"Si può sapere dove sei finita rincitrullita di un'oca giuliva?"
Cancer no Death Mask wasn't an elegant man. Not in his beautifully divine – his words – boyfriend's opinion, not in everybody else's opinion, let alone his own.
No, the Cancer Saint lacked that finesse, that savoir faire, that …something, that made everybody else look and act like decent human beings except for him.
He was, to use his boyfriend's, Pisces no Aphrodite, words, a barbaric brute with the eyes of a devil and a soul to match. And that, was perfectly fine with him!
That was the reason why he was in his house – completely devoid of the thousands of masks that dwelled there, a permanent memento of his less than just approach to Athena's brand of divine justice – in nothing but his underwear, with a cigarette already at his lips, yelling for what could have been a stupid goose, but in reality was a young girl that usually shared the gloomy atmosphere of the Fourth House with him and was used to bake the most excellent cakes first thing in the morning.
But that morning, for the first time in years Death Mask of Cancer found no freshly baked cakes on his table. Nothing, nada, zilch… and what was worse, not even a single trace of the girl that was supposed to have made them.
"Helena! Come out this instant before I decide to Sekishiki your sorry ass into the next world and leave you there!"
"Like you don't do exactly that every couple of days Death Mask!"
"Do not interfere in businesses that aren't yours overgrown sheep!"
The emeraldine eyes of Aries no Mu sparkled in the soft morning light taking no offence to the seemingly insulting words of his fellow Saint. He had long ago discovered that, under the mask there was a astonishing good man. The only problem was that you had to dig deep enough to find him and, before the Hades debacle, nobody had really had any wish to see what was under the strong armour of the Karkinos Saint.
But he had sacrificed himself for Athena, alongside everybody else, to allow the Bronze Saints access to Elysium and when they were all brought back by Athena's intervention, everyone of them had tried a little harder to discover what the Golden Crab had hidden out of sight.
Much of the merit of the discovery of the fluffy side of Death Mask could have been given to the exact same girl that the Sicilian was yelling for and that, apparently, had decided to make herself scarce that morning.
A strange occurrence, thought the Aries Saint. Not the disappearing act, that happened often enough that nobody was really worried anymore – who wouldn't disappear if they had to live with the moody Cancer Saint? – but the fact that said girl had disappeared before breakfast and without his knowledge.
After all he was the guardian of the First Temple and nobody could slip in and out of Sanctuary without, if not his permission, at least his knowledge.
"She hasn't gone down to the Arena, of that I am sure, so she might have gone up! I am going to the Pope, if you want we can ascend together in order to look for her…"
He had purposely left the phrase open, not wanting to crowd his companion, whose hatred for company was legendary! Again, how could the girl live with such a misanthropist was a question that had no answer anywhere in Sanctuary. Everybody had offered her a place to stay, she had even her own house, but she spent more time at Cancer's than anywhere else and she wasn't going to budge on that issue.
"Che palle! Fine agnellino I'll come with you upwards, but when I find her you can bet your pretty little golden hammer that I'll make her pay the affront of going up without any breakfast!"
"If you really are that hungry I've got coffee and biscuits on the table so, feel free to join me…"
"Not even if you were the last possible meal available on Earth, Sea Lizard!"
Apparently the Cancer Saint had not yet forgotten the mouldy and overall disgusting things that the younger Gemini had passed for cookies the last time he had invited them to have tea in his house.
He personally thought that those things would have been disgusting even after being deprived of the sense of taste by the resident Buddha and the Sicilian had had no problem at all voicing his opinion to the house master that had, obviously, responded in kind, thus risking the infamous "Thousand days war".
Only the timely intervention of Aphrodite's poisonous roses and the Pope's own threat of sending them into Another Dimension had prevented bloodshed so soon after their rebirth.
Wisely deciding not to take offence at the other's less than gracious answer, Gemini no Kanon, formerly known as Sea Dragon, took a look around, hoping to see the only saving grace of the scorbutic Saint in front of him.
