I Have a Moral Line

"N-no, thank you. I only want Rangiku cured," Gin Ichimaru refused at once.

"You truly will not consider it?"

Akira Morisawa sounded as if he still had some lingering regret.

After all, someone like Gin, who matched the textbook description of severe ptosis so perfectly, was honestly rare. As a doctor, Akira almost felt his hands itching.

It was exactly the kind of textbook case that made a good doctor restless. If he did not treat it, he would feel as if he had betrayed his profession a little.

"No. No, thank you. I only want Rangiku cured."

Gin refused to yield on his bottom line, doing everything he could to avoid being casually pushed into Akira's terrifying makeover plan.

As a physician, Akira kept his voice gentle and tried hard to soothe his patient's emotions.

"Relax. When I am acting as a doctor, I do have a moral line. If a patient I can help appears in front of me, I will naturally do my best to treat them. That little girl Rangiku is one such patient, and so are you. That is why I want to treat you. Do you understand?"

Of course, if he was not in physician mode, Akira admitted that his moral line could sometimes be somewhat flexible.

When Gin heard that Akira was willing to treat Rangiku Matsumoto, joy rose in his heart. At the same time, he shook his head hard.

"You really do not want it? I guarantee that after the treatment, your eyes will be prettier than ninety-nine percent of women's," Akira confirmed one last time, still unwilling to let the case go.

Hearing that, Gin's pupils trembled. He shook his head even faster.

'Did this guy just expose his real nature?'

'Is he planning some kind of dangerous medical conditioning and facial remodeling?'

'No way. All I did was accidentally run into him without looking. Does that really justify turning me into a pretty girl?'

'But if I refuse, will he do something to Rangiku...'

At that thought, humiliation and resolve flashed through Gin's forcibly widened blue eyes.

"If the procedure is truly necessary, then after you cure Rangiku, I will not resist."

"??"

Akira stared at him for a beat.

Once he understood that Gin seemed to have mistaken this for an invasive procedure disguised as treatment, regret stirred in his heart. Even so, that particular impulse faded for the moment.

"If you do not want it, forget it. I believe in informed consent."

Akira's gentle voice left Gin, who had already prepared himself, a little stunned.

After all, respecting a patient's choice was one of a doctor's virtues.

As for forcing some kind of conditioning or remodeling onto a patient, Akira was not trying to become a reckless doctor out of some late-night hospital creep-show.

Taume Yoshigami, who had watched the entire strange exchange between Akira and Gin, also breathed out in relief. Although the conversation itself had been odd, the result was good. Akira had not refused treatment because of Gin's earlier rudeness. In fact, he was even planning to throw in a second treatment free of charge.

'As expected, Akira really is one hell of a good man.'

"Akira, are you going to begin treatment now?" Yoshigami asked.

Akira hesitated for a moment, then said, "Wait. Let me check whether my insurance is still here."

Under Gin and Yoshigami's confused gazes, Akira strode out of the house and looked toward the place where Retsu Unohana had been earlier.

That gentle, intellectual figure was still there, and she seemed slightly puzzled by Akira's sudden appearance.

'Good. Teacher is still here...'

Akira smiled and waved at Unohana as if he had only noticed her by accident. Only then did he turn and walk back inside.

Sosuke Aizen was simply too dangerous.

In Akira's judgment, Aizen might not possess any true concept of good and evil at all. Killing, for him, was merely something he did once he deemed it necessary.

In Aizen's eyes, perhaps everything was a piece used to accomplish a certain goal. Pieces that were necessary were kept. Pieces that were not necessary were erased. That was all.

So after confirming that the mastermind behind this small-scale soul-loss incident was most likely Sosuke Aizen, Akira naturally needed to confirm that his "Unohana medical life insurance" was still nearby, just in case anything unexpected happened.

"No problem. Then let us begin the treatment."

At Akira's direction, Gin and Rangiku lay side by side on the temporary medical bed. Yoshigami instinctively prepared to leave so he would not disturb the process.

"Wait. Mr. Yoshigami, can you stay?" Gin suddenly asked.

"Well..."

Yoshigami's expression became troubled.

Akira understood immediately. This was probably Gin's intense instinctive wariness toward the outside world acting up. Gin was guarding against him, afraid that once Yoshigami left, the doctor would do something awful in secret.

"That is enough, Gin Ichimaru."

This time, Akira spoke in irritation. He felt that his virtues as a physician had been gravely insulted. Was Gin truly not afraid of offending a doctor and waking up after treatment as a cute girl?

The moment Gin met Akira's slightly darkened expression, his normally cold nature instinctively felt a trace of fear, as if he had already become a little snake tied to an operating table, trembling under the knife.

"Relax. As a physician, keeping every patient's life safe is my basic line. There is no need to be afraid," Akira comforted him gently.

Unfortunately, those words carried no persuasive power in Gin's ears.

Although Gin did not think the Shinigami in front of him was some irredeemable villain, nor did he seem to belong to the same group as the Shinigami who had stolen something vital from Rangiku, Gin still felt that Akira was absolutely a malicious person.

So what Gin feared was not his life.

It was a very important part of himself: the face, eyes, and identity he refused to let anyone remodel.

Young Gin swallowed and could not stop himself from asking, "During the treatment, will I be anesthetized or made unconscious?"

Akira thought for a moment, then answered in a gloomy tone.

"Generally speaking, to prevent accidents, I choose to put patients to sleep so the treatment process will not be interrupted by wailing, screaming, struggling, running away..."

With every word Akira listed, Gin's face turned a shade paler.

"Ahaha, I was joking."

Akira's smile suddenly returned to its usual gentleness.

"Since you are so worried, I will let you stay awake. Besides, I believe you will not move recklessly and interfere with the treatment..."

"After all, the little girl beside you is someone more important than your own life, is she not?"

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