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.

102. 3A: The Triumph - Part 3 of 5

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;

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

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Author Notes:

-This chapter has been betaread by EpicElly;

-Apologies for missing the November chapter post. Something came up. Chapter for the next deadline is already written and beta-read, though;

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Distant Past

The Lost Canvas War

Underworld, Acheron River

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The Lost Canvas War was finally at an end.

Shion could feel it in the air. After years of terror, bloodshed and loss, it finally felt like he could breathe easier. The Underworld was crumbling. While not destroyed, it had been crippled by the devastating battles between Sasha's group and the final, surviving servants of Hades. The starry sky was tearing with interdimensional rifts that would take decades to close and the mountains and mounds of the Underworld's black landscape were crackling with fire. Already, chaos in the Prisons was felt from a distance as sounds of undead wailing grew louder in the echoes and the ground itself split deeper and wider in every direction.

It would be centuries before Hades ever mounted the strength to wage war on them again. The world was saved. For the moment.

The Argo now sailed up the Acheron River, its sails tattered and its hull cracked, but still carrying all that remained of the Sanctuary party that conducted the final assault on Hades' realm. Despite their triumph over the Specters and the relief felt in ending the war, the mood onboard was tense and somber. Many had fallen making their way to Giudecca. Of the ones that remained, half of them had just witnessed Pegasus Tenma's death at Daemon Lucifer's hands, while the other half was unconscious and resting in the lower deck after numerous hard battles and a frantic escape from the crumbling Prisons.

Libra Dohko himself had barely made it back to their ship, carrying Shion on top of it, after what had been a devastating final battle with Daemon Lucifer, the Celestial Star of Pride, in the wrecked Third Prison. Having only barely clinched his victory and reached the Argo, Dohko had dropped unconscious as soon as Shion was safely in Athena's hands.

Now Shion was awake, alive but not completely well. He walked the deck with a solemn look and a broken heart, barely responding to Yato and Yuzuriha's nods with his own. There was just too much in his head. Too much blackness. Too much left still from an Eternal Darkness.

Leaning hands on the ship's rails, the last thing Shion remembered was being locked inside the cage of black Cosmos by Lucifer. "I should be dead. He got me. I failed in my duty to defeat that Specter and Dohko had to defeat Daemon Lucifer all on his own." He held his head, feeling the nightmares of Eternal Darkness assail him. They came in wails of Cloths he had tinkered with. Nightmares he thought he had dealt with in his battle with Rune. They reminded him he was still weak. "Why am I alive? Out of everyone? I don't deserve it! I should have stayed in that Prison. I should have joined my brothers in the beyond! I should have-"

A gentle hand touched his shoulder, setting him at peace with a soothing warmth. He turned to see it was Sasha's, and the nightmares of Eternal Darkness seemed to recede, like shadows vanishing under a carpet before a blinding sunbeam. She was still clad in her beautiful godly armor, and her other hand had the strange puzzle box that Shun had brought with him.

"They call out to me in the river, Sasha… All the armors I abused for my quest for knowledge in Jamir." Shion spoke. "I fear I may now keep hearing them until I go into my grave."

The purple-haired young woman frowned. And spoke. "I'm afraid…it may be beyond my power to heal you, Shion. Eternal Darkness is a technique that belongs to Hypnos, a God like myself. I truly didn't expect a Specter human to have mastered it."

"I understand. We were all surprised by the presence of the Princes, it seems." Shion noted, though he felt hardly any consolation from it. From the terrible night that claimed Rasgado's life, it had been one setback after the other. But the last thing he'd do was blame his Goddess for neglect. "It's not your fault Hades had such a terrible card left to play on us."

The Goddess held her lip in concerned thought. "We were, were we not? And that is the strangest thing. That is why I must prepare the future for everyone." The Goddess offered the box to him. "Here, Shion. Take it, as my gift to you as the new Pope."

Shion took it and studied it. He recognized it as being a powerful sealing box, no bigger than his joined palms, with the innocent shape of a Japanese slide puzzle, but with the ability to contain inside objects that would have otherwise emanated great danger. It was not dissimilar from the one they locked Hypnos and Thanatos in.

"It belongs to Shun, but I worked on it a bit myself. Shion, in that box I've placed an amount of my very own blood. Overtime, it will crystalize and become little more than stale dust, but my power and prayers will exist in it yet." The Goddess explained. The idea of it immediately alarmed the Aries, who looked at the box in his hands like it held a bomb. "One day, Shion, I will be reborn again as a mere child, like I always have, but I predict great tragedy will befall the Gold Saints in the next cycle if I cannot guide them from the start. This blood, when exposed to me, will remind the new me of who I am. With it, I will be able to assume my roles as soon as possible."

He closed his fingers around the box protectively. "Thank you, Athena. I will guard it with my life." But as he felt its weight and studied it further, he realized something critical. "But, if the blood in this box will help me steer the future,…then this means your own past will be destroyed, correct?"

The Goddess lowered her head, breathing out in resign. "So, you've figured it out? Where me and the others came from?"

Shion checked his sides for eavesdroppers, then nodded, somber. "Yes. I finally realized it when Hades attempted to possess Shun at Giudecca. I simply could not believe there was a second vessel pure enough for Hades at once in the world. The only explanation was that…. Shun was from a different era than ours. One where he had been a vessel himself." He laughed at himself, feeling so ridiculous that he had never put two and two together on this for three whole years. "You four always seemed so on top of everything, making all the right moves… now I know how. Three years with us, battling everyone from Asclepius to Hades, and I couldn't figure out all of you guys were from the future. Master Hakurei always said I focused too much on the bigger picture…that it made me miss the important details."

Athena chuckled. "We all only see what we need to, do we not?" And held his shoulder comfortingly. "I'm sorry we tricked you for so long."

The Aries Gold Saint stood up straight, still shaking from his injuries but needing answers to something unacceptable. "Athena, why? Why journey to our time? Any dealings you could have had with Chronos would carry an extraordinary risk of catastrophe. Look at the misery Yoma caused with the little effort he put into his abilities."

The Goddess nodded, turning head in guilt. "…I agree, Shion. And I would add, even, that we are already suffering the consequences of my actions." She beheld the crumbling Underworld, calculating how this would help her achieve her original goal. "At first, we came to help our friend Seiya. He is a Pegasus Saint from our time. But then things…"

"Things got out of control?" Shion guessed.

Athena's eyes gave him a look like he called a tempest a mere breeze "This war we fought with you… it was so much harder and more painful than it should have been. Odysseus, the Argo, the Teos Cloth, Yoma, the two Princes… these are all variables that should not have complicated this conflict so much. If I was not sure to have brought my binding flower bracelets, I would have thought Chronos tricked me, and instead sent me and my friends to a different world altogether, rather than merely a different time."

"How incredible that even Athena has been caught off-guard. Is that even possible? Or are the currents of time just that capricious that this Athena's mere presence here has changed everything?" Shion wondered. "Tell me, Athena, what risks for our future do you foresee? Why this box?"

The Goddess hummed contemplatively. "Well, I imagine my uncle, for example, will likely be far more aggressive in his next attempt to defeat you. He has surely realized by now I am not his niece as he knows her and will conclude I have 'cheated'."

"But we've defeated him yet again!" Shion protested. "Surely, even Hades by now must realize that…"

Athena shook head. "I know my uncle. This will only embolden him. If peace with him was already difficult in the past, then now that he's learned I've allied with Chronos, it will be borderline impossible. Most importantly, I am no longer sure the history of Sanctuary as I knew it in my century will play out the same to you. If we faced these unknown factors here, in your time, then the storm brought forth by this butterfly's wings can only hold an exponentially larger amount of them."

Shion tightened his fingers around the box. "Then this blood will be the key to rein in that chaos."

"It's all I can do." Athena lamented, as if she blamed herself for not being stronger, not as vicious as her cousins and uncles with her power. Shion wished he could make her believe she had been nothing short of stellar to them all. "With this blood, you and your future Gold Saints will be able to verify my identity when I am reborn, which will also help you all prevent a struggle for power that I, Shun, Shiryu and Hyoga had to face in our Sanctuary back home." Sasha added, thinking of poor Saga. "I may have come here to save a dear friend back home, but believe me, Shion, that my greater objective is to create a future where we all can be happier. A future flooded with light."

"If that's the case, then this powerful blood, however, could also be the key to chaos. It cannot fall into the wrong hands!" Shion realized. The old Athenian Emperors, after all, such as Lucifer aspired to be, were crowned by having laurels doused in Athena's blood. A terrible reality then became clear to Shion, though. "Athena, if you awaken your powers that much sooner and craft a different, happier future for all of us, that means everything that led to the lives of you and your friends will not exist. Even if you are all still born, none of you will be the same as who you are right here in front of me! This you will be… gone!"

A great fear that Sasha had been clearly holding back until that moment then became apparent in her briefly freezing eyes and shortened breath. It didn't seem like she hadn't noticed it by now, only tried not to think of it.

Yet, her poise recomposed with the dignity of any God and spoke with a soothe voice. "That is a sacrifice the four of us are all prepared to make. I now understand that the only way to create a just world, is for the Gods themselves to know there are consequences to their actions."

Shion stepped up. "But Athena-!"

She held up a hand. "No, Shion. When we journeyed 'here' together, Shun, Shiryu and Hyoga all agreed with me that, no matter what happened, the future of humankind was our top priority. That is why we never once hesitated to take a wound for any of you, or save any of you, even if it could have annihilated us back home."

"B-but… BUT SASHA…!" Shion urged, holding her armored shoulder plates. He could barely believe he was addressing her so disrespectfully, but the Aries needed to reason with her out of this no matter what! He touched his chest, shaking at the idea that his final vow might be broken. "I promised Tenma I would keep you safe! From the moment Worm attacked you to when Hades drew his sword, I…"

The woman smiled sorrowfully. "My name isn't Sasha, Shion. It's Saori Kido. I… I was never the girl that grew up with Tenma in this past. I'm sorry. Your oath… does not apply to me." But then, light of hope filled her eyes and she smiled warmly. "And besides, who knows? Maybe, when we vanish from this place, me and my friends still have a home to return to yet? Maybe, to us, this will all be just a dream, and we'll wake up in the future as the Saori, Shiryu, Shun and Hyoga that you will meet for a whole new first time."

Shion reeled. The Goddess did her best to sound convinced of it, but something told him she was not. Something told him she knew only a blackness completely unfamiliar to any immortal being awaited her.

"I suppose I have my wish, then." Saori Kido laughed. "I reincarnated like this so many times because I wanted to understand mortals…and now I do."

Gently, he released her shoulders, ashamed he dared to lay hands on her. "Even if you aren't our Goddess…Even if you took Sasha's place, isn't my duty to protect you, too?"

Saori shook her head firmly. "No, Shion. Your duty is to raise the next generation with love and wisdom, not to protect arrogant, selfish Gods like me. We must all do our best to plant the seeds of future trees. The future, after all, is uncertain to even the Gods of Time. Yoma proved that much, if anything."

Shion's eyes teared. What an incredible person. To have fought this hard and this long right by their side, risking her life so many times, and still dedicate herself heart and body to their well-being? How could Shion compare? As a Gold Saint? As the new Pope? As a Muvian man?!

"Athena, whether you're our Athena or not, I still want you to know… that fighting with you has been the honor of my life!" he declared, realizing this was 'goodbye'. He raised his fist. "And I will never, ever forget Saori Kido and her Bronze Saints!"

Touched, the Goddess held his hand and kissed his cracked gauntlet, her eyes tearing. "… Thank you, Shion. It was an honor to have finally met you, too. Tell it to Dohko, too, when he wakes up."

They then felt the wind of the surface world begin to blow air around them. They were nearing the end of the Acheron River, but Saori Kido knew she wouldn't get to see the sunlight this time. Her body already felt light and faint, and her consciousness faded, as the cruel waves of time began to erase her fate. Saori walked towards the bow.

"Athena?" Yuzuriha asked, sitting nearby with Yato and seeing the Goddess act strangely.

Yato stood up, seeing she looked ill. "O-Oi, Sasha?! What's wrong?!"

She burned up with cosmos, getting the attention of the hoplites now, too. Strength began disappearing, so she gripped her staff close to her chest to stay up. "A-Allow me to sing one final time, dear Saints … so my voice may echo in the future to you all and protect you. To sing one final time… of a world flooded with light."

The horizon ahead of them then split open as the light of the sun finally welcomed them. Feeling her heart united with that of her Saints, Saori braced herself, facing the blackness of the temporal void suddenly swallow her.

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Near Past,

Eight years before Present (1969)

Golden Zodiac,

Papal Halls

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The Pope entered his throne room, accompanied by the large group of Golden Rings of Sanctuary, the very top aristocracy of Athena's society. He and the Golden Ring council had just finished convening for an important meeting about Sanctuary's future when they heard the noise of a scream coming from the Pope's throne room. They all stopped, seeing the silver-haired boy he was training standing over the opened puzzle box.

Shion's world stood still, his eyes widened and his blood freezing.

Leon turned to him, trembling, and his hand reached out. Blood was coming out of his nose and eyes and his skin was darkening. Before Shion even had time to call out to him, the eleven-year-old boy then fell face first on the ground, dropping the chest and scattering its crimson innards all over the black marble floor.

"LEON!" Shion screamed, rushing to the collapsed boy. He picked up and held Leon in his arms and felt him shaking. The boy coughed. He looked at his hands and saw his fingers shaking, his veins darkening and his skin becoming grey. His breathing panicked. "L-Leon, what happened?!"

Coughing, the boy, pointed weakly at the opened box. "T-the dust…I opened the box and it just came out!"

The Pope picked the open box with his free hand. The over 10,000 movement steps to unlock it had been executed, revealing the crystalized blood of Sasha inside for the first time in over two hundred years. So thoroughly had it been demonstrated over two hundred years of peace that no one in Sanctuary, human or Muvian, could figure out the steps to unlock its sliding puzzle, that the Pope always felt confident in leaving the box out in the open in his throne room, as a curiosity for special visits.

What a fool he had been! How could he let this happen?!

"The boy opened the box?!" one Golden Ring shouted, realizing what happened. Murmurs of outrage came from the rest of the group.

"L-Leon… how did you do this?!" Shion asked, flabbergasted.

The boy gulped and tried to speak. "It was… the same as the Song of Solitude." Leon explained, referring to the epic opera composed after the war that told the story of Athena's battle to save Hades' vessel. His voice was getting rougher and the coughs more frequent "I realized… when you move the pieces… it plays a note…every 10 moves…"

It dawned on Shion now; Leon had discovered that the sliding noise the puzzle pieces made could match the notes of the opera's main song, and if he played everything in reverse, so as to signify the return of Hades' vessel instead of its salvation, the box kept making sounds of becoming unlocked. As soon as Leon put the very last note in, the box must have opened up on its own and sprayed his face with 200-year old red dust.

A dust that would have awakened Athena's dormant self, but was never meant to be breathed in by a mere mortal.

Leon coughed and choked, gripping his teacher with all his might. Everything inside him burned. His very lungs felt full of fire "M-Master… Master, it's getting worse! I can't…breathe! My chest… my throat… it hurts! Everything h-hurts! H-Help me!"

"Dear Goddess, Dohko almost died when he took a single drop of this blood into him!" Shion realized, horrified, recalling the stories of Dohko's battle with Basilisk Sylphid during the Lost Canvas War. "What will a full hand of its dust do to Leon?! He's just a child!"

"The sacred treasure passed down to us from Athena, which our families have guarded across generations…" one aristocrat, descendant of Scorpio Escarlate, gawked. "Not only has that child opened it… but he breathed it in?!"

"Dear Goddess. It… cannot be!" Cecilia Steiner, heir of Cain and Abel Steiner and wife of Gemini Akassius, gasped, her golden-ringed hand covering her mouth. She knew Leon, too, as he was friends with her son. "How did Leon…Even the most brilliant Saints of our families never managed to get even a tenth of the way in!"

"The blood of Athena has been exposed to the air! It's losing all of its power!" a plump, white-wigged man from the Ghisi household, grandfather of Adriana and Anastasia. He kneeled down on the box and the crimson stains on the ground to gather the little dust that remained but hesitated, fearing the touch of Athena's blood would scald him or worse. "How are we supposed to-"

"Please, now is not the time!" Shion begged them. He showed Leon getting paler and paler, heaving. "The boy needs help! He breathed the blood dust and is now fighting for his life!"

"This is… unforgiveable!" a golden-ringed French woman, princess of Aquarius Degél's family line, practically screamed. "That was the calcified blood of the very Goddess Athena in that box! It was to be used in the resurrection of her new body! And this boy… took it to his own?! What are we to do now?! Revive the Goddess with good luck charms?!"

Feeling Leon burn up hotter and hotter in his arms and the empathy for him in the room drop lower and lower, Shion held the boy close protectively, reeling on the inside at the sight of all these short-sighted princes focusing on the wrong thing. Could they not see the terrible pain the child was in?!

"Leon… why?!" Shion begged to know. "Why did you open the box?! I told you it couldn't be done!"

The silver-haired boy held his own chest, feeling it tighten. His Master's robe began feeling like a furnace around him and his eyes wept. "You… always said that. T-That's exactly why. I wanted to prove… I could still be your student…"

The Pope almost stood aback from him. "Still be my student?! What are you saying?!"

Leon's tears streamed down. "I know… you've been looking for a new one. I didn't want… to believe it!... I thought that I could figure this puzzle out…I never thought that…" Intense pain then filled him from his chest outwards, as if his heart was beginning to pump fire instead of blood into his streams. Leon screamed and thrashed in Shion's arms, feeling everything up to the tip of his fingers tearing.

A coldness struck Shion. Of course. How could he have not foreseen this? Nodding, Shion raised the boy from the floor. "Don't worry. This is all my fault. I will save you, I promise!"

As he turned to leave, however, the Pope realized that the group of golden rings moved to block his way out. Their masks all fixed his in a common, silent warning.

Holding Leon protectively, Shion lowered his chin. "What do you think you're all doing?! Move out the way this instant!"

"We should ask you that very question, your Holiness." One Golden-Ring, heir to Pisces Cardinale, asserted. "Do you really intend to save the boy who has committed a sacrilege of this magnitude?"

The Pope had to widen his eyes at the audacity of this question. "Of course I do! He is innocent! Leon had no idea that…"

"Anyone else in all of Sanctuary that would have opened an artifact of this importance, would have been executed on the spot for the offense." Another noble, this one an indirect descendant of the venerated Virgo Shijima. "And their blood would have been drained into a bucket and their stomach pumped to retrieve the lost blood of Athena."

