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.

54. 2A: House of the Dead - Part 1 of 2

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:

-Nearly ten years after first released, the fic has finally reached 20,000 hits! Thank you for the continued support;

-This version of this chapter has been updated on the 20th of March, 2021, with some significant rewrites and cuts.

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Please enjoy and review (^_^

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"Before there was ever a Third Civil War, the tragedy of the Cancer House of 1972 left a gaping hole in a lot of the Gold Saints' hearts. Contrary to what you might expect for an event that ended optimism for a whole new generation of Saints, it was the carry-over member, Taurus Daniel, who endured the biggest loss that night. The new Virgo Saint was his only son, after all.

My Taurus Saint eventually smiled again, but I often wonder if the kindness that Daniel passed on to Aldebaran and Shinta was derived from the scars in his heart about his son. Herakles Aguilon, who years later also endured the disappearance of his oldest daughter (who ran away with Leo) and the death of his youngest in the Cyrulian Wars, was the only one who understood the pain he went through.

For the longest time, I had no idea what to do about the Cancer House. Many Cancer trainees vying for the Cloth were murdered in that horrible night. I thought it was in poor taste to fill it in so soon after what happened, and Karkinos itself seemed quiet for several years. When the Civil War broke out, there was a lot of pressure to find new shoes to fill it in so that we could get an advantage over Priam, but many candidates thought the 4th House was cursed and refused to sign up. I don't blame them.

The years passed and eventually, I decided I was better off searching for Manigoldo's reincarnation. The discovery of Saga, Kanon and Aiolos was a huge motivation for this change of strategy. Fate decided to elude my agents, though, in the search of my old Cancer comrade's new self. I couldn't seem to find him anywhere.

I'm confident, though, that Lance will be a good intermediate for the rise of Saga and Aiolos' generation, just like Daniel was with Akassius and Priam. He's having some problems adjusting to the culture of the Cancer House, but considering that his predecessor probably had the opposite problem, maybe a change of pace is what we need for the 4th Temple.

….I just wish I'd stop getting these reports for 'assault'."

-Pope Arles III's thoughts on the Cancer House, dated 1976

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The Past

Lost Canvas War

Death Queen Island

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The party of four Saints reached the pinnacle of their path alongside the height of Death Queen Island's main volcano, feeling the heat rise to extraordinary levels. It made Cygnus in particular very uncomfortable to be there. Before them stood a cavern filled with orange light.

Haisaku walked in front of them. "This is it. The entrance will lead to the main cauldron. What we seek is inside."

The white-armored Bronze Saint wiped his drenched forehead. He was turning into a melting popsicle before everyone's eyes. "Fantastic! Then we'll be able to get the heck out of here soon!"

Dohko, however, was worried. He stepped up and eyed his masked teacher apprehensively. "Haisaku… for us to have come all this way in such force… what's inside?"

"Isn't it the Phoenix Cloth?" asked Andromeda. He was hoping all along that such a quest would cause his older brother to show up.

The orange-haired Phoenix Saint lowered her chin reflectively. The jewels in her golden bracelets shined with the light of the flames around them. "My armor lies inside this volcano… Normally, I would not resort to it. However…"

The apprehension in her was palpable to Andromeda. "What is it, Saint Haisaku?"

She forced herself to say it. "After seeing the Princes in action, I now know Hades has changed his stance on his conflict with Athena. He now seeks to put an end to this cycle of war once and for all. As we progress through this Holy War, the stakes will rise dramatically. No effort will be spared by him to destroy the Goddess and anyone faithful to her. Therefore-"

Dohko nodded, the gravity of the situation sinking in his head. "-we'll return the favor."

She eyed her surrogate son worryingly. "Yes. I've been preparing Dohko for the moment he has to face the Princes again, but… if I want him to be truly ready, then I have no choice." She then walked to the entrance of the volcano. "Dohko, I will go inside, summon my armor and give it to you."

The other three Saints widened their eyes. "What?!" gasped Andromeda.

Suddenly, a strange new quake was felt! The Saints looked down the path of the mountain and saw a blaze of golden light in the lower fields and instantly recognized the energies.

Dread invaded Cygnus' face. "That cosmos! It's Daemon!" His fist clenched, burning his white cosmos, but unsure if he could muster the strength to power up his armor to its divine level. "Shun, get ready for battle!"

But Andromeda sensed something else. "But that cosmos he's battling… it feels like Kanon's?!" he messaged Cygnus, before turning to the Phoenix Saint. "Lady Haisaku, the person you asked help from…"

Dohko offered to explain it. "He's a lost soul born under a star of chaos, the demon that terrorizes Kanon Island. A long time ago, Defteros murdered the reigning Gemini Saint, Aspros, his own brother. Saint Cain took their place as the new Gemini, and Defteros was exiled to pay for his kinslaying."

Cygnus folded arms. "… It seems every generation of Gemini is screwed up, then. Why is this guy on our side, then?"

"Defteros is not an easy person, but he agreed to help," Haisaku said, determined. She saw the looks on their faces. "He may be a kinslayer, but this mission is too important to be shy about our allies. Besides, everyone deserves a chance to change their ways."

Andromeda nodded. "I couldn't agree more! Well, let's do this, then!" he roused.

Her cosmos burned, summoning the faint cry of the Phoenix in the air as a blaze of orange energy formed around her body. Her head raised. "I feel it… I hear its cries for battle. A worthy warrior must don it or we will all perish."

Dohko stepped up. "Haisaku, are you sure? There must be other options."

She let out a small laugh. "I know you're strong, Dohko, but you felt their strength, too, did you not?" she asked. It made the Libra flinch at the memory of battling the Daemon twice in a row, not to mention knowing the other Prince was even stronger. "I know it's dangerous… but I'd be the last person on the planet that would put this burden on you if I knew some other way."

"But… how can Saint Dohko wield my brother's armor?" asked Andromeda.

Dohko eyed him nervously. "Shun, Hyoga… there is something we haven't told you about this place… about Haisaku's armor. She's indeed the Saint of Phoenix, but -"

A dark spike in the Cosmos was felt by all their 7th senses, alerting them!

The four Saints rose their heads to the sky to spot the black, winged shadow in the air. It suddenly burst into a dark bonfire that heated the area even more.

Cygnus saw it charging its energy and descended upon them at frightening speed and pushed his friends aside. "LOOK OUT! DIAMOND-" and his fist hurled the torrent of freezing air. "-DUST!"

The meteor of black fire and Cygnus' pale blue beam of cold collided in midair, unleashing a huge mist of steam that screened the entire battlefield, along with a powerful shockwave that battered the Saints. Barreling through the Bronze Saint's attack, the meteor collided on the ground, cratering their only way back and spreading black fire everywhere that seemed to burn even at the rock of Death Queen Island.

Dohko caught Haisaku's falling body protectively while the two Bronze Saints assumed battle stances, raising their chains and cold currents. "HYOGA, be careful, it's him!"

The one-eyed Bronze Saint growled. "Show yourself, Bennu Kagaho!"

A flap of wings was heard before its gusts parted the steam and revealed the Celestial Violence Star, getting up from his comet stomp on the ground and furiously eyeing the Bronze Saints. Pieces of ice evaporated from the insane heat the Specter exuded.

His cosmos raged murderously, spotting two of his Saint rivals. "Libra Dohko… Cygnus Hyoga… we meet again!"

"Here to get your butt kicked again, Kagaho?!" Cygnus provoked, smirking confidently. His arms danced, summoning a white aura, and his hands clasped together in the air "I'll freeze your wings to the ground for good! AURORA THUNDER- "and he hammered them down, shooting the huge torrent of cold "-ATTACK!"

The Bennu squinted at the incoming air blasts, recognizing their pattern. His aura blazed, his fingers tensed as daggers of darkness birthed between them, and the illusion of an Egyptian slab of a sunbird emerged around him. The attack that once worked on the black-winged warrior would not work again.

"CRUCIFY ANKH!" The stakes of fire were hurled and pierced the cold air at the speed of light, penetrating right through Cygnus' attack and striking the bronze Saint. He screamed as his hands and legs were pinned against the wall of the volcano side.

The Andromeda Saint gasped for his friend and hurled his chains. "GREAT CAPTURE!" and the metal links wrapped all around Bennu's body, arresting his arms, legs, and wings. "Kagaho, stop!"

The Bennu Specter growled as he struggled against the wrappings. Just looking at this Andromeda Saint made him furious, seeing a weakness in his face that reminded him of Sui. His body burned up its fire cosmos, but was met with the pink sparks of current from the Andromeda Cloth, which zapped him into a screaming fit.

Seeing the Specter fall to his knee, Andromeda urged his friends onwards. "Go get the armor! I'll handle him!"

The female Phoenix Saint didn't need to hesitate and immediately rushed inside the volcano's furnace cavern. Dohko, in the meantime, released the crucified swan Saint from his agony with a water cosmos blast that cleared the black fire stakes that held him.

"Hyoga, stay out of this one!" Dohko ordered the injured Bronze. He then charged his watery cosmos and assumed his Tiger-Style battle pose before the threat. "You made a mistake coming here, Kagaho! I'm not the same as I was before!"

Kagaho struggled against the chains that were shocking him. He got back on his feet and eyed the Libra venomously. "I-Is that so? Ha, ha, yes, I was told you suffered quite the harsh lessons about your weakness at the hands of the Pride Star!"

A feline growl was heard from Dohko and cosmos focused on his claw-stance hands in preparation for his powerful technique. "I'm not a fan of taking down a chained opponent, but there's too much at stake here." He then hummed as he readied the toss of his attack. "ROZAN-"

"T-That attack again?!" The Bennu Specter let out an uproar of black fire which blasted the chains apart, freeing himself! He then summoned his counter. "CORONA BLAST!"

The solar ball attack shot out like a cannonball, instantly swelling to its infernal mass and threatening to swallow Gold Saint and Bronze Saints alike. Dohko, however, as he charged his cosmos to the max, releasing the restraints he usually put on his Rozan moves, made his cosmos shine with a reinvigorating light, immersed in his very lifeforce. The resulting shockwave of his green aura collided with Corona Blast, facing the power of the Underworld head-on.

Cygnus guarded himself, but he lowered his shielded arm when he saw, stunned, the Corona Blast being ground into Dohko's water cosmos, seemingly unable to punch through. "Incredible... Kagaho is stronger than before and took my attack head-on, but he's completely helpless against Saint Dohko's new cosmos?"

Andromeda squinted at the clash of light of the two energies, recognizing it from a tale of their Dragon friend. "It's like when Shiryu burned Deathmask's hand… Saint Dohko's lifeforce is erupting into his cosmos!"

Kagaho was the most baffled, trying to project his attack through the unexpected barrier desperately, but widened his eyes in horror at seeing it shrink and shrink. "It… It can't be!"

What followed was a great manifestation of Dohko's strength, the green cosmos in front of the Specter swelled and swelled, canceling out more and more layers of Corona Blast. "KIAI!" Dohko shouted, releasing the full force of his vital power into his aura, as Haisaku instructed him.

Corona Blast was ripped to pieces by waves of shining green light!

This cleared the path between Dohko and his target, and his fist dashed forward! "- RYU SHO!"

The massive dragon of green cosmos was what Dohko's lunge punch seemed to turn into, and it swallowed up the Specter like a locomotive, running him over and smashing him back down the volcano side rocky road, blasting him with the force of a green geyser of cosmos.

Andromeda was amazed. "It's like Saint Haisaku said… by putting the strength of his life into his attack, Saint Dohko can completely overwhelm an enemy Specter's power… perhaps with this he can truly stand up to the Princes."

Dohko's feet stomped the ground, grinding his dash to a halt, and his whole body burned up with the heat of his move, hearing Kagaho's screams as rubble collapsed unto him. "Hyoga, Shun…Go to Haisaku!"

The two Bronze Saints gasped. "But Saint Dohko!"

He looked over his shoulder. "NO BUTS! Kagaho won't be on his own for long! That monster Pride Star will be here soon and I'll only be able to stop one of them!"

Kagaho emerged from his crater with a torrent of black fire, insane with rage, landing before Dohko with a winged leap. "Libra…!"

The tiger smirked nervously. "Did you like that?! Well, there's more where it came from!"

Kagaho winced. Pieces of his Surplice were melting down on his body, mostly parts of his cuirass that took Dohko's blow head-on. He tried to parry the technique, but it was like somehow the shadowy strength of his Surplice suddenly failed him! Somehow, the Gold Saint burned him!

Worst of all, he felt dizzy, invaded by strange images like before. Somehow, the contact with Dohko's unexpectedly powerful move was triggering more visions and voices in his head from Death Queen Island, the echoes of them seemingly coming from a shrine somewhere on the island.

"I don't know how you got this much stronger, but I don't care! You can try all you want, Libra! But we're getting to that traitor teacher of yours AND her armor! With it, there will be nothing to threaten Alone from completing his portrait of mankind!" He showed off his wings menacingly and charged more fire. "… And like you said, the Prince will soon be here! That pretend devil won't last long against a real monster!"

Seeing his two Bronze subordinates head inside the volcano cavern to support his teacher, Dohko finally focused on the battle completely. Kagaho was a dangerous opponent who was incredibly fast and adaptative, with a knack for survival, and Dohko doubted even his souped-up moves would work for very long. He hoped that the rumors about Defteros were real and he could last for a little while longer against a Dark Prince with that monstrous strength he supposedly had.

Cladding himself with black fire, Kagaho smirked. He could tell the Saint was trying to calculate a way out. "Perhaps you should have allowed your friends to assist you in this battle, Dohko?"

Dohko smiled. "You fool. I didn't send them away just for strategy. I'm kind of a selfish guy, in the end, you see -" he explained, summoning his strength. "- and I couldn't wait to have a blast testing my new strength against you one-on-one, Kagaho!"

The Specter growled defiantly, not willing to be an arrogant Saint's test doll. The images of the Egyptian sunbird and the Chinese river dragon then emerged above Death Queen Island, threatening to destroy the whole world with their clash.

