Seated at a low wooden table on a long bench. Lunch served with plenty of rice, spices and some fried chicken. The top floor of the tower was for the kitchen; a huge mess around a wood stove and a tub of water. The children joked that Master Mu built the kitchen at the top just to get everyone tired of going up stairs and replenish their energy right on the spot.
Shun served their pots and dishes. Lunara was beaming.
"Oh, finally. Real food!" she said. "Kiki sucks at cooking!"
"I make the worst dishes on purpose." he boasted.
"How long have you been here alone?" Shun asked.
"A few days. Master Mu sometimes travels around, don't worry. We are no longer children." said Kiki.
"He still wets the beds." denounced Lunara.
"I'll throw you down from here!"
The boy tried to cross the table to strangle the little one, but Shun intervened and promised sweets for both of them if they behaved during lunch. In fact, he didn't need to promise anything, because they were so hungry that as soon as the rice cooled a little, they devoured it in silence.
They ate so much that little Lunara was sweating. And, as she wiped her sweat off, she unintentionally smudged one of the two small marks on her forehead. Shun smiled.
"You smudged your little marks." he commented.
"Oh, shoot." She took a pink pencil out of her pocket and remade it crookedly without looking. "Done."
Shun smiled and asked the little girl for the pencil. He wiped off what she had just made and more gently drew the two little marks for her.
"Now it's better. Don't you think, Kiki?"
The boy shrugged.
"You're nice." said little Lunara, putting away her pencil. Shun smiled back. "Tell me, how was Master Ikki when she was a kid?"
The question caught Shun off guard, as he was used to being the little brother. It had never occurred to him to tell stories about Ikki when she was a kid. Shun smiled surprised but happy.
"She was a bully." he began. "But she fought with everyone to get everyone to do the right thing. Once she almost hit Seiya, because Seiya wanted everyone to skip geography class to play football."
"Really?" said Lunara.
"Yeah."
"What a nerd!" she added. "I arrived a few years after you guys were gone, I think. I loved the orphanage. There was so much cool stuff to play with. But the grow ups hated me."
"Why is that?"
"I was always causing short circuits, the Mansion was often without power because of me."
She smiled, and Shun loved that innocent energy of Lunara.
"And out here in Jamir, there's absolutely nothing to play with." she said. "Although Master Mu does keep a colection of some very cool tools! I'll get it to show you."
"No, you won't!" Kiki warned. "Are you crazy? Master Mu will kill you if you touch her hammers."
"She doesn't need to know, you pisser." said Lunara, when they heard a voice outside calling.
"Master Mu!"
Lunara jumped off the bench, mad with joy.
"I don't believe it! I'm gonna explode! Two visitors on the same day!" she said. "I never saw that happen."
"This never happened before." Kiki said, also excited. "You listen here, shorty, don't interrupt me. I need to throw the stones at the person first."
Lunara had to restrain herself from running away and hugging whoever it was. She pulled Shun by the shirt to the stairs, while Kiki walked out the window with the most mischievous face possible.
"We can see who it is from here, oh, I'm so excited!" said Lunara, peering through a crack on the second floor.
When Shun peeked his eyes through the gap above the small one, however, he was startled, for he knew the girl standing there and muttered the name to himself in disbelief. From there he ran out the back exit of the first floor, which everyone pretended not to exist, and shouted the name of that girl with the long hair.
"June!"
The girl wore a light training outfit, which Shun knew so well. She brought a Bronze Urn now on the floor and an enormous weariness on her face. She perhaps believed much less in what she saw than he did; having crossed the terrible Cemetery, marched among specters and ghosts, making a terrible climb, and, besides all that, having witnessed a vile massacre at her home. And at the end of her quest, the sweet and comforting eyes of Shun, one of her best friends.
She hugged him tight and desperate. Shun soon realized that something was wrong.
"What happened, June?"
"Ah, Shun. It's a miracle, I can't even believe you're here. There is no one else in the world that I wanted to see more than you right now. This has to be an Athen's miracle."
In a sense it was.
"Tell me, June, what happened?" What are you doing here?"
"Shun..." she began. "Shun, the Andromeda Island has been devastated. Our Master Albiore. He, he..."
"No," Shun refused.
"Master Albiore was killed." she concluded, in tears. "We were attacked by a Gold Saint."
"The Gold Saint?" Shun wondered. "But... why?"
"I don't know." she said. "He showed up like a huge burst of light, and when we realized we were all being attacked on the Island. Our Master tried to fight, tried to protect us, but... nothing could be done. Not even all of us together were a match for that man."
