94 — THE STELLAR ODIN SAPPHIRE

The high court aristocrats of Asgard, usually from ancient and once very wealthy families, each had what they called a forest retreat. A humble hovel, but far from the hardships of the city, although hunger and despair swept both the more affluent, but especially the miserable. So that in that year of Lord Odin, it no longer mattered which side of the fortress's walkway you lived on: it was certain that you were hungry and prayed at night asking the All-Father for mercy.

A few years before that winter crisis that took Asgard, however, the region found peace within its walls, and although the winter was always harsh, at least there was no shortage of food for its people. A young Princess Freia sat on a frozen fountain in front of her family's retreat, with whom she often shared walks with her sister Hilda.

"You should go back to your room, Princess Freia." said Hagen beside her, also younger, thin and already very tall, as if he had been stretched out in adolescence.

She looked at him beside her, his complexion darker than the people of the north, his hair scorched by a sun that didn't exist there. The fountain in the form of horses was entirely covered in ice, which the Princess was trying to scrape off with her hands, removing plates and breaking small stalactites that had formed. Seeing she couldn't do much for the ice-filled fountain, he sat down on the stone bench next to her.

"Hagen, have you ever wished you were born in a land bathed by sunlight? Fertile and green?"

Her eyes were sad looking at the snow covering the ground and the question surprised the young Hagen beside her. But perhaps out of politeness and decorum in front of her, Hagen didn't dare answer that question, so Freia continued as if talking to herself.

"It's not right, Asgard is so cold that it takes away our freedom to live. We suffer all the time. Sometimes I look at our homeland and hate it for imposing so much sacrifice on us. Have you ever felt like this?" she finally asked him.
"Princess Freia, I..." but the boy seemed to hesitate, afraid of cursing and suffering greater consequences from that land.

Young Hagen, however, manifested around him a clear aura, as if his body sublimated the cold air around him, like steaming, dry ice. But it was also brilliant, and beside her, Freia felt a certain warmth reach her ever-icy face. With a movement of his hand, the young boy melted all the ice that covered that fountain so dear to Freia, turning the ice into pure sublimation in the air.

The Princess smiled back at him when she saw that Hagen's face was no longer lit up by that sublimation around his body.

"I just want to be by your side." he said seriously.

She pressed a smile into her heart, and together they heard the footsteps of someone in the snow approaching the retreat's wooden hut wearing her pretty pale blue dress and her almost white hair flowing in the wind: it was Hilda, her delicate sister.

"Now, Freia, poor Hagen will never say a word against our homeland, stop making him unconfortable." she said with the sweetest, most brotherly smile on her face.

Hilda, who at a very young age was already responsible for the people of Asgard, joined them on the stone bench.

"It is a beautiful seidr this one that your heart manifests, Hagen." she said about the boy's strange energy.
"I've been training a lot, Miss Hilda." he justified.
"Look, sis'." Freia pointed to three initials roughly scratched into the legs of the fountain horses that reappeared when Hagen thawed them.

Two of them were precisely the initials of their own names, but between them there was a third letter in the ancient language of Asgard that made them both briefly silence in sadness.

"Master Durval's absence is still felt across Asgard." Hagen told them.

The two daughters looked at their friend standing, who seemed to pay some kind of respect to the one who was the girls' father and who had died in the most recent war between Asgard and a neighboring country. Durval had been the ruler of Asgard for many years before he fell in battle and left the post very soon to his young daughter Hilda, who from birth was known to be the Voice of Odin in the Land of Asgard. Their mother, however, died when the two were still crawling, victimized by a terrible illness aggravated by the merciless cold of one of those unforgettable winters in the region.

"The harsh nature of our homeland Asgard imposes terrible suffering on us all, my sister." Hilda began speaking, taking Freia's hand. "But we must not hate or regret our condition. If we endure all this ordeal, despite our bodies being punished by the cold, our hearts will be brighter than the sun and more fertile than the forests."

And then Hilda took her sister's cold hands and smiled sweetly at her; got up and guided her little sister around the fountain to show how, on the body of one of the horses in that fountain, a group of flowers sprouted from the cold stone.

"Look, Freia. That flower. Even living against this wind and cold, that flower managed to take root and survive in the land of Asgard to bloom gloriously."

Freia looked at her sister's sweet face and then at Hagen who was watching them too, always very closely.

Whenever she returned to that place, that was her most beautiful memory; especially since Hilda had taken upon herself the mantle of the Valkyries and the unyielding rule of her people with the Gold Ring on her finger. This was where Freia had decided to stay, banished from the Valhalla Palace where she had been born, but back where the sun seemed to burn brightest in her chest.

