Into the Abyss
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Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
9
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Currently Reading:
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Category:
+S to Z › Saint Seiya
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
9
Views:
6,423
Reviews:
14
Recommended:
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.
Into the Abyss - Scene 3 - The Parade of Shame.
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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!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Into The Abyss – Scene III] – The Parade of Shame.
“Uhhhmm….yes. Lower, all the way down.” The specter’s voice was firm and commanding, despite the low tone and a few grunts here and there.
The pleasure slave slid down the length of the man’s shaft, giving special attention to the base before running his tongue back up in a nearly expert manner. He shot a quick glance to the face of his customer, trying to assess whether his ministrations were pleasing him or not, but the judge had his eyes closed and paid no attention to the silent inquiry.
In Rhadamanthys’ mind, there was a blue haired man on his knees in front of him, who lowered his face over the judge’s manhood once again, bobbing his head softly after engulfing most of the member into a warm mouth. The thought sent a river of fire running through the specter's pelvic area.
A river of fire that vanished as quickly as it appeared, when the wrong voice asked him - “Sir? What should I do now?”
All of his imaginary delight crumbling around him, Rhadamanthys pushed the younger man off and got up, frustrated once again. He quickly and silently slid his clothes back on and dropped some bills on the table, completely ignoring the apologies and frightened questions of the inexperienced pleasure slave.
It didn’t work, once again.
Hurrying past a surprised Aiakos -- who had a raven-haired beautiful woman in one arm and a shy-looking boy in the other, and tried to ask him what was wrong and why he was leaving so fast -- the Wyvern specter left the establishment that he would occasionally frequent with his colleagues.
The underworld might be a place for atoning and suffering, but that’s only for the dead. For the living, it can be the most comfortable of the places, or…the very worst pit of a living hell. It just depends on which side of the coin you are standing.
High rank specter; you have almost nothing to fear or worry about. The law and rules are yours, and all you must do is ensure that it all runs smoothly. The rest of the time is yours to enjoy as you please. Riches and power are endless.
Wretched creatures lost between one world and another, living trapped in the world of the dead, spirits of a rank too low, specters that couldn’t earn one of the 108 surplices or others; Hell deserves well its name.
There’s nothing that you can do, other than pray for destiny not to give you an even worse end. Or pray for it to be quick, for you are completely powerless to do anything else. In a world where you cannot die nor live, if such were the will of the judges, what better can you expect?
Rushing down the stairs outside the building, the judge pulled up the collar of his coat, and hurried to cross the street. His breath formed little clouds in the cold air, and dirty snow halfway melted into mud made the streets vaguely uninviting for someone wearing cleanly polished dress-shoes. He decided to call a carriage to take him back to his mansion. His own had returned home from the tribunal, as he accompanied Aiakos to the red-light district.
Comfortably installed in the cab, Rhadamanthys let his mind wander and muse about the vague resemblance that some of those streets had with ones of the human world, particularly those of the ’old world’, european streets. They often reminded him of England.
Not that the specter had very precise memories of his previous life, before his true conscience as a warrior of Hades had awakened. But shreds of memories, images, sensations and sounds never go away; and the familiar feelings made him feel home, in a strange way.
It was so strange to be back. After the end of the holy war, Athena’s spirit left as the core of Elision collapsed over the remains of the temple where Hades originally kept his human body. And then, after a short period of utter chaos, all the specters who died in the war were brought back to life. Or so, that’s the main lines of what he was told. They didn’t know exactly how it all worked themselves. Specters only know as much as they’re told, and there was no more Pandora to inform them of anything. Inform them of Hades’ will. Rhadamanthys chuckled, bitter. To think that Hades wasn’t among them until the very end, and that the one they had seen for years was but an illusion. He didn’t quite know what to make of it, especially after he heard things about Hypnos and Tanathos, who were most likely the ones directly handing out orders to Pandora until their god was fully free of the seal of Athena.
