"An ability user?" Kureha frowned. "What kind of power could bring someone back from death's door like this?"
Marcus held up the empty bento box Sanji had given him earlier, not a single grain of rice left inside.
"It only works when my abilities combine with food prepared by our ship's cook."
Kureha picked up a stray grain of rice with her fingers, examining it from every angle. To her, it looked completely ordinary, just regular rice that could've come from any kitchen in the world. But the way she was staring at him afterward, made Marcus uncomfortable.
This woman had a presence that reminded him of his old college professors, the ones who could make you feel stupid just by looking at you.
"Want to know the secret of my eternal youth?"
"What?"
Marcus blinked in confusion. How the hell had the conversation jumped to that topic?
He waved his hands, sensing this was some kind of trap. "No, no, I definitely don't want to know."
"Shame," Kureha said. "Your loss."
Seeing her prepare to leave without the slightest hesitation, Marcus realized he'd probably just failed some kind of test. Then, remembering what he knew about her personality from the anime, he quickly spoke up.
"Food transformed by my abilities carries extraordinary power. It can heal non-disease injuries in a short time. Take my condition earlier, if I had to describe it, it's like food infused with supernatural vitality that can restore what's been lost."
The corners of Kureha's mouth turned up sligthly, though her expression remained mostly neutral. "Not a bad ability."
With that simple, she headed toward Nami's bed.
He let out a sigh. Right, this was Dr. Kureha, the classic tsundere type, too proud to ask directly for what she wanted. That sudden question about youth had been her way of expressing interest in his abilities without admitting she was impressed.
The whole exchange reminded him of trying to navigate conversations with his more eccentric gaming buddies, you had to understand the subtext to avoid accidentally insulting them.
Just then, the peaceful moment was shattered as Sanji burst through the door, carrying a bowl of soup with chunks of meat.
"Nami! Your devoted knight has brought—" He stopped when he spotted Kureha. In an instant, he shifted to perfect gentleman mode, straightening his tie and adopting a formal posture. "Good day, madam."
He set the bowl in front of Nami. Then he walked out quietly, maintaining his dignified composure until he was completely out of sight.
"Strange," Marcus murmured.
He didn't know exactly what had happened between the cook and the doctor, but it was easy to guess that Sanji had probably been introduced to some of Kureha's flying surgical instruments during a previous visit. The man had clearly learned to show proper respect around her.
Sure enough, not long after Sanji left, Luffy's voice echoed from somewhere else in the castle.
"Sanji! Stop that raccoon! It's getting away!"
"I told you, I'm a reindeer, not a raccoon!" came the reply in a much higher voice.
A series of crashes, banging noises, and the sound of furniture being overturned followed, gradually fading into the distance as the chase moved to other parts of the building.
Luffy was probably trying to grab Chopper while the poor reindeer ran in terror, with various crew members either helping or getting in the way.
Inside the room, Nami's cheeks flushed red.
"Sorry... my companions can be a bit too noisy. They mean well, but they don't always think about how their actions affect others." She sounded a bit ashamed of the chaos they were causing.
But Kureha simply placed a finger on Nami's forehead, checking her temperature. If the noise bothered her, she gave no sign of it.
"Thirty-eight degrees. Still running a fever, but much lower than before." She withdrew her finger and glanced at the soup. "This is the real reason you're both recovering so fast, isn't it?"
Nami looked at her soup, then smiled and held the bowl out toward Kureha.
"Want to try? It really tastes pretty good."
Kureha hesitated for a long moment. Finally, curiosity won out. She took the offered spoon and carefully scooped up a small portion.
The taste was indeed that of ordinary soup. But the moment she swallowed, her eyes widened slightly.
She could clearly feel a rising sense of fullness.
Just from that single bite, she grasped the underlying principle behind this food.
"As I suspected... ingredients infused with extraordinary vitality."
She set down the spoon and looked directly at Marcus. "Would you be willing to sell me some of these ingredients? Consider it payment for this round of medical treatment."
