Saint Seiya: The Legend of Seiya

34 - Labyrinths of the Mind

The scent of roses. The red petals scattered through dreams. A scorching darkness of infinite comfort. The brown eyes always so confident. The shooting star that scribbles the sky.

The eyes snap open, breaking through the layers of her dreams to reveal a distant, dark ceiling.

Lying down, Saori looks to the side and sees a huge corridor with a long red carpet flanked by colonnades that are lost in the darkness. On the other side, a huge mural carved in high relief with the image of a mythological war between men; above them a female figure shone like the sun. She wore a dress on her body, a spear in her hands and a helmet on her head.

A dress, a spear and a helmet.

She felt a deep shiver looking at that figure when a very deep voice behind her made itself heard.

"I was waiting for you."

Saori turned immediately and in front of her saw a man kneeling. He wore a dark cassock spread across the floor; it had golden motifs where it closed in the center and also on the bars of the legs and arms. Hanging from his chest were ecclesiastical beads. His face hidden in the shadows of a golden helmet.

"Who are you?" she asked.

The figure lifted his face and calmly removed his helmet, revealing his huge lock of hair that fell to his shoulders. His eyes were so beautiful, his features conveyed the purest tranquility and tenderness. Saori saw nothing in those eyes that wasn't comfort.

"I have ruled the Sanctuary in your place as the Camerlengo..." he began.

Saori felt invaded by a huge confusion when those eyes touched her soul. His voice ended the curtsy.

"Goddess Athena."

She rose immediately and stood above him, even though she was so small and that man, even kneeling, huge. Or he just looked huge, such depth of eyes and the depth of his cassock strewn across the floor.

"I've been waiting so long for this moment." he spoke again in his deep voice. "Waiting for the moment when you would reveal yourself to me."

Saori, however, was not a fool, and suspicion grew in her immediately, despite that kind presence before her.

"Are you the Gold Saint?" she asked, and for a second, Saori felt the man falter an inch.

"No," he replied, finally, and said in a mysterious way. "But the Gold Saint is at your side."

"Where am I?" she asked.

"This is the Temple of Athena."

"Am I in the Sanctuary?" asked the girl suspiciously.

"Yes," he just said.

Again a shiver ran down her spine, for she knew that this place had once been a great danger to her life. Yet she felt extremely safe in front of this man.

"Athena." he began to speak once more. "There is great evil within your Sanctuary. An evil that only you can put out. Only you can vanquish."

His voice was deep and decisive.

"That evil tried to kill me 15 years ago." she said decisively, still looking those eyes up and down.

That's when he finally got up.

And when he stood up, his physique cast shadows over her.

But Saori kept talking, much smaller than the huge figure, but her eyes were also very determined.

"I don't think many people had access to the Goddess Athena." she said, and perhaps there was a bold accusation in her voice. There were certainly millions of doubts.