And again she was there in front of the fountain, all frozen again, while she, out of breath, tried to make out the initials on the horse's base, when a hot breath melted the ice as in her favorite memory. She looked back startled, and there she saw Hagen, dressed in his wonderful silver Divine Robe, but beautifully embellished in crimson.

She knew he was there to take her back to prison again, so she turned her back on him and went into the simple wooden hut where she sought to gather some logs to light the fireplace in the living room. Before she sparked a stonebreaker to heat the logs, she felt a gust behind her that immediately chilled the wood into flickering fires. It was Hagen's seidr, she knew it well.

"I was going to light it myself." Freia protested, but Hagen said nothing. "Are you here to take me back again?"
"No." he finally said. "There was a prisoner escape from the barracks and also from Valhalla Palace. I came to see if everything is fine with you. To protect you."
"I'm fine where I am." said Freia in an angry tone.

Hagen closed the door behind him, kneeling before Princess Freia in his beautiful white-and-red cloak-covered Divine Robe at her feet.

"There are invaders from Greece among us. Hilda was right." Hagen told her.
"No, Hagen." she also knelt down to face him head on. "That's not true, my sister is still on the wrong side of all this."
"Princess Freia, I can't understand why you try so hard to antagonize Miss Hilda."
"My sister does not follow the designs of our God. She should never have put on that Ring."
"Princess Freia!" shouted Hagen, getting to his feet. "You must get used to the fact that Miss Hilda is no longer your sister. She is the Voice of Odin. She is Odin. The Ring shouldn't be with anyone else but her."

And then he placed his hand on the fireplace where the paintings of Durval, Freia's father, still hung, as well as her mother, whose name was Astrid.

"We're tired of seeing so much suffering." he said. "Miss Hilda is tired too. The time has come for us to free ourselves from this prison. I remember all too well that it also hurt you enormously, Freia." said Hagen, remembering what was also one of his many cherished memories.
"I don't want to see my people suffer either, but not because of a lie. It's a lie that the Sanctuary of Athena is attacking us. Listen to me, Hagen. All they want is to seal the Poseidon Relic. This harsh winter that attacks us is the work of the Seas, for Poseidon is out of his time, as is that Ring."
"What are you talking about, Princess Freia?" Hagen asked, confused.
"It all makes sense, my friend Hagen." she said, very tenderly. "The Relic of Poseidon, which we believe to be the only one in the entire world, is actually just one of a collection scattered across the Seven Seas. And ours is the last one. And when it is sealed, peace will return to Asgard."

Hagen stood up in deep confusion, but Freia's eyes were determined looking back at him. Words failed him in the face of such a passionate and distant account of the teachings she herself had received in the halls of Mímir. He wasn't a bookworm like she was, but it was through her that he knew the vast majority of stories about Surtr's treasures. Something had changed.

"Where does all this is coming from?" he asked, as if he already knew the answer.

Freia fell silent and her eyes strayed to the fire in the fireplace.

"Tell me, Princess Freia! Who told you these lies?"
"There aren't any lies, Hagen!"she protested.
"There was someone else in that cell, wasn't there?"
"Hagen, help us." she pleaded. "Hilda must not wear this Ring. Not now!"

And then she took Hagen's hands, protected by the hard armor of her Divine Robe.

"With Odin's Sapphires, the spell over my sister can be broken." she said, begging and looking into her friend's eyes for some help. "The Athena Saints came in peace and all they want is to seal Poseidon, but Hilda won't allow it and…"
"Athena Saints?" interrupted Hagen, releasing Freia's hands.
"Wait, Hagen!" she asked. "We need to help them, please help me to regain my sister's reason!"

But Hagen was livid and walked to the retreat door.

"Please help me, Hagen!" Freia fell to her knees.
"You want to use the Balmung Sword against your own sister?" he asked in disbelief, opening the door to the retreat and letting the wind howl outside. "What happened to you, Princess Freia? This is plotting against Hilda's life, and we know all too well the fate of those who rise up against her. I should imprison you in the dungeons of Valhalla, where no-one can escape from."
"Hagen!"
"But I can't do that. I can't. I'll pretend I didn't hear anything you said at all, but tell me by the gods, Princess Freia. Who was this person who told you all these lies? Come on, tell me!"
"No, Hagen!"
"It doesn't matter. I will find them!"

