Lance's Role

by Thrudgelmir2333

A 'shonen' fic that sequels Next Dimension and Lost Canvas. In 1960, the Pope of Athena receives three prophecies from an old enemy that irremediably set the course of his reign over Sanctuary's tragic history and almost two decades later a Saint of Pegasus finds himself put through the unfolding of a new age of violence caused by the Pope's actions. Please enjoy and review.

98. 3A: Call in the Blood

Notable OCs: Pegasus Lance's Saint Generation, Civil War Saint Generation, WWII Saint Generation, Hades' Dark Princes, the False Specters, Maidens of Athena, Priam's Black Saints; Cyrulian Refugees; Genbu Atlae; Patrician Mariners, Shamballa Muvians; Ghisi Household;

Notable Original Concepts: Mount Olympus Training Ground, Sanctuary Court, Teos Cloth, Athenian Empire mythology, Isle of Gardens, Stardust Prison, Hades' Dark Princes; Desert Beyond, Sanctuary Town Layout & Buildings; Kido Mount; Pact of Seven; DQI Geography; Shamballa;

Recurring/Cameo OCs of Jenny DeVic: Mrs. Schafurwatt, Cyrus;

Recurring/Cameo Concepts of Jenny DeVic: Great Bodyguard Legend, Golden Line Heritage, Sanctuary Orphanages, Andromeda Island's Geography & Tests, Sanctuary Nobility, 88 Knights Festival;

{======================|A3|======================}

Author Notes:

-This chapter has been betaread by EpicElly;

{======================|A3|======================}

Five Weeks Earlier,

Early February, 1977

Ophiuchus Hospital ICU Floor

{======================|A3|======================}

"Doctor? Is it okay to visit him?" Olivia asked, presenting herself to the medic.

Saint Iaso Ophiuchus turned to her from the schedule board, looking surprised. "You're the Saintia girl, aren't you? Didn't you only just get cleared yourself?" He saw her nod and tucked his clipboard, sighing. "Pegasus is still asleep. He also doesn't look quite perfect yet from his injuries. Are you sure you want to take a look?"

The Saintia nodded, gulping. She had already seen him at his worst state. "Yes, please."

The Ophiuchus Saint hummed gravely, but acquiesced, leading her to the ICU. Still, he warned her. "His eyes have been opening, but we're not confident he can hear us. He has very weak reactions to light and sound and is likely to fall into a coma from the trauma afflicted to him." He saw how startled she was and tried to assuage her. "That sounds frightening, I know, but it happens more often to Saints than you might think. A lot of it is the body going into withdrawal from intensive use of Cosmos."

She nodded. Olivia thought she may have heard of this in class, once. "I see."

The doctor showed her the way, pointing at the right hallway with his clipboard. She thanked him with a quick bow and headed for it. All the way, her blue eyes glanced at the other hospital rooms, spotting nurses and doctors working over patients surrounded by frantic monitors, blood packs and IVs. Everything looked so chaotic. All week following the disaster at Andromeda Island, she had seen ambulances and Saints carrying people into the hospital. She also had to share the elevator ride to that floor with a crying family and one elderly, sleep-deprived doctor that looked perturbed and was wearing a blood-stained coat.

Passing by one of the rooms, Olivia spotted an aged veteran on a bed surrounded by his crying daughters. The machines beat weakly next to him. Her breath cut short at the sight of his distraught family.

{======================|A3|======================}

"Grampa, what's going on? Why have you been called back already?" Olivia had asked, seeing her enormous caretaker rush to get his Silver Cloth box. "I thought you were going to stay until the Spring coliseum games?"

"I can't. It's the Specters, Olivia." Herakles Aguilon had said as he put on his armor parts on his huge body. His fingers struggled to reach one of the locks over his back. "Their attacks in Germany have been increasing. They need someone experienced heading the front because the Gold Saints stationed there had to return here suddenly after the Japan incident."

Her eyes widened. "Is it that bad?" She rushed to help her aged grandparent firm his enormous cuirass on, locking the buttons he couldn't reach easily. "I thought everyone in the barracks had already been sent there! There must be thousands of Sanctuary personnel there by now!"

The giant man let out a thick, resigned breath. "Well, we're going to need more. A LOT more. Things are getting worse, Olivia. The problem with the Specters is that they get back up even after you hit them, so conventional attrition strategies don't work so well." Aguilon lamented. He thanked her help with a nod and put the rest of the pieces on himself. "I hate to say it, but what happened with Andromeda Island has only been the beginning. I don't want to frighten you, princess, but we may be on the brink of actual Holy War."

The young girl paled, recalling her lessons on the casualty rates. "Holy War?!" The two words alone put together were enough to make anyone who lived in Sanctuary feel the terror of doomsday for an entire generation of people. "N-No, it can't be! Everyone knows it's not dated in the stars for at least another 10 to 15 years!"

Aguilon exhaled, already regretting what he said. "Olivia, even in Sanctuary, not everything is ruled by the stars. Sometimes the Fates throw cruel curve balls at humans, and we're left with no choice but to batter up." He bent down almost at a ninety-degree angle so he could kiss her head. "Don't fret over it, okay? We are Saints of Athena. We do miracles. And I am Herakles-freaking-Aguilon. Those Specters don't stand a chance against me, immortal or not! You just head back to the Academy with the convoys and study hard. You'll be safe there, with those two Gold Saints posted in it. Promise me that."

She nodded, cleaning her eyes. "Y-yes, of course, grampa! I will." But one thing tugged at her heart. "I just…"

The giant put hands in hips. "You want to go see your new friends first?"

"I shouldn't just leave Saint Pegasus side and Saint Shinta's." Even though she was feeling better after her talk with the Andromeda Saint, Olivia just didn't think it was right to go unceremoniously like this. "I can always have Partita carry letters back and forth, but I should say goodbye face-to-face at least once."

The giant folded his thick arms, smiling with pride. Partita's daughter was growing into a principled woman. She would be so proud. "Alright. Just remember, Olivia, that kid might be a punk, but I can tell already the last thing Pegasus would want is for you to be in danger, much less upset that he's in this state. Besides, I've known that vandal for years; he's going to pull through."

The young Saintia nodded, smiling weakly. "I know."

Seeing his granddaughter still looking sad, Aguilon got an idea. He reached for his Cloth box and handed over his portable radio. "Here, honey."

She studied it. "Grampa, this is your military radio!"

He groaned in annoyance, waving his hand. "I have a twin at the base paired to it. I know you like using Partita to message people, but take it anyway in case you ever wanna chat with your old-old man. Me, that is." The giant gave her a toothy grin showing all his big dentures, the type that made her laugh when she was smaller. "Family is one of the most important things to have, Olivia. You're still young, but you'll see what I mean someday. With everything that's been going on, I'll be a little relieved if I can hear your voice out there in the trenches."

Olivia stared at it pensively and turned its dial, thoughts coursing through her head on how she could use it. She smiled. "Thank you, grampa. I will."

{======================|A3|======================}

Yet, as she arrived at the door of the hospital room, guarded by Galan, her heart sank at the sight of the Saint covered in bandages and tubes. He didn't seem any different from all the other emergency patients all over the hospital on the brink of death. If anything, despite all of Shinta's kind words telling her not to blame herself, Olivia couldn't help but see a repetition of Cerah's terrible ordeal after her encounter with Alraune Queen in Saint Lance.

The Leo Gold Saint sitting on the chair turned to her. "Olivia, you came." He took off his mask briefly and stared in admiration, forgetting how much she had grown up. "You look… nice. How are you?"

She saw how sunken his eyes were. "Me? I'm fine. Galan, think of yourself, first, please. You should go home and rest."

The tanned, blonde Greek youth in armor shook his head. "My mission isn't done." The guardian straightened himself in his seat to appear solid as a rock, as if Zeus himself had put him there in that watch. "I'm only leaving once Saint Pegasus' cosmos starts burning again. It's fine, though. I've been keeping fed and my cosmos can help me stay awake."

A sinking feeling crept in her stomach, and not just because the last guy who said this to her collapsed his face on her cleavage during their first date. She didn't want to believe in it, but Olivia knew Galan had no ties at all to Saint Lance, except one.

"Gal'…. why are you doing this?" She saw that the Leo Gold Saint's eyes shifted. It told her everything she'd need to know, but, still, Olivia asked "Please tell me that it isn't because of-"

"You asked me to save his life, didn't you? Well, he's not out of the woods yet." He returned his look to her. "Besides, make no mistake, you're not the only one interested in his survival. My father asked me to be here, too. I'm also not going to let a valuable Saint of Athena be lost to us."

These all sounded like perfectly reasonable motives to her. The Equuleus Saintia wanted to trust him. Unfortunately, knowing Galan's father like she did, Olivia knew this meant there was more to this story, not less. "Why is your father so invested in this? Duke Akassius is fighting at the front, isn't he? I know Saint Lance used to train at the Cancer Temple, but…"

"There's a lot about Saint Pegasus you don't know beyond that, Olivia, and I'm unfortunately not at liberty to discuss." Galan mentioned. Between the Teos Cloth, Pegasus' involvement with Mount Rozan and father's plans, Galan had enough to fill a hundred-chapter book. "However, you should know he is not who you think he is."

Usually this might have stunned her, but after everything that's been happening, Olivia would have to be stupid to be surprised. "Galan… is he a Gold Saint?" She saw him pause quietly. "Tell me if he is, right now! If you don't…!"

The Leo tensed his eyes, looking hurt. "You will what, hate me more than you do now?"

She retreated slightly. It wasn't her intention to attack him like this. "What?! No, I just-"

"Don't hide your feelings like that. I know how much, deep down, you hate the Gold Saints, Olivia." He exhaled, empathetic. "Anyone would hate us, with the tragic history the Iraklidis family has with the Zodiac. I can also imagine how it would feel to find out that the guy you liked was part of the organization whose wars took your mother's life and drove your father away."

The girl stiffened, her voice trapped in pain by her friend's behavior and the memories of her parents.

"I know you loved them very much, Olivia. Saint Partita Iraklidis would still be alive if the Gold Saints hadn't sent her to fight the Zodiac Knights, right?" Galan stood up, making his mask look terrifying with his impressive height. His shoulders slumped. "I always thought, though, that you'd never hate me, too, just because I followed in my father's footsteps."

The Saintia tensed and her eyes narrowed in fury. She wished she could slap him right then and there. In fact, Olivia harnessed an enormous amount of strength not to! "WHAT?! How could you say that, Galan?! I don't hate you! The Gold Saints saved our lives at Andromeda Island! Do you really think your Cloth is why I am upset?!"

"Yes." The Leo Saint flatly declared, stunning her "Because if you're not, then what does it matter if your boyfriend is a Gold Saint or not?"

Olivia widened her eyes, feeling caught in her own words. "B-Because I…I…" Her anger finally boiled at such a ridiculous question. "Because I want to understand WHY this happened! Why would the Specters try to kill a Bronze Saint, twice?! Because if it isn't for that, then… then Saint Pegasus is hurt because of ME!"

Even though he had his mask back on, Olivia could tell by his brief quietness that Galan was not impressed. "You're a smart girl, Olivia, the top of your class even. You know very well by now the Specters have no interest in you and that the Worm Specter was just mistaken when he attacked the Academy. You also know that if Pegasus really was a Gold Saint, he wouldn't be wearing an upgraded Bronze Cloth and putting himself in danger so stupidly."

The Equuleus Saintia reeled in silence, once again trapped by Galan's words.

"There's really only one reason you're feeling like guilty." Galan added. "Because unlike your brother, you refuse to face who you are; an Iraklidis."

The girl gasped. "I… refuse to face who I am?!"

"You and Leon don't have just the blood of giants, Olivia. You have the blood of heroes, too." The Leo Saint clenched his fist high. "And just like them, you should be boiling every bit of it to make your dreams come true. To make yourself great, just like your brother, parents and grandfather, so that the next time Specters show up, others don't pay the price of your weakness!" He relaxed, letting his rousing posture drop. "Isn't that why you entered the academy, when you could have become anything you wanted other than the same as the people who killed your mom? Because you wanted to be a great, heroic Saintia just like her? The Olivia I know would never subject her family to such a heavy burden otherwise."

Olivia's head lowered. She couldn't deny any of this. She had confessed that dream of hers to Galan many times before, in better days.

"It's only natural, then, that you'd be here, because what happened in Andromeda Island proves that, despite all your years in that academy, you have done absolutely nothing to match the heroes your line has produced so far, Olivia." Galan concluded. "I would venture to guess, even, that it showed you the path ahead is longer and thornier than you ever imagined, right? And that Leon's shadow is deeper and blacker than you thought. For an Iraklidis, that can be a terrible realization. Paralyzing, even."

The Saintia held her arm, feeling numb. Her eyes narrowed. "You… YOU B-BASTARD!" and her hand struck him across the face!

Galan widened his eyes, feeling his warm cheek with his hand.

"How could you say such an ARROGANT THING?!" Olivia screamed, at the end of her wits with him. "Do you think I care I'm not like my brother?! I haven't seen Leon in such a long time, I wish I'd see that shadow you speak of, just to know he's okay! I'm upset because I've seen you do something I thought you never would, and I don't recognize my precious childhood friend who used to play 'heroes and princesses' with me in it! I'm not here because of bloodlines! I'm here because MY BOYFRIEND IS BEHIND YOU IN A COMA!"

The Leo Gold Saint narrowed his eyes dangerously, making her stagger and lose the bravery in her throat. For a second, the look he gave her was so intense, Olivia legitimately thought she stood in the present of a gigantic lion whose tail she just stepped on. Was its wrath going to kick in and bite her head off in its enormous jaw for slapping a Gold Saint? Or was she going to be reduced to ash by the same Argead Star lightning bolt that knocked a giant monster off of Pegasus Lance?

Yet, the danger in Galan's eyes then subsided, replaced with a restrained, self-conscious glower. "It's rare that I hear you raise your voice. I'm sorry that I said something so hurtful."

"What has happened to you, Galarian?!" she desperately asked. "When did you become the type of man who says and does these things?! You would never talk of people like they're just warriors on a Holy War chessboard! That's… those are the kinds of things your father would say, not you!"

The Leo Saint looked around, wondering if anyone heard her say his real name to a Gold Saint. The Leo Gold Saint could tell he was hurting her feelings, so he paused to plan his words. It wasn't his intention to confront his dear friend like this, but Olivia had no right to make emotional demands of him, either, when he could tell so well she was still deluding herself about what happened.

"I grew up." He decided to answer. "And I'm afraid, Olivia, I can't afford to be naïve anymore, not with Holy War knocking on our doorstep. Some people in this world are born with the strength and drive to become great, but that also makes them responsible for leading everyone else, for protecting and inspiring them. Ten years ago, that terrible burden was placed on my father." He straightened himself to appear proud. "And now it will fall on me."

Her eyes trembled, searching for the boy who once gifted her a crown of flowers from his mother's garden in that emotionless visage of gold. All she saw was a hardened man that had surpassed her in height even more than before, yet trapped in a cage of gold, in his place.

"And I know you feel in your blood the legacy of the heroes of the Iraklidis, Olivia. Isn't that why you've been putting yourself into more and more danger since your school was attacked?" Galarian insisted. "I've known you for a very long time. You were never content with just playing 'princess' with me and Leon. I know it kills you that you can't put that great talent and strength you feel in yourself to any good use, that you must still rely on others like Saints Andromeda and Pegasus to protect you, because, in the end, all your hard work is pointless until you put yourself out there, in the path of dirt."

"The path… of dirt?"

Galan nodded. "That's right. And of blood. And of tears. And of sorrow and isolation. And of climbing the steps of the Zodiac to save those you care about, with nothing but your Cloth box on your back. But certainly not of silk academy dresses and sunny alpine gardens, in a school where everyone loves and admires you." The Leo Gold Saint walked away, giving her the space she needed to be alone with Pegasus. "Only that will give you true strength. Your brother and I have accepted that a long time ago. I wish you would, as well."

The shock from his words had left her agape. She reached out to grab his shoulder. "Galan! Stop!"

"Don't fear for Pegasus, Olivia. I'll protect him. They're not usually the type to stay down, anyway." Galarian advised. He gently freed himself from her hand. "If you really care about his well-being, though, you should think long and hard on what it means to keep hovering around him like you are. Before you end up getting him killed, that is."

The Gold Saint departed. Her eyes lingered on the corner of the hall he turned through, vanishing from her sight. The confusion in her chest was immense. She recalled a sweet boy in the foggy recesses of her memory who used to carry her up in his arms over puddles when they were younger and protected her from bullies who insulted her grandfather. Yet, before her now departed a man who hurt another trying to protect a sibling, and spoke of ascending above everyone else. "Galan… what happened to you? I don't hate you; I never did! When did you become like this? And why?!"

The frustration was such that Olivia felt she could explode, shaking in place. She took a deep breath and prayed to Athena for calmness. One day, she would fix things with Galan, and figure out what was going on. For now, though, she had someone to say goodbye to.

Entering the room, she took in the sight of the fallen Bronze Saint practically mummified in bandages. His face was only half-exposed, showing sleeping eyes, weakly breathing nose and bruised lips, but pretty much everything else was covered. She sat by his side in a small chair, wondering how to start. She focused first on Saint Shinta's words that this wasn't her fault, so as to drown out Galan's remarks about her powerlessness to protect him.

Was this how her mom felt, when she lied in the battlefield of that Zodiac Knight castle in France, dying? Having her Aquila Cloth stolen from her failing body? Leaving her two children and husband behind? Just a sensation of horrible powerlessness and shame, that you made the biggest mistake of your life for the dumbest possible reasons? How was it possible that Olivia was at the top of her class as a Saintia, that she even earned the honor to wear the Equuleus Cloth, that she raised such a ruckus to her boyfriend about keeping Cerah safe, and then this happened right in front of her?

And now there was even a Holy War building up, turning all of her oldest friends into strangers. What was she supposed to do?

"Am I really at fault for all this? Am I really the naïve one?" Her eyes teared and she clutched Lance's hand. It was thick with gauze but his fingertips were bare. "M-Mom, what do I do? I miss you so much. I miss dad! I miss Leon! I don't want grampa to get killed! I don't want to lose anyone else, ever, but it all feels like it's slowly slipping away! Am I going to be alone again?! Mom, tell me, what am I supposed to do?!"

{======================|A3|======================}

Rodario

{======================|A3|======================}

"Saint Pegasus fell into a coma?" Eurydice repeated, having just been informed by Cerah.

The Corvus Knight nodded, terrified. She had just arrived in Greece, making her way back to the Saintia Academy to get her weekly classes. "Yes. My new Master just told us. Saint Lance fell victim to a terrible attack from the Specters and no one is quite sure why. Even miss Olivia, Saint Suisho and Saint Shinta of Andromeda were injured."