And yet, he couldn’t bring himself to hate Pandora for having lied to them for so long. He didn’t know for sure whether it was the respect he felt for her for so long that didn’t die all the way despite the revelations, or if it was something else... pity. Yes, pity, perhaps. He pitied her, for she was just another puppet in the hands of Hypnos and Tanathos. No better than they were themselves, unsure even of what had brought them back to life.
Perhaps it was nature’s ‘reset button’, he thought with another chuckle. As a matter of fact, without anyone to rule over the underworld, the earth would quickly reach a total chaos state. Although the gods controlling sleep and death could perform their task unconsciously even while sealed until the next holy war, the Underworld couldn’t function without the judges to sentence the dead and send them off to their destinations, without specters to enforce the punishments or even without the lowest of their servants, all part of a complex system. Death itself, the whole wheel of reincarnations after time spent in the underworld to atone for the sins of the previous life, nothing worked without all of them to ensure that everything was going along well.
The old books had records of the same thing having happened several times before, after previous wars, and even though they didn’t know exactly how the whole group resurrection thing worked, it wasn’t a surprise for them. They knew what they had to do now, re-organizing everything and waiting.
But it also meant that they were stuck there for a good hundred or so of years, perhaps two hundred, until the next war started and their spirits could freely leave the limits of the underworld. Until then, their god would be sealed, as well as Hypnos and Tanathos, and his power over them would be too weak to allow them to wander freely between both worlds, at least easily. Hopefully the seal would wear with time, but it was always a slow and long process.
The houses and buildings passed by, a monotonous constant thing as the cab slid slowly by the mansions of the secluded areas of the Underworld, a haven where the dead were most usually not allowed unless under special surveillance. Wandering spirits and others were kept off limits, and each of those areas was almost as protected as the great Law Houses, on the outskirts of each of the great prisons, the main zones of the first layer of the Underworld.
As much as he tried to keep his mind off of his problem, Rhadamanthys’ thoughts always strayed back to it. He grunted and straightened himself on the seat, shrugging away the mental image of blue hair spilled over his tights, or pale skin exposed bare for him to touch.
Occasional homoerotic fantasies were not new for him, and although at first he was a bit embarrassed to admit them, a few trips to the bordello had proved very effective in fulfilling his needs. Most often, he’d stick with the newest arrivals of girls, but the house was always ready to provide men too, which proved to be very handy when these fantasies resurfaced.
But it no longer had any effect. For reasons he couldn’t quite understand –or accept – ever since he met Kanon, the gold saint became more and more present in Rhadamanthys’ mind, and it was becoming particularly constant whenever the specter would have a sexual urge. Not only it was irritating to say the least, but this sudden obsession for an enemy was all the more difficult to explain or understand. Granted, Kanon was extremely beautiful, and something about his arrogant behavior made Rhadamanthys itch to blur that smile off his face, perhaps with a few punches… But although dominance and even borderline bondage fantasies weren’t new to the specter, the constant presence of Kanon in them was making it more and more difficult for him to get release by the usual means.
He wondered what happened to the gold saint, and where he was now. He knew that he survived the fall; most likely only thanks to the surplice that Rhadamanthys had gotten back from the hospital after filling some bogus paperwork claiming that the man inside it wasn’t an enemy, and a few more lies to close the case. That he felt like covering up his former enemy’s tracks had also surprised him, but then again, he was almost getting used to behaving strangely when it concerned Kanon.
And he still wasn’t sure why the gold saint did what he did. Trying to commit suicide with the judge rather than just killing him. Without the armor, he stood little to no chance against the specter, but with it, it was a whole different story especially considering the saints' ability to deflect techniques they’ve seen before. Kanon could perfectly have waited a few more minutes before sending the armor back to his brother, and he’d have defeated Rhadamanthys for sure.
The specter knew well that his defeat was the most likely -- if not the only possible -- outcome for their battle, and had gone after Kanon all the same. If this was his destiny, then there was nothing he could do. His honor as a warrior made that he had to follow with it to the end.