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The (Not-So-Distant) Past

August 1976

Sanctuary, Cancer Temple

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Dressed in his leather-padded trainers, young Mephisto, who now preferred to go by the name Deathmask, begrudgingly practiced the fighting moves his caretaker taught him on the sparring dummy, striking it with a dashing knee blow, a punch, a sweeping elbow blow, and a jump kick in very quick succession, not resorting to any cosmos. He tripped over the dummy with the last part and fell flat on his face, hitting his nose.

Lance put the doll back in place and lifted Deathmask by the collar of his trainer. "Come on, do it again."

Grumbling rude things to himself, Deathmask kept practicing the four-move combo, this time picking a different set of strikes. Once more he struck the dummy three times but stumbled on his final punch, missing the head and instead of falling over it.

The red-eyed Cancer Saint frowned. "You have to focus more, come on. If you attack less rashly, you won't trip over yourself so easily when you go for the finisher."

"Hey, I'm doing my damn best, I'm not a muscled black belt like you!" Deathmask complained, this time getting back by himself.

The teenager's eyes rolled. "I'm not a black belt. I have less than a year of training." He then caught Deathmask as the purple-haired boy practically flew over the sparring doll with an overshot jump blow. "I just have more practice than you. If you keep at it, you'll see you'll get there, too."

"This sucks! I want to practice more Underworld spells, instead!"

"You should have thought of that before you got the bright idea of selling swindled Coliseum tickets with Milo!(*)" the Cancer Saint snapped, pointing at the target. "Now break that stupid doll!"

(*) Chapter 23

The kid grumbled and tried the forty-seventh time. They had been at this all day. Lance wasn't the most organized teacher. Some days they would spar together, others he'd have him practice some kung fu nonsense he'd learn from his teacher in China or Japan or something, and in others, he'd make a vain attempt at teaching him what little he knew of how to get by in Sanctuary without stepping on people's feet. There was no set schedule or anything. The inexperienced mentor just seemed to wing it.

Deathmask was not totally off the mark in thinking this. Lance often was nervous about how to teach Mephisto, but he understood he had to do it unless he wanted the Syracusan boy to go back to the streets with all the dangerous Underworld arts he demonstrated. He tried to rely on what he remembered Dohko's lessons to go by, as well as input here and there from Karkinos.

The Cancer Gold Cloth, however, was not entirely trustworthy to him.

"He's right, you know? We should be spending more days practicing my arts."

"Mephisto is already excellent with what he should know of those so far. What he needs right now are discipline and fighting skills. Those he lacks by a metric ton," Lance argued, watching Deathmask spinning 360º degrees and running into a pillar when he tried a rolling kick. "Practicing combos will teach him to be more hands-on and dynamic in battle, instead of relying on your curses."

"My 'curses' as you call them, would have gotten you faster to Cepheus Guardnia's senses. Instead, you and Pegasus relied solely on your fists. Where did that get you?"

A wound was felt inflicted on Lance's ego as the fresh memory of the Black Saint attack on the festival of less than a week earlier was poked.

"So get over your moral qualms of handling other people's souls… and teach your student to be a great Cancer."

As if to punctuate this, Deathmask landed a frustrated heel kick on the doll's torso, shooting it back against the wall, shattering it against a collection of sparring puppets that Lance himself had ruined. He panted, physically exhausted, and looked at his teacher expectantly.

Lance grumbled and grabbed the big skeleton key on the corner table. "Fine, let's go to the basement."

"YES!" Deathmask cheered.

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Lance hated being in the 4th House's basement.

It was creepy, dark, and full of old coffins.

Deathmask, on the other hand, loved it, always speeding through the rows of artistically carved resting boxes with morbid curiosity, pointing and asking questions about the skull, cross, and gargoyle carvings on the objects that Lance couldn't respond for the life of him. Hell, Lance couldn't even answer who had the bright idea of turning the house into an unused mortuary. He had asked some of the guards when he first moved in, and they just said it had been this way since at least the days of Cancer Deathtoll, whoever this was.

However, much to his chagrin, it was a perfect place to soak in the culture of the 4th House and practice Praesepe arts, being that it was dark, isolated, and surrounded by lingering ectoplasm that Lance had to sleep an insufficient number of stories on top of.

The reason why Lance detested the culture of his own Zodiac House was simple; it reminded him of the catholic orphanage he grew up in Athens. It was a time of his life he preferred to forget about, and indeed took steps towards doing so thanks to Noah, feeling like there was nothing worthwhile in it and punctuated by the ranting of nuns, their lessons about the Bible, and the place's obsession with over ritualistic gothic architecture which looked straight out of Notre Dame.

Worst of all, it was right next to a Christian graveyard, and one of the nun's favorite punishments was to pretend to lock disobedient children in it when it was getting dark. Lance knew because he had memories of being threatened to be put back in there.

Lance understood why it was important to take on this facet of his Zodiac, but always felt immense displeasure at it. It was the opposite reaction that Deathmask had at being exposed to these things. The Syracusan thief had embraced the grotesqueness of death, likely as a mechanism to cope with his parents' suicide, and that was probably why he was destined to be a much more skilled Cancer than Lance ever would be.

Immediately, the boy started casting Praesepe waves everywhere, capturing spiritual matter and releasing it in different shapes as if blowing soap bubbles in the air.

"Yeah, this rocks! AH, AH! Look at this little bastard fidgeting!" he mocked, pointing at a piece of spectral energy sizzling at the tip of his finger before he tossed it at the wall like a firecracker.

Lance sat by one of the empty stone caskets and observed him. He concentrated and tried to mimic his student by wagging his finger to make a bunch of will-o-wisps dance around like little white embers in the air, but he wasn't even able to keep them in sync.

The whole thing just felt macabre. "How can you like this garbage?"

Deathmask shrugged. "I don't know, I just do. It's something nobody else but me can do."

Lanced folded arms. "It's important to vary your skills, Mephisto. What if you run into a situation where you don't have ghosts all around you?"

The boy looked at him as if he was dumb. "Duh, that's what the Meikai Ha is for, right? I'll just take the enemy's soul."

"What if you're alone, stuck in a dungeon?"

This time the Sicilian was really annoyed. "What if I'm roped and chained and have a bag on my head and forgot the magic words? Geez, Lance, stop overcomplicating these things. Look, it's really simple, you just point -" and he made the spirits conglomerate on his finger, before flicking it "- and shoot!"

The teacher perked up when the small white flame flew around the room and reignited a lot of the old torches, making the room brighter. "Okay… that's a neat trick," he confessed, but probably only because it appealed to his fire element. "What else can you do?"

Deathmask held chin. "Mm… I can do the Spirit Bomb."

Lance's brow raised. "The what?"

His hand waved dismissively. "Eh, it's a working title. Yeah, I can just take a bunch of souls and make a really big ball of power that is super stronger, just like cosmos." he exemplified by gathering back all the previous ectoplasm into his finger and condensing it heavily, making it form a bright white ball of energy that shined as bright as cosmos. "Neat, right? Takes a while to charge, though…"

Feeling the strangely strong radiance of the sphere on his face, Lance couldn't deny that it looked like another useful move, but his preoccupation lied mostly in how much Deathmask relied on all this. It often came across like a crutch the boy used to not have to learn other important skills in life, which, in Lance's opinion, was what landed Deathmask as a thief, to begin with.

He grabbed the sphere of energy into his hand and crushed it with but a small flare of his cosmos. "Look, Mephisto, I'm glad you're adapting well to the Cancer Cloth's techniques, but I can't in good conscience just have you focus on these. Praesepe arts are riddled with weaknesses."

Mephisto grumbled. "That's cause you don't use them right!" he kept to himself. "What's your issue with them anyway? You're supposed to be the Cancer Saint, right?"

Lance beheld the armor on his body self-consciously. He felt like saying that 'the technique roster was not his style' was a bit hypocritical, but he also wasn't sure if moral qualms were the type of thing someone like Deathmask was concerned with. "Um, well, yeah… I don't like this gothic crap and I just never was the mental type for them…"

The boy was highly skeptical. "Sure, because unlike you I score 'A's in tests, right?"

Lance's eyes narrowed. "The heck do you care about what I do with these moves?"

Deathmask showed his tongue. "Cause my dear teacher is lame and always telling me what not to do! He can't get a simple exorcism spell right and he's supposed to be the place's necromancer!" he criticized, reddening Lance's face. "Seriously, Lance, didn't the last Cancer teach you anything?"

Lance blinked, caught off guard. "Well, …. No."

"Why not?"

The Cancer Gold Saint rested against his seat on the casket, folding arms and feeling the ridiculousness of the story dawning on him. "Because there was no active Cancer before me, Mephisto. The place was empty for years before I got promoted. I had to learn Praesepe with Karkinos at Rozan. (*)" His red eyes looked away. "I… don't know much about this place or its last owner, now that I think of it."

(*) Chapter 15

It was Deathmask's turn to raise a brow. "Really? Nothing at all?"

"Nope."

He squinted. "That can't be. You're lying. You liar." The annoyed Gold Saint lightly pulled the runt by the ear, making him yelp. "OW!"

"I'm not lying, you piece of shit brat. This place got abandoned over a decade ago. I'm the first guy the Pope found for this place since the 60s."

The boy rubbed his ear. "You gotta know something!" he insisted. He paced around the room as if to look for documents. "Come on, maybe something here will teach us something about him."

Lance watched the boy scour the desks like a curious cat. Should he tell him? "I know he was a murderer."

Deathmask stopped searching, his interest piqued.

Lance didn't like the look on his face one bit, but he had to finish what he started. "I don't know much about it, but supposedly he went crazy and murdered the Virgo before Shaka, plus a bunch of other innocent people."

The Sicilian staggered, knowing how strong Shaka was. "Whoa, the Virgo? He was that badass?"

The Gold Saint knew the boy would take the wrong lesson from this! "NO, he was a murderer! What he did was wrong, not an achievement!"

The thief sat back on one of the caskets, his legs wagging in interest. "So why did he go nuts? Did the pressure get to him? Did his parents kill themselves, too?"

The bluntness with which Deathmask would talk about the fate of his mom and dad never ceased to stun Lance, but he powered through it and tried to give the most genuine answer he could think of.

"I don't have a clue, Mephisto, but based on some of the warnings my Master gave me, I think it has to do with Karkinos itself… I believe my predecessor may have been driven mad by its influence."

The mood between the two darkened and Deathmask's eyes widened, looking down at the blue-marked cuirass on Lance's torso. "Oh…Are you sure? It doesn't sound like something these armors would do. Why would the Pope give them to us if that could happen?"

Lance sighed sadly, remembering his battle with Cepheus Guardnia. At Andromeda Island, Shinta's teacher seemed possessed, drunk on the thinking of his armor, as if the castle surrounding them made its voice in his head that all Saints felt reach brainwashing volumes. He was talking of sacrificing Shinta to the island, calling him his daughter and seemingly unaware of anything around him. Therefore, it wasn't difficult to imagine something similar have been what happened with whoever came before Lance, especially with how creepy Karkinos' powers were.

"No, I'm not sure," Lance confessed. "But I don't feel like taking the chance, which is why I want you to balance your relationship with the Cancer Cloth's teachings carefully. The last thing I want is for you to turn into another murderer, but I also can't be the only person in this Temple with the Cloth's trust."

"Why not?"

"Because imagine if something bad happens while I'm away training or on duty? Someone needs to be able to carry or even wear the Cancer Gold Cloth to where it's needed. Also,… you're my second-in-line, remember?"

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The Present – November, 1976

Underworld, 4th Circle

Giudecca Palace

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Hypnos stood back cautiously as the Emperor beheld the darkening mirror that transmitted Cyclops' actions. He seemed displeased and the God of Sleep did not want to incur his wrath, but Hades was so quiet that it concerned him.

Folding his hands behind his back, he attempted to soothe the matter. "Perhaps the False Specter possessed was made of weaker matter than initially assumed, Emperor."

The puppet glanced at him with its dead eyes, freezing the blonde deity.

Hypnos gulped. It would have been simpler to get Thanatos to kill the Corvus girl, but for the God of Death it was difficult to strike people down at Sanctuary and both Hypnos and Hades agreed that the silver-haired deity was better off staying as far away from anything regarding Eurydice as possible.

The Sleep God continued. "After all, what else can we expect from replacements? Even powering up Gigant in that body with an awakened Surplice wasn't enough, but perhaps the Cyrulian will die from her injuries?"

A soft sigh from the Olympian, tired of excuses, was all it took to quiet the Sleep God. "I must be losing my touch… No matter. Is Pandora on her way?"

Hypnos nodded. "Yes, I've had Valentine and her informed of your awakening a while back. Crossing the Underworld right now is difficult, though. A lot of the Prisons are still damaged from the Exodus," he assured. "Lord Hades, if you don't mind… perhaps it's time to address between ourselves what to do… about the army of Saints standing outside her castle."

Hades made the crystal orb change the view from Sanctuary to the grounds around the Earthly Castle with a mere eye blink, showing the army of hoplites led by former Gold Saints of Aquarius and Capricorn encircling the fortress.

"You mean this mob?" he dejectedly addressed.

Hypnos nodded. "I recommend a subtle action. They may not trust our word, but perhaps planting in them the idea that we are not associated with Lucifer and that an attack is occurring in Greece right now would work. That will surely force them to lift the siege."

The puppet didn't seem impressed by the suggestion. "No, let them waste their time. My barrier makes Pandora's castle impregnable. Besides… I want Lucifer to damage Sanctuary."

Hypnos sweated. "But what if he gets what he wants?! What if he reaches the top and goes on to obtain the Cloth of Hope?"

