The Secret of Sagittarius
With the calm that washed over Seiya and his friends after the Dark Saints' defeat, they looked forward to a much simpler life than what they led until then. In their minds, with the enemy defeated, they could pursue what once they deemed impossible: normalcy. It was under such a sense of normalcy that they went out to spend a fun Saturday together, like much of the week before.
That day everyone came to a diner, with the exception of Saori, who still had to deal with matters of companies and foundations. On the table was an assortment of unhealthy foods, from ice cream, to mousse, hamburgers, donuts… and they chatted and laughed with a levity once missing.
Miho, who agreed to accompany them as soon as she received an invitation, sat beside June. The first was dressed in a plain purple dress, whereas the second preferred her more tomboyish look, in a gray tank top and navy jeans. "Were you watching TV when the Dark Saints popped out of nowhere?" June asked her and went back to assaulting a chocolate mousse with a spoon, pulling off the lower half of the mask to eat then placing it back on each time.
The other girl nodded. "I was watching, but once the blackout happened, the broadcast went off the air."
"Hmm!" June swallowed and tilted her head left and right. "Duuh, of course. I didn't think of that."
"We only found out about the theft on the news."
"That must've been scary, but we were alright!"
"I was so worried! You have no idea how relieved I felt when Seiya showed up at the orphanage again."
"But, Miho…" June's tone became suggestive and almost malicious "… you're always happy when you see Seiya!" When she saw her friend's face burn and her eyes turn shy, she giggled and then looked at Seiya, who was on the other side of the table chatting with Shiryu, as oblivious as ever. "It's so obvious, but he's so dumb he can't notice!" She reached to him with a hand and gave a few light knocks to the side of his forehead, catching both of the young men's attention. "You can hear the echo in his skull. He'll never get a girlfriend with a brain this tiny!"
Seiya got immediately mad, although Miho's stare escaped the whole situation, a dumb smile in her mouth. "Ah, June, you can't make fun of me! You're single too!" he complained. June only insisted on giggling, so he tapped on Shiryu's shoulder pridefully. "Besides, Shiryu here is going to teach me to get a nice girl. He was with his girlfriend the other day, and she's really beautiful!"
With a confused frown, Shiryu subtly shook his head, mumbling: "Girlfriend…?"
"You know, the girl who told me how to save you."
"You mean Shunrei?"
"I don't remember." Seiya motioned arms around his hair to illustrate. "She had the braided hair and all, and she brought me flowers at the hospital."
"That is Shunrei for sure. She's not my girlfriend, Seiya, she's my childhood friend."
He got a sideways stare and a scoff with that. "Nah, no way, man. She's cute and she's clearly into you, you're wasting time."
Shiryu, as collected as he often was, frowned even more and babbled somewhat. "W-what are you talking about? She's just a very sweet friend, that's all. She was adopted by Old Master and takes care of him."
"Aaah, that makes sense. So that's why she didn't come with you this time."
"Sort of. I came from Jamir straight to the Ten Wind Caves, as Kiki told me to. I haven't had the chance to go to Rozan since; they might be worried about me."
"Go visit them and bring her over, that way she can have ice cream with us!"
He gave Seiya a big and bright smile at the thought. "That sounds like a good idea."
Left to the side, Hyoga and Shun were sharing a large bowl of mint ice cream, and between them lied a large book open on what looked like a chess diagram. They seemed isolated in their own little world apart from the others, seeing that Shun sought to teach his new friend the game. After a scoop, he said, pointing at an image: "So that is how it works. If I say 'pawn to c6', that means this pawn moves here. Here is c… here is 6."
Hyoga looked at it for a while and swallowed a spoonful. "Hmmm… and how do you know it's this pawn specifically?"
"You can assume based on its position and on how each piece moves."
He raised the eyebrows for a brief second and caressed his chin. "I… think I've forgotten how some of the pieces move."
"A-already, Hyoga?" Shun looked at him with the slightest hint of annoyance, as much as someone like him could come up with at least. "I just explained it to you!"
"Sorry, it's a lot of information," the other said and shrugged.
Shun puffed in frustration and proceeded to flip back a bunch of pages. "No problem, I do not mind going through all of it again."
Hyoga squinted at his comrade's insufferable patience; he himself was too lazy to have to go through all of the theory again, and would rather just talk about it when he had a board in front of him. "Hey, don't you think it's easier to teach me when we're actually playing the game?" he asked in a vain attempt at interruption.
