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.

59. 2A: Wrath of the Gold Saint

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; Kido Mount;

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

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

Author Notes:

-I apologize for the delay on the publishing deadline. This chapter needed some critical work in Beta. Don't worry about the next publishing dates; I have a chapter and half after this one done;

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Please enjoy and review (^_^

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"The psychological effects that unlocking your Cosmos has on the person is only, officially speaking, a recent concern. Sanctuary has a poor track record of caring about the mental health of its soldiers and Saints, partly because it's such an old organization, partly because beggars can't be choosers when it comes to recruiting Cosmos-sensitive people, rare as they are.

One of the good things about Pope Arles III is that it seems his experiences with the Lost Canvas War made him especially concerned about what goes on inside the mind of Saints, hence the new concern for the field. This can be traced back to the history of his generation; Sagittarius Sisyphus fell into a deep psychological breakdown as a result of, according to the Twelve Houses, having his arrow reflected back to him by Hades (a cause that is poorly verified), and Scorpio Kardia had quite an extreme personality resultant from his heart condition making him believe he had only a few years to live past adulthood. This not to mention the cesspool of mental and physical ailments that assailed the generation of Gemini Cain, all of which were preyed upon by Ophiuchus Odysseus.

The groundwork for the field has therefore be established, but findings are still basically in their infancy. There seems to be a clear connection between personality and unlockable elements, for example, but most importantly there's the vulnerability created on the inside by having such a close contact with a power coming deep from within us. If the Sagittarius Saint of the last Holy War could be rendered helpless by a trauma, what could happen, for example, if the Virgo Saint lost his faith? Or if a Gemini was driven blind by their arrogance? Could the cosmos augment or ameliorate these problems?

Is, therefore, a psychological blow more devastating that a physical one to a Saint? That would certainly explain why the cruel Phoenix would arm its Saints with the dreaded Genma Ken… or how a powerful Saint can be rendered powerless by just striking the right chord in their psyche."

-article by Sanctuary Town librarian (later identified as Aquarius Malta)

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The Past – The Lost Canvas War

Pandora's Castle

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Taken to a hospital tent by the encampment being raised at the outskirts of the Golden Zodiac, the injured Dragon Saint was being taken care of by the famous Lemurian alchemist Altar Hakurei, who had made his way to Greece from Tibet recently in light of the attack Alone conducted. From the looks of it, the Lemurian was siblings with Pope Sage and after a brief reunion at the Pope Halls, the bi-centenarian decided to personally oversee the care for Dragon's wounds.

The white-haired Lemurian saw the nasty, cursed wound in the Bronze Saint's shield arm. "Wow, that looks awful. Alone sure did a number on you. I bet you wish Odysseus was still around, huh, Shiryu? He'd take care of that in a second."

The picture of the Golden Zodiac being ripped apart between dimensions from two years earlier and his friends falling victim to the cursed thirteenth Gold Saint's powers came to the Dragon Saint's mind.

"No, Lord Hakurei, not really…As much as I'd love not to have a death curse on me right now, Saint Odysseus being around was a danger to everyone," he answered, smiling politely. "But I'd stand between Tenma and Hades' sword again in a lightspeed second."

Hakurei rubbed his chin, impressed. "Tenma is lucky to have friends like you backing him up. First, you ventured to the Underworld with Yuzu and that boy Yato to get him back, then you stand up to Asmita for his sake and now you put your life between him and Hades' sword? If I didn't know any better, I'd say you've known him for years… Or do you extend this extraordinary kindness to everyone you meet?"

The young warrior frowned sadly, wishing he could talk more openly about their mission to save Seiya. But according to Athena, secrecy had to be maintained if they wished to return to a home that was not flipped upside down by their own hands.

Seeing the Dragon was quiet about this, Hakurei continued. "Well, I am no replacement for an Ophiuchus Gold Saint, but I know a thing or two about curses," the aged Lemurian joked as he and the nurses helped Dragon sit on his bed. Hakurei frowned, seeing the darkness in the Chinese warrior's arm slowly grow like an infected wound.

"No, it's an honor to receive your care, Lord Hakurei. When Jamir burned down, I wasn't even sure you'd get out alright. I was very relieved to know you were safe, far away… especially after Absolute Star showed up." Dragon said.

"Yes, I focused on taking Atla to safety. I didn't expect Asmita of all people to be defeated so quickly. I should have returned faster." Hakurei grew a grave look. "I'm over here, Shiryu…" he called out, causing the Dragon's face to get red and for him to turn in the correct direction. "…You didn't tell me you were losing your sight."

The Bronze Saint could still see. It was just that the people around him were turning into blurs.

He smiled serenely. "Believe it or not, I feel I may be getting too used to this happening."

The Lemurian stared suspiciously and nodded at the nurse for her to leave them be. He waited until she was gone and leaned to take a good look at Dragon's eyes. The youth recoiled at this, embarrassed of his weakness. Hakurei saw the veins in them getting dark. He didn't think Alone targeted the sight specifically, but based on what Dragon just said, it was likely his eyes were the first part of him going out because they are already fragile from previous cases of severe lack of sight.

Other than the Suikyo-Odysseus conflict, when did Dragon have the occasion to get hurt like this so often?

"It is spreading quickly to your eyes…I fear we may not be able to save your sight, Shiryu." He lamented. "It is interesting that this wound would afflict you in this particular way. Have you overcome blindness in the past?"

Dragon's hands squeezed on his thigh, reminded of the days Shunrei would take care of him the first time he was blinded. "Twice. Once by the miracle of the Waters of Life… then by traveling to Ely-" he suddenly stopped himself and rephrased. "- to lady Sasha's side. Her powers are miraculous…"

The wily Lemurian raised a brow. "You're a shitty liar, Shiryu, you know? You remind me of Yuzuriha telling me she really did her alchemy homework." he compared, startling the Dragon with the casualness with which he cursed compared to Lord Sage and making his head drop in shame. "Don't worry… I can overlook that."

"Well… what do you think of this wound, Lord Hakurei? Will I be able to fight?"

The Lemurian held his chin. "I think I agree with Haisaku's assessment; if you stay still for a while and pick your battles carefully, you'll be okay for this war… but sooner or later something will need to be done, lest you drop dead."

Dragon sweated. "How blunt, just like Roshi…" but the Lemurian had been equally light-hearted about Tenma's murder.

"Typically this sort of thing can be solved by striking at the source. It won't be easy to reach Hades' sword, though, even for a Godslayer like you and your friends. Difficult battles await you, Shiryu." Hakurei added something that despite his warning seemed almost too good a possibility.

"Yet, back home, Seiya is still…" the Dragon mused to himself, depressed about his wheelchair-bound brother in arms, who, contrary to Lord Hakurei's words, was not rescued from his fate simply by Lady Saori defeating the God of the Underworld. "My friends told me that Lady Haisaku believes it will be more complicated than that."

The proud Lemurian seemed challenged. "Ah, that old fire-crow? I'll admit… that Sage Haisaku has impressed me once or twice. But ultimately her field is archeological." He looked out the tent to the many homeless people being taken into the camp as if to contemplate the damage Hades had caused. The memory of catastrophes driving people to new lands was present in his blood. "Her hobbies have the tendency to overestimate the meaning in small details. It's in their innocent nature to get over excited about mysterious possibilities… As for me, I find it adorable when a Greek comes to the colonies, picks up an old Lemurian plastic comb, and wonders aloud if it was actually part of a palace crown from Mu."

The bronze Saint nodded, understanding.

Hakurei continued. "It's best if we feed hope of you saving yourself, instead." Hakurei held Dragon's arm. The Bronze Saint winced, feeling the cursed injury burn every time someone touched it. "Still, it's impressive you survived this."

"The Dragon Shield is strong, Lord Hakurei… even if my friends joke otherwise." Dragon confessed, smiling embarrassedly

Hakurei smirked. "Ah! So you're saying you'd make a good costumer? I love nothing better than a Saint who keeps breaking what I fix. It shows courage AND profit prospects. Speaking of it, you kids still owe me payment for upgrading Unicorn and Pegasus."

The humble Dragon shook his head. "I'm not that interesting…Those Princes on the other hand…" Shiryu's tone sterned in concern.

Not nearly as much as Hakurei's did, though. "Yes, Sasha looked gravely concerned. Shiryu, is there any chance you can tell me everything you know about these Princes flying around?"

At that moment, Shiryu relayed everything he and his friends learned about the two Specters up to the point Cygnus and Andromeda departed for Death Queen Island.

"… and that's all I know." Dragon completed.

Hakurei hummed. "Yes… it checks out with what my brother told me. I wanted to get a different point of view, though…"

While his vision was growing weaker, Dragon's ears were as sharp as ever and he detected a sadness and worry-heartedness in the Lemurian's voice. "Pardon me, Lord Hakurei, but I get the feeling the two of you seem to know something the rest of us do not."

Hakurei seemed distracted, frozen in thoughts almost, his eyes staring at the bed gravely as his nose unleashed deep exhales. Dragon knew this silent pause well; he had felt it many times in Roshi when the old purple dwarf mused about the darkness of the old war.

"Shiryu," the alchemist suddenly voiced. "In life, human or Lemurian, sometimes we… make mistakes. Tragic ones. We neglect things, let our fear guide us, and rationalize why we did it… and then it will turn out those calls lead to catastrophic outcomes. First for others, then inevitably to ourselves. It is important that at all times we let our hearts guide us just a little bit… instead of doing what we tell ourselves will cause no harm. You understand, correct?"

The teenager was young, but he had his share of wisdom. While it seemed the Lemurian was dodging the question, experience gained talking with Roshi taught Dragon that this was actually their own way of answering indirectly and thus he let the Lemurian talk in his own way. "Yes, Lord Hakurei."

"I hope Shion learns that for the future." Hakurei wished for his student, sounding like he thought he would die soon. "That boy will have a tremendous weight on his shoulders after this war. His experience will be different than Sage's, but Sanctuary will not survive if fear becomes the ultimate deciding factor in his heart."

While Dragon already knew that Shion would become the next Pope by virtue of foresight (or would it be hindsight?), he noticed there was no good reason Hakurei would predict the same. "You think he will become the next Pope?"

"The Lemurians in the bunch typically do," Hakurei confessed, knowing of many past examples, including his own twin brother. "A lot of times for the same reason the Greeks like appointing us for law offices, but also because we are the only ones who are smart enough to make it through the blasted wars. Don't get me wrong, the other kids are brilliant and brave, but…"

Dragon smiled. "Perhaps Lord Sage won't settle on Lord Kardia or Manigoldo?" he wondered, reminded of their personalities.

"He will not. For a while, Rasgado and Asmita looked like good candidates, but we all know what happened to them…Regulus is talented, but he's too young and blinded by his quest to kill Rhadamanthys. And with his uncle Sisyphus in the state that he is, the options are that much more limited." Hakurei added.

"Why are you telling me this, Lord Hakurei?" Dragon asked. "Is something going to happen to your brother?"

Hakurei eyed him sadly. "Sage has already departed."

Dragon gasped. "What?!"

The Lemurian waved his hands. "Not in that way… I mean he has left already. Physically. He got on his feet and walked out."

But the Bronze Saint was still just as startled. "Where did he go?! What is he doing?!"

"As Asmita perhaps would put it… to meet what's coming to him. Our old enemies, Hypnos and Thanatos, have resurfaced… and it's important that my brother and I stop them. As such, I fear the time for us to atone for our failures towards Athena's last human self may be drawing near," Hakurei practically sighed out. "You see, Shiryu, the last war…has bound our fate to the Twin Gods who serve under Hades."

"Hypnos and Thanatos…" Dragon recognized. He still felt the sting of Terrible Providence in his body sometimes.

Hakurei nodded gravely. "They are not opponents you can defeat without sacrifice… More importantly, though, thanks to the battles you and the others have fought, Sage and I have learned that those two have done something terrible to the two of us."

"You mean-"

"Yes, Shiryu… a terrible dragon has been set loose upon us by those twins." Hakurei forebode. "Not a noble one like yourself, but one full of spite, arrogance, and thirst for destruction."

The horns on the Daemon Surplice's helmet, which bore a strange resemblance to the ones on his own Bronze Cloth, sprung to the youth's mind. "Lord Hakurei… who is Daemon Lucifer?"

The morning sun outside was suddenly clouded, darkening the tent and letting a cold air chill them. Hakurei may have been a blur to Shiryu, but the sudden tension in his semblance was palpable. "If I'm correct…he is someone I have failed on my line of duty as a Silver Saint… and someone who must be dealt with before our mistakes haunt countless generations after us in the future."

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The Present

Aretias Forest Grounds

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Cerah was in a daze.

