Chapter 566: The Last Shoe

At four minutes on the clone’s deployment clock, Loccy listened to the north bell finish beneath the first renewed surge of light from the sky.

The sound reached her through the occupied shell under her palms, its ordinary strikes nearly disappearing beneath the much larger complaint of the moving district.

Six ribs of the foundation pressed into the burden she was holding, the joined frame trying to carry twenty-three buildings toward the cradle beyond the square.

The clone crouched beside her knee with the chisel ready, its borrowed spear laid lengthwise against the notch where it would stay clear of the cut.

Loccy kept her foot planted where the ruined boot had peeled away, the rough shell digging into her exposed heel each time the next joint tightened.

She had stopped wishing for a better place to stand, saving that annoyance for whoever had made the heart decide a nursery belonged in its turning path.

’After this, I want the bootmaker’s name.’

The first direction joint lay beneath a folded ridge of pressure, its outer lip showing only when she lifted the connected ribs enough to slacken their pull.

The clone slipped the chisel into that opening, bringing the borrowed hammer down in a short stroke that stopped before it could drive the edge into the wrong layer.

A bright shaving curled out beside the tool, its movement showing Loccy where the held fold was trying to spring shut beneath her hand.

She lowered her shoulder instead of shifting her foot, taking the shell’s fresh demand through the burden already declared while the clone struck again.

The joint’s thin retaining bridge broke with a sharp click, the released edge tipping toward the service gap before the clone caught it with the hammer’s handle.

It guided the piece into the empty recess beside its knee, leaving the first direction joint open while Loccy held the new imbalance away from the houses.

The nearest roof leaned toward her by an amount she felt before she saw, its connected weight gathering against the ribs under her palm.

A woman at an upstairs window pulled a child back from the sill, the child’s hand leaving a pale print in the dust on the glass.

Loccy set her jaw while the leaning stopped, keeping her gaze on that ordinary window until the curtain fell across it from inside.

"First clear," the clone said.

The maintenance worker below their ledge marked the cut on a slate, setting a small bent line beside it to show the pressure fold Loccy was still carrying.

She could hear his chalk scrape during the pause before the heart pulled again, the sound absurdly delicate beside the foundation trying to drag her hands forward.

The empty foundry lay off to the left beyond the nursery passage, its cleared floor visible through an open loading door wide enough to receive the redirected weight.

Workers had finished pulling the last carts out of its mouth, their retreat leaving a broad patch of bare floor where the district would have to settle.

Between that landing and Loccy’s next cut, the nursery children were still passing through the narrow exit beneath the side stair.

A teacher held the door with her hip while guiding them toward the shaded route, her free hand reaching back for the next small shoulder without looking away.

Loccy saw the boy who had dropped his shoe earlier standing inside the doorway now, the recovered shoe clutched under one arm while he stared at the moving shell.

The teacher pointed him toward the first child ahead of him, her mouth shaping a quick instruction that disappeared beneath a new surge of the heart.

He went after that child with one bare foot slapping the passage, the shoe held tight enough to bend its soft side against his chest.

Loccy wanted to tell him to keep going until he was somewhere allowed to worry about shoes, the effort needed for the next hold leaving no breath for it.

The second direction joint began opening below her wrist, its pressure fold narrowing the gap to a dark line beneath the exposed lip.

"Second joint is exposed," she told the clone, "pressure fold underneath."

"That phrase is becoming expensive."

It moved the chisel to the new opening while she took the spear’s shaft with her free fingers, drawing its butt out of the notch before the changing angle trapped it.

The ordinary point scraped the supported patch as she laid the spear clear, returning her hand to the joined ribs while the clone tested the cut.

The tool stopped against the first layer, its angle held steady while the body’s face turned toward the nursery passage beneath them.

A second cut now would swing the cleared edge across that exit, the heart’s forward drag supplying the rest before Loccy could catch its turn.

The clone lowered the hammer without striking, keeping the chisel in place while the teacher brought the next two children through the narrow doorway.

"Waiting."

Loccy nodded once through the strain, the small motion costing less than the answer she wanted to give the body beside her.

The heart did not wait with them, its next pull climbing through the six ribs while the open first joint let the whole burden lean harder against her.

Pain spread from her heel up behind the knee, her four Wings bracing close around the work as she kept the connected structure from shearing toward the nursery wall.

The teacher’s voice finally reached the ledge through a break in the grinding, a count of four followed by the sharper call that brought a little girl away from the doorway.

The child had stopped to look back inside, one arm stretched toward something behind the teacher that Loccy could not see from her planted position.

The teacher bent without letting the door swing, taking the girl’s hand before bringing the next child through beside her.

"Five, six."

Loccy fixed those two numbers against the pressure in her arms, the thought of how many were still inside feeling heavier than the roofs she already held.

The lower stair shivered beneath the retreating feet, its third tread beginning to split along the edge hidden from Loccy by the passage wall.

A pale line caught briefly under the teacher’s shoe before the tread stopped moving, the next child stepping over it without needing to be lifted.

Loccy could not turn her head far enough to see who had reached that side, keeping her attention on the joint while the clone waited with the hammer down.

Above them, the false morning grew brighter until the shade beneath the ledge looked blue, the nursery door casting a long wrong shadow across the empty foundry approach.

