47 — CAST YOUR FEELINGS ASIDE

Cygnus Hyoga was hit by the Gemini Saint's dimensional distortion and wandered the universe aimlessly. For how long? Until where? The infinite feeling of space in his body was like he was a part of all places at one, unrestrained. But then he found himself lying on a cold floor again.

His eyes, opening, noticed the darkness of a temple. Columns in the distance, a few torches lit.

He lifted his torso, looking for Shun, but the feeling inside him was that he had wandered for many years; that battle already distant in his memory, as if he had wandered for a lifetime. He stunned as he tried to get up and fell back to his knees.

He looked again around and through the columns; he realized he could be in one of the temples of the Twelve Houses of the Zodiac. But when? He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He soothed his chest and no doubt felt far in his mind the cosmic clash between forces fighting far away. There was a familiarity in some of these Cosmos.

When he opened his eyes again, however, he saw near a column the figure of a Gold Saint who was watching him intently. A beloved face.

"Master Camus" asked Hyoga to the Gold Saint that approached him. "Is it really you?"

The Gold Saint's eyes were hidden in the shadows of that House, but Hyoga recognized him as he would recognize him anywhere. It was his Master Camus. The same one who had trained him for so many years in Siberia alongside his Crystal Master.

"Master, I can't believe this is you, are you a Gold Saint too?" asked Hyoga, confused.

But Camus didn't answer him.

Hyoga knew that his Master was from the Order of the Sanctuary, but he never imagined that he was a Gold Saint; on the cold Siberian nights, he wondered if he was a scholar or even a librarian, as he was an extremely wise man of ancient secrets and often returned from the Sanctuary to Siberia with many books.

"What are you doing here, Hyoga?" he finally asked with his deep and calm voice, which Hyoga knew so well.
"Where am I, Master, tell me?" begged the boy, as he really was still very confused, as he just escaped the dimensions of Gemini.
"You're invading the Sanctuary" Camus spoke with gravity.

So they were still fighting, thought Hyoga. He was still in the Twelve Temples, Shun might still be fighting the Gemini Saint and Athena still needed his help. He got up, desperate and without any fear in his chest. After all, before him was his Siberian Master; Hyoga remembered how he was wise and strong and now that he had revealed to him to be a Gold Saint, maybe his mission was not so impossible.

"Master, the Goddess Athena is in the House of Aries, wounded by a Golden Arrow. And only the Camerlengo can take it off. We need to get to the Temple on top of the mountain. Please help us, Master Camus!"

Hyoga vomited everything he remembered as quickly as possible, as he recognized that the scenario was urgent, but found on the other side an absolutely untouched response. It didn't surprise him at all, as he knew that his Master was extremely calm and collected, at times extremely cold and calculating. His eyes were glued to Hyoga's.

"And what do you intend to do, Hyoga?" he finally asked.

Hyoga knew very well that tone that always forced him to decide for himself.

"We'll go through the Twelve Temples and reach the Camerlengo."
"In order to do that, you'll have to defeat the Gold Saints."
"Then we shall defeat them."

Camus was silent when he heard his pupil say that with great force. His eyes narrowed, as if looking for the secrets that Hyoga was hiding.

"Tell me, Master. Where are we?"
"This is the House of Libra." he replied calmly.

Libra. If Hyoga remembered correctly, he was far ahead of the Twelve Temples than his friends; perhaps the Gemini Saint's dimensional disruption had helped him go further. More than that, Hyoga finally recognized his Master's constellation.

"So you are the Libra Saint."
"Wrong." Camus cut immediately. "This is the seventh house, the House of Libra, which belongs to the Old Master of the Five Old Peaks."
"Shiryu's master?" Hyoga was surprised. "So… what are you doing here, Master?"
"Since the Old Master of the Five Old Peaks will never leave the waterfalls of Rozan, this House is always empty."

Hyoga watched his Master with the same admiration he had for all the years he trained in Siberia. But inside he wanted to understand why he was there after all.

"I brought you here to ask you something, Hyoga."
"Anything, Master Camus." he said immediately.
"Get away from here. And don't come back."

The request fell like a mountain of ice in Hyoga's stomach.

