A Journey Unwanted

[Two years ago]

Victoria watched on as the doctor exited her mother's room. Despite his profession, others might have seen him as young once more it was almost eerie how similar the man looked to her. He was another spawn of the God Almeric, spawns of his usually prosper in professions that could utilize their intelligence so it was not too surprising.

"My mother...how is she?" Victoria found herself immediately asking. To her dread, the doctor heaved a deep sigh as he avoided looking her in the eyes.

"She has the 'Blightscurge'." He stated and her stomach dropped.

"What?" She had heard him clearly, the reality of the situation was just still in the process of settling in.

"I am sure you are well aware of how the 'Blightscurge' functions." The doctor started with a slight pause. "It is a known disease with no known cure. How it functions is that it does consecutive damage to a vital organ. Lungs, livers, hearts stomachs, or even the brain."

"B-but how does my mother have it!?" She questioned, still in denial that her mother was sick. "She was fine just a few days ago!"

"I know it might be hard to believe but the 'Blightscurge' is an unpredictable disease we still don't quite understand." The doctor explained. "In your mother's case, it seems to be targeting her lungs. If she follows a schedule where she is periodically healed and given medicine then she has a good few years left. But as you know, there is no cure. I am sorry." The doctor turned and left without another word.

Victoria could only blankly stare on. Her mother was going to die, she was going to die and there was nothing that could be done to prevent that. Victoria absentmindedly walked up to the door of her mother's room. Without knocking she pushed past the door and immediately her eyes fell on the form of her mother resting on the bed.

"Victoria." Her hands were bony and her form frail, her hair was loose and wild and she looked tired. And even her voice sounded different. Yet a warm smile spread onto her face all the same.

"M-mother..." Victoria looked at the frail form of her mother. She was still denying, that her mother was going to die. Yet the proof was all there and it had already been confirmed. "You-....you're.." She found her words caught up in her throat. She did not know what to say. What could she say?

"De-*Cough* *Cough*" Whatever her mother was going to say was cut off as coughs violently erupted from her mouth as she threw a frail hand over it.

"Mother!" Victoria rushed to her mother's side as the latter held up a hand to stop her.

"I-it is fine dear.." Her mother managed to say between breaths.

"N-no it's not! You're...." Victoria bit down on her words as her eyes grew wet.

"Victoria..." Despite her pitiful state, her mother's smile persisted. As if saying even such a serious disease would not dampen her. "I may not have long...but you and your sister will always have each other."

"B-but you can't die...Gwen and I....still need you..." Victoria looked down, unable to meet her mother's eyes.

"Oh, Victoria." Her mother embraced her, comfort and safety enveloped Victoria as tears streamed down her face. "With how smart and brilliant you are, I forget you are but a child still."

Maybe it would be a year or two but her mother was going to die an unfair death. She did not want to accept that reality. She wanted to deny it with all her heart, she wanted her mother to live a long and prosperous life. With her and Gwendolyn.

Was that too much to ask?

[Present]

Ridiculous. That word sat at the forefront of his mind as Victoria told her story. Mikoto watched the now blank face of Victoria and the unreadable expression of Annabeth, Victoria's mother.

It was obvious that in exchange for somehow healing Annabeth Victoria would keep quiet.

("C'mon let's see, that fucker wanted me to become a doctor anyway so let's see how good I'd be. Blightscurge is kinda like cancer in a way. But I don't know if tumors are involved. This world's study into anything medical is mediocre, I don't even think they know what bacteria is. In Victoria's mother's case, her lungs seem to be the main problem, so...")

"Persistent cough, shortness of breath, chest pain, wheezing, fatigue, weight loss, loss of appetite, change of voice, recurrent respiratory infections, and bone pain." Victoria and her mother blinked in surprise as he blurted out those symptoms. "Those are some of the things you experienced, Ms. Eizenberg. Correct?"

"How...." Annabeth seemed flabbergasted at how accurate he was being with analyzing her symptoms. "T-that is correct but how?"

("Those are all symptoms for lung cancer, curious.") Reaching his hand to his mask, he removed it just a bit so one of his eyes was visible. Next what he did was simple, he used magic to produce a very concentrated beam of electrons known as X-ray photons. This beam traveled through the air, came into contact with Annabeth's body tissues, and produced an image on a metal film in his mind. There were more steps but he was just using a very simplified method to get the desired results.

("A white-gray mass and it's located at her chest.") Mikoto mused. "You have a malignant tumor on your lungs. You've got cancer it seems, seeing as you began to get sick two years ago. You'll probably die in three years if you continue your routine of healing." Mikoto blankly informed and more confusion became evident between Victoria and her mother.

"I...I do not understand." Victoria admitted. "Tumor? Cancer? I've never heard of these terms."

"Well in simple terms a tumor is a group of abnormal cells that form lumps or growths. They can start in any one of the trillions of cells in our bodies. They behave differently too, depending on whether they are cancerous, non-cancerous, or precancerous."

He explained and for once in her life, Victoria felt confused. It was not often she found herself dumbstruck, she did not understand a single word coming out of Mikoto's mouth.

