WARNING: Violence, blood, agony, minor gore, execution, death.
Bloodlust
The towering hill behind the Saint's frontline was yet brimming with activity, despite the vast majority of the battle taking place below. It had been several minutes since the first pillar fell, and squads of soldiers and amazons watched the situation below and afar. Patrols were conducted from there to the outskirts, ensuring that no enemies crossed any lines and endangered the flanks, while many were on the move, oft transferring information from up there to officers on the down low.
Debris of the North Pacific had reached as far as that location, no matter how high it was compared to the battlefield; such was the dimension of its destruction. The material, formerly so hard, became brittle and weak as soon as whatever bonded it came apart. It was the bits coating the ground that Kiki gawked at, visibly surprised.
"All this dust…" he said, and he carried on his back the Cloth box handed by the priestesses back in Sanctuary. The boy walked along the fall towards the sides, where he was more likely to travel in comfort. He saw the ruckus in the middle, all the blood and violence, in truth no different from the bloodbath enacted during the civil war. Then he looked into the distance, and a fledgling Cosmos user as he was, he could still feel the titanic energies of those who fought in the temples, if not the dreadful power of Poseidon's priests. "They already fell one of the pillars! That's what this stuff must be. I've got to be quick then."
It was not only those people who had the sight of the fallen North Pacific. The guardian of the South Pacific Pillar, Io, also watched as it fell. What was left in a place so close to the demolition were many speckles of stone, so small and light that they were carried by the slightest breeze, and therewith the air was thick with them. Although the temple's walls shielded the fighters from much of the rubble, it could not stop that filth from clouding their vision.
The man strolled through the courtyard, taking the empty view of the missing pillar, something he once believed to be impossible. While he paid attention to June's Cosmos, lest she catch him by surprise, he debated perhaps a sense of mourning. "I didn't imagine I would ever see you go like this, Baian," he whispered and turned his head, trying to listen to Chameleon's steps. "Our cause would never be the easiest to achieve, but somehow I thought you would make it until we faced the gods. To die to some kids..."
His attention was caught by metal skidding along the dusty marble. He turned and, with a vicious kick, barely missed June, who had just exited her state of crypsis. The girl skipped over the leg and somersaulted, returning with the whip sideways, something Io quickly defended.
She decided to machinegun him with the weapon, bringing it back and forth, swerving it impossibly mid air, yet the General pointedly deflected it with the gauntlets. When he felt the time was right, he dodged by crouching and, with a bent leg, reached forth towards the Saint.
His hands and fingers were aimed forth like a pouncing dog, and their exposed skin shone the same pink light of prior. In that split second, his power exploded, so he shouted: "WOLF FANG!" The way with which his body suddenly accelerated was absurd, and so he struck June's leg without issue.
Having realized what was about to take place, Chameleon sought to pull her leg back and launch herself in the sky, knowing this would lend momentum to spiral away and keep him at a distance with the whip. This did happen, albeit not without the Wolf Fang glancing against her shin and knee, which did not impact the Cloth much, but certainly cut into flesh.
When she landed, she felt the burning pain and stepped back, weapon forward. She could see through the falling clouds of rock that Io stood and smiled, blood dripping from his nails. The man blocked the way to the pillar as to remind her of his apparent role in Atlantis.
"Seiya took the first one down pretty quickly. This means soon I should be dealing with the one behind you!" the girl claimed.
Io swallowed any irritation that her taunt could bring him, especially at the thought of Baian's death. "You only got lucky once, girl," he replied. "It will take more than blind luck to bring us down!"
When the General came forth, June was confounded by the nature of his movements; he both walked and rotated in the way, body inclined forward. Thereon, he sent himself upwards and diverged his path midair, so the girl ran the opposite direction and managed their proximity.
