23 — YOURS EVER II
Night falls in the mountain woods.
The charred trees are still burning and the smoke left over from the fire on the trunks is still rising.
Inside the shelter, Saori lit the fireplace to fight the chill that descended from the mountains at night. Alice went through the hallways to get a first aid kit, while Seiya and Ikki carefully placed Shun on the couch.
The boy, however, doesn't sit for a second and gets up to give his sister a long, warm hug.
"It's so good to see you again, Ikki."
Shun cried in his sister's arms and Seiya was also overjoyed for him and for Ikki's return; as close as he was, he could have sworn the girl was also thrilled. He stretched out his hand to greet that return from the death of a brave warrior; she took his arm and smiled gratefully.
"Thanks for taking care of my brother." but Seiya shook his head before answering.
"He was the one who took care of me."
Without any intimacy, Ikki gave the most polite look she could to the others in the room watching the scene. Including Saori.
"Ikki…" she began.
A log of wood crackled in the fireplace and the room was instantly tense, for they all knew everything that had been said in that valley so many days ago.
"There is nothing to be said." said Ikki sternly. "Your grandfather's mistakes are not yours."
Saori was silent, but in her chest a huge anguish diminished, as Ikki said exactly the words she would have liked to hear. Let her suffer and live for her life and her choices. And Ikki gave it to her.
But she still had a way to go.
While there was a lot to say, there was also a lot of silence to absorb. And between smiles and relief, they sought to comfort each other. Seiya and Ikki took off the Andromeda Cloth in order to take care of Shun's severe burns, due to his dangerous exposure to the extreme fire. Xiaoling and Saori took care of Alice who, although less exposed, also collected some of her exertion burns trying to ease the forest fire.
"I'm so glad you're alive, Ikki." Shun said, still very emotional, but his sister returned him a deep and angry look.
"You could have beaten that Saint if you wanted, Shun."
But the boy didn't answer, as it seemed like a dream to see his sister tending to his wounds and giving him a fair scolding. It was everything he wanted most. He knelt on the rug and once again hugged his sister, as if he couldn't contain himself. Ikki was taken by surprise, but Seiya saw her face soften and she returned the hug, nuzzling her face in her brother's dirty hair.
Saori asked Shun to sit down again so she could apply a cream to relieve the pain of his burns. The boy didn't even showed any reaction while receiving the treatment; there was only a huge smile on his face.
"Where's the Cygnus Saint?" Ikki asked everyone, unexpectedly, as she got up.
Seiya replied.
"Hyoga decided to stay in Siberia for a while."
"Hyoga?" Shiryu asked and Seiya nodded.
"The Cygnus Saint." He then looked at Shun and opened a smile. "He's actually nice."
"What happened in Siberia, Seiya?" Xiaoling asked.
Cold, very cold, Seiya started talking. He told about how the village was forced to work in nearby and mysterious mines. How they met a local boy and how disconcerting it was to see Cygnus so worried about someone. But mostly, how hard it was to see someone having to fight someone so dear; no, as loved as Lady Crystal was to Hyoga.
Shun saw that Saori suffered while she applied the cream to him when listening to Seiya's story.
"That is the life of a Saint." said Ikki when she saw the entire refuge sulk with sadness. "It ain't the first and it won't be the last."
Seiya didn't stop feeling a certain disgust with Ikki, but at the same time he realized that the bitterness in him was knowing that she was right.
"And before she died, Lady Crystal also said that there was an evil placed in the Sanctuary." Seiya announced to everyone.
"At the Sanctuary?" Shun repeated.
And the words hovered over them causing a shiver in the sadness they felt for Cygnus, such an earthquake was the idea that the enemy behind so many attacks and tragedies was actually the heart of the Holy Saints. The Athena Sanctuary itself.
It wasn't just anyone who said that, but someone who had trained there.
"She's right." said Ikki, finally. "That man who attacked us today was none other than the Sanctuary Master at Arms himself, Gigars."
Saori stood up, startled, even abandoning Shun's bandages.
"He was an agent of Sanctuary?" she asked.
"Not just an agent, but the Master at Arms." corrected Ikki. "He was the one who came to the Death Queen Island to recruit me to kill you all."
She spoke as if speaking of the snow falling serenely outside.
"And I would have come very happy to destroy the Foundation." she said. "But overzealous as he was, he saw fit to use that Staff in my mind to make sure I didn't fail my mission." Ikki laughed. "Well, I made a point of bringing him here and teaching him a lesson."
"You lured them here?" Alice asked worriedly.
"Yes. I knew you were here and I knew how badly those idiots wanted the Gold Cloth."
"But they didn't knew you weren't working for them anymore. Well done, Ikki!" Seiya commented.
"I destroyed his Staff and his mind. He will live the rest of his life like the dying bastard he is."
"Is that why you were so angry, Ikki?" Shun asked.
But Ikki looked at his brother with a weight in her eyes.
"No," she began. "The truth is, the hate I felt was real. That staff just pushed away any other feeling, any other idea from my mind. My eyes only had room for that huge anger I felt."
Like an obsession, Saori thought, silently.
"Ikki…" Shiryu lamented.
"What's done is done. In any case, he won't be back and whatever force is playing in the Sanctuary, they will need some time to reorganize now that we've taken their Master at Arms out of the game."
"But what does the Sanctuary wants with all this?" Seiya asked himself.
"We're not sure there's anything going on in the Sanctuary. Cygnus's mentor said that there is an evil there, maybe it was just this man, Gigars." Shun commented.
"Shiryu, did you found anything with your Master?" Seiya asked, but Shiryu shook her head.
