Chương 110: 43.Operation

"Hoshino, shut up." When Maki Kushima dropped that line, I was gearing up to deliver another deathbed-quality comment about how she'd finally discovered normal human volume. Instead, a pair of scissors slid into my peripheral vision. Not into me—into the seam of my armor buckle. Snick. The section of outer armor on my left side, already glued into one mass by blood and sweat, got sheared away in one pass.

"Fuck—hey, at least give me a warning first!"

"I am warning you," she said, not looking up, voice faster than usual but hands terrifyingly steady.

"Harvey, lights. Jess, hold her right shoulder. D, secure her lower body. Akari, pass your medical kit. Large saline bottle too."

"Copy."

"Yeah, yeah."

"Incoming."

"… Mm." A cluster of responses dropped at once, and the bunker turned into that particular kind of activity I hate most—obnoxious but abnormally efficient. Outside, the firestorm was slamming into the outer walls in layers, the whole shelter resonating with a low drone like a steel beast welded into the earth. When Harvey snapped the main room lights on, they were white enough to be brutal, exposing every streak of sweat, ash, and exhaustion on every face.

The air reeked of metal, hot mud, coagulant, and blood—that distinctive military academy blend that was hard to mistake for anything else. D dropped to one knee beside my legs, one hand on my thigh, the other bracing my knee.

"Don't move, squad lead."

"You say that like I've ever been cooperative."

"Good time to start learning." Jess crouched on my right and actually pinned my shoulder down. She usually talked like she was filing her nails on someone's nerves, but right now she was stingy with words—just a low click of her tongue.

"You really know how to pick your spots."

"Thanks. I was aiming for the head, but I figured dying that stupid would undermine the educational value."

"Shut up," Maki and Jess said simultaneously. I couldn't help laughing, then pain ripped up my side along my ribs and my vision went white for a second. Great. Still alive. Still capable of regret. When Maki peeled back the ruined armor panel, I finally got a clear look at the wound. Not a bullet hole—more like a training-grade high-pressure mag-spike or retention bolt, driven in at a diagonal through the lower left abdomen, with only a short dark grey metal tail sticking out.

Burn-scrape marks on the surrounding armor edge. The bleeding wasn't spraying, just flowing steadily and professionally—like it had long-term plans for draining me. Maki took one look and went another shade colder. Which was remarkable. She started cold; apparently there was still another refrigerator setting below that.

"We don't pull it directly," she said.

"Wow, thrilled you still retain basic medical literacy today." She finally looked up at me once.

"Hoshino."

"Fine, I'm shutting up," I said immediately.

"Temporarily." Akari slid a medical kit across the floor, then settled back against the door with her rifle across her knees, expression unchanged. Dead-fish eyes had a genuinely stabilizing effect in situations like this. Looking at her made you feel like even if the world detonated in the next second, she'd just say oh, explosion and file it away. The support boy beside her was organizing supplies and water; the girl held position at the inner door, checking the monitoring window at intervals.

Both quiet—quiet enough to stay completely out of the way. Good. Support personnel should have the professional awareness to know when they're furniture. Harvey shifted the portable lamp three centimeters right. Maki, without looking up: "Left a little. Good, stop." She knew where the light was wrong without raising her head. I was genuinely starting to wonder if she ran spreadsheets in her sleep.

"Wound track angles inward and upward," she said, cutting through the inner fabric layer like she was reading from a report.

"If the mag-spike tail has reverse barbs, direct extraction will widen the injury. Need to confirm depth first, then decide the cut direction." D glanced from me to her.

"She going to hold?"

"She's still talking back. She won't die in the short term," Maki said. I was about to object to that diagnostic standard when Jess laughed first.

"I like that criteria."

"Christ." Maki pulled on thin gloves, took the scanning strip Harvey handed her, and swept it around the wound perimeter. A blurred metal outline appeared on her wrist display. She read it fast, then her brow drew together—slightly. Very slightly. Slight enough that most people probably wouldn't catch it. But I was lying right here, close enough to notice whether her breathing changed by half a beat. This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. Annoying.

