49 — THE WRATH OF THE DRAGON
Palaestra was a small mount that rose on a rocky island at the mouth of a lost and isolated river in the middle of Europe. A beautiful temple was erected for Athena on top of the hill, but the Palaestra complex also had a school for various subjects, as well as outdoor areas for the physical training of aspiring warriors of Athena.
The small rocky island was connected to the bank of the wide river by a beautifully detailed white stone bridge.
It was a stronghold for Athena.
A few commons already lived there at least for a week, ever since its construction had been completed under an immense secrecy. These were folks tasked with taking care of cleaning and maintaining whatever necessary for the stronghold to fully function.
And every day new people were arriving at Palaestra, all of them thoroughly hand picked to serve the purposes of Athena, both by Saori and Mayura. Xiaoling was the one who welcomed them all at the entrance with the biggest smile she could have; but also a small pamphlet which was a guide to Palaestra, its localities, but also its strict rules.
Jab was also part of the receptionists that helped Xiaoling with the newcomers; he was responsible to settle them into their dorms, while Ichi guided everyone through the outdoor areas. Jack was the tour guide to the themed rooms in the school environments and the wonderful planetarium.
One fateful day, Xiaoling had the surprise and the pleasure of seeing a girl and an older boy arriving at Palaestra: they were the Black Pegasus and the Black Swan, who had been defeated by Saori and Seiya in Death Valley some time ago during the Black Saints battle. They were, after all, orphans from the Graad Foundation who had failed in their Bronze Cloth quests and joined Ikki in her revenge. The Phoenix Saint, however, met them recently and convinced them to join forces in Palaestra, as they told Xiaoling.
It was a shame that they were to arrive at such terrible day in Palaestra.
For those two Black Saints were not the last guests to show up at the end of that white bridge.
Xiaoling saw a golden silhouette on the other side of the river.
Her stomach dropped immediately and, beside her, both Black Saints stood on their guard seeing the enemy far from there.
"Come in!" she asked, desperate, closing the huge portico.
They got in the stronghold into a large courtyard, Xiaoling looked up and saw Jack standing on top of a lighthouse. The huge Bear Saint blew a horn that was the siren to warn the inhabitants of Palaestra of the danger around them. To get ready for war, if needed.
In addition to the common folks, Palaestra already had a small contingent of warriors who came from many parts of the world to join that cause. All of them were on standby; there were those former Black Saints, that recently got there, but also refugees from the Isle of Andromeda, the Bronze Saints who had fought in the Galaxian Wars and some other Bronze Saints that the Owl of Athena had managed to contact around the World and who hadn't been seduced by the Sanctuary.
It didn't mattered.
The Golden Cosmos invaded Palaestra little by little like a mist taking all of its territory, penetrating walls and rocks covering everything in its path. The sky above the mount became dark as night and Xiaoling saw, with amazement, that it was like watching a dark scenery where dozens of flame wisps were being sucked from all parts of that stronghold into an open crack in the sky.
A crevice that showed everyone in Palaestra the dark hills at the edge of the world of the living and the dead. Next to Xiaoling, a young woman who was tending the flowers in the garden fell to the ground; from her breast, the white flame, which was her spirit, left her body to that threshold in heaven.
"Black Meteors!"
"Dark Blizzard!"
Xiaoling listened as the Black Saints, without any protection and their untrained cosmos, running through the portico towards Death Mask, as she was marching across the bridge towards Palaestra. They had no idea what a Gold Saint was, and all Xiaoling saw behind the wall of Palaestra after their scream of death, was their two spirits ascending towards the sky.
She heard a voice shout her name and, looking back, she saw Jab and Ichi appearing with their Bronze Cloths and the Ursa Minor Urn to prepare her for battle. And so she did, even though she knew that they would die fighting that terrible foe, for she could not have seen any other result. At least she would die alongside brave warriors, she thought.
The Gold Saint was a wonderful and terrible woman who stepped with her golden heel into the central courtyard of Palaestra and saw around her three Bronze Saints ready to fight. Xiaoling saw with terror that her dark eyes were straight on her as if piercing her soul.