The teacher pulled the seventh child through that shadow with a hand under one elbow, calling back for the two still following inside.

The clone’s mouth tightened as another pressure ridge crawled toward its chisel, the waiting body shifting its grip to keep the tool from being twisted sideways.

Loccy saw the strain in that single movement, the borrowed hammer growing small beside the piece of district they were asking it to help turn.

"Keep the edge."

"Holding it."

The eighth child emerged carrying a little bundle against her stomach, the teacher taking its loose trailing corner before it could catch beneath the closing door.

The last child came after her on shorter steps, one hand gripping the teacher’s sleeve while the other rubbed at eyes made wet by the blue glare.

Loccy watched the little feet pass the third tread, waiting through the final reach of the teacher’s heel before allowing herself to look toward the cut again.

"Nine, all clear," the teacher shouted.

The clone brought the hammer down before the last word had finished carrying, its held angle breaking the second retaining bridge through the fold Loccy kept open.

The dark line snapped wide beneath her wrist, a new direction taking hold through the connected ribs while she leaned into the load with her foot still planted.

At that same instant the manufactured sunrise broke overhead, its blue brightness peeling away from the nursery wall as a hard crack came from the sky brace.

Ferra’s three-part hum stumbled into two uneven notes, the prepared line beside the clone flickering while the newly released weight tried to drag its knee toward the gap.

Loccy caught the body’s sleeve with her free hand, keeping her other palm against the shell while the clone drove its elbow onto the supported patch.

The chisel stayed in its grip as it recovered, its face going pale above the single Ring before it settled both feet against the moving surface again.

The triangle’s third note returned before the prepared boundary could fall, a worker’s shout from the junction naming the lost sky brace and the hands already reaching it.

Loccy let the sleeve go only when the clone looked up at her, their brief eye contact settling the next movement between them without another order from across the city.

The third direction joint had opened under the turn, its pressure fold running opposite the first two as the foundry came into the heart’s new line.

The clone set the chisel against that last retaining edge, waiting for Loccy to lower one side of the connected ribs into the space the first cuts had made.

She felt the occupied roofs answer her adjustment in a long reluctant sway, the nearest chimney tilting through its last dangerous angle before the burden settled against her hold.

The final hammer stroke snapped the third bridge, the sound small enough to disappear beneath the empty foundry floor answering the incoming weight.

Its first boom rose through Loccy’s bones before the air carried it, the broad cleared landing taking the district’s redirected front away from the cradle.

Dust jumped along the foundry doorway in a low moving line, rolling past abandoned wheel ruts where the last workers had cleared their carts.

Loccy held the connected shell through the second settling blow, her heel burning against the same rough patch while the occupied buildings shook above her hands.

The nursery wall stayed beside its emptied passage instead of disappearing beneath a turning foundation, its open door banging once against the teacher’s forgotten prop.

’You can keep that noise.’

The clone reached for the spear after the largest sway passed, planting its butt in the cleared notch to help brace the loose local edge beside Loccy’s knee.

The ordinary shaft bowed under its part of the work, the body checking the flex before leaving the borrowed chisel and hammer where they could be reached again.

The teacher had gathered all nine children behind the shade, counting their faces with one finger while the shoe boy finally put his recovered possession down.

Didi stood beside the third stair beneath them, withdrawing her hand from the frost that had held its damaged tread until the last small foot was clear.

Loccy caught sight of her face as she straightened, the princess giving the parked shell one searching look before turning back toward the children.

[ Loccy Valid Work Experience: 6,000,000 ]

[ Loccy Wing Progress: 12,000,000 / 37,500,000 ]

[ Wing 5: Not Yet Unlocked ]

The six million joined the work already carried in Loccy’s bar, its new total shining beside the four Wings she could still feel shaking around her.

She stared at the twelve million long enough for the number to stop swimming, a rough laugh escaping before she had any useful words for it.

The maintenance worker finished the third joint mark on his slate, recording each opened fold before turning the board toward the witness at the access.

He wrote Loccy’s name beside the completed redirect, the clone glancing at it before lowering its eyes to the spear shaft it was still holding.

Juna reached the junction below as the last dust thinned over the foundry, her four Wings folded close while Hajin remained a step behind her near Ferra’s workers.

"You parked it," she called.

Loccy looked toward the cradle route they had cleared, feeling the new sideways pressure already gathering where the foundry would need its next brace.

"It only buys a different danger."

"We can work with a different one."

The answer came from the clone beside her knee, its gaze moving to the next loose edge while the borrowed spear flexed under their smaller immediate load.

One nursery child held up a scrap covered in hurried chalk lines from behind the teacher’s shade, its two large figures joined by one impossibly long hand.

Loccy recognized her own spread Wings above the figure with the enormous feet, the smaller body beside her wearing a single circle over its arm.

The child pointed at their joined hands in the drawing before waving the scrap harder, nearly losing it when the teacher reached to keep it out of the dust.

Loccy managed to lift two fingers from her resting hand in answer, the child’s grin making the ugly pull behind her knee easier to bear for one breath.

At five minutes thirty seconds, the north bell reported the heart parked beside the empty foundry, its occupied shell still under watch above Loccy’s planted foot.