Chapter Twenty-Six Blood in the Rain #2
"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.
"We need your blood."
"Then the canisters are not intended to kill me."
The man's smile vanished. Haruki looked towards Renji. Renji continued.
"They are intended to incapacitate me."
He listened. A faint mechanical hum beneath the roof noise. Ventilation. The depot's old extraction system had been activated. It would draw the aerosol across the full building. The Unveiled had masks — he could now see the filters tucked beneath their collars.
"Haruki," Renji said.
"I know."
He had seen them too.
The man with the detonator raised his thumb.
"Put down the weapons."
Haruki did not.
"Now."
One of the hostages sobbed. Ryota stared at Haruki, terrified, trying not to show it.
Haruki lowered his pistol first.
"Kick them forward."
Haruki obeyed. The weapons slid across the floor. The man holding the detonator smiled again.
"You see? Every system is built on the same thing."
"What?" Haruki asked.
"Deciding who is acceptable to sacrifice."
Haruki straightened.
"No."
The man tilted his head.
"No?"
"A system would have left them."
Haruki looked towards the hostages.
"I came."
Something changed in Ryota's face. The man behind him struck him again.
"Quiet."
Haruki's gaze moved to the detonator.
"Release them."
"Not yet."
"You have what you asked for."
"We asked for Doctor Takahara."
Renji stepped forward. Haruki caught his arm.
"No."
The word was too sharp. The room heard what it contained. The man with the detonator laughed.
"There it is."
Haruki did not look at him.
"Renji."
"You cannot protect them if the aerosol releases."
"Neither can you if they take you."
"They need me alive."
"For now."
Renji looked at Haruki's hand around his arm. His fingers were cold from the rain.
"You said we would bring them out," Renji said.
"Together."
"That may not be possible."
"Do not."
Haruki's voice lowered until only Renji could hear.
"Do not use the Commander's argument now."
Renji looked at him. The accusation cut deeper than the urgency. Deciding who is acceptable to sacrifice. Haruki believed Renji was doing it. Perhaps he was.
Renji moved closer.
"If the canisters release, I will lose consciousness. You will have seconds before they fire."
"Then we prevent the release."
"How?"
Haruki's eyes remained on his.
"Trust me."
Renji almost laughed. Not because the request was absurd. Because trust had become the one thing the last day had made difficult.
The man at the gate lifted the detonator.
"Enough."
Haruki released Renji.
"Take me instead," he said.
Renji turned. The man looked amused.
"You are not Takahara."
"No. But the Archive requires human consent."
The room went still. Renji stared at him. Haruki continued.
"You cannot force Renji to open anything. You need a human he trusts."
The man's gaze sharpened. Haruki had found the flaw. Not in the trap. In the Archive.
"If you take him without me," Haruki said, "you have blood and no access."
"You think we need you specifically."
"No."
Haruki looked towards Renji.
"But he won't open it with anyone else."
That was not true. Perhaps. Renji did not know. The man watched them. Calculating.
Haruki stepped forward.
"Let the hostages go. Take us both."
"No," Renji said.
Haruki did not look back. The man smiled.
"Now you sound like him."
"Haruki."
"Be quiet."
The command struck with enough force that Renji obeyed. Not from submission. From shock.
Haruki advanced another step. The man behind the hostages raised his weapon.
"Stop."
Haruki stopped. His hands remained visible. No weapon. No armour obvious beneath the wet coat.
One of the Ishida men shifted behind Renji. The man with the detonator saw it. His thumb moved.
Everything happened at once.
The lights failed. Darkness swallowed the depot. A shot cracked from the southern side. Ken shouted. The canisters released with a sound like breath drawn through teeth. Renji smelled silver.
Haruki moved. Not backwards. Towards the fence. Gunfire split the dark. Renji saw the first muzzle flash. Haruki struck the man nearest the gate, caught his wrist and drove him into the metal. The detonator fell. Ryota kicked it beneath the fence.
A second Unveiled member fired. The bullet struck Haruki high in the side. His body jerked. He did not fall. He turned and pushed the weapon away as it fired again. The second shot entered lower. Abdomen.
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, seized the 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 the building to understand pain before death.
He wanted the Accord to hear it. Sōta. 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.
The hostages crouched inside the open cage. Ryota had blood across his face. Two Ishida men restrained a surviving attacker. One was crying. The aerosol canisters had stopped. Ventilation dragged the silver mist upwards.
Haruki lay against the fence. His eyes were closed.
Renji released the blood he held. It fell. Rain inside a building. Red drops struck concrete, clothing, faces. The wounded man on the floor continued screaming.
Renji crawled towards Haruki. His limbs felt distant. Ken reached to help him. Renji struck his hand away. He crossed the final metres on his knees.
"Haruki."
No response. He pressed two fingers to Haruki's throat. Pulse. Weak. Too fast. Present. Renji's body convulsed with a breath he did not remember taking.
Three entry wounds. One high in the right chest. One through the lateral abdomen. One beneath the lower ribs. Blood saturated the front and back of his clothes. The vest had stopped none of them. Armour-piercing ammunition. Designed before they arrived.