Lance's Role

by Thrudgelmir2333

A 'shonen' fic that sequels Next Dimension and Lost Canvas. In 1960, the Pope of Athena receives three prophecies from an old enemy that irremediably set the course of his reign over Sanctuary's tragic history and almost two decades later a Saint of Pegasus finds himself put through the unfolding of a new age of violence caused by the Pope's actions. Please enjoy and review.

49. 2A: The False Holy War

Notable OCs: Pegasus Lance's Saint Generation, Civil War Saint Generation, World War Saint Generation, Daemon Lucifer's Specters, Maiden Elisa, Priam's Black Saints; Cyrulian Refugees

Notable Original Concepts: Mount Olympus Training Ground, Sanctuary Court, Teos Cloth, Athenian Empire mythology, Isle of Gardens, Stardust Prison, Hades' Dark Princes; Desert Beyond, Sanctuary Town Layout & Buildings

Recurring/Cameo OCs of Jenny DeVic: Mrs. Schafurwatt, Cyrus

Recurring/Cameo Concepts of Jenny DeVic: Great Bodyguard Legend, Golden Line Heritage, Sanctuary Orphanages, Andromeda Island's Geography & Tests, Sanctuary Nobility, 88 Knights Festival

Author Notes:

-I'd like to thank youmxshi from Twitter and the SS Discord Server for acting as a language consultant on the proper way of translating the name of Haisaku's sword;

-Important: From now on, I'm introducing in the story a little asterisk feature, like this (*), to remind the reader what events some of the characters are referring to. The story is pretty big right now and some obscure references to the past may not be at the top of the readers' heads.

-Finally, super special awesome note: Lance's Role now celebrates 1 million words with the publishing of this chapter! To commemorate, there is an ultra-special new art commission from Deviant Art artist Balasdan for you to check out ASAP! You can find it on my twitter account's tweet announcing the release of this chapter and soon enough on Balasdan's DA page.

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Please enjoy and review (^_^

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"After the Dark Princes appeared in the war, a lot of us believed with good reason that our primary means of dealing with them would be the three mysterious Bronze Saints that Sasha took under her wing, namely Shun, Hyoga, and Shiryu, later joined by a fourth one, Phoenix Ikki. Considering that their powers rivaled Tenma's even when he began showing off as a Godslayer, it wasn't an unreasonable assumption and their performance against the 'Principe duo' was promising from the moment they first faced off in Jamir and Sanctuary.

This was also partly because none among the Gold Saints seemed to have a clear advantage over them, even Sisyphus. After Sisyphus was under the spell of Eternal Darkness, we collectively decided to play our cards carefully against those two, even after El Cid went as far as to personally slay all four of Hypnos children.

However, no one, even myself, his best friend, would predict the way Dohko stepped up to the task of standing up to Daemon Lucifer after their battles by Athena's Colossus. It seemed as if one moment he was as powerless as the rest of us and the other he was coming back with his teacher Haisaku from their training trip with a power-up that allowed him to briefly become as dangerous as one of the Godslayers.

I begged Dohko to pass down the knowledge Haisaku gave him so that in the future we could train Gold Saints to be as battle-ready as he was against monsters like Dark Angel Michael. But Dohko, being the Libra that he is, said it was necessary to keep things in balance and the only reason he resorted to such a dangerous method was because of how radically the odds were being stacked against us.

Well,… there is 'some' wisdom to that. To him, this technique served as a means of powering up, but to others, it would be nothing but a suicidal move. Only nothing short of a return of Daemon Lucifer could motivate bringing this backup, all things considered."

-Shion's thoughts regarding Dohko's fighting prowess, following the Lost Canvas War

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Rodario

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The two blonde women stood frozen. Cerah's eyes were tearing up as if ice was melting at the impassive sight of her lifelong teacher, the closest person she had to a parent after Daese left her behind, the silver-haired Prince of the Underworld, Daemon Lucifer. A person that not only had taken care of her, but had raised her, educated her, harshly trained her and, most importantly, been the only one to ever entrust something so important for them to her, namely Eurydice's life. It was the ultimate sign of the subtle confidence the Pride Star had in the Cyrulian youth that she in herself had not.

The thoughts of what had happened outside and with what she stole from her patrons completely vanished from her head. Cerah Héloise then noticed that the Nymph had accidentally said the Specter's birth name out loud. "L…Lucian?"

Lucifer scoffed. "Mm, I don't remember giving you permission to call me that, kid."

"Lucian! By the Gods, you're alive!" Eurydice gasped, letting go of all hesitation and practically leaping into the Specter's arms, hugging his armored body as tightly as her slim body could. Being blind, she misjudged the distance and nearly hurt herself, but paid no mind.

The Specter would be lying if he said he didn't feel his otherwise harsh heart soften a bit with Eurydice's embrace. She had been too important a person for too long in his life. "Well, as for you, Eurydice,… I'll look the other way."

Her blind eyes turned up to where his face should be, her hands moving up his cheek, making sure with the few senses she had left it wasn't a lie. She beamed in happiness. The last time they had seen each other, it was with a promise that they would both finally defy the Gods. "I'm so happy you're still okay…"

While she was touched at the sight of the two of them, Cerah had to ask. "L…Lucifer, I… how did you find us?" But her teacher merely pointed in the direction of her room, from where the faint heat of Michael's feather could be felt by those sensitive to it. "Your friend's wing piece…?"

Letting go of the Nymph's embrace, the Specter added more to this. "I'm sorry it took so long to find you. You've probably been getting dreams about me, too(*). Michael may be gone, but his Surplice is still alive, and the Celestial Absolute Star burns on with many incredible powers." He then gently placed his hand in the older woman's cheek and observed the way her eyes looked, filled with the black hex of Hades. "So this is what Hades did to you, Eurydice? That fiend…He wasn't lying after all."

*(See Chapter 34)

Immediately grasping the Prince's hand, the Nymph felt his angered pulse. "It's not your fault, Lucian. This was my choice. The medics in Sanctuary have been so kind to me about this, too."

Analyzing the damage, the Prince immediately understood Hades' cruel parting gift. "And of course it isn't something you can simply heal normally…I'll make him pay for this someday. But for now…" and his eyes searched the room for the other culprit.

And the red orbs pinned themselves right onto Cerah, who immediately froze in horror, her throat swallowing hard. Memories of the Prince entrusting Eurydice's well-being and passage to Sanctuary returned to her and all her Cyrulian senses burned with the utter shame of having failed her teacher.

She dropped to her knees before him, head lowering in utter disgust with herself. "Lucifer, I… I tried!"

The prince was merciless. "I didn't tell you to try. I told you to do it."

Her green eyes grew wetter and she grabbed her hot head. "It's all my f-fault! You told me, prepared me to be ready for everything and I-"

"STOP it, you two!" Eurydice immediately interfered, knowing where this was going. She searched for Cerah with her hands and practically forced the younger girl to stand. She then faced the Prince as best as she could. "Lucian… Thank you for giving me Cerah. This girl that you trained saved my life."

Cerah gasped. "Eurydice, no!"

But the Nymph wouldn't have it. "You should be one hundred percent proud of her. She has been wonderful, Lucian." Eurydice went on, steamrolling right Cerah's face of shameful regret. "There wasn't a single moment where she hesitated to put her life in the line for my sake. Even when your Judge was after us, Cerah did everything she could to make sure I got to Sanctuary's hands. If I hadn't known her beforehand, I would have thought you entrusted me to a Gold Saint!"

Cerah grabbed the Nymph's arm in protest. "W-wait, that's going too far, I really wasn't-"

"Is it true?" Lucifer asked the Cyrulian, piercingly. Every moment where he had made sure she knew how much he hated lies flashed through Cerah's eyes with this and Lucifer went on. "Did you fight a Judge to protect Eurydice?"

The pale, blonde girl gulped. If only Eurydice understood how much pressure this put on her. "It wasn't that, I lost to him after all. If it weren't for Saint Aguilon…"

A sigh came out of the Nymph, whose usually patient blind eyes rolled. "Lucian, please tell Cerah to be a little more appreciative of herself. She fell into a coma for a whole year for me!"

The Prince hummed amusedly. He, of course, knew the answer preemptively. Nasu had reported the whole thing to him, after all.

His hand rested on his belt. "I already knew about this, but I wanted to hear it from her mouth." He then smiled at the young girl. "…Good job, Cerah. Urial and Servo's deaths are regrettable, but Hypnos' machinations circumvented me and you ended up facing a much harsher challenge than I intended. I sincerely… thank you."

The young girl's face went red, her heart skipped a beat and her cheeks became drenched in tears. All her life she had gotten to know the Daemon and the Cyrulian knew that the Specter was as sparing with his gratitude as he was with kindness to an enemy. With Daese gone and pretty much every other trace of her homeland wiped from the map, Cerah had grown lost in the world in more than one sense, hiding from the Skeletons and wanting nothing but her surrogate mentor's approval.

After all she had gone through, from the ten years of training to the terrifying battle with Cyclops, from the brutal beating Gryphon gave her, to the whole year of her life that she lost in a deep sleep, from losing her sister to now be living in a strange new place with someone's life constantly in her hands,…. To finally get the 'thank you' from the mouth of the Prince himself was the last thing she expected that night.

It was so much to her all of a sudden that she choked up and covered her drenched face. "O-of course! It… it was n-nothing!"

While this was all touching, Eurydice understood that Lucifer's presence had terrible implications. "Lucian… I have so many things to ask you, but… the first has to be what are you doing here? What's going on outside?"

The Prince became serious once more. "It has happened, Eurydice, my plan to have vengeance on Hades and Shion. My army is moving through Rodario as we speak."

Cerah's green eyes widened and looked out the window, searching for the shadows of Specters and Specters she had grown accustomed to. "An army?! How… how many?"

Lucifer chuckled. "Don't bother searching for them. They are going around making sure Bat Brune put everyone to sleep and I set up a cosmos signal block around your house. It's best if they don't find out that the girl who murdered Servo is here, especially my new Cyclops. He happens to be the deceased's brother…"

Reminded of the Cyclops Specter, Cerah immediately gasped and stepped away from the window as if a witch had startled her. This all explained the sudden lack of noise and Cosmos in the area that the two women had felt right before Lucifer showed himself, though.

The revelation of the Prince's forces being in Sanctuary gave the room pause, though. Eurydice sat down. "I see… can you tell us what has happened?"

Lucifer then proceeded to recount to the two women a shortened version of everything that had transpired since they last saw each other. He spoke of the growing resentment of the False Specters and how he manipulated them into swearing undying loyalty to him and also of the battle he fought to leave the Underworld.

Upon Lucifer mentioning the Garuda True Specter, the Nymph had to ask. "So poor Suikyo is drowned in his Aiacos persona, still?"

"Hmpf, there's no helping it." Lucifer lamented. "At this point, Hades could literally put Violante's corpse naked on a cross for everyone in Antenora to see and Aiacos still wouldn't be strong enough to question that snake's lies."

The graphic image disturbed young Cerah. "Aiacos? Suikyo? Violante? Lucifer, who are these people?"

Lucifer chuckled. "It's a long, pitiful story. Suikyo is Garuda Aiacos, the rightful Specter Judge of Antenora. You left upon Rhadamanthys return, my young knight, so you didn't get to meet Aiacos and Minos, but the Gold Saints of the previous war managed to shatter the grip of the Celestial Valiant Star on Suikyo very briefly during the Lost Canvas War."

The Nymph frowned sympathetically. She had hoped that, like herself and the Princes, Suikyo could have defected from Elysium and the Underworld. Behind the Specter delusions, he was a kind man, after all. "What happened afterward?"

Very quickly, Lucifer then went through the remaining details of the Dark Exodus, from the moment he was confronted by Hypnos and Hades all the way to when he finally got past Pandora at her castle. As he mentioned the resistance that she put up to his words, Lucifer noticed that once again Eurydice seemed distraught.

"I didn't realize you cared for her that much." he commented, curious.

The nymph shook her head. "I just feel sorry for her. Pandora might be under the greatest spell of all in the Underworld. It makes me realize how lucky I was that Thanatos never thought of trying to brainwash me, too."

Lucifer chuckled. "Well, he had no reason to. Thanatos always saw you as another brainless happy little Nymph to keep him warm in bed."

Once again, what they spoke of disturbed Cerah and affirmed what she knew of the wicked ways of Olympians. "Are they really all that cruel?" she asked, wondering if it was the same with Athena.

Eurydice shook her head, sweating. "Oh, no, no, there are some very kind ones, like Athena and…" the Nymph then struggled to think of a second one. "…and Apollo, who blesses doctors like Saint Iaso! But others in Hades' and Poseidon's branches just see people like toys to be broken."

Lucifer narrowed his eyes. "But that will change from now on. Hades' era is soon to come to a close."

The room grew tense once more. Eurydice bit her lip. "Lucian… tell me what do you intend to do, please."

The Specter paused for a moment, wondering if he should really answer this. "It's best if you don't know too much, lest we give Hades a reason to search even harder for you… but you should know by now I want what I've always wanted to, to fulfill my destiny."

But to both the nymph and the Cyrulian, who knew the Specter rather well, this could mean many things, all of them worrying at various degrees. "And what does that mean?" the nymph pressed.

The Specter walked towards the window which happened to face the street towards the exit to Sanctuary Town. He stared at the far-off mountain pass. "It means to give justice to half a millennium of patience, pain, and humiliation. I'm going to walk into the Golden Zodiac and take the throne that is rightfully mine… and damn whoever tries to stop me."

Cerah's pale skin grew whiter and she looked back and forth between the blind woman and the powerful Dark Prince.

"Does this include… getting the armor of hope?" Eurydice carefully asked.

Lucifer smirked. "Perhaps; what better feat to impress it is there than beating the unbeatable Golden Zodiac?"

"What about the Saints?!" Cerah asked, alarmed. Her throat gulped, knowing that as a Specter, it was stupid to question the Prince in this, but she just had to. "Lucifer, you wouldn't… you wouldn't hurt innocent people, would you?"

With the pedestal hanging in the balance, Lucifer faced her student. "Why would I lay a finger on my rightful servants, Cerah? By the time morning comes, I will be the Lord of every Saint." He mystified, seeing himself on Shion's chair. "But if the blasted Gold Saints see it as their duty to stop me, then there is no choice, is there? They will pay the price of their resistance, as they should. And those that don't will be stripped of their armors, for I will not suffer cowards and traitors in my future army!"