The sheer horror in this disgusted Shion. "How dare you suggest that?! Leon is an eleven-year old boy! He thought the box was just a challenge to be solved! He thought…" Shion held his mask in shame. How could he have allowed the rumor he was looking for a Muvian student to spread like this? Of course, that Leon would hear of it. If not from his friends, then from the people who thought the Pope shouldn't be training him. "He thought I wouldn't abandon him if he beat the puzzle!"

The group spread out to the sides to block him entirely, almost like a living wall. "And the whole world may have just been doomed by this boy's immature conclusion. In the light of that, do you think his age matters one bit?!"

"Was Sasha, our Goddess, spared the hardships of war merely because she was a child?"

"Were our ancestors spared? Merely because they were not of this land yet?!" another cried out.

"Billions could pay the ultimate price for his 'mistake'! The boy must face what he's done!" the group accused, collectively pointing fingers. "Pope, are you going to save the person who has killed Athena?!"

The shocking hyperbole made Shion's feet retreat, his eyes widening in alarm. Though he was the most powerful man in all of Sanctuary, before him stood the great-grand-grand-grand-children of those who made him so, telling him they would not allow him to help Leon. He looked down on his student and saw Leon gasping for air more and more. His skin boiled to the touch, drenching him in sweat. His fingers dug into Shion's robe so hard, they perforated fabric and skin. The silver-haired boy looked like he could stop breathing at any moment.

Cecilia Steiner, descendant of Aspros and wife to Akassius Steiner, approached him. "Your Holiness, I understand your pain. Leon is my son's best friend. And you are a kind, merciful man."

The Pope tried to focus on her out of the crowd, knowing she was the more open minded of the bunch, but her court mask made her look the same ilk as everyone else. "Cecilia, you say that, but you are about to ask me to abandon all of it, are you not?"

"I care about Leon as well. He is my son's best friend. But the world cannot discover we may have lost our one key to awaken Athena in her human vessel. What will we do now, after all, without our Goddess by our side?" Cecilia Steiner asked. She remembered all the battles her husband fought just to end the Civil War. "We were already so weak from Priam's betrayal. Now we will face Hades without Athena, too? This is not something that can be solved with mere mercy."

"W-What do you suggest I do, then? That I let Aguilon's grandson, my very student, DIE IN MY ARMS?!" Shion roared at them. He composed himself, feeling ashamed to have raised his voice, but every weakening breath in Leon filled him with urgency.

The boy shook terribly. He felt his very body was against him, like the Goddess' invisible hands were closing on his neck, pressing it in, all while he boiled from the inside out. "P-Please, help me! It hurts so much! I think… I think I'm going crazy!"

"L-Leon, hold on!" Laying out his own robe on the floor, Shion rested the boy down on it. He burned his cosmos and tried to soothe the boy's body with it, but none of the shaking or heat seemed to go down. "You will be okay! I promise!"

"I…want it to stop! M-Make it stop!" Leon begged, crying and thrashing left and right. Blood began dripping from his nose and eyes. The white in his eyes began to turn to pink. He suddenly screamed, thrashing in the robe, feeling like his entire chest was searing in two. "A-AAGHH! P-Please! I can't take it anymore!"

"What the boy endures right now is the punishment of the Goddess!" the nobles decreed. "Punishment for the audacity of solving her puzzle and breathing her body into himself! You wish mercy on him? Then he should pray to Athena to grant it, not to us!"

"That… that is impossible! Even Gold Saints have died from a single drop!" Shion urged. He couldn't believe he was saying it, as the leader of all Saints, but having known of the struggle it was for Dohko, how could a single boy survive all this?! "Only a miracle would…no, without help, something even greater than a miracle would be needed to save Leon right now!"

"Then pray you have taught him the Cosmos well, your Holiness." Cecilia countered, rising. Had it been her own son, Galan, she would not hesitate to say the same. "Is that not the way of this world, after all? To achieve the impossible with our cosmos? Let this be his test to see if he deserves the Goddess' mercy... and to be your student after all."

The Muvian Pope could only stare in bewilderment at their inflexibleness. The lack of budging in any of them as they essentially condemned Leon to death made him wonder if he had executioners, instead of guardians, as the lords of his Sanctuary's people. However, what could he say further in the boy's defense that he hadn't already? Was he not the Pope, the man supposed to advocate the most to have faith in Athena?

And it was true that, if anyone else had done this, Shion would likely be on their side, demanding punishment. It was true that, without the puzzle box's blood, or at least in the amounts Sasha left them, their chances of finding and awakening her new vessel were severely reduced. It was all so terribly true.

Leon's face was now full of dark veins and his hands were shaking like they were about to crumble into dust . "M-Master, please… Please,… s-someone help me!"

The Pope held the child. "Leon, none of us can help you. But the solution is still inside of you, in your Cosmos! You have to burn it! Burn it as high as you can, higher than you ever have, and then higher than that! Unless you create a miracle right here and now…you will die! Do you understand?!"

The boy tried, closing his eyes and focusing hard to make his energy circle, but only created a thin brim of blue before it collapsed, making his strength drop further. "I… I c-can't! It's hurts too much!"

Tears streamed down Shion's eyes. "Y-YES, YOU CAN! By Athena, you are the son of Partita and Kaiser, grandson of Aguilon! The one I picked as my student! The one I promised I'd raise to be a great hero of Sanctuary! Think of your friend Galarian, and your sister Olivia! Do it like you opened that damn box when no one else could! Again!"

Once more, Leon burned his energy, but the higher he tried to reach with it, the more he felt the gaze of the Goddess manifest in his spirit, lashing his very soul. He screamed and felt his cosmos crash down again. He coughed amidst flashes and spasms of pain all over his stomach and lungs. The pink in his orbs around his blue irises became a bloody crimson.

Shion gulped, tearing up. "Leon… please, try again. I know it hurts, but you have to. You're a Sagittarius!"

You can make your cosmos burn!

Burn it high. Higher than everyone else.

Burn it like you never have before, all the way to the stars!

Burn it until everything in your path becomes a galaxy full of dreams and miracles, where nothing is impossible!

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Present Day,

The Coliseum

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With his bow case by him, in the dungeon floors just beneath the arena ground, Leon sat on the wooden bench by the stairs to the Coliseum's Papal Balcony, staring at the box of earrings in his hand in silence. Above him, he could hear the crowds cheering as his grandfather fought adversary after adversary in the games leading up to Leon's Triumph. Leon, however, was lost in the memories of that terrible day that began his exile.

"That's right… I am a Sagittarius. A hero of Sanctuary." He reminded himself of what everyone always said. His leather-gloved hand tensed to his eyes. "With this hand, I will fire the arrow that will save Athena and all of Sanctuary."

Yet, in his head, he also replayed the last words exchanged with Cerah Heloise over and over. They hounded his mind since they took their separate ways, even when Leon ran into Saints Pegasus and Crateris. He thought about the look she gave him with those final words to him.

"…And what if I am a villain? What if I what I've done is kill Athena herself?"

"…if you've done something as evil as that, I'll forever be your enemy!"

"Will you?" Leon wondered, feeling his chest sink on the inside. "No, I could see it in your eyes, Cerah Heloise. You wouldn't hesitate to put me down. And I'd deserve it, too, wouldn't I?"

At this, the hunter and mercenary saw his pathetic face on the reflection of an armor displayed right in front of him. Leon looked to himself like someone had just punched him in the gut; an unbecoming sight for the Pope's greatest student and Sanctuary's new hero. To think a mere Saintia like Cerah could leave him in such a state with just the honesty and dedication to her principles he first noticed was so special in her. Perhaps Leon had spent too long in the shadows, and even the faintest light burned him to the touch?

The sound of leather boots and a clinking sheath on a belt approached him, then stopped. "Goddess above, I was right. It is you they are honoring."

Leon's eyes rose, seeing a wide-eyed, strawberry blonde woman with an elegant blue coat over white blouse, a light corsetry for travelling, leggings and brown leather boots. Speaking of people immersed in shadows. "Hello, AG. It's been a while. You look good."

The aristocrat folded her arms, eyed him skeptically, and raised her nose slightly. "I wish I could say the same for you. You look like you didn't get a bullseye on the Fire Clock from Rodario."

The mercenary hummed pensively. "No, not at all. You are just catching me at a bad time. This is going to be a very long day for me."

She put her hand on her hip, looking around to see all the banners of triumph on the walls, all for Leon. "I'll say. They dressed this place up like you took down Zeus himself. Does your family know you're back, already?"

"They do." Leon confessed. It was the first thing he took care of after reporting his success to Master. "I sent a letter to my grandfather. But I haven't been with them, yet."

Adriana held her head as if with migraine. "Tsk… Leon, really? That won't do. I can't be the one who lays eyes on you before your sister does. Not after how we left things off between us."

Leon's body tensed, feeling another dark memory reviving in him.

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

This had all happened not long before Leon left Sanctuary, so many years before. Not long before he breathed Athena's blood.

In the playground he came to find her, the silver-haired eleven-year-old boy's eyes welled in tears, holding the six-year-old Olivia close. "A-ADRIANA, w-what have you done to her?! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!"

The half-dressed teenage girl stepped back from them, stunned. "I…I 'bit' her. She was in the sand by herself and I saw a chance to get rid of her for you." Her hand dripping with her venom recoiled behind her back. "I don't understand. You know I'd do anything for you, right? I thought you'd be happy, Leon."

"H-Happy?!... MY SISTER IS DYING!" he screamed at Adriana, stunning her. He lifted her up all once and eyed her with utter horror in his face. "H-How could I be happy, AG?! She is all I have! If you'd do anything for me, how could you do THIS?!"

Adriana's almond eyes widened fully, completely confused. "B-But you always say… that you hate her. That she takes away your time from studying, that she always asks your grampa to train her instead of you and that we can't be together more often because you're so busy with her!" She bit her lip in frustration, forming tears of her own. "I-I don't understand! Why aren't you happy with this?! Isn't this way better for you? BE HAPPY! You're always sad these days and I can't stand it anymore!"

Shaking like a leaf, Leon picked Olivia up, refusing to give up. "I-I'm sorry, Olivia! I'm so sorry! It's not your fault, it's mine! I didn't protect you!" He saw his sister gasp out and scream, wrecked with pain. The two tiny black marks in her shoulder were bleeding more and more, but instead of turning her clear shirt crimson, it was getting black. "I'll take you to my Master! He'll know what to do! He has to!"

Adriana grabbed his shoulder, feeling they were both going insane. "L-LEON, STOP! Just let her di-"

"D-DON'T TOUCH ME, YOU….!" Leon roared, refusing to eye her. Blue sparks crackled all over his body. "D-Don't you EVER touch me or my family again, AG! Or I'll KILL you!"

Startled, Adriana stepped back, horribly confused. He would kill her?! "I…I don't' get it… this is what you do." She laid out her hands helplessly. "When you have enemies…When people take what is yours… you make them pay!"

A deep, unsettling, black horror filled Leon's chest as he came to understand the danger that he's been next to all these years. Every kiss with this girl, every afternoon spent with her, every secret shared came back to haunt him all at once, like a fly suddenly realizing it had been flying straight into a web all along. He stepped back, clutching the trembling Olivia close to his chest. Now he understood all the strange things Adriana described about her family's teachings.

Leon turned around and sped away with a lightning zap, carrying his sister to the Zodiac. "MASTER! HELP!"

Seeing him disappear, Adriana felt turned to rock, lost in darkness. It all coalesced around her head, making her feel tiny and crushed bit by bit. "I…I don't understand. I thought you'd be happy. I don't understand. She was in the way." She held her head, feeling her mother's lessons crawl all over her like the spiders from the box. "I don't understand…I don't! I don't! I DON'T!"

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

"You left Sanctuary in such a hurry shortly afterwards." Adriana recalled, her almond eyes softening. "I never got the chance to say I was sorry. And that I wanted to change."

The hunter laced his hands together to rest his head on them. "We all make mistakes…"

The noblewoman composed herself. "Ahem…Well, I'm sure as Hermes that you must still feel a certain way about what I did, but I want you to know, Leon, that I have been keeping a close eye on Olivia ever since." Adriana swore, eye to eye and hand over chest. The silver-ring meant it, too, having made sure no danger befell Leon's sister for years on end, ranging from reigning in Anastasia's obsessive lust over her and ensuring Cerah was there to ward off Specters.

He lowered his blue eyes down to her hand, seeing her Silver Ring. "I see you've made it to where you always wanted to be. You're the voice of the Ghisi. Congratulations, Adriana."

Looking relieved, Adriana chuckled and raised her hand to look at her ring. "Yup. I have to say, though, I didn't expect it'd come with so much diplomatie dure to do. It's very hard work, being the spokesperson for a bunch of out-of-touch sadists. You have to convince a LOT of people that your parents don't really drink the blood of peasants to sustain their youth."

Leon chuckled. "Hard work, indeed. But it does definitely put you in their circle, does it not? Of the Golden Rings?" His eyes then lowered down to her backsword. "Did they send you to kill me, then?"

A red glint went through her almond eyes, along with a curve through her lips. Her fair-skinned wrist rested over the pommel, fingers dangling over the handle tentatively. "I suppose they could have. Right, 'Goddess Killer'?"

The air in the room darkened. A tense pause followed as the two studied each other for their next moves. The hunter figured he shouldn't be surprised Adriana knew about his greatest sin by now. Upon obtaining the Silver Ring and becoming her grandfather's heir, Adriana was bound to be told which of her childhood friends to watch out for, especially the silver-haired one training under the Pope that he saw dying to the Goddess' blood. Many who disagreed with the Pope's mercy had sent assassins and thugs after him in the meantime. One even bragged he had been told to 'drain Leon's blood into a barrel, to the last drop'.

As one of the people who got to know Leon the most intimately in his childhood other than Galarian and Olivia, Adriana was perfectly positioned to get close to him. To eliminate him, in the name of Athena.

Neither moved a single muscle, surveying each other's cosmos instead for the moment the other would explode into action. Leon studied her pose, looking for tension indicative of an incoming attack or draw of blade. Adriana was still a Silver-Rank, that much he could tell, but the problem was that she was also one of the few people in all of Sanctuary who could match him in agility of mind. She could possibly get a blow in at this close a range before Leon's cosmos erupted into lightspeed, which, considering her constellation abilities, was not an acceptable scenario. This not to mention that by now the corridor was likely already filled with her nasty, invisible, cosmos-sucking webbings, trappings that would likely hinder his movement even at lightspeed and potentially drain him to his bones of power, leaving him at her mercy.

On the other hand, he could probably take advantage of that; filling her webs with so much electrical cosmos that it would all be carried back to her like the converging of a million lightning bolts on a single person. He also had at least three different techniques with the cosmos that could allow him to find and evade through a flaw in her terrain control, positioning himself somewhere where he could deliver a blow powerful enough to defeat her instantly. In fact, Leon had another that would let him arrow his adversary right from where he sat, without lifting his rear off his seat or presenting his back to this black window standing in front of him.

All these considerations certainly crossed through her mind as well, if her anxious, yet narrow stare was anything to judge by. A fight to the death between the two would be short, but of no certain outcome. They could very well risk in the blink of an eye turning the Coliseum corridor into a bloodbath and only Ares knew who'd come out on top, if either at all.

Yet, her hand left the pommel. "But as I have said, Leon, I've changed. Whether you believe it or not."

Leon studied the woman he had discovered so much evil in, that distant day. Adriana seemed to have had indeed grown a lot. More than her attire, height, Silver Ring and dignity, his instincts somehow sensed it in her very spirit and cosmos that a lot of the darkness in her heart was firmly under control. Even her very breath transmitted a genuine regret for her actions Leon previously thought was impossible in a psychopath raised by the Ghisi family.

Should he give her a chance? Smiling, he relaxed in his seat. "No, I believe you, AG. I've decided to myself long ago that what matters is the future."

With a soft gesture of hand, she pointed out the empty space in his bench. "May I, then? It's precisely what I'd like to discuss it with you."

Leon's spirit lightened. Even the darkness of the corridor weakened. "Sure. Though, with the way the Holy War is heating up, we might not have much of one left." And he moved his bow case out of the bench to offer her a more comfortable sitting. "How did you get clearance to come up here, anyway? We're just a climb of stairs away from where Master is sitting. A dangerous person could easily attack him from here."

"Surely by dangerous person you don't mean me?" The young woman took the seat next to him, folding her leg. "Your Master put me in charge of a couple of things, like finding some fighters for your grandfather to squash in this ceremony. You must be proud, getting this Triumph. You get to show Marianne that even a… what did she call you?… 'arrogant cock' can earn one of these."

He laughed out loud, picturing such blunt words coming out of Marianne's mouth. "I can believe she'd think that of me. Arrogance is something Marianne knows perfectly about. She's the one who thought they could take on 10,000 years of history between Mariners and Muvians, after all." Leon thought to himself. "Let's hear it, then, AG. Why are you here, if not to kill me? I know it's not to just apologize and catch up about our middle school friends."

The aristocrat let out a light groan. "Alright, alright… Gosh, how do I start this?..."

The hunter narrowed his eyes, sensing apprehension. In Adriana, of all people, who would normally not hesitate to talk about ruining her adversaries' lives? What was she up to?

She hummed. "I may have already suspected for a few days it was you who returned to Sanctuary. I'm not going to ask why the Pope has suddenly decided it's okay for you to come back to Sanctuary. I'm sure I will find out at today's Triumph." Adriana summarized. She glanced back at him. "What matters is that as soon as I was certain it was you, I knew I absolutely had to come ask it. I have a job for you, Leon. One you better not ditch me on."

Leon Iraklidis studied her. A job for him? This could only mean one thing. "Who do you want dead?"

The little humor left in her face vanished. "The Dark Emperor of the Underworld. Hades, son of Kronos."

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

Golden Zodiac,

Virgo Temple

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

Marking the spots for Andromeda Shinta and Triangle Noah, Galan checked their distance, then cleared his throat to explain the rules "The test of Lightning Round is as following; I will fire one round of my Lightning Bolt at full power at whoever goes first. You must then find a way to defeat your opponent with it without ever repeating a move. That is all."

Shinta blinked, staggering. "T-That's it?! And with Saint Galan's technique? W-wha?"

Mu was also bewildered. "He barely explained anything! What gives?!"

Aldebaran shook his head. Mu really needed to pay more attention in class with his Master. "He explained all he needed to, Mu. You're an Aries Saint, think about it; how would you defeat an opponent with someone's fired move?"

