Severed Prayer Lines
The Heavenly Ledger of Heaven. Mid-layer Record Hall. Between pillars stretching endlessly, streams of light flowed quietly downward. Light like water, yet not water. The heavenly recording device that transformed sounds and echoes into numbers and sentences the moment they touched. Hundreds, thousands of lines pierced each pillar. Prayer lines. Breaths rising from Earth and Hell, and the named test zones. Screams. Blessings. Curses. Heaven received them not as 'incidents,' but as 'data.'
One angel quietly opened their eyes. There was much to record today as well. Prayers begging to be saved. Prayers demanding punishment. Whispers trying to redirect their share of calamity elsewhere. With familiar hand movements, the angel sorted the flows. Pain into pain, desire into desire. And—
Streams different in texture from prayers. Reaching out to the 'results' rising from the test zones below.
The angel touched one light pillar. Plague test zone. A few numbers. The responsible party's name. Astamar. Rotting things. Diseased things. Discarded things. Gathered together into one of Hell's test zones with the thought, let's see how long they hold out.
A faint tremor reached the angel's fingertip. Dying voices. Dry reports. Response favorable. Additional stimulus. The same rhythm as always today.
Then—
Snap.
The tremor at their fingertip suddenly stopped.
"......?"
The angel's eyes widened slightly. Inside the plague test pillar, the stream representing the Astamar zone. It continued up to that point, and then everything after was—blank, as if painted over with ink.
Not a severed trace. Not a collapsed pattern. Just a clean void where 'the records after that' had been neatly sliced away.
"That's strange."
The angel murmured quietly.
Procedure as usual. First, compare with the other plague test zones. The lines from other plague zones embedded in the adjacent pillar still trembled faintly. Sickening breaths. Shattering prayers. Numbers of pain. No issues.
"Then, just this one..."
The angel placed their hand again. Retraced the echo right before the cutoff.
'Sensitivity increased.'
'Test subject zone expansion needed.'
'Plague response favorable, additional stimulus injected.'
And—
'Echo from observation zone momentarily—'
The sentence cut off there. Nothing was recorded below it.
"Not the type to stop reporting."
The angel withdrew their hand. This time, they followed the prayer line itself backward. To where the line's root connected. Hell. Bell's zone.
"......Bell."
The angel repeated the name lowly. A portion of the plague test zone. The site where Raphael's legion had once been deployed, only to be nearly annihilated.
The angel steadied their breath quietly and said,
"This... should be seen from above directly."
Heaven's upper layer. The hall where archangels entered. Pillars carved like jewels, flowing water-light mingling with the ceiling's glow to create quiet ripples.
The record angel knelt and finished their report.
"......It's anomalous. One prayer line from a plague test zone has gone silent in Bell's zone."
A brief silence. A mid-rank angel spoke first.
"Bell's zone... the place where Raphael's legion was sent down?"
The record angel nodded.
"Yes. As of now, it's a battlefield with only Raphael and a few dozen direct survivors remaining."
The air in the hall grew just a fraction heavier.
One side of the hall. A wall of water stood there. Reflected inside the calm surface was a single being's form.
Raphael. Floating motionless with eyes closed. Shattered armor and wound marks lingered across their body. From some wounds, darkly corrupted power still slowly seeped out.
The authority of Gluttony. Deep scars from clashing with Bell, still stubbornly battling Raphael's healing authority even now.
Flesh would knit, only for the energy to devour it again from that spot. Heal it once more, and it would bite anew. Healing and Gluttony waging an unending war within one body.
That was why Raphael still could not fully open their eyes.
Before the water wall, one angel said lowly,
"......The legion is almost entirely gone. Only Raphael and a few direct subordinates returned. Those tens of thousands of troops all went into Bell's stomach—"
The words did not reach the end. Someone had quietly raised a hand, cutting them off.
"That is already over."
He stepped forward one pace. The hem of his white robes seemed to brush the water-light, rippling.
Gabriel. The newly ascended archangel. A thin membrane-like energy quietly flowed around him.