As strange of a fighter as he was, Io preferred to strike fast and escape in sequence, always approaching from unbelievable heights, in unbelievable poses. He could throw his body flush with the floor and pull on June's calves; he could cut through the air with a kick and quickly bounce off behind her; he could stop in front of her, trick her into attacking, and dodge to the back, tapping himself off before she could react. The man did this multiple times, to the extent that Chameleon became infuriated.
An instant came when he caught her by surprise from a side, spiraling freely through the sky. He inhumanly dropped in her direction, one leg stretched back and he other aimed forward, boot lowered as to target June with its tip. His body was covered in that menacing aura his, and thus he struck her in the gap of the neck and shoulder, cracking some adjacent plates.
As he did so, he yelled: "QUEEN BEE STINGER!" That power dressing his form quite quickly traveled to the foot which came in contact; the energy blasted them in twain once they touched, and Io was pushed back, controlling his flight and laughing throughout.
With a pained groan, June rolled and found sustentation by shoving a knee against the tiles. Somehow a subtle wound had opened close to her neck, the likes of which Scorpio Milo would've pierced with the Scarlet Needle. However, this did not come with esoteric effects, and for good reason — like Musca Dio's Mosquito Bite, it first numbed the area of entry. Worse, however, was that it eventually brought deeper aches, and it was discernible that her free arm would be partially paralyzed as this evolved.
"What the hell is this?" Chameleon said to herself. She struggled to watch Io's movements now, distracted by stress and accumulating pains along her body. "How many tricks does this guy have up his sleeve anyway?"
As this all took place, there were pairs of great Cosmoi burning in the Indian Pillar and the Arctic Pillar as well, announcing that battles simultaneously occurred. While Poseidon's priests continued to curse the Earth, they awaited his joining them in the Mainstay to finally give humanity a final blow. However, from his perspective this was a risk, as there was yet one in Atlantis who could easily turn the tides in Sanctuary's favor.
Athena was this woman, and she impatiently sat over the sofa of that room given to her in the temple, legs reclined. In hand she had a loaf of soft bread which she ate, likely given by her uncle's servants, but this could sate only a physical hunger. There was nothing capable of quenching her anxiety, a belief that she should storm out of that place and join the battle nonetheless.
Her gaze turned back to the window lattices, whence light glimmered through. The sounds she heard were of cries, bloodshed, and the demolishing of an Oceanic Pillar. Surely these were positive signs of some kind, although she did not appear less preoccupied. There were further challenges in her mind.
The goddess yet had that oblong, iridescent plate of metal protected in a hand; it was behind the previous hiding place of this object that a shadow disturbed the shine. This caught Athena's attention, so she brought her feet back to the marble and straightened her back, ready to stand. Initially she believed it to be one of the temple's folk, then noted that the person had stopped to their side, but did not move. They stood silent, statue-like.
She ultimately got up, left the loaf onto the table ahead, and surreptitiously went for the window. Her fingers gently leaned over the sill; she turned her head aside and pulled the long hair behind a ear to listen. The shadow's lips opened and spoke softly; one could make out a masculine tone whispering.
After a while the man no longer spoke. Athena turned to rest her rear against the wall, once again thoughtful. She sighed and, while she processed what had been heard, the speaking figure vanished without leaving tracks of Cosmos, as would a ghost.
Faraway from there, nearing the edges of the battlefield, it was Kiki who ventured down the hill to cross towards the pillars. He witnessed the chaos of the war, and the louder were the screams and blows, the more he felt his body tremble with adrenaline. He knew that, although he was unarmored, he could easily be a target to Atlantean soldiers if he wasn't careful.
Approaching Mu's front and going beyond it to its outskirts, the number of combatants was sparse, and rather one could see the injured being tended to by Sanctuary's combat medics. However, going deeper ahead, the space became much more dangerous, and Kiki assumed it was prudent to watch out for surprises.
He hastened to the uphill, where enemy soldiers had barricaded all manner of passage to the pillars. Encircled in an arc from tall mounds on each end, there was no escaping the blockade, so the boy knew he would have to jump over it. From where he was, Aries' subordinates had not breached the first layers, whereas closer to the middle, they had already gone rather far.
