Author's Note: I have the Steel Knights in here because, quite frankly, I like those guys, and there's so little to them, they're hard to screw up. By the way, I came up with the Mia and Sienna sections because Inda wanted more about the girls, and if you ask me, it's a better story for it, regardless of how you feel about those characters. This is a hint: ask and ye shall receive, and make a very happy author, usually. I'm still working on fitting in the romance, though. One out of two ain't bad, right Inda?

Loose Ends

"Erishkigal!" Back at the Koji mansion, Mia had been frantically searching her grandfather's files for some answers.

"Did you find something, Mia?" Yuli leapt to his feet and rushed over from where he'd been consoling a very depressed White Blaze. The tiger, too, had his interest peaked and followed the boy to the computer.

"After the party last fall, the boys mentioned a force of cold fire. I couldn't find anything that can cross dimensions and has that kind of a power base. Then, I came across this Sumerian myth! Ereshkigal was the goddess of death and the underworld, and was originally a goddess of the sky, who married the sun god!"

"A goddess? That sounds really dangerous. Do you think they can handle it?" The small boy trembled slightly, but his eyes remained dry.

"You're absolutely right in that a goddess will be tough, but we have to have faith in them! They'll figure something out, they're the Ronin Warriors, remember?"

"Right! And we'll find a way to help them, right Mia?"

"Right."

---

"I wish there was something I could do!" As revelations come to one mansion, another was thrown into chaos. A white clad figure, her amethyst hair streaming behind her, paced agitatedly across the floor. "I thought the Graude Foundation could track anyone! So where are they?!" Sienna screamed in frustration for the third time at her flustered staff as they bustled about the command center.

"Please, princess, have patience." Tatsumi nervously soothed the ranting royal. "We can track almost anyone on earth, but they aren't on earth any more, so that makes tracking them a little trickier."

"How can something like this happen? How can something just barge in and kidnap people from my own home! Again!"

"Princess, we may have found something!" Athena's ravings were cut short, thankfully, by one of the men scanning the monitors. "We received a message from the Steel Knights."

"Put them through!" She practically lunged forward, terrorizing the poor attendant who'd been unfortunate enough to receive the information first, as Daichi's little face popped up on the screen.

"Okay, Princess, Doctor Mamori has something. Basically, it goes from weird to weirder, and I'll let you decide if it's good or bad. As we were scanning for the cosmos of the Knights, seeing as everything else wasn't working, we established they are definitely in another dimension. There is some wicked powerful force holding them there, too. And, check out this message that seemed to be sent to our computer." The screen went black, then bold, white, Japanese kanji began to scroll across it.

"Searching. . . Searching. . . Results:

Erishkigal: Sumerian goddess of death and the underworld. . . married Nergal, the sun god."

Daichi's voice continued to be heard, though the message remained on the screen. "It went on and on, but this entry was highlighted. It was all jumbled up, like some kind of code, written in symbols on the keyboard, not letters, but the doc translated it and picked this part out."

"Yeah," Sho's voice piped in, "We think this has some connection to where the Bronze Knights could be!"

"But we don't know how or why we got this." Ushio concluded darkly as all three faces reappeared on the screen. "We're sending the message to you now."

"Oh! I hate secrets!" Sienna repeated. "What does it all mean, indeed." She gnawed her lip worriedly, lost in thought, as she resolutely continued to pace the floor.

"You got me, but I sure hope we can hurry up and find out!" Kiki squeaked, forgotten in his corner. Mu had already been contacted, as well as Roshi and the other remaining Gold Knights, but they could do nothing to help. This was the first lead anyone had, and no one knew what to do with it! The situation had greatly subdued the normally energetic boy. "I just wish I knew they were all right." He said softly to himself.

--

Seiya opened his eyes to fire. As he looked around, he realized something equally disturbing. He was in a volcano! Lava surrounded him, but didn't burn him. He was comfortably warm.

'What the heck is going on? Is this some kind of dream? I think my friends might be in trouble. For that matter, I think I might be in trouble.' He wondered as the scene changed to a very dark cave. Then, two whirlpools. Then a forested mountain. Then, finally, something he recognized! A stunning panorama of space, where Pegasus, Draco, Cygnus, Andromeda, and Phoenix were brighter than any other stars, before he was once again thrown back into the volcano.

Although the scenery continuously changed around him, he stayed calm, almost like he was waiting for something. A cool observer of a motion picture, not a participant of a play. The scenes sped their rotation and a twinge of pain shot through him each time! It felt as if what he was seeing was trying to take something from him.

'What is this?' He thought in confusion as he doubled over, feeling like someone was tearing him nine ways at once. Pegasus panicked slightly when an unfamiliar voice called his name. He focused his blurred eyes on the faint, approaching figure and it seemed to dim the background and the pain until all Seiya could see around him was a dark grey-blue. Pegasus realized for the first time that he was wearing Knight's cloth while the drab space brightened with pastel hues of pink, green and yellow now that the new comer stood before him, the stranger's red hair swaying in a breeze Seiya couldn't feel. The man was about Shun's age, a little taller than Pegasus, and dressed in teal-greyish armor, partially covered by a gold-trimmed brown tunic.

"I am Anubis, formerly the Warlord of Cruelty."

"Formerly? What do you mean by that?"

"Suffice to say, we are none of us what we once were. My colleagues are not nearly what they appeared to you, either. I think you'd actually like some of them, had you met them at a better time. You are needed, now. I came to give you something that will help you both defeat your true foe and be recognized by your allies. I am trusting you, as leader of your team, and as a guardian of your world, with an object of great power. I am trusting you with something that is very dear to my friends and I that we went to great pains to procure and protect. It is yours, until you see fit to bestow it on another. I trust your judgment, from what I have seen of your character. I have watched you with some interest, Pegasus."

At this, Seiya realized that Anubis carried around his neck a strange, well, jewel. It was an unusual shape -- like a tear drop that had been twisted about a string. Suddenly, the jewel flared with a white light so bright that the brunette's vision left him. He heard the former Warlord's voice echo in his mind. "Go back to them, Seiya of Pegasus. Your friends and mine need you. Beware of Ereshkigal, she's not what she appears."

At last, the young warrior's eyes shot open, and he found himself in a bit of trouble.

------------------

I originally had that last part as Ryo's dream, but then felt I was making the story too Ronin centered. Also, Ryo's bit, when it was Ryo's bit, was first, but I decided that was rather anticlimactic. I like it this way better. Don't you? he he he.
Thedifferent spellings of Ereshkigal (Erishkigal) is not a typo, there are just two ways to spell her name. The one I prefer is the less commonly used, so I thought any research about her would probably turn up the more common one.