25 — THE SILVER SAINTS
The billows of the sea invading the strip of sand; the foaming waves crashing against the stone wall. An oceanic dance of the sea repeating over and over again. A makeshift grave in the sand. Two figures posted.
"Pegasus Seiya." Misty's voice began, his hand on his chest. "For engaging in personal battles and violating the Sanctuary Oath, you are relieved of your duty as an Athena Saint."
Marin beside him, her silver mask showing no emotion. Her hand also on the chest.
They made a slight bow of respect and finally turned to the sea.
"My compliments, Marin." said Misty. "I didn't think you would be able to kill your own disciple."
"We should go, Misty. The others are waiting for us and there are four other punishments we need to do."
"Go to them, Marin." said Misty. "I have one more mission in the mountains."
"In the mountains?"
"Go, Marin. The others need you." he said only.
"We'll wait for you at sunrise at the agreed place."
And Marin disappeared down the sand path.
Misty turned away, where that short stretch of beach ended in rocks and rose through valleys and woods until it stretched across the mountains beyond.
Before he finally left, however, Misty sensed a cosmos closing in. A strong cosmos.
"Who's there?" he asked.
Seiya's tomb blew sand everywhere, revealing him safe and sound, without any chest wounds, but pulling in air with difficulty.
"What does that mean? Don't tell me…" Misty looked forward to the footprints in the sand. "Marin…"
A trick. Marin had used a fake blow with her cosmos, making Seiya, at most, unconscious so the burial would feel real. And there he was. Alive.
He got to his feet, gathering strength, and when he saw Misty in front of him, he put himself back on guard.
"This is ridiculous. You've just come back from a grave and really think you stood a chance?" "You leave me no choice."
Misty laughed and showed him his index finger.
"One finger." he said. "It's all I need to beat you, Seiya."
And that finger pushed the air so that the boy couldn't even see or feel, as he flew through the night, plunging violently into the sea.
Underwater, Seiya reflected that the power difference was indeed immense. If Misty could do what he did with just one finger, there wasn't any chance for him to win. And yet, staggering, he came out of the waterlogged sea. He stumbled, fell to the ground, but again rose to his feet.
"This is pathetic." said Misty. "There's nothing more ridiculous than having this kind of power. It is said in the Sanctuary that the Pegasus Saint defeated his enemies one after the other, but what I see here is a pathetic little man. Covered in wounds, bleeding, his body all covered with dirt. That's what you are. That's what Bronze Saints are."
He straightened his folded cloak over his shoulder.
"Let me explain to you what true power really means. A real winner achieves its victories without shedding a drop of his blood. Without getting hit or having any injuries."
"Does that mean you never got hit, Misty?"
He just smiled.
"If that's how it is, then even if I lose, I swear I'll punch you in the face."
Seiya tore the sand with his fists in the form of meteors in thousands of violent beams of light. And they stopped in front of Misty without him having to do anything at all. Seiya noticed, however, that the sand near the enemy receded as his blow was repressed. An air barrier.
"Your time has come." Misty threatened.
His Cosmo was white and ascended gallantly; Seiya felt an enormous pressure coming from that Saint and tried to understand what he could do to survive what was to come.
"Don't worry, you'll soon be with your Master Marin." Misty threatened.
"What do you mean by that?"
"She tried to deceive me by pretending to kill you. She will be considered a traitor to the Sanctuary. And the punishment for traitors is the same as yours. Death."
Misty stepped forward again with her finger raised. It was all he needed.
"Marble Tripper!"
Seiya first noticed a pressure in his stomach, but nothing he couldn't handle. He was wrong, as it was only a disk, dark as night, sucking the entire cosmos of Misty into a single point, which then seemed to swallow Seiya's own strength, throwing him back into the sea. With such violence that he didn't even sink at first, but bounced in the waters until it crashed against a distant wave. All in a fraction of a millisecond.
His blood colored the sand and the sea in red.
One of those drops landed on Misty's perfect neck.
