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.

65. 2A: Pride Cometh

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:

-This chapter was betaread by my good friend Siena (or rather it's final two thirds, the first being content beta-read by Jenny DeVic)

-Did you read the previous chapter (64) prior to December 9th of 2021?: In the interest of the point below, I've moved approximately 2000 words originally meant for this chapter to chapter 64, name a scene in Capricorn and a short scene in Aquarius. They are right at end, just before the short Pope scene. If you're included in the underlined description, you may want to check the tail end of the last chapter for those two extra scenes. Sorry for the inconvenience;

-Due to some important concerns I developed regarding wordcount distribution, chapter structure and pacing, I've decided to go back to my old 3 part format for this arc's finale;

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"He must be so happy with himself, that damned dotted freak! He's lived through a Holy War, thinks I'm dead and sits on the world's most powerful throne, content with Athena's misguided blessing on his head. Enjoy the view, Aries Shion. One day I'll be there to set it all on fire!

Yes, I can tell it's Shion… that weakling, that piece of Muvian puss, that insignificant stardust caster whose top kill in the War before the invasion on Alone's Temples was Worm Raimi! He gave up before Dohko did in the battle with me, but Athena wouldn't give this role to someone who wasn't a Gold Saint and Libra is in China watching over Asmita's seal. It has to be Shion…

Which means someone fragilized by my Eternal Darkness rules over Sanctuary now. Interesting.

Despite everything Dohko and the Godslayers did to me, I think I can't help but hate Shion the most. I see so much of Hakurei in him, which is strange, because I was able to brush off meeting that failure's other student, Crane Yuzuriha, at the Lost Canvas rather easily. Maybe it's because Crane wasn't given my family's birthright to enjoy luxury out of. Or maybe I'm more like Rhadamanthys than I'd care to admit to and I just don't look at women in the battlefield the same way.

However, I don't think I can keep doing this anymore. Not for Hades, I mean. Not after what Michael did. Not after what I did to Michael. I'm tired. I think I still need to reflect a lot on what happened and what I'm going to do next. All I have left is my pride, that feeling of happiness I get when I think of my family and my triumphs, so in my search for a new purpose, that is where I will start.

Perhaps I'll heed Eurydice's advice, and visit the site of my old home. It's been too long, practically since Pandora first dragged me out of the Surface World into hell. Maybe in the forests that my father used to hunt at, I'll rediscover meaning in life and who I am, before the weight of what Hades has done to me crushes me whole."

-Daemon Lucifer's journal entry, dated 1753, shortly after the end of the Lost Canvas War and Dark Angel Michael's execution

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House of Libra

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Aries.

Taurus.

Gemini.

Cancer.

Scorpio.

And now Sagittarius!

Six armors off their Houses!

At the destroyed Hall of Balance, Daemon Lucifer's mood could not be better! He picked up Milo by the collar and laughed at his foolishness. "H-HA, HA, HA, HA! What a brave little Gold Saint! Truly, it's moments like these that write Sanctuary's history! Aren't you proud?!"

Lance stared at the two of them with Shinta in arms. "D-Damn it, what is he laughing at?! I have to do something or he'll kill Milo! But his Surplice is so powerful now! I could barely damage him on my own before, but now…" he looked at the far-off Libra Cloth, which still housed some weapons like the Swords and the Staffs. "If only I could get my hands on those!..."

Seeing what the Cancer Gold Saint was eyeing, Shaka ran around the field, gulping with the stakes involved and trying to time his plan with Deathmask.

Meanwhile, Shinta squirmed holding tightly to his friend as the pain of Milo's stings spasmed him. "A-AGH… H-Help me, L-Lance!.. I…f-feel like I'm losing my m-mind! AAH!"

In a rare moment, the Cancer Saint teared up, having no idea what to do! Between Shaka losing his powers, Shinta being in this condition, and Aldebaran being down, the teenager felt the weight of not just his friend's life, but the entire world suddenly on his meager shoulders. He suppressed the frustration and tried to think of a plan, but the feeling of Lucifer's eyes on him gave him the distinct impression that the slightest suspicious move would end with a javelin either through him or Milo's chests.

His mind ran through what he could do if anything! He thought of every technique at his disposal, including the most extreme ones. He definitely no longer had the strength to execute another Hyaku Ryu Ha, but what else was sure to work on the bastard?!...

He laid Shinta down very gently. "S-Shinta, I'm sorry, but I need you to s-stay here!"

With his mind completely removed from the stakes of the battle by the maddening pain coursing through him, the green-haired grasped him desperately. "N-no, don't GO! H-help me!"

Forcing himself to ignore Andromeda's plea, Lance stood up with cautiously raised hands and confronted the enemy. "L-Let Milo go!"

The Specters shoulders shook. He didn't want to show it, but the dose of poison he got was still hurting. "You're in no position to ask me anything, Lance. No… from where I'm standing, it's time for me to claim victory! I'd tend to Michael's wounds if I were you, and beg me not to press my foot further down Sanctuary's throat!"

Lance instinctively wanted to resist, but the sight of the boy in the Specter's grasp quenched his anger into terror. What was he going to do? Maybe the right thing was to ask Lucifer to be merciful…

At this point, Lance's red eyes spotted the two small figures running around in the background behind the Specter. Shaka and Mephisto?! What were they doing?!

Unsure how to coordinate with whatever they were up to, Lance tried to play appeasing. "P-Please… haven't you d-done enough?! Even in w-war there are limits! No matter how much you hate Shion and my teacher, Milo and Shinta are not at f-fault! You attacked them!"

The Specter sterned his eyes, having seen nothing in Lance so far that indicated he was the type to surrender. If anything, he shared a few unpleasant characteristics with other Pegasus counterparts, like Tenma's hard-headed refusal to not play the hero. This was either stalling vainly, or some kind of distraction, but Lucifer's acute seventh sense felt no power around them capable of standing up to him. If anything, all his enemies seemed to be vanishing in strength, as they should.

All except… for the Libra Cloth just standing there to their side! With a bunch of weapons that could still injure him should Lance grab them.

The Daemon squinted angrily; he wouldn't make stupid mistakes like this at this point! Not after all the battles he lost to Saints! "So, you want Milo?"

Lance nodded nervously, unsure what kind of trap the guy would spring. "Milo's j-just a kid! He's already caused more damage to our side than yours! If you have half the honor you talk like you do,… you'll l-let him go!"

The Specter faked considering this. "You know, maybe you're right, Lance. Maybe all the people I need to make pay are just Dohko and Shion. They are the ones that ruined my dreams after all."

The Cancer Saint widened his eyes, tempted to believe in this hope even though he shouldn't. At the same time, he saw Deathmask stand on a mount and raise the huge ball of white ectoplasm into the air by his finger, eyes nervously locked on the Specter.

Doing his best not to betray what Mephisto was doing with the angle of what he looked at, Lance realized what their plan was and played the fool. "But what?!"

Shaka grabbed the Libra Swords off Dohko's Cloth and positioned himself on the opposite side of Lucifer's arm that was holding Milo. He paused, meeting eyes with Lance, communicating without words what they meant to do.

Raising his chin, Lucifer smiled, proud that Lance was watch-catching onto how difficult things really were going to be for him. "But Shion's dreams are now intrinsically tied to this boy and his generation… he seeks to raise them to be Athena's new champions of destiny. And I can think of no better way to have my vengeance than wrecking those dreams to pieces!"

Seeing Shaka about to throw the Sword at him, Lance charges his aura in the challenge! "Not if I can stop you! SHAKA!"

The boy hurled the blade across the air. "CATCH!"

Sneering angrily and seeing this coming a mile away, Lucifer dropped Milo and reached out for the swords. "DO YOU THINK I'LL FALL FOR THAT?!" But just as he caught the swirling blades, Lance, instead of also reaching for them, had immediately reached for the Scorpio boy! "Wha…?!"

Catching Milo as he landed and rolling the hell out of there, Lance gave them the signal. "MEPHISTO, NOW!"

"PRAESEPE CELESTIAL WAVE!"

Lucifer froze in the realization of the two-tiered trap he fell in, suddenly feeling the brilliant shine of an enormous ball of ectoplasm being released in its full force, projecting his shadow forward. Looking over with Libra Swords in hand, his red eyes were stuck at the sight of the massive sphere of white cosmos now descending on him, not only as large as the Fire Clock's disk but surrounded by the spirits of all the fallen False Specters and Skeletons collected by Lance and Mephisto compounded with a charge of Mephisto's own Gold Rank cosmos. Its exponentially grown strength made the Specter gasp, reminding him of Orion's Arrow light blasting down on him at Taurus.

Before contact was ever even made, the enormous pressure of the sphere's air dislocation came down on them, crushing Lucifer's heavily armored body into place with a scream from the man himself, whose shoulders took on the weight of the arriving blow. The unarmored Lance crawled out of the impact area as fast as he could with Milo, but the cratered ground began cracking even further, this time seemingly about to collapse into some kind of underground chamber and pulling him down. It wasn't long before the giant attack of pure cosmos came down on the Daemon's clawed hands.

Clawed boots dug into the ground and the winged structure of the Daemon cuirass shook ferociously. The Specter could see nothing but white light above him and they hear nothing but the screams of the damned warriors that served under him, demanding justice! Though many served him in life honorably, many now felt the grip of Hades encroaching on them, and thus many reached out to the Prince through the Celestial Wave even more desperately, empowering the move further with sheer desperation.

With the ground fissuring, Lance's wrist was caught by Shaka and Mephisto, who both pulled him out of there with effort. Aldebaran and Shinta were on the other side of the battlefield but fortunately out of the impact area. Crawling away in awe at the crushing of the Specter under the mass of power, they watched the Celestial Star of Pride as he screamed in an effort, trying to hold off the meteoric attack, before his entire body was squashed underfoot by the burning of the Cosmos ball into the ground, allowing it to explode in a vertically-directed burst that bonfire the Libra Temple ruins with pale blue flames.

The Gold Saints screamed as well, covering themselves with their arms at the blinding shine and the flying debris.

Mephisto could hardly believe it! "I've… I've DONE IT! HA, HA, T-TAKE THAT! WE WIN!"

But as if to specifically answer his gloat, the impact point of the Celestial Wave seemed to burst outwards all of a sudden, seemingly reacting to some internal resistance.

Recognizing this from previous frustrations with the Daemon, Lance pushed all three of them back. "N-No, it's not over yet! QUICK, you two get Milo OUT OF HERE!"

Deathmask didn't need to be told twice and as the ruins still shook with the radiating force of his move, he immediately pulled the Scorpio's arm over his neck and got out of there with Shaka. "H-Hey, what about you?!"

Watching the core of the ongoing explosion, Lance detected in it the resisting movements he was worried about. "He's about to b-break out!"

As predicted, with a furious battle roar, the Archdevil of Despair sliced the air with the Libra Swords, cutting a way out through the ectoplasmic flames, and flew out of the bonfire-covered in pale fires. With the Libra Weapons scalding his hands at the touch of his Damascus, he tossed them aside and spiraled around in the air, casting aside the fires.

He flapped his wings, absolutely seething and damaged; while Deathmask's attack had only placed a few meaningless cracks in his main armor pieces, the blow had scalded him and the blast had shaken him to the core with its spectacular force. "N-No… m-my…!"

Lance backed away, sensing a strange fury in the Specter beyond the scope of what was just done to him.

The Pride Star looked at his smudged, clawed gauntlets, feeling his blood boil as his brain processed what just happened. The fact that he had been tricked into dropping Milo and forgot to watch out for the new Manigoldo's movements was bad enough, but as the realization of the attack's nature dawned on him, recognizing it from when Altar Hakurei defeated Hypnos in the Lost Canvas War, Lucifer realized there was only one possible fuel source other than Sanctuary's hoplites to give this move so much force.

"My M-MEN!" he practically screeched, feeling his Princely duties enhance his wrath. A traitorous to Hades he was, but the Dark Calling still existed in him, and so did his Second Function. To discipline his underlings himself with cruelty was to raise them, but to have their very souls used as ammunition against the Prince…

This was…

… UNFORGIVABLE!

Mephisto yelped, feeling the Specter's eyes look directly on him. "W-Why is he looking at me?! I didn't do anything!"

He could immediately spear the boy right then and there! Every red blood cell in him called out for the death of Manigoldo's new form! However, he forced himself to think rationally and realized that killing the boy would just send the rest of the Gold Saints into another emotional fit and spring another trap.

No… the path to victory was already open! He just had to walk through it! SCREW these reincarnated brats!

"G-GO AHEAD! HIDE YOURSELVES! FLEE IF YOU MUST!" Lucifer roared, slowly ascending with wing flaps. "Have your Gold Saint friends in safety! By the time you lick your wounds, I'll be done with my conquest!"

The Cancer Gold Saint irked, realizing what he was about to do. "SHIT! I have to…" he turned to the others. "SHAKA, MEPHISTO, take care of the others, too!"

The two then watched Lance run towards a tall mount raised by the Celestial Wave's terrain damage. "Hey, WAIT, what are you doing?!" Shaka screamed.

"I'm going to stop him!" he answered as he picked up one of the dropped Libra Swords.

The Pride Star turned to the far-off Chambers of the Pope, charging cosmos to prepare one big blitz across the air. This was it! His moment of triumph! "Prepare yourself, Shio-" And then he was slammed to the side by the leaping teenage Saint, who wrapped his arms firmly around the Specter's neck. "AGH! YOU… FUCKING PUNK! GET OFF ME!"

Holding on to dear life and gathering cosmos, Lance tried to weigh the bastard down, anything to keep him from flying off! "You're… not going anywhere! I won't L-LET YOU! BLAD-"

The dark, cosmos-packed elbow suddenly slammed right on Lance's face, blanking his world!

…

….!

Blood washed down his nose and the Saint felt himself falling, dropping the Sword…!

His wrist was then caught! Expecting a friend, Lance gagged when he saw the flying Lucifer hold him up. "Y-You stubborn, kung-fu tossing, interfering little rat! S-So you want to FLY?! BY ALL MEANS!" and he yanked Lance out of there towards the skies. "LET'S GO FOR A SPIN IN THE SKY, CANCER LANCE!"

Shaka and Mephisto stood there in the ruins, watching the two disappear into the air. "OI, L-LANCE!"

Horrified as he was at what just happened, Shaka, however, couldn't help but notice something even worse.

The flame indicating Libra at the Fire Cloth sizzled loudly, before dying out.

Not even a few seconds after, Scorpio's flame, just to the left, enlarged almost in protest, before then being snuffed out, too.

Sagittarius was quick to follow, disappearing after an even briefer indication of being passed.

Then Capricorn…

The Buddhist covered his mouth in horror. "Oh G-Goddess,… N-NO!"

Aldebaran raised his bloodied face, noticing the same. "W-We… we f-failed!"

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Pope's Hall

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They were at the darkest hour of the night.

Shion watched as Maximus climbed back the stairs from his assignment. "I've just gotten back from Pisces, my Lord… I've confirmed Lord Aphrodite prepared his defenses, even if a bit unwilling. Soon we'll be able to escort all the fleeing people out through his pass."

Standing on the side, Ms. Shafurwatt stepped up to ask. "What about the children? Where is Milo?!" she demanded to know. "You said those cursed barriers are down, right? What happened to the boys?!"

The captain nodded comfortingly. "We were able to find their unique signatures. Aldebaran is on our half of the Temples while Aiolia is with the Leo squadron at the exit of the Aretias shortcut. As for Milo, he was moving through the stairs." He announced, leaving out the part he sensed the boy going down towards the danger, not up. There was no use worrying the head servant any further. "Everyone's okay."

The Polish woman sighed in relief. "Oh, thank you, Athena… Hopefully, the nightmare will be over soon."

"Yes, that is excellent." The Pope complimented, though his tone hid a hint of sadness. "Maximus, I want you to take Ms. Shafurwatt down to Pisces with you. These Chambers are no longer safe." He told them, making them go pale. "Please hurry down."