"But you still have to learn openings, or you cannot even dream of defeating Saori and me."
"Openings?"
"Yeah," Shun turned the pages the other way around now, going for a marked spot and flipping some more to a destination. The page had lines and lines of letters and numbers interspersed by commas and chess diagrams, and his delicate finger slid to a particular line. "Here is notation for the Sicilian Defense."
To someone who had learned that chess and checkers were different games the other day, those pages were dense and frankly overwhelming, and it was no different to Hyoga, who had to come closer to the book to take in what was in it. "Look at all those numbers! Who even comes up with this sort of thing?"
"The Sicilians, I guess."
"Not just this, the whole thing!" He waved at the entire page. "I can't read any of these codes."
"That is why you have to pay attention, Hyoga!"
Their intersecting conversations continued, experiences that either they never had, or they seldom had opportunity to repeat. To spend life so leisurely and to give the self time to spend the day and meet those around them — that's not what young and orphaned Saints ever expected to have before death, yet there they were, able to laugh again, no longer in fear of coming days.
"So what are you guys going to do now that you dealt with those Dark Saints?" Miho asked everyone after a bout of laughter.
"Huh, I don't know. Hang out, play in the arcade, go for a hike…" replied Seiya.
June got overexcited at the possibilities and clapped: "Ooh, we should go camping!"
"Oh, yeah!"
"That would be super fun!"
"That will be nice, but remember it cannot all be fun and games, guys," Shun reminded everyone of their reality and duty, "the others have traveled to Jamir to get their Cloths fixed, and they said they will be training often. We should be training as well just in case, because other people could come after the Sagittarius Cloth."
Seiya stretched the arms and then rested the back of the head on both hands. "Ah, but we've trained our whole lives at this point! Can't we get a breather?"
"Shun's right," Hyoga argued. "We need to stay sharp and become better fighters."
And it was Shun who came up with the perfect plan to make Seiya care some more: "Seiya, you would not want Jabu to outclass you, would you?"
"What? Of course not, and at this point I know I'm stronger!" Seiya predictably replied.
"Not for long if he trains while you laze about."
The young Saint fumed and tightened a fist at the thought of his rival surpassing him. "You made it personal! I'll train so much, Jabu will lose to my shadow!" Shun smiled and hummed with how easy it had been.
In the Kido Mansion, things were quieter than usual in the absence of all the Saints, and Saori stayed at her office to take calls and check a pile of accounting documents and requests that accumulated in the past weeks. It would've been hard work for most people, although she wasn't one to pass this over to employees, seeing that she excelled both as a businesswoman and a bookkeeper.
Her labor's trance drove her thoughts to the latest happenings. With how inane all of it was, she could piece puzzles together in her head and think of details she had missed. Many times did she mentally reiterate the fundamentals, but the root cause of the Gold Cloth's presence and the Saints' nature reminded her of her grandfather's will.
Saori couldn't for the life of her grasp the cause for her subtle unease. Everything was supposed to be fine, yet a whisper deep within her called out nonetheless, a thin thread that she couldn't pull out of her memories no matter how hard. A sense of déjà vu made her stop all her work and place the pile she worked on aside over the desk.
"Is that all there is to the enemy?" she muttered alone. "I should think more about this matter before I relax." She took her notepad and opened it to the list of Cloths the orphans had been sent to get, and once again she was hit by the mourning of many lives definitely lost for naught. Still, she recalled that these orphans were not mere tools for her grandfather's goals, whether selfish or not; they were to become Saints. "The ultimate objective of a Saint is to protect Athena. Why would grandfather want the Bronze Saints to protect the Sagittarius Cloth? He was not an egotistical man."
She pondered, tapping a pen on the side of her head and spinning the chair to look out the balcony. The view of her garden, the blue sky, the large fountain, the range of trees around, the horizon… it all made reasoning flow smoothly for her.
