74 — HOPE OF ATHENA

That rainy night in the hut, neither Saori nor Alice returned from the Temple after such bad news, nor would they return in the next few days. It was left to Seiya and his friends to unpack and eat with their heads down; Seiya knew that that couldn't be a good sign and that the search for his sister would have to be put aside once more.

"I'm sorry, Seiya." Shun said, sitting next to him.
"It's all right." he lied.
"It's not. I know how much you wanted to go after your sister in Athens."
"I will go, Shun. Alone, if needed." said Seiya. "The Sanctuary will have a few months of peace, Shaina told us. I will be back before you all return."

Shun smiled back at him.

"Did you take the fur coat?"
"Yea."
"You're going to be terribly cold in Siberia."
"Hyoga told me."
"Is he all right?"
"I think we're all still kind of weird." Shun commented. "And he still had to fight his Master."
"Again." added Seiya.

The two looked at Hyoga, who was digging through his backpack in the corner, before going back to eating his simple plate.

"It's like we've come back from the dead." Said Seiya.
"Yeah, but I think we'll get used to it. Shiryu knows how it is."

Seiya returned him a yellow smile, as if resigned. And then his eyes searched the window for the top of the mountain ahead.

"Do you think Saori is grounded?" he asked curiously, and Shun actually laughed.
"The Goddess Athena grounded?"
"Master Mayura is tough and Saori keeps insisting on not going to her Temple. And she still wanted to go to Athens with me. She's kind of nuts."
"She must still feel very guilty about the children."
"She said she gets reports every week with the whereabouts of those who got lost out there. It must not be easy for her."
"It's not easy being Saori."
"It must be even harder being Athena." said Seiya.

That night, Seiya slept thinking about Seika, but also thinking about Saori, who seemed to have been locked up in her Temple, as she had never spent a night far from that hut they lived in.

Two days later, the entourage arrived at Cape Súnion. Along with Athena went Alice, who was always by her side, as well as the wise Nicol and the companions Shaina and Geist. Prudent, they were all wearing their Sacred Cloth, as they didn't know exactly what existed in that Temple that a Gold Saint like Saga was needed to be responsible for the lookout of the Seal of the Seas.

Nicol felt a certain chill as he returned to where he had been imprisoned for fifteen years, but now he had the Goddess Athena by his side. The trip had been of few words, for here was a group without any intimacy between them; Saori and Alice on one side, as well as Shaina and Geist on the other, talked little to each other. One group distrustful of the other. And a man with no way to deal with any of them.

If before he had been apprehensive about returning to Cape Sunion, when they arrived he felt immensely relieved, for he would finally have something to do. With his Atlantean book in hand, he inspected the inscriptions, columns, and styles of that time-torn architecture. For the Temple of Poseidon was now reduced to its ruins. The rain didn't interfere with their inspection, nor did it take away from Alice, Shaina and Geist the enormous feeling they had in that Temple. So much so that Alice and Shaina exchanged a few glances that made sure they felt the same way.

"Is it Poseidon?" Alice asked them.
"It's too weak to be a God." commented Geist very seriously.
"Eris' presence was also very weak in the Ruins of Discord." said Saori between them.
"Yes, you are all correct." agreed Nicol, a little distantly. "That is undoubtedly Poseidon's presence, but with luck he's not fully awake yet."

As Nicol inspected every misplaced brick of that ruin in Saori's disconcerting but honorable company, Geist and Alice found themselves standing next to each other outside the Temple inspecting the surroundings of the ruin.

"I like that you ditched the mask." she commented, trying to be a friend.

Geist didn't say a single word to her and noticed a plinth at the tip of the rock overlooking the sea.

"Something's missing here." she said only, and Alice noticed that the pedestal really did seem to have a very specific, oblong recess that seemed to support something to stand on. Something that wasn't there.
"What did you find?" Shaina asked, joining them.
"We don't know." replied Alice.
"Nicol." Shaina called, and he soon came to them with Saori.

He immediately flipped to a specific page, as if recognizing something he'd seen before. His eyes darted from the pages of the book to that curious pedestal, when he concluded that he had no more doubts.

