Dice:Sere…Sere….SERE!!!

Sere:Hm? *Looks up from her sketchbook at Dice* What?

Dice:Dimwit! You've gotta introduce Crucified Heart!!

Sere:Oh, right! *jumps to her feet and bows politely* Konbon wa minna-san, I'm Fates Twisted Child, though friends just call me Sere

Dice:*mutters* or stupid

Chibi:Mommy!! Dice just called you stupid!

Dice:Brat!

Sere:*picks up a large book and hits Dice in the back of the head with it* Thank you, Chibi-chan

Chibi:Hehe!! *Runs off to find Birdy and Ivory*

Sere:Yes, well, I should probably explain *prods Dice in the back* The blue haired baka is my older sister, yami, and the spirit trapped in my dad's old family ring, and the crazy little brat that told on Dice is my pet chibi, Chibi

Shun:She seems to think that Sere-chan is her mother

Dice:I just know I'm gonna be explaining this to a psychiatrist in a few years

Sere:Dice, shut up, you're dead!

Ikki:Can we please get on with the story?

Sere:Yeah, yeah, fine, CHIBI!!!

Chibi:*runs up holding a flamethrower* yeah?

Sere:Disclaimer, please

Chibi:*fires up the flamethrower and begins writing on the wall with it*

Sere:I just finished repairing the last one!!!

Chibi:*finishes and runs off*

Okaa-san does not own Saint Seiya or any other show/book/movie that might be mentioned is now burning on the wall

Sere:…Lovely

Quote of the Chapter

"Oh, man, Quatre loves to blame himself for everything if you let him. Sooner or later, he'll start saying that there's no air in space because he didn't work on it hard enough."—Duo Maxwell, Gundam Wing (kinda makes me think of Ikki or Elektra talking about Shun)

They say, when you die, that your life flashes before your eyes. It does, from the point where you believe it began. For me, it began the same way it ended, at the hands of another saint. It wasn't a dark, stormy night when I died, it wasn't even night. It was the middle of the day, the most perfect day I'd ever seen. If I'd known that I would spend the last day of my life fighting the person that I'd looked up to as long as I could remember, I would have killed myself years ago.

Ikki dove out of the way as bits of glass showered down on him. He looked up to see Elektra backflip and land on her feet behind him. The Lyra Saint slid back several meters before finally collapsing onto her knees. Another dark form swooped over Ikki and the saint of shadows, Kage, landed in front of Elektra. He picked Elektra up by the neck and brought her to eye level.

"Ready to give up yet?" Kage sneered.

Elektra's starburst eyes glowed and harp strings shot from her flesh and wrapped around Kage's neck and arms. She grinned even though there was blood all over her face and the Lyra cloth was cracked, almost ready to fall apart.

"Never!"

The harp strings cut into Kage's arms and neck. He snarled and got a tight grip on the portion of the strings wrapped around his wrist.

"Fine then," Kage's demented grin sent a shudder through Ikki. "you can just die!" He yanked on the harp strings and they ripped free from Elektra's copper skin.

Elektra's pain screams shook Ikki more than even the look in Kage's eyes.

'How could any brother do that to his own flesh and blood?' Ikki thought angrily.

Elektra's screams died and the rest of the harp strings fell limp. She turned just enough for her eyes to meet Ikki's. Tears filled her wild starburst eyes that struck Ikki like a meteor. After all this, after everything Kage had done, she still loved him. All other emotions, the pain, the fear, the hatred, that filled them just minutes before were gone, replaced by the sadness, the love of her older brother, the same love Shun held for Ikki. Ikki's blood boiled with rage. Kage laughed wickedly and threw Elektra's lifeless body into the air and pointed a fist at her.

"Shadow Darts!!"

What was left of Elektra's emerald and obsidian armor shattered as hundreds of black darts struck her with inhuman aim. Her unconscious body slammed into the wall of the Shadow Tower and slid down the wall, leaving a trail of crimson blood. Ikki struggled against the chains binding him to the ground to no avail.

