MHA Chaos' Whims Chapter 48: The Surgery (Patreon)

I ran my fingers across the plain feeling ticket in my hand. On the front side of the dark blue thing was a golden symbol in the shape of what looked like the heads of two birds crossing over each other, their wings spread out as one. Turning it over, the center of the back was marked by skull surrounded by a circle of spikes, both built into the upper portion of the Roman Numeral for the number one.

Again, those other memories didn’t have the most detailed information about Warhammer, but the symbols associated with the Imperium were easy to recognize.

[Gene Seed Ticket

|Elite Item|

Warhammer 40k - A ticket that when ripped transports you to a room full of robotic surgeons that allow you to undergo the creation procedure of a Transhuman Astartes. This procedure is perfected and you will end up with the augments of an Astartes regardless without the downsides. This procedure will not affect your looks or the general shape of your body due to being perfected.]

Perfected, will, regardless and without the downsides. That specific choice in wording made me pretty confident that nothing was going to go wrong regarding the surgery.

I looked up from the ticket.

King Crimson was stretching out across the grass of the Dojo’s garden. Scarlet was perched on a nearby stone statue, watching him. Both had fresh orders that they’d be ready to carry out with or without me able to give the go ahead, Crimson with her pack and Scarlet with something similar strapped around her wings.

HK-47, having spent the past day and half guarding the portal into the pocket dimension, stood with his blaster ready. One of the first tests was figuring out whether or not that portal remained open at all times and, unfortunately, so long as we were in here, it did just that. As far as I could tell, I had no control over who entered and left so that was a bit of hit to the privacy this whole place offered but it was a problem easily attended to by familiars.

Himiko stood between all of them, the straps of the holstered Knight Killer dagger held loosely between her fingers.

I nodded to the others, Scarlet flying out of the nearby portal, Crimson and HK not far behind her.

I liked annoying her here and there but actually seeing her bothered by something? Especially something I was doing? Not so much.

“Himi-“ She moved forward catching me in a tight hug, frown buried in my chest. There was a lot going through her head. Chief among them, how I knew what I knew no doubt. The hug lasted for a long time, her hold loosening only to retighten, before she actually let go. Even then, her head remained pressed against me.

“You have to come back.”

“That’s the plan.” And I hoped it played out well. Reaching down, I brushed some of her hair aside and kissed her forehead before we fully separated and I took another look at the ticket.

After seeing that race change pull and plenty of other things, it’d become pretty clear that this gacha came with a whole lot of life changing things beyond my control; one bad roll I could end up a literal skeleton. Knowing that, a supposedly perfected surgery of all things, even one originating from a world that fell under the grimdark genre, was pretty tame by comparison.

Didn’t make the idea of undergoing one an easier pill to swallow but I had things that needed doing.

Pulling, I tore the ticket in half, the material splitting apart as easily as paper.

I expected some flash of light but didn’t get anything like that, things around me blurring for a moment, looking as if I’d suddenly started suffering from a case of tunnel vision, before coming back into focus.

Ships.

Dozens of them, flying out across a backdrop of endless darkness lit up by distant specks of light, moved along aside one another. Each one must’ve been massive, their sheer size eclipsing anything I’d ever seen and yet they were dwarfed by a distant blue ball and the small gray one beside it.

A planet and it’s moon.

I raised a hand, pressing it to the glass in front of me.

I was in space.

I’m not sure how long I stood there, admiring the strange sight, the entire thing straight out of a video game or movie, but my focus was drawn to the reflection in the glass. Fully turning around, Iron Mind was the only thing that kept my heart rate from jumping, awe replaced by trepidation.

The room I was in, one of pure metal from the walls to the floors wasn’t particularly large and on the dimmer side, a handful of panels above providing light. The only thing in here besides me was a metal table surrounded by figures in hood robes that barely hid their robotic bodies.

From sharp needles to expressionless faces frozen stiff, everything about them was off putting. They didn’t respond to any calls or questions either, silently staring in my direction at all times.

Despite that, I stepped forward, attention drawn to the hologram one of them was projecting. Information. A long list of it, armed with pictures and descriptions of every change that I was about to undergo. There was far more to it than I expected, to the point that most of my hesitation faded.

The sheer number of benefits outweighed any cons several times over.

That said, as I walked past the robotic figures and laid myself on the table, all of them gathering around me, I had to focus otherwise Iron Mind wouldn’t have done much of anything about the anxiety bubbling up. Several of their needled appendages pierced my skin, that focus slipping away and anxiety in turn overflowing.

In spite of my jumpy gaze, thumping heart and tension, my eyelids began to fall, heavier than ever as the pangs of the pricking needles got further and further away.

Some kind of anesthesia.

It only made sense but as the lights blurred, the machines fully blocking out the room’s night, I decided one thing right then and there.