"Let us rewind. Something happened in his visit to Athens; he studied and learned about the Saints at some point after. Where does the enemy come in?" Playing with the pen between the fingers, the woman rested both hands on the office chair's arms. "In his will, he said to only lure the enemy in if we had enough Saints to protect the Sagittarius Cloth, but why would they protect one Cloth when they are meant to protect the goddess Athena?" The longer her reasoning perdured, the more things made sense. All of the pieces she was able to connect, all of the missing parts that came to light, and all of the occurrences that came to pass made it natural. "The Cloth is the key to the enemy." Once a breeze caressed her face and long hair, she got up to the side, stepping over her enclosed high heels. "So what if… what if the Cloth is also the key to Athena?"
She paced out of the office and exited, leaving the door open behind her. Despite being in black office clothes, she hurried downstairs to where they stored the box of the Sagittarius Cloth. To have enough balance and support on her legs, she had to throw her shoes to the side and go on barefoot, carrying the box on her back with aid of the straps.
That silent, Tatsumi, who probably watched some corner around the gardens, didn't even notice the movement. Saori was able to bring the Sagittarius Cloth to the vast hall in the middle of the mansion, and she pulled a short wooden table from a corridor whereon she placed the box.
Opening it through the handle, she was faced with the shape of Sagittarius itself, pointing its golden bow in an imposing fashion. Its luster mirrored the surroundings after Tatsumi had given it a caring polish. "You truly are beautiful." She admired it in awe for a few instants, but was able to see that, at the surface of the metal, every image behind it began to wave as if affected by a heat she could not feel. "Huh?" Then a soft howl resounded from the breastplate, frail and unsure, albeit as holy as the white incandescence now emitted in its outline. "This radiance… will you show me the way to Athena?"
Saori recoiled at the Sagittarius Cloth's abrupt movement. Like the pointer in a compass, it rotated in place, found a direction, and stiffened back in place. The woman looked back and noticed that it seemed to point the bow at some random part of the wall leading to one of the corridors, yet when she turned inquisitively to the Cloth, it pulled the bow's tinged bowstring as if by magic.
"The bow… an arrow! You need an arrow," she realized and ran down to the underground gymnasium. From a pile of competitive equipment, she grabbed three arrows for safety and ran back up. To her relief, the Cloth still radiated and sought a projectile to shoot. She stepped onto the table and carefully placed an arrow there, as she would in practice, and made sure it was aligned. "Like this. Does this one work?"
The Cloth radiated stronger in response, thus it tensioned the bowstring awhile. Uncertain that it would hit its target, it repositioned further, now lifting the back from the table, an act that prompted Saori to step off. Acquiring enough balance, it released the arrow into the wallpaper, and although the tip was sharp enough to stick to it, the fact that it stayed on the surface and that a loud sound was heard pointed at a hidden object.
That done, it tumbled back to a rest, no longer radiating. It had done everything it could, and therefore it was up to Saori to do the rest, which she did by studying the arrow's destination. "Here? Okay." She knocked on the wall around it and saw it was solid, but when she knocked close to the arrow, it echoed metallic and hollow. "This must be a hidden safe."
She pulled the arrow out with force and followed the edge of the metal, ripping through the wallpaper with the tip's edge. Indeed, a safe that took a four-number combination had been fitted behind the fancy fabric, some oxidation in the corners announcing its age and the ill conditions it sustained through the years.
"Hmm… I could ask someone to pick this, but grandfather was certainly aware of such a thing. The combination cannot be to keep someone out, but to inform who it was for." She began rolling the pins into particular numbers. "If he meant this for me, then I suppose he could have chosen the month and year of my birth." By the time she was done, the numbers had been set to zero, three, one, nine. Without question, the door opened, and in the claustrophobic confines of that box was a white woven material tightly tied around an unknown object.
Saori grabbed it and stared at it a few moments. By the weight and the noises it produced when moved about, it was a tape, which made her more curious than before. More interestingly, around the fabric that protected it, a dark, dry streak stained its white crudely. By the looks of it, that was old blood, and she had no suggestion as to its source.
"Grandfather, this was here all along. If I had noticed the obvious signs, I would have found it much earlier," she whispered. As she took that back to her office, she heard the sound of the Gold Cloth's metal still sliding across the table. Now it followed her wherever she went, and as she came closer, it tilted gently off the table. "I already found it. You do not need to point at it anymore, see?"
She lifted the thing, yet the Cloth insisted in seeking it, radiating more eagerly than before. The bloodstain in view, Saori wondered if it didn't have to do with how it reacted, so she untied and unwrapped the fabric to reveal that it contained an unsigned cassette after all. The piece of attire was a baby onesie and, to her surprise, it was the blood the Cloth followed, not the precious tape.
