WARNING: Violence, blood, eye injury, drowning, death, vomiting.
Everfrost
Hyoga's next stop, he soon found out, was the Temple of Sagittarius. June had mentioned the possibility of further rest up ahead, but that was not something he entertained any longer; instead, he planned on pressing on to the next stairway. This would have been possible if not for the Cosmos contained therein.
Sagittarius' ceiling was the most intricately decorated of any other temple, bearing the imagery of many hunters, bowmen, and cavalrymen. Satyrs were often depicted, including the god Pan holding a flute, and a round marble platform was raised in the center to exhibit a tall statue. This was a centaur armed with the bow and arrow, his bottom half displaced as to allow space for the display of something else: the thus far absent Gold Cloth associated with the house.
All of this — the statue, the platform, the adorned tops, the widening column — was at that moment only visible past the sheen of bluish ice and crystalline speckles of snow. Worst, there were also many a layer of freezing wind condensing to cloud the hall. Near the platform, a cloaked shadow hid behind the thick gales, seemingly at the core of its source, where the air looked the most turbid.
Cygnus, prior to entering the place, already recognized the intricacies of that Cosmos. Its traits were not unlike his own, intense more in how it deprived the surroundings of heat rather than the opposite, and were it not for his custom to low temperatures, he would've shivered upon crossing the threshold to the hall.
The man near the center stopped for a second and turned. His long hair, cloak, and the elements of the Cloth made his identity obvious: Aquarius Camus. For a few instants he turned the back to his apprentice and walked so as to block the exit, to then finally face him straight on.
"Master," Hyoga called, "I thought you were supposed to protect the Temple of Aquarius."
"I am," Camus corroborated.
"Then why would you be in Sagittarius of all places?"
"Only two temples remain vacant: that of Libra, and this one. Up ahead is a man both resourceful and without mercy, Capricorn Shura. If you cannot pass by me, then you have no hopes of overcoming the challenge he posits. This Saint would kill you in an instant, unlike the merciful Mu and Shaka," he explained. "I am impressed to see that you survived Saga, but whatever luck you encountered there may not repeat itself, especially when you are on your own."
"It just so happens that Saga was not in Gemini, and left a doll to protect it in his stead."
Aquarius nodded upon acquiring clarification. "Of course, which is how you survived this far. I can assure you Capricorn is defended, as I just spoke to its guardian. There you would be killed in a matter of seconds."
"Then, please, come to our side!" Hyoga beseeched. "Help us save Lady Athena! With your power, we are more than certain to win the war."
"I have taken Libra's words to heart," the master told him, "that 'a traitor prowls from where you least expect.' I realized that traitor could be him; that traitor could be Mu; that traitor could be the Priestess; and that traitor…" Camus breathed briefly as he gazed at the young man "… could as well be you."
In response, Hyoga couldn't help but frown. "No, the traitor is the Pope," he said. "We have been lied to since that letter in Siberia, Master! There are no traitors in Sanctuary, none but the man who stands at its very top. He has always been our only target."
"Then I should serve as a good test of your abilities. If you cannot defeat your own teacher, you are not destined to reach the Temple of Athena alive," Aquarius concluded and lifted both hands as he ascended Cosmos. The cloak behind him floated with a barrage of snowflakes, and although Cygnus did the same, he was surpassed fourfold in apparent power. "Come. Show me everything you have learned."
An escape, Hyoga knew, was as unlikely with his master as it was with Aldebaran or Shaka, much less on his own. When he circled the central platform to slip behind him, he witnessed obstacles of ice rise from floor to ceiling, cylinders that he inevitably crushed into. Their hardness slowed him down and allowed for Camus to effortlessly push him back using a wave of winds.
Already covered in snow crystals, the apprentice soldiered on and punched through a higher wall of ice created by the man, who was ready to parry the strike. Camus measured his own mercy; at the pace he deflected, he also struck back, taking a punch in a gauntlet and returning with palm strikes. He avoided the strongest of moves, for he needed little to keep the Bronze Saint back, and swept a kick aside to stride in with the opposite arm.
Hyoga was stunned with that fist deep in the stomach, the force enough to explode with glass-like shards and crack a decent chunk of the breastplate. What came next was a palm-heel bash so brutal that it obliterated the Cloth's chest, and launched him back flailing and spinning.
