An Archangel's Sin

Heaven. The place where all good souls eventually end up. Everybody who believed in God, that Jesus Christ died on the Cross for their sins, and that the only way to repent for their sin was by praying to God and asking him for forgiveness, was given a place beyond these Pearly Gates—or so the stories went.

It is also the place where God watched over his creations… when he wasn’t out playing pachinko, that is.

Much as would be expected of such a place, Heaven could only be considered true paradise. Beyond the escalator that led souls up to Heaven, and beyond the pearly white gates that led into Heaven, the place that mortals called Heaven looked almost similar to a well-maintained city—if a well-maintained city looked like a number of buildings and communities interconnected by a series of large clouds. There were no roads or sidewalks (why would Heaven need those when everyone could just fly?), but there were a large number of structures floating about.

Perhaps the most unusual aspect of Heaven was the constant additions to the structures that made up much of the first three Heavens. There were hundreds, maybe even thousands of buildings built in a variety of different architectural styles. Everything from hovels created long before the birth of Christ or even the Mesopotamian Empire could found there. Among the many styles, the most prominent were those nations where Christianity was more prevalent.

The most common styles found were the modern buildings of the United States of America and Eastern Europe, and, surprisingly enough, Japan. Yes, Japanese architecture could be found in abundance in Heaven. You couldn't fly fifty feet without running into a pagoda with a slanted roof made from bamboo, lintel support posts, and paper walls with unique and beautiful designs painted upon their surface. These many buildings were easily the most noticeable, due to just how different they were from everything else.

Among the many Japanese structures, one of them stood out the most.

The hot spring. Yes, the hot spring.

Hot springs were extraordinarily popular in Heaven, especially among female angels. The open air baths were particularly well-received, and unlike in Japan, these were popular year round, since Heaven had perpetually perfect weather every day.

Within one of the many hot springs, also known as onsen in Japanese, several women could be caught bathing. This particular onsen had been designed to look exactly like a traditional Japanese hot spring. That is to say, it was built to look almost like it had been formed naturally and was not man-made, or angel-made, as the case may be. The onsen was layered with several rocks, a number of boulders rose out from the waters, and surrounding the hot spring was a large bamboo fence.

The women made great use of the facilities, some frolicking about, others simply laying against the warm rocks as they let the hot water caress their bodies. They were so content and relaxed that not a single one of them noticed the hole being drilled into the bamboo wall from the other side. Neither did they see the leering steel-colored eye that peered through the hole.

“Hehehe. Oh, yeah. This is the spot. Look at all these beauties.”

Archangel Michael, typically called Michael by his friends, had just got back from helping defend Heaven from another attack launched by Satan and his minions. The attack had been repelled, naturally. The only devil there worth noting had been Beelzebub, and that idiot was no match for him even on his worst day.

You'd think after several thousand years of unsuccessful attempts at breaching Heaven's gates, they would have given up by now, but no, Satan and his lot were the utter definition of insanity. They tried busting into Heaven over and over again. It was like they were expecting the same tactics that might have worked several thousand years ago to work now. Honestly, fighting those idiots was beginning to get more than a little boring.

Most of the more powerful devils hadn't been active for a while. He and Lucifer had not crossed swords in somewhere around two-hundred years or so. And Satan hadn't made an appearance in at least five-hundred.

A part of him wondered what happened, but the rest just didn't care. Less devils to battle meant more time for the hobby he had picked up sometime in the last one-hundred years: peeping.

Yes, Archangel Michael was a peeping tom. He also enjoyed stealing panties. Some might call him disgusting and lecherous, but when you've been alive since just a little after the dawn of creation, you need to find something interesting to choose as a hobby. His just happened to be a little less respectful to women than most.

“Oh, hubada hubada.” Michael licked his chops of the drool threatening to run down his mouth as he saw one of the women stand up. Using his keen eyesight, which put eagles to shame, the ancient angel of combat began one of his favorite parts of peeping: taking measurements. “Let's see... 89 centimeter around the bust. 50 centimeter waist. And, hoo boy, 85 centimeter hips. Very impressive... hehehehe...”

Some people might wonder why or how Archangel Michael, the most powerful of all God's angels, his right-hand man, and the greatest swordsman in all of Heaven, became such a lecherous creature. The answer to that was unknown. No one really knew why Archangel Michael is so perverted; he just was.

“This is so nice,” one of the young woman said. Michael zeroed in on her and ended up getting her measurements as well. 78, 46, 80. Not as good as the other woman's, but still generously proportioned. And her face made up for any deficiencies in her breast size.

“You said it. I don't know who got the idea to create these hot springs, but I have to give them props. These are amazing!”

“I know, right? It almost makes me wish we had these in the United States back when I was alive.”

“I agree. Europe had a few, but they were nothing like these ones. The Japanese really know how to build their hot springs.”

As the girls spoke, another female walked in. Her wings were already retracted, and she was covered in nothing but a towel. Because of how far away she was, and the densely packed steam rising from the spring, Michael could not see much more than an outline.

Good thing an outline was all he needed.

