kafnine time

Here are some of my headcanons regarding Defece Force and superstitions considering that emergency responders (and sports people) are one of THE most superstitious people (the dreaded Q word?) I bet my right arm that there is TONS of rituals, shrines practices all of Defence Force practices before deployment. Some being similar or different between Divisions.

(I remember a story about an Oracle Coffee pot that would decide military deployment for some American soldiers xD)

Defence Force is the pillar of Japanese protection against kaiju. They are also THE MOST superstitious people in the entire country. There are lucky shirts, lucky underwear, old plushies, hair ties.

I bet every year the seniors make a bet which rookie gonna say the Q word on a routine recon mission (it was officially Haruichi but it also happened to Hakua once).

Hoshina's blade cleaning ritual was also such ritual for him to predict the day. Operators make offerings to the server gods in order to keep everything running.

3rd secretly stealing scales from Kafka and keeping them as "good luck", or maybe giving him a pat on the back/ass xDDD (srsly where is HR). Same for Bakko lost whiskers. The officers who get a sniff or rub from Bakko were somehow the luckiest in the field so people started trying to lure the tiger to them. Soldiers started reading Narumi's expression during the ride to Neutralisation sites while he played his games bc it said their luck. Narumi himself would always play this one old game as some of the glitches began to forsee the success. Ogata spins one of his empty sake bottles and if it goes in a wrong direction he announces a full division emergency suit up and stand by (fucker was never wrong).

Kafka himself carried over a lot of his superstitions from Monster Sweeper. After an injury on site he could tell weather but if it ached in just right way he could tell his luck. He has lucky socks. A t shirt that has seen better days but he swears up and down brings him luck. A horse Toku always would bet on but never won (the further behind the horse was in rating the luckier the day would be. The day before 9 disaster the horse for the first time won. Kafka was TERRIFIED).

Aoi also has his own set of superstitions bc he was first in military. So does Kikoru. Reno started gathering them when he joined Monster Sweepers, Iharu follows his pre exam routines. Akari and Haruichi were at first baffled but soon got their own.

Mina ofc also has her own but nobody knows what it is (Hoshina knows, you'd have to seriously bribe him to tell).

What do you guys think are some of the superstitions?

So i do think that at monster sweeper ther is a coffee machine right? It's so old it's been there longer than kafka and toku remember, but it always works *mostly* fine. If you slap it a certain way or bonk it a few times it will get goin

However.

If that coffee machine starts brewing with no hassle and problems, someone is getting injured that day. Everytime, without fail, that thing has worked like it was brand new instead of older than the building, someone got hurt.

And for a solid 3 weeks before chapter one of the manga, the coffee machine was working perfectly.

Moving on

Iharu has shark print underwear that he wears for evere neutralizatuon op and the one time he forgot them was the fungus kaiju operation. (I can't remember the name but it's the one that kafka got promoted b/c of helping with the fungi)

Reno has a locket with pictures of his family members i side that he kisses before each mission. (What no one else knows is that he added a picture of the third division rookies in there too)

Narumi has one specific console that he takes with him on neutralization ops and it's an old model that barely plays anything except for doom. If he gets under a certain number of kills than it's going to be a rough mission. (The console is a handheld that he jailbroke when he was like 15 and won't run anything else because of it.[it's the same handheld console from the b side manga if ur curious])

Not only does Hoshina have a blade routine, but he has a specific cloth that he refuses to throw away because even tho it's to ruined to use for cleaning, it's still on his person at all times.

And of course bakko the tiger is lucky for anyone he chooses, but it goes beyond that. See he is canonicly a kaiju half breed, and can sense when something bad will happen to a person, so he'll hang around them for good luck. (Before the cataclysm arc, he would not leave minas side for anything, and was constantly getting her to give headpets and belly rubs)

Haruichi uas a lucky hair tie. If he doesn't use it it's bad luck. He actually has a set of hairties that were a gift from his mother from when he first grew his hair out long enough to tie. He treats them like jade bangles, he uses one until it breaks or the elastic pops, and then he retires it to the shrine [see below] because it broke protecting him from bad luck.

The shrine is something kafka and reno brought with them from monster sweeper, and it's a little shelf in the barracks full of lucky items that can't be used anymore. There's broken mugs, stretched scrunchies, threadbare handkerchiefs, chains from jewelry that snapped, a random book on 17th century poetry that no one knows where it came from (*cough* Hoshina *cough*), even a little swatch of shark printed fabric similar to iharus lucky drawers (sourced responsibly from a fabric shop instead of from it's owner, thanks kikoru), thers a little 6x8 oil painting of bakko, even a rare one of a kind wallet picture of the Vice Captain with his eyes open that mysteriously appeared after a joint training operation with the Sixth Division.

And of course, inside the "shrine" (which is actually a little footlocker from an unused bed) and are pictures of Former Second Division Captain Shinomiya and the late Director General Shinomiya. There's also a photo of Renos entire extended family that was taken when he was a baby, a few pictures of Aois squadron taken at different points in time, and a little roll of medical gauze that looks a few years old, but unused.

And Joke for @idocreative

The Sweeper Crew: *Stands in front of the Coffee Machine looking incredibly worried, almost fearful*

Tokuda: THAT THING... Has been turning on.... for three straight days..... and nothing has happened...

Hiroto: There's no way it will just turn on straight away again for the fourth day in the row...right?

Ichitaka: Only one way to find out... *reaches out and touches the button*

Coffee Machine: *Turns on right away*

Hiroto and Ichitaka: *jumps into Tokuda's arms screaming*

I had, Kikoru brain rot. SO have her and also no. 15

WHEN ANCIENT ENEMIES COLLIDE, KOHACHAN APPEARS!!!

HUMANITY'S FIGHTING SPIRIT AND ITS OLDEST FOE BRING FORTH THE MOST POWERFUL FORCE EARTH WILL EVER SEE!!!

and it's so CUTE???

i know nine is calculating and cold, unable to empathise with humans (and why should it? humanity has dissected and bastardised the corpses of its kin for centuries), but the constant questioning of other human attributes and nine's admiration of humanity makes me feel some type of way.

especially when it asks kafka, or rather kaiju no.8, what is love? the parasite in kafka is driven by hate and a desire for vengeance. nine was driven by the meireki era daikaiju that was the source of this vengeance, but also a desire for understanding. it's why the two kaiju are drawn to each other..

with parts of nine now kept deep under the ariake base i think the defense force is going to use nine to ressurect its numbered children just enough to be used as weapons.

and i honestly think the meireki era daikaiju did the same to nine to make those children, using nine to bring long dead kaiju back to produce them. nine wanted to escape the daikaiju as well.

it might be selfish to use its children to find an escape, especially with how no.9 pushed no.15. but that's what no.9 thought love was.... i guess until kafka showed kikoru what a proud father figure looked like