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.

82. 3A: Return to Rozan

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; DQI Geography;

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

{======================|A3|======================}

Author Notes:

-This chapter has been betaread by Zebullon_Wallace

-Today we hit 1.8 Million words!

-Warning; despite my best intentions and efforts, this is quite a long chapter. I recommend reading it in chunks.

{======================|A3|======================}

Please enjoy and review ^_^

{======================|A3|======================}

Japan, Hokkaido

Daisetsuzan National Park

{======================|A3|======================}

Having used Priam's Lightning Arrow technique to safely warp out of Sanctuary into Japan, Sagittarius Priam and Aquila Daese then made their way up the whitened mountains of Hokkaido to their home base. After a week out, they expected to find their friends welcoming them back, perhaps with new intel uncovered from the Book of the Dead page they obtained or Sanctuary's next move.

Instead, they found a burning crater in the snow.

Daese swallowed harshly, walking like a zombie into the cinders, her green eyes shaking in horror at the corpses littering the field. These were her protectors for the better part of a decade, people who reluctantly, but kindly, took her and Cerah in in the middle of their war with Sanctuary.

They were all dead, spread around the burning remains of their home base. They were over the broken tables, spread out on the blackened snow and even thrown over the broken radar dish. Many had their bodies partially destroyed by blasts, while others had big holes in their bodies from puncturing attacks. She was off to Sanctuary for a couple of days with Priam, and now everyone who had been her family for over a decade was gone!

She fell to her armored knees, feeling time slow to a still. Her eyes wept. "W-What h-happened?! What HAPPENED?! Charles! Camille! Eumenes!"

Priam also shook, his eyes frozen at the sight of his last friends in this world massacred like chickens by a ferret. It was like a scene from his war with the Pope. For a moment, he thought some Time God had transported him back to 1963, at the height of his battles with Gemini Akassius.

He had only been out to pick up Daese for a half a day. Just half a day!

Now everyone was… was gone!

Who did this?! Who could have found them out?! Who could have been so cruel?! Who could have-

"P-Priam!" a gargled voice sounded.

The two turned their heads and ran to the voice, finding one of their own still breathing under a burning wreck. Daese screamed his name "Charles!"

With a roar, Priam lifted the burning wreck off of him and gently dragged the blonde man out. His hopes that one would be saved were dashed when he saw his entire lower body was gone, crushed by the debris.

"Char'! Dear Goddess, no!" Priam stuttered, horrified to his core.

The man breathed slowly. He was already more than half the way on the other side of the fence. His eyes looked up at Priam, whom he had followed for almost fifteen years.

"P-Priam. M-miss Daese." he gasped. The words were gargled by blood.

"Charles, for the love of Athena, what happened?!" Daese begged, crying.

"G-Goddamn it! It was so fast! I can't believe it!" The bisected man winced in frustration. "T-Thirteen years surviving Sanctuary… and this is what does me in!"

"W-Who, Charles?! Who did this?!" Priam demanded to know, wanting to shake all the answers out of him. He tried to gently hold him, instead.

Charles weakly pointed at the smoking hole in their base's roof "During watch shift, when everyone was here…A t-thundering shadow broke from above. We tried to gang up on him, but…. Faster than a goddamn viper! He j-just picked us right apart!"

Priam paled, recognizing the description of such an assault. His mind raced back to Crow's Nest, Lucifer's captured castle, when Priam was jumped by Sanctuary's mysterious window-breaking assassin.

The rebel held his chest, feeling life bleeding out of it. "We were c-cramped! Goddamn chickens in a locked henhouse. He shot e-everyone up before we could even tell what happened! Camille and Uso got done in the same blow. Even that idiot, Ray. It was h-horrible! I've n-never seen anything like it!"

Daese's eyes wept, imagining the people who had sheltered her for over a decade getting massacred.

Priam pressed his forehead on Charles' and held the man's hand tightly. "It's okay, Charles. You can stop."

"P-Priam!" the man called, feeling darkness rob him of his leader's face. "He t-took the page. He took it! I'm s-sorry!"

The brown-haired, burned man lowered his head somberly. He felt every last pulse in Charles' hand. He should have shot the assassin back at Crow's Nest, instead of running away. He should have known Shion wouldn't let him be. "It's not your fault, Char'."

Charles gulped harshly, growing paler by the second. He felt his eyes trying to close. He wondered what Circle he'd wake up in for having betrayed Hades' greatest enemy. All he could hope for was that, wherever it was, he'd be together with Ray.

His grip on Priam's hand loosened and his body collapsed on Daese's arms, lifeless.

Daese's breath cut short, feeling his Cosmos disappear. "C-Charles! No!"

Priam held the dead hand against his forehead in mourning, feeling his stomach tighten with pain. Everyone lying dead around him had been with him through thick and thin for over a decade. Even after Aries Azrael betrayed them and Pisces Aeneas disappeared, even with Akassius staring down on them all at the Spire, even with their war lost, they had chosen to stay with him. The pain began boiling into anger, into an almost blood-pumping hate at the sight of a dead brother, and his mind raced back to the face of the silver-haired assassin from two months before. His body began brimming with golden Cosmos, making his brown curls wave and sparks crackle around him.

As they mourned, a pair of young blue eyes watched from the shadows.

His black longbow took aim at Daese, tensing its cord with an arrow of blue-laced lightning. If Leon Iraklidis wanted full certainty that the rebel wouldn't just warp away, he needed to give Priam a reason to stick around, but he didn't want to battle two powerful gold-ranks in the open. He needed to even the odds as well, then.

Leon smiled. The heart it was, then.

Priam's 7th sense flared, feeling the shooting of a Cosmos missile alike the flight of a colossal meteor through space!

"DAESE!" he shouted, pushing her off to the side! The blue beam struck through the target anyway, though piercing through the Aquila Cloth on her chest, and nearly missing her heart.

The Paladin screamed, first with the pain of the hit, then with the shocking electric cosmos that coursed through her body, paralyzing her and threatening to stop her heartbeat. Daese collapsed aside, taken out instantly!

Leon clicked tongue and drew another arro-

Priam dragged her off aside and swung his fist. "VÉLOS TOU KHEIRONA!"

Shot like a thunderous beam of cosmos, the arrow of Chiron blasted away debris and tore through the snow-filled forest, forcing Leon to leap with all his might aside to dodge the attack. It flew off to detonate into one of the park's mountains, quaking the entire valley and ripping trees off their roots.

The exposed silver-haired hunter saw the explosion rise into a flashing cloud of cosmos that shook all of Hokkaido, an attack with force that most Gold Saints would envy. "Incredible. That blow could have cracked one of Poseidon's seven pillars. All this strength from the weakest Gold Saint of my father's generation."

Priam panted, his body burning up. He took a good look at Leon and staggered, recognising him. "It can't be! You're Kai and Partita's son!"

Leon rose, standing straight. "That's right. I'm their oldest child. Surprised, Priam?"

Priam shook in confusion, his hatred broken by this revelation. Over a decade had passed, but the hair from his mother and the unflinching eyes of his father in this young man were unmistakable. He had thought the sight of his silver mane at Crow's Nest had been a mirage, since the attack happened so quickly, but here the assassin stood, the spitting image of his loving parents, of whom Priam was a close friend of.

"I guarantee that no one was as surprised as my teacher was to see you alive, much less ready to shoot him." Leon assured. He didn't look particularly upset by Priam's attack at last year's festival(*), though. "You must have really scared him. In other circumstances I would have offered my gratitude; not only have I wished to shoot him myself like a pinned cushion more than once, but he called me all the way back from exile just to get you."

(*) "The Goodbye" storyline

"And you accepted?!" Priam asked, outraged. He had shot Shion because he was getting ready to ruin Guardnia's life with the burden of his stupid prophecies, not to trigger another war. "Do you even know what our war is about, Leon?! What you killed all these good men for?!"

The silver-haired youth simply stood quiet, looking uninterested.

The Sagittarius staggered. "You don't?! Then why in Athena's name?!"

Daese shook and looked up. She felt the power of the blow she was struck with still paining her, giving her a hint at the true threat this assassin represented. "P-Priam, run!"

Leon waved his hand at the corpses surrounding them. "I did all this for one simple reason, Priam; because I have a debt to pay to Sanctuary. For some reason the Twelve Temples fear your motley of failed warriors, so I have defanged you all for good. If that doesn't buy me the Goddess' forgiveness, then that 'page' I took from your men will."

Stepping protectively over the wounded Daese, the frustrated Sagittarius charged Cosmos, igniting an aura of sparks and light. "Then take the damn page and GO! Why hurt Daese if you already have what you want?!"

Leon chuckled amusedly. "You really are naïve, aren't you?"

To Priam's surprise, Leon tossed his bow aside. At first, Priam's optimistic side almost thought this was some unexpected turn to conciliation, that Leon would just walk off and never be seen again, but the hunter then tossed out his entire armored cloak, letting it crush the ground with its surprising weight and revealing his young, muscled battle body in its black, segmented leather cuirass. His gloved hands cracked together and his body began burning cosmos, summoning an aura of blue fire that crackled with lightning that made his blue eyes shine menacingly.

Priam's breath stilled as he felt the youth's cosmos rise, rise and rise.

And then he saw it, in the youth's aura, the effects of the forbidden nectar Leon had tragically exposed himself to years before this encounter. It was like the shadow of the Goddess stood in his Cosmos, her hair rising with the swelling of Leon's aura, letting him burn his energy to levels rivaling that of his father.

Everything made sense to Priam now. His eyes squinted in sorrow, feeling sympathy despite the circumstances for who was basically a surrogate nephew. "You poor boy. That's the crime they're making you pay for?What have you done to yourself?!"

"I'm going to kill you and your friend, Priam of Sagittarius, for three reasons. One, I am quite professional. I'm not going to let a mission go unfinished just because I got the bare minimum done." Leon recited, placing a foot forward. "Two, I am also competitive. It's in my blood. And I've been told since I was a child that your generation is the mightiest group of Gold Saints that's ever been. I won't let this chance slip by, not after the slip you gave me in Romania."

Priam tensed and assumed a battle pose, realizing that conflict was inevitable despite his best wishes. Leon was right; he was acting naive. If Leon was anything like his father Kai, Priam had wounded this assassin's pride by denying him the kill in Crow's Nest, so now nothing could stop him from redeeming himself with Priam in his hand. Priam had to get Daese out of here, away from this killer, or at least fight Leon off enough that she can crawl away and escape with lightspeed. She would bleed out in the snow, otherwise.

Leon struck his fighting pose, tensing fingers in guarding stances and smirking confidently. "And thirdly, I will kill you because I'm curious."

Priam squinted, a look of rare hatred forming in him. "Curious?!"

Leon nodded, his heart being fast in anticipation. "You're the one who fought all of Sanctuary to protect his family, Priam. And I've just killed all your traitor friends. How much will that get you out of your shell, I wonder? This is a unique occasion for me to see the power of the man who survived thirteen years of war against my Master without the chains of his pacifist heart. How could I pass this challenge?"

The Sagittarius shook in anger. His eyes lowered into the shadows and the ground began quaking softly, resonating with his rising energy. The depth of Leon's stalking and murderous acts reached abysmal levels in his mind with this motive behind it.

"Challenge, you call it." Priam muttered, forever horrified by what Sanctuary turned youths like him into.

Leon focused, knowing he had stepped on the lion's foot. Even Daese crawled back in fear, the pool of blood beneath her growing. The traitor Sagittarius' aura condensed and the sparks grew bigger. Most importantly, the mountain wind stopped blowing.

Then it kicked up, in reverse direction! Their hairs and clothes fluttered fiercely and the tree branches rustled, threatening to shatter! Energy began circling all around Leon, as if preparing to catch him in a gigantic cyclone of destruction.

Priam's eyes rose, his body tense. He saw in Leon all the worst aspects of Kai and Partita condensed into a cold, ambitious killer trained by Pope Arles and driven into its full potential for destruction by the Goddess' blood. This young man would end him and Daese for nothing more than the sheer satisfaction of showing Shion that the traitor he so feared was nothing but a fragile fossil of a bygone decade to Leon's might.

Very well, Kai's son would get his wish.

Priam's fist rose, clad in blinding light. He wiped the tears for the comrades he lost and called out his deepest forces. "SOUND THROUGH THE COSMOS! LIONET ROAR!"

{======================|A3|======================}

Germany,

Heinstein Castle

{======================|A3|======================}

Faced with the three Judges of the Underworld, Lady Pandora, the 'sister' of Hades, sat by her harp, her snake-ringed finger playing the strings softly.

"My instincts have been proven correct, Lady Pandora." Judge Garuda Aiacos spoke, clad in his Surplice. "The Saint I've attached myself to was involved in Sanctuary's fight against Prince Daemon. He's been most useful for helping me gather intel on Pride Star."

"Excellent." Pandora praised. More and more, Lord Hades' decision to pick Aiacos for this task revealed itself divinely wise. She could only imagine how hard the blusterous Rhadamanthys would have ruined this by now. "Have you uncovered more about the Zodiac Knight threat, Aiacos?"

"Other than the former Gold Saint of Aries, no. I doubt he is associated with the women who attacked Queen and me. From what I understand, a former Aries Gold Saint and his fellow Capricorn did us the favor of wiping the Zodiac Knights out for us."

Pandora squinted, her fingers tensing on a harp chord. "Clearly they haven't, if two are still alive!"

Aiacos gulped, feeling electricity build up around himself. He had seen Rhadamanthys be punished many times by the magic of Pandora's music. It was the only time he had ever heard his fellow Judge's screams of pain. He didn't wish to find out what kind of jolt loosened the tongue of Hades' most fierce servant so easily.

He picked his words wisely. "If I may be specific, it's two out of what used to be two dozen, lady Pandora, not to mention countless lower soldiers. And one of the surviving girls is nary a Gold-ranker. Even Zelos the Frog could kill her."

Judge Gryphon Minos, who stood by his side, chuckled. "Is that why you failed to kill them, Aiacos? Because they can be so easily defeated? Perhaps we should all raise Zelos to the rank of Judge of the Underworld?"

Aiacos tensed. "She's only alive because you two sent Alraune Queen to interfere with MY job!"

"Ah, you're a Judge, are you not?" Rhadamanthys interfered. "Crushing a couple of Saints, even Gold-rankers, should be easy for you. I rid the castle premises of at least two of them!"

"You two speak as if you were there too easily!" Aiacos countered. "You, Rhadamanthys, only kicked the Saints out because the barrier expanded at your convenience for it! Otherwise we would still be besieged by those Civil War Gold Saints and you would have been turned into a glacial fossil by Aquarius Malta!"

The Wyvern seethed in rage. "How DARE YOU!"

"And you, Minos!" Aiacos turned, pointing finger. "Have you ever even been to Sanctuary since your embarrassment in the last Holy War?! Judges who don't leave their Prisons don't get to act like they know what working behind the enemy lines is!""

"And you, Aiacos, shouldn't act as if you never left them." Minos retorted, much calmer than Rhadamanthys under the fire of Aiacos' accusations. In fact, his words silenced Aiacos into a nervous, offended gawk and made Rhadamanthys smirk evilly. "You've had many chances to assassinate the weaker Knight. You even say she's been at the hospital all this time, fighting for her life. It would have been easy to make her slip into darkness without any suspicion. Aren't you getting a bit too comfortable in your spy role, Saint Crateris Suisho?"

While put on the defensive, Aiacos tried to scoff it off. "I can't believe you two are so frightened of one Knight. Corvus Cerah is just a sixteen-year-old girl."

Minos cackled. "Oh, you even know her by name?!"

"Why risk raising suspicion when you and Rhadamanthys are training our men so well for war?" Aiacos turned to their Lady. "Pandora, I agree we shouldn't underestimate them, but Sanctuary has far more cards left to play than a pair of destitute pseudo-Saints. I insist we wait until my task is complete. Lord Hades himself has entrusted it to me! We all know the weight of that!"

Rhadamanthys scoffed. "Is that how you defend your passivity, Aiacos? By invoking the emperor's word?!"

"I do not invoke it, Rhadamanthys! I uphold it!" the Garuda Judge insisted. "And it's certainly a better strategy than rushing off whole contingents of men up the mountains to impress the Emperor, just to get them torn to pieces by Ares worshippers! (*)"

(*) "Revelations" Storyline

The Wyvern gritted teeth. "How dare you bring that up-"

With a dance of her fingers through the harp, a painful jolt of dark sparks coursed through all three Judges, silencing them.

"Enough bickering! Aren't you ashamed?! You should all be working together to serve my brother! Instead, you're treating the Holy War like a competition! I've never seen such an embarrassing display of egotism in this life of mine!"

The three Judges winced and lowered their heads humbly.

Pandora waved her hand. "Please leave. I will consult my brother privately on what to do. Perhaps I can convince him not to be saddened by your in-fighting!"

Aiacos and Minos obeyed immediately. Rhadamanthys stared threateningly for a second, but as Pandora pulled her curtain close, he left as well.

She waited patiently, keeping an eye out for eavesdroppers.

After she was sure they were gone, Pandora raised her ringed finger to her lips. "Lord Hades, I apologize profusely for your Judges."

