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.

69. SS2: The Curse of Hatred - Part 3 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 Zebulon Wallace, from Discord;

-With this upload, the fic will officially surpass the 1.5 Million wordcount milestone!;

-Also, I'd like to thank the 910+ views I've received this last month on the fic! Please keep supporting the story;

-Finally, I've made a Map of Sanctuary Town, which I've released on Twitter, DeviantArt Reddit and Discord. I'll create a link to it on my profile as soon as I can. Let's call it a late birthday gift to the fic : )

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

Two Years Earlier,

July, 1972

Rodario, Heart of Sasha

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

Two years after Lance's departure from the Rodario orphanage known as Heart of Sasha, the house holding the orphan youths dreaming to become Saints had changed very little, taking in new classes of students yet maintaining mostly the same staff and way of doing things. People willing to watch over the children of Athena, as the orphans were romantically called, were hard to come by even among the Maidens of the Goddess, which made a changing of the guard and therefore introducing new ways of doing things equally difficult. The food was still quite terrible and lacking, Paidotribe Phil still patrolled the gymnasium with his lash-happy whip and the candidates still generally carried on with their days in cynical fashion, expecting the recruitment barracks to call them any day to make the death of their dreams a reality.

Yet, there was a smile among the faces in this dreary place.

Eight year old Sanctuary trainee Aiolos adjusted his sandals, wanting to at least make a pleasant presentation for a potential Master that would soon visit the Heart of Sasha Orphanage. Maiden Thea, one of the caretakers there, smiled approvingly of his readiness and got on her knees so as to lower Aiolia to Aiolos' level. Baby Aiolia chuckled loudly and reached out with his hand for his big brother. Aiolos smiled, before he untied the red bandana from his head and gave it to him.

The trainee watched baby Aiolia hold on tight to the red fabric as if it was some sort of good luck charm. "How has he been doing, Maiden Thea?"

"Oh, don't worry." she said. "He's an angel, just like his brother. He doesn't cry much and, when he does, it's usually because he misses you."

Aiolos took the two year old Leo toddler proudly. "Aw, you miss me, little bro? Say my name, Aiolia! Say Aiolos!"

Baby Aiolia chuckled. "Aioros!"

"No! Not Aioros. It's Aiolos." Aiolos reprehended, calmly. If he could only get his bro to say the L properly. Maybe his teeth were still too tiny. "Say Aiolia."

"Aioria!" Aiolia insisted, to Aiolos's frustration. "Aioria! Aioria! Saga! Kanon!"

Aiolos was forced into a small smirk with Aiolia's continuous mispronouncing. He shouldn't expect much of baby Aiolia, of course. It was already impressive that he could say a few names at such a young age. He even recognized the twins.

Aiolos sighed "Oh, Aiolia…I can't hang out with you all day. I have to train and get strong so I can get you to Sanctuary." Aiolos complained, grabbing the baby's hand. He turned his head to the Maiden. "Maybe I should leave the bandana with him. What if I get picked today by whoever's coming? At least he would have something from me while I'm at the Training Ground."

Aiolos then saw Maiden Thea's expression grow suddenly darker and sadder, scowling at such a prospect. "Let's hope you don't get picked today, then."

Aiolos widened his eyes. "What do you mean?" he asked, but the Maiden did not answer. Aiolos felt suspicious of her and wondered if there was something wrong with the soon-to-arrive Master. He tossed this curiosity aside, though. "I can't afford to be picky. I've worked very hard for this and it could be years before another Master visits. If I get picked, I can rest easy knowing Aiolia will be taken care of."

Once again, Thea seemed hesitant. "I'll take him back now… You better go with the others to the gymnasium."

Aiolos nodded and thanked the Maiden before leaving for the training patio. "I wonder what's wrong with her."

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

While the children awaited the visiting Master in the interior grounds, the orphanage's main hall was abuzz with the Maidens' staring at the gate they just locked. The big wooden door even had its lock bar lowered. Reaching the main hall of the orphanage, Thea found her Sisters gathered around it, staring at the lifted main slot through where mail was usually dropped through like there was a wild bear outside.

Thea covered her mouth and nose, feeling a disgusting iron and sulfur stench coming through the slot. All were sharing whispers of fear and prayers of salvation. "H-he's…. he's outside already?"

Maiden Helen appealed to calm. "Don't be afraid, Sisters! We don't have to allow him inside!"

"Open this door." a low voice was heard from outside that made all their throats tighten. "I am here to take my student."

"You can't be here! This house will not be open its doors to you!" Maiden Helen shouted at the door slot, sweating in panic. "The Holy Father forbade you from taking students! Go back to your island before…. Before the Gold Saints blast you there in a thousand pieces!"

"The Holy Father? The Saints?…. You stupid knee-bending sluts!" it hissed in a low, menacing tone, making them all step back in horror. "Who do you think I serve?! I am the guardian of the Phoenix Cloth, the most important Bronze armor… the most important armor of all! And I will not be denied my duty by some fucking old man on a throne who thinks he can defy the stars by passing papers!"

The maidens of Athena exchanged glances of fear. One of them tapped Helen's shoulder. "Y-You can't let this heathen in! He's an affront to Athena! He'll… he'll do monstrous things to the children! S-Send him away!"

Helen sweated. "How do you expect me to do that without the Saints here?! Please, sisters, just call the Zodiac and be calm. The bar on this door is made of the same stuff they use for Saint shackles! He can't get in if we don't let hi-"

As if to silence this dissent, a strong force suddenly bashed on the door so hard it cracked its reinforced steel bar frame from the outside, startling her! A long, muscled hand then burst through and pulled Maiden Helen in by the waist, clamping her screaming into the broken frame.

"H-HELEN!" the maidens screamed, grabbing her and the arm.

Another hand burst through and clasped around Helen's screaming face. It was burning in cosmos, scalding her breath and burning her eyes like a blanket wet with boiling water. Helen screamed for help as the thick fingers forcefully dug into her cheeks, eyes and temples with burning strength, making boiling blood jut out. The angry pressure rose until her whole body and head were crushed in with a disturbing crack, splattering red all over the walls.

The sisters all gasped in distraught, crying at the sight of Helen's disemboweled, beheaded corpse sliding into the floor, its pious hands hanging loosely aside and dropping the gate key.

A pair of red eyes in a dark hood stared at them from the broken door's holes. "Dear sisters, pay attention, because I will only say this one more time. Open this door and take me to pick my beloved student." it warned, seemingly calmer. "If you don't… I'll make my way in. I'll gather you all in a little room with your children. Then, under Athena's benevolent eyes…. I'll make you all join your beloved Sister here in heaven. One by one."

Maiden Thea shook, staring at the door and the blood. The metal key by Helen's dead fingers shined unnervingly .

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

Heading for the gymnasium, Aiolos couldn't help but think that he was really lucky for being born in Greece; so much that he got sent to Heart of Sasha rather than the other two less luxurious orphanages. Spartan training aside, the Heart of Sasha was a much better place for his baby brother to be cared for than the House of Tenma or even Gift of Alone. He sped up his pace in nervousness, still trying to figure out why the Maiden's was hoping for him to not be chosen?

"Is something wrong?" someone asked. Aiolos turned to see a nine year old boy wearing a full-head mask rather garishly colored blue on one side and red on the other. "You look worried. Is it about Aiolia?"

Aiolos looked at which side had which color. "Oh, it's you, Kanon." Aiolos then sighed. "No, Aiolia is fine. It's just something I heard the Maiden comment about the Master that is going to visit us. She seemed…worried."

"Kanon?… Darn it, I'm Saga!1" the boy asserted. "How could you get that wrong again? It's like the thousandth time!"

Aiolos raised brow, flustered, and tried to read the color sides again. "What? But I could swear-"

"Kanon, stop messing with him." the real Saga interjected, joining in. His full head mask had the colors mirrored, with the dark blue on the right. He then gave proof of identity by taking Kanon's hand and showing a small scar. "Look, Aiolos, this dumbass got this cut sticking his hand in the canteen shutters as they were closing."

Aiolos chuckled, relieved his instinct was still correct. He just knew he had the colors right. There was also no need for body proof, he could tell by attitude alone this was the real Saga.

The young Sagittarius candidate had met the two twin boys in front of him when he first arrived on Heart of Sasha, back in October of 70. Twenty months had passed since, a friendship had been formed and Aiolos was yet to see the face of either. Apparently in Sanctuary, when you had twins born under Gemini that were also inducted into the military, it was customary to have their faces concealed from everyone, including the Maidens, before meeting any further acquaintances. According to Saga, this had to do with the off-chance that they might get picked for the Gemini Cloth, which had a Path that involved some kind of "Man in the Iron Mask" scenario. Aiolos often wondered if it was hard for them to breathe with such a thing, to which Saga replied that you just get used to it, while Kanon would fold his arms and complain about being 'smothered'.

While they stayed at the Orphanage they were to keep their features a mystery, allowing only their blue eyes and brows to be visible, which made it all too easy for Kanon to play his stupid identity pranks. "I wish you wouldn't mess with me like this, Kanon. What if there's an emergency and someone really needs to tell you two apart for something, like allergies?"

"Come on, it's just a joke." the younger twin argued, folding arms. "You gotta be sharp in this world, Aiolos. The Cloths of Athena wait for no boy! It's punk or be punked!"

Saga punched his twin's arm lightly. "Don't listen to him, Aiolos, Kanon says he's sorry. By the way, I see you're getting all primed up for the Master, too."

Speaking of the incoming visitor, Aiolos wasn't sure if Saga and Kanon would get to show their faces once picked for it, or just one of them, or if they even had to worry about it considering the odds of getting picked for a Gold Cloth training. Either way, they'd likely get a chance to get rid of the ugly things so the twins were quite looking forward to this chance to get a teacher.

However, Aiolos had his own reasons to compete for him. "Yeah. If I get a teacher, Sanctuary has to take care of my brother better. Do you think we stand a chance?"

Saga's eyes turned to the gymnasium skeptically, seeing the kids all rushing at it. "Math says otherwise, but I'm confident we'll stand out."

"Aiolos was saying the Master coming in was an asshole." Kanon interjected.

Seeing Saga widening his eyes, Aiolos clarified. "I didn't call him that, I said I heard a few things… You know how it is."

Saga folded his arms and thought about it. "Someone with a bad reputation, uh? Maybe it's Perseus. I heard he turns failures into stone." he suggested.

"Or perhaps Pyxis, who makes kids' heads explode when they fail his tests!" Kanon offered.

"Stop scaring him, Kanon." Saga asserted, then turning to a shrugging Aiolos. "Maybe this teacher just comes from a harsh Training Ground. Don't worry too much about it. You won't get picked before me, anyway."

Aiolos narrowed his eyes and fumed a little. "Thanks, I feel better already."

The sarcasm seemed to completely fly over Saga's head. "No problem. You should worry more about whether or not you'll wake up tomorrow alive. The Master may still consider you, then say your name to another Master and so on, and if that happens, you'll have a giant target on your forehead. Even if you get picked after me, Aiolia needs you alive, not stabbed in the back by some jealous kid."

Aiolos' brow twitched a bit, unsure as to what part of Saga's speech to react first. Saga had a talent for mixing taunts with both compliments and warnings when it came to talking to Aiolos. On one hand, he felt uplifted by Saga admitting that Aiolos was considerable but, on the other hand, he also made it clear he wasn't scoring any higher than Saga on any test anytime soon, then topped it all off with a concerned warning. It felt like talking to a nine year old politician.

An advantage Kanon definitely had over his older twin in dialogue was that he was pretty direct with how he felt, while Saga seemed to juggle different opinions about things together in his head without sticking to any, like he tried to both be your friend and your pack leader at the same time.

Case in point, Kanon pointed thumb at the gymnasium and spoke "We should hurry up so we can get rejected already. I love the feeling of disappointment as much as you guys and I want it now!"

And as always Saga processed it into non-aggravating terms. "Come on, Aiolos, we really shouldn't fall behind the line."

"What line? Where are the two of you going?" someone with a rough voice asked.

Both of them turned around and found the sunlight blocked by the enormous back of Jaki, one of the toughest and largest candidates around, backed by his two sycophants Kastor and Agot.

Kanon rolled his eyes. "Oh great, it's the Our-Stuff-Is-My-Stuff Agency."

Aiolos spread arm defensively over the two. "Don't worry, I'll handle this!" and he bravely stood up to the misshapen blonde boy shadowing all three of them from the sun. "We're going to present ourselves to the Master. Do you want something, Jaki?"

Kastor scoffed. "To the Master? You?!"

Agot pointed one of the remaining fingers in his hand at them. "You're just newbies. Six to eight year old brats go in the back. We're older so we're running out of time to get picked, so it's fairer we go first… don't you agree?"

"You should be glad we're so young, Agot! You still have enough fingers to count our age!" Kanon provoked, making Saga and Aiolos gasp in shock.

Agot's eyes bulged in rage and he stepped towards him "You little masked shit! I'll fucking kill you!"

Jaki held him back, worried about getting unwanted attention. "Hey, not so fast… later."

"Don't you have anything better to do, Jaki?! Leave Saga and Kanon alone!" Aiolos demanded. "If you worked the least bit hard around here, you'd have gotten a teach' years ago!"

This got the huge kid's attention. "And what's it to you what I do with them? You're gonna try be a hero, hillbilly-boy?" His huge hand then shoved Aiolos back. "Worry about your own damn brother, before these two."

Feeling Saga and Kanon cower slightly behind him, Aiolos took a deep breath to fill himself with courage. They were smart, but not fighters like him. "… No!"

Jaki's unbalanced eyes became stern, making even Kastor and Agot step away. "I'm not some goddamn shitstain rabbit in the Roumeli boondocks for you to trap and shoot down, got it? I'll fucking strangle you and your little baby brother. Understood?"

Saga gasped at the threat. "You monster! Don't you dare!"

Kanon joined in. "Say that again! We'll punch your stupid face even!"

Aiolos' head only grew hotter. "Jaki...Lay a finger on Aiolia… and I'll pin you to a wall! Got it?!"

The huge boy laughed. "That's more like it! I love it when you farm boys fight bac- AGH!" A strong hand reached in from nowhere and grabbed Jaki's wrist, stopping him. Jaki gasped and yelped loudly as the brown-skinned boy of white hair twisted the arm and pressed it against Jaki's back, forcing the large trainee on his knees. "YEAgh, let G-GO!"

"I don't think so." Guifi asserted. He took one look at the other two and shouted. "SCRAM!"

Kastor and Agot panicked and fled right away, making Jaki scowl in anger. "You fucking pussies! C-COME BACK HERE AND SAVE ME!"

Guifi held his arm tighter. "Making friends, Jaki?"

"Y-Yes, Guifi. I was just making friends. I'm sorry! Please let go!" Jaki whimpered.

"Is making new friends such a sin to you that you have to apologize?" asked Guifi "Or were you trying to pull something else?"

Sweating, Aiolos held his shoulder. "It's okay, man, let him go."

Guifi eventually obliged Jaki, who quickly crawled away from him. "Don't ever let me see you getting near them again, you hear me? They don't need a backstabbing bully as a friend," Guidi waited patiently until Jaki was out of sight before he turned to the others. "You three are lucky. I was heading for the gymnasium too but I wanted to sneak around the Paidotribe, or I'd be there already."

Saga breathed in relief and Kanon scratched head. "We were doing fine…"

Aiolos grumbled at their stupid pride. "Just say 'thank you', jerks."

