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.

68. SS2: The Curse of Hatred - Part 2 of 6

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

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

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

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

Author Notes:

-This chapter has been betaread by Siena;

-February has been a fruitful month in hits! Almost 850. Thank you very much and please keep supporting the story;

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Please enjoy and review ^_^

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Time passed at the orphanage and while Lance was let off the cage, he clearly wasn't let off the hook by either the trainer or the Maidens. Despite keeping away from the other kids while not sleeping, he started seeing all the caretakers with a wary look in their eyes as he passed, like they expected him to pull some sort of violent prank or say something nasty.

The one with the most upsetting stare was maiden Helen; weather in class or when walking past him in the hall, she seemed to always spare him a tense, concerned look for a brief moment before going back to whatever she was doing. Not a good-concerned look, as in 'she was noticing his clothes were all tattered and he was losing weight since Lance first joined', but a bad-concerned look, as if she saw him hiding a body and now pictured a noose around his neck.

"I wish she'd tell me what kind of evil master plan she thinks I'm hiding! Not that she'd believe me if I said otherwise, but I barely get tested in class anymore and that is starting to freak me out. At least I won't get caned as much…" the boy thought as in one class as he watched Helen run her questions through most of the older boys, even Guifi, except for him. "It just makes me uneasy."

Speaking of Guifi and himself; after the short time the two red-eyed boys spent together in pens and inadvertently finding out Guifi had a bone to pick with the place like Lance did, Lance decided to keep a new eye on the Polynesian boy, trying to see if he could find something more out that they could have in common. Guifi was definitely upset by what happened at the gymnasium, as he started getting quiet in class again, no longer volunteering to answer for someone else, and keeping to his corner of the training.

Lance feared that letting it stay this way would kill the only avenue to talk with someone he had in the entire orphanage. He tried asking the others, but they either dismissed him outright or tell him they had bigger things to worry about, like getting a master to notice them, than helping him get along with some 'Asian dork'. Figures.

As a matter of fact, over the course of the week, a small number of masters were coming to the orphanage to look for viable students, and Lance realized that as the men with boxes on their back inspected them like drilled troops at the gymnasium, pretty much the only kids they wouldn't even take the time to ask how hard they could punch a rock were him and Guifi. Why were they even bothering to show up all of a sudden, anyway?

"It's cause of the peace party, okay? Don't you know anything?" Sulla told him. The Italian boy seemed irritated that Lance would even ask him such an obvious thing and went back to standing up straight and looking fit for the Saints. "Now will you buzz off, weirdo? I'm trying to get picked!"

Lance grumbled. Even the guys who did poorly in class thought they could be rude with him. "Fine! Hope you get picked for a kick in the nuts, instead, jerk!"

Just like Sulla said, a lot of Silver and Bronze Saints were in town on account of some festival, some calendar event that Lance hadn't gotten a chance to get acquainted with yet. Amidst all the not-eating and over-training he did at 'Heart of Sasha' he didn't exactly have energy to worry about whatever passed for Mardi Gras in Sanctuary. In light of the event, the Maidens were taking the chance to scurry out there and ask the Saints to at least take a look at the candidates since there would be at least 6 whole months since so many potential teachers were gathered in Greece again.

This was confirmed when he was leaving class and he spotted some other caretaker approach Helen. "Sister, will you be going into the capital again? I'd like you to get this list of purchases approved by the Zodiac. We're completely out of fresh bread."

Lance saw the teacher flustered and decided to listen in, leaving class slower than the others. Also, he couldn't agree more with the other lady; the bread they were eating was black in a bad way. It was so fungus-infested that he expected at some point to find mushrooms sprouting out of it.

Helen combed her light brown hair nervously. "I wasn't going to Sanctuary Town today, just Rodario, Sister. I'll try to get it done, though."

The other Maiden eyed her weirdly. "Rodario? What for?"

Helen looked around, at which point Lance slid right around the door's corner so he wouldn't get caught.

Not spotting the anyone, the Maiden still spoke in hush. "To Circe's Grove. The place has a lot of Saints there, some who train at the Zodiac. They might forward our procurement to His Holiness."

As quiet as he could be, Lance's cogs spun at this name. He had heard of the establishment. It was some sort of Bed & Breakfast that people like paidotribe Phil would come back drunk from.

The Maiden that Lance didn't know pressed Helen. "Still looking for potential Masters, sister? Bless your heart. It won't be easy. Older children are so difficult to find teachers for…. Especially marked ones."

Lance felt his throat tighten. By 'marked', did she mean…?

He had to put this to a test; he knocked on the wall respectfully and showed himself, acting like he was turning back from going to the canteen. "Excuse me, Maiden Helen?"

Immediately, the two Maidens tensed up, straightening their shoulders and backing their faces like they were caught in some sort of illicit act. "Yes, candidate Lance?"

The reaction was pretty damning. They did mean him. Now he just had to think of a real question to ask, and quick. But what?

He gulped, and asked the first innocent thing he could think of to be truly curious about. "I'm sorry, but I was wondering if I could call Saint Triangle. I'd like to see Noah, just once."

Maiden Helen's shoulders relaxed, but then her eyes tensed. "What for, candidate?"

Lance's eyes shifted. "Well, … I was wondering if I could go with him. As a trainee."

The two maidens stood quiet for a moment, exchanging suspicious looks. Eventually, Helen answered. "It doesn't work that way, candidate. Everyone has to be trained and taught first before being selected, even if a Saint already took personal interest in you. You can't ask for shortcuts just because Saint Noah recruited you to come here. Can you imagine how unfair that would be to the others?"

Lance struggled to contain a scoff. The last thing this place cared about was 'fairness'.

He kept the part of the innocent child, though. "It's just that… people don't like me here, and I think I'd be safer with him. I think the other students might want to hurt me."

The strangest thing then happened, which made even the student hardened by the unfairness of Heart of Sasha hesitate in his judgment of the Maiden; Helen's eyes seemed to suddenly soften in pity and relent, suddenly perceiving the danger the boy claimed to be.

This was, however, before hardening right back up, like she was afraid of being caught giving a shit. "I'm sorry, candidate Lance, but even if I said 'yes', Saint Noah isn't allowed to teach you."

Lance felt his throat sink. This started off as a gambit to get more out of their unfair treatment, but now he wanted real answers on this new point. "What?! Wait, why not?"

The other Maiden suddenly intervened. "Saint Noah would be a bad influence on you, candidate. On any candidate. The children of Athena must be raised under proper men of the army."

"Sister, please!" Helen asserted, concerned about how Lance might interpret it.

The distraught sensation in his throat suddenly tightened into indignant rage, which made Lance's eyes swell. Noah? A bad influence?! Noah was the only person who treated him well so far! Lance would love nothing more than be like the Silver! The Triangle Saint taught Lance to have hope! Who were these bitches to say Noah was bad?!

With eyes locked into swollen rage, he did his best to keep it tight up inside before they put him in the pen again. "… I see. Thank you, anyway."

Watching him leave like he'd get into a fight in the gymnasium the second someone pushed him, Helen stared at her colleague. "I wish you had employed more discretion, sister. He'll just ask more questions later, now."

The maiden gasped. "Discretion? Helen, you know what kind of deviant Saint Triangle is! Goddess knows how that child would end up like under him….her… whatever he is!"

Between this and Death Queen Island, though, Helen knew exactly what would be best for the candidate. As such, she pretended to agree silently, excused herself, and went on her way to Rodario.

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Heading out to the gymnasium for another afternoon of training, candidate Lance moved well beyond where the other kids were practicing to avoid getting into another fight. After what the Maiden said about Noah, he was pretty sure the first jerk to eye him wrong would get punched in the face so he might as well find a way not to run into any assholes, especially Agot.

As if anger attracted anger, he found himself walking all the way to where Guifi was punching his targets like they had Agot's face painted on him. The pale-haired boy's face was still marked red with the slap he got days before, like it was taking its time reminding him that he called a Maiden what she deserved, but not what he was allowed to say, and the Polynesian boy pummeled the target like the Maiden's face was on it, denting it deeper and deeper. Deciding that he'd be better off next to the secretly explosive Guifi than around anyone else, Lance took the spot right next to him and started punching and kicking rock.

Guifi didn't react right away, as if he wanted to pretend he didn't care, but he felt himself pestered by the presence, Lance's terrible punching technique and couldn't help himself but ask. "What do you want?"

Lance didn't take eyes off the target he was smacking. "I want to train."

"So?" Guifi resisted. "There's plenty of targets out there!"

"I'm also sick of being called a retard every five seconds by everyone else. Do you mind?"

The brown-skinned boy felt suddenly disarmed. Clearly hesitant about his personal space being invaded, Guifi had a demand to be left alone wanting to be let out of his throat, but he didn't feel the same anger towards Lance as he did with everyone else. Probably cause they shared an unfair punishment already.

"Fine." he acquiesced, and the two went to their business.

Still, Guifi couldn't help but notice how dumb Lance looked with his punching, just flailing his fists at the rock. It was those kinds of embarrassing things you couldn't help but steal glances at, because it made you feel less bad about yourself. Guifi shook his head to himself and tried to focus on his own punching.

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Rodario

Circe's Gorve

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Glasses of mead were raised in celebration in the loud and warm establishment, commemorating the Coliseum games being transmitted on the radio. Content Saints and citizens alike shared grins, wager wins, stories and hearty laughter, all celebrating the fourth anniversary month of the end of the war. Most importantly, the most recent big Coliseum match of the day had an unlikely winner, which sent the bar into a furor of contrasting emotions.

"HEY, what's up, everyone?" nine-year-old Yushira shouted as she rushed inside the bar, still in her fight's training gear, her knuckles braced by wraps and her black hair tied. She was followed by Cassiopeia Cynthia, who tried to keep her energetic pace in check.

Sitting with the gigantic Herakles Aguilon and two of his greyhound mutts by a table at the far end of the establishment, Kerberos Kastiel rolled his eyes. "Oh, great, who let her in? Isn't this a place of alcohol? Nine-year-old dance students shouldn't be allowed!"

Aguilon, by contrast, laughed in happiness and spread his arms at the black-haired girl. "Hey-hey, who's our new little Coliseum champ?!"

The masked little girl rose hand. "I am!" and did a skip, followed by a pirouette turn, then a flip before wrapping arms tight around the Herakles Saint.

Aguilon laughed and span the cheering girl in the air like she was his own granddaughter. "AH, AH, AH! That's right! And you won everyone a round of beer, courtesy of Kastiel!"

