Notable OCs: Pegasus Lance's Saint Generation, Civil War Saint Generation, World War Saint Generation, Daemon Lucifer's Specters, Maiden Elisa, Priam's Black Saints; Cyrulian Refugees;

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

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:

- The story has beaten the 700,000 words milestone \^o^/

- A reminder to unsigned reviewers; you can get responses to your reviews by checking my Twitter account Thrudgelmir2333 and search for review tweets;

-Finally, some VERY SPECIAL NEWS: DeviantArt artist 'baldwinsteiner', also known as Bluefeather, drew up concept art of Lance as a commission of mine! It is still not up at his account, but DON'T MISS IT on Twitter at my account Thrudgelmir2333, where I will be publishing it together with my tweet of the chapter's release and be sure to check out his DA account for his other great art, a lot of it on Saint Seiya!;

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Please enjoy and review (^_^

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Everything is proceeding as Lord Thanatos intended; we, Princes, are becoming accustomed to the techniques of the Twelve Houses thanks to the trickery of the Book of the Dead, which has assigned the fallen Gold Saints to the arena, rather than a Prison. It seems the source of Balrog Rune's Reincarnation technique really is Thanatos' tome, which has registered in it the sins of the dead, allowing them to be revealed to us Specters on command so we can assign the dead to a proper Circle and Prison.

Perhaps our growth has not stopped with Judgement Day, after all. Our Masters Thanatos and Hypnos intend us to seek revenge on the Gold Saints for humiliating them in this war. Maybe I could, still, try my claim on the Dark Angel Surplice I once sought after one day again and leave this consolation carcass, Daemon, behind.

However, I've begun studying the Daemon Surplice for a way to tap into even greater power. It is already a monstrously powerful armor, but what if it's other abilities, like the way it preserves my youth, drain energy from its combat purposes? Perhaps a trade-off will focus its energy more, allowing it to surpass Dark Angel. What is a devil without wings, after all?

But even as I conspire to defeat him, Michael continues to widen the gap; perhaps I have picked the wrong God to be taught under and Hypnos is truly the more dangerous of the two brothers. Even now he shares secrets and spells with my cur of a rival that surpasses the brutish blasts and strikes Thanatos teaches me. The latest one, which he taught to Michael to prepare him for his mission to hunt the Virgo Saint and claim 'that cloth', is perhaps the most monstrous move I've ever seen.

The chanted spell,… Eternal Darkness is literally the stuff of nightmares. With this incantation, the dark demons of your mind will come to destroy you, trapping you forever in a dome of your own terrors. There is perhaps no mortal unsurmountable for Michael, anymore. We've fallen so hard that they must resort to teaching Specters the techniques of the Gods. It shows how exhausted the Emperor truly is of losing to Athena.

I will not sit idly by and let Hypnos' shrewdness drive me further into the shadow of the angel, though; I will learn this spell as well, even if I have to sneak into the libraries of Elysium itself for it!

-Eighth entry from Lucifer's first journal, dated August of 1503

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Andromeda Island

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The sun's last rays were quickly disappearing in the horizon. Back by the Master's hut after a long day of training and teaching Albiore in combat, Andromeda Shinta stored his Cloth Box next to Cepheus' by the door and sighed tiredly. He saw the Cassiopeia Cloth box already sitting next to it and assumed Saint Cynthia was likely inside, which relieved him. This was because he had half of mind of talking with her all day about the training.

As a Gold-Rank aspirant, the Bronze Saint did not exhaust easily, but he had always hated combat practice, even as a kid, regardless of how important it was. The Taurus House had not succeeded in taking his displeasure of hurting others away from him. Fortunately, this time he could afford to limit himself to blocking Albiore's flimsy attacks and only deliver a gentle counter every now and then to punish a flaw or two. He could word the mistakes all he wanted, but Shinta understood that a more effective way to ingrain the right instincts in a practitioner was to bite back a bit too, so they will know there are real consequences to slip-ups and lack of care.

Taking out his notepad, Shinta registered the number of points Al' got that day. Elda was so far ahead she almost reached triple digits in hits, but she scored pretty much all of hers in the brief period that Shinta and Cynthia thought it was a good idea to have them practice together. It wasn't that Albiore was unskilled or unintelligent, quite on the contrary; he was pretty good at reading moves and understood the importance of not being rigid in combat, which was surprising for someone so young. He just had dumb bad luck that the person paired with him was so good she would likely become a Saintia in spite of her bad educational grades.

Albiore came up to him. "Master?" he asked. He always seemed to have some trouble saying it for some reason, as if it embarrassed him personally. He showed off the side of his hand bruised and bloody from chain friction. "I didn't want to say anything, but-"

Gasping, Shinta immediately took his hand and applied the Golden Touch, which Lord Daniel taught him, using the Cosmos to heal the cut and lessen the swelling. "Albiore, you can't keep these things to yourself! What if you got an infection from a worse wound?" Shinta berated.

The Argentinean boy flexed his fingers after the cut was sealed up, but didn't answer the green-haired Saint, just looking off frustrated.

This was the real cause of his sighing. "I wish you'd stop worrying about what you can or not tell me. I'm here to help you, Al'. I'm not your…" he then hesitated to say 'enemy', which he really felt like doing, because he kept in mind that the boy came from a war, which would make it insensitive. Sometimes Albiore really reminded Shinta of Lance's defensiveness, though.

Albiore shook his head. "I just didn't think it mattered. It's just a small cut, but it was getting itchy." he protested. Why was Saint Shinta so all over his case? He's had worse wounds. Master's healing cosmos was so embarrassing too; it was pink just before going gold. "Why couldn't I have gotten a normal teacher like Saint Cynthia?... I really hate how lucky you are, Elda."

The tense negativity in Albiore's face was as obvious to Shinta as a red traffic light. "Did you fix up your chain links with the spares?"

He got a nod from Albiore.

Shinta frowned and held out his hand. "Can I see them?" and while Albiore obeyed, he did so hesitantly, as if afraid of abandoning an important tool. "Albiore, don't worry, I'm not gonna keep them."

Elda passed by and saw her friend nervous about giving his chains again. "Al, stop being a booger-brain and just give 'em. He's not gonna whip you or anything!" she then turned to Shinta with an eye roll. "Sorry, Saint Andromeda, sometimes Al' needs to get wrestled out of his paranoid shell."

"I'm NOT paranoid!" the Argentinean shouted, who then begrudgingly handed Saint Shinta the links. "I just need my chains for later and wished it wasn't checked every time after I fix them. Unlike some of us, I don't just use my fists to solve every-"

"Alright, you two, stop!" Shinta ordered, staggering the two of them. He had never been so severe in his life. After a supersonic inspection, he returned the links. "Okay, Albiore, they seem fine. See, it's just a second to make sure. It's always best to be safe than sorry."

But the blonde kid just wished the teacher would trust him more and leave him to his things. "I just think it's a waste of time…" he sighed, wishing he could be back in his hut practicing his tool carving skills. "I also wish you'd let me switch the ends. The mace is super heavy and the cross doesn't stick right on the cliff walls."

Shinta hesitated. In these kinds of situations Master Guardnia would just elegantly play down the students concerns, making it look like a breeze, but Shinta for some reason felt flustered with these questions.

"Tell him I'll happily carry him up by the 'neck' if he wishes." Andromeda sneered. If her Saint hadn't told her to stay put in front of the kids, the Princess would have happily rid her little Shinta from these brats aspiring to get her 'parents' as their armors.

"It's different, because…" Shinta gulped. How was he going to explain to a little kid that a seer at the orphanage told Sanctuary he was arbitrarily born under Cepheus' protection and so had a unique advantage towards pursuing the more dangerous Cloth right away? And that this wasn't up to Shinta, it was just the law like how he himself got steered for Andromeda instead of one of the much easier Bronze Cloths like Pegasus or Bootes. Shinta himself had struggled with these weird rules for years. "Albiore, it's a privilege to be on a path for a Silver Cloth like the two of you are… and some Bronze Cloths are actually more dangerous to get. Don't worry about the chains, it will get easier as you awaken your Cosmos."

"But these aren't practical at all!" Albiore shouted, showing off the cross and mace. He was exhausted from the extra risk he went through every day just to climb to the training circles. Even his carving kit would be better at this point. "They're difficult to stick to the walls and don't hold on! It's such a waste of time! The hook one shoots off the wrist and sticks, though! They'd be much better."

Shinta set his foot down. "Albiore, no! Let it go. Now, what about the water jugs, have you brought them over?" Another nod, accompanied by a thumb pointing at the big clay buckets that Albiore carried over from the fountain by the desert path. "Don't just nod at me."

"Yes, Master Shinta…" Albiore wheezed out, his frustration clear.

Shinta could tell what was wrong through these little things. "He doesn't respect me, does he?" he thought, frowning sadly. Sometimes his looks came back to bite him, even if Saint Cynthia and Master Guardnia always said there was nothing wrong with seeming unmasculine. It was probably pretty difficult for a young boy like Albiore to have to listen to someone who looked like a mother figure. What was he going to do? "Go to the mess hut, Al. I'll be with you two in a bit."

He watched the boy tiredly pick up the water jugs again and get inside the mess hall before the temperature dropped too much. Shinta would have to be patient. While it upset him that such a superficial thing was causing this barrier between the two, or at least Shinta assumed this was the source of the barrier, it wasn't something he could help.

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After dinner, Shinta made his way back to the Master hut. Saint Cynthia hadn't joined them, but he assumed something got her busy unexpectedly, since she wasn't the type to give a bad example about schedule.

He found himself kicking a nearby pebble with a sigh as he made his way and took a short pause. For some reason his brain felt like it would explode. When had his days gotten so tough to get through?

The Andromeda Cloth's chain wrapped around his arm as tenderly as metal allowed it to. "Aw, don't worry, little Shinta, it's not your fault, your heart is in the right place. These poor little brats aren't worth your kindness."

But the Princess's babying words didn't comfort him at all. In fact, he missed the guiding harshness of Lance's snides and Saint Daniel's overconfident 'just do it' advice. "Don't say things like that, Andromeda, it's not Albiore's fault," assured Shinta, his green eyes looking away. "Also, you know I don't like when you threaten people like that, please stop it."

"I didn't threaten him. It's not like he can hear me." she shamelessly argued. "I just offered you a little advice on how to help him, is all. I get frustrated watching these ungrateful people on my Island, too, you know?"

Ignoring how the princess missed the point and getting inside the Master Hut, Shinta saw Saint Cassiopeia finishing her things before getting to have dinner too. "Miss Cynthia?"

"In a bit, Shinta, I got a harpy on the 'phone'." She gestured him for a minute while holding her other hand to her temple. "Could you repeat that, Miss Olivia?"

"I was just thanking you for showing the wisdom and sensibility Saint Guardnia did not, Saint Cynthia," the young female voice coming from Switzerland answered. "Elda will be perfect for our school, her fighting scores prove it. The Pope should have surrendered her to us right away."

The disrespectful reference to the late Guardnia really ticked her. "That girl…"

Despite her mask, Shinta could tell Miss Cynthia was exasperated. It showed on her voice and subtle lowering of chin. "Who is it?"

"It's Olivia, the head of the Saintias. She's going on and on about how she was right all along about Elda having to go to her."

The Andromeda Saint's interest was picked. "Oh, so it's decided?"

A paper showing the young girl's positive fighting stats was laid in the table, underlined by a row of red marking on History, Math, Greek and Science. "Yes, despite my concerns. I hope when Olivia sees Elda's other test grades she flips out so hard that she stuffs that ugly bird of hers out of rage." Cynthia joked out loud, making Andromeda chuckle just a bit, even though he didn't really want the poor owl to be hurt. "Miss Olivia, I hope you realize that she won't be able to leave the Island, not until she finishes the trials of my Cloth. It could be years."

There was a moment of delay, as if of hesitation, before Olivia's next mental message arrived. "...Fine! But if she gets eaten by your pet lion or 'possessed' by your Cloth, I'm holding you personally responsible for negligence and malpractice!" she sneered, showing off her true side for a second right before sending a nicer message. "...Like I was saying, I pray the Gods to bless you and Aretias for your understanding and everything goes wonderfully with her training. May Athena be with you, Saint Cynthia."