The Muvian hummed, finger in chin. "Oh. That'd be easy, I'd just cast Crystal Wall." He grinned. "And boom, that would redirect the attack right at the other person."

Milo rolled eyes and twirled hand. "And? What else? What are Virgo Saints known to do, dummy?"

This was easy. "Oh, they just null everything you do and throw right back at y…" it then finally hit Mu. "Oh!"

"Eureka, Mu. Shinta will be playing Saint Dodgeball. Frankly, in theory, it's the perfect way to test who is the superior candidate to the Virgo Cloth." Aldebaran completed. He wasn't surprised the Triangle Saint suggested. There was only one issue. "The only problem is… Galan is the arbiter. He'll be firing the move. And this is the guy that blasted Aiolos across the Coliseum in one shot. So Shinta can forget about not letting anyone get hurt."

"Personally, I'd compare it more to volleyball, Saint Taurus." The Triangle Saint said, overhearing their conversation as they moved to the circle. Noah stepped into place and smiled, looking anxious. "Are you ready, Saint Shinta?"

Nervously, the Andromeda joined him at an equidistant corner of the triangle from Galan. He wasn't sure what to expect, ferocity-wise, from the test. Something told him that he'd need to scrape everything in the barrel to make sure Shaka's temple wouldn't turn red from top to bottom. "Y-Yes, I think so."

Noah hummed, looking concerned by his response. "How about I go first then, to demonstrate what to do? I don't mind."

A wash of relief came over Shinta. "Y-you would?"

Again, Milo had to gawk. "Okay, seriously, what is wrong with this guy?!"

Mu scratched his head. "I thought that was a nice gesture, Milo."

The Scorpio Saint growled and laid out hands at the whole situation. "That's precisely it, Mu! This guy…gal… whatever, has been nothing but helpful to Shinta so far! If they go first, it also means they have to pass this Lightning Round test more times with different moves than Shinta! The Triangle Saint isn't acting like there's a Gold Cloth on the line at all! If it were me, I'd be cheating the hell out of it and letting my adversary make every mistake possible! That's part of winning!"

"Not everyone likes to win that way, Milo." Aldebaran reminded him. However, inside, he had to agree a little bit. "What worries me is that this could be a sign that this Silver Saint is just THAT confident they'll get the Cloth, but who could possibly have such a massive advantage over my training bro? Shinta, as an Andromeda Saint, is a bona fide master at cosmos control."

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

Rodario,

Circe's Grove B&B

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

Crateris Suisho arrived at the entrance of the popular establishment. "This is it. The Saint who has intel on Atlae asked us to come meet him here."

Lance rose a brow. "Really? Isn't the Grove a bit too public? This is kind of a sensitive matter."

"That actually reminds me, a warning to you." Suisho called, holding him for a moment by hand and squinting. "I've been told this person and you have a bit of a history, but I'd like you to be on your best behavior."

Lance raised a brow. Who was he talking about? Lance had, like, at least fifteen living enemies that he could think of, just in Sanctuary. "…Okay."

Sui gave him a skeptic look for a second, but then breathed out. "Alright, let us do this, then. In any case, just keep your voice down about this matter and we can discuss Atlae just fine. The contact is at the bar section, come on." Suisho guided him through the crowd to the side of the building that smelled like beer, peanuts and mead. "He is an old colleague that's helped me out a couple of times. It shouldn't take too long to get the whole story out of him."

Walking into the bar and seeing the witness of Atlae, the Pegasus Saint's teeth gritted. Now he knew why Nam wouldn't tell them the contact's name right away "Ugh, you?!"

The grey-haired Silver Saint, Kerberos Kastiel, scoffed at his table, seeing his wayward student. "Nice to see you, too, Lance."

Suisho darted his eyes between them, wondering if there was going to be trouble. "Nam told me all about the problem you two have. There's not going to be an issue here, is there, Pegasus?"

To both their surprises, while Lance squinted at Kastiel's cocky, expectant look like he wished he had his metal glove on to punch it, the Bronze Saint merely shook his head in acceptance. "Not at all. I'm here to find out about Atlae, nothing else."

The Silver Saint of Kerberos widened his eyes. "Ooh, look at that! You're not screaming at the sight of me anymore. An improvement of attitude!"

Suisho saw Lance grit his teeth slightly at this, but remained quiet.

"I see Sui has rubbed off on you very positively. Any day now you'll be back to calling me 'Master', as you should? Then again…" Kastiel then grinned. "…maybe that would just embarrass me, after that Knight-Girl debacle of yours."

At this point, even Suisho had to groan as well. Kastiel wasn't making it easy with his provocations, was he? Even discounting their history, Sui was starting to realize why Pegasus didn't like him so much. Yet, to his surprise, Lance seemed to be taking it pretty calmly, all things considered. The Pegasus wasn't fuming too much, didn't look like he wanted to flip the table and his face was only a light shade of red. In comparison, if Sui had taken this kind of crap from a low-bit Silver like Kastiel during missions, he might have given Kass a taste of Sui's own version of a super-identity.

The Specter huffed out, relieved. Had he been a real Saint, Suisho might have felt proud of his partner.

In reality, Lance wasn't feeling particularly superior to all of it. He just could not bother to care about such petty crap from Kastiel, when he had Atlae, the guy who hurt Olivia and Shinta, to catch. He stared, dumbfounded, at the Silver Saint sitting on the table, all satisfied with his own witty line.

In every encounter they have had since Lance left Mount Olympus, it was probably fair to say that the very sight of Kastiel had filled Lance with too much rage to really stop and think about the man himself. During their duel, all Lance wanted was to beat the crap out of the guy who called him 'useless' and left him to die, while at Andromeda Island, he just wanted to do his best to save Shinta's teacher and he tried to abstract away in his mind the fact he had to rely on Kastiel to find Gardnia. In both situations, Lance was full of rage and did nothing but bicker with the guy.

But now another year had passed, Lance was in a completely different place in his life and, most important of all, he found out Daese was real. She had not been a hallucination of the Cosmos he had and she indeed saved him from his terrible limbo in Mount Olympus, simply because she believed he could get the Cosmos, unlike Kastiel.

As such, this guy, sitting in front of him, with his self-satisfied grin, looked so small. Had Kastiel always been this way?

Finding his silence suspicious, Kastiel rose a brow. "What, did Yushira eat your tongue? Nothing to say to me?" He relaxed in his seat, exposing his armored chest. "I figured you'd take a swing at me, for old times sake. Maybe you finally have learned a thing or two about decency and respect for your superiors."

A strange feeling he never felt towards this person made Lance stern his eyes. It wasn't anger. "No. I'm just wondering something to myself."

Kastiel gritted his teeth, not liking the look on this kid's face one bit. It was different from defiance. Was it… disgust? How dare he? After all the embarrassment and shit he put Kastiel through?! "Why don't you ask it, then? I'm here to answer questions, after all?"

The sight of his seething only baffled Lance further, though. "I don't think it's worth asking, to be honest." He struggled to think of how to address this guy in front of him, but it wouldn't be as 'Master'. "A pig like you isn't worth knowing anything about."

The grey-haired Silver Saint put down his bear glass, visibly tensing. He stared at Lance hard, like he was unsure he heard right.

Sui widened his eyes, seeing the outrage in Kastiel and his fingers clenching on his right chain. "Hey, Pegasus, that's out of line. Kastiel is your superio-"

WHAM!

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

Chapter 102

Third Arc

Episode 26

The Triumph – Part 3 of 5

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

The spiked mace lifted off the ground by its chain had planted itself firmly in Lance's face before anyone could react, moved at a speed greater than sound, making the Bronze Saint stagger back. The clients in the building all gasped and gawked, some even stunned the Bronze Saint hadn't simply snapped in half off his waist from the force he was just struck with, which cracked the flooring beneath Kastiel's feet.

"Pig, uh?!" Kastiel sneered, his silver and red cosmos simmering down like a torch had gone off in the room.

"O-Oi, Kastiel, that's too much!" one called from the counter.

"You just killed that kid!" a hoplite fearfully gawked, almost dropping his drink. "E-even if he talked shit to you…!"

The Silver Saint scoffed, his cosmos cooling down. "He had it coming! And let that be a lesson to any of you assholes who question my past with this ungrateful brat, too!" he yelled out to everyone in earshot. Kastiel was sick of being reminded he lost a duel to his own stupid student by these jackoffs. He let his chain rattle down to get a look at Lance's repentant face. "As for you, Lance, I don't care where you walk in your pitiful life, but I am your Master. And I'll remind you of it as many times as I want. Got it?!"

Yet, when the large, spiked ball dropped to the floor, the Saint looked unperturbed other than a small, bleeding bruise where the broken spike hit. "I-I got it, alright." To Kastiel and the guests' surprise, the Saint was barely phased, only wincing a little, even with red ooze gushing down his eyes. "T-Though, with a hit like that, I'm surprised even your fucking dogs listen to you!"

Kastiel irked, stunned. He hit the punk full-force, with intent to knock him out and have the rest of the interview with Sui alone. He gripped his left chain and saw the spikes of the mace had cracked. "Call me a pig, but look at what your hard skull did to my Cloth weapon! How the fuck did you…?!" But he tried to keep his cool. There was no way Lance had grown this strong. He must have just done a bad toss in this cramped space.

"Okay, you've disciplined him, Kastiel. It's over! Stop making a scene! And Pegasus, clean your face!" Suisho asserted, stepping between the two and tossing a towel at Pegasus. For a second, he was stunned that it wasn't Lance that was creating trouble first now. "We are here to discuss vital business, Kastiel! If you still have beef with what he just said, you can settle it with Pegasus at the arena, in front of the Pope! I've heard the two of you have had experience with that already!"

Something about the idea of it seemed to trigger a brief reaction of fear in Kastiel. "Are you kidding me, Sui'? I don't have beefs with pissant Bronze Saints." He waved at the opposite space. "Just take a fucking seat before I change my mind about this."

The two Saints did, dropping their Cloth boxes on the Grove's slots to sit on them. After refusing an offer of drinks from the bartender, Suisho started the conversation. "Now that we're all settled... Kastiel, we are here because you are the last person in Sanctuary to have seen the Muvian Atlae. Is that true?"

There was another hesitant irk from Kastiel, who took a drink to calm his nerves. "Before I answer anything, Sui, let's make one thing clear, first. I'm only here because it's my duty. We are Saints of Athena and we have a job to do for our brothers in arms, got it?!"

"What do you know about duty? Or being a Saint?" Lance thought to himself, finishing cleaning his blood. Thoughts assaulted him of all the things Daese urged him to aspire for in Mount Olympus, including his own survival. A sobering realization then hit him. "But then again… Noah, Daese, Master Dohko… all of them were never normal Saints, were they? So maybe you do know something of the real thing…"

"I take it that this is a sensitive matter, then?" Suisho wondered. This would be a good chance to find out just how many of the Underworld's secrets Sanctuary knew of. He could always slit Kastiel's throat later in an alley. "I'd imagine so, given what we on our side know about Genbu Atlae already, but we promise you that Saints look out for each other and we won't let our enemies like the Underworld attack you."

But the Kerberos Saint squinted skeptically, eyes darting left and right. "It's not our enemies I am worried about. It's our so-called friends."

Suisho widened his eyes. "Our friends?"

"Yeah, because they're the ones that first sent me after this dotted freak." Kastiel's eyes surveyed the Grove for onlookers then turned back to them. "I don't know why the two of you are after this Muvian now, of all times, but you should get in line. He has been in the missing posters by some very powerful people for almost two years. And all of them have been from Sanctuary's circle!" He huffed arrogantly, seeing in their faces their interest was piqued in his story. "Also, 'Genbu' Atlae? The Underworld? That's not how he was introduced to me. When I was told to catch him, he was just 'Atlae', period. You're telling me he is a Specter now?"

The Pegasus Saint narrowed his eyes. "He is. And he almost killed my girlfriend and my best friend."

"What do you mean, you were sent after him?" Sui asked. So, Sanctuary was already after Minos' servant prior to the Andromeda Island affair?

"Maybe you forgot, but as the Kerberos Saint, that's my primary specialty; tracking people down." Kastiel affirmed, pointing his thumb at himself. The Silver Saint helped himself to another drink, remembering the headache it had been at the time. "Someone important to Sanctuary goes missing, or someone starts selling Sanctuary secrets to foreign powers, and me and my pups get on the job of finding them and chain them back. I've heard Lance here is relatively good at it, too? So maybe I did teach him something, despite what he says."

The Pegasus twitched, but stayed quiet. "You didn't teach me a thing." He wasn't good at tracking people because Kastiel showed him his stupid dogs and how they could hunt and tear to pieces some poor fox. Lance was good at it because he had to learn how to find food in Mount Olympus. "Everything I ever learned in life was either self-taught or from people that actually cared about me."

The Kerberos Saint saw their intrigued looks. "But you two have no clue who we're dealing with here, do you? I guess I shouldn't be surprised; I barely got a hint of who was leaving me notes to go after him. All I knew was that it had a fancy Pact seal on them. But I still took my down payment, like a professional, and got to work."

Even Suisho, Judge of the Underworld, had no idea what this was about. "Payment? The Pact?! This doesn't sound like Minos' doing at all! Now I'm intrigued, too." The Crateris Saint then asked "Which of the Pact members sent you after him? The Muvians from Shamballa?"

Kastiel rose a brow at him like he was stupid. "Uh? No! Those guys have bigger problems that going after this kid! Don't you remember what happened in Shamballa, two years ago?"

The Nepalese gulped. He saw even Lance looked at him like he was stupid. He hadn't paid attention to the colonies because he'd been dividing his time between Sainthood and the Underworld. "I've been a bit out of the loop."

Kastiel widened his eyes at him, like Sui just did something incredibly stupid. "Geez, Sui, you and Yushira need to get fucking reacquainted, then! About two years back, there was a massive disaster in Shamballa, where even a Mariner airship went down in flames to the fucking ground!"

Suisho widened his eyes, remembering Atlae hosted the Talos Cloth. "Wait, what?! Does he mean…?!"

Lance held his jaw and spoke for the first time. "Hey, I remember that! Everyone was talking about it at the MMC for a while." He also remembered reading the Marathoner issue at the time, which was very dramatically written. "They said it was a big earthquake, right? That, sometimes, seismic waves can trigger air quakes that knock those Mariner ships out of the sky."

Scoffing at his stupidity, Kastiel continued. "Are you daft, Lance?! Do you think Mariners build their airships so weakly? Those things are made with Orichalcum Engines! It takes more than a bunch of shaking to bring them down!"

Lance groaned, but, again, stayed quiet.

Kastiel took another look around to confirm no eavesdroppers, then whispered. "That was no earthquake in Shamballa! Serpens Azrael, one of the Pact members, stopped a MASSIVE terrorist attack there by a bunch of Mariners!" The 'Sea Dragon' went down from its engine being blown the fuck up when it got taken over by them!" Kastiel tried to whisper. "And I'm telling you, this Atlae kid is up to his nose involved in it, because the Mariners are precisely the ones that sent me after him!"

The two Saints gawked. "W-What?!"

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

Coliseum,

Papal Balcony Hall

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

Quietness sank in the corridor for a while, after Adriana's request. Leon sat there, studying her, wondering if he had been hit harder by Priam's thunderbolt blows to the head than he thought.

Adriana could tell it. "I know that look on your face, Leon, but I assure you; you heard me right."

Leon didn't stagger outright at this, but he felt taken aback. Even for Adriana, this was bold. He held his head. "You want me to assassinate Hades?" Then glared at her. "This is a very bad joke, Adriana. Even for you."

Her almond eyes sterned annoyedly. "It's absolutely not a joke. It would only be if I believed you were incapable of it, but I thought this was Leon Iraklidis I was talking to. Or has the man who 'murdered Athena' been lost to us?"

The brashness of the provocation made Leon chuckle. "Alright, you're serious, then. Should I bring his dog bowl on the way back with me too? I ask, since we're in the business of Odyssean requests now?"

She clicked her tongue in displeasure. "Just call me stupid to my face, why don't you? It would be less rude." Exhaling out her nose, Adriana eyed him slyly, like she had hoped he didn't force her to spell the rest of it out. "Obviously I don't want Hades himself dead. I am not so insane as to precipitate the breaking of Pax Divina, especially without our Goddess around to protect us. And remind me, who's fault is that again?"

The silver-haired hunter felt his jaw tense, but he did not respond. He supposed she had him there.

Adriana continued. "Everyone in Sanctuary knows Hades, son of Kronos, is perfectly safe in Elysium, inside his mausoleum. If it had been this simple to murder him, some Saint would have done it ages ago." She laid out a hand. "However… it is plenty obvious he is manifesting his presence somehow in the Underworld, for his barrier to be growing so aggressively. I'd just like you to eliminate whatever body is allowing him the liberty to continue his war like this, which I'm sure, to him, is enough to get the message to stop being such a problem to the surface world."

Leon held his lip, pensive. This sounded like something far more feasible, and in line with Adriana's way of thinking, but still fraught with a ridiculous amount of risk. Why was Adriana asking it to begin with? Such a proposition, if successful, would have ground-shattering consequences for the next foreseeable years in Sanctuary. It would be like saving the world. And that didn't sound like the AG he knew at all.

Yet, to her, who knew him so well, that he wasn't keeping the jokes up was a telltale sign he was considering it. She sharpened her eyes and smiled coyly. "I knew you'd be interested… You're just too arrogant to think you couldn't pull it off, aren't you?"

"And believing you can simply murder an Olympian God by mail is not, Adriana?" Leon pointed out, eyeing her back.

But to further his surprise, the excitement in Adriana's face only expanded. "I know; that's why I've been preparing." She laid out her other hand. "Well, preparing a team, to be exact, of some very capable people, all who have good reason to fight their hardest for this cause. Their primary goal is to follow after Hades' army and make sure they can never show their ugly heads on the surface again."

"And my part, the secondary goal, would be to ensure that extends to Hades, too?" Leon guessed.

Her finger rose to congratulate a correct answer. "Exactement! How about it, then? Your participation could be what it takes to make it all possible!"

The hunter scoffed, bemused by her tone of presenting it like it was an exciting business venture. What a stunning idea, for all the wrong reasons. In his head, Leon had at least 20 instances in Sanctuary's history where something like this had been attempted by Saints, yet failed miserably. It was always either because the defenses of the Underworld were underestimated, because the Saints themselves overestimated their strength or even because it all came back to bite Sanctuary back, once captured Saints revealed secrets under torture. Even Pegasus Tenma and his friends, who famously encountered Virgo Asmita in the Underworld, managed to do little more than steal a couple of bags worth of Underworld tree fruits, a far cry from inflicting any serious damage to Erebus.

