Page 113 of Mercy Written in Blood

Chapter Ten

The White Lotus

The recovered evidence occupied three tables. Haruki stood in silence for nearly a minute before approaching them.

He had imagined more. The chamber beneath the warehouse had felt vast while it was burning — shelves climbing into darkness, scrolls and ledgers stretching into shadows beyond the reach of their lights. The journal had seemed almost insignificant among everything surrounding it. Now all that remained fit beneath white evidence sheets: fragments of burnt paper, three cracked ceramic seals, seventeen bronze coins, charred timber, several pieces of lacquered wood, a section of painted stone carefully removed from the collapsed mural. The absence was louder than the evidence itself.

"That's everything?" Haruki asked.

Ken shook his head.

"Everything the Accord let us photograph."

Haruki looked up.

"You didn't recover any of it."

"No."

"The cloud backups?"

"Most were corrupted when the devices were seized remotely."

Haruki frowned.

"Remotely?"

"The Accord doesn't do things halfway."

Ken handed him a tablet.

"We managed to pull partial uploads before they disappeared."

Haruki looked through the gallery. Many photographs ended halfway through processing; some had become blocks of distorted colour, others survived almost intact. Enough. Not everything. But enough.

"They expected this," Haruki murmured.

"They expected someone to keep copies."

Haruki enlarged the first surviving image — the mural, the white lotus spread across ancient stone exactly as he remembered. Time and smoke had dimmed it, but not enough to erase its shape. It remained beautiful. Simple. Eight white petals surrounding a crimson centre. He studied it for several seconds. Something about it felt deliberate beyond decoration. Not merely painted. Designed.

"Where's Professor Minamoto?"

"Still in hospital."

"And Takeda?"

"At home."

"Has the Accord interviewed them?"

Ken nodded.

"Separately."

"What did they learn?"

"They didn't tell us."