"Likewise." Cassiopeia patiently wished back. If there was a phone in mental messaging to slam, though, she would. "Goddess, that brat… I think she may have crawled out of Tartarus itself."

The Andromeda Saint irked, feeling the tension. It was well known in Sanctuary culture that Saintias and Amazons had a deep-seated rivalry, only really siding together when the men in Sanctuary thought they could play them against one another or when misogynists like Ionia, the fort commander of Peloponnesia, got around again to trying arguing that they had no right to fight alongside the men. These power games over who got to recruit the next batch of girls were just one aspect of their scuffles.

Often times the Andromeda Saint wondered why they wouldn't stick together, only for Saints Guardnia and Cynthia to say it wasn't so simple, saying it was a class issue of some kind. Apparently, Amazons really resented Saintias for skirting the mask rule and Saintias really looked down on Amazons for being 'dumb'. It sounded completely silly to him. It took real intelligence to communicate expressions through a mask, he could tell, and Saint Cynthia was one of the smartest people he knew.

So much that he came to her for advice now. "I was wondering if we could talk?"

She perked up. "Sure, absolutely, Saint Shinta." she addressed, all formal. While it made him so happy that he had progressed in life to the point that a Silver Saint he used to look up to treated him now as an equal, he still missed when she used to baby him. Her mask moved up and down slightly. "You seem upset."

He sat in front of her by the desk. "I do? I guess I do. I guess I am." he laid out, embarrassed that his feelings were just as obvious as the six-year old's. "Why does Al' look down on me?"

She put down her pen. She had noticed some friction between them. "Why? What's wrong?"

His face went red and his eyes looked away. "Well, he doesn't say why, or even that he looks down on me, but…"

"You get the feeling something is wrong?"

He dared to glance back with a nod. "Yes…" he admitted. "I know that look he has on his face. The other kids with me when I was training used to have it, too. So did Lance and Saint Kirin. It's the "you're unmanly" look." the Japanese teenager detailed.

The Queen of Andromeda Island thought about this for a moment. "Is that so? That's no good, Shinta. You're not just his teacher, you're his Master. It's a bit more of a serious thing. It's not like your old classmates, either. You also shouldn't give so much importance to what a six-year-old child thinks about how you look," the Amazon pointed out.

This was obviously an embarrassing problem to have. Even the generous Shinta knew how unacceptable it was to let the student dictate the rhythm for the Master. "Yeah, I know, but…"

"What if he doesn't pay attention to you in a critical lesson and gets hurt because of it? You need to set your boundary with Albiore and make him understand that he shouldn't think you don't have authority."

His feet fidgeted together. "I know, I understand, I just… I don't think I have the heart to be harsh. Every time I do, it just seems to make it worse."

She held her hip. "It doesn't mean lashing out on him, exactly." The masked woman sighed, tapping her pen on the desk. She knew this would happen. The real problem was far from just being Shinta's looks and the kids, like little sharks to blood, could sense his weakness. "Do you think it might have been a mistake to accept him?"

Shinta covered his face in complete shame. This sounded like those False Freedom meetings that Master Guardnia used to have with him, except he was the teacher but still, the one tested. He understood pretty well how bad it was to be having second thoughts about this. "I don't know…I thought that if I just got the two of them past the Elysian Cliffs pretest… I'd find my footing with Al."

Cynthia couldn't help but feel responsible a bit, too. When Nam initially suggested for her and Shinta to take care of the two kids, she had protested loudly, believing it to be unfair to push this kind of responsibility to a kid who not only never signed up for it, but had just lost his own Master so tragically. It was a totally irresponsible decision on the MMC's part, but the Andromeda Saint, with equal amount of irresponsibility, was not the kind of person to refuse to help others if offered the chance.

It didn't matter how many classes Shinta prepared, though, if his one trainee didn't see him as an example of a good Saint, even if for silly reasons. "You have to follow through with this now, Shinta," she reminded him. "Those kids signed a blood contract to respect us as Masters, just like you did when you were young with Guardnia. Giving up on Alb-"

"I don't want to give up!" Shinta interrupted, shaking his head. He hated to shout at Miss Cynthia, so he gulped regretfully. "But I feel like I'm doing such a bad job."

She patted his back comfortingly. "Shinta, it's Andromeda Island… and they're both still alive. I'd say you're doing something right. Also, be glad they grasped Greek so easily before ever setting foot here."

The Andromeda Saint smiled ever so slightly. He still had Lance's supportive words from the letter to think back on. Now he kinda wished he didn't have to burn it up. "You really think so?"

Cynthia shook her head. When would Shinta get rid of his insecurities? "A lot of Silvers your age would be up to their hair with their kids for much more selfish reasons by now. Don't forget what Kass-, I mean Saint Kastiel did to your friend."

This point hit Shinta right in the bullseye, putting the awful things some Masters did into perspective. While he still felt that what others did had no bearing on what he should do, it gave the green-head just enough clearance of mind to feel like he could switch topic. "About that, Saint Cynthia… I guess there was something else I'd like to ask."

"Sure, shoot." she welcomed, serving herself water through a straw.

His fingers fidgeted together. How would he put this?

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This makes you eligible to be the next Cepheus.

The Pope told me there is about to be a major war,... I was never pure enough to change anything with the Cepheus Cloth, …, but you, you managed to be different.

Stop these damned prophecies. Prove all these bastards wrong, Shinta!

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Master Guardnia's last words weighed on his mind like an anvil, pushing the proper words out of Shinta's mouth. "I've been thinking about something very important lately. I wanted to ask if you think the Pope... is a bad person."

Cynthia was stunned in place.

Seeing her frozen, Shinta tried to elaborate. "I don't mean anything by it, I swear! Recently, just a lot of stuff has been happening and I was wondering about… a couple of things," his eyes wandered off sadly. Nothing about this was easy, from the death of his teacher to his passing words, to the implication that something terrible was going on and would just get worse and worse.

The amazon still seemed unsure of how to react. At first, she looked around the hut, as if searching for eavesdroppers even though they would be able to tell through the cosmos. She moved over and made sure the hut's door was closed tightly.

To the young boy, she looked so tense, especially with the mask, that Saint Cassiopeia seemed like she could snap him in two. Her arms were stiff and her head was tilted slightly down, as if in containing anger. Shinta waited till she exhaled a bit before asking "Saint Cynthia, is there-"

"You shouldn't say things like that, Shinta." she interrupted, turning back to him. "Don't ever even think them, especially out loud."

The teenager irked, his face washed with shame. "I-I'm sorry, I know. Training at the Zodiac, I got to know the Gold Saint of Taurus and he would never forgive me if I-"

The fearsome Amazon stepped towards him. "Forget the Gold Saints, I won't let you talk like that, Bronze Saint!" she lambasted, further shaming the much more powerful subordinate. "How could you?! I am very upset, Saint Shinta, I didn't think you'd harbor such doubt! The Pope was chosen by Athena herself during the last Holy War. Even if he makes mistakes, even if he does unreasonable things, you do not question him!"

The green-haired warrior practically covered his face. "I k-know, I didn't mean to!" he stuttered, feeling his old instinct telling him to cry. Never in a million years would he want someone as dear to him as Saint Cynthia to be so upset, much less insult Mu's teacher. "I'm sorry, I'll never-"

She took off her metal headpiece that was over her mask and then grabbed his shoulder. "You better not! Don't ever let anyone hear you asking something like that about the Pope again, not unless you want to be dragged with chains by your wrists through the dirt of the Herculean Road in front of the whole capital, till you're at His feet!" she then held Shinta's head and pressed her porcelain covered forehead against his. "Shinta, I don't know who put those thoughts in your head, but don't blurt them out so carelessly. Even if you met the Pope and he was kind to you, a lot of people won't want him badmouthed, including our Cloths."

Hearing these strange words and feeling her hands in his cheeks calmed the Saint down. Mental messaging someone with your heads pressed together was a trick to avoid having your thoughts intercepted. "Okay...Master Guardnia did… he told me terrible things would happen. I need to know more, though, I need to know if I can do something about it."

Cynthia took out her Cassiopeia armor gauntlets and waved them threateningly. "I ought to slap you silly for such impudence! But I won't...!" She then tossed them off to the table, pretending to be exasperated. The least contact she had with her armor plates of the Queen while messaging Shinta, the better. "Listen, Shinta, Princess Andromeda hates Cetus, but my armor doesn't. Cassiopeia and Cepheus both think that bastard is just 'peachy' and he'd love nothing more than to disgrace me as a Saint so he can cart me off to New Lallybelle. I can't talk for too long about these kinds of things."

This was another thing upsetting Shinta; that it took so long for either Guardnia or Cynthia to mention King Cetus to him, even though he had once visited his city. "Sanctuary isn't the place I thought it was, is it?"

She shook her head sadly. "Is any place truly what we think it is? I bet that even to Specters the Underworld has terrible secrets," but she then showed some sympathy. "I understand how you feel, though. I used to think like you about Sanctuary, as well. One of the reasons I became an Amazon instead of a Saintia was because I thought being in Aretias, the home village of the Amazon Saints, would let me stay away from some of the nastiness,... but my brilliant plan, unfortunately, didn't include the possibility being picked for Cassiopeia."

Shinta rubbed his own arm empathetically. The Andromeda Cloth sensed the tension between them and wacked Shinta's head with her circle end chain. "OW! Andromeda, stop it!"

"Mother is angry at us because of you, you airhead, don't complain!" the metal princess chastised.

Saint Cynthia held the boy's armor chain at bay to sooth it and spoke once more. If Andromeda thought she was upset at Shinta, it meant that their armor really couldn't tell what the two were truly talking about.

"We'll talk about this by the Volcanoes later, Bronze Saint. Maybe a tanning session and a good afternoon breathing in stardust-filled ash soot will teach you to respect His Holiness!" she then tapped her mask's eye to signify a 'wink' and pointed at the door harshly.

Shinta nodded, feigning shame, and walked out of the hut with a sense of relief to go check on the kids before they went to sleep. He hated when people he cared about had to pretend to be mean. It was so scary, but two years spent with Lance, fortunately, gave him some antibodies.

He narrowed his eyes determinedly, though, as one thing had been made clear; Master Guardnia's last words were not just the incoherent babble of a dying man, at least concerning the bad side of Sanctuary. Maybe there was some truth about the much more serious side of what he had to say and, if true, the pacifist boy would stop at nothing to figure out if something truly monstrous was going on.

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Chapter 38

Second Arc

Episode 6

The Exodus - Part 2 of 3

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(?)

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"Stand up straight, Lucian," said mother. "Don't shame your silver ring."

"On your knees again, Lucian? You really have no pride." chastised his trainer, re-erecting the huge practice rocks with his cosmos. "Get up and clean the blood off your fists. You still have twenty boulders left to shatter."

"Lucian, don't forget," said father, in a fierce tone, tossing the lance into his hands. "Only you can prove the worth of your blood. Only you can build your pride. Now fight!"

"Are you angry, young Lord?" asked the pale raven-haired girl maid. "Mm, mm, one day you will rid yourself of this torment and fulfill your fate, I'm sure."

"I got rid of that ghastly girl. I will not let you distract yourself," the mother pointed at the chalkboard and the books. "Educate yourself, Lucian. Do you have any idea of the weight on your shoulders?!"

"Your parents couldn't sire another child. You could be the last of their bloodline," someone had told him.

"Don't falter, get up," someone had ordered him. "You are the Lord's last hope."

"Remember Lucian, be proud…" lamented father. "Remember where we come from."

"Your blood…" mused mother. "You're special, Lucian, one day…"

"One day you will be Emperor!" promised father. "And all of blasted Sanctuary will bow before you!"

The fires of the pyre erupted as torches were shoved into it by the surrounding mob. Lucian's parents shrieked in front of him to the skies, making his eyes cry out tears of blood and let out a shout of rage.

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Underworld,

Fourth Circle, Giudecca

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The Emperor, Hades, stood before Lucifer and to his side stood Hypnos, the last person he wanted to see right then.

The Celestial Star of Pride's fist clenched its metal gauntlet cringingly and his heart began to race behind a layer of stoicism. His foot dragged closer to the dais with the Book of the Dead, ready for action. Even if things had gone according to plan, the wrong move right now could have meant instant annihilation.

