Riverdale General's Level-1 Trauma Wing was a masterclass in controlled, terrifying chaos.
Airis navigated the sterile, brightly lit corridors with the fluid, untouchable grace of a phantom.
Nurses carrying blood bags and orderlies shouting codes rushed past her, their eyes sliding right over her pristine, navy-blue Sakura Crest uniform.
She had dialed up her [Domain of Absolute Grace] just enough to create a psychological blind spot around herself.
People saw her, but their overwhelmed, adrenaline-fueled brains simply didn't register her as an anomaly that needed to be questioned or stopped.
She followed the invisible, pulsing thread of the desperate prayer, her designer loafers making no sound against the polished linoleum floor.
She turned a corner into the restricted Surgical ICU waiting area and stopped.
Sitting on a cheap plastic chair, completely alone, was a man in a torn, blood-stained business suit.
He had his face buried in his hands, his broad shoulders shaking with silent, ragged sobs. This was Mr. Brooks.
The source of the prayer. The father who was currently offering the universe his money, his pride, and his soul in exchange for his son's life.
Airis felt a sharp, empathetic ache in her chest.
"...clear!"
a muffled, urgent shout echoed from behind the heavy, frosted-glass double doors of Operating Room 3, located just a few yards away.
Airis walked past the weeping father. She approached the surgical doors.
Through the narrow, clear glass observation slit, she could see the horrific reality of the situation.
Julian Brooks, the golden boy with the effortless smile, was laid out on the operating table, surrounded by a swarm of surgeons in blue scrubs.
He was entirely unrecognizable from the confident athlete who had asked her to the Gala.
His body had taken the brunt of a catastrophic blunt-force trauma, the monitor beside him blaring a frantic, erratic warning that signaled imminent, irreversible organ failure.
Lin Ye's twenty-seven-year-old soul looked at the boy through the glass.
The original Airis loved you, she thought, a bizarre, detached sense of melancholy washing over her.
She wrote your name in her diary. She memorized your soccer schedule.
She died before she ever got the courage to say hello to you. And now, I am standing here in her body.
The sheer, paradoxical tragedy of the universe was almost funny in a deeply twisted way.
The original girl had died quietly of a fever, her crush forever unspoken.
Her male replacement, who had publicly rejected the boy to maintain a peaceful life, was now about to bend the fundamental laws of reality to save him.
"Pressure is dropping! He's hemorrhaging! Push another unit of O-negative!"
The lead surgeon yelled, his voice muffled but perfectly audible to Airis's enhanced senses
.
The heart monitor suddenly emitted a long, sustained, piercing tone.
A flatline.
Outside the doors, Mr. Brooks let out a choked, devastated gasp, hearing the tone through the walls.
He slid off the plastic chair, dropping to his knees on the hospital floor, his hands clasped so tightly his knuckles turned a bone-white.
"Time,"
Airis whispered, placing her palm flat against the cold glass of the operating room door.
She didn't manifest her twelve wings physically, but the conceptual weight of the [Gabriel's Halo] descended upon the corridor.
The sterile smell of the hospital was instantly overwhelmed by the crisp scent of ozone and burning myrrh.
Function Three: Holy Light, Airis commanded the System.
Execute Absolute Regeneration.
A blinding, entirely invisible wave of pure, concentrated divine authority shot from her palm, phasing effortlessly through the heavy doors and washing over the operating table.
It wasn't a subtle, microscopic seed of protection like the ones she had placed in her parents.
This was the raw, unfiltered power of a God-Tier entity directly, violently rejecting the concept of death.
Inside the OR, the impossible happened.
The Holy Light flooded Julian's shattered body.
To the mundane eyes of the surgeons, it looked as though the boy's biology had suddenly rebelled against his injuries.
The catastrophic internal bleeding ceased instantaneously, the ruptured vessels knitting together with flawless, accelerated precision.
The shattered bones shifted back into place, fusing solid. The failing organs rapidly flushed with healthy, oxygen-rich blood.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The long, terrifying drone of the flatline stuttered, broke, and then suddenly established a strong, steady, perfectly healthy rhythm.
The lead surgeon froze, his hands hovering over Julian's chest. The entire surgical team stopped breathing.