Kage walked up to Elektra's lifeless body and lightly kicked her. "Pathetic creature."

'How dare he,' Ikki thought, his eyes beginning to glow. 'how dare he treat his own sister like some stupid animal!'  Ikki looked up, eyes glowing and shouted. "KAGE!!!"

The Shadow Saint stopped to glare at him. "Aren't you dead yet?"

Ikki's eyes fell on the scarred, eyeless face of his friend's older brother. Part of him wondered what had driven Kage to gouge out his own eyes, though the other remained focused on the Elektra.

"Look at what you're doing, Shadow!" Ikki shouted. "Do you really want the blood of one of your own on your hands!"

Kage stared at him, then glared at Elektra. "Explain yourself, Phoenix!"

"Look beyond the armor, Kage, look at the person wearing it!" Ikki snarled.

Kage snapped his fingers and the chains binding Ikki slid off. The Phoenix Saint stood up and stridded over to Elektra's lifeless body. He knelt down next to her and gently slid off what was left of Elektra's shattered helmet. Her long bleached hair fell into Ikki's lap, now streaked and stained with her dark blood.

"You may be able to see through the darkness of the world," Ikki said, turning to Kage with rage in his eyes. "but you cannot see through the darkness of your own heart. Look, do you now recognize her? Do you recognize the face of your sister?"

Kage knelt down and ran a hand over Elektra's copper, blood covered face. His hand ran down her arm and stopped on the harp tattoo on her wrist. He began shaking, then suddenly brought his hands, one of which was still clutching the harp strings he'd ripped from Elektra's body, to his face and shook his head. "What... what have I done?"

Ikki glared at him and felt Elektra's wrist. "You've killed your own sister, Kage, you murdered the very reason you became a saint."

Kage sobbed into his hands. "No! Please, no! She can't... she can't be..." he trailed off and shook his head.

Ikki closed his eyes and pulled Elektra's lifeless body close to him, hugging her tightly. He kissed her forehead and whispered, "Please, if there is any good power left here, protect Elektra, bring her back to us. We need her, I need her."

We stood at the cross roads, each of us with our own saint cloth on our back. After so many years of fighting and training, we stood, ready to part ways for the first time in our lives.

"Well, here we are. We've done it."

"I can't believe, after all that, it worked."

"After all the early mornings and endless days, it's finally paid off. We did it, we're saints."

"SIS!!!!!!!"

I looked up from my book as my brother ran up, waving his arms madly. "What'd you do this time, wake up a nest of hornets?" I asked tiredly.

He shook his head. "No, it's something really good!" He climbed into the window I was sitting in and hugged me.

"What? Our dear father finally die?" I asked, closing The Silmarilion and looking into his starburst red eyes. I hated those eyes; it was like looking in a mirror that only reflected darkness.

"No, silly! It's way better than that!"

"Then tell me, I'm trying to read." I said simply, which was a complete lie. I'd read this particular book so many times I had it memorized, but I didn't want my brother to know that I'd finally run out of things to read.

"What? More reading? What's it this time, The Hobbit?" he asked, looking at my book. He couldn't read, so why did he bother?

"I finished that while you were out training yesterday, this is The Silmarilion." I said, giggling at the confused look that crossed his face. I wish it were that easy now.

He shook his head. "Whatever, I'm not into that reading and learning crap."

"And that's why you've got no chance at a future, dear brother."

"Maybe, but it's because I spend all my time training!" he snapped.

I sighed. "And yet I can still kick your sorry butt."

"Cannot!"

WACK! A simple half-powered kick sent him flying across the room like a bird.

"You were saying?"

He got up, rubbing his head and cursing under his breath. "Yeah, well, you won't ever get to be a saint because you're a girl!"

"Yeah, and you will?" I sniped, turning to look at him. "You're scared of bugs!"

"Yeah, I will! Dad just told me! I get to be a saint!! I'm gonna get the fox cloth!"

I blinked and set my book down. My heart seemed to fall through the floor. "You...you can't be serious! You, a saint?!"