And with Hypnos in tow, things were now a total nightmare. His red eyes narrowed. "Or perhaps this is my opportunity…"

There were whispers all around the area among True and False Specter alike. The two Judges still remained knelt, respecting the presence of the two Gods, and the army of begrudged warriors far below struggled to remain calm. The False Specters didn't know the details to Lucifer's plan, but they knew at least his intentions and what having too many Gods around meant for them.

Basilisk Sylphid and Minotaur Gordon also observed the scene from afar. "Lord Hades and Lord Hypnos, both show themselves… Ah, the rabble doesn't even know who to focus on first." commented the Prison Star.

More observant, Sylphid noticed the stronger False Specters signaling everyone to be quiet. "Don't they look a bit too disconcerted?"

Gordon folded arms. "You said it yourself, they just aren't of our caliber. Besides, I heard Thanatos made some vicious show in front of some of them the day he and Hypnos arrived. They probably fear them more than the Emperor himself."

Down by the False Specters, Papillon Ainsel sweated nervously, a rare show for him among their own. His purple eyes surveyed the crowd, who shook and gritted teeth ever so slightly in their rigid poses.

"Stay calm. No matter what happens, we'll look after you," he assured. Even if things looked bad, they had to make it look to Hades like everyone was innocent. As he looked as his elite equals, though, Ainsel could tell they too were worried.

Especially Alraune Lemon. "That bastard has done it!" Memories from the day he saw Lucifer being carted out by Guen and Urial, nearly dead at Thanatos' hand, assailed him, fearing he would soon share the same fate. "Now what will we do?!"

Back at the dais stand in the stairs, the Daemon Specter gawked. "Lord Hades… Lord Hypnos…" Taking a deep breath as subtly as he could, the Pride Star composed himself. "This is unexpected… to be honored by not one god of mine in this campaign, but two."

Hades didn't look one bit amused. "I was about to heed your request to show myself to the replacements, Lucifer… when Hypnos barged into my throne room, telling me you took the Book of the Dead from Minos. Do you care to explain that?"

Aiacos looked up at Lucifer. This was a true problem and the Emperor had good reason to be upset. Taking a weapon from an Olympian without permission was usually a grave crime, one he and the prince would hope to get away with due to their need to comb out the less loyal troops. Now Garuda was implicated in all this. He sweated nervously, hoping the Prince wouldn't lose his usually surprising sway with Hades now.

The silver-haired, red-eyed Prince nodded. "I didn't want to upset you, Emperor… but just as I've called you at this precise timing, I had full intention to show you I took the Book." he argued. "With it, I intended to make the final preparations for my campaign, which only its powers could allow me to do with reliability."

"Then why did you not ask me or, better yet, my brother for permission?" questioned Hypnos. The golden-haired god with the pentagram on his forehead seemingly levitated slightly off the staircase, flanking his liege Hades, and eyed Lucifer expectantly.

"I tried to stop him, Lord Hypnos," appealed Minos, delighting in the turn of events. So Lucifer was doing all of this with deceit after all. Touching the spot he got punched on, the Gryphon Specter now ached in anticipation of what punishment the Gods would deliver.

"I am aware. I saw!" Hypnos revealed, surprising everyone.

The Daemon Specter irked. So this is what had happened. By some unfortunate gamble of fate, Hypnos must have caught Aiacos arguing with Minos. There was nothing he could do about it now but play it cool.

So he took a short breath. "I did not ask, Lord Hypnos, because you and Lord Thanatos expressed no interest in this campaign. Your presence would be unnecessary, and Lord Hades would be present in any regard," argued Lucifer, all with technical truths, staying perfectly calm. He would not lose control now. "I hoped to get this done as quickly as possible, as I was bothering the Emperor enough as it is by insisting on his presence."

This seemed somewhat effective, if the sudden hesitation on Hypnos' part was any indication. He even looked at Hades like he suddenly realized he was not aware of everything at hand, but narrowed his eyes when he sensed the puppet was not at least a bit more relaxed, indicating further suspicion from the Emperor.

Sensing this, the Daemon took a step further in his dare. "If you so desire you can witness yourself what I had intended for the book." he invited, locking eyes with the God of Sleep. "I was saving the better half of my speech for this part, after all."

There was a beat of hesitation. "Well, Lucifer, it seems you haven't lost your silver tongue, the crowd was eating up your every word." the Sleep God flattered, squinting, but he left a veiled threat. "I'd hate it for you to stop dead in your tracks."

"Then by all means…" invited Hades, his blank eyes fixated on him like they would rip his soul straight out. "Continue!"

A deep freezing chill nearly stopped Lucifer's heart and he rested a hand on the Book, gripping the page with the False Specter names. Turning back to the crowd, he harnessed his every bit of pride; nothing but the spirit his father inspired within Lucifer as a child could steel him now, not with his back turned to the Gods that ruled everything that lies beyond the boundaries of life and terror.

He swiftly turned to the crowd, making his black cape flutter dramatically. "BEHOLD, SPECTERS OF THE UNDERWORLD!" the Daemon Specter cried out, his free hand reaching out for the crowd, silencing their nervousness. "Your master is here! Bow your heads, drop to your knees, choose to do whatever you wish to demonstrate your undying loyalty; for he has chosen to bless you all with the sight of him!"

And, in unison, spears and scythes and crossbows and banners on pikes reached for the air in the battalion "LONG LIVE! LONG LIVE!" they cried out, the signs of fear drowned in the cacophony, all eyeing Lucifer.

The red-eyed man measured their mood. Fortunately, they seemed to be collected. This was the benefit of having men like Torak and Neferti down there to keep them well-led, something the Judges would never understand.

"Many of you waited for this for years… for almost decades, perhaps, you have not?!" he questioned, receiving many distant nods as an answer. "Across the countless epochs of toiling in the Prisons, all each and every one of you ever hoped for was to catch another glimpse of the dreams Lord Hades promised you upon your awakening, upon the awakening of your Dark Callings!" he worded, referring to the magical urge the souls bound to the Evil Stars felt to revive as Specters.

Neferti tucked her harp to her chest, eyeing the Gods furiously with the memories of being zapped by Pandora. Torak lowered head in longing, lamenting lost friends and mentors. Many of the Specters, in fact, took these words very personally in various ways, often reflecting back on their old hopes.

This was the intended effect. "Let this be a sign of hope, as much as it is a warning to you all, that just as a great reward awaits those who fight, only by risking your lives, only by daring to face death in the face, will you succeed in this endeavor and accomplish your dreams, leaving your nightmares behind!" shouted the Prince, not minding words. "If you put that much on the line for what's expected of you, know that I will be leading you through every Temple, every street of Sanctuary, every gate to every castle and none of your sacrifices will be in vain."

Sylphid couldn't stop tapping his small foot. Lucifer's speech looked a bit too effective. Looking over the concentrated mob, he saw all these replacements, who had no good personal motives like any of their secret true counterparts. They were a bit too enamored with Daemon's words completely fixated on him despite the fact he was by far their worst drillmaster.

He poked Gordon's elbow. "Do you have the Skeletons at your call?"

"Uh? Yeah, of course, at least the ones in this Circle. Every Celestial does" The gigantic teenager confirmed. "The 4th Circle doesn't belong to any of the Judges, the Celestials can just command the guys stationed here at will."

"How many are in Giudecca?"

Gordon did a quick mental count. "Probably close to a thousand…. Why, what's the problem?"

The bright Specter child gritted teeth. "Just keep your finger on the phone, if you will."

Back to Lucifer, the Prince of Darkness continued. "There are two types of Saints you will face in Sanctuary, men; those who think they're above Hades' standards for Elysium and those who know they're not, but hide under Athena's skirt anyway. You will slaughter both without prejudice." he listed, personally disgusted. Nothing about what he intended to do that day changed his opinion of Shion's men. "The same applies to many other armies that will be our enemies, my Specters. The Mariners, the Asgardians, the Dryads… they all have two sides of the coin to them, the most disgusting one hard to single out. Is there any exception to this?!"

"NO!" the replacements shouted back.

The Prince shook his head. "And who will lead you to triumph before them all?!"

"LORD LUCIFER! They all shouted once again.

He then chuckled, closing eyes. It was time to finish this. "The Gods themselves know this to be true. Sitting in their golden thrones, they look down on the greatest source of our valor; our mortality and our fear of it." He opened them back. "Why, even here, in the Underworld, there are those who have double-crossed you."

Many nodded in accord. Many gripped and lifted up their weapons once more with a mix of enthusiasm and fear of what was about to come.

Minos, however, irked, unfolding his arms and getting up from his kneel with Aiacos. This was a strange thing to say to servants of Hades, especially right in front of the Emperor. "What on Earth is he telling them?!"

"Unfortunately men…" lamented Lucifer, looking down on the 'Book of the Dead' "There are those have lost their valor a long, long time ago… those who lost their bravery, their integrity, or better yet never had them!" he stressed, making the mood of the False Specters swing down like a maestro with an orchestra. "Even here, in the depths of the Underworld, there are those who await in deceit to destroy the very same they swore to protect, to reward with their compassion, are there not?!"

Once more, the True Specters and the False Specters had opposing reactions, the former looking at one another worryingly and the latter murmuring and nodding in agreement. The feeling that Lucifer was giving two speeches at once crept into the minds of the two Celestial Star Judges, who gradually approached him.

Hypnos once more intensified his gaze, making his dark cosmos crackle with the atmosphere, making it seem like a drowsing miasma was around everyone. He could feel his brother's power emanating from the object in Lucifer's hand. Hades just stood there tensely.

The Prince patted the book on the dais. "This is why this has been brought to me." He picked it up and lifted the large, heavy object with frightening symbols up in the air for everyone to see. "Do you recognize it? It is Thanatos' divine weapon, the book with the fate of all those who have died, and with the fate of the Specters as well. In these pages, across trillions of lines, there is more power, more Cosmos and more magic than all of you put together. The power of the DEATH GOD is in my hand!"

The God of Sleep lost his patience. "And what do you intend to do with such power, Prince?" asked Hypnos, his tone about to snap in a growl.

Then, in a moment of fate, in front of the entire Underworld, he turned to the two Gods with Book firmly in hand. "I intend to conquer Sanctuary, take what's rightfully mine and have my vengeance on you worthless, LYING Gods of death!" he then eyed Hades in particular. "And when I unite the thrones of Sanctuary and the Underworld, I will have you wrapped in chains so deep inside the Tartarus you will never have to fear the light of day again, Hades!"

With this and a horrified gasp of the Judges, the dark clouds overcame the Underworld's sky and crackled with unnatural green lightning. The black winds of the valleys of the Styx emerged in the area and the shadows of the souls trapped in the palace of Giudecca crawled down the staircase steps to their feet.

Garuda Aiacos was the first to interrupt. "Prince… are you…" His face paled. "You're going to send the traitors to Cocytos now, won't you? DO IT, already!"

Lucifer turned to him and shook his head.

Minos practically shoved Aiacos. "WAKE UP! Didn't you hear what he just said?!"

"You really know nothing of the world, Suikyo, do you?" he confronted, paralyzing the Judge. "I will enjoy finding out what pathetic fate your blindness has reserved for you this war."

The Celestial Valiance Star gasped. "...W-what?!"

Minos stepped forward. "Unhand that Book NOW-" Lucifer's finger snapped at him "GYAAH!" A sudden blue spark had struck Minos' body, shocking and shooting him back to the floor.

"MINOS!" shouted Aiacos, then eyeing Lucifer like he would rip off his head before the Gods by their side could. "LUCIFER, you bastard, what are you doing?!"

Lucifer just frowned and burned his demonic cosmos, manifesting a dark red aura around his brilliant Surplice, making the Damascus shine so beautifully that the carvings almost seemed to manifest the image of a monster jaw formed on the chest plate. His black cape flowed, his bat-winged, ruby-encrusted crown shined with energy and his muscles tightened.

The confrontation had begun.

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Meanwhile,

China, Mount Rozan

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

The confrontation began between teacher and student. Pegasus Lance focused fiercely in his meditating seat, trying to outdo Dohko in who could burn the most cosmos with the least amount of effort.

