53 — SIX REALMS OF EXISTENCE
The Demon Emperor. The secret written on the walls of Siberia. Rediscovered by the mind behind the evil placed in the Athena Sanctuary.
"Who could it be?" she asked herself.
Ikki found at the end of the trail a small thermal lake, in which the waters smoked inside a cave; there were flames that burned forever on the stone walls and a vein of lava that fell gracefully on a far wall.
She entered that small lake and submerged with her Cloth up to her neck. The water was hot, but not to the point of boiling and scaling her body. Immediately, she was invaded by a feeling of profound comfort. And maybe she had fallen asleep right away, comfortably numb.
Her mind, however, dreamed for six days and six nights with the Universe. With Shun, her very dear brother. With the Goddess Athena in the body of that girl she had hated so much. To the terrible battle that lay in her future.
Although asleep healing in that volcano, Ikki's Cosmo resounded and searched the Universe for any clues about who could bend the words as they had done to her, to Hyoga's master mind and with who knows how many other people. She looked for any oscillation in the cosmos.
She didn't know when or where, but then on the sixth day of sleep Ikki's Cosmo finally felt, like a glow in the Universe, a huge mental imbalance in space. And she felt Shun's Cosmo in danger. Such fear invaded her that her Cosmo spread through the Universe with force, erasing that glow from the horizon.
And she went back to sleep.
Only to finally wake up when she heard her name reverberate in the Universe in her brother's pained voice, once again in danger.
Finally Ikki's eyes opened.
It was time for the Phoenix to rise again.
Seiya, Shun and Shiryu finally arrive at the House of Virgo, a temple whose facade was guarded by two huge statues of women in long Indian dress, filigree in their hair and delicate hands in different gestures. They hurried in without paying more attention to details and found themselves illuminated by a huge cosmos.
The columns of the House of Virgo led them into a beautiful flower garden of leafy trees, birds of paradise chirping and an impossible sun illuminating a beautiful, sweet-smelling grass.
"What a strange place!" Seiya said when he saw an impossible garden. "I don't feel anyone's presence here, neither good or bad."
"This temple is completely filled with peace and serenity." Shiryu commented, smelling the sweet aroma of the flowers.
"I can't believe there is a place like this here." Shun said beside them, marveling.
"Where is Shaka, who is said to be closest to the gods?"
Seiya asked as he looked suspiciously around, but as much as they searched that beautiful field there was no sign that anyone was there. But then an aura appeared on the horizon. It was a Golden Cosmos.
"What a powerful Cosmo." Seiya said.
"But very peaceful too." pointed Shun.
"It's like an ocean of Spring free of any bad intentions. A cosmos made of pure goodness." Shiryu said.
"Is it Shaka's Cosmo?" Shun wondered.
"Let's find out."
Seiya called his friends and they ran towards that huge cosmos that manifested itself on the horizon. As they ran, the flowery field gradually gave way again to the hard stone floor of the House of Virgo, and the columns reappeared around them. Fire torches scattered throughout the columns lighting the way.
Their footsteps echoed inside the House and soon they saw a bright figure in the distance.
This was the glowing figure they saw as they approached: a woman sitting cross-legged floating on top of a pretty pale blue lotus flower. Her whole body was covered in a beautiful Gold Cloth, a white sari cape all decorated with gold at the ends crossed her chest, her very dark hair fell from inside her golden helmet. Eyes closed and hands calmly on top of each other in the lotus posture.
Behind her, a mural on which the wheel of Dharma seemed to be inscribed.
Seiya, Shun and Shiryu were amazed at that sight, because even in that state of peace, it seemed to them that the Gold Saint really had an impressive aura; the woman closest to the gods, how powerful could she be.
They placed themselves around the lotus and the woman did not show any reaction.
"Is she ignoring us?" Seiya asked. "Does she think she's so important that she doesn't even have to worry about us?"
"Seiya, calm down." asked Shun.
"We don't have time to waste, Shun. I see no way out of this House of Virgo, only this huge wall behind her. I'll give her something to worry about."
Seiya burned his Cosmos hard, but before he had time to arm his Meteors, they all saw how, around Shaka, a golden fire appeared to throw him away. They all went to his body, worried about Seiya, but the Gold Saint's voice finally came out.
"You don't have good manners."
