"Okay, now hand me the sword," Kaori ordered, snapping her fingers. Osamu paused uncertainly, but when she snapped again and gestured her impatience, he handed the katana over. The woman stood just a half-meter shy of Olhos Do Ceu's very center, inside of a complex, presumably magical circle drawn primarily in blue chalk with additions in red and yellow.

"What is all this?" Osamu asked.

"Most of it is just noise…" Kaori admitted, "Rituals made to screw with people and disguise the true sources of power and motion. Thing is… I was never able to figure out what parts of it are unnecessary." She unsheathed the sword. "So, this time I'm doing everything to make sure it goes right. All the same… maybe you should leave?"

"I shoulda left hours ago!" he snapped, "This place is a bloody warzone! But what is it you're trying to do?"

"I'm… not entirely certain. This felt right."

"You're not…?"

"But I blew the place up last time I tried it, so you should probably go."

"I helped a… a…? You're a madwoman!"

She put her hands on her hips, not letting her sword touch the ground. "And how many times have people called you mad? Does it ever occur to you that I might occasionally have an idea of what I'm doing?"

"But from the way things sound, you don't!"

"Yeah…" she raised the katana, point down, over the center of the circle. "All the same, I'd feel really guilty if you were blown to pieces." They stared at each other for a few seconds. "Well?"

"I… I must say, I'm not too keen on the idea of you blowing yourself up…"

Kaori laughed. "Well, I'm touched. But like you said, it's a warzone. No sense in putting yourself in even more danger, is there?" Osamu vacillated, then sat down by the door and crossed his arms. "…huh. Have it your way."

Her sword plunged into the floorboards.


Yomi was on her knees, clutching at her chest and gasping for breath. The astral beast hadn't done much more than nip at her before it vanished, but already a cold, leaden feeling was spreading from her nonexistent wounds. This seemed like a ridiculous way to die; she'd been prepared for ray guns, being stepped on and/or eaten by a giant monster, run over by a spaceship or even heart disease, but this was intolerable!

Ayumu made a move towards her, but Yukia swooped in and took hold of the side of her head. "Ut! We're not finished."

"But your monster's already…"

"Well, he is not the only one who needs more life."

"B-b-but… I'm all full 'a gristle! I wouldn't taste good at all!"

Yukia wasn't listening. She placed her other hand on Ayumu's neck and drew a slow, deep breath. "This won't hurt a bit, I'm told, but who really knows?"

"Ms. Yomi!" Xandra whispered. "Here! Give me your hand! Kaori taught me…"

Yomi jerked in surprise as whatever it was Xandra did slammed through her body. After a few seconds of numb shock, she appraised herself; still cold, still having a hard time moving, but now it wasn't getting any worse. She apparently wasn't "bleeding" anymore. "What was that?"

"Um…" Xandra blinked. "Jeez. It's kinda complicated."

"Never mind, then." Yomi looked the other over. What had caused her to come to her senses? It was probably the jolt of seeing the mighty Bespectacled One struck down; without a hint of egotism, Yomi acknowledged the fact that she had a presence about her which made people look to her in hard times. "Can you do anything to help Sakaki and Chiyo?"

Xandra bit her lip. "No… they're too far gone. I-I'm sorry, but even if they survived they'd never be the same."

"Shit…"

"We're done for, aren't we?" A panicked note rose in Xandra's voice. "I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have even-!"

Yomi grabbed her shoulder. "Xandra, stop it. Pull yourself together."

"How the hell are you so calm?"

"Shh! Listen, there's got to be a way out of this. Now that she doesn't have that lightning monster, I'll bet we can…"

Yukia turned towards them as if to comment, but she suddenly staggered. "Argh! Wha-?" Something popped inaudibly, the air lightened and Yomi realized that she could see Sakaki and Chiyo more clearly for some reason. The Forbidden Artist cast about in wounded disbelief. "The circle broke!"

"Hehe…" Ayumi giggled. "Did I give ya indigestion?"

Xandra's eyes widened. "Kaori…?"

"It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter! They're as good as dead and the rest of us will follow soon enough. Now that Ghidora is here, nothing can save us!" It wouldn't have been so frightening if she didn't sound so happy about it.

