Why Angels Fall (part 2)

=======Chapter 7 (part 2)==========

"-And that is why you must never," Asia emphasized her point by pointing at him with her finger, "ever look up two girls and cup on the internet. Trust me, sometimes forbidden knowledge is forbidden for a reason."

Kokabiel nodded solemnly at her words, as if he was receiving the words of the gospel from the mouth of Christ himself. "I promise you I shall head your words and never...ah what did you call it again... 'google'? Yes google! I promise to never google that phrase."

And as I watched all of this from the park bench across from theirs I finally began to understand what drove people to drink.

When I first came looking for Kokabiel in the park on the off chance he may show himself, I planned to confront him on the Excaliburs. I had expected many things to result from our confrontation. From a peaceful discussion to an outright fight to the death. But this, I never expected anything like this.

What made this worse was the T-shirt that Asia was wearing. It had the caption 'Unlimited Blade Works: The Hype is Real' printed on it. I knew showing her my Reality Marble was a bad idea but I couldn't resist the urge to show off.

So as I sat there with my head cradled in my hands, I thought back and tried to figure out the exact moment that my life stopped making sense.

"You know, when I first heard that you left the Church I had been intending to recruit you." I was drawn away from my thoughts as the conversation between the two began to take a more serious turn.

"I must confess I was rather disappointed when I discovered your reincarnation into a Devil. Not only due to a loss of a potential ally but because I feared a question I had would remain unanswered." Kokabiel looked as peaceful and relaxed as he always did as he leaned back into the bench and watch Asia, "I never expected a chance of us to speak let this and it would be remiss of me to ignore this opportunity. So if you'll be kind of to permit me to question you on a personal matter."

"Sure," she chirped back cheerfully as she waved her fingers at him, "go right ahead."

"Thank you." He inclined his head slightly before his feature took a more solemn appearance, "Why did you leave the Church?"

…I had to admit I was curious too. Despite knowing about her history it was always due to the bits and pieces she let slip in her conversation or from second hand sources. I never talked to her about it, not wanting to pry, and she never brought it up.

"I am well aware that you had the option to stay. That the priests in the church were more than willing to cover up the incident with the Devil." Kokabiel shrugged with a disapproving frown, "After all it would not be the first time that they covered up a scandal. They had plenty of experience with the trouble their priests seem to find themselves in.

"And that was for ordinary members of the church, for a Holy Maiden I have no doubts they would have gone through great lengths for you to stay. So why, why leave when you didn't have to?"

"Hmm, why did I leave huh?" Despite of the seriousness of the question, Asia still looked as relaxed and cheerful as ever. Tilting her head back she looked up into the clear blue sky while she kicked her feet into the airs like a child. "Well, I guess you can say it was all thanks to these things."

She held out he hands and with a flash of green light, a pair of rings appeared on the middle finger of each of her hands.

"Twilight Healing?" Kokabiel sounded just as perplexed as I felt, "You left because of them?"

Asia nodded her head with a 'yup' before dismissing the rings and throwing her arms over the back of the bench. "I had always wondered," she mused, "did Twilight Healing make me the way I am or was I always like this and that was what drew them towards me.

"A Scared Gear chooses its wielder, and they always select one that resembles them. So do you know what it means to become the bearer of Twilight Healing? What are the traits that a person needs to have to qualify for it?" She turned towards Kokabiel as she asked.

"A desire to heal and help? A kind heart?" He guessed.

Asia shook her head, "Nope, its understanding." she answered, "Understanding is the most essential trait. Kindness and wanting to help is merely a side effect that stems from understanding. It's not surprising if you take a moment to think about it. After all you can't heal what you don't understand.

"Twilight Healing simply doesn't work like that. I can't just walk up to a coughing man, wave my Sacred Gear over him and just expect him to get better. Even if the cough does go away that doesn't mean that his illness is cured. Often a cough is only a symptom of the problem not the problem itself. So how can I cure him when I don't know what I needs to be cured?

"To truly fix something you must be able to recognize what is broken, that is why understanding is needed. I spent years studying medical knowledge and all I the information I could get on the human body to learn how to use my Twilight Healing and it was only after years of effort that I am able to use it on the level I could now.

"At first I could barely fix even cuts and scrapes. It took me three whole years to learn how to properly fix shattered bones and internal bleeding, and another three years on top of that to finally learn how to cure illnesses caused from viruses and bacteria, and I have only recently reached the point of where I can regrow entire organs though I'm still not quite good at it. And I still have more to learn, I have no idea how to fix genetic disorders yet, among other things.

"But understanding the body is not enough. You need to understand people as well. Understand how they think and why they behave the way they do. After all there are more to ways to hurt a person than to wound their flesh or shatter their bones, and the right words or a kind smile can heal just as well as any medicine or magic could at times, sometimes even better.

"That is why I was always watching people. As I was looking over them from my place during mass I would watch the people prey, during the small breaks I had in the hospitable between healing of patients I would watch their families as they waited anxiously in the waiting rooms, or through the glass out of my room's window I would watch people pass on by as they lived their lives. I was always watching. Trying to understand them, to know them. Before too long I became very good at it, almost absurdly so."

