38 — THE POWER OF HATE

The worst place ever.

The hospital.

He wished he were in hell as it would be better, he thought whenever he woke up. And he always woke up. Seiya therefore chose to stay awake that night. It was quieter and he could read his favorite comic book collection, left there by his friend Shun.

Shun. He thought about his friend, wondering if he was okay, but he knew he was. Shun was great, after all. During those days, he received the usual visits. His arm was still in a cast and his head was still bandaged from the seriousness of the injuries that had affected him. But he was already fine, and in a few days, he was told, he would be able to remove the cast, all-covered with funny messages.

Sleep caught him off guard at dawn and he closed the collection of stories, placed it on his bedroom desk, and turned to go to sleep. All lights out.

The door opened, however, throwing the shadow of a woman into the room. Still dizzy, Seiya assumed she was a doctor to do something with his exams and didn't seemed to care that someone was there at that hour.

But she wasn't just any doctor. She wasn't even a doctor.

Her claws descended and Seiya rolled to the side, throwing himself off the bed; the mattress exploded with foam in the air. And when it settled down, his eyes found that hideous war paint over the eyes he knew so well.

"Shaina!?" he exclaimed. "What are you doing here, Shaina?"

She was panting and he could see that her eye paint was already very blurry, her eyes half-closed, tired and maybe delusional. Her armor was cracked and had leaves stuck in her disheveled hair.

"Now that the Silver Saints have lost..." she spoke and her voice was hoarse and cracked. "I can't go back to Sanctuary like that. I'll take your head with me!"

And she threw a vase of flowers that shattered on the wall next to Seiya.

"How is this possible, Shaina? I already told you that we are on Athena's side! Open your eyes!"
"Shut up!" she said, turning the bed towards him; Seiya answered with a flying kick, throwing the bed back towards Shaina.

Taking advantage of the moment when the girl was covered by the bed, as she was unprepared, Seiya jumped through the open window in flight.

The hospital was in a secluded part of town, and that window immediately looked out onto a luscious wood that preceded a distant forest. Seiya fell from the third floor onto the lawn and from there he ran into the forest lit by many globes of light.

"Wait, Seiya!" he heard Shaina's voice scream behind him, who between her name and other things, were screaming as if she'd lost her mind.

She jumped from where she was to a tree in front of Seiya, took off and got back on him with a flying kick. He easily managed to dodge.

"Why are you running away, Seiya? Fight me. Fight me!"
"I won't fight you, Shaina." he said. "What happened to you? You are in no condition to fight."
"Coward!"

She tried again, but he dodged again and ran into the nearest trees, trying to hide from her.

"Why, Seiya? Why don't you attack me?!" he heard the hateful voice looking for him, shouting a thousand things. Many are meaningless. She seemed to be talking to herself.

He was silent, but was soon found. Shaina's claws cut into the white shirt he wore. There was an uncontrollable fury in that woman, Seiya thought, but she also looked like she hadn't slept in at least a week.

"Shaina, you're not her just because of the Silver Saints defeat." he said, guessing part of her feelings.
"Shut up, Seiya!" she tried. "I hate you!"
"You hate me because I remind you that you're not a Greek too, that you're a stranger? A foreigner just like me?" he ventured, pissing her off.

She turned on her heel in a spinning kick so hard that Seiya was thrown against a tree and she, very exhausted, could not contain her own strength and also lost her balance, falling to the ground.

Shaina got up, crawled a few steps until she was finally able to get to her feet; she found him behind a bush and lifted him by the collar of his torn shirt, placing him against the tree trunk. She was panting, some tears were smearing her paint and her mouth was whimpering something inaudible that Seiya couldn't understand.

That's when her eyes disappeared, for a huge golden glow invaded the forest ahead and approached that grove.

Shaina released him to see what could be happening; she left him on the tree and took a few steps towards the light.

Seiya guessed right away.

"No, no! It cannot be. Please don't." Shaina was talking to herself, slowly making her way back to Seiya, with her back turned.

She turned to him, pulled him by his shirt and pushed him towards the hospital, very clumsy, so that she fell herself. She crawled over to him and begged.

"Run away, Seiya. Get away from here!" she spoke and tears streamed down her face as she screamed madly. "Go away! Go, Seiya! If you stay here you will die."
"But Shaina, you're the one trying to kill me here. What are you saying?"

