The anatomical theater, usually a place of silent observation and cold logic, transformed into a chamber of impossible horrors within minutes.
At first, the surgery proceeded with a clinical, almost rhythmic precision.
Faust's Damascus blade moved like a ghost through the necrotic tissue.
Together, he and Hendrik successfully excised the outer layers of blackened flesh, revealing the underlying muscle.
But as Faust pushed deeper toward the scapula, the steel of his scalpel didn't meet bone.
It met something that resisted with a wet, thrumming vibration.
Faust pulled back the incision, and his breath hitched.
Deep within the cavern of Mateus's shoulder, he didn't see anatomy.
He saw a roiling, translucent mass of distorted human features—countless tiny, agonized faces that looked like sand shifting in a desert of souls.
Then, they began to scream.
The sound wasn't physical; it was a psychic wail that tore through the mind.
Hendrik let out a strangled cry, his hands flying to his ears. His eyes rolled back into his head, and he collapsed to the floor, the psychological weight of the "screaming" too much for a mortal mind to bear.
"Hendrik!" Faust yelled, dropping his blade to reach for his student. But as he leaned down to pull the unconscious man away from the table, the heavy doors of the theater burst open.
Lola charged in, her rapier already drawn.
At that exact moment, the shoulder of Mateus erupted.
A thousand black faces, shifting like liquid ink, broke free of the flesh, swirling into the air in a terrifying, obsidian cloud.
"What are you doing? You'll kill him!" Faust screamed, shielding his face. "This isn't medicine, you cannot—"
"From here, we are taking it, Doctor!" Don-Fran's voice boomed from the doorway. He and Lola both squinted their eyes, their faces hardening as they sensed the unnatural screech of the evil before them.
Don-Fran reached into his coat and hurled two small leather bags.
They hit the floor near the table and exploded in a blinding, holy flash.
The black liquid hissed and screeched, recoiling from the light. For any other man, the flash would have caused temporary blindness, but Faust's unusual eyes saw through the glare with terrifying clarity.
He watched as the light didn't just dissipate; it began to focus, drawn toward Lola like a moth to a flame.
To be precise, the light gathered at the tip of her silver-etched rapier.
On the table, Mateus's body began to convulse violently, his back arching as the dark faces tried to re-enter his pores.
Suddenly, Faust's vision blurred.
Where there had been one Lola, there were now five.
Five identical women, each with a black eyepatch and a gleaming blade, surrounded the operating table.
"H-How..?" Faust stammered, his mind reeling.
Each of the five Lolas raised their rapiers in a synchronized, lethal arc.
From the points of the blades, surging beams of pure, concentrated light erupted. They converged on Mateus's shoulder, hitting the supernatural infection with the force of a falling star.
The "soul sand" faces evaporated into white mist, obliterated by the holy resonance.
The light subsided as quickly as it had come.
The four illusions vanished, leaving only the real Lola standing over the table, her chest heaving.
Mateus lay still, the black rot gone, replaced by raw, pink tissue that looked miraculously clean.
Don-Fran rushed forward, pouring a glowing blue liquid from a flask directly into the open wound.
Faust scrambled up, leaving the unconscious Hendrik on the floor. His doctor's heart was hammering—multiple pulses drumming a frantic rhythm in his chest.
"You cannot do that! This is a sterille theater!"
He reached for the table, but Lola stepped in his path, her hand gripping his shoulder with iron strength.
"It's alright, Faust," she said softly.
Her expression was triumphant, yet weary.
She reached into a pouch and threw a handful of fine, shimmering dust directly into his face.
She smiled, waiting for the amnesia to take hold, for the "memory dust" to wipe the last ten minutes from his mind as it had for a hundred witnesses before him.
But her smile faltered when Faust merely blinked, coughing slightly.
"What the hell, Lola?" Faust snapped, wiping the dust from his eyes. "What was that? Flour? I'm trying to save your brother's life and you're throwing—"
Lola's eye widened in genuine shock.
Her dust had failed.
"You're... you're still awake?" she whispered, confused.
"Of course I'm awake! Now move!"
Lola realized she couldn't let him and the dust wasn't enough.
"I'm sorry."
With a practiced, lightning-fast motion, she flipped her rapier in her hand and brought the heavy silver hilt down hard against Faust's temple.
"What the—" Faust started, but the world suddenly tilted.
The "big dignity" of the Professor crumbled as his knees buckled.
Darkness rushed in to meet him, and he dropped unconscious beside his student, the secrets of the Francisco family still ringing in his mind.