Chapter 928 - 928: The Missing Medical Officer

St. Luke's International Hospital, Chuo, Tokyo.

Dr. Naomi Morita sits alone in her office, a medical chart open across her desk. She finishes a line of notes, pauses, then reaches for her phone.

Instead of checking her messages, she opens the recording of yesterday's fight. She watches in silence, her attention sharpening as the footage reaches the sixth round.

As the footage reaches the sixth round, Naomi's attention sharpens. She watches Cabello make a series of movements, only to see Ryoma reproduce every one of them almost perfectly, matching his footwork, shifts, and attacks.

Then the two begins launching into simultaneous exchanges, trading combinations at nearly the same instant, again and again.

Naomi's eyebrows lift slightly. "Good grief…"

She rewinds the sequence and watches it again before lowering the phone and returning to her notes.

Her pen moves steadily across the page as she murmurs, "What a ridiculous way to fight. Two men practically taking turns trying to destroy each other's heads."

She finishes the note, closes the chart, and gathers the documents into a folder. "Ah, well... I heard their combined purse was fifteen million dollars."

As she gets up from her chair and walks toward the door, she adds quietly, "With that kind of money, I suppose even dying is something people might be willing to risk."

A few minutes later, Dr. Naomi Morita enters the hospital room accompanied by a nurse. She offers a polite smile before addressing the patient in fluent, courteous English.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Cabello. How are you feeling today?"

Only Rivera responds, immediately rises to greet her, while one of his assistants lies asleep on the floor nearby, apparently exhausted beyond the point of caring where he sleeps.

Cabello himself remains completely still in the hospital bed, sound asleep, seemingly oblivious to the doctor's arrival.

"I was told he regained consciousness earlier this morning," Naomi says. "How was he when he woke up?"

Rivera nods. "He was awake for maybe twenty minutes. He knew where he was, and he recognized me. He even asked what happened after the fight."

Naomi listens carefully. "Did he seem confused, Mr. Rivera?"

"A little," Rivera admits. "Mostly about the time. He kept asking how long he had been here. But he was able to answer when I asked him simple questions."

"And then?"

"He became tired very quickly. His eyes kept closing while we were talking, so I told him to rest. He fell asleep again not long after."

Naomi nods slowly, her attention returning to Cabello. "Did he complain about any pain?"

"His head. He said it was hurting badly."

Naomi exchanges a brief glance with the nurse beside her before stepping closer to the bed. She then steps closer to the bed and begins a brief neurological examination.

She checks Cabello's pupils, pulse, blood pressure, and oxygen saturation before gently calling his name.

"Mr. Cabello?"

Cabello's eyelids slowly flutter open. His gaze wanders for a moment before settling vaguely on Naomi.

"Can you hear me?"

His lips move, but only a faint, indistinct sound comes out.

"Good. Stay with me for a moment."

Cabello blinks once, seemingly trying to focus, but his eyes gradually grow heavy again.

"It's all right. You can rest."

His eyes close, and within seconds his breathing settles back into the slow rhythm of sleep.

The assistant on the floor stirs awake, blinking several times before realizing the doctor is standing nearby. He quickly sits up, looking slightly embarrassed.

"Sorry, Doctor."

Naomi gives him a small nod. "It's all right."

The assistant gets to his feet and heads into the bathroom. A few minutes later, he emerges looking considerably fresher, his face still wet from washing it.

After confirming his current condition, Naomi straightens and looks toward Rivera and his assistant.

"We've already run several scans since he was brought in. His head CT shows no major intracranial bleeding, and the imaging of his chest and upper body doesn't show any significant fractures or internal injuries either."

Rivera exhales quietly. "So he's going to be okay?"

"He appears to be stable," Naomi replies. "But that doesn't mean his body wasn't pushed far beyond what it could comfortably handle."

She glances toward Cabello again. "He took an enormous amount of punishment yesterday. The damage from each individual blow may not look particularly severe on the scans, but the body doesn't experience those impacts one at a time. They accumulate. Add dehydration, exhaustion, depleted energy reserves, and the physiological stress of fighting at that intensity, and eventually the brain and the rest of the body simply struggle to keep up."

Rivera exchanges a brief glance with his assistant, both men visibly uneasy. Their concern is no longer about Cabello's physical condition, but about the banned substance he had taken before the fight and the possibility that the medical examination will expose it.

