WARNING: Violence, blood, severe burns, severe injury.

In The Eye Of The Storm

Marin, having taken leave from the Temple of Pisces, attentively followed the stairs and studied the petals as they swam in the air. Due to Seiya's past disturbances, the road had been set to a greater disarray, and so she saw herself forced to cover the mask on her way.

It was impossible — as far low as she was and constantly attempting to avoid the roses — to spot her apprentice in the distance, though she understood hurrying to be a potential death sentence. After ascending several steps, Eagle found an opportunity to look up the path, and deep in its subtle curvature she met the sight of Seiya, who didn't seem to move.

Unknowing of how long he had fallen, she assumed the extra risk and jumped at great speeds towards him. The roses in the beds were perturbed, coming undone to permeate more of the space nearby; not only that, she huffed a few unavoidable breaths on her way there, and the poisonous shards burned through the airways.

Following that long rush, she reached the young man and observed that he trembled, for he put a lot of strength into crawling up the stairway. "I knew you wouldn't have the patience," she murmured, voice unexpectedly raspy, which prompted her to clear her throat. The amazon crouched and lifted him through an arm, around the shoulders and neck, then led him onward.

He could walk with the support, but only with limp knees and feet, and his breath was loud enough to be audible meters away. Marin took off the mask to use the solid sides as a cover for Seiya's face, whereas the folded section of her arm protected her nose and mouth, this in the hopes that she would filter out some of what they breathed.

Although effective, this was not perfect, and it did nothing to protect their eyes. The poison was an irritant of that sort too, forcing them to tighten the eyelids, if not fully close them at times, only informed by their sense of balance and distance. Each time she felt the need to breathe in out of effort, Eagle pulled the mask back momentarily and filtered the nostrils, though the burning only grew over time.

Eventually she felt her apprentice's stance strengthening, and he stepped over the boots more vividly. "M… Marin…" he spoke upon recognizing her Cloth, yet his sight remained low to the ground.

"Hold strong, we're not too far," she said.

"Teach me… the Comet Fist," he asked, as that was the only think he had in mind prior to facing another dangerous foe. Had he a power as destructive as that, paired with the Seventh Sense, they were quite likely to arise victorious.

Marin looked up and coughed into her arm, thinking of how she'd explain him the simple truth that took her over a year to master. "It's hard to put it into words, but I don't have anything to teach you," she claimed, "because you already know it."

He shook the head in response. "I don't get it."

"What I couldn't get into my head is that… the Comet Fist and the Meteor Fist are one and the same," she paused to cover herself with the mask, feeling the airways aching. Expelling some air, she returned to care for Pegasus. "Ugh… the trick… is concentrating the energy into a single point in space and time, rather than allowing it to freely spread."

"I see now. It's probably… more difficult than it sounds." He began to cough loudly and intermittently for the coming seconds, so Marin sustained his weight and peeked to measure the distance to their destination.

"I can see the porch from here, so we're close. Keep going."

Seiya chuckled with a wheeze when he was done, scars pulsating in the back of the throat. "Aphrodite told me… it was impossible to pass. I didn't believe him, and now look at me."

"Those are Demon Roses, every thorn and petal poisonous," she explained. "They go undone with the slightest breeze when this dry." Her mouth burned harder over time, which only made it that more difficult to speak. "The faster you go, the more you breathe it in. The slower you go, the longer you stay exposed to it."

The Bronze Saint's blurry thoughts went back to Pisces, the Cosmoi within his temple rising unfettered. He remembered how the perfume made him feel dizzied, the same scent that shrouded that man. This made him wonder whether Aphrodite had grown accustomed to it, and reminded him of his words — not even he, the one who bred and tended for those deadly plants, would've been safe traveling there.

They climbed a while longer and Seiya groaned between a sequence of coughs, then trembled close to a fall. "Come on, Seiya!" Marin urged him and forced him by the shoulder so they'd keep going. "Don't give up, just a little longer."

His tone only returned seconds after: "My body is failing, Marin."

"Then push it harder!" She insisted on supporting him, exerting the vast majority of the force to go on. Nonetheless, he only weakened further, such that he turned into a heavier load each second. "Look alive, Seiya!" What he offered then was naught but a hoarse gasp, so she pulled him up more harshly.

Hopelessness rose during that defeating silence. Only that accursed energy could be felt ahead of them, and the violent bursts from Pisces and Andromeda behind, cycling back and forth in power. The shifting temperatures in the temple below affected the road as far as their positions, blowing and exhausting the petals in varying spans.

