Page 43 of Mercy Written in Blood

"How do you know?"

Takeda pointed to the final lines. The handwriting had become less controlled, as though the author had been exhausted. She translated slowly.

"After sunset, Lord Takahara insisted I rest. I reminded him that humans cannot recover from three nights without sleep as easily as his kind."

No one spoke. Haruki read the translated words again in his mind. Humans cannot recover. His kind.

"The physician was human," he said.

"Yes," Takeda replied.

Minamoto closed his eyes. The reaction was not surprise. It was confirmation.

"Why does that matter?" Haruki asked.

Minamoto opened his eyes again.

"Because the oldest official histories describe the White Lotus as isolationists."

"Meaning?"

"They did not employ humans. Did not treat humans. Did not permit humans inside their holdings."

Haruki looked at the journal.

"But this man lived with them."

"Worked with them," Takeda said. "Possibly trained with them."

Kameda examined the ink.

"This is one hand throughout."

"How much is there?" Haruki asked.

She studied the thickness of the pages.

"Hundreds of entries."

A human physician documenting vampire patients, working inside a vampire clan, eight centuries ago. Haruki understood enough now to see the shape of the problem. Someone had lied — not about one event, but about an entire history.

"Who buried this?" he asked.

Minamoto's face hardened.

"That is the question people die for."

The words entered the chamber softly. Nobody laughed. They continued — not because fear had lessened, but because stopping would have made it stronger.

Kameda turned pages only after documenting each one. Takeda read selected sections aloud. Endo compared names and locations to the maps. The journal was not a diary. It was a working medical record — case after case: a vampire child with a wasting illness, a human woman recovering after a difficult birth, a hunter treated for burns after shielding a stranger from fire, a human merchant whose fractured leg had been reset by a vampire surgeon. The records made no distinction in the seriousness of care. Species appeared as relevant medical information. Nothing more.

Haruki listened. The entries were ordinary. That made them more unsettling. No declarations of unity, no grand philosophy— only people being treated because they were sick. A world everyone claimed had been impossible, recorded in the calm handwriting of a doctor who had lived inside it.

Professor Takeda reached another annotation. She stopped reading.

"What is it?" Endo asked.

"Nothing."