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Asagami Fujino.
Originally named Asakami Fujino, heir to one of Japan's four great demon-slaying families, the Asakami. As a demon-slaying family, the Asakami possessed a powerful supernatural ability known as the "Mystic Eyes of Distortion."
Though she was the heir, the once-prosperous Asakami family had long since gone bankrupt, its resources absorbed by the branch family, the Asagami.
To legitimize their claim to the resources, the current head of the Asagami family, Kouzou Asagami, had married Asakami Fujino's mother and adopted the young Fujino. This was the main reason she was now known as Asagami Fujino.
"Asagami Fujino!" Haru murmured the name, his gaze shifting from surprise to pity as he looked at the blue-haired girl. After a long moment, he sighed softly.
He now understood why Fujino had been crying in pain even after her injuries had healed.
Fujino was a natural-born psychic. However, the Asakami family, which should have protected her, had long since disappeared. Consequently, she had been persecuted by the villagers since she was a child.
She was finally adopted, but the branch Asagami family was just an ordinary capitalist family, which led to tragedy.
Her stepfather, Kouzou Asagami, upon learning of Fujino's abilities, had feared them. When Fujino was six, he had used drugs to seal her Mystic Eyes.
The consequence, however, was that Fujino had lost her sense of pain.
Persecuted since childhood for her strange abilities, Fujino was terrified of her lack of pain being discovered, of being persecuted once more. So, she had pretended to be normal, desperately feigning the appropriate pained expressions even though she couldn't feel a thing.
"It must be hard, pretending to feel pain," Haru said, crouching down and stroking Fujino's deep blue hair, his expression gentle, as if speaking to his own daughter.
"..." Fujino froze, her face darkening.
Tears welled up in her red-rimmed eyes once more. She nodded slightly, her voice choked with tears. "...Mm!"
To be unable to feel pain, yet have to pretend to be in pain, to live in constant fear of her secret being discovered—she had endured this pressure, enough to break an adult, for six long years.
Unable to express her pain, unable to find a sense of her own existence, Fujino's personality was on the verge of collapse.
Haru's hand, resting on Fujino's head, began to glow faintly. A milky-white light gradually spread, enveloping Fujino in a white curtain.
The path of magic was a 'science of mystery.'
Whether it was research into the human body, drugs, or even the nervous system, in the eyes of a magus, it was all valuable knowledge that could be converted into 'power.'
And Haru, having obtained all the magical data of the Mage's Association, having forcibly inscribed it into his mind, though still lacking in experience, his understanding of the human body, drugs, and the nervous system was enough to crush any Sealing Designation specializing in a single field.
Thus, Haru used the white light to continuously probe the ailments in Fujino's body caused by the drugs.
"Nerve necrosis, drug residue in the blood, and... appendicitis!" Haru closed his eyes, sensing the condition within Fujino's body, muttering to himself.
Once the abnormalities were confirmed, black flames spread over Fujino's body, annihilating the source of her ailments. Then, the necrotic nerves were born from nothingness, and without the slightest sign of rejection, they perfectly reconnected.
Fujino stared blankly at the black flames on her body. The terror a normal person would feel upon seeing flames was completely absent from her face. After all, she couldn't feel the pain of the fire.
"...Hot! Hot!" After a moment's daze, Fujino subconsciously mimicked the expression of someone being burned, her childish face filled with terror and unease.
"Still pretending!" Haru said, ruffling Fujino's soft hair with exasperation. He lifted his left hand and flicked her smooth forehead.
Thump—!
"Ow!" Fujino's brow furrowed slightly. She quickly lifted her small hand to her forehead, her voice filled with pain.
"..."
Her wine-red eyes were filled with astonishment. Fujino kept rubbing her forehead, murmuring under her breath, "Pain???"
"You felt it, right? I just healed you," Haru said, his expression gentle as he stroked Fujino's small head with a smile.
The next second, a pair of small, pale hands grasped Haru's wrist. Fujino looked up, her face full of hope, and pulled his finger to her forehead.
"...Again!"
Haru froze for a moment, then, a look of pity on his face, he flicked her smooth, white forehead once more.
"Ow!...Again." Fujino smiled, a smile that bloomed through her tears, a smile from the bottom of her heart.
His index finger flicked her smooth forehead once more.
Tears streamed down the girl's face, drenching her nun's habit.
————
"This child is so pitiful, Papa." Hisui, who had witnessed everything, sat beside Haru, her expression gentle as she stroked the hair of the sleeping Fujino in his arms.
Her smooth, white forehead was already bright red, but even so, a bright smile remained on Fujino's sleeping face, as if she were dreaming of something wonderful.
The door opened slowly, and Kohaku, holding a small nun's habit, walked in. Seeing the sleeping Fujino, she froze for a moment, then lowered her voice. "Papa, I've brought a change of clothes for Fujino."
As if venting years of fear, Fujino's school uniform was already soaked with tears, her whole body as if she'd just been pulled from the water.
"I'll help her change," Hisui said, reaching out to wrap her arms around Fujino's waist, pulling gently. She froze.
Fujino's small, pale hands were tightly clutching Haru's collar, the greenish-blue veins on her hands faintly visible.
"I'll change her," Haru said, taking the clothes from Kohaku's hands and skillfully unfastening Fujino's uniform.
Just then, Akiha Tohno walked into the infirmary from the doorway. Seeing the stripped-bare Fujino, she froze for a moment, then let out a soft tut. "The parent-teacher conference is about to start. Papa, wake Fujino up."
"Mm, I know. Have you caught Kouzou Asagami and the doctor who prescribed the drugs to Fujino?" Haru nodded slightly, his voice soft.
Hearing Haru mention the two main culprits of Fujino's tragedy, Akiha's face contorted with hatred. "We've caught those bastards. Should we dispose of them?"
Akiha lifted her hand, her gaze cold as she made a throat-slitting gesture.
"That's too good for them," Haru said, carefully dressing Fujino in the nun's habit, his voice icy.
"Give them a sex change, and sell them to a Kabuki theater in Shinjuku to work as hosts."
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