14 — YOURS EVER
Paralyzed, Ikki was on her feet, eyes lost and glazed over the horizon. The wind from the cold valley crossing everyone within that tense silence.
"How does it feel to be striken by your own diabolical blow, Phoenix?" asked the Cygnus Saint. "This is how you die."
The Cygnus Saint cocked his fist of ice to end Ikki's life, but two voices rose in protest and the Nebula CHain surged forward to hold his fist in the air, preventing him from ending Phoenix's life.
"What is this? Release me, Andromeda!"
"I can't let you kill my sister!"
"Cygnus, don't do it, please." asked Saori too.
"But…she won't hesitate to kill either of us. Not even you, her own brother!"
Before the discussion could continue, however, Cygnus found himself violently attacked by Ikki, who had awakened from her delusional trance; the fist of fire hit him full in the stomach and brought him to his knees, spitting blood.
"Cygnus!" shouted Saori from where she was standing.
"How did you...?" muttered Cygnus.
"I told you, Cygnus. I lost everything I held dear. The Phantom fist couldn't rip my mind apart, as it's already destroyed within."
She threatened everyone with blood running down her face.
"And now, with a single flutter of my wings, I'm going to finish you all off!"
"No, Ikki!" asked Shun.
Everyone around her watched in amazement as she ascended her Cosmo to grow and burn in flames, conjuring a tornado of fire around her, throwing the feathers of her Cloth and the braids of her hair against the infernal wind. Her voice echoed loudly in the valley.
"Phoenix's Flaming Wings!"
The fiery tornado that once only caused her armor to glow and flutter broke free from her cosmos to lift everyone around her in a whirlwind that ripped the stone from the valley and threw the Bronze Saints into a blazing inferno.
As the tornado died in Ikki's fist and the hot winds gave way to the cool breeze from the valley, she saw around her the bodies of the four Bronze Saints suffering from her devastating technique. They were beaten. She had succeeded and now she could move forward with her goal.
But the Helm she kept from the Gold Cloth was no longer where she had left it.
Behind her, a golden glow cast her own shadow on the ground, and as she turned to whoever was behind her, she realized with amazement that the Gold Cloth had mounted the winged figure of a centaur wielding a bow and arrow. The Helm at the top of the figure.
And behind the armor, there was someone.
"What does that mean? Coult id be that the Gold Cloth protected you?!" she said, disgusted. "This is all your fault."
"I didn't choose this fate." said Saori stepping beside the Gold Armor.
"No one did, but unlike you, we had to suffer through hell to fulfill your grandfather's whims!" and then Ikki walked towards Saori. "Splitting brothers and sisters. Capturing children left and right. Sending them far across the seas to a terrible fate!"
"I can't change the past."
"But you can pay for it!" threatened Ikki, but noticed that the Gold Cloth moved to aim the arrow in her direction."What is this? The Gold Cloth… is it really protecting you?"
"I'm so sorry that you've gone through years and years of terrible suffering. I can't change what's been done, but I can be on your side from now on. I can do everything I can so that no one else has to suffer because of me. Let no one else sacrifice for me." There was a sadness in Saori's eyes.
"Perhaps the best thing for you to do right now is to die for everything that was done in your name!" roared Ikki.
"But I want to live." said Saori harshly. "And I won't accept being told what my life should be anymore. I will decide my fate from now on. And if I have to die, let it be my choice. Not yours or anyone else's."
Ikki was silent and Saori stepped in front of the Gold Cloth wearing her white Steel Protection, completely shattered.
"You are a joke, Ikki."
"What?!"
Seiya got up little by little. His Cosmo manifested enormously. Before badly hurt by the poison that ran through his body, now he seemed healed and filled the place with his bravery.
"You know what, Ikki... I remember you from our childhood, and how you were brave and strong." he began. "I didn't remember you being such a crybaby."
"How dare you?!"
"We've all gone through terrible training all these years. Me, Shiryu and especially your brother Shun. You are not the only one who has known hell on Earth!"
And Seiya came forward and attacked Ikki in the breastplate of the Armor without her being able to defend herself.
"But you're the only one here complaining and brooding about it!" began Seiya. "Shun did everything to find you again. Everything! Do you know about all the years and all he's had to go through to get back here? Do you have any idea how terrible the Andromeda Sacrifice is?"
"A… sacrifice?"
