One piece, one memory, connected to another and then another and another and another until finally it all came together in a rush. A broken mirror shattering in reverse, all the millions of fragments connecting to another until the whole was immaculate made again.
Finally Raziel knew what Kain had seen and knew what had happened when the vampire had faced his enemy in the heart of the Chronoplast device. There were homunculi all around him, thousands of them, an endless stream of dolls beyond counting. 
He had fended them off by himself, all to give the Serioli a chance of escaping into the future.
But his path had been cut off and so he had been forced to face the puppet master of the homunculi, which to his horror had been Raziel. Not the Raziel he had known, but the original Raziel; the beginner of the ancient war between the Hylden and the vampires and sycophant of the Elder God.
.
“And now I knew, the horror of my past, the sins I had committed… did not end or begin with my life as a Sarafan Priest. Kain’s memories unlocked within me and I knew what this horrific vision was. Raziel-Divus, my first incarnation.”
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The Seer had given them a moment to look at each other and then she had disappeared quickly into a translocation spell, a satisfied smile on her face. Clearly she had been waiting for this meeting and now that she had delayed Divus enough for it to occur, she did not need to keep herself in harms way.
Raziel just stood there staring at the truth, unable to move. His body could not have obeyed even had his mind been in any condition to offer it any commands. His eyes gazed forward, fixed on the face of his past in disbelief and utter horror. It had been bad enough learning his human life had been spent as a Sarafan butcher but this was far worse. It laid responsibly for the world’s oldest and most destructive conflict directly at his doorstep.
Raziel-Divus seemed just as dismayed, his blue skin having gone so pale he was almost white. He had backed up almost to the wall, shaking his head and trembling.
“No…no…no.” He was saying, his voice now recognizable as that of Raziel’s own. The winged incarnation took several deep breaths in through his noise as if desperately trying not to give in to panic.
“No No No No No No No No!” He kept repeating over and over. Raziel watched the expression on his face turn from horror to deep burning anger.
“You must not live!” He spat, only just able to form words. “You can NOT live! Every moment you exist is another I have to spend trapped in that…” He paused to swallow hard, his Adams apple bobbing visibly. “…that disgusting body!”
Raziel did not reply; he was still too overcome by what he was seeing to move. So he just stood there gawking at this raven winged version of himself.
He knew he must move, he must do something, but what? What could he do to correct this horrible fact?
Uncounted millions of people had died on both sides during the ancient war, a whole thousand years of bloodshed. The after affects, the imprisonment of the Hylden, the cursing of the vampires, the human uprising and vampire genocide; it had all been his fault.
And so this was why, despite having thoroughly rejected him, the Elder always referred to his greatest servant.
Who else but his greatest servant would put events in motion that would result in so much death and enough souls to feed the Wheel of Fate?
“No... no the Reaver will not claim me this way!” Hearing mention of the sword, Raziel found that word like a key that unbound the chains of terror that held him in stasis.
He shook himself over and faced his past self again, eyes narrowing.
“Moebius can have it, can use it to start off this pitiful little genocide.” Divus spat and slapped his wings, launching himself up off the ground. He hovered for a moment before he dropped down onto a broken stone pillar nearby, his talons holding him steady. “Just as long can I find release from its curse!”
The winged vampire held both hands out in front of himself and arched his talons. As he did so a spark of energy began to pulse between each of them, jolts of energy passing between one and the other.
“Homunculi, arise!” He declared loudly and then clapped his hands together. The culminated energy shot out from him, pulsing off in all direction like a shockwave. As it past, the dust which had settled over the ruins stirred as if caught in a breeze.
The dust rose high into the air, a thick cloud of brown and grey that soon began to spin, churning around until it seemed as if dozens of small tornados were spinning them in place.
Raziel watched as the dust came together in the harsh winds that forged them and began to solidly. Out of the haze of specs came figures of men, terracotta warriors armoured in archaic and ancient styled armour. Some held swords, others held spears and a few had shields as large as their whole bodies, engraved with the circular symbol of the Wheel of Fate. All of them pulsed with a sickly yellow glow as they began forward in perfect unison.
They moved quickly and efficiently to surround the blue wraith in a tight circle; spears and swords held forward and the shields lined up like a wall.
Encircled, Raziel stood there with his face lowered to the ground and did not move, silence falling over the ruins with the occasional clattered of metal of metal as the homunculi stood against one another.
Suddenly, the blue wraith swung his head up and roared with laughter. He laughed loudly and hysterically, roaring with a cackle that gave hint of madness. He spread his arms out wide and continued laughing, heedless of enemies that surrounded him.
