21 — HYOGA, THE CYGNUS SAINT

The Cygnus Saint rescued the boy and held him in his lap, while Seiya opened the door of a house pointed by him. The two got inside and Seiya saw that the only bed there was covered in leaves and branches, so he made sure to clean as much as he could so that Cygnus could comfortably lay down the boy in this arms. Seiya covered him with the thick blanket and Cygnus, very skillfully, set fire to the fireplace, lighting and heating the hut.

Seiya took the boy's cold hand and burned his cosmos up to make him more comfortable with the warmth of the universe inside of him. He couldn't see it, but Cygnus stared at him curiously while he prepared an ancient samovar to heat the water.

The boy Jacob was still shivering from the cold, but he seemed calmer with the warmth of Seiya's cosmos and the presence of his friend there. Cygnus locked the house and searched a cabinet for some herbs that he tore up with his hands and ground in a homemade pestle.

When the water was warm enough, he soaked a white cloth in and then threw the herbs into the samovar. He carefully placed the cloth on the boy's forehead, who gradually felt better.

"Jacob, Jacob..." he called, for the boy seemed to be a little delirious.
"Hyoga..." replied his fragile voice.
"What happened, Jacob?" asked Swan, worried.

The boy bursted into tears and got up on the bed to hug Cygnus, taken by surprise. Seiya watched as Cygnus caressed his disheveled hair and carefully laid him down again, the boy's mouth was very dry.

Hyoga got up and filled a mug with the tea from the samovar. Jacob drank calmly but very thirsty. His throat soothed and his chest warmed.

"Tell me, Jacob, where is everyone?"
"Hyoga… They… They're all in the mines." the boy's voice stuttered.
"In the mines?" asked Cygnus, confused.
"Yes. They're all working and living in the mines now. I managed to escape thanks to my grandfather who helped me." said the child, in a broken voice.
"And how is Dedushka?"
"Bad, Hyoga. Very bad. The children are also being forced to work. They're all sick. I ran away to try to get to the road and get some help, but..."
"It's all right, Jacob, don't worry." comforted Cygnus. "But why? What happened? What do they want in the mines?"
"It's not us, Hyoga. Some men and women arrived here and forced us to work in the mines. Everyone. Unable to sleep and eating very bad."
"Those idiots. What about the Masters, where are the Masters?" asked Hyoga in disbelief.
"Master Camus has not returned." said Jacob, and then his face pouted with grief and pain. The boy started crying again.

There was something else there, Cygnus knew.

"Tell me, Jacob," Hyoga pressed.
"Cygnus, take it easy." Seiya said beside him. "Let him cry."

Seiya walked over and sat on the bed too.

"Hey... Jacob, isn't it?" Seiya began speaking to the boy in his language, in a somewhat slurred way, but the boy could understand him. "Hold my hand. Hyoga here will rescue everyone and soon this village will be with all your family. Right?" Seiya asked a surprised Cygnus.
"Yes, there's nothing to worry about, Jacob. I'm going to the mines right now." he announced, getting up. "Pegasus, I need to ask you to stay here and take care of Jacob."

Seiya nodded, but Jacob got up and pulled Cygnus by his shirt.

"Hyoga… the Lady Crystal. She is no longer the same as when you left. She's the one who brought these bad people. She is very changed, Hyoga."
"Lady Crystal?" repeated the Cygnus in disbelief.
"Be careful, Hyoga. Please."

Seiya saw in Cygnus face that he was incredulous, as if the possibility of his mentor being around bad people didn't make any sense to him. Seiya knew it wouldn't make any sense if it were Marin.

He knelt on Jacob's bed and kissed him on the forehead; took one last look at the boy, asked Seiya to take care of him with his eyes and finally left the house with a heavy heart, the urn on his back.

The door slammed behind him and there was the silence of the shack, except for the crackling of the fire in the hearth and the breathing of the young boy Seiya had to tend. Seiya looked at him and his heart sank, as he saw in that sad and hopeless look the feelings he felt so many nights alone. Maybe his look was exactly that too.

It was certainly the look his sister saw when he, a younger boy, cried in her arms. As was the look he himself saw in the children of the orphanage who cried in his arms on less adventurous nights.

