Work Text:
[Mikasa]
331/MSRF
The young woman looked around her, slightly dazzled by the lights on the ceiling. The white was pinching in her eyes, making her uncomfortable. Sher didn’t even have realized how bad her eyesight really had gotten. Everything was so vibrant now, everything was so sharp and easily visible, but not only that. She could hear everything now. The rustling of her own clothes, even her own breath. So many things had been lost over the decades, so many times has she forgotten how detailed life really was. How many things were really going on in the background, how much she had lost because of her previous age. But now, she had a new chance and a way to get all of the memories into action. She wouldn’t let the ones who called her back another time, she would defend that. For that, she had waited long enough. She would shine once more.
Mikasa looked at her arms, seeing that the skin was without any wrinkles now. Her previous hands had been looking like claws, due to arthritis. They had been weak and nearly impossible to use, she had been forced to have her ship serviced by other humans. But now, these new hands could do some work. Her fingers were able to move freely. Her new hands would be able to forge a new future and a better life for other beings, may they be shipgirls or not.
The Doctor cleared his throat, making her look over to him. He was leaning on the wall, giving her time to react to the new body. It had been nearly a dozen people near her when she had first woken up, but he had sent them out. After all, she had been newly born so to say and needed time to get used to all of her new abilities. Not only her new body, but also her power as a shipgirl. The Siren, Purifier, had said a thing which still made him anxious. She had begun to draw power into her body when Purifier had grown it, she had suddenly begun to connect the strings of her connection by herself. She had somehow coupled herself. She had done the impossible, just like two shipgirls before her. She had done the impossible.
“Are you ready for the tests?”, he asked, opening a small notebook.
She swallowed and nodded, sorting a streak of her now black hair. It had been decades ago since she had coloured hair. It had been white for so many years, for more years that most people realized. She was older than anyone else on this Earth, she was older than the entire population. And that had taken its toll. But now, her new body would have its chance to shine. To show the world what old Iron could do. She smiled, then nodded.
“Of course. You may begin.”, she said, sitting on the metal table, her naked legs dangling down.
She only wore a coat used for patients in hospitals, since it was still unknown how her body would respond. The old one had been brought to a room away, she would have the opportunity to say goodbye to it later. Once she had proved what she could bring to bear.
“How do you feel precisely at the moment? Is there any discomfort you have, be it ever so small?”, he asked, readying a pen. Mikasa laid her head to the side, thinking.
“I think that there are a few things which I feel strangely. It is like my body is tingling slightly, like I am just waking up from a long sleep. My fingers feel like I have slept on them, slightly numb and yet extremely sensitive. My heart is pumping fast, or at least it is feeling that way. And there is the one thing which I cannot understand…”, she said, whilst the Doctor was scribbling a few notes on a notepad. “I feel immensely powerful. Like I have enough strength to simply bend metal with my very own hands, like the gods have given me their powers.”
“Are you feeling dizzy or a discomfort in some way?”, he asked, making her shake her head.
“Everything is feeling more or less alright, but I have this urge to prove my powers.”, she said, her eyes sparkling.
“That could come from your freshly resurrected body. To our experience, the coupling to a ship always brings that signature of power with it. That could be the thing which you are feeling at the moment. Nothing we should worry about.”
The experiences from the war had shown that shipgirls had a more or less spike in power once their coupling was new, but it wore off pretty quickly. The Ironblood reportedly had a few problems with their experimental shipgirls, like Roon. They had become unstable and were deemed unfit for duty, due to her constantly high state of power. She had been driven insane by her own power and had been unable to escape it, in the end it had cost her career. Bismarck had been forced to end her life as a shipgirl and her entire existence with it. Roon had been erased. He hoped that this wouldn’t be the case with Mikasa, since it would be more than a disaster to let her go.
“Purifier told us that you might feel a bit more powerful, that you might even get obsessed with the power. However, you seem to be stable.”
Mikasa nodded and looked at her hands once more, moving her fingers. But something in the back of her head was constantly telling to do more. She frowned and stood up, taking a step into the room. The feeling was so well known and yet so strange, it was like she had a well known word on her tongue, yet couldn’t speak it.
