Kai snickered at that.
“Come on, Doctor Obel looks like that, but you should see how sharply he gets his work done. Luca... ah, obviously I mean the boy, not you, Captain. He hands over every piece of data I need for this Luca’s prosthetics without fail.”
The captain nodded at Kai’s defense of him.
“He’s blunt, but he does good work.”
Kai pushed his goggles up and grinned.
“For someone that smart, though, he doesn’t understand my love for machines at all.”
The black chrome part Kai was examining was such a tiny fragment that there was no guessing what the whole looked like. Luca tried to imagine how a prosthetic assembled out of little pieces like that would connect to him.
Mm, can’t picture it.
Rather than that realm of imagination, it was quicker to wonder how he’d ended up laughing and chatting with these people at all.
It’s probably because the captain keeps coming into the treatment room, so now everyone else wanders in and out too...
Then, all at once, he remembered other times he’d sat around with people and talked like this. His Academy days.
Luca hadn’t been a diligent student. He’d been earning money with a sword before he ever enrolled, so school life was dull and tedious.
He dozed off constantly in boring lectures and got scolded by the professors more times than he could count. At least the friends he ran with were forever tempting him into skipping class to go out and play, which let him stack up a decent pile of happy memories.
There was one class he couldn’t share with those friends, and that was his major. Traditional martial arts was, along with history, the most venerable and orthodox subject at the Academy. Its lectures were held not in an Academy building but in a wing of the royal castle, and the professor in charge was the most distinguished person at court.
“...I majored in traditional martial arts at the Academy on my planet. Sword work as my advanced specialty.”
The captain’s and Kai’s eyes fixed on him at once. The attention was awkward, and it made him unaccountably shy, so he smoothed the blanket. For some reason, he just wanted to tell them this.
“You’d laugh and ask who studies something that antiquated these days, but... I liked my major quite a lot.”
Learning in a systematic way at school what he’d been swinging around any which way outside had been such a thrill. The etiquette that came with the art was boring, but the whole thing was appealing enough to make all of it bearable.
“It’s an age of optical weapons and ship cannons, so traditional martial arts got shoved aside into ritual dance and ceremony a long time ago. Still, I liked the act of training body and mind. Finding your center, steadying your breath...”
The fact that he had no arms or legs surfaced, and Luca stopped for a moment. But then, watching the parts Kai was so devotedly assembling, he added,
“Once Kai finishes the prosthetics, I want to try it again. Even if the breathing won’t come as smoothly as before with machine limbs.”
At the first talk of a future from a boy who’d always been pessimistic and cynical, the captain’s eyes rippled deeply. He ruffled Luca’s hair roughly and then gathered him fully into his arms.
“Look at this. Our Luca, thinking such admirable things. Traditional martial arts? That’s really something.”
Caught against his chest, Luca shoved at him with his left hand and snapped.
“What are you doing? Are you treating me like a kid?”
“You are a kid.”
“I’m an adult! I’ve already had my coming-of-age ceremony, so I’m an adult...!”
Luca shrieked it out, venting, and instead of apologizing for the misunderstanding the captain only widened his eyes.
“You’re an adult?”
“Are you saying I look like a child right now?”
The captain looked the protesting boy over, and his expression turned awkward.
“Mmm, your frame feels like it hasn’t finished growing...”
“...People keep getting taller even after they’re adults. Do I have to teach you the basics, too?”
“That’s true, but, mmm...”
“You’re really rude, you know that? You see a small body and assume it’s an actual child... I’m an adult. Do I have to tell you what kind of coming-of-age ceremony I had before you’ll believe me?”
The captain still wore that awkward look, a slight smile creeping into it, and Luca grumbled at him.
“...The day Aegis destroyed my home was the biggest holiday on my planet. I danced there with a sword, as the special priest candidate. In front of the royals and the nobles... there’s no way a child could do that. They only entrust it to adults like me.”