The blonde Nymph turned away in her chair. "How awful…" Eurydice had only met Saint Pegasus briefly, right before he took Cerah to be trained, but even without her sight she could tell he was a good soul. Her head raced, trying to imagine who among the Specters could have been responsible for ordering such a cruel, directed attack.

"Eurydice, do you know who could have done this? They said a Terrestrial Brute Star was involved." Cerah recalled. When she first heard the news of the attack, Cerah couldn't believe it. She wanted to beam straight to Andromeda Island and find a way to help, but Saint Dohko reasoned with her that it was too late and to trust Sanctuary to handle it. "Him and two other Specters called Reaper Grim and Yeti Zemu, but in all my time in the Underworld, I never heard of any of them."

The Nymph tensed her brows, lacing her fingers in lap. She knew all these names, but one confused her greatly. "The Terrestrial Brute Star? How strange. That star matches to Genbu Gregor, but I cannot believe that man would be capable of defeating Saint Pegasus Lance, who survived battling even Lucian for quite some time." She held chin pensively. "Not only that, but Genbu Gregor is no longer a Specter."

The Zodiac Knight perked up. "He isn't? How so?"

{======================|A3|======================}

Lost Canvas War

{======================|A3|======================}

Eurydice kept to the shadows of the cathedral, shaking at the sight before her.

"L-LORD HADES, PLEASE FORGIVE ME!" the gigantic man begged, groveling at Alone's feet with his Surplice cut in half. "I swear to all your stars; I used everything in my power to capture Pegasus Tenma! He was right in my hands! It's just that…"

The black-haired artist sat nonchalantly at the altar, having finished painting a multitude of subjects within his Lost Canvas masterpiece. He held his face in exhaustion at the pleading man. "I am… so tired of failure. He is just one Bronze Saint, the weakest division of the Saints of Athena. I just want him out of my mind for good. How hard could it be for my armies of the Underworld to kill one weak man?"

"It was… it was that blasted Dragon Shiryu!" Gregor whined, dropping his huge face to the floor. "He allied himself with Capricorn El Cid to stop me! I was sure I attacked when the other Saints were away, but he showed up and used some kind of… some kind of magical Cloth transformation to stop me from grabbing Pegasus! I couldn't do anything against him!"

Alone's eyes tensed. This sounded like those mysterious God Cloths of theirs again. Normally he would accept that as an explanation, except for one tiny detail. "How could that possibly be? I struck that Bronze Saint myself with my own sword (*)." He stood up. "Dragon Shiryu should be treading between life and death as we speak. Even if he stood in your way, any use of his God Cloth mode would have pushed him further into the darkness. And, still, you lost to him?"

(*) Chapter 44 Flashback

Eurydice stepped back, terrified. She had never sensed such terrible cruelty in Lord Hades' cosmos. She felt the Underworld God, known so well for his merciful judgements, was ready to tear brave Gregor into pieces. How could this be? Was his human vessel's impure thoughts contaminating their dear Hades' pure mind with violence?

As she was about to flee, a hand from someone behind her softly stopped her. She turned with a gasp and saw a familiar golden-haired face in black, winged armor. "Prince Michael!"

The Absolute Star held finger to lips "Shh."

Meanwhile, Lord Hades approached Gregor with his black aura growing more and more around him, making the entire cathedral look swallowed in shadowy mirk. "All I ask of my Specters… is to dedicate themselves to my great project as much as I do. Pegasus Tenma is an impediment to all of that. He occupies my thoughts like a plague, one I wish eliminated. Gregor, do you not love the Earth?"

The gigantic, dirt-brown-haired man wept tears that smeared all over his face. "My l-lord, I do, I do!"

"And do you not wish it to be cleansed of sin? To be returned to silence?" Alone asked again, gently touching the Specter's forehead. He smiled with warmth. "Isn't that why you've come to don the Hide that Genbu gifted me for my Specters?"

The Specter felt his entire body freeze with the contact made by his God on him. He touched his Genbu Surplice's chestplate proudly. "With every bit of my heart, Lord Hades! I promise, I will not fail again! I will crush that Dragon Saint with every ounce of my power! I would make him pay a thousand times for his blasted Dragon God's alliance to Athena!"

Alone smiled warmly, releasing the touch. "I know you would. And I can understand the difficulty in facing a fellow Rozan God warrior. You've always been a brave, dedicated warrior, Gregor. I remember the many times you even shielded me from being injured by Athena's Saints with your own flesh over the millennia."

The mercy in Hades' words moved Gregor. "Lord Hades, I will dedicate myself heart and soul to Dragon Shiryu's destruction! Him and that blasted El Cid! I swear to Mount Rozan that both will-"

Eurydice covered her mouth, seeing Gregor suddenly scream, vomit blood and collapse to the ground. The gigantic man was then attacked by enormous creatures of darkness that sprung out of the miasma created by Lord Hades' aura, who jumped on him, tearing him limb from limb, biting on his flesh, cracking the ground and ultimately ripping him apart. It was a spectacle of violence that made her breath cease in horror. The Prince held her close and took her away from the Cathedral.

Alone took a breath and relaxed his cosmos, leaving behind in the wake of the destruction only the mangled pieces of the Genbu Surplice. "Sleep forever, Gregor. I free you of your contract with me. I will always remember your dedicated service. I cannot afford, however, to suffer any impediment to my masterpiece any more…"

{======================|A3|======================}

Taken by hand back to the Heinstein Castle's terrace, Eurydice resisted Michael's grip to confront him. "What happened down there in the cathedral?! Michael, Lord Hades, he… he killed his own servant!"

"I'm afraid he's done more than that. The Terrestrial Brute Star has gone dark in the Underworld. Genbu Gregor's spirit is no more." The Dark Angel countered, making Eurydice widen her eyes in horror. "You shouldn't be down here on the surface, Eurydice. The Heinstein Castle is no place for a nymph. We are at war with Sanctuary and the Aquarius and Scorpio Saints are currently building up a siege force."

She held her own arms defensively. "I-I wanted to see my husband. Thanatos hasn't spoken to me since he left for the Earth." Eurydice begged. "I… I wanted Lord Hades to-"

"Lord Thanatos has been taken, Eurydice." Michael revealed, making her heart practically stop. He saw the look of shock in her and tried to walk her through it. "I'm sorry I am the first one to let you know. He fell victim to a trap laid out by the Pope, Cancer Manigoldo and Andromeda Shun. The three of them locked him inside a cursed box. However, if precautions aren't taken, I fear the Aries, Crateris and Cygnus Saints have something equally diabolical planned for my Master, Lord Hypnos."

The Nymph relented. So, her husband, the God on whose bed she had partaken in for millennia, was gone? "I… I see."

The Specter rose his chin, detecting the lack of pain in her voice. "The last time this happened, in the last Holy War, the Nymphs in his harem let out a cry that shook Elysium and wept in his palace for weeks. You in particular were inconsolable and would only fall asleep in his room, holding the emerald brooch he gifted you. Now all you have to say about Lord Thanatos' kidnapping is… that?"

The blonde, long-haired woman held her arm self-consciously. "I suppose I have become a poor wife, haven't I?" She looked out at the battlements and to the forests, where she could see Saints and their hoplites slowly gather around the Heinstein forest grounds, soon to besiege them. "Would you denounce my terrible feelings, Prince Michael? I think my heart has beaten less and less for him over the centuries. I don't know why…"

Michael, however, understood quite well the reason. His whole life he had witnessed the cruelty the Death God subjected even his own student, Lucian, to. If it hadn't been for Lord Hades' infinite kindness, Thanatos would have gladly killed Lucian for failing to become the Dark Angel Specter simply because of the embarrassment it caused him to his twin brother Hypnos. Even the champion of the Specters, Michael, knew that Lord Thanatos was loved by few in the Underworld. He often spoke of the Specters being little more than the same sinful filth than regular mortals were. Sometimes Michael wondered how it was possible that such an unloving deity was one of Lord Hades' closest servants.

He also knew Eurydice was an especially intelligent and kind Nymph, admired by all in Elysium, and that it was a matter of time before she understood her husband's true self. "I am ashamed to say your thoughts might be no more terrible than mine."

This surprised the Nymph. She had known Michael since he was first inducted in the Underworld as a small boy. Had his heart changed about their Gods as well? "You too, dear Prince?"

Michael closed his eyes, regretful of his feelings. "I admire the Emperor and Master Hypnos like no one else, Eurydice, but I have no envy for Lucian having earned your husband as his Master. Lord Thanatos is cruel without fault and he treats even the most loyal and dedicated Specters as disposable trash. He murders family members we leave behind on the surface upon our anointment, regardless of our contracts with the Emperor, so we will have nothing to look back on in our loyalties. I'm sure he would have even killed my family if he knew our connection…"

"Michael means… 'that' Specter he's brothers with! Would Thanatos really be capable of such a thing?!" Eurydice realized. Her eyes cried. "My sweet Prince… how could my husband be like this and I had not the faintest clue for so long? To the point that I loved him so much and now want to do nothing but run away from everything I've ever known?"

Michael shook head. "I don't know, but I fear our troubles may be getting worse." The kind Prince tensed his eyes. "You saw what happened at the Cathedral, right? Alone didn't merely end Gregor's life; he annihilated his body and spirit beyond salvation. The Emperor I know would never have treated a servant Specter with such cruelty without great reason like betrayal, but all Gregor has done is lose a battle against Saints he had no hope of defeating."

The Nymph nodded. "Michael, what is happening? Is the Holy War driving our lords all to insanity? Are the humans of the Earth finally contaminating their souls with evil?!"

Michael, however, sweated, feeling conflicted. Ever since his battle with Virgo Asmita in the Buddhist Hells, he had begun sensing something terribly wrong with everything around him. "I'm not sure, Eurydice, but my Master was so terrified that he had Alone caged in this Heinstein Castle until he finished the Lost Canvas. Lord Hypnos is even having me watch him close for the moment, so Lord Hades won't escape. I think Lord Hypnos, too, sensed that something is terribly wrong with that human vessel. It's possible, even, that he may be in control of Lord Hades, and not the other way around."

The idea of it alone shocked the Nymph to her core. She could not picture a greater violation of a God's spirit.

Michael held her hands gently. "Eurydice, I know you are afraid, but I beg of you, do not make any rash decisions until the end of this Holy War. It is still too soon to understand what is happening, with all these strange Bronze Saints with God Cloths trying to impede our victory. Do it not just for me, but for Lucian as well."

The Nymph sniffed and cleaned her eyes. She smiled. "Of course. I would do anything for the two of you. But Michael…"

"I will likely need to summon help to deal with the enemy." Burning black fire into his hand from his Cosmos, the Specter Prince tossed the flare at the ground, which then spread into a large ritual circle filled with Underworld prison symbols. "Come forth, my mighty Seraphim!"

The ritual split into four adjacent circles, each symbolizing a separate evil star, that then erupted high into a black flame from which a kneeling Specter emerged.

A tall man of bone armor, sunken eyes and long-poled scythe came out first. "Terrestrial Insidious Star, Reaper Grim. Lord Michael, point me to who has offended you? I will happily drag them straight to the Underworld."

Then, from the second flame, a gigantic man clad in ice armor and wearing a visor. "Terrestrial Yin Star, Yeti Zemu. I will make all those who stand in the Prince's way beg him for the warmth of Cocytus."

Thirdly followed a grinning man in avian armor, complete with large wing plates covering his arms and a bird-head helmet all around his head. "Terrestrial Wide Star, Roc Sinbad! Prince Michael, can I fly high and show you my feather bombards?! It's been way too long, I can't stand it any longer to watch them explode!"

And finally, a crawling man with red goggles, four arms and a large round shield. "And Terrestrial Flying Star, Tarantula Nezha…May I fix that horrible scratch in your dress, ma'am?"

Eurydice retreated, stunned. They were all lowly, eccentric Terrestrials which she had seen in the past doing menial tasks for their superiors, yet emanated a cosmos high above their stations, specially together like this. She looked down and realized, indeed, that there was a tiny rip in her skirt from when she fled the cathedral with the Prince.

In a dash, Tarantula Nezha blitzed around her like a shadow, leaving behind a trail of shades that weaved her skirt together. "Forgive me,… I simply could not stand the sight of it."

Eurydice shook her head, stunned at his skill. "Of course! Michael, these Specters…"

"Eurydice, these are my personal servants, four Terrestrial Stars that I have handpicked to be the fingers of Lord Hades' Right Hand." Michael explained, waving hand at each one. With the exception of the stiff-necked Zemu, they all bowed heads in respect at the bride of Thanatos. "They are trustworthy men and ruthlessly dedicated to me. I will be busy waging war against the God Cloth Bronze Saints, but they will protect you until the Holy War comes to an end. Never leave their side, no matter what, please."

The Nymph nodded. "I understand. But Michael, what about Lord Hades?" If the Emperor was truly driven mad by Alone, then even these four Terrestrials could do little to keep her safe. "What he's done to poor Gregor…"

Michael then exhaled. "Genbu Gregor… why would Lord Hades do such a thing to him? Now he won't join us in Elysium when we win the war. What is the point of all this if all our dear brothers and sisters who served this cause don't get to join our God in paradise?"

{======================|A3|======================}

The (relative) Present

{======================|A3|======================}

"The Genbu Surplice remained unused for the rest of the Holy War. Prince Dark Angel told me he believed Lord Hades might have been planning to replace Gregor, but it never happened before the war fell apart for them." Eurydice told Cerah. "I'm not sure who they could have acquired to wear that Surplice, but to even employ the Seraphim for this task, who obeyed no one but the Celestial Absolute Star, I can only imagine someone as far up as a Judge of the Underworld was responsible for the attack on your friend."

Cerah gasped. "Master said the same! He said 'this stinks of whiskey all over it'!" Cerah fumbled a bit. "I was confused at first, but he later explained he meant-"

"-Wyvern Rhadamanthys?" the nymph guessed, earning a 'uh-uh' from Cerah. She tensed her closed eyes. "I agree with Cerah's Master. He would be powerful enough to coerce the Seraphim, even if just for a while. Or do the Seraphim have their own agenda?" In any case, Rhadamanthys being active was a terrifying prospect. "This is not good. Cerah, if Rhadamanthys is involved, you above everyone else must be vigilant from now on!"

The knight widened her eyes, seeing the Nymph alarmed like rarely Cerah had seen her. She pointed at herself. "Me? Why? What do I have to do with him?"

The adult woman searched for Cerah's hand and held her fingers tightly. "Cerah, listen carefully. Rhadamanthys is the Celestial Star of Fury. He is a terrible, vengeful man, the most vindictive of the three Judges. He also carries a grudge against Lucian dating back five hundred years! By now, he must realize you were his student for almost a decade and his agent in helping me escape my husband. He will see what we've done to his Emperor as if it was an affront to Ptolomea itself!"

The fear in Eurydice's face was unlike anything Cerah had seen in her, even when Lucifer visited them to tell them how he was about to attack the Twelve Temples. How terrible was this Judge that almost had Saint Lance killed?

"But, how could he know that it was me who took you out of there?"

"You've met him once before, when you and Behemoth Torak took me out of the Underworld. He was the young Specter arriving by Thanatos' and Hypnos' side."

Synapses fired off in Cerah's brain, instantly triggering the memory of seeing the blonde, unibrowed youth who looked like someone stepped on his foot with a steel-clad toe. "That guy? But… he was…"

Eurydice shook her head. "Don't let appearances deceive you. A year and half have passed since Rhadamanthys reawakened, so by now surely many of his lost powers and memories have returned to him via the Wyvern Surplice. The next time you encounter him, he will be virtually a completely different man, one fully embracing his Specter ego that will stop at nothing to make anyone connected to Daemon Lucifer suffer."

The teenage girl, however, shook her head. "No, I will be fine…" She stood up, clenching her fists. "Eurydice, I know you can't see it, but I've grown a lot since those days, and Master Dohko has been working every day to make me master this new sense I've obtained. I also have strong people like Saint Yushira and Saint Lance by my side. Nothing will ever be like it was when we were chased by the False Specters, I promise!"

While the young girls's words sounded confident, Eurydice's long experience told her otherwise. "Cerah, this enemy isn't a mere False Specter. From the moment I met him, eras ago, Rhadamanthys had always been the most unflinchingly cruel of the three Judges. Minos can be bargained with and Aiacos has a sense of respect for warriors, but Rhadamanthys sees anyone who isn't the most loyal of Specters as less worthy of consideration than the dirt he had his slaves build his palace out of. Added to that, I watched that Judge's grudge against Lucian grow for half a millennium. Unlike Gryphon Urial, there will be no hesitation on his part to kill you. Do you understand that?"

Cerah couldn't help but gulp with the terrifying way Eurydice was describing him. She held her friend's hands. "I-I mean, I do, but! But…!"

"Worse than this, Rhadamanthys has reasons to focus every bit of his wrath on you in particular." The woman retreated her hand, suddenly seeming hesitant about it. "Back in the Elysium… there used to be stories about where each Specter came from. Hades picked them out of all of humanity to serve him, after all, so Gods and Nymphs alike were always curious about what made each Evil Star pass his standards. Minos, for example, used to be a great king of antiquity so shrewd, he even strung along the Muvians and Atlanteans against each other in his favor."

Cerah had no idea about this, but it did make sense, given Specters were revived directly from their past selves, rather than reincarnated. Putting two and two together, then, Cerah realized Eurydice was hinting at some kind of connection between the Wyvern Specter and the long history of her people's Order of the Zodiac Knights. "Then Rhadamanthys?"

"Well, no one knows." Eurydice revealed, taking her by surprise. "Many Specters wear their human pasts as badges, as they motivated them to first make their contracts with the Emperor, but some, like Rhadamanthys, never speak of it to anyone. Usually, it is because it was for a banal reason, but Rhadamanthys is Hades' most dedicated Specter, so the mystery of his root origin has intrigued many. But, whatever past he has as a human, one thing is known for sure; the topic of the Zodiac Knights is enough to send Wyvern Rhadamanthys flying into a great rage without match in the Underworld, that would only end with an entire Prison left in carnage."

The younger girl staggered, picturing herself getting found out by that unibrowed guy clad in full dragon armor. She also knew how expansive each Prison was, going on and on towards the horizon so it could accommodate the dead, so the idea of even a Cosmos user leaving one 'in carnage' painted a picture in her head.

