Seraziel: Ok I'm back again with the third installment of this fic and hope to continue with more chapters. I wish people would review it a little more though even if you don't like it tell my why so I can make it more to your liking. Anyway, as for the people who have responded with constructive criticism and/or encouraging comments I thank you from the deepest regions of my heart. I hope you will continue to read and review this story.

Between Angels and Knives

Chapter 3: A Hymn for Scars

Memories. Memories define our past whether we want them to or not, and memories were what plagued Seraph's unconscious mind. They had carved fissures in his history and no matter how many bandages he applied to the wounds the tortured blood of his past continued to bleed through. He remembered every tale behind every one of his scars as if they had been written into the story that was his life. Each one had a small legend that reminded him that his time on this earth was not yet over. There were still things to be done; he couldn't die just, yet not just yet.

Flashback:

Seraph walked. He walked for so long that all he seemed to remember was the quiet scrape of his feet against the slowly changing terrain. He walked from the dead and shambled ruins of Glast Heim through the thick enchanted forests of Geffen to the sweltering sands of the Morroc desert. His gaping wounds wept as he trudged leaving an unrelenting red trail behind him as he proceeded toward an unknown destination.

'Just walk. Just keep walking. It doesn't matter were or why, just walk. Walk until you can't walk anymore or until the tortured heart in your chest dies.' But Seraph knew nothing in his being would allow him to die now. He outright refused to die. It was as simple as that. He had stared Mr. Grim Reaper (on more than one occasion) in the face and promptly spat in it (on more than one occasion). Needless to say Mr. Grim had been chasing him ever since Seraph's first scar.

The heat of the desert clawed and clutched his form sending more waves of exhaustion through his body. Each step Seraph took came slower than the last as his body and mind fought an internal civil war. Seraph's brain screamed at him to keep moving while his quickly weakening body shouted the opposite. 'Just quit.' His muscles heaved forward. 'Just give up.' Another lurch of his legs. 'Just die.' "No." Seraph answered tersely to his shrieking limbs.

Still he managed to keep a small grin on his tortured lips. He was still alive; he had not died in that Godforsaken pit of death and decay. A small part of him was amazed with this fact, honestly surprised that he could continue to draw breath into his battered body. Seraph remembered pain ripping through his body with each step, yet he was happy to still be able to feel that pain. He was glad to feel the unforgiving heat that encircled his bleeding, broken frame. Elated to still be alive.

Seraph then vaguely remembered falling as the burning yellow sand of Morroc finally succeeded in attaining a firm grip on his foot. Mr. Reaper laughed haughtily in his head. "What are you going to do now boy?" He asked as the angle Seraph's drifted forward. The fall seemed to last an eternity before his frame eventually met the ground in a disheveled heap as the death angel snickered.

'Damn' Seraph's mind wheezed. Obviously not pleased with the event

For the first time in Seraph's life he considered not getting up. As he lay there engulfed in the epitome of agony his mind weighed the pros and cons of standing or allowing the condors, peco pecos, desert wolves or whatever Morroc, desert scavenger decided to eat his beef jerkified (A/N: not a word I know) carcass.

'Would it be so bad' Seraph thought. Suddenly Seraph remembered burning......just burning flames surrounding him and a face he would never forget. That was all the motivation he needed as Seraph began making the proper arrangements in his muscles to get up, and maybe die somewhere else, but definitely not here.

Seraph pressed his hands against the hot sand and began to push, and slowly but surely his body began to rise. Suddenly his muscles lost their hold as Mr. Reaper kicked his wrists and he fell back to the granulated ground beneath him with a dry grunt.

'Round two' Seraph's mind said with mock enthusiasm. Even the voiced inside his head sounded exhausted and drained. Sluggishly he began the process again this time using his right knee to brace himself against the sand so as not to fall again. His arms quaked as they forced his chest up and away from yellow sand. Finally he made it to a kneeling position and was proceeding to make the crucial step towards righting himself. Seraph forced his left leg out and his foot had successfully planted itself in the burning Morroc sand. Using his right arm to steady himself Seraph slowly rose to his goal, a standing position.

Seraphael breathed a sigh of relief as victory bells rang in his head. He made the decision to start walking and proceeded to take a careful first step. Abruptly darkness began to settle around his senses. Each one of his senses began to shut down one by one.

'No........ not now, not now. So close.......I was so close. Seraph stumbled slightly then stood straight again struggling to retain conscious thought. His thoughts became hazy and erratic as the deep black settled over his consciousness. Seraph's balanced finally failed him, his finally feet lost there hold on the yellow sand, and his mind finally succumbed to the terrifying embrace of unconsciousness.

