Oops
The night was only an hour old. The horizon was still faintly lighter than the rest of the sky, but even that was rapidly disappearing. The moon had not yet risen, either.
Mu waited at the entrance to Aries, watching the darkness engulf the Sanctuary. Not for the first time that night, a wave of goosebumps rose, unbidden, on his arms and across his back. Far below, he could see the frantic movement of torch-bearers as they hustled around the small community after one thing or another. If any of them had even a fraction of the sense of foreboding that had moved from a pressure in his head to a presence that nearly choked the Gold Saint of Aries, then it was no surprise that they seemed on the verge of panic.
Mu stepped out from the shelter of the temple, and onto the landing before it. There was a faint and ambient Cosmo about, and one that, to him, seemed to be stained with evil. Something above caught his eye - A meteor shower, with streaks of light criss-crossing overhead, reminding him all-too-much of the Cosmo of a dying saint. It seemed an ill-omen.
“Stop right there.”
He had pinpointed the origin of the evil Cosmo. From the shadows in front of him, a figure coalesced and stepped forward, a few steps below him. Mu stood his ground.
“If you take another step, I will not be able to guarantee your life.”
The figure did not respond. Mu had the feeling that he was being stared at. He did not move as the figure shifted, then began to climb towards him.
“Mu...” the figure, certainly male by the voice, said, “You wouldn’t lay a hand on me.” Mu did not reply, but his expression turned quizzical. The figure was at the top step now, easily towering over the Saint of Aries. “Have you so soon forgotten my face?”
So close now, Mu could see where the faint light struck beneath the cloak, detailing structure and some detail. His eyes widened, and he only barely bit back a gasp. “You..”
“So eager to bear your horns now?” The figure said, taking another step forward. Mu took a step back to match. HE could see the figure’s face turn up in somewhat of a sneer as it began to walk past him again. “I thought so. Kneel, Aries, and we will spare you on our way to Athena.”
Mu’s face fell into a frown. “I will not.”
A breeze picked up, then, and Mu found his attention taken by a single flower petal that it had brought in. It was a rose petal. Mu inhaled sharply. A second followed. “My my~ ,” a lighter voice chimed. “You certainly have courage to oppose him~.” The voice was accompanied by a third and forth petal.
Both were things Mu recognized. “You...”
A second figure materialized from behind one of the pillars nearby. “I’m so glad you remembered!” It said, shifting so its face could be seen. A third figure appeared behind the second, chuckling and making no attempts to hide its identity. Mu’s frown deepened.
“Pisces and Cancer.”
His version of the pair, no less. There was too much malice in the eyes of Cancer for it to have been Manigold, and too much arrogance in the voice of Pisces for it to have been Albafica.
“How is this possible,” Mu asked, keeping his emotions under tight control. “You should be dead and buried.” At least, they had been in Shion’s time. There was a sinking feeling in the pit of Mu’s stomach then, and a half-remembered conversation with Shun began playing through his head. Immediately, he reached for Aldebaran’s Cosmo - a warning to be on guard. He didn’t wait for a reply before shifting his focus back to the trio of cloaked Saints around him.
“It’s easy,” Deathmask drawled. “We’ve been given a new life by Hades!”
Mu couldn’t hold his surprise then. “The lord of the Dead?” The pair before him chuckled as he shifted his stance slightly - sturdier and ready to react. “You become a tool of your enemy; you come here and threaten the life of our goddess...Where has your dignity gone?”
Instead of responding, Deathmask spat at his feet and ripped off his cloak to reveal something Mu found not so surprising, but incredibly offensive. The ex-Saint of Cancer stood, proudly in the Cancer cloth...if the cloth had been made of pure darkness - black and purples where gold should have shone. In the faint starlight, he looked truly sinister. Seconds later, Pisces Aphrodite followed suit, revealing a similar replica of the Pisces cloth. Mu had to grit his teeth.
“Those cloths - “
“These are no cloths!” said Deathmask. “These are from the world of the dead! Surplices! They’re proof that we are the loyal warriors of Hades. We are Spectres! Now get out of the way, Mu! There’s nothing more to be said!”
