Chapter Four The Journal #2
Haruki looked at him.
"What things?"
"That coexistence was not an accident."
Professor Takeda moved sharply.
"Satoru."
"No," Minamoto said. "He found it. He has a right to understand why it matters."
"That is not your decision."
"It became my decision when the chamber was opened."
Haruki almost laughed — the same argument Ken and Daichi had made that morning. Different people, different stakes, identical conviction.
"What was denied?" Haruki asked.
Minamoto stepped away from the map.
"There are references in certain records to medical houses that treated humans and vampires together. Not emergency treatment. Not isolated acts of charity. Permanent institutions."
"And that matters because?"
"Because the accepted history says it never happened."
"Accepted by whom?"
"The Accord. The old bloodlines. Every authority that benefits from the belief that separation was inevitable."
Kameda's expression hardened.
"You're speculating."
"I am describing records I have studied for forty years."
"You are interpreting fragments."
"Fragments are what remain when someone destroys the whole."
Haruki looked between them. The fear was changing shape. It was becoming anger. That, at least, he understood.
"Did this group have a name?" he asked.
Minamoto's eyes returned to the journal.
"Several."
"Give me one."
The professor hesitated.
"The White Lotus."
Haruki looked at the emblem pressed into the leather. The answer should have felt significant. Instead, it felt incomplete.
"A medical house?"
"A clan," Takeda said quietly.
Minamoto turned towards her. She ignored him.
"A vampire clan," she continued. "At least according to the few accounts that survive."
Haruki looked at the painted figures again — humans, vampires, lotuses between them.
"What happened to them?"
"No one knows," Endo said.
Minamoto's expression suggested that was not entirely true. Haruki saw it. Before he could press, Kameda removed a small blade from its case, and everyone in the chamber fell silent.
She positioned the tool beneath the edge of the cover.
"We open it now," she said.
Minamoto's face went pale.
The cover lifted less than a centimetre. Dust loosened from the hinge. Kameda stopped, waited. Nothing crumbled. She raised it further, and the leather gave a faint sound, somewhere between a sigh and a crack. Haruki found himself holding his breath.
The first page was protected by a sheet of thin, darkened paper, its edges fused slightly to the cover.
Kameda worked slowly, separating them millimetre by millimetre.
Professor Takeda stood beside her with a light angled across the surface.
Endo prepared the camera. Minamoto remained at the far side of the table — he had moved away, though Haruki had not noticed when.
Kameda lifted the protective sheet. Writing appeared beneath it: dense vertical lines, dark brown ink, the characters small and controlled, each one formed with extraordinary precision.
Takeda leaned closer.
"Classical script."
"Can you read it?" Haruki asked.
"Some."
Minamoto did not move.
"Read the first line," he said.
Takeda glanced at him.
"You can see it from there."
"Read it."
The request sounded almost like an order. Takeda lowered her eyes to the page.
"On the fourteenth day of the sixth month…"
She stopped.
"What?" Haruki asked.
"The next section is damaged."
Kameda adjusted the light. Takeda continued.
"…the patient presented with fever, pallor and inability to retain blood."
Endo looked up.
"Vampire."
"Possibly," Takeda said.
She read further.
"Pulse irregular. Skin cold. Reaction to sunlight unusually severe despite previous tolerance."
Haruki frowned.
"That sounds like a medical record."
"It is," Kameda said.
Minamoto's voice came from across the table.
"Who wrote it?"
Takeda scanned the next lines.
"There's no signature."
"Look at the language."
"I am."
"What about it?" Haruki asked.
Minamoto stepped closer at last.
"A vampire physician would describe blood differently."
"How?"
"As appetite. Strength. Memory. Lineage." He pointed towards the page. "This writer describes volume, temperature and reaction."
"That proves nothing."
"It proves training."
Takeda moved to the margin.
"There are annotations."
"Read them."
She did.
"Patient reports no recent feeding outside household supply. Brother unaffected. Human attendants show no symptoms."
Kameda looked up.
"Human attendants."
Haruki noticed the word too. Not servants. Not victims. Attendants.
Minamoto reached the table.
"Turn the page."
Kameda did not.
"You said preserve it."
"Turn it."
"If the binding resists—"
"Then stop. But turn it."
The page lifted more easily than the cover. The next entry was shorter. Takeda read in silence first. Her expression changed.
"What?" Haruki asked.
She looked at Minamoto. He understood before she spoke.
"It isn't written by a vampire," she said.
Haruki looked down at the page.
"How do you know?"
Takeda pointed to the final lines. The handwriting had become less controlled, as though the author had been exhausted. She translated slowly.
"After sunset, Lord Takahara insisted I rest. I reminded him that humans cannot recover from three nights without sleep as easily as his kind."
No one spoke. Haruki read the translated words again in his mind. Humans cannot recover. His kind.
"The physician was human," he said.
"Yes," Takeda replied.
Minamoto closed his eyes. The reaction was not surprise. It was confirmation.
"Why does that matter?" Haruki asked.
Minamoto opened his eyes again.
"Because the oldest official histories describe the White Lotus as isolationists."
"Meaning?"
"They did not employ humans. Did not treat humans. Did not permit humans inside their holdings."
Haruki looked at the journal.
"But this man lived with them."