Notable OCs: Pegasus Lance's Bronze Saint Generation, Heracles Aguilon's Silver Saint Generation, Gemini Akassius' Gold Saint Generation, Daemon Lucifer, Maiden Elisa, Priam's Black Saints

Notable Original Concepts: Training Ground, Sanctuary Court, Teos Cloth, Athenian Empire mythology, Isle of Gardens; Stardust Prison

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

Author Notes:

-Timeline of LR in my profile has been updated in case the reader needs to catch up on any of the plot threads.

-The Greek of Priam's techniques has now been proofread by Yunilicious (Thank you, Yuni) and converted into a more proper 'Greeklish' form with a better balance between cosmetic appearance and actually correct Greek translation. Therefore, while the techniques are now more correctly named, do not assume them to be completely correct Greek as it would require a radical change in alphabet spelling.

-To anyone interested in reading Jenny DeVic's LYKM, I'd just like to give a heads-up that this chapter reveals details about one of the four tests that Shun goes through in her story. Nothing critical, but still.

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Please enjoy and review (^_^

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Ten Years Earlier (1966)

Atlantic Ocean Romanche Gap - 'The Spire'

Final Battle of the Third Civil War

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In the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, far away from Sanctuary, somewhere in the Romanche Gap which separated West Africa from South America, waves and waves of salt water raged throughout the area during one of the most ferocious storms yet seen in the region. Dark clouds covered the night sky and rained while lightning struck with incessant fury. It blasted the air with deafening roars one after the other and amidst this two multicolored showers of light fought back and forth, crackling, cracking and soaring almost at the same rhythm as of the storm.

It looked apocalyptic; almost like Poseidon itself was trying to bring the whole world down.

An unlucky small motorboat carrying twelve to thirteen people went up and down the waves, its crew desperately trying to make its way out of there. On it, a younger teenage Daese already marked by her cross scar and the surviving rebels of Sanctuary allied to Sagittarius Priam, or at least the ones that didn't jump off their convoys to join the battle, desperately worked to push the engine through the sea and, amidst shouts in the storm, looked whenever they could at the source of the mayhem.

Said source was a far off clash of two lights blitzing back and forth, one made of lightning that snapped all over the place and the other made of fire that flew around like a meteor over the battlefield, and far below them an even greater multitude of much smaller lights spawned an equally intense confrontation of forces of nature.

Amidst all these forces was a vortex of water and wind that lifted up from the force of their attacks, blasting and splashing through such enormous shockwaves that these almost revealed the seafloor. It all stood on a structure of black, wet rock slowly piled up from deep below, birthing spikes of stone all over its surface, an environmental carving of violence caused by the crashes of the two powers that would soon form the historical, seaborne monument that would be known as 'The Spire'.

Carved out of gigantic meteor rock that the Gemini Saint had tried to drop on them, it rose from the sea ground like a finger from hell covered in thorns. Comet boulders, sand and coral shattered, blasted and fused together into a single stone that grew ever sharper and vicious-looking the more the two forces flying all around it clashed. The light of the thunderclouds made it look absolutely terrifying, spreading around contrasts of blue light and that casted hellish shadows of the thorns all across the battlefield and beyond like a tortured creature. It was indeed a fitting tribute to the battle.

And on its lower levels, where the walls of water could take you in an instant, groups of men charged in lines, carrying wet, ragged flags with a white archer painted on it. They lowered their lances in coordination and, with feet slipping on the wet rock and a sword swing of their commander, ran up the black slopes of the Spire against the walls of stardust and steel marching towards them, forming final desperate, screaming offence on more fronts they could possibly cover against an unbeatable enemy, the Army of Athena.

But it was on one of the many thorns spiking out of the Spire's larger heights that the two main forces, after a particularly loud and ferocious clash, landed on them like the remaining embers of a firework display.

Only one of them, though, landed on his feet.

Gemini Akassius Steiner stood up straight from his landing, triumphantly towering in the high ground of the thorn like a stoic statue, while Priam couldn't help but yet again exhaustedly drop to his knees and hands after another failed clash, taking a moment to wipe the sweat and bits of blood from his face and goggles while his lungs cried out desperately for air. Smoke still emanated from many of the burns being inflicted on him. He knew fighting Akassius would be a nightmare, but nothing ever prepared him for this kind of terror. As he tried to look up at his adversary, the lightning in the background shadowed Akassius' visage, painting a portrait of a black executioner to the broken Sagittarius.

"Everyone knew this would be easy, but personally this isn't what I hoped for a final battle to this war. Don't you think this little joke of a fight has gone far enough?" Akassius asked, appearing as if he was about to fall asleep from the lack challenge given to him.

Priam growled and launched himself at light speed. His fist turned into a plasma bolt that swung at Akassius face "A-ATOMIC THUNDERBOLT!" but the Gemini Saint stopped it in his hand just before the energy could burst into darts, causing it to explode instead into a shockwave of light and sparks that further brutalized the ocean and the Spire. Priam wailed in despair, feeling his knuckles sink against an immovable object.

Refusing to surrender, he spun his whole body to try to kick Akassius, who blitzed around to dodge the blow. Priam irked, coiled back and charged again with raised fists. The combo began terribly, with Gemini effortlessly avoiding the successive punches with slight head bobs and torso slides. Akassius' fist rushed forward diagonally, wrapping the arm around Priam's to arrest it, before a sudden pull brought the Sagittarius' leaner body against a rising knee blow that blasted the air out of the rebel's lungs.

As soon as he landed on his hands, though, Priam rolled over to dodge a follow-up blow, lifted his forearms to block another punch, flailed the air with rising kick, a jab and a spinning elbow blow that were all parried but pushed his foe back and, finally, backhanded Akassius' cheek, landing a miserable blow that earned him little more than a split second of stunning before the Gemini's hand edge chopped his thyroid, chocking the rebel, and hammered a kick on his side that sent him spiraling and flailing through the air.

The coughing and screaming Sagittarius landed on his feet and hands like a feline and charged straight back with his bow readied. Adrenaline and despair fueled his movements; he first attacked with a rising knee strike, forcing Akassius to cross block him, before firing a simple blast out of his free hand to further force the Gemini on the defensive.

He jabbed the guard, kicked it, then dodged a counter by falling to his knee, rolling back to gain some distance and aiming his bow! "CHRYSÓ FOS VELOS! (greek: Gold Light Arrow)" The hand instantly drew the speedy slim energy arrow on the bow and released it straight at the enemy's face, catching him off guard and blasting Akassius straight in the face, pushing him back seriously for the first time in the fight.

Priam unleashed his warp technique, teleporting as a lightning bolt that struck repeatedly until his back hit the wall to gain the distance he needed. "Again! CHRYSÓ FOS VELOS! CHRYSÓ FOS VELOS!" The man fired missile after missile, hitting Gemini straight on with thundering clashes and clouding the enemy Gold Saint as he found himself stepping back further and further.

Priam gritted his teeth, now was his chance!

He leapt back, firing three more crystal shard arrows to occupy his enemy, pulled out in his hand a spinning, new arrow with greater length, width and brighter shine, aimed at the air and fired "VROHI TOU KHEIRONA! (gk. Chiron's Rain)"

The arrow flung at the air towards the clouds, this time not seemingly aimed at Priam's foe. The smoke around Akassius dissipated and the Gemini Saint saw the golden missile arching in the air, too late to stop it. His blue eyes widened in alarm. It then fell back down but, instead of going towards him, the arrow exploded with a giant spark, separating into thousands, maybe millions or hundreds of millions of little darts, all packing the power of a Gold Saint punch, accelerating and raining down on the entire Spire.

The Gemini Saint irked, his 7th sense reminding him of all the cosmos fighting in the lower levels. He raised his hand and shouted. "DOUBLE DIMENSION!" A sudden pulsating wave was released, seemingly unto nothingness.

Priam watched, confident, the rain of light drop like a curtain on the both of them, aimed at the Sanctuary soldiers fighting his men in the lower thorns and meant to turn the tide of the battle as a whole, instead of just his little duel, and the whizzing of the light shower descended like a bombing on everything and everyone. This was it; his one shot to win the battle!

But, to his shock, as if caught in a net, the whole bombardment stopped to a halt by order of arrival right above Akassius' hand!

The Sagittarius' Saint's face paled. The countless little arrows of lighting sizzled in the air, somehow active but static at the same time, like a golden borealis of deadly lights. "W-what? It can't be; I've overwhelmed even Malta's overdeveloped 7th sense with this technique! H-how… how did Akassius halt every single one of my missiles?!"

But on closer inspection, Priam realized, to further horror, that none of his attacks had been truly paralyzed; the missiles still raged downwards, their lighting bodies still blitzing towards their supposed target, but yet for some reason still halted in their positions as if trying to cross a distance no one else perceived. Even the rain drops of the storm he created were being trapped in this strange ceiling, accumulating water around the light darts that projected a spectacle of rainbow lights, as if space itself had been erased around them.

Without letting his hand down, Akassius turned his attention back to Priam. "You've been using this move to get the drop on my armies all this time, haven't you? To provide cover fire while your men retreat? Not this time, you fool." He then threw his raised hand to the side, causing the rain of darts to snap into nothingness like harmless firecrackers.

The moment of stunned terror lasted long enough for the noise of clashing metal, blasting fists and earth-shattering stops of far slower supersonic fighting downwards to reach Priam's ears, adding to the loud storm as an opera to his situation. What was he going to do now?

The foe snapped out of sight and swung his leg, hitting Priam straight in the stomach and making him crash against the Spire's stone trunk, cratering the strange new object of nature that their fruitless yet cataclysmic fight was birthing. The Sagittarius dropped again to the ground from the wrecked rubble, rolling his broken body on the floor.

He tried to get up but the Gemini Saint was already in chase. "FORCE MANIPULATION!" His arm and fist then bubbled into a magma-red mass of fire. Priam felt the familiar twist in the physical forces around him from this earlier move and gasped. "HELLFIRE CRASH!"

"LIGHTNING ARROW!" The Sagittarius blitzed upwards in a lightning bolt, letting Akassius's second attack just blast away the air with its torrent of volcanic fire blast that vulcanized the crater. In the same instant the bolt crashed right back behind the Gemini Saint to let out a leaping Priam on the offensive, his curled fingers engulfed in a gigantic arrow of lightning "VÉLOS TOU KHEIRONA (Chiron's Arrow)!"

But despite taking advantage of the 'Force Manipulation' secret weakpoint, the lightning strike attack was dodged by Akassius with a one-eighty body twist that allow him to knee Priam straight in the stomach just as his body pressed weight on the Gemini, making the Gold Saint cough out air and blood before, after a masterful reversal of dimensional forces, odds were once again multiplied back in Akassius' direction and hammered Priam's head against the floor, making him crash through rock and rubble into a lower thorn.

Gemini leaped over to him. His black hair waving in the storm was the only part of him that didn't look tempered as steel. "You didn't really think standing up to me would make a difference, did you? Even the cornered mouse that jumps the cat is just a rat in the end, nothing to write home about. Why don't you just surrender that cloth and die? And please, spare me your usual lines."

"I-I didn't come this f-far j-just-"

Akassius stomped on his cracked chestplate and wounds with the force of a meteor. Priam screamed so loudly it was heard across the storm, all the way to the fleeing ship.

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Young Daese's face paled more and more as successively louder and desperate screams were heard, her eyes on the brink of tears. Even more so she could see the other two Gold Saints and their men defeating Priam's army with barely a sweat from afar, to the point she could make out the bodies blasted into the air by the attacks.

She stepped over the edge of the boat, screaming his name, but the hands of the other rebels grabbed her back into the ship. "STOP! Are you insane?!"

"LET ME GO! I have to save them!"

"And what exactly are you gonna do, shout at them too?! If you go back there you'll kill all of us!" the rebel argued. "Priam and the others are fighting Akassius and his army so that we can flee! Don't shoot their sacrifice off the window, you stupid selfish kid!"

"Selfish?! How can you all just stand there and hear him scream like that?! See your friends die?!" she cried, face red like a pepper. "Weren't you all s-soldiers of Athena?! Why aren't you fighting to save your Saints?!"

"We ARE! We're surviving so we can fight another day or another fucking decade if we have to! This isn't something a brat like you can understand, but the war is over and so is this final battle. Priam knew this from the moment those bastards showed up on our tail." he argued.

"And are you all just going to let them die?!" she screamed. "Like you did with Aeneas back in Bluegrad-"

The rebel slapped her face shut. "... Don't you dare… name him like that like you're not the reason we're in this mess to begin with! We had no obligation to help you fucking Ceruleans refugees and look where it got us!" He composed himself, however, as he saw Daese calming down as she touched her slapped cheek. It reminded him she was just a traumatized kid with an even younger sister to take care of. "... Sorry, it's those blasted Golds…. Damn it! What's taking so long for this boat to get out of their scope range?!"

