Nearsightedness... had actually been cured?
Bruce Banner stared at Helen Cho in disbelief as she covered her mouth and laughed softly. For a long moment, he couldn't say a word.
Sure, nearsightedness wasn't some life-threatening disease, but unless you underwent surgery, it simply couldn't be cured.
And even with surgery, it still couldn't be fixed perfectly. The procedure caused irreversible damage to the eyes. That was one of the biggest reasons so many nearsighted people chose not to go through with it.
But here, Bruce had merely let Helen hold his hand.
That was it.
And his vision had been restored on the spot.
Instant results.
Immediate improvement.
It was nothing short of a miracle.
Bruce Banner was genuinely speechless.
"So... Devil Fruits are real?"
"And the power you have... that's real too?"
Only after a long silence did Bruce finally manage to ask the question in a low voice, staring at Helen.
At that moment, even though it still felt impossible, even though part of him still struggled to believe it, the facts were right in front of him. He had no choice but to accept them.
What Helen had said was true.
"Bruce, I already told you."
Helen's smile only grew more satisfied.
"But why did you say there's nothing else wrong with my body? That shouldn't be the case."
Bruce grew visibly agitated.
If ordinary medicine couldn't fix him, and even something as miraculous as a Devil Fruit couldn't do it either... then what in the world could?
"Hulk isn't a disease."
Helen looked at Bruce seriously and said it with absolute certainty.
Bruce froze.
For a moment, he thought he'd misheard her.
Then he gave a hollow laugh.
"Zhao... you don't understand."
"I do understand."
Helen didn't back down in the slightest.
"No matter what happened to you, no matter what made you believe your body is sick, what I can tell you is this: your body is healthy."
Bruce fell silent again.
Healthy?
He turned into a raging monster every time he lost control of his emotions, and that counted as healthy?
In his eyes, that was a problem. A massive one.
It had ruined his life.
It was the very thing he wanted more than anything to erase.
"Zhao," Bruce said after a pause, his voice low, "maybe you're right. From a medical perspective, maybe there's nothing wrong with me."
He forced out a bitter smile.
"But whatever's inside me... it's real."
"I'm not saying it isn't real."
Helen's expression remained calm.
"What I'm saying is that it isn't an illness."
Bruce looked at her, puzzled.
Helen took a breath before continuing.
"You asked me before whether gene-level repair was possible. You were worried your body had undergone some kind of mutation, right?"
Bruce hesitated, then nodded.
"In a way... yes."
"That's what I thought."
Helen folded her arms and looked at him steadily.
"But Bruce, mutation doesn't automatically mean disease. Genetic change can be harmful... but it can also be beneficial. Or simply different."
"In your case, I don't sense decay, collapse, or systemic failure. I don't sense your body breaking down. I don't sense anything diseased."
She held his gaze.
"What I sense is a body that changed."
"And adapted."
Bruce's eyes flickered.
Those words landed harder than he expected.
Adapted.
That wasn't a word he had ever used for the Hulk.
Monster. Curse. Abomination. Disaster.
But never adapted.
"Zhao..." Bruce murmured, his expression complicated. "You really think... that thing inside me isn't a sickness?"
"I do."
Helen answered without hesitation.
"Whatever it is, it's part of you. A dangerous part, maybe. A terrifying part, definitely. But not a disease."
Bruce lowered his head.
He didn't know what to say.
For years, he had lived as if the Hulk were a cancer growing inside him—something alien, something that had to be cut out, erased, destroyed.
And now Helen was calmly telling him that maybe he had been wrong from the very beginning.
That maybe Hulk wasn't something infecting him.
Maybe Hulk was him.
That thought was far more unsettling than he wanted to admit.
"Zhao... even if what you're saying is true, it doesn't change the fact that people get hurt."
Bruce's voice turned hoarse.
"When I lose control, people can die."
Helen's expression softened slightly.
"I'm not denying the danger, Bruce."
She paused, then added, "But danger and disease are not the same thing."
Bruce let out a tired breath.
The room went quiet.
After a long while, he finally said, "Maybe you're right. Maybe from a medical standpoint, there's no disease to cure."
His shoulders slumped.
"But that doesn't really help me, does it?"
"There are answers you're looking for that medicine can't give you," Helen said gently.
Bruce gave a bitter laugh.
"That sounds about right."
"Bruce," Helen said, suddenly serious again, "I may not be able to give you the answer you want... but I do know one place you should go."
Bruce looked up.
"Where?"
"The Devil Fruit shop."
Bruce blinked.
"The same place where you got your power?"
Helen nodded.
"I don't know whether the owner can help you. I don't know whether he has the answer you're looking for."
"But if there's anyone in this world who might... it's him."
Bruce fell into thought.
The Devil Fruit shop.
A place that sold miracles.
A place that had already done something even advanced science couldn't explain.
Maybe...
Just maybe...
That was the place he had to visit next.
Outside, the sky was already beginning to darken.
And in the growing silence, Bruce Banner's expression slowly shifted.
For the first time in a long time, a faint glimmer of hope appeared in his eyes.