"This is what you desire. Is it from someone important to you?" To speak to a Cloth would've seemed ludicrous to her before, but seeing it act so human and full of life made it natural in that situation. Through the hole in the breastplate, she let the soiled fabric drop into it, and then it finally went back to rest, seemingly soothed. "There-there. You are asleep again." Thereon the woman went back upstairs to her office and opened a drawer under the desk, analyzing the tape in deep thought. "It was so well hidden… this must contain dangerous information," she said to herself, storing it in the drawer to watch it on her own late at night. "He meant it for me anyway, so I must keep it private."
The effect of the Galaxian Wars and the attack of the Dark Saints had certainly taken attention of all of those attentive about Athena and her future, however, it hadn't rippled through the entirety of Sanctuary yet. Most people still lived ordinarily there — or as much as one could in such a place — without any insight on outside matters.
To Marin, Seiya's master, no news had been given regarding his situation in Japan. She assumed his responsibility there would take long and stayed put. That particular day she strolled through the grounds, amid the pillars of a stoa erected beside Sanctuary's one agora. Wearing her usual leotard and tights, with a shoulder pad to the left and the steel breast guards embracing her chest, she was about to rest the start of a busy day.
By her, two younger girls in white mantles passed, both wearing fig necklaces and their long hair tied in ornate, seamless shapes. One smiled and jovially saluted her: "Aye, Miss Marin."
"Good day," she responded. The girls she didn't know, but their rank was clear to her by the way they portrayed themselves, like the acolytes of Athena's cult. Most Silver Saints were well known to her, that being Marin's case.
Leaning her body against a pillar, she took in the surreal view of the sky that day, the nebulae seeming to dance in and around the stars. The people passed here and there, talked in the corners, and soldiers made their way to training. She heard the voice of an acolyte again from the other side of the stoa, a faint salute to someone else, a name she didn't overhear.
A man approached in plain clothes, a short white tunic hanging from one of his shoulders so as to reveal his full muscles. He had short flowing black hair, tight striking brown eyes, and a nose with a straight and protuberant bridge, all under a light golden skin. Both of them were dressed as commoners, but both of them were nonetheless aware of each other's rank too.
When he came closer, the differences in their height were contrasting, him decently taller than her. "Miss Marin, I don't believe you are preoccupied," he said, voice clear and innocuous.
"Not really. I practiced with the girls for good measure, and we're done, so I just came to the agora to rest," Marin answered. "What is the occasion, Babel?"
He came much closer now, lips pointing at her ear to murmur. "No comments on this, but the Pope requests you at the Temple."
"What is it about?" she murmured back.
"I can't say, but I'd prepare your Cloth. You'll be traveling soon."
Marin sighed and leaned off the pillar, leaving without a last reply. Babel watched ere looking away, also taking the view from that part of the stoa.
Walking the many steps of the Ecliptic all the way to the Temple of Athena was a grueling task, and as such it was rare that someone outside of the Gold Saints who defended these houses got a direct call to the top. Every beckoning was supposedly of utmost importance if it couldn't be given to the highest ranking warriors in Sanctuary.
Even knowing this, Marin couldn't help but feel the strenuous task of making her climb was likely needless. "This walk would better be worth it in the end," she bemoaned, almost halfway through at that point. She stopped at flat ground, looked below at the view of the vast grounds and the unending mountains and formations in the distance, then stared up at the temple she had reached. It bore the sign of Leo at its front. "Well, at least I get to check on him."
She crossed the front and entered through the gate, faced with the large population of wide pillars that occupied the aisles of the House of Leo, almost hypnotic with how they stretched into multiple distances. Thankfully for Marin, knowledge of its layout meant she could go exactly where she needed, a smaller pathway far into the right which led into the private quarters of the Saint therein.
A man sat in front of a marble table, the small book in his hands bearing a basic hard cover without a title, albeit the insides denounced its topic to be somehow both electromagnetism and gravity. He was a handsome tan-skinned man with curly dark blond hair, the square features of his face in conjunction with the charming curves of his eyes visibly reminiscent of Aiolos, the Sagittarius Saint who was charged with treason.
