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

Mother Kesh’s courier kept the reed packet on the far side of the new plate.

”Human paper puts maintenance unit first,” the runner called. ”Human door puts Buk second. Kesh asks which one came out alive.”

Behind the plate, a repair hammer stopped. Lir answered from Dane’s side of the threshold. ”The same scout who opened my floor ten breaths ago marked that packet’s road. It waits for inspection.”

”Kesh sends proof. Sanctuary sends waiting.”

”My workers are sealing a hole somebody cut through their feet. You may be offended while they finish.”

The repair hammer resumed.

Ada took rod one beyond the plate. Brass clicked around reed, root twine, and the crossed-broom seal while Tess named each layer for Dane. The courier refused to let either woman untie it.

”No active spell,” Ada called. ”No ownership line. No route command. That clears entry, not trust.”

The ash bar opened long enough for courier and still-bound packet to cross a clean strip of frame. Reed rasped onto the root table. Lir shut the bar behind them.

Holt and two threshold workers brought Buk’s litter from the room. Forearm loops creaked under the uneven load. Halfway to the clean hearing frame, Ada told them to stop.

”Right flank pad is wet again.”

”Pad worries too much,” Buk said.

”The pad is smarter than you today.”

Fresh cloth tightened. Buk’s breathing shortened while Holt and the workers settled the litter beside the table.

The courier listened for three breaths. ”Breathing. Hurting. Choosing?”

”Buk chose testimony. Lost stool. Lost two meal bells. Paper still says unit before Buk.”

”Still Buk?”

A litter rope twanged. ”Buk.”

”Kesh asks what humans called you before you saved their expensive chest.”

”Unit.”

Lir unrolled the witness sheet. Its edge whispered over living root. ”The first line reads `Formal Entry: Maintenance Unit`. The second reads `Spoken Name: Buk`.”

”Why?” the courier asked.

”His statement had no seal. If I put an unprotected name over the route act, Orth could carry it out through an arrest channel before Buk reached a neutral challenge. I put the function first and kept his body here.”

”Protected throat. Scraped off face.”

Lir’s wedge hammer touched the floor once. ”Yes. Both happened. Buk decides which damage we repair.”

”Name first,” Buk said.

The record fibers crackled as Lir turned a second layer. ”Hear the blade before you take the handle. A formal name gives your testimony standing. It also gives Orth a named witness to challenge. Brackenvault can attach the green peg, the false route, and punishment to Buk instead of a numbered broom worker. Innocence, personhood, final claim, and shelter after our bell all stay unresolved.”

The courier tapped one claw on the root table. ”Human paper sharpens target.”

”Target knew Buk face before paper,” Buk said. His breath caught when the right flank dressing pulled. ”Paper should spell face right.”

Tess shifted the damaged collector cord at her waist. One metal click remained in it.

”I can cloud three details on the public copy until a neutral challenge,” she said. ”The green peg’s position, the false-route method, and the unsealed liability chain. Underneath, the complete statement stays available to Orth’s challenge and whatever liability survives it. The public sheet names Candle Row as the source.”

The courier’s claw stopped tapping. ”Collector fog.”

”One use,” Tess said. ”Then none.”

Holt asked, ”What do you keep?”

Tess pulled the cord loose. The bead struck her buckle. ”Afterward I own string.”

”Tess buys Buk name?” Buk asked.

”Your name is your risk. The bead only hides those three route details from the public sheet. I burn it whether you thank me, curse me, or decide to stay spoken.”

”Wait until Buk decides.”

The bead stopped clicking.

Two repair workers still hammered outside the frame. The threshold guard called lane positions for traffic at the outer sill. Buk’s next breath rasped before he spoke over them.

”Kesh runner stays. Workers outside. Guard outside. Buk says name without whole hallway chewing it.”

Lir touched her wedge hammer to the existing hearing frame. ”Dane may be able to blur sight and soften sound between this side and the corridor. The frame provides the two sides. It will stop no body. Brant will push one shield edge through as the first test, then pull it back.”

Ada listened near Dane’s reopened left hinge and torn lock. ”One attempt. Two knocks, fresh blood, worse lid delay, or pressure entering his mouth ends it. The shield test is part of the attempt.”

From the corridor side, Brant called, ”Shield edge only. I stop if it drags.”

Dane knocked once.

Workers adjusted the root cradle until his front lock faced the corridor and his wounded rear hinge faced the hearing table. Every scrape traveled through his folded right corner. The clean frame pressed one direction into his lock and the other into the old root tear.

Dane held the difference.

Hammer blows beyond the frame sank into muffled thuds. The courier’s breathing and Buk’s litter ropes stayed close and sharp on the hearing side. A new pressure stood upright between them, thin enough that Dane’s body kept trying to swallow it as an edge.

