To Cure a Curse

     “Saki,” Hakka said, voice soft at the edges, “It’s not going to work.”

     “Well,” Saki replied, only half listening, “The worst that could happen is nothing, right?”

     “Or I could get sick,” Hakka argued, “Or I could grow another arm. Or maybe, just maybe, I could turn into a funny little creature.”

     The apprentice witch snickered, browsing the contents of his pouch for the necessary components for his spell. He had been working hard to try and get the results he wanted and was pretty certain that he was getting close to figuring them out.

     “You will not turn into an animal,” Saki declared, still trying to pull out the exact number and types of vials.

     Hakka pouted, as if this was terrible news, “Not even a cool one, like a wolf? Or some sort of bird– maybe a crow? Those are pretty cool, aren’t they?”

     The spell Saki was about to attempt, theoretically, should not have any adverse side effects– that was one of the first details a wizard had to procure before trying a new incantation on a living creature, most importantly a human being. He would never allow any harm to come to Hakka. And yet, that fact would not stop Hakka from joking, so Saki had to do so himself.

     “For that, maybe I’ll turn you into a toad,” he muttered. Hakka gasped, and Saki rolled his eyes, “Can you be serious for a second?”

     “Just trying to make you laugh,” Hakka insisted, hands going up in defense. He took a breath before he added, “I just don’t want you to be… well… ”

     “Well, what?” Finally, Saki grasped onto the last little vial, laid it on the ground, and turned around to start the–

     “Disappointed.”

     Saki swallowed dry, taken aback by the sudden change in the mood, and the overall atmosphere. Though he knew it was a bad idea, made the mistake of looking up. Hakka’s gaze was waiting for him, with a sort of sobering seriousness that was often missing from such a positive person. But it was hard to be positive when it came to a curse like this. And with that knowledge, it was hard to come up with something to say.

     “When it doesn’t work,” He added with a sigh, as if breaking the silence was necessary. As if Saki didn’t already know what Hakka meant.  “When it does nothing. Because that’s what will happen, and you know that.”

     Because when it came to corruption, there was no cure.

     Corruption manifested itself as a sort of necrosis onto the host’s body. The infected area would darken, the skin would be eroded, and the nervous system would be taken hostage like a parasite desperate for blood. Hakka’s hand was an ashen type of charcoal, a purple aura radiating from what had once been a wound, now a reminder of mystery best kept unanswered.

     Saki had met Hakka already afflicted and had witnessed firsthand the suffering that such a condition brought upon a person. The exorcist was strong and kept any indications of side effects under wraps, but Saki’s eyes were sharper. And he knew, that even though Hakka’s solemn acceptance of such a curse, it pained him. And no one was doing anything to help.

     The wizard had reached out to TEMPUS, once, demanding answers as to why they would leave one of their members in such a state. Their response was simple: they had only given up when presented with no solution. And to their credit, they had tried it all: Hakka had been stabilized way back when then given preventive measures. They were aggressive and impermanent but successful at stopping the corruption from metastasizing further through Hakka’s skin.

     Yet they had not cured him, because there was no cure. No matter what Saki asked of them, they denied further action. And from what everyone kept telling Hakka, he couldn’t be helped. And his hand would remain a constant reminder of his pain, forever.

     But Saki didn’t believe in forever, not when it came to Hakka.

     “This one will do something,” Saki promised, despite himself. “This is the one, Hakka. This will cure you.”

     “Alright then,” Hakka said, though he didn’t sound convinced of his own words, “Do your magic, doc.”

     The wizard took a deep breath and lost himself to his magic.

     It was gentle, the way it left his fingertips, like the touch of a summer stream. A glow, of a soft, pinkish hue, lit up the hand where Hakka’s curse had clawed its way in. Intangible Sakura petals blossomed around it, and with a final burst of light, it surrounded the infected tissue.

     Saki held his focus mostly on where his magic concentrated, swirling around the wound, but he wasn’t able to help himself as he caught glances of Hakka’s expression. The exorcist, in turn, kept his eyes closed and mind drifting, as if willing his training to keep himself as steady as he could.

     For a second, there was a pained flash between closed eyelids, Saki held his breath, and then that was it. With a final shine of pink, the spell had run its course. And what remained beneath it was discouraging: no changes. They ended how they started.

     “Are you okay?” Hakka spoke first, finally opening his eyes and studying Saki’s expression. As if Saki was the one hurting.

     “Yeah,” he said anyways, then, “Are you?”

