You can read early chapters on my [P].[A].[T].[R].[E].[O].[N].
Link: [email protected]/Arson09
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"I am so sorry, sweetheart..." Ethan and the doctors made their way out of E1 as Gina's cries resounded behind them.
All of them stood in silence for a few seconds, reflecting on the tragedy that had just transpired.
Finally, Doctor King broke the quiet. "We should go inform the grandmother and his little sister..." She gulped, struggling to hold back her tears.
"He had a little sister...?" Ethan asked in saddened disbelief.
"Yes... would you like to join us?" Doctor King asked hesitantly, a request that immediately earned a raised eyebrow from Doctor Collins.
" May I ? " Ethan asked looking towards Dr. Robby.
Doctor Robby looked hesitant as well but finally nodded. "If you want to..." he said simply, raising both hands in a neutral gesture before turning away to attend to another patient.
Within the medical community, Ethan Park was a polarizing but legendary figure. He had built a reputation—or perhaps a mythos—around his inexplicable ability to heal any illness, transcending the limits of modern science.
Yet, it wasn't just his power that defined him; it was the immense goodwill he had cultivated over years of quiet service, granting families a few more precious days, months, or years with their loved ones.
In every city Ethan visited, a trail of miraculous recoveries followed, leaving local physicians baffled and grateful in equal measure. This was far from his first time stepping into this particular trauma center.
Though he wasn't on familiar talking terms with the current staff, the veterans of the hospital remembered him well.
They remembered the boy who walked through the wards and left behind empty beds and healthy Children.
And Dr. Robby, above all, remembered him vividly; so even after the news about "The Day of the Falling Star" and the subsequent headlines that followed, he still saw that same boy.
Ethan followed Doctor King and Doctor Collins toward the family room.
**Inside the Family Room**
Kiara Alfaro, the hospital social worker, sat on the sofa adjacent to the grandmother and Bella. Bella herself was completely absorbed in using her crayons to paint a vibrant rainbow on a sheet of paper.
Just then, the door opened and in walked Doctor Collins, Doctor King, and Ethan. Doctor Collins gave a solemn nod toward the grandmother and motioned for her to step out into the hallway; the grandmother followed her with a trembling breath.
Ethan and Doctor King took their seats in the room as Bella continued coloring, seemingly oblivious to the shift in atmosphere.
Kiara leaned forward and spoke gently. "Bella? Doctor King and..." She paused, looking at Ethan for a moment and gulping involuntarily. "Mr. Park is here."
Bella looked up once before returning her focus to her masterpiece. "Hi," she said. "I'm coloring." She spoke with a heartbreakingly childlike innocence.
*She doesn't even realize what has happened... maybe that's a blessing,* Ethan thought. He reached down, picked up a fallen crayon, and placed it back on the table.
"You are a very good artist," Ethan said, taking a quiet peak at her drawing.
"Thanks," Bella replied. Ethan and Dr. King exchanged a heavy, pained glance.
"Um, Bella?" Dr. King started softly.
"Yeah?" the little blonde girl answered without looking up.
"What have you heard about Andrew?" Dr. King asked.
"He's really sick... but the doctors and nurses are trying to make him better," Bella replied as she swapped her blue crayon for a yellow one.
"That must make you sad. You know, I have a sister too... I don't like it when she is sick," Dr. King added, her voice straining.
"He saved me," Bella clarified matter-of-factly.
Ethan sat up straighter. "He did?"
"I fell in the pool. He helped me get out... but then he couldn't get out," Bella added. A stifling silence followed until Bella herself broke it. "I'm making him a card."
Unable to hold back her tears any longer, Dr. King stood up abruptly and fled the room.
Kiara also stood up. "I'll be right back, Bella," she said softly, following Dr. King outside and leaving only Ethan and Bella alone in the room.
"I finished my card..." Bella spoke up, putting down her crayons and shifting back into her seat.
"Oh?" Ethan moved toward her and sat by her side. He examined the card, which consisted of two pages; the first depicted a vibrant rainbow.
Then he flipped to the next page, which showed a carefully drawn panda. "It's beautiful. I love it."
