no. 668

“And it was a choice. Never pretend you were forced. There is no force great enough to compel someone to do such things. There was no ulterior motive, no greater good. You did it for a pat on the head and a chance to have even more power. What more could you want, Ilia? You held lives in the palm of your hand and destroyed them at a whim. What more could you ever want?” 
“I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”
 “I don’t.” He shook his head. “But neither do you. That’s the worst part. You don’t even know what you wanted. You just killed and killed and killed. You were a force of evil and destruction without even having the decency to care why you did those things. The universe will be better off without you.” 
She screamed as his knife drove into her heart and twisted. With another scream, ripped deep from within her, she grabbed it and dragged it out. With only seconds remaining, she turned her face to the stone wall so that his face would not be the last thing she saw. 
Barnabas stood, looking down at her body. 
"It’s not enough, is it?" Shinigami asked. 
"It’s never enough", Barnabas told her. "I stopped believing in heaven and hell long ago—at least, as they’re spoken about in the religious texts. But I can see why the thought of them has endured. The idea that she could do so much wrong and just die, not living more than a moment of the terror and pain she inflicted, is an injustice I do not want to let go."

From The Vigilante Chronicles by Natalie Grey and Michael Anderle

no. 666

“Justice is never given; it is exacted and the struggle must be continuous for freedom is never a final fact, but a continuing evolving process to higher and higher levels of human, social, economic, political and religious relationship.”

A. Philip Randolph, 1889-1979