Flandre Scarlet stared unblinkingly at the brilliant, pulsing block of solid ice, her young mind utterly fascinated by the logistical mystery of how exactly Yelena was going to break her way out. She rested her small chin comfortably on her open hands, leaning her upper body heavily against the sterile window frame of the observation corridor, watching the subtle internal motion inside the chamber without moving a single muscle.
Before long, the thick, swirling clouds of pure white cold air that had been violently cascading across the floor of the operating room began to rapidly recede, pulling straight back into the core of the solid ice pedestal as if being sucked into a vacuum, entirely ceasing to spill outward into the room.
At that exact physical moment, every single person gathered in the corridor and inside the ward held their breath, their attention completely fixed on the center of the ice.
A familiar, slender silhouette gradually began to manifest within the dissolving depths of the solid ice structure. With every passing second, the misty outlines of the figure became more and more sharply defined, growing increasingly substantial.
Crack... crack...
Then, with a crisp, echoing sound, a thin layer of crystalline ice shards began to flake off the smooth outer surface of the block, cascading down to the metal floor like glittering diamond dust.
Letty Whiterock chose this exact moment to finally lower her hands and step back from the channeling circle. She walked smoothly over to stand beside Eirin Yagokoro, inclining her head to whisper in a calm, professional tone, "Miss Yelena has successfully completed her internal synchronization. She can now fully control the ambient cold air on her own accord without my external anchoring."
"Thank you for your assistance, Lady Letty," Eirin Yagokoro nodded gently, her sharp eyes scanning the biological readings.
Just then, right on top of the frost-covered medical table, Yelena's pale fingertip suddenly twitched.
A few brief seconds later, her long eyelashes fluttered, and she slowly opened her eyes, revealing a pair of clear, piercing irises that held no trace of the foggy glaze of death.
"You are finally awake, FrostNova. Congratulations, your experimental surgery was a complete, unmitigated success."
The very instant Yelena opened her eyes and focused her vision, she saw Eirin Yagokoro looking down at her with a profound sense of medical relief warming her ageless features.
Yelena slowly sat up from the table, shaking the remaining loose frost from her silver hair as she curiously looked around the enclosed room. Doctor Anto and the two assistant Rhodes Island medical operators were staring directly at her, their mouths slightly agape in utter, unscientific astonishment. The other three powerful entities hailing from Gensokyo were standing quietly at the far edge of the chamber, observing her stabilization with calm, analytical expressions.
Then, she tilted her head toward the large, reinforced observation window nearby. Through the thick glass, her core Reunion Movement comrades and Flandre's unique group were staring intently at her; some of the younger faces were filled with pure, childish curiosity, while the veterans looked on with profound, tearful surprise.
"How exactly do you physically feel right now?"
Seeing that Yelena had remained entirely silent since sitting up, Eirin Yagokoro frowned slightly with clinical concern, stepping closer to continue her inquiry.
"I... I feel absolutely great..." Yelena spoke, her voice carrying a melodic, resonant clarity that lacked her previous raspy cough. "My entire body... it feels completely lighter and more unburdened than ever before in my entire life!"
To test her basic motor functions, Yelena raised her right hand before her face and slowly clenched it into a tight, firm fist.
Every single gaze present in the operating room was instantly drawn down toward the movement of her hands.
What had Yelena's hands looked like prior to her cardiac arrest? They had been exactly similar to those of any other seasoned frontline soldier—rough, calloused, and weathered by the elements. Although she was a woman by birth, she was fundamentally a hardened warrior who had received the most brutal, elite military training directly from Buldrokkas'tee since her youth in the mines, ensuring her skin was perpetually covered in thick calluses and jagged combat scars.
And now? To describe them as merely "slender, delicate hands" would only capture one surface aspect of their transformation. They possessed a flawless, translucent luster that seemed to actively repel the dirt of the world.
Sensing the overwhelming, intense gaze of the entire room focused on her skin, Yelena instinctively drew her hands back toward her chest, a flash of her usual guarded nature surfacing.
