58 — THE SAD NIGHT
The House of Virgo was the victim of a destruction like never before. Sitting with saliva pouring from her mouth, all Ikki could do was search with her eyes for the few glimpses she could find of those two golden titans fighting in the temple and destroying everything around her. With amazement, she saw that the two golden figures had to back away as a flash of light shone between them and destroyed the floor they were on.
As soon as the dust settled, a huge figure appeared: it was the Taurus Saint.
"Taurus, what are you doing here?" asked Shaka, without Ikki being able to hear.
"I came to stop two idiots from killing each other." he said in his deep voice.
"Are you saying that you will also betray the Sanctuary, Great Aldebaran?" asked Shaka.
"Open your eyes, Sister Shaka. Athena now suffers in the House of Aries."
"Listen to the voice of Aldebaran, Shaka. Wake up!"
Aioria yelled, finally getting their attention, but Ikki could clearly see that the discussion had stopped, as the Gold Cloths that those three wonderful figures wore just started to pulse a stronger glow, apparently without their having any control. Their confused looks at themselves and others.
Hidden in the darkness, both the Cancer Cloth in the temple of death and that of Gemini in the infinite labyrinths also pulsed a pale golden glow while a cosmic aura enveloped their mythological figures. Walking down the stairs after the House of Libra, Miro stopped his march when he noticed that his Gold Cloth also pulsed a glow beyond his will.
"The Gold Cloth is resonating as if it's calling the other Cloths of the Sanctuary, what could be happening?"
Kneeling beside Saori, the Goddess Athena, Aries Mu also noticed that her beautiful Golden Ram Cloth pulsed as often as Athena's Golden Staff glowed. For all the Gold Cloths of the Sanctuary pulsed with that energy of Niké.
And they pulsed, for Mu knew better than anyone that for the first time in fifteen years all the Gold Cloths were back in the Sanctuary with Athena. The Twelve Gold Cloths were in their Holy Temples.
All of them.
Seiya, Shun and Shiryu were in the House of Sagittarius.
A temple that was empty, as they knew that it was the temple of the former Gold Saint Aioros, responsible for having saved Saori when she was still a baby. Saved the Goddess Athena, but were considered a Traitor by those who lived in Greece.
The Sagittarius Cloth was in front of them, mounted on the marvelous winged centaur with the bow pointed at a wall. As Seiya remembered, the bow had no arrow at all. There was a golden aura around her and a distant tinkle sounding all around.
"What is happening?" Shiryu asked as she heard the distant bells that seemed to clank subtly.
"This is the Sagittarius Cloth that protected the Mii against Aioria." said Seiya.
"The Cloth of Aioros, the hero who saved Athena." Shun commented.
"The entire Sanctuary seems to be resonating together." Shiryu spoke again.
"I can hear it outside too." came a voice from the doorway.
"Hyoga!"
With his whole body pierced by the Scorpio's stings, his clothes all stained with blood, and his eyes tired, the Cygnus Saint was again among them.
They were together again.
"Hyoga, you're OK!" Shun smiled.
"Thanks to you, Shun."
"What about the Scorpio Saint?" Seiya asked.
"He realized his mistake, but said he was going to the House of Virgo."
"He's going to intervene in the fight between Shaka and Aioria." Shiryu mused.
"Anyway, we must move on as soon as possible." Hyoga spoke. "The Sagittarius flame is almost going out too."
"So let's go!"
But then the golden winged centaur that was formed from the parts of the Sagittarius Cloth moved on its feet so that the bow pointed at the group. The four stopped, not understanding the movement that clearly looked threatening.
"What does this mean?"
"Seiya?"
"The Sagittarius Cloth is following us with its bow, Shiryu." Shun explained.
From the empty bow, an arrow of light materialized as a golden aura enveloped the winged centaur. The four Bronze Saints felt threatened and, at the same time, did not understand what was happening; and they had no time to guess, when the winged centaur's arms drew the golden bow and shot that arrow of light to blind the warriors of Athena.
