Chapter 969: Kegaku Remembers Who Chose Regaku

Kegaku’s right hand closed around a flute that remained three feet away.

His thumb pressed against the side of his bent index finger. The other fingers left room for a metal tube. Inside the tank, his severed graft copied the grip against the unnamed woman’s ribs.

Kieran put her boot on the flute case before either hand could reach it.

"Your hand used that grip on Earth, and my right shoulder still knows which movement came after it when you turned me toward Jade."

"My hand is repeating what Earth sent back."

"Then keep the rest of your body on that pressure bed while we find the sender."

Against the chest strap, Kegaku pulled his elbow until the bed springs answered. His hand kept its shape while Kieran opened the case with her heel across the lid.

Inside lay two flute sections joined by three braces, with Kieran’s gold sealing the second hole where her stolen movement remained caught. Around the tube, the first brace rotated while nobody touched it.

A thin strip of metal pushed from beneath the hinge.

The tank woman drove Kegaku’s graft against the glass. Its surviving palm teeth caught the exposed edge before the brace swallowed it again.

Her living hand pointed at Kegaku.

"Pull with the hand he left you, because mine is already holding your evidence."

Kegaku reached from the bed. The wrist strap stopped him six inches short. Kieran lifted the case within that distance without releasing it.

"You may touch the strip while the instrument remains under my hand."

His fingernail caught the edge.

The metal scraped across the brace, and the sound put Erebos’s field bench beneath Kegaku’s palm.

Before Earth, the strip had rested across Erebos’s thumb beside the complete Sadle cell door. Under Kegaku’s collar, the execution ring brightened whenever he moved too far from the stolen door.

Seven fresh dents from Erebos’s punch spelled Regaku across the upper half.

Sarabi already occupied the lower half in smaller marks beside a pair of curved supplier holes.

"Sadle follows Kegaku through the sentence I interrupted, so Earth receives a name without that route attached."

Kegaku had watched Erebos slide the strip through the flute’s first brace.

"Why keep the supplier name beneath the one you chose?"

"A surname makes human records relax, while a supplier mark satisfies border officers who never ask whether anyone expected the creature carrying it."

Kegaku had liked the full sound. Regaku Sarabi carried no execution block, no pressure bed, and no keeper who remembered him screaming. The name entered the flute while his old one stayed close to Erebos.

"Regaku handles Earth, and Kegaku returns after the field work is complete."

"What returns if Earth destroys more than the name?"

Erebos had closed the brace with one careful push. "I repair whatever remains useful enough to come home."

Kegaku walked the instrument beyond the far edge of the stolen cell door. The execution ring stayed loose against his neck all the way to the far mark. He returned to the bench and held the flute with both hands.

"Does anything I do under Regaku follow Kegaku back through this door?"

"Only the useful parts return, unless you insist on carrying the rest."

Kegaku accepted the flute anyway.

He had wanted the mission. He had wanted Kieran brought back under his hand, Jade measured, and Erebos pleased with the result. A second name made the risk feel divided when every choice still belonged to one body.

The memory shifted under his thumb.

After Earth, the same strip lay hidden inside a flute with a bullet dent near its end. Kegaku knelt beside Erebos’s workbench with closed eyes across his arms and blue skin healing under his collar.

Erebos addressed him as Kegaku before asking about Kieran and the three pink hairs taken from the battlefield.

Kegaku had touched the first brace. "Regaku’s movements remain stored inside the repairs you kept."

"Then the field identity continues working after Kegaku reports home."

"Should I remove the strip before another instrument copies it?"

"A successful tool keeps the part that succeeded, even when its bearer disappointed me."

Kegaku had bowed and left it there. On the pressure bed, his present fingernail tore free and sent pain through the hand holding the strip.

Kieran held the flute case against her thigh. "Whatever name he issued, you knew my arm belonged to me."

"Regaku used it because I wanted the advantage, and Kegaku remembers enjoying the control."

"Remembering makes the record accurate, though it does nothing for my shoulder."

Kieran lowered the case until its edge touched the bed rail. "How many people did Regaku leave dead before your other name came home?"

Kegaku searched the returned street memory. He had counted Angelics while deciding which souls might be recovered. Human bodies became obstacles, Vale feed, or noise around the stronger opponents. The number had stopped mattering before the portals closed.

"I counted enemies during the fight and stopped counting everyone else after the creatures entered the streets."

"Then the missing count remains yours, even if Earth never sends us every name."

She shifted her grip. The old control scar pulled beneath her breastbone whenever the first brace moved, and she gave the strip enough room without letting it touch her skin.

Erebos watched from the funeral shaft with Omina’s green bars across his forearm. The archer’s violet thread still tied his wrist to the rail.

"You accepted a field identity and returned to the name I preserved for you."

Kegaku looked at the pressure bed straps. Sadle had called him condemned. Erebos had called him useful. On the execution platform, with Omina lifting the sentence from his neck, his answer had been Kegaku stays.

He turned the strip so Kieran could read both lines.

"Kegaku is the name I answer to now, while Regaku stays attached to what I did on Earth."

The strip bent between his thumb and the rail. One more push could break Regaku away from the supplier holes and leave the Earth name in two pieces.

Kieran watched his hand. "Keep the strip, because Earth deserves the name attached to those commands."

Kegaku flattened the metal against the rail. "I will keep it until every command and body it moved is counted."

Omina placed an empty record ribbon along the green bar. "The field assignment and return address enter without granting either name to Erebos."

"Your limit changes no part of the work I performed," Erebos said.

"It changes the part where you treat a person’s return as stored property."

Inside the tank, the woman pulled Kegaku’s graft away from her ribs. Black fluid left the wrist seam and entered the filter current. She used the palm teeth to turn the name strip before the loss reached the next pump stroke.

Two curved holes on the underside fitted together like compressed lungs. A third punch ran from them toward the first flute brace.

The woman pointed to her lower pump. Its support jacket shook every fourth stroke.

"That supplier sold the brace, and I need the part that keeps this pump from shaking my arm open."

JJ caught the lower housing with her knee while her cut sponsor braid carried the next manual contact.

"You may open a parts route after somebody proves it will not charge the patient as cargo."

Erebos turned his bound hand within the archer’s thread. "Sarabi measures every delivered breath and closes unpaid routes around the debtor."

Kieran pressed her thumb beside the gold sealed hole. "Then the instrument owes the account, and no body enters as payment."

The tank woman struck the glass once with her living palm. Her graft covered the supplier holes on the opposite side.

"Feed the first brace from the wash exhaust, and keep both patient pumps outside the route."

JJ diverted the funeral jacket return through an unused brass tap. Air crossed water in the pipe and reached the open case through the vent above Kieran’s boot.

The first brace drew one breath.

Kegaku’s hand opened before the old grip completed. He held the name strip flat against the bed rail while Kieran kept the control hole sealed.

Air pulled through the supplier punch. The funeral car wall beside the sixth washing outlet folded inward around a square frame. Soap water ran up the new surface and disappeared through its center.

Beyond the frame, workers crossed a platform suspended inside a brown storm. Cloth lungs hung from racks above them, filling until their seams strained before emptying into ceramic canisters. Each worker wore two smaller bags around the ribs, and every spoken word took air from one bag.

One worker saw the flute brace and closed a valve above his shoulder. The route narrowed around the funeral outlet.

He lifted a slate covered in old breath tallies.

"That instrument has been breathing on credit since the Earth account closed, and somebody owes us every measure."