Though hesitant, as they understood the implications of such a sudden statement regarding the war's progress, the two dared not disobey. The aged lady still spared the masked Lemurian a worried look. "Shion, don't… You'll follow us, right?!"

He nodded and lied. "Of course."

The Pope then stood there at the doors to his Chambers, watching the two aged liaisons climb the stairs down as quickly as they could. As soon as they turned the corner and he found himself alone, Shion breathed out the tension in his chest, watching the flame in Pisces extinguish itself.

…

This was it.

All the flames on the Fire Clock had died.

For the first time in one thousand years, the doomsday clock of Sanctuary reached midnight.

Beholding the entirety of Athena's valley, Shion found himself before one of the blackest that Sanctuary's nights had ever been. There was a chance he would not see the light of day again.

Then, despite the cloudless skies, a huge thunderbolt of white crackled in that dark, blinding him and blasting the stair steps just in front of him, and the Pope of Athena's face became stern with the sight of the landed Devil, whose draconic wings sizzled with pale sparks.

In his steely grip was the neck of Cancer Lance. The Gold Saint was not conscious.

Shion felt his outrage burn at the sight of this, and then the momentousness of the occasion as the enemy raised his blood-red eyes raised to meet that of the black mask's. It was as if the Cosmos itself stopped its omnipresent flow in the universe, its attention caught by the sight of two ancient enemies with a shared claim to the same throne encountering each other after a quarter of a millennium apart, like the alignment of planets.

After 220 years, Aries Shion and Daemon Lucifer were face to face once more.

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Chapter 65

Second Arc

Episode 26 - Arc Finale

Part 2 of 3

Pride Cometh

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The Fire Clock's bell sounded away, signaling the sixth hour of the morning, and the night sky was already getting clearer as Cassiopeia Cynthia knocked on the door anxiously. "Miss? Are you awake? Please open the door. We need to evacuate the town."

"Have some patience, she's blind as a bat, that sickie!" Ms. Aglaia, the elderly lady next door shouted as Sagitta Nam helped her out. "She's probably trying not to hit a wall, he he!"

"I'll… just get this one outta here." Nam assured, zipping away with the bitter lady at the speed of sound.

While the aged woman's commentary was a bit crass, Cynthia nodded in acknowledgment, having indeed recognized the house as one reserved for the poor, sick people that flocked into Sanctuary. Soon enough, the door opened shily. "Miss?"

"…Yes, what's going on?" the soft, frightened voice inside asked.

"There's no reason to panic, -" Cynthia lied as she extended her palm. "-but we need to move everyone out of Rodario into the bunkers for the day. It's a flash drill. Please take my hand."

There was some hesitation from the woman in the shadows, but eventually she did come out of the dark, stunning Cynthia with the incredible beauty of the simple-dressed woman living in the poorest street of Rodario. She looked familiar, too. "I'm… do I need to take anything?"

"You can take some food with you. Would you like help getting things together? I can get it done much faster, miss…?"

"Eurydice."

The name rung the right bell and Cynthia now palmed her forehead so stupidly she almost knocked her mask. "Oh!... You're… Of course, gosh, now I recognize you! You're Iaso's patient!"

The secret Nymph blinked her blind eyes in a fuss. "Do I know you?"

"Ah, ah, yes! Eurydice, you probably don't remember my voice, but we've met before!" she recalled, almost forgetting the urgency of the situation. "I'm Saint Cynthia. I was at Germany with Aguilon when he first saved you."

There was a loud gasp of recognition from the blind woman. "Oh! Saint Cassiopeia?! Oh, gods! I should have-"

"No, no, it's okay! Heck, when we last were together, Alexis hadn't been sent to Elba, yet…" she worded, taking care not to use the expression 'saw each other' instead. "If I had any idea you were staying here, I'd have gotten here sooner… but we don't have time to catch up. I need to get you and everyone else out."

The urgency in her voice must have tipped the woman off. "There's an attack going on, right?"

The Silver Saint hesitated. Even if by some chance she wasn't trained to deny this, it was a terrible idea to tell Eurydice, who was blinded by Specters, that they were back with a vengeance. "No, it's just an exercise."

Eurydice, however, already knew everything that was going on. She even got to talk to the enemy leader himself. "I'll come with you, just tell me one thing; have you seen Cerah?"

Cassiopeia remembered the girl found with Eurydice. Iaso had excitedly told them she had awakened from her coma. "I'm sorry, but no… Me and the other Silvers are sweeping through town, but we haven't met her yet. Don't worry, because the situation is under contr-"

A bright flash of white popped next to them and a lilac haired boy emerged. "Miss Cynthia, miss CYNTHIA!"

Cassiopeia gasped, still not used to the way this Lemurian boy popped back and forth. "KIKI, don't scare me like that!"

He blinked, but then realized what he'd done. "Oh, sorry… but WAIT, NO, this is important! The Fire Clock!"

The attention of both women was captured by the mere mention of the monument and Cynthia held the lilac-haired boy's mouth shut. "Kiki, what's wrong? Tell me in mental."

"I was at the rooftops looking out like you told me and… and…!" Tears of concern then welled up in Mu's eyes as he transmitted the rest of it in thought, the well-being of his master stuck in his throat. "…I saw it's flames going out! All last six of them!"

The Silver Saint practically petrified at this at first. What? The Fire Clock going out? Iaso had told them that they could trust Kiki and that he wasn't the type of boy to lie in a serious situation. Quickly leaping over the house to peek over the mountaintop, Cynthia indeed saw the valley beyond it now lacked any of the pale blue flare lights one would usually spot coming from Sanctuary's tallest monument.

Moreover, the Silver Saints hadn't noticed yet, but the barriers previously jamming their sensitivity to cosmos were down, now allowing them to feel the full presence of the Specter if they just paid attention, as well as Gold Saint cosmos battling up and down the mountain. Worse yet, a terrible cosmos, which felt like a black hole among the golden stars of the Zodiac, seemed to have made it to the very top of the mountain.

All this could only mean one thing… a Specter made it into the Papal Chamber.

"Kiki, go warn Saint Nam too. I'll… keep doing what I can here. Don't tell anyone but the Saints!" She ordered, getting a frantic nod from the Lemurian boy before he flashed away. Her next thoughts were directed at herself. "Oh goddess, what's going to happen now?! How COULD this happen?! If a Specter reached the Pope, then…No, don't think about that! It's not like the Priam's war! I'll just focus on getting these people to safety!"

As Cassiopeia came back down, Eurydice obviously heard all the jumping and sensed the same things Cynthia did. "What did that boy want, Saint Cassiopeia?"

At this point she wished she was a much better liar, as the lady was clearly seeing through her ruse despite being blind, but ever since even Shinta began calling her on her out, Cynthia hasn't felt quite as confident in her bluffing skills. "N-nothing, everything's under control."

Eurydice smiled warmly, appeasing, and presented her hand. "I think I have nothing to take with me right now. Shall we go?"

As the Silver Saint took her hand and burned her cosmos to take the two of them out of there, Eurydice spared a blind look westwards. She didn't need to see the death of the 12 fires to realize what was likely going on; Papillon Ainsel's barriers were down, letting her acute 7th sense finally detect the destruction that the Specters were causing, not to mention the panic present in the poor Silver Saint's tone and the increased urgency of their actions.

In fact, she could make out Lucian up there, at the top of the Golden Zodiac. Goddess bless these Saints… but Eurydice still could only think of him as the same traumatized boy Pandora brought to her husband's palace.

"So, you've made it. You're at the top of Athena's world…. Lucian, as much as I care for you, I can't in good consciousness root for your success. If I got what I really wanted, you'd forget about all these ancient grudges and look instead to a new future for yourself, free from the petty wars the Gods dragged you into, just like you helped me do." She let out to her own world, wishing she could instead send these thoughts as a letter to that sweet silver-haired boy that Thanatos twisted into a murderous, envious machine of war. "But… the Gods have done worse to you than just make you the spouse of a cruel man, haven't they? …All I can do is pray for the safety of everyone involved and hope that, when you see the prize in front of you that you've sought after for so long, you'll think of the girl to whom you made a promise."

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Underworld,

Giudecca Palace

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Judge Rhadamanthys banged his fist on the magical mirror, commanding it to stop showing static. "Blast you, infernal thing! Why did you stop working?!"

"Oh, would you stop?" Hypnos practically sighed, wondering why in Elysium the Emperor let this brute in on the conversation. "Clearly the Saints reinforced the presence of Gold Cloths in their temples somehow. They must have gotten the Libra Cloth back to its Temple! We just need to be patient."

And, sure enough, the fog began to clear up on the image just as the Sleep God said this. Pandora pointed. "Look! It's showing something!"

Rhadamanthys gasped, watching the enchanted mirror manifest three familiar figures, one winged, one wing-helmeted and one winged down flat on the floor. "Look, Sanctuary's blessings are dropping again! It's… the Pope of Sanctuary?! And the traitor?!"

Pandora covered her mouth. There was a lot to take in in these new images; not only was Daemon Lucifer dressed in an unrecognizable version of his Daemon Surplice that matched the testimony of Garuda Aiacos and Gryphon Minos' battle with him, but he stood before none other than her Sanctuary equivalent, Athena's liaison, the Holy Father of Sanctuary. The meaning of all this eclipsed the presence of the unconscious Cancer Gold Saint entirely in their heads, as it meant that Lucifer had truly accomplished something none of them had in several Holy Wars.

"He's… done it! That's the Holy Father! Daemon has gone past the Golden Zodiac!" she realized. "For the first time in ages, Athena's Colossus is within striking distances of a Specter of Hades!"

"I… Impossible!" Rhadamanthys refused to admit, turning to the Emperor. "My liege, Sanctuary must be particularly weak right now if that man accomplished this! Weather he succeeds or not, we should be preparing our own crusade as soon as we can! Give me the order and I shall-"

"Sit down, Rhadamanthys!... Your agitation is upsetting me." the red-haired puppet ordered, making the winged hulk of a youth shrink like a shy flower into his seat. Once everyone seemed capable of thinking rationally, the Underworld god continued. "We can't do anything with the siege outside and the Prisons still in chaos! Just observe for now."

"O-of course, your majesty!"

Hypnos nodded. "A wise course of action. Our enemies still have a lot of blood they can spill from one another. Still, -" the golden god commented, eyeing the wings on Lucifer. "- Lucifer must have been driven to an extreme extent, if he was willing to turn off the Daemon Surplice's limiter. The longer he stays like this, the more he will age."

The raven-haired woman turned pensively at this comment. Perhaps Gods had no frame of reference for mortal timespans to understand that, for someone who looked in their 20s, to age normally for a night or two was no big deal. Were they like pet fish to them, as if in the Gods' minds their lives could end the next day for no reason?

The Sleep God held chin. "He used this form to get past Garuda and Gryphon. I wonder which of the Gold Saints pushed him so far. Hopefully it was Michael's new self… I'd hate to think Pope Arles has amassed powerful enough Gold Saints that a Prince would be pushed this far."

Suddenly, Rhadamanthys held his temple with his fingers, receiving a mental message. "What?!" he voiced out loud, earning looks from everyone. "Pardon me, milords. I was told just now we're having… incidents in the Praesepe Well again."

Hypnos perked up, truly surprised. "Another Lemurian intruder?"

Rhadamanthys smiled. "Better, milord! These are treasonous replacements!" he revealed. "I've ordered squadrons to the Well already."

Nodding, the Sleep God still was intrigued by this. "What would False Specters be doing there already? Perhaps it has something to do with why Sanctuary's defenses went down again…"

The Underworld God, though, was more interested in the moment. "If he's gotten so far, then Lucifer is one step away from summoning the Laurels of Arles….My niece will surely have to show herself then."

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

Sanctuary, Golden Zodiac

Pope's Halls, Entrance Stairs

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

Thunder cracked in Sanctuary's night sky, flashing through a night otherwise rendered pitch black by the extinguished Fire Clock, which sounded away its inner bells like the cataclysm had come, letting all of Athena's land know its time had ran out. The few lights not already turned on in the streets by the war's brutal blasts and quakes were now igniting one by one and people headed out the street to gasp at the mountain Temples in rumbles, releasing huge clouds of smoke.

This was all visible from where they stood, at the top of the Golden Zodiac, before the Papal Chambers' doorway. Rising from his landing and tossing the unconscious Lance aside, Daemon Lucifer beheld the man in white robe, golden dragon helmet and black mask.

And, beyond him, the Papal Chambers, the last obstacle to conquer before Athena's statue.

At last, after five human lifetimes, his dream, his family's legacy even, was at hand! He just had to reach out to claim what was rightfully his! Soon, he would stand at the Colossus, claim the lost imperial laurel and the 88 Cloths of Athena would see him the uncontested protector of the Earth for as long as he lived!

But first, to deal with Shion, or whoever may be hiding behind the mask, and Lucifer spoke with the utmost spite, the utmost rejection of the authority the person tried to project with such garments "Good evening, your Holiness."

Sliding hands into sleeves like a blasted monk, the man spoke back. "Good evening, Lucian. Welcome home."

The dropping of the name startled the Archdevil. His wings relaxed, feeling disarmed of his hostility as confusion beset him. "You… Ah, so you found my name out."

"Is it strange that I have? I am the Holy Father, after all. It is my duty to know and discover, even if I have to look at the stars themselves for what's to come…." He answered, as if the mask's ruby eyes somehow gave the bastard some kind of omniscience, but then he turned to the young boy on the steps and asked as calmly as he could. "… What did you do to Lance and Aiolos?"

Lucifer perked up. "Aiolos? I'm guessing that's your Sagittarius Gold Saint?"

Golden cosmos suddenly flowed in the Holy Father, fluttering his robe flees. "Answer the question."

Lucifer chuckled. "I'll take that as a 'yes'… They all like to name themselves after Greek kings, anyway. Sisyphus, Priam, Aiolos…We'll get to your Sagittarius later, as for THIS ONE – " Lucifer scoffed and kicked Lance aside harshly. "- your Cancer Gold Saint thought he could slice my wings off with Dohko's swords before I flew here…"

The Holy Father relaxed his cosmos, concerned. "Lance… you risked your life for that?!"

"A valiant attempt, which I rewarded with a few dozen Megawatts on my way here. I'm sure you saw the flashing." He mocked, though the damn mask denied the Specter any pleasure from seeing pain in the Pope's face. It mildly irritated him, but Dohko had also denied him that satisfaction. "So, how long have you known my birthname?"

The masked man rose chin, recollective. "Well since even before the end of our last War. My master shared certain thoughts with Dragon Shiryu that were then transmitted to me. The rest was a matter of ascertaining the truth."

The crimson eyes sharpened! Here it was! "Then you are Shion!"

Thunder crackled again.

The grey-haired Pope looked back. "Yes? I hope that wasn't a difficult mystery for you to solve."

"SHOW IT TO ME!" the Specter exploded, loudly bashing a side of the staircase into a cracked indentation.

A pause lamenting the man's madness was taken by the Pope. Slowly, the Lemurian in white robe took the piece of black porcelain off, revealing his aged, wrinkled face.

Lucifer stopped breathing for a small moment. The dots were there. So was the soft, judgmental gaze of someone who seemed like they knew something you didn't, as well as the harsh wrinkles of a life-long artisan. These were punctuated by the purple color of his eyes, common in Lemurians but quite rare in humans, that still carried the sharpness with which once upon a time they had aimed Stardust Revolution with, and the brands of white hair were long and loose in such a way that only Gold Saints really learned to love.

In his mind, Lucian knew all along that the Pope was truly Shion. He had confirmed it to himself based on behavior and there not being appointment ceremonies since the last War. But seeing his face now, still retaining traces of his young self unlike Dohko's ravaged body, made the Specter suddenly lose track of where he was, or perhaps when he was. As his mind connected all the necessary synapses matching the face he saw on the Pope with the one he battled two hundred and fifty years earlier, that unfathomable amount of time seemed to all of a sudden crash down on his powerful shoulders, as if its passage had not been made true until then.

