The stars were disappearing from the night sky. One by one. Like someone was plucking them away with their fingers and tossing them aside. ——He noticed it at 2 AM. --- Tokyo, Minato Ward. The medical office of the Graad Foundation headquarters. First, he saw the ceiling. White. Square. Empty. Seiya stared at it blankly for a few seconds. For a moment, he didn't know where he was. Then his entire body suddenly screamed in pain, and he thought, "Oh, right." I'm in a hospital bed. He tried to sit up. The moment he put force into his arm with a grunt, a sensation of bone grinding shot through him. "……" A voiceless sound escaped his lips. When he glanced at the shelf beside the bed, a battered Pegasus Cloth lay there. Cracks ran across it everywhere, and it was covered in scars that seemed to have etched the intensity of the Poseidon Sea Battle directly into its surface. Right beside it, a single medical chart lay carelessly placed. Seiya picked it up. Rib fractures: 11 locations. Right arm: compound fracture. Cosmo remaining——under 5%. "……No way." He said it out loud without thinking. He looked at his right hand. Bandages were wrapped around it in layers. An IV needle was stuck in the back of his hand. He tried to make a fist. A dull pain came, and he gritted his teeth. Just bending it slightly sent a throbbing ache spreading from the inside. (Can I burn my Cosmo?) Cosmo——the source of a Saint's power. The spiritual energy born from burning atoms within the body. It's what makes a Saint a Saint. Only when this Cosmo is channeled through a trained body and technique can one truly fight. Seiya tried to burn just a tiny bit, enough to scatter sparks. ——A sensation like his insides were being roasted shot up from his lower abdomen to his chest all at once. "……!" He hurriedly stopped. Cold sweat trickled down his neck. Under 5%. It's just a number on paper, but when you feel it in your body, it's not funny. He was basically empty. If he tried to ignite it, it felt like the whole container would explode. (Can't help it. I was fighting at the bottom of the sea just a few weeks ago.) A few weeks ago——the Poseidon Sea Battle. The sea god Poseidon tried to sink the entire surface world into the ocean, and Seiya and the others stormed the underwater temple to stop him. Everyone came back in pieces. Not a single person returned unscathed. And that night, Saori gathered everyone and said it. "You don't have to fight anymore." Those words still lingered in his ears. Her voice had been gentle. Her eyes were tired. But there was a clear will behind them. (That was her way of being considerate, I guess.) He understood. Everyone was in tatters. Even the Gold Saints weren't exceptions. After a battle like that, no one could immediately give new orders. Saori had thought about them in her own way. But——. Seiya turned toward the window. --- The night sky. Tokyo's nights are too bright; you can barely see any stars. High-rise buildings with neon, streetlights, things like that illuminate the sky, and the starlight gets drowned out. So at first, he'd only thought, "It's kind of dark." But it was different. The neon was shining. The streetlights were glowing. The building windows had light. And yet——the sky was dark. One. Then another. Stars that should have been visible were disappearing. (This is……) A Saint could sense it. Even with Cosmo at 5%, this was unmistakable. Something heavy, pitch-black, and cold. Thanatos Wave——the death energy that Hades commands. Hades, the god who rules the underworld. The power he wielded had the opposite nature of a Saint's Cosmo, and just touching it would freeze Cosmo solid. It swallowed starlight and erased all signs of life. That was slowly seeping into Tokyo's atmosphere. Seiya placed his hand against the window glass. Looking up at the night sky through the glass. Toward the direction of Greece——his head didn't know the direction, but somehow his senses seemed to understand. Something was moving over there. (He's coming. Hades' army is coming.) Even with Cosmo nearly at zero, he could sense this malice clearly. If anything, this heaviness was different from any enemy he'd felt before. Different from Poseidon's power. A pressure that came from something more fundamental——the boundary between life and death itself. Another star disappeared outside the window. --- While sensing that pressure, Seiya's consciousness was slowly pulled into the past. A dark room. A small window. A memory from childhood. A four-and-a-half-mat room in an orphanage. Curled up alone on a narrow bed with only one blanket. No parents. No companions. No adults to take him anywhere. Just night coming, then morning, then night again. In that endless cycle, the young Seiya had always gazed at the sky. Beyond the window, the stars shone properly. The orphanage was in the countryside, so the sky wasn't polluted by neon like in Tokyo. That's why he could see so many. They seemed close enough to touch. Back then, Seiya had simply thought it. I want to become someone who can protect others. No one ordered it. No one told him to become strong. The feeling just overflowed from within him. To become someone who could stand beside others and keep them from being hurt. ——The memory unraveled, and reality returned. The medical office ceiling. White walls. The sound of the IV drip. His hands were trembling. Not from the fractures. From something else. But there was no hesitation. (If I don't move, who will?) --- Alright, let me get up. Slowly raising his upper body, moving his legs to the edge of the bed—— Crash! His foot caught the IV stand. Metal struck the floor with a loud clang that echoed through the quiet medical office. "Sh……!" Seiya hurriedly covered his mouth and listened to the hallway. Footsteps. If a nurse on rounds came, it