     Hakka pulled his hand away slowly, flexing it open and closed. He let his thumb rub on the skin under the rest of his fingers as if testing out any sort of sensation. Saki recalled, years ago, being described the feeling of the curse on the skin, ‘It’s like it’s asleep,’ Hakka had said, ‘Lost circulation. You can’t feel it most of the time, and when it starts waking up, it’s all pins and needles.’

     “Still no sensation,” Hakka concluded after a while, with a sigh. “But that’s better than a bad sensation, right?”

     Feeling discouraged, Saki turned back around to reach for his component pouch and fished out his journal and a quill. Trying to put on his most professional, clinical persona, he took a deep breath. Then,

     “Subject does not have any visible change to the affected area,” he mumbled, writing as he spoke, “Sensation is still inhibited by the curse. Area of infection has not diminished, color has not changed–”

     “I mean, it might be a bit more pink now,” Hakka suggested, clearly trying to lift the mood.

     It wasn’t working, “--Curse presence is still both visible and tangible through the detection of magic, aura’s color maintains a deep purple–”

     “Matches my eyes,” Hakka tried again.

     “... and the necrosis in the tissue maintains itself rough to the touch, as well as–”

     “I can put on hand cream? Maybe one of those that smells pretty good–”

     “Will you stop that?” Saki snatched, that mask of indifference slipping away for just a second, before clearing his throat. Despite his internal protests, the wizard finished up his report with, “The spell has been a redundant failure. More trials to come.”

     “I can try harder next time?” Hakka broke a little smile, and the sigh of it made a knot in Saki’s throat.

     “Can you please take this more seriously?” He croaked out.

     To his surprise, the exorcist shook his head, “I need you to do the opposite, actually,” He stood up, reaching his healthy hand out for Saki, who could only stare in disbelief from down on the ground, “You sound like someone died or something. I’m okay, you’re okay. Nothing happened.”

     “That’s the problem,” Saki whispered. Though his gaze was fixed on Hakka’s extended hand, he didn’t make a move to grasp it, “Nothing ever does. I keep trying to help you, but my magic is always…” For lack of a better word, Saki flailed one of his hands around, just to drop it in utter defeat.

     “Blossom Saki,” Suddenly, Hakka’s voice dropped into a solemn, serious one. There was still a hint of his usual energy, but he seemed to have reached a different approach when he demanded, “Magicians work as per research, as per results, right?”

     “Yeah, and the–”

     “All you need to do right now is show me results. There must have been something that led you to test this spell on me, right? Show me those results, and maybe I can give you a new perspective on it. You need to take this one step at a time.”

     Saki took a deep breath. Hakka was right, research was a process, and even when he felt discouraged after failing an attempt, he was on the right path. Allowing himself a small smile, he laced his fingers with Hakka’s hand.

     “Where to?” Hakka asked as Saki was being pulled up.

     “We’re going back home for a second,” Saki said, “I need to pick something up. There’s something I want to show you.”

     Corruption as a curse manifested differently between different species. Hakka’s hand was a prime example of the symptoms for human beings, but to be able to properly develop a cure, Saki had opted to look for other varieties.

     Finding corrupted birds was easy, which was convenient, but deeply troubling at the same time. Birds changed color, the same purple-hue and dark coloration as in human subjects, but their behavior would change drastically. Their eyes would become cloudy, and though Saki had proved that they could ultimately see, it was as if the curse would grant them a selective sort of blindness– though they would have enough vision to hunt and gather, they would only do so when for the bare minimum, as to not starve. Outside of that, they would crash into things more often, miss prey and food easily available to them, and have zero feeling for physical pain.

     Hakka was Saki’s number one priority, but lifting such suffering from these little critters was prime motivation to progress forward. Lucky for him, he had found a way to do just that.

     “Can you put the cage over here?” Saki asked, once back underneath the cherry trees.

     The sun was starting to set now, painting the sky with sets of oranges, pinks, and even hints of purple. It took Hakka a second to fulfill the request, lost in its beauty– but finally, he did as requested. Very gently, he placed the cage on the ground, crouching down to look inside.

     “Where did you find these guys?” The exorcist hummed, deep in thought.

     “Five-minute walk from here, maybe?” Hakka looked up at the wizard, concerned. Saki let out a sigh, “I know what you’re thinking, but I’ve only found birds. Robins, the occasional sparrow, maybe, but nothing bigger than that. Of course, no human.”

     “That is still concerning,” Hakka muttered, mainly to himself. “They shouldn’t be this close to town. I’ve never seen them around here before.”

     “Because most of them don’t make it,” Saki admitted with a heavy heart, “I’ve found lots of corpses. Not many live birds.”

     “... I see.”

     “But that’s what we’re doing here,” suddenly, there he went again, looking inside his component pouch. This time around, he only needed a vial and a piece of paper, alchemical symbols sprawled around with research notes, “Can you grab one of them for me?”