Alone in the corner of the Aretias forest she picked to lie down, the Corvus Saint laid back and her vision blurred in and out, unable to sleep, yet unable to stay awake either.

Her side bled and burned, injured by the Cyclops' brutal blow. The cosmos of her armor surrounded her body like a protective balsam, but the wound would not close.

Her head sweated and she was unable to discern conscious thought from dreaming. She was sure she was on the ground and flying through the air. Cold and hot. Alive and dead. What a foolish crow. She should have stayed with Yushira. Instead, now she felt her feet sinking into an early grave.

…

…

How long had it been since she picked her dying spot?

One hour? Two?

….

….

Funny.

She felt like Eurydice was there. The shadow of the person she thought she saw showing up certainly seemed like it. They had the same soft hands that touched her, and a similar feminine silhouette, as well as a soothing tone in the voice that reminded her of the Nymph's calming words.

Maybe the nymph decided that Cerah was an insane idiot and followed after her, worried. She was right. The Corvus Saint accomplished nothing but finding out how cruel her teacher could be. It was a lesson so painful Cerah felt like her heart split in two.

At least she met Yushira.

Wow, Cerah was so ungrateful. They had such an interesting adventure, Yushira even saved her life and the Cyrulian thanked her by just leaving.

"I'm s-sorry…" she voiced out.

A reassuring tone was heard off the mirage's voice. A strange palm pressed on her forehead, feeling her temperature. Her eyes then turned to dark again.

…

…

Cerah looked down, feeling feverish. It made the hands going around her wounded waist, wrapping a fabric, seem colder than they were, and the strange sensation of bugs crawling all over her frightened the warrior. Was she not imagining someone being there after all?

A pained moan left her mouth when a strange, silky texture, like a bandage, wrapped against her side, sticking to her wound. "A-ah!"

"Stay still, okay? I'll go slower…Put your arms around me."

Cerah, still in shock, nodded. "O-okay…" and she obeyed, falling over the person's small shoulder to give them more space to wrap the fabric around her body.

…

…

Cerah felt her back be gently lowered. Fingers slowly reached up to her neck, where her Cloth stone laid, triggering a powerful instinctive reaction that made the semi-conscious Cerah catch the hand!

The person gasped. "… Forgive me! I thought…"

"D-Don't!..." Cerah's weak hand then lost its grip.

The person knelt there, seeming puzzled and regretful right before it all went black some more.

….

….

The world seemed to spin, awakening Cerah once again for a brief moment. At this point, the pain in her side wasn't so bad, but the dizzying sensation still made her make a sound with her mouth, and her green eyes opened slightly to see ground below her moving downwards.

She was being lifted up. The sensation prevented her sleep, so she gathered the focus to ask "W-who are you?..."

It alerted the person, who gently placed Cerah over a strange, round mount that breathed. "Don't rock too much…., she doesn't know you."

Cerah imagined she then heard a horse's neigh and smiled deliriously. She always dreamed of meeting a nice horse, like the ones in her knightley culture. This must be another one of those dreams. "O-oh… What's her n-name?"

The person who laid her over the saddle giggled, not sure which of them Cerah was talking to. "She's called Sophia… but I'm Adriana. Don't worry… I'll take you to safety."

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Sanctuary, House of Libra

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The seventh House of the Golden Zodiac was relatively small, hexagonal with a pronounced front, and composed of a single great Hall locked by the typical forward and rear gates. A cupula stood on its top with stairs inside that gave visitors access to the terrace overlooking the surroundings and its small roof had slanted sides with tips curving upwards that gave the otherwise Hellenic temple a slight resemblance to Taoist pagodas, honoring the culture of the eastern pagan pantheon allied to Athena. It was a modest, shy building, often very silent other than the occasional sounds of servants maintaining it. It even lacked any sort of statue or engraving marking it as the House of Libra, unlike the other eleven temples.

Without prior knowledge, its size, quietness, and humility could easily have caused the building to be mixed up with a giant marble gazebo by the False Specters now reaching it.

Shooting stars of gold flew above it, arching down on the stairs leading up to its outlying marble grounds to shoot down invaders.

Without stopping for even a second, Golem Treble reached the House's ground floor, ran up the short stairs set to the gate, leaned and bashed his gigantic, round body against the doors, nearly shattering its reinforced steel beam in one go. He had no time to lose, as Sagittarius was still firing down on them. Backing away a bit, he burned his cosmos, roared, and gave it a much stronger go, this time ramming right through the wooden gateway so hard that he stumbled onwards to the inner hall.

Treble was quickly followed by a mass of False Specters and Skeletons that stormed the Temple. "QUICK, INSIDE!" Elf Rossalier ordered.

Cait Sith Palug ran left and right up the stairs between arrows of light dropping down on him on his fours like a frightened cat, his hair riling up every time his nimble sides were grazed by deadly bolts of yellow, taking the only comfort when he started hearing the hail thunder down on the Temple's roof.

"O-Oh, thank the Prince!" he breathed out, truly tired of the panic. "When will this nightmare end?! I feel like I'm back at the Prisons being hailed by those damn harpies in the Suicide Forest!"

Sphinx Neferti walked in. "It ends when we get take the ninth Temple… and Sagittarius' head!"

The men of Daemon made their way deeper inside, dreading when they'd have to get back out to cross to Libra.

Golem Treble punched his palm determinedly. "Alright… where is Libra, then?!" he asked out loud, inviting the Gold Saint to come out. However, as his beady eyes surveyed the purple-tinted marble of this new Hall, nothing but air currents answered him.

The men didn't stop looking or scratching their heads until Neferti reminded them of the situation. "Libra isn't here, have you forgotten? This House is empty."

The Cait Sith Specter was stunned. "Really? Just like that? We get a freebie?"

The Egyptian woman nodded. "The Libra Temple is famously ill-occupied. Its only consistent master for the past two centuries is the same man that the Prince went looking for in China. There have been on and off occupiers since, but most leave this place for failing to live up to the celebrated Master of Mount Rozan."

Happy enough that they didn't have to face another Gold Saint adversary so soon after the trouble Virgo made them go through, the False Skeletons spread out, searching for any stragglers, traps, or treasure. By this point, the Prince would be telling them they were walking on some sort of important Hall of Sanctuary, but to them, it just looked like an empty warehouse. Honestly, if the Saints could live with keeping a whole House empty for decades on end, why even bother to guard any of the rest during peacetime?

"How do you know all that?" Golem asked, suspicious.

She scoffed and pretended she wasn't taught it before ever becoming a Specter by her old faction. "The Prince trusts me enough to confide. Besides… unlike all of you, I was a major guardian of a Prison of the Underworld. Cerberus chewed on more than a few gluttonous Saints in my tenure. Anyways, you all know what to do. Stand men at the entrance to welcome Daemon, plunder the place, and raise the Prince's banner at the terrace to strike fear into the Gold Saints' hearts! I want that Pope quivering in his boots!" Sphinx commanded, elated. She saw them looking at each other and scratching their helmeted heads, though. "What's the matter with you all?"

One of them blurted it out. "It feels odd without Lemon here. I half-expected to hear some kind of complaining or yel-"

"Are you kidding me?! GET TO WORK OR I'LL GIVE YOU A BROKEN LEG TO COMPLAIN ABOUT!" Golem Treble shouted, furious, sending them scramming.

Sphinx played her instrument softly, searching the Temple with soundwaves to seek hearts, but the feather of Maat did not react. They should still let the men look for people directly to account for any shielding in the building against techniques like hers, though. For a second she felt a slight nervous recoil when she got no feedback, still a bit affected by when Shaka reflected her move at her.

She saw her hand shake on the string and held it with the other hand to keep it still. "I'm not scared anymore! I'm not! Pandora is gone, and so is Virgo…" she repeated to herself, shutting out the many tortures, either from a zapping trident or a Buddhist's technique, she had endured in her life. She didn't let go until her nerves were calmer. "My harp isn't picking up anyone."

"Good, then we can get to Scorpio right away." Golem responded.

"We should still act careful not that we've lost an elite. Even if Alraune was hard to deal with…"

Golem began ripping some of the big parchments with Chinese letters strung up at the walls like posters, hoping to find secret passages, but overheard her. "Well, yeah, Lemon did nothing but act like he should be bossing us around instead of the Prince. But you know how grunts are, they're easily impressed…"

She eyed him tensely. "Don't judge them too harshly. You were a grunt yourself half an hour ago, Treble."

The giant put them in a big pile and set the whole thing on fire with a Cosmos finger snap spark. "Yes, and now I'm an Elite! A new golden age of smashing and crushing has begun, and Scorpio's face will be the first tribute I'll offer Lord Pride Star as appreciation for my just promotion! No need to be careful with my position of leadership!"

The cautious Sphinx looked down on this carefreeness. "I'm not sure the Scorpio will be a boy like Virgo, Golem…"

The man, who followed a long tradition set by the Specter Golem Rock of ugly, grey-skinned ogres being clad with the Golem Surplice, turned to her with a mad stare. "Then if he's the pretty guy they've always been, I'll stomp his skull for all the others who were, how about that?! That Temple passes the armor down the family lines, so it's only appropriate!"

The Sphinx was bewildered by the Golem's pettiness. Scorpio Gold Saints were known to be quite attractive, making news of one being promoted to the Cloth akin to the Beatles showing up in town. Parallelly, their popularity seemed to attract the irrational ire of countless guys like Treble.

Interestingly enough, though, she had actually met the previous Scorpio once, at a night her previous faction woke up to seeing Scarlet Needle shooting everywhere. "The last Scorpio is still alive, you know? He helped Priam's attack, according to the Prince."

The Golem leaned his face like he never heard the name. "Priam? You mean 'Goggles Guy'? What about it?"

"Scorpio Paris looked like a mirror's worst nightmare, but was very powerful. I've seen him wipe out entire groups of gold-rankers." She warned. "You shouldn't underestimate whoever took his place."

His brow raised, wondering where in damnations Neferti get a chance to meet Scorpio Gold Saints. "Well, I wouldn't worry… the Prince prepared me for the eventuality."

She didn't like the tone of this. "Hey, what is that supposed to mean?"

Golem chuckled and crumbled something with his thumb in his hand that looked like a piece of paper. "Let's say he gave me some instructions."

Before Neferti could question him about this, a Skeleton from outside came rushing in. "LADY NEFERTI! THE FIRE CLOCK! VIRGO!"

The two turned to him, alarmed. "What?! Did something happen?!" she asked, concerned about the Prince.

The Skeleton panted and pointed outside. "The Virgo flame… it's dead!"

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Chapter 59

Episode 20

The Wrath of the Gold Saint

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Mount Rozan

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At this point, the sun was slowly rising over the mountains of China, reaching just over the green tip of the many peaks surrounding the Lushan waterfall grove, and Ma Chao the tiger slumbered up its big furry body up the rock cliff protruding over the lower lake to where Dohko sat, unconcerned with the world's affairs. Slumping down next to him like a lazy cat, the tiger beheld its kingdom in utter relaxation, having done plenty of exercises the night earlier when it almost ripped off the throat from a dumb Alraune Specter's neck.

In contrast, the purple dwarf in the straw hat and green gi clasped his small fingers and closed eyes in concentration as he felt the searing pain in his 7th sense, akin to a shooting star ripping through the night.

"Ooh... So it has gotten to this point? Every Gold Saint knows the sensation of his own House being broken into by those who wish ill intent on the Pope and Athena." the teacher suddenly spoke. "Even so long after my battle with Shiryu at my temple, the Lost Canvas War and all the intern Libra Saints Shion has had in my place every few years, I still feel it; the unmistakable sensation of something extremely sacred to you, like a dear loved one, being stepped on by an enemy."

The white tiger simply enjoyed the morning breeze clashing with its thick fur and licked its big paw. What annoying mumblings. What was the human going on about?

"That the forces of Daemon Lucifer have breached my temple can only mean that even Virgo was unable to stop them… The situation has become as grave as I predicted it would." Dohko lamented. "I wish I had more time… that I had deciphered Seiryu's warnings faster. If so, I would have had more precious moments in Seiryu's bloodstream to prepare my student for the worst. The fate of Sanctuary now rests in half of its forces and, knowing Daemon, he is yet to show the worst that he is capable of."

Green cosmos began glowing below them, at the waterfall pond. "My warnings spoke clearly enough to those with focus…"

Ma Chao the tiger growled, sensing the draconic source of the voice.

The old man scoffed. "Pah, a couple of lines about old enemies resurfacing, as if I could decipher from that anything specific!"he pointed out. "Do you have a clue how many people have grudges against me, Seiryu?"

The Dragon Cloth far below them kept transmitting thoughts from the deity. "Perhaps you are fortunate I have warned you at all, then… or that I've protected your student from that Specter."