Marin noted that Andromeda's Cosmos suddenly vanished, and just as quickly started to burn like it had never burned before. Because she was focused on carrying Pegasus, it was difficult to comment on it, though she couldn't ignore how the petals seemed magnetized by the porch left behind.

Soon that energy raged violently, and the winds whistled with how intense they had grown. The roses came counter to them, therefore Eagle protected the apprentice with her body, all while covering the side of her face with the mask. "Shun is…" she was interrupted by a deafening boom, therewith a bright flash coated the House of Pisces, something she had to witness by herself.

Initially it appeared gold, but for the briefest of moments it turned magenta, and then it vanished with a blink. An insurmountable gale thus washed the petals forward and outward rather than back, and the dry flowers were cleanly swept off most of the beds, only decaying stems and dirt left behind. The chance for a final push had been given.

"He cleared the road!" Marin remarked. Forcing Seiya's weight over her shoulder to the extent that she nearly carried him in her arms, she resounded a mighty utter and launched one another towards the safe platform above. Thanks to her Cosmos and Shun's, it took them less than half a minute to finish the remainder of the distance to the Temple of Athena.

The situation behind them, however, had gone dark and cold. She would've wondered if the Saints had taken her advice and not killed each other ultimately, had she not been so busy saving their own skins. Clearing the last step, Eagle threw the young man with whatever force rested in her, then dropped over the knees on an edge to crawl a good length forth.

Seeing that distance she had been able to make, she grabbed Pegasus by the arm and dragged him closer to the porch too, huffing heavily. Soon this felt superfluous, thus she rolled with the back to the marble and slipped the mask under the hair, face now fully covered. The way she cleared her throat next seemed to scratch deep in every organ.

"Finally," she nonchalantly commemorated, staring down to see that Seiya curled up in a futile attempt to stand, then spat some blood onto the floor, a bad omen. "My lungs… they feel as if sliced to pieces."

Their wait couldn't be eternal, but in their state, they needed to repose for a few minutes, lest their deaths be assured at the hands of the Pope. Lying on her back like that, Marin lifted the head and took in the symbol atop the porch, below the sight of the gigantic statue of Athena in the backyard far behind. It depicted a little owl, its eyes carved to gaze down at the onlooker, though this vision was received as a blessing by the amazon.

When some vitality and intent to press on returned, she pushed her body up and tried to lift Seiya. "Everyone is depending on us. They fought really hard…" she stopped and heaved him fully around the shoulder "… for us to be here."

They stumbled to a column next to the temple's double door, which she pushed open. The newcomers were faced with an eerily quiet interior, overtly quieter than the outside, but bearing an alien view.

Ahead of the long, blue rug, where the Pope would've sat on his throne, there was only a featureless sphere of darkness. The shine of torches lit behind distorted about its radius, and thousands of flowing arms of a similar material formed a spiral extended as far as the walls, where they gradually withered and vanished.

Eagle entered in awe, feeling a cold pull to that galaxy-like structure. There was only one thing to be assumed: this power was tethered to that shadowy arrow, the object that robbed Lady Athena of her very life, and within it its core would be found. The Pope had to be amid that; he had to be the one that nourished that scourge, and no one else.

Ready to end it all then and there, without a shadow of a doubt, fears shrugged off, Marin inspired anticipation. Her expert Cosmos was lifted, and she assumed a stance as if preparing to hurl herself therein, something Seiya noticed.

Upon his warning, it had been too late: "Wait, Marin!"

The Silver Saint raced towards the center and entered the chilling entrails of its arms. The sphere deformed with a bulb that slammed her violently back, and not even its pull was enough to stop the rebound. Drifting inward, Marin flailed and fell whereon she stood prior, and Seiya tumbled to his knees next to her.

Little of his aid was needed for her to stand, but the effort made her lungs burn hotter. "Only… only the Seventh Sense can take down that barrier," he assumed.

"Do you think you can do it?"

Despite the uncertainty, the youth did his best to stand upright. He took steps forward and felt that chilling attraction, how it pulled on his hair and the mild sweat of his roughened skin. It took him a while to prepare mentally and physically, from how exhausted and impaired he felt, but soon he was crowned by the aura of the Seventh Sense.