"In fact, one would hear stories of newly minted servants of Emperor Hades unaware of that fact, that would mention Athena's greatest order of warriors in front of him and be… ripped in half by his bare hands." Eurydice mentioned, further terrifying the Zodiac Knight. "Someone at the crossroads of being a Knight and being a servant of Lucian, therefore, is sure to attract the greatest of rages from him…"

Cerah felt paler than usual, picturing an enormous, dragon-shaped man twice her size flying at her in pure rage, hands ready to tear her into two perfect halves. So it seemed that Cerah, according to Eurydice, was at the perfect crossroad of two separate lifelong grudges that the most frightening of the three underworld judges had? And she was getting ready to join a campaign to blow up his home turf? Suddenly being Saint Lance's follower felt like a much more frightening prospect.

The unflinching way with which the Nymph warned her of the dangers of this guy left little doubt in Cerah that this was serious, but what choice did she have? She already made a vow to follow Saint Lance in his quest.

She nodded. "I understand, Eurydice. I promise I will avoid him at all costs."

The Nymph sighed in relief. She could count on Cerah having a smart head on her shoulders, even if she was the type to put that aside to save others.

{======================|A3|======================}

Chapter 98

Third Arc

Episode 24

The Call in One's Blood

{======================|A3|======================}

A week later,

Saint Academy

{======================|A3|======================}

The second-year student squealed, kissing her signed photograph of Saint Andromeda Shinta. "THANK YOU, MISS OLIVIA! YOU'RE THE BEST!"

The Equuleus tilted her head and smiled, sitting at her stand at the schoolgrounds entrance. "It's nothing, Natasha. Just make sure to continue participating in today's fundraiser for the school, okay? I know your parents are avid donors and would love to contribute."

A third-year classmate of hers named Sandra came next, bringing a whole box to fill up. "Class President Olivia, can I have sixty signed 'Soldier Red' tapes? I'd like to bring them home next summer for some of my friends to listen to!"

The Equuleus Saintia blinked. Those were selling really well. "Sixty? Of course!" she turned head. "Cerah, would you bring the crate with my grandfather's name on it?"

The small, blonde teenager came in from the storehouse, huffing with the heavy cardboard box stacked with cassettes. She gently lowered them by the stand and collected sixty of them to hand over to Sandra. "Here you go, Sandra!"

The third-year student saw the faces of all her idols on the pack and almost screamed in happiness. She handed Olivia and Cerah the generous payment and happily carried off her favorite Saint band. "Thank you, Olivia!"

The blonde Zodiac Knight stood in awe. They had sold three quarters of their stock already. "It's amazing! The fundraiser is going so well! You have such a gift for knowing what everyone in the school dreams of having, miss Olivia! No wonder you're class president"

But the Equuleus Saintia shook her head. "Oh, it's not that impressive. When you take time to get to know everyone in school, Cerah, you get a pretty good idea of what everyone wants. Speaking of which-" She leaned into the box and took out a black-colored album. "I saw that poster you put up in your room after you came back from China this Monday and decided to get you this."

Curious, the younger teenager took the gift into her hand. She lost all breath when she saw the red letters on black background. "Is this… 'WE SOLD OUR SOUL FOR ROCK AND ROLL'?! OH MY GOSH!"

Olivia nodded, smiling. "Yup! All the Black Sabbath greatest hits in one album! A close friend of mine from the AV club got it for m-"

The young Zodiac Knight took a breath so deeply in happiness she almost passed out. "THANK YOU!" She hugged the older girl. It made Olivia laugh a bit at her excitement; she could very clearly picture the tiny Cerah's brain explode from the experience of going from being a sheltered Zodiac Knight hiding from Sanctuary to attending a heavy metal concert. Cerah, however, then recoiled from the hug. "Oh, I can't pay this…We should sell it for the fundraiser, too, President Olivia."

But Olivia pushed the album into her hands. "Don't be stupid, this is my gift to you, Knight Heloise!" She patted the younger girl's head reassuringly. "Besides, I have to pay you for your help in this event somehow. You've been my most trustworthy ally in all this."

Cerah was flush with happiness, hugging the album tightly. "She called me a trustworthy ally!" Her throat practically clogged in contained happiness. A compliment like this coming from the coolest girl in the academy that she admired so much; it was like getting praise from the Daemon Prince himself. Cerah was so lucky!

"I have to say, though, I was very surprised when you put up that poster in your room." Olivia confessed. She wouldn't have known if she hadn't been called to help Cerah with her studies, either. It was such an anti-cute thing for someone like Cerah. "Someone who looks at you wouldn't think Ozzy Ozbourne would be your thing."

"My new teacher in China took me to see their Technical Ecstasy tour." she admitted, looking embarrassed. Saint Dohko and Saint Yushira seemed to find the idea hilarious at the time, somehow, like they expected Cerah to burst into confetti at being exposed to such music, but instead the young Obsidian Knight had discovered her heart beat like a hurricane for the doomy tones of the band. She shrugged self-consciously, knowing that most people would not expect it out of her, especially after Saint Dohko's shocked reaction at her positive feedback. "I don't know why I loved it so much. I guess their music reminds me of home."

"That's right, Cerah said she was raised in the Underworld. What a wild backstory this one has, somehow." Olivia recalled. After finding out she had a Zodiac Knight Cloth and lived with a Nymph in Rodario, it had been a minor revelation about the unsuspecting blonde girl's origins. "Speaking of that, that new teacher training you in China isn't bullying you, is he? The way you told that story sounded like he pushed you into something you're uncomfortable with." Her eyes squinted terrifyingly and her hand rested on her hip. "I will not tolerate my precious assistant being abused."

The younger girl laughed nervously. Olivia could be quite scary looking when her instincts to protect the school members kicked in. "No, no, not at all! I mean, he did trick me into seeing it like he thought it would be funny, and the training has been super hard, not to mention his big pet tiger is super scary and chases after us during training, and-"

"You're listing all sorts of terrible things, Cerah." Olivia pointed out, the atmosphere darkening around them in that clear sunny day. "You better tell me this mysterious teacher has a softer side, right now, or I'm booking a trip to China."

"He DOES! He absolutely does!" Cerah assured, gulping in panic. She saw the malice and killing intent recede from miss Olivia's aura and breathed a sigh of relief. The last thing she wanted was for the two mentoring figures in her life right now to clash in a ferocious battle that would rock Mount Rozan to its foundations. "I've only trained a month under him so far, but he's been… absolutely wonderful."

{======================|A3|======================}

Dohko stood in the lake boulder with his hands resting on his hips before the waterfall. "Remember, young Cerah. To become a great Rozan warrior, it is not enough to possess a great Cosmos that can travel at the speed of light, or even to have drunk the Waters of Life as you have."

Cerah covered her eyes, flushed. "I wonder why Master chose to be nude for this lesson? Is this some advanced technique to become one with nature?"

He turned, exposing his full manly front to the entire class of one without a hint of shame. "That is why you must succeed in all the areas my previous, embarrassing, mule-headed, loser-to-a-Genbu, firebrand Pegasus student had succeeded in as well so you can harness the strength of the Dragon!"

Harnessing her courage to ignore Master's blatant nudity, Cerah tightened the white bandana Master offered her over her head and exhaled to harness her focus. Saint Lance was so cool and strong, which made it seem like an impossible task to match him in the eyes of their common Master, but the young girl was determined to honor her teacher's requests.

"I will do my very best, Saint Dohko! I swear I won't give up!" she exclaimed. Still, the idea of reversing the direction of that giant waterfall next to them seemed daunting, even impossible. Could the Cosmos really do such a thing? "I'm… not quite sure how to start this test, though."

"I will be frank with you; you have a number of things against you on this treacherous Path, young Heloise." Dohko confessed. He started flexing his legs to prepare for their training that day. "For starters, it is the most physically demanding of the four Mount Rozan paths. Dragon Saints are often the ones capable of the greatest feats of strength relative to their size in their Bronze Saint generations. As a woman, I am sure you understand better than I do the disadvantage that puts you next to your predecessors."

The blonde girl nodded. She was not naïve; just seeing her teacher, with arms easily three times as thick as hers, and recalling the vicious close-quarters style of combat that Saint Lance subjected Alraune Queen to, Cerah understood she had a long, difficult path ahead of her. Looking at herself, Cerah realized she was scrawny and short even for a female Cosmos user; Saint Yushira, for example, while slender and agile, and easily had twenty pounds of powerful muscle on Cerah. Sometimes Cerah wondered if her petite stature was genetic or a result of her starved, sunlight-deprived upbringing in the Underworld, having noticed that many Skeleton Soldiers also suffered of pale skin, short stature and bad posture.

"Master Dohko, still, I will fight with everything I have to honor your teachings!" her hands clenched on her thighs, remembering the terrible battles she suffered against the Specters and False Specters, from which everyone had to save her from almost thrice by now. "I…I want to be useful in this fight against the Specters and honor the kindness everyone has extended to me so far. Perhaps it's my Zodiac Knight blood talking, but I really do feel I want to bring light to the world."

Dohko flipped over to reset his stance from his stretching. "Is that so? Lots of Zodiac Knights have said that in the past, only to become the same regular boring old paladins of always. What does that phrase mean to you, young Cerah?"

Cerah nodded. "Under the Prin-….under Daemon Lucifer, I lived in a world with only stars, but I knew what the surface world was like and that Athena and my sister wanted to flood the world with light." She smiled, recalling the nights she had spent dreaming of it for years on end. "I always thought that was a wonderful idea, even if it was just poetic. I really do think that it is possible… a world where we all have nothing but light in our lives, free of terror…"

The Rozan Master hummed to himself. "You got a better personal vision of what that phrase means than any Zodiac Knight I've ever met."

Cerah perked up. "Well, it's something I've been thinking about for a long time. And now after what happened to Saint Lance, my mind is finally set to it." Her small fist rose. "I will become a great Zodiac Knight, like my sister is, but I will do it to further Saint Lance's crusade into the Underworld. I know that I can make the difference there for him! And if we stop this war…!"

The Rozan Master huffed. "Boy, this generation is even crazier than mine." He realized. "Even Tenma, Yato and Yuzuriha never tried that sort of thing."

"If we stop it, then maybe we can finally have a chance to end these cycles of war that have been going on." Cerah tightened her bandana to show how she was a strong, fearless martial artist determined to pass all her tests. "And I'll be able to see my sister again."

"That drive will be important in your training." Dohko turned. He covered his mouth, giving to Cerah the appearance that he was in cool reflection, but was actually trying to contain his laughter at the 'Twilight Princess' text written in mandarin he could read on her bandana. "Ahem, yes, knowing what you want to see in the world will help you keep your focus against failure and not lose faith in your Cosmos. And trust me, young Cerah, this path will test both very rigorously."

As if on cue, Yushira screamed in her training corner of the grove, throwing her sword to the ground so hard it fissured the rocks. "AAAAGH! THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE!" She threw her fists at the air, shouting at the arrow she was yet to dislodge from the cliff above her. "HOW DO I GET THAT OUT OF THERE IF I CAN'T MOVE MY FEET FROM HERE?! I'M A COSMOS BURNER, NOT A MAGICIAN!"

Cerah sweated. Poor Yushira had been trying everything to pass Saint Dohko's first test for nearly a month without moving her feet or destroying the area, and was yet to make the arrow even shake from where she stood. She wished she could help her, but Master Dohko had been clear with his 'no-hints' policy.

Ignoring Yushira's screams, Dohko reflected on Cerah's explanation of the Zodiac Knights' famous mission. "A world flooded with light… free of terror… where everyone can walk with their heads held high unafraid of death and oppression. Yes, that sounds like something Tenma would have said." He folded arms. "You know, Cerah, you may have a couple of advantages that my bone-headed Pegasus students did not. For once, you're not a Pegasus already. As far as deepening your Path of the Dragon, that alone puts you at quite the lead, as it means you can actually earn the Dragon Cloth."

"Thank you, Master." Cerah smiled reluctantly. "It does feel circumstantial, though…?"

"And secondly, I think you may have a bit more of a willing spirit for these paths than Lance did. Getting that guy to do any of my special training methods without moaning about silly things was like drawing blood from the Wailing Wall! The thing I like about you, Cerah, is that if I tell you to jump over the cliffs and mountains of Rozan and get my groceries from Arlia to train your endurance, you ask 'how many carrots'!"

"Is that really a compliment?" Cerah wondered. It felt instead that Master enjoyed that she was such a doormat. Fortunately, all the tests of precision involving hunting Ma Chao's lice had been left for Saint Yushira, so far.

Dohko roused his cosmos, making the lake water geyser around him spectacularly, glistening on his body. "So, let's work even harder on getting you to master that speed of light and become my new, spectacular, unsurpassed, one-hundred-percent-no-back-talker Saint of the Dragon!"

Cerah got up, inspired by the Master's rouse. "YES!"

{======================|A3|======================}

"The warrior I was brought to is very wise and he says many inspiring things. I feel for the first time that I am actually training as a normal Saint would, and finding out all sorts of things about the Cosmos." Cerah described. She chuckled. "Who knew dusting and fixing a roof could teach you so much about destroying evil at a subatomic level? My Prismatic Shot is getting more precise than ever!"

Olivia fumed silently. It sounded a lot like this mysterious new teacher was taking advantage of Cerah's docile nature to get her to do chores. Cerah was talking in vague terms, though, omitting a lot of the story to not give away her new Master's identity, so Olivia couldn't tell for sure.

"In any case, I feel safer that you have a decent Master teaching you the ropes of using your Cosmos, Cerah." Olivia confessed, opening the Student Council room to go keep the fundraiser money in her small personal safe. "I'm also glad you made a friend there to help you keep your spirits up. I met Saint Yushira briefly in Sanctuary Town and she seemed like a trustworthy person."

Following her inside, Cerah noticed something odd. She knew that miss Olivia had her own private dorm room in the academy, one that was so neatly cleaned and organized that she swore she just walked into the Saintia's personal bedroom back at Sanctuary Town. "Miss Olivia, you have such a cool place to stay here at the Academy, why don't you keep the money with you in your room?"

Olivia shook head humbly, locking her way out. "It's a matter of principle. No one should have such easy access to that kind of money, especially when it's meant to go to an important purpose. Besides, I just got lucky to have my own room. The other person who used to share a room with me simply decided to get her own. She even bought her own place, just to make sure she could have privacy, if you can believe it."

Cerah blinked, stunned. The Class President was so popular with everyone it was tough to imagine who could have made the call to stay away from her, even buying a whole dorm room to boot. And who had that kind of money, considering how palatial the Academy was? Cerah had to rely on miss Adriana's sponsoring to afford her insane tuitions.

"And don't get to used to the pretty sights of the school, either." Olivia glanced aside to check for eavesdroppers and gestured a shush. "Don't tell anyone, Cerah, but we are probably not going to stay in Switzerland for much longer. The headmaster told me that Sanctuary wants to take the opportunity that the Gold Saints are here to escort everyone back to Sanctuary Town until the conflict with the Specters dies down."

Cerah gasped. Things were getting that bad? "But… the whole reason miss Adriana sent me here was so that I could train safely away from the Saints. Have I learned enough yet to be okay back in Greece? And what will happen to Eurydice's pension?" She also tried to imagine where in Sanctuary Town they would fit all these people. "Where are we going to study, then? And sleep? And eat? We have so many students and teachers and…"

The Equuleus hummed pensively. There was only one location in Sanctuary Town that she knew of that could keep these many students safe. "I have an inkling, Cerah, but it's a long shot. They haven't used THAT place in a very long time…"

Now Cerah had her eyes wide with curiosity. She had seldom seen miss Olivia look this concerned. Were they going to put all the Saintias in some kind of gymnasium? Give classes in the Coliseum with the lions? Stay a semester in the Scorpio Temple's Hall of Orion?

Olivia remembered Cerah was not educated in Sanctuary history and explained her theory. "There is a collection of old forests and cliffs in Athena's Valley that exist in the areas beyond the Fire Clock, just south of Aretias. A lot of rivers run through it and the terrain is very rough, which is why the city never grew into it. Because of that, it is also the location of a number of old Sanctuary castles."

The Corvus Zodiac Knight widened her eyes. She knew the location already; it was the area where she and Saint Yushira had battled the Cyclops False Specter together. "But I've never seen any castles there."

Olivia chuckled. "That's surprising, because this one is pretty hard to miss from up-high; it sits on the middle of a big lake and is several levels tall, reaching almost to the height of the Cancer Temple. They call it Palaestra, because in olden days a lot of Saints used it as a place to train vast numbers of underlings for the wars."

Again, Cerah awed. Such an incredible sounding place was in that area the whole time, just out of sight? "I see, so Sanctuary wants to move everyone who trains here to that place?"

Olivia nodded, guiding the first year to her class so she wouldn't be late. "I'd imagine so, but if that's the case, Cerah, space will be limited. Palaestra is a big place, but Sanctuary will also want to bring in Training Ground students from all over the world into it, for sure. There's a reason why everyone isn't kept there already. Saintia and Saint aspirants together will have to share the fortress, and I believe the latter will take priority for Sanctuary."

The blonde girl put two and two together. "Miss Olivia, is that what this fundraiser is for? To fund keeping more academy students there once we move?"

"In part." Olivia confessed, nodding somberly. The reality was, she was already organizing it every year to support the activity clubs and the poorer students, but the possibility of everyone going to Palaestra made it into a bigger emergency. "Not everyone, in fact very few students, in this school will actually become Saintias, Cerah. There's not enough Cloths to go around. Many are here because the Academy is a prestigious education facility in Sanctuary where the daughters of the wealthy people can be groomed, kept away from everyone else. My grandfather can only afford to keep me here because he made a great number of sacrifices, including selling my parent's old house to the Golden Zodiac, selling old Coliseum trophies, doing mission work at his age and collecting prize money from new Coliseum events."

"And I'm only here because miss Ghisi is patronizing me." Cerah recalled. The sides of her face ballooned in pout. It did seem that a lot of her classmates were well-dressed, well-groomed girls that didn't seem to have the slightest hint of having ever been to somewhere like Rodario or been in a fight. In fact, even as she followed miss Olivia through the halls, she could see her classmates gathering at the corridors with all kinds of expensive-looking uniforms, haircuts, earrings, shoes and student briefcases, like every day was a social event to impress others. "Miss Olivia comes from a relatively humble family, doesn't she? It's amazing she made into class president among these circles."

Olivia saw Cerah puffing her cheeks like a balloon fish and giggled. "You have that 'this is so unfair' look on your face, Cerah. You didn't think everyone could afford to be raised in a school as amazing-looking as this one, did you?"

"Well, they should!" Cerah protested. She had lived with Eurydice for a year in the poorer district of Rodario, where all the sick people were kept, and did lots of housework to support the blind Nymph and herself. She knew well what the fate of most families under Sanctuary was like. "How is it fair that some people get to attend this school and get an education and others stay poor and sick all their lives?"