However, beating Roshi at this would be like trying to get into a blind-walk contest with Shaka; nobody had more practice than Libra Dohko, whose thin golden aura gently flowed around the surface of his small body with the gracefulness of a carefully-crafted fountain. Lance, on the other hand, had to embarrassingly let the sparks and embers of his unrefined elements show off how untrained he was as he struggled to stay focused on getting his mind as one with the Cosmos, which felt like it was putting two separate roads in front of his brain. One could not simply sit their butt down better than Roshi.

This kind of exercise was important now that Lance unlocked a new element, Electricity, and had to figure out how to separate it from Fire without thinking about it in combat, or he could seriously hurt himself or others. Over the past few days he had shocked himself a number of times when accidentally manifesting charges, shorted out Roshi's stove and made Ma Chao's rough white striped fur stand up in the air like a big angry cat that time the tiger rubbed himself on the wall that the student had just been leaning against. Lance hadn't laughed so hard at something in a really long time, but Roshi didn't find it amusing at all, for once, and immediately began putting the teenager up to the new training.

After about an hour of emptying his mind, all Lance could see in the darkness of his enclosed eyes was the vague sensation of an electric current occasionally interrupted by a fire spark, like two small rocks rubbing each other. Trying to reconcile these two disparate things seemed like an impossible task, and maybe it was.

Whenever he sensed that Lance still wasn't grasping it well, Dohko tried to give him a hint or two to push him in the right direction, or at least make him think less about what he can't do. "Possessing just one element is the surest path to mastering it… for every new power you acquire, the difficulty in knowing yourself will increase," he lectured. "The difficulty in tapping into your cosmos efficiently, therefore, will also rise."

This seemed intuitive enough. Roshi only had the Water element, as far as Lance knew, and he employed it with the grace of a true master of the supernatural.

"Think back to the first moment you unlocked the Cosmos, Lance," urged Dohko. "Think of the surge of primordial power that you felt, the sensation of a galaxy expanding wildly inside your soul."

Lance tried to obey, but the day he unlocked his cosmos in Mount Olympus was not one he liked to think about. It was a day that changed his life, yes, and first gave him hope of surviving the Training Ground after a long period of hopelessness and suffering, but it was also the result of more sorrow than he thought he could endure.

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

The colossal, dirty wolf snarled hungrily, standing like a stalker between the trees, tall as their branches, the edges of its lips ever so slightly curved up in the semblance of a smile and its dark grey, thick fur waving with the cold forest breeze. It breathed out a hot vapor anxiously, creating a stench in the air of copper and infected flesh, and dropping saliva to the snow which froze instantly, as it stared down the two preys it cornered.

Lance's red eyes froze in terror. In his worst days of battling the packs inhabiting the second step, he had never imagined that the Third Step harbored something so far, far worse, and the arrow wounds in his body went numb with the freezing sensation that the wolf's dark, abyss-like eye sockets, his young face streaming tears of frustration and madness, lost in the hopelessness of the mountain of the gods.

The armored arms around him tucked him closely, but Lance could feel 'Sarah's' terrified heartbeat through her breastplate. "D-Don't be afraid, Lance… Whatever you do, don't scream!" she urged in a whisper.

But the wolf took a single curious step forward with its clawed paw and the red-eyed child let out a scream of panic, making the crows fly into the air and a smiley animal growl to precede a lash at them!

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

The Pegasus Saint's calm mind suddenly lost focus again, his temples sweated and his heartbeat race. He breathed out the terrible memory, one of the worst ones he had other than his experiences with Guilty on Death Queen Island. He found himself opening his eyes and frantically placing himself back in the present by taking in the calm scenery of Mount Rozan. "No, it's gone, it's all gone… all those bad places are way in the past!" he told himself, gradually regaining breath.

Dohko's small hand grabbed his shoulder for a moment, setting him at ease. He resisted the urge to make fun of Lance, for once, and just focused on his own meditation, letting the gentle waves of his cosmos distract Lance from whatever nightmare he was reliving. Being forced to confront old terrors was a common thing when meditating with the Cosmos, as it made you stop to think about nothing and let whatever you're distracting yourself from with your daily routine resurface, allowing the memories of the hardships that made you get in touch with the universe manifest themselves.

Dohko, above all, knew this, himself sometimes having relived the sight of his failures during Suikyo's attack or the Lost Canvas War when sitting by the waterfall.

The youth self-consciously straightened his meditating pose, but he found himself unable to get back to where he was. His hands shook and his heart raced. "D-damn it, I lost my place."

"The first day you unlock the cosmos is usually a day of triumph and happiness for Saints," Dohko commented.

The charcoal-haired head shook. "It's not one I like to think back on."

Roshi chuckled. "Yo-oh-oh, which explains your lukewarm reaction when you got Electricity; you don't see it as an achievement as much as you do a basic necessity, blaming yourself for not having gotten it sooner instead of celebrating actually acquiring the fact." he concluded, no stranger to his student's manias by then.

Lanced looked away. "Cosmos just isn't something I understand very well, even now," he confessed.

In fact, to Lance, unlocking the 7th sense against Aguilon felt more like a stroke of luck than the result of talent and training. Other than the stress and risk of battle, which he successfully used against Tenma to unlock electricity, there didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to Lance's breakthroughs with the power of the universe.

This sometimes made him think about something he heard about Athena's greatest enemies. "Someone once told me Specters acquire it by simple virtue of awakening as Specters and getting their Surplices. Is it true?"

Dohko nodded. "Yes… don't go thinking you can switch sides now, though, heh heh heh." he ironized. "Sanctuary has a limited understanding of Surplices, but from what we know, the armors carry the collective memories and darkness of their owners from across the Holy Wars, their 'Specter' if you will. History tells us that the names of the Specters repeat themselves as if the same men are somehow recruited throughout the centuries, and Lemurian Saints, like Shion's old teacher Hakurei, testify to meeting the same Specter in separate Holy Wars with Hades. Evidence seems to suggest they do, indeed, pass on power without need to train."

"That's convenient." But Lance then blinked. "Wait, Shion had a teacher?"

Dohko looked at him like Lance was stupid. "Of course he did. Most Saints do, even if that teacher ends up being our Cloth, like Karkinos who taught you the Underworld Wave."

Lance grumbled. "Look, Roshi, it's just weird to picture it because Shion is so…"

"So old?" Roshi guessed, laughing even harder.

This was the good side of Roshi's bluntness; he would just break the topic's ice like nothing. "Yeah, I guess. He's also the Pope."

Dohko shook his head. "Pah, don't let that get to your head, I could totally beat that snotty nerd even now." he bragged, rubbing his beard.

Lance's eyes narrowed "Yeah, Roshi, I'm not impressed by that, considering you can secretly turn young again!" he lambasted, making the Chinese old man tuck his hat down and grumble about ungrateful kids. "What about you, Roshi? Did you have a teacher? Other than these magical dragons and tigers you say live in Rozan, of course."

Suddenly, the plump old man's expression darkened even further. He seemed to be thinking about whether or not he should answer him. "Hmm… yeah, yes I did."

Lance blinked. He was not expecting a positive answer, just for Roshi to coil back into his shell again like he usually does when Lance poked into his past. "Wow, uh… what was he like?"

Dohko's eyes looked away. Memories of battles against the Princes of Darkness returned. "…Wise…Kind… a bit infuriating. Had a love for archeology and spirituality, but tended to disappear." he confessed, bewildering the Pegasus. "By the time the Lost Canvas War started, I had not seen Haisaku in years."

"So the name's Haisaku?" His Japanese was flunky at best, but Lance recognized some syllables. "Grey Bird, I guess? Was he a Saint? Also I didn't realise Japanese were admitted back then in such numbers. Tenma, Suikyo… and now this guy?" Lance calculated, trying to make the best of this vague information.

Master Dohko paused for a beat. "Yes, she was. And she was Chinese like me! She just changed her name cause people in Greece couldn't pronounce it right, like I did!" he ranted, unusually sensitive.

The Pegasus Saint was stunned. She? The obnoxious, adventurous, boastful Roshi, who tossed wisdom off the window to go on youthful rampages across Triad holdouts for fun and excitement, was taught by a woman? The guy who constantly paraded his indiscretions and bragged about his romantic prowess, perceived or not, was educated by a member of the opposite sex?

His arms folded sternly. "Is this bullshit? Are you just pulling my leg again?"

But the purple dwarf shrugged shoulders. "I'm not, why would I? This is as serious as it can be. Sure, Haisaku didn't go down the history pages…" he confessed, shaking his head as if it was an undeserved outcome. "- but she was the one who helped me understand the Gods of Rozan, Byako in particular, and eventually become the Libra Gold Saint."

Red eyes blinked. If this was true, it was truly shocking, but it was also kind of a fascinating opportunity to get to know more about Dohko without any bull crap in the middle. "Well… what was she like? Why did she infuriate you?"

His cane then rested as he contemplated the past. A long breath was eventually taken. "Haisaku… looked at everything very differently from me… and from most people; there was always something surreal about her behavior, as if most of the time you'd think she wasn't looking at you so much as something 'standing behind you'. I never liked that about her." He then grumbled. "She also wasn't very straightforward and liked to say things in riddles."

"Yeah, I BET that was irritating." Lance snarked.

"Most importantly… I was never okay with her decision to stay out of the war." Dohko then shifted, taking Lance by surprise. "We could have used her help. She could have saved lives… sometimes I can't get out of my head that if it wasn't for that day, if I hadn't climbed down that hole with Cygnus, she would have stayed out of it entirely and many more would have died."

This was a bewildering amount of nonsense. "Cygnus? Hole? Roshi, with all due respect, what the heck are you talking about?" But once more Roshi was lost in thought, his mind travelling to the past.

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

18th Century, Sanctuary

Cavern of the 'Argo'

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

The great trireme, the 'Argo', shook as it was immersed in a golden flare of cosmos, manifesting a power that made the whole cave network tremble. Wind currents grew in strength, seemingly coming from the ship, and Dohko was brushed off against the floor by the sudden strong shockwave that came out.

"SAINT DOHKO!" Cygnus shouted, raising his Cloth buckler defensively as he was also battered by a great wind burst. Squinting and feeling his heels drag on the wet rock floor, the Bronze Saint saw the ship's shaking increase, and its ruined sails wave as if also a victim of this new threat. "WHO'S THERE?! WHO ARE YOU?!"

A great, golden Cosmos was felt from inside the ship, then made visible by a glow coming from within the darkness of the ship's lower decks.

"Who am I?" a voice echoed, seemingly also stunned by it. "I am nobody, a mere taker of knowledge, but you… you are 'interesting.'"

Dohko raised his head from the ground, recognizing the energy and the voice. "This person… it can't be!"

The ship practically looked like it would come alive with the energy emanating the terrible waves of power, trembling as the voice spoke. "You're an abomination upon this world, aren't you, Cygnus?" the voice asked. "I can sense it… your mere presence puts the stars in disarray as if a great cosmic balance has been deeply disturbed. The punishment of the gods will be severe if you don't depart from this world..."

Feeling threatened, the Bronze Saint sweated and burned his icy, white Cosmos, clasping his hands high up in the air once more. "It was a god who sent me here, and I won't turn back! My friends and I came here for a reason, damn the Olympians!"

But the voice chuckled amusedly. "It's not the 'Olympians' you must fear here." To Hyoga's shock, the golden cosmos emanating from the ship then burned into a multitude of colors before settling down to orange. The shadow of a person was then detected between the masts climbing up the deck stairs to the trireme's surface, seemingly the source of the incredible energy.

Eventually, the color orange overcame all others and, to Cygnus' utter shock, the image of a firebird was projected on the walls. The harsh wind burst out once more, and the person's voice cried out. "Feel the flap of the firebird's wings! HOYOKU TENSHO!" a snapping sound, like a punch, was heard, and fire burst from the person like a gunshot flare, unleashing a huge, flying firebird encapsulated in a torrent of embers flew straight at him.

Although he was about to fire Aurora Execution, Cygnus was so shocked he hesitated, allowing the attack to cross over the countering distance. "What?!...but that's Ikki's move!" A shadow then jumped in front of him and blocked the attack with a scream, exploding the firebird. "SAINT DOHKO!"

