Misumi Makoto was born and raised in Japan.
He believes that modern times are supported by science.
Of course, that’s the truth for all he knows.
The Japan that Makoto was raised in was a constitutional government, has compulsory education from elementary school to middle school, and there’s a lot of people who would aim for high school and enroll in college. You could say it is a truly blessed advanced nation.
You don’t see guns in an average lifestyle, and if you want to see artillery, you would have to go yourself to the practices of the self-defense force.
Weapons and war are only found outside, so the surroundings were peace itself.
And…supernatural powers and magic are only tools in creative works like the occult, science fiction, fantasy and that kind of fiction.
A world where it is natural for everyone to think like that.
Abide by the rules, get employment within society, and live a life the same way as everyone else.
But…
That’s purely the world that Misumi Makoto is aware of.
Of course, the world that he knows is not what comprises the whole world.
Even on modern Earth, there’s nations where law means nothing.
There’s also regions here and there where public order is not present at all.
There’s even nations where the outlaws have far more power than the police.
It may sound funny, but the government, police, and the mafia all working together in a way that no one gets judged and simply sip on the sweet honey is not strange at all.
There’s a lot of truths that Makoto would say ‘that’s impossible’ if he were to hear them.
And this is not reserved only to him, there’s one truth that many people in the world don’t know about.
Supernatural powers and magic exist even in this world.
It is not major at all, and it is not on the level where they rule over the world from the shadows, but something like that certainly did exist.
That’s the first miracle that came upon Misumi Makoto which he himself doesn’t know about.
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She thought it was a peaceful country.
She has been sitting at the bench of a park that is under shade, watching the children play under the strong sun of summer for a good while now.
Unbelievably white skin for a Japanese person, straight blond hair cut in a short bob.
A caucasian lady that didn’t fit that well in the relatively small park located in a residential area of Japan.
This girl that suddenly appeared and was taking a break there wasn’t that much of a point of interest for the children to where they would stop their games, so they just ignored her.
Maybe it simply was hard to talk to a woman that’s wearing a tank top, a jacket, and sunglasses.
She actually didn’t really have any business at the park. She was simply killing some time until her appointment.
(There’s still 1 more hour. I didn’t think I would arrive this early, so I ended up coming to the park, but this really is a peaceful country. It relaxes me.)
Peace.
That’s not something that was always close to her.
That’s why she has thought about this countless times.
(That said, I am not really into the idea of meeting Mr. Ibuki.)
Ibuki Kaname.
An old man that prides on having a youthful body despite being over his sixties.
He is her -Karin Aksana’s- appointment and patient.
Today is treatment day.
Karin let out a short sigh while thinking about Ibuki.
Ibuki Kaname is a monster of desire wearing the skin of a person -that’s the impression she has of him.
Despite being the head of a distinguished family, he holds strong greed as if he were an upstart.
Wealth, women, possessions; he has tried to obtain a variety of things and has managed to.
Regardless of whether it is earnest money or something that is already from someone else, he wouldn’t care.
He wouldn't even spare a second to think about this being unfair or unethical.
That said, even if he began from a point where he already had quite the amount of assets, it is not like he just sat there and did nothing.
What makes it worse is that he spared no effort.
The power to do proper business goes without saying, but he also knew how to use violence, political power, and money. Even the art of conversation and swindling.
He would increase every aspect of his abilities, and the targets and obstacles of his desires -aside from enemies- would know him as a kind and gentle personality.
And thus, whenever his desires were fulfilled, their household would increase in power even more. The Ibuki family that was simply a local distinguished family had been raised to the point where they would be decently known around Japan by the time he hit 60 years old.
But maybe you could call it divine punishment. The price of him trampling on the tears of others while using inhuman methods as he advanced through his path had come upon him.
A disease.
Ibuki would go to the hospital to check his body once every 3 months, so he found out about it fast.
Early stage cancer.
He obviously had enough money to receive a real warm medical treatment, so he got treated without any issues.
But it didn’t end with just that.
Cancer was detected again after 1 year.
Even when he got it treated over and over, there was no end to it.
The anger of Ibuki was unfairly directed at the doctors, and countless doctors lost their jobs.
However, even if he does something about the doctors that couldn’t make him recover completely, it is not like his disease is going to be cured from it.
