Doctor

The large room under the dome was filled with people as they emerged. Everyone was in various states of dress and even undress, as they were distributed throughout, talking, checking on each other’s wounds. Naoya spotted masks dotted throughout, attached to people’s upper arms. No one seemed seriously injured, but maybe those people were just in a different place. Then, suddenly, something lit up in the middle of the room. A light like an orb emerged from a person, flying a few rounds through the dome, until it left through the glass.

“Don’t stop,” Aki said and pushed Naoya forward.

They walked along the outside of the room, some people staring, but most indifferent to their presence. Naoya looked into the rooms behind the long, curved glass wall instead. Some were sparse office spaces, some whole libraries, some… indoor gardens? A few were completely empty, others had curtains completely drawn. In one, he could see someone at a kitchen space, flipping vegetables in a large wok, in another he spied a frankly indecent amount of hamsters.

He looked back at Aki, who glowered at him. It had been one thing when he was still a woman. They had been roughly the same height, and even though she had been angry, her features were still softer. Aki as a man was easily one whole head taller, if not more. His features were more severe, his hair drawn back, making him look more like a military man. Naoya refrained from asking his question. Soon, he was pushed into another elevator. They went even further down.

“A word of advice: Don’t talk back to Bai Rong. I may do so, but that’s only because I’ve known her for more than forty years. We’re not the same.”

“Noted,” Naoya confirmed. “Wait. Forty years?”

Aki looked like he was in his mid-twenties.

“Yes.”

Naoya braced for the rope tightening, but apparently this didn’t count as a stupid question. He didn’t even know anymore, but he asked no follow-up question.

The elevator opened into a long hallway, on either side of which were doors that looked like prison cells, with little windows in them. At the end of it, the space opened up into another world. It was as if you’d stepped from current day into a historical drama, a journey through time with just one step. Behind Naoya was 2025. In front of him was an apothecary’s shop right out of historical China.

The walls were covered in cupboards and shelves, stacked with so many things Naoya had never seen before. The ceiling was covered in different coloured cloth, in between which herbs were hung up to dry. Lanterns in red and yellow gave the space an otherworldly feeling. Yet in the middle of it all, in between archaic looking scales and rows upon rows of scrolls, was an examination table that wouldn't have looked out of place on a space ship. The whole place was a riot of contradictions—but nothing more than the person, who was writing something at the desk in the corner.

She was clad in a white doctor’s coat over a black, form fitting dress. Her dark green hair was braided and rolled up at the back of her head. She wore a pair of silver glasses, over which she regarded Naoya with a curious stare. No… not Naoya. Aki.

“My favourite subject is back!” she said in a singing tone of voice. “You haven’t graced me with your presence in weeks!”

Aki pushed Naoya into the room.

“I’m just here to deliver him.”

“Yes. Ruri told me. But if you’re already here, why don’t you stay for tea?”

Bai Rong crossed the room, but before she could reach Aki, he put Naoya between them.

“Because last time I accepted your hospitality, I ended up drugged and strapped to your table.”

“Just for a little while.”

“Three days.”

“What’s three days compared to eternity?”

Aki rolled his eyes. “In contrast to you, I am not planning to spend the rest of my life in this miserable existence. I’ve reached the half-point of my sentence already.”

“Ah, yes. Boring. And selfish.”

“Call it what you will. I did my job. Goodbye.”

Aki turned to leave.

“I need assistance. We don’t know what’s wrong with him yet,” Bai Rong said.

“This space is secure.”

“This space may be secure, but I could still get hurt.”

“Ugh. Fine.”

Bai Rong smiled sweetly and gestured at the table in the middle of the room.

“Have a seat, Sekiguchi Naoya.”

“Uh…”

Naoya obeyed. What else could he do? And to his surprise, once he sat down on the edge of the futuristic bed, the rope around his wrists fell away. Bai Rong picked up Naoya’s hands and rubbed the red indents the rope had left behind. Her fingers were as cold as ice.

“See, Aki? I can be nice.”

Aki made a derisive noise and crossed his arms.

“You’ll come around. Now, Naoya-kun. I’m going to try and find out what’s wrong with you. But no matter what this turns out to be, you’re confined to HQ for now,” Bai Rong said. “Now, let me look at what we’re dealing with.”

“Confined?”

Bai Rong patted his cheek. “It’s for your own good, darling. Besides, Ruri told me no one’s going to miss you anyway.”

“Ouch. You’re not wrong, though…”

She put a paper talisman on Naoya’s forehead, so that he looked like a jiangshi. With some words he didn’t understand, the paper burned away, disappearing into white smoke.

“Not a personal power,” Bai Rong mumbled to herself.

She repeated the process.

“Not a blessing either.”

Before she could affix another talisman, it went up in flames as it came close to Naoya’s head. Bai Rong yelped in surprise and shook her hand to remove the smoldering ashes.

“A curse. I should’ve guessed. I can’t expose it without your help, then. If you’d be so kind, darling.”

Aki sighed. He rolled up his sleeves and stood behind Naoya. A white light appeared around them like a glass dome.

“Just to contain any negative energy.”

Bai Rong said a few words in a foreign language as she touched Naoya’s forehead. Dark smoke curled around Naoya, blocking his vision for a moment. Then he heard someone scream. It was Bai Rong. Wispy tendrils held her against the barrier, wrapped around her middle. She hacked at them with a dagger she had produced out of nowhere.

“Now this is going to be more difficult than I imagined…”