Reeled Back To Life

Balancing life between working with Sanctuary's agents and training with Mu was a troublesome task, even to someone as hyperactive as Kiki. On his way back from the office where intelligence and part of the army focused their operations, he passed through the agora and the loud merchants, as it was yet early in the afternoon for them.

Approaching the base of the Twelve Houses, he wondered whether he would ever serve as a fellow Gold Saint alongside his master, or whether he was destined to serve in a lower rank; people like him could live healthily for hundreds of years, and he knew the apprentice likely to replace Mu was generations beyond him. It would've been a more comfortable position to be the Aries Saint; less steps to walk up, he thought.

Arriving in the first temple, he took note of how silent it had become. For the entirety of the year, the House of Aries had been a noisy passing, with the nonstop work required in order to fix the many Cloths damaged in the war. Saints of all ranks would enter and leave, offer their blood as essence for the materials, bring damaged parts, and take their fixed armor. That seemed to have come to an end.

To confirm what he believed, Kiki went into the quarters and saw, from the edge of the passage, that Mu had lied in bed, no longer dressed in his Gold Cloth, but rather in a white tunic and toga. A groan escaped the man, who turned to see the boy's outline; caught, the pupil stepped forth and waved a hand. "You are back already," the Saint mumbled.

"Mhm. Have you finally finished repairing all the Cloths?" asked the boy.

"I just finished the one I had been working on for these past weeks."

"The Perseus Cloth — it was in pretty rough shape, the way they brought it to us."

"There were many contenders for it on hold," he mentioned and looked back to the ceiling, uttering another lazy groan. His forehead pulsated as if it were about to explode. "Now it has been delivered."

"Rest time at last, huh?"

"I guess."

Kiki quieted, supposing he was too exhausted and stressed to talk for long, so his pesky questions would have to wait. When he was about to turn and leave to the hall, he heard the sheets shuffle with movement, and saw Mu spin back in that direction.

"Aren't you going to sleep, Master Mu?"

After a subtle, negative nod of the head, he demanded: "Keep asking me questions."

"Ah, you're barely awake, master! You should be sleeping. It has been a year of that headache, and maybe if you go a few weeks in silence it will go away."

"Do as your master says and flood him with questions, as you oft do."

Sighing, the boy walked inside in full and crossed the arms in somewhat of a rebellious display. Nonetheless, he was not one to disobey his master, despite his otherwise impish ways. If he was meant to ask questions, then he would ask the toughest, most childish ones in the back of his mind. "Fine, so you fixed all the broken Cloths, is that it?" he started with a simple one.

"Indeed," Mu promptly replied.

"But I was thinking that can't be the case, there are two Cloths missing still."

"Huh?" Aries raised an eyebrow to his student, who seemed quite serious in this assumption.

"There's no way all of the Cloths are fixed. Virgo and Phoenix are still missing, so we have two Cloths that are gone," he reminded him.

"Ah, that is right. I must admit, in my current state, that had not passed my mind."

"So I was wondering, while you were repairing the Perseus Cloth, you had me bring those books with drawings and descriptions of what Cloths looked like thousands of years ago. You still had the parts, they were just cut to pieces, but Virgo and Phoenix are completely gone apart from the helmets. Are you going to rebuild them from scratch using historical evidence?" He certainly did not pull back on the master–student interrogation.

"Unfortunately, I must say, forging a Cloth from scratch is not within my expertise. Even as I rebuilt Perseus, this sense that something was missing struck me upon seeing the result. It seems the Virgo and Phoenix Cloths are forever lost," Mu explained, although as he finished his answer, the migraine overwhelmed him another instance.

Seeing his master grasp the forehead to tightly worried Kiki, even more with how he growled out of pain. Scared, he came closer and thought of helping. "Master Mu! See, your headache is too strong still," he remarked. "You shouldn't be thinking about difficult topics."

"No, no," Mu spoke with the softest tones, like a gravely ill elder. "You are wrong, Kiki."

"I'm… wrong?" the child echoed in confusion.

"You are wrong, what you said is unreasonable. The Phoenix Cloth is the one Cloth that must not be repaired — it cannot be repaired. If its Saint were to be torn asunder, eviscerated, even reduced to mist, the Cloth would rebuild itself anew without the need for intervention. However, it has not appeared intact in the Virgo Temple, which means that it was never destroyed. It was never… it was never destroyed," he concentrated on those last words. His eyes widened and, as if no longer ailed by pain, he sat towards the bedside. "The Phoenix Cloth has not been destroyed."

