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.

66. 2A: The Cloth of Hope

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:

-yay, it's the arc finale. Finally;

-This chapter was primarily betaread by my Discord friend, Zebulon_Wallace, also known as Hades Zeb! (the first part until the title intro was still by Siena)

-The fic has surpassed 1.4 million words!

-Bluefeather/Balasdan has completed yet ANOTHER art commission for this story! This one depicts a character in this chapter that shall not be spoiled, but you can check it out in the Twitter and Tumblr announcements I've made of this chapter's publishing, as well as link's I'll post in the future in my site profile. Make sure to CHECK IT OUT, it looks great!

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Warning: This chapter is quite large, reaching 38,000 words!

Although a bunch is author notes at the end, avoid going through it in just one sitting unless your reading endurance is high!

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"Following Eurydice's advice, I went to the surface to search for my old home. I spent the morning trying to find what was left of the burned ruins. I then spent the afternoon trying to sift through two-hundred-year-old burned trash. There was barely anything left. I didn't know what to expect. What the flames didn't destroy, time wiped away.

It's really been a quarter of a millennium since they died. Since I joined Hades. By the Gods.

For the first time in my life since I've obtained this Surplice, I feel truly and crushingly insignificant. It's as if all this time I never truly believed that the years were going by, that nations were rising and falling in my lifespan, that the great pillars of mankind were collapsing and reforming over and over, that all the disgusting things the Saints yelled at me during this blasted war could be true.

Is this all that is left of us after the end? Shadows of ourselves in other people's memories? Is the only thing keeping my father and mother alive my memory of them, or is that a fantasy as well? Never in my time as a Specter have I encountered them in the Underworld. Perhaps they were among the endless hordes of the starved, tortured dead that roam the Prisons, and I simply could not recognize them any easier than as if they were turned into hogs instead.

What is my hope, then? My one true friend I've ever had is now dead and the God I used to believe in has just been another liar in my life, like Hakurei. I now feel with trepidation the fingers of the Olympians deep into every matter of my life. I turned my back on Athena, only to now be in the pocket of Hades. Even the metal husk on my shoulders, a reflection of my black heart, is a product of the Underworld God. Is there no escape from this trap that is the Cosmos? For anyone?

Except for that one object, that one armor of mystery. The sun shines on it like a stairway to apotheosis and none of the Gods have their stench smeared on it, even Athena. Thus, if I am to have hope, I must seek the Cloth of Hope, the armor of Teos. Let the heavens know that henceforth I vow to do nothing but seek that precious thing, the emotion at the bottom of Pandora's Box, next to which even my pride is but a small glimmer, and that neither my vow to Hades, nor the little love I have for others, will be allowed to stand in my way."

-final entry in Daemon Lucifer's personal journal on the Lost Canvas War, dated 1751, a week after Dark Angel Michael's execution for treason

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Papal Chambers

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Collapsed against the wall, the defeated Lemurian felt himself between the world of the living and the world of the dead, his vision shifting between the darkness of unconsciousness and the blurred burning in Athena's broken throne room. At his old age, he could barely reach lightspeed, much less fight on par with a Dark Prince of Hades. He had done his best to halt the Specter's advances, from battling him to fighting for his lost soul, but now he had failed, and an age of darkness and tyranny would rise in Sanctuary.

Shion,…. Shion!

The Holy Father looked up, seeing a shadowed figure over himself. "…D-Dohko?" he called, lamenting the circumstances of the encounter. "I'm sorry, Dohko… I tried to stop him… but I failed again…"

Shion… wake up!

The aged Lemurian slumped as his strength failed him. "I…D-Dohko, we have to save Athe-"

SMACK!

The Pope gasped, feeling the shock of a slapping hand on his cheek. The shadows moved away, revealing a crimson-eyed youth of charcoal hair. "L-Lance! My boy! You're alive!"

"Y-yes, g-goddamn it!" the teenager groaned, though the winces and shaking of pain in his bloodied body were clear.

The Lemurian blinked, unsure if he was hallucinating. "I… I thought… Lucifer said he tortured you!"

Pulling the Pope out of the burning room into the side rooms leading to the Colossus, Lance laid the Pope down and explained himself. "T-The bastard forgot I can counteract his electric currents with my own. He d-didn't hurt me nearly as much as he thinks!"

Shion coughed and chuckled and embraced him, elated, holding onto the teenager as he was risen up. "Oh, t-thank you, Goddess!"

The wounded teenager irked in pain and gently pushed him off. He wasn't used to the Pope not hiding his affection behind his mask of holiness. "T-Take it easy, I'm not in one piece, either…"

The Holy Father took his first good look at the Gold Saint's situation, reminded that the Cancer Cloth was gone and the teenager sported countless wounds, including grazes from the Flaming Sword. They were far from being out of the woods. "You're…"

"B-Beaten the shit out of, I know. Am pretty much spent on Cosmos, too… which I guess is what helped me lay low." He self-consciously confessed. "W-What happened here?"

The Holy Father collapsed against the wall, ashamed of his defeat. "I tried to stop him…"

"Are you k-kidding me, Shion? Do you want him to rip your guts out?! That guy spent the whole night ranting about how much he hates you. When you went inside with him, I thought you were gonna trap him and teleport away!"

But the Lemurian reacted in horror at the notion. "Y-You may not see me that way, Lance… but I'm still a warrior of Athena!"

"Uh-uh, and l-look where that got you." Lance berated, having taken a serious look at the damage their short battle caused. He had no idea the old fart Pope could be involved in this much devastation. In half an hour, his encounter with Lucifer caused destruction rivalling that back at the Libra Temple. When he saw the Pope was going to remind him of his duties, he made sure to appease him. "I know, I know, we have to save the world!"

Shion grabbed his shoulder frantically. "L-Lance, I couldn't stop Lucifer, if he manages to exert his power over this place-"

"You don't have to tell me any of this, he'll make our Cloths go evil; I fucking know." Lance stressed once more, taking the Pope by surprise. He then explained himself while respecting Adriana's wishes to stay private. "I met someone along the way who explained it to me. More shit-from-the-past coming back to haunt us, right? As if those Civil War Black Saints weren't bad enough."

The Lemurian lowered his head in guilt, now understanding Lance's cynicism. "I'm sorry… I know none of this is your fault. That man… me and Dohko should have eliminated him long ago. In a fair world, Daemon Lucifer would have raised his hand at us, old men, and never at you children…" this then alerted Shion to something of pressing importance. "The children… Lance, where is M-MU? Is he okay?!"

The teenager dropped some of his cynicism upon seeing Shion caring about something he also minded for. "Calm down, Mu is safe,… Saint Ophiuchus saved his life. He's in Rodario right now, pretending to be called Kiki or something."

A mix of relief and amusement came over the Pope's face, recognizing the name from old Lemurian comic books. "U-uh, like the Muvian myth character… Mu always loved those silly stories…" he then saw a drop of blood hitting the marble floor and widened his eyes. "L-Lance, your wounds!"

The Saint held the reopened injury. "I'm fine…Where is that bastard?!"

Things looked far from fine to the Holy Father; not only was the Cancer and Pegasus Cloths both gone, but the Saint was injured top to bottom, bleeding from slash wounds and bruised in nearly every muscle of his body, not to mention his cosmos signature was miniscule, a sign of mental and physical exhaustion.

Age aside, Lance was easily in just as bad a shape as the Pope was. Shion looked down the pathway indicatively. "Lucian's gone ahead to the Colossus…He hopes to summon not only Athena to crown him, but a powerful armor of myth that rewards those who achieve great deeds."

Lance's eyes widened. Armor? What armor? "Wait, what are you talking about?!"

Shion then eyed him more seriously than ever. "It's the Cloth of Teos!" he revealed, bewildering the Cancer. "It's real, Lance. I've seen it with my own two eyes, and so has he. With it, he could become fully independent of the Gods as a ruler of Sanctuary, a tyrant bound by no divine contract for his armor, no obligation to be just to the weak, no fear of being abandoned by the garment his powers depend on. This was his objective all along… an artificial apotheosis!"

Stuck speechless for a second by yet another wrench thrown into what was going on, Lance's eyes looked the Pope up and down like he was crazy. Teos? The fairy tale armor Adriana once told him about?

…

His teeth gritted and Lance punched the wall in anger, denting it. "Is everyone in this stupid fucking Sanctuary world insane?!"

Shion saw Lance eventually shake his head in denial, blood clearly rushing up to its veins. "Lance, I know it's a lot to take in, but-"

"NO, are you fucking kidding me?! It's not a LOT, it's EVERYTHING! So on top of all this SHIT so far, ALL the fucked-up nonsense he's been throwing at us all night about past Popes and Lost Canvas war grudges, now THAT fairytale crap is happening, too?! Fuck this guy! I don't have the space in my brain to compartmentalize how big a mess this is anymore!" he protested, rushing off towards Lucifer. "I'm just gonna s-stop this… once and for all!"

"W-what do you intend to do?"

At this point, the teenager paused, hesitant, eyeing the exit to the Colossus like an impossible, dreadful puzzle to solve stood outside. Shion had landed a lot of damage to Lucifer, and so did Milo, Aldebaran, Shinta, himself and everyone else who fought that night to stop the bloodshed, but to say the bat-winged bastard was in any shape to get taken down by Lance, of all people, who looked like he had just gone through the bad conveyer belt of a slaughterhouse, was pure fantasy at best. Even if he wasn't on the brink of collapsing, motivated to stand only by the sheer desperation of what was going on, he would step outside to find himself face to face with a fully armored Dark Prince without a Cloth to protect himself.

Lance wasn't Tenma, who could get back up and fight with even greater ferocity and skill the more you pummeled him down. The modern Pegasus Saint had a good teacher, and he had the good fortune of having been picked for a Gold Cloth, but after tonight he knew that compared to monsters like Tenma and Lucifer and, perhaps to some extent, Shinta as well, his abilities were unremarkable for a Gold Saint, barely trained in combat and not even nearly as talented with his own Temple's lore as his protégé. In fact, compared to the rest of his generation, which was comprised of young boys and pre-teens with a power level already rivalling or surpassing his own, Lance felt pretty damn ordinary, like he had been favored by luck into his current rank rather than elected.

However,… on the other hand, the two of them were the only ones in the position to still do anything about this ticking time bomb. Lance saw what kind of people were under Daemon's command, especially Ainsel, and he didn't like the idea of Sanctuary's Cloths being under their control one bit. He also wasn't going to let this guy go back to Rozan and kill Roshi, terrorize Shinta's students or cause despair to the few people in Sanctuary he actually cared about, like Adriana and Saint Cynthia.

As such, with grinding teeth full of awareness of the decision he was making, he spoke. "I intend to do…whatever it takes."

Nodding knowingly like someone who understood the grim intentions behind this better than anyone, Shion felt the familiar mark of shame take him over again, something he had felt a million times as Sanctuary's Holy Father.

Something important had to be said, then. "…I'm proud of you, Lance. I wasn't fair to you when we first met, because circumstances weren't ideal, but I knew you'd prove my faith in you right one day. I'm sorry I spent all these years stringing you around like I did. I haven't been the most reliable Pope to you children, and I confess that if I had been more open from the beginning… a large part of what's going on now could have been avoided."

Lance nodded slowly, trying to wrap his head around his own plan of action.

The sight of it was miserable to Shion. "But… I want you to know that-"

"Yes, I get it, Shion, don't go all Shinta on me, please." Lance begged. The less he was distracted from this plan, the easier it would be to get it done. "Just do me a favor, okay? Tell Mephisto, Aphrodite and Shinta that… I had no choice. And if you happen to go to Rozan after this… tell Roshi I'm sorry… and that I know this is the last thing he wanted to happen. But Lucifer took things too fucking far and something had to be done…"

The Holy Father stared intently, feeling the weight of the decision being made by the boy passed onto him. This couldn't be happening.

Struggling with what to say, the silent Saint just made his way out with a departing hand gesture. "…I'll see you later."

Shion then watched him walk away with heart as heavy as lead. He saw in Lance's eyes what he intended to do and felt reminded of all the sacrifices his old comrades set out to make during the Lost Canvas War, when he, even back, could do little more than say goodbye... "You poor boy… You might not be one of the warriors prophesized by Hekate, but you've shown yourself just as valorous tonight. I'll do as you asked… and may the Goddess bless you."

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Death Queen Island

Main Volcano Cauldron

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Guilty, Master of Death Queen Island, felt extreme annoyance as he watched the box flash on and off with golden light. He felt its cosmos emanating pings over and over like submarine sonars, so he deduced that it was watching something of its interest. Guilty knew this because he liked submarines. He liked them a lot. He liked how the Japanese and American ones had so many secret weak spots he could hit that would make them sink like a rock! He would then be able to fish out the sailors so he would also make new friends while playing Sink n' Scream.

He folded his arms and tried to think things through with this new development. He was sure that the twelve Gold Cloths were all in Sanctuary and not a single Cloth has been created by the Queen ever since her masterpiece, the Phoenix Cloth. In fact, there would be no need for any other work as the immortal Phoenix Cloth was all Guilty ever needed.

Guilty analyzed this thirteenth Gold Cloth Box. It followed a design similar to the boxes of Athena's Cloths. It was slightly rectangular as to favor the owner's back length and possessed similar undulating decorations to the ones usually shown on the faces of Athena's boxes around the image of the constellation symbol. Guilty ran his mind over all the constellations he knew, even the Phoenix one just for the heck of it, but the Constellation symbol on this one didn't match anything. It was actually a simple twelve-pointed star with the chain handle on its center.

Approaching the box carefully, Guilty caressed its surface with his hand. With a mere touch, he discovered that it was loaded with hot, hateful cosmos from Death Queen Island. He could practically hear the screams of the Island's dead. Guilty calculated that the Cloth must have spent a few centuries inside the lava, somehow absorbing cosmos and heat all around it.

It would certainly explain the Queen's mysterious moods. Sudden drops of temperature in specific areas inside magma would create instability which would then lead to eruptions. Eventually, it would enable a layer of rock to solidify on top of it, partially blocking the Queen's throat.

It was possible that the Cloth got dumped there so as to be repaired by the volcano's cosmos. But no one used Guilty's island for that. Everyone always used Kanon Island, Andromeda Island or even some of the other islands Lemurians used to forge Cloths. Guilty looked up and saw the winds of Hōyokutenshō losing strength. He should pick the Cloth and leave the volcano.

Suddenly, the box vibrated until it freed itself from the rocky floor. It then lifted into the air a little. Guilty groaned in frustration and tried to catch it, but the elusive box escaped.

"Hey, come back here! Hōyokutenshō!" He punched towards the cloth box, releasing a bird of fire that clashed with the golden surface only to be utterly obliterated by a simple, small release of cosmos.

Guilty widened his eyes as he saw his best attack having no effect.

The box started flashing more and more and more, as if reacting to something. Guilty leapt in a last-ditch effort to catch it but, as soon as his arms swept forward for the grab, the Cloth Box escaped, flying upwards at high speed. Once it left the volcano's mouth, the cloth shifted direction and exploded into a missile of light, heading east. Guilty looked in the direction the Cloth escaped, bewildered by the whole experience.

Did he just get ditched by a Gold Cloth?

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(?)

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Soft wind breezes blew by, raising pollen and petals into the air by the hundreds of thousands around the two of them in that endless sea of peaceful heaven, where the sun shined an orange warmth from between cotton pink clouds. The air was sweet like honey and the skies radiant with sunlight, exposing the harshness of the silver-haired man's wounds in contrast with the impeccable brim of soft white on the young woman in front of him. The hostility in his veins was gone, replaced by an awe he had only felt when experiencing his first visions of Hades, back when he thought the world had abandoned him.

Were they in heaven? Had he succumbed to his wounds and perished at the feet of Athena's statue? After all he had done, was this fate's cruel way to grant his wish of an audience with the enemy Goddess? Or was Shion right and he had gone mad?

Eventually he found the bravery to speak at the alien being in front of him. "Sasha, you-"

"Forgive me, Lucian, but I am not Sasha." She politely interrupted, making him blink. "In fact, I'm not Athena, either… or if you prefer, I'm not the whole Athena you wanted to speak to."

He was stunned. "But,… but you look… your cosmos!..." he protested, before his shoulders and brows sunk in realization. "I see. You're the armor."

To which the young woman nodded serenely.

It made perfect sense to the Specter; while the Goddess was yet to reincarnate, her armor rested at the top of the Golden Zodiac, as the Specter discovered after Dohko's battle with Sylphid, Gordon and Queen, and while the Cloths on earth were metallic embodiments of old mythological spirits, Divine Cloths were closer in nature to Surplices. The difference was that while Surplices were beastly mirrors to the Specter's flaws, Divine Cloths were direct extensions of a God's essence.

In other words, he was talking to one of Athena's skins, a part of herself fashioned into a Cloth, a hardened exoskeleton left behind on Earth that could not be worn by anyone but herself and carried the lingering thoughts and prayers of the sleeping deity. Yes, this was good enough. In his mind, especially as a Specter, there was practically no difference between the two, at least for what he needed to discuss.

"Athena, I have crossed your Temples." He repeated, this time with much less theater.

"Yes. Congratulations, Lucian. You've done a great deed." She kept her chin high despite the apparent admission of defeat. "You left my uncle's shadow, outwitted my Gold Saints and achieved your dream of proving your might to the world. No one can deny the courage of a man who has done all of this."

Finding this oddly appeasing for an enemy, he pressed forward. "Then… then you must give me what's mine!... Right?!"

…

The Goddess simply gazed sadly at his knelt figure, pitying him.

The hesitation spoke more than a thousand words, making his eyes widen in alarm! "You MUST!" he roared, getting up and swiping flowerbeds away with the force of his wings. "YOU CANNOT IGNORE EVERYTHING I'VE DONE! ALL I'VE SACRIFICED…!...All I have…"

The force felt in his anger, however, had even less of a meaning in that conversation between them than in his metaphysical battle with Virgo Shaka, and even less true force than the one present in the flower petals it ushered, merely causing her green eyes to close in lament.

"Yes, you've sacrificed much, Lucian. Your identity, your oath of allegiance, your safety under my uncle's black wing… It's more than can be said for most Specters. What you've done makes me believe even more deeply in mankind's willingness to change and improve and was a bright first step towards your salvation. In a way, you have given me a wonderful gift, one that I've known all along you could conjure..."

"THEN WHY?!" he protested.

Her sad gaze was replaced with a stern one when reopened. "However, you've also sacrificed that of which you had no right to, Lucian… You toyed with the hopes of countless False Specter souls, and murdered many other innocent Saints in your road to power. You kept loved ones apart from each other for your own self-interest, hiding Cerah away from her sister, and you betrayed Priam's trust in you, forcing him to commit even more crimes against his former brothers. All this while saying it was necessary for your cause. Should those sacrifices that others made because of you be weighed against what you ask, as well?"

He stepped back, horrified. "How do you know all that?!"

Her purple brows then softened back. "You exposed your heart when you called me out, Lucian… the shadow in it is as bare to me as your skin now."

The Specter closed fists in frustration, grinding them until cosmos began burning all over his body, but he found himself unable to manifest his powers in any hostile manner. Something told him it would be futile to try it even if he could. This was a conversation in the heart, after all, just like the Goddess said.

And thus he reminded her of what was in his own, namely the hatred for the naïve hypocrisy he despised in Athena. "Was I expected to get this far without shedding blood?! By merely asking Shion if I could please see you and rule over this place?!"

"That is not all you're asking for. You forget, Lucian, that Sanctuary is no longer just the throne, the Temples and the eighty-eight armors." She argued. "Perhaps once upon a time it was, when I was crueler, more close-minded, more like the rest of my family, but Sanctuary now is composed also of thousands of people who simply want to live their lives in peace and happiness. They have no interest in being under a king who wants nothing but to destroy."

He shook in fear of what she was implying. "What are you saying?... That times have changed?! That's your excuse?!"

The deity, however, unlike Shion, had infinite patience for the injustice humans felt in their hearts, justified or not, and therefore answered with the utmost kindness, wisdom and calm. "Is that not what you've been saying so far? That Sanctuary has fallen from greatness of the past? Is it my excuse, or a truth you know well in your heart?"

His teeth gritted. "My heart?!..."

"Hades has committed a great cruelty against you, Lucian." She continued. "He did not only lie to you and corrupt you, but he plucked you from your natural place in life, forbidding you from dying regardless of how tired and out of place with your brethren you felt. You watched the world pass you by, forgetting you twice over, and that made your hate grow exponentially. You ask me to give you the laurel I've once given your ancestor, but I cannot do that."

"WHY?!"

"Because to do it is to return Sanctuary and the world to a state that I vowed myself never to allow to exist again." She calmly elaborated. "Your ancestor's empire was cruel and merciless. It used the worst passions of the people of Sanctuary, and my fear to oppose them, to justify the slavery and eradication of others. I know even you don't want that, do you?"

The Daemon was stuck, not knowing what to say.

The goddess sighed. "Lucian… I know it hurts you, because you've been told over and over by man and God alike that this was what you were born to do, but I would rather let the entire world die than give you what you say you want. You are not ready to rule over others, and you never will for as long as the murk of cruelty exists in your heart. Humankind does not deserve Sanctuary, or even the mercy of the Gods, if all it can think of is strength and domination."

The Specter's feet backed away, demoralized. After everything he's done…. "You can't do this to me!... You can't! I've defeated your Sanctuary! No Saint is left to challenge me, and soon I'll obtain the Cloth of Hope! Teos will respect my triumph, if you won't, and if you don't give me what I want, your CLOTHS WILL!"

Athena knew this. Despite what Saints or even the Pope might believe, the loyalty of the 88 constellations was not her heaven-given right after all. They were powerful, independent spirits from the Ancient World, some of them like Astraea were even Gods in their own right, who served her because they believed in her mission to civilize mankind and her will to see her vision through. There were times when they had served different Gods altogether, like her dear half-brother, and their current loyalty lied entirely on her sticking true to her principles and honor.

However, Athena was the Goddess of Wisdom, and she always had one last card left to play. "You're right, Lucian… the Cloth of Hope is coming. The great deeds done tonight have not been ignored… But you haven't won yet."

He squinted. "I haven't won?!"

Sasha's gaze suddenly sterned very harshly. "Turn around, asshole!"

The Specter was appalled. "…What did you say?!"

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"I S-SAID TURN AROUND AND FACE ME, ASSHOLE!" Lance roared, wrapped in green aura and colliding unto the Specter's back!

The Specter gasped, returned to the nightime reality, where he stumbled with the body crashed against him before the very clearly-not-gone Colossus of Athena. Arms wrapped around the connecting joint of his wings, locking in, and Lucifer turned head with a venom in his crimson eyes unmatched by any Specter in the Underworld. "…You!"

The unarmored Cancer Saint grimaced, holding onto the overpowering Devil with dear life and the massive statue with nothing but the clothes on his tattered body to protect him. He had actually never been up there, before the Goddess' Colossus, and he never thought it would be in such circumstances. He had also not expected to find the Celestial Pride Star loudly rambling to himself, but none of this changed what he had to do.

