{{Interlude 03}}
{{Sheltered}}
"I HATE THIS!" A young Japanese girl exclaimed from the corner of a massive bomb shelter deep under Osaka. She and her entire school were in there, mostly waiting for everyone to file in. Today was the day of the Kaiju Evacuation Drill. Since their recent resurgence, the school board had decided to brush off this old drill to protect the students in case of an attack—a drill that hadn't been put into practice since 1989.
"Settle down, Haruhi," one of the girl's classmate, a profoundly average Japanese boy of the same age, said calmly as the girl, Haruhi, slumped against the shelter's grey slab of a wall, "It's only a drill."
"But why?" She whined, "Kaiju never come to Osaka! It's always Tokyo! Tokyo, Tokyo, Tokyo! It makes me sick," Haruhi slumped, "There's only been one Kaiju attack on Osaka, and that was back in 1969!"
"Wait, do you want a kaiju to show up here and smash everything up?" The boy scowled.
"Of course not," She snapped, "I'm not an idiot. I know what kind of damage they can do."
'Well that's a relief,' the boy thought.
"It's just that the only way to see a Kaiju in the flesh is if it attacks your city," She continued, "people try to sneak in after the defensive lines go up, but that's just suicidally stupid with the defenses the JSDF throws up. The only way to ever see one is to either join the military or have it attack your city and be lucky enough to catch a glimpse without being trampled."
"And you don't want to join the military?"
"I just don't see myself being able to shoot them," the boy arced his eyebrow as Haruhi continued, "Sure, some Kaiju are really dangerous or even downright evil—but a lot of them are just wild animals."
"Yeah, animals that cause humans a great deal of problems. We shoot problem animals like Tigers and Bears when they attack people, so why not Kaiju?"
"Because they're usually the only ones of their kind, that's why!"
The boy thought that wasn't a very good reason, but decided not to press it and instead offered a different perspective: "What about the giant insects?"
"I'm not talking about giant insects," Haruhi huffed.
"They're Kaiju too."
"Not in my book they aren't," she pronounced, "A kaiju needs to be a vertebrate, first of all, and it has to be at least 25 meters in length. Otherwise, it's just a monster."
"Well I'm glad you're being scientific about it," the boy snorted.
"But a true Kaiju has to be between 50 and 100 meters in length and have hide able to withstand conventional weaponry. It must have minimal intelligence for the animal it was mutated from and no real antipathy towards mankind."
"No real antipathy?"
"Real kaiju aren't evil—they're just too big to interact with humans very well."
"Well, we'd better go tell King Ghidorah that's he's not a kaiju anymore."
"Oh, shut-up Kyon," Haruhi pouted, "Reality doesn't always work out the way you want it to."
Internally, Kyon breathed a massive sigh of relief. Given what he's been through at Haruhi's side, he had long suspected that sooner or later a Kaiju would hit Osaka or perhaps some masked Vigilante would attempt to tackle Osaka's minimalistic crime rate or some other bizarre phenomenon would rear its head overtly. But with Haruhi's declaration, he thought for a moment, just a brief moment, that he wouldn't have to worry about his home being crushed by a giant monster or having the school blown up by a vigilante bent on cleaning delinquents from the streets.
And in that instant, Kyon knew he was screwed. He had just dismissed something as unlikely in the presence of Haruhi Suzumiya—a girl who aliens, time travelers and espers believed to be the key to evolution, a temporal anomaly and God, respectively.
He just guaranteed that not only would a Kaiju appear in Osaka in the near future, but he and Haruhi would be far to near it for Kyon's comfort.
DAMNIT!