“My first incarnation?” He asked finally after he seemed able to catch his breath, his chest heaving from the effort and making him shake. “You!?” He raised a talon to point at Divus, the action feeble because he was still laughing.
Raziel-Divus flushed with mortification, flaring his nostrils and baring his teeth in a snarl.
“You’re a coward, an insecure yellow bellied coward!” The blue wraith continued derisively, laying both hands on his chest. “You’re right, this form I am forced to endure is horrendous and loathsome.” There he paused and took a very deep breath, letting it out in a long sigh.
“But when I see you and know that you are who I once was, I think it an improvement!”
It was the only rationale that allowed him to keep his sanity, the only thing he could grasp on to keep his sense of identity from being completely destroyed. Now that he had that grip he was not going to let it go.
Yes he might well have caused so much misery but it had been another lifetime ago and he was not the same person anymore. He was a better person.
“Improvement?” Divus scoffed, spitting out the word in contempt. “I am the king of Fanum-Divus, scribe of God and ward of heaven!” This he proclaimed with his arms raised high. “You are barely even alive, a misshapen ghoul. How is that an improvement?” Snarling, he made a cutting gesture with one hand.
“Without the Reaver blade to back you up, YOU are nothing!”
With a jab of one talon he motioned his agents to the attack. They obeyed with speaking, stony faced and emotionless.
Three holding spears charged Raziel from behind but he was far too quick and flexible, sliding out of the way and slicing his talons across the legs of his attackers. He cleaved them across the shins, breaking through their mud and clay skin. Just as Kain’s memories showed him, they were almost entirely on the inside with only a vicious stinking liquid that poured out from the holes he had carved into them.
More with swords attacked from either side. He sprang up out of the water, pirouetting in mid air to smash a foot into each face. The impact shattered the terracotta faces and drove them to the ground in fragments of broken pottery.
Snarling in anger, Divus leapt off of his stone pillar and flew at Raziel bare fisted, sparks of raw energy gathered between his talons. Having had some experience fighting off a flying opponent with Marduk, Raziel rolled out of the way just in time. As Divus flew over, the ground his shadow touched exploded in a cascading succession of detonating blue fires. Several of his own homunculi were caught in these explosions and reduced to ash on the spot.
Skidding to a stop Raziel just avoided running into a homunculi, protected behind its large elaborately decorated shield. It lashed out at him with a short sword. Raziel slid past the lunge, getting inside the defence of the homunculus faster than it could defend and punching a hole straight through its chest.
As the puppet collapsed, Raziel grabbed its shield and quickly turned to face his new attacker, Divus coming back again. The flying vampire collided with the shield and Raziel tensed, trying to hold his ground but being driven back further and further.
Finally Raziel spun up and kicked the shield up and into his past self with a loud smack.
Raziel was quick to realise that he had the advantage. The Seer had goaded Divus with her obtuseness thus leaving him unbalanced enough so that when the two Raziel’s had come face to face Divus had not been thinking clearly.
Trying to capitalise on this weakness Raziel attacked, lashing at Divus’ face with his talons. Divus however proved that his reflexes were just as quick was Raziel’s and brought his right arm up to shield himself. The device on his wrist gave off a responding metallic click noise and it elongated, spreading out with blade like protrusions from its bird like ornamentation. Between these blades a shield of blue energy sparked in a perfect circle.
The moment Raziel’s talons came in contact with it, he was thrown back by a blast of force that hit him fully in the arm He was sent tumbled through the air, clutching his limb to his chest. Had the force been any greater his arm might well have been ripped clean off.
He righted himself in mid air and skidded to a stop on the ground, feeling his reverses of energy decrease from the injury he sustained.
Kain’s memories warned him, too late, to watch for that shield. It had withstood the blows of the Reaver blade so it could easily take anything his talons could do to it.
Sensing danger he rolled forward, just avoiding the attack as two homunculi attacked him with swords from behind.
One charged after him, swinging his sword in an arch at his chest. Raziel grabbed its wrist and then brought the elbow of his free arm down on the arm. The limb broke at the blow and the homunculus staggered back and unable to protect itself, Raziel was free to slice its head off with its own weapon.
Divus flapped his wings savagely and flew at him again. Raziel was expecting it now and leapt up onto the shoulders of the second homunculus, much to its alarm. Using the terracotta puppet as a spring board, Raziel vaulted up and out of the way, spinning in mid air. Divus ploughed through the homunculus a moment later, shattering it with a burst of a blue fire.