She lifts her hands towards her face, the sunlight falling between her fingers and casting a shadow of her hand over face. She started intently at the spot where Twilight Healing would form if she calls for it, "That is why I'm not sure if it was me or these rings that gave me this ability. I need only to observe a people to comprehend them, even just a few minutes is enough for time for me to understand a person more intimately than their closest friends and family.

"A handful of minutes are all I need to learn exactly what I should say to help a person or to hurt them, to understand what makes them tick better than they know themselves. Keep me in their presence long enough and no one could hide their true nature from my eyes, not anymore at least."

"While rare there are times that I only need so much as a single glance to understand a person, especially when they're the straightforward types." She smiled at me then, "It was like that with you Shirou. I didn't even need a whole second to figure you out. You know underneath it all, you're an astonishingly simple person."

…Was I hearing things or did Asia just call me an idiot?

She turned back towards Kokabiel and said, "So imagine, what I saw as I looked upon my fellow people of the Church. What I realized as I looked upon the sea of clergies, priests and nuns. People who swore themselves to God, who promised to do only good and speak no lie, to abandon all of the world's vices and dedicated themselves in the services of their fellow man and to put their wellbeing above their own."

Ah, I can see where this was going and from the sorrowful look Kokabiel was giving her it looked like he did too.

"Liars. Liars and hypocrites the lot of them." She dropped her hand with a bitter laugh, something that sounded so wrong coming from Asia.

"You know when I was a little girl I lived in this little out of the woods orphanage. One of the caretakers there was a nun, and she was the sweetest little old lady you'd ever seen. Every night when she tucked us into bed she would tell us about all the places she's been to and the things she's seen.

"Her parents were hikers and backpackers you see, and as a young girl they would take her along in their trips to all around the world. From the peaks of the Alps to the Sahara plains to the grass fields of Africa, she would travel to all these places and see the wonders they held.

"And it was what she saw there that made her believe in god. She would tell us about how she would stand on top of a mountain peak, so high up that the clouds were beneath her and the entire world fell down around her like panting. So close to the roof of the world that it felt as if she only needed to stretched her hand out and stand on her toes she'd be able to touch Heaven's beginning.

Or when she camped out at night by the side of lake so large you cannot see the end of it. How the stars would reflect off its still surface as if it were a mirror, and when she would look across the lake towards the horizon she could not tell where the earth ended and the heavens began.

It was when she saw these wonders that she began to believe in God. She would tell us that God was everywhere, not just in the pages of a book or within the walls of a church, but out there in the world he made. You can find him in the light of a sunrise or in the calming sounds of a running stream or even in a field of flowers. That to find God all you must do is look at the world around us and you'll see him reflected in his work.

"That is why I have always dreamed of seeing the world. Even after I had been discovered as the bearer of Twilight Healing and taken to the Vatican I still dreamt of it. Even though they told me the good book is all I needed, I still believed to find God I must look for him out in the world and not in a church run by men.

She lowered her sights and looked at the park around us. "I mean look at this, look at this world. To me it's a wonder to behold, a treasure to explore, I never could understand how people can go on living their lives without just stopping and staring at it all the time. Look at how everything in the world fits together just right, at how everything need to work in tandem with one another to function, from the smallest ant to the largest mountains. How can someone gaze upon this world and not see that someone had a hand its design. "

"This world is so hideous yet so very beautiful; a world full of painful screams yet filled joyful laughter. Something like this cannot be made by mere chance. That is why I believed in the existence of God. Not because of a priest that tells me it so or because of a book that is a copy of another book that is a copy of another commands me to believe. I believe because I look upon the world and see him reflected within it.

"I truly believe that the best way to know God, that to learn of him you must not look through the pages of a book or the words of a sermon, but by traveling and experiencing his world. I wanted to see world itself, to learn of all of his creations that live within it so I can understand him more.

"Those were the thoughts that plagued me as I looked out of my window every morning. That God cannot be found within the covers of a book no matter how holy but can only be found out there in his world. Out past those glass windows and beyond the gates of the Vatican."

She looked back towards Kokabiel. "And those people that stood beside me in the church were not believers of god, not really, not in the way it mattered. Oh they said all the right things but the words out of their mouth did not match their actions. In one line they told us to love one another for we are all God's children, while the in next they spew words of hatred and reject those who are not like us. To turn the other cheek and forgive but then they punish any that defies them with an iron fist. They tell us that God loves all his children but then say he hates those who are not Christian or do not come to mass or, and here is the most important bit, are not generous enough to donate to the church.

"And that was not even the worst of the lot. Many among them didn't even care about God only pretended to for the power and influence it will grant them. As they back-stabbed and lied to one other in order to make their way up the ranks of the Church. The moment that I discovered that the inner workings of the Church, something that I had believed in to be run by the just and good, resembled a politic battle than anything I had imagined it to be was one of the most shocking experience in my life.

