F-Rank Mimic Chest: My SSS Mimic Skill Lets Me Become Anything

The breath ended.

The seed of air flattened against Dane’s hinge pin. Cured resin closed over it, and his lid tore upward beneath a left hand.

Leather creaked across the rim. The weight vanished with a curse, a wet boot skidded on stone, and metal whispered from a sheath on Dane’s right.

”Rot take it. I was promised a quiet room.”

Open held every part of him on the new route. Hinge and lockplate lifted together. His teeth cleared the rim without their old stumble. The tongue rose beneath the five shallow coppers and offered them toward the retreating glove.

The movement jarred everything deeper: the thin silver, the square-holed coin with its red string, Nate Parr’s cheap knife, and the rain-over-roof return charm. The deeper inventory survived the opening. The bubble was gone; Dane pressed the sealed place and found no give at all.

His mimic body had noticed the warm hand. Hunger gathered at the tongue root, pleased by how easily the repaired mouth opened.

”Easy,” the stranger said. His breath had shortened, but his voice still tried for bored. ”I only wanted the coin.”

The blade came through Dane’s tongue.

Its inward curve caught before the man tore it free. A line of pain opened from the upper surface down the left side, hot at the entry, ragged where the hook had dragged. The wound divided the tongue into places Dane could reach.

The man shifted beyond the rim. Wool rasped above the left glove; the right-hand blade stayed close enough for Dane to hear blood patter from its tip.

”Back, cheap box. I’ve opened worse mouths for less.”

Feed.

The command struck through resin before Dane could press the cut. His tongue flung itself over the rim. Its tip swept past the left glove, ran along a forearm, and curled for the return. The loop was still open when a knee hammered Dane’s front board hard enough to rattle the silver against Nate’s knife.

A right forearm wedged under the lid. The hook plunged again.

The attacker yanked the blade across the first wound. The two cuts crossed. Pain split four ways through the moving muscle, and each arm of it carried a different pressure: knife, glove, rim, root.

”Toma!” a woman called from the corridor. ”I heard coin. If I have to come left, it comes out of your share.”

The name arrived with the accusation. Only one set of boots had crossed into the annex. Toma had reached the coins ahead of his companions and meant to keep whatever he found.

”You heard teeth,” Toma shouted back. His breath broke on the last word.

The loose tongue loop began to close around his wrist and forearm.

Dane drove into the crossing pain. Pushing against the whole tongue only helped Feed. He chose the ragged side of the first cut and forced pressure along it, toward the second.

The cinch came half a beat late.

Toma had already begun to wrench back. Wet muscle slid off the forearm instead of closing around it. The loop chased what remained and found the left glove, two fingers inside it, and a strip of wool dragged loose from his scarf.

Dane’s teeth came together.

Leather burst first, then two fingers struck separate points, soft and jointed, while hot blood filled the punctures. Toma’s scream tore through the room. Beneath one tooth, something hard stopped the bite; the next closing twitch would take more than blood.

Feed wanted the hand back to the wrist.

Under the impact, Nate’s knife jumped against the return charm. Metal touched metal: one dead man’s belongings beneath the living hand caught in Dane’s mouth. Seeking the harder click of bone, the mimic frame tightened. Across both wounds, Dane drove until the tongue shook and the hook shifted inside the deeper cut.

Toma slammed his right forearm higher against the lid. The hooked knife worried at the crossing wound, not cutting cleanly now but pulling the flesh open each time he twisted. His left hand turned inside the glove. Leather peeled from his palm. A seam began to split beneath Dane’s teeth.

”Get in here!” Toma shouted.

The woman’s boots held in the corridor. ”Let go of the knife and pull, Toma. I’m not feeding it another arm.”

”It’s in my right hand!”

”Then use the hand you kept!”

Toma swore once and changed his leverage.

Toma braced the knife hand and forearm against the lid edge, kicked against the floor, and turned his body away from the trapped glove. The hook dragged through Dane’s tongue. Teeth shifted toward the left wrist as the mimic corrected its slipping meal.

Dane felt the correction through both cuts. He eased the same sideways pressure that had ruined the first cinch.

The glove came off Toma’s hand.