Shun hugged his longtime friend; the people he trained with were tough, but they were also sweet. A result of very hard training, but led by a very kind and fair person. That was Master Albiore. Who could do something like that? And for what reason?, Shun reflected, pushing away June's tears.
"I was one of the few who managed to survive. To get away from that place. But with my Cloth in this state. I don't even know what to do, Shun. So I thought about coming to Master Mu to repair my Cloth and look for those responsible for this massacre."
"A Gold Saint?" Shun asked her again in desbelief.
"Yes. I'll never forget his golden glow. His Gold Cloth." then she paused for a moment when she remembered the most terrible thing. "His crimson red petals."
"Twelve Gold Cloths?" Seiya asked, shocked.
They were back in his hospital room; he was already better from the other battle that had broken his arm, so this time he just needed some bandages and was ready for the next one.
"Twelve?" he repeated the question. "If we got ourselves this much trouble for just one of them, can you imagine twelve more of them?"
"Eleven." Hyoga corrected between them and Seiya looked at him, confused. "Eleven. If there are Twelve in total, with Sagittarius there are eleven."
Seiya was terrible at math and returned to Saori.
"Sagittarius, then. You mean there are Twelve Gold Cloths, one for each sign of the zodiac?"
She confirmed it.
"Aioria is the Leo Gold Saint. The one from Aioros is the Sagittarius Gold Cloth. And neither of these two was anything like the Cloth of the man who took me to the Camerlengo."
"From the description, they also do not resemble the one of the Gold Saint who appeared before Eris."
Seiya sat down, at last.
"I can't believe they were different Saints and we thought they were the same person."
"The Foundation's Intelligence Center has long researched the Gold Cloth." said Saori. "We knew that Cloths were made after the constellations in the sky, but we didn't imagine there was a difference between Bronze and Silver."
"And now Gold." Alice commented.
"Yes," Saori agreed. "But while there was evidence of the Gold Saint throughout history at key moments in humanity, we never knew exactly what he was and who he was. Nowadays, there is no record of the existence of a Gold Saint or a Gold Cloth. That's why we believe it was just one. The one we had."
And continued.
"Some Foundation scholars theorized that the Gold Cloth we had was actually an important garment for a great story hero. A hero named Chiron, for the relief of the Urn was a centaur with a bow. There are old theses which theorized that if there was a Gold Cloth for Chiron, perhaps there was one for Achilles, or Odysseus or other heroes of ancient Greek stories. But they were never confirmed."
"The constellations' Cloths would all be the same, without any type of differentiation, while the great heroes would wear the Gold Cloth." Alice said to the boys and Saori agreed, as the two spent hours reading what the adults studied and speculated.
"Well, we were all wrong. Ultimately, the Gold Cloths are related to the constellations of the Zodiac." said Saori, thinking to herself.
Hyoga approached the window and looked at them with something in his head.
"These Gold Saints seem to be the elite of the Sanctuary." he said. "Yet none of us, trained to be Saints, had any knowledge of them."
"Shaina knew." Seiya said, remembering that the appearance of Aioria had not been any surprise to her.
"But the Silver Saints didn't seem to know that there were more than one as well." snapped Alice.
"The purpose of the Galaxian War was to expose this machinery of evil that exists in the Sanctuary." said Saori. "Perhaps the Gold Saint were a secret even to them."
"Do you think the Gold Saints could be behind this?" Alice asked beside her.
"I don't know. But Aioros was a Gold Saint. And he was killed."
"You're right." Seiya said, looking at Alice. "The strength of a Gold Saint is enourmous."
"Yes. It would take a greater or similar power to be able to kill a Gold Saint." she agreed.
"When I was with the Camerlengo, he feared someone would come while we were talking, so he sent me away." said Saori. "And to gain access to the Temple of Athena, I imagine one needs to be very strong."
"Strong as a Gold Saint." Seiya commented.
Doubt hung between them.
Twelve Gold Cloths.
The day dawned beautiful in Rozan. Outside the mountain hut, Shiryu, Shunrei and the Old Master said goodbye to their visitors.
"Thank you for everything, Shinadekuro." Shiryu said to the boy.
"Thank Master Ikki when you can." he said. "She's the one who sent me here to shake your skeleton a little."
Dohko's voice spoke low.
"You'll take care of her, won't you, Shunrei?" he asked.
"I would love to say I will, Dohko." she replied. "But you know she won't sit still."
"What about you, Dohko?" asked Shiryu. "Are you going to continue fighting crime in the big city?"
"Unfortunately." he said.
"You are welcome back here if you want to train." said the Old Master to the former disciple.
"I'll think about it, Master."
"I extend the invitation to you too, Shinadekuro."
