Kido Mansion, Tokyo, Japan, 2018

POV Saori

Ten years after the trial ended, everyone went on with their normal lives. She wanted her Saints to live an ordinary life, of ordinary youth, and they did it. In fits and starts, but they managed.

Shiryu went to live with Shunrei, in China. He wanted to live the life of a simple farmer in Lushan. They even adopted a child recently, a baby still. Shunrei and her huge heart of gold gave an orphaned child a chance to have a family, just as, when she was younger, Dohko had given it to her. They were a perfect family, and Shiryu was always sending photos of the child to Saori, who was the boy's godmother. The child was cute, plump, and cheerful.

Hyoga went to live in Siberia. He said that the ice was good for him, that Tokyo was a place too hot for him. He was taking care of some bureaucracies for her in the city of Irkutsk, in the region of Siberia. The region had mineral extraction, mainly aluminum, and Saori thought it better to expand the business. He complained a little, as it was not the extreme cold of the middle of nowhere, but he understood her decision. She did not want to lose contact with anyone.

Ikki... well, it is Ikki. He does not know what he does for a living. She lives from corner to corner but comes to visit her brother from time to time. He also visits her, but very rarely. He basically forgot that one day he fought for Athena and the Earth and went... living the world. Relations between the two of them were uncomfortably formal, but she understood his estrangement.

Nachi went to Kyoto, which was his home region, as he had an aunt who was still alive and wanted to see him. Ichi stayed in Tokyo and opened a store. Jabu went to the United States and now runs a farm there. Geki became a martial arts fighter and Ban was already married with children.

Marin went looking for her brother Tohma. She does not know where he is until today, but the search did not stop her from moving on. Of all, she and Shina were the ones who impressed him the most as they wanted to go to college and pursue a professional career. No one would ever imagine that two women who had always had their rivalries would become such close friends. Both lived in Athens and visited her frequently. Saori loved them because, despite everything, being with them was one of the few moments when she felt like a normal woman her age.

Shun stayed for Japan, in Tokyo. He was the only one who got closer to her, acting as her deputy advisor, alongside Tatsumi, who was already 64 years old, with a flashy white mustache and a few wrinkles on his face, but with the same vivacity as always. Shun would be her replacement. At first, he lived with her, but then he moved into his own tiny apartment in Japan.

And she, well... She became the CEO of the Kido Corporations, as well as the president of the Kido Foundation. She was a businesswoman, one of the richest in the world and the richest woman in Japan. Young, beautiful, with an enviable career and remarkably successful. An example for the girls of her time, who took no chances in the business field, who were always so misogynistic. She was aware that, well, she kind of inherited all that so she would have to manage anyway, but she liked knowing that girls were taking up space that, in her time, was not so receptive to women.

The only problem was the emptiness she felt.

Nobody wanted to live with her. Absolutely nobody. Everyone wanted to live her life, get their corners, move on. Not even Shun, who wanted to stay with her for a while, could not stand the heavy atmosphere that the mansion had, because that place not only brought many painful memories but also sheltered someone else besides her and Tatsumi.

Seiya.

Saori remembered him and left her office in the mansion. She wandered the house with numerous rooms and stopped at the door, which few employees had the courage to come clean, due to the heavy energy the place had. She opened the doorknob and there he was.

Since the battle of Hades, Seiya's cosmos was sealed by the sword of the god of the underworld. The sword did not physically appear, obviously, but its cosmos enveloped it, locking away Seiya's soul, to the point that neither she nor anyone else could feel his mind. Athena's cosmos could maintain its vital functions, but it was the same thing as taking care of a doll. He did not need to feed or drink water, as the goddess cosmos gave him everything, just as he grew and developed normally. Something like what she did to Kanon at Cape Sunion, to keep him alive.

But it looked like there was a wall between Seiya and the outside world, and he was locked inside that wall, in the dark, alone. He must have thought that Athena had abandoned him, that he had served Saori for years to get her to abandon him, but the gods know, the moirai know, everyone knows that she lived there, for him, every day. She came to see him in his room every day, talked to him, told him about her problems, read books, gave him affection. Of course, he had caregivers who bathed, checked his vitals and health, but they did not stay for long and Saori did not blame them. Even for her, who was a goddess, the cosmos of Hades could be terrible.