She begged in such a way that her words were incomprehensible.

Seiya couldn't hear what Shaina was saying anymore, as her eyes were absolutely attracted by the golden glow that came from afar. It was as if the entire forest was on fire, but flames that consumed nothing but their own fascination. A transformation as if the air at a specific point in the woods was not invisible, but had its own golden glow. It was impossible to take their eyes off.

From the golden aura that filled the clearing, he saw a silhouette appearing.

The Gold Saint.

He remembered how the Gold Cloth had protected Saori, how the Gold Saint had appeared to fight Eris and also has taken Athena safely to see the Camerlengo. That huge cosmos conveyed only fascination.

He had never seen the Gold Saint himself, so his eyes didn't even blink.

The silhouette stepped into the light and its aura faded. He was a man absolutely covered in a Gold armor and a helmet on his head. Seiya felt, however, an overwhelming sense of familiarity.

"Don't do anything! Leave Seiya with me!" she asked, stepping forward.
"Stand back, Shaina." said the Gold Saint's voice at last to her. "If you come between me and Seiya, you might get hurt."

But she looked really beside herself; Seiya blinked and Shaina flew to a nearby tree. He didn't see what happened. He hadn't actually blinked his eyes, the entire forest seemed to have blinked for a millisecond. And Shaina had been hit.

The Gold Saint in front of him had only one finger outstretched.

Seiya looked at Shaina on the ground, suffering, and went to her aid.

"What are you doing?" Seiya asked the Gold Saint, protesting. "She wasn't going to kill me!"

The Gold Saint walked towards him menacingly.

"Run away, Seiya." Shaina asked with difficulty. "He's going to kill you."
"Kill me? But the Gold Saint is beside Athena, what are you talking about?"

Shaina tried to get up again, ignoring what Seiya had said.

"Aioria!" she said, gathering all her remaining strength. "I will kill Seiya!"

Aioria.

Seiya didn't need to look up the name in his memory, as he knew Aioria. He perfectly understood the reason for his familiarity, since Aioria was the man who interceded on his behalf in his final fight for the Pegasus Cloth. Much more than that, he was the one who delegated Sanctuary's orders to Marin, he well remembered.

He remembered more than that too.

"Aioria is the Gold Saint." he spoke softly, and only he could hear his thoughts.

He looked at the Gold Saint and finally recognized his eyes; that Gold Cloth was gleaming and the helmet barely concealed his face and hair, but he was such a grand figure that he could never have imagined he would know the man beneath the gold.

"Shaina, you can't kill Seiya." he said calmly. "You should know that better than anyone else."

Those words were perhaps far more powerful than any technique that Gold Saint could use. Finally, Shaina dropped to her knees, exhausted.

Far from Shaina, the Gold Saint looked at Seiya. His eyes were heavy. He wasn't there visiting someone he knew just because he was sick at hospital. The Gold Saint was there as others have been: to punish him for his sins.

"Aioria." he began. "Is it really you?" he asked, not quite believing it.
"Seiya." The Gold Saint began, and the boy shivered to hear his name in that magnanimous voice; he really was Marin's old friend. "Where is the Golden Staff?"

The mysterious question confused Seiya.

"What are you talking about?" he asked.
"Don't lie to me, Seiya." he said again. "Have pity on your soul and do something right before I send you to the underworld."

But Seiya's eyes were one of genuine confusion, as he knew absolutely nothing about what he was talking about. He had been hospitalized this entire time and was unaware of Athena's events with Niké. And the Gold Saint noticed that he really wasn't lying.

"In that case," he announced. "Tell me where the rest of the Bronze Saints who challenged the Sanctuary are."
"Never!" Seiya said with clenched fists. "Aioria, I didn't knew you were the Gold Saint, but you should have know that Athena is by our side! What are you doing?"

The Gold Saint hesitated for a moment, because what Seiya was saying to him was very absurd. Of all the excuses he was prepared to hear from the boy for trying to evade his punishment, that one hadn't even crossed his mind.

No, it wasn't just a lie. It was sacrilege.

Seiya saw the Gold Saint's index finger rise. And it was the last thing he saw, for he felt a terrible shivering in his body while the bushes were passing far below him. He fell down from a leap he couldn't even remember doing it. His spasmodic, aching body fell to the ground.