"No!" Xandra glanced to Yomi for strength, then raised her voice. "That isn't in his nature!"

"What?" Yukia was dumbfounded. "Not in the nature of the Invincible Space Demon? Do you have any idea the mighty works he carried out before he came to your planet, Xian? King Ghidora is nothing more than a living engine of death and mayhem!"

"You're wrong!" Xandra pounded the deck. "I spent most of my childhood in his presence, and I'm telling you, that's wrong! There's… something else inside of him! He could… he could become…!"

"Even if that is true, there is nobody who could reach that aspect," Yukia said dismissively. "Your knowledge means nothing."

"Are you sure about that?" Chiyo asked.


Godzilla stood unsteadily, but before he could even make a move to attack, one of Ghidora's feet, knotted into a huge fist, cracked sideways across his face and knocked him sprawling. In those rare moments where the Monster King actually had his feet, he'd only staggered drunkenly and threw anemic, directionless punches with his good arm. By now, the inside of Dimension Tide's crater was splattered liberally with his light-green blood.

Space Godzilla descended the crater's edge eagerly, but a silver gravity beam snapped across the ground in front of him and Ghidora hissed warningly. Godzilla used this opportunity to flail and growl a bit, but he hadn't managed to rise before more gravity beams were stitching him, crisscrossing his tortured body with smoking black welts.

Trailing black slime, the Space Demon stalked forward and wrapped one of his feet about Godzilla's shoulder, hauling him up to stand again. The Earth Monster hocked up a feeble, sputtering atomic ray before a savage triple-headbutt dropped him again. Ghidora folded his wings and crouched over the fallen Monster King, biting into the smaller monster's neck, side and thigh.

Just as Gathra took after his mother, this incarnation of Ghidora showed traits from Yukia. One of them became hideously apparent as blue energy started rising from Godzilla's punctured hide and coursing down the Demon's triple throats. Though he'd made a magnificent showing, Earth's champion had fallen.

But as Godzilla neared death, the victor released him and took a step back, blue light swirling around his mouths and dissipating. For the first time in his terrible existence, the Sun-Eater… hesitated.


"No," Yukia said. "I didn't just hear that. You--you're dead!"

"I'm sorry, but it looks like I'm not." Chiyo rose to a crouch and caught Sakaki as she fell, lowering her softly to the deck. The taller woman gasped sharply and started to rise, but Chiyo laid a gentle hand on her chest. "Just rest, Ms. Sakaki."

Ayumu and Xandra could only stare. Their young friend stood slowly, looking a little disoriented, but otherwise none the worse off for her ordeal. Chiyo was as willowy and unimposing as ever, but they now had the feeling that her presence was filling the room and more. Ayumu could also see that she was, on some subconscious level, the most gorgeous, sparkling purple that she'd ever seen.

"No… no way! This is some kind of sick joke!" Yukia backed away from her. "How are you still alive? Ghidora ravaged your soul! There was barely enough of you left to keep breathing!"

"Yes, that's true. And that would have been more of a problem," she smiled suddenly, but the look of it made her friends' skin crawl. "If I only had one."

"Two…" Yukia hit the viewport. "You… you're a…!"

"I am." Chiyo came forth, her advance threatening precisely because it was so unthreatening. "And the spirit that you've been sucking life from for all these years, the one you had your 'pet' tear apart and devour, was my gentle spirit. It will take quite a while to recover."

"I assaulted a… a… a… goddess?" Yukia looked back and forth frantically, then plunged towards her, arms lashing for her throat. "Then I'm done for, anyway—and I can still kill you!"

Chiyo stepped back from her hooked hands, extended one slender arm, one delicate finger, and planted it softly on the tip of the Forbidden Artist's nose. Those pesky conservation laws didn't matter one bit; her momentum instantly vanished and she was left standing tremblingly before the Radiant Purple One (or whatever inappropriately dramatic label would be slapped on little Chiyo-chan's head.)

Even with her rough spirit fully expressed, Chiyo couldn't enjoy what was coming. "Believe it or not, I don't want to hurt you. This… censure will not be because I am a goddess. What you did to me is unacceptable to inflict upon anybody, however lowly they are." She closed her eyes. "Please understand. I can't let it pass."

