From Human to Skeleton: Revived with Infinite System Crystals Chapter 736: Sponsor Blood

JJ had spent enough money to know when a bill was trying to beco a weapon.

Her wrist panel kept flickering between three screens: sponsor damages, Na Office witness fees, and a polite notice from her estate accountant asking whether she had been abducted, dead, or rely irresponsible.

She ignored the accountant. The accountant sent a second notice.

Yun-Jin sat on an overturned filing crate beside her, one arm wrapped around her ribs and one boot braced against the Lost Property counter. She looked half dead and fully offended by the room.

"Your panel is bleeding pink," Yun-Jin said.

"It is not bleeding. It is posting collateral."

"That sounds worse."

"It is."

The accountant sent a third notice.

ARE YOU UNDER DURESS?

JJ stared at it. Then, because she was tired, angry, and apparently becoming the sort of woman who made worse decisions when asked politely, she typed back:

DEFINE DURESS.

The reply ca too quickly.

CURRENT EXPENSE PATTERN QUALIFIES.

Yun-Jin read the ssage upside down and made a small sound. "Your accountant has better survival instincts than most officers I know."

"He once talked my aunt out of buying a haunted vineyard."

"Was it actually haunted?"

"Financially, yes."

Yun-Jin laughed, then pressed one hand to her ribs and regretted it. JJ's smile faded.

"Do not laugh if it breaks you."

"Do not spend if it breaks you."

"That was annoyingly clean."

"I practice."

Ty stood near the black case, watching his missing finger as if staring could bully it into explaining itself. Omina argued with the clerk in a low, dangerous voice. Heissman had found a form titled SO YOU HAVE BEEN INCONVENIENCED BY PURPOSE and was reading it with academic disgust.

JJ lowered the panel brightness before Ty could look over.

Yun-Jin noticed. Of course she did. "How bad?"

"Bad enough that I am grateful math is not sentient."

Yun-Jin glanced around Lost Property. "In this place?"

JJ paused. "I withdraw the statent."

The panel flashed.

SPONSOR WITNESS ACCEPTANCE FEE FINALIZED

ESTATE HOLD: ACTIVE

PUBLIC FACE DISPUTE SURCHARGE: PENDING

Yun-Jin's eyes narrowed. "Can you pay it?"

JJ wanted to say yes. Yes was easy. Yes kept fear out of other people's hands. Yes was what sponsors said when fighters looked at them.

Her panel chose that mont to show a private estate figure with too many digits in red.

"So," JJ said.

"That was not the question."

"It is the answer I like."

Yun-Jin leaned back and winced. "You people are impossible."

"Which people?"

"The ones who would rather bankrupt a province than admit feelings."

JJ laughed before she could stop herself. It hurt sowhere under her sternum, a place no one had hit. "That is not fair."

"It is close."

"I am not bankrupting a province."

"Yet."

The word sat between them with teeth.

JJ looked toward Ty. He had no face right now, only skull, fla, and the awful patience of soone being asked to prove he belonged to himself. He turned the ticket in his hand. The empty finger joint flexed once.

"He would tell not to," JJ said.

Yun-Jin followed her gaze. "Yes."

"Then he would do sothing expensive with his body and call it different."

"Also yes."

"I hate him."

Yun-Jin smiled faintly. "No, you do not."

JJ did not answer.

There were too many won in Ty's life now. That was the cheap way to say it. Arena gossip would say it worse. Jade had history, grief, proof, a death mark, and the impossible moral weight of being the woman he was trying to return to. Yun-Jin had blood, command debt, and the kind of honesty that made lies look underdressed. JJ had money, access, hunger, and a terrible habit of calling sacrifice strategy when her chest hurt.

None of that was simple enough to fit inside romance.

Her panel chid again.

NEW LIABILITY VECTOR DETECTED

IF FACE USER ACHIEVES EARTH PRIMARY RECOGNITION, SPONSORSHIP MAY BE MISDIRECTED TO PUBLICLY RECOGNIZED BODY.

JJ sat very still.

Yun-Jin saw the change. "What?"

"If Earth accepts Zunoder as Ty, he can argue I funded him."

Yun-Jin's hand went to her weapon. "We kill him."

"Tempting. Legally incomplete."

"I can live with incomplete."

"The office cannot."

Ty looked over. "What happened?"

JJ shut the panel. "Nothing."

Yun-Jin snorted.

Ty's skull angled. "Bad nothing."

"There are good nothings?"

"Sleep."

JJ almost smiled. Almost. "Zunoder can attack my sponsor claim if Earth accepts his face."

Ty crossed the space in three steps. "Drop ."

The words hit harder because he spent no extra ones.

JJ stood. "No."

"You are not paying for my stolen body."

"I am not dropping you because a parasite in your skin found a billing trick."

"JJ."

"Do not use the short voice at ."

He stopped. That surprised them both.

Yun-Jin looked away, which was almost kind. JJ lowered her voice anyway. "You are allowed to tell not to ruin myself. You are not allowed to make yourself easy to abandon so I feel cleaner."

Ty's fla dimd.

"Jade is paying too," he said.

"I know."

"Yun-Jin."

"Yes," Yun-Jin said before he could turn. "I am also stupid now. Congratulations on infecting the room."

Heissman lifted the inconvenience form. "For the record, I was insufferable before eting him."

Omina said from the counter, "Accurate."

The clerk stamped sothing.

VERY ACCURATE.

For three seconds, the room breathed.

Then JJ's panel rang with an incoming public claim. The caller ID should have been impossible.

TY HOCKENSON - EARTH RECOGNITION SOURCE

JJ stared at the na until the letters blurred. The estate system did not know romance, grief, or stolen bodies. It knew authorizations, public labels, and where money could be routed if enough frightened people agreed on the wrong thing. That made it more terrifying than a monster. Monsters at least had teeth you could aim at.

Yun-Jin pushed herself upright. "Do not answer."

"I was not planning to."

"Your face says you were."

"My face is under stress."

"Your face is rich and guilty."

JJ almost laughed. The sound got stuck. Ty was looking at the panel like it had beco another body part he needed to cut away from himself before it hurt soone else.

"Do not ask again," JJ told him quietly.

Ty's fla shifted.

"Dropping would protect you."

"It would make cheaper," JJ said. "That is different."

The panel answered itself. Zunoder's voice filled Lost Property, soft with Ty's mouth.

"Sponsor. How much did you pay for the wrong half?"

Inside the black case, the missing finger began to tap.