That power evolved twice, thrice bigger each second, therefore Marin preferred to step aside, off the line of attack. Pegasus' frowned stare glowed a bright white, then he screamed and advanced at the peak of his speed, one that rivaled the fastest of Gold Saints. Aiming a spear-handed strike towards the bubble, he struck it and withstood its resistance, such that it deformed deeper and deeper under the push.

Light scattered around this scene and transformed the image into the freakiest imaginable, as if Seiya were much bigger yet more distant than he really was. After a louder shout, a bright bang filled the hall, then the Bronze Saint invaded the barrier and hit the Pope full on, straight to the head.

The back of the throne broke with the push, so the two fell behind it together and rolled off each other, close to the slim doors that announced their goddess' quarters. Those haunting lines were sucked in and reduced to nothing, and the dark energy faded into the enemy's robes.

Because no more sound came after that, Marin jogged to see their situation. Seiya very slowly got up, whereas the Pope was stiffly fallen over the carpet, enrobed yet unmasked. She reached for her apprentice and helped him up. "You did it!"

To ease her worries, he stood again and said: "I think I'm fine." Therefore the duo stared down at the fallen man and examined his features.

His extremely long, wavy, graying brown hair had been splayed out in wild abandon. His skin was light, pale, face rough on the edges, the latter both a sign of virility and coming age. They could see through the thickness and tone on the neck that the man was rather muscular, but soon their attention was brought to his eyes: fully black, not unlike the void stare Shaka imbued himself with in order to defeat Ikki. Indeed, in that state he was much more catatonic than Virgo was in deep meditation; he had been temporarily paralyzed by the curse he fed.

"That's not the Pope," Marin noted as if recognizing the identity.

"Uh?"

"That can't be the Pope. That… that is…"

Residual Cosmos arrived at the entrance, meager compared to the grandiosity they had met along their path. As she stood ahead of Seiya to protect him, the Silver Saint led him near one of the temple's wings, pushing him behind her. Parts of a Gold Cloth flew in and were soon possessed by a shadow, thus they walked as if contained by it as vessel. The sight betrayed its identity, that of Gemini, although only one of them had met it in the past. Like apparent dark magic, the Pope's body lifted off the floor, so the white robe sprung up and revealed a tunic underneath, meaning the visitors were cornered.

"Gemini Saga!" Marin said.

Saga turned to them mechanically, bearing a severe expression. The hue of his irises was revealed to be dark brown and afflicted by some reddening. "So it is told, I have gravely erred in trusting the might of my old colleagues, that they would allow traitors as far as the Temple of Athena," he said, timbre old, rustic, and low-toned.

Pegasus nearly skipped ahead of his master. "You're the only traitor here!" he exclaimed.

Saga tracked them down with sure steps, and Gemini's shadow mirrored his movements, ever closer until they walked in parallel. The sound of clashing came as, one-by-one, the pieces clung to his body, over the tunic and under the robe, which he later removed; for every part separated from the bundle, the shadow dismounted till it disappeared. The Saint, however, stopped close to them, a helmet the last thing to fall betwixt his boots.

The motifs, as expected, made overwhelming references to the twins; in the center of the breastplate, a large, ocular, mirror-like gem separated the etchings of two identical men, one leading a warhorse, and the other with javelins boun. The folds in the armor's fluted surface oft resembled the traditional knots of a himation, all of the same muted shade of yellow gold. Rounded shoulder protectors were flattened at the sides, where two identical faces were visible, a symbolism shared with the flat-top helmet; on each of its side, two faces could also be seen, the same twins themselves. Many adornments were raised off the material, and many details were shown throughout the plates, from plant-like straws to depictions of the same brothers at the front.

Seiya and Marin watched him walk in front of the helmet, willfully neglecting to put it on. "Am I?" he retorted the Bronze Saint's accusation.

"You're the one who sent Aiolia to kill Athena. What else could you be?" said Eagle.

"It was not I, but Sanctuary who betrayed itself," Saga replied, and his anger raised soon thereafter. "In fact, Sanctuary betrayed me and my brother, our blood and soul!"

"What are you going on about?"

"It is no use explaining to your types, lowly Saints, Athena's pawns… allow me to rid this place of your existence, and of your Lady soon thereafter."

Gemini's aura widely spread, this once a dark gold rather than the pure black from before. The other Saints responded in kind, and were thus met with a clap of energy that loudly filled the hall. They scattered, each at their respective velocities, and an intricate struggle kicked off.