Kiki was about to voice grander confusion, yet Mu sparked Cosmos with vividness. Its power was so great that it caused commotion among the Saints, since the situation was unbeknownst to them; cynical since the war, they wondered whether this was sign of intruders at the base of the Ecliptic.

"Master Mu…" the kid whispered in vain. He was too immersed, particularly focusing energy into his own brain. A harsh light lensed around his long hair like a floating circlet, by which the room was brightened.

Virgo and Phoenix's disappearance, the latter's Cloth not returning to life as normal, the power required to vanish with a Gold Saint of that ability, and his intermittent migraine were connected like dots at that point. If there was one explanation no doctor could give, it was the psychological nature of Shaka's Cosmos usage. He understood then that at least Shaka lived, but he needed further proof of this.

A mantra spiraled from the depths of his meditation, a sort to be sung by the Virgo Saint. The further he attempted to listen, the more he could make out well formed words, no matter how blurred out and scrambled they were. "… seen… now that these truths have been seen… to rebirth is… the conduit to rebirth is uprooted… cut off… the root of suffering, cut off… no more… existence's continuation is no more." That voice was irrevocably Shaka's.

Mu reemerged somewhat in a daze. "Master! What's going on?" Kiki inquired in desperation, though now that he had found the source of his pains, Aries no longer seemed so sensitive to loud sounds and strong lights.

He got up with determination, gently leading the pupil away. "Bring Andromeda at once. Tell him not to come without the chain," he told.

Still not understanding what took place, Kiki nodded and ran off after his colleague. By the time Shun arrived, Aldebaran also came down to check on the matter. The sheer volume of Cosmos required for Mu to hear Shaka's recitation was a testament of how difficult it was to access said dimension, and so Taurus descended to ensure nothing strange was taking place.

Unlike the others, the man was covered in his Gold Cloth, horns repaired. He was relieved to see that Mu wasn't working, as he usually did during those hours, but learning the reason for him to reach out to the Seventh Sense was a priority.

"Mu! What was that peak of Cosmos about?" he asked.

Aries was surprised to see the three entering the temple nearly at the same time, so he explained straightaway: "With a high degree of certainty, I can claim to have uncovered the source of my headaches."

"Oh...? What is it?"

First he eyed Aldebaran before giving the reply. "It is Shaka..." thus he turned slowly to Shun "... attempting to contact me from another plane."

"Shaka... is alive?" Taurus gasped in disbelief.

Shun raised his own concern too: "Is my brother with him?"

"I cannot promise you that, but there is a significant chance. Regardless, it is good that you have come down, Aldebaran. With the Andromeda Chain and your strength, we may safely rescue them," Mu told.

"What are you planning?"

"I must rip through the fabric of reality and reach into this dimension of theirs. I might spot them by means of their Cosmoi and bring them out as such."

Aldebaran frowned and took a step forth. "Nonsense, you could end up lost too, then we would be doomed!" he said.

"Wait, I think I have done something like that before," Shun confirmed the strategy once memories of the war came to him. "I recall Saga's shadow swallowing us into a strange dimension, but I was able to reel everyone out using the Andromeda Chain. It is possible then."

"Perfectly put," Mu spoke with emphasis, seeking to tranquilize his dear friend. "Aldebaran, this is a dangerous feat, though the Andromeda Chain should be able to fish me back after I locate them. That is why I have called him."

"It might be possible, but do you really think it's worth the risk?" the other doubted, receiving one more nod as response.

"If Shaka and Phoenix rejoin us, we are all the more powerful. The risk is worth it."

"Then there's no point in waiting."

The group readied a strange arrangement. Kiki helped Shun circle the chain around Aldebaran's armored waist, arms, and legs; that large man stood with the back pushed to one of the temple's columns. Behind this same pillar, Mu walked into the open hall, not having put on the Aries Cloth so that its parts would not get lost. He, too, was encircled in the chain, as was the structure he and his neighbor were connected to; however, his torso had so many knots of it that he was nearly covered, and little of his attire could be seen.