"That was the Seal of the Seas."
"Was?" Saori asked him, noticing that there was nothing there.
"Yes, Athena. The Seal no longer exists. This pedestal was the holder of Poseidon's Trident. The Seal of the Sea of this Temple was for the sole purpose of sealing the Sea God's Trident."
"So it is true." wailed Alice. "Poseidon has indeed returned."
"No," Nicol corrected. "That just means his Trident is no longer where it should be. The Caribbean reports, this intermittent rain. While they are omens of Poseidon, they are not quite the full extent of his power."
"If Poseidon really had fully awakened, the destruction would be even more terrible." guessed Saori.
"Precisely, Athena." he agreed.
"In that case we still have a chance."

Everyone there then looked at Saori, because she closed her eyes and manifested a wonderful Cosmo that seemed to resonate in the stone of that rock, in the bricks of that ruin, in the salt of the ocean itself that broke its waves below and in the colors that dyed the clouds from the sky. She raised her Golden Staff and her aura seemed to break through the heavy clouds, slowly revealing the sunlight between them, forcing the rain away.

By this time, the Silver Saints along with Nicol and even Alice had moved away from her, for there really did not rise Saori, but the Goddess Athena.

She opened her eyes and stabbed her staff in front of her, which sent out a pulse of energy that if they hadn't seen it they would never have believed, but it fully opened the thick clouds, silencing the rain across the region. The divine presence that they had felt very subtly in that Temple once fell silent when Saori returned to her girlish eyes.

"We should go back." she announced.

It was a message from Athena to Poseidon.

Earth was guarded.

Back at the Sanctuary of Athena, Saori found herself at that table again, as if she were part of a Council; her chest, however, remained in the hut where Seiya had been waiting for her for days to go out looking for his sister. Nicol wasn't among them, as he had retired for a few days so he could get on with a very important task. He had left with Mayura and the Goddess Athena, however, the certainty that Poseidon was not yet fully awake; there was still a chance to seal him away once and for all, preventing it from resurfacing out of its time.

Together with Mayura and with Alice's help, they then forged Seven Seals of Athena for an important mission ahead.

"The Seven Relics are scattered across the Seven Seas of the World." Mayura began to those who were there. "All of them are in unknown locations and impossible to reach except by the Sea. We must send the Saints of the Sanctuary to these Seven Relics so they can reinforce whatever keeps Poseidon locked away in his divine slumber."
"We don't know what we might find." warned Shaina.
"But we also can't leave the Sanctuary unguarded." Mayura recalled.

Saori didn't say anything at first and the meeting was interrupted by a sharp knock on the door; they rose to greet Nicol, who was again among them. He carried his inseparable Atlantean tome, but he also had a smaller, more recent book.

"With your permission, Goddess Athena." he began before taking a seat between them, placing each of them a single handwritten sheet. "From what I could translate and understand from Saga's notes, I believe I was able to list the seven locations that the book of Atlantis describes as the Temples in which the Seven Relics of the Seas are kept."

Saori took the sheet in front of her and recognized some of the places listed there, although they had unusual descriptions.

"Of all these Temples, there is one that worries me much more than the others, as Saga specifically left a very clear warning in the Atlantean book." he opened the huge book again near the end and pointed as he had done before. "Asgard."

Asgard was not a name unknown to Saori, who had devoted much of her childhood to studying ancient histories, as well as having delved into the Sanctuary's few records of its history. Asgard was the Land of the Northern Gods.

"Gemini made a point of highlighting Asgard in his notes. And in them he makes it very clear to expect that, of all the localities, this is the one that would cause us the most problems. The People of Asgard may be rising against the Sanctuary."
"Should we trust his notes? After all, he was a man torn between good and evil." pondered Alice.
"Saga believed he was the best fit to protect the Earth. So if that worried him, I believe he might be right." considered Saori among them.
"I agree with Athena. As bad as the Gemini Saint was, in his twisted mind he believed he was doing everything for the good of humanity. And anything that was a threat to Earth he promptly eliminated. If Asgard worried him, then we should at least stay alert." Mayura said.

Saori took the list before her again.