"Disgusting."
It was unacceptable to be dirty. Misty was a handsome warrior known for his ever-shining and elegant style. He walked to the rocks at the bottom of the beach and there removed every piece of his fine clothing until he was completely naked.
He folded everything carefully and left it on a rock at his eye level. he walked through the sand opening his hair and stepped into the cold water of that coast.
He went to where the water hit his waist and, under the moonlight, he wiped Seiya's blood from his neck. He dabbed in the sea water on his neck, on his arms, and then just stared at the huge moon lit up in the sky as his smooth skin dried.
The stars in the sky.
"There is nothing below this sky and this moon that is as beautiful as I am." he commented, marveling.
He heard behind him, however, how the water churned in an unusual way.
Misty looked over and saw Seiya bleeding out of the sea, panting.
"You should have stayed under the sea."
"I thought about that. But then I decided to come back and spill some more blood on you."
"What's the use of suffering so much? Only a miracle would make you beat me."
"Then I will perform a miracle!"
Seiya fired his Meteors, taking advantage of Misty's naked in the sea, but Misty's cosmos ascended and the water, which previously hit his waist, simply opened, revealing the Silver Warrior's entire nudity. And again the meteors missed Misty's candid body.
And his finger lifted the water and Seiya, and threw the Bronze Saint back onto the beach.
But when the water returned to its normal course, Misty noticed something terrible. Something that made him spit his own blood into the salty sea water. One of Seiya's meteors had passed through his barrier and hit his stomach.
"What is this?" Misty asked in amazement.
"That's pain." replied Seiya.
Misty looked at the filthy boy at the edge of the beach.
"Now it's my turn to teach you something. For a warrior, not having a scar is nothing to be proud of. Our scars are our proof of courage and bravery, they are like medals to us."
Seiya made his cosmos ascend strong and threatened.
"You who don't know pain can never defeat me!"
Misty's cosmos also enlarged, creating an enormous dome of energy that prevented water from reaching him; a fabulous warrior in his most resplendent beauty.
Seiya jumped into the air and fired his Meteors again with fury.
"A feeble blow is not a miracle." said Misty.
But he noticed that Seiya's Meteors were even slower than usual, and for a moment he was sure that his opponent's pain had made him even weaker. For it was precisely his enormous confidence that prevented him from seeing much earlier what was forming in front of his eyes. Seiya's Meteors didn't spread as before, but concentrated on a single bright spot that descended like a comet.
Too late, Misty stretched out his arms for the first time to hold what appeared to be a Pegasus Comet. His barrier didn't stop Seiya's power and Misty was fatally hit in the chest. The water that once opened before his cosmos engulfed him.
Seiya returned to the ground, panting, not knowing if he had actually hit his opponent.
His breathing and the crashing waves were all he could hear and Seiya was sure he had won. When he breathed a sigh of relief, he saw Misty again rising naked from the waters.
He put himself on guard again.
Misty came walking from the sea; he passed Seiya walking calmly and found his clothes folded on the stone. He dressed them elegantly, one after another. Completely soaked, but again with the cape tucked over the shoulder. Seiya was ready for the resumption of battle.
But when Misty turned to him, there was blood pouring from his mouth and forehead.
"Maybe it's just like you said." Misty said, his voice trembling. "Maybe I was just afraid of getting hurt in battle. While you..."
His voice wavered.
"You risk your own life not to give up. In order to win." Misty staggered. "And you have won."
His voice finally cracked and his body fell to the ground, dead.
Exhausted, Seiya fell to his knees in the sand gasping for air, as his body relaxed from the battle and his fatigue erased him passed out in the sand beside Misty's dead body.
The sun was slowly breaking up on the beach as Marin returned to that deserted stretch to find Misty's dead body and Seiya's lying body, still unconscious.
She was not alone, for beside her was an enormous man, scarred all over his body with a huge tattoo on his face; and a thin young man with short hair came along with them.