They looked back saw the exact moment when Shaka slowly floated to an even higher height above that flower, until she broke her beautiful posture and stood on the lotus. Her cloak, once crossed over her chest, fell elegantly down her back. Her voice carried enormous contempt.
"You get in the Sixth Temple, the House of Virgo, and immediately set out to attack me. You remind me of the Hungry Spirits that leap over the dead flesh."
Seiya got up little by little.
"She really is very strong." he said, suffering. "Exactly as Aioria said. We have to take care of her before she opens her eyes."
"What if she understand our mission?" Shun wondered.
"I think Aioria wouldn't warn us about her if he didn't know which side she's on."
The Dragon Saint then asked Shun to take care of Seiya briefly and placed herself in front of them.
"I will fight you, Shaka!" she announced, loud and clear.
The Dragon Cosmos around Shiryu was huge and amazed Shun; their friend apparently had really reached incredible levels in her fight against Death Mask. Her hair fluttered around her and they both witnessed as Shiryu advanced with renewed strength and might towards the golden woman.
"Rising Dragon!"
Virgo Shaka calmly placed her right hand beside hers and Shiryu noticed how her fist felt drawn to that delicate hand. The fury of her Rising Dragon manifested itself as a powerful hook that stopped a few inches from Shaka's hand, as if interrupted by an invisible energy. Shiryu tried to push her fist with all her strength so that the armed hook hit the Virgo Saint, but she couldn't for anything. It was like pushing against an invisible wall. Up close, Shiryu saw that Shaka didn't even seem to make an effort.
"Damn, I can't even touch her!"
"What is wrong, Shiryu?" asked Shaka's calm voice. "Is this the pathetic attack that is capable of reversing the flow of Rozan Falls?"
Shiryu tried to use all her strength, but her fist wouldn't move an inch.
"You will find that the cosmos will begin to pierce through your weak Bronze Cloth and tear the skin from your wrist." Shiryu noticed how that small sphere of energy that prevented her from getting close to Shaka's palm began to slowly expand, hurting her wrist, as she had told him. "And the next thing will be your bones. Your bones will be crushed and soon your fist will be completely gone."
By this time, Shiryu could no longer force her fist forward to try to touch Shaka as she also couldn't pull it back, so she was terribly handcuffed to that quiet hand of the Virgo Saint. Shaka then released the energy at once, throwing Shiryu away.
The body passed Shun and now there were Seiya and Shiryu injured on the ground. He was the only one left.
He ascended his Cosmo as he had done in the House of Gemini and launched his Nebula Chains towards Shaka; they broke in the air like lightning, but stopped inches from the face of the Virgo Saint, who didn't even showed any reaction. Just like the Gemini Saint.
"Khan."
Shaka's voice rang out and Seiya saw how, on the wall behind the Virgo Saint, a unique character appeared in gold causing the Nebula Chain to move by itself and return to wrap around the Andromeda Saint's body, trapping his legs, his arms and hanging his neck with violence. His choked voice was desperate.
"I can't believe. How is it possible that my chains could attack me like this?"
His blood began to flow from the points where the chain pressed the hardest. Shaka laughed almost silently.
"How are you feeling being hanged by your own chain, Andromeda?"
Shun suffered terribly.
"If I just give the order, your head will rollout from your body."
Seiya ran to his aid and watched as Shun's body levitated slightly before being thrown so that he held him in the air and the two fell together to the ground. The chain finally released his body pressure. Shiryu also got up to help him.
"She's really terrible. I can't imagine what we can do to beat her." said Seiya.
"She really is the one closest to the gods." Shun said, still choking.
Shaka then immediately stood in front of them, still on her lotus, hands flat and parallel.
"Bronze Saints, here is your final moment. I'll send you to the Realm of Hungry Spirits and you won't come back from there."
A golden glow appeared between Shaka's hands at the height of her chest, her huge Cosmo concentrating in just one place slowly increasing in intensity. They heard a bell sounding in the distance that was her cosmos sounding in the entire House of Virgo.
"Ohm!"
Her black hair fluttered around her body before her voice gravely exclaimed.
"Heavenly Judgement!"
Her voice was slow and activated a glow that blinded them all in the Virgo's temple.
They listened, as if possible, to the low choir of angelic voices, bodhisattvas in saris and in ancient postures playing in gardens, flowers strewn across the grass, but also the ride of ancient deities with their tridents and swords slicing through men's bodies. At the core of the journey from that terrible technique, sitting on a lotus, the sacred image of the Buddha.