He just had to take this golden opportunity and hold on to the bastard!

The Pride Star rocked around with loud metal stomps that rumbled thunder off the skies, but the Gold Saint refused to let go. "GET OFF ME! Haven't you learned your lesson?! This is the third time you stand in my way!"

"Y-yet I still stand!" the teenager bit back, fueled mostly by defiance than any real belief that he could prevail.

"You should have run!" the Archdevil hissed, amassing his strength into pale white thunder in his hands. "Instead, you'll be made into a cross on the chest of Athena's statue, a tribute to my triumph for all to see!"

The Specter ran back, crashing Lance unto the flanking pillars in an attempt to dislodge him. He laughed at the sound of Lance's screams and did it again, this time burying the youth deep into cracking marble.

The arms did not release him, but weakened. "HA, HA, HA! CAN YOU TAKE MUCH MORE?!"

He only had a bit of Cosmos left, and he couldn't spare it! The second he let go of Lucifer, he was dead! "I'm… not l-letting go!"

"YOUR FUNERAL, THEN!" And before Lance could even feel the regret to let go of his precarious position, the Specter's black energies swirled unto his armored back, focusing intensely into a single point before jutting out in a black, puncturing blade, striking Lance's chest.

The Gold Saint gasped out and pools of blood splashed off, wetting the sacred ground. The strength in his arms began failing…

Not satisfied with this deadly blow, Lucifer then finished it off. "Now get turned to cinders! GREED LIGHTNING!"

The punctured Gold Saint instinctively paled at the sight of the two purple orbs of cosmos formed above them, closing his eyes and sweating nervously as they called down bolts of lightning.

"C-CRYSTAL WALL!" a Pope coming stumbling right out the Papal Halls shouted, projecting psychic walls that shielded the Cancer from the purple bolts of cruelty that came crashing down

"SHION!" Lance gasped.

The Holy Father collapsed once more unto the marble floor. "D-do it! N-NOW!"

"DARN YOU!" But Lucifer's red eyes widened in horror when they retightened right after. "What?! What are you doing?!"

The Saint closed his eyes and burned his aura, focusing on nothing but the task at hand, using the Cosmos to lock his arms into place. His basic white energies began swelling at his feet and then erupting all over them just as blood started coming out his mouth as well!

The Pride Star's eyes saw the aura around them starting to become green and he understood what was going on. "No…. NO! NOO! LET GO OF ME!" he roared, wresting and reaching around, but his large wings prevented him from getting a good grip in Lance. "YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME! NOO!"

The ground shook and the dragon's roar was heard.

The Holy Father stumbled out of the temple, barely conscious, just in time to witness the act.

The platform the Colossus stood on was swallowed up by a exploding green burst and the Celestial Star of Pride screamed. And then, before Athena's petrified eyes, the aura burst into emerald green and the Gold Saint of Cancer enacted his last technique. "ROZAN…. KORYUHA!"

A deafening, supernatural roar was felt in the very cosmos and Shion watched in utter pain as his oldest Gold Saint rocketed off the ground with the Specter firmly in arms, shooting towards the skies!

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Stairs to Capricorn

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"Quick, we're almost at my House!" Shura urged the other two, turning the corner.

Milo panted. The weakened defenses in sanctuary were helping a lot in crossing the stairs, but they were still trying to get through in a few minutes what would normally require hours.

"Hold on, man, we've been fighting all day and don't have your boy scout relentlessness!" Only for then Shinta to pass him by. "Aw man, now you're both making me look bad!"

But the Andromeda Saint had good reason to do so, and he even got ahead of Shura to jump unto a platform siding the stairs, looking up, and asked in a panic. "Did you guys hear that?!"

Shura and Milo stopped to listen in. "What do you mean-"

A soul-shilling, draconic roar then echoed down the mountain, along side a ground quaking shake which made the two Gold Saints stumble. All three of them then saw a giant, Asian dragon of pure cosmos fly off the distant Colossus of Athena, carrying the pitch-black signature of Daemon Lucifer's cosmos in its mouth into stratospheric oblivion.

The Scorpio blinked. "That…"

Shura lowered arms, humbled by the sight of it. "The roaring Dragon of Rozan…?!"

Shinta's green eyes stared in horror, his heartbeat coming to a halt. "It… it can't be!"

He felt the vanishing light of his best friend's cosmos carrying into the sky, vanishing.

….

The green shooting star then vanished into the nightsky.

The Andromeda collapsed onto knees, tears streaming out of eyes. "L…. L-LANCE! LAAAANCE!"

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

Mount Rozan

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

The Cosmos screamed, casting a green shooting star in the minds of Herakles Aguilon and Libra Dohko as they conversed at the Waterfall of Rozan. Even Ma Chao widened its golden, feline eyes, alerted by the draconic energy from halfway across the world.

The Silver Saint giant scratched his head. "What was that, in Sanctuary?..." He then saw the Old Master's hatted head sink. "Saint Libra, what's wrong?... You felt that too, didn't you?"

The purple dwarf's tiny shoulders shook. "Yes… I did. That, Saint Aguilon… was the price of my failure…" And the master rose head to reveal two streams of tears falling down his face as the pain of a bi-centenarian scar reopened in his heart. It would not close again for as long as he lived. "L-Lance,… you foolish boy!... You've now proven your valor to A-Athena! May the Gods bless your soul… and may Athena forgive me!

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

Sanctuary Town,

Outskirts

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

The horse rider climbed the ascending road towards the path out of Sanctuary Town, exhausted and wounded. The explosion that demolished the Aries Temple nearly killed her. The blue coat was tattered, her chest breathed harshly and her tied hair set loose while stains of her blood drenched her clothes. Adriana risked life for others thrice as of that night, and now she just wished to leave before the luck the Goddess lent her ran out.

Upon reaching the height of the pass to the mountains, a loud, distant dragon roar startled her, and the woman saw the blazing green shooting star going up, instead of down, cutting through cloud and night sky alike with a mouthful of golden cosmos. She recognized the fabled miracle from studies about the Libra Saint. It made many Sanctuary Town residents in the streets below finally awaking to see what was going on and point their fingers up in awe and fear, like beholding a sign of doom.

In fact, she had seen this dragon before that night. He had punched its way through the tomb blocking the Aries gate, anxious to save his friends. Now, at the pinnacle of this Holy War, it reached to the skies, burning up…

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

Chapter 66

Episode 28

Second Arc Finale - Part 3 of 3

The Cloth of Hope

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The Underworld Well

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The valley on which Gemini Saga and Sagittarius Aiolos battled Behemoth Torak and Sphinx Neferti was now surrounded by Hades' men, his True Skeletons, all seething at the sight of the four of them and with weapons shining with the pale blue fires that adorned the black landscape. The two Gold Saints stood panting back-to-back, their eyes watching the many shadows in Damascus armor arise everywhere around them, from behind the boulders and the peaks with scythes, swords and crossbows in hands.

Not only were they already fighting a losing battle against Sphinx and Behemoth as it was in a world with no true way out, but now their exits off the battlefield itself were blocked, with more True Specters likely to come running in next after these Skeletons.

The Sagittarius Gold Saint grimaced. "Great, things just got even worse!"

But Saga's eyes squinted, especially as he noticed Sphinx and Behemoth were also tense, and remembered their discoveries about the False Specters. "Maybe not, Aiolos… just watch."

Sphinx Neferti scoffed at the sight of the grunts surrounding the four of them. "Oh fantastic… what do you want?!"

The Skeletons began leaping, sliding or climbing down the hills, closing in. The irony that then dripped off the voice of the first Skeleton that spoke was seething. "We oughta ask you the same… Lady Sphinx!"

"We were watching the 7th Prison, doing our duty, unlike you traitors… when we heard all this commotion here above." A second Skeleton spoke, scratching the ground with his scythe like he desperately wanted to bury it in their skulls. "Did you come here to offer these Gold Saints to the Emperor, expecting forgiveness?"

While Aiolos blinked in confusion, Saga observed attentively. "Aiolos, it's a long story, but look! They are hostile to our enemies as well. This is even more evidence that the invaders are false Specters, as Shaka said."

The Sagittarius gulped, suspicious. "Sure, Sphinx was rambling on about that before she dragged me here, but what if it's a giant trick?!"

The large Behemoth Specter scoffed at the sight of these Underworld lapdogs. "Don't worry, we are just passing by. We intend to go back the way we came with the Gold Saints… after we kill you all, of course."

"Ah, kill us?! You replacements?!" one Skeleton mocked, arming a crossbow. "We are the immortal servants of Hades! You are just thieves that filled in for us!"

"And you're not going anywhere! Lord Aiacos has noticed your offensive intrusion… and we intend to bring you to him, piece by piece." A particularly confident Skeleton threatened.

Neferti felt them closing the circle in step-by-step and scoffed. "Shall I do it, then?"

Behemoth shrugged. "You were always better than me against riff-raff."

Bloodthirsty weapons of the Underworld were raised to the sky. "KILL THEM! KILL THE TRAITORS! AND LONG LIVE THE EMPEROR!"

Sphinx Neferti burned her aura and raised her hands with fingers tensed like lion paws. "HIERACOSPHINX STORM!" and an authentic hurricane of blue sand was lifted, instantly tearing apart the charging Skeleton Soldiers around them to screaming pieces, bursting through their armor plates, disintegrating their flesh and smashing the last few remnants of incredulity in the Saints about the loyalties of Lucifer and his men,

Among the screams of the men of Hades torn to shreds by the swipe-like currents of the attack, currents of slashing air made Aiolos grab the yelping Saga out of the attack's radius, landing him far off Sphinx's reach. The two Gold Saints watched as the storm subsided and dismembered body pieces of Skeleton grunts fell like a grotesque rain, soaking the battlefield with blood.

The cruel spectacle made Aiolos stir. "By the Gods…"

"Enjoy your immortality in pieces!" Neferti spat.

Torak's blue eyes turned to the distant mountain where the Well's mouth was located. "Let's hurry up! I'd rather not deal with the Judges when we still have Sanctuary left to conquer."

The Sphinx scoffed. "I can just let my 'Final Passage' expire to take me back. What's your excuse for not finishing Sagittarius?"

Eyeing the two Gold Saints, Torak smirked. "I find joy in my job, unlike you."

Horrified, the two Gold Saint leaped down with renewed resolve. "You… slaughtered your own?!" Aiolos confronted.

"They were never our friends or brothers, even before the Exodus." Neferti assured, remembering the hardships she endured. "If anything, they participated in the lie told to us and thought themselves our betters. To them, we were temporary slaves, the people who mopped up after their failures in the Lost Canvas War!"

"And even if they weren't, I personally don't see untrained grunts as my own, Sagittarius." Torak added, more sadistic. "Only those who inherited Hades' lies together with me shall have my strength by their side, and that's if they pull their own weight!"

It was Saga's turn to join Aiolos' condemnation. "Pitiable fools… so rather than repent after discovering Hades' lies, you chose to double down on his cruelty and make it your own? Then as far as I'm concerned you're no different from what you call 'True Specters'." He argued, igniting his aura. "Aiolos, let's have no more hesitation in this battle! These adversaries deserve nothing but the full wrath of the Houses of Sagittarius and Gemini, the bulwarks of Sanctuary."

The Sagittarius Gold Saint agreed with a nod, joining his aura to his. "Agreed! This has gone for long enough! The safety of everyone back at Sanctuary depends on our success here!"

The two Specters responded in kind, summoning their dark strength in unison. "Uh, what do you think you can do?! You're not the only ones with a just cause this time! The False Specters fight for their own justice, too… and I'll show you the power of it!" Neferti challenged. "GUARDIAN RIDDLE!"

The illusion of a giant sphinx statue emerging behind her awed the two Gold Saints, before its two terrifying eyes shined, casting the powerful paralyzing move on both of them. Saga gasped, feeling his entire body, even his breathing, arrested "AGH!... I… can't move!"

"It's her technique! Don't relent to it! It's temporary!" Aiolos warned.

"SHADOW SEWING!" Torak casted, causing the countless shades of the dead existing in that dimension to form thick chains that lashed out at Saga and Aiolos, snaking around them with astonishing speed. His fist then crackled dark sparks, tightening the grip of the currents until the two Gold Saints could but gasp in pain at the tight restraints on their necks and limbs. "… There, done!"

"Good, so finish them! Use your Mountainous Chaos!" Neferti urged, also raising her own energy "I'll aid it with my Storm! With the power of the Titans' beast, we can wipe them out at once and blast a way back for you at the same time!"

Positioning himself properly and joining his hands so as to shape a rhinoceros head with his fingers, Behemoth hummed in concentration and burned his aura to the max, causing the ground to tremble.

Saga widened his eyes panickedly. "Aiolos, I know this attack! He used it at Taurus. This isn't good! He was able to blow up half of Aldebaran's Temple with that!"

Aiolos struggled to free himself, but even his wings didn't move. "T-Tell me you have a plan!"

Saga irked. "You wouldn't happen to have learned Priam's warp move by now, would you?" but Aiolos shook his head. "…Well, shit! We're gonna die snuggled up together, then!"

Watching the Behemoth Specter summon a powerful twister of an aura unlike any other, which was then funneled into his joined hands, the perceptive Sagittarius Saint countered this thought. "Or we can win together!"

The Gemini looked over shoulder intrigued, but his attention was recaptured by the Behemoth Specter's swirling powers being spectacularly concentrated into a rainbow-colored orb of light, a storm of titanic power worthy of the old giants the ruled the Earth. "Prepare yourselves, Saints! With this one attack, I'll annihilate both of you out of those valuable armors! Nothing will be left but the disintegrated atoms of your corpses!"

But Aiolos unexpectedly questioned him on this. "Then you'll be stuck here with your enemies! Without Lance or Mephisto, Saga is the only one who can hope to take you back!"

But Neferti scoffed. "He can just take your place when Final Passage's effect runs out in a few minutes, Saint Aiolos. I'm sorry to tell you, but your fates were sealed the moment you were taken out of your temples!"

Then Torak added something that froze the two of them to their core. "And we don't want a challenger to the Prince's authority back in Sanctuary. He has an ending in mind for that armor of yours, Saint Saga, and he doesn't want it worn by a cursed soul, anyway!"

The blue-eyed Sagittarius gasped and turned head to his friend. "Saga?! How…"

The Gemini sweated and struggled frustratedly against Shadow Sewing. He ended up nodding and looking away.

The winged Gold Saint irked, feeling the stakes rise more than ever. Now more than just surviving, he had to protect his rival's secret from getting out or all his progress with Gemini could go out the window. He burned his cosmos discretely and focused…

Neferti tensed her brows puzzlingly. "Torak, you mean…"

"His eyes haven't gone red yet, but that Gemini is cursed, yes. Ainsel hinted it at me before he got himself killed and then I felt it during my battle with him; there is an evil in that kid's soul like the ones I use for my Shadow Sewing, and his training under Gemini has been advancing its stages. If he were to live, he would become a dangerous challenger to the Prince."

She rubbed her chin, enlightened, feeling once again the lack of her harp to measure her adversary's heart. "Then if it's anything like the Princes' curse, it could mean Sanctuary was doomed to catastrophe anyway…"

Torak became enveloped in the monstrous rhino's aura and his hands to burn like a torch. "That blood-drunk cult's schemes won't matter anymore once we turn their plaything into ash! The 'dead stay dead', right?!"

Aiolos gritted teeth. "You won't get away with this!"

And Behemoth scoffed. "I've been hearing that all night from you Gold Saints, but did it save you in the end? No! Because you lacked the strength to defend your homes! And now you pay for it! MOUNTAINOUS CHAOS!"

Firing off like an explosion of dark blue, the massive blast of cosmic chaos travelled like a runaway train, aiming to crush the two Gold Saints with the astronomical forces of the universe forged by the Titans. Wind currents were blown, exacerbated by the attack's force, and even the two Specters recoiled sharply with the release of such a force.

Such was the force of his own attack, that Behemoth covered himself when it collided and exploded, obfuscating his sight with the sharp release of light and launching layers of bedrock and dust everywhere along with a piercing scream of death!

The Behemoth laughed triumphantly! "AH, AH, I've done it!" But his face twisted in horror when the dust began subsiding. "W… What?!"

The hand reached out in plea from inside as the ripping wind currents died down… and Sphinx Neferti collapsed to the ground before him in a pool of her blood. The Damascus of her armor was shattered all over in small pieces and her eviscerated body collapsed in twisted, fleshtorn contours that made even the Behemoth Specter pale. "T… T-T-Torak!..."

His face twisted into shock and denial. "N…. NEFERTI?!" He then saw to his side to see the sands lifted up by the blast dying down to reveal Sagittarius Aiolos with Saga's arm around him in the spot Neferti was standing on earlier. "It… it can't be! WHAT…. WHAT DID YOU DO?!"

Laying Saga down gently, the Sagittarius eyed him tragically. "I warned you not to do it! A technique does not work twice on a Saint, Behemoth… not without consequences!"

Neferti crawled on the ground with her half-destroyed limbs, dragging pieces of flesh on the sandy ground and feeling her cheeks desintegrate. "T—Torak, help m-me!"

Screaming in outrage and disgust, Torak aimed hand at her pained, half-melted face and fired the largest cosmos blast he had ever unleashed in his life, putting the Elite out of her macabre misery. Aiolos grimaced, praying for the poor woman's soul.

Panting, he then protested further. "Y-you… you lying cockroaches! You've never seen my move!"

"B-but I have!" Saga interrupted. "And Aiolos was struck twice by Shifting Sands!"

The sharp Sagittarius Saint nodded. "I thought it was strange she was not using it on Saga, so I figured that somewhere along our fight, perhaps even when she used Balance of Curse, she tagged me with some sort of cosmos brand for her switching technique." Aiolos explained. "The rest was to reverse-engineer her technique, which used the same Wind element as mine, and timing it against yours, all with Saga's help!"

"But that's a TOTAL GUESS!" the tall warrior roared.

Aiolos narrowed his eyes. "Did you expect us to just lie down and quit fighting?! Gold Saints do not fall into despair! If a guess is what I have left, a guess is what I'll make!"

Saga smirked, knowing that despite what Aiolos just said, he'd never shoot in the dark like this, unlike his Sagittarius Saint. It's just that Aiolos was that sort of guy who would go down throwing a punch at you for his ideals.

Light then began forming beneath Aiolos' feet, forming the same ritualistic symbols that took him to the Underworld. "Now with miss Neferti's unfortunate death, Final Passage's effect is running out and will pull me back. Saga, hold on to me! We'll both get out of this dreadful place!"

Watching the two about to leave, the Behemoth stepped towards them with his dark blue aura flaring up, already recovering his stamina. "No, you DON'T! YOU'LL PAY FOR TRICKING ME! I can fight my way out of Hell all over again if I have to, but YOU are not going anywhere!"

The ritual circle erupted with energy, surrounding the two Gold Saints with a glass-like energy wall. "STAY BACK, you fool!" Saga warned. "Do you have any idea what kind of forces lie between dimensions?! If you screw with the passage you'll get us all killed!"

Torak's large, blue-armoured hands clashed on the wall of energy, making it crack and sizzle. "I won't let you Saints destroy my life all over again! First Urial, now Neferti, you won't get the Prince, too!" he roared, pushing into the glass-like energy wall.

The two Gold Saints stare in true fright at the sight of the maddened False Specter pushing his way inside. "Shit! Saga, speed this thing up, get us out of here! He'll land us in hyperspace or worse otherwise!"

Practically squeezing his way inside through a cosmic glass crack that he punched through, the Behemoth forced his way inside, causing the transportation circle to start shining wildly and making Saga's nose bleed with the effort to keep it stable with his cosmos. "I'll destroy this entire ritual circle! BRUTAL REAL!"

"LIGHTNING BOLT!" Aiolos shouted, aiming the fistful of thunder on the man's exposed jaw!

"ANOTHER DIMENSION!" Saga enacted his powers, casting dimension-opening rays into the invisible gate already being opened by Final Passage.

*CRASH*

The ground shook and the entire Underworld Well seemed to scream in unison as all three attacks collided their effects, as if a wound had been inflicted on the very soul of the dimension by the confluence! With a force erupting from beneath their feet, all three warriors were then practically flushed towards the skies towards the unknown, leaving a vanishing trail of light that made the countless dead walking in the distance towards the Well raise their heads at the strange shooting star.

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

Sanctuary,

House of Sagittarius

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With the first rays of light slowly rising over the horizon edge and the hands of the Fire Clock announcing the thirtieth minute of the 6th hour, the three Saints of Athena returned, led by Capricorn Shura, to Aiolos' House, which he had just crossed before meeting them.

He guided them inside the darkness. "Come on, let's figure out what to do inside." He urged, feeling the cloud of sadness behind him.

Scorpio Milo frowned sympathetically as he helped the weeping Shinta stay focused and motivated up the stairs and into the Temple. All they fought for, all they did to stop the killing, all the miracles they pulled to survive the night, and yet at the twilight hour of the war, one of them still lost their lives. It was hard for the young boy to think of what he could possibly say to the tear-drenched mess next to him, as he himself could hardly imagine what he'd do if he just saw his best friend killing themselves to save all their lives, especially one that was just standing next to them not an hour earlier.

As they crossed the gate, they were startled when an owl came flying out from within, startling them. "Agh, stupid birds!" Milo hissed, swatting it away.

Shura held his hand down before he shot the poor bird with the Scarlet Needle. "Owls are sacred to the Goddess, just let it go." He reminded him. "It's not its fault. The mountain's defenses must be a mess if these are making their way in."

They reached the Hall of Chiron and Shura pointed at nothing, seemingly, though all three of them could feel with the 7th sense a scar of Cosmos in the air. "I searched all over, but Aiolos and whoever he was fighting were gone. All I could feel was this… wound in the air here. It seemed like the ones my Excalibur leaves behind sometimes."

Milo squinted, but looked completely lost on whatever his Capricorn counterpart was talking about. He did sense a cold chill from it that made his very soul tremble. "It feels like something between when Saga uses Another Dimension and… Deathmask uses the Underworld Wave." he explained it to himself, making sure not to mention Lance instead. "Did Aiolos get dragged into hell or something?"

"That is correct."

As the three Saints looked around, startled, a second fright came when a flash of light suddenly occurred in front of them, materializing none other than the Holy Father of Sanctuary, who had retaken his mask and teleported from the Colossus there.

Shura immediately kneeled. "Your Holiness!"

Shion gasped in relief at seeing all of them alive. "It's wonderful to see you children alright. I'm sorry for startling you. With the defenses down, I, too, can now use my abilities in the Zodiac."

Milo cried out to know. "Pope, what is going on?! What happened up there at your Temple?!"

"Where is LANCE?!" Shinta rushed ahead, cutting Milo short, his cheeks full of tears. "I… I saw the Koryuha… everyone did. Lord Pope, please…"

Shion felt his heart sink, confronted with the hardest thing he had to do yet. The Holy Father rested hand firmly on Shinta's shoulder. "Saint Andromeda…"

The green-haired Saint shook head. "No…!"

