"This—his treatment—patient—he—this... really works!"
A few days later, in an intensive care unit of another hospital in the next city, several doctors and nurses in white coats surrounded the hospital bed. But they kept a certain distance from the masked man sitting beside it. Afraid of disturbing his mysterious medical skills.
Although in their opinion, what the masked man did was just press his right hand against the seriously ill patient's torso—the one covered with instrument wires on the hospital bed.
The masked man's right hand didn't even actually touch the patient.
The nearest wide-eyed little nurse could attest to this.
Probably because she was too close, the masked man looked up. The little nurse smiled sheepishly and raised her phone to signal.
The masked man didn't care about being photographed. It would be better to say that precisely because he and another masked accomplice didn't care much about being caught on camera, their deeds quickly spread from several hospitals in neighboring cities.
First there were rumors. Then newspaper reporters quickly followed up. After receiving surveillance video provided by hospitals, these successive medical miracles quickly occupied front pages of major newspapers and triggered continuous investigative reports.
The serious condition in front of him had been brought to the emergency room two months ago. After several hours of resuscitation and multiple surgeries, doctors were able to barely preserve basic vital signs. However, the patient still couldn't leave the intensive care unit. Could be said he was still not out of danger.
The doctor wanted to continue with a new surgical plan, but the patient was too weak to withstand the trauma. In other words, whether this seriously injured patient could get better depended on his willpower in a coma and a little bit of luck.
And his luck seemed good. He happened to meet the "Mystery Masked Healers" today.
Liam, one of the "Mystery Masked Healers," pressed his right hand on the seriously injured patient's chest, which was covered with threads from medical equipment. Dense aura invisible to the naked eyes of medical staff behind him flowed under his palm. The thin layer of aura on the unconscious and seriously injured person's body surface fused together, as if continuously injecting strength into him.
In the eyes of Shizuku—the second "Mystery Masked Healer"—the moment the enhanced aura from Liam's right hand was injected into the weak and injured person on the hospital bed who might die at any time, the original aura on top of the weak and injured person's head that would have naturally dispersed immediately subsided.
This person has forcibly entered Ten. Shizuku thought.
She spent time with Liam day and night. From time to time during practice and leisure, she could hear and see his thoughts on the development of Enhancement healing abilities. Similar to Star Mark's healing ability, the main healing method of Liam's Enhancement system "Mystical Palm" was to forcefully activate and greatly strengthen the injured person's own self-healing ability.
However, the fact that some injured people were already extremely weak couldn't be explained by "the injured person's own potential and vitality are used for self-recovery." Liam hadn't noticed any backlash of so-called "vitality overdraft" after Kurapika recovered with Star Mark's help when he was almost exhausted. This raised the question of what the energy source of Star Mark's extreme healing effect was. Liam still couldn't figure it out for the time being.
Liam's previous development of Enhancement healing abilities had been stuck at this step.
However, he'd now given up completely imitating the healing power of Star Mark.
Since you can't find the source of Star Mark's healing energy, the next best thing is to use your own aura instead. When the aura of the target being treated is in good condition, Liam's "Mystical Palm" forces the opponent to enter Ten, then stimulates the opponent's aura to heal themselves. When the opponent is really exhausted, Liam consumes his own aura and pours the enhanced aura full of healing effects into them.
At this moment, Liam was adopting the second method.
This severely injured patient, whose conventional medical treatment had little effect, had been injected with Liam's healing aura. He was now out of danger and improving significantly. His breathing had become stronger.
"It consumed about 2,000 of my aura." Liam retracted his hand. His expression behind the mask was a bit concerned. This amount was equivalent to the total aura of himself when he'd just traveled through time twenty times over.
From now on, I won't touch "patients" who take so much trouble and effort without good reason!
Liam winked at Shizuku in the corner of the ward. The two of them walked toward the door together. All medical staff respectfully moved to both sides to make way.
The hospital corridor was also crowded with onlookers. When they saw the duo of "Mystery Masked Healers" coming out, the crowd immediately became noisy. Many people looked excited and wanted to rush forward. Didn't know whether they wanted autographs or to kidnap them. Of course, the result was they all rushed at nothing. The two people who'd been standing here just now disappeared out of thin air.
Behind them, Liam and Shizuku's bodies were almost level with the ground, stepping on the corridor wall and running toward the stairs.
"Fortunately, I wore a mask! Otherwise, for a person like me, a bunch of unknown people would run over with tears in their eyes asking for help. Treat this and that. That would be very troublesome!"
On the rooftop of the hospital, Liam sighed as wind blew. "I know we can't stay in the same hospital for too long. Especially can't both save people and collect death energy in the same hospital. I'm almost getting schizophrenia!"
They sat in the corner of the rooftop, with a dining table and a table of good food. Had a hot lunch.
Of course, Shizuku had already stored these in Blinky's different space.