"What happened here? Misty!" The big man came forward to take Misty's body in his arms. "By Athena, Asterion, Misty is dead!" he announced, shocked.
"What does that mean, Marin? Isn't this your disciple, Seiya?" asked the second man as he attended to Seiya's body. "He is alive."
Asterion lifted Seiya's body and noticed that he was still breathing.
"You said that you had killed Seiya." Asterion said to Marin, but she didn't respond.
"How can Misty be dead?" asked the heavyset man. "You must not think that Seiya won him in battle. This is impossible."
"That doesn't matter anymore, Moses, for before us is a traitor." announced Asterion.
"What?!" exclaimed Moses.
"It's no use shutting up, Marin, because I can read your every thought. What your mask hides, my cosmos reveals to the light."
There was a tense silence between the three figures as the waves crashed into the sea.
"Then what they say about you really is true, Asterion." finally said Marin. "In that case there is nothing to be said."
"Moses, Marin tricked Misty with a fake hit on Seiya. She is a traitor to the Sanctuary and as such she must also pay with her life."
"But Asterion, without Marin we won't be able to find the other traitors." protested Moses.
Marin was impassive and her mask hid her intentions. Not from Asterion.
"Do you think you'll stay alive just because you're the only one who can track down the traitors? Don't be a fool, Marin." he said. "I'm sure Seiya here will help us if his Master is in danger."
Moses let a deep disappointment slip into his face.
"Damn it, Marin." he complained. "I can't believe you betrayed us like that. Misty is now dead!" he said.
She said nothing to Moses again.
"Hell, it's unfortunate that you're a traitor, but punishment needs to set the example."
And the huge man lunged at Marin, who dodged by jumping into the air.
"Moses, she's not in the air! She's behind you!" shouted Asterion to his friend.
Marin fired the Meteors she taught Seiya at close range.
"It's another illusion, Moses, she's beneath you."
And with precision, when Moses turned, he immediately parried Marin's hook from below. He took advantage of the maneuver and locked the traitor's fist with both of his hands; its huge, oceanic cosmos ascended and he launched her into the air.
"I'm sorry, Marin. Kaitos Spounting Bomber!" cried his thundering voice.
"Don't kill her, Moses!" reminded Asterion.
Marin was flung into the air, but far worse than that, she realized her body was paralyzed by a surrounding cosmos, leaving her completely helpless as she fell back onto the beach.
Her body found a powerful hook from the huge Moses, which left her completely unconscious and inert on the beach.
The sun was already rose when Moses splashed water on Seiya's face and woke him up from his enormous fatigue. When he opened his eyes, he saw unfamiliar and unfriendly faces above him. He started and tried to escape these strangers.
"Who are you?"
"Your executioners." replied Asterion. Moses held him and forced him to see Marin at sea.
She was tied upside down to a tree trunk stuck in the sea; the water lapped close to her loose hair.
"Marin!" Seiya shouted, trying to free himself from Moses' arms, uselessly.
"Oops. The tide is rising, if you want her to live, tell us where the other Bronze Saints are." said Asterion.
"Forget it. I'm going to free myself, beat you both, and then I'm going to save Marin!" Seiya said, confident and delirious.
Asterion laughed.
"I don't know how lucky you were against Misty, but your fate is already sealed. If he's not going to help us, I think it's time to deliver his punishment. Be my guest, Moses. He's all yours."
The big man smiled, but as soon as he lifted Seiya by the neck, the sand on the beach rose up and swept away both Asterion and Moses, leaving them blind for a moment. Seiya fell, panting again.
When they got up to their feed, a boy was in front of them.
"Who are you?"
"I am Shun, the Andromeda Saint."
And Shun, like Seiya and all of them, was not wearing his Sacred Cloth.
"Well, what a strike of luck. Here we are thinking about how to get Seiya to tell us where you are, and here is another little brat destined to die by the orders of the Sanctuary." said Asterion.
"Who are you?"
"Your executioners." replied Moses, advancing towards Shun, who dodged the attack by jumping gracefully.