Seiya was still so young. During travels and transfers around the world, he was still a child. And there he was a child taking care of another child. He saw a stone that fit in the palm of his hand near the door and had an idea.

"Want to see a trick?" Seiya asked.

The boy looked at Seiya and took a sip of his tea, still warm.

Seiya showed the stone to him and, near the fireplace, crushed it in his hand as if it were styrofoam. But the boy didn't look the least bit impressed.

"Hyoga knows how to do this." he said. "And he also can freeze the stones." said little Jacob to his advantage.

The Siberian pine forest that hid the village ended in another jagged plain covered in white. And not far from there was an abandoned mine, already much exploited of its richness and invaded by snow. Usually a place that the elders from the village asked the children to stay away from, due to the height of the fall, but there was no longer any reason to visit.

A narrow road descended in a circle through a crater to the base of a huge quarry, the ground completely white in snow. Lots of scattered tents of various sizes and people walking in and out of a cave pushing carts on stone-filled rails.

An old man with very white hair fell to the ground, overcome by fatigue in his legs and arms; those closest to him came to his aid, sharing a canteen of water and helping him to his feet. Very weak, he fell to the ground again. A guard approached the miners, helping the eldest.

"Clear the way." asked the guard.
"He can't walk." said a man helping the old man.
"Clear the way, the carts can't be stopped." repeated the guard.
"Can't you see he's not able to?" replied a very dirty woman from the mine caves.

The man braced the rifle he had on his back and stepped forward to lift the old man by force and pull him out of the line of tracks that prevented those who came after from leaving the mine. Roughly, he picked up the old man and dragged him to the mine entrance over protests from the others.

"Watch your carts!" he ordered as he unceremoniously dumped the old man beside the entrance.
"You bastard!" said the woman pushing the guard.

Other men and women also abandoned their carts and works to protest the guard's treatment. They crowded around the man screaming and protesting. He stood up and aimed his rifle at the starting gang. He fired a few shots to the air so everyone would take him seriously.

"Return to your posts! Get back to work!" he raged, pointing his rifle at the furious workers who were unable to do anything more.

The guard, however, noticed that his movements were paralyzed, he couldn't move, which brought him a feeling of despair. When he managed to look down, he saw that his body was surrounded by cold white rings fluttering around him.

Among the rioters, a young man appeared wearing his Holy Bronze Cloth.

"Wh… Who are you?" asked the guard, transfixed.
"I am Hyoga, the Cygnus Saint."

The workers' faces were filled with a glow at the return of their young hero.

"Hyoga…" called the old man on the ground.
"Dedushka…" Hyoga knelt before him. "Jacob is safely at home and waiting for you."
"How nice to hear that, young man." said the eldest.
"Gather everyone, summon whoever is in the mines, and go home." asked Cygnus.
"No… they're not going anywhere." the guard threatened, gritting his teeth.

The Cygnus Saint rose and went to the guard, paralyzed by his circle of ice. He put his hand on the muzzle of the rifle the guard was carrying and froze the weapon, while borking it.

"Your work here is done. Go back to where you came from." ordered Hyoga releasing the ice circle.

The guard fell to the ground.

Behind them, another four guards who were farther away and noticed the confusion finally approached.

"What's going on here?" asked one of them, his rifle already at the ready. "Who are you?"

Cygnus did not respond, he lit his cosmos and, with a hook, brought out a wall of ice protecting them all, for, as he had guessed, the four guards opened fire with their rifles. The bullets failed to penetrate Cygnus's ice shield and as they finished the bullets from the mag, the wall exploded into fine splinters, which danced around Cygnus following his delicate movements of arms and legs, until he threw his fist forward commanding the thin ice against those guards.

Just enough to disarm them and drive them away from that place.

Cygnus raised the guard closest to him and threatened.

"Get out of here." he said. "Take your friends back home."
"Crystal will take care of you." he threatened.

Cygnus didn't answer, but his face filled with doubt as he saw those men marching fast through the white crater, climbing into a single truck and finally taking off down the road in the opposite direction from the village. Cygnus knew well where they were going.