Seika, her sister, tried to live with him and her in the mansion, but could not. The Hades cosmos surrounding Seiya was too toxic for her to stay there every day, watching her brother suffer. The fact that she did not have a trained cosmos like the Saints did not help either. She was a mere mortal, and she could not face Seiya's suffering. She returned to Rodorio and, with the death of the gentleman who adopted her, began to manage the small local market, coming to visit her brother from time to time.

Seiya lived in a wheelchair, always near the window, which overlooked a flower garden. She wanted him to always feel the heat of the sun, the wind in his face, and the petals of flowers to fall into his lap. He kept his eyes open but opaque. His face was expressionless, and he had no reaction whatsoever. But sometimes, she felt something change in him. When she arrived so happy to tell him news, she felt him give a slight smile. When she was sad and cried with him, her forehead wrinkled, and she felt that he was sad too.

She might have gone crazy, but she did not care. She would lose everything to try to save him, to bring him back. But not even the gods had a solution for her case.

All he could do was cry and ask Seiya's forgiveness for everything she did.

She did not think it would be so easy to find them. She also had no idea it would be so difficult to contact them.

Do you know what is worse? They had forgotten. They did not remember anything. Neither of them.

Her Saints thought they had lived their entire lives in the most normal way possible. The god who set them free, erased their memories and implanted new ones, which were nothing but pure illusion. They had modified their memories so that they were vulnerable to the possible punishment the gods might inflict on them, and Athena would never forgive that. Worse than taking someone's life is stealing their past and their destiny. Making her Saints forget they were Saints was not bad for the fact that she wanted her elite army back, but it was bad because all she wanted to give them was a normal life, and she could not do that. The rival did it.

But see, they left tracks.

Athena wanted to laugh; about how obvious they were. Apparently, the god who set them free was not as smart as he should have been. For, believe it or not, the paths they took were so similar to the paths they followed when they were Saints that it seemed purposeful, even ridiculous.

The easiest to find was Aphrodite. Apparently, Aphrodite was a young youtuber who was making success on the internet, giving reviews and opinions about makeup, fashion, and beauty. Saori learned when one of the companies in which she was a shareholder wanted to put him as a poster boy. Also, he was someone who, learning from younger people, had no definite gender. Non-binary, it claimed to be, and required the neutral pronoun in English when referring to it, like it or they. Saori's head, born in the 70s and raised in the 80s did not understand much about it, but he respected it.

Shura was also easy as he was a renowned chef in Spain, participating in cooking reality shows on TV and on some YouTube channels. Death Mask was a bit difficult, as his real name was not that, but she managed it too. Milo and Camus were terribly close, but she only got Camus' address.

Now, one knight who really surprised her was Kanon.

She did not know where he lived or where he was. All she knew was that both he and Saga were at the University of Athens, Kanon was in Marine Biology and Saga was in Physics. Apparently, Saga was a little genius in the field of Astrophysics and was ready to be the new Stephen Hawking, however, he had to walk away for some reason. But one fine day, she was sitting in her office solving problems when Shun walked in without knocking, shocked and paralyzed.

"Saori, look who we found."

Saori played an Instagram video on the profile of an alternative European newspaper. In the video, Kanon appeared on a podium in the bustling Exarchy, anarchist neighborhood of Athens. He was holding a megaphone and shouting to the population, who were around him, protesting the oil companies in the Mediterranean.

"And that one over there, that socialite that Greece loves so much... What's her name again? Saori Kido. Greece's dearest madame is up to her neck in the oil spill in the Mediterranean Sea. Saori Kido has never served, does not and will never serve our interests, she is behind all this! Her ridiculous foundation is moving these pigs around in parliament so she can get her face off while she poses as a socialite 'lover of the poor' here in Greece. We can't let her, and her lackeys sink Greece into more austerity policies, we can't let that bourgeois sow along with the other pigs keep spoiling our seas so they can become filthier rich than they already are."

