"Circling pattern! All guns on the horizon!" your father shouts, the booming authority of his voice able to stifle even the roaring engines of the zero squadron scrambling to take flight. Over a dozen fighter planes buzz across the ocean sky, A battery of five-inch naval cannons keep every corner of the sea covered. None of this seems to do anything to calm the nervous look on your father's face. The crewmen of the aircraft carrier and the two corvettes that escort it would probably find it inconceivable if they saw him—Admiral Inoue Shigeyoshi, struggling not to tremble with fear. Seeing him like this gets you worried as well. He has always been so stoic, so disciplined. Your mother once told you that he didn't even break his scowl when the bombs dropped to end the war. The bombs, the reason you are here today...
You were young when it happened, all you understood at the time was that something terrible had occurred. The Americans had wiped entire cities to dust overnight. Your formative years were stressful, xenophobic, plagued by the chaos that only two atomic warheads, a forced surrender and a broken war economy can cause. Despite all that, your father managed to stay in his position as admiral, doing his best to keep you and your mother safe and provided for. He always chose his family over his work, never missing an event at school or afterwards. You never knew what his work was, but you didn't care—you had both of your parents, unlike most of the children you knew. The firebombings and radiation didn't affect your health too badly, but your mother was not so lucky. She passed away during your teenage years, Cancer, untreatable. Your father, despite his sorrow, never faltered in his dedication for a second. At age sixteen, you found yourself serving by his side as a cadet on his assigned aircraft carrier: The Hōshō. That was when you learned he wasn't serving the Japanese navy, That was when you learned what the bombs had awakened...
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In the wake of the Japanese empire's surrender, the suffering and death, the fear and terrified denial, occurrences more strange than gruesome began to occur. The two atomic bombs dropped on Japan shook the earth to its core. Your first month on the Hōshō revealed that the vibrations and radiation went deep. Deep enough to awaken something ancient and powerful, something that would rock the world even more than the bombs if it wasn't dealt with, controlled.
Built as an advanced vessel for its time during the war, the Hōshō was refitted even further to serve a new purpose vaguely dubbed 'titan research'. Just over a dozen experimental fighter jets line the deck. The naval cannons formerly loaded with simple anti-air rounds now have the capability to shatter through battleships with a single shot. The roaring, steaming coal-powered engines were torn out, fleets of the world's finest engineers were brought in to refit the Hōshō with top-of-the-line nuclear propulsion. The fastest warship on the seas with the most specialized crew to ever sail, the Hōshō is the world's only line of defence against the great threat that the nuclear holocaust awakened.
You grew up on the Hōshō, proud to be by your father's side, honoured to have the opportunity to stop a disaster like Hiroshima or Nagasaki from happening again. Military trained alongside your rigorous schooling to fight and to fly, you never quite understood why so many concessions were made just for you. It was something you always wondered about—why were you the only young person aboard? Why were you being trained so meticulously? Why were you given such special care over the rest of the crew? On your eighteenth birthday, you found out at last. Not only were you your father's greatest treasure, but you were the key to the Hōshō's operation succeeding.
The Shigeyoshi family line traces back centuries, to a time before the Japanese empire even existed. Women of the Shigeyoshi line have always been born with latent, what some would call psychic abilities. Premonitory dreams, unnatural skill at hot and cold readings, and aura visualization among other peculiarities. Yours began with visions, visions that started after the days the bombs dropped.
A great shadow in ocean depths, mountainous spikes along its back glowing like a supernova sun. Anger, sorrow, primal rage fueling an ancient duty to protect. It wasn't until you were much older that you understood they weren't mere visions—you were communicating with something.
Godzilla. That is what your father and the group of scientists aboard the Hōshō named it. A dragon of old, a creature thought to be myth. Spoken of in old fisherman's tales and sailor's songs. A pile of forgettable archeological findings thought to be nothing more than the superstitious ramblings of primitive island tribes. All were ignored before the avalanche of reports came in: a skyscraper-sized monster was roaming the coast of the Asian Pacific.