Kiki eyed the occasional fights in the distance, and only risked going where an area looked clear. He was about to skip over the first wooden barrier when he noticed a shadow race past him; behind, a thump echoed, and he turned to find a trident was buried halfway into sediment.
This scared him, and soon he saw that a small unit of soldiers kept track of the barrier's extent, and one among them sprinted in that direction. Luckily for him, Athena's soldiers did not ignore this and attempted to stop him ere reaching the boy.
There was a brief struggle, armor striking armor, and the Atlantean pushed through; once they had neared, Kiki was already doing his best to climb over the barricade's first obstacle. By virtue of the enemy's speed, Aries' apprentice saw himself having to turn and skip back.
It wasn't long until the situation turned into bedlam, much like the remainder of the frontline, and half a dozen people fought to breach that section of the blockade as well.
Caught in the fray, Kiki did his best to evade any of the attacks endangering him, which put his little training to the test. Had it not been for the warriors who rushed to his aid, he would've surely fallen then and there, though his rescue remained uncertain.
A much greater Cosmos escaped the concentration to the side; it dawned on the fighters that a much more powerful person now scouted the barrier's extent, soon to arrive. They all watched as a pale light crashed against the wood, and fangs sliced through one of the Atlanteans, breaking and sticking to the neck.
Kiki stared in terror at the dying man twisting and being thrown into a bundle of scrap ahead. He barely followed the new arrival's figure; he recognized his Cloth as Hydra, and his identity as Ichi. In succession, he flew back to the ground to avoid another punch coming that way.
The soldiers attempted to tackle the assailant, yet it was Ichi who made quick work of him, approaching in a blink, striking his face from the side, then alternating arms straight to the stomach. With a blast of Cosmos, he sent himself with the enemy to the wooden construction.
Now the Athenians could better juggle the enemies around Kiki, and the boy had gotten up once more, feeling for the box on his back. "Still here, good!" he huffed in relief.
"MARINER!" a shout echoed from afar to warn of a more grave arrival. Recollected, Ichi looked up and whispered some expletive at the sight. He barely intercepted the enemy, then flipped to the side due to the opposing force. It was clear the Mariner aimed to stop the breach occurring so far, so Hydra had no choice but to throw himself at him another time.
At a loss, Kiki walked deeper into the barricade, through part of a cracked half wall, thus stepping between the uncertain planks put together by Poseidon's men. He was right in doing this, for more Cosmoi advanced then, and the place was swallowed in a spectacle of flashes and explosions. In the one hand, more Marina arrived, but so did Saints.
The young boy was appalled after hearing a bang that made him wince and hide the face; once he took a gander, he watched the body of one of the combatants who came to his rescue drop dead past the barrier. Two fighters crossed behind him and sent debris all over, and he suddenly felt a breeze on the other end. He saw Jabu, who pushed off a Mariner about to finish him off.
Unicorn henceforth traded blows with the foe, parrying punches with elbow strikes. Having spread enough distance, he bullied him with those fast and powerful kicks, finishing with a swirling one that crashed through the Scale, back of the foot to a shoulder. The Mariner was put down momentarily.
"Kiki, you're not supposed to be here!" he said, no less alert than prior.
"I have to take this to Lady Athena!" the boy explained, and the Marina pushed for another attack.
Nachi and Ichi, who were quite resourceful, aided Jabu before he countered. Although at that point their side was outnumbered, they were powerful enough to barely overwhelm the Atlanteans. They convened near Kiki and did their best to keep him from harm.
Their struggle did not go ignored; no matter how dangerous, Kiki wished to help folk whom, for all intents and purposes, he fancied to be friends. When he saw that Ichi was about to deal with two Marina at once, the boy sparked his rookie energy and bumped one of them with a shoulder.