"Yeah! And the best part is, I can stay right here while I'm training! I won't have to leave!"

I smiled sadly and looked back out the window. I didn't want him to see me cry. I was supposed to be strong. "Congrats, bro."

I could feel him looking at me, seeing through me like he always did. "Sis, I know you wanted to be a saint, but..."

"but girls aren't meant to be saints, I know." I whispered. "I've only heard it a million times from dad."

He pulled himself into the windowsill and wrapped his arms around me. "I'm sorry..." His head shot up. "Wait a minute! I've got it?"

"Not another scheme," I muttered. He may have been born under the fox constellation, but he wasn't very clever. He always got us into trouble with his half-baked schemes.

"There's another set of armor, I saw it!" he jumped down and began pacing around the room. "You could steal it!"

"I'm not going to steal it! If I were to become a saint I want to earn it!" This aspect made me furious. I may have been raised on an island completely inhabited by men, but I was not about to sink to stealing like my father had.

"Ok, ok, let me think," he paced for several minutes, then finally looked up. "I could teach you! I'll be staying here, so I could just pass everything I learned onto you, that way we could become saints together! It's perfect! After I get my armor, you can steal yours and leave!"

"There's that word again," I grumbled, still staring out at the setting sun.

"But you'll have earned it by then! Come on, it's perfect!"

I smiled and turned to him, his eyes shined with a light that I'd never seen, the cunning of the fox. "Ok, when do we start?"

"At dawn tomorrow morning."

Part of me wanted to laugh, but instead I shouted, "YOU KNOW I CAN'T GET UP THAT EARLY!!"

"I can wake you up!"

"Remember what happened last time you tried that?" I grabbed a handful of his pink hair, which was charred and starting to fall off. He'd tried to wake me up one morning, and in rage I'd torched his hair with a technique our older brother had taught me.

"Ok, that...could be a problem. Oh well, we'll figure something out." He was still grinning from ear to ear, and the gleam in his eyes didn't fade.

"I hope."

That was almost eleven years ago, my brother risked everything just so I could become a saint. Now, there we stood, in the middle of the night, each of us carrying our saint cloth. There was fork in the road there. One road lead home, where my brother had to go, the other road lead to the docks, and the boat that would take me far from there. We'd broken all the rules, but I couldn't feel more satisfied at the time.

I turned and began walking down the left road.

"Wait!" I stopped and turned back to my brother. "We'll see each other again, right?" he asked me.

I smiled. "Of course. We're bound by blood. One day, we'll be together again, I promise."

He pulled me into a tight hug then quickly released me. "I'll miss you."

"And I, you, little brother."

"Promise me something."

"What?"

"Promise me that you won't go it alone."

My eyebrow arched. "Are you absolutely insane? It's gonna be hard enough to hide the fact that I'm a girl without getting close to anyone!"

"You won't have to," the light of the fox shined in his eyes again. "away from here, you can be yourself, you won't have to worry about our father's wrath. You're a saint now, you're free."

I smiled sadly and a single tear slid down my cheek. "The sun is rising, little brother, and it is time for us to go."

"Sing, please," he whispered. "one last time."

I looked at him, my own red eyes shining with tears and nodded.

"The road goes ever ever on

To the lands beyond the sea

On a white ship will I sail

Watching shadows part for me

Leaving havens gray with rain

Now that years have slipped away

Leaving friends with gentle pain

As they start another day

Roads I travelled I must leave"

I turned and began walking down the road.

"For I've turned the final bend

Weep not empty tears, but grieve

As the road comes to an end

It's so easy not to try

Let the world go drifting by

If you never say hello"

I stopped and wiped a tear off my cheek, then turned back. He still stood there, ruby eyes filled with tears.

"You won't have to say goodbye"

And with that I turned and walked away. At the time I didn't know exactly what was in store for us, but I knew it couldn't be all good. We'd broken the laws of the gods, and there would be hell to pay, but for now, that didn't matter. We had to concentrate on our dreams. If only I'd known what would follow, I never would have walked down that road.