"Doctor..."
an assisting nurse whispered, her eyes wide behind her surgical mask, staring at the monitors.
"His vitals. They're... they're normalizing. No, they're perfect. His blood pressure is optimal."
"That's impossible," the surgeon gasped, frantically checking the readouts, then looking down at the boy.
The deep, life-threatening lacerations they had been desperately trying to pack with gauze were already closing themselves, leaving behind smooth, completely unblemished skin.
Outside the door, Airis lowered her hand.
She felt a sudden, profound wave of exhaustion hit her.
Resurrecting dead carnations for a school dance was one thing; pulling a human soul back across the threshold of death required a massive expenditure of conceptual energy.
She turned around. Mr. Brooks was still on his knees, his head bowed. He hadn't seen her touch the glass, nor had he registered the scent of myrrh.
Airis adjusted the lapels of her blazer, took a deep breath, and let her [Domain of Absolute Grace] wash directly over the weeping man.
Mr. Brooks gasped.
The crushing, suffocating grip of despair that had been choking the life out of him suddenly shattered.
A warm, oceanic peace flooded his mind, forcing his panicked heart rate to slow.
He looked up, his tear-streaked face finding the teenage girl standing a few feet away.
He blinked, vaguely recognizing her from the school functions he had attended.
"You're... Alexander Dover's daughter."
"He is going to be perfectly fine, Mr. Brooks," Airis said softly. Her voice carried the melodic, undeniable truth of the Archangel.
It wasn't a hollow comfort; it was an absolute guarantee.
"The worst is over."
At that exact moment, the heavy double doors of the OR pushed open.
The lead surgeon stepped out, pulling his mask down.
He looked pale, bewildered, and utterly terrified by the medical miracle he had just witnessed.
"Mr. Brooks?" the surgeon asked, his voice trembling slightly.
Julian's father scrambled to his feet, the peaceful aura still keeping him from collapsing.
"My son. Is he...?"
"I... I have never seen anything like this in my twenty years of medicine,"
the surgeon stammered, shaking his head in disbelief.
"He flatlined. But then... his body just stabilized.
Out of nowhere.
He is entirely out of danger. In fact, he's breathing on his own. It's... frankly, it's a miracle."
Mr. Brooks let out a cry of absolute, unadulterated joy, covering his face with his hands as tears of pure relief streamed down his cheeks.
Airis didn't stay to watch the rest. Her mission was complete.
The debt was paid. She turned and walked away, slipping back into the chaotic flow of the hospital corridors, letting the blind spot of her aura guide her safely out of the building.
When she pushed through the automatic doors and stepped back out into the cool, overcast afternoon, the jet-black town car was exactly where she had left it.
Arthur jumped out, opening the rear door for her.
"Miss Airis! Are you alright? You look a bit pale."
"I am fine, Arthur,"
Airis sighed, sliding into the plush leather backseat and resting her head against the cool tinted window.
"Just... a little overwhelmed by the hospital environment. Please take me home."
"Yes, Miss," Arthur nodded, visibly relieved to have her safely back in the armored vehicle.
He quickly returned to the driver's seat and pulled the car away from the emergency bay.
As the hospital faded into the distance, Airis closed her eyes.
The burden of the invisible crown was incredibly heavy.
She had altered the fate of Julian Brooks, effectively robbing the universe of a tragedy it had deemed mathematically certain.
But as she listened to the quiet hum of the town car's engine, she felt absolutely no regret.
She had given a father his son back. And more importantly, she had honored the secret, unrequited love of the girl whose body she now inhabited.
The original Airis Dover could finally rest in peace. The slate was clean.
I am not a superhero, Airis reminded herself, drawing the boundaries of her slow-paced life once again as she sank into the leather upholstery.
I am just a girl who occasionally cheats reality when it suits me. Nothing more.
She didn't know how Julian Brooks would react to waking up fully healed from a fatal car crash.
She didn't know how the medical community would explain away the spontaneous regeneration of his internal organs.
And she absolutely didn't care.
That was the mundane world's problem to solve, not hers.
Airis Dover crossed her arms, letting out a long, contented exhale.
She was going home to eat Mrs. Gable's truffle pasta, take a very long nap, and officially retire from the miracle business for the rest of the week.