"Strati di Spirito!"
Xiaoling realized that she was the target there and perhaps anyone else, so she made a decision at the very last moment: she hit Jab and Ichi violently with her legs so that the two were thrown into the river while she was sucked into Death Mask's body.
Upon opening her eyes, after being sucked into the Gold Saint's chest, Xiaoling found herself, however, back in Rozan; the beautiful mountains, the green lawn, the gnarled trees and the beautiful waterfalls.
"Xiaoling." called a familiar voice.
It was Shiryu calling her from across a wooden suspension bridge.
She ran to her friend and hugged her longingly.
She saw that she was fine. She could see again.
"Your eyes, Shiryu."
But Shiryu's eyes were not only strange because she could see, but also because they were strangely crimson in color and her irises were thinner than normal. There was something strange in her friend's eyes.
"Do you want to be stronger, Xiaoling?"
"What do you mean, Shiryu?"
"Strong enough to defeat the hateful Saints of the Sanctuary?"
Shiryu then hugged her again.
"I can awaken the power within you."
"Shiryu, what do you mean?"
Xiaoling looked at her hands on her friend's back and noticed that her Bronze Cloth was slowly turning into a dark shade. She felt a horrible taste inside of her and her chest filled with anguish.
"Come, Xiaoling, come be one of us." Shiryu's voice wheezed.
The peak of Rozan's mountain gleamed in gold and exploded into a thousand pieces, revealing before her the figure of that Gold Saint standing on a gray boulder on a burial hill, where many small white fires spread.
"Disguising as a beloved one to persuade your prey." said her deep, seductive voice. "You ghosts are even worse than I am."
From her golden finger, Xiaoling saw a white flame rise.
"Now I've got you by the tail, you maggots. Cancer Death Mask will end your rotten existences."
"What is happening?" Xiaoling asked.
Death Mask stared at a cluster of spirits above their heads.
"The Remnants of Eris."
"Eris? Eris was sealed." Xiaoling said to the Gold Saint, but she smiled at her.
"This is the threshold between the living and the dead. When we vanquished the Goddess Eris, her servants lost the strength to maintain a physical body and fled here." she said calmly, not taking her eyes off the cloud of spirits. "It's the perfect place to join forces again while waiting for another chance to get back to life."
She then looked at Xiaoling with her beautiful black eyes.
"And as I guessed, they found roots among the traitors to the Sanctuary who gathered here in this place. These maggots of Discord would seize all of you like parasites."
The cloud of wisps above their heads moved faster and a cacophonous voice reverberated off those hills.
"We'll be damned. We didn't expect that a mere mortal human would be able to see through our plan."
Death Mask laughed.
"A normal Saint would never suspect. But this is my garden, much to you unfortune."
The voices laughed slowly.
"A Gold Saint you say? You reek of the killing and blood our mother loves so much. You smell much more like us than a Saint."
Xiaoling saw a wide smile on Death Mask's face.
"I'll spare your voices from the vile invitation you're willing to make. I would never bow to serve a Goddess like yours, one who litters my yard like this. So prepare to go back to the oblivion you belong to! Strati di Spirito!"
Death Mask raised her arm with her finger pointed to the sky and obliterated the spirits around her, for her terrible technique was even more powerful when used in that place. Xiaoling saw how the cloud of spirits cleared and disappeared completely into the dark sky of those hills.
"It's done." she said, finally rolling onto her back.
"Wait." Xiaoling asked. "Was that your real goal?"
"My real goal is to fight for peace in this earth." she replied simply.
"And for that you had to kill everyone in Palaestra? Was it really necessary to sacrifice their lives to attract the Remnants of Eris?"
"Don't be fooled, little girl." said Death Mask. "It wasn't a hard choice for me. Those who died were traitors to the Sanctuary, they should have been punished anyway. At least they died serving a purpose for the Camerlengo and Athena."