The Cloth he donned was golden too, however, it wasn't like Sagittarius', lacking the sculpted wings while bearing way more intricate adornments that covered from the corners to the centers. The base of the plates were of a pale gold, whereas the minute drawings of patterns, leaves, plants, and clouds were of a greenish electrum. Its shoulders came in two polished layers, and a great majority of the arms and elbows were covered, gauntlets bulky and splendent. The faulds flanged upwards at the belt, which had intertwining patterns spiraling around a large stone at the height of his stomach, a lush, polished star sapphire.
The helmet left beside him could only be his own, partially like a crown with the same kind of precious stone at its forehead, four stout fang-like pieces extending up from the sides, and an extra one bending back from the middle. A lengthy blue cape was stuck to his back, occluding many of the arrangements behind.
Marin's hand met the corner of the wall as she peeked, watching quietly before his eyes pierced from that distance. "Can I say good morning?" she asked.
He turned the open book down and rested it on the table, straightening his back on the chair. "Marin, you know you're not allowed to just come and visit me up here," he said. Despite how dark the texture of his voice felt, she knew he didn't mean to hurt.
"I'm not here to merely see you, Aiolia." She walked out of hiding, yet didn't dare come too close. "The Pope requested me at our Lady's temple. It's tens of thousands of steps, and I'm not walking them only to get a delivery he could've sent directly to me anyway."
"If he called you of all people, it's certainly urgent."
"Probably."
"Then don't leave the Pope hanging," he finished, motioning to grab the book again.
"Right… right." Marin turned around and took steps to leave.
"See you later, Marin."
A few more steps were taken, and she thought that later wasn't in a few hours, days, or weeks. She was uncertain if she would ever be with Aiolia for long, and so at that moment a haunt seemed to crawl through her senses and compel her to do the unthinkable. Stopping on a step near the passage, the woman held both sides of her mask in her fingers and thought twice. The Gold Saint saw that she was no longer leaving, and didn't focus on his reading again.
Instead of committing to such stupidity, Marin brought her hand back down and left her covering on. "Aiolia, before I go…"
"Hm?"
She paused and considered her next words, looking back at him. "I've been thinking… ever since Seiya left months ago, you were called back on duty, and so was Aquarius. It's no stretch to assume I'll be delivering duty calls to other Gold Saints. Do you think this has to do with Seiya's departure?"
"You mean to ask me if Seiya is causing trouble."
"If you want to look at it that way…"
Aiolia shifted in the seat a bit. "Seiya is a headstrong boy, and a bit unintelligent for his own good…" Marin chuckled when he said that, and he grinned "… but he's virtuous, and he became the Pegasus Saint for a reason. I am sure he's no troublemaker, unlike…" He breathed deeply instead of continuing and looked up at the wall in front of him.
"Sorry," Marin said, seeing where they had inevitably gone, "I forget this is a sensitive topic to you."
"I have to get over it."
"I'll leave you to your book now."
"Yes, the Pope might get impatient."
"See you soon," she finished, finally taking her leave.
When he was sure Marin was far enough away, Aiolia placed the book down once more and stood up, resting the forehead on his fingers. "I was also sure you weren't a traitor, Aiolos." He tightened his other fist around the gauntlet. "What made you do it? What made you stain our blood and turn on Lady Athena?"
Marin continued the way of the steps to the Temple of Athena, passing through each house, and very rarely seeing any of the Gold Saints. Their duty calls didn't come with a call for blocking the way to the top, even less so at a request of the Pope, so she had no trouble reaching all the way up. When she did, the dimension of the great statue of Athena watching over Sanctuary was much clearer than from that far down, towering over all and cutting through the beauteous colors of that alien vista.
Her long hair was tied into braids to the sides of her head, loose enough that they wouldn't get in the way of the tall helmet she left hanging atop it. She wore a long tied garment covering nearly her entire body. In one hand she had a long and sharp spear, but the other hand found support on a large round shield against the floor, a serpent near its inside.
After taking in the breathtaking view, Marin went forth to the Temple's double door, pushing it and revealing the blue carpet lining the way to the Pope's seat atop a dais. Behind him was another double door, more reinforced than those of the entrance, seeing that those were Athena's private quarters and therefore a sacrosanct space.
She closed the door behind and presented herself to the Pope, who sat lazily with three envelopes in hand. The Saint bowed without kneeling, only lowering the face shortly. "Sir, Babel said you called me," she spoke.
