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Into the Abyss	By : Sagakure Category: +S to Z > Saint Seiya Views: 6083 -:- 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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FIC : Into the Abyss
Author : Sagakure
Fandom : Saint Seiya (Knights of the Zodiac, Cavaleiros do Zodiaco, Caballeros del Zodiaco, Chevaliers du Zodiaque).
Pairing : Rhadamanthys x Kanon (also, Saga x Kanon; also everybody x Saga).
Rating : NC17 (For angst, mature content, and possibly bondage/bdsm. Don�t read if it�s not your cup of tea).
Warnings : Set post-Hades war.
Disclaimer : I do not own Saint Seiya. Saint Seiya is (C) of Masami Kurumada, Toei, Shueisha, Akita Shoten and quite probably some more people. No copyright infringement or disrespect intended here. This is a work of fanfiction, done completely for fun. No profit is taken out of it.
Thanks : To Dani, for being a wonderful beta!
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[Into The Abyss � Scene IV] � Agony Never Ends.
In times of war, the human being often shows his best. Bravery, courage, selflessness... But much more often, he shows his very worst.

Victors in newly conquered lands often rule by terror, taking what they want and doing as they please. A fair victor is a difficult thing to find, in the world of men. If anything, because after an entire war getting used to the idea that they were allowed to massacre and pillage, how can soldiers understand all of a sudden that they�re expected to stop, and supposed to respect the civil population and behave properly? Even if they could understand the inherent idea behind it, would their reflexes obey them? Would the population accept them with open arms after all the grudges caused by the war? Or would either side look at each other with suspicion and engage in an escalade leading to even more problems?
History never ceases to show us which is the most common outcome for war.

Fighting for peace is either impossible or such an utopist ideal that almost no normal man could achieve it.
Of all people, the only ones that are perhaps able to stick to it and to truly fight for peace are the saints of Athena. But ideals are like words, and out of the proper context they can quickly lose meaning. The fight might have been absolutely pure if it involved none other than gold saints and high rank specters. But the outcome could never be perfectly respected once the rest of the numbers entered into the equation. With all the lower ranks specters, guards, servants and others that all had very different views of the things, it was inevitable that all became much more complicated.
No matter that the saints were just fighting to save the world, the specters still perceived it as an invasion.
No matter that Athena had won and the earth was saved, the dead gold saints were still in hell.

The victor of a war, once installed in his newly conquered lands, often exerts the worst possible treatments on the people who had previously defied him, to ensure their submission. But even if the victor of the war doesn�t takes over the land but leaves instead, the humiliation of the defeat will not be easily forgotten.

But what of the victor left behind in enemy territory? Or what of his warriors? Once that everybody is gone, and the losers of the war are left with nothing to do but rebuild and ruminate on their anger and shame... If they could put their hands on their victor, if said victor was entirely at their mercy and unable to defend himself�

The revenge of those who lost a war can be infinitely worse than the iron-grip of a victor taking possession of new territories, or sealing away the territories that lost the battle. For the victor still must show some restraint, least he�d starve his new lands or provoke an insurrection. But the losers have nothing left to fear, at square zero. And they�ll give all the pain and shame back tenfold. The real one they suffered, the imaginary one boosted by their wounded pride and some more while they�re at it.

If one could choose, one should pick the fate of the loser left to the victor, rather than that of the victor abandoned to the loser. For the first might have some compassion left, while the second is blinded by revenge.

His face streaked with tears, Kanon clung to the chain link fence like it was all that he had left, screaming at the top of his lungs until his voice broke down completely and all that was left was hoarse sobbing.
Ignoring the fact that he was constantly getting crushed against the fence by the thousands or most likely hundreds of thousands that stood behind him, he wrestled with it and shook it as hard as he could, trying to slide his arms between the links to reach, even if just a little bit closer. The pain from his broken hand that hadn't healed yet didn't even reach him anymore now that he could see his twin. The fence was too far away for him to touch anything, but it felt a little bit closer that way.

Saga couldn�t hear him scream. As a matter of fact, nobody could. The whole valley was drowned in the hysteria of the crowd, a mix of cheering, insulting, screaming voices, cosmos, spirits, everything intermingling together in a horrid cacophony of sounds and feelings that would have sufficed to drive anyone insane. But for Kanon, it all sounded dull, his own screams, the invading cosmos and noise, even the movements of the crowd, relentless waves that backed lightly for a moment, only to crash back against the fence, forcing him to hold his breath when they hit, least he become breathless under the pressure of the bodies behind him.

