray. Velvet ropes had been replaced with barbed wire and shadowy windows hid snipers.

Cresting the distant hilltops surrounding Azabu were great estates transformed into armed fortresses from which artillery and mortar fire continued to rain down upon the lowlands causing them to tremble, their concussive power blowing out store windows and littering the streets with shards of glass and chunks of brick and concrete.

Li Chen pushed deep into Azabu against heavy resistance, battering through street barricades and slogging through rifle fire forcing a general retreat of Imperial forces from one prepared defensive line to the next. A squadron of Kawasaki Ki-10 biplanes flying out of Tachikawa Airfield appeared from the east rushing to their aid, swooping low over the pockmarked buildings lining either side of the boulevard to strafe Li Chen to slow his advance and allow Japanese troops time to reform their lines. He snarled in frustration as the aircraft pulled away out of reach.

Suddenly the batteries ceased and all went still. Li Chen scanned the empty streets and still windows for movement, confused by the sudden cessation of hostilities. Then he sensed it, a quiver traveling through the cobblestones beneath his taloned feet. A squad of four Type 87 domed armored cars clattered through the ward’s boulevards maneuvering around sandbag fortifications and debris followed by a pair of Type 89 I-Go medium tanks. Behind them, Imperial soldiers used trolleys to rush reinforcements onto the scene to support this minor armored thrust. Once they caught sight of the beast, these soldiers jumped to the ground and scurried into nearby structures to take up defensive positions.

Smoke grenades were launched clouding several city blocks as the armored cars dashed down side streets to flank Li Chen from the north while the tanks took up position east of him in the fog. Meanwhile, Imperial troops moved from building to building shooting at Li Chen from constantly shifting positions to keep him off balance as he struggled to find his enemies, the beast thrashing through the murk. The armored cars reappeared behind him firing their .303 heavy machine guns as a diversion. The tanks then churned forward, emerging from the haze, and fired their 57 mm main cannons at ear piercing, point blank range striking Li Chen in the back with such force as to violently sock him off his feet sending him crashing through the brick wall of a brothel several feet away.

Tank Commander Haruo Nakajima emerged from his tank’s cupola for a better look. There was no sign of movement in the brothel’s wreckage. Surely the beast was finished. “Jigoku e ike!” he shouted. In response, the rubble shifted and Li Chen rose from the ruins. Nakajima shook his head, wide-eyed. “It can’t be.”

Enraged and now certain of the enemy’s position, Li Chen sprinted toward the aggressors. Nakajima ducked back into the tank ordering his men to make rapid speed east. The tanks attempted to retreat, opening up with their twin 6.5 mm guns to halt the monster’s charge with suppressive fire. Unfazed, Li Chen lowered his head and rammed into the body of Nakajima’s tank. Grunting, he reached under the chassis and steadily lifted the 13-ton behemoth off the ground to the frightened cries of the crew inside. With a final yell, he overturned the tank trapping the crew inside, the I-Go’s treads whirring in the air in futility. The other tank fired one more contemptuous shot and disappeared down a city block.

Before Li Chen could give chase, the squad of armored cars cut him off mowing him down with withering machinegun fire. Steeling himself, Li Chen forced his way forward into the enfilade only for the armored cars to speed off.

Li Chen raced after the cars through the blighted streets, picking up speed and soon keeping pace with the vehicles as they accelerated to 40 mph attempting to escape him. The armored cars careened perilously through Azabu dodging recklessly over the pitted roads paying little heed to what lay ahead. Hurtling through vagary, they failed to discern the sandbag barricade that blocked off the oncoming street until it was too late. The soldiers manning the barricade yelled for them to stop only to dive out of the way seconds before the cars barreled into their defensive wall. One of the armored cars crashed head on into the reinforced sandbags, the impact injuring the crew within as they were thrown from their seats. Another car caught the right edge of the barricade and violently lurched into a nearby building, the impact killing the crew instantly as the façade collapsed on top of their vehicle. Only two of the four cars made it through with Li Chen in hot pursuit. Several blocks further, one armored car veered wildly on a sharp turn and flipped on its side grinding well over a dozen yards in a shower of sparks before scraping to a stop. Li Chen vaulted over the obstacle obsessed with continuing the chase. Coming up alongside the remaining car, he drove his shoulder again and again into the iron body. The men inside pulled their pistols and fired at him through the slits only further enraging Li Chen. He continued ramming into the car until he finally succeeded in overturning it. Jumping atop it like a predator upon its prey, he tore at its metal skin when the Ki-10s came swooping down to strafe him once more. Li Chen responded by wresting a wheel free and casting it skyward clipping a fighter’s wing. The aircraft lost control, dashing into a pair of his fellow pilots before slamming into a nearby building. The remaining aces broke formation and headed back to base as more debris followed.