"We need another twenty, maybe thirty minutes, at least, then we can use super speed to reach the rainforests and hide without them tailing us." another said. "The guys fighting Malta's troopers and the storm Priam kicked up is helping, but-"

"Twenty minutes?! Are you serious?! They don't look like they'll last twenty seconds! You think Akassius is gonna take all that to wipe them out?!"

"We don't have a choice! It's as fast as this freaking boat can take us out whatever Aquarius Malta is using to track us!"

"Damn it!" the first rebel cursed. "If the Argo didn't get stuck in those accursed icecaps we'd be home free by now!... all we can do is pray that Priam holds out, but from the look of things it's a miracle he's lasted this long to begin with."

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The blasts rained down on the disorganized traitors, pushing their lines down the slopes of the Spire. The spears of Sanctuary pushed forward, stabbing shield, cuirass and flesh. Far behind them, Scorpio Paris laughed out loud in the storm, making his Scarlet Needle shine blood-red in the storm to skewer the enemy with darts fired from the back row of his men.

"GYAH, HA, HA, HA! Look at these guys falling back! Where are you going, ladies? And to think it took us three years to corner you all like this." He looked over his shoulder to the Aquarius Saint overlooking the battle. "All it took was for you to stop bitching and help out for once, Malta. See what we can do when we work together as fellow Saints? GYAH, HA, HA! I haven't had this much fun in years!"

In the rebel front lines, a captain of Priam's forces tried to raise the moral of his men "COME ON! Let's go! We need to buy time for Priam and the others!" he spotted a weakness in the Sanctuary soldier's formation. "Hold spears at waist height! Head for the red flag; ATTACK!"

Scorpio Paris saw a desperate unit charge that took their frontline by surprise and pointed his finger at the leader. "Oy, where the hell do you think you're going? Scarlet Needle:…" his nail whirred loudly and shined menacingly like a blood red star, illuminating his yellow-teeth smile "SARGAS!"

The laser-like, blood red beam fired off at brutal speed, shooting just over the shoulder of their own troops, skewering the heart of the desperado, piercing past the body and then shattering into red pellets like a hollow bullet that exploded once contacting with the ground before the rebels as if it had been an artillery shot. Aquarius Malta folded his arms, applying his powers to counter the storm produced by Priam, but still found enough attention to shake his head at the sadness of the situation.

Paris noticed his laughable attempts to look morally conflicted and chuckled mockingly. "Gyeh, he, he, what are you so somber about?! War is about to be over! Get your ass off your high horse and help me end this battle so we can go finish Priam off as soon as possible."

The red-haired Saint thrust his hand at the enemy crowd "BOREAL THUNDER CRASH!" and a blast of freezing air that shook the skies struck the battlefield, erupting into an iceberg, sending screaming half-frozen enemy soldiers flying off. "With Kirin fighting Aeneas at Bluegrad, there's no Gold Cloth on their side anymore other than Sagittarius. This isn't a battle, it's a slaughter; no reason to put my heart into any of this." he thought to himself. He then looked up at the source of the screams, far above them in the Spire. "And Goddess knows that the fight up there is as good as over."

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Chapter 25

Episode 15

The Goodbye – Part 4 of 4

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After three or four stomps that nearly crushed his lungs between his ribs, Priam, with a battle cry, managed to gather enough fighting spirit to twirl over to dodge the last one and blast Akassius' face with his hand from the ground to smokescreen the monster and buy him just enough time to get on his knee, take out his bow and aim an arrow.

The Gemini blitzed forward from the smoke cloud and knocked off the bow with a leaping side kick, hitting Priam's chin with a follow-up one so hard the Gold Saint nearly span around completely. A punch hit his rib, weakening him, while an elbow struck his temple, stunning him. A hand grabbed his collar and pulled him back to be uppercut into the air, leaped over and smashed back into the ground with a devastating leg drop that made him bounce back from the rock.

"Turning the weapons of Athena against her Saints? Haven't you pulled enough dirty tricks already?" Akassius asked, watching the enemy crawl away on the ground. "Don't think you'll slip away so easily with sacrilege. Get up, Priam, and fight. You have no more comrades to hide behind while you run. This is where you're going to die, so at least raise your fists like a man. That way, if not as a Saint, at least you'll be remembered as a warrior."

An enormous tidal wave raised and crashed against the spire thorn they stood on, washing over the Gold Saints. The lightning bolt that struck made the water dripping from their armors shine like golden pellets. It was only the sensorial stimulation of the environmental catastrophe all around them that helped Priam stay awake through the damage and pain.

He dashed forward to attack the Gemini. Akassius' fist countered, but only punched through a fluttering afterimage and suddenly Priam was out of sight. The Gold Saint stepped back defensively, eyes moving all over the place to try to lock on the Sagittarius again. He caught a fleeting movement of golden wings to his right and then to his left. Something stepped behind him and then in front of him. Before long his other senses began detecting movements all over the place, but not a sight of his adversary.

Akassius exhaled and closed his eyes. "This damn amateur, back to basics it is."

His forearm rose to block a sudden kick, but his hand once again his failed to catch Priam, who then went for a side kick from the rear with his blitz. In a feat of gymnastics, the Gemini Saint twisted his entire body to the side to dodge the side kick, caught the leg and threw Priam over his shoulder in single swift motion accompanied by a battle roar. Priam's hand stopped the fall and freed himself by blasting Akassius off him, but as he stepped away from the Gemini who chased him like a hound and forced him on the defensive with a fire-coated punch.

Priam's whole body shook as he blocked it with a cross guard while his feet dragging back on the ground. When he dodged a follow-up with a head bob he placed himself within Akassius' reach. Akassius still tried to step back but was too late.

The golden aura flared, waving around his body until it seemed like a pair of wings joined that of his armor. "This is it!" He gathered his golden cosmos into his trembling fist until the semblance of an arrow of light formed around it, spun towards Akassius and tried to strike him with it. "LIGHTNING ARROWHEAD!"

"OVERLAP!" Akassius didn't even move, but there was a strange visual effect in which two sudden images of his body overlapped him, not seemingly changing anything, before Priam's arrow-headed thunder fist struck him as hard as he possibly could in the face, searing sparks everywhere in a loud impact blast that blew away the falling rainwater.

Bones cracked and blood gushed beneath his gauntlet.

Priam screamed, grabbing his injured fist and feeling his body trembling in panic. No, no, NO! This could not be! He might have been the weakest of their generation trying to take on the strongest, but how could Priam's strongest melee, a punch fully-laced in lightning cosmos, completely fail to damage Akassius at all at point-blank range?

"Enough playing around." The whizzing sound of an energy attack charging was heard, and Priam barely had enough time to turn to before flames wrapped around the Gemini's arm in the semblance of a gun barrel and Akassius' hand smashed the red orb against his chest, "HELLFIRE CANNON!" It fired with the force and backlash of a howitzer and sent Priam flailing across the air, burning his face and arms.

The Sagittarius screamed in horrible pain on the ground, feeling the heat searing his unprotected skin and heat up his armor.

"Give me that cloth, Priam, or I'll pry it off from your rotten burnt corpse!"

The leader of the so-called Black Saints tried to struggle through the pain, grabbing the burnt side of his face, but felt light-headed at feeling several bits of it peel off in his hand. Another fire blast struck him, sending him screaming down the rock thorns, flattening him on successive obstacles before finally crashing on a lower, wider thorn. Priam almost didn't feel the rain anymore on his skin due to the numbing pain his whole body was going through.

Akassius followed him down with a bored leap, two more orbs of fire already whizzing in his hands. Seeing his foe was unyielding, Akassius looked down at the lower battlefield. "Malta will soon crush the last remaining specks of your army under the weight of his forces. Their lines are already falling apart. The sight of you on your knees, their leader broken, must not be helping their spirits either. If you surrender, then at least I may give Malta the order to capture instead of total annihilation."

"N-no!...N-never, not even against y-you!" he asserted, struggling to get back up. His 7th sense still felt the others in the ship within the danger zone. He had to stall even further somehow. "H-how c-can I look them all in the face… after all the sacrifices they made for me to reach this point...if I just went and gave up against you?"

"You won't. The dead don't come back." Akassius answered, accentuated by another lightning bolt crackling in the background.

Priam's vision trembled and he coughed out blood. "H-how implacable… It's r-really f-fitting you w-would say something like that, s-somehow…"

"Hmm, do you think you're in a position to act so heartbroken about it?"

The disgraced Sagittarius sneered. "W-what did you s-say?!"

There was a click of Akassius' tongue. "...You really didn't think any of this through, did you, Priam?" confronted Akassius. "I don't mean just this desperate, last-ditch 'battle' against me, but this whole pathetic war to begin with. You cry over the sacrifices the other Black Saints made for you, but you forget all the people you stabbed in the back in Sanctuary, all the ones you left behind in the fires you started… like your student, Guardnia." He saw Priam's eyes widening with terror. "Tell me, where do you think he's been these three years?"

"... W-hat did you do to him?! If you t-touched a h-hair on his h-head-"

Akassius seemed almost offended at this conjecturing, scoffing and looking at him like he was stupid. "Me? Do you still take me for the villain in all this, by any chance? I didn't do anything to him. You, on the other hand, should see the way he talks about you… about how much you ruined his life."

The Sagittarius's hands trembled in guilt. "Guardnia… he…"

"It's a convenient coincidence you've never met him in the frontline, isn't it? Yes, Daniel was able to save him the horrors of the war, but young Guardnia has had to face so much worse, like the look on everyone's face when they recognize him as your student… or their rocks."

"N-no!…"

"He has gained so many scars on his body that have nothing to do with his training." Akassius shook his head. "Oh, Priam… it really shows how little you understand the world right now. You thought that if you made a big scene and left him behind that Guardnia would not be blamed by the mob? That he would not be a scapegoat? Goddess, the beatings he took, the interrogations he endured, all the stares from just taking a simple walk in the streets…." Gemini clicked his tongue yet again, eyes closed, a figure of steeled, judging calmness in the middle of a storm. "You might as well have lashed him yourself these last three years."

Priam's eyes welled up, stinging his burned skin. He had always imagined the price his former student would have to pay, but the moment he punched the Pope was one he could not back out from, or otherwise he wouldn't have Aeneas and the others back him up on it. He even had lied to himself, believing that if he took all the blame on his own shoulders then Guardnia would be alright, but of course it couldn't be like that. Of course Guardnia would get blamed…

"Did you really think that the soldiers you sent to die for you and that the Gold Saints you used as shields were your only victims?" pressed Akassius, sensing Priam was crumbling on the inside. "The boy was so desperate that he took the path of Cepheus to prove himself to us. It's so appropriate he'll be finishing his Silver Cloth training the same year I end this war," he said as a circle of fire at his feet lit up, one that then twirled around furiously until it erupted into a bonfire that made his black hair wave and his Gold Cloth glisten. His fists tightened, arms raised at waist length in preparation. "You toss your blame for the war aside in the name of a faux casus belli, calling the Holy Father a maniac and so on and forth, but tell me, Priam, do you at least feel responsible for him?"

Priam's eyes shined, reflecting the flames, and his teeth gritted in anger. "R-Responsible… RESPONSIBLE?! After all that happened… I thought at least you would figure out that I'm not the threat here! What were we to you and the others, Ak-kassius? D-did me, Aeneas and the others really mean that l-little to you that you wouldn't even consider that at least a small something about the P-Pope's story was off?!"

Akassius' eyes narrowed sternly. "You rebelled. You attacked the Holy Father in front of the whole Sanctuary! You declared war on your own people and waged it for YEARS! As far as I'm concerned, after what you did, you are all lower than Specter garbage and you deserve to be dragged into the public plaza to be flailed in front of the Goddess and Her people! Don't try to pretend we are-"

"ALL WE DID was d-decide to be brave enough to call out h-how insane Arles was acting! You s-saw with your own eyes what he did; how he threatened my family! Would you stand idly by if your wife Cecilia or your sons Galan and Marco were standing in that a-arena?! Would you just watch if Arles had their heads cut off and shown at the CROWD?!"

The sky split between them in golden light, thundering sound across the battered battlefield. Akassius stood silent, simply narrowing his eyes.

