📘 Chapter 59 – The Bureau Without Him
When Yue opened her eyes again, everything was perfect.
Too perfect.
The Bureau of Divine Administration gleamed as if it had never known dust or disaster. The ceilings shimmered with the usual sterile light, the glass corridors humming softly with regulated energy. The smell of sanctified ink filled the air — the unmistakable scent of compliance.
Her head throbbed faintly, but there was no wound, no blood, no sign of the explosion. Her desk sat in its proper place, her teacup perfectly aligned with regulation angle standards.
For a long time, Yue didn't move. She simply stared at the scene, waiting for the cracks to show.
They didn't.
The Bureau clock chimed — twelve soft notes. Lunch interval. A faint wave of bureaucratic calm swept the halls. Clerks floated through their daily routines, stamping forms, cross-referencing mortal destinies, smiling with polite detachment.
Yue rose slowly, her chair scraping against the floor — too loud, too real.
"Good morning, Assistant Yue," said a passing archivist drone. "Reminder: today's audit orientation for new interns begins at third bell."
Yue froze. "New interns?"
"Yes," the drone replied pleasantly. "Seven applicants. All cleared by the Court. Shall I print their names for your department's rotation?"
"…Yes," she whispered.
The drone flickered, produced a glowing list — and left.
Yue looked down.
No Ne Job.
Not even a mention of a previous intern rotation. No empty file slot. No trace in the registry. It was as if he had never existed.
Her hands trembled slightly as she reached into her drawer. Inside were the usual documents — audit reports, divine memos — and a sealed folder marked 'Incident Log: 404'.
The seal was red — meaning restricted by the Shard Court. She shouldn't have been able to see it. But it was there, as if someone had deliberately placed it where only she would find it.
She broke the seal.
Inside was a single page.
No words.
Only a faint scorch mark shaped like a handprint — and under it, three letters scrawled in fading ink:
"N. J."
Yue's breath caught. Her heartbeat roared in her ears.
She looked around. Everyone else moved normally. No one reacted. No one remembered.
When she whispered his name, the Bureau itself seemed to resist it — a static hiss running through the air vents.
> "Ne Job…"
The lights flickered once — faint, like a pulse. Then silence.
Yue closed the folder, slipped it into her uniform pocket, and forced herself to breathe evenly.
She walked to the central records chamber, heart pounding. Every terminal, every index crystal she accessed gave the same response:
> "No record found."
"No entity under that designation."
"Please verify input and comply with current archival schema."
Finally, she turned to the archivist drone beside her. "Do you remember an intern assigned to me last quarter?"
The drone blinked. "Assistant Yue, your department has not been granted intern clearance in over two cycles."
"That's not—" she stopped. Her voice shook. "That's not true."
The drone's faceplate whirred softly, its tone gentle but firm. "Are you experiencing memory desynchronization? Shall I submit a wellness ticket?"
Yue forced a smile. "No. Thank you. That won't be necessary."
She walked away, the corridors stretching endlessly ahead, each step echoing like a metronome of denial.
At her office door, she paused. The brass nameplate gleamed as always:
> Assistant Yue, Department of Compliance & Audit — Divine Bureau, Level 7.
But below it, faintly scratched into the metal, barely visible against the polished surface, was a message.
Handwritten. Irregular.
> "If they forget me, remember for both of us."
Her breath caught in her throat. She reached out to touch the words — and for an instant, felt warmth. A pulse.
Then the letters faded, absorbed back into the metal like ink into water.
Yue stood there for a long time, her hand trembling against the cold surface.
The Bureau around her continued as if nothing had ever happened.
The silence was absolute.
But deep within her chest, under the layers of protocol and fear, something else stirred — a flicker of defiance, a memory refusing deletion.
"Ne Job," she whispered again, barely audible.
This time, the lights didn't flicker.
But far above — somewhere beyond the Bureau's ordered sky — a single crack spread faintly across the heavens.