Page 282 of Mercy Written in Blood

"If either of you collapses, I end the process."

"You may not be able to," Renji said.

"Then try not to."

She handed each of them a sterile lancet. The simplicity of the instrument felt absurd. Nearly a thousand years of concealment. A wall built by masters of blood. Two pieces of disposable plastic.

Renji placed his left palm against the larger imprint. The stone was cold. Haruki stood beside him, their shoulders nearly touching.

"Ready?" Haruki asked.

"No."

"Good."

Haruki pressed his palm to the smaller mark. Nothing happened. The channels remained dim. Renji used the lancet. A bead of blood formed — dark, almost black beneath the lamps. He pressed it into the narrow cut at the centre of the handprint. Haruki did the same.

For one second, the blood remained separate. Then the wall drew it inward. Red light surged through the stone. Haruki inhaled sharply. Renji felt the mechanism enter him. Not physically. Through recognition. The wall searched his blood. Lineage unfolded beneath his skin in impressions too fast to become images — his father's voice, Hana running across summer grass, a woman he did not know singing beside an open window, names without faces, faces without time. Hundreds of Takahara lives compressed into an instant.

Then another presence moved through the seal. Haruki. Warmth. A human pulse beneath Renji's palm, carried through the channels and returned to him altered by contact. The wall did not examine Haruki as an intruder. It measured their blood together. Equal. Separate. Willing.

The stone split without sound. A vertical line appeared between the handprints. Cold air moved through it. The wall drew back in two sections, revealing darkness.

Renji removed his hand. Haruki did not move for several seconds.

"Are you hurt?" Renji asked.

"No."

"Dizzy?"

"No."

"Nauseated?"

"Renji."

"Answer accurately."

"I'm fine."

Haruki looked at his palm. The puncture had already stopped bleeding.

"What did you feel?"

Renji glanced towards Akiko and Kael. Both watched them.

"Recognition," he said.

Haruki looked into the darkness beyond the wall.

"So did I."

Renji turned towards him.

"What?"

"Not memories."