Chapter Text
Zhenya sat at his desk, staring at a glowing parchment that refused to end.
Soul assessment forms. Celestial energy dispersal logs. A formal complaint about his conduct from a lower-rank guardian angel who cried after one of his ‘encouraging’ remarks. He didn’t even remember what he said.
Probably something helpful.
He tapped his pen against the desk. Once. Twice.
Then sighed.
“This is the most boring version of eternity,” he muttered.
A junior angel passed by his door, saw him frowning, and immediately sped up.
Zhenya spun slightly in his chair. He looked around the vast, pristine office. Crystal walls. Floating scrolls. A ceiling that glowed with programmed light meant to mimic a calming sky.
He hated it.
The same patterns. The same rules. The same way everyone flinched around him. And still they expected him to sit here like some obedient piece of heaven's machinery.
He stood up.
No one stopped him.
Not when he walked out of the office. Not when he passed two levels of upper-order checkpoints. Not when he spread his wings mid-hallway and launched himself up, past the towers, into open air.
They all saw him. No one said a word.
He wasn’t surprised. They never did.
They were scared of him. Always had been. They’d given him title Archangel because they didn’t know what else to do with him. He wasn’t exactly controllable. Too powerful. Too unpredictable. A weapon with opinions.
Now he was a weapon with nothing to do.
He soared higher. The sky thinned. The clouds turned sharper.
Then he saw it.
A crack. A tear in the boundary. A sliver of dark smoke leaking into the light.
A temporary portal to Hell. Untouched, unguarded.
He smiled.
“Finally.”
“Yevgeny!”
A voice behind him. Loud. Familiar.
He turned in midair.
Olga. His half-sister. One of the few people who still spoke to him like a person, not a bomb.
She hovered just behind, wings trembling slightly. Her eyes were wide.
“What are you doing?” she said.
“Leaving,” he replied.
“You can’t just—Yevgeny, that’s a Hell gate.”
“I noticed.”
“Be serious for once—!”
“I am. I’m bored.” He pointed downward, toward the swirling pit of smoke. “That looks fun.”
She stared at him like he’d lost his mind. Maybe he had. He wasn’t entirely sure anymore.
“Yevgeny, you don’t know what’s down there—”
“I don’t care.”
“Don’t you dare—!”
He winked at her. Then dropped.
“YOU CRAZY GUYYYY—!”
Her voice echoed after him, shrinking fast as he fell through layers of atmosphere. The wind tore at his robes, his wings caught the light like a divine explosion, and the clouds parted in perfect, cinematic formation.
And below him, fire bloomed. Mountains cracked. The veil of Hell peeled open.
Zhenya folded his arms behind his head, tilting slightly in the air like he was floating into a pool, not a war zone.
Let them deal with me for a while.