The tone was stern and confident, meant to erase in Cerah any doubts of what lines Lucifer would cross. The girl stared, eyes into glass, not sure how to feel about this. She deeply cared about her teacher's success, but she also knew that Saints were normal people trying to protect their loved ones. She didn't have the hatred for them that her older sister Daese harbored.

Lucifer saw the pain in her eyes. "… I see that being here has mellowed you out. What happened to the perky knight aspirant who wanted to kill the Pope?"

The Corvus Knight clenched her small fists, looking away dejected. "She grew up… and realized how stupid an idea that was."

More and more, the Specter felt like rubbing his chin, secretly proud of Cerah. She would certainly not grow up into the bloodlust paladin that Daese was. In fact, he saw a renewed potential in the young knight. The experiences she had gone through since they departed shaped her world view, intriguing the Daemon and making him wish he had time to help this flower bloom.

"I was right to pay them a visit before the battle. Cerah will be a great warrior someday." He thought to himself before changing the subject.

And right on time, a butterfly of golden light flew through the window and landed on Lucifer's shoulders. The two women recognized it as one of Papillion Ainsel's Underworld Fairies which relayed sensitive information to the Prince.

It gently waved its wings on its metal perch and transmitted thoughts to Lucifer across the many mental barriers their army was setting up. "Oh, Prince, it seems you were right. Our Aegean Sea men spotted two blazing trains of cosmos across the area, heading right towards our rear guard."

"Did you identify them?"

"It's two unknowns, likely relatively recent recruits from Pope Arles III. One trail was a Gold Saint, judging by the color, but the other was pink."

Lucifer breathed a sigh of relief. "Excellent, no Civil War forces, which means Akassius must still think the action is at Crow's Nest." But the mentioning of the second trail intrigued him. "There's not a lot of Saints that burn their cosmos in pink, however."

"Could it be the Bronze Saint who defeated our brother Deep Amphion, Prince?" Ainsel suggested. "If so, they are vastly underestimating you. Tsk, coming on their own like this…. It's as if they think we are a bunch of cowards that will flee at the first sign of disadvantage…"

Lucifer then cackled, unnerving his two friends. "Oh, I'm certain of it! This is perfect. These two Saints likely intend to surround us at the Golden Zodiac, but they're really just giving me another chance to get my hands on the Andromeda Cloth! It seems that Brune's cowardice may play out in our favor after all…"

"Is something wrong, Lucian?" Eurydice asked, sensing the Prince's quietness.

"Yes, I have to go now. Make sure to stay inside here tonight, you two… I can't vouch for your safety while I'm attacking the Golden Zodiac," the Pride Star warned, making his way out of the house.

Cerah immediately reached for him. "Lucifer, wait!"

The silver-haired man stopped. "Yes? Be quick."

Cerah gulped, immediately taking longer to form words than the Specter had the patience for. What was she going to ask? What could she ask? The knight aspirant knew the penta-centennial Pride Star wouldn't listen to her calls to be merciful on the Saints nor give them any other answers about her future.

Perhaps having met the archer Leon in the street that other day made her realize how much she missed the Prince? Perhaps it was something more selfish in her wanting more acknowledgment?

"And what would be wrong with that?" the Corvus Cloth Stone whispered in her ear. "This is all you want, right… or maybe you're feeling avaricious for something else?"

Lucifer's red eyes subtly moved to the obsidian pendant on Cerah's neck, feeling it shine ominously with the moonlight coming through the window. He had heard for a very long time that a Saint's Cloth had a will of their own, as opposed to Surplices which were mere extensions of one's shadowy self.

Eventually, Cerah formed words. "Are you… going already? You can't!" she protested.

Lucifer scoffed. "Is that so?"

Her small fists clenched, body shaking with the idea of defying her teacher. "Lucif… Lucian, I can't let you hurt the people in Sanctuary!" Her cosmos then began burning with a slight yellow shine, a manifestation of her light element. "Even if it's you…"

But the Daemon didn't have time for this. "I met your sister on the way here, Cerah."

The room fell into silence. Cerah's aura immediately ceased to nothing and her fists relaxed.

Her mouth eventually formed words once more. "You saw… Daese?" her heart began beating fast, forgetting all of her previous objections. "Where?! Where is my sister?! Please, tell me!"

But the Prince closed his eyes somberly. "She's away… Knowing Priam and his ilk, they probably already moved their base by now. It won't do you any good now, but so far they've been hiding in northern Alaska. You can probably imagine what kind of hell hole they picked after it."

Cerah's heart sunk in sorrow, feeling her only relative slip away once more. "N-no!..."

The Daemon's hand laid out in appeal. He wouldn't lie, but he wouldn't throw his favorite trump card in the hands of Priam either. "Cerah,… you should forget about her. Take it from me, who spent a quarter of a millennium blindly believing in Hades' lies; you should count yourself as blessed that you weren't as thoroughly brainwashed as Daese into being one of Athena's attack dogs."

Eurydice listened as closely as she could. Daese Héloise, Cerah's older sister, was a topic that the young Cyrulian girl had mentioned sometimes to her but never dove too deeply into. All that the nymph knew was that Cerah, justly, had a deep desire to be reunited with her family and understand why she was left in a Specter's arms so early in her life, even though it would mean a lifetime in the Underworld.

Therefore, the Prince's words were an anvil on Cerah's heart, whose eyes grew humid again. "N-no…She must… she must have asked about me, for sure?!..." she grabbed her hot head, confused. "I… I can't believe she wouldn't!"

Then, in a rare gesture of warmth, the Prince took her shoulder gently. "Cerah, listen to me… Daese did ask about you. She demanded to take you away from me." he told the truth. "But as much as this is true, it is also true that her eyes carried in them an insanity that would have dragged you down a path of destruction. All that your sister has in her head is the zealot vengeance against the ones who betrayed Cyrulia. She will follow Priam to the depths of the Earth for it."

"W-what are you saying?" she asked, knowing the Prince hated lies.

"This may be difficult to accept, but Daese is dangerous to you." The Specter worded. The irony of this statement was not lost on him, considering what he had put Cerah through and what he was in Sanctuary to do. "To continue to fight her war, she was willing to leave you in my arms. If you were to go with her, she would either put you in a birdcage or make you another of Priam's lackeys. Those Black Saints have no future for you, Cerah, only death. The proof of it is that she refused to stay by my side even though I could have taken her to you because she was more concerned with keeping Priam alive."

The tense, tearful silence from the girl made the room darker. Even blind, Eurydice sensed the drop in mood from her friend. The Nymph could see the Prince's point of view and inclined to agree with him, based on what little she knew. Cerah was safe in Rodario with her, but she certainly wouldn't be dragged by her older sister into a hopeless war against the Pope. Lucifer, at the very least, was doing the opposite, ordering the Cyrulian to stay away from his fights.

Knowing it was too difficult for the teary girl to keep arguing, Lucifer turned away. "I need to go now. Enemy forces are tailing my men from afar and, like I said, I have a destiny to fulfill." He walked out the door and paused for a second to give the Nymph one last word. "Eurydice, it was lovely to see you again, but I'm about to fight one of the greatest battles in my long life… my very own False Holy War…. By morning, I'll be the king you've always told me fairy tales about."

The blind nymph smiled warmly at him. She couldn't say anything, though. While she loved Lucian very much, this was one of those situations where there was no convincing him out of. The silver-haired warrior had waited too long and worked too hard to reach this moment and she knew it. The Prince pinged her small spark of cosmos in thankful acknowledgment and then walked away, closing the door behind him.

She then hugged the distraught Cyrulian girl once more, pecking her head and trying to calm her down. Not even the Bat Specter's Nightmare Sonar would be able to make them sleep now.

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Chapter 49

Second Arc

Episode 14

The False Holy War

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Meanwhile,

Nepal, Twin Peaks Mountain

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In the cold peak of the mountain housing the Waters of Life, the Gold Saint of Aries, and the Silver Saint of Ophiuchus still did their absolute best to observe and stabilize the Bronze Saint of Pegasus on the floor. The medic Iaso leaned over the fallen Lance and applied the Golden Touch throughout the length of the strange new gash in his torso while 'Kiki' burned a bit of cosmos in his finger like an overhead light and passed him the bandages and antibiotics he needs from the Silver Saint's Cloth Box.

The Ophiuchus was incensed, sweating over the cosmos and focus he put into his task. "By Athena and Apollo, what the hell is happening to this kid?! First, he goes into a cocaine spaz and now it's like we looked away and someone slashed him right through the guts with a sword! Is this really what happens when you drink something called 'Waters of Life'?!"

Mu was equally concerned, both for Lance's life and the time they were spending there. "Is he going to be okay, doctor?"

"Yeah, SURE, Kiki, if his head doesn't suddenly EXPLODE and the rest of him enters spontaneous combustion, on top of what's happened already!" the brown-haired doctor hissed. He finished suturing the slash wound. "Thank the Gods, it seems that wasn't nearly as bad as it first looked… but seriously, what the hell is going on with this kid? Hey, Kiki, can you call the old master back in China?"

Mu touched his temples and frowned. "I've tried… but he doesn't respond. It's not like my pings aren't reaching him, but he seems focused on something else entirely. It's like he's on a different line."

The doctor was exasperated. "Of all the times to be a stubborn old hermit, he picks this one?"

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(?)

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Sitting by his student, with a sheathed sword, Dohko watched his student's wound closing itself as he applied his own Golden Touch in this mental world inside Seiryu's 'belly'. However, even by Gold Saint standards, the wound was closing with remarkable speed, as if more than just Dohko's blunt healing was at play.

This wasn't a coincidence. "Good, my plan worked. By working on Lance in the physical world, Saint Iaso is unknowingly healing Lance with my cosmos, using his knowledge."

A green dragon of cosmos as large as an anaconda flew gracefully over them. "Mmmm, what an interesting method, Dohko; I was wondering why you argued so fiercely with me to let the Silver Saint up the mountain as well. This way your complete lack of medical science won't put your student in danger."

Dohko looked up to him sternly. "It didn't stop you from trying to make him fall down the mountain, did it?"

"It is the way of life, only the most adapted will survive," Seiryu argued. "My interest is in you and your students alone, not Athena's dozens of Saints."

The Libra Saint ignored the dragon's pettiness. Pretty soon, Dohko saw Lance shaking and opening his eyes again. "Ah, ah, rise and shine, Lance."

The red-eyed youth rose up and rubbed his head. "Ugh, Roshi? What happened?..." His eyes then widened when he saw the disappearing slash in his naked torso. "H-hey, what?! I wasn't imagining things?!"

A bead of sweat went down the teacher's temple. "Okay, now, take it easy-"

But Lance threw his arms up. "WHAT THE F-FUCK, ROSHI?! YOU FUCKING CUT ME DOWN!" he then pointed at the sword in the Libra's waist. "And you told me NOT TO WORRY ABOUT THAT THING! What the hell is wrong with Y-"

Dohko smacked the student right in the head. "Hey, RELAX! You're fine! See? You don't have a hole in you!" the teacher yelled back, patting Lance's chest mockingly. "I got everything under control…. For the most part, anyway!"

But the Bronze Saint was absolutely flabbergasted. The last thing he remembered was losing control of the Koryuha gauge and getting wrapped up by Seiryu like a constricting snake before being dragged off the surface of this illusionary world towards the skies, like his body was powering up but also feeling as if the Dragon Tattoo was possessing him until Dohko draw-slashed him like a practice dummy.

Suspicion filled his red eyes. "Roshi, you owe me some answers!"

The self-conscious Libra was forced to agree. "Alright, alright, okay!... I made a mistake as a teacher. It happens." He confessed. "I thought a good way for you to start mastering the dragon charging would be first-hand practice, like my teacher Haisaku did with me, but it's clearly too dangerous. It's the last time I emulate her ditzy methods, that's for sure…"

"THEN WHAT'S WITH THE SWORD?!"

Dohko smacked his head once more. "I said to keep your cool, student!" While he understood Lance's frustration and shock, this wasn't the time to let their emotions get the best of him. He took out the sheathed katana and showed it to Lance. "… Here. Hold it carefully; it belonged to your grandmaster."

Blinking, Lance calmed down with this gesture of openness and slowly took the old object to his hands. It was lighter than it looked, but the scabbard was firm and the cord-wrapping was soft to the touch, like silk.

Dohko pointed at it. "This… is the "Yondō no Yaiba"… in Japanese, it more or less means 'Sword of Four Paths'. This artifact was carried by my Master, Phoenix Haisaku, to assist her in ceremonies and rituals." He taught. "Go ahead, draw it a bit."

Lance obeyed, nervously unsheathing the edge just enough to analyze it. If this really belonged to the fabled teacher of his teacher, then it was probably really something special after all.

Yet, what he saw was a brittle, ruined edge, filled with scratches, dirt, smudges, old blood marks, and a borderline serrated contour from all the damage it took over time.

Dohko chuckled. "Beautiful, isn't it?"

Lance sweated, sheathed the blade with a blunt click, and tossed it back to Dohko's hands. "…No offense, but…no, it really isn't!"

The Master took the weapon back, gently storing it by his waist. "As I said, it's for ceremonies. The important thing about it is not the outside, but the inside; running through the interior of its blade is a uniquely patterned stardust artery… meant specifically for the type of cosmos immersed with chi from the Rozan deities."

Thinking back to the moment he was slashed, Lance indeed felt like the first thing that happened was that the mighty power that took hold of his body suddenly was dispelled. If the blade operated anything like the heavy handcuffs that Sanctuary used to restrain users of Cosmos(*), then the reason for bringing this sword was obvious; it was an emergency tool for eliminating the excessive power of the Koryuha, not a weapon.

(*) See Chapter 12

Still, something didn't make sense. "Then why did it hurt me?"

Dohko burned a bit of cosmos in his thumb and ran it by the sword's damaged edge, producing a bloody cut that let out an exaggerated amount of red. "In this place, you and I are little more than cosmic projections of ourselves materialized by Seiryu, much like Valkyries of Asgard form their Einherjar in the spirit realm. We are as close to being the one thing this sword can hurt as we could."

The student sweated. "You could have warned me…"

"Now where's the fun in that, mmm?" The teacher then put aside the katana. "Obviously, though, I need to rethink how to teach you this move. Perhaps it is way too soon to expect you to be able to use the wrath of the dragon to your advantage, rather than your demise. If you can inflict the Hyaku Ryu Ha just once on Lucifer, though, in a strategic moment…" Dohko's eyes then tensed with determination. "… then hopefully that would be enough to land a significant injury on him."