Priam continued, seeing his opponent said nothing. "I know what I did wasn't r-right... I will pay for my sins in due time… but I am not responsible for this war, Arles is!" He tried to stand back up, but his legs trembled too much. "Sagittarius… you were always so much stronger than your Saint… Please, I need your strength, even if this is the last time I ever wear you." The Gold Cloth flickered and let out its power, engulfing Priam in just enough energy to help get back on his feet. Straightening his pose, narrowing his eyes and facing the biggest monster in Sanctuary, the rebel pulled his goggles off his tired eyes, fitting them right behind his headpiece's beak.

"If you insist on throwing your life away for your dead cause, don't let me stop you." There was a wave from Akassius hand amidst the flames and all of a sudden his large Gemini helmet was summoned, which he had not been wearing until then. Carefully putting it on, Akassius threw all other matters in his head to the wind. "I'll destroy you with my full power and hope that Cloth can survive my onslaught."

Priam looked up at the faces on the helmet's sides and saw their eyes suddenly fill with light, as if they were opening, and Akassius aura suddenly transformed in size and shape, enlarging the flames but at the same time calming them down into symmetrical, flowing waves of fire, as if some strange inner clash previously at play had now been balanced.

This did not go unnoticed by the battleworn Sagittarius. "W-what did you…?"

"Your Sagittarius Cloth is said to be the strongest of the twelve in sheer power." reminded Akassius. "Not only that, but its arrow allows you to exponentially increase your offensive abilities the more different cosmos are entrusted with you. It's a weapon that represents the power of unity and bonds amongst the Gold Saints, of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. That's been your saving grace as a fighter despite your weak body, hasn't it, Priam? It always drove me insane that such an important Cloth had to be taken by traitors to the Gold Saints like yourself."

"What's your d-damn point, Akassius?!"

He then smiled briefly. "But then again, Sagittarius isn't the only armor with abilities."

"Y-your Cloth…"

"Surprised? You are the first person since our Leo Gold Saint friend Kai' the 'Titan Slayer' who's seen my armor go all out. Unlike him, however, you won't just walk away with a few scars." He stepped forward. "Time for me to end this war, Priam, so say goodbye."

The Black Saint gritted his teeth and stood his ground. "Y-you really think it will end with my death?!"

"Yes."

A bead of sweat dragged down his temple. Akassius always sounded so dominatingly confident he could convince Priam the Earth was flat. Problem was; Priam still had work to do. He focused his thoughts on his opponent. He then remembered the prophecies revealed to him by the Pope.

A gigantic war destroying Sanctuary.

The return of Arles' war comrades.

And a human weapon cursed with the red-eyed hate of the Phoenix.

Priam would never forget what it felt like discovering from the Pope's own words that everything had been falling apart in their lives because of these three godforsaken phrases. It still reeled him after three years that the most powerful man on earth was guided by nonsense spoken to him by a dying witch and it still dreaded him that, years after this pointless war, when the new generation of Saints arrived, the whole world would still be punished by the three insanities of a single man. So many children would be trained through hell, so many families would be broken apart and so many loved ones would be bled dry.

My Goddess, Guardnia would have to kill so many children over this.

No, there was no way he would let this stand. "I'll… have to disappoint you!"

"...What?"

Priam roared, and the flow of his aura accelerated all of a sudden until it erupted around his body, raging at the storm and the skies and the ocean. His brown eyes were inundated with bright yellow light flashing in accordance and his fingers pressed so hard on his palm they almost bled.

"I don't care… if you're ten, a hundred, or a million times stronger than me! I don't care if I would sooner blow a hole through the Wailing Wall than defeat YOU!" he shouted through the loud soaring of his power. "I won't stand idly by and let Arles walk over the lives of innocent people just for the sake of this fake justice of his, even if I have to burn this w-worthless, weak carcass of mine to the ground with my cosmos!"

Akassius narrowed his frost blue eyes angrily, watching the burns he inflicted on Priam's skin increase in size like flooding lakes, covering his forehead, ears, neck, arms and legs, as he pushed his walking corpse of a body way past its limit. The tone of pain in his voice was muffled by his own battle cry and his power level was climbing up exponentially.

The Gemini Saint squinted. "Oh, when did Kai' find the time to teach you that?" he asked. His arms spread further apart and his eyes closed in concentration. "It doesn't matter though, it didn't work when he sparred with me so it's not gonna work with you, either."

Priam was about to respond when his attention was diverted by a sudden shake in the air. He struggled to maintain his focus and stepped back warily when the air went damp and the rainfall lost its strength. The storm seemed to quiet down a bit as a whole and, without warning, the rock thorn they stood on began to shake.

The Sagittarius Saint gasped as the whole earth seemed to start trembling! A cavernous rubble began to be heard, coming from deep under the sea, something that made the gigantic waves rise higher into the skies, splashing all over the Spire. Akassius hummed in concentration, brought out a small manifestation of his power and the air itself screamed like it was being invisibly ripped apart. The Spire was then suddenly rocked by the tectonic forces underneath it being shocked around and the Gemini Saint roared outloud, making his aura flutter, making the thunderbolts rage back in the form of dozens of bolts snapping from the clouds at them randomly, burning the boulder and boiling the water.

Priam covered himself instinctively with his arms, still charging Kaiser's power-up, and saw, to his horror, in the far off distances of the ocean the slow, gradual twirling of the waves going around and around until whirlpools were formed. His goggled eyes widened in awe at the immense spectacle of earth, water and thunder responding to the Gemini's call.

And then the air twisted, the image of the horizon wrinkling and shrieking on itself until snapping back in blasts of light like dimensional firework. Fissures in the ocean, appeared, cutting paths like the Red Sea as if gravity itself was being twirled, and the Spire seemed to slowly raise further from the ground, sprouting new arms of rock over arms of rock in an ever escalating tribute to chaos.

"M-my goddess! This isn't elemental cosmos! He's screwing with space itself just by powering up!" Priam realized, sensing no cosmos was making the fissures in the air and water happen but rather like something unknown was separating the very physics they existed in. "He'll kill the others on the ship without even noticing if I let this go on!"

Gemini stopped roaring, but still let his ever increasing energy make everything around them move like an angry, living creature. "You traitors never stood a chance," he whispered. "When I step on the arena of war, the very battlefield we fight in is against you. Are you ready, Priam? I will show you the true horrors of my Zodiac just before you die!"

Having nothing more to lose and betting his life on one last assault, the Sagittarius squinted and snarled like a cornered lion. The power-up Kaiser taught him was ready too.

His men below them saw him blazing like a star and, despite holding their wounded comrades up and being almost completely surrounded, the sight filled their hearts with hope and, raising spears and shields one last time, the rebels shouted his name against the forces of the Aquarius Saint. "PRIAM! PRIAM! PRIAM!"

Paris stepped back nervously. "What the… what's gotten into you losers?!"

Malta widened his eyes at the light source. "Get ready, Paris, the real fight is about to begin!"

Gemini Akassius gritted teeth "Don't think this will change anything!"

Priam nodded. "Maybe it won't! Maybe people in sanctuary will suffer for years to come. Maybe you'll keep sending children to those blasted training grounds way after I'm dead, but if I can save a single one-"

"There's nothing to be changed! You turned your back on a just society trying to protect this world!" Akassius roared, truly riled up for the first time. His hand was engulfed in bonfire. "And now you'll pay for it!"

But the cheers and drumming of the shields of Priam's men only got louder, and Priam himself was inspired by this drum. "BURN, OH COSMOS!" His whole body erupted a battle aura thick with golden energy which consumed his life force and he dashed at the Gemini, fists cuffed, as the world around the two Gold Saints seemed to fall apart. "LIONET ROAR!"

{======================|0|======================}

Seven Years Later (1973)

Andromeda Island, Cepheus Castle

{======================|0|======================}

Deep inside the darkness of the ruins of the King's Castle, thirteen years old Shinta Akiyama, still a student training for the Andromeda Cloth, opened his eyes from 'death' for the seventy-fourth time.

He gasped and breathed fast, but eventually calmed down as he felt the warm radiation of the dark blue cosmos on his belly. Looking down, he saw Master's hand over the sword gash he himself had created. Looking up, he saw the medusa mask looming over both of them with its creepy smile.

It was still night time. The blood ring of dueling still surrounded them and the room was still littered with the crude ugly weapons of yonder. They were still stuck in this horrible test.

"It's okay, you live. We're not in hell, yet." The Master then backed away. "Stand up, Shinta, this isn't over yet."

The boy's eyes welled up. "N-no."

The Master's eyes narrowed. "I told you that you don't have a choice. Raise your chains and fight, Shinta Akiyama, or I will kill you!"

Shinta shook his head violently and teared up. "NO! I won't hurt you, it's p-pointless! This whole test makes no sense!" he stood up but refused to raise his weapons. "Why do we have to fight each other? Why would this have to be to the d-death?! We've done nothing wrong and every time I lose you just heal me back up! Why there is always a fight a-at a-all?!"

Guardnia's head lowered. "Fights don't come just because you ask for them, Shinta. War doesn't start just because people are good and bad. You can't have both victory and everyone making it out alive. This is what you will have to live with as a Saint. Look," he pointed at the protective mask he wore before the fight started. "I even wore this so you wouldn't think of me as your teacher, so all you have to do is fulfill your destiny. It can only save one of us once daylight comes, though, so if you want to pass this test, if you want to live… you better get rid of your pacifism and of me."

The young boy wiped his tears, feeling his own face red and warm. "But I don't want to kill you just to become a Saint!"

"Then kill me so you can see your family one day!" Guardnia shouted, trying to bring out the blood thirst in the boy. Normally he would never talk to Shinta like this, but the Court of King Cepheus was occurring. This was the final test before the Sacrifice Ceremony so the kiddy gloves were off! His chain blade wiped off the blood with an energy burst. "Without the rank of a soldier of Athena, you will never be allowed to travel outside this island, let alone to Japan. The Blood Ring is formed, so the fight must be to the death even without this test!"

"I WILL NOT! It's a horrible tradition, an excuse to kill people you disagree with! It shouldn't be used to kill someone you love and I won't kill you of all people!"

"It's Sanctuary; this place is full of traditions you won't like or agree with."

Shinta couldn't even look at his Master in the mask. Nothing that awaited him as a Bronze Saint was worth hurting the person who had been his father for five years. "I don't know how it got to this point, then… I thought Sanctuary was a place that would save the world."

"It is… and it will. This test ensures the Andromeda Saint will be a functioning cog to that mission, Shinta."

But the green haired boy shook his head. "No it won't, it will just make a bad Cloth happy." He argued. When Shinta met his Master five years earlier he remembered thinking how pretty the shiny blue of the protection was, but by now he felt hard pressed to think positively about the Silver Cloth. "You never act the same when you're wearing your armor, Master, I always noticed that. Your voice would always get lower, your punishments would get stranger, and you would always act like a slightly different person, like you were trying to please someone the rest of us couldn't see. I always thought that was part of your personality… but then Miss Cynthia also turned into a different person when she administered her test to me."

Guardnia stayed silent, knowing Shinta was referring to the Labyrinth of the Queen, the test that the Cassiopeia Saint was required to give Andromeda Saints and would take place where, three years after this, Shinta and a certain Pegasus Saint would battle with the Minotaur Specter.

In it, Cynthia was required to be guided by Shinta through her own labyrinth through a series of hints and ultimately try to stop him from getting the defensive chain while possessed by the spirit of the Queen of Andromeda, Cassiopeia. While not as absolute as the Court of King Cepheus, the Labyrinth of the Queen acted as a prelude to it in the sense that it demonstrated to the Andromeda candidate how Cloths had a powerful will of their own that could at times override the Saint himself.

"Yes, Shinta, but then you could 'dodge' your way around the Queen to your goal, here you have to fight me!" he stressed.

He stepped forward in determination, not to fight his Master, but to fight this awful situation. "I will stop you! I will disarm this terrible trap of a castle and we'll both live to see the sunrise!"

The master seemed almost insulted by this, scoffed dismissively. "You don't understand, do you, Shinta? It's kind of you to offer me your mercy, but this is a matter that surpasses our selfish desires. I am a Saint of Athena, so a warrior first and a teacher second; my sword, my armor and my faith are everything I live by and everything I will protect. My life, or yours for that matter, must not matter when the fate of the world and of the Goddess rests in our hands."

"But you're not a bad man." Shinta simply pointed out. "You… never raised a hand against us outside the spars, treated us unfairly or failed to prepare us for our tests. Even though –" Shinta then gulped when this particular thought occurred to him " – I am the only one left… even though the island has claimed everybody but me, it was never your fault, ever. Semele, Cyrus, everyone - "

The blonde Greek king looked away. "Would you still be saying these things if you knew how they died, I wonder?" The test's rules, however, forbid him from telling his students the truth about the False Freedom.