"As if you'd let Hades' death worshippers sully this sanctum! I appreciate your blessings, oh great emperor of the East, but let's be honest…" Dohko pointed out, knowing well the motivation behind Seiryu saving all their lives from the hateful Pride Star. "…if you wished to help us Saints to that extent, you'd have been clear from the start about the disruption in the Underworld. Ma Chao here had more sincerity when its fangs closed on Alraune's throat than when you scared off Daemon."

There was a pause in the conversation that the aged dwarf took as an argumentative triumph over the proud dragon god. The fact that Dohko compared him to the tiger was especially used to irritate Seiryu.

"Consider then that, in nature, living creatures are not given even those breadcrumbs in how to survive." Seiryu argued, predictably returning to his stance on natural selection.

Dohko grumbled. The Dragon God constantly wanted everyone to be thankful for the bare minimum he did to help. It must be easy to talk about survival of the fittest when you were already the ultimate living creature. If Seiryu wasn't the personification of the Dragon Bronze Cloth…

It was a flaw that the deity shared with Daemon Lucifer, really, as the Specter went on and on about what the strong deserved, but acknowledged no merit in the Saints for having beaten him last War. Maybe the resemblance of his Daemon Surplice to a western dragon in its rest form not only was a reference to the devil slain by God's archangel in Christian myths, but perhaps a double meaning in how the Celestial Star of Pride also represented what Dohko considered to be Seiryu's most distinctive flaw.

Truly pride was a mortal sin, if it led mankind to be as blind, callous and cruel to others as this. The grudge the Pride Star had for Sanctuary was obviously carried across the centuries for even longer than the three of them had lived. Dohko suddenly wondered what it was like to be in the silver-haired man's head, taking with himself memories from at least five centuries of dealing with humanity and Hades and a quest for vengeance/glory. Their encounter the previous night had also suggested that Lucifer carried a powerful desire to avenge Dark Angel Michael's death.

And now, even though two centuries had past, Daemon Lucifer took gleeful pleasure in reminding Dohko of the cruelty he was capable of and rubbing in his face Tenma's death, perhaps even seeking to repeat it by killing Lance. By Athena, what was this cruelty? And what would happen to Sanctuary if it was taken under the rule of someone like him?

What was it like to just live with that blind rage for so long? Was it the same kind of rage that Dohko saved Bennu Kagaho from, whose spirit was deeply wounded by the tragedy of his brother, Suo? Could Daemon Lucifer be therefore compared to Roshi's spiritual teacher, Seiryu, who according to Haisaku's bed stories legendarily succumbed to his own imperial wrath?

"More importantly, the mystery of the seal of the Specters being untouched compared to the forces Daemon amassed still confuses me." Dohko mused. "I get the feeling that if Sanctuary gets through this, we will have a lot of questions to ask our foes."

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

Greece,

House of Virgo

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

Walking out of the Virgo Temple towards the stairs to Libra, Daemon Lucifer, the Celestial Star of Pride, was greeted by a hurrahing applause by the False Skeletons under Dullahan Hedron. They raised their spears, swords, and scythes in triumph and shouted out his name, exclaiming that not even the Virgo Saint, the terror of the Specters, was able to stop their figurehead.

He looked up and smirked proudly, seeing the flame of Virgo completely gone off the Fire Clock. All that was left was a fuming sizzle that struck dread to all those who could see the tower's blue lights, especially Shion.

And Pride Star had, indeed, a reason to be proud of this; not only was the battle with Shaka fulfilling and challenging, but it was a definite sign that his victory in this war was within reach of his powerful hands.

He took up the bead he stole and raised it in the night sky, letting the moonlight go through its crystalline body, causing the two letters inside it to glow white.

絶対

The Specter didn't need to learn the language or call for a translator to know which Evil Star the letters indicated. He could feel in his hand the distinct identity of the Absolute Star resonating with the cosmos that Michael blessed his left arm with upon his death. He was staring at another piece of what was left of his best friend, perhaps even more intimate than the feather he entrusted Cerah with.

As for the rest of the Evil Star beads, they could stay put for now. Surely he'd think of what to do with them later.

Closing his fist tightly around his favored bead as he silently renewed his vow to fulfill his quest, Lucifer clicked the round, segmented red gem encrusted on the muscle side of his arm protection, causing it to sizzle, pop up, and then slide slightly off to the side, revealing a small compartment where he then stored the bead. It would keep it close to the arm that casted the Flaming Sword, which perhaps would bring good luck.

Some of the men carried Shaka out of the Temple in the meantime, presenting the small boy to the Specters. They tossed him at Lucifer's feet, but the blonde didn't even whimper, laying quiet and submissive.

The Dark Prince gently tipped his face with his greaved foot. "Are you still in your own world, Shaka?" he asked.

To which Shaka only responded with a vacant stare. Unlike Lemon, he wasn't drooling pathetically, but the boy was clearly stuck in a thousand-yard stare. In his mind, he was still sinking in Eternal Darkness, pulled down by the hands of those he tried to rise above, utterly ashamed of his failures towards Buddha.

More importantly, Shaka felt his body burning… just like the world would soon be as well.

Lucifer knew this look. He saw it in Sisyphus two centuries earlier. It took a Capricorn Gold Saint committing the ultimate sacrifice to pull that guy out of it, and Daemon doubted Shaka would require any less. "What a shame. Be glad that Hypnos' disgusting offspring are gone, though…"

"We should cut off his tongue!" Dullahan Hedron suggested.

"What for? He looks pretty dead silent as is." A False Skeleton pointed out.

"This is what YOU GET for humiliating us, BRAT!" a second Skeleton almost literally spat.

Lucifer's red eyes looked up at the Sagittarius Temple. They were now close enough that a vague winged figure was possible to discern standing at its doorway, the gold of his vengeful bow shining from afar. He smiled in delight, knowing the same was on the other end and Sagittarius could likely tell what they were doing.

Grabbing Shaka by the nape, he raised the boy up in the air as if to show him off to his men, but really he wanted Sagittarius to get a good look from where he stood and see that any more reckless arrowing could yield terrible consequences. Immediately he detected a faint stir in the far-off Gold Saint, indicating dread.

Time to put his finger in the wound. "This is what Sanctuary's champion has been reduced to; a catatonic mess." He voiced out to his men. "The rest are to follow."

The men hesitantly agreed, still feeling in their skin the mistake of underestimating Shaka. "Y-yeah!" one voiced.

"Do you still have any doubts of who deserves to triumph over Sanctuary?!" Lucifer asked.

Their fists rose "HELL NO!"

He pointed at the Fire Clock. "SIX FLAMES are gone! By sunrise, I will have the Pope's head under my foot! Is any of you afraid of anything these pathetic Gold Saints might still throw at you?!"

Many crossed weapons and cheered in agreement. "ABSOLUTELY NOT!"

"WE'LL CRUSH THEM!"

"LONG LIVE THE PRINCE!"

Lucifer laughed to himself. This should be the ultimate spit on the grave of conspiring weaklings like Lemon. He had to make sure later, though, that he didn't try anything foolish while still alive. Lucifer suspected that Cyclop's sudden departure from Aries might have not been a totally random event, for example…

Suddenly, men that had been ordered to stay on guard at the front of the Virgo Temple showed up. "Lord Lucifer!"

"What is it?"

They pointed back down where they came from. "The Leo Temple! Lord Golem's flames are dying out!"

Dullahan Hedron perked up. "Gemini and Cancer must be coming through! Lord Lucifer, what are your orders?"

The Prince paused, not having expected Cancer to get through so quickly. Dispelling Golem's Cataclysm Clay was nothing to laugh at for a Cancer that has been active, at most, for a year. He wondered if perhaps the adversary was, unlike the common Cancer, morally motivated to stop him.

How interesting; this opened up a few strategic possibilities. He considered personally going back down or staying at Virgo to confront him, but on the other hand, Lucifer had the alternative to go right ahead to Libra, causing the Gold Saints to panic further by making the Libra flame die out, trash Dohko's temple for good measure and then stage a fight more to his liking from there. Perhaps he could get within reach of dealing with Sagittarius at the same time.

Choices, choices…

He turned to Dullahan. "Hedron, take these men and barricade the Hall of Innocence. You will stop the Cancer Saint here and now while I head for Libra."

The False Specter was obedient, "Absolutely, Prince! Death Messenger will make his head roll off his shoulders!" but also a bit concerned. "Um… but if you don't mind me asking… what about the brat?"

Lucifer spared Shaka one last pitiable look before tossing him like a rag at Dullahan's hands, who clumsily caught the mute. "Take him to the roof. And give the Saints a good light show."

The False Specter smiled maliciously, understanding the plan instantly.

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

House of Leo

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

The last big flames of green finally rescinded, creating a path through the middle to the other side for Shinta and the foot soldiers. "Okay, GO, GO!" Lance urged, feeling the clock ticking.

Andromeda and the Papal Guards wasted not even a microsecond and hurried out the Leo Temple's rear gate. "The Clock!" Shinta gasped, seeing the Virgo spot extinguished completely. "Oh no, we're too late!"

The Cancer Gold Saint groaned frustratedly and cleared off the rest of the fires before joining them outside to see it for himself. He shouted angrily and kicked a limp Skeleton body with an arrow through its skull. "DAMN IT!"

To make things worse, the Libra flame already roused with a loud sheer, indicating that Daemon Lucifer was quickly on his way up there as well.

An atmosphere of concern and depression took over the small group, which exchanged glances or turned to the Gold Saint in wonder of how to proceed. Already they could see black figures up the stairs laboring to barricade the sixth Temple and resist their attempt to take it back with everything they had. The two Saints of Athena felt like they could lift a big rock off the mountainside and toss it at them, frustrated as they were.

Some of the Papal Guards hugged the side end of the stairs and peeked up. Agapethos, their leader, peered through his binoculars. "The gate is broken, but they're closing it back up with debris and planting shooters on the stairs and roof."

Lance paced up the stairs furiously, practically stomping his way up, his feet warming up in preparation for a lightspeed blitz!

But Shinta grabbed his shoulder and pulled him aside. "Wait, Saint Cancer, don't!" he urged, trying not to call Lance by his name in front of the guards. "We don't know where they're keeping Shaka!"

"We don't know if they're getting ready to kill him either, SHINTA!" Lance roared.

"Perhaps if you had mastered the Underworld Wave better by now…"

"SHUT UP! I don't need this from you, right now!" Lance answered Karkinos.

"Then when, Gold Saint? Am I to remind you of your duty in peacetime, when you have less reason to respect what I stand for? How many must die before you surrender your stupid qualms? You neglected your Path of the Cloth, Lance… now Shaka has paid the ultimate price because you couldn't be the best Gold Saint possible to be there for him. You failed. Have shame!"

The Gold Saint rubbed his red eyes, feeling the weight of Shaka's life press down on his conscience. Furious as it made him, Karkinos was right. A superior command of the Underworld Wave would have gotten all of them faster through the hellish fires blocking the Leo Temple. They could have rushed up the stairs, joined the battle, saved Shaka, and stopped Daemon Lucifer.

Instead, they had nothing!

"Lance…I know it hurts, but right now we can't hesitate to help the Gold Saints as much as we still can." Shinta mentally appealed, seeing him down. "Come on! We have to do something!"

Forcing himself to blindly nod, the Gold Saint stood up straight and tried to abstract himself from his guilt. A deep warmth formed in his stomach which wanted to crawl up his throat and be let out in a furious shout, cursing the Specters, but he instead held it back, thinking about what to do. Even if Karkinos and him didn't get along, he was still the Cancer Gold Saint and he would make these bastards regret the second they stepped into Greece.

But they needed a way to catch the Skeletons off guard, perhaps even trick them into showing what they had done to Shaka. "Lord Cancer?" Agapethos called. They had to tell the men something before they felt demoralized by the Gold Saint's visible stress.

The youth stared at them. He saw the golden-ornate armor they were compared to regular foot soldiers, as well as the short sword, halberd, and large, round Hoplon shield meant for phalanx walling that was kept strapped to their arm to free up their left hand. The night was also at its darkest…

His look sterned as his cogs turned. "Give me a spare of those! NOW! This has gone far enough! These Specters have attacked our homes, killed our people, cut their way up these Temples, and threatened our teachers and children with no provocation! Whoever's up at Virgo taking its Gold Saint hostage, I will save him and have no mercy for the rest! It's time to put a stop to this fucking invasion once and for ALL!"