Artillery fire then recommenced. The Imperial Army continued to use hit and run tactics, stubbornly battling house to house while grudgingly surrendering ground. Li Chen gradually pushed into Akasaka threatening Kōjimachi, the heart of Tokyo. The commercial district became a graveyard littered with the corpses of civilians and soldiers alike. Buildings imploded under harsh bombardment entombing those hunkered down within, yet Li Chen proved resilient picking his way through the blown-out ruins.

Unable to contain the beast, permission was finally granted to firebomb the ward. Little time was given to allow those within the quarter to escape. And then it was too late. Like fatalistic einherjar returned from Valhalla on that final drive to Vígríðr, umbral craft sailed through the ether overhead laden with weapons borne of unmake which they callously loosed upon the district. Soon Akasaka was a raging inferno, the winds howling monstrously and carrying the blaze into adjacent wards like the tides of Sheol. Thick black smoke spilled into the heavens carrying burning ash and choking soot. So hot were the flames that glass melted and stone cracked. Buildings collapsed into hellfire and the foundation of the world quavered and was rent. Thousands perished in the conflagration that flowed across the western face of the city stoked by Tokyo’s renowned wooden architecture. Hideous screams could be faintly heard over the infernal roar. The beast pressed on blindly into perdition soon vanishing within the chaos.

In time Li Chen staggered out of the firestorm and into the international quarter of Akihabara, his heated scales shining like burnished copper. The beast lumbered through the litter strewn streets, listening for movement while flicking out his tongue to taste the air. Stray scraps of paper fluttered across the broken avenues around abandoned, soot smeared cars and uprooted electrical poles, the downed wires still humming with electricity. Li Chen sneered at the deserted embassies of the world’s great powers as he passed them, their frayed flags flapping listlessly. Further on were the empty markets and beyond them the corporate towers of the zaibatsu. These monuments to power stood as hollow reminders of the majesty he had brought low. The mighty capital of Nippon-koku was rendered a ravaged necropolis. Not a soul seemingly remained. Li Chen should have reveled in his vengeance but instead nausea roiled in his gut. He suffered intense paroxysms of grief and frenzy at the thought of no one else to slaughter, his dissolute desire for blood unquenchable. The beast had caused so much death, but it was not enough. The anger was still there. The pain, nothing could sate it. Nothing could drown that intense fury that burnt at his core. Li Chen squealed abhorrently, gnashing his teeth. “Where are you?” he screeched into the emptiness.

The taste of fear betrayed Li Chen’s enemies. That bitter tang made his parched mouth water. He followed the horrid stench gibbering mindlessly to himself in cruel glee, galloping through the gritty streets until he found them, the last vestige of Japan’s martial might. Old men crippled by age and young boys who had seen too few days stood ludicrously armed with longbows, bamboo spears, and obsolete muzzle loading rifles guarding Tokyo Station and beyond that the path to the Imperial Palace grounds. These were not warriors and they knew it. They were a pathetic final guard that defended the last standard of the Imperial Japanese Army, timidly taking cover among the garish trolleys parked in the courtyard of the station. They shook with dread sure in the knowledge that they could not stop the beast, but they could not retreat for there was nowhere else left to go. If they ran the beast would surely find them and kill them, and what of their families? Who would defend them from the insensate wrath of the beast? Trapped between duty and death, they courageously stood in futile hope against the impossible, the past and last generations of Nippon-koku side-by-side. Li Chen leered as he moved in for the kill.

