"Woo! Look at me, y'all!" Sab reached higher and higher with each consecutive jump, "Gods, where have these wings been all my life?!"

"I think you're ready to actually use them for their intended purpose now." Throne smirked, his Eyes twitching occasionally, "We're never gonna make it to the Shrine if you don't learn to fly."

"Nah, I'm good like this I think." He replied, "I feel way more confident when I'm not too far off the ground."

It was slow, but in Sab's mind, it wasn't as if they were under a time limit any more. Hence, he was about ready for their journey to take hundreds of cycles if need be. They can stop at any moment to take a break, and pick up where they left off. So what if they can't be as fast as Throne's flying speed? Not like it'd change much in the grand scheme of things... Or at least that's what he thought.

"Well you're not gonna feel confident when White Monsters start appearing again." Throne warned him with a tired sigh, "When that happens, you're gonna wish you learned how to fly."

"Eh? Oh, right. Those exist..." Sab rolled his Eyes, "Well, whatever! In that case, you'll just carry me up with you like you did before!"

"Actually, I can't do that either." Throne remarked, "You said it yourself—The wings are heavy. I could maybe possibly hold you up a bit, but only if we somehow managed to sync up our wings perfectly so that we're both flapping without them getting tangled up."

"In other words: Sab, learn to fly." Sab understood the assigned task, "Ugh, I guess I have no other choice. I'll try and fly for 10 seconds before committing too much."

"Just remember to not use your shoulders as much, I imagine they're already quite sore." Throne gave out his final tips before the first attempt, "Also, when you're flapping, you don't need to do so all the way. Apply just a little bit of strength into moving your wings, and their weight will do the rest of the work for you. Another thing to mention..."

"Geez, who are you, my dad?!" Sab got sick of it as he started flying, "I get it, so stop distracting me!"

Truth be told, he wasn't bad, all things considered. It took him a few attempts to reach the first milestone of ten seconds of flight, but after that things only got easier the longer he extended the flight duration. This was because the longer it took, the higher his altitude would go, meaning he didn't have to worry about accidentally bumping into the surrounding buildings. Conversely, however, the higher he got, the worse his landings became. Ascent was a piece of cake for him, the slowfall back down, however... Not so much. He didn't have the fine motor skills down to do anything apart from stop moving his wings altogether and just fall down normally. After a while, he eventually reached the point of no return—An altitude he just couldn't tolerate falling from anymore.

"H-Hey..." He gulped, "We're flying to the Shrine, right? I dunno the direction, so I'm following you."

"Yep, you're doing good." Throne praised him, "I told you it's nothing too difficult. Just needed a bit of practice."

"Right, about that..." Sab peeped down before raising his head back hastily in front of him, "Eek! Uhmm... Could you maybe help carry me down when we reach it?"

"No, you'll have to figure that out yourself, just like this." Throne seemed confused.

"I can't, I'll get seriously hurt!" Sab whined.

"You're in Heaven, you can't get hurt." Throne groaned, "We only feel physical sensations on our golden parts, remember? And as far as I know, your hoops are the only golden thing you have on you. Just don't bellyflop and you'll be fine."

"I still don't feel comfortable sticking the landing like a maniac."

"Then roll out?" Throne tilted his head, "Here, like this. Look closely!"

"No, wai-!"

Diving down headfirst towards the cloudy ground below them, Throne's speeds reached incredible velocity, to the point where to someone from the ground, he most resembled a shooting star. At this speed, there was no way any human would survive, much less escape unscathed. But Throne wasn't a human, nor did he hit the ground with any golden part of his body. For him, he was blessed with only having his tongue be golden, meaning he essentially could only ever feel pain if he bit into it accidentally. Otherwise, he was free to do as many dumb flashy stunts as he wanted to—Like the magnificent rollout that safely defused any and all excess potential energy he had previously accumulated during his fall. The crowd of onlookers all cheered and clapped for his magnificent performance as Throne looked up at Sab with a smug grin, waiting patiently for him to follow suit.

"Uuu..." Sab disliked the pressure, "I-I can't..."

Stolen novel; please report.

He knew how to fly forward just fine, but anything else was still new to him. Sab could not strafe in the air nor could he go back, meaning he certainly couldn't stop and stay in the same spot for an extended period of time. If he wanted to oblige, he would have merely stopped flapping his wings, but in continuing to go further and further away from the stationary, grounded Throne, he had shown to everyone the choice he had made without even so much as uttering a word.

"Tch, guess he's still scared..." Throne grumbled to himself before hurrying to catch up to his disciple in the sky, "Yo, kid! Calm down!"

"I am calm!" Sab closed his Eyes and shook his head.

"W-Whoa, hey!?" Throne noticed this, "Open your Eyes, idiot! You're gonna...!"

