Seraziel: Hello again this is the second installment of my story Between Angels and Knives. Please read and give me your opinion on it. I greatly appreciated all the help people have given to me and I hope you will continue reviewing my work.

Between Angels and Knives:

Chapter 2: In The Haze Of Memory

Survival is a skill that is only attainable through first hand experience. It cannot be taught through the wisest of men or studied from the most extensive of manuals.

"The traits to which one must learn to continue living in this merciless world can only be learned through days of jagged life. For those that survive these turbulent times they are the ones who must either hold the sword to protect the developing daggers of the weak, or strike them down with the judging blade."

The words of Seraph's father, Bardiel, echoed off the walls of his dreaming mind. His father had been the leader of a small village of assassins located deep in the Payon Forest. The place was astonishingly remote and little knew of its existence or cared to know of its existence. The village had long ago broken off any ties to the revered Assassin Guild, located somewhere in the Morroc desert, an event that greatly displeased the guild. Only a select few had ever defied the Assassin Guild, and they were not alive to tell about their brave, yet undoubtedly foolish betrayal.

Seraph's father was a noble, yet undeniably cold man who taught Seraph all the skills of the silent murderers. He instructed Seraph on all the strengths and weaknesses of his sect, and how to utilize his speed and precision. Seraph was taught that his class lacked strength, and to compensate for the loss in power they increased the accuracy of their strikes making every attack critically damaging to their target.

Seraph was told that all the fighting styles and ancient martial arts that other assassins had been taught were useless and only prepared assassins for certain situations, leaving them at a disadvantage in others. He had been taught not to be offensive or defensive in battle, but reflexive. Seraph learned not to anticipate movement, but to have enough speed and skill to react to an offensive that had already happened. With this method Seraph received training, which gave him vicious speed and enough resilience to endure the libraries of pain that came with being an assassin. Through his father's mentoring Seraph became a deadly shadow worthy of the title, assassin.

But there was a skill that Bardiel noticed in his son that he had not taught him. This was his unusual control over luck and probability, which presented itself at an early point in the boy's life.

Flashback:

The rain poured down in a torrential fury enveloping everything in a rapid- fire shroud of gray. Seraph stood only a boy of 13 bloodied and beaten with knives protruding in random locations from his battered body. There was no time to think, to judge, to guess or even feel. Just reflex was the boy's only saving grace in this wonderfully vicious training exercise.

"You must be faster." "Otherwise you will never be as strong as him." Bardiel said. His words were commanding and forward, yet were uttered with unwavering indifference. Nothing was held back in the simple phrase directed at his permanent son, and temporary enemy.

Bardiel was a tall mountain of a man with wild gray hair and withered wind blown face. The rough furrows in his cheeks made him look much older than he actually was, and the various scars on his body stood as living proof of his fighting prowess. They stood as physical memories that Bardiel had indeed lived through the deadly battles that he received the marring wounds in. Bardiel's arms were sculpted and chiseled by Death's scythe and had become vicarious instruments to which Death exacted his unforgiving duty. The blue eyes of Seraph's father were dull and held a quiet indifference in them, but at the same time harbored a relentless burning love for mortal combat, and with that came a silent insanity - a beast that every warrior must learn to control.

In each of Bardiel's hands were knives completely poised to take the life of his son. No mercy, no remorse, no forgiveness existed in this moment that this father and son shared.

"Watch his hands, watch his legs, watch his muscles for God's sake watch!" Seraph's mind screamed. Any one of the daggers his father had could easily take his life with nonexistent mercy. There was no fear in Seraph's heart because there was no time to be afraid. Fright could steal the precious seconds he needed to survive this ordeal.

Bardiel's left arm became a blur as he nonchalantly loosed a knife at his son. Summoning his all weight and dumping it into his right leg Seraph pulled back as much as his injured body would allow. Seraph's efforts were rewarded as the dagger grazed his cheek cutting a red furrow in the skin as it passed with relative harmlessness.

"Well done Seraphael." Bardiel said with usual dead voice, yet the words unmistakably held hints of pride in his son. Seraph's face lit up with those words. His father was finally acknowledging him as his son.

"But it is not over yet." The color in Seraph's cheeks drained as if it was being poured out as a second blade was hurled in his direction. His eyes blurred as fate threatened to split his face in two equally bloody halves.

Seraph came to realize the irony that his father was going to be the one to take his life. He didn't like it, but it wasn't a question of liking the situation but accepting it, and Seraph simply did not accept that this was how he was going to die.

So something snapped in Seraphael's mind that day. A barrier was shattered in his brain, giving rise to something, something that had no tangible form or substance, but was still undoubtedly there and had been there for a while. It was a tug at his mind a violent pull into a corridor of his skull that was encrusted with the cobwebs of disuse. Seraph pushed the aged strands aside slowly clearing the untapped space. There on the floor of his mind Seraph caught sight of his salvation from the cold fingers of his death. The form of this saving grace was that of a golden coin. One side of the coin beheld a Reaper with a judging scythe in hand, and on the other an Angel with a sword meant to protect those of the weak.

Seraph held the coin and made the decision.

"Not just yet." He was not ready to die just yet, not just yet. So the coin spun as it was flipped in his mind. His salvation or untimely death was to be determined Lady Luck's whim. Seraph desperately hoped she was in a good mood this day as the coin hit the floor of his mind.

Seraphael's eyes shot open as the dagger abruptly veered from its intended coarse and harmlessly struck the saturated ground to his left.

Bardiel for the first time in his life was surprised. Astonished beyond belief were the only words that could remotely describe what he was feeling. Although all this transpired internally, externally Bardiel did little more than raise his eyebrow, and took the spitting image of a six foot five brick motionless and emotionless.

"It seems she has chosen you to be her vessel Seraphael." Bardiel said using Seraph's full name.

"Who has chosen me?" Seraph asked completely bewildered.

"Lady Luck has chosen you to be her child." Replied Bardiel. Seraph just gazed at the drenched ground beneath him in a dumbfounded stupor.

'Why has she chosen me?' Seraph questioned himself.

"It seems we will have to develop this skill for it seems your future will be determined by the flip of a coin."

"Yes." Seraph responded in a quietly dead tone. He had not chosen this and was not sure if he wanted this cursed gift.

"You should do your best to earn her favor. As long as you hold her smile she will not leave you."

Seraph simply nodded in affirmation, though he was unsure of himself now, and would have to learn to cope with the newfound trait.

"Fortune has smiled on you today Seraphael do not turn your back on her. Make her proud and make me proud as well for it seems there is a brewing storm in our village's future. Our serene solitude it seems is destined to come to an end like all things in this world eventually do." Bardiel's voice grew faint as he turned and began to recede from the training ground leaving his son to heal and accept himself.

Seraziel: So what do you think? I'm sorry it took so long to get this out but I have been kind of busy with other projects and this is sort of just a side thing I'm doing. Anyway please give me your opinions, flames, or encouraging statements.

Sayonara