In Providence Infirmary…

  After proudly outing himself as a member of the Tainted Generation to the demon doctor, Zeke stretched his hand forward and said, “Vesklepios.”

  A bundle of veins shot out the sleeve of his Garb and enwrapped the doctor’s body.

  The doctor dropped screaming and tried to wriggle out.

  Zeke pulled the demon doctor close, grabbed the veins that bound him, and brought him to his feet. “Where’s Gill?” he asked with a stern look, dropping the demon voice. There was no need.

  “I already told you I don’t know where Dr. Destrian is!” the doctor said. “All I know is that he isn’t in the hospital!”

  Zeke squinted as he focused on the demon. “Are you sure you really want to try that again?”

  “I’m telling the truth!”

  While the doctor’s expression looked sincere, Zeke knew better than to trust the word of a filthy demon. Truth only comes out of such a vile creature via bribery or force.

  And even if Zeke had something to give the demon, the second option sounded more fitting.

  Zeke gritted his teeth in an attempt to make himself look more threatening. He needed what Akachi had—embracing the perceived image of the Tainted Generation.

  His eyes darted over to Yuri as he took a single step. The Blind Weirdo halted.

  “You came to us to help you,” Zeke said, “so let me do what you asked for.”

  “Is this really what you guys do?” Yuri asked.

  “It is now.” Zeke shoved the doctor to the floor and grabbed the end of a loose vein, dragging him along as he moved toward the end of the room with the golden wood altar.

  On top of the altar was a bowl of holy water. Over it hung a colorful tapestry of a three-faced sun with increasingly deranged faces.

  He thought back to the day of the incident.

  The Infirmary team had just solved a supernatural case—a 194: Hell Giant’s Syndrome: an ailment in which the patient experiences abnormally high levels of fever leading to spontaneous combustion.

  Throughout research and debate, the team discovered that one ice bath in frost giant water did the trick.

  Afterward, the team agreed to help Naomi clean the Infirmary using the cleaning supplies they filled a closet with. Zeke and Ugo stationed themselves in the waiting room, and while Zeke was sweeping and his brother was wiping furniture surfaces—a question popped up.

  “Where are the windows in this place?” Ugo had asked.

  The question made Zeke freeze and sink deep into his thoughts.

  Even after bringing several patients in and out of the Infirmary and spending hours in the library only just a few months ago, he noticed that the place was devoid of windows.

  Zeke yanked his mind back to the present and looked back at the doctor, and his face was contorted with fear, but not to an extreme degree… yet.

  He stopped before the altar. “When I was first told about Sub-Realms, I was led to believe that they were all pocket dimensions, worlds within worlds, but then I learned about the Universal Stream. The space that exists between Realms and I realized that maybe Sub-Realms actually exist in this space, or at least some of them…”

  Then, Zeke grabbed the end of the wall hanging, just like Ugo had that day…

  On the day of the incident, after proposing the question, Ugo explored the room looking for a window, and his curiosity brought him to the three-faced sun wall hanging. He said he wondered what was behind it, and a square window was revealed after he pulled down the tapestry.

  There was no view, just a pitch-black barrier. This wasn’t news to them as they had tested this before with the front door during their first month of becoming supernatural doctors. Upon cleaning off the sigil and opening the door, a black barrier would appear, not allowing anything through. The team had not investigated further.

  Until that day.

  Ugo summoned his surgical knife, mentioned a slashing move from a character in the game: Ninja Raiden 4, that broke through enemies’ barriers, and then gave Zeke a shit-eating grin.

  Before Zeke could reach him, Ugo swung the knife downward, sending an electric slash-shaped projectile at the window…

  And the barrier broke.

  Zeke blinked, and he was back to present reality with one hand gripping the loose end of his vein and the other on the bottom of the tapestry. He pulled it down, revealing a square window. He pushed it open and hauled the doctor to his feet to see what was past the opening.

  Horror and confusion took over the doctor’s red face, just like Zeke’s and Ugo’s that day, as he saw what was outside the Infirmary.

  A bizarre, swirly sky with a mix of orange and red. Parts of the sky were smeared like a finger painting. In the distance was a misshapen moon, and under it was a speeding orange sun doing laps around the Infirmary.

