13 — HATEFUL MEMORIES
Shiryu, again wearing her Dragon Cloth, less dizzy and more alert, helped Shun bring Seiya back. He was in a terrible condition. The purple stains were scattered all over his body, his heartbeat was weak and he was already unconscious.
They took off all of his Cloth so that his body could breathe and Shiryu said she would try something of an ancient Chinese manouver, but was interrupted by the young Black Andromeda.
"Let me help you." she said.
At the background, Black Dragon's brother was still mourning his brother's death by his body.
The Nebula Chain did not sensed an enemy there, so Shun and Shiryu made room for her to approach.
She identified the initial wound in Seiya's spleen and from a belt she had on her Black Cloth, she pulled out two small vials. The first one, she threw on Seiya's wound, who, upon contact, reacted slightly with pain.
"Open his mouth." she asked and Shun helped.
She then poured the contents of the second vial into Seiya's mouth and quickly closed it.
"It's an antidote for the poison of the Arrows. He should get better very fast. He wasn't actually going to die, he was just going to look really bad for a few weeks. This antidote will clean up his system quickly." she said, feeling very guilty.
"Thanks." Shiryu said to her, but she got up with a sad face and sat down again beside the blind brother of the Black Dragon.
Shiryu felt the weight of that death and was silent looking at Seiya, suffering in front of her.
And then she realized that Shun had gotten up to move on.
"Wait, Shun."
The two of them walked along the lowest part of the valley, where it opened into a grove of snow-covered pine trees. They walked in silence and had left every part of the Gold Cloth behind; if they had brought it, it would be complete with the helmet that Phoenix owned. But Shun was there for his sister. And Shiryu was there for Shun.
Very soon the two felt two cosmos energies colliding ahead and no doubt knew that Phoenix was fighting someone.
"What? But… is it Miss Saori?" Shiryu wondered, to Shun's astonishment. "She helped me fight inside the Cave…"
"If she's fighting my sister alone, she's in great danger." worried Shun.
And the two broke into a run through the snow until the Nebula Chain began to react: the enemy was close.
It was before them.
Sitting on a rock facing the two of them, the Phoenix had her feathers shimmering behind her, dancing in the gust of the valley wind. On her face an evil smile and eyes full of hate.
"You got here too late." she said.
Shiryu stepped forward, but the Nebula Chain entwined her body and knocked her out.
"Shun! What are you doing?"
"Sorry, Shiryu. I can't stand keeping you and everyone else fighting because of us."
Shun then turned to his sister and removed both Bronze protections from his arms, a clear sign that he would not fight. Ikki said nothing.
"Sister… what happened? Please tell me. You were very brave, but you were also fair and kind. I can't believe you turned out so bad!"
Phoenix, in silence, just looked into Shun's eyes and found in them a deep sadness, which aroused even stronger the anger that burned in her eyes.
"I don't want to fight you. I will never fight you. You were the one who taught me to defend myself..."
"Where's the Gold Cloth?" she interrupted.
"Forget the Gold Cloth, Ikki. I'm here for you."
"I don't need you!"
"That's not true! If I could do anything to stop it all and we go back to what we were. Please sister, tell me."
Ikki jumped off the rock and hit Shun with a flying kick, knocking him against the wall.
"Enough of this sentimentality!" she snapped. "How can you be so weak, Shun!"
Phoenix threatened her brother kneeling in front of her, but was interrupted by the shooting of many meteors in her direction. Seiya was on his feet again, wearing his Bronze Cloth and ready to fight.
"Weak? The only weak one I see here is you, Ikki." Seiya said.
"Is it? And what are you going to do, Pegasus?" she challenged. "A poor bastard like you. Abandoned by his own sister!" she teased.
"What?" Seiya rebelled immediately.
"Ikki!" cried Shun.
Seiya moved forward to crush Ikki enraged, but immediately lost his balance and toppled over on his knees; the pain from the wound ached and his vision was all skewed again. Ikki laughed.
"That's ridiculous. You can barely walk."
"He is not alone." Shiryu said getting up.
"Ah, now this has turned into a party, I want to throw up. Come on, answer me, what are you all doing here? Are you part of that Foundation's army of children? For that old bastard? Is that what you are? Well, I have bad news for you children, your life doesn't matter. The only thing that matters to them is the Gold Cloth!"
She revealed the golden helmet she carried.
"I'm going to destroy this Cloth. And then I'm going to obliterate the Foundation. And I will finish each one of you if you get in my way!"
Seiya felt a deep rage at Ikki for messing with his sister, a much bigger anger than the one he felt against the Foundation.
"You won't do any of that at all." said someone behind her back.
