Libra.
Put me down, now, son." said mr. Field, "I am not so old that I can't walk sometimes."
Neither man had spoken of what had passed in the Virgo Temple. Mr. Field, because he was not given to recriminations after the facts while still in the middle of action, and besides, having spoken his piece he felt it was up to the young people themselves to reflect (or not).
Which was what Ikki was doing. Not a man of words, the Phoenix Saint had decided that from now on, the best thing to do was to show by his actions that he had understood the message.
The rest was, as they say, water under the bridge.
"The Libra Temple will be empty. We won't be hindered.
"Son, the first thing an officer learns is never to take for granted that an area is secure unless he has had it secured himself. The ones who don't apply that rule are the ones who don't survive. Do your telepathy thing. Is it safe or not?"
"Yes…No! A Saint has come to guard it!" cried Ikki, and all but dropped the Englishman,
"Stay here, I can handle this."
"Whoa! Can't we go round? Avoid confrontation?"
"No."
Ikki went into the Libra Temple without another word.
Mr Field shrugged, and went to sit on the top step. From the pocket of his uniform he produced pipe and tobacco. "A bit chilly for an outside smoke, but there you are." he told himself, " Wait and see, Hubert, wait and see."
He sighed.
"When this is over I need to have a long talk with Dorje. It's time I came in the clear about my past. Of all the people I know, he understands best how difficult it is to come to terms with one's conscience. When Tsarong joined the Khamba guerrilla's he had a hard time torn between love for his brother, his people and his country, and his belief in non-violence. Everyone is capable of violence: honest is he who admits it is wrong although he chooses to use it. It took courage and wisdom for Dorje to respect Tsarong's choice, though he regretted the violence, and that makes him truly a Lama. 'War is evil, not the fact that sometimes you have to participate in it' he would say. Yes, I must talk to him soon. He can help these young men, if anyone can. "
He did not feel proud of his assassination-attempt on the Virgo Saint. But it went against the grain to let others -children- do his fighting for him, and he had become convinced that mere words had little effect on the Saints. Desperate actions, on the other hand, showed them his determination. It was the only thing they seemed to respect.
Briefly, mr.Field reflected on Shaka's accusations of hypocrisy and patronising.
"Echoes," he chuckled, "Of what Esk and Nick used to call me long –no, not so long ago- when they threw their adolescent crisis. Well, everyone's entitled. Didn't I have mine back in '42 when all I wanted was kill the Jap, but not the Jerry, hell, no, I 'm half Jerry, I'll never be able to look Mutti in the face again, but Japs now, that's different, and look what they did to the Chinese and the Koreans and what they are doing to Dad and Mutti right now! That was young Hubert Field. Going to Japan in '45 knocked some sense into me. It wasn't Hiroshima or Nagasaki, either, not yet, not then, God, no, I used to believe those horrors were a perfectly justifiable act of war, then! It was the brothels. First I thought: 'what kind of people have a government that advertises for such a thing, telling their own women it was their patriotic duty to go flat on their backs for the conquering heroes?' * But the conquering heroes, the champions of democratic values and human rights, they didn't actually protest to what was on offer, did they? No, no, a fellow is entitled to a little rest and recreation and besides, it's part of these people's culture, the Geisha thing , gotta respect that. Bollocks!
And then there was the horror of Nazi-Germany -no different**!- with the whole-scale destruction, the Camps, the D.P.'s,*** and 'our boys' buying German women for the night for food, well, young Hubert Field quickly learned the fundamental lessons about the Human Race. 1.: Everybody is capable of beastly, abject violence. 2.: Everybody lies. 3.: Everybody cheats. 4.: Everyone thinks himself a cut above the rest. 5.: Everyone is a hypocrite about his own failings, until he is mature enough to recognise them."
"A little hypocrisy goes a long way where the truth will only hurt; and patronising is a parent's privilege. Get over it!" Mr. Field had told his children, " Don't feel all misunderstood and slighted when things aren't what you want them to be or people tell you something about yourself you don't like! Grow up. Learn. Do something about it! Take it like a man! And ditto for women!"
Of the bunch, little Queer listening to his father admonishing his elder siblings had taken the words most to hard. Unlike Esk and Nick he had not been 'Anti' during his adolescent bouts, not anti-establishment, not anti-authoritarian, anti-reactionary, anti-everything, nor had he been, like Vimi, sulky, slimming and sliding into anorexia and from there on to the even more downwards slope to manic-depression. Instead quick-witted and sharp-tongued Queer had been one big comedy-act, mocking all and sundry including himself. But underneath there had been, and still was, a sensitive and very young man. Nick and Esk had seen that, and had helped him, and so doing had helped themselves grow towards maturity. Vimi too, locked in her own desperate combat, had helped.
