Zunoder tasted blood and gratitude together.
The mixture offended him. Blood was honest. Gratitude was warm, eager, and too willing to excuse whatever hand reached for it. Ty’s body reacted to both as if they belonged to it, and Zunoder had to brace one palm against the stairwell wall until the stolen ribs stopped leaning toward the open route below.
Somewhere beneath the arena, people were still screaming. Somewhere above, civilians watched him with the brittle attention of a crowd waiting for someone else to decide what they were seeing, while the door on Earth had opened just wide enough for belief.
Zunoder shaped Ty’s mouth into a smile. It fit worse than before. The Name Office had stamped him as face user, and the body had become petty about small tasks. The left hand tightened whenever he tried to wave. His tongue cut itself when he spoke Jade’s name. His eyes watered whenever an old memory dragged her laugh near the surface.
He would train those pieces.
If training failed, he would remove what kept voting.
A public crystal floated near the landing, cracked along one side from the earlier fight. It tried to hold the official notice, but the signal kept stuttering between the arena stairwell and the school basement on Earth. Good. Stuttering looked like panic, and panic made people choose simple stories.
Zunoder turned toward the woman with the noodles. She remained on the step with the paper bowl clutched against her chest. Practical hunger had pinned her in place better than courage.
"You saw the notice before they could bury it."
Broth spilled over her thumb when her grip tightened.
"It called you Zunoder while wearing his face."
"It called the claim split, which matters more."
"The office called you the face user in public."
"And what do faces do when grief has no patience?"
He took one step down, slow enough to look injured instead of threatening.
"They let mothers find sons. They let soldiers identify bodies. They let sponsors print posters. They let widows hold photographs and children point across a street and say that one belongs to us."
No one answered.
They wanted to. He could feel the crowd pressing around the easier version of the story.
He touched Ty’s cheek with Ty’s own shaking hand.
"This face belonged to a man. Then a skeleton crawled out of him, and an office decided paperwork could repair what death broke."
Someone muttered from behind the rail.
"That still sounds wrong after what we watched."
Zunoder turned toward the voice. The boy was maybe sixteen, with RUNNER printed across his vest and both knees scraped raw. His eyes were red from smoke or crying. Young enough to want truth. Old enough to feel embarrassed by wanting it.
"Then tell them the version you trust while they listen."
The boy lifted his chin.
"The white skeleton saved people during the panic."
"So did the man with this face before the office interfered."
"You bought noodles and spoke to scared civilians."
"Hunger kills slower than blades, and slower can still be cruel."
The boy faltered.
The hesitation did more than a speech. Crowds rarely needed conviction from everyone. They needed one confident person to pause, and then doubt could dress itself as fairness.
Zunoder softened his voice.
"Keep your name to yourself today. Names are expensive while offices are listening."
The boy closed his mouth.
Good.
Obedience looked like trust from far enough away.
The crystal flickered and showed Earth clearly for one useful breath: the school basement, water on tile, children behind shelves, Waddell driving a shoulder into a service door while Kieran’s gold wire snapped around a wounded man’s wrist, and Jade turning with blood on her palm.
Ty’s stolen heart pulled so hard that Zunoder’s fingers bent against the wall.
He hated the body for that. He hated Ty more for making hatred untidy. The crystal blurred around Jade’s face, and static had nothing to do with it. Ty’s eyes remembered snow in her hair, tears on her cheeks, and the way her mouth twisted right before she laughed at something stupid.
Zunoder bit down until pain cut the memory loose.
The woman with the noodles noticed.
"You look hurt in a way that is hard to fake."
There it was. Pity, thin but real.
Zunoder let Ty’s body sag against the wall.
"I am hurt by everyone who found this body more useful split apart."
Almost true.
Almost true was stronger than a lie. Lies cracked under pressure. Almost true bent and kept its shape.
The boy in the runner vest shifted one foot down the step.
"Who hurt you first after the split happened?"
Zunoder looked toward the office under the arena.
"The skeleton took the clean answer, the office stamped the pieces, and every witness decided which part deserved mercy."
The crystal steadied. Public wording crawled across the image, declaring the face-user contest open and Earth primary recognition pending.
Zunoder touched the lower edge of the crystal. It burned Ty’s fingertips, and the pain put a convincing tremor into his hand.
"Jade, listen through the door before your soldiers close the world."
The words carried through the crystal and into the half-open emergency exit. The basement answered with shouting. Waddell ordered the door shut while Tyree cursed with impressive speed. Kieran spoke sharply in a language the crystal refused to translate.
Jade held her voice back.
Her silence irritated him because silence meant thought. Zunoder pushed more softness into Ty’s mouth.
"Jade, please listen. I am still in here where they left me."
The body betrayed him.
The words dragged against something old in the ribs and came out too honest. For one sick instant, the lie carried a possible man inside it: trapped in himself, begging the woman who loved him to open the door.
The crowd leaned toward the crystal. Earth leaned too. The emergency door shuddered against the gold line before Jade’s voice came through, rough from pain and colder than he wanted.
"Say one thing Ty would say when nobody is watching."
Easy.
Ty’s memories were full of private scraps. Bad jokes. Apologies. Dumb grocery arguments. A dozen little phrases no stranger should know. Zunoder reached for one and felt the body clamp down around the answer.
The body slowed him enough for his tongue to press against the back of his teeth. The stolen tooth socket pulsed where Ty had paid for the bone registration. A headache opened behind both eyes, bright and humiliating.
The crowd saw him struggle.
Zunoder turned the struggle into pain.
"He took the words from me too. The skeleton, the office, your witness record. Everyone keeps asking which part is real while I am the one bleeding in public."
The hand against the wall tried to curl into a fist. Zunoder forced the fingers open one by one, smiling through the rebellion. Ty’s body remained useful; resistance only made it annoying.
The trouble was the crowd.
They watched the shaking hand and read injury where he wanted performance. They watched Ty’s mouth fail and treated failure as evidence that someone had damaged him. The body voted wrong, but its wrong vote looked useful if he held it at the right angle.
The runner boy whispered loudly enough for the cracked crystal to catch.
"That explanation makes sense if the office split him wrong."
The words traveled.
Somewhere below, something stamped.
Zunoder felt the number move before the text appeared. The public display marked Earth primary recognition at one percent.
One percent was tiny on paper and enormous in a stairwell full of frightened people. It gave the crowd permission to think their uncertainty mattered. A man near the back touched his own jaw. A woman covered the badge on her coat as if recognition might leak through metal. The runner boy looked ashamed and relieved at once.
Zunoder let them see the damage on his fingertips.
He gave them no command. Commands made people remember they were being handled. He only breathed with Ty’s borrowed chest and allowed the official number to hang there like a question everyone had already answered once.
The woman with the noodles flinched.
"I never meant that as a vote for anyone."
Zunoder gave her Ty’s most tired, grateful look.
"People rarely mean to become evidence until a system thanks them."
On Earth, the emergency door slammed shut. Gold wire sealed the gap. Jade’s voice came through again, steadier now.
"You are wearing his mouth wrong in every important way."
The body smiled before Zunoder allowed it.
There she was.
He pressed his burned fingertips to the crystal and let the whole stairwell hear him.
"Then come fix it where everyone can watch."