"We are not using our Sacred Cloths, we must not fight!" Shun said, worried.
"We're not wearing our Cloths precisely because they shouldn't be used in places like this. The Secret of the Athena Saints must be protected." said Asterion.
"Well then, this fight ends here." Shun said.
"It only ends with your punishment." replied Moses, again throwing himself at Shun.
Shun then used his cosmos to raise a huge cloud of sand, leaving Moses lost inside it.
"On your left, Moses!" shouted Asterius.
And Moses spun on his axis and hit Shun squarely, without him being able to see anything. Shun was thrown against a rock, losing his breath.
The young boy got up with difficulties, because the strength of that huge man was immense.
"That trick of yours won't work. Your defeat is sealed, boy." said Moses.
The huge man lunged forward and his punch broke the rock behind Shun as he dodged into the sky again, landing near the ocean water.
"Moses, be careful." warned Asterius. "For some reason, he wants you to throw him to the sea."
Shun looked at Asterio, amazed.
"To the sea?" laughed Moses. "If he wants to go to sea, I'll make him to to the sea."
Moses stepped forward and hit Shun with his shoulder in his stomach, sending the boy to the ocean.
"You fool!" said Asterion. "I told you that's what he wanted."
"Leave it with me." said Moses to Asterion, for at sea the Cetus Saint was sovereign.
Moses walked on the sea, and as he walked, the water opened up for him.
Shun's body revealed itself in the crustacean-laden sand that remained when the water rose for him to walk.
"Was it the sea that you wanted? Because it is at the sea that you will stay."
He lifted Shun's body, still alive, and threw him into the air.
"Kaitos Spounting Bomber!"
Shun's body was airborne paralyzed by the cosmos of Moses and fell on its mighty hook. Just like Marin. But unlike Marin, Shun was able to diminish the hit with his airborne cosmo. Still got hit pretty hard.
Moses left the sea with Shun's body unconscious and dropped him on the sand; he looked mockingly at Asterion and looked for another larger trunk in the coming woods.
"What do you think you're going to do?" asked Asterion.
"I thought you could read our thoughts." replied Moses.
Asterion was silent, because he understood what Moses wanted; if they didn't come for Seiya, maybe they would come for him and Shun. And so they wouldn't need anyone to find the Bronze Saints, as the others would come to that damn trap.
Moses planted another log in the middle of the sea, brought Shun in and chained it upside down with chains found in a nearby gutter abandoned by an old fisherman.
"What an enormous irony." Moses spoke to Shun's unconscious body as he chained him. "They say that in the ancient stories of yore, the Princess Andromeda was sacrificed to the monster Cetus. On that occasion, she was saved. But this time, I think the monster will win."
As soon as Shun's arrest was over, he turned his back and calmly walked back to shore.
And as he walked, the waters closed behind him.
"Moses, beware!"
The waters that closed behind Moses revolted as if a storm shook the ocean, and although his cosmos was huge and commanded the calm waters, the Silver Saint found himself at the center of a typhoon that his cosmos could not calm.
This typhoon took flight and Moses was swallowed up by it, whirling with fury until he was hurled against the rock at the end of the beach.
Shun reappeared on the bank of sand with the rusty chain in his right hand; it wasn't big enough, so Shun ran towards Moses and fired his Thunder Wave, which hit the Silver Saint in the jaw, knocking him unconscious to the ground.
"So that was it." commented Asterion. "You wanted the chains."
Shun didn't respond.
"It's no use being silent, as I can read your thoughts."
Shun similarly attacked with his Thunder Wave, sending his rusty chain against Asterion; but the chain simply passed through the smiling warrior figure. The boy didn't understand anything, but he noticed that Asterion was standing next him. And on his left, and behind, and above. And everywhere.
The boy reacted quickly and passed the rusty chain to his left hand and, with it, created a shield so that it swirled around his body. Without needing to read a mind at all, he knew he was going to be attacked from all sides.