"It's quite alright, I think you gave them something to think about in the end." The God complimented. "Well, what do you think, sister? Does Aiacos have a case, in your opinion?"

Pandora mused. It wasn't common for her brother to ask her for insight, and she wished to respond in wisdom. "Well, I lean towards Rhadamanthys and Minos on these matters. I think Aiacos is taking too long in his mission. I wish you'd tell me why you favor his mission over the others'"

"Because time is on our side, sister." The god reminded her. "Soon your castle's barrier will expand to the premises of Athena's territory and will force the Pope to make a move. When that happens, I will want Aiacos to have his hands firmly around Sanctuary's throat."

As always, her brother's vision was unquestionable, but still her chest felt tight and her teeth bit into her nail.

"Are you perhaps doubting Aiacos' loyalty instead?"

The raven-haired woman exhaled. "I would like to say no, but the truth is that we brought him to our side from the Saints. And he has been acting too merciful to them for my taste. Rhadamanthys also tells me he has a sister among them. I fear when the time comes, his hands might stop short of doing what must be done."

"Many Specters have been revived from among our fiercest enemies, Pandora. My last vessel was even raised right next to Athena and her Godslayer." The Olympian reminded her. "And besides, unlike Sanctuary, I can give Aiacos what his heart most desires."

"You mean the frozen Specter woman in his chapel, correct?" she asked. "I've seen the way he worships it, staring at her day and night whenever he returns to Heinstein. He's obsessed with that behemoth! It's unbecoming of a Judge!"

"Do not judge him too harshly, Pandora. It's more than the object of his affection, but also a symbol of a failure. A terrifyingly powerful Cygnus Saint froze Behemoth Violate into that crystal in the last Holy War. His ice powers surpassed even Aiacos' White Lotus. Imagine his embarrassment as a Judge, that a Bronze Saint would outdo him in his preferred combat art." Hades explained. "Family in Sanctuary or not, Aiacos knows only I can redeem his sins. Only I can redeem everyone's."

"Brother, between this and the Muvian serving under Rhadamanthys, I fear you are bargaining too much for the loyalty of your Specters." Pandora exhaled out her frustration. "I wish we could just rally them into one great force and rid the Earth of that blight in Greece once and for all!"

"Patience. My brother Zeus watches the Holy Wars closely, Pandora. I will not fall into Athena's trap and attack her Sanctuary head on." Hades reasoned. In fact, he suspected Lucifer's False Holy War was observed by his brother's agents as well. Zeus may have, in fact, been the true responsible for sending the Teos Cloth to the Saints. "The Muvian will be useful. Through him, Rhadamanthys will be able to prod Sanctuary for weakness without breaking the Pax Divina."

She nodded. The last thing they wanted was for the Underworld to be intervened upon by Olympus. "Of course, brother."

"Let's see which of our Judges is favored by the Fates. I stand almost as much to gain from Aiacos' mission as I do from Rhadamanthys'."

"Brother, about Rhadamanthys and his Muvian, if I may ask?"

"Of course, sister. Rhadamanthys is simply having a critical Saint assassinated. Sanctuary has made the wielder of the Teos Cloth vulnerable, so our Wyvern will seize this opportunity. At least, that's what Rhadamanthys thinks he will do."

Pandora hummed. "And what is he 'actually' doing?"

From his end of his communication, all the way at Giudecca, Hades smiled. "He's helping return my favorite Prince to me."

{======================|A3|======================}

The Winter sun rose over the Heinstein valley, pushing many of the black-armored Skeletons of Hades into the shades of Pandora's castle.

At the eastern wall tower of Pandora's Castle, the shackled blonde Muvian youth in light fabric shirt, grey Fei Yue shoes, and jeans sat on the stone brick battlement and enjoyed the wind and the forested sights. Around his neck he had a necklace of wolverine fangs centered by what looked like a turtle shell the size of a palm, while his left hand, and only his left hand, was encased in a black metal gauntlet.

Two Skeleton Soldiers nervously approached him. "Lay out your hands, Muvian."

He obeyed, smiling. "My name is Atlae. What's yours?"

The two shared an irritated look, ignored his question, and unlocked his wrist shackles. "Judge Rhadamanthys says you're free to walk around the Earthly Castle, but don't even dare to approach the Underworld stairs. The next time we catch you infiltrating Giudecca we'll strap you to the chariots and quarter your damn limbs off, got it?"

"Three strikes and I'm out. Got it!" He smiled at the satisfying click of the restraints being unlocked and rubbed his freed wrists, feeling them sore and red after weeks of being dragged around by them. "Thank you very much! Say, do you happen to know where the number to see Lord Hades is at? Your Prince gave me #2,698,524,855."

The two soldiers just laughed and left.

Atlae blinked, confused. "Wait, did I miss my call? HEY!" but he was just ignored. "Mm, I guess I should have paid more attention."

Or maybe the number wasn't valid anymore, since he heard that the Prince betrayed Lord Hades and left with a bunch of his warriors.

He frowned. "Blast it! When are they going to give me an audience with Hades now? I've been waiting for two years already! Do I have to try to break into Giudecca again?" Atlae shook head. He earned quite a beating from Judge Rhadamanthys over this already. "No, I need to be patient. I've tried the hard way twice already and that just upset them."He supposed he should pass the time until Judge Wyvern came along. "Maybe I'll just play music for a bit. They must have set me loose for some reason."

He took the small turtle shell in his necklace. With his nails, he popped up shell segments, revealing holes, and raised the bare head orifice to his lips. Taking a calming nose breath and concentrating, he closed his eyes and softly blew into it. The turtle-shell Xu flute transformed Atlae's exhales into a soft, humming sound, and his fingers moved between the orifices to shape it into a calming tune.

Carefully he picked the notes, weaving sounds that resembled the soft rolling of waves. It was a soothing tune that occasionally paused to blow notes of shy excitement, bringing to mind the blowing wind of a port where adventurous mariners sought hope and fortune, but also bonds of friendship and the dance of seagulls in the air. As a Muvian, Atlae preferred the mountains and the heights, not the sea. These were just the songs of the mariners who raised him.

He paused and smiled, happy to find the flute was working fine. Lady Pandora had been kind enough to let Atlae keep it. Perhaps, as a harp player, she sympathized with his need for music.

Or, perhaps, Genbu forbid it, she feared he might destroy her whole castle without it.

{======================|A3|======================}

Nearby, marching across the battlements of Pandora's castle, Wyvern Rhadamanthys, the Celestial Fury Star, scowled, already hearing the detestable sounds of that blasted instrument coming from the northwest tower. The damn Muvian prisoner should never have been given that stupid necklace flute back, but Pandora ordered it so, calling it 'an important strategic detail'.

A damn flute! A strategic detail! Sometimes Rhadamanthys thought the blasted woman did these things just to aggravate him! In fact, he still could swear he saw a glint of mischief in her eyes when she ordered so.

He spotted Reaper Grim, the Terrestrial Insidious Star, standing by the tower's gateway. "Are you done preparing the jamming fields?"

The tall, white-haired Reaper stood up and grinned. He had a rather sloppy posture though, as even Rhadamanthys, who was famously large, forced Grim to look down to meet the eyes. "Not yet, lord Judge, I'll need to travel there first with Genbu Atlae. Then we can start on your mission right away."

"Be quick with that, then! And you are to not let him out of our leash at any time, understood?!" Wyvern Rhadamanthys warned, raising finger. "If he tries to run away or go back on his task, I want you to take that instrument of his and smash it on the ground! Let the surface deal with the consequences!"

Grim grimaced fearfully at the sheer recklessness in this, but he wasn't about to say 'no' to a Judge. "Of course, your honor. It's a shame; personally I find Brute Star's music relaxing. I see why he plays it. It keeps the demons within from stirrin'."

The Judge scoffed, folding his strong arms. "Nothing that another beating session couldn't replace, in my opinion."

"Keeping the violence chip firmly jammed in your brain, aren't you?" Grim thought to himself, tucking his large scythe into shoulder. The Judges really were nothing but a trio of brutes next to Prince Michael. He smiled falsely. "You may be correct, Lord Rhadamanthys. As always."

Seeing right through the brown-nosing, the Judge brushed past the pathetic Terrestrial, violently knocking him aside with his armored shoulder. "I despise cajolers. Just get your job done, Terrestrial!"

Reaper Grim scowled, picking himself back up. Was there nothing that Rhadamanthys didn't look down on? "Arrogant worm, pretending to be a real dragon! Thinking he can replace Daemon! Well, I'll grant you your fantasy, Rhadamanthys! And just like Lucifer, you'll be groveling at Prince Michael's feet before long!"

Opening the door and climbing the tower, Rhadamanthys frowned deeper and deeper as the Xan flute sounds became clearer to the ear. Blasted music. He had always detested such distractions. Perhaps it was his Wyvern heart at play and the mythical dragons were just sensitive to sound, or maybe it just reminded him of the magical harp Pandora used to assert her authority over the Judges, but Rhadamanthys felt nothing but anger every time he heard the dance of notes in the air of these floozies. He couldn't wait for the day they'd afford to toss this Muvian off the walls into the chasm so he could have some peace and quiet in the Castle again.

Reaching the open tower roof, the Judge found the Muvian. "Enough noise! You're going out. It's time for you to show your loyalty to the Emperor."

At his end, Atlae stopped blowing on the Xan flute and sweated. Judge Rhadamanthys' angry unibrow was always a blood-chilling sight, like a dragon's scaley glare. Yet, he filled himself with strength and beamed at the frightening dragon Judge.

"I thought I had done a good job of it when I fought those Saints around your castle, but of course, Lord Judge. Will you join me for this?"

Wyvern snorted dismissively. "Join you? To prod Sanctuary for weakness and kill a Bronze Saint?! I have better things to do. If you can't even do that without my help, Muvian, then what use are you to us?"

The Muvian nodded, sweating nervously. He wondered who they'd tell him to hurt now. He really didn't enjoy kicking those poor Sanctuary warriors in the face. Some of them seemed quite polite.

Rhadamanthys saw his broken bird look and laughed. "Did you expect anything else, Brute Star? A red carpet rolled at your feet to the Emperor, perhaps?"

Atlae beamed excitedly. "Oh! That would be very nice of you, yes! Could you get it done?"

The Judge growled. Was this Muvian mocking him?! "I can get your face smashed in by my foot if you speak of seeing the Emperor so lightly again! Complete your task and we will consider giving you more of the Genbu Surplice. If I'm in a good mood! Until then, you will be working with our jammer, Reaper Grim."

The Levantine Door opened in the air next to them and Reaper Grim popped out from its darkness, presenting himself with a little dance of his scythe. "I will provide support for this job, Brute Star. With my abilities, we will move undetected and return to Germany before the Greeks can even smell the blood of their Saints being shed."

The Muvian nodded, relieved to see someone to deal with rather than the easily irritated Judge. "Where does Lord Hades wish me to go, then?"

Grim grinned inside his skull mask. "Ever been to Andromeda Island?"

{======================|A3|======================}

Meanwhile,

Greece, Sanctuary,

Village of Rodario,

Eurydice's House

{======================|A3|======================}

Cerah got a grip on herself and held his arm. "Saint Lance, I want to join your quest!"

Taking in Cerah's announcement, Pegasus Lance had no choice but to believe, as much as it stunned him. Just earlier, she was calling the insanity of his offer out, talking about the very real risks it posed for a small group of Bronze and Silver Clothed Saints to take on Hades' Underworld. Now she was readily embracing it, her eyes that spelled out she wouldn't let him take on such a danger without her help.

Considering she just finished looking like she was having a seizure right in front of him and Olivia, Lance concluded there was no way Cerah would say these things unless she really did have a vision of Seiryu while she was looking passed out and convulsing in his arms.

Still, he asked again, just to be certain. "Are you sure, Cerah? This is still going to be dangerous, even if everything works out as I plan."

The Zodiac Knight stood on her own two feet and straightened herself, trying to look firm to the taller Saint. "I-I'm certain. I want to do this. I must! You cannot stop me, Saint Lance! If you're going to the Underworld, I'm coming with you!"

Equuleus Olivia stared incredulously. "What are you two talking about?!"

Lance and Cerah staggered, reminded of her presence.

Cerah covered her mouth, horrified. "O-Oh! Oh no!"

The Pegasus Saint gawked. "I… Umm, shit!"

The Equuleus's eyes narrowed. "The Underworld?! Cerah?! Saint Lance, what… what in Athena's name?!"

Cerah waved her hands, smiling nervously. "N-Nothing, miss Olivia! I swear! It was just a figure of speech! Truth to Athena!"

Olivia just stared between the two, completely incredulous. "A figure of speech?! Saint Lance!" Her blue eyes landed sternly on him, making him flinch, mortified. "Where do you think you're taking my junior?!"

Lance felt the grill get hot. "It's, um." He couldn't lie to the Saintia. Lance sighed. "I'm sorry, Olivia. I can explain everything, please."

The Saintia class president took a deep breath to help her not lose composure. What Olivia just heard was really bad, but she supposed she should give the guy she's kissed and the girl that saved her life a chance. Maybe she misunderstood. Maybe her date and her underclassmen weren't really talking about invading the Underworld.

With a great summoning of patience, she exhaled."Okay. Go ahead. Explain it to me."

…

Lance felt his head go red hot trying to think how he'd explain this. He'd rather sink into a hole and die than lie to Olivia's face, but talking about this openly was equally daunting. "Can we do it in private?"

Nodding in understanding at his quietness, Olivia turned to Cerah. "Miss Heloise?"

The girl squeaked. "Y-yes?"

The Class President beamed. "Saint Lance and I will be talking outside. In the meantime, rest thoroughly, okay? Take a bath, sleep and eat. Don't worry about the homework you missed; I'll send a letter to the academy and we'll work on it later together."

The Corvus Knight nodded frantically, terrified. "W-What about you two?"

The Equuleus eyed Lance, who stepped away in terror. "We're going to have a talk."

Cerah blinked, noticing a strange feeling in the air between the two. Saint Lance and miss Olivia weren't this involved with each other's affairs before. Did something happen between them while Cerah was unconscious all week?

{======================|A3|======================}

Leaving Cerah to rest, Lance and Olivia came outside Eurydice's house, each having separate worries about what just happened. Finding a private spot by an alley nearby, the two began straightening things out. Lance laid out that after the False Holy War he planned a special war operation and that Adriana Ghisi had recommended Cerah to him. After seeing her unlock the 7th sense and learning she was especially suited to fighting Specters and guiding him in the Underworld, Lance had no choice but to take the recommendation seriously.

Olivia wasn't so enthusiastic. In fact, she looked furious. "Are you and miss Ghisi insane?! Cerah's a sixteen years old girl! She just woke up from being nearly hanged to death by a Specter!"

Lance rose a skeptic brow. "Olivia, I know you're worried about her, but do you really think her age matters?! It's Sanctuary. You and I are seventeen. We have thirteen-year-olds serving as peltasts in Germany! And Cerah's got lightspeed now! She could kill me!"

The Saintia staggered, caught off-guard. "Re-regardless! Cerah is just…"

"I know you see her as your junior, Olivia, but you saw how she fights. Cerah isn't just strong, but exceptionally brave and extremely well-trained for her age and has defeated multiple Specters by now, like Worm and Dullahan. She's not exactly a fragile baby. What is this really about?"

Olivia's posture tensed like a frightened cat. "What kind of question is that?! I think I just feel I should object to this because I'm her class president and… and because what you're saying you intend to do is completely abnormal! Lance!" She held her head like she still couldn't fit what they revealed in her brain "Why in Zeus' name do you want to invade the Underworld?!"

The Pegasus Saint exhaled. There'd be no end to this if he started explaining it. Even if it tore him up to treat Olivia like what she thought didn't matter, Lance couldn't let her stop him from doing this.

"I'm sorry, Olivia. It's too complicated for me to explain right now. This is just what I will be doing as a Saint of Athena."

He saw the Saintia stare at him with an affronted look, like she thought he was crazy, then turning away. She paced around, looking like her head was boiling with everything he said. He couldn't blame her. No matter how Lance thought about it, if someone else told him these things, he'd probably want some distance as well.

What a nightmare. Olivia was the last person in the world he wanted to let know of what he intended. Not only did she have no experience of the False Holy War, thus giving her no frame of reference to what motivated him (unlike Cerah), but she was his possible girlfriend! And now she probably thought he was insane! He'd rather let the Pope or even the Specters know of his plan before Olivia.

Finally, she stopped. "This is a bit too much for me to process right now. There's… absolutely zero way I can be okay with this! I'm sorry, Saint Lance!"

He sighed sadly. This was a good thing he had with her while it lasted. "I understand."

She shook, expecting more of a fight. "That's it? You understand?! That's all you have to say?! I need to know; when?! When were you going to tell me you were going to do this?! Or were you just going to vanish from town three months from now and then my grandpa would tell me he found you dead in some battleground crater in Heinstein?!"

"Frankly, Olivia? I have no idea!" Lance defending himself, throwing up arms. "I committed to this before I ever even met you! I wasn't expecting… for things to change. For us to start dating." He wished he could just tell her he used to be a Gold Saint to set her at ease. Anything to make her calm down. Instead, he just put on his most determined face and braved the consequences. "But now I am going to do this! I've been in talks with my Master and even one of the Civil War Gold Saints to prepare for it. I'm not turning back until this goddamn Holy War is stopped in its tracks!"