There was a pause from the puppet. He had considered this possibility. As soon as Hades became aware of Lucifer's corrupt intentions, the obviousness of Hades' power to turn any of his Surplices into ash made the Underworld God question what exactly was the Prince's long-term strategy. Hades instantly deduced the Pride Star had some sort of objective that would either protect his Daemon Surplice from annihilation or, worse, allow him to secure armor sets even more powerful than Daemon.

As far as maintaining his forces went, it was obvious that the deluded human held dreams to conquer Sanctuary for himself, making use of his imperial blood to secure the loyalty of his new subjects. Hades expected to eventually face the traitor heading an army of misguided Saints against him, but there was no armor in all of Sanctuary save for Athena's own Kamui that was better than the Daemon Surplice, much less that could make Lucifer safe from Hades' almighty cosmos in a direct confrontation.

There was therefore only one piece of armor he could possibly be after. An armor that would not only be powerful but resistant to death itself. An armor that, in the past, had earned a reputation against the true Specters and was to people throughout the world of Sanctuary synonymous with hope and triumph over adversity.

The puppet smirked at the cuteness of Lucifer's intentions. That he would carry such aspirations for his sorry self was adorable. "Oh, he will burn in hell for this… but he won't get it."

"With all due respect, Emperor,… how are you so sure?" Hypnos pressed. He didn't like seeing him being so casual about his enemies, even when it usually turned out he had the upper hand secretly.

"Because this isn't the first time my Specters have tried to take it." Hades then closed his eyes sadly, reflecting on some past tragedy. "And my dear Prince Lucifer, bless his heart,… has a tragic tendency to repeat his mistakes."

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

Meanwhile,

Greece, Sanctuary

Stairs to Cancer

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

The hail of golden missiles raining down from the 9th temple continued, showering the stairs to Lance's House with Aiolos' cosmic darts. The Skeleton Soldiers raised their shields and burned their cosmos in unison with that of their False Specter lords, creating a reliable layer of defensive energy that absorbed a lot of the force of the impacts petering them. Even if the damage was being minimized, the force of the bastard Sagittarius' arrows landing on them was hurting the men, stomping on their shields, causing slight disruptions on their column to emerge that could compromise their shared Cosmos burning. This in turn could create greater and greater weak spots in their ceiling of shields that Sagittarius wouldn't hesitate to pick apart, so progressing through the stairs was becoming more grueling the more Houses they got through.

"Stay in a tight formation! Shields up!" a lieutenant ordered, moving through them, pulling men up and shoving others back into near geometric alignment with their brothers. Unfortunately, the ice surface on the stair steps made their feet slippery. "D-Damn that Aquarius…This frost crap is getting thicker the more we go up, too!"

Fortunately, Lord Neferti and Lemon were with them, and they cleared the path into the final set of stairs to the next Temple. "There it is, the House of Cancer!" Sphinx declared. "Come, take cover in the temple's shadow!"

Motivated, the men in Damascus armor let out a war shout and rushed up, staying as organized as they could. Just as their lady rallied, they reached the final set of stairs and a position where the Sagittarius' arrows would be shielded off them by the temple's height, and they beheld the fourth House.

Immediately, the X-shaped format of the temple caught their attention, headed by a round cupula with the carving of a crab and the words 'KARKINOS' on the pediment. The columned side halls, instead of spreading to the flanks, reached out from the temple's large doors to guests like the pincers of a crab, creating an enclosed space that drew the eyes of visitors to the entrance. It also unnerved the attackers, as they looked like even more ideal balconies to rain projectiles down upon them, as these side halls offered perfect flanking angles. As the two leading Specters discovered as they entered the enclosed space, there seemed to be now defenders waiting to ambush, which gave the men more confidence to approach the Cancer House.

Sphinx Neferti raised her arm, giving her men pause as she analyzed the doorway headed by the House's name.

Lemon squinted. "What's wrong?"

She sweated. "Don't you feel that?" she asked, earning only a confused look. "That familiar sensation oozing from this place…"

The Alraune relaxed, trying to get to the bottom of whatever the Sphinx felt. At first, in the silence, he felt nothing. Pretty soon, though, he began hearing whispers in the wind. These were not like the ones they heard back at the Halls of Daedalus. Instead, they were like wails and calls, strange voices that resonated with the metal of their Surplices, inciting their Specter blood to do the task that was most natural to them.

The plantoid Specter was baffled. "What?... Why does it feel like the Underworld here?!"

The Sphinx, who was the designated guardian of the Pyramid of Gluttony, was more sensitive to auras of death and couldn't concur more. "It's just like the atmosphere of a Prison. The Cancer Saint must truly be the one with the power to enter the Underworld Well to the 7th Prison."

Lemon pointed at the numerous footprints cracked on the floor iced by the Aquarius Saint. "Well, the hoplites ran through here into the house."

The False Skeletons were unnerved by this. None of them wanted to return to anywhere that was remotely like the hell they left behind without the Prince there to guide them.

"Maybe we can go around!" one suggested.

One walked to the farther side and found that there was enough space off the Temple's right edge to just circumvent the entire place. "Y-YEAH! Hey, guys, we can just march through here!"

Lemon disagreed. "Good! We can save some freaking time!" He pointed at his men. "Send a small group ahead to place themselves behind the temple! We'll then storm through the front just to be sure!"

Five men with scythes and a crossbow immediately volunteered. "Yes, sir!" and they rushed ahead around the path the first one discovered.

Neferti felt a sense of joy as her eyes followed them until they disappeared around the Temple's corner on one side while the hope in Lemon's heart crumbled as they came back on the other. "Oh, for crying out loud!" she roared, seeing the party returning.

The five men were stunned at seeing their lords and friends. "W-what?" They looked up at the temple like it had fooled them and counted the halls with their fingers. "Why are we back here so fast?!"

"YOU GOT LOOPED AROUND?!" Lemon ranted.

"Y-yeah, I think so! We never saw the stairs that go up!" another Skeleton confirmed.

Sphinx sighed. "I knew it was too easy to be true. We have no choice but to cross the temple itself, then."

"Fine! BLOOD FLOWER SCISSORS!" Lemon shouted, lashing out his metallic tendrils to smash through the Cancer House's gateway with the force of a lightspeed stab, breaking the reinforced wood everywhere and revealing the dark entrails of Cancer.

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

Chapter 54

Second Arc

Episode 18

The House of the Dead – Part 1 of 2

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

The Damascus-clad force made its way into the inner halls of the Cancer House, looking out for threats, especially the Cancer Gold Saint himself. The innards of the 4th House carried a seemingly spartan, yet sinister air about it. There were no banners, no entry carpets to welcome or guide people, the direction markers were few and straight to the point and there were no markings of history on the walls, unlike the Halls of Daedalus. The marble of the building also had an odd tint of red to it, as if blood was commonly spilled all over the House of Karkinos.

A strange detail was that the torches mounted on the walls and pillars were for some reason more numerous and larger as if the owner disliked the cold and darkness of the House. In fact, they were so numerous that the ice sheet casted by the Aquarius Saint across the Sanctuary had already completely melted under their heat, creating numerous puddles that prevented the Skeletons from tracking the steps of the retreating Papal Guards.

The Skeletons were quick to realize this "Shoot! What do we do now?!"

"What do you think?! You find them the old-fashioned way!" Alraune ranted, pointing at the many rooms around them. "Search the house! And keep in contact with one another!"

The tanned woman by him noticed his bad mood. "What's wrong?"

The red-haired gritted his teeth but played it cool. "Ainsel just relayed to us that Balgo got himself killed! He walked into the Amazon forest and was ambushed." The Alraune was incensed. "BLAST! What was he doing, picking daisies?!"

The Egyptian blinked. Losing a Specter was bad, but Lemon had done nothing but belittle everyone for turning their backs on him since the Exodus. "What do you care?"

"I feel this invasion going down the drain, that's what I care!" he instantly lied. The reality was, he felt furious that Balgo couldn't get the simple task of breaking a teenage girl's neck for him. "No matter… Virgo is coming up soon, and I'll use that to start my payback on Lucifer. Taking that Gold Saint's head will prove to everyone I'm just as deadly as I've always been, and after that, I'll have other opportunities."

Neferti couldn't disagree more with his voiced assessment. "It doesn't seem like Cancer is here, so we're soon to have Five Houses crossed with only two Specter losses. That's a fantastic head start if you ask me."

"This place is creepy…" Mandrake Nevil commented, noticing the cold silence coming from the upper corridors contrasting with the whispers that felt like they came from the ground. "It really is just like a Prison."

Curiously, Cait Sith Palug explored some of the junk by the corners of the walls. He then saw the broken sparring equipment. "Whoever lives here looks like they have some serious anger issues."

"Then there must be an active Cancer. But where the heck could he be?" Neferti concluded, before touching her temple. "Prince, we've cleared the 4th House."

"Excellent. What of the Saint?"

Her head shook from the force of habit. "Nothing. This place is a graveyard."

There was a small delay in thinking. "All the intel we have from Ainsel insists that there must be one. He was seen introduced at Kastoria along with Sagittarius and Gemini and in a mission against Black Saints at California back in September(*). What about the Cloth?"

(*) Chapter 30

Neferti paused a bit to look at the men returning empty-handed or shrugging.

"Nothing to report, madam. I guess we get another House for free." A skeleton commented, relieved.

She turned her attention back to her mental conversation. "Gone as well, Prince."

This was too much for the Pride Star. "That cannot be. Arles would be an old senile fool to leave another Temple abandoned! If less than six Gold Saints are present in their Temples, anyone could just fly right up to him! We know Aries and Gemini were out. Would Arles be foolish enough to keep yet another of the first four armors away during my war in Crow's Nest?"

She sweated. "Prince, I couldn't agree more, but the armor just isn't here. Maybe the Papal Guards took it up-"

There was a screeching, static sound that made Neferti wince and give her a migraine as if Lucifer had peaked the transmission with how angry he just got. "-llshit, The Cloths of Gold wouldn't just leave their temples on the hands of lesser warriors during an invasion, or we wouldn't find Taurus abandoned to his luck at the Second House! Someone with a connection to it moved the armor! It MUST be the Cancer Saint!"

The Specter frantically nodded. "Y-yes! He must be conspiring somewhere."

"…I happen to know the Leo House is currently unguarded, occupied by a training candidate. Perhaps Saint Cancer is the odd kind one and went up there to secure the child." Lucifer argued. "I'll order Ainsel up there to Cancer. Proceed with the operations towards Leo, and be ready for battle!"

This made enough sense for the Sphinx. "We will raise your banner at the temple and leave some men to receive you at the 4th House, Prince!" She then politely cut off the line and pointed at a bunch of her men. "You, you and you; secure the temple and raise the Pride Star banner over it. Ainsel will soon be here, and then the Prince."

They saluted her and got to work. "Yes, Lady Sphinx!"

Alraune Lemon then waved his arm at the rest. "Alright, everyone else get information! We're attacking Leo next! I want that Cancer Saint found!" A rare smile that night for him formed on his face. "If I get to kill Cancer along with Virgo, all the better! I'll show the Specters that there's nothing impressive about Lucifer!"

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

Leo Temple

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

Deathmask cursed as he made his way up the frosted stair steps to Aiolia's temple, accompanied by the many Papal Guards led by Agapethos. He should be running full speed away from the enemy, but instead, the ice was making him slip up a bunch of times, especially with the weight of the Cancer Cloth Box.

"Damn that Camus! What's the big idea, turning Sanctuary into a ski resort?!" he bitched. The sneakers Lance got for him were getting completely soaked and the Sicilian boy sneezed. "ACHOO! A-agh! Now I get why Lance hates the c-cold!"

"Sir, the enemy appears to be slowing down!" one of the rear Papal Guards shouted at Agapethos, seeing Alraune and Sphinx men try to stay in cohesion further below. "They look like they're struggling with the ice on their way out of Cancer!"

Deathmask's nose cleared up and he laughed out loud. "YES, rain death on my enemies with those golden arrows as they struggle to even stand on their feet! Now toss a bunch of rocks in the way, too!" he ordered the soldiers, who promptly ignored him. "HEY, are ya deaf?!"

The soldiers pushed the boy on, completely unafraid of what was still a trainee. "Move up, young lord, we're not wasting time here!" Agapethos ordered. Even if they did collapse the stairs, the problem with the Cosmos was that mere foot soldiers can clear a path through anything that isn't made with stardust, let alone Specters. The ice wasn't going to be a problem for too long either.

Finally, they reached the Leo Temple. Deathmask rushed ahead and instantly started banging on the door. "HEY, PIPSQUEAK! OPEN UP!" he shouted. Aiolia took more than two seconds, though. "HURRY UP, MAN! THEY'RE ON OUR TAIL!"

"I'm going!" little Aiolia cried, unlocking the gates and pushing them open all by himself. "I'm sorry, I was told to close these after the people who work at the temples got through."

Lieutenant Agapethos let out a sigh of relief. "Oh, thank you, Athena, they're probably past the sixth already, then… We did our job, men." He announced, earning back several relieved nods from the hoplites. Their main mission and the reason why so many perished at Aries was so they could buy time for everyone else to either find safety or organize under Saint Sagittarius.

"Who cares?! We aren't safe yet!" Deathmask complained and practically shoved the poor kid out of the way and walked inside the Leo Temple like he owned the place. "Let's get the damn armor so we can get the heck outta here!"

The lieutenant was pointing at the inner halls of Leo for his men to retrieve anything too dangerous to fall in enemy hands, including weapons and keys to seals. Little Aiolia shily followed them, barely knowing what to do to help. All the soldiers looked so worried as they packed stuff to carry up that it honestly terrified him even more… It felt like they had the devil on their tail.

Aiolia searched for the Papal Guard lieutenant of his temple among them. "Wait, where's Diokles?" He said he was going down to join you guys!"

The guards paused when they heard this name, reminded of him. The lieutenant had taken a javelin from the enemy leader back at Aries. He was not coming back.

"…He is delaying the attacker, Aiolia." Agapethos lied, before quickly changing the subject to his remaining men. "Hoplites, what's the status of the Leo Cloth?"

