Love. Responsibility. Monstrosity. Maybe those things had to come together to germinate the seed that grew into my doubt, which blossomed into my betrayal.
From the outside I look like a crazed killer to my prey, a doting priest to my children, and apparently a useful tool to my superiors. For years I played those roles with an almost schizoid fervor, shoving away the killer around the children, shoving away compassion and humanity the rest of the time.
How can God ask that of us? Of me?
Every person who... chooses the service of God as his life's work has something in common. I don't care if you're a preacher, a priest, a nun, a rabbi or a Buddhist monk. Many, many times during your life you will look at your reflection in a mirror and ask yourself: am I a fool? I'm not going through a lapse; what I've experienced is closer to awakening.
And what woke me? Was it the realization that the Vatican was responsible for the escape of the creatures we were fighting? No. I was able to rationalize it away – a different papacy, different needs of the time, we were above that. More the fool was I.
Was it the fact that we were attacking a city whose primary sin was bowing to the same God in a different manner? No. I was still blinded by a few words that differentiated my version of love for God from theirs.
It was the strength of one person so sure in her will, so certain in her faith and so honorable that she would have died with a sword in her hands before she would stand down in the face of the overwhelming forces arrayed against her. Her faith in herself in that moment was stronger than my faith in my church, if not my God.
So I woke up and looked around and saw that my church had no honor, that my people had no faith in the mercies of God we preached, and that I was at least as monstrous as the creatures she commanded and they were not razing London, we were.
I woke up and decided to be what I'd always claimed to be – a servant of a loving God - a loving God who would be horrified to see his servants killing without compassion or reason; a loving God who would not sanction the death of countless children just because they didn't genuflect in their churches or use the same words to praise him.
What am I? I'm not faithless preacher; I'm a mean motherfucking servant of God and I pray that my penance in his service will be enough to compensate for my sins before my awakening.
AN: This was in response to verdandi24's challenge to write a fic using a quote from the movie From Dusk til Dawn. Standard disclaimer applies. Hellsing and its characters belong to Kohta Hirano and I make no claim to their ownership nor any money from my writing.
Jacob: Every person who... chooses the service of God as his life's work has something in common. I don't care if you're a preacher, a priest, a nun, a rabbi or a Buddhist monk. Many, many times during your life you will look at your reflection in a mirror and ask yourself: am I a fool? I'm not going through a lapse; what I've experienced is closer to awakening.