“99, 58, 90,” he whispered, awed. Few women had a body like that. Whoever this new femme was, she had just become his idol. Nothing would bring him greater joy than immortalizing her form within his mind so that he could enjoy the sight of her for all eternity.

“G-Gabriel!?”

The shocked cry that went up brought Michael's mind to a screeching halt. Gabriel? She was in there? Right now?

Michael pressed himself further against the bamboo wall, until his eye was practically being shoved through the hole. Gabriel, an archangel much like himself, was hailed as one of the most beautiful women in all of Heaven. And he didn't disagree. With shimmering silvery blond hair that flowed down her back in gentle waves, eyes as blue as the azure sky, and perfectly unblemished porcelain skin, Gabriel was the epitome of what it meant to be a woman.

There was only one problem that kept her from being considered “The Perfect Woman.”

Gabriel had a temper.

A really big temper.

She was also really violent.

There was a reason all of devil kind (and even some angels) called her “The Demon of Heaven.”

“Relax,” Gabriel's angelic voice soothed those around her, including Michael, who found himself leaning against the wall more and more. “I am merely here to take a relaxing dip. I've heard that this hot spring is the best in all of heaven.”

“Oh, yes,” one of the other women said, relaxing at Gabriel's reassurances. “It's definitely the best. This hot spring is the most authentic-looking Japanese onsen in Heaven. Some angels even say it has the healing powers that the ones in Japan have.”

“Is that so?” Gabriel asked, her voice amused.

The silhouetted figure, which Michael now suspected to be Gabriel, began walking deeper into the spring and closer to his position. Wanting—no, needing to catch his first glimpse of perfection, the powerful archangel and swordmaster leaned further and further against the wall.

Unfortunately for Michael, what the girls said about this being the most authentic Japanese onsen in all of Heaven was true, and not just because it looked like a Japanese hot spring. While time didn't have much meaning in a place where everyone was immortal, the hot spring had been built before a time on Earth when cement was used to build walls. That meant the wall blocking the hot spring wasn't just made to look like it had been made of bamboo, it actually was made of bamboo.

Don't ask how they got bamboo into Heaven. You're better of not knowing.

The bamboo began to creak. Michael noticed this a moment too late and, with nothing more than a loud yelp of surprise, the wall came down with a crash, and the powerful angel found himself making a splashdown in the middle of the onsen.

His head broke the surface of the hot spring, and he shook his long brown hair, spraying water every which way. He also coughed up several lungfuls of water, which he had swallowed in his surprise.

“Ugh, I knew I should have been more careful about leaning on that wall. Stupid bamboo,” he mumbled, still not really aware of the silence that had descended upon the hot spring. “Next time I go peeping, I'm gonna have to be a bit more careful.”

“Next time you go peeping, you say?”

Michael froze as a soothing, angelic voice filled with a quiet yet bubbling rage entered his ears. He knew that voice. It was impossible not to. He also knew the tone being used, and it could spell nothing good for him.

Despite the hot water surrounding him, he broke out into a cold sweat.

Turning his head, Michael was greeted to the sight of Gabriel, her blue eyes surrounded by strands of silvery blond hair as she glared down at him. The depths of her eyes were unfathomable. Bottomless blues that caused him to sink into them, where he found himself being tossed about by a tempest the likes of which would never be seen on the mortal seas.

“Uh.” Quick, Micheal! Say something fast. “Hello, Gabriel. Nice weather we're having, huh?”
Smooth.

“It is lovely weather,” Gabriel agreed, making Michael believe he might be able to talk his way out of this. “It is the perfect weather to kill an angel.”

Michael paled.

Gabriel began to crack her knuckles, and she wasn't the only one. Even though most of his attention had been captured by the vision of perfection before him, he could see all of the other woman doing the same out of the corner of his eye. Some of them were even grabbing nearby appliances and holding them like baseball bats. Michael saw one of them with a large rake used for cleaning petals from the pool.

Gulp.

“Before I flay you alive, shatter every bone in your body, and squeeze your organs and muscles into a fine pulp, I want you to tell me something.”

Oh, boy. Gabriel was definitely pissed. She only got that descriptive with her death threats when someone had well and truly made her angry.

“Uh, what would you like to know?” asked Michael, feeling an odd tranquility come over him. There was something to be said about knowing, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he was going to die.

It was the calmness of a man who had accepted his death.

“Was it worth it?”

Michael thought about the question. Truly thought about it. And, after several moments of thinking, came to a conclusion.

Reacting quicker than Gabriel or anyone else thought possible, Michael grabbed onto Gabriel's towel and pulled it off. He threw it to the side, allowing himself an unfettered glimpse of the woman's boobs. They were just as beautiful and perfect as he had expected them to be. No one else in the entirety of Heaven, Earth, or Hell had boobs better than the woman standing in front of him. They looked even more magnificent because they were jiggling around as the woman shook in unrestrained rage.

“There.” Michael nodded decisively. “Now it was worth it.”

The last thing Michael saw before the might of two dozen furious female angels descended upon him was Gabriel's powerful right hook.