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

Stairs in front of the Gemini Temple

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

The Behemoth False Specter bellowed furiously, like a charging rhino, as he charged up the stairs of the Zodiac, pursuing Taurus Aldebaran and Gemini Saga and leaving behind a very much wrecked Hall of Daedalus. How dare they flee the battlefield from him?! Fine! With Lord Lucifer making such speedy progress through the Temples and the blunt of Sanctuary's Gold Saints defending the upper houses, there was little reason anymore for him to stay behind at the Second Temple.

Reaching the floor of the Third Temple, he slowed down, vigilant. There was a strong likelihood that Gemini Saga intended to bait him inside the famous Gemini Labyrinth and he would not be as foolish as the lesser False Specters and get so easily caught in it.

His blue eyes widened, spotting the last person he expected to see groveling at the foot of the Gemini doorstep. "Ainsel?!"

The Papillion False Specter sitting at the doorstep catching his breath was a mess; not only was his Surplice heavily cracked and singed, looking like it got punched around and burned up a bunch by the Cancer Saint in all likelihood, but his blue-haired face sweated profusely. His wings, usually flapping about, laid down like a wet cape in utter exhaustion.

His creepy eyes looked up. "T-Torak… so good to see you," his words dripped with sarcasm.

The behemoth sterned his brows. "What the hell happened to you?! You were supposed to be at the 4th house fighting Cancer!"

The winged-bug man winced. The Behemoth had zero inner voice. "Well… that battle didn't go as expected…I was on my way to turn C-Cancer into a bug hive, but then those other blasted Saints showed up…"

There was a folding of arms and scoff. "So you were ambushed by that Gemini, too?"

"It wasn't just him," Ainsel added. "Andromeda s-showed up, as well! I suppose you are here because you thoroughly defeated Taurus and Gemini, then?"

Torak quieted down, cringing his nose in spite.

This reaction was enough for the Papillion. "Hm! I f-figured as much! I felt their cosmos pop up at Cancer a few moments ago…"

"And you stayed here hiding, right?! I suppose you'll join me up the stairs to battle, or did they hurt your fragile butterfly wings too much?" Torak confronted. "All that talk of playing smart… and you're only good for keeping a jamming network up!"

Ainsel eyed the wounded Behemoth venomously, causing the night to get somehow darker. "You'd do well to mind your hubris, Torak… One of the elites has fallen already." He revealed, stunning the muscular warrior once more. "The Prince has announced Lemon's death. Neferti nearly had her heart ripped out as well if the screaming I heard through our network was accurate… Keep underestimating these Gold Saints, and you could be next…"

The taller False Specter took this to heart; while he felt Lemon to be inferior in mind and body to himself, the Elites were still powerful for False Specters. However, Lemon was also clearly two-faced and unfocused. It didn't surprise him that if the Elites suffered losses, the Alraune would be the first.

"You wasted a lot of time down there, Torak," Ainsel added, standing up from the step to confront him. "I doubt the Prince is too happy about that… or that you let Taurus run away in the end. Perhaps I can sweeten up to him what took you so long, but only if you don't make the mistake of getting on my bad side now!"

The huge False Specter felt the vulnerability he saw in the insectoid vanish all of a sudden and was reminded of why Ainsel was considered so dangerous, despite his fruity looks. "…Hm… Very well."

Ainsel's lips curved upwards, erasing the tension between them. "Good! Now, if you excuse me, I have a job to do…" he announced, walking past the Behemoth and focusing his thoughts to the air.

"So you're just going to stay here and grow more bugs?!"

Ainsel spared him a look over the shoulder. "Torak, the Underworld Moths vastly extend our combat freedom… They are what lets you do your favorite thing and beat these Gold Saints into a blood cake without the veterans showing up. And do I look like I'm in any condition to fight these frightening Gold Ranks? Look at what they did to me!" he asked, flapping his ragged wings once to show off the damage. "No, I'm afraid my continued survival in this battle is far more important than yours. I'm the one preventing the enemy from realizing they've been divided, after all… or would you rather Akassius return for a personal rematch with you, uh?"

The Behemoth gritted his teeth, reminded of the fight that took place outside Crow's Nest. Even with Lycaon and Erika's help, Torak couldn't lay a finger on that guy. He was probably as strong as the Dark Prince.

Ainsel laughed. "Don't give me that look, friend. I'll guard these lower Temples for you from here, and you can go happily up the Houses to kill Taurus and Gemini. Isn't that what you want?"

"No, I want strength in us! And you are showing nothing but the opposite, you fairy!" Torak kept to himself. "Why should you stay here? Who do you even expect to come reinforce the Gold Saints anymore?"

"Well, the Aries Gold Saint is still out there somewhere, right? He could pop in at any moment!" The antennae in his helmet then flickered playfully, alerting Ainsel. "Oh! Would you look at that! I see someone entering the town! My babies are still hatching, but this foolish cosmos is letting itself be quite detectable anyway…"

Torak widened his eyes, truly surprised, "What?! Who could it possibly be?!"

Ainsel concentrated for half a minute, feeling out the energy signal leaving the Green Valley path. Without his golden moths flying around the town, undoubtedly purged by that blasted fire-wielding Cancer Saint, he had to focus a lot of energy into determining who this new arrival was. All the people asleep in the city were fogging the area with their collection of minuscule cosmoses, but eventually, he felt a distinct signature that identified more or less the source.

He smiled, recognizing the signature. "Well, well…"

Torak hated when the fairy got this look on his face. It usually meant he was about to do something gross to his victims. "What are you smirking about?!"

Ainsel chuckled. "Well, I thought we should be worried, but I suppose not. It's a Silver Saint, perhaps someone who escaped Bat's sonar somehow."

"We should still crush him!" Torak counseled. "We've had enough rats undermining us in this battle."

Ainsel thought back to that bratty kid who passed the Gold Cloth to Cancer. "Agreed… I'll observe him, and wait for a chance to terminate him. Leave this to me, Torak… And don't worry about the Temple's Labyrinth. The Prince did quite a number on it when he passed through. Go before Taurus escapes you again." He provoked, triggering a growl from his comrade before Behemoth charged into the Temple. Ainsel then focused back on his future victim. "Oh, you poor Silver Saint… isn't it a shame? You escaped me at Jamir, only to fall right into my silk trap again!"

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

Sanctuary Town

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

Crossing over the last reach out of the Green Valley pass at supersonic speed, the Ophiuchus Silver Saint landed on and practically slid down the downward slope road off the land entrance into Sanctuary's valley, triumphantly reaching Sanctuary Town.

His brown eyes looked up, beholding the silent capital; the night was very dark, with only the electric lighting letting him tell anything apart, and the cold late autumn breezes shivered him. Walking cautiously into the streets in the shadows of the alleys, the medic was fully alert for threat and ally alike. He was still looking out for Skeletons and Specters, but this concern was increasingly rivaled by whoever was responsible for the more than small number of armored corpses he's been encountering done in the same suspicious way as the ones back in the Rodario village roofs.

Normally he wouldn't be concerned with someone wiping out these murderers, but whoever it was, it was making no effort to get in contact with him or the other Saints who awoke. Sanctuary had a lot of psychos who let the Cosmos get to their heads, and he didn't discount the possibility one of them was taking advantage of the situation to enact their crueler instincts with no supervision.

Passing the Third Acropolis, which marked East and housed military barracks in express purpose to guard the Green Valley pass, Iaso discretely jumped up to one of the surrounding house roofs through the covering of a wide chimney and peeked out to the town.

"Everyone seems to be asleep here, too." Iaso noticed. "It's probably for the better. I'm just happy this town isn't a crater. Awfully considerate for Specters, aren't they?"

"Maybe you should take a look at the 'time', then."

Guided by his armor, immediately he spotted the six surviving blue flames on the Fire Clock and his heart grew heavy. "What?! You're kidding, right?!... They're that far up?!" While the stereotype was that the fires marked time, Iaso was educated enough to know that was the exception and that these were likely tracking the enemy's progress. The lives of everyone in Sanctuary at risk made his body tense worryingly. "What the hell are those Gold Saints doing?!"

"You can stand there gawking or you can save lives, Iaso."

Agreeing with the armor and deciding immediately he was better off helping than bitching, the doctor rushed through the roofs as silently as he could, taking the side facing away from the Golden Zodiac to avoid getting spotted by any straggling enemies. Iaso was more predator than man, zipping in Ss across the way like a cobra gliding through leaves towards a distracted little mouse. However, cautious as he was, he noticed pretty quickly that the area was abnormally peaceful, lacking the tension his acute danger sense would trigger in him.

He searched a little more openly, and pretty soon he found it. At one of the roofs to the eastern side of town, a decapitated body sat in perfect, vigilant position against a chimney. There was no blood splatter, though. Taking a wild guess, he looked down at the street road and Iaso snorted when he saw a single skull-helmeted head splattered on the pavement.

He didn't have to guess it was the same killer. Hell, the scythe was left behind on the body as if the Skeleton was caught completely off guard. He felt very little if any cosmos on the wound. "Seems like the work of an actual weapon, rather than a cosmically-bladed hand or a beam slash. A swordsman?"

So someone with a sword was going around killing Skeletons.

….

His nose twisted in indifference!

"Screw this! Good riddance! I'm a doctor, not an detective! We have plenty of time to figure out this nonsense after this invasion is stopped!" Iaso groaned to himself, rushing out towards the Golden Zodiac. Sometimes even he got tired of his own conspiratorial mindset. "I have to get to the Gold Saints and help before more of our guys die!"

He rushed along the roofs, still taking silent leaps and steps, relieved that his allies had cleaned up the town before taking the fighting up to the Golden Zodiac. His eyes widened and his feet screeched on the roof, breaking off more than a few tiles. His brown head darted left and right, sweating and alarmed, and the Silver Saint peeked down the streets!

"What's the matter with you now?"

Iaso dropped down to ground level and he searched angrily for his stalker! The doctor wasn't combat-specialized, but he was proud of the serpentine silence he was capable of while speeding around at Mach 5. There's a reason why he was able to sneak up on those Specters at the Jamir Tower and take them out on his own.

"I heard that! I…" he blurted out to his armor, swearing he felt steps speeding just behind him, before covering his stupid mouth and rolling to the side, off the roof, and down to the ground level, landing like a cat on the cement floor. "Someone's following me! Someone was speeding right behind me!"

"…I felt no one and I doubt your shadow makes noises. Being without tobacco is causing you to be overanxious. You need to clean off your addiction before you embarrass yourself any further.."

The Silver Saint sweated profusely and ignored Ophiuchus' criticisms. "I KNOW WHAT I HEARD! If it's a friend out there, why are they following me instead of letting themselves known?!"

Was it the killer? If it was a Gold-ranker, he was done for! Sneaking through the dark alleys, he disguised his presence as much as possible and his senses searched wildly for any threat. But if it was there, would he even get a second warning? Or would his head get cut off at lightspeed too, before he even had time to raise his hands in plea? As he moved through the shrouds, every step he took suddenly felt like a coin toss… He reached the end of the alley, still alive. He patted himself, feeling solid. He breathed out, feeling stupid. What a nightmare it was, having to worry about some lightspeed enemy…

"Are you done?... Then stop wasting time! Lives are in danger!"

Nodding repeatedly in relief, the doctor felt utterly embarrassed and headed out, preparing this time to go straight for the Aries Temple. He hated nothing more than giving Ophiuchus reasons to be right.

He turned the alley corner, he saw a door ajar on one of the houses. A figure leaned against it, looking at the night sky contemplatively, almost sighing in relief at something. They were definitely not asleep.

Approaching cautiously, he finally told apart the features under the street lights, which turned towards him with a smile of familiarity, and the Silver Saint gasped, shocked at the encounter. "H-hey, I know you!"

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

House of Virgo

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

Far below, amidst the Papal Guards, Lance glared out the gap of their raised shields, calculating what he assumed was the last of the Skeletons. He had put his crab-legged headpiece aside, kept the body armor, and equipped his left with a large, Hoplon shield engraved with a prancing Pegasus strapped twice around his left forearm, as well as a spear on his right and a short sword sheathed on his belt in order to blend in with the rest of the golden lined Papal hoplite armor. Shinta was at the back, his pink presence concealed more by the numbers around him than any attempt to disguise him, which was fine since Lance was sure the Specters' objective was finding out where the Gold Saint was, not the Bronze one.

His eyes also saw a sudden golden shine, far off in the ninth Temple. Aiolos was burning his cosmos very highly. He couldn't feel it through the jamming, but you can't miss a signal like that. His elbow poked Shinta to get his attention to it.

Before they made their move, Lance had to ask Agapethos one more time. "Are you sure about the roofs?"

"Yes, those Specters must have accessed them from the interior. Each Temple has stairs inside that the staff can use to attend the roof gardens, observatories and such. It's when you try to get to the roof from outside the Temple that you have problems."