"You know nothing about Athena!" Death Mask looked to Xiaoling's bright red eyes.
"I see now. The only reason as to why you're here in flesh and blood, beside your soul is the fact that you were the one carrying the seed of Discord."
"Then you didn't have to kill everyone in there!" Xiaoling snapped.
And the Ursa Minor finally felt guilty for her friends, but Death Mask took little notice of her feelings and let out a laugh.
"You're too young, girl." she said. "I'll give you a hint to ease your pain. See that line over there? Take your place in it and throw yourself into the hole."
Death Mask then pulled her white cloak to cover her Gold Cloth and Xiaoling saw that she had simply disappeared from that terrible hill, leaving her alone in there.
Xiaoling saw an ephemeral white flame of Discord that continued to exist right at the place where the Gold Saint was. Inside her chest, there was an immense hatred.
Shiryu saw the two in front of her arguing.
"Ragazza Infernale." Death Mask was disappointed when she saw Xiaoling there. "What are you still doing here? Didn't I say that you should get in that line and fall into the damn hole?"
"You listen here, Signora Morte, you didn't do your job well and I've been here for days fighting the Remnants of of Eris that you left wandering around here."
Death Mask looked at her surprised, then seemed to have guessed what had happened.
"That hate-filled chest of yours kept attracting Eris' forces, damn you girl. I should have done my job well."
"And it's not just a little cloud like the one you beat, the Remnants of Eris now have a body and a form!"
"Well, at least you did something useful."
"I'm not a ghost buster!" Xiaoling shouted. "And I'm not here to do your dirty work."
"In that case, the easiest way to solve this is to throw you into the hole where you should have jumped a long time ago."
"Oh, but you really won't, because I've been waiting for days for you to return and now I'm going to finish you off, you ugly piece of turd!"
Death Mask laughed at the edge of the abyss and saw how the young Xiaoling tried to hit her with a very hard kick, that the Gold Saint stopped with her right arm protected by a small gold shield that resembled the claws of a golden crab.
Xiaoling was like sparkles around her, jumping from side to side, trying to hit the Gold Saint in any way possible. Shiryu had already seen her friend doing that, she knew her trick. Death Mask didn't move an inch, dodging or using her arms to avoid the girl's useless attacks.
"Death Mask!" Shiryu called when she saw that Xiaoling's trap was set, as if to distract her somehow.
The Gold Saint looked at her, as she was getting up and then Xiaoling's voice, loud and bright, echoed in that hill:
"Shine! The Seven Stars!"
The Cancer Saint found herself surrounded by great white spheres of energy that tore a cosmic blast in her direction, destroying the rocky ground on which Death Mask was standing, covering her in an enormous glow.
A crater was formed from the explosion of Xiaoling's spheres, and from the depth of it, Death Mask appeared, her face creased in anger. She also saw how the smaller girl helped Shiryu off the ground, pulling her to her feet.
"Come on, Shiryu, let's kick her ass!"
Shiryu smiled at being able to fight again alongside her friend. She remembered Master Mu's teachings and closed her eyes, ascending her other senses to reach as close as she could to the Essence of the Cosmos.
When she opened them she saw the mocking smile on Death Mask's face.
"Do you still remember, Xiao?" Shiryu asked her friend.
"Of course I do." smiled the little girl.
Side by side they burned their cosmos, on a choreography, the same arm movements to lift their black hairs into the air; their left arm circled in front of their faces and, when their hands were at its peak, they descended with rage. Their powerful voices roared.
"Rising Dragon!"
The two girls thrust themselves forward with their chests unprotected to be able to unleash the greatest power their special techniques could. Xiaoling had learned that in the few days she had been with Shiryu undergoing the Old Master's terrible training. If Death Mask could stop Shiryu's Rising Dragon with one hand, it wasn't true that she would only need her two hands to stop that onslaught of the girls, as the Rising Dragon exponentially increased its potency when combined in that way.
Death Mask was surprised and lifted from the ground by the force of the two enraged Dragons.
