The story starts with Bella Mors stating to herself that the VPG are quite the tenacious bunch, as she literally had to walk on eggshells to escape them. She managed to elude capture and make her way to the train station as a means to flee Valtoria and head to Esteban to recruit the new heroes who defeated both Anti-Spur and the Hero Slayers. Meanwhile in Esteban, it's another slow day for the ENGA (Esteban's Nation Guild Association), as Justin sits in his office, yawning from boredom about the listlessness transpiring throughout Esteban. Soon afterwards, Kaito Blackwood enters the scene, eagerly asking Justin for any available missions, as the latter assures him that Kaito will be the first to be notified when a new mission request has been received. It's around this time when Bella enters the room and requests help for mission she'd like to hire the ENGA members for. Kaito is immediately starstruck after just a single look at Bella's pure and innocent appearance. The two listened intently as Bella disclosed her physical condition to the heroes. Bella told them that she was cursed by a witch with the "Reverse Midas Touch." Anything Bella touched would turn to mold, rot, break or decay. So, she constantly had to wear special (blessed) gloves to minimize unwarranted contact. As disheartening as her situation was, Justin knew that something just felt "off" about both Bella's story and her condition. He started by saying that he didn't believe that Bella's condition was even a curse at all. Justin admits that he isn't as much of a magic expert as Fidelia when it comes to certain curses, but even he knew that curses almost always have some level of dark, spiritual energy attached to them. Bella's condition had no traces of such energy in her hands whatsoever, and Justin started asking this new client some rather deep questions, such as her relationship to this supposed witch who cursed her and why such an individual would go out of their way to curse an innocent girl in such a profound and unusual way. As Bella struggled to give any convincing answers, Kaito intervened and told Justin that this mission is exactly what the doctor ordered for them, and this would be the perfect way to go out and figure out a way to break this "curse," even if the witch herself is the only one able to do it. So, Justin relents, gives Bella the benefit of the doubt, and agrees to take on her mission. The trio then fetches Ike as the four travel by train to the country of Valtoria. Upon arrival in Valtoria, the trio were surprised by how Bella was raised in such a peaceful, quaint village in the middle of a sunny meadow. Justin began to question Bella's claims even further as to how and why would a witch be located in the heart of such a lovely place. Bella retorted that in Valtoria, looks are often very deceiving. Many people in this region regard Lyra Noir, the witch who supposedly cursed Bella, and her team as saviors in this region. Bella even claims that the inhabitants of Valtoria are all under Lyra's spell to paint both herself and her minions as heroes, much to the ire of JSA. So, the trio spent hours looking for clues about a stereotypical witch located in Valtoria, but to no avail. Their search seemed fruitless until a familiar face, Velda, was spotted by Kaito, and she explained her reason for traveling to these parts. Velda was hired by some officials in her country, the Northern Heights Region, to locate an ancient monster sealed away in Valtoria to exterminate and bring back remnants to get compensated. Kaito, in return, explained his situation to Velda, and she gave the trio a valuable clue. Earlier in her visit, Velda spotted an old castle located just outside of the village. The inhabitants told her that the castle belonged to the VPG and that the group wouldn't be returning until this evening. So, Velda suggested that the VPG would be the first to help the trio out in their mission with Bella Mors once they returned. So, the trio, along with Bella, waited until evening for the VPG's return to the castle. That night, the trio saw a striking individual that fit the description Bella told JSA about Lyra Noir. The tall, slender woman dressed in black, covered in piercings and tattoos, was definitely the target. Justin urged Bella to head to a safe location to hide once the confrontation was over, to which Bella complied. Meanwhile, the JSA trio successfully infiltrated the VPG's castle, where Justin overheard Lyra scolding Thundergut Pike about letting Bella escape her room under his watchful eye. Pike explained to Lyra that prior to her escape, Bella gave him a sandwich along with some "extra-fizzy" soda that caused Pike to fall asleep and give Bella the opportunity to escape. Petite Piper adds that she went to Bella's room and found tasteless sleeping drugs under Bella's bed for the child to make her planned escape. Their conversation confuses Justin, as he starts to wonder if Bella was being held prisoner in the castle prior to her escape. If so, then the VPG are even more of a threat than he initially thought. Suddenly, Kaito knocks over a glass object, causing the VPG to be alerted to JSA's presence. An inevitable fight took place. Thundergut Pike is huge, obese man dressed a superhero, yet his super speed should be impossible to achieve. Pike was so fast that Kaito started to tire himself out trying to land a single hit on Pike