"How bad?" I asked.

"Lucky," she said.

"You don't sound like you're talking about luck."

"Because it's only relatively lucky," she said, voice flat as always.

"No deep abdominal penetration, but it's wedged between muscle layer and armor fragments. It has to come out. The process will hurt."

"…So your version of reassurance is advance notice of torture."

"More effective than lying to you about it."

"I agree with that," Akari said unexpectedly from the door. I looked over at her. She was looking back, dead-fish eyes like two pieces of grey glass with nothing behind them.

"Every time someone tells me it won't hurt, it always hurts a lot right after," she said.

"Thank you for that valuable life philosophy."

"You're welcome." Great. This new squad wasn't exactly a convention of normal people either. Maki laid out the local anesthetic spray and syringe, moving fast enough that it felt like she was afraid if she slowed down I'd grow legs and leave.

"Limited anesthetic," she said.

"Localized suppression only. You won't be completely numb."

"So I'm going to experience very textured pain."

"Yes."

"I suddenly miss when you didn't like joining conversations." She ignored that and started disinfecting. The first swab hit and I nearly launched off the floor. Not heat—sting. Like someone had poured a basin of alcohol designed specifically for humiliation straight into my nerve endings. D and Jess pinned me down simultaneously.

"Don't fight it," D said, low.

"I know, I know—fuck, who's supposed to just sit through this—""You are," Maki said quietly.

"Hoshino. Look at me." I was going to ask why would I do that, but I looked up anyway. She was just above me, forehead slick with sweat in the light. Still that infuriatingly calm face, jaw set, but her eyes were more focused than usual—focused enough that it felt like the only thing in this entire bunker worth her attention was this ruined patch of my left side. That feeling was uncomfortable. Not because of the pain. Because being looked at like that made you feel like you might actually be worth something.

"… Hurry up," I finally managed. She made a small sound and administered the local anesthetic. The next several minutes, my sense of time lost all structural integrity. The firestorm kept slamming the outer wall; the lights trembled with each impact. The bunker air grew hotter—eight people breathing each other's recycled oxygen. Harvey passed instruments with mechanical efficiency. Jess held me down and occasionally swore, but her grip was steadier than I'd expected.

D was just a wall—my lower body wasn't going anywhere. Akari sat by the door, glancing over at intervals, somehow always having the right tool ready before Maki asked for it. They were working together too smoothly. It actually irritated me. Made it feel like my survival had suddenly become some kind of group project.

"Scissors," Maki said. Harvey passed them.

"Forceps." Akari passed them.

"Light, right." Jess reached over and adjusted it.

"Hoshino, don't contract your abdomen."

"Easy for you to—fuck—" That one I actually yelled. She'd made a small incision at the wound edge. Not large. Just enough. But the pain had no logic to it—like someone with a very thin knife was slowly finding their way around inside you, politely reminding you every few seconds: yes, this is still your body. The sweat on my forehead could have watered a garden.

"Almost there," Maki said.

"That line has about the same credibility as Academic Affairs."

"Then believe it once today." She caught the grey tail end with the forceps tip and paused for half a second. That half-second. Short. Really short. Short enough that if I weren't currently feeling like a fish nailed to a cutting board, I might not have noticed. The pause didn't look like hesitation. It looked like making sure the next step couldn't go wrong. Then she drew one quiet breath.

"Harvey, pressure ready."

"Jess, hold her on three."

"D, don't let go."

"Hoshino—" She said my name. Not Frost 01. Not team lead. Not anything that existed on a roster. Just Hoshino.

"Yeah?"

"Bite down." She pressed a small folded piece of cloth to my mouth. I stared at her for one second, then pathetically bit down. The next second, she moved. The moment it came out, my vision went completely white. Not visual—neurological. Like someone had used a red-hot hook to drag something vital out of my side, and I didn't even have time to arrange my curses in order—just a muffled, deeply undignified sound from my throat.

