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Panpolemos (Global War)	By : Philotas Category: +S to Z > Saint Seiya Views: 1979 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Saint Seiya, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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"Panpolemos" (Global War)
Author�s warnings: This is a post-Hades fic, starting
ten years after the Holy War in which Seiya and the Gold Saints died and bases
on both the manga and the anime. It�s pretty neutral so far, but it will
contain yaoi (though het will be there as well), so hit the back button if you
don�t know what that is or if you don�t like it. Other than that, please just
forgive any mistakes in grammar, English is not my mother language. On the
other hand, please do not hesitate to point out any mistakes concerning
timeline / characters / canon facts / etc. Thanks a lot to all who take the
time to read this.
Chapter 1. The Past We Can�t Leave Behind
Jabu knelt in front of the altar, observing the
slumbering form laid on it in the dark. His heart tightened, wondering how
Saori Kido, heir to one of the most powerful economic empires of the planet,
could sleep so deeply in that barren room, on the cold altar stone, wearing
just a plain white traditional Greek robe. He could easily envision her,
instead, resting among silks and brocades befitting her noble upbringing. She
deserved that, and so much more. Still, he knew that it mattered very little.
Saori was the goddess Athena, and she didn't really need material luxury. She
was beyond that type of mortal futility. Besides, she didn�t seem to notice
anything much around herself anymore. She hardly even woke up. She would sleep
the night and most of the day, only rising around dusk to take a brief walk
through the Sanctuary.
The Holy Temple, dedicated since the mythological days
to the worship of the Goddess and the training of her saints, had been restored
almost completely after the destruction caused by the war with Hades, but Jabu
wondered if rebuilding the place had really been such a good idea. The ancient
palaces might be standing again, possibly more magnificent than before, but
Sanctuary was cold and empty. There was no training in the arenas anymore, nor
a guardian sat in any of the twelve temples. Athena wandered through the
deserted buildings at dusk, her eyes filled with tenderness. Jabu knew she
could see things not of this world... not any longer. She saw the glorious past
of this place, for all the cruelty perpetrated among its walls could not
tarnish the past magnificence of the Sanctuary, the fact that nobility and
justice of epic proportions had sprung from its sacred stones since the age of
myth.

Jabu's eyes filled with tears. True, the wars of ten
years before has been terrible, and so much had been at stake... but he could
remember so vividly the fierce emotions of those days. Friendship, loyalty,
love, devotion.... it all seemed so distant now. It seemed like they had lost
more than it was possible to lose for anyone, human or god. The Unicorn Saint
was roused from his melancholic meditations by a gentle hand resting on his
shoulder. He turned his head around and saw Shaina looking down at him through
her unreadable mask. Her hand was warm. It was such a contrast with the
coldness surrounding them. They were willing and ready to serve, and yet nobody
would call upon them. He felt as if they had been entombed alive. His heart
contracted painfully. The slumbering goddess didn't need him now. He rose from
his kneeling position and followed the Ophiucus Saint out of the chamber.

***
"Do you come here everyday?"

Hyoga did not turn around at the sound of the familiar voice.

"No, but I like to pay my respects, once in a while."

"I see."
The Cygnus Saint finally tore his eyes from Crystal's grave and turned around.
He smiled without even realizing when he saw the warm green eyes of his old
friend looking at him with their usual tender expression. The years had changed
Shun, he was a full grown man now, but in his heart of hearts, where it truly
mattered, the young man had always remained the same. It was those eyes which
gave him away.

"It's been a long time" Hyoga said, looking away in
the distance. The warmth radiating from his friend hurt him, reminding him of
things long past.

"Two years and five months to be precise. How have you
been doing?"

"Fine. Nothing unusual. What about you? You are the
man with a career. Tell me."
Shun held the fur rimmed coat closer to himself as he
walked away from the grave with Hyoga at his side.

"Oh, nothing to bother you with, really."

Hyoga smiled ironically. After the war, he had been entrusted by Saori to
care for the Kido Enterprises and the whole Kido estate. It was a great responsibility
that Shun had taken upon himself in his usual quiet way, without complaining. The Kido
empire flourished under his guide. Even Hyoga, living in the Siberian tundra,
away from the rest of the world, knew as much.

"You're always too modest for your own good."
Shun laughed. Hyoga thought that when Shun laughed
that way flowers bloomed somewhere in the world. It was a warm, rich sound,
like sun and earth. It was horrible to hear it after trying so hard to forget
about it, forget about the day when they wore their bronze cloths and fought to
save the world. It felt like geological eras had passed since then.