The white-haired, tan-muscled boy shook head dismissively, assuring no gratitude was needed. Guifi Taitano was yet another trainee in the Heart of Sasha and a friend of Aiolos and Saga that had already been there for several years. After Aiolos joined in with his brother, he was quickly advised by Kanon to learn who the strongest kid around was (at the time for the purpose of fighting for dominance, one of the many suggestions given to Aiolos that Saga chastised Kanon for) and Aiolos was quite surprised to find out that, rather than Jaki, the orphanage's champion was a boy from far away Polynesian islands who kept somehow getting ignored by passing Masters.

Still, he was, in fact, the strongest boy around and Aiolos was further surprised to learn that not only had he unlocked a bit of cosmos, but his status wasn't always the case.

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

"Nah, just two Christmases ago I was pushed around even harder than all three of you put together. Jaki and his goons made my life miserable, got me in trouble and didn't even know my name. Just called me the Brownie. Bunch of racist assholes, think they're clever."

"What changed, then?"

"I got sick of it. It's strange, cause when they messed with me, it never made me want to change. I guess they made me believe it when they said I was a loser, just a little bit… But then they screwed with a friend of mine pretty badly and since then … I just had a different fire in me."

Aiolos remembered nodding pensively, thinking of Aiolia. "I see."

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

Aiolos never learned more about it, since Guifi was a person of few words, but it didn't matter for the lesson, and both him, Saga and Kanon had kept the advice in mind while training, so much than in two years all three of them were on the verge of becoming unofficial Bronze-Ranks and only really needed a teacher to make it official. It turned out that having someone you cared about in mind was better than just your selfish drive to push yourself to greater heights.

Yet, despite all this, Guifi was close to being a ghost in the eyes of the maidens and the visiting Masters. He was far too old to still be in a Sanctuary orphanage and was able to take down most 1st year trainees with ease, yet year after year he stayed, unnoticed. It was difficult to think it wasn't an accident.

"Don't listen to them, Guifi. Thank you for helping. I wish we didn't force you to stick your neck out." Aiolos said, extending hand.

Guifi stared at Aiolos' hand for a while, unsure what to think. He eventually took it for a small second before instantly heading off afterwards. "I wasn't forced to do anything. Let's just go. The Master will arrive soon."

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

The four trainees quickly headed for the gymnasium. The practice ground they spend their afternoons at was already filling up with trainees in a disciplined row, all in varying degrees of excitement and nervousness about the visitor. When it came to Masters visiting orphanages for recruitment, everybody knew that the one ranked the best among the trainee in the orphanage was almost always the one that got chosen. Still, everyone tried, banking on luck, hoping that the Master would magically recognize some sort of hidden potential, their spirit or heart in one of them in favor of the best-ranked ones.

Kanon was usually one to mock this presumption, though. "Look at all these jerks. They don't stand a chance! Saga, we should kick their butts all out of here so we can get picked sooner."

The older twin frowned unpleasantly. While it was true all the hopefuls looked more snotty than ready for a Training Ground, he didn't share Kanon's bluntness. "Everyone deserves their own shot, Kanon."

Placing themselves right at the end of the row with Guifi, the group endured Kanon's last comment. "Fine, then I'll blame you if this Master just picks the first kid that doesn't keel over after a punch in the gut."

The four stood at attention like good little privates waiting for inspection. They waited for a while and they soon realized that the Master, whoever he was, was apparently late.

"You should head back, Aiolos." Saga suddenly said without breaking his soldier pose. "Aiolia needs you here and going back would spare you the shame of seeing me being chosen over you."

Aiolos just returned an annoyed look and a polite smile. "I don't think so. You're good, Saga, but you're not that good. You're the one who should head back before you regret being sent to a Training Ground. You may be older than me, but I am ready for wherever I'm going to be sent."

Saga smirked, enticed by the challenge. "Is that so? We-"

"Please knock it off." asked Guifi, impatient. He didn't want to be caught in the middle of yet another scuffle between the two of them. Aiolos and the twins didn't know about it, but Guifi had worked hard to recover from all the trouble Lance caused him in the eyes of the Maidens and Masters. "I know you guys can't resist teasing eachother, but the Paidotribe will put us in the pen if we're chatting when the Master shows up."

Saga smirked smugly. "We're just testing eachother's resolve a bit, Guifi. You've had friendly rivals, right? I'm sure you know how it is."

The very idea of it made Guifi scoff. "Friendly rival? Not really. I briefly had a training partner, but that was over pretty quick."

Saga rose brow, sensing rhetorical weakness, a gesture that made him look especially slick when all you could see was his eyes. "Is that so? Guifi Taitano, the eternal loner, had a partner?"

"Don't tell me he had red eyes, too." the younger twin joined.

Aiolos gasped in horror. "Kanon!"

Kanon shrugged defensively. "What? It's a normal question! Everyone else treats Guifi like shit. Why else wouldn't that guy?"

Guifi glanced at them knowingly. "You two twins are way smarter than you even brag about."

"Then it must have been difficult for him to find a Master, as well." Saga deduced, ignoring the arguing. "What happened to him?"

The answer came without a beat. "Got himself sent to a frozen hellhole on account of Agot's fingers… and throwing mud at our dear Goddess. Coolest thing I've seen in all my eight years stuck here, if you ask me, but he paid dearly for it. Shame, probably dead by now. "

All three of them gawked and blinked, especially Kanon. "Okay… wasn't expecting that."

Aiolos blinked. "Well, he must have been your friend, right? I've never seen you compliment anyone else but us."

This gave Guifi pause to think. "By now, Lance's probably in his second year of training, if he hasn't been left in Olympus to die. I can't imagine him being so stupid he'd push away a Master, but a Training Ground is still a dangerous place, so I'd wager he's wolf poop." The thought of this, despite being born out of hardened cynicism, did make his stomach tighten a bit, though. "...I guess he was. Fate's a bitch like that."

The young Greek boy frowned sympathetically. "I see."

Guifi Taitano then went quiet, unwilling to entertain the topic further. Frankly, he was more curious in just how far the three Greek boys next to him right now would make, being so talented and hard working. On the other hand, he wasn't about to let himself be left behind once again. He had been stuck in the orphanage for too long as of now despite all the progress he made. There wasn't much more he could do through normal channels to get some eyes on him, after all. Guifi was now starting to wonder if he should stage some sort of attitude fit so that he could be punished with Jason's Exile, too.

Kanon scowled unpleasantly and held nose. "Dear Hermes, did you fart, Saga?!"

The older twin's face blushed. "What?! NO! Shut up!"

Aiolos' sharp nose started twitching, too. "Wait, Kanon's right!"

"I DIDN'T… do that!" Saga asserted, full red.

The sharp-eyed Sagittarius boy's hand held Saga appealingly. "Not that! Don't you feel that smell? It smells like…." his mind was then jogged to a day old past that he was taken to the Cyclades islands' thermal waters. "...like the Milos mines..."

Before Saga and Guifi could ask him what was wrong, the wooden doors leading to the lobby loudly swung open, as if kicked apart, allowing a single person to stalk inside the patio, followed by Maiden Thea, who shook and cried in horror. The doors closed behind them and a scurried locking sound was heard.

Immediately, the source of the stench became apparent, but the superficial layer of sulfur surrounding the man was then drowned out by an emerging wash of a much stronger stench from deeper inside his dark, tattered cloak. One that was only scented in closer proximity.

Blood. More than the sulfur, this….person reeked of blood. The metallic stench invading their nostrils was as sharp as knives, stabbing into their brains, making some of the children gag.

The person was imposingly tall, even for an adult male, and his thick frame of muscles underneath the cloak slouched forward in an ever-so-menacing manner, like a hunting beast weighed down by the mass of its strength. Dark-skinned fingers on scarred hands could be seen poking out of his long sleeves, hanging loosely like they had just strangled something, and his bare feet paced sternly on the gymnasium's sand, leaving behind blackened toe marks that seemed to sizzle, glassening the ground into tiny bloodred crystals.

He stopped before the children and ran his shadowed eyes through them. The murderous cosmos could be felt by the more advanced orphans slipping out from his sleeves and hood-opening, like a promise of death being sweetly whispered to each of their ears. All of the children cowered a bit.

Even Guifi gulped, intimidated by the man's appearance and cosmos. "Who is he?" he whispered.

"It's…it's the Master of Death Queen Island." said Aiolos, repeating what was told to him.

Maiden Thea gulped and hesitantly announced. "Children… say your salutations to… his most generous Master of Death Queen Island!"

Kanon and Saga exchanged looks and a common thought that the woman sounded like she had a knife held to her throat. The kids closest to the man were shaking like leaves, like the darkness of his hood peered into their hearts.

Still, every single child, regretting their presence or not, held chin high and declared in unison. "Goddess bless you, Master of Death Queen Island!"

"Today, we…" Thea tried to continue, pale. Fear paralyzed her, though. "Oh g-goddess! I can't! The children…This man will…"

The Master's shadowed face turned to her at this pause, though, and the children saw the usually strict and confident woman's legs shake like she expected him to break her neck at the slightest off beat. A terror she had once inspired in many of them, now turned against her.

Thea encouraged herself. "I m-must! Think of Athena. She will protect the children!"

Kanon bit the lip inside his wool mask and looked at his brother for comfort. "Why does that witch Thea look like she's about to piss herself? I've never seen her like this."

"I don't know…" Saga admitted. "Let's just be quiet, okay?"

"Today, children, one of you… shall be picked for Death Queen Island's training ground! It is… a great honor. Remember, children, that it's through courage in the face of hardship that you show your valor as Saints!"

Paidotribe Phil stared at the man nervously, clipboard in hand. Eventually, he gulped, gathering courage, and extended it to the Master. "Here's… ahem, their sparring scores. All wins, draws and losses."

The master froze him in place with a turn of his shadowed face.

Phil looked at the sisters and got an encouraging nodded and extended the clipboard some more. "Would you… like to know? We kept the WLD scores all tallied up, just like every master wants."

A soft chuckle was heard from the man, who took the clip. The children exchanged nervous glances, making mental calculations about their scores over the past few years. Suddenly, as the hooded man ran eyes through the paper, their coveted Wins started feeling a lot less in their favor.

"You all probably think the biggest winner among you will be picked?" he spoke at them, finally, taking a pause to see the looks on their faces. "It's only natural… Or maybe I'll pick the biggest loser?" The master raised the clipboard only for cosmos in his hand to suddenly burst it into flame. He tossed the sizzling papers aside, letting the wind wash away the ashes. "Rest assured, children of Athena, I'm not going to decide your fate on such pathetic metrics. Instead, I'll personally evaluate how much each and every one of you deserves my wonderful training..."

Phil gasped. "HEY, man! Ya fucking burned my scores!" and his hand reached for his shoulder. "I worked hard to write down all those! The fuck is wrong with ya-"

The master caught it by the wrist, broke the paidotribe's expose stern with an elbow blow and, with a disgusting snap, Phil's entire arm was harshly twisted in the wrong direction, making the children gasp and scream in horror at the sight of the muscled paidotribe wailing in agony on the floor with his arm turned over its elbow joint, the bone breaking out the skin with a shattered tip. The maidens covered their mouths.

Aiolos, Saga and Kanon all felt their stomachs twist. It all happened in a flash, yet the man didn't even look like he used any cosmos to make that happen.

The Master's finger's cracked on the wrist, still holding Phil, as he walked to one end of the children's line, dragging the paidotribe. "Now… let's shop."

"AAGH! L-LET GO!" Phil screamed, leaving a trail of blood.

Everyone watched the man walk over to the other end of the line and began to look over the trainees.

His hooded head wasn't even turning as he walked by each child and commented on each one. "Trash… trash… more trash…"

Kanon began to panic silently, "Guys, let's just sneak out of here! This isn't worth it!"

Aiolos, however, hesitated. "He might do something bad if he catches us! Just stay put!"

"How do you know he won't pick one of us?!" the younger twin asked, horrified.

Guifi, being older and wiser, lowered chin pensively. "They say the Master of Death Queen Island only takes one who deserves the worst hell on earth… I guess we're all banking on karma."

Kanon couldn't believe them. "Great! So one of us is gonna get screwed over cause we scared Jaki out of coming!"

The Master then stopped by a frailer looking one, still dragging the screaming Phil, and kelt down to his height. "Aw… what's wrong, little guy? Are you scared of me? Don't lie now."

The little greek boy shook like a leaf and felt he would puke at the stench of blood. "Y… Yes."

The Master pulled Phil in. "Is the crooked man scaring you?"

The child gasped and closed eyes in horror. "Aaagh! Y-yes!"

Everyone then widened their eyes when the man's hand bashed the child in front of everyone in disdain, throwing the kid to the floor. The man ignored the Maidens rushing over to the crying child, who bled uncontrollably from his nose and cheek. The other children took this as a warning and all stood up as straight as they could, trying to look as strong as possible.

"You'll thank me later." the Master assured, turning to the next one.

It was Aiolos.

The Master took his time studying the Sagittarius boy, who stood firm and looked straight ahead like a well-disciplined soldier, refusing to show any terror. His three friends breathed nervously, wondering if the pause in the monster meant Aiolos would be taken. The Master chuckled and dangled the tortured Phil right in front of him, making sure to show the boy the exposed bone.

"Look, trainer. This one doesn't blink." the master complimented.

"AAH! P-PLEASE! L-let me gooo!" Phil begged, feeling like his arm held by a thread.

The Master's hooded head leaned curiously. "Why don't you blink, boy? Are you strong?"

Aiolos stood firm, refusing to entertain this bastard. "No. I am as I am."

There was a tense pause from the monster. "…. Are you better than me?"

"No, Master. My father was a hunter. I've simply seen worse on his skinning table before." Aiolos politely answered.

There was a chuckle. "Tell me, boy, would you like to be strong?"

Saga gritted teeth nervously. "Don't let him pick you! Think of your brother!"

Aiolos, however, was prepared to go with him to Death Queen Island if it meant Aiolia would be taken care of by Sanctuary. "N-No, Master. Strength to me by itself is meaningless. What I wish for is justice, an end to despair and the safety of my loved ones."

The Master stood still for about a minute, staring him down, watching sweat slowly form around the boy's forehead. He looked into the boy's eyes and saw determination struggling to stay in one piece. The boy was, without a doubt, someone with valor and unshakable resolve, ready to go through the deepest Hell to fulfill his duty towards Athena.

The Master had only one thing to say about this.

"I think I'm going to be sick!" he commented, tossing Phil aside and turning away. "This place is useless! Where do I have to go to find real trainees?"

Aiolos' eyes blinked in disbelief when the Master stepped away. Had he just been turned down by the Devil? A deep inhale filled his lungs and Aiolos felt a deep relief washing over himself.

"D-Damn it!" he cursed himself. He should not be feeling relieved. Even if it was by the Master of Death Queen Island, Aiolos should have done better and been stronger so that he would be picked. "Well, at least I stuck to my principles and none of us have to go with him."

Aiolos' heart then skipped a beat when the Master suddenly stopped, as if he changed his mind. His heart started racing when the hooded man turned around and quickly walked over next to him!

At the last second, though, the hooded Master turned to Saga, who gasped at the unwanted attention.

The Master chuckled as he took his hand and pressed it against the blue-haired boy's hooded forehead. Even through the mask, the Master's skin felt rough against Saga's forehead and reeked of blood, not to mention that the boy had the weirdest feeling something was scoping him on the inside, like a pair of new eyes just opened on the inside of his skull.

"Oh, no, Saga!" Kanon thought, but Saga looked over to Aiolos and shook his finger at him, gesturing to his brother not to intervene. Both him and Aiolos gulped, wondering how Saga was keeping his cool despite feeling so terrified.

"Well, it seems you have some use." the Master complimented as he removed his hand, only for his other one to reach out for Saga's shoulder to drag him out of there. "You're coming with me."