Freia screamed behind him and ran after the God Warrior who also bolted from that abandoned retreat back to the main city. Two broken hearts, each for a reason, but both painful.

The forest that covered the plain at the base of that huge rock on which the portentous Palace of Valhalla stood was wild and, at that time, desert, as the harsh winter killed most of the animals that lived there, also killed by the hunger that froze the entire region. A huge, black and beautiful crow flew from the highest tower of the Palace to land on the quiet branches of that forest, where a girl looked at the beautiful animal with distant thoughts.

The girl was also wearing a beautiful sapphire blue Divine Robe with details in lighter and darker hues, a petticoat made from the carcass of a huge predatory mammal and her long hair cut wildly so it wouldn't fall in her face. She faced the black crow against the snowy branch of a tree and walked ahead along a path between trunks and branches that only she knew in that place until a clearing formed by a huge explosion that drove away the few animals in that region.

The Goddess Warrior knelt down beside a tree trunk and saw that the snow that had previously covered that clearing was flung far away, hitting tree trunks and even the underside of the crowns; so that the floor ahead had revealed the damp earth that was hidden under the white carpet. She also noticed that the trees closest to the clearing were leaning into the forest, as if twisted by some huge force.

But it was what was struggling in the center of that clearing that made the Goddess Warrior feel a certain chill inside her; not out of any feeling of pity for those young people who suffered, but for painfully remembering herself who had once also been in deep suffering in a similar clearing and not even very far from there. Beside her, silent as a ghost, a gray wolf approached.

Many years had passed for her, but the surrounding trees that had become her home were as if it were yet another day, when the icy white land was dyed with the blood of betrayal and cowardice. It was on that day that she found her brothers, brave wolves who saved her from certain death.

Almost fifteen years ago, when the girl, then a contented child of a few years, was taking a sunny Sunday stroll with her wealthy family, one of those who frequented Valhalla Palace and was always invited to gala balls from time immemorial; a family full of history and prestige, who with their subordinates took Sunday to gallop through the forest in order to have a day close to nature.

And on that fateful sunny day, a rare thing in Asgard, the entourage was surprised by a huge mountain bear enraged for whatever reason, which immediately fatally attacked her mother, who rode ahead of them all, like a Norse princess; her blood stained trees and snow as she fell to the ground already dead from the beast's terrible blow. Her father, the girl remembered well, jumped from his horse and tried to prevent the huge animal from feasting on her mother's flesh, hitting it with useless twigs until it was also flattened with the animal's sharp claws, throwing him against a tree, also already dead.

Her screams, still very young, of a child of three or four asking for help, for mercy, for any miracle that would save her parents and herself, were all ignored by the rest of the entourage and guards who, frightened, simply abandoned the place, the prominent couple and that child on their own. She never forgot the pain of calling her parents, already dead, to their feet, or seeing that the knights had simply abandoned her when she screamed with all her might for help.

And the huge animal, annoyed by the crying and the screams of the child, put itself on both feet to destroy the kid with its enormous strength, but then it was surprised by the fangs of a pack of wolves that came to attack it. As her father had tried, the little girl even tried to use the broken branches to help in the impossible fight, because even though the number was much greater, the wolves were thrown in all directions by the immense force of the defending animal. But if they couldn't kill him there, the wounded wolves that, even though they were thrown from afar, still came back to harass the huge bear, finally made him simply give up that expensive meal and flee through the forest, where he could eat in peace.

The girl, once the daughter of a wealthy, prominent Asgardian family, now found herself surrounded by wolves, who looked no less terrible than that murderous bear; on the floor, the murdered bodies of her parents. And if she had been abandoned by her peers and even family, it was the pack of those young wolves who adopted her among them for many years to come.

And just as her parents' bodies had been lying bloodied in the snow for so many years, in front of her now, too, were five wounded bodies slowly regaining consciousness. She looked up and guessed that those there had either thrown themselves or had fallen from the top of the mountain, where she knew the Valhalla Palace was. Three of those slowly waking up she soon recognized, as she had taken part in an ambush a few weeks ago to arrest them.

Her Divine Robe had been given to her by Hilda herself, for the people of Asgard already knew the stories of the beast-girl who lived in the forest and, in a time of great scarcity of men and women capable of war, the union of the girl with the Nature and her wolves made her seidr bright and strong, so she eventually became a God Warrior. And her first mission was to capture the trio that disembarked from an auxiliary boat in the harbor some days ago.