In the last Holy War, it was only when most of Hades' army was destroyed and Athena's forces were gathered in full that a real assault on Giudecca could be mounted, which in turn barely succeeded. And Adriana was proposing to do it this time, with some rag-tag team, in the offset of a Holy War, to cripple the Underworld entirely.

This was no mere raid. It was suicide.

Most outrageous of all, knowing her so well, he also found it odd that the red glint shined on such a 'good guy' cause. "I remember a young girl who once told me she was above these silly little Holy Wars. That her only purpose in life was going to be to make her family even more powerful than it already was."

"Mm, if only you'd remember more helpful things." She turned face, solemn. "As for that girl… she has grown up. A woman can change, can she not? Especially when presented with new facts."

He narrowed his eyes. And what facts were these? "Without a doubt, Adriana. I just find this particular change in you strange. What's your business angle to all this?"

There was a soft exhale from the woman, one Leon had seldom seen in her. "My business angle, Leon Iraklidis, is that I'd prefer not to see the world end in my twenties. I have my whole life ahead of me, after all." She folded her arms tensely. "More importantly, I was in Sanctuary during the False Holy War and got to see, with my own eyes, the damage that the Specters caused to Sanctuary. That attack may have failed, but it has proven we are a lot more vulnerable than we'd like to be."

"Of course we are. These recent aggressions from the Specters have been no coincidence. Hades knows we are weak." Leon recalled. He had heard even Olivia had been attacked at her own school, but fortunately saved by an unexpected agent. He wondered if this is what AG meant earlier when she said she was 'keeping an eye on Olivia'.

"But that same war showed that he's also not in control of his own men, and likely suffered damage of his own as a result." Adriana countered, smiling bemusedly. "Maybe it's too many years swimming among the political sharks of Sanctuary for my parents, but I'd like to believe I've gotten quite good at smelling blood in the water."

But Leon tensed. "… This is different from your typical prey, AG. This is an Olympian's blood that you're smelling. And you might find it burns to the tongue." He eyed her warningly. "Which makes me wonder; why on Earth would you, of all people, be interested in putting yours in such a trap?"

The woman lowered her chin to conceal her gulp. Leon could sense she knew what she was tangling with. However, that just made the whole proposition even more bizarre.

"I know what you're thinking, Leon… Unlike the Iraklidis and the Solos, I am a Ghisi. So what could this evil spider want with saving the world?" She tried showing a strong smile unaffected by a lifetimes of looks sent her way. "And that's just it. I am sick of that being what we are in everyone's eyes; just evil spiders."

At this, Leon exhaled, "I see. So that's what's going on." A brief pity came over him for her. "Maybe you and I should have been born to each other's names, then. Maybe we'd both be happy…"

"You know what it feels like, don't you, Leon? To be judged by your blood." She challenged. Adriana recalled the looks Lance always gave her. He was always on guard, no matter how much she proved to be an ally. They reminded her a lot of the look Leon gave her when she 'bit' Olivia. It was a stare she couldn't take at all, worse than any of her mother's judgements or her father's punishments. "Well, … I refuse to sit around and be another chapter in my family's selfishness. I was born a spider, but, as the goddess is my witness, I will die a rose. Even if it to do it I have to eat my own share of innocent butterflies."

The hunter nodded. Part of him admired what she was saying. To change one's legacy wasn't easy, especially when that legacy was carved by 1,000 years of generations all pointing their actions in the same direction. Adriana was the daughter of rich thieves, of merchants of death and of slave traders who made their fortune in Sanctuary's old empires, and the world would always remember the Ghisi like that, tried as she might to be different. Leon could imagine that part of her drive to become their Silver-Ring was to gain power speak for her family in that regard. And it was probably true that only something like organizing the expedition to kill Hades would change the terrible trappings each Ghisi was born into. Trappings that forged people like Anastasia, who so cruelly harassed Cerah for the mere crime of being in her presence.

However, "To be expected by everyone to be a hero can sometimes be worse than to be expected to be a monster, Adriana." Leon reminded her. A decade of his pain transmitted itself from his eyes to her with a look. "Just remember that."

Not a fan of these moments of emotional sincerity, Adriana folded arms, tightening her heart back up. "Hey, well, I'm not just a goody girl now. I also happen to profit from it all." She did a turn of face that almost seemed regretful, with her previous confident smile breaking into a tense frown. "I never said I only wanted to be a hero..."

The hunter laughed, finding a far more familiar Adriana in this guarded behavior. "Now who's deflecting?"

"So, what will it be, Leon?" Adriana confronted, returning eyes to him. "I know better than anyone else how you feel about your family. And your constellation. You act like the broodiest man in all of Sanctuary, but I know all you've ever wanted in your life was to follow in your Zodiac's footsteps. And what would make you a greater Sagittarius than shooting the heart of Hades' himself with your arrow?"

The hunter hummed, impressed. "AG may be different now, but she hasn't lost her touch at all. Still as excellent as wrapping people in her web as always." He laid out his hand. "Let's say for now I am interested. How do you plan on getting this team past that cursed castle? Strong as I am, even my arrows can't fly down that Earthly Castle's throat. I also don't have the Eight Sense, and I doubt you've found a whole group of people who do."

But rather than make her doubt her own words, Leon seemed to trigger a positive shift of mood in the noblewoman. "I'm glad you finally ask. Remember the team I am building? It is very special. Three confirmed members so far, and I have no doubt they will be able to escort you past that nasty barrier of Hades, all the way to Giudecca. One of them will even act as a guide!"

The hunter found himself truly wide-eyed. These sounded like interesting people to meet, indeed. "And are they any good in a fight? I would rather not have to bodyguard them while doing my job."

Adriana smirked slily, finally feeling the turn for this card to be played. "Trust me, Leon, they won't need any of your protection. Not when they have Libra Dohko training them all."

For the first time, true shock filled Leon's face "What?!" He had expected a surprise or two in this direction, but three?! "You're lying!" Leon accused, teeth gritting. "Even Laodamia the Ogre couldn't get him to be a Master! And you got three people training under that guy?! Who the hell is on this team?!"

Adriana got up, leaving his reach. "Uh-uh-uh, you don't get to know that. Not after the way you made fun of me earlier." She turned to face him. "Unless, of course,… you'd like to join in? Then I'd HAVE to introduce you to them?"

There it was; the final almighty pull of her web. One he hadn't even realized he had stepped on. Leon Iraklidis chuckled, realizing Adriana's touch for luring people to their doom had, in fact, only gotten sharper over the years despite her new kind self. This wouldn't have worked if she didn't know how fascinated Leon was with other Cosmos users of valor and hadn't gotten some experience dealing with the snakes at court. And a team of people willing to go down the Underworld and take on Hades? Trained under Libra Dohko at that? That had to be composed of all sorts of interesting Saints that Leon would love to trade blows with.

Unfortunately for Adriana, he had grown sharper too. "You almost had me there, AG. But this plan isn't any less ridiculous just because three students of Libra Dohko are in it. You and I both know that if you came here, it's because you really need me to make this work. So they can't be that special."

She bit her thumb to look anxious. "Mm, darn it, you got me!" She sighed and laid out her hands, desperate. "Leon, please! It's my team's leader. He's become a bit of a problem. We've gotten a stealth agent and a cloth fixer for the group, but while he's extremely capable in a fight, he has zero social skills and no one to work together in a brawl. What if he needs back up? The only candidate he's gotten is super suspicious, too! I can't afford that risk."

He groaned. When was she going to let it up? "Then call this off before you get them killed."

"I can't." she confessed, smiling like a helpless screw-up, an act that didn't fit her at all. "The whole thing was his idea, not mine."

At this, again, Leon widened his eyes, almost dropping the box of Cerah's earrings. "What?!"

She shrugged, shaking her head. "I know, I know! You'd think I'd come up with it first! But you really have no idea what this guy is like, Leon!" She began listing on her fingers. "Stubborn as a mule! Determined to a fault! Once he gets going, he's like a darn runaway train! Scratch that, a meteor crashing into the Earth! He really thinks he can go down there and turn the entire Underworld upside down, like this is some kind of comic book story hero!" She sighed out. "It's like… like he has all of Galarian's juggernaut strong-headedness, combined with your brazen disregard for danger, plus he's trained by your teacher's rival!"

The hunter shook with this rundown. Who the heck was this guy?!

"And the grudge he has on Specters, my Goddess! An explosive combination, his personality is. It frightens even me." Her finger rested on her cheek, relishing in delight at both the gawk on Leon's face and the last detail she was about to share. "It's even impressed Olivia, of all people."

"Olivia?!" Leon rose from his seat, eyes sharpening like daggers, ready to demand all the answers and more. "…Who is he, AG? Tell me right now." All sorts of thoughts rushed to his head, from genuine concern to paranoia over AG's schemes. Now he understood why Galan was acting so hesitant of speaking about Olivia recently. Someone had conquered her heart before Galarian did. Someone who was getting ready for a kamikaze plan against the God of the afterlife! "You've had your fun, but this isn't amusing anymore. If your little pawn Saint is putting Olivia in any danger…!"

The Ghisi waved her hand. "Relax. I told you; I learned my lesson with little Olivia. My guy may be similar to you and Galarian, but unlike the two of you, but he isn't an insensitive fool. Your sister's safety is his top priority in all of this."

Leon breathed easier. "Good… Still, I don't think this guy should be doing these things if Olivia is da-"

"But you know what, Leon?" She narrowed her eyes into a disappointed glare, cutting his thoughts short. "I can't believe I am the one saying this, given what I've done to Olivia in the past, but if you had bothered a bit more to check up on her, like a good big brother, you'd probably already know who she's dating by now, wouldn't you? So where do you get off acting like the guarding big brother here?"

The hunter gulped, feeling caught. Only Adriana to catch him with his pants down in an argument like this. Or Cerah, for that matter. No wonder he had been attracted to both of them. Moreover, seeing her firm in her secrecy, Leon realized there was no hint of the usual deceit he sensed in AG. He had known Adriana for many years to tell. And if Olivia was in any true danger, Leon could sense that this Adriana, that had mended her ways, would let him know.

Still, the Iraklidis hummed, pensive. "Wow, Olivia… you found someone? Last time I saw you, you were still learning your divisions. You've really grown a lot. Next thing I learn, you're that Knight-Girl character that has been playing hero in the streets, too."

Adriana tapped her foot. "Well? Are you joining my squad? The choice is yours, Leon. Do you want to be part of history-in-the-making beyond this little Triumph of yours? Or not?"

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

Meanwhile,

Coliseum, Entry Halls

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

"Two bags, please." Olivia asked, smiling. "Can you give me one of those over there? My friend likes their taste better."

The vendor in the stand nodded and handed her the popcorn and sweets. "Of course, miss. That will be all. Enjoy the games, ladies."

"Thank you!" Olivia turned to Cerah to hand her half the bags. "Look how much I got, Cerah! The vendor was so nice to give me a discount.

Cerah winced, feeling the bag with the popcorn alone block her face. "She's so good at barter. I guess because her family had a hard time early on, after selling their house, and they had to make do." It made passer-byes laugh at her too, being outsized by the popcorn bags she was holding. "M-Miss Olivia, these are huge! Are we really going to eat all of this? I think I'd explode before I got through even a third!"

"What, do you think my grampa eats kid portions?" Olivia asked, chuckling. She did wish she could keep these inside her Cloth Stone, like Equuleus, but alas. Sometimes she envied Saints who had to bring their armor box everywhere. "Besides, the one with the sweets and chocolates isn't for us. I'm going to bring some back to the clubs at Palaestra after the games. You wouldn't believe the social credit these get you from people told they can't have a drop of chocolate or sugar at school."

Cerah wowed. Even after surrendering a bunch of presidencies, Olivia was still working hard to keep good relations with everyone at the academy. It was no wonder Olivia had every single class, year and teacher gravitating around her. Cerah could only imagine the bomb it would be if someone found out she was also-

"Get yer Knight-girl figures here! Get yer Knight-Girls!"

The loud peddling from one of the stores snapped the two girls' attention right to it. Did the two of them hear right?!

A vendor, an aged-looking Greek man, held the small black-haired cartoon plush doll in blue armor high in the air. "You've heard right; limited-release Knight-girl figures, made 100% with Greek cotton! We got tiny ones! We got big plushie ones for your couch! Every size you can imagine! Get them now!"

Cerah gasped, horrified at the sight of colorful dolls, keychains and posters of her senior's heroic alter-ego. "(M-Miss Olivia, they're selling you!)"

The Saintia tensed, turning a full red that Cerah had never seen in her. "Yes, Cerah, I can tell." With her usual polite restraint, she walked up to the vendor. "Excuse me, how much for one of these dolls?"

The vendor excitedly grinned. "Ooh, an aficionada of Sanctuary's new superhero?" He showed his favorite model, a big fluffy one with the heroine girl smiling. The eyes were the wrong color. "This one model is really popular and is only 2,000 S-Drachmas! Take it right now, it's on a limited discount, miss!"

The little Zodiac Knight tried to contain her outrage with a tense folding of arms. "How awful! There's no way miss Olivia would eve-" But to Cerah's shock, Olivia acquiesced, giving the amount and taking the doll. "Miss Olivia!"

The older student ignored her and studied the doll. Olivia quickly concluded they must have based the looks on the photographs taken by the Marathoner paper, then asked some factory to make these without much care, since even when Olivia imagined the round plushie face features out, it still only barely looked like her. Their cotton hair cape was too long, probably because shadows in the streets made it seem so, and the colors on her modified Equuleus Cloth were too dark. Plus, the shape of the armor was so off; someone had stripped of entire parts of its under-guards, like the round shoulder cover underneath her pointy shoulder plates, and the backside of her greaves.

Heck, even her stomach was wide open and her Saintia skirt shortened, like a model. It was all so horribly embarrassing. Did the designer wanted her to show more skin, even if it made the armor look unfaithful or impractical?

"Why don't you pull the cord behind?" the vendor suggested. "You'll get a cute surprise!"

Turning the doll around, Olivia realized that, indeed, she had a plastic ring behind her back. Dear Hera, what horrors expected her here? Anxiously, Olivia slid her finger through it and pulled.

"STOP, villain! In the name of the moon!"

The Saintia staggered, red as a beet. "Mister, is this really what she says? I heard she invokes the stars, not the moon."

The vendor shook head, fully confident. "No, that's all correct. Pull again! She has more."

Tentatively, Olivia obeyed, stringing the doll.

"You're my favorite friend, miss ERROR, TOKEN-NOT-FOUND!"

While the perfectionist Olivia felt displeased by the flaw, Cerah, covered mouth to restrain herself and her eyes twinkled like stars. "OH MY GODDESS, I WANT ONE SO BADLY NOW!"

The vendor laughed nervously. "I-I guess they didn't finish all the lines."

Seeing Cerah's reaction, Olivia concluded this line was obviously meant to pander to little girls who admired Knight-Girl as their hero. She imagined Cerah in particular somehow loved the fact it wasn't fabricated right, like it made it more unique. Again, Olivia pulled the chord.

"Oh, Top Hat Lad, you've come to save me! Again!" it practically sighed. "Kiss me!"

This one, above all others, made her ticked, especially as a proud Capricorn whose Zodiac would never stoop to this. Top Hat Lad was a gentleman, an awesome ally and Olivia appreciated what the mysterious youth did for her, but she would be damned if she'd ever be caught sighing like this for him. Besides, he was a bit too pint-sized for her.

Cerah questioned the vendor. "Excuse me, mister? How do you have these?"

"Great question! I actually have a deal worked out with Knight-Girl herself, who modeled for all these!" he bragged, thumping chest. "That's why these dolls are 100% realistic to her famous costume!"

Cerah gasped. What a bold-faced lie!

Olivia covered Cerah's mouth. "How big an order of these could you get? I'd like to purchase 50 to 100."

While the vendor beamed, Cerah gasped. "Miss Olivia, no! He's selling yo-… he's selling Knight-Girl without permission! That's wrong!"

But Olivia pressed on and paid the full amount, making the vendor glee with happiness. "Please deliver them to this address later? Thank you." And led Cerah out of there. "Cerah, don't worry about it. I'm upset, too, but this was bound to happen. With all the drama the newspaper is building up around me and Top Hat Lad, it's kind of a shock it took us this long to run into someone selling junk about me."

The Zodiac Knight shook her head, even as they lost sight of the shopkeeper. "It's still wrong!" She took the plushie Olivia bought. It was so cute looking and Cerah could just fall asleep hugging it tight in bed to make her feel safe, but it was also so exploitative. "I-I mean… they took your image and…"

"And yes, it feels like everyone is leering at me, instead." Olivia admitted, holding her head with a migraine. She just hoped the extra publicity wouldn't get the Saints even madder at Knight Girl. Olivia was pretty sure by now she could handle her boyfriend hunting her. It was even kind of fun, like extra sparring practice with Saint Lance. But a bona fide Gold Saint coming after her? That would be incredibly frightening. She saw Cerah study the plushie for every single adorable detail, from threads of cotton sticking out to the gawdy mix of blues in the armor. "And you're not helping, dear junior."

Cerah hugged it protectively. She felt how comfortable the plush object was against her chest, calming her breath. It was like having a miniature version of her admired senior to keep her safe at all times. "I, u-uh…it's just…"

Olivia laughed and eyed her coyly. "I'm not sure how I feel about you pining over that thing, but alright, do you want to keep that one?"

"Y-YES!" Cerah wanted to scream, but she only nodded nervously. Above all, she didn't want her senior to think she was some kind of creep that wanted to keep a doll of her superheroine identity. "I'll pay for it, I swear!"

Olivia shook her head, holding up a hand. "It's a gift. And besides, I didn't buy that big order just now to decorate my grandfather's house with tasteless dolls. There's a lot of girls at the Academy… or Palaestra now, I suppose, that gossip about Knight Girl all the time. These will surely sell like hotcakes there, then. That will more than make up for the price of that one you kept, not to mention keep these dolls off the bigger, public spaces."

Again, the Zodiac Knight had to admire the cool-headedness with which Olivia handled situations. "First the sweets, now the toys. Miss Olivia never stops giving gifts to the Saintias, does she? Is this part of being a social leader like her? Even now that she's no longer Class President?" Instead of getting outraged, as she'd have every right to, the Saintia senior demonstrated a talent to make the most out of an embarrassing situation and come out on top, like a true Capricorn! What a crazy cool trait. If it had been her, Cerah wondered if she wouldn't have just screamed at the vendor about the right thing to do and walked off.

