The Name Office hated Jade’s voice.
Ty knew because every clerk stood at once. Brass lamps swung toward the slate. The drawers behind the main desk clicked shut in a clean row, precise enough to make the room feel caught doing something private.
Jade had excellent bad manners when cornered.
He had missed them.
The thought touched the missing place where the rainy-street memory used to live and came back limping. JJ noticed. She always noticed too much when noticing cost her.
"Stay with us before the office counts that quiet as permission."
"I am standing in the room with both sickles."
"Your skull went quiet after Jade spoke again."
"My skull has limited options for expression under stress."
"It still manages to look stubborn when cornered."
Heissman leaned on the desk beside them, wet sleeves dripping onto a form that tried to pull the water into its fibers. He slid the paper away with two fingers before it could finish the theft.
"As a hostile witness, I confirm the skull remains difficult."
The silver-haired clerk touched one ink-stained finger to the slate. "Earth witness connection is irregular and medically inconvenient."
Jade’s voice came through the cracked beacon on JJ’s panel, thin at the edges and furious in the middle.
"Then write irregular before I bleed for nothing."
The clerk blinked.
Ty took petty pleasure in that. The office had been comfortable until Jade arrived through broken stone and a bad attitude.
Omina stood behind him with Yun-Jin’s help. The place where her rank aura had been still looked raw, not on her skin but around her. People kept glancing at her and then away, as if their eyes expected permission to rest there and found none.
She hated it. She stayed upright anyway.
"Proceed with the contest before the public claim settles further."
The clerk looked at her, then at the blank space above her shoulder where command had once made people move faster.
"Former field command privilege detected and recorded as reduced authority."
"Temporary loss is still no invitation to waste time."
Yun-Jin’s mouth opened. No sound came out. She looked proud, furious, and afraid in the same breath. Ty understood none of that well enough to touch it.
The clerk wrote until a witness order formed across the slate, placing sponsor and hostile testimony before Omina’s reduced authority while Jade waited at the bottom, narrow and costly, as if she had been turned into a fee.
Omina tapped the desk with one finger.
"Former temporary command authority, if the office wants accuracy."
The clerk kept writing.
JJ stepped closer and lifted her cracked wrist panel. Pink light crawled through the broken glass and caught in the scars along her fingers.
"Use my witness first while the panel still works."
The slate marked her as a damaged sponsor witness. It put the word damaged first, neat as a slap.
JJ kept her face still, and Ty knew the line had hurt.
"I sponsored Ty before the skeleton split. I saw the body with skin, and I saw the bones after the split. I say the bones are Ty Hockenson."
The slate gave her partial weight.
JJ leaned over the desk far enough for the nearest clerk to shift back.
"Explain partial before I become expensive in public."
The clerk adjusted her sleeve. "Sponsor has financial interest and emotional contamination on record."
"Everyone sensible has interest in keeping a stolen face from wearing him."
"Emotional arguments are recorded under noise unless converted to claim weight."
JJ smiled.
That worried Ty. Rich people smiled that way when they found a cheaper knife.
"Then record this under finance. If this office registers Zunoder as sole public Ty Hockenson, every coin I spent on the contestant becomes misallocated property under arena sponsor code."
The clerk’s pen paused.
JJ leaned closer, pink light leaking between her fingers.
"If my property was misallocated by this office after a public vessel split, my estate can demand an audit of every witness exchange since Stage Two opened."
Every clerk in the room looked away at the same time.
Heissman spoke near Ty’s shoulder, low enough that the desk still heard him because the desk heard everything.
"Marry money whenever possible, preferably before it learns sword work."
Yun-Jin kicked his ankle hard enough to make him grab the desk.
"Revise that advice before I make it medical."
The slate rewrote JJ’s witness weight. Material interest confirmed. Accepted.
JJ’s smile vanished as the cost hit her panel. Pink light drained down one crack and disappeared into the metal rim. Ty reached for her, and she moved her hand back.
"Do not take that from me after I chose it."
He stopped.
Yun-Jin stepped forward next. She had one hand pressed to her ribs. Her face was pale. Her hair stuck to her cheek in wet strands. She looked like the room’s next bad breath could knock her down.
She still stood straight.
"I fought Ty before the arena claimed him."
The clerk dipped her pen. "Hostile fighter witness category accepted for immediate review."
"I fought the body with skin. I fought the bones. The bones made the same wrong choices with the same terrible timing."
Ty turned his skull toward her.
"That is your proof against identity theft in this office?"
"It is strong proof from someone who survived you repeatedly."
