"It is a well known fact that the art of prosthetics has been mostly avoided or perhaps ignored for the larger part of a century, especially during the dark ages or before the industrial revolution. It was a foregone conclusion: if you lost an arm or a leg, then you must change the pathway of your life completely. If you were once a knight, then you are no longer a knight. if you were once blacksmith, then perhaps you might have to change from being a blacksmith. This was not the case, of course—humanity has ever been the ingenious and crafty species. Prostheses have been excavated all around the world, and one of the most popular stories of a Hero is that of the Two-Armed Hero who slung a prosthetic arm around their left hand and animated it with magicks. Nowadays, this is even less true—prostheticians have become a rare but well-honored professional. In the time of Post-Calamity, many survivors and war heroes of the Second World Revolution have come home to arm or leg or eye replacements that work on the same level as their original arms. It has arrived to the point that prothesticians, working alongside bio-mysticks, have the ability to completely regrow arms. It's just that the Art of Prostheticians have become such a mark of honor or bravery that they choose not to. Of course, this is on top of the fact that such bio-mystickal rituals require the right timing, expensive ritual components, and proper skill, on top of having a low success rate."

From the Sutra of Modern Sciences

A few days passed.

Raxri's near death state softened into one of subtle healing. Their arm had been bandaged completely. It no longer bled, but Raxri was still down an arm. There were multiple martial arts or magicks that oen could do with just one arm, but Sutasoma was thinking of a different pathway fro Raxri.

The healing procedures, rituals, and magicks worked. Whenever either Kujoh or Kexi would check on Raxri, Mijja would be there, asking questions and making confirmations. Reaffirmations. Nodding to revelations.

Mijja watched as they worked on Raxri. Even as Raxri slept, Mijja realized the soft beauty of the Heaven Dancer. A soft nose, small eyes, semi-large lips. This contrasted with their broad shoulders, square jaw, and other sharp features. Raxri was an effort in the dialectics of beauty. They were handsome like a woman and beautiful like a man. They truly were of androgyne beauty, possessing both and neither. A practice in dialectical nonduality.

Their scarlet hair was stringy down their face. Their eyelashes naturally long, like lotuses. Their skin the color of ruddy burnt caramel, a lifetime of fighting underneath the Utter Islands' Sun. A beautiful specimen that Mijja couldn't help but call beautiful but also develop a kind of retrocursive revulsion to. What were they, in truth? How can someone be so beautiful and yet be so human? They were so beautiful Mijja was sure they were a woman, but they were not that. And they were not a man either. They were simply... Raxri.

On the second day, Mijja—somewhat antsy and anxious from all the waiting—asked why she had not yet begun her training with Sutasoma. She asked while they were sitting inside the hospice room dedicated to Raxri.

"It is better that you begin your training with Raxri. So that the four of you would be able to start at the same time."

Four? "What do you mean four, master?"

"I have four disciples coming in at the same time. You, Raxri, Kancil, and Xing."

"Kancil? Xing?" Mijja rubbed her chin in thought. Those were names she hadn't heard before.

"You will meet them soon. Have patience."

And Sutasoma was right. The next day, Kancil came in, clothed in a coat and straight pants. Urban clothing if Mijja had ever truly seen one. The coat was deep jade, embroidered with hibiscuses, and was closed by the neck. The pants were of a dark black, and he martial arts shoes (kung-fu shoes) as well. He looked very well dressed, with well groomed hair parted by the middle. He was handsome all and all, but Mijja had the sneaking suspicion that her charms would not work on him...

"Master Sutasoma," said Kancil, bowing. "I was told to escort the Prothestician Rimara Sanaze here?"

"Ah, yes. Please, let her in."

