Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Return of the Lost Son ❯ Doctor's Diagnosis ( Chapter 16 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Away from the battlefield, a frantic Yondaime ran through the tight corridors of the Konoha's emergency ward. In his arms he carried the badly wounded body of Namiko, the mother of his child and the woman he loved. Her breathing was shallow and unsteady, and Yondaime was terrified. He couldn't imagine life without her, and the prospect of losing his first child sent chills down his spine.
 
He had found her wounded on the battlefield and being held by Kenichi, the same person who had caused her injury. His fury had gotten the best of him when he threw Kenichi away from her. Sensing that the nature of her injury was out of the realm of the medical ninja gathered at the battlefield, Yondaime made the choice to evacuate her directly to Konoha's chief medical officer, Yoshi Yakushi. He sent up the signal flare to begin the 3rd stage of the assault, a powerful genjutsu to lure Kenichi outside of Konoha. Yondaime then used the opportunity to slip away with Namiko.
 
“Yoshi,” he cried out desperately as he approached the surgery ward, “I need you, right now!”
 
In a few seconds, an older shinobi dressed in the typical pale green garb of the medical nin appeared before him. Respectfully, he bowed his head, and asked, “What is it you require of me, Lord Hokage?”
 
“Please, Yoshi,” Yondaime started, staring into the older medical nin's eyes, “My wife was wounded in a battle earlier tonight. I need you to save her.”
 
Yoshi understood the severity of the situation just by looking at the motionless body in the Hokage's arms. Without a word, he took the young woman away from him and rushed her down the surgery ward. Taking this time to do a preliminary evaluation, he saw the gaping wound across her chest but it was mostly superficial. Something else was at play here because, although the wound was serious, it should not have been life-threatening. He would not be able to deduce what other factors, if any, had left Namiko on the brink of death until he arrived at the surgical seal room.
 
Finally, he had reached his destination, and placed Namiko's body down in the center of a surgical seal. The seal was only partially complete; he would finish it once he figured out what was wrong with Namiko. He collected his chakra into his palm to activate his Mystical Palm jutsu, and swept it over her body. His first pass revealed nothing, but on a deeper scan, he saw the problem immediately. Yoshi rushed out of the room to the waiting Yondaime to inform him of his discovery.
 
“Lord Hokage,” Yoshi called out as soon as he saw Yondaime pacing in the hall, “First of all, the wound across Namiko's chest is not too severe and will heal up on its own once we stop the bleeding.” Yondaime let out a sigh of relief, but Yoshi's tone told him that there was worse news coming. “There is something else, though, that is very serious and the true threat to her life. Something has corrupted her chakra system. Upon scanning her body, I found a considerable amount of foreign chakra circulating through her body and attacking her natural chakra system.”
 
Yondaime was devastated to hear this. Anyone with an understanding of the chakra circulatory system knew that it was linked to the internal organs, so anything that attacked your chakra, also damaged your organs. Yondaime begged Yoshi, “Please, there must be something that you can do.”
 
Yoshi took a second to think before he answered. He had never seen such an aggressive chakra; it was almost as if the chakra itself was alive and its only goal was destruction. But since the chakra was still active despite being separated from its host, the only way to stop it would be to kill whatever infected her. So he told Yondaime, “If you can find what it was that introduced the foreign chakra and kill it, then that should be enough to break the connection to the chakra in her system and shut it down. I will stay here and see if I can siphon off some of the foreign chakra. It will buy her some time, but even with that, she has got 2 days max before her chakra system is destroyed.”
 
Yondaime took a moment to process this new directive. Kill his brother in order to save his wife and child, or let his brother live and allow his family to be destroyed by his brother's chakra. It was a choice that he hated to make, but there was only way to go. His brother had become corrupted by the Kyuubi, and if he was allowed to continue with his rampage, then countless more shinobi would become casualties. He wished that he had another choice, but the more time he spent debating what he knew had to be done, the less time he had to actually do it. After a few moments of deep thought, Yondaime rose with a quiet determination, and vanished right before Yoshi's eyes. A kunai clattered to the floor - one of Yondaime's special ones with a tag wrapped around the handle that allowed him to perform his Flying Thunder God jutsu.
 
Yoshi picked up the kunai and placed it in his pocket. If Yondaime had left it behind, then he intended to return in a hurry. Yoshi was glad that Yondaime had left before he could tell him the other bad news. Regardless of what Yondaime was able to accomplish, the damage that the foreign charka was doing to the baby in the womb would be too much for the baby to survive.