One of the Papal Guards returned with an empty golden box. "We have the container, but the armor refuses to move, just like Cancer did."

"DAMN IT!" Agapethos cursed. "We can't abandon the Cloths to those bastards! It was bad enough that Saint Taurus was left behind to fight for his life!"

Deathmask rolled his eyes. "You guys are so dumb! Just get Aiolia to do it. What's he good for, after all?!" And he turned to the little cub. "You should be past Shaka by now with the others with that tacky metal cat!"

The small blonde boy's face reddened. "U-Umm…!" His eyes turned to the box strapped on Deathmask's back. The fact that his neighbor was already able to carry Lance's Cloth around made things even worse for him. How was he going to explain this problem? "I can't."

"What?! Speak up!"

Aiolia screeched angrily. "I said I can't, you deaf jerk! The armor won't move for me either!" He then looked away in guilt.

Lieutenant Agapethos scratched his head as he approached the hollow statue of the Cloth. "… This is a big problem. I suppose it's a bit too much to ask a five-year-old to have the trust of a Gold Cloth."

Deathmask groaned and then completely superimposed his own experience on it. "I can't believe this! It's so easy to do this! You just nod at all the things the armor tells you in your sleep for a couple of months and do your techniques! You couldn't even do that? Well, fine -" he turned his back to Aiolia. "I guess you'll have to tell your brother you lost the Leo Cloth to the Specters…"

Aiolia gasped. "What?! NO!"

Deathmask nodded. "He'll be seriously disappointed. You know, he kept telling me how proud he was that you were here all by yourself. 'Aiolia is so grown up and even has his own House. You should train harder too, Deathmask'." The purple-haired boy grinned evilly. "Oh well!"

Aiolia cried. "D-Did he say that? No!"

Agapethos smacked the purple-haired boy right in the head. "Stop bullying the kid, you brat!" he then turned to the younger child, but he didn't have time to comfort him. "The situation is very serious. The enemy has a skilled jammer with them and the communication breakdown is only getting worse the further he makes his way up the stairs. We won't be able to ask for help from upstairs."

Aiolia nodded. "I stopped hearing Saint Virgo just now. He was telling me everything was going to be alright and then just before you guys showed up, his voice went really high-pitched and then was gone." This worrying piece of news made the men look at one another. "Is that… bad?"

It wasn't bad, it was terrible. Not even the Virgo Saint was piercing through the enemy's jammer? It also meant that the lot of them were still in the danger zone.

"What do we do, then?" Aiolia cried.

Agapethos looked to his men and they all nodded back. "We have no choice. Young lords, we're taking you two with us to a side shortcut near this Temple that we Papal Guards use-"

A hoplite by the door then gave the alert! "SIR, incoming!"

Agapethos. "What?!"

"AIOLIA!" a familiar voice shouted from outside, rushing in!

The little boy gasped. "Saga? SAGA!" and the cub ran towards it.

"No fucking way!" Deathmask cursed, following him.

Yet, to his shock, there he was, Gemini Saga without his armor, accompanied by Lance's girly friend Shinta, to boot.

Aiolia practically collides with Saga in a terrified hug. "Saga! You're here! Is it really you?! I was so s-scared!" he cried.

The Gemini lifted him up and squeezed tight, relieved to see the cub alive and well. "Yes, it's me, don't worry."

"Where the hell did you two come from?!" Deathmask demanded to know.

Shinta pointed at a pass off the side of the stairs at Leo's entrance into the mountain slopes. "We took the guard shortcut. It's not allowed, but our priority was to get to safety and deliver intel to the Pope about the enemy! They attacked our homes throughout the world. Even my island and Mount Rozan were struck. Saint Lance of Pegasus was nearly killed and a lot of people were hurt near Shamballa."

Deathmask blinked, taken aback. "Whoa, wait, what happened to Lance?... Is he okay?"

Shinta nodded. "Don't worry, he survived… He won't be joining us yet, though."

"…Curse the Gods!" Agapethos worded, suppressing the urge to say shit in front of the kids instead. He didn't like what he was hearing, but the Andromeda Saint had a good reputation, so it was probably true. The men turned to the highest authority there. "Saint Shinta, what should we do?"

The green-haired boy blinked. "Wh… what?"

Saga understood what was going on. "I don't have my Cloth with me, so they think you're the boss. Remember, me and the others are officially speaking only trainees." He explained. "Yes, Saint Shinta, you've guided us so far! What's the next move?"

The teenager's head instantly grew hot with all those eyes looking at him for reliance on what to do. "Ah, I, uh…"

"Aha, finally, the respect we deserve!" Andromeda celebrated, letting out a haughty laughter. "Now go forth, Shinta, lead my armies to victory over these Specter barbarians!"

Absolute panic invaded the Bronze Saint's brain. He had never been the head of his team-ups with Lance, much less told anyone but Albiore and Elda what to do! His eyes lingered down to his chains instinctively.

Saga detected this and elbowed him lightly, shaking his head. "Don't use the chains to guide you. You don't have the Triangle End with you to read the biggest threat, so you'll just look clueless to everyone if you try." He advised. "Just go with your gut for now."

One of the outlying Papal Guards pointed his spear down the stairs "Saint Andromeda, the enemy!"

The men of Athena gasped. The beating of war drums was getting louder and the high-strung flags of the Pride Star were spotted turning the few last corners of the stairs to Leo. Time was running out!

Shinta pondered his choices. "We'll pull back into the passage!" he called out, only half-knowing what he was saying.

"Are you sure? What about Saint Virgo and the Leo Cloth?"

There were indeed a lot of preoccupations at hand, but the Andromeda weighed them instinctively. "I'm guessing you're having trouble moving the armor, right? Well, …. None of us can help that."

Saga disagreed with a shake of his head and went to the armor, hands burning with cosmos. "I can! ANOTHER DIMENSION!" and a gate opened up, sucking up the Leo Cloth into a separate reality!

All the guards stared at him.

The teenager excused himself. "I'm learning a lot under Lord Gemini…"

Shinta shook his head. " What we can also do for now is get the Cancer Cloth and the kids to safety, as well as you all," he argued. "The enemy's vanguard is too strong for our small group, but if we move into the pass for now and let them cross the Temple, even if they steal the Leo Cloth, we'll get Aiolia to safety!"

Saga nodded. "We'll also get a better shot at reuniting with the others below!" he added, reinforcing Shinta's decision. Saga was ultimately an introverted person and he knew the hardships of having to convince a bunch of older men of the best course of action.

The Papal Guards murmured to one another. Ultimately, Agapethos nodded. "… Alright, Saint Andromeda, lead the way…"

"WHAT?! This is a cowardly move!" Andromeda complained. "Shinta, I'm very disappointed in you. Royals do not hide!"

To Shinta, this was the precise same story, and he immediately stood guard by the side of the stairs while everyone rushed through the side path hidden by the stair turn boulders. "Go, go! Before they see us! I'll lock the doors!"

As the last of them passed by, Shinta whipped his Round End, wrapping it around the distant knobs of the Leo gateway before pulling them close. When they slam shut, the wooden beams on their back collapsed unto their locks, reinforcing the door and giving it the appearance of being locked from the inside.

The Skeletons finally rounded the corner, spotting the temple doorway right after Shinta pulled his chain back. "The House of Leo! They must have gone inside!"

Lemon waved his hand imperatively. "PURSUE THEM! LEAVE NONE ALIVE!"

Taking refuge by the cavern concealed by the mountain curve that they had just gotten out of, Shinta and Saga rushed everyone inside the shortcut's passage and stood to watch on the corner, observing the Skeletons and Specters attacking the doors of the Leo Temple.

Saga sweated, beholding their large numbers organizing into a jointed ramming of the doors. They had a large trunk with a metallic head shaped like a horned devil and they charged it right against the doorway. The sound of the reinforced doors being bashed back denounced their numeric strength.

CRUNK!

They looked mad right from the first ram attempt. "This was the right decision, Shinta," Saga assured.

The green-haired Saint nodded hesitantly. "Thank you. I hope it was." He looked over and saw Aiolia sitting on the ground in discomfort. "Aiolia, are you okay?"

Another ram sounded!

CRUNK!

The door's stardust-reinforced lock began breaking.

Aiolia tucked himself in, cried, and covered his ears. "I… I k-keep hearing it."

Shinta got on his knee and hugged the child. "It's okay, we're here. We'll take you to Aiolos soon enough. What are you hearing? It's just a battering ram. We're safe here."

The Skeletons roared and gave one final push of their siege weapon, which loudly shattered the Temple's lock! The invaders let out a triumphant cheer and started storming the insides of the House. "WE'VE BROKEN IN! PURSUE THE HOPLITES!"

All of this made Aiolia weep even more. "The H-House! It keeps calling my name!" he cried. "S-Shinta, I feel horrible! I want to go back there. I want them to s-stop!"

The Andromeda Saint was stunned. He looked at Saga. "Is this what you felt earlier?"

"Incredible, even across dimensions, the armor calls out to him to defend the House." Saga thought, before answering Shinta with a nod. "I think so. Aiolia's bond with the Leo Cloth is still in its infancy, but he's likely already sensitive to the House's peril, being its official inhabitant."

Deathmask shrugged. "I didn't feel a thing when mine got broken into."

"That's likely because Lance is the Cancer Saint right now. I don't know if this is rooted on the Cloths, the House, or the constellation itself, but I believe this sensation we've all been feeling is afflicting those who are supposed to be the ones protecting the Temples," Saga theorized. "Otherwise, veterans like Lord Akassius and Daniel would have felt it as well and rushed back here as soon as the invasion got past Aldebaran."

Thinking this over, it made sense to Shinta. "I see… then Lance should know by now his House got broken into."

Saga looked down at the temples and saw the split between the enemy's forces. "Right now it looks like the enemy army is divided into three parts; there's the vanguard right here breaking into the Leo Temple, there's the center with Daemon Lucifer that is about to reach Cancer, and there's the rearguard at Aries, which stopped me and Shinta from getting in earlier."

"Saint Shinta, maybe we can take advantage of that split to plan a pincer attack!" Agapethos suggested.

Shinta shook his head. There was no scenario he imagined this going well. "The only part of them we are strong enough to take down on our own is the rear guard, and that is if we take the time to go all the way back down to Aries. The other two groups are too strong."

Deathmask peeked around the corner. He saw the Sphinx and Alraune Specters enter the House and instinctively felt their cosmos. "M-man, those two are strong! Shaka is screwed!"

One of the Guards clenched his hand on his halberd frustratingly. "This is wrong! We should be defending these Temples… AGH, curse the Gods!"

Aiolia looked up to the face he knew the longest. "S-Saga, are we going to be okay? What's going to happen to Shaka and Aiolos?"

The Gemini smiled. "They'll be fine. Don't worry, Aiolia, I'll fix everything and take you back to your brother. But first things first." He casted Another Dimension once more, retrieving the golden box with the lion head carving out of the pocket reality. It immediately dropped to the ground, still refusing to be moved. "Take care of the armor, cub. It's your responsibility."

The child nodded, wiping his tears, and hugged the big box as his life depended on it.

The Gemini looked at the confused Shinta. "This way he won't get any thoughts to go to Aiolos' side."

The enlightened Saint nodded happily before returning to his task of deciding the whole group's next move. He wished he had his Triangle End with him at the time since it would help him pinpoint the biggest menace in the area. Unfortunately, he had to make do with what their group could observe.

Just as he contemplated this limitation, Shinta turned to the Fire Clock and saw that the Cancer Flame was beginning to flicker, indicating that Daemon Lucifer was reaching the Cancer House.

"Lance's flame is going out." Aiolia pointed out.

"Welp, there goes my crib!" Deathmask grumbled, folding his arms.

The Andromeda Saint tried to keep his faith up. He was sure his friend would arrive on time. Hopefully, he would spot the message that he left behind.

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

Pope's Halls, Entrance

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

The most powerful man in Sanctuary stood outside his massive house and stared with bated breath at the Fire Clock, sided by Ms. Shafurwatt. It displayed a shrinking flame on the Cancer Hour as the enemy leader threatened to approach it. Shakes were felt from the Taurus Temple as the battle progressed, as well as down the stairs where Aiolos' arrows landed with cratering blast impacts, trying to slow down the enemy. The information about what was going on in the lower temples was scarce, though. The enemy was doing a good job in blocking it all out, and it only got worse as the Papillion Specter and the Specter leader ascended the stairs.

The woman gasped. "Athena help us… they're advancing so fast!"

Shion did not expect the first four houses to put up much resistance. They were all empty save for Aldebaran's after all. He and Aiolos were stunned, however, to find the enemy invader unexpectedly halted at Gemini and could sense a strange fight in it, as well as the reappearance of the Gemini Cloth. Both of them immediately suspected that Kanon was involved in the matter, but now the flame of Gemini was gone as well. That suspicion turned to dread at wondering what could have happened to Saga's younger twin brother.

The Pope's dread only increased as he saw the Specters raising banners at the conquered temples. Now one could be seen at Cancer, too. They featured a single evil star of the Underworld sky winged with either bat or dragon wings. This contradicted usual Specter behavior; for one, they were not the type to do such a thing, for two, Rhadamanthys was so fiercely loyal to Hades that it was hard to believe he'd do anything but raise a banner of Hades' sword. It all lent credence to the reports of the leader being Daemon Lucifer, the Celestial Pride Star.

His heart sank into darkness. It was not strange for a defeated Specter to return, but Daemon Lucifer was different. He was the source of some of Shion's darkest nightmares. For years after the Lost Canvas War, the Pope was plagued by the aftereffects of the same Eternal Darkness that nearly rendered Sisyphus a vegetable. His mental fortitude as a Lemurian did little to shield them, as Eternal Darkness dealt specifically with whatever ghosts you had in your subconscious, digging up internal threats of your own creation unlike the Phoenix Genma Ken, which induced terror directly like an adrenaline shot.