The crowd sounded almost delirious, cheering madly for their army whenever one of the gold saints was brought out of the cages and down to the ground. It was raining hard now, the cold and piercing drops blurring the whole scenery. Kanon�s hair was glued to his face, wet more by tears than by the rain, and he sobbed hard, still clinging to the fence and erratically shaking it.

On his knees in the mud, a blindfold over his eyes, Saga�s face was distorted by pain while the group of lower-rank specters surrounding him took turns holding him down and beating him. Blood ran from his split lip and brow, mixing with the rain; reddish rivulets soaking into the simple white garment that all prisoners wore, and mixing with the dirty grayish brown of the mud. The other gold saints were going through the same ordeal, and older bruises marring pale skin here and there showed that this wasn�t the first beating the prisoners suffered.

Minutes seemed like hours, days, centuries. For Kanon, it felt like everything was happening in slow motion, almost like a movie in sepia colors, where the only thing that seemed real was Saga. Lost in his pain, the pain that he shared with his twin whenever he saw a blow land on the already badly abused Gemini saint�s skin, Kanon�s brain didn�t even register what was happening around Saga anymore. He didn�t see Milo trying to put himself between a half-conscious Camus and the specters, his broken voice filled with a mix of hatred and despair, pleading for them to stop. Nor did he see Mu pass out under the blows, or the insane-looking scowl on Deathmask�s face. Nor Shion�s silent tears of rage, or Shura�s proud fa�ade, that stayed in place even when he fell under the blows. Nor any of the others.

The gold saints, as well as the other dead gathered in the patio, all wore the prisoner collars, typical of the dead yet to be judged, and that allowed the specters to identify and know where each of them was at all times. They weren�t mere souls, for each dead in the underworld was granted an imitation body, in a way similar to the ones Hades granted the gold saints sent to kill Athena. Except that those didn�t last just 12 hours, but as long as the sentence required them to. Having a real body to torture was much more effective for punishment than just trapping the souls.
Kanon had heard quite a few things about those bodies. On his way there, he tried to gather as much information as he possibly could about the dead and the way they were treated. The bodies were in all ways similar to real human ones, and reacted almost the same way, but they were much easier to repair with cosmo, to ensure that the prisoner stayed in good condition. Not that they could die, but it was easier to apply a sentence on someone who was in one piece and could feel everything.
The main difference with a real human body or the ones given to resurrected specters resided in the fact that the imitation bodies had nearly no physical strength whatsoever, and theoretically couldn�t use cosmo either. That way, the captives could oppose no resistance to their guards.

Through his daze, Kanon remembered Rhadamanthys mentioning this to him during their first fight, when he had shown surprise at the lower gravity pull of the underworld.
�Such restraints are not necessary in a world where most are dead and have nearly no strength in need to be controlled.�
He understood the words much better now that he actually saw the gold saints powerless in front of low-rank specters. It was never a fight anyway, but it wasn�t even a beating per se. It could easily be called a slaughter, except that the victims here couldn�t die.

The only good side of the general hysteria filling the crowd and the specters �- both the ones inside the patio and the ones that came just to watch, outside the fence �- was that the utter cacophony filling the air didn�t let anyone notice that Kanon�s screams were not motivated by the same reasons than theirs. When they partially climbed on the fence and shook it, drunk with the euphoria of revenge and a strangely twisted form of victory, they didn�t notice that Kanon�s shook the same fence and clung to it with tears running down his face.

One by one, the gold saints were taken away, their guards shoving brutally the ones that still could walk, and dragging while mocking or beating more the ones who couldn�t. Camus struggled to walk with an unconscious Milo leaning on his shoulder. Shion looked even more bitter when he couldn�t carry Mu by lack of forces, and needed Aldebaran�s help. DM and a pretty battered Shaka helped carry Aphrodite, whose beautiful face was soaked with blood and mud.

And Saga� Saga fell so many times that the specters never seemed to get tired of it, kicking and beating him more every time. It was hard for the saints to help each other, considering the blindfolds. They tried to identify where their companions were by sounds, and the hesitant staggering brought more laughter to their enemies.

The exit from the obsidian cages, the beatings, the brutal march until the buildings in the camp� The progression that could have taken minutes took hours, and was nicknamed the parade of shame by the presents, an expression that no one knew for sure who coined, but who quickly became popular enough to be remembered by this name. For the specters wanted the saints to taste tenfold the shame their felt by losing the war. Behind his veil of bitter tears, Kanon couldn�t help but think it was fitting name. Not because the gold saints deserved any shame, but for the opposite reason: the behavior of the vengeance-driven specters couldn�t be more shameful.