The impact struck the Gold Saint, pushing him down to the floor, but the Libra Gold Saint, however, swept his arms away, brushing off the firebird into waves of flames that harmlessly struck the walls, merely letting out a blunt, echoing sound.

He stood up straight, triumphant, and faced the silhouette confronting them "I'm alright, Hyoga… Sorry for startling you, but I wanted to make sure my 7th sense wasn't fooling me." He then raised a finger at the finger. "There's only one person who could execute this technique, and in such a manner! Come on out, Saint Phoenix… my Master, Phoenix Haisaku!"

The golden aura subsided and the figure stepped out of the ship's shadows, walking up to its bow. Saint Cygnus' one good eye then raised its brow quizzically.

Standing before them was not a great warrior similar to Dohko, but a short, frail-looking masked woman with a support staff made of cherry wood, a seethed katana by her waist with a golden tiger and a golden dragon woven unto the handle's each side, and three red threads knotted at the tips like embers tied to its pommel.

She had an orange, fire-like wild mane of hair running down her back, giving her a wild appearance, topped by a thin green and red headband with black patterned lines between its colors to straighten her bangs somewhat at the front. A leather, sleeveless short covered her torso and shoulders but left out two pale-skinned arms which, albeit slightly toned, were more comparable to the build of a Saintia than an Amazon.

Two golden bracelets with rubies on them were tightened around her wrist and a long, brown, smooth leather skirt rained down her legs, decorated by a vertical tripe with a pattern of maze lines similar to her headband's, while her feet wore common Sanctuary sandals, striking a balance between religious adornment and austere clothing.

Finally, her Amazon porcelain face was marked with red lines of ink around the eyes and thicker, parallel trios on each cheek, further giving her a native look, and a necklace of white eagle feathers of sequenced lengths was worn around her neck.

This caught his attention for a very particular reason; much like with Shaina back home, if an Amazon outlined the eyes of her mask, it was usually an indication of their eye color.Blood red was not a common eyecolor. In fact, Master Ivan, the Crystal Saint, had once taught him to be a sign of a curse or evil in Sanctuary culture and people with it were usually ostracized.

.The blond Bronze Saint had gotten the proof of this when he faced off against Saga's crazier side, whose eyes transformed into a cursed blood red form, but the cosmos he sensed from the woman was so gentle and mild that he had a hard time picturing her as a threat, much less compare her to Sanctuary's tyrant.

Overall, she reminded him of a poor, aged Saintia named Pavo Mayura who resided in Mount Tokugashi and had assisted Shoko in her Holy War against Eris, while he and his friends were still in a coma from the battle with Saga. Not only did Mayura also wear a mask, she adopted similarly bizarre adornments that indicated her unique position in Sanctuary of being a mix of a Maiden and a Saint.

But, perhaps most importantly, the cane in her hand was identical to the cherry cane that 'old' Dohko was usually seen sporting back in the 'present' and that Shiryu had converted into the forbearance jewel in his battle with Scorpio Écarlate, proving that she really was, as Dohko announced, his teacher.

It took a moment of tension until she broke the silence. "Dohko?..." she muttered, hesitant, but then her head lowered and she jumped down the ship to rush at him. She didn't seem to need the help of the cherry cane at all, but the sword did clank a lot on her waist. "DOHKO! Ah, ah, my sweet boy! Dohko, look at you! You're all grown up!" she celebrated, grabbing his armored arms and beaming like a happy mother.

"Haisaku…" Dohko muttered, eyes shadowed by his hair, making Hyoga wonder if he was touched to find her.

Though her face was masked, the woman's elation was clear. "I'm so happy to see you! And you got the Libra Cloth!" she pointed out, her mask moving up and down like a mother who hadn't seen her son since he went to camp. "Byako must be so proud of you! I knew you could get his approval! Oh, I wish I had been there…"

Even the cold hearted Hyoga had to curve his lips up, if there was something that touched him was seeing a Sanctuary teacher happy to be with his student, because it reminded him of Saint Ivan of Crystal, his own mentor.

But rather than return the affection, an angry frown filled the Libra's face. "That's because it's been YEARS since we've seen each other! HAISAKU, you….!" the Libra Saint lambasted, exasperated, teeth gritting like a snarling tiger. "What in Goddess's name are you doing in this cave?! I looked for you for MONTHS! Why are you with the Argo down this goddess-forsaken hole?!"

Cygnus saw the aged woman immediately cower. She didn't seem like the assertive type if she let her student affront her like that. Master Crystal certainly wouldn't tolerate this tone, even if he was totally in the wrong. "It all certainly is strange." he pointed out.

"Oh…This ship is why I left… You know me, Dohko, I can't resist a potential site, I came to dig it up." She revealed, half-chuckling, waving at the Argo. "It's been… months already?

Dohko's jaw was agape. "It's been FOUR YEARS!"

She covered her mouth, horrified. "Oh, goddess… No wonder I've been feeling hungry." She looked at the ship behind her then back at her infuriated student, seemingly unsure what to say. "I've just been so engrossed by this ship. The Argo is full of amazing secrets! But then…I couldn't find a way to get it out of the ice safely. It was covered in a deep sheet of ice and I was afraid to burn it if I tried to melt it, so I stuck around and meditated for a while."

"MEDITATED?!" Dohko yelled, truly flabbergasted. "Haisaku, you…!"

The Cygnus was just as flabbergasted. "How were you stuck? You could have thawed the ice with your fire or slice your way out?!" Hyoga questioned, pointing at her sword.

Her hand touched her chest. She seemed disgusted at the thought of it. "What? Goddess no, this blade is a sacred ritual artifact of the Rozan Gods! It's not a… samurai tool! I wouldn't hear the end of it from Seiryu if I used it so crudely. Also, I'm still a Saint," but she bobbed her head, indicating unsureness. "Though I suppose… you must be upset with me, Dohko… I missed out your communion with Byako, your promotion to Libra…"

"You missed MUCH MORE than that!" Dohko roared, eyes shaking. "All this time, I wondered where you could be! All this time, I thought you could be DEAD! And you were down here, less than a mile away from the Aries Temple, just snoozing off! Meanwhile, I was defending the Zodiac against one of my best friends! Suikyo died in my arms and you were just MEDITATING DOWN HERE!"

The masked woman gasped, stepping away from the student. She even turned to the Bronze Saint as if to ask if this was all true, to which he just frowned and nodded. Cygnus couldn't really blame Dohko for the outrage; not only were four years a ridiculous time for a person to be trapped and act so nonchalant about it, but it meant this person had been stuck down here during the entire battle with Suikyo and Odysseus in Sanctuary.

Her head shook slowly, lamenting. "I'm… sorry, Dohko… I know you liked Suikyo very much." she admitted.

The blonde Bronze Saint tried to alleviate the situation. "Roshi, maybe we can let this go for now? We do have to get the ship out of here." He then looked around at the rock walls enveloping them. "Though I'm not sure yet how…"

Dohko turned his back at them, though, furious. "It's not just Suikyo, but now I've lost Tenma as well… And now all I can think of, Haisaku, is that if I had not happened to come down here with Hyoga… you'd have gone this whole new war missing as well…" His brown-haired head lowered, disheartened.

Her hand reached out and touched his arm, but the tension in it frightened her. Perhaps it was too much to ask of Dohko to tolerate her eccentric outlook this time, too. "Dohko… I'm sorry… but he's alive, I can sense it."

Both of them blinked. "This isn't time for jokes, Haisaku!" Dohko warned.

Her head shook. "I'm serious." The hand that touched Dohko then flared up with white cosmos, which both of them recognized as Tenma. "I sensed his energy in you. This is him, right? Two years ago, in a friendly spar, you let his fist touch your arm." She then paused to concentrate. "Suikyo was still alive back then… he laughed when Tenma jumped on you and wrestled you down."

Dohko stared at her, eyes tearing up. "… Yes, that's right…"

She then expanded her mind, taking a deep breath to search for Tenma's cosmos in the vastness of the universe. Eventually, she pinpointed from where she felt the brightness of his stars. "His cosmos has yet to return to the stars from this world. Although his spirit walks the Underworld, he is with friends, and it is shining in defiance of great foes. Your student, Tenma, lives, and he is battling to return."

The Libra Saint's lips quivered and his fist tightened. "That means…"

Her head nodded. "You'll get him back, Dohko… have faith." she promised.

Hyoga gasped. "How can you tell that kind of thing?" He had employed the 7th sense since his tragic battle with Grandmaster Camus and Cygnus had never gotten this much knowledge out of such a small energy sample that just happened to linger on Dohko's arm.

The orange-haired woman turned to him. "It's all in the cosmos. All our emotions, memories, passion and hopes go through it at one point. Just as the cosmos can be forever burned like an ember that refused to go out, the memories in it also never truly vanish." she guaranteed.

If she did, then surely the Holy Wars outside the cavern were known to her. "Then, Lady Haisaku… you must be aware of what's been going on? We need as much help as we can muster."

While she had half a mind to shake her head, looking at Cygnus and his Bronze Cloth suddenly made Haisaku's red cursed eyes widen in realization. "Oh right, Dohko, we don't have time for this! Something incredible has happened!" she then patted her chest. "Look, do you see anything wrong?"

Roshi's whole face went red. "W-what?! Look, Haisaku, this isn't-"

"Don't be an idiot, I'm talking about my cloth!" Haisaku yelled. "My Phoenix Cloth is gone! We have to go to the Pope right away!"

Dohko and Cygnus both blinked. "… Oh, yeah, I was meaning to ask you about that." Roshi confessed. "I thought you just dumped it again on Death Queen Island. Did something happen to it?"

Haisaku's expression froze on Hyoga. "Yes… I carried it with me when I came down here… then one night it just burned up and disappeared. I remember that at the time I was sensing a great battle just outside and could feel strange shooting stars clashing in on Sanctuary."

Hyoga's eye widened. Could it be? "It must have been when Ikki arrived on this Sanctuary and fought Cain and Abel!" he concluded.

More perceptive than she seemed, or perhaps just no longer absorbed into encountering her student, the older woman's mask suddenly sharpened on him like a bird of prey's eyes. "THIS Sanctuary? What does that mean?" she questioned, then looking at how vastly upgraded his Bronze Cloth was. "Now that I think of it… this is a strange shape for the Cygnus Cloth to assume. I don't know who you are, young Bronze, but your presence… it's flaring up the Cosmos."

Cygnus blinked. "Excuse me?"

Her eyes closed and a thin orange line formed around her. "It's like I said from the ship… I can sense something abnormal about you, you stir up the stars… the scars in your stars, the knowledge deeper than what exists today in them… it's as if you are from a cosmos that is yet to be." Her wrinkled hand reached out and touched his wing-shaped chest plate. "The poison of the Scorpion once struck you here." Her finger then slid up to his ravaged eye, covered by bandages. "And… your own power did this to you…A self mutilation?"

A strange chill went up to his spine and Cygnus brushed her hand off. "Stop it! How do you know these things?!"

Her head shook lamentingly. "I told you, the memories are never really gone from the Cosmos… you just need to know how to speak with it."

"Don't worry, Hyoga, Master Haisaku just speaks like this. She means you no harm." Dohko assured, "She's a bit weird."

Cygnus brushed them off embarrassedly, though. He didn't like having his past prodded through. "Then maybe she can help us take this ship out of here." His one good eye looked up. "We can probably blast our way out, but can we protect the ship from the rubble? Even if we don't need it anymore to save Tenma, it could be useful in the future."

Libra Dohko's body began burning with his gentle greenish-blue aura, evoking the roar of the dragon. "We have no choice but to try to blast a path open." His fist then curled and cocked in preparation for an uppercut. "ROZAN-"

Haisaku's free hand then stopped his wrist. "Stop it, Dohko, you'll destroy the ship with the shockwave… let me handle this." And she then stepped into the water, looking up at the ceiling. "When you kids came through, you lowered the temperature of the cavern even further and then broke the ice with your attacks, and the ice sheet blocking the ship broke safely all the way here. I wish I had thought of it. This means the Argo is free…"

Cygnus stared. "What is she going to do? I thought she said she was stuck by herself."