"My master is very old. He was a very good friend of the former Pontiff of the Sanctuary, a man called Zion, but with whom he had not had contact for a long time. And it seems that this friend recently passed away."
"Yes. It was during my last year of training." recalled Seiya. "I remember the ceremony when Pope Zion passed away. The entire village stopped to mourn his death. It was a great sadness. His younger brother, the Camerlengo Master Arles, spoke to the entire Sanctuary and walked around the village from house to house talking to the people. He was a very good man. He was the one who handed me the Pegasus Cloth in the Arena."
Seiya had serious difficulties in accepting, after all he had been trained all his life in the Sanctuary. He suffered a great deal, it is true, but he firmly believed in the dignity of his Master Marin and above all in the Camerlengo, who had given him the chance to prove that he could become a Saint.
"How can this happen in Sanctuary?" he asked himself.
The night dragged on and all they repeated were the same things in deeper, more redundant details. The weariness of the journey of those who returned and the battle of those who fought overcame them and, within the night, one by one ended up occupying a bed in Saori's refuge to finally be quiet and rest.
Except Ikki.
Once everyone was asleep, she sat on the balcony railing looking into the night's eyes in the woods. Saori, also sleepless, leaned against her side.
"I already said that there is no need for excuses."
But that wasn't what she was here for.
"What happened to your arm?" she asked, as Ikki had her right arm bandaged from hand to shoulder.
Ikki let out a smile, guessing the question.
"Yes. I know who you are."
The night was swallowed by the cold and Saori comforted herself in the room where Alice slept.
Ikki stood right there, looking at her destiny.
The refuge was high in the mountains, between valleys, and preceded by a beautiful wood, where a lake stretched briefly near the house. The construction had been done very precisely, so that between the two valleys beyond it was possible to see a small strip of sand and the distant sea.
And through that crack in the huge stones Ikki saw that the sun had begun to rise. First clearing the dark sky, clearing the night mists, and gradually revealing the sun's crown.
"Good morning, Ikki."
"Good morning, Shun."
There was a relieved smile on the two faces, still young and in great pain.
"Are you feeling better?"
"Yes," replied the boy. "Let's watch the sunrise at the beach."
Ikki climbed down from the parapet he was resting on and followed his brother down the valley.
The strip of sand was soft and deserted, as it wasn't exactly easy to access. The waves of the sea crashed against some nearby walls, and behind them rose the huge mountain on which they had first fought and then met again.
Shun sat on the sand and watched the sun rise over the horizon. Ikki got to his feet.
"Even to see the sun rise you have your Cloth." Shun commented.
Ikki looked at him and let out a sharp breath and turned back to the sun that slowly tinted the sky with all its colors.
"Shun." she began seriously. "Haven't you ever complained about your fate?"
"My fate, Ikki?" the boy reflected. "No, I never thought about it."
Ikki seemed to absorb the answer and sat down beside her.
"Since we were born, it seems we don't have a day of peace. Or happy days, peaceful nights. Nothing."
"You got even less." Shun continued. "Your days on the Island must have been terrible, Ikki."
"Yes," she agreed, wounded. "Every day fighting and competing. Suffering. Consumed by hate. And every night I thought that was the fate the Gods had imposed on me."
"Fate..." mused Shun.
"Our destiny." added Ikki. "And you must have suffered a lot in your training as well."
Shun didn't answered, but he understood what she was saying.
The noise of waves crashing on rocks or wandering on sand soothed them in that sunrise when only they seemed to exist in the world.
"It's true, Ikki." Shun agreed. "But even on that island, I met people who, despite all the hell we went through, we still had a moment to smile, to play."
There was a heavy tone in Shun, like a longing that was dying in his chest.
"I'm sorry you didn't have that, Ikki."he said.
"You're wrong, Shun." she corrected quickly. "While I was on the Island… there was one person. A girl."
Shun's eyes met her sister's.
"Esmeralda. She had the most terrible fate between the two of us. And every day she watered a flower garden. She smiled. She cried a lot too. But I remember her smiling. Just as the flowers she watered insisted on blooming in that hell she insisted on smiling."
"Ikki…"
Shun took his sister's hand and pulled her to sit beside him.
He slowly removed her Bronze protection from both arms, one of them bandaged. He took off her helmet and placed it beside him, in the sand. He removed the breastplate, her shoulder pads and her feathered cloak.
And when his sister was totally disarmed of her sacred protection, he pulled her into a strong hug, in which Ikki let out her tears of longing.
The boy knew that there was a terrible outcome there for the only flower Ikki had known all these years. All he could do was soothe her chest.
She cried in her brother's arms. And crying she said:
"She taught me that it was possible to love in the worst places and times." She broke the embrace and looked into her brother's eyes. "And you showed me that again."
Shun smiled because if he was always saved as a child by his strongest sister he now had the opportunity to save her by his heart.
Ikki got up, determined. She put on her full Bronze Cloth again and, with the sun on the horizon, valiantly glared at her brother.
"Shun. Maybe there really is a destiny for us all. But whatever it is... we can change it."
The boy nodded.
Shun got up, cleaned up the sand that had soiled his clothes and again hugged his sister, whom she missed so much.
And so they parted again, but this time Shun was sure he would see her again.
ABOUT THE CHAPTER: Always fun to play with peaceful chapters, I use it to create that sense of group and get them to ask questions and talk more with each other. The scene of Ikki and Shun on the beach came from the episode where the two think about their fate in the Anime. Beautiful.
NEXT CHAPTER: SOMETHING OF PEACE
Once the enemy has been defeated, the young people in Saori's refuge experience something incredible: a peaceful day in which they cook, play and watch television together. A day that it is forbidden to speak the enemy's name. =)