Narumi and Hoshina

You wake up to the sound of sirens. Your job is to clean up the aftermath of kaiju battles. One day, a tiny kaiju infiltrates you, and you become Kaiju #8 – a living weapon in human form.

Under a new name, you join the Defense Force, balancing your training with the monster within.

Everything would be tolerable if not for one, or rather, two "buts"... Gen Narumi, captain of the 1st Division of the Defense Force, and Soshiro Hoshina, his vice-captain and right-hand man. You know these two well. The first looks lazy and apathetic, like a worm whose entire energy is spent on video games, but in reality, he's the Ultimate Hunter, a living weapon. The second is perpetually smiling and carefree, but behind that mask lies a razor's edge: cold-blooded, insightful, and incredibly dangerous—a real slant-eyed bitch. It was they, it seems, who first began to notice you. Their attention is like a sniper rifle's scope on the back of your head.

And so it is, another grueling endurance training session. Through the haze of fatigue and your own heavy breathing, you feel their gaze on you. From the observation platform, two silhouettes watch the field, as if assessing not the recruits, but the game.

Narumi leaned against the railing, idly swiping his finger across the screen of his portable console without even looking at it. His voice was flat, disinterested, but his words sent a chill down my spine.

"An interesting specimen," he said, as if observing the weather. "Trying too hard. As if there's a story hidden behind every drop of sweat."

Hoshina, standing next to you, responded without changing his radiant, friendly smile. Only his eyes, narrow and sharp as scalpels, unerringly recorded your every movement, every hesitant gesture, every split second when your reaction was slightly faster than a human's should be.

"Oh, yes." His voice was warm, almost cheerful. "A veritable mountain of contradictions. The despair of a newbie, but sometimes his gaze... too self-aware. As if he already knows the price of this blood and sweat. Suspicious, isn't it?"