Work Text:
He'd thought it through a hundred times before considering to move forward with his plan.
It took research. Countless hours of searching through back logs and records and books upon books to gain all the information needed. Conrad was of help to him for once, despite the angry bile that rose in his throat when he was forced to ask the man where to find the medical section. Knives nearly destroyed one particular textbook with his speed reading. Rem had chided him for tearing the edges of a few pages, but he valued the information more than he did the glossy, over produced paper. He internalized it all using his superior memorization skills, then put the new knowledge to practice on his own body.
Alone in his room, a knife formed in his hand, literally. A blade, nearly a foot in length (he wasn't entirely well versed in how to use his Gate yet, but he was close) formed out of the skin of his palm and he wrapped trembling fingers around its length. Then, he slid the sharp edge along his inner forearm and watched an inch long line of red form, then drip blood down to his elbow.
The memorization and effort paid off immediately as Knives focused, imagining the individual cells and their production of nutrients, particularly collagen, to aid his healing, and he watched as his skin stitched itself back together. The only blemish remaining on the pale surface was the blood that had dripped onto the floor. His experiment was a success, resoundingly, but he needed to do more. He needed to ensure that no matter how deep the damage, he could be repaired.
Later that week, Knives broke his collarbone.
It was relatively simple: climb the tree in the synthetic field, tumble at the right angle, fail to catch himself with his hand, then land on his shoulder, listening for the snap .
It hurt, of course, but Knives had felt worse.
Rem rushed to his side, eyes wide and frantic, but she moved with that same purpose she always did. It seemed as if nothing changed during the interim, and Knives tried not to flinch when she reached out.
Unfortunately for Rem, there would be no comfort needed, because Knives had reformed the bone structure within moments. Bones had been relatively easy for him to master, and using the collarbone was a simple test of how to reconnect bone that had shattered rather than fractured.
(Knives had done a fracture test earlier that week with his ankle. It was amazing how easily a bone could crack when pinned between a table and the leg of a chair.)
After a number of broken bones, various lacerations to his legs, arms, hands, and even a deep cut to his stomach, as well as an experiment with a dirt covered blade stabbed into his shoulder (he needed to test the ability to block or eradicate various pathogens), Knives had only one final experiment, and his work would be complete.
Anxiety forced Knives’ heart to pound in his chest, and he attempted to breathe the nervous energy away. An accelerated heart rate would not serve him any good in this particular experiment.
Every other practice run had been for this one trial. Each experiment and they had been specialized; a subset of the complicated “human” body. He had focused on arteries and veins and their place in the circulatory system, then he moved onto his skin and the way it scabbed and patched itself, reforming a clean and protective barrier. Next was bone and the various ways it splintered or cracked. Within that, he worked on muscle and how to repair it with precision so as to not leave any residual weakness or lack of movement. Organs had been his least favorite, especially when he tried to rupture one on the post of his bed frame.
This experiment would put all of his other work to the test, and more.
Knives exhaled as he summoned a blade. This was intentionally long, unlike the first blade which had been clumsy in his hands. He also added some weight to the knife, thickening it so it would chop through without issue.
So it couldn't catch on bone.
Exhaling one final time, completely eradicating all fears, Knives sucked in a sharp breath through his nose and slammed the blade down and through his arm, just below the elbow.
Pain seared the entire wound as the air touched flesh that should not have been exposed, but Knives was too busy paying attention to the loss of feeling in his left fingertips. Well, his entire left forearm.
He waited a moment, allowing for all residual nerves and messages to end, and for his severed fingers to stop twitching. When all seemed still, and the color was beginning to drain, Knives picked up the severed limb at the cut base (a bit proud of how clean it was. No tearing in sight), and then lined up the ends that were once connected.
He closed his eyes, visualizing as well as feeling for the connection. Currently, nerves were attempting to fire, blood was attempting to pump, and his mind was trying to keep him stable. Shock had entered his system, but Knives put the adrenaline to other uses, diverting the chemical to where it was needed.
Wet, sticky flesh met flesh, and Knives began the reconnection process. Bone built first, drawing calcium from his Gate to lay as the groundwork. Muscles reconnected as fascia and other layers of tissue threaded into one seamless chunk, coating the bone with the necessary motor control functions. Blood began pumping once again as the tunnels sealed back up and allowed the flow.
Finally, his actual experiment came into play as Knives pictured the complicated nervous system. Thousands of intricate threads allowed for the important sense of feeling, and Knives was determined to repair it correctly. He imagined the trailing of messages sent from the brain, following the wiring of his body all down his neck, around his shoulder, then down to that elbow joint. Then, he saw the nerve connect and the feeling move all the way into his fingertips and back up into his brain stem.
Knives gripped his left hand into a fist in triumph.
The blood could be cleaned up later, now was the time to finally, finally, enact his plan.
That night, Vash snored soundly in the bed on the opposite wall as Knives snuck out of the room. He had made sure to check countless times the routine of each and every awake individual on the ship to ensure that he would go uninterrupted, and at nearly two in the morning, Knives took his chance.
His trek through the halls was silent, and he slipped easily into the room that housed his sister like some science project preserved forever in formaldehyde. He had to take a moment not to heave at the sight when the walls slid away. It wasn't her that made him unwell, or the sight of her overgrown tissue and purposefully removed pieces, but instead the thought of the suffering she still went through while floating amongst that fluid, stuck in a constant state of STATUS; ALIVE.