Shun stayed face to face with Taurus, the chain loosely touching his back and held in each hand. Once it was time and everyone was prepared, Kiki sought the protection of a more distant column, assuming the pull of his master's technique to be tremendous enough to affect the entire area.

Ultimately, with everything at the ready, Mu planted both feet on the floor and warned the others: "I will split the space now."

"It's your call, we're good to go," Aldebaran assured him.

Thus the Aries Saint lifted both hands side by side with his own face, shutting eyes and concentrating the Cosmos. It was as intense as the last time he used it, if not more, although it manifested outwards rather than inwards. The house was engulfed in golden light, crystalline distortions floating like bubbles through the air. Slowly but surely, the temperature heated up into a warm storm, and he opened the eyes to see how the light oozed around his flesh.

Feeling like it was enough, he aimed forth and sped into nothingness. As it took place with Phoenix before, he sliced the fabric of existence using his very form as a knife, slipping into it and invading that forbidden corner. First, those left behind felt the intense winds pushed by his movement; soon after, they felt the open hole's magnanimous draw, and were carried with it despite their efforts. Even using the Seventh Sense, Aldebaran was pulled back against the pillar, which started to crack. At that point, had it not been for the man doing his best to counteract the forces, the temple would've been demolished in a matter of seconds.

Shun was launched towards him too, body squeezed against the Taurus Cloth. His arms stretched while the chain extended infinitely; the speed with which the rings rubbed against his palms slowly burned skin, and he had to slightly let go of the metal, lest it draw blood. No different, Kiki hugged the pillar in front of him not to be swallowed with his master, and was the one to scream out of surprise — he had never experienced a situation so terrifying.

To enter that place was like falling eternally, albeit without a sense of up or down. Passing through pockets of slowing or quickening time resulted in a fleeting sense of "is" and "was"; additionally, strange waves were sent back through the metal, which Andromeda only did not take as a signal due to their subtlety, at least compared to the other forces involved. Mu felt the deafening Cosmoi of Shaka and Ikki burning somewhere far in the dimension, therewith using that sensation as a guide to seek them.

He knew, based on how his skin felt stiff and his muscles began to falter, that the longer he spent in said plane, the more likely he was to be temporarily paralyzed. Even with the chain as a backup, he preferred to hurry towards the goal before it was too late. After many excruciating seconds of travel, he found the surreal sights of the two Saints floating in infinitude.

They were displaced no differently than prior, Virgo's shimmer growing as bright as that monumental sight beside them. Without delay, he swerved back and forth between the other men to tie them in chains, and then encroached, for he wished to hold them as they were pulled back.

Shun felt an atypical series of pulls on the chain, the kind to communicate him that he should resurface them. "I'm pulling him back!" he warned with difficulty, face pressed against Aldebaran's chest. With the amount of energy he used, the chain barely budged to return. No matter the effort, he knew that the greatest power was required to fight back against this dimension's pull. Harkening back to Athena's teachings, he refined its usage and murmured: "It has been a while. Seventh Sense, I need you once again!"

The boy's body shone gold as it once did in the Temple of Pisces, and the chain did similarly. This once it began racing back at an extreme velocity, pooling right out of the rip in space as it exited. The length required for Mu to reach the others was such that a tall mound had been formed by the moment they escaped, to be tamed by Andromeda soon thereafter.

Indeed, Shaka and Ikki were lost in that place. With the three vomited out, Mu quickly zipped the rip back up with a peak of energy, falling to the marble floor. Shun fell onto his back, whereas Aldebaran only stood thanks to his enviable balance. He helped the boy get up, then followed Kiki to check on the returnees.

Crossing the boundary around that pillar, Andromeda did not know whether his brother would be there or not; as soon as the long dark hair and the Phoenix Cloth were visible, his eyes filled with tears, but there was no telling whether he was alive or dead. Having just returned after so long, Ikki and Shaka fell face-first onto the ground, lying statically, limp, bodies too heavy to lift. Their minds were only subtly conscious, and, from the point of view of the others, they stayed catatonic.

"Ikki!" the younger brother cried out and knelt close to him. He touched his back and felt how immobile he was, not unlike a lifeless body. "What is going on? They are not moving!"