"No, you don't know. Because you can only think about your own hate! I would give anything to find my sister again and here you are trying to kill your own brother!"
"Shut up!"
Ikki then attacked Seiya, but Seiya dodged easily again hitting the Phoenix with a hook.
"I'll make you go back to being that Ikki from before, even if it's covering you with a beating!"
"We'll see then, Pegasus. Feel the beat of Phoenix's wings again and get out of here!"
Again the fire tornado covered Ikki before his fists threw him forward like a terrible firestorm that would have hurled Seiya against the boulders, but the Nebula Chain protected him, creating a vortex of wind with the chains around him, preventing the flaming winds of reaching the boy.
The Chains then attached to Seiya's wrist.
"Damn. I will break your mind then!"
And the small black thread of nightmares that shot from her finger stopped at the Dragon Shield Seiya wore on his left arm.
"The Dragon Shield too?" Ikki asked in amazement.
"I have friends, Ikki! And you are alone. You will now feel how strong we are when we fight together! Pegasus Meteor Attack!"
The meteor shower surged through Seiya's fist and focused on a single point against Phoenix, who saw Seiya finally hit her decisively on the Armor's breastplate, shattering the Bronze protection and causing her to bleed. Ikki stumbled back, spitting blood and falling to the ground on her knees.
Saori's eyes, alert, noticed a dark movement in the Phoenix cosmos and ran to her calling her name.
"Ikki…" Seiya said closer to her.
"Ah, Seiya… you finally beat me." she said, panting.
"Ikki, your arm… How could you fight like this?" he asked, noticing, closer, that the girl's arm looked numb.
"It wouldn't have made any difference."
When she lost her balance, Ikki was supported by Seiya before she fell to the ground. Saori was beside her too.
"Ikki… what happened to you on that Island? Why have you changed so much?" Seiya asked.
She opened her eyes again, her face was more serene and the hateful demon she had in her eyes seemed to have disappeared. What she hadn't disappeared were the nightmares that still plagued her mind. She untangled herself from Seiya's arms, as if uncomfortable, and suffered alone from a huge pain in her head.
"No, no!" shouted Ikki. "It's pure Hell…"
The other Bronze Saints were also on their feet now; Shun came running to his older sister.
"Ikki..." he said, reaching for her hand. "Ikki, I'm here."
"Ah, Shun… Brother."
Ikki took her brother's hand and for a moment looked relieved, only to push Shun aside in and thrashed in pain with her hand to her head, as if she wasn't able to let go of her traumas. Unable to break away from the hatred she had in her chest.
"I don't have anything else." she babbled.
"It's not true, Ikki. You have your brother." Shiryu said.
"Give up this hatred and join us." asked Seiya.
But she was attacked by something on her mind and denied everything they said.
"Stay with us and let's start all over again." said Seiya again.
"No… It's not the end. It's not over!" Shun tried trying to interrupt that delusion of denial of his sister.
A tremor was felt throughout the valley, shaking the trees near the forest and shaking the rocks around.
The Nebula Chains stirred, tense.
A dozen men and women of the most varied sizes and protections in their bodies appeared descending the slope of the valley; soon they were surrounded by them and, in the background, they heard Saori screaming. When Seiya looked at her, he saw that the warriors had plundered the Gold Cloth and Saori was fighting bravely against three minions holding the Helm in their hands.
"The Gold Armor!" she cried.
The Cygnus Saint immediately came to her aid and helped her keep the helmet while they took care of the other warriors.
"Who are them?" Seiya asked already fighting a pair of warriors.
"Is it the Black Saints?" asked Shiryu.
"No… They're not…" mumbled Ikki, who was still raving on the floor beside Shun, who was protecting him from that new threat.
Another tremor even stronger than the first shook the valley and opened a crack in the ground swallowing the earth; Ikki, who suffered from terrible pains in her mind, lost her balance and ended up being falling to the abyss. Shun desperately tried to grab her hands, but failed seeing his sister disappear on the slope.
Shun ran to the edge of the abyss and saw his sister suffering as she clung to the inlets; the Nebula Chain descended, but it hesitated to save Phoenix: it seemed unwilling to cling to her wrist.
"Ah, Ikki. Grab the chain, sister. Please. Grab the chain."
