89 — SHADES OF MYSTERIES
The dark and cold dawn of the Sanctuary kept a very starry sky and a peaceful silence for all the Twelve Temples of the Zodiac. The days had been long and calm, while the inhabitants of Rodório waited anxiously for the return of the Athena's Galleon, whose stories were already invented on bars and squares, but whose deeds were also spread, as everyone knew that at least five Relics of the Seas had already been sealed.
Those were peaceful times, indeed, but everything would change in that terrible dawn.
In the absence of Aries Mu, who had returned to Jamir with a mission to find and bring back the records of his master, the former Pontiff Sion, Taurus Aldebaran was in charge of the Sanctuary of Athena. A mission he carried out to the letter, so it had been at least a week since he'd switched from day to night, and rested "when he slept "only a few hours a day when he was sure Shaina was at her post at the foot of the mountain.
That dawn, he was exhausted, for even though he was the most portentous Gold Saint, he was still a man under the Cloth. Exhausted, but no less attentive. The cold of that night didn't bother him, as he insisted on staying at the entrance of his Temple looking at the horizon. And even at that height where the House of Taurus was risen, an icy breeze at dawn blew from time to time.
An icy breath, however, made Aldebaran uncross his arms, for it was infinitely different from the night breeze; indeed, it was a terribly icy wind followed by a menacing cosmo-energy that swept over the entrance to the House of Taurus and immediately froze it. Aldebaran looked at his back and saw in the corner of his eye a figure that attacked him at the Speed of Light and hit the huge Bull with very sharp claws, like a huge feline of the dawn.
Aldebaran was thrown back to the entrance of his House of Taurus, where he rose to battle his opponent, whom he could see only in silhouette; once more he was struck terribly and almost mortally by that attacker's fist, who surprised the gentle giant and drove him to the ground with his golden helmet split in half.
The Taurus Saint was down.
Tortuga still looked like a powder keg of so many people that converged on that ancient and legendary port. After sealing the Relic of the Sea, Geist was escorted by Blackbeard and Capellirossi to her shuttle boat, where she would return to the Athena's Galleon.
"You got lucky this time, Skull."
"Argo." she corrected. "Argo Geist."
"You look so different without the mask." commented Capellirossi.
"It's easier to breathe." she replied simply.
"Will we see you again?" the woman asked.
"Yea."
"Damn it." complained Blackbeard.
She looked at those two very seriously.
"I know you can feel the salt in the north wind."
"The Vortex." guessed Capellirossi.
"And you'll sail straight to it." commented Blackbeard.
"No. It is it who will swallow us. And then come here." replied Geist, looking at the two of them. "The Vortex is coming."
The three pirates looked at each other, guessing the enormous tragedy that could ensue in a while if the ocean's moods did not calm down. To the north, dark clouds loomed in the distance; Geist's destiny.
"Take care of the Seas and it will take care of you." she said finally saying goodbye.
"May your beautiful ship sink!" wished Blackbeard, which was his way of praying for luck, perhaps.
And so Geist returned from Tortuga to the Athena's Galleon, where she found an extremely anxious and war-ready crew. June and Seiya wore their Bronze Cloths and even Lunara had her chains wrapped around her arm; but Geist told them all that had happened and how they had gained free passage to the north.
"We have sealed the sixth Relic of the Sea, and now we will depart for our last port." she announced to her crew. "Asgard."
Early in the morning, the Council of Athena was hastily convened. In the House of Scorpio, Miro paced, unable to sit at the table on the second floor of his temple, where he had the honor of receiving Aioria, the only Gold Saint who would attend, as Mu was in Jamir, Aldebaran bedridden and Shaka has never been to any of those. Shaina arrived and they sat down at the table.
Nicol, Mayura, Alice and Saori arrived from the temple exit, dismayed; everyone sat down, except Miro, impatient, and Mayura took the floor.
"Thank you, Miro, for having us."
"How is Aldebaran?" he asked immediately.
"He's going to be alright." said Alice. "He's being taken care of in Rodório's infirmary."
"Me and Alice took care of the boys when they were in the same condition. We'll take good care of him." Saori said, trying to calm Miro's heart.
"How is such an attack possible in the Sanctuary?" he asked himself in disbelief.
Shaina punched the table, as she was not at her post at the time of the attack, but Aioria, who was at her side, tried to deflect her wrath.
