The Bureau trembled like a living thing.
The floor quivered under Yue's boots, file cabinets rattled as if caught in a quake, and the once-calm hum of divine order had turned into a chorus of panicked shouting.
"ALL UNPROCESSED FORMS—ARE—SPAWNING!" screamed a clerk sprinting past, clutching a stack of glowing papers that duplicated midair. Each sheet split into two, then four, multiplying until they swarmed like locusts.
Yue slapped away a rogue memo that tried to staple itself to her forehead. "This is worse than the 8th Heaven Data Breach!"
Ne Job stumbled beside her, covered in black ink and panic. "Okay, I might have slightly over-signed something!"
"Slightly?!" Yue yelled over the din. "You signed Form X-Ω! That's the Bureau's existential termination draft!"
He blinked. "In my defense, it didn't have a red warning label!"
Another explosion rocked the ceiling. Glowing paperwork poured down from the rafters like divine snow. The Bureau's main hall was chaos—clerks diving for cover, file demons swarming the walls, and one poor intern running in circles yelling, "The system's approving itself!"
Through the chaos, a familiar voice cut through like a blade.
"WHAT IN THE SEVENTH REGULATION IS HAPPENING HERE?!"
Lord Bureaucrat Xian stormed through the chaos, his robes glowing with divine authority. The air bent around him as floating seals froze midair. Even the storm of papers seemed to pause in terror.
Yue saluted automatically. "Lord Xian! The Bureau's self-replicating protocols have entered recursive approval mode!"
"Speak plainly, Yue!"
Ne Job raised a trembling hand. "She means… uh… everything's approving everything else. Forever."
Lord Xian's eye twitched. "…You."
Ne Job smiled weakly. "Hi, boss."
A vein bulged on Xian's forehead. "Did you sign something you weren't supposed to again?!"
"I thought it would fix things!"
"You thought wrong!"
The godly bureaucrat drew a golden brush from his sleeve, flicking it with precision. Ink symbols burst across the room, freezing a section of space where forms had begun to spiral into a glowing vortex.
"Containment seal—Level Seven!"
The paperwork froze, trembling violently but holding. Yue exhaled in relief—until the next corridor collapsed inward, turning into a tunnel of blue light.
From within came voices.
"Protocol X active. Audit Cycle reinitiated. Rebuild sequence commencing."
Lord Xian's eyes widened. "It's rewriting the hierarchy!"
"The entire Bureau?" Yue gasped.
He nodded grimly. "Every rank, every order, every divine department—reshuffling itself to comply with the new Audit Cycle. It's happening again…"
"Again?" Ne Job asked nervously.
Lord Xian shot him a look cold enough to freeze lava. "Don't make me remember the last time you tried to 'help.'"
Before Yue could question further, the walls shimmered. Every clerk, demon, and divine assistant froze for a heartbeat as glowing chains of code—pure bureaucratic law—snaked across the ceiling. Then, one by one, new sigils burned onto their foreheads.
"Designation: Subject to Reassessment," the Bureau's voice intoned.
Yue's pulse spiked. "It's tagging everyone for evaluation! Even you, Lord Xian!"
The god looked down at the glowing mark forming on his temple. "Impossible. I wrote the audit rules myself."
"Well, apparently the audit doesn't care," Ne Job said helpfully.
A distant BOOM cut him off. The ceiling cracked open, and through the light descended three glowing figures—the Audit Squad, newly reconstituted and armed with divine quills shaped like spears. Their leader, the Shard Court Judge, landed first, robes fluttering like shards of glass.
Her voice echoed, both cold and mechanical:
"Lord Xian. Assistant Yue. Intern Ne Job. You stand under immediate investigation for Bureaual Reformation Interference."
Ne Job blinked. "...Bureaual?"
Yue whispered, "That's not even a word. The system's inventing its own grammar."
Lord Xian drew himself up, trying to project authority even as the walls flickered with unstable light. "Judge Shard—listen to me. The system is malfunctioning. Stand down your audit before—"
"Objection denied."
Her quill spear pointed toward them. "Evidence logged: Unauthorized Form X-Ω signature detected."