Lance eyed the far-off entablature of the Virgo Temple once more. "So say if someone flies unto it…they might get struck by a thunderbolt or something?" he wondered to himself.

Agapethos took the left of the column and looked out. "We're getting close to their range, sir!"

Lance nodded, then felt like he should say something to prepare the men. This was his idea after all. The teenager only had to think a little about what to say, feeling just as genuinely enraged as the rest of them. "They think you're no danger because of what happened at Aries, but their boss is not there to protect them and you're in this for taking your homes back! Stay close to me and Saint Shinta, and you can take our cosmos to make these Specters PAY!"

The Papal guards huffed out simultaneously, agreeing! They began lowering their holstered spears as the enemy firing range line approached. They could feel the enemy searching them with their eyes frantically, trying to find the Cancer Cloth.

Lance tightened his grip on his spear, his blood-red eyes trying to find Shaka!

"Are you ready? Worry too much about that boy and let your scruples make you hesitate even one second, and you'll put all these men in danger."

"Just watch!" Lance responded to Karkinos, before delivering the spearhead of his speech. "You know the plan! We'll fight our way up with our shields and swords, cut a path through their front until I get close enough to detect Saint Virgo! Saint Andromeda will stay close to us for support! At some point, if Virgo is alive, those cowards will try to use him against us! But we will get him and the House of Virgo back! After that, we will pike these Specters before they can ask their fucking Underworld God to save them! RIGHT?!"

"YES, SIR!" the hoplites roared, practically stomping their way up the stairs.

"Lance… this is too dangerous!" Shinta urged, knowing what he intended to do. "If he really is on the roof then you're not gonna be able to simply jump up there! It's the Zodiac!"

Lance was aware of this. If getting on top of the roofs of the temples from outside was so simple, the Temples would be much in the way of actual obstacles on the way to the Pope. He had a pretty good idea of what happened to those that tried to scale the side of the Zodiac mount or Star Hill, but now he was going to find out what happened to those that tried to get over the temples.

Something terrible could happen. He could get transported into a different reality or struck by a lightning bolt. However, even if he would, he'd throw the spear in his hand at whatever fuck was holding Shaka if that could give the Saint a chance to flee.

But he nodded at his friend. "It's okay, Shinta, there's one thing I'm pretty sure can't be stopped by anything from flying yourself to the moon, and it's the Rozan Koryuha!"

"But you said that was SUICIDAL! That's the reason it's so strong and that Saint Dohko forbade you from using it like that!" Shinta urged, referring to a private conversation they had about this plan.

Lance gulped, knowing this very well. He only had one successful field-test of the move and that was when he broke through the Aries gate, and he was so out of his mind from thinking Shinta was dead that he wasn't even sure how he pulled it off correctly without landing on a satellite instead of the ground. Trying to storm through the temple interior to access the inner stairs would be giving those bastards too much time to react. Somehow, he had to ram his way against whatever blessings Athena placed against roof-hopping… even if the method was about as solid as strapping oneself to a missile.

"Fine, then you guys get me as close to the gateway as possible and I'll then rush in! If they don't detect me soon enough, I might blitz my way up the interior stairs fast enough to save Shaka!"

Agapethos saw the Skeletons amassing and aiming their weapons. "FIRE!" and the front hoplites dropped to their knees, letting the Peltasts in the back throw their primed javelins up the stairs at supersonic speeds, startling the Skeletons with an array of long, golden missiles showering their defenses and scattering them!

Toxic bolts came flying out of the roof in a counter wave. "I knew it, they're up there as well!" Lance then noticed their peltasts last few javelin tosses reducing in range. "It's just like Agapethos told me, the mountain's blessings are causing upward attacks to progressively lose strength! Then I'll really only get one shot!"

Agapethos nodded. "PHALANX, RAISE!" he ordered, and the men collectively rose off the crouch, raising a wall of spiked shields at the enemy. "NOW MARCH!"

"HUH!" the guards shouted, as bolts ricocheted off the cosmically reinforced metal surface of the shield wall.

The Dullahan False Specter charged a huge ball of purple light in his hand. "Think your antiquity tactic will work?! I'll blast you amassed Saints to pieces!" and he fired it off, bombarding the tight formation.

The impact was strong, coming from a warrior close to the rank of a Celestial Star, and Lance gasped, having to burn more cosmos into taking the pain of Dullahan's attack for the rest of the men, and the formation reeled, almost falling.

He saw the men faltering and more beams from the Skeletons joining their leader in striking the soldier shields. "D-Damn it! The next one might…" but he dispelled those thoughts and focused on getting the men off the stairs onto the Virgo Temple's outlying ground floor. "ALRIGHT! On my mark!"

The hoplites nodded and huffed, ready for anything. One on the far right was suddenly hit in the leg by a crossbow and fell screaming down the stairs, but they continued!

Shinta gasped and reached for him, but Lance gave him a 'stay still' look. "Not yet, Shinta, don't break formation!" he urged, getting his friend to refocus as the scythemen roared and carefully pressed down the stairs, angling their large weapons to begin hacking the spears apart from a safe spot.

"SPEARS!" Agapethos called.

The baritone huff countered the roar and the simultaneous thrust of supersonic spears cut the air up through an unexpected reach, piercing through throats, chests, legs, and arms, including one laced with Gold Saint cosmos that strengthened and layers all the others! The phalanx pushed up another stair step, its shield wall tanking through arrows! The injured Skeletons screamed as the spears were pulled back off of them, letting out juts of blood and causing them to fall to the ground. The Phalanx stomped upon them with speed and precision.

The crossbowmen screamed from the roof, watching their center fall to pieces with the mere advance of these hoplites. "What the hell?! These are nothing like regular hoplites!"

The caped lieutenant laughed. "We are the guards of the Pope, not the 3rd Acropolis' chaff! Now you will pay for Aries! SPEARS!" The confidence these men felt in their trained discipline, not even counting having Gold and Bronze Saints in their ranks, made them feel more like killing machines than soldiers.

Panic began to set in the remainder of the lower ground Skeletons, who gave up on searching for weaknesses in their formation and instead swiped their swords and scythes left and right defensively! Sticking closer to the phalanx as they pushed up to avoid getting shot, Shinta felt the awful sensation of his pink-booted feet going over dead Skeletons, but the pacifist tried to steel himself, knowing Shaka's life was at stake. Shinta winced on the ground, feeling tears in his eyes. A mysterious, cruel voice laughed in his head, making the world feel like it was burning with hate…

But he steeled his sight on the entablature. "We're almost there! Get ready, Lance!"

Fiery cosmos around the Cancer were already flowing. "Yes!"

Seeing this, Dullahan lost his patience! "Alright, that's enough!" and he pushed Shaka to the edge of the entablature, where two Skeletons held their scythes over him. "SURRENDER YOUR WEAPONS NOW OR THIS BOY'S HEAD WILL ROLL DOWN TO YOUR FEET!"

Shinta gasped. "Shaka!" and his face twisted in rage. "LEAVE HIM ALONE!"

"THEN SHOW YOURSELF, CANCER!" Dullahan demanded, already burning his cosmos to prepare the deadly move, Death Messenger.

Lance burned his cosmos high. "YOU WANT ME?! HERE I AM!" He then slid off the formation to the side, startling the enemy and speeding up the stairs in a beaming blitz.

"THERE HE IS! THE CANCER GOLD SAINT!"

"STOP HIM! FOCUS FIRE ON THE GOLD!" the lower enemies screamed, aiming their weapons as fast as their powers allowed, strengthening each other with shared cosmos and tossing the large broken statues down the stairs.

Stomping the ground, Lance's whole body was immersed in the cosmos and he raised his spear before his entire body thrust forward. "CHARGE FIST!" and he became a pointy arrow of burning golden light that blasted against the middle of the rolling statues, loudly shattering them to pieces. However, as expected of doing this in the stairs, the reach of his lightspeed was cut down immensely and he was barely able to cross but a dozen steps with this thrust.

This gave the skeletons the chance to aim. "SHOOT HIM DOWN!" They fired a constant stream of poisonous bolts.

Lance raised his large round shield to protect himself and felt the missiles impacting viciously on his protection, reinforced almost to the point of indestructibility by his cosmos.

However, if he was to move, he needed better coverage, so Shinta made his move. "GREAT CAPTURE: SPIDER NET!" he called out, switching his chains from striking the lower skeletons to giving themselves air defense from the roof bolts. The defensive and offensive chains formed a grid net that blocked off the hailing. "OKAY, GO!"

Agapethos pushed his men onward. With a collective roar of outrage, the hoplites then smashed their round shields against the swords and reapers, pushing them back, and Lance practically jumped at the center point of the enemy with his spear to punch it across an unprotected neck! He landed, taking the first step onto the Virgo out-ground floor.

"TAKE THE TEMPLE BACK! MINERVA VICTRIX!" Agapethos roared, thrusting his spear at a Skeleton's stomach. The Papal Guards' spears and swords were powered by the deaths of their friends at Aries and the repeated humiliations the Gold Saints suffered up the stairs at the hands of these murderers, hacking and cutting through Damascus plating.

The men at the roof helped Dullahan off the ground. "S-Sir!"

"W-WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! STOP THEM!" Dullahan Hedron screamed, feeling his wrist burned by the sparks of Thunder Wave while watching his men still struggling to get over the arrows of light stuck in their weapon grips.

But the Skeletons ignored him, struggling to fight for their lives in the lower ground against the assault of a maddened group of Papal Guards.

Lance himself spun with his shield and spear between the scythemen, bursting their chests open and smashing others into the ground with Hoplon bashes. A lashing of Shinta's defensive chain protected him from a hail of roof bolts and pretty soon came within throwing distance of the temple's entablature!

Rushing ahead, the Gold Saint had nothing in his mind but to rescue the child. This was it! His boots were flaming in bright flames as he rushed to reach the gateway. "If I can just get inside the Temple..!"

But Dullahan Hedron was prepared for this! "BLOW IT UP!" he ordered loud and clear, for everyone to hear, and his cosmos burned discreetly, triggering his stratagem.

THROOM!

The two Saints and the Papal Guards staggered along with the skeletons they battled, startled by the thunderous sound of what appeared to be a series of controlled explosions. Unwilling to believe their eyes, but still backing away in alarm, they all saw the entablature of the Virgo Temple, namely the thick triangular section made of stardust-reinforced marble that was held up by the two big statues of Astraea and Buddha siding the gateway, break off the roof where Dullahan and Shaka stood and disastrously come falling down, collapsing over the gateway.

The ground shook and Lance fell, swallowed by the clouds of white dust. A cacophony of incredulous gasps was heard as their passage to the temple's innards was blocked off by tons of marble with veins of silver shining under the moonlight, indicating the Cosmos-absorbing minerals from the stars.

Lance coughed and looked up, beholding his path blocked. "S-Shit!" NO!"

"W-what?! The front of the roof!" Shinta mumbled.

Agapethos bashed off a Skeleton with his hoplon shield and stared at the rubble. "These temples are built to survive Gold Saint battles…! It can't be!"

From what remained of the roof, now seemingly far off the reach of the Saints, Dullahan studied their reactions and laughed, his cosmos still burning. "Ah, ah, ah! They bought it! They think my illusion is real! This is the power of the Dullahan Specter!" and then he gloated out loud. "DID YOU THINK IT WOULD BE THAT EASY, SAINTS?! NOW PREPARE TO GET TURNED TO PIN CUSHIONS! RESUME FIRE!"

The Saints and Papal Guards, now trapped in a killing zone, their phalanx broken, covered themselves when even more furious hails of crossbow bolts and energy blasts were fired off by Dullahan's roof men.

Lance in particular was completely exposed and had to raise a large Barrier shield to protect himself. "Fuck, how did those small fries detonate that?! These Temples can take nuclear bombs! Now what?! Do I really have to use Koryuha?! But… angling it upwards will…" he thought, caught on the ground and under fire. This wasn't going to be like back at Aries, where he fired the move at near ground angle, only accounting for the stairs. Now to reach Shaka with the Enraged Dragon Blow, he needed at least a sixty degrees upward angle if it was even going to work! With the entablature gone, though, he could see Shaka lying up there even more clearly.

Shinta pulled a scytheman off a hoplite with his chain and defeated him with a kick before he saw his friend in the heat of the killing zone, his transparent barrier peppered with arrows. "Oh NO! LANCE!" He screamed, rushing up to his friend. "ROLLING DEFENSE!!"

The pillar of rotating chains came over the two of them, restricting their mobility but giving Lance the protection he needed to get back on his feet despite the ruthless and constant hail of attacks. The ground around them was increasingly cratered, bombarded by Skeleton and Specter cosmos blasts.

