45 — THE GEMINI SAINT

Shun and Hyoga ran through the terrible corridor of the House of Gemini, still distressed with that ambiguous presence they felt at every step they took. Far in the distance, however, no longer they saw the white dot that once revelaed as the exit of that temple.

Now the bright was golden.

And the closer they got, the better they realized it was someone's silhouette. Someone who wore a Gold Cloth.

"The Gemini Saint!" Hyoga announced in front of Shun.

The two stopped and became alert. They saw with some horror that the figure before them was disconcerting, for it was standing with both arms resting at its sides; the feet right next to each other. It really looked like a statue.

The Gold Cloth, like all of them, protected that figure's body completely; but there was a curious detail in his leg and arm protection that stretched to the level of his knees and elbows, causing a strange illusion as if his upper and lower limbs were bigger than they really were. A disconcerting image, for he looked very tall — not as tall as the giant Taurus — but had a disturbing thinness, which was extremely odd.

Its mysteries, however, did not stop there. As Hyoga observed, shocked, the most terrifying thing was actually the helmet that covered his face in the shadows; for on its sides there were two faces engraved as if they were masks. One of them was smiling sadistically while the other kept a bland and serious face.

"It's so weird." Shun said to his friend. "He looks like a ghost."

Shun noticed in his arm how the Nebula Chain remained static, which meant she didn't feel the presence of any enemy before them.

Were it not for the splendor of that Gold Cloth, the two friends would possibly believe they were standing next to a statue, for the Saint in front of them did not move, did not say a word, and, in fact, did not even seem to breathe.

"An illusion." Hyoga tried, drawing Shun's attention. "He must be just an illusion. Like everything around us, he doesn't exist. It's a distraction. And I'm pretty sure that if we destroy this distraction, all of this fake theater will end too."

The Cygnus Saint stepped forward and burned his icy cosmos with all the strength he had. His hair fluttering along with the strength of his heart.

"Wait, Hyoga!"

Shun noticed his Chains reacting to something at the exact moment the Cygnus Saint placed himself with his warm Cosmo, but he was resolute in his plan. He had in his eyes the decision that they should move forward as soon as possible; his cosmos conjured ice crystals around him, which he controlled like a dance with his hands and arms, to bind them together in his right fist, which tore apart the House of Gemini.

The Diamond Dust manifested as a freezing blizzard in which the shards of ice completely covered the Gold Saint. The ghostly figure did not move an inch; Hyoga's blizzard passed through the Gemini Saint to return violently towards the two of them.

There was no time to protect themselves or Shun to manifest his chains; they were both caught in the blizzard and flung back.

Panting, both Shun and Hyoga were able to stand up again. Behind them was the Gemini Saint again in his unharmed posture.

"He returned the Diamond Dust, how is that possible?" asked Hyoga.
"I don't think he returned anything, Hyoga." Shun commented.

The Cygnus Saint looked at Shun and finally understood, with amazement.

"I get it now, it's like this labyrinth." he said. "We keep walking and walking, bug eventually get to the same place. Like running in circles. My Diamond Dust went through this ghost and turned around to hit us. As if the corridors of this temple were bent to his will."

Shun agreed, as that was exactly what had happened.

The Nebula Chain finally moved in Shun's arm. Its spherical tip described a confused circular movement in the air.

"Look, Hyoga." Shun showed. "The Nebula Chain is identifying a presence right now, but it doesn't know where he is."
"But how is that possible if he's right in front of us? Perhaps this Gemini Saint cosmos can mess with our senses. And even confuse your Nebula Chains, Shun." Hyoga spoke. "But if the Nebula Chain can feel its presence now, then I'll use my most powerful technique to make sure he can't bend this corridor against us. I'll burn my cosmos like Seiya did in the House of Taurus and finish him off!"
"I don't know, Hyoga. I'm not sure this is the right thing to do." worried Shun.
"We don't have time!"
"But the same thing will happen!" he tried, but nothing deterred Hyoga from his idea.

Again Hyoga's freezing cosmos took over the House of Gemini and his eyes closed to remember that he was fighting for Athena's life, still suffering at the foot of the mountain. With his dance, he manipulated the crystals around, but his cosmos didn't make them converge in his fist as before; they grew all around him, but stayed along his body. Like a swan, Hyoga opened his arms as if they were his powerful wings he launched his powerful cosmos with a mighty roar.

"Aurora Thunder Attack!"

The ice around him revolutionized into a typhoon and it traveled towards the Gemini Saint, rattling the columns around him as it passed.

But Shun was right.

The furious typhoon of ice that rushed towards the Gemini Saint returned with equal violence, hurling the two Bronze Saint far away from where they stood.

The ghostly pose, the long arms at the sides and the two faces in the helmet. Seiya and Shiryu had also found the Gemini Saint in their corridor inside the temple and remained static in front of that disconcerting and immobile figure.

