Chương 301: 127.I Nearly Lost You 2

No one spoke the whole way back. Not just me. Not even Jess. That alone said something. When Jess goes quiet, there are only two explanations: either she's asleep, or she's in too much pain to bother being a menace. This was clearly the second one. When the Yukikaze's recovery bay hatch opened in front of us, it didn't look like a hatch. It looked like a seam someone had cut through the floor of hell, just wide enough to drag us back into reality.

The airlock cycling, the pressure equalizing, the interior lights coming on one by one — familiar enough to make me want to laugh, and I didn't have the energy to spare for it. The moment my boots touched the Yukikaze's deck, my knees nearly went. Maki was still holding on to me, or I'd have gone down in front of the whole ship in a posture with zero redeeming qualities. Honestly, I'd already used up today's quota of looking bad. The inner door slid open and Ash was almost the first one through.

Actually through it. Moving fast. This is a man who, on a normal day, would straighten his cuffs before he opened his mouth to swear, even with the bridge on fire, the reactor seizing, and an Imperial fleet knocking at the door. Right now his stride was wrong and his color was worse, like he'd burned every scrap of composure he owned just to get here this fast.

"Hoshino, you're—" He stopped mid-sentence. Like someone had clubbed him across the side of the head. He wrenched his face away — a sharp, clumsy motion, nothing like him at all. I blinked, looked down, and understood immediately.... Right. My suit had given out. Not a figure of speech. Literally. The outer layer had already been torn open in the fight; everything since — dragged, pinned, slammed — had finished the job. What was left barely qualified as clothing anymore.

Out there, in the storm, in the blood and the dust and the alarm lights, there'd been no bandwidth to care. In here, under the Yukikaze's clean white lighting, the entire disaster was on full display. The front panel of the suit was essentially a combat casualty — nothing left but torn straps and the base layer underneath, making its own last, losing stand for whatever dignity I had left. A stand that was failing badly. Aida took one look at me. Her reaction beat the medical AI by a full second.

"All men. Out." She didn't raise her voice. Didn't slam anything. The lethality landed complete regardless. Ash stepped back at once. D, who'd been half-carrying Jess in, handed her off to an orderly without a single wasted word and turned on his heel. The two soldiers who'd come in with the recovery team were already backing out on pure reflex, turning, pulling the door shut behind them — a sequence smooth enough to suggest this wasn't the first time they'd been on the receiving end of exactly this order.

Only Ash glanced back once before he left. Brief. Short enough that he probably assumed no one caught it. It held confirmation, anger, delayed fear, and something oddly close to embarrassment — like he'd arrived fully prepared to be a proper captain, check the injuries, issue the orders, take hold of the situation, and reality had instead handed him an impossible scenario: look away right now, or you might be the next casualty. I should have found that funny. I couldn't.

Aida was already crossing the room, a blanket appearing in her hands from somewhere I never saw coming, moving with the crisp efficiency of someone who kept human dignity in stock and handed it out along the edge of the deck as a matter of routine. She wrapped the blanket around me, shoulder to knee, pulling it tight — tight enough that it felt less like warmth and more like she was trying to fold me back away from that place, those eyes, those hands, all at once.

"Don't stand there," she said.

"Maki. Medical station. Now."

"Yes." Maki's voice came out very low. No hesitation at all. The next second, I was off the ground. Not steadied. Not supported. Carried. I opened my mouth to object — my legs weren't broken, at least half my body weight still technically qualified as self-propelled — and the thought died before it made it out, because the instant her arm slid under my knees and the other behind my back, lifting my full weight, I realized exactly how little strength I actually had left. The blanket slipped off one shoulder.

I grabbed the edge on reflex. Maki adjusted her hold, pulling me in more securely, not looking at me, saying only, quietly:"I've got you." Four words. Almost aggressively flat. Her arms were shaking. Not from the weight. Because she hadn't finished coming down from wherever she'd been a few minutes ago. Half the powered armor was already off; her upper body was down to the inner tactical layer, sleeves and shoulders still marked with blood she hadn't had time to wipe clean — some of it Imperial, some of it ours.

Leaning against her chest, I could hear her heartbeat. It was running far too fast for the Maki Kushima who usually seemed to calculate the timing of her own blinks. The corridor was quiet. Just her footsteps, Aida's fast, steady heels leading the way, and my own breathing, not quite even. Jess went past on a gurney, headed for the side treatment room. She looked like she'd just been fished out of a dead cultivation tank, but she still managed to drag the corner of her mouth up as she passed.

"You look..." Her voice was thin.