"I wish I could say it doesn't get worse, but it does." Olivia confessed, looking around at her classmates. They all looked cheery and playful, talking about how much of a pain professor Severus and Dolores were, but Olivia could count on her hand how many of them would keep having smiles on their faces once they turned eighteen. "Because even education here is a bit of a farce; like I told you, most of the girls being raised in the Academy are just being groomed by their families to be wed off. The Golden Rings of Sanctuary put a high value on brides educated like the 'maids of Athena' would be. A lot of these families take the chance their daughters are away here to decide who they're going to marry once they graduate without them making a fuss, too. And since a lot of the girls here don't take the education seriously, they leave it with barely any solid skills to make it in Sanctuary without the support of their family, so they end up going along with it, even if they hate it."

More and more, Cerah was horrified. Could the parents of all these girls around her really be that way? By now Cerah had met a number of academy students that had been extraordinarily nice to her, like her dorm mate Diana, and she hated the thought that they were all being slowly led into this social trap where they'd have to marry some guy from some other family friends with their parents just to make by in Sanctuary. It was like they lived in feudal times.

This put the kindness extended to her by Miss Ghisi even more into perspective. "That's so terrible. So is there really no point coming here unless you're super determined to become a Saintia or to get married to a rich guy?"

"Now, I wouldn't be doing a fundraiser if that was the case, would I?" Olivia reminded her. "This school also teaches many poor students important skills valued in Sanctuary, like alchemy, medicine, law and crafts. Because Sanctuary is so geared towards the Holy Wars, the academy is often the only recourse we have if we want to be something better than farmers. It's just that the only people who can afford to come here are the ones most likely to never take any of it seriously."

Cerah was baffled. This system sounded completely upside down. What was the point of there being an amazing academy like this if it barred the people that needed it the most?

"I'm glad miss Adriana supports me, then, even if she expects my help in her project with Saint Lance-"

Suddenly, Olivia glowered slightly, and tried to hide it with a turn of face.

Cerah's sharp senses, though, detected it, and she gasped in horror, remembering they were yet to get further news on Saint Pegasus' coma. "I'm sorry, miss Olivia! I didn't mean to bring that up!"

Olivia shook her head and smiled warmly, patting the shorter girl's head. "It's alright. I know you didn't mean it."

Cerah could almost tear up at this level of bravery and forgiveness, knowing she just ruined the Equuleus Saintia's day. "Oh, how could I have mentioned such a hurtful topic?! If Olivia wasn't so cool to me she would never forgive me for such a hurtful thing!" Her Zodiac Knight blood burned, demanding compensation for such a sacrilege against a sister-in-arms. Her fists clenched high. "Miss Olivia, I know in my heart everything will turn out just fine! I'm sure we will get excellent news about Saint Lance… any day now!"

The Equuleus nodded, trying to keep a happy, agreeing face.

All such continued strength and reassurance did was crush Cerah even further with guilt that she acted insensitive for even the briefest of moments. "How terrible. To find out someone you care about so much fell into such a tragedy. I can't even imagine the pain. Was this how Eurydice felt when I slept for a year?" She hit her own head with her fists. "Stupid, stupid, stupid! How could you, Cerah?! Your job is to protect miss Olivia, not get her feelings hurt! Next time keep your mouth shut!"

{======================|A3|======================}

The next morning

{======================|A3|======================}

Changing into her class uniform, Olivia paused after removing her sleep shirt and rotated her body to the mirror. She held up her growing black hair and gently pushed her abdomen's muscled right side forward to show her back to the reflection, detecting the fainting marks of being hit with Yeti Zemu's Cocytus Storm. After these past few weeks, the wounds had receded, but left her with small scars littering the back of her arm, over the shoulder and down the side of her back. At the time, she had raised no fuss, because she wanted everyone's attention on saving Saint Lance, Shinta and Suisho. In reality, each and every one of Zemu's daggers had stabbed her flesh deeply, right through the metal of her armor, and felt at that moment like they were turning her bones and blood into ice.

Everyone in the academy thought she looked so perfect. A portrait of a Saintia to be held in the Pope's Halls. What would they say to her having her first Saint wounds? Would the myth passed around in the halls of the pristine Class President be broken by the reality of what fighting a Holy War was like? Would the girls even care, destined to be wedded off to Saints and their families the second they left the academy? On the other hand, many might even say that having the wounds on her back was a sign of a cowardice. Yet, these had been taken there because she turned to shield her boyfriend, exposing the reinforced side of her Equuleus Cloth to the attack only for the technique to pierce through the metal anyway.

When Saint Iaso found out she had these terrible wounds and that, even worse, they were on the verge of creating frostbite, he almost tossed her out of the hospital window for being so irresponsible in saying nothing. Olivia had to admit it was a stupid thing to do at the time. The Saintia remembered the pain well, too. If only her metal was thicker.

Olivia glowered at herself. "No, that is just an awful excuse. Equuleus is a precious artifact the headmaster entrusted me with. My cosmos should have just burned stronger." She buttoned up her shirt, hiding the scarred skin, followed up with her sleeves, put her laced shoes on, kept her Sapphire Cloth Stone hidden under the collar and adjusted the latter to conceal the thin chain around her neck. She then took her yellow band and tied it over head, pronouncing her black bangs. Standing upright, she smiled, seeing her uniform completed in the mirror. "Burned it like my grampa's. Burned it like… a hero."

Yet, her display of happiness seemed subtly cracked in the mirror, even to Olivia. Her mind was just elsewhere at that point. How could it not be?

{======================|A3|======================}

1970 (seven years earlier)

{======================|A3|======================}

Nine-year-old Olivia stared, reeling, as her older brother packed his things into his suitcase. "Leon, what do you think you're doing?! Where are you going?!"

The silver-haired, ten-year old teenager stood up and exhaled, closing the case. "What does it look like? I'm leaving Sanctuary, Olivia."

"Leaving?!" she repeated in disbelief. Rushing in, she tried to stop him from packing his bow and arrow, too. "STOP! This is crazy! What do you mean, you're leaving?! Sanctuary is our home!" She wrestled with his arm, trying to get him to drop his things. "LEON, I'm telling you to knock that off right n-"

"YOU STOP THAT!" Leon shouted, pushing her off. His eyes widened when she landed hard on the floor with a scream. "I'm sorry, Liv, I…" He stared at his hand that pushed her, shaking like he was terrified of his own strength. The stunned look on her face just made it worse. He turned to pack his archery gear. "You idiot! Why did you do that?! Do you know how easily I could kill you?!"

Her eyes teared up, feeling her arm hurt from the fall. He threw her with so much strength. Why? "Then stop packing and saying these things! Why are you acting like you're going away forever?!"

"Because I am." Leon flatly stated, locking the suitcase. He turned to eye her coldly, avoiding the sight of her bruise. "Don't you understand that?! We're not kids anymore, not in Sanctuary! I shouldn't have to spell it out for you!"

Their grandfather entered the room and held Olivia back gently with his hand. "Let him go, Olivia." The giant turned to his grandson. "This is your brother's choice, and his choice entirely… isn't it?"

The male teenager stood quietly, picking his words carefully. "Yes. This place is holding me back. This entire Sanctuary Town is. I am going out there in the world and become what I've always been destined to; a perfect hero worthy of the name Iraklidis."

Olivia reeled, the blood from her arms warming. A perfect hero? Like Jason or Hercules?! What ridiculous idea was this?! "It's… it's that Pope and the Gold Saints, isn't it? They're making you do this! Aren't they?" Her teeth gritted and her tears drenched her cheeks. "They brainwashed you into turning your back on your family! First they took mom, then dad, and now they're taking you!"

Leon, however, narrowed his eyes and refused to answer, like he hated the two people in front of him too much to respond.

"T-TELL ME THE TRUTH!" Olivia screamed, sniffing and tearing. "The Leon I know would never do this! It's that darn Pope's fault, ISN'T I-"

The slap that followed was a flash, smacking her cheek with a hard palm that knocked her down to the floor. Aguilon caught her, but Olivia felt the painful mark of Leon's fingers and palm burned into her face, paralyzing her. Her blue eyes reeled; Leon had never hit her before.

"Don't you ever insult my Master like that again, Olivia." Leon hissed, retreating from her like she disgusted him. "I will never forgive you if you do."

The horror was too much to comprehend. Leon, the son of the family that was destroyed by the Zodiac's senseless wars, her sweet older brother that she looked up to, was not only leaving forever, but taking the Pope's side against her?

Olivia grabbed her grandfather's arms. "G-GRAMPA, please, don't let him do this! S-Stop him, I beg you!"

Aguilon shook, trapped between two worlds, looking like he desperately wished to smash Leon over the head, yet was bound by an invisible chain.

"Grampa knows better than anyone else why I am doing this, 'Liv." Leon revealed, raising his chin. "It's a matter of blood, after all. We must all do our part to help Sanctuary save this world from madness. And that can only be accomplished with the strong Cosmos our family has carefully cultivated, generation after generation. And now… the time has come for me to rise to our family's proud heritage."

Olivia stepped back, not recognizing her brother. "W-What about me? What about Galan?!"

Leon closed eyes. "Galan already knows the decision I have made. He knows, as the son of Akassius Steiner, he will follow the path of dirt soon as well." He wrapped his duffle bag with his last few things around arm. "As for you, Olivia… simply forget about me. It's no good for either of us to keep the other in our thoughts. I'm too dangerous anyway to stay in the presence of a weakling like you."

{======================|A3|======================}

Glazing her eyes over to it, the Saintia hummed. On her table laid a letter from her grandfather that her pet owl, Partita, had just finished delivering. All it said was:

Dear Princess,

Your brother is finally home. Write back to me as soon as you can.

Saint Herakles Aguilon Iraklidis

Grandfather was so blunt with his letters. They could hardly be called notes. What kind of man announced the sudden reappearance of his grandson, who had been gone for almost a decade, with just three lines like that to his own granddaughter? Was this perhaps the blood of the giants in Herakles Aguilon, making it as hard to express the emotional momentousness of the occasion as it was to find a pen that didn't snap in his huge fingers?

Her own fingers ran up her arms, feeling their tingled, naked skin. "(Right, the same blood that flows in my and Leon's veins.)" Her blue eyes noticed her slightly above average height in the school emphasized by how her mirror was placed too low for her eye line. It was so imperceptible, yet significant enough you would never stop noticing it after the first time. "(The same blood Galarian says I should let burn with all its might, right? Before I get someone else hurt…!)"

A gushing static sound was heard in the room, startling her. It came from the radio her grandfather gave her.

"…livia?"

The Saintia picked it up. "I'm here."

"Good. I've been trying to reach you."

She sweated. She had good reason for it. "Ah, I've been trying to work out these frequencies. I accidentally tuned in to some strange conversations yesterday and thought I'd let it be for now." He grumbled, embarrassedly. "I'm just… awful with machines."

There was a guilty groan from Grampa. "Nah, that's my fault. I must have left it tuned to that. Those people you heard were the Sanctuary military chatter. Those assholes talk all kinds of trash about the problems Sanctuary keeps whack-a-mole-ing all over Europe, now that all our garrisons are being pulled to Heinstein and we can't keep vandals with cosmos in check anymore."

Olivia hummed, making a mental note of it. "Oh? Interesting…So you can hear about trouble going on with this?"

"It's best if you forget those frequencies. None of what those pricks talk about is any good to a Saintia girl. Usually, we use it to get posted on minor jobs that don't pass through the MMC." Grampa advised. "But forget about that. I wanted to ask if you got the letter I sent?"

Olivia turned to the paper again, seeing the name of her brother.

"Olivia? Are you there?"

She snapped out of it. "Y-Yes, I am. I did read it. So,… Leon is back." She did her best to sound happy, but the fear in her chest made her voice crack. "That's great…I can't wait to see him. I'm so glad he's okay."

"Right…I know it must be complicated as hell for you to process it all right now, especially with Galan being back too and whatnot. And what happened to Pegasus." Aguilon tip-toed. The last thing he wanted was to upset his granddaughter over the radio. She might toss it at his head next time they saw each other. "But this is our chance to have our family built back to one piece. You know that, right?"

"Of course! But…" She squeezed the radio. Had Leon changed even more, just like Galan had? "Why isn't he here? Or with you? I always thought the day Leon would be back, he'd come to us straight away."

"I'm not sure yet, Princess. Remember, it's been a while since he's been allowed to openly move in Sanctuary. He might just need some time to adjust, or to be with his Master for the moment." Aguilon guessed. Grampa didn't sound happy about any of this conjecturing, but Olivia could tell he was just giving his best guess. "Don't take it the wrong way, Olivia… Remember, Leon's his father son. These are just Kai's useless vagabond genes burning hot in your brother's veins, as usual. I'm sure Leon loves you and can't way to see his little sister again."

"(Grampa always acts like I don't have those genes, too.)" Olivia noticed. She nodded, sighing. "Right. I'll see you, grampa. I have classes soon." And after Aguilon said goodbye, she shut the radio and kept it in store.

Before heading off, she reached for her lower shelf and took out a small album with pictures. Flipping through it, she searched for the year she last saw her brother.

Finding it, her fingers took the first picture she saw; it was taken by grampa right after the end of the Civil War. Olivia, Galan and Leon were playing in the Sanctuary Park. She laughed, seeing herself scream in terror as Leon pretended to aim his slingshot at her, giggling like a goblin and dressed in a black cape to pretend to be an evil god, while Galan tossed himself in the way to save her from the horrible villain, only for Olivia to jump over him and join the battle. It wasn't yet the time right before Leon went away, but it was close enough that he looked just the way she remembered him.

Leon, Galan, Pegasus Lance, Cerah, Katya, the Specters, the Holy War… In just two or three months, her life felt turned completely over Star Hill.

Sitting on her bed, half-dressed, her small nose snorted and she shook head, trying to dispel her thoughts. Olivia shouldn't drive herself crazy like this. What girl her age knew what her destiny was going to be, after all? She was only seventeen. Just because she had become the president of every activity club in the academy and already earned her Saintia armor, it didn't mean Olivia had her head on any straighter than every other girl, Saintia or Amazon in Sanctuary. Much less have thoughts about living up to her family's long lineage of heroic Sanctuary figures.

That's right; Olivia only had to keep doing her best for everyone, like she always had, and not torture herself with Galarian's words. She smiled at herself, fantasizing about the day she'd receive a letter from a 'certain someone else' and the terrible weight in her chest would finally be relieved. That sweet person who cared so much about her and didn't seem to mind at all Olivia being her imperfect-self with him. He had no previous bias of her, no expectations of flawlessness and no judgement of her anxieties; only a marvelous, rare smile that she absolutely loved to trigger in him, since it made her feel so in love.

Her heart beat fast, thanking Athena for having met someone like that. She had no indication Saint Lance was the type to announce his reappearance with something sent through Partita, yet her mind felt lost at the magic of such an idea; of all her fears and anxieties melting away as her pet owl arrived with a letter in its beak.

"What a girlish fantasy." Equuleus spoke to her. "If only I could laugh! Olivia, you don't really think you can rationalize what happened away, do you?"

That hot happiness in her chest felt a bucket of ice water dropped on it at remembering the tragedy of the situation at hand.

Olivia's fingers gripped her arms tighter. When, Athena, would you let him wake up? When, Athena, would you let Olivia know he was finally okay? Olivia couldn't help but feel sent back in time, to when Cerah spent the night in the hospital after the terrible battle with Alraune Queen, except this time it was going on for weeks and weeks and weeks.

Her Sapphire Cloth Stone shined with activity, responding to more of her thoughts. "Prayer isn't going to save you from this, either. The stars don't shine in the favor of cowardly women, you know?" Equuleus assured. "Oh, Olivia, darling…even if they did, why in Athena wouldn't he just hate you now, after all you've done? Just like Galar-"

Olivia stood up briskly. "Head up straight. And face another day!" She told herself, practicing her smile in her mirror to show everyone in class. "I know a miracle will happen. I know it. I know it. I kno-"

*KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK*

The frantic drumming at her door startled Olivia off her seat. She stored Leon's picture. "Come in."

"Miss Olivia, Miss Olivia!" Cerah cried out, coming inside at the verge of tears. "I'm sorry for being so rude, but… but…"

The older girl smiled to pacify her. Now here was someone who panicked even harder than Olivia did. Somehow, though, with Cerah's short size and principled values, it was kind of cute. "Calm down, Cerah. What is the emergency?"

"S-Someone stole the fundraiser money!"

{======================|A3|======================}

Olivia's eyes stared in shock, seeing the safe she kept the money in was busted inwards and the contents gone. Her throat tightened and her chest grew cold. Who had done this?

"D-Diana came rushing to tell me this morning! I can't believe what happened!" Cerah covered her eyes in horror. "Who could have done this to the fundraiser? You were working on it for months!"

The Equuleus kept her calm and searched the student council room. Touching the lock on the door behind them, Olivia surmised it was not damaged, so only someone with the key could have gotten in, much less accessed the safe. The small lead box was also obviously subjected to a small blast force and what was left of its small, ruined dials and handle were still above room temperature. She held her jaw, pensive. It had happened recently, likely early that morning rather than the middle of the night, so that the teachers and the Gold Saints patrolling the academy at nighttime could be avoided.

Cerah cried, but had to admire the calm with which Olivia studied the situation. "Miss Olivia, aren't you upset? You worked on this for so long and now someone made off with all the money you raised."

"The money is still in the school, Cerah." Olivia responded, turning to her. "No ordinary safe cracker could have made it all the way to this academy in the Alps just by random chance, not to mention even a small safe being blasted open like this would have been heard by someone, like the two Gold Saints stationed at the school."

Cerah perked up. She completely forgot about Saints Cancer and Pisces. "Do you think they know who did it?"

Olivia sterned her eyes, seeing someone she knew pretty well arrive in the room with all her entourage."No, but I think I do."She stepped between Cerah and the trio of girls entering the room, presenting her best smile. "Hello, Anastasia."

The impeccably red-dressed student flipped her strawberry-blonde curls over shoulders. "Hello, miss Class President. Is it true what I've heard? That someone stole all the money from the impoverished students' fund? How awful."

Widening her eyes in recognition, Cerah eep'ed, jumping behind Olivia like a frightened rat at the familiar, cold almond look of the middle child of the Ghisi family. She shook in terror. The last time they met, Anastasia almost choked her to death, were it not for the timely arrival of miss Adriana "What is she doing here?!"

"It's true. Someone made off with all the money we've gathered over the course of the year." Olivia confessed, not the least bit intimidated by contrast to Cerah. "A lot of our younger students' future was riding on those funds. You're a member of the Student Council. You wouldn't happen to have a clue who might have done it, Anastasia?"