Mister Field was proud of his children.
The first thing Ikki saw was the empty Cloth of Libra. The second was the Draco Saint.
"Shiryu. I should have guessed you would defend your master's old temple. Very Bushido and all that, but there is no need. I am not here to challenge anyone."
"Yet I am challenging you." said Shiryu.
Ikki was honestly surprised.
"Surely you don't think that I am a threat. I am merely accompanying people who wish to find their friends and family and to speak with Athena. If we are attacked, I'll fight, of course, to defend them. Protecting the innocent, is that not all that a Saint is about?"
"You are no Saint and they are not innocent. You defy Athena, support the Renegade, and the Goddess has rightly ordered your execution. We are brothers, and fought side by side. Out of respect for the bond that once existed between us, I have decided to be the one to slay you."
"Oh, please, spare my blushes!" said Ikki, growing impatient, "Don't be an ass, Shiryu. Mu, Aldebaran, Saga, Aiolia and even Shaka have allowed us to continue. That should tell you something. "
"I notice that Kanon and Deathmask are not on your list."
"I don't know about Kanon, and it is partly to find out what happened in his Temple that we are on our way up. Look, I have a father waiting outside whose sons have disappeared, courtesy of that half of the Gemini. Do you know anything about that?"
"If I did I would not tell you."
"God, you are such a pain! Grow up, will you? Let us pass to find out for ourselves."
"I will not. You killed Deathmask."
Ikki exploded.
"Of course I did! If anyone ought to have been executed long ago it would be him! Damn it, Shiryu, he was a monster! You should know that better than anyone, you fought him yourself. He has been redecorating his Temple with real corpses this time, not illusions. Ban and Geki's Master are among his victims. Incidentally, Geki asked Deathmask to expedite his Master in order to gain the Ursa Major Silver, so there is something rotten in Canada as well as Sanctuary. Don't come preaching to me when you can't or won't see what is happening under your very nose!"
Shiryu did not bat an eyelid.
" We are not talking of what they did, but of what you do. You have betrayed Athena's trust. No true Saint could ever forgive you for that. For Shun's sake, I shall kill you swiftly."
"Very gracious of you. Why don't you hold that thought and kill me later? I don't have time for it now. Say, next year or so?"
Shiryu visibly began to lose his cool as Ikki regained his.
"This is no joking matter! I am deadly serious!"
"Dead being the operative word…you were always too serious, Shiryu. Perhaps you are even under the delusion that you are doing me a favour."
"Others would kill you slowly, with all the suffering you richly deserve."
"If that is what you believe, why don't you? The company you keep does not seem to bother you either. Sanctuary is populated by egocentric, bloodthirsty maniacs. It's one of the reasons I quit. "
"One does not 'quit' Sainthood."
"You mean no one has succeeded so far. Hyoga is paving the way for us. Actually he is following Athena's earlier orders: that we should lead a normal life. Under pain of death of course. The logic in that was never quite clear to me. You ought to talk to Cygnus, though. He saw through the lies first, and had the guts to stand up for what is right. I for one am jolly grateful for it! Open your eyes, Shiryu. You are no longer blind, but you refuse to see. Sanctuary is an obsolete institution belonging to a past that is over and done with and should be!"
"That was pushing it too far, Ikki. A little more tact and a little less vehemence might have got you a better result."
"I wanted his reaction. I had to push him beyond the point where he could no longer contain his anger, to see if he would actually strike. He did."
"You have something of the martyr in you. Or do I mean masochist?"
"No, that was Shiryu's strong suit. Voluntary piercing his own eyes, allowing himself to be cut off from the rest of us against Capricorn and then taking Excalibur full in he chest, in order to get a grip on him and launch into eternity… no, I am not the sacrificial type: that was purely for Shiryu's benefit. After all those protestations that we were brothers and bonded he needed to realise what his choice was all about."
The Fury of the Dragon sent Ikki flying. The Phoenix Saint hit the ceiling and came down with a crash and a hail of marble debris.
"You…are making progress, Shiryu. Hitting a man without his Cloth who doesn't want to fight back, very noble indeed. " said he, wiping the blood from his mouth, " How do you like yourself now?"
