Inception

Chapter 53: Tiny Kaiju

 The reason Grandmother Hoshina had given Lena a sedative hadn't been because her grandson had gotten loud at her brother somewhere in the house. Lena would have been offended at the suggestion if she hadn't been loopy and hungry.

No. It's because, as she stood their looking down her dripping hair, thinking, she'd began to feel overwhelmed. And as she felt overwhelmed, scales and feathers started popping up over her skin like zits. Then overwhelmed turned to panic.

The little old lady had a sedative in Lena's arm just as her feet had started to shift towards Big Bird.

"It's just a sedative," said the old lady, her eyes hard and her mouth harder. "Don't worry, Soshiro informed me of your situation. It would've been stupid not to, what with me acting as your temporary doctor."

Slowly, but steadily, the feathers and scales disintegrated. Her feet shrunk back to normal. The colors, which had brightened in Lena's vision, calmed down.

All the while, her and the little old lady just stared at one another.

"I'm sorry," Lena had said, all weepy and weak. Even as she said so, she could feel her thoughts slowing.

"I should say sorry. That's the most ungraceful administration of an injection I've ever done." But the woman's wrinkled expression had softened. "You are in a pickle, though, aren't you? Let no one say living in exciting times is fun."

By the time the little old lady had coaxed a tearful, increasingly drowsy Lena back inside to change her wet clothes, it was taking everything in Lena's power not to curl up under the bed.

She was a monster. A horrible, ugly monster that the Defense Force would be out to kill.

She wanted to ask why Hoshina hadn't killed her yet. Why he hadn't called her in or why he'd brought her to his home rather to a lab. It wasn't like she'd been all that powerful of a threat. She didn't know how she had gotten out of the ocean to begin with. The kaiju within her had just...taken over, and the next thing she knew she'd been waking up on shore completely spent with a familiar metal suit nudging her awake.

Ah...if Leno had been the one to be turned, she'd have done the same. Maybe even hidden him far away from the Defense Force reaches. Perhaps...Perhaps the Vice Captain really did love her.

When Hoshina returned, Lena had just finished putting on the new pink yukata and found her fingers too sleepy to tie the knot right. She still felt tearful, but it had stopped being so overwhelming. The next thing she knew she'd been resat on her little cushion in the sun and Hoshina was acting all funny and submissive to his grandmother. It amused Lena that someone who made soldier cry blew over like tissue paper to such tiny, cute old lady.

It was cute.

The sedative the granny had given her was making it hard to keep track of what was going on. Her sluggish thoughts registered things in blips, like catching Hoshina giving her that unique, too soft smile. The one that turned his face from mischevious fox to something more like Buddha.

Her stomach wiggled.

He loves me.

The sun was warm. The grannies soft fingers in her hair made a gentle rhythm.

Hoshina...Soshiro wouldn't let anything happen to her.

"Lena, before you get to far gone, I need to tell you something," he said.

She hummed and leaned. She could smell him. Summer afternoons. The ones far away in her childhood where her and her siblings ran barefoot in the twilight or ate watermelon till they were sticky and full.

"You're not the only one who can turn into a kaiju. Hibino Kafka can too. He's Kaiju No. 8."

The shock was dulled by the sedative. It made her feel like she was made of clay, with everything getting stuck in her flesh or sticking up, no really processing.

But the relief in her heart was unmistakable.

She blinked, slowly. Her cheek was against his shoulder. It was a nice shoulder, not all bony like Leno's. How'd he accomplish that? Was there padding?

"Tiny kaiju," she muttered, then giggle.

His fingers traced down the side of her face to push a silver braid his grandmother had just finished over her shoulder.

His grandma slapped his fingers.

"I had that there for a reason," she said.

"Sorry, Gigi."

Lena smiled and closed her eyes. She wanted her family too. Grandma. She wanted to visit her grandma. But she was far away.

"Leno," she rasped—so quiet. It was hard to be loud.

"You want Leno?"

"Mmhmm."

"This isn't the way I wanted you to relax, but beggers can't be choosers." He pushed her upright and made sure she was balanced before letting go. "I'll go get him."

Lena's shoulders filled with silver braids. Lena blinked, thinking about a nervous Kafka babbling about finding little kaiju inside him. She wanted to find him. Ask him why he bothered going through the experiment if he was afraid she'd find his little kaiju.

Then she remembered the thing that had crawled in her.

Her stomach clenched. She shivered, despite the sun. Her eyes burned.

I don't want it I don't want it I want it out—

"Lena!"

Leno had appeared. He looked at her face for a long moment in which Lena considered falling asleep on him, then he hugged her so tight her joints popped.

The warmth and scent of her brother snipped whatever tension had been left keeping Lena upright.

She nuzzled into the crook of his neck. This was the next best thing to stuffing her brother into her pillow case.

Hoshina and her brother didn't speak much, but the few words they said became mere white noise that followed her into the darkness. She only woke up enough to register that she was being carried to bed and that Leno was crawling in beside her.

"Remember, when the sedative wears off—"

"I know."

"Shut up and listen, because I will not stand for slip ups. No questions about what happened until I say so, no mentioning of her kaiju..."

Her mind slipped away, and not even dreams came up to greet her. 

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My cat died last night. I'd like to do nothing today, but the world doesn't stop turning.