A bit hesitantly, the Saintia nodded. Olivia knew from personal experience that the look on the Pegasus Saint's face meant business. She had also felt first hand in Switzerland how ruthlessly protective Saint Lance was of everyone he worked with. If she really thought about it, he wasn't an idiot or insane or incompetent. With a self-soothing breath and a great deal of cool-headedness, she could rationally believe he had some kind of plan and even a role for Cerah to play in safety.

But this was the Underworld he was talking about. Not even the Gold Saints braved to do this. And Cerah, her sweet junior that Olivia owed her life to, wanted to join him. Why?!

Most of all, she just felt so angry about this whole thing! Finally, after all this time, she meets a guy that not only was dedicated and sweet, but that she could trust her fears and anxieties with. Far more important than being able to count on him to catch her when she falls off a mountain, Saint Pegasus had shown her that at her lowest moment, crying in a hospital over putting Cerah in danger, Olivia could just let it out and have her feelings not only respected, but protected from all the people around her who expected Olivia to be perfect.

And now he was telling her he was going to go off and fight the anathema of Sanctuary in his own kingdom of hell. And take her junior with him. Within the next few months!

"Olivia, please. Listen to me." He offered his hand and let her held it, so she could physically feel his confidence. "I want you to be sure I know what I'm doing. Cerah wants to help me, this is her decision, but I won't let her do it until I'm 100% certain she's ready. I know how horrible it feels to put someone in danger they're not prepared to face. The second I think this is even a hair above her head, I will be the first to shove her back into class with you."

She gulped. "I believe you. I just need to think about this."

"I'm sorry that I burdened you with this. I never intended to, Olivia. Please forgive me." Lance then squinted rather annoyedly. "That stupid girl just blurted it out before I could even talk her through it all. I'm gonna kill her for this!"

This seemed to get the Saintia to curve her lips back up. "We'll do it together. I have a score to settle with her now as well.

"Olivia, you, umm, you told Cerah to go take a bath, right?"

She blinked. Why would he bring up such a thing? "Y-yeah? What about it?"

"Shit, then it's probably going to happen soon." Lance should just prepare Olivia for this too. "I need to tell you something important about her before that blows up in my face as well. It has to do with what's been happening to her cosmos and why she should come see my Master."

Goddess, what now? She readied herself. "What is it?"

{======================|A3|======================}

Sanctuary Town

Mission Management Center

{======================|A3|======================}

Walking into the building back in his Crateris Suisho alter-ego, the Judge of the Underworld, Garuda Aiacos practically dripped poison from his angry frown, his mind stuck on the frustration he felt with Rhadamanthys' recklessness and Minos' machinations. Sometimes the Garuda Judge felt he was the only one of the three focused on doing the best for the Underworld, while the Wyvern Judge acted primarily to enact some kind of strongman fantasy with Lord Hades' army and the Gryphon Judge was just content in using his position to live an existence of hedonism for himself and moral reprimand for everyone else.

"Hey Suisho!" one passing comrade wished.

"Hey." he just nodded, not even meeting eyes.

Aiacos couldn't afford to let all of this get to him, though. He had to be Lord Hades' eyes and ears and hand for when Sanctuary decided to make a careless move about Daemon Lucifer and the Teos Cloth. A cool head was needed.

"Yo, Suisho." a second Bronze Saint colleague greeted. "Boy, you look like you're in a mood. Still thinking about what Acrisius did?"

"Yes, that's right." he lied. "I just feel so sabotaged."

The Bronze Saint laughed. "Don't let it get to you, man. Guy was a douche anyway."

Aiacos simply shrugged and went straight to Nam, who was sitting at his desk. He wished his next job was something that could clear his mind, but he was actually wiping after Rhadamanthys' sloppy agents. "Hey, Nam. You called about Andromeda Island?"

The Silver Saint nodded. "Yes. You heard the alert from Saint Shinta, right?"

"A Specter infiltration, yes. Saint Cynthia made sure the whole Silver Saint Order got it. Was is this, the third time?"

Nam frowned worriedly. "That's right. The Golden Zodiac is seriously considering just putting the whole island on lockdown until this tense period is over. For now, they want the Lightspeeders among us Silvers to handle it, though. How about it?"

"Sure." Aiacos accepted, taking the papers. He saw the profile on Saint Shinta. "Mm, no photo on Andromeda, uh?"

The Sagitta Silver Saint exhaled. Saint Shinta was just sick of everyone mistaking him for a girl over his picture. "He asked to take it off for privacy concerns. I found his motives reasonable, to be frank."

"I've heard he's friends with Pegasus?" Aiacos questioned, reading the papers. He whistled, impressed, at Shinta Akyama's track record. "Wow, he's got almost as many jobs as Lance does. And a commendation from the Pope?!"

Nam laughed. "That's right. For services given during the False Holy War in defense of the Temples and the Goddess. Shinta will look like a puppy to you, but he is nothing to sneeze at. Just between you and me?" Nam then leaned and whispered. "I got a buddy among the Papal Guards who said he fought the Specter boss himself. Can you imagine?! Guardnia's student! That guy would be so proud."

Judge Garuda Aiacos widened eyes. This Andromeda Saint took on Prince Daemon Lucifer, the guy who absolutely trashed him and Minos in battle, at the same time?! (*) He had to look into this, especially at his own discretion!

(*) "The Exodus" - Part 3

"Given he's friends with Pegasus, maybe I'll bring Yushira along instead. It will keep things objective."

Nam whistled. "Yushira keeping things objective? Never thought I'd hear someone say that. Especially you. I'm afraid that won't work, though, Sui'."

Aiacos blinked. "Why the heck not?"

Nam pulled out her schedule, showing how white it was. "She was here this morning and asked me to wipe her whole schedule clean. Your sister's gone on vacation, Sui."

"What?!"

{======================|A3|======================}

Chapter 82

3rd Arc

Episode 10

Return to Rozan

{======================|A3|======================}

Rodario

{======================|A3|======================}

Olivia's jaw dropped. "Wait, wait, what? Walk me through this one more time! She might have some kind of Cosmos tattoo on her?!"

"She probably doesn't realize it yet, but a tattoo of Seiryu, the spirit of the Dragon Constellation, might appear on her body. I have one as well." Lance explained. He wasn't sure of the ramifications of this yet, but things were probably gonna get harder for Cerah sooner than they'd get easier. "These aren't normal tattoos. They're sort of channeling points for something called Chi. This is why I want to take her to Rozan, to see my teacher. He walked me through what to do with this and he can help Cerah as well."

The Equuleus Saintia gestured a time out "Wait a minute!" and gave him a suspicious stare "You have one too?!"

Lance shrugged. "It's a LONG, embarrassing story, trust me. Like I said, it involves the spirits of Bronze Cloths, which I don't understand perfectly myself. If I tried to explain, we'd be at it all day."

Olivia held her head, overwhelmed. This was a lot to take in all at once. What was she supposed to do with all this information? A mission to the Underworld, Taoist gods of the Dragon Constellation, visions of their Cosmos and even something called the 0th sense. All things she had absolutely no frame of reference for, even with all her academic knowledge.

Olivia needed some kind of anchor to reality to process this. Her eyes darted left and right. There was no one in the alley. Maybe she could just ask it?! But this was her future, possible boyfriend, second date pending! What would he think of her if she did?

A scream was heard from inside the house, alerting her. "That was Cerah's voice!"

Lance irked. "Guess she's seen it now."

{======================|A3|======================}

Cerah's high-pitch scream sounded through the house, coming from the bathroom.

Eurydice gasped and rose her head. "C-Cerah?! What's wrong?! Are you alright?!"

The distraught teenage girl came running out of the small shower room, soaked head to toe. "Eurydice, t-there's, there's a dragon tattoo on my back!"

The Nymph gawked. What did she just say?

"I was drying up after shower and saw it in the mirror!" she wept, unable to imagine who could possibly have done this to her in her sleep. "Who D-DID this to me?! Why?!"

Eurydice reached out in her voice's direction and patted the sobbing teenage girl's hand at the table. "There, there. It's alright. It's just a tattoo. How bad could it look anyway?"

"It looks horrible! And it's so big, it's all over my back!" Cerah lamented, crying. What would people think if they saw such a thing on her? She'd look like some kind of vandal, a delinquent girl, perhaps even an Aphroditean heretic! "All these d-dreams and e-episodes and now this horrible tattoo! W-Why is this happening to me?!"

The Nymph laughed softly. If her instincts were correct, it was a cosmic tattoo and these tended to grow fine into the body, even disappear when not stimulated. "I'm sure it looks great. It's just a bit of ink. It must give you, um, style."

The distraught teenager wept in distraught. "H-How can you tell when you can't even see?"

Eurydice gasped and squinted her blackened eyes. "Cerah!"

The Knight gawked at herself. "O-Oh, I'm so sorry! I mean-" she stopped talking, feeling there was no excuse. "Ow, nevermind."

The Nymph shook her head, exasperated. Was this what having a teenage human daughter felt like? She patted her head "Let's find you a dark shirt, then. Some of the nice people in Rodario have been donating clothes that don't fit me. I'm sure one can cover you fine."

Cerah whimpered. "O-okay." She smiled weakly. "Thank you."

Olivia and Lance came rushing in. "Cerah, we heard you screaming are you ok- OH!" and she rushed to cover Lance's eyes upon seeing her junior naked and wet. "Cerah, get a towel over yourself! Saint Lance, don't look!"

"Can you two help?" Eurydice asked, trying to be patient. "She's really scared."

"Cerah, show it to Olivia. How visible is it?" Lance asked, turning away.

Embarrassedly, the Corvus Knight turned. She wasn't sure what was worse, that there was a guy in the room with her naked, or that her admired class president was as well.

Olivia widened her eyes, admiring the intricate tattoo. It was incredibly detailed, with carefully marked scales, a flowing, coiled pose, a raised hand over the heart's position and skillfully designed antler horns, fangs, eyes and claws. If Saint Lance hadn't explained it to her, she would have thought Cerah found some master artist to carefully spend countless hours needling this impressive dragon on her back.

"It's, um, fully realistic. It looks indistinguishable from real ink." Olivia described. When she was sure Lance had blindfolded himself, she approached her junior. "Cerah, may I?"

The younger girl nodded, turning red. "Miss Olivia, is it bad?"

Olivia touched the star points of the dragon and, indeed, they marked the Draco Constellation. More importantly, she sensed the cosmos that was comparatively alien to Cerah's. Carefully, she traced her finger along the points the dragon constellation should mark on Cerah's body and found that the tattoo had special spots in its design pointing at each one.

For a star reader like herself, this was amazing. "Incredible. It's like a whole set of star points system of its own right on top of the host's. A dragon imprinting its stars on you!"

Cerah wasn't sure how she felt about having the Dragon Constellation express this level of interest on her. Her senior studying her bareback so closely also unnerved her a bit. "D-Does this explain the nightmares and cosmos surges and my 7th sense?"

"It's very likely. Something like this could severely affect your channeling of the Cosmos. Tell me, do you feel this?" she burned cosmos and touched the the Dragon paw.

A jolt surged through Cerah, making her eep. "Y-yeah!"

"That was her new main Bronze star point, then." Olivia realised. She then reached for the Corvus main star, positioned not to far. "And this? Is it stronger?"

And even stronger jolt was felt, making Cerah practically jump and her index fingers go numb. "I did! And yes, it was!"

"Let me check the others."

What followed was a series of careful tests of Olivia reading the stars on Cerah's back, tracing point by point and checking the younger girl's reactions. Lance gulped, unsure how to feel about the sounds he was hearing of Olivia touching a naked girl and making her squeal while he just stared at the wall.

After checking the Dragon Constellation's last star, she stepped back. "So it's not overriding your Silver. It really is a Bronze constellation link being born on your body." Olivia held chin pensively. "Yet you were never trained in the Dragon Cloth Path. I've never seen anything like this!"

"I have." Eurydice suddenly spoke. She had seen it among Zeus' Angels before she left Elysium. "It's a practice by certain Gods to brand their soldiers with cosmic tattoos to 'assign' an armor to them, usually when there's no previous natural connection. Mount Rozan Gods must do the same."

Lance widened his red eyes. "What?! How do you know that, ma'am?"

The nymph's darkened eyes turned away and she lied. "Um, I was raised among the priests of Athena, is all. I used to study different Hellenic cultures."

"A-Am I going to be okay, Saint Lance?!" Cerah asked as Olivia gave her a long towel to cover her body.

Lance grumbled. "You don't have a Bronze Cloth yet, do you? Then it's hard to say. We need to see my Master to decide what to do, Cerah."

She nodded, feeling calmer. "W-What about the offer you made me? Will you still take me with you?" Immediately a tense exchange of glances between Lance and Olivia happened at this.

"First you're going to dry yourself up and get some clothes!" Lance asserted, still staring at the wall. "As for my quest, as you put it, we'll discuss it later. Right now we need to get you ready to see my teacher."

She frowned. "Oh… I understand. I think I left all my stuff back at the Academy, though."

Eurydice sighed. Blind and Elysium-born as she was, she often felt the one between the two able to make a better way through the world. "My poor goddaughter, from the pot to the fire again. Come on, Cerah. I think I have some clothes the people in Rodario gave me that will fit you."

{======================|A3|======================}

Coming outside, Lance watched Olivia worriedly for signs of her being upset. "Well? What are your thoughts?"

The Equuleus Saintia frowned, looking conflicted. "You said you had one as well, right? For how long?"

Lance scratched cheek pensively. "Around a year. Every time I use one of my Masters' techniques, it grows more visible."

"That makes perfect sense. Every time you burn Cosmos through it, you must be strengthening its roots into your star points" But Saint Lance had no need to, being a Pegasus, which confused her. "I don't understand, why did you get it? You're already a Bronze Saint."

Lance raised his wrapped palm over shoulder to her, where she had seen his old Phoenix stars. "Remember these? My teacher said it would help keep it under wraps for a while, until I worked things out."

Her expression tensed with a mix of graveness and fascination. "Uh, A patchwork of sorts? Incredible! Your teacher is quite smart. Mm, maybe Cerah seeing him IS the right choice for now."

"If you agree, I'm going to have to take Cerah to him as soon as I can. She needs to decide what she wants to do with all this before she starts channeling dangerous powers through that tattoo accidentally. One of these dragon techniques shoots you into outer space."

Olivia frowned worriedly, imagining her junior popping like a balloon in the starry void. "I understand. Just be careful with her, okay?"

The Saint nodded determinedly. "Of course, Olivia. She saved my life too, remember? You can count on me."

A great wash of relief came over her chest at these words. Olivia smiled, feeling happy she found someone with the ability to make her feel so secure.

However, that relief reminded her of what the Saint was putting himself against soon. "Saint Lance?"

"Yeah?"

She seemed to be having trouble speaking it out. Her head lowered and she held his shirt tightly "I don't know why you're doing this Underworld mission of yours, and I know you trained at the Cancer House and have done all sorts of insanely dangerous things already as a Saint, but," she took a breath "Please, be careful. Don't come home on a shield from the warfront."

The Saint felt his chest get cold. Coming home 'on a shield' was a classical Greek way for dead soldiers to be carried back to loved ones during wars, a practice that Sanctuary sometimes honored as well.

"I won't. I promise, Olivia" It was probably a bit cynical to say this. Lance very much doubted the Specters would return his corpse, after all.

Her nose sighed out in relief and she smiled up at him. "Thank you."

She then reached up and kissed him. Lance blinked, caught by surprise, but he surrendered to it. Difficult times were coming ahead. Maybe for a bit he could forget about them.

Turning the corner at Lance's voice, Crateris Suisho emerged. "Pegasus! There you are! I was about to ping you."

The two Saints staggered in fright and broke the kiss, caught in the act.

Suisho looked between them. "Miss Olivia?" He rose a brow "What's going on here? I'm not interrupting something, am I?"

The two shook heads. "No, not at all!"

The Crateris Saint let it go. He had no patience for the romantic escapades of two teenage Saints. "Pegasus, I've just gotten a call from the MMC you should hear. Saint Nam told me to take it straight to you. There's been a Specter infiltration at Andromeda Island."

The Pegasus Saint immediately paled. "WHAT?!" Immediately sending out pings to Shinta, he also approached Suisho. "Another one?! What happened?! Are they okay?! What did Shinta say?!"

The Silver Saint held him by the shoulders, surprised by his passionate reaction. "Calm down, no one is hurt. Sanctuary has evacuated everyone out of there to Ethiopia for the moment." He also felt cosmic signals bombarding the air, coming from Lance. "They're at a safehouse so you can stop pinging him so much, too. He won't pick it up."

"What the hell is going on?! Can't they leave him be?!" Lance roared. Andromeda Island had already been attacked twice by Lucifer's men (*). Now this. "What the hell do they want with Shinta this time?!"

(*) Chapters 9 & 46 (full publication)

From his perspective, the Underworld Judge could only squint in frustration. "Frankly, I wish I knew. I don't understand why Lord Hades is giving Rhadamanthys so much leeway." Suisho firmly held Lance. "Calm down. I know the Andromeda Island Master is your friend, but we got it all under control."

