Garp: Damn Afro, You Set Me Up!

"How much time does she have left?"

"This illness is called Jade Scale. It's an extremely rare terminal disease. In my more than thirty years of practicing medicine, this is the first patient I've ever seen with it."

"Once exposed to sunlight, abnormal blue-green crystals form on the patient's skin. Even if natural light is blocked, she has at most ten years..."

The elderly doctor shook his head helplessly. Across from him, Kuma, tall and powerfully built beneath a spotted hat, wore a sorrowful expression.

"Is there really, really no way?"

"Sigh, the only reason I know of this disease is because I happened to obtain some records about Jade Scale when I was young. As for a cure..."

The doctor shook his head helplessly. Kuma lowered his eyes, deep desperation showing within them. How could he possibly stand by and watch that child—the little girl who called him Father, the girl entrusted to him for life—die?

"There's still hope. There are still eight years. Do you know of any other doctors who might have a treatment..."

As he left the clinic, Bartholomew Kuma tightly clenched the slip of paper in his hand, as though he were grasping the last sliver of hope still slipping away from his heart.

On a seat in the corridor, two delicate little feet swung gently. The moment their owner saw the towering figure, she happily sprang up from her seat.

"Dad, when I'm ten, my illness will be cured, right?"

"Mm. Bonney has to spend every day happily. That way, you'll get better faster!"

Silently burying the truth in his heart, Bartholomew Kuma smiled warmly and brightly, as though that truly were the case. He repeated the words again, trying to make himself believe them more firmly.

Over the past three years, they had