Page 273 of Mercy Written in Blood

He spoke without raising his voice.

"She believed she had failed as a parent. That she had missed some unhappiness, some danger, some secret life that made abandonment preferable to coming home."

The elderly woman's grip loosened slightly around her handbag. Sota looked at each person before him. Not sweeping the room like a speaker. Meeting them one by one.

"If your child disappeared tomorrow," he said, "would you rather know the monster that took them, or spend the rest of your life believing they simply vanished?"

Nobody answered. Haruki felt the question enter the room and remain there. It was not fair. That did not make it ineffective. The father with the wedding ring looked down. The woman in scrubs closed her eyes. Mrs Okada stared at Renji, but some of the fear in her expression had become something else. Grief recognising grief.

Haruki thought of every family given altered reports. Every mother told an attack was an accident. Every person encouraged to search for human explanations because the real one had been declared too dangerous to know. He understood them. That was the problem. Not Sota. The people in the chairs. They had not joined the Unveiled because they hated vampires. Some did, perhaps. Others had joined because institutions had taken their dead twice. First the person. Then the truth of what happened to them.

Renji spoke.

"The First Law is unjust."

Several faces turned towards him. Sota did not. He had expected the statement.

Renji continued.

"It denies humans agency over dangers that affect them. It allows vampires to avoid accountability. It protects institutions that have mistaken secrecy for moral authority."

Mrs Okada watched him carefully.

"But?" Sota asked.

Renji looked towards him.

"But abolishing it without a structure capable of surviving the consequences may kill more people than it saves."

"There is always a but," the delivery driver muttered.

Renji turned towards him.

"Yes."

The man looked surprised. Renji's voice remained calm.

"Anyone who offers you justice without conditions is lying."

"And anyone who asks us to wait?" the man replied.

"May also be lying."

Sota's gaze sharpened. Haruki felt the room lean towards Renji despite itself. Not because they trusted him. Because he refused to ask for it.

The woman in scrubs looked at him.

"How long are we supposed to wait?"

"I do not know."

"My brother has been dead six years."

"I know."

"No, you don't."

"You are correct."