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They walked.
And walked; pulled forward to somewhere unknown.
Bodies unseen, steps buoyant and nimble, they passed out of Odin’s sphere of power and into other lands. As they walked, the sun grew dim, the moon shadowing its’ rays and casting the world into the edge of dusk.
Aiolios led the way, as had always been his right, yet Saga matched him stride for stride. Some would see this as presumptuous, if not for the fact that it was Aiolios who had grabbed the purple-haired betrayer; a firm grip on his shoulder and nod that signified that this was what the should-have-been Pope wanted.
Shura did not move forward with them, lingering at the back, though his soul sung for the same forgiveness. He had thought he’d been following a Godly order but he had forgotten to be his own person too, to question orders he thought wrong, to fight against injustice and evil. He had not thought to consider that injustice could go so far up.
Are any of the Gods and Goddesses truly right? Was Athena the only one with love in her heart for humanity? Holding the beacon of hope for a better future.
They passed by the sanctuary, in time to see the remaining Saints protecting a young girl on her knees who looked so like Marin. The saints protecting her fell one by one; bronze, silver, woman, man, child. Blind to them all, the girl cried out ‘brother, brother.’
They wished to help, their hearts ached, but it was a numb, distant pain, like staring at the old photographs of long dead loved ones.
Those who hadn’t died before, truly and completely, did not remember this. Aphrodite, Shura, Camus and Deathmask, first to fall, and first to return, had memories of cold and darkness and despair.
Hades had not been kind to the Athena Saints but it had been their own regrets that haunted them so. But there was no seeping chill in their flesh yet, and only the darkness of the ever-fading sun.
Marin fell down and Aiolia went to her; their friendship something that could’ve blossomed into more, and which Aiolia valued so deeply. He passed his hands over her cracked mask, stared into the eyes that did not see his own and willed all his energy, his Cosmo, his love, into her.
She stood up again; bleeding, bruised, determined as always. How old had she been when she arrived here? A child like them all, and yet she and Shaina were the only ones left.
It was something to say of women. They never failed to amaze Aiolia. Gods never succeeded in standing in the way of Goddesses, and so it was the same on Earth.
Another bolt of something came from nowhere, and they all heard Kiki cry out, “from the left!” But Marin was the only one up and even she wasn’t fast enough.
Mu tried to call his Crystal Wall, but it had no effect. They were no longer apart of this world, and Mu could only watch helplessly as it was Kiki that took the blow.
“Have they truly failed?” Milo asked to no-one but it was Shaka who answered.
“Seiya’s Cosmo, I can feel it. It is fading.” Their hearts were heavy, they had sacrificed so much, were their Cloths of no use?
The girl suddenly screamed, eyes wide and streaming, “Seiya. Brother Seiya.” And they felt that dwindling Cosmo flare. Bright, brighter, his 8th Sense Cosmo burning.
Mu went to help Kiki up, but where Aiolia had failed with Marin, Kiki registered it absently. He reached up to stroke off the presence but Mu only pressed more of himself onto the child; encircling the boy in an embrace. Kiki began to fidget, the disquieting sensation of a cobweb that you just can’t seem to remove, tingling his whole body.
Aldebaran; silent and watchful, forever a guardian, saw Kiki’s reaction. He walked over, slow lumbering steps.
“I think he can sense me,” Mu answered to the silent question.
“Connect to him,” Aldebaran said and so Mu did. This time slowly touching each Cosmo point of their shared –though now it was Kiki’s alone-Sign. Kiki jerked. Mu whispered into his ear. Kiki swiped at his ear, and then stopped, narrowing his eyes in concentration.
Thinking it must be because of not only their shared Sign but their psychic powers too, Mu spread out his awareness.
“Kiki, I am here,” he said again and knew Kiki had heard. Those green eyes radiated with intensity, prominent against the cuts and bruises that littered his face. Kiki frantically felt around. The sensation of cobwebs turned solid and he felt the shape of Mu’s chest, simply clothed and buried his face into the Saint with a cry.
“Mu!” The other Saints, splayed out bleeding on the ground, heard the cry.
His psychic powers stretched out; further, further. Slowly Marin began to react to Aiolia’s waiting presence.
She reached up, hesitant, eyes searching for something that she could not see.
The sky neared black and Shaka was the first to add his power to Mu’s. Aldebaran followed quickly, Dohko’s psychic senses just as high, and then the others. Deathmask was the last to pick up on it, needing an elbow from Aphrodite before he turned his face from the sky.