"Those people, they didn't understand that what they were doing wasn't religion. Religion is the relation between an individual and God. It was a one on one connection, and it is between just the two of them and no one else. No man, no priest has the right to get between them or say whether a person is good or bad in the eyes of the Almighty. Or to choose whether you are going to Heaven or Hell. Only God can decide that but they claim to speak in his name as if God had personally walked down from the gates of heaven and appointed them as his voice."

Asia lifted her beer to lips and took several long swallows before continuing. "All the while I was trapped among them. I was a teenager when I first realized that they didn't care for me. That all of their kind smiles and praises was nothing but methods to control me, like giving a dog a treat when they did good to train them how to behave. It was then that I knew that they didn't see me as a person or an individual, but a tool. One too important to ever let go of. I was nothing but a caged bird and didn't know it till then."

"Ah, but don't get me wrong here." She waved her hands at us. "It's not like they were all bad, there were plenty of good people in the church. The nuns and fathers in the catholic orphanage was filled with the most wonderful people I have ever met. It's just that," she lowered her hands, "well, not in the place where I was later taken to when they discovered I was the bearer of Twilight Healing. The Vatican is not a place people reach by being humble and modest after all. Most of the ones that rule there have more in common with politicians than true priests.

"It was then a question entered my mind, 'What am I doing here?'. I knew God could not be found in these tainted halls so why am I even here? Then that was followed by 'I want to leave, I want to leave this place'. Not the service of God but the Church. I haven't lost even a shred of my faith in my beliefs, not then or now, just my faith in the Church.

"But I knew I could not simply leave, that they would not allow me. After all, who will set free the goose that lays the golden egg simply because it wishes to fly? The preachers may tell the masses to be generous and do good, but no one had ever accused them of practicing what they preach."

"Then an opportunity appeared before me. It was as if God himself sent down a miracle to set me free from my prison. But it was not an Angel that God sent to save me but a Devil. It happened when I was walking in a nearby park to the hospital that I was working that day, one of many that was owned by the Church. He fell from the sky and landed practically on my feet in a pile of wings and blood, pleading for my help."

Asia shook her head, "And here I thought that Devils were supposed to be excellent liars. I only needed a single glance to tell that the Devil was faking. I am a healer after all and it was easy for me to tell a real wound from a self-inflicted one. I have been called naïve before but no had ever accused me of being stupid.

"Why would he ask me, a nun, for help when there was a hospital half a mile away? Why would he not bother to hide his true form but instead have his wings out in the open so that no one that laid their eyes upon him would doubt what he was? It was clear that he wanted to use me, for what purpose I did not know. In the end it didn't matter as I quickly realized that this was my chance to be free, so I decided to use him instead.

"It was incredibly easy too, I didn't even have to do a thing. The Devil must have somehow set the whole thing up for I had scarcely begun to heal him when one of the priests walked in on us. You would not believe the amount of uproar that soon followed and, well to keep a long story from becoming even longer I was excommunicated.

"Oh several people tried to get me to stay and offered to cover the scandal up, some who genuinely wanted to help me, others who just wanted to keep their Holy Maiden, while others who wanted…favors in return. I declined them all of course, this was what I wanted after all."

Asia sat up and shot us both a beaming smile. "At last I was free! Free to explore world and its wonders, to finally experience it rather than that watch it go by through the windows of an empty room. I walked out of the church with a skip in my step and a smile on my lips as I began my journey to discover God…then I found out that God was dead." Then she slumps back into the bench. "Well, Shit!"

I could not explain why but both Kokabiel and I broke out laughing at that.

"Surprisingly that was my reaction as well." She flashed us a weary smile, "When I realized that God was dead, I laughed. I just laughed and laughed at the absurdity of it all. In the end after all my efforts, despite my most fevered of wishes the one that I was looking for, that I wanted to meet so very much has already been gone long ago." She looked down into her beer can for a moment before she took another swing from it.

A gentle hand griped her shoulders in an attempt to comfort her. She raised her head to find Kokabiel looking down at her with an equal mixed of understanding and sorrow.

"And what about now?" He inquired, "Now that you are aware that God is gone, have you surrendered your faith?"

"No." There was no hesitation, no give in her words. The look she gave the Fallen as she stared back into his eyes had more than a little steel in them. "It makes no different whether he is here with us or not. I did not follow God for his strength or the promised rewards in the afterlife. I bent my knee and prayed to him to thank him for his kindness, for the love he gave us though we may not have been worth it at times.

"I followed him because I believed that his words, the message and teachings he bestowed upon us, are true. To do good even when it is hard. Be kind to others even when there is nothing to gain to from it. Help a stranger as you would a brother. Tell no lies even if the truth is a difficult burden to bear. To love and forgive one another, even when it is easier to hate. And above all else, remember, to always have kindness.

"I pray to him not because he is a God but because he is a kind God, one that tries to teach to love one another. And God's passing, no matter how tragic it may be, has made his words no less true."

It is easy to forget sometimes how strong this girl was. That behind her somewhat goofy exterior lays a person who lived a hard life yet still has the strength to face each day with a smile.