The Lemurian seemed to notice this and smirked. For all his dark bravado, Lucian still showed humanity in these small ways. "Are you content? Will you mock my age now?"

Breathing slowly, Lucifer allowed the two and half centuries to make sense in his brain before speaking again. "No…I've just waited a long time for this moment, Lemurian, and I promised Dohko I'd make you suffer. I didn't want it to go to waste on a body double."

The wrinkled old man looked offended, both at the revelation that this man threatened his best friend, and the insinuation he just made about his bravery. "…Do you really think I'd run, Lucian? Abandon my post in a time of need like this? Just because of you?"

The Pride Star scoffed. "I think fear has made you capable of much worse, lamb boy, if anything Priam says is halfway true!"

And, with the mere mention of this name, the realization that beset on the Holy Father about Lucifer's alliances made the Lemurian's eyes widen and his skin pale further. "Priam, how could you?... Do you hate me that much?! Don't you understand that… that what I did… No, I suppose I wouldn't, either."

"I bet you're surprised to see me, though." The Prince bragged, as if he had been waiting just as long to point this out. "All those years ago, you and Dohko left the Third Prison in such a hurry, after all, that you could only be sure I was dead."

This was the understatement of the War, but still. "Perhaps not as much as Dohko. I didn't see your defeat with my own two eyes, after all. Your Eternal Darkness made sure of that." The Holy Father, however, trusted the Libra Gold Saint's word implicitly. "He did tell me, though, that he buried you deep into the crust of the Underworld. So deep, in fact, he could only imagine you landing in Tartarus along with the rest of the Titans… Daemon Lucifer, how are you still alive after what he did to you?!"

The silver-haired man could feel the frustration punctuating the end of this question with great personal delight. At last, he'd get to rub in Shion's face all the failures and misconceptions he's made.

"Isn't it obvious? Hades saved me." He explained, matter-of-factly. "His Prisons were collapsing and he needed an Atlas to hold the Underworld up, but he was too weak after what your Godslayers did to him. So, he lent me the power to dig myself out of that grave as a reward for slaughtering Tenma."

Shion's gaze lowered sadly, reminded of the poor old Pegasus' demise. Dohko had never been quite the same after losing him a second time.

The demon's next words came as hisses. "This isn't to say… that he didn't let me suffer down there first. It's Tartarus after all, the hell within hell, where the Titans sleep! In the short time I spent there I experienced worse punishments than any of the Prisons above could provide." He spoke, refusing to give word to them. Frankly the lightest of the things he suffered was when he had his body violently ripped to pieces by the Hecatoncheires, the monstrous hundred-handed guards of Tartarus. Feeling themselves getting off topic, the Archdevil put the conversation back in its rails. "But we can catch up later. For now… I-want-my-crown!"

Awakening from his regretful trance, the Pope merely lamented Lucian's foolishness. "So, all the murdering… all the pillaging… all the terrorizing, just for that? Even after all these years, you're still drunk on Hades' poison?" At this point, the Specter began laughing maniacally. "Do you mind sharing the joke?"

"HA, HA, HA, HA! Do you still think Hades sent me here?! Ainsel has done a better job keeping you blind, deaf and mute than I thought! Right now, that lying bastard Hades is probably hunkered up in his dining hall, telling Pandora to comfort him from the mean little nightmares I put in his head with Eternal Darkness, as he watches me achieve what he never has on his crystal balls!"

The Lemurian's eyes widened in shock. "… Lucian, y-you…!"

The teethy smiled that filled the Specter's face seemed to make his eyes shine redder with glory. "Yes, Shion! I have left Hades! I've renounced my fealty, taken his men for my own, blasted his precious Prisons to rubble and, most important of all, cleansed my honor! Michael's sacrifice has finally been avenged! I have spat on my enslaver's face and now am here to demand justice from yours!"

Shion had trouble accepting this. "But, your army… the countless Specters on your vicious crusade…!"

His arms spread sideways, as if to celebrate the war torn path he left behind. "All peace-time REPLACEMENTS, just like Vermeer! Men given even worse lies to by Hades so they'd fix the Prisons that you and Dohko wrecked! This entire Holy War has been as false from the start as they are! It was never a battle between Olympians, but between me and you! And as we speak, their Elites are finishing off the rest of your champions… starting with your Sagittarius!"

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

(?)

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

Awakening in a daze, Sagittarius Aiolos groaned and held his aching head, rising off the uncomfortable ground. "U-ugh…. W-What happened?"

The last thing he remembered was battling the fierce Sphinx Specter, Neferti, and then she grabbed him from behind and enacted her strange new technique, Final Passage. Then light began surrounding them both and Aiolos lost consciousness.

His blue eyes widened in fear and he got up in a hurry, remembering he was in the middle of a Holy War! "O-oh, Goddess, the others! I have to go…. back?"

….

Where the heck was he?

At first the Sagittarius Gold Saint thought he was back at the Hall of Chiron, because it seemed to still be as dark as night could get, but now he realized that there was no ceiling above him, or even stars in the sky for all that matter. Moreover, the battle rubble around him had been replaced with actual natural rubble of what looked like very rough rocky terrain. There was also a faint sound in the air, like distant crowds wailing, as well as a distinct lack of nature, not even a dead tree, which made the hunter feel even less at home.

In fact, Aiolos had to grab his chest with how cold he felt inside. Clearly, he was transported somewhere else by the Sphinx Specter in an attempt to weaken him or rid the War of the archer. He seemed to have landed on some kind of valley road in this world, but if he wanted to get back, he had to get a move on and find the Sphinx Specter.

Beginning his march, Aiolos felt like he finally had a minute to strategize after everything he learned during his battle with Sphinx. He was sure Shura and Camus were more than ready to take on the Specters that got past him, but the progress of the war still concerned him. The Specters seemed confident in their triumph and that could mean removing Aiolos from the battlefield was some kind of special strategy, especially with Saga's theory on the Tem-

He gasped at the sight ahead of him. "SAGA!" Rushing to his downed, blue-haired friend by a mount of rock rubble, Aiolos shook him awake. "Wake up! What in Athena's name are you doing here, man?!"

Groaning and rubbing his head, the Gemini slowly rose. "A… Aiolos?...It can't be!..."

"You're telling me! I thought you were way down at the lower temples!"

Wincing, the Gemini looked around. "So did I. The last thing I remember is fighting Behemoth."

Good, it seemed Saga still had his wits about him. With his powers they should be able to get out of there in no time. "Listen, Saga, it's probably a bad time to say this, but…"

The blue haired youth dusted his armor plates and narrowed his eyes. "I know what my brother did. I was escorting Shinta up the Leo passage when that prancing devil summoned the armor right off my body."

Aiolos nodded, finally understanding what happened. "I think everyone believes it was just the Gemini Cloth defending the Temple in an emergency, so your training should be fine." Aiolos confirmed, before lowering forehead in gratitude. "Also… thank you for saving Aiolia. Shaka messaged me about it. You have no idea how helpless I was feeling…"

Seeing the Sagittarius humbly lower his head to his rival took Saga by surprise. While it was a joint effort with Andromeda, he sped things along by going along with it. "Of course, it was nothing. But… where are we?"

Aiolos spared the infertile dimension around them another look. "I was hoping you could tell me that."

"You're in Yomotsu Hirasaka, a special passageway to the 7th Prison!" someone above them shouted, alerting them. "Or as you know it, the Praesepe Underworld Well!"

Aiolos and Saga backed away, spotting Sphinx Neferti overlooking them from a bluff, and Sagittarius immediately reached for his arrow and bow. "Watch OUT! It's the Specter that brought me here!"

Ignoring the threat, Sphinx jumped off the bluff and landed before them gracefully. "… This is unexpected. Did you come to save your wayward friend, Gemini? Or to join him in the funerary barge?"

Seeing that the musician Specter lacked her famous instrument to back her threats with, the third Gold Saint scoffed. "Hm, not exactly, I've actually lost my way a bit while kicking your Behemoth friend's ass."

The notion that this upstart Greek teenager could defeat Torak made her snort. "You have a lot of ner-"

"Why did you send us here? What was the point?!" Aiolos demanded to know. If she had this technique in her arsenal the whole time, there had to be a timing she was obeying.

"I've dragged you here. I have no idea what Gemini is doing in the Underworld." She assured, before a smile filled her brown-skinned face. "Though if you must know, I brought you here to fulfill my strategic role. With my 'Final Passage', I can take a single victim with myself unto this world temporarily, much like Anubis carrying the Pharaohs to the afterlife, and unlike the Underworld Wave your Cancer Saints use… I take everything with me."

The Gemini Saint did a quick mental math. "Oh no…. Aiolos, that means your body and armor are here for real, not just in spirit!"

The Sagittarius looked at himself and paled. "But that means…The temple blessings!"

The tanned warrioress smirked. "It's true! Sagittarius just nicked it after Scorpio left his House. Now my Lord is at the Pope's doorstep! How does it feel to be outsmarted by fake Specters, Gold Saints? By the time your bodies return to Earth, Sanctuary will already be ours!"

"Not if we take you out NOW!" Gemini assured, charging his aura. Light and darkness began converging in his hands, breaking the barrier between dimensions. "GALAXIAN-!"

Aiolos widened his eyes, seeing the Sphinx suddenly focus on him instead of Saga's attack. "WAIT, SAGA, SHE CAN SWITCH PLACES!"

The annihilating powers of exploding planets was then unleashing in a massive golden shockwave. "-EXPLOSION!"

"SHIFTING SANDS!" Neferti casted, wrapping herself away in a whirlwind of dust and replacing herself with Aiolos, who barely had time to close his wings around himself before being struck with the blast and smashed against the floor.

Saga gasped at this just as sand upwhirled where Aiolos once stood. "Oh, shit, AIOL-!" The Damascus-clad punch then struck across his face, silencing and flooring him.

Sphinx surveyed them lamentingly. It was a good thing the secret tag she put on the Sagittarius was still working. "You'll find this world much easier to manipulate with my techniques, Gold Saints, as there's a lot more dust around than in your pristine temples."

Saga rubbed his gritting jaw angrily and helped Aiolos up. "S-sorry, man!"

Irking, the Sagittarius shook his head and tried to have patience. "I-it's alright, you didn't know! I'd just like to know how the hell she does that!"

Neferti saw the two Gold Saints recover right away and reignite their auras, creating a bright bonfire of gold in that dark world that heated her skin. "It's impressive that you brushed that off, Sagittarius… I was sure he struck you directly."

The bandana-totting warrior scoffed. "We spar almost every day. I'm more than used to Saga's lightshows."

"Hey, that would have killed most enemies!" Saga protested, before eyeing the Sphinx. "… But perhaps just this once we can work together to defeat the enemy. The faster we get back, the better."

She rose an eyebrow. "Isn't that against your rules, Saint?"

Saga simply smirked and summoned his golden aura. "We're not in Sanctuary anymore, are we? Besides, you've been cheating all night as well."

Though hesitant, Aiolos joined in, stepping up for battle and unfurling his wings to summon a bonfire of cosmos around himself. He didn't enjoy battling women, much less with numeric advantage, but Neferti was clearly a powerful opponent and Saga was right about the urgency of the situation.

Her gaze sterned and her fingers tensed into a battle pose. "Uh, very well! Then to hell with the both of you! HIERACO-!"

The two Gold Saints then pushed up their energy levels and the joint charge of their auras shockwaved out, bashing the False Specter back a step.

Neferti broke her heel into the ground and winced. "AGH!... What?! This power spike…?!"

Paralyzed by the currents of power lifted up, Neferti beheld as the two mightiest Gold Saints in Sanctuary after Shaka himself manifested the cosmos, setting alite projections of their Zodiacs in the skies as their hands began shining brightly with the sheer power concentrating into them.

"Sorry, but we're finishing this in one blow! ANOTHER DIMENSION!" Saga then dashed his hands across the air, twisting the three-dimensional space Neferti stood on, causing the female warrior to twirl around defenselessly and scream in panic. "NOW, AIOLOS!"

The shining paladin, whose fist had turned into a restrained Olympian thunder charge, then dashed into the fray, fist enveloped in "Sever the atoms themselves with your light! LIGHTNING BOLT!"

Unable to find any leverage or bracing point, Neferti the massive beam of thunder coming at her, casting her screaming silhouette into the Praesepe mountain faces with its blinding light. "I… I can't get away!"

"SHADOW SEWING!"

Silhouettes came to life, shooting out of the mountain sides like lashing chains of blackness that wrapped around Neferti, pulling her out of the attack's way. The alarmed Sagittarius pulled back from his flight and landed protectively over Saga, covering his eyes from the Bolt's impact onto the far horizon that exploded massively, raising a gigantic cloud of smoke into the air.

The Sagittarius irked. If the rest of Hades army didn't know they were present, they surely knew now. "W-what happened?!"

Recognizing the move, Saga then pushed Aiolos out of the way into a dimensional warp. "WATCH OUT!"

"BRUTAL REAL!" someone roared, landing where they stood with an earth-shattering axe kick that made the landscape shake. Behemoth Torak looked up to see Gemini Saga reappear up in the air with Sagittarius, whose wings flapped to stay airborne. "Tsk… you're more alert now, aren't you, Gemini?"

Aiolos saw the ground struck by the Behemoth cracking and ceding, giving place to pools of phantasmagoric fires from the world they stood on. He didn't like to think what would have happened if they got buried into that. "That's… Behemoth?!"

Saga narrowed his eyes. "Yes… I was hoping he got lost in some other hellhole dimension. We both have our work cut out for us, it seems."

Hoisted up by a Shadow Sewing chain, Neferti was equally stunned. "Torak?! What are you doing here?!"

Dissipating his technique to release her, the Behemoth scoffed. "The Gemini Saint did a service to the Cancer House, pulling both of us here accidentally. It's good timing, though; we'll annihilate these two Gold Saints at once!"

Landing, the two Gold Saints found themselves confronted directly by the two Elites. "Aiolos, be careful, that guy can reconstitute his armor and use dangerous moves with shadows! We have to avoid creating light sources and hit him with powerful attacks!"

Aiolos sweated, seeing in the guy's powerful cosmos and frame that this wouldn't be the only problem. "Right, no problem! Puncturing strikes are my specialty! His armor may heal, but his body does not!"

The Behemoth squinted and smashed fist into palm threateningly. "I see in your faces that you think you can still win… I'd cast that foolishness aside. Tonight is the night of the False Specters. And you two will never see the light of day again."

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

A cold breeze went by as the realization of Aiolos' situation sank inside the Holy Father's mind. "You… devil! You took Aiolos away to the Underworld?!"

The Specter scoffed like he said the stupidest thing in the world. "You didn't think I'd fight like an idiot, did you, Shion? It's the Golden Zodiac! Every trick and trade are necessary to defeat these Temples!" confronted Lucifer, confident in his strategy. "I've long had an inkling of how your Temple defenses worked, but was never sure. You tried to hide Athena's little secret about this mountain, but thanks to Priam's little stunt last summer, I obtained confirmation of the Golden Zodiac's weakness! The rest was planning…"

The immensity of the maneuver, as well as of the alliance between the False Specters and the Black Saints, was then fully comprehended by the Holy Father. Shion found himself holding the spot in his chest that the former Sagittarius shoved an arrow through, as if the act itself had just been repeated. "Priam, how could you…?"

A silver brow was raised. "You're blaming him? Do you still not understand this is all your fault, lamb?! Who drove that pacifist to the edge of despair, cut him off of his allies and chased him across the world like a terrorist? You made me his natural ally. And now… here we are! Mm, mm, mm!"

But Shion's face became stern in disgust at this! For all the problems they had, Shion knew in his heart Priam was a good man, albeit too idealistic for everyone's good. The danger he represented had nothing to do with his character, but the force of their terrible, terrible circumstances. He would never willingly side with a man of Hades, even a rebelling one!