Lance rubbed his chin pensively. He knew his Master well and he wouldn't be so focused on teaching this one method unless it was absolutely vital.

This, however, brought an interesting question. "Roshi, if you don't mind me asking, why, though? That move certainly looks very powerful, but… what's so special about it against that Daemon douche?"

The Libra Saint agreed with the pertinence of this question. "That's a good question to ask… To tell you the truth, I knew of the Hyaku Ryu Ha way before ever meeting the Dark Princes of Hades, Lance. However, I failed to understand something about its potential against them."

"It's potential?"

Raising his finger again, Dohko once more burned cosmos into it, this time of the familiar soothing green color vibrant with his lifeforce. "Yes… more to the point, the power of life over death!"

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

The Past,

Sanctuary Refugee Camp, (Future Sanctuary Town)

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Master and student walked down the path by the ruins where the refugee tents were located, heading for Sanctuary's exit.

"Haisaku, where are we going?!" Dohko demanded to know, finding her determined pace unusual.

"To the place where I was reborn into a Saint, Dohko,… Death Queen Island," she told him. "My new armor is there."

The Libra Gold Saint caught up with her, stopping the woman by lightly grabbing her shoulder. "But you said your Phoenix Cloth was gone!"

The orange-haired, masked woman nodded. "Yes, it is… Around the time of Suikyo's attack on Sanctuary, I had my Phoenix Cloth on me by the Argo. It suddenly broke into flames and vanished from my body."

Dohko hummed. This timing coincided with the arrival of the Andromeda Saint's older brother in Sanctuary and his battles with Cain, Deathtoll, and Kaiser. "Perhaps Ikki somehow took it from you? It is strange that it would just go to him, though."

"Everything about your new Bronze Saint friends is quite amazing, Dohko, especially Shiryu and Shun. If this Ikki is anything like them, there's a good reason for the Cloth to go to him in a time of need," the teacher argued. "I just find it impossible how it was that such young men earned armors like Dragon and Phoenix without anyone knowing… especially me."

The tiger chuckled. "You're telling me, 'mom'… I almost punched Shiryu to the moon when he showed up at the Libra Temple and started screaming about me being his Roshi. Just the idea of being so old that someone would call me that, ugh…" the brown-haired athlete felt a shiver up his spine, reminded of the vision he had in the Crateris Cloth's waters of a purple dwarf man.

The amazon's face turned. "Speaking of you being a teacher…"

It didn't take long for Dohko to see what caught her eye, or her ear. Shortly by the dirt path they were on, three Saints argued rather loudly on their way out of Sanctuary.

"I already said I'M GOING!" Tenma asserted, leaving. "And you can't stop-"

But Unicorn Yato promptly smacked the Pegasus right in the back of the head. "Hey, look here, you idiot, me and Yuzu' didn't go through the trouble of breaking you out of that jail that Manigoldo shoved you in just for you to just charge right after Alone all over again!"

The young Crane Yuzuriha stood by with her armor and mask already on. She didn't care much for Sanctuary's traditions, but hoplites seemed to think that wearing a porcelain face was the only law against being frisky.

"Yato is right, Tenma. It would be one thing to just go find a way to get to your friend… but those Dark Princes have declared their specific intent to kill you, Shun, Hyoga, and Shiryu."

While the stubbornly minded Pegasus wanted to protest, he could tell his friends were doing this because they cared. "Damn… you guys keep worrying about me, don't you?"

There was a disgusted squint from Yato. "I think of you more like a huge burden."

Crane continued. "We understand you are worried because you think you're causing more danger to Sanctuary than you're worth." Yuzuriha accepted. "But keep in mind; I came here with my teacher Hakurei, and he's talking with the Pope and Athena right now. We should wait for them to decide on our next strategy."

"Yeah, dummy, just imagine they need us for it," Yato called him out. "And they decide 'boy, we could sure use some horse Saints for our very important next mission' and you decided to fuck off to the Underworld again."

It was a crude way to put it, but it was Yato's way, which if anything, it hit home more for Tenma. He smiled. "… Alright, I'll keep it cool for a bit."

Observing them, Haisaku commented, "Your student has a good head on his shoulders."

But Dohko was incensed and he leaped down the land slope to them, practically growling. "OI, TENMA!"

The three Saints perked up. "D-Dohko?!" Tenma gasped.

The Libra Saint's fist smacked him right upside the head again. "You MORON! What is this I'm hearing of you rushing out after Alone again?! Do you want him to kill you?!"

"OW, it's not like that!" Tenma defended himself. "Look, Dohko, if Alone is targeting me, then he'll just keep attacking Sanctuary and more Saints like Lord Rasgado will die!"

While Haisaku made her way down, Dohko practically shook Tenma by his armor collar. "WHAT KIND OF EXCUSE IS THAT?! Tenma, have you forgotten that Alone wants you dead so he can incarnate as Hades faster?! Don't you use the name of the dead to defend your brainless ideas! You got a lot of beef to eat before you even think you're strong enough to take on Hades like that!"

"It's NOT about that, okay?!" Tenma yelled back, used to these ruffles with his new teacher. "I just…"

Dohko put him down. "Go ahead, what's your excuse? You think the first death portrait he made of you could use a retouch?!"

Tenma's gaze saddened, thinking of the flower bracelet he shared with Athena and Alone, not to mention his old teacher. "No,…I keep thinking of the promise I made to Sasha… and about Suikyo."

The tiger froze, conflicted with the honesty in Tenma's motives and the regret he, too, felt over the fate of the Crateris Saint. Even Unicorn Yato paused his usual disdain out of sympathy, sharing a somber exchange of glances with Yuzuriha.

"I couldn't just sit here, Dohko! Helping Sasha and Alone is the only reason I ever became a Saint. That and honoring Suikyo." Tenma argued. "In all the awful times I had here, Master Suikyo was the only one who understood what I went through among the lower ranks. He taught me that my promise to Sasha would keep me strong until the day I became a Pegasus… and it did. How could I not think about keeping it?"

The entire group stood silent, each and every one of them sympathizing with the Pegasus in one way or another, from Yuzuriha remembering the fate of her brother to Haisaku remembering how she failed to be at Dohko's side in his promotion to Gold Saint and the death of his best friend.

There was one person who arrived then and there who had a different take, though. "Is that what you think, Tenma?"

They turned to him. "Saint Hyoga?" Yato gasped.

The one-eyed Cygnus showed himself, already wearing his armor over his blue trainers after he rested from last night's battle. His gaze was as cold as ice, but he knew the feelings going through Tenma's heart very well.

But for that very reason, he had to disagree. "You cannot let the memory of lost ones haunt you, Tenma, whether it is your teachers or the Gold Saints who sacrificed themselves for us. They won't bring Alone back, but instead, they will just drive you to misery," he lectured. "A long time ago, I was fueled by the suffering of my teacher, of the Gold Saints and even of my closest training friend, and it brought me nothing but foolishness and evil. It even made me conspire against my brothers."

The masked Phoenix was amazed. "You're already recovered from burning your cosmos to that amazing level, Hyoga?"

The blonde Saint of Cygnus nodded. "Yes, I have some practice with it, and a little bird named Athena told me you might need my help again, Sage Haisaku."

The blonde Crane was so stunned she almost dropped her mask. "Wait, Sage Haisaku?... Phoenix Haisaku?!"

The woman humbly bowed her head. "Yes. It's a pleasure to meet you, Saint Crane."

But the future Elder was completely flustered by the thought of the Phoenix bowing to her just because her Silver Cloth outranked hers. "Wait, no, no, no, there's no need for that! I should be bowing!" She then held Tenma and Yato's heads down. "Guys, show some respect, this is a Sage of Rozan! Tenma, she's your grandmaster!"

The Pegasus' jaw dropped. "W-what?!"

Dohko scratched his head. "Mm, yes, I guess I forgot to mention that to you, Tenma."

The brown-haired Pegasus appealed to her. "Hey, then maybe you can tell Dohko to lay off me?!"

The woman felt suddenly on the spot. "I… can't really do that. You should listen to Dohko, Tenma." Her masked face then glanced at her own student. "Dohko, this boy was briefly able to push the Daemon Prince back, wasn't he? How strong is he really?"

A nervous shift of eyes was seen on the Libra. "Potentially strong enough that Alone can't stop going after him. He's already been murdered once by Hades' vessel; The last thing I want is for Tenma to be in danger again."

Sensing their thoughts, Hyoga broke Tenma some bad news. "Unfortunately we don't have time for introductions, Tenma. Athena has told me about Saint Haisaku's intentions to help the fighting against the Princes. We are departing to Death Queen Island as soon as we can." He then sent the Pegasus a mental message. "Tenma, if you still think you should go after Alone, you should speak to Shun. I believe he knows how you can… sneak in some help." He then winked at him.

Tenma and Yato sweated. They couldn't tell if the one-eyed Cygnus was trying to wink or blink at them because of the bandages over his right eye.

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Having gotten rid of the trio of weaker Saints, Haisaku, Dohko, and Hyoga made their way to the new river Ladon, from where they would superspeed their way out towards the Pacific Ocean. The area was still wrecked from the Argo firing its cannon at the underground cave ceiling(*), sporting a caved-in field by the new river margin.

(*) See chapter 39

The white-armored Saint spoke up. "How is Shiryu, Saint Haisaku?"

"He's better, fortunately. Your friend is remarkably strong," she assured.

"I see." The one-eyed Cygnus accepted, sensing that the two Rozan Saints were being generous with this assessment. "Sasha hasn't told me everything, but she says you are going off to prepare Lord Dohko to battle the Princes. As someone who saw one of them taking the full force of my Aurora Execution combined with Lord Dohko's attack with little damage, do you mind if I ask what exact kind of miracle do you intend to pull off?"

Dohko clicked his tongue. "I was wondering when you'd ask about that, Hyoga, because we have a couple of questions ourselves."

The three of them stopped. The swan Saint narrowed his eyes. "… By all means."

Phoenix Haisaku made the question. "Saint Hyoga, I managed to speak with Shiryu for a bit while he was conscious. As a Dragon Saint, he wears a Cloth that is synonymous with Rozan Peaks and we had to know more about his past. While Shiryu refuses to talk about how he acquired the Dragon Cloth, he did speak a bit about the adventures you young Bronze Saints had with Athena, including your encounter with Specters."

Cygnus felt a bead of sweat on his temple. What should he do, discredit his friend? "… He did, did he? Well… Shiryu is normally wise, but he sometimes babbles a bit when sick, especially when he loses a lot of blood in fights like he usually does," he forced himself to lie, completely ashamed of saying something like this about the person who freed him from Camus' Freezing Coffin.

"Right now, I'm taking Dohko to Death Queen Island, but I also intend to train him there a bit, Saint Hyoga. Specifically in perfecting his Hyaku Ryu Ha," Haisaku confessed.

"But, as we all know from Shiryu's encounter with Michael… the Hyaku Ryu Ha isn't effective enough." Dohko reminded the Cygnus. "Haisaku says, however, that Shiryu accidentally proved a theory of hers."

Cygnus' interest perked up. "A theory?"

Dohko laid out his hand and burned his cosmos a bit, demonstrating the soothing water energy of his spirit. "Shiryu and I serve a martial art that is more than simply burning one's cosmos. It is also about your body and the lifeforce inside it. Our God Seiryu is nothing more than a being of pure chi, a deity of life. To use his techniques is to adopt a power like his. Throughout this war, I've been using my techniques to great effect against Specters, but I cast the Hyaku Ryu Ha with abandon, low-charging it on purpose so it can be faster and more repeatable. It has served me greatly against the likes of Kagaho…"

The Bronze Saint folded arms, imagining the rest. "But it lacks the firepower against Judges and Princes."

Dohko nodded. "Yes… Shiryu says, however, that he successfully used the Hyaku Ryu Ha to eliminate not one… but three elite Specters who directly serve Judge Rhadamanthys the Furious. On his first try with the move."

Hyoga's eye widened. He remembered this event. It was right after the Wailing Wall came crashing down 'back home'. "That's true. Are you saying…?"

The Libra Gold Saint folded arms. "Shiryu, in his inexperience, likely used the technique with abandon in the opposite sense, charging it way too much to the point it could kill enemies on par with him. However… for a Bronze Saint to defeat three Elite Celestial Stars by himself is unheard of."

"Typically the amount of chi pulled into a Rozan move is negligible, but the Hyaku Ryu Ha is the most draining of all Rozan moves. From what he told me, I think it is likely that Shiryu, in his desperate overcharge, slightly tapped into the chi side of the technique," Haisaku theorized. "And as we know, the armor of Specters is made of Damascus, known as the metal of death, of the Underworld. The Princes are no exception to this. Shiryu was therefore able to make the Hyaku Ryu Ha far more effective against Specters than intended."

The Cygnus' brain calculated all of this. "So you're saying that… the same way Surplices are vulnerable to sunlight, they may also be vulnerable to lifeforce, to chi?" He recalled everything about the battles they had with the Princes. "My god,… no wonder they seemed so relieved that Shiryu was out for the count, the bastards!"

Haisaku nodded. "It has been my theory for a long time that such a secret weakness existed, but I've never had opportunities to corroborate it. Right now, Dohko may be the only Gold Saint without the element of Light that has a trump card against the Princes. If he can learn to tap into his lifeforce and drench his Hyaku Ryu Ha with it, he will have a technique that can deliver major damage to one of the Prince's defenses, perhaps even break their Surplice."

Excitement filled the Bronze Saint's usually stoic heart. "Finally, some good news! But… why haven't we been doing this sooner?" He then frowned. "There's a drawback, isn't there?"

Dohko became nervous about this. "Yes… as you can imagine, literally putting your life into your attack isn't very healthy. There's also a reason why I've been pulling punches with the Hyaku against Kagaho, cause it's not like I can just shoot dragons out of my ass all day."

"It is also dangerous to practice this, especially if he overcharges Seiryu's power too much." Haisaku said. "The last thing I want is for Dohko to be dragged by Seiryu into the skies…"

Cygnus rubbed his chin, reminded of his friend's battle with Capricorn Shura. "Understandable. I take it that somehow this is why we are going to Death Queen Island?"

The woman then tilted her head coyly. "It has something to do with it, yes."

The Libra Saint swallowed hard. He just prayed Haisaku knew what she was doing.