Mijja watched an edgy woman walk in. Sharp features, sharp eyes, heavy eyebags. Her hair cut into a bob with a diagonal angle, no doubt needing an excess of freetime in the morning to get right. This hair was colored red. Flower tattoos crawled up to her neck, choked by a corsage bound around her neck. She wore large round aviators. She wore a bralette underneath a Physicker's Coat which she wore unbuttoned, revealing a mid-sized chest, and then a high-waist sarong that covered her belly and below. Her hands were already wrapped in some form of gloves, and she brought with her an automaton in the shape of a terracotta warrior, powered by her jade-colored Ardor.

Her eyes beneath her aviators were full and round. Her nose flat, though not snub. Her skin was the light brown of the Ragaan ethnicity, the majority ethnicity here in Selorong (as majority as 55% of the population could be). She flicked her cigarette toward her terracota automaton's built in ashtray.

"Sorry," she said, gesturing to the cigarette. "Almost forgot. Medical facility."

"It is all right," said Sutasoma, performing a mouth reverence to the Prothestician. The Prothestician was much shorter than Sutasoma was, but Sutasoma gave her reverence all the same. "I appreciate the concern. You are Rimara Sanaze, I assume?"

Rimara Sanaze smiled lazily, nodded. "She is I," she said. "And you are the great Ultramystic Sutasoma, I presume."

Sutasoma smiled, nodded. She wore a formal getup still, even know, though this one showed more skin. A simple black chest wrap underneath a silk cheongsam left unbuttoned, and harem pants. Perhaps to allow her to move quicker.

Rimara looked at her up and down, and then said: "You're hotter than what the tales have told me. How interesting."

Sutasoma smiled again. She took the compliment as if she had been told it a million times. Mijja knew that she would've melted on the spot! "Your client is this one, Raxri Uttara."

"Right. The Heaven Dancer that's come back to life. You know what they call this one?" asked Rimara as she walked up to Raxri's sleeping form.

"No."

Rimara said, without turning to Sutasoma. "Revenant. The Twice-Dead, who has returned from the grave, impossibly refuting and denying their own reincarnation." She turned then to Sutasoma, cracking her bones. "At least, half of the Black World of the Realms Belligerent say that. The other half... they say that this Raxri is weaker, destroyed, torn apart, defeated. Defeated after betraying their own team in the field, and that they're now a half-Ghost who can never and will never Cultivate again."

Sutasoma was deep in thought. Mijja would've thought Sutasoma was tapped into that kind of drama.

Rimara said Mijja's thoughts for her out loud. She crossed her fingers and set her hip. "I would've thought that you would know what the Realms Belligerent have been saying about them."

Sutasoma shook her head. "I am... embroiled in other, more pressing matters for my own being. And... as a rule, I do not like intruding or intervening. It would be a political disaster."

Rimara smirked. "Ain't you a communist, Ultramystic? Isn't that what you're supposed to do? Intrude and intervene?"

"Not when the people have no Class Consciousness," replied Sutasoma.

"I'm a Revolutionary like you, you know," said Rimara. Mijja thought it was obvious from the way she dressed and walked around. Completely unlike what is considered polite or high culture in the cities leftover after the calamity.

"You seem like it," said Sutasoma, nodding. "But I've called you here to enhance Raxri. Give them a prosthesis that will be just as good as an old arm, if not better."

Rimara turned and examined Raxri for a moment. Then, she said: "I won't be able to regrow Raxri's arm. I don't have enough tissue of the original arm left, and there's no tissue to work with there. As you know, I cannot regrow the arm out of nothing—it must come from something else. And unless I want to cause a cancer to blossom from within the Heaven Dancer then we will have to go with a classic prosthesis instead of a limb replacement."

"I'm sure Raxri will be glad to just have a replacement in general."

Rimara smiled beckoned over her terracotta automaton, which glowed with a low jade haze and light jade starbursts for eyes. It was just a bit shorter than Rimara as well. Rimara tapped something on its chest, and its chest folded open, revealing an arm. "I'd been told by Kujoh that it was going to be an arm job. So I came ready and prepared. It's not everyday I get called by the Ultramystic, the big hotshot communist of Selorong."