Taurus saw that Mu could get up with some aid, although his legs and arms trembled with a certain weakness. It took a while until he had safety in each step. "That dimension renders movement nigh impossible," Aries explained. "I was there for no longer than five minutes, and nevertheless, my muscles have fallen weak. It should take many days until those two can live a proper life, but we must move their limbs so that they recuperate sooner. Kiki, come help me."

The others were instructed to turn the men to the side, then to induce movement of their limbs and joints, massaging the exposed flesh on the forearms and ankles. When they had done enough of that on one side, they flipped them to the other side, always ensuring that they breathed well. During the entire span of this process, Ikki's eyes were vacant, fixed, whereas Shaka's eyes stayed shut. Somehow Mu knew both of them to be awake and conscious, as unlikely as it seemed.

Although for the first hour if felt like puppeteering the dead, eventually both of them displayed signs of life and autonomous movement, twitching fingers and staring around with purpose. Hours later, the returnees were sat straight against the cracked pillar that Aldebaran used as unsuitable anchor, therefore Mu ordered Kiki to bring something to hydrate them.

Shun received a jug of pristine water and poured it slowly into Ikki's open mouth, raising his chin to induce drinking. This was a difficult task for both, yet the older brother seemed delighted to be able to drink. Regardless of how slow and careful the boy had been, he choked slightly — this was both a nuisance and a sign that his body was regaining strength.

Giving him a moment to breathe, Andromeda took note that he huffed and stared at him, recognizing his every feature. The way with which his lips trembled showed that he attempted to speak, and the voice that came out was frail, barely capable to mouth its consonants. "Lif… ting my… arms… is like lifting the world," he whispered.

Shun shook his head negatively. "You should not bother with that now, brother. Your strength will return to you, but now you need to heal," said the boy.

He drank a couple more gulps of water, then stopped to regain breath. In that moment he spotted the necklace dangling off Shun's chest — that same star necklace he wore since they lived in the orphanage — and could not believe his eyes. He knew himself to have grown older, and knew the same by seeing his brother's features, or the fast growth of Kiki among all people.

"Are you fine?" the younger brother asked, observing how his irises wandered to his chest.

"That necklace," he spoke out.

Shun looked down and realized what he referred to, taking it in the free hand. "This?" He raised it closer to Ikki's face, saying: "Mom left it to you before she died, and then you gave it to me when I was a baby. Do you recall?"

Ikki could barely nod, though he did so with stiff movements of the head. "Intact… after all these years. I feel that… a sugar cube would n… never crumble in your hand," he commented after a long struggle.

"What do you mean?" Shun asked in confusion, but Phoenix signaled the head as if to never mind his words, then aimed lips to the jug, that he could drink some more.

On the opposite side of that same pillar, Shaka finally attempted to speak. Notwithstanding the weakness, his voice resounded as serene as it had ever been: "For long did I attempt to… contact you, Mu. Apart from our Lady, you were my one hope; I feared… I would have to bother her instead."

"I see. It would be no good to bother Lady Athena at a moment like this," Mu agreed. "I apologize for taking so long to notice. Had it not been for Kiki, I would not have recognized the signs."

"It is not your blame… to take," Virgo said.

Ikki chimed in: "But it is mine."

Shaka nodded the head negatively to that. "I assume that… these Bronze Saints were truthful."

"Saga had betrayed us. He had assumed Popehood and conspired against Sanctuary," Aries explained.

With the head hanging down, Shaka regretted having stood in front of Seiya and his friends during the war, as reasonable as his position was. "Then Saga… is the one to blame. Not Phoenix, not me."

"About that," Shun turned to Mu and Kiki, who were in his field of view from where he crouched. "I have been learning of a man named Shion, whom Kiki claimed to be your master."

"Ah, of course," Mu responded immediately. "Shion is my master, and was the Aries Saint before me."

"Do you know where we may find him?"

"That just came out of nowhere. Is there an issue with Master Shion?"

"I do not believe that Saga had been elected Pope. I have good reason to believe it was your master, and that Saga assumed the role through illicit means."

Mu raised an eyebrow, not out of doubt, though out of enlightenment. "That would make a lot of sense," he said, "because I was my master's last apprentice. He retired right before my training was complete, thus I was appointed to be the Aries Saint after I was old enough; he left in what he described as a pilgrimage. I have not seen him since."

"Libra has given us similar information. He lost contact with Shion as soon as the election had been concluded," Shun revealed.

