Have I seen this person somewhere before? When Nono Hana saw Ash idly fiddling with a Gundam model in his office chair, that thought inexplicably popped into her head.
And he looks so young. Could this doctor actually be younger than me? Looking around, she saw a doctor's certificate with Ash's photo printed on it hanging on the wall. Beside it stood two cabinets—one held all kinds of medical equipment, while the other was crammed with toy models she couldn't recognize.
Combined with the Gundam model in Ash's hands, Nono Hana felt like she had spotted the key detail.
If he became a doctor at such a young age, he should be easy to fool, right? Yeah, I'll handle this with the smooth talk of a mature woman!
Just watch me unleash the aura of a mature, sexy big sister and make this young doctor so smitten he won't know which way is north~
"Miss, you can come in now. Also—"
"Ah!" She instinctively looked up and realized she was still standing outside. The moment she stepped forward, she felt weightless, and only then did she realize she had apparently tripped over something and fallen.
A pair of hands caught Nono Hana's body, saving her from smashing her face.
"This doorway has a threshold. I thought you saw it, so I didn't remind you to watch your step." The doctor who had just been sitting in his office chair was now standing in front of Nono Hana. Heaven knew how he had reacted so quickly.
It should have been suspicious, but Nono Hana, who had only just recovered from the scare, was too busy feeling apologetic about her own carelessness to pay attention to it.
Wuwuwu... My dream of becoming a mature, sexy big sister has been getting farther and farther away since middle school...
"Sit." Ash pressed Nono Hana into a chair, then returned to his own seat.
"I ask. You answer."
Is this a police interrogation? And there isn't even any pork cutlet rice...
Before Nono Hana could finish complaining in her head, the first question was already thrown at her.
"Where does it hurt?"
"Well, my lower back has been hurting lately, especially when I wake up in the morning..." She repeated the excuse she had used countless times, clutching her waist as she spoke. Doctors who weren't too guarded usually wrote her a note.
As long as she finished saying it, this would basically be a success.
But what if she didn't get to finish?
"What else?"
"So, I'd like some painkillers..."
"I said, what else?"
Ash propped his chin up with a bored expression.
I'm not blind. Even though I haven't examined you yet, with the way you take two steps and then pull back half a step, I've got enough eyesight to notice.
Her words came to an abrupt stop.
Ash blinked. He caught a whiff of something bad, a scent so familiar it made him want to puke.
It was the smell of death catching up.
Nono Hana began to sway in her chair. A wave of drowsiness and exhaustion swept over her, followed by the world spinning around her.
I really want to sleep for a while...
As she thought that, even the pain in her waist seemed to fade away.
Great... Can I rest now?
"Hey! What's wrong—"
Nono Hana could no longer hear the rest.
"Sorry for causing trouble..."
"Hey—!!"
That was Nono Hana's final thought before her consciousness completely sank into darkness.
Extra Case File 7: The Value of Life
Ash felt terrible right now.
After the "human tragedy" of the previous world—where he had loafed around too much, been caught wandering the streets by Lucky, then gotten ambushed and beaten up by the entire Kyuranger team before being forced to join them—Ash had conducted a deep review of his experiences and reflected on his life in this world, especially after a kind passerby had pulled him out of a river.
If he wanted to avoid being spotted while slacking around, recognized by some heroic figure, and beaten up, he needed to find a job as cover.
That normally wouldn't have been difficult. All he had to do was find an excuse to fight a righteous hero, and those villain organizations that wanted to invade the world for one reason or another would come crawling out. He could infiltrate one as a salaried freeloader, clock in every day, flirt with the executives, beat up the underlings, and occasionally have thrilling encounters with heroes. Wouldn't that have been great?
The strange part was that he had done the beginning but couldn't find the ending. He had searched forever without finding any trace of this world's dark organizations, as though the Doomsday Monsters that had existed for eight years had simply sprouted from the ground.
Maybe they really had sprouted from the ground?
Getting a job at a company wouldn't be a problem. He could just forge a résumé. But the owner of the last company that had tried to make Ash into a corporate drone had been scammed by Ash into becoming another bloated, obese decoration on a rooftop.