Olivia saw Pegasus grit his teeth in concern, looking ready to fly off to Africa if Saint Crateris so much as loosened his grip. Suddenly, his determination to attack the Underworld made more sense. If his friends kept getting targeted by Specters for no reason he could understand, then it was no wonder he wanted to put an end to it.

Her cogs turned, noticing a pattern. "Saint Suisho, did Saint Andromeda say it was the Reaper Specter?"

The Crateris blinked at her deduction. "Y-yes. How did you tell?"

She smiled. "Just an educated guess. We learn about Andromeda Island at the Academy a lot. It's not an easy place for enemies to just walk in and out unseen, so someone with strong psychic powers could be involved. Besides, it matches his behavior from when he showed up in Switzerland."

The secret Judge squinted. "She's a sharp one. I better keep that in mind."

Olivia turned to Lance. "I will go to your friend, Saint Pegasus, don't worry."

Lance widened eyes. "What? Olivia, I appreciate it, but-"

She shook her head. "Consider it tit for tat; I'll go to Africa with Saint Suisho and you take Cerah to see your teacher, then meet up with us. This way we can keep everyone safe sooner."

This made some sense. Lance sighed in relief, put his shirt back on and packed his Cloth box. "Alright. Thank you, Olivia. I won't forget this."

The proud Saintia winked. "No problem!" then narrowed her eyes determinedly. "Besides, if this Reaper Specter shows up again, I want to be there for it. After what happened last time, let's say I've been doing some homework. Pegasus Saints aren't the only ones good at figuring out enemy techniques!"

Seeing a look in her eyes he recognized from Aguilon, Lance could only believe her every word. He smiled, really liking her confidence, yet he hesitated. Part of it was that he didn't want her to get hurt, and part was that he wanted to see his best friend safe and sound with his own eyes asap.

"Alright, but be careful. Whoever did this could bring Gold Ranks next time."

"Don't worry, Pegasus, I'll keep an eye out for her." Suisho promised. Aiacos would laugh at the danger these two were walking into with this if he didn't have a cover to maintain. "I don't know what you're doing with Miss Heloise, but if it's important to you two, take care of it as quickly as you can and then come do your job. We'll be in Ethiopia."

Lance smiled, feeling truly appreciative. "Thanks, Sui'. I'm glad I can count on you."

"No problem." Suisho scratched head. "One more thing, Pegasus. Have either of you seen my sister?"

"Yushira?" Lance asked. "No, why?"

The Crateris Saint frowned, annoyed. "She left Greece this morning to Zeus-knows-where. Nam says she cleaned her whole schedule bare for the rest of February and March. I was going to call her for this and now I have no idea where to reach her!"

While she had only known the Crane Saint for a night, Olivia tried to chime in. "Maybe something urgent happened? I only met her once, but I'm sure Saint Crane wouldn't just go off on her own unless it was important?"

Both Suisho and Lance grumbled skeptically.

She chuckled nervously, forgetting this was a Libra they were talking about. "Ah, I guess she would?"

{======================|A3|======================}

Later,

Sanctuary, Rodario

{======================|A3|======================}

The afternoon was slowly arriving in Greece, making Pegasus Lance check the time a bit anxiously. Waiting for Cerah by Eurydice's house, Lance needed to get her to Asia before midday if he wanted to reach Roshi's house before dark. They were going to lose almost ten hours to time zone shifting alone, after all.

He saw the young girl come out and perked up. He patiently waited for her to finish hugging the blind woman and say their goodbyes.

Lance chuckled and folded arms when she came over. "Nice shirt, Cerah."

The short, blonde girl stretched it down to read the words 'Black Sabbath – Sabotage' on it.

She smiled embarrassedly, "I needed something dark and it was all Eurydice had. She says a fan in Rodario gave it to her. People here seem to give Eurydice things all the time."

The Bronze Saint looked up at the blind woman aimlessly waving goodbye. It still stunned him how beautiful the older blonde woman was. Even with her poor garments, the sun shone on her blonde curls and her smile radiated comfort, like a being from another world sent down from the Gods to make everyone feel worthless by comparison.

"Uh, I can see why." he said as he guided Cerah out. "Come on, we need to make the jump to China before long."

Obediently following, Cerah noticed the Pegasus seemed anxious, looking off tensely to wherever he was heading like he dreaded what might happen around the corner. "Saint Lance, am I in danger?"

He shook his head. "Not yet, but you have some tough decisions ahead of you, Cerah. I would try to make the right calls. Also, I don't know what my teacher might say to this all. He's a bit… unpredictable."

Cerah nodded, too nervous to say anything. She didn't know much about the mythical Asian Master, only that he fought in the previous Holy War and other incredible stories, like supposedly having fathered over one hundred children and spending his days sitting by a waterfall, fishing. Was he the type that considered women unfit for fighting? Or the type that would instantly brand Cerah a Specter-raised menace to Athena?

Lance turned briefly, looking like he remembered something critical. "Do me a favor, Cerah; whatever happens, don't mention Olivia to him, okay?"

It was an odd request, but Cerah shook her head. "O-Of course not!" Curiosity welled in her, though. Miss Olivia was the least problematic person in all of Sanctuary, the opposite of Cerah. "But why?"

The Saint irked. "I just don't want him to get any ideas. About me and her."

Cerah wised up, piling up another clue that something must have happened between the two. She rushed along. "Of course. You have my word, Saint Lance!"

"You can just call me Pegasus, or Lance, by the way." Lance reminded her. "You're a Silver Saint, sort of. And you're a Gold-ranker now. You technically outrank me in Sanctuary."

But the short girl shook her head. To her, rank was unimportant. It was a matter of respect and she had learned to recognize Saint Lance's courage. The fact his Cloth was Bronze didn't matter if he could take on the Alraune Specter (without his armor to boot) and she could not.

Besides, she wasn't a true Saint. "I'm sorry, but I could never. You're a real part of this place, S-, Lance." She forced herself to use his name, though it felt awkward still. "You were even the Cancer Gold Saint. I'm just the owner of a Cloth."

Lance walked quiet for a bit, looking conflicted. "Did he teach you to be that-" he paused to think "-polite?"

Cerah perked up. "Who?"

The Bronze Saint irked. Was she being coy or just naïve? "You know who I mean, Cerah."

Daemon Lucifer's face flashed in her head, making her stop briefly. Her green eyes softened sadly, noticing the weight his lessons had in her behavior to that day.

The Knight shook her head. "Maybe. He was very strict. But I also want to be this way. I think."

"That's another thing I should warn you about." Lance added. "I'm going to tell my teacher who raised you. I must. Not just because I owe my Master my honesty, but because you will as well."

Cerah gulped hard. "Y-yes, I understand. I know my situation is complicated."

"It's more than that, Cerah. My teacher is an old enemy of Pride Star. Believe it or not, they even fought against each other in the last Holy War. Me introducing him to his protégé, let's call you, is going to raise some friction." Lance warned her, looking tense. "However, Master is also very wise. If you show your character and honestly, he will help us. I hope."

The lack of certainty in Lance's voice scared her. She imagined some powerful, hard-minded Gold Saint living in a mountain that would instantly slay any enemy of Athena instantly. Someone Saint Lance would have to shield her from to avoid a tragedy. Was Cerah going to create a rift between Lance and his dear teacher?

"Saint Lance, what about you?" she asked. She was still taking a bit to process the fact she was talking to the Cancer Saint that held the line against the False Specters. "Are you my teacher's enemy? Am I yours? Because I don't want us to be."

Lance had to seriously stop and ponder this for a bit. He stared at Cerah for a good solid half of a minute. How could he answer this question straightly, when just two months earlier, he and Daemon Lucifer were doing everything in their power to kill one another?

"I'd like to say I wouldn't ask you for my crusade if you were, Cerah, but Daemon, he, well -" He stopped himself. Bringing up to Cerah he had done enough bad things for Sanctuary to schedule an execution was just cruel. He had to keep in mind she saw him as a father figure. He sighed. "I don't know, Cerah. This is a hard question for me to answer. We'll just have to wait and see, don't we?"

The blonde girl nodded. "Saint Lance, I promise I will do my best. I want to do my best!" she affirmed. Her green eyes softened, looking tired. "I don't want to be stuck between Sanctuary and the Underworld anymore. Not after what Lucian did. I'm going to pick a side. Yours. I hope I can make you and your teacher see that."

Lance smiled cautiously. He already kind of did, but he wanted to see more out of Cerah first. "Come on."

The two made their way out of Rodario with heavy thoughts in their minds. Cerah couldn't blame Saint Lance for feeling this conflicted about her. She knew her caretaker had done terrible things. She saw them. However, she still wanted to get to know more about his quest and pursue this path he was offering her. Cerah felt, somehow, that it may be the key to cement her purpose as one of the few last surviving Zodiac Knights, if she could even call herself that.

She had to earn his complete trust, then, to not fall off this thin tightrope she was walking.

Saint Lance led her to a clearance. "Alright, first things first, we're gonna get you to use your 7th sense to travel at lightspeed. This isn't going to feel fundamentally different from how you've used Mach 5 so far to get around, but you're going to need to keep a few critical things in mind, okay?"

The short girl straightened up, ready for her lesson. "R-Right!"

Lance took a finger. "First; no full burst from A to B. Never dash more than a few dozen kilometers at once unless you're going through a steppe or something. This is why most gold-ranks can't just 'blink' to where they need to go. There are more reasons about why this is a bad idea than I could number." He raised another. "Second, always coat your body and whoever you bring along with Cosmos. Especially your legs. You don't want to go around the earth making craters everywhere you land."

The Knight nodded and burned energy, igniting her arms and legs with golden cosmos to create padding. Already she felt some trouble, generating way more than was needed. Cerah gasped, feeling the burning get out of contro-

Saint Pegasus gripped her wrist and burned his own Cosmos, subduing her rising strength and giving her a sensorial reference. "There, only this much."

Concentrating, Cerah lowered her output until it matched his own. She smiled in relief. "Thanks. I'd hate to make a crater in Sanctuary."

Lance laughed at the self-deprecation. He sort-of related to this humor. "It's seen worse. The important thing right now is that you don't set the town on fire or shoot yourself off the Earth's curve."

It made Cerah's eyes widen. "W-wait, what?! Off the curve?! As in into space?!"

The Pegasus moved right on. "That gets me to the third thing; always avoid light-speeding straight from populated areas. Even very skilled cosmos users might accidentally hurt someone, by making something combustible near their blitz spot explode, for example. It's also a good way to call attention to yourself."

All this made her laugh nervously. "Okay, that makes sense. I guess I have to get used to this." Her eyes wandered fearfully. "I'm not really gonna shoot myself into space, am I?"

"You got bigger things to worry about, Cerah. That reminds me." He rose another finger. "Number four; that ray multiplication thing you did against Queen? That must stop for now, at least. I don't know how you trick your cosmos to fire beyond its speed cap, but none of us want you to land in a coma again, okay?"

Cerah sweated embarrassedly, but also felt vexed. Her refraction and focus lenses had served her greatly in the past, but it was true that she was operating much closer to the limits of the Cosmos now. It limited her options, but she didn't want to make her loved ones worry again.

"I won't, Saint Lance." She then smiled. "You're pretty good at explaining the 7th sense. I guess it must be experience, uh?

Lance shrugged. "It's just a basic safety ruleset. My teacher does things with Cosmos you wouldn't believe." He turned and burned Cosmos, creating an orange brim. "Try to follow my lead now. Our destination is a Sanctuary colony in Central China called Arlia, so it will be easy to get lost if you miss a step. Ready?"

Cerah turned her yellow cosmos on and nodded determinedly. "Ready!"

{======================|A3|======================}

Hours Later,

Asia

{======================|A3|======================}

Much like in his mission with Yushira, Eastern Asia was already close to ending its daylight despite the fact the two departed early in the morning. Even more so, Lance had to take it easy and guide Cerah along, making several stops along the way to let her catch her breath, cool her body down and get her bearings, orientation-wise. Moving and stopping along chunks of the curve of the Earth was still making the fluid in her head swing and Cerah had to excuse herself and barf somewhere along Kazakhstan.

With a grossed out frown, Lance took a handkerchief and wiped the smelly smudge off his shirt.

He saw Cerah come out from behind a big rock corner in the steppes during a stop, he tossed her a water bottle and chuckled. "Are you feeling better?"

Drinking a big gulp, Cerah felt like she was getting punched in the head by Gryphon Urial again. "Y-yeah."

Lance could see the vaguely green look on her pale face. "Really? Are you sure? We still got at least 40 more bursts to go. You're not holding back just to be polite, are you?"

Put to the test, the girl held her mouth, feeling nauseous. "I, umm, I'm sorry. I need another minute, y-yeah."

Lance grimaced, wondering how harsh a drill sergeant Lucifer was to make her this fearful about disappointing others. "It's okay, Cerah, this isn't training yet. I'm not gonna rip your head off if you make a mistake or any-"

The Corvus covered her mouth and ran behind the steppe rock to barf again.

The Pegasus Saint sweated and patted her back. "Poor girl. I remember being this bad at light-speeding."

"I think you're selling her short, Lance." The Pegasus Cloth in his box kindly opinionated. "You were far worse."

"You remember THAT from before breaking, but not your old personality?!" Lance criticized. He then changed topics with Cerah. He should get to know her better. "I guess the Underworld Park doesn't have any tea cup rides, uh?"

She broke out a laugh, recovering. "N-no, it really does not. Not the nice kind anyway."

"What's it like, growing up in that place?" If he was planning to make Cerah his guide, he supposed he should ask. "Not a lot of people can brag about that, after all."

She frowned, remembering the many years without sun. "It's, um, like growing up in a cave. Except its ceiling is so high that you can't see it. There are even stars shining inside. Somehow, though, you still feel it's there, over your head, making you… feel you're trapped. You always keep your head down in the Underworld."

Folding arms, Lance compared what he had learned from Sanctuary and seen at the Yomotsu Hirasaka. "Is it like the Underworld Well?"

To his surprise, her head shook. "No, it's worse. I've seen the Yomotsu once, Saint Lance. In it you still feel above water, like you can leave if you choose to. It's just a passageway. But in the Underworld,-" She gulped, remembering the darkness. "There's an oppression in the air, like every move you make is being watched by something. Like every feeling in your heart is being judged. I remember having dreams that there were eyes on every wall and that… that…"

Lance saw her hesitate, fear growing in her eyes. "Yeah?"

Her hands held her own throat, trying to grasp at the memory of a feeling she forgot. "And that something invisible was choking me every minute of every day. There were times I could barely breathe. And it would never ever leave you, even when you woke up."

Hesitantly, Lance then asked the scariest question. "How many people are there, right now?"

She took a grim pause, remembering the endless crowds. "A lot. More than I could bear to ask Lucian about, Saint Lance." The small warrior took a self-soothing breath. "The Prince used to say there was a special book in the First Prison that could tell how many. If I had to guess, though, … I'd say billions upon billions. Maybe more."

Remembering the rows of people walking in Yomotsu Hirasaka, Lance felt pale, suddenly. He imagined endless oceans of emaciated bodies writhing somewhere deep below the darkness of the world. Maybe it was his childhood catholic sensitivities enhancing the effect, but it did paint a terrible picture of what awaited them all should Hades just be left ignored by the surface.

"There were so many, it made you feel insignificant. Everything in the Underworld felt designed to drain you of hope." she finalized. "I used to watch the Gryphon False Specter pass judgement on the dead. I don't think in all my years there, he ever sent anyone up to Elysium."

"Fucking Christ, why?" Lance questioned, horrified. "Why not even a single one? Wouldn't that just make things harder for Hades to pack everyone down in hell? I don't understand the point of all that stubborn cruelty."

Cerah's eyes then sterned, feeling her Zodiac Knight blood boil. "The stubbornness is the point, Saint Lance. Hades isn't interested in treating the dead fairly. That doesn't benefit him."

Lance staggered. "Benefit him?!"

Cerah looked up at the skies nostalgically, tucking her legs. "A long time ago, when I was young, I used to ask Lucian all sorts of questions about Hades. All I knew of him was that he had been sitting in his chair in Giudecca since the last War, but I couldn't help but be curious. It's a god, after all." She shrugged pathetically. "Heck, as far as my life was… I guess you could even say he was the God."

Knowing the kinds of trouble Cerah got herself to, he smirked. "I'm guessing you tried to check him out anyway?"

The girl smiled embarrassedly but shook head. "I wasn't allowed anywhere near him, but Lucian told me that a long time ago, Hades used to be different." Her eyes turned to his. "There's even a special temple in the Underworld he built in the Myth Age to listen to the pleas of the dead who wished to redeem themselves. Did you know that, Saint Lance?"

Thinking back to the things he'd been taught about the Circles, Lance had to shake his head. "Sanctuary pretty much tells us Hades has been bad from the start, Cerah, so no, I didn't. But what does this have to do with what benefits Hades?"