Evanescing into the body of that Virgo Shaka woman with open arms and her huge golden Cosmo around her. She was the size of a colossus.
Seiya, Shiryu and Shun went through dreams and fell defeated at the feet of Virgo Shaka.
Silence, at last, in the temple.
"I can't understand how these Saints with so much weak Cosmos could reach the House of Virgo." said Shaka, alone. "The Gold Saints of the previous temples must have betrayed Athena."
Athena who still died in the House of Aries.
The silence of the House of Virgo, however, was interrupted by the pain that Shun was suffering, because, of the three there, he was perhaps the one who had faced a less physical battle and was in a better shape. He babbled a name, calling her from afar.
"Ikki."
"Apparently there's someone here that doesn't know how to give up."
Shaka calmly walked over to Shun's delirious body.
"They say I'm one closest to the gods among the Twelve Gold Saints. However, there is a feeling that I don't have a bit in common when compared to a God. Mercy for the weakest."
Although she was standing, Shaka reached out and lit Shun's face with her Cosmo to give him the final blow.
"But perhaps taking the life of someone so weak so that he doesn't suffer might be an act of mercy."
She smiled, her Cosmo created a beam of light, but then her hand was terribly hit by something in the darkness. She felt a strange blood trickle between her fingers. Shaka brought her other hand to make sure she wasn't dreaming.
"Whose blood is this?"
It wasn't Shun's blood, it couldn't be, since she hadn't hit him; it was even more impossible: it was her own blood. She noticed a stiff red feather next to Andromeda's body. She bent to pick it up.
"I can't believe this hurt me."
Shaka then noticed an unusual flicker in the torches of her House of Virgo. The ones closest to her vibrated and their flames increased in size and intensity, so that two torches of two parallel columns gave way with the force of the fire and fell to the ground, starting a small fire. The fire that raged across the floor rose even higher than it could have, and from within it, a voice emerged.
"That's right."
A figure slowly stepped out of the fire.
"You'll regret hurting my friends. That cut is just the beginning."
Shaka finally felt a powerful Cosmo-energy invading the House of Virgo, as a Bronze Saint appeared before her. The fire that once burned the house took the form of a wonderful Phoenix to light that beautiful Bronze Cloth and finally died behind it. There were still drops of blood on Shaka's left hand.
"Who are you?" she asked finally.
The girl said, hard and decided:
"The Phoenix Saint. Ikki."
Shaka took a deep breath with another intrusion like that.
"Phoenix." repeated Shaka. "The fire bird. Those wings of yours are really special."
Ikki let out a mocking laugh as the golden woman's hand still dripped blood onto the floor.
"I do not care." said Shaka only. "Can't you see the terrible punishment you will receive for hurting Virgo Shaka, petty Saint?"
"I don't think so." replied Ikki, quite boldly.
"I can see that you don't. Well, see for yourself. Look at you feet. You're in hell already."
"In hell?" asked Ikki. "Hell is nothing anew to me."
"Trust me. Look at your feet."
Her tone was threatening and confident, so Ikki almost felt compelled to actually look down. And when she did, what she saw was impossible. For up to her thighs she found herself bathed in a sea of dark, slimy blood that moved slowly around her.
"What the hell is this?" the Phoenix Saint stammered in astonishment.
"It's my blood." said Shaka. "It's the Lake of Hell's Blood pouring from the wound you made on me."
"It can't be. A few drops of blood cannot form this huge lake! This is an illusion!"
Shaka laughed.
"It's not an illusion. Consider this as a divine retribution."
The lake stretched out as far as Ikki could see it, and quickly and gradually the level of the impossible lake of blood rose higher and higher to drown her. Soon, thet blood hit her chin, her arms buried in the thick, metallic blood felt like lead and couldn't hold her on the surface. She couldn't break free of that trap.
"There's a way you can get out of there and it's very simple." Shaka said when she saw Ikki desperately trying to do something.
What Ikki saw, however, also astonished her, as Shaka walked on the surface of that lake on her direction. Her voice sounded with the greatest contempt she could ever have for her.
"Kneel at my feet. Rub your forehead across the floor and adore me for all eternity."
"Do you want me to worship you like a god?" Ikki was surprised.
