There are few things in nature that are as furious and destructive as the rage of the waters.

It can be violent, capable of dragging entire villages that dare to dam its broad arms, or rise in waves so big that they would be strong enough to bring down the best human bridges. Its sea vortices can swallow boats in a matter of minutes, and the slightest tide can carry a man away forever to the ocean.

But waters can also be patient and resilient, eroding ancient walls grain by grain over the centuries, shaping the largest rock formations on Earth according to the moods of the sea, or the rivers, or the waterfalls in the mountains.

If nature itself could not face the rage of the waters, how could mortals resist?

In a coastal city, a group of desperate children screamed their adults' names through the corridors as they ran in panic inside an orphanage. Some of them weren't even dressed, as they were shaken out of bed by a loud, burning siren that was still sounding throughout the city, announcing the calamity to those still in the surrounding area, warning them to leave that high-risk location.

That was the Orphanage of the Stars.

Built on the shore so that at least the magic of the beach could calm the sadness of the abandoned children, the orphanage now received the purest despair of those who saw their garden invaded by the raging tide; the playground swings rattled to the howling wind, announcing a destructive typhoon. The apple tree leaves invaded the hallways, while Miho ran to help all the little ones who were still crying in fear.

She was not alone, as a rescue detachment from the Graad Foundation was sent to that place so that they could evacuate all the children to the highest location in that region. One of the boys, however, had not appeared in the lines of crying children climbing up the van of armored cars. Miho ran around the orphanage, door by door looking for him, shouting his name.

"Makoto! Makoto!" she had a frightened expression, while the wind was whistling outside, and chairs were already being thrown through the corridors thanks to the force of the approaching typhoon. "Talk to me, Makoto!"
"Miho!" replied the boy's voice, amidst the howl of the winds that twisted the nearest trees.

She ran from one of the rooms recently abandoned by the children, still with their blankets, toys, and belongings scattered on the shelves, to climb the stairs to the second floor, where the boy's voice could be heard. On the second flight of stairs, she heard one of the windows shatter on the first floor with a stone that had been thrown by the wind, making her cower in fear as she continued screaming for the boy.

Her courage led her to some kind of attic where the boy bounced from one side to the other looking for something.

"I can't find it, Miho." he complained. "Where's the card, where's my card?"
"Leave it, Makoto, let's go! We have to go now!"
"No, it's Seiya's card. Damn, I had it with me, but you all asked me to keep it here. I can't leave without it!"
"Come on, Makoto, please." Miho cried, while the wind whistled outside.
"Found it!"

He put the card in the pocket of his poorly tied pants and took Miho's hand to go down the stairs and be thrown into the last van that left that part of the city screeching its tires.

The rain was falling very heavily throughout that region. The convoy of cars left that avenue crossing a street of abandoned cars, while many people were still running along the sidewalks to escape the fury of the seas. The Graad Foundation did what it could to help the government evacuate as many people as possible from that beautiful coastal city, as well as welcoming countless homeless people into its Coliseum, around which huge concrete slabs were erected to prevent water from invading the facilities.

Those who fled there went to the nearest city, which was located above the mountains where the sea could not reach, although it was also being lashed by the intermittent rain that devastated the entire country. There, people also hid in their houses, praying for the rains to pass soon; between them, Shoko and Kyoko held hands in their bedroom, enduring that frightening rain. The older sister, though, felt something in the air that she didn't quite understand, while their father prayed in the next room that the gods would spare his daughters from the suffering.

But in their lightless bedroom, Shoko and Kyoko were unaware of the sad reality: it was the entire world that suffered the consequences of that rage of waters, whether through rain, the sea, or the rivers. In the heart of Europe, the rivers became as violent as the seas, but Palaestra was a well-built fortification, so that the terrible moods of the waters outside could not invade the fortress created for Athena and which had been cleared by Cancer Death Mask in the past. Now, Tau and Miri were together with all the children rescued from the Aegean Sea on top of the tallest building in the fortress, watching the rain run down the windows, while they were watched by employees dismissed from the Graad Foundation and recruited by the Sanctuary to take care of that fortress for the near future.