"What brings you here?" he asked.

"I wanted to see you" the Andromeda Saint replied simply.

"Really?"

"You never come to Tokyo anymore."

"Yeah."
Hyoga kept silent, knowing that Shun was there for a
reason, and that he would tell him in time. He didn't have to wait very long.

"I met Julian Solo last month" his friend said, halting his step on the ice
covered ground. "He didn't remember me. We talked about business. Sorrento was with him.
He told me that Julian doesn't even remember being possessed by Poseidon. It's... I found
it kinda sad that he had forgotten. It felt as if... as if I had dreamt all about that war
under the sea, the mad run for the pillars... and then I went to see Saori-san as well.
She sleeps all day long, only rising for abhalfhalf an hour around dusk. She
doesn't talk to anyone. Sanctuary has become a ghost town. The temples have
been rebuilt, but they're cold and empty. Jabu and the others are still there,
but it's not the same as it was. Tell me, Hyoga, have I really dreamt all that?
The Galactic War, the run through the twelve temples... and then Asgard,
Poseidon, Hades.... Was it all a dream? Sometimes I think I cannot even
remember Seiya's face anymore."
Unable to come up with anything intelligent or even
vaguely comforting to say, Hyoga looked up at the dark clouded sky. He knew the
feeling all too well. Sometimes he expected to wake up and realize that it had
all been a dream. His body moved instinctively to embrace Shun. His friend
locked his own arms around him.

"You seem quite real, I don't think you could be a
dream" he whispered, both to Shun and to himself.

"Yes, you feel quite real as well" replied the Andromeda Saint, ing ing in his
companion's blond hair.
"Do you have news of the others? How's Ikki, by the way?" asked Hyoga after a while,
releasing his friend.

"You know how he is. He's always wandering here and there. He visits once a year,
when it's my birthday. We spend the day together, he gives me a silly, childish present,
I give him the money he needs to keep travelling and then off he goes. I've last seen him
five months ago, we met at the airport of Narita by chance. He was going to India, he said."

"What about Shiryu?"
Hyoga felt the uneasiness in the silence that greeted his question.

"He's fine, isn't he?" he insisted nervously.

"So you didn't hear... I'm sorry, I should have told you earlier. He's fine...
physically, but... Well, he and Shun Rei were helping the people in a village where there
had been an outbreak of some disease... leishmaniasis viscerale, I believe. Shun Rei fell
ill, and..."

Hyoga felt his teeth almost cracking from the pressure
of his tightened jaw. He felt anger at the thought that fate could play his
friend such a dirty trick. Shun Rei was the angel that kept Shiryu sane after
he lost both his teacher and his best friend, and now even she was gone.

"Shiryu retired to Gonro-ho, he writes to me once in a
while to let me know he is alright. You know how he is, even when he's feeling
horrible he wouldn't want anyone to worry about him. I wish there was anything
I could do."

"You're there for him, Shun. That's certainly more than what I've done. When did it
happen?"

"It was about a year and a half ago. I'm sorry I didn't let you know earlier, I could
never find a good way..."

"There is no good way to say this sort of things, I'm afraid."

"I told him I would be happy to visit him from time to
time, but he expressed the wish to be left alone, so I kept away."
"Perhaps we overestimate Shiryu" said Hyoga after a brief silence.

"Huh?"

"Perhaps he thinks he can do fine on his own, but we shouldn't believe him. Perhaps
he needs us, even if he doesn't think he does. It feels wrong that he should bear the pain
of this loss all by himself."

"We could go check on him..." suggested Shun, hopeful.

"That sounds like a plan."

Shun smiled again, and Hyoga felt all the weight of
his loneliness slipping away from his shoulders at the sight. They had been
parted for too long. It was time for them to come together and face both what
was behind and what was in front of them.

***
To Shiryu Gonro-ho was no better than the road to
Meifu Death Mask had once shown him. Without Shun Rei and Roshi, the place was
gloomy and spooky. The fine mist that rose from the waterfall had a sinister
quality to it that made shivers run through his bones. Shiryu smiled faintly,
remembering his Dragon Cloth resting under the stream. He had been so eager to
win that armor back when he was a child, but now he knew that he was not
capable of wearing it any longer. Its weight had become unbearable, and what
use would it be anyway? It couldn't save his most beloved when her time came,
so maybe it really wasn't what he'd always believed it was. Had it been all a
dream? It would have felt like it, if the pain hadn't been so sharp.