"That's right. If you do, maybe I'll have mercy."
"You must be kidding." said Ikki. "I will never worship you!"
The Phoenix Saint then pulled her two arms from the bottom of that lake of blood and clenched her fists tightly, causing her mighty cosmo of fire to emerge around her. After all, she had spent six days and six nights asleep in the heart of a volcano so her Cloth and her Cosmo got even stronger.
She closed her eyes concentrating on a single task: Ikki persevered with his huge Phoenix Cosmo to slowly evaporate the blood from that impossible lake. Shaka was not impressed, until she saw that Ikki was able to evaporate that lake completely using only the heat generated by her cosmic energy.
"Virgo Shaka, I'm sorry to say, but gods don't matter to me. The only thing I can count on in this world is my own strength."
The Gold Saint laughed at her as she resurfaced behind the evaporated blood; her pretty white sari trimmed in gold at the ends, her waist-length black hair. Shaka got between Ikki and her brother Shun who was still moaning in pain behind her, somehow still suffering. Upon feeling the glow of Shun's Cosmo in danger, Phoenix used her wings of fire to come to his aid and now he seemed inside a nightmare in which she had no idea what was happening.
"I can see you're confused." Shaka guessed, as if, even blind, she could not only see Ikki's expressions, but also read in her heart that she really didn't understand those events very well.
Ikki took a few steps back, so disconcerted to be stripped naked like that, but then she stepped on and threatened.
"What I see here are the bodies of my brother friends, as well as the one that caused them this immense pain. That's all I need to know."
"Your wings are indeed formidable, but the Phoenix don't even know what terrible trap she's come to land."
Ikki looked around and paid more attention to the curious and ancient temple in which they were fighting. It wasn't any place she knew, nor did it look like the Graad Foundation Coliseum; perhaps it was Palaestra, for she knew of Mayura's plans before she left for Canon Island.
"Where am I anyway?" she finally asked.
"In hell." replied Shaka.
"Enough bullshit, I could feel my brother's Cosmo glowing in the darkness of the volcano twice. He and his friends are fighting. Come on, tell me where I am!"
The Virgo Saint let out a low laugh before answering.
"This is the Sanctuary of Athena."
"The Sanctuary." repeated Ikki just to himself. "Virgo Shaka."
Ikki immediately looked back at Shun, Seiya and Shiryu and finally guessed what was going on; they were carrying out Mayura's plan to march against the Sanctuary. The conversations before her departure, the hidden Sanctuary of Athena, the twelve Gold Saints. Virgo Shaka. Virgo. She looked again at the Gold Saint.
"Now I understand. Athena decided to march against the Sanctuary with ther Saints. And you are one of those who oppose the truth."
"Athena is at the Camerlengo's side. And traitors are already dying one by one."
"You're wrong, Athena has never been in this Sanctuary!" said Ikki. "She was taken from here fifteen years ago and now returns to take her rightful place and cleanse the evil from this place."
"The only putridity in this Sanctuary is the presence of traitors like all of you and that girl."
"A girl?"
It was Saori, Ikki knew that.
"But all the foolish hope that worms like you once had is now gone. You're the last traitor still standing, but I'll take care of that soon enough."
Her Golden cosmos invaded the House of Virgo.
"You said you didn't care about gods, Phoenix Saint, we'll see if that's really true."
Ikki found herself in the blink of an eye in a shallow lake where thousands of huge lotus flowers slowly bloomed. She couldn't understand where she was or what Shaka was up to, just that it was another illusion. The Golden Cosmo of the Gold Saint, Ikki could feel it in absolutely everything in that place. From the water that wet her feet to each lotus that slowly opened against that starry sky. She would have to fight her, as she was the last hope for Athena and her friends.
"Your illusions don't impress me!" Ikki lied, talking to herself.
Shaka's Cosmo, she began to feel like the waves of the sea, invading her chest slowly and slowly. Going back and forth. She saw on the horizon of that moor many arcs of pulsing light, and her body was impelled to walk eternally in that direction; and the closer she came, the greater was a lotus flower on the horizon from which she understood to be the center of that mighty energy which was none other than Shaka's magnanimous Cosmo.
What was Shaka, after all? Ikki reflected as she ran through that lotus sea full of uncertainty.