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

The Present

(?)

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

In the present, Dohko explained his teacher's conclusion as best as he could, making sure he mentioned the Godslayers as little as possible, if at all. Luckily, Lance, unlike Tenma, was smart enough to follow his story even with the gaping holes Dohko was creating about where and how Haisaku got this theory. It was an interesting case of his attention span actually playing against his ability to detect omission. Either this or Dohko was a better liar than he thought himself to be.

The teacher hated to do this, especially after promising Lance he would be more open from then on, but one thing was to prepare him for the dangers of the Dark Princes, and the other was endangering the mission that Sasha entrusted them with to preserve the war's secrecy.

"To make use of your life force is to create a power that is the antithesis to everything a Specter represents," declared Dohko. "In the previous war, my teacher Haisaku theorized that the Hyaku Ryu Ha's brute power, when overcharged, could make use of enough chi from your body to significantly damage even a powerful Dark Prince's armor!"

Intrigued, the Pegasus looked at their training session with a whole different outlook. "I see… so we're not just wasting our time."

"Hey, I'm a damn good teacher, I know what I'm doing here with you."

To Lance, this was highly debatable. Still, the strategic ramifications of Dohko's plan made him rerun the scenario of battle in his mind. If he understood correctly, the best they would get out of this would be that Lance would catch up with Daemon Lucifer and dish out a Hyaku Ryu Ha powerful enough to give his Gold Saint friends a shot to win the battle for him afterward.

"Well, what do you think?" Dohko asked, knowing his student.

"I suppose we are dropping the direct fighting strategy?"

Dohko nodded. "Yes… I was hoping that somehow you were ready to use the Koryuha as a power-up, but that may have been an unfair expectation. You're too young, too inexperienced and it's too hard a lesson right now, even compared to the rest of what you have to do. Instead –" he then let out a martial shout and thrust his hand to the side, causing the temple's wall to come crashing down, creating a lot of rubble that rolled down to them in their little dream world inside Seiryu's belly.

Dohko focused his thoughts, taking a large set of 100 rock pieces with his basic Gold Saint telekinesis and burned his green Rozan cosmos, gauging the strength of the dragon just right before launching his next attack. He thrust his hand in a dragon claw shout and created dozens of invisible force blasts that individually atomized every single individual boulder.

Dohko ceased his aura, his wavering hair dropping down. "- you will practice your aim if you will. The only way you can make good use of the Koryuha is if you're able to correctly focus the 100 releases of dragonized cosmos on your adversary. Getting used to the firing will also let you practice the gauging itself."

The red-eyed student walked up to a spot before the rubble, agreeing with this notion. "I see." Finally, a sensible training method. He could actually see himself getting to where Dohko wanted him to be at with this move without risking his life and making good use of the properties of this world they were at. "…Will this really make me strong enough to damage him, though?"

A gentle snort and a tensing of jaw followed in the Libra. "… We will worry about that later." He waited for Lance to ignite his cosmos through the tattoo before Dohko's hand then sharply moved up, raising another 100 large pillar rubble pieces. "Now get to it! FIRE!"

His red-orbed senses immediately locked on the targets and his arm lunged with a dragon shout. "HYAKU RYU HA!" Lance screamed, his undercharged green aura immediately shooting out dozens of watery laser blasts, each much thinner and less impressive than the real move. A firework-like succession of cosmos bursts in the air followed, but the distribution varied wildly, many rocks were missed and others were hit with more than one dragon. A mist of water also splashed all over the temple, especially on the two of them.

Dohko growled. "That was terrible! What are you trying to do, shoot ducks out of the sky?! Do that at the Zodiac and Lucifer will shove a pike of lightning down your throat faster than you can say 'Athena help me'!" he hissed, raising another rock set. "Now do it again!"

Even Lance was flabbergasted at how tough to measure this was. He was going to be there for a lot longer than he thought. Charging his cosmos once more, he fired another round with a martial shout.

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Rodario

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

The streets of Rodario were dead quiet, with only small skeleton-shaped shadows dashing through the streets. Every now and then, there was the light snoring of its inhabitants heard throughout the streets, some inside their homes and others caught by Nightmare Sonar by the ground paths. Many lights had been left on, the activity around them interrupted by the bewitching ultrasounds of the Bat Specter, but one house remained awake in the midst of this.

Cerah paced around the table of her kitchen, biting on her thumbnail, thinking about what was going on outside.

Eurydice tried to be as patient as possible with this, even deflecting the cause of anxiety. "I think we'll be safe, Cerah. Lucifer would never let his men touch us."

The knight aspirant kept walking back and forth. The sound of her light footsteps thumped at the Nymph's senses.

"It's completely out of our control." Eurydice went on. "It pains me to say this, but… whether Lucifer lives or dies is up to the bravery of the Saints."

Still, thoughts plagued Cerah. "That's not the problem." She then stopped and faced the Nymph. "It's just… it's all of this. Lucifer always spoke about his revenge, but I never thought he would actually do this. Especially on this scale."

The Nymph couldn't really blame the Cyrulian. A human leading an attack on Sanctuary, especially right after betraying their patron god, was unthinkable. The consequences of just showing up that night would have lasting effects on so many levels that it turned Eurydice's brain upside down. Though she hailed from Elysium, Angels and Nymphs knew of Sanctuary's strength. They knew that Athena's dominion over Earth had lasted so long for very good reasons.

Eurydice also knew of Hades' cruelty first hand and, if the Prince managed to slip past his fingers, what would stop him from defeating a Pope during Athena's absence? And what would happen to the world afterward?

She imagined that Cerah had other concerns, though. "He's still the same man who raised you, Cerah. That hasn't changed."

The blonde girl grabbed her own head. "I know, but…-" The faces of kind Saints like Aguilon and Iaso flashed through her mind and her hand instinctively grabbed her obsidian pendant. "-… I need to see it for myself! I need to know he hasn't become the cruel monster Sanctuary paints Specters as."

"What do you intend to do, though?"

Cerah thought about it. She quickly went to the rooms and took the feather Lucifer gave her from his rival. "He can use this to track us, right? I bet it works both ways. This feather has been cooling down since he left, so if I use it, I can measure how far I am from his forces and keep a safe distance!"

The implications of this startled the Nymph. "You're going to stalk them?!"

Her hands waved in denial, even though Eurydice was blind. "No, I just… I just want to make sure everyone's okay!" But the ridiculousness of this hit her. "It's… a war, a False Holy War, I get it… It's not the kind of thing people just walk scot-free away from. There's going to be casualties…" She then raised her chin and snorted. "But I can't just sit here praying that he will play nice. If there's someone I can keep his Skeletons away from, or a Saint from outside who doesn't know he's walking into an invasion, I can help!"

The blonde Nymph thought about this. Cerah had Cyrulian blood indeed. While the time with Lucifer seems to have soothed the hatred of Specters out of her, she still retained all the other instincts associated with the fabled Knights of Athena. Not only that, but Eurydice wouldn't expect anyone as brave, determined and selfless as the girl who went into a coma to save the Nymph to just be okay sitting in a small home while Lucifer did his killing.

She worried about Cerah's safety, though, both physical and emotional. Not only that, but if the Specters came across the one responsible for the death of two of their comrades, they could do untold things to Cerah long before Lucifer intervened on her behalf. Moreover, Cerah had been sheltered from the darker side of the Prince. Who knows what seeing him in war would do to her.

With a heavy heart, the blind woman lowered her head in resignation. "… Promise me you'll disguise yourself with Lightcraft the whole time and only use your Cosmos if necessary. Rodario is dead quiet right now. Shooting a mouse with an energy blast would pop in their radar like a bomb."

Cerah nodded sadly. She knew it was probably rough for Eurydice to have to accept this. "You have my word." The young girl took out the dark gem around her neck. "Go, CORVUS CLOTH!" and the obsidian crystal seemingly shattered into a shower of shard of light which flew around the green-eyed girl's body, depositing themselves on her and forming one by one the pieces of the Crow Cloth, starting from the boots, going up the greaves, sharp faulds, ruby-incrusted breastplate and pads curving around her shoulders and then finalizing on the smooth gauntlets and the crow-headed tiara with wings sprouting out from the sides.

Her cosmos burned in a contained manner, making sure not to leak out of the jamming Lucifer set up for them. Cerah tightened her fists, feeling the might of her armor on her for the first time since she battled Cyclops and Gryphon.

She then tilted her head, reminded of the last time she did something so stupid. "I really do suck at doing the smart thing, don't I?"

The nymph smiled warmly. "You do. Like last time… just don't die."

Encouraged by this show of faith, Cerah nodded and activated her ability. "Lightcraft…Skeleton Armor!"

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Dressed in the transfigured armor now with the shape of a spikey skeleton like those of the soldiers of Hades, Corvus Cerah, battle-ready for the first time in over a year, dashed and leaped across the rooftops of Rodario, paying attention to both the subtlest sounds around her and the warmth of the black feather in her hand. The midnight moon shined on her form-shifted Cloth like a real Surplice, showing off the depth of the skill in her light-crafting.

While she moved quickly thanks to training and cosmos, her feet were as silent as the landing of a small bird, for she did not want to alert any of Lucifer's men to her presence. As she moved westward, towards the guarded gate of the Green Valley mountain pass, she felt the subtlest signs of temperature in the feather and slowed her pace, coming down from the rooftops and taking cover by a corner from where she could peek.

It was so dark. "Emission Lenses." she internally chanted, casting the technique onto her eyes with which cosmos would rush up to her optical nerves while a transparent light crafted lens would be formed over each of her eyes, connecting with said energy veins. Immediately, the darkened streets morphed in her sight into a cat-eye vision which transmitted to her retina the heat of people's cosmos, like an infra-red sight.

This useful technique allowed her to search for enemies and innocent alike and plan her next move. The faint cosmos of the passed-out villagers was immediately detected all over the village in the form of small embers of cosmos shaped like their individual bodies, most in their beds but others unconscious on the floor or on a table they were sitting at when Lucifer's Specters arrived.

Searching for stronger signatures, and more importantly active ones, Cerah blinked and sighed in relief when she realized that not a single conscious person was moving around. "Did they really all leave for Sanctuary Town? It can't be…" she wondered to herself.

This didn't sound like the work of the cautious Prince. Moreover, her technique wasn't perfect. If there was a single Specter purposely suppressing their cosmos, she wouldn't see them. What if the person was the one who once stabbed her in the back as she battled Gryphon Urial? Certainly one of the False Specters was around. Lucifer did seem in a hurry, though, especially after that Papillon butterfly landed on his shoulder.

She tried to guide herself by the feather, which grew hotter by the second. Sweating, she wondered if Lucifer might have been sneaking by her? She was standing still and yet the feather grew warmer and warmer! She rushed forward, reaching the plaza where the big fountain of Gold Saints was on, and stuck to the shadows to avoid getting detecte-

*Thoo-thoom!*

Yelping in fright, the Corvus Saint took cover behind a crate when the two comets of light suddenly landed by Rodario's plaza, creating a shockwave of dust on the ground into the air. Trembling in fear of getting caught, her green eyes felt emission lenses burning with the two powerful cosmos and the feather was practically scalding in her hand. Was there a powerful False Specter here or, worse, a spy from Hades himself?

Her blonde, helmeted head carefully peaked out. To her surprise, it was two Saints in the plaza. She covered her mouth in shock when she realized that one of them was dressed head to toe in gold!

Wearing his Andromeda Cloth, Shinta looked around. "By the goddess, everyone's asleep… it's like a curse came over Rodario." He tightened his hands on his chains and felt them vibrating slightly as they resonated with remnants of the Nightmare sonar. "It's just like what happened in Andromeda Island."

"Some sort of bewitching vibration is in the air, interfering with the alpha waves of the brain," Gemini Saga declared, being a bit familiar with this kind of mental technique from his studies to become a Papal candidate. "This corroborates your report, Andromeda, that the Bat Specter is involved in this army."

But the Bronze Saint sweated when he sensed the scale of the spell. "It's frightening that it would be this effective, though…" Getting on his knee, the Bronze Saint took the lessons he learned from watching Lance and observed the footsteps in the dirt paths of the fountain plaza. "…Metal boot prints all over the ground… Saint Saga, at this time the ground in Rodario should be filled with sandal marks from everyone heading home. There must be so many enemies!"

Sighing in relief, Cerah wiped the sweat off her forehead and reforged her armor. "Lightcraft: Hoplite!" There was a faint flash of light and her skeleton armor changed shape into a simple foot soldier attire with a helmet she made sure to look slightly oversized to hide her hair better. She tied it beneath the protection and stayed quiet. She had no intention to be found, but if she did, at least they wouldn't attack her.

Keeping hidden behind her corner and crate as best as she could, Cerah analyzed everything she could about these Saints. She did not recognize either of the two attractive young men at all, but the one in the Bronze Cloth seemed clearly older and so oddly feminine that it reminded her of one of those old mocking tales about half the Saints spend just as many hours trying to look pretty as they spent in training.

"What was it that your teacher used to say? That Sanctuary was full of pederasty?" The Corvus Cloth whispered to her. "I suppose he meant unlike the Underworld, where Specters prefer necrophilia. Isn't it much more pleasant for you, though, to imagine these beautiful Sanctuary men together in bed… maybe even with you?"

The blonde girl gulped, feeling a strange surge of warm thoughts in her head, her face as red like a pepper. Geez, were all the powerful Saints hot? First that mercenary Leon, now these two!

Speaking of hot things, her black feather burned as hot as coal now! Should she warn them somehow that Daemon Lucifer was closer than they thought? They could be in real danger of being ambushed! But if they saw her and she was wrong, they would ask all sorts of risky questions, like what was a woman doing in hoplite armor and why had she escaped Bat's sonar? They might even think she's a spy!

Before she could decide anything, Shinta gasped when he felt familiar energies. "It's not just foot soldiers in this place. I'm sensing Saint Cynthia's cosmos in Circe's Grove!"

In her hiding spot, Cerah also widened her eyes. So there were lesser Saints around after all?

The Gold Saint grabbed Shinta's shoulder. "Don't rush after her, we don't know what kind of traps the Specters have laid. It's also better if they're knocked out because they won't feel the need to get in the way by trying to help," he argued. "This is a war for users of lightspeed."