"What are you saying, Master? Athena needs our help."
"You must not continue. It's an order."
"I'm very sorry." Hyoga stammered. "I can't obey your Order, even though you are my Master. I am sorry!"

Hyoga's voice was shaky as it was unthinkable to disobey his Master.

But, after all, it wasn't the first time he had done it. And it ate him up inside.

"Sorry, Master Camus." he began again. "But Athena, the Goddess Athena, is suffering in the House of Aries. My friends are all fighting, Aries Mu is by our side. You have to help us, Camus!"

Camus looked at him without sketching any reaction to all that.

Then he closed his eyes, resigned.

"Then I'll have to stop you from going on."

Hyoga opened his mouth to say something else to try to convince his Master, but found himself thrown by the House of Libra by a magnificent cosmos, which he knew so well.

"Master Camus…" asked Hyoga, with his heart terribly broken when he got up. "I can't believe that even you want to keep us from crossing the Twelve Temples."
"Hyoga, you have two alternatives: turn around or fight me." he said, looking away.

The boy was lying in front of him and grabbed his feet, asking him to listen, but Camus kicked him hard in the face and again threw him with his freezing cosmos farther against another column of the House of Libra.

"So, Hyoga, have you decided to go home already?"
"No. I'm not coming back." the boy stammered, getting to his feet.
"Then you must fight, as you won't get past here unless you defeat me in battle."

Hyoga got up with difficulties and with a huge weight on his chest; that man before him had taken care of him since he was very young. Always very strict, but also very fair.

"But I can't." Hyoga stammered. "You are my Master. How can I fight my Master? Tell me!"

The Cygnus Saint clenched his fists violently and twisted his eyes to forget forever that he had killed his Crystal Master. But that feeling would never leave him.

"Lady Crystal." he began, furious with himself, his voice trembling from having to remember all that dread. "I think you heard of Lady Crystal's death, your disciple and my Master as well. You must have known that the person who killed her was me!"

Hyoga got up and, inside himself, he didn't know if he asked for help or if he asked for forgiveness from his Master Camus.

"She dug the depths of Siberia and found the Weapon hidden in the mines, Master Camus. She went crazy like she was possessed by something terrible in her mind and unfortunately we had to fight."
"And she died." Camus interrupted, drawing Hyoga's desperate eyes to him.
"No!" he protested. "I killed her."
"She died, regardless." said Camus. "And that's all that needs to be said."

Hyoga was more confused than usual; he was used to that distant tone of his Master Camus, but even so it all seemed absurd to him.

"You don't mind knowing your disciple died and that I was responsible for it?" asked Hyoga.
"All I'm interested in knowing right now is whether you're going to leave this House or whether you're going to fight me."
"Master Camus!" scolded Hyoga.
"Crystal died because she was anything but a real Saint."
"What did you say?!" Hyoga revolted.

Camus was silent in the face of that fury.

"You can insult me, but not Lady Crystal. That I will never admit. How can you talk like that? Crystal loved you like a father!"

The Gold Saint turned to Hyoga.

"Looks like you've finally made up your mind." Camus concluded.

And then he walked towards the Cygnus Saint, who searched those impassive eyes for any sign that he was not possessed himself. But that wasn't the case, as he remembered the utterly terrible trainings he got int through not feeling any pity for his condition or his sworn brother.

Camus closed his eyes and turned on his golden cosmos; he conjured with his right hand a huge ice crystal floating gracefully in his palm. The Gold Saint squeezed the crystal and then, as if painting in the air, created a shapeless, smooth canvas of ice.

The ice screen manifested different hues and tones according to Camus' Cosmo; they were images, Hyoga guessed. There were bubbles and an oscillation of bluish colors that the shape of animals swimming made the Cygnus Saint understand that he saw the depths of an ocean. No, his chest froze, it was the depth of a very specific point in the ocean.

"I remember very well that your mother rests on the ship that sank in the Siberian Sea."
"Master…" he stammered.

Hyoga closed his eyes and, when he closed them, he could always remember his mother's face resting peacefully at the bottom of that pit. His strength was such as a Bronze Saint that he could visit her swimming in the depths and see, yet again, the hair of his beloved mother.