He clung to the fence until his brother was but a little blur far away, and kept his gaze glued on the spot of the wall behind which he was taken, until his eyes already tired of crying so much burned even harder from the lack of blinking. The rain had hidden his tears, but he had to do an outstanding effort not to fall on his knees or abandon himself to his misery now.

The euphoria of the crowd had calmed down a lot. More time than he thought might have passed while he stared at the retreating forms far into the patio behind the fence. Some of the wanderers were leaving, others were regrouping, still using to their advantage the fact that their numbers were too high and the specters were too busy to bother them. People drank from jugs they had brought with them, roasted small animals over fires, pulled sausages and dried meat out of their worn down rucksacks and gathered in medium sized groups to protect themselves from the occasional hungry wanderers that might try to take their things or attack them.
Many of the minor specters mixed with them all, regrouping around campfires and starting to eat and exchange stories, either from the war or from the search that followed their return to life. Some had survived, and told exaggerated tales of the Days of Chaos. Others were back with the big resurrection, and tried to act as if they knew all the same stories.

Still under the shock of the previous hours, Kanon walked unsteadily, trying to order things in his mind to think clearly. His hunger still bothered him when he smelled the food cooking here and there, but his brain wasn�t quite registering the feeling. The utter horror had sobered him up, washing away the daze caused by the medications and the tiredness. His eyes were still partially glazed as he stared into nothingness past the groups of men, but his brain was functioning at high speed. He didn�t know how long it would take, but in the upcoming days or weeks, the gold saints would be judged. Considering the colossal mess and rebuilding that the Underworld was currently going through, it might take even longer until they sorted all the dead out and began judging them, but it still would happen soon or later. At worst, they would have to withstand that situation for a few months, but once that they were judged, they should be able to have peace, or at least a relative peace, since after all they had simply died fighting for their cause. As much as the specters thirsted for revenge, they couldn�t do anything more than treat them badly until the judgment.
Right?
His logical reasoning kept trying to convince Kanon that the worst would be the days or weeks that they�d have to wait until the judgment, and that afterwards it wouldn�t be as bad. And yet, his instincts whispered to him that there was something wrong, something horribly wrong. But what?

It was then that he suddenly picked up a chunk of a conversation coming from around a nearby fire.

�I bet it will be the sixth prison with the lakes of lava for them! Or Cocytus and the hell of ice! It�s the most obvious answer for that kind of crime!� � A man declared in an eager tone, but embarrassment quickly showed on his face when the whole group around him burst into laughter at his expense.

�Don�t be ridiculous!! You think they�ll get away so easily?! Some of them might, yeah...hell of ice, it�s likely�lakes of lava might work for them normal gold saints alright, but no way that the traitors will be sentenced so lightly!� � Another men countered matter-of-factly, earning approving nods and grunt from others around him.

�They went way too far. I�m not sure if even the normal saints will get away just with condemnations like the sixth prison. They�ll probably all end up in the ice for having dared to fight against a god. And as for the traitors, I really wouldn�t want to be in their shoes!� � The last comment brought the laughter back to the group, but this time they laughed in approval mixed with scorn for the gold saints.

Traitors?

A shiver of horrified understanding ran up Kanon�s back, and he drew closer to the group.

�We might not be able to get back at all of the others all the way, but the filthy traitors will pay until the very end of times! I bet six months of my wages that at least the heads of the group will get sentenced to the valley of agony!�

�Yeah, I don�t know about their followers or even that Shion who didn�t do as much, but Saga of Gemini will get that for sure. If not something even worse!�

�I�m not even betting! That�s too obvious. Anyone could win that bet. To this day, almost all heads of rebellious factions and other high treason culprits always got that sentence, and that�s exactly what he�ll be charged with in the tribunal. There�s no way he�ll be judged innocent, the charge of treason is too grave.�

�You�re right, no one will accept bets for his sentence, it's too obvious. We should wager on the others.�

�We could bet on how many times they�ll have to patch up Gemini�s body so that he remains in condition to be judged!� � More laughter followed the remark.