At that, Kai with his parts and the captain with his tea leaves both stopped. Watching Luca’s face go gloomy in an instant, Kai glanced back at the captain. The look said say something comforting, would you.
The captain thought quietly for a moment, then pulled Luca in again.
“The sword dance. Show it to me too.”
Luca shoved at that broad chest with his left hand.
“So you want to watch a child dance with a blade?”
“Sorry. I won’t treat you like a child anymore. So that sword dance you performed for everyone, show it to me as well.”
“...No.”
“What kind of holiday was that day? Tell me if you need food or clothing or anything else. A sword would be good to have, wouldn’t it?”
“I’m not doing it. Don’t prepare anything.”
But the captain wrapped his strength around the boy who kept pushing at him and shut him inside his arms.
“Luca performing traditional martial arts. Splendid just to imagine. While we’re at it, let’s gather the whole crew for a demonstration.”
“Ugh, I said I’m not doing it...!”
“It’s only that I think it would really be good for you. Once the prosthetics are on, they won’t be your own limbs, so conditioning your body won’t be easy. Your muscles’ working range is bound to narrow. Couldn’t your major make up for that weakness to some degree?”
“...I’ll say it again, it was ceremonial. For rites...”
“So did our Luca learn martial arts because he wanted to become something like a swordsman?”
Our Luca. Face flushed red at how the man’s form of address had gotten to that, he answered.
“No... I was going to be a priest... though a priest who handles a sword is called a special priest...”
“A planet in this vast universe that believes in a god instead of machines. That seems terribly romantic.”
“I don’t believe in the god either...”
“How do you become a priest without believing in the god?”
“That’s because what a special priest does is... ugh, why am I even telling you this...!”
How had it come to this? He’d only been remembering Academy life, and he’d gone and talked about his major, his coming-of-age ceremony, even the special priesthood. Thinking how absurd the existence of a god must sound to people who rode around on a cutting-edge ship like this made his face burn.
If there were a god, your planet wouldn’t have been destroyed, so clearly there’s no god. The kind of cheerfully vicious remark an unbeliever would make could easily come pouring out. So Luca shut his mouth firmly.
I don’t want to spill every single thing I’m thinking...
Kai chuckled at the embarrassed Luca and picked his wrench back up.
“Don’t worry, Luca! I’ll calculate every last movement of your traditional martial arts and adjust the range of motion down to a tenth of a degree! The great Kai here takes responsibility until the day you’re the strongest swordsman on this ship!”
“Stop teasing me...”
In place of the struggling Luca, the captain thought it over and then spoke seriously.
“A martial arts demonstration would also be a good way to check how well the prosthetics have adapted to his body. And martial arts with machine limbs would be fairly destructive, so it seems practical too.”
Kai’s eyes flashed at the analysis.
“Oh, you’re right! Luca, you said that art of yours was for rites, didn’t you? Which means the movements are elegant and supple. So what do you think happens when my work’s output gets added to those soft arcs?”
He held up the component destined for Luca’s knee joint and launched into an impassioned speech.
“The moment you raise your leg and swing, the servomotors will generate torque ten times faster than your original muscles! On top of that, the chrome alloy in the prosthetics is about as strong as most ships’ armor plating! That hand-blade that used to cut through empty air is now basically an ultra-high-frequency vibration blade that takes a steel robot’s neck off in one stroke!”
Kai’s eyes were sparkling, thoroughly carried away by machine talk. Forgetting entirely that Luca couldn’t follow anything this technical, he shouted on cheerfully.
“Adjust the output and one kick can grind a marble pillar to powder! Just imagine the explosive power of a machine loaded onto the supple rotational axis of traditional martial arts! Ohh! An Aegis infantry unit would drop like leaves under a single kick from you!”
Listening, Luca looked down at where his legs weren’t. He’d only thought as far as walking and running on new limbs. The destructive force Kai described was so unreal that it left him dazed.
I could get that strong?