Unless… Lucian had leverage? "What did you do to him? What did you take from Priam?! What life did you ransom that he'd ever feel indebted to you?!"

The Specter paused, as this brought his mind to Cerah, whose status he was still unsure of. "It's not who I saved, per say, but who I sheltered during the storm of your Sanctuary's inquisition last decade. What matters is that Priam believes he can trust me and owes me a debt of kindness. For pacifists like him, isn't that enough?"

Shion's head lowered, feeling all the pieces of the dark puzzle now falling into place. "You've gotten quite the new following, then…False Specters, Black Saints, even my old Gold Saints…"

"They have their uses, like giving me intel and the pushing power I need to get through your Houses." Lucifer complimented. "With the False Specters, it was a simple matter of harnessing their resentment towards Hades, as it happened, I and them shared a lot of it. Besides, Sanctuary would never imagine in a million years that the Underworld would have its own 'Civil War' of sorts. It made moving circles around your Saints that much easier."

The aged Lemurian nodded. "I see, now I understand everything… the rise in activity in Germany, the forward base, the disappearance of an entire army of Specters during a thunderstorm, and the attack on Crow's Nest…"

It pleased Lucifer to watch the look on the Holy Father's face as he puzzled it all together. "All diversions. I knew exactly how you'd react to each move I made, Shion. It was clear from the start that you were going to do everything in your power to pretend this War wasn't happening, to contain it. However,… I have to admit that I wasn't expecting the depth of your weakness." Lucifer confessed, delighting in the realization on Shion's face. A smirk prefaced his next sentence. "Shion, really? Children guarding your Temples? Even if they're your old friends, what kind of man are you?"

This time, it was a golden thunderbolt that flashed through the cosmos as the Pope's eyes sterned. He had no true excuse; he could say Lucifer was even a pettier man for having laid his hands on the young Gold Saints, but he was doing merely what any other invader would have. It was Shion who put them in their Houses, good reason or not.

At that point, even at his old age, Shion felt like he could toss every bit of cosmos at the man in front of him, and obliterate the Specter down to a subatomic level. There was little doubt in his mind that his own life was a small price to pay to bring retribution to this Specter who has spent centuries causing suffering and anguish to all his loved ones, especially Dohko.

…But not with Lance lying there, next to his boot. This conversation needed to be moved away. "Would you like to come inside?"

Once again, the Archdevil was caught off guard. "… What?!"

The Pope began climbing the stairs up and eyed him like he said something confusing. "It's what you want, isn't it? To reach the top of the world? And you want answers, as well. I can give you both easily."

Feeling goaded, the Archdevil watched the decrepit Lemurian's distancing, exposed back, and felt like he could just shove a Dark Spear right through it then and there.

…

Yet, he also felt curious. "Very well, then…"

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

House of Libra

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

Kneeling next to the Bronze Saint held up by Aldebaran, the young Scorpio Milo braced his finger over the green-head's chest. "O-okay, stay still, Shinta…This might hurt a little." and he then shoved the long-nailed index into the Bronze Saint's primary Constellation Point, causing a gasp of agony out of him.

Aldebaran irked at the screams. "I-Is he gonna be okay?"

The blue-haired Gold Saint watched as the incessant bleeding began to halt and the squirming stopped. "Y-yeah, Camus made me practice this a million times. He seemed convinced that at some point I'd get someone innocent hurt…"

Deathmask snorted rudely. "Guess he was right, idiot! You almost got Shinta wacked!"

"HEY, give me a break, man! I had a clear shot and the Specter bastard was down on his knees! You would have taken it too!" Milo protested, taking the least shit out of Deathmask's bullying out of everyone in the Zodiac. It was probably why he usually got along with him better than most. "In fact, you did the same, your attack just happened to only need to land once!"

"For Athena's sake, why are we arguing again in the middle of an emergency?!" Shaka cried out. "Daemon Lucifer just flew off with Lance to the Pope's Chambers! The Holy Father could be the only one standing between that Specter and total brainwashing of all our Cloths!"

Milo scratched his head. Shaka was kind of a lecturer, but he was right. "You guys will have to explain that last part to me later, but I get it, we're in big trouble. So, what do we do?"

"I'm not doing anything! I've done WAY MORE than my fair share! In fact, y'all owe me BIG TIME!" Deathmask bitched, walking off. "Let me know later if the world ends or whatever."

Groaning, Milo wondered if Deathmask gave a single damn at all about the safety of everyone, including his teacher. As such he turned to the only other person who could still do anything. "Aldebaran, Deathmask is being a jerk, but he has a bit of a point. Him and Shaka are not up to fighting standards right now. Which means it's up to the rest of us to save the day!"

But the Taurus Saint wasn't so sure, frowning somberly. In fact, with all the bleeding that Milo had to stop with his Golden Touch and the multiple times he's tested the limits of his exhausted body that night, Aldebaran wasn't certain he could climb another step without collapsing, much less catch up with Daemon. "I want to help, Milo, b-but…"

The Scorpio Gold Saint waved his hand. His friend's look was more than enough. "Mm, you know what, it's okay. I can see you've done your fair share, too." So the brave young boy stepped up to the challenge, eyeing the far off Papal Chambers. "I guess it's all down to me…"

"W-wait!"

Milo turned. "Shinta?"

The green-haired Saint was awakening in Aldebaran's hands and tried to stand up. "M-milo, stop! Don't go on your own… t-take me with you!"

Deathmask scoffed. "You're kidding, right? You're almost a bad a shape as Aldebaran! What are you gonna do?!"

The Scorpio was equally skeptic. "Saint Shinta, Mephisto is right on this. You've taken a lot of punishment in this fight, including three Scarlet Needles. You're lucky to still be alive."

But the Andromeda resisted, fighting to stand up on his own until he could balance himself. His pink aura burned with a small flame, keeping him barely strong. "I don't care… I have to go up with you… Lance… is up there with them! I can't just… sit here!"

The young Gold Saints exchanged looks of skepticism.

Milo's young eyes sterned as well, but his nature couldn't help but kind of respect this dedication. "I'm not carrying you up the stairs, I'm not slowing down and I'm not lending you any Cosmos, Shinta. If you're coming along, you better make do with your own strength."

"Shinta, here." Shaka presented. "I found this by the collapsed roof while you were being treated. I think Lucifer's beam attack didn't get it too."

Shinta widened his eyes, seeing what was left of the Triangle End. "M-My chain!" As soon as he took it, though, and contact was made between their hands, the Andromeda gasped, feeling an intense flush of golden cosmos transmitted from the boy unto him. It made his eyes freeze into a sight of a huge galaxy before him, before quickly returning to reality with golden energy brimming off his body. "S-Shaka!"

The blonde boy shook his head. "It's the rest of my cosmos. With Andromeda dead, you'll need it to power your chain. Since my abilities are gone, I have no use for all that energy, so… If I can give it away for someone who can still fight, then at least I'll be helping."

The teenager was utterly humbled by this gift. "T… Thank you! I won't let it go to waste!"

The young Indian child smiled melancholically, recalling what he saw when Shinta briefly interacted with his Gold Cloth earlier. "….And Shinta? Before you go… I was wrong." He confessed. "When I turned you away from my Temple a year ago, I said you weren't ready to be my apprentice, that you needed to rid yourself of your Guilt, but you've made tremendous progress since then. When this is all over I'd love to have a conversation with you at my Temple about your future,… so be careful out there."

If he was humbled earlier, now Shinta was utterly floored by the prodigious Gold Saint's generous words.

So much that Milo had to call him out of his trance. "Are we going?"

Shinta spared Shaka and Aldebaran one last thankful nod for all they've done for him and joined Scorpio. "Yes."

Milo eyed the stairs suspiciously as he gathered his power. "If that guy just flew up no problem, something tells me we might be able to use some degree of light speed to get up the stairs faster as well. We'll use it to join Aiolos, Shura and the others much faster than usual!"

"Right!" Shinta agreed, burning his cosmos. He then eyed his objective, the Papal Chambers. "And we'll put a stop to this war, once and for all!"

The two then sped out of there up the stairs, indeed reaching surprising climb speeds up the mountain. Everyone else back at Libra deduced they'd reach the Hall of Orion sooner rather than later.

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

Sanctuary,

Papal Chambers

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

The enormous doorways of the Papal Chambers were opened with but a mere approximation of their master, creaking loudly to the sides and allowing the Holy Father in. All Papal Guards and servants had been long evacuated, turning the building into a giant, empty abode where his steps echoed. The entry hall offered stairs on each side to corridors at the edges of the ground floor, while the next great doorway went into the corridor leading to the Throne Room. After that, in the throne room's side doors, twin passages went further beyond and coalesced into the exit to the Colossus.

Daemon Lucifer had to be stopped before then.

As the winged mass of dark metal stalked inside, dragging blood, dust, mud and grit into the pristine red carpet, the doorways shut close loudly behind him and candles throughout the building were set alite. His red eyes surveyed all over. There were large red curtains obscuring the glass windows, blocking the flashes of the thunderstorm outside, and gothic gargoyles matching the dragon on the Pope's helmet adorned the top corners of the entry hall. A chandelier shaped like the sun with twelve candles hanged on the ceiling's center and a smell of incense could be felt despite the large space of the division.

Overall, it was the largest and most majestic of the Golden Zodiac buildings, known to possess enormous rooms in the top floor leading to a balcony from where all of Athena's Valley could be seen, while gigantic portraits of past Popes would be mounted on each corridor, honoring thousands of years of service to the Goddess.

"Welcome to the Hall of Athena. You have gotten past the Twelve Temples, even if by flight, so I must at least honor you with its entry room. You've never been here, have you?" Shion asked, noticing his curious look around. "We met at the Colossus, true, but Alone had ripped it out of the rest of the Zodiac into the skies at the time. One thousand years ago, your ancestor ruled half the Cosmos from this place,… which isn't to say you will."

To the Specter, however, this was the ultimate hypocrisy. "It's interesting that you deny me my destiny, Shion, when you are so loyal to the fulfillment of that of your friends." Lucifer confronted. "I know where your little children Gold Saints come from… I didn't see it at first, but my battle with Shaka made it clear. They are Sisyphus' Gold Saints, are they not?"

The Holy Father felt the noose on his neck tightening; it was perhaps a matter of time for the Daemon to recognize his old enemies in these young boys, but with this came the extra danger of uncovering it was all part of Hekate's prophecies. There was no telling the consequences of this kind of knowledge spreading, especially after the conflicts with Sagittarius Priam. The witch had been proven more than correct about the return of his friends, so it just made it all the more sense for Shion to make sure her first warning, of a total war with the Gods, was not.

He had to therefore word himself carefully. Facing the Daemon, he spoke. "Yes, they are. It would be pointless to deny it to you. Even Dohko has noticed it from merely my letter descriptions of them. However, none of them claimed the spot they are now by favoritism or lineage like you wish to do. Everyone, from Aphrodite to Aldebaran, have more than enough talent and bravery to earn where they are now."

Purple sparks crackled in Lucifer's hand as he presented it in offer. "I'd be happy to prove the same."

The Pope watched the Specter's steps carefully, keeping the layout of the room in mind with a sweat. "Prove the same? Even if you wanted to become Pope, rather than the tyrant your ancestor was, there is also the matter of character, and I've seen more than enough proof tonight that you are just as lost a man as you've always been."

The brimming of dark and red aura in the Specter's body manifested warningly. "You think I lack character to rule?"

And then Shion did something few men who knew Lucifer's power so intimately had the courage to do. He spoke of the Devil's faults heartily.

"I don't think you just lack character, Lucifer." He called, distinguishing the Specter from the lost man inside it. "I think you are a completely bankrupt monster in terms of honor, morals, shame or right to rule even over a girl's scout committee, much less a pack of lost warriors like the one you got or the throne of the defender of the Earth. You are not just arrogant, bloodthirsty and blind to your faults, but you had the brightness in your heart to finally pierce through Hades' lies, and, yet, what do you do with that light?"

Lucifer's fists tightened visibly, cringing their metal claws, even.

Shion's nose cringed. "You squander it!... You turned your back to cruel dogs only to then seek out to make yourself one! As a servant of Athena, as a guardian against such creatures who seek to rule the planet… I can't think of a more pathetic choice to make!"

The loud, demonic screech that followed was let out by a dark crackling blur, rather than a man, that lunged at the Pope with a fist clad in the devil's thunderous pitchfork!

Which then clanged loudly…. painfully stopped to a halt an inch away from the Pope's stoic gaze. The maddened silver-head retracted his cracked, clawed gauntlet of a fist, feeling his arm bone reverberate.

He forgot about the Lemurian's blasted Crystal Wall. "Back to our old tricks, Shion?!"

"Not exactly." the Pope hinted, igniting his aura to enact the rest of his trap.

Blinking, just when he was about to send some soft current through the wall to make it break from the inside out, Lucifer stepped back and surveyed his surroundings.

He widened his eyes, detecting Crystal Walls all around him!

"CRYSTAL WALL: BIRDCAGE!" Shion announced, making his cosmos' light reflect off the technique to make the perfect diamond encasement more visible. "A far cry from Sage's Talisman Cage in terms of trapping evildoers, but it will do for now! These walls will reflect any attack you send at them back at you, so why don't you lay down until morning, Lucian?"

The Specter was outraged. "You think this will stop me?! I've learned how to resonate cosmos through these things long ago! You'll have to try harder." he roared, the voice sounding muffled through the membranes.

"If you insist!" Shion then snapped his fingers.

Suddenly, like headlights being turned on, the eyes on the gargoyles on the far upper corners of the Hall came alive with golden gazes, alerting the Specter. "What…?!"

The statues began burning auras of cosmos. "You're not the only one who's been preparing for a moment like this, Lucian. You stand on the Holy Father's temple, where the powers of the Golden Zodiac are at their highest. NOW FEEL THE LIGHT OF ATHENA CONVERGE UPON YOU!"

The gargoyles then manifested the full extent of the power being relayed through them, drawing from the very blessings of Athena that formed the backbone of the mountain's defenses, and the Specter gasped when four ground-trailing beams of light fired down, travelling beneath the Crystal Cage and converging beneath his feet. Upon doing so, a large ritual circle marked with all sorts of symbols worshipping the Zodiac and Athena was formed with pure light and the Celestial Star felt the raw, brimming power of the Twelve Temples under Shion's command ready to erupt beneath him.

Right n that tight cage of reflective walls that let not a single ounce of energy past them…

Shion then waved his hand down on the cage beast. "COLCHIAN DISASTER!"

A loud, demonic screech of rage and pain then followed when the ritual circle violently geysered its power out, flooding the entire cage's innards with the miraculous cosmos of Sanctuary and blasting the Cage's walls with brutal violence, testing their elastic surfaces to the limit and shaking the entire Chamber with the force contained against the ground. The bouncing energy, with nowhere to go, struck with far more effectiveness than it usually would, cracking the almighty barriers the Holy Father summoned and eventually bursting like a balloon, shock waving fire and light in all directions, cracking the walls and setting curtains and portraits ablaze.

Guarding himself, the Holy Father winced, battered back by his own trap, and looked up to see an authentic furnace burning at the center of the sacred hall. The gargoyles that he set up to act as relays for the trap's power cracked and collapsed off the walls, rendered ineffective, and the building creaked loudly, threatening to collapse the doorway.

"That one… was for TENMA!" he shouted, knowing the Daemon to be alive but definitely hurt. "COME OUT, Lucian! The final battle you've waited so long to have is only just beginning!"

Just as he said this, an obsidian force full of anger and bloodthirst finally emerged inside the flames, raging against the burning, before it shot itself out with a lightning blow that struck the Pope directly before Crystal Wall could be formed, blasting Shion through the doors to the corridor room!