"NO!" Kanon shouted, grabbing his twin brother.

"LET HIM GO!" Aiolos suddenly shouted, joining in.

"Aiolos, Kanon, DON'T!" Saga shouted. "He'll… he'll kill you two..."

A supersonic swipe from the Master battered both of them, though, whipping Kanon and Aiolos to the ground and scalding their bodies. "How dare you interfere…"

Maiden Thea stepped in. "Please, don't hurt them! They were just trying to-"

The darkness inside his hood made her stop with a ruby stare. "I will not hear cries of mercy from those who whore their souls to Athena. He may not be a Phoenix, but I feel the stars in this boy…and they burn with hate!"

Kanon's eyes teared and crawled at his brother. "S-SAGA! Don't l-leave me!"

The Master kicked Kanon off and rushed to Saga's shoulder to claim him, too fast for Aiolos to stop!

However, Guifi's strong grip then rushed in out of nowhere and grabbed the dark-skinned wrist, stopping the Master in his tracks with a frictioning of palm flesh. Guifi stepped in front of Saga and looked right into the Master's eyes, feeling his hand bleed.

The hooded Master chuckled. "So… you want to die, as well."

"Don't rush to conclusions! You haven't checked me, yet! So do whatever you did to him to me, too!" Guifi demanded.

Saga panted repeatedly, initially feeling relieved that something had stopped the Master, but then took a hold of him and protested. "Guifi, no! Don't you dare interfere! He's going to be my Mas-"

"SHUT UP, Saga!" Guifi shouted, causing both trainees to step back. He looked over to them. "I'm not staying in this orphanage any longer. I'm sick of being stuck here. This Training course is mine!"

The master's arm began warming up in Guifi's hand. "Impudent brat… why should I ever consider you?!….I'm thinking of breaking those fingers of yours off, instead, you little islander shit." The Master threatened, seemingly familiar with Guifi's ethnicity.

Guifi's red eyes locked with the rubies hidden inside the hood's darkness. "I've spent my life dreaming of fire, Master. If you don't believe me, read me, then!"

The hooded master's snarling paused, noticing the curse marks. How did he miss them so stupidly?

Repeating the same process as with Saga, the man pressed hand on Guifi's forehead, focused and searched deep inside his mind. A huge grin formed over his lips. "He, he, he, he!...HA, HA, HA, HA! Yes! You're perfect! You'll do just FINE!" The Master then grabbed Guifi's shoulder and started dragging him out of there.

"GUIFI!" Saga yelled as both him and Aiolos followed the two of them to the exit. The Maidens tried to catch him, but the three boys slipped past them. "STOP!"

"Shut up, I'm going!" Guifi yelled, pulled by his new Master out of the gymnasium. "Next time you see me, I'll be the Phoenix Saint!"

The children watched as the three Greek boys then climbed to the top of the patio's walls as Guifi was dragged out of the exit, their eyes trying to keep up with him as best as they could.

"GET DOWN FROM THERE!" Thea ordered.

They completely ignored her. "Guifi, don't!" shouted Aiolos. "It's not worth it!"

"It's okay!" Guifi shouted back, smiling at the two and giving them a thumbs-up. "I got a Master now. I finally have a future in Sanctuary... It's okay..."

"GUIFI!" Saga called as the Polynesian boy was dragged off by his relentless Master. Saga suddenly felt lost at words. There was something stuck in his throat that he wanted to say before it was too late. "Wait!"

"What is it? Be quick!" Guifi asked, struggling as hard as he could to free himself from his Master's steel grip.

Saga hesitated a little, but then he cupped his hands and placed them in front of his mouth. "T-thank you! You're…you're a good friend!"

"GUIFI!" Kanon screamed, waving his arms. "T-Thank you! I'm so s-sorry about what the shit I said!"

Both Aiolos and Guifi fell silent and widened their eyes for a while, surprised that the twins, the geniuses, would say such kind things. "Say goodbye to Aiolia for me and…Goodbye, you two."

Saga and Aiolos leaned over the orphanage's wall fence as much as they could, watching their friend disappear into the streets along with his Master. Feeling distraught at suddenly lost their best friend inside Heart of Sasha, Saga and Aiolos lowered their waving hands and ignored the Maidens yelling at them to get down.

"Good bye, Guifi. We'll be sure to see you later…" Aiolos muttered.

{======================|SS2|======================}

Chapter 69

Side Story 2

The Curse of Hatred – Part 3

Welcome to Death Queen Island

{======================|SS2|======================}

Two years later,

August 1974

Death Queen Island,

Beach of the Black Sands

{======================|SS2|======================}

The white-haired, tan-skinned boy of red eyes rushed up the slopes overlooking the Beach of the Black Sands. It was a southwestern entry point into Death Queen Island characterized by the dark dust and murky sea waves that obscured the tone of the hot coast grains, as well as the ghastly sight of countless beached skeletons of mammal, fish and man alike. In an island otherwise mostly outlined by blood-drenched rock bluffs, estuaries of magma and land controlled by Black Saints, this beach was one of the few relatively safe entry spots.

Thus, it was likely where survivors of the nearby raided cruise ship could come ashore.

He stopped, seeing an armored man swimming out of the water, rather than a survivor. Guifi's teeth growled with hate, thinking of the ship's distant screams.

Jumping off the black cliff, Guifi descended over the white-armored Black Saint with a diving kick and smashed the bastard against the sandy floor before he could even get off the water and into the beach, splashing toxic sea waves apart. His hand quickly grabbed him by the collar and held the shockedintruder in front of him. "Welcome to Death Queen Island, punk!"

Lance's eyes widened in recognizing shock. "Guifi?!"

Guifi roared and punched the bastard as hard as he could, blanking his world. He had to kill the Black Saint now, before his murderous friends showed up. "I'll make you pay for every soul in that ship!"

"No wait, Guifi!" someone screamed, before a pair of hands grabbed his arm. "Stop! He's not one of them! Look!"

"What?" the white-haired boy asked, turning. "Nina?"

Holding Guifi's arm was a pale-skinned girl of black, tied hair. Her skin was covered with scars and black smudge marks over her face and sleeveless, brown shirt and skin. Tears of dried crimson covered her already impoverished clothes and her brutalized feet stood bare on the hot rocks and sand. The only unsullied thing in her were the clear blue eyes that appealed at him for mercy over the Saint.

Nina shook her head and walked over to the arriving Saint that Guifi jumped, who struggled to recover and get on his feet. The Bronze Saint coughed water and sand out, helped up by Nina. "Look. He's wearing the Pegasus Cloth. The real one. He must be the help Sanctuary sent."

Guifi felt his stomach sink in shame and rubbed his eyes. "Oh, Goddess, I'm so sorry… I really thought you were one of the bastards attacking that cruiser-"

The armored man blitzed past Nina's helping touch and tackled Guifi down, striking him so hard that the two rolled over the beach. "I'll KILL YOU!"

"No, STOP!" she shouted, but hesitated to interfere in the fierce brawl.

Getting on top, Lance's hands slammed Guifi harshly against the sandy ground, pressing his naked collar down. "YOU STUPID SON OF A BITCH! DO YOU RECOGNIZE ME NOW?!"

Guifi coughed to the side and widened his red eyes in recognition. It couldn't be! "You're...Lance?!"

The Pegasus snarled, backing away. "YES, me! You fucking asshole!"

As Nina turned eyes between the two, confused, Guifi's mind tried to make sense of the wild sight of encountering the red-eyed boy after all these years. "You're… you're alive! What are you doing here?!"

"I should ask you the goddamn same!" the Pegasus Saint hissed, putting his horse helmet back on. "Are you fucking nuts or something?! Don't you look before attacking?! I could have killed you just now!"

Guifi gulped, shocked at the anger. It was true that he did attack Lance pretty nastily just now, but the Chamorro trainee didn't remember Lance speaking so viciously, even when Agot tried to hurt him, much less issue death threats. The Lance from Heart of Sasha was this little awkward boy who didn't seem to know if it was his turn to say something naive about the situation or not, now here he was, confidently confronting Guifi. No wonder Guifi didn't recognise him…

Nina rushed over to him. "Are you two okay? Do you know him, Guifi?"

"I-I'm fine." he assured. Guifi truly didn't recognize the charcoal-haired teen, even now that he wasn't facedown on the sand. The Pegasus was taller, a lot beefier and had a steeled look in his eyes that differentiated him from the small aspiring candidate that spoke of the Triangle Saint's promises about Sanctuary with stars in his eyes. He then tried to think of how to describe the acquaintance to the girl. As friends? "Yes, Nina, we were... both from Heart of Sasha."

Nina turned to the Pegasus studiously, as if wondering if she could trust him, then.

Even now, Guifi was having a hard time believing that it was really Lance in front of him. "Man, what… what happened to you? I'm so hap-...What are you doing here?"

But the Pegasus Saint had more questions than them. The last thing he expected in that mission, even less than getting jumped on, was encountering the discriminated boy he befriended at the orphanage.

In fact, now that Lance cooled down and paid attention, he realized Guifi hair had gone even whiter, his naked torso was covered with long, deep scars and that his face sported a certain fear in it from just the breaths he took in this place. He sported only a set of green trainer pants and had his wrists covered with bandage wraps, while his brown feet, much like Nina, walked bare on the scalding sand like he'd done worse for years as of then. What the hell had happened to him?

The girl, on the other hand, looked like she had no right to be alive in such an inhospitable environment. She was barely covered from the elements by her slavish attire and looked as frail as a beaten dog, clinging close to Guifi, keeping her head low, hands together and watching the Saint with the fear of someone who expected to be lashed for saying the wrong thing.

Lance's eyes surveyed their surroundings, seeing the dark skies and the far off mountains belching fire. "The Pope wanted someone to put down the Black Saint groups attacking nearby islands. They picked me. I killed the first waves then tracked the rest down here. Your turn."

"I'm…I'm a trainee here." Guifi said. It was then that he took a good look at the goofy looking horse plates on Lance's body. "Lance, you're a Saint now? That's… amazing! I was told by Maiden Helen that you were left at Mount Olympus. They made the kids pray for your name along with all the others who died that year. I thought for sure you'd be..."

Lance's red eyes narrowed dangerously at the memory of this. "No, I didn't die."

"W… where are the others?" Nina asked.

Lance scoffed. "What others? Aren't you listening? It's just me."

Nina gasped in apparent horror. "Just you?! B-but…"

Guifi's eyes narrowed in realization, remembering the reason they first split ways. "Lance… is this another punishment? Did those Sanctuary assholes send you alone on purpose?!"

Lance's chin rose, sensing the chance he needed to show off how different things were. "Yes and no. It's not just that they want to punish me for what I did to the asshole who left me at Olympus; I'm a Silver rank now, Guifi." he revealed, his tone proud. "I survived my Saint training, got the Pegasus Cloth and beat the crap of the asshole who left me there to die."

Nina covered mouth, her eyes shaking like her mind rushed through some terrible thing gone wrong.

The Pegasus continued. "I may be a Bronze Saint, but I survived the death trap of Olympus and took my revenge! Do you know what that means, Guifi? I'm not just another Saint now! I'm strong! The strongest Bronze Saint there is! And the Black Saints have hell coming for them now!"

Guifi, however, grabbed him by the collar, despair clear in his wide eyes. "NO, Lance, you don't understand! We need more Saints! We need GOLDS if we have to! Call the Pope again, please!"

Lance growled and struggled. "What?! Trust me! I'm all you fucking need, okay?!"

Guifi shook him. "You IDIOT! Do you have any idea what's on this island?! Turn back now and get us help before this whole islan-"

"GUIFI!"

Guifi froze, letting go and Nina gasped in panic. Lance turned to the voice and saw someone standing at the bluffs overlooking the beach. He was a tall, orange-hooded man with blood splatters dried on his clothes, hands and legs. His muscular, dark-skinned torso was laid bare by the orange cloak, exposing a necklace of tiny bone pieces hanging from the neck, multiple long scars similar to Guifi's covered by a sleeveless black coat with a bloodied, thick chain used as a belt, ornamented with small bones, and ragged, blue trainer pants covered his legs with the exception of some torn gashes.

Much like Lance and Guifi, his eyes were a cursed crimson, but his were faint like banked fire, as if made dull and tired by the years but still threatening.

With a mighty springing of his foot, the Master of Death Queen Island leaped off the bluff, shattering it, and landed on the beach with a sand-spreading thud, cratering the sand like his body was made of lead. As he raised his hooded face, a deep stench of blood was felt and a collection of at least half a dozen severed Black Saint heads with expressions of agony stamped on their faces were shown roped together in his hand. On closer inspection, his ugly yellow fingernails were cracked and smeared with crimson and the air around his hood seemed to boil with every breath, like he had an open furnace instead of a mouth somewhere inside his hood's darkness.

But the worst, to those who could feel it, was the Cosmos.

Even the experienced Lance, who had met many bloodthirsty people with cosmos at this point, recoiled, having never felt anything particularly like this man's presence. The cosmos emanated deep and warm like a shower of hot wax on your head, smothering you, as if made of a mix of shedded blood and the lava that ran in the island's veins, and the hands it dressed looked more made of hardened leather or bark than skin. Was this really Guifi's teacher? Or another Black Saint?

The Master turned to his student and hissed "What is going on here?... Who is this?"

Guifi gulped and raised arm subtly over Nina. "He's…He's Pegasus Lance, Master! He's a reinforcement sent by the Pope to help us against the Black Saints."

The Master walked in front of Lance, visibly gritting a set of bloodied gums and yellow teeth. "Reinforcements?...No one asked for any fucking reinforcements! Go back to the Pope's priests, Pegasus. As you can see from my friends here-" and he then showed off the heads, rolling them as if sliding through store items. "-I'm handling the situation perfectly!"

The Saint narrowed eyes at Guifi and Nina suspiciously, and they shook their heads at him to disengage. At this point, Pegasus Lance hesitated, feeling the most blood-reeked, vicious Cosmos emanating off this man he's ever sensed in his life. The air seemed faintly crimson around him and, even though the hot wind of the island should be the only sound, it was as if the sound of knives slicing through flesh and the screams of a victim was heard in his eardrums at the sight of Death Queen Island's Master. Even his feet seemed to fume in contact with the basalt, jagged ground, as if scalding it.

Lance stood his ground, meeting the teacher's scowl. "Someone asked for help, so I'm not leaving until I crush the Black Saint scum. Point me at them, if you want to be rid of me so badly, and I'll be gone before you can say 'there'!"

The Master growled in anger and hurled the heads at the sharks, clenching his fists menacingly. Even this close, Lance couldn't discern details in the darkness inside his hood. However, the Master then narrowed his eyes for a while, looking him over, and upon noticing something in Lance, he suddenly calmed down, even seeming a bit confused. The Master looked over to Guifi and Lance saw him and Nina tremble with the Master's stare.

A smug chuckle whispered out of his hood. "I see…So that's how it is. Then you better step up your game, Pegasus, and prepare yourself for the most hellish days of your life!"

Lance then watched the Master turning around and walking away, wondering what the asshole was hiding behind his smile. Pegasus looked over to the other two and narrowed his eyes questioningly.

"Your name is Saint Lance, right? I'm sorry we got you into so much trouble." Nina apologized. "My father can be quite brutal sometimes. You're free to leave if you want."

Lance squinted at the girl, taking a second look at her pale white skin. "That guy's your father?!"

"He's NOT!" Guifi sighed and placed his hand on her trembling shoulder to calm her down. "He's not your father, Nina. He's a monster that enslaved you. That man doesn't deserve you as a daughter." He then looked at Lance. "But Nina's right. You can go. You don't have to help us."

