The words hung in the sterile, antiseptic air of the hospital waiting room, a declaration so audacious, so utterly impossible, that for a moment, they seemed to suck all the sound from the world.
"Maybe… maybe I was cured."
Samantha's voice, though quiet, was imbued with a newfound, steely confidence that she herself was still struggling to comprehend. The idea, born of desperate necessity, had taken root in the fertile soil of the night's chaos and was now blooming into a formidable, if fragile, lie. It wasn't entirely a lie, not in the way that mattered. The System had done it. That truth was as undeniable as the phantom ache in her knuckles and the memory of a man's throat collapsing under her grip.
She remembered the glowing blue screen that had first appeared in her bedroom, a specter of impossible technology that had rewritten her existence.
[Host: Samantha Kisaragi]
[Vitality: Normal (Chronic Illness: Aplastic Anemia — REMOVED)]
[Strength: D- (Below Average)] -> [Strength: D (Average Human Female)]
Removed. Not suppressed. Not in remission. The System had surgically excised the weakness from her very code. Her body had confirmed it, first with the grueling workout that should have killed her, then with the terrifying, instinctual violence she'd unleashed in the warehouse. She felt more than normal. She felt alive in a way she'd never known, her senses sharp, her body a humming conduit of stolen, illicit power. This terrifying new reality could also be her greatest shield.
"My illness… maybe it just… went away," she repeated, her gaze steady as she met her parents' bewildered stare. The fragile, pleading girl they had spent a lifetime protecting was gone, replaced by someone they didn't recognize. "If you're truly worried about me," she pressed, planting the seed, pushing the desperate gamble, "then let's find out for sure. Have the doctors here run the tests. A full blood panel. Right now. Let's see if the aplastic anemia is… gone."
Her parents stared, stunned into a temporary, shocked paralysis. Her mother, Elena, whose face was a tragic canvas of streaked mascara and raw fear, shook her head slowly, a single tear tracing a new path down her cheek. It was a movement of disbelief grappling with a hope so fierce it was painful.
"Cured? Sami, honey," she whispered, her voice thick and choked. "That's... that's not possible. It doesn't just... it doesn't work that way. Aplastic anemia is a failure of the bone marrow. It can be managed, sometimes it goes into remission, but it doesn't just... vanish."
Her father, Kenjiro, stood beside her, his usual unflappable calm utterly shattered. He was a man adrift in a sea of impossibilities, and his daughter's words were a strange, unbelievable lighthouse. He glanced at the closed ER doors, behind which his son was being treated for injuries inflicted by monsters, then back at his daughter, who seemed to have been remade by the same fire. He saw it—the upright posture, the unwavering gaze, the absence of the faint, almost imperceptible tremor that had always plagued her.
"Impossible or not," Kenjiro said, his voice a low, firm rumble that cut through his wife's spiraling doubt. "If there is even a one-in-a-billion chance... Elena, she's right. We have to know." His pragmatic mind seized on the one tangible, testable claim in a night of incomprehensible chaos. He turned to his wife, his eyes filled with a desperate, terrifying hope. "We need to call Dr. Ito. We need him to run the tests. Now."
Elena nodded, a fierce, decisive motion. The raw terror of nearly losing Ren, now compounded by this dizzying, miraculous possibility for Samantha, propelled her into action. "Yes. Now. I'll call his emergency line."
Leaving Ren felt like tearing a part of herself away. Elena hesitated, her hand clutching her phone, her gaze fixed on the closed door to the ER. Ren, however, from his bed of pain, seemed to sense their turmoil. He had heard Samantha's words, had seen the change in her with his own eyes. He forced a weak, but determined smile.
"It's okay, Mom, Dad," he rasped, his voice still painfully thin. He met their eyes, his own gaze clear and insistent despite the pain. "Go. Find out about Sam. Right now, her health is more important than my pride."
Kenjiro walked back to the bedside, placing a hand on his son's shoulder, his grip firm and grounding. "We won't be long, son," he said, his voice thick with emotion. "Akemi-chan will stay with you. We'll call the second we know anything."