He was knowledgeable of his master's ability to seem remorseless, so he spun back up as quickly as he could, though the lack of breath made it impossible for him to ready for the next moves. Camus, in the other hand, walked to him in tranquility, to swing more as soon as he had gotten fully up.
The sound of their gauntlets clashing was loud, though it took no more than a flash for Aquarius to overwhelm the Saint's defense, stupefying him with both hands to the stomach. Next he tackled him up, manhandled his body midair, and launched him to the ground. As if finishing him, he swung a spear-handed strike that stopped shy of the neck. From there he merely stared, the message being that Hyoga would've died at least once at the hands of Shura.
After collecting the arm, Camus walked back to block the way and awaited his apprentice's rise. Hyoga's next attempts were no more effective than the prior, punches and kicks to encase his master in frost rather than touch him directly; the man responded in kind, movements much faster and more precise, and with a Cosmos that borne much greater intensity in every release. By the end, they had jointly produced an irregular structure of snow between them, soon broken as Aquarius slid through it with a flying kick.
Cygnus did a great attempt at dodging, though he was still struck in the shoulder and pushed off. After Camus landed, he spun in the opposite direction to land a kick that took the young man's neck from behind, whereon he hooked the leg so that he was instead pushed aside. Seemingly in a split second, he pushed on and planted a palm to his exposed chest, and this time Hyoga slipped over the icy marble and fell back first.
He blinked and, upon opening the eyes, heard the sound of a solid penetrating the floor beside his head. What he saw was a sharp, bluish icicle that missed him by a hair. In his experience, Aquarius Camus was not one to be this mistaken, an insight that revealed such would've been his second death at the hands of Shura.
Like before, the Gold Saint turned back and walked to block the exit once more, but now he had both boots planted firmly on frozen ground, arms relaxed beside the body. Hyoga pulled his weakened body up and watched Camus' Cosmos cool the environment much further. Shifting to a fearful expression, he witnessed the dark-blue plasma of his aura spread into luminous blankets, the likes of the polar lights on Earth.
"He's going to use it," Cygnus whispered and hurriedly rose energy. The way that Camus lifted both arms to meet with fingers entwined above the head was familiar to him. This familiarity was also the source of his fear.
The many winds in the House of Sagittarius were exhausted towards the Gold Saint's hands, and crystal-like flakes rained in stunning undulations. Finally the coupled hands descended to the front, and he shouted: "AURORA EXECUTION!"
A colorful, corona-like explosion came in contact with the Cygnus Cloth before Hyoga could attempt a counter-attack. It was the coldest thing he had felt, and also the most intense of winds. His movements were interrupted by how the force spiraled him up and covered the limbs in patches of dense ice. He hit through a pillar and curved the course to fall straight down, where he rolled and fell unconscious. That would've been his third death, if he were facing Shura.
The aurora eventually came to a gradual halt, so the whistling polar low in Sagittarius quieted. Camus approached and pulled the young man's body up, to see that his face was intact — for a reason, he had avoided hurting him there. In the state he was in, it was clear Cygnus had been more than defeated.
Seemingly disappointed, Aquarius lowered the head and meditated. That feeling was more aimed towards himself than the boy. "I would not forgive myself had you died at the hands of someone else, Hyoga," he said and took two steps back, waving the hands in the air. Cygnus' body was levitated by circular gusts, hoisted with muscles fully lax. "Your mother has been preserved under Siberian ice for over a decade; it is only fitting to allow you the same fate." The body stiffened bit by bit, and initially this came without visual clues, but soon a cerulean hue coated him, and the shine of ice sheets became visible. "I shall not make the same mistake of my past."
Those sheets of ice continued to accumulate into an immense glass container, its shape mostly irregular apart from the flattened section in contact with the floor. It was the darkest of frost in the temple, indeed, it was the most dense, coldest of them all, sure to conserve flesh for ages if left unperturbed. Even then, by virtue of being elaborated by a warrior so powerful, it was unknown whether it could be destroyed by any means.
Camus looked down as he finished the job, and the slightest of tears froze towards the crystal in that moment, joining it as a minor imperfection. "Pardon me," he spoke under muffled breath. "While I cannot take you to your mother's arms, this should do. I will come back for you at the war's end. Rest in this unmelting coffin, Hyoga."
That done, he wiped any oncoming tears and exited to take the stairway up, returning to the temple he was meant to guard. Hyoga was thus left behind, but surely protected by a substance nearly no one could crack through.
