Purification

The fight that followed was unlike anything I'd ever experienced.

Every gesture sent light cascading from my hands. Every step left glowing footprints that burned away corruption wherever they touched. The crystalline growths withered and cracked, the writhing ichor boiled away to nothing.

But it was more than just destroying the Sephis. When I touched a guardsman who'd been infected but not yet transformed, light flowed from my fingers into his wounds. The corruption retreated, his fever broke, his breathing eased.

"Ken," Kaguya's voice came from behind me, filled with awe. "Your hands. They're glowing."

I turned to see her and Karin approaching cautiously. Karin's gauntlets were dark, her flame exhausted. Kaguya's medical supplies were scattered and bloodied. They both looked exhausted.

"Are you hurt?" I asked, reaching toward them.

Kaguya held up a hand, stopping me. "Wait. Let me examine this first." She pulled out her analytical lens, the one she used for studying plague corruption. When she looked through it at me, her eyes widened.

"Your entire body is suffused with light," she whispered. "Not just the surface. Every cell, every fiber. It's like you're burning from the inside, but cold fire. Pure energy."

"How is that possible?" Karin asked.

I looked at Ulric, who was cleaning ichor from his sword. "You said the Brand affects the soul. What exactly does that mean?"

He was quiet for a long moment. "The old texts speak of the soul as the pattern that defines a person. It is not simply just your personality or memory, but the fundamental structure of existence. The Brand... it rewrites that pattern. Inscribes the light directly into the core of what you are."

"And normally that would destroy someone?"

"The human soul isn't designed to contain that kind of power. It burns them out from the inside. But you..." He looked at the brand on my chest, still glowing faintly through my ruined shirt. "You regenerate everything. Including, apparently, the damage to your soul."

I stared at my hands, watching light dance between my fingers. It felt natural now, like breathing. But there were implications I was only beginning to understand.

"If the Brand rewrote my soul," I said slowly, "and my regeneration is tied to my soul..."

"Then the light is permanent," Ulric finished. "Part of you now."

Yamada whistled low. "A healer who can burn away corruption with a touch. That's going to change everything."

◇◇◇◇

We spent the next hour clearing the remaining corruption from the estate. With my new abilities, it was almost easy. The light acted like a hound on a scent, running down their influence and searing infections beyond ordinary reach.

But it was when we found Baron Wilhelm in his study that I truly understood what I'd become.

He was still alive, barely. The corruption had spread through his body like a cancer, crystalline growths erupting from his skin, his breathing shallow and labored. Any normal treatment would have been useless.

"Please," he gasped when he saw us. "End it quickly. I don't want to become one of them."

I knelt beside him and placed my hands on his chest. Light flowed from my fingers, but gently this time. Instead of the harsh radiance that destroyed, this was warm, healing, restorative.

The crystals began to crack and flake away. The swelling went down. His breathing eased. Within minutes, he was sitting up, staring at his hands in amazement.

"How?" he whispered.

"I don't know," I admitted. "But I think that's the point. Some things don't need to make medical sense when they're working on a level beyond medicine."

Kaguya was scribbling furiously in her notebook, but for once she looked frustrated instead of excited. "I can observe the effects, but the mechanism... it's like trying to understand lightning by watching it strike. The energy patterns are completely outside normal parameters."

Ulric cleaned the last of the ichor from his blade and sheathed it. "The Brand was created for desperate times, when normal methods weren't enough. Perhaps this qualifies."

I stood, feeling the light humming in my chest like a second heartbeat. For the first time since I'd arrived in this plague-ridden world, I felt like I might actually be able to save everyone.

"I need to understand this better," I said. "The limits, the applications, the risks. If I'm going to use this power responsibly, I need to know what I'm working with."

"The old texts might help," Ulric offered. "My family's kept records of everyone who received the Brand, going back generations. Most died, but some left accounts of what they experienced."

"And the ones who survived?"

His expression darkened. "None survived long enough to leave complete records. The power consumed them eventually, one way or another."

I flexed my fingers, watching light dance between them. "Well, they didn't have my particular advantages. Let's see how long forever actually turns out to be."

Outside the estate, dawn was breaking over the city. The dome's wards had stabilized, the immediate crisis past.

The plague had evolved. Now, so had I.

◇◇◇◇

Back at the clinic, I sat in the kitchen while Kaguya ran every test she could think of. Blood samples, energy readings, cellular analysis. The results were unlike anything in her notes.

"Your blood glows," she said wonderingly. "Literally gives off light when I examine it under magnification. And it actively destroys plague corruption on contact."

"What about my regeneration?" I asked. "Is it still working normally?"

"Better than normally," Karin said from the doorway. She'd been practicing with me for the past hour, landing hits that should have taken minutes to heal. "You're rebuilding faster than ever. And the new tissue..." She gestured at my arm, where she'd left a deep gash that was now completely unmarked. "It's stronger. More resilient."

I nodded. I'd felt the difference myself. Not just the speed of healing, but the quality. Like my body was being rebuilt with better materials each time.

"There's something else," I said, holding up my hand. Instead of the harsh, destructive light I'd used in combat, I let a gentle glow emanate from my palm. "Watch this."

I placed my hand on a wilted plant Kaguya kept on the windowsill. Light flowed from my fingers into the brown leaves. Within moments, they were green again, reaching toward the sunlight streaming through the glass.

"Lifeforce," Kaguya breathed. "You're manipulating the fundamental forces of vitality itself."

"Which explains why it works on plague corruption," I said. "The Sephis represent death, decay, entropy. This is the opposite. Pure creative force."

"And the implications?"

I thought about Baron Wilhelm, about the guard whose infection I'd cured with a touch, about the plant now blooming in impossible abundance on the windowsill.

The brand on my chest pulsed gently, warm and reassuring. Whatever questions remained about how it worked or why I'd survived it, one thing was certain: I could finally heal people properly.

I could fix what was broken, cure what seemed incurable, save people who would otherwise die.

The goddess had given me a second chance and the tools to use it. I wasn't going to waste either.

◇◇◇◇

In the hall of marble and shadow, the cruel goddess practically vibrated with excitement, her perfect features twisted into an expression of manic glee as she watched the scene unfold.

"Oh, this is delicious! Simply delicious!" she gushed, clapping her hands together like a child who had just discovered a new toy. "Did you see his face when the light first manifested? The hope! The absolute certainty that he's found his purpose!"

One of the other goddesses shifted uncomfortably. "The Brand was originally a way for humanity to survive, but you've stripped all knowledge about it from almost every human save for a few, and you've even stripped their knowledge of strengthening it... why?"

The cruel goddess's smile stretched impossibly wide, her eyes burning with an unhinged light.

"BECAUSE I CAN!" she shrieked with laughter, throwing her head back in ecstasy. "Because watching them fumble around with fragments of power they don't understand is so much more entertaining than letting them succeed!"

The other goddesses fell silent, whispering among themselves about how she maintained her strength in a world where no one worshipped her anymore, how her power seemed to grow with every act of cruelty, every moment of despair she orchestrated.

The cruel goddess leaned forward again, her voice dropping to a conspirative whisper filled with malicious anticipation.

"And now my dear little doctor has the key to doors that should remain locked forever. Soon he'll learn that some lights cast very long shadows indeed."

Her laughter echoed through the marble halls like breaking crystal.

It was only just beginning.

◇◇◇◇