When he opened his eyes again, he saw that in Camus's misshapen crystal the image of his mother's ship formed very sharply. That little old icebreaker, Hyoga recognized from his dreams and nightmares. His master then moved his left hand slowly and Hyoga saw clearly how the ship in the image moved slowly in the pit, dragging the broken hull on the seabed towards an abyss, as if Camus controlled that image.

"Have you bid farewell to your mother, Hyoga?" Camus asked.
"No!" he asked, afraid. "No, what are you doing, Master? Why are you doing this?" he pleaded.

Hyoga knew that if the boat sank at that depth into the abyss, no one would ever be able to reach it. He would never see his mother's face again.

Camus then caused the crystal to explode into a thousand pieces, hitting Hyoga and taking him again to a nearby column. He immediately got up in despair.

"That wasn't a dream or an illusion." said the voice of Camus. "I showed you the sad reality."

Hyoga was speechless.

"Are you crazy?" Hyoga despaired. "You have nothing against my mother, so why did you do it? Why are you doing all this? Tell me why? You not only insulted Lady Crystal, but now attacked my mother's ship?"

Hyoga then stepped firmly forward, his cosmos for the first time appearing in the House of Libra.

"Even if she's dead, I could still meet her at that spot on the ocean."

He clenched his fists in fury.

"Even though she's dead, she's been my only strength and comfort in life." he said through gritted teeth.

Cygnu's icy cosmos around him.

"That was all I had left. All that was left!"

His brother, his master, the ponytailed girl's eyes. At least his mother's hair was always there for him to visit. And now it wasn't anymore.

Camus had his eyes closed.

"Now tell me!" shouted Hyoga. "Why did you do that? Why? Why did you have to do that?"
"Never, in my life, I have blamed people who can't forget the past and who sometimes burst into tears over it. Ordinary people are like that, but you are not ordinary. You are a Saint. You should thank me for taking a weakness out of your mind."
"How can you say that?!" said Hyoga.
"If you're angry with me about it, you have no choice but to fight me."
"Enough! No one, not even my Masters, has the right to take my mother away from me!"

Hyoga's fist finally saw the light of the House of Libra and his angry voice conjured its icy blizzard.

"Diamond Dust!"

There was fury in that cosmos and an enormous force in the Hyoga blizzard; but Camus, the Gold Saint, simply stopped that boy's fury with the palm of one hand.

"I am your Master, Hyoga. You cannot defeat me with a technique as basic as the Diamond Dust."

His Cosmo died at the hands of his master.

"Your cosmos is no match for me. You have already been defeated by the Gemini Saint and it is clear that you will never be able to defeat the Gold Saints ahead. You can be beaten with just one move."
"Shut up!" he protested, beside himself. "Our fight is not over yet. Aurora Thunder Attack!"

At that point, Hyoga was attacking out of sheer desperation, but in his heart he would like at least to hit his master, so that he could see that he was worthy.

"It's useless to keep trying." Camus spoke calmly.

His golden Cosmo reversed the blizzard to hit Hyoga.

He was thrown and marked the column with his body before returning to the ground.

"You are full of feelings for those who have gone and full of hatred for me." Camus said. "You may think that these feelings make you strong, but you are a long way from getting close to the Essence of the Cosmos, the ultimate cosmos."
"The Essence of the Cosmos?" asked Hyoga.

The Cygnus Saint remembered what Mu had said in the House of Aries, the size of Seiya's Cosmo in the House of Taurus, and Aldebaran's message to them: they should awaken the Seventh Sense on their own. Finding within each one the path to the Essence of the Cosmos. It wasn't a matter of fighting as hard as they could: without finding the Seventh Sense, it would be useless to fight a Gold Saint.

Hyoga looked at his Master Camus in front of him; his face, austere and immovable.

"Master Camus, you did this to help me achieve the Seventh Sense. That's what you wanted to teach me, wasn't it? Was that it? Tell me!" Hyoga tried, standing up, looking at his Master.
"If you want to face the Gold Saints on an equal footing, Hyoga, you must abandon those feelings that prevent you from reaching the Essence of the Cosmos."

The boy got up and asked sadly.