It also operated differently in the sense it was a spell, not a technique, so a Saint couldn't analyze their way out of it anymore they could stop Thanatos' Terrible Providence from shattering a Gold Cloth. It just interacted differently with the world than a common warrior move.

He could almost feel the eyes of the Athena Colossus on him, watching what he would do to save her home and her Saints.

"The enemy vanguard is leaving the Cancer House, your Holiness." Camus messaged. "This may be the last intel I can get with my Aurora Veil. Soon all the ice will melt and the enemy will be on guard against it."

"Thank you, Camus." The black-masked man then turned to Maximus, the densely armored veteran by his side.

Maximus looked up to him with an expectant look. "What are your orders?"

The aged woman by his side stepped up. "Your Holiness, please think carefully. The young lords…"

At this, Shion was truly split. For some reason, it seemed as if the enemy leader left the Gemini Cloth alone, but it may have had to do with the strange circumstances of the struggle at the Third House, as well as the armor's powers over-dimensional gates. The Leo armor, on the other hand, was not quite as sleek. Its spirit would want to take out the Specters with itself, even if it was the most foolish thing it could do, and Shion did not expect a five-year-old trainee to be able to wear it and carry it out of there in the middle of an invasion where the armors knew very well that the defenses of the Zodiac were riding on them staying in their Houses.

Having to juggle the intentions of the armors along that of their owners was one of Shion's least expected tasks when he first became the Pope. Being born with the supernatural ability to speak with any of them even without an alignment with their stars, a sacred talent even among Lemurians, Shion had learned from a young age about the subtle nuances of the thoughts behind the metal of the armors and how they had their preoccupations regarding the Saints and Sanctuary. When he rose to power, he discovered that many of his most critical decisions were now influenced by what the armors might think.

A good example was Lance; Karkinos was not thrilled to know he was being handed off to a ruffian untalented in Praesepe Arts. It seemed much more delighted with Mephisto, who had a resemblance with Manigoldo that gave further credibility to Hecate's prophecies. The consequence had been that the armor had a slow sync rate with its new user and many tasks related to guarding the Underworld Well were neglected or underperformed. Karkinos had desired someone that it could cooperate with right away in managing the affairs of the realm of the dead, and Lance was understandably more interested in perfecting his fighting skills and learning more about how he could fit in as a Saint. By contrast, Deathmask had only been in Sanctuary for barely six months and was already able to wear the armor out of its Temple.

Then there was Aiolia.

There was no way to sugarcoat the manner; Aiolia was just a child. He was a child that could cast minor lightning bolts out of the sky, but a child nonetheless, and the Nemean Lion had more scruples than Karkinos about putting its owners in danger. It didn't shock him that the armor was resisting the boy's attempts to remove it from the Temple or even to communicate with him what to do.

The Pope, however, had to look out for his safety. "Send your fastest messenger to tell the guards I want every Temple from Virgo to Aquarius emptied of non-combatants."

Maximus' expression went grim. "Your Holiness, you understand what that means, correct?"

Shion nodded.

The captain still felt the need to stress it. "As things stand, it is unlikely a single Gold Saint will stop a force this size. Lord Shaka will therefore likely be unable to stop some of them from moving up the temples to Libra, which is also empty. Thus, they'll make it to Scorpio, the eight house, and all of Sanctuary will see seven flames of the fire clock go out."

"What does it matter?!" Mrs. Schafurwatt protested. The idea of the Scorpio House being breached was perhaps alarming her more than most. "The safety of the children is far more important!"

Shion nodded again. He didn't really disagree with either aide. Their opinions seldom matched, but held separate wisdom.

Maximus, however, had an important point to make. "It matters for their safety anyway, because even if we do make it out of this, - which I'm sure we will! -" he stressed, not wanting to sound catastrophic "- Lord Gigas, Lord Solo, the plutocrats like Ghisi, the foreign powers like Thorkell, and the church of Athena will see this as an unacceptable failure."

"Politics," Shion lamented.

Maximus continued. "They will ask for resignations, not of His Holiness, of course, but of his Saints. They'll want their children to guard the Houses instead, especially those that were empty at the time of this attack or surrendered willingly. Youths like Aiolia, Mu and Deathmask will be put out in the street again… and have no means to feed themselves, as the sheer disgrace will likely endanger their chances to run for Cloths again."

"That will not happen," Shion assured.

"With all due respect, your Holiness –" Maximus reminded. "… It might not be up to you."

There was a stunned look from the female head servant at the thought of the Pope being helpless to do what was best for everyone, but Shion knew exactly what the guard commander spoke of. To get all these young Saints in, Shion had to do way more than showcase their incredible talent; he also had to give assurances that Sanctuary would not fall under their watch and give financial compensations for families long-slotted in the succession line. The benefit was that the Pope would be allowed to have a generation of incredible talent, and low ties to entrenched powers into the Zodiac, assuring that not only a Fourth Civil War was much less likely, but that Hekate's advice was followed in securing the reincarnations of his friends as Gold Saints.

Those assurances being breached meant that the Pope's competence and decisions would be wildly put into question in Astraea's Court. Head rolls would dramatically be demanded, the Pope would be accused of losing his acumen at an advanced age. It could, in the long run, be handled, but it would still be a lot of chaos for the youths to handle. No one, even Saints, liked having their worth be so profoundly and ruthlessly questioned at such a young age.

However, there was an added factor. "…Even if they get everything they want out of this, the kids will stay in place. They're not the ones on the line here anymore." The Pope explained. "Rather, it's their Patron Saint who's in danger."

Maximus blinked as if he'd forgotten about this. "I see… So you're saying young lord Lance will face the oligarchs after this..."

Shion sighed. "Lance vouched for them in court. He said he'd be the first to take responsibility for any failure they may have. Let's hope it won't come to that." This put the Pope in an even more tense mood, as it meant no matter what, his long work would be jeopardized along with the safety of the kids. "Maximus, what's the current status? When can we get an encirclement organized?!"

Feeling the snap at the end of the last question, Maximus hurried through his response. "As it stands, it depends on how fast we take out their jammer, your Holiness. With him active, there's no way for us to call timely reinforcements to take back the Aries Temple. I'm afraid our hopes lay with the Gold Saints currently in the capital…"

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

Cancer Temple

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

With encouraging shouts, Golem Treble and Elf Rossalier made way for their Lord, Prince Daemon Lucifer, to cross the final set of stairs to the entrance of the Cancer House, where his flag was already raised and a contingent of men left behind by Neferti and Lemon welcomed them with raises of fists and weapons.

"Lord Lucifer, Lord Treble, Lord Rossalier, welcome to the House of the Dead!" a tall lieutenant Skeleton proclaimed, bowing at the busted gate. "As you can see, we took the liberty to advance your conquest for you."

"Excellent, I'm glad that at least you can take over an empty house." Lucifer hissed, still irked at all the trouble they went through at Gemini. "Did you make sure to search everywhere?!"

The men understood that the Prince was skeptical as they walked him inside the dark-red halls of Cancer. "One hundred percent, Prince. We found nothing but coffins, bedrooms, sparring equipment, and…."

The red eyes squinted at him. "…. And…?"

The skeleton tugged his metal collar. "I don't know how to say this, but a set of make-up dated to 1748… It was in the bathroom cabinet."

Lucifer scoffed. "That treacherous freak Deathtoll…" he recalled, remembering well the man who betrayed Gryphon Vermeer's incursion into Sanctuary. It was the first major offensive of the 18th-century wars, and the Cancer Saint preceding Manigoldo was known for his superficial obsession with aesthetics, especially 1700s fair skin. "Maybe that's how he dealt with the particular madness of this Temple…"

"All that's left to do is drain all this water out, Prince, and you'll have a fourth House to add to your kingdom." The Skeleton continued before his eyes shifted. "… The men were saying we might want to do something about the whispers, though."

The Daemon led the man inside to the innards of the Cancer Temple. Already he could feel the invisible hands of the dead surrounding him, trying to grab him, pleading him for help. Some even called him by his birth name, something known to but a few people like Eurydice, which was especially insidious. No wonder the Saints of the Cancer House were the third likeliest to develop dangerous delusions, right after Virgo and Gemini.

As a Specter, Lucifer was superior to the wails of the dead, but the Cancer Saint had always been part of the half of the Gold Saints that Michael and he always drew out to divide between them while training. After obtaining their respective Surplices, it made no sense for the two Princes to try to perfect tactics against twelve wildly different combat styles that would react differently to the two of them.

Lucifer trained against Taurus, Gemini, Leo, Libra, Scorpio, and Pisces. The pattern to this was that Lucifer dealt better with the physical and Michael with the mental, so they matched themselves with Gold Saints accordingly. The only exceptions were Capricorn which went to the Dark Angel Specter, who had a counter to Excalibur with the Flaming Sword he fashioned, and Gemini which went to Lucian, since his particular art with the Darkness element grew in a direction that made him adept at countering Another Dimension.

His interest in the Cancer House, therefore, had always been derived from his status as a Specter. Lucifer often argued that the Underworld Well should be much more closely watched for Cancer Saints they could capture and interrogate. Not only that, but the Cancer Saint's necromancy was considered an infringement on Hades' law, which dictated in the Book of the Dead that only he and those he blessed were to handle the bodies and spirits of the fallen.

An important strategic aspect, however, was now at play. When hit by the Underworld Wave, Specters could go back and forth from this and that world in both body and soul. This is what had allowed Vermeer to infiltrate Sanctuary to begin with in the 18th Century Wars. They wouldn't just leave their bodies behind on Earth like the Cancer Saint's victims would. If Lucifer secured the loyalty of a new Cancer Saint, his future invasion into the Underworld would benefit from a new potential route to the heart of Hades' realm, which held obvious tactical value.

This relied on getting their hands on the Cancer Cloth first, though. "If that armor isn't here during an attack, it means the Gold Saint was either out on a mission tonight or one of his trusted apprentices took it up the Zodiac before we got here."

"Couldn't agree more, Prince," Treble responded, sycophantic.

Suddenly, a flap of wings was heard accompanied by the spread of golden particles and Papillion Ainsel landed by the Prince. "Lord Pride Star, you called?"

The Celestial Pride Star nodded. "Yes, I want you to stay here for now, Ainsel. I predict that the major battle that will occur in this invasion will be at the Virgo Temple, so our main relay and jammer should stay in-between it and the Aries House." he calculated. "Once we get past Virgo, our advantage over Arles will be so immense that we'll be able to afford to have you further up."

The blue-haired man smiled and his antennae twitched, resyncing his mental waves. "Understood. I'll turn this place into a cocoon of moths immediately."

Golem Treble headed up and explored the place with his men. He knew that Lemon and Neferti had already cleared it, yet the temple's dark atmosphere made him feel like there was a menace behind every pillar somehow.

"How is it that I, a Specter, stand in a Sanctuary Temple and yet feel as on edge as back at the Prisons?" the giant wondered.

The Prince took in the place's air, feeling his mind seep into nostalgia. "Priam told me about this place…" The Pride Star folded arms stoically. "Supposedly, this is where everything started to go wrong for him and his generation."

Golem Treble hammered fist in hand. "You mean the murders, Prince?"

Several Skeletons gathered around the Specters. "Oh yeah…"

"What are you guys talking about?" another asked.

His head was smacked by his friend. "Don't you know anything?! This is where that happened." The scytheman hugged himself with a strange shill. "Ugh, now I know why this place creeps me out… even in the Underworld there were stories…"

"What stories?" a curious one queried, closing in.

The scytheman gestured for them to gather around. "A long time ago, right in this Temple, on the very floor we're standing, on a night as dark as the caverns of Ptolomea, the Gold Saint of Cancer went mad!" he revealed. "After inviting all the dignitaries of his Zodiac, from all the servants of the Temple to all candidates to the Cancer Cloth, to an exquisite banquet…. the Gold Saint locked the doors behind them, put on a hockey mask and hacked them all to pieces with a machete!"

His friend, however, protested. "Wait, what?! That's not the story!… What happened was that he had his closest friends over, all nobles from Sanctuary, and they all accused him of being weak and undeserving of the Cloth and that he should step down so one of them could take it. Then, that night, when they went to sleep,… he entered their dreams and killed them all with a rusty battle claw! They were all found dead in the temple's beds!"

"Bullshit! That doesn't make any sense! Why would they sleep here after saying those things?! And how would you know what he killed them anyway if it was in their dreams?!" a third one stressed.

A fourth one stepped away dramatically and beheld the pillars around them. "AH, the real story is much scarier! You see, the Cancer had a lover in Sanctuary and on that night, when celebrating their union with all their friends, Cancer was betrayed and told he was being dumped for Leo in front of all their friends! Then they dumped a bucket of rotten crab meat on him just to fuck with him! He was so humiliated that he went on a killing spree with his telepathic powers, tearing them all to pieces, exploding their heads, and ripping their bodies from the inside out! He was covered in blood before he even left the Temple!"

Sick of all the gossiping, Golem Treble slammed a pillar with the side of his huge fist. "QUIET, you church crows! Do you think a battle is a time to share stories like a bunch of single women?! Besides…" and he stood up straight, proud of his sources. "…The real story is that he was driven mad by the spirits of this House, ripped his own eyes out in front of the entire Cancer court so he could be in complete, utter darkness!"

"Ew, why would he do that?!"

Golem laughed coarsely. "So that as the blood flowed out of his sockets, he could encounter true evil. He spoke of knowing the terror and madness of oblivion, and his body was swarmed by the spirits of HELL!" he shouted, startling the Skeletons. "…And then….he walked up those stairs to the 6th Temple,… sneaked inside Virgo's room and ripped his heart out with his BARE HANDS! Just for the pleasure of seeing the look on his friends' faces!"

The Skeletons gasped, especially as Golem gestured a chocking motion at them.

Ainsel folded arms and looked at the Prince. "All interesting theories, aren't they, Prince?" he mocked.

