WARNING: Brief description of blood and injury.
Athena's Awakening
Mitsumasa Kido sighed, and Saori watched astonished, feeling as if foundations of her life had been made fragile. Nonetheless, she couldn't brush off that burrowing itch, that impression that a chest of feelings remained unwillingly locked in her heart.
"I… think I told you a few times that your parents died in a plane crash when you were a baby. That wasn't true whatsoever. Whatever other story I told you in the future about them is also untrue. In all fairness to myself, I'm not sure you have actual parents," he said, and she frowned at the absurdity of that statement. "I'd better explain myself. As you know, in my trip to Athens, I acquired the Gold Cloth, but that wasn't the only thing I came back with. I broke the tourist excursion's rules and distanced myself from the guides to snap some photos from the acropolis, then I stumbled upon a man bleeding on the marble. Fatally injured as he was, we didn't have quite long. He was the one who gave me the Gold Cloth, then he also handed me something else, something more important." Mitsumasa's eyes turned from the camera and onto somewhere on the desk. Saori felt chills waving through her spine. "I was handed a baby whom he had protected with his life, and was told to do the same. That baby was you, Saori."
At that point she overflowed with tears, and they began to stream decadently down her cheeks. "Then the blood…" she stuttered.
He confirmed it thereafter: "The stain on the piece of clothing wrapping this tape was that man's. Do you understand now? That man was a Gold Saint, the Sagittarius Saint himself!" Regardless of why, she could understand it, she could see what he meant, yet not how it made sense to her. "He told me that, once enough Saints were gathered, I should use the Cloth to bring out the enemy. As time was limited, this Saint didn't make it clear to me, but he claimed the enemy was in Sanctuary. In fact, he said the enemy was their Pope."
"What of the Dark Saints?" Saori asked. In the happenstance that the Dark Saints weren't involved with the enemy at all, then their whole focus so far had been worthless, and their effort, a waste of will.
Mitsumasa looked directly at the lens like before, straightening his back, which surely preceded more grievous news. "I'm about to do something potentially dangerous, albeit necessary. Saori, make sure that you are comfortable, in a safe place, and not distressed. After what I say, I wouldn't blame you if you were in a panic. I can't tell what this information will cause you. Are you ready?"
Awkwardly getting off the armchair, holding her hands together in dismay, and with the jumbled chaos in her thoughts rendering every notion cloudy, Saori stared on in dismal anticipation. "What is he going to do?" she said, fingers trembling betwixt one another. She wondered if watching it by herself was the right choice after all.
"For starters, the day of your birth is incorrect. I'm unsure when you were born exactly, I only know you were around one year old when I got you. Your birth date was the day I got you from this Saint, only one year prior. Similarly, Saori is not your true name, but only a worldly name I devised to hide your true identity."
"What are you saying?" Her words disagreed, but that instinct shackled in her nerves pushed against it. She couldn't for the life of her pull out that thin thread in her memories, that feeling too great to continue co-existing with her; her head felt close to exploding.
"That man, he gave his life for you… he entrusted you to me because… oh Saori, you're not who you think you are." He breathed out and prepared for a few more seconds. "Athena, daughter of Zeus, guardian of this Earth! Awaken from your slumber!"
Athena's stare went blank in apparent shock, pupils dilated. Her lips parted and her lower jaw shook intermittently. A thought raced through her, and that thread, once impossible to grasp, rallied upfront like a thousand armies, memory after memory, age after age, all bursting from the seeds contained in an ancient soul.
She came back to consciousness for a moment and saw a field of bloodied bodies in armor, some men and women still clashing at the foot of war. A cusp of flames encroached, but an injured Saint pushed it away with a swing of the arm. Athena watched as said fire raged aside, barely missing her, yet its heat so vivid and familiar.
Turning eyes forward once more, flames gave way to a pale room, and in her hand there was now a golden, ornate spear, its long edge through the armored chest of a long-haired blond man. A trident and a tall crown lied beside him. "Uncle…?" she wondered, and her victim's gaze thirled her in fury.
With a blink, she was taken somewhere else. Before her was the colossal feet of a statue, and looking up, she saw a representation of her own self, standing so proudly under a galactic vista. "Lady Athena," a feminine voice called. Athena turned back and saw dozens of Saints in Cloths and masks, dozens of women in mantles, crowns of leaves, necklaces of fig… all kneeling in respect, with eyes not daring take her semblance directly.