Sutasoma managed a smile. Mijja gulped. Just how big of a fish was this Sutasoma...?

Rimara continued. "And I'd been doing some jobs for the Gozons and the Yu and the Tengs. I can afford a job of charity. To really embody that spirit." She grinned, and Mijja realized her teeth had been filed to points, so she looked like kinda like a shark as well. She said this in a sort of mocking tone, but there was a slight edge to the way she said it. Like a heart offering its vein. She's being sincere in the only way she knew how. It was like seeing a sword love in the only way it could—by cutting.

It seems Sutasoma had realized this sincerity as well. She said: "I truly appreciate the offer, but it would not be just and proper. You deserve due payment. All laborers do."

"All right, then how about this," said Rimara, looking aorund the room. "Get me a room to stay in the commune, and make me an official member of here, and I get all the benefits of being part of the commune with all the housing and food and all that. And I do this for you and maybe I might even set up shop here."

Sutasoma smiled. Mijja could tell she was thrilled with the prospect. Both of them were—who wouldn't say no to being able to live for free in a spotless and clean commune, where all the food was free and you get access to the Ultramystic sect?

Sutasoma said: "As long as you don't want to be my disciple for a few more moons, as I'm a bit fully packed on that end."

Rimara smirked. She raised both hands in surrender and said: "That's all right, that's fine by me. I can wait."

Sutasoma nodded. "Lert me see what prosthesis you have readied."

Rimara lifted the arm. It was made of beautiful matte black porcelain, with a lotus design incised into it and burning white. All around the lotuses were mantras and mantra garlands lining the length of it. Creating a dragon of an arm. "The prosthesis has its own meridians, so that Breath flow will not be impeded. More importantly, the mantras incised upon it and the talisman mantra will convey the same protective Warding against magickal and mental assaults. It's one of my latest designs, and I had to get some help from the girlfriend to get it right." She smiled proudly at the arm. Mijja's eyes twinkled at the sight of it.

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Sutasoma nodded approvingly. "It looks like a good fit. How easy is it to destroy?"

"The syllables inscribed will ensure that it has the strength of a normal arm," said Rimara. "Despite it of course not being of flesh. It will strengthen as the host strengthens. More importantly, I'm pretty sure it has a bunch of Withdrawn Qualities that can be drawn out by a good enough warrior. Which I'm sure the Heaven Dancer... will become. Under your tutelage, ultramystic."

"Impressive, Rimara," said Sutasoma. "How soon can you perform the suturing?"

"Considering the flesh is freshly torn," said Rimara, looking at the bandaged stump that was Raxri's arm. "I can perform it tonight, and be done by the morning."

Sutasoma said: "You will be given proper accommodation, with utmost luxury to ensure your highest caliber of work."

Rimara grinned widely, fangs flashing in the light. "Excellent."

Mijja, a medical student, had never seen a prosthesis suturing before. She realized it was as much as a spiritworking labor as it was a normal physical labor. It looked halfway between a surgery and a traditional tattooing session.

She also realized that Raxri's body was covered in tattoos... but many of their designs—and, she surmised, their power—were cut off when the designs were severed from each other with the loss of Raxri's arm. Mijja did not have any tattoos, so she did not know just how bad this was for Raxri. Did all their protective talisman tattoos lose all power and effectivity with a broken talisman diagram, in the same way a broken mandala or a broken circle loses its ritual capacity once it has been interfered with?

Mijja watched as Rimara stood over Raxri's right side. They had pumped Raxri with anaesthetic remedies, so that they did not suddenly awaken in the middle of the procedure. Mijja doubted they even needed the remedies. The herbal remedies came from a white porcelain pot, surrounded by multiple other chambers that were no doubt used for crushing and grinding into fine dust the anaesthetics.

Mijja watched when most of the people had fallen asleep, and only Rimara and her terracotta automaton worked in the hospice ward. She had been assigned by Sutasoma to guard over Raxri, so guard over Raxri they did.