Ikki looked legitimately surprised and, when she turned around, she found the Cygnus Saint; he had blood running down his forehead, his icy armor was cracked in places, but his face was confident.
"How is it possible? You should be dead." she said.
"Sorry to disappoint you." said Cygnus. "And I hope you remember that the same technique will no longer work."
"What a joke, you're in no condition to fight me."
"You're the one who's in no condition to fight with that numb arm of yours, Phoenix."
"Shut it, you are no match for my Phoenix Wings!"
With the speed of a bird of prey, she lunged forward and punched them all with impressive speed; the Cygnus Saint used his shield but was still dragged back. The Phoenix was amazing, even with only one arm to fight.
"It's done. I don't have time for you." she said, taking the helmet and leaving them there suffering.
"Ah, Ikki." Shun stood up. "I understand you now..."
"No!" she snapped, slapping her brother, but he continued to get up and looking at Ikki.
"It's true that the Foundation has done horrible things and sent us to suffer day after day in the worst possible places." began Shun. "Six years ago you told me I should never lose my spirit when you said goodbye to me. And that I was able to get through it all and get back home. And through all of this time, all I've been thinking about was you and how I'd like to come back and see you again."
Ikki then hesitated inside those pure eyes of Shun, and maybe that brief flicker in which she seemed to sway inside was just the trigger for her to become even angrier, as if unrepentant of still having these weaknesses inside. Her cosmo caught fire around her, she lifted Shun by the chin and walked with him to the forest entrance, until she realized there was someone there. Someone who made her face twist with rage and let her brother fall like it was nothing.
Someone who she hated even more.
Saori Kido's face was one of guilt, but there was no weakness or pity in looking at her, but a very determined strength of herself. The guilt was lightly in her eyebrows. She wore her Steel Armor and carried on her back the Urn of Gold Cloth. Ikki fanned in anger and pointed a threatening finger at her.
"You are the manifestation of everything I most hate above this Earth." she said through gritted teeth. "Because of you I went through Hell and lost everything I had."
"And there's not a day that I don't think about it." said Saori.
"Don't you dare!" roared Ikki, for in her hateful heart she had no right to understand. She had to pay. Someone had to pay.
"Now I understand why you called me here, Ikki."
And realizing what she meant, the Phoenix experimented a smile of pure derision.
"I'm surprised. I didn't think I would recognize any of them." Saori remained solid. "For the Black Saints are just a few of the many lives destroyed because of you. How many others who are not here have also been gone? How many others never came back? How many more will never come back, Princess?"
"Not one more!" she said, stepping firmly forward.
"Exactly!"
And Phoenix made her cosmos grow. She pointed at Saori and from her finger a thin dark beam shot out only to hit back and forth against her own brain. Her eyes glazed over; Saori's image was blurry in front of her and she noticed, with amazement, that there was a clear wall of ice between her and Saori.
"I said the blow wouldn't work again."
The Cygnus Saint was beside Saori. And that was all she saw before she fell to her knees tormented by nightmares in her mind.
A dark, dirty, cold and very damp room; the noise of rats running along the wall, the endless water dripping into a cold basin. Lying in thick fabric and covered with wounds on her body, a girl suffers from a severe cold and, shivering with fever, can barely rest.
Unable to close her eyes in the dawn, she noticed someone in the doorway of a barely closing door; she guessed it was some prisoner or thief to take her few leftovers. She got up and prepared herself.
When the door opened, the girl set to attack whoever it was, but stopped just as she realized who it was. Another girl with very sweet eyes.
"Esmeralda!" And then she fell down sitting by the door.
"Ikki." she said. "Are you okay?"
"I am."
"You're lying, look at you." Esmeralda said, noticing the blood that was running down her wounds. "I can't understand, if you keep hurting yourself like this you'll end up dying"
"No, I won't. I cannot. I need to get home with the Bronze Cloth somehow."
"But my father is giving you such a terrible training."
"I don't care. To become a Saint, I'll endure anything. Don't worry about me, you shouldn't come here so often."
"But why?"
"Your father might punish you if you keep coming here."
"Doesn't matter." she said sadly. "You are the only person I have on this island. My father doesn't see me anymore. I don't even recognize him since he put on that heinous mask."
"I know he's being hard on me, because he believes it's the best for me."
Esmeralda was silent and took out clean cloths that she had brought to take care of her friend's injuries, who were still suffering with the pain.
"Don't worry Ikki, I'll take care of you."
"Thank you, Esmeralda… Esmeralda?"
The night was lit by the afternoon sun and the dungeon in which she suffered suddenly gave way to a beautiful flower garden at the foot of the volcano.
