The words brought a stillness to the white space around them, and to the mouth of the reborn Seraph. Hoffmann choked on the syllables in his throat, restructuring them from the fragments of imagination in his brain that very much imagined that they wanted to hurtle fists in the general direction of the angel in front of him. Any resemblance of fear or reverence given to the choir-born wreath of fire before him was gone.

Through bared teeth, Hoffmann spoke.

“No. I will not allow this. Your rules or your wishes. You must be an illusion. A false idol. This is madness a-and - you’re sick. You are a vile, demonic being! GET OUT OF MY HEAD-!”

A thunderclap announced the return of consciousness, resounding noise and painful ringing in the ears that were only matched by the bone dry sensation of sand in his mouth. Returning to the world of the living, for now, Hoffmann dredged himself through the sand of the overturned vehicle’s interior and took stock.

His mind was reeling, dizzyingly pounding, churning blood between the skin and the bone of his skull as a headache settled in for a siege. Agony.

The same pierced through the other side in the same vein as Hoffmann became aware of blood dripping down his face to the ground, hissing and bubbling. Similar agony wracked his back as his skin split open for space to accompany the root bone joint of wings, of which there were six.

The cold demeanor of Hoffmann’s shell succumbed to a splitting crack, a hot trickle of fear that poignantly reminded him of what just transpired. The transformation was upon him, here in this barren wasteland. Here it comes, here again. He could only be compelled to fall to his knees.

A bleating scream became an ethereal cosmic roar that vibrated the sand and shook the air for many miles. The sand worms emerged from the Earth, and those who did not perish were fleeing like maggots from healing flesh as they wriggled and died in the holy presence. The energies and humors of a Seraph, untamed and unchecked, twisted the environment around him, churning a freak thunderstorm overhead, the first one in perhaps decades this sandy Hell had seen. Violent bursts of lightning cut through the screeching as the human left Hoffmann and the Seraph returned once more, each one fighting for control within.

The bleeding became evidently the result of sleek black horns, segmented and bowed slightly yet still pointing straight at the sky, upholding like pillars of black stone a laurel wreath in the shape of a halo, upon which was etched in the original language. Babel, the first language, spelled out “HOLY HOLY THE FIRE OF YAHWEH WILLS TO BURN.”

The wings of golden sheath were of a burnt rusty color, flared out to a wingspan of some 4 meters from the back joints.

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A demi-deity born once more, Hoffmann felt the surge of ichor and vitriol wrack his formerly human body, now host to all manner of strange and seemingly alien energy. Gasping upon the sensation of the sun scorching his back, the Seraph scolded himself in a refusal to submit here nor now. He mustered the strength he had, and found himself tired not necessarily in body, but in mind and spirit.

Upon commandeering a water jug spared from the violent smashing the human vehicle was subjected to, Hoffmann sat against a smoothed rock and drank till he felt the sand clear away from his mouth and lips. He had time to contemplate what just happened. Nathaniel born was he, many a human he had inhabited. He was wracked with a rush of sensations and feelings from memories fed to him like a brush fire, attempting to be put out by spitting water through a straw; it hissed and begged for more. His mind screamed for understanding, to make sense of memories he did not feel were even his own. It became difficult to hear, then began increasing in intensity as the dullness of his senses turned to a screaming tinnitus.

The stressor factors of the conflict thus far have overloaded the biological body of the very non-biological deity. Visions and hallucinations eventually spurred Hoffmann to action out of fear as he stood bolt upright, staggering and bountiful with adrenaline. He tore at a hallucination outright, attacking it with the depths of fearful anger in his heart as he challenged it with a roar and a swift, if shaky motion of the hand as if slapping at it whole-palm.

This movement brightly disoriented Hoffmann’s vision as a glow flew from his palm to the object in question, which was not as Hoffmann saw a mass of angry spiders in a ball, but rather a simple desert bush, now set alight. The fire ebbed and flowed unnaturally, burning the bush to perish and leaving a pile of smoldering salt.

Hoffmann looked to his hands, noting a lack of distinguishing features save for the absence of pain brought on by the same fire. It doused his arms as he became fully aware that the fire had emerged from him, the realization sparking a momentary lapse of judgement as excitement and surprise shivered his soul before reality set in, and he calmed himself enough to seemingly let the fire shrivel back to the origin point. The wrists.

“In the same spot that he from Nazareth…”

The words trailed off and gave way to the sensation of nothing. Seemingly as one would feel little were they to stand in a room temperature environment, Hoffmann felt no burn of Sun on his face. Logic dictated to him in kind that the lack of sensation or sweat could mean any number of things. However, a brief trip back to the vehicle to siphon gasoline and ignite it on his arm’s sleeve confirmed his hypothesis. Fire and heat would have little to gain from attempting to burn him.

Yes, he thought, as flashes of old flame danced in his mind like shadows from a campfire. But what does this mean for me now? I must get to the coast by any means and escape. Hoffmann frowned in vitriol and inadvertently set ablaze the vehicle’s gasoline which had dribbled out. It set alight, burning slowly but evenly as it was taken, this time leaving a burnt husk rather than the pile of salt.

Enough games. Hoffmann salvaged what he could from the burning wreck, using his newfound power of immunity to flame to grab food, medicine, and what limited medical supplies hadn’t already begun to smolder. He bled, needed food and water like any other human, but the consequences of death were to be far more damning.

Knowing he needed to escape this place and find refuge elsewhere, Hoffmann continued on foot for some time through the evening and night as the stars came out to glint. Japan, he thought. The plan all along has been a refuge in Japan. A reborn Seraph he may be, but to the human authorities, he was still Eginhardt Hoffmann, a supposed war criminal. The Americans have had time to clear out. There, Hoffmann would travel. He knew he would have ample opportunity to plan his next moves in relative peace. Namely, what to do now that his original plans had drastically changed.

So much for bathhouse ladies and sake, he thought.