My Brother's a Jinchūriki!

Chapter Thirty- Kiri, Alone

Kiri paced the hall quickly with her arms folded over her chest as she chewed on the ends of her hair. Finally, a doctor stepped out of a nearby room. Kiri stopped pacing and moved the hair from her mouth as she approached with a solemn expression.

"Well?"

The doctor sighed for a moment before meeting Kiri's eyes. "Well... we've been able to stop the bleeding and heal the wound. If you hadn't acted so quickly, we wouldn't have been able to."

Kiri's eyes watered and she covered her mouth. "You mean... she'll be okay?"

The doctor shifted her feet and slowly continued. "She got very lucky. The wound was not very deep, and it didn't sever the arteries. While it certainly bled a lot, it looked much worse than it really was."

Kiri's eyes lowered as she choked back a cry softly and a tear rolled down her cheek. "I'm so glad... I thought for sure she wouldn't make it."

"There has been... a problem, though." The doctor cleared her throat and Kiri looked up at her.

"A... problem?" Kiri bit her lip. "What do you mean?"

"While we were able to heal the wound itself, we discovered that she had been poisoned." The doctor glanced back at the door, then turned her eyes to Kiri again. "The blade that cut her must have been coated with some kind of toxin, but it's one we've never seen before. It's consistent with all the old reports of the Araki brothers."

"Poison?" Kiri put her arm out to steady herself against the wall. "But you can create an antidote, right?"

The doctor paused. "We can try, but without knowing the origin of the poison, we could end up making it much worse. We've isolated a sample of the toxin to study for now, however it seems to be slow-spreading and concentrated in her neck— as long as someone continues to heal the area every thirty minutes or so." The doctor let out a small sigh and put her hands into her pockets. "For now, we'll have someone assigned to treat her at all times while we work to create the antidote. However, if the poison continues to spread and it reaches her heart before we can find the cure, she won't survive it."

Kiri began to tremble and pressed herself against the wall. "No..."

"I'm sorry to have to deliver this kind of news." The doctor patted Kiri's shoulder and forced a faint smile. "However, don't lose hope. Without you stopping the bleeding and getting her here so quickly, she wouldn't have made it. But now she has a fighting chance."

Kiri stared at the floor and drew her arms in closely, and the doctor lowered her arm.

"If you'll excuse me, I have to brief the nurses and set up a treatment schedule."

"...Thank you." Kiri mumbled as the woman nodded and walked away.

"Kiri?"

Kiri looked up slowly and blinked, then wiped her face with the back of her hand. "Kotetsu?"

Kotetsu furrowed his brow as he looked her over. "...Bad news?"

Kiri shrugged. "A little good and bad..." She mumbled and leaned against the wall. "Sena's alright for now... but her condition is..." She shook her head and bit her lip. "Well, they're not sure what will happen."

"I'm sorry." He stood beside her against the wall and his eyes fell to the floor ahead.

"What about Natsumi?" Kiri glanced up at him, her chest heavy and her stomach knotted. "Is she okay?"

Kotetsu met her eyes. "...To be honest, they're still working on her. Chakra exhaustion of that extent... they said she was half dead when they began to heal her." He sighed quietly. "But they said that if they could stabilize her, that she would be alright... the problem is that her body is so deprived of Chakra and she pushed herself so hard that her cells were damaged." He paused. "They think that she converted the life from the healthy cells into Chakra, sort of... eating herself in order to draw extra Chakra."