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

There was a child, a yaoguai, collapsed in front of them, coated in soot and weakly coughing.

Mikayla gasped, rushing over to her. "Oh gosh. Are you okay? Did you inhale the smoke?" The little girl had matted hair tied back by dirty twine and skin that looked orange behind the layer of ash. Her horns were stubby, their tips already fading to a darker orange, and she was dressed in a shawl so ragged that it had only been improved by the ash.

The child coughed a bit as Mikayla helped her up, and glassy yellow eyes peered up at her. "Wh-who're you?" she drawled, her voice huskier than Mikayla would have expected, which she put down to smoke inhalation.

"I'm Mikayla. And this is Nya. What's your name?" Mikayla offered what she hoped was a friendly smile.

The little girl struggled and squirmed until Mikayla let her go, and stumbled away, tail curled protectively around her waist. She made a noise, "Shao," and it took Mikayla a second to realise that had been a name, not a cough.

"Shao? That's your name?"

"Uh-huh,"

Mikayla tore off a chunk of her sleeve and offered it. "Here, breathe through this. You'll cough less,"

Shao hesitated, but then snatched it from her hand.

"It's dangerous around here. Do you have somewhere to go? Do you know where your parents are?"

A sour expression twisted Shao's face. "Nope,"

"Well, when did you last see them?"

"Been a long time. Years. Dunno," Shao was still backing away.

Mikayla swallowed a gasp of horror. She'd already confirmed that yaoguai aged at the same rate as humans. Shao couldn't have been more than eight years old.

Nya caught her hand. "She's a street rat. We can't do anything for her,"

"Of course we can! We can at least keep her safe from the fire! Take her to the police, or to an orphanage, somewhere she'll be safe!" Mikayla insisted.

"I'm not going to 'orphanage'!" Shao suddenly screamed, turning and bolting.

Towards the fire.

"Wha - no, wait!" Mikayla shouted, chasing after her.

"Mikayla - oh, honoured ancestor, spare me these fools," Nya groaned, chasing after her roommate.

Shao was fast. Faster than Mikayla had ever expected an eight-year-old could be. That had to be the Ataraxian System at work. Had the child put every single point in Agility? Actually, that made sense, if she was a street urchin it was probably the Stat that made the most difference to her survival.

Shao juked into an alleyway, and Mikayla followed, squeezing past boxes and rubbish in pursuit. Shao jumped into the side door of a house, but the sound of it being slammed shut alerted Mikayla and she forced it open with the sound of a lock breaking.

The house was empty, thankfully, and Mikayla chased through a kitchen, down a hallway and back out through the front door. Shao was already on the other side of the alleyway, still drawing closer to the smoke.

"Slow down! She's baiting you into an ambush! That's what urchins do!" Nya panted.

"She's running

towards the fire!"

Mikayla retorted. Nya's theory would be plausible at any other time, but right now?

They followed her around a corner and then into another alleyway.

For a moment, they caught a glimpse of Shao running away, but then a chunk of burning debris fell from the roofs above and blocked their path.

Mikayla's heart leapt into her throat. She hadn't noticed any fire from the street - were they already within the arsonist's area? Looking up confirmed it; the straw roofs of the cheap buildings were on fire. It was spreading, and the homeless child had just rushed into the danger zone.

In a wave of red Mana, the Black Knight wrapped around her body and she smashed straight through the debris, the flames parting around her Armour. As soon as they were past the flames, she dismissed her protection again. She didn't want to scare Shao with her spiky black helmet.

Actually, wasn't the Black Knight basically the equivalent of Satan to the City of Roses? She'd never really cared about that before, but it suddenly felt very relevant. She quietly resolved to apologise to Nocturnus later, he was probably disoriented by blipping in and out of existence like that.

They rushed through another alleyway, emerging from the other end - and promptly getting hit by a thrown potted plant. "Stop chasing me!" Shao shouted at them from a windowsill up above, then vanished back into the building.