Elena's gaze swept over Ren one last time, a mother's fierce, possessive love warring with her fear. She then turned to Akemi, who had stood by silently, a statue of contained energy. Elena's voice was filled with a profound gratitude and trust, placing her most precious treasure into the hands of a girl she barely knew, but who had already proven herself to be more than capable.
"Akemi-chan, please," she began, her voice trembling. "Please, take care of him. He just…"
Akemi stepped forward, bowing her head slightly, a gesture of deep respect that seemed at odds with the faint scent of blood that still clung to her. "Oba-san, Oji-san, please do not worry," she said, her voice a calm, steady anchor in their emotional storm. "I will not leave his side. Go. Find out about Samantha." She offered them a small, genuine smile, a rare and startlingly beautiful sight. "He is in good hands."
A quick, emotional farewell followed. Samantha hugged Ren again, her cheek pressed against his, whispering a low, shaky promise. "I'll be back soon, Onii-chan. I love you."
Her parents did the same, their touches lingering, their eyes filled with a gratitude for Akemi that was almost worshipful. Then they turned and hurried from the room, their footsteps echoing down the sterile corridor, leaving a profound silence in their wake.
As Samantha followed them out, a faint, almost imperceptible blue shimmer flitted at the edge of her vision. Mochi. A silent, hovering question mark, a constant reminder of the impossible truth she was now forced to conceal.
The drive from the Keio University Hospital to Dr. Ito's private clinic in Omotesando was a surreal journey through a ghost city. The usual vibrant, chaotic pulse of Tokyo at night felt distant, muted, the neon lights of Shinjuku blurring into watercolor streaks through the car window. Inside the vehicle, the silence was a living entity, thick with unspoken fears and prayers. Elena stared out her window, her reflection a pale, worried specter against the passing city. Kenjiro gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles white, his mind clearly racing, grappling with the twin horrors of the night.
Samantha sat in the back, an island of deceptive calm in her parents' turbulent sea of emotion. The contradiction of her new reality was a cruel, cosmic joke. They were agonizing over the ghost of an illness that the System had already deleted, while she was secretly juggling a hostile magical contract, pending romance quests, and the knowledge that a five-star threat was descending upon her school.
The power of the System was an undeniable hum beneath her skin. She had felt her stats climb. She had watched her body execute combat maneuvers with an instinctual grace that was not her own. She had felt the wet crunch of bone, not with revulsion, but with a cold, righteous fury. The aplastic anemia was gone. But that truth was shackled to a secret she could never, ever reveal.
How could she fight this 'Corruption' at her school? How could she level up, complete quests, and become the weapon the System seemed to want her to be, all while under the loving, terrified, and now utterly baffled surveillance of her parents? Their relief, if the tests confirmed her "cure," would be a new kind of cage.
The car pulled up to Dr. Ito's clinic. It was a place she knew intimately, a building that had always symbolized her own fragility. Tonight, it felt like a courthouse where her new life was on trial. Dr. Ito, a kind-faced man in his late fifties who had managed her case for a decade, met them in the consultation room, his expression a mixture of deep concern and professional confusion at the late-night summons.
Her parents recounted a heavily edited version of the night's events, framing it as a traumatic but ultimately non-lethal gang scuffle, focusing on Ren's asthma attack and Samantha's inexplicable surge of strength and vitality.
Dr. Ito listened with a patient, practiced skepticism. He gently explained the medical realities, that spontaneous, complete remission in a case as severe as Samantha's was, for all intents and purposes, a medical impossibility. He agreed to run the tests—a Complete Blood Count—more to appease their frantic state than out of any real expectation of a miracle. He was managing their hopes, preparing them for the familiar, grim reality of the numbers.
The blood draw was a moment of quiet, profound change. In the past, it was an ordeal of probing needles and collapsing veins. Tonight, Samantha sat perfectly still, her arm offered without a tremor. The nurse found a vein on the first try, her eyebrows raising in surprise at the easy, dark flow of blood into the vial. It was rich, healthy blood. Samantha knew it. The nurse knew it. It was the first piece of concrete, physical evidence.