"Dedushka, Aliona, gather everyone and go home." asked him.
"Hyoga… Crystal will not be happy." said the eldest.
"What happened, grandpa?" asked Cygnus.
"It was shortly after you left, Hyoga. Lady Crystal went out on a pilgrimage and when she returned she was no longer the same. Along with her came these men. Crystal has become obsessed with the secret of the mine."
"The secret…" Cygnus mused.
"Be careful, young Hyoga. I don't know what happened to your former mentor, but she is no longer the same."
"I'll talk to her."
"I hope you bring her to her senses again."

But the older man's face didn't seem to hold much hope.

Men and women sought out those who were deeper in the mine, still working and unaware of the change in their fortunes. It wasn't long before, with their things on their backs, that the small population began to march out of the mine and back to their homes.

Cygnus helped people as he could to gather their things; he was greeted a lot, he got smiles from some, hugs from others, their eyes happy and free from a forced labor like that. From the top of the mine, with the quarry on his back, Hyoga saw the population march together towards the forest and the nearby village.

These were his people, his closest family since he had lost his mother not far from there. He grew up with many of those young people and was taken care of by many of those old ones. There was immense relief to see them getting farther and farther into the snow.

He closed his eyes, for his chest filled with anguish and what was cold on that plain grew even colder inside him.

"Hyoga."

It was the voice of the woman who cared for him since he was an abandoned child.

"Master." said Cygnus, looking back.

His mentor was wearing her Sacred Cloth, a covering that resembled the rigidity and splendor of the eternal ice of Siberia. Every sinuous line of that Cloth, Cygnus knew by heart of so many years of admiring and aspiring to be like his mentor. She was Crystal, from the Corona Borealis constellation.

Gradually, the villagers arrived and each one took care of their abandoned houses; the ice being swept out, the fireplaces starting to burn again.

Jacob went right to his grandfather when he arrived; Seiya stood in the doorway happy that Cygnus had fulfilled his promise. That's when he realized that Cygnus was not among those who had returned.

"Hyoga stayed to talk to Lady Crystal." said the little Jacob to Seiya.

But the joy of those who arrived was soon cut off by a man who, carrying a cart full of dry wood for his neighbors, fell to the ground suffering from terrible pains in his head. He screamed, kicked, always with his hands pressed to his temples, suffering from a terrible affliction.

Men and women went to his care and tried to keep him still so he wouldn't get hurt too much while he struggled.

"What is happening?" Seiya asked in a very simple way, as much as he could communicate in that language, but worried and also tending to the man's help.

He didn't understand the explanations of the desperate people around him. His poor understanding of that language made him conclude that there were three important things in that crisis that hurt the mind of the man on the ground.

A secret, the mines and a great danger.

Cygnus had mixed feelings inside him, the joy of seeing his beloved mentor, but the enormous confusion of seeing her with eyes so deep, glazed and along side those who inflicted so much pain on the people she herself adored.

"What happened, Master? Why are you digging the mines again?" asked Cygnus.
"I have nothing to say to a traitor."

Cygnus felt as if he had been shot in the chest. His beloved mentor calling him a traitor.

"No," Cygnus stepped forward. "You are wrong master, I…"
"Shut it, Hyoga. You were sent to end that Tournament and punish the traitors." Crystal said sharply. "And now you return to Siberia to confront your mentor bringing one of them to our village?"
"Master…I…" Cygnus stuttered as he was speechless, as what he heard from his mentor's lips were absolutely impossible to imagine. Her face was the same, but someone else seemed to be in that body. "What happened to you, master?" he tried again.
"There is nothing to tell you, Hyoga."

And then Crystal took up her guard and her cosmos rose with deep coldness, spreading across the plain. Cygnus backed up a few steps not believing his master was threatening him; it wasn't possible that he had to fight the one he loved so much.

Before he could make up his mind, Crystal came forward and hit absolutely every blow she wanted to give her pupil, flinging Cygnus into the crater, where he was dragged by the snow.

Cygnus still couldn't believe.

He was slow to get up, because inside him the feelings were of disbelief. His mentor was very stern in her training, but never did Cygnus found that wrath against him. She really wanted to kill him. His master wanted to kill him.

Once on his feet, Cygnus was attacked again and, perhaps by instinct, managed to dodge some attacks, but was soon thrown again by Crystal, smearing blood across the snow.

Cygnus then decided to lie down. Let himself die at the hands of his mentor; he really was a traitor, so it was an honor to be killed by her, punished by those who loved him. Cygnus was so confused that he couldn't even remember the reasons why he had abandoned his mission.

