Chapter 1: The Seal of the Condemned

A group of people is sitting at a table in a restaurant, a young man and three sisters. The man is rather ordinary; each of the women (a teen, an adult, and a mature woman) has unusual blue marks on their faces. Hidden nearby is a woman with blonde hair and red lines on her face, she watches the group with unmasked hatred.

She looks away and a woman who looks like the oldest of the three sisters at the table is sitting on a windowsill. She has red marks on her face, and multiple bands on her arms and hair. She is holding an object that looks like a stamp, and the both are wearing a demented grin.

At the table Keiichi looks at Belldandy, the goddess who had come to grant his wish. He loves her, and she loves him, but her younger sister Skuld does not love their relationship. He sighs as Skuld and Urd (the oldest) argue about something irrelevant and not worth trying to decipher.

He sees something move out the corner of his eye, a figure wearing a heavy black robe carrying a large pair of scissors. He sees it reach into a rather fat businessman's back and pull out a corroded chain. Keiichi starts to stand up, but Urd pulls him down.

"We cannot interfere with death spirits," she says. Keiichi watches in horror as the spirit cuts the chain. There is a weird howl and a glowing seal appears on the man's chest. He continues walking and as he reaches the middle of a crosswalk he grabs his left arm and falls over having a heart attack. He is dead by the time the ambulance arrives.

All three goddesses lower their heads in a silent prayer, and then Ued looks at Keiichi. "It looks as though some of Celestin's magic is still in your body if you can see the death spirits. That is what some call a cutter, as you saw it cuts the chain of fate binding a person to this world." Keiichi looks a little disturbed by the events they witnessed.

"Unfortunatly Keiichi death is the inevitable end of life," Belldandy says. "Even though it is sad it is also a necessary evil. Every life has a limited stay and eventually must end, or so we were taught." Belldandy is already crying for the death that has just taken place.

"It is better that these spirits do the job then the head death spirit," Urd says with a shudder. "I had been called down to Earth during the climax of WWII, and I saw him. During a battle in Germany I was granting a wish when I saw him descend. Like an evil shadow he spread across the battlefield collecting the souls of the fallen, it was horrifying.

Belldandy remembers seeing the death spirit during the end of WWII. He appeared at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. "I remember seeing him at the sites of the A-bombing. Like Urd I was granting wishes for those affected in the war, and I saw him appear in the sky over Hiroshima. His eyes were glowing crimson, and he had a gigantic scythe in his hand. As the bomb went off he swung the scythe in an arc, and collected every life in the city. He did it again in Nagasaki." She shivers thinking about him. "He laughed when he finished, and disappeared into the darkness."

Keiichi scratches the back of his neck, and can't imagine such a being that could collect every soul in a city with a single strike, suddenly he feels a pair of hands on his shoulders. Then he feels an unusual sensation as they reach into him, and they draw out a long shimmering chain.

Belldandy responds by using her powers to push the cutter spirit away from him. It digs in the folds of its robe and produces a whistle, and it blows the whistle and no sound comes out of it. Off in the distance dogs and cats start howling, and then a cluster of ten cutter spirits joins the other.

Urd stands up gathering lightening to fight off the spirits, but she turns around and there is another hundred waiting. Before they can react the cutters have restrained all four of them. Two grab Keiichi's arms and a third pulls his chain of fate taut. The original still ruffled for Belldandy's attack, raises its scissors and cuts Keiichi's chain of fate.

In the blink of an eye the spirits are gone. "This is bad," Urd says. "Belldandy you had better get Keiichi home before something happens. With his chain of fate cut it is only a matter of time before the collectors start to mob him just like the others." Belldandy nods and starts to lead Keiichi away. He is in a sort of mild shock as he walks with Belldandy to his BMW.

His motorcycle is parked across the street, and as he and Belldandy cross the street, Keiichi steps in a pothole and trips. There is a blaring noise, and as he looks up a truck is coming right at him. In the sky the third type of death spirit appears, anxious to receive the soul. Suddenly Keiichi is out of the way of the truck.

Belldandy's angel Holybell smiles at his as he thanks it, and Belldandy breaths in relief. In the sky the death spirit howls in outrage as its prize escapes. It quickly reaches into its robe and draws out a flute. It plays a haunting melody that has a tone like a funeral march, and then a thin column of light rises into the sky. The spirit then pulls up its sleeve revealing a stamp. It dives at Keiichi, and stamps him before Urd's lightening drives it away.

Now on Keiichi's neck is a skull shaped tattoo. Urd looks at it remembering seeing the same mark back when she was in Germany during WWII. She wonders if it means the same as it did then, she doubted that he would be released for just one soul.

The column of light reaches a mirror near Yggdrasil, and reflects it into another section of heaven. It hits another series of mirrors, and eventually reaches a room with no light. The only object in the room is an elaborate sarcophagus. The sarcophagus has a gem in the head. The sarcophagus is adorned with a picture of a creature that could be described as the cliché grim reaper.

The lid of the sarcophagus falls over, and a figure emerges. He steps out and his black cloak billows around him like it is alive. "No one person is allowed to cheat death, ever," he says as he stretches after being sealed for over half a century.