For the first time since I had met him did I see Kokabiel lose his composure as he stared wide eyed and astounded at Asia, his jaw hanging slightly open in his surprise. For a while he said nothing as he just stared at her. Then he threw his head back and laughed.

It echoed through the park like the ringing of bells and warmed me as if sunlight was shining upon my soul. It was a pure thing, like a child's first smile or the warmth of mother's embrace.

"You," He beamed down at Asia with more joy that it would have made even the most jaded of men smile at the sight, "are one of the most remarkable people I have ever met. Truly remarkable. At first I had wondered if you were like Shirou but no, I was wrong. You're not like him at all. You're like me!" He laughed again.

"Though we are both forever barred from wandering through Heaven's halls we still follow him. Even though your soul was stained with your resurrection, just like my wings were with my fall, you still haven't lost a shred of your faith. No, perhaps it has even grown stronger."

He shook his head in wonderment, "Truly, it is a shame that you two never met. I'm sure Father would have adored you. He had always feared that people had only followed him because of his might not out of their own desires. To know that someone would still choose to believe in him even though he no longer has anything to offer would have brought him nothing but unmatched joy."

Asia shot him a cheerful little smile at that, "That is perhaps the greatest complement you could have given me." She took another swing from her beer only to pause, confused. She lifted the beer can to eye level and peered inside. "Well it looks like I'm out of beer." She said before tossing the can into a nearby garbage bin.

She hopped out of the bench and gave us a wave, "I guess I'll take that as a sign that I've had enough for the day." She began to make her ways out of the park but not before calling out over her shoulder. "Now don't be a stranger Kokabiel. I expect you visit me whenever you're in the neighborhood, ok?"

Kokabiel shook his head sadly at her. "No, I apologize but I don't think we'll ever meet again. No matter how things play out it is unlikely that I will have much more time left to live." Then he smiled back at her, "Still, though it was just a onetime meeting I am truly grateful for the chance to get to know you."

Asia paused in her tracks, swiveled in place and narrowed her eyes as she stared at Kokabiel. The look she was giving him reminded me of the ones that Griselda had given me. Then her expression softened before turning to one that held an equal mix of sorrow and understanding. "Ah…I see. Well in that case be sure to die with a smile on your face, it'll be too sad an ending otherwise."

He graciously lower his head, "Now that is a promise I can keep."

Spinning in her spot again she resumed her journey, "It was fun meeting you Kokabiel." She waved with one last look behind her, "I'll be sure to keep you in my prayers."

As she walked away I saw her clasp her hands together and say "Dear heavenly father thank you- OUCH! Oh come on! Will you cut that out already, it's getting pretty old. Not to mention petty. What happen to all that forgive and forget crap you kept going on about?"

Kokabiel shook his head at the sight, "Remarkable," he turned to face me, "how did you ever find one like her?"

"I didn't find her, she found me." At his inquisitive expression I elaborated. "I had just finished returning some lost children to their parents when she just walked up to me in the middle of the street and straight out asked me if I had any Evil Pieces. When I said yes she asked me to make her a part of my Peerage."

"And you just accepted? Without even knowing who she was?"

"I just asked her why she wanted to join my Peerage and she answered 'To be happy'." I shrugged, "What could I do after that but accept."

"You didn't know she had a Sacred Gear did you?"

I shook my head, "Nope."

Again he smiled at me and it was as if the world had become a better place because of it. "See, this is why I can't help but like you two. No, why I like humans. You'd never meet people as foolish nor wonderful as you two in any other race." He lost his smile, "It is also why it's so sad to see so many of humanity's greatest lose themselves to the Devil kind."

"And what is so bad about being reincarnated as a Devil if they do so willingly?" While I had a feeling I knew why, I wanted to make sure.

He looked at me with knowing eyes that was filled with sorrow because of it. "Did you think that there was no to price to pay to becoming a Devil?" he questioned, "That you merely gain a pair of bat-wings, some magic and that was it?"

He didn't even wait for me to answer as he continued, "Humans are beings of infinite potential, though they start out as so little they quickly grow to achieve so much, immeasurably faster than any other race. But when they become Devils that potential, that glimmer of human ingenuity is lost.

"You would not be able to see at the start but give it time and it'll become apparent that something is missing. That something, that little spark of human potential which truly made you human is gone, put out like the flame of a candle. Meet an adult human every decade and they'll be an entirely different person at each meeting. Meet a matured Devil every decade and they are likely to be the exact same person they were a dozen meetings ago. That is what you give up in your reincarnation, your ability to truly change, to grow.

"Look at the Underworld and you shall see all the proof you need. Look at their cities, at their technology, at their greatest of monuments and you'll find that they are nothing but a reflection of human designs. That all of their immortality and eons of knowledge, they needed to imitate human science and relay on human discoveries to progress as a species instead of discovering them on their own.

"God himself command his Angels to kneel down to humans not Devils because he knew that humans were superior to both us and them. Yet look at the world now, people jumping in droves at the chance to become Devils as if they were becoming something more rather than something less."