"No," he quickly denied. "My brother was the one great warrior of the family."
"I wouldn't mind taking some classes on how to fight in the dark." Dohko told Shinadekuro.
And so it went. The two of them left the mountains together, leaving the peaks of Rozan behind.
A few days passed, in which Shiryu trained under the waterfall, but also weeded the land from the rice fields that Shunrei cultivated for their own consumption, as well as a small amount to exchange for other foodstuffs in the nearest town.
One day, when she finished weeding, she said goodbye to Shunrei and went to sit beside the Old Master in front of the waterfall.
"Are you happy, Shiryu?" asked the Master.
"Yes, Master. I finally found my will to live again, thanks to Shinadekuro and Shunrei."
"That's not true, Shiryu. Shinadekuro taught you the ways of the body and Shunrei stayed by your side not caring what could happen to you." said the Master gravely. "But you were the one who revived the flame in your heart. You came back to life again. Don't belittle your incredible ability to do that, Shiryu."
"Master..."
"And what do you intend to do now?"
"I want to go back to be with Xiaoling and the others." she said, a little sadly.
The Old Master took a deep breath, pondering that answer and understanding his disciple's heavy heart at having to leave Shunrei in those beautiful lands.
In the tranquility and familiarity of that afternoon, however, Shiryu noticed that the waters at the bottom of the waterfall became riotous. She stood up with a horrible feeling inside her chest. A strong presence was approaching.
Ahead of her, even though she couldn't see anything, Shiryu knew the mighty bridal veil that stretched to an immense height. And just because she knew it so well that she noticed how something had changed in the waters; it was as if, little by little, the flow of the waterfall was slowing down in an impossible way, until it reached the absurdity of the whole waterfall drying up, as if something dammed the river at the top of the mountain.
She didn't need to ask the Master what was happening, as a terrible cosmos invaded her heart. Someone was approaching. It was a cosmos the likes of which she had never felt, as the presence took possession not only of her chest, but of the entire mountain. It was strong, huge, deep, menacing.
The Gold Saint.
Even though she couldn't see anything, Shiryu remembered how Hyoga had described the feeling he had when that golden presence appeared before him in the Ruins of Discord.
The waters calmed and Shiryu clearly heard the sound of footsteps. Sharp footsteps that seemed to walk calmly across the glass. Ominously. The footsteps echoed impossibly against a glass bridge, which Shiryu knew very well did not exist between the rock she was on and the veil of water from the waterfall. Anyway, the figure was approaching, walking towards her, no doubt coming from inside the waterfall.
"What is happening?" Shiryu wondered, but the Old Master was silent.
The footsteps echoing off the invisible glass bridge finally reached the cliff they were standing on. The Gold Saint was before them. Although she had heard a wonderful report, Shiryu couldn't help being alert, as that figure gave her a terrible feeling.
"Da quanto tempo non ci vediamo, Maestro dei Cinque Picchi." said a deep but feminine voice. Very hard.
"Oh, that's true." replied the Master in common language, with gravity in his voice. "It's been a long time, Death Mask."
The dammed water in the river above again seemed to leak its natural flow and crashed into the river below, restoring Shiryu's familiarity with the music she was so used to.
"I suppose your visit is not just for tourism." said the Master, and received a short mocking laugh in return.
"I'm sorry to be the case, Master of the Five Peaks, but I must reap your life." said the woman.
"What do you mean by that?" Shiryu asked getting to her feet.
"Master of the Five Peaks." the woman's voice began. "By refusing to answer the Sanctuary's call to arms, absenting yourself from the fair fight against Athena's enemies, and harboring in training a traitor to the Oath, you are relieved of your duty as am Athena Saint."
When Shiryu felt that cosmos burning briefly to finish off her mission, she jumped high and descended with her most powerful kick, to the point where the waterfall's water moved with her cosmos.
The kick, however, Shiryu realized that it was stopped away completely, as if she had stepped at a nail that, instead of driving into her foot, simply paralyzed her in midair. For the Gold Saint stopped her mighty kick with just one finger.
"What does that mean?" asked the woman. "A fly is trying to stop Death Mask? Now, Old Master, don't tell me you didn't warned your disciple about the difference between poor mortals like her and Gold Saints like me."
The Old Master answered nothing.
"Well, let me give you this lesson for free."
Shiryu felt her body thrown against the waterfall wall and then to the bottom of the river.