Then she was back in the star room, lights persisting as a blur. Mitsumasa Kido, in his ignorance, was correct of the hazard imbued in the words that awakened her. To a vessel of that age, it's an overwhelming experience having one's divine nature revealed so unexpectedly. Her head turned to the left against her body's wishes, then eyes rose into the skull, and in that position she stayed a second, whimpering afterwards once she regained consciousness. Athena filled her lungs with air and calmed herself, assailed by acute migraines.
She held her forehead and groaned, and it was clear that extreme lensing of light dressed her outline, hair often flowing along nonsensical winds. As soon as the headache gave up, she stumbled out of the star room and turned off the videocassette player and the lights, but pains resurfaced, and an uncontrollable, stupendous Cosmos burned. "It's always… the same thing," she said, caressing her temples to alleviate them. Having left the studio, she stumbled to the next wall and recollected, floor seeming to twist under the feet. Dealing with that vertigo along the halls and up to her bedroom was a tricky task even to a goddess. "I need to put this out somehow."
Eventually she did find a way to the bedroom, turning on the lights and leaving the door open in a hurry. Precision yet affected, she had trouble navigating the collection of vinyls on the shelf, but a specific one grabbed her attention. The vinyl player was right below the shelf, on a wooden reading desk, and she made sure to put the needle close to a spot she remembered well. An interplay between a harpsichord, violin, and flute initiated, and it seemed to massage the aches a little.
In the same spot, she pulled a drawer and grabbed a leather notebook and a ballpoint pen, which she brought to the sliding doors beyond a massive bed. She pushed them open to reveal another balcony, the breeze coming in to calm her further, and she stumbled back to sit at the edge of the mattress, opening the notebook and feverishly writing in disorganized strophes.
The sound of a toilet being flushed came from the Saints' corridor. The door to the bathroom opened, and a masked June popped the head out, her straight hair sightly frizzed and tied in a bun. "Eeeh? There has been a really huge Cosmos for a while." She came out and shut the door, going towards Shun's door. "I'd better wake up the boys." As she knocked, she whispered through the wood. "Shun? Are you awake? If you're not, then you'd better wake up!"
Soon she heard steps coming, and the boy opened the door, frowning at her. "Are you feeling that?" he asked straightaway.
"I am, it's weird. It has been bothering me for a few minutes already."
"We should wake up the others."
So they did, knocking at the other three's doors, who didn't take long to wake up and come out in their cozy sleeping clothes. The intensity and proximity of that energy was impossible for a Saint to ignore. Seiya yawned and stretched after closing his quarters' door, then raised an eyebrow, looking up. "Huh, it's coming from upstairs," he said.
"Should we prepare before checking?" asked Shiryu.
"I don't know. It feels kinda nice, doesn't it?"
"In a way, it does."
Shun agreed too: "It resonates in a calming way."
Seiya shrugged and went towards the stairs. "Let's sneak up and see what it is. I bet it's the Gold Cloth acting up."
The others weren't so sure of that, yet they tip-toed to the source of that gargatuan power, which led them to the highest story and evidenced a door open by the end of the corridor. "Look, Saori left the door open," June said at the front, "and she's listening to music this late at night."
"This is too much," Shun commented, sometimes wincing at how that Cosmos resonated with him, "it's almost deafening up this close."
"Seriously, what's going on?"
June brought her index to her lips to signal them to be quiet, as she would approach. "I'll spy inside," she told them, then continued to find out what was going on. What she saw was the image of a Saori sitting on her bed, the balcony open to the starry sky, a dense and niveous aura around her, powerful enough to lift the hair every so often. Beneath the sound of the instruments playing, a shy sob was audible from there, so June turned back promptly. "G-guys, it's totally Saori!"
"What?"
"Saori?"
The boys barged through the door without thinking any further, curious to see what was the meaning of Saori Kido, a rich businesswoman, exhibiting such greatness that would've taken them eons to attain. When they saw what June had also seen, they stopped on their tracks and approached only in light and slow steps.
"Amazing," Shiryu said.