"By the time he took that final punch," Naomi continues, "my impression is that he was already very close to his limit. The last blow may have been the one that made him collapse, but it may not have been the only reason."

Naomi glances down at her notes, her eyes lingering over them for a moment as though considering something.

"Actually, there is something I find a little puzzling," she says. "Mr. Cabello managed to maintain his performance almost all the way to the end without any significant decline. His collapse felt remarkably sudden."

Rivera and his assistant exchange another uneasy glance, their forced composure becoming increasingly difficult to maintain.

But then, Naomi looks up at them with an almost innocent smile. "Well, I'm not a sports physician. Perhaps that's simply normal in your field. Either way, he must have undergone some very intense training for this fight. And I'm sorry that he lost."

Rivera nods repeatedly, forcing a strained smile. "Yes, exactly. Stamina and endurance were going to be crucial in this fight. We put a lot of emphasis on his conditioning during camp."

"I see," Naomi replies. "That might explain it. For now, there's nothing suggesting a major acute injury. But he needs rest and observation."

She excuses herself and leaves the room, with Rivera accompanying her to the door. They exchange a little more small talk in the hallway before Rivera watches her walk farther down the corridor.

After making sure she has gone far enough, Rivera steps back inside and quietly close the door behind him. He exhales deeply in relief, shaking his head a few times as he walks back toward Cabello's bed.

"Thank God," Rivera mutters. "Looks like they're not running any special tests for banned shit."

"I told you," his assistant says. "They can't just look at his blood or piss and magically know what he took. They have to test for specific substances, and somebody has to give them a reason to go looking in the first place. It'd be another story if the commission's own medical team were running the tests."

Rivera nods calmly and drops back onto the bench. "Let's hope so. Because if they find out, we're screwed."

His assistant, however, does not look nearly as relieved. He remains standing for a moment, visibly weighing something before finally voicing the concern that has been bothering him.

"What about those guys who were supposed to be paid off? Cabello lost. What if they cut us loose now? They got nothing to gain from protecting him anymore. Hell, they might even be pissed because we let Ryoma beat him."

"Then we drag them down with us," Rivera says. "They're the ones who pushed Cabello into taking the damn thing."

"Yeah, but you really think the commission's gonna take our word for it? You know how this shit works. When something goes bad, they don't go looking for the people behind it. They go after the fighter."

Rivera stares at him for a moment, his expression hardening. "Then I'll tell the whole story myself. I'll go straight to the media. Names, money, everything. If they want to bury us, fine. But I'm not going down alone. I'll make damn sure they come with me."

While Rivera and his assistant are still discussing the possibility of Cabello's drug use being discovered, Kanemura from the WBO passes along the hospital corridor, unaware of which room Cabello has been assigned to.

It hardly matters, because he is not here to see the fighter. His destination is the physician overseeing Cabello's treatment.

He approaches a nurse and briefly explains his purpose. The nurse then leads him to Naomi's office.

"Excuse me, Dr. Morita. There's someone here to see you."

"Yes, please, send him in."

Kanemura steps inside and offers a polite bow. "My name is Kanemura. I'm one of the WBO's Japan-based executives."

"Yes. How can I help you, Kanemura-san?"

"This concerns Miguel Cabello, the athlete who was brought here after yesterday's fight at the Tokyo Dome," Kanemura begins. "Normally, before and after a bout, we have a specific protocol to ensure that the fighters comply with the regulations and that the competition remains fair. One part of that protocol is testing for substances prohibited under our rules."

He pauses briefly before continuing. "Unfortunately, the medical officer assigned to conduct the testing has been unreachable. We're already approaching twenty-four hours since the fight, and the examination should have been performed as soon as possible using both the fighter's urine and blood samples."

"If that's what you need," Naomi replies, "we still have the blood and urine samples collected when Mr. Cabello was admitted. We can provide portions of those samples for your testing."

"Would it be possible for the hospital to conduct the tests instead?"

Kanemura takes several documents from his briefcase and places them on Naomi's desk. He shows her the authorization establishing his position, along with documentation confirming the WBO's authority over the examination and a detailed list of substances classified as prohibited under the organization's regulations.

"I've also spoken with the promoter responsible for Mr. Cabello's medical expenses. They've agreed to cover any additional costs incurred by the hospital for this specific examination."