The night was bitterly cold. It wasn't the physical cold to bother him, though – after all Camus had grown up in the freezing lands of the North and not even the worst of the winter in Central Europe could compare to that devastation – but it was a felling deep down in his soul.

The Aquarius Saint knew that some of his uneasiness could be traced back to Milo's absence – somehow to Camus, Milo had come to embody the Greek sun the Scorpio Saint was so fond of – but the majority of it had another, nearer source.

That Camus had never really liked Death Mask, had never been a secret in Sanctuary and in all their years together the Cancer Saint had never really made a mystery of the fact that Camus' dislike was thoroughly reciprocated.

Their only moments of interactions had been through Milo and Helena, but in the past half a decade the Ice Prince had felt some of the ice thaw in regard to the unsociable – but slightly less so after the Sanctuary Wars – custodian of Hell.

Helena's latest adventure – and Camus used that term only for politeness' sake, since he had actually found Death Mask's definition, 'Helena's latest round of idiotic and harm-inducing stunts' surprisingly accurate and enjoyable to the ears – had brought them even closer, and it had allowed Camus to see underneath the hardened shell of Cancer.

But, regardless of their shared past experiences, Camus would have at least experienced some sympathy for Cancer's situation in that moment. After all it was extremely painful to have half of your soul brutally ripped from you, without being able to do anything but watch in horror while it happened.

He pitied him. It was no secret that he, Leo no Aiolia, didn't have the best of relationships with Cancer no Death Mask. That man had a foul mouth and an even fouler disposition and he had coated himself in a slimy kind of cunningness that, some days, it was impossible to really know which side he was on. In all their years under Arles' cruel management, Death Mask had been the mad Pope's right hand man and it had grated on the young lion's nerves for so long that Aioria had taken a long time after their final resurrection to even look the man in the eyes. The lion's golden soul had abhorred most of the heinous acts that the Guardian of Hell had done in his life and he had never made a mystery of the fact that he'd rather walk around the Fourth House than step even a foot in.

The Sicilian's semi-perpetual scorn towards Aioria's older brother, had obviously not endowed him to the testy lion.

Death Mask had spent his childhood terrorizing the younger kids and more than once him and Aioria had come to blows. Their adolescent years had seen them as far away in ideas and loyalties as they were close to each other in their neighbouring houses. Helena's presence in their mist, even when nobody knew her real identity, had only served to highlight their opposite life-styles and points of views.

For his part, Aioria had never really understood why the Pope had forced them to take on a female apprentice, especially for one of their own Golden Cloths – Arles had never said, but Aioria had always suspected that the Pope had wanted Helena to take on the mantle of the deceased Sagittarius Saint, and the golden lion had found that he couldn't really forgive her for that – and the tenant of the Fifth Temple had been very direct – Helena would say arrogant – in his approach towards the young girl.

The fact that this strange girl seemed to absolutely adore the scorbutic and foul Saint, even if Aioria had never seen him act even the least bit gentle towards her, had always put the Lion in a very black mood.

But, in spite of their obvious differences, not even Aioria could be so petty as not to understand the brokenness that came from losing one's own precious person in front of one's own very eyes.

Shura had never been a superstitious man. Sure, he proudly carried an invisible sword straight out of the legends in order to protect a deity that, by the modern world's recognition, should not even exist. Aside from that, though, he had never been superstitious. He simply ignored every feline, whatever the colour, that crossed his way; he had never broken a mirror, but simply because the only one he had ever owned was solidly nailed to the wall; he had never put much stock in whatever dire predictions the local yayas seemed fond to do, every time he passed through the village of Rodorio.

He was, in short, the total opposite of Death Mask. The albino man seemed to ooze superstition, and at first Shura had chalked it up to some kind of weird peculiarity of the man in question, but after having been dragged to Sicily a couple of times, the Capricorn Saint had understood that Death Mask's behaviour was part of his Sicilian heritage just as much as the sun and the sea.