  “This Infirmary exists within a Sub-Realm,” Zeke said. “Which Sub-Realm, you ask? Well, I don’t really know.” He thought back to his fight with Queen Titania. The way her face twisted cruelly when she was hauling him along the Universal Stream. Zeke did the same with his face as he continued, “But I do know that this Sub-Realm is located in the space between Realms, and if you fell off, you’ll end up in a place where not even death can find you.” Just as she told him.

  “Limbo,” the doctor croaked.

  Zeke snickered. “You know what’s the worst thing you can do to somebody? It doesn’t involve physical harm. It’s just putting them in a room without anything to do and isolated from the world. I’m sure that fact is just as true for any creature as it is for humans.”

  “Is that what Limbo is like…?”

  “Limbo is nothing,” Zeke said, widening a deranged smile. “Imagine being trapped in a space where there’s nothing. Nothing to hold, nothing to feel. No sound aside from what’s going on inside of your head. No way to die. No way to escape.”

  It was all conjecture, but the demon didn’t need to know that.

  “I beg of you… don’t.”

  “Where. Is. Gill?” Zeke unwrapped the veins from the doctor.

  The demon stayed silent as he shook his head and jutted his quivering lip. Then, he mustered the courage to say: “I don’t—”

  Zeke pushed him out the window, hunched over the sill, and then extended his hand downward.

  A vein shot out and circled the doctor’s neck. He flew upwards as the vein recoiled, letting out choked screams and dropping again.

  Zeke had veins coat his arm and enlarged them for increased strength. He held onto the vein around the doctor’s neck as he oscillated up and down and to the sides in the mystic abyss.

  The doctor squalled as he held onto the vein around its throat and kicked his feet in every direction.

  He was at the desired level of fear, increasing Zeke’s smile. “Still don’t know where Gill is, huh?” He asked, even though he knew the doctor was in no condition to talk. “I can drop you at any moment. Maybe you should test your luck to see if you’ll pass by a space that fries your soul with just one look before your empty eternity begins. I wonder, where do demons go after they die? I bet you don’t even know, either! This is your chance to find out.”

  “PLEASE!” The doctor bellowed from below.

  Zeke tightened his grip on the vein, and in just one move, he yanked the screaming doctor back into the Infirmary.

  The whimpering doctor rolled across the floor and quickly crawled up to a wall.

  Zeke glanced at Yuri, who was just standing with his arms crossed. What is he thinking about? Probably how this is ‘wrong’ or something stupid like that.

  He averted his focus back to his shivering victim. The doctor hugged his knees, muttering to himself while crying.

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  As Zeke walked toward the doctor, his mind played a nasty trick.

  The doctor became Violet.

  Her sobbing, tear-stained face looked back at him, forcing him to a halt.

  A long time ago, looking at the expression would make him feel awful and desire to hug her as he would apologize and say whatever sweet things he could come up with to her, but now looking at that face made a feeling akin to a burning tumor swell in his chest.

  He felt hatred. He felt it in his bones, and from his throat rose the words he had been waiting to say to her for several months.

  “Why did you have to ruin everything?” he said in a shaky voice as he closed his fists.

  Violet’s tear-stained face was replaced with a more confident look. A playful smile played on her pink lips, and her purple eyes gleamed with malevolence.

  “Why did you have to lie!” Zeke lurched forward. “Why did you let me believe that everything was real? Why did you have to be like the rest of them? Why did you have to become someone… something… that I hate. Why… why couldn’t you have just been the way I wanted you to be? You’d be part of the Infirmary team. We’d be happy.”

  Zeke raised a fist and looked down at it. It started to shake, and he recalled their fight in the sewers. All those punches and kicks…

  When he looked away from his fist, he saw a horribly bruised Violet staring back at him.

  “It’s your fault…” he said in a feeble voice. “You made me do that…” The image of Violet crushing those fairies to death under her boot flashed in his mind. He jerked to the side and doubled over.

  Breathing became difficult, like he downed a gallon of chlorine.

  When it came to thinking about her, it was almost the same, except it was chlorine sweetened with honey.

  Zeke straightened himself, but the shortness of breath remained. He grabbed the collar of his tunic shirt and twisted it.