If Kanon was the strongest opponent he ever had, and if he was to die fighting him, then so be it. Accepting help from Minos and Aiakos was something he couldn’t stand, and he almost felt grateful to the Phoenix for interrupting the fight before Minos could kill Kanon.
When they faced each other for the last time, Rhadamanthys was expecting nothing short of the hardest battle of his life, most likely followed by death on the battlefield. He was ready for it, and surprisingly, almost felt angry at Kanon for sacrificing his own life in such an unnecessary way.
He wasn’t used to being unable to understand someone’s motivations. As a judge and simply as a person, Rhadamanthys was used to being in control, and to seizing every side of a situation or a soul before reaching a conclusion. But Kanon was surrounded with mysteries, and after having been in contact with him, Rhadamanthys not only couldn’t understand the saint’s behavior, but even his own was starting to be incomprehensible.
He sighed, annoyed with the outcome of the past days since he came back to life.
Many parts of the underworld mirrored the human world’s seasons as well as many other aspects, perhaps as a way to avoid unsettling too much some of its inhabitants. When an illusory falling star shot across what replaced the sky for them, Rhadamanthys couldn’t help but wonder if Kanon saw that same star, wherever he was, if he survived after having left the hospital.
He’d know soon enough, since all the dead turned up sooner or later in the lines of the tribunal. As long as he didn’t see Kanon there, he knew the gold saint was still alive, somehow.
*** * ***
The cloaked man hurried his steps along the rocky wall, a strange feeling sending a shudder through his body, as if someone had just passed by him although he was alone in the abandoned path. A falling star shot across the sky. In some countries, people believe that it means someone is thinking of you.
He shrugged and pulled the blanket closer around his body. He didn’t have time for creepy feelings, and it might just be his imagination anyway, or the drugs that he had pumped himself full of to be able to keep walking despite the pain and tiredness. The box was more than halfway empty now, and no more than three days had passed since he left the hospital. Three or four. Maybe five. He wasn’t quite sure. It was hard to tell day from night in some areas of the Underworld, and he wasn’t very good at measuring the right doses for the painkillers, which didn’t help him to keep a good track of reality.
Traveling at human speed sure took long. He couldn’t use his cosmo because of the danger of attracting the specters' attention, and he wasn’t in any condition to run anyway. He had been using mostly the mountain passes and other abandoned paths. Traveling on the open road only by night, and very carefully, always ready to rush and throw himself behind the closest rock formation should he hear any sound. Most often it was unnecessary, but a few times he was very close to be found. And sometimes the dull pain of his wounds was just so bad that it took him a considerable effort to remain silent, when he fell or had to overexert himself to run and hide on time. The rest of the time it was mostly fine, but fighting was still out of the picture. The wounds themselves weren’t as bad as before, by far, but his condition wasn’t yet that of a convalescent man, and the hunger was driving him crazy. The IV bag he took with him only lasted for a day or so, and he had nothing to quench his thirst either.
As a child, he had heard many times the stories from the mythological times, and knew well that any living man who ate food from the Underworld would be prisoner there for all eternity. He didn’t know if it applied also to water, but he didn’t dare trying. It was irrational, because truth to be said, he wasn’t even sure how long more he was going to live, but as long as he had something to do, he couldn’t afford taking risks like those.
He was almost there, he thought. The sky seemed red, but he wasn’t sure if it was real or just his blurry eyes. Things didn’t always look normal in that world anyway.
His knees felt too weak to go on, and he decided to take a break, sitting down on a rocky protuberance of the wall. The coolness of the stone felt good on his burning back, but on same time he shuddered and pulled the blanket closer around himself once again. Fever, perhaps. With the blood loss and all the strain lately, it wouldn’t be surprising. Sleep would have to wait for a place where he could hide better, it was too open here. The moments when he slept were short and far apart, for even a secluded hole in the mountainside could turn out to be a dangerous place. They were combing the wilderness in search for wandering souls and the dead who didn’t get judged during the war. During the end of the invasion and the days that followed Athena’s victory, the Underworld was left to be and chaos had ensued. They were now trying to regroup and gather all the wanderers.
