Page 58 of Mercy Written in Blood

"Endo is dead. Kameda is dead. Takeda and Minamoto are alive."

"Workers?"

"Toma's gone. Engineer at the entrance is gone. We're still counting."

Haruki closed his eyes.

"No."

Ken shook him.

"Stay with me."

"No more names."

Not yet. He could not carry them yet.

A medic crawled into the narrow passage and cut open Haruki's shirt.

"Penetrating abdominal trauma. Deep laceration to the back. Stab wound to the upper arm. He's hypotensive."

"Can you move him?" Ken asked.

"We have to."

The medic packed the wound beneath Haruki's ribs. Pain tore through him. The tunnel disappeared.

When it returned, he was being strapped to a folding stretcher.

"Where?" Haruki asked.

"Takamori University Medical Centre," the medic said.

"No police hospital."

"It's the closest trauma centre."

"Call ahead."

"We have."

"Possible contamination."

The medic looked at Ken. Ken looked back at Haruki.

"What contamination?"

Haruki thought of the journal. The old medical records. The leader's words. The lie protects the peace.

"I don't know."

It was the last honest answer he managed.

The tunnel ceiling passed above him in broken sections — stone, concrete, electric lights, darkness. Haruki drifted between them. He heard radios, orders, someone counting survivors. Professor Takeda crying somewhere nearby. Minamoto arguing that the bodies could not be left behind. Ken refusing to leave Haruki's side.

At the service stairs, paramedics took over. They lifted the stretcher onto a trolley and pushed him through the warehouse. Cold night air struck his face. The sky above Takamori was black and open. For a moment, Haruki stared at it. He had not realised how much he had missed it.

Ambulance lights painted the warehouse walls red. More vehicles crowded the yard. Family members stood behind police tape, bloodied and silent. Reina was among them. She saw him. Her face collapsed. Haruki tried to lift one hand. The straps held it down. She ran alongside the trolley.