Raziel Tenkuro

*"Calling it "battle" or "war" is unsightly. I would rather consider it a waltz. A dance to the rhythm of one's heartbeat, until the heartbeat is no more. Thus, the dance ends."* - Raziel, describing a battlefield.

**Raziel Tenkuro** is the first of the Reapers and a fallen Angel of Death.

## Story

### Birth and Decline

Raziel was created as a **Cherub**, an extremely high-class Angel, by the Seraphim to watch over the concept of death. For millenia, Raziel ferried the Souls of mortalkind to Purgatory by himself, as an existence tied to the Dry Tree. However, in time, upon seeing billions of deaths and living only in the suffering of those that remained, Raziel's vision of the world progressively darkened, and he came to infer from what surrounded him that life was torment from which death was a release.

One day, instead of normally reaping an official's Soul, upon seeing his family wishing they were with him, Raziel snapped and slaughtered the whole family, as well as the entire town they ruled upon. When angels were sent to stop him, Raziel, in his frenzy, sliced one of them in two. He then shockingly realized that angels, too, were mortals.

An apathic Raziel was judged and condemned by angels to be deprived of his functions and banished from Paradiso as a fallen Angel. His scythe, Mono no Aware, was taken away and reforged in order to save as weapons for his replacements, the many **Shinigami** and the **Grim Reaper**.

### Tenkuro

Raziel spent hundreds of years in quiet contemplation, wandering on earth and slowly coming to understand his condition. Then, he made a simple choice - to end all that could be ended. To this end, he started inventing the basics of what would one day become Black Magic. He traveled to Inferno and subjugated Demonkind, obtaining their powers and mixing them with his angelic knowledge to create powerful Black Runes.

With this newfound power, Raziel created a dark copy of his ancient reaper powers - the elemental power of Death known as Anathema. With this power, he created an army of powerful soldiers known as Qliphoths kept in a series of books, which would later become known as the Books of Tenkuro. Tenkuro was the name he was given by those who feared him - and they were many.

Raziel started killing village after village, kingdom after kingdom, plane after plane, slaughtering all angels that went his way. Only the intervention of the Seraph Sepher, eager to avenge the death of his own, ended Raziel's shadowy reign by shattering his existence and preventing him from reviving through standard magic.

### Raziel Returned

Despite that, Raziel's heritage still lingered in soul fragments, or Horcruces, which were latter used to artificially create new members of the Tenkuro Bloodline by aspiring dark cults. Through their eyes, Raziel gazed upon the world and observed. However, the true event that unleashed all was when Sariel Tenkuro, one of these members, lost five precious Books containing his elite Qliphoth.

Raziel was resurrected by Sigma, a young wielder of Akasha who confronted said Qliphoth and promised them to bring him back. Sigma however sealed part of Raziel's power and kept watch on him, while asking him to train her. Raziel accepted, while still wandering across worlds, thoughtful and confused.

### Return to Purgatory

Eventually, Raziel returned to Purgatory where he met Omen Harumageddon. The young Grim Reaper took in the wandering man and eventually fell in love with him - from this union would later be born Umabel Tenkuro. Together with Omen, Raziel returned a corrupted Purgatory to its original, natural state. Slowly Raziel started to understand concepts such as "wanting to keep living".

However, this happiness was short-lived. Raziel and Omen were attacked by Sepher who sought to erase him once again. Omen took the blow for him and was gravely wounded. Only the intervention of Hina Harumageddon allowed the pair to survive. Eventually however, Raziel managed to shatter his limitations and, regaining part of his Angelic existence, purified Omen, saving her and even giving her back her Akashic existence.

### Meddling with the Umbra

Raziel was eventually called by Adelle, one of his students from when he was still an angel, to Interra in order to help the young Candy reclaim her lost Soul. Raziel tore the fabric of reality to allow her and her sister Torine as well as fellow fallen angel Lucifer to reclaim it from Umbra where it was captive. He then left, fully knowing that such actions would probably condemn this version of Interra by allowing Umbra's Lumioreans to break free. When asked for explanations by a furious Vlad Nolovic, Raziel dismissed these events as "insignificant" and left.