Seraph feared sleep. It could be considered a silly phobia, but the thought of being so vulnerable disturbed him. Seraph rarely slept and when he did he made sure it was in a secluded area. Every time sleep would take his conscious mind nightmares would rape and infest his dreams. Nightmares of that day, that burning bloody day of his past plagued him to no end. God he wished he could forget that day, and that smile, that sick twisted smile. That sneer was burned into his memory like a scar on his brain, and his maddening laugh rang in Seraph's ears like an unending echo. He would never be rid of that memory it would plague him until his death.

Seraph only hoped that when he awoke it wouldn't be to the hymn of angels.

End Flashback

Seraph's senses awoke to a quietly hummed melody. His awareness came in gradual increments as the baritone, slow, and melancholic, but unmistakably feminine hum permeated the air. For a while the quiet unending hymn was all his brain could perceive. This terrified and soothed Seraph at the same time. One side of his mind screamed to him that he had actually died and Mr. Grim was dragging his ass to Hell as his death choir sang psalms of victory for their master. The other side of his brain could not get over the unrelenting beauty in the melody. It made him want to never move again. He felt trapped by the hypnotic lullaby and it ensnared every one of his senses..........except one.

It hit him like boulder being dropped on his body, and he was rudely reminded that he was not dead yet. Whether this was a good thing or not Seraph was unable to determine as the pain spread even to his fingertips, but Seraph did inwardly smile as he swore he heard Mr. Reaper snap his fingers in a Damn-Lost-Him-Again gesture as he trudged off like a child who lost at his favorite game.

The pain hit him like a tidal wave and he almost let a moan of agony escape his throat, but caught the pain laced sound midway up his neck. Finally he regained control over his body's impulses a trick that his father had taught him.

"No human reaction is an involuntary one." His father had said. "All senses and impulses can be controlled through concentration and focusing on those specific reactions." After enough practice and repetition Seraph was eventually able to silence these instinctive impulses or make them scream.

After collecting what little thoughts were available and shoving enough pain into the back of his mind Seraph began to take in his surroundings and general atmosphere.

His nostrils flared and inhaled the almost overpowering stench of his own blood, which quite frankly fucked his analysis of the air. The only piece of information he discerned from the waft was that he inside a house and on a bed, which told just about jack and shit and neither of those to were useful information.

The harmonious hum still filtered throughout the room with its soothing lull albeit, basically negating his ability to hear anything that might give a hint to his current location.

Tasting the air was completely out of the question because of the vast amount of blood that still tainted his taste buds with the flavor of shredded metal.

And pain continued to keep its vicious hold on Seraph's sense of touch and feeling. His nerves and temperature receptors had been completely captured by the accursed sixth sense.

Seraph mentally sighed at his current situation and came to the final conclusion that nothing could be done in his current condition. Seraph finally opted that healing was the best choice among his limited list of selections. His body quickly tensed as it prepared for the onslaught of nightmares that he would undoubtedly have, but his resolve was to fight every one of them and deafen himself to their false words and accusations.

Almost all of Seraph's senses receded into recuperation the one that stayed was his hearing. Try as he might he could not shut out the mesmerizing hum that permeated the air. His body relaxed to the hymn and suddenly the pain that encompassed his frame was a slightly more bearable.

'Who is this man?' the question had been plaguing her ever since she found his unconscious frame surrounded in a pool of his own blood. She decided that this man's identity would be determined at a later date and right now her deepest concern was concerning him and his health. She couldn't let him die no one dissevered to die alone like that.

The woman's garb immediately told whatever onlooker that she was of the hunter class, and a force not to be taken lightly by any other sect of Midgard's warriors. Her hair was of a light cobalt blue curling in and stopping at chin level (A/N: Hair 11 if anyone cares). Her eyes brandished dark reddish brown, which were deep and expressive. Her skin held a light tone not pale but no were near tanned.

The woman sat pulling the string tight on her compound crossbow all the while humming a tune that had lost its name in the ages of the past. A tune so old that that bards and dancers quite frankly had forgotten its name, but its name was not what made the tune itself memorable it was the emotions behind the melody that made the song brave the long years of Midgard's history. She let the unnamed song vibrate from throat with hopes that it would sooth the sleeping man she had found. Fully enveloped in the nightmarish hands of REM sleep he seemed to be having numerous troubled dreams. His face was ever so slightly contorted into mask of quiet determination like he was losing a battle that seemed impossible to win in the first place. She raised from the chair she had been sitting in and sat at his bedside. Tentatively she rested her palm on his troubled brow and within a few moments his visage relaxed and his breathing became even again. A smile painted her features honestly happy that she had caused someone content rather than pain or fear.

Author's Note: Well that's the third installment. I've pretty much completed this series and the other chapters will come soon for those who care. All I have to do is revise them and fix my ungodly number of grammatical mistakes. Thanks for all the support thus far.

Sayonara