Rimara worked with two needles. One was metal, the other was seething like gas, almost plasma. A needle made of magick or will. No, it was a needle of ardor, powered by her very Cultivation Womb. Rimara sutured flesh lines and physical lines with the mechanical wires and veins of the black porcelain arm. As she brought flesh together and knit them together, she used her spirit needle to reconnect meridians to chakra points.

It was breathtaking work of immeasurable focus. Something Mijja did not even think she would be able to do or pull off.

"So how long've you been studying medicine, pretty girl?"

Mijja blinked. Rimara's husky voice caught her off guard. Another beat of silence, then she said: "U-uh, me?"

"Nay, I speak to my automaton, who is so clearly in the body of a pretty girl."

Mijja blinked.

Rimara did not look away as she sutured another vein, another nerve. "Yes you." She was doing impossible things, but with modern technomysticka, all things were possible. It just needed a skilled enough Cultivator. And most people were Cultivators nowadays.

Mijja cleared her throat. "U-Uh, right. Around 4 years now? I finished my premedicine pretty quickly because I got in early."

"Where'd you do Premed?"

"Uhm. Ekatungga's University."

"Mm. In Pulo Makam?"

Mijja nodded. She was surprised the Prosthetician knew. Ekatungga's was not a popular University by any means. "Y-Yes. I focused on pharmaceutics. Though now my two specializations are pharmaceutics and white magicks."

"Ah, a ritual-doctor. That's good." She nodded as she finished suturing another meridian. Every time she did, Mijja could feel a burst of energy. She finished and turned around and dropped the metal needle onto a metal tray. She turned and summoned another one, freshly sterilized, from her automaton. "White magick's falling out of favor, you know. Easier to just prepare pharmaceutics, medicines, elixirs, and pills in advance. And they sell easily. And there are huge corporations that would kill for medica-chemists."

"I know," said Mijja. "But I really think this is my duty. And there are some things that medicines cannot completely heal. And mass healing rituals are not too hard to do. And if I can catch a wound fast enough I can resuture arms and fingers and all that."

"Yes, miracles," said Rimara. She shrugged. She had taken off her jacket and only had her bralette on. Mijja could see her sweat glistening off of her shoulders, the nooks of her clavicles, the edges of her armpits. "That's what we all need, nowadays. Without any lie, we do need more Healers among the ranks of the People's Army. Too many of us are concerned with logistics, strategies, poetry, and martyrdom. Not enough are interested in science, medicine, and artifice. Though I suppose that is just as well—we do need those willing to carry out war and those willing to die for it. But medicine and healing are integral parts of war..." She sighed. "White Magicks is harder to learn, so that may be one of the material reasons for it. Heh. But it pays so godsdamned well if you can get to that point."

Mijja pouted in wonder. She had two questions. "When... Sorry. Are you in medical school?"

"Yeah," said Rimara, turning around and focusing again on Raxri with her new needle. With a single handed hand seal of Tiger, Snake, Heaven, Earth, Man, she summoned a spirit needle from her heart again. This one was burning a bright orange. "Well, I was. I dropped out halfway through Prosthetics school and halfway through Spiritworking school."

A slight tinge of worry arose in Mijja's face. "You... dropped out?"

"Yes. But it's not too bad, don't worry about it. I continued the practice with some other illegal doctors that were banned from academia."

Mijja raised an eyebrow in askance. She leaned back on the sofa. "Why were they..."

"Banned? Well, mostly attempts at distributing life saving pills and elixirs to the masses. And Cultivation Pills and Elixirs to their friends. And also attempting to do medical procedures outside of the prescribed manuals and manuscripts."

The first one was weird to Mijja, but she could see the reasoning behind it. The material conditions behind it. The second one, though, seemed much more unreasonable. "Why were they attempting medical procedures outside of the safer and tried and true method?"