As for working in a factory tightening screws... unless he lost his memory, forget it.
So he planned to start his own business. The best kind of work would let him control his own hours and avoid dealing with too many people. What should he do, then?
After thinking it over, just as he was considering opening a coffee shop, Ash caught sight of the medical license he had carefully treasured at the very bottom of his inventory.
Thanks to Hiiro Kagami. His unintentional action had spared a city from the horrors of Mars Coffee.
Once he made up his mind, Ash got to work. After "playing" with Pretty Cure that day, he picked a good location, spent some gold particles from his reserves to rent an entire building, and received the medical equipment as "friendly" donations from organizations like Shocker and Destron. He put everything on display without even removing the bloodstained slicers and restraint straps. The desk and office chair in the examination room had been swiped from Phoenix. They lost things every day anyway, and no one cared. As for the medicine, he had stolen it from Taiga. That guy hadn't been happy about it, and Ash had fought that quack doctor several times over it.
Finally, and most importantly, he got a display case from Genm Corp and filled it with all of his model collections.
"Perfect."
Then the first patient in Ash's new world fainted right in front of him.
The Gundam model fell to the floor and shattered. Ash immediately rushed over, pulled open her coat, and began checking her. He tossed aside any concerns about proper distance between men and women. Not that he cared about such things anyway.
"Her waist... This degree of bruising..."
Ash frowned. There were other places he had yet to check, but he didn't intend to waste time. The problem around her waist was clearly not something that could be delayed.
Besides his brilliant medical skills, Ash had unexpectedly inherited his teacher's admirable medical ethics. Holding the somewhat familiar woman in his arms, he rammed through every obstacle in his way and charged toward the operating room in the back.
Carrying the unconscious Nono Hana in a princess carry, he laid her on the modification platform painted with a gigantic eagle. The moment Ash kicked open the door, the machines bearing the logos of various dark organizations lit up with crimson indicator lights. The eerie lighting made the place look like a cyborg conversion site.
Even through her clothes, Nono Hana's body felt scorching hot. Her unconscious body was still trembling, and her smaller-than-average frame for someone her age made Ash's heart ache a little.
"This really is one hell of a warning shot."
"[Authentication complete. Welcome, Senior Researcher Dr. Ash. Your teacher, Doctor Shinigami, has three remaining emails...]"
After completing the identity verification and ignoring the extra information, Ash stripped off Nono Hana's coat and casually tossed it aside. The life-support equipment and diagnostic devices activated at once. Several mechanical needles pierced Nono Hana's body and injected nutrient fluid, while restraint straps automatically closed around her hands and feet—only for Ash to yank them apart again. He wasn't actually performing a conversion surgery. He would only consider that if she was so badly injured that even he couldn't save her.
To save time, he only scanned her waist. The images of that area quickly appeared on Ash's tablet.
"Just as I thought. Internal organ rupture, kidney hemorrhage, hemorrhagic shock."
Did you get hit by a car and crawl all the way here or something?
"I didn't expect my first patient to hit me with something this brutal... If you'd come any later, I could only have given you the Takeshi Hongo treatment."
The room rapidly transformed. A wall beside them recessed and split apart, revealing a full set of black surgical attire. Four nozzles emerged from the corners, spraying disinfectant while sterilizing ultraviolet light filled every corner. The massive machine holding Nono Hana also began to transform, changing from a modification platform into a simple operating table amid the sounds of gears and grinding metal.
"But be grateful. I'm the one performing your surgery."
"And besides..."
He recognized who she was. By all rights, he had to help her. After all, she had lent him a hand back then.
"I owe you." He muttered quietly, and after the medical mask covered his mouth, it was impossible to tell whether he was still speaking.
The eagle-emblazoned surgical attire automatically fitted itself around him. Ash only cut away the clothing obstructing Nono Hana's waist, while two mechanical arms flawlessly handled every remaining step on the operating table.
Ash raised both hands, just like his teacher Hiiro Kagami.
"Now, the operation begins."
"There's nothing I can't cut open."