Shinta began to remember what happened with his students being taken hostage at Andromeda Island. "… I understand, Lord Gemini." The Andromeda Saint then took his triangle end chain and laid it out in the air. It spun around for a bit and, before long, the chain tensed and pointed forward, towards Green Valley. "They're heading for Sanctuary Town! They must be getting close to Aldebaran!"

The Gemini Saint expanded his senses. "The Andromeda Cloth does not lie with its chains when it comes to these things. I'm amazed at how well they are concealing their clearly large mass of cosmos, though. We should move. If we want to stand a chance to save our friends, we need to stalk the enemy as close as we can so we can time our strike better."

Shinta held his own shaking arms. The tension he felt as he and Saga were closer and closer to the enemies' tails was getting to him. "This is it, huh?... a Holy War. It's so crazy that we're in one."

Saga nodded. "Yes, it's the kind of thing every Saint thinks he won't live to have to face, but soon the battle of our generation will begin. However, you shouldn't fear, Shinta."

The Japanese Saint blinked. "Saga?"

The ambitious Gemini stepped forward, as if to a task. "We are Saints of Athena, the brave youths of the Goddess of War. The weapon of Specters is nothing but the fear and sadness in your heart, Shinta. Therefore, so long as we believe in what we set out to do, we will prevail over the darkness." He declared, tightening fist. The concerned look in his face denounced a hidden preoccupation, but the Gold Saint stood firm in his tone as if he was extending this speech to himself. "We always have. Even in times of great danger, our greatest strength will be our courage and the faith we have that we will forge a better future. I believe we can save not only our friends but Aldebaran as well. We will put even our own lives at stake if necessary."

Both the green-haired Saint and Cerah herself, who was listening in, were amazed. What Saint Gemini said was a bit cliché, but the two of them would be lying if they didn't feel a bit uplifted by it.

In fact, even Cerah, who wasn't involved in the fight and didn't know who to root for, stood there in her corner pondering what she was doing. Saint Gemini's words spoke to something that was deeply rooted in her heart as a Cyrulian; the faith that Athena had in the better side of mankind. Her heart felt strangely soothed by it, as if reminding her that everything would be alright at the end of that frightening night even if it felt like it was impossible to.

Shinta smiled. "Thank you, Saga, I think I needed to hear that," he acknowledged, feeling newfound determination. "But… do you think Lance will return in time to help?"

He did not. "I'm sure of it," Saga lied, his gaze like steel. "Now let's go save Sanctuary!"

And then, with a shared nod, the two brave Saints super-speeded out of there towards the mountain pass, intending to keep a watchful vigilance over Lucifer's forces.

Taking a breath, Cerah counted ten seconds, keeping watch over the plaza.

Once she was done, she felt safe that no one was around anymore and that the Saints wouldn't return. What an odd encounter. She could swear she heard the Andromeda Saint refer to the Gemini by his name. What she witnessed told her several things, though.

"Number one being that Saints are dreamy, right?"

She shook her warm head, feeling unfocused, and pressed on with her thoughts;firstly, Lucifer had truly taken his forces out of Rodario, because not even the fabled Gemini Saint and the Andromeda Saint's chains detected any threat around them. The Daemon Specter, therefore, kept his word to her about not harming innocent people, which brought a smile of great relief and happiness on the young girl's face.

Secondly, it seemed as if the scale of Lucifer's assault was grander than she imagined. He was attacking not only Sanctuary but also the legendary Andromeda Island? What other attacks had there been? More and more, the seriousness of what Lucifer had done dawned on her; not only had her teacher challenged Hades, but he now waged total war on Athena. The chances that a tragedy would be avoided seemed slimmer and slimmer to Cerah.

And thirdly, there were Saints around that she could perhaps awaken to help avoid the loss of lives or at least make Cerah feel more secure about Eurydice's safety. At the very worst, she would probably carry some of them out of Rodario so that the Specters wouldn't come back and kill them should Lucifer win.

Having heard of the famous Bed & Breakfast that Andromeda mentioned, Cerah simply had to look for it in the fountain plaza to find its famous sign of the Greek witch leaning over the barrel. Already her Emission Lenses made the cosmos of unconscious Saints inside stand out. Thank Athena, she could maybe wake them up and get some help!

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

(?)

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

It truly felt like they had been there for weeks.

In the real world, Lance imagined it probably had only been a couple of hours.

With a mighty lunge of his arm, Lance shouted out the name of the devastating technique for the sixty-fourth time that 'day', unleashing an array of green-colored pyrotechnics that bombarded the rocks being made to float in the air, cascading across the simulated battlefield in a spectacle of emerald light. Once again, though, while his aim was getting better, the actual firepower he could maintain in the move was humble, creating only medium-sized orbs of twilight destruction instead of the gigantic atomic updrafts that Dohko's use of the Hyaku Ryu Ha that he did.

"That's 72% efficient, it's not enough!" the Libra said, counting the targets that were completely atomized. Waiting for the pebbles to stop falling, Dohko snapped his finger up to the air, causing a telekinetic updraft that raised another round of one hundred boulders to form and lift to the air.

Lance dropped to his knee, his body a sweaty mess and his breathing laborious. "Ah… H-how much is enough, then?!"

"Anything fewer than ninety-five is too dangerous to be fired with Hyaku Ryu Ha's real power. Not only will you waste a tremendous amount of stamina, but you'll endanger your friends and risk not reaching the energy threshold necessary to cause damage to the Daemon Surplice. The last person who used this move recklessly was recoiled into a Hyperdimensional hole." The teacher warned, reminded of an old story that Shiryu told him about his first use of this technique.

The exhausted Bronze practically gasped his next sentence out. "N-ninety five?! With this move?!"

Dohko folded arms. "If you're tired, just say so." he challenged, smug. Maybe this would be a good opportunity to teach Lance some humility regarding his stamina. As much as Lance bitched about Tenma, he himself was a bit of a stubborn mule who refused to admit how drained he was.

On the other hand, exhausting Lance to this point had always produced interesting results, like during that spar they had where the Pegasus briefly manifested Darkness cosmos(*). It had even helped him unlock electricity, his real second element, against Tenma and learn how to use his energy reserves better against a foe of superior endurance. The good thing about having a young student was that they were bottomless wells of potential for as long as they had time to work on it.

(*) See Chapter 17

And Seiryu's belly provided nothing but time.

However, firing such a high-level move, even undercharged, so many times would drive anyone to their limit, so Lance capitulated, sitting by a ruined pillar and dropping his head. "A-alright, I'm tired… I want to stop for a bit, okay?"

Dohko laughed and joined him. "Finally, ah, ah! You were starting to make me feel bad that you would break my record of 145 rounds!"

Lance rolled his eyes. Of course, Dohko would frame this into some sort of competition. Taking this opportunity to look back on his results, though, Lance picked up one of the smaller rocks that survived his bombardments and felt the heat of the force that struck it still on it. Hyaku Ryu Ha was indeed an incredible move, that it could cause such devastation with such ease even at the hands of a Gold Saint. While atomizing rocks was basic, doing so with such spectacular explosions was impressive, for most Gold Saint attacks were so under control of their actors that they produced thin, precise lasers at best that would cut through objects, create small golden blasts or devastate large areas with the minimum of energy release.

Therefore, in a way, it was not the scale of destruction that impressed Lance, but the visual spectacle accompanying it that he felt unable to repress. It was very rare that trained Gold Saints were unable to contain the brute force of their own power. Each of the dragons he fired, however, produced brutal blasts of pure, concentrated energy release and he could see why even a high-ranking Specter would fear it.

However, he was still skeptical that this could really work on Lucifer. Lance had felt the strength of that Daemon Surplice with his own knuckles; the Cancer Gold Saint, that had sparred with his brothers in arms, battled powerful Specters and even encountered King Cetus of New Lalibela, had for brief moments touched the brilliant seemingly unbreakable surface of Daemon and wondered if even his mightiest Charge Fist could so much as put a scratch on it.

"Roshi, will this really work?" he asked out loud.

Dohko relaxed in his seat and nodded. "Absolutely. It's just difficult for you to see it now because your experience is almost exclusively with the cosmos. You've never manipulated chi and we don't have time to teach you how to do it, but if you did, you would sense how, with every dragon, a bit of your ardent pulse for life was put into the attack. That's a power that Surplices cannot stop… the power of hope, of life!"

This was all very pretty, but Lance wasn't the type to be impressed by it. He had serious concerns for his own life and that of his friends, and he needed concrete evidence, not some old tale about his grandmaster Haisaku that Dohko was barely upfront about.

Wise and knowing his student, Dohko sensed this frustration in him. "Are you afraid?"

The red eyes looked away, ashamed. He thought about the deathly mountain he would have to climb, his execution stand. "… Yes."

The Libra exhaled sadly and put his arm around his student. "I know… I'm sorry."

Lance's face sunk into his palms. "How did it come to this… Just yesterday everything was fine, normal… Then all of a sudden we're surrounded by enemies and I may have to di-… I may have to make a miracle happen." he rephrased, unwilling to give voice to his basic fear.

Once again Dohko had nothing but sympathy for this. The poor kid was probably still processing everything that has happened in the real world since it had been only a couple of hours since the Specters showed up in China.

"It's true that you didn't become a Gold Saint for this. While it's our sacred duty to fight, everyone knows the Holy War is supposed to come sixteen years from now. No one would blame you for feeling like fate pulled a prank on you, or for being scared," he assured. "However, if you do your best here, there's a chance you can come out on top of fate's cruelty."

Lance nodded, agreeing with this in theory. "Yes, that's true…"

Dohko sensed he was still not in the right place. "It's difficult to predict when the past comes back to haunt you, but I promise you, Lance, that I will be more honest from now on. Once we're through this, I'll answer every question you may have about the past."

Exasperated, Lance got up and paced around the practice field. "I'm not curious about it, Roshi… If someone like Daemon Lucifer is what's waiting on the first page of your photo album, then I shudder to think of what else you haven't told me."

Dohko scratched his chin. He understood the underlying premise of the problem, that being that Lance felt dragged into something that was not necessarily a cause of justice, but of personal grudges. However, just because Lucifer's motivation was personal, it did not mean the damage he would cause would be as limited.

The teacher tried to remind him of what was at stake. "The Dark Prince's ambition is to become the ruler of humanity through Sanctuary and his philosophy is inspired by the God of the Underworld, Hades. He will do nothing but create a world of death."

This, however, was too abstract for the Saint. For some reason, all he could think about was the cruel Maiden that Shion had him assassinate, as well as the way that Elder Yuzuriha spoke of Shion. "I understand, and I don't want him to kill the people I trained with. But what good is training if everyone else still dies? Do you think Shion is capable of leading the others during this?

The mood tensed greatly, to the point that the green-tinted sky simulated by Seiryu seemed to grow darker. This was not an easy question to ask any Saint, much less to Libra Dohko himself, the best friend of the Pope. Lesser Saints could be heavily punished for this affront. Lance was counting on how sensitive and respectful Dohko was of people's honesty to not just get a big old slap straight across the face.

Dohko's hand clenched hard on his knee, making Lance gulp.

But the Gold Saint of Libra eventually responded. "…it's war."

The answer, however, was ambivalent and invited perusing. Picking his words carefully, Lance pursued it. "Is it okay if I ask what do you think of it?"

A pause of reflection came from Libra Dohko. "I know you're asking this from a good place, for once. Rather than frustration with authority, you're finally simply worried about your own morale in battle. Fighting under a leader that you don't have much confidence in is not very encouraging, after all."

To Lance, Dohko almost sounded like he was rationalizing with himself why he shouldn't just dunk the Pegasus' head in a pile of manure. "… but?"

Relaxing his fist, Dohko faced him. "But I truly don't know. You might not believe me, Lance…. But Shion doesn't confide in me his more problematic affairs. By Athena, I had to find out the Civil War even started through Daniel knocking at my door asking me about my allegiance. I cannot prepare you for what other kinds of trouble he might cause you younglings."

Lance sighed. "I just… sometimes have a hard time understanding what Sanctuary expects of me!"

Dohko nodded. "Maybe the key as to why you're confused about what your personal mission in life is supposed to be, what your role is, not as a Gold Saint, but as yourself, the person named Lance. It was something that I secretly asked myself during my time as an active Gold Saint as well, back in the Lost Canvas war." He taught. "And this doesn't mean that your role is supposed to be beating Lucifer or something… as your teacher I think you're meant for something better than cleaning up after our messes."

Lance blinked, touched and intrigued. "…like what?"

There was a shrug of armored shoulders. "Who knows? That's all the more reason for you to beat this war, to survive this, so you can find out. I only did after I attained good comrades that helped me understand what great things I could accomplish with them." He then poked Lance's chest in a motivating way. "And I wish you can find those people too after this, people who will help you understand what role you can take."

The Pegasus Saint grumbled. What a bunch of sobby nonsense. The thought of himself surrounded by people like Dohko made him feel like leaving the room. He had always been a loner and chances were that he would stay like this.

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Rodario

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Still dressed in her hoplite-crafted Corvus Cloth, Cerah slowly pushed the door to the Bed & Breakfast ajar, her green eyes turning Emission Lenses off to conserve energy. The place was warm, alight, and inviting. Carefully stepping into the dining area where the tables were at, she saw slots on the ground where Cloth Boxes would fit into in order to act as seats.

"What a cute idea." she thought, chuckling. Though the advantage of a Cloth Stone was that she never had to carry those huge things around, in this particular case she imagined she would be the odd one out of a chair. Pressing matters were at hand, though, and she had to find someone who could help her protect innocent people.

Looking for Saints, she came across a jackpot; a whole trio of Silvers were passed out by the far end of the room, with coffee spilled all over the floor. Approaching them, Cerah got on her knees and tried to recognize them, but two were wearing masks and the male one wearing a medal on his belt of a hand gripping an arrow, the symbol for the Sagitta Cloth, was unfamiliar to her. She saw the breathing and was relieved to know they were alive, but upon shaking the Sagitta Saint's shoulder he didn't even shudder.

Her eyes turned to the Amazons, particularly Cassiopeia. This was her first time seeing not just one, but two of the fabled battle-maidens of Athena who chose to forego their gender identity so they could fight alongside the men. While she was aware of Saintias, there was something about the sacrifice Amazons went through that endeared Cerah to their mythos even more.

Cerah Héloise didn't know which feeling to process at first, be it her admiration that these women were willing to wear such a suffocating thing all day, her disgust at the sexism in Sanctuary that enforced such a rule, to begin with, or the uncomfortableness with how she was privileged as a Cyrulian knight to not have to use such a thing. Maybe wearing a mask like this was something you just got used to after a while of feeling smothered by it. At least she hoped it was. Cerah would hate to imagine everyone having to wear one for as long as these Amazons had to.

