Chapter 8: 怪人 (Kaijin)

Disclaimer: This chapter explores the manipulation of people made vulnerable by trauma, disability, and poverty. The themes here draw inspiration from tokusatsu evil organization such as Shocker and Gorgom, who preyed upon desperate individuals to create kaijin. This is only a surface-level exploration, not an exhaustive discussion of these real-world issues. While this story often engages with questionable themes, I, Yuutwo02, do not condone ableist views or attitudes. If this subject matter is uncomfortable for you, please feel free to skip this chapter. More on it in The Author's Note.

My name is Brank, the mayor of Thidonno Town, and currently I’m working on a finance papers.

I could see it clearly: the town’s spending over just a few weeks since the Hero arrived had become like a flowing river pouring straight into the void. By all rights, I should be furious about this. But… I can’t help but feel happy. Even though this money should…

My eyes drifted to the photo frame on my desk. In it, beside me, standing before a field of flowers, was my late wife. Her silky black hair and hazel eyes contrasted tenderly against the pink blossoms. In her hands, a small child- our daughter, Erste. She always clung closer to her mother than to me.

I turned toward the window. Tonight’s air carried a chill, eerily familiar to that night. The night the window had shattered. The night I couldn’t protect them…

Erste…

Crash.

Glass exploded inward, shards scattering across my floor.

Something small, like a pebble, embedded itself into the ceiling. It pulsed purple, and instantly the whole world went silent.

The fire crackle vanished. The insects outside. Even my own breath sounded swallowed.

Then she appeared. A silver-masked girl with glowing violet eyes, wearing a long white coat. She dropped in through the broken window, landing as if the laws of balance themselves bent for her.

“INTRUDE-!” I started, rising from my chair, reaching for the sword at my side.

But before my fingers could touch the hilt, the blade slipped away, pulled by some unseen force, before snapping straight into the strange cube embedded in her odd-metal left arm.

“You can wail all you want, Mr. Mayor,” the girl said, her voice unnervingly casual. “But I assure you, none will hear a thing.”

The sword dissolved into the cube without a trace.

“W-What do you want?!” I demanded.

She strolled casually across the room, gloved hand resting on her masked chin as though she were in some kind of gallery. “Pretty bare room you’ve got here. Bigger than what any commoner would ever dream of, but far more barren than one would expect for a man in your position. Tell me, are you even the real mayor?”

“There is nothing you can take from here,” I said firmly.

“As if I need trash…” She spun suddenly, pointing that strange cube-hand at me with theatrical flair. “Lay your eyes on me! My name is Elaister, THE GREATEST ARTIFACT CREATOR IN THIS WORLD! GHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

Her laughter rattled through the silent air like some unhinged performance. Then, after a moment, she added in a mutter, almost pouty,“…and the new addition to the Hero party. Or something. It’d be much cooler if it was Elaister Squadron, but alas.”

I kept my posture stiff, though my palms had already begun to sweat. This intruder was unlike any assassin or thief I’d ever heard of.

“What business does the so-called greatest want with a small-town mayor?” I asked, keeping my voice even.

She twirled once, her coat flaring dramatically, then pointed at me as though she were standing on a stage. “Information!”

“…Information?”

“Correct, donkey administrator!” Her mask tilted toward me, the lenses of her eyes glowing faintly. “The Saint says you keep the records. Casualties. Wounded. Missing parts. The forgotten numbers that miracles cannot patch up!”

I froze. My chest tightened. “…You mean… the cave-in victims?”

“Exactly!” She clapped her hands together, the cube-hand clicking unnervingly against the other. ”Those poor souls! Broken, shattered, missing bits and bobs! GWAHAHAHA! Perfect test subjects, I mean, research material. Yes. Research.”

Her laughter scraped against my ears like metal on stone.

“Those records are confidential,” I said sharply. “They’re not for strangers to-”

She cut me off with a single step, closing the distance in a blink. The table between us split apart as though struck by invisible force, papers scattering, yet somehow she had the nerve to snatch them all midair, now holding them neatly in her hand.

Her masked face leaned close to mine, the purple glow of her eyes reflecting in my spectacles.

“Not strangers,” she whispered, almost sweetly. “The future savior of this rotten world. Or… at the very least, the one who’ll build the toys that savior needs.”