***

With a crack of thunder, Chris descended from the heavens with great glowing power and the sea was lit with his glory. Streaking over Tokyo Bay and the Japanese Fleet, the despoiled city rose into view. Chris was horrified by the destruction wrought on the Imperial capital. “I am too late,” he whispered. Images of fallen Ypres flashed within the flickering flames, the cursed wails of the dead and dying reaching to the heavens condemning him. Donner remained paralyzed there in the sky over Tokyo, his shame preventing him from approaching any further. The fires raged fiercely before his eyes eating away at the charred skeletal structures and belching an obscuring black pall. Then he felt it, a tremor of life within the holocaust. Chris impulsively dove into the inky depths toward that weak pulse, breaking through the fuliginous gloom and landing amid the carnage near Tokyo Station. With his arrival, the children and old men ran to their savior.

“Save us!” they pleaded, clutching at his worn flannel jacket.

Chris struggled to comprehend their desperate, foreign babbling. “Don’t worry. I am here to help you.”

They pointed excitedly until Chris followed their fingers and beheld the evil that afflicted Japan. Fifty yards away it stood, its mighty back to him. To his eyes the beast was an abomination in the shape of a man, a primordial thing of plate and power. He could sense the rage pouring off Li Chen in fervid waves. Such feeling was nigh inhuman; merciless, almost elemental in its pure mindlessness. “That’s one for Ripley,” Donner muttered.

Li Chen’s broad shoulders stiffened and he slowly twisted round to confront Donner, the slain strewn at his feet. The wicked sight of his disfigured face made Chris reflexively take a step back. Li Chen gripped a grizzled warrior by the neck, the old man’s thin legs weakly dangling. Without a second thought, Li Chen snapped the veteran’s neck and coldly tossed the limp body aside to join the rest.

“No!” Chris yelled.

Li Chen did not flinch at the admonition, instead raking Donner’s shining body with his oily black eyes. Vile and perverted, the beast was the epitome of war: ruinous, ugly, and crazed. It was the nightmare of the trenches; the nightmare Chris had fled from for so many years.

All around Donner the voices of the living and the dead beseeched him to rescue them from the beast. Soon they were joined by the faded cries of his fallen comrades upon Chipilly Ridge. Flashbacks and reality interlaced. The ruins of Tokyo became No Man’s Land; crater-ridden, uninhabitable, the abode of madness. Hideous landscapes, vile noises...everything unnatural, broken, blasted. The mutilated dead, whose unburied bodies lay scattered, was the most execrable sight on earth; their splattered blood was bright on grimy powdered concrete. That precious life should be so desecrated…Chris winced at the sight of children among the lost, his grief soon turning to anger. Incensed, he demanded of Li Chen, “How could you do this?”

Li Chen did not answer, his foul serpentine tongue flicking out.

“Run to safety,” Chris ordered the survivors. Some hurried south toward the Imperial palace while others ducked back into Tokyo Station. Li Chen moved to intercept those that fled only for Chris to bar his path. Li Chen hissed in malicious warning. “You want a fight. Come on!” Donner waved him forward. “I’ll give you a fight.”

Li Chen did not understand this strange being’s barking tongue, but the radiance that emanated from this man marked him as something otherworldly. This was no mortal that Li Chen faced. This was a god. “He who dwelt above,” Li Chen gruffly confided to himself in realization. They had finally come to stop his crusade. Even gods had limits it seemed. “Is this not what you wanted?” Li Chen bellowed before bowing mockingly. “All for you, my maker.”

In reply, Donner made the first move telekinetically shoving Li Chen in the hopes of taking him off his feet and ending the fight quickly. To Donner’s shock, Li Chen dug in his heels absorbing most of the psychic blow, skidding back several feet. Flexing his great arms, Li Chen snorted in disdain. “Well that was a trip for biscuits,” Chris replied self-deprecatingly.

Li Chen bayed and then sprinted toward Donner. His speed was frighteningly fast. Chris held his ground while the titan charged with arms extended and talons bared. As the space between the two rapidly narrowed, Chris balled his fists and took a low guard posture. Gathering energy into his body, Donner’s aura shined ever brighter. Just as Li Chen lunged, Chris bobbed and drove his right into the beast’s abdomen with bone shattering force followed by a left in quick succession finishing with an uppercut that knocked Li Chen back thirty yards whamming into a parked trolley overturning the vehicle.

Chris’s head jerked towards Tokyo Station at the sound of cheers. The children and old men filled the windows celebrating his triumph. “Are you all whacky? Make tracks!” he shouted at them while shaking his hands to relieve the pain.

