Trigun Fan Fiction ❯ Standing at the Gates of Heaven ❯ Standing at the Gates of Heaven ( One-Shot )

Ok before you get started I just want to explain something. I kinda mixed the manga & the anime story a little. See, in the manga Wolfwood is Chapel instead of being an apprentice or whatever like he is in the anime. But I don't know if Wolfwood dies in the manga (I'm a few issues behind). Just a small change but I like it better as Wolfwood being Chapel ^_^(). Oh yes and of course I created none of the characters in this story. Yasuhiro Nightow did. I did however create the above smiley face.....his name his Phil.

"Be good and you'll go to heaven when you die. Don't kill. Don't hate. Follow His teachings and you'll be blessed in the after-life." "Thats what they tell us," the man thought as he stood before a great shining gate beyond which, it seemed, all things beautiful grew in earnest.

Beyond that gate was heaven, the man knew. How he knew he couldn't say. Its just something he felt to his very soul. "Thats heaven." he thought to himself when he first saw it. How long ago was that? Hours? Days? He couldn't say, but he hasn't moved an inch since. He was scared. He shouldn't be here. Maybe this is one last punishment, a final twisting of the knife before he spends the rest of eternity in hell. A chance to see what he lost because of the things he did. "Yeah. Thats about my luck."

In his life the man had been a priest, a man of God. If thats all he had been, his being here would be understandable, even expected, but he had been much more. He was the Gung-ho Gun called Chapel. He was a killer. At the time he had rationalized that the people he killed deserved to die, that there was no other way, that to save the butterflies you must kill the spiders. Before he died, however, he met a man that showed him he was wrong, Vash the Stampede.

From out of nowhere the man suddenly heard a song floating gently on the air. It wasn't the chorus of angels he had been hearing from far beyond the gates. It was closer and much more familiar. Yes, very familiar. It was an old song where he came from. He hesitated to turn his gaze from the gate, and he wouldn't have if it had been any other song or any other voice that sang it, but he slowly turned around and saw the source of the song.

He knew who she was. Again he couldn't say how. Vash rarely talked about her, and he never described her, but he somehow he knew. She was nothing like what he had pictured though. She didn't have a halo above her head, a flowing gown, or great angel wings. The light of heaven did not shine down upon her as angels flew above her head singing a great chorus. No instead, she dressed plainly in an ordinary white t-shirt and blue jeans. "Harldy fitting for such an amazing person", he thought.

She still faced away from him as he approched her and said nothing when he stood beside her. "You must be Rem," the man spoke rather softly. The woman stopped singing and looked at him. He could see such kindness in her eyes, and yet so much sadness....just like Vash. "Yes," Rem said with a smile, "I guess you're Mr. Wolfwood." "Please, just call me Wolfwood. 'Mr' makes me sound old. But....how did you know who I was?" "I've been watching him," she spoke softly. "He's a miracle you know?" "Yes, I know." she looked down at the ground smiling warmly; she had to fight to keep tears from coming to her eyes. "He believes in you, you know? Everything you taught him, he remembers it. For you, he won't kill, hell he'll barely hurt anyone if he can get away with it. The whole damn planet wants him dead. People get scared when you even mention his name. He doesn't have home, and he's covered in scars from head to toe. But you'd never know it just talking to him. He's always happy, acting like a total idiot. He'd throw himself off a cliff to save a person who just tried to kill him.......... He's the closest thing to an angel we have down there. But....."

Wolfwood's brow furrowed as he continued, even thinking about these things upset him. "He'll die if he keeps doing this, you know that don't you? Sooner or later there'll be a time when he just can't save everyone and he'll die trying. He's done enough you know? More than anyone else down there has done. He needs to stop before he gets killed. He's the best thing on that planet....its not fair he should die. He could just...." Rem turned to him and hugged him gently. He had started crying, he couldn't believe it. He started to feel embarrassed, being cradled like a small child. But as she pulled back from him, he could see the tears in her eyes to. "I know he could die. Every day I watch him and I'm scared that today will be the day he'll die....for my beliefs. At times I feel so guilty, but then I realize something. If he were different he wouldn't be him. I guess that sounds silly. I mean, the reason we love him so much is because of how he is. How can we ask him to change that? We'd be changing the very thing about him that made us love him, then he wouldn't be as special, he wouldn't be the miracle that he is. And if he didn't give his all to save everyone, if he didn't risk his life to save them, he wouldn't be the angel that planet needs."

Wolfwood stared at her a moment and began to smile, "I was right," he said as he looked her over from head to toe, "hardly fitting." "What are you talking about?" Rem looked at him puzzled. "Its nothing, its nothing." " Oh. Well, follow me." Rem reached out and took his hand and began leading him to the gate. "Wait a minute. Why am I....I mean why do I get to go here?" Wolfwood asked pulling against her. "It's something I told Vash a long tome ago." Rem said as she turned to face him. "The ticket to the future is always open. You might have made mistakes, but you realized that what you did was wrong. You wanted forgiveness, genuinely and unselfishly.....and you got it." Without another word the two continued through the gates and into heaven.