"It has just started to sprout. And I have always come to make sure they grow."
"Esmeralda... "
"This is my favorite place." she said.
"It's amazing."
"Tell me, Ikki. Why do you want to become a Saint?" she asked. "You're always hurt, covered in so many scars. I can't understand. I don't understand why people need to hate each other and fight each other." She then bent down and picked up a flower from the garden. "There must be more sublime things in this world than this life of suffering. Even in this horrible place, those beautiful flowers can grow."
And then she placed, with great affection, a flower in Ikki's hair, who tried to smile, as she felt light and refreshed. Until a wave of evil energy swept through that garden and reduced it to ashes.
"How many years have you been here, girl?" asked a hateful voice.
"What?"
The mountain in the background vented its usual dark smoke; the lava rivers burned the ground, and the surrounding rocks were all marked of eruptions and ash. In front of her was her master, an absolutely strong man, with scars all over his body, but his face hidden by a ritualistic mask.
"You don't have what it takes to get the Phoenix Cloth. And your destiny is to stay here forever!"
A punch to the girl's stomach and a kick in the face.
"Either you conquer it today, or you will never do it." said the terrible man. "Six years I've been trying to teach you how to be strong. You need to hate, girl! Do you think the world will have any compassion for you? Do you think the world will give you flowers? No, this world will crush you! This world will end you, it will ravish and destroy you."
And as he spoke, he beat the girl.
"Feel the hatred for everything inside of you, Ikki! Fill your chest with pure rage and hatred so that your enemies are reduced to ashes in front of you! Let go of any feeling other than that. If you can't beat your master, than you'll get beat by everyone in your life! Hate your parents who left you as an orphan. Hate your cowardly brother who sent you here in his place. Hate that damned Foundation that forced you to tread this unfortunate fate."
She bled while being beaten by her master. He lifted her by the neck.
"You need to hate! Hate everything, Ikki! Hate everything that exists!"
And he threw her near a rock. Ikki was enraged; six years of hellish training, which had grown even more cruel and vicious in the more recent years. She hated that man from the bottom of her heart for all the suffering he made her go through, for all the suffering that Esmeralda went through, for all the bad that the people of that Island suffered. The pain of the burning stones under her feet, the toxic smoke from the volcano, none of it was close to the anger she felt for that man.
Ikki opened her blazing eyes and lunged at her master, but her fist stopped at his chest. There were tears in her eyes.
"You fool!" he shouted. "Why did you stopped?"
"I… I… "
"You still don't understand that this will cost you your life?!"
And then Ikki's master the attacked with his hateful fist an energy discharge, that Ikki dodged the onslaught only to hear, far away, someone suffering in her place.
"Esmeralda!"
The girl was apprehensive for her friend and was there to make sure her father wouldn't kill her, but misfortune meant that she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And her bleeding chest took her to the ground. Ikki took her in her arms.
"Esmeralda, please don't die! Esmeralda!" Tears streamed from her eyes.
"Ikki..." She had a lot of pain and sadness in her eyes. "Ah, Ikki, I wanted so much to see you be the Phoenix Saint."
"No, Esmeralda!" She hugged her friend on the floor, in tears.
The tears running down and dripping on Esmeralda's dead body, Ikki felt an immense pain in her chest.
"How stupid. She shouldn't be here."
"How were you able to kill your own daughter?! How is it possible? You murderer!"
"But Ikki… You were the one who killed Esmeralda. When you hesitated to attack me. You are the reason she is dead! It was your weakness that caused her death."
Those words hurt deep inside Ikki and that pain in her chest spread through her body like a poison waking up her deep cosmos with a unique desire to silence that hideous voice.
And when she got up, the fire of hatred that burned in her heart rushed around her body, covering her with an intense red aura. How she burned in flames. And the flames dried the tears from her eyes and she rushed at her master and beat him from head to toe. She finalized him fatally crossing him with her cosmos.
Her master still had the strength to turn to Ikki and take off the ritual mask that covered his face, a mask that had lost its color, as if dead too.
Ikki saw that, under the mask, the eyes of Esmeralda's killer were her own eyes, filled with hatred. Ahead of her, Ikki saw Esmeralda's assassin: herself.
The Phoenix was born.
ABOUT THE CHAPTER: Adding Saori into this battle was essential and brings up a whole discussion we've never seen: that of Ikki enraged by his/her terrible fate caused by the Foundation and the young Saori's point of view on all these sins committed by her grandfather. I would like to explore that and that's why I brought Saori to this moment.
NEXT CHAPTER: YOURS EVER
The end of the battle against Ikki.