71 — SAORI KIDO
Silence.
The ceiling moving subtly through the clear water. A deep silence.
Suspended animation. A state of bliss.
With her eyes closed, it was as if she existed anywhere else.
When she reopened her eyes, she could again see the dark ceiling by the crystalline water that subtly shifted shapes.
She lifted her torso out of the water, finally letting it run all over her face and took a deep breath taking in the air again.
The audible beeps could be heard in the distance. She sighed and finally got up from the hot tub to wrap herself in a towel.
With wet and bare feet, she walked out into a makeshift bedroom suite where Alice was waiting. Saori dried off her body and wrapped her hair in the towel.
"About time." Alice commented, pulling a face from Saori. "Sit down."
Saori sat on a stool in front of Alice, who brushed open her long hair with a brush. It had been three weeks since the battle had ended and the kids were still sunk in that deep coma.
"How did you manage to heat the water?"
"With some creativity. I used the generator in an unconventional way." Alice replied.
"It was great."
"I know."
And she gently brushed her long wet hair. Alice knew that Saori was tired and busied herself with being silent, so that she would have a few minutes of peace; but like a curse or torture, the repeated beeps from the second floor would never let her forget her pain.
"What are people talking about?" asked Saori, finally.
"About you?"
"Yea."
"They talk about Athena. That doesn't leave this house." she said.
Saori didn't answer and Alice continued:
"It seems there are Saints and Soldiers who still don't trust you."
Saori was silent. She had given up her position at the Graad Foundation, but neither had she taken her place as the Goddess Athena. Mainly for the ancient inhabitants of Rodorio, who were so used to the rigidity of the Sanctuary's rites and customs. Among the forces of the Sanctuary, it was not rare for soldiers who even doubted that she was even the Goddess Athena, after all it was unthinkable that Athena could be anywhere other than her Temple. Never mixed with them. Much less living among them.
"I don't know if I care." said Saori. "Should I care?"
Alice stopped brushing for a moment, as if trying to find the best way to tell her.
"Well, you are the Goddess Athena, aren't you?" she finally said. "Maybe you should. But I'm biased on this, as far as I'm concerned you should flee this terrible place and go live on the beach."
"Are you going to prepare my baths on the beach too?" asked Saori, and it was Alice's turn to look very embarrassed.
Saori then pulled her friend's left hand to take hers and let her head hang lovingly on her arm. Alice stopped combing her hair and stroked her face; she tried to be the rock beside Saori, but it tore her chest that she was so sad, so confused.
"I just need some time." finally spoke Saori, not knowing if she needed time to go to the beach or to be the Goddess Athena.
"Your time or their time?" Alice asked, pointing to the ceiling, for on the second floor of that house were the five bodies that worried her so much.
"It has been always my time, right?" asked Saori. "Now is their time. I want to be by their side, I don't want them to be here being taken care of, in a coma, while I'm up on the mountain being treated like a Goddess. They're my friends, Mii."
"They're mine too." said her friend. "I don't think you're wrong, Saori. But me and those idiots up there are nobody to the people here. You are the Goddess Athena."
"I can't be whoever each of them expects me to be."
"Of course you can't." he agreed, encouraging her. "They also need some time getting used to."
Alice finished brushing and placed a pretty gold clasp in Saori's hair.
"Now I want to see someone doubt you're a Goddess." she commented, getting out of bed and opening the door.
Saori left alone for the second floor, as Alice would take care of taking her own shower, as well as leaving the whole place clean and dry. In that room converted into a clinical wing, the audible beeps mingled with the noise of the rain falling in Greece. The five bodies remained immobile on the bed, each covered with a sheet of a different color, as they had to ask the various residents of the region for bedding and other provisions. It was, after all, a very simple village.
The modern gear with its many lights on at the head of each one was a huge contrast to that rustic house. June changed all of their IV bags one by one.
"Master Mu will be back soon." she said when she saw Saori appear.