"It is also rude proof by several standards."
"Current evidence includes a flooded murder tunnel and your choices."
"Current evidence should be inadmissible on emotional grounds."
"It is admitted in my heart, which suffered enough."
JJ made a sound that almost became a laugh. Yun-Jin looked at the clerk.
"The body with the face copies. It performs. The bones answer. Badly, usually, but they answer people before they answer a crowd."
The slate accepted her witness and labeled the weight pain-bonded.
Yun-Jin narrowed her eyes at the wording.
"Your office phrases truth like an injury report written drunk."
The clerk kept her eyes on the form. "Common response from living witnesses with remaining good taste."
Heissman limped forward before Yun-Jin could argue with furniture.
"I should speak before this room makes me sentimental."
The clerk’s pen hovered. "Hostile officer category is available and already impatient."
"Second lieutenant, if the office insists on precision."
"Hostile officer remains more useful for the form."
"Accurate enough to be insulting, which seems your house style."
He set the half sword on the desk. The blade left a wet mark. The desk considered eating that too and then reconsidered.
"I attempted to kill, trap, humiliate, and legally inconvenience the contestant known as Ty. The skeleton is him."
Ty waited.
Heissman sighed through his nose.
"Because only he would save people who have every practical reason to let him die, then complain when thanked."
"I do not complain when the thanks are efficient."
Four people looked at him.
Ty looked at the ceiling.
Heissman continued before the office could charge them for the pause.
"The stolen face is too efficient. Ty wastes time caring, then makes that everyone else’s paperwork."
The slate accepted the hostile officer witness. It labeled the weight embarrassingly credible.
Heissman stared at the words for a long breath.
"I hate this office with growing professional respect."
Omina approached last. Yun-Jin tried to help her. Omina allowed it until the final step, then stood on her own.
The clerk’s voice flattened. "Former field command authority may submit reduced witness weight."
Omina placed her injured hand on the desk. Blood touched the edge of the slate. The office left it there.
"I restrained the skeleton. I restrained the body. I saw the split, the claim lines, the contract reaction, and the Earth pull. The bones carry the original command resistance."
"Explain command resistance for office custody before I record refusal."
"Some truths remain military property, even after temporary loss."
"You traded field command privilege to reach this room."
"My spine stayed mine, and that satisfies the form."
The pen scratched. Omina’s witness entered with reduced weight, then settled beside the others.
Omina’s jaw tightened. Yun-Jin looked ready to shoot the slate.
Jade’s voice came through again. Weak. Angry. Perfect.
"My turn, before your office decides bleeding women are decorative."
The room stopped.
The clerk smiled like she had found a fee nobody had paid yet. "Earth anchor may submit a limited objection before route collapse."
Ty lifted one hand.
"Jade, do not spend more blood on office games."
Her answer cut through static.
"Do not interrupt my objection while I am paying for it."
JJ looked at him. Ty lifted both hands higher.
Jade breathed once, and the sound carried blood in it.
"I saw Ty die. I saw what took him. I saw the body that lied and the bones that saved me. I am not signing a religious title, arena title, king title, monster title, or whatever paperwork trap your office thinks is clever."
The clerk wrote faster.
"Then what name does the Earth witness submit for temporary stabilization?"
Static filled the room, rough enough to make JJ’s cracked panel flash.
Ty heard the basement behind Jade. Waddell snapping orders. Kieran arguing with somebody who deserved it. A child crying. Paper hands scratching concrete.
Then Jade said it.
"Ty, until he earns or refuses the rest himself."
The slate went white.
The old claim that had tried to stretch between skull and stolen face snapped back with a sound Ty felt in his teeth. Zunoder was still outside the room somewhere, wearing the skin and the public shape, but the office had lost the easy answer.
The clerk reached into the drawer and removed a small silver chisel.
"One tooth buys the temporary registration until review closes."
Ty took it. JJ’s fingers tightened around the edge of the desk.
"You do not have to pay every bill they print."
Ty looked at the slate. The suggested titles waited lower on the page, too eager for paper. Skeleton King Candidate. Skeleton King. Both sat there like doors with blood on the handle.
"This one buys time for Jade to keep breathing."
He placed the chisel against a back tooth and knocked once with the hilt of the sickle.
Pain flashed through his skull. The tooth cracked free into his palm, hot for something dead. He dropped it onto the slate before the office could admire the purchase.
"Ty Hockenson, bone half until I choose better for myself."
Every desk stamped at once.
The Name Office doors blew open.
Far away, Zunoder screamed with Ty’s voice.