Rimara answered completely nonchalantly, without missing a single beat. "I don't know about you, Mijja, but the tried and true method was done by old men who experimented on women and children. Not all medical procedures are created equal, and not all human bodies are the same. In this sense, there were other ways to perform medical procedures both safer and quicker, with less chance of injury or pain to patients."

Mijja bit the inside of her cheek. She was still somewhat doubting the veracity of what Rimara was saying. And she wasn't one to back down. "Do you have an... example?"

"The 'tried-and-true' method of checking on the health of a woman's womb and genitalia was poking around it with a gloved finger," said Rimara, immediately, as if the answer had been cocked and loaded ever since the topic had been brought up. "The new method that my colleagues were doing was using sensing mantras to go through without discomfort for the patient. Did you know that that way was the ancient way of doing things, when our ancestors depended on sutra, mantra, and talisman-tech? But now this way is the way because of a few old men that did some few good things in their life and now everything they say about the bodies of humans is the truth of all things. Which it's not."

Mijja sighed. She crossed her arms across her chest. "I see. You must have gone through a lot."

"More than that. We have safer and cleaner rituals for abortions, for sterilizing tattooing implements, and for neurosurgeries, but all these caused us to be removed from medical school due to 'breaking the oath'. We broke no oath, we upholded it for the betterment of all."

Mijja was quiet for a moment, soaking all of that in. Rimara sutured another meridian. Raxri was visibly breathing much longer now. Deeper. Relief washed over their form. In seeing this, Mijja felt as though a weight had been lifted off of their own shoulders for just a moment.

Mijja said: "I will render judgment unto you, as you are far more experienced than me, I suppose, great prothestician."

Rimara snorted. "Damn right." She turned around and pressed something on her automaton. Pulled out what looked like a stele, and then ground the needle against that. The metal needle burned a bright blue. Mijja had no idea what medical procedures Rimara was doing, but it was far too esoteric for Mijja's current Cultivation level.

Mijja did have a thought, though. And one thing about Mijja is that when she's interested in something, she will voice it out. No matter what social repercussions it might bring about to her. "So what caused you to drop out?"

"I was kicked out," said Rimara.

"W-Why did they kick you out...?" Mijja started to doubt if she should have asked the question in the first place.

"The abortion part," she said. "Did you know that in Zansokoro University, they still uphold the non-abortion law cooked up by the Prime Congregation? Not even Yenja sung of that, and yet it was old men that decided this final 'truth'. When they found out that I had conducted an abortion on an assaulted child because none of their doctors would take it on, they kicked me out. I was their best student too." Mijja did not doubt that at all. She flew through the prostethic surgery without difficulty. She had done this multiple times. To any other prosthetician this would have been a difficult endeavor, but here was Rimara of the Porcelain Needle suturing spiritual meridians and nerves while telling tall tales with Mijja.

"How... unfortunate," Mijja said, leaning back. She grew up a devout Yenjanist, one of the many religions of the Utter Islands. Yenja in particular became a powerful force ever since it was adopted as the Holy State Faith of the Fianese Empire, which would cascade into becoming the primary religion of the Ratenese Empire which conquered half of the Archipelago Continent, and then would cascade into becoming the implicit foundational basis for the culture of Ressen-Nalenji and the many Colonies of the Central Yavinian Guild. The exoteric belief and tenet of Yenjanist thought is that all abortion is murder, and that all murder was rightfully against the Will of God. It was the tenet of the Allcaring, after all, to choose not to slay any being under any circumstance. Of course, one must look away when listing the genocides caused in the name and by faith to the Allcaring, but that is a debate for another time.

Mijja simply chose not to speak about it. She hadn't gotten pregnant yet. She thought about sterilizing herself—there was a white ritual for it. Just so she wouldn't have to go through pregnancy. But she was terribly good with children, and she was interested in becoming a mother just to show her own mother what a good child with a good parent would look like. Yet, even that she was not yet sure.