In her haze, Nono Hana seemed to hear someone saying something, but what she felt more clearly was her life slipping away.
Is the doctor trying hard to save me? I'm so sorry... With Tomorrow Energy running low, it seems like I won't make it.
Am I... going to die? If there's a next life, I want to fall in love for real...
"Don't give up!"
A man's voice boomed like thunder erupting from the ground, waking the sleeping beauty from her dream. A flame-lit glow grabbed her arm and pulled Hana out of the dark abyss behind her.
When Nono Hana woke up on the operating table, gasping for air, Ash had already changed out of his surgical attire and was now idly flipping through comics from this world.
"Boring." He casually tossed the hot-blooded manga he found dull into the trash, then shifted his gaze to the still-dazed Nono Hana.
Huh? I'm not dead? Is this heaven?
"Congratulations. You died of hemorrhagic shock caused by internal organ rupture. This is hell." Seeing Nono Hana dizzy from his words, Ash smiled. "Just kidding. Though it wouldn't be strange if you saw me in hell." The rapid-fire speech left Nono Hana, whose mind was already foggy, even more confused.
"Doctor... What happened to me?"
"Hemorrhagic shock caused by internal organ rupture and kidney bleeding. If you had come any later, you'd be fighting for a chance to revive with some beach guardian right now."
"So just now, I was...?"
Clutching her chest, she could clearly feel her heart beating.
It's real. I'm still alive?
I can still see Mom and Dad! I can see Kotori, Homare, and everyone else!
Overwhelmed by the joy of being alive, Nono Hana shed tears of life.
"You almost died, but you didn't because I was here."
"Th-thank you!"
Nono Hana lifted the edge of her cut-open clothes. Her waist, which had hurt so badly before, no longer hurt at all. There was only an extra bandage around it, faintly stained red.
"This is sutureless closure. I hadn't tried Destron's technique before, but it looks like the results are excellent."
"Doctor, you..."
As Nono Hana wrestled with whether she had become a guinea pig for an experimental new technique, and with trivial matters like him performing surgery on her without paperwork, Ash shrugged and handed her the bill.
"Never mind that. Look at the bill first."
"Oh, of course—Pfft—!"
The mature woman who prided herself on elegance and charm widened her eyes at the eight zeros on it and nearly fainted. But when she saw that Ash had already signed his own name in the payer section, her returning blood pressure made her look at the young doctor in confusion.
"As for the surgery fee, your help yesterday already paid more than enough. Don't worry about it."
"My help?"
"You forgot me after only one day?"
Ash showed off his white teeth and radiant smile.
"What?" She adorably tilted her head and studied him carefully, until the face of the man who had fallen into the water yesterday gradually overlapped with the man before her.
"E-E-E-E-Eh?! You... You're the one who fell into the water!"
The life she had saved by chance had saved her own life the very next day. Could such a coincidence really happen?
At the same time, Hana felt a warmth in her heart. Sure enough, not everything she did was useless.
"Yeah. I almost kicked the bucket, thanks to you. By the way, the minimum fee for my services is two hundred million yen. Of course, my life is worth far more than that, so we'll call it even. If anything, you still have plenty left over."
Extra Case File 8: A Doctor's "Benevolent" Heart
"My name is Ash. I'm sort of... well, a rookie doctor. Also, looking at how shabby you are, you've been putting up with this for a long time, haven't you?"
It wasn't just the acute problems. Ash had also found a whole series of chronic illnesses on Nono Hana, including arthritis. He could roughly tell they were all the result of overwork.
"Mm..."
Seeing her small movement of clutching the blanket beside her, Ash let out a long sigh and began lecturing her in a tone that didn't sound like him at all.
"The next time your body has even a minor issue, go to the hospital right away. From what I can see, this world already has universal health insurance. Treatment doesn't cost much. The kind of thing where someone can't afford treatment and gets dragged to death in a hospital shouldn't happen in this world."
"Anyway, have you heard of the iceberg theory?"
"Iceberg?" Nono Hana tilted her head, unable to understand what being sick had to do with an iceberg.
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