Shaina scanned the 6 saints before her. She called the meeting with the gold saints to discuss what she believed to be a serious matter. Five of these saints were always the ones that saved Sanctuary time and time again, but Sanctuary needed a different sort of saving. It needed restoration and preservation. For several years the order has maintained its meager leftovers from the holy wars. More saints were needed, and only two new saints had been formally indoctrinated in Sanctuary since the war with Hades. A more dedicated effort to raising the next generation of saints was needed. That is not to say these gold saints were without students. The problem was advancement, the students had not yet been given tests for cloths.

"You know why I called this meeting." It was a reform after the holy wars that the pope counseled with the gold saints in a more equal fashion. Even though Shaina was pope, the unusual address of Holy Mother, she felt better confidence in leading Sanctuary together with her peers and friends rather than as a solitary dictator upon the mountain. Her expression hid behind the mask, but the saints knew her feelings. "Explain to me, in your words, why you hold up on advancing your students."

Sagittarius Seiya replied in his usual manner, with no regard for titles. "But Shaina, Nyx was able to get his cloth."

"Yes, but that does not excuse your method with Niou, Nemo, and Agryos."

"But Shaina, it's not that we believe our students unworthy. It's the other way around. We don't know how to advance them." His resemblance to the last saint of Sagittarius, Aioros, was uncanny.

"Seiya, that does not answer my question."

Libra Shiryu, his eyes shut calmly as ever, gave Seiya's meaning. "We do not know what trials and tests to administer our students. The same trials we underwent for our bronze cloths are nowhere near the level of adversity that our students require. We do not have the convenience of holy wars to test them, either." Like his old master before him, Shiryu had facial hair, but in fu manchu fashion.

"I see. Perhaps I should not have left that responsibility to you all."

"You know what our students are like. Even as teachers, we are awestruck at the prodigies they are." Aquarius Hyoga also looked perfectly matched to his gold cloth. "Unlike our masters, we did not simultaneously instruct so many promising students at once. I have tried testing them, but for what cloths? The tests for our bronze cloths went unmet for hundreds of years, because they were so discriminating, yet each of us is supposed to invent 2 or 3 tests of greater challenge? I had to shatter the glacier that made the Cygnus cloth. It had no previous saint. Do I seal it inside the Ice Coffin and expect my student to break it free, only to repeat the test for my second student? It cheapens the cloth. We are supposed to raise a new generation of saints in a lifetime when the last generation took centuries to gather."

The opinion weighed heavily on Shaina. "Then we must devise a fair test for all our students."

"I have already done that." Leo Ikki stood every bit as intimidating as he did in the Phoenix cloth years before.

Shaina could not penetrate the mental barrier of the Leo saint. She was as clueless to his thoughts as much as the other gold saints. "Ikki?"

"Even though we passed individual tests for our bronze cloths, our true tests came immediately after." He paused and reminisced of that adventure so long ago. "I speak of the Galaxian Tournament."

Shaina recalled the contest for the Pegasus cloth, and understood Ikki's angle. "A tournament for cloths is not uncommon in the history of Sanctuary."

Virgo Shun remembered the unpleasant experiences. "But Ikki, the Galaxian Tournament never concluded. You and the black saints--"

"Exactly. That was our threshold between childhood and sainthood." Ikki's eyes grew fierce, but with just purpose.

"Brother..." Shun realized what Ikki was driving at, and the others felt that sentiment.

Seiya was behind enough to ask a minor question. "Wait, Ikki, what cloth would they be fighting for?"

"The same one we fought for."

"But I'm wearing--"

Shiryu interrupted. "No, Seiya, he means the fake gold cloth."

"Fake gold cloth?"

"You mean you never knew all these years?" Hyoga was surprised of Seiya's ignorance. "That cloth in the colliseum was a fake. The old man had forged the cloth to act as a decoy. What was on display was just plastic. Ikki just put on a show, playing our ignorance. He had taken the cloth from another location."

"But Ikki, isn't the fake gold cloth lost?"

"It was Athena who had the Graude Foundation recover the fake cloth. Right now it sits safely in the Graude Museum."

"The Graude Foundation?" It was a name that slipped far in the back of Seiya's mind. Even when he made regular visits to his old orphanage in Japan, he forgot about the big company. "It's still around, even with Miss Saori gone?"

"Seiya, the Graude Foundation was willed by Mitsumasa Kido to pass to Saori Kido. In the event Saori Kido died, the will stipulated the line of inheritance after her. The oldest surviving son of Mitsumasa Kido inherits the Graude Foundation in its entirety. Ursa Geki outright refused inheritance, which passes the inheritance to the second oldest surviving son."

Shun undertood it first. "Ikki, that means you!"

"Yes, Shun. I've led a double-life as a gold saint and heir to the largest conglomerate in the world, but the position allows me to better serve Sanctuary. I left the company mostly in the care of those that were most loyal to Saori Kido. It was through the Graude Foundation that all of you have some of your students. I know a saint should not be so worldly as to own a business, but it is difficult to find someone shrewd, loyal to Sanctuary, and not a saint."

"I've learned too many things today." Seiya wished to sit down after hearing the full truth of the Galaxian Tournament and the fate of the Graude Foundation.

"That may be so, Seiya, but we now have a clear goal." Shiryu faced Ikki even though no eye contact could be made. "Ikki, please explain the entire plan to us."