Chapter Text
“It’s not working—shit!”
Senku’s curse ringed through the spaceship’s cabin like an alarm. Kohaku froze in mid-motion. She and Ryusui locked eyes—Senku cursing meant something was catastrophically wrong.
“What’s wrong with the pod?” she demanded, pushing toward him, her boots grazing the handholds as she fought zero gravity.
Senku was buried elbow-deep in the escape pod’s circuitry, wires and tools drifting around him like a halo of chaos. His jaw was tight, his eyes reflecting flashes of sparks.
“The ejection system,” he snapped. “Electricals are fried. Must have happened during that debris field earlier.”
Ryusui’s expression darkened, his fingers white around the hatch’s frame. “How long to fix?”
Senku barked a humorless laugh, sharp as glass. “Longer than what we’ve got before the asteroid reaches critical range. Junior needs to leave now.”
Kohaku’s breath hitched, the collar of her EVA suit suddenly too tight. Her vision tunneled—but a flash of turquoise and gold caught her eye. Her own reflection stared back from a drifting metal piece. She always took pride when people mentioned how much she resembled her older sister.
Ruri. Ruri was waiting on Earth.
Her decision came like a blade through the haze. She pulled her helmet from the rack, movements sure even as her heart hammered.
“I’ll go.”
“That’s a suicide burn!” Ryusui’s voice boomed through the cabin. “I will not allow it!”
Her hand lingered on her chest straps, tightening them one last notch.
“Are you forbidding me as my captain,” she asked softly, “or as my friend?”
The question silenced him.
“You are a good man, Ryusui. And a great friend. That’s why I’m making this call.” She pressed her helmet into his hands. “Tell my family you tried to stop me.” She grinned, picturing it, and added, “They’ll know you had no chance.”
For once, the unshakable captain didn’t meet adversity with a smile. With practiced care he locked her helmet ring—the hiss of the seal final and heavy.
“We’re counting on you.”
She nodded and turned toward the pilot’s seat.
Senku was gone—the space he’d occupied just moments before was suddenly too empty.
Her chest tightened.
Did he leave because he couldn’t face her end—or because he’d already accepted it as the only logical outcome? She shoved the thought down like a burning coal.
Mission first.
The console blinked alive. Systems cycled green, one by one—main drive, thrusters, reactor charge—until a stubborn red warning glared back: Escape Pod - FAILURE.
“It’s okay…” she murmured, forcing herself to calm, then toggled the comm. “Junior to Stardust, systems check complete—hold on. Ryusui, why did the hatch lock just cycle? It went from green to red.”
“No need to check,” came a voice—from inside the cabin.
Kohaku nearly jolted out of her harness. “Senku?!”
He was there, sealing the hatch behind him, already suited up.
“Ryusui, he’s in here!” she snapped, panic bleeding through her steady tone. “Senku, get out—now!”
His eyes met hers, sharp and unyielding. “I’m not letting you throw your life away. While you fly Junior into intercept, I’ll fix the pod. That’s our way out. End of discussion.”
“I won’t take off unless you… Get! Out!—”her voice cracked.
“Kohaku. I promised we’d save everyone. All seven billion. That includes you.” His voice faltered once, raw with something she wasn’t used to hearing from him—desperation. “Fourteen minutes, ten seconds until our window closes. Start the engine or I’ll do it.”
She couldn’t argue—not with that look in his eyes and the clock ticking mercilessly. She turned back to the control panel—her hand trembled as she reached the comm. “Junior to Stardust. Two aboard. Standing by.”
Static. Then Ryusui’s voice—strained. “Copy, Junior. Godspeed.”
Kohaku could already hear Senku tearing into the pod’s circuits as the clamps disengaged with a shuddering groan of hydraulics and Stardust Junior drifted free into the void.
The first wave of micrometeoroids hit moments later, the impacts rattling through the hull like thrown gravel. Kohaku wrestled the thrusters, weaving through the debris by instinct alone, narrowly skirting chunks that could have torn them apart.
“Tch—steady!” Senku barked.
“You wanna try flying through a rock storm yourself, scientist?”
“If you told me you could fix our pod in exchange, I’d risk it.”
She gritted her teeth. “Too bad. You’re out of luck.”
Straight ahead, their meteorite rapidly filled her view, a slow-spinning mass of rock blotting out the stars. Kohaku’s pulse quickened.
“Approaching target,” she said, throat dry. “Countdown?”
“Four minutes, fifteen seconds,” Senku replied, sweat streaking his temples. “Electricals patched, but one clasp is jammed. If it doesn’t release, the pod won’t eject cleanly—we’ll roast with the blast.”
“I’ll handle that one.” She unstrapped, moving deliberately.
“No.” He grabbed a wrench and hit the metal once, twice. “You—! Fly—!”
“You said you’d risk it, didn’t you?” Kohaku grinned despite their dire situation. “Velocity match in ten seconds… Almost… there—alright! Cruise mode engaged. Senku!”
He cursed, darting to take the helm. “Third clasp from the right. Two minutes, five seconds.”
