"Dr. Lin, next we will replace the remaining parts of your body with mechanical prosthetics. This is to prevent your condition from worsening, and also for the future of all humanity."
"...I understand."
"The surgery is scheduled for tomorrow, is that acceptable?"
"Do as you like."
"Alright."
The man stood by the window, gazing at the lingering sunset. His left eye, wrapped in bandages, throbbed with a dull pain, but soon he wouldn't even feel this slight agony. By then, pain itself would be a luxury.
He himself lacked significant Honkai energy adaptability and resistance. Even though the diseased parts had been removed and replaced with mechanical prosthetics, he was still facing secondary erosion. Therefore, the remaining parts also had to be replaced with Soulium to prevent future trouble.
Sometimes, he actually wanted to tell them to stop bothering with this useless body. Perhaps it would be better to just let him die.
So many people outside were desperate to survive the Honkai energy erosion, yet the people of Falling Star would not spare them a glance, because their continued life offered no help to human survival.
But wasn't Falling Star born to protect humanity?
"..."
It was truly contradictory.
"I think the most I ever see of you is your back."
"..."
Even without turning around, the man knew she had arrived.
Their last meeting seemed to have been six months ago. Since then, the man hadn't sought her out, and she hadn't disturbed his work.
"Is something wrong?" Perhaps only now could they sit down and talk peacefully for a while.
No work or experiments, no battlefields to command. Just the two of them—a pair who had supported each other throughout their journey, yet never progressed beyond that—face-to-face, saying things that belonged only to them.
"...Will you truly become a real T-800 later?"
"Perhaps more advanced than that." The man glanced at the metal prosthetic on his right arm. The technology contained within this arm was the pinnacle of human ingenuity. "But perhaps, I will be less human than a biosynthetic robot."
The T-800 at least had biosynthetic skin, body temperature, and fluids. But to allow the man to think more rationally, these factors that influence thought would be stripped from his Soulium body.
"..."
Another long stretch of silence. The man was used to it.
He had spent too much time sitting alone, with no one to talk to.
Or perhaps he just wanted to be alone there.
"Speaking of which, you haven't mentioned marrying me since that incident." The pink-haired girl seemed to pick a random topic, yet her words felt pointed.
"...It's meaningless."
Marriage?
The word was so foreign that the man had to search his mind for a moment to recall it.
He didn't have the energy to build a family. He was needed to manage and command Falling Star, and countless projects were awaiting him, as were countless decisions to execute.
In this vortex where personal life was forgotten, marriage was absolutely impossible.
This actually surprised him a little, as he thought the pink-haired girl should have married long ago. More than ten years had passed since leaving the hellish Nagazora City, and their connection had gradually frayed in the subsequent years, meeting less than once every six months.
Furthermore, she was just an ordinary person. Even though she lived within Falling Star, she didn't participate in any of the work.
"It's strange. I often remember your bizarre marriage proposal that day. We didn't know anything then, just two students." The pink-haired girl's smile carried the old light of memory. "But if there was ever a time we were most likely to get married, it could only have been then."
"...Shouldn't it have been right after we joined Falling Star?"
No matter how much the man didn't want to recall the past, he could remember that the period when they were most dependent on each other was right after overcoming the hardships of Nagazora City and joining Falling Star.
Back then, the man would show his weakness and worries to the girl, and the girl would embrace him with her gentleness and offer encouragement.
Later, the man stopped giving anyone a chance to observe his inner self and stopped getting close to her.
"Later? After that, you wouldn't say those things to me anymore, would you? Because you grew up and became a leader." The girl smiled. "A leader cannot be constrained by personal feelings."
"..."
"By the way, you once asked me if I believed in miracles, right?"
"..."
"I thought about it for a long time afterward. I didn't want to give you a casual answer. If I merely comforted you or gave you your own answer, it wouldn't convey my own thoughts. So, I wanted my answer to truly come from my heart."
The man hadn't expected the girl to bring up that question again after several years.
The man hadn't taken on a new student in a long time, and he had never heard a student ask him, "Do you believe in miracles?" again.
"I guess I don't believe in miracles."
The girl's answer was contrary to the man's expectations.
He had always thought the girl would say she believed in miracles. After all, she had always been so bright and optimistic, as if the best of humanity was concentrated in her. Shouldn't someone like her believe that human emotion could spark a miracle?
"What exactly is a miracle, after all? Is it something that was impossible happening, or is it something we wished for happening? I think it's the latter, right? So the miracles we pray for are just our wishes, and neither your wish nor mine seems to have come true."
The girl gently lowered her head, her braids hanging over her shoulders, her cherry-colored lips pressed together, no longer smiling.
"Then how am I supposed to believe in miracles?"
"..."
The man stared intently at the girl's face. She had probably never shown this expression outside of the first Honkai Eruption.
She looked no longer strong, but fragile, like colored glass, ready to shatter at any moment.
"What was your wish?"
He suddenly asked.
The sentence came genuinely from his heart, so much so that he hadn't even reacted to saying it out loud.
At that moment, the girl gave a sly smile, like a fox curving its lips at him while perched on a cherry blossom branch.
"Let's get married."
…
"Doctor, we are now going to perform the surgery. You won't feel anything."
"...I know."
The man lay on the operating table, slowly closed his eyes, then reached out and took off the ring on his left ring finger, placing it in an immaculate container.
"See? Now both our wishes have come true. So, miracles can happen."
The girl waved at him happily, the inconspicuous ring slightly shining in the sunlight.
"This is the miracle sparked by our feelings."
The man's heart settled.
His once numb heart began to beat again.