"They would never blame you for their deaths, so how can you a-ask me to hurt you? It's not fair…"

The grip on Cepheus' sword loosened. He didn't think it would be this hard to get Shinta to override his pacifism. Guardnia would love nothing more but to just hand him victory, but taking his own life would both be dishonorable and it wouldn't prepare Shinta for the harshness of the Sacrifice Ceremony or a life as a Saint. There was no need for the Cepheus Cloth to explicitly tell him that the Court of King Cepheus would be invalid if Guardnia didn't give his all; the reality of a Saint's career demanded that Shinta be prepared for the worst.

And the fact that he was running for Andromeda made it all worse. "Shinta… without killing me in this test, you will never be eligible for getting my Cloth one day." This seemed to get the green head's attention. "The Andromeda Cloth isn't the only armor that demands the Court of King Cepheus as a test, so let's just say you are not the only person currently in this room who's had to face its grim end."

Shinta's eyes looked over to the statues of fallen warriors, wondering which one the room had petrified when the Master had his turn here.

"If you don't satisfy the Cepheus Cloth's terms by doing your end of the bargain here, it will never allow you to wear it. The King will always deem you unworthy and weak. Even now I can hear the King yelling at me to kill you and kill you and kill you. It's telling me to slice your neck right now or let you do the same to me so he'll at least get a replacement." The Master sighed and touched his own head as if he had an ache.

Shinta, however, frowned, a rare thing for the Master to see him do. "Why would I want a Cloth that would demand such horrible things from me and you?"

"Because once upon a time I was a Bronze Saint like the one you are aspiring to become. I was an arrogant, entitled Pisces Austrinus, who thought he was the best of his class. I embarrassed my friends in the sparring ring on a daily basis and aced tests no one could. My teacher was the best I could ever ask for, or so I thought. Hades wouldn't come for at least another thirty years, so I never even imagined I would want or need a Cloth as awful as this one, either."

"Then what happened? Why did you change into this?"

"The war did, the Third Civil War." The Master leaned back sadly. "When it came… it changed everything even though I wanted it all to stay the same. I had to swallow my pride, change everything I ever stood for!" This in particular seem to gut punch the Silver especially hard, reminding him of the wedge driven between himself and his friends after Priam's betrayal. "I had to prove myself, clean my name and grow my power, even though I didn't ask for any of it, so I could fight for what was right. Only Cepheus could give me this and I cannot allow any of my students to sacrifice their potential."

"Master…"

And Guardnia's head lowered to the point his blonde hair obfuscated his mask's 'eyes'. "Especially not you, my one surviving student, my o-one son in this cursed island."

The image of the many wooden swords acting as burial crosses along the road Shinta followed to this castle returned to the boy's mind. He touched his chest instinctively in prayer, feeling the contours of his Silver Star pendant beneath the shirt.

The Master and King pulled himself together. "So what will you do, Shinta? Will you set aside your pacifism and fulfill your duty, or will you pointlessly die for your ideals? I'm afraid I cannot allow a student who doesn't think he'll ever need to raise his fists to get the Andromeda Cloth. This is the second most difficult Training Ground for a reason. I've allowed you to embrace your ideas for five years, but no more."

"I told you… I'm going to stop this test." Shinta let go of his amulet and instead lifted up his chains. His pinkish aura burned in preparation for Nebula Stream. "I don't know how Sanctuary came to be a place like this, but I won't let it force me to hurt you! I'm sure there is a way out of all these awful ceremonies!"

Cepheus dragged his foot forward and positioned his chains aggressively. He detected the energy burning in his foe but there was no way Shinta had enough power to stop a Silver Saint three times his size. "You're being naïve, Shinta, and disrespectful to all the other students in the world currently going through their own trainings, but it's fine, you've been warned more than enough. It's time you face the wrath of the King!"

The aura of the two warriors flared up, creating a miasma in the air that reflected the shine of the Andromeda and Cepheus constellations facing each other in battle.

{======================|0|======================}

Present

Sanctuary Town Coliseum

{======================|0|======================}

Sitting at the celebrity stand of the Coliseum of Sanctuary Town, the allies of the Pope watched attentively along with Duke Akassius and an anticipating crowd as the retiring ceremony proceeded. Pope Arles III had picked up one of the laurels and papyruses from the stand in the arena and was about to reward it to Taurus Daniel, the first to be honored amongst the three Gold Saints.

"Saint Taurus, please reveal your identity to us," asked the Pope. The gigantic man, still kneeling, took off his large horned helmet down to his chest with one hand, before unmasking himself with the other, revealing to the crowd a face only some of the elderly and people working at the Zodiac were familiar with. "Ah… there is a face I have grown so accustomed to over the decades. You were known to the people only as Taurus 'Ajax', the code name you picked in your World War Two years, but some of you may now recognize you as Daniel, a simple gardener furnishing the flowers of the Twelve Temples."

There was a large murmur of mixed amounts of recognition before a wide set of congratulatory applause that went on for half a minute, celebrating the end of a famous Gold Saint's career. The long-haired bull looked up and smiled fondly, even tearing up a bit at the sound of the audience cheering his name out loud with his title after decades of service. Had it been so long since he first became a Gold Saint that he forgot all about how he imagined his retirement would be? He certainly didn't picture it as so grateful to his then-future services.

One thing he did wonder was where Guardnia went off to. The Cepheus Saint was a busy kid, but would he really miss his old teacher's send-off party? Shinta was also missing so Daniel just assumed the two were meeting somewhere else.

"Saint Taurus Daniel, for a lifetime of accomplishments, including your services in the second world war, your contributions to the Taurus House as well as the Twelve Temples, not to mention your outstanding role in battles from Bluegrad to Rodario, I cannot award you a rank any lesser than that of the proclaimed leader of your generation. As such I name you Duke of Crete!" he proclaimed, raising up his hands to rest the laurels on the high up blonde head before giving the Saint the transcription with his feudal title, as well as a large golden ring. "May your name be forever immortalized in history!"

The resounding applause was accompanied by thankful nods of Daniel's laureled head. Not everyone was amused by this, though, especially from the allies' stand, as the blonde king with hawkish eyes frowned disapprovingly at the scene.

"What a bunch of worthless titles." Cetus commented, fiddling his pointy beard, as Shion moved on to Malta. "A handful of leaves on your head, a piece of uninspired jewelry, a permanent beach residence in a Greek province and a few nice words; is that Sanctuary's idea of a reward to a man who spent thirty years in service?"

Yuzuriha could only rub her head, doing her best to support the Pope's wounded body from afar with her powers, the strain leaving her with no patience for the monarch's words. Shion had always been the mental one out of Master Hakurai's two pupils.

"They all carry a deep meaning behind them, what is so wrong with it?" she half-willingly asked, more for Akassius' sake, who stood behind her and had once been rewarded in a similar manner for his efforts. "Sanctuary aristocracy has been awarded these for millennia; I figured you of all people would consider them more than proper gifts."

"Those scrolls and golden rings he's handing out have no power at all; they're just pieces of paper and gold, I figured you of all people would be old enough to know that. They can strut them around like the Ghisi do but it doesn't change the blood in your gardener Taurus Daniel, the 'Duke of Crete'?… mm, mm, mm! I wonder what land he will really rule over there. Maybe really just a resort by the seaside and a set of pretty maids to see him happy and content well into his senility," He chuckled with the thought of it. "as if Arles could actually award him the entire island of Crete! Pah! If he wanted to really reward his Saints he'd give them real land, real fortune!"

The crowd erupted once again, this time with the reveal of Aquarius 'Odysseus' as Malta, a stingy owner of a book store in the residential areas of Sanctuary Town.

"No WAY! That guy was a Gold Saint?!" a soldier further down the seats yelled in elation.

"The place always closed at strange hours, you gotta admit." another reminded him.

Back in the celebrity seats, Elder Yuzuriha turned her face to the King of New Lallybelle, bothered by what he was getting at. "Did you expect the Pope to invest public funds in real estate, by any chance?" she defended.

Cetus smirked slyly, glancing at her. "No, but quite frankly at this point even you Lemurian Elders hold more power than these new false aristocrats. I'm glad I chose to further the path of the Cepheus Cloth, instead of accepting the Gold Saint cape in the war; none of the glamour of fighting in the frontline against traitors, for sure, but at least I got a whole kingdom out of my efforts, with no need to bow to the Pope or offer up my flesh and blood for troopers!"

"And, somehow, you were not missed in the army." Akassius commented behind them.

Cetus' eyebrow twitched for a second. He wondered at what point this one would intervene in. "Well, of course you would play up this pathetic sycophancy, Duke Akassius!" he stressed mockingly. "I just wish it didn't glorify a mock feudal system."

"Oh, are we discussing feudalism?" someone new voiced provocatively, entering the stand from behind the seats. "If we are, I would really like to be part of the conversation. I think my brand of it distributes farming land better than yours."

"I was thinking of slaves actually, Thorkell." Cetus clarified, narrowing his eyes.

The man entering the stand was one of the most imposing creatures they've ever seen, standing at least eight feet tall and sporting long, blue-silver hair, a short beard covering his chin to the ears, a set of metallic grey eyes and a very fair, almost pale skin from his snowy home. A set of black armor with pointy shoulder guards and a golden lace carved into the upper chest covered his torso, while a black winged crown with golden, curved carvings decorating it rested on his head. A large, dark blue cape hid away most of the rest of his huge body and a belt ornate with a horned symbol of a shield over a twirling disk, almost like a lake, tied his thigh guards together.

"It's King Thorkell, if you don't mind terribly. I know I didn't bring my own announcers, but I didn't kill and maim dozens of good friends to have my title forgotten about." The large man clarified, moving his cape way to let him sit next to the other two Allies. The chair creaked with the weight of his large body. "Men and women of Asgard are hunters and warriors, so we all fight for our food, land and gold; I expect my future children to do the same and so from the Holy Father's chosen ones. Only farmers inherit their possessions like family heirlooms where I come from."

Yuzuriha was surprised at his arrival, but also a bit relieved. The King of Asgard was not the most enthusiastic of the Allies, or the cleanest of tongue, but was by leaps and bounds the easiest one to deal with. She could actually hear him talk without feeling in the presence of a murderous psychopath, for once. The worst anyone had to deal with Thorkell, king of the Norse, was a bit of unhealthy dose of Viking meritocracy that seemed pulled straight out of Norwegian sagas.

It was also of note, just like the man himself just pointed out, that he was the only one there without a set of guards, almost like he arrived entirely on his own, a fact that King Cetus didn't fail to detect. "Some kingdom Asgard must be; no entourage for their king and paying allegiance to a Pope that isn't even of your religion, not to mention spending its days guarding a well of some sort. I honestly wish you'd just send a courier in your place. Isn't your wife… with child?"

He rolled his eyes and waved his hand nonchalantly. "Eh, she can handle it, it's just contractions. I'll be back to hearing her ranting my ears off by the end of this detour. I've been thinking of naming the kid Tyr if it's a boy or Hilda if it's a girl, but enough of that feminine drama; did I miss a lot?"

"Um…. the Pope's just awarding the laurels now. He made Daniel the Duke of Crete and you just missed Malta's reveal." Yuzuriha explained, stunned by Thorkell's response. His blatant disregard, however, was preferable to the sometimes psychopathic behaviors the other ones displayed.

"AGHH, what?! I missed Malta's turn?!" Thorkell yelled, loudly banging his chair arm with his fist so hard it almost snapped it. "By Hel's perfidy hairs, he's the whole reason I bothered to come!"

"Please restrain yourself in the Holy Father's presence." Akassius uttered.

King Thorkell was inconsolable, however. "He's your Pope, not mine. I got a bag of old hair to put up with already! But that Aquarius Saint spent years being the bridge between me and Sanctuary! If it weren't for him I wouldn't be King by now and I didn't have the decency to show up on time for his moment to shine!"

The retired Gemini Saint insisted. "I'm sure Malta doesn't mind, your Majesty, surely you can find another proper time to honor him if you feel you must."

"I… suppose I could invite him to come to the Twin Castle the next Spring fair and meet my newborn..." Thorkell calculated, scratching his bearded chin. The anticipation of hunting made him smile when an idea occurred to him. "Yeah, I'll skewer and roast the wildest boar in Asgard myself if I have to!"

Meanwhile Cetus struggled in his seat to ignore the revolting hypocrisy of the situation. "He's giving Malta… a villa in Macedonia for basically having ended the Civil War for him… I wonder how many years the Pope would have staid losing prestige fighting rebels if Malta hadn't finally stepped in to smoke them out."

The former Crane Silver Saint rolled her eyes, having had enough of the shorter monarch's incoherent whining. "You criticize the Holy Father for giving Daniel a whole dukedom and now for giving Malta too small a domain?"