"That's for lying using the name of the Goddess Athena." said the Gold Saint gravely.

Seya struggled to his feet, not understanding how it could be that he had seen absolutely nothing before being hit.

The Gold Saint walked towards him.

"Pegasus Seiya." he began, and the boy knew the speech by heart. "For getting involved in personal fights, violating the..."
"No. I won't die here!" protested Seiya.

He burned his cosmos around him and used his mighty Pegasus Meteors against the Gold Saint; a mad option. The shower of starlight illuminated the forest, the trunks and leaves, but it simply passed through the golden figure, as if he were an image, a projection.

"What is that?" Seiya asked himself.
"Seiya, I heard that you defeated the Black Saints and were even able to defeat some Silver Saints." began the Golden Knight. "Here, however, you don't stand a chance."
"Aioria." scolded Seiya. "I will not die here, as I have to protect Athena. If we have to fight then I will fight you."
"You are mad." said Aioria. "You're not even recovered from your injuries, you're not wearing your cloth, and no, in fact, even if you had everything going for you, you could still never even lay a finger on me."

"That's what we're going to see!"

Seiya ran forward to reach him and simply crossed Aioria again, as if he didn't exist there. He didn't know what that meant. From behind, the voice of the Gold Saint spoke to him.

"Too slow." he said. "Hear me, Seiya, a Bronze Saint can move much faster than an ordinary person. A Silver Saint usually moves even faster than that."
"And the Gold Saint?" Seiya asked, guessing what would come next.

Seiya blinked and the voice that spoke from his back in front of him was suddenly no longer there and was now behind him. Seiya turned away when he saw Aioria very close.

"A Gold Saint can move at the Speed of Light." Aioria spoke with extreme gravity.

The Speed of Light.

Seiya remembered all the times he failed to see, after a flash in the woods, how the Gold Saint attacked with such violence using only one finger. He saw absolutely nothing. It just happened, always after an almost imperceptible flash. He finally realized that the Gold Saint was playing with him, because his Meteors never offered him any risk. He was in shock.

"Do you understand now the abyss that exists between us?" said Aioria. "I'm sorry it has to be that way."

Seiya walked away without finding within himself the possibility of defeating that figure; he couldn't even see him move.

"Pegasus Seiya." Aioria began, finally carrying the sentence to the end. "For engaging in personal quarrels, violating the rules, and looting treasures from the Sanctuary, you are relieved of your duty as an Athena Saint."

Then, perhaps out of consideration to him, Seiya finally saw the Gold Saint raise his fist for the first time, and saw how the forest covered itself in gold to kill him with his technique. He saw blood splash across his body, but when the flash died in the woods, Shaina's body, who had launched herself in front of the golden cosmos to save him, fell into his arms.

She was badly injured and, when she fell into Seiya's arms, he saw how the Silver protection of her back cracked and imploded into many pieces.

"Shaina!" yelled Seiya.

The girl's body fell to the ground and Seiya took her in his arms, hugging her.

"Shaina, why did you do this?
"Ah, Seiya..." her eyes were crying to the point where the war paint was almost faded, running down her face. "I don't hate you because it reminds me that I'm a stranger too. I hate you because you showed me that I can have more than just hate."

He hugged her more tightly.

"Do you still remember that day?" he asked, remembering the white rabbit.
"It wasn't just that day." she said, in tears. "There were so many days. Maybe just a look, a greeting, a simple 'hello' to you. But for me it was more. So much more."

Seiya wiped the tears from her face and finally cleansed all the paint she had, revealing the scar that cut her eyebrow in a very simple way. She tried to hide it, but he held her hands, stopping her.

"Don't cover it." he asked. "I think that scar of yours is really badass." he said with a smile.
"Ah, Seiya..." she melted. "I hate you so much."

ABOUT THE CHAPTER: A little more developed, but the premise is the same as the original story. I like to make Seiya, crazy to find his sister, throw in the face that Aioria abandoned his brother. Tough.

NEXT CHAPTER: ALWAYS BY YOUR SIDE

The Gold Saint's attack is fierce, but in aid of Seiya, he receives two unusual visits that end up saving his life.