He shook his head sorrowfully, "Why, why would they do it? They gave up their humanity, their immortal soul and for what? Power, eternal youth, carnal pleasures? For such worthless things they gave up something that would put them even above the greatest of Heaven's Angels? Truly I cannot comprehend why they would do such a thing."

"Then what about me?" I asked, "I did the same thing as the others but you don't seem to have a problem with that."

"And why did you it? Why did you agree to become a Devil?"

"…To save my sister's life."

Again he smiled. "And that my friend makes all the difference. You didn't do it for yourself but for others. I have met and heard of tens of thousands of Reincarnated Devils in my time but you would not believe how rare it is to hear of one that willingly surrendered their humanity not for their own gain but another's. I can count them all in the fingers of my two hands."

"And Asia?"

"Like I have said, Asia is like me. We are both Fallen but still we continue to follow his will."

I just shook my head, I had a feeling that there was something there that I was missing but I didn't have time to waste anymore. This wasn't what I came here for, I've gotten side-tracked from my original goal enough as it is.

"Kokabiel," I spoke with all the authority I could muster, "why did you steal the Excaliburs?"

He smiled fondly at me, not even trying to deny my accusation. Instead he held out a single hand before him and with a flash of light, he was now holding a sword in his once empty hand.

Anyone can tell in a glance that it was ceremonial sword, one unsuited for combat. It had an ivory hilt with sapphires embedded into the middle in the shape of a cross, while the pommel and the cross-guard were plated with gold. The blade was long and thin, and though it looked solid as it gleamed in the sunlight I knew that despite all the magic that courses through its veins it was no stronger than ordinary steel.

"Out of all the blades in existence," He twirled the sword in his grip as he looked on it with clear distaste, "there is none that I hate more than this one. It is a Holy Sword in name only, in truth it is an abomination. Something that twists then subjugates the mind and breaks the spirit. One only needs to gaze upon it see how far the Church has fallen from what it once was. That they would dare craft such a thing from the remains of a true Holy Sword then to call it holy," He shook his head, "I have no words to describe how sickening that is."

With another flash of light the sword was gone from his hands. He then turned his gaze towards mine and gave me his complete attention. "You ask me what my plans are." He held out his hands, "Truthfully even I'm no longer entirely what they are anymore."

"You expect me to believe that you stole the Excaliburs without a plan in mind?" Not bothering to mask my skepticism.

"Oh no," He shook his head, "I did most assuredly have a plan, a rather good one as a matter fact but I no longer believe following it through would be the best course of action." He gripped his hands together as he continued, "My original plan was to start a war by murdering both Rias Gremory and Sona Sitri."

I felt my blood freeze in their veins at his words and my heart turn to stone. Did he just…?

"Not fight them but murder them." He carried on speaking in the same tone of voice he used all day, as if discussion the murder of teenaged girls was just another normal conversation topic. "I planned to sneak into their homes as they slept, just like I sneaked into their city, and stab them through their cold black hearts with the broken blades of the Excalibur as they slumbered unaware of their coming demise.

"No theatrics, no melodrama, just ruthless efficient murder. And with the coming dawn I would have my war. When the Maou rush to their siblings' side and witness their corpses skewered by the Church's beloved blades they will grant me my wish. In their rage they will not wonder whether they were innocent of the deed or not, they will merely desire for someone to suffer their wrath and the Church will make for a convenient target. And when that happens I will lead all the Fallen I could muster to join in the battle.

"And just like that," He clapped his hands together, "the second Great War would have begun and no one would have been able to stop me."

I had never suffered from vertigo before, but I was sure if I did it would have felt something like this. Here we are still sitting in the same park that we were just having fun with Asia just minutes ago. The sun was still shining in the clear sky, it was warm beautiful day and now I find myself setting across from a monster.

The worse of it was he didn't look any different. His noble and inhumanly beautiful face didn't twist into a hateful sneer, his eyes kind eyes didn't turn blood red and fangs didn't sport from his peaceful smile. He look, well, he still looked like an Angel even as he talked about cold blooded murder in the same tone of voice he spoke to be about the wonders of the human soul.

It was surreal, as if for a moment the world didn't make sense anymore.

"And how did you even plan to get close enough to them?" I decided to attack the holes in this plan while I took the time to gather my wits, "The Bounded fields that warded their homes are first class, and I checked them over myself. It would have been impossible for you to break through them before they have a chance to teleport away, let alone slip by completely undetected."

In reply he raised his hand and snapped his fingers.

A cold steel blade was pressed against the right side of my neck, so close to my jugular that it only need a quick twist to slice clean through it. Another was placed on the base of my spine; a single thrust was all it needed to paralyze me from the waist down. A third blade was held horizontal to the ground and pointed tip first in the preparation to pierce through my armpit and into lungs from where it was located unearth my left arm. The last blade was located on the right side of my torso, positioned between my ribs and ready to plunge into my liver. I didn't even have time to blink.

When did he!?

