Reignited Crimson

"Lionet Souma. In the name of the mother goddess, I've come for your life." The woman's low voice conveyed the air of a grim reaper. Cool, calculating, a figure creeping behind a life to indiscriminately take it. Piercing eyes as green as the sea, beautiful yet cold and unfriendly. She looked hardened like a warrior. To complement that fearsome appearance, her black armor looked jagged, covering the majority of her body.

Souma said nothing, lowering his head. He couldn't absorb the situation clearly. He looked over to Josh and Ichi's fallen bodies, and the image of the blood that spurted out of Josh repeated in his mind.

"From now and through the afterlife," the woman continued, "you will bear the death of your friends and family, just as I did. This is the price of weakness." The pink haired woman looked down at the boy she had just took out, and then back at Souma.

"Yes, just like this Josh, and just like your father," she said.

"What do you think you're doing," Souma mumbled as he looked down at his toes. His vision blurred due to a tremble going through him. His blood boiled down to his toes.

Then, his body moved impetuously.

"SONIA!" The screaming Souma lunged towards the woman. His arm stretched out, and a funnel of flame sprouted from his fist. A heatwave from Souma's Cosmos circulate the entire theater. The Steel Saint students lift their arms across their faces, their clothes rippling.

"It's Master Souma's Lionet Burning Fire," said Emma. "It's huge!"

"Does Master Souma know her?" asked another student. The Burning Fire was usually a ranged projectile sized as the hand's own diameter, no more or less. However, Souma expanded his Cosmos and the attack, much like a true flame, got bigger and wider. The Burning Fire hit its mark and the target was completely engulfed.

Sonia swayed her arm once and neutralized the flame.

"These flames. I remember them like it was yesterday. These flames of revenge. For some reason, it's not enough." It felt like being chided. It was to be expected from the former Gold Saint who served Mars, and then honored after death. Scorpio Sonia was, by title, the Gold Saint that led through Judgment and Discipline. A big sister with a cool tone, she had this portrayal of one who must give direction. As a Scorpio, following in her descendants' footsteps faithfully, her actions were quite rough when confronting a foe.

"Lionet!" At his call, a flurry of light rays emerged from a distance and hit Souma. In a blink, panels of orange armor attached to his body. A cat like helmet covered his head. Donning his Cloth, he wasted no time to close in. Both Lionet and Scopio stopped each other; they were eye to eye, in a grapple to tranquil their fists.

"It's no mistake! Your Cloth is different, but you really are Sonia. Explain this now! How the hell is it that you're alive?! Why are you attacking us?" Souma spoke with an anger that exceeded his confusion. Indeed, Scorpio Sonia died in battle along with her mental conflicts, but she and Souma had fought many times before in the past. He could not forget her face; when Sonia attacked Ichi and Josh in cold blood, it triggered Souma and suppressed his sentimentality. He tried to wrench his arm away from her grip, his body shaking.

"My pride." Scorpio said with a smile. "A second chance. As a Gold Saint, I fight at the highest faith and duty."

"You're attacking your friends! That's being treacherous!"

"I serve someone who experiences a lot of pain. I am revived to ease that pain because I understand a tender heart. That is what I was told. So, I agreed on my revival, and I kill."

"You're doing this on purpose?!" Souma could not believe that was her true feelings.

"Since we were enemies in the past Lionet Souma, since I killed your father, isn't this easy to do? To turn against you?"

The hair in the back of Souma's neck bristled. "And do you think that I'll forgive you for what you just did?!"

Both Saints jumped back and distanced themselves. A fiery aura surrounded Souma as he flexed his limbs.

"You! Sonia, my friends…" He believed to have put his feelings for Sonia aside, knowing her difficulties, but his past was spurred and he couldn't tell if his Cosmos was reacting to the thought of getting back at her regardless, or to force her to explain her actions. In the back of his mind, he also thought it was meant to be. Would Sonia ever truly be a likable friend? She was a true Gold Saint: Since there were twelve in all, what made the Gold Saints interesting was how they contrasted one another in viewing justice.

"That's right, become angry Souma." Scorpio Sonia lifted her hand at eye level. The nail on her index finger extended, glowing red.

"Uooooooo!" Souma crouched and pushed his body weight forward. "LIONET BOMBER!"

The Lionet Saint lunged again, this time as a bullet of flame to ram into Sonia. Scorpio Sonia charged at her foe, her hand raised. Her feet lifted off the ground, and she leaped past the flaming Saint, swiping him. A tilting red thread of light followed her fingernail. Souma saw it with his peripheral.

Suddenly, his body yanked back in mid-air. "GUH!"

Sonia's crimson nail sparked, and Souma felt his body being pierced from head to toe. Then, he felt his neck being squeezed. Sonia clenched Souma's throat within her claw-like grip, and swung him into the ground.

Without worries of neglect and hate bounding her heart, in this day and age Scorpio Sonia was a forceful beast.