When she approached the biggest lotus flower in that ocean, its petals opened wonderfully and, inside its belly, standing, was a child just over four years old, the dark hair still very short and the eyes closed. The right arm extended above the head and a finger raised pulsing that incredible golden energy of Shaka.
Her voice sounded like that of the grown woman Ikki had heard before.
"I am the Enlightened One. The Awakened. The One that Understands the true nature of all phenomena."
Ikki was amazed by the image that formed inside her own mind when she saw that child inside the lotus flower; her pulsating cosmos and her woman's voice. But when she blinked her eyes again, before her was again the wonderful Virgo Saint with her Golden Cosmo. The figure amazed him.
It was Buddha.
"What does this mean? Are you saying that you're the reincarnation of Buddha?"
Shaka then brought both hands together with palms pressed together and fingers outstretched, a gesture of adoration. Her Golden Cosmos intensified around her body and Ikki realized that her own will to fight seemed to soften in front of that divine figure. She couldn't even move.
Shaka's hands then adopted a new posture close to her chest, which was none other than the mudra gesture of the Wheel of Dharma, in which the thumbs gently touch the index fingers of each hand forming a circle.
"Ikki, choose one of the Six Realms I'm going to show you now." Shaka's voice spoke and her hands ascended a mighty cosmos. "I'll make you die in the Realm you prefer, maybe you'll open your eyes to the gods."
Finally Shaka's hands pulled away, outstretched; her right hand raised to the side of her head and her left hand to the side of her waist. Her voice echoed throughout the House of Virgo.
"Transmigration! The Six Realms of Existence!"
Phoenix saw herself hurled through the House of Virgo until her body was consumed within a huge darkness in which, even though she couldn't see anything, Shaka's voice accompanied her on a terrible journey.
"The Six Realms are where you are sent according to your works and deeds in this life."
Upon opening her eyes, Ikki saw herself eternally and slowly falling into a terrible night where clear lakes rose, sharp mountains and from which echoed piercing screams of pain.
"The First Realm is Hell." she heard Shaka's voice on the horizon. "Oceans of fire, lakes of blood and mountains of needles. Of fears after endless fears. Those who fall into this Realm will suffer forever."
Ikki's body spun slowly, as if sucked in by a terrible force, she was going to float as if her body were experiencing its own weightlessness. Everything darkened to give way to an oppressive environment full of potbellied skeletons. Again Shaka's voice:
"The second is the Realm of Hungry Spirits. Those who fall into this Realm will have only skin and bones with a swollen stomach feeling an eternal hunger. Always hungry, the spirits devour everything, even rotten flesh. A suitable punishment for the ambitious."
Shaka's voice was then drowned out by loud roars among animals that were killing each other and Ikki opened her eyes to see all sorts of predators and prey killing each other forever.
"The third is the Realm of Beasts. Where everyone is turned into feral animas. It's a dog world, where only the strongest survive."
In place of the beasts that Ikki could see fighting with their claws and fangs, men and women of the most diverse types of armor, weapons and pain appeared, fighting eternally in a pitched war.
"The fourth is the Realm of Asura, the realm of fighting. There will be blood and death all the time in this world. You will have to fight day after day without any truce."
The men and women who were then fighting in that eternal pitched battle received strobe lights and Ikki saw how, instead of fighting, they now embraced, beat each other, cried together, frantically took pictures with cell phones, grimaced and mouthed, laughed for the next moment kneel down in sorrow.
"The fifth is the Realm ruled by emotions. Happiness, hate and sadness make this Realm of Humanbeings the most unstable and unpredictable of them all."
An infinite glow that blinded Ikki's journey to reveal a colossal Buddha statue that covered absolutely everything she could see.
"And the last realm is Heaven, but don't let the name fool you. For this is a place where a single thought of wrongness will cause you to descend into any of the other Realms I showed you. May it be Hell, the Hungry Spirits Realm, the Realm of Beasts, Asura or even the Realm of Humans. That makes this place the worst of all the Realms."
Everything finally went out inside Ikki.
Her body was stretched out at Shaka's feet.
"You're dead." predicted the Virgo Saint. "Which Realm did you choose, Ikki?"
ABOUT THE CHAPTER: I haven't changed a thing, as this beginning of the battle in the House of Virgo is perfect.
NEXT CHAPTER: THE EYES OF SHAKA
The battle between Ikki and Shaka is deadly and the Knights of Athena seem to have no chance against that powerful enemy.