Lance realized what happened. "You two are the ones who sent the reinforcement request. You did it behind his back, didn't you?" He saw Nina nodding. "What, do you live under a rock here?! It's Sanctuary's policy to send Silver Ranks to break up big Black Saint bases! They don't send lions to crush ants! How did you think this would go down?!"

Guifi lost patience. "I KNOW! I just wasn't exactly guessing they'd be so negligent to send one guy, much less you! We were desperate! But we need real help! Please!"

Lance folded arms, looking irritated. "Too bad, you're stuck with me! This is still a Black Saint hive so I have to fulfill the mission anyway. I'm not leaving without a ship full of shackled post-apocalyptic movie rejects to turn in for bounties."

The earth suddenly vibrated a little and the nearest volcano roared, expelling more smoke into the already clouded night. The clouds also rumbled and rain, of all things, began to fall on the three of them. The droplets, however, hissed on the sand and Lance's metal armor and Nina yelped in pain when her skin got burned by the many tiny water drops.

Guifi covered her with his large arms to protect her. "Let's get out of here, okay?" he then turned to his old friend. "Lance… I'm glad to see you again after all this time, but this is no game, it's Death Queen Island. The situation is much more delicate than you're treating it. Maybe you won't listen to me, but if you see what this island is like, you'll change your mind."

A slight white brim of energy surrounded Lance, shielding him from the rain. "Fine, lead the way."

"Don't burn your cosmos!" Guifi warned. His eyes then glanced around. "You'l look like a Christmas star to those murderers. It's best if we don't attract attention just yet."

Lance growled impatiently, but turned off his energy build up. Guifi and Nina then rushed away, followed by him, towards the Death Queen Island insides. "This better be damn good!"

"We'll be heading northeast, towards a pass between Black Scar Mountains and the Phobos Peaks. It will take us to the side of the island controlled by the Master." Guifi told him. "The eastern half of the island is the one we live on. There we'll be safe from the big Black Saint groups."

Nina saw Lance trailing behind. "Please stick close to us, Saint Pegasus." she warned. "Even on our side, this island is too dangerous. If we get lost from one another… something terrible could happen."

"Why don't we just use Mach speed to get there?!"

Nina shook her head. "It's too dangerous, Saint Pegasus. The Black Saints are roaming the old border lines of our territories more than more. If we go slow at first we can avoid detection easier."

Her too? "They talk like this place is hell! Fucking whatever. Everyone always says that about their Training Grounds. How bad could this volcanic dump be?"

As Lance followed the two of them, shadows in leather pad armor, without them realizing, emerged over the rocks of the beach's western edges, observing the scene. One rose an arm and, with a commanding gesture of it, the rest carefully snuck among the sharp rocks and dunes, anxiously drumming fingers on spear poles and knuckle braces...

{======================|SS2|======================}

Despite his short career, Pegasus Lance already had accumulated a lot of experience attacking Black Saint holdouts, especially on volcanic islands. Hellish environments were nothing new to him.

However, as he followed Nina and Guifi up the rising black slopes, keeping his armored arms raised at the acidic downpour, Lance gritted teeth wondering when the heat would stop rising. The further he stepped towards the crevice between the two mountain ranges ahead, the thicker, grittier and smellier the air became with sulfur and the more the temperatures got closer to the eighty degrees. Sand chunky with bone pieces was replaced with ash-littered basalt ground jagged with protruding stones poking his metal boots and the air scalded his throat and nostrils with every breath, making him hesitate to take deep inhales. He could feel the filth getting filtered in his nose and teeth.

The Saint therefore threaded with unexpected trepidation, falling behind even Nina as the three moved from cover to cover of the acid rain. While Guifi broke ground with a confidence pace, stopping only to help the girl, and Nina's feet and hands scaled the uphill role with the experience of someone who had been there since birth, the Saint of Pegasus found himself slipping, tripping, feeling his head shake and losing track of the path he had covered so far.

Lance's head rose at the sound of nearby wails, alarmed.

Nina shivered and Guifi shook his head at the Saint. "Don't!"

Lance ignored them and peeked over their path's raised edges. He widened his red eyes, seeing the source of the wailing near the northern mountain slopes; small groups of men and women, stripped almost to their emaciated bones and hairless heads, shuffled through the horizon like the dead of the Underworld.

Yet, Lance could feel their beating life in their cosmos. Some, in fact, were gathering together and pilling up rocks around a strange effigy made of bones.

He turned to Nina "Who are those people?"

The girl shook under his intense glare. "T-they're… people from the island."

Lance blinked. "People? As in settlers?"

"No, just people." Guifi corrected, eyeing the far off figures with lament. "There are no settlements on the island, except for Black Saint bases like Jangotown. They're either escaped slaves or… got tossed here. We should keep going. There's nothing to do about them."

The Saint saw them raise the effigy of rocks higher. Some were bowing their heads and slitting their arms and legs, letting their blood pour over the stones.

Eventually they put some kind of face made of bone on it and began dragging one of their own unto it, making Lance's eyes widen. "Hey, what the fuck are they doing?!"

Guifi held Lance's armored shoulder firmly and shook his head. "I told you,… they're gone. Let's go before they notice us."

The Pegasus Saint stared at the figures, disturbed by the sight of them mutilating their screaming friend with crude rock tools over the masked stone totem, whole other fearful ones crawled into tight cracks in the rocks to escape embers in the air, sinking their weeping faces into arms and knees like abused animals. His mind imagined everything else around them replaced with Mount Olympus' cold snow and their situation suddenly felt very familiar.

While lost in these memories, Lance's foot landed on an incorrect angle of the steep path and he gasped, slipping down!

Guifi's hand caught his and pulled before he fell down the hill road. "Dumbass! We told you to be careful!"

Lance coughed and shoved himself free, embarrassed. "I am! Just… keep showing the way."

Nina quivered at Lance's tone. "I'm s-sorry, Guifi just wanted to help."

"I don't need his help!" Lance snapped, startling her. Lance himself then started feeling affected by the extreme heat and acid rain. Every second he spent there felt more and more like he was standing on top of a hot furnace. He grunted. "I can handle heat… This is nothing compared to Mount Olympus' cold."

Guifi just went on like he expected such stubbornness at this point. "It's okay, Nina. Lance is quite proud. Come on."

With a grumble, Lance dusted the black ash off his armor and panted, feeling the heat reach ridiculous points as he kept following them. His red eyes looked up at the peaks, from where the heat came; to his right, towards the southern shores, two small ranges of peaks named after the God of Fear formed a dark v-shaped valley with blood stained pathways littered with rotten meat chunks.

Instead, it came from his left, from peaks rising much higher towards the north, part of what Guifi called the 'Black Scar Mountains', a long central range of black canines reaching to the sky that divided the island down in two like a huge barrier. Three roofs of volcanic fire were visible beyond these mountains; one, known as 'Fire Mountain', on the western side of the Black Scar, and was apparently in territory controlled by Black Saints, and two others on the 'safe' eastern side called Mount Lemuria and the Queen's Mouth.

"Fire Mountain rages all year, Lance." Guifi said as they reached the pass's main corridor. "All it does, however, is make sure this place never gets too comfortable. The peaks of heat, on the other hand, are the Queen's work. He, he… that's why the Black Saints prefer to stick to the west, actually."

The rising ground eventually began to even into a mere slight slope as they reached the crevice between Black Scar and Phobos. "How long have you been here?"

Guifi looked at Nina expectantly.

The girl studied her fellow islander very quickly and then answered Lance. "Guifi has been here... for around two years."

Lance scoffed, baffled. "He can't tell himself?! It's August of 74! We last met four years ago!"

"There's no sunrise or sunset here, idiot! Can't you tell?" Guifi snapped, impatient, sternly leading the group through the pass. "There's no moon, no seasons and no predictable eruption cycle. Everything's always behind clouds of ash and flares of lava… and anyone who could bring calendars here is killed or enslaved. We sleep by hiding in huts and basements from the volcano lights. Neither of us have seen the sun in years."

The Pegasus Saint blinked, stunned. Even between the snowstorms of Mount Olympus, he'd see the sunlight. "How… can she tell, then?

"Every day and night looks like the same hell, Saint Pegasus." Nina lamented, eyeing him sadly. "Over the years, though… I've watched people's hair grow, their teeth, their height… their scarring. So I have an idea, an..."

"An educated guess." Guifi aided her, earning a smile from the girl.

"Why don't you ask your Master?!" Lanced demanded to know, flabbergasted. Nina paled and Guifi stopped. "What, Guifi, you're gonna tell me he doesn't have a watch?!"

The Chamorro boy stared like he said the stupidest thing. "No, Lance. He does. But not for keeping track of time for anything good." Guifi responded, who then pointed at a shackled corpse on the ground they happened to pass by.

Lance's eyes widened, seeing a naked, decomposing body of ash-ridden skin, beaten flesh and half-ripped head of hair plastered over the ground, dead and shackled. The words 'five past eight' carved on the stomach. He couldn't have been there for more than a few days.

Nina bowed her head slightly, her eyes teary. Father had spent the day teasing the dead boy with the promise of a 'birthday cake' should he keep eating captured mice until eight. "Poor Jacques…Father said he'd only get to eat if he could guess the hour..."

"Let's go, Nina, the rain will return any moment." Guifi gently pushed, getting her out of there before she cried.

Stunned at the idea of a Master just casually murdering his island's inhabitants, Lance began following them with slightly humbler pace, wondering how close he got to having a deadly fight with the unnamed man back at the beach, or worse. Still, confident in his abilities, Lance refused to acknowledge that he was in any real danger and pressed on.

Eventually, Guifi stopped at the edge of the pass's end. "This is it, Lance… welcome to our side of the island."

Joining Guifi at the pass's edge, Lance's eyes widened at the spreading horizon of Death Queen Island's southeastern half. From that heightened point, he could see an expanse of black, rough terrain going southeast from Phobos' Peaks, cut through by rivers of lava flowing and sizzling into a green-tinted ocean. The strong wind carried a stench of burning flesh, ash and sulfur. Jagged rocks taller than men rose from the ground like waves, dangling perilously over passes created by old magma flows and the faint sound of wails could be heard in the air, along with the rumbling of the earth.

"Take a good look. Tomorrow this horrible vista will be gone."

The Pegasus blinked. "What?"

There was something comforting to Guifi about Lance's constant questions. "Still don't know anything about Sanctuary's world, do you? The Queen's Mouth belches fire every day, changing the terrain. We call them the Changing Fields. Within hours, every road down there will change direction." Guifi pointed at the closest volcano. "See for yourself."

The Bronze Saint gasped, raising his eyes towards the north and feeling the back of his neck pressed at the tallest, most horrible volcano he had ever seen!

Close by, as if an infernal watchtower to the pass they just crossed, what seemed more like the pouting mouth of a demonic god, rather than a mere volcano, rose towards the skies in defiance of all that was logical to the senses. Gigantic rock layers as black as the night piled up in a circle of destruction, forming a colossal cauldron of liquid fire. That soup of flames thrust towards the skies like a beam of orange light, defying the Gods, screaming like murdered children, before raining down on the island in authentic showers of fire and making the island shake like the very ground beneath their feet was filled with sleeping Titans.

The contrast was so strong that it felt like the ground close to the volcano's top was invisible and merely composed of nothing but vomits of orange, like a gargantuan fireplace. The black clouds, initially lashed by the spitting magma, would then just darken and expand, further hiding the stars, and the lower edges of the volcano spread an expanse of encroaching pitch black. Much like Guifi said, countless streams of lava dripped down it's slopes like rabies foam, carving scars onto the terrain that then flowed into the Changing Fields, while enormous boulders rolled down in a near constant rate, burying the results.

The Saint reeled, taken back by the magnitude of the volcano and feeling even the resisting metal of his Pegasus Cloth go warm. Suddenly, the proud warrior felt crushingly small, like a deity of fire stood before him, rather than a mountain, and he was just a mortal standing before the crushingly powerful manifestation of destruction. Mother Nature, in her most terrifying rage.

Further north, as if to accentuate the scale of the Queen's Mouth, the much smaller Mount Lemuria, the center of the island's volcanic trio, stood. Though born at a higher elevation, it stopped halfway short of the Queen's Mouth, which just made the latter look even more like an affront to nature.

Guifi could see what he was thinking on his face. "It makes you feel small, doesn't it? Master says that a long time ago, when this island was brimming with life, that mountain was where they'd take armors to be forged. Once it was a tool to create. Now it does nothing but destroy."

While Lance wasn't terribly educated in Sanctuary, he did know about Lemurians, or Muvians as some called them. "You mean those people with dots on their faces, right? I know this used to be their home."

Guifi knelt down and took a chunk of black ground, smooching it with his thumb to expose chunks of ash and yellow. "You always hear stories about Death Queen Island, but the most dangerous things about it aren't the fires you can see… The toxins from underground vomited out of the volcanoes seep into the earth, killing plants and insects, and the sulfur condenses in valleys to the west, creating gigantic cauldrons of acid clouds. Even the rats die if they eat anything but the flesh of the dead."

The blackened, dead horizons cut by the fire seemed endless to Lance. "What do the people even eat here?"

The pale-haired boy tossed the dirt away, making the black grains scatter in the wind. "In this island, nothing grows, nothing prospers, nothing has the chance to feel any hope or kindness for others. Flowers seeded among the rocks rot before ever blooming. The soil isn't just barren, it's outright toxic. Water often boils into nothing, and the moisture that condenses on the rocks is poisoned. Even the air is full of death. And the people..." Guifi continued, taking a pause to gulp. "The people get broken. Stunted back into troglodytes roaming for food, water or relief from the island's lashes. Despair starts setting in, then hunger,… then evil. And they can never leave; the few shores that aren't just precipices have their sands go into vast expanses of shark-infested waters… Not that they'd be themselves anymore anyway."

Lance's eyes lowered unto the island's fields, chastised by the Queen's burning saliva. "A hell on Earth…"

Guifi shook, as if the very ground beneath him made him sick to his stomach. "Nothing but hatred and destruction is born in this place. After a while, you're left wondering how it's fires haven't just burned the entire damn world to the ground already…"

Seeing the trainee say such things, Nina held his arm tightly, sinking head in his shoulder. "Guifi…"

He patted her head. "I know…"

It was then that Lance realized the obvious. "You two... I see. I guess this place hasn't kept you busy from fucking dating."

Guifi eyed him like he was a completely petulant child. "We care about each other. That's all."

Lance scoffed and looked away. As if he couldn't tell. Since Kastiel, he hated being treated like he didn't know better in things. "Yeah, sure…"

"Saint Lance, now that you've seen the island… will you still not call for more help?" Nina pleaded.

Lance hesitated, unsure how to feel about the girl yet. She seemed to want his help, unlike Guifi, and he couldn't decide if this was good or not. "Just tell me one thing; those people I saw getting taken from that cruiser? What will happen to them? Will they be taken here as well?"

"It depends." Guifi answered. "The Master doesn't like the Black Saints. Thinks they're… pretenders. He only takes slaves to this side when he needs something particular done."

What kind of way was this to talk about human lives? "Something in particular done? Like what?"

The Chamorro teenager hesitated. "Usually he… just makes me kill them. I don't want to talk about it."

"...Next thing you're going to tell me is that your teacher eats live puppies too." he thought. "And the rest?"

Guifi pointed westwards, to Black Saint territory beyond the Black Scar. "The ones that live will be dragged to their harbor and from there to their base Jangotown. It's… not a nice place. Even without the slave market. Most will be sold to other Black Saints or people who give them supplies."

Lance scoffed. Another fucked situation that Sanctuary was taking no direct hand in, and right in their own territory too.

