Author: Fania

Fandom: Saint Seiya, both Anime and Books.

Disclaimer: Kurumada-San keeps them close to him… I couldn't event steal a Bronze Saint!

Note: So, this is the Beginning of my In-Between project, which I talked about when I published Flying Saints. This will be a collection of One Shots following Aphrodite as he travels through time and learns to stop pretending he doesn't care about people. Occasionally, I may provide you with a link to my DeviantART account, where I will probably post a few drawings related to the Project, such as behind the scene things, or deleted scenes.

I hope you will have as much fun reading this as I have writing it =)

Of Holy Sand Clocks and Natural Needs.

It was an old habit of Aphrodite's, to run instead of walking.

He may pull off the I-am-insensitive-and-indifferent-to-everything act in front of his enemies –and in front of his fellow Gold Saints too, most of the time- he nevertheless was a simple man, and the fact was that he had never been able to just walk from one location to another. This was even truer when his own body itself chose to remind him that he was a mere mortal by urging him very insistently toward a toilet room.

So concentrated was he on his immediate problem that he didn't notice Shaka walking up the numerous steps linking the Pisces House with the Pope's Temple… it therefore came as a complete surprise to him when he collided with the Virgo saint and sent them both rolling down the sacred stairs in a mess of limbs, hair, gold and capes, their heads bumping against the cold angles of the stone.

It took them quite a long time to reach the bottom of the stairs and Aphrodite's garden, for even though it may not look like it, the Sanctuary took up a lot of space and five hundreds steps did make a long roll. The two Saints finally managed to disentangle themselves from each other, not without effort and quite a lot of swearing –at least on Aphrodite's part. Once they were done determining whose cape was stuck where –the Cloths may be incredibly classy, impressive and efficient in a fight, they were anything but practical for daily activities- and they had both retrieved their helmets, the two men got to their feet, Shaka let out the tiniest of sighs, and Aphrodite knew he was in deep trouble.

"One day, you will have to learn how to walk."

To any other ear, the voice would have been perfectly calm, void of any emotion whatsoever, but Aphrodite had grown up next to Shaka –'with' would have been too big a word- and he knew the Hindu's emotionless voice was never to be trusted as an indication of his mood… even his cosmos could be deceiving. In fact, such a sentence, so close to an actual scolding, was an in-deniable sign that Shaka was nothing short of furious.

Aphrodite could hardly blame him.
The Virgo saint had never quite understood what had pushed him and the other renegades to attack the Sanctuary… he was way too pure to understand such twisted reflections, after all. Whatever the reason though, the fact remained that Shaka had never liked Aphrodite very much. Perhaps it had to do with the Pisces Saint's tendency to place appearances above all else, voluntarily ignoring anything that was not beautiful. Even the calm and even tempered Camus had gone so far as to call it a 'despicable and closed up attitude'… almost everyone thought Aphrodite was as shallow and air-brained as he made himself appear. Except maybe for Shura and Death Mask –Aphrodite couldn't bring himself to call the latter Anchise, which was his real first name. Aside from those two Gold Saints though, nobody ever saw what laid behind Aphrodite's indifferent mask, and since the Pisces Saint himself couldn't even tell if there was something more to him than just the one who would barely talk to anyone outside his roses, he really couldn't blame the others.

"Do you know what I am carrying here?"

Aphrodite snapped out of his self-reflective trance and blinked a few time, before he finally rested his eyes on Shaka's arms. Sitting there was a large golden sand clock, engraved with figures going from young to old and then the reverse, deep lines linking the faces together.

"I'd say a sand clock, but we're Gold Saints so… some kind of Mythological sand clock?"

"This, is Chronos' holy sand clock, Aphrodite." Shaka's eyebrows almost –almost- knotted as he held up the clock for Aphrodite to see. "Had you broken it, you would have cast chaos and despair on Earth, you might even had provoked the fall of the human race."

It was said in such a matter of fact voice, such a detached tone… Aphrodite could never understand how Shaka managed to be indifferent to humans. Not that he himself was very fond of them –he mostly despised them- but at least he acknowledged their existence, if only because protecting humans was what they had been trained to do.

"Sorry. I needed to use the bathroom… though I guess the fall cut the need."

"Bathroom or not, you have never been able to walk instead of running."

"Well, sorry for not being as perfect as you are, oh great Buddah." Aphrodite retorted. "You know, some of us like to live instead of seeing the others doing so."

"Says the man who speaks to none but his flowers."

"You know Death and Shura will kill you if they learn you called them flowers, don't you?"

Aphrodite gave a smirking wink, struggling to hide the hurt he knew was present in his cosmos.
Shaka, though he must have perceived his comrades' pain –nothing ever went unnoticed with him- did not comment on it, falling in concentrated silence. Aphrodite stood in front of the Virgo Saint, vexed. How dared he go off in meditation mode without further warning in the middle of ihis/i gar… Aphrodite's thoughts stopped, and he nearly had a brain attack.

"Where are my Pumpkins?" He yelled. "My Eggplants? My gardenias? My orchids? Someone stole my garden away!"

"Shut up." Shaka hissed. "Use your senses… there's something wrong here. Aside from the fact that the Sanctuary is under attack, that is."

"Under WHAT?"