Everything around him was static, if not for within, where waves carried by a steady tide seemed to sway his body right and left, an unending movement. The sound of the sea cut through the noise, along the echoes of men and women shouting in Russian. Sights transitioned from nothingness to the view of a damaged ferry, visibly without propulsion nor electricity.
It was the voice of his child self that called out to his mother, leaning against the quarterdeck's rail: "Мама! Мама!" He, however, was on a rescue boat with men working to propel survivors to land, all the while the ferry was dominated by the sea's strength.
The woman looked serenely and raised a palm to calm him, though he was yet afflicted. With his short limbs, he attempted to skip over the sides, but an older man held him back. "Хватит, мальчик!" [Enough, boy!] he said.
"Нам надо ней помогать!" [We need to help her!]
"Нам больше нечего делать," [There's nothing left for us to do.] the rescuer told him, to which he responded by sobbing loudly and looking back at her drifting mien. "Мне так жаль, я знаю, это трудно." [I'm sorry, I know it is difficult.]
They both watched her, one in the contemplation of catastrophe, and the boy ensnared by the chaos of mourning and its denial. Many words were mouthed by his mother, all of them wishing him well, soothing him, and ensuring him it would all be fine. The three last words he could make out and remember, and they were spoken after her, as strong as she was, broke into tears. "Я тебя люблю." [I love you.]
The memory soon thawed as he arrived on firm land, beyond the glaciers, and the ferry became but a dot in the offing. The ice shelves ahead were the ones he now saw below, although he was somewhat older, in his early teens, and a snowstorm brewed about him.
He wore a parka and held a plucked tulip in his mouth. The Cosmos he burned was amateurish, one that could barely be felt, that of a fledgling soldier. Whenever he struck the patches below, not a cranny resulted from it, and he was nearer a broken knuckle than anything else.
Someone approaching resounded from behind, so he saw the shadow of another boy hidden by worsening snowfall. This one had darker blond hair, much longer and untamed, except for the band he used to control the frizz on the back. His eyes, too, were blue, and his skin was just as fair.
Hyoga stopped punching the floor and turned to listen to his colleague. "Master Camus told you not to walk on the shelves, and here you are, trying to break through them," he said in sarcasm. In silence, the future Cygnus sought to leave, but had his way partially blocked. The other child looked at what he had in mouth and asked: "What's the flower for?"
"Forget about it," said Hyoga as he passed by.
"It's dangerous." He was followed by his friend. "If I see you here again, I might have to tell on you."
Hyoga turned to him in anger. "And what's that going to get you?" he said.
"Ah, Hyoga, at least you won't end up in an accident!" the boy spoke with a pout. "Master Camus said the sea below can kill you, even worse when there's a blizzard. I'm just looking after you."
"Then stop. I don't need you to look after me."
With a sigh, he simply accompanied his stubborn friend beyond the sheets and onward to a shack in the snowy mountains. Their boots dug into the centimeters of snow accumulated due to the upcoming winter, and then they reached the door. On the other side was the messy interior, with a fire for cooking, an armchair and couch, a bed frame, three mattresses thrown to the floor, a table, and many appliances over the shelves and wardrobe.
Sitting on a wooden stool and eating some soup was Camus, who wore a furry cloak over his winter clothes. "So, where did you find him, Isaak?" he asked the other apprentice.
The boy stayed silent a while and stared at Hyoga, who swiftly slipped over the many knit blankets on the couch. "Wandering the area behind the shack," Isaak lied.
"I am glad you got to him in time. We will be going to the glaciers today, and the path is too treacherous in the dark."
The students seemed piqued by that mention, albeit with a drop of preoccupation. "But Master, the snowstorm has only gotten worse the past hours," mentioned one of the kids.
Camus gave them assurance: "There is little to fear as long as you stay close to me."
Not much later, the three walked over the deep ice of the glaciers, far beyond the mountains. The snow grew enraged and the wind howled from the gray skies above. Camus had no issue traversing the slippery and irregular surfaces, but Hyoga and Isaak had to do their best to keep balance.
It came as no surprise when the first skid and almost tumbled down a steep incline, yet his master was timely at catching him by the shoulder. "Watch your footing," he said, and Hyoga nodded. They went on farther to meet a glacier rather tall compared to its neighbors, flaunting flatter surfaces covered in a sheet of pale snow. "Here, this one."
