Disclaimer: St. Seiya is copyright Kurumada Masami and Toei. No infringement or disrespect is intended by this non-profit work of fan fiction. This is a work of noncommercial amateur fan fiction; it is not published for profit or material gain. The author and the posters have no intent to infringe any intellectual property rights held by the owners of existing copyrights in Saint Seiya or its derivative works. The author retains copyright to this work.

Defeat

It had been a mistake not to go all out, Ikki realized as he stared at his brother down the gleaming silver of the Andromeda chains. The metal was wrapped tightly around his neck; the sharp point at the end hovering mere inches from his eye. The other end had wrapped itself tightly around his arms, and combined with the wall at his back, he was immobilized.

He had lost. Shun looked at him for a long moment, seemingly as surprised by the situation as Ikki. Then the younger boy smiled.

"So, big brother, do you still think I'm weak?" He asked, and with a quick flip of his wrist the chains retracted, freeing Ikki.

However, as the older boy wracked his brain for an answer to the not quite redundant question, Shun suddenly stumbled, turning deathly pale. Ikki rushed toward him, but before he reached the green-haired boy Shun lurched forward half a step, then crumpled unconscious to the ground, his energy reserves completely drained after nearly twelve hours of fighting.

There wasn't even any blood to wash off. That as the most frustrating thing. He couldn't do anything. He was completely unscathed, despite the defeat. Above him, florescent lights buzzed, the sound maddening to his already racing brain.

A sound, from his right.

Ikki lashed out, and the ancient magazines, vase of flowers, and offending radio crashed to the floor. He stared blindly at them for a moment, then swallowed hard and bent to pick them up.

"You need to calm down."

Ikki jolted around to look at the speaker. "Thanks for the advice."

Shiryu bowed his head. "It's more than advice. He's awake, and asking for you. He'll feel bad if you walk in looking like that."

Ikki nodded. Standing, he glanced at the nurse in the corner, waiting for him. She gestured for him to follow. As he was about to leave the room, though, Shiryu spoke again.

"Be honest."

Ikki froze, looking back at the Dragon Saint. He stood for a long moment, then shook his head. "Honesty, like the truth, is often subjective."

Shiryu smiled. "If you say so."

And then the black-haired boy was sitting down, picking up one of the magazines and flipping it open to the center. Ikki turned back to the nurse, following her down the sterile and sordid hallways of the hospital.

Shun was sitting up, and looked pale but well. He smiled brightly at Ikki, although the Phoenix Saint couldn't help but think that his eyes were dead above his mouth.

"What were you thinking?" Ikki snapped, as soon as the door closed behind the exiting nurse, and immediately hated himself when Shun's smile faltered slightly.

"I just wanted to practice with you."

"Why?" Ikki asked. He didn't know, truly. He never asked that Shun prove anything to him, at least he didn't think that he had. He had simply asked that his younger brother be able to take care of himself, on his own terms. Shun ignored the question, and looked at Ikki levelly as he asked a question of his own.

"Do you?"

The Phoenix Saint shook himself, looking back at Shun. The younger boy was obviously waiting for an answer, but Ikki didn't remember hearing the question. Shun smiled slightly.

"You never answered my question; I still want to know."

Ikki stared. No one ever asked that question and truly expected an answer. He couldn't give the answer he wanted too, anyway. He hadn't gone all out because it was supposed to be a training bout. Shun had begged him for the fight, saying that he wanted to exercise with someone he'd had less experience with recently. Ikki had reluctantly agreed; hadn't seen the harm in it.

Ikki sighed. He couldn't answer truthfully, not now. Because Shun's stunt out there, pushing himself past exhaustion in a simple practice bout, had only proved what Ikki already knew. Shun was not weak, but his judgment wasn't worth the ground he stood on. Idealistic and determined, Shun seemed uninclined to admit the one truth that bound them as Saints. He had broken the first rule. Ikki sometimes doubted Shun even knew the first rule.

Their lives didn't belong to them. Shun hadn't had the right to harm himself for his own gain. Their lives belonged to Athena alone. It was for her that they fought, trained, and survived. Ikki sighed, sitting on the edge of the bed and looking at his brother for a long moment. Ikki reached out and wrapped his arm around the green-haired boy's shoulders, and the position seemed as though it should be familiar, but Ikki couldn't quite remember through the haze of blood, despair, and anger that had become his past.

"You defeated me, Shun." He said, evading both the question and the answer. He knew Shun would notice, but the green-haired boy wouldn't say anything, wouldn't question because he really didn't want to know the answer.

There was no way Ikki was going to tell his brother what he really thought of him, because that would most likely make Shun cry. Ikki would not use that kind of honesty, mostly because it was idiotic. He hated himself for breaking Shun's heart when he yelled at him, but he needed the Andromeda Saint, his brother, and the only person left in the world that he considered worth loving, alive. He was devoted to Athena, but it was Shun who kept him sane and attached to the warped reality of their existence. Shun was the only one who had stayed both alive and consistently in his heart.

Ultimately, Ikki didn't think that his brother was weak. There was no way that the Phoenix Saint could put what he thought of Shun into words, the emotions too complex and deep for such trivial utterances. But he needed Shun alive, and so the Andromeda Saint needed not only to not be weak, but he needed to be truly strong. He needed not to act on the foolish and overly optimistic ideas in his head and start realizing that they were Saints, and that they needed to be more than they were. They needed to be damn near perfect.

Telling Shun that he thought he was an idiot was beyond comprehension, though. Because the kicker of it all would be that Shun wouldn't blame Ikki for insulting him; he would blame himself. And then he would try to change, and Ikki wouldn't have been able to stand for that.

Somewhere, in the back of Ikki's brain, an angry voice laughed madly at him. He couldn't have it both ways. He couldn't simultaneously keep his brother and make Shun into the man that Ikki so desperately wanted him to be. He had to choose which one he wanted.

The brother that he loved, or

The man that Ikki could guarantee to stay alive.

Sometimes they were forced to make such stupid choices.

END