This would have been fatal if Geki did not trash that section of the barricade with his brutish strength, shoving the man afar. "What's going on here?" he growled.
Kiki turned and saw Jabu could be in trouble next; with his learned telekinesis, he flipped a nearby plank and threw it at a Mariner's face, stunning him.
"UNICORN GALLOP!" the young man shouted and took the opportunity to deal awesome damage. With his knowledge of the Sixth Sense, that move was now a beauteous one to watch, so blinding were his kicks.
Nachi had to block another Mariner's approach, and realizing that the way was free following Geki's shenanigan, he waved to the pillar and shouted: "Go! Get out now!" The exasperated Kiki didn't think twice. As long as they were there, he had a chance of escaping, so he did, using Cosmos to enhance his speed until he felt far enough ahead.
Meanwhile, June's clash with Io did not subside. He continued to toy with her nervousness, dominating the field by means of unorthodox motions. That General could elude all prediction by being as bizarre a fighter as possible, and by virtue of this, the girl had little option if not expecting the absurd itself.
With the whip, keeping an enemy afar was a matter of course; here, however, there was no saying where or whence the enemy would advance, and therefore this was no longer a tool. Chameleon became a reactive fighter — with each of Io's aggressive leaps, flights, and slides, she could only dodge off. Thanks to her agility, this came naturally, but the man cornered her more by the second.
His menacing Cosmos flowed up and down, following the cycling nature of his movements. Whenever June expectedly raised the weapon to keep him in check, he twisted in the air and changed course, first going upwards, then rushing for the ground. From there he paced in a radius about her, and she could not follow his speed with that of her arm.
Once he was close enough, the girl sent a leg aside and spun her whole body in acrobatic fashion, in an attempt to keep his limbs off her. This was useless, since Io somehow read her every rotation, and traced it with his whole body. He tied her by the waist with an arm by the side, then tied her neck with the other and wrestled her down.
June struggled valiantly, yet Io continued by slithering the torso disgustingly, Cosmos ensuring that she was more tightened than before. Suddenly his muscles began to swell, and the amazon cried aloud, feeling the bones almost bend under pressure.
"SERPENT STRANGLER!" the Mariner shouted, and so it was befitting that his body could pervert itself to a form so animalistic. In such state, Chameleon had to use all of her power to push in the other direction and undo what would surely crush marrow and organ otherwise.
After a long and painful grunt, her own muscles expanded from under the Cloth, which cracked in many a spot victimized by great opposing strengths. Her skin glowed a deep blue and her armor displayed a muted, albeit rainbow-like, shine. Steadily, she did pry those limbs of the grinning Io from her body; underneath, formerly unseen bruises could be found, to join her previous marks below the damaged plates.
From there she exploded with energy and was able to release herself momentarily, although, since the enemy would not give, she made sure to send herself to the sky and out, closer to the pillar, whereon she landed weakened. Despite that feat having been largely one of Cosmos, her muscles and tendons suffered the extra effort, especially having endured the Serpent Strangler and the Queen Bee Stinger. She took a few seconds to stand, almost out of breath.
"He's barely even human," she complained, "more like a mutant of some kind."
She was glad to see that, after having enacted a move so revolting, Io also had to bide his time and recuperate. He got up a tad slower than her, although there was no weakness in his legs; he allowed the arms to swing softly akimbo, a display of balance. Like some corrupt creature, he moved in manners ordinary folk found discomforting, or even unsavory to the eyes.
"A mutant, you said?" the man inquired.
Arm yet trembling, June aimed the whip in his direction, saying: "You… you move around like an animal, but you look like a person. Did they grow you in a lab?"
"Is that what they call Sanctuary now, a lab?" The tinge of sarcasm in Io's words could not be ignored, but it was their content that captivated the girl.
"Are you trying to say you were raised in Sanctuary?"
"Not my whole life, but most of it," he explained. "How does that make you feel, amazon? We're like cousins, in a sense."