She shattered on the stone and rolled into the mouth of the abyss, where she would have fallen into oblivion had she not been able to hold on to a protruding stone. Her feet flailed at the bottom trying to find any indentations she could use to climb back up the hill. But that dark, colorless abyss was like a black hole, for not only did it eliminate any glow or color within it, it also slowly attracted forcefully whoever was close to its final destination.
That was how it forever attracted the spirits that roamed those hills. And Death Mask found herself in panic being lured into eternal oblivion.
"Please help me!" she asked, a terror in her voice.
Shiryu looked at her face and found a shock incompatible with her usual arrogance. She was surprised to see, however, that beside her Xiaoling was on her knees to give her a hand so that the Cancer Saint could support and save herself from death.
"What are you doing, Xiaoling?"
"We can't let her fall, Shiryu."
"But Xiaoling… this woman prides herself on killing innocent people. Including children. She is not worthy of even wearing this Gold Cloth."
"I know, Shiryu." said Xiaoling. "She was the one who killed everyone in Palaestra. I saw it with my own eyes. And all these days I've felt a huge hatred for her."
"Well then..." Shiryu said.
"But I've understood all these days that I've been here that this hill was shaped by this woman's cosmos. And her cosmos was also shaped by this abandoned, sad, dark and hopeless place. I felt how the hatred I had for her made me an even more hateful person and even more attracted to the Remnants of Eris while I was here."
Xiaoling then looked into the woman's eyes, who looked surprised.
"But I also saw far deeper and more ancient places in these hills. This isn't just everyone's hell. This is her hell."
The little girl had a huge tiredness on her face, as saw Shiryu; she couldn't imagine what she had to endure staying there all by herself for so many days, fighting ghosts of Eris.
"I don't feel sorry for her, Shiryu. And I don't think she's worthy to wear this Gold Cloth either. But that's her." said the little girl, determined. "It's not us. If we can help, anyone at all, we should help."
The Dragon Saint listened to Xiaoling's voice and became convinced that she was right, they were to uphold te values of Saints of Athena even when the times were terrible. She allowed her friend to kneel on the edge of the abyss and reach out to pull the Gold Saint back. Death Mask, with terror on her face and perhaps pleading and fear, took Xiaoling's hand and scrambled up to the safety of the plateau.
When she was safe, however, she kicked little Xiaoling, knocking her off balance and then pushing the girl into the hole. Shiryu yelled her name on the hill and threw herself towards her friend just in time to take her hand, before she was finally swallowed up by the oblivion of that abyss.
Death Mask laughed at the top.
And then she got astonished when she saw from the huge abyss a translucent and greenish fire emerge, as if the mount had erupted. It was the huge Cosmo of Dragon Shiryu.
Death Mask looked around and noticed that the hills seemed to subtly metamorphose into lighter boulders and the white flames that burned in thousands of spots died away, giving way to some gnarled roots that slowly rose from the gray ground.
She looked again at the abyss and saw the figure of Xiaoling, as if spat out of hell on her direction to hit her hard in the face. Death Mask got up and put herself on guard to finish off Xiaoling, but the glow of the volcano behind her grew even more. She looked up and saw floating from the mouth of hell the enraged figure of Dragon Shiryu.
Her black hair fluttered above her, the pale green glow around her like flames.
"Shiryu is close to touching the Seventh Sense." said to herself, while watching that the twisted trunks around seemed to grow taller, as the cosmos of Shiryu reached the Essence and was shaping the matter of those hills. "What do you think you're going to do, Shiryu? Do you think you can pacify this place? No matter what you do, this will always be the threshold where the dead will walk to their eternal rest! It can't change!"
But Death Mask's betrayal had been a trigger for Shiryu. Her Cosmo finally touched a point within her that she has never felt before, perhaps fueled by that weird area that seemed to boost one's feelings. An anger that left her completely beside herself.
"Death Mask!" Shiryu spoke angrily, still floating, because her Cosmo had reversed the force of that abyss. "I've never hated anyone as much as I do now."