was over. He'd be pushed back onto the bed and told to "rest," and that would be that. ……No footsteps came. Ten seconds. Twenty seconds. Still quiet. (Lucky. They must be on a different floor.) He slowly exhaled. Cold sweat trickled down his back. "Alright……" A quiet fist pump. Doing a fist pump with a fractured arm hurt normally, but he didn't care. Dragging his feet, he quietly opened the medical office door. --- The hallway was dimly lit. The Foundation headquarters at night had few people. Graad Foundation——a massive organization run by the Kido family that publicly does charity work, but secretly supports the Saints. The headquarters is in a mansion in Minato Ward, Tokyo, with five floors above ground and three below. The medical office where Seiya was staying is on the first basement level, "Medica Core"——medical facilities exclusive to Saints, with equipment you'd never find in a normal hospital. Devices that can simultaneously diagnose the number of fractures and Cosmo damage to internal organs. He got in the elevator and headed to basement level 3. His finger trembled as he pressed the button. From the fracture. Probably from the fracture. Not from any other reason. The doors opened. Basement level 3 housed communications equipment. There was a dedicated line to the Sanctuary——the hidden headquarters of the Saints in the mountains of Greece——and emergency communications came through here. This place was like an antenna base for the organization that commanded all 88 Saints scattered across the world. He opened the communications room door. No one was there. The operator's chair had a half-read book and a half-drunk coffee on it. They must have gone to take a nap. He felt relieved, but also thought, "Is the Foundation's security really okay?" but that wasn't important right now. The terminal screen glowed pale blue. Red letters flashed: EMERGENCY · TOP SECRET. Seiya approached the screen. --- 【EMERGENCY COMMUNICATION · TOP SECRET】 Seal at Yomotsu Hirasaka (600m underground, Sanctuary) confirmed destroyed. 108 Specters confirmed to have emerged. Infiltration into Sanctuary interior has begun. Only 3 Gold Saints currently available for response. Damage expanding. ——Seiya's hand gripped the terminal. Yomotsu Hirasaka. The entrance to the underworld, 600 meters beneath the Sanctuary. The hole sealed by the Pope's power. It was broken. Specters——warriors resurrected by infusing the souls of the dead with Hades' power. 108 of them. All of them were crawling up to the surface. What was terrifying was that they retained their memories from life. That meant former comrades could stand against you as enemies. With familiar faces, familiar voices, baring their fangs. 108. With only 3 Gold Saints available to respond, if all of them came pouring in——. The pale blue light of the screen illuminated Seiya's face. (If I wait for orders, someone will die.) Saori had said "you don't have to fight." But that was based on the assumption that Hades wouldn't move. Reality was moving. It had already started moving. His fingertips were cold. With so little Cosmo, his body temperature regulation wasn't working properly. But his eyes gleamed. --- He rushed out of the communications room and back to the medical office. He picked up the box on the shelf. The storage case for the Pegasus Cloth. When he opened it, the dull blue-bronze glow of the Cloth shone within. It had cracks all over. Some edges were chipped. But it was here. It was definitely here. A Cloth——the sacred armor worn by Saints. There were 88 types, each housing the power of a constellation. Not just armor. It had its own will and could only be equipped by those it acknowledged. It sounds strange, but it's true. He'd seen people try and get rejected by their Cloth. The Pegasus Cloth was his. He picked up the first piece. The left arm armor. The moment he tried to put it on, pressure on the fractured area made a sound escape his lips. Tears welled up. He gritted his teeth. But his hands didn't stop. Click, it locked into place. The next piece. Pain again. Gritting teeth again. Continuing anyway. By the time he'd finished putting on all the pieces, blood was seeping from under the bandages. His fractured arm was staining the inside of the Cloth red. In that moment——. The Cloth glowed faintly. A warm-colored light. Just for an instant. Seiya didn't notice. His head was half gone from the pain, and he was too rushed to get out to slowly admire the Cloth. But the Cloth had definitely glowed. ——Like it was remembering something. --- He pushed open the emergency exit of the Foundation headquarters. The deep night air of Tokyo rushed in all at once. Slightly humid night breeze. The sound of sirens in the distance. Building lights reflected off the sky. He went outside and didn't look back. His destination was Greece. The Sanctuary. And 600 meters beneath the Sanctuary——Yomotsu Hirasaka. He hadn't told anyone. Not Saori. Not his comrades. No orders. No permission. Nothing. Just because he wanted to move, he was moving. That was all. (If I don't go, who will?) His feet didn't stop. Cradling his fractured arm, wearing the battered Pegasus Cloth, he walked alone through the deep night of Tokyo. Looking up at the sky, another star disappeared. But to Seiya's eyes, that darkness was like lighting a fire. ——I won't let them disappear. I won't let them. Whether he had the strength for it now, honestly, he didn't know. Under 5% Cosmo, 11 fractures. The numbers lined up saying it was impossible no matter how you looked at it. But the young Seiya who wanted to become someone who could protect others——that wasn't an order. His heart had cried out for it. Now, it was the same. Gazing toward the far end of the sky that stretched to Greece, beyond Tokyo's night, Seiya walked on alone.