Bourgeois nut?

But of course, life is poetry that rhymes all the time. And the rhyme was that, for the second time in her life, Kanon was crying out in hate against her, for something she did not do and that was not her fault. Indeed, the Kido Foundation was up to its neck in the Mediterranean oil issue. The documents he threw on the internet showed this, and she never denied the situation. But the Foundation was not responsible for the oil spill, quite the contrary, it was investigating, at the behest of Saori herself. The oil rigs exploded on the day she felt one of the many cosmos explosions that have sprung up after their escape, and it was right in the region of the spill. She suspects that some divine entity is behind this, so she wanted to investigate the case.

Not that she cared about Kanon's offenses. He had already called Athena much worse names than a "bourgeois nut," but his insistence on this case was hampering the investigations. With the media on top of her and the foundation like vultures, it was hard to figure out who the responsible god was. Furthermore, if such an attack had already been made, for the Gold Saints to be murdered was quite easy and quick.

At least she found out Kanon's address. And of all the Gold Saints, who would soon receive dear visitors in their homes.

"And then we'll have to look for them all over the world?" Shiryu said "do we have their addresses, at least?"

"We do" said Saori "I got it with some of my contacts. I have to admit it wasn't easy. It looked like some of the knights were trying to hide, not live somewhere."

Ah, Kanon.

"And how are we going to approach them?" Shina said "It's not like we can get to their houses and say 'Hi, you're a Gold Saint!' and expect them to come here of their own free will."

"I know that" said Saori "that's why I used the Graad Foundation as a front. Let's pretend that we are interested in your services, or that we want to give scholarships, or that we want to have exhibitions with your works, anyway... There are a range of possibilities."

"And if they don't accept?" said Ikki "there is a huge possibility that they simply do not want to participate in these 'benefits'."

"Then we'll have to use force" said Saori, somberly "I don't mind getting my hands dirty to bring them here. I've already got my hands dirty to find them all."

They were silent.

"All of them are at risk of life, do you understand? Their place is here, with us."

"Saori" said Hyoga "There is no one who wants them to be with us more than I do, you know very well that. But we cannot be too hasty."

"The problem" said Shun "is that they won't accept it. For them, all this is just myths, stories that are told to children. And we cannot use violence because..."

"We can and we must" interrupted Saori "if necessary. We don't have time for discussions about ethics."

"But Saori…" Hyoga said.

"There are no 'but'" said Saori "I was peaceful and patient for too long. And I pay the costs for that to this day. You saw what happened."

"For many, many years I listened to Grandpa's advice, warning me about how Athena always treated knights with sweetness, which was characteristic of women. About how I needed a tender, sweetheart. And you are living proof that I tried. I did what I could. And what happened?"

They all bowed their heads in resignation.

"We don't have an army. We don't have the strength. Even our Sanctuary is abandoned. Everything died."

Seiya.

"Alright Saori" said Marin "we understand your desire to find the Saints as soon as possible."

"We just hope you remember one thing" she continued "you are the goddess of strategic warfare. We are counting on you to recover the Gold Saints because you are a good strategist. Don't let your fury against fate take your wisdom away."

Saori looked at that woman, that woman who had already lost a lot, and asked her for prudence. Prudence, something the gods never had, but one she was known to have. Limits.

She looked into her tired eyes. She lost her brother, her friend, her pupil, her companions, her Amazon post. She, a mere mortal, asked for prudence from Saori, a goddess.

The problem was just that. She was prudent. Too much. And because of his prudence, Seiya is in a vegetative state, in a wheelchair.

"I'll be prudent when it's necessary to be" said Saori, firmly "I'll be furious when it's necessary to be. I tried to be good, and today we're broken."

"We don't have time for this" Saori said "We have to save our friends. They need us."

"It's okay, Saori" said Shun "just don't forget who you are."

Just don't forget who you are.

This is what she most wanted to do. To forget.

Seiya.

I particularly hate writing linking chapters, but I swear this one will be important later. The story really needs a long introduction, after all the plot is more complex. Anyway, kisses, I hope you're enjoying it!