The Gold Saint saw the greenish flames from the mouth of the abyss transform into the shape of a mighty Dragon.
"I hate you! I have no intention of sparing you. You ended the lives of innocent children pretending to fight evil and now you despised Xiaoling's effort, who saved you from death trying to understand for a second your loneliness in this place. And yet you betrayed her! The hate I feel for you drives the fire of my cosmos!" her voice echoed angrily all over the cliffs on that hill. "I will send you to the depths of hell, Death Mask!"
The Cancer Saint saw that Shiryu's speed and strength increased in such a way that she was not able to avoid the beating, unable to escape the Dragon's clutches.
"Right now, every drop of my blood is boiling just to finish you off!"
She hit Death Mask left and right, the Gold Saint already pouring blood from her mouth. Shiryu's voice was angry between her teeth.
"Messing with a Dragon's treasures is like asking for merciless destruction! This pain you are feeling is proof of how horrible it is to enrage a mighty Dragon!"
Shiryu finally landed a hook so powerful that Death Mask was hurled so far into the air that she fell on the rocks far away from there. She still got up smiling, her white cloak torn at the back she threw it away.
"How touching the Dragon's fury." she said, on her feet. "Lives come and go, one after another. How weak you are. You shouldn't worry about something so trivial."
And as she said that, she pointed to the back of Shiryu, and she saw more and more bodies throwing themselves into the pit.
"Shut up, Death Mask. I'm tired of your voice already!"
Shiryu again attacked Death Mask with her Rising Dragon, but the Gold Saint placed both arms in front of her and stopped with her Cloth all the power of the Dragon's fist. She was dragged back with the power of the blow, but again let out a derisive smile.
The Dragon's wrath continued unrelenting and Shiryu attacked three more times with her mighty cosmos, which Death Mask reflected to the side with her hands.
"Stop all this futile effort. Haven't you noticed yet?" she asked mockingly. "As long as I'm wearing this Cancer Cloth, you won't be able to defeat me. It doesn't matter how many scams you try."
She then made her golden cosmos ignite in those hills so violently that the trees that slowly grew with Shiryu's cosmos evaporated to ash and the white flames reappeared everywhere they could see.
And, below Shiryu, she saw appearing in the gray earth the decaying specters of bodies that seized her as they had done in the House of Cancer.
"Die, Shiryu. Evocazione di spiriti!"
She saw for the first time how those bodies glued to hers evaporated in a white flame like wildfire to surround her body, constricting her with violence. Like a maestro, Death Mask raised her finger, causing the spirits to ascend violently with Shiryu's body and then fall to the earth near the mouth of the abyss.
Death Mask walked to kill her when she saw Xiaoling landing a kick in her leg without doing any damage.
"Now, ragazza, don't be ridiculous. Your Cosmo is very far from reaching Shiryu's level. You're just going to get hurt."
"I tried to help you!" Xiaoling shouted, disgusted.
"Well, you should have let me go." roared Death Mask. "Now you two will die."
Xiaoling tried again to hit her, but Death Mask used her arm to avoid and the girl felt pain as if she hit a wall. She tried again, and nothing.
"Your cosmos is too weak." said Death Mask. "And I still have a Gold Cloth. Your doom is complete. I hope you learn in the Underworld the price to pay for being so naive."
"You weren't always like this." said Xiaoling. "You didn't always want to be here. You can kill us, but that will never leave you."
"Don't be ridiculous." said the woman.
"There is a price for killing so many innocent people."
"That's the cost of every war." returned Death Mask. "What feels wrong becomes right when we make peace."
"Not at all costs!" Xiaoling accused.
Death Mask looked her in the eye, but her face was umoved. Around the Gold Saint rose decayed bodies that the she would use to finish that child as she had done to Shiryu. But something terrible happened. The decaying bodies clung to Death Mask, and she found herself attacked by the specters, which increasingly rose from that gray land.
"What is this?" she marveled.
"They're the innocents you killed that are looking for some peace."