Shun was still worried about his friend. "Saori, are you feeling okay?" he asked. When they looked over her shoulder, they saw that tears marked the paper, and the script she wrote was unintelligible to them.
"What are those letters she is writing?" Seiya whispered.
"It reminds me of…" Shun squinted and studied it some more "… cursive Cyrillic, maybe Greek."
Hyoga reinforced his second theory: "That's definitely no kind of Cyrillic."
To their surprise, the one they called Saori stood up, left the notepad onto her bed, and turned to look at them, apparently having released part of the emotions stuck to the throat. She looked at them with worried eyes, swollen from all the tears. "This vessel, it… it's still a struggle to contain my Cosmos in it."
June was paralyzed. It came to her then, the signs that they had observed, the dimension of that Cosmos, the Sagittarius Cloth, the hardships they faced head on… that was no Kido, no Saori. With a gasp, she announced what became obvious: "A-Athena! That's Athena!"
She fell to her knees and lowered the masked face to the ground, then Hyoga came second. The others stared in awe, but reality had become too clear to ignore. Shiryu came next, then Shun, but Seiya faltered a few seconds longer, kneeling slowly thereafter.
"Please, don't… not here," Athena said while walking around the bed and to her Saints, voice suppressed by the crying. She knelt as well, between the heads of Hyoga and Seiya, whom she embraced and pulled into her shoulders to weep harder. "You've lived through all that, so much pain… I always felt there was something wrong, that there should've been a better way, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Now I see it all too clearly, and it hurts more than anything. Forgive me! Seiya, Hyoga, forgive me! All of you, I beg you!"
Seiya couldn't comprehend. "Why are you asking for forgiveness?" Hyoga, in the other hand, leaned deeper into Athena's embrace.
The others came closer and leaned to embrace her too. "In the end, we are here to guard you, Lady Athena," Shiryu assured her as a form of comfort.
"Even though you are Saints, I wish you never suffered like that, not for me, not for anyone," she told them.
"This Cosmos! There's no doubt…" Shun shed tears of his own "… this embrace, this love, and this compassion must be Athena's."
In Japan, this disclosure shook the Bronze Saints' lives further, but living in complete ignorance of Athena's true whereabouts, Eagle Marin followed the Pope's orders and traveled all the way from Greece to Sweden. She bounced and ran at unparalleled speeds, using her Cosmos in accordance with each required movement.
When she balanced herself over the shaking branch of a frosty birch, her appearance was made clear. This once she wore her Silver Cloth, which had a bluish pale tint to the polished metal. The tiara holding part of her copper hair had the crest of a fierce eagle spreading wings to the side, a motif reiterated throughout the rest of the parts. The gauntlets were also like wings hugging around her flesh, and arm bands had depressions that hinted at the animal's contour. Her shoulders were protected by pieces that undulated like feathers hammered into the metal, the base bending charmingly to also block the way to her neck.
The breastplate gently delineated the curves of her bust, then crept to her collarbones and her neck with twisting details over the reflective section. It also went downwards and protected her abdomen, with subtle waves of more of a satin finish than what was found elsewhere on the Cloth. From a shoulder and across the torso she had a strap, a messenger bag having been attached to it.
In the distance she could see the minute image of a ski village, and to the other extreme, a red abode amid the forest. That must've been the location for the Pisces Saint, so she jumped off once more, leaving the birch to bend back and forth due to the force.
She skipped over dirt and heath, then in between trees, finding a narrow dirt road and following by its sides to the front of the house. The color of its walls was striking, and its gable still had some leftover snow that hadn't melted from the latest storm. Marin came to a front window and looked inside, seeing a youthful man on a chair in front of a table, an easel, and a canvas. With a large brush, he carefully teased the fabric with fresh paint, and the incomplete piece was based on a svelte vase of blood roses he placed for a still life.
He had incredibly long, thin, dark blond hair, and his skin was pale like snow, body slender and effeminate, the nails of his gentle fingers polished red. Covering his torso was a baggy white shirt, unbuttoned in part at the collar, yet fully at the wrists.
Marin knocked at the window lightly, knowing full well who that was. After a while and without yielding a response, she knocked some more. "Aphrodite!" she called. She waited a few seconds and knocked harder. "Aphrodite!"