The two girls flanking Anastasia laughed. One, a brunette heiress to a wealthy Saint family from Syracuse, spoke "That's such a silly question, Class President. Do you think miss Anastasia is looking out for such things?"

The other, a red-haired youngest daughter of a branch of the Milan Golden Rings, added "Besides, there's at least five other members of the Student Council beneath you other than her. It could have been anyone they gave a key to, right?"

Anastasia feigned horror, holding her hand to her mouth. "I'm afraid I was sound asleep last night, miss President. And besides, you know how my dorm room is all the way across the school, in the east hall." She shook her head. "Such a shame. And after all your hard work. I guess it was for nothing…"

Olivia's blue eyes landed on the hand of the stooge to Anastasia's right, detecting that it was still warm with cosmos. Cosmos that matched the one she felt on the safe. Both girls were members of Anastasia's clique that had no interest in anyone else's money, much less a measly amount being gathered to pay off a bunch of tuitions, but Olivia knew exactly how they benefitted off of the fundraiser money vanishing.

Unfortunately, light cosmos heat in one's hand was evidence that would degrade by the first finger washing of the day. "Perhaps in light of the situation you will reconsider the request I made six months ago to raise funds among the Golden Rings, then, Anastasia? You're a Ghisi, after all, and therefore one of the most well-connected people in school. With your help, we can still save the fundraiser."

"Mm, how do I put this?" Anastasia wondered out loud, turning away with a mortified look. It seemed to deeply amuse her two friends "Olivia, I just can't. You know how it is in these circles; it would be so frowned upon to engage in… string-pulling for personal favors towards the Academy's students."

The Equuleus put everything she had in keeping her friendly smile up. "Right, except for having the school build you your own dorm room where the philosophy club used to be."

Anastasia shook her head to herself in lament. "So many of the Golden Rings are so skeptical of bringing in more people to this academy. I fear asking them to do it would just be… throwing fuel into the fire." Anastasia sighed melancholically. "How sad. But, perhaps, this is for the best? There's not going to be enough room at Palaestra for everyone anyway, after all. And the prestige of the academy will be all the better off if we keep only the better students, right?"

Cerah inhaled in horror. "T-That's why you did it?!" She shouted, stepping out from behind Olivia.

The three girls turned, noticing Cerah was in the room for the first time. Suddenly Cerah regretted her bravery.

Anastasia gave her best fake smile. "Well, well, look who it is! It's my darling older sister's little… pipsqueak." She approached her to take a better look, scanning her cute Saintia uniform with her almond eyes. "You look good! I see being around Adriana has done wonders for your… aesthetics. It's a shame she hasn't taught you any manners, though…"

Finding herself under the snake's evil glare, Cerah froze, her feet retreating back of their own volition.

"You two know each other, I assume?" Olivia queried, glancing between the two.

Cerah only hid behind Olivia once again, shaking in terror. The side of her face that got slapped so hard by Anastasia the day they met felt hot suddenly, rushing with her defensive cosmos.

The Ghisi middle child chuckled, noticing it with her 7th sense. "We ran into one another at my house, is all. The little thief tried to make off with my family's precious silver knives."

Cerah gawked. That had been an accident. She saw Olivia widen her eyes in shock. "It's NOT true! Miss Olivia, I swear!"

"I suppose her excuse is that she was there to see my precious older sister and, well… You know how Adriana is, Olivia; her heart melts at every little stray's pathetic meow for mercy in her web." Her head tilted to try to peek over Olivia at the blonde girl. "Right, little one?"

Olivia felt Cerah's fingers grip her like she wished her upperclassman could turn into Athena's shield. Olivia surmised some kind of confrontation had happened between the two during that encounter, and that Cerah came out the loser of it. Anastasia was the type now that she'd definitely traumatize someone with some kind of psychotic display of her powerful cosmos, after all. "I see…"

Anastasia hummed, twirling her hair curls. "I thought I was rid of the sight of her for good, but it seems fate had us meet again. Maybe you're finally rubbing off on me, Olivia? You do have a tendency to attract… the downcast around you, too, don't you?"

The brunette friend laughed out loud. "Miss Anastasia, stop, you're so bad! You'll make the Class President cry."

"Maybe her friend 's so poor she took the money, then." the red-headed one pointed out. "Even though your sister was so kind to her already…"

"Are you two speaking of Heloise?" Olivia immediately cut in. Her smooth confidence in her voice was enough to make the two stooges stiffen quiet. "Don't worry, Anastasia. I'm in very good company, unlike other people in this school. Cerah is a brave, hard-working Saintia who deserves my full trust." Olivia held the shorter girl's shoulder to encourage her spirit, showing her off to everyone with pride. "And besides, she knows that if she ever needed anything for herself, all she'd have to do is ask me."

The unshakeable confidence in Olivia's statement and the firmness of her arm over Cerah made the terror in the Zodiac Knight's heart disappear, even under Anastasia's evil stare. Her lips curved up and her eyes grew humid, moved.

Anastasia, by contrast, glowered sourly, as if the specific way Olivia put things offended her "Is that so? All she has to do is ask? Then perhaps you should blame yourself for what happened, Olivia?" the strawberry-blonde girl suggested. "You are the Student Council President, after all, and the fundraiser's treasurer and president of the Accounting Club AND the Personal Safety Club. Maybe with all these responsibilities towards the Academy you've taken upon yourself, you've finally missed something vital?"

"It's possible." Olivia fully admitted, stunning Cerah that she was willing to show. "Many young students' will have their dreams ruined by this, too. I will take full responsibility before the headmaster."

"What?! Miss Olivia, don't!" Cerah protested, clenching her fists. "It's not your fault!"

"But, from the way things look, someone who had access to this room obviously stole the money with malicious intent." Olivia calmly reminded them all. "And Principal Albus, along with the teacher faculty, will agree with me, when they see what happened. They will look into it. And when they find out who the culprit is, that person will be punished far more severely than I ever could be. Perhaps even be expelled. Especially if they refuse to confess."

At this, Olivia glanced at the red-haired girl besides Anastasia, making the stooge visibly flinch in fright. Anastasia's glare petrified her henchwoman back into place, demanding silence. Cerah watched the whole thing in fascination, amazed by the two women's ability to silently project their power over their weaker sisters, no cosmos involved. Cerah honestly wondered to which of these strong girls the red-haired stooge would break to and beg for mercy first.

"Alas, we might never know." Olivia ended, granting the stooge mercy and guiding Cerah past them. The red-haired girl gulped when Olivia brushed past her. "Come on, miss Heloise. We need to explain to the principal what happened and tell everyone the fundraiser is canceled."

Cerah joined her upperclassman, trying to ignore the poisonous glare Anastasia followed her with. A shiver went up her spine. "Yeesh! I feel like I'm stepping past a rattlesnake, and I've fought a False Specter Judge once! How is miss Adriana related to this frightening person?"

"You know, Olivia-" Anastasia called, making the Equuleus pause to listen. "-it really isn't becoming of a Saintia Academy Class President to be this… populist. These fundraisers, these disciples you take in, these activity clubs you sponsor, someone might think you're trying to push some kind of point."

"Let me reassure everyone then; I am pushing a point." Olivia confirmed. "And that is that everyone in Sanctuary has the right to become everything they dream of, especially if they are as courageous as Cerah and as talented as Katya."

"Mm-mm, right. Well, aren't you the champion of the people? I suppose it's only natural, given who your grandfather is. How tall he is in everyone's eyes." Anastasia pointed out, referring to Herakles Aguilon and his status as a famous coliseum champion. She lowered her chin, pronouncing her fake smile's sharp curves. "Tell me, Olivia, do you suppose you'll keep getting taller and taller, too? You take up so much after that special side of your family, after all…"

"That's right! Miss Olivia has the blood of the giants in her." Cerah recalled. Her green eyes narrowed. "But what does that have to do with anything?!"

Anastasia sighed again. "You know, Olivia… I suppose it's my fault. I should have known, when we met, that you'd end up like this someday. Under those pretty looks, after all, you're the same as those barbarous ogres that our ancestors should have wiped out from the face of the earth." She laughed. "Perhaps I'll donate you a big mace in your next fundraiser, or a horned hat? What a wonderful idea! My family has a whole collection of them they bought off the Saints, from when they wiped all the giants off of Ukraine during the empire days. Those are vintage items; the blood marks in them are at least a thousand years old!"

Cerah stepped back, not believing her ears at the horrible things being unleashed at Olivia! Worse yet, the Equuleus' adamant reaction boggled her mind. If someone had said this sort of thing of Cerah's family and her Zodiac Knight ancestors, she'd certainly fly off, fists raised, no matter who it was!

Anastasia chuckled at the stiffness in Olivia's face. "You seem upset. I didn't say anything wrong, did I, Olivia? I'm sure it's nothing you wouldn't hear from all these wonderful students from the farm fields you love to help educate, after all. Did you know, Olivia, that many of their families pass down stories of murdering your people in war?" She held chest. "How awful. Imagine catching someone, like that little friend of yours right there, boasting about how the greatest thing their worthless bloodline has ever accomplished was cut off the head of one of your oversized ancestors? You're truly a much more wonderful person than I am. If it were up to me, I'd let all that filth rot in the fields and make me my food so they'd know their place. No wonder you're Class President! I suppose, to you, it isn't going to matter how much like a sasquatch you'll eventually look to them; you are just that passionate about helping the Saintias!"

The Zodiac Knight stood in awe at the malice in the words. Her cosmos ignited. "H-Hey, STOP THAT!"

Anastasia turned attention at her. "Excuse me?"

"I said, STOP INSULTING MISS OLIVIA!" the Zodiac Knight shouted, rushing ahead of the older Saintia and clenching her fists. She could almost burn cosmos at it. "Who do you think you are?! Apologize to her or I'll… I'll…"

Anastasia contained her laughter with her hand. Her cold, curious glare made Cerah's heart freeze to its core. "Or what? Show me."

Cerah sweated at the challenge, paralyzed by the older girl's evil eyes. "O-Oh no. I can't move! This is bad! W-What would miss Yushira do?" Certainly, the confident Amazon would tell Cerah to get a grip, burn her cosmos and shove a Rozan Dragon Fist firmly up Anastasia's butt port, but that advice was no good against someone who clearly mastered her 7th sense much earlier than Cerah. "W-Why can't I face this person?! I've battled even a Judge for people I care about!"

The pipsqueak looked so adorable to Anastasia, screaming at the top of her longs in her first-years uniform, like she thought herself a person. "You still have no idea what your place in life is, do you, cute one? It's such a shame the Class President is here. I'd give you a personal lesson, otherwise." Anastasia joined her thumb and middle finger and aimed them at Cerah. "In the meantime, why don't you go burn that tiny cosmos of yours the other way, then?"

The Zodiac Knight widened eyes. Was this snobby girl about to flick her foreh-

*SNAP*

The massive, concussive force of cosmos burst, dispelling Cerah's cosmos aura and sending her jumping back in the room, screaming! Olivia burst with superspeed behind her and gently caught Cerah before the smaller girl smashed through the tables or, worse, got thrown out the window.

The Zodiac Knight staggered in Olivia's arms, feeling blood run down her head like a fountain. Her entire skull rang like something had almost split it open with a hammer. "W-What was that?!"

Olivia lifted her up, closing the blood gash on Cerah's forehead with a handkerchief and dusting her uniform. "That's enough, Cerah. You're late for your class."

The blonde girl's eyes darted between her and the smirking Anastasia. "B-But-"

"Thank you for your input, Anastasia. I'll take it into consideration." Olivia wished, smiling. She then practically dragged Cerah out of the room. "Come on, Cerah, let's get you washed."

"Ta-ta." Anastasia wished, waving her hand. She tilted head with a smile. "Oh, do come by the Ghisi Manor sometime, Class President! I'd love to show you my family's collection of your ancestors' bones!"

{======================|A3|======================}

"UGH, h-how could she say all those horrible things?!" Cerah protested as Olivia held her head down to wash the mark in her forehead in the bathroom sink.

"You're not wearing a Cloth, Cerah. You're lucky she didn't bust your cranium wide open in front of everyone." Olivia reminded her.

"BUT SHE-"

Olivia splashed her face with the water to silence and shame her. "No buts! I will not tolerate a first-year student acting so recklessly, do you understand?!" Taking the younger girl aside, Olivia applied a little disinfectant and a band aid from the first aid kid.

Cerah coughed out liquid, cooled down. She saw the older girl fume silently as she finished touching her up. Miss Olivia looked so mad. "I-I'm sorry."

The Equuleus sighed out. "It's okay. None of this was your fault." She held her head, thinking how to explain this. "Listen, Cerah, I'm touched that you'd care so much about me, but you can't affront an older student like that. And Anastasia, no less! If this was a Training Ground, you two would be running for a Cloth and she would have every right to kill you."

Cerah shivered. Just like that? Was she back in the Underworld, training under Daemon's cruel regimes?

Olivia put her hand on her hip. "Now… what's this about you trying to steal Anastasia's cutlery?"

The Zodiac Knight turned as red as her bloody forehead. Her eyes wept.

"Normally I don't believe a word Anastasia says about people she doesn't like, but this sounded like way too specific a story." Olivia acknowledged. She didn't want to suspect Cerah, but Olivia also knew Cerah at the time was taking care of Eurydice by herself and likely needed as many funds as possible. "Please, just tell me the truth."

"It… It was an accident!" Cerah swore up and down. "Miss Olivia, I swear to Athena, to my new Master, to Eurydice, I didn't do it on purpose! I was waiting in the hall for miss AG to show up and… and I saw one of their tables had amazing things on it and…" She dropped to her knees, weeping. "B-Before I knew it they were all staring at me and I had them in my hands!"

As the blonde girl cried, Olivia tried to think about her side of the story. Something about this didn't make sense. Cerah didn't look like a thief. Or stupid enough to mess with Sanctuary's rich people.

"B-But sometimes… I don't know why, something just comes over me and I grab things!" Cerah recalled. She remembered the day she met Leon, the handsome silver-haired mercenary. "O-One time I was staring at a store and I almost broke through the glass to get some silly things. I'm a terrible person, I know it! Please… Please don't be angry."

Olivia's eyes glazed down on Cerah's neck, where the Obsidian Cloth Stone laid. "I wonder, could it be? I've heard there is an old stereotype of Crow Silver Saints being greedy and possessive, even kidnapping people they are attracted to. Cerah went through a lot of deprivation all her life. Could the Cloth be magnifying her subconscious resentment of others' possessions?" Olivia shook head at herself. "No, I better not make any conclusions without proof."

Holding the younger student down in a chair, Olivia cleaned Cerah's forehead wound, covered it with a bit of gauze and messed with Cerah's curly blonde bangs a bit to try to hide what happened. She then took a tissue and cleaned her tears.

She took a step back and studied her work, smiling when she realized the girl looked perfectly healthy. "There! Perfectly cute, just like on the inside. Now Professor Dolores won't be mad at any improper Saintia bloody foreheads, will she?"

Cerah beamed, embarrassed. She was so lucky miss Olivia cared so much. "T-Thank you. Ms. Dolores can be so terrifying. She sent Diana to the office and almost had her clean the entire academy's uniforms because of one dog hair on her sleeve."

"You wouldn't think Dolores' house was full of cats, would you?" Olivia pointed out. With her attention called to sleeves, though, Olivia gasped and held her right one up, seeing it was torn nearly in half. "Oh, darn it! Look at this… And I have etiquette class with that tea-sipping gorgon in three minutes. Looks like I'm the next one on her chopping block."

"Oh no! It must have torn itself when she caught me!" Cerah realized. Seeing her chance to return the older student's kindness, Cerah seized it. "I can handle that." Touching her Cloth Stone, Cerah pulled her finger back, letting it drag out a string of shining metal from the Corvus Cloth that hardened into a needle with Lightcraft. Then, gently yet with stunning speed, she attacked the tear in Olivia's sleeve with a beam of light, even calling it out like it was a battle technique. "Lightcraft; Feather Weave!"

To Olivia's astonishment, Cerah's fingers made the lightcrafted needle dance in and out of her sleeve's tear, pulling it close and mending the fabric. With a gentle touch and a bite on the light string, Cerah severed it, leaving behind a mended sleeve.

The Equuleus touched it, feeling it warm and resistant. There was barely even a weave mark. It was like it was never torn by the force of Cerah getting flicked into the air by Anastasia. "Cerah, that's amazing! I didn't know you could do that!"

The younger girl held her head self-consciously. "It's nothing special. Back in the Underworld I had to mend my own clothes, the few I had anyway, so I learned how to use a needle. It could get really cold down there, after all." She chuckled. "But the new Saint I'm training under has been teaching me to use Light craft in new interesting ways, so I could get my chores done better. So, I just combine the two ideas."

Olivia pulled at her sleeve, testing its strength. It felt like it was straight out of the cloth market. She was starting to think the mysterious new teacher abusing Cerah's generosity had a method to his madness.

"I should really introduce you to the girls in the Cosplay Club later." This comment of hers, however, made something in Olivia's mind gears turn. She hummed reflectingly. So, Cerah could change the way your clothes look in a moment? "Then, I wonder if…"

Cerah stepped back, finding the older girl's sudden, fixed stare rather strange. "Miss Olivia? What is it? Is my head bleeding again?"

"Say, Cerah, you mentioned your teacher has been teaching you to use your Lightcraft with this, right? Could you tell me a bit more about that?"

{======================|A3|======================}

"Focus harder! What kind of Zodiac Knight are you?" Saint Dohko mocked, laughing out loud "You're going to fall to your death unless you mend that tight rope, you know? Or worse, fail this exercise."

Cerah dangled in the air, screaming, as she held both ends of the rope as tightly as she could over the waterfall chasm. She had been told to cross from one cliff to the other on it to test her balance and the rope snapped midway. By some miracle, her hands had managed to grip both ripped ends and now she hovered in the air over the Rozan waterfall.

"There's no way you can climb on top until you mend that rip, and the Rozan River will drag you all the way to Shanghai if you drop." Saint Dohko pointed out, sitting with Ma Chao by the waterfall bank. "You don't wanna have the Triads fish your tiny butt out of the docks and sell you off, do you?"

"B-But I CAN'T! I can only fix my Cloth!" Cerah screamed, echoing her voice in the valleys. "Master Dohko, HELP!"

"Oh please. You can't do something even as minor as mending a rope? What good is that Lightcraft for? What if a Specter cuts your hands off and all your friends are about to fall to an abyss full of spikes with their armors cracked? Who is going to fix their armors in time?"

"That is such an unreasonable and dark scenario, Master." Yushira commented, joining them. "Why not just tell Cerah how she can get out of there? Or give her a clue? At this rate, she really is going to fall to her death."