In this world, the recently deceased and the living could look strikingly similar, and it would sometimes take a specter of higher rank to be able to tell the difference. Either way, they might be also capturing the occasional living wanderers that were trapped in this world despite not having an exact place in that highly organized society. Kanon would rather not find out the hard way, and so he just did all he could to stay out of the way of the search parties.
He pinched the inside of his arm by fear of falling asleep. The tiredness, the hunger, the pain, they were all wearing him down faster and faster.
But he was almost there, at the camp, and that was what mattered.
He found himself smiling, the thought that the worst was behind cheering him up a little, against all odds.
He wasn’t the only one hiding from the specters, or simply avoiding the main roads. He had met other people, in the past days, people that knew better what had happened lately, and who could fill him up with the information that he lacked because of his two weeks or so in the hospital. He knew that the specters came back to life, and that they were putting together all the dead, to be judged by order of death or of importance of their crimes. He knew that they were being transported to camps where they would be sorted before going to the tribunals, as soon as everything would be back into the usual organization.
Not all the specters were busy searching for the dead or taking care of the rebuilding, though. Many of the lower ranked ones, as well as the immense amounts of people who didn’t quite have a rank, either failed specters or aides to the lowest ranks and such, didn’t mind intermingling with the poorer populations and the wanderers, often supplying them with information, food and other necessities. All had its price. And although Kanon didn’t have anything he could pay them with, he was always close enough to overhear things or to take as much information as he could from the wanderers willing to share. It made his travelling much slower, but it was well worth it.
And so, he knew which was the camp he had to head to.
As the area became closer and closer, though, he discovered that this information was far from being exclusive. Every low rank specter on that prison and the closest ones, perhaps even from the farthest prisons and from the spheres, wanted to get a look at the defeated – or so that’s what people were calling them -- gold saints.
And so did the wanderers, the aides, the servants, all the way down to the bums in the streets.
The crowd that gathered around the fences of the camp was so thick that you couldn’t even tell apart specters from men, poor wanderers or lost spirits all swarming together as an ocean that took the whole valley. It was a pretty impressive sight from the top of the hill that Kanon was now staggering down.
On one hand, such a gathering seemed like a suicidal idea, but on another, it was such a mess that it would have been impossible to encircle and capture a crowd that large. The sheer numbers of the mob gathered reassured Kanon into coming out of the shadows and mixing with them to get as close as possible to the fences.
He didn’t know when they’d be brought in exactly, but a sense of utter urgency during all the past days compelled him to get to the camp as fast as he possibly could.
Only after he had seen Saga, and ideally talked to him, he’d be able to be at peace and let go. Or try to figure out what he was supposed to do. He never thought he’d live to see the end of the war, as he had planned to die as soon as he wasn’t necessary to wear the armor anymore. Now that he was alive, he couldn’t help but feel that there must be a reason, or possibly one last thing for him to do, before he could finally be free, at last.
It might have been fate. Or it might have been that Kanon’s sense of urgency was accurate, and he made it on time. But right when his fingers gripped the metal fence, the convoy of specters that had been unloading the obsidian cages into the patio of the camp opened the main one and Kanon’s eyes caught a glimpse of blue hair that made his heart wrench in longing.
What he saw immediately afterwards would be remembered from that day on as the parade of shame.
*******
[To Be Continued]
[Next Scene : Agony Never Ends.]
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Sagakure, January 11th, 2006
Nota: "Aiakos" is the proper spelling.
The japanese spelling is based on the original greek one (it is often the case for greek mythology in Japan), and sadly tends to get deformed in the west because of translations of Saint Seiya getting it closer to the phonetical transcription of katakana than to the correct spelling. But there is a proper greek spelling (that is also the proper japanese spelling), and so I'll stick to it. :D
If I remember well, "Aeacus" is a latin term. As for Ayacos, Aiacos, Ayakos etc., unless they're correct in other languages than English, they're not correct spellings for his name.