"Very good. It seems your cognitive and neurological conditions are entirely stable," Eirin Yagokoro noted with a satisfied nod, before pressing further with the most critical test of the resurrection process. "How much do you currently remember regarding your past life and experiences?"
Her pointed words instantly pulled Yelena's swirling thoughts back into focus.
Yelena closed her eyes, silently probing the deep recesses of her mind to recall her life. After a few tense, silent seconds, she snapped her eyes open and gazed firmly, completely clear-mindedly at Eirin Yagokoro.
"Everything!"
At this exact moment, Yelena had completely regained the distinct, sharp aura of a veteran frontline commander. Her resolute, steady, and entirely calm demeanor was a presence that was extremely, deeply familiar to the anxious Reunion Movement leadership watching from behind the glass.
That legendary Yelena was truly back among the living.
Unable to contain their surging emotions any longer, the members of the Yeti Squad and the administrative staff outside the window couldn't help but burst into a loud, unified cheer of pure triumph. The roaring sound of their celebration carried straight through the heavy door frames of the hospital wing, causing the massive, armored body of a certain Old Stubborn—who stood posted by the outer threshold like an unyielding mountain—to tremble slightly with a sudden, hidden wave of emotion.
The previously grim, suffocating atmosphere that had plagued the medical wing for weeks also completely eased and dissolved because of this unified shout.
Inside the ward, Eirin Yagokoro continued to professionally guide Yelena through a series of baseline physical actions, such as standing up from the table, performing specific complex motor movements, and testing her localized manipulation of Originium Arts. As Yelena moved her limbs, everyone present, including the top research doctors from Rhodes Island, meticulously observed her every single action with hyper-focused scrutiny.
Several minutes of flawless diagnostic execution later, Eirin Yagokoro clapped her hands together with a satisfied smile.
"Congratulations, Ms. Yelena. Your current physiological condition is excellent. In my professional opinion as a pharmacist, you can be officially declared fully recovered."
Saying this, she turned her head toward the stunned Rhodes Island medical detachment standing nearby. "Of course, what I state doesn't count entirely for your official military records. The certified doctors operating from Rhodes Island will now conduct a comprehensive, standardized physical examination on your person."
After handing over the clipboard, Eirin Yagokoro led her assistant Eientei group toward the main exit door. "Congratulations once again, for successfully returning from the cold clutches of the dead."
With that graceful parting statement, the four figures from Eientei walked out into the corridor.
The Rhodes Island doctors immediately converged upon the bed, pulling out their advanced diagnostic casting devices to begin the comprehensive physical examination on Yelena. However, the sheer biological data returned by this electronic examination split-secondly shocked them to their absolute core.
Because according to the genetic sequencer, Yelena's current DNA similarity to her previous medical records on file was only a mere eighty percent.
In other words, the current entity sitting before them could practically be considered an entirely different biological species from the former Cautus woman who had collapsed on the battlefield.
It was only at this exact moment that Doctor Anto truly and profoundly understood the existential weight behind the philosophical question Eirin Yagokoro had posed to Flandre earlier through the glass—if Yelena was no longer physiologically or genetically a Cautus, was she still truly Yelena?
Anto couldn't help but stare deeply into Yelena's crystalline eyes. They were still so fiercely protective, so intensely familiar.
The doctor couldn't help but take a deep, stabilizing breath, then turned a sharp, commanding gaze toward the white-faced medical assistants beside her. "Seal all digital reports and encrypt the physical data logs immediately. No single operator is to speak a word of today's genetic findings to the outside world under any circumstance."
The assistants nodded one after another with serious expressions and began rapidly tidying up the items and wiping the tablets in their hands.
Yelena, standing nearby as she tested her footing, saw their frantic, secretive actions and asked in a cool, level voice, "What exactly happened to my physical body during the freeze?"
Although her phrasing was framed as a question, her steady tone carried an absolute sense of certainty.