Chris spun around when he heard groaning metal. There Li Chen stood hefting the body of the caved-in trolley over his head. With a strained grunt, he heaved the car at Donner who quickly blasted it with a ball of kinetic energy atomizing the steel causing it to explode. Chris covered his eyes momentarily blinded by the flash and thrown off balance. Li Chen seized the offensive and thrust forward driving his shoulder into Chris’ chest and lifting him off the ground. Holding Donner tight, Li Chen rushed toward Tokyo Station. The pair crashed through wall after wall of the structure ripping through its core with abandon. Those inside scrambled to get out of the way. Each spine shivering impact threatened to knock Donner unconscious. Blacking in and out, the beast’s memories began to empathically bleed into Chris’ consciousness. Donner witnessed firsthand the atrocities Li Chen committed throughout Korea and Japan and was overcome by the feral emotions that ruled his enemy. Maddened, Chris’ powers flared as the pair burst into the vast main hall. With great effort, Donner planted himself, pivoted, and used Li Chen’s momentum against him throwing the monster skyward smashing through the glass dome overhead. Dropping to his knees, Chris sucked wind as glass shards rained down around him, wincing as he cradled his bruised ribs.

***

In the Fukiage Gardens of the Imperial Palace, hundreds of refugees huddled together. These were the few who had survived the aragami’s initial attack, fleeing for the safety of the Tenno’s palace amidst the battle for Tokyo. They were mostly women and children, the men forced to take up what arms could be found to guard the walls or to join those tasked with defending the path to the palace.

The guards posted near the Hanzo Gate along the western walls of the palace were surprised when they saw the young boys and old men returning from Tokyo Station. “What is the meaning of this?” one of the guards demanded. “You were ordered to occupy Tokyo Station and protect the path to the Kyūjō. What reason do you have to return?”

“He has come,” one of the children triumphantly replied.

The guard cocked his head. “What do you mean?”

“The kami. He has come and does battle with the aragami.” An explosion to the north punctuated the boy’s claim.

When the guards heard this, many abandoned their posts and rushed toward the city to catch a glimpse of this battle between the gods.

***

Chris flew over Akihabara searching for Li Chen among the shattered buildings. Little did he know that Li Chen was stalking him below. Hiding in the shadows, moving stealthily through the ruins, Li Chen kept his senses trained on Donner who had halted in the air to survey the grim urban landscape. Chris could perceive his enemy below but was unable to pinpoint exactly where he was hiding. As Donner hovered above, Li Chen braced his legs and leapt hundreds of feet into the air toward his enemy catching him by surprise with a mid-air tackle. The pair struggled as they hurtled toward the earth, plunging through the roof of the neo-baroque Bank of Japan. Dazed, Chris was unable to fend off Li Chen as the beast lifted him into the air and body slammed him onto a nearby oaken table.

“You wish to stop me?” Li Chen shouted at Donner. “Then stop me!”

Staggering to his feet, Chris was backhanded across the upper floor crashing through a series of offices. Still reeling from the concussive shot, Li Chen seized him by the neck and threw him against a far wall. Sprinting at his foe, the two men smashed through the marble wall to the pavement three stories below.

The battle continued in the streets. Li Chen took great pleasure in hammering blow after blow upon Chris’ back beating him down every time he attempted to rise. Donner desperately responded by mentally grasping a chunk of marble and cracking it against Li Chen’s skull stunning the giant. Chris rolled out of the way and continued pelting Li Chen with projectiles forcing the beast back towards the entrance of the bank. Telekinetically seizing a fallen pillar that had collapsed across the road, Chris launched it like a javelin into the roaring face of Li Chen blasting him backwards through the building’s narrow entrance into the bank lobby.

Kneeling in the road collecting his bearings, Donner heard something shift inside the ravaged structure. Exhausted, he sluggishly turned his head toward the building. “You’ve got to be kidding,” Chris muttered. It was only a matter of time before the monster found its way out of the ruins. Frustrated, Chris spat, “You want the works? You got it.” Loud snaps echoed through the empty city street as thin cracks split the marble façade of the bank. The cracks deepened and spider webbed throughout the core of the structure under the stress of Donner’s psychic power until with one last mighty effort the entire building rumbled and collapsed in on itself.