Brant’s shield rim scraped through that pressure and tapped the root table once.

”Through,” Brant said, his voice dulled by the plane. ”No pull. No catch.”

”Looks like wet wood grain,” the courier said. ”Can still see bodies. Cannot read mouths.”

The frame pressed its limits against Dane’s lock.

/==[ Threshold Preparation ]==\

| Temporary Plane: Record Privacy

| Frame: Existing / Required

| Sight And Sound: Obscured

| Physical Crossing: Unchanged

| Inside / Ownership: Unassigned

| Form: Unchanged

\==[ Ends With Alignment ]==/

Brant withdrew the shield. The plane remained, tugging at the tear below Dane’s lock with every corridor footfall.

Lir asked Buk for the private declaration.

”Buk.”

”Orth may challenge that name and this testimony,” Lir said. ”Brackenvault may fasten the route act to it. Hingehold preserves your first word and promises no final legal answer. State the formal name with that risk.”

Silence lasted until Buk’s breathing roughened and the courier stopped breathing through his nose.

Buk struck the root table once.

”Buk. Not unit Buk. Not broom seven. Buk.”

The courier loosened a narrow proof sleeve at the packet’s throat. Old wood knocked softly against the table.

”Three work cuts on one side,” the runner said. ”Drain burn on the butt.”

Buk’s next breath broke. ”Kesh kept Buk broom.”

”Kesh keeps tools until worker returns or somebody proves worker cannot. Outside clerks dispute letters and hands. Broom cuts do not learn new lies.”

”Left hand only,” Ada warned.

Old wood scraped once across Buk’s claws before he set the palm-length handle over warm witness wax.

”Paper writes Buk first?”

”Press it,” Lir said, ”and I read the first line back.”

Wax made a thick sucking sound around the handle. Buk held it there until the handle began tapping the wax, then lifted it.

Lir read, ”Formal Name: Buk. Self-claimed.”

The litter ropes gave one hard creak under Buk’s grip.

Tess asked for the bead.

”Vera: one Candle Row seal on the three public route details I named. It touches nothing else.”

”Approved for those three details,” Vera said. ”Buk’s name and complete private statement stay intact on the preserved copy.”

Tess raised her voice toward the plane. ”Brant?”

His answer came dull through the grain. ”One bead. Three details. No ownership, no pardon. Approved.”

”Holt watches,” Tess said.

”I am watching your hands and the groove.”

The locking bead twisted free with a tiny metallic cry. Tess placed it in the root table. Something inside opened and clicked twice like teeth testing an empty mouth.

Hot silver scent crossed Dane’s lock while metal threads scratched over paper.

Vera followed them aloud. ”Private layer untouched. Public peg position gone. False-route method gone. Unsealed chain gone. Candle Row trace at the foot.”

The metal click collapsed into a soft spill of powder.

Tess dropped the shortened cord beside it. String touched wood without bead, knot, or weight.

The completed fields pressed through the frame and into Dane.

/==[ Named Witness Record ]==\

| Formal Name: Buk / Self-Claimed

| Status: Low-Status Witness / Challenge Pending

| Testimony: Route Evidence Sealed Until Challenge

| Condition Hold: Current

| Public Source Trace: Candle Row Collector Route

| Personhood / Final Claim: Unresolved

\==[ Private Evidence Preserved ]==/

Wax sucked around Kesh’s crossed-broom seal beside the tool mark. ”Kesh gets proof,” the courier said. ”Buk gets target.”

”Buk already had target,” Buk said. ”Now target spells right.”

Warmth slipped down Dane’s torn lock and reached the cradle root.

”Fresh blood,” Ada said.

At Dane’s second knock, Lir ended the hearing and Brant pulled his shield clear. Full hammer noise broke across the frame as the upright pressure folded back into Dane’s lock, leaving no latch or shape behind.

Ada waited through one lid response. ”No wider tear. Delay unchanged. Attempt over.”

A sharpened claw scratched Buk’s formal name and broom impression onto the proof sleeve. While tightening the crossed-broom cord, the courier rolled the packet across the root table.

A bitter smell escaped from its underside.

Lightless archive wax. Bone dust. Wood oil sealed until age turned it sour.

Dane had known that mixture in Kett’s censored responsive-storage cross-check—a selective coffer, a wardrobe that delayed opening, a coffin that refused its corpse. The scent named the archive family and nothing inside it.

Tess spoke without touching the wrap. ”Bone sliver underneath. Somebody scraped the number until the edge curled.”

Ada passed rod one over it again. ”Still no active spell, claim, or route command.”

One hard knock climbed through the cradle roots and struck Dane’s base from below.