Chapter 878 - 878: Kegaku Missed Six Beats

The rail cutter's saw threw the first strip of iron into the street below.

The funeral engine struck the damaged section in three hundred feet.

Palla pulled the warning horn twice. The masked forewoman ahead answered by driving her saw deeper into the left rail.

Her voice came through a bridge speaker above the cab.

"Keeper Palla, stop the condemned engine before we remove both rails."

Jade pushed Palla aside from the speaking tube without taking the controls from her.

"This train carries a living patient who dies if we stop."

The forewoman looked past the cab toward the tank and the bodies fighting across the roofs.

"Your patient brought an execution outbreak onto a living freight line."

"We sounded your warning before we entered the city. Clear the bridge."

The forewoman raised one hand. Her cutters moved to the right rail.

Palla shoved Jade away from the tube and locked the engine throttle forward.

"Her name is Denna, and she cuts first because bridges cannot apologize."

"Then show me how to cross what she removes."

Palla pointed through the rear window. Omina was already extending green bars beneath the left wheels while Yun-Jin fired violet anchors into the bridge supports.

The first funeral car struck a bent section of rail.

Something inside threw its weight against the right wall. The car leaned far enough for Ty to lose one foot from the roof. Zunoder caught his wrist while the Reaper brought its scythe down between them.

Ty pulled Zunoder into the blade's path with him, forcing the white line to divide before the hook landed.

The scythe cut through the roof between both bodies.

Inside the car, awakened hands reached through the opening and grabbed the Reaper's shaft.

"The cars overturn before Omina can replace the missing rail."

Palla watched the control frame shake with every body moving behind them.

Jade looked at the tank. The woman's returned graft had left the failed sixth wire and pressed flat against the glass.

The graft's five fingers closed, opened, and closed again.

Jade recognized the pump rhythm Kegaku had used during the extraction.

"She wants his pulse interrupted while she carries the pressure."

Palla counted the distance to the bridge gap.

"The graft can hold six missing beats before its seams tear."

"Six beats will quiet every body connected to him?"

"Long enough for their borrowed motion to lose the train's rhythm."

Jade climbed from the cab onto Kegaku's rear platform. Wind from the city towers pulled at her coat while the first rail gap appeared ahead.

Kegaku had heard enough through the speaking tube.

"Tell me who can stop my heart without damaging the pressure bed."

Palla remained inside the cab. Kieran stood on the first funeral car with the flute case secured beneath one arm.

Erebos knelt beside Kegaku's chest and rested one palm near the pressure coupling.

"I stopped it twice during the original repair and restarted it both times."

"You never mentioned the first stop when I asked before."

"You were alive, angry, and more interested in walking again."

Kegaku tested the chest strap and looked through the funeral cars toward the tank.

"Stop it for six beats after Jade confirms the graft carries pressure."

Erebos placed two fingers against Kegaku's breastbone. Shadow entered through the open punctures around his neck and moved beneath the skin toward his chest.

Kegaku caught Erebos's wrist before shadow entered his chest.

"Remove the shadow after six, even if the train has not crossed."

"The seventh beat may leave the tank on a broken bridge."

"Then everyone gets six honest beats, and you control nothing after them."

Erebos nodded while the engine bounced beneath his motionless hand.

Jade ran along the funeral roofs toward the tank. The Reaper swung for her from the third car. Ty caught the hook with one sickle while Zunoder drove the old body's shoulder into the shaft.

Kieran moved beside Jade without opening the flute case.

"The graft needs contact with the seventh return before we begin."

JJ unlocked the line at the tank rim. Jade guided the woman's graft around the hose while its palm teeth bit into the collar.

As the graft pulled support pressure into its gray seams, Jade raised her grease-streaked hand toward Kegaku from the tank roof.

Erebos closed his fingers over the shadow around Kegaku's heart.

Kegaku's first missing beat passed through the pressure bed.

Every sealed funeral car struck once from the inside. The awakened operator in the cab released the throttle and sagged against his safety belt.

During the second missing beat, bodies holding the Reaper lost their grip. The creature remained standing while Ty and Zunoder gained enough room to force its hook away from the tank hose.

The third missing beat reached the bridge gap with the locomotive.

Omina's green bars became the missing left rail and bowed beneath the locomotive's first wheels. Yun-Jin's violet anchors pulled them level while the engine crossed onto support that had never carried such weight.

Forewoman Denna raised her saw toward the right rail.

Palla dragged the speaking tube from its bracket.

"He stopped his own heart to keep your bridge clear of moving dead."

Denna saw Kegaku strapped behind the cab and the gray graft carrying pressure inside the tank.

Denna turned the saw around and lowered its hook toward Omina's rail.

On the fourth missing beat, Denna drove its hooked end beneath Omina's nearest green bar. Her crew followed, wedging their cutters between the temporary rail and the bridge supports.

The first funeral car crossed without leaning while Denna's crew held the temporary rail.

The fifth missing beat brought the tank trolley over the gap. JJ held both pumps against their mounts while Jade kept the graft's teeth from cutting through the seventh hose.

Gray seams split across the graft's wrist and exposed black fluid beneath them.

The tank woman folded her living hand over the matching wrist inside the glass and held the borrowed pressure in both arms.

The sixth missing beat reached Erebos as the tank's front wheels crossed.

Erebos opened his hand and stripped every shadow away.

Kegaku's heart remained still beneath his fingers after the shadow left.

"Restart him now because the graft has reached its limit."

Jade's voice crossed the cars through the speaking tube.

Erebos struck Kegaku's chest with the heel of his hand, making the pressure bed answer while Kegaku's body stayed against the straps.

Palla abandoned the throttle and climbed through the cab window. She drove two piston rods into the pressure coupling beneath Kegaku's ribs.

"The bed remembers the stopped rhythm, so break its memory first."

Palla twisted both rods and released a burst of light from the coupling into Kegaku's spine.

When his heart struck beneath Erebos's palm and shook the pressure coupling, the restarted pulse entered the tank hose before Kegaku drew air. The graft released the seventh collar and left two teeth embedded in it.

Inside the glass, the woman curled around her damaged returned arm while her heartbeat remained level.

The final tank wheels cleared Omina's green rail.

Denna tore her saw free and ran beside the engine on the maintenance ledge. Jade reached down from the cab roof. Denna caught her wrist and let Jade pull her aboard.

"You get one bridge before I decide whether this was rescue or invasion."

"Start deciding after your workers clear the funeral yard ahead."

Denna entered the cab and saw the restrained operator reaching for the throttle again as Kegaku's pulse returned.

She tightened his safety belt and pulled a city route map from beneath the controls.

"The next freight yard connects to six clinics and the lower morgue."

Palla looked down at the rails carrying Kegaku's pulse through the city.

"Cut those branches before his next beat reaches the junction."

Denna reached for the route brake while Palla watched the branching pipes.

The control frame knocked beneath her hand before her fingers closed.

Kegaku's restarted pulse had already passed under the freight yard.

At street level, a clinic cart stopped between two food stalls. The sheet over its passenger rose as the body underneath sat upright.

Across the lower city, morgue bells began ringing from inside locked buildings.