  He heard his Healer’s Garb telling him to act on his hatred. Zeke relented and wrapped his arm with veins, looked down on it, and then turned back to Violet with his enlarged fist raised.

  Violet turned back into the distraught doctor.

  The doctor was on his knees and had his hands stretched forward. “Okay, I heard Dr. Destrian is watching over an important operation today, but I don’t know any details about it!”

  For a moment, Zeke stopped, trying to adjust to the switch, and then lowered his arm. “Try again,” he said.

  “What makes you think I would betray Dr. Destrian if I could? If he discovered I gave you sensitive information then I would be tortured to no end.”

  Zeke sank to his haunches. “Here’s the thing. You can either be tortured here and right now by me or be spared from such suffering for the chance of being tortured in the future.”

  “Both of those options are unfavorable.”

  Another voice rose. “We won’t tell Gill that you told us anything.”

  Zeke turned back to Yuri, who was still in the same spot. He glowered at the Blind Weirdo.

  “Do you promise?”

  “We don’t have to promise you anything, demon,” Zeke said.

  The doctor fell silent and looked down. “Listen…” he started. “The operation is most likely being held on the special floor. It’s an extension of the main hospital but isn’t in Gehenna. There’s a pathway from here that leads to it. It’s in Tezoraka: The Yellow Hell.”

  “That’s in the Fourth Circle: Dis,” Yuri said, speaking normally.

  “Yes,” the doctor said. “Not everybody up here is allowed down there, and I am one of them…” He jerked back into the wall as Zeke raised his fist again. “But! We can request special medicine from the Tezoraka floor, and someone will be sent up to deliver it. I can make a request for you and lure them into my office, giving you two the chance to get rid of them and take their key! You can use that key in the elevator to take you down to Tezoraka!”

  Zeke made his veins disappear and stood up. “That’ll do,” he said and called off his Healer’s Garb.

  The pair and their reluctant collaborator exited the Infirmary and returned to the office.

  Zeke and Yuri stayed close to the door as the doctor, whose name they were never going to learn, rushed over to an archaic phone on the wall—it looked like something that Da Vinci would’ve designed if he had the chance to read any of the fantasy books from Zeke’s collection.

  The doctor made an order for Gashadokuro bone dust to be delivered straight to his office.

  Gashadokuro were giant skeletons exclusive to the Yokai Realm, making Zeke wonder how massive the demon’s resource smuggling operations must be to get a hold of it.

  Zeke paid attention to every word the doctor said, staying alert to any secret codes he might’ve given.

  He detected no anomalies in the speech and figured the doctor was too terrified to try to screw them over.

  The doctor put the earpiece back into its place and returned to his desk. He lowered his head and put his hands over it.

  Yuri walked to a corner and leaned against it with his arms crossed.

  He’s judging me. I know it. Zeke thought as he studied Yuri.

  “Is there a problem, Dr. Rosario?” Yuri asked.

  Screw this blind guy’s senses.

  “No, there isn’t,” Zeke answered. “Do you have a problem?”

  “Not at all,” Yuri said, nothing but nonchalance in his voice.

  A knock on the door startled the room.

  Zeke looked over at the door and then glanced back at the doctor.

  With a saddened look, the doctor mouthed: “you better keep your promise.”

  No assurance was given from Zeke. He walked to the door and opened it.

  A demon holding a wooden box stood on the other side. He wore a closed yellow lab coat with black leather gloves that went up to his elbows. His face was obscured with a military-like respirator mask that didn’t just have a facepiece but also a leather part that covered the back of his head.

  “Yuri!”

  The Blind Weirdo jumped to action, grabbing the front of the demon’s lab coat and pulling him inside the room, causing the box to fly out of his hands and its contents to shatter across the floor.

  Yuri pulled off the mask, revealing the terrified face of a blue demon with small horns, and made a fist infusing it with a dangerous amount of Black Magic.

  The demon took one enhanced straight punch and then a diving punch as it fell to the floor. All the sound the creature could make before being knocked out was: “Gah!” and it was over.

  Zeke closed the door as the doctor rose from his desk and approached them.

  “Search the demon for a key!” the doctor said.

  They did as so.