"Oi old man! Where's lovely Helena this morning? Did you send her to the Underworld again?"
"The fact that I have naturally silver hair, doesn't make me automatically an old man, ciuriddu! And no, I haven't seen lovely Helena at all this morning and we were just about to go look for her, before being rudely interrupted!"
The only thing preventing the blue haired man from disintegrating him on the spot were the pleading eyes that the Aries was giving him from behind Cancer. That and the fact the he really didn't know how he could have justified himself in front of his brother the Pope and Athena, for killing a fellow Saint for no apparent reason at all except the fact the he was being an ass.
"Mind if I join you then?"
"Does this look like a party to you eh?"
Not minding the Karkinos' attitude at all the Gemini Saint joined Mu and Death Mask in their search for their missing companion.
A search that turned out empty both at the Fifth and the Sixth House were Leo no Aiolia and Virgo no Shaka admitted to not having seen the young woman that morning. But if the young lion had admitted to being otherwise preoccupied, at those words Kanon could not stop himself from snickering at the embarrassed look that had graced the Leo, the reincarnation of Buddha had told them that he had been meditating all night so if anybody had traversed his house he would have known immediately.
Starting to worry a little for missing young woman the five men traversed quickly the Seventh and Eight Houses – the young again Dokho was at Goro Ho again to finally settling all ties there and live permanently at Sanctuary, while they knew that Scorpio no Milo could be found at the Eleventh House alongside his algid protector – before finally entering the Ninth House, the Sagittarius House, hoping against everything that their young friend had decided to stop at the Ninth to have a chat with Aioros, simply skipping the other houses by using the secret passages.
But the bewildered look of an Aioros unceremoniously dumped out of bed by Death Mask's yells had their hearts sink a little because so few houses were left and the feeling of dread had grown in their stomachs.
The Tenth House was empty as well by the slip of paper left by the door told everyone that the Gold Saint presiding it had been called up by Athena so the group proceeded and speedily advanced toward the Eleventh House.
"What do you mean you cannot find her? What did you do to her Death Mask?"
"Listen you filthy bug, if you do not want me to personally refresh your memory of Hell I suggest you keep those thoughts to yourself and stop accusing me of something that you know perfectly well I will never do!"
"He is right Milo! It was rude of you to jump to conclusions and blame Death Mask for Helena's disappearance!"
"But Camus, where could she have gone? You know she disappears only if she's had a fight with him or Aphrodite!"
"Death Mask is right! They didn't have a fallout yesterday or I would have heard them since they are right on my doorstep, but she might still be at Dite's, or she could have had a fallout with him so we better ask him quickly!"
And with that the Gemini Saint pivoted towards the door that led to the last of the Twelve Houses, the Pisces House whose protector, in the middle of a facial with freshly cut cucumbers on his eyes, had such a meltdown at the news of the girl's disappearance that his fellow Gold Saints thought they were going to die, poisoned by the beautiful roses that Aphrodite kept in his house.
The only thing that saved them from certain death had been the luminous Cosmo of their Goddess that had beckoned them towards the last temple.
"Is it true then? Has she disappeared?"
They hadn't even took a single step inside the great hall that the booming and very worried voice of the Taurus Saint had asked them the very question that they were all dreading to answer.
"Yes Aldebaran, she is missing, but she might have gone to stay with Seiya a bit maybe…"
The little sparkle of hope that the Aries Saint had managed to put inside the last sentence was readily crushed by the Capricorn Saint who had motioned no with his head, promptly followed by their Goddess' voice.
"She isn't there Mu, I have already checked with everyone of the Bronze Saints, they haven't seen her in weeks. I really don't know where she could be."
"If that is the case Athena, then I think we might be of some help…"
A new, deep voice, had entered the hall and the surprise that all had felt in knowing that a possible enemy had infiltrated Sanctuary all turned into dread when they saw who had entered the sacred grounds.
"What are you doing here Rhadamantys?"