Chapter 872 - 872: Kegaku Gave Her Hand Back

The feed hose flattened beneath the Reaper's scythe with thirty-two seconds left.

JJ's first pump rattled on Omina's floor. Inside the tank, the woman's pulse climbed while the blocked line starved one side of the current.

Jade grabbed the hose close to the blade and pulled. The scythe's weight kept the tube sealed against the floor.

Ty looked down at the edge hooked behind his spine.

"Pull the hose when I turn because this will hurt."

He twisted his ribs around the blade and forced the hook upward.

The scythe lifted with him. Its hook scraped along three vertebrae and opened a gap beneath the shaft. Jade dragged the hose through before Ty's knees struck the floor.

Fluid surged past her hands and refilled the flattened hose.

On Omina's side, JJ opened the first pump and lowered the second. The woman's pulse dropped below one hundred while Jade checked the hose for a split.

Thirty seconds remained when the tank moved again.

Yun-Jin pulled the brass rail. Erebos lifted the rear mount with shadow while Kieran kept the hoses centered in the violet crack. The tank advanced until Kegaku's grafted arm straightened between him and the glass.

The woman's palm stayed aligned with the graft. Neither hand could move another inch.

"The hand crosses with me, and Kegaku chooses what follows."

Her voice opened the surviving teeth in his palm.

Erebos lowered the tank mount by half an inch.

"Release the glass because the graft cannot survive separation."

Kegaku pressed his forehead against the tank. Blood from his torn lip spread over the place where the woman's face waited behind the water.

"You said the graft would remain mine until she woke."

"I said it would keep you alive while her voice slept."

The answer struck harder than Kegaku's curse. His good hand closed around the black seam above his altered elbow.

He looked at Kieran while keeping the graft against the glass.

"Cut above the graft before the tank tears it apart."

Her gold blade formed beside his arm. The edge hovered over the seam while the old command scar tightened beneath her breastbone.

"I could call this payment for every body you stole."

"Call it whatever lets your hand finish before the clock does."

Jade left the hose and caught Kieran's wrist.

"Cut where the gray skin ends because the black seam carries her pattern."

Kieran moved the blade one inch toward Kegaku's shoulder.

"I will cut where Jade marked, not where anger chooses."

Kegaku put the broken flute mouthpiece between his teeth and bit down.

Kieran turned his arm until the gray graft faced upward. Under the black seam, small teeth moved in time with the woman's pulse. The cut would pass close enough to destroy them if Kegaku pulled away.

"If you apologize while the clock runs, I will not believe you."

Kegaku kept his eyes on the woman behind the glass.

"I came to Earth for her hair and used you because cruelty worked."

"That answer earns accuracy, while forgiveness remains somewhere else."

Jade pressed two fingers above the seam. Living heat ended where Erebos's repair began. She shifted Kieran's wrist until the blade rested entirely over Kegaku's own skin.

"He keeps the nerves above my mark, and she keeps everything below."

Kegaku nodded against the flute piece. The woman closed her palm from inside the tank, making the graft loosen its bite on the glass before the cut landed.

Gold fire passed through his arm and sealed the cut behind the blade.

The cut separated cleanly above the gray graft. Kegaku fell away from the tank with his upper arm burning shut. The severed hand stayed against the glass, its teeth fixed around the brass rail.

The control box dropped to twenty-four seconds beside Jade.

The woman curled her fingers. Her detached graft climbed the rail by biting one notch at a time until its black seams aligned with the sixth clamp.

Jade pushed the tank while Kieran pulled from the gold rim. Yun-Jin and JJ hauled from Omina's side. Glass scraped through the violet opening and widened it around the tank's middle.

The sixth wire began losing pressure beneath the woman's right shoulder.

Its contact moved beneath the woman's right shoulder, cutting a narrow path through skin as the tank shifted. The graft opened its palm mouth over the sixth notch and bit the failing line.

Black seams filled with fluid from the wire.

The graft changed as the tank current entered it. Gray fingers swelled around joints that had looked too small for Kegaku's arm. Old punctures opened along the palm, releasing trapped black fluid into the extraction hose rather than the woman's water.

Her voice came through the mouth with less of Kegaku's pitch beneath it.

"My hand remembers the pressure, but it cannot replace every wire."