  Zeke was attracted to an item exuding an interesting amount of Black Magic—a severed finger in the demon’s lab coat pocket and held it up. It was wrinkly, bore a dark red, and a long dirty fingernail.

  “That’s one. Use that in any elevator to take you down to Tezoraka,” the doctor said.

  Zeke put the finger down, got up, and analyzed the unconscious demon noting his attire and gear. He turned to Yuri and said, “Let’s use their uniforms.”

  “Sure, but we only have one, Doctor,” Yuri said.

  “I’ll do the spell Aida used.”

  “Have you done it before?”

  “No, but maybe I can if I focus—”

  “Zeke, no,” Yuri said, raising a hand. “You put on the uniform... and get your medical bag, empty all its contents.” He walked away and started stretching his limbs.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “Do you like watching contortionist videos?”

  Zeke’s eyes widened. “You’re not suggesting that—”

  “If I break all my bones, I can fit in there, no problem.”

  The thing about arguing with crazy people... is that you can’t.

  Without waiting for confirmation, Yuri punched his knee, and it shifted backward, releasing a loud snap.

  “Oh, God,” Zeke said, wincing. “Wait, how about your weight? I can’t carry you in one hand—”

  “You think all those liquified items I carry around maintain their true weight? Oh, Zeke, I can manipulate density as well, duh.” Yuri grabbed his head and spun it back, forcing out a sickening crunch that was repeated as he slammed down the top of his head, making his neck disappear like a magic trick.

  No longer wanting to be a horrified audience member, Zeke darted to the desk, hearing more and more cracks as he grabbed a small glass of virgin blood from the paralyzed doctor’s desk and ran back to the door to draw the Infirmary’s sigil.

  “Hey, who wants to hear a bone joke?” Yuri shouted.

  The loudness of his voice was like it had some sort of power of its own, having Zeke stop and look at the mostly broken Yuri. The Blind Weirdo was standing on one leg. His shoulder was caved in, his spine was compressed, and the broken fingers on his right hand were over his left wrist.

  “Trust me, they’ll—” He twisted his arm until it made a pop—“crack you up!” He laughed and then stopped suddenly. “Wait... shit, that was more of a pop, though...”

  Zeke cringed and opened the door, getting the hell out of there.

  “Hey, you! Help break me please!” Zeke heard Yuri say from the other side.

  Hand signs were made, and the medical bag dropped from the air. Zeke caught it and moved to the carved sofa, where he dumped the bag’s items.

  He went back through the doorway with his empty medical bag in hand, closed the door behind him, and smeared the sigil.

  A crushed Yuri was on the floor, looking like a human-crumpled piece of paper.

  The doctor was standing before him, staring down in shock. “I thought working here prepared me for everything...”

  Yuri looked up at Zeke and then at the medical bag. “Now, I’m wondering if I really can fit into that.”

  And fit he did. Like a glove.

  It took some pushing and breaking a few more bones by folding and jamming them into each other, but Yuri was able to get into the bag that was left slightly open for him to breathe.

  Zeke was looking even more demonic in his new uniform. Yuri felt even lighter in his bag than the previous loads of medicine.

  As he moved down the hallway, personnel stepped out of their way with a mix of respect and fear.

  He turned to the elevator to his left.

  Zeke’s imagination had been running rampant, trying to picture what an elevator in Hell would look like. To his surprise and dismay, it was just a standard elevator. He felt as though he was entitled to a refund for the mental energy he wasted worrying about it.

  He approached the elevator and pressed one of the two buttons on the side. The doors opened, and he stepped inside, which was also normal, but at least the panel of buttons was otherworldly.

  There were numerous columns of buttons, each with a demonic sigil over it. Under the buttons, there was a single hole. Zeke pulled out the key from his pocket courtesy of the demon friend he had the doctor hide somewhere in the hospital.

  Zeke inserted the key with caution and turned. The elevator shook, stopped, and then dropped.

  The free-falling elevator had Zeke’s heart jump into his throat, not even giving him the time to scream in terror. It quickly ended.

  Without delay, the elevator doors opened, revealing the Tezoraka level.

  Anderson's Medical Fun Facts: The Femur is the most painful bone to break.