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!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Into The Abyss – Scene III] – The Parade of Shame.
“Uhhhmm….yes. Lower, all the way down.” The specter’s voice was firm and commanding, despite the low tone and a few grunts here and there.
The pleasure slave slid down the length of the man’s shaft, giving special attention to the base before running his tongue back up in a nearly expert manner. He shot a quick glance to the face of his customer, trying to assess whether his ministrations were pleasing him or not, but the judge had his eyes closed and paid no attention to the silent inquiry.
In Rhadamanthys’ mind, there was a blue haired man on his knees in front of him, who lowered his face over the judge’s manhood once again, bobbing his head softly after engulfing most of the member into a warm mouth. The thought sent a river of fire running through the specter's pelvic area.
A river of fire that vanished as quickly as it appeared, when the wrong voice asked him - “Sir? What should I do now?”
All of his imaginary delight crumbling around him, Rhadamanthys pushed the younger man off and got up, frustrated once again. He quickly and silently slid his clothes back on and dropped some bills on the table, completely ignoring the apologies and frightened questions of the inexperienced pleasure slave.
It didn’t work, once again.
Hurrying past a surprised Aiakos -- who had a raven-haired beautiful woman in one arm and a shy-looking boy in the other, and tried to ask him what was wrong and why he was leaving so fast -- the Wyvern specter left the establishment that he would occasionally frequent with his colleagues.
The underworld might be a place for atoning and suffering, but that’s only for the dead. For the living, it can be the most comfortable of the places, or…the very worst pit of a living hell. It just depends on which side of the coin you are standing.
High rank specter; you have almost nothing to fear or worry about. The law and rules are yours, and all you must do is ensure that it all runs smoothly. The rest of the time is yours to enjoy as you please. Riches and power are endless.
Wretched creatures lost between one world and another, living trapped in the world of the dead, spirits of a rank too low, specters that couldn’t earn one of the 108 surplices or others; Hell deserves well its name.
There’s nothing that you can do, other than pray for destiny not to give you an even worse end. Or pray for it to be quick, for you are completely powerless to do anything else. In a world where you cannot die nor live, if such were the will of the judges, what better can you expect?
Rushing down the stairs outside the building, the judge pulled up the collar of his coat, and hurried to cross the street. His breath formed little clouds in the cold air, and dirty snow halfway melted into mud made the streets vaguely uninviting for someone wearing cleanly polished dress-shoes. He decided to call a carriage to take him back to his mansion. His own had returned home from the tribunal, as he accompanied Aiakos to the red-light district.
Comfortably installed in the cab, Rhadamanthys let his mind wander and muse about the vague resemblance that some of those streets had with ones of the human world, particularly those of the ’old world’, european streets. They often reminded him of England.
Not that the specter had very precise memories of his previous life, before his true conscience as a warrior of Hades had awakened. But shreds of memories, images, sensations and sounds never go away; and the familiar feelings made him feel home, in a strange way.
It was so strange to be back. After the end of the holy war, Athena’s spirit left as the core of Elision collapsed over the remains of the temple where Hades originally kept his human body. And then, after a short period of utter chaos, all the specters who died in the war were brought back to life. Or so, that’s the main lines of what he was told. They didn’t know exactly how it all worked themselves. Specters only know as much as they’re told, and there was no more Pandora to inform them of anything. Inform them of Hades’ will. Rhadamanthys chuckled, bitter. To think that Hades wasn’t among them until the very end, and that the one they had seen for years was but an illusion. He didn’t quite know what to make of it, especially after he heard things about Hypnos and Tanathos, who were most likely the ones directly handing out orders to Pandora until their god was fully free of the seal of Athena.
