Go Big To Go Home: A Kaiju-Fighting Isekai LitRPG (Book 1 Complete!)

"Nocty," Mikayla whispered as the Raiju snarled at them. "How do we fight this thing?"

"A Raiju is a formidable foe. Its constitution enables it to ignore most blunt-force or slashing attacks. Elemental or other magical effects will work best," Nocturnus paused consideringly. "Can I assume that you intend to harvest it for your Neidan?"

"Yup," Mikayla confirmed.

"That complicates things. Its tail is both its greatest weapon and its most valuable body part. If you only wanted to kill it, then you should cut its tail to shreds, but -"

Nocturnus didn't have time to finish before Mikayla channeled Heel Propulsion down her right leg, kicking off and swinging for the Raiju's tail. The swordsmanship lessons she'd received, both official ones from Musashibo and extra practice snuck in with Nocturnus, were paying off. Unfortunately, the Raiju twisted out of the way before she could land the blow.

"What are you doing?!"

"Nocty, it's a Kaiju. Its tail is

bigger than a bus

. We'd need to cut it up anyway just to fit it in my bag," Mikayla absently corrected him, recovering her balance and opening a punitive gash on the wolf's leg.

". . ah. Yes. The Kaiju Collapse happened. I . . forgot," Nocturnus sounded upset, but Mikayla didn't have to he focus to spare to ask him what was wrong.

The Raiju's leg had already healed, and it twisted, its jaws opening wide to bite down on the Black Knight - only for it to flinch mid-chomp. Skyward Grasscutter leapt over her, its scythe reversing even as the ghastly eyes on the blade held the Raiju rigid. Keldryn hooked the blade of his scythe under the Raiju's upper lip, and his fanpack unfolded from Skyward Grasscutter's back, propelling him further into the air. He dragged the Raiju's head with him, flipping it over and sending it slumping to the ground with its belly exposed to Mikayla.

Seizing the opportunity, she stabbed it in the chest.

Unfortunately, its flesh parted like clouds around her blade. ". . whoops,"

"Elemental attacks, lass, elemental!" Nocturnus encouraged her.

"Don't have a lot of those," Mikayla hissed. She released her grip on her sword and channeled Firestarting Punch, her fist catching aflame as it struck the beast's belly. The Raiju twisted back onto its feet in a way that defied anatomy and lunged at her, and she retreated, waving her shield to get it to keep focusing on her.

"Binding of Thorns!" Nya's voice interrupted, and vines erupted from the ground around the Raiju's paws. It struggled, and after a few seconds ripped one of its claws free.

"Binding of Thorns!"/"Binding of Thorns!" Sendo and Irin echoed the spell, and the vines tripled, dragging the Raiju to the ground.

Keldryn and Kaizen went for its head, but Keldryn slid aside and went for the throat instead. His scythe, glowing with nature magic, penetrated the beast's throat, but the cloudy flesh parted around it. It caught Kaizen's katana on its fangs, then suddenly exploded into a formless stormcloud.

"Agh, not this trick again," Nocturnus growled.

Mikayla didn't have time to ask for clarification, as the Raiju was reforming above the collapsing nest of vines. "It's a power that lets it dodge a fatal wound by destroying and rebuilding its entire body. Disgustingly unfair,"

Its paws came down on the two boys' heads and crushed them into the ground. Skyward Grasscutter shattered into pieces, but Kaizen's armour held. Mikayla gasped, but saw a blur rush to grab Keldryn and ferry him out of danger.

It was relieving to know the Huntsman had followed up on his promise to save anyone who fell in this fight, but it also meant Keldryn wouldn't be around to help any more.

Geri took the chance to launch an attack from mid-range, throwing both his hands forwards and expelling a cloud of bees. The Raiju twisted its neck and howled in his general direction, expelling a wet cloud that smothered the insects and stifled the attack before it even made contact.

Mikayla resisted the urge to roll her eyes. It wasn't that Geri and his 'swarm combat' was entirely useless . . but she'd been training with him for four months now and she couldn't remember a single time when he'd made a meaningful contribution.

But he was still a classmate of hers, and he didn't deserve to get hurt just because he was hopeless, so when the Raiju lunged toward him she moved to intercept, standing over the Beekeeper and slamming her shield into its snout.

