Heaven was too clean.
That was the first thing Cecil noticed every morning—if you could even call them mornings. The sky never changed. Just gold on gold on gold, bleeding into white. No sun, no stars, no sense of time. Not unless you carried it yourself.
Which he did.
He clicked open the lid of the old stopwatch in his palm. The needle trembled, then ticked forward once. Just once. It was always just once.
He pocketed it and kept walking.
Marble spires rose around him like frozen lightning. Statues lined the streets—faceless angels carved from crystal, each one a monument to perfection. And yet not one of them looked alive.
Just like the people here.
"Eighty-seven days," Cecil murmured. "No mortal food. No human conversation. No socks. Just choir music and eternal sunshine."
A beat passed.
"Definitely Hell."
He rounded a corner and entered a courtyard that stretched impossibly wide, dotted with hovering gardens and fountains that flowed sideways. The air here shimmered—not from heat, but divinity. Code hummed beneath every surface, like the whole place was running on a very smug operating system.
He hated how pretty it was.
A trio of angelic figures passed by him—new arrivals, by the look of their wide eyes and perfect posture. Still glowing faintly from the transition. Still high on salvation.
He didn't bother greeting them. They never looked twice at him.
Cecil had a habit of being overlooked. Just the right amount of disheveled, just the wrong amount of reverent. Not enough wing for the Choirs, not enough muscle for the Sentinels.
But that was fine.
Let them think he was harmless.
A chime rang through the city—a low, melodic note that vibrated in his chest. Then, a voice. Soft. Female. Artificial.
"All Second-Tier initiates of the Ninth Sector are to report to the Ascension Rail. Academy intake begins at Second Bell."
Cecil exhaled slowly through his nose.
So, it was today after all.
His lips curved into a smile.
"Finally," he muttered. "The field trip begins."
He took a different path—toward the northern edge of the district, where the ivory towers thinned and the land broke apart into massive skybridges. No one walked this way unless they had to. Too many rumors. Too much truth buried under all the gold leaf.
Cecil liked it that way.
As he walked, the world grew quieter. The singing stopped. The statues disappeared. Instead, rusted gears and forgotten mechanisms clung to the stone—remnants of Heaven's older infrastructure, back before aesthetics overtook function.
He paused at the edge of the last bridge.
The Academy floated in the distance.
It was massive—an entire continent suspended in light, shaped like a seven-pointed star. Each arm held a different district, and at the center, a tower that split the sky. Lightning coiled around its peak like a crown. Ships moved along invisible lines, tiny against the scale of the structure.
Cecil had seen it before. From afar. On holoscreens. In warnings.
Never like this.
"Reaper Academy," he whispered. "Where gods are taught to kill."
The wind picked up, tugging at his coat. He held the stopwatch tightly. It pulsed once, faintly warm in his hand.
Behind him, footsteps approached.
He didn't turn.
"Bit late for recruitment, isn't it?" he asked.
No answer. Just the hiss of steel leaving a sheath.
He rolled his eyes. "Really? Ambushing a transfer student? What's next, swirlies in the divine toilets?"
The attacker lunged.
Cecil moved faster.
His hand snapped the stopwatch open mid-spin, and the second it clicked—
Time fractured.
Not for long. Just a flicker.
The attacker—a tall figure in black with pale skin and silver markings—staggered as if gravity hiccupped. Their blade missed entirely, scraping against stone. Before they could recover, Cecil stepped behind them and jabbed an elbow into the back of their knee.
They dropped.
He yanked the blade from their hand and stepped away, leveling it at their throat.
"Now," Cecil said calmly, "before I jam this in your larynx and call it a divine misunderstanding—who sent you?"
The attacker blinked at him. Then chuckled.
"Better than expected."
Cecil frowned. "That's not an answer."
The figure stood, hands raised in mock surrender. "You're being tested, Cecil. We all were. Consider this... orientation."
"And what lesson am I supposed to take from nearly getting stabbed on my commute?"
"That you don't belong here."
Cecil's eyes narrowed.
The attacker turned and walked off the edge of the platform—and vanished. No fall. Just gone.
He stood there a moment, watching the empty air.
Then, slowly, he looked down at the stopwatch in his hand.
The dial had shifted.
One more tick.
One more second gained.
He exhaled, then turned toward the skybridge.
The wind howled across it, cold and dry, like breath through an ancient machine.
He took his first step forward.
Toward the Academy. Toward whatever this new chapter of unlife demanded. Toward the place where Reapers were forged from angels.
And behind his calm smile, behind the relaxed posture, something darker stirred in his memory.
A name. A face. A moment, frozen in time.
He hadn't come here to learn.
He'd come here to find the ones who let her die.
And when he did?
A grim smile crossed his lips as he stepped into the unknown.