Growing up, the Cancer Saint had become, if that was even possible, even more superstitious and the only time that Shura had tried to tell him that superstitions were tales told to children to make them behave, he had left the Fourth Temple after a two-hours lecture and with his arms full of various knickknacks, meant to protect him from evil according to Death Mask, that he had promptly dumped in the farthest corner of his own Temple and completely forgotten about them.

In that moment, though, Shura wished he had kept at least one of them with him, not for him, but for Death Mask, for he seemed to be in dire need of some good fortune.

First Helena's disappearance, then her reappearance and their heinous behaviour, then her forced retirement and her sudden come back and finally their battle with Eris and the obvious damage done to Aphrodite.

Shura had cheered with the others when Mask and Dite had announced their nuptials and he would have supported them wholeheartedly had they decided to retire from Sanctuary. He would have missed them, though, for they were his oldest friends, and he had been pleased when they had decided to stay.

After what had happened, though, Shura knew that he would have preferred them far away in the sunny Sicily, or in the cold North, than in the middle of another struggle that risked leaving them shattered beyond repair.

He was pissed. Scratch that, he was even beyond pissed. He was in a state of mind that defied every human definition. Of course, being beyond pissed wasn't such a surprising state of being for the Cancer Saint, but to the ones who knew him it was apparent that the recent even had been enough to make Death Mask lose whatever tenuous grasp of sanity he had retained over the years.

Fully aware that his behaviour was not really helping matters, but unable to really stop himself Death Mask kept on pacing frantically up and down the Throne Room. He could physically feel Athena's stare following his mini-marathon, worried that he was going to snap sooner rather than later. He knew that the Goddess thought he was going out of his mind with worry about Aphrodite's conditions, but the truth was that Death Mask was more pissed than worried.

Sure, a part of him would always worry for his fiancé – and boy, wasn't it strange to call Aphrodite that! – but Death Mask had long recognized the Pisces Saint as a fellow warrior and thus capable of defending both their Goddess and himself. No, what really pissed him off, was the fact that bad luck seemed to follow them around. The Cancer Saint had always known that while in the employ of the Goddess of Justice, a long vacation under the Sicilian sun was definitely out of the question, but lately even a simple beer with Aphrodite and Helena in the privacy of the Fourth House seemed an impossible dream. Death Mask was pissed, not because Eris' goon had kidnapped Aphrodite like everybody seemed to think – if anything he pitied the poor guy! – but because Eris had spoilt yet another happy moment in his life.

"You can rest easy, Death Mask! We will find Aphrodite, and we will bring him back!"

There had been a time in which those words would have made him laugh at the sheer ingenuity of the woman-child who had uttered them, but even if a part of him found them useless, the major part found them soothing and hopeful.

Favouring her Goddess with a grin that fell just short of being satanic, Death Mask finally stopped pacing and joined Saga and the others in finalizing what looked like a bad-ass plan to take back Aphrodite.

Pisces would be fine, of that Death Mask had no doubt. Now they only needed to find a way to bring him back before the news that her precious Dite onii-chan had been kidnapped reached Helena's ears and she decided to take the matter of the revenge in her own hands.

Helena had reacted to his unexpected presence in the dungeons very well, or so she had thought even if she knew that Milo had a completely opposite opinion on the matter.

After all, making a new wall décor with two prison guards – she hadn't killed them, thank you very much! – had been a reasonable reaction on Helena's part when she and Milo had discovered Aphrodite chained to a filthy wall in a dingy and humid cell of the palace they had infiltrated.

Given the fact that, when they had found him, her precious Guardian had been unconscious and covered in bruises from head to toe, the young healer felt she had showed the world her restraint when she had limited herself to stunning the men, instead of outright killing them, as

such heinous act against Aphrodite seemed to demand as compensation.