Her hands laid out to the sides, and her masked face hummed gently. A golden aura took over her body, first burning like Phoenix's, with a raging flow, but then calming into a simpler emanation of light, more like a Gold Saint's. The ship then suddenly shook, there was a rumbling sound and, to their surprise, the entire huge trireme lifted from the floor, dropping lingering pebbles all over.

"What's going on?!" shouted Cygnus. "I feel like… back when Saga and the others fired the Exclamation…!"

Dohko then sensed a great power rising inside the ship, "Something in the Argo… is charging?!"

The female Master's skirt fluttered above the water like a gentle dance and her feather necklace raised into the air. "Through my meditation, I communed with the Cosmos of the ship and learned the secrets of the Argo… the souls of the lost Argonauts are impressed into its timber, making the ship alive." Haisaku muttered before her telekinesis made the ship's bow point upwards. "And they left behind in it a great weapon!"

And barely before they could raise their bucklers to protect their eyes, a thundering sound was heard as a huge source of light blasted out of the trireme's eyed bow, blinding the entire cavern with a sun-like explosion of Cosmos.

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Present

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

As if startling himself with the memory of the Argo's secret cannon firing, Dohko's eyes opened, finding himself back in Rozan with a pretty upset student tapping his foot impatiently. "Oh, are we done with practice?"

"No, we are behind schedule!" Lance lambasted. "Roshi, seriously, what is up with you lately? If you don't wanna talk about your teacher, that's fine, but you've been more nostalgic than usual and its kinda pissing me off that you just leave me here hanging while you think about God knows what. Don't tell me you're going senile just when I need you to help me finish my training."

Dohko scoffed. "How inconsiderate, I could die, you know? Then who would write my will and leave you my earthly possessions?"

"Ah! What earthly possessions?!" Lance scoffed back. "You got a hut, which is pretty, I suppose, a collection of books in Mandarin that I'll die before I learn how to read and a big pet tiger that hates me –" and with this Ma Chao could be heard further down the valley chasing a rabbit through the ruffling bushes. "- so really, not much of a will to write."

The Sword of the Four Paths left to him by Haisaku, as well as the cane which held the jewel of forbearance, came to Dohko's mind. "Yo-oh-oh, maybe I'm holding a couple of treasures back from you."

Lance sat back down. "Yeah, yeah, we all know you're all about holding your secrets and tricks back till you can surprise me with them in training. Like your little makeshift holodeck with Tenma." The Pegasus never thought he'd see Roshi act out something from that weird show with Leonard Nimoy. "I swear, if Specters had half the tricks you keep from me, I'd be dead by now."

The most recent disturbances in the seal Dohko had been sensing then came to his mind as well. "Ah, if only you knew… I hope I really am getting too old, or we might have to get ready for war much sooner than we thought."

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Underworld,

4th Prison, Guidecca Palace

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

In the meantime, the Book of the Dead itself began to burn with energy, the names of all the False Specters suddenly shining, selected. As this happened, everyone shook in fear with the strange vibration that suddenly battered the air. As if a terrible curse had struck the night, the Palace of Giudecca grew darker and silent whispers transversed the valley, filling everyone's ears. The Judges stopped, the True Specters quivered and the False ones shook in anticipation.

Then it became exceedingly clear the source of this disturbance. As everyone turned their eyes to the two gods, they could see the figures literally brimming with terrible, incomprehensible power which resonated like silent heartbeats. Hypnos's body was so overcome with the shadows of nightmares he resembled more a black phantom of golden eyes and winged ear, while Hades looked like an eye of a storm, a silent puppet figure in humble armor and cape amidst a faint tornado of winding Cosmos. Amidst the three figures, a crackle of power seemed to clash, a clash of will not unlike the one between Minos and Aiacos over the Book witnessed by Rune, but of much, much greater magnitude.

The pages of the book threatened to flip over with the sudden bashing of invisible forces, but Lucifer held them still. Facing the two terrible Gods, his aura burned in mixture with the Book's.

He couldn't stop eyeing Hades, ignoring Hypnos entirely. For the first time, he could truly be honest. "I've waited a long time for this moment. I'm sure you have too, Hades!"

Hypnos gritted teeth, immersed in his dark power. What would happen if he tried to attack Lucifer with the power of his brother in the blasted mortal Prince's hand?! The power that condemned the dead to their proper place in the Underworld, and therefore as devastating as any of them two in that place? Just the interaction of their auras was making the palace of Giudecca tremble beneath their feet. He might as well have grabbed Poseidon's Trident itself.

But the God of the Underworld sighed sadly. "I'm so disappointed."

Lucifer scoffed, the layers of stoicism he previously kept up now eroding into an expression of the purest hate. "Of what, Hades?! That you're losing the loyalty of another Prince?!"

Hypnos subtly stepped forward. "Lord Hades, I'll curse him to sleep while he's distracted. Hopefully, this will let me take the book safe-"

The Emperor's eyes then shone like bright red stars and a monstrous, incomparable force broke straight through the tense clash of cosmos previously between them, striking Lucifer and smashing him straight through the dais, shattering it and finally smashing him against the staircase's depth side. Lucifer screamed out loud, tiny pieces of his armor breaking into the floor, and he tucked his arm to chest to hold on to the book, but the Emperor's eyes shined again, once more striking him with the force of the 1,000 lightspeed blows at once, bashing him down the wide step's surface. The Prince coughed and tried to stand on his free hand, his body shaking and armor cringing. He could hear the puppet walk up to him so he focused all the strength he could in not letting go of the tome.

The God's red hair barely waved with the release of the power, his blank eyes still radiating blood red. "No, Lucifer, I'm disappointed because you had two hundred years to come up with a better plan."

Minotaur Gordon jumped from the onlooking hill he stood on and landed with an ash-spreading crash in front of the False Specter army. "COME TO ME, FORCES OF GIUDECCA!" he roared, and shadows from all distances erupted from the crevices among the rocks, summoning the true Skeleton Soldiers.

Behemoth Torak swept his arm. "MEN OF LUCIFER, FORM DEFENSE CIRCLE!" he commanded, and immediately the four groups of False Specters ran around, forming an outward-facing sphere of defending stances with their pole weapons. The many minor False Specters joined up, taking position only two or three layers of men deep into the formation to act as commanding officers, and the four elite Specters stood loosely around, with Nasu Erika and Papillion Ainsel taking to the air above them. "Brace yourselves, be ready to fight for your lives!"

A collective shiver of nervousness went through every single one of their souls, now subject to the terror they had once spread to others. All around them, the thousands of true Skeleton Soldiers, the worshippers of death, that had joined Hades over the last few months rose from the ground like devils, erecting sharp scythes of Damascus and steel that shone under the shine of the Underworld's stars. Chuckling with bloodlust, they closed in and surrounded the group of fewer than four hundred men, pointing crossbows and pole weapons ready for the slaughter.

Gordon laughed at the sight of the replacements standing their ground, cradling his ax-armed hand. "Lord Thanatos will be rather upset. I will have to take the pleasure to destroy you all from his hands." His aura then inflamed itself, manifesting a howling bull creature, and his hoof-greaved foot stomped the ground, shaking the valley. "You will all be smashed here! The price of treason will be destruction to you all, replacements!"

"HE STILL HAS THE BOOK!" Sylphid screamed, pointing at Lucifer's hand. "LORD MINOS, TAKE IT!"

Far up above in the Giudecca staircase, Hades's armor-padded shoulders shook with his faint chuckle as he approached Lucifer. "You remember this kind of force, don't you, Lucifer? You're so strong, so proud… yet before the might of a God, you are as weak and helpless as a small child."

Lucifer panted and coughed, refusing to let go of his only survival chance. "S-SHUT UP! I can't even stand to listen to your monotone voice any longer!"

The puppet chuckled, looking at the brightened names on the book. "So that was the trick you were going to pull? Mm, mm... You truly are the lesser of the two, you failure! What good will teleporting all the replacements away from here with a sentencing... when I'm about to crush you into the size of a stardust speck and scatter you to the Cocytus? Don't they hate you?"

The Prince struggled with all his might, feeling his body slowly getting pressed despite the unparalleled defensive might of the Daemon Surplice. "Y-You're wrong, Hades…" he lashed out. "They know of yourlies! They know you promised them nothing!"

Hypnos heard this and turned to the Judges. "Get ready to contain the replacements, do not let them escape!"

Aiacos, however, shook with anger, eyeing the Prince. "You… YOU TRICKED ME!"

Minos turned to Gordon far down. "MINOTAUR, BASILISK, order your men to attack on my command!"

With this, crossbows were reeled, scythes struck the floor menacingly like pickaxes and spears were holstered high among the True Skeletons. Minotaur's arm shined with the silhouette of the Grand Axe, and Sylphid's wings brimmed with his dark, wind-elemental cosmos. The army of False Specters gritted teeth, sweated bullets and tucked weapons, ready to fight for their lives. Surrounded on all sides, however, and with at least two Gods in the Palace's stands, what hope did they have?

Seeing this, Hades then tortured Pride Star even more. "Does it upset you, Lucifer? Does it sadden you that you waited so long only to be so hopelessly outmatched? I hope not, because you should have known better than anyone the difference between the level of a human and the level of a God. You should know better than anyone, my dear Prince, that those at the bottom should not raise their fists to those at the top!"

But the devil-armored man only laughed at this. "Mm, mm-mm, mm… ha, HA, H-HA!"

"Your schemes have been caught, and yet you dare to laugh?!" confronted Hypnos. "Perhaps you will lose your smile once I call my brother."

The battered man turned over, blood dripping from the edges of his mouth. "I cannot help but laugh! I've seen this soap opera for five hundred years... You three have tried to destroy Sanctuary for millennia, and yet you think you frighten me?! Talk to me about who's on top?! I'm not the one underestimating others here!"

Hades watched the lowly mortal gradually stand on his two shaking feet. With a mere gaze, he ordered Minos and Aiacos to stay back, lest they wish to be caught in his wrath. "How so? What else did you have up your sleeve? Tell me now!"

Lucifer spat blood on the floor, visually upsetting the sensitive God. "It's just like I told Thanatos, isn't it, Hades?! You have been trying to for hundreds of years, yet to slay the Godslayer, me and Michael had to come along. To make your army a true fighting force, me and Michael had to come along… and to save you from being once again thrown down the coffin of sealing by Athena for another two hundred years. I had to be there last war to save you!"

Hades lowered chin. "Measure your words very carefully, Lucifer. They will be your las-"

"You are a worthless, spineless creature, Hades!" Lucifer interrupted, doubling down on his revolt to the shock of Hypnos. "Even your whore of a niece has more backbone than you! How pathetic is it that you condemn mankind and yet rely on us to fight your wars, to save your life?!" accused Lucifer, interrupting the God to the shock of Hypnos and the Judges and pointing finger at him. "Michael, Haisaku and those Bronze Saint Godslayers were all absolutely right about you! You hide behind those who serve you, behind a puppet and even Pandora, while those foolish enough to have any faith in you fight your wars, wars that you refuse to lead! I would rather die than continue serving you!"

The sheer amount of insulting in these two phrases alone paralyzed the two Judges nearby. "WHAT?! How DARE YOU?!" screamed Minos.

Aiacos, on the other hand, was too confused to know what to do. He darted eyes between God and Prince unable to decide on what to focus on first. "A puppet…?... Lord Hades?!"

A sudden invisible strength, like a hand, gripped Lucifer's neck and lifted him up from the ground, making his feet flail. "You've spread enough sludge, you rat!" he sneered, his emotionless puppet squinting ever so slightly.

The silver-haired youth coughed and gagged. Lucifer's feet flailed in the air and his cosmos burned, immersing his body in his demonic power. He didn't hope to break free but struggle just enough to speak. "G-GO TO HELL, YOU LYING C-COWARD!" he affronted once more. "Everyone who stands here, everyone in the whole of Underworld, has been lied to by you, given empty promises of salvation, but you hate, you loathe mankind!"

"Mm, of course, I do," Hades admitted, not being exactly an unknown truth. "Has that been a secret? All of you sin and dirty the Earth. The planet could have been Elysium in itself with-"

"F-FUCK YOU! I've had enough of it! I had enough of it two hundred years ago when I had to kill the best friend I've ever had in this world!" the devil shrieked, making the Judges' mouths drop again. "Those are all excuses! For thousands of years, you've had the c-chance to bring mortals to the t-true Elysium. But how many have you, Hades?! HOW MANY?! How many virtuous, redeemed souls have you let rot in the limbo of the Asphodel Meadows, refusing to acknowledge their worth?!"