"Likely all wrong." The Prince drily commented, spotting all the obvious contradictions.

"You were with Priam, were you not?" Ainsel asked, insatiably curious. "Surely he must have shared some insight…"

Lucifer scoffed. "He did, and he often sounded shaken about it, but then again that overly sensitive pacifist is easy to upset. I doubt his version of what happened, witnessed from his porch five whole temples ahead of us, is any better than the underworld gossip. I prefer to stick to the facts, not the speculation."

"And what are the facts, Pride Star?"

The Prince's expression darkened. "One night, nearly fifteen years ago, the guardian of this House was suddenly driven insane. He murdered over two dozen innocent people, including the Virgo Saint, who happened to also be the son of Taurus Daniel. All those famous details are true…, but there is one tiny piece of evidence, one detail that escaped the gossip, that I confess that even I, Daemon Lucifer, was unnerved by."

The Specters had their interest perked. "Really? How so, Prince?" Ainsel asked.

Lucifer's jaw clenched. "That night, despite all the carnage he caused, despite the graves dug up and mourn over by the Saints over it… not a single soul murdered by the Cancer Saint entered the Book of the Dead's registry. To this day, their names have not entered the lines of the Underworld… and no one knows why."

The False Specters all stared at their leader and exchanged glances. Unaccounted souls were not strange in and of themselves, but more often than not this was because they were caught by the Wheel of Time, when individuals of incredible prominence immediately reincarnated, like the Godslayer. They were talking about a bunch of serfs and would-be Cancer runner-ups, though, and there was no good reason why they should be missing since their deaths nearly fifteen years earlier.

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

Aries Temple

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

A cry was heard in the cosmos!

It spread throughout the stars of the Cancer Constellation like a shooting star!

Lance gasped as his 7th sense flared up and immediately felt ill, tucking his hardened stomach. The image of a dying blue flame on a crab insignia flashed through his mind.

Standing by him in the corner to the Zodiac's stairs, Adriana saw his indisposition. "What's wrong?"

He looked up at the far-off Cancer Temple. "I don't know. I never felt like this before. It's like someone or something really hurt someone I care about!" he explained it. "It's… like a scream is coming from the Zodiac, saying my name! I have to get back to the Cancer Temple!"

The noblewoman followed his look. She wondered if something about the Temples instinctively alerted their owners when they were invaded in their absence and realized the fourth flame of the Fire Clock was giving out. She imagined the Gold Saint probably felt a powerful impulse to take action now.

Of cooler head, she reminded him of the risks. "You need a plan, Lance. Even without those moths in the way, there are more than just Skeletons ahead. I'd rather not have to run in and drag your poison-bolted corpse off those stairs."

His teeth gritted, having to reluctantly agree. If it weren't for this stupid communication jamming and the Underworld moths, he could get a better picture of what was going on and what move to make. However, as he kept eyeing the stairs for some way to get through the House, his attention was then drawn to something odd. By the stair side, at a spot, he couldn't miss if he walked the way he did into the stairs, a strangely smooth rock seemed to be placed against a step.

He looked at Adriana and pointed at it, and the noblewoman immediately understood what he meant without any words. Her silver-ringed hand rose and clapped its palm, as if pulling a string, and the rock suddenly flew off the ground in their direction right into her hand.

She read it out loud. "It says 'The Path to Aries is open. Charge the enemy, Pegasus.'" And eyed the Saint. "It must have been your friends…"

"Why would they leave that message like that to attack? Unless…" and he faced the gate once more, his eyes narrowing and his cosmos beginning to burn. "Stay back, Adriana,… I'm going to take that temple BACK!"

She saw the rousing of energy in him and the determined look and chuckled at what was about to come. "Are you mad?… I'm not a light-speeder, but I can watch out for myself. There's no way I'm missing this."

The Skeletons patrolling the precipice of the upper floor turned their heads at the rising cosmos heat by the stairs and saw the unarmored Bronze Saint walking it up.

They gripped their weapons. "H-HEY! ALERT!"

Others called for their friends. "RED ALERT! INTRUDER ON THE STAIRS!"

Respectfully stepping over the fallen guards, Lance's aura burned into a raging fire that illuminated the entire staircase, shining off the armor of the fallen. He saw more and more Skeletons showing up at the upper balcony, aiming their crossbows, and his teeth growled in rage, rousing his aura.

The Skeleton lieutenant, a huge man of thicker bone armor and larger scythe, walked by the shooters. "Well, well, so a Saint shows up! Where's your armor?! Back at the clothes store?! You should have stayed asleep with the others!"

An alarmed voice came in to them from further up. "Lieutenant, is something the matter?" Ainsel asked.

The large man held his temple. "Nothing, Lord Ainsel, a fool without his Cloth showed up! He thinks he can scare us off with a little fire aura. We'll take care of it." He then returned his attention to the Saint. "Give up, Saint! You're outnumbered, outflanked, and outgunned! If you surrender now, we'll kill you painlessly and not chase your buddies to-"

But Lance's aura suddenly roused up, letting out arms of cosmic fire that pushed off the fallen bodies from him and immersed his body, whose clothes waved with the force of his burning strength, startling the Skeletons.

The lieutenant turned to his closest man. "Go get that thing that got stuck at Ainsel's threads for me." He ordered, causing the Skeleton to rush downstairs. He then addressed Lance some more. "Are you suicidal, Saint?! You don't understand the situation, do you?!"

"I understand plenty! You people took over my friend's Temple like the cowardly killers you are!" Lance assured. He aimed his left hand at the gate, leaned forward, and rested his thunder-charging fist by his waist, assuming the Charge Fist pose... "And not only am I gonna take it right back, but I'm kicking all your Specter friends' ASSES out of this place PERSONALLY!"

The Skeletons reeled a bit, sharing glances, but were undeterred. "You profligate fool! You don't know who you're screwing-"

"INCLUDING YOUR SILVER-HAIRED, CAPE-TOTTING, MURDEROUS FUCK OF A BOSS! GOT IT?!" Lance warned, raising the temperature of his charge and shocking the Skeletons that he would know about Pride Star. "Prince or not, he's following you all right down to jail right AFTER I SHOVE MY FOOT down his THROAT! SO FUCK RIGHT OUT MY FRIEND'S TEMPLE BEFORE I NUKE YOU!"

"What?!" the Skeletons gasped, offended.

Adriana laughed into her hand. She had never seen offended necrophiles before. "(Ah, ah, ah! Oh gods, the look on their faces! Where did Arles find you?)"

"He dares insult the Prince!" another added. "KILL HIM!"

"Alright, that's it! He thinks it will be that easy?!" The lieutenant sneered, as he got from his man what he requested earlier. "HEY, GREEK, CARE TO SAY THAT AGAIN?! SOMETHING ABOUT NUKING US OUT?!"

The Saint then staggered, seeing the object that the Skeleton dangled off the balcony. "T-That's…"

Andromeda Shinta's Triangle End chain hanging from a rubber glove on the Skeleton's gauntlet, its metal shining under the moonlight and the gold of the underworld moths in the air. "What's wrong?! Recognize this, you Sanctuary faggot?!"

Lance's aura practically canceled itself out and he stepped forward in outrage, while Adriana tried to understand what was being held from her hiding spot. "Where did you get THAT?!"

Adriana blinked, realizing that the Skeletons somehow got their hands on something important to the Saint, so she curiously squinted at it, seeing a shiny chain in their hands. How curious…

The Skeletons laughed. "Your friend also thought it would be easy to disrupt the Prince's operation. But our gate is strong, and our weapons are sharp. He paid for his bravado dearly, as you can see!" He then gave it back to his men. "Maybe we'll take something else from you after you smash yourself against our gate! Maybe an arm, or a leg, and maybe keep you alive so you can grovel at the Prince's feet and take a good look at what we did to your friend!"

The Saint's body froze, and his mind rushed a thousand miles per hour, trying to imagine how in the world did Shinta's chain end up in the enemy's hand. It couldn't have happened of his own will, especially with the crazy powers that Cloth has.

"You Sanctuary simpletons are all the same! You were made lazy by peace, while we were made strong by the Underworld and the Prince's guidance! All those fools around you also thought they could stop us! Now look at them, dead!" the lieutenant stressed "This entire mountain will become a monument to death! And your Pope will be at the top, under the Prince's foot!"

The Specters were galvanized by this. "YES, SANCTUARY IS OURS!"

"WE'RE BURNING YOUR TEMPLES TO THE GROUND RIGHT NOW, YOU DOG!"

The lieutenant laughed and pressed on. "So you're going to get on your knees and put your hands on your head, Saint, because if you don't, there's no end to the world of pain and violation that we'll subject you and the rest of the cunt-licking Saint friends too! We'll stick you with poisonous arrows, drag your limp body inside, and fuck your friend's corpse until you beg mommy Athena to save you both!" He then signaled his men and the whirring of crossbow bolts being loaded and aimed was heard. "READY?! AIM –!"

Then, just as Adriana by the side thought Lance was too distraught by this revelation, the young Saint reactivated his aura, flickering it on like an oven before burning it up with sudden force even hotter than before, releasing a sudden shockwave of force that battered the entire area with it's strong, hot winds! She was startled and pushed back, in fear at the terrifying energy unleashed by the Saint, but this was nothing compared to the Skeletons, who screamed and got tossed back at the temple's balcony by the infernal blast of an aura release this was.

The lieutenant struggled to get up and picked his men up. "O-ON YOUR FEET!" he then faced the Saint, but all he could see was an inferno of charging energy. "A-AIM YOUR WEAPONS! Where is h-he?! YOU WANT TO DIE, SAINT?! F-FINE! IF YOU DON'T LISTEN-!"

The waves of fire split apart, revealing a raging Saint back in his fighting stance, holding a huge ball of cosmos in his hand and projecting the image of a maddened dragon in the air. "NO, YOU LISTEN UP, you corpse-fucking murderers!"

The Skeletons gasped in fear, feeling the heat of the fires reaching up to them, and they guarded themselves with their arms.

"I gave you a chance to leave, but now you're just going to open that gate to let me in!" Lance threatened, his red eyes shining with rage. "Because if you don't, I will bust right through that fucking rock slab! And then I will catch you! And I will beat the shit out of your faces so hard that you'll SEE OUT THE BACK OF YOUR HEAD!"

The Skeletons staggered. "I,… uh…"

"D-don't be scared, you idiots! We have the gate AND Ainsel's threads! Those things are harder than Cloths!" the lieutenant urged.

The Saint's foot dragged forward and he leaned in, eyeing the gate like a target to kill. He understood her words, but all he could think about was how the Skeletons could have gotten their hands on the chain. At this point, thunder crackled in his aura and focused on his fist. His Master had told him not to do this…

But fuck it!

A massive, animalistic roar, like a dragon ascended from the skies to rain death upon them, was heard and Lance's aura was possessed by an extra layer of power in the form of a snake-like creature circling and wrapping Lance up with sheer power. The energies condensed into one another, forming a raging, golden eruption of an aura.

"PEGASUS!" Lance shouted, before mixing the Koryuha's title with that of his main technique. "ENRANGED LIGHTNING CHARGE FIST!"

A thundering sound of a body taking off the ground immersed in an uncontrollable power was heard, propagating shockwaves that battered the enemies further, and all it seemed was as if a gigantic green shooting star with a head of gold rocketed towards the gate!

Contact was instantaneous.

And so was the brutal release of energy.

All of Sanctuary shook to the core as the mightiest blow in the world collided with the mightiest wall, threatening to collapse the barrier between the world and the cosmos itself with the teeth-gritting force. A shearing sound was released, though, when all the clashing energy was sucked into the gate left behind by Saga.

The Skeletons shouted urgent orders and rushed downstairs, feeling the heat of the inferno below their floor and hearing the screams of their comrades! "RED ALERT!"

The situation was dire for the bone-armored squadron. The blazing, thunder-mouthed meteor the Saint turned into had crashed right into the innards of Aries, seemingly ignoring the vital Gate of Osiris gifted by Lady Neferti and burning right across the Silky Threading reinforcement left behind by Lord Ainsel. It then punched right through the first waves of men occupying the main hall with the force of a infernal locomotive, killing many instantly before crashing into a cracked slope on the floor, cratering it and spreading waves of cosmic hellfire and thundering everywhere.

They drew their weapons and charged, brandishing their deadly edges at Lance! Their dark cosmos burned in unison to counter the disadvantage as much as possible, just as trained.

The Cancer Gold Saint climbed out of the crater he created and his red eyes quickly counted the number of threats. The initial impact killed several of them and now there were little over twenty of them left, not counting the crossbowmen. With teeth gritted in fury, he readied himself to annihilate them!

A hissing sound of a swing was heard and Lance's forearm parried the pole of a supersonic scythe. Barely feeling the force of the metal on his flesh, the Saint's left fist exploded on the man's head, shattering his helmet before twisting around to land an elbow to the chest and a kick that sent the man flying back. Others rushed in from all directions. Side-stepping a thrust and catching the pole of a scythe. Lance pulled it to himself to drag a screaming skeleton right into the path of his rising knee blow, instantly shattering his entire face into his skull! Lance then took the initiative, dashing to the side to the nearest scytheman to bash him back with a burning backhand blow before his other hand reached down to the man's waist to grab and steal the offhand sword he had.

Lance swung it back to parry two other blades coming down on him, halting their cross slash by jamming it down the middle, before stepping back, pulling back the dark blade to let their weapons hit and slam the ground, stepping on them and then leap to execute a spinning downward slash that cut off both their heads by the back of their downed necks!

Blood splattered everywhere, drenching the furious Saint and intimidating the Skeletons! "COME ON, YOU COWARDS!" he urged, tightening his grip on the bloodied Damascus sword as the rest of the Skeletons flooded the room.

His mind was brought back to Arcadia.

The enemy lieutenant who threatened Lance earlier couldn't believe the scene and waved his hand down. "A-ATTACK!"