He knew.

Crystal had Cygnus raised by the neck when the Bronze Saint cosmos burned, saving him from being hanged. And already on the ground, Cygnus's icy fist lifted the snow around, but stopped between his mentor's legs.

"Idiot. Always so naive, that will be your doom!" Crystal shouted, reaching Hyoga again.

Only this time, Crystal wrapped him in a leg lock at the neck and, with her arms free, held onto Cygnus's feet; and just as her pupil had done with the giant on the island before, Crystal proceeded to freeze his legs right in the snow and plain. Unable to prevent the maneuver, Hyoga was at a loss for what to do, horrified.

He found himself nailed to the snow and earth where he had been raised. Ahead of him, his mentor.

"Master…" Cygnus began, swallowing the blood rising in his throat. "Master, I am immensely proud to have been trained by you."

But his speech was soon cut off, as Lady Crystal fell to her knees suffering from terrible pains in her head. Cygnus saw his mentor suffering alone in the snow, kneeling, her hands pressed to her temples and her voice screaming horrors across the snow plain, such was the pain that afflicted her.

Cygnus was sure: there was something wrong with his mentor.

"Lady Crystal!"

Blast of gunfire sounded in the snow quarry and Cygnus, though nailed to the ground with both legs, looked over his shoulder to understand what was happening. He saw the guards getting beaten up by someone. And that someone went down through the crater to where he was: it was Seiya.

"Cygnus!" he shouted when he saw him tied to ground. "I'll get you out of there!"
"Forget it, Pegasus. You won't be able to thaw my mentor's ice."
"Is this your master, Cygnus?"

Seiya looked at the woman who lay dying on the floor wearing a Sacred Cloth. He had seen that before.

Secret. Mines. Danger.

"Cygnus, a man in the village also was hurting by a severe paing in his brain just like your Master." Cygnus looked at Seiya confused. "People kept saying over and over that there was a secret in this mine. That it was dangerous to be here."

Cygnus then looked ahead of his mentor dying on the ground, for beyond the abandoned tents was the entrance to the ancient mine. Maybe it wasn't only stories that were said to live at the bottom of that mine; was it possible that they finally found something in those caves? A terrible thing, it seemed, as his mentor was suffering so much.

His Cosmo burned hard and the ice that held him to the ground began to crack until Cygnus was completely free. His voice spoke perhaps to himself, but Seiya was able to hear it.

"It is said that this mine was dug by the rebellious Saints of the Sanctuary who were sent here to serve their sentence many, many years ago. And in its heart they hid a weapon capable of overcoming the Gods themselves."
"A weapon?" Seiya was surprised "What Weapon could it be? People seem to have gone mad."
"For years… no, decades upon decades, my people have explored this mine and never found a trace of anything at all." he said. "Until it was abandoned. And what was once said became a story and nothing more."
"For history is reality." Crystal said, getting up with difficulty.
"Master!" cried Cygnus. "What did you find in the mine?"
"I already said that I have nothing to say to a traitor."
"But Master… whatever you found in this place, don't you see that it has broken your mind?!"
"Shut it, Hyoga!"

The snow swirled around Crystal, evoking her icy cosmos; Cygnus perfectly recognized that technique and saw no alternative but to copy her steps. The two voices echoed together in the crater and the snow around them swooped down to crash between them.

The Diamond Dust launched by the two found balance only for an instant, as the Crystal cosmos was clearly larger than Cygnus's and the special blow was all aimed at the young pupil, hurled against the crater wall.

Seiya went to his help; he found parts of his body and Cloth frozen and Cygnus breathing hard.

"She will kill you, Cygnus. You need to fight."

Cygnus wept. Seiya knew that, as much as he struggled, he still held his fist, schakled by his feelings.

"I'm sorry to say this, Cygnus, but right now she's your enemy. And she will kill you. I don't know why you're on our side, but whatever the reason, it won't do any good if you die here."

Cygnus suffered.

"I won't let you die." Seiya said. "I will fight her."
"No, Seiya!" asked Hyoga.

And with a lot of effort he got up.

"This is my fight." he said sternly. "This is a fight between me and my master."

His voice quivered in pain.