"Be quiet!"
A second hit brought down what remained of the roof.
"Bravo… I think…I may have lost the use of my right arm…but I was not…about to use it anyhow. With the illusion of the Phoenix I could tear apart your soul …if I wanted to."
Once more Shiryu attacked. This time, he struck Ikki with the strength of Excalibur, straight through the heart, staking his half-brother like a vampire. Slowly the Phoenix Saint slid along Draco's arm, slowly, till his chest touched Shiryu's shoulder.
"Thus perish all traitors." murmured the young man, as he pulled the body away from him,
and flicked the blood from his fingers. " A clean death. I am happy for you, Ikki, that I was the one to kill you, and so preserve what honour you had left."
He turned his back on the corpse.
"Very moving. It will look good on my gravestone."
"What?!!"
"Sometimes I despair of my opponents, I really do."
"Shiryu whirled round. There stood Ikki, alive and well and grinning.
"I thought that you would know all about my favourite attack. I did remind you of the Phoenix Illusion."
"You said you would not use it! You said you would not fight!" cried Shiryu.
"I'm not suicidal. Nevertheless, you believed me, and still you attacked. I allowed you to do so twice before I used the Illusion on you: I wanted to see how you would react to my death. I had hoped for a 'What have I done' or a few tears at least. It is not that you disappoint me, Shiryu. You frighten me. You are far, far gone and I tremble at what we, Hyoga, Shun and I would have become, had we not turned from the road you continued. As a matter of fact, I know: I was already way ahead on that very road to perdition, once. One last chance, Shiryu. Renounce. We, your brothers, are there to help you. We love you. No matter what you decide, we always will. I …"
"Be quiet" shrieked Shiryu, his face a mask of anger and agony mixed, " This time I will kill you! I know your illusion now."
"Erm…perhaps I did push him too far. The thing is, it was double or quits. After all, it had worked for Saga and Virgo, the confrontation with the inconsistencies of Sanctuary and their own attitude. Damn! This wasn't a Sanctuary-trained Goldie, this was our Shiryu! Right up to that moment I still believed in him. I was convinced he would not harm me."
"You had more faith in Shiryu than he had in himself."
" If you, Shun, had been in my stead the end would have been different. You were always friends. I was the outsider. He was closer to you, and the distance between us was of my own making: I never bonded with you. I failed Shiryu."
"No you didn't. You did everything to save him. Saints don't hesitate to kill whom they love: witness Camu and Hyoga…"
"Or Isaak and me."
"Isaak and Hyoga. You were a different man at the time, Ilya, just as the Ikki who was the leader of the Dark Saints was a different man from Ikki, the Phoenix Saint who fought for Athena, and very different from the Ikki who faced Shiryu. My point is, Shiryu's mind was made up and his heart hardened before you met. Shun's chances of helping him would have been even less, for Shun cannot conceive of evil…"
"Hey! You people are always glorifying me! Don't you start as well, Sunrei."
"All right, which has the more merit: to turn one's back on one's evil, or not to commit evil at all because one is not tempted to do so? What I meant was: Ikki knows how hard it is to come back from the dark side, and how empty one is once there. How deep the pain runs. From that he tried to preserve Shiryu. If you have to choose between betraying the service of your Goddess, and betraying the love for your brother, and chose the latter, then you are already halfway to perdition. Ikki knows that well."
"And how well you know me, Sunrei."
"Ho ho! What's this with holding hands? Is there something brewing between you two?"
"Kill me once, kill me twice, kill me once again: the Phoenix always rises from his ashes. You will have a job doing it. Though maybe not since you are in Cloth and I am not…"
A long, low rumbling like a Dragon's growl rose from Shiryu's throat. With a cry he caused his Cosmos to explode and the components of his God Cloth flew from his body every which way. They gathered, hovered in the air for a moment, then reconstructed themselves in the form of a dragon, and descended to stand brotherly side by side to the Libra Cloth.
"Great striptease. You could make yourself a fortune if you performed at that place you frequent in Tokyo…"
"Shut up! Shut up! Just shut up!"
At every word he screamed the incensed Draco Saint hit the Phoenix harder and harder.
"Good…that is better…no talk of duty and Sainthood, but plain honest anger." breathed Ikki between blows, " There was a time when all you wanted was to work in the rice paddies of China…what happened…to that Shiryu?"
" He died! He died a long time ago! He died with Seiya! My duty to Athena is all I have left!"