A crossbow was raised and Lance heard its trigger pulled and the bolt whizzing out! He rolled to the side to dodge the first arrow and several more that came after, letting them puncture the burning ground before tossing the sword at the chest of an incoming scytheman, who screamed at having his heart carved into right before falling on his pierced chest! Lance dashed in with a Charge kick, blasting his body right into a wall before stopping an incoming sword swing by parrying the new assaulter's forearm, striking it with his other fist to break it, and then shutting up the screaming man with a whirlwind slash of his blade that sliced right through the torse, splashing even more blood.

More and more skeletons came in from all directions. "GET HIM! G-GET HIM!"

Two others came in with scythes and tried to take advantage of the reach to slice Lance to pieces, but the martial artist dodged the slashes with body bobs, stepping back until his back hit a pillar. He dropped to the ground to avoid an execution slash that merely carved the pillar before rising into the sky with a hand leap and striking with his foot at one's jaw, shattering it instantly with the force of his body's springing. He took the dropped weapon to turn around and cut down the other diagonally in a brutal bisecting slash that dug the blade unto the ground.

The upper half of the Skeleton's body slid off to the floor.

The image overlapped in his mind with that of Alexis' dying dad, boiling his blood further.

The lieutenant was increasingly desperate and furious. "GET UP AND FIGHT! REMEMBER WHO YOUR LORD IS!" the lieutenant urged, getting many to feel reinvigorated as if he wielded the lash of Lucifer himself, and the Skeletons attacked once more!

They reached for their swords when the Saint reached them with a blitz, but a punch pierced one of their chests, paralyzing half the group with fear! The others happily took the chance to strike and tried to stop the Saint from reaching the shooters, but with the crossbowmen in disarray, Lance took his chance to cut loose. "BLADE!" His hand tensed, turned to gold, and rammed the bowman at a pillar before he could do anything. With a twist of his wrist, he sliced his hand off the man's body and brought it around with fury at the remaining crossbowmen, cutting down several of them with a wide arc across the temple's hall, filling it with screams.

There were less than seven men left. "DON'T L-LET THE TEMPLE FALL!" the lieutenant screamed, joining the fight in a panic, wielding both his sword and scythe. He charged at the Saint and brought down both weapons in a successive diagonal slash that Lance merely parried with a cosmos reinforced forearm before smashing the man's elbow with a powerful kick, crippling his arm and forcing a pained roar out of him!

The lower men rushed to their lieutenant's help, but the Gold Saint blazed out his cosmos and rushed through them like a flash of fire, landing powerful punches and kicks that lunged through the air like shooting stars, colliding with their faces and limbs with bursting impacts that shattered their bones.

The last of the underlings was smashed against the ground with a furious landing stomp that completely shattered his ribcage, vomiting out blood. Lance stood at the center of the silenced temple with a panting body, filled head to feet with blood.

A loud, thick roar was heard behind him and Lance reacted, spinning his body back to deliver a devastating martial heel kick to the leaping lieutenant's side, cracking his bone arm instantly and hammering him down to the floor with a loud, crashing sound. The lieutenant coughed, wheezed, and spat out blood, feeling his body broken, but the shared cosmos of his men re-energized him. Even if he faced a Gold-rank, the might that was inspired in him by Lord Lucifer would let him cut down his foe!

As such, his good arm reached for a fallen crossbow-

Lance's foot came crashing down on his wrist, making the Skeleton Lieutenant scream in pain. He was then grabbed by the collar and his large body was raised just enough for Lance to explode his wrapped fist on the man's face, breaking his teeth. "WHERE IS HE?!"

The man gargled "G-gah… s-stop-"

The fist hammered down on his nose this time, smashing his air circulation, sending his brain into a dazzle, and making blood flood down the nostrils. It then reached down and took the Triangle End chain. "WHERE'S THE OWNER OF THIS CHAIN?!"

The hulk sneered at him. "He's fucking dead! F-FUCK YO-" Lance roared, formed 'Blade' out of fire cosmos, and shoved it straight into the man's kidney, making the Skeleton scream in pain. "A-AGHH! NO, S-STOP!"

The Gold Saint breathed more calmly, feeling his adrenaline cooldown as the fighting came to a halt. He began to hear the crackling of the fires he had caused around him and realized how much destruction he just caused to Mu's house, but cast this regret aside. There were more important things at hand, like finding out where Shinta was.

Walking through the same dimensional zip in the Osiris Tomb that Lance meteored through, Adriana came across the scene of chaos and fire inside the Aries Temple and the sight of Lance interrogating the large underworld commander. She made her way through the rubble, stepping over corpses of Skeletons until she joined the Pegasus. Her blue eyes observed the destruction.

There was a lot of blood on the ground. Unlike most people, the sight of the red relaxed her, unless it got all over her one good travel coat. Still, it impressed her how much the mere sight of the chain made the usually stoic Cancer lose his composure and cause so much carnage. The Skeleton she saw cut in half to the side didn't even look like one of those that provoked him.

Lance felt her presence but focused on what he was doing, taking his hand out of the enemy's cauterized wound. "Tell me! What happened to them?!"

The Skeleton coughed out blood and stared at his interrogator. This was the first serious close-up look he was getting of Lance. "Wh-hat?"

"I ASKED YOU WHAT HAPPENED TO THE SAINTS THAT WALKED BY HERE! They are my friends and I want to know where they are NOW, or I'll be throwing your fucking balls at the Coliseum's dogs, GOT IT?!"

Now seriously concerned, Adriana calmly held his shoulder. "Hey, it's over, you don't see your friends dead here, do you? I bet they're fine." She turned to the Skeleton, her blue eyes narrowing. "Tell my friend what he wants before he snaps again. You don't want to join the others in hell, do you?"

But the Specter was transfixed. "You… w-why…" And he held Lance's arm appealingly. "Why are your eyes like his?…" Groaning in frustration, Lance smashed his fist so hard in the man's face he thought it would cave into the skull, triggering another heavy moan. "AGH,… S-STOP! They went w-west! Lord Balgo chased them! I don't know anything else!"

A heavy feeling of relief came over the Gold Saint, who shoved the man down to the floor. "Fucking Christ…they're alive."

Adriana rested her hand in the pommel of her blade and smirked as if she knew this all along. "Mm, mm, see? You really shouldn't believe what your enemies tell you, Lance. It was so obvious he was preying on your concern… "

The Saint stepped away from the Skeleton and looked around as if realizing for the first time the damage he caused. Everything save for the pillars was on fire.

The workshops would probably be hit next. "Darn… I really ruined the place. Well, Mu will have to live with it for a while."

She then looked around at the devastation. "Ah, you play the 'cold guy' part, but deep down you really care a lot, don't you?" Adriana pointed out. She knew Lance wasn't an enthusiastic Saint, so the way he reacted was quite the surprise. "One day, someone might take advantage of that again… you should be careful in the future."

There was a pained chuckle from the lieutenant, who fruitlessly crawled back. "Hee,… hee, hee… Do you think there's a f-future for you? Gah…"

Adriana saw Lance tensing up and stepped up to the Skeleton. "Tell us… Who is your boss? Why are you attacking Sanctuary?"

Lance already knew the answer to both questions. "His boss is some Specter called Daemon Lucifer and they're doing this because they're murderers, that's why!"

The Skeleton shook. "N-no, Prince Lucifer will bring a bright new a-age… he will right the wrongs of the past and make Sanctuary his kingdom!"

Adriana was taken aback. "Prince?...A Specter King of Sanctuary?"

Lance rolled his eyes. "Their boss is delusional, thinks he's a descendant of that Pope from a thousand years ago!" Lance explained, turning to the foe. "Nothing like that will happen! You are all getting rounded up and sent to Stardust Prison like the killers you are!"

But the red-blonde woman was worried. She paced back tensely, biting on her fist, and her mind rushed through what she had seen that night.

Lance blinked. "What's wrong?"

She turned to him with a concerned look he had never seen in her. "…. You were screaming earlier that he was silver-haired, right?"

Lance blinked. "Yeah, what about it?" but she held her elbow and bit her fist in reflection. The Saint was stunned. "Seriously, Adriana, what is it?"

Her blue eyes glanced at him. "Right, you're not the historical type, but…I think we both underestimated this invasion," she explained, referencing how earlier Lance warned her it wasn't just a raid. "The Athenian Emperor is a semi-mythical figure in history and Sanctuary's power plays. He was remembered for the rare biological trait of silver-colored hair. He is also the only man to have ever subverted Athena's authority successfully. I know you're short on time, but tell me, Lance, at the Festival, did you happen to meet a man named Cetus? I heard he showed up."

The Cancer Gold Saint nodded, feeling some rather unpleasant memories coming to him. "I have. It wasn't a pleasant encounter. He tried to hurt a civilian in the street and made my friend kill his teacher somehow."

Her expression darkened. "Imagine what Cetus did to your friend… amplified to every single Saint in Sanctuary."

A beat of stunned silence was followed from the Gold Saint.

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"N-NO! P-PLEASE STOP THIS! I D-don't… I don't want to kill the person I love the MOST!" he begged. Memories of all the happiness he had in Andromeda Island flushed in his head, torturing him. "Y-your Highness, please, d-don't m-make my body do this, I'll do anything, A-ANYTHING!"

"That's admirable, Andromeda, ah-ah" complimented Cetus "but not really in my interest. Now show me some blood. Kill that cur!"

Shinta's face was drenched in tears. Guardnia, breathing heavily and with trembling vision, looked up and saw him crying.

All of a sudden, a golden blur traversed the area and the gigantic Taurus Gold Saint Daniel appeared on the scene. He gasped at what was before him and stepped in. "CETUS, STOP THIS NOW OR I'LL-" He then saw Guardnia's wound. "Guard'… oh no, Guard!" Rushing over to him, the hulk tried to pick him up.

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He imagined an army of puppet Saints under the command of the man who crushed him at Rozan. "You… you're kidding, right?"

She shrugged and eyed away self-consciously. "I admit I'm usually the type for stringing people along a little bit,… but this time I'm dead serious. Lance, you and the Gold Saints need to stop that man as soon as possible! Before he gets the Cloths of Athena to brainwash everyone in Sanctuary!"

As if to punctuate this emergency, another quake from the House of Taurus was felt.

After a few blinks of incredulity, Lance swiped his arm in the air rejectingly. "Adriana, that's not gonna happen! It's ridiculous, I mean…"

The strawberry-blonde woman exhaled melancholically. This was something tough to explain to people of Lance's mindset, who were more skeptical. While the silver-ringed Adriana herself was not as stiff as her ilk, she was still raised as an aristocrat and dealt with Sanctuary's powerful figures regularly, so she saw a danger in all of this that someone in Lance's position wouldn't.

"Cloths have minds of their own. Minds that are vulnerable to old ideas of power and dominance." Adriana punctuated. "You have more direct experience with them than I do, obviously, but you must know they follow their mythical hierarchy very strictly. They admire a classic interpretation of what a hero is, not the comic book one."

Dread invaded Lance's face in realization. "Someone like Cetus… or Daemon…?"

She continued. "Cetus, the King of New Lalibela, is known to take advantage of it, and so will whoever proclaims himself the Athenian Emperor reborn. If this Daemon Lucifer figure is strong… and has ties to the old Emperor…the eighty-eight Cloths of Athena may become loyal to him by sunrise."

The Gold Saint paused again, considering her words. It was very true that some of the armors, like Pegasus, seemed to have meek egos that were vulnerable to be overpowered, while others like Karkinos and Cepheus seemed to have bizarre thought patterns from Antiquity, planting in him the idea that they might conform to whatever the enemy was planning.

Could it be? Could the Daemon Specter walk up to Shion and unilaterally announce himself the new Pope? Would the Cloths of Athena fall in line as well and maybe even make their owners susceptible to mind control of the type Shinta suffered at Cetus' hand?

Lance shook his head in rejection. "No, that's… There's no way something like that could possibly happen! For Christ's sake, this is Sanctuary at the end! The Cloths are just protections, the real warriors are the Saint! Why would I ever let myself get caught off guard by these things?!"

She raised her chin and leaned back with a knowing look. Her fingers also subtly rested on her blade's flowery handle. "… You really think so? How much do you really know about your armor? You're a Pegasus, correct? The first in quite a while?"

Lance hesitated. He had been with Karkinos for almost a year, and with Pegasus for three, but the fight with Tenma had shown indeed he only scratched the surface of his compatibility with the Pegasus Cloth.

However, it had never controlled him. "My Bronze Cloth has always supported me, Adriana, and my Gold one does nothing but insult me. All it wants is for me to learn the damn Und-" and then he paused in realization.

She eyed him expectantly. "Continue? All it wants is for you to what?"

The Saint stepped back, feeling his stomach sinking. "… To learn these Underworld arts… that I hate… because I detest this death shit. And to take in Mephisto…"

She carefully guided him. "You're quite young. You probably never imagined yourself taking someone in, right? I remember meeting you at Akassius manor and you didn't seem to even enjoy being around Sagittarius and Gemini's arguing… I was quite shocked when at Syracuse you adopted that child, a thief no less..."

It caused Lance to stop his mouth midway of responding something he wasn't sure of anymore. He was reminded of that moment in China when he and Pegasus really connected together while reading Dohko's journal about Tenma and the next day he challenged Seiryu in a more daring way, reflecting Tenma's open boldness. He also remembered his lesson with Deathmask about the Cancer Temple when Karkinos used his feelings of failure to get him to practice more Underworld Waves, something that the Pegasus armor would probably take a different route with, urging him to accept his mistakes instead of regretting them.

It painted a picture that made him unsure what to think. He saw her expecting an answer and his head grew hot. "That's just… normal! I took in Mephisto because I chose to! It's obvious they want me to be a better Saint of them!... Isn't it?"

The aristocratic woman saw the sudden fragility in him. He was probably questioning every decision he has made since becoming the Gold Saint of Cancer. She knew the feeling of finding out your body was strung up in a web of insinuations quite well. Perhaps it was too much to suggest that Karkinos controlled Lance, but it definitely encouraged him towards certain actions.