The Raiju howled, and blistering winds streaked with clouds erupted from its mouth and around its neck. Mikayla was blown backwards, staggering, and before she knew it her feet were in the air and she'd been turned upside-down.

Mana flowed into her Sword, and it swelled, its tip finding the ground and carving a furrow into it before holding fast. Gripping its handle with both hands, Mikayla forced the Black Knight's boots back on the ground, bracing herself against the wind.

After what felt like much too long, the wind faded. Looking around, Mikayla saw that she was the only one left close to the Raiju, the rest of her classmates - those she could see, at least - were all too light and had been blown much further away.

"Lass!" Nocturnus shouted a warning, and Mikayla twisted back around to check on the Raiju.

Stormy grey clouds had appeared in the air, and the monstrous wolf was climbing up them like stepping stones. Its fur grew darker, crackling with electricity, as its tail condensed and lengthened into a wicked blade made of concentrated lightning. As Mikayla raised her shield, it jumped through the air and flipped forward with the agility of a Jedi, its chest rotating towards the sky as it brought down the lightsaber that its tail had become.

The Mikayla of four months ago would have panicked, frozen up and let the deadly blow land. But Kaiju Studies had honed her instincts, giving her the mental discipline to make rapid, brutal calculations in the split second she had to react. She didn't have confidence in her ability to block that blow, dodging was more likely to work.

She threw herself aside, but the heavy armour wasn't fast enough and the sizzling blade of light went straight through her left leg.

Pain lanced up her body, and she screamed. The visualisation of the Black Knight's cockpit broke down around her as her focus slipped, revealing the Mana-woven nerves that made up the Armour's internal mechanisms. She shook her leg, trying to dismiss the feedback that was coursing into it, reminding herself that it was just the Armour, she hadn't actually had her leg cut off.

Her Health blinked ominously.

[HEALTH: 1132/2000]

Mikayla bit back a curse, grabbing a Health Potion from her belt and downing it.

"Weapons up! Weapons up!" She belatedly realised that Nocturnus was yelling in her ear, and through the translucency of her shoulder armour she saw that the Raiju's jaws were coming down on her.

A single orange leaf flew in front of its face and tapped its snout, causing it to flinch.

The wind picked up, washing over the Black Knight and carrying more autumnal leaves with it, somehow leaving gashes in the insubstantial body of the Raiju. Mikayla grinned. She recognised this Technique after months of regularly fighting with its wielder, but it looked like it had been improved since the last time she'd seen it up close.

A giant orange samurai with a tattered robe that billowed in every direction flew at the Raiju's face, carried by the wind it was generating. "Falling leaf's grace, hungry earth's embrace!" Kaizen yelled as a katana burst out from within the folded sleeves of his robe and slashed at the air, releasing a wave of rust-coloured energy that left a bloody wound on the Raiju's cheek. It snarled, changing target and lunging towards Kaizen's Armour Core, Lone Wanderer, but its faux-sandal feet hit the ground and bounced.

With expert footwork, Kaizen baited the monster and then rushed to Mikayla's side. Once he was standing next to his recovering classmate, he span on his heels, drawing a wide circle in the ground around the Black Knight and standing protectively over it. "May the setting sun rise anew once more," Kaizen chanted, and Mikayla saw her Mana and Stamina bars' regeneration massively increase, easily outpacing the slow drain that fighting took on her vital energies. She grinned, applying her Willpower to the inside of the Black Knight and recreating her cockpit visualisation.

It didn't surprise Mikayla that Kaizen had been the first one to close the distance; he was by far the fastest in the class. They needed to stall for the moments it would take the rest of their friends to catch up. "Alright, I'll keep its attention, you punish it when it overextends. Sound good?"

"The seasons may pass unencumbered in the knowledge that the chronicler will record them,"

". . gonna take that as a yes," They'd been making a group effort to decode Kaizen's speech patterns. He'd never referred to any of them by name, but he sometimes used little nicknames. Mikayla was 'chronicler', Keldryn was 'baleful one', Nya was 'amethyst'. If something would 'pass unencumbered', that probably meant -

right, still fighting.

The Raiju reared up, clawing at them, and Mikayla deflected the strike with her shield. "Now!"

