The iron came home, and the cube swallowed all of it.
Jin watched the dark streams pour into Han-gyeol's hand from every direction at once, from the dirt, from the needles, from the long ribbon climbing back up out of the black ring around the stage. The cube didn't get any bigger. It just kept drinking, spinning faster and faster above his palm, until it was humming so loudly that Jin could feel it through the glass of their box.
Then Han-gyeol pressed it flat against the center of his chest.
The iron came back out.
It poured out of the cube in thick, dark sheets and spread across his body like water, hardening as it went. Plates locked together over his shoulders, his arms, his ribs, his legs, overlapping like scales on a fish, until he was covered from neck to boots in heavy black armor. The cube sat in the middle of his chest like a heart, a slow red glow pulsing out through the seams between the plates.