Hades laughed. "You pity the dead, Lucifer? Oh, how adorable!"

The two Judges, however, were absolutely stunned by the sight of the Prince affronting the God so fearlessly, wondering if he had gone completely insane. More so, Aiacos couldn't stop wondering why the Emperor would not just deny these things.

But the devil continued. "The Lost Amphitheatre stands by the Desert Beyond, with the dead still doing a pilgrimage to it, hoping to earn your forgiveness, but when was the last time you've even looked at that place?!" he confronted. "In the meantime, you hide like a coward in your tomb up there, in those gardens none of us will ever get to see! You pretend to detest blood, yet you wage war! You call mankind violent, yet you throw them into pits of boiling blood! And worst of all, you lie, you lie and you lie every day to those who fight the hardest for you, who put their faith in you!" He then sneered with nothing but pure hate at the God of the Underworld. "And there's nothing in life or death, Hades, that I hate more than liars! So d-don't you dare justify yourself to me!"

The puppet only laughed more. "Oh, yes, Lucifer, your hatred of lies…. Because you have never lied, have you not, certainly not by omission?"" he ironized. "Which is worse, Prince, these so-called lies you accuse me of… or the disgusting intentions to betray me that you've hidden so far?"

But the Prince was resolute. "Nothing that you haven't deserved!" he sneered. "We have a saying among mortals that you Gods don't like applied back to you; an eye for an eye! I would have thrown my life for you, Hades!" he guaranteed. "After everything I lost, you gave me purpose!... Or so I thought! But the way you betrayed me, Michael and every single Specter that has passed through the Underworld outweighs anything I've ever hidden from you! Is that not right?!"

And, for the first time, the God of the Underworld seemed to hesitate in having a response, which bewildered those present. "To think you'd fall so low in grace, Lucifer…"

Aiacos sweated, frozen in place. This wasn't right. "He's… deflecting Lucifer's point…"

Lucifer's sight went blurry, his lungs screaming for oxygen. In his daze, the words of that hateful goddess returned to him.

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Lucifer stared at the crystal ball showing the shine coming from the top of the mountain the Golden Zodiac stood on. "Look at her… she's burning herself out to protect her Saints. This isn't what Gods do! Pathetic!"

Thanatos folded arms behind back. "Oh yes, it's another demonstration of her 'kindness'. Athena has done this every war, the hypocrite. She would lock herself inside the Main Breadwinner if she could just to spit in the face of the Gods further." He then smiled and patted Lucifer's shoulder. "We will show her the error of her ways this time, though, Prince, I'm sure of it."

The Prince gritted teeth. Why would she do this? She was a War Goddess! She should pick up her weapon and fight!

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

"What is a strand of hair compared to shedding blood?" questioned Sasha, referring to how she paid Charon for passage into the Lost Canvas fortress. "Alone can have my 'weak point' as you call it, I truly don't mind."

"You're a fool of a Goddess, then!… Now he has sealed your powers and the Specters will slaughter your Gold Saints before they get to Saturn, much less Pluto!" shouted Lucifer, startling Chesire by her side. "What is stopping me from ending you here?!"

She shook her head. "You wouldn't do that."

"UH?! How do you know?!" screamed Cheshire. "Prince Lucifer was born to destroy you, Athena!"

But Sasha smiled with faith. "I know he has more to him. He's human, after all."

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Bolstered by something truly unknown to him, Lucifer strengthened his grip in the Book. "You're the one who has fallen, Hades! You've grown decadent, lazy and corrupt!" confronted the Pride Star. "You're nothing of what you've used to be! Your frustration for losing to Athena has twisted your Specters, and your Specters have twisted you back! While others fight wars for you, while Athena sacrifices herself so her men have hope, you do the opposite, sitting on your throne and demanding results without aid! You now see nothing but your own desire to bring darkness into the planet, to render it a waste! Salvation, pah!" the mortal spat. "You are a weak leader, Hades! You even let that boy Alone control you for half the Lost Canvas War! But not me…"

Mustering more patience than he thought he would ever have for such a sad spectacle, Hades sighed and decided to entertain his Prince's last outburst before he utterly eliminated him. "And why not?"

Lucifer chuckled, his free hand reaching for his gripped collar. "Because I'm not a joke like you! I have in me the blood of the Athenian Emperor, the silver hair of the ruler of rulers! The blood destined to unite the phalanxes of mankind against all Gods and Kings alike! The blood over which you picked me as a Dark Prince candidate over, half a millennium ago!" he revealed, further stunning the Judges. "I've proven it to you and others, by slaying the Godslayer, by giving your worthless men victory! And with it, with the valor it brings me and my pride, I will lead even your toss-out Specters to triumph!"

Hades glanced over the lower fields, in which Minotaur's forces closely encroached on the False Specters. "A fantasy for naught now, unfortunately. You shouldn't have thought you could have outwitted me." he then smiled maliciously. "Hm, hm, just like when you smuggled Eurydice out, right?"

The gripped Prince sneered angrily. "What did you do to her?! TELL ME!"

"That day I sent a little gift after her and that little girl you trained. Since you hate liars so much…" the god revealed, chuckling. "…I will not pretend she came out unscathed."

Something sank inside Lucifer's heart. So it was true. While he had evidence they were alive, Lucifer always feared they were not well. Memories of the Nymph he loved for five hundred years assailed him, and his red eyes wetted ever so slightly. "Y-You will pay for that, too, Hades! Be certain of that!"

His eyes then shined again to prepare a killing blast. "Goodbye, Lucifer. Don't worry, I will always remember fondly your centuries of service."

Down by the fields, Minotaur raised. "Arm crossbows! Skeletons, prepare for the charge!" he commanded, triggering a surrounding unison of bolts being lever-reeled and aimed. "READY!"

Torak and Neferti burned their cosmos defensively, along with the rest of the False Specters leading their Skeletons. "Don't falter, everyone!" she appealed.

Nasu's shadowy cosmos spread like a miasma, preparing to resist the assault, but she looked up at the stands apprehensively. "PRINCE, we have to do something!"

Up there, the Pride Star saw his men about to get slaughtered. Gritting teeth with hate at the god puppet, Lucifer's hand reached up for his collar. "A-are you forgetting something, H-Hades?!"

The God of the Underworld barely even relented at this. "Like what?"

"I know your weakness! This book isn't the only trinket I got from your Death God!" He then pulled out the Silver Star pendant, which shined like a real star on top of his chest plate, blazing the 'Yours Ever' inscription on it. "BY THE POWER OF THANATOS, I INVOKE YOUR MIGHT, BOOK OF THE DEAD!"

The objects, the pendant and the book, shined in perfect synchrony as if part of the same dark, godly spirit. The huge tome in Lucifer's hand suddenly burst into a shockwave of purple cosmos, unlocking the chained secrets of its powers and battering everything around the Prince and bashing off the puppet and Hypnos. Its pages flipped furiously as if a great wind had hit the area and the sky thundered as if colossal chains holding it together had been shaken.

Aiacos and Minos were blasted off as well from the stairs and fell, screaming down Guidecca's premise. Lucifer collapsed from his levitation on the floor, coughing, the vicious grip on his neck gone.

"M-MOVE, damn you!" he screamed at himself, grabbing the book.

Startled by the shockwave above, Minotaur Gordon ordered his forces to hold. "What's going on up there?!"

"Forget it!" shouted the child, Sylphid, smacking his head. "Just end those bastards!"

Lucifer only had a few seconds to spare. He got up, and immediately began chanting his trump card spell. "WINGLESS SHADES OF DEATH! I PRAY THEE TO HEAR MY ILL COMMAND!" Immediately, his purple aura of cosmos turned into a steep black unnatural even to him. Lucifer took his index and middle finger aside and allowed the flowing darkness to converged at their tips, forming a dense orb of energy.

The clouds of dust surrounding the two gods were blown off by Hypnos, whose furious body glowed with golden Cosmos. He saw the puppet on the floor, injured. "Lord Hades!..." Hypnos turned to Pride Star and widened his eyes, though, when he recognizes the cosmos aura patterns and the chanting. "That spell… Eternal Darkness?!"

Black electricity surged all over Lucifer's body and the Book of the Dead brimmed with energy, acting as a supercharger. Lifting the orb high in the air, Lucifer shouted more verses. "TAINT THYSELVES WITH THE MARK OF SHADOWS! RISE AND CORRUPT!" With his, his cape surged as well, a pentagram circle formed in the ground beneath him, and his black aura surged liked a bonfire about to explode. Ancient hieroglyphs flew everywhere and even the night of the Underworld somehow seemed to get darker, intensifying the bright of the occasional green thunderbolt striking down. "CAPTURE THE CONSCIOUSNESS AND SUMMON ITS GREATEST FRIGHT UPON STAGE!"

"LUCIFER! You will sink in the darkness of Tartarus for THIS!" Hypnos roared, intent on stopping him. His hands raised and a background of flying Tarot cards seemed to manifest itself "ETERNAL DROWSINESS!"

But as waves and waves of purple, numbing cosmos were unleashed by the deity, the Prince focused only on his own curse and delivered the final chant. "SHATTER THE SOUL, STAB THE HEART, SET FREE THY TERROR WITHIN THE MIND. DROWN, TERRIFY AND UNLEASH THY ENDLESS WRATH!" he then threw his fingers at his targets, the Gods of Sleep and the Underworld. "ETERNAL DARKNESS!"

There was an intense crackle in the air as if a dimension had been shattered, and the black orb suddenly exploded into huge waves of dense dark mist which, overcharged by Thanatos' divine weapon. Eternal Darkness and Eternal Drowsiness clashed together, but the power of nightmares shattered straight through the power of sleep, like waking someone through the terror of it, and Hypnos gasped and stepped back in fear just as the black currents swept him and Hades over like a flood, circling around and around while slowly solidifying itself.

The puppet, shaking, barely got up to see the darkness surrounding him. "What? What is this?! Hypnos, do something!" he shouted, confused.

Hypnos's arms struggled against it like black melasse. "It's my spell… I had taught it to Michael…" Hypnos muttered, sweating as he struggled to think of a counter to his own move, overcharged by his brother's might no less. The waves of darkness began closing around like heavy lids of dense metal as if forming a dome-shaped coffin for the two of them. Hypnos eyed Lucifer with the venom of a thousand snakes. "You will PAY FOR THIS, PRINCE! We will get out, and when we DO-"

A large 'THUMB' then slid the dome entirely shut, enclosing the two Gods inside the dome of dense darkness, immersing Hypnos and Hades in a world of pure, literal nightmare. He panted in relief and tiredness. He had done it! "H-have fun revisiting your terrors, you two!"

"LORD LUCIFER!" Ainsel shouted, through mental message.

Reminded of what he had to do, the Prince rushed to the end of the wide stair step facing the enclosed armies, where Gordon was about to order the attack on his men. His thumb was still rested on the proper page of the Book of the Dead the whole time, and the False Specters of the Underworld were still selected. "Time to end this! FALSE SPECTERS OF THE UNDERWORLD, by the power of the Book, I sentence you…" he then pointed at the horizon. "To the First Prison, the Valley of the Black Wind!"

The page of selected names brimmed once more and this time it casted a different spell. The entire army forming a shiltron down in the field was suddenly surrounded by a new ground pentagram, a spell circle that, instead of empowering Lucifer's technique, immersed the targeted warriors with the magic of the book.

Gordon swept his arm. "THEY'RE GETTING AWAY, ATTACK!" he ordered, and the True Skeletons fired their crossbows, unleashing an enclosing wave of hundreds of bolts to skewer the traitors.

But a great, blinding eruption of light immersed the huge mass of armored men and the crossbow bolts flew straight through it, making observers cover their eyes and flinch. Just as the glare flickered off with a loud burst of power, the countless venom-laced bolts hit the ground harmlessly, skewering only the sand and rock of Hades' Road.

All the Specters gasped and gawked. The False Specters were all gone.