"She doesn't want our help. We can't force her," Nya reasoned as Mikayla entered the building and found a set of stairs. Shao briefly appeared at the top, then turned right back around, and Mikayla guessed she was making for the window again.

"She is a child! And everything is on fire! She's not safe! She needs our help!" Mikayla shouted, rushing up the stairs and spotting Shao at the windowsill again, climbing over it and about to jump to the street below.

Shao hesitated, looking back at them.

Mikayla slowed, still advancing, holding her palms up soothingly. "It's okay. I want to help you. It's not safe here,"

"Why?"

"Huh?"

Shao's tail lashed as she glared at the two students. "Adults don't

help

. They shout and call me names and throw things at me. None of them

helped

. So," Her expression cracked a bit, a hint of the pain in her voice appearing. "Why?"

Mikayla faltered. "Because it's the right thing to do," she said, before she could even consider whether or not that was what Shao needed to hear.

"The . . right thing?" Shao sounded confused by the very concept.

"And because the people in this city are cowards," Nya asserted.

"Huh?" Mikayla knew it was Shao who'd said it, but she mirrored the sentiment. What did Nya mean by that?

"Hey, listen to me," Nya prefaced. "Outside this city, in that direction," she pointed, "there's a big wall. And on the other side are monsters. Real monsters, that eat people. The people who live around here are afraid of monsters. And sometimes . ." She paused for a moment, sudden realisation filling her face. "Sometimes being afraid of what might happen makes people say or do bad things,"

Nya forged onwards. "But me and her, we fight them. So if you're asking what makes us different from the people who live in this city? It's because we're

not

afraid, because we're brave enough to go out there and do the right thing. And we still want to do the right thing even when we're here, and not out there,"

Shao's eyes widened. Mikayla wasn't sure whether to applaud or facepalm, and refrained from both for fear of startling Shao. Of all the times and all the ways that Nya's superiority complex could come in clutch.

"Is that how it is?" Shao mumbled. "Then . . what are you gonna do?"

"Well, firstly, get you away from the fire. It's dangerous," Mikayla weighed in.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"No it's not. The fire's great! It's really pretty, and it makes everyone run away and they don't try to stop me from eating," the young yaoguai insisted.

"Yes, but that's because the fire could kill them. And it could kill you too,"

"No it won't. Fire solves problems," Shao petulantly insisted.

"How about you let us try solving your problems instead, just for today," Mikayla pressed.

"Mm . ." Shao squinted at them suspiciously, but climbed down from the windowsill and hesitantly approached them. "How are you gonna solve problems then?"

"Well, we'll start by -" Mikayla turned around, only to witness a muffled boom. The room containing the staircase they'd just come up had collapsed, replaced by a raging inferno. "Getting out of here and finding somewhere safe,"

"Oh, great," Nya groaned. Moonlight Rose was already wrapping around her.

Mikayla winced, then glanced back to the window. It was now their best chance of escape from the burning building. "Shao, stand back," She raised her hand, and her Sword appeared, woven from red and silver Mana.

Shao gasped. "That's so cool!"

Dragging the hardlight blade through the frame, Mikayla widened the window and knocked the glass panes out into the road. "Okay, Shao, hold on tight. I'm going to jump down," She crouched, offering the child her back.

"What's this?"

"It's called a qua-

piggyback ride

," Mikayla heard Nya's words distort as her translation filter parsed them. "You sit here and wrap your arms and legs around her,"

"Oh. Okay!"

Gripping Shao with her hands and making sure she was held tight, Mikayla forced her way out through the hole she'd made and jumped down. A moment later, Nya followed.

There was a crash behind them that told them they'd barely escaped in time. "Uh, whoops," Shao muttered for some reason.

"Alright, let's -" Mikayla cut herself off, seeing that part of the building had collapsed, blocking the part of the alley that would have taken them away from the fire with burning debris. She and Nya could probably force their way through it in their Armour, but not while carrying Shao. "Go this way," she decided instead, carrying Shao out into the street.