She moved from tree to tree, always very attentive to those in the clearing who were talking worriedly about their mission, but she little understood their words. As far from her as the wails of a northern whale, for her understanding of the language of the people of Asgard, to whom she was heiress, was already very rudimentary, to say the least, let alone of strangers never expected in her land. No doubt it was easier for her to talk to wolves, her brothers, than to a fellow human.

Skittish and nature-minded, she risked getting even closer, so that she could continue to hide in the shadows of the forest, but at least get a closer look at the faces of those prisoners who had escaped where they shouldn't have. One of those youngsters got up, clearly suspicious, and looked her way into the forest, not meeting her eyes, but clearly suspecting something lurking. The Goddess Warrior looked beside her at the gray wolf and made a gesture with her hands.

He responded by howling at the white sky, echoing through the tree trunks and being answered by many others scattered in the woods that faced the clearing. The suffering young kids in the center all stood up and braced themselves against each other as they saw the hungry grunts of snowwolves coming out of the darkness from all directions.

"Shun." called Ikki, as if asking him to do something.

Immediately the rosy fire cosmos took over his body and the girl, in the darkness, marveled at that aura that seemed to burn his body. She saw how the leaves of the snowy trees moved lightly, as if gently blown, and she saw on the ground how a current of air seemed to run through the damp earth, halting the march of her brothers-wolves and hindering the treacherous walk of those animals that, in the face of that difficulty, finally began to growl, unhappy that they could not go on to smash that rare feast.

She stuck her fingers in her mouth and let out a much louder whistle, causing the hidden birds to flutter and the wolves to stop their idling where they were. She got up from behind the tree she was hiding under and stepped into the light of the clearing before everyone, and what they saw was a girl with snow-gray hair, cut into a mohawk that left the right side of her head uncovered, while her hair stretched down her back almost to her waist. She wore armor of a deep sapphire blue with lighter details and a shaggy petticoat; she had clear, piercing eyes, but her face was scarred.

The wolves returned to the depths of the forest, disappearing from the sight of everyone in that clearing, though they were sure that any hesitation or other command from that girl and they would all be torn apart by the beasts' hunger.

"A wolf tamer?" asked Ikki in front of everyone.

The girl didn't answer her, because she didn't even understand what she told her. She took a few steps ahead of them, always with wild, suspicious eyes; Geist saw clearly that there was a precious and very shiny stone at the waist of that protection that the girl wore: there was no doubt that she was a Goddess Warrior, one of the protectors of that region under Odin.

"She doesn't understand us, Ikki." Shun said behind her.

The fierce girl stared at Shun like a beast that chooses its prey and then pointed at them and the group noticed how her hand was protected by long amber claws at the tip of that armor she wore. From them, her upraised finger passed to the mountain behind the group, guessing that they had escaped from the prison of Valhalla; they found that, though wild, they were not dealing with a foolish girl.

"Listen to me." Shun asked, opening his arms, in a clear sign of peace. "We've come a long way, but we come in peace and we don't want any unnecessary fights."

Shun tried to translate his lines as best he could into gestures, but they didn't seem to mean anything to the girl. His open arms, his ever-sweet voice, and his pleading, loving eyes found nothing on the other side. The brothers and the others behind them heard the girl's sharp voice accusing them of something they didn't understand.

"She doesn't look convinced." Seiya observed.

Though brave, the girl thought, they were fugitives, and it didn't seem clear to her what they were doing in her forest; very weakened, she assessed that none of them really could cause her any problem, as three of them were completely out of combat. There shone around her, subtly, the mist of ice that sometimes covers something that quickly freezes.

Ikki then jumped in front of her brother, as she saw, out of the corner of her eye, how from the darkness of the forest to which the wolves had returned, beams of purple light appeared that attacked Shun from the shadows. The girl's body was shredded by that dark technique and she fell bleeding in front of her brother, who desperately called her name. Ikki suffered from a torn back.

"Why did you do this?" asked Shun, kneeling, trying to help Ikki.

They all saw how, from the darkness, the red eyes of the wolves again appeared in the clearing, slowly converging on them to take them with their sharp claws, their terrible fangs and their murderous eyes. Shun's fair hair, however, began to vibrate with his aeolian cosmos again preventing the wolves from marching on in their hunt; but they all saw how the girl manifested more forcefully around her the white mist of her energy, which seemed to resonate with the animals, painting a glowing rune on their foreheads. And the eyes of the beasts, which were already menacing, burst into flames and they crossed the misty stream to devour the young group.