Lucifer cackled, triumphant. "I've done it! Victory is MINE!" he then ripped the page with all the False Specter names off the Book and stored the parchment inside his chest plate collar along with his pendant. "Excellent! This way, Thanatos will be unable to command our deaths from here through the Book. Now all I need to do is escape before Hypnos and Hades break ou-"

"COSMIC MARIONATION!"

Suddenly, thin strings as hard as steel grabbed the Book of the Dead and tried to pull it off Lucifer's hand. "What?" he held on the object and saw Minos. "YOU! Alright, that's it; I'm not leaving without cutting off your FINGERS-"

Then another source of cosmos exploded to its highest level and something to Lucifer's side rose wings and crossed down arms. "GALACTIC ILLUSION!" Three perfectly triangular stars of cosmos then burst and Lucifer's red eyes felt like they suddenly caught fire, followed by his entire nervous system which screamed like a great jolt of lightning crossed his body, ignoring armor and defensive Cosmos alike.

The Prince of Darkness screamed and collapsed on the floor, shaking and grabbing his pained body, letting go of Thanatos' precious weapon. Garuda Aiacos approached him with great fury and the Book landed on Minos' hand safely. "No more games, Prince!" the Gryphon sneered.

"You will now pay for your treason, Left Arm!" shouted Aiacos, by far the most revolted. "Prepare to feel the wrath of the Judges of the Underworld!"

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

1st Circle, 1st Prison

Hall of Judgement, Valley of the Black Wind and Acheron River

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

With his boat parked and roped by the exterior edge of the Acheron River, where countless penniless zombies lay unable to pay passage for his ferry, Acheron Charon leaned back on his raft, took a knife and unpeeled an old, half-rotten apple. It was his break time and he liked to rest on the interior margin, relatively to the Prisons. This was because the exterior margin which housed the fabled marble Gates of Hades were packed to the brim with the undead that could not afford the passage across the river and were therefore condemned to lay in unjudged torment.

He tried to think of a new tune as he relaxed and smelled the fruit's flesh. "I once knew a bloke called… Bill. He could make a very nice meal?" The Spatial Star wondered, but then shrugged. Food always made him think of bad shanties. "Nah, this sucks. Let's see… I barely once knew a bloke called Blair. He barely blew bars beyond a boastful hair. It turned out Blair pissed all the way sat down. He was a she and everyone knew now…" he shrugged once more, but put down his apple for a second and scribbled it down. "Uh, it has potential."

Before he could explore his brilliant new song, the air itself shook and the margin of the river incandiated itself, blinding him even through his red goggles and making him shriek in pain, and a shockwave knocked him back to the water. A loud, erupting sound blamed across the river valley as if something emerged from the floor and a large, crowded murmur, scream and gasp was suddenly heard like a bus full of people had just brutally braked next to him.

The Celestial Spatial Star squirmed and swam out the water, coughing. "What in the name of Hades's vaults! What the hell just-..." He then had to gasp, though, as he looked up and saw the multitude of people before him. "... What the…. What the HELL ARE YOU PEOPLE DOING HERE?! Did you just teleport?! You were supposed to come only like an hour from now!"

Standing before him and having knocked back whole crowds of roaming undead with the shockwave of their magical arrival, the entire False Specter segment of Hades' forces looked around confusedly, taking in their surroundings, and patting themselves over as if checking to see if they hadn't died.

Troll Grendel found himself quite intact. "We're… we're alive! Ah ah!"

"It worked!" Lycaon Coronis gasped. "We're in the Valley of Winds! The Book's sentencing transported us to the other side of the Underworld!"

"DON'T LOSE FOCUS, GET THE PAYMENTS NOW!" shouted Torak, causing the Skeletons and False Specters to scurry around the rocks, lifting them up. "Hades and Hypnos will free themselves any minute!"

"Hey, HEY, HEY!" shouted Charon. "What the heck is going on?! What are you people doing here?! HOW THE HELL DID YOU JUST 'APPEAR' HERE?!"

The massive Deadly Beetle Specter, Gauromydas, came carrying a huge bag over his shoulder. "Just get your boat ready, old man, and cross us over?!"

Charon tapped his red goggles as if he wasn't seeing straight. "Okay, are you people insane?! I'm not just gonna ferry you over like this as if nothing-" but Gauromydas then dumped the bag in front of him, unloosening the cord and showing off the glow of countless golden coins and jewels that nearly gave Charon a heart attack, sending him into a drooling fit. "W-whoooo-ooo! ALL THIS GOLD!"

Ainsel danced in the air above with his butterfly wings. "Lord Lucifer's personal treasure raided from the coffins of countless dead Saints across the centuries." He sang as more and more Skeletons brought over bags of gold that had been hidden beforehand, dumping them at Charon's feat. "They are all yours, boatman, but please hurry in ferrying my friends over."

The Celestial Spatial Star shook his head. "Wait… no, wait, I don't have enough boats! I can't just ferry you over like this all at once." He then stomped his Surplice's boat floor. "See?! You think I can fit like five hundred losers in this without sinking? Get bent!"

But then Behemoth Torak came over with a contingency of men carrying ropes and canoes that had also been hidden beforehand. "We just need you to guide us! We'll tie our transports to your boat and you'll get us through the Acheron!"

Charon rubbed chin, pensively. "Hmmm… I don't know…I could get in trouble for this later…"

Torak curled his large fist. "You're in trouble now with my foot if you don't say 'yes'!" he threatened. Gauromydas and Golem Treble then flanked him to add weight to his already massive words.

The Celestial Spatial Star wisely considered his options. "You make a compelling offer, Behemoth. Okay, I'll take a waver on this."

"Excellent! Everyone, tie the boats like we drilled, NOW! We are leaving for Pandora's castle!" roared Torak, sending the men into another flurry of activity.

The boatman held his boat still while the replacements did their work, collecting its rear tip to their second and third boats, which then were tied to more small groups of them. This would prevent Charon from severing all off without alerting the False Specters. Charon was impressed that they thought this through and didn't trust him based solely on his greed, which made him wonder if Lucifer was behind all this. They were scheduled to cross anyway later for their dumb campaign after all.

*GRROOOWWLLL*

The echo froze everyone into place. Suddenly, loud stomps were heard and the False Specters halted their scurrying to look in the direction of the Hall of Judgement. It got louder and louder, and a second and third growl was heard. The hair on Cait Sith Palug's head stood up like a hissing cat. Elf Rossalier nearly dropped his rowboat with the shaking and Troll Grendel shouted orders around for everyone to remain calm. Then, backgrounded by the Evil Stars, three dark columns rose from the rooftop of the Hall of Judgement, topped by pairs of red eyes and a snarling, salivating mouth.

The False Skeletons closer to the stairs to the Hall gawked and dropped their boat. "S-Shit, it's CERBER-" a superfast lunge from one of the long-necked heads then instantly ripped off the man's entire upper torso with a crunching bite, tossing it high into the air before gulping it down.

The Skeletons shouted and screamed. "IT'S CERBERUS! OPEN FIRE!" and the False Skeletons immediately began firing their crossbows at the huge monstrous beast, which roared its three heads at the stars and advanced down into the stairs with a large crash, shattering the stairs with the weight of its deformed dark belly.

The bolts, however, either bounced off its rough fur or, upon piercing the soft flesh, were suddenly sucked into its body, as if made of liquid. Nasu Erika took to the air with a booming liftoff and flapped her insectoid wings. "FLY MONARCH!" she unleashed a huge cloud of all-devouring insects which swarmed the massive beast, biting it and stinging it helplessly but bothering it just enough to make it trash around in its place. "WHO LET THIS GLUTTON OUT, NEFERTI?!"

"It's not my fault!" the Sphinx Specter complained, playing her low-pitched notes to strike the beast's heart, but finding nothing. Usually, she would control Cerberus with the magical restraints of the Pyramid. "Someone must have set him loose, they must have sounded the alarm all the way here, already!"

Alraune Lemon scoffed and leaped into the air. "Are you kidding me?! I'll get this done!" he then swung his planetoid tentacle. "BLOOD FLOW-!" but Cerberus suddenly caught his Surplice's appendage with his left head and swung the Specter straight against the cliffs of the Dark Valley, crashing him through boulder and marble till he was right back on the floor. He coughed and shook. "W-what the?!"

"That dog is no fool, Lemon! It's not so easy to beat him down when he's conscious!" Neferti lectured him.

"Well, we have to do something, before he swallows more of us," recommended Papillon, shooting cobs of silk web that glowed like gold into the beast's jaws, arresting them. Cerberus' mouths would just snap them off with its massive jaw strength after a few seconds, though, forcing Ainsel to fall back. "Mm, this isn't good..."

"SHADOW SEWING!" shouted Torak, causing Cerberus' massive shadow to suddenly rise up from beneath its bloated body and wrap its necks around the dog's own, arresting its whole body like a tense wrapping. He then lifted Lemon up and led the men out of the Valley into the boats. "We have no time for this bullshit! COME ON!"

"Hye, hye, hye, this is a lot of fun!" commented Charon, watching the replacements scurry around like headless chickens. "It serves you people right for thinking it would be so easy to get away from here."

He then saw Caith Sith Palug rush up to the Sphinx replacement. "Miss Neferti, I got the switches!" and he handed her an object that looked suspiciously like a detonator.

Charon's eyes widened. "Uhh…. You mind if I ask what that's for?" Neferti didn't even hesitate and pushed the button. Ainsel's helmet antennas suddenly vibrated with the radio wave and, after a single beat.

*THROOOM*

A shattering explosion burst the stairs leading up to the Hall of Judgement, startling Charon. "AHH, What the hell was that?!"

*THROOOM* *THROOOM* *THROOOM*

Charon gasped and saw further, consecutive far off explosions blasting the hall of Judgement itself, making its entire front section collapse downwards in a rock slide on top of Cerberus, as well as the disparate boulders and chains spread around the Black Wind Valley.

Charon reached over and tried to wrestle Neferti for the switch. "STOP IT, are you people crazy?! This will set all the dead free!"

But she knocked him back to his boat. "Forget it, Charon, it's too late!"

*THROOOM* *THROOOM* *THROOOM* *THROOOM* *THROOOM*

The chain of explosions continued and continued, with more far off explosions fading off as they grew in distance, destroying the bridge to the Asphodel Fields, destroying the far off entrance to the Pyramid of Gluttony and then continuing onward to other prisons, sabotaging the entire Underworld.

Neferti then tossed the detonator to the Acheron. "It's done. I'd like to see the Stars catch up with us now."

*WHOOOOOO*

*SHRIIIIEEEKKK*

*GUUUUUUHHH*

A shiver ran up Charon's spine with these particular sounds. "Shit, are those the dead?! You new guys have really done it now!"

"You can stop with the pretenses, Charon." assured Nasu Erika, fluttering her wavy hair as everyone got on the boats. "We are the False Specters now. Now take us to Pandora's castle!"

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Chapter End

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Next Chapter: Chapter 39 - Second Arc – Episode 6 – The Exodus – Part 3 of 3

Description: The fighting in the Underworld breaks out between Lucifer and his former brothers-in-arms. Meanwhile, at the Earthly Castle, the False Specters encounter unexpected resistance at their way out.

Author's Note: This chapter was seriously delayed for several reasons, half related to production and half related to creative issues. It was a chapter both difficult to conceive and write and some padding had to be added in after it was unexpectedly split in two parts. The drawing of Lance's concept art actually took place entirely during this time, which says something about the delay.

Originally, in Version 2, the story of the Exodus was mostly glossed over, so the content of this chapter is nearly 100% new compared to it. In V2, the Exodus chapter started off mostly at the final scene of part 3 of this storyline. Jarring, right?

Finally, make sure to check out Hitagi Gahara's SKD scanlations of Next Dimension, Saintia Sho and others. The writer of this fanfic is proofreader of Saint Seiya Next Dimension's English releases and they're your current top source for high quality scanlations in English. Also, if you're interested, contact me through PM and get an invitation to the new SKD Discord server, where you can get updates on Sho and ND directly, not to mention chat with me and many other english-speaking SS fans.

You can also join the English SS Discord Server on Reddit of which I am a part of. Just go to Reddit and search for "English Saint Seiya Discord" and you'll find the open invitation to it : )