Two wet fingers pulled between the teeth, each leaving flesh and blood but no severed piece. Wool ripped with them. Toma struck the floor outside Dane’s front edge, one heel gouging stone as he shoved himself backward. The right-hand hook remained with him. The left glove and a torn scarf end remained in Dane’s mouth.

Toma’s breathing scraped near the threshold.

”Both fingers still attached?” the corridor woman asked.

He dragged the answer through clenched teeth. ”Both. I only put two in there.”

The words confirmed what Dane’s teeth had felt: two wounded fingers, still on the hand he had released.

Toma scraped himself farther away. The warmth of his blood receded through Dane’s pressure sense until it passed beyond the bite line.

Then the scent reached the tongue.

The mimic lunged after it.

Dane caught the hotter arm of the crossing wound and shoved sideways. Half a beat vanished. The tongue slapped Dane’s own front board with a wet crack, and fresh pain rang from teeth to hinge. Blood spattered back into his mouth instead of carrying him into the corridor.

One shallow copper struck a tooth. The second impact pulled both knife wounds wider, flooding the tongue root with a taste that was entirely Dane’s. Feed gathered again beneath the pain. He held pressure across the crossing until the urge broke apart and Toma’s retreating steps passed beyond the far bend.

Toma ran.

Several sets of boots converged outside. A metal point scraped the stone and stopped short of Dane’s threshold. Lantern oil thickened the damp air, but no new weight entered the annex.

”Ash Company rule,” a deeper voice said. ”Nobody opens a chest alone. You signed under it after Pell lost a thumb.”

”The thing opened back,” Toma said from farther down the hall.

”You left us for five coppers?”

Toma took too long to answer.

The woman laughed once, without much pleasure. ”Five. You tried to rob four people for five coppers.”

”Counting stopped when it bit me. Mark the room. Faulty lure.” Toma sucked in a breath as someone touched his hand. ”It lets go, then comes again. Get Vera.”

The metal point at the threshold scraped backward. Boots spread into a wider half-circle outside, far enough that even a full tongue sweep would reach only stone.

Dane’s tongue dragged itself over the rim. The left glove scraped between two inner teeth with the scarf wool caught beneath it. Blood pulsed in the torn leather, and the body worked greedily at every smear. Five coppers still rested shallow. The thin silver, red-string coin, Nate’s knife, and Nate’s return charm knocked together deeper when the lid trembled.

Dane tried to spit out what Toma had left. The tongue moved once. A hard click passed through the two tag nails, and the glove dropped among the coins instead.

The broken shelf creaked. Buk’s spoon touched stone, paused, then touched it again.

”Hand thief still has hand?” Buk whispered.

Dane ticked the hinge once.

”Two fingers?”

Another tick.

Buk let out a breath that caught against his injured ribs. ”Good. Live thieves tell others.”

The crossing wounds burned while the System measured them.

/==[ Brackenvault System: Feed Interference ]==\

| Trigger: Reinforced Feed

| Available Route: Crossed Tongue Wounds

| Response Loss: Half Beat

| First Result: Wounded / Released

| Second Result: Pursuit Misaligned

\==[ Duration: While Cuts Remain Distinct ]==/

No new control settled into Dane. The half beat existed only where Toma’s hook had opened him, and both cuts still bled.

The blood inside the glove bridged his mouth to the brass tag. Registry pressure moved through the stains and supplied what contact allowed him to know.

/==[ Brackenvault Registry: Partial Feed ]==\

| Organic Claim: Toma Reed / Blood Residue

| Retained Evidence: Left Glove / Scarf Scrap

| Witness Unit: Ash Company

| Mercy Interpretation: Inefficient Feeding

| Correction Need: Reduced

\==[ Asset Remains In Service ]==/

The tag warmed at `Reduced`, and the command pressure around Dane’s hinge eased. Two attached fingers counted as missed food; the blood in his mouth counted as work. Brackenvault had mistaken restraint for poor feeding and postponed correction because of it.

Boots stopped outside the annex. Toma began, ”Vera, I can explain,” and a woman’s voice cut cleanly across him.

”Who opened a mimic without the mage?”