�Yeah�funny how despite the fact that that Aries guy, their former leader, was supposed to be in charge of the raid, he stayed behind and didn�t do anything� You think he knew what was coming?�

�Heh, maybe. The bugger stayed here in prison for long enough that he�d know, maybe. Go figure.�

�If he didn�t know, he�s damn lucky. Letting Gemini take the lead and get charged with all the main accusations sounds like a genius plan to avoid looking too bad on their side and still not get screwed all the way on our side.�

�Ohhh, don�t worry about it! He�ll get what�s coming for him too. They all will. Even if some of them get it less bad, it will compensate with what the other ones will get, especially that f*cker, Saga.�

Ice was running through Kanon�s veins. Ice that held him frozen in place, unable to even think straight. The judgments were rigged? He knew that they could be ridiculously excessive, after he had seen Rune judge Seiya and Shun� but he couldn�t imagine that Saga and the others would be charged for treason on the basis of their fake allegiance to Hades. In his mind, a saint was expected to do all that he had to do to protect the world and the goddess, so he assumed that this would be taken into consideration. Wasn�t it enough that they had to strip themselves of their honor, pride and everything? Couldn�t they have peace even after death?! And yet, he understood what was happening. It was exactly what he had wanted to ignore by fear that it would prove to be true. It was why the little voice on the back of his mind kept whispering to him that something was wrong. Things could and would always get worse, after all.

All his former ideas that the worst part would probably be the wait until the judgment were now gone. He felt lost and completely unsure of what he could do. Deep in his heart, it felt as if all that cracked inside him during the gold saints beating was now shattering all the way and falling into pieces, his last hopes fading way too fast.

It was the blankets, -- which he was constantly wearing as a cloak even throughout the rain, now drenched and clinging tightly over his soaked head and body, partially hiding his features -- that saved him when the men turned, surprised by someone standing still so close to them..

�Hey, want some?� � One of the men asked, perhaps sarcastically, while pointing with his knife at the meat and bacon sizzling over the fire.

Kanon stayed mute for a few seconds, part of him still dazed but cursing himself for not having been more careful, and the other part truly glad that he had kept the blanket wrapped around himself. Most specters around here would recognize Saga, and claiming he just had an uncanny resemblance to him was very unlikely to work.

�No thanks, I�m not hungry�� He tried to sound casual and conceal whatever they could see of his starved look. � �But I�m very interested in the bets� is there a chance that you could talk a little more about the possible sentences?�

�You don�t look much like someone who�d have enough money to bet on anything�� the man said, critical, squinting to get a better look at Kanon.

�I�I have some. Enough, in any case. Please, can you take me to that �valley of agony� you spoke of? I wanted to see it.� � Fighting an urge to back off and get rid of their inquisitive looks, the ex-marina smiled in a smug manner, in hopes of erasing the first impression of hesitation he might have passed.
Kanon�s bizarre disguise worked for long enough. Part of the group stayed behind, not interested enough, or busy with other matters more profitable. Three of the lower specters accepted to take Kanon across the river and to the border of the valley, even though the request was strange. It�s not like you need to see the valley to be able to bet, after all. Not to mention the fact that most inhabitants of the Underworld know well what it is. But money is money, and the idea that the cloaked man was going to give them some of it finished to convince them to guide him there.

But not even in his worst nightmares �- and Kanon�s nightmares were frequent and quite vivid �- he could have pictured the sight that was waiting for him.

A whole valley, or more like an extremely wide well, filled with human remains at the bottom. The rocky walls were covered with men whose screams of agony were worse than anything he could ever have imagined.

So this was what Prometheus had been condemned to. A living hell. A never ending torture, that couldn�t possibly cease, since the dead cannot seek solace in death. They�re past all possible hope, and their pain is eternal.

He didn�t know how much time had passed. He couldn�t unlock his eyes from the ominous shapes that lurked in the shadows and took flight from time to time, settling on their preys and pecking at their torn open insides. Living preys, needless to say. It was horrible to see the panic that took over them whenever one of the flying creatures approached them. Their screams filled the air as a constant sound, relentless and macabre. It probably also explained why nobody lived nearby, unlike in some of the other prisons, where the specter�s habitations were closer to the torture pits.

Each of the prisons had a horrible place like this, but this particular one seemed countless times more painful than all the others that Kanon had seen. Not only because of the sheer amount of physical pain, but because of the way everything in the area seemed to be carefully crafted to destroy all hopes left in the heart of those condemned to it. Especially since this torture, unlike many of the others, wasn�t meant as something to be endured until atoning enough to be reincarnated. Instead, it was an eternal agony. Those condemned to the valley of agony were to remain there, if not for all eternity, at least for thousands and thousands of years.