"He wouldn't give up like this, you know."
The Dragon Saint rose at the sound of the familiar voice.

"Strange of you to come here" he said, turning to face his visitor.

"I get nostalgic in my old age, so I visit friends" Ikki said laughing
and shrugging at the same time.

"You're only two years older that I am, does that make me old as well?"
Shiryu joked half-heartedly. He wanted to be annoyed by the Phoenix Saint's
sudden intrusion, but he cn'tn't bring himself to. It had been... how long? Four,
maybe five years since he'd seen any of the others in person. He had almost convinced
himself that they might have been a delusion, a fruit of his own imagination. But Ikki
was there, infuriatingly impossible to ignore as only he could manage to be, so maybe
he was real after all.

"So, were you contemplating the view?" the short-haired man asked, turning to look
at the waterfall. He didn't speak very loud, yet Shiryu could hear him distinctly even
over the noise of the stream.

"What did you mean, he wouldn't give up?" he asked instead of replying.
Ikki stopped smiling, and his expression became very serious, suddenly.

"I am disappointed in you, Shiryu. It's not like you to close yourself to the world
this way. It's not what Seiya or Shun Rei would want."

"So you know."

"Yes" the Phoenix saint replied, nodding gravely. "Shun didn't want to tell me,
but I knew anyway."

"Honestly, Ikki" Shiryu began, trying to sound annoyed even if he knew he'd only
look miserable in the end "I'll start to take advice about my behavior from you when
I finally understand yours. Why have you been wandering all these years? Shun needs you
at his side."
Ikki smiled at him as if he had expected the question.
Well, he had always been perceptive, Shiryu could grant him as much.

"Shun coped, as we all did. I needed to see the world, Shiryu. I needed to go
out and know the reason why Seiya and the Gold Saints died. I needed to learn,
to know the world as it is to make sure that their death was not in vain. I
needed to know this world they all died for was worth their sacrifice."

"And what did you find out?"

"That the deepest part of my heart is split. I have seen all, beauty and misery,
death and life, things noble and things hateful. There is so much wrong and so much beauty
at the same time... and in the end I could see why this world is worth dying for. But a
part of me knows that for all the beauty of the world I will not have my friends back, and
this angers me. And still, even if nothing can replace what we have lost, we cannot allow
ourselves to grow cold and bitter over it. They died for us as well. They died
so that we could live. So do, Shiryu. Live. Leave this place ans ghs ghosts."
The Dragon Saint's eyes dropped to the water below the
cliff that hid his cloth from view.

"I...." he whispered, unsure of what to say. It was as if his mind had short-circuited.
A part of him recognized truth and wisdom in Ikki's words, but another part of him didn't
want to abandon his mourning. He felt as if he would not longer be the man he was if he did.
It would feel like betrayal.

"Shiryu!" a voice suddenly called, breaking the silence that had stretched between
him and the Phoenix Saint for more than a few seconds.

"Shiryuu!" another voice joined in. "Ah, look Shun, isn't that..."

"Niisan! What are you doing here?!"

When the two bronze saints reached them, Shiryu felt
an overwhelming gratitude. He had chased them away, and yet there they were,
ready to offer anew the friendship he had returned so poorly. For these men, if
for nothing else, the world still deserved to exist.
The four friends looked at one another carefully, then
it was Shun to break the silence.

"Sorry, Shiryu, I know you said you wanted to be alone, but... you see, being your
friends means being there for you, even when you don�t want us to."

"It�s alright Shun. Ikki was just pointing out that the panorama gets dull after
a while. Come inside, let me treat you to dinner, then we can make plans for the future."

"We have awakened" said Hyoga, out of the blue. The others looked at him, understanding
completely. Athena, Sanctuary, being saints and their friendship. They didn't need anything
else, that was their reality. It was their life in the last ten years that had been only a
dream, and not a very pleasant one at that. It was time to go back to the waking world.

***
Author�s note: Phew! I started this in the spur of the
moment (even though the core idea is pretty old), I hope all chapters will come
out asilysily as this one... I don�t want to blackmail anyone, but it would be
great if I got some C&C... those sure encourage a writer. Good and bad, all
welcome!
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Panpolemos (Global War)