Raziel then spent some times resting alongside Omen, upon which they were visited by Noire, a young Black Mage who devoted herself to him and worshiped him as a god. Despite his initial surprise, Omen's appreciation of the young girl caused Raziel to also accept her by his side as a partner and a pupil.

## Appearance

Raziel is a feminine man with delicate features, pale skin, deep purple eyes due to his own magic, immaculate facial features, as well as long, flowing black hair. He possesses two pairs of pitch-black wings. He would rather dress in elegant black, purple and white-lined mage robes.

## Personality

Raziel is soft-spoken, poetic and extremely polite in his attitude, calmly discussing with friends and foes alike and employing elaborate figures of speech and metaphors to adress things. Modest despite his extreme contributions to the existence of magic, ever the artist, Raziel finds the magic he designed less important than the symphonies he composed, plays he wrote and paintings he created.

However, it should not be mistaken that behind Raziel's artistic, poetic and soft facade lies a remorseless, genocidal murderer responsible for the death of billions merely to prove a philosophical point. Cruelly nihilistic, Raziel views mankind as sons and daughters of dust and mud, and holds no remorse for the people he eradicated.

Raziel views life as a beautiful, artistic prelude to death which is life's final touch and true purpose. To him, death is not life's end, but its meaning, its culmination ; to kill someone beautifully is to bless that person with a true sense of purpose. Raziel views himself as an artist of existence, one who ends all symphonies with the perfect note of death.

However, upon having a wife and a daughter, Raziel slowly came to realize that all things should not be ephemeral, as he came to wish that his happiness could last forever. For Raziel, to feel contentment for the first time was a first step to understanding that life might not be merely a path to death.

## Powers

* **Reaper Authority:** Once Raziel was a Reaper and possessed all associated powers, as well as the ability to reach the first and second levels of Kai through his Mono no Aware. He no longer possesses these abilities.
* **Cherub Powers:** As a Cherub, Raziel possesses high-level holy magic and was able to purify Omen's body from two high-level curses at the same time.
* **Existence Creation:** He was able to craft Iku from nothing and give her a consciousness, although exactly how he did that was unexplained.
* **Supernatural Agility and Perception:** Raziel's battle style relies on agility exclusively, dealing extremely swift hits with his weapons - who possess the ability to kill in one hit - while dodging the enemies' attacks. This battle style, known as the Tenkuro style, is better performed eyes closed, dancing with the opponent by listening to air currents and both fighters' heartbeat. To this day, Raziel is undefeated in combat.
* **Black Magic Mastery:** Raziel invented Black Magic, and possesses extreme knowledge of it, to the point it can be said that no one masters it better than him.
* **Mystic Eyes of Death:** Raziel possesses Mystic Eyes, glimmering purple, that allow him to command Demons and see the patterns of Black Magic.
* **Anathema Use:** As its creator, Raziel is perfectly attuned with Anathema and can use it to decimate entire worlds in a matter of minutes.
* **Mono no Aware:** Thanks to Sigma, Raziel has restored part of his signature weapon's power, although he still cannot release its true power.

## Storylines

* Memoria Valkyrie shows his revival.
* Lucifer Rising as the one who saved Candy with a terrible price.
* Pokemon Hopes depicts him as a Gym Leader wielding Plant-Type and Ghost-Type pokemon. He is specialized in instant-death moves and the Perish Song move.

## Trivia

* Raziel's name is an angel's name, and an almost-anagram of Azrael, a famous angel of death in Islam.
* Raziel's favorite author is Edgar Allan Poe and his favorite artistic genre is baroque.
* His songs, as chosen by its creator, are **Feathery Wings** and **The Conqueror Worm** by Voltaire.
* To fully show Raziel's bizarrely caring and twisted nature at the same time, he wove himself Omen's dress for their marriage with purified feathers torn from the wings of high-class angels he killed for the occasion.