The four Bronze Saints found themselves blind, like Shiryu. And, like her friends, Shiryu realized that her vision just returned to normal when the light dimmed and she could clearly see the pitiful state in which Hyoga and Seiya were with their injuries and the tiredness in young Shun's eyes.
"My friends…" she began. "I… I can see again."
"Ah, Shiryu!" Seiya exclaimed immediately looking at the Gold Cloth, but she was no longer there.
"Did the Sagittarius Cloth healed you?" Shun asked.
But the Gold Cloth really wasn't there anymore, nor was it anywhere. They noticed how in its place there was a low pedestal on which the Golden Urn rested.
"She went back into the Urn." commented Hyoga.
Footsteps echoed in the temple towards them, and everyone was on guard when they saw a young man in simple robes passing through the House of Sagittarius without noticing their presence. A young man with short hair, a small headband and a very worried face.
The Bronze Saints looked at each other and decided to follow him to the exit of the House of Sagittarius, as they still needed to hurry up to save Athena as soon as possible.
As they left the House, however, they noticed that the afternoon that had died before was now a deep night in which the stars sparkled in a cold night sky. Seiya stared at the stars he recognized so well when he had his attention called by Shiryu.
Both Hyoga and Shun were still following the boy, who didn't even notice them, as if they weren't following him there. And instead of taking the stairs that would lead to the next temple, that young man in a hurry simply entered a crevice in the rock beside the temple of Sagittarius that, at first glance, seemed impossible to hold an entrance for a normal person. It was a devised optical trick to hide a mountain entrance, so the Bronze Saints managed to follow the young man into that impossible rock as well.
Entering the mountain, they found themselves in a dark corridor, terribly dimly lit by few torches on the roof, with crude stairs going up and; gutters scattered in a dark and deep cavern. The boy ran ahead quickly and the Bronze Saints followed.
They ran up stairs that seemed endless and, from time to time, large eyes in the darkness seemed to glow, watching the five invaders awakening their sleep.
"Where are we?" asked Hyoga.
"It is said in the Sanctuary that the Giants dug their streets in the mountains. This must be one of those places." Seiya reminded.
"Look, he looks like he's going to leave." Shiryu announced when noticing that the boy entered an alley of the cave.
The four followed the boy around the right turn he took and magically found themselves out of that strange mountain tunnel. Again the dark night above them glinting its bright stars. Ahead of them, they saw that the boy took the stairs and continued up to a wonderful temple; Shun looked back to understand where they could have been and saw in the distance many erected temples.
"It's the Twelve Temples." Shun commented.
"Then this must be the Temple of the Camerlengo." Hyoga spoke when he saw the temple ahead of him in what was, without a doubt, the highest point of the mountain. "Come on, Shun!"
Both Shiryu and Seiya already entered the Temple on the top of the Mountain; they could see up ahead the worried young man tearing through the corridors in front of them, crossing the atrium, a main nave, until he came through a huge white door with gold trim; it overlooked a beautiful altar with an empty golden throne. The boy stopped, because there he could not find who he came for.
"Where is the Camerlengo?" Shiryu asked herself.
"Friends." Seiya began. "I have a bad feeling about this."
"What do you mean by that, Seiya?" Shun asked.
Seiya already knew. But they had to follow the boy, who ran again, across the court of that altar and into the curtains behind the golden throne; they all went after Seiya and the boy, who was a little older than them.
The rear of the altar, guarded by the scarlet curtains, opened into a torchlit corridor, where they found the boy farther on kneeling beside the body of a woman, fully bandaged from head to toe and unconscious on the floor. There were still three other women equally defeated, who Shun realized were dead when he approached one of them.
Shiryu watched as the boy embraced the woman, who had died in his arms, and walked forward to a large closed door that he opened at once.
Hyoga and the others saw with astonishment that, when the boy threw open the door, a small room was revealed inside, where a menacing figure in a dark cassock, a golden helmet and a golden dagger in his hand extended in the air stood before him. of a beautiful wooden crib.
They hadn't noticed until now how they could hear nothing but their own voices among themselves. For at that moment they could also clearly hear the crying of that baby about to be murdered.