"…Lance told me to say he's sorry."

Horror made the Bronze Saint's green eyes widen with tears. "N-NO!"

Shion immediately took the teenage boy into chest, embracing him tightly. As he hid Andromeda's crying face from sight into his shoulder, he looked the other two Gold Saints over, requesting a bit of respectful distance with a look of his black mask, which they obeyed.

What a horrible night they were going through; Daemon Lucifer appeared out of nowhere and, now, half of the Temples were destroyed and filled with dead Specters, most of the Gold Saint division was wounded, Shaka was traumatized, the Cancer, Pegasus and Andromeda Cloths were severely damaged along with most of the Libra Weapons and Lance died.

To make things worse, they were likely on the verge of a surprise Holy War with Hades, if any other entity didn't choose to attack the now crippled Sanctuary, and to top it all off, Athena was nowhere to be seen for at least another three to four years.

"So… it's over, then?" Milo politely asked.

The Holy Father nodded despite knowing things weren't truly over. "...Yes, Daemon Lucifer has been taken into the skies by Rozan Koryuha. His Surplice will protect him from the friction, but the stresses of outerspace will be too much even for him. The powerful Celestial Violence Star, Bennu Kagaho himself, did not survive it in the Lost Canvas War. There is only one other Specter in Sanctuary and I sense him quickly making his way to Aphrodite's House, which means he won't last long. The False Holy War is as good as over."

While Milo sighed in relief, landing on his behind. "Thank the Goddess…."

Shura disagreed, however. "We still have to find out what happened to Aiolos, though."

Slowly letting go of Shinta as the Andromeda calmed his crying, Shion got back on track. "Right. Daemon Lucifer told me he is indeed in the Praesepe Underworld Wave, but this crack in dimensions left behind by the Sphinx Specter is our hope to get him back…"

"Damn it, I knew I should have forced Mephisto to come along!" Milo lamented.

Shura, however, turned to the Andromeda Saint. "We might not need that lazy dolt. We have Saint Andromeda here. His chain can cross into the vast stretches of the universe, should a path be clear."

Milo looked at the Andromeda and saw him struggling to breathe, much less clean his face of tears. "Give him a minute, alright?"

Shura looked away, uncomfortable with emotive displays. "(Aiolos might not have a minute!)"

The Scorpio gritted teeth. "(Geez, dude, look at him!)"

"(I am! And we could all be the same about the rest of our friends if we don't get a move on!)"

But the Andromeda forced himself to get his bearings with a inhale, and waved his hand in an appeasing way.

"I-it's o-okay… I k-know….I'll do it. Shura is right." He then grasped the triangle chain Shaka got for him tightly and eyed the crack of cosmos in the air. "NEBULA CHAIN!"

The four watched as the broken segment of links wrapped around his fingers shot into the invisible fissure, stretching its length miraculously and crossing over into an unseen existence. The sound of speeding metal was heard until, suddenly, the Andromeda chain tucked tightly, alerting them.

Milo gasped. "He got something!"

Shura held it and helped Shinta pull. "Come on, get Aiolos out!"

The three Saints pulled with all their might, but it felt like the chain was bit by a very powerful fish speeding hopelessly across unspeakable stretches of the cosmos. It tugged the chain viciously, making Shinta yelp and drag his feet, but the Scorpio and Capricorn Gold Saints united their grasp in the links with his and resisted.

Milo felt the links escaping his palm and held on tight. "G-geez, it feels like we're holding onto Halley!"

The Holy Father, however, sensed a familiar strength in it. "No, keep going! Pull that weight out!"

With the strength of all three, they managed to pull the chain back, stumbling to the ground with the tensive release, and much to their shock it was not just Aiolos that came out, but a whole meteor of light suddenly pulled into their existence out of nowhere, crashing not one, not two, but three more people in heavy armor into the Hall of Chiron, who tore through the damaged marble flooring.

"AIOLOS…and Saga?!" Shinta gasped.

The Gemini Saint was indeed there, rubbing his head as he got up. "Ugh… we made it back?!"

Aiolos nodded, unfurling his wings full of Underworld dirt and noticing the rubble caused by his earlier battle with Neferti. "Y-yeah… this is my temple alright!"

Milo blinked in obvious confusion. "What the hell?! Saga, what are you doing here?! I thought you were down at the Cancer Temple, last time I sensed you!"

The Gemini looked up to find everyone. "It's a long story, but there was a dimensional mishap and I ran into Aiolos at the Underworld Well. We had a battle with two of Lucifer's elites but we managed to defeat one and escape the other into the interdimensional rifts."

"We were flying out of control because Behemoth screwed with the process and then I saw the Andromeda Chain… so I grabbed it." Aiolos added. He then looked around with his eyes and 7th sense. "Thanks for saving us, Saint Andromeda. We were going so fast that for a moment I thought we'd rip your arm out. I'm glad to see everyone is okay, but… hey, where is Lance? I thought he was fighting with you."

A sad, funerary look filled all their faces, especially Shinta's.

This alerted Saga. "Hey, wait, you don't mean-"

The Holy Father nodded. "The Celestial Pride Star breached the Colossus peak, so Saint Lance used Dohko's final technique to rid us of Daemon Lucifer once and for all. He had no choice. They're both with the stars now."

The distraught Sagittarius looked over to Shinta, unable to not picture Aiolia in Andromeda' place. His mouth went dry and his strength seemed to falter for a moment. As a Gold Saint, he had the duty to put an end to the battle before anyone else died. Now the oldest of their generation falls because Aiolos couldn't defeat Sphinx before she took him away to the Underworld. If only he had fought harder, shot down more Specters, anything...1

But Capricorn Shura burned his cosmos, pulled Shinta out of the way and summoned the light of Excalibur when he saw the dark musk of a Damascus armor among them. "WATCH OUT! A SPECTER!"

The three other Gold Saints and the Pope gasped in fright as the rubble erupted beyond the Sagittarius, revealing a roaring, arm-raising Behemoth Specter. "AAGH! D-DAMN YOU A-ALL!"

A quartet of golden auras charged and the Gold Saints stood their guard. Saga in particular was bewildered. "Behemoth Torak! You're a-alive?!"

Alive, but certainly not intact. The black-haired warrior lacked most of his armor, was exhausted and his body was scratched and bruised top to bottom, not to mention a pool of blood grew beneath him from the sliced off left arm that got bisected by Final Passage's boundaries upon transporting.

Yet, the persistent villain looked willing to take them all on. "B-BLASTED GOLD SAINTS! How could you?! We were s-set to triumph over you all! Now the hope of all False Specters is ruined!"

Milo charged a red star in his nail. "You want more, then?! Come and get it! It's six against one, you bastard!"

But Shinta pulled ahead of them. "NO, STOP! It's over! Daemon Lucifer is g-gone! Q-Quit this fighting now! Haven't you had enough?!" Shinta demanded, shocked at the Specter's belligerence. "You're wounded and leaderless! You can't possibly prevail anymore! What could you still be fighting for anymore?! J-Just go away… and n-never come back!"

Standing on a shaking legs and holding his bleeding arm socket, the Behemoth gritted teeth at the sheer audacity of this demand. Was his leader really gone? His 7th sense searched everyone and, indeed, he could only sense Cait Sith way up the stairs. Everyone else was dead.

This had to be a trick! "Do you really think I believe a word you're saying?! Who do you think you're t-talking to?! I'm a Specter of Lucifer! We who spat in the face of Hades wouldn't fall to a bunch of teenagers! And I'll fight until my last breath is out!"

The man's body then manifested a shockwaving aura of dark blue which pushed a screaming Shinta back into Saga and Aiolos' catching arms with its furious force, making the entire Temple shake.

The Specter's rant continued as his foot rose with Brutal Real charged. "And since you're all here, P-Pope included, I'll happily send you all down this Temple's cataco-"

THRROOOMMM!

The thunderous sound echoed down the valley and the entire mountain seemed to shake, making Saint and Specter alike scream and hold onto things.

"W-what was that?! What's going on now?!" Milo panicked.

"It came from above!" Shura alerted, facing the ceiling.

Saga in particular winced, holding head, sensitive to the cosmos as he was above everyone else. "I-It feels like a bunch of galaxies collided right on top of us!"

The Pope widened his eyes at the air. "It… can't be! T-That cosmos! CRYSTAL WALL!"

A glass ceiling of cosmos formed above their heads, protecting the Saints when the actual ceiling of the Hall of Chiron cracked across its entire length with light before bursting open, creating a catastrophic shower of marble that buried them alongside a blaring flash of light as the entire building was compressed by the force of the incoming crash. Upon actual contact, the unknown mass of cosmos at the source of this compression completely ripped through the building and came crashing down on the floor in multiple objects like a meteor shower of energy, making the Sagittarius Saint pull his friends within the Pope's barrier while others like Saga and Milo dodged the destruction.

Behemoth's Torak scream was briefly heard in the chaos before it was suddenly muffled by a dark crash midst the cosmic cascade crushing him, while Crystal Wall cracked with the crashing of searing hot marble raining on it. The Sagittarius' Temple floor ripped open into its basement levels, splitting down and collapsing unto water-run caverns. The loud collapsing and rumbling went on for a while, with chunks of the destroyed ceiling following down on them, but eventually it did come to an halt, with clouds of marble dust rising to the air and the sound of running water below them.

Pope Shion rose his arms from over the young Saints and coughed as he dispelled Crystal Wall away, trying to ascertain what happened. "What in the G-Goddess' name…."

Saga coughed as well, helping Milo up. "D-Did Olympus fall on us?!" he then raised his eyes and gasped at the sight of the two bodies among the chaos that collapsed on them. "W-what?! You guys?!"

The first was none other than Daemon Lucifer whose heavy, armored body crashed down loudly in the middle of the Temple, digging himself deeply in marble rubble. The Specter had smoke emanating from his entire body and the edges of his Surplice were damaged, burned and filled with tiny holes from atmospheric friction damage. Aiolos, seeing the Specter for the first time, almost confused him with a metallic demon with his silver claws and huge, draconian wings. The trembling and shaking of Lucifer's battered body, as well as his heavy panting, denounced his miraculous and dreadful survival.2

The second, however, was of their lost ally, and Shinta ran out of the rubble he almost got buried under. "Goddess, L-LANCE!"

Collapsed over a pile of rubble, none other than the Gold Saint of Cancer gasped harshly for air, having seemingly fallen out of the skies together with Daemon. Several spots of his shirt had burned up on reentry, exposing a grotesque chest wound and a startling pool of blood grew around him from the terrifying wound the Daemon Specter inflicted on him, wetting the marble into pink and red messes of dust.

Shura was absolutely stunned as Shinta made his way through the rubble towards their fallen Cancer Saint. "He's alive! It's… it's a miracle! Athena be praised!"

"L-LANCE! Are you alright?!" Shinta called, holding the older teenager. He saw the wound through the red shirt and gasped, but also saw the breathing. "D-Don't worry, I'll get you out of here! Please, someone help me s-save him!"

The nearly unconscious Lance turned his head to the side and saw the strange golden box. "Wha…W-what h-happened?" he asked, his eyes struggling to keep open.

"I…I don't know, Lance." Shinta answered, whose eyes then started welling up. "L-Lance, I'm so glad you're okay! I…I t-thought you had died!"

Aiolos knelt next to him and then applied his Golden touch, but grimaced at the sight of the severe wound in Lance's chest. "Oh no… he's going to…"

As Lance was helped by the two Saints to lay down on the ground. "I… I was in the s-skies… We were… burning up…" he muttered, coughing out blood. With struggle, he then pointed a shaking finger at the box Shion and Saga stared at. "A-And then that thing came out of n-nowhere and hit us!"

Shion turned attention instead to the third cosmos he felt in the area, and what he found stunned him. "By the Gods! It can't be!"

Saga joined the Holy Father and paled. Something made out of shining golden light had indeed also crashed down on the Temple's rubble, having carved a trailing crater right through the Hall of Chiron. Smoke came out of it and the path of destruction was red hot with the burning cosmos that passed through it. Shion rushed to the crash site and examined the object; it was a beautiful, golden Cloth Box with undulating carvings on its face surrounding a twelve-pointed star. This ornamental sun, in turn had a chained handle in its center, obviously meant to be pulled like the other Cloths of Athena, and the object pulsed with golden light.

And as darkness descended once more on Lance's world, the Saints dedicated their attention to the box, which the Pope carefully approached. To compound the confusion, all of their Gold Cloths began flashing on and off, too, in sync with the Cloth Box in the crater.

"What the hell is happening to our armors now?!" Milo cried out, exhausted.

Horror instead filled Shion's face underneath his mask. A billion questions filled his mind about why the object interfered, destroying whatever happiness he could have gotten from seeing Lance back among them. Was Lucifer right? Did his deeds really cause this?

Saga could see the terrified hesitation in the Lemurian right through the mask. "Your Holiness, what is that thing?! Why are our Cloths reacting so strongly to it?!"

"By Athena and Olympus, I… Saga, I can't believe I'm about to say this, but…" he then gulped. "That's the Cloth of Teos!"

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

Aries Temple's Surroundings

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

Unsurprisingly, she was the last of the three to come to. Her green eyes awoke to a dark, shaking world and she felt herself lying over a mix of cold metal and stone rubble, like a ruinous mess of a collapsed building, with her muscles barely able to respond to her awakening. Groaning and holding her pale blond head, she came to herself with wet lumps of arms and legs beneath her, making her wonder if she was laying over a pile of people.

Before she could even finish this thought, she gasped and froze to find herself over a mount of blood-soaked corpses!

Cerah screamed and rolled off the Papal Guards and False Skeletons piled on eachother below her, rolling down and falling to her back painfully on the staircase side, surrounded by even more bodies. A flash of pain came over her injured side, reminding her of her battle with Cyclops Balgo possessed by the True Specter, Gigant, and she screamed at the macabre nightmare around her. Crying out of her eyes and thinking she was back in the Underworld, she breathed rapidly, trying to understand how she fell down this hellhole.

…She wasn't in Dis, or even Giudecca. She was at the entrance of the Aries Temple… How?

The scene on the first House of the Golden Zodiac was catastrophic. The Aries Temple, welcoming symbol of the mountain, was in ruins, collapsed by the startling blast triggered by the last will of Papillon Ainsel, blocking any access to Taurus from outsiders. The collapsed rock slabs and destroyed furniture burned, sending large, black clouds into the nightsky, and dead limbs of Skeletons she had seen guarding it earlier on when she and Yushira passed by Aries hanged loosed over or poked out of marble rocks, wetting them crimson.

She held her head, overcome by a massive migraine, and then gasped further when she saw strange green flashes from what felt inside her own eyeballs. "Ah,… what's going on?!" The flashes continued, until eventually they culminated into one blinding glare of emerald that overwhelmed her!

Cerah found herself suspended in mid-air, falling in darkness. No, it felt instead like she had fallen into a deep ocean abyss and it was simply far too deep for any light to penetrate. Her heart pounded rapidly and her green eyes froze wide at the sight before her. The gigantic, Asian dragon's serpentine body, wide as she was tall and long as the staircase to the Pope, encircled her menacingly, lowering its crocodile head of gentle watery mane, reindeer horns and menacing yellow eyes.

A clawed hand made of river currents grabbed her body like a doll and she covered her terrified mouth when it instinctively let out the air in her lungs at the sight of the creature opening its maw, filled with teeth as tall as a person and sharp as rattled sabers, capable of crushing her bones like lettuce.

"You lived!" it instead spoke, its telepathic voice sounding like gongs inside her skull. "You, too, may be interesting…"

At the sight of the creature approaching its gigantic teeth towards her, the girl entered a state of absolute panic, frantically trying to swim away from the widening, roaring red mouth innards only to then be captured by its closing jaws!

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

House of Aries

Entrance Stairs

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

"C-Cerah!" Iaso shouted.

The blonde girl gasped, awakening from the vision triggered by the lingering effects of the Waters of Life. She was back at the Aries Temple, in the exact same spot her vision started.

"D…Doctor I-Iaso?!" she recognized, earning a reassuring nod from the injured doctor. The relief in her was so great that she instantly closed her arms around him. "Oh, G-Goddess, t-thank you!"

The Ophiuchus Saint was a bit surprised but understood completely. This girl just went through a hell of a lot and he was probably the first well-meaning Saint she encountered since the invasion began. "It's okay, you're going to be alright! The Specters are all gone."

"Oh goodness gracious, what happened to that poor girl?" someone asked.

It was then that Cerah looked around and realized they were surrounded by people. The inhabitants of Sanctuary Town seemed to have finally realized an attack was going on and, bringing lanterns, guns, weapons and worried family members, were observing the massacre scene. There were also soldiers from the 3rd Acropolis, the one standing to the East of town that guarded the passage to Rodario.

An older man walked over the many dead bodies, hovering a lantern over the soldiers' faces. "My Goddess, there must be dozens of dead here! This is horrible!"

"How could this happen? How could we be sleeping through this?!" a foot soldier from the outer barracks gasped, before hurrying people out. "Okay, everyone, please back away!"

Cerah did so, and saw terrifying golden flashes coming off the House of Sagittarius.. "Lucifer's attack… he… has made it that far?!"

The doctor took her aside from all the crowd and interrogated her. "C-Cerah, it's good to see you awake, but what in Apollo's name are you doing around here?! Who hurt you?! You were supposed to be at Rodario and instead someone finds you next to the Amazon forest!"

Gulping, the young girl's mind managed to recall everything that had happened and she realized she was in serious trouble. What could she say? "I… was out for the night. Suddenly everyone started dropping to the street and I… I thought it was some sort of attack!"

Iaso bulged his eyes in appalment "And you ran into the forest?! Last time you ran off into the woods with Specters around, you landed into a coma!"

She nodded, feeling a terrible tightness in her chest about lying to someone she owed a lot to. "The deeper I went, the less I heard that strange noise." She pretended, knowing exactly how her mentor had used the Bat Specter to conceal his invasion. "… but one of them chased me. Cyclops…I thought I was going to die."

Blood boiled inside the doctor. "Where is he?!" he asked, intent on shoving a couple of Toxic Thunder Claws down the Specter's eye.

At this point, Cerah hit a crossroad. Should she speak of Yushira? On one hand, the Crane Saint would definitely talk about how she killed Cyclops, so lying about this was a bad idea. Cerah simply had to hope that the Silver Saint would stay true to their agreement.

"He's dead. Saint Crane Yushira saved me…"

Iaso's jaw dropped and he rolled his eyes in a mix of disbelief and realization. "Son of a bitch! So that's where she went! Of course! But how the hell did she escape the Nightmare Sonar?" he then touched his temple. "Hey, Nam, I got good news and bad news about Yushira… She's alive, but if I were you, I'd expect her walking into your office tomorrow asking about making her a Gold Saint again."

With the doctor seemingly appeased, Cerah let out a sigh of relief. Her green eyes still fixated on the Sagittarius House, wondering what would become of her new home.

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

House of Sagittarius

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

Lucifer's fingers trembled slightly as his fist closed. He tried to control his breathing, but his lungs demanded strength after the terrible ordeal he just went through and forced him to open his mouth wide and gasp loudly. He still felt his bones and muscles vibrating painfully from the fall and his whole body felt hot and on fire.

"What…happened?" he thought to himself. The Daemon's head hurt and he could feel blood dripping down from everywhere on him. He felt his cheek pressed against cold rock and his world spinned like he was reliving the worst hangover of his life multiplied by ten. He tried to open his eyes only to see a nightly blur.

The blur cleared, revealing a fallen Behemoth Torak next to him, dead. The False Specter had apparently broken Lucifer's mighty fall and the violent force of the heavy-armored body landing on him crushed his body instantly. His last warrior in that war was gone…

At the sight of this, his eyes bulged and Lucian started remembering what happened. His wings were being held on tight by Lance and green cosmos was constricting the both of them like a serpent. Then the massive, air-quaking roar came and the both of them blasted off towards the skies. Lucifer struggled and screamed profanities at Lance, but it wasn't long before the acceleration paralyzed his body and he could no longer fight his way out. Just like what happened to Kagaho two centuries earlier, the sheer force of the Rozan Koryuha was too much for his wings to fight and the Specter became target-bounded for outerspace.

It was then that it happened!... From the corner of his eyes, something large and very, very bright coming from the west at extremely high speeds blindsided the both of them, crashing with such force that a resounding sound like thunder echoed down on Earth, and the rest was a blank.

He probably lost consciousness at that point and fell down on Earth. His powerful Surplice, while it did not make him able to breathe in outer space, could brave atmospheric reentry and the Specter ended up crashing down on Sanctuary with Lance more or less in one piece. More or less being the operative term.

His 7th Sense felt hostile cosmos all around him. He was… at the 9th Temple?!

That was when the reality of the situation hit him. He heard the words coming out of Shion's mouth and he felt the burning cosmos compressed in the shape of a box. "T-TEOS?"

The Saints instantly turned to him, appalled that he would still be alive and standing.

"Shit! He's back on his feet!" Milo hissed.

Shura summoned the bright blade of cosmos in his arm. "If you have time for profanity, you have time to fight!"

The bloodied Specter did stand on his feet with a gargantuan effort, dripping down a rain of blood onto the floor from his wounds. He panted heavily and locked eyes on the Golden Box, recognizing it. "T-… It IS T-TEOS! The Cloth of H-Hope! AH, AH, AH! At l-last, my feats are r-rewarded! Do you see that, Athena, Hades, Shion?! I told you a-all! Ultimate power is M-MINE!"

The Saints of Athena all exchanged offended looks. Shura in particular protested "The Pope was right, then? That's the fairy-tale armor? How is that possible?!"

"It's no fairytale, fool! It's right before your eyes and I've suffered the almighty bite of its gauntlets on my own skin!" Lucifer hissed, taking a step towards them. "It's the armor that comes to those that would stun the Gods themselves with their valor, and my great feats against this r-rotten Sanctuary have summoned it! I'm its new champion! And with it, I can prevail over you all, False Specters or not!"

The Gemini Saint's aura burst open with a spectacular flare. "Not so fast, Daemon!"

He was joined by Aiolos after he laid Lance down, unfurling his wings to also charge his cosmos. "You're yet to go through us!"

While normally the prospect of battling these two particular Gold Saints would worry him, the sight of his prize made the Daemon welcome the battle with an anxious smile and an aura burst. "You think you two can stop me now?! I've come too far to fail! THAT ARMOR IS MINE!"

But a body of Capricorn gold with a hand of sharpness sped past the Gold Saints into the fray. "They're not on their own, SPECTER!" and Shura's hand manifested a huge beam of light that he brought down on the enemy. "EXCALIBUR!"

Shinta gasped and reached out. "S-SHURA, DON'T!"