Notwithstanding the fact that Seiya could keep up with the older man, he was nowhere as refined and experienced in his usage of the Seventh Sense, let alone a fighter as strategic and witty. He was ever upfront, striding after or away from him, like light formations swimming back and forth in the temple; Marin could barely perceive their movements.

Because she noticed Saga seldom faltered and her pupil often dodged out of caution, she slipped in to take the Gold Saint's focus. This was revealed to be a useless move — he could easily follow two foes at once, especially one yet as slow as her. Using a brief sweep of the leg while he moved past the Silver Saint, Gemini took her off her feet, then strode past her, shoulder to her torso. Eagle spiraled and nearly fell once she landed, too disoriented to counter.

Saga had gone forth to meet Seiya halfway, so he took a fist right to the gauntlet, pushing fiercely. Their faces came close during the brief clash, the youth visibly hurt from the recent travel, and the supposed Pope's gnarl twisted to a smile.

Seiya attempted to slam him back with a leg, but he slid out of reach. As Marin sent a similar spinning kick from behind, he crouched and struck her off-balance with the heel of the palm, which was followed with a side-flip to evade Pegasus' incoming rush.

He correctly premeditated that onslaught to endure, and timed the following reactions accordingly. A spark of Cosmos packed the energy surrounding him tightly, so as soon as Seiya proceeded to assault him, he raised both hands above the head. By some surreal control of existence, the space around it was ripped open, sliced towards another world. With his next words, said hole enlarged further: "ANOTHER DIMENSION!"

Seiya's eyes stared on in surprise. Mixed with the force he produced to approach, an attraction towards that entrance sought to embrace him, though he was forthwith in response. On the way up he pushed harder, kicked one of Saga's legs off the floor, allowed his own body to flip upside-down, and clawed both hands around the enemy's greaves.

Although he fumbled and fought to escape that grasp, everything took place too quickly, so soon Seiya had fully caught his thigh. Not unlike Shun had done in the House of Gemini, he brought the destination's creator inside with him.

Such situation differed only by Gemini's lucidity compared to that of his shadow. Feeling the narrowing grip of the gauntlet around the source hand, he allowed it to slip off before its bones were crushed, grunting out of pain. That very hand was whipped afterwards, therefore the hole got zipped shut, and Marin saw herself completely solitary in the temple.

"Hm?" She looked around to make sure that they hadn't escaped her sight, even turning back to the door, though no sign showed itself. "Where did they go?"

That same dimension in which Andromeda and the others had found themselves in — that's where their combat had been taken to. In a spectacle of lights, afterglow, and thunder, Saga and Seiya swerved back and forth like stars encroaching impact. Their strikes came much harder in the strange, ever-changing mechanics of that place, which also required them to avoid one another with every effort.

The longer they traveled through its bizarre fabric, the more its counterintuitive laws were revealed. They frequently crossed pockets of fluctuating time, and within, not only did movement reach faster or slower, so did the light that traversed it to meet their eyes, and — even more strangely — their thoughts slowed or hastened in their brains.

No matter the complexity and difficulty of predicting its outcomes, Gemini seemed quite comfortable navigating through them, unlike Seiya. Said failure was a thing he explored thoroughly. The ever decelerating and accelerating swings came as surprises that Pegasus could not reliably predict. As such he was bumped multiple instances, then took a knee to the shoulder blade that he did not forecast.

The impact was great enough to entirely crash that section of the Pegasus Cloth and send him spiraling into the distance, the crushing sensation strongly afflicting bones and nerves. His screams blurred in that forsaken crease in reality.

Peaking again with Cosmos, Saga lifted the arms and ripped with the intent of returning to Sanctuary, and that's when he noticed his enemy's relentless resurgence. With the opposite arm prepared, Seiya rocketed himself into the Gold Saint's cuirass as soon as the slice was reformed, and with that they both were sent back out.

To Marin's surprise, they reappeared outside the temple, above the bath wing with a blinding flash. They crashed through the ceiling, Pegasus sliding to a three-point position, unprotected shoulder clearly injured; Gemini, in the other hand, flew to the opposite wall and stepped off of it so heavily that some of the bricks flaked off. With that force he launched himself towards his main foe, who parried at the detriment of the Pegasus Cloth's elbow plate.