"What is it, Seiya?" Shiryu asked, noticing his friend tense as he interrupted the march they were on.
"The Gemini Saint is in front of us." he said.
"In front of us?" she was confused.
"Yes. You can't see it, Shiryu, but he's right in front of us."

Shiryu lowered her eyes and face, as if seeking her other senses for any sign of presence there.

"That's weird." Shiryu spoke, taking a few side steps to cover her awareness. "I don't feel any presence here beside you."
"Well Shiryu, I am telling you that he is in front of us! It's a very weird Gold Saint, his helmet has two faces drawn, one on each side. He's so creepy."

Seiya spoke with his voice low, as if he was afraid to be heard cursing the Gold Saint in front of him. He was horrible, that's what he meant. But without seeing or feeling the presence of anyone else there who was not her friend, Shiryu was then invaded by the hot and powerful cosmos of Pegasus, which burned beside her in Seiya's body.

"What are you doing, Seiya?"
"We can't underestimate the Gold Saints, Shiryu." reminded Seiya of Aldebaran's tip. "He's the one responsible for trying to keep us here, he's not on our side."
"But Seiya…" Shiryu tried.
"If we are to stand a chance against this Gold Saint, we need to reach the Seventh Sense, Shiryu." he said determinedly, burning his cosmos. "If we manage to hit him, I'm sure this labyrinth might fade."
"No, Seiya, wait!" asked Shiryu.
"Shiryu, we have no time to waste here. Saori needs us!"

Shiryu felt how that Pegasus beside her spread his wings and would undoubtedly attack with all his might; he traced the stars of his protective constellation, but at the last moment, he felt Shiryu's arm grip his fist.

"Shiryu, what are you doing?" Seiya despaired.
"Seiya, there's definitely a weird cosmos in this temple. A cosmos that I can feel ever since we get in for the first time. But that cosmos seems to be very far away from here."
"You're crazy, Shiryu, he's in front of us!" yelled Seiya, as the Gold Saint was really motionless in front of them.
"There is no one in front of us." stubbornly Shiryu added. "In fact, we're facing the exit of the temple. I can feel the light breeze from the outside."

Seiya looked around looking for that exit that her friend was sure to feel, but found dark walls and columns on all sides.

"There's nothing here, Shiryu." whimpered Seiya. "We need to fight!"

But Shiryu kept holding Seiya's arm firmly, preventing him from letting go.

"Hang in there, Seiya. We're getting out of here." Shiryu said, and Pegasus guessed that her friend was delirious.

She stepped forward towards the Gemini Saint, but Seiya backed away in fear. Shiryu pulled him even harder.

"What are you doing, Shiryu? The Gemini Saint is right in front of us! There's a wall behind him! You are crazy!"
"Trust me!" Shiryu asked, bringing Seiya's foot forward as if forcing him to walk in that direction. "Don't attack him, just ignore him!"

Seiya tried to release his arm from Shiryu, but remembered that it was the Dragon's Fist; she was very strong. And then he found himself running, as Shiryu broke into a run, pulling him firmly by the hands. Seiya called her a thousand names, crazy, delusional, bug dumb hair and other terms indecipherable in his despair.

"Shiryu! We are going to die!"

A flash of white covered his brown eyes, blinding them; he guessed it could only be the ghostly figure's special technique, or maybe it was even death that had finally come to him. But when his eyes got used to the light, Seiya saw that he was outside the House of Gemini.

"Are we on the way out?" Seiya heard Shiryu's voice.

And he looked ahead and saw that the wide stairs went up to the next temple; he looked back and saw that the facade was totally different from the one he remembered with the huge murals beside it.

"Yes." he agreed, very confused. "But what happened?"
"Seiya, your eyes have fooled you. That was also just an illusion."
"Damn it." Seiya shocked looking at his friend. "Like the illusions from Geist. There was never a Gemini Saint in this temple."
"Actually, there was neither a maze nor a Saint in the House of Gemini. We were deceived altogether."
"What about that strange cosmos we felt?"
"I'm pretty sure that was the Cosmoe of the one behind all of this." Shiryu said. "Whoever it is, it must be a fabulous Saint."
"A fabulous Saint on the other side. Fighting against Athena and us, for he did everything to get us trapped inside." Seiya mused, still not believing it. "Hyoga and Shun must also be facing problems with it. If they trust only what they can see, they might get trapped in there forever."

Shiryu had to hold Seiya by the arm again, as she guessed he was about to enter the temple again.

"No, Seiya." she asked. "As Hyoga said, we should move on. Saori needs us. I know they will find their way out for themselves. Shun can trust his Chains."
"Right." Seiya softened.

And then they took a few steps forward, when Seiya looked worried again.

"Damn it, Shiryu."
"What is it, Seiya?" upon noticing his friend a little farther away.
"We stayed much longer than I thought in there."
"What you mean?"
"Gemini's flame is gone on the clock. We only have nine hours to get to the Camerlengo!"
"Then we shouldn't waste another second here, Seiya." she said. "Let's go!"