"Don't blame yourself so much, Shaina. Forgive my bluntness, but if this opponent was capable of taking down someone like Aldebaran, hardly any of us could have done anything to prevent it." and then turned to everyone. "All I found was Taurus' outstretched body still wearing his Gold Cloth. There was no one else. His helmet destroyed on one side and Aldebaran's body unconscious on the other."
"You said there was ice." commented Miro.
"Yes, it's true. The temperature in the House of Taurus was as cold as the House of Aquarius; whoever that opponent is, must command the cold just like Camus or even Hyoga."
"Do you think it could be someone from Siberia?" asked Saori.
"Or from Asgard." Miro interrupted.
Everyone looked at him in such disbelief, but Mayura interrupted that thought immediately before he was derailed in the face of that crisis.
"There's no reason to believe it's someone from Asgard. We received the letter from the North coming from Jamian and Hyoga: they are fine and the Kingdom of Odin will help with the Relic of the Sea." she said, recalling the events of the last few days.
"Besides, we've just returned from Cape Sunion and the sixth Sea Relic has already been sealed. It's only a matter of time before Seiya and the others arrive in Asgard and seal Poseidon once and for all." said Saori confidently.
"The truth is that we must consider this the prelude to the true Holy War that awaits us."
Ominous silence settled over them as Nicol blurted out the name that was on everyone's mind there.
"Hades."
"Captain's log, forty-second day of voyage. We have left Tortuga safely, as we had been promised; and, as we had been warned, the northern seas are terribly rough. We have decided to ascend the Athena's Galleon to escape the terrible waves that shake the ocean, as we head towards our last destination before returning home: Asgard. At cloud level, however, we discovered that the storm that shakes the waters of the sea is no less powerful in the realm of heaven. On the contrary. And now it's too late."
The Galleon of Athena shook with the violent blows of the winds that in the sea formed vortices and small typhoons; Lunara had retracted the sails, so that the ship would fly at the mercy of the magical orichalcum that protected it, not at the will of the terrible winds above the clouds. The boat was still badly damaged from the battle in the Caribbean, so much so that it might even be wiser to magically fly it than if they tried to navigate the seas.
That intersection in the north of the Caribbean was known to victimize ships and even planes, which sank in the famous golden triangle. But to reach Asgard, it was essential that they cross that storm, to overcome the time they had lost in the Amazon. And so they were in the air fighting that brief storm.
If there was a feeling of greater security for sailing through the air, it was soon destroyed, for what were once winds whose gusts scared them in the sky, quickly changed to a storm state that in a few minutes turned into a terrible storm in which the Athena's Galleon was seen at its center.
There was no need for any work on deck or even with the sails, so only Geist, Seiya, and June were on deck, while the entire crew sheltered from the storm in the lower galleries. In addition to having no reason for the crew to put themselves at risk, the violence of the winds was now such that no shouted order from the deck would be heard, drowned out by the howls of the storm.
It really was a path of no return and, ahead of the storm, Seiya could see that a darkness slowly seemed to swallow the winds; thunder flashed, lightning slashed the horizon on both sides of the Galleon and some of them, in effect, crossed the hull, lifting splinters of wood and setting fire to one of the masts, which Pegasus extinguished with his bare hands, helped by the horizontal rain that stormed sweeping the Galleon. Geist was yelling something from the helm, fighting the force of the winds, trying to warn June and Seiya, but not being heard.
The darkness that had once loomed ahead of the storm finally engulfed them all too in a black immensity of quick flashes lit by thunder, until Seiya had a certain impression that both he and the ship had been stretched against their nature, as if slingshot across the universe. For it was precisely the universe that they saw as soon as the storm was overcome and left behind, for the darkness that they imagined had swallowed the Galleon, and that would return to clarity as soon as that storm passed, remained even when everything calmed down in that boat.
An immense cosmic carpet on all sides: stars, planets, asteroids, comets and all sorts of cosmic events around them. It was as if they were actually navigating the Milky Way, such was the beauty of what their eyes saw. The calm had been so abrupt after the storm that the crew slowly opened the trapdoor of the galleries and, one by one, they all emerged, gaping at what their eyes could see.
But among them all, Seiya noticed that there was someone different. A new crewman standing in the middle of the deck with a tunic and a hood hiding his face.
"Who are you?" Seiya asked, and Geist immediately came to stand beside him.
The crew that appeared in wonder finally turned away from the tall, hidden figure that had simply materialized between them. Seiya could, without a shadow of a doubt, feel a threatening Cosmo and put himself on guard; June and Geist stood by his side, ready to do battle in case this was an invasion.
When the invader removed his hood revealing his long hair, Seiya's chest seemed to have frozen and the color drained from his face.