"What's about this glacier?" Isaak asked, and Aquarius approached to wipe some of the coating off with his gloves. A faint, metallic shine was hidden deep in that crystalline frost, and the youths brought their faces hither to see.
"Look closely. Do you see?"
Finally they recognized the glimmer of a suit of armor. "Is that a Cloth?"
"It is a Bronze Cloth, in fact," Camus answered, "that of the Cygnus constellation."
"But why is it stuck in there?"
"It was encased in this glacier by the former Cygnus Saint a century ago. Only one capable of breaking through it will be appointed its next Saint." Having said that, Camus turned to his apprentices, a glow of hope shining in their faces. "My role here is to train you to become Saints, but I have also been entrusted with finding an owner for this particular Cloth. Either one of you could receive the honor, so I will not be satisfied until you can break the hardest and coldest of Siberian ice. Did you hear me well?"
"Yes!" the two replied.
Therewith Camus turned and began to hike off, which the kids followed, lest they be left behind in too wretched a location. "Come. The snowstorm is perfect weather for us to practice," he told them.
He brought the boys to train by the leveled side of a mountain not too far from the shack. They had tied the knuckles in multiple twists of rags to punch the cold rock, having left the parkas behind to expose their sweaters. The Cosmos they used was yet puny, and so the mountain suffered no consequence of their assault.
Rather, it was them who began to suffer at its toughness. As thick-skinned as it had become with conditioning, the surface of Isaak's knuckle was torn, and his fist bled, since he struck it the hardest. The pain grew too arduous and constant to ignore, so he groaned and held the injury with the other hand. "Agh, it's too much…" he complained.
Hyoga stopped the training too, saying: "You're only punching as hard as you can, but you're not using the Cosmos."
"Look at you! The Cosmos hasn't done a thing for you either, so I doubt that's the problem."
"What's the matter?" Camus said as he approached, and Isaak had to merely show him the bloody rags so that he understood. "Let me take a look." Upon pulling the fabric, he found the skin had dried with the cold, and so it tore even underneath the padding.
"Master, it's impossible," Isaak claimed.
"What do you mean, impossible?"
He walked back and waved at the mountain's side. "Breaking the rock. With what you taught us, maybe we will crack it, but never crush it completely! The Cosmos isn't enough to defeat this mountain, and I bet the glacier is just as impossible."
Camus stood up straight and tapped Isaak's back twice. "Inability and impossibility are distinct concepts," he explained. "Stay behind me, both of you."
"Uh? Okay." They were inquisitive, but proceeded to take a few steps away from the man.
However, he reinforced: "More. Make better distance than that."
At that point they felt alienated, but obliged nonetheless. Seeing them in a safe distance, Camus pulled his cloak open, planted the boots firmly, and raised both arms to meet atop the head. Hyoga attentively watched each and every movement his, as did his friend. Following a wondrous rise of Cosmos, the boys saw aurorae crowd the air like the Northern lights they were acquainted with, and once crystalline droplets fell, they watched him swing the arms forth.
"AURORA EXECUTION!"
Their mouths fell agape once the mountain was reshaped by some forsaken state of matter, the chill air around them drained by a colder well ahead. With a colorful display, the rocks crumbled in on themselves, and a widening space the size of the blast opened deep into the range.
Camus came over to them, the snowstorm's directions yet varying as a reaction to that jaw-dropping technique. Having reached Isaak, he leaned and rested a glove on his shoulder. "Right now you are weak, because you are ignorant of the Cosmos. You are to become akin to it, and in years to come, no glacier should stand before your fist," he ascertained and headed on to the shack. "Let us care for your injury, Isaak."
Regardless of his subtle humiliation, the boy was mesmerized at the prospect of achieving such greatness. He looked to Hyoga, who was also haunted by what they had just seen, and so they pursued their master in obedience. Power, at the very least, spoke undeniable truth to the stock of Saints.
So they trained into their teens, improving in fitness and conditioning, learning to withstand extremely low temperatures, and, above all, specializing in the kind of Cosmos that Camus was an expert at. For fighters of the sort to use the Diamond Dust, it was preferable to use power as to approach absolute zero ever faster rather than heat the space affected by it. This was only possible with an unintuitive application of Cosmos, one that gave an edge to Hyoga over his friends back in Japan.