Canon Island, in the Mediterranean Sea, also shook, as Sanctuary sentries evacuated Helena and her grandfather to have any chance of staying alive, as the sea seemed to attack the Island from one side, and the volcano, once inactive, also spewed smoke into the air on the other. And on the other side of the world, Jacob and his grandfather didn't leave the house, watching the snow that fell more intensely on that curious Siberian night.

Big cities were devastated by the rain, which ran into their terrible drainage systems, leading to misery and destruction in hundreds of flooded streets. Houses were invaded, parking lots were flooded, buses were loaded into rivers created in the streets, people climbed onto roofs to have a chance, ropes were stretched from side to side of streets to help with crossings.

In one of these huge cities with thousands of inhabitants in China, the electricity gave way to the short circuits that the water caused against the electrical system, bringing the entire city down to pitch darkness in one night devastated by rain.

"Anybody here!?" a voice could be heard walking with difficulty in knee-deep water. "Talk to me!"

The voice was full of accent and desperation, and from afar the boy heard the metal of a pipe hitting dryly; the sign that there were more people there.

"Dohko!" called the boy. "There are more people here."
"Come on, Shina. Lead the way."

The two walked with difficulty through that flooded parking lot, helping anyone who was still stranded by the waters that had invaded that city, carrying them on their backs and helping them get to a place of safety. Shinadekuro was breathing hard, but he was the one who helped Dohko navigate through that terrible darkness in which the city fell into. The huge tiger warrior placed his hand on his friend's shoulder and looked into the distance at the ancient peaks of his home.

There it also rained heavily, giving even greater violence to the falls of the nine rivers; but more than that, making the tears that Shunrei shed while hugging the Elder Master in front of the waterfall even sadder.

"Go home, Shunrei." asked the Master, worried, but she was crying beside him.
"This rain isn't normal, is it, Master? It's the Gods punishing us all."
"Why would the Gods punish us, little Shunrei?"
"Because we are evil."
"Is that what you believe?"
"A lot of blood is spilled in this world, Master. If Gods really exist, then we should indeed be punished in this way."

The Elder Master was silent, thinking about his daughter's words when he looked deep into that waterfall, while his bamboo hat protected him from the heavy rain.

"You are not crying for all humanity." guessed the Elder Master.
"She's going to have to fight again, isn't she?" asked the girl tearfully.
"That is Shiryu's fate."

As it seemed to be the case of all the Bronze Saints, as well as Jab and Ichi, who were at the foot of the Twelve Temples reflecting on the whereabouts of Jack and the others as they prepared for what seemed to be yet another Holy War, whose roles intended for them were perhaps less honorable than they thought they deserved.

"The list of cities devastated by rain only grows."

Images of the French Riviera, New York, Rio de Janeiro, Cologne, and countless other cities being invaded by violent waters, the population running, people crowded into gymnasiums, lines of houses destroyed, children crying on top of rooftops, helicopters carrying out distant rescues, hills sliding over small coastal cities. The numbers already showed the death of at least two hundred thousand people spread across the four corners of the world and no sign of the clouds parting; the waters making victims mainly of the most underserved, but also destroying mansions in the United States as well as in China. Nothing escaped that third day of stormy rain.

Saori closed the laptop in front of her, while crying profusely over the terrible news she had received from abroad. She looked to her side, defeated, and found Alice in the darkness of that makeshift clinic; she was also somewhat moved, although she tried to remain as tough as the stone she believed she had to be for her friend.

"It's horrible, Mii." she broke down, holding back her tears. "The whole world is being devastated by these rains."

She wiped her nose, while still crying.

"We lost a lot of people at the Foundation." she spoke again, almost without a voice. "The entire capital was invaded by the sea."
"What about the kids?" asked Alice, worried.

Saori wasn't able to respond and just wept. The two hugged each other, crying, while outside the rain that fell was much less violent than the one that devastated the entire world.