Cetus scoffed. "It's the hollowness of it all that really gets to me, Lemurian."

"Thorkell, what do you think about these titles he's handing out? Surely you have something more friendly to comment?" she pleaded.

The Norse king calmed down from his fit and folded arms "Well, I…" He then did the mental math on the maps and chuckled. "I think it's a nice way to say goodbye to old friends. It's a good way to give use to them too."

Yuzuriha's dotted brows rose. "Ah? Use them? What do you mean?"

"You two didn't notice? Look at the places he's sending them off to." Thorkell pointed out, waving his hand at the arena. "Crete for Daniel; a large island associated to the Taurus myth and that conveniently covers all of southern Greece, then a fief in Macedonia for Malta that is probably straight in the middle of a road to the Balkans, right? And let's not forget the whole of Kastoria for Akassius over here ten years ago…The Holy Father has possessions to guard as far away as Siberia, but he's keeping the important Gold Saints all close to Sanctuary… surrounding it, even."

Yuzuriha blinked. "Uh, you're right, I had not noticed that." Her attention turned to the last remaining Gold Saint. "Which means Kirin will probably be given land in some other strategic point too."

Cetus scoffed and folded arms. "He's preparing for war, but with whom? It's not Hades or else he'd be sending these fools to Austria, where the Peloponnesia Fortress is." His golden orbs looked over his shoulder. "Is there anything to add to this, Duke? Any guess as to where your Capricorn friend will be sent off to?"

"Eyes straight ahead, your majesty." Akassius merely answered, though he himself glanced suspiciously at the Pope. "I had actually not noticed that coincidence…"

{======================|0|======================}

Shion's hand took the final laurels and papyrus, these ones destined to the Capricorn Saint. He looked over to the stand and noticed King Thorkell's arrival. It surprised and relieved him as he would definitely help Yuzuriha balance out Cetus' presence.

All things considered, especially what happened back at the Chambers, things were going well. The population was calm, festive even, the Allies were not causing trouble, the Gold Saints were happy with the ceremony if Daniel's moved eyes and Malta's rare smile were anything to go by. When he had his chest shot by a lightning arrow and a silver Saint with state secrets taken from his own room, it never occurred to him he would have been able to take back control of the day. He just wished the Cancer Saint could now track down Cepheus. Hopefully the mission was going well.

He walked over to Kirin apprehensively; the Catalan was the most ferociously dutiful of all the Gold Saints, going above and beyond the call to suspect, investigate and patrol everything and everyone for the safety of Sanctuary. While Capricorn Saints were known for their honor code, the Civil War hardened the green eyed, black haired man in front of him into a two-edged sword with eyes on the back of the head. If anyone could figure out something was going on, it was Kirin.

"And finally, the greatest of swordsmen, the greatest of knights, Capricorn 'Achilles' Kirin!" he announced, to which the man removed his mask to the crowd, revealing his identity to the many who knew him as captain Kirin of the Sanctuary foot soldiers. "Whose combat skills stunned so many during the Civil War he was nicknamed after one of the greatest of Greek warriors! To you, I award you Thrace, the land of Spartacus and the Constantine Emperors, as a dukedom for your tireless efforts on the field of combat."

The members of his units stood up in shock and cheered at the thought of having shared missions with a Gold Saint. Friends gasped and laughed at all the coincidences that were now making sense in their heads. Shion approached him, raised the laurels for all to see, and then lowered them onto his head.

The hand rushed out of nowhere and gripped his arm, pulling it! Shion gasped loudly and tried to step back in vain. The Gold Saints all turned to them and so did the Allies, but to the crowd it seemed only like the Capricorn Saint had stopped the Pope from tripping on him and many people chuckled.

The Capricorn Saint held on tight to his arm, paining the Pope and gluing his mask with sweat with the sheer death look in his eyes.

"Kirin, what the hell are you doing?!" the large Taurus Saint whispered. "Let the Pope go this instant or I'll -"

The warrior only twisted the Holy Father's arm to the side, showing off the blood marks in his inner robes and sleeves. Shion took the trouble to change his clothes after what happened, but some of the blood had apparently seeped over Aiolos' patchwork.

Malta and Daniel widened their eyes in shock! Yuzuriha's face paled all the way from the stands, the two kings squinted confusingly and Akassius rushed over to the stands' edge when he received Kirin's call mentally.

Kirin narrowed his eyes angrily. "Where are they, your Holiness?" he asked, the voice threatening to explode.

{======================|0|======================}

Meanwhile

Andromeda Island, King Cepheus' Ruined Castle

{======================|0|======================}

The rebel forces moved out of their hideout in Cepheus' Castle under the impatient eyes of Paris and Paladin Daese. It was time to leave the island before the Gold Saints could organize their hunt of them. Armored men carried pieces of their disposable office furniture and equipment and headed out the cliff's descent to leave the stardust covered sands of Andromeda Island's northwestern area. As soon as they were out of it they would use light speed to get out of there, following the usual procedure to cover their tracks in the cosmos.

Priam accompanied Cepheus Guardnia out of the castle. "Are you sure about this? I won't ask you again if you changed your mind."

The Silver Saint moved his blue eyes all around the Island, already sensing Shinta's presence. "Yes, just go. They'll be here soon."

Daese squinted. "Wait, what, he's not coming with us?!"

"There's someone on your tail, I'll deal with him." Cepheus explained.

"You alone will hold them back?! AH, I kinda want to stay and watch your ass get flattened by the Gold Saints just for the impudence."

"It's not the Gold Saints, it's someone just as dangerous." Guardnia warned, taking Paris by surprise.

"And the Gold Saints will be chasing after us instead of him, anyway, so it's safer for him if we split. Guardnia can just lie about what happened if Sanctuary finds him alone but if we're seen with him he'll be arrested straight away. Shion would never disclose to them what he told Guardnia so they're not counting on him being an asset, either." Priam explained before turning to Guardnia. He hesitated for a moment. "Stay safe, Guard'. I didn't go through all this trouble just to let you die here, after all."

The blonde Silver Saint shook his head. "It's alright, it's something I have to do to set things straight."

Something bothered Priam, though, as he touched his chin pensively. "I kind of wanted to meet this youth myself… he's my grand student after all. I wonder if we would get along?"

Guardnia raised his hand. "Don't even think about it; you're the last person I want him to meet… and if you really must know he would offer you more kindness than you deserve, not that fate hasn't spared you enough already."

Paris stomped the ground and tapped his watch loudly. "LET'S – GO, – YOU – ASSHOLES!"

"We can't leave without throwing off the Gold Saints from our trail somehow." reminded Daese, who then turned to Priam. "Maybe if you cast the 'Stardust Shower'-"

"There's no need for any of that." Guardnia, of all people, assured her. He looked up at the twin volcanoes that adorned Andromeda Island. "There will be an eruption soon, which will throw the stardust powder into the air like soot, severely limiting traveling speed and covering your cosmos from being sensed from the outside. You should be able to leave the island so long as you walk your way to the southern shores."

"Uh? How the heck can you know something like an eruption will just happen?" Paris questioned.

The ground rumbled for a second, silencing the sloppily-dressed mercenary, and the Cepheus Saint tightened his grip on his chains tensely. "It always does when the Master is about to fight."

The female Paladin felt a bead of sweat down her cheek. "It will also lead them straight here. Even if they can't perform a lightspeed leap here, they'll notice the weird volcanic smoke in the horizon."

Priam joined his two subordinates and the many rebels. "Then we'll march double-time. Daese, take the lead; I'll need your 'Licht Ritter' powers in the front if we get company." He ordered, to which she answered with a fist against chest. Priam waved his hand determinedly. "Alright, everyone, head out! Our task's not over yet!"

Cepheus Guardnia stepped away from them, resting back against the castle's gate, and watched the large group rush out down the cliffs. Before too long they carried out all their gear and left him alone by the ruins.

Now was the time.

Guardnia's eyes turned over to the only rocks up the hill that could give someone cover. "You seem to have learned a thing or two about sneaking up on people since you left my care. I know your cosmos too well, though," he said out loud, though no one answered. "If you want to come out, I'll be inside the castle. The Gold Saints won't notice us that way," he told the wind before heading inside.

{======================|0|======================}

The old stone corridors of the Cepheus King's castle ruins in Andromeda Island were lit with torches left behind by the rebels, illuminating old, dusty grey rock and cement lined with stardust speckles that made the rooms look like the night sky in the dark. Every fortification of the Myth Age had to have this in order to resist the attacks of cosmos or they'd be useless. Thanks to this the decay had failed to degrade enough of the structure for it to be used as the site of the second to last ritual of the Andromeda Cloth Path, the very last being the Sacrifice ritual of the southern peaks where Priam was heading to.

The last time Guardnia had been inside was three years earlier, when Shinta took his test. There were several reasons for this. The castle was where the Cepheus Cloth was at its strongest for once, meaning it was also where it was the most intrusive and obnoxious. When he reached the throne room, a large, flooded decayed hall with two large chairs at the end of it and old, damaged weapons scattered all over the floor, the 'voice' of Cepheus got so strong it almost brainwashed him.

Usually when he entered that place he would meditate to get in sync with this voice, arm the traps that would seal in any visitors, take the weapons and statues out of the way, make sure the medusa mask in the window was correctly placed and, finally, slash his own wrist and let the blood spill on the floor till it made a circle, forming the Blood Ring for dueling.

Finally, he would try to kill the other person that would walk in as many times as he administered the False Freedom Test to them over their training. In accordance to the desires of King Cepheus of myth, this was therefore a test that punished weakness itself, ensuring that the new Andromeda Saint would not be faint of heart.

Not this time, though. The person he expected had already beaten this ritual.

He looked up at the wall above the thrones, where a daylight hole was covered by a copper medusa face with emerald eyes. Normally the sunlight would shine through it and unleash a ray that would turn everyone in the room into stone, finishing off anyone who would try to subvert King Cepheus' thirst for blood in this test. The only way to survive it was to wear a second protective mask that rested on the king's throne, but not only was the sun at the wrong angle to activate it right then, but Shinta had disarmed it by flooding the whole room three years earlier, stunning Guardnia with Nebula Stream before purposely waiting till the high tide to submerse the castle's outskirts.

After a careful chain strike aimed through the castle's lower corridors, the liquid left behind in the caved-in, antiquated canals that once provided a whole city with drinking water flooded the basements and dungeon before climbing up to where they were. The two of them nearly drowned, but the flooding, had displaced the mask up above, disabling the mechanism and unlocking the room.

Guardnia still wondered if, had the other students not bullied Shinta so much with the prospect of his very last test, the Sacrifice Ritual, being impassable due to the induced drowning, the green haired boy would still think of filling the castle with water. After jumping across the Elysium Cliffs, fighting an armored lion in Cassiopeia Labyrinth and being forced to take a Coliseum Test in place of meditating with a Virgo Saint, the boy was probably worried to death about what awaited him in Cepheus' Castle. Most likely Shinta took his chances adventuring into his next test site against his teacher's orders so he wouldn't be unprepared.

But it didn't change the odds of the Cepheus Castle Test to think of a half-assed way to disable the petrifying trap. After all, Guardnia was still required to attack Shinta as many times as he triggered the False Freedom Test. There was a reason why there was only one protective mask… and for as long as Shinta didn't have a sure fire way to save the both of them, Guardnia would do everything in his power to act out his role.

He stared at the mask he never got to use. By all accounts, either Guardnia or Shinta should have been dead by then. He wouldn't be caught by surprise by Nebula Stream again, though. His eyes widened when the sound of a new footstep in the water was heard!

The supersonic whirl of chains flew just above his head and Guardnia leapt to the side, letting Thunder Wave smash the floor instead. Blue flame sparks flashed through his hands, shaping his chain ends into a sword and a four-pointed star, and Guardnia launched the star at Thunder Wave as soon as it snapped off the floor to catch it! His arm tensed tightly, wrestling control with the spear-pointed chain like an arm wrestling contest, before he dashed at the source of the attack along the side of the room to keep the links tense until the very last moment, when he flipped in the air across a flurry of circle-ended chain flings that tried to catch him.

As soon as he landed near his opponent, the defensive chained whipped down on him and the Silver Saint's aura burned dark blue. "Cepheus Shadow Glade!" his whole body exploded into action, dashing forward and phasing into a shade that was harmlessly struck as if he had never really been there. The shadow rocketed around the room and its sword chain delivered a diagonal, sub-space, descending slash on the Andromeda Saint, who flawlessly reacted with a stretching of his defensive chain that parried the blade's edge.