He placed himself again in front of his mentor, who was looking at the scene with hatred in eyes that couldn't even blink. His voice sounded hateful on the plain.

"I'm going to deal with two traitors to the Sanctuary." she announced. "Get ready, Hyoga!"

Her arms rose and snow began to float around her again; and as she moved her arms with great grace, the snow accompanied the ballet she did as her cosmos ascended. Hyoga also danced with the snow in a subtle way, controlling the flow of the flakes that now fell around him.

Seiya felt the icy cosmos of master and apprentice glow and burn with cold, confronting each other. Hyoga then joined his hands, intertwining them, raised them to the sky and shot his young voice through the crater:

"Diamond Dust!"

The blast of ice swallowed the surrounding snow and threw itself violently against Crystal's body, which neither defended nor attacked. Her body was completely hit by Cygnus Hyoga technique and she was dragged away from where she was, falling unconscious.

The force of Hyoga's freezing beam had been so much greater that he himself was dragged by the force of his strike a few meters back. Seiya reached him, panting.

"She didn't attack." Hyoga said, desperate. "Why didn't she attack?"
"Maybe you were faster than her, Hyoga."
"No. No… something happened. Master!"

Hyoga realized, and he was right, that at the moment of the attack, his mentor was attacked by any nightmare that clouded her mind with terrible pains; the stinging eyes and the muffled scream in her chest. She could neither attack nor defend herself.

Midway, Hyoga stopped, because he saw that she got up with difficulty, armed herself on guard and her cosmos grew again.

"Master, stop it. You're hurt!"
"Her cosmos is impressive." Seiya commented on the back.
"Master!" Hyoga tried.
"Forget it, Hyoga. Defend yourself or we're going to die."

He didn't have time, as Crystal used all her cosmos again and the icy blow passed through both of them, so that Seiya could feel the air become even colder on his face. But the Crystal cosmos hit the mine entrance that was on the backs of the two Bronze Saints.

The mine entrance collapsed completely; a huge tremor shook the plain and Hyoga guessed that the entire complex of the caves was giving way under their feet. When finally the tremors stopped, Hyoga saw that his mentor staggered and fell in the snow.

They ran to her.

"Master!"

Hyoga took his mentor in his arms and saw how her face was serene again: she had lost the tense muscles that twisted her face in hatred. It was that calm and lovely face that Hyoga had known and loved since he was a child.

"Ah, Master…" he lamented when he saw that his mentor was back.
"Hyoga..." Crystal began with a breathless voice.
"Why, Master…? What happened? Why go back to the mines, Master?"

With difficulties, she shook her head and her eyes searched Hyoga's.

"There is nothing else in the mines, Hyoga. The real evil is placed in the Sanctuary."
"The Sanctuary?" asked Seiya.
"Hyoga… The Holy Saints must use their cosmos to protect the world from evil." She took a breath to keep talking. "You hesitated to attack me, Hyoga. You must never hesitate when fighting for justice."

Hyoga had tears running down his face.

"I know you've already lost a lot, boy. But you are an Athena Saint. You must always remember this."

Crystal raised her hand and placed it on Hyoga's chest.

"Use the love you have within you, the love you feel for your mother, for your brother and for your Masters. Use it for the good of humanity."
"Ah, Master..." cried Hyoga.
"Our Master Camus will be furious with me." Crystal said, trying to smile with tears streaming down her face.
"Thank you, Master. Thank you Lady Crystal." repeated Hyoga.

Crystal reached out to her pupil's hands and held it tightly.

And so her eyes closed, her face went blank and Hyoga felt like her hand lost its strength. Hyoga hugged his mentor crying copiously, calling out to her as the cold wind howled on the plain.

Seiya took off his helmet and respected Hyoga's moment in his mentor's bed, but he didn't stop feeling an immense sadness, moved by that terrible situation. A dead Holy Saint. Was this what they had become Saints for?

ABOUT THE CHAPTER: I enjoyed breaking the Swan's ice and finally revealing his name and Seiya seeing up close how the people in his town adore him and how he takes care of everyone. A way to make him trust the Swan. Here is the beginning of a plot that is the Secret of Siberia that will continue. =)

NEXT CHAPTER: FLAMES

Shun, Alice and Saori are attacked in the mountain refuge and need to prevent them from taking the Gold Cloth.