The sound of water falling into the waterfall erased the echoes of battle. Here the Gold Saint was an absolutely gorgeous and voluptuous woman. Her Gold Cloth covered her from head to toe, with sharp edges; she walked on high gold heels that gave her an imposing and menacing posture. Her face had arched brows as in a perfect design, the long lashes from her guarding and bright eyes as green as the meadows. The huge mouth on the face of a charming smile; the fleshy lips painted a deep black, framed by a strong, charming jaw. A wonderful gold diadem adorned her face with thorns sticking out, like the legs of a crab. Her hair was silver, short but full and sprayed.
"You seem to be ready, Master of the Five Peaks." she said, her voice carried a strong accent that gave her a personality at once menacing, but also very malicious.
The Old Master took a deep breath.
"I worry, Death Mask, that the sins I'm accused of aren't real." began the Master. "And since they're not real, it seems to me that there's been a terrible mistake. And this terrible mistake I think is the presence of something that shouldn't be where it is."
The waterfall roared behind them.
"My mission was given by the Camerlengo himself." said the woman, determined.
"Then there's an imposter posing as the Camerlengo. His will is not for justice, but for evil itself."
"So what, Master?" replied the woman, with a hint of mockery in her voice.
"So what?!" the Master was surprised.
The powerful waters of that waterfall hit the low river.
"Now, I understand." said the Master at last. "I thought loyalty to Sanctuary was the result of a profound ignorance of the truth behind the scenes. But there are those who know it very well and yet blindly offer their loyalty."
"Well, Master. The definitions of what is right and what is wrong change over time. Good and evil might change and history itself proves this." said the woman's disappointed voice. "Evil can be just, if it comes out victorious in a war. At the same time, the one who sees himself as fair can become the villain. It all depends on who wins the war and writes history. Sanctuary may be seen as evil now, but the planet is at peace thanks to our victories. Who will say we are the villains and who will question our victories? You? That didn't do anything to help in the battles and here you were looking at a waterfall for all this time?"
"How foolish." said the Old Master, to the woman's surprise. "Injustice never becomes justice."
The woman took a few steps back with the courage of a dying old man lecturing her.
"And it's the human history itself that proves that to be true. Even the great empires with their infinite armies were defeated and vanished from the course of history. You say the victors write it, but history can be rewritten and men do it all the time." and then the Old Master looked into that woman's eyes. "I'm concerned that, as a Golden Saint, you don't know that Justice never ceases to be Justice. And that evil will never cease to be what it is."
Death Mask, behind, has ascended her golden cosmos at last.
"Then we will see who will be right or wrong when we meet in Hell, Master."
Shiryu sank into the deep water of the river below the waterfall; her body aching, her head spinning, and her thoughts confused about her Master's sins and the strength of that enemy. She remembered that she always came back. Whether from darkness, death, or the bottom of that river. She would come back, as she always did.
She lifted her cosmos, illuminating the emerald green waters; a typhoon had formed with it at its center, and just as she had once reversed the flow of the waterfall, she would now lift the Dragon from the riverbed again to the vault of heavens.
In effect, the water at the bottom of the river reversed the waterfall again, rising in the figure of a wonderful Chinese Dragon who roared on the mountain before swallowing Death Mask on the cliff.
"Rising Dragon!" preceded Shiryu's voice with force.
She felt her fist hit the Gold Saint, dragging her away from the Master. She stood before her wearing her Sacred Dragon Cloth, which protected her body in response to her cosmos. She wore it again after so long and so many doubts.
"Curse you!" said the woman's voice as she found herself dragged along that rock.
"You'll have to beat me if you want to get close to my Master!" Shiryu threatened, and the woman laughed.
"Beat you?" she repeated. "I'm tired of you, Dragon. You should have stayed at the bottom of that river, for now I'm going to send you to a terrible place from which you can never return."
Shiryu felt like the Gold Saint cosmos rose on the mountain, but unlike the initial sensation that it was like a wave invading the Five Peaks, this time she felt like that cosmos sucked her life; the sound of the waterfall subsided, the sensations she had became numb, and from her own breathing she no longer seemed to feel or hear. It was as if she slowly died and as she died she remained fully aware of every part of her body and every sense fading away. She heard Death Mask's beautiful voice in the distance, very stern.
"There's a cluster of stars in the sky they call the praesepe. And to this praesepe flow the emanations that rise from the souls of corpses like wisps. In other words, the praesepe is the entrance to Hell for all souls!"
Her voice tore into a low throaty bass that as she stretched, Shiryu realized with amazement that her body began to be pulled against her will. But that wasn't exactly the darkest thing, as Shiryu saw a crack open in her darkness.
She could see that phenomenon.
A rift opened at the top and forward slowly becoming bigger and bigger every moment. As the slit grew and expanded, it pulled harder and harder on her body. She was pretty sure she could see through this threshold into the dark hills of a region lit by wisps that seemed to walk in a plaintive line. She felt her body grow cold, as passed through her heart that she glimpsed Hell itself.