"I'm guessing the Black Saints attacking Sanctuary land all over this region are coming from there, then." He asked, to which Guifi nodded. Lance took another look at the island's environment and folded his arms. "Figures. It's always something with fucking Sanctuary."

After a beat of hesitation, where Guifi seemed to be looking at him over again, he sighed in relief. "Then you're going to get help?"

Lance's brow twitched. "This again?! I told you, I am the help! Even if I thought I wasn't enough, Sanctuary doesn't pair people with me, especially after I made the entire Silver Saint order hate me!"

Guifi sighed. "You still don't get it… but that's okay. I think it's good to know that part of you hasn't changed."

The Pegasus Bronze Saint narrowed eyes in suspicion. "What do you mean by that?"

Guifi didn't mince words. This shy generosity was the part that made him befriend Lance to begin with, after all. "I don't know what you went through in Mount Olympus, but I'm glad you still believe dumb things like fairness. Something reassuring about that." the pale-haired boy then smiled. "This island here changes people, but I'm sure Mount Olympus was rough as a bitch, too. I bet Saint Noah is proud of you."

Nina smiled shyly and followed the teenage boy.

Lance, however, was stuck with a speechless look on his face. "Proud of me?! Noah?!"

Guifi paused, alarmed by the tone. He exchanged a concerned look with Nina at the sight of the fuming Pegasus.

"…. Yes. That was their name, right? The Triangle Saint you really admired?" Guifi explained himself, before taking a step away. "Come on, dumbass, we have to get to safety."

But the Pegasus Saint's cosmos suddenly burst behind him! Guifi's eyes widened and he turned to defend himse-

The pair of white metal gauntlets grabbed him by the shoulders and slammed him straight against the basalt ground, pinning him and making Nina scream in fright. Guifi gasped at the sight of the rage in Lance's eyes and tried to push him off.

"S-SAINT LANCE, NO! DON'T HURT HIM!" Nina shouted, holding him frailly.

"You patronizing son of a bitch! Who the fuck do you think I am?! That little kid you gave punching instructions to at Rodario?!" Lance roared, eye-padded on Guifi. "You think Noah would have been proud of me?! So what?! I didn't need someone's stupid pride on that goddamn mountain! I needed help!"

Guifi tried to shove him off, burning his orange cosmos, but Lance showed off a truly stunning amount of strength.

"S-STOP IT, you asshole! LET ME GO!" Guifi screamed and shoved his knee straight on Lance's exposed stomach, stunning the bastard by forcing the air out of the Pegasus' lungs and giving himself leverage to shove back. "Y-You son of a bitch! What, are you going to hurt me, Lance?!"

Nina stepped back in horror, wondering how in Athena's name this all happened. "NO, GUIFI, STOP IT! Don't make things worse, we need his help!"

But the blood was rushing in the Polynesian boy, who swung his foot at Lance, "Come on! If you want a fist fight, then I'll fucking give you o-"

With startling speed, Lance caught the leg, pulled it over himself to make Guifi lose his balance. Lance then swept up with an overhead punch, exploding on his temple to stun him, before a powerful punch hit Guifi in the stomach, forcing the air out of his lungs and making the trainee keel over with a gasp.

"Hurt you? No, Guifi… I will destroy you! Understand?!" Lance hissed, possessed with hate, horrifying the girl and shocking the boy at his feet. "You don't impress me by showing off how bad your fucking Training Ground is! You think a couple of volcanoes and fucked up neighbors make me feel sorry for you?! Think again!"

The Death Queen Island candidate held chest, sweating and stunned at the amount of strength landed on him. Lance was telling the truth; despite the Pegasus Cloth on Lance's body, this pain in Guifi's stomach wasn't a Bronze Saint's force, but at least a Silver-rank's.

His other arm shock as it held his body up and he suddenly an outrage in his heart. "I… I don't understand. You're a Saint of Athena now! Like Noah! Wasn't this your goal?!"

The very notion of it seemed to make Lance scowl and tug harshly at his own Pegasus Cloth armor "My goal?! This piece of metal?! Who cares about some goddamn title like Bronze Saint?! I wanted to be like the person who gave me hope in life, but even that is gone! Noah abandoned me just like Kastiel! I sat on that mountain for four years with no one to help me, crying out for him, just wishing someone would save me from the dark, the frost and the wolf packs, not to mention the death clock hanging on my head! But no one did! Everyone left me in that mountain to despair!"

The two Death Queen Islanders backed away cautiously, horrified by the nature of the Saint who answered their call for help.

Guifi, in particular, felt utterly lost. Not only was the person he thought Lance to be gone, but he raved of things that didn't match up. "This doesn't make sense. That was a 'trained' blow he just landed on me. If he was alone on Olympus all this time, then who...2"

"And now you want me to get help?! You think I want things to work out?! For who?! You and your little girlfriend?! Those days are over for me! They've been over for years! Nothing ever works out in Sanctuary's hypocritical fucking world!" Lance continued, his scowl dripping with black spite. "The Pope has entire temples full of people who could be saving your island in mere moments right now, and yet he sent me! A Bronze Saint he wanted to teach some humility to! I'm going to spend the rest of my life getting through at the world's shit in the name of some uncaring old man on a throne so Sanctuary can keep fucking with the world at its leisure! So I didn't come here for justice, love and the Athenian way, Guifi! I came here to kill Black Saints!"

The tanned candidate looked up, unable to recognize the idealistic child he met in Greece. "L-Lance, y-you…" he stuttered, seeing a familiar fire in his eyes. "Goddess, he's telling the truth!"

"And I will pile their fucking murderous, rapist, slaving bodies on this island until they reach higher than that fucking volcano! You and the rest of the people on this Training Ground are just the easiest way for me to get to them!" he pressed, clenching his fist in warning. "So don't talk to me like I'm a goddamn kid! Got it?!"

The pale-haired Guifi's jaw dropped. Who was this vicious person standing over him?! He couldn't be the ten year old boy he met now made into a Saint of Athena.

Nina suddenly dashed between them, spreading her thin arms as wide as she could. "Leave Guifi alone!"

"Nina!"

The Bronze Saint hesitated, unwilling to raise a hand at her. "Out of the way! This is none of your business!"

"Yes it is! Leave Guifi alone! Have you no s-shame?! Look at what you're saying! At who you're hurting!" she appealed, outraged. "G-Guifi doesn't even have any armor on! And he's your friend! How could you attack him like this, when all he wants is your understanding?! For something so innocent he said?! Whatever you went through is not his fault! What kind of Saint are you?!"

Lance growled. "What?! You think I include myself among those fetishists?! Or that I give a shit about any of that Goddess's stupid rules?! Ask any of Kerberos Kastiel's buddies if they think I should keep my Bronze armor! Sanctuary chose to abandon me in my Training Ground! They have no right to call me one of theirs! I'm a warrior, not a Saint!"

The slave girl's chin rose indignant at the so-called warrior. "Maybe, but you're still also a human! Do not throw upon others the despair you say you were left in. We have no one else to rely on but you, Saint Lance!…. And if you don't stop and put that hate aside… then the next blow you throw at Guifi will have to go through me!"

Guifi seemed to panic at the idea of Nina getting hurt, igniting his orange aura and eyeing Lance like he'd snap at the slightest wrong move. "L-Lance, if you fucking touch her, I swear to the Phoenix…I will split this goddamn island in two to kill you!"

….

Lance's white aura suddenly receded. "Fine! Have it your wa-"

The Pegasus Cloth, however, suddenly warmed up in alarm! The air then sizzled with the throwing of a spear in Nina's direction, sending Lance's senses to full alert!

Within what felt like just the next second, the Pegasus Saint pushed her out of the way into Guifi's arms and, with a spin, chopped the thrown spear in two shattered pieces with a loud wooden snap. The three of them widened eyes and Nina in particular screamed in fear. Spread along the pass they just crossed, an entire band of no less than ten leather-clad men stood there like a group of hunters who just surrounded a fox family. They had crude armament, scars, very tanned skin and malicious looks.

The leather-clad warrior standing at the pass they just crossed snarled. "Damn it! Bastard Bronze Saint made me miss her!"

"You should have tossed it faster.." a second lacking a hand and dressed in a black version of the Fornax Bronze Cloth mocked. "We get to take her alive now."

"Faster?! That was at Mach 2! I would have gotten that stupid bitch, asshole! Pass me another spear!" the first demanded, holding out hand.

Lance's teeth gritted. "Black Saints… but their armors…!" All were wearing what Lance recognized as dark versions of the Bronze Cloths that Lance had seen in the past. Lance widened his eyes. He's never seen Black Saints like this. Every single one he fought until now wore weapons and rudimentary black armors, never Cloth copies.

"Nina, get out of here!" Guifi shoved, pointing her in the direction of their destination.

A second group that had been circling around suddenly jumped into their rear, completing their encirclement. "You're not goin' anywhere!"

"G-GUIFI!" She screamed, retreating back between the two boys.

"Are you the ones that raided that ship?!" Lance demanded to know. "Where did you get those armors?!"

One Black Saint dressed in what looked like a dark Camelopardalis armor scoffed. "Shut up, Pegasus! What's it to you?!"

"It looks like the Master has received reinforcements." a bigger one with dark Bootes armor and a flail mocked. "The Pope must be senile to send a single shitty little Bronze Saint! Take them to Jangotown!"

Lance growled impatiently, making his white aura brim, dragging a foot forward and aiming a punch at them. "I don't have time for this! ANSWER ME!"

The Black Saints laughed at Lance's frustration. "You think you can take us?! Fuck off, Sanctuary faggo-"

"PEGASUS CHARGE FIST!" Lance shouted. Guifi only felt wind suddenly rushing at his side, before hearing metal shattering and men screaming as something fast and compact passed through their entire brigade in an instant like a huge blast of light.

Immediately there were man in shattering black armor tossed into the air by the burst. Guifi then saw Lance moving among the Black Saints, landing punches in stomachs, kicks through cuirasses, chop strikes into necks and even a helmet-headbut into a face in a successive series of dashing strikes across the Black Saint crowd that burst like sonic fireworks. In a series of screams, shouts and attempts at blocking, the raiders' defenses were crushes by armor-penetrating strikes that knocked and killed one by one, making enemy cosmos signatures disappear off the air like fireflies.

Before Guifi even realized it, only half the enemies still stood. The rest were collapsing with faint gasps, torn to pieces by the force of Lance's assault as the Pegasus finished his combo with a burst of energy.

Those who lived panicked at the sight of their annihilated allies. "W-W-….what the FUCK!"

They grasped polearms, preparing to skewer the Pegasus Saint dashing at them. "Don't let him use his speed! GET TOGETHER AND FUCKING SKEWER HI-!"

Five or so spears thrust in, trying to stop the Pegasus' dash leap. However, they were suddenly broken to pieces by the pole with a sweeping, armored kick, before a landing stomp from the Saint shattered their grouping, bashing them apart into isolated pockets and breaking the volcanic ground. With astounding speed and a cosmic neigh of the Pegasus stars, Lance dashed within reach of the first, dodged a swipe and landed a devastating uppercut that shattered his mock Cloth cuirass to pieces. He then swiped a kick that shattered his leg into a screaming kneel before finalizing it with a chop thrust that pierced the man's throat, spraying out blood.

A roar was heard from behind along with a flail's swing, but the Pegasus Saint sidestepped the downward blow before sweeping the attacker's leg with his foot, making him spin over himself into the floor. Supersonic punches from every direction tried to strike the Pegasus, but the Saint dodged and blocked with stunning grit. He caught one of them by the wrist, shattering its arm with a sudden twist, before throwing the guy into the rest of the group and blasting them with a vicious dash kick that drove them through shattering rock, killing them instantly.

The Saint then turned and stomped on the head of the Black Bootes guy who tried to flail him while he was still down, crushing skull and brain instantly with a bloody splatter. The last surviving one, Black Fornax, sweated and gasped, stepping back. Whatever desire he still had to brutalize and enslave the three of them was gone with the sight of Black Bootes' destroyed face.

"W-what…. What the f-fuck?! This wasn't supposed to…. FUCK THIS!" and he tossed a ball of cosmos at the ground, making it burst into smoke and ash.

Lance coughed and swept the smoke screen away with a cosmos arm swipe. By the time it cleared, though, the Black Saint was gone. "Damn it! He escaped! BASTARD!"

Nina stared at the panting Saint, shaking, seeing all the startling splashes of blood on his previously pristine white armor like the scene of a vicious crime. Within mere seconds, the Bronze Cloth went from mostly white with red outlines to an almost inverse ratio of reddened plates with only a few missed white spots. The faint acid drain made him drip crimson into the dark basalt ground like a twisted umbrella tree and the Saint seemed only physically affected, as if the slaughter he just delivered was merely routine, albeit tiring.

Guifi, too, stared at the massacre, delivered as uncaring as it was swift, unsure if he had just watched a Black Saint killing his own kin, rather than a Pegasus Bronze Saint fighting. "He… he wasn't kidding earlier."

Lance felt their looks on him. "What are the two of you looking at? Let's GO!" he ordered, tired of standing in the ember drizzle.

But Guifi could not move at first. He was bothered too deeply. The youth he just saw slaughtering those Black Saints could not be Lance. He was far too brutal, making too many unnecessarily violent choices in blows that could have been delivered far more efficiently. This Saint in front of him could not be the same emotionally fragile child Guifi met in Heart of Sasha. Though Guifi had seen him bite Agot's fingers off, that gesture of self-preservation from four years ago was nothing compared to the one-sided shredding he just witnessed.

Guifi blinked and shook his head a little, snapping out of his trance. "S-sure, of course. We're not too far now from our cabin..."

{======================|SS2|======================}

The Underworld

Sixth Prison

The Cauldrons of Blood

{======================|SS2|======================}

In a place far away from Death Queen Island, yet very much alike, on a bluff overlooking a field of gigantic cauldrons full of boiling blood, stood Daemon Lucifer, the Celestial Star of Pride. With folded arms, fluttering black cape and a crimson gaze, he observed the work of the many False Specters in Hades' sixth prison but also the many screaming dead falling from the starry nightsky, sent there by Gryphon Urial's Book of the Dead.

Close by his side stood a lone, anxious looking Skeleton Soldier. The person seemed to tremble in anguish at the sight of the dead dropping into the cauldrons and screaming horribly. They even shook under their purple armor and held ears in horror, wanting to block out the sounds and thoughts reverberating in the air.

"You can't stand the sight of death, Cerah, yet you seek to become a killer." the Prince spoke, noticing her turning her eyes away.

The pale, thirteen year old blonde girl cried inside her Skeleton helmet, collapsing into knees as she watched women and men of all ages who've resorted to violence against others be condemned to an eternity of their flesh being burned by boiling blood.

"You hate me for showing you these things, but you tell me you want to be a Cyrulian. For who? The sister who abandoned you? The dead forefathers you never met?" The Prince pressed. "You wear a Cyrulian stone, but you're not a Knight of the Zodiac, Cerah. You can never be one anymore."

But the girl's hushed tone spoke in defiance. "It's… all I have." All her life was spent either in the arms of Daese or in the Underworld with Daemon Lucifer. She knew nothing but people who wanted the Pope dead.

The Prince scoffed and turned to her, making his cape swirl in the dead air. "Do you think, perhaps, that having Arles' head on your lap will make you an adult, then? That I'll respect your ambition? That the world will recognize you as a woman, instead of a scared little girl?"

The poor girl looked up expectantly. Her cheeks were soaked with tears at his words. Daemon Lucifer had seen countless souls like Cerah; people whose culture had been eradicated, the last survivors of a burned tribe, who then roamed the world in search of meaning and acceptance, no matter how horrible. Sometimes they landed in the hands of monsters like himself and, in turn, began to aspire to be reborn as monsters, too.