"I can contact the Graad Foundation fleet so we can map the Seven Seas behind these places."
"These places described by the Crater Saint will never appear on your fleet's modern radar." replied Geist. "Not even your ships will be able to reach any of these places."
"I'm afraid I have to agree with the Argo Saint, Goddess Athena. Current vessels, however modern they may be, do not seem to be able to reach these mythical places."
"Then how shall we do it?" Alice asked for Saori.
"There is a way."
"Nicol?" asked Mayura, not understanding what he knew.
"My friend Mayura, I'm talking about the Galleon of Athena." said Nicol gravely.

Alice realized that, for the first time, Geist showed a more vivid reaction.

"A Galleon of Athena?" asked Mayura, who had no idea what he was talking about.
"Yes. It is said of a Galleon of Athena, which could also be referred as the Ship of Hope, which was even able to fly in Holy Wars of the past."
"Does it really exist?" Alice asked.
"Yes." answered was Geist.
"Yes, it does." Nicol mused, following the Argo Saint. "It hasn't been used for hundreds of years, but I think it's the only way to get to these places."
"And where is this ship?" asked Saori.
"It's hidden in a cave near the Aegean Sea."

And again Nicol opened the huge Atlantean book, where everyone could clearly read Saga's wild handwriting in red noting a specific point on a map of Greece with the Greek name of Athena's Galleon.

Ελπίζω

Another gift from Saga in his Atlantean research.

"But there's a problem." Nicol began. "With all due respect to our dear Argo Saint here, there is no one these days who can navigate it."
"That is not true." protested Geist. "There is someone who can do it."

Nicol looked at her surprised, but also very curious.

"And I'm sure he will accept this quest, Goddess Athena." she continued.
"You have got to be kidding." Shaina commented beside her, guessing who it was.
"But if I know him well, he will have one condition." Geist said very seriously, looking at everyone. "He will demand that the choice of his crew be made by him and no one else."
"Looks like we have no other choice." Mayura commented.
"It's good for me." Athena accepted, but Nicol ended the meeting with the final question.
"Oh, but who is this capricious man?"

With torches in hand, Shaina and Geist followed one of the mountain giants who knew every nook and cranny of the Sanctuary; the path descended along a path inside the mountain and close to the Aegean Sea. As they turned a curve to the right, the trail inside the mountain opened into an immense cavern cut by a deep oceanic tributary where a single vessel was anchored: the Galleon of Athena.

Both Shaina and Geist looked at each other in awe inside that cave when they noticed that the sun setting on the horizon could be seen from inside, as the cave revealed itself in a huge opening in the rock to the Aegean Sea.

The moored galleon swayed subtly with the calm waves of that ocean lagoon as they approached with their torches. The guide, very careful, asked them to put out the fire, as it was no longer needed to guide themselves in the darkness. The ship looked like a smaller version of a war galleon, so it was much faster and more malleable. It had a mighty stern castle and a pointed bow. The robust hull and its masts pinching the caves.

Skilled Saints, the three leapt from the edge of the deep lagoon straight onto the main deck, creaking the wooden floor of the ship. At first glance, it was immediately apparent that repairs would need to be made, the masts were all bare without their sails and some boards would need to be replaced. Shaina climbed to the quarterdeck following that prodigious guide, when his voice spoke gravely.

"Go down to the lower decks and check the conditions, Geist."
"Yes, Captain." she replied, descending to the main deck and disappearing inside the ship.

Shaina couldn't hide a short laugh as her friend disappeared inside the ship.

"You're delusional if you think I'm going to call you Captain." Shaina said to the man.
"Don't worry, that honor will all go to my crew."

ABOUT THE CHAPTER: Saori's scene at Cape Sunion 'shushing' Poseidon, I based it on Gandalf stopping Balron on Lord of the Rings. The idea of the Seven Relics scattered across the seven seas came from Saint Seiya itself. I love the first arc of Omega where they have to seal the temples of each element, it's a cliché type of adventure for stories, but I've never seen it in Saint Seiya. I wanted to bring the same idea to extend and create this adventure in the middle of the Poseidon arc. The Galleon of Athena is nothing more than the Ship that appears in Lost Canvas that flies through the skies. I thought, well, I'm going to put it to do what a boat should do: sail. =)

NEXT CHAPTER: CALL OF DUTY

Decided by the quest of Athena's Galleon across the Seven Seas, it's time for the Captain to choose his crew for this Divine Quest.