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***

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...Crash, is what he was about to say. After Sab realized he didn't actually know how to do anything but keep moving forward with his wings, he began to panic. In that panic, he closed his Eyes so that he wouldn't have to face the problem anymore. Sadly, this meant he couldn't see that he was quickly tilting his body forwards, making him flap directly downwards instead of up. Unlike Throne's rather fast but professional dive, this was more like a propelled missile getting continuously launched towards the ground at mach speeds. It took only a fraction of a second, and two mighty flaps for him to hit the ground headfirst.

"MMMM-!" He tried to get his head unstuck from the grassy field, like an ostrich, "MPH!"

"...Crap!" Throne noticed where exactly Sab had crash landed, "Nononono...! Wait wait wait wait wait...!"

The Gods' Abode. Out of all the places they could possibly have gotten themselves mixed up in, Sab just had to get stuck in the one place they would have to face punishment for ruining. The rest of Heaven 2.0's buildings and yards were part of the cycle—In other words, they would reset along with the memories of angels. One of the few exceptions to this rule was the very Abode they had set foot on... Or rather, set head in. Throne practically zipped to the bottom before yanking his friend's head free and trying to make a hasty, unnoticed exit. The doors to the mansion, however, opened as the hosts greeted them nonetheless.

"What are you doing here? Don't you know why we installed this gate in the first place?" The muscular giant rolled his Eyes.

"Sorry about him, he still isn't used to flying." Throne covered for Sab, "I take full responsibility. He was unsure of how to land, so I guided him to the most open field I could think of."

"And that place happened to be the Gods' Abode?" Selzion inquired.

Thousands of alarms were going off in Throne's mind. If he didn't play his cards right, a mighty fine punishment would soon follow. Now if it was just a punishment for Sab, he wouldn't mind all that much—The kid deserved it, after all. But the issue arose when Throne understood that he bore responsibility for this blunder as well. He had to be careful, test the waters and see how willing the Gods were to let this one tiny slip up go.

"I just got my wings today, ha-ha..." Sab said bashfully, "Didn't exactly have much of a tutorial on them..."

"Shut up!" Throne muttered quietly enough for no one else to hear it, "I got this, so please shut up!"

"A tutorial. Hmm, would that be a good idea to implement?" Selzion was on board, "A way to get new seraphim accustomed to their powers."

"Like a sort of training area where they can fly around without worry?" Prylos asked, "Is there even a point if every building just resets eventually?"

"There is." Selzion inspected the large crater in their yard the two had caused with Sab's haphazard landing, "Our yard doesn't reset."

Throne knew this much already from previous cycles. Obviously, given his long lived life as a seraphim, he had already been to this place a good couple of times. One time, during his landing in front of the fountain, he too had to stop a bit unglamorously, thus he skidded across the grassy field. The next time he arrived, the skid marks still remained. They weren't as noticeable, but they were there. He came to the conclusion that this was done to ensure the Book inside their home would never roll back anything written inside it... For that Book dictated the rules of Heaven 2.0 as they knew it.

"So, that's the case." Selzion's voice echoed throughout the yard, "You wish to use those wings to visit the Shrine?"

"Huh!?" Throne shouted, "How!? How did you...!?"

"We are Gods, we know and see everything." He continued as he turned his attention to three lowly angels crawling along the grass patches along the inner edge of the gate, "We will not excuse this behavior, your wings are hereby forfeit."

"No!" Sab cried out, "I just got these, dammit!"

"Selz, wait." Prylos stopped him, "You two can keep your wings, but only if you do this one thing for us."

"What is it!?" Both yelled, "Anything! You name it!"

Though he was the one who asked, Throne had already ascertained what the task was going to be from the context clues and prepared to attack in advance accordingly. He saw who the three intruders were, and the only thing that made that fact worse was that he recognized one of them. It was her, without a doubt... Migu.

"A group of intruders is trying to sneak into our house." Selzion smirked, "I'm sure you're both very well acquainted with them. Please see to it that they never pester us like this again."

Sab was slow on the uptake, but Throne was already at the three's location. Swooping in like a hawk to lift all three of them off the ground, he made sure to flick his body up in the nick of time before he hit the gate and utterly destroyed it. That would be no good, in fact they were in trouble in the first place because of the property damage, so he kept that part to a minimum. He was tasked to scare these three so badly that they would never ever even think to set foot in the Gods' Abode however, meaning he was essentially given the impossible task of transcending the memory loss. What he needed to instill wasn't fear, but trauma—And he was gonna do it no matter what, otherwise he would have to relinquish his wings to the Gods. A seraphim without wings is no different than an angel that can retain their memories.

"No hard feelings, you three." Throne made sure to point this out as he flew them hundreds of thousands of kilometers straight up, "But I somehow feel my goals are definitely more noble than whatever you have cooking up in the pot."

"BWAAAAAAAAHHHH~!" They all yelped, sobbed, cried and begged for their lives, "SPARE USSSSS~!"

Angels versus seraphim. The embarrassingly one-sided battle begins...