Unbeknownst to the Cyrulian girl, Cassiopeia Cynthia knew who she was, having accompanied Eurydice and the comatose Cerah into Peloponesia after Aguilon rescued them. However, there was no way for Cerah to guess that. Cerah simply regretted the fact she couldn't wake her either after giving her a few shakes.

By Athena, it was like they were in comas, instead of just sleeping. She felt the urge to yell at them, but perhaps it wasn't such a good idea to reveal her voice, giving that she was trying to pass off as a hoplite.

This made Cerah realize something. "Wait a minute… this is a terrible idea! What am I going to tell these people if they do wake up?! I better turn this armor off." Closing her eyes, she focused on her gemstone so as to call back the Corvus Cloth. Her cosmos began burning to initiate her rite. "Corvus, dematerialis-"

But as soon as her Cosmos connected with her armor, the third fallen Saint suddenly leaped right at Cerah with the swiftness of a cat, tackling the Cyrulian, rolling her over and pinning her against the ground with one hand on the knight's head and the other twisting her arm down on her back! "I FELT THAT! WHO ARE YOU?!" the black-haired Crane asked.

Cerah gasped, face pressed against the wooden floor. Oh no, she hadn't completed the dematerialization and now her armor looked like its real self again! Her green eyes tried to see the Saint. "I-I'm…I'm a friend! I found you on the floor!"

But Yushira didn't buy this. "Everyone else here fell asleep when that weird noise started! Why are you awake?! What kind of black bird armor is that?! You don't have a mask, are you a Specter?!"

"N-NO! I have nothing to do with them!" Cerah lied. It was all she could say. Her heart pumped like crazy! A Saint had caught her with her armor on! What was she going to do?! "But I'm scared and I wanted to help! Please believe me!"

"Why should I?!" Yushira demanded. "We're under attack and I saw those bastards go by the window! All of my brothers and sisters are in danger and you show up out of nowhere! Give me one good reason not to break your arm!"

Cerah panicked, feeling cornered. The amazon was right; her case was indefensible! With her armor on in its real form, she had no way to pretend she wasn't a warrior. She either came up with a really good story or-…

Her green eyes narrowed. Wait a minute, what did this young Amazon just say? "She didn't fall asleep. Bat Brune's Nightmare Sonar should have affected everyone, unless…" she deduced. Her body tensed, showing resistance against Yushira's pinning. "Let go of me! Let's have a talk!"

Yushira scoffed. "A talk? Look, you're not in a position to bargain here! As soon as this mess is dealt with I'm taking you to Stardust Prison!"

"W-well, if you do then I'll let all your bosses know you're hiding something too!" Cerah confronted. Immediately, the shock in Yushira was indirectly sensed when her grip on Cerah's arm loosened ever so slightly. "S-so you don't have a choice but to be reasonable, right?!"

Behind her mask, Yushira's eyes blinked in hesitation. This was either a big bluff, or something had given her away. Letting go of this armored girl was just as dangerous, though. Judging by the cosmos she had felt while pretending to be asleep, the blondie couldn't be as strong as herself. Yushira guessed she should be on the lower spectrum of Silver-Ranks, which she should be able to deal with even in frontal combat, being a well-trained fighter.

However, only a fool would let the wolf off the foot trap. "…Tell me what armor is that, right now! If you do that and explain to me where you got it, I'll consider letting you up!"

Cerah gulped. Oh no, she couldn't let anyone know this was the Crow armor. It was supposed to be missing from the old Cyrulian war. Telling her this was tantamount to giving away all of Cerah's secrets. However, maybe some middle ground could be found. Her mind rushed through the possibilities of what she could pass off as in that situation.

After giving it careful thought, Cerah gave her best shot. "…This is my Cloth. I don't have to tell you anything about it anymore than you would have to show your face to a man. I fought and studied to the end of my strength and wits to earn it! And if you think I don't deserve your trust as a Saint based on this alone…" her eyes then closed, anxious about the dangerous gambit she was playing. "…then may Athena have mercy on you, sister!"

Holding Cerah tightly, Yushira pondered her words very carefully for a good half a minute.

Eventually, to Cerah's amazement, the Asian Amazon lifted Cerah up by the arm, releasing her. "… Fine."

It took a beat for Cerah to process that her shot in the dark had worked. "T… Thank you."

Crane Yushira shrugged. "You know, you could have just told me you were a Saintia. I would have let you go. You gals are educated, I get it,… but you don't have to be so high and mighty to Amazons like me all the time."

Cerah shook her head. "I apologize, it wasn't my intention." Fortunately, her ruse had worked, though. Not only did she come off as a Saintia by wearing such elegant armor with the silk faulds' skirt and not wearing a mask, but a Specter was said to puke immediately at the mere thought of saying such things about placing faith in the goddess of war. "I had to get a way for you to listen, though…"

The amazon chuckled. "Well, I was a bit rough on you, after all. Oh, and…" her hand cupped her mask as if sharing a secret. "… don't tell anyone about me, alright? I'm 'popular' enough as it is. I'm Yushira of Crane, by the way. Pleased to meet you."

Self-conscious about her deceit, Cerah held her own arm regretfully, thinking about how she just had to leverage the Saint. She knew a bit about Sanctuary's racism and understood that someone in this Amazon's position would have to keep things hidden.

She seemed like a kind person underneath her professionalism, though. "Likewise. My name is, umm…" she then hesitated. Should she tell the truth? She saw the Amazon tilt her head expectantly and the knight just blurted it out. "I'm Cerah. Saint Yushira, are your friends alright?"

The masked girl looked at the adults. "Yeah, I got scared for them when the creeps in bone armor walked by the window, but for some reason they ignored us. Their bosses seemed to be shouting at them to move on. I figured I would stay quiet until I could ambush one or help arrive."

This made Cerah's attention perk up. So the Specters were ordering the Skeletons to not attack the civilians and lower Saints? Lucifer did care, after all. This calmed her heart and warmed her cheeks, putting a gentle smile on her face. Of course, her teacher still had his proud values.

She doubted Yushira would think the same, though. "Saint Yushira, I came across a pair of Saints outside. One of them was the Gemini Gold Saint." She revealed, instantly capturing the Amazon's attention. "They seemed to want to stalk the enemy from afar, perhaps in preparation for an assault."

But while Cerah expected many reactions to this, Yushira ended up surprising her somehow. "WHAT?! Those assholes!"

The green-eyed knight was shocked. "S-Saint Yushira?!"

"Was that the two cosmos I felt earlier?!" Her black-gloved arms folded in pure spite. "Don't you know what they're doing, Cerah?! Instead of going around waking everyone up so we can gather our forces, they're glory-hounding! The nerve of the pricks! A whole army of Specters just marches through Sanctuary and their first thought is to make sure they get all the kills! Well, I'll have none of that!" The Crane Silver Saint then rushed out the door to the open street.

Bewildered, the knight did her best to keep up. "Whow, w-wait a minute!" She also couldn't help but notice that Yushira wasn't trying to wake up anyone else either. "Saint Yushira, maybe we really should stay back! I saw some of the Specters, they are very dangerous! I think the correct course of action is to gather up arms so we can take the villagers out of-"

But the Crane lowered her chin incredulously. "Cerah, don't be so by-the-book, this is the time for initiative!" she urged.

The principled knight felt uncomfortable. "Initiative?"

"You know, that thing you lack to go against your teacher?" Corvus mocked.

Yushira held her shoulders encouragingly. "Yeah! We need to seize this opportunity and do something really heroic! You're not suggesting that while the Zodiac is fighting the strong ones we couldn't get some action by taking down the little Skeletons ourselves, right?" she pointed out. "Besides, not only did those guys ignore all the innocent bystanders, but I'm an undercover Saint! Staying out of range of the big guns to take out the small ones is my specialty."

While it made somewhat sense, everything about this stanched of the Amazon just hypocritically wanting some glory herself and Cerah felt that she was just getting caught up in the Crane Saint's energy.

Moreover, the blonde girl simply wasn't sure if taking a proactive stance against Lucifer's men was such a brilliant idea. She knew their power first hand and they could only have become stronger after being fully taken under Lucifer's wing. The idea of opposing her teacher also felt absolutely unthinkable and Cerah was merely concerned about the collateral damage his unbridled ambition would cause.

"Or maybe you're just scared of getting what you want?" Corvus suggested. "If you think bravery is just putting yourself between a Specter and a Nymph, you're wrong. It's also about taking your destiny into your hands. I like this Crane Saint, though… unlike you she isn't ashamed of what she really wants."

For some strange reason, Cerah suddenly felt a deep shame in herself, like she had come all the way out here with Eurydice's blessing and all and now she was too cowardly to take the next step. What was putting these awful thoughts in her head?

But as if Yushira had a 6th sense for telling what people's motivations were and how to use them in her favor, the Saint raised her finger in lecturing. "Look, Cerah, I can tell you're pretty strong and you want to help people, right? Well, Rodario is fine, but there's a whole town on the other side of those mountains that could be on fire right now, and every second you waste thinking about what to do is one more cross we may have to plant on the ground."

This zeroed in right on Cerah's concerns. "Well, yeah, but-"

Rolling her eyes behind her mask, Yushira grabbed Cerah by the wrist and practically dragged her out of there. "Well, let's go then! Trust me, when that bitch Olivia gives you a medal for taking out a Specter, you'll thank me for making this decision for you simpler!"

Cerah yelped, yanked out of the fountain plaza.

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Néa Delphi,

Ghisi Mansion

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Further to the north, close to the ancient archeological site of Delphi, in the modern Greek region of Phocis, the famous Sanctuary settlement of Néa Delphi lies. Meant as a reconstruction of the classical town where the seat of Pythia and the center of the Greek World was at, the town, also called New Delphi by Sanctuary's non-Greeks, was the closest thing to a significant town outside of the capital of Sanctuary Town that the land of Athena had in the modern world and acted as the living space for a lot of citizens of the Pope not involved in the army.

Such were the Ghisi who, despite having abodes in Sanctuary Town, preferred to stay away from the capital to do as they wished to their hard-earned fortune and carry out their aristocratic affairs away from the eyes of the poor. Many families like them had no intention of being around the Pope, preferring to stay near the land they owned and only setting foot in Sanctuary to attend court, do business, enjoy the theater or take refuge during the war.

The head maiden of the Ghisi, an aged lady from Poland named Anna Maria wearing a stuffy maid outfit who resided in the mansion's quarters, was finishing the affairs of the household after a long day heading the cleaning efforts. Miss Adriana had come home after another long period away and the family always insisted on an extra coat of waxing on their expensive floors to welcome their Silver Ring with. To the irritancy of the Masters, Adriana always kept to herself in the family, even by insular aristocratic standards, only spending a little time at the dinner table with her parents before disappearing into the halls to either confide with her grandfather or generally keep away from her younger siblings, who jealously vied for her position in the family.

The help, many of them hired by Adriana, generally assumed she was off venturing the night. Many didn't know what to make of her; while Adriana was generally more pleasant than the rest of the Ghisi, who were borderline infamous for uppity noses chiseled by centuries of protecting their prestige as nouveau riche in a feudal court as old as antiquity, the young woman was also the cause of secret fears among the lower class around her almost precisely for her apparent sympathy. After being taken into Sanctuary after the Nazi invasion by Saints who rescued her, Anna Maria had always heard from fellow refugees that the Sanctuary aristocrats they would work under were even worse than those of Classic Greece in terms of cruelty and stratification and that, if one smiled at you, it was likely because they were picturing either your grave or your chains.

Thus, the poor old maiden nearly had a heart attack when she found the young lady by the rooftop balcony after turning over the corner, still dressed in her blue adventurer coat and leather boots as if she was ready to depart again. Anna Maria held her chest and gasped. "Miss Ghisi?!... Excuse me, I didn't know you were here."

The refined young woman with strawberry blonde curly hair had her hand held up as if an invisible apple was being plucked from the air, her blue eyes focused on it. More alarmingly, her famous battle rapier was by her waist.

She was so quiet that Anna Maria wondered if she had even noticed her presence. "Miss Adriana, is something the matte-" the maid then paled when the young woman turned her head to her and a cruel shine was in her eyes and a worried frown in her face. The horrible sensation that she had walked into a monstrous predator's nest crept up on her and the moonlight suddenly reflected strings in the air vibrating and touching the Silver Ring's fingertips.

But the frown turned upside down and these strange feelings vanished instantaneously. "… Oh, Anna Maria… It's quite alright. I just noticed something worrying." Her hand then retreated to her waist and her foot stepped on the balcony's edge. "If my dear parents ask, tell them I had to go to Sanctuary in a jiffy. Something important came up."

Anna Maria blinked. "Sanctuary? But miss, it's midnight and you just arriv-" and before she could even finish her sentence, the Silver Ring climbed onto the balcony rail and jumped out the rooftop, making the elderly lady scream! "Oh my Goddess, MISS GHISI! SOMEONE HELP!"

Lights turned back on all over the mansion's windows and a supersonic boom sped out of Delphi into the night.

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Underworld,

Third Circle, Ptolomea

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

At the border of the Sixth Prison of the Underworld, which included the location of the fabled Waterfall of Blood, Judge Wyvern Rhadamanthys, the Celestial Star of Fury and Lord of the Third Circle, marched with intent along the barren wastelands of the Burning Sands, testing his body and Surplice beneath the raining fire where those with the sin of Sloth were punished. While most, even Gold Saints, would fully feel the pain of the drops of embers and the scorching desert, the blonde warrior stood like a dark statue to resilience, determined to pass his limits in preparation for the day he would have revenge.

Minotaur Gordon, the guardian of the Labyrinth and one of his elites, wheezed with the effort of just standing there. "L-lord Rhadamanthys… you haven't even recovered from your wounds yet! Y-you will die here!" But saying this merely caused the Judge's cosmos to burn even more, like throwing a log into a fire. "The criers say Lord Hades has awakened. D-Don't you want to go to the Emperor's side?"

His head turned with a rageful look, paralyzing the huge Specter. "Me, before the Emperor?! Hades suffers not failures! Aiacos can go if he thinks he earns such privilege, but I will see his majesty only either with an extraordinary motive or with proof of justice over the traitor, Daemon Lucifer!" he turned back to the desert. "Until then, the fires and sands of this place are all my miserable wounds need to heal!"