"Could it be?" Mu eyed Kiki for an instant, who seemed to concur, then looked over back to Andromeda. "Folk of our kind may live for hundreds of years. As you have witnessed with Kiki, we mature fast and suddenly at a point in our lives, and from there live with sound and youthful bodies. Much later in our years, however, we decay just as rapidly; we decline in form and mind, and tend to pass from the slightest illness. My master had just begun aging, so it could be that he no longer felt it befitting to assume the role of Saint."

"The role of Pope, however, is more administrative and less physically demanding. With his experience and wisdom, he would have been a great candidate."

"I agree. If that is the case, Andromeda, haply it is that Master Shion was the true Pope, though this leaves open the question of how and when Saga took over Sanctuary. We were none the wiser," Aries spoke.

Taurus reinforced this after offering Shaka some more water: "Saga continued living as a Saint for the longest time, and never showed signs of being a traitor. I can't even explain how he was able to act as the Pope at the same time without being suspicious."

"That is what we are trying to find out," Shun told them, "but we have been unsuccessful so far. Still, we will continue collecting information until we can come up with the answer."

"Do your best. I am sure uncovering his secrets will help us bring relief to those affected by the war," said Mu.

Shun nodded in complete agreement and stopped shifting one of Ikki's arms, to then pour some more water in his mouth. Once intelligence's next meeting came, he knew all of the information they had collected on the Gemini would be mapped and organized; he could only hope that an answer would be found then. Were that not the case, they would be as in the dark as they were by the end of the war.

That same day, communication was established between Sanctuary and its agents on Earth by means of couriers. Marin, as per usual, had been sent eastward to communicate with Libra and the others, a monthly trip of utmost importance. As much as most days came with no major news, if any, Athena wished to stay up to date with what happened in those locations, and she could only make decisions over property and the Graad Foundation through distant messages.

Eagle was yet on her way, and the night had fallen. She commonly sought refuge when darkness came, but it was not a rare occasion for her to continue running during the evening. Between towns, she twisted in East-Asian woods, skipping and gliding along the tall trees. To keep herself concealed from distant onlookers, the amazon preferred traversing difficult and complex terrain such as that — in a way, it also kept her on her toes, which served as training of its own.

Right before her ears focused on a rising, whistling noise, her head felt the tension caused by flowing Cosmos. Its source was yet distant, she knew, although it seemed to be fast approaching. With the intent of catching this person by surprise in case of an attack, she kept on traveling as if oblivious to it all. The energy marched relentlessly well above the treeline, and the whistling sound filled the forest, reverberating along the trunks.

She stepped over a thick branch and knew it would be unsafe to continue. The echoing noise descended with violence towards her; from the leaves up top, a figure covered in reddish metal appeared, nearing her in the blink of an eye. Marin was prompt in her response, spinning and kicking the assailant towards the ground. This person lost control for a second, till their hand grasped the trunk beside and they regained balance, to land on grass.

Marin stepped off another tree and jumped for a counterattack, though she was met with expert resistance. Her attacker's svelte arms extended with grace to clash with her fists, and the speed at which they traded blows was nearly equivalent. In the dark, Eagle learned that this one possessed fair hair; with a vain palm strike, this individual growled with a womanly tone, thus she assumed her to be a woman. Dodging this came naturally, something Marin followed by kicking the foe's hand away.

To avoid being overwhelmed, she exploded with Cosmos and launched a punch forth. "METEOR FIST!" Her enemy had no choice but an escape, and escape she chose, shoving herself meters away. Orbs of light sped through the air too fast for her to handle them all, so she blew some of them off with a yellow blast of energy, illuminating the surroundings. The force this act carried rotated her brusquely until she reached the ground a second time.

That woman laughed, her voice a sultry contralto. She turned and approached no more than three steps, resting with a hand to the waist. Despite her no longer displaying signs of danger, Marin stayed watchful and burned an aura, lighting up the enemy's image.