The reason for her deduction was incredibly simple. Initially, when she first opened her eyes, she truly believed her intense feeling of weightless 'lightness' was merely a temporary neurological illusion—a standard sensory abnormality one might experience after recovering from a horrific, near-fatal illness.
But after sitting quietly and resting for a few minutes, her veteran battle instincts realized something was fundamentally wrong. This sensation wasn't a passing trick of the mind, nor was it a post-viral abnormality. She could genuinely, tangibly perceive within her chest that the agonizing, suffocating burden brought by terminal Oripathy had completely vanished from her respiratory system. That constant, agonizing grinding pain and crystal pressure on her internal organs had entirely evaporated into nothingness.
Although her sharp senses could still distinctly perceive the presence of vast quantities of Originium energy humming within her body, these internal Originium crystals had ceased to behave like a parasitic burden; instead, they felt like a natural source of 'nourishment' or an endless internal 'supply' of fuel.
Doctor Anto struggled internally with a massive wave of professional distress before she finally sighed, choosing to speak with absolute medical candor. "Well... your current situation is that your terminal illness was completely cured by the methods of Eirin Yagokoro. However, during the cellular reconstruction treatment, she fundamentally restructured your entire bloodline and radically altered your core genes..."
"Mhm... can you please put that statement into more precise, non-academic terms?" Yelena admitted calmly, rubbing her neck. She wasn't a highly educated scientist, and receiving too many high-level technical terms left her feeling slightly confused.
"It means that although you strictly retain your original physical appearance, your voice, and your consciousness... you are no longer biologically part of the Cautus race as we know it on Terra..."
Under Anto's simplified explanation, Yelena mostly managed to grasp the crazy parameters of her current situation. Eirin Yagokoro's treatment philosophy had been incredibly 'crude' yet effective: since her original Cautus body was structurally incapable of halting the cellular spread of terminal Oripathy, the doctor had simply bypassed the issue by constructing an entirely 'new' biological vessel for her soul. This newly synthesized body was designed to coexist symbiotically with Originium, ensuring her flesh would never be pathologically damaged by the infection again. But the process had also permanently transformed her into an unknown, exotic species.
Yelena raised her delicate hand to gently rub her temples, taking several quiet minutes to fully process the massive reality of her racial rewrite. Fortunately, she possessed an incredibly broad, battle-hardened mind and quickly accepted the bizarre situation for what it was—she was alive, and her family was safe.
Half an hour later, after finalizing the release paperwork, Yelena calmly walked out of the sterile isolation observation room.
The moment her boots stepped into the main hall, Alina and Talulah immediately rushed forward to gather around her side.
"Yelena, how exactly do you feel right now?" Alina asked, her voice trembling slightly with deep maternal concern.
Yelena let out a soft, beautiful smile: "Please don't worry, Alina. I feel completely fine. I am incredibly sorry to have caused you all so much panic and worry over these past months!"
The large group walked out of the main hospital entrance together into the crisp spring air. Seeing the massive, heavily armored figure standing completely motionless just outside the automated doors, a sudden, powerful wave of deep familial warmth rose within Yelena's chest.
"Old Stubborn."
Hearing Yelena's clear voice call out his old nickname, Buldrokkas'tee slowly turned his massive, horned frame around. His glowing red visors carefully examined every single detail of the healthy, vibrant Yelena standing before him.
"It is... exceptionally good that you are alive, daughter."
Buldrokkas'tee finished speaking his piece in his booming, mechanical voice, and with a solemn, respectful motion, he stepped his massive frame to the side to make an open way for her path.
Not far away on the grass, Little Flandre was currently being held tightly by her collar by Remilia, her tiny legs kicking fruitlessly in the air.
"Sister, why exactly are you grabbing me so tightly like this? Sister Yelena is completely better now, and I just want to run over there to congratulate her!" Flandre whined, looking back at Remilia with a thoroughly wronged, pouting expression.