---
"Sometimes it is more dangerous when people know all about you."
'Or they think they do.'
---
Two days later, Ryu returned to Takeshi's shop to collect his payment for another job. The old man was behind the counter, sorting through invoices with his usual scowl.
"Oi, Scar face, you're early. Thought you'd sleep for a while after that big pay."
"Just came for my money, old man."
Takeshi looked up from his newspaper and froze. His eyes widened, scanning Ryu's face with the intensity of a man who'd just witnessed a miracle.
"What the hell happened to your face?"
"What do you mean?"
"Your scar, you idiot! It's gone!" Takeshi leaned over the counter, squinting. "Completely gone! Not even a mark!"
Ryu touched his cheek reflexively. "I told you yesterday on call, it faded."
"Faded? FADED?" Takeshi's voice cracked. "Kid, I've seen that scar every day for three years! It was deep, went from your eyebrow to your jaw! Scars like that don't just fade!"
"Well, this one did."
"That's impossible! Unless..." Takeshi's eyes lit up with sudden understanding.
"You got plastic surgery! With that job money!"
"I didn't get plastic surgery."
"Don't lie to me! Who did it? Was it that fancy clinic in Shibuya? The one with the foreign doctors?"
"Takeshi, I didn't--"
"How much did it cost? Must have been expensive! Did they do laser treatment? Skin grafts?" Takeshi was practically vibrating with excitement now.
"My wife's been complaining about her nose for years! I need that doctor's number!"
"I don't have a doctor's number."
"Come on, don't be selfish! Share the wealth! You can't just walk around with a perfect face and not tell me how you did it!"
Ryu stared at him. "Perfect face?"
"Well, you're still ugly, but now you're ugly without the scar. That's progress!"
"...Thanks?"
"So who was it? The doctor, I mean. Don't tell me you went to some alley butcher."
"Takeshi, I swear I didn't get surgery."
"Then how do you explain this?" Takeshi gestured wildly at Ryu's face.
"Faces don't just heal themselves! This isn't some video game where a health potion can recover injuries!"
"Maybe it was never as bad as you thought."
"NOT AS BAD?" Takeshi's voice became even more frantic.
"You're being dramatic."
"I'm being observant! There's a difference!" Takeshi paused, studying Ryu's face carefully.
"Wait a minute. Your skin looks much better. And your eyes... they don't have dark circles below them? Did you get a whole facial reconstruction?"
"Now you're just being ridiculous."
"Am I? Because either you found the world's best plastic surgeon, or you've been replaced by a clone!"
Takeshi leaned back, still studying him with suspicious eyes.
"You're not going to tell me, are you?"
"Tell you what?"
"About the surgery. Fine, be selfish. But when my wife starts nagging me, I'm blaming you."
"Blame away."
"And I'm not paying you extra just because you got pretty!"
"I didn't ask for extra."
"Good, because you're not getting it!" Takeshi slammed the payment on the counter.
Ryu pocketed the money, still grinning. "Same person, Takeshi. Just... improved."
"Improved, he says. Like he's a car that got modified." Takeshi shook his head.
"Kids these days. Getting plastic surgery and acting like it's no big deal."
"Maybe I'll get my teeth fixed next." Ryu Said grinning.
"Don't you dare! I've got to have something to make fun of!"
Ryu could hear Takeshi muttering to himself: "Secret plastic surgery... thinks he's so clever... wait until I find the surgeon myself..."
'Let him think it was surgery,' Ryu thought, still smiling.
'It's better than the truth.'
"Speaking of changes," Ryu said, changing the subject,
"I'm moving out."
Takeshi's expression shifted from suspicion to surprise.
"Moving out? From that cardboard palace you call home?"
"Got a real apartment. At least it looks like one."
"With what money? That furniture job was good, but not that good?"
"I've been getting work. Better paying jobs." Ryu shrugged.
"Turns out people will pay well for someone who can solve... unusual problems."
"Unusual problems?"
"You know, things doctors can't help with. Family issues, stress, negative emotions."
Takeshi's eyes narrowed. "You're not doing anything illegal, are you?"
"Nothing illegal. Just... Minor exorcism and fortune telling."
"Exorcism?" Takeshi snorted.
"Like those psychic people who charge fortunes to do dumb rituals?"
"Something like that, whatever helps in paying the bills."
"Well, good for you." Takeshi's said with slight pride in his voice.
"About time you got yourself a place. The streets were no place for a kid to live a life."
"I managed somehow."
"You survived." Takeshi reached into the register and pulled out an extra thousand yen note.
"Bonus. For moving up in the world."
"Thanks old man but I think you have done enough for me already."
"And I didn't ask for your opinion. Take it."
"And don't be a stranger, you hear? Just because you got a new place doesn't mean you can forget the people."
"I won't forget, old man."
"Good. Now get out of here before I change my mind."
Ryu left the place with a small smile on his face. Perhaps he had become too fond of bickering with the old man, he would certainly miss the morning scuffles.
---
Three days of researching the hidden world of curses, Ryu was convinced that things were bigger than he'd imagined. Missing people, unexplained deaths, buildings demolished after "structural failures", all of it pointed to fights in the shadows.
The breakthrough came at a coffee shop where he was working part time. Two salary workers were discussing their friend's miraculous recovery.
"It's a very Strange thing don't you think? Yesterday Tanaka was on his deathbed, today he's fine. Doctors had no explanation for his miraculous recovery."
"Maybe he went to one of those spirit Exorcists or Sorcerrers."
"That's superstition."
"Is it? My cousin works at a hospital in Shibuya. Says they get calls sometimes from people who can cure patients when medicine starts to fail."
Shibuya was Ryu's next destination.
---
The hospital was a modern building that looked ordinary enough, but Ryu immediately picked up the silhouettes clinging to the walls. Weak curses skittered through corridors, feeding on fear of everyone here.
He spent a day observing the huge amounts of curses. Most curses were harmless parasites, but occasionally he spotted something stronger.
On the next day, he saw him.
A young man was about his own age, with dark hair and tired eyes. He moved through the hospital, sometimes talking with staff and patients.
Most importantly, he could see the curses as he kept looking at them during conversations.
When a cursed spirit got too close to a sick child, the stranger took action. He channeled cursed energy into his arms and obliterated the curse in seconds.
'Wasteful,' Ryu thought, but also 'Impressive.'
The sorcerer was heading for the exit when an alarm startled everyone. Through the chaos of rushing medical staff, Ryu saw something that made him nervous.
A powerful curse had manifested in the ICU room, larger and more aggressive than anything Ryu had encountered before. It was humanoid but wrong, with too many surgical scalpels working as hands and legs.
The sorcerer saw it too and immediately engaged. But as he tried to use his technique, the curse lashed out with inhuman speed. The young man barely dodged.
'I could let him handle it alone.'
But the curse was getting stronger, and there were patients here.
'Damn it.'
Ryu slipped through a side entrance. The sorcerer was struggling, his fighting technique barely keeping the curse at bay.
"Hey ugly!" Ryu called out, drawing the curse's attention.
"Over here!"
The sorcerer glanced at him in shock. "Get back! This isn't--"
"I can see it." Ryu dodged a scalpel-swipe.
"And I can fight."
---