Though I couldn't see them I could feel the light element running through all four blades, humming to my senses like high-powered electricity though a steel cable. Even with my Queen's fortitude, I was not sure if it would slow these blades enough to make a difference.

Fortunately I didn't have to find out. With another snapped of his finger, all four blades were withdrawn and the ones who were holding them leapt over the back of bench to kneel down beside Kokabiel feet.

"Emiya Shirou, allow me to introduce you." He indicated with a wave of his hands at the four kneeling figures who waited silently by his side, "These four are my personal guards. They are the Elite of my army, my most loyal of servants and above all else they are my friends. A truer bunch you'll never find.

"They have been with me from the very beginning. They stood by my side as I defended Heaven as one of its soldiers, and they never left it even after my Fall, leaving Heaven willingly to come to my aid." The love and affection he held for them was clear in voice.

I only gave him half of my attention as he spoke while the rest of my mind tried to puzzle out the four enigmas before me. Even when they were standing before me I could hardly even tell that they were there. I could see them with my eyes just fine but as far as I can sense them with my magic they may as well not have been there. Hell, I couldn't even hear them! Only by reinforcing my ears was I able to hear them move and even then they were hardly louder than the sound of their heartbeats.

Their heads and faces were wrapped with a bluish grey cloth, masking their features leaving only their eyes uncovered. They were dressed in varying shades of blue and grey clothing that covered from the neck down. Grey leather amour and gauntlets were worn over their clothing, and on their feet's were some kind of greyish moccasin.

Strapped to their sides where short Japanese styled swords, a tanto. The tiny blades may have not been best for heavy combat but they were more than suitable for killing. Though fragile the edge of the blades were sharp enough to pierce through armour, and they had just enough light energy running through them to pierce through a Devil's defense but not enough to make them easy to detect. Not unless you were actively looking for it.

"I wouldn't bother trying, for all the years I've known them even I can't sense them any longer. Not as they are now." He looked upon them with melancholy etched in his face, "Once they were powerful six-winged angles, with enough magic coursing through their bodies that you would have sensed them from miles away. Now in their wingless states however, you wouldn't realize they were there even if they hid in your own shadow."

"Wingless?" I never heard that term before.

"They ripped their own wings offs." He nodded sadly at my horrified expression when I realized that they had mutilated themselves. "At their current state they barely have enough raw magic in them match an average human mage or a Low-class Devil."

"But can't wings grow back? And even if they can't it doesn't explain how they losing them ties into them to losing their magic." I knew that the amount of wings an Angel or Fallen had symbolized that amount of raw power they possessed, it didn't mean that cutting off their wings would destroy their power.

"If they were merely cut off then you would have been correct, but the wings were pulled out by very their roots. The same ceremony they used to remove them had left their bodies' internal magic system and magical capacity undamaged and till functioning but it completely obliterated their magical reserves. In their current state the amount of Mana they can generate is so little that they are no longer capable of casting any powerful spells."

"Still, that doesn't explain why I can't sense them." Even though I was far from skilled in sensing magic I should have still been able to sense something. Kokabiel claimed they had they magic comparable to that of human mage but as far as I can tell there was nothing there. Every living being had some magic in them, even ordinary people had some, but these four had nothing. They were like the gravel of a road, equally devoid of both life and magic.

"It is rather simple if you thing about it. Their magic has been cut to a small fraction of what it originally was but they didn't lost any of their control over it. Right now these four possess a fully functional magic system that was meant to hold and manipulate thousands of times more Mana than it currently has running through it. With such a powerful system still in place, combine to their not inconsiderable skills in the craft of magic, and it was far from difficult thing for them to learn how to surpass they magical presence even more."

"They stole were the ones to steal the Excaliburs weren't they." It made sense. The thieves were able to break in and out of the Church without ever being detected. It also explained why only four of the seven swords were stolen. He didn't have enough people to go after the other three.

"I believe Asia put it perfectly when she said you can't heal someone when you don't understand what's broken. It's the same concept with the wards, how can you expect them to block something when they can't even recognize them as threats. Even the Church's Bounded Fields registered their presence as nothing more than a gust of wind, if they even registered them at all.

"Compared to that, the Bounded Fields protecting the Gremory and Sitri would have been child's play. They would have snuck into the just as easily as they had snuck past the guards that surrounded the city and completed their missions without anyone ever realizing they were ever there."

I wanted to deny it, but he was right. If they could sneak past all of the Church's security when they had dozens of exorcists guarding the swords what chance did the ones we had here have? I haven't been able to spot any of them when I was actively looking for them. It was entirely possible for me to have gone asleep one night and wake up the next morning to find Sona dead.

"Why?" That was the one thing I didn't get from all of this, what did he want a war for? From what I had seen of him Kokabiel wasn't the type to enjoy killing, maybe not even battle. He didn't seem to be a bad person at all. Hell if I was being honest with myself I even liked the guy. And I knew that there was no way he was putting on an act, between Asia and me we would have noticed if he had. So why? "If you restart the Great War, there will be no winners. All Three of the faction will die.""

His eyes locked onto mine, "That, Son of Adam, is the entire point."