The Capricorn Gold Saint's hand chopped down on the Specter, seemingly splitting him in two. However, in that small fraction of a second that contact was made, dark cosmos flowed down Lucifer's left arm, awakening the lost power of Dark Angel's blade and igniting the limb in black fires, forming a black edge of burning evil.

"F-FLAMING SWORD!" With an upward swipe, the Celestial Star of Pride crashed cosmic edge against cosmic edge, parrying the Capricorn's sword with a shearing, sizzling contact point. While Excalibur was more powerful a blade, Lucifer was a stronger warrior and the force of Michael's sword shattering slapped on Shura's body, bashing him back screaming into the air with shrapnels of black flames all over him.

"SHURA!" Milo shouted, catching him in the air.

Aiolos gasped and sped in with Saga. "YOU BASTARD! LIGHTNING BOLT!"

"COSMIC METEOR SHOWER!" The Gemini joined.

The Specter growled and covered himself with his wings which opened huge eyes in their membranes and burned with dark cosmos. "SLOTH WING GUARD!"

The blows' explosive power struck its shielding surface viciously, but fruitlessly, like a bombardment on an iron curtain, and the wing flapped the colliding cosmos away, sending refracted blasts of energy everywhere that turned the Temple into a flower field of erupting cosmos. Amidst the cosmic chaos, the Specter then engaged both Gold Saints in close-combat, exchanging thundering punches and kicks at ultra high speeds.

Meanwhile Shion took Lance off the Andromeda's arms and ordered him away. "SAINT SHINTA, get the Cloth box! It's our only hope! Lucifer must NOT obtain it!"

Nodding, the Andromeda ran across the battlefield as fast as he could. "Y-YES"

Shion then held the wounded Cancer Saint to himself. The Pope had seen what made it back at the Colossus and knew that, despite the miracle Teos caused, the young boy was not on Earth for long. "L-Lance, can you hear me?"

The red-eyed teenager coughed out. "Y-yeah…"

The Pope's body began brimming white. "I'm not going to waste the Goddess' favor… you've done enough!"

Lance struggled to breathe. "S-Shion, I'm d-dying…!"

The Holy Father nodded. "Yes, but now we have a chance! We just need to get that armor before Daemon does!"

Yet, the color red covered his world as he bled and bled. The young Gold Saint coughed and held on to the Lemurian's robe, feeling his grip in life vanish and his eyes grow heavy. He couldn't see a way out. It was getting so dark…

…Red…

Blood dripped down from above, wetting his face. "N-Noah…"

Shion held the youth tightly as he voiced his delusions. "H-Hold on, Lance! Stay with me!"

But the teenager rolled tears down his face, unable to see Shion. As his body approached death, the seal put in his memories began cracking, flushing out old painful memories.

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

Triangle Noah breathed with difficulty, sweating and in agony. "Stay here, Red… They're almost gone. D-Don't move."

Things were burning around them "N-NOAH! I…. I didn't mean to! I'm s-sorry, N-Noah!"

The injured Triangle Saint gulped and shook his head. Blood rained from his body down on the young boy but he held tightly to life, knowing he had to protect the child. "It's okay, it's not your f-fault. I'll be o-okay!" he lied, as his wound bled profusely. "Remember what I told you, Red? About the cosmos?"

The teenager nodded in tears. "It c-can do anything!"

The Silver Saint nodded in relief. "Y-yes, that's right… Once you get it at Sanctuary, nothing will be impossible.…N-Never forget that… and y-you'll be okay..."

Lance then saw Noah's head slump down and he screamed. "N-NO! N-NOAH!"

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

Oblivious to these delusions, Shion tried to keep Lance safe as he felt his body temperature soar and the Saint convulse in revolt. "N-NO…AH!"

Shion tried to calm him down as protective Crystal Walls were raised around them. "Stop, you'll hurt yourself!"

But the Cancer Gold Saint struggled unto his hands and feet. All he could think about was his promise "N-NO! I…can't let him die!"

Meanwhile, even though he was immersed in the chaos of battling two of the strongest Gold Saints in the Zodiac at once, the Celestial Star of Pride held his own, aided by the immense power of his awakened Surplice. The center of the ruined Sagittarius Temple was a collision point of two masses of golden light and darkness shooting blows that resembled beams of cosmic power more closely than punches or kicks, but the two Gold Saints failed to get the upper hand despite the numeric advantage.

"ATOMIC THUNDERBOLT!" Aiolos shouted, firing a storm of lightning arrows. Lucifer, however, dodged the attack's path with a swerve and his metal grip caught Aiolos' neck, lifting him before slamming him down on the ground.

The Specter was about to summon a dark spear when Saga kicked the bastard off Aiolos, releasing his rival but only barely bashing the silver-haired man back.

"GALAXIAN EXPLOSION!" Saga casted, releasing a wave of destruction on the downed Specter that made him scream. The Gemini's 7th sense only detected a small decrease in his strength, though. "D-Damn it, he won't go down!"

Aiolos rubbed the blood off his bruised jaw as the attack's mist of light dissipated to reveal a recovering Daemon Specter. "I guess we n-now we know why everyone had so much trouble with him!"

"OUT OF MY WAY!" Lucifer roared, cutting between the two with a diving kick that fissured the ground and shot beams of darkness everywhere, forcing them to scatter. Aiolos guarded himself with his wings and Saga sent the blasts coming his way to another dimension, but the Specter took the opening to fire a huge blast of darkness at the speeding Shinta. "DON'T YOU DARE!"

Braking his foot, the defenseless Bronze Saint gasped and guarded himself, barely dodging the beam that blasted everything around him. He eyed the Cloth and launched his Triangle Chain. "GO, NEBULA CHA-!"

But the Daemon came flying in with a Flaming Sword chop, snapping the links in two before kicking Shinta to the curb on the chest. He aimed the blade of fire down. "Stop GETTING in my way, Michael!"

But Shinta responded with seldom seen fury and his legs suddenly rose in a gymnastic feat, swerving around the dangerous fire blade and striking the Daemon's jaw with a powerful heel kick, stunning the silver-haired Specter. "I'M NOT YOUR FRIEND!"

Recovering with a roar, Lucifer caught the leg and launched the Andromeda across the air before blasting him with thousands of lightning-fast punch bursts. "THEN STAY OUT!" he then charged purple lightning unto his fingers. "GREED LIGHT-"

"ANOTHER DIMENSION!"

Saga's emerging gate turned the battlefield into a slide towards a wormhole that made the Specter lose his balance before he could rain thunder down on Shinta. He fell to his side sliding back towards the Gold Saints, backgrounded by a hole to some god forsaken parallel existence! He carved claws on the tilted floor to still himself, but the Gold Saint attacks were already charging.

Aiolos' was first, firing his punches in the form of billions of rays of light. "LIGHTNING PLASMA!"

They all converged unto a Darkness-induced gravity well in Lucifer's palm, however, colliding unto eachother like bursting plasma firework.3

"That won't work on me!" but then he saw the Teos Cloth box also slide out its crater towards them, caught in the gravity pulling. "W-what?! NO!"

Saga's attack turn then came. "GO, AIOLOS! KICK IT INTO THE GATE!" and he fired the planets of annihilation as the Sagittarius flew to the box at the speed of light. "GALAXIAN EXPLOSION!"

Eyes wide in desperation, Lucifer charged the only blast he had fast enough to make a difference. "GREATEST ENVY!" and the spirit of his Daemon Surplice was unleashed in the form of a giant demon of cosmos that collided with Saga's attack.

The crash of energy immediately triggered a giant explosion that rocked the entire Hall of Charon, knocking Aiolos away from the tumbling Cloth box with a scream and shattering the dimensional pulling. Daemon felt his sense of balance returning as he rolled with the shockwaves back on his hands and feet and he immediately sprinted towards the prize!

A beam of light came crashing down with a dive kick between him and Teos, though, and Gemini Saga thrust his fists at him with all his bravery and cosmos, forcing the Daemon into a contest of hand strength. Orbs of lightning and darkness sizzled between their palms and the two Geminis gritted teeth in rivalry.

"From one Gemini to another, you'd be better off letting me win, Saint Saga! Sanctuary will just let you sink further and further into that dagger's curse for the sake of having a powerful successor to Akassius!" Lucifer taunted, using his superior strength to slowly push Saga back. "Are you listening to me?! Sanctuary won't stop until your brother is dead, your hair is white and your eyes as cursed-red as mine! And when you inevitably fail, you'll be a martyr to the sanctity of the Third House! Is that what you want?! FLEE NOW and I'll let you two live!"

And although the cosmos of Darkness was slowly overwhelming his own, the Gemini Saint resisted still. "My sacrifices will be small compared to those innocent people will make should people like you and Hades win! Deep down, even Kanon understands that! I won't waste my breath debating you on it, Gemini or not!" With a skillful hand flip, he tossed the screaming Daemon over shoulder into the air. "MILO!"

The Scorpio shot through the air like a bullet, finger shining blood red. "SCARLET NEEDLE!"

The Celestial Pride Star gasped and tried to flap and flip his wings and body to dodge, avoiding multiple lasers, but 5 stings of red managed to puncture the Scorpio's stars accurately into his body, avenging Shinta's suffering. The Specter collapsed unto the ground and screamed, feeling a burning hot toxin flow through his blood.

Milo took the chance to run straight for the Teos Cloth. He practically jumped the last yard and reached out for the handle! "I HAVE IT-"

With monstrous determination, though, a clawed hand powered through the pain, reached out as well and caught his leg, yanking him away from Teos and swirling him around to slam the Scorpio against Saga. A gigantic blast of cosmos was fired like a beam on them, shooting them both far away from the armor.

"N-no, you don't! It's MINE!" he proclaimed, facing the beautiful sun of gold on the box. Its shine already reflected on his pale face, warming him from the pain of Scarlet Needle. "Mine and mine alone! My feats called it to this battlefield, no one else's! Athena herself has acknowledged it! And with it… my transformation into the new Godslayer will be complete!"

Aiolos stepped forward, the last to stand. "A Godslayer? You?! How could the Earth be defended from evil gods by an evil man?!"

Lucifer panted, tired but unimpressed. "What you call evil, young Sagittarius, the founders of this place called heroism! And so will your armor when I am made king! DARK LUST BARRAGE!" he fired, launching a barrage of fists as sharp as thunder javelins.

"ATOMIC THUNDERBOLT!" Aiolos fired back, beginning a contest of cosmic bursts between the two.

Meanwhile, Shinta crawled out of the rubble he landed on and practically dragged himself on, claiming ground towards the distant golden box with his fingernails. He could barely breathe even with the strength Shaka lent him after the pummeling he suffered. He took one look at the wounded Lance, however, and found the will to keep going, crawling around Aiolos and Lucifer as they battled it out.

The contest of thunderous collisions, however, didn't last long, as the Daemon slowly claimed superiority. Aiolos sweated, frustrated with how none of them seemed to be able to surpass this guy on any aspect of fighting, but held on.

Lucifer, however, was beginning to lose patience, so as he unfurled his wings, his cosmos manifested the Daemon spirit of his Surplice in opposition to the winged centaur, and his dark spears began firing faster and faster as he provoked Aiolos. "Tell me, Sagittarius, how does it feel to have failed Sanctuary?! After all the sacrifices your predecessors have made!"

The Sagittarius was unabated. "Nothing is lost! The appearance of that armor is a sign of hope, not despair!" and fueled by this conviction, he began pushing his thunderbolts harder. "And our predecessors will look down with pride and help us burn our cosmos, just like they did when you cowardly attacked Aldebaran!"

With a renewed burst of the youth's golden cosmos, Lucifer shockingly found himself pushed back by the battery of arrows. With much alarm, he disintegrated his own attack and rolled aside, dodging Atomic Thunderbolt to let it devastate its way across the ruins of Chiron's Hall.

He stood up, stunned but still determined. "So it is… but I wonder if Priam is among them, then… Do you even know why your last predecessor left? Why he punched that old coward in front of all of Sanctuary?!"

The injured and exhausted Holy Father stepped up, releasing the struggling Lance. "D-Don't you dare, Lucian!"

"STOP LYING to your Gold Saints, Shion!" the silver-haired warrior demanded, before continuing with Aiolos. "It was quite tragic. Your precious Pope betrayed Priam's trust… right where it hurts your Temple the most; his family!"

Aiolos froze, eyes shifting between Shion and his adversary.

Shion panicked, forgetting about Lance and stepping between them. "Don't listen to him, Aiolos! The conflict between me and Priam-"

"- Is half the reason I made it so far!" Lucifer interrupted "Shion would rather protect his flimsy grip on this planet than Priam's loved ones! He sacrificed him to appease the people with real power in Sanctuary, just like his teacher did to me! So I'll extend the same advice I just gave your Gemini; stop protecting this failure of a Pope, before he does the same to you!"

But all Aiolos did was clench his fists. He saw Shinta crawling closer to the armor and spoke. "And I'll say the same to you as I did to your Sphinx; I won't side with murderers just because Sanctuary is flawed! Just like Athena wouldn't abandon humanity just because it has evil!"

The silver-haired hissed madly and charged, closing in before arrows could be fired and colliding hands with Aiolos. "FOOL! THEN DIE!"

Bravely resisting, the Sagittarius still felt his feet scraping the stone tiles, pushed by the Specter's mighty strength. He had to give the others time!

But the Specter seemed done with wasting time and he lifted Aiolos into the air by the hands before slamming him down full force, stunning him. With fists encased in cosmos, he launched Dark Lust Barrage, blasting Aiolos over and over with missiles of exploding darkness and thunder.

The remaining Gold Saints tried to rejoin the battlefield, rushing in. "A-AIOLOS!"

But the Specter swept his arm around, shooting a slash wave of Flaming Sword that fissured the already sunk ground further apart, making the mountain segment tilt away. "NO MORE INTERRUPTIONS!"

Shion lunged at the Specter with the last of his cosmos. "By Athena's name, I won't let you destroy all she has built! STARDUST REVOLUTIO-!"

"NO MORE DELAYS!" Lucifer roared, catching the hand tossing the technique by the wrist and harshly smashing a ball of cosmos on his barely armored chest, blasting him away. He then turned and venomously eyed the crawling Andromeda. "And no more betrayals from you, Michael!"

Gasping for his friends, the Andromeda still crawled towards the box. He was only a few feet away. "P-Please!"

Kicking Shinta aside, Lucifer raised his hand menacingly. "Michael…You'll be the first to witness me ascend to Tenma's level! I never got to boast I was the first among us to actually kill him, did I? Now you'll see me rendering our rivalry to a definitive close, after half a millennium!"

Shinta rolled away and went for the Cloth anyway "T-Teos! I have to get Teos!" he told himself, powering towards it. Shinta reached out in despair, touching the golden handle with his fingers! The Triangle hand shot out of Shinta's flailing hand. "NEBULA CHAIN!

The sight of it spurred the Daemon into pinning the Saint down with his foot and summon a Dark Spear into hand "ENOUGH!"

But the screaming Bronze Saint gritted teeth through the pain, sick of Daemon. "Y-you want this box?! TAKE IT!" And he pulled the chain as hard as he could, lifting the heavy object into the air and straight against the Specter, flailing it straight on his face in a very painful looking whack that flipped the Specter straight on his back!

The Daemon let out a blood curling howl. "A-AGH, YOU PACIFIST COCKSUCKER!", but his bloody face looked up just in time to see the box tumble down right next to a crawling Cancer Lance, who reached out.

"GO FOR IT!" Shinta urged

Lance practically landed over the box and grabbed the handle. "I G-GOT IT!"

The Specter lost control "NO!" and he tossed the spear meant for Shinta to skewer the Cancer. "DIE!"

At the precise moment Lance's hand closed on the box handle and pulled as he painfully landed on the ground, creating the rattling sound of golden links friction, the Dark Spear collided unto him, exploding into a sizzling cloud of darkness and thunder that shook the entire Temple, making the Saints hold their breath, stumble and scream the Cancer's name.

The panting Daemon watched the black cloud flow up in equal horror and suspense, unsure if he killed the blasted Cancer.. "My…m-my prize from the Gods! Tell me he hasn't-"

A sound familiar to every Saint of Athena was then heard from within, that of the cosmic energies of an armor blessed by the Cosmos being unleashed into the open hair by collapsing box faces, releasing an authentic shockwave of golden light that casted away the black smokescreen. One of the fallen faces had taken the Dark Spear for the Gold Saint, who covered his face at the blinding golden light.

Another miracle of the Cosmos was upon them, blotting out the horizon's morning rays with its own warm glory!

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

Romania, Crow's Nest

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

The first rays of sunlight peeked over the Carpathian peeks into the dark fortress' windows. Former commander Lacaille sat slumped against his cellroom in the vanishing darkness, fingers running through his grizzled, grey hair. Another day of tense incarceration. He had been there long enough that his situation was settling in over his fervor and faith in his comrades to save him was beginning to diminish.

With the Gold Saints outside hesitating to interfere due to the large number of Specters defending the fortress, it was unlikely they could mount an attack effective enough to rescue him before Hades' murderers could use him as a hostage. Experienced in the military of Sanctuary, he knew that this meant that at some point the people in charge would unfavorably weigh his life and that of his captured men over the continued profanation of Crow's Nest, especially since he'd likely do the same if given the task to take it back.

It was a matter of time, then. Only a miracle would get him out.

Suddenly, he was startled by the shaking outside and he ran to the bars to see the Skeletons panic and run up and down. "H-Hey, what's going on?!"

"MOVE, MOVE!"

"Did you hear Erika's orders?! Hurry up with the armament!"

"The Gold Saint relics are here! To A-ARMS!"

The other captured soldiers ran up to the bars as well. "C-Commander, is this a dream? They're really attacking? Are they going to rescue us?"

Before the aged commander could answer, the False Specters still left in the fortress descended from their command porch rooms and passed through their cells, as it was on the way to the tunnels Lucifer left through. They were led by the blasted Nasu Specter, the very person that had initiated the assault on the fortress in Lacaille's command, and included not only Necromancer Kuro but, to their shock, the armor-less Lycaon Coronis. who they thought to be dead. They were carrying the Fornax Cloth box with them.

Lacaille was in shock, staring at the Lycaon. "Y-You… you're supposed to be dead! I felt Lord Akassius wipe you out from here!"

The wolf-haired Lycaon snickered, noticing him, but ignored the comment and dumped the Bronze Cloth box on the floor. Unlike Octans, they never got to use it in their plans to deceive the Gold Saints, until now. "I'll arm it, Lady Erika."

The blonde, curly haired Nasu Specter in insectoid armor and purple lipstick nodded approvingly as Coronis went to work on the box.. "Good. We don't have much time." She then faced the commander. "Good morning, Commander Lacaille."

"Fleeing with your tail between legs, Specters?" Lacaille confronted, tightening fingers on bars. He'd strangle each and every one of them himself if he could. "Don't think you'll just walk back to Hades and wait for another chance to cause so much harm! Our Saints will pin you to the Coliseum walls for what you've done!"

The Necromancer Specter scoffed. "Unlikely."

Nasu joined him in incredulity, though she felt the cosmos of their men being quickly snuffed one by one outside. "I hate to disappoint you, Commander, but we will see each other some day… Your Gold Saint friends cannot stop us, as you can see from Coronis. Under the flag of Daemon Lucifer, we will acquire the treasures of Athena and turn Sanctuary into another Crow's Nest."

"Your men are gone! We can feel their cosmos vanishing from here!" Lacaille pointed.

Erika's smirk extended dangerously and her purple eyes sent a chill down his spine. "Ah, that's so cute… You really think that matters?"

He backed away from the bars. "…You don't?!"

She formed a ball of cosmos in her finger. "Our men have died at Sanctuary and the Gold Saints are retaking Crow's Nest, but why should that upset us? The Prince is about to claim the Cloth of Hope and soon Sanctuary will become a dark version of itself, just like this fortress." She then pointed it at him playfully. "Will you live to see that beautiful dark monolith, I wonder?"

The attack whirred terrifyingly, making Lacaille's face go pale as he wondered if he'd get executed right then and there, or worse yet, taken outside as a hostage.

The wall was suddenly struck and destroyed by a huge discharge of golden cosmos, stumbling all of them with the shockwave. Nasu widened her eyes at the terrifying sight of the huge, man-shaped, shadowed silhouette of the former Gold Saint of Taurus, whose long blond hair surrounded a bellowing rage on his face.

"L-LORD AJAX!" the captured soldiers shouted, only knowing Daniel by his war codename.

"THE IRONCLAD BULL!" another cheered.

Necromancer Kuro and Coronis helped Erika up and the three backed away, wide-eyed by the enclosing giant. "S-SHIT!"

Entering the cell corridor, the Brazilian giant was flanked by rushing Asgardian warriors, who stormed the stairs with war shouts. A slaughtering of False Skeletons began with their axe swipes and sword thrusts, while Daniel of Taurus practically steamed like an engine in his maddened snorts.

"Specters of Hades…. You've murdered, defiled and lied for the sake of your dark crusade! In the name of Athena, you will all be stomped underfoot by the Great Horn!" he announced, surrounded by sounds of Skeletons having their throats slashed, their skulls carved. Golden light brimmed off his body. "PREPARE TO FACE JUSTICE!"

Erika smiled nervously and blew a kiss at the Gold Saint. "I don't think so, Taurus! Goodbye!"

Necromancer Kuro then kicked the Fornax Cloth box at him, making it open and barf out a room-filling miasma of toxic darkness, the same they filled the Octans Cloth box with to help Ainsel smuggle Specters to Jamir. (*)

(*) Chapter 44

"Toxic gas?!" Daniel initially hesitated, covering his mouth, but he saw the fumes fill the cell doors. He went straight for them, ripping the entire stardust steel bar frames out with his bare hands. "GO, FOLKS OF ATHENA, LEAVE THIS CASTLE!" Breathing in a bit of the point, the giant man powered through and helped the commander off his cell as well. When they were at a safe distance, he charged his cosmos and clapped his hands together "MAGNITUDE ATLAS!"

Firing an undercharged pulse, the technique battered away the clouds of darkness, cleansing the room with an air quake. However, when the mist dissipated, Daniel discovered the Specters to be gone, having fled to the lower tunnel levels.

He took the discarded Bronze Cloth. "By Hermes' horn,… Even their cosmos is gone. At least they didn't take Fornax with them. Are you guys alright?" he asked, to which he received a collection of nods and breaths of relief. "We're sorry we took so long. I can't imagine what you all went through while we scratched our asses outside wondering what to do. We really thought the entire enemy army was still here."

"You mean, she wasn't lying?" the Fort Commander asked, ignoring the sounds of battling and walls getting broken through outside. "There really is an attack on Sanctuary?"

"Commander Lacaille, unfortunately, yes." Daniel grimly confirmed. "But you guys don't have to worry about that for now. Leave it to the Gold Saints. I'm taking you out of this graveyard."

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

Golden Zodiac Entrance

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

The golden light coming off the ruined 9th Temple was visible to everyone down in Sanctuary Town, who pointed and gawked.