I swallowed hard.

Her voice hardened. “Tell me where they live. The maimed. The forgotten. The broken. Don’t lie, I’ll know.” She raised her cube-hand, and for a moment the very air seemed to warp, the silence pressing heavier against my ears.

“…And if I refuse?” I forced the words out.

She tilted her head. Then, in the same instant, burst into wild laughter. “Then I’ll just split your skull apart and take that information directly from your brain.”

The mask hid her expression, but in that laughter I could almost see it: the madness, the brilliance, the sheer recklessness that could burn this whole world down.

My hands trembled before I could even think to steady them. Elaister’s laughter subsided into a sharp, insectile hum as she watched me swallow.

“You don’t understand, Mr. Mayor,” she said softly, almost affectionate. “This isn’t about cruelty. It’s about fixing the potholes in the town. And you-” she tapped my temple with the tip of a gloved finger, just enough that I felt the cold through my skull “-hold the map.”

I swallowed again. “I can’t just, those records are private. Family name-”

“Yada yada. Listen, you make it official. A town notice. An event. We will call for anyone missing limbs, anyone maimed in accidents, anyone born without the spark for magic, heck, even those born with birth defects. Anyone the miracles couldn’t mend. Bring them here.” Her tone shifted to careless thunder. “Bring them now.”

“Now?”

“Yes. It’s still before midnight. That means we can do this tonight. Make it official. Raise the bell, send the town criers, light the lampposts. Call the guards. Call the mothers with babies. Tell them there will be assistance, medical evaluation… opportunities. Tell them I’m in charge of the assessment.”

“You can’t-” I began, fury and fear tangling together, but she moved like a shadow folding over me.

“Or, I will split your skull open and extract the information myself. Then I will visit each house. I will knock on each door And I will take what I need.”

The room tilted. For a lifetime I had negotiated taxes, soothed noble tempers, buried awkward truths under civic platitudes, but never had I felt so naked as in that instant when a masked lunatic offered me a choice between orchestrating my own moral collapse and being unmade.

“All right,” I heard myself say, the words hoarse and small. “I’ll… I’ll arrange it. I will call them.”

Elaister laughed then, delighted and almost bored at once. “Good. Good. Quick, Mr. Mayor, don’t dilly dally on me. I like momentum, full force.” She tossed the papers back onto my desk with a casual flick so light it felt like a mockery.

I nodded. I would do it. I had to.

Not because I wanted to help her.

Because I had no other choice.

The bell’s echo still seemed to cling to the stone walls of the plaza when I stepped forward. The square was half-crowded, faces I knew by name, faces I’d seen lined up at the healer’s wards or in my ledgers under “concessionary relief.”

They looked at me with suspicion, with fatigue, with the same dull hopelessness they’d carried since their accidents. Today’s cave in victims. Burn-scarred men. A child who had never walked. A miner with one arm gone below the elbow. Old women whose hands trembled.

I cleared my throat, parchment crinkling in my grip. “People of Thidonno, tonight, you’ve been summoned for… an opportunity. To those affected by today’s cave-in, by burns, by lost limbs or livelihoods, this night may mark a… change.” My voice wavered, “Our… benefactor will explain further.”

They muttered. I could hear the questions ripple, Benefactor? Why now? In the dead of night? I swallowed them down and gestured stiffly toward the stage.

She stepped forward. White coat, mask glinting in lamplight, every movement radiating a kind of reckless certainty that made my carefully trained diction feel like paper scraps.

“Behold!” she cried, raising her left arm high. Metal glinted, strange joints, plates.. “See this marvel! A hand that is not a hand, but a creation! My own!”

A murmur stirred the crowd. Curiosity. Fear.

Then, with a careless snap, she wrenched it off.

Gasps broke out as the thing clattered against the stage. She raised the stump of her shoulder high, bare for all to see. “This is me! Broken! Flawed! A reject of nature’s fickle dice roll! Look upon my stump, GHAHAHA! Look at it well!”

A woman tightened her hold on her child. A man with a wooden leg shifted, as if ashamed to look.

