cursed 38: The Blood Doctor

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Chapter 38: The Blood Doctor

…Ah.

I signed it.

Even though it’s a pretty innocent part-timer contract that can be easily broken, and even though we were discussing how temporary my stay with Happy Life Work could be, why do I feel like I’ve somehow signed my soul away?

The image of a cackling Boss Nagi, with a dark aura coming off of her – that’s just my imagination, right?

… Un. Honoka’s not reacting to it at all, so it really is my imagination.

You might think I’m being paranoid, but the way the last week has been going, well… I mean, it’s like the entire world is out to get me or something.

Anyway, after hearing about what’s been happening on THIS side of the Veil, it can’t be helped that it finally helped me make up my mind to join.

Fushimi-san and the police (or at least Daiki-san’s unit) both say it’s a pretty good deal if I don’t want to join a big organization right away, and it sounds like I can easily switch affiliations or whatever.

I gotta be honest; I don’t really know what it’s like on this side of the Veil, but from what I know about human nature (and manga), if you join a faction on any side, it’s always going to be hard to switch allegiances, no matter if you’re talking about kids on the playground or the mafia.

Un, I think this is the wisest decision to buy me some time while I learn more about this world.

But still, you can’t blame me for feeling uneasy about the whole thing…

“Alright! Ideal subordinate, get!”

…Yeah, Boss Nagi doesn’t really instill any confidence in me at all.

While I’m holding my head, wondering what the heck I’ve gotten myself into,

“Alright! Let’s go on the first job!”

“Eh-?”

Before I can look up and ask what Boss Nagi was talking about, and before Suzu-chan can protest that technically my term of work doesn’t start until tomorrow, and really, we need to determine the hours – Boss Nagi had grabbed me and Honoka by the arm and charged towards the door.

“!?”

No, Kei-san.

Following us while muttering how intolerable Boss Nagi’s behavior is isn’t actually HELPING us, you know?!

What’s going ooooon?!

With my eyes spinning a little, before I know it, we’re standing outside a shopfront in a kind of shady alleyway.

… Who was thinking that things would be okay now? Oh right.

My naivety.

Finally releasing me and Honoka (Honoka, you weren’t even trying to resist, were you?), Boss Nagi put her fists on her hips, facing the store, and puffed out her (really big) chest and said,

“Alright, so first job is auditing the Blood Doctor’s clinic! Don’t worry, he doesn’t bite… often. That much.”

Kei-san just sighed, smoothly moving towards the door and, like some expert butler, holding it open elegantly so that Boss Nagi, with her heels clicking against the sidewalk, could strut in without any obstacles.

“Blood Doctor?”

Honoka asks.

“He really is a doctor. Although the degree…”

… The first job is an unlicensed doctor.

We’re auditing an unlicensed doctor?!

Over what?!

I feel like this could end up getting us killed!

Kei-san keeps holding the door open, even after Boss Nagi had entered, and looked expectantly at Honoka and me.

Yeeeah….

Before I can say anything, though,

“Hurry up! What are you waiting for?”

Boss Nagi’s voice calls down from the cement stairs leading upwards.

Sh—it, that looks like it’s just a couple of years from deteriorating into a perfect horror movie set.

Dark, cement stairs, no windows, just flickering lights…

“Even though we replaced them with LED bulbs last time… Akira just turns everything around him into a horror film.”

I can hear Boss Nagi muttering to herself.

It totally does not make me feel reassured.

Going up the creepy industrial stairway, followed closely by a completely nonchalant Honoka, we pushed open the frosted glass door (“Bulletproof,” was what Boss Nagi said with a completely un-reassuring wink) and were greeted with…

A completely normal-looking, small town clinic.

What.

“Geez~ Akira, don’t mess with the lights on the stairway~. It’s totally not the first impression a clinic should make, huh~?”

Boss Nagi’s frivolous tone went up another notch as she strode in boldly and complained.

So it’s not like things just become a horror set around him, he actually just messes with them so they look creepy?!

