“You know it was a joke, right?” Alyssa frowned. She sank deeper into the chair with a huff. “We’d never have actually sent you somewhere bad.”

  “That’s the difference between us, Lyss,” said Scale. She pointed her thumb at her chest, her bravado surging, and she ughed. “You make jokes disguised as threats, I make promises disguised as jokes.”

  “What kind of nonsense—”

  “She’s saying you should take her words literally.” Sarah chimed in from the couch. She was lying on her stomach and reading a book.

  “Still, to actually drag us out to face those hyenas…”

  “I thought the reporters were quite cute.” Scale sat on the living room floor and stretched, reaching her hands to her toes.

  “You’re only saying that because Hana wasn’t there.”

  “Tch.” Scale clicked her tongue. “Don’t bring her up.”

  “You don’t know this, Sarah, but every time dad was watching Hana’s stream, Scale would change the channel.”

  “You don’t know this, Sarah,” Scale started mimicking Alyssa’s voice in an obnoxious way only a sibling could. “But every time Watergss used her ability after she first awakened she would—”

  Alyssa moved with a newfound speed, blitzing from her chair. She covered Scale’s mouth in a panic. Her movements showed a quiet desperation that rivaled a starving man seeing his first meal in days.

  “Y-you win.” Alyssa conceded.

  “Ah. Nevermind, then.” Scale smiled. Her smug aura mocked her sister.

  “Hey!” Sarah flipped over and sat up. “You can’t leave me hanging like this! Now I’m curious.”

  “Please, Sarah, let’s just move on~” Alyssa made her voice as cutesy as possible, saccharine and floaty.

  “How embarrassing is this story for you to act like this?” A light shone in the recesses of Sarah’s eyes. She met Scale’s stare and the two women nodded, coming to an unspoken agreement to tease and embarrass the world renowned ‘tough girl hero’ trembling before them.

  “Ah.” Scale pushed her sister away and started reminiscing. “I remember her first day of kindergarten. Do you know what she told her css during self introductions? She said—”

  “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH” Alyssa.exe has crashed. Please reinstall your OS.

  “So this Japanese guy is an S-rank hunter.” Scale sighed and id on her back. She set the phone directly on her forehead and just kept talking. Her hearing was strong enough she didn’t need to hold the device to her ear, but it did make her look a little funny. Thankfully, no one was here to see.

  “Yes.”

  “And his son has a disease no one else could cure.”

  “Yes.”

  “And now you want me to see if I can help?”

  “Yes.”

  “... Aren’t there two other S-rank healers that he could have gone to? Why come to the newest one?”

  “Yes and they’re adamant it has to be you,” said the Association President. The exasperation in his tone was apparent.

  “Ah.” Scale sighed. “So they’re coming…”

  “In about two hours.”

  “Fine.”

  “Like I said, it’s okay to refuse—”

  “I said it’s fine.” Scale closed her eyes but she could still feel the morning sun shining through the window. “I didn’t have anything else pnned for today anyways. Tell them I’ll meet them.”

  “Yes.”

  “Ah, talking to you is like talking to a brick wall. Is ‘Yes’ the only word you know?” Scale snapped. She could only carry a conversation by herself for so long. There was a long pause and it seemed like the line went dead. Scale thought the chairman might have hung up on her until she heard his voice again.

  “Yes.” The chairman hung up immediately after.

  “You son of a —” Scale cursed and smmed her phone down, but she stopped herself right before letting it make contact with the bed. She really didn’t want to get a new phone. She kicked her feet in frustration.

  She stared up at the ceiling. Her brow furrowed and she made a decision that she would never regret. “I’m going to kick his ass.”

  The Association had many rooms designed for private medical consultation. Healing abilities were rare but not unheard of, and Response City had the highest number of Awakened individuals of any city in America. It was a numbers game.

  Scale walked into the private room. Four people were there ahead of her. She locked eyes with the Chairman first and he waved at her while mouthing the word ‘yes’. Scale waved back and made a neck slicing motion with her other hand. She mouthed back, ‘I’ll see you after css.’

  “Miss Altiman,” said the Chairman. “This is Mr. Ueno, our guest from Japan.” He then motioned towards the two other people. “The kid on the table is Ueno Yoru, the patient, and this other gentleman is—”

  “Takahashi.” The extra person introduced himself. “I am just a servant of the Ueno family. Please pay me no mind.”

  Scale frowned. She could feel a familiar mana emanating from the servant. It wasn’t a distasteful mana, though, but it let her understand a few things. “You must have come on Mr. Takahashi’s recommendation,” she said. Her eyes were like daggers.

  “The Raven cares for his people.”

  “Tch.” Scale clicked her tongue. She had a [Contract] with Takahashi’s consteltion, one where she sponsored the consteltion. In a way, Takahashi was almost like her grandchild in a cosmic sense. “Whatever,” Scale decided to move on. She would deal with this breach ter. She could have sworn she included a confidentiality cuse in that contract. “Let me look at the patient.”

