Page 314 of Mercy Written in Blood

"You are not speaking for Sota," Renji said.

The man's face changed. Contempt.

"Neither is he anymore."

There it was. Fracture. Not the Unveiled as one force. A faction within it. The part Sota had admitted he could not control.

Haruki kept his weapon trained on the detonator.

"What do you want?"

"You opened the first layer."

"Yes," Renji said.

"We want the rest."

"It cannot be opened."

"Not by you."

Renji's attention sharpened.

"You found a descendant."

The man smiled.

"We found several possibilities."

The hostages shifted. One woman began crying. The man behind her pressed a gun against her hair. Haruki's voice lowered.

"If you harm them, you lose the only leverage you have."

"We already have leverage."

"What?"

The man looked at Renji.

"Your shame."

Haruki's body changed. Not visibly to anyone who did not know him. Renji knew. The line of his shoulders. The stillness in his hands. The violence gathering beneath restraint.

The man continued.

"Nearly a thousand years hiding while your family's work rotted underground. You could have found it. You chose obedience."

"That is enough," Haruki replied.

The man ignored him.

"You served the Accord that erased them. You treated their people. Followed their law. Wore their authority like it was honour."

Renji looked at the cylinders around the hostages — four, possibly five behind the machinery. The release mechanism would fill the bay and the immediate floor. Silver nitrate concentration unknown. Fatal if inhaled in sufficient quantity.

Not to Haruki. Unless the canisters contained something else.

"You want me alive," Renji said.