until he collapsed from exhaustion. Petite Piper fought against Ike, who initially wanted to go easy on such a small individual. That all changed when Piper's super strength from her single punch kicked in and knocked Ike unconscious. Finally, Justin tried using his magic to help his teammates, only for Jebediah Jones (an unkept country bumpkin) to sneak up from behind and use his psychic abilities to drain Justin's spiritual essence until the blue hero collapsed from exhaustion. JSA was unambiguously defeated in their fight against the VPG. One could easily assume that this was the end for the trio. However, the final member of the VPG was a hulking, muscular giant by the name of Gideon "Goliath" Gray. This priestly, gentle giant used profound healing arts to restore the trio and properly explain himself and the entire situation to JSA. In return, Justin both thanks Gideon and apologizes for the misunderstanding that they were all hired by Bella to undo the curse that Lyra Noir put on their client. Gideon laughs and drops a massive bombshell: both Lyra and Bella are sisters. Ever since their powers awakened, Bella has always coveted her older sister Lyra's saintly powers. This news utterly leaves the JSA trio mind-blown. Afterwards, Gideon escorts the trio back upstairs, where they're reintroduced to Lyra Noir. Upon closer inspection, Justin was able to sense the pure, magnetic energy flowing from Lyra to debunk the claim that the saintess dressed in black being a witch couldn't be any further from the truth. The JSA trio again deeply apologizes for the misunderstandings leading up to a misguided breaking and entering scheme that led to a fight, in which Lyra laughs and forgives them. She told them that wasn't the first time Bella sent people to challenge the VPG and that Bella's attempts to turn people against us usually fail spectacularly. Lyra stated that she honestly couldn't blame JSA for being misled by Bella to fight the VPG due to her appearance and that their group occasionally finds themselves sorting out misunderstandings from time to time. It comes with the territory of being a member of the Valtorian Paradoxical Guards. As both sides continue talking, Lyra explains to JSA that, just as Justin stated earlier, Bella's condition isn't a curse but rather a reflection of the inner turmoil she harbors in her heart. In the past, both Gideon and Lyra have healed Bella's condition multiple times, only for Bella's "Reverse Midas Touch" to return even quicker with each heal. At first, Bella was normal for a few days, but after each time she received healing, her condition not only worsened but returned even faster, to the point where both Gideon and Lyra's healing became ineffective. If Bella could get rid of the malice she has in her heart toward her sister, even Lyra agreed that Bella would be an even greater healer than herself. Justin deduced two things from this: The more jealous Bella grew of Lyra's powers, the faster the Reverse Midas Touch returned and worsened. Also, people are full of pride. Instead of practicing mindfulness and doing inner work, people like Bella don't want to change and just want a quick, easy fix to their problems. This revelation confuses Lyra because, throughout their childhood, Bella was the golden child who got everything she wanted, while despite this, Lyra always made Bella's and those around her happiness a priority. I guess this would be the root cause of where their powers originated and the clear dichotomy between them. Both sides start wondering where Bella went after all this time, in which she's now seen in a crystal cave awakening an ancient entity to finally cure her condition. Bella starts gloating to herself, saying that those three stooges were the perfect distraction to keep the VPG preoccupied while she enacted her true motives. This is a terrible side of Bella's true character: if Gideon or Lyra didn't heal the JSA trio and decided to eliminate them, Bella wouldn't have cared in the slightest. This highlights a ruthless individual who is willing to sacrifice others or do whatever it takes to achieve their goal. Bella uses her "Reverse Midas Touch" to simply touch the crystalline walls imprisoning the ancient, blue jinn. Legends say that once an individual awakens a jinn from their slumber, they must grant the wish of their liberator. Bella makes a simple yet sincere wish to the stoic, blue jinn and wishes to receive healing from her condition, even going as far as declaring to do whatever it takes to achieve it. The blue jinn responds with a sinister grin and demands that both Bella and he shake on it, to which Bella complies. Suddenly, Bella's starts convulsing, and her screams are loud enough to be heard by a nearby Velda who was searching for clues in the middle of the forest at night. Velda hears Bella's shrieking and runs back to the VPG's castle for help, telling them all about the current situation. Both sides follow Velda into the crystal cave, where she hears Bella's screams taking place. They all travel to Bella's location within the cave and find an otherworldly entity standing before them all. Bella ended up becoming a host to the malevolent blue jinn. Her previous human appearance, which once portrayed undeniable, youthful innocence, was now replaced with something straight out of an alien or fantasy movie. Bella now possessed long, white flowing