After having protected herself from the debris released by that sudden reentry, Eagle continued to pester Saga with her own attacks, though those were always fruitless. Nonetheless, to him the challenge seemed insurmountable, unless Seiya's protection finally broke apart so that his attacks could inflict the fullest extent of suffering.

Taking a bash of a forearm that pushed her back to the entrance, Marin hurriedly recomposed and exploded her Cosmos, swinging an arm with precision. "COMET FIST!" she shouted. Her apprentice had felt this coming, so he blasted with a shoulder towards the opponent and shoved him into the sphere.

Seeing that, to him, that technique was an easy dodge at such levels, Saga skipped off the floor and carefully flipped, forming an arc around any danger. Even as he landed, he swiftly parried one of the Bronze Saint's sequence of blows, spun a roundhouse kick against his temple, and pushed him with a body slam.

Marin's Comet Fist ravaged much of the structure ahead, including the wall behind the dais and into the quarters, then a good chunk of whatever was inside. It came to wither in the long backyard, nearly reaching the foundations for Athena's colossal statue. The whole temple shook under their feet, and the walls trembled with the damage.

Anticipating her to busy him, Gemini charged at the amazon and kicked her in the chest, cracking the bust of the Silver Cloth. She was sent skidding against a wall of the entrance corridor, momentarily stunned by the ill in her lungs.

This situation, with both attackers succinctly muddled, was something he took as an invitation to concentrate on his ultimate goal. He blinked so that his eyes regained that tar-like appearance from before, and with the fingers of his exposed hand curled as claws, he aimed corrupt energy at Thanatos' arrow.

"Escape me not, Athena!" he growled.

Not too long before this, the hopes of those around Athena in the Temple of Aries dwindled with the passage of each minute, sensing that her defiant Cosmos was now frail, and that the markings on her fair skin spread further, coating the left side of the chest.

Aldebaran, who could barely take the sight, distanced himself a tad and focused on the energies above. Not too long following the end of Shun's conflict in Pisces, new energies could be felt in their goddess' temple, signaling at arrivals. It felt late, though this rekindled an inspiration to never abandon their efforts.

"The kids reached him," he commented to Mu, who automatically kept Athena's wound pristine and bloodless.

"We must remain prepared for anything anyhow," the other Gold Saint responded.

"It's still impressive that they went this far. When we last met, I wondered if they would even survive Gemini. Regardless of what took place along the way, I'm glad I was wrong to doubt them."

"Despite being always certain that they would put their all into it, I did not expect them to be so capable."

"We were both wrong then."

"Our Lady's life is no game, though. Be at the ready to…" Aries furled the brows, and eventually so did Taurus. Kiki, who was next to them, stared inquisitively.

"Master…? What's going on?" the kid questioned.

Aldebaran walked around his friend and approached Athena's body, while Mu carefully grasped the arrow's shaft another time. "Kiki, hold her shoulders like before," he ordered, and that the child did, no matter his confusion.

He gently pressed two fingers of the other hand deep into the wound's flesh, and this instance the woman didn't react in discomfort, so fleeting were her vital signs. Through telekinesis he could pull the edge astray from flesh and bone, and he noted that it had become close to buried, proving their concerns that the arrow somehow forced itself deeper with Cosmos.

With this he both pushed and pulled slowly and carefully, an act that would surely extend her life, albeit not for long at that point. Meanwhile the battle seemed exacerbated in the last temple, and with the way it devolved, soon its source returned for the slightest of seconds, prompting the three to pull back from the table.

Mu and Aldebaran looked at the ceiling, eyes directed at the Temple of Athena, where the source of her malediction had been pin-pointed. "So that's where it is after all," said Taurus.

"Right, and I wager they are not done yet," Mu foretold.

"Wouldn't it be best to go up then? I'll be a good addition to the team."

"Do not forget my concerns. Besides, we must trust Marin, Shiryu, and the others. Her life was just extended by their courage and dedication; if it is proven enough to save her, we cannot let the opportunity slip away."

But Saga's tether to Athena's vitality did not last long. As the seconds passed, he crept closer to the same catatonic state he was in when Seiya and Marin had arrived, so the Bronze Saint explored his distraction and slammed his head with the harshest punch he could garner.

Without the helmet, this did affect Gemini, but he somersaulted thanks to the momentum and slapped Pegasus' incoming strikes. Dazed like that, his fighting style was yet hyperactive and precise, with the hands always stiff and only clenched to a fist at the prospect of punching.