"ALL HAIL SAINT KERBEROS!" half the bar cheered, raising mugs, making the grey-haired Kerberos Silver Saint frown like he lost a million dollars.

Cassiopeia Cynthia folded her arms and shook her masked face at her contemporary. "Oh lady goddess, Kastiel, did you really bet against Yushira? That's low."

"WHAT?! Saint Kass, you jerk!" Yushira screeched, getting off Aguilon's hug like a temperamental cat and smashing hand on the table. "I trained so hard to defeat all those boys and you bet on them?!"

The gray-haired Kerberos Saint jaw dropped defensively with everyone's judgmental looks on him as he handed the bartender half his wallet's contents. "Don't give me that! Yushira's a nine-year-old girl and was up against half the Bronze Cloth trainee division! Most of those kids were already in their 5th years! I take bets to win, not to make you feel better!"

"Well, now you lost." Cassiopeia Cynthia pressed on him, taking a seat. "Honestly, Kastiel, I thought you learned your lesson when Nam got the Sagitta Cloth; just because you don't respect your friends, it doesn't mean they won't surprise you. I hope you didn't wage your mission bonuses on this."

Kastiel looked away spitefully and fidgeted his fingers on his mead glass.

Cynthia exchanged a stunned look with Aguilon at Kastiel's reaction. "Hermes save me, you did?!"

Herakles shook his head disapprovingly. "Kid, you have a problem!"

"My only problem was Yushira's scummy tactics!" Kastiel defended himself. "She copies her opponent's moves to win! It's dishonorable! She should have been disqualified after round 1!"

Taking a seat with the adults and a glass of juice with a mask straw, Yushira ran a spiteful finger down her eyelid at the Kerberos, an Amazon equivalent of showing your tongue. "Serves you right! Now I'm a division champ and you're broke! So suck it!"

Cynthia smiled underneath her mask and patted her hair. "A well-earned champ. Our sisters at Aretias will be proud of you, Yush."

"Thank you, Saint Cynthia!" she sang. Yushira then held chest humbly, where a medal with the year and match were inscribed. "But really, I'd like to thank my friends for the undying support, His Holiness the Pope for this awesome award,…. Saint Kass for the support and Aguilon XV for running out the fight ring like a baby when I pulled down his pants!"

The aged Herakles Saint Aguilon shook head in lament. It was sweet of the trainees, but he really wished they'd stop naming themselves after Pope watched these games, too...

Yushira took a look around as she sipped her juice through her mask's drink hole. "Hey, wait, where's the rest of the gang?"

"Nam is working." Aguilon clarified, taking a swig off a beer mug the size of their Yushira's head. "He's interning at the Mission Center now and the eggheads are having him put all of the semester's combat stats into file. Masters were lining up at his desk all mornin'."

"Wait, I thought that was done at the library?1" Cynthia asked. She knew Guardnia used to send his student's sparring numbers there, once in the Winter during the peace festivities, and again in the summer during the 88 Knights Festival.

"Not since the last work update." Aguilon clarified. "The Zodiac wants everything streamlined, so they expanded what the Mission Center does. I don't like it either, cause it's not like we already had piles of red tape going up to the ceiling. Now the MC keeps track of active Saints AND their students. The Capricorn House says this type of rewriting will prevent blasphemous things like Little Johnny's sparring losses being put in the same corridor as Saint Lysimachus' Joyous Tales."

Cassiopeia Cynthia lamented this. It felt like since the war ended, Sanctuary had been doing all sorts of things to reorganize the place. "Uh, poor Nam. I actually got to say hello to him today. He barely had time to talk to me."

Yushira nodded. "Okay, so I can forgive him,… what about Saint Cepheus?"

"Well, that's actually why I am here. I got great news." Cynthia revealed, tilting her head to signal an amazon smile. "Remember his new student? The little Japanese boy that kept crying? Shinta is reaching the end of his 2nd year!"

Aguilon chuckled. "No way! That sweet little cabbage head is still alive? In Andromeda Island?! Ah, that's fantastic! I thought he wouldn't last a week!"

"Yup. Guardnia is so happy." A proud tilt of head was then shown. "… And incredibly busy as well, which is why I was turning in Shinta's stats today."

"Yeah, I saw those." Kastiel voiced, taking a suspicious swig. "Cynthia, explain to us all how is it that a student only has draws on his record in the second worst Training Ground in Sanctuary? How is he not dead?!"

"Whow, only draws?!" Yushira gasped. "… That's kind of impressive. I wanna hear about this."

There was good reason for Yushira and the rest to be in disbelief. In Sanctuary, wins and losses were decided by direct hits and, in case of a tie, the final score wouldn't count for the average, so the only way you got a draw in training ground spats was basically if not only you flawlessly blocked every attack on you, but also refrained from ever successfully hitting back. This made it so your score ended up completely neutral, like Shinta's.

Then, because candidates spar every day, do it hundreds of times a year. Getting perfect draws was arguably harder than getting a ninety-five plus percent win average, so either this Shinta was extremely skilled or a giant luck-klutz.

Feeling pulled in different directions, Cynthia inhaled and went point by point. "First of all, Kass, I know you wanna believe otherwise, but no, Guardnia isn't inflating Shinta's scores. If you bothered to put your rivalries aside and you went to visit him and get to know Shinta, you'd believe these numbers, too."

The Kerberos Saint scoffed. "Didn't say any of those words. Just asking questions."

"Second of all, Yushira,…. Shinta gets only draws because he's decided, somehow, that it was better to go through the work of it than, goddess forbid, getting someone hurt on a Training Ground."

Yushira's head leaned on in stun. "No way! That's the reason?! So he's just squeamish?"

Cynthia shook her head. "We've thought he was cheating, that this was a joke to him or that someone was threatening him, but Guardnia insists that no, they talked it out and it's exactly what it looks on the surface. I love the little guy, but Athena forgive me, unless Shinta knows something I don't, this isn't how he's going to get the respect of the most sadistic Bronze Cloth on the island."

"Well, he's still alive…." Aguilon reminded her. "That's more than can be said of most Andromeda Island candidates."

The Amazon suddenly hesitate. "Yes, Aguilon, but…since his second year is closing, this means I have to help Guardnia with the Labyrinth of the Queen. So after I finish with you guys, I have to go back the Coliseum to pick up the lions."

"Oh, I see… so he's...weird." Yushira concluded. And this was coming from her. "Maybe he'll change attitude after the lions? What are they for anyway? Give him a scare?"

The Cassiopeia tried to think of an excuse. Anything was better than talking about Guardnia having to kill children. "He's, um…"

"It's not for scaring the green-head, it's for eating him if he finds his way through Cynthia's labyrinth." Kastiel blurted out. "Guardnia has gotten quite good at getting his brats wacked, but sometimes they make it through the traps."

Aguilon paused, appalled, while Cynthia's mask just stared in horror.

The girl stared at her juice, her gloved fingers tensing. "That's… that's not true!…Saint Guardnia wouldn't do that!"

"What the hell is wrong with you? You could have not rained on her parade like that, Kastiel." Cynthia lambasted in mental message.

"If you'd rather mention how our good friend Guardnia has to cut the head off anyone who chooses to get off that island, be my guest." the Kerberos reminded her. "Personally I think it's stupid of Guardnia to even stay there. He's just getting more and more brats dead. That island clearly is too dangerous to train anyone."

The blonde Cassiopeia rose chin. "You're forgetting it's where Pri...where his teacher trained him. Guardnia feels a responsibility to that place, something you wouldn't know anything about! Also, don't you think there's someone on the table that went through worse circumstances?"

Kassia slumped arms on the table, glancing at her mask in shame. "Fair enough. You're right. I'll shut up."

"Ha, ha, good joke everyone!…" Yushira tried to deny, before changing subject. "Speaking of getting horribly hurt, what about Iaso?"

"He's in China." Herakles said.

Kastiel coughed his drink out. "China?! What the hell for?!"

"Earthquake.2" Aguilon simply said, sobering the mood. "Big one, magnitude seven, right in the interior."

Cassiopeia paused in concern. "How many dead?"

Aguilon took another drink, a deep one. "From what the doc has been slipping through? Ten thousand, minimum."

The Silver Saints exchanged confused looks, stunned. "We didn't hear about any of this."

Aguilon scoffed with a dark thought in his head. "Not a lot of people did…. Their government won't announce it, even to their own people, but Sanctuary always knows. There's a…. friendly contact stationed there. Code name Purple Prune. He keeps Sanctuary informed of stuff there and Iaso always rushes off when he hears about quakes."

"Oh… those poor people." Yushira lamented. She came from Tibet and could picture the situation better than most. "Well, I guess everyone has good reasons to be away today."

"Sorry, Yushira, I knew you were looking forward to show off your win." Cynthia consoled.

Finishing his drink, Aguilon read the report on Yushira's progress he took from the mission center. "Ya know, it's not all bad; with this new mark on her resume, I wouldn't be surprised if Yushira here got recommended to her Silver Cloth at this point."

The Cassiopeia Saint rose head. "Really? That's surprising. I figured that it would take two more years, at least."

"Some Cloths are impressed by crap like this." Aguilon reminded, tossing the papers back into his box. His Heracles armor had been no exception. "It doesn't replace having the right ceremonial steps taken, like going through Andromeda's crazy labyrinths, but it certainly greases the wheels. If she just bothers to pass her gymnastics class (and a bit of ballet), Yushira will get Crane in no time at this rate."

"I'd have it by now if Sanctuary wasn't such a perilous palace of pricks!" Yushira lashed. "I mean, I'll take the ballet cause that is fun as buns, but I also found the armor! The whole reason I brought it to Sanctuary was so I could become its Saint and the Pope takes it away! Why does no one ever believe me when I say that?"

Patting her shoulder, Cynthia mused on the reason. "It's not that we don't believe you, Yushira, it's just that it's not that black and white. Crane used to belong to a very famous Saint, Elder Yuzuriha of the Lemurians. They must have thought you made a mistake. Besides, Yushira, finding an armor doesn't mean you get to become its Saint. It doesn't work like that. Some Saints spend decades before earning their armor's respect."

Kastiel chuckled "And some lose it in seconds."

"WE'RE NOT INTERESTED!" someone suddenly shouted at another table. They saw a group of Bronze Saints shouting at a brown-haired woman in white robe. "Go preach to someone else!"

The woman nodded humbly at the booze-stanched Saints. "Thank you for your time, Saints of Athena."