The Celestial Prison Star was shocked. To say such a thing meant that the loyalty, guts, and determination of Rhadamanthys were truly unmatched in the Underworld. Gordon could only imagine what kind of a monster a Specter would come out of this forge of pain, but he would make sure it was a sight he would behold since, with Daemon gone, the Underworld needed a new champion.

Out of the border with the 7th Prison, Frog Zelos came hopping! "Lord Rhadamanthys, Lord Rhadamanthys!"

The Brit glared at the miserable frog. They had found him by the edge of the Underworld, caged there by the treacherous False Specters, and discovered he had been part of some ruse that helped the traitors flee. Zelos held up and down that he had been forced to, which was not beyond the realm of reason, but the sight of the coward still made the Judge's blood boil. "What is it now?!"

The Terrestrial Weird Star raised his arms in alarm. "Your Honor, something terrible has happened! There's an intruder, a filthy Lemurian maggot who fell down Hirasaka to the 7th Prison!"

"So what?!" Gordon asked. "Can't you see you're wasting the Judge's time?! Just drag his corpse to the proper Malebolge with the rest of the decadent turds!"

Zelos shook his head with whimpers. "Y… You don't understand… he's alive and he's k-kicking our butts!"

Rhadamanthys' attention was captured. "What?"

The lowly Specter got on his knees and hands in begging. "Even L-Lord Sylphid tried his hand, but the filthy profligate has got some sort of weird…. battle barrier! He kicked Lord Basilisk straight into the Malebolges! We can't even touch him! He's sledgehammering Skeleton battalions left and right!"

Gordon was absolutely revolted. "What?! How can that be?! Who is he, a Saint?!"

"That's the weird part, he's saying he's looking for an armor! He wants one of our Surplices!"

Minotaur was incensed. "The nerve…" his hooved boots stepped right up for the challenge. "I'll cut him in half! Take me to this intruder!"

But Rhadamanthys raised his arm to halt the Minotaur. "Wait, I have a better idea… I'll handle this myself!" he assured, grinning. Finally, he would get a victim to work his rage out on. "I don't care who he is or why he wants his hands on one of our armors… but I'll make sure to beat it out of him before shoving him in Giudecca's darkest cage!"

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Twin Peaks Mountain

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

With a head covered in sweat, Iaso sat back after another round of Golden Touch healing, sighing in exhaustion. "Damn this kid…" he breathed out.

"Thank Athena, he seems stable now," Mu commented, relieved. The convulsions had calmed down and no more new strange injuries had appeared. It was like whatever tribulations Lance was going through in this bizarre communion with Seiryu, as Mu perceived it, had come to a close. "Hopefully he wakes up soon."

"If he doesn't, I may just have to leave him like this!" Iaso bit, alarming Mu. "Look, Kiki, what I mean is that we kind of have a Holy War going on and maybe teleporting back already to Rodario wouldn't be the worst though, provided those Specters haven't burned it down on their way to the Golden Zodiac."

"Uh-uh… so what are you going to do about your friend, Saint Iaso?" Mu asked.

The brown-haired doctor took the canteen he brought and looked at it with dejection. "Good question… I'm certainly not going to give her this water. Her head might explode!"

Mu smiled. "It's really kind of you that you would go out of your way for her, though."

Iaso rubbed his chin pensively, the image of Eurydice's beautiful face coming to mind. "Ahh…you're too young to understand, but you really shouldn't give me so much credit."

"Frankly, I'm shocked you didn't take a minor in mammograms." the Ophiuchus Cloth provoked.

"Quiet, you!" the doctor snapped out loud. He then saw Kiki staring at him. "Umm, … sorry, I'm talking to someone else."

Mu held his hands behind his back and tilted his head at the doctor's Cloth. "You mean your armor?"

Iaso blinked in realization. "Mm, yeah, I forgot, you're one of them Lemurian smiths… you know about this stuff, don't you?"

The lilac-haired boy rubbed his nose. "Well… just what Master taught me! I can't talk to Cloths like he can, but I can weld the little glove parts together in record time!" he bragged, excited to be talking about alchemy.

"I see… have you ever worked on a Gold Cloth?" the doctor asked, curious.

Mu sweated. He was young, but he could tell by now when the well-meaning medic was trying to make him slip something he shouldn't. Saint Iaso didn't miss a chance to get to know more about the higher-up's secrets, did he?

"No, it's not often they get damaged, being nearly indestructible and all. It's also been pretty peaceful… " Mu innocently answered. "Saint Taurus did ask me to help give his Cloth a good cleaning after his teacher dropped a truck of a maneuver on him for training… does that count?"

Iaso frowned in disgust. "Goddess, I hope it doesn't… Why the hell did Daniel do that to him anyway?!" he asked, remembering the day the old Gold Saints retired and revealed their identities.

Mu raised his arms. "You know, it's to get in tune with the spirit of the bull!" he explained. His eyes shifted, though; he did feel bad for Aldebaran. "…Also it was sensory training. For some reason, Taurus Saints have been really particular about toughening their physical senses after the last war."

This sounded a lot less like training and a lot more like college hazing to Iaso. "More like getting in tune with the spirit of bullshit!" he thought. Looking back to Lance, he saw the Pegasus Saint breathing more normally. "What about him? Did you see much of Pegasus at the Zodiac while you were with your teacher?"

Mu nodded. "Uh-uh, yeah, all the time! He and Shinta play soccer with us!" he chirped. This was about all he could tell safely.

This was abnormally sociable of the Pegasus Saint. "Him? Really? Ah!" the doctor scoffed, earning a weird look from Kiki. The doctor shifted his eyes. "Um, sorry, kid, we outside the Zodiac have a different perspective on him."

Sitting on a rock, Mu was frankly curious. "Can you tell me about it? Lance won't say much about why he keeps to himself."

Iaso scratched his head. Where would he even start with this? Should he even start? There were some pretty bad rumors about the Pegasus, even after most people forgot the way he humiliated Kastiel. It wasn't the kind of thing that was appropriate to tell a kid, especially one who seemed to have a good take on someone who Iaso mostly saw as an angry upstart teenager.

He, therefore, put it into different terms. "I won't go into it… but he acts out of synch with the rest of us. Frankly, I don't think your friend makes a good Saint."

Mu was appalled, especially because he knew Lance was secretly the Gold Saint of Cancer. He tried to hide his surprise though. "What makes you say that?"

There was a bit of hesitation from the Ophiuchus Saint. "I've only met Pegasus a couple of times… but he reminds me a lot of another loner in our ranks, an Amazon girl called Yushira of Crane. They're both talented, proactive in missions… and get a bad rep' because of the actions and words they take against Sanctuary's traditionalism. They're both the kind of Saint who never got their incompatibility with Sanctuary worked out of them during training."

The secret Gold Saint of Aries mused over this. "Is that a bad thing? At the end of the day, they'll both fight for Athena, right?"

"That's a good point, Kiki, I agree." The adult conceded, surprising Mu. "But remember that, at the end of the day,… Holy Wars are a tiny percentage of life in Sanctuary. Most of them last less than a week and they come only every few centuries. During the rest of the time, we have to try to make sure we don't kill one another with our superpowers. Imagine if all the kids you met at the Zodiac were keeping to themselves and even starting fights with each other but your Master told you that you had to forget that because, at the end of the day, you would all have a tiny percentage of having to fight together."

The Lemurian had never considered this and, thus, was forced to hesitate. At Sanctuary, Deathmask and Aphrodite were usually the only two really bad to get along with. Mu couldn't picture everyone being at each other's throats for real at all, especially good friends who respected each other like Shura and Aiolos.

Seeing he had made the young kid a bit upset, Iaso patted his back comfortingly. "Hey, don't listen to me, I'm a bitter adult. I'm sure your friends won't start a Civil War or anything. After their teachers did, they would be fools to grow up into the same kind of hard-headed zealots." He assured Mu. "I'm sure whoever is guarding those temples will be fine against these Specters, too…"

Mu smiled back just a bit, but he sensed the hesitation in the adult. It reminded him of when master Shion talked about a really difficult subject that he would then lie to Mu about not worrying him but, secretly, it made Shion stay up at night.

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

(?)

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Round after round of the dragon's mighty move was thrown, creating more spectacles of emerald explosions in the air. Dohko observed each one with anxiety, measuring the success and efficiency rate. He looked down on his own hand and saw himself fading slightly.

"Our bodies are slowly returning to normal… soon we will awaken from this world." He stared back at Lance, whose aura of cosmos reignited furiously, preparing another attack. "Is this really all I can do for him? To make him target practice? I won't accept this."

With another loud martial shout, Lance gauged the charging as minimally as possible and fired the Hyaku Ryu Ha yet again, this time out of frustration with failing to get a perfect score even with the technique's lamest version, blasting the stairs of their simulated Sanctuary all the way down to the Aries Temple. He gasped in exhaustion and fell to his knees and hands, sweat dripping down his head like a waterfall.

They had been there for what felt like weeks. He was nowhere near close to ready to firing the powerful version of the move. He pictured that if he would, that Daemon bastard would dance around it like the slowest move in the world and Lance would make himself vulnerable to the fastest knockout in the Cancer Temple's history. His fingers clenched the dirt as his whole body shook with frustration, his mocking grin haunting his head, promising death.

And so with a furious roar, he hammered his bloody fists on the ground over and over, quaking the mountain with the strength of his cosmos and fracturing the floor with deep cracks that stretched to the walls of this mirror of Dohko's temple, his draconic aura boiling with anger. This wasn't helpful at all, but the teenager just wanted to scream with the unfair situation he had been tossed into. He felt like he was expected to suddenly climb Everest with his foot tied up his ass and no ropes or icepicks. Even if he did perfect the accuracy of this move, he would have to fire a much harder-to-control version of it and pray it would be enough to damage the adversary to the point that everyone else could take him down.

It was far from a guarantee of survival.

Standing back up, he felt so tired that he thought his aura would dispel right then and there, but working out his anger just then probably soothed his head a bit and helped him stay in control of the little energy he had left.

He tensed his fingers and resumed the dragon style pose. "O-one more!"

Dohko's cosmos burned and his hand commanded the rocks and boulders to raise to the air, filling it with targets.

Lance stared at them. A thought was in his head. "W-wait, Roshi, can you put them all together?" he asked. "M-make it one big target. I know it's not the point of this, but that's the number of t-targets I'm going to have anyway."

The brown-haired Libra thought about it for a second. "Alright… but remember that blowing up just one won't help you that much." He then clenched his hand into a fist, causing the disparate boulders to suddenly collide with one another around an epicenter, loudly forming one giant rock in the air. Moving it further away than in previous rounds to give Lance a little bit more maneuver for a big move, he then asked the student. "Do you have an idea?"

Lance nodded, focusing his senses on the rock. "M-more or less." He then spent a minute slowly charging the aura and thinking about what the heck he was actually going to do.

His instincts told him this setup was the key though. Unlike his counterpart Tenma, Lance's specialty was singular, heavy moves rather than featherweight punch barrages. While powerful, the One Hundred Dragons of Rozan were similar to Tenma's Meteor Fist in the sense that they were a bunch of attacks that he did not have any practice in aiming for the best optimal use. Even his newest innovation, the Multiple Charge Fist, operated on electrical readings that picked targets for Lance, rather than forcing him to aim. What if there was a way he could fire the Hyaku Ryu Ha differently, in a style more apt for his particular instincts? He tensed his legs apart and gathered his 'dragon hands' forward, facing one palm with the other vertically.

Dohko wasn't sure what he was going to do but felt that he had to remind him of something important. "Remember, it gets exponentially harder to completely atomize targets with the Cosmos the larger their volume is. I don't doubt your ability to destroy this rock…It's actually the easiest thing in the world for Saints. But my test metrics are for you to completely annihilate your target so as to master your use of the blasts, not just atomize the front and break the rest of it into even microscopic bits."

Lance nodded. "I u-understand. It just occurred to me…"

"What?"

Lance recalled the fight, particularly the speed of the bastard, and the moment he fired his Dark Revenge Blast, and narrowed his eyes. "Something tells me that guy won't just sit there waiting for me to aim…" His draconic aura then flowed faster, unleashing a sizzling sound like a geyser. "Especially since he knows how you fire it!"

Dohko's mouth dropped when he saw the way the aura began focusing between Lance's hands, forming a bright green star of light. It reminded him of the way that Athena Exclamation was charged.

Also similarly to that move, Lance soon began having trouble keeping his hands together as the pressure of the immense power he was focusing began mounting.

The tiny star grew into a small orb of dancing green light and his body shook in an attempt to control it. He tried to stay focused by thinking about his target. "If I focus the power of this technique the same way I focus the fires of F-Flame Attack…" he growled, determined. "I t-think I can find a way to fire the dragons in my way."

Dohko stepped up, seeing Lance's arms shaking. "Careful! There's a reason why this move is fired in the form of multiple blasts! You are making use of the wrath of the Dragon, Lance! It's not something your body can easily hold! It would be like trying to not lower your left hand while using Shoryuha!"

"I-I know!" Lance roared to himself, putting more of his aura into the orb, which swollen now into a charging ball of light that struggled like plasma against his hands' grip. He felt as if Seiryu's eyes were upon him, with such life he was putting into this attack. "But w-what else am I to do?! This is the only way, don't you see? We don't have time for me to mas-"

But the Libra Gold Saint then rushed to his side and held his arms horizontally over his, helping him grasp the energy. "I know it is! So I'm going to help you! Hold your arms straight!"

The student gasped. "A-alright!" and he made an effort to straighten his pose, which had eroded in cohesion under the technique's mounting pressure. Lance's cosmos made the move escalate into an even larger ball of power, which now seemed to scream against their fingers in defiance as if Seiryu himself was captured in it. "Is this really safe?!"

Dohko laughed, exerting his own willpower to help shape and contain the technique. "No, but I like the audacity in it! Don't lose focus now! You're trying to charge the power of one hundred beams into one, so if this goes wrong…!"

On cue with Lance's charging, an ominous roar was heard in the background. The Old Tiger then felt Lance gauge the aura of Seiryu's wrath to the proper level which he had to fire against Lucifer and the sensation of the Dragon Emperor wrapping his body around the both of them as a prelude to Koryuha was felt. If something went wrong now, both of them would rocket to this imaginary outer space. The teacher didn't know what would happen then.