While they were glued together, sharing that immense sadness, Saori saw Mayura's eyes sparkling in the darkness over her friend's shoulder; already imagining that the Camerlenga in person had come down the mountain in search of Athena, who had fled along the Path of the Giants. She broke the hug with Alice and wiped the tears from her face.

"Master." Alice was scared to see her so far from her temple.

Mayura didn't have the blindfolds on her eyes, as if she wanted Athena to be able to look into her soul and find the real reasons for being there; because she was there as an Owl and not as a Camerlenga. Saori immediately recognized the eyes of a mother and let herself fall into the Master's arms, always so reserved.

"That rain is the Sign of Poseidon, isn't it?" asked Saori, crying.

The Owl listened to her cries in silence and, while Saori sobbed in her chest, Mayura looked deeply into Alice's soul, who was also watching her with a heavy heart; that was the duty of a Saintia, which Alice should follow. But beyond the lesson in that look, there was also a sadness hidden in Mayura's eyelids, which made her look away from Alice to break the hug with Saori and wipe her tears.

"I should have taken care of your heart, Athena." began Mayura. "But in that, I failed miserably."
"Never say that, Master."
"Listen to me." asked Mayura, taking both of Saori's hands, whose eyes were slowly twisting with sadness, anticipating the enormous suffering.

Mayura took time to breathe until she finally revealed the reason for so much pain.

"Nicol is dead."

Alice put her hand to her mouth, Saori felt her chest empty coldly and her eyes were lost in the dark corners of that hut without her mouth being able to say anything. She leaned against the table where she was looking at the terrible news, and Alice hugged her to her side.

"How?" asked Alice.
"We do not know." confessed Mayura. "He was attacked on Star Hill. His body is gone, but Shaka and the Gold Saints have no doubt."

Saori remembered that Temple, because it was there that Mayura held her hand in her dreams so that she could rise like the Goddess Athena that she was. But in that hut, she was in Alice's arms, like the girl she always had been; who hid so that no one would see her enormous sadness. And when she realized, at that moment, that she was much more of a girl than a Goddess, she felt the warm blood that ran through her veins hit her chest, because after all, she wasn't just a girl. She was also the Goddess Athena.

She straightened up, looking deeply at Alice; and then she closed her eyes, taking a deep breath.

"The rains must stop." she said, determinedly wiping the tears from her face. "If this is the work of Poseidon, I will personally go to him and put an end to it."
"Saori, don't." Alice asked, taking her hands.
"I am the Goddess Athena." she said to her friend. "I was at the Temple of Poseidon, and I was able to chase away the clouds that time."
"You don't know if it will work now."
"If Seiya and the others…" began Saori, having difficulty admitting that they could have fallen like Nicol. "No. Seiya is alive. The mission around the seas must have hastened Poseidon's return. They must have angered the God of the Seas, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that he's back."
"It does seem so, Athena."

Saori looked at Mayura and then at Alice, took a deep breath and announced, as if making an important decision.

"I'm going to Cape Sounion."

Mayura didn't seem to be moved by that decision, as perhaps she was there exactly guessing that any reaction in that way would happen. But Alice, already very worried, stood in front of Saori.

"Don't do this, Saori. Remember what happened the last time we ran away like this."
"No, Mii, you're wrong." Saori replied, biting her fate hard. "That time I came to the Sanctuary as a girl full of anger in my heart."

And then Saori looked at Mayura.

"Now I will go as the Goddess Athena. That's what Athena must do to protect Earth from Poseidon."

Alice was still somewhat unsatisfied and looked at Mayura as if seeking help against that madness.

"Master, this isn't right." she tried, desperate.

If the Goddess Athena chooses to march, we must be at her side," replied the Master wisely. "As you were last time."

"But last time she was hit by a golden arrow in her chest and was hanging between life and death," Alice protested, punching the table.
"And she came back… thanks to her heart. And to you, the Owl of Athena."