"You are to do some immediate deliveries, Eagle," the Pope ordered.
"Couldn't you have sent them through Babel?"
"Not in this case, no," he said, offering her the letters. "Only the courier may have contact with these letters."
She grabbed them without hesitating, but questions were inevitable. "Is there a problem I should be aware of?"
"Not yet. You will be delivering these letters to Gold Saints currently on the field. Those are Pisces in Lapland, Aries in Jamir, and Libra in Rozan." Exactly as she had theorized.
"So you're calling more Gold Saints back after Aquarius."
"Yes, and I have sent another courier for Taurus too. Keep this matter private in grounds, Eagle, as it is sensitive."
"I will." With the secrecy and the need for all Gold Saints to return at once, she feared these were the preparations for a Holy War, which Sanctuary expected only every couple of centuries.
"As per usual, the specific locations are on the envelopes. Seeing that you are who you are, I trust you in delivering them as swiftly as possible."
"I'll get to it immediately, sir."
"Good luck, Eagle."
Back in Saori's mansion, eventually day had turned to night, and sleep time came for the Bronze Saints. In her loose teal pajamas and without the mask, June brushed her teeth at the small bathroom in the quarters' corridor, holding her belly with a slight slump. Shun came in passing and knocked at the door, knowing well who was inside. "Goodnight, June!" he said.
She hummed a goodnight back at him, but then groaned as her belly emitted rather sickly croaks. Finishing and spitting out the toothpaste, she rinsed the mouth and mumbled: "I knew I shouldn't have stuffed my face with all that chocolate mousse. Uuuungh…" Her belly tightened more, and she left the bathroom after drying herself and slipping the mask back on.
Seiya was waiting to go next. "Goodnight," he wished to her.
"Night-night, Seiya. Eugh, I'm feeling like a stuffed balloon!" she replied, and Seiya grinned joyously as that. They were friends at that point, but had grown used to poking fun at each other over the slightest of issues.
Soon all the Saints had gone into their quarters and no lights in the corridor were left on, although someone spied from the shadows. Saori, dressed in a white, ornate satin nightgown, peeked intently when Seiya went into a bedroom. "Good, everyone has gone to sleep," she muttered, turning around and sneaking downstairs to lower depths of the mansion.
Through a thick black door, she entered what looked like a studio room, the lamps that turned on being too dark to ruin its chaste atmosphere. On a rack, she opened a videocassette player and removed what she found inside it, that being recordings from the Galaxian War's broadcast. In it she instead put the tape from the hidden safe, which fit perfectly therein.
Some other switches near a mixing table were flipped, and she went past another black door, now to reveal the star room, which had just sparked into life, bright dots on the walls making it look like she walked in infinite space.
She took the seat in the middle, grabbed the controller from its arm, and started the tape player remotely. It didn't take long for a concealed screen to be revealed before her, already with the image of Mitsumasa Kido in the office where she often worked, the open balcony behind flaunting a similar nightly view.
Seeing him in that spirited state and wearing one of his favorite suits stamped a nostalgic cheer to her mien. His voice, too, referred to a childhood glee. "If you're watching this recording, I assume you are my granddaughter, Saori, whom I love very much." It was impossible to hide the tears after hearing that. "Either that, or you are someone in connection to her. If at all possible, don't watch this without Saori. She deserves to know the truth — no, our well-being depends on her learning the truth I will reveal here."
Things got serious quite quickly, she observed, and perhaps being lost in the innocence of the child in her wasn't setting up the right mood for the importance of that tape, so she suppressed her emotions momentarily.
"I'm recording this in the hopes that you'll be watching it before conducting the Galaxian Wars," Mitsumasa said, and Saori frowned, wondering if she had made any mistakes to be aware of. "Saori, you seem to already know you are not fully Japanese. You look Western, and I've told you that's because your dad was European, however, that was not true. I have never known your parents, and you are not half — not even a quarter — Japanese."
She shook her head. "But how?"
"I promise this will make sense, I'm… sorry that you have to find out like this, but… I never had any children of my own."
Her lips parted and she teared up like before. "Grandfather, do you mean…?"
"I've raised and loved you as my own family, and I've given you the best of the best, but we don't share as much as a gram of blood. Saori…" he paused and shut the eyes in apparent shame, almost unable to admit it straight to the lens "... you are not my biological granddaughter."