Elaister crouched, scooping up the prosthetic like a toy she’d dropped, and with a single motion clicked it back onto her shoulder. The whirring of its gears punctuated her words. “And now, complete again! Better than before! Stronger than the flesh the gods gave me!”

The murmurs rose. I could see fear mixing with something else, envy, maybe, or hunger.

“And do you know what else?” She leaned forward, her glowing eyes sweeping the rows. “I have mana. I can feel it in my veins! But the gods?” She spat the word. “The divine powers? They denied me! I cannot cast a single spell!” She threw her arms wide, coat billowing. “But through my art, my creations, I can grant power to those who were abandoned! I can make magic possible where the gods said no!”

That struck like a hammer. The crowd’s whispers sharpened into cries.

“Impossible.”
“Blasphemy.”
“What if it’s true?”

I felt my throat dry, my hands shaking against the railing of the dais.

Elaister’s voice climbed higher, drunk on the noise. “So what say you, broken ones? Shall you stay scraps on the roadside? Or shall you become greater than those who pitied you? Become better! Become Augments! Become… KAIJIN! GHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

The sound of her laughter rattled through the square like thunder trapped in a bottle. Some in the crowd shrank back. Others leaned forward, eyes wide with a desperate, dangerous kind of hope.

The square split like dry wood at the axe’s edge.

“Witch!” someone shouted, voice ragged with fear.
“Blasphemy! Tinkering with the gods’ will!” another cried.
“Are you mocking us?!” A man said with rage.

But on the other side, they shouted back.

“What has your god given us?!”
“Better her than rotting useless!”

Voices clashed, fists raised, the mass of townsfolk teetering on the edge of tearing itself apart right there in the plaza.

And then, cutting sharp through the scuffle, the word hissed like a knife unsheathed:

“Heretic.”

Elaister threw her head back and laughed. Not the showy cackle she’d given before, but something deeper, unrestrained, rattling my bones like the toll of a hundred bells.

The crowd froze.

When it finally ebbed, her voice dripped with amusement. “Heretic, is it? . I already am a heretic, no-no, THE Heretic!” She spread her arms wide, mocking grace. “But don’t tremble, little flock. I’m not forcing any of you to march to my tune. After all… this but a little presentation, you are free to walk home and curse my name.”

Relief flickered in some eyes, until she added idly,

“Of course… those who lend their bodies willingly will not walk away empty-handed.”

With a flick of her cube-hand, the air shimmered. Clatter, clatter, clatter. Dozens of sharp-edged jewels spilled onto the stage, each one pulsing with faint light. Mana gems. High quality. Buzzing with power. Shining with… Economical value.

She bent, plucked one casually from the pile, and without hesitation tossed it my way. It struck my chest and I scrambled to catch it, the weight solid in my palm. The glow licked across my skin.

Her mask tilted toward me. “Well then, Mayor Brank. Tell them. How much is that single stone worth? Not the heap. Just the one in your hand.”

My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. “It’s… enough to feed a family for a year.”

Gasps rippled through the crowd.

Her laughter returned. “Did you hear that, oh faithful crowd? A year’s worth of bread in one stone! And here I am, scattering them like candy!” She stepped on the gems as if they’re worthless. “And you tell me you’ll refuse me on principle? Don’t make me laugh harder, I might choke.”

Her voice turned cutting, mocking, as she scanned the rows. “At the end of the day, when the issue is coin, when survival itself gleams before your eyes… none of you will refuse. You can scream blasphemy all you want, but the truth? You’d trade your faith for a meal in your belly.”

The silence that followed was suffocating. Faces flushed, hands clenched. Not with outrage now, but with shame. With want.

Then, a murmur. One voice, shaky: “...Kaijin.”

Another picked it up, firmer. “Kaijin!”

And then it spread, louder, louder, until the square thundered with it.

“KA-I-JIN! KA-I-JIN!”

I stayed.

Long after my speech was forgotten, long after the chants of Kaijin had died down to nervous whisper. My role was supposed to be over, but I could not leave. Not when that girl was still working. Not when the results of her madness were being dragged out into the light.

One by one, people entered the strange workshop room she had “thrown up” from her cube. They stepped in, and came out different.

The first were the adults.

