Fire, Soap, and Steel

The city did not sleep the night Gregory’s daughter lived.

The spheres carried everything: the incision, the stench, the pus spilling into salted basins, my words cutting through the fog of ignorance. From alleys to markets to the guild barracks, every soul in the dome had watched a girl condemned to ash return to breathing.

Crowds lingered past midnight, voices rising in awe and outrage. Some praised discipline and cleanliness. Others whispered heresy. The word soap spread faster than the plague itself.

By dawn the guild was in turmoil. One side demanded my silencing. The other whispered about survival rates and dared not ignore what the people had seen.

Baron Gregory’s name cut through their bickering. His daughter still breathed. Her fever had eased. Proof heavier than politics.

The guild could not erase it. So they branded me.

By morning the papers had it in bold ink: The Greatest Healer.

The title gave me the right to claim any patient. No guild master or noble could bar me, because the people already believed I had the authority. It also gave them their weapon. The moment a patient failed under my hand, they would turn the title against me. One failure, and they would demand my head.

I stared at the headline and almost laughed. Back home I had worked for years on a PhD. I had studied until my eyes bled, pushed myself until my lungs failed, and in the end I died without ever hearing anyone call me doctor. Here, in a city choking on plague, they called me healer. It wasn’t the title I wanted, but it had a certain weight to it.

◇◇◇◇

The sisters insisted we eat in the garden, shaded by a patched umbrella that barely covered the table. I sat with the newspaper open on my lap, staring at the name they had given me.

Kaguya appeared at my side with a syringe filled with something that shimmered green. Without a word she jabbed it into my arm.

I lowered the paper. “And what exactly was that.”

She was already scribbling. “A stimulant. Or a poison. Or both. You tell me.”

The burn rushed through my veins, then faded. I flexed my hand. “One day your experiments will kill me. Until then, I am your favorite laboratory rat.”

Her grin widened as she jotted down every change in my pulse.

Karin stood in the grass, gauntlets strapped and stance set. “Enough sitting. Sparring.”

I folded the paper and rose.

◇◇◇◇

The drills began. Karin fought without restraint. Every strike sought the kill. My ribs cracked, my jaw snapped, my throat collapsed. Each time I rebuilt. Again and again.

Steel cut. Flesh sealed. Bones broke. Bones reset.

Karin’s breath grew ragged, but her eyes sharpened. She could push harder than any soldier because she knew nothing she did could finish me.

From the shade, Kaguya grinned over her notes. “You know, we really did try everything that first day. Fire, drowning, poison, even the incinerator. There are moral limits to a guinea pig, but you broke them all.”

I let Karin’s next blow crush my ribs before answering. “I don’t even remember much of it. My mind was struggling to adapt. I only recall flashes. Like waking up every second into a new nightmare.”

Karin froze mid-strike. The grin slipped from Kaguya’s face.

For once, silence lingered.

Karin looked away. “We never asked if you hated us for it.”

Kaguya’s pen hovered over the page. “I should say sorry. But I do not know if it would mean anything.”

I straightened, ribs knitting back together. “You don’t need to. I understand. You carry the burden of keeping humanity alive. You had to test what no one else could survive. If you hadn’t pushed me, maybe none of us would still be here. Living with you both has gotten me around the worst of it.”

Karin’s fists clenched. “Idiot. I wouldn’t hold it against you if you never forgave us.” She swung again, sharper than before.

This time I blocked, catching her wrist before it landed. My eyes stayed on Kaguya.

She smiled faintly, voice quiet. “I’m glad you’re in our lives, Ken. The house always missed that extra seat.”

The words stopped me cold. I looked at the empty chair at our table and realized what she meant. Their father’s seat.

For a moment the noise of the city faded. The three of us stood there, broken ribs knitting, fists trembling, ink drying, and for the first time the home felt whole again.

I let the silence breathe, then released Karin’s wrist.

“Alright,” I said. “Enough sentiment. The world still needs saving.”

Karin scowled, but her strike had softened. Kaguya tucked her notes against her chest, smile still lingering.

And the letters kept piling at the clinic door.

◇◇◇◇

By the week’s end the city had made up its mind. They wanted more.

Requests stacked at the clinic door. Nobles with fevered children. Captains with wounded soldiers. Guild runners with sealed letters. Half wanted my help, half wanted me gone, but every petition proved the same truth. They needed me.

I skimmed one letter over breakfast, sipping marrow broth. “Another baron’s son with infection. Another plea to save him. At this rate I will spend more time in estates than in the field.”

Karin cracked a crust of bread. “Good. Let them see your methods firsthand. The guild will have no choice but to bow.”

Kaguya twirled her pen. “Or no choice but to dissect you.”

I ignored her and reached for the next letter. The ink was smudged, the script frantic. A captain begging me to train his unit in hygiene and wound care. Soldiers wanted the same thing Karin showed them in every fight: discipline sharper than steel.

I folded the letter. “So it begins. Politics on one side, armies on the other. And in between, one man who refuses to stay broken.”

Karin cracked her knuckles. “Then keep standing.”

Kaguya’s pen scratched. “And keep letting me test everything that comes into my head.”

I glanced at the stack of letters, then at the two of them, and allowed myself the faintest smile.