And yet, he couldn’t bring himself to hate Pandora for having lied to them for so long. He didn’t know for sure whether it was the respect he felt for her for so long that didn’t die all the way despite the revelations, or if it was something else... pity. Yes, pity, perhaps. He pitied her, for she was just another puppet in the hands of Hypnos and Tanathos. No better than they were themselves, unsure even of what had brought them back to life.
Perhaps it was nature’s ‘reset button’, he thought with another chuckle. As a matter of fact, without anyone to rule over the underworld, the earth would quickly reach a total chaos state. Although the gods controlling sleep and death could perform their task unconsciously even while sealed until the next holy war, the Underworld couldn’t function without the judges to sentence the dead and send them off to their destinations, without specters to enforce the punishments or even without the lowest of their servants, all part of a complex system. Death itself, the whole wheel of reincarnations after time spent in the underworld to atone for the sins of the previous life, nothing worked without all of them to ensure that everything was going along well.
The old books had records of the same thing having happened several times before, after previous wars, and even though they didn’t know exactly how the whole group resurrection thing worked, it wasn’t a surprise for them. They knew what they had to do now, re-organizing everything and waiting.
But it also meant that they were stuck there for a good hundred or so of years, perhaps two hundred, until the next war started and their spirits could freely leave the limits of the underworld. Until then, their god would be sealed, as well as Hypnos and Tanathos, and his power over them would be too weak to allow them to wander freely between both worlds, at least easily. Hopefully the seal would wear with time, but it was always a slow and long process.
The houses and buildings passed by, a monotonous constant thing as the cab slid slowly by the mansions of the secluded areas of the Underworld, a haven where the dead were most usually not allowed unless under special surveillance. Wandering spirits and others were kept off limits, and each of those areas was almost as protected as the great Law Houses, on the outskirts of each of the great prisons, the main zones of the first layer of the Underworld.
As much as he tried to keep his mind off of his problem, Rhadamanthys’ thoughts always strayed back to it. He grunted and straightened himself on the seat, shrugging away the mental image of blue hair spilled over his tights, or pale skin exposed bare for him to touch.
Occasional homoerotic fantasies were not new for him, and although at first he was a bit embarrassed to admit them, a few trips to the bordello had proved very effective in fulfilling his needs. Most often, he’d stick with the newest arrivals of girls, but the house was always ready to provide men too, which proved to be very handy when these fantasies resurfaced.
But it no longer had any effect. For reasons he couldn’t quite understand –or accept – ever since he met Kanon, the gold saint became more and more present in Rhadamanthys’ mind, and it was becoming particularly constant whenever the specter would have a sexual urge. Not only it was irritating to say the least, but this sudden obsession for an enemy was all the more difficult to explain or understand. Granted, Kanon was extremely beautiful, and something about his arrogant behavior made Rhadamanthys itch to blur that smile off his face, perhaps with a few punches… But although dominance and even borderline bondage fantasies weren’t new to the specter, the constant presence of Kanon in them was making it more and more difficult for him to get release by the usual means.
He wondered what happened to the gold saint, and where he was now. He knew that he survived the fall; most likely only thanks to the surplice that Rhadamanthys had gotten back from the hospital after filling some bogus paperwork claiming that the man inside it wasn’t an enemy, and a few more lies to close the case. That he felt like covering up his former enemy’s tracks had also surprised him, but then again, he was almost getting used to behaving strangely when it concerned Kanon.
And he still wasn’t sure why the gold saint did what he did. Trying to commit suicide with the judge rather than just killing him. Without the armor, he stood little to no chance against the specter, but with it, it was a whole different story especially considering the saints' ability to deflect techniques they’ve seen before. Kanon could perfectly have waited a few more minutes before sending the armor back to his brother, and he’d have defeated Rhadamanthys for sure.
The specter knew well that his defeat was the most likely -- if not the only possible -- outcome for their battle, and had gone after Kanon all the same. If this was his destiny, then there was nothing he could do. His honor as a warrior made that he had to follow with it to the end.
If Kanon was the strongest opponent he ever had, and if he was to die fighting him, then so be it. Accepting help from Minos and Aiakos was something he couldn’t stand, and he almost felt grateful to the Phoenix for interrupting the fight before Minos could kill Kanon.