Now older, he again stared down the ice shelves whereon he shouldn't wander. With the path forward largely obscured by a severe blizzard, he had to pay close attention to the patterns on the ground, until he found the intended target. There he struck the ice with much more refined power, blowing a hole cleanly to the sea beneath.
"Finally, I did it," he whispered to himself in triumph.
Unbothered by the temperature, he removed the parka, and revealed that his muscles had grown closer to what he would look like at the point of Sainthood, swelling under the blue sweater. That garment he also took off to reveal a simple t-shirt, and from a pocket he pulled out the head of a tulip, which he cupped in a hand before diving in.
The water was obviously much colder than the surface, though with Cosmos he was taught to protect skin and flesh. Nonetheless, he came to learn the dangers of that sea, in particular at the onset of a powerful blizzard, and perhaps a similar source to the rogue wave that resulted in his mom's death. The currents from the Arctic were complex and affected by many a variable, and the deeper he swam, the more they strengthened to push him both sideways and downwards.
No matter how much power he put into fighting it, the force grew too strong and his body was pushed down. The struggle became highly physical at that point, yet he had been trapped in a series of submerged tides, sporadically changing direction but approaching dark depths. His Cosmos was yet too weak for the vigorous drag the Arctic ocean had to offer.
Hyoga's obstinacy and mischance would've become his downfall, had it not been for Isaak's nosiness. He had been followed all the way to that same spot, apparently a frequent stunt, and his training partner had become just as used to that location he insisted upon. This once, however, the future Cygnus was nowhere to be seen, and the blizzard made it impossible for the opening to be seen from that angle.
"That idiot, I'm sure he has come here again. I'm sensing his Cosmos, but this blizzard makes it impossible to see," said Isaak. He followed the pressure in his brain — an ability not quite well developed in him — but soon realized something was wrong, and stopped to look down at his boots. "It's… under the sea…? Hyoga, you fool!"
Having removed his own winter clothes, the teen crashed right through the sheets and into the sea, instantly being twirled off by the water's push. He chased the Cosmos that seemed to travel far and deep, weakened with time. Because he didn't have to fight a lot of the tide to reach him, much of his trip was calmer.
That was until his legs were caught in an upwell, such that he was sent up to the overhead. In this process he flailed and scratched both arm and face against the rough surface of anchor ice. Before he found a grasp, the skin of his left arm was ripped open; his face bled less after being scraped, cracking some of the thinnest structures, although the more sensitive cornea of an eye was ripped, where microscopic, blade-like ice invaded the structure within.
He used all the frost as a basis to dive back out, despite the raging pain and reddened vision. With the impulse, he reached a darker spot and watched an already unconscious Hyoga swept towards the Transpolar drift, where he would surely be lost for eternity.
The boy's Cosmos showed no signs of returning, meaning he had just passed out. Because he had almost no air left after the struggle, Isaak desperately embraced his friend, exploded with energy, and launched him up as forcefully as he could. This, however, was not enough for him to resurface.
A weaker current took Hyoga's body and, unable to fight the tide he had been caught in, Isaak focused on saving himself for a while. It was him, ultimately, who got pushed deeper into the Arctic, whereas his colleague floated close to the sheets above.
Several silent seconds followed after this, where no more floundering could be heard, and no stark movement seemed apparent in the vicinity. Tiny particles of ice separated from the sheets and floated towards the deepening bottom, also caught in one of the deadly streams. Suddenly a colorful glimmer flashed below Hyoga, and a shadow amid it raced up, taking him in its wake.
They reduced the frost above to shards to emerge at impressive speeds, then fell a few meters ahead to crack another patch and nearly separate it from the shelf. The one who had Hyoga in his arms was Camus, without the cloak and gloves. After being laid aside, the apprentice vomited liters of water, and at that point his master had already reentered the sea quickly to seek the other.
He felt that incredible Cosmos travel in the area below, aiming for where Isaak had gone to, although chances of finding him became slimmer by the second. Hyoga groaned and tightened the fingers around his limbs, feeling a nail-like pain assault the nerves once uncontrollable cold swept over him.
Later on, when he was taken to the shack and curled into many blankets, the frostbite was no longer as excruciating. The boy rested his humid hair onto both folded legs, and sat close to the fireplace. He had been left there for Aquarius to continue the search for Isaak, the unlikelihood of his survival not a thought in their mind, as to not suggest his loss.