Milo, knowing that nothing he could say or do would have swayed her from her righteous fury – and Helena couldn't help but love him a little more after that – had simply stayed out of the way while she dealt with the guards, and had silently manoeuvred the unconscious Pisces Saint onto his back and had relocated with Helena into what looked, and smelt like, a cellar.

There he had deposited his charge as gently as possible on the surprisingly clean floor – even if his gentleness had apparently not been enough, since Helena had seen fit to try and kill him with her iciest stare – and had retreated to the shadows in order to formulate a plan, leaving Helena to try and revive their companion.

"What's the damage?"

Had it been any other person, Helena would have either ignored the tactless question or snapped aggressively at the idiot who had had the stupidity to formulate it. But she and Milo had always thrived on a direct and, more often than not, brutal style of conversation, and so Helena simply answered him.

"Nothing too dangerous, a couple of bruised ribs and possibly a minor concussion, but nothing he won't recover from. What worries me the most, though, is what happened in Sanctuary. If he is here, that means there has been a direct attack at the Temples, and I worry about the others. What if they've taken Athena, as well?"

"Athena is fine, sweetie. This was a targeted attack on me; there has been no battle, and this kidnapping is simply the result of my own carelessness. I should have paid more attention to my surroundings, but I was trying to sneak in Death Mask's room, and I took one of the more unused corridors. I would have never guessed I would have found somebody there to wait for me…OOUF! HELENA!"

Attached like an overgrown octopus to a rock, Helena buried her face in the folds of Aphrodite's tunic, inhaling his gentle, flowery scent, trying not to think about how close she had come to possibly lose him forever.

"Do not scare me like this ever again, are we clear Dite? I'm sure I'll have nightmares thinking about what would have happened, had we not found you in that cell…"

Gently patting her head with one hand, Aphrodite simply smiled at the young girl he considered a sister, bringing up the other arm in order to hug her as well. He didn't tell her that the way she was feeling in that moment was how he and Death Mask always felt when they had to go and fish her out of a pickle, because he knew that she knew this very well. Death Mask had told him what had happened in the Yomotsou Hirasaka after their battle with Kayne, and Aphrodite held every confidence that, from that moment on, Helena was going to change her attitude.

When his hand came across a small bump on her protégé's clavicle, Aphrodite immediately fixed his piercing eyes on the Scorpio Saint. He was aware that he and Death Mask had told him that Helena wasn't his responsibility, but the Pisces Saint would have expected Milo to try and protect Helena as much as possible.

"Soften the glare, Aphrodite! Milo cannot protect me from my stupidity, especially if he is already fighting three different people at the same time! I think it is hardly his fault if I have forgotten how to dodge an incoming attack…"

Realizing that he hadn't been fair to his brother-in-arm, having judged him without having heard the explanation, Aphrodite inclined his head in a silent apology, receiving back a curt nod telling him that all was forgiven.

"What happened then? The last thing I heard from you was that you were trying to infiltrate the palace the very next day. It feels like I have missed some days, so fill me in!"

Exchanging a worried glance with Milo – just how long Aphrodite had been gone and what had really happened in Sanctuary? – Helena took a long breath and started her narration.

"What do you mean 'you can go back to Sanctuary, we will deal with this from now on'? I was sent here as an integral part of the mission, so there is no way in hell that I'm going to go back like some kind of coward!"

One day, Helena mused, she was really going to chain the Cancer Saint onto a wall – it didn't really matter which incarnation since they were all alike in their stubbornness – and beat him with a stick until his skull would crack open and she could finally confirm that it was empty as Cancer's behaviour had always implied.

"Are you doing this on purpose, Manigoldo? Or are you really this stupid? If it's the second, let me make something very clear to you: you are not part of the gang, therefore you cannot enter the castle with us! Since you have no place in the infiltration party, and you would have to wait here for us to return, I thought that you could have used your time in a more productive way and go back to Sanctuary, to lend your help there."