"Attack. I'm trying to feel who is attacking us, but there's something weird with your cos… Aphrodite, come back here!"

But Aphrodite had already crossed his empty temple and set off toward Camus'. Whoever was attacking the Sanctuary must have been terrifyingly powerful to be able to pull off something so quick and unexpected… what if Shura and Death Mask, who usually trained at this early time of the day, were engaged in combat with this thing? Without their Cloths on, they were all vulnerable, exposed like children. Of course, he knew Death and Shura would put up a good fight if they had to, but even Gold Saints had limits, and Aphrodite certainly did not want to think of what would happen if his two only friends reached theirs.

Crossed the training fields without hesitation as soon as he had made sure neither Anchise nor Shura were present, and followed the bursts of Cosmos characteristics of battles. One of them, though it was neither Cancer nor Capricorn's felt oddly familiar, but he didn't think about it too much. He had reached the final houses of the servants' village and was about to jump into the fight when a strong hand clutched at his hair and pulled him down.

"I thought you were a calm and composed fighter!" Shaka hissed. "Might I remind you that getting killed for acting stupidly isn't even remotely beautiful?"

"Death and Shura are here!" Aphrodite whispered through gritted teeth. "I am not letting them die."

"They are not here." Shaka countered. "Those Cosmos do not belong to any of the Gold Saints, even though one of them is oddly similar to yours."

Aphrodite was about to retort, but was cut off by a distinct cry of pain coming from further down in the streets, followed by much chuckles. Ignoring Shaka, the Pisces saint crawled forward to get a better view of the village entrance, and discovered the fight he had been running into.

"Who are they?" Shaka whispered. "Why is this one wearing your armor?"

Indeed, one of the two men, a long and blue haired one, was entirely clad in the golden armor of the Pisces knight. The other, a royal, grey-haired man wore the Griffin Spectral cloth, and seemed to enjoy his fight greatly.
For a moment, it looked as though the Spectre of Hades was the winner, but then the Gold Saint straightened himself and threw a last attack.

"Crimson thorns!" he shouted, and Aphrodite gasped.

"I know who they are." The Swedish whispered. "This Albafica of the Pisces house… and the other one must be Minos."

"Thank you very much for your help Aphrodite. I wondered where was it I had seen these cloths."

"It's not what I mean!" Aphrodite scolded, barely restraining from smacking the other saint's arm. "Albafica was the one who first thought of fighting with roses. It is he who created all the attacks I have been taught by my master. This fight, this very set of attack, my master told me about it numerous time… this means we're back to the Holy War!"

"Which one do you think it is?"

"The one that just preceded ours. Look, you see this guy with the Aries Cloth? That's Shion. I think Dhoko will come up in a few second."

"Then we know we are not need…"

A strangled cry stopped Shaka in mid-sentence as Albafica realized his attack wasn't working. Aphrodite's fists clenched, and the Indian frowned.

"He seems to be losing."

"He shouldn't be." Aphrodite whispered. "He defeated Minos. He threw a Crimson Thorn more powerful than anyone had ever seen, and he used the distraction to kill Minos with a white rose… but he will never have enough blood to do bo…."

A chuckle from Minos distracted the two hidden Gold Saints, and they barely had time to see Albafica crumble to the ground, seemingly beaten. He was quick to come back into the fight though, and managed to stand on his feet, an angry look in his beautiful blue eyes.

"He just stuck a white rose in his own heart." Shaka remarked –and Aphrodite could nearly hear a gasp in his voice. "But Minos has proved his Cloth can easily block those. He needs a distraction."

"This is why he used the Crimson Thorns." Aphrodite sighed. "So as to force Minos to raise his Cloth wings and be able to aim at his heart… but he won't be able to do it in his state. He's lost too much blood already. He will need help."

"Wait, Aphrodite, we aren't supposed to interfere with history!"

But Aphrodite didn't listen to his comrade and, as soon as Albafica threw a new wave of Crimson Thorn, the Pisces Saint used the same attack, throwing his own blood in the battle. He was beginning to feel pale and giddy when Minos finally realized he had lost. Aphrodite waited until Shion and Dhoko –younger than he'd ever known them- took care of Albafica's body before he allowed himself to fall back on the ground, right beside Shaka, who quickly grabbed his shoulder.

"Do not do that again." The Virgo saint warned. "We cannot be seen in this time, it would be too dangerous."

"But how did we even get here? I mean, now. Whatever."

"I told you this was Chronos' sand clock. When you collided with me and we fell down the stairs, it must have triggered its power and taken us back two hundred years ago."

"You mean now."

"Aphrodite, do not make things more complicated than they already are." Shaka released Aphrodite's shoulder and leaned on his left. "We need to remain hidden until this Holy war is over, and we can try and ask Athena to send us back home. We have to leave the village."

"Do we really have to crawl up there?" Aphrodite whined. "I'll get covered in mud."

"None of this would have happened if you hadn't been running, Aphrodite. Suffer in silence."

"Aw sorry about that, I forgot the closest being to God doesn't pee."

Shaka didn't answer, choosing to start moving instead. Knowing he wouldn't win this fight, Aphrodite followed his comrade, muttering nasty imprecations to designate his fellow saint, fervently hoping that Athena would send them home soon… he didn't know how long it would take him to try and murder the Virgo Saint if they were forced to live together.