They waited. The ten minutes it took the clinic's lab to process the CBC felt like ten years. The air was thick with the silent ticking of the clock on the wall. Elena twisted a handkerchief in her hands. Kenjiro stared at a framed print of a serene bamboo forest, his eyes seeing nothing. Samantha focused on her breathing, a trick Mochi had taught her, trying to quell the frantic drumming of her own heart. What if it's a trick? What if the System is lying?
Finally, the door opened. Dr. Ito walked in, holding a single sheet of paper. He wasn't looking at them. He was staring at the report in his hand as if it were written in an alien language. He looked up, his gaze finding Samantha first, and his professional composure was gone, replaced by an expression of pure, unadulterated shock.
"Kisaragi-san," he began, his voice barely a whisper. He cleared his throat, trying to regain his professional footing. "Elena-san, Kenjiro-san." He held up the paper, his hand trembling almost imperceptibly. "These results… they are not just unexpected. They are… medically incomprehensible."
He laid the report on the desk, turning it for them to see. Columns of numbers. Hemoglobin. Hematocrit. Platelets. White blood cell count.
"Her platelet count is 250,000," he said, tapping the number. "Normal range is 150,000 to 450,000. Her last test, three weeks ago, it was 22,000."
He moved his finger down. "Her hemoglobin is 14.2 grams per deciliter. Perfectly normal for a girl her age. Three weeks ago, she was at 7.1 and scheduled for a transfusion."
He looked up from the paper, his eyes wide with a scientist's awe in the face of an undeniable, impossible phenomenon. "Based on this report... based on these numbers... Kisaragi Samantha does not have aplastic anemia. Her bone marrow is functioning with the efficiency of a perfectly healthy teenager. I cannot explain this. In my thirty years of practice, I have never seen or even read about a case of such a complete, spontaneous, and total reversal."
He leaned back, shaking his head. "This isn't remission. This is a cure. It's... a miracle."
Elena let out a ragged, strangled sob. It was the sound of a decade of fear and grief being released in a single, explosive moment. She launched herself at Samantha, pulling her into a fierce, bone-crushing hug, her tears of joy soaking Samantha's shoulder. "Cured," she wept, the word muffled and holy. "Oh, my baby, you're cured! It's a miracle!"
Kenjiro sank into a chair, his legs seemingly giving out. He stared at the report, tears welling in his own eyes, a sight Samantha had witnessed only once before in her life. The stoic, pragmatic man was broken open by the sheer, overwhelming force of relief.
Caught in the storm of her parents' joy, Samantha felt a dizzying, terrifying disconnect. The lie had worked. It had worked better than she could have ever imagined. She was free. Free from the worry, free from the weakness, free from the cage of her illness.
But as her mother clung to her, a new, colder weight settled in her soul.
DING. The sound was silent, but it screamed in her head.
A new mission notification flashed at the edge of her vision, a lurid pink border around the text. Mochi, sensing the shift, zipped into view, his cheerfulness a jarring, cruel counterpoint to the sacred moment.
"Hey, hey, contractor!" his psychic voice chirped, utterly tone-deaf. "Don't forget Main Mission #1! The romance one! You've only got twenty-eight days left to make someone fall in love with you! And that 'Practice Date' with Liza-chan? The clock is ticking! Six days left before the 'Extreme Unattractiveness' debuff kicks in! No time to rest!"
The school. The Corruption. The romance. The date.
Her cure wasn't a miracle. It was a contract. This new, powerful, vibrant life came with a price, payable in blood, secrets, and the completion of quests that ranged from the apocalyptic to the absurdly mundane.
She pulled back from her mother's embrace, the tears still wet on her cheeks. But her eyes, when she met her father's stunned, weeping gaze, were no longer just filled with relief. They were blazing with a cold, hard resolve born of terrifying necessity. She was cured. She was strong. She was in more danger than ever before.
And a chilling thought, a promise to herself and a challenge to the indifferent System that now owned her, echoed in the silent chambers of her heart.
This isn't over. It's just the beginning.