When they faced each other for the last time, Rhadamanthys was expecting nothing short of the hardest battle of his life, most likely followed by death on the battlefield. He was ready for it, and surprisingly, almost felt angry at Kanon for sacrificing his own life in such an unnecessary way.
He wasn’t used to being unable to understand someone’s motivations. As a judge and simply as a person, Rhadamanthys was used to being in control, and to seizing every side of a situation or a soul before reaching a conclusion. But Kanon was surrounded with mysteries, and after having been in contact with him, Rhadamanthys not only couldn’t understand the saint’s behavior, but even his own was starting to be incomprehensible.
He sighed, annoyed with the outcome of the past days since he came back to life.
Many parts of the underworld mirrored the human world’s seasons as well as many other aspects, perhaps as a way to avoid unsettling too much some of its inhabitants. When an illusory falling star shot across what replaced the sky for them, Rhadamanthys couldn’t help but wonder if Kanon saw that same star, wherever he was, if he survived after having left the hospital.
He’d know soon enough, since all the dead turned up sooner or later in the lines of the tribunal. As long as he didn’t see Kanon there, he knew the gold saint was still alive, somehow.
*** * ***
The cloaked man hurried his steps along the rocky wall, a strange feeling sending a shudder through his body, as if someone had just passed by him although he was alone in the abandoned path. A falling star shot across the sky. In some countries, people believe that it means someone is thinking of you.
He shrugged and pulled the blanket closer around his body. He didn’t have time for creepy feelings, and it might just be his imagination anyway, or the drugs that he had pumped himself full of to be able to keep walking despite the pain and tiredness. The box was more than halfway empty now, and no more than three days had passed since he left the hospital. Three or four. Maybe five. He wasn’t quite sure. It was hard to tell day from night in some areas of the Underworld, and he wasn’t very good at measuring the right doses for the painkillers, which didn’t help him to keep a good track of reality.
Traveling at human speed sure took long. He couldn’t use his cosmo because of the danger of attracting the specters' attention, and he wasn’t in any condition to run anyway. He had been using mostly the mountain passes and other abandoned paths. Traveling on the open road only by night, and very carefully, always ready to rush and throw himself behind the closest rock formation should he hear any sound. Most often it was unnecessary, but a few times he was very close to be found. And sometimes the dull pain of his wounds was just so bad that it took him a considerable effort to remain silent, when he fell or had to overexert himself to run and hide on time. The rest of the time it was mostly fine, but fighting was still out of the picture. The wounds themselves weren’t as bad as before, by far, but his condition wasn’t yet that of a convalescent man, and the hunger was driving him crazy. The IV bag he took with him only lasted for a day or so, and he had nothing to quench his thirst either.
As a child, he had heard many times the stories from the mythological times, and knew well that any living man who ate food from the Underworld would be prisoner there for all eternity. He didn’t know if it applied also to water, but he didn’t dare trying. It was irrational, because truth to be said, he wasn’t even sure how long more he was going to live, but as long as he had something to do, he couldn’t afford taking risks like those.
He was almost there, he thought. The sky seemed red, but he wasn’t sure if it was real or just his blurry eyes. Things didn’t always look normal in that world anyway.
His knees felt too weak to go on, and he decided to take a break, sitting down on a rocky protuberance of the wall. The coolness of the stone felt good on his burning back, but on same time he shuddered and pulled the blanket closer around himself once again. Fever, perhaps. With the blood loss and all the strain lately, it wouldn’t be surprising. Sleep would have to wait for a place where he could hide better, it was too open here. The moments when he slept were short and far apart, for even a secluded hole in the mountainside could turn out to be a dangerous place. They were combing the wilderness in search for wandering souls and the dead who didn’t get judged during the war. During the end of the invasion and the days that followed Athena’s victory, the Underworld was left to be and chaos had ensued. They were now trying to regroup and gather all the wanderers.