Kanon�s eyes were filling with tears again, as thoroughly as his whole being was filling with despair and confusion. There was no way he could break into the camps. Thousands of warriors defended it, and even if he were in the state of beating those lower soldiers, the 108 specters would be impossible to face without the gold Cloth or in the condition he was in. Even with the cloth and in perfect health, he most likely would die trying. There was no way he could rescue Saga, or any of the gold saints, for that matter.

The others still had chances of reincarnating, getting shorter sentences or getting away from the torture eventually, but Saga....he didn�t know what would happen to his brother. He couldn�t even think straight anymore.
Shaking, on his hands and knees, staring off the border of the cliff over the valley, with tears running down his face once again, all that the ex-marina could feel was an overpowering helplessness, so strong that not even during the worst moments of his life he had felt so powerless. Not even drowning inside that cave. Even there he still had hope.

A long while must have passed, for the three specters were turning impatient. Lost in his apathy, Kanon only registered the sounds behind him when one of them walked up to him and pulled on his cloak.

�Hey, now you�re going to be a nice boy and give us all of your money. I don�t care why you wanted to come here, but screw your bet! We�ll take all of�. � � sudden realization dawned on the man�s face as quick as horror did on Kanon�s. His cloak had slipped off.

The specter�s voice was now filled with something akin to a mix of terror and hatred.
�You!! But how?! You�re supposed to be prisoner of the camp!!� � the man made a movement to back off into a fighting stance, still not sure of what to think, but Kanon didn�t leave him the time to take any decisions, and plunged a fist engulfed in burning cosmo into the man�s unprotected chest, shredding through his heart.
One of Saga�s techniques.
Sadly, the energy that it took for Kanon to flare up his cosmo and react so fast almost drained him dry, and running after the other specter, as well as the short fight that followed, finished to extenuate him, and possibly reopen some of his larger wounds. He fell on one knee, panting hard, and tried to focus all that was left of his strength into standing up to face the third man, but by the time Kanon could catch his breath again, the specter was long gone, a little dot running far across the barren wasteland.
Ironically, if the specter had stayed, he might have been able to finish the wounded gold saint without too much trouble, but he didn�t know that� All he knew was that the blue haired man had downed his two companions in a matter of seconds, and he didn�t see any reason for his fate to be any better if he stayed.

Kanon cursed himself once again. He had to get out of that place quickly, before reinforcements came. He considered trying to run, but quickly gave up as he barely managed to stand up on his shaky legs, despite leaning on the nearby boulders. His lungs were on fire, and every muscle in his body screamed at the abuse. To make things even worse, his vision was slightly blurry and he felt dizzy from the strain. Biting the inside of his cheeks, he ignored the muscular aches and the trouble to breath caused by the effort, and walked as fast as he could, leaning against the rocks for support and quickly going for the smaller and more shadowed paths.

A combination of luck and ability at erasing his tracks on Kanon�s part, along with the enemy over-estimating his speed, which lead them to search for him all over the wrong places, made that several hours later, the younger of the Gemini twins stumbled along the outskirts of Cocytus. Luckily, he was already on the right side and didn�t need to cross the river. They must be watching over the riverbanks by now. Nobody would expect him to walk right into the main urbanized areas of the Underworld, so they were most likely searching for him on the opposite side.

Past the ice fields of the Cocytus, spread over the three first spheres on the way to Giudecca, lay the great cities of the north-west, where the higher rank specters dwell. Kanon never made it that far the previous time� Even this time, he wouldn�t have been able to come that far if they didn�t take a boat to the valley of agony, which was itself not that far from the ice pits and the great waterfall of blood. The three specters had been useful, after all.

But the reason why nobody would expect him to be wandering in that area was precisely because it was such a well guarded place that trying to sneak into it was suicide.

Suicide wasn�t new to him, though. For years, he had yearned for death to free him from his miserable existence. And now that he had almost succeeded and died, it strangely felt as if it was an unwelcome feeling after all. It puzzled Kanon, but he shrugged the thoughts away. It was too late for this.

He was tired of running away. All his life, he had been running away from himself, and from his destiny. It was perhaps finally time to embrace it.
He thought he had finally accepted it when he came back to Sanctuary and put on the Gemini armor, but he was wrong. He still had hope then. Hope that he�d be free once he was done for and they didn�t need him anymore. He was wrong.

He was never but a shadow with no right to freedom.
It was time to prove that even as a shadow, he could still have some utility.

He shook the veil of tears off his eyes, and marched with decided steps towards the city, the beginning of his plan unfolding in his head.

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[To Be Continued]
[Next Scene : �Hope or Despair?�]
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Sagakure, January 12th, 2006
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Into the Abyss