Aphrodite did put the paintbrush down with the insistence, then got up and smiled at the window. Both went to the front door, and when he opened it, the heat inside felt nothing like the cold Marin had to endure. "Sorry for that, Miss Marin," he said, a voice soothing and tender. Face to face, his rounded and womanly features became clearer, with bright blue eyes, glossy shapely lips, and a speckle marking the white skin on his left cheek. With such an appearance and such name, he often caused confusion; at first sight, many argued he should wear a mask. "I had felt a pulsating Cosmos, but I was so deep into that painting that I couldn't stop at once. Is there a delivery for me?"
She spun the bag from her back to the front, unbuckled it and looked through the letters she had, pulling one towards him. "It's from the Pope himself," she told him, "you're being called back."
"Huh, strange." He broke the seal of the envelope, took the letter and read it right there, nodding, as it was short and to the point. "Fine, I'll pack my things and return today. Have safe travels, Miss Marin."
"You too." Aphrodite closed the door and Marin lifted dirt as she bounced off into the distance.
Not daring debate the Pope's orders, especially knowing that Athena had already reincarnated, Aphrodite left the letter on the table, grabbed one of the flowers he used as muses, and took a whiff off it. Despite the Swedish cold, its perfume perdured; despite the thorns, his thin fingers were reddened and used to the minor scratches of handling them. "This isn't a good sign, but there's nothing in the sky pointing to any danger that I've noticed," he said to himself, left the flower back in the vase, and went over to his tight and cozy bedroom. He flipped the light's switch and reached for a backpack under the bed frame. "My duty is as much to Sanctuary as it is to Athena, so the reason doesn't matter anyhow." With a smile, he was reminded of all he could do in the House of Pisces: "It's not all bad. If I get time, I can tend for my rose garden again."
The next morning in Japan was much less emotive than the night before. The Saints were back in their casual clothes, and Athena in a casual dress of her own. They took their places in the living room, some sitting or lying comfortably on the couch, some leaning against it from the sides and behind. Only the goddess stood, bringing in a rolling whiteboard and a non-permanent black marker. "How's your headache?" Shiryu asked.
"Still raging," she answered, "but it should go away in the coming days, so don't worry about me. Let's get to explaining the issue." She drew a timeline in a corner of the board and made its first point. "I was reincarnated eighteen years ago, but Mitsumasa Kido only got me the next year." Using the back of the marker, she tapped in the empty space between the two points. "What happened in between this is mostly a mystery, however, we have some clues." She started with a bullet point below. "First, the Gold Cloth. The Sagittarius Saint was the one who saved me, and he was fatally injured when Mitsumasa found him. Most of what we know about this time frame stems from him." Then the second bullet point. "My life was endangered in Sanctuary. This means either a traitor or an infiltrated agent lies behind our lines."
Hyoga was perked up by that info, since he was the one sent there by Sanctuary in the first place, with a goal not too savory in retrospect. Athena had already started writing the third bullet point.
"The Pope is the enemy. This is what the Sagittarius Saint said, according to Mitsumasa," she concluded. That made things too obvious for him to stay quiet, so Hyoga lifted a hand and caught her attention.
"I might have information relevant to that."
"Hm?"
He turned to Shun, who sat beside him on the couch. "Shun, it's about time I answered that question of yours. I didn't participate in the Galaxian Wars out of my own accord, I was actually sent here by Sanctuary to kill the Saints who participated in it."
Everyone stared at him in shock. "What? Kill us?" Seiya asked.
Hyoga shut his eyes and nodded. "So that's why you did that to Ban," Athena commented.
"Yes, and I regret it now that I know the truth, but more than that, the letter wasn't only for me. My master, Camus, was called back to Sanctuary to prepare for something," he explained.
"Do you have any idea of what that might be?"
"Not at all, although I'm certain that it's an extremely serious matter, because you see, Camus is not a low-ranking Saint like us. He has to have been called out of severe circumstances, as he's the Aquarius Saint."
Athena pulled a strand of her long hair behind an ear and connected the dots instantly. "Hm, Aquarius… even back then they were calling the Gold Saints," the woman continued, "which explains why Mitsumasa said in the tape that he expected me to watch it before the Galaxian Wars. I had to start planning early on with that in mind. I lost us precious months." She looked back at her Saints. "The Pope assumed I was preparing to reveal myself as soon as he got the news from the Sagittarius Cloth."
