Chapter 954 - 954: Five Anchors Feel The Missing Finger

The first anchor struck Nessa through the recovered field finger.

Her right shoulder rose off Todd's staff. The cage pulled her elbow toward the maintenance gate while the plated finger around her wrist pointed through the oldest square hole in Rillhold's floor.

The second impact drove her chin against the harness strap. Three more followed through separate joints, each carrying a different idea of down.

Todd caught the staff before it rolled from beneath her arm.

"Tell me which pull owns your shoulder before I brace the wrong one."

"None of them own it, but West Four is trying to rent the whole arm."

Beyond the gate, Ty held the White Reaper's scythe across his ribs. His right hand gripped the chain above the blade. Thumb, middle finger, ring finger, and smallest finger tightened together while the empty index joint bent toward the five holes.

The bone was absent. The pain had found every road.

Jade's white self leaned into the scythe from the other side. Its foot copied Jade late and scraped half a circle through the dirt before Jade corrected the knee with her living hand.

"Nessa, count each return before they agree on one direction."

Ty spoke through the chain between his teeth. The Reaper forced the shaft lower and opened the crack beneath his sternum another finger width.

Nessa pressed the recovered field finger flat against her wrist. Its lowest plated joint kicked again.

The first square hole widened around a chipped wheel. White tile passed behind it, followed by the shelter laundry cart and the heating pipe with five dents. A loose sheet crawled across the tile toward the opening.

Jade recognized the wheel before the route took its second turn.

"Earth pulls first through the shelter laundry cart."

The next hole showed a blue roof with five empty shoulder cages bolted to an open wall. A repair number ran beside one bad weld. Nessa had written that number herself after Ressa dropped the inspection chalk into a coolant tray.

Nessa's field finger straightened toward it. Her dead shoulder tried to follow.

"West Four owns the second pull through me."

Todd's staff knocked beneath her arm. The third hole caught the sound and returned a wooden stair with half a copper strip beside it. A fresh split crossed the stair where Todd's shortened staff had struck from the other side.

He shifted his hand away from that mark on the wood in Rillhold.

"The Cross Link still carries my route through the third pull."

Black cloth dragged across the fourth opening. An iron coffin runner rolled under it, and the cloth lifted around the guard of a woman's sword before dropping again. Red grease fell from the runner and traveled sideways rather than into Rillhold.

The fifth hole opened beneath their own stolen stake. Through it, Nessa saw the underside of the roadback carrying Rillhold, with workers crawling between anchor braces while the settlement changed direction around them.

Five roads. Five surfaces. One empty joint inside Ty's hand.

The recovered field finger closed around Nessa's wrist chain.

Every loose object near the holes moved toward the blue roof.

The shelter sheet slipped through its opening and pasted itself against a West Four shoulder cage. Red grease left the coffin runner and marked the same blue wall. A copper shaving from Todd's stair crossed Rillhold's dirt, climbed the second hole, and stopped beside Ressa's bad weld.

Under the roadback, three hanging tools changed direction together. Their cords drew tight toward West Four.

Nessa pulled the recovered finger away from her wrist. Its chain came with it, but the five roads kept turning toward the stored blue direction.

"Cutting the chain will only remove my leash. The direction is stored inside the plates."

Todd set one knee behind her and moved the staff higher across her shoulder blades.

"Then choose where the plates point before those roads choose for you."

Talli reached through the maintenance slot and pressed two fingers beneath Nessa's wrist. Reth lay behind her with his left foot suspended in cloth. He watched Nessa's plated finger seek the blue opening.

"Once those plates accept Rillhold, they may never point to your roof again. You could stand inside West Four's command room and watch that finger choose this roadback."

"A clean road home becomes useless if I bring his prison with me."

Nessa pushed against Todd's staff and raised her right arm by the strength of her back. The cage carried the elbow. Pain began where the shoulder pin had torn free and spread beneath six needle points.

The five holes rotated another tooth toward West Four.

Ty's present fingers followed. His right hand closed around an invisible index bone, and the pressure dragged him off the Reaper's chest. The scythe blade came free of his ribs.

Jade drove her white self into the handle. Nessa's shoulder paid for the copied impact and struck Todd's staff hard enough to split the old center joint.

"The roads are using his wound as one grip. Give the blade the empty bed before they finish closing."

Jade turned her damaged eye toward Ty's hand. Blood gathered beneath the lid and ran along her cheek without changing the white body's stance.

"Ty, open every finger when the edge reaches your wrist."

"I would enjoy one plan that leaves my hand attached."

"Keep the four fingers you brought, and let death cut what Erebos packed between them."

Ty wound his jaw chain around the Reaper's forearm. His crooked rib pressed the wrist upward while his right hand opened against the pull. The empty index bed remained curled after the other four fingers spread.

He forced the middle finger back with his thumb. The absent joint opened between them.

Jade shoved the white self's shoulder. The copy moved late, caught up, and carried the scythe edge toward the gap in Ty's hand.

The Reaper changed its grip. Its blade followed the white collection line inside the wound and ignored Ty's present bones.

Nessa lowered the recovered field finger toward the loose black band. Sennik's old shoulder direction still wound around its square punch, while Rillhold's moving down traveled through the band in uneven jerks.

Todd tightened both hands on the staff.

"I can hold the shoulder through one complete change, but your wrist must make the choice."

"My wrist chose West Four years ago. Today it keeps West Four out of this grip."

Nessa pressed the plated fingertip into the square punch.

Toward the yard, the roadback, and the nearest ration stake, the band pulled her wrist through three changes before the recovered joints accepted that down could move.

The blue roof remained clear in Nessa's memory even as the finger swung away from it.

When the scythe entered Ty's empty index bed, his present bones held while black fiber rose around the blade and stretched through all five openings.

Ty snapped his present fingers shut behind the edge. His jaw pulled the chain the other way.

The Reaper cut.

Earth's sheet dropped back onto white tile. The red grease returned to the coffin runner. Todd's copper shaving struck Rillhold's dirt, and the tools beneath the roadback swung toward their own braces.

West Four's blue roof released the other four roads.

Nessa pulled the recovered field finger from the band and held it toward the second opening. The plates pointed beneath Rillhold instead. Turning her wrist changed the angle by a few degrees and brought it back to the same moving stake.

Her quickest direction home was gone.

Todd kept the staff beneath her arm while she tested the finger again.

"West Four survives the choice even if I reach it by a longer road."

"I will remember that before you pretend losing the route costs nothing."

The five openings began to contract. Jade's white self still held the scythe beside Ty's hand, and her deathward followed marks the cut had left around each road.

A white measuring band tightened around the shelter cart axle. Another closed over the bad weld on West Four's roof. White pressure crossed Todd's copper strip, the coffin runner, and the oldest brace beneath Rillhold.

Black nail points arrived behind them.

One entered the shelter pipe. One bit into blue metal beside Ressa's number. A third drove through Todd's stair. The coffin cloth rose around nail four. Beyond it, the receiving operator set the last point beneath the boot that still held him.

Nessa had broken the common direction. The wound had already traveled.

After the square holes sealed, the field finger still pointed into Rillhold. Five white rings tightened around Ty's empty index bed, each dented inward by a black nail point from the far side.