"Uh..."
The remaining high-ranking military commanders of the Reunion Movement and the specialized medical staff from Rhodes Island looked at each other in utter, paralyzed bewilderment.
Before anyone could even open their mouths to protest this sudden expulsion, they saw the tiny Cautus girl step forward aggressively, flipping through a medical clipboard and ruthlessly calling out specific names all over again.
"You, and you over there by the monitors too—get your boots out of my sterile zone immediately!" she barked, her long rabbit ears twitching with irritation. Then, she glared upward at the ceiling. "And you... you little floating thing over there, fly a bit higher yourself! Don't just hover in mid-air getting directly in our way."
The mature-acting Cautus child casually pointed her finger at two more highly qualified Rhodes Island field doctors, evicting them without a shred of hesitation. In the end, out of the entire original medical team, only the lead attending surgeon, Doctor Anto, was permitted to remain crammed inside the specialized intensive care unit, standing alongside the newly arrived delegation from Gensokyo.
Talulah and the other evicted logistical officers were forced to stand awkwardly out in the cold corridor, pressing their faces anxiously against the thick glass viewport. They watched with bated breath as a strange, eclectic group of people—who honestly did not look like medical doctors at all—crowded tightly around Yelena's bed, whispering aggressively among themselves.
"Those people... they really don't look like professional doctors at all!" one of the ousted Rhodes Island medical Operators muttered, crossing his arms and frowning deeply at the display.
Another person standing nearby nodded in tense, immediate agreement. "No regulatory hazardous-materials protective suits, no sterile masks, no standard containment safety measures implemented whatsoever..."
"And just look at her—that specific child is actually directly touching Yelena's exposed subcutaneous wounds with her bare hands!"
As the female Operator spoke, everyone through the glass witnessed a blue-haired girl, who looked incredibly and comically 'wise,' lean over the bed. Driven by sheer, unfiltered curiosity, the girl began to poke the jagged, razor-sharp Originium crystals growing prominently out of Yelena's shoulder and collarbone with her index finger.
Due to the extreme, out-of-control nature of Yelena's ice-based Originium Arts, the baseline surface temperature of her skin and the surrounding crystal-affected areas permanently hovered well below zero. In fact, the specific spots where the Originium nodules breached the skin could plummet as low as minus twenty degrees Celsius. Under any normal circumstances, sustained bare-skin contact with such sub-zero matter would instantly cause severe, necrotic frostbite within seconds.
Yet, this blue-haired girl casually rubbed and stroked the frozen surface of the black crystal for a long while, and not a single trace of discoloration or frostbite appeared on her tiny hand.
If anything, the girl actually seemed to pull her hand back with a deeply dissatisfied, pouty expression. "Hmph! It's not cold enough at all! As expected, this puny ice can't even begin to compare to my power. I really am the absolute strongest!"
???
The people watching from the corridor outside fell into a sudden, deafening silence upon hearing the blue-haired girl's boastful words echo faintly through the intercom system.
What on earth did she mean by 'not cold enough'?
One had to understand that several elite Rhodes Island emergency medical Operators had previously suffered permanent, severe frostbite on their fingers just trying to safely stabilize Yelena's body temperature during her initial transit.
Before the flabbergasted onlookers could even process their anger, they saw Eirin Yagokoro smoothly reach out from behind and deliver a sharp, resounding smack directly onto the blue-haired girl's forehead.
"Stop talking unscientific nonsense," Eirin lectured calmly, her voice carrying an absolute authority. "Remember the strict physical parameters I instructed you on before we crossed the boundary!"
With teary, pathetic eyes, Cirno clutched her forehead with both hands, letting out a soft whine. Then, whimpering, she quickly composed herself and pressed her small palms flat against Yelena's shivering chest.
At the exact same moment, Letty Whiterock, the white-haired woman standing at the foot of the bed, waved her long sleeves gracefully through the air.
Instantly, a profound, visible shift occurred. The biting, lethal chill that had been incessantly radiating outward from Yelena's failing body like an aura was suddenly, violently forced back beneath her skin by an invisible atmospheric pressure. For a brief, terrifying moment, Yelena's entire physiological frame began to glow with a brilliant, translucent luminescence, looking entirely crystal clear like a meticulously carved diamond sculpture.