Mu widened his stance and spread his arms in response.
“Do you plan on opposing us?” asked Aphrodite. “And you were always thought of as wise...”
“Did you think I would let you pass?”
Deathmask tensed to strike. “Then I’ll get past you with force!”
It was actually Aphrodite who moved first, just a small twitch backwards, but enough for Mu to see. Aries back flipped up a few steps, landing seconds before either Cancer or Pisces reached him, and spread his arms once again, the air before him growing shimmery and translucent. He could see that Deathmask had charged an attack, a killing force already on the tips of his fingers, but he struck the Crystal Wall, and the energy rebound threw him several yards away, into a nearby pillar. The force of his landing nearly knocked it over. Deathmask landed on his face.
“H-he turned it back!”
Aphrodite had stopped about a metre short of the wall, though he seemed poised to attack at any second. Mu stood still. Deathmask pulled himself up, and looked ready to attack again, but Aphrodite raised an arm to stop him. In his hand was a single red rose.
“Wait, Deathmask... I will not be stopped by this technique...” A wind picked up, and hundreds upon thousands of black rose petals came with it this time. Aphrodite smiled, “Now, my black roses, shred him to pieces...”
The petals formed together to make flowers, and the black roses threw themselves against the wall. Most flew apart on impact. A stray few were again reflected back, striking Aphrodite all over, and throwing him back even farther than Deathmask had gone.
Mu stood still. “Do you understand now?” He said quietly as Aphrodite recovered. “Destroying this Crystal Wall is impossible. You may as well strike at your own reflection. No matter how you may attack, you’ll only harm yourself.”
Now the original figure, still shrouded, moved to stand in front of Mu. “Enough. Those two are under my command. To attack them is to attack me. Erase the wall.”
Mu remained silent and defiant. The wall shimmered.
The figure’s tone grew impatient. “Erase it, or I will erase it for you.” An unearthly, bruise-coloured glow rose from the figure, then, and Mu could feel the pressure of the other’s Cosmo pushing against the wall. It was a gentle push at first, but the pressure rose and rose, and the air, suddenly, seemed to shatter. Mu inhaled sharply as the shards of the Crystal Wall rained down, dissipating upon contact with the ground.
There was the sound of someone staggering forward, then. Mu looked up to see Deathmask, on his feet but with a precarious sway to his step, Aphrodite pulling himself up not far behind. The figure also looked over his shoulder at the Cancer and Pisces Saints. “Go,” he ordered, “Athena sleeps in the Holy Father’s palace. Fetch her head.”
Deathmask sneered. “We’ve walked this path our whole lives. It holds no secrets to us! Reaching the top won’t be a problem.”
Mu began to shift his stance, preparing for another wave of attacks. Without looking at him, the cloaked figure said “Don’t move, Mu. Baring your fist against those two is like baring your fist against me. I don’t think you’re foolish enough to do that, are you?”
Mu opened his mouth to respond, but movement from Deathmask caught his attention. Before he could brace himself, the Saint of Cancer lept into the air, coming down mere inches from where Mu stood, and with a loud yell of “MOVE IT!” had rammed his fist into the Aries Saint’s solarplexus. The Cloth absorbed much of the blow, and so it didn’t faze him much. Mu stood back up and faced his attacker.
“I will defend this temple from intrusion with my life. That is my duty. Regardless of the attacker, I will not let you pass.”
Deathmask growled in frustration and impatience. “Well since you seem to want it so much, I’ll just have to kill you!” He launched into a fury of blows to the chest and abdomen, and though the Aries cloth did its job well, every blow seemed to have just a little more impact than the last, and Mu found he needed to take a step back, a sharp exhale the only telling sign of any injury. By now, Aphrodite had moved to flank him.
The cloaked figure seemed annoyed. “Deathmask, Aphrodite, hurry up. We don’t have time to waste. I will finish with Mu. ”
The pair nodded, turning to run past Mu, who didn’t move right away. They hadn’t gone more than two steps before Mu jumped, propelling himself backwards in a flip and landing just inside the threshold of his temple. Both hands were filled with Cosmo, and caught the pair as they tried to pass. The Cosmo exploded, sending Aphrodite and Deathmask both flying. The cloaked figure sighed. “You’d still oppose me?”