Alice remembered the legacy of the Saintias and the long night of conversation with Master Mayura and understood that Athena would never die. If she was to be by her side, like she always was. The girl looked at Saori and found in her eyes still the sadness of so many deaths around the world, as well as the memory of Xiaoling's death that resurfaced when hearing the news about Nicol's falling. Another loved one she had lost.

It was decided.

Athena would go to Cape Sounion.

Far away on the icy Antarctic plateau, the Terra-de-Santo land had regained its paradisiacal splendor, with the castaways all living peacefully once more in their eternally radiant community. From the top of a valley, Poseidon's Mariner watched that sudden joy on his land; Santo had loving eyes for those people and felt happy with that return to Eden, but he knew that the Relic of the Sea, which slept in the cave where it was kept, remained sealed by Athena's Cosmos. His eyes were lost on the horizon towards the Southern Ocean. He had returned.

For his presence was also felt in the Pacific islands, where old Te-Maia and Meko Kaire's brothers looked at the same horizon from the top of the mountain, suspicious of the tranquility that spread everywhere, as well as the fishing prosperity and the fact that the most populated islands of the region had stopped bothering that paradise with their insistent requests.

It was a calm that also took away the tranquility of the Tortuga pirates, as that tranquility was certainly a harbinger of the Tempest: the Great Vortex, as sung in the old drunken songs that played in the Tavern. Diamond Kai no longer left the Temple of Kalinago, frightened of what was coming, while Capellirossi and Blackbeard looked at the Tortuga atoll filled with old and new boats of apprehensive sailors.

In the Golden Temple, the enormous lady was stripping off her ceremonial robes, while next to her, still wearing his puffy white pants, Abdulmalik sought to dissuade her from her final decision.

"Don't do that, Madam. Listen to the request of your people."
"There is nothing to discuss, my dear Abdulmalik."
"But Lady Celmira, this is not the Time of Poseidon. We all know this, and so do you."
"And yet, there is no longer any doubt that he is among us."
"But…"
"It is my duty to be at Poseidon's side, Abdulmalik, and I will do so with all the honor that belongs to us as a people of the sea. The call is nigh."

She had a deep and calm voice, a haughty posture, in contrast to that anxious and frightened guardian.

"Abdulmalik," she began, very seriously, taking off a necklace of small blue beads and placing it around her guardian's neck. "You will take care of this Temple until I return."

And then the huge ebony woman with her white mohawk disappeared into the background of the Golden Temple to join the God of the Seas, while her guardian Abdulmalik was not sure that she would actually ever return.

It was under the rain that Saori, Alice, and Mayura appeared at the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion; the sky was covered with heavy clouds, and the three were very wet along the way. Mayura was the Sanctuary's highest authority, as well as being Athena's living Owl, so no Gold Saint would have been better company than her. They would only be in her absence, but at that moment she was exactly where she knew she needed to be, both as an Owl and as Camerlengo of the Sanctuary.

The three crossed the Temple to the Trident Pedestal, now empty, like the last time Athena had been there. As soon as they got closer, they realized that there was something different there; six of the seven precious gems were extinguished, but the last one pulsed with an unmistakable divine energy. Athena's heart froze, as she was sure that something was wrong.

"Something must have happened in Asgard," Alice deciphered at her side.
"We're not sure what happened there," Saori corrected. "But now we can be sure. Poseidon has awakened. It is he who carries this destruction across the Earth and causes this endless rain to fall, killing all the innocent people around the world."
"Athena…"

She looked at Mayura, and the Owl, as well as the Camerlengo, saw in Saori's eyes an enormous strength that was none other than the fiber of the Goddess Athena.

"Stay here," she asked, and her request was an order that Alice would never obey, but Mayura held her back so she wouldn't follow her friend.

For Saori walked alone from that pedestal, which was at the exit of the Temple, climbing to the tip of that rock that overlooked an abysmal drop into the ocean that shook below. There she looked at the horizon, at the heavy clouds, at the falling rain, at the waves that broke on the side of the rock, and shouted so that her voice was heard in all corners of the world.

"Poseidon!"