Saori leaned against the first bed, where Seiya was lying. She noted that the boy's expression was one of extreme peace under the oxygen mask; she remembered how peaceful she felt too when she submerged in the warm water of the bathtub. Maybe he also experienced some tranquility, lost in dreams that she hoped were good. She took his hand and looked at Shun, at Shiryu, Hyoga and Ikki at the far end. She remembered Xiaoling and how she wanted her to be there too.
The ringing sounds were interrupted by the noise of shattering glass on the first floor. June and Saori looked at each other scared, but Saori comforted her imagining that it was some oversight of Alice.
She went down to the first floor, but noticed that Alice was still bathing, as well as noticing that those windows had no glass to be broken. On the floor, there was dirt scattered in the room and a small vase of flowers broken on the floor; she looked out the open window and saw another stone enter the hut, knocking over a second vase. Her chest froze.
She opened the door and, in the rain, saw a dozen men and women with stones in their hands, and beside them there were at least two Bronze Saints she didn't know about, as well as at least one Silver Saint that she had never known either.
"What do you want?" she asked, not understanding.
"You are not Athena!" accused the Silver Saint, and beside her a common soldier threw a stone at her feet.
"Did you wait for Master Mu to leave to come make this scene? What do you want from me?" she asked truthfully.
The question caught all those rebels off guard, as perhaps they didn't even know what they wanted; they could not tell what kind of Goddess Athena they would find acceptable. A cruel, powerful, beautiful, intelligent, beligerant, righteous person? They couldn't tell. Perhaps any version of Saori would be equally rejected in favor of any other. They just wanted to do something with the sense of betrayal they felt, as they all had a certain authority and fame for being faithful to the old Camerlengo. And now they were just one more footsoldier in the Sanctuary. Even worse, for those who once boasted of a certain cruelty were now frowned upon.
"A girl like you will doom the Sanctuary. The Gods will invade this Earth." said the Silver Saint.
"I will fight!" she said.
"What's the use of fighting? Weak as you are, we're just going to lose!" accused another Bronze Saint.
"What the hell is going on here!?" Shaina's voice roared from far away, over a boulder.
She leapt among the rioters, scattering them into smaller groups.
"I can't believe what my eyes are seeing." she said. "This is the Goddess Athena! You are really delusional if you think I'll let this slip!"
"Oh, Shaina, everyone knows you don't like her either!" said one of the Bronze Saints.
And he was the first to meet the fury of Shaina's fist, which drove him to the ground far away.
"She is the Goddess Athena and that is all we need to know. You are Sanctuary warriors. You've spent years protecting a false image, and now that you're facing the true Goddess Athena, you dare to throw stones at her? I'll put each of you on Cape Sounion for the rest of the month!"
"You won't do any of that." replied the Silver Saint. "We are at the brink of the Holy War and you cannot get rid of anyone who is fit to fight."
He was right and Shaina was silent for a moment.
"You're right, Canis Major Sirius. You will live. But that doesn't mean you won't bleed for this."
Her arm reached above her head, her hand opened, her nails lit up and the electricity crackled before covering the body of the Silver Saint, who howled in pain as Shaina's Thunder Claws brought him to the ground.
"Get out of here! Return to your posts and tomorrow I await all of you at the first light of dawn in the Arena."
The expressions of fear on the faces of the Bronze Saints and footsoldiers were notorious as they walked away from there, for they knew they would have a hard life the next day. Sirius also got up with difficulties, but he remembered before leaving.
"You don't believe her either, Shaina." he said, still shaking from his spasms. "But you'd rather die for it than do something."
Shaina lifted him by the neck and spoke through gritted teeth.
"She is the Goddess Athena. She defeated the Camerlengo you thought was a god. I would think twice before doubting her."
She dropped him to the ground and Sirius looked into her eyes before she left.
"You thought he was a god too."
And so he left. Leaving Shaina with that pain that often plagued her: that she, too, had been at their side, doing cruelties for Sanctuary. She remembered, however, her duty. And as soon as she turned to Athena, to apologize for that absurd mess, she did something she had never done before: knelt down in front of her and apologized immensely. For if Shaina didn't like the idea of Saori being the Goddess Athena, she no doubt took her role as Master of Arms very seriously.
"I am sorry, Athena. I'll make sure they're all punished." she said, valuing the speech. "And that won't happen again, I swear it."