Lance seriously tried to think about it, but the idea of the armors acting this way in such a revolting situation made his brain hurt with frustration. He refused to believe it. "It's… it's nonsense, Adriana!"

She didn't seem happy with his lack of confidence in her, frowning. "Why?"

"Because I trust Pegasus, that's why!" he roared. "He wouldn't just take that demon bastard's side over me just because he stole Arles' ass rest! He'd be urging me to make things right, not let it be!...And maybe that's hard for you to understand, because you come from these fancy, detached families who only look for their next foot in the door of the Temples, but it's just not the way people who care about each other ACT!"

The mood between them darkened as her eyes tensed. "I see…so that's how you see it." She took a step back and looked away, hiding the flash of hurtfulness that went through her face, waited a diplomatic second for him to cool off before making her next point. "…Just remember, Lance, you're not the first person that armor put itself on, and you won't be the last."

He rubbed his red eyes. "I know… but it doesn't mean…"

"That armor doesn't look at you the same way you look at it. You're its present… but it has its future to worry about. When push comes to shove, Pegasus and Cancer will think about what Athena wants, not you..."

He then saw her turn away completely. The bitterness in what she said practically dripped off the words. The Saint stared at her in confoundedness, getting the weirdest sensation he had somehow hurt her feelings.

Still pinned by Lance, the lieutenant laughed coarsely. "See?... You will all be the Prince's slaves, Saints! What are you going to do without your fancy armors?! It's over for Arles and his Sanctuary!"

The Saint groaned. "Alright, enough out of you! You're taking a trip home!"

The lieutenant panicked. "W-what?! But you said-"

A small blue light formed on Lance's finger. "I'm just sending you home with the Underworld Wave! Count yourself lucky-"

But he grabbed Lance's arm. "NO! N-NOO! JUST KILL M-ME!"

The sudden screaming startled Adriana out of her bitterness as Lance struggled against the pinned man. "…What's wrong with him?"

He tried to lower the underworld wave cosmos on him. "Hey, stop IT! I s-said I'd-" But the Skeleton's free hand burned in concentrated dark cosmos and he shoved the empowered fingers right into his own throat, splashing blood on the ground. "What?! What the fuck did you do?!"

The Skeleton lieutenant gargled and convulsed beneath Lance's foot until he bled out, his arms dropping to the sides.

Even the usually unaffected Adriana was stunned. "He… killed himself?"

"What the fuck?!" Lance roared, completely bewildered.

"Lance,… why would he do that?" she asked, forgetting about their argument. "You told him you were going to send him back."

His hand ran through his charcoal hair exasperatedly. "I don't know what the heck is going on with this attack anymore. These fucking Skeletons…" he kicked the killer's body in frustration. "… These vicious zealot freaks! He'd rather kill himself than get captured in the Well?! How does that even make any sense?! Ugh…"

"Well, putting aside the suicide we just saw –" Adriana worded. "-I'll be taking my leave from all of this since I'm not a fighter…Try to focus on helping your friends. I'm sure once this is dealt with, you'll share all the juicy answers about what's going on with me later."

"Yes, I understand…" His red eyes then turned to something strange. "Wait, what?"

While she didn't notice anything wrong, Adriana also stepped back away from the fallen Skeletons at Lance's alarm. Right before the Saint's eyes, the shadows of their fallen bodies seemed to be shaking and fluttering, despite the relative stillness of the flames. Lance then felt a dark cosmos coursing through them, stirring their spirits, and he widened his eyes in alarm.

He burned his cosmos and raised his finger. "Praesepe Underworld Wave!" His aura turned pale blue for a moment and a transparent shockwave was released, coursing through the room like a wide net before enveloping the Skeleton corpses. Lance felt a foreign tug of sorts trying to take a hold of the many fallen adversaries and his eyes narrowed in suspicion, so he charged his energy further to overwhelm it.

A sudden screech in the air was heard, alarming him!

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Romania

Crow Nest

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Standing at the tower of Crow Nest, Nasu Erika burned her dark cosmos in a meditating pose, beheld by her assistant False Specter, Necromancer Kuro. They had been collecting the souls of the fallen Specters and Skeletons of Lord Lucifer's invasion of Sanctuary the entire conflict to store them in jars, preventing them from falling into the Underworld and reserving the possibility to revive them in the future somehow.

Now the Nasu felt a large loss of life coming from the Aries Temple and she attempted to do her job, but something was preventing her from retrieving the spirits of their brothers. The more effort she put into it, the tighter this strange mystical wave she felt seemed to hold on to the souls.

Kuro gasped as he saw her sweating and raising her aura. "Lady Eri-"

"GYAH!" Erika screamed, feeling her hand ignite with a pale blue fire characteristic of the House of Cancer. The sheering pain of the burn broke her concentration and the hold she had on the collective of souls was lost. She looked at the night sky in horror. "N-NO!"

Necromancer Kuro came to her assistance. Her hand looked fine as the blue fire receded into nothing, but it was still an alarming event. "What just happened?!"

She panted and collected herself. "Someone just…! This is bad!" She then closed her eyes and concentrated. "(Ainsel, listen, we have a problem!)"

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Greece,

Cancer Temple

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The Prince was outraged. "Who?!"

The Specters sweated. "They…They say…"

"Spill it out!"

Cait Sith Palug gulped. There was no way to spin this that wouldn't end with a furious prince. "They must be in shock, but before the lines went down, they were insisting the enemy is without armor, so they can't identify him…"

"THEY LET SOME CLOTHLESS SAINT GET THROUGH?!" he roared, making his men recoil in terror. And his mind rushed back to the possibilities, especially the most dangerous ones. "Is it Akassius?! Or one of the Allies?"

"A black-haired fire user, sir… It could be Akassius based on the description." Papillion Ainsel detailed. He then heard Nasu calling him. "Excuse me, Prince, Crow Nest is contacting me…"

Lucifer gritted teeth. If that was the case, then he would have no choice but climb back down and deal with the threat himself. However, something told him it didn't make sense that the former Gemini Saint would be back without getting his fossil friends to help him, too. "What does Nasu say?"

Ainsel spent half a minute in silence, reaching out to their headquarters in Romania. The Specters could tell from the way Ainsel's face tensed that he was getting into an argument with Nasu Erika, probably trying to convince her to check the enemy encampment more thoroughly.

After a while, the Specter shook his head. "Nasu Erika insists that Akassius is still outside her walls. She says, and I quote, that 'they all can see his goody-two-shoes death glare from his tent'."

The Specter leader breathed a sigh of mild relief. He wasn't worried about having to battle Akassius, but he worked hard to make sure he didn't have to waste energy on that. He then calculated the possibilities and realized it was probably either the Cancer or Aries Saint, likely the former who must have felt his House getting invaded.

The Papillion, however, had to insist. "Prince, I'm afraid Crow Nest has more to say." He called, getting the Pride Star's attention. "…It seems she was prevented from retrieving the spirits of the fallen at Aries."

The Prince's red eyes widened. This was one of their most important failsafe tactics. "What?!"

The antennae-helmeted Specter confirmed it with a nod. "All forty men lost at Aries were barred from soul retrieval. We're unsure of their current status, but until we deal with this, we will not be able to resurrect them even if we carry out our future invasion of the Underworld. Prince. I believe that the person who attacked Aries may be the Cancer Gold Saint."

Snorting out a frustrated exhale, Daemon Lucifer tried to stay calm and calculate all of this coldly. Ainsel's theory made perfect sense. Lucifer had timed this attack under the belief that Gemini, Libra, and Aries were the only Gold Saints absent from Greece, so he had planned the deployment of his troops in such a way that they'd be able to get rid of the only impediment to Nasu Erika's activities before Cancer captured any of their souls for himself.

Finding the Cancer House empty, however, was both a blessing and a curse, as it was an obvious indication that they would have to deal with Cancer in an unplanned way. It was not the end of the world, but it did force Lucifer to rethink their maneuvers a little bit.

Seeing his leader was worried, Ainsel smirked and stepped up. "Lord Lucifer, if you don't mind my initiative, I will help our brother Torak deal with Cancer for you," he suggested. "The opponent is obviously the mental type, and that's my specialty. Aries was no match for me, and neither will Cancer."

It was an interesting proposal, but Lucifer had other concerns. "I don't want you to leave the Fourth House, for now, Ainsel. Send a warning to Torak. Tell him to get the Taurus Saint dealt with because he could be facing a new adversary soon. If possible, instruct him to allow the Cancer Saint past him for you to face."

This surprised the Specter. "Are you… sure, my Lord? Letting the enemy through? I'm not sure if Torak will appreciate this strategy."

This was where Lucifer's knowledge of Saints benefited him. "Saints of Athena are honor-obsessed to the point of insisting on one-on-one fights. If Taurus is still alive, he will refuse Cancer's help, in which case Torak will be better off not being outnumbered. Tell him it's a direct order from me. I'd rather preserve my elites for now, especially if you're better fitted than Torak to go against Cancer."

Seeing new sense in this, the blue-haired moth rubbed his chin and accepted. "Very well, Lord Lucifer. Cancer is not getting past his own House, then."

Lucifer eyed the Papillion sternly. "He better not!" and turned to the rest of the men. "The rest of you, follow me up to Leo! We're going to get rid of Virgo before Arles' linchpins surround us!"

The Skeletons and Specters shouted a cheering hurrah and followed the Prince onward.

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Aries Temple

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Lance focused the captured dark will-o-wisps the way Deathmask taught him months earlier, forming a tennis-ball-sized sphere of thick, black ectoplasm. "Son of a bitch…"

Adriana approached him to observe the sphere. "So that's the famous Underworld Wave? Interesting." She leaned in and saw the howling faces of the dead coursing through the surface of the small ectoplasm ball. "…Lance, what is going on? What did you just stop from happening?"

"These are the souls of the Skeletons around us. Someone was trying to retrieve them." Lance explained. He had felt a sudden upward force that was only familiar to him while practicing entering the Underworld well with Karkinos. "I'm going to keep this with me until we find out what's going on. It's not normal for Specters to want to look after their fallen when they can usually just be revived in the Underworld."

She scoffed amusedly. "Well, I'll be taking my leave from here, then." She responded, heading back to the zipped rock slab.

He tried to stop her. "Hey, wait, are you just going to leave?!" he asked. "Adriana, you are clearly strong! We need every hand we can get up there!"

The silver-ringed swordswoman stopped at this. First he makes her regret 'being direct' with him, like he encouraged back at the ranch, and now he wanted her company up the stairs to these battles?

Her small nose snorted discretely! He should have thought of that bef-

"Besides-" the saint continued, his red eyes shifting. "…You helped a lot tonight and I appreciate it. I'm able to help my friends because of you instead of ending up a darted corpse in the street. I didn't really mean to imply I don't trust what you have to say…. I'm just…"

She blinked, taken by surprise, but then she completed his thoughts, reminded of some moments in her own life. "Under a lot of pressure?"

The warrior nodded. "Yeah… Adriana, I could really use your help."

There was a beat of silence from her, in which she readjusted to this. The Pisces was ready to walk right out of there after what he said and make their friendship go right back to a business relationship, as she did to everyone who betrayed her the second her guard lowered,… and now this.

She looked around at the fallen Skeletons.

Unfortunately her answer had to be the same. "Help against the chaff, maybe, when I'm moving around and not just walking up to them in a totally open set of stairs and they have no idea how to use lightspeed. But I'm not built to get atomized by the strong ones." she defended, and her look darkened suddenly. "I just don't want my night excursion to end with my skull crushed against the pavement by some Specter fanatic…You understand, right?"

The Saint nodded, remembering that not everyone in Sanctuary was a trained Gold-rank like himself. "I see. I'm going to Taurus to help my friend. Thank you for everything, Adriana. Be careful on your way out."

She then watched him head for the door to go fight the Holy War. "You too…" Her hands folded behind waist as a strange thought formed in her head.

But Adriana had either too much dignity or fear to give it voice as the Saint vanished up the stairs, snorting lightly and shaking her head dismissively. It was difficult to make someone from such a different world understand what terrified her. Her head cooled with his absence and Adriana planned her next move more objectively.

First things first, should make her way out of Aries before the place is flooded with foot soldiers. Not only was entering the Zodiac not part of her initial plan when she ventured into Sanctuary, but she would rather not deal with the military crowd.

Second step was to get Sophie and remove her webbing from the area. Third, Adriana probably could go find those two girls that were supposedly friends of Lance's. The explosion in the forest they saw earlier probably had something to do with them.

She'd show him just how much she cared… Besides, considering everyone was supposed to be asleep, a good wager was that those friends were hiding something she should find out about!

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Chapter End

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Next Chapter: Chapter 55 - Episode 18 – The House of the Dead – Part 2 of 2

Description: Cancer Lance rushes up the Zodiac to save Aldebaran and rejoin his friends, but the False Specter menace is making its way quickly to the Virgo Temple and a cunning threat awaits the Pegasus at his own House.

Author's Notes: This chapter was not as problematic as the last one and I was able to more quickly patch its issues. A lot got shaved out of it, though, and what was a 24k chapter was reduced to a 22k one. This was because of some paragraphs that didn't really advance the overall purpose of their scenes.

I am, however, a bit behind on schedule for chapter 55. It's still in layout phase, mostly because I've been extending my break for too long, but I'm making my objective to have it done and beta-read by the 13th of February, which will be the fic's tenth birthday. I promised something special should I pass 20,000 hits and it will be delivered, but it's going to have to wait for chapter 55.

Anyway, make sure to check out the Saint Seiya Reddit Discord server, where I'm currently one of the co-admins. Other writers like Jenny DeVic also can be found in it. You can hang out with the rest of the English-speaking SS community and we host several weekly events, like episode streams, games and now a whole new Horror Let's Play themed after the Underworld.

See ya O.O

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