Seeing the patient's internal pathways successfully stabilized by the suppression of the ambient cold, Eirin took out a pre-prepared, glowing medicinal pill from her sleeve. She crushed it into a fine powder between her fingers and skillfully sprinkled the sparkling residue directly into Yelena's open mouth.
A few tense minutes passed. Eirin reached into her pouch once more, producing a second, distinctly patterned pill. But this time, instead of crushing it, she carefully and precisely placed the solid pill directly into Yelena's mouth, instructing her through a whisper to hold it securely beneath her tongue.
Just as Doctor Anto stepped forward, her mouth opening to ask a pressing scientific question regarding the chemical composition of the medicine, she suddenly froze. She noticed with absolute amazement that Yelena's perpetually pale, deathly white face had suddenly gained a distinct, healthy hint of rosy color.
Eirin turned her gaze back toward the blue-haired ice fairy. Cirno looked back at her pitifully, her lower lip trembling. "But... but won't it hurt a whole lot?"
"It only requires a single drop," Eirin countered, staring down at the fairy with a chilling, unyielding intensity that brooked absolutely no structural compromise. "If you find yourself physically unable to cry on command right now, I can easily find a few creative ways to assist you in producing tears!"
Frightened out of her wits by the terrifying aura of the ancient doctor, a single, genuine tear of distress immediately welled up and fell from Cirno's eye. Eirin, quick as a flash of lightning, caught the falling tear perfectly inside a small, sterile silver cup and brought it directly to Yelena's parted lips.
The exact second that singular fairy tear dripped onto Yelena's lips...
The ambient temperature inside the isolation ward plummeted exponentially in a microsecond. The advanced, high-tier Constant-Temperature Formation that Logos and Patchouli had meticulously woven across the walls was completely unable to withstand that concentrated, primordial elemental force; it cracked loudly and was destroyed directly, the runes turning to ash.
Under everyone's horrified, dilated gaze, Yelena's entire physical body turned into a massive, solid block of jagged, glowing ice crystals within the span of just a few short breaths.
"Yelena!"
Outside the heavy door, Talulah could no longer control her panic. She threw the door open and tried to rush into the freezing room, only to be easily and firmly stopped in her tracks by Flandre. Inaba Tei, having fully anticipated this exact emotional breakdown from the local leadership, had specifically commanded the young vampire beforehand to stand guard at the threshold.
"Don't worry at all, Sister Talulah," Flandre said softly, her small hands clamping down onto Talulah's shoulders with an absolute, immovable strength. "Sister Yelena is currently in a very safe state."
Talulah stared down at her friend, who now completely resembled a frozen, lifeless ice sculpture, and then looked back down into Flandre's steady, reassuring ruby eyes. Meeting the little girl's calm, unblinking gaze, the defensive tension in the dragon's shoulders finally softened.
"Yelena, she's..."
Not just Talulah, but even Alina, who was by far the most familiar with Flandre's behavior, looked at the localized glacier inside the room with an expression of profound concern.
"Ms. Yelena's internal internal-organ injuries were exceptionally severe," Eirin explained, stepping away from the frozen bed and wiping her hands with a cloth. "Simply trying to chemically suppress her condition with Terra's standard medicine is entirely useless in the long run; it is functionally equivalent to drinking poison to quench one's thirst."
"Therefore, I firmly believe that the absolute best and most permanent method to treat her biological failure is through a process of absolute destruction followed by deliberate rebirth."
"Of course, the single biggest medical challenge we faced was how to avoid permanently harming Yelena's core soul and consciousness during that violent 'destruction' process."
Eirin paused, glancing toward the administrators. "And that is when I thought of the unique nature of Ms. Alina's descriptions of this world's energy profiles. Therefore, for this specific treatment, I have adopted a somewhat unorthodox, supernatural method, but one that statistically yields the absolute best therapeutic effect for this patient."