Shizuku ate her rice and asked curiously, "Why did Liam insist on developing this kind of Mystical Palm?"
Obviously it could be replaced by the more advanced Star Mark cure.
"Good question!" Liam picked up his rice bowl, blowing the slightly cool wind and bathing in the warm sun. He pointed at Shizuku with his chopsticks. "I can give up the name 'Mystical Palm.' I only realized when I was about to finish it—since this move can activate the human body's potential, there can be another way of using it. Another way that's more combat-oriented..."
"Then what should it be changed to?" Shizuku was curious as she picked up food. "To stimulate potential and use it in battle... Is this a desperate move?"
"Divine Body Reinforcement? Gate of Limits?" Liam shook his head while eating. "I haven't thought about it yet! Oh, is this the trouble of genius? Too many skills, difficult to name! Auntie Bisky, Auntie Bisky, I advise you to have eight senses and take this genius under your wing as soon as possible, hmm..."
"As for your other question," Liam said, "what if the target that needs healing cannot be marked with a Star? So I develop this as a preparation"
"Oh!" Shizuku finally understood.
The so-called inability to put a Star on it was either because this behavior would be offensive and the other party was taboo about being fully Manipulated by a Manipulation-type ability. Or the other party was also a Manipulator and had already Manipulated themselves. Based on the first-come-first-serve principle, Stars couldn't be added, and cure was out of the question.
After a while, the door to the rooftop passage was pushed open violently. A young woman with a camera hanging around her neck hurriedly ran out. She quickly looked around the rooftop and found the masked duo who'd just finished eating and were getting up from the table.
"You..." The female reporter was stunned. These two people hid on the hospital rooftop and were actually eating? And there was a table set up. Looked quite sumptuous.
As soon as she blinked, she heard a vague buzzing sound. The table and all the dishes and chopsticks disappeared out of thin air!
"Hello, bye." Liam said hello and was about to leave with Shizuku when he saw the stunned woman suddenly shouting hurriedly, "I'm a reporter! There's a patient that only you can save!"
"What did I say?"
Liam jumped to the edge of the rooftop and stood there, facing the wind with his hands in his pockets. Complained to Shizuku, "This is what I'm afraid of. So troublesome!"
The female reporter only had time to loudly announce the address and ward number of the hospital where the patient was located when she saw the masked man step into the air and jump off the roof! The masked woman next to him followed closely and jumped down.
The female reporter hurriedly moved to the edge of the rooftop and looked down. The man and woman in masks had fallen more than halfway. The woman in the mask seemed to be waving at the hospital building and nearby exterior windows, billboards, street lights, and the like from time to time. The two were blocked as they fell, and finally landed calmly amidst the exclamations of passersby on the ground. Walked away along the road as if no one was around. Finally disappeared from the female reporter's sight.
"They should have heard it, right?" the female reporter murmured to herself. "They've saved so many people. They won't ignore someone dying..."
She was right. Liam did hear it.
With the idea that they'd heard everything, Liam and Shizuku strolled toward the target hospital while taking a walk to digest their food.
When the hospital appeared not far ahead, Liam took out his mystical mask and put it on again. Shizuku heard him mutter to himself, "I've been pretending to be a good person for the past two days. Haven't collected death energy for two days already..."
Shizuku also put on her matching mask and entered the hospital with him. Their two masks had long been in the news because of surveillance video footage, so they attracted attention and exclamations all along the way through the hospital.
They went straight to the ward the woman on the rooftop had mentioned and pushed the door open.
As soon as they entered, Liam felt an unusual atmosphere.
He took a closer look. A palm-sized green skull was lying on the body of the man who was so thin he looked skeletal on the hospital bed. Still squirming and sucking in the patient's meager aura.
Shizuku also saw that this so-called patient was possessed by some kind of Nen. Might be some kind of curse. Or might be marked by the abilities of other Nen users.
"You are..." The relatives accompanying them in the ward looked surprised. Some had already recognized the masked duo. They hurriedly pulled others' arms with excitement and cleared space around the hospital bed.
Someone even sneaked into the bathroom quietly. Shizuku's ears twitched slightly. After activating her enhanced hearing, she heard the person talking on the phone in the bathroom, saying something like "reporter" in a low voice.
"There's no way to cure this, right?" Shizuku looked at the parasitic "skull curse" on the person on the hospital bed. "He's not sick or injured. There's nothing we can do about it."
She and Liam didn't have the ability to exorcise Nen.
"If there's a way, maybe it's not impossible." Under the nervous gazes of the onlookers' family members, Liam flicked his right hand. An aura sword invisible to their naked eyes pierced out of Liam's aura as if unsheathed.
The special Nen sword made using "Reflection" was called the "Yin Nen Sword" and like "Reflection" it could absorb other people's aura.
Since I can drink aura, I wonder if I can exorcise Nen?
Liam thought like this, and slashed at the dying patient with a sword