"I guess I didn't expect to fight some freak that abandoned Sanctuary to try and drown humanity for kicks," she said, "but there's all sorts of crazy in this world."
Io released a cackle so visceral it sounded as if he purposefully scratched his throat. "Funny, but you're off the mark," he spoke as he walked towards her. Despite her stiffened arm and body pain, June felt secure that she could defeat that foe, though every time he encroached, she inspired care.
He came straight from where he was, and she sent him aside with the whip's root. Io crossed to the other side and turned quite casually, repeating the same. This took place thrice, and in the last moment, June elected to entwine his torso in the weapon and pull on it, such that her body was sent towards his back.
Fast and precise, the Mariner spun and, with arms yet limp, met the strike head-on rather than escaping. With his own momentum, he lifted an arm surrounded by the aura of the heightened Cosmos, then aimed fingers forth as if flaunting bladed nails.
"BEAR CLAW!" he yelled. Chameleon expected the unexpected and, coming in a speed so marvelous as to generate a shock wave, she nonetheless lifted a knee that guarded her body from Io's arm. Since the claws struck plates on the knee and shin, it sent them off in pieces, yet the Saint flipped the other leg forth and kicked the enemy across the skull.
Io tumbled away and June landed behind him, allowing the whip to loosen and be untied while she stood straight. She flipped it left, then back towards the General and the pillar; part of her leg was thus exposed, with scratches across it, a sign that she had lost more of her Cloth. Regardless, this felt to her like a first victory.
No differently, Io felt defeated for once, and as he rolled back to his feet, the usual smile now bore a hint of discomfort. "Do you think you're smart, losing your protection like that?" he asked.
"This is not a competition is it? I can make sacrifices whenever I feel like," the girl replied. "My job here is to take you and the pillar down, then to save Lady Athena. If my Cloth breaks in the process, I don't mind. Not the first time."
"Ah, shut up… just shut up," Io muttered with odious toxicity. "I hate Saints and this nonsense about duty, tradition... you people care more about your laws than war."
"That's not true!" June protested. "You're mistaken if you think I'm not excited to fight. If anything, I love it so much I have to pull back."
"That's the issue, that's my point!" the man reiterated. "You shouldn't hold back. Sanctuary puts a limit to violence, it always does! That's why it won't survive the times."
"Is that why you picked Atlantis over Sanctuary?"
"Never mind Atlantis. Atlantis is not my cause," he revealed. "It's something else."
"I'm all ears."
"I tried being a Saint several times," he grinned with the side of the lips and pointed a thumb to himself, "long ago, before they threw me away to rot. I tried for the Serpent Cloth first, but they barred me from doing the test. Then I tried for the Wolf Cloth, but I didn't pass preliminaries. So I trained and became incredibly strong — I applied to take the Bear Cloth, but since I was self-taught, I was not commended by any Saint, so they wouldn't bother taking me all the way to another continent. Pure hogwash, if I may say."
"So you're a failure, is what you're admitting now," the girl spoke.
Io chuckled as if daring her to escalate her insults. "A failure, am I? Look at me. I'm too great for your kind," he concluded. "If I had become only the Serpent, or only the Wolf, or only the Bear Saint, it would be like limiting my power to Sanctuary's inhibitions. No! I wanted more — I deserved more." The man spread both arms as if showing the greatness he had achieved, which, to his credit, was a challenge even to a Saint as powerful as Chameleon. "Have they told you about us? The men who led Kanon's rebellion, feared and hated. I was among them! I am Io, the Scylla General-Mariner; I carry a title deserving of my prowess."
"Oh, so you're one of those guys," June realized. "I heard you were rotting in prison!"
"Do I look rotten to you?" he tilted the head and asked through his teeth. "I have killed so many people in that revolt… Saints, soldiers, amazons, even citizens! My men and I terrorized them, and those who lived obeyed us in fear of what we would do next!"
