Dragon Island (28 page)

Birth, life, death, rebirth.

Ryuu rolls his eyes and I gaze upon the island as it was at the dawn of time, with societies of giants, dwarves, and shapeshifters living in vast cities, all of them coexisting peacefully with the dragons and kaiju of the forest. Ryuu squints and the view in his eyes springs forward through history so that I witness the cataclysmic event that brings this golden age crashing down.

Birth, life, death, and rebirth.

Closer still to the present, I see Kintaro’s arrival through Ryuu’s gaze. I watch the legendary warrior and his compatriots as they restore a semblance of peace to the island and its peoples.

Ryuu’s eyes shift and the images there blur as they rocket forward, shooting by the present to travel decades into the future.
 
Kintaro is inexplicably on
Dragon
Island
once again. The island and the others around it have changed almost beyond recognition. The balance between all things—beast and man, nature and technology, good and evil—has been lost once more.

At the heart of this vision is a young girl. She is beautiful and strange, and my heart is filled with love at the sight of her. She stands before the massive hand jutting from
Kaiju
Island
’s landscape—the same hand I rested on during one of my earliest nights upon the island—and calls. The hand begins to rise, shaking the earth around it, heralding the dawn of a new and better age.

Birth, life, death, rebirth.

Before I can learn what happens next, Ryuu’s gaze moves elsewhere.

The images in the god-dragon’s eyes leave Earth and journey to the universe’s edge and beyond. I witness billions upon billions of realities that defy description and astonish the imagination. I watch as these planes of existence come to a crashing halt. The light of their stars fades out so that countless new universes may rise from one space-time rending big bang after the next.

Birth, life, death, rebirth.

Ryuu blinks again and I see Mom and Dad bringing the baby-me home from the hospital for the first time. It’s the happiest I’ve ever seen them. Their dog, Lady, is already pregnant with Bear’s mother.

Birth.

The images in Ryuu’s eyes swirl, moving forward in time so that I watch my younger self go through school, my first Glee Club solo, and the plane crash all over again.

Life.

Ryuu’s gaze re-focuses and time returns to the present. The view in his eyes move across the ocean, out of the labyrinth to Japan. Dad is there, standing outside on a dark, cloudy day. He is on stage with several other men and women before a crowd of people. Most, like him, are clad in juxtaposed outfits of hardhats, white gloves, and business suits. A banner with Japanese kanji reading, FUTURE SITE OF NEO-TOKYO, is strung across the high wire fence behind them. My Dad gives the signal and another man in a hardhat lifts the plunger that will send the multiple city blocks on the other side of the fence crashing to the ground in a massive implosion.

Before the man can press the plunger down, a bolt of crimson lightning flashes out of the sky to obliterate the building closest to them in a blast of concrete and steel.

Zodon roars as he descends out of the clouds. I watch my father and his business associates bolt in absolute terror as Ningai’s dragon-self begins laying waste to the empty buildings.

I look on through Ryuu’s eyes as the horror of Zodon’s destruction is broadcast into every home across the globe by TV, radio, and live stream.

Japan
’s Self Defense Force quickly musters into action. They come at Zodon with tanks, jet fighters, surface-to-air missiles, and countless brave soldiers.

But the daikaiju remains unharmed.

Zodon merely laughs them off before utterly destroying them.

I look on with incalculable sorrow as, for the second time in just over half a century, the leaders of the world discuss the potential use of nuclear weapons upon Japanese soil.

Death.

I can’t allow this to happen.

I won’t!

“Bear,” I whisper, my voice echoing endlessly within the deep labyrinth.

Ryuu looks at me, indifferent.

“Bear!” I shout.

Ryuu growls and every molecule of my body trembles.

“BEAR!”

The father of all
daikaiju
opens his black hole-sized mouth and roars as he swallows me whole.

Rebirth!

I fear all we have done is awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with terrible resolve.

—Quote from the 1970 film,
Tora! Tora! Tora!

I’
m Raymond Nakajima, Japanese-American and freshman at Bradbury Middle School.

No.

I’m Momotaro, Toho clansman and heir of Kintaro, floating free within the heart of the nexus between worlds known as the deep labyrinth.

No.

I am Kumagor, the great bear-dragon, totem daikaiju of reluctant warriors, bringer of judgment, and executioner of worlds!

I was here when the Earth first spun and I will still be here when it returns to my father’s gullet!

My hide is tougher than the hardest iron, my teeth sharper than the keenest blade, my claws longer than the greatest spear, my girth larger than the highest mountain!

And my breath—hotter than the raging inferno that is the sun’s heart!

I am strong. Strong! STRONG!

And, for interrupting my hibernation, my brother Zodon must be destroyed!

These are the thoughts coursing through my mind—Kumagor’s mind. It’s like we are copilots of this, his great and terrible body. One minute, he’s in control, the next, I’m in the driver’s seat. Our thoughts and feelings bleed into one another’s until the bear-dragon and I are unable tell where one of us stops and the other begins.

But don’t let me confuse you.

What’s happening here is just like the
shobijin’s
relationship to
Gryphina
. As a result of Ryuu swallowing me whole, the bear dragon Kumagor and I have formed a link between our minds.

Still not following me?

Allow me to explain further.

My body is still there, in Ryuu’s Heart—or more accurately now, his belly—drifting among the kaleidoscope of colors.

But my mind is here, with Kumagor, as he—as we—tunnel through the Earth, raking away bedrock as though it was loose sand as we make our way to Tokyo.

I’m literally in two places at once!