"Thanks," Bella replied. "Can I see Andrew now?"
"Umm... not quite yet," he answered, his gaze still lingering on the picture of the panda.
Sensing his intent, Tora subtly transmuted a stuffed panda into Ethan's hand.
"What is that?" Bella asked innocently, her eyes wide with curiosity as she witnessed the transmutation.
"Oh... it's from your drawing," Ethan answered gently.
"For Andrew?" she asked.
"For you and for Andrew," Ethan replied. "But you get to be the one to name him."
"I think his name will be Panda," Bella decided. "Andrew likes them."
"Alright," Ethan added, looking at the stuffed toy and then back at the little blonde girl. "Since you can't see Andrew right now, but I bet you have a lot of things to tell him... Panda is going to help."
"How?" Bella asked.
"Well, if you tell Panda everything you want to tell Andrew, I'll take Panda and sit him on Andrew's pillow," Ethan explained. "And then he'll tell him everything you said. What do you think of that plan?"
"I like it," Bella replied, beaming with a smile.
"Yeah? Okay. Do you want to give it a try? There you go." He passed the panda to Bella, and she hugged it tight.
Bella seemed to think for a moment, then she began. "Hi, Andrew. It's me, Bella. Thank you for saving me. When you come home... I promise I won't touch your toys without asking, and I'll try not to fight. Because you are my best friend in the whole entire world. I love you." She punctuated the message by kissing the panda on its forehead, then handed the toy back to Ethan.
"Andrew is going to be so happy with that. You are going to see him again, I promise," Ethan said with a warm smile, standing up to leave the room.
However, his expression shifted the moment he crossed the threshold, hardening into a grim set of determination.
Ethan looked down at the stuffed panda, then toward Emergency Room E1 where Andrew and his parents remained. He swallowed hard and made a beeline toward them.
From across the ER, Dr. Robby spotted Ethan moving with intent toward E1. He rushed through the corridor, intercepting him just before he could enter the room.
"Let them mourn their kid," Dr. Robby said, placing a firm palm on Ethan's chest and looking at him warily. "Whatever it is you want, it can wait until after."
"Come with me," Ethan replied, meeting Robby's gaze. The conflicting emotions that had plagued him moments ago had vanished; in their place lay the weight of a promise made to a little blonde girl.
"There is a way."
"What...?" Robby whispered, his strength faltering as he lowered the arm blocking Ethan's path. Together, they both made their way inside.
The scene had not gone unnoticed by the rest of the staff. Seeing Ethan and Robby head back into E1, Dr. Whitaker, Dr. King, Dr. Collins, and Nurse Dana—along with several others who weren't even directly involved—began to gravitate toward the room, drawn by a mixture of curiosity and hope.
**Inside E1**
Gina, Ryan, Ethan, Dr. Robby, Dr. Collins, Dr. King, Dr. Whitaker, Dr. Langdon, Dr. Santos, and Dr. McKay stood in a heavy circle around Andrew's cooling body.
"So, you are telling me... there is a way you can bring back Andrew? Bring back my boy?" Gina asked through a veil of tears. Ethan gave a solemn, resolute nod.
"And how is it you are going to do this exactly? Because I think I heard you mention a *soul*," Dr. Santos critiqued sharply. She looked around the room with wide, disbelieving eyes. "Am I the only sane person left here? That guy," she pointed an accusatory finger at Ethan, "is a super-powered terrorist. You should be in jail," she snapped, staring him down.
"Not here, performing hocus pocus on a little boy. Ma'am? Sir?"
She turned her desperate gaze toward the parents. "Your kid is gone. I can't imagine what you are going through but He is trying to scam you out of your money—giving you nothing but false hope."
Gina looked conflicted for a fleeting second before turning back to Ethan. "What do you want? You haven't asked for any money," she noted, her voice trembling.
Ethan looked toward Santos, then back at the grieving parents. "Just your permission," he said simply.
"Do it," Gina said, a sudden, desperate weight returning to her voice.
"Honey?" Ryan interjected immediately. "This does sound like... I don't know..." He hesitated, the impossibility of the situation gnawing at him.