Athena crying out to Poseidon was a moment that Alice and Mayura would remember forever, such was the strength in that girl. But if the fear of the echoing voice of the Gods had left Alice cornered for a moment, she soon remembered that her best friend was calling alone for an ancient God on top of that rock. Finally, she freed herself from Mayura but realized in the next instant that she could not move forward, as Athena's strength pulsed, preventing her from moving forward.

"What are you doing, Saori?!"
"Poseidon! Show yourself, Poseidon!" Saori shouted from the top, planting her golden staff on the ground.

And her requests really seemed to stir the moods of the sea, for the more she cried out that ancient name, the more the ocean seemed to shake and become stormy.

"Poseidon!"

Finally, the sea receded in such an impossible way that, from the bottom of that abyss, a gigantic wave, the height of buildings, rose; Mayura and Alice despaired in the Temple when they realized that that wave would sweep Saori away from that rock, but they could do nothing, prevented by the strength of the Goddess Athena.

The giant wave actually hit the rock, taking everyone to the ground, but when Alice got up, desperate to go to Saori, she noticed that she was still standing, proud as the Goddess that she was, looking at the horizon. Behind her, however, was someone who the sea seemed to have spat out at that place.

"Saori!"

Goddess Athena slowly turned around and faced whoever had answered her call.

It was a young girl kneeling, wearing beautiful reddish scale armor, and her long, wavy hair adorned with a beautiful coral diadem. There wasn't a single drop in her hair or on her body. Athena thought she could be a messenger from Poseidon and urged her to present herself. But the girl seemed uncomfortable with Athena's eyes, trying to avoid her gaze.

"You must know who I am," Saori introduced herself, dispensing with her own divine presentation.

For she knew very well who she was since she knew both the Goddess and the girl.

"I am Thetis, the Mermaid of Poseidon," she replied, her voice very low.

Saori did not recognize her, as she would not recognize any servant who had served her all these years, but the Goddess Athena recognized that she was an emissary of Poseidon.

"And where is Poseidon?"
"He's in his Realm."
"Take me to him," Athena ordered, and the Mermaid tried to look into her glaucous eyes but turned away again out of fear.
"The Realm of Poseidon is beyond this World," seemed to warn the mermaid.

Alice and Mayura could hear the entire conversation, and there they despaired, as they still could not move thanks to Athena's sudden power; only Alice's eyes begged Saori not to carry out that madness. Saori looked back at her friend and saw that a tear was running down her paralyzed face; a salty tear like the water of that ocean around them, or like her child's tears, or like the rivers that invaded the cities around the world, or like the drops of that infinite rain. The water that seemed to connect the whole world, as well as its joys and sorrows. And at that moment, they also connected the hearts of the two friends.

One last look. Saori raised her fist and drew a smile on her face, showing her friend the gift she had left for her: a golden bell. It was a farewell.

"Take me there," ordered Saori to the mermaid.

The ocean rumbled and another gigantic sea wave rose and crashed against the rock, taking Mayura and Alice to the ground, such was the rage of the waters; and when they got up, Saori and the strange Mermaid Thetis were no longer there. And for many years, they told in that region of the visceral scream that crossed the rainy skies that afternoon. It was Alice screaming for her friend.

"Saori!"

ABOUT THE CHAPTER: I love the opening chapter of Poseidon, where we see how Poseidon's tidal waves hit all of humanity in places known throughout the world. Here I wanted to bring that up again, but also illustrate all the characters who have already appeared in the fanfic, even those who had disappeared, to understand how each of them is experiencing these problems. It's a way of bringing the problems of the world caused by Poseidon closer to the characters in the fanfic, as well as remembering some who had already been forgotten. It was fun. =) On the other hand, it was important to show Saori Kido how much all this made her suffer on this journey to find herself as Athena. And she finally decides to march, but not everyone will agree with that.

NEXT CHAPTER: REVENANTS

Shaina and Lunara arrive from Asgard at the Sanctuary. And there is a lot to talk about among Athena's warriors.