The authority of Protection. A gentle pressure that settled only on those within that membrane. And between its bonds—
The energy of water. Washing away, suppressing, sometimes covering over to halt.
Gabriel glanced once at Raphael within the water wall.
"Raphael's battle is not yet finished."
His voice was soft, but not sentimental.
"While Gluttony and healing war within one body, our role is merely to ensure that battlefield does not overflow."
The angel beside him murmured lowly.
"Even so... it's regrettable."
Gabriel nodded quietly.
"It is."
Short, clear agreement.
"Which is why we must not repeat the same mistake exactly once more."
Only then did the record angel ask.
"The silent prayer line in the plague test zone, signs of anomaly in Bell's zone... how shall we handle it?"
Gabriel raised a hand, altering the water wall before them. The surface where Raphael floated shifted aside slightly, and a new surface unfurled in its place.
"First, let's look from Earth."
Scenes flickered over the water. War. Famine. People huddled in prayer. Some zones begged, stop the great calamity. Others, keep only my land safe.
Gabriel did not hold any one scene. He let them flow past.
"Earth..."
After a moment's silence, Gabriel said,
"Continue as we are now."
The angel beside lifted their head.
"Is it fine to leave it as is?"
"Yes."
Gabriel's fingertip swept the surface. A quieted city. A battlefield rising again. Traces of light briefly passing between them.
"Earth sits atop the streams we originally set flowing. It dirties, cleanses a little, repeats—yet the main current follows the path we laid."
Prayers from the weeping. Prayers from those laughing as they raise their cups.
"For Earth's tests and interventions, watch a bit longer as per the current plan."
This time, Hell. As Gabriel moved his hand once more, the scene atop the surface turned dark red.
Cracked earth. Battlefields blanketed in corpses. Somewhere, a base slowly reorganizing. A hazy mark rose over one zone.
Bell's zone.
The angel beside swallowed.
"The place where Raphael's legion vanished..."
Gabriel did not waver his gaze.
"And now, the former plague test zone."
Over the surface, black mist and rotting flowers faintly appeared, then a silhouette rebuilding structure atop it.
The record angel added,
"The site of the upper demon in charge of plague, Astamar—"
Gabriel continued,
"Now a place where we cannot see what is happening."
The water surface rippled once more. Thin streams descending from above. Prayer lines reaching the zone, then scattering into fragments against an invisible barrier.
"......Blocked."
Gabriel said lowly.
"Someone in Bell's zone is covering our eyes."
A young angel cautiously asked,
"Has Bell begun moving again?"
Gabriel shook his head.
"If it were Bell alone, he wouldn't use this method."
The demon of Gluttony. A being who distinguished only between what could be eaten and what could not.
"This is a hand that uses battlefields and test zones differently."
His gaze flicked briefly to Raphael, then returned.
"There was a similar anomaly in Raphael's test zone before."
The record angel hurriedly checked.
"Bell zone, test records right after the war... yes, here."
"The demon named Rak appeared then as well, recorded as 'the one who changes the method of use.'"
Rak.
Gabriel rolled the name once in his mind. The air inside the hall grew heavier, just a bit more, for a brief moment.
"Plague, Gluttony, blocked prayer lines."
The things now mixing and turning in that Hell zone.
"This time..."
Gabriel continued quietly.
"We go down properly prepared."
The angel beside asked softly.
"......Like Raphael, moving with a full legion?"
Gabriel paused in thought, then shook his head.
"No."
The thin membrane around him vibrated quietly once more.
"This time, we go to protect."
Authority of Protection. Authority of Water.
"To return the test zones to our grasp, reshaping them as we can hold."
Those words held no intent to 'save' Hell. Merely the will to restore Hell and Earth's battlefields to test zones fitting heaven's standards.
Gabriel swept his gaze over Hell atop the surface once more.
"Observe the situation a little longer."
He summarized slowly.
"Let Earth flow as it is now, and for Hell—"
He paused briefly, then Gabriel added his final words.
"Let's go once, properly prepared."
The red scene atop the surface slowly folded away. The eyes looking down from above quietly shifted direction, gathering light as if selecting the next battlefield.