The Papal guards finished off the rest of the ground enemies and surrounded the two Saints, raising their shields, giving them the chance they needed to get their bearings.

"T-thanks!" Lance mentioned as he saw Agapethos and his men being pushed back by the pressure of the attacks. "How are we going to get to Shaka, though?! How the hell did they even do that?!"

Shinta shook his head. "I don't know…"

Holding his defensive chain in Rolling Defense, Shinta took his offensive one, wondering if there was anything he could do with it. At this point, though, he found the object reacting the way it did when a hostile cosmos was being used near him, like a technique or superfast movement. While the energy blasts were firing all around him, Shinta noticed the triangle end was pointing at the collapsed rubble of the entablature.

He was bewildered. The triangle chain had never pointed at inanimate objects. Nevertheless the group bunkered down, petered by cosmos blasts and crossbow bolts, with plan A to save Shaka torn to pieces.

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

House of Libra

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

The rain of arrows fired by Sagittarius Aiolos arched down on the 7th House, aiming at the Specter on it, but Daemon Lucifer's body became as if a nexus of crackling thunder charging in his hands before retaliating with a counter wave of thunder spears which struck the arrows and bombarded the two Houses ahead of him. A spectacle of blue explosions petered the next two levels of the Golden Zodiac, suppressing the 9th House in particular.

Lucifer laughed. "Mm, mm, mm. Trying to give your friends down there a hand, Sagittarius? I won't let it be so easy."

With another lightning spear in his hand ready to continue punitive fire at the Sagittarius Temple, Lucifer waited patiently for the ninth Gold Saint's next move, but it seems the anti-arrow firing and the bombardment he subjected him to has finally caused the Gold Saint some hesitation. He clicked his tongue; as much joy as the Specter took in shooting back at the archer, the Gold Saint was finally learning his lesson that it was pointless to keep trying to interfere and was now keeping low, but it was clear he took the hint that he won't interfere with the House of Virgo. Lucifer turned his attention to the Virgo Temple for half a minute.

He saw a mass of Saints and soldiers in front of the temple, pinned down by arrows and seemingly unwilling to just walk inside. Anyone without the context of the plan given to Dullahan by Daemon would wonder what the hell was going on with those Saints.

Lucifer cackled. "I knew it was the right choice to use Dullahan. His illusions are top notch. I'm wondering what kind of images he's using exactly, that he's fooling them into thinking they can't get inside the Temple? Whatever the case, his Cosmos is burning very high to maintain it," he thought.

It seems as if Lucifer didn't even have to give a False Specter a hand after all for them to get their mission done, which was a nice change of pace.

Lucifer still managed to briefly feel the warmth of the cosmos that tried to get to Shaka and felt it oddly familiar. For a second he even thought it was Dohko's student, but that couldn't be right. That guy was a small fry. Perhaps the Cancer Gold Saint was the culprit and Lucifer had been somehow face-to-face to him in the past, but he wasn't sure when that could have been. In any case, it seemed the situation was under control and they had the upper hand. Just like he predicted, the Zodiac's defenses were still up and they worked against their owners' favor.

It was a good way to capitalize on the resistance the Virgo Cloth was putting to being taken out of its Temple without Shaka. Now Lucifer had Virgo AND Cancer in the bag… Gemini and Taurus would surely be next.

"We have them on the ropes, prince!" Hedron communicated. "They can't do anything but stand down there while Cancer takes an arrow pummeling!"

The Prince smirked. "Good, be ready to use Death Messenger, though. If Cancer is there, I doubt poison bolts will be enough to defeat them," he ordered, before lamenting to himself. "Honestly, Shion,… you've picked an all-around lousy generation."

"Should we go down there and crush them for good?" Golem Treble suggested.

Lucifer seriously considered it. He initially planned to just give Dullahan some support fire from his advanced position, but he needed to keep a strong force up to push through the last half of the Zodiac.

"Mmm… I have a better idea. Let's have some fun with Shion's friends! Mandrake!" he called, to which the False Specter Nevil came forth. Lucifer promptly took the mask plate that adorned the warrior's chest plate like a radio speaker, leaving in its place a metal face with an open mouth that would scream out like a megaphone. "I want everyone in this mountain to hear this, but no more than necessary! Bat's Sonar is gone and I don't want anyone in that town below waking up and getting in our way before we're done."

The False Specter nodded obediently and jumped unto the Libra Temple's cupula.

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

House of Virgo

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

With bolts and cosmic beams hitting the shield wall around them, Shinta tried his best to understand what his chain was trying to tell him while at the same time coming up with another way to get to Shaka. "Lance, what do we do now? We have to act soon or they'll kill Shaka!"

"I have a plan B… but I'm going to need help!"

The Andromeda was ready for anything. "Yes, anything!"

Lance gulped. "I'm going to use the Koryuha, but…I need you to take one of your chains and tighten it around my waist."

The green-haired teenager took his defensive chain and offered to tie it around his friend. "I'm not sure what you're planning… but I'll help you anyway. Whatever you do, though, don't become exposed to that Specter's techniques."

As if on cue, Dullahan Hedron addressed them, seeing their shield wall being slowly turned into a round metal pin cushion. "Well, are we going to give up, Saints?! Or must the stairs of the Virgo Temple be baptized by its owner's blood?!"

"COWARDS! LET HIM GO!" Shinta shouted. Not only did he feel personal sympathy for the Gold Saint, but seeing him up there with weapons around him just reminded Shinta of Albiore and Elda being threatened by Bat and Deep back at Andromeda Island. "What kind of warriors hurt children?! Even if you're Specters, this is absolutely wrong! Lord Virgo did nothing to you!"

"NOTHING?!" Dullahan Hedron lashed out, revolted. He stomped Shaka's foot painfully, squeezing it to make the child wince. "You Saints have NO IDEA… the horrors that this little punk made us go through in this House! Threatening to lay our souls bare, to return us to Hades, to relive our shitty lives that made us become Specters in the first place… As far as I'm concerned, it's only by Lord Lucifer's orders that he's still alive!"

"Your boss is nothing but another warmongering asshole!" Lance accused. "And after we take this temple back, he's NEXT!"

There was a collective chuckle from the Skeletons and Dullahan, which seemed to hold a hint of repressed affront at their Prince being insulted by Cancer. "..Is that what you think, Cancer?"

"THAT'S RIGHT!" Lance reaffirmed. "I'm saving Shaka, killing you, and then kicking him the fuck out of my Master's House! Then all of you Specters can go explain to Hades why your blasted attack was stopped by a bunch of children and teenagers!"

Dullahan nodded, his shoulders shaking in contained fury. "Very well… then maybe you'd like to hear from the Prince himself about that?!" he asked, surprising them. He then mentally addressed Daemon. "My lord, I'm good to relay their talking to you."

"Very good," Lucifer responded from the Libra Temple.

The Saints detected a strange shift of mood in the Specters and a pause in the shooting. "They stopped firing?" Agapethos asked.

"Stay alert!" Lance ordered, fearing another thunder javelin. His red eyes looked up at Libra. "This isn't over yet!"

And sure enough, a loud, boomed voice coming from what seemed like a megaphone was heard. "Welcome back, Saints of Athena! And especially you, Cancer! You're just in time to witness my triumph!" it sounded out through the mountain, baritone but young. "I was disappointed to see you off your House… and even more so that so many of my men failed to stop you on your way back up. But now your counterattack is over!"

Shinta recognized the voice from when Daemon passed by him and Saga at the Leo Temple. "It's him!"

Lance did as well from his battle with him at Rozan. "That bastard!"

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

Pope's Halls

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

"I see a lot of you have made it under Cancer's guiding hand to Shaka's house. Congratulations on holding the weight of Arles' failures on your shoulders this long. Perhaps if this bravery had been displayed at Aries, more lives would have ended honorably." The boomed voice continued, coming from a Mandrake Specter figure standing on top of the Libra Temple cupula. "But before the might of Daemon Lucifer's forces, the bravery of Gold Saints is for naught!"

The captain of the Papal Guard, Maximus, took in what was going on. "Is this the enemy leader? They're speaking from the Libra Temple… why are they letting their voice be known like this, your Holiness?"

But the Pope stood frozen, his mind assaulted by the sound coming from the 7th House. He had heard it before, long ago, in hostile and proud tones calling out the name of Eternal Darkness.

Shion's heart beat faster. "There's no doubt about it. That's Daemon Lucifer, the Celestial Star of Pride!... But it cannot be!" he denied. The former Gold Saint of Aries lost consciousness before the ending of the final battle between Libra Dohko and Daemon Lucifer at the Lost Canvas War. But he believed Dohko's words without hesitation when the Libra said he blasted the Daemon deep into the Underworld's ground until the murderous bastard reached Tartarus itself.

Did Dohko make a mistake?... Or… did he lie to him?! To Athena?! Why would Dohko lie about something as important as-

Shion shook his head, dispelling these evil paranoid thoughts! His growing fears about the future and the incredible pressure of his tasks had made him make many regrettable choices over his tenure and even estranged Yuzuriha from him, but he would never let himself doubt Dohko, of all people!

Yet, the supposedly destroyed Daemon was back and Shion got direct evidence that it was him, and not some impersonator or replacement.

"Your Holiness, are you hearing this?!"

"Yes, Aiolos…" Shion answered the Sagittarius.

"If Lance is back then that explains all the tremors coming up the stairs…" Aphrodite commented, remembering well the way he fought Elisa.

"It also means the advantage is back on our side! The enemy is surrounded!" Shura voiced, sharp in tone. "We should press it and pincer the enemy at Libra!"

"Do NOT leave your Houses! That's exactly what he wants!" Shion ordered. If it really was Daemon Lucifer, then he likely planned to weaken the Zodiac's blessings by baiting Gold Saints off their temples and then unleash his Surplice's released form. This would spell the end of the fighting…

"Don't worry, your Holiness. We will follow your plan." Aiolos assured. "However… something must be done about Shaka. I tried to give Lance an opening just now after I saw him signaling me back, but the Daemon Specter is blocking my every move. Every arrow I fire gets intercepted and answered with two salvoes up the Scorpio and Sagittarius Houses."

"That's his intention. He wishes to manipulate Gold Saint values against us." Shion elucidated. "But we will not allow that!... Aiolos, Shura, Camus, the Specters are sure to soon rush their ways up the stairs! Be prepared to welcome these murderers into your Houses and show them Athena's might!"

There was a collective, enthusiastic response. "Yes, your Holiness!"

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

House of Virgo

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

Ignorant of the intentions of the Gold Saints at the upper temples, Cancer Lance beheld Lucifer's arrogant words with disgust. "YOU BASTARD! COME DOWN HERE AND BATTLE US!"

The words were relayed absent of their physical voice by Dullahan to Daemon, allowing the Dark Prince to get the communication but not the identity of Cancer. "MM-MM-MM! How confident of you! You must have not noticed the ease with which I've overcome the obstacles presented by your Gold Saint friends so far… As much as I would love to ascertain my dominance over another one of Arles' pathetic friends, I must ensure my victory, not embellish it with unneeded fighting!" he reasoned. "Which is why I'm extending the last chance tonight for all of you to surrender and swear loyalty to me!"

Shock coursed through the Saints at the demand. "What?!" Shinta gasped.

"YOU'RE OUT OF YOUR GODDAMN MIND!" Lance roared. "WHY WOULD WE EVER-"

"Because I have won! And because it is my birthright!" Daemon announced. "That is what I am here for, to conquer this decadent mountain for myself! The place peeking at the heavens that was my right, that was stolen by priests and fake lords of Sanctuary!"

Everyone from the Papal Soldiers and the Saints throughout the Temples were appalled.

"What is he saying?!" Agapethos wondered.

"I have spared Sanctuary's citizens so far, because they are my citizens to rule… and I've left the Gold Cloths unharmed, because they are mine to assign! The day your Lemurian Popes had my family's house burned, half a millennium ago, the broken promise of truce towards my family casted the die of yourfates!" the Prince acclaimed, his voice now carrying a mad hate in it. "All that is left to do was press my claim on the field of battle! To reclaim the laurel crown that was blessed by the Goddess' blood once upon a time, after a lifetime of suffering and preparation! And the armored bodies that your Pope puts between me and my fate won't stop me!"

reality, the warriors of Athena then saw the illusion of the moonlight grow gradually crimson on the entire mount, as if reflecting the shedding of blood across the Temples, from the many dead at Aries, to the injured bull of Taurus, to the destruction at Gemini, to the mental battles at Virgo, making the marble of the Houses seemingly a dark pink. As soon as they all thought they saw this, it was gone, but a terrible sensation of the violence perpetuated that night being repeated in their souls all over again was felt, especially by Lance, being the Cancer Gold Saint.