"You…You want to destroy the Three Factions?"

He raises an open hand towards the sky, "Once, one only needed to look up in the sky to know that justice lived. That there was still good in the world. No matter how hard the times or dark the night, all you needed to do was look up in the sky and know that there just beyond your sights laid Heaven, and it was a place where the righteous lived, where they stood guards and watch over you and would give their life to protect you no matter how powerful the foe. And at its heart, seated on the throne of Heaven, sat a just God. A God whose kindness was unmatched, a God who loved you with all his heart."

He lowered his hand, "But that is no longer so.

"Heaven has forsaken its duty. Our beloved God is dead and his dying wish was to protect humanity, his children from the supernatural. To guard them from the beings that would hunt them in the dark, which would feast on the young and weak, and that would corrupt the good and strong among them. Just as they are doing right now.

"And yet where is Heaven's legions? Where are they when the innocent call out for help? Where are they when children are hunted down and killed like cattle? Where are the promised protectors, where are the shepherds to guide the faithful, the guardians to protect the weak in their time of need? Where are they?

"They sit within the gates Heaven, enjoying its spenders while the innocent suffer beneath their feet.

"Michael has abandoned humanity. No worse, that traitor has become the very thing that we were supposed to guard humanity from. He feasts upon their beliefs and exploits their faith in us, all the while claiming it is for their own good. Good? GOOD! He dare he call what he does good?

"He chains and control them by masquerading as God, it is a sin to pretend to be a God yet he sees nothing wrong with his actions? He is lying and deceiving them all the while he hides the truth of father's death, and for what? To protect Heaven? Heaven was meant to stand guard over its people, Heaven was supposed to be the home of the righteous and brave. Heaven was to fight back the darkness to protect the weak and innocent. Yet what do they do? They stand back and do thing.

"Heaven's legion sits back, their weapon lay untouched in their sheath and their rusted armour lay abandoned on the ground, as they watch the people they were duty sworn to protect are pillaged and exploited, all so that Heaven may survive. I ask you this, what is the point of Heaven when it serves no other purpose than its survival?

"Even as the faithful scream for help, they beg for God to save them, to save their children. And how does Michael answer them? He commands them to pray." A bitter and painful laugh broke out from Kokabiel. One made painful to hear knowing it came from an Angel. "Pray, that is what they have been doing the entire time you hypocritical fool. And when you do no not answer their prayers you wonder why people no longer believe in God?

"All the while this is happening, the Devils are exploiting Heaven's lack of vigil. They steal humanity's greatest and strongest with promises of riches and power, and the moment they get hold of them they turn them to little more than slaves. They promise to love and protect, while in truth they are the source of the danger that they need protecting from. You just need to look at that poor child Hyoudou Issei for proof."

"You know about Issei?" I don't know why it surprised me so much but it did.

"Of course I know of him. He is another one of my mistake, another innocent I failed to protect." Kokabiel eyes looked broken as he stared at me. "I was the one who sent the Fallen to watch over and protect him from the Devils."

"But it was the Fallen Angels that killed him!" There was no doubt about that.

"I know, such is the greatness of my folly that my actions had led to the events that I wanted to prevent." Though his face remained calm there was a hint of barely restrained anger in his voice. "Those fools seemed to have misinterpreted my orders. When I commanded them to 'protect the boy from the Devils who are after his Sacred Gear' they apparently heard 'prevent the Devils from getting the boy's Sacred Gear' instead.

"They were punished for their crimes."

At that phrase something clicked in my mind, "You were the one who killed them."

He nodded solemnly, "All Angels, Fallen or not, are meant to guide and protect people. For one of my own kind to kill an innocent child for their own gain is a crime I simply cannot forgive."

"To make matters even worse," he continued, "my original fears were confirmed. The Devils were lying in wait, aware that child would get killed yet sat back and did nothing. Only after he died did they reveal themselves. They resurrected him and enslaved him while they pretend to play the roles of the Heroes. All the while they hide the truth, that they had played just as much a role in his death as the Fallen that hurled her spear at him.

"And Issei was not the only child to suffer such a fate. Every day there are hundreds just like him, children that are tricked, exploited or coerced into Devilhood. Devils tend to prefer recruiting the young over the old when they are able to, as they find them easier to train and manipulate. And again what does Heaven do during through all of this? Nothing. For their own survival, they believe that such sacrifices must be made. As if it is much of a sacrifice to them when it is someone else who has to pay the price.

"What truly makes the situation bleak is how the Devils deliberately aim for humans with Sacred Gears. They were God's gift to humanity, bestowed upon your race to protect them, to give them the means to fight back the monsters that hunt them in the night. Sacred Gears belong to humankind and no other race.

"And what happens to them? They became tools for the Devil instead. The very thing they were meant to fight. If there is one good thing that came about with Father's passing is that he never lived long enough to see how his gifts were perverted in such away.

"And then there are the Fallen. Do I even need to mention them? Though they maybe my own kind I hate them the most of all. Out of all three they are the most selfish of the lot. Our lord has granted them the wonders of Heaven since the day they were created and they betray him for their own greed and selfishness.