This was precisely the kind of risk that students of Rozan thrived on, though. As their common aura charged in unison, Dohko subtly helped Lance aim their hands together. "Alright, are you ready? Fire on my mark! Three, two, one…!"

Igniting like a bonfire of green, Lance's red eyes narrowed on the giant boulder in the sky. "ROZAN! HYAKU RYU HA!" and the orb in their hands exploded with the wrath of one hundred raging dragons, deafening the Saints with their unison roar, blinding them with the emerald light of their bodies of energy, quaking the ground with the force of the firing and recoiling the two of them, their heels trailing back in the ground.

However, rather than a shower of flying drakes across the sky, a gigantic union of beams was blasted out, uniting like twisting cords into one powerful beam of cosmos with an arrowhead vaguely shaped like the open mouth of a dragon. Crossing the air at the speed of light, it collided with the colossal boulder in the air with the explosive force, sound and shockwave of a nuclear detonation, overwhelming the Saints senses and releasing wave after wave of elliptical light rays in the course of a few nanoseconds.

The pale green light of blast compressed like a strange photo-phenomenon, swallowing up the entire target before finally exploding in a final shockwave, it's strength bashing the Saints back against the ruins of the broken Libra Temple and its reverberating sound overlapping with the cries of Seiryu himself.

Everything became consumed in light!

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Sanctuary, Golden Zodiac

Temple of Virgo

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Resting in a meditating pose on his lotus flower throne, Shaka, one of the youngest Gold Saints of Virgo in the history of Sanctuary, had nothing in his mind except for absolute clarity and his communion with Buddha. His mind was in such a state of peace that his awareness stretched across different plains of reality, well into the many worlds of dreams out there. His cosmos also burned with gold so perfect that it almost became white, a color phenomenon that had ingratiated many into his title of Closest to God, as it resembled depictions told in church of Athena's unique energy.

In the vast openness of the universe, he felt in his mind, a sudden comet immersed in green cosmos sped across the galaxy of his Cosmos. "Mm… that was… the Dragon God Seiryu. He seems agitated with something. I wonder what kind of trouble Saint Dohko is up to." He then noticed something else around him, awakened from his trance. "Saint Aiolos, you're still awake?"

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Temple of Sagittarius

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Standing at the entrance of his temple, young Aiolos was startled by hearing Shaka's voice so suddenly. "Ah, yes…" he spoke to the air, frowning in preoccupation. "Tonight I couldn't sleep. Saga has gone out and he won't respond to me, which is bizarre on its own, but now I can't get a hold of Mu either."

"Is that all?"

Aiolos' eyes narrowed, surveying the stretches of the closed valley that the Zodiac and Sanctuary Town stood on. "It's not. I feel something in the air… Call it a hunter's instinct, or maybe just a big brother's paranoia, but it's like the wind itself is telling me I should keep watch tonight." He confessed. "I only get this feeling when something awful happens, like when my parents died."

"Mm, mm, how ominous… it is said some can read time in the wind itself, Aiolos. Perhaps on top of a great archer, you are a prophet as well?"

The Sagittarius was very surprised. He didn't realize the introverted Virgo had a sense of humor. "Ah, ah, …if only this gift told me the lottery ticket instead?" He then waited for some kind of response, but only silence came, making Aiolos sweat. Perhaps not every joke would land on the Indian boy. "Anyway, you should be sleeping too, Shaka. I and Aldebaran will keep watch."

"Yes, I'll rest easy knowing your arrow will snipe down anything that comes through those mountains."

Sitting on the last stair step to his temple, Aiolos nodded in agreement and gazed down on Sanctuary Town, the capital of their land. Oddly, lights were not slowly turning off in people's homes as the Fire Clock struck midnight, unleashing its soft tick-tock sound.

His blue eyes then noticed something strange flying over the rooftops. "… Bats? So many of them. That's unusual. I guess some patrol guard walked to close to the mountain pass caves on his way home again."

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Sanctuary Town,

Mountain Pass Gate

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

With the soft ticking of the Fire Clock announcing midnight and the clouds of bats screeching and flying over their heads, lulling the guardsmen and Saints to sleep in their homes, barracks, posts and streets, a monumental event occurred at the start of the Herculean Road. Silent like ghosts, the men and women in black armor coyly moved through the shadows, nigh-invisible in them to even the eyes of eagles thanks to the magic inherent to their Damascus.

They collectively halted by the shadow of the Third Acropolis, which guarded the mountain pass trail and housed the capitol's foot soldiers. For the first time in two hundred and sixteen years, Specters and Skeletons stepped on Athena's land.

Dragging the lynched Bat Brune through the floor, who barely held on to consciousness with his bleeding and bruises, Behemoth Torak moved among the crowd. "Make way for the Prince!" he demanded.

The men and women obeyed immediately, taking flanks around the Herculean Road, which would lead them to the Golden Zodiac through the streets of Rodario. The Dark Prince of Hades made his way through them, allowing the army to see their leader feared not this land that had claimed the lives of countless of their predecessors, mainly various iterations of the same True Specters and Skeletons.

Stopping ahead of the group with his black, shadowy cape flowing with the night wind, Daemon Lucifer's red eyes turned up to the far-off Fire Clock.

He had half a mind to announce his presence to the Gold Saints by igniting it from afar with one of his lightning javelins.

While the epic symbolism of this appealed to his sense of triumph, his strategic side told him not to ruin the surprise. Instead, he turned to Papillon. "Ainsel, are they ready?"

The orange-armored Specter nodded and waved his arm, releasing a shower of golden moths that awed the False Specters and landed on their armored shoulders. "My brothers, take these Underworld Moths. As our skeletons maintain the communication jamming, these will allow us to keep speaking to one another."

Golem and Cyclops saw the bugs take spot over their arms, the wings moving gently. "I see, this will allow us to keep the advantage." Golem Treble realized before pointing to the Skeletons. "Take position in rooftops and expand our jamming network! I want the Gold Saints completely blind to what's going on in the town and us completely in control, in return!"

A small group of Skeleton specialists saluted the Golem and immediately jumped to the rooftops, taking several strategic positions while still within the range of the many Skeletons that took position along the Mountain Pass' length. Burning their black cosmos, they entered in sync with their comrades and expanded the blackout zone while establishing their private mental message line.

Cyclops Balgo tested it with a ping and felt it propagate all the way back to Crow's Nest with no interception whatsoever. "Lady Erika?"

"I take it that the Prince is in Sanctuary." The Nasu Specter responded all the way from Romania. "Good luck, brothers. Death to Arles!"

"Death to ARLES!" the Specters and Skeletons responded in unison. This communication line would also allow Erika to rescue their souls as they fell against the Gold Saints.

Sphinx Neferti approached Lucifer. "Prince, we are sensing two more Saints joining the previous two. These seem like Silver Ranks."

Alraune Lemon's attention perked at this.

But the Prince, calculating the odds, dismissed it. "Then they are no danger. Gemini, Andromeda, and Aries are far more concerning, but we will deal with them once we penetrate Sanctuary's defenses. This False Holy War is for Gold Ranks alone. The Gold Saints won't allow them on the field. If the weak ones try anything, have our scouts ambush them across the Green Valley!"

Neferti saluted him. "Yes, my Prince!"

Lucifer then focused on the far-off mountain where the temples laid. It had been a very, very long time since he faced these cursed buildings like this. The wave of nostalgia that swept across him all of a sudden forced him to pause and the events of centuries of hate and planning coursed through his black heart, making it beat faster. Lucifer already imagined himself moving through temple after temple, taking down every foolish Gold Saint that stood in his way, until he finally walked towards the big chambers at the top and faced off Shion himself.

This was it, his moment of glory. Soon he would shower his laurels in the crystalized remains of the goddess' blood and be coronated as Emperor of Athena, the first in almost a thousand years!

He turned to his men. "False Specters of Lucifer… what you see before you is the land that has never been conquered, and the temples that have never been beaten; the Sanctuary of Athena! In that mountain beyond these profligate streets, twelve Houses and ten thousand fucking stairs await you! This is it, what we have all been fighting to overcome, our destiny!"

"YEAH!" the army shouted, raising their fists.

The Prince's finger pointed at the Golden Zodiac. "Even now, the proud Gold Saints of Athena are content in their homes, thinking they are at peace. Their ignorance is our greatest advantage! It is the same ignorance that Hades displayed towards you, content that you would never realize you were tricked, that your chains would never be visible to you!" he spoke. "But more than that, the Pope of Athena and Hades have in common as well that they have crossed your leader, me, Daemon Lucifer, the Celestial Star of Pride… and we all know what happens to those who do, right?"

There was a collective chuckle from the men in dark armor. Previously this kind of line would make them fear him, especially when they ambushed him at the Second Prison, but now they all felt so proud of serving Lucifer that they saw his bragging as an extension of their own.

Lucifer looked them over. "By daylight, do you know what will happen?... I will be emperor of the world, and you all will be kings and queens of Earth. Do you know why?" he asked, raising an expectant pause from them. "Because we will have done what no other god, be they Hades, Ares, Artemis, Poseidon, Odin, Abel, Eris, or even fucking Zeus himself have accomplished! We will cross the temples as enemies of Athena and we will cut the head off her Colossus and we will dislodge her as the rightful Master of this Earth!"

"YEAH!"

"OUT WITH THE GODS!"

"LONG LIVE LORD LUCIFER!"

Lucifer chuckled. The crowd was getting so excited that he secretly feared that the Saint of Taurus would hear it even though the soundwaves of Brune's Nightmare Sonar.

He moved to the final part of his speech. "After that, who knows, men? We will have a Zodiac to rule from, a Star Hill full of secrets to plunder, countless artifacts with which to murder every God that dares reestablish either Minerva or themselves in Sanctuary. Perhaps even the Gold Cloths will see us as their new owners and we will have something to replace these cursed reminders of Hades' slavery that our Surplices are." He enticed. "That depends on you, though… will you give your life for your brothers, unlike Bat here, or will you make the sacrifices I ask for you, with which I will reward you all with glory, power, and eventually the head of HADES HIMSELF?!"

"DEATH! DEATH TO HADES! DEATH TO THE GOLD SAINTS!" many shouted out for. "DEATH TO ATHENA AND SANCTUARY!"

"We will bathe in their blood!" one screamed over the crowd.

"Yes, we will!" Lucifer promised, turning to the Herculean Road. "And I will have my revenge!"

The men laughed, gasped in excitement, rattled their weapons and followed their master, incapable of waiting to wet their beak with Taurus Saint blood.

In the rear, even Cyclops Balgo, a former victim of Eternal Darkness, went along with the enthusiasm and marched. A hand grabbed his shoulder, though. "What? What do you want, Lemon?!"

The red-haired Alraune gestured a shush and spoke through the private line of their butterflies. "Relax, I just thought you should know something. When we were at Rodario, I saw Lucifer head to one of the houses…"

The red-armored Specter had no patience for this! He wanted to twist a Gold Saint's neck! "So what?! Speak or I'm tossing you over those Houses at the Virgo Saint!"

Alraune chuckled. This was the beginning of his own revenge… on Lucifer. "Well, I just thought you should know…I think he neglected to mention that the girl he visited was the one who killed Servo." He revealed, making the Cyclops apprentice's eyes widen in the shadow of his visor. "Isn't that unkind of him? You've been searching for his killer for a while, now, right?"

The giant Specter's fist clenched. He had trained very hard to make sure that his mentor's failure would not be repeated. "… W-what?!"

"It's really unfair that only Torak gets to puke about how he's going to kill Herakles someday, right?" Alraune bit. His eyes glanced at the rest of the men. "I think Lucifer rather likes that girl… but I bet he's so focused on this war that he wouldn't notice some collateral damage."

Cyclops Servo gritted his teeth so hard they almost shattered. His bloodthirst burned. Could this be?

Alraune patted his shoulder, chuckling to himself. "Think about it…"

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Chapter End

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Next Chapter: Chapter 50 - Episode 15 – The Invasion

Description: The False Specters of Lucifer reach the Golden Zodiac, expecting lessened resistance after Ainsel's encounter with the Saint of Aries in Tibet, but the Guards of Pope Arles will not let Athena's land be violated without a fight. In the meantime, the disparate groups of Saints inside and outside the Zodiac try to catch up with the first invasion to the Temples since the Lost Canvas War.

Author's Notes: And with this, the story reaches one million words. By the gods.

I really hope everyone checked out and enjoyed Balasdan/Bluefeather's commemorative commission. He worked incredibly hard on it and definitely deserves your attention. Initially, it was meant to be formatted like an anime season poster with the words "Second Arc – False Holy War" on it, but we quickly realized that it was a bit beyond our means. It's still a fantastic work and I even made it into my desktop's screensaver.

Anyway, it really is crazy that I finally reached this milestone. I believe there are SS fics that have passed this point years before (one in French, I believe?), but this is certainly the only one in English to achieve it. Recently on my Twitter I even commented that it must have taken at least 1200 hours of work, just on my part and not Jenny's, to reach this point in the third edition alone.

I've known for a very long time that if the story kept going it would easily pass this mark, because the plan for it is just that big. The project is currently only on its *second arc* after all. People who read the second edition also know that this False Holy War is just beginning. There's gonna be a lot of battles from this point onward, involving a lot of Gold Saints, and yes, expect a Sanctuary-Arc-style war and a ton of surprises. I wouldn't be surprised if there was still nearly 350,000 words left before this Arc is over.

On the other hand, I do have sad news about something I've regularly mentioned in these author comments; Hitagi Gahara, head of SKD scans, will no longer be scanlating Saintia Sho due to lack of time from her daily life and a general desire to move on with her affairs. She has announced it on our Discord Server recently. She still hasn't made a decision about the Next Dimension English scanlations, though. I encourage you all to show her support anyways in whatever way you can, since she worked hard to make high-quality scanlations available for nearly eleven years.

Do still, however, continue to check out the R/Saint Seiya Discord server, where I have recently become part of the administrator group and you get to hang out with nearly 500 other English SS fans and take part in streaming and gaming events, some hosted by me. Also make sure to check out my twitter feed for continued updates on the progress of new chapters and don't hesitate to 'watch' Balasdan/Bluefeather on Deviant Art.

Also, let me know if the "(*) see chapter X" stuff should be continued. I didn't realise the site didn't allow placing sentences on the right side of the page, which was my initial plan to format those notes as to avoid breaking the flow of reading.

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