The Ophiuchus and Corvus Silver Saints were themselves in awe, having never sensed such a signature of energy in their lives. It felt like someone had let a sun out of a box at the Hall of Chiron, rendering everything else other than the Specter leader's equally stunning strength impossible to distinguish.

"What's going on up there? Are we going to be okay?" Cerah asked.

"I don't know. Hopefully those are Saint reinforcements and not the enemy pulling another surprise on us." Standing up, the medic scratched his head self-consciously and resisted the urge to search his pockets for smokes. "Shit, speaking of which… I owe that rich girl an apology and you owe her a thanks. She saved your life before I did. It's gonna be fantastic to drive up the Ghisi estate and ask pretty-please not to cut off funding. Where did she go anyway?!..."

This, however, made her heart skip a beat by triggering a particular memory to resurface, one hidden between moments of unconsciousness and thus barely stored in her brain.

Someone had seen her Cloth Stone!

Cerah's hand reached inside her collar and she found it intact, around her neck. "Oh, thank Goddess!... But then…" Searching herself further, Cerah detected a second object with her, a folded letter of all things. "Uh? Did she….?"

Concealing it from the medic, Cerah turned away and opened it, using Emission Lenses to read it in the dark. Cerah then realized the text was deliberately faint, as if written by transparent ink. A secret message? Who even carried that around with them? The touch of her particular cosmos, though, made its letters brighten to a more visible tone.

Dear Cerah,

You're probably wondering how you got this letter. I'm the one who found you and took you to Saint Iaso. I hope you forgive me for touching your Cloth Stone. Its healing cosmos drew my attention to your pendant. It wasn't my intention to uncover your secret.

Oh no! Someone knew! Was she going to get denounced or blackmailed?! Cerah's eyes kept frantically reading the rest!

Regardless, right now, you are in grave danger just being in Sanctuary. There are many powerful people around that would hurt you a lot if they found out the same about you that I have. However, I believe we can help each other, perhaps even be friends. No matter what happens at the Zodiac, memorize the address I'm leaving with you and pretend you're returning the ring. It will get my family's prying eyes off of you.

You survived some incredible things tonight. I was very impressed. I can't wait to get to know you.

A.G.

PS: Please put your thumb here.

The post scriptum was then followed by a semicolon and a closing parenthesis, which bewildered the Cyrulian girl, who assumed it to be some sort of Sanctuary cypher, and then by an address that seemed close to Neá Delphi, a Sanctuary-owned settlement to the north.

As soon as she pressed her thumb on the spot, though, some kind of circuit formed between her cosmos and the ink and the object immediately ignited, startling Cerah and burning down the document in a flash!

The blonde girl stared at her emptied fingers, wondering if she memorized the address correctly… It also mentioned a ring, right?

The precise second that she wondered this and put a hand in her pocket, she felt a foreign obstacle inside it. Reaching in, she took out the aforementioned silver ring, a symbol of lower aristocracy in Sanctuary. Her eyes widened, wondering what she got herself into.

Brilliant. Now she had to return it or get caught with something stolen.

Or keep it? It looked pretty after all…

Her head shook, dispelling these ugly thoughts! No, she had to take it back, of course!

The medic paced around, hoping Adriana wasn't found among the corpses. That Papillon bastard's blast was pretty big after all. "Listen, Cerah, if you can walk now, you should head back with the town's people, Cerah. Eurydice will kill us both if you don't."

While the teenager nodded, she spared concerned glances at the top of the Zodiac. Her mentor was battling up there. "What do you think will happen, though? Are the Specters going to win?"

Iaso sighed, feeling powerless. Between man-eating insect Specters, a spontaneously combusting girl and an imploding House, he felt distinctly above his pay grade. Now thanks to the Aries Temple being collapsed, he couldn't even go up to help. "I can't say for sure…I'm just a Silver, after all."

Just as the doctor slumped his shoulders, though, the air suddenly blew strongly and their 7th senses4 spiked as a new cosmos emerged right next to them! They saw a vertical line of gold form in the air before it opened wide, revealing a passage to Another Dimension from where a stern-eyed, black haired man in shoulder-padded cloak stepped out of, his fists encased in fire. Both Silvers instinctively stepped away from the man, who eyed the Sagittarius Temple but also the Aries ruins blocking access to the upper Houses.

Sensing in the cosmos that he was in the presence of a Gemini kin, the veteran eyed Cerah.

It froze her completely in place, who felt he could pierce her soul right to her secrets. "W-Who… who are you?!"

Iaso gulped. "That's… Akassius, the former Gemini Gold Saint!"

The Duke of Kastoria focused on his task. "The Aries Temple has collapsed… That explains the wall that suddenly emerged in my passageway. I have to do something before these Specters destroy the rest of Sanctuary!" and he then tried searched for Saint Saga's cosmos.

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

House of Sagittarius

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

Shion shielded his eyes with his hand. "The Teos Cloth Box! It's finally open!"

Anxious looks surrounded the vanishing star of light, wondering what kind of majestic armor would come out.

As the light dissipated, though, nothing but a flood of hot, golden slime washed out the collapsed cube's innards. Lance, who pulled the chain, screamed in agony, washed over by molten metal.

The Gold Saints gasped and shouted his name, rushing over. "LANCE!"

Aiolos got there first and saw, with shock, that the large mass of slime was moving and seemingly trying to cover Lance whole.

"AGH, H-HELP ME!" the Cancer screamed, smothered and scalded.

The Sagittarius did not hesitate, trying to get the guck off of him with his armored hands, but he screamed himself when contact burned his fingers. "T-This thing is boiling! It's going to kill him if we don't get it off Lance!"

Shion burned his cosmos and enacted his telekinetic powers in an attempt to safely dislodge the slime, but Teos seemed to weigh as much as an elephant to his mental powers. "I don't understand! I've seen this armor with my own two eyes! It's not supposed to be this way!"

Daemon himself was also bewildered, cleaning the blood off his face and watching the Gold Saints helplessly try to save the Cancer from the blob of gold. "Ah, ah, ah… HA, HA, HA, HA! LOOK, MICHAEL! The blasted thing melted! Two centuries inside Death Queen Island's furnaces made it turn into molten gold! That's what you get, Lance, for getting in my way TIME AND TIME AGAIN!"

Shinta stood up in revolt. "D-Damn you, how could you laugh at this?!"

But the silver-haired Prince laughed even harder. "It's Lance's own doing for opening my prize! I'll find a way to reforge Teos, but in the meantime he can die in agony for stealing what's mine!"

Burning cosmos in their hands, the Gold Saints tried to scoop the slime off of their friend. Things only got even worse for the struggling Cancer Gold Saint, though, when before the Gold Saints' helpless watch, fourteen different spots across the slime's undulating body swelled up before puncturing down on the Saint. Lance screamed in agony as blood jutted out and the younger Saints like Milo gawked in horror.

"O-oh no! This thing's gonna nail him alive! We have to do something!" Aiolos urged. "SAGA, let's send this thing to another dimension!"

But the blue-haired Gemini glared skeptically. "And not send Lance as well?! You really think I can do stuff that precise?!"

"Then give us a better idea!"

Milo, however, noticed something. "Wait… those spots. That's… the Pegasus constellation! It punctured his star points!" he pointed out. The slime then started glowing brighter and brighter. "GUYS, WAIT! Stop fighting against it! I don't think it's trying to kill-"

Daemon suddenly charged straight through them all like a rocket of cosmos darkness, grabbing Lance by the neck and slammed him against a standing wall of the House, laughing maniacally.

The exhausted Gold Saints tried to interfere! "LANCE!"

"GREED LIGHTNING!" Lucifer casted through his wings, flapping them out to blast the battlefield around him with shockwaves of collapsing thunderbolts, sending the Gold Saints flying and screaming. He then turned attention back to Lance. "HA, HA, HA, HA! Are you happy, Lance?! You get to die dressed on the world's mightiest Cloth!"

Lance gasped as he felt his throat slowly being crushed by Lucifer. His body was also bleeding terribly from a gaping wound, fourteen punctured star points and countless bruises and cuts. He was in excruciating pain and exhausted. "…G-go to hell!"

Black flames dressed Lucifer's fingers. "You first, student of Dohko. And tell Hades I'll be coming for him next! FLAMING SWORD!"

Lance shut his eyes tightly at the sight of the blade thrusting at his face!

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

….

….!

Lance gasped and opened his eyes, finding Lucifer to be… gone? And so was everyone else?

Where was he? Was he dead? Relaxing his body, Lance found himself floating in a separate plane of existence, similarly to when he crossed over to the Underworld Well. More accurately, he felt like he was back in the place he dreamed about when briefly under the effect of Eternal Darkness, surrounded by dark fires burning everything. Looking ahead, he saw a figure as tall as himself with hands in pockets shadowed by a blinding light behind him.

He tried shielding his eyes, but he couldn't identify the man. "Who… Who are you? Where am I?!"

"You're in the same place you've always been, Pegasus Lance. This place… is who you are." The figure answered, its voice sounding like both a man and a woman saying the same words over each other.

Blinking, Lance tried to grasp his surroundings, but only felt migraines and sharp screeching sounds at every attempt to do so. He could likely no more be able to understand the features of where he was than look at the back of his own skull, or read letters in a dream.

"I'm sorry it took so long. I had to access your subconscious to understand who you are, but you have powerful memory seals blocking access to your past." The person continued, clearly not simply a man. "I have what I need now, though, so are you ready?"

"Ready?" And it then finally hit Lance. "Wait, you're… Teos! The armor that just-"

"Please spare the gasps and awes for later. There's something we have to do." Teos interrupted him. "You have proven yourself worthy, but if you wish the right to wear me during battle, you must take an important vow."

"A vow?"

"Yes, a vow. Because, you see, even if you've only deserved a brief help from me as of yet, I will not just be the Cloth of your body, but the Cloth of your Soul." Teos revealed, putting serious, ominous stress on the word Soul. "This is not a light matter. I will be forever tied to you in ways a normal Cloth cannot and we shall not depart until your soul is plucked away from me."

Lance gulped at the prospect of yet another contract with a devil, much like the one he made with Seiryu. It seemed Sanctuary was full of these. He was already starting to suffer the unpleasant symptoms of that deal, and he had already rejected deals with Guilty. He didn't believe for a second that this vow was coming without a price, either.

As such, Lance couldn't help but twist his face in frustration. "So another trade off! What is it this time you want for doing the most basic decent thing?! My soul?! I already feel like Seiryu is going to rip me in half if I so much as even utter the first syllable of Rozan Shoryuha anymore, and now you show up and offer another contract?!"

The figure stood silent.

"Do you even care about what's going on?! About the people I'm trying to protect from being in danger?!" Lance demanded to know. "Did you come because of all the insane suffering that bastard is causing?! Or are you just like all the other ghosts in Sanctuary, like Athena, only showing up when it looks like your precious fucking temples are going to get ransacked?!"

"No, I don't care, Saint Lance." the shadowed figure made clear. "Sanctuary is the same to me as every other God's entrenched palace in this world. If it burns, it burns."

The Saint staggered, not having expected such bluntness. "What?! Then why should I add you to the list of ghosts in my life haunting me?! How am I even sure you'll be of help?!"

The armor continued. "Because even though we do not choose our circumstances, we do choose who we make promises to, do we not? Unfortunately, nothing in life comes without a trade-off. You want a degree of justice. It's what Noah inspired you to want as a Saint, correct? I can help you do that. I can even save your life. So the question is, Saint Lance…. what are you willing to sacrifice for all of it?"

The question made Lance's throat tighten suddenly and his eyes gaze down shamefully.

"Consider what's at stake and make your choice carefully." Teos' dual voice stressed. "And measure if having me on top of the Dragon God in contract with you is more horrible than letting everything you believe in perish."

Lance did so, keeping head low pensively. He wasn't sure if time was still where he was or something, but clearly the armor was giving him some room to think between the time Lucifer drew his sword and the one it took to carve his face in half. With the first genuine pause to try to think about what was going on ever since the discussion at Roshi's House with Elder Yuzuriha, the immensity of all the horrors that befell him and Sanctuary that night finally set in.

Was the world of Sanctuary really full of people like Daemon, even when Holy War was more than a decade away? Were these the things that Noah thought he could tackle as a Saint by bringing him to Sanctuary? Was he capable of fending off the next Holy War, or even end this one, without this armor's help?

And was he willing to offer this thing his soul in exchange, when he had refused to give it to Guilty?

At this moment, with this thought in mind, Lance felt incredibly small and petty, like he was putting his selfish concerns over the lives of innocent people. He felt he had more than good enough a reason to suspect another strange creature offering to make him stronger, but was this worse than dying in the gutter or letting Sanctuary become controlled by people capable of the same shit that people like Ainsel, Torak, Lemon and Lucian did that night?

He remembered the state Shaka was left in, the distraught in Shinta's face as he talked about his island getting invaded and Al and Elda nearly being killed, the horror in everyone's faces as they learned more and more about Daemon's selfish motivations and, more importantly, the bastard Gods sitting on the lines with popcorn, watching all of this happen.

He gulped, and felt the need to be sure of what the armor was offering. "I can put a stop to all of this with you, right?!"

The shadow smirked ambitiously. "In the end, that will all depend on you, Lance."

He answered Teos! "Then this is a dumb trick question! I already rocketed myself into outerspace to put a stop to this! It's why you came and saved me, isn't it?! So you know my answer already!"

The person's shadowed shoulders shook in amusement, but still it tested him. "Are you sure? There will be no going back."

Lance just extended his hand and sterned his red eyes in determination.

The Cloth smiled to itself like someone whose wager had paid off and it took Lance's hand firmly, making a golden cosmos course through it that alerted Lance to the sheer magnitude of the power before him. More than just the familiar warmth of someone's inner bravery manifested into cosmic power, Lance widened his eyes at the sensation of an ocean of stars coursing through him, carrying the dark depth of a bottomless, yet beautiful expanse of nebulas and galaxies.

"Excellent! One more thing; though. I am powerful, but not generous! I can save your life and dress you with myself, but after that?" It then showed five fingers. "You'll have five minutes, understand? As soon as you take your first step, the timer will start. It's up to you if you can defeat Daemon or not."

Lance nodded and gripped the Cloth's hand harder, making the cosmos flow faster. He had no idea if the armor was actually strong enough that it would make a difference, but what other option did he have? If he died, at least he did so loyal to his promises to Noah and Roshi.

The armor could sense his unwavering resolve. "Very well. Then let the world tremble as it senses all you are about to accomplish! From now on, you will cease to be merely the Saint of Pegasus, but you'll also become this era's new Saint of Teos! Don't disappoint me, Lance… the price you pay for it may prove much higher than whatever Seiryu threatened you with."

The shadow then exploded into shrapnel of light, pulling Lance into an accelerating spiral back to reality!

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

Lance's red eyes reopened, seeing the Flaming Sword thrust at his face at the speed of light! With a motion defying the limits of physics, his hands clasped around it, stopping the edge an inch from his face! They shined with the gold of the slime covering his body and struggled the edge back.

The Daemon Specter gasped in horror "W-WHAT? U-UGH!" and struggled to dig it into him. "NO! JUST DIE!"

The Gold Saint's aura exploded in a fiery blaze, pushing the edge back to the awe of the onlookers. Suddenly unhampered by the slime's heat or weight, Lance's foot slammed Lucifer's chest as his hands twisted to the side, loudly snapping the Flaming Sword's cosmic edge in two. The Daemon stumbled in horror, watching as the slime's glowing began to stabilize and cool down the liquid, which ran down to form the shape of armor parts. Shion began recognizing artistic details in its form from various Cloths of Athena.

At first came the helmet, whose liquid rose up Lance's face, seemingly smothering him, before parting sideways into a T-opened headpiece with ornamented cheek protections extending into wing-shaped ear guards. A red prism surfaced on the forehead, encrusted on a beak like that of Tenma's Pegasus God Cloth's headpiece, while two small flanking horns honored the Cloth of Cancer's crown, followed by a secondary pair of wings to complete the five headpiece points.

The slime around the torso meanwhile tightened into a muscle-hugging segmentations on the sides, while a metal neck guard collared up and liquid metal spread sideways over the shoulders with the same top segmentation as Cancer but with smooth, reinforced sidelines spread to the sides, forming an upper set of shoulder pads. A secondary, lower set round the shoulders down beneath it, just as plates closed over the abdomen and a chest-reinforcement shaped like a pair of wings with another central prism covered the upper body front. The glowing metal then crystalized down the waist into fauld plates of varying lengths while a belt with a sun-shaped emblem connected said fault to the cuirass.

The arms followed. The gauntlets of clear-bossed knuckles each had a pair of circuit indentations on the backhand ending in small circle indentations, as if meant for some kind of connection, while the forearm guards of parting, flat-headed tips were on the right arm adorned with a dragon's brow and eyes, similar to Shiryu's own right-hand dragon arm, while the left forearm, albeit not sporting a shield, was still marked by a star-emblem alike that of Shiryu's shield. The leggings then formed as thick plates of metal covering the knee and leg fronts fitting into boots reinforced around the ankles and with wing carvings.

With the shapes finished, the solidified metal formed its colors, making the structural metal a pure white while the carvings, plate outlines, ornaments, chest reinforcement, shoulder scales and the forehead piece of the crown became golden. A rain of light then descended from his back, weaving a blue cape that fluttered with the aura's sway.

The glow was magnificent, terrifying Daemon Lucifer but aweing Pope Shion. "The Cloth of Hope… Teos!"

The Daemon shook with anger and fear, stepping away from Lance. "No…. NO! HOW DARE YOU?!"

Lance himself was in awe, staring at his own hands and armor while feeling a lightness in the metal contrasted by scorching hot energies tingling his skin from head to toe.

He even felt his previous wounds, including the star point punctures, closing "I…This is… incredible!" he laughed and looked at his friend. "Look, Shinta! I'm okay again! I'm wearing the armor!"

The Andromeda beamed up, teary-eyed in relief. "Y-yes, thank the g-goddess!"

The celebration was cut short, though, when the Celestial Pride Star manifested his outrage in the cosmos itself, firing off his anger in the shape of a howl and a massive shockwave of Greed Lightning. "HOW DARE YOU!"

The Gold Saints were blasted away screaming and Shion protected as many as he could with Crystal Wall, but his Cancer Saint was still isolated by the Daemon. "L-LANCE!"

The Daemon immediately rushed in, with his strongest melee move in hand. "DARK PRIDE FIST!"

"S-SHIT! BARRIER!" the Teos Saint acted instinctively, crossing arms.

Unlike what usually happened, with the rings of transparent cosmos forming his shield, Lance felt the cosmos coursing through his body amass on his raised left arm and the star inscribed on it shined brightly. It casted out an incredible, expansive field of translucid protection of coursing starlight that tanked the technique's brute force and dispelled the thunder and darkness of Dark Pride Fist completely, lashing out the terrible bolts that once shattered the Libra Shield into vanishing sparks.

The force still was such that Lance's body was rocked and his foot braked back.

"The five minutes start now." Teos' dualed voice whispered.

He lowered arm in wide-eyed disbelief, though. "I… I blocked it!"

"With Pegasus or even Cancer Barrier, Greed Lightning would have certainly killed you. But with the Teos Barrier, no attack is unstoppable... so long as your cosmos burns."

Aiolos, who protected Milo and Shura with his wings from Greed Lightning, saw what happened. "The symbol on his arm… that armor actually formed itself with a piece dedicated to the technique to vastly increase the forming speed and efficiency of Lance's Barrier! It's like it tailored itself to him."

Shion, too, noticed these details. "Just like with Haisaku, the armor took the form of its owner's attributes. The Cloth didn't melt at all in the heat of its resting place; it was just in its original, shapeless state, awaiting a new owner!"

"You lying, cheating, sneaking thief!" Lucifer snarled, absolutely nauseous with anger. "Not only did you insult and injure me throughout this night, but now you steal my deserved prize?! I summoned that armor! It has blessed MY feats! There will be no end to your torture, Pegasus Lance! You have now surpassed Tenma, Shion and Dohko in my hatred towards you! I'LL MAKE YOU BURN IN HELL FOREVER FOR THIS!"

The new Saint of Teos narrowed eyes in revolt. "Is that what you think?! That you earned this armor?! Why?! Just because you fought your way through a bunch of kids to get to that statue up there?! You didn't earn a thing tonight other than losing all you've ever fought for, Daemon Lucifer!" he spat. The truth was obvious from the way Teos spoke to him. "This armor didn't come here to reward your cruelty! It came here to help us after all the sacrifices we made to stop you!"

The Daemon staggered. "What?!"

Lance pressed in. "Look around you, asshole! Look at the face of all the people you've hurt tonight to get to the Colossus!" he demanded. "If this is really the Cloth of Hope like Shion there calls it, do you think it would come for you? Or for all the people you've caused despair to tonight, Archdevil?!"

The Gold Saints joined up, encircling the battlefield. Milo in particular seethed with how the bastard made him sting Shinta. "Damn right! You've done nothing but deserve my Scarlet Needle!"

Aiolos stepped onto the stage, as well. "You and your men are nothing but an extension of Hades' cruelty, Daemon Lucifer. Teos picking Lance was incidental, he just happened to pull the chain first! This armor clearly would have put itself on anyone to stop you!"

Saga joined in. "Teos Cloth or not, you've long lost the moral right to claim anything over Sanctuary, Lucifer. We do not name murderers as Popes or Emperors! You've lost your men, your buffers, your fortress and now you've lost the last thing you've come here to get! There is nothing but defeat awaiting you now!"

Backing away from the surrounding glares, the Pride Star swept arm at the Sagittarius in denial. "Nothing but Gold Saint PLATITUDES! The Cloth of Teos comes to those who achieve great deeds, like the heroes of old Greece! They would never come to victims like yourselves! There is no greater feat than beating the Golden Zodiac in this world and I have achieved it! What other feat could it possibly be honoring?!"

It was Shion's turn to interfere. "Lucian… are you that much in denial?! Have you forgotten… that Lance was willing to die to stop you?" he called out. His shoulders then sunk in disappointment. "But why should I be surprised? You, who never learned the value of sacrifice… How could you ever understand why the armor went to Lance instead of you?!"

The Specter eyed him venomously. "I told you to be quiet already!"

Lance clenched fists and charged cosmos, feeling the ticking clock of Teos. "Then prove us wrong! Can you still beat me, Lucifer, without your armor's ridiculous advantage?!"

The look Lucifer then returned to him was of nothing but pure hatred, making even Lance in his almighty and yet untested new armor hesitate for a second.

"You dare compare me to the others?!" he hissed, meaning the True Specters who relied on the spiritually inherited strength of their Surplices. "I will not have you question my pride, Teos Lance….! As a matter of fact, I will do more than just beat you, but also reduce this ENTIRE MOUNTAIN to CINDERS!"