But there’s more.

My physical body in the labyrinth’s core is still looking out at the world through Ryuu’s gaze and transmitting what it sees into my displaced mind.

I can still see every when and every where all at once.

I experience Kumagor’s traveling through the earth from his point of view.

But I also see it from the perspective of the god-dragon.

Ryuu shows me Kumagor’s green, pebbled-hide.

Our hide.

My hide.

Its jade expanse is interrupted only by Bakeneko’s jagged claw-marks along my right side, now stretched to epic proportions. My front and hind paws would rival skyscrapers in height. Stegasaurian plates rise like a mountain chain from my immense back, terminating at the end of my giant alligator’s tail.

A horn-rimmed, ceratopsian shield of bone flares out from the bridge of my skull to cover the soft flesh at the back of my neck. The scaly, fang-filled muzzle of a bear extends forward from the shield to form my face and give me my namesake.

I’m a monster.

A dragon.

A god!

I’m the might of the world personified and I’m unstoppable!

I sense Zodon nearby and tunnel upward to breach the surface in an explosion of rubble and dust. A storm conjured by Zodon himself rages across the
Tokyo
cityscape. Everywhere I look, bright lightning flashes and black tornados whirl.

I roar in challenge, the sound of my voice overwhelming the wind, rain, and thunder as it causes windows of the vacant buildings surrounding me to implode.

Through Ryuu’s gaze, I sense Ningai Ura’s momentary fear at my arrival. I feel Zodon quickly pushing it away from their co-inhabited mind, replacing it with the long-standing malice we daikaiju feel toward one another.

Zodon postures. He roars and spreads his wings, trying to appear as large and as menacing as possible.

But I’m not fooled.

I stand on my hind paws and rise to my full, incredible height, roaring as I cover the black dragon in my immense shadow.

Let your storm blow all you wish, brother.

Have you forgotten after so long that it is I, Kumagor, who is the strongest?

I drop back onto all fours and charge, the empty towers of concrete and steel between Zodon and myself disintegrating as I plow through them.

Zodon and I collide and I bowl my brother over onto his back. Buildings crumble to dust beneath him as he falls. I leap on top of him and we roll down the thoroughfare, tearing at each other with tooth and claw, churning up a mile of dust and pavement as we go.

I bat at Zodon’s black lion’s head with my paws—paws that could crack open the Earth like an egg shell—until unconsciousness threatens to overtake him.

I’m about to strike a final, devastating blow when his jackal’s head latches onto me and digs its muzzle into the wound at my right side.

I howl, my pain unbearable, and roll off of him. Lake-sized tears of agony form in my enormous eyes.

Zodon launches skyward, the flapping of his immense wings conjuring a cyclone in his wake. He disappears into the dark storm clouds above.

I want to retreat into the Earth and lick my wounds, but
Kumagor’s
indomitable will refuses to let me give up. I roll to my feet, his rage replacing my fear. I stand on my hind paws and roar, using the flashes provided by the storm’s lightning to scan the gray canopy overhead.

The Earth is my realm, but the sky is Zodon’s. For all my power, I can’t take wing. If as Kumagor I knew the meaning of regret, I might well be feeling it now, for it appears Zodon has a means of escape. Possibly even a tactical upper—

Crimson lightning flashes down from the sky to strike me square in the face! I howl and drop to all fours as successive bolts blast my hide, striping it with black scorch marks.

I do what to Kumagor is unthinkable.

I run, smashing through one condemned skyscraper after another as I try to escape Zodon’s onslaught. I trample through a high wire fence that would’ve been beneath my notice except for the fact that I’ve seen it before. It’s the same fence my father stood in front of when he was about to demolish the city blocks Zodon and I’ve been battling through.

What remains of my humanity is seized with horror as I realize I’m about to take the battle outside the area scheduled for demolition. I collapse onto my haunches, trying to halt my forward progress. But not even Kumagor can defy the laws of physics completely.

My momentum carries me toward a tall concrete building. My eyes grow wide as I spot the news crew clad in rain slickers stationed at its top.

Thankfully, I skid to a stop just short of the building’s side.

Red lightning streaks down from the sky and I’m left with no choice. I rise onto my hind paws and take the full brunt of it, protecting the news crew as best I can.

The lightning sizzles across my skin, driving me back and back. At last, my body roasting, my pain incalculable, I topple backwards and crash into the building.

Ryuu has mercy. The building sways under my weight, but holds.

I feel Kumagor’s despair. I feel my own. We were so close to ending this, but now the tide has turned against us.

Ryuu’s
omniscient perspective kicks in and I see the news crew on the building behind me shaking with terror. I see the fear-filled faces of the millions watching at home via their broadcast.

Through Ryuu’s eyes, I watch as Mom buries her crying face in Bear’s neck. I see Dad as he stares into a television and resigns himself to the world’s end.

I’ve failed them all.

I’ve failed myself.

But then I realize, through the god-dragon’s gaze, I can also see Zodon as he darts among the black storm clouds, hiding from me as he brings down thunder and lightning.

I know exactly where he is.

We can do this, Kumagor!

But the great bear dragon already knows.

I feel the gases within my immense stomach gathering. I sense the large gland hanging at the back of my throat spark with bioelectricity. My stomach contracts, forcing the gases trapped there up my subway tunnel of an esophagus.

I open my mouth.

The gas passes over the gland’s electrical field and fiery, orange death erupts from my throat!

The pyre slices through the sky like the beam of a flood light, searing through clouds, rain, and darkness to blast Zodon.