11 — THE BLACK DEATH TERROR
Seiya managed to reach the bottom of the valley without being attacked and noticed, in the distance and behind him, a strange phenomenon. Someone was fighting, he thought. When everything had calmed down, he could hear clearly, albeit very low and far away, the sound of a bell ringing.
"She's fine..." thought Seiya, guessing that was the direction Saori had gone.
He was relieved. Only to be stopped the next moment.
"I was waiting for you, Pegasus!" said a Black Saint to Seiya.
When looking at whoever spoke to him, Seiya was surprised by the armor of that warrior.
"What? Is your Cloth the same as mine?"
"All right, boy, I'm Black Pegasus."
"Is this a joke?" but the woman laughed.
"Yes, and you die at the end of it!"
Black Pegasus attacked Seiya with a series of punches and kicks that the Pegasus Saint knew how to neutralize. He dodged a last straight shot that stopped on the boulder behind him, sinking the rock. She was strong.
"Where's the Gold Cloth?"
The girl placed a part of the Cloth carefully on top of a boulder.
And again she jumped to attack Seiya, who was able to use the woman's attack against herself, hitting her with a kick that threw her against the wall, letting her helmet roll to the ground and loosen her hair.
"You'll pay for this!" she said, jumping into the sun. "Black Arrows!"
Seiya saw raining hundreds of arrows that stuck to the ground; he dodged as best he could, but ended up getting hit by many others. And yet he landed standing in front of the Black Pegasus.
"How can you… Have you dodged all the arrows?!"
"No, some actually hit me, but thanks to my Pegasus Cloth I didn't get any scratches." he explained, thinking of Shiryu's sacrifice.
"Well, let's see if you'll keep being this lucky all the time. Black Arrows!"
And again the shower of arrows fell on Seiya, but this time he chose to counterattack rather than just dodge. He leapt towards the Black Saint and unleashed his Pegasus Meteors Stars which, in midair, swallowed the arrows and finally hit Black Pegasus decisively.
Her armor shattered against the stone and she fell, defeated, covered in blood.
"I didn't hit any of your vital points. You'll survive, don't worry." Seiya said.
He turned to take the part of the Golden Cloth the girl had left there and noticed something strange.
"What?"
Stuck in his spleen was a small arrow; he easily removed it and resisted only the throbbing pain he felt as he took the metal off. He felt good, but he reflected that he needed to be more careful going forward.
Her enemy couldn't get up anymore.
"You won't go very far." said the woman's choked voice. "Soon you will discover the Black Death Terror." She let out a smile followed by a choke.
"What do you mean by that?" Seiya asked, confused.
But Black Pegasus passed out and Seiya didn't want to waste time there. He swung his fist ringing his bell across the valley and forged ahead.
He descended another cliff, passed the entrance to a cave, and then began to feel very bad.
At first he felt a lot more tired than he should have been with that descent; and then he started to feel very dizzy. He braced himself against the wall to keep from falling. The wound from the small arrow that had hit him throbbed and burned too.
He tried to move forward, but finally dropped to his knees, losing his balance. The burning sensation he was feeling wasn't only in his stomach, but spreading to his legs, arms and neck.
"What's happening to me?"
More and more that terrible feeling spread through his body.
Seiya began to take off, part by part, his Pegasus Cloth, and realized that the purple wound in his spleen was also in other parts of his skin, burning everything where it appeared.
"Is this the Black Death Terror?" Seiya asked himself.
He remembered Shiryu and mustered the strength to get up and go forward, but he eventually lost his balance and fell into the precipice below him.
"Oh, what a stinky place!" Kiki complained at the entrance to the valley. "Master Mu will kill me if I'm here too long. And besides it's really boring to be kept waiting. I don't think Shiryu will come back anyways." He twirled the golden bell on his bored finger. "You know what, it seems like there's some fights going on now, I'll have a look at them."
But someone was approaching.
"Oh, someone's coming! Is it a Black Saint? But with this much fog, it sucks, I can't see."
Kiki then concentrated his little cosmo-energy and with his hands pushed away the mist to reveal whoever was coming along the way. And to his amazement it was Shiryu.
"Oh, what a horror, this is the last place I'd like to see a ghost!" and then threw a rock in the direction.
But the girl, hearing Kiki and dodging her rock, couldn't hold back her laughter.
"A ghost, Kiki? You need to stop throwing rocks every time I show up. I am not a ghost." And there was a smile on his face.
"Ah… Shiryu! Is it really you? So you survived!"
The boy lit up with joy and, jumping happily, went to her to celebrate her return.
"Yes, Kiki. Looks like death doesn't like me very much." she said. "And I also have a lot to thank Master Mu for."
"Your cloth is also restored." said Kiki.
She nodded and felt her very strong cosmos vibrate with that new Dragon Cloth of hers.
"But Shiryu… Looks like the fights have started. If you get hurt in battle..."
"I know, Kiki… but Seiya and Shun must be waiting for me."
The sound of Kiki's golden bell rang, he took it from his own fist and gave it to her.
"Seiya asked me to give it to you when you get back." Shiryu smiled, took the bell and tinkled it loudly.
Dragon was back.
Shun was the only one who took the path inside the Stone of the Lion that ended up in a huge underground complex, but curiously cut by recesses that allowed the light from outside to illuminate the entire cave.