{======================|0|======================}

Meanwhile,

Death Queen Island

{======================|0|======================}

Guilty growled in frustration as the earth shook and as waves of lava tried to catch him inside the Queen's Volcano. He leapt to dodge a few bigger waves of magma and, as soon as he landed, found himself right beneath a rock slide. Fists filled with fiery cosmos punched back and forth, destroying the black rocks. Guilty heard the volcano roar loudly all around him and the lava bubbling all over him and wondered what was wrong with the island.

The ground he was standing on then started breaking apart and magma erupted from the cracks, attacking him. Guilty instantly punched the floor, tearing it apart and causing it to collapse on itself, covering the bursting vein of lava between tons and tons of black basalt.

"So you think you're funny, huh?" he asked the Queen as he then leapt high in the air. "How about this punch line? Hōyokutenshō!" he yelled, dropping like a missile on top of the pool of lava, making it burst towards the skies.

Guilty felt his fist punching through hot, molten rock before it crashed with the still-solid black layers of rock beneath it. Massively powerful currents of air beat up by the Phoenix's wings then crashed with the magma he sent flying, making the red liquid move around him like a twister. Guilty stood up and caused the winds to maintain themselves, preventing the lava from falling on top of him while he did his research.

He looked down on the black, shattered floor. "I think I found the bone stuck in your throat. Let's take care of that."

With this, Guilty raised his armored hand high in the air, filling it with cosmos. He roared as he brought it down to the floor like thunder, shattering the black rock to pieces. Guilty let himself fall among the crumbling rocks, summoning fire that destroyed all debris that tried to crush him as he drilled through the volcano's bottom. It was a part of the volcano's underground that had solidified itself long ago, having almost blocked the conduit that led to every volcano's underground magma chambers many decades ago. He was used to having to clear up the Queen's throat to prevent the bad days, though.

Eventually, his hands stopped and burned with pain as it hit something extremely hard. Guilty roared with pain, grabbing his injured hand, and then had to cover his eyes as golden light burst from below him. He fell to his back and hissed. He must have hit some sort of underground stardust reserve.

His eyes opened up, bothered by the constantly flashing golden light, before widening completely in shock as he saw what had actually stood before his fist. "What? That's…that's impossible!"

Guilty stood up and approached the source of the light. His bewildered mind rushed fast as he tried to make sense of the situation. However, it didn't make any. But, unless Lance was right and he was finally losing it for good, Guilty was sure that, right before his very eyes, stood a Golden Cloth Box like none he had ever seen.

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

China,

Mount Rozan

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

The sun climbed the east high in this part of the world already, reflecting rainbows off the large, roaring waterfall with its light. Dohko sat at the edge of the rock precipices overlooking the lake with his hat tucked on, accompanied by Ma Chao, watching the serpentine shapes in the falling water intently. Their eyes shined with yellow light.

"Thank you for taking my armor to Sanctuary. I deeply lament that you cannot aid us further." Dohko politely regretted, before offering some snark. "Though increasingly I feel it's a matter of will, not ability."

"I have done my part, tiger brat. It is now up to Athena's Saints to defend her land." Seiryu spoke, sinking down the waterfall into the grotto's deep waters. "Next time, get Byakko to do it! It's his Hide, after all…"

Ma Chao, the white tiger, stopped its snarling, indicating that the dragon god cut itself off from their reality.

The Libra Gold Saint sighed, having already expected this resistance. Seiryu was kind enough to power the flight of the Libra Cloth all the way to Sanctuary, but wouldn't even tell him what exactly did he see in Greece. The aged master knew very well that the dragon god, despite feigning sloth, could see off of Lance's eyes into the war and the human even sensed that the deity suddenly went lethargic a bit back, usually a sign that it was conducting an astral projection into one of its disciples' minds.

It, in turn, could only mean bad news, as it either meant Lance was stepping into dangerous territory as he abused Seiryu's gifts… or that Lance's old terrors had to be fought back, likely due to Eternal Darkness.

This tightened Dohko's old, slowed-down heart. He knew the bite of the spell very well, having been saved from it by the brave Andromeda Shun at Death Queen Island and seen its effects on Sisyphus and Shion. In fact, Dohko had gotten the impression from their occasional sake-drinking reunions over the decades that his best friend had never really recovered from the trauma of it, often expressing great anxiety about the visions he had when the alcohol got to him.

Fortunately, with the death of Papillon Ainsel, the barriers all around the world that Lucifer's men set up went down and the Gold Saint could get a much clearer picture in the 7th sense of what was going on. However, one thing was to sense the multiple cosmic signatures running up and down the Twelve Temples, and the other was to get a clear picture of what was going on or a solid mental message line.

He could also barely feel Shion and Lance's cosmos… Daemon Lucifer's was blotting them out like a black hole. Goddess, please help them!

"Ooh, that's a big kitty! I take it from it not dragging you off to the woods that you're the Rozan Master?" someone asked.

The purple dwarf looked over shoulder, suspicious, and saw Ma Chao snarling warningly at a very tall visitor in Silver Cloth. "Herakles Aguilon…"

The lion-helmeted, scarred man, accompanied by his Herculean Guard, kept his respectful distance but smirked in cockiness. "Well, I know I'm famous, but even the Old Master knows my name? I'm honored!"

The Libra Saint scoffed. "Bah, are you here to challenge me? My best friend's life is currently in grave danger! I'm in no mood to teaching brats a lesson in humility or giving foot soldiers autographs."

The enormous, aged warrior, who was pretty advance in lifespan for his career, gave a hearty laugh. "AH, Ah, ah! You grumpy old hermit, I would smash my fist upside your head for that, but I'm actually looking for a comrade." He revealed. "Saint Ophiuchus Iaso came here to Asia recently, chasing after the Waters of Life. I left Romania to find him, then I find out a bunch of Lemurian villages got burned down without anyone noticing and in the middle of my questionnaire… I suddenly feel Sanctuary swarmed with Specters."

"And you thought you'd ask the wisest man around how you missed such an important development?" Roshi provoked. "I'm afraid eastern wisdom can't fix daftness, young man."

The Herculean Guards shuffled and shared looks of skepticism and discomfort, not appreciating the lack of respect for their commander. "That purple plum has a sharp tongue, doesn't he?"

But the Silver Saint scoffed. "Shut up, Stymphalian, that plum outranks me. He's a goddamn war hero, too, so unless you've rocketed yourself off the planet to rid Athena of a Bennu, have some respect!" And he then readdressed the Gold Saint. "Sorry, Lord Libra, these punks are disciplined, but they get a certain lack of décor with Gold Saints from me. Anyway, can you tell me what the hell is going on? Is Iaso fucking dead or what?"

The directness of the giant was something that Dohko couldn't help but feel a bit of sympathy for. It reminded him of Lance, even. "Fortunately, Saint Iaso is alive and well. He survived his battles and is currently back in Sanctuary doing his best to save others, no thanks to you. You and your men have much to catch up on."

The perceptive Hercules squinted, recalling what the Libra mumbled earlier. "You said your best friend was in danger, right?" he asked, as the Master of Rozan was famous, if anything, for being the Pope's closest friend. "Who is threatening His Holiness? How did this all happen?! And why?"

The old master's head slumped softly, recalling his final battle with Daemon. His old eyes shook, holding back tears.

If only he had blasted the Specter harder. If only he had kicked his 'corpse' or bothered to do anything that ensured the demise of such evil. If only he had half the wisdom 'mom' did.

"It's happening because of me… because I was a fool... because I was so anxious to get Shion off that Prison and turn my back on the blasted war. And now,… Athena save me, I might lose him and my student all over again…"

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

Papal Chambers

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

With black steps of thunder, the Specter paced inside the corridor furiously, his crimson eyes shining brighter in the darkness of the Halls, following Shion out of the burning Hall of Athena into the corridor to the Throne Room. Colchian Disaster had struck him badly, scalding his armor with the cosmos of Athena's blessings and striking his body with the explosive, smashing forces of her divine will, causing his Surplice to begin to show the first signs of serious damage.

But he would have it no other way! His last battle before the Colossus, his revenge against Shion and Hakurei by extension, would be a glorious one!

Shion gasped with the pain of the blow he took and crawled against the wall, struggling to get back up, his heart beating fast with the approaching threat.

"G-GET UP, SHION!" it roared, still rattled by the power of the trap sprung on him and charging cosmos for a follow up assault. "I rotted away in the Underworld for FIVE HUNDRED years because of YOU and your teacher! I won't have you cutting my vengeance short because you're too old to stand and fight!"

"M-Master Hakurei was INNOCENT! HE TRIED TO SAVE YOU!" Shion bit back, standing up straight. He would not tolerate his teacher being insulted, even by this overwhelming adversary "He did everything he could to protect you from the darkness! He didn't know the forces conspiring to seize you!"

"YES, HE DID! LOOK AT ME!" Lucifer insisted, waving clawed finger at himself. "WHAT OTHER CHILD HAD THIS HAIR, THIS FACE, THIS COSMOS?! Why would the Pope order him to protect such a family of nobodies in Germany?! And who else would HADES, the God obsessed with proving Athena wrong, CONSPIRE TO MAKE HIS PUPPET?!"

The Pope gritted teeth, silenced by the secret thought in his mind of Leon…

So the Daemon's rant continued, pointing clawed finger. "From the moment he laid eyes on my family, Altar Hakurei knew who we were just as much as Hades! From the moment he saw my father living an exile's life, paying for crimes committed long before he was born, Hakurei knew he was the Emperor's heir … but when the scared mob also knew, when they were told by your aristocrats to blame their failed crops, and the Specter attacks, and the Saint's negligence on my family's curse, when my mother was dragged through the window of the house by their filthy hands in front of me for loving my father, what did your Master do?!"

The Holy Father at this pointed wanted to answer and defend his Master, but amidst the shouting he could see the malice of Eternal Darkness practically dancing in Lucifer's bright red eyes, enhancing the consequences of the Dark Prince spending half a millennium telling himself all these poisonous things to justify his tragedy. "Lucian, you…"

So Lucian pressed it in, maddened. "He did nothing! He stood there and watched! All because those murderers were Athena's own! Telling ME everything would be okay and pray to the Goddess for their souls as I heard my parents' screams at the pyre! Was I not one of Athena's own?! Was not my father or mother?! Well, Shion, if my family must pass down its sentences to my parents, I demand it must pass down its rights as well!"

"N-NEVER!" Shion asserted, gathering his frail energies as the distance between them vanished. "Even if that crown hadn't been burned long ago, I was chosen by the G-Goddess to protect this seat! Even IF I was the only choice, I will not dishonor her by surrendering it to a maddened dog with a vendetta against the world! I WOULD RATHER DIE!"

This courage in the old man only frustrated the Specter, who rose his fists crackling with murderous sparks. "DARK LUST BARRAGE!" And his punching hand fired off the deadly assail of thunder javelins.

"CRYSTAL WALL!" Shion casted, catching the first wave of missiles with the translucid barrier, which cracked.

Tossing it aside like a used, shattered glass shield, Shion saw the Specter lunge at him and unleashed the maximum extent of his cosmos, turned his hands into beacons of light and parried the Specter's follow up punch, then the kick, then the knee blow, resorting entirely to his cosmos to compensate the gross difference in physical power. With his Lemurian martial art and a great deal of effort, he fought off the successive physical blows, taking careful back steps and looking for a chance to counter.

This came when Lucian, in his rage, charged cosmos into his hand for his strongest melee move. "DARK PRIDE FIST!" Detecting the catastrophic technique, Shion ducked to the side to dodge the first swing of white thunder fire, but Lucifer then bashed his wing against him, smashing the Pope against the wall, causing more candles to drop to the floor and set the corridor on fire as well before swinging the attack at his head!

With a flash of light, however, Shion disappeared, and Dark Pride Fist struck the wall, causing a cascading effect of destruction that blasted everything in that direction, collapsing the entire side of the gigantic temple.

As the structure shook, Shion reappeared behind Lucifer and struck his arm joint with a palm blow, stunning it painfully to create an opening. "AGH! Teleportation?!"

Setting loose the specks of stardust in his Papal helmet, Shion's cosmos was concentrated into them until they became bright stars and his hand thrust over the Specter's vulnerable side. "STARDUST REVOLUTION!"

Lucifer screamed, blasted at point blank with the concentrated shower of empowered stardust, exploding the ruined corridor side he was one but only bashing back the Specter a bit.

The aged Pope widened his eyes, finding unexpected success in this blow. "A-and that one was for me and D-Dohko! Now rise from the flames, D-Daemon!"

However, rather than jumping right back out like he remembered the Specter doing, the winged Archdevil stumbled out of the chaos of cosmos with a gasp, dropping to his knee.

It was then that Shion saw clearly in his enemy that evil madness of Eternal Darkness in his eyes, confirming his suspicions. "L-Lucian… you were struck by your own spell?!"

The Celestial Pride Star struggled to rise, glaring at Shion while also hearing mind-splitting screeches in his head that made the aged Aries turn into and back from Hakurei to Lucifer, fusing similar objects of hatred inside his head together. Was this the hell he had inflicted on so many in its rawest form? He had to focus! It was Shion in front of him, not Hakurei!

But the strain was visible to the Holy Father. "Y-You can't keep this up for long, can you?! Your body and mind can't take much more of this, you're still just a human! Even if you win, the Gods won't stand aside watching a cruel person who represents everything they think of us take Athena's place, and you will be stoppe-"

The sheer audacity in this statement made the Devil's fist lash out. The Pope shone brightly and warped away to dodge the Damascus-clad fist that then punched through, blasting a wall down to brick pieces! However, while Shion thought himself safe, this time his reappearance was predicted and the kick that came then struck his stomach much faster, blasting the Pope across the corridor through the large wooden doors to the throne room, shattering them into splinters.

He landed deep inside it, rolling unto his side, feeling his world shaking and also incredibly stupid for underestimating the Archdevil. His whole body ached from the arm blocking he did against Lucifer's herculean strikes, making him wonder yet again how was it that Master Hakurei was so strong and agile at this ridiculous age.

The man chosen by Athena saw Athena's throne, entrusted to him, at the distance now.

Sasha's puzzle box was hidden beneath it. Lucifer must not let be known its existence.

With determination to do his duty filling his aged veins, the elderly Lemurian turned over to face the rampaging, black-armored devil breaking through what was left of the doorway.

"Take Athena's place?! That throne… is MINE! And once I have it, my humanity will be of little consequence, Shion!" the Pride Star snarled, breaking through and finding himself in the most sacred place in Sanctuary.

The way he put this was nothing less of alarming. "Your humanity?! What do you mean?!"

Absorbing the fact he just arrived at the heart of Athena's kingdom, the Specter's ambitious glare locked the Pope in place. "You're right, Shion, that I am human! That is why my kingdom in this world of Gods must be assured by true objects of power! This Surplice is dear to me, but it won't be of much use once I try to take my revenge back to Hades, who can merely snap his fingers and any creation of his will turn into dust! If I want my final revenge on him, I must acquire an alternative…"

Now Shion understood the finality of the man's Monte-Cristo-an intentions. "So it's not just me and Athena… you want to punish everyone?! Even Hades?!..." And then he widened his eyes. "Of course… that is why you want Sanctuary and the Cloths!"

"To wage another False Holy War, yes! And one after that! And one after that! Until nothing is left of Heaven or Earth but me and those who have not betrayed me!" Daemon sneered. "I suppose you're going to call it another one of my ancestor's foolish plans reborn, but let's be honest, Shion… How did Athena really think this whole shtick of hers on Earth was going to end?! With holding hands with her family as we thank them for letting us live?! These Cloths were meant to fight the Gods! Total war was always the only option!"

The foolishness in this deeply saddened Shion. "… You pride-ridden fool!... So it's not Athena's struggle that you criticize, but the fact you're not the one waging it?! All the deaths you caused, all the injustice you cried was inflicted on you, only so you can take her banner for yourself, and drench it with the Gods blood?!"

