The long night passed, and as the lighting in the captain’s quarters brightened slightly, the sound of hesitant footsteps came from beyond the heavy door.
The captain quietly opened the door so as not to wake the sleeping Luka. Standing there was Kai — with none of the usual boisterous energy anywhere to be found. In his hands, instead of the threatening black storage case from the day before, was a single small white box.
“…Captain, how is Luka doing?”
Kai asked in a voice that had shrunk into itself. The captain glanced once more at Luka, who was still sound asleep on the sofa, then let Kai into the captain’s quarters.
Kai tiptoed toward the sofa and looked down at Luka. Whatever he’d been bracing for must have been worse — Luka’s color wasn’t as bad as he’d feared, and Kai let out a long breath of relief.
“Phew, thank goodness…. Being with the captain seems to have calmed him down.”
The captain smiled faintly at that.
“Obel hasn’t even come by yet to check on Luka’s condition — I didn’t expect you to get here first.”
“Ah… the truth is, I came to bring this.”
Kai set the box he had been cradling down on the floor and opened the lid to show what was inside.
It was a prosthetic. One of an entirely different form from the black chrome prosthetic that had failed to bond with Luka’s body the day before.
“This… I pulled this sample together overnight. Unlike the last one, I wanted to work with silver chrome — it’s easier to shape — and bring the size down a bit.”
True to his word, the new prosthetic was nearly the same length and thickness as Luka’s own arm. The leg, too, looked like it would connect to Luka’s body without any sense of wrongness.
“I’ve brought the Aethernos output down to the bare minimum, and coated the outer surface in bio-silicone. It can be calibrated to match human skin temperature exactly, and above all… the texture is similar to real skin.”
Kai set the slender prosthetic down beside Luka’s left hand. Instead of the cold, oppressive menace of the black metal from the medical bay, it had a soft appearance with the subtle warmth of skin tone.
“Watching Luka scream yesterday… I genuinely thought my heart had stopped. I was only ever thinking about Luka walking again and looking amazing — I never stopped to imagine what terror that thing would bring him. I felt so awful I couldn’t sleep.”
At Kai’s sincere apology, the captain’s eyes softened slightly. Just then, having heard the voices, Luka slowly opened his eyes.
He spotted Kai crouched near the head of the sofa and instinctively drew back. But when he saw the prosthetic Kai had set out, his body uncurled.
“…What’s that?”
No longer needing to keep his voice hushed, Kai cried out with his whole heart.
“Luka, I’m sorry! I was being too greedy about my own vision! This isn’t a weapon. It’s just… real arms and legs so you can walk again and touch the roses you love. Look — feel it, it’s not cold at all!”
Kai carefully pulled Luka’s left hand toward him and set it on the silicone surface of the prosthetic. Luka had been about to pull away, but his eyes went wide at the soft, warm sensation that met his fingertips. Not the burning, scalding energy from the day before — a still, quiet warmth.
“…It’s not mechanical?”
“It is mechanical — but it’s a machine that thinks of your feelings first. If you hate it, I’ll never bring it back again. But… you said you wanted to do martial arts. I want to help.”
At Kai’s blunt but heartfelt sincerity, the corners of Luka’s eyes reddened again. The captain watched the two of them and quietly wrapped an arm around Luka’s shoulder.
“The choice is yours. No one on this ship will ever force pain on you.”
Luka touched and turned the sample prosthetic over in his hands for a long while. The fear was still there — but he didn’t want to turn his back on the captain and Kai, who had refused to give up on him.
I want to stand up on my own two legs, too.
He had decided to stop doubting the captain. Which meant the only thing left was to put his whole effort into being able to take care of his own body.
At last, Luka gave a nod.
“Okay… I’ll try.”
The captain and Kai smiled more brightly than they ever had before. More than anyone, they welcomed Luka’s decision to stop running from his fear and face it again.
“This is only a sample, but there’s no problem wearing it. Want to try connecting it? I’ll make fine adjustments whenever you feel any discomfort.”
“All right.”
Kai, markedly brighter at Luka’s response, called out.
“Captain! I’ll do a quick connection right here — that’s fine, isn’t it?”
The captain nodded.
“If Luka is willing, I have no reason to object.”
“Great, then let’s do this!”
The lighting in the captain’s quarters was kept deliberately low. It was the captain’s quiet consideration — an effort to erase the slash-like memory of what had happened under the harsh, cold light of the medical bay. With trembling hands, Kai took all the remaining bio-silicone-coated prosthetics out of the box.
“Phew — this time I’ve brought the Aethernos output down to 1%, so connecting without Obel is more than manageable. It’ll just feel like your nerves saying ‘hello.’ If it hurts, I’ll disconnect immediately. I promise.”
