98 - String Requiem

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"Shun!?"

The Phoenix Saint awoke to find herself covered in snow, her head aching and her right arm partially frozen; she remembered coming out of Hagen's cave with the Odin's Sapphire and then being surprised by an incredibly strong Cosmo outside. She looked around, but saw no one else; how long had she been out, anyway? Ikki rose to her feet and looked ahead where she could feel, albeit very subtly and briefly, her brother's cosmos glowing.

"Shun is fighting." she guessed, alone.

Nowhere did she find the Sapphire she had conquered, but then she was absolutely certain that the person who had attacked her had clearly also taken the gemstone. Far on the horizon loomed the great Odin Colossus, watching over the castle that was Valhalla Palace below. There were still the footprints on the ground of whoever had dropped her in the snow and Ikki saw how it took a clear direction to where some trees seemed to start to appear already inside the fortified area of Valhalla.

"What do you think you're doing, Hyoga?" she wondered, for no doubt it was the Cygnus Saint who had dropped her in the snow.

His ice was a Cosmo that Ikki would never forget, although it was clear that the boy wasn't wearing his pretty Cygnus Cloth, but a curious crimson protection that she was only able to glimpse before being knocked out. But Ikki remembered well Shiryu's account of entering Asgard; Hyoga was changed.

"Damn you, Hyoga. You got lucky, Hagen nearly melted me all over in that cave. You'll see!"

But then as soon as she moved towards the footsteps, she felt Shun's Cosmos pop on the horizon and hesitated for a moment, torn between following that trail or going where her brother's Cosmos shone. She closed her eyes and chose to trust Shun, because although he was a sweet and peaceful boy, Ikki knew perfectly well what he was capable of and knew how to defend himself.

What Phoenix didn't know was that at that moment, her brother didn't need someone to defend him or help him defeat the enemy, but someone who could tell him why they fought so hard. She didn't know that and ended up leaving to follow the trail that Hyoga had left in the snow.

 She didn't know that and ended up leaving to follow the trail that Hyoga had left in the snow

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Shun was sobbing and Míme heard his voice mumble a name against the cold: Ikki.

"Andromeda Shun." said Míme seriously above him. "I think you won't be able stop fighting until you're already dead."

And so he extended the violin bow above Shun's head, as if ready to deliver a coup de grace. And the sadness that Míme's eyes couldn't hide was actually rooted in deep losses, so that all that suffering that knelt before him seemed to him a mirror of the past in which he saw himself so clearly in the boy so young. But that boy in front of him, who seemed to tremble with sadness, actually burned a Cosmo so powerful that it made the God Warrior hesitate for a moment.

Slowly, Andromeda Shun got to his feet again.

"Andromeda?"

"I don't know the answer, Míme." he began, still under the sobs. "I don't know exactly the reasons why I keep fighting. But wherever I am I can feel my sister's Cosmo." and Shun looked at the horizon in the exact direction where Ikki was now standing. "She would definitely give me the strength to carry on. Maybe you're right, maybe it is true that a fight only leads to another fight. The truth is, I always try to fix things without any blood being spilled, but it seems like it's written on my destiny to have to hurt people to ensure that those who can't fight can live in peace."

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