The girl allowed the whip to slip to her side, and her masked face turned slightly away in furor. "What was the purpose of that? What is your purpose in being so cruel?" she questioned.
"Spilling blood is the single method to ensure authority," he replied without delay. "By holding back, Sanctuary allowed the Earthlings to fall in disarray. They do as they will! If you think my cruelty is odd, read of what these people do every day, every hour!" There was a sense of gleeful anticipation in Scylla's expression; he closed a fist near the face and continued: "When we're done here, we will do to Earth worse than what we did to Sanctuary. We'll teach them so many horrors, they will never dare act as if they're free again, if any of them are alive by the end of it."
"I hope Lady Athena forgives me for this," said June, reminded of their last meeting. "What I'll do to you might be more brutal than what's right, but I feel like I finally found someone that deserves no mercy."
"Yes! That's what I wanted to hear!" Io eagerly spoke, intoxicated with euphoria. "Ah, you get it now, the bliss of taking a life!"
The girl shook her head and contended: "This isn't new to me. Actually, now I know I can kill you like I did my every victim before you."
"Then get on with it!" a laughing Scylla sang. "I want to smell more fresh blood."
So this once it was the Saint who snapped first, waving the whip wherever the Mariner ran to. The freedom in her other arm still required time to return, but this didn't seem to be a problem, such was her viciousness and velocity. As she had told, her power had to be reeled back — were June to throw the whip with the fullest of her strength, it would not only damage the temple, but haply weaken the weapon itself.
Io dodged each instance with little issue. It appeared the strikes hit too close for comfort, but the man had not a care in the world, sure that he would not be caught. He sped in an arc, so Chameleon turned while slicing the air; the whip overtook the sound barrier, and Scylla evaded it by flipping and twisting the torso along the way.
As such he somersaulted and took apparent flight in an opposite direction. June's footwork followed this to every detail, stepping back to salvage some ground and cut the other path with the whip. This glanced the General's Scale; he laughed and gyrated mid air, producing winds as a result.
He descended with the back of a foot aimed at where Chameleon once was, to learn she had vanished. Her steps were sure to betray her, he thought, as she had entered crypsis in his distraction. There was no spare liberty here; she marched fast from the back, so Io pushed a preemptive kick where he was sure to find her; June merely threw herself to the ground and glided the rest of the way through, passing in the gap beneath his leg.
On the way, she pushed the whip forth, awkwardly tied it to the enemy's foot, and thus when she stood and pressured it, Io lost his stance. Due to the extent's weak grasp on the boot, it promptly loosened, yet Chameleon advanced anyhow to bump him with the stiffened shoulder. The pad took the brunt and lost some small pieces of its corners, whereas Scylla flailed back uncontrollably.
"Oh, you'll see!" the Mariner grunted as a threat. He found himself and, rather than landing on his side, stepped on the tiles and ran low to the floor, following the attack's impulse. Readied, June began waving the whip's handle in multiple axes, emulating the shape of an eight; this generated complex arcs of metal, snapping up whenever it did not flick the ground.
Io did not shy away from the labyrinthine pathways the weapon formed, and continued dashing ever towards her. Close enough, he avoided a slice by leaping with his body and arms forth, and tilted himself so as to be missed by any upcoming offenses. The amazon expected that, so she parried him with the base of the handle and kicked thereafter.
The Mariner was only slightly thwarted; he came with palm strikes succeeded by dodges, always seeking to confound and dominate the girl. Such never came to be — she was too alert, too aware, and hungrier for his life than he was for hers. After opening distance with a swirl of the whip, June lifted it and allowed the tip to draw blood from Io's cheek, an act that deeply angered him.
"I'm done playing with my meal," he said. With a sudden burst of Cosmos, he leapt ahead, just not straight for the Saint. Instead, he was slightly off, and his body was sent up in a large radius to fly like a bat. "GREAT WHIRLWIND!"