The Daemon then spread his wings wide and charged his cosmos, making the Gold Saints brace themselves, having no intention of letting Lance fight this guy alone. The Specter, suddenly manifested an aura of Darkness of terrifying blackness, a sludge of evil resentment that danced around his body as he gathered his hands aside, letting purple sparks flow through them. A slight tremble began to be felt in the mountain, which Lance and the others recognized as the starting signs of him charging Dark Revenge Blast, but this time it was different; a way bigger mass of cosmos was concentrating in the Specter's aura, a mass which he kept close to chest.

Then, his wings unfurled to their widest extent! In their bends, where the membranes coalesced, slits opened up to reveal ugly metallic eyes which burned with cosmos and interacted with Lucifer's charging in the forms of coursing sparks of energy. The membranes themselves radiated sparks of purple through them and grew bloodier and bloodier in color. The Specter began humming in concentration and then spread his feet before roaring to the skies as cosmos threatened to explode out of him. This manifestation of energy triggered a startling phenomenon, in which the approaching dawn's sky was suddenly drowned in night again!

Shion widened his eyes! "It's… his suicide attack! Apocalypse!" and he rushed the Saints away, ushering them into corners. "Everyone, take cover! This is a dangerous move!"

The younger Saints, namely Shura, Shinta and Milo, obeyed, backing away slowly with the Pope as powerful wind currents began to kick up, but Saga, Aiolos and Teos Lance stood their ground. "What is he doing now?!"

With a light flap, Lucifer then took to air and sparkled black lightning out of his palms, creating the core orb of Revenge Blast. However, unlike all previous times, two other orbs sprouted out of his hands, creating a trio of spheres which he danced above his fingers as he rose higher and higher and charged more and more energy into its dance.

Saga shielded himself with his arm and watched as the trio of orbs slowly swirled closer and closer. Kanon was right about the danger this Specter represented "Agh… That insane bastard! This is terrible!"

"What is it?!" asked Lance.

The Gemini tried to explain it as best as he could. "It's complicated, but he's doing something worse than usual; a sort of Athena Exclamation! Rather than a single Dark Revenge Blast, I think he's going to mesh those insane gravity wormholes into a single super black hole attack, the kind that can ignore all kinds of cosmic powers!"

Aiolos asked first. "What does that mean?!"

Saga sweated as he saw Lucifer raise the orbs above his head way above them and start to make the air vortex around them. "It means stardust fillings and goddess-blessed seals will mean very little… and that he might truly be able to destroy the Golden Zodiac!"

The other two gasped in horror and beheld the floating Daemon with renewed concern as he roared and made the orbs grind against one another with the pressure of a compressing shield of thunder around them. The night around them seemed to sink its darkness down like a curtain on Sanctuary. Before long, Lucifer laughed as the orbs finally overcame eachother's resistance and formed a single, highly unstable ball of pure blackness which began pulling all sorts of things around it, first air, then light objects littering the Hall of Chiron, then whole pieces of marble slabs.

This was it; the final shape of the attack that incarnated all his knowledge and wisdom! A pulsating ball of crackling purple cosmos the size of his body radiating a blood red aura that continued to swell and swell above him and distort gravity itself. A bloody smile filled his face as he beheld its violent energies struggling to escape! There was only one moment in his life when he had seriously pondered using this move in battle, dangerous as it was; when Rhadamanthys acquired a demigod's power through Alone's blood and threatened his status as a Dark Prince. Luckily, Leo Regulus beat Lucifer to it and knocked the bastard's divinity out of him with the Zodiac-Clamation.

With this violation of time and space, this cry of absolute power, a tribute to his old Master Thanatos' most feared technique, he could wipe out a large chunk of Athena's fortress together with its blasted Gold Saints! Exhaustion and the destruction of all the Temples he valued would come at little cost with all his men dead and his prize stolen by Lance!

As so, he eyed down the Gold Saints. "THIS… will be for all the offenses you've thrown at me tonight! The White Hole of annihilation will trample over your pathetic cosmos, destroy your Gold Cloths and wipe the world clean of your existences! Prepare to be atomized, Gold Saints!"

The Gold Saints paled, sensing the terrible power in it and fearing it could truly destroy everything they cared about. Gemini Saga looked over and saw the others in danger. "LANCE, AIOLOS, we'll use Another Dimension to get us out of here!"

The virtuous Sagittarius hesitated. "B-But-"

Saga swept his hand. "Forget about stopping that! You might as well be facing Terrible Providence itself! It's better to save the others and sacrifice these Temples!"

Lance, however, with a nervous sweat, noticed something in Lucifer's observing smirk that made him think this wouldn't work. The light of the orb began intensifying, turning from a paling purple to the white of a reversed black hole, before expanding into a colossal size, its radius now bigger than the height of Athena's statue. "It's… it's not going to work!"

"Go ahead, run to your dimensions, Gemini! This blow's power will destroy you across the walls of space and time themselves!" Readying it for tossing with a final layer of energy, Lucifer took aim at the Teos Saint then launched it down full force with a toss of hands! "DARK REVENGE BLAST: APOCALYPSE!"

"MOVE!" Saga screamed, casting Another Dimension and practically shoving Aiolos and the others towards it. He saw lance standing behind though. "LANCE, let's go!"

Lance spread his feet, facing the descending ball of cosmos and burning his cosmos. Rubble around him was swept away by the force of the Apocalypse's approach, which was aimed straight at him.

His heart beat fast as it came a foot from his face and he focused on the words passed down to him by Noah!

Bashing hands against the swirling orb, Lance screamed, taking on the force of the gigantic ball of power. Immediately his feet cracked and sunk into the ground as the elephantine crushing force of Apocalypse pressed unto him, causing loud bolts, rather than just sparks, fly everywhere!

Lucifer laughed in the air, knowing the confidence in his new armor would drive Lance to this. "AH, AH, AH! GO AHEAD! TRY YOUR HARDEST! BURN YOUR COSMOS TO THE MAX! IT WON'T MATTER! APOCALYPSE WILL CRUSH YOU INTO DUST AND WIPE YOU INTO EVERY CORNER OF THE GALAXY! And THEN…. Then TEOS will be MINE!"

Lance screamed, feeling his locked arms shake and bleed underneath the magical metal and his feet grinding further and further into the ground.

"I…. have to stop this! I… have to burn more cosmos!" Before long, though, the warping sphere began crushing him down unto the floor, threatening to smash through his arms

"Then go ahead. Nothing is stopping you." Teos encouraged, his voice seemingly canceling out the cacophony of chaos around him in his head. "Show everyone what the Cosmos can do."

The youth's red eyes squinted at the Blast in determination and he began focusing! Uniting body and mind, he pictured the exploding power of the universe deep inside his own atoms, an echo of the Big Bang within himself. As soon as he did this, the sensation was magnified by his legendary armor to ridiculous, uncontainable levels, levels which he didn't think possible even with the blessing of the Cancer Gold Cloth, until the very essence of that internal thought came out his pores and then burst into a golden aura that burned like a furnace!

Suddenly, the weight of Apocalypse lessened and its progress halted, alerting Lucifer. "What?! N-NO!"

Shura gasped, seeing Lance take a step forward and pushing Apocalypse off a bit. "He's doing it!"

The Teos Saint took another step and this time dislodged the entire weight of the pushing orb off of himself. Another step, and its sizzling aura brim no longer scorched the ground. He then narrowed his eyes at the Daemon, held off the orb with his left hand and burned cosmos into his right, causing its two dragon eyes to ignite with red and yellow!

Shion saw this, and in particular noticed Lance's Fire and Lightning getting routed by the gauntlet's backhand filaments into the fist, which ignited into a burning sun with elliptic shine like dancing electrons. "The armor… it's fusing the elements of his Cosmos!"

Which in turn made the power in his hand swell exponentially! "TEOS…. ATOMIC CHARGE FIST!" With an almighty slam that flashed in the 7th sense like a sun crashing against another, the Saint punched the gigantic attack off of him, sending it back to the skies at even greater violence than with it descended, it's internal make up already warping into detonation mode

Seeing this, Shion urged Saga to act. "Quick! Don't let it explode!"

The Gemini Saint burned his cosmos to the max and cast his hands to the skies. "ANOTHER DIMENSION!"

With horror and revolt stamped on face, the Daemon slid out of the way of the returned attack and let it fire off into the skies. Above it, a line of golden light formed and opened up into a gate as large as Saga could project, which began vacuuming the unstable orb. Saga's nose began bleeding profusely.

Shura held him up, and even offered him cosmos. "Come on, man! Wipe that thing away!"

Saga, however, who had been fighting all night including in Tibet, was further pushed to the limit by the staggering power he was trying to send to a separate dimension. The orb resisted the dimensional membrane, attempting to shatter it instead of crossing through, much like Excalibur or a real Exclamation would. The Gemini Saint felt his brain splitting down the middle in a blood-curling migraine as he attempted to successfully make the detonating attack disappear before it was too late!

"ANOTHER DIMENSION!"

Saints and Specter alike watched in complete surprise as the gateway Saga created then doubled in size and power, now finally wrapping over the giant orb of cosmos.

Daemon turned to the source of the new energy and saw the last person he wanted to see stepping out of a portal next to Saga. "Y-YOU?!"

Recognizing the man's cosmos from the hooded figure he battled at Crow's nest gate, Akassius narrowed his gaze sternly and made a closing gesture with his hand, avenging the dead in Romania by sealing Saga's dimensional portal around the attack completely, locking it away from their reality with a blinding flash of light that made the Specter scream and shield his eyes.

A whirring sound of Cosmos charging and focusing was then heard above his head and the light of an exploding molecule blinded him further! "ATOMIC CHARGE FIST!" and the jumping Teos Saint smashed his fist down on the distracted Daemon, who screamed out loud and came crashing down on the floor with a loud, finalizing bang that cratered the damaged ground.

The Daemon tumbled and rolled, his Surplice cracked with the impact, until his arms laid flat and his body bled.

Lance landed with a heavy pant, feeling the golden armor on his body burning hot with cosmos. "That was for Arcadia… and for everyone you hurt tonight! You bastard!"

The Daemon rolled to the side, coughing and feeling his body numb. The Saint of Teos furiously paced in, feeling the clock in his head ticking. Lucifer hadn't taken a punch this hard since his fight with Tenma "N-No! All my work!... RUINE- "

Lance grabbed the Specter up by the collar and exploded his fist across his bruised face again, silencing the Daemon. "IT'S OVER!"

He then charged a third round of Atomic Charge Fist and slammed it as hard as he could on the Surplice's smiling chestplate, smashing it through. The Prince gasped outloud and the armor cracked so hard that the fissures from early expanded and creaked to the point the entire thing broke down entirely, collapsing to the floor with loud metallic clanks and exposing the bastard's black tattered shirt.

One of the collapsing pieces was the gauntlet, where Shaka's bead of the Absolute Star was stored. It clinged out and rolled until it stopped at Shinta's feet, who took it with concern stamped on his eyes.

Lance buried his punches into the devil's stomach even more, but the Specter clawed his resisting fingers at him amidst gasps. Lance only barely had a minute left before Teos fell off his shoulders, so he rose his fist and hammered it down so hard that the Specter fell to his hands and legs.

"Had enough?!" Lance threatened, trying to hide his shock at the man's stamina. He wasn't sure what was stronger anymore, his amazing new armor, or the Specter's stubbornness.

With blood dripping off his body and heavy breaths, Lucian finally seemed to pause for a moment, staring at the broken pieces of his Surplice. "A-All my life's work…"

"JUST STOP!" Shinta screamed, stepping in between them. He turned to the Specter "If you keep going you'll die just like Behemoth! Just like everyone else!"

With Hades waiting for him in the Underworld and his dreams crushed, Lucifer stared up at Michael's reincarnation stupidly. "W-What the hell do you care?!"

And Shinta rose nose dignantly. "I care about my principles. Just like you say you and your friend did! That's all. And if you have half as much respect for him as you say you do… you'll stop fighting before you waste your life!"

The Dark Prince kept staring, his breath heavy. He still felt the magic of his own curse making his eyes mix reality with history. More importantly, he felt taken back to a familiar moment, to Judgment Day, when he first lost the Dark Angel Surplice to this…. coward.

"Eh… you… you f-fool!" and with this last insult, the strength in his body finally vanished and he fell to the side.

Every Saint in the Sagittarius Temple beheld the scene anxiously, unsure if it was over after all they've gone through. They surrounded the fallen Daemon, expecting him to lash out or rave further…

….

The Specter laid flat, eyes closing to the world.

Milo dared to smile and jump out. "WE WON! IT'S OVER!"

A collective shout of happiness was unleashed and the Gold Saints rose arms to the air and hugged each other! Milo shot Scarlet Needles into the air that exploded like firework, signaling victory to all of Sanctuary. There were collective shouts of victory from the most enthusiastic Saints, while Lance and Saga were happy to just sit aside and let their lungs take in some air.

Pope Shion, too, breathed the biggest sigh of relief he had since the end of the Priam War. He looked at the rising sun on the horizon with hope filling his chest. "Thank the Goddess it's over. Another sun rises on a hopeful home of those with faith in humanity, instead of despair. Thank you, Athena, from the bottom of my heart."

As everyone jumped around and screamed in celebration, the new Saint of Teos stared in disbelief at what just transpired. Not twenty minutes earlier, he was convinced of his own fate and rocketing himself into the mesosphere. Now he was wearing a legendary armor and triumphant over Daemon Lucifer. It could only be a dream, right?

Shinta practically tackled him with a hug, as if to assure him he was not. "L-Lance, we've done it! And we all lived! I'm so happy!" but he noticed the look on his face. "What's wrong?"

Lance shook his head and faked a smile. "Nothing… I'm happy too."

While deeply relieved, Lance was actually also deeply confused and felt like he had been suddenly punched in the gut by everything that happened in the last forty-eight hours. With every toxic revelation vomited out of Lucifer's mouth that War, it was impossible to feel it was okay to let his guard down in the future, as clearly there was a lot of shit inside both Athena and Hades' closets that promised to cause them a lot of suffering in the future, should things continue as they were.

His fist tightened; "Unless I do something about this fucked up world!" He then winced, though, feeling a pain in his hand before it went numb. "Ow! What the fuck!…-"

The Andromeda Saint saw a crack in the Teos Cloth's glove. Apparently, Lance had punched the Apocalypse orb so hard that it actually damaged the otherwise pristine armor. The crack was glowing, though, and slowly vanishing. "Your armor…!"

Shion saw it as well and approached it discreetly. "Amazing, it's repairing itself…"

But Lance didn't think of it so wonderful, as he felt his hand go numb in a way he recognized from wearing stardust shackles. "I'm glad you two are impressed, but I think it's sucking up my Cosmos!" With a final glow, the armor then collapsed off Lance's body to the floor, clanging5 everywhere. "Ah, shit… I guess the five minutes are up…"

The Holy Father nodded. "Mm, that must be how it's fueling its healing. Once its done fighting with you, it must take your power to repair itself. Nothing can be gained from nothing, after all. It's still an incredible ability…"

While Shinta was intrigued, Lance didn't think this light-hearted commentary from the Pope was so amusing. In the end, after everything he's done just that night to help them, Lance couldn't say he thought Shion was such a bad guy, but he clearly held back a LOT from them, ranging from Daemon Lucifer's existence, to his jingoistic grudge, to the freaking Cloth of Teos being real and on Death Queen Island!

To add to Lance's confused sentiments, Shion then said something genuinely sweet. "I could only pray these thoughts reached you earlier, Lance, for fear of distracting you from what you had to do… but I want to say I'm really proud of you all tonight, especially you two."

The Andromeda Saint was so touched he felt a heart beat skip. "Your Holiness!"

The Lemurian humbly nodded. "I will personally extend my thanks to every Gold Saint who fought tonight, but you two above all risked the most going up against Lucian for the rest of us for so long."

"Lucian?" Lance asked.

The man's mask turned to the Daemon, who was getting tied by Shura and Aiolos as they spoke. "That's his real name…. from before Lord Hakurei, my teacher, failed him. Long ago, before I was even born, he used to be a kind soul, living a life of modesty in the forests of Bavaria, not far from Arcadia which you evoked earlier. But then Hades corrupted him. He took Athena's Prince and made him his own."

The Andromeda Saint gazed sadly at the Specter with new eyes. "How horrible…. Then in a way, he's a victim too."

Lance smacked him in the head lightly. "No fucking way, don't even joke about that, Shinta! He's not the only one who's gone through some bad shit and he's had plenty of time to figure that out! If I find out you're feeling sorry for him, I'm dunking you in the Ladon!"

Shinta held his sore skull. "Ow, sorry…" Still, in a way, he did feel pity. Hopefully it wasn't because he was who Lucifer said he was.

The Pope picked up one of the fallen Teos pieces, admiring its composition. "Still, this night changes everything. We have a lot of work ahead of us, Saints. Not only does Sanctuary need healing, but a lot of questions need answering, and this armor showing up is a game changer in itself." He tossed it into the box. "In a way, the fighting may only be just beginning. I want you all to be ready for that."

Shinta nodded in determination. "Yes, your Holiness!"

Lance pretended to agree and looked away worriedly. With a Holy War on Sanctuary done and the Cloth of Teos here, what kinds of catastrophes would they face next? Could things possibly get worse?

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

The Underworld Well

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

Accompanied by a host of his subordinates, the heavy-armored Judge of Antenora, Garuda Aiacos, approached the scarred, burned body in the mountainous crevice. "Well, well…"

With the Sphinx Cloth disintegrated and her body charred, Neferti twitched in pain and terror at the sight of the Judge. Half her muscles were exposed to open air, in some places showing even bone, while many extremities were turned into blackened knots. Her cheeks were largely torn way, exposing her teeth side, and her beautiful Surplice was almost entirely gone.

Still, she spoke with a perforated throat. "A-Aiacos…."

"It's your honor to you, False Specter." he stressed, still feeling in his body and soul the pain of Lucifer's betrayal. "Looks like Final Passage didn't drag you back after all. We'll all be happy to have Pharaoh awake and back on our side."

"Kill her, my lord!" a skeleton yelled. "Make her pay!"

"I myself would love to sink my teeth in her flesh!" the recently awakened Lycaon Phlegyas "She looks half-cooked already anyway."

With her limb extremities gone by the force of Torak's blast, Neferti could barely crawl away by dragging her uneven knots in the dirt. "Y-You monstrous b-bastards!"

"That's enough!" Aiacos asserted to his men, before turning back to her. "False Specter, you're lucky I'm filling in for Rhadamanthys in the 7th Prison while the Emperor has him at Giudecca. He wouldn't think twice before tossing you at the dogs."

But the Egyptian woman only glared in disgust. "D-Do you think you're any better than him, Suikyo?!" she hissed, making the Judge's lip twitch. "Wyvern may be cruel, but he k-knows no better… but you?! Y-You above all these cretins should know the life Hades stole from you!"

"The Prince told his Elites all about y-you! The only think separating you from us is that you were too cowardly to break out your dark dream, unlike the Prince!"

The Judge knelt down, almost pitying her attempts at upsetting him. "Then perhaps you'll tell me all about what else he shared… as I set your nervous system on fire over and over and over again!"

"F-Fool…Just you w-wait… The Gods…. and especially Hades, w-will make a mockery out of you yet!" she prophesized, shaking all over in pain. A thin outline of energy then formed around her body. "As for me, I'd rather sink into Tartarian oblivion than rejoin your f-fucked up world! I'll see you, Pandora, Hades… and all the other liars… in purgatory!"

Aiacos gasped and pulled his men away. "Blasted traitor! WATCH OUT!"

The woman's body then turned into pure light and destruction, casting the False Specter's last desire and blasting everything around her, including the screaming Judge who tried protecting himself and his men with his guarding wings! With a earthquaking explosion, her soul completely disintegrated into cosmos and she joined Ainsel in the ether.

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

Sanctuary,

Sagittarius Temple

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

Daylight was already peering from high enough that the Zodiac's ruins were clear to everyone and the Gold Saints worked to clear a way out of the 9th Temple while others made sure the unconscious Lucifer was properly chained and shackled. The Sagittarius Saint wiped the sweat beneath his bandana and sighed at the state his House was left in as he moved the rubble out of the way to make space for everyone to rest.

"A-AIOLOS!" a voice shouted from the lower stairs.

Aiolos looked up and beamed wider than he ever had in his life at who was running up to his Temple! "Aiolia!"

The cub ran up to his big brother and jumped into a spinning hug. "I was so scared!"

Saga and Shura smiled at the sight of this, heartwarmed, and then saw the rest of the gang following behind. "You guys!"

Aldebaran laughed out loud, bruised top to bottom but bringing along Mephisto and Shaka with arms raised in celebration. "WHO'S THE MAN! We've done it, guys!"

As the rest of the gang converged with even cringier group hugs, Deathmask had hands nonchalantly clasped around head and beheld his teacher top to bottom. "Boy, you look even worse than before!"

Lance grumbled, noticing the large chest scar left behind by Teos saving his life. "Why do you think that is, you brat?! I almost died thrice in a row6!"

The Sicilian boy scoffed and tossed hand dismissively. "Pfft, I knew you'd be alright. I've seen you literally come out Elisa's coffin, man."

Shinta was frankly impressed. "That's some incredible faith, Mephisto. I was in tears when I saw the Koryuha."

"That's because you're such a girl, Shinta!" the boy criticized.

The Andromeda smirked. "Maybe you can have a rematch with Albiore later now that you're so much tougher."

The purple-haired boy quivered. "Um, yeah…. Maybe later."

Lance stared at the Pope and Akassius off in the corner, exchanging protected mental messages while pointing at the chained up Lucifer and the collapsed pieces of Teos. They looked like they were trying to keep body language to a minimum, but the unmasked Akassius showed small signs of clenching fingers and biting lips.

He didn't like it one bit. "What do you think the adults are arguing about, Shinta?"

Losing his smile, the teen responded. "I'd like to know, too. After everything that happened, I think I agree with you more and more about Sanctuary, Lance… It really isn't the fairyland Master Guardnia taught me it was. His Holiness and Saint Akassius hid from us what was going on in Romania, after all. Why didn't they trust us?"

Shaka approached the pile of golden parts on the floor the Holy Father was studying. They were still glowing with power. "Incredible… I thought Eternal Darkness was playing tricks on me again."

Looking over the draconic gauntlet in particular, the Pope shook head. "No, Shaka, it really is the Cloth of Hope, Teos." He studied it with his eyes, looking for texture details. "I can't wait to show it to Mu. He'll be ecstatic."

Akassius stared at the Virgo Saint, having heard much about him. He was even younger than he suspected, but from what the Gold Saints said, Shaka somehow held off the longest against Daemon Lucifer before the battle at the Libra Temple. Now he carried bags under his eyes and tear marks on his cheeks.

Combined with his blonde hair, it reminded him of his youngest son. "How about you? Are you alright?" Akassius asked.

He nodded, lying. "Yes, Duke, thank you.… but I wish to have a conversation later with his Holiness about the future of my armor."

The two adults exchanged a look.

"HEY, he's waking up!" Milo shouted.