"People who can't get a simple arrow off a cliff are not allowed to comment on my lessons. If this was Lance, he'd have it all figured out by now. And if that stubborn, ungrateful, rockheaded nimrod can do it, so can Cerah." He saw Cerah slip further down the ropes and scream. "You better hurry up, crow girl! I think the bolts holding the ropes up there are getting dug up by your weight."

"B-BUT I DON'T KNOW H-HOW!"

Dohko rolled his eyes. "Then come up with something!" He tapped his cranium. "Think! Don't focus on your limits. Your cosmos exists to shatter them. Think instead carefully about what you can do, what your abilities are. Somewhere in your arsenal, there is a tool to help you survive. The rest is just a matter of burning your Cosmos."

{======================|A3|======================}

"Master is trying to teach me how to project my Lightcraft outwards so it can be useful for more people than just myself." Cerah recalled. She only managed to get out of that situation when she figured out how to make the rope threads mend into eachother, and she still had to pull for her abdomen to hold the tips closer and concentrate with all her might in a small space to pull it off. "The trick is, since I can manipulate my Cloth Stone like particles, I can have them go into something's cracks or fibers and move those. And if I can heat them up, mend them or weave them together-"

"-you can use your Cloth like a tool to work on foreign objects!" Olivia concluded. She held her jaw. "Or… you could even fix other Zodiac Knight armors."

Cerah nodded, unsurprised by Olivia's ability to conclude the rest. "Yup, I guess."

"That's incredible…" Olivia realized. "With a bit of knowledge of alchemy and some time, she could shape the metal of her Cloth into the world's most precise alchemical tool! On top of all the incredible things she can already do, Cerah could become almost as good as an actual Cloth blacksmith."

Cerah sweated. "Unfortunately, even though I can change the Corvus Cloth in a snap, anything else is really, really hard. I almost died trying to do the bare minimum of things. Right now, the best I can do is just a bit of flashy sowing and mending. I can't imagine how hard it must be for Muvians to fix actual Cloths. They must really be insanely intelligent."

For what Olivia was thinking, however, Cerah's abilities were more than enough. "Say, Cerah, why don't you pass by my room later tonight? I have a secret project I'd like your help on. With any luck, it will be good practice for your skill."

A chance to be useful to miss Olivia? Cerah beamed. "Of course! What is it?"

At this, the older girl stiffened like a closing clam. Her blue eyes looked around for eavesdroppers and she shushed with her finger. "I can't say it right now, okay? Now go to your class before you get punished. Or Anastasia runs into you again."

"Yes, ma'am!" and Cerah rushed off, looking as excited as a bee.

Olivia smiled, seeing the girl practically sing her way to class. She sure was easy to make happy. You wouldn't think the girl had almost had her head blown off by Anastasia five minutes ago. Cerah was also developing so quickly as a Saintia, it was actually kind of frightening. In the two months Cerah had known her, Cerah had broken a bunch of PE records of the Academy, defeated the Worm Specter, unlocked the 7th sense, gained tutorship from who Olivia heavily suspected was the Libra Gold Saint and developed what might become a revolutionary Lightcraft trick.

Olivia had no difficulty believing the girl was one of the last descendants of the Zodiac Knights. If Cerah kept this up, she would easily become as fantastic a warrior as Lance.

Hopefully, however, Olivia was keeping her own head on straight, too. "Am I really doing the right thing? So far, this… 'project' has been only been a couple of funny ideas in my head, but now I'm involving Cerah in it. Wasn't all I wanted for this poor girl to stop suffering because of me?"

Yet, Galarian's words about her responsibilities and destiny would not leave her head. Olivia felt her heart beat warmer, sensing a calling ahead of her in them that would not cease. After all, perhaps, if Athena willed it, she could indeed do more for everyone she cared about. For Sanctuary and the Academy. Wasn't that all that Olivia desired too; to become as brave a woman as her mother?

"Standing around smelling the roses during class time?"

Olivia practically jumped in fright. She turned and almost leaped again when she saw the short figure of cyan hair clad in golden armor. "Saint Pisces?!"

The masked warrior nodded. "You should follow your friend's example and join your friends in class. Lest you attract another Specter attack…"

She gulped and smiled. "Thank you very much! I'll be on my way." and rushed off. That was close.

Pisces Aphrodite observed her disappear around the corner. According to Deathmask, that girl was the one Lance was now all ooey-gooey about, right? What was so special about her, that she was even admired all over the Academy? She had even been the target of the Specter who originally attacked the school. Perhaps he should keep an eye on her in the future.

{======================|A3|======================}

"Sooo,…. I've heard you ran into Princess Ana-"bitch"-ia this morning." Diana queried, as they headed for the track after lunch.

Cerah gulped. "You mean miss Anastasia? Yeah…"

"Don't call that one 'miss'! It's not cute when it's her!" Diana peeked at the heart-colored sticker on Cerah's forehead "Is that what that thing under your hair is about?"

The Zodiac Knight gulped and nodded nervously. "I thought Miss Olivia hid it well enough…"

Diana scoffed. "I should have known! You should have seen what that bully did to Beatrice when that one tripped over her in the park last week. She still says it was a gang who left her in that state, in the middle of the Alps! Seriously, Cerah, what is with you? You've only been in the school for two months and you've made yourself a target for a Specter AND that evil jerk? Talk about being a trouble magnet."

Cerah laughed. "Actually, we had already met before. Her older sister, miss Adriana Ghisi, is my sponsor, you see."

Diana hummed. "Oh, I've heard of her! Is that so? That makes sense. But how did you get tangled up with those weirdos, though?"

Cerah blinked. "Diana, don't say that! Miss Adriana was really cool to me. She saved my life!"

Diana shivered. "Yeesh, don't even say that. Anastasia's older sister might be the worst of the bunch, precisely because she acts so innocent and friendly with the poor folk." She saw Cerah confused and gave the shorter girl a weird look. "You really don't know a thing about rich people, do you? Listen, Cerah, everyone from Sanctuary Town to Syracuse knows the Ghisi come from merchant and money lenders. Their whole shtick is that they get you in their debt so you can then become their servants and stooges forever. Those two skanks that hang around Anastasia, that Rachel and Lilianne? Their families have debts up their necks to the Ghisi. The only reason they're in the academy is because they're sponsored just like you."

"Does this mean they stole the fundraiser money in part to settle their debts to the Ghisi? That's awful…But maybe it means it went to something good, then." Still, considering miss Adriana saved Cerah's life, she really wished Diana wouldn't say this. "I still think miss AG is different. I sensed it in her. She may look distant, but she's actually very kind, like miss Olivia."

Diana put thought into it. "Mm, well, I don't really wanna call you out on it, so okay. Still, you should be careful, okay? I've heard some rumors that your sponsor Adriana has, like, even murdered people who go back on deals with her."

Remembering the cool sword at Miss Adriana's waist, Cerah shivered "What, really?!"

Diana smirked, seeing a chance to torment her friend. "Yup!" She made creepy-crawly gestures with her fingers. "I've also heard that before she kills you, she shoves you inside a box full of big, gross spiders that move all over you!"

But Cerah laughed. "Oh, awesome! I love spiders!"

Diana paused, staring at her petit friend. "… Really?"

The secret Zodiac Knight nodded. She grew up in the Underworld, after all. "Of course! They're adorable, I could just hug them! They're like big eight-legged bears that-"

"Bears?! What kind of spiders did you grow up with?!" Diana shouted, hands on her hips. "Yeesh, Cerah… hugging bear-sized spiders like that is so not like the kind of girl you look like. Between this and that poster you hung up in our room… Tone it down in the future, okay? I don't want everyone in the academy to think I hang out with some kind of creepy goth."

Cerah wasn't exactly sure what kind of girl she was supposed to look like to Diana and the others, but she would try.

"You're lucky you got away with just that scratch, too, you know?" Diana mentioned as they reached the track fields and headed for the lockers. "You seriously need to stay as far away as you can from people like Anastasia. Some of those rich ones have carte blanche to even kill you if you look at them the wrong wayAnd if your family tries to complain about it in court, they'll say you offended a Saint family's honor, like they're a bunch of samurais in feudal Japan! It's no joke!"

It sounded terrifying, especially after what happened, but Cerah tried to keep her spirits up. The Zodiac Knight set her bag down in the locker room to start getting changed for gym class. "It all turned out okay, though. Thankfully miss Olivia was there to save me."

"Yeah, but you might not want to get too dependent on how much you've been hanging around under her, or what will happen is that Anastasia will start looking for moments you're alone to pay you back." Diana advised. She started getting her things out along with Cerah. "The Class President can't be everywhere all at once to save you, you know? Even IF she's the head of half the activity clubs in school. ….Or was it two thirds?"

Pushing her head through her white gym shirt, Cerah huffed out. She hated how for a tiny moment as you put it on, you couldn't even breathe under these stuffy things the academy made you wear. She touched her hardened stomach full of abs pushing against her shirt. Was she getting buffer from Saint Dohko's training? Even her chests felt a tiny bit bigger, somehow. Or was the Academy as weird about its sport uniforms as it was about its class ones?

"Say, Diana, do they know each other from before school? The Class President and Anastasia, I mean?" She asked. It earned her a pensive look from her friend. Cerah shivered as she took her cold Cloth Stone to put it back on. It always felt super cold on her skin. "You should have seen the tension in the air this morning between them. I thought I was going to get caught between two Gold Saints fighting 1000 days of war!"

"I thought it was '1000 Wars in a day'?" Diana wondered, trying to fit into her gym pants. "Well, in any case, yeah, I think they do. You didn't attend hazing this September because you joined so late, but I did, and the third-year students told me those two used to be best friends, the kind that you'd see glued by the elbows in the Academy every day."

Cerah almost dropped her Stone in stagger at the revolting notion. "What?! But they're nothing alike!"

"Pfft, well, maybe they were more in sync with each other before their chests popped out." Diana joked, putting her wrist braces on. She saw Cerah was still horrified, like she couldn't conceive the notion of a friendship breaking apart like this during puberty. "Wow, for someone into heavy metal, you really did grow up sheltered, uh? Listen, Cerah, human history is full of best gals who turn on each other like cobras when they get to high school. I've heard even Muvian girls are like that."

For the life of her, Cerah couldn't picture Olivia being friends with someone like Anastasia. There just had to be something to this. "Diana, please explain! What happened between them that they became such bitter enemies all of a sudden?"

Diana shrugged. "Gosh, I don't know. Maybe the fact all the rich people in Sanctuary are insane? You're going to have to ask Anastasia yourself, though, because I think everybody and their moms agree that it's pretty dang unlikely it was miss Olivia's fault."

Cerah gulped. She'd rather shove her hand into a mouse trap that get anywhere near Anastasia now.

{======================|A3|======================}

"Miss Anastasia, would you like us to bring you some tea to your room?" Rachel tentatively asked as they followed her into her private hall in the academy.

"No, thank you." the strawberry-blonde girl hissed.

Liliane gulped. They thought the madam would be in a good mood with Olivia's fundraiser ruined. They had to tread very carefully. "Is there anything else we can do for you, ma'am?" She rushed ahead to open her room door for Anastasia. "Please, if there is anything at all-"

Anastasia growled. "Yes! As a matter of fact, there is! You two can go dig yourselves a hole in the peasant-crawled hive you came from and crawl back into it! That way I don't have to look at you two when I have your families' filthy town set on fire!"

Rachel and Liliane gasped in terror, stepping away from the lady.

"Do you have any clue what trouble the Class President can bring me?! She saw the marks of your cosmos on the safe! You were supposed to use the combination you said you stole from that blonde twerp's notebook! What if a teacher had come in time to see the marks, too?! They'd trace it all back to you two!" Anastasia called out, making the two girls shrink in fear before her. Her teeth clenched with hate. "By Hera's laurels, I wish I had time to have the both of you strapped to a table and cut both your useless fingers off, one by one!"

"M-MISS ANASTASIA, PLEASE NO!" Rachel screamed.

Liliane dropped to her knees, crying. "Please, we'll do better next time! Don't send us away!"

"Out of my sight, the both of you!" Anastasia hissed, slamming her palatial room's door in their faces. She growled to herself, heading for her sofa on the other side of her huge private room so he wouldn't hear the two of them weep at her door. "Nothing but a pair of blood-sucking, fat parasites that should get burned off of me with a hot rod. What if Olivia had solid evidence of what they did?! Hera save me, you can't find good help these days! How does Adriana do it?! She's constantly surrounded by people who can actually get things done!"

Well, no matter. As far as Anastasia was concerned, if the funds were gone, then Olivia's attempts to accommodate the daughters from all those untrustworthy, vagabond families from Rodario that didn't know anything but how to plow fields and have too many children were ruined, and none of them would set foot in Palaestra once all the students were moved.

She smiled, heading for her desk with the picture frames. Her cheeks flushed, picking up the frame containing a portrait of her beloved. "Oh Olivia… I could tell right away how much it pained you to see that safe empty. You put up a brave smile and pretended everything was okay. You didn't even bat an eye as I said all those horrible things… Where do you find all that strength?"

The girl in the picture didn't respond.

The Ghisi middle child beamed, feeling her heart beat faster. "It's precisely that strength I just can't stop thinking about. Don't worry, this will be all for the best! Don't you see?" Anastasia hugged the framed picture tightly against her chest, picturing the real person was in her arms instead, nose firmly between her bosoms. Her closed eyes dreamt vividly of kissing her beautiful best friend's lips, of holding her hands in bed in the softest of embraces, the most intimate of contacts. Away from all those judgmental eyes, away from the filth. "Someone as perfect as you shouldn't have all these dirty flies around you! You should be on top of everyone else, like me! And we should be together, just the two of us, like before. You know I love you. I love you. I love you, I love you, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU!"

{======================|A3|======================}

"I guess we'll never know." Diana sighed out as they headed for the field, ready to run. "Say, speaking of rumors about Miss Olivia, do you know what everyone in school is talking about, too?"

Since she spent her weekends in China and her weekdays studying for her classes, Cerah couldn't really say she got to spend enough quality time with the other students gossiping. "Not really…"

"Holy crap, you're totally not going to believe this, then!" Diana declared, grinning. "People are saying the Class President got herself a boyfriend!"

Cerah feigned surprise. Saint Lance was right; this news was spreading with frightening speed all over Sanctuary. "Wow! Really? Mm…"

"Imagine that! After everyone she has turned down over the years! I mean, who IS this guy?" Diana wondered, doing her stretches. "And another thing, how did the Class President have time to find mister perfect, with all the activity clubs and the fundraiser she has? Half the girls in school have pretty much resigned themselves to accept whatever jerk their Saint family will marry them off to, cause this school never lets you meet anyone, and miss Olivia lands herself a fish she actually likes? Seriously, some people are just superwomen; they do everything."

Cerah tried to think of a way to contribute to this that didn't give away anything private. "U-um, maybe it's a Saint? They move all around the planet for work and with the two Gold Saints stationed here, maybe-"

Diana shook head. "Nuh-uh, there's no way. A lot of people outside the school don't know this, but Miss Olivia hates the Gold Saints. She wouldn't date anyone who was associated with them, and there's no way she'd settle for anyone who wasn't on her level."

"You make miss Olivia sound like some kind of super model, but she is so not like that. I wonder if this is what she meant when she said everyone treated her like she was perfect?" Cerah wondered. Now she understood why this idolatry could be a burden. Miss Olivia probably had close to no real friends in the academy after losing Anastasia. She got on her hands and started doing her upside-down pushups. "Still, miss Olivia hates the Gold Saints? I had no idea. She's so polite when she crosses paths with Saint Pisces and Cancer, though… I wonder how she'd react if she knew Saint Lance sent me to train under one?"

Diana eyed her exercise with suspicion, but shrugged. "Point is, everyone in school would pay good money to find out who the Class President hooked up with." She grinned. "Like, enough for someone who hangs around Miss Olivia all the time these days to buy herself something shiny and cute if she gave the rest of us a hint."

Cerah frowned. "Diana, no!"

The brown-haired girl held her shoulders in urge. "Oh, come on! I tell you everything, don't I? And everyone can tell you've been with the Class President all the time. You even went out with miss Olivia on that trip with those two Bronze Saints! It's gotta be one of them, right?!"

Cerah gently moved her hands out. "I can't say, Diana. It would be wrong…."

Diana staggered. "What?… She's not dating you, is she?"

Cerah's eyes softened. "No, of course not. A…, ahem,…. very close friend of miss Olivia is sick. He's been in the hospital for several weeks and he's not waking up."

Diana blinked. "Oh wow. So in this fairytale, Prince Charming is the one in the coma? I didn't expect that." She rested her hands on her hips. "That explains why the Class President has been so tense lately. I thought it was the fundraiser, but… Dear Athena, between the sicko Specter that attacked her, dealing with Ana-bitch-ia, the fundraiser disaster and now that, Olivia just can't catch a break, can she?"

Cerah held her own arm as she headed for the track to try to break her record. "She really can't… Poor miss Olivia. Maybe she wants me to come see her tonight to talk about everything that's been going on."

{======================|A3|======================}

Later that night…

{======================|A3|======================}

Cerah knocked at the door. "Miss Olivia?"

A hand came out of the door as it opened, grabbing her wrist and pulling her inside "Quick, before the teachers see you!" Olivia urged, pulling her in. She even took a look outside and locked the door behind them. "I'm sorry about forcing you to come here sneaking at night."

Cerah shook her head, chuckling. "No worries. I have plenty of experience evading danger by now."

"I'd take us to one of the club rooms, but the teachers are keeping an eye on those after what happened to the fundraiser." Olivia explained. She hummed, looking nervous like Cerah had seldom seen her. "Also, this is a delicate matter, the type no one can find out about."

"Gosh, I wonder what's wrong? Miss Olivia has never asked me to come into her room at this hour." Cerah looked around the room for clues, but everything looked as enviably impeccable as ever. The only thing different was that Olivia had her Equuleus Cloth armor parts laid out on her bed, like she was studying a dress for a ball, and her window was open to let her pet owl, Partita, come in at any time. This last detail made her heart skip. "I wonder if… she got bad news from Sanctuary Town about Saint Lance?! Oh no!"

The older girl sighed, looking away. "Listen, Cerah… what I'm about to ask is going to sound…. really crazy. In fact, I've been thinking about it all day whether I should have asked you to come or not. Whatever happens, though, I want you to know that the last thing I ever wanted is for someone I care about to get hurt. However, given everything that's happened… including to Saint Pegasus, I feel inside of me that I have to take responsibility for what I've been doing so far."