Visions of the creature became more intense with each discovery, each step closer to learning more. Shadowy encounters in your dreams turned into conversations with a primeval intelligence that seemed to scold more than threaten.
"Why?"
"How could you?"
"Never again."
He was disappointed, he was sad, he was angry. The creature could have rested eternally had man not tainted the earth. Now Godzilla was awake and preparing to exact his wrath. You learned that he was created to prevent such problems from growing any worse. The reason you were speaking with him in your dreams? Because you were chosen by blood to give humanity one more chance at redemption before he levels civilization to dust.
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A few hundred miles off the coast of Tokyo lies Odo Island. An oddity among the mostly unremarkable, barren volcanic atolls of the Bonin Islands. Twin spires of obsidian jut above the dusty tropical sand, each comparable in size to the escort corvettes that follow the Hōshō. The dark pillars are so tall they eclipse the sun, coating the island's beach and the carrier's deck in shadow. This is where he wanted you to be, according to the vague rumbles he gave during your last mental link. This is where he, Godzilla, will finally reveal himself.
Years of preparation, research, hearing the beast's thoughts every time you close your eyes. The circling fighter jets, even the ship itself all seem to shrink under the shadow of the spires. Your father notices this, and for a moment his stiff posture softens, his steel gaze wavers with the sting of starting tears. Like watching a statue come to life, your father turns to you and removes the pearl white admiral cap atop his head. His grey hair is slick with nervous sweat, but his smile is still warm and reassuring through his insecurity. You're about to confront what has all but been confirmed to be a mountain-sized creature of legend.
"I promise," Your father begins, his voice pulling you out of your anxious drift and snapping you back down to earth. "This will work. We will succeed."
His eyes squint, turning his irises to daggers that lock you to his stare. A sparse nod before he twists his cap on and turns back to the deck convinces you. A gut feeling from your father, a man who survived the greatest war mankind has ever known is as good of an omen you are ever going to get.
If the data everyone has relied on so far rings true, the small fleet including the Hōshō barely stands a chance at wounding the beast. There is no backup plan, there is no retreating. Either you succeed at conversing with Godzilla in person, and convince it of cooperation, or the titan keeps its promise of extermination, starting with Tokyo itself.
A towering, surging wave crashes over the shore of Odo Island, its surprising height and unexpected appearance worrying even from your spot in the Hōshō's observation deck. It is not just the ship shaking either, decades of dust rocks itself from the twin spires of Odo in clouds. You swallow a lump of excitement and fear, leaping to the bridge windows to scan the rippling horizon.
Waves the size of fortress walls rock the Hōshō and its escort ships. Your eyes dart for the source, the water was still just a minute ago, now it roars like a storm despite the windless summer sky. Ripples just off the starboard beam, a rumbling from the depths. Pulling, rolling, bubbling like something large is clawing its way up from the abyssal blue. Your half-balanced stomp from the door of the bridge becomes a dizzy stumble. Your vision flares a fuzzy grey, your head and neck feel like a surge of electricity is trying to freeze you in place—another vision, this one more intense than any you have had before.
You can feel the tons of water rolling over his massive body like feathers against a steam engine. Godzilla is close, rushing for the surface somewhere in the waves that threaten to capsize the Hōshō. Then it happens, water lashes across the deck, a blinding mist rises, blinding you to all except a form almost as dark and far more imposing than the spires on Odo: Godzilla.
It is unlike any of these moments before. You see yourself through his eyes, feel his titanic heartbeat as your own, but you can also clearly see through your own eyes the skyscraper-sized monster that has just risen between the fleet. You and the beast share a long, understanding stare before you begin making your way down the stairs of the ship's bridge. Your father gasps but ends up anxiously nodding you forward, staying close as you approach the edge of the deck. Godzilla lowers himself to the ship's level when you reach your destination, and you feel his thoughts, his words in your mind like a drum.