They all entered the room just as the huge priest lowered the golden blade into the cradle, but he was stopped by the boy, who held the dagger's edge in his own hand, pouring blood into and out of the cradle of a child who burst into tears.
They couldn't hear anything but the child's crying, but they could clearly see in the boy's expression and lips that the two figures were vehemently arguing.
"It's Aioros." Seiya spoke in a contained way, as if he was trying to avoid being overheard by the figures.
"So that baby…"
"It's Athena." Hyoga spoke.
"Saori." Shun reminded.
Finally, the reality came over them that they were experiencing the Sad Night, the fateful dawn fifteen years ago when Aioros saved the life of Saori, the Goddess Athena.
The huge priest seemed unyielding and successfully disentangled himself from Aioros to crush the golden dagger in the cradle; Seiya desperately tried to attack him, but he only crossed the figure in black cassock to see in front of him how the child's trousseau was in Aioros' arms, near the window.
The terrible priest then attacked Aioros, but the boy dodged and, even with the trousseau in his lap, landed a powerful punch in the stomach of that menacing figure, in such a violent way that he crashed against the wall beside Shun, dropping his golden helmet across the floor next to Shiryu. His hair was long and completely gray, as saw Hyoga on the other side. On Aioros' face, Seiya saw a huge astonishment, as if he had somehow recognized the man behind the mask.
Closer, Shun saw that the priest hid his eyes to avoid being seen, but he was revolted when he saw that Aioros had recognized him and then an incredible golden cosmos burned, shooting a terrible energy at the boy, who turned his back so nothing could hit the child in his lap. The force was such that it opened a huge hole in the tower wall that revealed the starry night outside. Aioros jumped through the hole with the child to try to save her.
Seiya held on to the edge of the room and saw the hero Aioros land on the rock far below.
"Come on! Let's go after Aioros!" he called, jumping with Shiryu beside him.
"Come, Shun!" called Hyoga.
But Shun watched as the priest replaced his helmet as he seemed to convulse with tears, running down the corridor they had come from. He finally jumped along with Hyoga and so they went after Aioros.
They descended some slopes of the mountain and soon saw, to the left, the side face of the Temple of the Camerlengo they had entered. They understood that he would like to return to the Giants' caves to escape from there, but, in front of the temple, Aioros saw that there was a Gold Saint waiting for him.
A wonderful Gold Saint with a rose in his mouth.
They couldn't hear the dialogue between the two, but clearly Aioros was trying to convince the Gold Saint, who was much younger than him, perhaps the youngest among everyone there. But the Gold Saint was adamant and the dialogue that they couldn't hear seemed to simply stop as the two figures looked across the horizon towards the Temple, as if something called their attention.
"Damn it, what's going on?" Seiya asked, not understanding and not being able to hear.
At the end of whatever happened, the Gold Saint immediately attacked Aioros shooting a dozen roses in his direction.
"Saori mentioned a Gold Saint who left her a rose." Shun commented, remembering well.
"He must be the one."
Aiotos didn't fight, he just did everything he could so that nothing hit the child; there was a flash of light, during which the Bronze Saints missed what had happened, and soon they saw how Aioros walked calmly down the stairs. The Gold Saint, owner of roses, seemed unable to move anymore.
"Look, Seiya!" called Shiryu.
When they saw on the ground where the Gold Saint's shadow was projected by the flames at the entrance to the Temple of the Camerlengo, they noticed that there was a Golden Arrow stuck in its shadow.
"The Golden Arrow." Seiya mumbled recognizing that as the arrow stuck in Saori's chest.
"Come on, Seiya!" called Hyoga, as Aioros had returned inside the caves.
When he looked up, however, Seiya saw beside him someone he hadn't expected to see there and that only he saw. It was Saori. Also looking at the arrow that tore his flesh...
"Saori." He called the girl beside him.
"Go, Seiya." she asked. "I am waiting for you."
Seiya looked at his friends entering the cave and when he looked to the side again, Saori was no longer there. He ran after his friends again, his chest heavy.