"This battle is beyond you." the Pride Star laid out. "Sure, you're wearing a powerful Silver Cloth and you've made strides in Light-crafting, but you're also a thirteen year old girl who's never seen the world. Do you think that will get you past Aries, much less to Arles?"

She stood up, desperate. "I just want to join you! I know you're going after him, too! Why can't you take me with you?"

The Pride Star scoffed. The idea of having Cerah in his entourage was stupidly dangerous. She could barely reach Mach 2 yet and her Prismatic Shot techniques were in their infancy. The girl didn't even realize yet that the Silver Cloth morphed into a Skeleton armor on her was whispering to her, inciting her greed.

Besides, after all these years, he was getting used to having Cerah around alive and well. A little pet project he's grown attached to.

Seeing him hesitate, Skeleton Cerah insisted. "You're always saying you hate Arles, that you're going to wage war on him someday! Well, let me be a part of it! I can… I can help you."

"You're not thinking nearly big enough. Sanctuary isn't just one man sitting on a throne; it's a fortress that rules the world from the shadow of Athena's skirt. What needs to be done in Sanctuary… what can be done in it, is vastly larger than your petty little idea of getting Daese's approval."

"H-How would you KNOW THAT?!" she screamed, frustrated, her body brimming with yellow cosmos.

The volume and the cosmos made some heads down below at the Prison to turn up. One stern look from the Prince was all she got. It made her outraged spirit freeze into a black, burnt out coal, her aura vanish into nothing and her hands cover her mouth.

Cerah gulped before his gaze, remembering that the person in front of her not only was very much capable of wiping insolent voices like hers into ash with a mere hand wave, but also that, as a quin-centenarian Specter, Daemon Lucifer knew exactly what it felt like to live in the Underworld and watch your whole life on Earth evaporate to nothing. Fear and shame began weighing in her head.

"I'm… I'm sorry, Prince. I didn't mean to raise my voice. I just… I just want my… damn life to change!" she let out, frustrated. Cerah was so naturally polite that even a mild word like 'damn' was the purest expression of pain. "I've been here for so long… Never seen the sun, never seen Daese's face, never knew what to do with myself other than make you not mad at me being around. Please, Prince… I just want my sister back."

But the Prince sighed impatiently. "You don't even remember Aquila Daese's voice. No, you want a lot more than just that. Don't worry though…" and his thoughts turned to Eurydice, who awaited in dread for her husband's revival. "I'll have a role for you in my design soon, Cerah."

Suddenly, he saw one of the cauldrons below spill over and tumble aside, crashing. "HEY, what's going on there?!"

The False Skeletons and Specters working at the Prison panicked, seeing the supreme commander of the Underworld leap down among them and seeing the wash of corpses and burning blood spilling everywhere.

"P-Prince!"

"It's not our fault!"

"LOOK AT THIS MESS! YOU OTIOSE EXCUSES FOR SPECTERS! I should have all this hot blood scrubbed with your FACES!" the Pride Star roared over the spreading pool of red liquid, startling Cerah and making the Specters scurry around to get everything fixed.

Cerah watched with alarm the Prince's aura manifest dangerously like a thundering cloud of darkness. How close did she just get to triggering this in him when she was shouting at him?

"TORAK!" the Prince called, making the Behemoth Specter from the other side of the Prison speed into the area. "What happened here?! Get this place organized NOW!"

The young Behemoth nodded frantically. "Yes, Prince… it seems there was a bit of chaos with the last patch of violence doers we just got sent here by Lord Urial. When they dropped into the cauldron, the whole thing ignited."

His massive arms then raised the broken, huge cauldron that was spilled over, causing the remaining blood to wash out and revealing a collection of struggling corpses at the burnt bottom of the gigantic bronze container. They were seemingly clad in slag of black armor that was melting under the heat and their melting faces were aflame, making them scream in agony.

Cerah gasped, pretending to be a regular Skeleton escorting the Prince, at the sight of these particular zombies. She stepped in curiously.

But Lucifer's arm held her back as he pulled his cape to himself, covering his mouth and nose from the blood fumes. "Don't get any closer."

Cerah tried to get a good look from the Specter's protection. "They're… burning up? But the cauldron..."

Even Torak stepped back, letting the wailing bodies disintegrate into ash with a pained wail. "By Hades,… I've never seen this happen. What can make the cauldrons of blood combust? The whole point is that you're scalded in liquid without ever being burned through!"

The Prince's eyes narrowed. He knew the power behind this. "They're not combusting, they're reviving. Or rather I should say they are going back to where they belong. These... are Death Queen Island Black Saints."

Cerah looked up, recognizing the term from Lucifer's stories about the last Holy War. "Death Queen Island? Isn't that…"

The Behemoth Specter sweated nervously. "Should… we be concerned, Prince? I've never seen anything like this!"

"Send a note to Urial not to process them. It's pointless. The Prisons will just reject their presence like this again." the Prince ordered. "They have a worse hell to return to back on Earth."

{======================|SS2|======================}

Death Queen Island

{======================|SS2|======================}

Under the watch of the Queen's Mouth, which raged seemingly without end, the trio marched steadily across the Changing Fields, towards the Northeast. As promised by Guifi, the paths among the blackened, barren terrain were chaotic and twisting, changing seemingly within the hour under the horrendous pressure and heat exerted by the nearby volcano. Fire rained from the black sky along with drops of sulfuric water. The Pegasus Saint found himself helping them transverse fissures of fire suddenly emerging ahead of them, steep slopes left behind by lava washes and edges of crates born every minute from pieces of fiery destruction spat by the mountains.

The Bronze Saint found himself panting as he followed his two guides, wiping the sweat off his brow. He had traveled in the past through terrifying tundras, dark jungles, labyrinthine swamps and even some volcanic territories, but the Changing Fields seemed to combine all the dangers of these into one maddening terrain with no end in sight. Lance soon realized that having a guide like Guifi and Nina was not so much for the sake of direction, as no route outlived the day, but for not losing belief that the place could be crossed to begin with.

Every now and then, Lance spotted their disgruntled Master further up ahead, observing their trail before disappearing again behind a rock or turn of the road.

Further ahead of Lance, his former friend Guifi marched with an inner battle of his own. "Lance's different from what I knew, Nina. I don't know if I can trust him." he spoke through the cosmos.

The girl by his side pressed the point. "How so?"

"He's… broken… in a bad way. Even if he hadn't done what he did, I was feeling something wrong in his cosmos as it was. It's probably why I confused him with a Black Saint so much. I don't know what he went through at Mount Olympus, but it must have been almost as bad as being here." Guifi reasoned, looking off melancholic. "He's full of… hate. I feel it brimming off of him. Like he wants the entire world to burn around him. I think he was serious before and he really would kill me if I pushed him too far."

Her eyes softened."Guifi..."

But the boy shook in fear."He was one of the only people who ever treated me like a human being at Rodario. But now...I can't trust our lives to him! What if he's just as bad as the Black Saints?… Just as bad as me?"

"Don't say that!" she asserted, holding his hand. "You promised me never to talk about yourself like that again…"

Guifi glanced in direction of the scars she hid inside her tattered shirt. "N-Nina."

"Things were never going to be easy, Guifi. Have faith in your friend." she insisted. "Remember, he just saved our lives…"

The Chamorro boy looked ahead, seeing the terrain rise. "We're about to reach the volcanic slopes."

Lance followed them up the road. "What does that mean?"

Guifi climbed the terrain rise. "It means we're leaving the Changing Fields and about to enter the Burning Swamps."

Lance scoffed. "This island is just one charming place after the other, uh? What the hell are the Burning Swamps?! Does this mean we're at least close to your cabin?"

"Yes. We live between the border of the two areas because it keeps us off the lava paths of both the Queen and Mount Lemuria." Guifi patiently explained. After helping Nina climb to the rise, he extended hand to Lance. "Come take a look here. From here you can see the rest of the eastern half."

Lance ignored the hand and climbed the rise himself. He now stood on the blackened slope between the island's two main eastern plains.

Guifi ignored his arrogant posturing and pointed finger at the plains ahead. "Those are the Burning Swamps."

The Pegasus Saint once again widened eyes. Ahead of him, between the Black Scar rises where Mount Lemuria stood and a plateau to the far-off northeast was a vast, blackened field filled with what looked like countless brimming lakes of fire, like the malebolges of hell. The far-off Mount Lemuria, a much smaller volcano than the Queen's Mouth, seemed to be responsible for these, belching out just enough lava to plummet the northeastern plain and create these many 'swamps' of hot magma that made the terrain look like a starry night of orange.

Lance felt under attack by the elements even in this supposedly safe area. Bits of scorching ash and embers flew around in the air like sand would in a windy beach, stinging his exposed skin bits. Temperatures were climbing to extraordinary levels, even compared to what he had already felt on that island, and Lance imagined it was still night time. He wondered how suffocating midday would be.

He blinked, realizing he had already lost track of time. The girl, Nina, was right; there really was little to nothing around to intuitively tell him how long he had been there.

Red….

The bronze knelt and took a warm basalt rock into his hand. Basalt was formed when the magma cooled down quickly on the surface, resulting in a black rock with no visible crystals formed. It seemed that at some point, the continued shaping and reshaping of the island by the Queen's Mouth and Mount Lemur eventually clashed and formed this natural barrier between the two's plains, like two living creatures staking their claims on the island. The Changing Fields on the southeastern side, the Burning Swamps in the northeastern one. Said vein of basalt they now stood one seemed to continue eastwards to the coast, forming a rather sharp protruding cape. No wonder Guifi and Nina weren't bothering guiding him around the slope.

His red eyes followed up the coast to the plateau he spotted earlier to the Northeast. There, by its footing, he spotted an edifice of marble contrasting with the dark terrain surrounding it…

...Red!

"They say that the Swamps are where the Muvians used to live." Nina mentioned, thought it was hard for her to imagine how life could ever have thrived in that field of fire. "If you travel through them, you can still find ruins here and there,… but it's so dangerous. Any step can make you land in lava."

"We don't have to go further north. Our cabin is just down here. Come on." Guifi stressed. He then noticed the Pegasus Saint frozen in place. "...What's wrong, Lance?"

The Bronze Saint didn't seem to even be hearing them. His lower jaw hung and his eyes were transfixed in the horizon, funneled even, onto a single far-off trapezoidal building of marble by the foot of the northeastern plateau.

Following their direction, Guifi felt a cold shiver up his spine. It was the Phoenix Temple, where the island's Bronze Cloth was stored. He lightly pushed Lance. "Wake up, man!"

The Pegasus Saint blinked himself free of his trance. "I… What... is that over there?"

"That's the Temple housing the Phoenix Bronze Cloth." Nina explained. "It's the Bronze Cloth Guifi is fighting for. Did you…. feel something, Saint Pegasus?"

The Bronze Saint groaned and rubbed his eyes. For some reason, his Bronze Cloth was also getting really warm with cosmos. Usually it only got this way when he was about to get attacked without realizing it, like just now with the Black Saint attack. A threat alarm?

"Nothing, I just thought I heard someone talk. Must have been the damn wind." he dismissed.

Nina shared a concerned look with Guifi. There was only one reason why Phoenix would take note of Lance and it was not a good one. Guifi looked over his shoulder into Lance's eyes, and saw the red in them. He stared at the color for a while.

"What are you looking at?!" asked Lance, irritated.

This time, Guifi didn't seem intimidated by his tone. "I was just wondering something, is all… Lance, you never told me what Training Ground the seers thought you'd go to, right?"

The strange question stunned the Saint, but he decided to entertain it. "I must have not, cause they never told me. It was probably Pegasus anyway. The Black Saints are gone for now, so can we get going?!"

At first, Guifi took pause at this response, but then he held out his hand and felt the acid rain returning.

So he pointed at the dark cabin among the slope crevices further below "Yes. Follow my lead down there. Nina?" Guifi then picked her up and placed her on his arms. "I'll carry you from here. I can cover you from the rain this way."

Nina held on tight to him and smiled weakly. "Thank you, Guifi..."

The two teenage boys then charged cosmos and bulleted out of there, leaving small trails of sonic booms.

{======================|SS2|======================}

Guifi felt Nina quiver in his arms from the acid rain and did his best to cover her as much as possible. "Don't worry, we're almost there."

They sprinted along the passes, avoiding holes in the ground that lead to the underground lava, and eventually reached the bluff overlooking the Master's hut. Lance took a look at it, realizing it was little more than a run down brick dungeon built into the basalt slope. A single wooden door with a reinforced lock guarded its entry and there were steel bars on every window. The fact that it dug into the terrain, however, made it ideal to find cover from the elements.

"Home sweet home…" Guifi dryly commented, gently letting Nina down. "The Master must have gone somewhere."

"How can you tell?" Lance asked.

Guifi's red eyes searched the north briefly before answering. "I don't hear any screaming inside."

Lance narrowed his eyes, wondering what Guifi meant with those words. As he approached the cabin, though, he noticed faint trails of blood on the ground. Kneeling to get a better look, Lance realized that several layers of blood splattered were caked into the door path, as if it was routine to drag carcasses or wounded into the cavernous hut.

He then stumbled, dizzy, and was caught by Guifi. "Take it easy, Lance… "

"I'… I'm f-fine!" he growled. Guifi and Nina, though, seemed to be going double in front of him.

The candidate to Phoenix shook his head. "You've gotten really proud, haven't you? Do you think this is good air you've been breathing all the way here? Shut up and come rest inside, Lance. You'll feel better after a few hours of sleep. We can talk about the Black Saints later."

He heard the volcano roar and the earth shake, so Lance decided to just comply. For now, he would rest and hear their story. He would then fulfill his mission, get off that island and leave Guifi and his stupid comments behind forever. He wasn't there to get reacquainted with him, but to take as many filthy Black Saints down as fast as possible. He admitted that he was surprised to seeing Guifi after so long, having even forgotten all about the only person Lance ever met with red eyes like his own, but this didn't change anything about what he was there to do and what life of ostracisation awaited Lance back in Sanctuary.

{======================|SS2|======================}

Later that night…

{======================|SS2|======================}

The insides of the cabin were dark, damp and cavernous, with tight divisions, claustrophobically low rock ceilings, rusted tools and an eerie silence in a hot, dirty air that was difficult to breathe. The few walls that weren't just the dugout surfaces of the ground were made of uneven brick, like the inside of a buried mausoleum. Many bolts were dug deep into them to hold up all sorts of chains, shackles, cutting knives, butchering tools and hammers, but nothing looked like it was meant to educate a trainee into a Saint.

Nina scraped the bottom of the bowl with the spoon for the last remnant of the soup and poured it into the small curved plate. She tried to keep it as warm as possible. Fortunately this was easy on that island. Temperatures never dropped below a certain warm point, after all.

Nina left the cabin's kitchen and went to Guifi's cell. Guifi had left the cabin a while ago to go look for Master by the volcanoes and had yet to return, leaving her alone with Lance.

Despite the locks in their rooms, her cell and Guifi's were always open. She didn't need Master's keys or anything like that to move around freely both in the cabin and on the island. This wasn't out of kindness. The Master simply knew that they understood having their prisons unlocked meant very little in terms of actual freedom in that island, so he did it to mock their powerlessness.

She stepped tepidly into the jailed room, finding the Pegasus Saint sitting in the corner, his head sleeping into his knees, still wearing his armor like he expected to get attacked in his sleep. There were no real beds around other than Nina's ruined mattress that Guifi salvaged for her and the Saint, in a surprising twist, had not demanded it from her, opting to rest on the corner floor despite the hard ground.