But rather than be affected by this accusation, the idea of imposing his will on reason itself seemed to embolden the Specter "Exactly! I'll acquire all of Sanctuary's treasures! All its armors, all its God-slaying weaponry, all its seals… but most importantly, I'll acquire the very thing that will sanctify me forever as mankind's grim champion! The one armor on Earth loyal to no God!"

Memories of Sage Haisaku assailed the Pope. "You don't mean-"

And an evil grin filled Lucifer ear to ear. "The Cloth of Hope, Teos! The armor that was once used against me!" he claimed. "The armor that comes to those who accomplish great deeds and turns men into demi-gods! And tell me, Shion, what is a great deed in this world, if not to be an enemy of Athena who reaches her Colossus?! My victory over Athena won't be just revindication, but a tool to summon the armor that will make me truly independent from any God! Isn't that just perfect?!"

The magnitude of these goals the Specter set for himself haunted the Holy Father, who saw nothing but a chain reaction leading down to the fulfilling of Hekate's first prophecy. Did it turn out that what she foresaw was not the Third Civil War, but Lucifer's insane intentions coming to life, condemning Sanctuary to divine annihilation?!

The look of pain in him pleased the Specter. "Ah, ah, ah… yes! That mug of agony on your face is why I came here, why I spared Dohko, to come show you the grandiosity of your failure! All the humiliations you inflicted upon me, returned one thousand-fold! And I couldn't have done it without you, Shion!" he argued. "Without your weakness, without your reliance on your reborn friends, without you betraying Priam and the Knights of the Zodiac… I might have not come this far… Isn't that just magical?!"

Outraged and overwhelmed, the Holy Father shouted and thrust his hand, firing a huge blast of golden cosmos that struck the Specter head-on, forcing him to resist it with crossed arms and wings. Gritting teeth, the Celestial Pride Star flapped his guarding wings out violently, shattering the blast into many stars that bombarded the entirety of the throne room, shooting through its walls or exploding right away, spreading fires everywhere.

The two aged grips of golden light grasped the Specter, though, full of rage and burning cosmos. "Come this far?! Summoning the Cloth of Hope?! How DARE YOU?! YOU MURDER ALL THOSE PEOPLE, simply to serve your PETTY REVENGE, and you speak yourself as some sort of conquering hero?!"

Grasping the unexpectedly strong hands to wrestle them off, the Specter swung his elbow, punching the Pope across the face off of him, his strength vastly surpassing the aged Lemurian's. He heard candles, vases and tapestries crash to the floor all around them, further incensing the room. A dark spear was summoned in his hand, intent on impaling the Lemurian once and for all!

As he thrust it, though, the Holy Father suddenly recovered and repelled it away with his hand like it was a simply pole swing, before smashing a blast of cosmos on the Specter's chest at point-blank range, all the while shielding himself with barriers. The Specter gasped, stepping backwards, and charged a huge twister of dark cosmos in his hand. "DARK REVENGE BLAST: OBLIVION!"

The terrifying beam of black thunder fired off with brutal fury, crossing the distance between them at the speed of light, but Shion knew this move well. "C-CRYSTAL WALL!" he casted at the ground. Rather than meeting the beam head on, which he knew to be folly, the wall formed on the ground then rose on one side to form a deflecting ramp.

The Specter widened his eyes in startle, seeing his beam reflected off towards the ceiling, firing right through it, and then get further aimed down back at him, forcing him to stop feeding it and leap aside to dodge the large tail of Cosmos that flew at him, blasting through the entire side of the wall that was behind him. The Temple shook further, critically assailed by these fearsome exchanges, but the rolling Daemon countered right away. "DARK LUST BARRAGE!"

Stars were already shining all over the Pope, and telekinesis launched them. "STARDUST REVOLUTION!"

Rather than two showers of rays running past each other, the two attacks met in the center like a collision of two great cosmical forces, one golden and another of deep purple, sending blunt shockwaves that shattered the tainted glasses outwards and ripped the curtains off the walls. Shion's entire body shook with the vibrations released into the air as he pushed his attack against Lucifer's, making the air look like it was filled with struggling bicolored bursts of cosmos. The two enemies rose their auras even further, projecting the Golden Ram and the Archdevil in the stars and heightening the effect of their clash so intensely that they felt transported across star-filled realities without ever truly leaving Earth.

Galaxies flew by, and so did Super Galaxies, as the collision between the Specter's cosmos, filled with desire for revenge and power, tried to overwhelm that of the Pope, pillared by his faith in Athena's light and desire not to repeat the horrors of the Lost Canvas War. As the clashing points swelled like atomic balloons, indicating a struggle that went far beyond the visible, the Pride Star found himself suddenly unable to overcome this frail Lemurian, whose nose bled and body shook at the sheer violence his body tried to maintain.

Lucifer laughed. "S-Such fury! Perhaps if you showed this last War, Crane would have picked you over that Unicorn!" he provoked. "But then again Lemurian warrior women don't pick the cowards and the shy, do they?! What a shame! Another step towards extinction for your forgotten culture!"

Invoking his living friend's name, and even Yato's for that matter, only made the Pope's outrage increase, heightening the light of his technique. "T-The Saints of the last war risked their lives and limbs to stop the likes of you! They deserved nothing but everlasting happiness! For that, I gladly took the burden mantle of being Pope, so people like you would never come back to HAUNT THEM!"

And with this shout, the force of their clash snapped, causing a firework display of cosmic explosions to fill the air and bashing back both of them with the whiplash. Easily braking himself, though, the mighty Specter sped right back at the adversary, raising a thunder fist! Getting back on his feet to parry a dash punch, Shion struggled as hard as he could to survive the onslaught that the Specter then subjected him to, launching light speed attacks at the robed Lemurian with the fury of someone confronting a grave insulter.

But the powerful Specter's hand soon fought through the martial blocks and caught the Pope's neck, bashing him with a war shout against a damaged pillar before hammering him down to the ground, cratering it and making Shion scream.

"And now you will DIE for it! Every day you've spent on this throne was a day you spent robbing me of my rightful place! You even had the gall to name yourself after my ancestor!" Lucifer ranted, aiming his foot to smash the man, only to step through a teleporting flash of light.

"TALISMAN CAGE!"

Quickly turning over, Lucifer's arm blocked Shion's attempt to press one of Sage's tags unto him, which had the power to hold back even Alone, and his knee flew up to smash the Pope's stomach in before kicking him off the Specter.

He incinerated the piece of paper with a simple Cosmos and lamented the Pope's desperation. "I've seen Sage do that with my own two eyes, you fool… It's not going to work!"

All the while, Shion felt nothing but shock at his words. "D-Do you not realize what you're saying?! All of Elysium is watching Sanctuary, Lucian! Your crusade is going to have terrible consequences far beyond just the two of us and Athena!" he shouted, feeling Hekate's first prophecy burning in the back of his mind. "There's a reason why your ancestor was ousted; his aggression turned Sanctuary into everything the Gods accuse us to be! All of Athena's efforts to prove our virtue will be for naught if you turn us back into Arles' empire!"

"And YET, you take his NAME?! Arles the THIRD?!" The demon hissed, finally landing a two-blow strike on the aged warrior, who lacked the vitality that stood against Lucifer during the Lost Canvas War and was spun aside with the force of the blow before dashing for a side kick.

But despite his dazedness, the Lemurian caught Lucian's leg and spun it over the shoulder, using the man's own strength to smash him through the giant support pillars and against the ground, cracking it.

He panted, well past the age to be doing this sort of thing. "I picked your ancestor's name, yes, but not you mock you, but to cleanse it of INFAMY! To prove it is JUST a name! Because I believe in Athena's message, I sought to show the Gods we aren't fated to repeat our mistakes! Do you think my Lemurian brethren were proud of me making that choice, picking the title of one of their oppressors?!"

Lucian eyed him venomously from the ground as he cleaned his jaw of blood. "You dotted freaks are nothing but a blight! If you wanted you would have shared your knowledge and wisdom with us, but you withhold it instead!"

"Because it ruined us!" Shion hissed, feeling his history now personally attacked.

But an evil chuckled followed. "Ruined you? Just like it ruined the Cyrulians?... Or was that just you and your court pigs that ordered their end, Shion?!"

The Lemurian stepped back. "Don't you dare compare the two!"

Rising from the crater, Lucian insisted. "Why not?! They certainly weren't siding with Priam, like your aristocrats thought! Ainsel says he found a small Lemurian boy at Jamir… I imagine he's your student. Did you tell him any bedside stories about how your race was ruined by its power, how it was a bad thing from the past that shouldn't be tried again, all the while your Gold Saints took Light-crafted Cloth Stones off Paladin corpses for studying?! What were you trying to prove about my ancestor's name, Shion, or about the nature of power, when you had the Knights of the Zodiac purged?!"

A mix of shame and outrage filled the Holy Father's face, enhanced by the lights of the corridor's flames. "What right have you to invoke their name?!"

He thought of Cerah. "More than you think! And I know what you're going to say, Shion…. That their demise wasn't up to you. That your hands were tied by your elites and your Allies! And that's the problem! Nothing bad that ever happens is up to you Popes, is it?" Lucifer confronted. "You are part of a line of cowards, who were never fit to lead mankind! Better than having you on the wheel is to have someone who can reign in the powers MEANT for the ruler of Sanctuary and happily take responsibility for the bloodshed they know is inevitable! No alliances with Asgardians, no concessions to superstitious pigs and certainly no lip service about Athena's virtues! Only strength!"

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

The Underworld Well

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

The two blinding meteors of golden light and dark crashed against each other, cratering the dark floor. Behemoth Torak roared as he squeezed his hands around Aiolos', pushing him back, but the powerful young Gold Saint valiantly resisted his massive strength, burning his aura higher to the point his wings shined like auroras of gold.

Breaking contact, the tall Behemoth swung his fist, only for Aiolos to dodge it with a head bob followed by a skilled kick to the ribs, staggering the adversary. With his cosmos shining like a beacon and his fist focusing rays of light, the Sagittarius capitalized on this opportunity. "LIGHTNING PLASMA!"

The winged centaur flashed in the Underworld sky and the fist fired off hundreds of millions of ray-like punches, blasting the screaming man's shadowy armor from top to bottom. Torak braked his recoil with his heal and crossed arms over chest, resisting the rest of the technique before charging through it, painfully tackling Aiolos into a far-off cliff side.

A shadowy blast was charged and fired in the form of a violent blast of Cosmos that pummeled Aiolos into the cliff, blasting it into smoldering rubble before following it with a jump and dive kick. "BRUTAL REAL!"

While the foot encased in blue fire crashed effortlessly through the rubble, the golden-armored body inside leaped out of the collapsed ground, dodging the stomp, before returning the Specter's attack in kind by landing his foot with a foot clad in electricity on the opponent's exposed nape. "OLYMPIAN GALLOP!"

Behemoth screamed with the loud, blunt bolt striking him and was smashed straight against the floor, erupting clouds of pale blue sand into the air. With a flap of wings, Aiolos jumped away from the smokescreen to observe his work. Despite what it may look to others, the battle wasn't going well, as this was the fifth technique blow he landed on his armor-healing foe….

While the smoke cloud dissipated, Aiolos looked over to see Saga in just as deep trouble, exchanging fists and kicks with the much faster and vicious Sphinx Specter not too far off, their cosmos-charged bodies wrecking across the landscape and quaking the dimension they stood on. They traded opponents in the hope of faring a bit better, but it just ended up with them facing unfamiliar enemy patterns.

Sensing Behemoth's intentions, Aiolos jumped to avoid the hands that then came out of the shattering ground, landing far away from the Specter rising out of the tunneling. "That would work on Milo, but not me!"

Clearing his path out of the tunneling with arm swings, Behemoth eyed Sagittarius venomously and launched at him. "You're faster than Gemini… and clearly have better instincts. That won't save you, though!"

Dodging a cataclysmic punch that hammered down where he stood, Aiolos rolled with the ground quake and fire a huge cosmos blast that incinerated the rhino-head shoulder pad right off the Specter's body, exposing his scratched flesh, but Torak tanked right through it and struck the Sagittarius harshly with a skilled elbow to the chest, stunning the brown-haired Paladin before planting a devastating high kick right on his face, shooting Aiolos across the battlefield. Coughing and bleeding, the Sagittarius felt quaking steps coming towards him and burned his lightspeed up, parrying a series of furious but skilled punches and kicks that put him on the defensive.

"D-Darn it! No wonder Saga wanted to switch! This guy is just as dangerous as Sphinx, if not worse!" Amidst his efforts to block, he saw an opening and counterattacked, landing an impressive rising knee blow to the Behemoths' stomach, finally bashing him back before charging a follow-up. "LIGHTNING BOLT!"

The punch swing came like a gigantic lightning strike, blasting the Specter with a capsule head of concentrated cosmos that broke apart his Surplice and hurt the flesh underneath. But once again, the adversary was but a few feet pushed back, and already shadows birthed off the ground repaired his armor. Aiolos panted, feeling sweat drench his face. He was going nowhere fast!

Torak smirked, knowing this. "Did you think I'd be any easier than Neferti, Sagittarius? I'm Prince Lucifer's champion! Your friend dumped an impossible foe on you. In the Underworld Well, there is no lacking of the dead for me to use to restore my hide, much less cast my chains."

Posing himself assertively, the paladin refused to show any hesitation or fear to keep fighting. "Maybe, but all a regenerating foe really needs is large enough an attack!"

"Of which Sagittarius are known for? Or is it the opposite?" Torak provoked, confident that the pinpoint striking that the 9th Guardian specialized on would be Aiolos' downfall. His attacks were powerful, deadly even, but too concentrated and precise for Torak. He might as well be trying to be smashing pudding with a sewing needle. "Let's face it, Sagittarius… you had your chance to kill me already when you landed your nuclear option on me, and it didn't make the cut."

Aiolos widened his eyes. "You mean…!"

The tall man chuckled and then showed off a scar in his armor over his repaired shoulder pad. "That's right! I'm responsible for that big attack you launched not having landed directly on the Prince! It nearly killed me, but my body is strong, and so is my Surplice! You couldn't kill me with that… and you want blows from the Leo House to do the trick?!"

"I did it to save Aldebaran from you fiends, not to kill anyone in particular!" Sagittarius asserted. "But I'll gladly do it if it means saving these kids from your blasted war!"

Behemoth chuckled. "Yet we got through, so it doesn't sound like you can do much to stop us. Despite all your arrow-firing, all the bombardment you subjected to us, now the False Specters will have their revenge and make you suffer for your insults! And the Prince's banner will rise over your Temple, like it did in all others!"

This, however, just served to remind Aiolos of everything these bastards to terrorize his little brother. "Like Aiolia's?!" and his fighting aura burst in all directions.

Torak screamed and recoiled, blinded by the light.

And the Saint charged full force at him with hands encased in thunder, landing a devastating high kick on the tall warrior's face that stomped him right into the ground before flapping wings into the air to gain distance, hold arms apart along the patterns of his feathers and then finally joining the two starts of light in his palms into a massive joint beam. "STARDUST FLASH!"

Bursting off his hands loudly, the searing stream of light crashed right on the collapsed Specter, annihilating the terrain into a bursting dome of light and spreading feather-shaped specks of light everywhere

The paladin beheld the smoking rubble. "My brother is innocent! He's not even a Gold Saint! And yet you targeted him, Milo, Shaka and countless others from here to Shamballa! All for your stupid glory hounding quest!" he reminded the Specter, having already cross-shared with Saga what they went through in mental messages. "Even if I burn my cosmos until I'm nothing but dust, I won't stop fighting until he's safe from murderers like you!"

Practically crashing his way out of the rubble to expose a very damaged body covered in blood but with an armor quickly healing, the Specter sneered at the flying Gold Saint. "T-Then come and do it! We are the False Specters of Hades, they who escaped Hades' sentencing! We far stronger than any of you pretend Gold Saints! And we'll carve our fortress of strength in your mountain forever!"