In the dark tunnel, the Bronze Saints reached Aioros easily, as he clearly had difficulties to follow, hit by some lethargy caused by those roses that had stuck in his body. But he went on and on again came out beside the House of Sagittarius.
The boy entered and left the trousseau with the child carefully on a couch that was on the second floor of his temple. The Bronze Saints stood there looking at that baby who looked smiling and, disconcertingly, also seemed to have a clear awareness that they were there. She looked at Shun's face and laughed heartily. Seiya gave his index finger to the baby and she squeezed it.
"It's the night Saori was saved." Shiryu spoke, moved.
"It's what we all fight for." said Hyoga.
"She's fighting too."
"Seiya?" Shun asked, not understanding his friend.
"Saori is also fighting with us. I could feel her Cosmo more than once."
His friends had felt it too and Hyoga clearly remembered his battle against Miro.
"Now I understand why the Sagittarius Cloth doesn't have any arrow in the bow." Seiya commented. "Aioros left it behind."
"So the Golden Arrow that is in Saori's chest is the Sagittarius Arrow." confirmed Shun.
They were then interrupted when Aioros burst into the room with his body bandaged and the Golden Urn on his back; he took the baby carefully in his arms and again left the House of Sagittarius. Seiya and the others followed closely and saw that before he reached the crossroads of the stone, there was another Gold Saint waiting for him.
A young girl, with a very hard face, her hair short and terribly black, but with tears running down her eyes. Seiya noticed how Aioros seemed to disarm himself trying to convince that Gold Saint who, however, carried a deep disappointment in her face. The girl brandished her right arm and they all saw how the stone at the crossroads that led to the Giants' tunnel was simply destroyed, in such a way that Aioros could no longer escape that way. He turned his back on the Gold Saint, but Shiryu watched as she used her arm again to slice a chasm in front of Aioros, so that he couldn't also go back to the House of Sagittarius.
He still tried once, twice, but the young girl didn't seem to be able to hear him and moved forward to take the child from the arms of Aioros, who avoided her and jumped down the side of the mountain beside him to the bottom of an abyss.
"He threw himself!" exclaimed Hyoga.
"That's crazy, from this height?!" noted Shun.
"Come on!"
Seiya also jumped after him and the Bronze Saints followed.
They descended without much difficulty, jumping down the cliff, and came to a winding road at the foot of the mountain, where they saw young Aioros running ahead with Athena in his arms; he was intercepted by a group of soldiers who banded together to stop him, but the skilful warrior put an end to them all, who were no match for a Gold Saint like himself even if he was weakened and without his Cloth. It was enough for the Bronze Saints to reach him.
The road closed more and more and, when he got close to a water fountain installed at that point of the mountain, Aioros took a moment to clean his wounds, which stained the child's trousseau. Carefully, he placed his Urn on the floor and left the trousseau aside to bathe lightly, washing his face.
Hyoga was amazed to see beside him that the golden girl had returned.
"Aioros!" Shun called, but he couldn't hear them.
The Gold Saint placed herself between Aioros and the baby. The boy was frightened at first and then clearly tried to talk with candor in his eyes, tried to talk to her; he was older than the girl, but his experience didn't seem to help, as she remained adamant.
"Seiya!" he heard Shiryu calling, for beside him a haunting appearance had appeared.
It was the Gemini Saint with the child's trousseau on his lap.
Aioros was astonished when he saw the crossroads he was at: on one side, the young Gold Saint and, on the other, the terrible Gemini Saint. They all remembered facing that haunt in the House of Gemini, and he was the one who carried the baby Athena in his arms. The eyes equally hidden beneath that cursed two-faced helmet.
Aioros looked very surprised to see the Gemini Saint there and walked over to him trying to see who was under that helmet, but without any success, because that haunting menace was moving away. Brave, Aioros tried to reason with the girl in Gold Cloth, accusing the top of the mountain; he listened and tried to deny the accusations that were being leveled at him and it didn't really work.
"He seems to know them." observed Shun.
"Aioros faced two Gold Saints without his Cloth, but why?" asked Hyoga.
