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

The ram scraped backward across calcite. Tarn’s boots shifted beyond the white line, then planted.

Iron hit Hingehold’s living root.

The floor punched Dane’s cracked base. Root fibers shrieked against the ash bar, and dust breathed through his lock tear. Something split outside with a sound like green wood under an axe.

The guard at the inspection slit swore. ”White line’s broken. Thorns are in the crack. Final count, attachment none—and blank name strokes just opened. They’re filling from the outer ends.”

The ram dragged back. Tarn’s breath came with it, rough and close.

Lir put her shortened fingertips against the shuddering lintel. ”The back line is exposed only if Hingehold stops rejecting it. When I release the root, there is no gate until Dane gives us one.”

Ada’s red cord ran from the yellow pin to her belt. She touched rod one to Dane’s left hinge while the guard lifted the ash bar. ”Eight breaths is the ceiling. Fresh separation, doubled lag, or a bad signal ends it sooner. My stop is not a vote.”

Living root withdrew from the outer frame. Air that smelled of wet iron and another man’s sweat reached Dane without wood between them. The ram’s thorned head rasped along the floor as Tarn drew it back for room to swing.

Seven voices took that room away from the warrant.

”Lir. My body, my shift, sanctuary side.” Her two shortened fingers stayed beside the pin.

Brant worked the shield hook under the yellow root with his splinted left side. His rebound right arm remained strapped to his ribs. ”Brant Cole. Here because I chose it. My name stays here.”

Ada kept rod one at Dane’s hinge. ”Ada Sorn. I own myself, and I own the injury stop. Sanctuary side.”

Holt set both forearms against the lower frame, torn palms hanging clear. ”Holt. Both feet and all the rest of me on this side.”

Tess limped to the maintenance cover. Her dead collector cord stayed at her belt. ”Tess Crowe. No collector. No owner. I stand here by choice.”

Buk lifted his safe left claws from the litter rail. ”Buk. Inside because Buk chooses. Buk belongs to Buk.”

Vera locked her wrapped forearm into the white-root cuff. The glass hook hung below her burned hands. ”Vera Pike. My name. My side. My answer.”

The ram rose. The guard called the iron above the line.

Lir asked, ”Dane, with that breakaway and Ada free to pull it before eight, do you choose this one hold?”

He struck the cradle once.

The yellow pin seated. Side braces took the frame. Dane reached for the shape that had waited behind every failed attempt to distinguish here from there.

His base spread over the sill, cracked wood grinding wide. The front lid climbed instead of opening, grain stretching until the old chest plane stood vertical and his widened left hinge turned against the jamb. Root fibers uncoiled from that hinge the height of the opening, stretching old wounds into longer places to hurt.

Raw strap sockets drew into brace channels while Travel Trunk’s handle routes pulled his weight tall. At the strike side, the folded right corner wedged into stone. His lock tear lengthened through the center, bleeding down the new face, while his mouth narrowed along the closing edge. Two missing teeth left gaps in the rail; below them waited the crooked tooth and, one slip behind it, his wounded tongue.

Every retained object settled into a hollow beneath the active seam. Dirty copper stayed below intake. The two deeper coins and everything he had refused to lose pressed together clear of hinge and lock.

Dane filled one released frame. Nowhere else changed.

The ram struck his folded right corner.

The first blow drove a thorn shape into the wood and sent force down the sill into his left hinge root. Pressure divided around him: Tarn and the iron outside; six injured humans and Buk behind. The new shape offered two answers.

Dane chose closed.

Somewhere beyond Hingehold, ownership pressure turned toward both sides of him. It lasted only because the Door did.

”One,” Ada counted as Vera put the glass edge against the exposed inner root. The cuff pressed into her forearm; her shoulder took the weight.

On the second breath, Tarn ground the iron into the first dent and shoved sideways, using the thorn as a pry. His boots slipped once, caught, and drove again.

Dane’s left hinge pulled until blood crossed the sill. Holt bore the lower frame on his forearms. Brant kept the hook seated without asking his dead right side for help.

”Two. Old gap holding.”

The guard shouted, ”Ram coming left of the lock.”

The third-breath strike bowed Dane’s center plane inward. His seam opened to the width of the copper he no longer owned. The crooked tooth took the edge before his tongue could follow.

Warm living pressure crowded the gap. Tarn’s sweat, breath, and blood from split knuckles smelled like food.

Hunger tried to turn a doorway into a mouth.

Dane shut on empty air.

”Three.”

Vera’s glass scraped the warrant and skipped free. The cuff twisted toward her burned wrist.

”Wrong shoulder,” she said, angry at herself rather than the tool. She changed her feet.

On the fourth breath, the ram’s crosspiece caught Dane’s outer edge. Tarn hauled backward. Raw strap channels took the drag, and the entire Door strained sideways against the braces.

Ada’s rod followed the left root. Her belt tightened the red cord as she leaned toward the pin.

”Old limit,” she said. ”No farther. Four.”

Her hand stayed ready. Dane’s choice had started the hold. Ada owned the next fraction of his hinge.

Vera let the cuff carry her forearm. Heel, hip, shoulder. The glass hook slid beneath the black-gold line.

Tarn ripped the ram free and struck the folded corner again on five. The second thorn dent crossed the first without breaking wood away. His breath cracked on the recoil. He reset anyway.