"Scam. The word you are looking for is scam," Santos added, her eyes burning with professional indignation. "You think you're a hero, don't you? Maybe you're doing it for the money, or maybe you're doing this just for the kicks—which is much, much worse."
Ethan tilted his head, simply staring at her for several silent seconds. His expression was unreadable, a calm sea before a storm.
"Do it. Please... bring Andrew back," Gina repeated, her conviction overriding her husband's lingering doubt.
Santos gulped, stepping back as the atmosphere in the room began to shift. "I am not going to stay here for this."
As she made to leave, Ethan interrupted. "Allow me to demonstrate..."
Santos stopped and turned around. "Dr. Santos..." he added, his eyes dropping to the ID badge that hung from her uniform. He slowly walked toward her, his presence growing heavier with every step.
"As my teacher likes to say, you're a woman looking at the world through a keyhole. You have spent your whole life trying to widen that keyhole—to see more, to know more. And now, upon hearing that it can be widened in ways you can't imagine..."
Tora didn't need to be told. He partially emerged from the shadow and tapped Santos's abdomen with his palm. The impact was silent, yet her astral form was instantly thrown from her physical body.
"You reject the possibility."
Seeing the shimmering astral form of Santos hovering in mid-air, the doctors around the room felt the foundation of their world shift.
"What the hell?" Doctor Langdon muttered.
"Fuck," Whitaker breathed, taking a panicked step back.
"Did you kill her?" Dr. McKay asked, glancing frantically between Santos's slumped physical form and Ethan's undisturbed expression.
"Oh my god, I am floating!" Santos cried out, her voice vibrating with an ethereal resonance as she stared at her own translucent hands.
"That is your astral form—the soul, as many cultures call it," Ethan explained. He closed his hand in a gripping motion, prompting Tora to pull Santos's astral self back into her body with a sudden jolt.
"In the world of Jujutsu," Ethan began, stepping toward Andrew's bedside, "the **Cursed Corpse** is a common phenomenon. They take various shapes and forms, though they are usually hostile toward humans. Most are merely inanimate objects possessed by cursed energy—effectively puppets."
He paused, looking at Gina and Ryan. "The method I am about to use is based on this very principle." They looked visibly shaken at the mention of 'corpses' and 'puppets.'
Ethan scanned the room, noting the growing skepticism in the other doctors' eyes. "The man who pioneered this specific technique was from a distant land; his name was **Masamichi Yaga**."
"Yaga discovered how to create an **Abrupt-Mutation Cursed Corpse**. The uniqueness of this creation is that, unlike standard corpses that eventually stop functioning, this one is functionally immortal and possesses complete sentience."
"What I am trying to say is... Dr. Santos is not entirely wrong," he admitted, glancing at the dazed doctor before turning back to the parents. "If you agree to this, yes, your son will be saved—but he will be an aberration of nature. He will be like me," Ethan clarified, "but in some ways, much worse... as he will no longer look human."
Gina gasped, and Ryan leaned in, his voice trembling. "Then... what *would* he look like?"
Gina snapped toward her husband, her maternal instinct flaring. "We would love him regardless! Even if he looks like a monster!"
At her outburst, Ethan looked genuinely bewildered. "He would look like a panda," he said simply.
"Huh?" Gina's mind went blank, the word hanging in the air.
"Huh?" her husband echoed, his confusion mirroring her own.
After listening to Ethan's grim explanation of cursed corpses, they had been expecting something akin to Frankenstein's monster—definitely not a cuddly bear.
"Huh?" Ethan followed up, completely oblivious to the fact that his dramatic build-up had made them envision a literal demon.
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A/N: So how was the chapter?
These chapters are written to showcase a normal day in Ethan's day-to-day life. He routinely encounters different types of curses originating from across various cultures. He heals those he can along the way, but the harsh reality is that he simply cannot save everyone. He often arrives long after the damage has already been done.
I have also planned for an interaction between Park and Lady Death in a future update.
One final thing: Ethan will soon embark on a multiverse travel arc spanning two to three chapters right sometime after the senate hearing concludes.