Ugh. These people…

“But it does set the atmosphere nicely, doesn’t it?”

A smooth baritone floats out and there’s the sound of small castor wheels rolling on the spotless white tile as someone rolls out from behind the curtained divider on an office chair.

A … man? Pale and slim with long legs and silky black hair in a white doctor’s coat, but black everything else.

Although I can’t see his full face because of the surgical mask … he’s definitely an ikemen with that aura, or even something a level higher.

Kh.

Damn ikemen.

With a snort, Bass Nagi shifts her weight so she can cock her hips and angle her head, staring down on the man in a kind of aggravating pose.

“What, do you have a patient?”

“Fufufu. Are you seriously asking that? With everything going on these days, it’s more surprising that I have any beds open.”

With a calmness that’s totally weird, considering he’s talking Boss Nagi, the first person except Kei-san that’s capable of doing that, that I’ve seen, the man gently pulled down his surgical mask.

Shit, he’s totally an ikemen – just when I’m thinking that, the man fixes his eyes on me.

Red, slightly glowing eyes framed by long black eyelashes.

Wait.

Is this guy human?

“… So, is this the boy who’s the source of all this trouble?”

… No.

I barely manage to keep myself from reflexively responding.

“Fufufu, amazing, right? By the way, he’s an employee, so don’t even think of it.”

“Fufu, what unwarranted worry. I’m more interested in chi(blood) than qi(breath).”

The man laughs and smoothly crosses his legs.

The way they said that, it sounds like their own kind of inside joke.

Not that I want in on the joke, but if you only focused on the words, of course I’d be worried about what Boss Nagi meant by ‘don’t even think of it.’

Fushimi-san, I understand.

It’s IMPOSSIBLE to take her seriously, or you’d go insane.

“Um, I’m Kousei Ishikawa. By the way, what do you mean by ‘all this trouble’?”

“Fufufu. You don’t know? Well,”

The man chuckles, then, with one smooth motion, pulled the curtains behind him aside.

…. That’s a lot of people lying on those beds.

About twenty or so.

All injured.

“Eh? What?”

I instinctively look at Kei-san and Honoka for an explanation, but Boss Nagi replies instead.

“We~ll, see~, I told you, right~? You’re super trending in the supernatural side of things~. There’s been more attempted invasions of Tsunatou in the past few days than the entire past year, you know~?”

F-for real!?

“Like, invasions… fighting? I hadn’t heard of it!”

“If you had heard of it without being directly involved, the men in black wouldn’t have been doing their jobs, those tax thieves~.”

M-men in black? We’re not talking about aliens, though!

“A~nyway, this is Akira, also called the Blood Doctor. He’s an unlicensed doctor, but the only one in this town who isn’t connected to a faction and can treat injuries and diseases from this side of the Veil.”

No, don’t just gloss over the fact that our town’s become a battlefield, with me and Honoka being the direct causes!

Wait, if there are other doctors who ARE connected to a faction, does this mean there are actually a lot more casualties than these?

Like, these are just the people who aren’t local, or not connected to a faction, or something?!

Even though my mind’s spinning, the man completely cuts into my thoughts with a light laugh.

“Fufu. Welcome, and nice to meet you, Kousei-kun, Kitsune-san.”

Ah, jeez…

“…Nice to meet you. This is Honoka, by the way.”

I’ve given up.

Honoka bows her head a little, but her eyes are staring curiously at Dr Akira.

“Ah, yes, I’m Honoka. …. Excuse me, this might be a bit rude, but, you… what are you?”

Honoka?!

“H-ooh…”

Dr Akira’s eyes narrow dangerously.

Th-this, is this bad?

“Fufufu. See~? I told you a high-class youkai like a six-tailed kitsune could tell.”

“Fufu, oh my. It seems I’ve never encountered truly powerful youkai before, then. May I ask what gave me away?”

This guy really isn’t human?!

“To be correct, it’s not just this human. There have been a few other humans like him, so this question has been on my mind for a while. How are you a living being without any spiritual power in your aura whatsoever?”