"... like the heroine getting bullied by a really bad script." I watched her go, and took half a beat before answering.

"Shut up. You look more like the villain whose reboot arc just failed."

"Still not bad..." she said.

"At least I get screen time..." Then she was gone. Some things really don't change. But the fact that she still had the energy to be difficult loosened something in my chest, just a little. Not much. Just enough. Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. It wasn't until the medical station door slid shut behind us that I actually started shaking. Not the dramatic kind.

The kind that starts thread by thread, deep in the muscle — the body finally registering: oh, the danger's passed for now, so this can fall apart. Aida leveled the bed. Maki set me down, careful enough that it felt like she thought I might come apart if she moved too fast. And the more careful she was, the more it made me want to throw up. Because the second I was lying still, everything I'd been holding off through motion and sheer stubbornness came flooding back. Fatty's face. His hands. His breathing.

The specific, revolting texture of his fingers reaching for the front of my suit, tearing at the strap — a feeling that still turned my stomach just remembering it. My stomach clenched hard. I rolled onto my side and dry-heaved. Aida moved fast, sliding a basin under my face before I'd even finished turning. There wasn't much to bring up — my stomach had been running on empty for hours. Just the dry heaving, and acid climbing my throat in waves.

"Slowly," Aida said, one hand steady on my back.

"Breathe." I gripped the blanket, knuckles white. Maki stood at the bedside, motionless, like she'd been nailed to the floor. She didn't touch me. She didn't need to — the tension radiating off her was dense enough to make the air itself feel rigid. I closed my eyes, forced several ragged breaths through, and finally managed to get one sentence out:"... Every time I think about that fat bastard trying to get my bra off, I want to throw up." The room went quiet for two seconds.

Aida's expression went blank first, then she let out a very soft "Ah," like some professional instinct and personal outrage had just successfully interfaced. She turned to look at Maki, and the meaning in her eyes was completely unambiguous: if you want to go back and hack them apart a second time right now, I understand completely. Maki didn't say anything. Her face, already looking terrible, just sank another shade darker. I wiped my mouth.

My throat still hurt too much to swallow, but my brain had suddenly latched onto something — a completely inappropriately-timed, and yet somehow the most pressing, detail.

"And..." I sniffed, my voice coming out wrecked and ugly.

"That bra was the one Maki helped me pick." Maki finally moved. She looked down at me — like she hadn't understood, or had understood but couldn't decide which part to answer first. Even I thought it sounded stupid the second it left my mouth. Spectacularly stupid.

After surviving an Imperial underground bio-weapons facility, a monster attack, being taken hostage, nearly having the worst happen, and finally being pulled out by powered armor breaching a wall — the first thing that actually broke me was: That bra had been something Maki helped me choose.

Back before the Yukikaze launched, she'd stood in front of the supply checklist with her usual calm expression, looked over a row of options all about as romantic as military bandaging, and finally picked one out, saying it "won't chafe at the shoulder line, and works better for long hours in a suit." I'd given her a hard time about it at the time: "Are you picking out underwear for me, or fitting a gasket for an armor joint?" She'd just said: "At least what I picked is better than whatever you'd grab at random."

Thinking about it now made my chest close up worse. Not because it was expensive. Not because it was particularly pretty. Because it had been ordinary. Small. A piece of everyday life. A Yukikaze kind of thing. So small nobody would ever think to remember it. But once something like that had been touched by trash like that, even the ordinary part of it felt dirty. I gripped the blanket hard, and the backs of my eyes started burning.

"I hadn't even gotten around to complaining about how it fit yet..." I stared at the edge of the blanket, voice dropping to a whisper.

"What gave that bastard the right to touch it." Maki's throat moved. She looked like she wanted to say something, but her lips only pressed together lightly, and in the end not a single word made it out first. Aida sighed. She pressed a heat patch onto the bruising at my wrist, her voice dropping into a rare, gentle register.

"Shimo. Put this on the list," she said.

"You can take your time collecting it later. Right now, just get yourself back together first." That should have been a genuinely useful thing to say. But maybe because she said it like she really meant it, or maybe because the words get yourself back together hit exactly the wrong nerve, my nose suddenly stung fiercely. I'd been holding on. Really. I hadn't cried back there. Not when I was hit. Not when I was pinned. Not when I saw Jess's foot get crushed.

Even when Maki was hacking those people apart, I'd only sat there, frozen. But now, lying on a medical bed on the Yukikaze, a blanket over me, Aida treating my injuries, Maki standing at the bedside close enough that I could touch her if I reached out — now, I couldn't hold it anymore. It didn't collapse all at once. It started with my throat locking up. Then heat behind my eyes.