Guardnia gritted his teeth and pushed the sword's edge down against the links, which sparked pink electricity that illuminate the young boy's angry face. Master and student stared intently at each other for a split second, as if the reality of their situation suddenly sunk on them. Shinta snapped out of it first, however, pulling back his offensive chain with his wrist to whip the flooded ground around him to force Guardnia to pull back.

The Master back jumped into a defensive stance, holding his blade horizontally and his defensive star by his side. The constellation of Cepheus shined around his aura, displaying the illusion of an authoritative, crowned man of shadowed features.

"Do it! Kill him! " the Cepheus Cloth screamed at him. "If you're going to repeat your teacher Priam's mistake at least spare Sanctuary the shame of having to coddle your student. Show me in your last moments you had what you needed after all to be the king and finish the job you should have ended three years ago in this room!"

But Shinta assumed only his usual rest stance, laying down his chains. Guardnia wouldn't be fooled by this; the boy was a pacifist, but this position was actually a trick he employed against opponents that judged him by his looks that allowed Shinta to discretely set up his Circle Defense. His pinkish aura emerged, showing off the image of a long-haired princess with chains around her wrists.

"Shinta, don't kill him! I know this a bad situation but he's still Father!" The Andromeda Cloth appealed. "He's probably just being blackmailed by those filthy Black Saints!"

The Cepheus Saint reversed the grip on his sword to set up his next attack. "I'm surprised you aren't trying to negotiate your way out of this," he provoked. "Or maybe the time you spent away from my wing did you some good and you can sleep without a nightlight?"

But the Andromeda Saint was inflexible, merely dropping his chains to the water, letting them circle around him like snakes. The creaking underwater metal noise threatened to strangle the both of them with the tension in the air.

Surprisingly Shinta was the one to break it with a sudden sneak diagonal lash from the right which Guardnia dodged with a body bop and roll before tossing his sword chain in multiple angles. The Bronze Saint was already on the move, dodging through sword thrusts that sliced through support pillars and walls.

The blue-armored Silver foresaw the trajectory and aimed at his own flank, raising his cosmos burning, four-pointed star chain in front of him, charging the energy "Guillotine Cross!" and then struck his own defensive weapon with his sword. Instead of damaging, however, the sound of air being torn boomed through the room and four huge, dark blue slash waves of razor edge whipped around the from the star's edges as if they were forged on it, all striking at Shinta without fail like pincers.

The Bronze Saint yelped, stepped back and braced himself with a cross guard, letting the air slashes graze his armor's slopes as harmlessly as possible but still stopping him in his tracks. The attacks dissipated harmlessly into air currents throughout the castle, but the Andromeda Cloth still sizzled on the hit spots.

Guardnia narrowed his eyes. "It's no use, Shinta, I can predict your every move. I taught you them." They both looked down at the water. "This isn't Circle Defense either, is it?"

Shinta gritted his teach, lowered his head and pulled his chain out of the water. The Nebula Chain lashed out from the ground like a snake at the Silver's throat as the Andromeda dashed forward.

The Silver jumped in the air to avoid the spear thrust from the chain which shattered the ground and uplift the water, and the student leapt as well to intercept him. "You're going to start by casting Rolling Defense!" Cepheus predicted.

Shinta yelled out "ROLLING DEFENSE!" and pulled up his left arm's defensive chain to launch it around the both of them.

Guardnia's fist lightened up in dark blue fire that ran down his sword. "But it's a ruse to cast Great Capture instead! You're going to lean to the side and use Spiral Duct –" He whipped around his star chain like a lasso. Once he wrapped it around Shinta's body and then pulled it, it would throw him off just enough to expose his neck. His sword was raised for the stab. "-but I'm going to finish you right here!"

A lightning fast cross kick countered Guardnia's chest, though, stunning him for a split second. Guardnia tried to recover and rewrap his chains, but Shinta's aura burst, a blitzing side combo was delivered and his chain movement was finished by biding around the Rolling Defense over Guardnia's body before launching him against the wall, crashing the Cepheus Saint through brick and stone out of the test room.

Guardnia rolled around the floor, only stopping himself short of an edge to a ruin hole thanks to the chain now wrapped around his arms and torso. He coughed and blinked, standing back on his knee and foot but unable to budge the Bronze's chains. His own links were wrapped inside of it, stunned by the pink sparks Andromeda exhumed in its weapons.

The Master awed. "That was… light speed… and a Taurus House counter."

"I was going to surprise you after the ceremony… after you handed the laurels." Shinta sadly remarked, breaking his silence. "I learned it with my time with Saint Daniel. It was also his gift to you in a small way. We figured you'd be so proud I overcame the same challenge you did with him. I guess I won't get the chance for that."

The tone of his voice killed the Silver Saint on the inside but Guardnia looked him straight in the eyes. "The speed wasn't the only surprise. You didn't use to attack like this… or attack to begin with."

"Forty five assignments and missions, with two of catastrophic levels," The green-head recounted, not a hint of pride in his voice, though. "I learned a lot in them. It's a shy cry from my partner's seventy two tasks and five catastrophes, yes, but…" He gulped. "…I got the hard lessons you always warned me I would, including that, even if I want to spare my enemies, I have a duty and responsibility to fulfill. People are counting on me being loyal and professional… which is why I'm bringing you in myself."

Guardnia sighed. If at least he had done this too with Priam when he had the chance, none of this would be happening. "You're more honorable than the person who took me, that's for sure. You'll make an exemplary Saint."

"I never cared about that, it was never important to me." Shinta argued, starting to pull the chain to himself to drag his teacher closer. "My loved ones were the most important thing to me, not Sanctuary. … Why? Why would you d-do this? Why would you t-take this path?"

The Silver Saint looked away, recalling to himself his conversation with Priam.

{======================|0|======================}

Several Moments Earlier

{======================|0|======================}

"Maybe. Question is, Guard', what are you going to do about it? Are you going to keep living in Sanctuary and fight for something you don't really believe in… or are you coming with me, so I can hide you and you can start your life over?"

Cepheus stood up, having made his decision. It was the only call he could possibly make, everything considered, and it was so tough to do so after everything he sacrificed, but he made it anyway.

"Go to hell, Priam…"

The brown haired Sagittarius exhaled frustratingly, rubbed his tired eyes and reached for him. "Guard', enough with the angry pretense, that's not what you really-"

The blue gauntlet shoved Priam's hand away. "I'm serious, back… the hell away from me and my loved ones. I don't trust you for a minute!" The Cepheus Saint asserted, catching his own Cloth by surprise. Was its owner finally acting right for once? "Priam… how did you fit in your head that you could just walk back here after so many years, attack the Pope all over again, kidnap me and expect me to believe a word you say?"

Priam was stunned. "Guard', come on, we've gone over this already. What's eating you up this time from doing the obvious thing?"

"You are. Nothing about your intentions make an ounce of sense." he calmly retorted. Things hadn't fit inside his head ever since Guardnia walked in the Pope's throne room. "You went through a lot of trouble for this; a pre-fabricated base in my own island, an attempt to assassinate the Pope and kidnap me, not to mention surviving for years on end with your men, gathering new comrades like that girl and even the former Scorpio Saint and finally doing all of this while making everyone think you were dead. What kind of revolutionary does this and then says 'I don't really want to fight anymore'?"

The burnt man looked at him dumbfounded like always. "I… I don't even know what you mean by that, come on, let's go back to topic-"

Guardnia continued, closing his eyes in self-reflection. "I could stand here till nightfall calling you all sorts of names, but deep down I would know you aren't illogical; a man like you wouldn't go through all of this craziness unless you had something important in your favor, an 'ace in the hole', something to make you get back into the fight. You talk about how crazy the Pope is for hours but, if your story really made that much sense, wouldn't you expect me to find that out for myself after he told me how he's hinging the fate of the world on a seer tale? I never needed your speeches to see that Arles isn't acting right!"

"What are you trying to say, Guard'?"

"He's pulling your strings just like before, pin him on it!" demanded the Cepheus Silver Cloth.

Guardnia ignored the armor's call and addressed things in his own way. "That you are trying to convince me of something else, I just don't know what." The Silver Saint looked away apprehensively. It honestly terrified him what kind of secrets Priam could have up his sleeve at this point. "You've got something planned for us, Saints AND Sanctuary, and you're not telling me what it is."

The Sagittarius Saint's shoulders shrugged. "Guardnia, think about how ridiculous your theory is, someone like me against the whole of Sanctuary-"

"Ideas are stronger than fists, the pen is mightier than the sword; you used to tell me these things to remind me not to look down on my less successful friends like Kastiel." Guardnia reminded. "And if there is one thing everyone knows about your generation of Gold Saints is that they're all but invincible; everyone knows how strong Taurus is, how skilled Capricorn is, how resourceful Aquarius is and how every foe has fallen before Gemini. It's practically a tired song about your old comrades, so I don't believe for a second it ever crossed your head that you could beat them in a fist fight. You always wanted to change Sanctuary through ideas, through treason if needed be."

Priam chuckled and laid his arms aside as if to bring his burns to the light. "And look where it got me, Guardnia. I'm a broken man, there's nothing war and terrorism can bring me anymore-"

But Guardnia insisted on interrupting him. "Not war with Sanctuary, but maybe war with your old friends? With the people that broke you, as you say?" he asked. "You can tell me you have no operations planned and that may even be true, but we both know that revealing yourself to the Pope means a countdown starting to a new 'Battle of the Spire'. They are probably tracking me as we speak. And even you are not that foolishly suicidal, what's your real goal?"

The Sagittarius Saint, however, remained silent, even laying down his arms in resigned frustration, like someone who couldn't get a kid to see sense. The Cepheus Saint stood there for a good half a minute, quietly waiting for his query to bear answers. There had to be something to all of this, there just had to!

… Or maybe he was just letting his anger get to this head again. It was true the Cepheus Saint had every reason and more to be suspicious of Priam, the man who turned his back on his whole country to fight a war he didn't bother explaining to his student, condemning countless to years of silent suffering in the trenches, in the cities, in the villages and in the fortresses, so who could assure him that Guardnia was thinking fairly? It had been years after all, many years, since the traitor Black Saints were destroyed.

However, Priam had changed society in some ways; the way he weakened Sanctuary, reducing its forces in what was supposed to be peace time, had crippled its ability to keep tabs on the surfacing of cosmos around the world, allowing disparate youths that happened to unlock the ability to go unchecked. There were less Silvers and Bronzes to act as talent scouts, teachers, role models and patrollers, so more and more people grew without the training and morals necessary to handle something like being able to tear through a bank's steel doors with their fingers or survive a shelling.

Even Sanctuary's Allies and city-states like Asgard and New Lalibela grew bolder, clutching power away from the Pope the more it needed them to maintain Sanctuary's supremacy. Leaders like Cetus seized their thrones without mediation and took away the rights of their people. Others like Thorkell took the chance to reassert their might, with the Norse king in particular training new God Warriors, reestablishing his pagan church and weakening the Hellenic monopoly on stardust and cosmos even further. Unscrupulous men like Aezrel were offered no resistance in replacing the Cerulean Castle Lords as an Ally after Sanctuary went to war with them and the Lemurian Elders grew even more isolated, refusing to pledge their skills and resources to a Sanctuary that badly needed to heal. At one point people were afraid that countries like America and the Soviet Union would find out about these resources and start waging silent wars against them with their spies and terrorists.

And this kind of situation was usually avoided by the sheer devastation and fanaticism towards Athena that a war with Hades would cause, the cyclical situation where the distinction between military and political resources was eliminated, but Sanctuary was this time weakened off the usual rhythm and everyone knew who was to blame –

The Black Saints.

After the war, this term became reviled even more. Once associated to mystical carnival-esque warriors wielding the powers of shifty constellations like Phoenix, Sanctuary now extended it to anyone who acted with cosmos outside its authority and recognition. Black Saints ceased to be an inconvenient oddity and became a full blown enemy of the state, a 'problem they had to deal with'.

Guardnia even remembered teaching the new definition to his students, particularly Shinta, who even often asked why such a racist sounding and derogatory term was used so casually and with spite. This was because missions against Black Saints became a serious reality in Sanctuary and good Saints began shedding blood just keep these vagrants in check; previously only occupied with maintaining a few fortresses as well as a standing army to fight in time for the Holy Wars, the Saints of Athena now moved out regularly to hunt down people using cosmos clandestinely.

It was therefore in the realm of possibility that Priam was telling the truth and really no longer wished to worsen the situation he got the world in. Maybe Guardnia read too much into it and his teacher was really just trying to do the right thing for once. Maybe the goggled former Sagittarius had truly seen the error of his ways.

He was about to ask when Priam opened his eyes and broke the silence.

