The Knock That Shouldn't Exist
The void broke like glass.
Fractals of light peeled back, revealing a hallway—endless, parchment-lined, suspended between memory and reality. Ne Job found himself standing on it, whole again, breath rushing back into his lungs like he'd been drowning for years.
Child Ne Job clung to his sleeve.
The wooden door stood before them—simple, old, wrong. Every knock sent tremors through the Bureau, like the sound traveled across realms.
BOOM.
The door rattled.
BOOM.
The parchment beneath their feet curled.
BOOM.
The chronal seed dimmed, its glow flickering.
"ANCHOR," it warned, "UNAUTHORIZED PRESENCE DETECTED."
Child Ne Job's small voice cracked.
"She's not supposed to be here."
"Who?" Ne Job whispered.
The child looked up.
"The Auditor."
Ne Job blinked. "Like… a Bureau auditor? Like the ones who grade our forms and complain about comma placement?"
The child shook his head.
"No. The first Auditor. The one older than paperwork. Older than rules."
Ne Job froze.
"Older… than the Codifiers?"
The child nodded.
"Yes. The one even the Codifiers feared."
The door shuddered again.
BOOM.
A single line of script burned across its surface:
∴ AUDIT REQUEST: ANCHOR ANOMALY
Ne Job exhaled through his teeth.
"Oh great. An ancient eldritch entity wants to check my performance review. Fantastic."
---
The Door Opens
The door creaked.
Just a sliver.
Just enough for darkness to seep out like smoke.
Ne Job instinctively stepped back. Child Ne Job grabbed him harder.
"Don't let her see you flinch."
"I'm sorry—WHAT?"
"If you show fear, she'll think you're unstable."
"I am unstable!"
"That's why she's coming," the child whispered.
The door opened fully.
And something stepped through.
Or rather—
Unfolded through.
A tall, thin figure shaped like a woman but made of rules—literal rules. Every inch of her body was covered in moving text: decrees, footnotes, ancient laws, loopholes stitched shut. Her face was a blank page with a single quill stroke for a mouth.
Where her eyes should have been were two stamps:
APPROVED
DENIED
Ne Job whimpered. "Yue would handle this better."
"She always did," the child murmured.
The Auditor turned her head—stamps clicking with a soft chk-chk sound.
"ANCHOR," she said.
Her voice wasn't sound.
It was a verdict.
"APPROACH."
Ne Job straightened, though his knees shook. "Hi. Ne Job. Current intern. Mostly alive. I didn't mean to—uh—destabilize anything? I think?"
The "APPROVED" stamp twitched.
Then fell still.
"ANCHOR UNIT 0001," the Auditor intoned. "REPORT FOR REASSESSMENT."
Ne Job blinked. "That sounds very official and I hate it. No thank you."
The "DENIED" stamp flared.
"REFUSAL NOT PERMITTED."
"Oh, of course it's not."
---
The Audit Begins
The parchment hallway twisted into a great circular room—an impossible courtroom with no walls, only floating laws swirling like storm clouds.
The Auditor appeared in the center.
Ne Job and Child Ne Job stood on a platform shaped like an intern's desk.
"BEGIN AUDIT," the Auditor commanded.
"And if I decline?" Ne Job muttered.
The child shook his head. "You can't. She'll audit the universe instead."
"…Okay, fine, that would be worse."
The Auditor raised a hand.
A seal of light formed in the air, revealing images like projected memories.
Ne Job squinted.
"…Is that me falling down a staircase?"
The Auditor intoned:
"INCIDENT 34-B. INTERN FAILED TO GRASP HANDRAIL. CHAOS EXPANSION: FOUR FLOORS."
"Oh COME ON—one trip and an entire hallway turns into a dragon mural ONE TIME—"
Next memory.
Ne Job accidentally drops a document.
Every filing cabinet in the vicinity becomes sentient and starts singing.
"THAT WAS NOT MY FAULT," he protested. "The document slipped—"
"INCIDENT 48-G. INTERN FAILED TO MAINTAIN GRIP STABILITY."
Child Ne Job winced. "You do drop a lot of things."
"TRAITOR."
The memories kept playing.
Every mishap.
Every disaster.
Every "oops" that accidentally summoned divine fire.
Ne Job's shoulders sank. "I'm starting to realize why the Bureau is constantly panicking around me."
"You ever wonder why Yue never panics?" the child asked gently.
"Because she's brave?"
"No. Because she remembers more of you than you do."
Ne Job froze.
"What?"
"She was your handler even before the wipe," the child whispered. "She always kept your resonance stable. You trusted her even then."
Ne Job's heart flipped like a bad filing tab.
The Auditor's voice boomed:
"ANCHOR INSTABILITY INDEX: HIGH."
A giant scale appeared—one side Chaos, the other Order.
Chaos slammed downward.
Hard.
"RECOMMENDATION: TERMINATION OF CURRENT ANCHOR INSTANCE."
Ne Job stopped breathing.
"Wait. TERMINATION? As in—killing me?!"
The Auditor didn't blink—because she had no eyelids.
"YES."
Child Ne Job stepped in front of him.
"No."
The Auditor tilted her head.
"OBSTRUCTION DETECTED. REMOVE."
The child braced himself. "No."
"REMOVE."
"No!"
Ne Job grabbed the child and pulled him behind.
"Hey! Hey! You don't get to vaporize a seven-year-old version of me! That's, like, morally questionable on at least twelve planes!"
The Auditor raised her hand.
"PROCEEDING WITH TERMINATION."
---
The Anchor Fights Back
Something broke inside Ne Job.
A quiet snap.
Like the first crack in ice before a flood.
He stepped forward—
And chaos burst from him like a shockwave.
Not random chaos.
Not explosive chaos.
Controlled chaos.
A swirling, glowing spiral of resonance circling his body like a shield.
The Auditor paused.
Her stamps flickered.
Ne Job shouted, voice shaking but steady:
"I don't care if you're ancient! I don't care if the Codifiers feared you! I don't care if I was a messed-up child Anchor experiment! I'm Ne Job, the Intern from Hell, and I am DONE being erased!"
The chaos shield roared.
Child Ne Job clung to his back.
The Auditor lowered her hand.
"INSTABILITY RISING."
Ne Job grinned, feral. "Yeah. That's me."
"THIS LEVEL OF RESISTANCE IS UNUSUAL."
"Good."
"UNEXPECTED."
"Extra good."
"IN VIOLATION OF ANCHOR DESIGN."
Ne Job stepped closer, chaos swirling around him.
"Then maybe your design was wrong."
Silence.
The Auditor's stamps froze mid-motion.
The parchment courtroom trembled.
Reality itself questioned what had just been said.
Ne Job kept going, voice rising:
"I'm not a Codifier experiment. I'm not a child-Anchor mistake. And I'm not letting you erase me because your ancient spreadsheet doesn't like my vibes!"
The chaos spiraled higher.
The Auditor staggered backward.
For the first time— She reacted.
"…CHAOS CANNOT DEFEAT RULE."
Ne Job smiled.
"That's the thing."
His resonance burned hot enough to fracture the parchment sky.
"I'm not here to defeat rule."
He reached out— Chaos meeting script—
"I'm here to rewrite it."
The Auditor's stamps glitched.
The courtroom collapsed.
Everything dissolved into light—
And the chapter ends here.
---
END OF CHAPTER 153 — "The One Who Knocks (And Should Never Have Knocked Again)"