As he expected, Marin approached to distract him further, so he offered her a series of high kicks. With the aid of Seiya's aggressive advances, she was barely able to steer away from them, but Saga finished with a swing of the leg and body that even the boy had to evade.

This gave leeway for the false Pope to raise hands above his head as he had done prior, and this Pegasus no longer feared. Preemptively, he bumped Marin away before the technique came, uttering: "Stay back!" Surprised, she rolled, took the message, and staggered to a distance.

"ANOTHER DIMENSION!"

A second time Seiya was swallowed by that rip in existence, and his master could feel its extreme pull, one quite beyond Misty's Gravity Well. Before he was fully taken, body halfway through the passage, the young man nailed Saga's face and grabbed him by the long hair with a hand, neck and chin with the other.

The grip was such that, not unlike before, the two were taken to that strange location together, tied shut behind them. Gemini's confidence in fighting there was well-placed; he rotated the body in while yet held, then kneed the foe so hard that he was sent past a multitude of time pockets.

Once the youth ricocheted to exchange blows, he deflected it with pointed extensions of each arm, then pushed him sideways with a rotating kick, the back of a foot to the enemy's side. Seiya merely gyrated and rushed forth without fail, exploding his Cosmos and shouting: "PEGASUS METEOR FIST!"

Saga screamed, his voice echoing indistinctively, and amassed such energy that he formed a dark cleft ahead of him. That rift collected every meteor that passed him, but grew brighter and closer to an uncontrollable burst. Therewith the Gold Saint clapped it shut and almost immediately separated both hands, arms spread.

Lightning appeared where the rift was once visible. "GALAXIAN EXPLOSION!"

Pegasus could only watch as a bright, golden core expanded in front of them. In a split second it blew up to magnificent proportions, like the expansion of many galaxies, with their every content — star, black hole, or nebula. Its unbelievable ferocity and physical properties overwhelmed the dimension's limits, as it swallowed that reality from the inside, and this meant all the energy and mass had to be ejected.

In the temple, Marin silently prepared herself, eyeing the corners to pay attention to any detail that could denote their return. She was not ready for what would take place next: a bang whose extent was only muffled by the dimension it extinguished beforehand.

A place ahead of her lensed towards a hole, and the light was pulled in until space ripped to release the Galaxian Explosion and the Saints therein. That quickly it closed, but not without allowing her to experience some of what had taken place inside.

The walls came close to crumbling, and she felt the slowing and accelerating of time multiple instances, those pockets being spread outward and quickly dissolving, as they could not remain stable under the ordinary laws of reality. Seiya passed by her at a great speed, the Pegasus Cloth reduced to nearly nothing, such that he now only wore the red t-shirt and light jeans beneath.

Even his clothes had been partially ripped, as had been the skin, lightly scraped and burnt by the force. Saga was thrown the other direction, near the devastated quarters. The Gold Cloth had largely protected him, although it bent, cracked, and even lost small shards in the more structurally unsound of corners. Despite this, he slid over a knee, pushed a sole down, stood, and went back to tormenting Athena with his Cosmos.

Eagle had to aid the Bronze Saint to his feet, and he coughed, much more dazed than last time. Separating himself from her shoulder, he got some space and huffed to recompose. "He's too strong," Seiya commented.

"Should we care at this point?" Marin replied and looked on as their enemy continued to seek his favored goal.

"Think about it, it doesn't matter if we can't kill him."

"I see what you mean. We only need to put him down long enough for Mu to remove that arrow, but if we fail, there might be no one left on our side."

"That's why we…" Pegasus stepped forth and his leg came close to faltering, so Eagle gave him support.

"Seiya! You're bleeding too much," she noted, seeing how his face and arms had been cut to shreds.

He concluded: "That's why we must do our best to stop him."

Marin nodded in silence, casually approached Saga, and saw he seemed willing to risk himself in order to worsen Athena's curse. After a yell, she strode in with a flying kick, yet she found him to be partially conscious. Suddenly awakened, the Gold Saint grabbed her by the boot, swung it, and hurled her back.

The man prepared himself to go on fending them off, and spoke: "Has it not been made clear yet? I cannot be defeated by you. Without Mu, Shaka, Shura, Camus, and with Athena lying in her deathbed, defeating me is a pipe dream."

Gritting the teeth, Seiya chose to continue occupying his time with whatever speed he still possessed, careful to avoid him as best as possible. His master sought to knit his every movement with her own, to haply confound Saga, and they continuously ousted the Meteor Fist with the intent of trapping him.