Suddenly Chameleon saw herself in the midst of a worsening tornado. She did not linger in thought, and acted forthwith; the direction which the Great Whirlwind took, she attempted to cancel utilizing the whip. Thanks to the aid of the Seventh Sense, first this generated a steady tone, that then grew higher till it hurt the ears, then higher till it could no longer be heard by a human. Eventually the spin of the whip became plasma-like, leaving residue light that made its cone glow.
Io would lean into his twister and attempt to strike the enemy with glowing fists, but was constantly met with Chameleon's metallic tail. Soon it was clear that, much like June remained trapped within that technique, he was trapped outside of her own. However, this also meant she was not incapable of harming him.
With a shout, the Saint widened the whip's radius, therefore it invaded the whirlwind's surface. Inevitably, Scylla was caught in its harshness; the mix of antagonistic gales were enough to crash through parts of the armor, and then more, which split a severe injury across the man's face. As the weapon dug deep to bone where flesh was exposed, and deep to skin where metal was worn, it also crumbled to a million pieces. Both attacks had their forces canceled — the victims of this were the Mariner, followed by the whip itself.
The impact vibrated down to June's hand, and forced her to let go of the handle if she did not wish to break her remaining arm. Nevertheless, as far as she was concerned, there was no more foe capable of striking back, for Io dropped to the ground and spilled mists of deep red blood onto marble.
He agonized amid bubbles of his own fluids. The Saint walked over as he attempted to lift himself off the floor, and she could see that his features had been coated in gore. Knowing what was to come, Scylla flipped — back now to the ground — and looked at his soon-to-be executioner. June shoved her mask off the chin and pushed a boot against the foe's chest, noticing the deep cracks in the Scale. Her gray eyes were more dutiful than furious at first, but when she lowered herself closer to him, he read inclemency in her stare.
"S-such…" he swallowed blood and then screamed, waves of piercing pain affecting his head so suddenly. His fingers curled or straightened nonsensically, attempting to reach into the skull, where the brain begged for aid. "Such a young… pretty girl, you are."
"Look deeper, you murderer," June demanded. "Look at my face and remember everything you've done."
"Is that…" he stopped to release another high-pitched, bloodcurdling yelp "… is that a parting gift?"
"Someone as evil as you would do well to receive Lady Athena's blessing," she responded. "Maybe then you'll be a kinder person in the next life."
Io shut his eyes in annoyance momentarily, then attempted to gaze upwards, to one of the pillars standing in the background. He growled as he suffered more, and his hands could not reach quite far to shift his angle. "Boss, this kid did me in," he muttered, "and now she's saying I'll be a nice guy one day…? W-wha…" another scream left him "… what a nightmare."
The sweetest mercy June offered was the cruelty of his execution. A spear hand sealed by the glow of Cosmos, sharper than the sharpest knife, opening the gap between throat and cuirass. She pulled back and there wasn't even time for arterial blood to spill straightaway; she was safe to stand and step back before Io began drowning.
The man still suffered his last seconds when she took her mask and put it back on, now facing the pillar, her next problem. Slowly walking towards it, she thought of what she had heard echoing from the North Pacific. She touched the surface upon reaching it, and felt that the material was no ordinary stone. It had been constructed specifically for its purpose.
"I'm pretty sure what I heard was the Comet Fist," June observed. "And the level of Cosmos was so strong... stronger than anything I had felt Seiya do, which means I'll need to put all my effort into taking this thing down."
She walked backwards to take in the sheer magnitude of that obelisk. It was evident that the base carried nearly all of its weight and, therefore, it would be the toughest section to crack. Since there was no telling how much damage she would be able to inflict on her own, the best choice was to try and remove as much material as she could near the bottom, to ensure the whole structure crashed down together.