The Gemini Saint finally seemed to order the young Gold Saint to finish off Aioros, who looked at the young woman with immense sadness, perhaps not that he was about to die, but that she had to carry that terrible order. And with tears on her face, she ignited her Cosmo and unleashed her slashing and violent fist, which sliced the hero Aioros' chest, throwing him down a short cliff he had at his back.
"Aioros!" exclaimed the four Bronze Saints, running to the edge of the small drop.
The blow only did not slice Aioros' body in half, as they saw him lying on the earth floor with his chest covered by the protection of the Sagittarius Cloth. And then all the parts of the cloth finally attached to his body; he was trying to get up with extreme difficulty, out of step and terribly sad. He vomited a pool of blood and the Bronze Saints understood that even though his body was still intact, the wound from that slashing fist of the Gold Saint hit him decisively, perhaps mortally.
Beside Shiryu, she saw that the Gold Saint reappeared, also looking at the result of her fist. As close as she was, Shiryu was sure there was immense sadness in her eyes. She was at her age.
"Stand back, Shiryu!" asked Shun.
Aioros' Cosmos got up that dawn and he used his golden technique which manifested itself as a wonderful thunder; his voice, for the first time, they could hear, as his Cosmo erupted into that memory.
"Atomic Thunderbolt!"
Aioros' voice was strong, but young, decisive. And his strength destroyed the platform on which the Gold Saint was standing, causing her to fall to where Aioros was.
Away from the destruction, Seiya noticed, however, near the water source behind the stone basin, a small pink face reappear crawling. The child was there safe and smiled at him. The Pegasus Saint did not understand very well what was going on at first.
When the dust settled and the Gold Saint got up also with difficulties to face Aioros, everyone saw from above how the Gemini Saint was also there and approached the girl, handing her the trousseau with the child; the girl received that package frightened and distressed, as if she could not calculate how important it was to carry that gift. She had fear in her young eyes. The Gemini Saint placed a hand on his shoulder and designed a dimensional section, which Shun so perfectly recognized as the Another Dimension.
And then the young Gold Saint disappeared from there with the child in her arms.
Seiya immediately looked back and saw that baby Saori was still crawling near the water source.
"An illusion…" he finally guessed.
The Gemini Saint walked menacingly towards Aioros, who was in agony from his wounds, even though he was wearing his Gold Cloth.
"Dammit, what is being said?" Hyoga revolted unable to hear.
Gemini then turned his back on him and floated to where Seiya and the child were.
The four Bronze Saints finally realized what was going on and placed themselves between the Gold Saint and the child. And, impossible as it were, that ghostly figure seemed to give up on ending the life of that helpless child; it could never have been the presence of those Bronze Saints, after all they weren't really there, but they felt they needed to defend her even within a memory.
But here was the Gemini Saint, hesitating.
Long enough for Aioros to take flight with his wonderful Sagittarius wings from the bottom of that crevice and use his Golden Cosmos against that haunting figure that loomed before the baby.
The cosmo-energy hit Gemini and the Gold Siant simply exploded into a thousand pieces of Gold Cloth, revealing that there was nothing inside it; those scattered parts came together in midair and mounted two twin figures on the ground, briefly taking on a hue of gold and floating away back to the Sanctuary.
Aioros fell defeated on the bank again.
"An illusion." Hyoga remembered.
"Just like in the House of Gemini." Shun said.
The four Bronze Saints wanted so much to help Aioros and it was terrible that they could do nothing; they could only look at the effort he made to climb that short distance to where they were. But his wounds were terrible and a lot of blood was running under his Gold Cloth. Even though they knew this was a memory and he could get out of there and save Athena, it was agonizing not being able to give him a hand.
And he managed to get up there.
His Cloth returned to the Urn, he wiped the blood as best he could at the fountain, his torn chest he seared with his cosmos; he placed the Urn on his back in great pain, took the trousseau on the arm that was least injured, and followed the road away from the Sanctuary.
They walked, watching Aioros along his via crucis, his chest full of pain, until he hesitated and went to the ground on his knees. Tears welled up in his eyes, who saw enormous hopelessness arise.