Not wanting the church routine, Yushira excused herself. "Oh, boy, look at that, I… have to go to the bathroom, everyone. You know, too much juice. Tell her I accept Athena in my heart and whatever."

The Maiden approached them. "Excuse me, Saints of Athena? I am Helen, of the Heart of Sasha." she politely asked, too late to stop Yushira. The white robe, was complimented by an aegis pendant and bronze armlets that confirmed who she was. "I was wondering if I could take some of your time."

Aguilon and Kastiel both irked, but courtesy, and the presence of Cynthia, demanded respect. "Sure, take a seat."

"I would not presume on our familiarity, holy Saints, and I'd just like to ask you to consider offering the Goddess a valuable service." she worded, taking out a paper.

They all cringed in their seats. Here it comes, the 'please donate/come to church' pamphlet…

Instead, however, she showed them the picture of a small black-haired boy. "We are looking for potential Masters interested in a Jason Exile for this child. The 'Heart of Sasha' has decided to forward them to the Mount Olympus Training Ground."

The Silver Saints blinked, surprised. Cynthia took the photo and showed it around. "Aw… he looks cute."

Aguilon took a good long look at the boy. "Eh eh, look how mad he is at the camera! My oldest daughter would love such an 'angry puppy' face."

"What's wrong with him?" Kastiel cut to the chase, squinting in suspicion at the maiden. "Jason's Exile is a punitive training program, reserved to problematic children. Who did he kill?"

The woman gulped. "I will be honest, Saints… In the short time he's been with us, this boy has had a number of altercations that would start a consideration process, but I beg of you, believe me when I say that the reason I chose the Exile is another. If you accept to speak with us about this, we can divulge the details in private."

The masked Amazon looked over to her friends. Even if this didn't sound like a rug pull, most of the table was not qualified. "I'm sorry, Maiden, but me and Saint Aguilon are trainers, not Masters. We're only prepared to educate soldiers and made Saints."

The Maiden nodded and landed eyes on the remaining Silver Saint.

The Kerberos cringed at the sheer idea of it. "I'm not interested. I got my own dogs to take care of."

"Saint Kerberos, I beg you to at least consider." Helen pushed. "Helping children earn their Cloth grants all kinds of career perks, especially bad cases sent to Jason's Exile."

Aguilon scratched his chin pensively. "Uh, ya know, if this kid really is being picked for it for extraordinary reasons, it could be a chance to get that under your belt with an easier exile than most. Plus pay off your dumb bets."

"Fuck, Aguilon! It's still a six-year commitment! And to Mount Olympus no less?!" he reasoned, shivering with the thought. "I heard temperatures at the Second Step drop enough to freeze Bronze Cloths! I'm not taking my dogs there! I'd rather spend another winter in Alaska looking for Black Saints in the dark!"

"Actually, I agree with Kastiel here." Cynthia suddenly opinionated, getting their eyes on her. "He shouldn't be taking care of students, more so Jason Exile ones. It's a lot of responsibility, especially in Sanctuary."

The Kerberos Saint blinked, surprised. "Hey, wait a second, it's not like I'm incompetent, either!"

But the Amazon's mask stared him dead in the eye. "You're right, but like you said, it's a six year commitment, if things go right. Tell me, Kass, do you honestly see yourself doing what Guardnia does, unabated, for two thousand days and nights straight? This isn't some dog you can sit on the field to get its own food. This is a child you'd have to teach to survive and master the cosmos."

Even the gigantic Aguilon felt like backing off. "Ugh, harsh, Cynthia. This is your friend, you know?"

"Harsher still would be leaving an innocent boy in negligent hands. This isn't like waging on Yushira winning a Coliseum cup. All it takes to get the Master pass is study a couple of books about Training Grounds, Sanctuary doesn't expect much more, but if Kastiel says yes to this, this child will forever see him as the model to judge Athena and her Saints on." the Cassiopeia countered, before turning to Kass again. "Well? Still think you're up for it?"

But the Kerberos Saint merely grumbled at her warning. He never liked the lack of faith she had in his abilities, even when they were all trainees. "It can't be that hard… not if Guardnia does it!"

The lowering of her chin warned him of a squint hidden behind her mask. She stood up politely. "I'm going to take Yushira back to Aretias before she tries to escape through the bathroom window. As for you, Kastiel… I can't stop you from making the choices you do, but think wisely before waging a child's future on your ego."

They then watched her nod at the Maiden and leave, her steps pacing indignantly. Maiden Helen just kept eyeing them expectantly, sensing a chance for a 'yes'.

Kastiel cringed fingers on his mug. "I can do this just fine! What's her problem?!"

"Kid, do you really need to ask?" Aguilon confronted, finishing his drink off. "You remember where she spent the last few years, don't you? Cynthia has firsthand experience with having asshole Masters."

The Kerberos rolled his eyes. Aguilon was the hardest to argue with, cause he was a big hero veteran. "Fuck, you too?! Why do you all treat me like a damn dirtbag?!"

Aguilon folded his arms skeptically. "This ain't about you. Look, kid, I feel bad for having pushed this on you a bit ago, but it really isn't like raising dogs named after Silvers. You need to ask yourself if you're really up for this."

Following the conversation, Helen realized that if things were left as is, the only Saint to seem even mildly temped would back off and candidate Lance was doomed to Death Queen Island. She needed to get Saint Kastiel to at least take a look, even if to just remove him from the dissuasive influence of his comrades.

So the maiden gave the final push. "Saint Kastiel, I would appreciate it if you joined me in just meeting the child. It would just take an hour and the Goddess would smile on your kindness forever. You don't have to say 'yes' to anything yet."

Sick of the conversation, Kastiel left money on the table to pay the drinks and got up. "Fine. Let's see this brat."

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Chapter 68

Side Story 2

The Curse of Hatred

Part 2 – Kindred Spirits

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Heart of Sasha,

Gymnasium

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"No, no, you're still doing it wrong!" Guifi insisted, shaking hands. He then showed by example on his side of the targets. "Feet further apart, and eyes on the target, not your fist. And then just thrust like boxing, don't swing it over. Time your punches with how you tense your whole body, not just your arm."

Lance's red eyes followed Guifi's pose and adjusted his own stance. He closed his fingers differently before exhaling. When the air was completely out of his lungs, he shouted out and thrust forward, striking the target so much better that the board shook and creaked against its rock base.

Guifi chuckled. "That's better, do it again." He watched Lance repeat it by memory a couple more times, all while doing the same himself so that the paidotribe wouldn't catch them stopping to talk. He smiled. "Nice! Don't overthink it all the way through. You have to focus on that singular moment that you spur into action, like an explosion of energy… kinda like the cosmos."

Lance smiled shyly for a bit, before shaking his pained knuckles. They were red sore again. "I wish it wouldn't hurt so darn much."

Guifi looked around to avoid voicing criticisms within an adult's earshot. "This place has always sucked like that. They don't give us any real protection, like hand wrappings or boxing gloves. I guess they think it's part of getting us used to Training Grounds."

Keeping up the practice, Lance sweated and panted, trying to keep Guifi's advice to heart. Somehow they just naturally started talking while practicing. Guifi got tired of watching Lance make a fool of himself and started giving tips on how to practice better, and now they were just going with it. It was a pleasant change of pace compared to everyone else who just flat out refused to engage with him.

Speaking of training grounds "Do you have one selected for you?"

Guifi scoffed, kicking his target. "No, not really. You know what it's like."

Lance paused briefly, surprised. "But, you've… been here a while, though, right?"

"And you have been asking questions, uh?" Guifi confronted, startling Lance. "That's okay. Yeah, it's been… six, seven years? I think I was three when I got here so that must be right."

The Athenian boy reeled. That long? "How can that be? They told me the older you get, the harder it is. Wouldn't they be picking a Master right away?"

Once again, Guifi looked around like getting caught talking about this would be a death sentence. "It's… not the same for me.. Don't take this the wrong way,... but you're Greek and just white enough. Red eyes or not, it's going to be much easier for you to get a Master than it will be for me."

Lance narrowed his eyes. "Hey, it's not like that! You think they don't treat me like shit, too?"

But Guifi scoffed and folded his arms amusedly. "Okay, Lance, you think we're the same around this place? Then take a guess how many times I have been taken to see the seer."

The Athenian boy paused. "… I… I don't know. What's that got to do with anything? Fine!…." But his red eyes darted in sudden hesitation and he tried the worst estimate he could think of. Maybe once a year? They'd have to do it periodically, at least. "… Um, six?"

Sighing, the Polynesian boy laid it out to him. "Try zero, instead."

A look of incredulity flashed through Lance. "How can that be?! How can they tell your stars then?"

"They can't! That's the point! Cause they don't care to know! I've asked them to do it and they just put it off, like they're afraid they'll actually have to start helping me!" Guifi snapped, startling Lance. "Do you get it now, dumbass?! You've been here a month and you've been seen three times! That's a good thing! Me? I'll never get outta here…"

"But…" Lance stuttered, eyes darting in search of an argument. "But that's not right!"

Guifi chuckled. "Who said otherwise? Nothing is right about Sanctuary, man! They don't care about what's fair or not! This place is all kinds of fucked up! They let someone like Phil in charge of us kids, remember? So long as they have their Saints and their pretty Greek temples, that mountain Athena lives on doesn't give a shit about anything else!" and he went back to his punching. "Ah, 'not right', I swear to Hermes… You gotta a lot to learn!"

Lance's face sunk in distraught, recalculating everything he had experienced and observed so far in Heart of Sasha. It was true that even if it was negative, he was getting attention. Guifi, on the other hand, was getting none unless he was thrust right in the center of whatever trouble Lance was causing. Suddenly, the boy from Athens wasn't sure which alternative was worse, given that their future was relying on getting a visiting Master to notice them.

He lowered fists. "It's just… Noah didn't say it'd be like this."

"Saints tell us lots to get us to enroll." Guifi sniped. "And if you think it's hard for you to get people here to treat you normally, Lance, imagine when one of your parents is Chamorro-brown."

This only confused Lance more. The word sounded Spanish. "Chamorro?"

Guifi thought of a way to explain it. "It's um… well, my mom is from the Mariana islands. It's like the Philippines, but smaller. Much smaller. And further out there in the sea, away from everything else." He saw Lance scratch his head. "You suck at geography, don't you? Okay, it's close to where Death Queen Island is, but up north."

Lance just shrugged. "I have no idea what any of those things are."

Guifi folded arms in awe. "How the heck do you not…?! You're really dumb, aren't you?!"