Kai’s voice carried none of the playfulness it usually had — it was grave in a way that left no room to search for it. Luka leaned deep into the captain’s arms and looked at his ‘new parts’ laid out on the sofa.
The fact of having machinery connected to him was still horrifying. But the warmth of the captain who had stayed by his side through the night, and Kai’s bloodshot eyes, slowly chipped away at that revulsion, piece by piece.
“…If it hurts like yesterday, I’m taking it off immediately.”
“Yes, yes! Of course! Just fling it across the room and smash it if you want!”
Kai called out boldly — yet the hand that brought the prosthetic toward the port on Luka’s right shoulder was careful and gentle. The captain held Luka’s left hand firmly and soothed him.
“I’m going to start the neural junction connection. Luka, it’ll feel a little tingly.”
Click.
Instead of yesterday’s sharp, cutting metallic sound, an almost imperceptibly soft mechanical bonding sound came. Luka instinctively stiffened and braced himself to scream.
But the pain he had endured yesterday did not come. Instead, a tingling, warm vibration — like waking from the deepest sleep — seeped from his shoulder up into the back of his mind.
“…Oh?”
A short sound of surprise escaped Luka’s lips.
“Luka, can you feel it? The synchronization signal is flowing very stably right now.”
It was exactly as Kai had described. The minute nano-neural networks extending from Luka’s shoulder port had begun to bond with the artificial nerves inside the prosthetic.
As warm artificial blood circulated through the slender tubes and filled them with heat, a pleasant tingling began to rise over the cross-section of Luka’s shoulder, which had been cold and numb.
Luka drew in a breath. A tiny electrical signal sent from his brain — curl the fingers — didn’t scatter into the air but traveled smoothly down its channel all the way to the tips of the fingers. It was a strange and unfamiliar sensation. Not a mechanical command, but something closer to a lost part of himself miraculously coming back to life.
“…This is incredible.”
Luka murmured as he curled his fingers closed. Beneath the silicone skin, the artificial muscles contracted with lifelike elasticity — just like a real person’s — forming faint creases. Instead of a cold metallic sound, only a soft, muffled friction of skin meeting skin came through quietly.
Luka raised his right hand and brought it to the captain’s cheek. The high-sensitivity tactile sensors embedded in his palm transmitted to Luka’s brain in real time — the texture of the captain’s skin, the feel of his fine hairs, and beyond that, the pulse beating underneath. It was data read by a machine, but what bloomed through Luka’s mind was the warmth of a living person itself.
It was not the function of a destructive weapon. It was the redemptive sensation of being able to touch and connect with another person as a human being again.
“Kai… thank you.”
At Luka’s quiet words of thanks, Kai finally wiped away the tears he had been holding back and sniffled.
“God, seriously… Luka, you’re the absolute best! Now let’s connect the legs too. Then today — right here in this room — you might be able to take about three steps!”
The captain wiped the sweat from Luka’s brow and held him deeper in his arms. As if yesterday’s despair had all been a lie, a flushed and eager color began to well up in Luka’s face.
When Kai finished connecting both legs — which he had spent the whole night carefully calibrating — Luka’s lower body was now covered in the unfamiliar silicone skin.
“All done!”
Kai announced proudly.
“Want to try standing up? Tell me if the neural response feels off at all!”
The captain first offered Luka his shoulder.
“All right, Luka. Hold onto me. Slowly — feel the weight of your body shifting down into the soles of your feet.”
Luka gripped the captain’s firm shoulder tightly, nerves written plainly all over him. Carefully — like an infant just learning to walk.
Thud.
The moment his soles touched the thick carpet, Luka’s brow furrowed slightly. The sensation transmitting to his brain was strange and new. It was different from the feel of real skin, but the servo motors were reading the texture of the soft carpet pile and sending back vibration signals in real time.
“It feels like the floor is pushing me back.”
“That’s because you don’t trust the floor yet. Luka — you remember the breathing we practiced here together, right? Gather your strength downward along the spine.”
Luka swallowed hard and closed his eyes. Nestled in the captain’s hold, he focused on nothing but his breath. Inhale, exhale. He imagined the air drawn deep into his lungs passing through his center of gravity and reaching all the way to the tips of toes that no longer existed.
In that moment, Luka quietly let go of the captain’s hand.
“Luka!”
Kai called his name like a scream — but Luka didn’t fall. Not only did he not fall, he was standing balanced in a stance that was peculiar and yet strangely graceful.
Knees bent ever so slightly, one foot drawn back at a diagonal, upper body held straight and tall. It was the most foundational horse-riding stance of the traditional martial arts he had learned at the academy.