Still, to Olivia, it was fascinating how Knight Girl and Top Hat Lad were developing a mythology in Sanctuary so quickly. Already people were believing all sorts of things about them that were wrong.

"Just remember, Cerah, even if I'm okay dealing with it, poor Top Hat Lad is still out there and he might not be so okay with all this. It's only a matter of time before his figure is sold, after all."

Cerah widened her eyes. "Of course. I didn't even think of that." She kind of felt bad about it now. Was it because he was a boy and she didn't even think he would be hurt by this, too? "Poor Top Hat. And we don't even know who he is, so we can't protect him."

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

Palaestra

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

"WHAT?! WHAT IS THIS DISGUSTING THING?!" Aphrodite screamed, holding the doll Deathmask brought over like it was a bomb.

Cancer Deathmask laughed. "I know, it's so lame, right? I confiscated it from one of the academy girls. She said some guy is selling them off in the streets." He took the doll back and pulled for his lighter, igniting it. "It's so poorly made, too. Here, watch how much smoke it makes when you bur-"

Aphrodite swiped it off his hands again. "Don't you DARE, you maniac!" The cyan-haired boy held it in hands, tearing up. Why was it so adorably ugly?! "This is so u-unfair… how come Olivia gets one made for her alter-ego before I do?"

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

Virgo Temple

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

Bracing himself, Shinta brimmed his pink cosmos and dropped his chains to the floor, forming Circle Chain. "I'm ready, Saint Galan."

Taking a deep breath and holding their hands forward with fingers in a triangle, Saint Noah manifested an aura of waving white energy. "Me too."

Galan looked at the three Judges and saw a nod from young Shaka, then from the Peacock and Lotus Saints. In response, he tensed his body, clenched his fist and allowed his aura to erupt like an explosion of gold, startling everyone in the room with its echoing ferocity, which sounded more like faint roars of a great lion than the sizzle of energy. His green eyes focused on Saint Noah and his right-hand fingers half-clenched like feline claws. He needed to be ready himself. Soon, the most powerful blow in all the Golden Zodiac would be fired from his hand.

Stunningly, though, the Triangle Saint seemed perfectly calm, even curious-looking. Noah observed every movement of his with an almost academic curiosity, but didn't seem intimidated at all by Galarian's shocking power level.

Feeling challenged, Galan powered his cosmos to the max, "Mm, let's see how confident you look once the star of the Macedonian Kings shines!" and unleashing a shockwave that sounded like the roar of the lion. He then swung his fist in Noah's direction. "ARGEAD STAR!"

The massive thunderbolt fired off his knuckles, tearing through the air like a massive beam of gold! Pillars in the Hall of Innocence cracked and broke, the ground beneath the travelling path caved and the air itself turned to bright plasma, ripped through at the speed of light by the godly blow. Even the trio of attending Gold Saints was stunned, despite Milo having already witnessed the blow when it was used on Aiolos; when you weren't standing all the way in the Coliseum steps, it felt like a nuclear blast just went off in front of their eyes!

It struck the Silver Saint even worse, bursting into an explosion of plasma that blinded everyone in the Hall, causing a collective scream. Shinta, too, reeled, feeling his eyes hurt even when closed and under his guarding arms. The only one who didn't turn away or wince was Shaka and his two Judges, and even then Peacock and Lotus were clearly wincing and recoiling under their masks. The entire temple then shook as the force of the attack subsided and the tail end of its meteoric form thinned, releasing clouds of dust and smoke everywhere.

Shinta lowered his guard and couldn't help but be concerned. "Oh my goddess! S-Saint Noah!"

Galan retracted his smoking fist and clicked tongue. "Tsk, I knew this was a mistake. Now I made us lose a valuable Silver Saint. A 'Lightning Round' with my kind of power level is just asking to become roadkill. I suppose this means you win, Saint Shi-" But the sight in front of him gave him pause. "W-What? No way!"

To the shock of all, Triangle Noah was completely unharmed. In fact, the mighty Argead Star hovered above his raised hands, like a dodgeball caught by a player, still raging furiously against an unseen force holding it in place.

Milo gawked "W-Whow, what the hell?! He turned the bolt into a volleyball!"

Mu had stars in his eyes, seeing Saint Noah hold it above head. "That's so cool! How do you do that without barriers?! And stopping that amount of force, too!"

Aldebaran scratched his head, seeing the Argead Star rage against Noah's hand, looking like a big roaring ball of thunder. "That thing is still active, though! How the heck do you do that?!"

"Triangulation." Noah calmly called their technique. They held the attack down briefly with a smile. "It's my Silver Cloth's most important technique. Everything in the universe has measurable meta-attributes attached to it, Saint Shinta, even the Cosmos. Numbers and data that represent what they do and how they move in time-space. Normally they are just imaginary, but in the Cosmos, they can become graspable. If my mind and spirit are calm and my faith in the Goddess true, the Triangle Cloth gives me the power to capture the meta-attributes of anything my cosmos can capture within a space. Impressive, isn't it?"

Shinta had to say! What an incredible sight, to see the Gold Saint's attack hovering over Saint Noah's hand like a big sun. "That's amazing! With a mere movement, the entire attack comes to a halt?! It's like something out of Saga's book of crazy cool dimension techniques!" But the Andromeda Saint was experienced enough to tell that couldn't be so simple. "No, even with such an amazing power, this still required understanding the attack coming at you. Capturing it in such a way must be the cosmos equivalent of catching a katana between your two hands."

Noah gave a nervous smile. "I can tell it's quite a surprise?"

Shinta almost felt jealous, wishing he had access to such a move. "It is! That's incredible, Saint Noah!"

"SHINTA!" his Andromeda Cloth screamed. "Stop praising your competition!"

Even Shaka was impressed. "Incredible. Saint Galarian's powerful Argead Star Lightning Bolt, which had the strength to defeat the monster that sunk Andromeda Island, has been arrested by a simple take-over of its metaphysical attributes. To perform this kind of technique… you'd need a level of control of the Cosmos truly rivalling that of me." He gazed worriedly at Shinta. "My candidate may have a much tougher challenge ahead of him than I imagined. Now I see why the Pact put their faith in this candidate. How have I never heard of Saint Noah?"

"The only reference I've heard to him is as a charitable soul in Sanctuary's service." Saint Peacock voiced. "To hold such power without special training is quite incredible."

"They must have undergone private training in Shamballa, or Mount Rozan, or some other great training ground." Lotus added. He then hesitated, trying to think of a good rhyme. "It is the sole way such a belief to be… edible."

Galan, of all people, was the least amused, watching Noah move the sun up and down to amuse Mu. "What the…?! I've spent my whole life refining that attack! Even Leon would have trouble just stopping it dead in its tracks! And Saint Noah is making a mockery of it!"

"But that is not all Triangulation allows me to do." Noah then burned their cosmos higher, and Galan's attack began shifting the direction of its' cosmic flaring, almost like it was being spun around in its opposite natural direction. "Because I control the mathematics of the attack, I can not only stop it, but reverse in every way in any direction I desire. That is the second part of my technique; the Parabolic Cannon."

Shinta took the meaning immediately "Which will be pointed right at me! Now I understand the point of the test. It really is like dodgeball!" and braced himself. "I see… go ahead! I'll stop it!"

"Remember, Shinta!" Aldebaran called out. "According to the rules, that guy can't use this Triangulation thing anymore! So if you reflect it back, they have to come up with something else, if they even have it! Give it your 110%, because you might win right here and now!"

Shinta nodded. "Aldebaran is right! This is my chance!" and immediately began burning cosmos. "I'll use one of my best techniques then!"

"Are you ready, Saint Shinta?" Noah called. The Silver Saint could feel the force of Argead Star, even stopped. It was clearly a very dangerous move that shouldn't be unleashed lightly. "Whatever you have planned, give everything you have. Saint Galan's attack is nothing to go half-minded on."

Shinta's body heated up, releasing a stream of pinkish energy everywhere. His green eyes narrowed.

Seeing his opponent fully focused, Noah acquiesced. With a dance of hands that ended with Noah joining thumbs and index fingers together in a triangle, Noah called out the next step of the technique "Parabolic Cannon: ARGEAD STAR!" and the attack fired off in Shinta's direction, keeping all the brutal force from which it first left Galan's fist.

Suddenly, everything in front of Shinta seemed to turn into an all-consuming light, like being in a dark tunnel on the path of a speeding locomotive's headlights. The air itself heated up. Shinta's body also shook with the powerful quakes released by the Lightning Bolt. Even the Cosmos itself seem to twist and pressure down on him, stressing his 7th sense. At that blink of a moment, Shinta understood that stopping this attack, even with something as amazing as Triangulation, was impossible to have been an easy task. Saint Noah must have put everything they had into manifesting the technique in such a way as to capture as colossal a technique as this, one that saved Lance's life from Genbu Atlae.

Shinta, therefore, had to do everything in his power to match it! "NEBULA STREAM!"

An authentic hurricane of cosmos was released in every direction! Powerful currents moving at the speed of light fired off, cracking the ground, bending marble pillars outwards, bashing Saint Galan and striking the Argead Star! The force was such that the attack instantly slowed down, though not nearly enough to stop it. It still coursed at him with immense force, which Shinta felt could possibly kill him if he took it head on. Aldebaran guarded Mu and Milo, while Shaka was shielded by Saint Lotus and Peacock.

Once again, Galan was shocked, finding his main move being successfully resisted.

Noah irked, stunned by the forces of the winds in the area. His prosthetic heel pressed back hard, anchoring him, and the Saint guarded face with arms. "T-This technique! He has it?! Impossible! It's just like that of…"

"I h-have to do more! WAY MORE! O-or I won't be strong enough!" and Shinta drew from the very depths of his core, burning his cosmos beyond any safe levels. "NEBULA STORM!"

And the currents burst out once more with twice, even thrice the force, shattering pillars all around Shinta. Had the sound been capable of keeping pace with the lightspeed force, it would have been a deafening whirr. Thick currents of oxygen and cosmos struck Galan's thunderbolt, forcing it to bend, bend and bend against its will like a pushing punch resisted by a powerful hand. Eventually, it snapped, firing back off in Noah's direction!

The Gold Saints beamed, detecting it with their powerful senses. "He did it! He forced the attack back!"

Alarmed, Noah raised their hand "BLACK HOLE CRUSHER!"

A bizarre, mind-numbing sound was heard and the entire Hall of Innocence seemed to get darker. In reality, however, light itself was becoming twisted in the room, especially the light belonging to Galarian's blinding, huge attack, and the move began twisting into a tentacle of light, as if vacuumed. To everyone's bewilderment, Argead Star screeched and twisted into a spiral, collapsing into the massive, twisting force being manifested over the Silver Saint's hand. Little by little, it all disappeared, crushed into an unseen, twinkling nothing between Saint Noah's fingers until the massive column of electrical light was completely gone.

The Temple collapsed into silence, the whirring and crackling of Argead Star gone.

Milo's jaw dropped almost comically. "W-WHAT THE HELL?!"

Mu laughed. "COOL! Look, he did something like my Starlight Extinction!"

Galan turned to the judges, stunned. "Saint Shaka, Saint Lotus, Peacock?"

The trio gawked. Eventually Shaka spoke up. "S-Saint Noah, what have you done? If you cancelled the attack outright, that counts as failing, since Saint Shinta is undefeated."

Strangely enough, Saint Noah kept their left-hand half clenched, as if carefully holding an invisible bomb, and touched their right leg worriedly. For everyone's surprise at what Noah pulled, the Triangle Saint looked far more worried about what Shinta did than the Gold Sants about Noah's technique.

"That was too close for comfort. My prosthetic almost broke, too. I need to finish this." Back on their feet, the Silver Saint chuckled rather nervously. "W-Wow. Incredible, Saint Shinta. You really forced me to use this attack?... Don't worry, I haven't cheated. I've merely stopped Saint Galan's move again with a different technique."

"Come on, you've gotta be joking me!" Galan asked, outraged. How had his signature technique been so easily toyed with for the third time?! "Leon will never let me hear the end of this!"

The Silver Saint waved their hands, embarrassed. "I'll confess, I know it's strange, but I was inspired to develop the move by a dear friend I once met." Noah recalled their earlier days in Argentina. "A Muvian named Atlae in service of Mariners, if you can believe it."

Shinta and Galarian gawked. This person knew Atlae?!

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

Rodario,

Circe's Grove

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

"What?! Genbu Atlae was involved with the Mariners?!" Crateris Suisho shouted. Even he, as a Specter, was not aware of this. How much was Minos hiding about this boy?

"Keep quiet, you two! You want to get me in trouble?!" the Kerberos urged, looking around. "Now do you see why I wanted to meet in a place full of Saints! There's way more going on than what any of us three think! The Shamballa catastrophe was a huge scandal at the time. Tons of people died and there was a whole sort of unresolved mysteries. The Mariners and Muvians almost went to war with each other over it!"

The Pegasus Bronze Saint shook in bewilderment. All this had happened and Atlae had been involved?! He hadn't paid any attention to it at the time, since during that summer Lance was in the beginning of his partnership with Shinta and busy babysitting the Andromeda Saint on his first missions. He just had a lot on his mind and drama involving the Mariners and the Muvians weren't his concern.

He turned to confide with Sui. "This means that Kastiel is right and the disaster was neither an earthquake nor a terrorist attack, not if Atlae was involved! That must have been when he first manifested that giant monster form! Sui, I'm sure of it!"

"Not a bad hypothesis, Pegasus. I agree." Sui agreed, then made a private conclusion of his own. "(And it must have been when Minos first noticed Atlae as well!)"

"What happened to this Mariner? Could we ask him questions?" Lance made sure to ask. "What's his name?"

"Ithaca of Delphi." Kastiel confirmed, frowning. "Real screwed-up story with that one on its own. Some people say he was having an affair with one of the Patriarchs' wives. Last I heard, he was in some hospital run by the Muvians, completely invalid. They didn't even bother to trial the guy. You could try talking with him, but I doubt you'd get much from the bastard."

Lance irked. "Damn it!"

Suisho smiled. "(Good. No loose ends to tie around the neck there, then.)"

"But you were sent specifically after Atlae, right?" Lance asked, skeptic. "Why him, when we still didn't know he was dangerous?! If everyone was blaming the Ithaca guy?"

Kastiel groaned at his impatience. "I'll get to it, don't worry." He rested his unshaven jaw over his fist. "At first, I thought it was strange, too. Mariners asking me to find some kid caught in the mess that just peacefully made his way out of the place. And a Muvian, too, not a Mariner! I didn't understand the point of it. But then…"

"Then what?"

Kastiel squinted, recalling an interrogation he made of Yang, the hoplite in charge of the Tajikistan "He and his group were hauling fast out of Shamballa right after whatever happened there, skipping all sorts of Sanctuary border watches. Like they were running away from a crime scene. I only caught wind of these guys in freakin' Pakistan."

Lance groaned, feeling the confusing scope of the mystery widen even more. "Wait, wait… these guys?! Atlae wasn't alone?!"

Kastiel reached for his Cloth Box and dumped on the table a series of bounty posters, each with a separate face.

Executive Officer, Sorrento Weyprecht; Alive; 62,000,000 Drachmas

Medal of Heroism, Caça Cabral;

Dead; 10,000,000 Drachmas

Captain Krishna Chola; Dead or Alive; 30,000,000 Drachmas

"These are all Mariners that were with him in his escape." Kastiel revealed, watching the Saints study the posters. "And they've ALL gone missing."

Lance didn't recognize any of their faces, but they figured to him as Mariners. The first one, the most valuable of the three by far, was pristinely decorated in a naval uniform and posed proudly, while the third one looked like the kind of salt-hardened sailor that could get you from Ireland to India in a cracked nutshell. The bounties were, overall, quite high, too; Lance was pretty sure the house Arles gave him for defeating Lucifer was only worth about 20 million Sanctuary drachmas. It had been a sum that was enough to help Aguilon pay Olivia's tuitions at the Saintia Academy, when the giant first sold it to Sanctuary. He supposed it was to be expected that an even larger amount would be paid to recover the princes of these rich Mariner families.

Except…one.

The Pegasus Saint squinted, raising the bizarre middle poster with the unpleasant looking guy giving his middle finger to the camera. "Why is this one to be taken 'Dead'? And why so cheap, too? Isn't he a hero or something? It says right here he got a medal!"

Kastiel laughed. "Oh, the Cabral kid? Yeah, his family doesn't give a crab's shit about him. They got four other sons vying for the Lymnades Scales."

Both Lance and Sui staggered at the incredibly petty intrigue. "W-what?! Just for that?! But he's still their son, right?!"

The Kerberos Saint leaned back, self-satisfied with his theory. "Welcome to Mariner politics. They are extremely cutthroat, kiddos. The arrogant and showboating don't last long in their succession lines. The poor guy probably went to go hide in a cave, if you ask me. And who wouldn't, with a face like that…"

Lance studied the poster again. That seemed rather unfair. So, the one useful member of the family gets chased by the rest? Lance was starting to realise why the Mariners always played second fiddle to saints, if this was how they treated their heroes.

"But the third one is Krishna Chola, a mariner from the Indian Ocean household." Kastiel revealed, thumping the man's poster with his finger. "They've had their share of tough times sooner than the remaining families, and fallen in service to the Solos of Néa Delphi, who pay for their ships. That's how I tracked them down to Karachi. He left his ship docked in their port during their stay in Shamballa and now they were making their way back to it; the LPS Chrysaor."

"Let me guess, they never turned up?" Sui said, already divining the rest. He guessed it was at this point that Minos got his hands on Atlae.

Kastiel stored his notes and irked, looking ashamed. "Ah, well… actually…They did."

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

Summer 1974,

Three Years Earlier,

Karachi, Pakistan

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

Kastiel bent down and showed Mister Aguilon, the bloodhound, the ripped garment he had gotten from Shamballa. "Here, boy, sniff it out…"

"Are you sure that's going to work?" Cepheus Gardnia asked, watching the old dog lazily take the scent in the air with no aim. "We're after Mariners, not ignorant Black Saints who don't even wash the blood of their victims off their fists."

"Will you give him a damn minute, you asshole?! Mister Aguilon could find even your damn traitor teacher if you give him the right whiff!" He then grinned slyly, watching the aged bloodhound smell the air in search. "And I got these from my client. They wrote that one of the Mariners is from the Cabral House and uses a specific cologne."

The blonde teacher covered his nose. Whatever cologne it was, it smelled of a mix of gorilla armpit and sardine. It was so strong he swore they'd need no bloodhound to track it, even in the middle of a busy Pakistani port. "Alright, fine, just don't treat this job like you usually do, alright?"