If I could help it, I would never be getting on an operating table again.

Pain.

Hot flashes of it. Deep burrowing stabs. Sometimes dull aches. Other times those pangs would return, snuffing out all feeling again.

I wasn’t sure if it was part of a dream or I was slipping in and out of consciousness but for the longest time pain and darkness were all there was, both its own kind of torment. There was no pattern to the pain, coming and going as it pleased, leaving me paranoid whenever I managed to gain any kind of awareness. The darkness was just a persistent thing that refused to leave no matter how much I tried to open my eyes or shake it away.

More than once, I started thinking something had gone horribly wrong with the procedure.

Then I opened my eyes.

Tools and clothes bloodied, the machines still hovering over me parted, the room’s few lights hitting me. The table and my skin, all my clothes gone, were covered in blood too but as I raised and dragged a heavy hand over the blood, I didn’t find any marks. Unless they used some kind of medicine to deal with any surgery incisions themselves, maybe it was a sign of an improved healing factor?

Ugh, too much to think about right now. My head was pounding.

Ignoring the painful protests of my body, I pushed myself off the table, feet landing on cold metal. Both gave out on me the moment the rest of my weight followed.

Instead of metal, my knees hit grass, dirt crunching beneath me.

I was back in the Dojo’s garden, but it was different.

Distant mountains and the trees that coated them suddenly didn’t seem too far, all of it nearly as detailed as the ones around the garden. I could track the path of the surrounding breeze, my ears picking up the shift of every leaf and bush in its path. Even the smell of the place was different, fresh to the point of nearly irritating my nose.

“Katsu!”

I flinched away from the yell, my heavy arm shooting up but falling short of covering an ear.

“Not so loud.” I muttered, trying and failing to tune all that out. “Everything’s so loud.”

It didn’t feel wrong per say, maybe the Comfortable Trait doing something there, but taking in all that information from every corner of this place was causing too much pain to really appreciate anything other than it being confirmation of the surgery working out. The weight of exhaustion pulling down my body wasn’t helping.

Failing over and over to ignore all of it, as Himiko dropped down and kept me steady, hands wiping away the blood still on me, I focused all my attention on her. The quick beats of her heart. The combination of her usual shampoo, sweat, and blood all clung to her. In fact, I could smell all that so clearly that I was starting to taste it.

“Are you, alright? You were gone for so long so that-that-“ She’d lowered her tone, but it still sounded close to a yell to me.

“I’m fine. Better, I think.” I ignored my own pain, the last of my resistance falling away. I tipped forward, taking Himiko to the ground with me. “Sorry, I’m just tired.” I muttered, letting my eyes fall close.

Improved senses like that would go a long way for a lot of different things but what I really wanted to test was my strength, durability, and endurance. But that would have to wait until I could actually bring myself to do anything more than just lay around.

“Its-“ Between her heartbeat and even the flow of blood through her veins, it was hard to make out what Himiko was saying but her voice was soothing. “-like our-“ The exhaustion wasn’t helping, sound beginning to slip away from him. “I love-“

Barely making out those words, I tried harder to win the fight I was losing against sleep. I must’ve really scared her.

“I love you too.” I said, before fully giving in to the pull of sleep and Himiko’s soothing presence.

Himiko went still, her heart stopping.

Then it started back up, beating hard enough to hurt as she looked down.

“What did you say?” She asked, a shake to her voice. Katsu, hugging himself to her side, stayed silent, his eyes closed. “Hey, Katsu. Say that again.” His silence kept up, nothing but faint steady breaths answering her.

“I love you too.” It’d been so low, barely registering as a whisper, but that was exactly what she heard. But that came out of nowhere. One minute she’d just been laying back relieved that he came back from wherever he vanished too and talking about this whole Dojo place then he went and said something-something like that.

I love you.

She heard those words plenty. On TV, at school among friend groups, between Katsu and Aunt Nozomi. Even her own friends back in Aichi had thrown it around. Had anyone who knew her, really knew her, ever said anything like that to her? No matter how hard she tried she couldn’t remember her parents ever saying those words.

“You idiot.” She muttered, blinking away her blurry vision but failing horribly. “You can’t just say something like that then fall asleep.” Shifting herself under his weight, she wrapped her arms around his head, pulling them closer together. “I love you, Katsu.”

That was the first time in over a decade that she’d said those words.

And the first time she’d heard them from someone who really knew her.

(A/N: Surprise surprise for better and for worse, Katsu didn't pass up what the gene seed ticket offered him. More important the two finally said the words to each other even though Katsu definitely misinterpret what she said the first time.

This is a very important milestone for a lot of different things.

Anyways, I best get to writing again. I know I said I'd put Nier down but I've still been playing a bit. Got to make up for that lost time.)