"What's…" Yukia swallowed. "Going to happen to me?"

"It's ironic, really. My gentle spirit is less pragmatic; were it expressed, I would be enraged beyond all measure by you threatening my friends. I would have attacked you, probably physically, and no idea how that would have turned out. But unfortunately for you, this is my rough spirit…" her eyes opened, meeting Yukia's significantly. "And I'm not going to touch you."

"Then…?"

"You have a queer sort of detachment, almost a… a sociopathy within you. You have a firm grasp on what you're about, and you know what you've done… but it still hasn't become real to you. The world is an abstraction; even your own life is a… a number. A pointless fact. Just an illusion and nothing lost if it, or anything else, is destroyed." Chiyo looked troubled. "But the world is very real and when you realize this, you'll see to your own punishment."

Yukia was baffled. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm so sorry." For an instant, the room had the feel of a snapping rubber band.

"If you're trying to… oh…" Yukia blanched, falling to her knees. "Oh, God."

"It's all real, Ms. Yukia. Every person you've killed, everything that you've destroyed and undone and consumed… all of it."

"No…!" she clutched her head, trembling. "This can't be…! I…! All those people…! And now I've destroyed this world, too!"

Chiyo laid a hand on her head. "I can give you this comfort, anyway: you didn't destroy Earth. In fact, as appalling as your aim was, you've done a great thing today."

"Wh-what?"

The prodigy stood and turned away from her, face shadowed. Once again, Xandra and Ayumu were staring as if they'd never seen her before… and in a way, they hadn't. Yomi couldn't seem to look at her at all, not from horror or shame but from simple disbelief. For her part, Sakaki was still mostly dead to the world. "Come on, then," Chiyo gestured them to rise. "Let's get you home."

She walked softly across the deck and knelt at Sakaki's side, lifting her so gently and with such ease that the absurdity of it wasn't obvious. The taller woman shook her head tiredly, allowing herself to be led from the room while their friends followed, the only sound Yukia's labored breathing.

"So, uh," Ayumu ventured timidly, "Have you got, like, a lactose-free rough spirit?"

Chiyo gave a tiny half-smile. "I've had the thought myself."

"Soy-based…" Sakaki mumbled dazedly.

"Nah, that don't work at all." Ayumu pondered. "More like a diet rough spirit, or tofu or somethin'? I was expectin' an earthquake at least!"

"But how would we feel an earthquake?" Xandra asked. "We're in a ship. It probably would have been a tornado."

"Or a rain of flamin' blood!"

"Hey…"

The doors opened before them and they were confronted by the corridorful of curious Gaijin. "How was it?" a creepy, glasses-wearing, decidedly Kimura-esque officer asked. "Did you…?"

"You're sick," Chiyo responded blandly, then looked around at them. "It's up to you now. Please hurry in before Ms. Yukia hurts herself."

"Before she…?" The third-in-command paused as the girls started filing silently past him. "Wait, hold on. You're prisoners!"

"They're with me," Chiyo called back to him.

"Uh…" He reached after them, then glanced back to the control room. "Never mind them," he decided, "There's still a battle on!" Of course, he would soon find that the battle was long over and that he was the new Supreme Commander.

"I have no idea what in the hell is going on," Yomi said, pulling up alongside Chiyo, "But we can't leave yet. What about…?"

"Don't worry," Chiyo waved her concern down. Somehow she'd managed to pull the dismissive gesture off with almost no bite. "That's already being taken care of. You'll see her again before long."

"What about Ghidora?" Xandra asked.

"Oh, him? We had a short talk," Chiyo answered, showing a glimmer of genuine good spirits for the first time since awakening. "He's figuring a few things out."


Ghidora beat his wings fiercely, kicking up winds that set grit swirling throughout the massive crater. The sooty, slimy nastiness that had been clinging to his whole form was flaking away, slithering and plopping to the ground or borne aloft like cinders in the whirlwind he created. Slowly it cleared away to reveal the golden scales beneath, gleaming blindingly as the sun emerged from a bank of clouds. His eyes faded from dark green up through yellow to orange to red to a blazing, crackling white that seemed to sear the air about them.