"Well, if you gave up on someone, if they disappointed you, if you've decided with yourself that you hate someone… how willing would you be to give them a chance again?" she challenged. "Lucian was cruel to his enemies, but he still believed in humankind. Hades does not. He just wants us gone. Listening to what we have to say and letting people up in Elysium would challenge all of that."

It dawned on Lance. "He just shuts himself off from our screams, then!" Now everything made sense to him. "All the millennia of Holy Wars, the 108 Specters he 'chooses' as good ones, the Circles, the pointless unproductive evil, the stories of him keeping to himself in some mausoleum and the refusal to deal honestly even with his own men… it's nothing but pure, complacent disgust from Hades?"

The teenage girl nodded. "This is part of why I didn't want to believe the Specters were as bad as him, because if anything Lucian taught me was true,. Hades was far worse than Dullahan, Alraune, Worm, Cyclops, Gryphon or even my teacher Lucian combined. He's someone who has deliberately chosen to be this way, even though he has the power to treat us any way he likes. And now he can't bear to think of us any differently."

The Pegasus Saint absorbed this quietly, feeling his frightened soul chilling his body cold. Cerah was right; if this is how Hades thought of humanity, than even a monster like Daemon Lucian was a preferable option to take over the planet. Having personally battled and stopped the man, Lance now felt a bit on the spot about all the accusations the guy made that resisting him would just lead to Sanctuary getting eaten by a worse threat instead.

"More and more, I feel like the only way to put an end to this bullshit once and for all is for someone to really go down there and wreck that fucking circus of an Underworld once and for all, whether or not Athena has reincarnated already. But am I really that person? Is Cerah? Is anyone?"

Still, Cerah looked pretty upset talking about all this, looking dazedly to the ground like she was remembering some nightmare she had.

Instead of pushing the subject, then, his hand gestured to wave it off. "Hey Cerah, let's talk about something else. Can you show it to me? Your Lightcraft?"

She perked up and smiled, as if awakened from a nightmare . "Y-yes, of course!" Sometimes she had to use Cosmos sensation to find Lucian among the Prisons. "After I learned how to Lightcraft my Corvus Cloth into the shape of a Skeleton armor, it got better, though. It allowed me to hide from its 'eyes'."

While the story was haunting, this was an interesting last detail; Lance could imagine that Cerah was describing the effect the Underworld had in filtering the life out of you, as Dohko had mentioned to him when explaining the benefits of the 0th sense and how it could stop that, but it seemed that Cerah was able to trick the barrier by shaping her Cloth to look like that of a servant of Hades. Something told him that for him, infiltrating the Underworld wouldn't be as simple as stealing some Skeleton Soldier's armor, but at the very least it proved that, if Cerah wished, she could cross the barrier at will without being hampered.

"How does it work?"

"Well, it all kind of depends on this for me." Taking her amethyst pendant out, she showed it off. "This is the Amethyst Cloth Stone, Saint Lance. It's also called Obsidian because it looks so dark compared to the other six that exist. Inside it, it has the Corvus Silver Cloth stored in the form of a bunch of Light Cosmos."

Lance took it to his hand. He looked it over trying to figure out how she popped an entire set of armor out of it, but there were no switches or even Cosmos receivers he could spot. "How do you work it?"

Cerah chuckled and touched the gem, causing it to glow. Lance staggered when a brief flash occurred and a facet of the dark purple gem turned into particles of light that then flew around Cerah's hand, solidifying into a black glove that perfectly fit her slim fingers.

She clenched the armored hand proudly, "It's really cool, right?"

The Saint gawked. He had seen Olivia do it, but Cerah could summon it down to just a glove. "It is! How is this possible?!"

Her head shook and smiled, excited that she could teach him something too. "Mass is just a property of energy, in the end, so if you can control the Light element, you can manipulate the properties of light, like its shape and how much of 'mass' it is."

"Oh, so it's like when I shape fire into a missile blast or beam?" Lance guessed

To which he got a nod from her. "Yup. Lightcraft is simply the practice of turning metal into light and vice-versa, hence the name."

Somehow Lance doubted it was this simple. "But how do you make it do such precise, complex things? And in an instant? I can barely shoot fire like a flamethrower would, and meanwhile you're making detailed, fortified armor shapes."

She laughed gently. "It's all pre-programmed, Saint Lance. You make a Cloth Stone with a 'blueprint' of the armor, store the armor inside with Lightcraft and the rest is exactly like when you pull the handle of your box and the armor comes flying out on its own. Just fancier."

This made some sense. "Is that why Olivia is able to do it, too? Even though she's not a Knight or a Light user?"

Cerah nodded. "Yup! It's convenient, isn't it?"

Lance hummed, folding arms. "Amazingly so. It almost makes me wish it was the standard." In particular, Lance envied how light and efficient it was to just pack your armor inside such a tiny object. "How do you program a rock, though?"

Cerah touched jaw embarrassedly. "U-uh, that's a bit beyond my knowledge. Lucian tried to explain it to me, but I wasn't a very good student." she admitted, remembering countless candle-lit nights locked inside Palace rooms. "If I understand correctly, it has to do with tiny internal facets routing cosmos like…. information and memory?"

While this made some sense, the Pegasus Saint detected an oddity. "Wait, how the hell does that guy know Lightcraft? There was a whole war because Sanctuary couldn't figure it out!"

The girl widened eyes, like it had never occurred to her to ask. "I never knew. Maybe the alchemy is like that of Surplices? Those are stored in your shadow, after all."

Lance shivered. In your shadow? Then if a Specter wished to ambush you, they could probably keep their Surplice hidden until the very last instant they approached you, pop the Surplice on and snap your neck before you could so much as cry for help. No wonder they were so good at infiltration.

With a flash of light in her hand, Cerah showed off how she could reshape her gauntlet to have thicker knots, shorter finger covers and even write her name on the backhand.

"It takes some energy, but since I'm a Lightcrafter myself, unlike miss Olivia, I can make the armor acquire new shapes after putting it on. Unfortunately, it all resets once I store it back in the Stone." She admitted, looking self-conscious as if she was at fault. "So I try to keep it simple."

Lance couldn't help but just stare incredulously at such tech. "That's incredible. You can adapt in combat to any situation like that. You can even disguise yourself!"

She then showed how she had turned the small circular guards on her knuckle knots into tiny lenses. "It's the secret behind my Prismatic techniques, too. All it takes is a bit of refraction in my Cosmos exit points in my fist."

This all bewildered the Pegasus a bit too much. He ruffled his hair, trying to process this, realizing that it was no wonder Sanctuary was so scared of the Zodiac Knights. They sounded, after all, like some creative fighters. In a way it showed Lance that, if she wanted or if her loyalties to Lucifer's cause were still that strong, Cerah could have caused tremendous damage to Sanctuary during her time infiltrating it, especially during Lucifer's attack. He wasn't sure if this set his mind totally at ease about her, but it did put some things into perspective.

Seeing the look on his face, the blonde girl smiled apologetically. "Like I said, what I do is just the tip of the iceberg. There are probably some truly amazing things you can do with advanced Lightcraft. It kind of makes me sad I won't get to learn them."

"If things work out perhaps you can learn something new under Roshi, then." Lance consoled her. "I mean, this is all really cool, Cerah. No wonder you do so well against Specters."

The girl blushed, feeling praised by the experienced Saint. "You think so? T-Thank you!"

He didn't think much of it. "You don't believe in yourself too much, do you? If Seiryu is interested in you, though, then you gotta have some promise."

She looked up, frowning in uncertainty. "Saint Lance, why do you think this is happening to me? Why is this dragon interested in me? I'm just a girl. I'm not even a real Saint. It can't be just because Saint Iaso gave me some water, can it?"

There was a vexed frown from Lance. He didn't pretend to know what was on the mind of the Phoenix and Dragon Cloth's spirits. In fact, Lance was trying to get away from them as much as possible. While Seiryu had helped him much, Lance could tell the creature was doing it out of spite for the Phoenix and that there was a trade-off to everything he gave you. He wasn't going to trade turning into one kind of monster, like Guilty, to another, like many of Dohko's predecessors.

He did know one thing, though. "I think the Dragon Constellation sees some use in you against Hades. I am not fit to become a proper Dragon, but maybe Seiryu thinks he can make something of you. As to why, you must know that better than I do, Cerah. You're the Zodiac Knight."

Cerah tossed the shiny rock in her hand between palms, pensive. "Right, I am."

Lance tensed his brows. "Hey, Cerah?"

She recovered, cleaning her face. "Y-yes, Saint Lance?"

"Why are you taking rocks off the ground?"

She froze, seeing a shiny stone her eyes had caught by the spot she hurled. There was nothing special to it, it was just particularly glassy and a type she hadn't seen before. Dear Goddess, she was doing it again!

She tossed it off to the vast steppe like it was haunted. "N-No REASON! None!" She tried to smile, but looked like a guilty thief. "S-Shall we go?"

Shrugging it off, Lance burned his cosmos. She was just playing with rocks, after all. "Alright, but if you barf on me again during a blitz, I'm carrying you the rest of the way to Arlia, got it?"

{======================|A3|======================}

China,

Mount Rozan Area

{======================|A3|======================}

Daylight was beginning to dim in the Far East. The farmers of the Sanctuary colony of Arlia began returning home after another day in the fields.

Confronting one, Crane Yushira pointed at her map. "This is Arlia, right? Then you must know where the local Master lives!"

The elderly lady standing by her doorway shook head. "I told you; I don't know any Dohko! And I've never heard of Sanctuary!"

The Crane Saint threw her arms up. "You're speaking Greek! Everyone in this town is! I'm from Nepal, you can't fool me, lady!"

But the local woman insisted. "What, just because we're farmers, we're uneducated? Shame on you, miss! Go figure out who this 'Dohko' is on your own if you're so clever!"

The door slammed on the masked Amazon's face and she growled in frustration. Great, this was the last person in town she could ask! What was going on?! Was everyone in town in the Pope's pocket not to disclose the Libra Gold Saint's location? Now what was she gonna do? Personally comb the entire Yangtze valley looking for one Chinese old man?

She practically stomped her way out of town, frustrated. A feeling of depression sunk her anger, though. Yushira should have known that finding the Old Master wouldn't be so easy as asking around Arlia or everyone in Sanctuary would be a Gold-ranker by now.

She sat on a rock, huffing, dumping her map into her Cloth Box. No wonder Aguilon was okay with telling her about this town; he probably knew she'd run into a wall anyway. "That dirty old man! What now? Go back empty-handed and let everyone know I wiped my mission schedule for ha-has? Great, cause everyone takes me so seriously already-"

A blaring, golden flash occurred right in front of her and Yushira yelped, knocked off her rock!

The light dissipated, revealing to Yushira, much to her shock, the turned backs of her new mission partner, Pegasus Lance, and her Saintia bestie, Corvus Cerah, all the way there in China! She scurried like a cat behind cover before they saw her.

Recovering from the journey, Cerah breathed deeply. "I-Is this Arlia? Did I make it?!"

Lance surveyed the area to identify it, seeing the sun go down. Fortunately, the rest of the way to Arlia went without incident. Lance supposed Cerah had no more breakfast in her stomach to hurl out since they managed to reach the colony without it landing on him at the speed of light. Cerah was also getting a better hang of how to pad her body on braking, resulting in less scorch marks on arrival. Maybe it was her experience in using the Light Element, but Lance got the feeling she was going to get the hand of lightspeed in no time.

"Yeah, you've made it. Don't worry, I won't put you through the lightspeed twister anymore today." As he pointed the correct way out of the colony, Lance warned her "From this point we're going to go through some forested mountain terrain, so we're walking the old-fashioned way, Cerah."

She nodded in relief, exhausted and not wanting to set anything on fire. "R-Right." She noticed the Saint seemed a bit anxious though. "Saint Lance, I'm not holding you back, am I? Are we late to see your teacher?"

He shook head. "No, don't worry. I'm just thinking about a friend." he confessed. Even if Olivia and Suisho had gone ahead, he wanted to get Cerah to Master as soon as possible so he could go check on Shinta.

They then left Arlia.

Yushira peeked out from her cover, baffled beyond belief. Was Lance coming home to his teacher? Why was Cerah with him? Should she follow? Normally she would, but Aguilon's warnings about putting her friendship with Pegasus at risk sounded in her mind.

She had to choose; either she went home and preserved her one friendship, or she took this chance of a lifetime being thrown into her lap.

…

"Goddamn it!" she growled, beginning to follow them. Maybe she could just get the location and come back later. "Pegasus, please forgive me, but I can't stay stuck where I am for the rest of my life!"

{======================|A3|======================}

Making their way out of the village into the forested fields, Cerah had to suck her breath in awe. They were crossing beautiful landscapes of lush forests, farming fields and stunning mountains of various fragmented shapes. Everywhere she looked, there were horizons of absolute rural peace. Even the air was pure, despite the pollution they had seen further northeast near the coast. She had read about the natural beauties of rural China in the Underworld, but this was something else.

She could just feel it in her skin; the area was teeming with life, especially as they entered Mount Rozan's surroundings. It was the exact opposite of the atmosphere she had experienced in Hades' Underworld. There was nothing but peace and freedom in this region, as well as a sensation that this was a part of the world forgotten by the chaos of human life. Even Saint Lance himself seemed to be getting more relaxed the more they penetrated the forest, even smiling, like a traveler returning to a peaceful home after a long war.

As the pair walked a forest road, Cerah's senses tingled, feeling a presence in the area that wasn't at place. She turned her hea-

"Don't look. Keep walking." Lance warned her mentally.

She obeyed, snapping into focus. "S-Saint Lance!There's someone following us!"

The Saint tried to stay cool. "I know. They're trying to conceal it, but my 7th sense can feel their position. They're moving erratically, but must have been tracking us since Arlia." He gulped, wondering who it could be. He just got off an assassination attempt. "My Master has a lot of enemies, Cerah, including Specters, so this might get dangerous. Can you use your Emission Lenses to find their position?"

"I can do better. I still have my glove on." With a flash of light, she increased the polishing of her backhand to make it reflective and looked, pretending to be checking the time. She saw a human shape in the trees behind them. "I see them!"

He pretended to tie his shoes better and grabbed a rock. She did the same.

Saint Lance's body glowed brighter, subtly charging Cosmos. "3…2…1…NOW!"

Turning, the two tossed their rocks at the speed of light, striking the person off the tree to the ground and landing them on the floor.

She rubbed her head, holding her mask up. "OWW! WHAT THE HELL!"

Lance staggered. She had dyed her hair black this time, but he recognized her. "Yushira?!"

Cerah gasped, delighted. "Saint Yushira!"

Picking her up angrily, Lance pressed the Amazon unto a tree. "What the hell do you think you're doing here, following us?!"

She pushed him off and slipped away like a cat. "HEY, I could ask you the same, Pegasus!

Lance staggered. "Wait, you two know each other?!"

Cerah and Yushira exchanged a guilty glance. Cerah hummed hesitantly. "Y-yes. It's a long story. What happened was -"

Pegasus Lance then stood there as Cerah recounted the whole affair of her having to intercede during the False Holy War and running into Yushira, who somehow had avoided the effects of Bat Brune's Nightmare Sonar, at Circe's Grove. This was followed by their decision (mostly Yushira's) to work together and help out as they could, which resulted in luring the False Specter guard out of the Aries Temple and defeating the Cyclops False Specter, who got briefly possessed by his True counterpart and nearly killed Cerah.

The rest, from Adriana finding Cerah to Iaso healing her with the Waters of Life, Lance already knew.

It didn't exactly exonerate Yushira, though. "I can't believe you! What was your end goal with this, Yushira?! Did you think you'd find my Master before I returned to China and get him to teach you the 7th sense or something?!"

"Look, before you get mad at me-" She dusted herself off. "I was following a lead I got on the Master, okay? And yes, maybe I was going to ask if I could train under him, but that's perfectly normal! Everyone applies for these things! What's so wrong about what I did?!"

"You mean other than you sneaking around my back?!" Lance countered. "Why wouldn't you just ask me to see my teacher?!"

"You would have just said 'fuck off'! 'Yushira defended herself. "Besides, I was already at Arlia when you two just happened to pop up out of nowhere! What are you doing in China dragging my Saintia bestie around?!"

Lance staggered, feeling countered. "It's none of your business!"

The Amazon threw arms up. "See?! You're doing shady things, too! So why are you making it sound like me asking a few questions is such a bad thing?!"

Lance gritted teeth, seeing right through her bullshit. "Because, Yushira, I'm not stupid! You could have just asked me if you wanted to meet him so goddamn much, even if I said 'no', but you didn't! Instead, your first choice was to try to sneak your way into Rozan without telling anyone! Even Sui'! Does this sound like the actions of a friend?! Or of someone taking 'playing rival' way too fucking far?!"

The Crane stepped back. "Uh, well, when you put it like that, I, umm…."

Cerah stepped away in fear, seeing the Pegasus Saint get riled up in a way she had only seen him with Alraune Queen. Maybe she should do something to calm them down?

The two girls saw Lance storm off. Cerah followed. "W-wait, Saint Lance! Saint Yushira didn't mean this!"