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

Sanctuary,

Papal Chamber

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

With the fires spreading further inside the Chamber, the robed old warrior stood agape at the horror of what Lucifer just said. "Only strength, uh?... That's your philosophy?!"

"It's what's pulled me out of my doom!" Lucifer asserted, confident. "Not Sasha's speeches, or Tenma's ridiculous crusade for Alone, but my own will and my own courage to take back what's mine from Hades!"

And this is where Shion rose his chin in superiority. "Then if you're so strong, Lucian, how come I'm still alive? How come you've failed to kill any of my Gold Saints tonight?! How did you lose the last war, when you had all of Hades' apparatus on your side? And what right do you have to stand here in front of me demanding anything?!" he argued. "The reality is, Lucian, that strength is only one aspect of being a heroic ruler. You also need the kindness, wisdom and empathy that extended its merciful hand countless times to you, even if you refuse to recognize it. And you are unwilling to give it to anyone but yourself!"

The red eyes sterned. "What the hell are you saying?! Kindness?! Like Shun's?! Every moment of weakness and rot in this place that you let endure in Sanctuary sickens me to my very stomach! This used to be a place of warriors! Of CHAMPIONS! But your kindness allowed oligarchs and pacifists to fill these Halls because of your fucking weakness and fear! A legacy of GLORY AND PRIDE replaced by SELF-INTEREST AND FATNESS!"

"Yet the winners of the last war didn't walk out of it to the shining light of triumph on their own, like you envision yourself, Archdevil!" the Lemurian reminded him. "They did so holding on to each other, embracing kindness, surrounded by the sacrifices of their beloved friends, willing to do anything to stop madness, barbarism and death from taking over humanity! Dohko defeated you!... Accept that, Lucian! And then even though he should have, he didn't walk out of the crumbling Third Prison unless he had my arm over his neck! And that, even when Michael was dying for you, was something you could never do!"

The Pride Star amassed his power threateningly, forming concentrations of cosmos that could blast the Aries to the other side of the planet. "If you think you impress me by invok-"

"Impress you?! I'm trying to make you think of the person who sacrificed himself for you, you old fool!" Shion interrupted, shocked that the Specter still didn't see a palm in front of his nose, thick as his delusion was. "What do you think he died for?! So that you'd keep acting like a Specter?! How is it possible that two centuries have passed and the only thing his death taught you was to switch the target of your anger?!"

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU KNOW ABOUT WHY HE DIED?!" the Specter practically vomited, tone brimming with spite. "Michael despised the weakness that rots humans into evil as much as me! He wanted me to live so I could fulfill his dream! So that the failures of people like you and Hakurei wouldn't keep making the world worse than they already have!"

The Pope lowered chin at this. It was impossible to ignore how much of Lucian's words rested on a vague foundation of resentment and subsequent revenge for it, a cycle of betrayals and counter betrayals that led both of them to this point, to no fault of either. A long time had passed since the Lost Canvas War, and while he feared the return of 'Lucifer', the fanatical Specter, Shion has long learned to admit the possibility of 'Lucian', the brainwashed victim of Hades' lies who couldn't escape the trauma of his parents' grizzly end and deeply regretted the death of the only friend he ever truly had.

When Shion began to do this in evenings spent reflecting on nostalgic moments and characters of his life, the wise Lemurian had slowly began to understand a new framing from which to perceive the man responsible for his nightmares.

So long as he did not lose sight of this, they could prevail. "I-Is that what you think, Lucian? That my Master failed because he was weak like Sanctuary has become?"

The shaking Specter halted once more, frozen with the sheer fury of what Shion was insinuating, yet failing to find the inner logic of why he believed these things. The Holy Father's belief in Lucian's true weakness was being validated in real time.

"You equate the failures of my Master that led to your tragedy with the failures of Sanctuary… You think that if Sanctuary was stronger, more ruthless, more tyrannical… that the tragedy of your life wouldn't have happened. That is why you spent it trying to reassert yourself as an Emperor, right? Deep down, you don't really believe your father's fairy tales about your lineage, all you want is to fix what happened to him and you."

Dangerous looking sparks began crackling around the Specter's body, warning him to shut up.

Shion rose, standing tall before the Specter's madness. "But Lucian, you chose to stay in the Underworld… Master Hakurei didn't toss you down it and wasn't there to keep you down. No, he would have reached and grabbed your hand if you tried to save yourself in the slightest! You know that! And then, two centuries later, when you and I met, it was your choice to murder my friends and peers even after he died! And now, two centuries after that, here you are, standing before me and Athena, claiming you've overcome Hades' lies?!… Yet your hatred for me and my teacher persists!"

"BECAUSE YOU SIT ON HIS BROTHER'S THRONE!" Daemon roared, pointing clawed finger at him and burning his dark aura.

"I SIT BECAUSE I WAS LEFT!" Shion finally lost his patience, feeling the line crossed by the Archdevil and beginning to burn his golden aura. "I would have GLADLY surrendered this chair to so many others… Sisyphus, Asmita, Rasgado, Degél, even Manigoldo! But you and your Specters murdered all of my FRIENDS! And someone had to rebuild the world after what you and Hades did! Someone had to do what you call weakness and bring hope to all those who lost their homes when Minos blew Rodario away, or those who were traumatized when Alone murdered their loves ones! NOT JUST GO AROUND DESTROYING EVERYTHING OUT OF HUBRIS!"

At this point, even the Specter was stunned silent by the Lemurian's outrage, known for their calmness and patience as they were.

"And YOU, Lucian… you are clearly capable of things much greater than what you do!" Shion sneered. "You, who criticize others for not being the best they could, could have been a fantastic man, a champion of people's hopes, the greatest enemy Hades had faced since the Godslayers! …but you simply refuse to out of pride!"

The red-eyed man could only gag, wanting to shout back but feeling nothing but silence coming out his throat as the damn Lemurian's words, instead of bouncing off his armor, stabbed through unexpected accuracy into his chest.

And the stabbing continued. "Every terrible decision you've made, every misstep, every death you've regretted causing, was because you had your ears, eyes and nose plugged shut by that terror you have of admitting you were wrong about those you hate! You were wrong about Michael's strength, wrong about Master Hakurei's culpability, wrong about the Godslayers' courage and wrong about these young Gold Saints' ability to stop you and your men! So you shut your ears and speak of legends of ancestors you never met, because they can't be proven wrong anymore! All because of your stupid, useless pride! No wonder Hades made it your Evil Star… what else could possibly be saddling you to his lies all those years!"

The Specter stepped back, head lowering. He clearly did not expect as he fought all his way up the stairs to hear all these things thrown at him with such clarity and the words were clearly landing home, hitting the precise chords that were omnipresent in all of Lucian's excuses and speeches against him.

The Pope stood with the defiant gaze expected of the last man standing between the enemy and his Goddess. "Lucian… I am sorry about what happened to you. No one deserves to watch their parents be burned alive, much less then get taken in by a lying God, even much less being failed by a Saint who vowed to take care of them. The Saint you brought outside, Lance, was let down by a Saint when he most needed it, too." He appealed. "But everything you've done after… becoming a Prince, murdering countless Saints, waging wars against humanity even LONG after you've learned of Hades' lies…Tell me, Lucian, what did those Saints in Crow's Nest had to do with your loss?!"

"They…they stood in my way!"

"Like Michael did?!" Shion confronted. "Was he standing in your way when he turned on Hades and tried to get you to do the same?!"

"STOP INVOKING HIS NAME!" the Specter shouted, tossing a cabinet in his way over in anger. A cold, freezing feeling came over the Specter, like a gel of disgust. "YOU SPEAK HIS NAME TO ME?! KNOWING WHO'S WEARING SHUN'S CLOTH?!"

The Pope's brow tensed. "So, you've met Shinta already…"

As he faced the reignited fury of the Prince, Shion couldn't help but feel taken back to the day he saw Shinta's profile picture sent to his office for the first time. At that moment, years back, he could very hardly believe it, but few people matched Andromeda Shun's profile as well as the fallen Specter Michael did, so he either had at hand the return of Athena's best bodyguard, or of her once worst enemy. The decision to pair him up with Lance was made on both the hope of the pacifist being a good influence on the Pegasus, but also of seeing if there was any reaction to this young Saint being around Tenma's Cloth's successor, as both Shun and Michael had strong, though opposite feelings towards the Godslayer.

In one of the letters conveyed to him by Lance, Dohko confessed to have noticed the similarities to Shun, which reinforced Shion's hopes, but now here Lucifer stood, confirming the opposite possibility.

"OF COURSE, I've met him! My men targeted his island and his Dark Calling is probably drawing him closer to me and Hypnos every day without him realizing!" Lucifer shouted, referring to the evil influence Hades implanted on every Specter that formed the bond between them and an Evil Star. "On top of everything you've done… Of standing in the way of my dreams, of helping ruin my rightful legacy, of the sheer insults to my honor you've thrown…How dare you hijack my…. My…"

Shion's aura calmed and his eyes widened, seeing the Specter tremble. "Lucian… go on, say it!" he wished. "Show me your soul isn't as black as it once was! Call him your friend in front of me, your enemy! He's the one who died so you'd get a glimpse of the truth about Hades! If you do… I can help you stop all of this… evil insanity! I can help you destroy the last true grip Hades still has on your heart! Until you let that happen, you'll always be his slave!"

The Daemon held his own head, feeling it filled with a dark fog. Suddenly, the ability to concentrate was lost and he felt back as if right after Shinta threw Eternal Darkness back at him. His bloodshot eyes looked up and he swore he saw the image of Shion standing there alternating with his young self and Hakurei, going in turns, as if his mind couldn't decide what reality to choose.

This… was Shion, his enemy! And Michael was his rival! Even if Lucifer was indebted to him, he couldn't admit how endlessly grateful he felt for his gifts, not in front of this fucking Lemurian usurper! That would prove his nonsense right!

And then Shion extended his hand. "You said my teacher failed you… and perhaps that is true. That debt is there. So let me pay it back, Lucian. Call off your remaining men, this entire war, and take off that ugly armor. All it does is represent the worst in you, like every Surplice!... If you do,… I'll take you to the Colossus."

The already pale-skinned Specter bulged his eyes. "What?!"

But Shion nodded. Even if this was absolutely outrageous in any other circumstances, he saw a chance to end this horrible conflict then and there, so he should take it. "It's not too late for you, Lucian. We'll go see Athena, just like you wanted. And then we can pray together to her. However, we're not going to pray for a crown, but for your salvation…. And the souls of all those you've murdered."

The Pride Star was stunned. Was Shion so utterly senile, so driven over the edge of reason by Athena and Shun's legacy of suicidal feel-good pacifism, that he was basically surrendering the Specter's objective to him?! Was he out of his mind?! The Specter first chuckled, shaking his shoulders in amusement at the sight of the extended hand, and then burst into loud laughter, letting his cackle echo in the large halls.

What an insane leap of faith!

What pathetic optimism!

Pray for his salvation?!

Lucian didn't need being saved!

Who said so?!

The Pope? The Goddess?! The Godslayers?!

Because of what?! His pride?!

His pride and strength is what kept him alive!

This is what happens!

What happens when you listen to Athena!

All of Greece's greatest warriors turned into monks and hippies!

All disarmed of everything that keeps them safe and confident!

And when the walls of Rome fall and the statues collapse, what do they do?!

They flee, they whine, they talk of Dark Ages as their children get fucked by barbarians and warlords!

How weak! How womanly! Lucian, this is why you deserve his throne!

Do it! Kill him! Kill the old man! And go ask the Goddess yourself for what you deserve!

Shion stepped back, seeing the dark insanity encircling Lucian's irises, making their red more severe. Though his hand stayed strong, his aura burned. "Lucian, take my hand, please!"

Yes, take his hand!

Right off his wrist!

"Don't let it do this to you! It's just a black botch in your past! You don't have to listen to Hypnos' cruel spell, like me! You're no longer Hades' slave!" Shion shouted, increasingly desperate. He saw a bit of humanity in the Pride Star and now the blasted Eternal Darkness was drowning it all back in evil. But what more could he shout that would pierce through the nightmarish mirk?

Unless…

Unless he mentioned Leon…

"Lucian, please stop and listen…" he begged, knowing the consequences of this would be terrible.

The temple began vibrating slightly as power concentrated in Lucifer's hands, charging Dark Revenge Blast. The man himself eyed Shion not like a person, but like the object of everything and everyone who had ever wronged him.

"This is… my legacy! My bloodline! I'm not… I'm not like the ENVIOUS PIGS who murdered my family who continue to ruin the world with their FILTH and DESCENDENCE! I want the power that is my heritage! GIVE IT TO ME NOW! OR IT WILL BE THE 'APOCALYPSE' FOR ALL OF ATHENA'S DOMAIN!"

The temple shook more and more! He had to do it! Or the maddened Specter would obliterate the mountain! "LUCIAN, I'VE MET YOUR KIN!"

….

CRACK!

Shion panted, terrified with what he has let out like Pandora after opening the box. The Dark Revenge Blast orb, however, receded as a glassy look in Lucifer's eyes seemed to have shattered.

…

"LIAR!" the demon screeched, smashing his fist across the Pope's face so hard that he was tossed against one of the side doors that led forward. Lucifer grabbed Shion with both hands on throat and crashed him through the door, "YOU SPEWER OF LIES! YOU DESPERATE, CUNT-LICKING, MUMMIFIED PROFLIGATE! DIE, HAKUREI! DIE, HAISAKU! DIE, DOHKO! DIE, PEGASUS! DIE, HADES!"

With the fires spreading all over the temple and the steel-clawed fingers tightening on his throat, the Holy Father felt taken to hell, locked in the maddened gaze of his ancient enemy. As his throat was kept tight, he kicked the armored, winged man and scratched his side in desperate attempts to fight him off, unable to focus his thoughts into teleporting.

Was he going to die? Was his neck going to be snapped or strangled miserably in the last room before the Colossus?

No! Athena chose him! He was her final guardian!

Reaching out with his telekinetic powers, he invisibly grabbed a candleholder off the wall and the Lemurian had smashed it straight against Lucifer's head side as hard as he could, knocking the horned crown off and scalding him. Lucian screamed and released him, letting the Pope breathe in a pained gasp and burning his cosmos to stop the piercing pain. Stumbling back, the Specter found himself standing in a different room that he was just now, with blood on his hand from his head.

He saw Shion lying there gasping for air, barely awake. "What… what happened?! H-How…"

The frightened Lemurian pressed back against the wall, gulping in alarm and feeling his consciousness fade. "You… don't remember what I said?!"

The last thing the Specter remembered was losing his calm at the continued mentioning of Michael's name. How did he black out? He saw Shion lying there, helpless.

This was his opportunity to kill him, his oldest and most hated enemy.

In the midst of this, somehow Cerah's voice rang inside his skull, resurrecting the conversation they had at Eurydice's house just before Lucifer ever stepped inside Aries.

"You wouldn't…you wouldn't hurt innocent people, would you?"

….

The Holy Father tried to reach him, both physically and verbally. "L-Lucian… please stop… you can't do this! Y-You're sick and you need help!"

But although the madness of Eternal Darkness seemed to have receded for now, the fear in the Specter of letting his goal slip away replaced it. "I'm… I'm going!"

The Pope tossed himself forward and grabbed his ankles, doing anything to save Athena's sanctum from being violated. He had to at least try one last time! "N-NO!"

But the Daemon's heel kicked him off harshly, bashing him back against the wall. "LET GO OF ME!... This is my destiny! I won't let you stop me again… Goodbye, Shion…"

And with his hand weakly reaching out, Shion's fading consciousness saw the winged Specter carry himself off before darkness fell down on his eyes.