Suddenly the flying vampire spun around and threw his hand forward, unleashing a bolt of condensed energy directly at Raziel. The blue wraith, still in mid air could not avoid the strike and the impact of the blast threw him backwards until he slammed into a wall sending brick dust flying.
Divus darted in, a hand with an iron grip pinning itself around Raziel’ throat. The blue wraith struggled to free himself, clawing with his talons at the armoured limb at held him but all he did was scrap the armour.
“Die! Die, damn you!” Raziel-Divus snarled, lips pulled back in an expression of intense anguish. His grip tightened, harder and harder. “Die and set me free!”
In response to his words there was a bright flash of white light, a shaft of illuminating bursting forward spontaneously from Raziel’s chest. It hit Divus in the face and stung his eyes. Crying out in pain, he dropped the blue wraith and staggered back.
Scrambling back to his feet, Raziel looked up and paused staring in awe. The light coming from his chest had a face he recognised.
Ariel, spirit of the previous balance guardian had emerged from his own body to strike back at Divus and hold him away. She was splendid to behold, wrapped in her own energies of spirit that burned with white fire as she hit Divus with as hard as she could. Her face was whole again this time and set in a stern and determined expression, lips pulled down into a savage snarl.
Had she been inside him all this time, not some loose spirit haunting his path but within his own soul as he had been within Kain’s?
“Raziel!” She called to him and hearing her speak his name so earnestly brought the blue wraith back to the present.
Divus was trying to shield his eyes from the light lancing into his face and he was not protecting himself otherwise.
Acting instantly Raziel sprung, his talons cutting into Divus’ undefended chest. The winged vampire screamed in pain and fell backwards, trying to beat off his attacker but Ariel kept the light on him and unable to respond.
Raziel slashed repeatedly at Divus’ chest, cleaving him deep and sending blood flying into the air with each strike of his talons. Finally unable to take it anymore, Divus swung at him with his armoured arm.
Raziel grabbed his wrist as it came around and twisted sharply, breaking the wrist in a sharp shattering of bones and ligaments.
Divus screamed and stumbled back, clutching his arm to his bloodied chest. Raziel finished the fight with a sharp kick to the chest, knocking him down to the ground with a dull thud.
Sneering in disgust, the blue wraith knelt beside the injured ancient.
“Look closely at me.” He began insidiously, reaching up with one hand and taking a hold of the top of his clan drape. Divus watched through narrowed pain filled eyes that began to widen in new stark terror as the blue wraith drew his drape down, exposing to him the missing jaw and the dark crevice that descended down into the chest cavity.
“Do you see this?” Raziel asked, leaning forward to make sure he got a good look almost right down into his chest “Do you fear it? Do you despise this maiming?”
They were face to face down and Raziel observed the handsome face he had once enjoyed and realised that for once, he didn’t miss it.
“Look at this, remember it and know that it’s in your future. Remember that fate will drag you down to this no matter much you pander your god.”
Howling in a culmination of horror and fear, Divus lashed out at him with his uninjured hand. The gesture forced Raziel back away from the winged vampire with a bolt of force and by the time the wraith had regained his feet, Divus had leapt into the glowing midst of translocation and had vanished with a shimmer of blue light.
.
“And so he vanished, retreating from that which he dare not face. With this new facet of my past confirmed I felt neither the terror nor self loathing that the truth of the Sarafan inquisitor had inspired in me. This version of me was just a coward hiding behind his dolls and he filled me with nothing but disgust.”
.
With the battle over, Raziel felt the fatigue catch up with him and he collapsed back to a sitting position. Unbidden his head fell into his hands and the despair he had forced away from behind for the battle game back.
.
“I remembered the words of the Keeper, ‘Do not let all I have accomplished be undone by that which has already come to pass’. Now I understood what he had meant and he had been so right. I had let my past dominate me before but I would not let it do so again..”
.
A deep breath was all that was needed to restore his courage and he raised his head to see Ariel looking at him. Her spirit was still there, looking into his face with understanding eyes. She was growing fainter but her smile was still visible, a smile that said louder than words that she was proud of him for his unwillingness to succumb to fear. Silently she pointed, gesturing off towards the east and then vanished completely.
Raziel sat there a few moments staring off into space and then he got to his feet, dusted himself off and turned to look off in the direction that she had pointed.
.
“My future was what was of consequence and that future lay east, to the city of Avernus, the Ziggurat and Janos Audron. And once that was done, perhaps more…