From Human to Skeleton: Revived with Infinite System Crystals

Erebos gave the order again while the tea ran between his fingers.

"Close outer time before the collector reaches the tank."

Kegaku pulled against Kieran. The graft hand kept its teeth around her fire, forcing them to move together or leave pieces of themselves on the bridge.

"Release my wrist because the prison requires that hand to close."

"Your hand remembers my fire better than it listens to you."

Ty met the Reaper beside the empty throne as it crossed toward the corridor, bracing one sickle under the scythe and hooking the other around its shaft. Under the creature's weight, his damaged shoulder slipped out of place.

With two wet fingers, Erebos drew a black line across the bridge. Shadow rose from the wood and locked around the scythe blade.

Ty looked at the hand that had killed him and then at the trapped weapon.

"I will hate this cooperation after the woman stops being the nearest target."

"Hate requires no schedule, so keep your left blade under mine."

They turned the scythe together. Its point cut through the throne rather than the corridor. Black feathers burst from the wood and stuck to Ty's fire.

Jade followed the pull behind her ruined eye. It led past Kegaku, through the adjoining corridor, and into the map room she had seen only in stolen pieces.

The glass tank occupied the far wall beneath a bank of unlabeled pumps.

An ash-blond woman floated inside with twelve wires entering the water around her. Her open hand rested against the glass where she had struck it. A gold ring around the tank rim trembled each time the Reaper forced its scythe against Ty and Erebos.

Jade crossed to the control box and wiped condensation from its gauges. The fluid carried suspended gray particles that sank when the ring trembled and rose when the woman moved. Two pumps fed the tank. A third pulled material out through a filter stained the color of old bone.

Kieran brought her fire blade close to the glass.

"Tell me whether breaking this tank frees her or kills her."

Jade traced the pressure line with one finger. The release valve had been removed and capped from inside the control box. Whoever built it wanted the glass intact even after every pump stopped.

"Breaking it drops the pressure before we know what the wires replace."

Kegaku heard her while fighting the graft hand.

"The tank preserves her because ordinary time tears at what remains."

"Preservation usually includes a release valve for the person being preserved."

The woman's open hand dragged two inches across the glass toward Jade. The effort pulled one wire tight enough to make her shoulder twitch.

"She knows we are here, so nobody calls that sleep again."

Kieran saw the woman and released enough fire for the graft teeth to open.

Kegaku ripped his wrist free. The red cloth stayed caught in Kieran's hand, leaving the graft exposed from palm to elbow. Black seams divided the gray skin. A narrow mouth worked across the center of the palm, chewing the last strands of gold.

He ran to the black table beneath the tank.

Twelve circles covered its surface. Jade's emptied crystal, a wax face marker, and the cracked knuckle bone occupied three. Across the black surface, four colors crossed without touching.

The Reaper's white line passed through Jade before entering Ty. Yun-Jin's violet mark ended at his wrist, while Kieran's tether burned gold beside it. Beneath all three, black threads connected Erebos to the tank, every chair, and the prison walls.

Kegaku lowered the graft mouth toward the crossing threads.

Erebos kept both eyes fixed on the Reaper across the bridge.

"Bite the violet road, then seal every direction outside this realm."

Jade reached the table before Kegaku's palm touched violet.

"Cut white first because the Reaper is the one attacking your tank."

"Master gave a direct order, and your preference carries no rank here."

"The woman hit the glass when the Reaper turned toward her. Ask whose preference matters."

Kegaku looked up at the tank. The woman's open hand remained against the glass, but one finger moved toward the white thread below her.

Kieran came beside Jade with the repaired flute in one hand and her fire blade in the other.

"He trained you to mistake obedience for the only choice that keeps her alive."

"You know nothing about what he saved me from on Sadle."

"I know what he used you for after he saved you."

The curse around Kegaku's neck lit beneath his collar. His graft hand jerked toward violet, following Erebos's order before the rest of him decided.

Jade caught his upper arm rather than the altered wrist.

"I will not use your old name to make your body obey me."

Kieran looked at her. Anger remained in the blade, but she lowered its point away from Kegaku's throat.

The choice reached him without a weapon attached.

Behind them, the Reaper tore its scythe from Erebos's shadow. The recoil threw Ty through one of the empty chairs. Wood broke around his spine. The helm above that chair descended with LEGATO still burning across its face.

Ty rolled before it closed over his skull.

Erebos moved between the Reaper and the tank.

The action stripped the last calm from the room. He widened his stance, left one hand empty, and gathered every nearby shadow around his shoulders. Tea still shone on the other hand.

The Reaper angled its scythe past him and tested the tank's gold rim.

"You built a prison around one soul and called the labor a kingdom."

"You count souls after their choices end, while I still have use for hers."

Jade watched Erebos say use and protect the tank with his body. Both facts belonged to him. Neither cleaned the other.

The sleeping woman's finger tapped the glass once.

Kegaku placed the graft mouth over the white thread.

Its small teeth closed. White fire drove through his palm and split the black seams to his elbow. He held the wrist down while the mouth chewed, each bite shaking his shoulder.

Erebos heard the first tear and turned from the Reaper.

"The violet road was the order I gave you."

"White reaches her first, and violet only lets their friends find us."

"That distinction will cost you more than the hand."

Kegaku looked at the tank while blood darkened the table beneath his elbow.

"Then punish me after she survives the reason for it."

The graft's surviving teeth bit through the white thread together.

The white line snapped at Jade's eye and buried cold behind her brow.

She struck the table with both hands when the right side of her head filled with cold. Kieran caught her under the ribs and kept the gold tether away from the biting mouth.

Across the bridge, the Reaper's robe collapsed inward. The prison walls took its white fire and returned none of it to the collection room. Its escape had closed with the road.

The scythe remained solid inside the prison with its edge raised.

It drove the blade through Erebos's gathered shadow and cut his left sleeve to the shoulder. Ty caught the next swing against both sickles, buying Erebos enough space to reach the tank.

The gold ring on the rim stopped trembling when his bare hand touched it.

Erebos checked the woman before checking his own arm.

Jade saw Erebos choose the woman before his own bleeding arm.

Kegaku lifted the graft from the severed thread. Half the palm mouth had burned away. The remaining teeth worked without sound while white smoke left the wound.

Across the table, the violet thread pulled once toward Ty's wrist. An answering pull came from outside the prison, giving Yun-Jin resistance and a direction.

Kieran helped Jade stand while keeping the broken flute tucked under one arm.

"Your friends still have the road, but the collector is trapped here with us."

"That sounds like progress spoken by someone standing beside Erebos."

"I have survived worse company during shorter reunions."

Ty shoved the Reaper's scythe away and backed toward Jade. One arm hung loose, and three chair splinters remained lodged between his ribs.

"I heard the part where our friends can find us, so everyone protects that sentence."

Erebos turned from the tank. The cut sleeve exposed an old scar running from his shoulder into his chest, too straight for battle and too deliberate for accident.

He looked at Kegaku's ruined graft, then at the violet road he had preserved.

"You chose the wrong thread and brought an army toward my front door."

Kegaku kept his burned palm on the table.

"I chose the thread threatening her while you were busy protecting her yourself."

The answer stopped Erebos longer than disobedience should have.

Outer time closed around the prison with pressure against Jade's teeth.

Every floating room halted. The white space beyond the bridge turned black, cutting off the universes and leaving only the violet thread visible across the table.

The Reaper lifted its scythe inside the sealed dark.

From the tank, the sleeping woman opened both eyes.

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