"I'm NOT, I just have like a month of experience with these things!" In any case, Guifi's Greek was so good that Lance figured his melanin level was just from being really down south. "How did you end up here, then? Noah told me this place was for Europeans."

The rude way Lance put it made Guifi's mind turn the clock back harshly, to things he didn't like talking about. Ever since he arrived in Greece on his Chamorro mother's arms, who only stopped holding his three year old hand to bang at the door of his supposed father, Guifi Taitano had faced nothing but resistance from everything and everyone in Sanctuary to letting him build his life back up. First his father's family leaves his mom to die on the street like a dog, leaving him alone in this strange land with nothing but an indifferent Saint of a man to call a father, and then they tried to have him shipped right back to Asia to be in one of their even shittier orphanage branches, only to then after that tell him he has to be stuck in this one where everyone hates him because he was still fifty percent Greek.

Which meant Sanctuary changed its mind twice about what to do with him and couldn't decide if Guifi should stay or leave.

Now here he was, seven years later, still in the same orphanage, stuck without a Master to pick him and without a father to acknowledge him, increasingly full of scars and putting up with entitled assholes like Phil and overzealous Maidens like Thea and Helen. He has gotten left out of at least a hundred selection rounds by now. He expected another hundred to come and go.

So Guifi gave him the only answer he could. "You're right. It is. I guess Sanctuary is even dumber than you. I'll just hope for somewhere far away, then."

Practicing his punching further, Lance didn't really mind not knowing more. He shared Guifi's opinion on Athena's land and that was good enough.

Lance and Guifi continued practicing, trying to keep a pace of punching better than the other. Lance found it shocking how much better Guifi was, able to keep a much straighter and determined pace, like he had been doing this for years. Combined with what he noticed the day before at the cages, it was pretty obvious to Lance that his partner wasn't bluffing about how long he had been in Sanctuary already.

Seeing his own knuckles getting caked with blood, he rubbed it sadly, wondering how much more he'd have to take. "How do you do it?"

Guifi raised a brow. "Do what?"

Lance eyed him. "You have the cosmos. I saw it yesterday." he confronted, surprising Guifi. "I don't have a lot of experience, but I managed to use it once, long ago, and Noah has shown me what it feels like to see it."

The Polynesian boy smashed the board with his fist in frustration. He was hoping Lance hadn't noticed his burning, actually, but he was so mad at the pen he couldn't help himself but cringe the pen bars with anger.

Still, Lance was hiding something himself. "Is that so? If you've done it once, then why are you asking me about it?" he countered, keeping up the punching pace. "Just jog your memory a little. I'm sure you'll remember that feeling."

Lance's lip quivered. "I can't….I don't remember."

Even more suspicious. "This isn't the kind of thing you forget!"

Gathering his courage, Lance decided to confess. "It is when you have a memory seal put on you."

{======================|SSII|======================

Nearby, Agot and Kastor finished their rounds and walked respectfully towards Jaki, a huge, muscled member of the older kids with a swollen eye sitting in one of the gymnasium's corners who was sitting by a shaded corner, apparently ignored by the otherwise draconian paidotribe Phil.

They both took out a parcel and presented it with a kneel. "Oh, great Jaki! We humbly gift you these canteen treasures!"

His huge fingers took both parcels and hungrily opened them, revealing small slices of yellow cake taken from the teacher portions. "He, he, he, a grand offering. This is from your heist yesterday, right?3"

Agot nodded, sycophantic. "Yes, great Jaki! We wouldn't dare to not bring you your cut."

The older boy hungrily devoured the cake slices, dropping crumbles all over the sandy floor.

Kastor irked. "Ugh, look at him go, like a pig! What's he even doing here with us?! Isn't he a rich family's kid? He's even got a bronze ring!"

Agot kept his eyes down, though he did notice the third rank aristocracy marker on the older boy's finger. "Rich or not, if I had a son who looked like him, I'd hide him here too!"

Regardless of the reason why Jaki's family held him at Heart of Sasha, the child seemed perfectly content with his situation, gulping down the cake like a sack of sweets as if it wasn't training time all around him. Neither of them, or anyone in the orphanage for a fact, knew exactly how he's done it, but Jaki somehow bribed the paidotribe into just letting him hang around during practice. Some kids held the myth that Jaki had access to secret naughty magazine stashes, and even alcohol and tobacco, which he would use to get the paidotribe to look the other way when he slouched.

Combined with the fact that Jaki was already freakishly big and strong just by genetics, not only did the boy get away with lying about having done his training, but he pretty much pushed everyone around he didn't like, to the point boys like Agot and Kastor had to kowtow every now and then to him so he wouldn't beat them, rat them out or worse. There were still blood marks on the wall from the last guy who crossed Jaki and no one wanted to join the gallery of splatters.

He licked his fingers and looked at his realm. "It's good to be the king!" he then saw Lance and Guifi training way at the end of the gymnasium. "Hey, aren't those two the red ones?"

Agot looked over. "Yes, Jaki."

The deformed teenager held chin pensively. He didn't like the idea of cliques forming in the orphanage again, not in his hard-earned Pax Jakiana. "What, they forming herds now?"

Kastor scoffed. "They got buddies after we blamed them yesterday for the fighting, I guess."

Somehow this made Jaki's good brow raise as much as his deformed one. "Wait, so they know you stole the food? YOU IDIOTS! I told you not to make noise about that! I can keep Phil quiet but do you have any idea what would happen if those maiden witches found out we're taking stuff?!"

The two straightened up in fright! "They don't know! We blamed them to keep eyes off us!"

"THINK! Now they're gonna get paranoid and start watching the doors more carefully, especially if those two keep spreading their own side of the story! Wiping his mouth, Jaki got up, took Agot's hand and put a shiv made out of target board nails in it. "See this? Go over there… and give them a scare. Is that so hard?"

Both boys irked, staring at the shiv in Kastor's hand. They knew what this was code for, and had gotten into a fight recently with them and still had the punch marks on their stomachs. "Jaki… they're actually kinda vic-eas. You know those cursed kids-"

A huge punch exploded right in Kastor's stomach, shutting him up. "Did that feel vicious, you illiterate dorks?! Now go cut'em up! And don't come back till they're in separate corners of the building! I'll go keep Phil distracted..."

{======================|SSII|======================}

Listening to Lance's explanation attentively, Guifi folded arms in understanding. "Oh, I see, so you don't remember anything from before that Saint took you here."

Lance's face was completely straight. "Nope."

"The one time you used cosmos?"

"I wish."

"Your last meal in Athens?"

"Gone."

"Radio songs? News on TV?"

"Who remembers those, anyway?"

"What about the priests at your old orphanage?"

Lance smirked. "You might as well ask me where the Pope poops."

Guifi smirked briefly and scratched head. "Okay, what about birthdays?"

Lance made a genuine effort to recall them. "I remember some, the ones before what Noah made me forget." He held fist against his target sadly. "But then again if the ones I remember were so shitty, who cares…"

"What does it feel like?" Guifi queried. Lance basically accepted having a quarter of his life erased.

The young candidate looked up, searching his mind for old blocked memories. "It kinda feels like I've been asleep for the past 2 years. I remember more or less everything like normal to some point when I was eight, and then my head just skips to now, like those years didn't even happen."

There was a baffled scoff from Guifi. "Wow, it must have been something serious."

Lance exhaled and genuinely tried to think about it, safe in the knowledge that he'd only be poking at the same comforting wall of void inside his head. "Who knows. I could tell it included getting Noah hurt. Saint Noah… lost a leg because of me."

The Polynesian boy nodded. "Uh, I see. That makes sense."

"It does?"

"Yeah, I mean…." Guifi then pondered his words carefully. "You seem to really look up to this guy. If I thought I got someone like that hurt, I'd want to forget it, too. And I'd like to forget some shitty things as well in my life."

Something inside Lance felt the habitual urge to comment on Noah being referred to as a 'guy', but he did settle with the Silver Saint to treat him like on while at Sanctuary. "So… how do you do it, the cosmos?"

Holding his fist up, Guifi burned it as discretely as he could, forming a faint white aura of warmth. It was all he could manifest, barely enough for anyone to pick up even with an unlocked 7th sense unless they were already paying attention.

With the sensation in mind, he turned to Lance. "Cosmos… is an explosive power. Do you remember the snapping feeling you get when you see something horrible happen? When you really want to do something to stop it? Or even when you just throw a punch?"

Lance nodded.

Guifi continued. "There's...no words that make it justice, but Cosmos is what happens when that feeling is harnessed to pull the heat of an entire universe out of you… and it's so amazing that it makes you do something miraculous." He rested hand on the target. "You just… have to picture that these boards are everything you want to change about the world, and it comes to you."

The Greek boy stared at his own fist, trying to picture it. Guifi's words sort of matched what Noah said, in a non-literal manner, but his cynical mind struggled to picture a real form to it.

Honestly, it reminded him a bit of Noa-

Suddenly two pairs of hands grabbed him harshly and dragged him out of there. "HEY, LET ME GO!"

"SHUT UP!" Agot roared, holding his mouth shut with his other arm.

Guifi gasped, seeing Agot and Kastor take Lance away kicking and screaming towards the shaded corner of the gymnasium. "HEY, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?! LEAVE HIM ALONE! PAIDOTRIBE!" but when he looked over he saw the trainer on the other side of the field, beyond all the shouting kids, listening to some story from Jaki about smoking. "G-Goddamn it!"

Shoved into the grass by the two kids, lance felt their weight pressing on him while Agot took out the nail shiv, basically a makeshift bar with nails poking out that he was wielding like a bracing knuckle. "Damn it, hold him down, Kastor!"

The blue-haired younger boy pressed his weight on Lance's legs but the guy kicked and screamed so much that he was rocking on them. "I'm trying!"

Agot tried to focus and think of how to do this. Jaki would be mad if the red-tard wasn't at least showing scars. He just had to pick something to deface, but Lance was struggling so hard beneath him, especially at the sight of the shiv, that Agot couldn't focus.

"AGH, just shut up!" he yelled, punching Lance's face. "I'm only trying to-"

Then he made the mistake of holding Lance's mouth shut.

Guifi was running straight at them to kick them off his friend when the horrible wail was suddenly heard from Agot, who panicked and flailed, dropping the shiv and tumbling with Kastor away from Lance. He slowed down in shock, seeing blood spraying on the grass and a pair of fingers, specifically a pinky and half a ring, being spat off by a panicked Lance, who rolled as far away from them as he could with terrified breaths.