The man's eyes narrowed. "I'm going after the Teos Cloth."

"…What?!"

{======================|0|======================}

Present

Cepheus Castle Outskirts

{======================|0|======================}

The rumbling and heat of Andromeda Island got worse and worse as the two volcanoes began expelling ash, soot and stardust into the air. Combined with the calls of the Pegasus Cloth to awaken, the knocked out Pegasus Saint slowly came to light with this and then suddenly awoke with a startle by the shattering sound of rock breaking deep below the ground. He blinked, trembled and felt his head spin all over.

"U-ugh, what the fuck happened? I-"

"Shinta hit you." the Pegasus cloth casually informed him. "He used lightspeed and you fell asleep instantly. Then he walked away."

The memories of looking up at the Cepheus Castle before the sharp, sudden blow to the back of his neck returned to him, confirming Pegasus' words.

He stood frozen for a second. His red eyes blinked stupidly.

"…. SON OF A WHORE!"

"Collect your thoughts, Lance, the situation-"

"That little grass-haired prick knocked me out with a cheap shot! I'm going to actually fucking murder him!" He put his helmet back on. "I took off this ridiculous thing like the asshole I am and he wasted no fucking second! Since when the hell can he use light speed attacks?! He didn't pull this off when he attacked me in Rozan! Oh when I find him…"

"My design is not to blame for you taking my headpiece off. You know this has happened before." The armor argued, silencing Lance with the memories of his trip to Death Queen Island. "You should call the Gold Saints, don't you think?"

The red-eyed teenager had to admit the armor was making the most sense, almost feeling embarrassed by it, so he calmed down. "Yes…Fuck, I need to call for reinforcements before the whole island goes to hell!"

Lance was too late for this though.

He looked at the ground and picked up the shattered piece of electronic. "And he broke the radio too! GREAT! Oh, he's gonna get a punch to the face he'll never forget! No matter, that Lemurian lady was keeping track of us anyway, so I'll just mental message some-"

It was then that he saw the coursing lava down the mountain slopes, the shacking of the island, the dark clouds filling the sky and, most importantly, the gentle raining of soot and tiny, bright dust that he let fall on his hand.

"It's… stardust, the mineral powder Saint Mu uses to repair Cloths like me." the Pegasus Cloth noted.

"And my 7th sense is buzzing like crazy and I can't sense Sanctuary which means... the Lemurian lady probably lost track of us, too. The air must be filled with this jamming stuff. How… inconvenient." he realized, narrowing eyes in suspicion. "Fan-freaking-tastic, I'm stuck in another isolated battlefield in a training island, like all the debacles in the Garden Isle and Arcadia weren't enough! Am I gonna get ambushed by Specters this time too?! At this point I'd believe anything!"

It was best for him to stop complaining and get a move on. Reassessing the situation, things looked pretty bad as they were without a rogue green-haired walking tornado with chains walking about. What the fuck was Shinta thinking? Lance jumped up at a rock to look over the castle, where he could see all the Black Saints had already left.

A plan had to be drawn out. He was outnumbered, overpowered and isolated. His best shot was to stall the enemy until Saga sent someone to help. Ideally Saga himself would carve a path through the stardust, but God only knew how long this would take. There was no telling if he would have to fight Shinta himself too.

And this was probably the worst case scenario; friendship aside, the Bronze Saint was problematic on account of Nebula Storm alone. It wouldn't shock Lance if Shinta's plan was to take control of the whole situation peacefully through his massive reserves of energy. There was nothing Lance could do against this either; if he tried to burn the air currents he would just waste energy and suffocate himself. He needed someone's help.

The person he spotted arriving on the scene, however, was the last person in the world he wanted help from, if ever!

The grey-haired Saint Kastiel stopped before the Pegasus, stunned at meeting him as well. His bloodhound, Mr. Aguilon, started barking like crazy, sounding almost as loudly as the far off volcanic rubbles.

Taking every bit of training to stop himself from immediately exploding, Lance tightened fists, narrowed eyes and hissed his threat –

"BAWOWOW! BAW!" Mr. Aguilon the bloodhound barked. It snarled and growled at the sight of Pegasus, recognizing him as a threat to its owner.

"You have one minute to shut that fucking dog up and get out of my sight before I beat your worthless body so hard it will make what happened at the Coliseum look like a family reunion!"

Kastiel sweated and pulled back the dog with a struggle. "Take it easy, boy. Alright, Lance, I just arrived at the scene, I'm looking for Guardnia. It took me hours to supersonic my way here so-"

"Do I LOOK like I give a fuck?!"

"BAWOW!"

"Shut the fuck up, you mutt!"

The Kerberos Saint stood his ground however. "You would listen to me if you saw the forces I have! Look, kid, put our differences aside for a bloody second and-" A huge rock was suddenly kicked his way and Kastiel had to roll over his dog to the side to dodge it. "WHOW, fuck, would you stop for a moment to listen-"

"No and fuck off already! What use could you possibly have to me?! And even if you did what makes you think I want your help?!"

"Cause, like it or not, I'm the only one who can talk that prick Guard' out of all of this! I'm also the only one with an inkling of what's going on! Do you know who those people were he was just with?!" the Silver Saint confronted,

"Oh, I don't know! Another bunch of negligent Silver Saint pricks?!"

"Those were Civil War Gold Saints!"

And this seemed to affront Lance enough to shut up his threats for a second. "What?! Who the hell are you talking about?!"

Kastiel sweated nervously. "They're some of the most ridiculously powerful people in recent history and you're lucky they didn't notice you. I've seen one of them blitz an entire regiment of Gold Ranks in a split second, no contest. Bronzes and Silvers like us don't stand a chance in direct combat! Do the adult thing for once and work with me to get at least Guard' on our side!"

The Pegasus Saint growled almost as hard as the bloodhound by Kastiel's side. He just felt like cutting the guy's head off. He was a Gold Rank himself, for Christ's sake, he didn't need Kastiel's help for anything.

"Besides-" Kastiel continued, and raised his arms to show off his main weapons, the spiked, chain maces of the Kerberos Cloth. "- my buddy here tracked the Andromeda Saint and Guardnia's scents to inside the Cepheus Castle, and you need someone with chains to get inside that death trap. One wrong move and you get dropped on spiked pitfalls or onto the cursed waters of this island. You can't deactivate the mechanisms without these. What's it gonna be?"

The rumbling of the volcanoes got harder, as if stressing the Silver Saint points. Lance screamed outloud in frustration and punched the rock ground so hard it tore of a piece of it to roll down the Cliffside, startling the dog.

{======================|0|======================}

Cepheus Castle

{======================|0|======================}

Shinta struggled to keep his hold on the trembling chains as his teacher explained himself. "You… you met your teacher? I…. The Teos Cloth? What is that?… I don't understand, what does this all have to do with what you're doing?!"

Cepheus Guardnia rolled over, unable to free himself, just so he could stand on his knees with a bit of dignity. The Andromeda chains sparked painfully and relentlessly. The student had done a good job arresting the Master because Guardnia couldn't even budge his arms, but his wrists still had a bit of maneuver to them.

This allowed his fingers to reach for and discretely fiddle around the wrapping as he looked Shinta straight in his green eyes. "Do you remember the first thing I taught you, all those years ago, when you first arrived in Andromeda Island?"

The boy gulped and nodded. "Yeah… you asked me to sign the blood contract and told me that the only way I could leave was in a coffin… that no Saint or soldier could turn their back on Athena, which is why, thinking back, it was strange that you kept asking me every month if I wanted to leave." he said, referring to the endless False Freedom Tests he had to endure.

"That truth still holds today, just like it always has and always will, but with this loyalty comes the key to understanding the nature of this place we live in, Shinta, which is Sanctuary." He closed his eyes in reflection. "Shinta, if I were to ask you what Sanctuary is, what would you say?"

This genuinely surprised Shinta. "Sanctuary? I… don't understand, what do you mean?"

"Would you say Sanctuary is a church?" Guardnia elaborated. "But it can't be because, even though so many of our rules sound like those of a church, we still allow non-religious people to join us, to live under our roofs. We let in heathens like Christians like your Pegasus friend. Would you say Sanctuary is exactly what it says on its title, a place for some sort of refugee flock?"

Shinta wasn't sure what this was getting at. He sweated nervously, feeling manipulated. "No, I would not." He sadly remarked. "Sanctuary has become my home, but… despite all the orphans it takes in I can't say it's a place like an actual sanctuary. They wouldn't force you to… kill so many of my friends if it were so." His head then lowered for a fraction of a second before reasserting his determination. "Is that why you're doing this? Is it revenge for all the killings?"

Guardnia also allowed himself a single second to ponder sadly, wondering when exactly had the naïve student figured out what really happened to kids like Cyrus. Maybe his time with more skeptical Saints in Greece broke him the illusion.

He stayed on his original point, though, ignoring Shinta's query. "Would you call it a country or a cult of some sort? We do live outside everyone's maps and could count with the fingers of one hand of how many actual nations realize there are people going around in flashy suits tearing rock and splitting the heavens."

Rather than feeding this narrative, Shinta decided to take the question right back at the teacher. "I think Sanctuary is a place with a mission to bring peace to the world and mankind in Athena's name. What do you think it is, Master? You obviously have an understanding of it that I do not."

Guardnia shook his head, chuckling. "Ha, ha, no, Shinta, I agree with you." This made the Bronze Saint raise his eye brows. "I think that's a perfect description of what we are; a place with a mission. Unfortunately that mission has been foiled again and again because, as history tells us, Hades and Poseidon always find ways to slip Athena's fingers, but, to the core, you are right."

Knowing that none of this wouldn't be happening unless there was a 'but' coming, Shinta didn't lower his guard, instead frantically searching his own mind for his own conclusions about the Master's motivations before he could be tricked into a lie. All his life, Master had taught him typical ethical lessons despite the harshness of Sanctuary's laws. He taught Shinta to protect the weak, respect the frail, to fight for Athena and so on. There was never anything about the way Master taught his lessons that made it seem like Sanctuary was any different from the fairy tales.

Yet, something had obviously changed. All he knew for sure was that everything was fine until his Master disappeared from the Golden Zodiac. From the way it all looked, someone caught Master and planted seeds of doubt in his mind about his place in Sanctuary.

Shinta himself, however, could already imagine what kind of things were going through Saint Guardnia's mind; the year and a half of assault missions he spent with Lance showed him the harsh realities of the people that lived and interacted with Sanctuary. From Black Saints like Ray that used cosmos to commit crime, to villages like Alexis' that were suddenly attacked by merciless Specters and then condemned by Commander Ionia to forced labor. It was clear that Sanctuary was not fully dedicated towards its proclaimed task. It had a society to take care of, borders to protect and tragedy to live through even when war with Hades wasn't occurring.

"Do you doubt that mission now, Master?" Shinta asked. A rare anger swelled in his stomach. "Did you train me for six years, even try to force me to kill you here three years ago, all for the sake of a mission that you are now turning your back to?! Was everything you ever tried to confront me with, all the duties you said I would have to fulfill, now just not important to you anymore?!..."

"They were never important… not to these people!"

The green haired boy's face went red and his chains burst out in pink electric shocks, zapping the master with over two hundred thousand volts, more than enough to reduce a normal human being to ash.

"THEY WERE IMPORTANT TO ME! I sacrificed everything I stood for to abide by what you taught me! I endured the fights in the dueling rings and the Coliseum, all those awful missions, I raised my fists at you in this fight and our last even though I never wanted to live to hurt a single person in my life! Was that not e-enough?!"

"N-no, … never!" Guardnia hissed. "I believe in Athena nowadays more than ever, and I would never betray my students like that, but at the same time…. I can't come to terms with how out of control the morality of my situation here has become. Sanctuary is alien to this world, Shinta, a product thousands of years out of its natural time. We don't have a flag, an anthem, a proper code of laws…. There is more gold stored in the twelve temples than at Fort Knox and yet it does not form the base for any currency here. We shun technology, we ignore outside politics, we lend our hand every now and then when there is an earthquake or a tsunami but for the most part Sanctuary and the rest of Earth live in different worlds. We don't work like any normal society in the world but we dictate the world's fate!"

"… I know all this, why are you reminding me now?"

Guardnia insisted. "We still have aristocrats and some of us even have slaves. Women in the army have to pretend to be men with their masks, surrendering everything that makes them who they really are, so they can be treated with a semblance of equality, but we still ambush them in the alley, beat them, take away their masks and force them into marriage. We throw our children into pits of hate where they have to fight until the last one because we believe that, three thousand years ago, Spartans did the same. We teach our people that race and creed doesn't matter when the time to fight Hades comes, but in the meantime we constantly remind them that the Greeks have first pick on the Cloths and posts. We have allies who engage in paganism that we condemn, that sacrifice their enemies to their gods whom we hate, that pillage the Baltic that we swore to protect, that hoard destructive weapons in Tibet that we've deemed immoral and we'll throw them under the bus if a more useful monster happens to come by."