Seiya in particular seemed agitated that his friend's master was a Gold Saint, but the rest didn't seem as interested. That notwithstanding, he came up with a question of his own: "Couldn't we just do that? If they feel your Cosmos like we did, most Saints would recognize who you are."
"That's a fair observation, one the Pope must've also made. As such, he's waiting on my next move, whether I'll invade Sanctuary or reveal myself from afar. He's being cautious."
"Ah, so the Dark Saints weren't the actual enemy in the end," June complained and crossed her arms.
"Seiya, when you were in Sanctuary, did you notice anything strange going on?" Shun asked him.
"Well, not much. The Pope watched over my fight for the Pegasus Cloth, and he seemed normal. He told me to never use the Cloth for personal gain."
"That's no good."
"Why?"
"Because it means Sanctuary believes in the righteousness of the Pope, and it will be harder to just go in and change everyone's mind without a war breaking out."
"With or without war, we will find a way," Athena assured them. "Seiya, who were your contacts in Sanctuary?"
He pursed his lips apprehensively; he hadn't been pretty popular back there. "Uhm, mostly my master… not many people were intent on talking to me."
"No one else at all?"
"Aaah, I don't know! She had a colleague who was very pushy and scary — she was a Saint too — and there was this friend of hers who filled in whenever she had to go on long deliveries."
"So she does deliveries."
"Yeah! Marin is an amazing runner, and she was sometimes called by big fishes in Sanctuary to deliver all sorts of things."
Athena nodded and wrote that as a separate bullet point. "That's good to know."
"Wait, do you guys think she delivered Hyoga's letter?"
"What matters is that at least some of the letters sent out of there are carried by her. If we can intercept her, we will have a double agent in Sanctuary," said Athena.
"But where would we even start looking for her?" asked June. For a moment everyone pondered.
"If she's such an amazing runner, then surely she would be sent to deliver letters to other Gold Saints," was Hyoga's assumption, which convinced Athena.
"That's our best chance. If we find a Gold Saint on the field and either wait or send her over to us, we would come in contact with her," she said, going to the whiteboard's opposite corner and enumerating the twelve ecliptic houses. For each name she wrote, she said it out loud: "Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces. Those are the twelve houses and the constellations associated with them." She crossed Aquarius off. "Since Hyoga's master was already sent back, we can't reach him." Next, Sagittarius was marked off. "Without the Sagittarius Cloth, they can't elect a new Sagittarius Saint, so that's out of question." Lastly, she ticked Cancer off as unreachable. "The Cancer Saint is not allowed to leave Sanctuary for long periods of time. We wouldn't be able to reach them."
"Huh, why's that?"
"The Cancer Saint has an important role in Sanctuary, so leaving for long is not an option." She tapped the back of the marker onto Aries. "Aries is a good option. For millenia, every successor of the Aries Saint has been trained in Jamir, where Shiryu has been."
Shiryu arched his eyebrows. "Does that mean Mu will become the Aries Saint?" he asked.
"That is if he hasn't become it already."
"Based on what I was told by Old Master, Mu still has a teacher, but he was busy at the time."
"Wait a minute, Shiryu, you…" Athena got lost in thought for a moment, and like clockwork a migraine befell her. She tightened her eyes and held her temple for a moment, so Shiryu and Hyoga got up and checked if she needed aid.
"Lady Athena, are you alright?"
"Yes, yes, as I said, don't worry. It's that when I try to remember, this brain still suffers," she said while waving them off and breathing carefully. Soon the pain faded, and she was able to think straight. "Rozan holds a great strategic value to Sanctuary. Traditionally, a Saint is assigned to watch over it as a sentinel. Shiryu, you have been trained in Rozan."
"R-right!"
"So your master must be the Saint watching over Rozan at this very moment."
"But how could Old Master never have hold me of such a thing?"
"He's not allowed," she said. "Is he the one who guided you towards Jamir?"
"Yes, and the one who told me of Mu's master, and the dangers of letting the Gold Cloth fall into the wrong hands…"
Athena put the cap back onto the marker's tip and motioned her fingers at the Saints, who got off their places to follow. "It's settled. We're leaving to Rozan right now."