"A-AGH, YOU B-BASTARD!" Agot cried, tearing up in horror. "M-MY HAND! L-LOOK WHAT YOU DID!"

Kastor covered a hurl inside his mouth at the sight of the bleeding, exposed bones. "O-OH MY GODDESS! AGOT!"

Guifi roared and kicked them right away from Lance with a foot to one's stomach that tossed him into the other. He ignored the dismembered fingers and helped Lance up. "Are you okay, man?!"

Lance coughed and wiped the blood off his mouth, just as horrified with what he just did as Agot himself. His teeth hurt and he tasted copper. "Y-yeah! Agh, I feel gross! He was trying to…"

Guifi shook head. "I know, fuck them both! Let's go before-"

"What in Athena's…. AGOT!" Maiden Helen screamed, entering the gymnasium.

Guifi and Lance turned, seeing the brown-haired woman rushing to aid the bleeding, crying boy. Together with her had come a man with gray, disheveled hair, the eyes of a tense wolf and the unshaven beard of someone who lived in the woods. Despite the stench of dog fur, he looked clearly like a Silver Saint, based off his backpack box. The look of disapproval on his face was as thick as a wall.

As Helen covered Agot's hand with a white cloth to contain the bleeding, she called for help. "THEA, THEA! GET THE ICE! Kastor, stop crying and tell the paidotribe to stop the training, NOW!"

The two red-eyed boys watched the whole scene of the adults moving back and forth in urgency with distraught, feeling a weight suddenly pressing on them, especially from the Silver Saint's stare. Kastor shouted at the trainer and Phil, seeing what happened, dismissed Jaki and started shouting at the kids to go at their dorms, emptying the gymnasium.

What now?

While Helen rushed Agot out of there, Maiden Thea took the fingers into an ice bag to preserve them. She saw the two red eyed boys standing there, especially Lance with the blood all over his face.

Lance felt his eyes become wet at her glare, already knowing where the blame would land. "I-It's his fault! They attacked me!"

"It's true, maiden. He's innocent! They dragged him off to hurt him!" Guifi defended, pointing at the shiv.

"And you bit his fingers off?! Is this a Berserker camp, by any chance?! Or a House of Athena?!" Thea yelled.

Lance stepped back, horrified with how hellbent she was to not see his side. "… He… H-he was going to hurt me! Don't you see that?!"

Her chin only rose. "So is kindness and patience only for those who give it to you first? You live under the Goddess' wing, candidate. And you will extend your love for your brothers as much as she does down to you! Understo-"

Twisting his young features in rage. His hand took a big handful of rock-mixed mud and hurled it as hard as he could in her direction, making her gasp and swerve her head aside. It instead smacked the little statue right off the doorway arch, knocking it down to the ground and splattering it in a thousand pieces, making the kids surrounding them gasp in horror. Guifi widened his red eyes as well and the Maiden her a face like her house just got set on fire.

"FUCK YOUR S-STUPID GODDESS AND HER LOVE! THOSE ASSHOLES ARE NOT MY BROTHERS!" Lance exploded, weeping and pointing at Thea. "All you ever do is HIT US and then lie and say it's OUR FAULT that we don't get Masters! What kind of LOVE do you extend at all?! You don't give a SHIT about me! SO LEAVE ME ALONE!"

Half the building stood shocked, either peering out the wings' windows to the gymnasium or dead centered on the three of them.

With eyes widened in affront and horror, it took less than a second for the outraged maiden to take Lance's wrists and yank him so hard out of there that he almost felt his arms almost ripped out their sockets. "IN THE PEN! NOW!"

Guifi stood in awe. "Holy shit."

Kastiel folded his arms by the exit. "This generation is going down the drain."

{======================|SSII|======================}

Maiden Helen sat on her room desk writing to the hospital, waiting for Saint Kastiel to come by. It was an austere room, fit for a Christian nun, featuring a simple bed, a wooden desk with items for both busy work, like pens, paper and letter wax, as well as penance to Athena, like a small statuette of the Goddess not dissimilar to the one candidate Lance broke, a rosary and a picture of herself being ordained as a Maiden by Sanctuary Town's bishop. Having little to no talent with the cosmos, it was the life she had to choose as someone born in Sanctuary without the means to become an Amazon, yet still possessing the ardent desire to honor the holy maiden of heroes.

She was, after all, a deity they had regular flesh and blood proof of, unlike Christian saints, and therefore her faith in her task was seldom questioned.

Days like that one, however, definitely put it to the test. First she spends the morning finding out just how little modern Saints are interested in taking children into Training Grounds, despite the holy occasion they were celebrating, and then the afternoon bringing Saint Kastiel to share with her one of the most revolting scenes they had ever witnessed in the orphanage. Stuff like what candidate Lance just pulled were the kind of barbaric incident they could expect of lesser orphanages like Gift of Alone and House of Tenma, not Heart of Sasha.

Just as she was finishing the letter thanking the good medics of Sanctuary Town Hospital for attending to Astor, who didn't get help in time and would therefore not get his fingers back, she stamped it with the orphanage's bossing and put it near a pile of other letters meant for other business, including a word of forgiveness in Lance's name meant towards Astor's aunt and uncle.

The door knocked and she turned respectfully.. "Come in, Saint Kastiel." she invited, letting him in. Helen presented a chair. "Please take a seat."

Kastiel shook his hand as he surveyed the room curiously. He found the place creepy as it was, and the Maiden's rooms were worse, coming across like the worshipers of Athena believed any kind of comfort was an insult to Athena's sacrifices or something. "That's alright. I have a feeling I'll be short."

She gulped. "Saint Kastiel,…. Please do not let what we saw this afternoon hinder your kindness."

He rose his brow. "What we saw? Sister, I've had rabies-ridden Pitbulls that looked less ravenous than that boy. Do I have to lose my own fingers at Mount Olympus while I feed him to see this was a terrible idea?"

"Saint Kastiel, I'm afraid I have to insist! A terrible fate awaits that boy if a Master does not take him. "

Kastiel scoffed. "What fate? Rotting in this holding pen for a few more years before becoming an hoplite? That's just as honorable as a Saint!" he then squinted. "Unless you're still hiding shit from me, of course."

She shook her head nervously, horrified at the idea of lying to a holy man. "Gods grant me salvation, I would never!"

"Really? Cause you didn't tell me he was cursed! Do the Gods give assurance against omission?" Kastiel pointed out, folding arms. It was obvious as soon as he saw the kid's orbs. "Is that what worries ya? That if a Cloth doesn't bless him he'll turn into a nutcracker, or a killer or some kind of maniac? A Berserker, as that other one said? Seems already half way there, if you ask me… So tell me. Why shouldn't I walk out? Why would I take him?"

Her head lowered shamefully. The truth had to come out. "Because if you don't… the Master will."

Kastiel blinked, utterly confused. "Uh? Which one? There's at least twenty in Sanctuary! Why are you even wasting my time if you already think one's gonna come get him?!"

The Maiden let her silence and meeting of eyes explain the rest.

At that moment, Kerberos Kastiel's eyes softened, his shoulders slumped, his throat tightened and he could feel a strange new darkness in the room, like the sun setting outside earlier than expected, making him cold on the inside. "...Wait, you don't mean…?"

The Maiden looked out her small window. "The seers are certain. He was born during the Phoenicids. He must be accepted into a Training Ground by another master so that a different constellation will save him, before it's too late."

The hairs all over Kastiel's face stood up in alarm. Stories he's heard all his career about the worst training ground in Sanctuary assailed his mind, painting a picture of spatting red, yellow rain and burning black ash.

But his head shook in denial. "Well… The Phoenicids are just a bunch of summer shooting stars! They don't mean crap! I bet the kid just burst veins in his eyes or something! And what do those crazy seers know anyway? They told me I'd make a good Bear based on nothin' but how much I loved canteen beef! They're just carnival witches!"

She glared at him. "Just a bunch of shooting stars?! Carnival witches?! Are the zodiacs just a path the sun trails, too?! How can even suggest that, Saint Kastiel? As a man of Athena! Wearing a Cloth of Athena! In a HOUSE of Athena!"

Kastiel sweated, feeling ridiculous. "Okay, you're right, lay off of me! But so what?! So he's going to Death Queen Island…That's just what bad kids get, like in bedside stories." and he suddenly didn't feel so sure about his rejection. "Crap. Fuck me…. Who am I kidding? I wouldn't send the goddamn Manson family to that psychopath's arms."

Seeing a light of goodness in the Saint, Maiden Helen pressed forward. "We all have a duty to Athena to see good in others when we have a chance to do so, Saint Kerberos. This child… admires the Saint who brought them here very much. If you extended your kindness to them, they'd surely be forever grateful."

Kastiel grunted. "…Right, whatever. Does the kid know where he's headed otherwise? Did you tell him?"

Her head shook. "How awful. Of course not. Who would gloat about sending a boy to Death Queen Island?"4

"Eh, good point… well, let's keep it that way." He then thought in silence for about a minute, weighing his distaste for the child against the horrible thought of living with letting them go to Death Queen Island instead.

"Well?"

Kastiel rubbed his head frantically and forced himself to voice it out. "…. I can't believe I'm about to throw the next six years of my life in the shitter. FINE! But only under Jason Exile rules! If he's still a petulant pain in the ass after first chances are over, the goddamn mountain can take him!"

Maiden Helen bowed head humbly. The Saint would surely keep going well after that. "May the Goddess bless you, Saint Kerberos. Your kindness will forever reward you."

{======================|SSII|======================}

Hours Later

{======================|SSII|======================}

The pen's bars felt even more cramped than last time and were bent with the strength with which Lance gripped them as another bucket of cold water showered over him by the paidotribe. Gasping desperately, he felt the cold air invade and burn his throat and lungs and coughed harshly, trying to ignore the vicious shouting from Maiden Thea.

"Never in my life have I seen such open contempt! Did you even realize you were making that… that scene in front of a Master?! And how could you say such repugnant things of Athena?! Who taught you how to act like that?! Like an animal?! Certainly not 'Heart of Sasha'! Do you know how kids like you are corrected in this school?!"

Lance just crawled into his cage corner, humiliated and drenched.

"We glue your tongue to your teeth with hot candle wax! That way you never speak ill of the Goddess again!" Maiden Thea continued "I'd have the paidotribe do it right now if we didn't have dozens of others like you to educate! You should be grateful we are even housing you in this school, instead of shipping you back to Athens!"

His red eyes looked up at them with a hateful desire of vengeance, but Lance stood quiet, knowing that there was no point in making his situation worse.