They were all frightened by that incredible power of the Goddess Warrior, as well as the voracity with which the wolves ran towards them. Shun got to his feet and blasted his Andromeda Cosmos, increasing the speed and power of his winds, so that the wolves were flung through the skies falling around him, much to the girl's astonishment.

"I won't let them devour my friends!" Shun said.

The Goddess Warrior was serious as she saw how Shun was standing in front of the four battered youths behind him; the other girl was bleeding, as she was now cared for by June, but even Seiya or Geist, even if they had battle-hard eyes, she well knew they could do nothing against her. Only that boy, the sweetest of them all, was determined to protect them and could truly do something.

She growled like one of her wolf friends beneath the mask that adorned her torn face and bent down to pet one of them, who was yelping in pain at her feet. Shun observed how her posture was always suspicious and tried to speak again, even though she didn't understand him, even though his arms didn't know the right gestures to communicate. He was sure that no matter how strong his winds and his Cosmos, if he used all his power in that clearing, he wouldn't just bend the bones of that girl and her wolves, but of all his friends and his sister.

"I don't want to fight you. I don't want to hurt the wolves that are so precious to you. All I want is to get my friends safely back to the city. There's no reason to fight here."

The girl was still caressing the wounded wolf at her feet.

The Goddess Warrior, deep in her savage heart, did not actually attack them out of any loyalty to Valhalla or even Asgard, where she was known as the wild beast-girl everyone should fear. There was no loyalty in her heart other than to that pack that took her when she was a child. She would devour them right there so her family wouldn't starve to death as they did behind the city walls; for hunger was not a disease that only the men and women of Asgard suffered, but all life in the region suffered day after day in nature as well.

Small and large animals died in the forests, driving prey away from their predators, unbalancing the chain that kept Asgard alive forever.

Again Shun's words and gestures fell into the void and the girl got up and ran towards the group; the boy put his hands in front of him, creating a vortex of wind aimed at the Goddess Warrior, but she was swift as a wolf's pounce and managed to dodge the typhoons aimed to reach Shun and deliver a powerful punch to the boy, throwing him against a tree trunk in the background. Without being able to spread his Nebula Storm at the risk of victimizing his own friends, Shun's power was far less than it could have been.

Ikki stood up and tried to engage the girl, and though her blows went in, the Divine Robe she wore protected her from her fist, as the wolf's sharp claws ripped through the Phoenix Saint's clothing, throwing her against the damp earth. With the girl at her mercy and about to deliver the final blow to Ikki, June grabbed her arm and received an elbow and was thrown across the clearing. Geist stepped in front of her and the Divine Robe's retractable claws emerged from her wrists; she moved forward to slash the Athena's Galleon Captain, but before her claws could sink into Geist's stomach, Seiya stepped in front of her and received the blow to his own body, holding tightly to the killer wolf's fist, which withdrew with astonishment on the face.

With her fist stuck in his stomach, Seiya took her from behind and ascended his Cosmo, but as soon as he held her, he fell unconscious without being able to put an end to his maximum technique. The Goddess Warrior then jumped away from them, panting, as she was almost taken by the boy's madness. June leaned over Seiya's bloodied body, trying to contain the blood that was leaking from her stomach.

In the distance, the wild girl saw how Seiya was bleeding in pain, while June bent over him tearing the clothes that covered him from the cold to stop the wound; Shun got up in the distance and also came to his friend's aid, as did Geist and even Ikki. A long-suffering group of warriors who didn't give up and put themselves in danger for each other.

The snow that was falling lightly from the sky already covered the ground with a new layer of ice that was dyed with the dark blood of those boys; she looked at them, stunned and surprised, and then her eyes fell on the wolf pack that awaited her command in the darkness of the trees. She remembered herself stretched out across her parents' bodies.

She hesitated at the touching sight and the one who noticed her amazement was Shun, but also Ikki, who put up her guard to take advantage of the girl's apparent confusion, but Shun held her fist.

"Take care of Seiya." asked the boy.

And he walked away from the group, slowly advancing with open arms towards the Goddess Warrior. The wolves around him snarled, furious and hungry, as Shun approached her, who was also on guard, her amber claws retractable and ready to slash at the boy if need be. He then did something that again astonished the girl. Shun knelt before her.

"Me. Not them." Shun said and gestured with his arms at least three times.