"Shiryu!" She heard a voice from within those deep, unholy columns.
Her chest heaved as she was finally saved by a comforting, strong feeling that erased the image of Hell from her eyes and threw her back into the darkness, to her knees. Pulling in air.
"Halt, Death Mask." was a familiar voice. "How can a Gold Saint show all her power to a mere Bronze Saint?"
The huge glow on the cliffs, Shiryu couldn't make out, but the presence cleared her senses of the pressure she felt and brought her closer to life again.
"Ah, behold, a friend is coming from far away." Shiryu heard her Master say.
"And besides, Shiryu is a great friend of mine. I cannot allow you to kill her here."
"Jamir's Gold Saint." Death Mask announced, guessing who was coming. "Aries Mu!"
Aries Mu? reflected Shiryu. It was a relief and a huge confusion.
"Master Mu?" asked Shiryu.
"How long, Shiryu." she said. "I see your Cloth is in one piece this time."
"What are you doing here, Mu?" Death Mask asked in her powerful voice.
"I came to pay a late visit to a great friend, Death Mask. What are you going to do now?"
The fabulous woman smiled mockingly.
"I'm not crazy to face two Gold Saints at once. I'm happy that you are wearing your Gold Cloth, Mu." she added. "Don't be late, as you too have been summoned back to the Sanctuary. And unless you want to end up like the Old Master here, I suggest obeying." she finished.
"Thank you for your concern, Death Mask." replied Mu.
"Arrivederci." she spoke sensually and beautifully.
Shiryu felt how that deep and powerful cosmos again walked on its invisible bridge until its cosmos completely disappeared from the Five Ancient Peaks.
"Forgive me for the interruption, Old Master." said Mu. "I know you had it under your control."
"Nothing to forgive yourself here, young lady. You arrived on time." replied the Master. "I see you're wearing your Gold Cloth again."
"I will answer the call of the Sanctuary." he announced to Mestre Mu.
"Are you afraid of becoming a bitter old man like me?" asked Old Master, smiling.
"No. This time it's different." said Master Mu. "The Owl announced that Athena intends to march to the Sanctuary."
"Oh."
Old Master let out his hoarse breath, as if he was surprised in a restrained way.
"Then the time has come." he said. "My old friend would be very proud of you, Mu."
The Masters there seemed happy to be reunited, but there was a hard, heavy stone sinking into Shiryu's chest. A voice that echoed in his mind calling her from far away.
Saori's Mansion was once again inhabited; or rather, just part of it, since the destroyed rooms still need to be renovated. But there was an entire wing untouched by the fire she had gone back to using. She had a small team to maintain, but she had on her side the boys and girls she liked best.
Seiya had finally left the hospital, but the atmosphere in the common room was tense. Seiya, Shun and Hyoga each had distant thoughts, as they felt that they would soon leave behind their lives to embark on a terrible battle.
Back in her room with a balcony, now clean and habitable again, Saori felt her legs wobble and had to lean on the table to keep from falling. She fell into a chair when Alice came to her aid.
Saori let out a visceral roar, as if the pain she felt couldn't be translated into words, but only into a primal roar. Then came the tears and despair.
Alice called her in vain, as Saori seemed to cry all the sadness and wounds accumulated by all those years. If she had been safe, brave, balanced for so long, everything shattered like a thick stained-glass window that, when it exploded, not only echoed powerfully, but also ripped through the ancient walls. She tried to hold Saori to stop struggling herself, afraid she would get hurt; her face also already sad to see her in that position.
She kept asking what had happened, what had been said, what had hurt her so much. Saori tried to speak, although her words were crooked, sobbing, repeated and sometimes incomprehensible. It didn't take long for Alice to finally understand Saori's despair and together they went to the ground, destroyed. Xiaoling was dead.
ABOUT THE CHAPTER: For people who know the story it is obvious that there are 12 Gold Cloths, and that they relate to the Zodiac. But it's nice to imagine that, maybe it's not something obvious to someone who has never been in contact with the story before. And it would make sense to imagine a single great Golden Hero. And as I wrote on this version of the story, different Gold Saints appeared (Miro in Eris, Aphrodite kidnapping Saori, Aioria against Seiya and now Death Mask), but I made sure not to name them and give a vague description so that they get meshed in our imagination, so that everyone believes it is just a great apparition of gold. It was nice to play with this idea.
NEXT CHAPTER: FURY
Absolutely taken by fury, Aioria decides to face the Camerlengo, while Saori won't stay a second longer. She goes to Sanctuary.