Everyone turned attention to Daemon Lucifer, who drowsily opened his eyes. Aiolia hid behind his big brother while the Scorpio and Capricorn Saint, who were guarding him, armed their techniques.

"One wrong gesture and I'll cut off your head, violator!" Shura warned, aiming Excalibur at the Specter's neck.

Shion held Shura's hand down. "Don't worry, he's done fighting… aren't you, Lucian?"

Slowly recovering awareness, stripped of his Surplice and finding himself with wrists and ankles shackled by stardust cuffs, the Celestial Star of Pride eyed the Gold Saints venomously.

But he pinned Shion in particular. "… S-So you've won, Shion. Congratulations. I hope beating me yourself brings an end to your womanly nightmares." He bitterly admitted. His body was numb with the shackles sucking his cosmos, but most importantly his spirit was sunk and defeated. "Yes, I'm done fighting…Sanctuary will now endure 1000 more years of decadence… unless Hades destroys it first, of course."

"Fat chance!" Milo snapped, smirking but keeping his Needle ready. "We just beat you with a bunch of ten-year-olds AND we got the Cloth of Hope now! Hades doesn't stand a chance!"

Akassius then noticed Saga keeping his distance from the conversation, even walking back when he thought no one was noticing.

"The Cloth of Teos won't mean a damn thing in the hands of those who can't wield it." Lucifer argued, seeing its chunks on the floor. "Lance only held it because it was charged up with Death Queen Island's heat, and then it fell right off of him, from the looks of it. Without a powerful warrior to maintain it's abilities, it's useless to you."

Milo cringed. "Whatever, you're just being a sore loser!"

Shion, however, expressed concern. "Lucian… what is Hades planning? Why did he let you out?"

Lucifer scoffed. "I told you; I left on my own."

Lance stepped in. "That's a bunch of shit! So a God would just let you walk out with his own army?! He let you go so you could come and kill us!"

Lucifer scoffed. "Do you think I'd be unable to do otherwise? Why, because you took me down? You don't understand anything about true strength yet, Lance. Without Dohko, Andromeda and the other Gold Saints, you'd be dead! You only won because of the Teos Cloth…" he then smirked. "Face it… you're a small fry. Compared to you, Shaka was a much bigger challenge."

Akassius, however, demanded an answer "You can answer the Pope's question, Daemon, or have your body incinerated."

Lucifer turned to him to snicker too. "You… must be feeling pretty fooled, right? You had me right in your sights at Crow's Nest. If you had held nothing back and battled me, or if you had joined forces with your replacer instead of cooperating with Shion's deceit, maybe I'd never cause the slaughter at Aries…. Maybe I'd be long dead by now."

The Gemini veteran made a brim of fire appear around himself, unnerving even his allies. "I'm in time to remedy that! Answer the Pope!"

Leaning back his shackled body, the Daemon acquiesced. "Very well… maybe Hades did give me a little lenience… I can picture him waking up from the nightmare I gave him and deciding that it was better off not sending every Specter in the Underworld after me until after I was done conquering Sanctuary. He's arrogant like that. Which is to say he wants the same as always; to genocide humanity. And he may be getting ready to do it before Athena returns."

A murmur of worrying, which deeply amused the Specter, went through them all.

Aiolos was the first to protest. "How could that be?! Without the seal being gone, he-"

"Don't be stupid, Sagittarius! When has he ever won after letting it run out?! A victory is a victory, even if he's forced to sit in the sidelines and let us do his dirty work! Playing by Athena's rules has only made him always be a step behind her!" Lucifer pointed out. "With the amount of times he has lost, it was a matter of time before he tossed the game board away. As we speak, with every False Specter you've killed, a TRUE Evil Star has regained their identity and Surplice! Face it, Gold Saints... your enemy has caught on to your tricks! I was your only hope to save humanity from him!"

But Akassius disagreed. "These youths have shown tonight that they're a better hope for humanity than you'll ever be, defiler. You may have reached deep into Sanctuary, but Athena's banner stands."

The Prince scoffed and then provoked him directly. "We both know that me and Hades aren't their only problem, don't we, Steiner? A hurricane is coming… one you should have dealt with long ago."

…

The veteran exhaled indignantly and walked away. "Your Holiness, triumph is yours tonight. Please toss that dog into the deepest floor of the Stardust Prison before he rots this sacred ground… and thank you for putting your trust in me, Daniel, Kirin and Malta this time." He then eyed Saga. "Saint Gemini, would you please join me down the stairs? I'd be honored."

Saga blinked. "Yes, of course."

Aldebaran, Lance, Aiolos and Shura forced the Specter up and going. The Capricorn Saint in particular practically held Excalibur against him. "Alright, let's go, Specter!"

As Lucifer got pushed through the crowd by the four Gold Saints to the jeering of them all, his red gaze looked Shinta straight in the eye. "You should watch yourself, Michael. Danger is coming for you now."

The Japanese Saint quivered, but made himself into iron. "I'm not afraid of you! And I'm not your friend!"

Lucifer chuckled. "You think I mean 'me'?" As for the reincarnation business, after everything Shion verbally tossed at him, hearing Shinta deny his identity further was frankly hilarious. "If you say so. Something tells me you'll be thinking about paying a visit soon, though, when you start reflecting on all your life's bad luck!" he then softened his smirk. "Still… I'm happy to see you again. I missed you."

Lance shoved. "Stop giggling and walk!"

The Pope watched everyone drag the Specter off and worryingly noticed the look on Shinta's face. Lucifer made it clear he already knew the truth, but did Shinta? "Saint Andromeda?"

"I'm alright, your Holiness. I'm just exhausted… and worried about my students." He omitted. It was no use making things worse, and it was only fair considering what the Pope was keeping from them, too. "The sooner I'm back to them, the better."

With the destroyed Hall of Chiron emptying, Deathmask joined Milo as the Scorpio scratched head. "You're gonna sting yourself if you keep that up. What's the matter?"

The Greek youth shrugged. "I keep feeling like we're forgetting something."

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

Pisces Temple

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

The feline-armored Cait Sith Specter Palug kept his golden eyes wide as he tiptoed across the Hall of Love, the interior main room of the last Temple of Sanctuary. After the fighting that suddenly erupted down at the Sagittarius Temple, he took cover inside the 12th Temple as he was about to reach it anyway, especially when the Dark Revenge Blast Apocalypse was summoned. He kept expecting the feared Pisces Saint to show up around the corner and ambush him, but he was almost all the way out and yet nothing happened.

Was everyone gone? The servants and soldiers they stalked all the way up the Zodiac were nowhere in sight and the Temple was silent as a grave. He couldn't feel anyone else's cosmos either anymore.

Following the morning light out, the last of the False Specters cautiously stepped outside the Temple and beheld with disbelief the rose-adorned stairway to the Pope's Hall.

"Ah…. Ah, ah…. I've done it! I've MADE IT! I see the Pope's Temple… and the statue, too!" he shouted, running up the stairs. "YES, I'm gonna reach it! The whole world will hear my name! Do you see this, you stupid Judges?! I'VE WON!"

Incredible! Of all the powerful Specter Elites, of even the Prince himself, who would have imagined he, Cait Sith Palug, would have made it to Athena's sanctum?! He should hurry up and claw the Pope's head off his shoulders before the others caught up.

Meanwhile, Aquarius Camus joined Pisces Aphrodite at the roof of the Pisces Temple, where they could both see this sad scene.

The Aquarius shook head. "How sad. Why didn't you just kill him?!"

The cyan-haired Swede shrugged his shoulders. "Shut up, this is funnier."

Shaking his head lamentingly, Camus wondered what was so amusing about toying with people's hopes like this, folded arms and waited until the roses' perfume did its work. The False Specter, ecstatic as he was, started slowing down more and more, drawing heavier breaths, not realizing the demon roses scent was filling his bloodstream with toxins. He then fell on his face, completely paralyzed. He clearly was still awake as his glassy eyes watched the flowers suddenly bloom all around him, encroaching him, their thorns dripping digestive acid.

His death would be slow, agonizing and horrifying to watch.

Aphrodite saw Camus stare at him expectantly. "What?! Look, I didn't get to do anything tonight! Let me kill just one! He put mud all over my Hall floor! Also, look at him!" he pointed. "It's a catboy Specter! His Surplice has his chest all exposed! It's stupid-looking! He deserves to get wacked!"

The French just kept staring. "We could use a couple more captives to answer some questions. Also… it's inhumane."

"As opposed to what; locking them in your freezer?!" Pisces eventually rolled his eyes. "Alright, fine! I'll go get him before he gets dissolved! Happy?!"

Camus nodded, smiling. "Yup. Now everything's coming up roses."

Aphrodite groaned outloud.

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

Gemini Temple

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

Crossing through the third Temple with the captured Dark Prince, the Saints of Athena had deeply conflicting emotions boiling inside of them, ranging from the happiness of triumphing over the Specters to the trauma of being attacked so unexpectedly and brutally at such a young age. Dropping the younger ones like Shaka and Aiolia at their Houses, Saga and Aiolos couldn't help but wonder if everything was going to be truly fine even with the attack repelled.

Then it happened; the most sensitive among them felt the cosmos of Cait Sith Palug vanishing.

Aiolos let out a conclusive breath. "Thank Goddess, it's over for good."

"Not yet, Sagittarius." Akassius disagreed. "Daniel stayed behind to assault the Crow's Nest fortress, where many still remained. The attack on our home is over, yes, but skirmishing may endure for weeks, if not months."

The Sagittarius took the word seriously. "You must know better than me, Lord Duke, given… your experience." He then continued the rest mentally. "The Specters spoke of my predecessor briefly. They seem to be allied."

A look of deep concern went through the older man's face, glancing away as if wondering what the future held. He seemed more affected by this than any of the destruction he saw in the Zodiac. "…It matches the initial reports from Crow's Nest. The Pope seemed to believe he was involved in that somehow."

Aiolos frowned. "Do you think it's true? Would Priam… join with these people? Tell me the truth."

Despite their legendary animosity, the former Gold Saint of Gemini sighed and spoke of his enemy in unexpected terms. "I'd like to think not."

As they made their way out, Aiolos had one final question. "Lord Akassius… why did Sagittarius Priam turn against us?" he confronted. Lucifer spoke of terrible things, saying Shion would eventually do the same to them. "Why did Pisces Aeneas and Mu's predecessor join him? Lucifer spoke of the Pope hitting him through his family, but I could never believe Lord Shion was capable of such a thin.…However, no matter how hard I think about it… it couldn't have been over nothing."

The pain caused by this question was stamped on the stern warrior's face. One day, they would have to be open and honest about the reason, especially if these youths kept risking their lives to fight grudge enemies like this Daemon Specter.

But not just yet. "His Holiness… made a terrible mistake against him, a mistake that Priam has pointed well that it would have made my faith in Athena shake, too. Lord Arles, despite being the one the Goddess trusted the most among our fallible species, is not perfect, while Priam, as the Sagittarius, was expected himself to be… So, much like Andromeda, he stuck to his ideals.. However, Saint Aiolos –" he stressed. "- Arles is still the Pope… And he has the weight of the world on his shoulders, so that it doesn't fall on ours. Remember that."

Aiolos nodded. "I will." And he then waved the rest goodbye. "We'll take it from here, Saga. Take a rest."

Saga shook his head. "No, I can just leave my armor here and…" he then held his head with a wince.

Akassius took a small handkerchief and pressed it against the teenager's nose to wipe the red away. "You're still bleeding from the effort you made. Saint Aiolos is right, you need to rest."

"I'll help you fix the place up when we're back." Aiolos promised as he left.

"Thank you." Watching them leave with Lucifer, he then let himself finally rest, hitting back against wall with an exhausted sigh. "Thank the Goddess. We really did it…" but he looked away in guilt. "No, I did very little… I wasn't managing that last attack at all."

Akassius, however, shook his hand. "No, Saga, you did great. I wasn't going to get here in time to send that away by myself." He assured. "Combined with your feats in Tibet, you'll likely receive a condonation."

The blue-haired Gemini processed the legendary Gold Saint complimenting him. "Lord Duke."

The black-haired veteran noticed a familiar sadness in Saga's eyes. He then surveyed their surroundings to make sure they were alone. "Without telling me anything straight, did you have troubles with your 'other half' tonight?"

Blinking with the sudden sympathy from someone who had made it clear Saga was to face the Path of Gemini alone, the Gold Saint ran fingers through hair. From Kanon getting involved in the fighting to Saga finding out he was messing around with Black Saints, trouble was an understatement.

He looked at the shadows of the Temple from where he already expected Kanon to be back to and spying on them "…Yes. Some unpleasant situations happened."

The veteran nodded. "I see. Keep up your training. Eventually the next stages of your communion will be reached."

Saga then was jaw dropped when the man walked away. "Wait, that's it?!" he confronted. "I'm keeping my… other self hidden away, pretending it's not there, for years on end! I can't talk about it to my friends, I can't acknowledge it to those that already knew of it, even! I can't even talk to it straight without looking over the shoulder for eavesdroppers, like it's a demon and not my brother!"

Akassius paused, lowering head sadly.

Saga continued, eyes red with frustration. "Did you know Daemon was a Gemini, too?! Do you know what kind of poison he tossed at me and my other half tonight?! Even his Behemoth knew I had a knife pointed at my neck not to speak of it! Now I find out Kan… my other half may have been the mole that cooperated with the Black Saints and that's all you have to say?!"

"What would you like me to say, Saga?"

The teenager clenched fists. "A hint, a clue, a word of wisdom about what awaits me! Anything! Out of all the living veterans, you're the only one that didn't train his successor, me! Yet I feel like I have to do something far worse than any of the others to master my armor!" he wailed, sinking face into palms.

The black-haired Duke wasn't insensitive to this. He was a father of two after all, and Galan was just about Saga's age, maybe a bit older. He knew very well the unfairness involved in the Path of Gemini and wouldn't wish it on Galan or Marco.

Saga's head sunk. "Am I really cursed?... Are my eyes to turn red like Lance's… by my own Cloth? I want to hug my half… I want to talk about him as I grow as a Saint… I want to share my happiness with him…instead, I have to treat him like a goblin because… because of our issues." Tears rolled in his eyelids, but he wept them away. "We are both fucked up, so why is he the only one in the dark?!"

Akassius glanced aside, where he was sure he saw a shadow slick away behind the ruins at Saga's words.

He then sighed and granted Saga's wish of an answer. "The path of Gemini… is painful, Saga. I understand how you feel." He lamented, meaning the plural you. "We don't exactly choose the month we are born in, either, or even the talent with the Cosmos, so you're not at fault for your sad fate."

"Then… what can I do?"

The veteran did the only thing he could and hugged the teenager. "I'm sorry, Saga. All I can ask of you is to keep being brave… and one day you'll get to the other side, too."

Saga's fingers tensed on the man's back. He cleaned his face of tears and let go. "How did you do it… in the end?" he asked. "How did it end for you and your other half?"

"After all the sacrifices, you mean?" Akassius queried, needing specification. The path of Gemini was so treacherous that Saga might as well have asked how to get through the next day. "After it became clear we were at the end of the Cloth's Path and our soul's coin been tossed?"

Saga nodded.

A reflecting beat of silence followed.

This quietness wasn't over nothing. Akassius found himself speechless as memories of standing in the rain after everyone left the graveyard, staring at the stone slab for hours and hours, came to him. He could still feel Paris' stare in his back, though, burning him with questions. The Scorpio had never looked at him the same way since.

Then daylight returned to Akassius' eyes and he gave the ugly answer. "I killed mine." 7

The war hero of Sanctuary then politely gestured a farewell and left, walking down the steps, confident in Athena's smile in his heart. Saga was left there with open jaw, matched by an equally stunned Kanon in the shadows.

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

Sanctuary Mountain Pass,

Stardust Prison Gate

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

With the morning sun now rising, the many hoplites guarding the tower watched with awe and spite the surviving Specters being escorted into the building, most of them still frozen by Camus' ice. The weaker ones were taken in first by medical cart, sporting many injuries that the medics would have to begrudgingly treat, while the Silver Saints reunited with the Bronzes.

This included Cassiopeia Cynthia, who ran to hug the Andromeda Saint "SHINTA!" Taking him in, she squeezed his head as tight as she could. "T-Thank the Goddess you're alright! After Kiki told me you were here, I was so worried!"

"I'm sorry, miss Cynthia." he apologized, regretful. "I would have woken you up, but it was very early in the fighting. I thought you might get killed…"

Nam scratched his head. "Us get killed? What about you? And what happened to your armor?"

The very damaged Bronze Saint let go of the Cassiopeia and looked down somberly. "Andromeda got killed in the fight… I guess I have to go to Lord Mu to revive her with my blood."

A huge figure flashed in with Kiki, none other than Herakles Aguilon. "Unfortunately that won't be so easy!"

Everyone gasped. "Aguilon?"

"SHINTA! Everyone made it!" Mu celebrated, crying into the Bronze Saint.

"Ah, ah, isn't that a heartwarmer?" the gigantic Silver Saint then showed off the Compass Bronze Cloth box "I've just gotten back from Jamir with 'Kiki', where I recovered this. Unfortunately fixing all the armors might take a while. The bastard Specters burned the tower down to cinders."

Nam and Cynthia exchanged a suspicious look, having both secretly noticed before the invasion began what was going on in Romania . "Why were you in Asia?"

Aguilon scoffed and pointed at the muscled Ophiuchus Saint at the bench. "Long story short, I was looking for that sunshine smile over there after a talk with Saint Libra."

The two hesitated for a moment. "(Let's not push it for now, Cynthia.)" Nam recommended,

To which she nodded, before taking Guardnia's old student out of there. "Come on, Shinta, let's go see our students at New Lalibela before they drive Kastiel mad and he abandons them in a mountain, too."

As they left, attention was focused, though, on the four figures in the rear, namely the Scorpio Saint, the Capricorn Saint, the Sagittarius Saint and, finally, the chained up silver-haired man on the dolly. The Pegasus Saint was also ahead of them, but his armor was gone and he seemed to be mostly making way for the VIPs.

The chained Daemon read the words on the archway. "Pray to Athena before you enter, for she shall not be with you inside?" he then scoffed, amused.

The pious Capricorn didn't find this funny. "I'd take it seriously if I were you, Specter. There's no mercy inside the Stardust Prison. Making peace with Athena now is about the only thing that would save your soul."

His red eyes slid to his, reminded of the talk he had at the Colossus. "Consider it done."

The sheer blasphemy in his tone made Shura appalled. "You-"

"Just ignore him, Shura." Aiolos urged. He then saw a familiar face sitting by the bench that made him immediately anxious to further hide his face in his mask. "Crap! That's… Doctor Iaso and that comatose girl! I knew someone was pinging me!"

Lance handed the hoplites the Papal orders on paper to arrest these invaders and noticed the Silver Saint. "Doctor Iaso."

And he still had no manners. "It's Saint Iaso among military men, Pegasus. You keep forgetting protocol, don't you?" he chided, though he was too happy about this nightmare being over to really harp on him. " Still… you survived. Are you okay, though? You look like you went through a meat grinder. I can give you some medical attention if you want."

For the first time since the triumph, Lance really looked himself down. His red shirt was tattered all over, exposing several slash wounds, the center of it was burst open into an ugly scar left behind by Teos' healing that would mark him forever, he was swollen all over his face and his hand-wrapped knuckles were probably black underneath the fabric from all the punching he did.

He scratched head self-consciously. "...Yes, I think I'd appreciate that, Saint Iaso."

The brown-haired doctor looked around for a bit and then approached Lance closely. "And hey, you know, in the consultation, if you happened to talk about a little about what you saw up the temples… doctor-patient confidentiality applies and all."

Lance, however, shook his head and went inside to get the jailmen ready for the new prisoners. "No, Saint Iaso, it really doesn't."

Frowning, the conspiracy-minded doctor sat back in the bench, rejoining the dazed blonde girl he accompanied. "Darn secrecy!… We risked our lives too! Ever seen a Gold Saint, Cerah? Soak it all in, cause these guys are gonna hide back in their Temples as soon as the gates close on these Specters."

The blonde teenager blinked. "What?"

He looked at her weirdly. He agreed with taking her through the Green Valley since he wanted to make sure she reached Rodario back safely and look out for any post-trauma symptoms, and it seemed that Cerah was still in shock if she was distracted from noticing the three men in golden armor.

In reality, though, her green eyes were taken by the figure they were escorting. Stripped of his armor and chained neck-to-toe, Daemon Lucifer, Celestial Star of Pride watched himself dragged into the building unblinkingly, making her nightmare a reality.

She unconsciously stepped forward. "Lucif… No, that's not his name!..."

Recognizing the girl as Saint Iaso's old comatose patient, the masked Sagittarius Saint noticed this and politely held her back. "I'm sorry, miss, I can't let you get any closer. In fact, I need to ask you to leave."

Cerah gasped, appalled.

Iaso, however, disagreed, immediately hostile to these stuck up paladins. "I'm the doctor that's going to treat these guys. You HAVE to let me in."

The masked Aiolos nodded, taking care not to give any indication to the Ophiuchus that he was talking to his intern, and shook his hand as the man pulled his credentials. "Dr. Iaso, you don't need to identify yourself, Aiolos told me about you. He says you're a great medic and Saint."

The brown haired doctor widened eyes. "He has? Uh."

Aiolos smiled. "He's also very glad to know you're okay. I told him you got into quite an incredible amount of fighting. I want you to be sure that the House of Sagittarius will commend you for defeating Papillon Ainsel."

While his memory of how he did it was still a complete blur, the flattery seemed to have left him speechless and red-faced.

The doctor then did the only thing he knew in these situations and flicked his lighter. "I might go easier on him a little bit, then, when he finally turns up."

"He also asked me to recommend you to keep off the smokes. You're making good progress, after-"

The lighter was shut with a snap. "You TELL that kid to mind his own damn business and that he's gonna be put on morgue duty if he keeps ignoring his beeper!"

While the two conversed, Cerah took the chance to get a good look at her mentor, chained to a dolly like an insane person and flanked by the Capricorn and Scorpio Saints. "(L-Lucian!)"

The Daemon noticed her. "You haven't earned calling me that yet, little knight."

She stared appalled. Her body then shook in anger at his arrogance. "(How… HOW COULD YOU?!)"

His red eyes looked away. She must have seen the dead. "I told you to stay in Rodario. You're lucky to be alive."

"A-ALIVE?! I s-spent my LIFE looking up to you! You were the only person in the whole world I could! You taught me to be faithful, honorable and proud, even though my family and home were GONE!" she mentally screamed. "AND…. A-AND you MURDERED those PEOPLE!"

This, however, was silly to the Specter. "I promised I'd deal with anyone who stood in my way. Those men stood in my way. The rest is talk." Lucifer mercilessly corrected her. Her shattered heart became stamped on her shocked face. "...You're getting stronger and more beautiful, Cerah… but you still don't know the way the world works. Saintly Saints do not exist, and neither do Princes among demons."