"Stop it!" Shinta demanded. "Nothing of what you're saying justifies the way you are acting! You didn't teach me to give up just because things are hard! Sanctuary isn't perfect but I've always known that, everyone always has, but now… I see you with these people who attacked Sanctuary and my closest friend tells me you might be a Black Saint now? You taught me to endure, to fight for a better tomorrow! How can you just throw all of that-"

"BUT…" Guardnia interrupted, slowly getting back on his feet from the water, "I could ignore all of this and so much, much more, because…" Guardnia's mind suddenly rushed through his past decisions, how he opposed Priam as a child and stood by Sanctuary despite its many mistakes because of his own beliefs "….I could accept all those sacrifices because of our mission!... Just like you said, Sanctuary isn't perfect and we are fighting for humanity, for a better tomorrow, to beat back Hades and all those megalomaniacs taking advantage of the cosmos."

The Andromeda Saint's head tilted back, exasperated. "Then why?"

Guardnia's fingers finally managed to squeeze between the Andromeda chain wrapping and his whole body went tense. "Because I'm unworthy and my time as an Athena Saint must come to an end!"

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Andromeda Island

Sacrifice Ceremony Shore

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The small force of twenty Black Saints finally reached the southern beaches of Andromeda Island after traversing the hot sand deserts. Above them the air roared with volcanic ash, making all of their 7th senses buzz annoyingly. Priam, Paris and Daese rushed ahead of the force onto the sharp cliffs, where a group of their men carrying the detachable base materials were already organizing the retreat.

"How long are you going to take to excavate the Nicolai?" asked Priam.

"Not much, just enough to do it without accidentally breaching the hull." answered one of the men. "We can get it faster if you watch our backs, Priam. That would certainly take a load off our minds."

"Don't bother, just dig it up!" remarked Paris, who put his hood back on. "If they haven't caught us by now with how long you all took to cross the damn sands then it means that coward Arles isn't sending anyone after us."

"Then why are you disguising yourself, Paris?"

The blue-haired man growled and gritted his yellow teeth as he put on his mask. "I just don't want to be seen with you losers cramping my style in case your old student fucks up and those kids come after us." He excused.

The paladin girl walked over the edge of one of the rock protrusions out into the ocean, where she spotted the famous ring of cursed water around Andromeda Island that would kill most life approaching the island. "This place is truly filled with trials, no wonder Sanctuary dwellers rank it so high in training." her green eyes then looked over to a larger cliff in the area, on top of which a larger rock could be seen with cuffs attached to it. "Priam, what is that, some kind of execution stand?"

"No, Daese, that's the Sacrifice Ritual. It's the last test for Andromeda Cloth candidates. Students are strapped into it with the Cloth's chains and wait for the tide which will submerge this whole shore for six hours."

"But… the waters are cursed, right? Never mind the drowning, but they'll also inflict horrible pain and sickness on who takes it in, correct?"

"That's correct." Priam flatly answered.

She blinked. "I don't understand, what's the point of the test other than to bear some sort of resemblance to the myth? From what you told me of the other tests I figured this one would be… umm…"

"With a solution in sight?" guessed Paris, of all people, to which Daese eventually nodded. "Gyah-ah-ah, that's funny. Sanctuary final tests aren't like those drills your Cerulean people used to do, and they're not meant to be puzzles either, little Paladin. We are Saints, not mere cannon fodder."

"Oh yeah? Then what are they supposed to be?!" Daese asked, a bit riled up by Paris, as usual, making fun of her destroyed lineage.

"They're supposed to be impossible." he remarked, casually shoving a finger inside his own dirty ear. "If ya can't hack your way through them with cosmos then we wouldn't want you in the army to begin with. You're not meant to figure your way outta these deathtraps; you're supposed to pull a miracle off your ass. It's why so many losers end up in the foot soldier rank or with minor Cloths even though we have so many useless recruits to throw at the wall."

She walked away from the others to keep watch with this in mind. Her upbringing in the Ural Mountains had taught her relentless drilling, such as how to perfectly slash a Specter and how to overcome your survival instinct just to unlock a deeper level of bronze rank cosmos. Her reasons to be with Priam against Sanctuary had nothing to do with his own. It was merely a coincidence of target and not of motivation, but this helped her understand what kind of environment the guys around her were brought up on a bit better and why they chose Priam over Sanctuary too.

She then realized something else. "Wait a minute, does the Ring have anything to do with the fact that the Gold Saints can't get to us now?"

"Perceptive little observation, little punk, the Ring is the only thing keeping them away." answered Paris, folding his hairy arms. "Tell me, does it smell funny?"

The warrior girl blinked in confusion before sniffing the air once. "I… don't think so."

"And yet the whole island is erupting sulphur and molten rock!" Paris pointed out. "The air right now has stardust all over it but's just an umbrella. A skilled Gold Saint that reduces his speed to supersonic levels could simply skip on the water surface and below its skirt to reach a low laying land, like the beach we're on!…. Unless a cursed, Saint killing toxin surrounds the destination, gyah-ah-ah-ah."

"What Paris is saying is that this is why most Bronze ranks that want to get to Andromeda Island use a boat to get close first, even when the volcanoes aren't acting up." explained Priam, far more politely. "Without a vehicle, no one can go in or out during an eruption on the island."

A surge of warmth crossed her 7th sense and her mind went into full alert! She drew her edgeless hilt defensively and rushed over to the path they had just traveled through, looking up at the clouds.

"Watch out, everyone! They're coming!"

Priam looked over. "What?!"

Paris irked "They are?!" he rushed away to the shore and saw the rebel grunts still messing around in the beach with the materials. "Damn it, Priam, I told you we should have hurried up!""

"I don't understand, how did they track us so fast?! Arles would never have let them know that we attacked!" Priam defended. "Are you sure, Daese?"

The green eyed Paladin watched the volcanic ash clouds rumble like an incoming storm, the air going damp and the slight sound of searing in the air like comets were striking through the sky towards them. Her teeth gritted and a drop of sweat fell down her scarred cheek. She clicked the button beneath her weapon's hilt and her diamond-incrusted bracelet flared up with light, causing a surge of pale white energy to rush down the object.

"Y-yeah, just go! I'll hold them off!"

We can't! It's gonna take a while for the others to dig out Nicolai and without it we have no exit strategy, Daese! Besides-"

Her head turned to him to yell. "THAT DOESN'T MATTER, Priam! Just get everyone out of here with Lightning Arrow before they-"

The moment she let her guard down the ground behind her split apart and the light seared through in a single instant like a geyser of golden light, blasting everything around it with extraordinary force, cracking the earth, shaking the island, blinding everyone with the sudden flash of light and sending Daese flying off to the floor, rolling and screaming. The shockwave resonated through the air, throwing off the rebels, making Priam cover himself and Paris run off to hide.

The metallically armored girl stopped herself by holding on to a boulder and worked her way back up. She coughed, startled and confused by the force unleashed, and looked up to see this falling cloud of degree, sand, ash and soot from the comet's crater impact. She widened the eyes at the size of it, having completely smashed the ground against itself with its force into a wide scar.

But fear truly crept up her heart on the sight of the object that had crashed, or actually the man covered in golden, ornamented armor. His long black hair fell down on his pristine white cape. Runes of light began burning on the lean surface of his curved plates. His right arm swept to the side, causing a flash of golden light to burst out, fill it up and form the full edge of a long sword that upon grazing the ground caused a trail of embers on sand, illuminating the entire area with its splendor.

And he raised his head, revealing the merciless, falcon eyes beneath the pointy visage of his horned Capricorn Cloth helmet.

Daese's heart beat like a drum. The memories of her home city on fire, buildings cut up to shreds and people slashed apart by Excalibur were all brought back at the sight of the legendary blade and the man's cold eyes.

"P-Priam, run! G-Get off the island NOW!"

Kirin slowly walked off the crater towards the goggled man, glaring bloody murder at him "You sniveling, deceiving, lying traitor….!"

The former Sagittarius Saint stepped back. "It's K-Kirin…Did he cut a path for himself through the Earth's curvature between Greece and here?!… Will the others breakthrough too, soon?!"

The Paladin girl grasped her weapon, stood in defiance at the approaching Gold Saint of her deepest fears and screamed at the top of her lungs "EVERYONE, JUST RUN!"

"YOU TRAITORS! Excalibur!" Kirin leapt the edge and swept his sword-encased arm forward in arc."CLAYMORE BLIGHT!" The blade of light blasted the ground itself, unleashing a crawling torrent of energy at the Paladin. Daese widened her eyes and set up a defensive pose, holding her seemingly useless handle horizontally.

The blast, however, twisted to the side, arcing very widely around the entire area, cutting through every obstacle, going over the Sacrifice ceremony's cliff, through the water in a circle back to the Earth and finally meeting the point where it first changed trajectory.

The rebels staggered and stepped back in fear, feeling the earth shake once again, and the circle trail left behind through sand, rock and water burst up a huge wall of golden light, forming a tall encasement that completely trapped the Black Saints. Hesitantly, Daese touched the wall but as soon as contact was made it sparked her with such force she got pushed back into the ground.

Priam screamed her name. "DAESE, don't, it's a running blade of Excalibur!"

Before she could understand what her leader meant, the terrifying enemy of long black hair and glowing right hand walked through the wall he created without even flinching, seemingly immune to its effects.

Daese's whole body shook and she crawled back. "N-NO!" She stood back up and reassumed her pose. "STAY BACK, don't you get close, you murderer! What kind of barrier is this that you can just walk through yourself?!"

Kirin glared her down, noticing the blood on the fingers that tried to peer through his Claymore Blight. "You're mistaken, woman. This around us isn't a barrier, it's an attack. Look closely."

She did, trying to glance at the barrier without losing track of her enemy. At first it seemed normal, but as she kept her focus on it, it seemed as if something was running through the surface, as if to form the trap. "An eternally coursing Excalibur slash attack turned around itself so as to shape a wall circle…"

"I take it from the look on your face you understand now what Claymore Blight is, and why you won't be able to break through it. Nothing can stop the slash of the holy sword after all, so nothing will shatter it either." Kirin confirmed. "You are all trapped, it's the end, you rebel cockroaches!"

He saw Daese and Priam powering up their cosmos into white and golden auras in defiance while the masked man behind the rock and the grunts ran around like headless chickens.

The Gold Saint closed his eyes relaxingly "Hm-hm, a last stand, that's cute." His right arm posed diagonally and burst into a brighter blade, indicating his incoming attack. "Then let the battle begin! EXCALIBUR!"

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Chapter End

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Next Chapter Release Date: February 13th (Fic's Birthday)

Title: The Goodbye – Part 5 of 5

Description: A new Battle of Andromeda Island begins, split between the Bronze and Silver Saints to the northwest by Cepheus Castle and the Capricorn Saint's battle with Priam's Black Saints to the south, by Andromeda's Sacrifice Ritual. All in the meanwhile Pegasus Lance must choose to join forces with Kastiel, his hated teacher, to solve the situation.

Author's Note: There is so much to say about the production stage of these two chapters that I could not possibly resume it all in here. It took a long time, spanning somewhere between September 2017 to early December and in total these two new chapters combined were originally going to be released as a single one spanning across 56,200 words!

Unfortunately, for the reader's sake, I will not be able to break Jenny's record since I must split this chapter in two parts, forcing me to rewrite the title numbering of The Goodbye's storyline again (- -´´ Otherwise it would be a MONSTER of a chapter.

I personally think this first half shines less than the second, but it should stand well on its own until Chapter 26 is released a month from now, when the fic reaches its 7th birthday (or is it 8th ?). It is actually already complete, but it must still undergo severe editing surgery. The file listing the stuff to address across these two chapters alone is four pages long.

I had to therefore post for now what is essentially an altered first half of the original version of LR25 in the form of this chapter, now acting as a set-up for the climax in LR26.

So to conclude, the Arc Finale has not yet come with this chapter, but will definitely be LR26, which will have approximately over 30,000 words, the same wordcount range of the Second Arc finale of my former version of Lance's Role.

Until then I hope you enjoy this chapter and be sure to support and check out SKD's scanlations of Saint Seiya Next Dimension and Saintia Sho by Hitagi Gahara, the best quality scanlations available online to English-speaking fans and where I contribute with proofreading as well.

Finally, R.I.P. Saint Seiya English Forum (_ _''