Looking at the clock on the brick wall, the two must have finally decided enough was enough, especially since they weren't getting a word of regret out of the boy. "Paidotribe, lock the door for the night."

The trainer led her out, opening the door. "Yes, Maide-" he then froze, finding Maiden Helen outisde, heading their way.

Thea blinked. "Sister? We're about done here tonight." a thought that had been mortifying her then returned. "Did… Saint Kerberos forgive us?"

Her head bowed lightly. "Thank you, sister Thea. And yes, Saint Kastiel was kind enough to look the other way. I'd just like a few words with the candidate."

The Paidotribe handed her the keys with a smirk. "Be careful, Maiden Helen. This one clearly bites."

The brown-haired maiden nodded gratefully for the concern and headed inside, waiting until she heard the steps outside distancing themselves. She took a small bench and sat on it in front of the caged boy, who eyed her with a confused, scared look of someone who clearly thought their punishment was done for the night.

Lance sweated, feeling her stare pierce him for a solid, silent minute. "You're going to kick me out, aren't you?"

"What you did was… barbaric." she finally spoke. "Agot is going to lose his fingers. He'll pay the price of what you've done for the rest of his life."

He tucked legs in with his arms and dumped face into his knees in defeat. "R-right."

Her nose breathed deeply, readying her words. "The Goddess has smiled on you, candidate Lance. You'll be taken to your Training Ground tomorrow."

Lance's eyes widened in elation and confusion. "W-What?… But…" He looked for signs that this was a lie or some sort of sick test. The Maiden's calm expression didn't budge. "That can't be true."

Helen observed the boy with a mix of bewilderment and pity. His whole body dripped with water and he had unclean blood smudges around his lips that he probably didn't even notice on himself. Incidents like the one he just involved himself in were not uncommon in orphanages, even the ones supposedly well-funded like Heart of Sasha. The limited number of Cloths combined with the immense pressure on the children to be picked led to the formation of intense animosities among the children. The difference was that maiming typically involved makeshift knives of some kind, not your teeth.

She had talked with the other boy that was present. The brown-skinned child was reserved and resentful about Lance being punished, but backed candidate Lance's account of what happened. Helen was distant from the children, but she also didn't think something as severe like this would happen if candidate Lance didn't feel his life threatened. She could fit inside her head that some sort of problem arose that led to Agot trying to ascertain some kind of authority over the more vulnerable boy.

The problem was, it didn't matter. Not in the grand scheme of candidate Lance's fate.

"Fortunately, Saint Kastiel has accepted to be your provisional teacher to your Jason's Exile. Surely you know what this means?" she asked, making Lance's face sink in sober realization. He was a new student, but he had learned enough to understand the meaning of this. "The chosen Ground is the Second Step of Mount Olympus, where the Temple of Pegasus was erected in the Age of Myth."

Lance's eyes lowered in reflection. Then the Pegasus Cloth would be his path in the future? Lance never quite saw himself as having the spirit of a flying horse, more like that of a scowling rooster, but perhaps he just didn't understand anything about constellation myths. So this would be his life as a Saint…

"But… he can just leave me there, right?" he asked, wary. "I know about Jason's Exile. It's what you do to the bad kids. You threaten it all the time."

"It's not so cut and dry. Prove yourself, candidate Lance, and Saint Kerberos will surely decide to mentor you further." Helen advised. "However, part of Jason Exile's point is to teach the candidate the humility of someone who has lost the warmth of Athena out of hubris… so Saint Kerberos won't be expected to stay."

Lance grunted. These were a lot of fancy words to say 'yes, he's going to just leave you'.

"You are blessed, candidate Lance." she stoically remarked, not daring to act happy about the risks involved for fear of being cynical. The Goddess frowned on such emotional dishonesty. "At the second step of the Gods' staircase, where the winds and the wolves both howl with teeth of ice, you shall prove yourself the flying steed's next rider. In a mere month, you have earned your Training Ground and avoided a terrible fate. Congratulations."

"AVOIDED A TERRIBLE FATE?! YOU'RE DUMPING ME IN A D-DEATH TRAP!" Lance screamed, banging the bars. His red eyes cried in frustration. "You think this is a blessing?! C-Call Saint Noah, then! Tell him to their face where you're sending me, since you think it's so w-wonderful!"

She contained herself. It was far too cruel to curse the child with the knowledge of where he should be sent just to quiet his protesting. "Candidate, allow me to just give you a piece of advice, if you'll ever hear a word that the Maidens of Athena have to offer you."

Distraught with her totally ignoring his pleas, the boy sank unto the pen's floor. "F-fine!"

"You're too young to understand this, but not all kindnesses are naked to the eye. Training Grounds aren't just the places that house the Cloths, but also where the soul of mankind is tested. Sending you to Mount Olympus with Saint Kastiel will, for better or worse, trigger a change in you." she worded as simple as she could. "There will come a day, Goddess willing, where you will be changed by these hidden kindnesses… and understand her plan for you."

Her 'plan'? Lance's crying eyes sunk into his palms. His memory from the church may be gone, but he felt he had heard this kind of lie before. It was like a scar in his mind, the blatant farce thrown at him.

The maiden rose and gestured the Goddess' blessing, raising one hand to her magnificence and lowering the other unto his pen. "Good luck, candidate, and may the Cosmos bless you."

{======================|SSII|======================}

The next day

{======================|SSII|======================}

At the rooms the ten year old kids slept at, Lance took his belongings out of the bunk bed and shoved his extra coats and shoes into the small bag, as well as a stitched up trainer and some minor supplies given to him like a water bottle and crackers, zipping it close.

Guifi watched the whole thing. "Do you need any help?"

Lance shook his head. Everything he had that he wasn't wearing was inside it now. The bag fit under his armpit and wasn't even close to full. "No, I'm done."

"Everyone thinks you're being expelled." Guifi commented, folding arms. "It kinda feels like you are anyway, especially after what happened."

The Athenian boy paused and shook his head sadly. "It's worse than that. I'm being sent to die."

Guifi blinked in alarm. "What do you mean?"

Lance looked out the door, where soon his new 'Master' would be waiting for him. "It's Jason's Exile, Guifi. They don't expect me to surv-"

Guifi smacked him in the head! "That's not what I mean, dumbass!"

"OW! What's wrong with you?!"

"With me?! What's wrong with you?! So what if it's the Exile?! Do you have any idea how much I'd kill to be in your shoes right now?!" Guifi protested. "Forget me, half this place would love to get a certain shot at a Training Ground! Stop talking like you're being sent to the guillotine. This is your way out!"

Lance rubbed his hurt head angrily. "It's not that simple! The whole thing is a giant trap! That guy is gonna leave me there for sure! It's set up this way!"

Guifi growled and shoved him lightly to get him to snap out. "Stop being a baby, Lance! You don't think I know these people don't give a shit about us?! It doesn't matter! Don't you get it?!" he appealed. "If he dumps you there, then fine, you just do the whole thing yourself and unlock the cosmos! Then you take the armor, come back, walk up to him and prove everyone was wrong about you!"

Lance shoved him back. "SHUT UP! It's easy for you to say! You already have the Cosmos! I can't even survive out there on my own and…" he then gulped, his anger suddenly doused into terror. "… and they're taking me to a frozen mountain full of wolves. My god,... I'm going to die."

Guifi relaxed, more sympathetic to this. At least Lance wasn't moping just because things were harder than he thought. He had a real reason this time to act like a bitch.

With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Lance sat on the bed, looking at the floor. "You were right, Guifi. No one cares about what's right in this place. It's not like how Noah said it."

Watching the boy recoil into a fetal position, haunted by his thoughts, Guifi suddenly recognized himself in his first year, when his hopes of being picked began dying as well and became ghosts in his mind.

The Asian boy looked aside nervously. "You really admire that guy, uh?"

Lance hesitated. "Well, he's not really a g… nevermind. Yeah, I do." His lips then curved slightly despite his sadness. "Triangle's the first person that ever really cared about me. Noah changed my life, showed me amazing things about what using the cosmos was like. I promised Noah I wouldn't forget them. It's…Those Maiden bitches said he wasn't fit to teach, for some reason. But he's the only reason I've ever wanted to become a Saint."

Guifi noticed the effect that talking about Triangle had on Lance and homed in on it. "You really are lucky. I wish I had someone like that. You have someone you can focus on to help you survive Mount Olympus. If you keep that drive up, sooner or later you'll get Cosmos, too old or not."

Lance turned to him curiously. "What do you want to do, then? Why are you still around?"

Guifi recoiled a bit, not expecting the sudden attention. "Well, I… Why are you asking?"

"You unlocked your cosmos already, even if just a bit. What's your dream, Guifi?" For some reason it made the chamorro boy chuckle. "Uh?"

"Nothing, just a private joke." Guifi excused away. His full name translated into 'landless dreamer', after all. Still, the main questioned invoked some dark feelings in him. "I've never really told this to anyone, but I'm… dreaming of fire."

Lance blinked. "Fire?"

The boy closed his fist, making his cosmos burn a faint red in it. "Yeah. For as long as I can remember it's what I've seen when I close my eyes. I guess it probably means something about my anger. When I unlocked my cosmos, all I could think of was how much I hated everyone around me. The Maidens, the trainer, Athena, the other kids…" his fingers then sunk into his palm. "...even my parents."

….

Guifi opened his palm, revealing faint marks of his nails. "Maybe that makes me a bad guy, but it's all I got."

Lance stared in fascination. "I'm sorry you're stuck here, Guifi. I was here for a month and I ended up biting some asshole's fingers off and desecrating a statue. I can't imagine what you've gone through in seven years."

The pale-haired boy slowly absorbed these words with a sad lowering of head. "There's only eighty eight armors. Only half are Bronze ones. Not everyone gets to become a Saint."

Lance wiped his tears, thinking of Noah. After everything he and the Silver Saint went through together, he couldn't hate him for promising the world and more to Lance should he fight hard to become a Saint. However, it was impossible not to feel frustrated, having left everything behind on the Triangle Saint's word only to land in this shithole deadend.

His sense of loyalty to the Saint he held in a pedestal stopped Lance from voicing such ugly feelings. "I'll do as you said, Guifi… focus on Noah to survive…. Can I ask you something?"

"Yeah?"

"Why are you helping me so much?" Lance requested to know. He then pointed at his irises. "It's not because of..."