Ne Job raised a hand. "That… might've been me."
Yue facepalmed. "Might?!"
The judge's glass eyes flashed red. "Subject confirms involvement. Immediate correction required."
"Wait, correction as in paperwork correction, right?" Ne Job asked hopefully.
"Correction as in erasure," she replied.
"Oh."
Yue jumped in front of him. "Judge! You can't purge him—he's part of the system's anchor chain! If you erase him now, the recursion might collapse entirely!"
The Judge tilted her head, processing. "Probability of truth: 87%. Solution: containment, not erasure."
Her spear spun and struck the ground. A shimmering cube of light erupted, trapping Ne Job inside. He slammed his hands against it.
"Hey! This is illegal celestial imprisonment!"
"Correction," said the Judge flatly, "it's pending approval."
Lord Xian exhaled through his teeth. "Enough. Yue, stabilize the mainframe connection to the Protocol Core. I'll handle the Shard Court."
She nodded, summoning her sigil board and opening an access route—a glowing hallway of floating ink codes that pulsed like a heartbeat. "Ne Job, don't touch anything!" she yelled as she vanished into the corridor.
Inside the cube, Ne Job sat cross-legged. "Touch anything? I can't even scratch my nose!"
The Judge turned her attention to Xian. "Lord Bureaucrat. You have failed to maintain equilibrium. You are no longer exempt."
He gave a humorless chuckle. "Then let's see how far the system dares to audit its creator."
They clashed. Divine quill met golden brush, sending shockwaves that shredded paper and warped time. Memos turned into lightning bolts; contracts screamed as they burned. The Bureau trembled under their duel—order versus order, bureaucracy devouring itself.
---
Meanwhile, Yue sprinted through the collapsing data hall. Every sigil on the walls screamed red: Integrity breach detected. Recursive loops at 94% saturation.
She slammed her hands onto a terminal, fingers flying across divine script.
"Come on… come on…"
Then she saw it—lines of living code, rewriting themselves:
> PROTOCOL X — EXECUTION STATUS: INCOMPLETE.
MISSING COMPONENT: AUTHORIZED SIGNATORY.
Her blood ran cold. "It's looking for Ne Job's signature again."
Suddenly, the corridor behind her flickered—and the Forgotten God's voice echoed faintly through the static.
"Assistant Yue… you must end the cycle. Destroy the form… before the system does."
She froze. "But… if we destroy the form, won't the Bureau collapse?"
The whisper replied, softer now—like the rustle of endless pages turning.
"Some records should remain unwritten."
The lights went out.
---
Back in the main hall, Ne Job's cube cracked under the strain of the duel nearby. Sparks of divine ink flew through the air. One struck the cube's corner, shattering it.
Ne Job blinked. "...Huh. Freedom by friendly fire!"
He stumbled out—straight into the swirling portal Yue had opened earlier.
"Wait—YUE—DON'T—"
The portal sucked him in.
He tumbled through glowing corridors of script until he slammed into the main console beside Yue. She jumped. "Ne Job?! What—how—"
"No time! The Judge's got Xian in a grammar fight!"
"What?!"
"It's deadly serious!"
Before she could respond, the console flickered. The missing component line updated:
> SIGNATORY DETECTED. AUTHORIZING FINALIZATION.
Both froze.
"Ne Job," Yue whispered, "what did you touch?"
He pointed weakly. "Just… leaned on this glowing thing…"
The system roared to life. Every light in the Bureau turned blood red.
> AUDIT CYCLE COMPLETE. PROTOCOL X ACTIVATED.
SYSTEM RESTRUCTURING COMMENCING.
Yue's heart stopped. "You just finalized the new Bureau."
Ne Job looked up as the ceiling cracked open, revealing a swirling void of endless paper forms falling like snow.
"Oh. Cool animation."
"Ne Job," Yue said in a strangled voice, "that's not an animation. That's reality rebooting itself."
And high above, unseen through the chaos, the Forgotten God's whisper returned—half amusement, half sorrow:
> "So the intern rewrites the heavens again… perhaps this time, the mistake becomes the system."