It was Saga.
The metallic, high-pitched beeping in a frequent pulse; Aldebaran's enormous bulk, occupying two beds together and a third for the rest of his legs; wires glued to his temples, so that he would be monitored by the modern clinical system that Mu had inherited in that shack.
"Oh, my friend. I hope you forgive me." she said beside the huge Aldebaran, unconscious.
Mu had returned from Jamir and, upon hearing the terrible news, immediately wracked with guilt and demanded to see the huge friend, much to Shaina's protest, who wanted the Aries Saint to protect the Sanctuary's first temple, for at all indicated that they were under attack and could suffer another attack like that at any moment. But Mu was also the best healer they had in the entire Sanctuary, and if they wanted Aldebaran back on his feet, Mu was the best chance they had to do it as soon as possible.
Rodório continued to live its peaceful days without the slightest idea that the House of Taurus had been attacked. A clear sign that whoever was responsible for the attack spared the civilians and on top of that covered his tracks well, as no sentries saw any strange movement in that terrible dawn. In the House of Aries, Scorpio Miro walked from one side to the other while Aioria kept leaning against one of the pillars that preceded the temple of Mu.
"You're going to drive me crazy like that, Miro." said Aioria, but the Scorpion Saint did not notice him.
"A fallen Gold Saint. There's something very strange about all this, Aioria."
"You're right, Miro," agreed the Lion. "Even if Shaina wasn't at her post, the night sentries must have seen something. It is not possible that whoever made this attack materialized in the House of Taurus."
"Is it possible that he teleported like Mu?"
"No." Aioria said. "It is not possible to teleport through the Twelve Temples of the Zodiac when Athena is present in the Sanctuary."
"She's still weak." commented Miro, a little impolitely.
"But it's still Athena."
"The ice…"
The two Gold Saints heard a voice arise from within the House of Aries. It was Virgo Shaka, wearing her wonderful Gold Cloth. Miro didn't hide the mocking smile that escaped him.
"The most excellent has finally come out of her temple, has she?"
Shaka didn't answer and Aioria kept her under suspicious eyes.
"Ice in the House of Taurus is not common." she just said.
"What do you mean by that?" Aioria uncrossed his arms.
"Lion Saint, you will remember Phoenix Ikki's remarkable ability to travel through the Twelve Temples by the heat of fire alone."
And Aioria actually remembered how Ikki disappeared into the flames, only to find her again on the steps of the Camerlengo Temple.
"Do you think this opponent can transport himself through the wind like a Phoenix through fire?"
"It's a possibility." said Shaka. "There is another one."
Miro then stared at Shaka for a long time.
"Camus' death is inexplicable." said the Virgo Saint. "He should never have been beaten by his disciple, a Bronze Saint much weaker than he is."
"I can't believe you have spent weeks buried in your House of Virgo and the day you choose to see the sunlight is to doubt those kids' abilities." shouted Aioria.
"Listen to me, Lion Saint." Shaka said calmly. "My time in the House of Virgo has been to understand the hungry spirits of the Underworld. I have meditated ahead on our Holy War."
"And what does that have to do with Camus?" asked Miro.
"I can still feel his Cosmo."
"What do you mean by that?" shouted Mira. "We buried Camus with the others."
"I still don't know what that means, Scorpion Saint, but his Cosmo refuses to join the oblivion of Hell."
"You said there was another explanation." Aioria interrupted. "What does Camus have to do with the attack on Aldebaran? You can't be suggesting that he tried anything against a friend of the order."
"Who will know?"
Miro then scolded the Virgo Saint in impatience for suggesting such a betrayal of his beloved friend.
"You should have stayed in the House of Virgo, Shaka."
The atmosphere was unpleasant between them, but at least the House of Aries had three Gold Saints to guard it against any invasion and prevent any misfortune from going up the mountain and finding the Goddess Athena in her temple, because in the face of that crisis, Saori understood finally that she could no longer walk freely around Rodório as she liked so much.
In the House of Taurus, Shaina looked at the tracks of blood and ice that still stained the stones of that temple, whitened by the cold. She ran her hand over a trail of ice on the floor, as if trying to guess what the hell could have happened there; irate, she punched the floor, breaking the stone, still unhappy with not being at her post at the fateful hour.
And besides the House of Aries and Taurus, the only other temple inhabited that morning was that of Aquarius, where Nicol pored over some volumes brought by Jamir Mu, which contained notes, recipes, messages and observations from the former Pontiff of the Sanctuary, Zion. It would not be possible to repair the immense loss that Saga had caused to the knowledge of the Sanctuary, but they were also priceless documents in the absence of anything else.