"That's a factor. Us red-tards gotta stick together, I suppose. Also…" Guifi scratched his head and shrugged his shoulders. "You seem to me like the only guy around here who'd actually make a decent Saint. You seem to care about justice and the magic of cosmos, dumb as that is. Everyone else is obsessed with… marks and muscles and whatever. Like becoming a Saint is a contest. They just want to either survive or show up to each other."

Lance grumbled, embarrassed. "After what I did to Agot, I don't think I'm that good a guy."

"Fuck him." Guifi simply snapped. "I saw what he was gonna do with that nail shiv! He had it coming. If you didn't bite him, I sure as hell would have!"

Lance widened his eyes and chuckled, stunned. "Ah, ya would?"

"Honestly? Between that and breaking that stupid statuette, that was the first impressive thing I've seen you do all month. I wish I had the balls to have done the same before." Guifi assured, laughing when he remembered the look on everyone's faces. "Besides, it's not about being a good guy, not as they see it. They just want obedient soldiers."

With all the honor rules and crap, Lance hesitated to believe this. "How do you know that?"

"I don't. But if it's not about that…. Then becoming a Saint is a worthless fantasy." Guifi flat out confessed. "Athena isn't worth worshiping if being a good Saint means turning a blind eye to shit going on in front of your face to innocent people. That's how I feel, anyway."

Lance chuckled, admiring his confidence in this. "You're… a lot smarter than me. Thank you, Guifi. I won't forget this."

The boy smiled and extended hand. "Good luck in Mount Olympus, man. I hope we meet again someday."

Lance's red eyes welled up a little and took it. There was actually one thing that Heart of Sasha had offered him; someone with red eyes, just like his own. Someone who shared with him a cause of spite from others that he could share fears with. He always thought that, when he met someone with red eyes, they would be the best of friends.

Turns out he was right. And now they had to go their separate ways.

{======================|SSII|======================}

Four years later,

August, 1974

Sanctuary Town

{======================|SSII|======================}

The streets of Sanctuary Town were bustling with activity, a yearly occurrence during the summer due to the favorite holiday period in Athena's land; the eighty eight knights festival. The smell of yogurt and goyo stands filled the air, the verandas were bursting with multicolored flowers and children from multiple training grounds ran across the streets, guessing the titles of Saints they met to collect cards for their favorite game.

The blonde Silver Saint Sagitta Nam, dressed in his blue archer armor, felt energized as he headed for the harbor, a rare occurrence in the meek warrior. Unlike the January peace festival which reminded him of a dreary time when friends went against friends, the summer festival was pure, celebrating a triumph buried under two millennium proceeding the war with Poseidon.

"May the Goddess bless you, Saint Sagitta!" passing trainees greeted.

Such sweet kids. He remembered playing this game with Guardnia, Cynthia and Kastiel when he was eight and came to visit. Nam chuckled and handed copies of the card he was given of his Sagitta Cloth. "May the Goddess bless you, too!"

The harbor bells rang, calling everyone's attention to arriving ships. Sanctuary Town did not have a true coast; rather, the river Ladon, born when Saint Libra Dohko unearthed a ship from under the earth with his legendary Rising Dragon punch, ran around the western streets and emptied into a big lake in the valley seeming surrounded by the same mounts that enclosed Sanctuary. The southern mountains, however, concealed a canal to the Corinth gulf, meaning the lake was secretly a waterway to the Adriatic.

Arriving ships meant either one of two things; full fish nets or Saints returning from missions. Some preferred to take the waterway since it would get them into a vehicle without ever going through the mountain pass, Rodario and the surrounding areas where their superspeed might get noticed. Nam wasn't interested in the fish, but he was on any Saint that might be arriving from assignment. Ensuring that there was no mission concluding itself meant he could go on his merry way to join everyone else at the games without leaving work pending at the mission center.

He walked up to the edge of one that seemed particularly fussy as it docked. "Triton bless you, sailors. Do you bring a Saint with you?"

A ramp was lowered before some shouted. "OUT! NOW!" and a man in leather-clad armor was hurled out unto the dock floor, rolling and screaming with his hands tied.

Nam gasped, stepping back in fright. His Mohawk hair was bright yellow, his skin tanned from hiding at Mediterranean bases and his face matched one of the wanted posters at the mission center.

The muscled man, despite looking like a truck, was bruised, bleeding and wimping like a train had run him over. "Shaint of Athena! H-help me! Thake me away! He'll K-KILL me!"

Realizing what happened, Nam yelled out. "CALL THE GUARD!"

Pegasus Lance, armored to the teeth in the Bronze Cloth, furiously followed the captive out of the boat. Despite being clearly who hurled the man out, Lance seemed spent and bruised as well, like he just got out of a difficult fight. His armor had multiple blood splat marks on it and there were fighting scratches all over his face and arms.

"The Black Saint Attila the Golden, captured! Alive!" Lance announced, more furious than any kind of proud, like the sight of the captive disgusted him. He showed a blipping radar. "There's twelve more of this shitstain's contraband friends tied up on these coordinates."

Hoplites began gathering around while Nam just stared in shock. Attila the Golden had burned, pillaged, raped and enslaved, not to mention killed a not insignificant number of hoplites with his bare hands. Just last week they were getting ready to classify him as a Silver threat, which caused his bounty to shoot up.

Now he was crying at Nam's feet like a girl, trembling at the proximity of the Pegasus Saint. "What… what did you do to him?"

"It's all in the report." Wiping the sweat and blood off his forehead and hands, Lance took a stack of papers off his Cloth box and handed it. "Can I collect my bounty now? I went a week without food, stalking these bastards in their goddamn island base. I'm starving."

The Sagitta Saint snorted, baffled, and laid out his hands. "Um,… yes, I suppose. You can collect it at the center. Don't let me stop you." As Lance ran past him, Sagitta could help but see how deep some of the wounds on Attila were. Needlessly deep, like they got pressed. His mouth also had half his teeth punched out. "Hey, wait!"

Lance stopped, impatient. "Damn it, what?!"

The Silver Saint staggered and gulped. He wasn't typically intimidated by upstart Bronze Saints, but this was the kid that beat up Kass for leaving him to die.

But Nam was loyal to his values, despite being an office warrior. "You went too far, didn't you? Again."

Lance's shoulders sank. "Listen,…. I don't care if you tell the Pope. Got it?! Him and your Silver Saint friends already have it in for me! But if you feel you must, just keep in mind my report says I found more than just cow beef on this asshole's freezer!" he revealed, making Nam and the guards look at Attila with newfound disgust. "So send another jerk in armor to discipline me, or dock my bounty or pile another six months of punishment missions on me if you have to, but at least let me go eat! I still do that like a normal fucking person, unlike the bastard Black Saints you want me to be nicer to!"

The Bronze Saint then left without further ceremony, leaving Nam and the speechless hoplites to pick up the pieces of what was left of Attila.

{======================|SSII|======================}

Rodario's Coliseum

{======================|SSII|======================}

Celebrating the 88-Knights Festival, the town of Rodario was packed that day. Though Sanctuary Town became the main settlement in the area, Rodario had retained its cultural and historical right to hold the festival that celebrated Athena's victory over Poseidon. Most of the festivity was focused on the Coliseum games between the trainees and Saints. Among the games, the most popular and important, in turn, was the Sisyphean Challenge, formally the Hercules' Trial, named in honor of the 18th Century Sagittarius Saint, rather than the king who pushed boulders up the Underworld's slopes.

Gathering a little over five hundred trainees and advanced orphans, they were divided in four groups of 128 each. Each trainee would spar constantly with other members of the same group in sparring matches that would be rated either as a Win, Loss or Draw. The one with the highest win percentage or lowest loss in each group would be picked to fight in a four-sided Battle Royale. Because each trainee would have to spar for five minutes against all the other members of the same group, this meant that each one would have to fight, in the end, up to 132 times, resulting in over 11 hours of constant sparring.

This meant that the first, huge half of the Coliseum was just one massive, boring endurance test that was mostly ignored by the population. It wasn't until the last Battle Royale that the Coliseum got really packed.

The highly prestigious tournament was so important that the winner would have his name inscribed on the Fire Clock should he score a W-D-L high enough to rank among the top 10 winners since the tournaments renaming in the 18th Century. In fact, it was so important that the Pope himself and the Gold Saints would come to watch the final and the winning trainee would be offered the reward by Athena herself, should she be present among mortals.

The reward was, once upon a time a laurel crown woven by Athena herself, but some people concerned with symbolism believed that the award was in poor taste as it was too close to home to how the historical coronation of the Athenian Emperor looked. Instead, from the 12th century onward, the Herculean Trial, now known as the Sysiphean Challenge, awarded the winners with an audience with the Pope and a recommendation to the coveted Golden Zodiac temple training courses, where they could learn to become gold-rank trainees.

That year's Sisyphean Challenge was being particularly interesting and crowd rousing, as the Pope noted in his privileged seat. He watched the four trainees present themselves before the Pope and salute him before attacking each other. This was expected. What wasn't expected by everyone was two of them being knocked out in less than a second and the remaining two locking each other in the most intense trainee match most people had memory of.

The Pope leaned forward on his seat and watched, amazed and the most fantastic feeling of déjà vu, as the two rivals fought for the upper hand. "Incredible. They're fighting at increasingly fast levels and they don't even realize it." He turned to Capricorn Kirin. "What are their names again?"

Kirin looked at the tournament chart. "The one with the red bandanna is named Aiolos. The other one is wearing his Gemini Mask, so it's uncertain, but he belongs to the pair of twins tagged with the names 'Saga and Kanon'."

Shion scratched his chin, intrigued and thought back to the Holy Wars. "It's a long shot, but the bandanna boy looks so much like Sisyphus and both have an amazing cosmos. I have to tell Dohko about this!" A free Gold Rank Training Period would obviously not be a useful or just reward for the winner among these two. The winner would deserve much better, to be catapulted to the Temples themselves as a new Gold Saint candidate!

Taurus Daniel walked next to the Pope with a grim look on his face that distracted Shion from seeing his friends after over 200 years. "Greetings, your Holiness."

"Hello, Daniel. Tell me what bothers you. It's such a beautiful day and we're having a wonderful tournament finale." Shion asked. After such an auspicious match, there was nothing that could bother the Lemurian Pope.

"I have the latest mission reports from the Bronze Saints, including Pegasus Lance," said Daniel in a serious tone. "He…he brought in the target severely wounded into Sanctuary Town. They didn't resist their wounds…"

Shion widened his eyes behind his mask and the air around him grew darker to his eyes. He felt his good mood fall apart so hard he completely ignored the crowd's sudden cheering as Saga defeated Aiolos and was loudly announced as the victor. Taurus Daniel waited patiently for the stoic mask to respond."