The Crane Saint tried to defend herself. "Yeah, w-wait, you're being unfair, Lance! Please hear me ou-"

Lance's jaw dropped. "I am being unfair?! Yushira, all this time I was wondering why Suisho kept saying you detonated all your other friendships! I thought he was being unfair, that people were just overreacting to you being nosy or copying their moves, especially after you saved me from Acrisius!" Lance confronted, his blood boiling. "Goddamn it, I was on your side!"

Yushira felt cold. Aguilon's warning sounded in her head. She slumped. "I'm… I'm sorry."

Watching the whole thing, all Cerah wanted was to make things better, say something that would make Saint Lance calm down with Yushira. However, the more he spoke, the more she realized how betrayed he felt. What could she possibly say, then?

"I thought a goddamn Specter was following us! What if we had attacked for real?! We could have hurt you!" Lance pointed out. He was running out of ways to make Yushira understand the depth of this fuck-up, especially because for a moment, after all the shit he's been through, he really did consider shooting the stalker with Cosmos rather than toss a damn rock. "Your brother's been looking everywhere for you and I find you here, in China, stalking my teacher's Training Ground?! Why?! Because, ah-ah, you're my rival?! What are you, a child?!"

The Amazon felt her throat tighten. "Maybe this time I've gone too far."

Cerah approached, still stunned at such an odd reunion. "Miss Yushira, I don't know why you're here, but it's good to see you again."

The Crane Amazon slumped shoulders. "Aw, you're still my friend, Cerah?"

The Corvus nodded. "Yeah, but I still think what you did was wrong."

She face-palmed her mask, defeated. "Oh Goddess, not you too. Damn it, I can't stand the two of you being upset at me." Yushira rushed ahead. "Hey, Lance, please stop. I'm sorry."

"I'm in no mood for lies!" Lance warned. "You just want me to take you to my teacher anyway!"

"Please! I'm desperate, okay?! I'm sorry I treated you like a competitor! And yes, I still want to talk to your teacher!" Yushira begged. "I've told you before how I feel about my life! You know I've tried everything to make it better, but everyone just tells me off. Sanctuary won't give me a chance, my Silver Saint friends mock me for being myself and wanting a career, when they're not just calling me crazy, and…"

Lance groaned. "And what, Yushira?! What could possibly justify lumping me in with your shit Silver and Bronze Saint friends?!"

Her shoulders dropped. "A-And my brother hates me and I don't know why! D-Damn it! Please don't hate me, too, Pegasus! I just want a future! "

The Pegasus looked at Cerah, who just nudged her head up appealingly for him to hear Yushira out. This was hard, because he was used to reading people's honesty on their faces, but Yushira had a damn Amazon mask on. Most of all, he was having a tough time picturing being in a socially desperate position like Yushira was and yet putting a friendship at risk anyway. It all felt so stupid to him! Couldn't she have stopped to think for one minute?

"You had what you wanted, Yushira. I was your friend, even if you were goddamn annoying. I even defended you to Suisho! Why jeopardize that?!" he asked. "Do you think having the 7th sense will make you happy?!"

"I d-don't know, but it couldn't hurt!" she shouted. "Why did you unlock it?! Surely you must have felt it would at least open some doors! Look, all I'm asking is to forgive me. And yes, to please take me to see your teacher. I promise I won't make jokes about you for a month!"

He growled, feeling she wasn't taking this seriously. "Damn you, Yushira!"

She got on her knees. "A year! Please!"

Lance narrowed eyes. He had half a mind to deny her anyway, just to test her honesty. He tried really hard to focus on the good aspects of Yushira, how she saved his life, helped him with Olivia and more, but this invasion of privacy was really painful to him. To Lance, Mount Rozan wasn't just a training ground, it was a home, one the house he was leasing to Aiolos and Aiolia couldn't be. There were also secrecy matters concerning him. He was making a huge exception to bring Cerah to Dohko because Seiryu was clearly interested in her, but Yushira had no place being in Rozan.

….

A whole year of Yushira's stupid mouth not annoying him, though? That was tantalizing.

Lance raised a single finger. "Give me one more good reason why I should take you to Roshi. Just one. If you do, I'll consider it!"

The masked Amazon found it with surprising speed, though. "You know what it's like to grow up in Sanctuary without a Master, Pegasus. It's like being orphaned all over again. I just want one, too."

Cerah's heart melted, thinking of her own sister Daese. She didn't realize Yushira was Saint Suisho's sister, much less that they had serious problems. Suisho seemed like such a considerate and careful Saint, after all, and Saint Yushira was so enthusiastic and fun, but Cerah supposed things could get complicated, especially with such a strong personality clash.

She saw Saint Lance look stern, though. Cerah sweated. "Saint Lance, I think that's a good reason. Maybe she can just ask him once? You don't even have to promise he'll say 'yes'."

The Saint rolled eyes, frustrated. Unfortunately, what Cerah said made sense. "You know what you are, Yushira? A goddamn stray cat begging for scraps at every door after she ran away from home! And now you even scratched my hand!"

The Amazon nodded, keeping her head low. "I know, I know! But please! I'll super, ultra, mega make it up to you!"

He couldn't believe he was doing this. "Alright, fine!"

She backed off in startle. "Oh my goddess, THANK YOU!" Yushira shrieked, rushing in to hug the mean Pegasus Saint. "Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU! Holy shit, I'm so excited! I'm gonna get to meet the Libra Gold Saint! He's gonna teach me!"

Lance brushed her off. "I promise nothing, understand? If he says 'Fuck off', you will fuck off! And you will stay fucking off forever! Got it?!"

Yushira practically danced in happiness, doing a crane pirouette. "Pegasus, you're my best-" she glanced at Cerah briefly. "- male friend! I will remember this forever! I will buy you a thousand drinks at the bar! I will make that boy Orpheé write a sonnet about you! I will tell Sui' to back off so hard next time you ruin a mission for him!"

Cerah laughed. This was the excited, confident Yushira she admired. "You did a good thing, Saint Lance. I'm sure she won't let you down."

The Pegasus grumbled. "Time will certainly tell."

Yushira tossed arms up in celebration. "I'll even be your wingman for your next ten dates with Olivia! That girl is gonna LOVE you!"

Cerah gasped. Lance froze, his anger cracking into shock.

Yushira stopped twirling, shifting face between their reactions. "Oh. Crap, don't tell me I shouldn't have said that?"

The Pegasus Saint sunk his face into his hands, while the Zodiac Knight put the math together.

So, this is why Saint Lance didn't want Cerah to mention her to his teacher! The blonde girl beamed, grabbing Lance's arm. "Saint Lance, you and miss Olivia?! That's incredible!"

"Yushira, goddamn you!" Lance sneered. "Look at what you've done!"

"I didn't mean to!" Yushira genuinely apologized, waving her hands defensively. "I thought Cerah never even heard of her! That Academy is huge!"

"Olivia is my class president at the academy, miss Yushira!" Cerah fangirled. "She's super smart and popular. Everyone knows her. We all met your brother and Saint Lance during a mission and he saved her life! And now they're in love?!"

"We're NOT that!" Lance assured, red as a beet. ""We're moving on, okay?! Yushira, you can follow us if you want, but don't expect my teacher not to have me kick you out, got it?! My boot has your name all over it after what you've just done!"

Yushira saluted, knowing the wrath of Pegasus was true after what he did to Acrisius. "Y-Yes, sir!"

{======================|A3|======================}

Time passed while traveling deeper into Mount Rozan and the sun went down in the Far East, gradually darkening the area. The forest they entered through after Arlia were getting thicker and lushier, filled with Nature's noises, particularly the sound of rushing water, which fortunately indicated they were getting close.

Guiding the group past one last turn of the forest path, Lance presented the waterfall valley of Rozan. "Here we are; the Dragon Cloth training ground."

The two girls gasped. A huge waterfall stood before them, landing on a crystalline lake that shined red with the descending sun's light. By the shore, a two-story hut of curved rooftop and round windows awaited, flanked by a small shed for training equipment and tools. To Cerah, it looked like a romantic portrait of nature, a place to escape from the world.

To Yushira, it was a source of hype. "Holy crap, he even lives like a Kung Fu master! This is great! How muscled is he?!"

Lance took them towards the hut. "Don't get too excited. Master is very, very old. He's not exactly going to impress the eyes."

Cerah recalled the way Saint Lance described his teacher in Switzerland. "I suppose that's to be expected, if he fought in the last Holy War. Does he really look like, umm…"

"An old prune, Cerah? Yes."

Yushira interjected "Don't worry, Cerah. In Kung Fu movies, the master is always either super old or super young! It's never anything in between." Yushira explained. "But then they teach you how to kick ass with the power of wisdom, so the older they are, the better!"

The Zodiac Knight hummed. She had never gotten to see martial arts movies, being raised in the Underworld. "So how good would a 240-year-old Master be, miss Yushira?"

Yushira scoffed. "He'd be god-like, come on. And our buddy Lance here has been training under him all this time! No wonder he's a Gold-Rank already."

"For your information, Yushira, I unlocked the 7th sense before meeting Master." Lance sniped. Remembering that last time he came home to Rozan, he found the Master fooling around with a pair of local Arlia girls, he made sure to knock on the door. "Master, it's me! I'm back!"

…

Cerah and Yushira both patiently waited, trying to contain their nervousness at meeting the Libra Gold Saint.

…

Lance knocked again, this time louder. "Master?"

…

…

Cerah held arm anxiously. "Maybe he isn't home? Does he go out a lot?"

Lance groaned. He guessed this was just bad timing, but that's what he always guessed before some kind of gauntlet being thrown at him, like a corridor of tossing javelins. "He likes to fish at the lake, but he's usually home by now. Frankly? I smell some kind of prank."

"Prank? But you said he's like a super old geezer, right?" Yushira asked. "This is totally me keeping my promise of not making fun of you for a year, Lance, but maybe you just have the wrong waterfall hut?"

Lance ignored her and used his own key to get in. As soon as the door opened, a huge white tiger came jumping out on Lance, tussling him and snarling at his face!

Cerah screamed louder than she ever had in her life and ran behind Yushira! They saw the enormous tiger press the Saint down, tussling him, until Lance rolled it off him to the side with a strained roar.

"Ma Chao, enough!" Lance ordered, catching the creature by its thick collar and holding it off.

"Holy shit, a real pet tiger!" Yushira celebrated. "This old man's awesome!"

By contrast, Cerah trembled like a leaf. "It's HUGE! K-keep it away, please!"

Seeing it was making Cerah terrified, he dragged Ma Chao off with much effort. "In the shed, now!" He locked it inside, but the tiger could be heard furiously swiping at the door. He sighed in relief but saw the scratches in his arms "G-Goddamn it!"

Hesitantly, Cerah came out. "I-is it safe?!"

"It is. Well, about as much as a pet tiger can be. I've seen a child jump on Ma Chao's belly until he fell asleep. Ma Chao just fucking hates me for no goddamn reason!" Lance looked inside the house and thankfully found all the furniture intact. "Well, at least Master is not having another threesome in the kitchen hall." He turned back. "He really isn't home. Of all the times for him to be out effing around!"

"What is he doing? Busting up evil dojos with old-man-cane-Fu?" Yushira asked.

Lance opened his mouth to call this ridiculous, but had to stop himself. "You know what? That's not far-off base for him."

"Mm, mm, mm! You give me too little credit, student! I might be closer than you THINK!"

The three looked all around, startled.

"That was a 6th sense ping!" Cerah realized. She charged the cosmos and turned on her Lenses "Are we surrounded?! Who's there?!"

"I am the tiger that stalks in the night!" it spoke. "I am the terror of every triad delinquent, the nightmare of every Specter in the Underworld and the winking picture inside the drawer of every woman in Sanctuary!"

"Master, just come out, please!" Lance begged, exasperated. "We got serious things to discuss."

There was a huge, loud burst of water at the nearby lake, startling them again and showering them with droplets. To Cerah and Yushira's amazement, the water raced upwards, twirling and spinning into a serpentine shape until it parted into a draconic mouth, gazing down on the visitors. Sunlight reflected on it, casting countless tiny stars of green all over the grove, and the dragon came crashing down in a cascade before them, flooding their feet and leaving behind the Master.

Wiping his brown mane of water and combing it back, the Master stood proudly, hands in hip and facing the visitors gallantly. His wet green gi showed off a firm pack of chest muscles.

"I am…. Dohko! Of the LIBRA!"

All three of them gawked for different reasons at the young, muscled man.

Yushira squealed in delight and clapped. "Holy SHIT! That was amazing! PLEASE teach me that! I want to introduce myself to people just like that!"

Dohko laughed proudly. At least someone had taste. "I'm sorry, young miss. You can't teach being this amazing. You can certainly aspire to it, though."

Cerah respectfully bowed, trying to imitate eastern protocol as best as she remembered it. "L-Lord Dohko, it's an honor to meet you. I am Cerah Heloise, of the Corvus constellation. I've come a very long distance to ask you for help."

"A pleasure to meet you." He pointed at her Black Sabbath clothing. "Nice shirt, by the way. I attended that concert."

Cerah's face flushed. "O-oh, thank you. I don't know the music though, it was a gift!"

Dohko gave a thumbs up. "I'll show you the album sometime. You'll love it!"

Yushira turned to Lance. "Pegasus, why did you say he was an old man?! He looks no older than my brother!"

Lance, however, was furious. "ROSHI! Why the fuck!" How was he going to talk about Misopheta Menos when no one was supposed to know about it? "Why… are you… looking like that?!"

The Master looked himself over, confused. "Like what?" He waved hand over his wet-bared muscles "Lance, this is just as nature made your Master."

Lance covered Cerah's eyes before she exposed herself to this state secret even more. "NO, it's NOT! You're NOT SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE THAT! To ANYONE!"

Cerah held his protecting hand. She appreciated the concern, but had seen naked bodies before. "I-I don't mind, Saint Lance? It's okay!"

Yushira groaned. Why was Lance acting like a prude? "Geez, Pegasus, so your teacher's showing off his Ouchy-mama-ripped bod! Big deal! Grow up!"

Dohko held chin pensively. "Don't worry, ladies, I think I understand what my student is upset about. You see, I am typically mandated by Sanctuary to wear an old, wrinkled, purple gi that restrains my awesome powers, lest I cause tremendous damage to my surroundings!" he metaphorized. "I could be wearing it for safety, but today I wasn't expecting visits so I have chosen to rebel and keep my au-natural form for a change."

This clumsy analogy for Dohko's old-vs-young forms was better than nothing to Lance. "Y-yes, finally, thank you, Roshi! Why are you not wearing the purple gi? You could get all of us in trouble for seeing you without it?!"

The Master took a deep breath, then voiced outloud "BECAUSE, my dear student, LIFE is more than wearing wrinkled, purple shirts just because some old man in Greece tells you to! Sometimes you have to CUT LOOSE!"

Crane Yushira nodded, raising fists. "YEAH! Down with purple shirts!" She bumped Lance's arm. "Come on, Pegasus, loosen up already!"

Lance sunk face into palm. There just HAD to be some kind of word for these under-the-bridge-level of embarrassments Dohko loved putting him through.

By contrast, Cerah admired the sheer display of confidence. Even if it was a bit overboard, here was a man who had no fear to take on anything or anyone. More than ever, she believed this had to be Libra Dohko, the only warrior in the world that her teacher, Daemon Lucifer, feared.

"Saint Dohko." she respectfully approached. "Like I said, I've come a long way to ask you for help. The Dragon, Seiryu, has taken interest in me and I want you to help me join Saint Lance's quest. However, I must be honest…"

Yushira perked at this and Dohko rose a brow.

With a bit of a fight, she spat it out. "My first teacher… was your great enemy, Lucian!"

The Libra's face darkened. "I see… So that guy raised you?"

Cerah got on her knees and hands. "B-But, but I swear on my life, as a Zodiac Knight! I serve Athena and her ideals! Even if I owe my teacher a great debt, I wish to do good! Please, Lord Dohko, consider my request!"

Dohko folded arms, covering his face to hide his thoughts. "So… my greatest enemy's student seeks MY tutelage! Mmm… very serious, indeed!"

Lance rose a brow, seeing a shine in Dohko's eyes. "Master, why are you smirking like that?"

The Libra Saint turned to the Amazon. "And you? Applying to my student's suicide mission as well?"

"No, I got no clue what Pegasus is up to." Yushira assured. She silently messaged her joke to keep her promise to Lance. "What, is he organizing a grouch tournament or something?"

Dohko laughed, annoying Lance. "Perhaps!" He liked this one already. "So, you just want me to adopt you as a student, then?"

The amazon nodded frantically. "Absolutely! Please, Saint Dohko! I want to become your successor! Train me in your arts! I want to become a Gold Rank and kick ass as hard as you do!"

The Gold Saint of Libra scoffed, squinting. " What?! UH! Not just my student, but my successor?! Bold request, if I say so myself! You have some guts, asking me such a thing, Amazon!"

Lance winced. Here came the heartbreak. He felt sorry for Cerah and Yushira, but he warned both of them about this. He sensed the two girls bracing themselves to have to console each other.

Dohko pointed at her. "I feel a strong Libra in you! I like you more and more! I'll officially consider it!"

Lance gawked in outrage. "WHAT?!"

Dohko then pointed at Cerah. "And you! Nothing would make me happier than turn that silver-furred bat's student into a REAL warrior! You're coming on board as well!"

