Title: For the Forgiveness of Sins

Author: Essie Aster

Category: Hellsing

Genre: Dramatic one-shot/religious

Rating: PG-13

Summary: "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother, seven times?" Then the Lord said to him, "Not only seven, but seventy times seven."

They say that as a person grows older time seems to speed up. Time, it did not exist for her anymore. It was the beginning of lent, and almost three months had passed. Yet the phantom pains in her arms swore to her that it had only been yesterday. As her life had slipped away the memories ingrained themselves with anything living left within her.

Wolfe looked down the aisle at the altar, unable to lift her eyes to the cross hanging above it. She was unsure why he had sent her here, though for his cruelty in the past this all could have been just another way to torment her. Yet despite her soiled flesh she had passed through the doors and even ran her finger across the stone cheek of the baby Jesus. She cringed and stopped as soon as she did it, a complete force of habit that caused her stomach to contract inside of her.

A deep voice called to her from the front of the sanctuary. Wolfe looked to the side of the altar meet her warrior friend's soft blue eyes.

"Welcome to the House of God," Father Anderson greeted, stretching his arms slightly out to his side.

"Why am I here?" Wolfe demanded, failing to sound as threatening as she had intended.

"Because it's past time for you to come to terms with what you are," Father Anderson answered without pause.

"I already know what I am, Father, wh-"

"Please come to the Lord's Table," Father Anderson interrupted, stepping back to allow her room to pass next to him.

Wolfe shook her head. "I can't."

"You don't know that."

She opened her mouth to argue and found nothing. She had argued this with him before, and he knew the perfectly valid reasons why she could not accept the sacraments.

"Wolfe, are you right in your heart with God?"

She hit her knees as the lashes curled the flesh of her arms and back. Her hands bound together did little good in supporting her weight, quickly loosing strength with each strike. There was blood on her lips, vomited up from the force of the kicks that had landed on her stomach earlier. When she tried to look around she saw only red. She felt the hand that grabbed her chin, and she could smell the decay in the voice of the man before her, but through the blood-haze she could only see the shadow of her attacker.

"Have you made your peace with God?"

Another smack landed on her cheek before rough hands pulled her back to her feet and carried her off to another station.

Wolfe jumped at the hand on her shoulder, looking up to meet the eyes of her friend. He smiled at her and guided her up the steps onto the dais. She stared at the altar, the dishes of the sacrament, the plate of ashes, the silver candleholders. It really was that time, though her heart would no longer count the seconds.

"Do you harbour any anger for another?"

She nodded, biting back the bitter taste of hate as her eyes traced the silver embroidery of the delicate doilies under the candles. "Maxwell."

"Can you forgive him of his wrongs against you?"

Wolfe shook her head. "I don't know." She looked down at her bare hands, searching for scars that weren't there.

She could not see it, but she could feel the rough splinters of wood digging into her back. The hateful hands that had striped away her clothes pulled her arms away and lashed them against the boards with coarse ropes. Her skin no longer stung as it had at the beginning. The small pains from the cold drafts went deeper than the skin, into the tissue and bone below, torturing her from within until the very core of her body burned in pain. She thought they could do nothing worse until the spikes breaking into her arms seized her body, contracting her torn muscles and choking her scream on the blood from her lungs.

"No god is going to save you now, little girl," the same voice mocked. "No god's ever pulled a man down from where you're going."

She closed her eyes and bit down hard as the earth fell away and she could no longer breathe. Her outstretched arms pushed against her shattered ribcage, suffocating her slowly as she struggled for what air could pass through the rivers of blood.

Yet slowly the pain in her body fell away as she continued to fight for air. With what energy she had left, she focused her thoughts on a single prayer for her spirit to be received when at last it fled her body.

"No man should play God," Wolfe said, staring at the wall and tracing the mortar flaking between the stones.

"He will deal with God for his actions against Him. It is not your place to condemn him for that."

"I should have died," she said, searching for the texture in the shadow the suspended cross cast against the wall behind the altar. "Now I'm a monster."

"But you're still alive."

"I hardly call this living."

"And it's your responsibility to forgive those who sin against you," Father Anderson continued despite Wolfe's cynical interjection. "So long as you refuse to forgive you cannot be forgiven."

"I'm not worth forgiving, Father," Wolfe said softly, finding the courage to raise her eyes to the smooth wood of the cross.

Father Anderson paused, following her eyes. Stepping behind her he placed his hand on her shoulder. "He could have come down from that cross anytime he chose had he thought you beyond saving."

Wolfe looked away.

The red of her vision was growing darker. She could hear voices and loud noises around her, but her mind was caught in a frantic search for a prayer to hold onto as she slipped away. In the darkness she only felt the shadows of the hands pulling at her body, grasping shredded tissue and bending broken limbs.

She heard a voice from outside of her call her name, calling to her to listen. 'My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.'

She had no tears left to release the knots of pain from her crushed lungs, and quickly the darkness released itself into nothing.

"Jesus came to save the living, Father."

"Aye, that he did. But he also came to save the damned, Heinkel, to pull his children from Satan's hands."

Wolfe's mind stopped, and she bowed her head in shame and wonder.

There was no pain. Even the everyday pains in her eyes and head were gone. It was as though she had just been born, free of the weakness and defect that caused the pain. When she opened her eyes into the darkness she could see without strain as though the sun lit the sky. She looked around slowly, taking in the unfamiliar room before rising only to find bindings holding her back.

At her thrashings the lights came on, blinding her in burning daggers through her eyes. She relaxed at the voice of her friend, though he was not speaking to her. Opening her eyes slowly against the light she caught sight of his long face staring at her from a distance, lips curled back as he shook his head.

"Can you forgive him?" Father Anderson asked again.

Wolfe turned to the tall priest and nodded hesitantly, logic and duty battling in her mind. "On the night in which our Lord was betrayed he broke bread, giving it to his betrayer saying, 'Take this and eat it. It is my body, broken for you for the forgiveness of your sins.' After he took a cup, and after he drank he said, 'This is my blood, a new covenant for you for the forgiveness of your sins. Do this in remembrance of me.' We're all Judas."

Father Anderson returned to the altar and lifted the chalice and a thin wafer from a silver plate. He returned to Wolfe who looked at him through steady eyes stained with the blood of her trials. For a second he was tempted to rethink what he was about to do, but chiming of the morning bells scattered the doubts creeping toward him.

Placing the small wafer in her mouth, he watched the muscles in her face tense. "Take and eat the body of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."

Wolfe bit down to mask the burning on her tongue. Her dry mouth refused to push the wafer elsewhere, and all she could do was close her eyes briefly and endure the pain. She opened them when she felt the silver chalice against her lips and let the cool liquid push the wafer down. She gasped as the fire spread through her mouth and throat, burning her from within. She fell to her knees, Father Anderson catching her arm to soften her fall.

Her mind burst into colour as the darkness and hatred in her veins boiled over, expelled from Wolfe's body by a choked scream as she collapsed into the priest's arms.