A cave that Shun, aware of his Chains, passed safely through to his surprise and also his delight, as he could clearly hear two bells ringing in the distance even while he was inside the cave. His friends were all fine.
The last stretch of that trail threw him into heavy darkness; Shun felt his Chain tense, but used it as a guide in the darknesse nevertheless. Finally saw the light from the exit.
And as he left the cave he had the impression that he had heard, very faintly, the sound of another bell nearby. Very shy and short. Shun became alert and, later on, the mystery was solved: on the ground were parts of the Golden Cloth and also Pegasus' helmet.
"Seiya!" shouted his friend.
And when he looked at the cliff below he noticed Seiya still suffering on a platform.
"Seiya! I'll get you out of there!"
The Nebula Chain descended through the canyon and caught Seiya's wrist so that Shun could pull him from below.
"He must have been attacked by something horrible. What happened?"
"Hey!" said a child's voice.
A Black Saint appeared beside Shun, curious.
"Huh? Who are you?" he asked, confused.
"I am Black Andromeda. How are you?" she asked.
She had an absolutely weird content mood.
"A Black Saint?" Shun asked still holding the chain and absolutely confused by that girl who looked younger than him.
"And you are the Andromeda Saint, aren't you? You are master Ikki's brother! I really wanted to meet you!" She looked really excited. "Uh! So this is the famous Nebula Chain?"
The Black Saint simply knelt and watched Shun's Chain closely as he pulled Seiya; she touched the chain, took out a strange device, attached it to her eyes and watched that metal very closely, marveling.
"Listen. My friend needs my help..."
"I always wanted to know how the Nebula Chain worked. This is awesome! Can I see the other one?"
"Girl, I don't understand what you want, but I need to help Seiya!" Shun said when he saw that the girl was trying to unwind the other chain from her other arm.
"Oh, how boring! What are you doing anyway? Who is that? Ah, it's Pegasus, isn't it? What's wrong with him? Wait a minute… Oh, I know! These are the parts of the Black Pegasus. He was hit by the arrows! The arrows worked!"
"What do you mean by that?"
"I am the Black Saints Master at Arms!" she said smugly. "I installed the arrows so that Black Pegasus could use! The arrows were poisoned!" Said the girl, very excited. "And whoever got hit would suffer from its poison. A burning inside. Some stains on the body. I think I ended up using too much poison, but I can see it worked fine!" she celebrated.
"What are you saying?" Shun repeated without understanding the game that girl was playing, trying hard to bring Seiya to the surface, but there was still a long way to go.
"I'm saying that Master Ikki will be super happy with me! Well, that's not true. She is never happy. But I'm sure she won't be mad at least."
Seiya's body was already closer when Shun saw that Black Andromeda was joining the parts of his Gold Cloth, Seiya's and Black Pegasus's, besides also joining the Pegasus Cloth parts left by Seiya.
"No. This is not yours!" he said.
"Well, now it is. I'll take it to Master Ikki." said the girl. "Oops."
Shun released his other chain to trap the little Black Andromeda's hand, but in doing so, he let the other chain run out of his hand and Seiya fell back several meters. He held the chain as he could.
"How exciting! I'm trapped by the Nebula Chain!" She said emotionally as she kept looking very closely at the chains around her wrist.
"What are you doing, girl?" Asked a voice that was watching the two, and the girl soon guessed the scolding she was going to take.
"Oh no! Hi Black Dragon!" she said.
Above a boulder, arms crossed, an older boy watched the girl playing with Shun's Chain and him pulling Seiya off the cliff. His armor was identical to Shiryu's.
"Get it over with, Lunara." he said.
"Oh right, oh right." she lamented. "Sorry, see, Master Ikki's brother, but if I don't beat you, your sister will be very angry with me. And she is very angry!" said the girl.
The girl then, with her free arm, hurled her Black Chain, which enveloped Shun and began to squeeze him very tightly, as if it were a snake breaking the bones of its prey. Seiya fell further and Shun's right hand, trying to hold his friend's fall, tore in blood.
What the girl didn't expect was that Shun's chain still attached to her fist still had one last trick: a shock wave went through her and electrocuted the girl violently. The Black Chain's grip loosened and Shun was able to hold Seiya again with both hands.
"That… is so great... the Chain also gives… shock."
And then the Black Andromeda girl passed out.
"Congratulations, Andromeda." said Black Dragon from the top of the cliff.
Shun returned to pulling his friend who had fallen many meters below.
"Let him go, he's already doomed. And besides that, with the Black Andromeda Gold set Parts, the ones from Black Pegasus, this one I have and yours, you have the complete Gold Cloth. If you beat me, you'll leave here with most of it in your hands."
"I'll never leave Seiya!" Shun said.
"All right, then I'm going to kill you two and get out of here with all of it."
"Do you need help Shun?" said a familiar voice.
It was Dragon Shiryu.
ABOUT THE CHAPTER: This chapter has my first original character: Black Andromeda Lunara, I just LOVE this character. The original Black Saints don't exactly have a lot of personality; I kept most of them few alike, but I took the liberty of creating Lunara. She is totally inspired by the Entrapta character from She-ra's new cartoon. Don't forget her. =)
NEXT CHAPTER: SOMETHING TO BELIEVE IN
Shiryu fights for something worth fighting for.