Chapter 58: Divine Heckling and Mortal Humiliation

My realm was supposed to be a sanctuary. A place of calm, cosmic order where I could meticulously manage the karmic cycles of countless souls without interruption. But after Isao’s little visit, my office felt less like a celestial command center and more like a crime scene. I kept expecting to see his smug grin reflecting in one of my monitor screens. I paced back and forth, the hem of my goddess-gown swishing with agitated energy. He had gotten under my skin, and the worst part was that he knew it.

"Fine," I huffed to the empty, star-dusted room. "I'm a professional. I have work to do."

I strode over to my console, determined to ignore him and the mess in Nocturnus. I had a backlog of at least three dozen souls who needed their isekai packages finalized. One wanted to be a slime, a classic choice. Another wanted to be an onsen in a fantasy world, which was… creative. But my focus kept drifting. My finger hovered over the viewscreen for World #113.

"Just one last look," I muttered to myself, justifying the lapse in professionalism. "Just a final quality assurance check to ensure my abrupt departure didn't break the narrative."

With a resigned sigh, I tapped the screen. The feed flickered to life, showing the interior of the Nocturne Phantoms' dilapidated shack. The mood inside was funereal. Echo was staring blankly at a wall, Kael was curled up in a corner looking dejected, and the other members were shuffling around aimlessly. My disappearance had clearly hit them harder than I’d anticipated. They hadn't just lost a mascot; they’d lost their leader's entire will to function.

And then the screen panned to Jin. Oh, Jin.

He was standing on the roof of the shack, because of course he was. The moon was full, the sky was clear, and he was staring into the middle distance with an expression of such profound, tragic angst that it was almost a work of art. His cloak billowed in the night wind, and one hand was pressed dramatically to his chest. He was a perfect portrait of a heartbroken chuunibyou.

"He's taking it well," a lazy voice commented from right behind me.

I yelped and spun around. Isao was back, lounging in a newly materialized armchair, casually sipping from a juice box. A juice box! The God of Death was drinking a juice box in my office.

"How do you keep doing that?!" I demanded, my fists clenched. "Don't you have souls to reap? Deadlines to meet? A-An underworld to manage?"

"I'm a master of multitasking," he said with a dismissive wave. "And besides, this is way more interesting. Look at him. He's about to enter his sad-boy poetry phase. This is premium content, Aka-chan."

As if on cue, Jin sighed, a sound filled with the sorrow of a thousand abandoned puppies. "Oh, Luna," he whispered to the moon. "A fleeting light that illuminated my world of shadows, only to vanish like the morning mist. Where have you gone? Was our meeting but a dream… a cruel trick of fate?"

I cringed so hard my shoulders touched my ears. "Okay, I may have overdone it on his dialogue."

"Nonsense, it's perfect," Isao chuckled, taking a loud slurp from his juice box. "But I feel like it's missing a little something. A little… percussive punctuation."

He snapped his fingers.

On the screen, a pigeon that had been roosting on a nearby chimney suddenly took flight, circled once, and dropped a perfect, gooey white present right on top of Jin's head.

There was a moment of absolute silence. Jin froze, his dramatic monologue cut short. He slowly raised a hand to his hair, his fingers coming away sticky and white. His expression of tragic sorrow slowly morphed into one of pure, baffled horror.

I stared, speechless. Then, against my will, a snort of laughter escaped me. I quickly clapped a hand over my mouth.

Isao grinned, looking immensely proud of himself. "See? Comedy."

"You can't do that!" I hissed, my amusement warring with my outrage. "That's direct interference with a mortal's life! It's against the rules!"

"Rule 7, subsection B, paragraph 4: 'Minor acts of karmic re-balancing, often interpreted as bad luck, are permitted for Class-5 deities and above.' I'm just re-balancing his karma. He had too much 'cool protagonist' energy. I'm injecting some 'relatable loser' energy. It makes him more sympathetic," Isao explained with the logic of a madman.

Down in Nocturne, Jin was frantically trying to clean his hair, his epic rooftop monologue completely forgotten. He looked less like a master of shadows and more like a kid who'd lost a fight with a bird.

"Stop it, Isao," I warned.

"But I'm just getting started," he said, his eyes sparkling. He snapped his fingers again.

Jin, having given up on his hair, decided to reclaim his dignity. He drew his sword, Oblivion's Kiss, intending to practice his cool, moonlit forms. He gripped the hilt, pulled, and… nothing happened. The sword was completely, inexplicably stuck in its scabbard. He pulled again, his face turning red with effort. He put a foot on the scabbard and heaved. The sword wouldn't budge. He looked around frantically to see if anyone was watching his pathetic struggle.

I buried my face in my hands. "You're a menace."

"I'm an artist," Isao corrected. "I'm adding conflict. Every great hero needs to overcome obstacles. Right now, his obstacle is a sticky sword. It's character development."

Jin finally gave up on the sword. He let out a frustrated sigh and decided to make a dramatic exit, leaping from the roof back down into the alley below. It was a move he'd practiced a hundred times. He jumped… and his billowing black cloak, his pride and joy, caught on a loose nail on the edge of the roof. He was left dangling there, a few feet off the ground, kicking his legs like a puppet tangled in its own strings.

"Help!" he squeaked, his voice cracking with humiliation. "Echo! Kael! My cloak is betraying me!"

That was the last straw. I couldn't take it anymore. The combination of Jin's ridiculous predicament and Isao's triumphant, gut-busting laughter broke me. I started laughing, a full, uncontrolled, hysterical laugh that left me wiping tears from my eyes.

"Okay, okay, you win!" I gasped, clutching my stomach. "That was… that was pretty funny."

Isao took a theatrical bow from his chair. "I aim to please. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think it's time for his pants to spontaneously rip."

"NO!" I shouted, my good humor vanishing instantly. "You've had your fun. Stop bullying my protagonist! You're ruining the narrative!"

"Ruining it? I'm improving it!" he argued, standing up. "Your story is a predictable, self-indulgent power fantasy. I'm turning it into a slapstick comedy. The ratings in the divine realm are going through the roof, by the way."

"I don't care about the ratings!" I fumed. "This world is my creation, my sandbox. You don't get to come in and kick over my sandcastles!"

He just smirked, that infuriatingly handsome smirk. "Then stop me."

An idea, a terrible, reckless, and utterly satisfying idea, sparked in my mind. "Fine. A duel. You and me."

Isao raised an eyebrow. "A duel? Aka-chan, I'm literally Death. It would be a very short fight."

"Not that kind of duel, you idiot," I snapped. "A duel of protagonists. My Jin Kageyama versus a champion of your choosing. We'll reincarnate a soul of our choice into Nocturnus. We can guide them, but no direct interference like… like pigeon-bombs. The first one whose champion derails my original plotline—of Jin Kageyama uniting the land and defeating the Umbral Covenant—loses."

Isao's smirk widened into a full-blown grin. He was intrigued. "And the stakes?"

"The loser," I said, pointing a finger at him, "has to do the winner's paperwork for a century."

His eyes lit up. A century without paperwork was a prize beyond measure for any god.

"You've got yourself a deal, Akane," he said, holding out his hand. "Prepare to watch your brooding hero get upstaged by a protagonist with actual comedic timing."

We shook on it. The cosmic energy in the room crackled around our clasped hands, sealing the divine pact.

Down on the screen, Kael had finally managed to untangle Jin from his cloak. The boy stood in the alley, utterly defeated, his hair matted, his sword stuck, and his dignity in tatters.

My poor protagonist had no idea that his life was about to get infinitely more complicated. His world was no longer just a story I was writing; it was now the battlefield for a divine wager between Reincarnation and Death.