The round green eyes and quivering lips then hardened into a teary rage. "H-HOW DARE YOU KEEP ME FROM DAESE, THEN?!"

He exhaled. "… Because she will destroy you." he flatly answered. "Your sister is obsessed. She doesn't truly love you. If she gets her hands on you, you'll become an avenger just like she has. Go home to Eurydice, now, Cerah. She'll want to know you're safe."

While Saint Iaso still debated with the Sagittarius Gold Saint who had the right to call the shots about his health, Cerah gritted teeth and walked away in anger, tears rolling down her face. She felt so ashamed. Worse yet, she felt herself tumbling down on a stack of skulls in the darkness, no longer held up by how she saw the Prince.

She ran out of the premises into the Rodario road. How could he say this?! How could he do all this?! After everything he taught her?! Everything she's done to earn his….

Scorpio Milo saw Shura looking around. "What's wrong?"

The Capricorn let up. For a moment he felt in the Cosmos something he was trained by his Master to kill on sight and then he saw someone in the crowd running away. "Nothing. I thought I smelled a Cy… it's nothing."

"You're probably smelling your own fear, little Saint." Lucifer provoked, distracting him out of the fleeing Cerah. "I'm sure your Excalibur being parried shook you up a bit. In fact, the little two of you have been shaking the whole trip here, even though I'm stuck to this thing."

Lance came back from the gate as the rest of the False Specters were finally processed. "Shut up, you're next! Let's see how fucking brave you are sixty feet under the earth, shackled to a much of other murderers!"

Lucifer's red orbs met his. "Don't think it's over for you either, dear Lance." he promised. "You've earned the right for me to recognize you as a warrior, much like your master. You're the Teos Saint now, after all… But that just means your troubles have just begun."

Lance sweated. In retrospective, he didn't like the sound of the armor's offer as much now. "What do you mean?! What do you know about that armor?!"

"Don't you think there's a reason that armor was sunk inside the Death Queen Island volcano? Why Shion preferred to forget about it instead of cataloging it, hoard it even at Star Hill?" he asked. "Nothing good ever comes out of Sanctuary's legends, Lance."

But the provocation failed on the Cancer. "Perhaps not… but I survived you, Lucian, and you were pretty hellbent on getting that thing, so I think I'll survive whatever Teos is, too!"

The dolly-chained Prince chuckled. "Yes, good answer! This night has changed you, has it not? I like the shine in your eyes now! You have earned calling me by my real name. We share the same cursed red in our eyes, do we not? We're both survivors!"

Utterly sick of the Specter's blasphemy, Shura pushed his dolly through the gate. "Ugh, I'll get us rid of him!"

"I look forward to see where this new spirit of yours lands you!" Lucifer shouted over shoulder, carried into the inner elevator. "Farewell, Pegasus Lance!"

The metal gate then closed down, signaling the end of the False Holy War.

The two Saints stared at it, taking in the moment of conclusion

Until Milo scoffed, breaking silence. "Man, what an asshole! Thank the Goddess it's over!" and he walked away, tugging Lance along. "Come on, Lance! Ms. Shafurwatt said she's going to make cake to celebrate. I wanna get back in time before Mephisto steals it or something."

The older Saint seemed distracted. "You go ahead. I'll join you later." he promised. He wanted to get a moment to himself to gather his bearings on everything that happened.

At this point, Aguilon passed him by, also on his way out. The giant extended him a hand. "I've heard everything about what happened. You did great, kiddo."

Lance reluctantly took it, cringing at the crushing grip around his hand, wrist AND forearm. "O-OW…..thank you. From who?"

The lion-helmeted man smirked in superiority. "From someone with a lifetime of punishments waiting for you when you get back to China…He's pretty angry at some of the stuff you pulled." he then scratched his scarred chin. "I wasn't told you were being trained by the mighty Libra Dohko. I've admired that guy since I was a Bronze Saint."

Lance smiled. He didn't mind the rattling he would hear. Without Dohko, he'd be dead or worse. "I can tell why now."

The Herakles Saint grinned, impressed. "Hey, look at who's being all appreciatin'! You've changed, kid… You're gonna get hell from the rich bags, being the Patron Saint and all during this attack, but keep this spirit up and I'll have your back! You're not a prodigy on the level of those other brats, but you're gonna do great things, too!"

His back was then patted very spiritedly, which almost knocked Lance to the ground, and the giant left to tend to his affairs, leaving Lance to his own worried thoughts.

Herakles was right in more than one way about how hell was going to come. And once again they could do little other than wait for the next calamity to happen. It was probably going to take him weeks, though, before it really sunk on him the radical change in circumstances that the past forty eight hours brought. They hadn't just found out about the False Specters and been attacked, but also discovered the existence of the sacred armor of Teos and a collusion between Sagittarius Priam and Daemon Lucifer, not to mention confirming a major hidden weakness in the Temples' defenses.

Between all this, Jamir being burned down, Shion not being absolutely honest, the Lemurians murdered in Tibet and all the answering they'd have to do to Sanctuary's elites about how a Specter got all the way to the Colossus, it was impossible to guess what was going to happen next, but he could guess none of it would be good.

Hell, Lance hardly even believed he was still alive, and not bleeding to death on the floor or burned up in the stratosphere. It was all just too surreal, especially for someone who didn't smile much in general like himself. How could he rest easy, knowing something equally fucked up could explode all over again in their faces just when they think they can relax?

...His eyes narrowed in outrage.

Unless he did something about all this shit!

A thought formed in his head. A strange and frightening one inspired by his years doing missions as a Bronze Saint, which promised just as many rewards as risks. He'd have to be insane to consider this, especially after surviving so much. Any other Saint in his shoes would probably retire after the False Holy War and pass the torch to the next, but why the hell should he do that? No, … it was time to get his thumb off his ass.

His 7th sense looked around Sanctuary, looking for a particular signature. He needed to contact someone with connections and only really knew one he could trust. Detecting it, he zipped out of there towards Rodario.

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

Underworld,

Giudecca Palace

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

The audience watching the battles observed the final moments of the conflict with unbroken attention. With Daemon Lucifer and his men escorted into the Stardust Prison, soon the Gold Saints would return their armors to their Temples and that would be the last of their spying on Greece.

The Wyvern Specter watched with a delighted scoff as the curtains closed on the False Holy War. "There, he failed, like I always said! Lord Hades, don't worry about any of the Underworld's secrets being spilled by that traitor! Put me in command over him and I'll reorganize your kingdom into the most effective fighting force in Olympus!"

Tired and a bit disappointed, the Underworld God just nodded along. "Of course. I'm sure you won't disappoint me again."

Meanwhile, Pandora stared at the mirror with her faith shaken; for a minute, before the Saints pulled through at Sagittarius, she really believed that the Pride Star had done it, and there was no denying that he had made it to the Colossus through a nearly fully guarded Zodiac, which was more than could be said from any of their efforts in the last war. More importantly, it demonstrated that Gods like Athena were not infallible and a human force could reach their inner sanctums with enough planning and determination.

The idea of it made her shiver in fear for her brother's safety. Sanctuary, and this new Saint of Teos, needed to be exterminated as soon as possible! "I'll just do my duty for now. My turn to aid my brother will come."

As she aided her brother in getting up, the God Hypnos questioned his Master. "This is a concerning turn of events, Emperor. Michael is showing little sign of himself in his new body, despite his Yours Ever pendant."

The puppet offered his sister a thanking smile and answered his subaltern. "It's no matter. We have time on our side. Much like Lucifer, my Specters cannot escape the shadows in their hearts. Michael will return to us… they all will."

The Sleep God staggered on their way out the room. "My lord?! Time is on our side?... But our Earthly castle is under siege and the Cloth of Teos has blessed a Saint once more! Aren't you concerned?!"

Hades looked out a nearby window and smirked. "Why should I be, Hypnos? This is perfect for us." And walked away with Pandora to have tea together.

In utter shock, Hypnos looked out the same window, seeing naught but the Underworld's sky. However, as he squinted, he then noticed it; as if a wink left behind by Lord Hades, a particular Evil Star was shining back at the Sleep God's gaze, brimming with renewed force.

He recognized it well; the Celestial Violence Star?!8 The blonde deity eyed the distancing Emperor, reminded of why, for all his wily, Hypnos' machinations were paltry before the Emperor's.

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

Rodario,

Solo Ranch

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

Closing the pen on Sophie at the stable, Adriana left the Solo's ranch with a sigh of relief at the night of horror being over. If she returned home fast enough, she could still change off her tattered garments and conceal her wounds before her family noticed it. The more she could make it seem like nothing happened at all, the better, especially after having left her ring with Cerah.

Leaving the fields, she carefully closed the gate, turned around -

-and staggered in fright, finding someone zipping in right in front of her, making her grab her sword handle! "Oh!"

Lance gasped, seeing her blade about to be drawn "Wait, sorry, it's just me!"

She held chest, still jumpy after all the fighting, and chuckled. "Ah, ah, goddess!...Please don't do that." She combed a hair strand and looked his poor state over. "Are you okay? What happened to you?"

He blinked in shock, seeing the equally crappy state she was in, a jarring sight contrasted with how prim she usually looked. "What happened to me? I fought a Gold Saint killer and shot myself into space! What the hell happened to you? I thought you left Sanctuary."

Clearing strands of hair and composing herself, she acted like she didn't have blood splattered all over her. "Nothing, I …. found some fleeing Skeletons."

Lance noticed a dead moth falling off her arm when she dusted herself and put two and two together. They never got a straight answer as to how Iaso killed Ainsel, did they?

She saw his eyes on the moth and crushed it with her suede boot. "Well, let's… pretend that didn't happen."

This baffled the Gold Saint. "...Why?"

Her almond eyes scurried in every direction, reflecting her anxiety. He had no idea why Adriana wouldn't brag about such a major contribution. Without Ainsel's barriers, they were finally able to work together better against Lucian. He imagined it had something to do with the shitty secrecy world she lived in, but what could possibly explain hiding such major bragging rights?

"Adriana, do you have any idea how many lives you must have saved with that? Including my own?" he confronted. "Thanks to you, we were all able to work together to defeat the enemy boss. Why are you trying to hide how you helped? You're not exactly a shy person."

But she gave him a concerned look. "Well, true…. Nevertheless, I don't like having Sanctuary's eyes on me. You know how its looks can kill. Besides…" and she gazed away. "It wasn't a clean kill. I made him suffer. I made him bleed. I don't want people I don't trust seeing that side of me. You understand, don't you?"

The Saint grimaced, acquiescing and resting hands in pockets.. "I do…. Still-" and he looked away nervously "-if you really fought that guy, I'm glad…. you came out of it alright."

She blinked, unsure if she heard right. "I'm sorry?"

He faced away completely, feeling his head warm. How could he phrase this? "I don't know why, but while I was up there, fighting at Libra, hearing that Daemon bastard yelling all sorts of terrible threats, I suddenly got very worried about you. I thought for a moment that if I failed, you'd be one of the people he'd kill. It just…" and he groaned in frustration, unused to express these kinds of thoughts with anyone but Shinta and Roshi. "It just made me happy to see you alive!..."

The strawberry-blonde woman then saw him shut down emotionally as soon as he finished these words, stunning her. Her lips curved gently. "...Awh, that's actually sweet of you…"

He shook head. "But hey, listen, that's not why I'm here. I needed to ask you something." he asserted. "After everything that happened tonight, I thought about things a lot, especially with how everyone's lives were endangered, including yours, and how it could all happen again as soon as tomorrow. I'm a Saint of Athena, so it's normal for me, but… it just drove me insane how, even as a Gold, I was so powerless to stop anything tonight. It made me realize that if I want to see a change in the world, instead of just bitching about it at the Cancer Temple, I need to step out into the world and help realize it… but I can't do it alone."

She followed so far, but where was he going with this? "Okay, what's on your mind, then?"

He narrowed eyes in determination and lowered his head at her, offering his hand. This was the toughest thing he could possibly word out of his mouth. It was absolutely insane, especially with how young they were. "Adriana, this is… something crazy to ask, but... will you..."

She gasped, seeing him humbling himself so much and a hopeful shine in his eyes. Wait, what the heck was going on? Was this that kind of situation?! He wasn't getting the wrong idea, was he?!

Adriana had to stop this! The Cancer was brave, attractive and understood her darker side, but she didn't want to lose a rare friend she took comfort with to a spur-of-the-moment confession. "Saint Lance, maybe you misunderstood something! We both went through some intense things tonight, but I don't think this is-"

But he held her hand and finally blurted it out. "Adriana, will you help me invade the Underworld?!"

Her face froze, flabbergasted. "….What?!"

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

Meanwhile,

far away from Sanctuary

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

A flying, feathery shadow broke the clouds apart, entering the palatial field of grass in the highest of rises. Flapping, the owl broke its flight and aimed its sharp toes at the vine-crept balcony. Gliding bast its rail, though, it instead burst into a flash of light, materializing into a person of long, waist length air and a massive, purple armor with very large forearm guards.

She knelt before the person behind the window curtain. "My Lord."

The man's shadow turned to her. It was large, broad-shouldered and with pale blonde hair reaching its shoulders, as well as a white glow in the eyes akin to a thunderbolt's flash. He was wearing white, silky clothes that made his muscular frame obvious and were covered by myriad parts of a magnificent golden armor.

"Yes, Partita?"

Partita dared not look up. "The False Holy War has ended in Sanctuary, my Lord. Hades' Dark Prince was defeated by Pegasus Lance, who was chosen for the Teos Cloth. No Gold Saints died, but the False Specters were all annihilated." she recited. "I made sure of every observation."

The man looked away in reflection. "Yes, I'm sure you paid very close attention. You didn't repeat mistakes from the past, though, right? That armor appeared on its own volition?9"

"It did. I have no such power, my lord. " she firmly answered. "The sacrifices the Gold Saints made to stop Lucifer attracted the armor. Although,…. the Prince may have forced your daughter's hand. Her armor's spirit came to him in a vision just before Teos appeared."

The man behind the curtain smiled, intrigued. "I see. What a fascinating coincidence. Thank you, my dear. You did wonderfully."

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

Golden Zodiac

Papal Chambers

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

Returning home, the Holy Father walked somberly through the destruction caused by his fight with Daemon Lucifer. The flames died down to leave black marks on the marble and ruined tapestry of the faithful woven to honor the goddess, but this was more than acceptable compared to having the mountain flattened by Daemon Lucifer's Apocalypse.

He touched the button underneath the throneroom's arm, making it slide aside to reveal a compartment where a Japanese Puzzlebox rested. Relieved to seeing it, he still took it, solving its 900-stepped puzzle at the speed of light, he unlocked it briefly just to make sure its contents didn't disappear in the chaos, or while he was unconscious.

Eventually a click was heard, making its top slide up. It's content was a reddened piece of ice created by Hyoga, the frozen blood of Sasha herself, left behind should they need a God Cloth to be formed to stop some catastrophic emergency. Had Lucifer discovered this was here, he'd be able to use it to recreate the Laurels of Arles, creating the opposite result. Luckily, thanks to the efforts of his Gold Saints, that nightmare was stopped and they close the chapter on the Athenian Emperor's legacy.

...Or could they?

Hiding it back, Shion sat on the throne, thinking about how close they all got to seeing Lucian in it. His thoughts turned far away, to western lands. "(Leon?)"

It took a bit to get an answer. "(Yes, your Holiness?)"

Shion hesitated, stuck between his consciousness and his mission. "(I… would just like an update on your mission.)"

Once again the mental message went through delays and static. The silver-haired mercenary was likely on a plane. "(I'm following Priam's trail closely. I think he might be in Japan. I'm heading there as we speak.)"

"(Japan?…)" he wondered. It was Tenma's home country, but also one of Leon's old training grounds. "(I'm sure you'll love to visit Hokkaido again, but are you sure?)"

All the way on the plane, Leon tugged the Kido logo he found in Alaska and his hunter eyes shined with a pleased smirk. "(I believe my next lead is there, yes. Don't worry, Shion… I'll wipe all your old shames off the face of the Earth. Priam's days are counted.)"

The message line then went silent on Shion's end, who struggled to confess Leon the truth. Should he say it? Should he let the youth know who just came knocking at their door in the middle of the night? Everytime he kept the truth away, he protected Sanctuary, but also created new problems.

….

No, the Cloth of Teos was with them now. Nothing could go wrong anymore. "Good luck, Leon. And don't underestimate Priam."

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

Chapter End

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

Next Chapter: Chapter 69 – Side Story - The Curse of Hatred – Part 1

Deadline: February 13th (fic's birthday)

Author's Notes:

Holy dang bells, the Second Arc is FINISHED! Can you believe it? No? Me neither. The last 6 months were non-stop work, writing, editing and trying to get beta-readers to look through this last crunch of chapters and now I'm utterly exhausted.

This is the reason behind the extended vacation I'll now be taking. While I have plenty of old writing material to salvage in recreating the Death Queen Island Side Story, I still feel pretty emotionally spent and I think I need a pause to plan things out better for the next phase of the story. I can now brag that I've written the same Holy War twice in my lifetime, though, and that's kind of crazy when you think about it.

Today on False Specter Etymogoly, we finish off with a bang with THREE characters that have met the end of their arc in this chapter, Lucifer, Neferti and Torak. Sphinx Neferti is fairly straightforward, I simply picked a female Egyptian name that sounded mythological enough, in the tradition of the series. As for Torak, he is a mispronounciation of Toruk, the name of a Behemoth Specter with no lines that briefly appears in the narrative background of Jenny DeVic's Love You Kill Me. Torak has been around since Version 2, hence why.

Finally, Lucifer, and his case should be pretty damn obvious. He's the Daemon Specter, after all, the ArchDEVIL of Despair. However, if you want a deeper explanation, waaaaay back in V1, Lucifer was always going to be the first villain tackled in the series, a sort of Vegeta to Lance's Goku, a comparison that still echoes today with all of Lucifer's obsession with his monarchical background, so I was looking to create a Specter character that screamed "envious, prideful rival". Again, this was back in time when Lance was supposed to be Michael's reincarnation, instead of Shinta. Hence, you know… Morning Star and all.

Since the arc is coming to an end, I'll be officially retiring the/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\ you've been seeing for the past 30-so chapters in the scene separation bars. In case you are wondering, they were supposed to be a very vague visual reference to the shape of Lucifer's headpiece (check out Bluefeather/Balasdan's artworks on him when you can), since this arc was originally called the "Lucifer Arc" in version 2 of the story. I don't know yet what the next header will be shaped like, but I'll likely use a generic one for the Side Story until I come up with something fun.

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.

I hope you enjoyed… "The False Holy War", as well as the new artpiece done by Bluefeather of Teos Lance! \ owo /

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The Past – Lost Canvas War

Death Queen Island

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

The volcanic peak screamed, unleashing a shower of fire into the skies and rocking the entire island, making ground fissures open up and the insides of the Queen's volcano burst at the seams with infernal magma.

"ANOTHER DIMENSION!"

Defteros' gate of light opened far away from the disaster, spitting out four Saints of Athena, three Bronzes and one Gold.

The Cygnus rubbed head and helped Andromeda up. "We're… we're alive! What happened?!"

The tan-skinned demon Gemini stepped out the gate, closing it. "I saved your lives, little Saints, that's what. You owe them to me, now..."

His green-haired friend shook head to dispel his migraine. "We were under attack… and then Saint Haisaku summoned the armor in the lava I was feeling all along. After that it was just chaos."

The swan's one eye widened and pointed up at the three shadows flying off the volcano. "LOOK! Those three are retreating! We won!"

Libra beamed up. "AH-AH! Take that, you ghouls! Fly back to your castle! We'll be saving Alone NEXT!" And he turned to Sage Haisaku. "Haisaku, you've done it! You've summoned the armor an…"

Their hearts stopped and their faces froze.

Dohko screamed and rushed to her. "HAISAKU!"

Laying on the ground, the unmasked, orange-haired woman winced in agony, covered in glowing, liquid ghoul shaped like the Phoenix God Cloth adorned with bone-shaped plates, referencing the two marks of fire and darkness in her life, but the metal seemed to be liquidizing on her, heavy like lead and scalding her skin painfully.

"D-Dohko…!" she winced as he held his hand.

"Haisaku, what happened?! What's this thing doing to you?!" The Libra Gold Saint panicked and tried to scoop it off of her with his fingers, but simply burned himself. "AHG!"

"No, Saint Dohko!" Andromeda shouted, but the Libra kept trying. With tears in his eyes, Dohko burned his watery cosmos and tried to save his teacher, clawing the liquid metal with his fingers. "You'll hurt yourself!"

"D-Dohko, S-STOP!" Haisaku herself shouted, pushing him back with her fingertips. "S-stop… or it will kill you, too..."

His jaw dropped in horror as he watched the golden slime eating away at her cosmos and body, thinning both in front of their eyes. "B-But…. I don't understand…"

She looked away sadly. "This is the price you pay…. for using Teos…. A long time ago, when the Phoenix cleansed me of my evil, this armor came to me. It said it was impressed by my sacrifices and wished to make its contract with me. The power of the armor is such…. that it now allowed me to send those awful Specters away from you all… "

The swan-armored Bronze Saint darkened his expression. "I see now… As soon as the Specters showed up, you were already going to sacrifice yourself."

"I h-had to use everything it had in store to both protect you and cast the Princes out. The armor charges with energy around it to gain its shape. It's so marvelous... but the brightest candle with burn all the fastest." her burning arm rose, showing it being consumed to give the armor its solidity back. "Now it lost its consistency and needs to reform itself,… but even Teos can't create something from nothing."

Trembling, the weeping Dohko held it, but his fingers closed on stardust, making the forearm and hand drop on the ground, leaving a bright stump of light behind. "H-Haisaku…!"

Defteros observed the whole thing with a scoff. "We all have to pay for our pasts AND for our weakness, Saints of Athena. Phoenix Haisaku's turn has come. You all better fight so that yours doesn't, too."

She wept back and her remained hand held his cheek and combed his hair. "D-Dohko… I'm so sorry! Please f-forgive me. I wasn't there when you needed me the most, but now… I can finally make it up to you. Take this armor to Athena. With it, you can save Tenma and win this Holy War."

His eyes closed, expelling tears, and he roared in frustration as he felt the touch of her hand weakening. "M-Mom! I don't want you to die for this! I never did." he protested. "I… don't want you to be g-gone again…!"

She closed her eyes somberly and she held his hand against her chest to feel her heartbeat as she burned the last of her cosmos. "It's okay, Dohko…. Everything I knew, everything I built…. It now lives through you. I love you, little cub." she then kissed his forehead as her heartbeat slowed to an halt and her body crumbled into stardust, her last thoughts to him echoed in the air "Goodbye."

The solidifying pieces of the Teos Cloth then collapsed on the volcanic ground amidst a pile of shining stardust, reinvigorated. The Libra Gold Saint wailed to the skies, comforted only by the sympathetic hands on his armored shoulders and the shower of phoenix plumes molted in the air by the departing spirit

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