"Let all those who still think I can be stopped gaze upon the pain of those who made the same mistake! Everyone who keeps resisting will only be killed as well, and, after that… only one more treasonous goat must be sacrificed to me yet! Only one more liar's blood sprayed on the walls!" and though they could not see it from where they stood, Lucifer had pointed up at the 13th building of the mountain. "ARLES III… the last Pope of Sanctuary!"

Though there was a rousing cheer from the Specters, the reaction from the Saints and hoplites was nothing but outrage.

"That bastard, how dare he?!" Agapethos exclaimed.

"Don't listen to him! He's insane and we WILL take him down!" Lance immediately reinforced. "We are just ONE more House away from him!"

Andromeda shook his head. "Yes, of course we will, but… I just don't understand… why would Hades let him do something like this? Conducting his own holy war, for his own selfish goal? And to conquer Sanctuary instead of destroying it? The two gods are mortal enemies. Everyone knows that."

It was Lance's turn to hesitate. "What do you mean?"

The Japanese boy thought things over, especially Dohko's words about Daemon's motivation as a Specter and what Lance told him about the way the Specters reacted to the Underworld Wave. "Lance… what if Hades has no idea that his Specters are here?"

Taken aback, Lance felt as if a cold shower went through his insides. "That…"

"The Zodiac of the just ruler of these lands, myself I mean, does not side with justice for the weak and corrupt, unlike the chaotic example set by Athena and her Popes!" Daemon continued, delighting in their sudden silence. "Under my command, the Twelve Temples will be ruled by champions, not knights! The ways that have allowed Athena to impose her will upon other pantheons like the Asgardians will be restored and no more blood shall be shed for those that don't deserve it, only for the fulfillment of one's path to greatness! That will be my great revenge against her… Athena has ruined my life by changing my greatest friend's ways… so I will destroy her life's work, uproot her lofty ideals and force her to watch her Sanctuary be turned into the kingdom of strength it should be!"

The Skeletons at the Virgo Temple raised their fists in delight and support, punctuating the speech!

Shinta glanced at his friend. "See? You were right before, Lance, something isn't right here. This is nothing that Hades would want." Andromeda argued, unimpressed by the Prince's show of resolve. Everyone knew Hades wanted Sanctuary's annihilation, not its reformation.

Lance looked down, pensive. "Maybe…"

Shinta took the initiative. "If that's your intention, then you're going to fail, Specter Prince! You'll find nothing here but Saints putting their life on the line to stop you! We are raised to protect the weak and preserve peace, not pursue selfish desires!"

The guard lieutenant Agapethos was absolutely revolted. "That foul-mouthed ghoul! How dare he talk of Athena and her Cloths this way?!"

"YOU FUCKING COWARD! LET VIRGO GO! "Shaka is just a kid! How dare you?!" Lance's voice echoed far enough to reach the Daemon's ears.

"DULLAHAN, since they won't collaborate… dispatch Shaka as you please. I am done extending mercy." Back at the Libra House, the Mandrake Specter then cut off the feed, indicating that Daemon was no longer interested in dialogue.

Lance shook furiously behind the footsoldiers, his cosmic aura burning like a powder keg fuse!

Even Shinta was scared, having rarely felt this anger off him. "L-Lance! Are you really going to do this?!"

"After what that guy said?! Yeah!" Lance roared. He saw the Skeletons raising their weapons, though. "But… Shaka!"

His grip on his spear tightened so hard that the wooden pole threatened to snap! Golden sparks coursed through it, threatening to turn it into one of Zeus' thunderbolts! He had never heard so much conceit from a murderous Specter's voice, even when he fought Bennu Yakos at Arcadia!

Frustrated beyond belief, Shinta then resorted to the only idea he had and yelled out to the blonde boy above them. "SAINT SHAKA! Blast those guys to smithereens! What are you waiting for?!"

The Saints and Skeletons blinked and the ones holding Shaka staggered, wondering if the young Gold Saint would truly react. Even Lance blinked, wondering what Shinta was saying. If Virgo could do anything he would certainly have done so by now.

The boy, however, just sunk his head further into the floor.

The Cancer widened his eyes, realizing that Shinta was buying time with a bluff! "DO IT! Send them to hell, or Nirvana, or whatever it is you do! Why are you just lying there?! I know you can still FIGHT!" he demanded, feeling Shaka's cosmos dimmed, but intact.

Dullahan, however, shook his shoulders in laughter. "You're wasting your breath, crab man! Your friend has fallen into the spell of Eternal Darkness! In Hypnos' terrible curse, his worst nightmare has been made into reality. Not even the previous era's Sagittarius was able to resist it!"

"A mental attack? Working on Saint Shaka? I don't believe it!" Shinta added, having gotten a strong impression of how focused and above his weight Shaka punched in the realm of spirits from their brief encounters. "YOU'RE LYING!"

"No, I am not! Ask him yourself… If he can even talk, that is!" Dullahan retorted, tapping the boy with his foot in a presenting way.

The Gold Saints awaited Shaka to say something, anything, but Lance found himself just standing there with no response. "Shaka, do it! Get down from there!"

After all this, Shaka seemed to finally raise his head a bit and respond. "Saint Lance… You have come… Do what you must. I may have become useless, but I am still Athena's humble servant. Don't let me delay your punches."

The red-eyed teenager was baffled. "What?! You… stupid kid!"

Shaka felt their confusion. "I'm no longer fit to continue fighting in this battle. I have sinned gravely, my faith has been shaken and my connection to Gautama lost… I have fallen off the stairs of wisdom, and it might take years to climb it back, if ever, and this battle will be decided long before that."

"So what?! You want us to just let you die?!" Shinta asked, joining Lance's outrage.

The guardian of the sixth house then kneeled up straight from the floor, holding his chin high, as if presenting himself to his destiny. "Yes."

The Dullahan Specter laughed out loud at the look on the Saints' faces. "HA, HA, HA! Look at that! The mightiest Saint in Sanctuary, the terror of the Specters, asking to be killed by his comrades because he now realizes that, before the Prince's might, he's nothing but a snotty brat with pretensions to godhood!"

Shaka's blue eyes then glanced over right into Dullahan's soul, and the sensation of burning flames beneath the Specter's feet was felt. "I told you…At the Queen's cauldron, you too will face the wrath of Mara! Even if I, Shaka, fall to your cruel blades, for your sacrileges, all you phantoms will be held in the fiery, odious embrace of the king of murder and destruction!"

Lance was flabbergasted. Worse yet, he had a terrible feeling about what the Virgo was saying. "The Queen's Cauldron? Shaka…. What are you talking about?! Who is Mara?"

The child then beheld the cursed Cancer pitifully. "You've met him before, Saint Lance," he revealed, freezing the teenager to the core. "At the island of hatred and death!"

His red eyes widened and froze in horror!

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

"Master once told us a myth about a demon that once lived on this island."

This is the EIGHTH time I've killed him!

"H-HELP ME!"

"Usually daisies are all about looks, you know?"

"You fucking punk! I HATE you! STAY DEAD!"

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

Flaming, painful memories of the worst place in the whole world rushed to Lance's mind, speaking of a journey he took before he met Shinta that scarred him deeply and pushed him towards seeking Seiryu's protection. It was a journey he thought was secret from most outside those he had to report to at the time, and the Cancer could not conceive of how Shaka would know of 'Mara', as he called him.1

Shaka acknowledged his kindness with a nod. "T-thank you all, but time has run out."

"GAG HIM!" Dullahan ordered as the Skeletons tied a piece of cape around the boy's mouth and threatened Shaka once more with their scythes. Dullahan roared, burning his dark cosmos. The howling of a cursed woman filled the air and the apparition of a beheaded lady emerged behind him. "With my Death Messenger, I can call forth the song of demise even to someone as powerful as a Gold Saint!"

The weeping, gagged child sunk on the ground, wishing he could disappear as a hurricane of dark thoughts assaulted his mind. The two Skeletons crossed their scythes around his neck like a pair of crab pincers, threatening to merrily turn his young neck into a blood shower to paint the whole temple red should he attempt to resist even more.

Lance shook his head to dispel his conflicted thoughts. He wished it was different, but he CLEARLY didn't have time to think about that prick, Guilty!(Shinta, anchor yourself and be ready for my signal)!" Lance ordered, staggering the boy into action, who pierced the stairs with his Triangle End. Lance then turned up. "I'M GOING TO SAVE YOU!"

"Do you see what happens, Saints?! When you resist the Prince's design?!" Dullahan continued, completely proud of what was happening. "Your loved ones will suffer, instead of thriving! And the innocent you pride yourself in protecting will be torn to pieces and die!"

The red-eyed Saint gritted his teeth, shaking madly. He could almost tell from where he laid that Lucifer was laughing all the way from Libra! His aura burned on the ground like a priming oven flame, ready to explode at any second at the sight of what was going on. The weight of the Zodiac's defenses barely seemed capable anymore of stopping him from blasting out of there to where Shaka was. The Gold Saint's aura burst out in an empty shockwave as the warrior emptied his mind, and the furnace flames began morphing into tiny emerald drakes of energy spiraling around his body.

"Neither of you will go anywhere!" Dullahan shouted back, beginning to worry if they were no longer buying into his illusion of the gate wreckage and raising his hand to threaten to give the kill signal! "I'M THE ONE IN CHARG-!"

"YOU SHUT THE HELL UP, TOO, SPECTER!" Lance snapped, his aura converging into a raging flare of green that startled the Specters, casting out a projection of a golden crab sided by Seiryu. "AND LISTEN… TO THE ROAR OF THE DRAGON!" Focusing his furious red glare on the men surrounding Shaka, Lance gauged his green draconic cosmos and roared. The Papal Guards shielding him dropped to the ground, clearing the way! "ROZAN! KORYU-HA!"

And the energy flowed down to his feet before a shockwave emerald ring blasted the teenage off from the ground like a power rocket thruster, blasting him off the ground to the air at a terrifying speed, challenging the miraculous strength of Athena's blessings on the mountain and stunning the screaming enemies with the sight of a blinding dragon flying to the heavens!

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House of Libra

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The cry of the dragon soared through the air and the night turned emerald!

Lucifer's ruby eyes widened to the max, seeing the eastern dragon fly off to the heavens. For a second, he was simply stunned at the sight of the familiar kamikaze attack.

However, the precise next instant, he understood the deceit behind it! "That move…! Why does Cancer have it?! That lying purple dwarf DOHKO!"

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House of Virgo

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The next few crucial moments all occurred in less than a water drop's span!

With his pink cosmos burning to the max and his eyes looking for the precise moment Lance passed the height of the Virgo Temple, Andromeda Shinta saw his moment come and pulled the Round Chain as hard as hard as he could at the speed of light, tensing the chain around the green rocketman's waist with a colossal force that contradicted the ferocious upwards moment! The Saint screamed along with the spirit of his armor, feeling the force of the Koryuha nearly pull him whole off the ground! Indeed he felt his feet leave the ground and his anchoring chain tensing, nearly splitting the Bronze Saint in two.

Many pairs of supersonic hands and arms, though, grabbed, gripped, and wrapped around the pink Saint from all around, weighing him down as hard as they could. The group felt that even their combined strength would not be enough.

Sure enough, though, the green star's aura tail vanished, indicating its vectorial balance being shifted, and the Skeletons watched with bamboozled eyes as the emerald sun swung back down, aimed at the supposedly ruined entablature! The Dullahan Specter screamed and ran, dispelling the illusion of the wreckage he created earlier, while the last thing the ones around Shaka saw were two draconic paws meteor down on their faces and crash them away from Shaka unto the roof's floor, cracking it with terrifying strength and spreading smoke and rubble everywhere.

Falling to the ground from the tension release, Shinta and the soldiers gasped, not even sure if the plan had worked, and Shinta's chains reeled back to him like overstretched steel tape rulers. Marble boulders from above fell all around them, wrecking the stairs.

Agapethos pointed up. "LOOK! The entablature is back where it should! The detonation was an illusion!"

More concerned about his friends, Shinta raised his head and screamed when he saw Lance's impact point as just a cloud of smoke, feeling his cosmos disappear along with Shaka's. "LANCE, N-NOO!"

The floored Dullahan Hedron coughed, surrounded by clouds of dust. He was further back from the impact, but the force still knocked him to the ground, dispelling his Death Messenger. "COUGH, cough, w-what just happened?! SOMEONE GET THE KID!"

The crossbowmen scurred around. "He w-was close to the impact point, but I c-can't see anything!"

Dullahan crawled around and searched for a weapon just in case. "F-fucking Cancer! FEEL OUT THE COSMOS, idiots!" he shouted, though he forgot to do so himself. Dullahan then smiled happily when he got a scythe and stood up, his green eyes searching for a corpse. "W-well… let's go get your body par-"

A chilling scream from the survivors closest to the impact point was heard, along with thunderous rounds of blows. A powerful kick struck a chest and a crossbowman flew through the air, landing by Dullahan's feet.