"Get out of here!"
The Gold Saint roared and her cosmos made the bodies evaporate, throwing them all into the pit of the abyss.
"You are not worthy to wear the Gold Cloth." said Xiaoling.
"I follow the Camerlengo's designs." she said. "Athena's designs!"
"Athena is now suffering in the House of Aries." Shiryu rose in the background. "Nothing you do has to do with Athena, but with you own bloodlust."
"And now your end has come." said Xiaoling.
The girl clenched her fists, bared her teeth, and lunged forward with a straight punch at Death Mask, who again defended herself with her arm. But this time she saw her arm breaking in front of her. As she no longer wore the Golden shield which resembled a crab claw. She was bare-armed and now broken.
"What happened?" she whined when she saw her swollen and bleeding arm.
Beside her was the golden crab's paw lying on the ground.
Xiaoling attacked again with a low kick and Death Mask defended herself with her leg. And the golden protection abandoned her as well, causing Death Mask to kneel upon seeing her seriously injury.
She was in shock.
And it got even worse, for she saw that the Gold Cloth shone golden in those hills and all the parts left her body to form before her the image of a wonderful golden crab alight on the gray earth.
"How is this possible?" Death Mask asked herself in shock and kneeling on the floor.
She was an absolutely gorgeous woman, in skintight black pants and a white coat with her arms hanging out.
"That is the will of the Gold Cloth." Shiryu stated, standing again beside Xiaoling.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Cloths are alive and have their own wills. They choose who to protect."
"Like the Sagittarius Cloth, which chose to protect our friend from the Silver Saints. She helped her to defeat them all and then disappeared. That was her will."
"Sagittarius?" asked Death Mask amazed.
"The Gold Cloth appears whenever humanity is in danger." Shiryu continued speaking. "And justice never ceases to be justice. Remember that, Death Mask?"
Death Mask's face was glaring in its confusion, for inside her chest was an enormous anguish: that her greatest pride had been destroyed. The Cancer Cloth no longer accepted her.
"The Gold Cloth has abandoned you, for you are not worthy to wear it because of your cruel mentality!" Shiryu finally accused.
And the woman finally let herself fall, sitting and defeated, on the floor; her left arm holding the pains in her right arm, but her eyes ravaged.
"It's over for you. Without your Gold Cloth, your body is as fragile as anyone's."
Shiryu put herself on guard, but again Xiaoling grabbed her wrist; in her heart, Shiryu was afraid it would happen again. But when she looked at the girl next to her, she noticed Xiaoling was making a move for her to look down. Shiryu saw rising by her feet a single, longer wisp, which gradually evaporated her legs.
She then looked back at Death Mask and she had a single finger outstretched, through which a white flame glowed.
Xiaoling took Shiryu's hands and she saw her little friend let some tears escape as she smiled.
"Xiaoling?"
"Promise me, Shiryu..."
"No, Xiao. Come together. Come back with me!"
"My mission here is not finished." she said ruefully.
"No, Xiao!"
"Protect Athena for me, my friend."
Shiryu looked into those eyes and saw how peaceful she was, she was ripe, she was amazing. Because she couldn't be otherwise. They hugged and Shiryu said in her ear:
"I promise, Xiao. One day we will see each other again."
Xiaoling smiled and saw her friend's body evaporate in her arms.
All that was left was her and the sadness of Death Mask.
ABOUT THE CHAPTER: Xiaoling is back! I wanted to bring Palaestra from Omega like a fortress Kido would have made for Saori and the Death Mask attack on the Academy of Saintias in Saintia Sho, but I redesigned it to be the Palaestra and put Xiaoling in Erda's place. It works well within the story. =) About Xiaoling using the Rising Dragon, I remembered Paradox who learned the technique too. Hence my inspiration.
NEXT CHAPTER: THE VOICES OF THE MOUNTAIN
As the Bronze Saints race to climb the Twelve Temples, Marin is looking for the secrets of that plot, while Cassius takes care of Shaina.