Asha had never felt so peaceful in her life. Or in her death now, as it was.
She was standing in a white, blank space. Nothing of note could be found here. Nothing of note could exist here.
She looked down at herself, and was immediately confused. There wasn't a single injury on her body, even though she was certain she was stabbed to death.
"You cannot see the injuries you died from. Nor can you feel the illness that caused your death, if you had died that way."
She turned her head, alarmed, to see a cloaked humanoid figure standing behind her. The figure was holding a note, saying, "Do you have any idea what your next destination will be, Asha Rahiro?"
"...I am certain that it won't be Heaven, at least." Asha said after a moment of consideration.
"You are correct," said the figure, who was one of Yama's assistants, "for Heaven doesn't accept any human who kills another human to its ranks."
Asha stayed silent. She wanted to outright ask the cloaked figure why she doesn't simply tell Asha to go to He--
"However, not only you didn't side with the Suras, but also all of the killings you did were authorized by Visnu, one of the Primeval Gods. You don't fit Heaven, but you don't fit Hell, either."
Ah, so she would hang between Heaven and Hell for the rest of eternity? Well, she better get used to the emptiness of the "Realm of Non-existing"-- what she named the blank space on the spot.
"...But you're not going to stay here, actually," the cloaked figure said, "you're going with me to Yama-nim's office now. He had always wanted secretaries to go through the paperwork he has, and you can spend your time doing something useful instead of sitting here with nothing to do."
"..."
Asha, after all she did in her life, was going to spend her eternity doing paperwork, of all things. She would've thought this was a particularly evil joke, but this was too surreal for her to think it wasn't real. The cloaked figure extended her hands for Asha to take, and told Asha to close her eyes.
And when she opened them, she was inside of a volcanic terrain. Asha's skin would've melted had she been alive. The cloaked figure didn't seem affected, though, and led her calmly to Yama's desk.
Yama simply told them to go to "where the other one is", then turned back to signing his paperwork with inhuman speed.
"...'other one'?" Asha asked as the assistant led her towards the opposite direction.
"Didn't I say 'secretaries'? But don't worry, you'll probably get along with him fine. And even if you didn't, he's only doing paperwork until his fiancee catches up with him."
For some reason, that didn't sit well with Asha. And her intuition turned out correct when, upon entering a cave, a familiar voice said, "Ah, Persephone-nim? What brings you--"
The voice stopped from the shock. Seeing as it belonged to one Saha On, it was only natural it did.
They all stared at each other in silence until the assistant, Persephone, said, "It seems that I don't need to introduce you, since apparently you know each other. Wait... is she the fiancee you're waiting for, Saha?"
That question snapped Asha and Saha out of their shock, as they both yelled a big fat, "NO" at once.
Persephone raised her hands in peace and said, "Hey, no need to be so angry, it was an honest mistake. And besides, you'll need to work together, now that you're coworkers."
Asha kept silent, while Saha opened his mouth, then closed it. He opened it, then closed it again. On the third try, he was able to ask Persephone, "Do you know where the records of my past life are? I want to know what horrible, unspeakable act I did to make me deserve doing paperwork in my afterlife with my own murderer, of all people."
Persephone, seeing the kind of situation this is, politely excused herself and left the two humans to deal with themselves. Saha scanned Asha for a moment, while she kept a steely poker face, then sighed and said, "The gods said it, so we'll have to do it. Here, take the pile of deaths related to Yama magic..."
Asha took the pile and started flipping though it, ignoring the rest of Saha's words. Then she stopped, did a double take, and stared in shock at the picture about a pregnant woman who died from a Hoti Yama.
Noticing her shock, Saha looked at the picture then said, "Huh. So that's what happens when the embryo is not old enough to have a 'soul' in it."
Asha turned to him. "What."
"I was a judge. I saw some cases about murders like these, though my cases always were about embryos that have 'souls' in them, for some reason."
"What."
"...I see that you don't know how this spell works with pregnant women," Saha said, with his twinkling like Lorraine's used to when she's ripping off people, "so let me tell you all about its mechanisms in this case, and with excruciating detail, please."
It occurred to Asha that antagonizing a judge might not have been one of her best life choices.
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