With no immediate threats, they relaxed a bit, and Mikayla let a squirming Shao down. "This way, we should be able to find a way out," Nya declared, adding in a whisper, "Keep her talking and distracted, if she panics and runs again it'll be trouble,"

"Got it," Mikayla agreed, keeping one eye on Shao as they made their way down the street, searching for another alleyway and moving away from the blaze. "So, Shao. You said you don't want to go to an orphanage? Why not?"

"Been to one before," Shao said moodily. "It sucked. The adults were mean. They made me make things, but I dunno how, and they wouldn't let me eat if I screwed up. Was called Florie-something,"

"Florian's?" Nya guessed. "I remember that name . . It was one of the first places that was destroyed by the serial arsonist,"

Mikayla's horror at what sounded like a child sweatshop was promptly replaced by the horror of

literally setting fire to an orphanage.

That was a cartoonish level of evil. Who did that?!

"It was only good when it was on fire," Shao mulishly asserted, ignorant of Mikayla's expression.

"The Florian Orphanage burned down twenty months ago. Have you been on the streets since then?" Nya asked.

"Uh-huh. Some of the other kids from there too. And others. But we don't get along. There's not enough food. And they don't like me," Shao whined.

Nya gulped. "I see,"

"Here. Let's go this way," Mikayla breathed a sigh of relief. They had come to another alleyway. Shao nodded, running ahead, and the two students followed her.

The street had been bad enough, but with the fire this close, Mikayla was struggling to breathe. The smoke was everywhere, filling the sky. An ominous red glow was building at the end of the alleyway, but hopefully -

She couldn't even finish the thought before the opening onto the next street was engulfed in flame.

Shao squeaked in surprise, and Mikayla grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back. "Oh, stars stars stars. Run. Run!"

The wind kicked up, stirred by the flames, and the inferno advanced down the alleyway, spitting cinders that caught on the trash and rubbish around them. A pile of boxes collapsed as they caught alight, blocking their escape for a moment. "Oh no. Shao, stay there for a second! I'll clear this!" Summoning her Armour again, Mikayla started shoving them aside, stomping on the burning weeds and trying to clear a safe path.

Nya moved to help her, but Mikayla waved her off. "No, protect Shao!"

She nodded, stepping back as Shao looked between the oncoming flames and the Black Knight clearing the path. "What's wrong?"

Mikayla's eye twitched. Shao's ignorance of her own mortality was getting a bit grating. "The fire will kill us if we get trapped in it!"

"No it won't!" Shao smiled and raised her arms.

And they caught aflame.

A steady stream of burning energy erupted from her hands, crashing into the oncoming inferno and pushing it back. Shao laughed, a high-pitched and disturbing cackle, overpowering the fire and making them rage higher, more furiously, but back in the direction they'd come. The sheer force of her blast stalled their advance even as the flames raged higher.

Mikayla and Nya stared, jaws hanging open.

". . what was that?" Mikayla finally mustered.

"Fire solves problems!" Shao brightly explained. "And it feels good too!"

"You did that?" Mikayla looked around, staring up at the thick plumes of smoke that surrounded them. "You . . you made the fire?"

"Uh-huh,"

"Why?!"

"Well, I found a comfy box to sleep in tonight, but then this big rat came along and decided he wanted the box too. So I set him on fire. But the box also caught fire. And so did the house next to it," Shao summarised, gesturing in the direction of the fire. "It's sad, that was a good box. Not a good house, though. The lady who lives there likes to throw things at me. It's better now that it's on fire! Much more pretty!"

"And . . do you do that often? Use your fire?" Nya pressed.

"Uh-huh! Fire solves problems! If someone tries to hit me, I set them on fire. If I can't get through a door, the fire opens the way for me! And when people chase me because I took their food, they always stop chasing me once I throw some fire at them," Shao sulked. "They shouldn't chase me in the first place. They always have lots of food and I don't have any. It's only fair,"

Mikayla and Nya exchanged a look. "Oh, stars," Realisation filled Nya's expression. "

She's

the serial arsonist,"