Given what she knew about Cancer's personality, Helena shouldn't have put much stock in the fact that Manigoldo of all people would be the one to actually heed her advice. In the end, true to his stubborn personality, Manigoldo had stayed exactly where he was, and the only compromise they had been able to reach had been for the Cancer Saint to promise Helena that he was going to try and stay out of trouble – key word, try. Helena didn't have much faith on that one.

But, since Manigoldo was an adult with, in theory, possession of his full mental capacity, Helena had gracefully withdrawn from the impending fight and let the other man enjoy his fleeting victory. She had, after all, much bigger fishes to fry!

Infiltration in the noble's palace had been a very boring business – after all, working as a maid and a gardener wasn't exactly that kind of adventurous life they had been accustomed thus far – but both Helena and Milo bore it with the practiced ease of experience.

It had taken them a week before noticing that, in the castle, there were indeed strange phenomena that could be exactly what they were looking for.

After noticing, it had taken them almost as much to be able to sneak away undetected and follow the low but persistent hum of Cosmo that kept resonating within the palace. That night had been the first night in which they had been able to penetrate into the maze that were the subterranean corridors, but they still hadn't been able to find anything of interest, except for the fact that their current employer had a very bad taste in wine, and an even uglier taste in decorations – and Helena had lived with live masks on the walls for almost all her life!

They had been ready to call it a night when they had heard a quiet whimper coming from what had looked like an inhabited cell. Imagine their surprise when they had discovered that, not only the cell wasn't as inhabited as they thought, but it contained one of their own – one of Helena's Guardians even! – and that he was responsible for the pitiful whimper they had heard.

"Let me guess, dear Helena: when you found me, and you took stock of my less than pristine appearance, you decided to vent your anger on whatever guard was outside my cell, and gifted them with a one-way trip to Hell? No wonder people are starting to assume you are Death Mask's natural sister! You are his spitted image!"

Before Helena could even think of a proper response, Milo felt it was his responsibility to at least try and defend his beloved sister; after all, she had been able to restrain herself, a feat he wasn't so sure he could have accomplished had he been faced with the same dilemma.

"To be completely fair, Aphrodite, she has restrained herself and she only knocked the both of them unconscious…"

The actually impressed look that the Swedish man fixed on Helena was met with the acutely unimpressed, and even slightly offended expression of the girl, who looked torn between being happy that he was alive and relatively well, and pissed that he clearly didn't trust her enough not to kill to semi-innocent people in a fit of rage.

Aphrodite seemed to sense this and slightly bowed his head in a silent apology. His act of penance and submission was met with an impish grin that confirmed to Aphrodite that he was forgiven.

"So, what do we do now? Have you two found what you were looking for? Is there anything I can do to help?"

At that Helena and Milo exchanged a glance: when Manigoldo had volunteered himself for the mission, they had cathegorically refused his offer. Despite him being a Saint of Athena, neither Helena, and definitely not Milo, trusted him enough to cover their backs during the infiltration process. A lot in their plain hinged on familiarity and trust, two things that the Cancer Saint was in no position to provide. Aphrodite, on the other hand, was a trusted and reliable companion, who had managed, despite his ongoing relationship with Death Mask, to befriend both the Scorpio and the Aquarius Saints. He wasn't Aioria, but Aphrodite and Milo had a compatibility in battle higher than most.

For all these reasons Aphrodite's offer was more than welcome and a third person would save them time in the long run.

"We haven't found anything yet, but I can feel it in my bones that we are very close to finding something big! With your help now I am sure we can cut our estimates a lot!"

At that, Helena could not help but smile indulgently at the over excited scorpion; he had been going on and on for days about this intuition of his, and they still hadn't found anything, neither small nor big. Many people wuld have told Milo to stop it by now, but Helena was happy to see him that excited that she didn't have the heart to tell him to stop.

There was still one question though that she hoped she would get an answer to.

"Aphrodite, dear...do you know when the cavalry will arrive?"