"Million Ghost Attack!"
From all sides, the beams of light from Asterion's fist slashed with that semblance of chain Shun had, and the young boy was finally hit decisively. He fell to the ground, defeated.
"Your control with chains is really impressive, Andromeda." said Asterion. "But that's the end of you."
The Silver Saint walked on the sand to give the maximum punishment to Shun, who was already recovering with great difficulty.
Asterion, however, stopped where he was, because he felt with violence an enormous cosmos invading the beach to the point of paralyzing him in front of Shun's suffering body. When he turned to see the owner of that immense energy, he saw Marin's silver mask. The chains on her left hand, broken, she left in the sand as she marched to Asterion.
"Marin, how did you…"
She said nothing.
"Doesn't matter. Can you see what's happening? All traitors are being punished one by one and you will be next."
Nothing said.
"It's no use shutting up, because I can read your… Your thoughts. What is happening?" Asterion despaired for the first time. "I… I can't read your thoughts, it's like your mind is empty! How is this possible?"
Marin said nothing.
"Never mind, my attack will cover all your choices!" he said, multiplying into several Asterions scattered around Marin.
But Marin needed to find only one; for there was, in fact, only one. And Asterion was amazed when he saw that behind him was the incredible flight of Marin, which made his voice sound across the seas along with his huge cosmos.
"Eagle Toe Flash!"
She hit a brilliant flyer kick in Asterion, who fell, defeated, in the sand.
Shun finally got up, with difficulty, and saw Asterion's body lying, defeated, in front of him. His eyes continued down the strip of sand and saw Marin walking toward him.
She did nothing and walked past him. Shun got up and went straight to Seiya who, still alive, suffered immense pain.
"Seiya." he called. "Seiya, wake up!"
"Shun?" he asked, delirious with fatigue.
"Yes, Seiya. I'm here."
"Marin. Where is Marin?" he got up at last.
And he saw that Marin was in front of him looking at them.
"Ah…Marin." He relieved himself when he saw that silver mask.
Seiya then remembered that she was there to punish his sins.
"Marin, I…"
"What do you think you were doing?" she asked directly.
"I…" Seiya couldn't answer.
"You said you were going after your sister." she said sternly. "And yet you took part in a tournament and exposed the secret of the Holy Saints to the entire world. Used your Cloth for a show like that." she said, very harshly.
"I'm sorry, Marin…" she just said Seiya.
"It's not me you need to ask for forgiveness." she said stiffly. "You must behave like someone who must fight and defend justice. I am deeply ashamed of you, Seiya."
Seiya couldn't even look at that silver mask.
"There is something very strange installed in the Sanctuary of Athena." she said. "And here you are playing fights?"
"It won't happen again." It was Shun who answered, for him and for Seiya.
She left the two of them and went to see Moses who, little by little, was getting up.
"Where are you going, Marin?" Shun asked.
"I'm going to find out what's going on at the Sanctuary." she said, helping Moses to his feet.
"How can we help?" Shun asked.
"You can't." she summed up. "Come on, Meko, get up, big guy."
"Marin…" Moses said wearily. "What are you doing? Are you really going to betray the Sanctuary, Marin?" asked the big man.
"Shut up, Meko." she said, lifting Moses. "We still have to climb these mountains."
Seiya had tears on his face, but searched his chest for some words.
"Marin, I…"
"There is nothing to be said, Seiya." Marin snapped, not even looking at him. "Enough talking. You are an Athena Saint. Start acting like one and protect Athena."
And, propping up the huge Silver Saint, Marin moved on to the mountain trails.
Seiya stood beside Shun with his heart sinking with sadness.
ABOUT THE CHAPTER: I chose to make the Silver Saints come to town without their Silver Cloths, to justify them being defeated by Seiya and his friends. The Cetus/Whale Moses will have this new name, Meko, which will be explained later on, so stay tuned.
NEXT CHAPTER: ATHENA
A big reveal will shake the Bronze Saints.