Wooo—Wooo—Wooo—
The piercing air-raid sirens suddenly blared!
Osaka.
Nagoya.
Sapporo.
Fukuoka.
Every city, every air-raid siren, sounded at the exact same moment!
On the streets, the people marching in protest froze.
"What's going on?!"
Someone raised his head and looked toward the sky.
Then he saw—
Countless points of light, trailing long plumes of flame, pierced through the atmosphere and fell toward the entire Footpan Chicken archipelago like an apocalyptic meteor shower!
"What are those?!"
"Meteors?"
"H-how could there be... so... so many..."
One enormous fireball was rapidly plummeting toward Mount Fuji!
At the foot of Mount Fuji, the people who had been marching fanatically just moments ago now stood rooted to the spot, staring blankly at the fireball drawing ever closer.
Someone's legs gave out, and he dropped to his knees.
"Great... Great Mount Fuji..."
More people fell to their knees.
They pressed their palms together and muttered:
"Gods, protect us... Gods, protect us..."
The fireball drew closer and larger, carrying an aura capable of destroying everything as it crashed straight into Mount Fuji's crater!
It vanished into that bottomless volcanic mouth.
A brief, deathly silence.
The crowd stared in stunned disbelief.
"There was no explosion?"
"The meteor... fell into the volcano?"
Someone jumped up excitedly.
"Great Mount Fuji has shown its divine power! The gods caught the meteor!"
More people began cheering, and some even shed tears of excitement.
"Great Mount Fuji bless Footpan Chicken!"
"The gods haven't abandoned us!"
They knelt on the ground and frantically kowtowed toward Mount Fuji.
Then—
Rumble rumble rumble rumble rumble—
A deep sound rose from beneath the earth.
It grew louder and closer, as though something were awakening from the depths of the planet.
The ground began to tremble.
At first, it was only a faint shaking, but then it became