"Does anyone here on Terra know the true definition of a Fairy?"
Almost everyone from the local factions shook their heads in complete ignorance. Fairies were a non-existent concept on the face of Terra. Perhaps the ancient Buldrokkas'tee knew a few fragmented legends and folklores from the northern wastes, but even an elite scholar like Logos only have little knowledge of them. Fortunately, Flandre knew plenty about them from living in the mansion, and Patchouli had also previously discovered a few relevant references in her library books, allowing them to easily explain the concept away to the locals.
"Uh, Fairies are a highly unique type of immortal life form," Eirin lectured, gesturing toward the sniffling Cirno. "They are naturally born with an innate affinity for elements, utilizing what you call 'Originium Arts' as a basic extension of their very nature."
"Furthermore, because they are born directly from the pure elements of nature itself, their physical bodies are fundamentally incapable of being heavily corrupted or destroyed by toxic Originium crystallization."
"This little one here is a high-tier Ice Fairy. I am currently utilizing the pure, uncorrupted essence of her elemental tears to completely encase and protect Yelena's fading consciousness, while simultaneously reinforcing and stabilizing Yelena's own runaway ice-based Originium Arts. Once this cycle is complete, the active Originium embedded inside her body will no longer be a lethal biological burden; it will completely become her own harmless, integrated source of power."
"Of course, absolutely none of this high-tier treatment comes without a structural price."
"The price is that Yelena may no longer be biologically classified as a pure Cautus in the future... but rather as a newly forged Half-Fairy."
The moment Eirin finished laying out her incredible medical summary, the entire room fell into a profound, heavy silence.
Although the local doctors and leaders didn't fully comprehend the exact genetic or metaphysical definition of what a 'Fairy' truly was, they perfectly understood the core meaning of Eirin's words. Once Yelena successfully shattered her way out of this frozen ice sculpture, the toxic Originium inside her chest would no longer be a ticking time bomb threatening her life. As for changing her physical race or species as a side effect of a radical medical treatment... in their bleak world, they needed to worry about basic physical survival first. After all, if she died on that hospital bed, any discussion of ethicality would be entirely for naught.
Seeing that although the local personnel were thoroughly confused, no one raised a single formal or structural objection to the procedure, Eirin secretly breathed a quiet sigh of relief.
Back when Yukari Yakumo had first proposed her strategic suggestion regarding how to handle Terra's incurable plague, Eirin had simultaneously agreed and refused the terms.
She had agreed with the premise that they absolutely could not afford to simply distribute an immediate, effortless 'miracle cure' to the general public all at once. Doing so would instantly cause the greedy, war-mongering nations of Terra to target Gensokyo out of sheer envy and panic. For a Gensokyo that had only just opened a small territorial window and had not yet fully integrated its defensive boundaries with this new world, triggering an immediate global war would be extremely disadvantageous.
However, the reason she had initially refused Yukari's plan was that, as a proud, legendary doctor, her professional ethics would never allow her to intentionally leave a disease half-cured just for political maneuvering. Granted, she was entirely willing to include some permanent biological side effects or racial mutations within her medicine to mask the source, but those side effects would definitely never leave the original illness active.
So, in the end, she had engineered this brilliant, transformative method. It successfully saved Yelena's life and permanently eradicated her terminal Oripathy, yet accomplished it in a way that couldn't be classified as a standard, reproducible 'complete cure' in the traditional medical sense.
"According to my precise mathematical estimations, it will take roughly three full days for her physical body to complete this deep cellular transformation and officially 'come back to life,'" Eirin announced, adjusting her sleeves.
"However, you must be warned: her outer crystalline shell will be exceptionally fragile and vulnerable during these next few days. A trusted, reliable guard needs to be physically stationed inside this room at all times to protect her structure and ensure she comes to absolutely no external harm."
Hearing Eirin's final, solemn instructions, the personnel from both the Reunion Movement and Rhodes Island were left utterly shocked. They could never have imagined in their wildest dreams that the Gensokyo delegation's treatment plan would be so profoundly extraordinary, straddling the line between medical science and literal divine miracles.