Maybe he feared it would be the last time he would see it. Strange when Deathmask had always said he was most comfortable in the dark. It seemed he’d lied enough to himself that he’d started to believe it; as so many of the Gold Saint were wont to do.
A serial killer, a murderer, but only Aphrodite knew that Deathmask could see the dead, had always been able to. A gift, and curse, of their Cancer lineage. Maybe he’d filled his temple with his victim’s faces in order to remember who was dead and who was alive. The veil between life and death so thin for him after all.
The air shimmered and their ghostly forms appeared. Marin cried out, her mask slipping completely from her face. Shaina gasped, but was quick to demand their story.
Kiki cried and Mu shed tears too, Aldebaran a comforting presence by his side. Shaka stayed focused on the battle another world away, his voice solid and unwavering as he told them Athena had donned her Cloth.
But when it seemed that all was lost, the sun broke clear of the moon and light shone down upon them again, illuminating the harsh land.
They rejoiced.
Shura left messages for Shiryu, Dohko as well. Camus for his beloved disciple – a simple, ‘I am proud of you. And always have been.’ Deathmask’s regret was a heavy burden and so he left no such message, Aphrodite staying back beside him though he pondered for a moment about Andromeda Shun. But they had had their battle, and Aphrodite would pass on the mantle of ‘Most Beautiful Saint,’ to the boy. Grace in defeat was another sign of beauty too, though it was merely a withdrawal for now.
Aphrodite and Deathmask, they had faced death together, two traitors, and returned again under false pretences. They had died for their sins and lived to repent. Aphrodite had died for Deathmask, for his innocent love for the human girl. Now Deathmask had an eternity to make up for that, even if Loki’s undoing had been by taking Aphrodite first.
Saga was silent, with nothing to say. Aiolios kept his steady grip on his shoulder and so he could not turn away.
And then they felt the pull again, to keep walking.
“You died a hero,” Marin told Aiolia, “you served Athena faithfully,” her voiced choked there, “until the end.” Aiolia smiled at her then, soft and sweet, the leftover remnants of his boyhood there.
“And you will continue to do so.” He picked off a remnant of her mask, stuck in her hair. “With, or without the mask.”
Shaina and Aiolia shared a look and Shaina nodded, sliding her fingers in-between the red-haired girls. He was left with only a tender burst of affection. They would take care of each other. They had each come so far.
He was proud to have been their comrade. They would keep the Sanctuary safe.
And so they left; their bodies fading back into a world out of sight of the living.
They walked. And saw families come out into the light; felt the burning flame of Athena’s Cosmo with the others returning to Earth. But not returning to them.
Light, so light, nothing to weigh them down. They kept walking and then realised they were walking in the air, the seas far below them. The water was so clear from up here, and it was Milo who said, “Wait, is that Poseidon’s temple?” and true to his word, it was.
But they were so very high up that the temple was not a God’s temple to them, but a tiny toy diorama.
“Strange,” Dohko said, after the seas had vanished into a dark consistent blue with no waves to break the picture. “It seems we are moving away from the Underworld.”
“It is gone,” Camus said in reply to the realisation, shocking the others.
“What do you mean?” Milo asked, and then seemed annoyed at himself for doing so. Forgiveness may have been given, but for Milo, it was hard to forget. And he wasn’t quite ready to talk with his friend. Camus had always sacrificed for what he thought was right, to save and teach those he cared for – but Milo was always the one sacrificing for Camus’ decisions too. He could understand, he could respect Camus for though he was considered the coldest Saint, he flared just as hot as those Bronze Saints.
It was a quiet understanding and one Camus had taken for granted. He had left Hyoga to his friend, and died without him. They had faced each other again, Camus considered traitor and on a path to Athena and it had hurt. It had hurt to see his friend, always quick-witted and mischievous, tears shedding before their Goddesses dead body and so betrayed.
And he had done it again. He’d tried to hint about the Yggradisil’s true nature, to warn Milo away but his friend was stubborn.
Forgiveness was given to him freely but Camus, though he did not regret his decisions to save his friend, knew that a wound lay unhealed between them.
Maybe it was time he stopped taking Milo for granted. His friend deserved better than what he’d ever given him. He was no wayward soul to save, but his equal in all ways. Milo didn’t realise how often he actually saved Camus and Camus silently promised himself that he wouldn’t ask that of Milo again. He wouldn’t leave Milo again.