Then my whole chest folding in on itself, like someone had lightly tapped the shell I'd been forcing myself to hold together, and it simply shattered. I turned my head away, biting my lip, and still couldn't press the shaking back down. The first sound that came out was so ugly I wanted to pretend I hadn't heard it myself. Too humiliating. Too late. Too much like the aftermath of an accident, finally admitting during cleanup that it really had been afraid the whole time.

I pressed the back of my hand over my eyes, the sound dissolving into my skin.

"... It was disgusting." Nobody made a joke this time. My shoulders shook once. Then a second time, a third, and the tears just fell, entirely unreasonably, scalding hot. I'd meant to hold on to at least some dignity — the harder I fought it, the worse it got, until I finally just buried my whole face in the blanket and cried like someone with zero tactical composure left. Then a hand touched my wrist. Very lightly. Not Aida's. Maki's — she'd been standing there the whole time, so still she was nearly frozen.

She only touched me at first, like checking whether I'd pull away. When I didn't move, she slowly drew my hand back from my eyes, just a little. The motion was small. Slow. Slow like she was crossing a very narrow bridge herself. I looked up at her, my vision badly blurred. Maki's face — usually as cold as the cover of a report — was completely undone. Not dramatic crying, not a total breakdown. Just that layer she always kept pressed down so carefully, cracked wide open by my crying.

She sat down on the edge of the bed and said, quietly:"It's over." An entirely ordinary thing to say. Ordinary enough that from most people, I wouldn't necessarily have believed it. From her, I believed it. Just a little. I answered, my voice thick with tears: "You just hacked someone to pieces with an axe, and now you're saying this... it's not very convincing." Maki's breath caught. Then, very, very quietly, she said:"Then I'll try another one."

She paused half a second, like she was searching for some language she normally never needed.

"... I'm sorry. I was late." That was worse than the first one. Because it went straight through whatever last scrap of composure I had left. The tears fell harder. I almost wanted to laugh. Damn it. I'd at least meant to cry with some dignity. Instead I was crying like this ship's gravity system had singled me out personally.

"Don't learn how to say things like that right now..." I gasped out.

"It's against the rules." Aida, standing nearby, finally gave up and turned her face away, pretending to be adjusting a medication tray.

"I heard nothing," she said.

"You two carry on. The medical station has excellent soundproofing anyway." I nearly laughed through the crying. This woman really did fuse medical ethics and a nose for gossip together with total ease. Maki didn't take the bait. She just reached out and gathered me, blanket and all, a little closer to her, letting my forehead rest against her shoulder. The motion was clumsy — stiff, even, like someone learning for the first time how to hold something that might break too easily.

But it was exactly because it was so clumsy that it felt real. Leaning against her, I could smell the metallic dust, sweat, cleaning solvent, and a faint trace of blood still clinging to her. It smelled terrible. It also felt safe. I cried for a while longer, until the sound finally slowed to a stop, leaving only the occasional aftershock.

Aida finished the necessary treatment, pulled the blanket back into place around me, checked my swollen face and wrist once more, and confirmed there were no other acute injuries.

"All right," she said, packing away her instruments.

"We'll leave the psychological trauma off today's work order, or the system might just crash outright. I'll file the full physical exam later. Current conclusion: nothing's broken, but don't even think about trying to tough this out alone tonight." At that, Maki and I both looked up at her. Aida's expression didn't change.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" She set the used medical kit aside.

"I'm a doctor, not a block of wood. The state she's in today, she shouldn't be by herself. If you dare say 'I'm fine,' I'll lock you to the bed." I opened my mouth. Maki spoke first.

"She won't be by herself." Aida raised an eyebrow, like she was mentally filing away a particularly interesting case.

"Good," she said.

"Then I'll go check whether the other one still has the energy to talk trash. This is yours for now." She walked to the door, stopped, and added without turning back:"Also, Shimo."

"... Yeah?"

"About the bra. I fully support you holding a grudge over that for the rest of your life." Then she left. I sat there, eyes still red, nose still stuffed, and somehow that line made me want to laugh and cry at the same time. Maki looked down at me, and finally let out a soft breath.

"I'll pick you a new one." I sniffed and glared up at her.

"That's not the point."

"I know."

"And this time I'm picking it myself."

"... Fine."

"But you have to be there." Maki blinked, just once. Then the face that had been strung tight to the point of cracking since all of this started finally loosened, just a fraction.

"Fine," she said again. This time, the word sounded a little more human.