Chris heaved and tasted blood. Red spittle trailed down his bruised chin as he sucked air. It hurt just to breathe. Bowing his throbbing head, he raggedly prayed, “Let it be over.”

Donner looked up at the sound of footsteps pattering down the avenue. Guards from the palace rounded the corner. Hollering victoriously at the apparent demise of the beast, they hurried down the boulevard and gathered around the wreckage of the bank to marvel at its collapse while speaking excitably to one another. One man poked at the rubble with his spear only to jump away when Li Chen’s bloodied arm burst through followed by another as he dragged his crippled body out, malachite fluid seeping from between his scales.

“Scram!” Chris ordered the guards, grimacing as he rose to his feet.

Wounded but defiant, Li Chen shrieked at the Japanese as they drew their antique rifles and bows to fire at him.

“Those stupid bastards are going to get themselves killed.” Chris staggered toward the melee, jumping after several unsure steps to fly three feet off the ground cutting through the air with a whoosh aiming directly for Li Chen. Donner pulled back at the last second before impact, telekinetically shoving the Japanese out of the way with his left hand while driving a right into the lower back of Li Chen. Li Chen responded with a spinning back fist that Chris ducked. “Come on!” Donner shouted, dropping to take up a defensive stance. “Come on!”

Chris held his ground, reverting to his boxing skills as they clashed. Bobbing and weaving against Li Chen’s powerful but slow blows, Donner pushed inside delivering rapid successions of punishing body shots and kidney punches to the beast’s already damaged torso until Li Chen was wheezing and spitting up greenish ichor. Baying, Li Chen wildly swung at Chris to keep him back only for the smaller man to slip his shots and continue his assault. Chopped down to his knees and rapidly fading, Li Chen lowered his guard to protect his injured chest allowing Chris an opportunity to hit him square in the jaw with a right hook followed by a left cross snapping his head back. Donner kept pressing his attack, throwing everything he had intending to finish off Li Chen once and for all. With one final effort, Chris leapt into the air and came down with a jolting overhand right that sent the beast to the ground with a thud.

***

“Fight, damn you!” Akkad howled at his downed champion, his tail thrashing behind him. “Stand and fight!”

“Daimōn,” the circle of laelaps interjected in unison. “Your proxy has suffered significant corporeal damage. Nanocytes report numerous fractures throughout the ribcage and cranium as well as serious damage to the internal organs within the thoracic and cranial cavities including a collapsed lung, ruptured kidneys, and a severe concussion. Hemorrhaging has been noted at several points as has the beginning signs of tamponade.”

Akkad was livid. “Why aren’t his regenerative abilities preventing this? Why can’t the nanocytes repair his injuries?”

“Daimōn, the damage is extensive to primary biological systems making it difficult for regeneration and repair, even for a species as resilient as yours. Probability of cessation of biological functions is certain.”

“No,” Akkad choked out in frustration. “No, you mend his wounds!”

“At this point that is impossible. At best, we can postpone, not reverse, inevitable termination.”

Frustrated, the daimōn looked to the giant stone faces of past conquerors for solace. Their hardened gaze judged him harshly from the shadows. “He must not fail me,” Akkad sibilated odiously. “My campaign cannot end in such dishonor as this. The shame it would bring upon my name.” A sound like that of bubbling water gurgled menacingly in his throat as he decided on a course of action. Finally, he said, “Cease all repairs on my proxy.”

“Daimōn?”

“Cease repairs. Alter nanocyte function to chemical fabrication. Increase epinephrine production and begin dumping oxymetholone, testosterone, and methandrostenolone into his bloodstream.”

“This is not a recommended course of action. The threat of ventricular fibrillation, tachycardia, and cardiac arrest-”

“Do as I command!” Akkad screeched, frothing at the mouth.

“As you wish daimōn.”

“My proxy may die,” Akkad snarled, “but he only needs live long enough to take that damned Therian half-breed into the eternal void with him.”

***

Chris shook his right hand, flexing his fingers and gently balling his discolored fist. It was broken. He could feel the bones shifting. Looking back over his shoulder, he took one last glimpse at Li Chen’s unconscious body splayed across the road in a pool of his own viscous fluids. “At least it’s over.” He sighed and turned to walk away, the Japanese guards running after him down the street.