The slit scraped wider before the guard called, ”Blank strokes halfway. Still empty.”

”Five,” Ada said.

The iron head scraped low.

”Pin!” Brant shouted.

He drove his shield between the ram and the yellow root. The sixth blow hit steel. Its rim buckled into the frame; Brant’s splinted left arm folded beneath it, and the shield fell flat. The hook stayed jammed under the pin. His right arm never moved.

Holt caught Brant across the chest with one forearm before his shoulder hit stone.

”Six. Pin seated. Brant stays down.”

Vera drew back through the cuff. The warrant line stretched into the room like a vein pulled from beneath skin. Black-gold fluid trembled along it.

The stretched warrant tugged from outside while living pulses pressed behind him. Dane gave both pressures nothing but closed wood.

Tarn let go of the handles, stepped back, and kicked the shaft.

On seven, the iron head slammed below Dane’s lock tear. A third shallow thorn dent appeared in the center plane. His seam jumped open; the wounded tongue curled clear of the crooked tooth, and the edge held.

Vera turned from her heel through her shoulder.

Glass sheared the actual warrant with a wet snap. Fluid pattered against inner stone as released tension whipped the hook across the cuff, clear of Vera’s wrapped hands.

The guard’s voice broke high with relief. ”Thorne line severed. Blank strokes gone. Current attachment none.”

Lir felt the sanctuary root answer beneath her shortened fingers. ”Skarn’s old authority and Orth’s warrant are rejected here. Hingehold only.”

Thin rootlets laced the empty claim channel beside Dane’s strike edge and stopped there. The occupied frame remained his until release.

”Seven,” Ada said.

Tarn dragged the ram toward himself. Its shaft knocked once against Brant’s fallen shield. Dane’s left hinge trembled beyond anything a knock could describe.

”Eight. Releasing.”

Ada dropped her full weight.

The red cord tore the yellow pin from the floor root. Side braces kicked loose. Brant’s trapped hook came away with the pin without either arm pulling it. Alignment collapsed toward the sanctuary, and Dane’s tall body folded along his old lid line.

Brace channels snapped back into raw sockets. His left hinge recoiled down the jamb, shedding blood. Lock tear shortened. Teeth struck teeth. The wounded tongue slipped past the crooked one by a sliver.

He landed in the cradle as a chest with only the knowledge of Door remaining. Once his last corner cleared, Hingehold surged across the frame. Living root filled the opening and drove the ram outward with it.

The guard opened the slit. ”Tarn has the ram. Back across the white line. Still retreating.”

Lir called after him, ”The warrant is dead here. Take your hands home with it.”

Boots dragged, stopped once, then receded with the iron.

Ada was already working. Rod one touched the left hinge while a folded cloth caught blood below the lock. ”Same separation,” she said. The rod quivered against the root. ”It isn’t settling. Another loaded hold tears it.”

She passed three fingertips over the new damage without pressing. ”Three dents. All shallow. All the wood is still there.”

Inside Dane, the dirty copper remained below intake. Both deeper coins and every keepsake had returned to their old, inaccessible places. Door stayed in his understanding; no other change answered the pain.

Hingehold’s last reseating shove cracked a floor seam beneath the released frame.

Cold preservation air breathed up through it. Dane heard a long drop beneath the stone, then the small ringing of iron struck by falling grit.

The guard’s knee struck stone beside the break. ”Square shaft. Iron rungs. Bone drawers in both walls. Blue light below, but nothing living that I can see.”

”Dead storage,” Buk said from his litter. His safe claws tightened around the rail. ”Dead workers, if drawers still breathe.”

Lir and the guard grew a temporary root grate across the opening. Lir tested every bar with her boot before she let anyone stand near it.

Vera let the broken claim hook fall from her cuff into its box. Her sleeve smelled of hot soot and severed warrant. She waited while Ada finished binding Dane’s lock tear, while Holt reset Brant’s shoulder wrap, and while the guard reported Tarn gone from the corridor.

Then she stopped beside Dane’s cradle, beyond every seam.

”At the last door,” she said, ”I tried to kiss you and nearly offered my face to the part of you that eats people.”

Dane’s lid gave one late, mortified twitch.

”I have a better idea now.” The humor left her voice before the next words. ”I want to kiss you because I want you. Here. Today.”

He rotated within the cradle and offered the intact center of his lid, away from the hinge, lock tear, mouth edge, folded corner, and all three ram dents.

She paused over the safe patch. ”Is that where you want me?”

One knock.

”May I kiss you there?”

One knock.

She braced a wrapped hand on the cradle, touching none of him, and bent until her breath warmed the offered grain.

Her lips settled against the center lid.

The pressure was soft, then firmer when the curve of the wood failed to meet her. Warmth spread through a body built to notice impact. This was smaller than a ram blow, smaller than a palm, and harder to mistake for anything else.

His lid tried to rise beneath her mouth.

Dane held the biting seam closed. The safe center shifted upward by a fraction instead, and Vera’s breath broke into a quiet laugh against the wood. She stayed through three of her heartbeats.

Then she lifted.

Her next breath stayed warm against him. ”I was going to tell you that you taste good. You taste like root salve.”

Below the new grate, something knocked once.