Nina could only guess the Pegasus Saint was used to terrible living conditions, like herself. In a small way, despite his threatening demeanor, she was very curious about him; not only was Lance one of the few Saints that had ventured into her island, but he was a friend of Guifi, or at least at one point he was.

Maybe the Saint wasn't interested in being friendly anymore, but perhaps with some tact she could get some questions answered. How did they become friends? Were his eyes red because of the Phoenix, too? Was Guifi as nice and cute as she had always known him to be? What was the world outside like? Did he train under a nice Master at Olympus? Even if not… anyone would be better than Father.

Setting the bowl down, she tapped him gently.

Lance's eyes shot open and a harsh hand grabbed her neck. "No, wait, it's me!" she shrieked. Lance stared at her for a while, confused, but then let her go. She rubbed her neck. "I-Im sorry for startling you."

The Saint sweated, realizing what he's done. "S-Shit… I was having a nightmare and thought..."

"I brought you some soup." she said, offering the bowl.

A mix of pride and skepticism filled him. Not only did he not want any help from these people, but she was giving him food after he threatened her twice?

Moreover, she looked like she needed nutrients a hell lot more than himself. While Lance had gotten nothing to eat since Sanctuary, he was a reasonably strong Saint with sustaining Cosmos reserves, while Nina was a borderline skeletal normie girl. She was as pale as a ghost and had such sunken cheeks that she looked like she'd explode in joy if someone offered her a full meal.

She must have sensed this skepticism in him. "Eat it, no one should go hungry in this place. You should drink a lot of liquids. There's not a lot of meat in it, but it's the best I could do for us."

Lance relaxed, but pressed himself further against the wall. He didn't care much about the girl, but still felt nervous in her feminine presence. He also wondered where she got the meat.

It was then that he noticed that he no longer heard the mice and cockroaches moving around in the cabin and he scowled. "I'm not hungry. You can have it."

Nina insisted. "That's no good. I know you're a Bronze Saint, but you'll need the energy for tomorrow. I already had my fill." She then practically pressed the bowl and spoon against Lance's face. "Please eat it."

Lance sighed and resigned to her request, taking the soup and eating it in front of her just to shut her up about it. He tried to ignore how scrunchy the meat pieces were until she just went away.

She didn't. In fact, Nina eyed him with an expectant look.

He put the bowl aside after he was finished. "What is it you want to ask?"

Nina smiled, finding his tone more receptive. Food was always the best diplomacy, even if made of bugs. "I was just curious. You met Guifi before he got here, right? How?"

The Saint frowned in irritation. "Didn't he tell you already?! I met him in Heart of Sasha, but only for a month or two."

"I know you two aren't getting along right now, but… were you his friend?"

"No." Lance promptly answered. "We knew each other for like a month, alright?!"

Nina staggered a bit at the sharp tone. "I see… it's just that…" She threaded ground hesitantly, picking a more common element between them. "To tell you the truth, Guifi mentioned your name said you were the only one he ever met with red eyes."

This seemed to suddenly get Lance's attention. "Figures he'd talk about that."

Nina gulped. Every time she got an answer from Pegasus, he made her feel like she was stepping more and more into territory that would get him angry at her.

She looked at the Pegasus Cloth Box. "You were saying earlier that you were left at your Training Ground to die. I'm sorry you had to go through that." She said, turning away from Lance as for a moment, caught a glance from him that looked like sadness. "Death Queen Island is really harsh, but at least Guifi and I were never completely alone. That must have been terrible for you."

At this point, when she turned to take the bowl away, Lance couldn't help but notice the back of her flower shirt rested over a whole set sharp mark of scars all over her back kept otherwise hidden. He hadn't noticed on the way to the cabin because he was focused on his surroundings, not her. His throat became cold. Did Guifi's teacher do this to her?

"Where are you from? Greece?" Lance tried to guess through her voice, wanting to get some context. "How did you end up here?"

She shyly raised her head. "I… I don't remember. I've been in Death Queen Island all my life, serving Father."

"How can that be?! This is a Training Ground! If you're not a candidate what are you even doing here?!" Lance questioned. Nina's situation as a slave was obvious. What wasn't so clear was her role in their teacher's life and origin. Kastiel was an ignorant, neglecting brute, but the Kerberos Saint made it clear to Lance at Mount Olympus that these places weren't for tourism. "What does that asshole Master keep you around for?!"

Holding arm anxiously, she looked away. "I'm… I'm… I don't know. I just do what Father asks. It's all I've ever done. Please don't make me talk about it...The Black Saints at Jangotown keep slaves. M-maybe he saved me from them."

Lance felt sicker by the second. "Tell me something…why was Guifi's body so scarred?"

Nina staggered and shuddered, coiling away again.

"Don't fucking run away from the question." Lance demanded. "That guy didn't have anything on him but the marks from punching rocks all day. Now I meet him after all these years and he looks like someone tried to carve him up like a lamp for Halloween!"

Nina gulped. "That was…that was just from training."

Lance squinted right into Nina's eyes, making her feel like she was being backed into a wall. "Training, huh?"

She paused hesitantly. "Yes."

"I've met many Saints by now. None of them have those sorts of scars. Guifi's are all deliberate looking and made by the same hand. So, unless your boyfriend fell down the fucking Golden Zodiac stairs, or has some sort of messed up test for the Phoenix Cloth that involving cutting himself from head to toe, it seems pretty obvious whips did the job."

Lance then watched Nina trembling even more and shutting her eyes tightly. Before long, he saw tears squeezing from within her eyelids.

"I-I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…I meant it's just that Father sometimes…" she stopped herself short from completing her sentence and rubbed her eyes.

As she did this, Lance took second notice of the deep, scars in her arm beneath the short sleeve of her ragged up shirt. Every time she even mentioned her so-called dad, the teenage girl would lock up and freeze in an almost Pavlovian manner. Lance had heard that Death Queen Island was the worst training Ground not for its inefficacy, but for how dangerous and brutal it was. Clearly, the island's traditions were not limited to the trainees, but extended to the slaves as well. He wondered if the runner-up, Andromeda Island, took a page from this practice.

Uncomfortable with her crying, he tried to switch subjects. "What can you tell me about the island's situation? What are the enemies here like?"

She hesitantly gulped and calmed herself down. "Death Queen Island has always harbored Black Saints. However, they've always stuck to the west… It's safer there for them. I'm not s-sure what changed. G-Guifi and Father know more."

Blast it, was everything with this girl Guifi this, Father that? "I'm asking you, goddamn it! Haven't you lived here all this time?! You must have some thoughts about it."

She nodded frantically. "I-I….Well, it's possible that this particular time of the year makes them more… violent."

This gave the Bronze Saint pause. "Time of the year? How so?"

Her face then brightened up, as if they finally landed on a topic she liked. "It's the July Phoenicids. Death Queen Islanders offer sacrifices to them and they came last month."

Lance was completely bewildered. "July ph…..What the fuck are those?"

She saw the bewilderment in him and was stunned at his ignorance as a Saint, considering even she knew about them. "They're a meteor shower, Saint Pegasus… people north of the equator don't see them too much, but on this side of the world they're… beautiful. Me and Guifi saw them together by the sea… I felt so happy."

The Saint squinted like he'd puke at the idea of such romance.

She put herself back on topic when she saw him scowl. "Anyway, they're closely connected to the Phoenix constellation. The island volcanoes become more dangerous during July and August because of it. It's possible that… the Black Saints became bolder because of it, too. They must want to sacrifice us."

The casualness with which she spoke of a bunch of black-armored gangsters crossing the Black Scar to come drag them kicking and screaming into volcanoes was chilling, like she got used to the possibility of it happening any moment of any day. "Aren't you concerned?"

She tucked her legs in to reassure herself. "I used to be… Every night here was horrible… Somewhere after my eighth birthday or so, Father started saying that he'd let them through the door just to see how loud I'd scream. I could never sleep quite right... I just kept dreaming about being grabbed by strange hands in the middle of the night. After a while I just became numb about it. I wanted it to happen just so Father would stop saying these things. Just so I could sleep..."

The Saint felt strangely absorbed into this, particularly the part about the grabbing hands. "Did he?"

Her blue eyes rose. "No, ...he just started doing other things to keep me up at night. I… I don't know why he hates me so much…Why didn't he just leave me with Black Saints." she wept, frustrated. "I couldn't really start sleeping well until… he brought Guifi."

By now it was clear what was going on between these two, even to Lance. He didn't find it particularly strange, as Lance understood pretty well the power of the hand that reaches out to you in the dark, when you feel the most alone. He imagined this girl spent most of her life watching people around her die, so someone like Guifi, who was tough enough to survive a little bit longer and be nicer to her than her so-called Father was, would basically become her whole world.

Guifi, in turn, had pretty much been an outcast his whole life, so someone caring like Nina would naturally be a person he'd want to desperately protect.

Seeing the Saint in pensive silence, Nina assumed that he was finally at peace with her presence and let her curiosity out of its leash again. "Do you mind if I ask… what Guifi was like?"

The Saint ran hand through hair in reflection. "You want to know? He was less soft. The Guifi Taitano I knew at Rodario taught me to not take bullshit from the world, much less me kicking my foot in his face."

Seeing Guifi being criticized seemed to once again make the otherwise frail girl narrow her eyes defensively, like when she stood between Lance and Guifi at the mountain crossing, but she politely asked. "Saint Lance… You shouldn't be so harsh on him. Guifi isn't softer. You don't know what he's been through here."

Lance scoffed and raised a brow. "He never walked with such trepidation in Greece, when he was surrounded by people who hated him. Why don't you tell me about what went so wrong for him, already, instead of showing me the sights? I've seen plenty of hellish environments in my missions."

Nina briefly looked around at her own cabin, as if trying to imagine through this frame of reference what kind of places outside that island could come close to its hot, poisoned world that the Saint could possibly have come across.

The girl's look softened suddenly in realization. "I see. You think he's been broken by this place...That's why you're looking down on him so much….but you shouldn't."

It wouldn't surprise Lance if the girl had grown sensitive to people's cosmos considering how long she spent next to the island's Master emanating a reek of bloody energy. "Is that so?"

Nina blinked, surprised by the question. She thought back to the time she met the Chamorro boy. She seemed to smile weakly with this memory, her blue eyes softening.

"Two years ago, when Guifi came, he was already pretty strong. I knew the moment I met him why Father picked him." Her face then beamed in admiration. "But, now, he's much, much stronger. This is why, deep down, I think Father still has good in his heart, because Guifi has grown so much under him. There's… a method to his malice."

Lance narrowed his eyes as he did the math.

Nina wondered why Lance then seemed so bothered by her answer. She was running out of ways not to upset him.

After a few seconds of silence, Lance resumed the interrogation. "How strong is he now?"

Nina crawled against the wall a little,as if putting distance between herself and a bomb. "I don't mean to insult you or anything, but I think he's stronger than you. Honestly, I don't know why he doesn't have the Phoenix Cloth already."

Lance stood up, eyes wide in outraged shock, almost hitting his head on the ceiling. "Stronger than me?! Him?! I had him on the ground in two seconds! He can't even stand up for himself to that freak you call your Father, unlike me! If he's strong, what the fuck am I?!"

The shouting frightened her, but she shook her head nonetheless. "Y-You don't understand, Saint Lance. Do you… know what Death Queen Island's training philosophy is?"

Feeling embarrassed before how calm she was, the Saint cooled down. "...No, why the fuck would I?!"

She patiently explained. "Since time immemorial, Masters of Death Queen Island have preached that there's a power within us that burns brighter than all others. A fuel to the cosmos so focused, so pure and so strong that even love may be surpassed by it. They believe... in hatred."

Cogs in Lance's head began turning; it was common knowledge that explosive, intense emotions like anger, love and hatred could fuel the cosmos immensely. However, even the unrefined and violent Lance had heard, especially from Noah, that love, as strong and constant of an emotion it was, was the best fuel of cosmos there was due to how stable and intense it could be. Like most romantics said in Sanctuary, while anger was a fleeting thing, love endured.

Nina continued. "Death Queen Island doesn't simply teach you to be a brute, Saint Lance. It tries to turn you into a horrible, hateful human being who wants to do nothing but make others suffer, a killer. The first thing Father does to new students is tell the slaves they can earn their freedom if they… hurt you. Everyone wants to escape this awful place so they do… and Guifi has no choice but to defend himself. Then it just gets worse. Starve him out, beat him, making him stop other people from hurting each other… every day, Father does whatever he can to make Guifi think people will hate him… so that he'll hate them right back."

Lance blinked in horror. "...How the hell is he supposed to get more cosmos through that?! Or even a Phoenix Cloth?!"

Nina paused, thinking of how to best explain it. "I don't understand it myself, but Father says a lot that it's about breaking Guifi down and rebuilding him… only stronger. I guess something about it makes you like the Phoenix?"

Lance covered mouth and leaned against the wall in disbelief. Fantastic; the biggest allied authority on the island he was supposed to liberate was a psychotic torturer, many leagues worse than the negligent Kastiel.

"Everyone says no one survives Death Queen Island, Saint Lance, but that's not really true. Plenty of people survive. You saw them yourself. They just…" Nina then hugged herself and looked at the floor, struggling to voice the trauma. "T-they just don't stay the same. They die on the inside and something horrible takes their place. Something full of… hate for everything and everyone. Something that wants to burn the whole world down."

"And… that makes them strong?!"

Nina's blue eyes met his. "You felt Father's cosmos at the beach, did you not?"

Lance did, in fact. It felt like he was staring at the mouth of a gaping, raging furnace full of blood. Something deep inside himself, perhaps even touching on his Zodiac constellation, sensed the awful screams of countless people who had their faces beaten to a pulp by the Master's fists, like he their very souls got scalded into the bastard's knuckles.

Guifi had spent the last two years being brutalized by this person. "Why do you call him that?! Don't you hate him?"

"I used to. But Father is just a victim of this island, just like the people you saw in the rocks." Her face sunk into arms and her eyes dreamed. "But not Guifi… He's the same as he was when I first met him, still my sweet, brave Phoenix. No matter what Father does to him, no matter how much he dreams of fire, he still holds my hand like I'd shatter into a million pieces if dropped. When he does that… When I feel his hands, I know he still lov-… still cares about me."

The teenage Pegasus Saint looked away, rethinking everything he's witnessed so far on the island.

However, the coldness instilled in him by Mount Olympus refused to crack. "Guifi is a fucking fool. If he's so goddamn strong, then he should just kill his teacher and take the Cloth."

The thought of it alone seemed to put staggered shock in her face. "Is that what you would have done, Saint Lance?"

"Would?! Do you think I shook hands with the bastard who left me in Olympus?! My only mistake with Kerberos Kastiel is that I let him live!" he hissed, full of a black bile inside his stomach and holding up his armored hand. "I stopped myself short of smashing this fist through his guts because I thought that playing by Sanctuary's rules, doing what Noah said, would shield me from the Pope! Instead, that fucking old man in a mask sends me to this hellhole to help you people because I dared to raise a fist at a Silver Saint who left me for dead! You know what I would have done? With what I know now?! I'd have splashed his fucking guts in front of his stupid Hoplites and dogs, right there at the Coliseum! A big fucking tribute to Sanctuary's spartan culture! Then at least I'd be happy in my punishment, knowing that bastard got what was coming to him! Instead I got nothing to show for my survival! Nothing to be at peace with! No justice!…."

The girl stood up, looking away from the beast in front of her. Now she understood why Father seemed interested in Saint Pegasus, and why Guifi was worried about him. "I believe you, Saint Lance.…"

He looked at her expectantly. "That's it?! You still think he's better than me?!"