"Falling leaf's grace, hungry earth's embrace!" Kaizen's katana lashed out from within his robes and projected another wave of rust laced with orange leaves. She'd seen it several times by now, but Mikayla was still baffled that

rust

seemed to count as a type of elemental magic.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

She didn't really understand Kaizen's skillset, except that it seemed to mostly be themed around swordsmanship and

autumn

. Of course, on multiple occasions they had attempted to ask him to explain what exactly he could do, but . . the most recent response to that inquiry had been;

"I am as the wind that carries flakes of rotting bark, I am as the leaves that collect under your feet. The line that severs summer from autumn, the source of the gale that circles the world, the roots that wither to make way for new growth, those are the weapons wielded by the ronin that adorns itself with my humble prose,"

Whatever the orange light really was - whether rust, decay, the manifest essence of autumn or something even more esoteric - the Raiju was not immune to it. It aborted its attack, dodging the wave of light and retreating, putting some distance between it and the menacing orange light. It leapt into the air again, flipping forward as its tail swelled with lightning, even though it was too far away to land a blow. It crashed into the ground seemingly ineffectually.

Mikayla should have known better, because two seconds later an explosion of lightning came from beneath Kaizen's feet, launching him into the air as a twitching, spastic mess. His Armour disintegrated before he even hit the ground, and Mikayla caught a glimpse of the Huntsman as he made an impossible jump to catch the samurai student.

The Raiju picked itself up and glared at Mikayla with its empty eye sockets, but there was a burst of technicolor magic behind it and Banki appeared. "Stealth Field!" she shouted a warning, and Mikayla winced sympathetically as the cloud of dizzying lights and loud noises enveloped the Raiju.

For a few seconds, everything was loud and chaotic, and she saw several of her classmates fall in around her, warily watching the cloud of overstimulation.

Then Suoyou Deng burst out of it with a squeal from Banki and the Raiju nipping at her heels. Treft moved to cover her, playing a discographic melody on his High Keytar that somehow flowed around Banki and only hit the Raiju, making it stagger.

Sendo was close enough to take advantage, throwing herself in and shrinking midway through her somersault. She landed at normal human size in a full sprint, running underneath the creature's chin and then surging upwards as her Moonlight Rose - distinguished from Nya and Irin's versions by the yellow colour of Sendo's aura - grew to full size again, driving a dagger into the Raiju's neck. The Bloodletting Bebut was the Rosebush Huntress' backup weapon, and it glowed with a black energy that Mikayla recognised as a poison-afflicting Engraving. Nya and Sendo didn't use it often, but it was their answer to defences like that of the Raiju.

The monster's paws slid together as it reared up to mitigate the damage, and a pearl of thunder erupted where they met.

Sendo took the blow point-blank and didn't stand a chance, her Armour was already shattering as she went flying. Mikayla gasped. That wouldn't have killed her. Surely not. Right?

The blur that was the Huntsman caught her, and a crackle of lightning reminded Mikayla that it was too soon to be worrying about anyone but herself. The Raiju roared, gale-force winds beating against the Black Knight. This time, Mikayla was ready, bracing herself. Banki and Treft were blown away again, and she drove her sword into the ground to stabilise herself.

All at once, the world came into sharp contrast. Her body felt stronger, more resistant, the fog of battle fatigue cleared from her mind and intricate patterns wove their way into the Black Knight. A confused glance around gave her a glimpse of Marauder in the Raiju's blind spot. Sekki had both hands outstretched and was focusing his vast arsenal of enhancement spells on her.

"Now, lass! There is no better time to make our foe rue this day for the rest of its miserable life!" Nocturnus barked.

"Couldn't have said it better myself," Mikayla grinned. With the new strength surging through her body, she ripped her sword back out of the ground and reached for the ineffable storage of energy somewhere inside her.

She spoke the words aloud, invoking the Divine Technique. "When Many Hands Wield One Blade!"

Ribbons of light appeared, linking her to all eleven of her classmates, wherever they were. Each one was white at first, but once the tethers were connected they changed to the colour of their target's aura. Keldryn's orange and Nya's purple were the first and fastest to come, rapidly followed by Lydia's sand-coloured Mana and Banki's neon pink. Geum's deep crimson and Sekki's inky black, Irin's turquoise and Sendo's yellow, the copper of Geri and the green from Treft. A second dose of darker orange from Kaizen sealed the deal, and Mikayla's own strings of bright red wove it all together.