Disregarding their effort, Gemini could dodge both of their attempts, no matter how narrowly he escaped Pegasus' enhanced attacks. For each energy missile he slipped past, the closer he got to the Bronze Saint, until soon he had come close enough to plant a palm firmly to his chest.

He had little time, but managed to stun the other and shove him far. The major issue solved, he slid aside and swung a leg at Marin, though she kept her distance to prepare for what would come next. Saga committed the mistake of underestimating her, so he curled the fingers as to torture Athena once more.

"EAGLE DIVE!" the amazon yelled above him. This stopped the Gold Saint in his tracks, since he was obliged to uppercut her descending kick. Greave split with cracks and plagued by overt pain, the woman flipped back to her feet, somewhat lame on the struck side.

Saga retaliated with swift, long strikes she couldn't even fathom defending, and because he cut the distance between them so soon, she was hit in full several times ere Pegasus slammed his fists to a halt. To that their enemy slid backward while producing a sphere of dark energy, one that blew up as soon as it expanded.

Such move affected everyone around it, although Gemini was ready to need only skip afar with the force. Seiya and Marin were nevertheless surprised, the first's t-shirt further ripped to shreds over the rough floor.

Fallen and weakened as he was, the young man could barely see himself further fighting, but a reminder of his allies' efforts, the many deaths caused by that man, and the suffering they underwent during their childhood was the pressure he needed to go on. Fighting that deathly feeling in his lungs became more difficult by the second, but he pressed the limp body up, seeking strength where no person could normally find.

Saga was able to stroll to the center of the rug and raise a wicked Cosmos, victimizing Athena. However, comprehending that he became distracted only as he became immersed in that state, Marin assaulted at the perfect moment and embraced him.

He flailed the arms in response, thus she slipped between the limbs and locked her arms under his armpits, legs tied around the torso from behind. "Off of me, insect!" Gemini demanded.

"Seiya, do it!" she called. The youth had finished standing when he took in the unfocused sight of their scramble. Gemini did his best to try and escape her, while Eagle tried to put him on a choke, erring each and every time by exhaustion, slowness, and weakness. "The Comet Fist, use it! Remember what I told you!"

The Gold Saint grunted and dropped himself back, the impetus enough to daze Marin with the impact. No matter the pain, she held on and locked him more tightly, and due to the extra weight, they both had limited mobility. Getting up would take longer than was safe, especially while imperiled by a warrior capable of the Seventh Sense.

Henceforth Seiya started to burn Cosmos, mentalizing what the Comet Fist would feel in contrast with the Meteor Fist: sparse energy instead attached to a single point, power released in a singular moment, all in one swing and discharge. Saga scowled at him, witness to the destructive nature of Marin's technique; he found it preposterous that a moral man would be willing to use it in such a situation.

"Quick, do it!" Eagle insisted.

Gemini wished for him to reconsider: "It is likely to kill her, but do you truly believe it could kill me, fool?"

Seiya frowned and reinforced his next actions with a stance, air and blood raised by the warmth of his aura. "I'll have to find out," he said.

There was only one chance. Were that not enough to at least put the enemy to rest, it would be in vain, but he didn't wish to waste anyone's efforts, let alone Marin's. At that point Saga no longer fought back, rather focusing on burning his own energy in preparation for a counter, which allowed the amazon to slide an arm around his throat and tie another to the back of the neck, fully into a rear naked choke. She buried her face under the elbow, though this was a needless endeavor, since the enemy saw no greater danger if not the boy's next action.

With the light fully distorted on his outline, Seiya aimed the fist forward and screamed: "PEGASUS COMET FIST!"

An immense, golden ellipse was spawned from his arm, and the power was so splendid that the ground beneath them quaked. Its surface was painted with intricate sparkles, glittering like gems in limestone, and it released a mist not unlike its namesake. The thing finished growing and paced towards them once freed, to which Saga spread both arms as he had done before, though seeking to push it back rather than contain it.

"GALAXIAN EXPLOSION!"

The ridiculous blast he generated was enough to deafen both the opponent and Marin, though that glistening Comet, gigantic as it was, confined it to a smaller space and fought it like a barrier, bent by Gemini's effort. Soon it broke in half, crashed into the other, and engulfed both the Saints and the opposing ability.