It instead created rumors that he erased the people and that he didn’t care about the life of others.
Just when his mask of being a good person was beginning to tear off from losing his composure…
Ibuki Kaname learned of Karin Aksana.
The miraculous person that can cure any disease; the healing hand.
However, she is not someone that appears in public.
She is a woman that is whispered about in the dark recesses of the world.
Ibuki utilized his connections and money without a care about it, and succeeded in making contact with her -in a pretty forceful way that ignored the original request route.
And then, he paid an astronomical sum of money and received her treatment.
Karin’s treatment is not something grounded on medical techniques or knowledge.
What she does is connected to the supernatural…in other words, a power within the realms of the occult.
That’s how cornered Ibuki was.
However, the disease haunting Ibuki had been cured by her miraculous power despite her not being a doctor. He had finally conquered cancer.
After that, Ibuki arranged that he would be getting a diagnosis from Karin once every year on top of a health diagnosis. The pay for this must have been satisfactory for her, she accepted meeting him once a year.
He actually wanted it to be once every 3 months, but Karin refused that one.
It is not like she lives in Japan, so there’s no way she could go there in such short intervals like that.
Ibuki then proposed to prepare a house and citizenship as if nothing, but Karin told him that it would bring danger to him too, which implied the type of patients she had, and refused that offer too.
At that time, she was pretty fed up with him and her impression of him was close to the worst.
Even if they have formed a contract, it is still unpleasant for her to meet this man that is the personification of desires, so she was killing time until it is really close to the scheduled appointment.
“Now then, time to earn some money. Work work—hm?” (Karin)
Karin stood up and left the park.
She then noticed something on her way to Ibuki’s house.
An extremely rare sight in Japan.
There’s a child curled up and lying down on the corner of the road.
There’s no one around.
(Is it heatstroke? I hear that cases of that have been increasing every year in Japan…) (Karin)
Karin wasn’t in a hurry, so she directed her gaze at the fallen child as she walked.
The moment the child was right by her feet, she stopped there.
(The number for emergencies was 119, right? He has fallen in shade, and his symptoms don’t seem to be that heavy, so it should be okay if I leave him to the hospital.) (Karin)
She takes out her cell phone from her bag and confirms the number in her head.
“…Aimea…yuu…fuunan.”
“?!” (Karin)
The child groaned as if he were having a nightmare.
He said something in a weird dialect.
However, Karin didn’t make a creeped out face upon hearing that. She gulped and opened her eyes wide.
“…Meojie.”
The child is a boy.
It isn’t clear whether he hasn’t lost consciousness or it is hazy, but he is repeatedly mumbling mysterious words.
(The chant of…magic?! This is for self-enhancement. It doesn’t seem like it has activated properly, but I can feel the magic power. The magic power inside of him is beginning to take shape as a spell inside of him. However, this isn’t good. Even at a glance, I can tell that he doesn’t have the energy to pass the spell through his body. Magic power that couldn’t turn into a spell coursing through your body would instead cause the opposite effect. I also don’t think a child as young as him is using something like this consciously…) (Karin)
Karin puts a hand on her lips and thinks.
In this world where science is at its height of prosperity, there’s only a really low minority who know about the existence of magic.
People like her who freely wield that power are called miraculous beings, and most would call it supernatural powers, will get discriminated against as being inhuman, and would be criticized.
In modern times, all magic is by no means something accepted.
That’s why she would normally hide her powers and would blend in society.
And yet, a child was mumbling such hidden art.
It is clearly an abnormal sight.
Karin looked at him with a complicated expression and returned her cell phone to her bag.
She kneeled just like that and princess carried the boy that was mumbling an aria in between his rough breaths.
She then had him lie down on an unpaved bank that is outside the road.
Karin checks her surroundings.
(Even if it is a residential area, is it always like this once you go a bit away from the road? Nothing good comes from gathering attention, so let’s do this quickly.) (Karin)
The woman slowly leaned on the boy, moved her face close to him, and looked at his forehead.
(Wa?! What’s with this boy?!) (Karin)
Karin moved slightly away and once again looked at the boy seriously.
As an owner of supernatural powers, she has seen the dark underbelly of this world.
And so, she also knows other ones that call themselves psychics or mages.
This is also because this woman called the Healing Hand has met a variety of people from curing all kinds of sicknesses.
