Page 321 of Mercy Written in Blood

"Wake him."

"How?"

"Speak to him."

Ken gripped Haruki's shoulder.

"Boss."

No response.

"Haruki."

Nothing. Renji pushed regenerative force into the wound. Haruki's body arched. Blood surged from his mouth. Renji stopped immediately.

Wrong. Too much. Without Haruki's pulse guiding the transfer, his blood treated the human body as damaged tissue rather than a whole organism. It could accelerate clotting. Or cause it everywhere. Heal vessels closed around bullets. Destroy him faster.

Renji's hands shook. He had not shaken during surgery in five hundred years.

"Doctor," Ken said.

"Do not call me that."

Ken went silent. Renji pressed his forehead briefly against Haruki's. Rain hammered the roof. The sound became cedar branches. Mud. A dying man. He could not do this again. He had survived the first because there had been no choice. He would not survive Haruki.

The thought arrived with absolute certainty. Not metaphor. Not grief speaking dramatically. A fact. Centuries had emptied Renji slowly. Haruki had returned weight to the world. If he died, the world would not simply become empty again. Renji would know what had been taken. That was worse.

Sirens sounded outside. Too distant. Too late.

Haruki's pulse vanished beneath Renji's fingers.

"Haruki."

Nothing. Renji pressed his ear to the chest. No heartbeat. The room narrowed to one body. One impossible stillness.

Ken said something. Renji did not hear.

He placed his hands at the centre of Haruki's chest and began compressions. Once. Twice. The upper wound released more blood. Renji continued. He counted because numbers werestructure. Structure was control. Control was the only thing preventing the centuries from opening beneath him.

Thirty compressions. Airway. Blood in the mouth. He cleared it with his fingers. Two breaths. Again. Haruki remained still.

Someone touched Renji's shoulder. He snarled. The sound made the person step back.

Thirty. Two. Thirty. Two. His strength returned in violent fragments as the silver dispersed. Each compression threatened to break ribs. He adjusted. Perfect depth. Perfect rhythm. A physician. Only a physician. Not a man watching the person he loved die.

He had not said it. Haruki had. Not aloud. Not yet. But Renji had known. And Renji had withheld the word as though silence could make the risk smaller. As though love unspoken suffered less.

Haruki's body gave no answer.

"Come back," Renji said.

Thirty. Two.

"You said later."

Nothing.

"You agreed."