Chapter 23

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## Chapter Chronology

### Next

Chapter 24

This is chapter 23 in the Heaven's Design Team manga series.

## Plot

Inside the office, Kimura and Mizushima are engaged in a battle of martial arts. Mizushima appears to have the upper hand when Kimura suddenly lunges at him and leashes a secret technique- the bone hug. He then makes his rib cage spring out from his size startling Mizushima. Shimoda is watching from a distance and wonders what is going on.

Higuchi then walks in, stating bones can't grow that fast on Earth, which disappoints Kimura. Earlier, God had assigned Kimura to create “an animal bones are a weapon.” To plan out a design, Kimura is performing modifications on himself to gain experience. Although Mizushima comments that he is doing it to have fun.

Seeing as having the bones shootout is impractical, Kimura comes up with the idea of putting the bones on the outside of the body. He then tries it out on himself much to his coworkers' stunned faces. Suddenly, Higuchi becomes worried about how he is moving his arms without shoulder blades on the outside. Kimura replies that he switched the position of the shoulder blades to the inside. Despite Higuchi’s skepticism, it appears that Kimura has made some progress.

To test the bone's durability, Meido brings in a lion to be the predator. However, the test proves to be a failure. Then the team increases the bone density and offsets the placement of the joints at the cost of some mobility. They conduct the test again and the lion fails to break the bones. But then Kimura collapses onto the floor. The new modifications have made it harder for him to breathe.

Meido suggests not using the ribs to move the lungs which gives Kimura an idea of how to use the shoulder blades. After getting Higuchi’s approval, Kimura makes the modifications on himself and is able to breathe easier. However, he still has trouble moving. Further complications occur when he tries to make the ribs longer, causing osteoporosis.

Despite the flaws, Kimura refuses to back down. To counter the osteoporosis, he suggests getting rid of the teeth and Mizushima suggests using a bird's beak design to make up for the lack of teeth. Knowing that he is heading in the right direction, Kimura puts his body back to the way it was and starts adding the new features. As soon as he finishes, Shimoda receives a message from God with divine approval and the turtle is born.

Although pleased with the design, Higuchi notes that the head is vulnerable to attack. This prompts the others to brainstorm ideas. As a result, three new variations get approved- the side-necked turtle, the hidden-neck turtle, and the box turtle. Sometime later Kimura informs Shimoda that God was pleased with the turtle. However, God noted that maybe the animal doesn’t exactly need to use its bones. As such he approved one of Kimura's boring sketches from earlier, the Iberian Ribbed Newt.

## New Animals

* Turtle (Testudines)
* Side-necked turtle (Pleurodira)
* Hidden-neck turtle (Cryptodira)
* Box turtle (Terrapene)
* Iberian Ribbed Newt (Pleurodeles waltl)