Mu fixed him with a look, an angry Cosmo beginning to build around him. “As I’ve told you, I will protect this temple with my life. Your punishment for disobedience may be death, but this is not something I will forgive. Aphrodite. Deathmask. I will send you back to Hell with my own hands! You were once proud Saints of Athena, but you side against her and threaten her life. I will not let such filth taint the grounds of my temple any longer. ” His Cosmo was boiling now, rolling around him like a wildfire. He widened his stance and slowly raised his arms. “I will put an end to you myself!”
He saw a flash of fear in Deathmasks eyes as the latter charged an attack of his own, and he vaguely registered Aphrodite let fly another rose, but his attention, for a split second, shifted to the cloaked man, who had taken a step back.
“GET AWAY!” He yelled, but it was already too late.
“Return to the hell from whence you came!” Both Deathmask’s attack and Aphrodite’s rose burned away before they struck true. Mu let his Cosmo fly with a killing intent, feeling it wrap around its targets, and pulling them apart atom by tiny atom. They’d reappear later wherever Mu wished them too. For now, he wasn’t lying. The Starlight Extinction would lead them to the world of the Dead.
The figure said nothing as the dust and smoke settled, but chuckled when Mu stepped forward, out of his temple again. “I had wondered what would happen when the sweet little sheep I knew finally revealed his horns.”
“You lost any right you had to call me such a name years ago.”
“Perhaps I did.”
“And now only you remain.”
“You’re foolish to think the battle is over yet.”
“Of course not. Hades leads an army of-“
“I don’t mean the spectres.”
Mu had to force away the pang of fear he felt at that, but he suspected the other knew anyways. “What do you mean?”
“We three are not the only ones who have come for Athena’s head...”
Mu’s eyes widened as he felt two more Cosmos come to the fore, and two more figures unmolded from the shadows; one behind the first, and the other off to his left. Mu took a step back as he recognized them, his face shifting into one of both disgust and horror. “Even you...Even you have come to kill her?”
The first of the new figures stepped in front of the original, tearing away his cloak without reservation, revealing a dark replica of the Capricorn cloth. “Shura...”Mu muttered. The Capricorn saint looked up at him sharply. From the left, Mu felt the sting of cold, vapour in the air freezing before his very eyes. With a start, he realized that the ground, too, was frozen. When he looked back up, he saw Aquarius Camus staring back. Mu felt...something...at that. The last time he’d really seen Camus was on the Astral Plane, shortly before Shion had first appeared. Regardless, the Ex-Saint of Aquarius regarded him with the same cold look that Shura had on. “Camus...”
And now the original figure moved to shed his cloak. Mu balled his hands into white-knuckled fists. He had known, but tried not to acknowledge, the identity of this Saint-come-Spectre. The cloak dissolved as it hit the ground and Mu’s mouth went dry. “Saga.”
For the first time, Mu became aware of what a bad position he was in. Aphrodite and Deathmask were goons. These three were a real threat. Shura stepped forward, his right arm slowly rising. “Move from there, Mu. If you don’t, I’ll have to kill you.”
Mu watched him carefully. Shura’s Excalibur technique was both incredibly fast and extremely deadly. The Capricorn gave no further warning, but a slight tense in his arms and legs was the only sign Mu needed to see. Shura charged forward, his arm braced to kill, but all he struck was Mu’s after-image. The Saint of Aries reappeared a few feet away, unscathed, though they both seemed to notice a few stray hairs that did not escape Shura’s blow slowly fall to the ground.
Shura stood back up with a smirk. “Teleportation, huh? Next time you won’t be so lucky -“
He was cut off by Camus’ arm. “Shura. Don’t shed his blood uselessly. Let me...”