"Hahaha~." She remained dumbstruck for only a while but quickly snapped out of it as she heard her mother's soft giggle.

"M-mother?" She questioned looking at her seemingly amused daughter.

"Sorry dear, it's not every day I see you this befuddled." She admitted with a smile.

"C-come now, surely you find it absurdly confusing," Victoria argued.

"I do. But still, you look cute when you are confused." Her mother shot back.

"Mother!" She whined. It was actually kind of fun and satisfying seeing this side of Victoria. "E-enough of that." Victoria cleared her throat as she glanced back at Mikoto. "You seem to know much of these things." She did not know what 'these things' entailed but she assumed he was just knowledgeable.

"Well my father was a doctor and he wanted me to follow in his footsteps, so I studied ahead of time to become one." He informed me, that as much as a bastard his father was he admitted that information ingrained into his mind was pretty useful. "Anyway onto more important things, your mother here has non-small cell lung cancer. The main subtypes of non-small cell lung cancer are adenocarcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, and large cell carcinoma. These subtypes, start from different types of lung cells, and are grouped as non-small lung cancer because their treatment and prognoses are often similar." Mikoto explained without missing a beat.

"Huh?" A rather uncharacteristic response came from Victoria and Mikoto had to hold back a snort. ("He....he's throwing these complex terms around on purpose!")

He was indeed, it was refreshing to see her all confused.

("Seriously, no wonder people keep dying from this 'Blightscurge'. There's no real way to treat it, they just heal the patients and call it a day. And it's just cancer, guess some diseases will always be there no matter what.")

"Can you?" He heard Victoria suddenly ask, prompting him to look at her. "Are you able to heal my mother?" She asked as Mikoto hummed.

("Usually those with non-small cell lung cancer can be treated with surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, targeted therapy, or a combination of these treatments. None of those are available, or possible at the moment but....")

"I can."

---------------------

"How absurd." Lucinda could not help but mutter as she studied the absurdly wide and gaping hole carved in what was once the forest. Now only a small amount of trees circled the whole, this was no forest anymore.

("That spell, at first glance it seems whoever employed it used light magic as a medium or at least just outputted their mana to achieve such devastation. But that spell was neither of the two.") Like many others, she was curious as to who could have unleashed such a devastating spell.

But she was not surprised at the level of destruction, no she was more focused on how someone was able to deploy such a spell. Furthermore, she had never witnessed such a spell before. The clear answer was that someone had created this new spell.

Of course, curiosity was not the only reason she had decided to venture out here. The mana she had sensed when the spell was released was odd, to say the least. Odd as in it was eerily similar to her own. The mana signature she had very briefly detected was covered and protected by layers of illusion magic to alter it.

She had broken through each of those layers and then there was where she had sensed it.

That single mana signature was similar to her own.

("Could it have been another spawn of Octavia?") She questioned herself. It would be absurd, never in the history of the world was there more than two spawns of the Goddess Octavia in the same era. It was a testament to how rare Octavia's blessing was. There were eras where there were not even any spawns of Octavia.

It is why the blessing is seen as valuable. That and she governs over magic, a concept with endless possibilities. It is why she was such an important aspect of the kingdom of Galadriel. A spawn of Octavia simply held that much value.

It is why a war nearly broke out between Galadriel and the neighboring country of Vel'ryr. All because either side wanted to get their hands on her, a spawn of Octavia.

It is why she was out here. She had to know, she needed to know if there was someone else out there who shared her burden.

"Tch, great there's someone else here." She suddenly heard a voice mutter in annoyance. Followed by that were two sets of footsteps. Turning her head to the side she was surprised to see Princess Mirabella along with a fuzzy gray-haired girl with horns.

"You're the princess..." Lucinda murmured and the blue-haired girl seemed to want to roll her eyes.

"Yeah, it's me, huzzah." She rather sarcastically replied. Lucinda could only sheepishly smile to herself.

("Well I heard rumors that the princess was rather....brash.")

"P-princess, I don't think you should be so rude." The grey-haired horned girl commented from the princess's side, and this time she rolled her eyes.

"I ain't rude, twerp." She shot back without much hostility behind her words. "I was just talking." Juliana merely looked at her as if she did not believe the said statement. Lucinda thought to change the subject quickly lest things get a little awkward.

"Say, what are the two of you doing here?" She questioned, she thought most would stay away given there was a gaping hole in what used to be the forest.

"Looking for the fucker who made this huge ass hole." Mirabella crudely stated, causing Juliana to be flustered at her blatant swearing. "I wanna kick their ass."

"M-mirabella! You shouldn't speak like that!" Juliana shakingly stated as the aforementioned girl merely shrugged.

"Uhm, why would you want to do that?" Lucinda could not help but question, befuddled.

"This used to be my training spot, but now it's useless," Mirabella answered but a thoughtful look crossed her face as she looked at Juliana. "Say, you're that spawn of Octavia, right?" Mirabella asked as Lucinda nodded. "Great! I heard you were pretty strong. Let's spar?"

"Huh!?"