From Human to Skeleton: Revived with Infinite System Crystals

The breathing beneath Kegaku matched every charge entering his back.

Four bolts rose from the pressure bed. The iron frame lifted with him still strapped across it, exposing a narrow chamber under the floor.

Jade kept both hands on the tank hose while Omina pushed her green hilt into the opening.

"Raise the bed evenly because his pulse carries her pressure now."

Omina built one green bar beneath each corner. The frame rose another foot without bending the pipe connected to the tank.

A woman lay below Kegaku with her hands buried wrist-deep inside two pump cylinders. A tube entered the scar in her throat. The third pipe had opened against her ribs, forcing Kegaku's charge through both bodies before it reached the floor.

Her eyes opened when his heart completed another beat.

"Put the condemned body beneath the blade before he spreads again."

Kegaku pulled against the chest strap. The holes around his neck leaked onto the iron bed.

"Keeper Palla asked the same thing before my execution began."

The woman turned her head until she could see Erebos.

"The thief returned without the collar he promised to preserve."

Erebos knelt beside the chamber and reached for the throat tube. Palla rotated both wrists inside the pump cylinders.

The pressure bed clamped Kegaku from shoulders to ankles.

His body drove into the iron hard enough to empty his lungs. At the tank, the seventh hose kicked against Jade's grip while the woman's pulse climbed.

"Touch my throat again, and both patients lose their pressure."

Erebos withdrew his hand while the clamps continued tightening.

"You built a machine that harvested prisoners after the blade fell."

"I built restraints for the thing you carried away."

Palla twisted her left wrist. A valve closed beneath her arm, and the tank hose flattened near Jade's knee.

JJ opened the second feed pump until its housing shook.

"She is losing the pressure bed, so give me another route."

The tank woman's returned graft struck twice against the glass and pointed at Palla's right cylinder.

"Break the right pump handle without removing her hand."

Jade grabbed the handle. It resisted until Yun-Jin looped violet thread around the end and pulled from the doorway. Metal bent across Palla's knuckles.

Palla drove her fingers deeper into the cylinder.

"That pump keeps the condemned pulse inside this execution yard."

"Then tell us why Kegaku's pulse needs a prison."

Jade leaned on the handle while Yun-Jin pulled. The hinge cracked, opening a gap through the valve. Pressure returned to the tank hose in uneven bursts.

Kegaku's next heartbeat passed through Palla and entered every pipe beneath the building.

Something knocked against the underside of the execution platform outside.

Another knock answered from beyond the stone trench. More followed beneath the yard until rainwater trembled inside every broken groove.

Palla twisted beneath the bed to look at Kegaku above her.

"Your heartbeat gives the executed enough motion to borrow breath."

Kegaku worked his living hand under the chest strap.

"The flute controlled bodies on Earth before anyone removed this curse."

"The collar kept your reach short, and the flute gave that reach direction."

Kieran heard from the doorway. The repaired flute remained tucked behind her belt where she had put it during the crossing.

She wrapped one hand around it without drawing the instrument.

"How much of Sadle hears him without a note?"

Palla looked toward the knocking under the yard.

"Every body still connected to an execution return line."

Erebos watched the pipes rather than the woman he had left beneath them.

"Sadle closed most return lines after I removed Kegaku."

"You closed the surface valves and left the burial mains untouched."

Palla forced her left wrist backward. The tank hose began flattening again, though the broken right hinge prevented a full seal.

Jade reached through the floor opening and caught Palla's forearm.

"Keep the tank alive, and we remove you from those cylinders."

"Remove the condemned pulse first because it wakes worse people than me."

"He is a person strapped above your face, so answer the offer correctly."

Palla stared at Jade's hand around her arm. The pressure in the hose dropped another step.

Under the execution yard, a stone cover moved across gravel.

Kegaku heard it and stopped pulling at his restraints.

"Open her cylinders because she cannot choose while the machine uses both hands."

Jade kept her grip on Palla while looking up at him.

"She is trying to cut pressure from the woman beside you."

"I spent years calling obedience a choice whenever Master held the other answer."

Erebos met his eyes from beside the chamber without defending himself.

Omina changed the angle of her hilt. Two green bars entered the chamber and closed around Palla's pump cylinders rather than her arms.

"The operator's hands are collected separately from the machinery holding them."

Palla planted one heel and gave the cylinders a hard pull.

Omina pulled harder. Both cylinders split along their seams, releasing Palla's hands with the internal pistons still clamped around her fingers.

The tank hose filled completely and stopped kicking under Jade's hands.

Jade locked its collar before the next pulse arrived. The tank woman's heartbeat settled while JJ lowered the second feed pump.

Palla curled onto one side beneath the bed. Her hands could close, though short piston rods remained attached to three fingers on each side.

"Release my throat tube before the burial mains reverse through it."

Erebos reached down again. Jade caught his wrist before he touched Palla.

"She asked for release, but she never asked you to perform it."

Palla studied Jade before extending one damaged hand toward Omina.

Omina used the edge of her hilt to open the tube clamp. Palla pulled the tube out herself and coughed dark fluid across the chamber floor.

Outside, the Reaper tore its scythe out of the execution block.

The removed curse remained caught in the blade's split. White fire carried the old marks along the hook while the Reaper crossed the platform.

Ty caught the scythe shaft at the building entrance. The swing drove him into the wall and sent roof stones across Yun-Jin's violet line.

Zunoder used Ty's old body to shove the stones away from the tank rail.

"The collector regained its weapon, and our entrance has narrowed."

Kieran drew the flute halfway from her belt.

Palla saw the metal braces and pushed herself upright beneath the raised bed.

"Playing that instrument now gives every buried body the same order."

"A note might turn them against the Reaper long enough to leave."

Erebos spoke while watching the scythe force Ty backward.

Kegaku twisted his wrist free of the loosened strap and reached toward Kieran.

"Keep the flute closed because I already used people that way on Earth."

Kieran pushed the instrument back behind her belt.

"Then we survive without putting your old command inside anyone else."

The Reaper's hook entered the building and caught the green bar beneath Kegaku's bed. Omina held the rail while Ty and Zunoder pulled on the shaft from opposite bodies.

Palla crawled out of the chamber. Her knees failed when she stood, but she used the broken pump rods to reach a valve behind the bed.

"Move the tank beside the western wall before I open the burial return."

Jade and JJ pushed the tank rail. Yun-Jin dragged the pump sled after them while Kieran kept the flute away from the pipes.

Palla forced the valve through rust until the handle dropped.

The Reaper pulled its scythe free as the floor beneath it opened. The creature fell waist-deep into a shaft packed with old chains and bodies that had started moving.

Hands closed around its robe. Several belonged to humans. Others ended in claws, stone fingers, or clusters of small bones tied together with execution wire.

The Reaper cut through the first bodies and climbed.

None of the awakened dead looked at Kegaku for instruction.

They dragged themselves from the burial shaft with different wounds and different anger. One attacked the Reaper. Another struck Palla with a broken chain before Omina's bar stopped it. Three crawled toward the tank because the pressure hose carried the strongest pulse.

Kegaku watched the awakened bodies from the raised iron bed.

"They are awake, and none of them belong to me."

Palla braced both damaged hands against the valve.

"Keep believing that when someone begs you to play."

Across the execution yard, dozens of stone covers began lifting in the rain.

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