The scarlet hue of the woman's shapely armor reflected with many layers, as it seemed to have been cast with many round scales, like that of a great fish. These intricate plates outlined her prominent bust, down to her small waist, then back out to her wide hips, dropping above her thigh like a metal skirt. Her boots and greaves were more solid; tall as these parts appeared, her curvaceous legs looked deceivingly long in them. Like every Cloth, this was adorned with motifs of its own, seemingly in a polished silver; she bore the images of ships, seas, and mermaids singing needy sailors to shipwreck. The helmet was unlike the masks and tiaras used by most female Saints, rather a fuller protector that covered the top and back of her head, apart from the sides of her beautiful face; her wavy hair was long enough to hang far out from it, but much of her features were blocked, namely her angular cheeks. Nonetheless, the eyes, nose, and glossy lips revealed this to be Thetis, friend of the flutist Sorrento, who once tried to charm Saori Kido with his song.

Obviously, no maskless woman could be recognized as a female Saint, especially in the field of battle. In the other hand, a woman in a mask and Cloth could be nothing but that. It was in this way that both of them understood the other's position through sight alone. What that fighter wore was no Cloth, but something else entirely, the armor of another type of warrior.

"You're as fun as I thought you'd be, courier," Thetis sang out.

"If this is a joke, I am not laughing," said Marin.

The attacker raised an eyebrow and jerked her hip further outward in annoyance. "What's the matter? I was just bored of all the running and jumping, so I wanted to play a bit."

"Attacking a stranger is your idea of play time?"

"Yeah, it is!" she replied with little thought, a huge grin on her face. "But don't worry, I never meant to hurt you. I knew you'd be capable of defending my attacks, I saw how fast you can be."

"I fail to understand why I should let someone as dangerous as you walk free," Eagle spoke as a veiled threat.

"Ah, excuse me, we're both girls," said Thetis with a minor bow of the head. "With men, there's little difference between hitting them and hitting on them — at least for me. They adore it, I call it 'love at first fight'. Guess I'm too used to that and got carried away, but know that I'm not here to fight you at all."

"Then what do you want?"

"I was ordered to intercept you and deliver a sealed letter," the other unveiled while pulling something from under the armor. This was a large envelope containing a presumably smaller one. "It's in here, a letter from our Lord Poseidon destined to Lady Athena."

"Poseidon..." Marin muttered, and it clicked in her head without a shadow of a doubt. She felt certain of what that woman was. "You are a Mariner operating on Earth without Sanctuary's license."

"But under Lord Poseidon's orders," the other countered. "Our Lord has long reincarnated and wishes to arrange a peace meeting with his niece. Ever since he heard of the war in Sanctuary, he wants to make sure there's no aggression between your folk and Atlantis. See? I come for a good cause."

Having said that, Thetis approached in casual fashion, never daring burn her Cosmos. Slowly Marin's energy dissipated too, but this was a ploy to tranquilize the other courier, as she was prepared the whole time for another advance. Her vigilance was never redeemed, because the woman did not show further signs of aggression. Instead, she lifted the envelope to her, no ill intent in sight.

Eagle reached forth and pulled the object rapidly, bringing her arm close to her chest as soon as she took possession of it. At that the Mariner couldn't help but giggle. "I said I'm not here to fight you!" she repeated. "I'm Mermaid Thetis, a Mariner, as you observed. Since we're both couriers, we're likely to meet again, then it would be nice if you gave me your name."

It took Marin several seconds of analyzing the envelope before she replied with a curt: "Eagle Marin."

"Eagle Marin, yeah? Don't forget to deliver that to Lady Athena with urgency."

"I will deliver it as soon as possible."

"Good," Thetis said while accentuating her warm lilt. "Ah, it was true after all, Sanctuary is quite a prudish lot! When I was told they forced women to cover their faces, I thought they meant a veil for the nose and mouth — something more sensual — but you do wear full masks."

"How does that concern you?" Marin answered coldly.

"Hm, tongue as sharp as your senses. I won't lie though, the mask made it easier to identify you." As Mermaid turned, she spread both arms and stretched them, gradually increasing the pace of her walk. "Imagine the waste if I had to cover my face." Therewith she sped away and jumped through the highest foliage once more, covering great distance in the process. Marin was left behind, alone and with a new delivery in hands.

The Silver Saint stared at the envelope, how loosely it packed whatever was within it, and how it contained a thin letter. She opened her bag and placed the thing inside, seeing that she did not ruin it in some way. The urgency of it did not escape her, yet being so close to China meant she was better off expediting what Athena would surely order her to do. Rather than returning at once, she went on her previous trip; the Bronze Saints and Shaina had to be called back, if a meeting was to take place.