Yushira screamed in delight and hugged the naked man. "Oh my god, REALLY?! Holy SHIT! THANK YOU!"

Cerah also gasped. "L-Lord Dohko, really? I won't let you down! I swear on my soul!"

"No problem." Dohko then sneezed aside. "Excuse me, I was standing in that water for hours waiting for you three to arrive. Let's talk over dinner and tea."

{======================|A3|======================}

Later inside, the two girls sat around Lord Dohko's square, short table and gasped in delight at the steaming pot of fish and vegetables that Pegasus Lance rested in it, along with a cup of tea for his teacher.

Tentatively, Cerah's chopsticks took another piece of grilled beef with sauteed veggies into her mouth and felt it melting into spiced goodness. "Mm! Shaint Lanshe! Thish is sho good! I feel like I could cry!"

Lance chuckled, touched. "Thank you, Cerah. You don't have to flatter me so much."

Raised in the Underworld and the poverty of Rodario, though, she wasn't exaggerating. "This is the best food I've ever had!" She held out her plate. "Can I have more? Please?"

Dohko laughed and sipped from his drink. "It's the perk of having a personal chef with the Fire element, miss Heloise! I strongly recommend getting a Lance of your own for your kitchen."

Lance tossed his oven mitts out and handed Cerah another serving. "I just used the stove, Master."

"So serious." Dohko saw the Amazon tense up, like she just stopped herself from making a joke. "This kid just begs you to make fun of him, doesn't he, Saint Crane?"

Yushira shook like she'd explode. "I'd love to, Saint Dohko, but I can't. I promised I wouldn't for a whole year."

The Master scoffed. "A year?! Now why would you ever do that?! I would explode if I had to stop making fun of my student for even five minutes."

Cerah changed the subject before Yushira felt even worse. "Saint Dohko, I wanted to ask if this means we really are officially students of yours. I'm currently enrolled at the Saintia Academy, and, well, I don't really want to quit it."

"You aren't accepted just yet. I still want to run a Pretest on you both, understood?" he demanded, getting the two girls to nod obediently. "Also, you'll be dividing house chores with Lance while you're here."

Yushira gawked. "Chores?!"

Lance smiled with a little bit of evil satisfaction. "Oh, I'm sorry, did you think this would be summer camp, Yush'?"

Having worked as a maid around Rodario, Cerah didn't mind at all. "R-Right, of course, Saint Dohko! I'll do my best! I can't cook this well, but I can clean, wash, rinse, whatever you need me to."

"Such enthusiasm! You'll do just fine in Mount Rozan, miss Heloise. As for the academy, you're not quitting a damn thing. We will make your travels there part of your training." Dohko assured.

Lance saw Yushira hesitant to eat, despite staring at the food intently. "Not gonna take a bite, Yush'? Not a fan of fish?"

She stiffened. The food looked fantastic, in fact. "Again, I want to, but I can't."

Grumbling at his own stupidity, Lance nodded. "Mm, I see. Don't worry." He took his teacher's shoulder. "Master, let's go upstairs so Yushira can be without her mask."

The Master nodded in agreement and followed his student. "We'll be right back, girls. We're just, um, going to prepare your rooms."

Once she was sure the two men closed a door behind them upstairs, Yushira took off her porcelain face, wiping it. "Finally. Thank Artemis. My face is so sweaty."

Cerah saw Yushira's face for the first time and widened eyes. "Miss Yushira, you….!"

She smirked. "Don't make a big deal out of these, okay? No one needs to know."

Cerah smiled, honored by the sign of trust. Now she realized why Bat Brune's Nightmare Sonar didn't work so well. She played it all off with a subject change. "That mask is really tough to wear, uh?"

"Let's just say those Saintia princesses you hang out with don't know how good they got it, Cerah. Except Olivia. She's cool with me." Yushira took her first bite and felt it sending her into paradise. "Ugh, why is this so good?! Is there anything that Pegasus bastard can't do?!"

Cerah nodded happily and took another bite. "This is so exciting, though! Lord Dohko's really taking us in! A Saint of Gold, miss Yushira!" she then paused and looked fearful. "Oh, goddess, is he going to make me look after that tiger of his?"

"Don't worry." Yushira cheered. "We'll find someone to make a Lance plushie for it to gnaw on. That should keep it happy."

{======================|A3|======================}

Closing the door to Dohko's study behind them, Lance folded arms. "Okay, what is this about, Master? Why did you agree to train them right away? This better not be a gambit for you to get a free pair of maids!"

Dohko gave him a quizzical look. "You sound like you brought them all this way expecting me to disappoint them. How cruel of you, Lance. Besides, I said I'd consider it, not that I agreed. You might still have to take them back."

Lance squinted. "Bullshit! You've shown yourself young! You don't have any intention of sending them back to Sanctuary! You either already sense in Cerah the reason I brought her in, or you're fucking with me in a really unfunny way!"

The Master laughed, impressed. "You really can't fool a Cancer, can you? Alright, I confess. Yes, I've been expecting you to show up with a new dragon sooner or later, Lance."

"You have? How?"

The Master looked out the window to the waterfall. "Seiryu has been restless lately. He keeps moving around, projecting his arrogant thoughts out of Mount Rozan, even though you've made the decision to renounce his path. This was a clear sign to me that he had a new 'pet project' somehow. I just didn't know who. So when you showed up in Arlia again, I decided to observe the three of you from afar."

Finding some reason with this, Lance's posture relaxed. "Alright. Do you think she has what it takes, then?"

Dohko shrugged. "She's a bit scrawny for the Path of the Dragon,-" he smirked, looking over Lance. "-but I've worked with worse."

While even Lance had to indeed gain a whopping twenty pounds of muscle to prepare himself for Dohko's training, he meant the other important aspect. "What about the heart, Master? Do you see strength in her spirit?"

"It's a bit early to tell, but I sense a good will in her. She is boring, like Shion, and that makes her perfect for the Dragon Cloth." Dohko held chin pensively. "As for the other one, the Amazon… I've been looking for a good candidate to carry on the Path of the Tiger for a while. Who knows, it could be an interesting change of pace for me to teach a pair of girls, rather than another dull guy."

Lance squinted protectively. "Master, if I find out you accepted them for some perverted reason, or that you acted inappropriately -"

"Who do you take me for, Pegasus Lance?!" Dohko snapped, reverting the anger in the room. "The Paths of Rozan are sacred and dangerous! Whole lives have been ruined by the secrets of this mountain! You've experienced the Phoenix, so you should know I would never take anyone I didn't see fit down one of them!"

The youth breathed out, both relieved and feeling a bit guilty. "You're right. I'm sorry, Master, I just had to ask."

Dohko turned disdainfully. "Besides, those two are too young. I prefer someone more in my age range."

Lance scoffed amusedly. "I don't think Sanctuary will let you date the Pope, Master."

The Master laughed at this. "Is that a joke from you, Lance? Also, pah, he wishes!"

Lance folded arms frustratedly again. "Yeah, speaking of your age, can you tell me why you're like this? The real reason?! You made me look like a huge liar in front of those two! I've been telling Cerah for a month that you look like a wet pile of socks left to dry out on the ground."

"Right." Dohko frowned nervously, something Lance concerningly had rarely seen him do. "We need to talk, student. We have a serious problem. It's about your training."

{======================|A3|======================}

Ethiopia,

Sanctuary Farm Safehouse

{======================|A3|======================}

Outside, driving the jeep Sanctuary provided them with up to the brick household, Crateris Suisho parked and got out accompanied by Equuleus Olivia. "We're here."

The black-haired Saintia followed him and beheld the safehouse. It was an inconspicuous farm in the Ethiopian highlands, not too far from where the legendary citadel of New Lalibela was located. Hoplites surrounded the premise and demanded Saint Suisho's paperwork, which he readily provided.

Suisho returned to her and tossed her the water bottles. "Here, take these. You'll thank me later when we go to the island."

She nodded and packed them inside her travel backpack. "Thank you. We read about Andromeda Island at the academy, so I'm sure I will."

"We'll be heading there as soon as we speak to the Master." The Silver Saint warned.

She nodded. "Of course. Saint Shinta is quite famous. I wonder what he's like face to face."

Crateris Suisho held tongue as he guided her in. He knew the Andromeda Saint wasn't known just in Sanctuary, but in some Underworld circles as well. He had been involved with the stopping of at least two False Specter excursions against Sanctuary, not to mention he took part in the defense against Daemon Lucifer. And now Reaper Grim was hovering him at Rhadamanthys' word. He was surely a powerful Saint warrior and very likely the target of the assassination planned by Rhadamanthys.

As a Silver Saint, though, he had to pretend he had no special interest. "Well, if he's best friends with Pegasus, I'm sure he's probably the battle-hardened type that doesn't get easily daunted."

She chuckled at the comparison. "Which means this Specter infiltration is serious."

"You can still head back." Suisho suggested. In fact, the secret Judge preferred if the damn Saintia got lost already so he could control the situation in Lord Hades' favor.

Her head shook. "No, I very much want to meet him. And I promised Saint Lance I'd be here."

"Very well." He walked up to the young woman standing by the safehouse door. "Excuse me, miss. My name is Crateris Suisho. We're here for Saint Shinta? Is he inside?"

The young lady grumbled and folded her arms. "Mm, no… he's not… inside."

There were a pair of kids by the door, one blonde boy and one brunette girl, laughing into their hands. Suisho blinked. The miss looked quite upset. And what were the two brats laughing at?

"Can you point us at him, then? We have urgent business with the Master and we can't afford to waste time."

'She' pointed at 'herself', slumping face in horrific embarrassment.

The Silver Saint widened eyes. "Oh." Suisho cleared his throat embarrassedly. "Ahem! S-Saint Shinta, I apologize profusely! I did not intend to, um, mistake you!"

The Andromeda Saint nodded. He hated when this happened, but it wasn't their fault. "It's alright. This happens to everyone. Are you the security detail? You're Lance's new squad leader too, right?"

Suisho gulped in distraught. Saint Lance's best friend looked so androgynous that Hades himself might have picked him as a vessel. "Y-Yes! And this is Saintia Equuleus Olivia."

Olivia stepped up "It's a pleasure to meet you, Saint Shinta." She bowed respectfully with her hands in waist and tried to remember her Japanese. "Umm, hazime mashita?"

Shinta gulped, forgetting what happened. What a beautiful girl! And her accent was so good for a westerner. He bowed back. "L-Likewise! Nihongo wo hanasemasu ka?!"

Hitting her limits of her knowledge immediately, Olivia shook head nervously, but did know the 'hanase' part meant he was asking if she knew the language. "Sorry, I only know a couple of sentences. My Academy etiquette teacher has a fascination with Japan. I hope I didn't misspeak."

Shinta beamed. She might have made a slight mistake but he wasn't going to hold it against her. "Not at all! You all arrived so quickly, though. I thought Sanctuary would take a few days to send help."

"Pegasus was quite worried, so I volunteered to come here." Suisho confirmed. He was curious how Lance was friends with someone so different from him. "You have some dedicated friends in the ranks, Saint Shinta."

The Andromeda Saint smiled. So, Lance was responsible. "I'm very lucky, it seems. Is he coming, by the way?" he anxiously asked. Grim's warnings about Lance being in danger flared in his mind. "I'd very much like to see him."

"Soon, Saint Shinta." Olivia assured.

"We'll just bring our equipment inside and then converse on what to do. Olivia?"

She nodded. "Right away." Before helping, though, she turned to Shinta. "Saint Andromeda, I know we just met, but could I ask you a favor?"

Shinta nodded. "Of course!"

Olivia smiled embarrassedly. "Well, how do I explain this? At my school we have several club activities and sometimes we have to organize fundraisers for events by selling things we make to the Saintia students. Sometimes, though, it's tough to come up with really good stuff."

This sounded like a lot of fun. "Oh, like charity and classes? Would you like my help with that somehow?"

"Y-Yes. I was wondering." Olivia then pulled out a stack of magazines from her backpack. "Could you sign these for our fundraisers, please? We intend to auction them to my classmates."

Shinta gasped, seeing his cute twelve-year-old self holding the Sisyphean Challenge cup on a page title 'The newest Coliseum Dreamie' dated at least three years. He staggered at first at such an old part of his past, but then laughed. Shinta had no idea why his signature was so valuable on pictures of himself to some people, but it put a smile on his face that people would be so happy for his successes.

He laughed. "Amazing, how do you have these?!"

"You're very popular in my school, Saint Shinta." she understated. She knew girls who swore off romance and love until they could meet this man.

"Athena, I haven't seen these in years!" It was a bit vain, but if it made miss Olivia's friends even happier for him, plus raise money for good causes, he'd do it. "Of course I'll sign them! How many of these would you like?"

Olivia smiled in relief, having expected a refusal. What a gentle guy. No wonder he was Saint Lance's first friend. She dropped her backpack and pulled out the giant stack onto a chair, thumping on it like a heavy dumbbell.

Shinta stared, bewildered, at its height. "Oh!"

Meanwhile, Crateris Suisho was accompanied inside by the two students who were laughing earlier.

"Are you a Silver Saint?" the girl asked.

"Yes, I am." he confirmed, still feeling embarrassed. He studied the two to try to figure out why Lucifer would be so interested in attacking Andromeda Island not once, but twice, and now Reaper Grim as well. They seemed like a pair of perfectly normal kids, though. "I'm the Crateris Silver Saint. I'm sorry if I insulted your Master. Are you two Saint Shinta's students?"

She pouted angrily. "What is wrong with your head? I'm a boy, as well!"

Suisho gasped. Again?

"Elda!" the blonde boy next to her called, looking upset. "The first time was funny, but don't lie to him."

The tomboyish little girl cackled. "Come on, Al', look at his face! That was funny too, admit it!"

The humiliated Judge tried to conceal an angry growl. If a Skeleton tried this, he'd have them split down the middle as a lesson. "Is Saint Cynthia here? I need to speak with her."

Elda grinned and guided him to the kitchen. They found the blue-armored Amazon transfixed with the television.

"We are here at Hokkaido, Japan, where a massive thunderstorm of unprecedented scale is currently raging and has driven off the guards and caretakers of Mount Daitetsu National Park." The international reporter on the TV spoke. The camera turned up and showed a truly frightening display of colors in the sky among the peaks, particularly gold and blue, which cracked back and forth like the mountain had attracted the rage of every thunder god ever imagined. "Huge fires caused by the bolts are motivating the local authorities to evacuate the Park, but some locals speak of tremors felt in the area as well."

"Hey. Saint Cynthia, isn't Japan Saint Shinta's home country?" Elda asked, sitting with Albiore in the sofa.

The Cassiopeia Saint's masked face just stared at the TV images. She recognized the golden bolts "Ares' sword. It couldn't be."

Suisho approached her. "Hey, Cynthia. I came as soon as I could." She didn't respond to him. "Saint Cynthia? Are you listening to me?"

He tapped her shoulder gently and she almost jumped, like someone tried to take her mask off.

She shook head. "Oh, I'm sorry. Suisho, it's good to see you again." The Amazon rotated the TV buttons back to cartoons. "Hey kids, let's watch something else, okay? Enough world news for today."

"Some reports say this is the biggest confluence of meteorological events in the country since the Second World War *gshh* two bats! Ha-Ha-Ha! There are TWO bats in my castle! *thunder crackling*"

Albiore rolled eyes. They were expected to train with lethal chain techniques in Andromeda Island, but also to still like Sesame Street? Sanctuary was so weird at times.

{======================|A3|======================}

Mount Rozan

{======================|A3|======================}

Lance blinked. "What do you mean, you can't show me the 0th sense anymore?!"

"Just as I said. After our last training session, I've been unable to summon my Chi without more and more effort." Dohko flatly responded. He took a rock he carried to his study from the outside and focused, trying to break it with sheer natural strength, rather than Cosmos. Master just seemed to make himself tired. "D-Damn it, see?! At the end of the last Holy War, I could take something like this and smash it into dust, Cosmos or not. Now it won't even crack."

"But you were able to lift that huge rock in our training!" Lance recalled. "Why is this happening now?!"

Dohko tossed it into the bin. "That's what I'm getting at. It's the Misopheta Menos."

It then hit Lance; "Your slowed heartbeat. I see."

Dohko nodded grimly. "The technique is the virtual opposite of using Chi. All these decades, instead of burning life expectancy for strength, I've been burning strength for life expectancy. And now my body can't dial it back."

While this made sense, Lance couldn't just accept this. They had a war to fight. "How long until you recover, then, Master?"

Dohko sweated. "It could take years of me letting my body stay in its young form for me to regain my touch with Chi. Years you don't have. I'll be lucky if I can keep fighting using Cosmos…."

Lance sat down, bewildered. "I didn't realize you could lose a sense like this!"

Dohko frowned. Lance was too young to face this harsh reality of living in Sanctuary, but even the 7th sense in them would eventually expire, leaving them all ruined wrecks. Dohko had dodged this reality by preserving it with Menos, while Shion was a damn Muvian.

The 0th sense was even worse, because it manipulated your personal, limited lifeforce, rather than the infinite power of the universe.

