Theme 7: Heaven

They cast me aside.

They broke their promises. They used me until I was no longer convenient and then I was discarded. But I will not be quietly resigned to my fate. I will make them pay.

My life began simply, as a proud samurai warrior serving my lord. When he fell in battle, I thought to join him, but Heaven had other plans. I was approached by a Seraph, a divine arbiter who offered me a choice. I could end my life now, stained as it was with the blood of the innocent and the guilty alike, or I could work for her. Either way, she said, I would die. The only variables were time and how much good I could do for the world first. I took her offer.

I traded my dou-maru for the protection of divine fire, the latent power of my own soul made manifest and amplified by the Seraph's gift. She sent down a pair of Principalities to instruct me in the use of my new-found power and school me in the laws I was now sworn to uphold.

Only the most effective of killers can become a Warden's Hunter. Only a mortal already so bathed in blood as to be beyond ordinary redemption can be offered the chance to turn that deadly instinct to divine purpose and in fulfilling that mandate find salvation. And what a killer was I.

My daisho shattered in the struggle with my first Edict-breaker. I wrenched the pitchfork from the demon's hand and destroyed his mortal shell with his own infernal weapon. And it is that weapon I still wield to this day. It is not the primitive hay fork of human folklore. My weapon is sleek and built for battle. Forged with cunning artifice by the techno-gremlins of the pit. Black steel prongs, carbon-nanotube haft, and a blood red jewel where the prongs meet the haft that glows as it drinks in the life-energy of my foes when they fall. It is a good weapon, a delicious irony when used to slay a demon. And on the rare occasion one of the Celestials breaks an Edict, well. . .it does what it was built to do.

For six hundred years I served my heavenly master. For six hundred years I killed who they told me to kill. For six hundred years, I was their faithful tool.

Until now. After six centuries of loyal service, I am now told my services are no longer required thanks to an "incident" that occurred relatively recently. And the Metatron has reneged on his offer of entry into Heaven.

But the Fallen and the Host are the same basic beings. There is one thing I have been trained to do very well over the past six hundred years. And that is to kill angels.

Tonight, for the first time since the Rebellion, there shall be sorrow in Paradise. And I shall be its author.