His voice rose from a gravely cackle to a hissing shriek and finally became an awful, heroic trumpet which lifted the hearts of all who heard it even as it filled them with terror. Once he was finally himself again, he paused over the fallen Monster King, the blue life-force he'd drained running from his mouths to spill over Godzilla's chest and soak through his rough hide as though it were a sponge.

Space Godzilla sensed that something was wrong and came charging down the edge of the crater… only to be blown off of his feet by a trio of white bolts that struck him dead before he even hit the ground.

Ghidora trumpeted again and took to the air. He could sense the Gaijin's monsters covering this world that he was only now realizing was his to protect. There was no need to kill the Gaijin themselves, he surmised; without their beastly weapons, the aliens would be helpless. So began what history would forever refer to as the World Burnination Tour, wherein the Golden Guardian flew from continent to continent, scything down the Gaijin monsters right and left with his terrible gravity beams.

An effort was made by various militaries to stand up to him, but he totally ignored their rays, missiles and bullets. He was thinking instead about what he'd do with himself when the invaders were finally driven off; he still had a lot of growing to do, after all…


The Supreme Commander, upon realizing what had happened in their control room, issued one open-ended order concerning the girls. Get them off of my ship! They were quickly stuffed into a shuttle that would automatically carry them to the ground, where they'd be left to their own devices. Ayumu and Yomi sat on one wall while Chiyo had squeezed in between Sakaki and Xandra on the other.

"My dreams," Xandra sighed wonderingly. "My dreams of the ten-headed guardian dragon thingy weren't a bunch of crap after all!"

"Lucky," Ayumu poked her side. "Usually when your dreams turn out to be real it really sucks."

"I wouldn't worry about that much longer," Chiyo said absently. Uncertain, Sakaki looked down at her and away again. She should have been happy that they were all alive and well, but she had the feeling that something was seriously wrong. Even if Chiyo hadn't been a little bit omniscient (a distinction that only a goddess would make), it would have been clear that she was troubled. "What's wrong?"

Sakaki tried to be polite. "What… are you?"

"A daughter of the Eldest of the Elder Ones, apparently. The newest member of a pantheon I've never even heard of." She smiled uncertainly. "The thought is taking some getting used to."

"Are you still…" Sakaki bit her lip. "Chiyo-chan?"

"Yes. Yes, I… well, I guess you can say I've molted. You know, like a snake." Normally this would have bounced off of Sakaki's armor, but she was in a delicate state just then. Chiyo could tell that comparing herself to such an unappealing creature had probably been a mistake. "Or a… cicada?"

"A little cicada," Sakaki said numbly. She was having a hard time focusing; it seemed like something was on the edge of her awareness that she just couldn't touch. It was something worrisome and yet inevitable… but was it just in her mind, or was there actually something afoot? Was this what Ayumu had felt like?

"So you've held a goddess in your arms!" Chiyo nestled against her and Sakaki, obeying the inevitable pull of the laws of physics, put an arm around her. "How about it, Andrea?"

Sakaki blinked.

"I hope you don't mind. It's just such a cute name! I always thought so, but I was worried about being rude." Chiyo giggled. "I guess there's not much to worry about now. Except…"

There was an interminable pause.

"Well?" Yomi finally asked.

"It's… something that I have to own up to, I suppose." Chiyo rested her head on Sakaki's bosom and sighed. "When I returned to Japan, I couldn't believe how things had changed. My spirit sort of… cried out; any sensitive creature within hundreds of kilometers would have been able to feel the color of my dismay. I'm afraid it almost lured a certain someone to his death."

The others looked at each other for a few seconds. What in the world was she talking about, and what would constitute "owning up" to it? Sakaki was particularly worried; she was once again bracing for something dramatic and pathologically selfless, and it did little to ease her mind when Chiyo added, "When we land, please, nobody follow me."

"A goddess…" Ayumu rolled the idea around in her head. For some reason, it wasn't a bad fit. "But then you're a just a baby goddess, huh?"

Chiyo laughed. "That's one way to put it, I guess. Say, Ms. Yomi, do you have your cell-phone?" (It was never clear whether she was omnisciently aware of it or not, but that was immaterial--she felt it was more polite to ask in either case.)

"Huh? Yeah, they gave it back to me."

"Why don't you call for a ride?"