"What's that supposed to mean?!" Kastiel barked at his rival.

"I mean with your usual lack of professionalism." Gardnia asserted, folding his muscled arms. "I don't care if you feel like abandoning all your missions half way because you get bored with them, but not while I'm involved, got it?"

"Right, because you're such a model saint, ya blue chain freak!" Kastiel snapped. This was why he hated working with Gardnia; the guy demanded perfectionism in everything, like he never trusted anyone but himself could do a good job being a Saint. "And besides, as far as I'm concerned, this isn't a mission! Not when it's Mariners asking it!"

"Speak for yourself, Kastiel." Gardnia's blue eyes sterned, but he made an effort to ignore the hurtful comment. "I don't sell Saint services like you."

Kastiel followed Mr. Aguilon as the dog slowly sniffed his way towards the docks. "Oh yeah?! Then what are YOU doing here?! You talk like the damn Pope sent you on this quest to get some rando Muvian!"

The Cepheus's eyes darted away. "You're not far from the truth, I'll grant your sniffing abilities that much." But Kastiel didn't need to know that Capricorn 'Achilles' had him on Krishna Chola's crew's tail. He saw Mister Aguilon perk up and rush out "Look, he's caught a scent!"

Kastiel laughed out loud and gave chase to the dog through the crowds. "AHA, I told you he was still good! Fetch that Muvian, boy!"

Arriving at the shoreline, Mister Aguilon ran full speed towards a small ship awaiting at the end of a specific dock. There, the two Silver Saints spotted a quartet of men matching the pictures given to them loading the boat and unfurling the sails.

One of the figures, who had blonde hair beneath their hood, beamed at the sight of the bloodhound. "Look, captain! A friendly dog-"

The person next to him pulled him back into the ship and blocked the dog off with an oar when Mr. Aguilon barked at them. "ATLAE, GET INSIDE! It's the Saints for sure!"

"There they are!" Gardnia shouted. He saw Kastiel rushing in. "Wait, Kass', let's plan this ou-!"

"FORGET THAT! THEY'RE GETTING AWAY!" Pulling for his Silver Cloth box chain, Kastiel armored himself in his powerful protection and dashed at the Mariners.

The pale sailor standing around in the dock dropped his crate and screamed. "SHIT! IT'S THE SAINTS! My brothers must be after my life already!"

Another with curly hair and magenta eyes irked. "Don't be ridiculous! It's Atlae they want, clearly!" He pulled out his flute. "I guess so much for a smooth outro! I'll handle them, Mr. Captain."

Seeing them about to leave dock, Kastiel summoned his spiked mace chain and twirled it in the air, ready to sink the boat if he had to! "Oh no, you don't!" Powering up his weapon, he swung it, clad in a star of bright red cosmos. "KERBEROS HELL BASH!"

The weapon flew at them like a giant hammer of red, making Caça scream in panic. Summoning his lance, however, Krishna leaped over the destructive path of the first swing then dove his polearm's metal teeth into the chains, pinning it to the dock floor to prevent it from stretching it further and reaching the ship. The Hell Bash stretched out tensely and dropped to the ground, merely cracking it, while Krishna, using the momentum of his jump and the catapult swing of his spear, powered a wide sweep of his foot in the air to strike Kastiel in the face, kicking him back towards a warehouse gate, loudly denting the steel inwards.

"KASS'! Get away from that guy! He's no amateur!" Gardnia called, summoning his Cloth as well. He launched his star and mace chains at Krishna clad in lightning. "I'll stun them! THUNDER HAMMER!"

Sorrento, however, tossed himself in the way, shielding Krishna by kicking a large crate in their path. While the Cepheus' attack smashed right through the crates, it obscured Sorrento's movements just enough to allow him to strike Gardnia with a sweeping dive kick, putting him at a distance from the other fight.

Sorrento Weyprecht smirked. "What's this? I thought Saints only ever fought one-on-one."

Gardnia growled in frustration, sensing this was another powerful foe. "We also have a duty to protect our weaker brothers-in-arms!"

Kastiel climbed out of the hole in the steel gate, growling. "W-Who are you calling weak?! I'll can these sardines myself, you asshole!"

"Mariners, just give us Atlae and we'll be on our way! We have no quarrel with you!" Gardnia warned, ignoring Kastiel's complaining. He ignited his cerulean cosmos, showing off his power in a shower of electrical sparks. "He is not a Mariner, so Sanctuary will not hold back against him for your sake!"

"Perhaps not." Krishna acknowledged, summoning his golden aura. "But he IS our friend. And we're on a journey to save him."

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

Present

Rodario,

Circe's Grove

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

"WHAT?! You expect me to believe you got into some kind of epic fight and that's why you let them get away?!" Lance roared.

Sui held Lance down, seeing he was simmering with rage. "Pegasus, please. Saint Kastiel, what happened then?"

The Kerberos Saint scratched his grey mane. "Like I said, the bastards put up a hell of a fight, that's what happened. Not surprising considering the Indian Guy and the Flute Guy were both gold-rankers. In the end, Flute Guy used some bizarre musical technique that made you want to shoot your own brains out! Half the dock was screaming on the floor, Gard' included. By the time we got up, their damn ship was out of sight somehow, probably using that Cabral kid's illusion techniques."

"And you never caught wind of Genbu Atlae since?" Suisho asked. He needed to make sure Sanctuary lost the trace for good.

"What do ya want me to have done, Sui?! They went out to sea!" Kastiel asked, shrugging defensively. They spent that month trying to find their track again in every port in India. "Guardnia wanted to keep going, but those Mariners get harder to track when in water than a Crystal Saint in the snow! Fuck that!"

"I see." Suisho relaxed. It was true even Specters had trouble with Mariners in Poseidon's territory. If this was the end of Sanctuary's trail on those Mariners, all the better for the Underworld. "Well, Pegasus, I guess that's that. Shall we go-"

"You should have listened to Shinta's teacher, then, and work together to capture him!" Lance cut back in. He knew Kastiel too well to accept things 'just went wrong'. "Why didn't you?!"

It made Sui exhale loudly, palming face. There went Pegasus.

Kastiel groaned, annoyed. "I told you; they went out to sea! I'm not stupid enough to have tried, and neither would you have been. I take pride in my tracking, goddamn it, but if a mariner wants to hide their tracks in water, it's over for you!"

"You had Mariners sending you after him! They could have helped! And why was the Zodiac butting in on this, anyway?!" Lance protested. He saw the confused look on their faces and was frankly baffled. "What, haven't you two put it together yet?! Sui, the Muvian guy is capable of turning into some kind of giant armored lizard man, there was a catastrophe in Shamballa he was present for and Shinta's teacher got called by Sanctuary specifically to find him, right?! Well, Gardnia wasn't just a Master, he was a specialist in chain techniques. Shinta even has been trained in ways to use his chains to track and capture threats!"

The Crateris Saint held jaw. "Which means… Sanctuary must have known Atlae was Talos already!" He widened eyes. "Even I don't understand this! Why would Sanctuary try to do the same we did?"

Kastiel laughed again, genuinely impressed. "Ah, that makes sense! Totally fits what Guadnia would take jobs from, too. Yer not as stupid as you used to be, little Lance."

Suisho saw Lance growl, but contain himself. The Specter was starting to understand why Pegasus hated Kastiel's guts so much. There really was no end to his provocations, was there? Still, now that he knew Sanctuary knew a lot more than it let on, the Judge realized he needed to prod deeper into the matter.

"Who was the Mariner Household that send you after him, Kastiel? It's time for you to answer that." Suisho asked.

The Kerberos Saint raised chin with a smug of superiority, like the client proved how valuable a Silver Saint he was. "I didn't know at first, but after I left Asia, I got a chance to report to them directly, in this very place. Well,… turns out all along my client was Marianne Solo, the heiress of the Solo household."

Suisho widened eyes. "What?! Marianne Solo?!"

Lance rose a brow, having never heard of her. "Who?!"

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

Three Years Earlier, 1974, Early September

Sanctuary Town

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

"Please, you must have a clue where they went!" Marianne begged, wearing a white hood with blue stripes to conceal her identity at the bar. Her eyes were panicked, like Kastiel just told her he lost her baby brother. "They were headed straight for Trincomalee, I know it! They wouldn't have just… vanished off the face of the Earth!"

"Ma'am, I got guys at Trincomalee, too. That was step number one for me." Kastiel assured. "Their boat never turned up, even after I lost them at Karachi! Maybe Poseidon sunk them to the ocean with a storm for sailing with a Muvian, who knows?!"

The man sitting next to her, a tall hooded figure of lime green hair and sharp pale eyes, held her shoulder. "Marianne, please calm down. You'll raise attention. We'll find them, I promise."

"I c-can't, Josef!" she shook, feeling like her whole world was falling apart. She sunk her eyes into her palms. "Why is everything going wrong?! The ship, my crew, my father, my mother and now Atlae?! I j-just can't take this anymore! Poseidon help me, I think I'm going crazy!"

The taller, Russian Mariner held her, hushing gently.

"I didn't say I lost them completely, ma'am." Kastiel tried to specify. The Kerberos took out a pad and drew the area of India he followed their ship down from the coast. "It is my opinion, instead, that yer' friend and his group deliberately evaded me. I ended up finding out recently that your friends adopted aliases after leaving Karachi, leaving fake names at Sanctuary positions, and changed directions frequently. They also left misleading reports about their crew on every stop. In Goa, they claimed they only had three passengers, all Mariners."

"But they took on Executive Officer Sorrento, as well, so they should be four." Josef added. "Three Mariners and a Muvian. Which means they were trying to hide Atlae by switching him with Sorrento as the third crewman their boat is supposed to have."

Kastiel saw a look of utter confusion on Marianne Solo at this and couldn't blame her. "It fits. I don't know where they're taking him, but they're pretty damn driven to stay hidden from you, miss."

Marianne remembered his description of 'Flute Guy'. Her head reeled and she held it. "I-I don't understand! Why would Sorrento betray me like this and help Krishna hide Atlae away from me?! He's my second in command!"

Kastiel rubbed his ear. He only caught a whiff of the tune from Sorrento's flute and it felt like nails on a chalkboard inside his brain after all this time. "Miss, a better question is why would your Muvian friend be going through such efforts to be hiding from Sanctuary? Isn't he in good standing with everyone? Perhaps the answer is there. Did he do something wrong?"

Marianne slammed hands on the table. "WHAT? NO! He's completely innocent!" It attracted a few looks in the bar, making her quiet down. "I-I'm sorry. It's just… Atlae must think he's being chased. It's the only explanation! We made a very dangerous enemy back in Shamballa. Someone from Sanctuary…someone that could kill his entire group on a whim."

Kastiel twirled pencil in his fingers, pensive. "Right, Serpens Azrael, correct?"

"He's a member of the Pact. Marianne's friends ran afoul of him recently." Josef spoke.

The Kerberos shivered. "Yes, I know well who that guy is…" He had once encountered him in the Civil War, before the guy switched sides back to Sanctuary, and still had the scars under his Cloth to prove it. Even before the goat skull mask, the guy was scary as shit. "However, at this stage, it is difficult to prove that is the case. Serpens Azrael has been see-"

"HE'S LYING! He can be in multiple places at once!" Marianne almost shouted, standing up. "He could have been going after Atlae while keeping doppelgangers somewhere else!"

Josef staggered, seeing everyone's eyes turn to them again, and tried to hold her. "Marianne, please!"

The Mariner girl trembled, feeling cornered from every direction. "H-He's trying to ruin my family, Josef! And now he's after Atlae!" Her fingers clenched on his suit. "P-Please, you have to believe me! S-Someone believe me!"

The older Mariner held her tightly. "I believe you, don't worry. Marianne, no matter what happens, you will be able to count on me, I swear it." He turned his eyes at Kastiel. "Saint Kerberos, thank you for the discrete work. Please contact me directly if you discover anything else."

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

Lance stared in confusion. The names rung a bell but he couldn't put his finger on them. "Serpent Ass-real, Marianne Solo, Josef Gerasi-what?! Who the heck are all these new assholes coming into this picture?!"

"Azreal! And he's the former Aries Gold Saint, you ignorant blockhead! Kastiel lambasted. "I would advise getting his name right if you ever meet him, lest he tear you a new ass-for-real. He betrayed Sanctuary to join Priam's side, killed half the people I knew in the army, then betrayed Priam to come back to us! There isn't a bigger piece of shit in all of Sainthood right now. I didn't even think that was possible to do half the things he has without getting your head chopped off at the Coliseum!"

Then it hit Lance. He had heard of this guy before indeed, from Herakles Aguilon.

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

"Not all of them. Aries-fucking-Azrael … The big Emerald Knight turned Topaz Turncoat himself, is still around." Aguilon pointed out, laughing derisively.

"The Zodiac Knights killed my daughter, Pegasus, but they've paid the price. I can't blame Cerah for what happened to her." Aguilon finalized. "Aries Azrael, on the other hand, gets to live in his mountain, even though he started the damn war, all because he promised us the head of every livin' breathin' Zodiac Knight and their Stones. And if he finds out Cerah is one, he won't hesitate to snuff her out, too."

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

The insanity of all these connections made Lance reel. The way Aguilon spoke about the guy made it sound like he was a real piece of shit, but he was involved with Genbu Atlae, too? Not only that, but considering Daese was Cerah's sister, was she a Zodiac Knight, then? Then, could she possibly be known to Azrael?

"Well, to me that sounds like someone I'll ask questions next to, then!" Lance simply concluded.

The idea of it alone sent Kastiel into a laughing fit louder than all the chatting in the room. "Oh, please do! I will look forward to hearing the news of you getting your head chopped off your neck and put on his castle wall! Do you even know what you're saying, Pegasus?! Serpens Azrael isn't just a former Gold Saint; he's a member of the Pact of Seven! One of the nastiest of the bunch, too!"

The Bronze Saint slumped back down. He should have seen this coming. "Great! That's right. He's another one of those Seven Sanctuary Assholes! I keep running into this group whenever shit is going down in Sanctuary!"

"You remember Cetus, don't you?! Well, just like him, Azrael's got free reign to do whatever the hell he pleases with you if you so much as snarl in the direction of his territory, even IF you're a Saint!" Kastiel smirked and drank another mug. "I only say that, of course, because Sui' here will think poorly of me if I don't warn ya. You can get yourself shish-kebab-ed by his big Zodiac Knight sword for all I care, just like he did to the rest of the Zodiac Knights."

"Good riddance, too." Suisho thought to himself. "Who would have thought the Zodiac Knights, the most hated enemies of the Specters, would be undone by Sanctuary itself? I could only imagine the Pope must have been possessed by Lord Hades himself when he ordered that." He then recalled his encounter with the woman in Switzerland. "Except for that Aquila, right? I am yet to figure out where in damnations she came from…No matter. Sooner or later, though, we'll end that line ourselves."

The grey-haired kennel keeper wiped his tears. "So, like I said; BY ALL MEANS, get yerself killed, Lance! I will enjoy hearing of you walking up to those psychopaths and demanding anything from them, much less a response that doesn't involve you getting torn to pieces by their goons. Hey, maybe Cetus will get another chance to flick you in the head and make you fly across the Coliseum! A fitting fucking end for someone who raised their fist at their Master like you have!"

Lance only tensed at this, silent. He turned face, recalling the horrors Cetus put them all through. Especially Shinta.

"Amen, Kastiel." Sui told himself, in turn. If there was one thing the Judge agreed with Kastiel, is that disobedient underlings deserved nothing less than being cut in half. Pegasus would surely get his coming one day, too, soon. He took out some money. "Thank you for everything, Saint Kastiel. Here, for your drinks. We'll be on our way."

Kastiel eyed Lance carefully, realizing he was leaving without another comeback. "Nothing to say again? Man, you've really cooled your head down, kid. Maybe the guys were right and Shinta was a good influence on you."

Lance paused, worrying Sui. "…Yes, he was."

The Kerberos Saint grinned. "Gardnia never introduced me to Shinta, but I got to help him out during the False Holy War a little. Even took his kids to New Lalibela so he could fight the Specters at ease. Guess I'm a good guy, after all, uh?"

This surprised Lance. He turned back to face his former teacher. "Is that so? He didn't tell me that."

Kastiel scoffed, delighting in his dumbfound look. "Can you blame him? Hell, I see you seething there from just looking at me. I bet the last time he tried to ask you about me, you must have gone off of him real badly, like you do with everyone." He pointed finger at Lance. "But he trusted me enough to do it. Incredible, ain't it? What does that say of how you feel about me?"

Sui frowned, seeing the trainwreck coming a mile away. "Pegasus! Let's go."

Lance shook his head, dispelling its heat. "I'm alright, Sui. Don't worry." And faced Kastiel. "Let me just ask you something. Did you ever stop to wonder how I got out of there? Of Mount Olympus? You seemed so sure I'd never get out of it unless I begged you for forgiveness. You've never been even a little bit curious?"

The Silver Saint rose his brow. "Why the hell would I?! You just got lucky and unlocked the Cosmos, that's all. Happens all the time. If you ask me, it's precisely because I left you there that you finally set your head straight and unlocked it." He scoffed, amused with his own conclusion. "I guess that makes me the best teacher you ever had, right? Mr. Hopeless Cause?"

Lance folded his arms, pensive, feeling some kind of strangely obvious, yet sobering realization come over him. "Right. That is what you think of me, isn't it?"

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

"The ability to stop a tidal wave or even destroy a galaxy is nothing compared to the magnificent, blossoming flowers of wonder that can be explored when you sail the currents of the universe. An ocean of stars, never-ending, carrying hope and change in every single blinking light. Promise me that you'll live, Red, that you won't lose hope and that you'll grow as much as you can as a Saint" The Silver Saint smiled softly, hugged him and gave him the most honest answer they could "-and if the stars will it, yes, of course you will."

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

Daese looked out the hut's window, seeing the blizzard rage on. "It's easy to give up hope in yourself and others. I have, too, many times. Even now. But the cosmos doesn't respond to those that seek death, Red. It responds to those that have the bravery to imagine a better future. That dare to it, in spite of all adversity. That is the only way you'll make it shine."

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

What a ridiculous idea. The Master rolled his eyes "A hard time, he says! Pegasus Lance, what kind of bully do you think I am?! For Athena's sake! Just because I make fun of you sometimes for falling off a tightrope or being such a boring take-myself-seriously Cancer, it doesn't mean that… that I don't love you."