“He is right,” Shaka said, eyes opening, for what need did he have to save his power in death. “Athena and the others have left Hades, and the Underworld is no more.”
“Then where are we going?” Aphrodite pondered, seemingly to himself. He chewed on the stem of a rose though no one knew where it had come from.
They did not have time to think, as they rose and rose and then they were no longer on Earth.
Space swirled around them; their Signs glowed brightly though they were all from dead stars. Death had been chasing them all since their birth.
Shaka, the man closest to God, to Buddha, did not know what would come next. He seeked assurance but his God was silent, only sending a wave of peace and warmth, a waft of balm oils and candles coating his surroundings.
Would they be revived? Hades was gone, and he had never had control over Shaka. When he’d died at the Wailing Wall, Shaka had felt himself go to the intermediate state. His self had started to dissolve, letting go of all earthly attachments to finally achieve true peace and enter Nirvana.
He would finally become one with Buddha again, but he had felt the call. But from God or Goddess he had not known. He; a being so ascended, had not been able to let go of his earthly attachments. Not when all his brothers in arms were being brought back too.
He supposed he’d grown fond of them all, and he wished to see what the Phoenix Ikki would do. Someone so headstrong and opposite of him, believing in no God; and yet he’d defeated Shaka and risen from the ashes.
The stars swirled around them, blackness opened and swallowed them whole.
Then from out of the blackness, grass grew beneath their feet, a clear blue sky draped overhead. The ground became solid and they did not stumble. Slowly, buildings of all manner began to arise from the ground, sliding swiftly into place either side of them.
A street of pebbled rocks started to pepper the ground, creating a road and leading them until they reached a large wall. Large and white, reaching to the sky; terminals for computers were spaced evenly apart and melted into the walls. Odd and out of place however it was, the wall of technology was not alone in its surprisingness.
A man stood there, familiar purple dots above his brows. The Pope’s custom wear clothed him, as it had done for over 200 years on Earth.
Dohko stumbled then, and it was Aldebaran who caught him and raised him to his feet.
The man’s face crinkled in delight, Dohko paused in disbelief and then his own grin was so wide, teeth bared.
Dohko ran.
Shion caught him around the waist and they laughed, youth and joy etching itself into their faces. The weight of years of death and pain and loneliness were gone.
“What is this place?” Alderberan asked after a moment, hesitant to break the laughter of the two older Saints.
“What do you think it is?” Shion responded, always a teacher, looking for them to come to their own conclusions. He held Dohko up absently and the other man ruffled the dead Pope’s hair. Shion let Dohko drop playfully.
Milo was already on a computer, clicking and pressing all matter of things, Aphrodite looking over his shoulder. The two had been the most technologically up-to-date, Milo playing games and Aphrodite running his beauty blog.
The others crowded round, though Saga lingered to the side and did not face his old mentor.
Murder is such an awkward affair, especially if you have to see the person after you’ve killed them.
“Kardia,” Milo murmured, a database before him showing –
Birth: 1721
Death: 1743 (Aged 22)
Current premises: 386 Scorpio Lane (Section B3, nearest portal is 395 Scorpio Lane, please refer to Portal Guide for more information)
Click here to Contact
- and it was then Shion explained.
“If you want to find someone, just look through this. It is always updating, especially for new arrivals.” Dohko, who had immediately bounced up from the ground had an arm around Shion’s waist.
Saga felt a slash of despair at the thought of what he had not just taken from the world by Shion’s death, but at what it must have done to the loyal Libra Saint. He had not known, had not suspected their relationship. If he had, his darker side would have mocked Dohko’s pain.
Better that no one had known in the end.
“Then this is what it was always meant to be,” Aiolios said, eyes wide, his red band blowing lightly from the soft breeze.
“What do you mean brother?” For Aiolia wondered, where had his brother been in all those years of his death.
Dying so justly for his Goddess, would Athena have let The 3 Judges of the Underworld cast his brother into one of the Hells? Though Athena herself had been a child, had not known her life had been saved. The Gods did not have power over each other’s domains.
Enlightened, Mu said in wonder, “Where do the Gods go when they die?”
“Gods don’t die,” Shura said. “They just reincarnate.”
“Immortal, or so they are said to be,” Shaka spoke. “Yet, there are many that have faded out of time and memory and Athena has just killed the real flesh-and-blood body of Hades.”