The fruitlessness of the search was elucidated once Camus opened the door and entered unaccompanied. He shut it behind him to quieten the blizzard's roar, swept snow off the robes and coats, and left them to hang. When he stepped closer to the fireplace and sat on the armchair, it was clear that his clothes were still wet from the failed rescue.
"Your impatience has cost a life. Only you remain to be the Cygnus Saint," the man confirmed to him in the most tenebrous of tones, so Hyoga sobbed without daring lift the face, so great was his regret. "You will visit her someday, but it must wait. This is the last time I tell you. Your undying love for your mother will either mean your death, or the fuel to help you reach greater heights. Do not let it be the former."
In that very instant, Isaak's unconscious body sunk into the Arctic sea's abyss. The scars in the arm, face, and eye bled freely, this time trailing his path to that trench's unseen bed. Once he vanished in pitch black, bubbles were left behind, and the faintest impression of a blinking light could be seen far below.
The freezing, forlorn vastness of the Arctic was no different from Hyoga's circumstance, trapped in that unmelting crystal. Chills crawled over his spine and he saw himself floating in the cold, met with his own teenage self. As he stared and took in his past self's expression, he noted how confused and unsure it was.
"The depth of an ocean felt like the highest of dangers," he thought, "a world that swallows you and traps you in darkness. Back then, I couldn't fathom the deeper trenches of this earth. Nowadays, I endure the profound Arctic as I do the green plains above, and despite it all, I still can't comprehend my own self. I don't know who I am outside the fruits of bad luck, my orphaning, my friend's disappearance by my own failure... perhaps it's time that I stop looking deeper without, to instead look deeper within."
His past self curiously floated closer, and he reached forth to touch the tip of their fingers. At that moment the blinking light in the distance was overwhelmed by a new shine, one inside the young man's head that illuminated everything, physically and mentally. He had found some crucial truth.
In the House of Sagittarius, Hyoga's Cosmos reawakened and escalated in endless grandiosity. Its aura went from the usual white to a deep blue, outlined by lensing, golden plasma. The unmelting coffin slowly lit up like the lamp of a lighthouse, encompassing the hall alongside said great radiance, as did inward magnetic waves that cracked the cold sheen created by Camus.
From the shadows cast by the frozen columns, it was possible to watch the crystal deform into some fascinating state of matter. It spread fluidly, concentrating at the bottom like the densest solids, but pooling about it like the most viscous liquids, and smoking downwards like the utmost coarse gas.
Groaning out of extreme pain, Hyoga fell forward and crawled with sluggish movements, flimsily shaking from weakness and cold. He was able to make a good distance from the phenomenon, that was until the power subsided and the substance froze once more. This left lattices that became more spaced the further they got from a central, amorphous gem.
Since the temperature he evoked had exceeded the Cygnus Cloth's tolerance, he only shook more heavily and screamed at the advent of frostbite. His exasperated breathing did not help to heat him up, and soon after being released from his master's merciful trap, he was knocked out.
After their escape from the Temple of Scorpio, Seiya and Shiryu were the first to arrive in Sagittarius' porch. Both walked in, feeling the extreme cold and taking the unexpected sight. Confused, they turned back once Shun seemed close enough.
"This is supposed to be Sagittarius, isn't it?" Seiya asked him.
Shun looked up at the sign and saw the centaur to confirm, commenting: "Yes, it has to be."
"But it's all covered in ice."
"Hm, is that so?" The Bronze Saints jogged in and analyzed the situation, but it took them little time to see, somewhat ahead of the central platform's threshold, the fallen Cygnus coated in particles of snow, skin paler than ever. "It's Hyoga!"
They ran faster to him, so Andromeda flipped him to the side and placed a hand against the exposed neck. That absurd cold scared him momentarily, but he pressed the flesh and sensed a shy heartbeat, whereas air condensed under the nostrils, signs that announced life.
"He's alive," Shun told them, "but his body is freezing. I don't know for how long he has been here."
"Who could've done such a thing?" Shiryu questioned.
After instants of pondering, Shun bet: "There is his master, but perhaps Pisces can manipulate ice as well."
"I just don't get it. They wouldn't come all the way down here to do this, then just leave," said Seiya.
"Maybe they're still around. Check the other rooms, I'll stay and make sure he's fine."
"Good idea."