"Pressure!" Harvey's compress went on immediately. Maki's hands moved like she'd choreographed every step that followed. Flush, extract fragments, control bleeding. She worked and reported in short bursts.

"Barbs didn't fully deploy. Two fragments. Bleeding manageable." I was biting down on the cloth, breathing like someone had just pulled me out of deep water. Vision blurring, I could only see that her eyelashes hadn't even flickered, but her fingers were smeared red. Strange. The first complete thought my brain managed to form wasn't that hurt or I might be dying. It was: She actually went through with it. She normally looks like walking paperwork.

When it actually mattered, she took apart my abdomen without blinking. Genuinely terrifying. Another heavy impact outside. The whole bunker groaned. The support girl at the inner door turned: "Outer wall temperature still rising. Door lock has entered seventy-two hour sealed cycle." I closed my eyes for a moment. Right. Almost forgot that particular piece of good news. Once an official shelter bunker sealed, it didn't open again for seventy-two hours. Which meant— All eight of us.

Locked in this tin can for the next three days. Firestorm outside. Inside: blood loss, limited water, an unfamiliar squad, and Maki Kushima having just used my left abdomen as a practical exam. The Federation really deserved an award for this quality of hospitality.

"Clean," Maki finally said, quietly. I opened my eyes and watched her drop the bloodied mag-spike into a metal tray. Ting. Small sound. But something in my chest unknotted at it. When she started suturing, her movements were steadier than before. Not the showy kind of steady—the kind where you could tell there wasn't a single wasted thought in her head, just how does this close, how does this compress, how does this person stay intact. She'd always looked like a ruler.

Now she looked more like a blade that had seen blood and wasn't going to acknowledge it. Jess looked down at me, voice slightly quieter than before.

"Hey, Frost 01. Still with us?" I spat out the cloth and caught my breath.

"…Still here. Unfortunately for you, you still have to listen to me." She rolled her eyes, but her shoulders visibly dropped.

"What a tragedy." D looked down at me too, mouth pulling sideways.

"Still obnoxious. You'll be fine." Akari sat by the door, rifle in her arms, and added flatly: "I said earlier she wouldn't die in the short term."

"Do you and Maki come off the same assembly line?" I asked. She considered it.

"Possibly different production lines," she said.

"But both low on emotional overhead."

"…That's an impressively irritating answer."

"Thank you." Maki tied off the last suture and applied the pressure strip. Then she finally peeled off her gloves. When she stood up, her shoulders dropped—just slightly. Just once. Like a wire held too long finally allowing itself half a centimeter of slack. I saw it. I didn't say anything. Because if I said were you nervous just now, she would probably suture me back up and seal my mouth in the same pass. She looked down at me, back to that infuriating calm face.

"You won't die for now. No significant movement for the next twenty-four hours. No lifting. No being stubborn about it." I pulled my mouth sideways.

"That last one is specifically targeted at me."

"Not targeted. Preventive." A pause.

"And necessary."

"…Fine. You're the one who did the surgery. You're in charge."

"Wrong," Jess cut in immediately.

"That door is in charge. For the next seventy-two hours, it makes the rules." Two seconds of silence in the bunker. Because everyone knew she was right. D settled against the wall, set the reinforced shield panel beside his boot, and exhaled a long breath of hot air.

"So," he said, looking at me, then at the other three of Team 144.

"Next three days, the eight of us need to figure out how not to kill each other first."

"Congratulations on identifying the objective," I said. Akari set her rifle aside, dead-fish eyes sweeping the room.

"Then we sort sleeping positions, water, and watch rotation first," she said.

"Otherwise someone steps on someone's foot in the night and it turns into a fight, and that would be stupid." I looked at the group of people who had just pulled me out of a ravine ambush and a firestorm, side still throbbing in slow pulses, brain gradually coming back online. Second week, day three. The Federation had very thoughtfully updated the curriculum again— A shelter with a live door wasn't necessarily anything like sanctuary. Sometimes it just locked you in with more problems.

I leaned back against the hot wall, closed my eyes, and opened them again.