“The title is a noose. If even one case slips away, they will call it the fall of the Greatest Healer. Until then, they will have to keep watching me succeed.”

◇◇◇◇

The council struck back with a trial. Not words this time. Numbers.

A ward-square on the eastern quarter was chosen. One hundred wounded, mixed plague cases. Twelve hours. I was ordered to keep survival above the guild average. Fail, and they would brand my methods reckless heresy.

They even sent two of the Seven Executors to watch.

Yamada’s halberd slammed into the cobbles, stone chips flying as the sound echoed down the square. His scarred face split in a grin that looked carved there by a lifetime of broken bones and shattered enemies.

Yamada. A man who lived for the clash of steel and the crunch of bones, who only seemed more alive the longer a fight dragged on.

Karin groaned under her breath. “Ignore him. He only wakes up when there’s something to smash.”

The second Executor stepped out of the fog. Blond hair cropped short, armor polished until it caught the light, mask gleaming as if the man himself had been forged rather than born. He moved with the poise of a knight from a storybook, though this world had no such tales.

Ulric. A shield in human form, steady as stone, a calm blade of justice that never wavered once drawn.

Watching him, I couldn’t help thinking this was where the holy magic should have been. Chants, blessings, light burning away corruption. Every fantasy world I had ever read about had something like that. But not this one. There were no priests, no cathedrals, no gods lending strength to the faithful. At least none I had seen or heard of.

I had asked the sisters once. Karin had scoffed, saying she trusted gauntlets, not prayers. Kaguya had shrugged and called herself pragmatic, too busy chasing theories to worry about higher powers.

And yet here was Ulric, walking like faith itself had taken human form in a world that had no faith left.

His voice was steady, measured. “If your methods endanger civilians, I will end them myself.”

Paladin without a chapel indeed.

◇◇◇◇

The trial began. Karin set boiling stations at every corner of the ward square, cauldrons hissing as salt was dumped in by the bucket. Reika barked orders until soldiers fell into rhythm. Kaguya scribbled protocols with feverish excitement.

Yamada bellowed through the crowd, hauling pots of broth like siege engines and laughing every time someone flinched. Ulric moved in silence, kneeling beside cots to steady hands and reassure patients with nothing more than his presence. Between them, the square stopped looking like a culling ground and began to resemble order.

Then a saboteur scattered dirt across a stack of clean cloth, certain no one would notice.

I caught his wrist. “Poison your own wounded. Bold.”

Yamada slammed him into a pillar hard enough to crack the stone. “You want to die now or later?”

Ulric raised a hand. “Enough. He answers to the council, not you.”

Reika shoved a bowl of glow powder into my hand. I dusted it across the cloth, then lifted a rune lamp. The dirt flared bright green under the light. Gasps swept the ward.

“This is why you fail,” I said, lifting the ruined fabric. “Not because the Sephis are clever. Because you are careless.”

The saboteur was dragged away. The cloth was burned. And the work resumed.

By the twelfth hour, the difference was undeniable. Patients who should have rotted were healing. Bandages stayed clean, wounds stayed closed. Survival rates had doubled, and the line of cots no longer stank of decay.

Karin let out a long breath, fists resting on her knees. Kaguya’s quill scratched furiously, her eyes shining with pride. Yamada laughed until his shoulders shook, calling it the first trial worth his time. Ulric only folded his arms, his steady gaze sweeping the square before he gave the smallest nod of approval.

The council could no longer deny what they were seeing.

◇◇◇◇

The trial proved the method, but survival rates meant nothing without supplies. Soap would decide whether this city held or fell.

So the next morning I dragged Karin to the fish market.

She scowled the entire walk. “We should be training, not shopping.”

“We are training,” I said. “You’re learning how civilization doesn’t collapse when people wash their hands.”

The stalls stank of salt and brine. Fishmongers shouted prices over piles of scales and shells. Karin folded her arms, unimpressed.

“What does this have to do with the plague?”

I pointed to a crate of discarded shells and fat scraped from the bellies of gutted fish. “That.”

She blinked. “You dragged me here for garbage.”

“For oil,” I corrected. “Boil this down, mix it with ash, and you get soap.”

One of the fishmongers laughed. “Ash and guts for soap? You’ll poison the whole quarter.”

I ignored him, tossing coin on the stall. “Wrap it.”

Karin pinched her nose as the man shoveled shellfish into a sack. “You make dessert out of cream, poison out of broth, now soap out of trash. Are you sure you were a healer in your world?”

I hefted the sack over my shoulder. “Positive. And you’ll thank me when half this city isn’t dropping dead from dirty hands.”

She muttered as we walked back. “If it explodes, I’m blaming you.”

I smirked. “If it explodes, I’ll be back in five minutes to clean it up.”

Her gauntlet thumped against my arm. Not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to make her point.

◇◇◇◇

That evening the dyehouse stank of boiling fish fat and ash. Kaguya leaned over the pot, eyes gleaming, scribbling every step. “Saponification… remarkable…”

Karin gagged. “This is worse than training with your broken ribs.”

I stirred the pot with a scrap of wood until the mixture thickened into a pale, greasy paste. “This is civilization.”

◇◇◇◇