Ichiko's recovery progressed fairly swiftly. It was now two
weeks since she had first woken up, and she was able to feed herself, dress herself
- though she could not yet manage buttons or shoelaces - and was now starting to
learn how to walk again. However, this was a slow, difficult process. These
legs were not the ones she was used to, and after three days of practice she
was still struggling, even with the waist-high parallel bars to help guide her.
It did not help that the hands gripping the bars were not the ones she was used
to either, and more than once her grip had let her down, sending her tumbling.
Unperturbed, Ichiko continued to persevere, and each day
she was able to walk a little further. Her new comrades in Cyborg Team Alpha
felt she was pushing herself a little too hard, but they all knew better than
to try and tell her to take it easy. After all, they had been much the same
during their own rehabilitations.
Today, Ichiko was being supervised by Gumi. Gumi seemed
to be the kindest and most gentle of the group members, and the one least
suited to fighting. She was also, as far as Ichiko could tell, the only one
whose cyberization was not immediately apparent. As she pulled up halfway down
the rails, resting her robotic arms against one of the bars, she decided to
take the opportunity to try and get to know Gumi a little better.
"Here." Ichiko looked up to see that Gumi was
holding out a bottle of water for her. "If you're going to train this
much, you'll need to stay hydrated. Your body still needs sustenance, you
know."
Ichiko nodded, and took the bottle. "Thank
you," she said. Holding the bottle in one hand, she attempted to unscrew
the lid with the other, but she hadn't quite recovered the fine motor control
to enable herself to do so.
"Oh, sorry," said Gumi, "I should have
unscrewed the lid first-"
"No, it's okay," said Ichiko, her metal fingers
still scrabbling for purchase on the bottle lid. "I can do this…"
At that moment, Ichiko lost her balance and fell to the
floor, the bottle tumbling out of her hands and rolling away. She let out a
heavy sigh and lay there for a moment, feeling useless. "How am I supposed
to fight the Rising Sun if I can't even open a bottle of water…?" she
lamented quietly.
Gumi retrieved the bottle of water, then sat down next to
Ichiko. "You'll get stronger," she said, unscrewing the bottle lid.
"You're already getting stronger, day after day. Nobody expects you to
fight just yet. We want to make sure that when the time comes, you'll be
ready." She held out the water bottle. "Having to ask for help
doesn't make you a weak person," she said. "It means you're still
human."
Ichiko nodded, sat up, and took the water bottle.
"But… I'm not really human, am I?" she said. "Not anymore."
"You're just as human as the rest of us," said
Gumi, as Ichiko started to drink. "You can think, and feel, and make your
own decisions. You struggle, and you fail, and you make mistakes, and you get
upset about them. All these things make you human, Ichiko."
"But-"
"No buts," said Gumi. "You may be a
Cyborg, but you are still also a human."
Ichiko sighed. "I guess so," she said. Decided
now was as good a time as any, she added, "Hey, Gumi? Do you mind if I ask
you a personal question?"
"Sure," said Gumi. "Go ahead."
"Well…" Ichiko tries to think of how best to
phrase the question. "What exactly happened to you in order to necessitate
your conversion? I mean… everyone else, I can tell what happened to them, but…"
Gumi smiled. "My story's not as exciting as yours or
Ryuto's, sadly," she said. "I was in a car accident, you see. My
right leg had to be amputated in order to get me out of the vehicle, and by the
time I got to the hospital, I'd already died of internal bleeding. But
fortunately, due to my skills in bio-mechanics and prosthetics, Dr. Toriyama
chose to save me, and make me a part of Cyborg Team Alpha."
Gumi lifted up her right trouser leg. The prosthetic
beneath was so realistic that Ichiko would never have realized it was fake, had
she not been told. Ichiko hesitantly prodded it with a finger: it felt like
flesh. "Is this really a prosthetic?" she asked. "It looks so
real… not like mine and Ryuto's at all."
"Well, there was no way we could get yours and
Ryuto's cyberizations to look 100% human," said Gumi. "So we decided
to just leave them like they are. We could have made your arms and legs more
human-like, like mine, but we figured you'd prefer them like they are now.
Ryuto certainly does."
Ichiko nodded, looking down at her skeletal carbon-grey hand.
"You're right," she said, "I prefer it like this. It helps
remind me of what I am. What the Rising Sun did to me. If I looked human again…
it wouldn't feel right."
"Like I said," said Gumi, "you are a
human, Ichiko. Maybe you don't feel
like you are, but the fact that you feel at all is what makes you human."
Standing up, she held out a hand to Ichiko. "Now then, do you feel like
carrying on with your exercises?"
Ichiko nodded, taking Gumi's hand. "Of course,"
she said, as she shakily stood up. "Always."
Gumi smiled. "Give it your best," she said.
Ichiko handed back the water bottle and gripped onto the
rails once again. "Of course," she said. As the pain and
determination crept back into her expression in equal measure, Ichiko lifted
her leg and took another slow step forwards.
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