Ne Job: The Intern from Hell — Chapter 81: "The Bureau's Last Directive"
The sky was burning.
Not in flame, but in order — collapsing into lines, grids, and seals that folded upon themselves like paper returning to its mold.
Yue stood at the edge of the platform, watching as the divine towers sank into the clouds. Every sigil, every scroll, every department — dissolving into light that streamed upward toward the Shard Court's unseen center.
Behind her, Ne Job limped forward, one arm still glowing faintly from the Chaos Spark's residue. He looked half-dead, half-bored.
> "So that's it?" he muttered. "The whole Bureau's... filing itself out of existence?"
Yue didn't answer right away. She still held the Directive — the final decree that Lord Xian had left sealed within the Rebirth Chamber. The parchment was warm, alive, like it knew it was the last breath of a dying system.
> "The Bureau isn't ending," she said softly. "It's resetting. The Shard Court approved the Rebirth Directive."
Ne Job's eyebrow twitched.
> "Rebirth... as in, delete everyone's sins and start fresh?"
> "No," Yue said, turning to face him. "Rebirth as in—remove divinity from bureaucracy. Every god, every file, every rule tied to divine essence will be rewritten into mortal systems."
He blinked. "You mean… they're turning Heaven into—"
> "—A mortal government."
The wind howled through the empty halls. Scrolls lifted into the air, bursting into motes of light that drifted like fireflies. The divine ink burned out, leaving only paper, empty and fragile.
Ne Job watched it all, silent for once.
> "Lord Xian knew this would happen," Yue said. "He wanted to end the cycle of divine audits — the eternal punishment of souls by paperwork. But he couldn't do it himself. His status wouldn't let him disobey the Court."
She opened her hand. Inside the Directive glowed the Bureau's last seal — shaped like a spiral, inked in gold.
> "He used you instead."
Ne Job gave a short, dry laugh. "Figures. I'm the intern from hell, right? Perfect scapegoat."
> "Not scapegoat," Yue said, stepping closer. "Catalyst."
For a heartbeat, they stood in silence, watching the last of the celestial columns fade into dawn. The Bureau was gone. The divine administration that had governed reincarnation for eons — folded, audited, and archived into dust.
Then the Directive pulsed again. A faint hum spread through the air.
Yue looked down as the seal unraveled into words — new orders written in a language neither mortal nor divine.
> "...'Transfer all residual divine assets to the Rebirth Core,'" she read aloud. "'Assign executor: Yue of the Audit Division. Assistant: Ne Job, temporary.'"
Ne Job groaned. "You've got to be kidding me."
> "Apparently not," Yue said, smiling faintly for the first time in ages. "You're officially reinstated."
> "As what? The cosmic janitor?"
> "No," Yue said. "As the first intern of the mortalized Bureau."
Lightning flashed overhead — not destruction, but reconstruction. The heavens stitched themselves into threads of light, each one connecting to the mortal realm below. Cities flickered into view beneath them, their lights merging with the divine remnants.
The Bureau wasn't dying.
It was reincarnating.
Ne Job squinted into the horizon. "You think this'll work?"
Yue closed the Directive and tucked it beneath her arm. "If it doesn't," she said, turning away, "then we'll file an appeal."
The last tower vanished behind them.
The dawn broke.
And somewhere, far above, the Shard Court's final record sealed itself — stamped not in ink, but in the echo of laughter carried through divine wind:
> "Ne Job, the intern from hell — approved for permanent probation."