The pre-dreadnought blinked and looked around, trying to concentrate. What was that feeling? Was it something she could do, something which could be an effect of her new body? Was it just the feeling of her new body, or was it a new ability? Was it the effect he had described? It couldn’t be. This felt way more powerful, so powerful that she was almost certain that it was pure power which was still trapped in her body. But what was that feeling? What was that feeling for?
She stretched out her arms, frowning. Something was coming up from deep inside her. But it felt good, like she was waiting for it for a long time. Mikasa closed her eyes and began to hum slightly, feeling the urge to continue that. Was it that strange effect? Only one way to find out.
The Doctor looked up from his notebook, and observed the old shipgirl standing up, her arms stretched to the side. She had her eyes closed and was humming, her fingers moving in the air. It was like she was directing an orchestra or similar, like she was in a kind of trance. He felt a faint shudder go down his back as he looked at her, seeing that she was completely in her own mind. She wasn’t even moving her eyes below her lids, she was just staring blankly ahead. He opened his mouth and wanted to ask her what was going on, when a faint blue shimmer began to surround her.
He closed his notebook and squinted his eyes, seeing that the blue went thicker and thicker by the second. At first, he wanted to sound an alarm, but his common sense told him to not do it. Somehow, this shimmer and the blue was comforting, like it was protecting him. Mikasa still didn’t move, but the blue aura around her became more intense. He could see that small blue particles built the shimmer, with a shape similar to the Cubes they had given to Purifier for the creation of the new body. Was this a side effect? Did she get another sort of power that made her stronger?
The shimmer suddenly turned into something solid, still glowing in some kind of blue. He could hear a faint sound which sounded like shards of glass moving over each other, like faint bits which collided with each other. The blue began to surround her, connected to her body on the back. Bigger pieces were beginning to build themselves to the side, being as big as herself. He took another back step to make way for the dust, beginning to get more solid by the second. His mind raced, trying to get any explanation what was happening at the moment. It took him a few seconds, then it dawned him.
He had heard an old record of the shipgirl Deutschland, the first German shipgirl. She had been captured by the Northern Parliament, after her ship had been seized in harbour. She had been taken to prison and held accountable for the crimes she committed, which would have ended in a life long sentence. However, the men back then had made the mistake of letting her touch her anchor once more. Aside from steering their ship, making the turrets rotate faster, etc… shipgirls a special skill, a skill which had been used only once to his knowledge. They could use their anchor and convert their ship into a thing called rigging, a smaller version of their ships. This theoretically allowed them to walk on water and carry the firepower of an entire tank division at human scale, boosting their combat capabilities for a short amount of time. The Ironblood, facing a penury of materials, had tried to use these weapons but had failed. And seemingly, Mikasa was exactly doing the same. She was summoning her rigging.
The cubes started to form a structure right beside her, getting joined by a few bits which seemed to add detail. He could see the shape of two turrets appear, together with big and massive links which connected the entire rigging to her back. The turrets began to ascend, moving to the height of her head. Bigger pieces of metal began to form around her hips, stretching downwards. It took a few seconds, then he could see the deck and smaller guns getting formed, the lower parts of the rigging appearing in a faint red.
The cubes swirled all around her, forming more and more parts of her rigging. A faint hum was in the air, together with the sound of the cubes working. More and more detail became visible, more and more parts began to work and connect to the rigging. The grey of the hull and the wood of the deck, the steel of the turrets. Finally, the last cube found its place, completing the rigging. Mikasa stood in front of him, her arms still stretched to the side, her rigging on her body, reflecting in the lights overhead.
He felt how his chin dropped. She had summoned her rigging. Just like that. She had summoned her rigging and she had made it with her eyes closed. He stepped closer, careful not to disturb her. But that wasn’t necessary. She opened her amber eyes once more, only that they had a faint sparkle to them this time. A wide smile appeared on her face, but it was filled with happiness. She traced a barrel of her turrets, looking at it like a new-born. It was her ship, only in miniature form. Even the smallest details were there, he could even see the small fixtures which were on the deck. Just like on her real ship, there were parts of it which were welded shut, some had a different coat of paint on them. But overall, it was her ship. Only that it was big enough to get carried by one young person. He shook his head slightly, not really able what was going on in front of him. And so, he said only one word :
“Unbelievable.”