Saori said nothing, and Shaina, waiting a terrible reprimand, was disconcerted by the silence. And when she looked up, she saw that Saori was no longer there. Maybe it hadn't been a long time and, in the distance, she walked away through the rain.
Again in the ruins of the Aegean Sea, where once Seiya said goodbye to Marin, where Marin said goodbye to Mayura. Where she and her friends watched the sun rise before they were induced into that coma that separated them between the divine life they forced her to live and the dream world they forced Seiya and his friends to experience while recovering.
The rain continued to fall across Greece and so she knelt on the stone bridge, still watching the lights of the harbor in the background.
She didn't want to run away.
She just didn't want to be seen crying.
She punched the muddy earth and revolted to see that not even the anger she felt inside herself was able to make her manifest her divine Cosmos. Then she would like to see someone doubting her. Someone throwing stones at her feet. Or having the gut to say something behind her back in the squares. Who would have the courage to say anything to the fact that she wanted to be wherever she wanted.
She didn't even have her staff beside her, as that was in the Temple of Athena.
All she had there was the gold clasp Alice had given her. Her brushed hair was already ruined, but she took off the clasp and knew that by then she had everything she needed. She got up ready to go back to Seiya and the other convalescents when she felt in the darkness that there was a figure watching her.
It lasted a moment and passed as it had come, as if carried by the wind.
She wiped her tears in the rain and turned to return when she saw the figure of Master Mayura in front of her. Standing. Eyes open. Wearing her wonderful Owl Cloth on her body. She was there as a Saintia and not the governess of the Sanctuary.
"What do I do, Master Mayura?" she asked morosely.
"What you always did, Athena." replied Mayura.
"Following my heart seems so childish." added Saori.
"There is no age for a heart in the right place."
Saori was silent, as she felt her chest cold. Mayura walked towards her and spoke in a distant voice.
"I still remember how you and the other dove would hide in the rock to stare at the statue of Athena in my retreat. What were you talking about then?"
"We thought you could hear us."
"Never. I only heard what you wanted me to hear, Athena."
"We used to play. Most of the time I took the statue and played with it, trying to imagine that I was a powerful and very cruel Goddess."
"Far from what you really are."
"I am not a powerful Goddess." concluded Saori.
"Not a cruel Goddess." corrected Mayura. "You see, Athena, I was by your side when you were just a baby. When I found you at Old Kido's Mansion. I was by your side too when you found out you were the Goddess Athena."
"I've never been so confused in my life."
"You're still very confused, aren't you?"
"A lot."
"I can't help you figure out what it means to be a Goddess. But it's my duty to remind you never to doubt your heart. Sadness is not a mistake. You too can be sad."
"I won't be fine while they're like that." she said about her faded friends.
"Then stay with them. I am not here as the Master of the Sanctuary, I am here as Saintia and the Owl of Athena."
"What would the Master of Sanctuary say?"
"I don't know. She's not here."
Saori looked at Mayura and tried to give her something that perhaps she has rarely experienced: a hug. And as she was there as an Owl and not a Master of the Sanctuary, she experienced giving back. And then she looked at Saori and repeated:
"Go to them." she said, with an impossible smile on her face.
Saori ran back in the rain to the hut and saw Alice running towards her, worried sick. Making sure nothing had happened to her, asking if she was okay and very offended that she was very dirty once more.
Upon reaching the hut, Saori saw in the distance that Master Mu was back, as well as Shaina and even some other well-known figures at the door of the building. She ran through the door, past the Gold Sains, up the stairs, and her chest swelled with joy.
They were on their feet again.
ABOUT THE CHAPTER: I really like the scene of the Bronze Saints of the Manga injured after the 12 Houses and Saori watching over them at the hospital, although Sanctuary expects her to be there. And I wanted to elaborate on that. More than that, I would also like to point out that even inside the Sanctuary there were still those who didn't believe in her, after all it was 15 years of Saga's domain and his ideas could not be erased overnight.
NEXT CHAPTER: A NORMAL LIFE
Saori and her friends experience a normal day in Rodório.