"Are you telling me to forget my feelings in that abyss?"

And, in that small second, looking at his Master who he also loved so much, Hyoga remembered his mother's face on the parapet of a sinking ship, asking him to stand firm as he walked away in the only small boat with other children and young girls for salvation. He remembered the dreadful waiting beside the frozen river for his sworn brother, who never reappeared. Lady Crystal's frozen tears in his arms. And, closer to his chest, the empty eyes of the girl he liked.

"No." Hyoga shook, his head unable to tell. "No, I can't."

He stuttered in deep sadness.

"I can't forget the only thing left for me in the world. I can't let go of my memories. I can't. I can't, Master Camus!" And he fell to his knees, crying and babbling that he really couldn't.

There was an icy silence in the House of Libra while Hyoga wept kneeling his sad fate of having lost so many people he loved in such a short time.

Camus looked him up and down; his disciple kneeling, trembling with tears. Missing the ones he loved. Still so young. Deep in his chest, Camus was afraid that Hyoga would confess that to him.

The Gold Saint spread his legs and linked his two hands with fingers crossed in front of him; he then raised both arms above his head and his Cosmo manifested such a terrible cold that Hyoga looked up to understand how that was possible. He saw his Master Camus with his arms raised and joined, the mouth of a golden jar drawn on his back. And a golden glow spilling from inside the jar.

"Aurora Execution!"

Camus' voice sounded through the House of Libra and immediately the entire temple was invaded by an absolute cold, dropping the ambient temperature radically and quickly. A blast of ice swept Cygnus Hyoga, blowing a frost over his body so violent that he felt as if time had slowed down. Much slower. He didn't feel any pain. Just his senses fading away one by one.

He had lost. He would be so soon beside his mother, his brother and the Lady Crystal. And wherever he was, he would watch over the happiness of the girl he missed so much. He thought of Athena and deeply regretted not having what it took to find the Essence of the Cosmos.

His Cosmo broke like a rope in the universe and Seiya, Shun and Shiryu, who had promised to always be together by his side, felt, wherever they were, that Hyoga's heart had stopped.

An icy mist covered the floor of the House of Libra and Camus, the Gold Saint, had at his feet the inert body of his disciple, Cygnus Hyoga.

"The freezing air of my Aurora Execution seems to have led you to eternal sleep." Camus spoke in that house alone, because Hyoga, in the condition he was in, could no longer hear him.

And maybe that was exactly why Camus spoke.

"Hyoga, sleep in peace. I couldn't change your heart. My plan didn't work."

The Cygnus Saint's inert body moved him.

"He was unable to punish those who had broken the Oath, nor was he able to do what was necessary to end the Discord. Here, unfortunately, you would have been defeated anyway, even if you had continued. Maybe this was for the better as you didn't die in pain."

His eyes squinted for the first time, as if inside Camus his feelings struggled to surface.

"I'm going to bury you here in an ice coffin. It's the only thing I can do for you."

He raised his right arm and his cosmos ascended into the House of Libra; a crystalline ice manifested from his raised arm and began to cover Hyoga's body in slowly freezing rays.

"Forgive me, Lady Crystal, for taking the life of our beloved boy. I didn't want to do this, but fate is terrible. He was as sensitive as his mother was. And as human as you were, Lady Crystal. I hope that one day you can forgive me."

And from his eyes, tears came, without anyone there being able to see him cry. He squinted his eyes, as if to try to contain his sadness, and then he brought his raised arm down hard. The ice coffin that now buried Hyoga rose so that it was standing in front of him.

"Hyoga, your body will remain like this forever." Camus spoke to his disciple frozen in front of him. "Even if your soul goes to Heaven, your body will stay in the House of Libra forever. This ice casket will never melt, not even the Gold Saints will be able to destroy it.

He walked to the exit of the House of Libra, but first placed his hand on the coffin.

"Goodbye, Hyoga."

ABOUT THE CHAPTER: I didn't change anything, because this episode is perfect.

NEXT CHAPTER: DOWN ONCE MORE

Shiryu receives unexpected help on Yomotsu Hill and returns to the House of Cancer to fight Death Mask. But she has a new card to beat the Dragon Saint.