Summing the violence of either move, they were swallowed into each other's fabric and spread into a mutual, greater blast, bare and hot, crumbling many a section of the temple. Saga and Marin were launched back towards the dais, whereas Seiya was pushed to the entrance.

Columns sunk when the foundations tilted below, and so the ceiling came crashing down in crucial parts of the building. As soon as the long flash vanished, the fighters' state was revealed: Marin fell only slightly off Saga, mask battered and off her face, half of which had the skin superficially burned and bled; Saga fell slightly off to the side, and he was still awake, though the burns on him were the worst without the protection, flesh exposed and hair melting onto the face; Seiya had fallen unconscious in a fetal position, his state more respectable, despite the front affected by shallow marks and wounds.

Gemini looked up to the markings on the ceiling, eyes bloodshot, some fat bubbling on his face. He agonized and turned around, revealing that small shards had fallen off the Gold Cloth too. Blood profusely flowed from the exposed parts of the armor, to leave a trail on the charred carpet as he crawled towards the quarters' destroyed entrance.

"No, no… she must pay," he whispered to himself and groaned from those piercing scorches. "She must pay for what she did to us, brother!"

With how many torches had been incinerated by their attacks, only the flames perduring on the carpet or exhausting over marble bricks illuminated his repulsive visage. At some point his body trembled and he released a long screech, finally allowing that trail to become a scarlet stain under him.

In that moment he grasped for that dark power, craving to suffer Athena some more, though now it felt like his curled fingers caught nothing. "It cannot be," he spoke in disbelief. "She has escaped me! Athena, damn you!" He pressed on, but it was clear the arrow no longer responded. "No, no, no!" The more he tried, the more desperate he became, even sobbing in hysteria. "It cannot be so. Thanatos! Your worthless arrow has gone dark! Hypnos! Bring me that brother yours, speak unto him, he is to suffer at my hands! When I descend to hell, his throat shall be mine! Hypnos!"

He called and called for the twins, ultimately for Hypnos, who didn't show himself. Staring at the reflections through the blurriness of his burnt eyes, he saw no wing, no fair hair, nothing. A visit would not come, it seemed, and so he looked up again in disarray.

"Thanatos, Hypnos, answer me! PANDORA!" that last name came out more viciously, both desperate and accusatory. "PANDORA! YOU USED ME, COWARDLY WITCH! APPEAR TO ME! PANDORA!"

His last target, too, did not answer the plea, and no matter how hard he hunted for the shadow arrow, it was no more. At the very start of the path to the Ecliptic Temples, not much prior to the end of their battle, Aries, Taurus, and Kiki dealt with the constant lifting and subsiding of the curse, treating Athena to the best of their aptitude.

Thus had come the moment when the arrow fell long silent, and that medieval surgery of theirs came the closest to fully pulling it. They were not ecstatic, perhaps anxious, but above all fearful; the goddess' Cosmos had diminished to levels so minute it could barely be sensed. That loving warmth and wisdom that they experienced only for less than a day — it seemed close to disappearing right under their noses, unavertible proof of their failure.

Their efforts never yielded regardless, for they'd rather fail fighting for her, but the colder her vitality came, the more helpless they felt. Mu shut the eyes as he pulled on the shaft, so tears streamed down his cheeks. That hand he used to hold began to tremble, and he pulled the other one from the wound, judging it too dangerous to continue using telekinesis like that.

Aldebaran took steps back and sighed, also close to breaking. Rage filled his heart, so his friend turned and said: "Go up, Aldebaran. There is no fight left to offer her."

In response, the man steered from her body and went to the upward stairway. Only the knocks of his boots over the marble and Mu's quiet weeping could be heard then, a desolate atmosphere of precocious mourning. The care with which he removed the source of her ailment was a mere product of emotion, devoid of reason.

He and his apprentice noticed a movement, and so they seemed aghast. Suddenly someone reached for the fletch and, without an ounce of caution, dislodged the edge fully from the wound, an act that splattered blood onto Athena's white dress.

"NO!" Aries yelled, and so his friend turned back to see that he had fallen back, teary gaze aimed at what had just taken place. Kiki had also opened a great distance, jump-scared and hinting at the fact that neither of them could've done something so brutal. Drowned in disbelief, the trio watched in a stupor, fingers dangling from the table and interlaced with the bloodied artifact. Too late or otherwise, Thanatos' arrow had finally lost its grip on their Lady.