For the first time since they met that day, she eyed him with pity, rather than fear. "I spent my life seeing honorable, kind people being turned into murderous monsters by Father. Within days. I don't know what you went through in Mount Olympus, Saint Lance...but you were broken. Guifi was not."

Lance once more narrowed his eyes, unsure if he was convinced by Nina's argument. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Father makes him hurt people, but this is nothing compared to how much he makes Guifi hurt himself." Nina confronted. Her voice seemed to gag at the recollection. "Every time some slave or criminal is sent here, Father makes him break his honor and goodwill by fighting one of them to the death. He even makes him choose between them. Has anyone ever forced you to pick who gets to live and die, right in front of them, Saint Lance? Do you have any idea what that feels like? To watch their faces while you decide?"

Lance staggered visibly for the first time she met him, rendered speechless.

Nina saw that the Bronze Saint felt sufficiently humiliated and changed topic. "A little while ago, Guifi said that he did not recognize you. He's worried about you, even though you hurt him. I think he's right that you're in danger."

Lance growled, tired of her ramming her point into his skull. "Me?! In danger?!"

"Father saw it in your eyes. The red…You're cursed, too, aren't you?" she asked. "And they both see you're full of hatred on the inside-"

Lance gritted his teeth and exploded. "CURSED?! SHUT UP! What the hell do you know about me?!"

Nina staggered in fear, wondering if Lance would actually attack her. However, the door suddenly opened up and Guifi stumbled inside the cabin, pressing his hand against his bloody left cheek.

"Guifi!" she screamed, rushing to his side.

{======================|SS2|======================}

Queen's Mouth Volcano

{======================|SS2|======================}

At the cauldron of the island's largest fire-belching mountain, the Master sat on a basalt rock overlooking the bubbling lava pool.

"A-AGHh, p-please, NO!" the half-naked Black Saint at his feet screamed, stripped of his armor and missing one of his legs in a growing pool of blood.

The hooded Master sighed, ignoring the Black Saint and wondering where he had gone wrong with his teachings. He stood up with a lament. "He lied to me…"

The Black Saint tried to crawl away in panic. "A-ah, s-someone HELP ME, g-goddamn it!"

The Master followed him with a slow pace. He raised his foot over the Black Saint. "He went around my back!" and he shattered the Black Saint's spine instantly with a brutal blow, making the pretender scream as loud as the lava spits. The Master tried to relax, drawing deep breaths. "Called for help!….But that's okay…. That's okay."

Utterly paralyzed, the captured Black Saint begged for mercy. "Just k-kill me… please!"

The Master knelt down and took the raider's wrist with both hands. "Sometimes… your pets just… bite the hand that feeds them, don't they?" With a sudden twist, he then snapped the Black Saint's forearm to the side, making the shattered bone break out of skin. He put his knee over the stripped warrior to hold his struggling down and pressed the arm harder. "Hold fucking still!"

"YHAGH, N-NO! NO, NO, N-" Eventually what was left of the arm was ripped off entirely, just like the leg, cutting the Black Saint's words short with another scream.

The Master held it up, admiring its flaws, from the yellow nails to the scarred flesh. "But sometimes… they bear you gifts, too…like a little bird left on your porch."

He then tossed the ripped arm out to the lava, making the Black Saint watch it skitter over the thick fluid before finally melting and sizzling into nothing, releasing disgusting fumes smelling like burnt flesh.

The Master took a deep breath of it. "Don't you just love that smell? Do you know what that is? That's the Goddess showing you her love!" He then saw the Black Saint sink face into the ground, surrendered to his torture. He had to be careful. If he pushed the punished too far, they'd just bite their own tongue off in despair. "I'm a loving teacher, too, am I not?"

"Y…. yes."

The Master grabbed the Black Saint by the little hair he had and pulled him forth to the edge of the bluff, making him stare at the magma. "And as the loving teacher I am… I'll vent my anger away from my student for now…. And pretend you are Guifi."

With a mighty push, the Master then hurled the Black Saint at the lava. Armless and legless, the screaming torso saw a wash of orange light swallow him whole and the whole mountain rumbled.

{======================|SS2|======================}

"I-I'm fine." Guifi assured as he sat on a chair, aided by Nina.

Lance watched her tear off a piece of her skirt and pressing the makeshift cloth against Guifi's cheek to stop the bleeding. "What happened?"

The boy winced as the wound was pressed close. "I just…I went looking for Master and ran into some more of those Jangotown assholes. The island's southern pass is crawling with them now. I had to turn back before more found me. Lance wiping out that squad just made them more pissed off."

"Serves you right for going out there without me! What the fuck were you thinking?! You could have been killed!" Lance asked.

Guifi growled at him in frustration. "Now you're concerned about me?! Pick a damn lane!"

He took another chair and sat in front of Guifi. "Whatever, now will you tell me what the hell is going on this island? Why are they all retreating back here? The mission charts didn't say anything about this place and weren't very clear on what started this whole damn mess."

The Phoenix Cloth trainee hesitated to form words about this. "I…I don't know what to tell you, Lance. One day, they just appeared out of nowhere all over the Pacific. They ambushed us, and we were forced to retreat from the island. We've been taking it back bit by bit ever since. We think it might be the July Ph-"

"Don't blame this on some damn weather event!" Lance narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "Black Saints are usually raiders with cosmos, not cultists. They don't just appear out of nowhere because the chart aligned just right. They don't wear Bronze-class armors, either. Why were they wearing those things? Where did they get them?"

"I told you, dumbass… we don't know." Guifi insisted. Lance didn't look the least bit satisfied with this. "We really don't. You need to stop assuming this is just another mission location, Lance. Death Queen Island's Black Saints are… not normal."

"What? What do you mean?" Lance asked.

Guifi and Nina's eyes met in shared concern. Lance realized that there was something going on and that the two of them were up to something, and it involved him. Why else would they ask for reinforcements behind the Island's Master back?

"Master once told us a myth…" Nina spoke. "…about a demon that lives on this island. A demon the Black Saints worship called... Mara."

The very idea of it, though, seemed to annoy Guifi. "Nina, it's just a local fantasy!" he then turned to Lance to explain. "Mara is a demon king, Lance. How do I explain this to you?... He's like Satan from Christians, except to Hindu Gods. Red skin, big teeth, incarnates evil, the whole deal. A lot of people brought here as slaves are from India, Indonesia and around, so they tend to think the evil in this place comes from their cultures. They are desperate… so they pray for mercy."

The Pegasus Saint folded arms. "Oh...Figures, then. So they form cults around this idol?"

Guifi shrugged shoulders. "You know how stupid people are. Especially when it comes to religion. They blame their punishments on spirits, and then they build fucking statues to them, as if that made a lick of sense! And the longer you're here, the crazier you are, the more brainwashed you get, the hotter your cosmos will burn, and before you know it you have a damn group of highly organized lunatics with enough cosmos to kill a Bronze Saint!"

Lance shook head in reprove. "Now something finally makes some sense about this place..."

Nina's eyes darted between the two suddenly agreeing on something and nodding along, feeling suddenly singled out. "Wait, it's not just a fantasy, Guifi, you know that! We live in a world where Athena exists! The people here… they..."

Guifi sighed. "Nina, you say that because you've lived here all your life, you've never seen the outside world. Me and Lance have. It's because of Athena that we think this way. We got no illusions about absent Gods." he assured, earning more looks of agreement from the Pegasus Saint. "People out there are damn nuts, Nina…. In a lot of ways, Death Queen Island just makes them honest."

"Nina was telling me your teacher took an interest in me." Lance voiced.

Guifi turned to him worriedly. "… Yeah. I'm sure you can guess why. It seems the people of this island associate our birth eye color to whatever dumb spirit they think is behind this island's evil. Master is no exception."

Lance sweated, picturing himself chased around by a bunch of sacrifice-happy Black Saints. "What do you think is actually behind all of this?"

The brown-skinned boy folded his scarred arms pensively. "…. I think the bastards in Jangotown are just getting greedy. This is the one place in the world Sanctuary turns the blindest eye to. Controlling it entirely, not to mention getting their hands on the Phoenix Cloth, would be just peachy for them."

More and more, things were fitting better into how Lance understood this kind of threat, but one thing still didn't add up. "Okay, but what about the armors?"

Guifi chuckled a bit. "Ya know, Master said that I was lucky for having red eyes, as if being more like this demon somehow made me a better match for the Phoenix, but there have been 'cursed' people like us all of Sanctuary's history. Just look at you. Here you stand here before me with the Cloth of Pegasus, throwing that stupid theory right out the window."

While she was happy that the two of them seemed to be talking more peacefully, Nina still said "Guifi, I wish you wouldn't dismiss Father's words like that. I don't want you to get hurt."

He held her hand softly. "Don't worry, I'm not going to get hurt because I don't believe in some masked ghost, Nina."

Lance nodded and folded his arms, thinking about their words. Already, suspicion regarding the Master's intentions started filling his head. He looked back to the other two. They seemed to be expecting a reaction from him to their theories.

The whole island suddenly started shaking before they heard a guttural roar coming from below the ground. Another roar, this time in the Queen's volcano direction, was heard as a minor eruption forced it to spill out fire and lava into the air. Nina held on to Guifi and Lance to his own chair. After a short while, the rumbling stopped.

Lance looked through the barred window and saw red liquid sliding down the main volcano while fire raged within the mountain. "What the hell! Does this place ever stop erupting?"

"You don't know much about volcano forges, do you?" Guifi asked, earning an annoyed look from the Pegasus. "We told you, this island used to be a part of the continent of Mu. The Queen's Mouth volcano was used to create Cloths and it is tied to the emotions of the strongest cosmos on the island."

"That's right." Nina agreed. "Master must be angry at something, causing a sudden eruption."

Guifi focused hard on the volcano. "Hopefully cause he's killing some of these bastards."

He only felt the faint mist of his Master's cosmos. If only he had the 7th sense, he could tell much better what was going on there. "I don't think he's with anyone. Then again, the volcano has been acting up lately. Like I was gonna say earlier before you cut me the heck off, the Phoenicids probably are making them greedy."

Lance squinted at the volcano, confused. If Nina thought Guifi was stronger than him and there was their teacher around to boot, why ask for help? Especially without telling their Master?

He decided to confront them. "Why did you ask for reinforcements?"

Both Nina and Guifi stood silent for a few moments, exchanging sudden glances, wondering if they could trust Lance.

Guifi eventually took a deep breath and answered.

"Lance, there is something important that I have to ask yo-"Guifi then instantly fell silent, deeply alarmed by something. He then glanced at the door. "Shit, he's here. We'll talk later!"

The door shot open before the Master of Death Queen Island walked inside, meeting the three of them. Nina quickly stood up and bowed, and Lance noticed the rather hurried way Guifi suddenly stood before her and the arrived teacher. He also observed the stiff way the orange-hooded man marched inside.

The Master ignored his trainee and slave and walked past them, confronting Pegasus. Despite the shadows of the Master's hood, the heavy, copper breath and the tense chest muscles made Lance's senses go into full alarm mode, like the man would attack any moment.

"You're still here..." the Master seemingly concluded, his voice tense as a growling bear. He rested hands back against the wall-shoved counter, right by where all the blood-drenched butcher knives were laid out "How… reassuring."

Lance's red eyes noticed his fingers right by their handles but remained calm. "It's going to take more than lava and Black Saint raiders to spook me."

"Well,….mm, mm… Looks like I have no choice but to have you here for now, Saint Pegasus. Who am I to turn away the hands the Goddess sends my way, after all?" the Master mocked, before turning to Guifi. "I didn't know you had such reliable friends, Guifi. Where did a pathetic smear on the earth like you even get time to socialize with Saints?"

Guifi's head lowered and he gulped. "We met… at Heart of Sasha, Master."

"Really?" he asked, looking between the two. Eventually he chuckled. "I imagine you wish he had been by your side when we met, right? Such dedicated friends would certainly not hesitate to take your place on this island… much like you did to that other one I was interested in, right?"

The Pegasus Saint turned in surprise at the gulping Guifi. That was the reason he was here, in Sanctuary's island of horrors?

The Master chuckled at Lance's reaction. "Oh, he didn't tell you? My island has such fame that you'd think only Sanctuary's lepers would be given to me, but no, little Guifi here sacrificed himself to me. Tsk, tsk." He shook his head. "Who would have thought such an innocent looking boy would be fated to land here, on the Queen's lap? It's like he knew already he was a little worthless abortion of the Earth."

Nina shook but interceded. "F-Father, he-"

"QUIET! No one asked your fucking opinion!" the Master snapped, silencing Nina with a startled gasp. "Like I was saying, Pegasus,… we all got a lot to learn about each other, given where we are. I assure you everyone on this island has a reason to deserve being here. Everyone has a little guilty monster inside of them.…Don't they, Guifi?"

Lance's eyes tensed, watching his old acquaintance trying to stay strong but seemingly crushed by the hooded man's dark stare. Strange defensive emotions he hadn't felt since the day Lance tossed that mud at Athena's statue re-emerged in himself.

The Master looked Lance right in the eye. "I think I'm going to like having you around after all, Saint Pegasus. It's always a pleasure to get to know another… man of the Goddess." He then turned back to the door. "Why don't you all rest? We have a big day tomorrow, after all… a lot of worthless scum to massacre. Don't worry...I'll stand watch during the night."

Walking out, the hooded man then slammed the only door out their cave cabin shut, before locking the three of them inside from his side with a large padlock, making sure to really twist the key so they could all hear the anger in the rattle. As the warm ground trembled, Guifi and Nina silently went to their separate cage rooms to sleep.

The Bronze Saint stood there in awe. What was supposed to be the final stage of a Black Saint hunting mission had landed him on Sanctuary's worst Training Ground, meeting one of the only few people he ever befriend in Sanctuary after four long years, finding out he lied about why he was here and this to not get into whatever the hell he was going to ask of him before his asshole Master came back.

What the hell did he get himself into?

{======================|SS2|======================}

Chapter End

{======================|SS2|======================}

Next Chapter: Side Story 2: The Curse of Hatred part 4: The Promise

Deadline: April 25th (?)

Description: Lance and Guifi confront one another with the true nature of the island's siege by Black Saints at a place Lance couldn't even imagine existed in such an island. Meanwhile, the Jangotown Black Saints discover their men are being wiped out by the newly arrived Bronze Saint and decide to do something about it.

Author Notes: This was a toughie, but for different reasons than the previous two chapters. While with part 1 and 2 I was concerned with how to reinterpret my original Death Queen Island story, this part was more about how to tackle on the Master and Death Queen Island themselves as characters and locations, respectively. In many ways, I'm no longer the same person who wrote that edgy Side Story in 2011-2012 and I wasn't comfortable with a lot of its old cringey elements and surface level explorations.

Somewhere along the way, to help me picture the island's geography, I decided to make a rough sketch of DQI on paint based on a couple of anime shots and canon info compilations. The end result was a rough outline of all the locations you'll see described in the Side Story (Changing Fields, Burning Swamps, etc), but the important part is that it kind of inspired me to try something more ambitious…

This is what led to me making my Sanctuary Town Map, which you can find available on my Deviant Art, Twitter and Reddit accounts. It was made more or less alongside this chapter and was a bit distracting but still a good reprieve from this writing's hardships.

So why the (?) by the deadline of the next one?

Well, truth is, Chapter 70 is already 2/3 done, but it would have probably been finished and sent to Jenny DeVic for beta-reading by now, but… last Friday I caught a nasty food poisoning and was ill for almost a week. Combined with my mom catching COVID (she's better now), it made work impossible and there were a couple of days where I couldn't even eat, much less write. I feel much better as of today and I'll try to get 70 done ASAP, but you never know.

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

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