Jade tightened the sixth clamp around the graft's wrist. The seam pattern settled, matching the woman's pulse closely enough to stop the contact from cutting deeper.

The woman's pulse steadied, though heat moved immediately into the seventh notch.

"The hand bought one wire, and the next will fail soon."

Jade saw the warming metal and understood the limit.

"Then we get minutes after this, not another home."

The tank advanced until the rear gold rim reached the crack.

A hidden anchor stopped the tank from the prison side.

Yun-Jin pulled hard enough to bend her arrow. Kieran's tether tightened around the rim, yet the tank remained caught with its final foot inside Erebos's realm.

Black thread ran from the underside of the rim to Erebos's exposed chest.

The line entered the deliberate scar beneath his torn sleeve.

"Your body is the last anchor, so remove it."

Erebos looked through the tank at the woman. She kept her face turned toward him while the clock reached sixteen.

"I carried that line before this prison possessed walls."

The graft answered with the woman's voice while its fingers closed on the rail.

"You carried it because cutting me loose frightened you."

The Reaper tore its scythe out of Ty.

Bone fragments followed the hook. Ty caught himself against the map table while the Reaper turned the blade toward the black line joining Erebos to the tank.

Erebos reached the scar before the Reaper's blade could cut the line.

He pushed two fingers into the old cut and caught the black thread beneath his skin. The line resisted as he pulled. Flesh opened from shoulder to chest, revealing knots tied around bone rather than a single tether.

Each knot tightened when the tank moved. One circled his collarbone. Another disappeared beneath his ribs, pulling his weight toward the crack whenever Yun-Jin hauled on the rail.

The woman watched the scar open without turning away.

"You tied every rescue to your body so leaving would hurt you."

"Pain was the only witness I trusted to survive this long."

"Then let it witness you opening your hand at last."

Erebos hooked his thumb beneath the knot around his collarbone. Black thread cut through the skin between his fingers when he dragged it upward.

Kegaku rose on one knee and held his severed arm against his robe.

"Master, leave the line because we can rebuild the route."

"She has heard enough people decide which prison protects her."

Erebos wrapped the thread around his bleeding hand and tore it free.

Every black knot came out of the scar together.

The tank shot through the violet crack and struck Omina's table rim first.

JJ and Yun-Jin fell backward beneath its weight. Omina shoved the frozen tablet away before the gold rim crushed it and guided the tank base onto the cleared table.

The table split beneath the rear mount and scattered sealed records.

Zunoder caught one side before the pumps tipped. Omina kicked the broken leg away and lowered the tank toward the floor while JJ kept both feed controls level.

"Set the rim on the record boxes because the floor slopes."

Yun-Jin shoved three sealed boxes beneath the gold ring. Omina added a fourth under the extraction side until the tank stopped rolling toward the violet crack.

JJ alternated the pumps at the rhythm Jade had called. The woman's pulse remained under one hundred while the sixth support line held through the graft.

The control box dropped to nine seconds remaining.

Jade crossed behind the extraction hose and landed beside the pumps. She checked the sixth clamp, the graft, and the warming seventh notch before looking through the crack again.

Ty remained inside with Kieran's tether around his wrist. Kieran stood at the opening with both feet sliding across the floor as she tried to pull him through.

The Reaper caught Ty by the skull and dragged him toward the opening.

Erebos's severed black line coiled across the map room. Without its anchor, the prison walls began moving through ordinary time. Wooden bridges twisted. The floating rooms beyond them struck one another in the returning white space.

At six seconds, the Reaper forced Ty's head into the crack.

At four, Kieran wrapped the tether around her waist and jumped after him.

At two, Erebos caught Kegaku by the back of his robe as the map room floor folded beneath his knees.

The control-box clock reached zero as the seventh notch warmed.

The sixth wire failed inside the tank and struck the graft clamp.

The severed graft bit through its black seam and carried the pressure into its own gray flesh. Its fingers clenched against the glass while the woman's pulse held.

The seventh notch continued warming beneath Jade's thumb.

"We have six minutes before her borrowed hand loses the next line."

The violet crack opened from floor to ceiling.

Ty came through first with the Reaper's hand around his skull. Kieran followed on the burning tether.

Behind them, the scythe dragged Erebos's collapsing prison wall into Omina's room.