She threw herself forwards, spinning the blade in her hands and delivering an upwards swing that the Raiju dodged away from. The pillar of light erupting from her sword washed across its side, leaving a glowing scorch mark, but the Raiju was already bouncing to the right and lunging with its jaws wide, going for a desperate counterattack.

With speed that she knew she didn't normally possess, Mikayla managed to get the glowing blade pointed at its mouth. She yelled incoherently as she drove the shining sword into its head.

Rainbow light flashed through the Raiju's guts, ripping its body apart from the inside out. It twitched and choked out a half-strangled growl, but Mikayla kept pushing, forcing the weapon down and further through the monster's guts until its tip emerged from the beast's belly and kissed the dirt underfoot. "Mana Assistance, sword to size twenty!"

Her Sword swelled, unfolding in every dimension, and the Raiju unceremoniously exploded.

[YOU HAVE EARNED XP POINTS FOR KILLING A RAIJU!]

[LEVEL UP! CONGRATULATIONS, YOU ARE NOW LEVEL 28!]

[WHEN MANY HANDS WIELD ONE BLADE (Basic) HAS IMPROVED TO: WHEN MANY HANDS WIELD ONE BLADE (Intermediate)!)

Mikayla let out a brief cackle at the notification. Now that she was only fighting for her life once a week rather than every day, her levels had been coming much more slowly. It felt good that her XP bar had finally ticked over. And she'd even managed to improve her proficiency with her Divine Technique, too! Channeling that much power had been an eye-opening experience. She was getting

strong.

"Okay, seriously," she took long, heavy breaths, stabilising herself and straightening up. "Jeez. Stabbing something in the mouth and then making the sword huge is becoming my signature move. At this rate I'll need a Technique specifically to make that more effective,"

"Oh, mother of learning," Nocturnus sounded choked up. "My apprentice already has her own signature move? And such a grisly one too! This is a joyous day! Bards will sing of the gore you leave in your wake! I'm so proud!"

"Oh shut up, you bloodthirsty old coot," Mikayla stifled a chuckle.

"Fine, fine. Still, I am impressed by how skilful you are becoming," Nocturnus rumbled during the moment of privacy they had while her classmates were catching up. "School has done wonders for you,"

". . That was awesome," Mikayla murmured to herself. "I feel like I shouldn't say this. I just killed an animal. And I had a blast doing it. It was fun,"

"That is good," Nocturnus assured her. "It means that you are really starting to live in this world,"

She wasn't sure when it had happened, but somehow, Mikayla didn't have a problem with that. All she could feel was satisfaction. "Yeah. I guess this is my life now,"

The Black Knight shrank to normal size and she let it fizzle into red sparks, just in time for her classmates to catch up.

"That was entirely adequate, well done!" Nya's tone oozed smug satisfaction.

Mikayla rolled her eyes affectionately. "Love you too, you incorrigible tryhard,"

"Whoo! Great show! Round of applause!" Banki cheered.

"Looks like you get the monster bits after all. Good luck with your Neidan," Geri offered, looking thoughtful. Mikayla nodded her appreciation.

"I suppose it wasn't bad, for a human," Geum sniffed.

"Then you can just do better than that next week," Keldryn defended, leering at the heir.

"He's right. Don't talk down when you can't keep up," Sekki ribbed his roommate. "Though, I have to ask. What even was that final Technique you used? It looked like you were draining something from us all, but I didn't feel like I lost anything,"

"It's something the faeries gave me. I think it draws from the positive emotions you associate with me? Or something?" Mikayla offered a half-truth. "Have I told you guys about my friend Asika? The one who makes custom Techniques as a hobby? She sometimes gives me stuff like that to test out. It's kind of a win-win scenario. I get awesome moves and she gets feedback on how well they work,"

"It was a total show stopper, I love it," Banki was enthused, and small conjured lights bounced around her hands in a crude imitation of what Mikayla had done. "Like, seriously, it looked incredible! Have you ever considered performing?"

Mikayla blinked. "Huh? Uh, no, why?"

"Because I've been looking for a grand finale for the two-hundredth anniversary performance, and I think I just found it!"