Kohaku swiftly snatched the wrench from his grasp as she launched herself toward the back. “I leave the explosion to you.”
She found the warped joint. Her pulse thundered as she braced her legs and used the wrench to try to pry it apart, straining with everything she had.
“Won’t budge!”
“Just break it! Doesn’t matter what happens to the frame after detonation!”
She roared, slamming the wrench against the joint. Metal shrieked. Again—harder—the vibration rattled her bones.
“Sixty seconds!” Senku shouted, already overriding the reactor limits. Warning klaxons howled, red strobes pulsed, the explosion imminent. He rushed past her into the pod, strapping the security harness on. “Kohaku!”
Her cry tore through the comm as she put everything she had on the next hit—
—and the clasp snapped.
“It’s free!” she gasped. “Senku—ignite it!”
Senku’s hand caught her wrist, yanking her into the pod. The hatch slammed shut, charges detonated—BOOM—and the pod was hurled free just moments before Stardust Junior’s tanks went critical against the asteroid.
The explosion swallowed everything—sight, sound, mass. A flash of blinding light followed by absolute darkness.
The pod was sent spinning through the void, inertial dampeners screaming in protest before cutting out entirely. Kohaku slammed sideways, body thrown toward the solid metal wall—only for Senku’s arm to lock around her, iron-tight.
His every muscle strained to hold her against him, keeping her from being flung across the small cabin as debris rattled the hull and the pod tumbled end over end.
Seconds stretched like minutes, every spin another chance for the world to shatter. Then, gradually—mercifully—the violent tumble slowed. Through the viewport, the stars steadied.
At last the pod drifted, weightless, silent.
Only their breathing filled the capsule—harsh, uneven gulps of oxygen. The sound of two people who had come within a breath of annihilation.
Yet here they were, against all odds.
Alive.
And Senku held her as if he’d never allow otherwise.
Panels flickered back to life in hesitant pulses of green and amber. The emergency gyros whined as they struggled to stabilize the capsule’s slow spin.
Senku exhaled—a sound halfway between a groan and a laugh. For once, he didn’t push her back with a quip, or explain the physics of what had just saved them. Instead, his head tipped towards the crown of Kohaku’s helmet, as if pulled by a gravity field that only existed between them.
“You’re… still in one piece,” he muttered hoarsely, more to himself than her.
Pulling back slightly, Kohaku caught his expression through the visors. She was met not by the composed scientist who had anticipated every risk, but by a man stretched to his limits. His pupils blown wide, skin pale and slick with sweat, and his jaw tight as if holding in the admission of how dangerously close they’d come.
Her lips parted, but she couldn’t speak.
Senku’s hands lingered at her arms, fingers flexing as if testing whether she was truly solid. He caught himself, let go, gaze darting to the flickering panel, movements sharp but a fraction too fast, like he needed data to anchor him.
“Pod’s holding… Hull integrity, ninety-one percent. Oxygen reserves are stable.” His voice steadied with each report. “Stabilizers will hold until Main gets a lock on our beacon.”
Kohaku studied him as she held onto the seat beside his. The tone was clinical, precise—and somehow still brittle, like glass under strain.
“You don’t have to keep talking,” she said softly.
He stilled, just for a beat. Then forced a scoff. “What, and let you think I was worried? Please. I’d already run the probabilities—your survival odds increased to a solid fifty-six percent if I joined you.”
She arched a brow. “So I was saved by those six points, otherwise…”
He opened his mouth—then closed it again, jaw working. The silence lingered, heavy.
Finally, he exhaled. “No. I wouldn’t have accepted any outcome where you didn’t make it out alive.”
Kohaku blinked. Heat crept up her neck.
Senku dragged a hand up to his helmet, realizing halfway he couldn’t run it through his hair. Awkwardly, his eyes darted back to the console like he regretted every syllable of what he just said. But then, after a moment, he looked at her again, direct and unflinching, as if daring her to challenge it.
“You’re not expendable, Kohaku. Not to me. So don’t pull that self-sacrifice bullshit ever again.”
Blunt. Unfiltered. Nothing dressed in equations or percentages this time.
Slowly, she nodded. “Understood, scientist.”
Senku huffed out a low laugh—half relief, half exasperation—shaking his head as though he’d just admitted something absurd. But he didn’t take it back.
Then the comm crackled.
“Junior, report!” Ryusui’s voice boomed through the cabin, rougher than usual, all the polish burned off by worry. “Are you two still breathing in there?”
Kohaku leaned forward, toggling the switch. “Junior here. We made it out. Target deflection achieved… We’re okay, Ryusui.”
The captain let out an audible sigh of relief, though he recovered quickly into his usual bravado. “Magnificent! Hah! I knew my crew wouldn’t disappoint. Stardust is tracking your signal—hang tight, loves.” Then, softly, “We’ll bring you home.”
The comm cut.
Kohaku glanced sideways. Senku was already recalibrating the stabilizers, recalculating oxygen expenditure—burying himself in math to erase the moment. But she still felt the phantom imprint of his grip—the blunt honesty he couldn’t unsay.
She decided not to press him for now and just let the silence between them speak.