The boy surrendered to the girl's mercy. He would sacrifice himself for his friends, because even if Ikki was willing to fight with all her strength, she wouldn't have any chance against that girl using her Divine Robe. And even if Ikki could rip apart her mind devoured by that forest, the wolves would take revenge by devouring Seiya, Geist and June, who could do nothing. And he himself couldn't use his Nebula Storm or he would kill them all. He saw no solution and there the fear of losing all his friends devastated his chest in such a way that Shun chose to die for all of them, if that was an option.

He knelt down, closed his eyes and waited to be devoured by the wolves.

But the Goddess Warrior was absolutely confused by that boy kneeling before her, for never in her life did she observe anything but the deepest selfishness of the men and women who had abandoned her in that forest to the mercy of the beasts, or from the villagers from Asgard who denied her food on the side of the road, or from the bohemians who told lies and fabricated stories of her crimes on the frontiers.

And if the language was an insurmountable barrier between them, Shun's gesture seemed clear to everyone, even to the wolves, who were already getting ready to devour him right there. And even though she recognized the boy's enormous value and courage, so different from her peers, the Goddess Warrior chose to respect his sacrifice, as hunger devoured his wolf brothers.

She held out her arms and clearly communicated to her wolves to march on the boy.

"Shun, no!"

"Stay where you are, Ikki!" he returned, and the Goddess Warrior saw the despair on the paralyzed girl's face.

Paralyzed, as Shun's Cosmo that had previously paralyzed the wolves in front of him now kept Ikki and his group of friends paralyzed in its nebulous current without them being able to do anything.

The wolves marched slowly and Shun closed his eyes, letting his Cosmo take over his chest, while burning his entire body like fire. There was hunger in the beasts' eyes and they marched a little unsteadily, growling, drooling, but gradually giving up too. The wolves, like dogs, slowly cleared their bestial features, calmed down in front of that figure that seemed almost divine kneeling on the ground, pacifying the animals around.

All the wolves simply looked to the side and returned to the bottom of the forest, all of them disappearing. The Goddess Warrior couldn't believe her eyes, and looking around without understanding how the boy had commanded all the wolves to get away from there, she didn't notice that Shun got up and attacked her with the deepest tenderness of a hug.

She didn't even know what to do with her arms and, worse, with the terrible feeling that invaded her chest at that moment, because she couldn't remember the last time she had felt the warm body of another human being. Shun broke the hug with a smile on his face and repeated it between speeches and gestures.

"We want peace."

She didn't answer, although she understood in her own way what the boy meant; and he placed his hand on his own chest and introduced himself for the first time.

"Shun."

And he placed his hand on the breastplate of the wild-girl's Divine Robe. And her wavering voice answered him.

"Fenrir."
"Fenrir." Shun repeated in front of him. "Thanks."

Shun's eyes, however, took a closer look as his hand slipped on a precious gem that gleamed on the girl's chest: it was the Sapphire. A stone that Ikki had told them before they were harassed by the wolves they would need to bring peace to this land. The boy pointed at his own chest the gemstone that the girl had in her Divine Robe and she looked from the stone to Shun.

Shun removed the robes that covered his neck from the cold and then took out a star pendant that Ikki had given him when he was still a child and offered it to her. Hesitantly, Fenrir looked with his wild eyes into Shun's sweet eyes and for a moment hesitated, but then accepted the boy's gift. A gray wolf appeared among them from the forest and, as close as he was, Shun saw that the beautiful animal had inscribed on its forehead a beautiful flaw in the coloring of its fur that resembled a crescent moon.

The beast looked at Fenrir, who looked back, and she saw the beast lick her hand affectionately; Shun couldn't tell and would never guess, but he understood that it was as if those brothers were communicating. She closed her eyes and took the Sapphire out of her Divine Robe and placed it in Shun's hand. And so she turned her back on him and disappeared into the forest that was her home.

But with each step she took beside that four-legged brother of hers, the Divine Robe that protected her split in the air, abandoning her body piece by piece, mounting itself in the snow in the beautiful figure of a wild and dark wolf. The entire pack howled at the white sky hidden in the trees and Shun never saw that tragic figure from the tales of Asgard ever again.

ABOUT THE CHAPTER: Fenrir's fight in the Animated Seres is cool, but it has a very bad ending, with a stupid death. I wanted to change it not only to give the character a more dignified ending, but also to give Shun an opportunity to "win" a battle peacefully as he always wanted. The opening scene is an enlargement of a beautiful Anime scene. =)

NEXT CHAPTER: FREIA'S DEADLY BATTLE

Hagen leaves for the Southern Caves to find that the Athena Saints are after Surtr's Cave, and Freia appears in the heart of the land to try to stop her friend from making a big mistake.