Chapter Five The Tunnel Massacre #3
"I don't need to."
"Then why die for it?"
Haruki tightened his grip on the knife.
"I'm not."
The leader looked towards the route Takeda and Minamoto had taken. Understanding passed across his face.
"You are delaying us."
"Yes."
The man almost smiled.
"A temporary mercy."
"Those still count."
The first attacker moved. Haruki met them, caught the descending wrist, turned beneath the strike and drove the folding knife into the attacker's side.
The blade was too short, the angle poor.
Still, it went in. The attacker struck him across the jaw.
Haruki hit the wall. The second attacker drove a knee into his injured ribs.
Something tore inside him. He fell. A boot pinned his knife hand to the stone.
The leader approached.
"You chose strangers over your own life."
Haruki tasted blood.
"They stopped being strangers underground."
The leader crouched. For the first time, something like emotion entered his expression. Not compassion. Pity.
"You would have been useful."
"To you?"
"To the world that comes after."
Haruki laughed. It hurt so badly his vision blackened.
"Work on the sales pitch."
The leader stood.
"Find the others."
The two attackers released Haruki and continued along the passage. He reached for one of their ankles. His fingers closed around black fabric. The attacker looked down. Haruki held on. The man kicked him in the face. Haruki's head struck stone. The passage tilted. The footsteps continued.
He tried to rise. His arms gave way. Somewhere ahead, Takeda screamed.
Haruki crawled. One hand forward. Then the other. His blood marked the stone beneath him. He reached the bend.
A flare of white light filled the passage. Not fire. Electrical. A deafening crack followed. Someone shouted. This time the voice was familiar.
"Down!"
Gunfire erupted. The narrow tunnel amplified every shot until the sound became physical. Haruki flattened against the floor. A body struck the wall ahead. Another fell across the passage. Boots rushed towards him. Family boots. Dark work trousers.
Ken dropped to his knees beside Haruki.
"Boss."
Haruki tried to speak. Nothing came. Ken's hands moved over him, searching for wounds. His face changed with every one he found.
"Get a medic in here."
Voices answered from behind. Haruki grabbed Ken's sleeve.
"The others."
"We found them."
"Takeda?"
"Alive."
"Minamoto?"
"Alive."
"Jun?"
Ken hesitated.
"Alive."
The pause said enough. Barely. Haruki closed his eyes. Ken slapped his cheek lightly.
"No. Stay awake."
"The chamber."
"Burning."
"Attackers?"
"Two down. Others retreated."
Haruki looked past him. Family members moved through smoke in the tunnel. One knelt over a fallen attacker. Another guarded the junction with a shotgun.
"How did you find us?"
"Old drainage schematics."
Haruki almost smiled.
Ken leaned closer.
"You gave an order not to investigate."
"You ignored me."
"I decided the problem had changed."
Haruki remembered the dispute from that morning. Different problems. Same goal.
"Good decision."
"Don't sound surprised."
"I'm not."
The passage blurred. Ken pressed both hands against the wound in Haruki's side. Pain pulled a sound from him.
"Sorry."
"You're not."
"No."
Ken looked over his shoulder.
"Where is that medic?"
"Coming."
Haruki's body had begun to shake. Cold moved through him despite the sweat on his skin. He had seen shock often enough to recognise it. It felt insulting that his body could become another problem to manage.
"Ken."
"I'm here."
"Names."
"What?"
"The historians."
Ken understood.
"Endo is dead. Kameda is dead. Takeda and Minamoto are alive."
"Workers?"
"Toma's gone. Engineer at the entrance is gone. We're still counting."
Haruki closed his eyes.
"No."
Ken shook him.
"Stay with me."
"No more names."
Not yet. He could not carry them yet.
A medic crawled into the narrow passage and cut open Haruki's shirt.
"Penetrating abdominal trauma. Deep laceration to the back. Stab wound to the upper arm. He's hypotensive."
"Can you move him?" Ken asked.
"We have to."
The medic packed the wound beneath Haruki's ribs. Pain tore through him. The tunnel disappeared.
When it returned, he was being strapped to a folding stretcher.
"Where?" Haruki asked.
"Takamori University Medical Centre," the medic said.
"No police hospital."
"It's the closest trauma centre."
"Call ahead."
"We have."
"Possible contamination."
The medic looked at Ken. Ken looked back at Haruki.
"What contamination?"
Haruki thought of the journal. The old medical records. The leader's words. The lie protects the peace.
"I don't know."
It was the last honest answer he managed.
The tunnel ceiling passed above him in broken sections — stone, concrete, electric lights, darkness.
Haruki drifted between them. He heard radios, orders, someone counting survivors.
Professor Takeda crying somewhere nearby.
Minamoto arguing that the bodies could not be left behind. Ken refusing to leave Haruki's side.
At the service stairs, paramedics took over. They lifted the stretcher onto a trolley and pushed him through the warehouse. Cold night air struck his face. The sky above Takamori was black and open. For a moment, Haruki stared at it. He had not realised how much he had missed it.
Ambulance lights painted the warehouse walls red. More vehicles crowded the yard. Family members stood behind police tape, bloodied and silent. Reina was among them. She saw him. Her face collapsed. Haruki tried to lift one hand. The straps held it down. She ran alongside the trolley.
"What happened?"
He could not answer.
"Haruki."
"I'm fine."
The lie came automatically. Reina made a broken sound between a laugh and a sob.
"You look terrible."
"I've looked worse."
"No, you haven't."
The paramedics lifted the trolley into the ambulance. Reina tried to follow. One blocked her.
"Family only."
"I am his family."
The man looked at Haruki. Haruki forced his eyes open.
"She comes."
Reina climbed inside. Ken stopped at the doors.
"I'll follow with the others."
Haruki nodded once. The movement made the world spin. The doors closed. The ambulance pulled away.
Reina took Haruki's hand. Her fingers were warm. His felt distant.
"Stay awake," she said.
"Everyone keeps saying that."
"Then listen."
"I usually do."
"No, you don't."
The siren began. Takamori passed beyond the windows in fractured flashes — streetlights, tower blocks, temple roofs, ordinary people turning to watch the ambulance race through the city.
Haruki thought of the chamber burning beneath them.
The journal. The names written inside it.
Renji Takahara. He tried to hold onto the thought. It slipped away.
The paramedic called his blood pressure. Another cut through what remained of his shirt. Reina tightened her grip.
"Haruki."
He looked towards her. She was crying openly now. He wanted to tell her not to. He wanted to apologise. He wanted to say he had done what he was supposed to do. Instead, all he managed was:
"Jun?"
"Alive."
"Takeda?"
"Alive."
Reina understood what he was doing.
"Enough."
"Minamoto?"
"Alive."
"Good."
His eyes closed. Reina squeezed his hand hard enough to hurt.
"Haruki."
The ambulance doors opened. White light flooded the interior. Voices surrounded him.
"Multiple penetrating wounds."
"Pressure seventy over forty."
"Possible internal bleeding."
"Mass casualty incident from the southern tunnel network."
The trolley moved. Cold air gave way to the sterile heat of the emergency department. Haruki saw masked faces above him — blue scrubs, bright lights, hands reaching. Then a man stepped into view at the head of the bed. Dark hair. Calm eyes. A voice that cut through the chaos without rising.
"I'm Dr Takahara."
The name struck somewhere beneath Haruki's fading awareness. Takahara. The journal. The white lotus. He tried to speak. The doctor leaned closer.
"What happened in the tunnels?"
Haruki looked at him. For one impossible second, the painted lotus filled his mind.
Then the darkness took him.