Cerah gasped. "Oh no, this IS about Saint Lance's condition!" Her eyes got wet, remembering how much Eurydice cried when Cerah woke up after a whole year in a coma. "Poor miss Olivia! She's putting so much effort into making things seem okay, but all of this is just too horrible, isn't it? And after today's disaster, it must be killing her!"

Olivia clenched her hands, like she felt a bomb of stress about to go off inside her. "The other day I visited him at the hospital and I ran into an old friend. He said some things that have been stuck in my mind ever since; that I've been deluding myself, that nothing of what I've been doing will matter to fix what I care about, and, after what happened today with the fundraiser, I…I think he's right!" Olivia sunk her head, sighing resignedly. "That is why I've decided to-"

"No, miss Olivia, don't!" Cerah urged, rushing in to grab her friends' arms.. "I know things are really hard right now, but whatever happens, none of this was your fault, and I will be there any time to support you! Just please, don't lose faith! Don't hurt yourself! Think of your family!"

Olivia blinked. "Cerah? I…Hurt myself?!" She shook head and laughed, gently freeing herself from her. "You silly girl. That isn't at all what I was going to say."

The Zodiac Knight retreated, half relieved, half shocked. "It wasn't?"

The Equuleus rolled her eyes. Cerah could be a little ball of panic sometimes, couldn't she? "No, of course not! How could you think that for a second?" Her blue eyes darted. "Though… to be honest, what I have in mind might be just as idiotic. In fact, it could get me killed, not just hurt."

Cerah exhaled, hand on chest. "Oh, that is such a relief!" She blushed in embarrassment. "Miss Olivia, don't take this the wrong way, but even if it was a foolish thing to ask, I don't regret doing so. The truth is, everyone has been really worried about you."

"Mm, they have?" Olivia asked, sitting at her bed next to her Cloth pieces.

It was buck-wild to Cerah that miss Olivia could possibly doubt this. Was the Class President so wrapped up in her work and studies that she didn't see just how much everyone in school admired her? "YES! Miss Olivia, everyone can tell at school that there's been something in your mind. Katya came asking me the other day why you looked like you were about to fall asleep tutoring her. There's… there's even rumors flying about."

The older girl held her head with a migraine. This was the last thing Olivia needed. "Ugh, no, rumors? That shouldn't have happened. The Saintias already have enough on their hands to deal with when it comes to being taken seriously in Sanctuary. I'll need to make it clear to everyone they have nothing to worry about, and that the fundraiser will continue. I just… I just have a lot on my mind right now." She gave her best smile out. "Thank you everyone for worrying about me. That makes me feel less alone in all this. I'll call everyone at the Council to reassure them I am well."

Cerah sniffed, wishing she could hug her, but it would be inappropriate to disrespect the Class President's space like that. "Miss Olivia, my friend Diana told me you used to be friends with miss Anastasia, right?"

The mention of this made Olivia's face tense. "Yes."

Cerah gulped. What a shift in her energy. "I was so surprised. It's just that she's such…a different person than you. It's an even starker difference than Saint Lance and Saint Yushira." Cerah compared. She grumbled embarrassedly, wishing Saint Lance had a friend Cerah knew of that she could compare him to better. "Well, I mean, those two just met, but you know what I mean."

Olivia sighed, looking out to the night through her window. "I met Anastasia when I was really young. My friend Galarian introduced us. The Steiner and Ghisi households have close alliances together. It's true that she and I came from very different worlds. Anastasia is the middle child to the most well-connected and influential Burgher aristocrats of Sanctuary and I… am the granddaughter of a giant that entertains people at the Coliseum." She smiled nostalgically. "But, despite everything, we hit it off. We bonded over a common interest in astrology and the Saintias. I believe her sister Adriana was a student here at the time and Anastasia used to look up to her a lot."

"How could she not? Miss Adriana is awesome." Cerah thought back. She also remembered, however, that just like with Olivia, the two sisters seemed to be bitter rivals nowadays.

Olivia continued. "I used to see Anastasia as a really kind person at the time, just like her older sister. She seemed to love bringing me and my brother over to her house to play. We talked all the time how one day we would be attending this Academy together. My older brother was really popular with the girls, so I thought Anastasia wanted to be my friend to get closer to him, but, well…-" Olivia's features tensed. "How do I put this?... One day I discovered for sure that my brother was nowhere near Anastasia's mind."

Cerah rose a brow. That last sentence had a strange tone to it. "What do you mean?"

{======================|A3|======================}

Fifteen-years old Olivia struggled, eyes wide, feeling Anastasia's pink lips pressed right against hers.

Her hands immediately pushed Anastasia off, disconnecting them and she coughed out. "Pah, ANNA'! What the heck are you doing?!"

The strawberry-blonde girl backed off, looking terrified at Olivia's reaction. Things clearly didn't go according to plan for her. "I… Olivia, I'm sorry. I just thought that…"

"Thought WHAT?!" Olivia shouted, wiping her lips with her hand. She hoped none of the teachers heard her shouting in the garden at that hour. "I called you here because you were crying this morning! I thought you got another letter from your family calling you back for 'conditioning' and I wanted to see if you were okay! And you kiss me?!"

Anastasia's eyes formed tears. It was all going wrong. Why was Olivia responding so badly, too? "I…I thought you liked me…and… and when I got that letter, I…" Her palms covered her tearing eyes. "I'm sorry, I was going to ask if… if…"

The pain Olivia was inflicting on her friend suddenly dawned on the black-haired girl. A terrible guilt set in her stomach. Even if this revelation about Anna's sexuality and feelings was absolutely surprising, she was still Olivia's friend and she should treat her with the kindness she deserved.

Olivia held Anna's shoulders to soothe. "I'm so sorry, Anna, I didn't mean to react like that. You just… took me by surprise. Look, let's just forget about this and-"

Anastasia shoved her hand away. "F-FORGET? WHAT?! How dare you! How could I forget that you've just been using me all this time?!"

Olivia stood in shock. "Used you?! Anna! How could you s-"

"You don't care about your place at all, do you?! You took advantage of me all these years, and when I ask one thing, you reject me?!" she accused, tears rolling down her eyes. The pain in her almond eyes began sharpening into a hatred Olivia had never seen in her. "I…I welcomed you into my home. And you're nothing but the granddaughter of giants! All I wanted was for you to be mine, especially now that my family is gonna put me in the 'box', and you couldn't even do that?!"

Guarding herself, the Iraklidis widened eyes, too stunned to respond. Why was her lifelong friend reacting like a servant just talked back to her?

The Ghisi girl stepped away, red as a beet and almond eyes narrowed in fury. "But now that you're in this academy you don't need the 'rich girl' anymore to pull you up, right?! The gall! Do you think you can get off that easily of enjoying my kindness?!" She covered her face to hide her tears, shaking in hatred. "You're… you're going to regret this! All of it! And don't you dare speak to anyone what happened here or I'll DESTROY YOU! You stinking… peasant…upstart, daughter-of-giants!"

{======================|A3|======================}

Olivia stared out silently, lost in thoughts.

"Miss Olivia?" Cerah asked, worried.

The older girl hummed, snapping out of her trance. She smiled in reassurance. "Something awkward happened and…we just grew apart. Anastasia had an idea of me that was not true and…I had an idea of her that wasn't either." The Saintia turned again. She wondered often for how long Anna had been secretly attracted to her and kept it hidden because lesbian Saintias and Amazons were treated so much worse than gay Saints. "Unfortunately, our friendship didn't survive it."

What a resigned way to put it. Cerah admired the maturity that Olivia seemed to deal with all of her troubles. It reminded her of Eurydice, and Eurydice was an ageless Nymph with infinite experience that had seen heaven and hell, empires break apart, fallen in and out of love with a death god and seen the rise and collapse of the Beatles. If Cerah lost a childhood friend like this, she was sure she would think about it for years, especially if they went on to act so awfully to her.

"I'm sorry, miss Olivia. Is she the one you said used to share a dorm room with you?"

Olivia clenched her hands, tensing angrily. She still thought that reaction of Anastasia was so petty. "Thank you, Cerah. Yes, she was. But no matter what happened between the two of us, it doesn't justify the way she treats others these days. The way she treated you. Anna made a mistake with me, that's all, and I was ready to be there for her the next day, but now?" she stood up from her bed, narrowing eyes. "I know Anna just saw me as her inferior. She didn't want to be my friend, she wanted to own me. And now she makes enemies of everyone and repeats all the things her parents do. And nothing justifies spending the rest of her time in the Academy hurting the future of all the other Saintias every chance she could get…!"

Cerah sweated. What an intense situation to have with a former friend. She supposed there was even more on miss Olivia's plate than she ever realized, as far as her depressive state went.

Olivia exhaled to let her anger cool down. "Maybe… in a way, Anastasia can't help herself. Some people have said the Ghisi have malice in their blood. I don't believe that for a second, but sometimes I think that, maybe, having all that power at your fingertips from birth does something to your mind. It distorts the way you view everyone else." She turned to Cerah. "I'm sure even you have met people you love very much who seem unable to escape the legacy of their families, right?"

The Zodiac Knight gulped. "Of course. The Prince. All he ever talked about was how one day he would escape Hades and conquer Sanctuary, just like the Athenian Emperor. He always spoke of everyone who wasn't loyal to him as enemies waiting to be dominated." Thinking of this, she realized that, all this time, her first mentor and the father figure she had for a decade had spent four months in Sanctuary's catacombs. What was going to happen to Lucifer? Was he going to get executed? And how was she supposed to feel about it, given how their last encounter went? Given how many people he murdered at the Aries Temple?

The Equuleus Saintia saw Cerah clam up and didn't push the subject. She reached for her grandfather's radio. "Well, in any case, that's not why I called you here. Look at this. I got this as a present from Saint Aguilon, my grampa. I've been toying a bit with it and discovered a few interesting things."

Curious, Cerah took a seat and watched Olivia turn the dial to some frequency.

*gush* -elcome to Muses Radio, your only source for Zodiac-approved music! Next up is Soldier Red playing their hit song 'Baby, I'd take an arrow for you' *

"That's not it! Hold on…" Olivia turned the dial again. "Don't tell people I listen to these guys, okay?"

Cerah giggled.

"Baby, baby, baby Ophiuchoooo- This is Arcadia Station, with your host, Leonidas 'the King' Spartanos. Folks, I'll tell you quite as much, things aren't as good as they were in the past! Don't you agree? Back when men were MEN and we had access to all the hoplons and Sarissas you could shake a stick at-"

"Shoot!" Olivia cursed. How did she land in the conspiracy talk radio frequency? Did she have FM on instead of AM? The Saintia wished she had written down the right numbers. Unfortunately, if there was one thing an astrologer fanatic like Olivia was bad at, it was basic tech. "Just a second…"

"And that's why we should push at the Agora the proposition 39 to repeal the ban on 12-foot long spea- *ROOAAAAR*"

Cerah screamed, jumping off her seat "What was that?!"

"RROOOOOAAAARRR*

Olivia laughed nervously, recognizing the pitch since childhood. "I think that's grampa Aguilon's snore. He must have fallen asleep at the base with his radio on and I tuned in to his number. But that means we're close. Here…"

"ROOOA- do you copy? This is Kilo 9, at Peloponnesia base, are you hearing me?"

Cerah gasped. "That's… a military frequency!"

Olivia gestured a shush.

"Kilo 9, this is Alpha 32, we are following the suspect in Strasbourg, France. The perpetrator, Jack 'the Saint Killer' has been confirmed on site and we have to companies giving chase. Suspect is considered highly dangerous and has been responsible for murders among the military personnel. He has hostages, I repeat, he has hostages. Requesting back-up, over."

Olivia shut off the radio before someone detected her on the other end. "That's enough for now. I discovered this frequency by accident the other day. Grampa forgot to give me a radio that didn't have codes for the Sanctuary military channels and there was a number scribbled on it to remind him where to tune it at."

This sounded like the kind of thing that could land the both of them in front of a military judge. "Is this going to get us in trouble?"

Olivia shook her head. "Not if we are careful. Besides, they think this radio ID belongs to my grandfather."

Cerah sighed in relief. "Oh good." She laughed. "I guess that's pretty cool! So, you can follow what the Saints are doing and when they catch that guy?"

"Yup, in theory." Olivia stored the radio. "Unfortunately, Sanctuary catching this one is likely not going to happen. This is the third time I've heard that name being chased by the army in the radio, and they lose him every single time. Grandpa told me that will all the personnel being directed to the upcoming war, Sanctuary has no means to give chase to these lesser threats."

Cerah clenched hands. "Lesser? But… but they're still dangerous! They have the cosmos!" While Cerah had never fought against what Sanctuary labelled as Black Saints, Saint Yushira had told her a few stories already of the monsters they could be. "What's going to happen now? People are going to get hurt!"

"Nothing is going to happen. This is just going to be one of the many problems in the world we won't have hands and willingness to fix." Olivia's blue eyes tensed. "And that, along with my friend's words, is what got me thinking… that maybe I can do something to help."

Cerah perked up, wondering if Olivia had one of her wonderful ideas for an initiative to help the Saintias and Sanctuary. "How so?"

Olivia took a deep breath. This was it. She had to stop stalling and get on with it. Her eyes narrowed in determination and she gathered all her courage to confront Cerah with her thoughts. "Cerah, you know who my grandfather is, don't you?"

Cerah nodded. "Yes, I met him once! He is scary looking, but he was very kind to me. He's a Silver Saint, a giant, but he's also a Coliseum Champion, right?"

This sounded like the typical first experience with her grandfather Olivia had heard of most people. "Yes. More than that, Herakles Aguilon Iraklidis is also a hero in Sanctuary. In fact, he comes from a long line of warriors. Everyone in the world is a descendant of tons of important people from the past, but the Iraklidis line in particular traces itself back to heroic fighters from Asgard, Gold Saints and even Taurus Teneo, one of the few survivors of the last Holy War."

Cerah awed. Her fists clenched. "So that's why your family members have such an incredible spirit! They're descendants of heroes!"

Olivia gave an self-conscious chuckle. "It's one way you can say it, yes. One's fate is never set in stone by mere blood, Cerah, but… my older brother has always said our family has long cultivated across generations a strong cosmos… that must also be put to great use."

At this point, Cerah noticed that Olivia made frequent references to her mysterious brother, but never went into detail about him. Whoever he was, he must have had a strong impact on miss Olivia.

Olivia paced herself around the room, trying to build up courage to spit her mind out. "My grandfather, my mother and even my brother… they've all been people of strong spirit. Every single one of them has fought to make their dreams come true and made justice to the name Iraklidis." She paused, eyes softening. "Except… me."

"Miss Olivia, that's not true." Cerah instantly asserted, her voice firm. "Look at all you've done. You're the star of this academy. You're a made Saintia. Everyone I know admires you. I admire you! Even Saint Lance has… fallen in love with you." She dared to include, triggering a pained, yet touched smile from Olivia. "So how could you think that for a second?"

"Because, Cerah, the Saint I've fallen in love back with is in a coma right now." Olivia countered, her tone carrying nothing but the brutality of facts. "And he landed in it because I got into a fight with a Specter I challenged. I'm the one who tried to stop Genbu Atlae, not Lance. But he paid the price for it."

The Zodiac Knight's eyes shook. "There's nothing I can do, is there? Olivia is the kind of girl that won't stop blaming herself for not being perfect in everything. Just like… Saint Lance."

{======================|A3|======================}

"Master, why do you talk so poorly about Saint Lance?" Cerah asked, following him up the mountain with a bag of rocks over her back. "Sometimes, you don't sound like the kind loving teacher he speaks of."

Leading the march, Dohko turned his head. "Mm? What kind of ridiculous question is that?" He laughed out loud. "Listen, kid, laughing in the face of serious guys like him is the most fun I get, stuck on this mountain as I am. If you take that away from me, I'm making you feed Ma Chao for the rest of your life!"

Cerah puffed her cheeks, undeterred by the threat. "Master Dohko, you don't sound like that, though." She counted with her fingers the number of jokes she heard that day alone. "You say Saint Lance doesn't listen, that he disappoints you, that his skull is as hard as diamond from the deepest crusts of the Earth-"

"And he's uptight. Easy to rile up." Yushira added, giggling and following them from behind with a bag as well. "And he talks to women like they're aliens."

"And he's boring, unimaginative…" Dohko followed up. He smirked. "And boy, is he repress-"

"Oh, stop it, you two!" Cerah cut in. "I met Saint Lance! He saved my life and miss Olivia's and he inspired me to come here with him. And you should see how sweet he is to her!"

Dohko paused to check the path "If you met him then I'm surprised you even need to ask this question, little Cerah." Picking the road ahead with the most inclination, he continued the march. "Listen, guys like him need someone else to poke fun at them. With love, of course. Otherwise, they'll go crazy. You can't convince people like Lance to believe in themselves a bit more, they're just too used to putting themselves down."

"Tell me about it…" Yushira mumbled, climbing over a boulder.

Cerah blinked, unsure if Saint Yushira was implying; if she agreed with Master or if she saw herself this way, too.

"Sure, I do what I do because I love to annoy the serious types like him-" Dohko confessed, jumping down a ravine. "-but I could tell from the moment I met that one that if I didn't make it clear I thought he was a ridiculous brat, he would never trust a word I said. That's just how some of these brats cope with their traumas."

Jumping down to follow Master, Cerah hummed, seeing a tiny speck of logic in this. "I see…"

Dohko put his hands on his hips. "Don't you ever tell that kid I said this, but I sometimes honestly worry about him. I'm happy Lance has finally found a girl to be with, because it might take some of that dumb edge of his off, but this crusade project of his… I can't help but feel some of the same juvenile overcompensation in it that he had when he went to fight your old teacher. Some kids are so lost in this world they aren't happy until they're throwing themselves in its flames. And sometimes… they don't come back."

Yushira folded her arms. "Can we stop stopping all the time to talk about Pegasus? I'm carrying half a ton of rocks on my back and we still have three quarters of the way to go."

"You're right, we ARE stopping too often." Dohko acknowledged. He restarted his stopwatch. "Make that ten tenths of the way to go."

{======================|A3|======================}

"No wonder they like each other so much." Cerah realized, stunned that she hadn't noticed it before. "They're exactly alike."

"Cerah... I promised myself I would never again put you in danger. However, after seeing your new abilities earlier, I see now I could only ever ask you this." Olivia glanced at the armor pieces in her bed. "Do you see my Equuleus Cloth there? It's a Zodiac Knight armor, kept inside a Cloth Stone, just like yours, correct?"

The blonde girl nodded. How could she not? It was miss Olivia's beautiful Saintia armor. She was afraid of what miss Olivia was going to ask, though. "Y-yeah?"

She took the girl's hand. "Cerah, can you use your Lightcraft to shape it into something new? Could you even fix it, if needed?"