Mu noticed the icy blue energy that was gathering in Camus’ hand - the Diamond Dust attack. Mu tried to teleport again, but at this range it was too late. He felt frost against his nose, and then the impact of the blow sending him careening into the pillar behind him. The force of both impacts was enough to wind him, and Mu found himself face first against the floor before he could really register any pain.
There was a second of silence before Mu picked himself up. “Do what you will,” he said as he rose from kneeling to standing, “but I will not let you through.” Mu’s entire body was beginning to scream with pain by now, and he was finding it hard to keep his balance as he again descended towards the landing.
Shura seemed mildly surprised. “You’d still fight, wounded as you are?”
“Injuries will not absolve me of my duty...”
“I had hoped to get through without a fight...” Came the booming voice of Saga, who had been silent throughout the exchange, “But it seems his stubbornness has only grown. We’ll have to kill him. ”
Mu nearly growled. “You really have sold your souls.”
“No,” replied Gemini. “We simply understand the path that we must walk.”
“And so betraying Athena is what a Gold Saint should do!?”
“Exactly.”
Mu felt the pains in his body fly away as anger once again made itself very present in his mind, and Cosmo worked its way into his hand “I’m disappointed in you,” He said, before angrily throwing the blow towards Saga.
The tall man stepped to the side, extending his own hand. He easily caught the energy, throwing it to the side. “Please. Don’t you think I can display the same power?” He paused there, then smirked ever so slightly “You’ve overestimated yourself, haven’t you, Mu?”
“What--!”
“You should know your own weakness, Mu!” With that, Saga let fly a blast of Cosmo. Mu avoided it easily, teleporting into the air, but was surprised when He found Camus halfway up to meet him.
“Too slow!” exclaimed Aquarius as he landed a punch to the gut. Mu cringed, but managed to teleport away, landing in a crouch. He looked up just in time to see Shura almost on top of him.
“Dodge this!” He yelled as his fist connected with Mu’s jaw in an uppercut that sent the Saint of Aries flying.
Mu landed face first again, and found it extremely difficult to move. He was vaguely aware of many things, then, as he tried valiantly to push himself back up. Saga was saying something, but it sounded muddled to his ears. He could feel Aldebaran’s Cosmo flaring - He too was in battle, which meant that the three before him were not the only ones in the Sanctuary. He could feel more than hear the trio moving closer to each other, and blearily opened his eyes to look at them. As he locked eyes with each one in turn, he became aware of something else entirely.
They were sad. And not only in the sense that they were trying to kill a former comrade, but truly mournful because of something. In a poetic sense, it felt as though their very hearts and souls were crying.
Mu finally staggered to his feet as he realized this, and while none of the three had moved while he rose, both Shura and Camus moved to flank him now. Mu bit the inside of his lip. This situation was growing worse by the second. Regardless of how they felt, feelings would not forgive actions. Saga stepped back, apparently leaving the other two to deal with Mu the way he had left Pisces and Cancer to deal with him.
“Hurry up,” the Gemini said, frustration lacing his voice, “Whatever happens, we only have 12 hours. If we fail, you know the consequences.”
Mu could see the others’ eyes flick towards Saga, then back to him, and sensed a silent acknowledgement pass between them. That was all the warning the Saint of Aries got before both Capricorn and Aquarius leapt at him. Mu teleported just far enough away to avoid the impact of both blows, and immediately had to duck under Shura’s follow up.
Movements became automatic then, a series of actions and reactions with the sole intent of survival. Mu found himself able to strike an odd sort of balance - Shura’s actions were quick and deadly, demanding a lot of attention to avoid and counter, whereas Camus’ were significantly slower although no less deadly, but forgiving enough to allow Mu to focus on Shura. The pair worked with an amazing sort of cohesion, with Shura forcing the reactions and Camus trying to land haymakers based on the reactions. It may have been seconds of this, or it may have been minutes. Either way, it felt like hours, before something caught Mu’s eye; Saga was not where he’d been a second ago. Mu realized his mistake too late, as he felt a blast of Cosmo pile into his back with enough force that he couldn’t recover in time to dodge the second or third, nor Shura’s fists ploughing into his gut, then his face.
The Saint of Aries landed with a rather graceless thud and did not rise.