Page 206 of Mercy Written in Blood

Renji turned to the next page. Most of it had burned. One surviving section remained near the binding.

Renji returned alone before dawn despite orders. Hana struck him and then embraced him. He says the children are safe with Masato.

Renji's vision narrowed. Masato. The physician he did not remember. The man who had sheltered Takahara children.

"What happened to them?" Haruki asked quietly.

"I don't know."

"None survived?"

"The official genealogy lists no survivors."

"That isn't the same thing."

Renji looked at him. Haruki's expression had sharpened — investigator now, but beneath it, something gentler remained.

"If you took them north," Haruki continued, "and left them with someone outside the household, the council may not have known where they were."

"They would have searched."

"Perhaps."

"They would have killed them."

"Perhaps."

Renji pulled his wrist from Haruki's hand. Not rejection. He needed both hands to turn the page. The next fragment was written in Hana's hand. Only three sentences survived.

Renji believes he failed because he returned. He did not. The children live because he obeyed long enough to save them. If any of us survive, someone must tell him.

The archive disappeared. Not physically — Renji still saw the table, the lamp, the journal. But the room no longer felt real.

For centuries, his final memory of Hana had been accusation. Her face streaked with ash. Her hand striking his chest. Her voice raised. He had believed she blamed him for leaving. Or for returning too late. He could not remember the words. He hadfilled the silence himself.You abandoned us. You failed. You should have been here.

The journal said she had struck him and embraced him. The journal said he had saved the children. The journal said she wanted someone to tell him.

No one had.

Haruki said his name. Renji stood. The chair struck the floor behind him. The sound cracked through the archive. He moved away from the table — not towards the door, there was nowhere to go. Rows of cabinets surrounded him, each one holding histories preserved because someone had decided they mattered.

His family had mattered. That was why their history had been altered. Not forgotten by accident. Rewritten with intention.

Renji pressed one hand against the glass wall. His reflection stared back. Unchanged. He hated it. Nearly a thousand years of the same face, carrying a false account of its own survival.

Haruki approached slowly.

"Don't."

Haruki stopped. Renji kept his back to him.

"I believed them."

"You believed the history available to you."

"I was there."

"You were traumatised."