But even within all of those, the child in front of her is a special case.
He has an affinity with almost all magic elements.
Normally, even mages, who have polished their skills to control a variety of phenomena and are proficient in utilizing various elements, only have enough power to interfere with 1 to 3.
There’s only a handful of people who can use even more than that in the world.
It is said that it is a trait you are born with, but even in the 21st century, the details are still unclear.
At most, you would get people saying that a child born from supernatural users has a chance of having even more power.
It is in the middle of being researched that it might have to do with the genes.
And the reality is that it is easier for people with affinities to several spells to show up the longer a distinguished mage family continues on.
Of course, there are still cases where a child with genius level affinity will suddenly show up from common people.
Even though it has been researched for more than 2 millenia, there isn’t much that has been ascertained.
That’s the current situation of supernatural powers -of magic.
(This child has fire, water, wind, and earth, and even strengthening and healing… Unbelievable. But all of them are weak. At this rate, he won’t be awakening in magic for the rest of his life. Then, is this simply the product of a miracle? I have heard of elements being strengthened as time passes on, but the ones of this child are as if…he has been using them in his everyday life… As if there’s a natural feeling about it.) (Karin)
She can see the part that could be called the core of magic power inside the body and the lines of diverse hues stretching around his body.
Each color is an important pathway for when you are utilizing magic.
The surprise of Karin after confirming the body -not physically- of the groaning child was pretty reasonable.
He wasn’t only letting out magic power from inside of him, but taking in magic power from the outside. The things he was mumbling increased, and his abnormal degree of affinity towards magic really did warrant that much surprise.
For some reason, the size of his core and the force of his power was far below that of your average person, but it is certain that he is not a normal child.
She was beginning to imagine something as fearsome as him being some sort of secret human experiment.
But after letting her thoughts run wild like that, she noticed just how stupid that was.
She hasn’t heard of a lineage of exemplar mages that have an affinity in all elements, and even if they do exist, there’s no way they would let the crystallization of their family go out in such a defenseless state.
It would be impossible for her to still be fine right now and not feel the presence of anyone.
He is an existence that wouldn’t be strange for others to ignore his human rights completely and confined in a secure place for the rest of his life after all.
She scolded herself that she was overthinking it here and began the treatment which was her original objective.
Saving this child that had piqued her interest had already become something that she obviously had to do.
It is also in most part because she was way too curious about him.
It is extremely rare to see from her, but there wasn’t a single thought about money at this moment.
Also, her treatments are truly simple ones.
She scans the body, pours power into the detected bad spot, and returns it to how it was.
That’s all there is to it.
Moreover, there’s no need to know about the small details, or have the medical knowledge for it.
She just has to wish for recovery.
It is truly miraculous.
It is also the reason why she is known as the strongest healing hand in the modern era.
When Karin scanned the state of his body as usual, she was once again shocked by the tragic state of that boy’s body.
(…I am impressed he has survived this long. All faculties are feeble to the extreme. It is on a level where I am even suspecting if he is a creature that isn’t adapted to this world… Geez, I give up. There’s no point in healing him, or like, even if I did, it would be the same. I did treat his heat stroke, but…what more could I even do? You would need an operation that changes almost all the insides of his body. It isn’t something that you can do something about by having him lie down on a bank. I also have my appointment with Mr. Ibuki…) (Karin)
She must have arranged her swirling thoughts, Karin opened her eyes and moved away from the boy.
After looking at him again and nodding once, she pinched both of his cheeks.
Is she doing treatment on him, or something else?
It at the very least calmed down the breathing of the boy and he fell asleep.
She carried him in her arms when she laid him down on the bank, but this time around, she gave him a piggyback and stood up.
“Sorry, I can’t leave you be. Sleep for a bit more. I will bring you to your house later. Ah, it would be troubling if this is misunderstood as a kidnapping. If I remember correctly, the police station here is… Hm, the place where Mr. Sakata is at. I will send them a photo of this child, and when his family enquires about him, I will deal with it then.” (Karin)
Fortunately, Karin had remembered that there’s a friend detective of hers working in the police station of this area.
And so, she quickly arranged what to do, confirmed her wristwatch, and headed with quick steps towards the Ibuki household while carrying the boy on her back.
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