Ikki suffered and looked confused; Shun let sadness take his chest and tears cloud his eyes as he looked into the abyss and saw her sister about to leave him again. As if it was the last time they would saw each other, Shun couldn't stand the guilt he had carried for so many years.
"I'm sorry, Ikki." he began, very moved. "I am so sorry that you had to go in my place to that hellish place. That horrible Island."
The aching Phoenix then looked at her brother in pain and for an instant she tried to remember the day she had taken his place on that terrible journey. And how she would have done everything the same way on any other day. She hated to see Shun cry.
"No, Shun. I must not live anymore… I… I don't deserve to live anymore."
And she then slipped to her death, but Shun's Cosmo prevailed over the Chain's will and it finally descended the abyss and clung to Ikki's fist, saving her at last.
"Ikki!"
"Let me go, Shun. I don't deserve..."
"Never, Ikki! Now that we've finally found each other, I'll never let go of this Chain!"
"But if you don't do it, we're both going to fall, Shun." She said seeing her brother suffering to keep the grip.
"I'll never let you go again." Shun said, letting a tear magically fall from his eyes and dropping on Ikki's suffering face.
Ikki's heart filled with the heat she felt when she remembered her little brother. She remembered how much she felt for him.
"Ah, Shun… I love you so much."
Shun pulled the chain with all his strength, causing Ikki to be hauled back from the abyss to her side.
"Forever." Shun said.
Seiya, Shiryu, Cygnus and Saori fought the warriors trying to recover parts of the Gold Cloth, but due to the fatigue from the previous fights, even those sentries barely prtected ended up getting the better of the group. They were left with only the Helm that Saori still was holding.
"You idiots, what are you all doing that is taking so long?" asked a voice from the top of a boulder cut in the valley.
"All that's missing is the helmet, Docrates!" answers one of the soldiers.
Both Seiya and Ikki seemed to recognize that name immediately, even bringing Phoenix back from her delusional trance.
"Do you know him, Seiya?" asked Shiryu.
"Yes. Docrates was one of the Sanctuary's veteran Bronze Saints. Said to be one of the strongest in the Sanctuary!"
'Why, people always exaggerate." said Cygnus, intruding on the conversation.
"Run away!" yelled Ikki, to the attention of the others. "You are no match for the Fist of Hercules." she warned.
And from the top of the cliff, the huge man in bronzed armor and with serpent heads scattered over his body, straightened his fists and from far away made two huge craters open between the Bronze Saints.
"What an impressive energy. How did he manage to do this from so far away?" Seiya asked himself.
"Give us the Helm of the Gold Cloth!" he ordered.
"Run away! Get the mask out of here!" yelled Ikki, getting up at last and standing in front of them to his brother's dismay. "Get out of here, Shun!" she said, pulling away from him and pushing forward towards Docrates.
Ikki brought out all the cosmos she had left to use the flap of her wings one last time. The flight of Phoenix crossed the valley and her fist buried itself in the rock of the boulder causing a landslide without proportions, knocking the giant Docrates down and dumping rocks and stones on top of them all in a terrible avalanche of earth.
Cygnus and Shiryu jumped through the crack of the earth and stood beside Saori while Shun tried to return to save Ikki who, badly wounded, could not get up to escape the deadly wave. Seiya, however, grabbed his friend and brought him along to safety beyond the crevice that was covered by the landslide.
"Ikki, no!" he shouted. "Why did you do that, Seiya?"
"Oh, Shun…"
"Sister!"
Shun still saw among the land that slid into the abyss his sister's eyes get lost before getting buried.
The sun was setting and the late-afternoon light poured in through the valley and illuminated the swept and overturned earth that had become the tomb of that terrible battle against the Black Saints.
Shun was kneeling before a cross nailed to the ground to symbolize his sister's eternal rest. The tears in his eyes were heavy and Seiya next to him hugged him so that he would never be alone anymore. Shun took off a necklace that he always carried close to his chest and wrapped it around that cross.
A star pendant that had written how Shun felt about his sister.
"Yours Ever".
ABOUT THE CHAPTER: Again, having Saori in this scene is essential for us to see her own motivations and anxieties. And I wanted to bring the famous pendant from the start. Who knows, knows. =)
NEXT CHAPTER: THE NEVERENDING NIGHT
The battle against the Black Saints comes to an end, but how will Shun bear the pain of losing his sister? And what does the presence of that Ice Saint mean? A long night awaits them.