“Heaven,” a new voice spoke and they turned as one. Blue hair like the ocean, self clothed in a soft wispy blue robe, Kanon stood there before them.
The others distracted, they did not notice as Shion’s clothes changed too. But Dohko became aware and beheld a peaceful Shion in a comfortable two-piece outfit of leaf green, as if it was strewn from the very parts of nature itself.
Dohko would miss his student, would wonder what his and Shunrei’s children would be like, but he wouldn’t give this up for anyone. Not again. Even for the Gods.
Kanon looked them all over, reaching Saga last. He took a step forward, then another and Saga wished to flee. Shura caught his eye, stared him down and he knew, in that Shura had asked for forgiveness from Aiolios, from Athena, he too must do it to his brother.
His brother, who had only tried to warn him of the evil inside their hearts. Who too had fallen, but never as far as him. Who had given up their Gold Cloth, so he could break the Wailing Wall.
And who had obviously died for that decision if he was here now.
“Brother-” he started, but was cut off by a closed fist to his cheek. He fell backwards, scraping palms on the ground. No one moved to help him, though Aldebaran had a restraining arm on Mu. Taurus had always known when to speak and when to keep his peace.
Kanon stood there, mighty and proud and looked down at him.
He trembled, filled with such shame. The same as when he had been handed that dagger and Athena herself requesting that he complete his original intention.
Oh, was he to forever feel this, this regret at his weakness in the face of ambition. Two sides, forever arguing. Saga had finally been freed of his darkness by Seiya and Athena. And left his brother to fight his own dark ambitions alone, betrayal of kin feeding his rage.
The Saints held bated breath.
Kanon held out his hand, fingers outstretched, the sun casting a halo upon his head. With tears in his eyes, Saga took it and rose to his feet with his brother’s help.
Whispers started from behind them and Camus gasped a quiet, “Isaac.”
Walking up the pebbled pathway, a contingent of men and women came. Their steps were measured, their gaits calm, and they all smiled at the dead Gold Saints. Some of them looked so similar to the Gold Saints themselves, like carbon copies and Mu, who had read all he could in his races grand library, knew who they were.
A purple-haired girl emerged from the centre, the previous Gold Saints parting for her. A slimmer, older version of Seiya held her hand and for a moment they all feared that their Athena was dead.
But that was a fool’s thought.
“I am Sasha,” the not-Athena said and yet again they knew they had thought wrong. Because she was their Goddess, their Saviour and so they all fell to their knees, bowing their heads.
The past-Athena rushed forward, raising their heads and bestowing kisses upon their crowns.
She said, “your Athena is still alive. But it is time to rest now.”
The past-Pegasus Saint strolled up to them, cheeks high from his rascal smile, his good-will so infectious that they each started to smile. Milo saw the gentle look on Camus face, and saw it reflected back in the crowd in a no-longer scarred face.
“This was the way Heaven was always meant to be,” the Pegasus Saint said. “Before Hades interfered.”
Aphrodite squeezed Deathmask’s leg, not quite looking at anyone so they wouldn’t see the tears of relief in his eyes.
“’Dite,” Deathmask breathed and curled his hand into the Pisces’ hair.
Aiolia and Aiolios held each other, Shura watching silently. Shaka opened his eyes again, habit the reason he had closed them, and knew that they would stay open forevermore. Dohko let go of Shion, seeing old friends and comrades, heart beating faster than it had in hundreds of years.
Aldebaran and Mu gazed at each other, sharing between them a bittersweet hope of seeing those left on Earth again one day, but not too soon. In the crowd a tiny girl stepped forward, a flower held in her hands and Aldebaran jerked forward.
“Euphora,” he murmured, gaze unmoving from the little girls. She laughed brightly and raced towards him. He knelt instinctively and caught her as she jumped into his arms. They twirled together and Aldebaran cast his thanks to Athena, to whatever/whoever it was that had made this place. Euphora, on his hip, stretched up and placed the flower behind his ear.
Kanon had not let go of his brother, and Saga held back just as fiercely, clasping a hand to his brother’s elbow. There would be time to talk.
Things were not perfect and as Sasha extended her arm out to the village, and those they remembered and loved poured from the buildings, they each put their regrets in a tiny box to bring out later. Now was the time for reunion and joy and laughter. Their battle was ended, their journey of life complete.
They had all the time in the world.