The younger girl gulped and thought about it. "I mean… I suppose. I never tried to use them on another Knight's armor, but… I guess that's how it works, yes, especially with the new training I've been getting. But why, is there something wrong with your Cloth?"

Olivia picked up the headpiece, the blue tiara with the small mare head and wing-shaped ear covers. "Yes. It has a giant problem. People can recognize me in it, you see." She pulled for a drawer and took out a drawing. "So, I need you to change it into this."

Cerah took the paper and studied it.

She staggered at the scandalous details. "W-WHAT?! Miss Olivia! But this is-"

The older girl gripped her hands, though. "Cerah, please…I beg of you!"

The blonde girl gawked. "B-But… but…what you're asking here is-"

The brunette girl nodded. "I know; it's insane. It could get not only me, but this entire academy in trouble." She released Cerah. "That's why this afternoon… I spoke to the headmaster and resigned as the fundraiser head."

Cerah dropped the paper. "WHAT?!"

"Not just that, but I also named replacements for myself in all the clubs I currently lead." Olivia revealed. "It's only fair, given what happened today, that I take responsibility for my actions. I would have renounced the Student Council presidency as well, but headmaster Albus refused, saying it would demoralize all the students in the Academy when we're all about to move to Palaestra. However, I'm doing this in advance so that, if catastrophe happens, none of the Saintias will suffer by association for what I'm going to do."

"But… but this?!" Cerah demanded to know. This was all so incredibly dangerous. She picked up the paper to look at miss Olivia's sketch again and her mind boggled. It was absolutely within Cerah's power to form something like it with a Cloth Stone armor, but it was outrageous. "It doesn't even look safe to use!"

"The important thing is that it conceals my identity." Olivia listed, raising a finger. "There must be absolutely zero chance that anyone, even those closest to me, can trace what I'm going to do back to me."

Cerah nodded, understanding her point, but the request was still so outrageous. However, it was miss Olivia asking it, so Cerah could only answer one thing. "Of course I will do it, but… you have to tell me why! Why all this?! This… isn't going to get Saint Lance out of his sleep!"

Her head sunk humbly. "I know." Galan's words rang in her head. "Cerah, sometimes, especially as a woman, you realize you've reached a point where you're not happy any more with who you are, no matter wonderful others might say otherwise, and that you'd do anything in your power to… change something about you. I can't pretend anymore that it's okay I'm just sitting here in the Academy drawing trouble all around me."

"Miss Olivia, no, that's nonsense!" Cerah urged, holding her arms. Why was Olivia like this, so self-castigating?! It broke Cerah's heart to see someone she admired so much think so little of herself. "What are you talking about, drawing danger to yourself?! None of those times were your fault, we told you!"

Olivia turned her head, stoic. "That's not true, Cerah. Look at Anastasia. Look at that Worm Specter, that Alraune, that Reaper and now this Genbu and Yeti. I attract enemies, dangerous ones. And then the people I care about suffer all around me because of it. Even if I didn't cause any of it, my presence in the battlefield made everything more difficult for everyone, no matter how hard I tried, because I am not preparing myself for that danger as I should. It's a miracle of Athena I am still alive, lacking the seventh sense as I do, when everyone else is giving everything they've got to master it. I know now that I am not ready yet for what is to come…"

"Ready for what? Miss Olivia, this you're suggesting is just… going to put you into more danger!" Cerah protested.

Olivia turned to her like she hit the nail on the donkey's head. "Ready for the Holy War. And for the Seventh Sense."

The Zodiac Knight went quiet. How could she counter any of this without more platitudes? As a fellow Saintia, sort of, Cerah had no right to stop miss Olivia from desiring to reach the seventh sense, and it was absolutely true that Cerah herself had only just reached it because she focused deep down on what she dreamt of, of being with Daese again, and had been brave enough to not let a cruel guy like Alraune Queen have his way with her friends. However, at the same time, as miss Olivia's unofficial protector, Cerah wanted her to stay safe at all costs.

"Miss Olivia… what if Saint Lance wakes up tomorrow… and I have to tell him you got hurt? That you died? Doing this?" Cerah asked, eyes softening. She remembered all the women she had seen in the Underworld, growing up, some of them slaves to the False Specters. "Or worse, that you've been taken?"

Olivia's nose breathed inwards in terror at the thought. Yet, she answered nothing, as if Cerah's exact warning had been given by herself to herself many times by now, to no avail.

Cerah's head shook. "Even if he didn't punch me to the dirt for failing to keep you safe… even if he didn't hate me for the rest of my life…I would still hate myself for failing him at this simple task." For the first time since they met, Cerah stood up to miss Olivia, eyeing her angrily. "You know how much he cares about you! So why are you thinking this way?! You're being selfish, and you know it!"

"Because…" Olivia's mind rang in pain, remembering the last time she saw Pegasus at the hospital, covered under gauze to the point she couldn't even kiss him goodbye. Her eyes wetted, thinking of all the sweet moments they shared in their short time together already. She wanted to find so much more. "Because I think… I think I really like that guy! I really, really do! And he's there because of me! And with this war… it's just going to keep getting worse and worse for him! For all of us! And I can't stand that! I can't!"

Cerah gasped, seeing Olivia lose total control of her tears, like some terrible trauma awoke in her.

The older girl shook like the room was a fridge, taking a seat down in her bed. "I… I… I already lost my parents to war! I lost my brother to the Pope and my best friend to the Gold Saints! I only have my grampa and now I'm going to lose him and Pegasus, too?! This is Hades and the Specters we are talking about, not a civil war between ourselves. There isn't going to be any… any mercy or honor, just death!" She held her head, feeling her world collapse. "I refuse! I refuse to just stand here in comfort and safety and let them risk everything they have! That can't be all I can do, it just can't! There HAS to be a way I can help everyone get through this alive!"

Cerah held her own arms, her eyes also wet in sympathy. Cerah never had her family with her, so losing everyone and everything had just been about protecting Eurydice and a few others. She had to imagine that for someone like Olivia, born and raised in Sanctuary, Holy Wars were a horrible prospect to face.

Olivia reached for a tissue and cleaned her face. "I-I'm sorry, I didn't want you to see me this way." She took a deep breath so her face color would lighten. She felt her hands and nose tip numb. Was it a panic attack she was having? That was no good, not in front of an underclassman. "Cerah… forgive me, but I'm going to do this, with or without you. Nothing is going to stop me from going out there and… answer the call of my grandfather's blood. Just like my brother has."

Cerah gave her a bit of room to breathe. "Miss Olivia, I could never tell you what to do." Her eyes darted. "I mean, I could probably kick your butt, tie you to a chair, rip that drawing to shreds and call Saint Aguilon to come take your radio, but you don't do that to your Academy seniors…"

Olivia reeled a bit. It was so odd, but it was true that the first year in front of her could easily defeat her in combat now. How bizarrely things had developed.

Cerah folded arms. "Most importantly, I know exactly how it feels to want to go out there and fight." She admitted. It was the same attitude she took when she followed after Lucifer during the False Holy War. "I'm an heir to the Zodiac Knights, whether they raised me or not, so I know what it feels like to have the call in your blood to action. Eurydice didn't stop me from doing what I thought was right, so I have no right to stop you, do I?"

The proud Equuleus raised her chin. "I'm afraid I am a Capricorn, Cerah. We have our own brand of foolhardiness. I wouldn't let you stop me from doing what I think is right, no matter what you said."

Cerah frowned. She supposed she wouldn't admire Olivia so much if she wasn't the kind of girl that surpassed even Cerah in determination. Moving to the desk, Cerah took the sketch to hand.

"Do you mind if I take a closer look at this, miss Olivia?" She studied it closely. Nothing of what was in it was out of reach to Cerah's Lightcraft, but, having experienced some tremendous life and death battles already, Cerah had a few concerns. "If you're going to do this… then this 'Cloth' has to be a lot safer than it is."

The Equuleus gasped. "Cerah! Then…!"

The Zodiac Knight cut in with a hand wave, griping the paper hard with the other like she wished she could tear it to pieces. "Don't misunderstand me. I am totally, one hundred percent against this. It's insane!" Cerah's green eyes wavered away. "But… you supported my decision to join Saint Lance's quest, too. I can't fight you on this. I just want you to be safe, so that when he finally wakes up, I can look him in the eyes. Please do that for me, will you?"

Elated, Olivia reached in a pulled Cerah tightly into a hug, practically constricting the shorter girl. "Thank you!"

Cerah gasped out with her lungs squeezed inside her. She couldn't help but smile, though, and closed her arms around her friend.

{======================|A3|======================}

Pisces Aphrodite stood atop the roof of the western academy hall, observing from the heights how the new girl at the school left the Class President's room late at night, thinking herself unseen. He saw them exchange a whispered goodbye, a hug, and then the two went their own way, each to different floors of the hall.

His pink lips curved up. "Interesting…This could be fun."

Clad in his new Gold Cloth and laying on his back on the roof tiles behind him, Cancer Deathmask lazily picked his nose. "What? Did you find a Specter? I would really love to kill something right now."

"No, but I may have uncovered some kind of plot going on with the Class President." Aphrodite explained. "The one we are here because of? Remember her?"

Deathmask flicked his booger away. "Oh, by the nose hairs of Ares, whatever will we do? Look, man, I'm gonna go do my job by the parking lot. Call me up when something interesting for real happens, okay? I can't stand dumb high school dramas…."

Aphrodite watched Deathmask jump out the roof and go patrol the garden again, where he could take the chance to tag the teacher's cars. "Mm, always the rude, uninterested sloth. Someday that lack of sharpness of yours will come back to bite you, Mephisto. Don't ask me to be there to help when it finally happens…"

{======================|A3|======================}

Present Time

Mission Management Center

{======================|A3|======================}

"So, what was in that letter you were smirking about?" Suisho asked, guiding Lance inside the MMC. "You had this look on your face like someone just promised you a kiss."

The Pegasus Saint stored Olivia's response in his Cloth Box, away from prying eyes. "None of your business, that's what."

The duo of Saints entered the building where all the Saints and their operations were overseen to find it an even bigger cacophony than usual. Lines of warriors from all over the planet, coming from Sanctuary bases near and far, were inside the building, all demanding attention from the poor attendees.

Lance's red eyes scanned the crowd. He had never seen so many operatives. "Christ, I barely recognize anyone here. Has Sanctuary always had this much personnel?"

"You really should have spent more time getting to know everyone here." Suisho joked. He began cutting a path for the two of them through the groups to try to reach Sagitta Nam's office. "Sanctuary may have only 88 Cloths, but there's no limit to how many agents and soldiers we can have, so long as they don't yap about what we do to governments and such. I think even Sanctuary isn't sure how many guys and gals we have stationed around the planet, but most estimates by the MMC number the army and services combined to be up to thirty thousand and five hundred thirty-seven overall, last year, which is about the same as the population of this town."

Lance rose a brow. It sounded like an okay number, smaller than some cults he'd heard of, even, but it still surprised him how precise Suisho was. "You sound like you've been doing more than just 'getting to know the gang'."

The Silver Saint irked. He almost gave up that he'd basically been doing espionage. "Well, I have to know about these things if I'm going to doing mission planning, you know? A lot of getting the most out of Sanctuary's resources is understanding where they are."

The Pegasus Saint tried to do a quick headcount by multiplying the number of heads by two of the walls "There has to be almost three hundred people just inside the lobby! And twice as many standing outside!" He looked around and frowned, seeing all the stress and anxiety visible in the jittering, chattering and shouting. "Look at all these worried faces…Everyone must be terrified they'll get called to Fort Peloponnesia."

"What do you mean, I got conscripted?!" one shouted in the room at the desk clerk. "I'm supposed to be stationed in Buenos Aires, not the frontline!"

"HEY, can me and by friend get an answer here?!" another demanded. "We were told our squad would be guarding trade routes to Shamballa! We're just basic hoplites! We're not trained to fight Holy Wars!"

"This is an outrage! Everyone knows Holy War with Hades is only supposed to come the next decade!" another screamed, sounding more panicked. "What do they have that giant fortress for if they're still going to call everyone to defend it?! If I wanted to actually fight Specters, I'd have joined the Lost Legion like my cousin!"

"N-NO, please, YOU CAN'T SEND ME TO GERMANY!" yet another one screamed, banging hands on the clerk's desk, looking absolutely terrified. "I'm just a volunteer trying to get citizenship in Sanctuary Town! I never wanted this! Please, I d-don't want to d-die! Send someone else!"

The Pegasus Saint sweated, realizing the situation was even worse than he imagined. Even the riff-raff that did absolutely nothing in Sanctuary but practice how deep they could shove their thumbs up their asses without cosmos was being called? Just how much damage have the Specters been causing while he was asleep other than sinking Andromeda Island? Normally Lance would go 'boohoo' and call it part of their damn job, as Saints to fight the damn Specters, but after surviving the False Holy War and at least three consecutive ambushes, plus a coma, he held his usual bitter commentary on other Sanctuary warriors back a little.

"It's good to see you all here." Sagitta Nam welcomed, offering the three of them chairs at his office's desk. "Especially you, Pegasus. I'm glad you've recovered. We could use you and Suisho these coming months."

"Thanks. I'll do my best to help." Lance, however, rose a brow as he took a seat. "You look like you've been in a coma too, though, Nam."

The Sagitta Silver Saint sighed. "You saw the chaos outside, didn't you? It's been that way since the Andromeda Island attack. Let me tell you, I never thought for the life of me I'd get to live through this panic again."

Lance frowned "That's right, Saint Nam was a young Bronze Saint when the Civil War happened, just like Shinta's Master was…"

The blonde, blue armored adult sunk forehead into his laced fingers. "I'm going to be upfront about this to you two. The situation is severe. Fort Peloponnesia is quickly becoming a rallying point for thousands of hoplites coming in from all over the planet. We've pretty much left almost every single Sanctuary location in the planet with minimal security as a result. The following months could be catastrophic for Sanctuary if the frontline isn't held or we keep suffering enemy attacks of the same severity as the one that sunk Andromeda Island in our rear areas. We are having, almost literally, our butts kicked over here."

"What's been happening to the Training Grounds?" Lance asked. "It can't be safe to have all these teachers and students out there, right?"

"We're bringing in as many as we can into Sanctuary Town, but some Cloths are locked inside their sites by powerful tests, so they can't be retrieved easily." Nam clarified. He flipped through some pages. "Some of the worst ones are Phoenix, Dragon and Cygnus, all of which are encased inside either hostile environments or, in the case of one of them, a glacier that can't be melted down. Part of your job in the coming months is going to be helping the Masters reel everything into Sanctuary Town."

"Wait, what about the Saintia Academy?" Lance immediately asked. "There's entire classes of people up there, right? And then there's-"

"Don't worry, Pegasus, Olivia is safe." Suisho guaranteed. "The Gold Saints of Pisces and Cancer have been stationed there since Worm Raimi's attack, remember?"

The Pegasus Saint breathed easier. "Right, good…" Aphrodite and Deathmask may be brats, but Lance taught them well to be alert to threats. "Still, I'd like to see her myself, just once…"

"In the meantime, we got a special job to help you warm up and get back into action." Nam took out the newspaper he had been carrying and rolled it out to his hand. "It should be simple for a pair of Gold Ranks like yourselves. Here, take a look."

Taking it, Lance nearly choked up, widening eyes at the headline.

"Knight-Girl Strikes Again!"

"Black Saint Crime Lord 'Saint-Killer' Jack detained, along with 49 others just this month!"

Yes, you've heard it from us first, folks! Another report coming in from our sources in Peloponnesia has confirmed yet another bombastic assault on cosmos-fueled crime from none other than the enigmatic character calling herself 'Knight-Girl'! The pattern has been the same as in the last three other incidents recorded over this month; in an area where Sanctuary vigilance has been reducing with its forces pulled to Fort Peloponnesia, Black Saint activity rises during the day only to then be met by a fierce hammer of justice at night from an unknown assailant.

The article was then topped by a large photograph of a lean, feminine figure leaping through roofs of a neighborhood, shadowed by its contrast with the full moon behind it, its hair dancing in the wind.

Pegasus Lance gawked, looking up at Suisho. "What the…Knight-Girl?! So now we have a superhero around?!"

Suisho nodded. "Again, you've been missing a lot while you were asleep, Pegasus."

"Sanctuary wants this person taken into custody ASAP. Vigilante actions by users of Cosmos are not to be tolerated, especially during war time, not to mention this kind of news might be good for the Marathoner, but it's driving a drill through the army's morale." Nam reminded them "Use whatever method at your disposal, Pegasus. If they resist… you know what to do."

Lance sweated. Who would be stupid enough to do a thing like this, putting on a costume and playing comic book hero? This was irresponsible at best and a sure-fire-way to get labelled a Black Saint by Sanctuary at worst. Hopefully the first talk Lance would have with Olivia after waking up wouldn't be 'sorry I'm late, I had to go to arrest a stupid teenage girl working out her cosmos'.

Or worse, kill her in combat.

{======================|A3|======================}

Chapter End

{======================|A3|======================}

Next Chapter: Chapter 99 – Third Arc – Episode 25 – Chasing the Knight

Release Date: August 25th

Description: Tasked with bringing down this mysterious new Black Saint, Pegasus Lance and Crateris Suisho head for the Rhine river valley. There, they investigate the superheroine character that has all of Sanctuary talking and discuss the way you best really use the cosmos in service of humanity.

Meanwhile, oblivious that her boyfriend is currently giving chase, Olivia continues her activities as her alter-ego, with the assistance of Cerah repairing her Cloth after every battle. Will things end in tragedy as the two finally cross paths on the battlefield for real?

Author's Comments:

I completely forgot today was publishing day, lol I had to very quickly create this author comment discussing this chapter and I don't even remember the final details on how I wrote it two months ago. It would be more fun to write these if I had an idea of what my readers are thinking, but I don't get any feedback on these Arc 3 chapters at all other than what my beta-readers say, so it's tough to decide what to clarify, what to discuss, etc

I guess I can ask that; what do you guys think so far? I'm currently writing chapter 100 of the story and things feel pretty busy. There's tons of plot threads I want to advance in significant ways by then and I even pondered cutting off Arc 3 at that point, since it's swelled so far beyond what I initially planned.

Next chapter we have a goofy premise to tackle, as you might expect, but there's some serious topics to discuss, too, mostly focusing on Olivia and her character. It won't be just Lance running around after Knight-Girl, I promise that.

Anyway, be sure to leave a review or share the story if you enjoyed this chapter, or if you want to criticize it even. Like it on Tumblr/Reddit and generally support this project if you enjoy it. You can find me in all those places under the Thrudgelmir2333 name.

See ya \owo