Dragon and Pegasus went to check on the passages apart from the exit, one to the right that led to the abandoned quarters, and another that led to the unused bathroom. In the meantime, Shun pulled Hyoga up and felt the temperature of his face under a palm.
"A cold not even Hyoga could withstand…" he whispered "… this must've been Camus."
"Clear!" Shiryu yelled from the bathroom before returning.
"The bedroom is clear too, just very dusty," Seiya remarked. Back near the center, they looked down at their friend's situation, but were nonetheless reminded of their mission. "Well, Shun, we have to move ahead."
The boy nodded. "I'll stay behind and try to warm him up," he said.
"Yeah, do your best to save him, alright?"
"I'll go after you when he's better."
"Okay, see you later!" said Seiya. Quiet, Shiryu seemed strangely meditative at what he observed, though he proceeded to the exit anyway. They left off at great speeds to the next temple, while Andromeda remained behind.
He pulled Hyoga's damp hair off his features, and lifted the head with fingers gently pushed against a cheek. Seeing him so weakened and frigid was perhaps befitting of his outward shell, yet Shun couldn't help but worry, since not only did he believe to have lost his brother, he feared for June, for Athena, and now had to watch Cygnus languish in his arms.
Tears nearly bundled up under the boy's blue eyes, but he held them back as well as he held his friend. "Your Cosmos is always quite cold, so I guess you had no way to warm up, is that right?" Hyoga was brought tightly into the cracked breastplate, and Shun embraced his torso to reach around for a hand. It was strikingly gelid, unlike any cold he had ever experienced, and so he rose Cosmos and tightened the fingers between his. "But I'll do my best for you."
With what he had been taught by Albiore, Shaina, and Athena, Shun burned a magenta flame that melted ice in the ceiling, walls, and columns; it went as far as slowly removing the sheen around the statue. With heat abound, this would surely return the House of Sagittarius to its former, original state, although the crystal Hyoga had escaped and the cold he had self-inflicted were grander foes.
"I know Lady Athena needs us, but I can't let you die here. Were I to lose you…" He tightened the embrace and carried him further up, burying the nose into his neck. With how close and intimate they had become, Andromeda's intense aura enveloped the other, to outline the duo like they were one. "… life would feel too devoid of reason to go on. May I be forgiven, but I only wish to live on if I get to be by your side, Hyoga. I see no point otherwise." For a last time he tightened the arms, such that their Cloths kissed under growing warmth. The less cold Hyoga felt, the more Shun did, and although he knew this could exhaust his own ability to move on, he saw no better stead for eternal rest than the refuge of his scent.
This peak of Cosmos was noticeable as soon as Shiryu and Seiya were near the Temple of Capricorn. The first slowed down by the porch and walked up a couple steps, and the latter stopped to look back, experiencing the pressure caused by that great energy.
"Can you feel Shun's Cosmos?" Pegasus asked. Dragon turned momentarily and nodded, not speaking a word. "That's the strongest I've ever felt it burn."
After a deep breath, Shiryu finally talked: "I don't think Shun plans on coming with us."
The other Bronze Saint turned with a confused frown. "Huh? What do you mean?"
"Since the Dark Saints, Shun has only seen death. It didn't matter how much effort he put into reasoning with the enemy, death was inevitable."
"Yeah, you're right. I can see this sort of stuff taking a toll on people like him and Shaka."
"I wouldn't say the same for Shaka. He took a vote of nonviolence, but didn't seem surprised by the nature of war. Shun, in the other hand, believes in a peaceful world, as long as he saw the opportunity to reason with the enemy. This view falls apart each day, with his master's death, what we did to Sagitta and his men, his brother's Cosmos disappearing… I think Shun would give his life away to save Hyoga. This might be the moment he gives his own life to avoid someone else's death."
"What?" Seiya seemed much more shocked now, and tightened the fists with the intent of running back. "That would be stupid, we have to go back and stop him before…"
Shiryu walked down a step and held his friend's shoulder to stop him. They exchanged stares and came to soundless understanding, yet he still spoke: "Remember what June told you." Seiya's face went from shock, to confusion, to determination. "Whether we agree with him or not, Shun is our friend. He entrusted us with the way up, so we must trust him and move on."
Despite how somber Dragon's tone became, they no longer debated. He turned to Capricorn and entered, and Seiya went in too, wary that his neck did not to gaze back at the House of Sagittarius any longer.