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

All at once, a great joy and a great sadness overcame Lance in his chest. All these people that had faith in him when Kastiel didn't, their words sounded in his mind from so many moments of love and faith in him all at once that he could barely take it. That sensation was contrasted with the sight of this jaded, faithless, negligent man that he hated so much, sitting right in front of him. What would Kastiel say, if he knew that someone had come to rescue Lance in Mount Olympus? Would he bite his own words, or simply argue that it proved Lance was helpless by himself?

What would it take, for Kastiel to admit he was wrong about Lance?

And, yet, Kastiel could claim to be a normal Saint more than any of the people that inspired him so powerfully. Lance had always disliked the other Saints, but he had never put together, perhaps because for so long he thought Daese had been just a dream, like a critical piece of a puzzle made of mist that only now had become solid, how it really was that none of the people that affected him and inspired him so powerfully were from this place. From Sanctuary. They were all outcasts, exiles, hermits, 'freaks' and…maybe even outlaws.

"Are you going to stare at me all day?" Kastiel asked him, squinting annoyedly. This kid was making him want to smash the rest of his mace on his face. "Or you're finally gonna say something? Sorry, not say, shout, cause you oh-so-feel the need to make yourself heard!"

The Pegasus Saint barely heard what he said. He saw sitting in front of him a man not worthy of licking the shoes of Noah, Daese and Dohko. He saw sitting in front of him a man incapable of raising a Saint like Guifi, Cerah or Yushira. He saw sitting in front of him what many considered to be the ideal Silver Saint, someone they wouldn't hesitate to trust Lance's future to in a place as dangerous as Mount Olympus. Someone who was so proud, so stuck in their ways and view of the world, they refused to be curious as to how Lance ever got out of said mountain after abandoning them there.

He headed out. "I'll see you outside, Sui."

Kastiel handed him the money back though. "Ah, good riddance. Keep the Drachmas, Sui'. We all know you've been building up for that mystery lady of yours. If you wanna pay me back, just make sure Lance learns some fucking respect already."

The Specter took the money, but didn't respond. He followed Lance with his eyes. "What is up with Pegasus? That was the opposite reaction I expected to all that provocation."

Heading out the door of the Grove, Lance breathed out. He no longer felt like being mad at people like Kastiel. It just felt so stupid now. After all, it was like Noah had always said; all it mattered to being a good Saint was if he burned his cosmos for good and wonder, like stopping Atlae and this Holy War. If you did that, even being a Saint in itself barely mattered.

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

A few moments earlier,

Virgo Temple

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

"About…two years back, I met this Muvian who used the elements of Earth and Darkness to create attacks of great meta-physical mass." Saint Noah explained, chuckling nostalgically at the fun adventure in their past. "We ran into a Specter that we battled together, and he showed me this incredible technique where he span his cosmos around his foot then kicked it, like a wrecking ball."

Shinta sweated. "That sounds like the Black Shell Kick that Atlae used against us. Saint Noah is telling the truth! Lance should know about this right away!"

"In the end, I combined it with my Triangulation's Parabolic Cannon to revert its attributes, turning it into the White Shell Kick, a completely different technique that washed away all jamming in the area with a massive release of light cosmos. By observing Atlae's technique and the way he created such a dense, concentrated meta-mass, I had the idea at the time that, maybe, certain attacks of cosmos could be spun like that around themselves and crushed by manipulating their meta-physical attributes."

"In other words, Saint Noah made the Argead Star crush itself into a tiny star of cosmos with their own." Shaka concluded, seeing the blinking light in the Triangle Saint's palm. Once more, he had to awe. "The first technique must hinge on mere control of the cosmos, as it is merely twisting things the attack 'is on', while this one must hinge on an extraordinary amount of energy, as its twisting the attack itself. Two different ways to accomplish the same objective."

Aldebaran, who was having similar conclusions of his own, folded arms in concern. "Shinta and the others may not realize it, but Saint Noah is methodically demonstrating, factor by factor, why they might be a superior candidate." He saw the Lotus and Peacock Saints exchange looks "Those two judges Shaka brought with him look really impressed. This is bad. Unless my bro does something to reverse the odds…"

"However,… I'm afraid this is the only technique I've ever managed to devise that matches Triangulation's usefulness for this test." Noah admitted, smiling self-consciously. "It was a terrible experience we went through, too, meeting that Specter. A lot of innocent people got hurt that day. Still, the fact that meeting that Muvian helped me gain it, makes me think that, maybe, there's a silver-lining to tragedy. That things we go through life have an odd way to prepare us for important moments like this one. Don't you think so, Saint Shinta?"

Again, Shinta couldn't help but sense a kindred spirit in front of him. "Yeah, I absolutely do." He gulped, reliving some painful memories. "When my Master died, for example, I went through one of the worst periods of my life. But I think that it helped me rise up and become a Master myself. I definitely wouldn't be here, right now, if I hadn't survived that pain."

Noah irked. "Oh, I see. I'm sorry you had to go through that, Saint Shinta." The white-haired Saint held their chest with their free hand. "I know exactly what it feels like to lose a figure you admire. You have all my sympathy."

Shinta sniffed. "Thank you."

"UGH, why don't you two just pinky promise to be best friends after this?!" Andromeda hissed, making her chains shake with the fury in her stardust veins. "SHINTA! That little freak is YOUR COMPETITOR! Don't get sidetracked by these siren songs of friendship! The Triangle Saint is just trying to make you lose focus! Did you hear what he said earlier? He's out of moves! So crush him!"

Shinta perked up. Andromeda was right! He needed to focus!

"With the second stage of Black Hole Crusher, the White Hole Launcher, I will rewind what I've done and release Saint Galan's technique back into the field with approximately 96% of its previous ferocity." Noah warned, raising their other hand. The star in their palm travelled to it in a switch and began brimming, activated by Noah's white cosmos. "Are you ready, Saint Shinta?"

Shinta narrowed eyes. "This is it! I have to be able to deflect it one more time!" He tried to think of his arsenal moves. "Do I try to use Great Capture and Spiral Duct to send it back? No, Saint Galan's technique might shatter my chains. Andromeda is a Bronze Cloth, after all, and not as strong as a Gold or Silver one. Then, perhaps… my first idea is on the right track, and I need to bounce it back like a dodgeball, using a blow of equal strength? By I can't charge my Nebula Thunder Flash without using Nebula Stream, which I've used up for this test. Then… I have to come up with something entirely new!"

Humming loudly, Noah enlarged their aura, powering their next move. The white star in their hand began shimmering, like a rubber band of pure light about to snap. Shinta irked, wondering if he was about to get stomped flat unless he violated the rules and repeated a move.

Shinta closed his eyes, trying to concentrate on the 7th sense. "No, forget the Nebula moves! I have to demonstrate I can be the next Virgo Gold Saint! Shaka's successor. Relying on my old moves won't work! Then what if I…?" Taking a deep, long breath, Shinta expelled all anxiety off his chest. He felt the cosmos burning in front of him down to every detail. He began to foresee it, exactly how Saint Noah's next technique. "I've been focusing on the wrong thing. It's not what Saint Noah does I need to study, but Saint Galan's attack itself. I already know how this technique moves. I've deflected the Argead Star once already. As a Saint of Athena, I cannot allow it to work on me again."

Time slowed down and his mind sensed every particle of light composing Saint Galan's attack. It was like an immense star of lightning, crackling over itself. An Olympian thunderstorm held inside a capsule of power. Shinta pictured himself holding it in his hands. Without Shinta realizing, a golden brim began shining around him. Shaka, Lotus, and Peacock all paid attention to it, recognizing the sensation well.

"That's it, Shinta." Shaka rooted. "You're beginning to understand it; how clarity can help you reach a new level of cosmos. A clarity that I lost…"

"WHITE HOLE LAUNCHER!" Noah shouted, reversing the crushing of Saint Galan's technique. The entire thunderbolt snapped off his hand, like a released rubber band, and cracked through the air with enough force to tear space itself.

Shinta breathed in and merely raised his hands. The thunderbolt struck his palms, making his hair fly back and his Gold Saint friends scream, guarding themselves. The entire force of it was crushed against his calm, brimming flesh, like a train running full force into a mountainous wall of indestructible titanium. The sound alone was shearing, making the eardrums of anyone who didn't train with the cosmos hiss, and the light was burning to the eyes.

Yet, Shinta's body failed to move. He breathed out, opened his eyes and realized, with awe, he caught a lightning bolt in his hands!

Milo practically jumped up his seat. "H-HE DID IT!"

Even Aldebaran's jaw dropped. "He caught it! HE CAUGHT IT IN HIS HANDS!"

Galan held his head, feeling dizzy with embarassment. "What is going on today?! Did I slip when I fired that thing?!"

"Well done, Shinta!" Shaka thought to himself, ever more amazed by the Andromeda. "You did it! You obtained an idea of Kha, all by yourself!"

The green-haired boy tried to compose himself, slowly grasping that, between his two hands, was a giant, sneering thunderbolt struggling to be free. "I-I've done it! I successfully caught the ball! I mean, the bolt!" Slowly, however, he began feeling his body shaking. "It's…Whatever I did, it's slipping away!"

The Triangle Saint irked, sweating.

"TOSS IT BACK, SHINTA!" Mu shouted, waving arms. He saw Saint Noah all nervous and smiled, realizing Shinta would win! "QUICK! Before it blows!"

Eyeing Saint Noah, Shinta narrowed his eyes. "R-Right! I'm sorry, Saint Noah!" and, harnessing all his strength, he began pushing the bolt away from him, aiming it back. "B-BUT I…" the cosmos in him began burning, ready to shoot the move off his hands back at Noah! "I-I NEED TO WIN! KAH!"

The shockwave of Shinta's cosmos released with what seemed like the peaceful sound of a drummed bell. Argead Star screamed and sheered; its force reversed entirely by the brilliance of a worthy Virgo Saint's cosmos.

Noah's aura ignited. Time slowed down as both their senses heightened to the same level. "I'm sorry, Saint Shinta, but so do I." Thrusting hand in Shinta's direction, the Silver Saint casted their final technique. "TRIANGLE BARRIER!"

Layers and layers of transparent, triangle faces closed around Shinta, entirely trapping the Andromeda Saint with the Argead Star inside a coffin of cosmic, counter-explosive surfaces. Noah's eyes narrowed and his aura burned further, casting layers upon layers over him, completely closing any way out.

Shinta felt his soul sink, having no time for any bodily reaction of shock upon seeing the extremely familiar technique manifest all around him! "This is… Lance's technique! The Pegasus Barrier!" He had seen it so many times, and even had his life saved once or twice by it. He could never mistake it. And he knew exactly how it operated.

Time resumed itself at a frightening pace! The Argead Star shook in Shinta's hand and fired off, hitting the barrier! Just like Lance's technique, it shattered immediately, but forced the attack to ignite right away at a minimal cost of Cosmos, blowing up in Shinta's face!

The entire Hall of Innocence became swallowed in light as Shinta was buried in the full force of Saint Galan's technique.

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

Coliseum,

Dungeon Floor

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

Adriana watched as Leon tensed up, thinking about her offer. She wouldn't push this in such a mean way, pulling for Leon's twisted protectiveness of his family, but her calculations suggested that Lance's success chances would increase by at least 43% if Leon was down there with him. Getting him would be a massive boost to the project.

She tapped her foot. "Well? You've been sitting all quiet for a while longer than I thought you would. But the offer is expiring in exactly sixty seconds, Leon. You better make up your mind."

His blue eyes turned to her. "Why shouldn't I walk up those stairsteps and tell my Master exactly what you're planning? That would surely keep this guy you're describing that Olivia cares about safe. Right behind bars."

Adriana smirked. "Really? I'd be curious how that would work out, considering how much the Pope likes him."

Leon irked. "What?!"

"A better plan for you, Leon; you could make sure he survives this, and relish in the rewards." Adriana countered right back. "Your sister would probably forget all about your long, long absence with that, too. This on top of you getting to take a shot at Hades' heart. You've finally earned your place back in Sanctuary, Leon. You could fix your family, too. And just imagine what your Master would give you if you killed Athena's greatest enemy, as well."

What implacable negotiation. Adriana just bombarded him with all kinds of reasons he should say 'yes' before he could even mount a defense. For a second, Leon truly considered this. After all, a mission to go down the Underworld and murder Hades was, as Adriana suggested earlier, exactly the kind of thing the man who 'murdered Athena' was on board for. And it did stand a chance to fix a lot of the problems he had in his life.

Why should he say no?

The silver-haired hunter had to confess; she had him there. "Mm…You were right about a couple of things, I'll admit it, Adriana. Killing Hades is exactly the kind of thing that would interest me. And whoever this guy Olivia is dating is, who is taking such an initiative to bring the fight to the Underworld, he has my respect."

Adriana smiled gleefully. "Jackpot!" She knew she could count on Leon's sense of competition and pride. She produced a contract out of her pocket, complete with feather pen. "Excellent! You can sign into our little club right he-"

He shook his head. "But my answer is still no."

She widened her eyes, stiffening like a statue. "What?!" She was sure she had him right in her web! Was his pride turning around to bite her in the derriere, like always?! "W-Why not? I thought we had an understanding!"

"We do. Just not one that favors you." He rose two fingers. "First; I don't like working with others. You of all people should know that. If Hades will ever be destroyed by me, I'd rather not have a bunch of hangers-on with their own agendas and objectives holding me back. That just creates problems." Leon stood up, sensing his Master calling him from above. "And second…killing Hades in and of itself is…? Mm-mm…How should I put it? As much as I would love to do it, I don't think my Master would approve of it right now."

At this, even Adriana had to feel utter shock. "Your Master? You mean the Pope? W-What do you mean? Why would the Pope not want to finish Hades off?! We're about to go to Holy War without Athena!"

"You're right." Leon admitted, smirking. "Maybe he sees something you do not?"

Adriana staggered. "You… he… ?!" Her intelligent brain then concluded the obvious. "Don't tell me the Pope has no intention to fight?!"

"There's more going on between heaven and earth than the simple politics of Holy Wars, Adriana." Leon reminded her, guarding his bow around arm to leave. She reminded him a bit of Kido when Leon paid him a visit in Japan. He, too, thought he could meddle in the affairs of his Master just because he had resources to do so. "Secrets in the webs of Sanctuary that even spiders can't weave out. This is one of them. I'd recommend you and your friends back down from this mission of yours, then, unless they want to meet the same fate of the criminal I brought in for this Triumph."

"The criminal you brought in?! But that could only be…!" Panic filled her as he departed. She laid out her arms to bar him. "WAIT, Leon! Even if you refuse, you'll keep it all between us, though, won't you? Even if you hate me… your sister still cares a lot about this guy. Don't punish him and his friends."

He paused and gave her a surprised look. "Punish them? I thought I told you I respected this guy for what he's trying to do. I just do not intend to sabotage my Master myself." Then chuckled. " …Besides, I don't hate you, Adriana. We're the same, are we not? We're both people of Sanctuary's shadow."

The silver-ringer irked. She supposed this was true now, given the vibes she was getting off of Leon. Who would have thought the kind, brave boy she toyed with in her youth would have surpassed her in this aspect, in fact? For the first time, she felt face to face with a member of her generation that might match her in bloodlust without being raised among the aristocrats. What a terrible omen this was.

"And we both made mistakes. You didn't understand why hurting my sister would break my heart, and I didn't understand why the thought of doing it would ever cross your selfish, evil mind." Leon raised his gloved hand at her, accentuating how much both of them physically changed. They were both now Sanctuary adults, not kids in the training grounds. "But we're both very different now, too, aren't we? And as people of Sanctuary, we don't make the same mistake twice. You now think twice before hurting others to get what you want, and want to change the destiny of your family. While I…"

At this, Adriana felt a chill, feeling his eyes pierce her to her soul. Like his very bow had been invisibly drawn on her. At that moment, she could swear Leon saw every sin she had committed in the time they had been apart, from those she controlled or tricked, to those she murdered, right in her heart, and that his arrow of thunder was aimed straight at it.

Leon smirked. "…I, well, have changed as well. I guess that makes two of us, doesn't it?"

Adriana felt her heart drum. Her back hit the wall and she held her head, feeling like she just tried to dance with a dragon. She thought back to the day she met Leon. He was such an innocent little guy, speaking of going on adventures with Galarian. So much her first instinct at the time had been to swallow him whole in the playground, before her feelings gradually changed. She recalled wishing, at the time, especially after she hurt Olivia and he rejected her, that the boy was less naïve, and that his darkness matched her own.

"D-Dear Goddess, you have a twisted way of answering my prayers, don't you?" Adriana realized. "Leon… what happened to you? What is going on inside your head?"

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

The Past

Mount Daisetsu, Hokkaido

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

"I d-don't understand…" Priam wheezed, feeling Leon carrying his whole body over shoulder. "W-Why?!... You're… Partita's boy. W-Why would you side with Arles when you don't even know what…?"

Leon continued to move through the forest. "I told you, Priam; that is neither here nor there. I took you down, because I needed to, and because I wanted to. Your war with Master is none of my business. Fixing my life, however, is."

The broken Sagittarius widened his eyes at the distancing ground. "Y-You… Do you really think he isn't responsible for what happened to you in the first place, Leon? L-look at… look at the tragedy he allowed to befall your family! A-At the tragedy he befell you. The only reason you were exiled was because he tried to abandon you as much as he did us!"

"Oh, I know." Leon confirmed, chuckling, to Priam's shock. He still remembered how stupid it felt, the little care Master put into hiding he was looking for a new student. "It's as I said back in that mountain, Priam; there have been many times I wished I had been in your shoes, when you shot him at the Festival with your Crystal Shard Arrow."

"T-Then, by all the gods, w-why?!" Priam begged, tearing up. The scene of death back at the camp haunted his heart, even then. He still had no idea if Daese survived, because her Cosmos vanished during his battle with Leon. "W-Why murder my men?! W-Why hurt Daese?!"

Reaching his base camp, Leon tossed Priam inside the tent, landing him harshly by the stardust chains and shackles. He proceeded to lock the rebel with them head to toe, piece by piece. "We'll stay here until those hoplites that were watching the fight meet up with us. I'd rather no-"

"A-ANSWER MY QUESTION!" Priam roared. He eyed the boy with fury seldom seen in him. "I've held you in my own arms so many times! I know y-you are not a murderer! I know it! S-So why?!"

The silver haired hunter sighed, annoyed. "Are you going to make me say it again? I wanted to fight my predecessor, the man who survived Sanctuary for fourteen years. The man who was the Sagittarius before me."

Priam's eyes narrowed. What about this warranted the death of his comrades? "I d-don't believe you! What did the others have to do with any of that?!"