The child in his lap, however, seemed to smile at him to give him strength.
He found an indentation in the stone beside some ruins and sat there to rest and perhaps to die. Aioros took the Gold Cloth from his back and placed it beside him. His eyes then slowly closed and, as they closed, the four Bronze Saints saw how that memory simply faded into a huge darkness.
Little by little the darkness was lightening slightly with the flames of the House of Sagittarius. Shiryu could no longer see, but realized that she was coming back to herself with her friends. They were again facing the winged centaur wielding his arrowless bow.
Seiya helped Shiryu to stand up, while Hyoga pulled Shun back to his feet.
"You saw the Sad Night, didn't you?"
The voice they heard was none other than that of a wonderful Gold Saint, who was now also before them.
"Aioria." Seiya was surprised.
"My brother's memory resides in the Gold Cloth. She was the one who made me see what a huge mistake I've been living all this time."
"And now we've seen it too." Shun commented.
"Look." he asked.
On the wall beside the Sagittarius Cloth was a broken patch of stone that revealed hurriedly written Greek words beneath the ornaments. Seiya, who had trained for so many years at the Sanctuary, quickly understood the brief message and his eyes immediately closed in sadness as tears rolled down his face.
"Seiya?" asked Hyoga.
"It's Aioros' testament." he said, crying.
"What does it says, Seiya?" asked Shiryu.
Seiya read it clearly to his friends.
"To the young souls who get here: I will trust Athena to you."
"Aioros." Aioria finished, marking his brother's signature at the bottom of the message.
Seiya fell to his knees in tears as he remembered the terrible night that Aioros had to face so that Saori had a chance.
"Aioros has been waiting for our arrival all this time." Hyoga commented, moved.
"Not knowing when or even if we'd make it this far." Shun said, shaken.
"He trusted us with the baby." Shiryu began, crying.
"Saori." repeated Seiya.
"I remember the Old Master telling about an ancient Chinese proverb, about how worthy it is the person we can trust with our child when we are about to die."
"He is a real man." Aioria said looking at Seiya, Shun and Hyoga. "And an enormous woman." he said, putting his hand on Shiryu's shoulder.
"Aioros entrusted us with Athena's life." said Seiya.
"What mattered most to him." commented the girl.
"The pain it must have been for him to leave the child with people he didn't even know." Shun remembered.
The four Bronze Saints wept, but they also felt in their chests that their strength seemed to have recovered so that they could march the last three hours and save Athena's life as Aioros had done.
Seiya got up and held out his hand to his four friends. They smiled and linked their hands with Pegasus.
"Only three Temples to go to the Camerlengo." he said.
"We'll get to him and find a way to save Athena." added Shiryu.
"If it hadn't been for you, I don't think I would have made it this far." Hyoga spoke.
"We only made it because we all did our best." Shun corrected.
"We'll keep fighting!" cried Seiya. "We were born far apart to live together, friends."
United in Cosmo and friendship, the four Bronze Saints finally raced to the exit of the House of Sagittarius. Aioria smiled seeing those young people so determined in their battle and felt his brother's Cosmo in all of them.
"Goodbye, brother."
And he also left to join Seiya and the others.
ABOUT THE CHAPTER: I love this chapter. The Sagittarius Bow's arrow of light I took from Hank from Dungeons & Dragons cartoon. =) And I think it's a poetic way of doing the flashback, as it signals that Aioria also saw the same thing. The events of Sad Night were based on the events of the manga, the anime and even Episode Zero, recently released by Kurumada. The idea of the streets inside the mountains came from old discussions about how Cassius would have arrived at the House of Leo, I remember having people say that there were caves and such and I got my idea of that. I think the fact that the boys relive the Flashback together with Aioros with the power of the Arrow gives even more weight to the feeling they get when they finally read Aioros' testament.
NEXT CHAPTER: THE ROAR OF THE LION
The crisis in the Sanctuary finally puts the Gold Saints face-to-face in a deadly dilemma over which side they should be on in this time of doubt.