  Scale stepped forward to the bedside. The teenage boy lying there looked rail thin—he was just skin and bones. Scale put her hand on the boy’s head and sensed the flow of his body. The information that came from her diagnosis magic seemed sporadic and disjointed; it was unusual considering the ability of the caster.

  “Shallow breathing. Excess damage to mana pathways. Ice veins.” Scale’s frown deepened with every word she said. “Three different poisons. One curse magic. Two congenital diseases. Yin mana poisoning…” A white light flooded the room. Scale’s frown deepened. “This is ridiculous.” The kid on the table didn’t seem to be getting better. The expressions of the other three adults in the room crashed. They came to their conclusions simultaneously.

  “As I thought, it wasn’t possible after all,” said Mr. Ueno.

  “I’m sorry, Sir,” said Takahashi. The two men embraced one another. Tears streaked down their cheeks.

  “It is not your fault. It is mine—”

  “The fuck are you two pying out a drama for?” Scale interrupted the conversation like lightning from a blue sky. Both of the men reacted with shock at the rude dispy.

  “Ma’am, why do you taunt us so?” Takahashi stood up. “We have not disrespected you even though you cannot treat the young mast—”

  “Who the fuck said I can’t treat him?” Scale snapped. She flicked Takahashi on the forehead and sent the man flying into the opposite wall.

  “W-what? Do you mean you can?” Mr Ueno ignored his servant being turned into a wall ornament and fell to his knees, almost prostrating himself before Scale.

  “Ah.” Scale hesitated. “I can cure everything else with my magic, but the Yin Poisoning needs special treatment…” Scale was unsure how to expin what she needed to say next. She looked at the excited eyes of the boy and his father.

  “What kind of special treatment? We’ll do anything!”

  “Ah.” Scale sighed. She rubbed her forehead for a moment. “The Yin Poisoning is a constitution that only harms men. There are two ways to treat it but both have… Side effects.”

  “I don’t care about side effects,” said Yoru. “I accept anything to get better.”

  “Well… Okay, so the first option is to rip out all of your mana pathways and heal your body to scab over them, leaving nothing. I can perform this method but you will never be able to use Awakened powers again in your life.” Scale could see the boy’s connection to the [System]. He was a powerful awakened in his own right, almost rivaling his father in terms of raw ability. It would surely be a tragedy to give that up.

  The child gulped. “W-what’s the other option?”

  “Technically I can’t perform the second one. It requires a degree of intricate skill I simply ck.” Scale scratched the back of her head. “If you can find a way to swap your body’s sex from male to female, the Yin Poison would turn from a curse to a boon.”

  “What?” The boy flinched.

  “Mana pathways are pretty flexible. It’s a bit of a stretch, but maybe hormone repcement therapy could work, though it’d most likely just alleviate symptoms. Ideally you’d find someone with an ability that can magically change your—”

  “No.” The father stepped forward. “He is my only heir. I cannot condone that option.”

  “But losing my Awakened abilities…” The boy seemed at a loss. He grit his teeth. He looked up at Scale and said, “The first option. Let’s do it.” His father nodded alongside him. The father and son hugged one another.

  “Being a normal human isn’t so bad,” said Scale as she stepped forward. “Now I’m going to put you to sleep with my magic, because otherwise the pain from having your mana pathways ripped out could put you in shock.”

  Scale felt kind of shitty. She had reconciled with her own changed sex, but seeing the option being so vehemently denied by others made her rethink her own stance on the subject. She wondered: was she the weird one?

  The body of a dragon wasn’t so easily altered, so it wasn’t like she had much of a choice in the matter. Even if she created an avatar, the shape of her mana would influence its form in much the same way those men who turned into avatars back in the Gate were twisted into horrific forms. The only Avatar she’d seen retain part of the form of the contractor was her mother in the body of the Saintess, but even that body had alterations. Perhaps the most concerning thought Scale had was that it really didn’t matter.

  Since becoming a dragon, her emotions and feelings were often different from her past self—her perspective had changed. In some ways it dulled her. In some ways it made her more vibrant.

  Scale stopped her wandering mind before diving too deep. Instead she focused on the task in front of her. Today she would rip away any hope of magic from this child in order to save his life—and part of her felt guilty for her genuine scientific curiosity. She wanted to know what would happen when someone who was part of the [System] had their meridians removed. Would that intricate web of spells and arcane magic view him as an anomaly? Would it still allow him access? Would it demand a payment he couldn’t issue?

  Scale had a way to resolve most of the problems she could foresee, but that didn’t change the fact she was turning a child Harper’s age into an experiment. The guilt didn’t stay her hand. Scale wasn’t such a person. When had she ever considered herself morally good?

  Even under a sleep spell, the boy screamed in pain as his mana pathways were ripped from his body. A devastating white light filled the room. A warm light. An infinite light.

  The screams stopped and only heavy silence remained.