"Right… okay." Yomi seemed a little distracted but she could be forgiven considering the circumstances. She started dialing with fumbling fingers. "I'll—I'll see if Kagura's on her cell."

"You okay?" Ayumu asked. "You look kinda like me."

"Spaced out?" Yomi asked, hissing in triumph when she finally managed to dial properly. "Definitely."

"That or…" the Space Cadet hesitated. "Sufferin' acute Tomo-withdrawal."

Yomi's jaw dropped. For a few seconds she could only stare, not even responding when Kagura's voice answered. "Hello? … Hello? This isn't a telemarketer is it?"

Chiyo took up the phone. "Sorry, it's us. You busy?"

"Who…? Oh, Chiyo-chan. You sound different."

"I'll tell you about it later. Say, how do you feel about coming down into the Dimension Tide crater and picking us up?"

The shuttle set down near the base of the spherical crater, a comfortable distance from where Godzilla still lay. They filed out, wincing at the heat that still hung in the air after discharged giant-monster beams, as well as the unwholesome odors rising from smoldering rock, great puddles of Godzilla blood and the singed corpse of his space-borne counterpart. The sun was just starting to set, making the sky an appropriately apocalyptic shade of orange.

Just as soon as Ayumu stepped off, the shuttle door whisked shut behind her, almost catching her skirt. "YEEP!" It lifted off soon after, leaving them stranded in this battlefield of giants. "Kagura's going to take a little while," Chiyo told them, "So make yourselves comfortable."

"You say that as if…" Xandra swallowed. "You're going somewhere."

"Yeah…" the young goddess said sheepishly. "It's just something I have to see to. Let's see… um, Ms. Ayumu?"

"Yeah?"

"I can say, empirically and authoritatively, that you are and always have been yourself. No important part of you died on Birth Island and all you've left behind is dust."

"Lotta ten-thousand-yen words in there, but I getcha." She grinned. "I needed that. Thanks, Chiyo-chan."

"Ms. Yomi, I hope that you know how fantastic you look, and what an admirable, strong woman you turned out to be. Please don't burn yourself out; you still have so much to give the world."

"Thanks, but," Yomi's brow furrowed. "But why are you…?"

"Ms. Xandra? Thank you for telling me about Ghidora not being evil. It took more courage than any of us knew you had to stand up to Ms. Yukia like that."

"Uh… it was nothing."

"And Andrea?" Chiyo hung her head for a moment then smiled up at the towering woman. "Thank you so much for everything. I can't tell you how kind and wonderful and understanding you've been to me, and how brave you were to shield me with your own life up there… thank you for looking out for me these past few days, and always." She stood on her toes and kissed Sakaki's cheek. "I owe you more than I have to give, even now."

Sakaki just blushed a little. She really couldn't think of an appropriate reply, and, as stated before,she was one of those rare people who said nothing when anything she could say would have been moronic.

"So, see you guys, hopefully soon." Chiyo bowed to them, then turned on her heel and started to walk away. The ground shifted slightly under their feet; the Monster King had finally risen, and he looked sore. A tower of battered, bruised, gashed, scarred muscle, covered in rolling sheets of his own blood, his left arm hanging in a twisted ruin at his side. He'd been enraged before, but there was always an element of glee to it, the beast glorying in his own savage power and having the time of his life giving it free reign. Now, though, there was only the desire to bring down agony—he just wanted something to burn.

Lured to his death… Sakaki gasped aloud. She turned sharply, but Chiyo was already impossibly distant for the time she'd spent walking, at least a half-kilometer away, mounting the broken edge of one of Ghidora's colossal footfalls. "Chiyo-chan!" Sakaki cried with more abandon than she'd ever before shown. "NO!"

Godzilla tilted his head and Sakaki realized with nauseating certainty that his one good eye was focused directly on her friend. A dim question formed in that brutish eye as his lips curled up around yellowed fangs. "Yes," Chiyo answered softly, but her voice carried even to her friends, "I was the one who called you."

The Purple Goddess spread her arms and in that moment she was heartbreakingly beautiful. The monster's spines lit with radioactive fire and with an indescribable crackle it boiled up from his gullet. Chiyo didn't move or resist as an atomic ray howled towards her with unstoppable force…