9.

Letter sent from Crows Hall Farm to Brussels, dated December the first.

Dear Hyoga,

How are you?

I am better than well. I am HAPPY!!!

And I owe it all to you!!!! Thank you! Thank you!!! THANK YOU!!!!!

I never want to go back to Japan where people don't care.

I know, I am being unfair. There are good people in my country also, only I never met them.

Seika says that it is the way our society is organised that makes it so. Our hierarchy doesn't allow for anyone stepping out of line, not even to help someone in need. 'Sorry, you are not of my family or company or school tough luck'. It's because of this form of society that Athena can thrive in Japan.

Here in England people question everything and explain everything. It is good to be somewhere where one is not bound to tradition (although they say they are very traditional!) and when someone, even a superior, tells you to do something you can answer: 'Hang on, why should I?'

Who would have thought that I could be such a rebel?!

I was always such a shy, good little girl. Maybe something of Seiya has moved into me. He was a rebel too, in the beginning, before she bewitched him.

I still think of him every day but I cry no more. Seiya would not want me to cry. He would say it is better to celebrate life.

So I will.

The best thing about being here is that I can be a child again.

It's funny how girls my age over here want to be adults. At least, that is how they are in the television programs, I don't know that many girls yet.

Well, I have had a taste of what adult life is like, the worst kind! I find it too hard to speak about the things I had to do at the Bunny Bar. Jacob knows, but I think he doesn't quite realise what it means for a girl to be seen like that. I'm glad you never did, I would be so ashamed! It was awful, awful!!

But I am free of it now, thanks to you.

You were in such trouble yourself yet you remembered!

I do worry about the future though. Of course I say nothing of this to Jacob or Sunrei. He's still little and should be allowed to stay a child. There now, I've contradicted myself, I say I am a child myself but I can never be again, truly, I know. But I still wish…

Sunrei has been through enough and deserves a rest. She has been telling me how cold Shiryu has been to her and how that forced her to realise that though he loves her like a brother, he is not attracted to her like she is to him.

I am so very, very sorry for her, and I don't know how to comfort her.

Seika, who is so much older, is much better at that than I. She is very wise and says that Sunrei should not be so fixed on love. This is something that will happen, or not happen: it can not be forced. And because we are still only fourteen, we have all the time in the world.

I am glad to have Seika for 'Big Sister'.

Now that my mind is more at rest I can see things in perspective.

Seiya was everything to me and when he died, everything fell apart.

Everything or Nothing: that is how I wanted it, and that is how you Saints lived.

It is not a good basis to build a life on.

Now I wonder, maybe we should reconsider?

Hating Athena is part of the Everything or Nothing.

There must be a middle way. Not that I will ever forgive her for what she did to Seiya, but still…

You have told me that she prepares for another war with the Gods. Perhaps our role can be to mediate between them. Surely they can listen to reason. All this fighting serves nothing. Both sides have tried to prove - by winning, not with good arguments- that they were in the right. That is a Japanese trait as well: the strongest, the winner, must be right or he wouldn't have won.

Antonia told me about your battle with Poseidon, and how Athena sacrificed herself, how she allowed herself to be locked in the 'Main Blade Winner' Pillar and took all the water that would otherwise have drowned the Earth upon her own head. How, though agonising, she still found the strength to support you with her Cosmos.

She must love Humanity very much to do that.

So how can someone be at once so right and yet so wrong?

Can she not see that kidnapping little children and turning them into fighting machines may be the way to win the War but not the Peace?

I often think about these things while at the same time not wishing to have to think about them.

Just before we left Japan my friend Minako said something very important to me:

" You've done your bit. Now others can carry the load for you. Try to enjoy life again, it's what matters most."

Do you think we could, Hyoga?

I would like to do things like other girls. Seiya spoke with such contempt of young people who lead idle lives with no other purpose than personal enjoyment. Is it so bad of me to envy them? What if it is just their way of finding happiness?

Naturally I won't stay idle. But I want to do fun things like going out with friends, to the cinema, or swimming, dancing or just hanging about chatting. That is life too. I am looking forward to it.

Hyoga, when you come over here for Christmas, do you think that we could go to the cinema some time together? I have a little money; I can pay for the tickets.

Will you write me back? It does not have to be a very long letter.

I hope to see you soon

Miho.

P.S. Jacob tells me he wrote to you of our journey to England so I did not go into it.