Strolling about it, she made a decision and took a stance, facing one of the pillar's four edges. "I'll slice past this end," she whispered. Soon her blonde hair started to lift with a growing aura. June's surroundings brightened into star-like shine, and her Cloth went from its bluish tinge, to a rainbow iridescence, then to undeniable, unfettered fluorescence. Her good arm became draped in a teal glow, ever closer to pure white, and she swung it back softly in preparation. "VICE CLAW!"
The yell announced her rocketing herself through the pillar's lowermost section, and as easily as she entered its confines, she exited through the other end, producing a bright afterglow that carried a rough slice through two walls of the obelisk, accompanied by holes opened by her very body.
She felt her bones waver slightly from the force, and as much as she came out with pieces of refined stone, she also brought along water, a thin line of blood, and pieces of the Chameleon Cloth separated due to their brittleness. In this moment she stared inquisitively at all the fluids, and therewith realized she had cleanly cut through the priest locked within.
The amazon looked back and took the view of deep scarlet dripping in a line. The pillar's form slid along the spots affected by the Vice Claw, and quickly crumbled when the weight was too much even for such material. The sides cracked open, and it was clear June would be buried if she overstayed.
With this she escaped, abandoning the remains of the whip out of necessity. As soon as Chameleon had skipped over the temple's walls, out of the courtyard, it was a race to avoid the inevitable swarm of dust and debris behind her.
In the front, combat was once more paused by a deafening boom, this once being due to the implosion of the South Pacific Pillar. Soldiers were horrified to imagine that they would, in a few seconds, be immersed in the same outpour from before. They watched that dark cloud wash over the hills and fall to the battlefield relentlessly.
Thetis had a detailed view of the crumbling pieces, and her expression was no less ghastly than the first time. "No… not again!" she spoke. Once the debris rinsed those warring below, she leapt forth as to follow its force and not be entirely dazed like prior. Nonetheless, this did not fully undo its effects, and she had to deal with a similar challenge regardless.
The fight slowly reawakened. Marina and Saints attempted to find one another through Cosmos alone, if not hide by using as little of it as possible. Mermaid's target, however, was Ophiuchus, the one seemingly leading the assault that now threatened to break through their defenses. There was no stopping what Seiya and the others did to the pillars, but she would not allow any troops past without a fight.
Hunting for sparks among dust, she saw purple thunder shadowed by the shapes of Atlantean armor. Thanks to a swing of the leg, she was launched in that direction to cut through several combatants, till only one gauntlet she met: Shaina's. The Mariner swung an arm about, which the Saint dodged by stepping back and responding with her sharp claws.
Thetis also evaded this and attempted to tackle the foe to the sediment, although Shaina merely rolled back to her feet and prepared. Thirsting for some twisted vengeance, Mermaid swore: "I will make the Saints pay!"
Beyond the barricades, Kiki had already ran quite close to the frontier of the pillars, albeit doing his best to avoid the temples. Only then could he reach the Mainstay with utmost safety. Disregarding this care, there was no escaping the effects of the South Pacific's fall — he was in a path besetting the North and South Pacific Temples, where the effects would be at their worst.
Noticing the first signs of the obelisk crumbling, he hid behind a bunch of tall mounds and rocks. There he sat with the Cloth box against it, and curled up as small as he could as to make his frame smaller. The wash came and its power was immense; since the boy felt the Cloth was nearly taken away by the winds, he vainly pushed back with his weight, protected behind its volume. Between the debris was also some opaque water, mixed with shards of the pillar's tough composite.
This ended after several seconds, and Kiki feared that he would be swept all the way down to the barricades, where the fight was bloodier. Even then, he would not expect himself to survive that far. He felt that his clothes became wet, as did his hair, and he got up to see the brownish stains left by the liquid.
Thereon he stood, arms aching slightly, and looked up at the changing backdrop of Atlantis. "These huge things…" he said betwixt breaths "… I have to go fast before another pillar falls!" He pressed on and raced, attention taken by massive peaks of Cosmoi echoing from two other pillars. "And it seems it won't take long before the next one comes crashing down."