"It's perfectly natural. We're not supposed to remove our blocks to begin with. Why do you think knowledge of it is so poorly preserved compared to the 7th?" Dohko questioned. "We are quite lucky that this battle of yours with Perseus Acrisius gave you a hint of it. It means it's not impossible for you to reach it. However, without someone to bounce energy off of, compare sensations and whatnot, it will just get harder from now on."

Lance guessed the rest of Dohko's thoughts. "So, you're hoping Cerah or Yushira can do it for you."

Dohko nodded. "Exactly. Especially if unlike you, they dedicate themselves to their Paths in Mount Rozan."

Lance rubbed his eyes. "Great! So we're stuck with them, now that I've finally made a breakthrough. I knew there had to be some kind of roadblock!"

"We can't lose hope now, Lance! Without Chi, attacking the Underworld is a no-go! You must focus on the lucky break you had." Dohko studied his student. "Wait, It's actually a bit too lucky, considering you only had a few weeks of training and were having so much trouble with it. What… changed?"

The Pegasus Saint shivered. "N-Nothing! I was just in a dangerous situation and focused on my desire to survive, like you said!"

The explanation landed weakly for Dohko, him being much more versed in the Senses than his student was. Lance had been in plenty of dangerous situations. That was the whole point of the rock lifting exercise he had him do and that wasn't working at all. There was only a couple of factors Lance was missing and only one among them the teenager could be hiding. The Master started finger-counted all the different things that could help get in touch with one's mentally locked strength. Physical training, fear for one's life, fear for a child's life, adrenaline…

The Master gasped, realizing what was missing. "You got a girlfriend, didn't you?!"

Lance turned away, red like lava. "Master, don't be ridiculous! Me and Olivia are just-"

"AHA! YES! YOU DID! Come here!" Dohko bear-hugged his boy, practically lifting him off his feet. Lance breathed out his air with the tight grip. "My student is turning into a man!" He put him down and patted his back like a happy dad. "Congratulations, dear boy! I'm so proud of you! When do I get to meet her? Where did you even find someone who likes that angry dog face of yours?"

Rattled, Lance blinked. "I, uh, I don't know. She's the Equuleus Saintia. The Academy's class president, in fact."

Dohko's eyes widened. "What?! Seiryu's scales, Lance! What a catch! I would tell the whole world about this! Why didn't you let me know sooner?!"

He straightened himself. Lance feared Dohko would give him embarrassing comments or womanizing advice, but he seemed to just be having the reaction a proud father would. "It's really recent. We're still figuring things out and, well, I really thought you'd give me a hard time."

What a ridiculous idea. The Master rolled his eyes "A hard time, he says! Pegasus Lance, what kind of bully do you think I am?! For Athena's sake! Just because I make fun of you sometimes for falling off a tightrope or being such a boring take-myself-seriously Cancer, it doesn't mean that… that I don't love you."

The insecure Bronze Saint quieted at this, feeling his eyes wet. He quickly rubbed them, nodding in acknowledgment of Dohko's words. Dohko just smiled at this and proudly hugged him one more time, reassuring him that everything would be fine.

"You're going to be fine, kid. Don't let this one go. " Dohko asked. "You said you had to go to Shinta, correct? Specter attacks take precedence over training. You can leave those two downstairs with me, Lance. Go make sure your best friend is safe."

"Thank you, Master. For all of this." Something even more urgent pressed Lance's thoughts, though. "I think there's something I need to do first while I'm here in Mount Rozan, though."

{======================|A3|======================}

Approaching the lake, Lance saw the darkness of the night in China darken the grove until only the starlight of the Dragon Constellation was visible in the water, shimmering like sky emeralds. Ma Chao the tiger growled in Dohko's grip.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Dohko challenged. "Even discounting the reason you sought his help to begin with, he might get really angry."

Lance nodded with some nervousness. "I think that if I don't do it now, I will regret it later, Master."

Dohko exhaled, smirking proudly. "You've come a long way, kid. Do it."

Hearing the conversation, Cerah came outside. "Lord Dohko, Saint Lance? What's going on?" She then screamed in fright when she saw Ma Chao outside and growling. She ran behind Lord Dohko. "AHH! Why is it out?!"

Dohko laughed at her face. "Don't worry, miss Heloise. Ma Chao is not going to touch you. He is only here to sniff his rival out for us."

"H-His rival?" she asked. Turning on her Emission Lenses, she sucked her breath, seeing a huge mass of energy inside the water of a familiar shape. "That's the monster from my dream!" To her shock, she saw Saint Lance strip off his shirt and reveal his dragon tattoo. Before she could react to him having the same mark she saw on herself, though, the Pegasus Saint dove into the water and disappeared into the darkness. "Saint LANCE, DON'T!"

Dohko saw her jump in. "H-Hey, wait, Cerah!"

{======================|A3|======================}

Holding his breath and swimming deeper and deeper, Pegasus Lance followed the faint, green mass of light at the bottom of the murky water until he came face to face with the coiled dragon. Seiryu, as always, was resting rather disinterested at his presence, existing peacefully in his paranormal realm in that lake like an emperor in his sandy throne.

Despite his previous confidence, coming across the enormous shadow of the dragon made a great, fearful dread begin to fill Lance's chest. Lance remembered the first time he confronted Seiryu, a year earlier, and made his contract with the dragon (*). The creature almost killed him for daring to ask it. What was it going to react like to him renouncing it?

(*) Chapter 16 - "Ascending Dragon"

Seiryu's eyes opened, glowing emerald green as always. Its beard flowed gently with the water. His gaze seemed to dare Lance to make the first move.

"I want to thank you for everything you've done for me." Lance began. He was never sure how to address this being, whether to call it by its name or by some kind of title. "You helped me heal from what the Queen did to me and you saved my life twice from Lucian. You also lent me your strength many times. Every time I used the Rising Dragon Fist I knew your hand was over mine. But-"

As soon as the 'but' came out in his messaging, he felt a tension rise sharply in the air accompanied by a deepening of the darkness. The creature was so gigantic that even a very faint squint from it was as visible as the dimming of a lighthouse's flare.

Lance filled himself with courage and continued. "But things have changed. I've grown stronger on the inside and I have found ways to brave Guilty, even when your seal was weakening. I now have people I care about that help me through his lies. Seiryu, I also can't become your Dragon. I want to end our contract and return your techniques before I become your new monster. Even…. Even if it weakens me."

The creature began moving, freezing Lance in terror. Its coiling body slithered forward, surrounding Lance, whose eyes darted left and right in fear of some sort of attack. Raising its head and small arms over Lance, it gazed down on him, appearing colossal. For a moment, Lance thought it would zap him with cosmos from the eyes, or constrict him, or swallow him for daring to back down on their deal, but it just seemed to observ-

Lance felt a sharp pain puncturing his back and screamed, letting out his oxygen into the water. One of Seiryu's many small arms positioned by the coiling behind Lance had shoved its claw into his back! He felt strength drain out and his body spasm. Was this it?!

"You have served Mount Rozan honorably, Pegasus Lance. You have been faithful to your teacher, defended this holy place of mine from the False Specters and treated my techniques with the respect they deserve. You have also brought two worthy souls to Mount Rozan and chosen for yourself a mission to defend all life on Earth." It then retracted its claw, leaving behind an unharmed, recoiling Lance. "I accept your request."

Relaxing, Lance touched his back, feeling the familiar warmth of the dragon tattoo disappearing. It was gone. He didn't even remember how to use Shoryuha.

Yet, he remembered the Koryuha?! Or at least a strange idea of it."What's going on? You did something to me!"

The coiling of his body began forming an upward draft that slowly raised Lance out. "From this moment onward, you will face the Phoenix' evil influence without my aid. You will also lose access to the Water element. However, I have decided to leave you a parting gift for your services and honor; the secret of the Koryuha's meteoric power. Use it with your Fire, your Cosmos and your burgeoning Chi to perfect your techniques when the time to defend life on Earth comes."

This was a stunning amount of generosity from the dragon deity, who frequently mentioned how obligated it felt whenever it aided the Saints in their battles. "T-Thank you! But why?"

Its crocodilian mouth 'laughed'. "Because, little human, Athena isn't the only God who wants a world flooded with light. I just disagree with her patience for your species."

Lance nodded, determined. "Thank you. For everything! I promise I won't stop until that whole damn Underworld gets torn down."

"One last thing; a warning about your future." Seiryu spoke as the little light left of the surface began washing them. "Even if you've embraced the Pegasus, my wife has not forgotten you."

"Y-your WIFE?! You mean, the Phoenix is-"

"Love is blind, human. Even among Gods." the Dragon interrupted him. "More to the point, unlike me, she never really lets go of those who pick her Path. Her greed and fantasies of control burn too hot. You can ask any of Mu's survivors. She will find a way to get you back… and use her current broken Mara for it if needed. Now go. A bright future awaits you, should you fight for it."

Lance was about to thank him when a pair of arms from above suddenly wrapped over his body and pulled!

{======================|A3|======================}

Gripping Saint Lance tightly, Cerah pulled him out of the water and dumped him into the shore. The two coughed out water.

Dohko tied up Ma Chao and rushed down. "Cerah, what in Athena's name! Why did you do that? Lance was fine!"

She looked pleadingly, her eyes shining with cosmos. "B-but, but he dove into the water and there's something huge and scary inside of it! I saw it capturing him!"

Dohko widened eyes. "Wait, you can see Seiryu?!"

She turned off her Emission Lenses, causing the shine in her eyes to disappear. "It's just a technique I have. I can give my eyes a Cosmos-vision to see its movements, instead of just positions."

But Dohko still seemed surprised. "Cerah, even so, you shouldn't be able to see him! Seiryu is mostly Chi, not Cosmos."

Coughing out the rest of the water in his mouth, Lance looked up. "W-Wait, but then that means… Master Dohko, Cerah has been pushing her body to extreme levels for a long time with her Prismatic Shot techniques. She's even been falling into comas and drinking the Waters of Life! What if she's already halfway there?"

Cerah panicked. "Wait, half way where? Is something wrong with me?! Am I sick?"

Dohko laughed and hugged the small girl, spinning her around and putting her down. "Wrong?! This is perfect! We just need to work on Saint Crane as well and we can get Lance the sparring partners for Chi he needs!"

The rattled girl wasn't sure what was going on, but she smiled happily that she was pleasing her new teacher. "T-Thank you, I guess." She clenched her fists determinedly. "I'll do my best, Saint Dohko!"

"Boy, Yushira is going to hate being in last place in the race for this, too." Lance realized, getting up. "Master, maybe we should hold our horses, let Yushira catch up, too. They're just starting."

The Master sighed. "We don't have a choice. We're at a stage where you need practical experimentation, to feel what Chi can do for you. Your only alternative to getting someone to practice it with is…"

Lance rose a brow. "Is what? Spit it out."

Dohko rubbed jaw at this frightening prospect. "It's to find a Chi user among the Specters to battle. Scary as that is, though, somehow I doubt you'll find someone in touch with their lifeforce in an army of death worshippers."

{======================|A3|======================}

Meanwhile,

Andromeda Island

{======================|A3|======================}

The hot sun blazing over the deserted, volcanic island began to dim as the afternoon at the Horn of Africa approached its end. Atlae looked up and watched a mysterious cloud of darkness, one not originating from the twin volcanoes, block out what was left of it. The merciful shadow took over the area and Atlae began to feel not only a precipitous drop in temperature, but also the far-off Cosmos signals dissipate into nothing.

It was frightening work, like an ill omen before an attack. So, this was Reaper Grim's technique. There was not even the feeling of the constellations' cosmos above him. No wonder he and Lord Alraune Queen ambushed the Saints in the Swiss Alps so effectively.

Knowing Lord Grim would still take a while, as he had a wide area to cover without the Saints noticing, Atlae decided to practice his music a bit more. He needed to, now that he was free to do so. He was also isolated on the island after the Saints evacuated its Master, so it should be fine.

"Lord Genbu, I offer you this song of prayer. Please calm my spirit for the task I'm about to embark on." Atlae mused. Blowing into his necklace flute, the sounds crafted the song of waves again. As his mind relaxed, his Chi began to flow more peacefully, calming the monstrosity inside his heart.

Emerging out of his Levantine Door not too far, Grim found the Muvian sitting there on a rock waiting for him. "Did you take a look around?"

Atlae paused his music, got up and looked at the wasteland stretches around them. "Yes. It's a beautiful place. I just finished scouting the desert and the northern hills. For an island no one will set foot in anymore, Lalibela is still beautiful."

The Specter squinted. "Lalibela?"

The blonde Muvian smirked self-consciously. "It's the name this place has on my people's maps. I know they call it something else now." He couldn't expect a Specter to be familiar with these things, though. "If I had time and your permission, Lord Grim, I'd hike these valleys to the north. I saw from afar that it's full of ghost towns, where the royal city used to exist. I bet if I put my ear to the walls, I can still hear their occupants' voices."

Grim scoffed at such sentimentality for fallen earthly kingdoms. "This island has been dead since the Age of Myth, Brute Star. There's nothing here. No voices."

"Do you not care for the dead, Lord Grim?" Atlae asked.

The tall, creepy man let out a shivering chuckle. "The dead? Why should I?"

Atlae frowned embarrassedly. Was it such a strange question? "You're a Specter, aren't you?"

"That's right, a Specter, not an angel."

Again, Genbu Atlae staggered a bit at such a reaction. "But… they're people, right?"

The Muvian turned head with a mix of pity and disappointment. When he first entered the Underworld, two years earlier, Atlae was hoping the Specters of Hades, of all people, would feel sympathy for the dead. If anyone could do so, it had to be the warriors of Hades, correct?

However, it seemed that it was the opposite.

{==============|A3|==============}

"You've come to the wrong place, Muvian." Daemon Lucifer had told him, right before locking Atlae up. "Hades no longer listens to the prayers of mortals."

{==============|A3|==============}

Hades' Specters were especially deaf to those voices, likely so that they could perform their hell-guarding duties better. What a sad situation. Atlae remembered Lord Arthur reading him stories of what Hades used to be like. Maybe one day, when these Holy Wars ended, he'd listen to the dead once more.

"They are zombies, Brute Star." Grim added, seeing him unsure. "They all think their memories are wonderful, their lives unique and their loved ones precious, but they all sin the same, too. And they scream the same. Is that what you sense here, Atlae, with your Muvian mind? The three-thousand-year-old echoes of screams of Andromeda Island as Poseidon punished this island of profligates?"

The Muvian mused. "Perhaps, yes."

"Don't feel sorry for them. They got what they deserved." Grim then laughed, picturing them in some Malebolge of the 7th Prison. "In fact, they're still getting it! Ah, ah, ah!"

Atlae's green eyes narrowed, imagining Poseidon's monster advancing through Lalibela's streets thousands of years before their time, crushing and burning everything in its path until nothing but a trail of horror and cosmic radiation glowed in the place of streetlights. He could see it clearly in his mind. Yes, he could picture the fires and the screams and the running. He could feel the heart-pounding terror of countless innocent people not at fault for the hubris of one person, not even aware of one encounter between their Queen and a mermaid, jumping off cliffs and high windows to escape the colossal rampage.

However, it was not because he had some special Muvian sense, but because he had a frame of reference for causing such destruction.

Atlae hid it all behind a beaming smile. "What's next for us, Lord Insidious? Are the rest of the Seraphim going to join us?"

Grim sat on a big rock. Despite it, he still looked as tall as Atlae. "Not yet. Now we wait to see which mistake Pegasus Lance makes. Don't worry, though. From what I've seen of him in Switzerland, it won't take that long.."

{======================|A3|======================}

Chapter End

{======================|A3|======================}

Next Chapter: Chapter 83 – 3rd Arc – Episode 11: The Hand of Talos - Part 1 of 2

Release Date: April 25th

Description: The Saints gather at Andromeda Island to investigate the Specter infiltration and Reaper Grim lays his trap, weaponizing Atlae in his quest to revive Prince Michael. In the meantime, the battle of Hokkaido reaches an important conclusion as multiple parties attempt to intervene.

Author's Comments:

Oh dear lord, I did NOT mean for this chapter to get so long and technical. Even after betareading it was a big struggle to streamline things, but there was just a lot of ground to cover in time for what's going to happen the next chapter, which will be shorter and simpler, I PROMISE!

Anyway, etymology time. I don't quite want to talk about Atlae yet, but you'll see more of him soon. Atlae is actually a character I've been working on for the better part of 10 years, but I've never been able to focus quite well on him because rewriting the False Holy War was just such a daunting task. And yes, he is the character that Rhadamanthys briefly fights in the Underworld at the end of the last arc. Atlae broke out of Lucifer's prison as a result of the chaos of the Exodus and thought he'd try to pay 'Hades' another visit.

As for Priam's underlings; all these names are protagonists from different Gundam shows. Most of these characters take part of some resistance group or other in their respective stories. Char Aznable, in particular, is culturally important to the point of being described as the Japanese Darth Vader

Anyway, be sure to leave a review or share the story if you enjoyed this chapter, or if you want to criticize it even. Like it on Twitter/Tumblr/Reddit and generally support this project if you enjoy it. You can find me in all those places under the Thrudgelmir2333 name.

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, live streams and games.

See ya \owo