From Human to Skeleton: Revived with Infinite System Crystals

Kieran drew the repaired flute from beneath her arm and kept its broken mouthpiece aimed at Kegaku.

Four metal braces held the instrument together. Dried gold remained caught in one hinge where her fire had entered it on Earth. The second end still carried the shallow dent from the day Kegaku pressed it into her chest and turned her body against Jade.

Kegaku lifted his good hand toward the flute.

"She asked for it, and you heard the same words."

"I heard her ask you to find it, not own it."

Inside the tank, the woman kept one bleeding hand against the violet crack. Her other palm stayed aligned with the graft on Kegaku's arm. She moved two fingers.

The graft copied the shape and spoke for her.

"Cover the second hole with fire before he plays."

Kieran slid the narrow point of her blade through the second hole. Gold fire filled the bore and came out between the first two braces. Kegaku reached again, stopping when the blade touched the webbing between his fingers.

"You will receive one note while my blade chooses the opening."

"That hole steers bodies, and closing it will spoil the route."

"Then your hands finally understand why mine refuses to move."

The Reaper struck the violet crack with the back of its scythe.

Glass snapped beneath the tooth. The fracture reached toward the tank's gold rim before Ty caught the shaft and pulled it sideways. His damaged shoulder separated again. Kieran heard the joint scrape but kept her blade inside the flute.

Erebos drove shadow around the crack, packing black thread between the violet edges.

"Playing that instrument inside stopped time releases every command stored in its repairs."

Kegaku looked down at the four braces holding the old flute together.

"You repaired it and never thought that warning deserved words."

"You treated warnings as challenges until your body learned restraint."

The curse beneath Kegaku's collar brightened. His graft clenched against the glass while the woman pressed harder from inside. Blood from her removed contact drifted past her ribs and entered the extraction current.

Jade watched the gray filter darken as the woman's blood entered.

"Finish arguing after we stop her blood from reaching that filter."

She opened the lower service panel and found three narrow clamps beneath the return hose. Two matched the feed pumps. The third held the extraction line against a brass rail that continued around the tank base.

Eleven notches divided the rail, with the empty fourth still cooling. Beneath Jade's fingertip, heat pulsed through the fifth in the same rhythm as the woman.

"Each remaining wire has a clamp under this rail."

The woman nodded and folded her fingers into a new shape. Kegaku's graft copied her again.

"One note releases one clamp, provided he plays my fingering."

Kieran studied the woman's hand before looking at Kegaku.

"Your fingers will follow hers while the second hole stays closed."

"The note will enter you first because your fire blocks it."

"That is why you will remember exactly who decides when it ends."

Ty lost his footing beside the tank. The Reaper drove him into the black table and sent the twelve circles sliding under his ribs. The LEGATO helm had broken, though the remaining blank faces descended from the bridge and pressed against the corridor entrance.

The flute's silence held every helm at the corridor threshold.

Erebos noticed them and pulled his shadow away from the violet crack. Black thread ran beneath the helms and held them outside the map room.

Without his pressure, the crack widened around the violet tooth.

An arrowhead entered from the far side. Violet metal pushed through by half an inch before the glass caught its shoulders.

Yun-Jin's voice arrived through the hollow shaft.

"I found your wall, and the wall resents being found."

Jade leaned toward the arrow without taking her hands off the extraction hose.

"Keep pressure on it because we need a route for the tank."

"The opening currently objects to anything wider than my smallest arrow."

"Then we will give your arrow something useful to pull."

Jade unhooked the brass rail from the tank base. Eleven clamps came free together, though every wire stayed locked inside its notch. She passed the end toward the violet arrow.

Erebos caught the rail before it reached the crack.

"Outside stopped time, her first wire fails within forty-three seconds."

The woman looked at him through the water. She held up four fingers, then three.

"She knew the number before you decided to share it."

"Knowing a death and surviving it remain different skills."