Among so many chronicles and poems that had Jamir as a subtext more than the Sanctuary, Nicol found a gem that was both unexpected and very curious. Of all the volumes she had retrieved, this notebook was by far the simplest. As he leafed through it, however, Nicol couldn't help but smirk on his face as he couldn't believe what he had in his hands. For it was a simple call book signed by the young and troubled Gold Saints.
Nicol knew that the Saints of Sanctuary were educated locally, but he couldn't imagine the Pontiff himself caring so closely for the young Gold Saints. And reflecting better on that House of Aquarius he was in, Nicol was not surprised, for he knew that that generation of Saints was extremely young when they were brought to the Sanctuary and started their training.
There were in those records proof of presence for several years, in different subjects and classes. From ancient mathematics to the most diverse languages. The signatures of all of them were there, from Aries to Pisces, and as the pages were flipped, Nicol saw clearly how the letters, which were once childish, slowly matured and took the form of their own personalities. Aphrodite had a beautifully cursive signature, while Deathmask often signed with grimaces and puns with his own adopted name.
The handwriting of the now-ill Aldebaran was clumsy, Camus's very correct and Miro's almost incomprehensible. What Nicol found curious was how Saga's handwriting was actually quite beautiful too.
"A man tormented by evil, but with beautiful handwriting."
Ahead in the simple notebook were notations of each Saint's performance in the various subjects over the years and, on the last pages, there was even a note of each of them written when they were still little boys and girls, most likely when the notebook was first used. It was lovely and charming to see what each one had put in, but especially Saga's note was the one that most aroused the scholar's curiosity.
"I want to be the strongest Saint in the whole world."
The innocent and even adorable eloquence, if we imagine it in the mouth of a five-year-old boy, consumed perhaps the entire Sanctuary in the madness of the man he had become. But as he reflected on that self-fulfilling prophecy that was Saga's note, Nicol was seized with a terrible chill, and so he leafed through the last pages of the notebook with worried eyes. And when his eyes realized what had caused him so much awkwardness, he closed the notebook and jumped up from the table.
The breath had escaped him and Seiya had never felt such coldness in his bones as when Saga revealed himself to be the man in the robe who had now invaded the Athena's Galleon.
"Saga."
Seiya was not the only one there to recognize that face, for among the sailors there were those who remembered the man compared to a god who walked among mortals in Rodório before his disappearance. And if the name of Aioros was cursed and therefore recognized throughout the region, so was Saga's, elevated to the condition of culprit for the crisis that had sunk the Sanctuary.
Geist and June had never seen the man, perhaps luckily for them, but Seiya's hesitation and shock, as well as the terrified faces of the crew, left no doubt for the two that, in that infinity where they were, stood one of the worst dead from the recent history of the Sanctuary.
He said nothing.
And after the moment of shock, Seiya immediately put himself on guard and faced him, ready to fight.
"I can't believe you're alive, Saga." he said when noticing the serious expression of the man who had attempted on Saori's life.
And just then Saga's heavy eyes fell on Seiya.
"What are you doing here?" Seiya asked, confused.
"I came to show you all what awaits you." he said, and his voice was unmistakable to Seiya. "I came to show you all why you shouldn't have killed me."
And then his Golden Cosmo revealed itself, magnanimous, exactly as Seiya remembered the terrible battle in the Sanctuary. The stars that gleamed on the horizon of the universe like white dots turned into strong scribbles in the dark of infinity, while the entire Galleon seemed to have been stretched impossibly and shaken violently as if the boat was traveling with impossible speed across the universe.
The Galleon's timbers creaked loudly, as if the boat were under immense pressure; the crew held on as best they could and Seiya kept Saga in his sight as much as he could, but in the blink of an eye he noticed that that huge man simply disappeared from his sight and everyone's view.
Just as the Galleon finally stopped accelerating, sailing slowly in suspension animation by a sea of stars in the universe. It didn't float through the Milky Way, as before, but there was, in fact, a dark river that reflected the stars in the sky as the ship headed into an eternal night that unfolded on the horizon.
ABOUT THE CHAPTER: Introducing mysteries to set the stage for the future. That typical chapter of tying up some things, revealing some others and preparing ends to solve later on. Come with me! =)
NEXT CHAPTER: THE ETERNAL HUNGER
Geist and her crew get a glimpse of the threats to come, as Star Hill witnesses a deadly discovery.