Chapter 952 - 952: Jade Steps Beside Her White Self

The second white hand closed around an empty scythe and fell apart at the wrist. Nessa's right shoulder slipped above Todd's staff, taking the copied fingers into the floor while Jade kept her own borrowed hand on the real shaft.

"Todd, seat the staff before her shoulder drops."

Todd forced the wood upward. Nessa's coat bunched beneath her neck, and the cage needles under her sleeve turned toward Jade as the copied hand rose again.

"It needs the same grip my cage already remembers."

Jade looked at the scythe caught between her cutter and the Reaper's white fingers. Through Corven, the receiving operator tested the nail in Bera's old chest belt. Talli's red line held Bera behind the gate, though every tap pulled her shoulder toward the yard.

"Put the shaft inside that copied hand now."

Ty's chain tightened around the Reaper's neck while the second hand waited beside Jade's boot, fingers open.

"That requires moving death closer to the hand beside your boot."

"Move it on my count, and keep the blade pointed through Corven."

The Reaper pulled before Jade counted. Ty's uneven rib drove against its shoulder, his right hand caught the elbow, and his jaw took another chain link until the scythe shaft dropped toward the white floor. Jade turned Nessa's cutter and guided the handle into the copied palm.

One finger closed, then the others followed while Todd held the staff against Nessa's shoulder. White bone rose from the floor to give the hand a wrist and elbow. Bent at Jade's angle, the copied arm pulled against her through the shared scythe, and her right sleeve went cold.

Fire lifted from her knuckles in a thin layer. Skin remained underneath, pale and wet where the white state had pressed against it. Her ring finger moved late, and the smallest followed after she had already stopped asking. She kept both around the cutter.

"My arm remains, but the part that wants Ty is leaving first."

"That sounds useful enough to become dangerous immediately."

Ty shifted one rib between Jade and the Reaper's open hand. He stayed wrapped around its torso while the copied white arm climbed out of the floor.

Nessa leaned against Todd's staff. Her right shoulder had stopped dropping. It also stopped answering when she tried to lower it.

"The copy has my cage, my shoulder has the copy, and Todd's staff is holding both of them. Finish before my body keeps whatever we made."

Jade moved her borrowed shoulder forward. The white layer peeled from beneath her coat and left the cloth in place. Her own shoulder remained under it, weak enough that the cutter handle lowered until the copied hand took more of the shaft.

A white torso rose beside her with Jade's narrow stance and the old habit of keeping its left side closer to whoever needed help. The shoulders carried no head. An open neck turned wherever Jade looked and found nothing to see with.

The piece inside Jade's right eye pushed outward. Pain crossed her cheek and entered the roots of her teeth while white blood lifted from the lower lid toward the hollow in the Reaper's skull. The Reaper released Ty's rib and reached for Jade's face.

Ty caught the white wrist with his right hand and pulled it into the crooked space under his sternum. His cracked rib closed over two Reaper fingers and shifted farther out of line.

"Jade, the eye piece belongs wherever you choose before it reaches either skull."

She put her living thumb beneath the edge lodged in her lower lid. Its back had grown into the old fracture, and the first pull moved skin rather than bone. Jade worked one finger beside it until the rough point left her eye socket. Her right knee struck the dirt, copied by the headless white torso.

Nessa's cage arm drove Todd's staff against the ground. He caught the upper end under his chin and kept her harness from folding.

"Pull it clean because my shoulder cannot repeat that fall."

Jade drew the skull piece out. It covered two finger pads. The side facing the Reaper matched the hollow above its right eye, while the reverse carried a groove worn inside Jade's old fracture.

The white thread snapped tight. Ty wound one chain link around it without cutting and forced the Reaper's skull toward his own shoulder while Jade held the piece above the copied torso.

White ribs lifted around her forearm. A neck closed beneath her wrist, followed by a skull that stopped forming when the piece reached its brow. Jade pushed it into the waiting groove, and the finished skull faced her with its jaw clenched in the same bad habit she could feel in her own teeth.

With the thread slack, Jade closed her damaged eyelid. Corven's open chest remained visible through the dark, and beyond him Rillhold's stolen stake moved along black rail while the nailed operator fixed another dead belt to its side.

She pressed her palm over the eye, turned her face toward the maintenance wall, and fixed her living sight on the dirt. The same road stayed behind the closed lid. No second death path appeared around Todd, Nessa, or the workers beyond the gate. Only Corven's cut remained open.

"Closing my eye leaves one dead road open."

Ty's green fire narrowed behind his sockets as his chain held the Reaper's reaching wrist below Jade's face.

"Can you see Bera without seeing every death around her?"

Turning toward the red clinic line changed the view inside Jade's closed eye. Bera lay between Meya and Ruvan with her chest belt still pulling toward Corven. One white path ran from that belt to the Reaper's scythe, while Talli and everyone behind the maintenance gate remained outside it.

"I see one road, and Bera is the only living person still on it."

Jade raised her left hand. The white self beside her followed after a short delay while its right kept the scythe shaft inside the copied grip. When Jade pointed toward the loose band, the copy first pointed at Bera and corrected only after Jade touched its elbow.

The white self stepped across the floor and put its free palm on Bera's collection line. White pressure left the chest belt and followed the copied arm back into the stripped yard. The copy tried to turn after it, and Jade held its elbow until Bera's line settled inside the yard.

Ruvan and Meya pulled Bera through the maintenance gate. Talli loosened the chest belt only after the red clinic ring held both shoulders, and Bera closed each tied finger on command. Her death path stayed with the white self.

"Move Nessa and Todd behind the gate while the copy carries that road."

Todd walked backward with the staff across Nessa's harness. Her right arm remained raised, and her usable hand carried the recovered field finger by its wrist chain. Cava rolled the loose band after them without releasing Corven's bent return plate.

The white floor kept every step inside the yard. Jade stood on her own legs with her returned right arm numb inside the sleeve and two fingers closing after the rest. She walked beside the white self rather than letting it drag her by the shared shoulder memory.

The Reaper tried to pull its scythe free. Ty wrapped another rib across its waist and lost his grip on the uneven one. It struck the floor near Jade's boot.

She kicked the rib back beneath his sternum, and Ty caught it against the chain with his right wrist.

"You still leave important parts where I have to find them."

"I remembered your preferred hand and forgot the housekeeping."

Jade touched the white self's elbow with her living hand. Together they turned Nessa's cutter against the black work line feeding through Corven. When the copied blade cut one strand, the nailed operator stopped hammering inside Jade's deathward.

Behind him, five iron wheels carried a narrow frame and a living body into view. Empty sockets waited at both hands, both feet, and the center of the chest while every restraint corrected the person's efforts toward the stolen stake.

Bruised knees pushed against the lower bars, and one bare heel kept searching for a floor the frame refused to provide.

The operator turned the five sockets toward Jade's open road.