"That…That is UNACCEPTABLE!" Shion shouted, banging his fist on the chair's arm. He stood up and crushed the Gold Saint with the raising of his voice. "He is a Saint of Athena! The cosmos gives him the power to do the impossible, yet he chooses to be a MURDERER?! What if a comrade or victim gets killed over this? How does he justify his abuse?"

Daniel cowered further. It was clear that the Pope has had it with Pegasus' attitude. He wondered how Shion hasn't put him in jail yet. "His report claims that Saint Pegasus found the target to be…too uncooperative with capture. Your Holiness, if I may interject, it's not that uncommon-"

"HAVE MY SAINTS BECOME JUDGE, JURY AND EXECUTIONERS?! This is a shame to the memory of Tenma!" Shion exhaled loudly in frustration and sank on his seat, disheartened. "Saint Pegasus Lance once again decides on his own volition to go against the mission parameters…and the Black Saint is the dangerous one?!" he asked, honestly expecting an answer from Daniel, who just looked away. "What am I supposed to do with him now?"

Daniel and Kirin exchanged concerned looks; the Civil War had been over for only eight years as of then, so it was natural for the Pope to be concerned with new Saints already straying from the path of righteousness, but he seemed to be extending particular attention to the Pegasus Saint. While it was rather unpleasant how much an example of a soon-to-be-Black Saint that Pegasus Lance was, it seemed as if His Holiness, motivated by the memory of Pegasus Tenma, held his case in particular regard. Not only did they fight together, but Saint Tenma had been the student of the Pope's best friend, after all.

Now his armor was in the shoulders of someone with blatant disregard for Athena's law.

"Lord Shion, maybe we should just renounce him." suggested Kirin. "He's clearly not worthy of being a Bronze Saint. In fact, I'm surprised the Pegasus Cloth hasn't abandoned him already."

Shion sighed. The winged horse Cloth would never do something like leaving its Saint. After Tenma's death, Pegasus was left traumatized by Daemon Lucifer's murder and lost its old tenacity and ferociousness, as well as decent chunk of its memories. Shion fixed it himself and knew the object had deep-seated guilt about failing its Master. It's likely that the Pegasus spirit would rather suffer a thousand disgraces before abandoning a new owner.

Moreover, it must have picked Lance for a reason. Shion was confident that a survivor of Jason's Exile must have some kind of redeeming quality and Sanctuary owed such survivors the benefit of doubt for passing its harsh stipulations. There had to be a key to fixing this problem that didn't go through severing the connection between the rider and his steed.

More importantly, it was in having faith in these difficult cases that one's mettle as a Pope truly showed. It would make Athena so happy if Shion could just turn him into a true Saint, but, instead, Lance seemed to be getting worse and worse. Clearly just sending him out there to the field to see the tides of darkness Saints had to hold back wasn't working.

"My new Pegasus Saint seems to be still acting like a wild horse." Shion compared. "He's roused, loud and causes a lot of trouble to everyone, breaking things around him and attacking everyone that approaches him. I thought that walking him around a bit through the world would calm him down. But now it is clear to me that he doesn't need to be calmed down, but tamed."

Daniel saw the people looking up to the Pope, expecting him to award Saga. Shion stood up and walked down the Coliseum steps, followed by the two Gold Saints. "What do you have planned, your Holiness?"

Shion waved at the crowd. "It's simple. Another mission and, this time, it will be to crush the Black Saint rebellion that occurred in the Pacific. Those islands have asked for reinforcements some time ago and Saint Lance is perfect for it."

Kirin widened his eyes. "But, your Holiness, those islands included-"

"That's right." Shion interrupted. He headed for the two trainees and greeted them, reliving his childhood in Sanctuary with them for a small moment before thinking "And if this doesn't work, then I don't know what will."

{======================|SSII|======================}

A few days later,

Southwest Pacific

{======================|SSII|======================}

The captain of the Sanctuary-sponsored Trinity, a big ship that was usually used for fishing, left the bridge and headed for the bow. It was night already and the sea was calm and absent of storms but, considering their next destination, this was no relief. He had left his second in command taking care of the engine's course and was about to head for the cabins to look for Pegasus, only to encounter him standing at the tip of the bow, looking out at the sea and with his Cloth box on his back.

The captain approached him carefully. He knew the teen's reputation and was anxious to drop him off at the last island. "We'll be arriving shortly." He said, gaining Lance's attention. "This is the last island you'll be liberating. After that it will be Mission Complete, right?"

"That's right." Lance answered, flatly.

It had been an interesting mission so far. He got to hunt down Black Saints across the Pacific and that was always fun. The Marshall Islands were particularly packed, making him believe that the Black Saints were planning to move from there to Australia to establish some sort of base. No one was sure how the revolt happened and how so many unregistered Black Saints appeared all of a sudden, but Pegasus wasn't really interested in it, calling it a problem of a scope bigger than his.

"What are you staring at?" he asked.

The captain staggered, realizing he had really been staring. "I'm sorry. It's just… your eyes. I've never seen natural red... Which curse is it?"

Lance stood silently for a moment, thinking either on his question or resisting the urge to knock his head off.

"Is that why everyone's been looking at me weird?! I'm not fucking cursed, okay?!" Lance turned around and saw an island far away from the boat, still quite the distance ahead. He looked to the sky above the island and saw clouds gathering. Lance has been in volcanic islands enough times to realize they were filled with acid rain. "Is that the place?"

The old seaman took off his hat and blessed himself in Christian fashion. "Jesus, Buddha and Athena all bless me, yes. That blasted black scar on God's earth is Death Queen Island."

The Pegasus Saint squinted at it, seeing faint rivers of red, sharp rocky shores and a miasma of filth in its nearby waters. Despite being still quite far by swimming, heat was getting exponentially worse, like he was holding his hand closer to a fireplace right in front of him. He was face to face with the fabled worst Training Ground in all of Sanctuary. After surviving alone in Mount Olympus, a part of him was curious to see if it was true.

Suddenly, the engine stopped for no apparent reason. The captain looked up. "What's going on?!"

The crewman at the wheel poked his head out. "Civilians ahead, captain!"

The aged man in sailor hat widened his eyes and took his binoculars, spotting a large cruise ship far beyond, by the western edge of the island. "My Goddess."

Lance's eyes widened, hearing the faint screams, and took a pair of binoculars as well. There was, in fact, a rather large vessel to the west shore side, one that was lighting up like a torch. Flares were being fired off the burning vessel, while people seemed to be jumping out the vessel water midst flashes of… cosmos. He lowered the lenses with a hateful scowl after watching shadows pick off the survivors one by one.

"They're gonna be taken to the island… as slaves or worse. Poor fools." the captain lamented, shaking head in sorrow at the cruiser passengers. "Goddess forgive me, but I hope they drown."

"What are you waiting for? Take me there!" he demanded.

The captain shook his head. "This is as far as we go. Don't try to force us to go any closer, young Saint! I don't know why you signed up for this mission, but we don't have to be as foolish as you. You can take a small boat or you can swim there. It's your choice."

The Pegasus Saint narrowed his eyes and pulled his Cloth box handle, causing it to collapse in all directions and unleash the Pegasus Bronze Cloth in a shining wash of light over himself, dressing the teenager in the horse armor. The sailors watched intently; a Saint summoning his armor was always a dazzling show.

"Fine. Guard my box, then." Lance stepped on the ship bow's fence. "Be back tomorrow in this same place. By then I should have the place cleared of hostiles."

He then jumped off to the water, swimming towards the island.

Immediately he heard the sound of the Trinity's engine starting and dove to avoid being run over by it as it escaped the area. When the ship was gone, Lance turned to the island, wondering what could possibly be so bad about it, and swam towards it, using his cosmos to counter the current but not enough to gather attention to him from the island with supersonic speed.

As he approached the island, the air and the water grew hotter and hotter and Lance began wondered if taking a boat, albeit being less stealthy, would had been the better solution. His regret began increasing when he accidentally swam against what looked like a floating dolphin carcass bleeding into the water, which made him frown in disgust and swim a good chunk around it. He sped up his pace when he heard the island roaring. It could be erupting and he didn't want a veil of lava to solidify on top of the water he was swimming in.

The water kept getting darker and warmer… and the air began to stench and burn. Every stroke he made seemed to scald, every accidental gulp made him want to hurl and he thanked the armor for being so light. Before long, he began to see what he thought to be the beach, but it's sands were so dark it just looked like a rising extension of the black tide he was in.

Nevertheless, eventually his chest and strokes hit warm sand and he climbed off the water with the waves.

Good, he reached the shore.

Now he had to take cover and find the Black Sai-

All of a sudden, Lance was struck from above by someone large and heavy who smashed him against the underwater sand soil. Lance's senses went to full alert, realizing he just got ambushed. Someone's hand then grabbed him by the collar, lifted him from the water and punched him with wild force, making his world spin.

His collar was grabbed and his face held against the attacker's snarling eyes. A white haired teenager with a severely scarred and tanned muscular body was staring right at him with eyes as red as his "Welcome to Death Queen Island, PUNK!"

Lance's eyes widened in shock. "GUIFI?!"

A wild roar followed and the attacker's fist exploded on his cheek, blanking his world.

{======================|SSII|======================}

Next Chapter: Chapter 68 – Side Story - The Curse of Hatred – Part 3 – Blackened Hearts

Description: Having arrived on the fabled Death Queen Island, Lance is confident he can take control of the situation like he has with many other missions. However, beginning with the ambush he just suffered, the Pegasus Saint will realise the island is much more dangerous than he ever thought.

Deadline: March 25th (sister's birthday, coincidentally)

Author's Notes: Yay, this time I didn't miss my deadline, though I guess that's easy considering that I already had this part finished together with the last chapter.

Anyway, writing/rewriting this Side Story has been a huge challenge. On top of the stuff I mentioned in the last chapter's notes, a big problem has been defying everything I had already written back in 2011/2012 and come up with better ways to characterize Lance and Guifi.

Next we will be moving on to Death Queen Island itself and the writing hasn't gotten any easier. I already have the next chapter finished, but its production took longer than expected and I had to ask my friend Zeb to be the beta-reader for that one, since she's pretty good at nailing the problems I'm too tired or absorbed into my progress to notice. Hopefully, part 4 will go smoother since I'm starting to realise a big source of impediment has been my subconscious desire to salvage old writing, which oughta just be discarded entirely sometimes.

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 now passed 28000 hits, but 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.