The Specter screamed, seeing the dismembered, mangled body. The False Specter stumbled back, frightened pale. "WHAT?! He's supposed to be d-dead! WHO THE HELL-!"

"CANCER BLADE!"

Suddenly, the cloud of dust was blown apart by a powerful sideways cutting blow that thrust a slashed Skeleton into the air, screaming, revealing the imposing visage of a heavy-armored Gold Saint with sword and shield in hands, the wind swirling around him with the force of his attacks! He was covered in soot and blood of those that didn't flee the impact zone, while the hoplon, in particular, sizzled with having taken Lucifer's thunderbolt with only Lance's cosmos to reinforce it, branding the winged horse on it with burning light.

Shinta beamed up, seeing his friend alive like an arriving superhero! "LANCE!"

"FIRE! SHOOT HIM DOWN!" the Skeletons screamed.

The maddened Saint, though, leaped, roared, and twirled around, releasing a cosmic sword slash wave that utterly destroyed their attacks and ripped them all to pieces.

Seeing this, Dullahan screamed and rushed towards Shaka, who was also stunned at the sight of this. "AHH! I WON'T DIE HERE!"

Seeing what he was doing, Lance boomed across the field! "CHARGE KICK!" and landed a meteoric blow right on the Specter side, kicking him far away from Shaka! "YOU'RE FIGHTING ME NOW!"

Crashing against the cupula, Dullahan screamed, feeling his side burning and his armor cracking to pieces. He stood up in a panic with the scythe shaking in his hand! "Who do you think you're fucking standing in the way of?! The PRINCE WI-"

"YOU WANT TO KNOW?! THEN LISTEN!" Lance roared, silencing him. Golden cosmos ran down his right arm into his grip, igniting the short sword with scalding power, its aura artificially lengthening and sharpening the object. His eyes saw nothing but the next murderer he would punish while the dragon tattoo on his back burned painfully with his rage. "I AM CANCER LANCE! Guardian of the FOURTH HOUSE, student of LIBRA DOHKO and protégé of SEIRYU, the DRAGON!"

The False Specter backed up some more but he hit the floor's central cupula. "S-STAY BACK!"

Lance paced towards him. "You and your men attacked the home of my friends and even DARED to put their bodies before yourselves and me! You're not warriors meant to conquer ANYTHING! YOU'RE COWARDS THAT WILL BE DESTROYED!" his aura then practically swelled into a furnace, giving him a terrifying visage!

With his back literally against the wall, he charged his cosmos and lashed out at the Gold Saint. "D-DEATH MESSENGER!" he cast, releasing the spectral power of the beheaded maiden.

The furious Cancer Gold Saint, however, simply bashed off the technique's projection with his shield like a bunch of dust in his way, his whole armor immersed in the exorcistic power of the Cancer constellation. "CANCER BLADE: UNDERWORLD WAVE!" and the fire of his sword briefly colored itself blue, allowing Lance to then cleave the spectral technique apart, dispelling the ghastly woman with a howl!

Dullahan staggered, feeling his strongest move turned to nothing! "W-WHAT?! THAT CAN'T BE!" he then swung the scythe wildly. "JUST D-DIE!"

Seeing the obvious pattern, Lance picked up his pace towards him and tensed his sword grip, making fire run down the blade until it looked like an infernal longsword. His foot stepped on the ground to set up his swing so hard that the ground cracked and his large round hoplon bashed the scythe away to the air, disarming the Specter.

Cosmos of fire burst all around Lance, physically empowering his next move to a Gold Saint level. "NOW FALL TO THE UNDERWORLD IN TWAIN! CANCER BLADE: -" he roared, raising the cosmically reinforced sword on one hand to the air, dashing at the Specter and then bringing it down on the Dullahan with storming, speeding rage, combining two of his techniques into one once more as he slashed through the enemy and the cupula! "-ERUPTION!"

The Specter screamed and felt the burning edge strike his skull in a brief instant before his entire world was cut down to the bottom by a scar of fire which tore through the building, landing Lance with a braking foot on the other side! The slashing left behind, beaming with burning light, then lit with an eruption of fire cosmos that instantly incinerated the two splitting halves of the victim in an infernal geyser that thundered its roar through the night sky, breaking apart the ground and collapsing it into the lower Hall of Innocence, sinking the roof into the cratered ground where Shaka had battled Lucifer.

Standing up from his landing, Lance swept the sword aside dramatically, his cape floating triumphantly, allowing the blinding eruption behind him explosion behind him to wreck the battlefield to pieces! He raised his hand to capture the dark soul of the False Specter into his hand like he did with the rest and pointed his sword defiantly at the Libra House's roof, where Lucifer laid, knowing the Prince watched the whole thing!

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House of Libra

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The many False Specters surrounding Lucifer stepped away fearfully from the Prince, seeing the blood in his veins bulging and boiling at the sight of what was happening at the Virgo Temple. Many took panicked spots behind Neferti and Treble, worried that the Pride Star would supernova right then and there!

His pale nose twisted in anger as the lights of the flames receded. "So you've chosen death,… Pegasus Lance!" he stressed the deceit. Blue sparks began involuntarily cracking off his body, making the Skeletons and False Specters scream and run downstairs. "I was going to annihilate this Temple, but I've changed my mind… Come! Climb the stairs to your pathetic Master's Temple! Like many others before, you will know the price of LYING to Daemon Lucifer, the Celestial Star of Pride, and I'll turn Dohko's home into the grave of his student ONCE AGAIN!"

Thunders roared across the night sky, illuminating the Golden Zodiac.

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House of Virgo

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Cooling down, Lance turned his back on the Libra Temple. The time to face Daemon was here. However, they had to secure the place first. It wasn't long before he felt the shortsword in his hand scalding and melting off his fingers, too, reduced to boiled, liquid metal by the intensity of the rageful attacks it conveyed, and Lance dropped it before it got stuck to his Gold Cloth's glove. This was partly why it was pointless to carry weapons with you if you had Cosmos; unless they were integrated with stardust, they'd likely just melt. He got seriously pissed, though, and he didn't let that technicality stop him.

If Shion wanted to fine him later or something for using a sword, fine, let him have it!

Walking around the huge hole he made in the roof floor, Lance met with Shaka and helped him get up. "Are you okay?"

The blonde boy sniffed and rubbed his teary eyes. "Yes…" not wishing to delve into the details about what happened there. "We need to have a conversation, don't we?"

Lance tensely frowned, feeling Guilty's ugly mask in his mind. "We do… " So he had to ask. "….You…. Shaka, how do you know about Guilty?"

The Virgo sighed. "I know…. because I cannot help but know. My existence as the One Closest to God is irrevocably tied to being on the brighter side of the coin to his darker one. His throne of feathery embers is the embodiment of what Buddha has sought to overcome. The evil emotions of passion, fury, arrogance, and, most of all, hatred… they are all given human form in my dreams, cackling behind a red mask of long tusks and big, insane eyes."

Lance listened attentively.

So Shaka continued. "Every day, the sins of the world grow heavier and heavier, and every day I take them into myself, righting the karma of the world so the Wheel of Time could turn peacefully, all so that Mara will not grow out of his confinement and make the world burn…. Now that I've lost my strength, though, the Queen's avatar will continue to grow, so this whole world will burn in its heat because the moment to slay him passed without someone having the courage to strike."

These words made the Cancer's face sink slightly, crushed by their hidden meaning. The mad cackle of the one he faced on that island filled his ears. "Guilty…!" He then turned back up. "Why didn't you tell me before?!... I had no idea you also…"

And he eyed Lance apologetically, his eyes wetting. "I… am sorry I never told you. I would have. But… it wasn't my place to, and our respective relationship with that masked demon is different, too. You see him as the unfortunate soul that was born to become him, while I see him as the creature that he was always meant to become. You even call him by a different name, don't you?" Shaka explained. Tears of failure flowed out.

It wasn't too long before Shinta caught up to them by climbing onto the roof from the inside. He had to use his chains, though, after Lance wrecked the stair access. "L-Lord Shaka!" he shouted, rushing to the boy. "Thank goodness, you're alright!"

Shinta saw the two of them quiet down in reflection for a moment, and felt utterly confused. Were they talking about that subject from earlier?

Something told the Andromeda Saint this was all referring to Lance's trip to Death Queen Island, which was almost as big a taboo for the Pegasus as talking about Kastiel. To Shinta, Death Queen Island was a place that kids in Sanctuary told boogeyman stories about, but now it seems that his friend Lance and the Virgo Gold Saint each had some sort of special interest in that place, where some unknown threat resided.

Shaka numbly took the hug from the Andromeda. Even after being rescued, he still felt nothing but an ugly hole in his stomach. He looked at his powerless hands and cried, seeing no cosmos spark out of them. "I'm sorry, e-everyone…"

Shinta held his shoulders. "It's okay, don't worry… Saga and Aldebaran are on their way up. They'll help us take the enemy out and protect you."

Lance looked out the gateway. The stairs were nothing but ruins and dead Skeletons, as well as a couple of injured Papal Guards, but the way down to the lower Temple was clear. "I think I see them and Mephisto already. They're getting off Leo."

Standing up, Shinta beheld their dreadful work. "We are catching up to the enemy, finally, and we even saved Shaka… You did it, Lance! You were incredible up there!" he congratulated, making Lance red a bit. "Now we can stop Daemon before he gets to anyone else!"

The Saint rubbed his head self-consciously. "You guys helped… I really thought I'd shoot off to space there for a second."

"You better not do it again without us around, then. That move is too dangerous." He then looked up the mountain, towards the 9th Temple. "Thank goodness for Aiolos, too. He gave us the opening to get closer. Daemon would probably be doing nothing but throwing attacks on us without him."

"I saw the Houses up there glowing again after I landed here… I think they were going to do another big attack as they did with the Taurus Temple. Now they're back to normal… I guess once I got Shaka, they changed their minds," Lance said. It was brief, but his peripheral vision caught it. He then couldn't resist but confront Karkinos. "See, you stupid crab? I've done it!"

"Congratulations, you've successfully potato-shot yourself onto a roof without landing on the moon, instead. Perhaps that will teach you to be less cowardly with the REST of your arsenal."

Lance groaned, there was no winning with him, was there? Why did he land on a Zodiac so incompatible with him? Maybe they were both too stubborn.

Something clicked in Shaka's mind, striking fear into him. "Oh no, my Cloth! My beads!"

"Don't worry, it was still down there," Shinta assured. He found a bunch of enemies around it that got killed by the debris when the roof collapsed who looked like they were trying to get the armor off the Temple. "I tried to pick it up, but the parts were all over the place. I managed to bring this one up, though, Shaka."

The Gold Saint was then offered by Shinta the helmet, which he took with a curious stare at Shinta. "…. Uh."

Shinta blinked. "What's wrong?"

Lance sterned his stare. "We couldn't get any of the other ones to move without their owners and you managed to pick that up?!"

The Japanese Saint gasped. "Oh! You're right! I…" He frowned self-consciously, wondering if this meant something bad for Shaka, and excused himself. "Maybe it's because I wasn't thinking about it?"

Shaka just looked away sadly. The helmet felt heavy in his hand.

"What about your beads?" Lance asked, trying to distract him.

The boy tucked his hand closely, missing the wrapping of the rosary cord around it. "It's important… it houses the souls of the True Specters. Daemon took one of them…"

The other two Saints blinked. "True Specters?!"

The blue-eyed Saint nodded. "That's right, you probably don't know yet."

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Chapter End

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Next Chapter: Chapter 60 – Episode 21 – Clash of Destiny

Deadline: July 25th

Description: After so much fighting since their last encounter in Mount Rozan, Cancer Lance catches up with Daemon Lucifer at Dohko's House. The Pride Star is waiting for him, but not for the other Saint coming with him…

Author's Notes: This chapter took a lot of fixing, hence the delay past the June 20th deadline. However, it was sorely needed, since my first draft of what Jenny has described as a "hostage" plot had many plot and flow problems that needed to be addressed, because it's simply not easy to tell a multi-acted action story in writing form, with several things going on at the same time.

Ultimately, nearly a whole fifth of the original content had to be cut out. It was one of the most significant rewrites I've ever had to do for a single chapter, hence its wordcount dropping to 20k. However, I'm confident it's not yet the time to put in some of the stuff I had reserved for other chapters, since the Arc is wrapping up and I've structured the plan for the last six chapters of it.

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.

And review, share, etc, I'm always open to conversations with my readers.

See ya ._. /