In this world, the recently deceased and the living could look strikingly similar, and it would sometimes take a specter of higher rank to be able to tell the difference. Either way, they might be also capturing the occasional living wanderers that were trapped in this world despite not having an exact place in that highly organized society. Kanon would rather not find out the hard way, and so he just did all he could to stay out of the way of the search parties.
He pinched the inside of his arm by fear of falling asleep. The tiredness, the hunger, the pain, they were all wearing him down faster and faster.
But he was almost there, at the camp, and that was what mattered.
He found himself smiling, the thought that the worst was behind cheering him up a little, against all odds.
He wasn’t the only one hiding from the specters, or simply avoiding the main roads. He had met other people, in the past days, people that knew better what had happened lately, and who could fill him up with the information that he lacked because of his two weeks or so in the hospital. He knew that the specters came back to life, and that they were putting together all the dead, to be judged by order of death or of importance of their crimes. He knew that they were being transported to camps where they would be sorted before going to the tribunals, as soon as everything would be back into the usual organization.
Not all the specters were busy searching for the dead or taking care of the rebuilding, though. Many of the lower ranked ones, as well as the immense amounts of people who didn’t quite have a rank, either failed specters or aides to the lowest ranks and such, didn’t mind intermingling with the poorer populations and the wanderers, often supplying them with information, food and other necessities. All had its price. And although Kanon didn’t have anything he could pay them with, he was always close enough to overhear things or to take as much information as he could from the wanderers willing to share. It made his travelling much slower, but it was well worth it.
And so, he knew which was the camp he had to head to.
As the area became closer and closer, though, he discovered that this information was far from being exclusive. Every low rank specter on that prison and the closest ones, perhaps even from the farthest prisons and from the spheres, wanted to get a look at the defeated – or so that’s what people were calling them -- gold saints.
And so did the wanderers, the aides, the servants, all the way down to the bums in the streets.
The crowd that gathered around the fences of the camp was so thick that you couldn’t even tell apart specters from men, poor wanderers or lost spirits all swarming together as an ocean that took the whole valley. It was a pretty impressive sight from the top of the hill that Kanon was now staggering down.
On one hand, such a gathering seemed like a suicidal idea, but on another, it was such a mess that it would have been impossible to encircle and capture a crowd that large. The sheer numbers of the mob gathered reassured Kanon into coming out of the shadows and mixing with them to get as close as possible to the fences.
He didn’t know when they’d be brought in exactly, but a sense of utter urgency during all the past days compelled him to get to the camp as fast as he possibly could.
Only after he had seen Saga, and ideally talked to him, he’d be able to be at peace and let go. Or try to figure out what he was supposed to do. He never thought he’d live to see the end of the war, as he had planned to die as soon as he wasn’t necessary to wear the armor anymore. Now that he was alive, he couldn’t help but feel that there must be a reason, or possibly one last thing for him to do, before he could finally be free, at last.
It might have been fate. Or it might have been that Kanon’s sense of urgency was accurate, and he made it on time. But right when his fingers gripped the metal fence, the convoy of specters that had been unloading the obsidian cages into the patio of the camp opened the main one and Kanon’s eyes caught a glimpse of blue hair that made his heart wrench in longing.
What he saw immediately afterwards would be remembered from that day on as the parade of shame.
*******
[To Be Continued]
[Next Scene : Agony Never Ends.]
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Sagakure, January 11th, 2006
Nota: "Aiakos" is the proper spelling.
The japanese spelling is based on the original greek one (it is often the case for greek mythology in Japan), and sadly tends to get deformed in the west because of translations of Saint Seiya getting it closer to the phonetical transcription of katakana than to the correct spelling. But there is a proper greek spelling (that is also the proper japanese spelling), and so I'll stick to it. :D
If I remember well, "Aeacus" is a latin term. As for Ayacos, Aiacos, Ayakos etc., unless they're correct in other languages than English, they're not correct spellings for his name.