As Knives crept in and placed a gentle hand on the pristine glass where the main portion of her body was held, he began the easy part of his plan. He pulled away and turned to the panels of buttons and screens, punching in various classified codes and override controls, until he was satisfied, then moved onto the hard wiring aspect. Bending beneath the table's surface, Knives removed a panel and began fiddling with the wires beneath. Blood and muscle, bones and tissue were all difficult to master, but the SEEDS ship was easy. It was his playground, and Rem had been a fool to let him play without restriction.
A careful slice from one of his blades and replacement of another cut end allowed Knives the peace he needed. All cameras directed at the room had been cut off, and Knives additionally severed the security system that would inevitably sound when he opened Tesla's tanks.
Still cautious about his intentions, Knives used a utility ladder to climb to the top and crack open the preservation jar. A hiss escaped and Knives was hit with the scent of unpleasant chemicals, but his determination was unwavering. He descended from the main tank and moved to a smaller cylinder that housed Tesla's brain. Knives was careful as he lifted the organ out, along with the attached ocular system. Using his flexible knives rather than the rickety ladder, he lowered the dripping brain down through the lid of the stasis chamber where Tesla's main body resided. Letting out a gentle breath when it began to float just behind her skull, Knives turned to the most important tank: the Gate.
Floating in its own separate jar was Tesla's right arm. When he had first viewed the horror, Knives didn't quite understand the reason, but he knew now. There, in the center of her dissected forearm, was a small sphere. Perfect in shape and containing a strange, shimmering effect on its surface, this sphere was Tesla's Gate, and by necessity (or by cruelty of her experimenters) it needed to be kept separate.
She had likely never had the chance to learn how to use it. Knives would change that.
Opening the final vat, Knives inhaled the chemicals this time, healing himself of any residual damage immediately before reaching into the fluid and pulling out Tesla's arm by the wrist. He was gentle as the arm reacted to normal gravity, gaining a weight that he wasn't quite accustomed to, and no longer buoyed by the water to keep its fragile parts from separation. Knives cradled the limb like a child, before lifting his right arm and aligning his own hidden Gate with her exposed one. Here is where hope came into play.
Knives relied on hard evidence and experimentation for the rest of his work with bodily function and repair, but even he didn't fully understand the uses of his Gate. He did know its limitations, or its expanse. How much could Knives truly accomplish all on his own just with the power of this extra-dimensional gate? He hoped that right now it would simply be a communication device.
He pressed their spheres together, unsure if direct contact would help, but it gave him a placebo of confidence. Then, he closed his eyes and focused . All of his knowledge of the body, of cancerous growth, of bone plates and nerve damage came to the front of his mind, and he forced it to travel to her. Knives had assumed that his Gate was the reason he could communicate with his sisters, and he had used his Gate to do the healing, so shouldn't he be able to communicate that to her via the same process?
When Knives felt he had listed everything, he moved to the large tank, climbed the ladder, then reunited his sister's Gate with her body.
The impact was almost immediate. The end of Tesla's severed arm bulged for a moment, torn flesh overcrowding, before that growth stretched and attached itself back to her main form. And then, it all fell into place like a line of dominoes.
The visible sphere in Tesla’s arm actually glowed with power, making Knives wonder if his did the same, but she was working over time. He watched in awe as misused bones began to grow and form. Her sad, limp posture was popped into place with a full skeletal structure, and Knives could see bones growing beneath, through, and past the remaining muscle of her upper arm. Organs continued to float freely, waiting for their chance at use, but Knives was much more enthralled by the formation of a left limb that stretched down to retrieve the mangled hand that floated just out of reach. It quickly reattached itself and muscle filled in the empty space where lone bone once resided.
When both arms were back and fully formed with perfect, blemish free skin, Knives looked up to find her brain and eyes missing from the fluid, already having been assimilated back into the body, and he prayed all the circuitry of her body had rewired itself properly. Her eyes remained closed, however, and Knives noted the focused look of her brows as they ever so slightly tensed.
Tesla's torso was like unto a massacre. Organs were stretched outside her body, with lungs unfolded like wings and her two hearts still weakly beating between them. Intestines spilled out like unraveled yarn, haphazard and forgotten by the project manager in favor of something new and more fascinating. Among the organs laid hundred of masses growing in all shapes and sizes, but just as her Gate had worked its way through her limbs, it made an even more incredible effort with her entrails. Tumors began to shrink, the cells either broken down completely or reused somewhere else. He watched as a particular tumor was simply ejected from its spot, then the wound was covered over with slick, internal tissue. It wasn't long before her organs were winding themselves up, packaged just as they had looked in the textbooks, before sinking into her abdomen. The final step was the formation of a rib cage, which Knives observed with wide eyes as pure white, compact tissue stretched out from her spine, curved and met in the middle to form a sternum. He hadn't even had time to blink before a layer of muscle, then skin, was laid over the bone, and she was whole.
She was whole.
It was silent in the room as Knives watched Tesla float, solemn and strangely serene. He waited with bated breath. This was the end of his own experiment: would she wake up. He paid attention to everything, searching for twitches of fingers or the inhale and exhale of her lungs, but Knives caught nothing.
There.
His head snapped up, looking from her right hand to her eyes. Beneath the surface of her lids, Knives could see the rapid eye movement of someone dreaming.
And then, those lids snapped open, and bright blue irises tracked down to meet his own.