Seiya agreed and together they climbed the stairs to the next temple.

The Gemini flame went out.

Shun found himself covered in ice crystals, which he rubbed from his body cleaning his Cloth. He got up to find Hyoga nearby, unconscious and with a trickle of blood running down his face. Shun wiped the blood and tried to wake up his friend. He noticed, however, that Hyoga's body was cold, as he had been knocked out by the full force of his most powerful technique. He felt that he had been very lucky to be a few steps behind Hyoga, as the Cygnus Saint withstood most of that blast in his own body.

That's when Shun heard a low, spaced laugh in the House of Gemini. He looked back and found the Gold Saint standing behind him. Shun knew that both he and Hyoga had been thrown far away from where they were, but when he looked at that ghostly figure, it was as if they were again in the same place. That same lifeless posture, the same wall behind him. Two columns, one on each side.

Now there was laughter too. Someone was smiling under that terrible mask.

Was it possible that it wasn't, after all, an illusion?

"You must know by now that your attacks are useless against me."

Finally the ghost spoke and his voice seemed to repeat itself echoing off the walls, as if at least two people were speaking at the same time.

Shun got up to face that ghost; he gripped the metal of his Chains in his hands and remembered how Hyoga had been attacked by his technique. His voice spoke forcefully.

"The Nebula Chain will find you wherever you are. She would never turn on me."

His Cosmo appeared around him and he threw with his right hand his Triangular Chain towards the Gemini Saint. The Chain traveled, mighty and tense, in the right direction of that ambivalent helmet. Then it stopped in midair, as if there were a wall in front of that helmet, held back by an invisible and impossible force.

Shun was shocked to see his Triangular Chain stopped in the air.

And in the next instant, the chain simply dropped to the ground, useless, moving subtly, but unable to make up its mind.

"What is happening?" Shun wondered. "The Nebula Chain doesn't know where the enemy is."

His eyes were on the chain, moving very subtly on the ground, as if in agony — if that was even possible. Shun looked at that ghostly figure wondering if that Gemini Saint really existed.

As if to clear his doubts, the Gemini Saint manifested his menacing cosmos, a golden glow in the darkness.

Shun picked up his Chain from the ground and threw the one he had on his other arm, creating a circular trap around him, protecting himself, but also Hyoga's body. He knew that the nebula created by the Andromeda Chain would keep him safe and that enemy at bay. Anyone who entered there would be electrocuted by more than ten thousand volts; under that Gold Cloth, if there was really a man under it, he wouldn't bear that strength.

"Feel free to step in if you want to die, Gemini Saint!" Shun threatened, trying to understand what that image in front of him was made of.

A calm, Machiavellian laugh answered him.

"Got cold feet, Gold Saint? Won't you have the courage to step inside the Nebula?"

The Gold Cloth, motionless until then, for the first time moved to take a step on the nebula. Shun was tense. The Gemini Saint took a second and a third step and came even closer. But then he walked freely into that nebula formed by the circular chain.

Shun sought his cosmos in a vain attempt to get his Chain to react, but the only shock there was on his face; he didn't know what could be happening, for that menacing figure was walking calmly over the nebula and the Chain simply didn't show any reaction.

Along with him also came his low, terrible laugh.

"You really don't exist." Shun wondered, talking to that Gemini Saint or perhaps talking to himself. His body wasn't really there, he figured.

The labyrinth, the disconcerting cosmos, the Gold Saint. They were all illusions of the House of Gemini, none of what he saw really existed where it was. However, who could be responsible for all this and where would that person be?

"Where are you?" Shun stammered, wondering where in that place could be that enemy so invested in keeping them there.

That low laugh that gave him the shivers.

"You'll never know. Like insects are not aware of the existence of gods." said his deep, echoing voice. "And now you will know the true power of a Gold Saint."

His arms moved forward, as if it were a ghost searching for his soul. His voice echoed distorted in many voices throughout the House of Gemini.

"Another Dimension!"

Shun saw a cosmic blast shoot from both eyes of those two faces inscribed on his helmet.

The ground beneath Shun gave way to a cosmic infinity in which thousands and thousands of distant stars spread out around him on a dark fabric; planets and satellites, comets and asteroids spread out in all directions with their colors, distorting matter and its structures. Andromeda Shun felt his cosmos being blown away from that Gemini Saint, who he could still see standing in the House of Gemini, even though the rest of that temple was filled with that infinite universe.

He saw behind him the body of Cygnus Hyoga, unconscious, floating aimlessly towards infinity.

ABOUT THE CHAPTER: I hardly changed anything about the battle. Perfection doesn't change. =)

NEXT CHAPTER: OTHER DIMENSIONS

Shun needs to touch the Seventh Sense if he wants to have any chance of escaping the Other Dimension, while Shiryu also finds herself sent to another plane of existence.