Unseen by them, Li Chen’s limp body began to seizure violently. In the silent darkness behind his eyelids, a faint pounding sounded. Echoing from the depths, each beat was stronger than the last bringing with it flashes of memory. The shining tracks that led to Harbin. The Japanese taking Jee Hae. Zhongma. The horrors of Zhongma. The pain of those piercing memories was sharp, stabbing Li Chen deeply in the heart. He held Jee Hae’s lifeless body tightly in the darkness. “No,” Li Chen whispered. “No!” The image of Zhongma erupted in flames all around him. A great burning surged into his arteries spilling out into his extremities and stirring him from his torpor. The agony of his wounds receded as a delicious sting flooded into every fiber and pore numbing him, drowning out his mortal suffering. His muscles swelled and power throbbed through his broken frame imbuing him with venom fueled invulnerability. Li Chen’s black eyes shot open, his body shaking terribly and low growls spilling through clenched teeth. He forced himself up and rigidly wailed to the heavens for vengeance.

Chris jerked around when he heard the loathsome cry several blocks to his rear. He hurried back down the street only to find Li Chen had disappeared. “My God,” Donner gasped. Seeing that the beast had risen, the Japanese guards broke and ran down a side alley abandoning Donner to whatever fate awaited him. Their bloodcurdling screams came soon after.

Chris cautiously made toward the dingy alley where he found the gutted bodies of the Japanese. Torn to ribbons, their gore was smeared along the brick walls like troglodytic art. Mentally shaken, Donner’s attention quickly shifted to the sounds of skittering above. Li Chen dropped onto his prey pinning him to the ground. Chris gaped up at Li Chen’s mangled face as the beast screeched baring his yellow fangs threateningly before biting deep into Donner’s shoulder. Chris screamed as Li Chen drank thirstily savoring the blood and suffering of his enemy, sinking his teeth deeper until they scraped bone. Donner desperately retaliated by forging a spike of psychic energy around his left fist and drove it into Li Chen’s brain scrambling the beast’s synapses forcing him to rear back releasing his bite allowing Donner to roll away.

Chris made it to his feet and lurched back into the open street where he had more room to maneuver. His eyes focused on the alley, Donner’s ears twitched when he heard the buzzing crackle of a fallen power line off to his right. Grasping the live wire as Li Chen emerged, he directed the voltage coursing through his body firing blue lightning from his fingertips at his opponent. The discharge hurled Li Chen back crying in agony as the tongues of electricity licked at his scales, but the beast refused to surrender. He rose and forced himself forward despite Chris’ efforts. The voltage blasted chunks out of the surrounding buildings and disintegrated the road beneath as Li Chen slowly drove ahead. Donner poured greater and greater amounts of electricity into Li Chen draining every bit of power left in the city grid until, within mere feet of one another, the concentrated energy led to an arc blast that leveled the entire city block in a great flash and heaved the two men miles in opposite directions.

***

The grounds of the Imperial Palace violently shuddered in the throes of a prodigious earthquake. The people within its walls fell to their knees tenaciously clutching at one another, crying in terror sure the end of existence was near. Soon the earth would split open and all would fall into the Deep.

Within the Kyūden, the Imperial General Staff and government ministers took cover in the darkness, these great men scurrying like vermin searching for shelter wherever they could find it. The rattling conference table at the center of the room eventually settled and the quake receded.

“Are you alright, Tenno?” Prime Minister Hajime asked, frantically searching for his lord.

“I am fine,” Hirohito replied putting out a reassuring hand for Hajime.

Prince Kotohito used the table to pull himself back to his feet. “What was that?”

“Earthquake,” Makoto stated from the floor.

“That was no earthquake,” Baron Araki retorted.

While the ministers and generals took their time recovering from the ordeal, Tenno Hirohito brushed himself off and headed toward the door with Hajime hurrying after. “Where are you going, my lord?”

Hirohito did not deign to look back as he exited, saying only, “I must check on my subjects. There may be injuries.”

Kotohito and Hajime followed Hirohito outside where they came to an abrupt halt. Several miles to the west glaring over the palace walls, they were illuminated by a great shining cloud. It ascended toward the heavens from the shattered ruins of Tokyo, a pillar of churning plasma that rendered all it touched shadow and dust. The dread brilliance was so intense all had to turn away from it.

“Tokyo is no more,” Hajime whispered.

Next Chapter: Chapter 25