     Hakka reached out inside the cage for one of the little birds, grabbing it softly. The bird did not attempt to flee, sluggish and unresponsive– its eyes were wide open, but its movement felt more like stirring in his sleep.

     “Sorry, little guy,” The man whispered, running his thumb atop the bird’s little head. “Doctor’s gotcha, you’ll see.”

     The bird was placed on the ground, talons resting softly atop grass and cherry blossoms. It did not make a single move to fly away.

     “Are you ready for something cool?” Saki asked. It still wasn’t the breakthrough that he had been reaching for through his research, but the sort of excitement that came with assured results started rushing through him. Trying to stay professional, Saki fought the pull on the edges of his lips.

     Hakka, on the other hand, caught wind of the excitement pretty quickly, and soon enough, he was smiling wide.

     “Always ready for something cool,” he declared.

     And with the validation serving as fuel to a renowned motivation, Saki opened the vial and whispered something to it. Just as it had happened earlier, the light started spilling from his fingertips, the contents of the vial flowing out of the glass and enveloping the bird. The Sakura petals around them swirled with a wind that wasn’t there before, and their clothes, hair, and even Saki’s hat went up to fly away. Hakka rushed to grab onto Saki's head, keeping the accessory steady, laughing to himself as he did. Saki laughed as well, doing his best to focus on the remaining steps of the spell, feeling the little life purify through his touch–

     And then the light faded, the wind fell, and the pink vanished, leaving in its stead a little robin free of its curse.

     “Saki,” Hakka was beaming, scrambling to find a way to speak, “¿Cómo le–? How was–? How– Saki, how did you do that!?”

     The creature shook its little head, opening his wings and giving them both a little flap as if to test his muscles, beak prodding at the feathers at the base of one of his wings. They were back to a natural, color, the orange of his chest bright and the hues of grey resembling more a dark brown than an empty black. Its eyes seemed to still be somewhat cloudy, but there was a hint of pink at the edges that signified purification. By the way, it looked around, up and down at the expecting men, it could see just fine.

     “It still works,” Saki said with a nervous smile, just then letting go of any air that had been stilled in his lungs. He hadn’t realized that was an insecurity until after it had worked.

     “Of course it does! That was amazing!” Hakka’s voice boomed around, reaching to grab the little bird on instinct as if wanting to give it a celebratory hug. This time, the bird responded with ease, quickly taking off the ground and into the nearest Sakura tree. With the target of his excitement leaving like that, Hakka turned to Saki, and decided to envelop him in a hug instead, “You are amazing!”

     Hakka’s hug was strong, to the point where Saki found himself being squished, with his tail caught in the middle and hat partially obscuring his sight– and yet, it was nowhere near unpleasant. Quite the opposite, Saki laughed alongside Hakka, feeling that pure joy rush over the both of them at an experiment well done. The hug lasted for a few seconds, Hakka holding him close, before parting to let them both breathe. The exorcist’s hands never left Saki’s shoulders.

     “That was phenomenal,” Hakka squawked, eyes torn between looking down at his friend and up at the little bird, now watching them atop the tree.”Like– man, that’s huge. TEMPUS said that there was no cure. And yet… you did the..” He let out a laugh, “Holy shit!”

     “It’s all part of the research,” Saki exclaimed. His friend’s enthusiasm had finally given him enough confidence to brag, if even just a little bit, “And TEMPUS isn’t even trying. I’ve spent months on this and finally figured out the right components. Everything’s easy in theory, just figuring out its practical application that’s hard work. I’m just an apprentice though, so–”

     “Saki, my friend, listen to me” Hakka leaned forward, making sure their eyes were locked together, “You did this in a matter of months. When other people have been trying their hand at this for decades. You cracked the code. There is a cure, and you found it.”

     He found it.

     All through his research, Saki had forced himself to think of his accomplishments from the perspective of a textbook: the goal, the big discovery, the direct hand on changing Hakka’s lives, all sitting neatly in one whole report of Saki’s success. But he wasn’t pouring his time and effort into becoming a wizard just for the result– like a farmer didn’t plant a tree to sell jam out of its fruits. They did so to enjoy the harvest, and that was an accomplishment of its own accord.

     Saki glanced up at the tree, catching a glimpse of the bird, which was now singing and chirping like he hadn’t been able to do before. The bird was free, and that had been all Saki.

     “Can you get the other birds out?” He asked Hakka, “I’m sure they wanna join their friend, and the more I practice, the better I get.”

     “One step at a time?” Hakka asked. Saki nodded, smiling.

     “One step at a time.”