Gaze into Darkness Part 3

Kuni Utagu placed the bonsai tree on Yori’s worktable. ”As you directed, Lord Yori, this is all that remains, aside from Ayame’s notes. Everything else has been destroyed.”
”And what of Ayame herself?”
"She...lives, after a fashion. Daigo remains with her, observing...also as you directed.”
"Very well." Yori expected Utagu to depart, but the man hesitated.
”My lord, if I may...we were forced to send Ayame’s test subjects to their rest. Should we not do the same for Ayame-san herself?” Yori stared at the bonsai tree. Most of its needles had been replaced by thin, writhing tentacles.
”We are the Crab, Utagu-san-
Her hand brushed his...she smiled brightly...
-we waste nothing.” Utagu paused, as if he meant to say more. But he finally just bowed and departed.
For a while, Yori stared at the vulgar corruption of the bonsai tree. Eventually, he picked it up and took it to a heavy vault set into the stone. The lock, a complicated device of Kaiu construction, took him a moment to open. He swung open the heavy door, then rearranged some of the contents
a smooth, porcelain mask of unknown origin he’d discovered among his late father's effects, and a thick sheaf of papers bearing a single name, that of his great-grandfather, Kuni Mokuna, a man whose name was reviled throughout the Empire for his research.
To Yori, though, he was someone to be admired. He paused, brushing a finger over the brittle paper, touching the ribbon he’d used to mark his place in Mokuna’s ancient journals. Then he turned, retrieved the bonsai tree and placed it in the newly cleared space in the vault, closed the ponderous door, and locked it again.
You were deceived, Yori.
He looked at the Nairu spawn. "No...I was not."
So you knew it wouldn’t work? Yet, you allowed her to continue regardless?
Yori moved to the spawn and looked into eyes, blacker than night. "What I know,” Yori said, “is you.”

The Nairu Spawn said nothing, because It was long dead. Still. as he left his work chamber, Yori felt its eyes following him.