Men and women who had lost arms, legs, even half their torsos to accident or disaster. When they emerged, they bore steel in place of what was missing. Not polished like her own glittering contraptions, no, these were rougher, simpler, almost industrial. And yet, when the bearers lifted their new limbs, the air filled with gasps.

They moved with ease. The steel was light, comfortable, yet unnaturally strong. One man raised his new arm high, flexing fingers that weren’t flesh but clicked and whirred with the grace of a hand reborn. A woman kicked the stage with her replacement leg, and the wooden boards groaned.

It was crude brilliance, and the people around me stared like they’d seen heaven itself descend.

Then came the magistuck.

Those cursed with mana that had never answered them, those mocked for being born hollow. They entered the room clutching old staves and charms, more like children playing pretend than mages. But when they emerged…

Fire bloomed in their palms. Water streamed from their fingertips. Those who once had no spark now crackled with lightning. I saw the way their eyes shone, like they’d been given back something stolen from birth.

And those who had truly no mana at all… they came out with mana flowing in them like a new river. Their laughter when they cast their first spells was enough to make even my old bones shiver.

But the last…

The last were the children.

I had thought, perhaps, they would be given smaller versions of the same steel. Light prosthetics, maybe trinkets to make them feel less left behind. Instead, she did something else.

She regrew flesh.

I do not know how. I do not want to know how. But the empty stumps became whole again, flesh, skin, nails. Arms. Eyes. Voices. They looked human. Normal. And yet… not.

Because those limbs were more.

A boy raised his new arm and with a thought it split, bone stretching into a blade sharp as any knight’s sword. A girl blinked and her eyes shone like lanterns, spilling light across the stage. Another child sang out, and her voice cracked into a clear, ringing tone that carried through the entire plaza like a bell.

Elaister explained, with her usual flippant confidence “Do you plan to keep cutting them open every year just to keep up with their growth spurts? Children are still growing. Giving something that grows with them is the best ain't it?!" 

That was when the protests started, Some adults cried foul.

“This is wrong! You made them monsters!”
“You’ve cursed them!”
"Blasphemy! You meddle with children’s very nature!"

I braced for her to laugh it off or call them fools. Instead, Elaister’s mask tilted, and her voice sharpened into something closer to offense.

“Oh? You don’t like the gift?” she sneered. “Fine, I can always rip the metal back out. And don’t worry, I’ll take back the mana gems I so generously handed you too. See how holy your little protests feel when you’re crawling again.”

The adults shut their mouths quickly after that.

Then she turned, mask facing the children. Her tone softened, not warm, never that, but measured. “Well? What about you brats? Are you satisfied with what I gave you?”

The boy with the blade-arm raised his stump-turned-sword and grinned, sharp and trembling. “I’ll never fail to protect again. Even if I forget my blade, this one won’t leave me.”

The girl with shining eyes laughed, squinting them into beacons. “I can guide my dad home late at night… and never fear the dark again.”

The girl with the bell-voice cupped her throat, then called out, clear and steady. “When someone’s hurt, I can call for help, and everyone will hear me!”

Gasps, whispers, tears swept through the crowd.

Elaister only snorted, mask tilting dismissively. “Hmph. As if I asked for your life stories. I just wanted to know if you thought it was cool. But fine, fine. Enjoy it.”

Yet I saw it.

I swear I saw it, the way her posture eased, the faint hum she let slip from her throat, the tiny way her head tilted as if to hide her expression. She didn’t laugh her usual mad laugh. She didn’t gloat. She just… stood there. Silent.

Almost content.

Does she… have a soft spot for children? I dared not say it aloud. But the thought gnawed at me, unsettling as it was.

The children must have noticed too, because they started giggling among themselves, staring at her like they had caught her secret.

“W-What are you little gremlins staring at, huh?!” she snapped, stomping her boot. “The show’s done! Get lost! Go home! Shoo-shoo!”

The children only laughed harder. The carefree laughter eased the adults when, suddenly, one of the crowd who had seemingly converted into Elaister’s follower chanted Kaijin, and the others followed suit, even if they didn’t share the same faith.

And I… I was just there, unable to move, clutching the mana gem tighter in my palm, watching as the word Kaijin began to echo again in the square, not as fear this time, but as something else. Something closer to belief.

つづく