Page 18 of Mercy Written in Blood

"Eventually."

"The council?"

"Eventually."

Ken nodded.

"And until then?"

Haruki looked once more at the journal, the murals, the shelves, the bones lying peacefully against the far wall.

"This place deserves people who know what they're looking at."

"What are you thinking?"

Haruki already knew. He reached for his phone.

"I know a professor at Takamori University."

"You trust him?"

"I trust his work."

"And if this turns out to be important?"

Haruki looked around the silent chamber. He already suspected it was.

"I'm bringing in historians."

His torch settled once more on the white lotus painted across the ancient wall. For reasons he couldn't explain, it felt as though someone had been waiting for them to find it.

Chapter Three

What the Tunnels Kept

Haruki had never liked underground spaces. He did not fear them — fear was too simple a word for the pressure he felt when stone and earth closed overhead, shutting out wind, distance and sky. Tunnels reduced the world to whatever lay within the reach of a torch; every sound travelled too far, every shadow seemed nearer than it was. He had learned not to show discomfort. The men working beneath him had enough to worry about without wondering whether their boss wanted to turn around.

"Bring the second support frame forward," Ken called. "Slowly. I don't want anyone touching the original stone."

A metal brace scraped across the floor behind them. The breach had been widened by less than half a metre since Haruki's first visit, just enough to make the entrance safe. Temporary supports now held the fractured section of wall in place, and portable lights had been installed along the service corridor — concrete, pipes, electrical cables, fresh tool marks, and then the broken wall interrupting it all. Beyond the breach lay stone laid by hands long dead. The contrast made the chamber feel less discovered than exposed.

Haruki stood outside the entrance with Ken while two engineers examined the ceiling.

"No movement since yesterday," one of them said. "The chamber itself appears stable, but the wall around the breach has been weakened. We can secure it without disturbing the interior."

"How long?"

"An hour, perhaps two."

Ken looked at Haruki.

"We could get a team inside before then."

"No."

"Boss—"

"We wait."