Her thoughts were a rose hiding many many thorns. And anyone that tried to understand her would have their palms cut and their fingers poisoned.

A couple more hours passed. It was almost sunrise, the great Sun climbing out of the horizon as Rimara nodded and pushed her chair back. "It's done."

Mijja had fallen asleep multiple times; yet she had managed to watch most of the surgery through. She had fulfilled her mission of staying guard for Raxri.

More importantly to her, she was able to glean just a bit more knowledge from Rimara. The most important one being that there was a powerful White Mage somewhere here, in the commune itself. That White Mage went by the name of Diayong Isidori, who was a Cultivation 6 White Mage and had been granted the title of Pasuga, which meant "Lightward", one of the higher stages of White Magick.

Mijja rose to her feet and approached the now changed Raxri. Raxri's entire right arm seemed to almost seamlessly change from arm stump to the porcelain arm. It looked so good that the arm looked more like a long porcelain gauntlet that reached up to their bicep.

The porcelain arm had silver mechanisms, cogs, and cylinders that allowed the porcelain arm to be moved similar to an actual arm. "It should be just as flexible as a normal arm, with the main difference of it being, well, much stronger than a normal flesh arm. Ah, but of course, if Raxri over here put on some more muscle then none of that muscle would go into the arm. You can come to me to find a tune up or a fix up, though," said Rimara as she gave a paper talisman to Mijja, bearing her name written in all ten languages of Selorong. She winked at Mijja, and Mijja suppressed a smile.

"I'll make sure to do that should the need arise."

"It will," said Rimara as she commanded her automaton to fix up. She gestured to multiple glowing points along the hand, twinkling like distant night stars. "These points are their meridians. So it should be a bit easier to visualize Breath movement through it all."

"Handy," said Mijja, tapping her lower lip in thought.

"The porcelain is lacquered in a magicked oil that makes it so that it will not rust should it come to contact with water, air, humidity, or anything else. Really, at this point, it has all the benefits and the drawbacks of a normal flesh hand. Of course, when the Heaven Dancer comes to, there will be a portion of time where they have to adjust. I'm sure you know this already, however. Guide them through it. If the Heaven Dancer is empty, however—that is to say, they do not cling to their ego and therefore to their physical body—then adapting to the mechanical hand should come easier." Rimara pointed to the small cylinders again, moving and pumping, mechanical repetitions like the thought-process of a dead god. "Witness. These pistons work overtime. They are powered by Raxri's own Ardor. This means if they can channel ardor into it, it can strengthen and be bolstered, allowing the hand to withstand humongous forces or even lift or move objects exponentially larger than Raxri."

"I will keep that in mind for training." It was the Ultramystic Sutasoma, walking in. She hadn't changed at all, and the slight sheen of sweat over her forehead suggested she hadn't slept, changed, nor bathed since the night time. "You've done marvelous work, Rimara. We are honored."

"And so am I. Now, do I have a room readied here yet?"

Sutasoma smirked. "You do. Please, follow Sister Juwana."

Behind her, an elderly woman clad in three layers of robes. She smiled and beckoned Rimara over.

Rimara stuffed the last of her needles into her automaton. "I suppose I'll be seeing you around the commune, Mijja Tomoe Saoze."

"And you as well, Elder Sister Rimara Sanaze."

Sutasoma inspected the arm once Rimara had left. By the end of her investigation, she couldn't help but grin fiercely. "This seems more like an upgrade than a replacement! I will be glad to have Rimara as our resident prosthetician for the commune."

Mijja nodded. "Elder Sister says that there will be an adjustment period for Raxri."

"That can be arranged pretty quickly, I assume," said Sutasoma. "It will come with the training. Let us hope that Raxri heals up soon as well." She turned to Mijja and pat her head. "You should rest. You've been awake for most of the night, I assume."

Mijja managed a soft smile. "I'll sleep right here in the sofa, if that's all right."

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