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

The Underworld Well

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

The flying kick crashed on his raised guard, pushing Saga back! The Gold Saint's energies roused in counter attack to swing a cosmos-crossing punch, but Sphinx Neferti dodged it with an agile body bob before colliding her knee on his rib, stunning him, before twin cross slashes of energy from her armored fingers blasted his chest.

Coughing, the Gemini Saint's heel broke his recoil and he detected a swift lunge that he promptly dodged with an afterimage leap, landing away from the swift enemy, and the blue-haired warrior summoned orbs of light into his hands that he launched at the foe. "COSMIC METEOR SHOWER!"

The cascade of golden comets bombarded the battlefield, putting the Sphinx in defensive, but though she was battered by the shockwaves at first, her rolling body dodged the main impact zones before shooting a dark beam of cosmos at the Saint.

With a hand gesture, Saga created a warp in the air that vacuumed the beam out of there, but the Underworld Well was a dimension of thick reality walls that he was unfamiliar with and thus his powers operated much more slowly, giving the Sphinx the opportunity she needed to counterattack. "ANDROSPHINX KNOCK!"

A powerful invisible force from the gaze of the mythical statue struck Saga head on, sending him flying with a scream.

Before Aiolos could turn his head at this, Saga's armored body then harshly collided on him from above! The two crashed together into the ground and Neferti joined Torak, burning her cosmos from her last combo exchange.

The Behemoth laughed. "I see things are going well on your end, too."

The tanned woman dusted herself. "The Saint hasn't fought me yet, so he has no familiarity with my techniques, and he can't use Another Dimension as effectively here. Gemini Saga is completely off his domain."

The Gemini groaned. "I t-think I want to switch back!"

Rubbing his own head, the Sagittarius helped Saga up. "N-no luck on your side? Is she switching places with you, too?"

"I w-wish, but I think she's just kicking my ass the old-fashioned way." Saga confessed, ashamed of his limited combat skills against a much more experienced foe. "I could r-run circles around the big guy back in Sanctuary, but she's way more agile! She's dodging my fastest attacks, so I don't dare waste a Galaxian Explosion worth of stamina on her…"

"Goddess, w-what the hell are we doing wrong?!" Aiolos groaned, feeling his head still hurting from Saga's hitting it.

The Gemini rubbed his blue mane and rationalized the problem, like always. "T-The usual; we're completely off sync and letting them get in the way of us working together. They also got time on their side and our abilities are impaired here. Where is Deathmask when you need him?"

Unfurling his wings, the more instinctive Aiolos recharged his aura and presented a simple solution. "Ah, t-then I guess it's about time we learn how to work together a bit better! I'm done with these Specters having the high ground on us."

While he couldn't agree more, as he looked around, Saga advised caution. "You just had to say something like that, didn't you?"

Aiolos looked around and gasped.

"Well, well, well… what do we have here?" the voice of a scythe-wielding man spoke.

All four warriors looked around. From atop the dark blue mounts encircling their battlefield, scores of Skeleton Soldiers looked down on them, grimacing, grinding teeth or doing various threatening gestures with their weapons.

Saga and Aiolos immediately stood back-to-back! The Gemini gritted teeth. "Great! Things got even worse!"

Aiolos sweated, hoping their friends were doing better back in Sanctuary.

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

House of Sagittarius

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

At the doors of the 9th Temple, after spending the last few moments clearing a path through the Hall of Orion, Scorpio Milo and Andromeda Shinta finally crossed the last stretch of steps to try to find Aiolos.

However, they encountered instead none other than Capricorn Shura walking out the Hall of Chiron.

"Shura! What are you doing here?!" Milo shouted.

The swordsman blinked. "Milo and… Saint Andromeda. I could ask you the same. Where's Aiolos?"

The green-haired youth widened his eyes. "You mean he's really gone, too?!"

The Spaniard nodded. "I just looked all over his House, and it's an empty mess, so someone was fighting him. I also detected a faint slice in the air, like when Saga crosses dimensions, but I was hoping our Sagittarius didn't get dragged off to the Twilight Zone."

Shinta pondered the meaning of this. "This explains how Lucifer was able to fly all the way up to the Pope…"

The Capricorn blinked. "You mean that flashing shadow was the enemy boss? Blast! I tried to cut it down but it moved too quick! We have to do something then; the Holy Father is in danger!"

"Wait, where's the rest of the enemy force?" Milo asked. "You didn't just let them past you, did you?"

There was a shameful nod. "They outwitted me, unfortunately… but it doesn't matter. They're up against Camus next. They would have been better off surrendering to me."

Milo snorted in frustration. This may be true that Camus had some truly frightening abilities, but he still didn't like the idea of his introverted friend being in a fight, especially after the trouble he went through against Golem. "Let's hope you're right."

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

Sanctuary,

Aquarius Temple

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

The Skeletons hammered the wall of ice over and over with their fists until their knuckles bled. "N-NO, DAMN IT!"

The others panted and despaired at the sight of the intact ice shining under the moonlight. "W-who put this thing here?! We can't even crack it!"

They were at the gate of the Aquarius Temple, the eleventh and likely smallest edifice in the Golden Zodiac. The round, platformed building, which didn't even cover the mountain pass from end to end, was almost half the size of Capricorn, stood with but a humble cupula on its roof, a ring of supporting pillars and a stoic lack of identifying traits other than the obligatory zodiacal symbol above the entrance. After the Cancer Temple, the False Specters knew better than to attempt to just go around it, but said entrance was blocked by a giant block of ice as hard as Sphinx Neferti's Osiris Tomb, preventing their entrance.

"The servants went through here! I know it!" their forward scout reminded. "It must be the work of the Aquarius Saint!"

"Out of the way, you idiots!" Mandrake Nevil, one of the last two Specters among the Skeletons, ordered. He showed off the face on his Surplice's cuirass, which now lacked the guarding mask thanks to Capricorn Shura's deadly work. "STRANGLE SHRILL!"

Everyone, especially Cait Sith Palug, covered their ears as the ear-piercing scream of the Mandrake sonic-boomed the block of ice, making it resonate with extremely powerful vibrations. The attack was projected for about a minute until the formerly indestructible object began to crack from the inside out until it loudly shattered, to the awe of the Skeletons.

He pointed inside. "There, easy! Now find the Gold Saint! We must join the Prince at the Pope's Halls!"

The group made their way inside cautiously, keeping an eye out for the Aquarius Saint.

…Aurora Veil…

Immediately they were greeted by the coldest air of all the Temples, making the faintly-armored Cait Sith shiver. "Brrrr, it's freezing inside!"

"We told you to have your Surplice winterized!" Nevil criticized him.

A skeleton suddenly gasped. "H-hey, I… I can't move!"

They turned to him. "What's wrong?!" another one asked, before he gasped and found his feet sticking o the ground. "Hey, what's g-going on?!"

The marble beneath them began whitening. "THE FLOOR IS TURNING INTO ICE!"

Cait Sith's hairs pointed up and he immediately jumped unto a pillar, while Mandrake Nevil sound-blasted the area, cracking the rising sheet of frozen water. "SHOW YOURSELF, AQUARIUS!"

Footsteps of gold on ice were turning the corner of a pillar. "I'm right here."

Cait Sith blinked from his porch, seeing a teal-haired young boy in the Gold Cloth. "It's another kid!"

"Welcome to the Hall of Ganymede." Camus greeted, showing barely any body language other than his scowl, but waving his hand at the walls adorned with Zeus' humble water server, as if showing a museum. "Acquaint yourselves with these walls, Specters. Your eyes will be frozen upon them forever."

The Skeletons then began panicking, shouting, hitting the ice with their scythes or shooting their crossbows at the Gold Saint, whose light-speed allowed him to simply make it seem like the bolts flew through him, all while the freezing grew up their feet.

"AGH! It's climbing up my l-legs!"

"It's s-so cold! LET US GO!"

The Gold Saint was unmoved. "Don't struggle too much. You'll simply shatter your bodies off your frozen feet."

Mandrake Nevil roared, charged his cosmos and released his most powerful shockwave yet, shattering the ice on his body instantly. "We're not stopping here! I, Mandrake Nevil, will render your powers useless with the Mandrake's scream! NOW DIE, GOLD SAINT!"

The Aquarius merely brimmed pale blue cosmos at the sight of the charging Specter.

A fist of Dark and Earth cosmos was raised with a malevolent technique armed in it. "ROOT OF EVI-" but a golden-laced fist of ice suddenly blasted through his chest, right beneath the mandrake face, coming out the other end with fingers drenched in bright blue cold. "-GAAHGH!"

Blood dripped unto and immediately froze on Camus' impaling gauntlet. "Your massacre ends here, Specters. Aurora Veil's ice will this time climb all the way up your heads, perfectly preserving you until the time of your interrogation and execution. Prepare to pay for your crimes!"

The mandrake gasped, feeling his body freezing from the inside out. No! This couldn't be the end! As he shook in terror of the enemy's unfeeling young gaze, all of their last men were completely mummified by sheets of ice and Nevil felt the collapse of all their efforts to defeat the injustice inflicted on the False Specters on his shoulders. Was this the end?

He then saw Palug on the wall, out of the cold's reach. He gripped Camus as hard as he could and yelled "P-PALUG, GO! F-FOR THE PRINCE!"

As the Cait Sith leaped across the pillars all the way to the end of the Temple, Camus gasped and tried to free himself! "W-What? NO!"

Nevil laughed coarsely, puking blood out. "W-We will win! We must!" and he focused cosmos unto his chest, charging a move to fire at point blank range and blast the youth's face into a pulp. "STRANGLE…"

"DIAMOND DUST!" Camus fired, shooting the glacially cold wind blast inside the Specter's body, turning all his organs into ice, making crystals form out of his Surplice's sound mask and stopping the man's body in time.

He stood there, breathing fast.

After a few second he realized the attack wasn't going to fire and he pulled his hand out the man, letting the cold wind preserve all their bodies. He still couldn't believe his own stupidity! "Darn it, how did I let my guard down like this!"

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

Athena's Colossus

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

The Celestial Star of Pride left the darkness of the Pope's Halls behind and walked out the exit stairs to the fading night sky. Every step he took up, it seemed like the weight of the air on his shoulders grew heavier and heavier as the momentousness of the occasion approached in clarity. Passing through flanking torches, the Dark Prince's red eyes looked up and saw it rising out of the ground atop a final platform.

The giant statue of Athena!

It still looked the same after two centuries, one hand rested on shield, the other holding the humble spirit of Nike, a tri-crested Greek helmet rested on head and two honoring rows of tall pillars on each side. The last time Daemon Lucifer had seen it, he was in the midst of a battle with Sagittarius Sisyphus and the Godslayers, and thus hardly could spare a look at it, much less realize it secretly harbored the Goddess' divine Cloth as he would later find out.

With nothing but the sound of burning faintly behind and his body sore from hours and hours of intense fighting, he approached the massive structure, spreading hands. "I've done it… I've DONE IT! There's nothing between you and me anymore!"

The statue merely continued its stoic watch over its valley, ignoring the winged shadow of metal dirtying its floor.

The Specter laughed out loud and looked at the skies. "ARE YOU WATCHING, HADES?! I'VE DONE IT! I'VE REACHED YOUR NIECE'S EFFIGY! SANCTUARY IS MINE!" he cried out, knowing that the second the Gold Cloths began being off their Houses in large numbers, the bastard was certainly spying on them.

Fierce winds blew by with his brag, making his silver mane wave and the torch lights waver but expressing no reaction from the rock deity. The Specter's red eyes lowered unto it. Certainly, the Staff of Nike and the Shield of Pallas were nearby somewhere, perhaps tucked into some corner or secret compartment of the platform, but he sought a 3rd object, one that would grant him more power than these two combined.

And as such his knees fell to the floor and his arms laid out receptively. "ATHENA,… I have passed your gauntlet! I, Daemon Lucifer, Celestial Star of Pride, fulfilled your Herculean labors and reached your most intimate of sanctuaries, despite your chosen guardian's best efforts! For five centuries, you have ignored my rights, but now you must hear my call!"

But the Colossus was completely indifferent.

His fist rose to the sky! "You are the Goddess of War and Heroes, so you cannot ignore my feat, lest the throne your father gave you be made of lies and thorns rather than the blessed feathers of angels! I am the first son of Prometheus to battle his way here without your blessing, or that of any other God, in countless generations! My accomplishment is therefore unrivaled by Saint and Specter alike and my heroic merit undeniable! And so, I call upon thee; GIVE ME MY REWARD!"

Night clouds fluttered by in the closing night, expressing more reaction to the Specter's words than the statue he spoke to.

Yet, the demon continued, closing the raised fist. "Put over my head that with which I need to uncontestably rule over the armors you made your vassals, from Bronze to Gold! That I have made it so far is not only a testament to my strength, but to the weakness of those who have ruled your land! One thousand years ago, you blessed a crown of laurels with your own blood, so that its owner could wipe away those who threatened your vision. The time has come to do it again! Lay it on my head so I may rule Sanctuary for as long as I live, and Sanctuary will not only survive,… it will prosper forever!"

His head then lowered humbly and awaited.

….

….

….

Crimson eyes stared with increasing tension at the marble floor. Nothing was happening!

No, he had done everything that was required! He had abandoned Hades and defeated the guardians of Sanctuary! It didn't matter if the Gold Saints still lived! So long as he was alive and stood unopposed before her statue, the Marathon of Athena was won! Whether or not the Goddess was yet to reincarnate, the very forces of her blessings on that mountain should be harnessing themselves to summon his rightful blessing! She could not ignore his sacrifices and feats!

The heavens should be splitting, descending the crown of blessed evergreen unto his silver hair, celebrating his victory and turning the eighty eight armors into his servants!

Then why was nothing happening?! She owed him her ears and her prizes! Did he have to go get the Teos Cloth and flatten the Golden Zodiac to make her listen to him?!

And as rage bellowed up his chest, making his face rise, the Dark Prince's eyes froze, widened, and a gasp left his mouth!

The statue was gone!

In fact, the night itself was turned into a bright day and the marble floor replaced with endless, Elysian grass as a flood of Asphodel petals washed the air! And the young girl of long, purple hair and green eyes as deep as an ocean stood there, dressed in her armored garb with Staff in hand.

"Hello, Lucian." Her words carried sternness and depth beyond her apparent years, yet her gaze carried a secret softness of someone who knew him at his most helpless self. "You waited a long time for this moment, didn't you?"

He suddenly lacked strength in his legs to rise or in his fists to close. "…Sasha?!"

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

Chapter End

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

Next Chapter: Second Arc - Chapter 66 – Episode 26 – Part 3 of 3 – The Cloth of Hope

Release Date: December 25h (V1's birthday)

Description: Despite the Pope's best efforts, Daemon Lucifer has reached the Colossus of Athena and total subjugation of the eighty eight armors becomes within his reach. Saga and Aiolos continue to battle in the Underworld, but their situation becomes even worse when the men of Hades realize they have intruders in the Well.

Author's Notes:

I feel kinda embarrassed that I'm going back to releasing the Arc Finale as a three-parter after all the effort I went through to try to adapt it to a four-parter, but I just didn't like the new word count distribution and the pacing it created, not to mention I would have to add at least 7000 more words to the hypothetical 67th chapter to even out the word count nicely.

Today we talk about Mandrake Nevil, who bit the dust at the frozen hand of Camus; he's named after Neville Longbottom of Harry Potter. Why? Cause when I think screaming mandrakes, I think one of two things; the ingredient in Star Ocean 2 and that scene from the second HP movie in Herbology class when they pull out the plants and their screeches make Neville faint.

Yup : v

ANYWAY, please make sure to share the story, review it, like it on Twitter/Tumblr and generally support this project if you enjoy it. I've recently passed 25000 hits, which is nuts for a Saint Seiya OC story and I'm happy, but in the grand scheme of fanfics this isn't all that impressive so please don't stop giving feedback, especially at this stage where the story is escalating and the hard work is only increasing.

Also, 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 Movie Night themed after the Underworld.