hair, pointy, elongated ears, pale-white skin, and reddish-purple eyes to go along with a black, primal outfit. The jinn in Bella's body took a good look at Velda was surprised that even after all this time, the crimson-haired huntresses of the Wolfjäger bloodline still exist to this day. However, Lyra cared less about the history lesson and demanded that the blue jinn release her sister immediately. However, the jinn (in Bella's body) replied that Bella agreed to his terms to take away her self-induced curse and gave the jinn full access to her body as part of their agreement. Lyra vows to break that agreement and use her powers to purge the jinn straight out of Bella's body. The jinn responds by summoning hordes of evil mirror clones from the reflective crystals in the cave to fight against the heroes. This power causes Velda to have flashbacks of her fight with the late Hero Slayer member Nancy. Justin and the other VPG members, like Gideon, Jebediah, and Lyra, were all struggling with these creatures until Justin asked Velda how she dealt with them. Velda replied that the clones were very tenacious and difficult to defeat with their own strength. Velda was a fire-type user, so Nancy summoned a mirror clone of Velda that was water-type, and the tedious fight continued until Nancy and her zombie brethren were drawn by something else, leading them out of the stadium to pursue, causing the undead menace to cancel her mirror magic and leave the stadium along with the other zombies. Justin's states that it was most likely the "Last Supper" elixir that spilled on Anti-Spur that drew the zombies away from Velda and the other fighters. Velda then concluded that they couldn't expect the same miracle to happen twice, especially in a situation like this where Velda's mirror clone returned with a vengeance. Everything started to look grim until Thundergut Pike, Petite Piper, and Kaito all came to the rescue to destroy the mirror clones, with Kaito (despite not having any superpowers) eliminating dozens of the mirror clones. This gave Velda a window of opportunity to shoot her blazing light arrow from her legendary flame bow to distract the possessed Bella, giving Lyra the chance to pray and cast out the jinn inhabiting Bella's body. The jinn screamed in agony and made a chilling statement in his final moments of being purged. Though Lyra purged the jinn from Bella's body, the jinn's influence would continue to leave an indelible mark on Bella's appearance, thanks to their agreement. As he disappeared, the jinn laughed, saying that the Bella they once knew is now lost to them forever. After the jinn's purging, there's a deep silence in the atmosphere as an unconscious Bella, whose appearance still remains in her possessed state, lies silently on the ground. Lyra tries to heal and restore her younger sister's human form, but to no avail. This happens until Bella finally wakes up and is embraced tightly by Lyra, who's glad to see her sister's mind returning to her. However, the same wasn't true for Bella's body, as she got up and looked into the reflective crystals, only to see a complete stranger staring back at her. Bella lamented after seeing where her actions had finally led her. She was now forced to navigate through life with this strange, otherworldly appearance. Lyra woefully apologized and blamed herself for this outcome, stating that if she had worked harder to cure Bella's condition, all of this could've been avoided. Bella finally takes a stand and admits her wrongdoings to her sister, saying that Lyra was always the one apologizing for her bad behavior. Bella admitted that Lyra gave her clear instructions to do the inner work, and yet she was blinded by jealousy and abstinently chose to do things her way. After all these years of envy, bitterness, and deception, Bella states that she finally paid the price for it all, and this was her just reward. Bella deeply apologizes to both Lyra and JSA for all the trouble she's caused them, and they all unanimously sympathize with and forgive her. Kaito even tries to bring levity into Bella's situation by stating he truly understands Bella and vows to stand by her side as they both go through this together. Also, Kaito states that Bella now reminds him of those elven heroines in the fantasy movies he likes to watch. This cheers Bella up as she embraces and caresses Kaito. To everyone's surprise, Kaito's wounds from the previous battle have all begun to heal. Gideon is driven to tears and exclaims to Lyra that Bella has finally acquired the saint's touch. It was truly a Christmas miracle. Despite this drastic change, Bella was now able to heal just like her big sister, Lyra. This only strengthened Kaito's resolve to remain by Bella's side, as both Justin and Ike agreed to let Kaito pursue a life with Bella in Valtoria while the two returned to Esteban. Before their departure, Bella thanks Velda, Justin, and Ike by giving them all bags of rare Valtorian gems to cash in or keep as souvenirs. Before Justin and Ike board the train back to Esteban, Velda catches up with them and lets them know that she's still waiting on her rematch with Lady Violet. Justin then tells Velda that only time will tell as both sides return to their respective destinations. Upon returning to Esteban, both Justin and Ike take the Valtorian gems to a teller and discover that the gems are extremely valuable. The End.
