Page 318 of Mercy Written in Blood

Renji saw the impact. Saw Haruki's mouth open. Saw blood appear against his shirt before the sound reached him.

Then silver filled Renji's lungs. Pain tore through his chest. His knees struck concrete. Someone grabbed him from behind. A mask covered the attacker's face. Renji drove his head backwards. Bone broke. The grip loosened. He turned, seizedthe man by the throat and threw him into the side of the road sweeper hard enough to dent metal.

The aerosol burned his eyes. His strength collapsed and returned in violent waves. The room flickered in red emergency light.

Haruki remained by the cage. Still standing. Why was he still standing?

A third gunman appeared above the equipment bay on a maintenance platform. He aimed towards the hostages. Haruki saw him. Renji saw Haruki see him.

"No."

The word left Renji before the gun fired. Haruki moved in front of the fence. The shot struck beneath his collarbone. He fell backwards against the gate. For one impossible second, he remained upright. His hand gripped the wire mesh. His eyes found Renji across the floor. Then his knees gave way.

The world ceased.

Not slowed. Ceased.

Rain against a roof centuries gone. Mud beneath Renji's hands. A man lying beneath cedar trees, blood soaking through white robes. Eyes already dimming. Renji pressing both hands against a wound no medicine could close. A voice trying to say his name. His first love dying while battle moved around them.

Renji had forgotten the sound of the rain that night. He remembered it now. The depot vanished. The concrete became earth. Haruki's dark coat became wet silk. The blood was the same. All blood was the same when there was too much of it.

No.

Renji tried to stand. His arms failed. Silver ate through him. Someone fired again. An Ishida man fell.

Renji crawled. His palms slid through blood and rainwater carried in from the loading door. The attacker on the platform took aim at Haruki's body. Renji looked up. Something inside him opened.

Not the Archive. Older. Crueller. The discipline he had built over nearly a thousand years did not bend. It broke.

Blood answered him. Every exposed drop in the room lifted. The wounded Unveiled man near the crane screamed. The blood beneath him moved against gravity, rising in threads. The dead Ishida guard's blood pulled from the concrete. Haruki's blood—

Renji stopped it before it could leave him. The distinction happened instinctively. Everything else became weapon.

Red lines crossed the depot. They entered the aerosol cloud and turned it visible, a storm of silver mist threaded with blood. The attacker on the platform froze. His weapon remained raised. His body no longer obeyed him. Renji felt the man's pulse — fast, human. He closed his hand. The pulse stopped.

Someone shouted Renji's name. Akiko? No. She was not there. A memory.

Another gunman turned towards him. Renji reached into his blood. Not metaphorically. He felt every vessel. Every chamber of the heart. Every electrical rhythm disguised as life. The man's knees folded. Blood burst from his nose, mouth and eyes.

Renji did not stop. He could not. The silver in his lungs became fire. His vision narrowed. Haruki remained on the floor. Too still. Too much blood. The first love's face over his. Haruki's beneath it. Both dying. Both because Renji had believed there would be time.

A fourth attacker ran. Renji tore the blood from his legs. The man collapsed screaming. Bone struck concrete. The scream continued. Renji wanted it to. He wanted every person in thebuilding to understand pain before death. He wanted the Accord to hear it. Sota. The Shibata. Every institution that had buried his family. Every person who had placed Haruki's life inside an argument.

Another figure approached. Renji turned. Ken raised both hands.

"Doctor."

Renji saw blood moving through his throat. One movement would close it.

Ken stopped.

"Renji."

Not Doctor. The name reached him poorly. From far away.

"Haruki needs you."

The world returned by degrees.