Marcus shook his head, and though Kureha's expression didn't change much, Nami immediately looked worried. After all, this wasn't like him at all, and she started to speak up.
But he spoke first. "Meat supplies probably won't be enough right now. But I can provide you with something more special, tools that should achieve similar effects."
The truth was, he didn't have a single EMC point left after the Nether Portal disaster had drained him completely, and it would take time to build them back up. But more than that, compared to consumable ingredients that would eventually run out, he preferred giving something that could be used sustainably.
"Heeheeheehee! I like the way you think. What do you want in return?"
"Can you let that reindeer join our crew? You know we need a ship's doctor badly. My food can provide vitality and heal physical damage, but if someone actually gets sick, there's nothing it can do to help."
"Oh? So you've already set your sights on him, have you?" Kureha turned to gaze out at the wind and snow through the window. "If you can convince him to go with you, then try. That guy's heart carries some deep scars."
What followed was Chopper's story, told in her way that somehow made the tragedy even more impactful. She didn't embellish or dramatize, just laid out the facts of a young reindeer's life filled with rejection, loneliness, and the desperate search for acceptance. It sounded like the childhood of a certain blond shinobi with whiskers…
Nami ate her soup quietly while listening, occasionally pausing to wipe her eyes when the story hit hard moments. Marcus found himself absorbed despite knowing the basic outline from the anime.
Of course, hearing it told plainly like this didn't have the same emotional impact as seeing it animated with music and visual storytelling, but it was enough to understand the full weight of what Chopper had endured.
"Chopper's really been through hell," Nami said softly when Kureha finished. "Being treated as an outcast since childhood, then eating a Devil Fruit that made him an outsider among both reindeer and humans. Rejected by everyone."
She felt a strong connection to his story. After all, hadn't her own past made her something of an outcast too? Not a fishman, yet forced to work with them, while enduring the stares of her fellow villagers who didn't understand her situation.
Marcus stood up from his bed. "Dr. Kureha, I should get going then. I need to prepare what I promised you."
But the moment he took a step toward the door, a scalpel whistled past his ear and embedded itself in the wooden wall.
"Uh... what's wrong?"
"You can't leave yet. As my patient, you're only discharged when I say you're cured," Kureha said. "And I haven't finished my examination."
Marcus was speechless. He pointed at himself, gesturing to his obviously healthy appearance.
"I'm bouncing around full of energy right now, do I look sick to you?"
"That's not the point. As a doctor, I need to determine why you suddenly lost stamina without any natural limits. Until I figure that out, you're not going anywhere."
Marcus paused, realizing she had a point. Then he laughed and waved dismissively.
"I already know what caused it. It's not an illness, it's my Devil Fruit ability. When it activates beyond my limits, my stamina gets drained. But it's fine now. It stopped running."
Kureha studied him for a long moment. After all, he did look completely healthy now, practically glowing with vitality.
"Fine. But if you collapse again from overusing your abilities, I'm keeping you here for a week and running every medical test I can think of."
"Deal," Marcus agreed quickly, before she could change her mind.
As he headed for the door, Kureha turned her attention back to Nami. She noticed that the fever flush had completely faded from the girl's cheeks.
Frowning, she began checking Nami's temperature again.
"36.8 degrees. Normal." She glanced at Nami's bowl, which was now empty. "Your recovery rate is remarkable."
Nami smiled and shook the bowl slightly. "I feel much—"
Before she could finish the sentence, Kureha abruptly lifted Nami's shirt, exposing her stomach.
"Kyaa!" Nami squealed, instinctively trying to cover herself, but then she saw what had caught Kureha's attention: dark purple marks, like corpse spots, spreading across her abdomen.
"Even though your temperature's back to normal, your illness isn't cured yet," Kureha said, her eyes fixed on the marks, which were already beginning to fade before their eyes. She spoke quietly, almost to herself: "Your body's immune system is actively eliminating the source of infection... what an incredible ability."