Eh? So … he IS human, but he’s … not?

“I see, so she can ‘see’ aura’s, rather precisely, as well. Things will get even messier if word about this gets around, Nagi-chan.”

“Hm… your patients…”

“Of course I put them out, completely. It’s troublesome when my patients are from opposing factions, after all.”

Wait.

This is the first I’ve heard of this, Honoka!

I complain at my kitsune familiar loudly, although within my head.

What I actually say is,

“By the way, several people…?”

When I ask, Honoka kind of shrugs, saying,

“We-ll, just here or there. It’s pretty rare, though.”

“Fufu, yes, it would be better not to point them out for their privacy, although I’m quite a special case since almost everyone on this side of the Veil knows about me.”

Dr Akira says, closing the curtains on the divider as he turns to face us.

“Well, basically, although we don’t know exactly how long ago it was, within the past 1,000 years or so, there were some crazy people who did some pre~tty questionable things with magic, and long story short, there are monsters now~?”

“Nonono, you cut the story too short!”

I can’t help blurting out.

By the way, Boss Nagi said ‘monsters’ in English, so,

“Monsters, you mean, Frankenstein and stuff?”

“Well, basically, although those living flesh golems all fell to pieces decades ago, so that clan has died out.”

Boss Nagi replies to me, but Dr Akira said,

“Well, all the ones that we know of. Body snatchers are just souls, so it’s not like we’re definite that we’ve wiped them out.”

WHAT.

Anyway, Dr Akira spits out those words with a face of disgust, so he must hate those ‘body snatchers’.

He lets out a breath that’s barely a sigh before saying,

“Monsters are people who, in attempting immortality through taboo means, turned themselves into something else. Well, there’s a fine line between normal monsters and ‘monsters’, but that’s the generality. Even body snatchers were soul mages who crossed a line that should never be crossed.”

“Well~ that’s how they all started, but after 1,000 years or whatever, they’ve become like, separate human races? Although Akira’s still someone who conducted taboo~. He’s super old, after all~”

“Fufu. I’m not quite 1,000 years old, but, well, it’s true that I’ve done something that should never be done. Being alive right in the midsts of the race for immortality… many prominent members of this side of the Veil dabbled in things that they shouldn’t have.”

Even though he said it so lightly, a dark shadow crosses Dr Akira’s face for an instant.

Race for immortality, is it kind of like the space race?

I think I understand.

No, more like, I can picture the fevered competition between factions to become immortal, with every faction feeding off the competition until they’ve all gone too far.

“I see. At any rate, they’re not still committing forbidden acts, correct? So I can leave them alone?”

… Looks like Honoka’s fixated on something completely different than I am.

Well, as expected of a former guard captain of Inari-sama’s.

“Well, there might still be a heretic here or there, but these days most of them have inherited it.”

“Even for my race, although it’s not inherited genetically, the method for changing someone is no longer taboo. To be accurate, the forbidden methods created a new race, but those methods are no longer necessary in transferring our already existing curse.”

Uh… so basically, it’s kind of like making a starter culture versus propagating the culture?

Like, you need to buy the starter, but if you keep the culture alive, you can just use the original to keep making new batches?

…. I’m aware that this is a pretty awful metaphor, but I kind of get it.

“…By the way, what… are you?”

I can’t help but ask.

Boss Nagi laughs and says,

“A-re? Did I not say it already? Akira, he’s the Elder Vampire Lord for all of Japan, see?”

Holy-

No freaking wonder Dr Akira was capable of remaining a neutral party!

I don’t know how real vampires work, but someone called an Elder Vampire Lord, who remained alive from when humans ‘invented’ vampires, there’s no way he’s NOT super powerful, right!?

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<a/n:
Hehe.
Boss Nagi’s actually super nice to bring Kousei here first, in order to teach him about the world… but since I’m the only one capable of getting inside her head, guess no one will ever truly understand her.
Probably no updates next week, because I won’t have internet for most of the week, and I’ll be traveling.
Happy holidays!>