"Look at Azazel, he surrendered into his own lust and in doing so he betrayed his wife just so he can procreate with a dozen different human women."

"Angels can get married?" I blurted out. I don't know why buy I thought angels were supposed to be eternal virgins or something.

The amused smile told me Kokabiel could tell what I was thinking. "Of course we can. Love is one of the many gifts God had bestowed upon the world and what is the marriage but the culmination of love. Did you think that our Lord will denied his Angels one of his greatest gifts? No, while it is rare I confess, Angels can fall in love with one another and marry."

"But Azazel," The smile slipping off his face, "he was one of the lucky few. He found a love so true and pure that even the Lord happily blessed his marriage. His wife adored him above any other, perhaps even more than she loved our Father. But Father did not care, so delighted he was in his children's happiness. And what did he do with that love? He betrays hers.

"Have you ever seen an Angel with a broken heart before? Be grateful that you did not have the misfortune to. In all my years I have never seen a more tragic sight, and I hope to never do so again. When something as pure as an Angel loves they cannot hold back, they give everything into their love. And when that love is betrayed, they die.

"After Azazel's Fall, Heaven's hall was filled with the echoes of Hadraniel's weeping. For a hundred days and a hundred nights her tears did not stop. And when the hundredth night came to an end, so did poor Hadraniel.

"There is a reason that Azazel is one of only two Fallen that God has never offered the chance for redemption. Some sins are to grave to ever forgive. That is why I hate the Fallen. That is why I hate all the Factions.

"The three-faction are no longer needed in the world. They are a relic of an age long gone, leaches who only continue to survive by sucking the life blood of others. Have you not wondered why human's prospered over the years but the three factions number continues to dwindle? Even centuries after the end of the Great War the Three faction continue to shrink while the rest of the world grows.

"It is because the Three Factions are nothing but the rotting corpse of a great beast that refuses to accept its demise. And in its desperation to survive it clings to whoever happens to be nearby, and by doing so they drag them down with them with them into their doom.

"That is why I cannot allow the abomination that the Three Factions have become to continue to exist. They are a diseased limb that needs to be amputated before they infect the rest of the world with their poison. That is why I planned to kill the two Heirs and bring era of the Three Faction to a proper end before they cause any more harm."

"But you changed your mind." I added.

"But I changed my mind." He nodded in agreement. "As something rather unexpected occurred. Something… that was truly remarkable. A Devil with a human soul had been discovered.

"Such a thing was unheard of, an impossibility. When a human is reincarnated into a Devil they must accept a Devil's magic into their body and no soul, not even man's, can accept so much of their foul magic into their being and remain untainted and yet, there you stand before an impossibility made real. A soul so whole and pure that is shines with all the brightness of a sun.

"Once again, the human spirit has achieved the impossible. Once again your kind as surpassed anything I could have dream of you achieving. It was then that I began to wonder, could I have been wrong? Was there perhaps another way? I didn't know, so I decided to make sure."

"And that's how we met for the first time, you came looking for me."

Kokabiel nodded, "I confess that it wasn't due to serendipity that we met, because as you had correctly guessed I actively sought you out. But can you truly blame me? How could I not look for you when all of my guards," he waved his hand toward the four fallen he remained silently kneeling the entire time, "swore to me that they had seen a Devil enter the sacred ground of a church yet grew no weaker for it, as if the church had welcomed his presence."

I cast my eyes on the silent four, and even now I still had trouble realizing that they were there, "They were still in the church when I got there, weren't they?"

"Yes. It shouldn't come as much of a surprise that they were able to trail you the entire time you were there without you noticing. But having a second-hand report is not the same as seeing it with my own two eyes, and when the fate of the world hangs on the balance of my decisions I needed to make sure.

"But it was after out meeting that I began to have doubts in my course of action.

"I did not foresee a Devil with a human soul and yet there you stand before me. So I had to question myself, if I could not predict such a development was there something else I did not foresee as well? Was it possible for mankind to still prosper even in the grips of the Devils? Could your kind's potential bring about another miracle, one that I, a mere Angel cannot even comprehend?

"Father had wanted the world to be free from the influence of both Heaven and Hell. He wanted to see a world crafted by man and man alone. That is why he fought the Great War, that is what he died for. Not out of hatred but love, not to destroy the Devils but to protect the humans from their influences.

"Yet here I am deciding the course of humanity, as if I was the almighty himself. How does this make me any better than the Devils? I could not help but wonder if my pride had gotten the best of me. That in my hubris I believed I knew what was best for the world. Did I even have the right to decide such a thing? And yet I cannot simply sit back and do nothing while the innocent suffer all around me.

"It was after many days of contemplation that I had stumbled onto an answer. One that can determine the fate of the world in a way that would not betray Father's will."

"Emiya Shirou," He turned his imploring eyes towards me, "Will you please kill me?"

=======Chapter End========

Read more chapters at:

archiveofourown.org/users/fahad09

https://www.fanfiction.net/u/4141631/Fahad09