leviathaned | Story Reference

Act I: Monkshod(1882-1885)

Let’s go back. Way back.

In the beginning.......no, that’s too far back.

In 1860, a poor Japanese woman in a back alleyway in London gave birth to a very strange child. That child was the Antichrist, and she gave him the name Wakahisa Seiryuu, because there’s no justice in any world you can think of. She was already bitter from being abandoned half a world away from where she was actually from, and to make matters worse, soon after the child was born, she started to hear voices urging her to kill him. They grew stronger the older Sei got, and while she may not have killed him, she did abuse him, treating him as nothing more than a burden, as trash she was unfairly saddled with. She would eventually try to kill him when Sei was 14, but by then, his own regenerative powers were too strong. Having failed that, she killed herself, and Sei was left alone on the streets. Desperate to survive in spite of everything, and to silence the voices he too could hear, Sei made a contract with a dark being that promised to keep him alive in return for Favors Unnamed.

Things went downhill from there. Sei took to pickpocketing and later, the red light districts,to earn enough to keep a roof over his head, quietly going insane from the whispers of the Old Ones and the voices in his head. It wasn’t until he was nearly 22 that he met a Dominion named Elijah, who told him he had never been human at all, but a Nephilim. Shortly afterwards, a young, crazy cultist with strange ties to the Outer Gods informed him he wasn’t just a Nephilim, but the End of Days, the Antichrist himself. Terrified and wanting nothing to ending anything whatsoever, Sei asked Elijah about the title...who subsequently immediately Fell after refusing to kill him. Furious that Elijah had no choice and feeling nothing but bitterness to his theoretical father, Sei vowed that he would never destroy the world, and began working to keep the world from unraveling around him. It was then that the deal he had made broke, for it had always been a false deal, a seal made to break when his own power too great for him, in the hopes it would tear a hole through the Shard and kill him. Having failed to do so, the Outer God who’d placed it simply let Sei go insane with the weight of too much power, at which point Sei ripped out his own eyes and let them regrow to distract from the pain of the nearby birth of a new Outer God, Liam.

Sei’s unsealing caused a massive power spike noticeable throughout the entire Sea of Shards. Raziel, Archangel of Secrets, was first to arrive and urged Elijah to teach Sei how to control some of his reality warping power. With nothing else to do but pretend he wasn’t going insane, Elijah agreed.

Late in 1884, the Outer God Yhidra began invading the dreams of people unrelated to her cultist. After the Prince of Norway’s witch took ill, Sei attacked Yhidra directly. Unfortunately, Liam owed his apotheosis to Yhidra’s aid, and thus intervened. The resulting battle wrecked half of London and ended with Scotland only marginally still inside reality. In attempting to repair the wreck of it all, Sei vanished from London. No sign was heard of him until a year later in New York, where rumors of a blue-haired giant at the train station were beginning to spread. Despite this, Elijah’s attempts to find him were unsuccessful. In reality, Sei had been on the outside of the shard, spending a decade in a single year in the Sea. Badly traumatized and sick from prolonged exposure to the Old Ones, Sei went to ground, and headed into the less settled areas of the West to recover some of his sanity from the repair job, and patch further holes from inside the Shard. He continues on his merry way, honing what he can of his powers on his own while he works.

Act II: Amaranth (1926)

In December 1926, a cult to Lahash is attempting to drown the world in an orgy of hedonism (which is admittedly a hell of a way to go), and base their attempts out of New Orleans. Sei travels there with the intent to stop them, but is forced to look more subtly than simply kicking in the door and shanking a motherfucker. He stays at the home of the Lafayette family, after a particularly racous party, and meets another young man invited to stay there, by the name of Rahas. Rahas claims to have been invited from Delhi to stay with them, in the interest of helping to find his American-born father, but Sei suspects that there is another reason for Rahas’ acquisition, and asks him to help with investigating the cult. The two of them are at turns aided and hindered by young Anna-Marie Lafayette, the daughter of the household, who flatly refuses to outright help them, citing her lack of interest in anything but singing. Sei manages to convince her to help them, but is waylaid by constant taunts from Lucifer and Belphegor, disguised as other guests in the household. He works with Anna and Rahas for two weeks, and in that time comes to see them as dear to him.

On Christmas Eve, Anna-Marie reveals that her father is the leader of Lahashs’ cult, and that Rahas was brought to New Orleans because of his very strange power; the ability to open Paths and Doors throughout the shards, making it easily possible to bring a demon lord and his entire army into the shard. That evening, those same powers go out of control, forcing Sei to kill several demons to protect them both, revealing his own nature and identity. Anna flees from him, but Rahas is intrigued by it, and wishes to learn more about Sei’s nature. Two days after Christmas, Sei is lured away from the estate by sudden, constant nightmares, and in the time he is gone, the archangel Zephon arrives in New Orleans and kills Rahas in an attempt to draw him out. Sei returns in a rage, and kills Zephon with his bare hands after a long battle. Upon returning to the estate he finds a letter from Anna, which informs him that she is dead, having stepped in front of a train. She explains in the letter that she had had tuberculosis, but refused to let Sei know or cure it, because if he had cured all her ills than her struggles against them would have been meaningless. But her voice had begun to fail due to the coughing, and so she chose to die. Her letter closes with admonishing Sei for being unable to understand the feelings of normal humans. Lucifer appears in his study that night, and asks Sei what the purpose of his refusal of his role is. Sei is unable to answer, and stricken with grief, goes on to kill most of Lahashs’ cult and summon the god himself in order to kill him. He succeeds, but only partially. Belphegor informs him after that Lahash is a true god, and thus cannot be killed by Sei’s hands. Sei then leaves New Orleans riddled with grief and lost, as spite is no longer a good enough reason for his own actions.

On New Years Day, 1927 he is found in Paris by Elijah, and explains to him what has happened before refusing to return to London until he’s found an answer.

He would not find it until 1933, when Elijah succumbs to his insanity and Sei is forced to kill him; Sei knows struggles and problems normal humans don’t, and it’s those problems he can fix for him to focus on. With Elijah’s death, Sei swears to return free will, and souls, to angels and break the Demiurge’s hold on them, and goes to set about freeing Raziel enough so he might tell him. This process takes until 2013.

Act III: Bindweed (2013):
And then Rahas and Anna were reincarnated as Ravi, a short, snarky brat with half an archangel’s power, and Isolde, a young occultist descended from a long line of witches. They band together to find the source of their strange dreams and find a very cranky antichrist in London, quietly running a sanctuary for occult orphans and the like. Together, the three of them fight Crime and Punch Gods and eventually seal the Demiurge away in a shard after a series of very terrible and stressful events. Then they go and drink mai-tais for eternity.

This will be expanded as it ever becomes relevant for possible canon updates.