"Because you have the bad habit of bolting away. So, to make sure you fought me, I wiped out your men. They were on death row for rebelling this long to begin with, so what difference does it make? Am I a murderer for killing those already walking down the path to hell?" Stepping back, he took a satchel of stardust and began pouring it around the bound Priam, forming a circle of cosmos abortion silver, just to be safe. "And I shot that woman because she pushed you out of the way. I was aiming at you, Priam. If you want to blame anyone for her getting hurt, blame the loyalism you instilled in her. In the regard, you're not as different from my Master as you think you are, are you?"

Priam stared in bewilderment at the casualness with which Leon spoke of ruining his life and Daese's. He sunk his head, fearing he'd never get to see Anesidora and Shinta again.

Leon crumbled the empty stardust bag and tossed it into the camp fire. He snorted out his nose. "But really, Priam?" He narrowed eyes, disappointed. "Beyond all that? I hunted you and your men down, because the more I learned about you during this mission, the less I liked you."

Confusion hit Priam. What did this teenager mean? What did he even know about Priam?

The hunter wasn't a fan of Priam's reaction. "Don't act dumb. The self-sacrificial type? Me before my men? All this fighting you did all these years, in the name of sincerity and justice in Sanctuary? What a typical Sagittarius you are." Leon's blue eyes narrowed. "People like you are exactly why everyone in Sanctuary look to those born under my stars to be both the heroes and the scapegoats of everything that goes wrong in their lives. Tell me, Priam, did you ever for a second think about the legacy you were leaving behind for those after you?"

Priam reeled. "M-My legacy?!" He wanted to throw himself at this boy in battle all over again. "ALL I'VE EVER DONE, was to create a new path in Sanctuary! To free it from its cycles!"

"And all you've done is make Sanctuary bunker down in its stubborn ways in response." Leon countered, inflexible as the history of the war Priam created with the Zodiac. "Now Holy War is brewing, the Gold Saints are reformed and all is the same as the last war. But who's left to fight for its future?"

Priam gagged, suddenly speechless.

Leon cringed his nose. "You even sold secrets of Sanctuary to that Kido pig. All so you could keep fighting for your stupid, circular causes. What good is that sincerity you yearn for in Sanctuary, Priam, when you toss it away like this so your little rebel act can go on for a few more months? That's when I knew I absolutely wanted to take you down a peg. No matter who got hurt in the way!"

The Gold Saint sunk his head, disgraced. He felt reminded of Azrael's cruel words when he was trying to convince him to release Daese. Priam knew he was the villain to a lot of people, but every now and then he came across to discover a whole new depth of tragedy his mistakes had caused.

Leon composed himself from his disgust, furling his silver-hair. "Do you understand now, Priam, why I did what I did? Unlike you, I will not allow this generations' Sagittarius to be another chapter in their long tradition of servitude to Athena and her pathetic society."

"T-This…coming from a boy who has consumed her blood?" It then dawned on Priam, after all this time, just how terrible the state of this boy's mind was. "D-Dear Goddess, you poor child. Y-You survived being exposed to Her blood. Y-Your power right now must be immense! Higher than anyone in your generation! With all this strength, you could single-handedly save the world. L-Leon! You owe all of it to Her!"

"Wrong." Leon shut down, again without hesitation. "I don't owe her a thing. The pain and exile I suffered for her blood was payment enough. And now that I have you to earn my place back in Sanctuary? The future is mine to carve."

But then his burned face twisted in anger and frustration. "While being Shion's lapdog?! While enacting revenge on me for embarrassing you as a Sagittarius?! What kind of future do you think you can make for yourself like that, Leon?!"

But the silver-haired boy sterned his nose in rejection. "I know what you're trying to do, Priam. Galan told me all about his father's dreams. The ones your junkyard group put so much stock on. You were going to be the greatest, freest generation…And then my Master treaded all over it, correct?"

The Sagittarius stiffened, disarmed.

Leon continued. "You probably think, then, that if a group of guys as powerful as yours allowed it to happen, then I am doomed to it as well?" The hunter couldn't imagine greater arrogance than this. "But your mistake wasn't that you lacked bravery to defy your fates, Priam. It's because you relied far too much on each other. And because of that, all it took was one weak link to break your group; Cancer Patroclus."

Priam sunk head. Poor Patroclus. Poor, poor Patroclus, driven insane by his inability to keep being part of their dream. If only they had let him know more often how they loved him…

"But I won't make that mistake." Leon vowed, his blue eyes glinting with ambition. He raised his fist and made it crackle with thunder. "I won't let my triumph over fate rely on anyone else but me and my power! Not like you have! I learned from my father's shortcomings, and that of his friends like you, and I will make your weaknesses my strengths. When I become the champion of my era, like my grandfather did?" The thunder calmed, disappearing from Leon's fingers. "…There will be no Patroclus, no Azrael and especially no Priam to ruin it all. The name Leon Iraklidis will not be a bunch of letters on a funerary rock like yours. It will be instead on the memory of all as that of the greatest warrior of his constellation! The next champion of Sanctuary to come after my grandfather will be a peerless, dark Sagittarius, who defied death itself, with no mercy for his enemies, no quarter for Specters and no reliance on other feeble Gold Saints!"

The broken Sagittarius slumped, feeling powerless to change this kid's mind. He could feel it; the determination for grandness Priam used to see in Kai before Partita's death, combined with the Iraklidis family's drive, only all driven to a further extreme by Athena's blood and the terrible situation it put Leon in. He was, indeed, Kai's son. And Priam wouldn't be surprised if Leon's declaration was prophetic.

After all, even with the memories of Akassius' attacks afflicting him in his nightmares, the rebel could hardly picture the pain that came with consuming an Olympian's blood. All the stories of it being described as the ultimate sacrilege aside, it was also the ultimate punishment; Cosmos was something your body had to be prepared beforehand to handle at even meager levels, so the sheer power of a God entering you, unprepared, was something no human body could possibly withstand the sheer power in even a tiny millimeter of it. Much less the contents of a whole box of dust of the stuff.

That Leon was still standing there, much less healthy enough to take Priam down, was, if anything, a true Saint miracle in and of itself. No wonder Priam was finally brought down by him. By the Gods, how far would this boy get?

"But, for now…I will do as my Master asks." Leon declared, relaxing from his spectacle of lightning. "I made a vow of loyalty to him, one I do not intend to back down on, unlike certain Sagittarius. Even if he makes mistakes as horrible as the ones he made with you."

Priam lowered his head and turned his eyes, feeling cold on the inside that this man in front of him was his most likely follower in the Zodiac. It was like the Sisters of Fate had crafted a person specifically to void everything Priam had fought for. How cruel could they be? "W-What a dark Sagittarius you will become, indeed, then, Leon…One devoid of comradeship, of trust, of bravery and principles…of anything anyone would associate to our Zodiac. If I still had faith in Athena…I'd pray for you."

The silver haired hunter hummed in dejection. "You can keep your prayers to yourself. You'll need them. I do not dream of dying for my Goddess, anyway." Leon pulled a piece of paper out of his bow case. He unfurled it, allowing its letters brimming with purple cosmos to shine. "Speaking of death, mind telling me more about this? It's a very interesting piece of paper your friends had with them. Very familiar names on it, too…"

Priam froze. He forgot Leon got his hands on the page from the Book of the Dead listing all the False Specters and their fates. An object powerful enough to control the very lives of all the men and women that joined Lucifer's crusade, who managed to fight their way to the innards of the Pope's Temple. With it, someone like Leon could at do anything ranging from committing mass murder of these surrendered survivors, like he did to Priam's gang, or create his own army.

The Sagittarius went mute, staring at it. A dark, welling feeling of defeat forming in his stomach bound his lips shut, even.

Leon hummed, furled the parchment and kept it inside the bow case again. "Very well, Priam. Clam up if you must. It's already obvious based on the names and cosmos brimming from it that it is something of value to the Underworld. Master will figure it out the rest."

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Present

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Entering the Papal Balcony, Leon was greeted by the sight of the large Coliseum arena and his Master sitting on a throne under the shade of the stand above their heads. It was almost like an exclusive room among the seats of the Sanctuary Town Coliseum with a space in front of it for the Pope to step in sight of everyone and deliver a speech, but for the moment, Master seemed to rest in the pillowed chair while Herakles Aguilon fought in the arena below against some poor challenger almost as big as himself.

"WHEE-AW!" Aguilon shouted from the skies, elbow-dropping the screaming adversary so hard it caved him into the ground. The entire arena cheered in delight as Aguilon picked up- "YEAH! HOW DO YA LIKE DEM GOLDEN APPLES, baby?!"

"LIKE DEM RAW!" the audience shouted back. Even the Asgardian guests seemed excited and joining in, despite the fact their challenger lost, such was the popularity of the Silver Saint on stage.

Picking up and tossing his adversary out of the ring, Aguilon delivered his finisher, smashing the foolish Asgardian giant's body into the disqualifying ground with a huge Kornephoros piledriver that sunk the sandy floor. Stepping on the loser, he gave the audience a huge thumbs up. "That's RIGHT! YA-AH! WHO'S NEXT FOR MIGHTY HERCULES TO SEND TO THEIR ETERNAL SLUMBER?!"

The lights in the stadium flickered and turned to the west gate. "IT IS I, AGUILON, IN THE NAME OF GLORIOUS ROME!" and coming rushing in was another huge man, this one dressed in red and sporting a bull-horned helmet. "BULL CHARGE LARIAT!"

"OH MY GODDESS, THIS IS INSANE!" the Coliseum announcer shouted as the newly arrived tackled Aguilon right back in the ring. "IT'S THE CRIMSON TRIBUNE, THE CHAMPION OF THE LOST LEGION, AND HE JUST TACKLED SAINT AGUILON WITH HIS SIGNATURE MOVE!"

"That's right, Marcus, it seems he is the 8th consecutive challenger against Champion Aguilon for the 33rd SaintMania belt's Hell Odyssey match and he is just going at it, dear gods. Everyone has been saying he's been training extra hard since last year, when Aguilon tossed him over the Coliseum walls like a baseball, and it shows!" The co-panelist spoke, watching the challenger hold Aguilon on the arena floor and repeatedly pummel him in the face. Everyone winced, however, when Aguilon's gigantic fist struck the masked man's head right off of him like a sledgehammer. "HOLY CRAP, BUT THAT DOESN'T MATTER! AGUILON JUST FLIPPED THE ODDS ALL OVER AGAIN WITH THAT OVERHEAD! AND NOW HE'S GOING FOR THE NEMEAN SLAMMER! Close your eyes, people, because it's about to hurt to wat- OH MY GOD!"

The Pope applauded, watching Aguilon declare another victory as he raised a bloody Crimson Tribune over head. "Oh, how wonderful! Another single-round win. I fear Menelaus will feel the need to step into the ring with your grandfather, Leon." He gestured to Leon to step closer. "I really envy Aguilon sometimes. Every year, he seems stronger and stronger, the opposite of me. It's like the Cosmos doesn't have any burn out on an Iraklidis' body. Sometimes I wonder if having the blood of giants is any different from having the blood of gods."

The young man tensed. "Master still doesn't mind what he says…"

Shion hummed. "Is something wrong, Leon? You're even quieter than usual."

His eyes rose to his Master, while his hand closed around the earring box to hide it in his pocket. "Nothing important, Master. Not for now."

"Did you bring the 'item'?" Shion requested, tapping fingers on his arm rest.

Leon nodded, presenting his bow case on a nearby table. He opened it, removed his black bow, then took out the styrofoam underneath, revealing it to be a false bottom. Inside, glowing with a purple shine, was the mysterious page of names he took from Priam's men.

Shion nodded. "Good, keep it safe. It will be the key to peace in our time." He breathed out. Saori was speaking the truth. Her song and prayers were still with them to this day. This would allow him to prevent Hades' foolish aggression and set the order of things right. "That you've uncovered it all, at this timing, too, proves that the Goddess is truly watching over us, even after all these years. I'm proud of you, my boy. You've done excellently."

The compliment, unfortunately, triggered nothing in Leon's heart. "And if it's not, Master? The key to peace in our time?"

"Then the Teos Cloth will be." Shion declared, tense. He took out his pocket watch to check the time and his eyes watched the skies. "The test determining my new Virgo Gold Saint should also be taking place right now. No matter what, we will set things right, Leon… This early Holy War, this chaos, your family's tragedies, all of it. I swear it to Athena."

"Of course, Master. If you believe so." Leon thought to himself, putting it all back in place except for his black bow. He would not voice his true thoughts on this to Arles on the matter. Instead, his eyes searched the audience. Even with his keen eyes, he didn't spot them, "Mm… Grandfather is already fighting, but I don't see Olivia anywhere. Or Miss Cerah. I almost wonder what my sister would say, if she knew I just got dumped by one of her juniors. Soon enough, though, they'll see me…All of Sanctuary will."

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Sanctuary Town

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Arriving back in Sanctuary Town from Rodario at the speed of sound, Crateris Suisho and Pegasus Lance slowed down and then made their way normally through the immense crowds in Sanctuary that day.

"Well, we can also safely say we've learned more about Genbu Atlae now, Pegasus." Suisho concluded. "What do you plan to do now? Talk to the Mariners? That could be difficult, especially right now."

"Uh-uh." Lance mused.

Suisho gritted his teeth. He tried to speak in a friendly way. "What's wrong? You've been quiet since we've returned from Rodario. Does it have something to do with how politely you handled all that with Kass?"

The Bronze Saint stopped, looking tense. He eyed Suisho. "Yes. Sui,… let me ask you something. Do you feel at home here, in Sanctuary?"

Suisho widened his eyes. What the hell was it now with this punk Saint? "What do you mean?"

Lance looked around at all the people moving through town, excited at the tournaments, games and the Triumph. He placed hands in pockets and thought about everything that had transpired since the year began. "Do you feel like you belong here?"

"Of course I don't. I'm a Specter, fool." Aiacos wanted to say, groaning in disgust. But Suisho smiled like the sun. "Come on, of course I do. I'm a Saint of Athena. This is my home."

Lance hummed. "You did say the Muvian village you came from is gone, right? Is that why? Would you find some other place if you could?"

"Of course not!" Suisho lied, laughing. "Here I have all my friends, my co-workers…"

"And Yushira?"

Suisho trembled slightly. "Yes." He put all his energy into pretending he didn't want to puke. "What's this about, Pegasus? Are you upset at the things Kastiel said? I thought you handled it all very well. I was impressed."

Lance sighed. "…Don't be. I'm just tired." He wished he could say that he finally felt above that grudge he had, but he feared it wasn't the case. "Listen, Sui'…I think I'm going to leave."

The Specter widened his eyes. "What do you mean?"

"This place. Sanctuary." Lance confirmed, looking serious. "I'm going away after this Triumph. And I may never come back."

…

The Crateris Saint gawked. Did he hear that right?

He held Pegasus by his collar. "Pegasus, what are you saying, you're going to leave?" Suisho asked. A possibility occurred to him, one he had to act outraged about. "You're not talking about quitting Sainthood, right?! We're about to fight a Holy War!"

In honesty, Lance felt relieved Sui was so outraged that he'd think Lance would do it. It showed Adriana's suspicions were unfounded. "N-NO, no, of course not, Sui'. I promised my first mentor, Saint Noah, that I'd become the best Saint I possibly could. And I fought too damn hard to get the Pegasus Cloth."

"Then what the fuck are you talking about?!" Suisho demanded to know, throwing a rare curse and swiping his arm. "If it's a joke, it's not funny. No one leaves Sanctuary but in a coffin, you know that!"

Lance gulped. It was a saying in Sanctuary, yes, but Sui didn't have to bring such a dark thing up just to make this point "I was just thinking… that maybe it's time I think about living my life a bit differently. But first I have to do something extremely important." This was it. "Sui… I'm forming a team to go raid the Underworld."

….

Lance patiently waited for Sui to recover and answer. "Go ahead, laugh. Call me insane. Do whatever you have to."

Judge Garuda Aiacos, the Celestial Star of Valiance, reeled. He wanted to laugh, indeed. Madly so. He wanted to cackle like an insane person at the idea just tossed at him. Every inch of him swelled with dark cosmos, desiring to show this pathetic, whiny Bronze Saint the absolute terror he was proposing to take on.

It cracked through his visage, forming a smirk that Suisho tried to disguise with his words as incredulity. "You're… you're joking! Ah, ah, ah… you're joking!"

Lance sweated. He felt regret seeping in. "What am I doing? This is wrong. I am just getting him in trouble." He laughed back. "Y-Yeah, I am. I guess I can toss a bad joke like Yushira, right? Ah, ah-"

Suisho's hands firmly gripped his shoulders.

Lance irked, feeling the fingers squeeze tightly on him. "H-Hey, Sui…come on, I wasn't serious!"

Garuda Aiacos shook, feeling the urge of tossing this miserable Bronze Saint to the stars with Garuda Flap, right then and there. How dare he? How dare even joke about it?! To utter something so insanely hilarious as a little pack of Bronze and Silver Saints taking on the kingdom of Hades! Was he trying to drive Aiacos mad with laughter?!

FORGET THE GARUDA FLAP! THIS SAINT SHOULD BE RIPPED IN HALF RIGHT THEN AND THERE! IN FRONT OF EVERYONE.

Slowly, his fingers on his shoulders relaxed and Suisho breathed out. "Don't say such a stupid thing, okay? Or I'm putting your ass in jail."

The Bronze Saint looked at him, stunned. What the fuck was that sensation just now?! Lance felt like he had the claws of a bird gripping him, instead of a man's. It reminded him of battling Daemon Lucifer, whose presence was constantly alike wrestling with a winged demon of scales and fangs, rather than flesh and teeth.

Sui patted him, turned over and led him out. "Come on! Let's get to the Coliseum. Olivia will be mad at me if I keep you too long."

Lance stared at the distancing Silver Saint, bewildered. "N-No, that was just my imagination. I'm sure of it."

Lance… Saga believes Hades may have planted a spy among us.

He followed Sui, gulping. "I'm… I'm sure of it!"

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Chapter End

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Next Chapter: Chapter 101 – Third Arc – Episode 26 – The Triumph – Part 4 of 5

Release Date: January 25th

Description: After meeting with Saint Gemini at the Coliseum to be told of Operation Marathon, the mission to transport the Teos Cloth to Fort Peloponesia, Lance reunites with Cerah and Olivia to plan their next move with the Pegasus Saint's own special plan to raid the Underworld.

Meanwhile, amidst Shinta's dreams of his past prior to Sanctuary, the victor of the Virgo Cloth Test is finally decided.