"You kept her alive, and her next day belongs to her."

Jade pulled the rail from his hand and hooked its end around the arrowhead. Yun-Jin drew enough tension to hold both pieces against the crack.

The Reaper's scythe came down between them, forcing Jade away from the rail.

Ty caught the blade across his crooked shoulder. The edge entered bone and stopped above his spine. Red fire ran along the shaft toward the Reaper's hands, but white flame ate through it from the other direction.

"The collector is winning this discussion, so someone plays now."

Kieran placed the flute in Kegaku's hands without removing her fire blade from the second hole.

His graft remained pressed to the tank. The woman spread her fingers, closing the first, fourth, and sixth holes through the matching seams in his palm. Kegaku copied her with his good hand and brought the mouthpiece close.

Kieran wound Jade's tether twice around her own wrist.

"If my arm turns toward Jade, Ty breaks it before I finish."

Ty pushed against the scythe until the cut in his shoulder widened.

"I understand the instruction, and I dislike how prepared it sounds."

Kegaku blew one note through the repaired flute.

The sound entered Kieran through her blade. Her right hand closed around the tether. The old command found the scar beneath her breastbone and pulled her one step toward Jade.

Kieran drove her own knee into the floor.

The movement tore skin beneath her armor, but the blade stayed inside the second hole. Gold fire filled the note and forced it back through the instrument.

The stored command spread beyond her scar and entered the corridor.

Every blank helm outside the corridor copied Kieran's posture. Empty right arms reached from beneath their faceplates and pointed toward Jade. One tore through Erebos's shadow, leaving strips of black thread hanging from its shoulders as it crossed the map room.

Jade kept one hand around the extraction hose and drew Ty's fallen sickle with the other. The empty arm caught her wrist before the blade cleared the floor.

Kieran felt the grip through the old command. Her trapped right hand tightened at the same angle, carrying the helm's pressure back into her bones.

"The repairs stored my movements inside those empty faces."

"Then move the one holding Jade into the collector's blade."

Kieran shifted her knee and dragged her controlled arm across her own body. The helm mirrored her. It pulled Jade out of the scythe's path and stepped directly between Ty and the Reaper.

Ty released his hold on the shaft before the Reaper noticed.

The scythe crossed the helm from shoulder to hip. Black feathers burst over Jade's arm while the copied grip fell away with the severed limb.

Kieran opened her fingers before another face could inherit the hold. Gold fire climbed from the blade into the flute's first brace and burned the stored version of her movement. The remaining helms struck the corridor walls and failed to enter.

Kegaku's cheeks hollowed. A metal brace snapped open against his lip.

Inside the tank, the woman closed her fifth finger, releasing the clamp beneath Jade's hand with a brass click.

From below the woman's ribs, one wire slid out without tearing skin. It pulled through the tank wall and wound around the violet arrow. The arrowhead gained another inch through the crack.

Outside, JJ and Yun-Jin hauled on the shaft.

The brass rail bent against the opening. Violet fractures crossed the glass until they reached the gold rim. The tank shifted away from its floor mount, dragging two feed hoses and the extraction line with it.

The note ended when Kieran twisted her blade.

The flute split at its first brace and trapped Kegaku's lower lip between two pieces. He lowered it with blood running down his chin.

Kieran's right arm remained stretched toward Jade. She opened the hand one finger at a time and pulled the gold tether back around her waist.

"The command still knows me, but I choose how it ends."

The woman struck the inside of the tank twice. Her graft repeated the blows against the outer glass.

Jade checked the pumps. Both feeds held. The filter continued pulling the woman's blood away from the remaining contacts.

"We can move the whole tank if the hoses cross first."

Erebos looked at the widening crack, the loosened rail, and the flute bleeding in Kegaku's hands.

"You have thirty-two seconds after the gold rim crosses."

The woman used Kegaku's graft to answer while pointing toward the Reaper.

"Then make death waste the first eleven seconds."

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