"And there we come to the heart of the matter. The Shiryu we knew indeed died with the Pegasus Saint. I doubt if he himself realised before then the true nature of his deep love for Seiya. That was probably for the best. Imagine,: his own half-brother, and definitely hetero at that…No, there was never a chance for the old Shiryu to revive."
"I loved Seiya as well. His death never turned me into a murderous …"
"Miho, Seiya loved you in return. For you two there could have been a happy ever after. Had Seiya lived, Shiryu would be left standing in he cold. The world over, gays struggle with their sexuality. Even in the best of circumstances, they will have to surmount difficulties that hetero's never have. Minorities are habitually given a hard time. It may be called Greek love, but homosexuality was not as accepted in antiquity as people often suppose. Of course, Japanese culture may have less of a problem with homosexuality because it does not have the repressive sexual taboo's the West had. ****. Shiryu coped with his pain by repressing all feeling, physical and emotional, to concentrate fully on his Sainthood, quite like Shaka did. Perhaps, Ikki, he was doing the same to you as you had done to him: pushing you to kill him. A way out. When all that lies ahead is coloured black, and the going back seems impossible, there is that one option left. I know, I know only too well…"
"Vimi, are you saying that…"
"Shiryu wanted to die, yes. To stop the pain. To be with Seiya."
"Then…there is nothing left for me but to attack."
"That will not avail you. The Flight of the Phoenix is known to me as well as the Illusion! Excalibur!!! "
Ikki jumped back in time and took up a stance the Draco Saint had never seen before.
"Another Dimension!"
The whole Temple began to vibrate.
"What…how…where…"
"Did I learn that? Bitter experience. Hyoga too mastered the Aurora Execution after having been subjected to it, and he has been using it ever since. Why should I not copy Saga? Where I am sending you will have the chance to clear your head. You need it."
The portal to the Other Dimension opened wide. In vain Shiryu struggled against the gravitational pull. He was not alone being sucked in: his Cloth and the Libra one, and then the entire Temple disappeared. In a matter of seconds, there was nothing left but barren rock, and a most astonished mr. Field.
"Hmmm, I may have overdone it a bit. But, oh, that was not pleasant, not pleasant at all." muttered Ikki.
He fell on his knees and cried until he had no more tears left.
To be continued.
* Authentic. Both Nazi-Germany and Japan set up brothels for the troops, consisting of 'Comfort Women' from the conquered territories and their own kind as well (professional prostitutes, but also girls nobody cared about; lower social classes and orphans and such) Towards the end the Japanese women were expected to commit 'gyokusai' ('broken jewel') or mass suicide to avoid the 'embarrassment' of discovery by the enemy. After the capitulation the occupying forces committed mass rape (the Australians were particularly vicious). To solve the problem the Japanese government held a special council (21 august 1945, dubbed the 'comfort-women council') and found the solution: on the 28th of august 1945, 13 days after the capitulation, the 'Society for Recreation and Amusement' (headquarters: the square in front of the Imperial Palace) was founded. After they had run out of regular prostitutes for their 'clubs', the following advertisements were placed in local newspapers (e.g. Ginza): 'We ask your co-operation for the important work to comfort the troops. Age 18 to 25.'
The Society was officially abolished march 27, 1946, to avoid the spread of venereal disease (it's main reason for having been founded in the first place) and because it did not stroke with the newly adopted democratic values and human rights (rather and afterthought, that).
There is plenty of literature on the subject. So is denial.
** Authentic (see above) Where there are soldiers, there is rape and there are brothels. It's human nature, and one has to make allowances for it, but it doesn't make it right. It may change yet, but 'Bad old habits are too deeply rooted to permit rapid change' as mr. Field is fond of quoting Deng Xiao Ping, and add: "But that is no excuse for not trying to change a bad thing."
*** Displaced Persons. Millions of them.
****There were even in a distant past, homosexual Buddhist sects. Something for the aficionado's of slash?
Author's notes:
Surely no one actually believed that Ikki would kill Shiryu, I hope?
During a long Christmas vacation I have penned down 82 pages (very small writing too!) or the equivalent of 11 of the planned 13 chapters till the end of Part III. I still have 32 more pages (4 chapters) to type AND I DO NOT OWE A COMPUTER. My only (borrowed laptop) access (short of the office spare PC during lunch break and after-hours, my colleagues think I am writing my autobiography in three fat volumes!) has been cut off for a week, so the next instalment will not be as rapid I have been in the past week.
Patience is a cardinal virtue.