The Graad Foundation headquarters hallway was noisy from morning. Multiple footsteps had gathered on the first basement level—Medica Core, a floor lined with medical equipment exclusive to Saints. It was normally a quiet section, but not this morning. Kido Saori noticed it while walking down the hallway to receive the morning briefing. She could hear it faintly. Staff voices. A tone tinged with urgency. Her long purple hair swayed as Saori quickened her pace. The crest on her forehead glimmered faintly under the fluorescent lights of the hallway. Three staff members in white coats were clustered in front of the medical office. One turned around, saw Saori's face, and hurriedly stepped aside. "Lady Kido..." Saori pushed the door open. —The room was silent. The bed was empty. The sheets lay rumpled, bunched up at the edge. And then. Red stains. Two or three red marks, seeping across the middle of the sheets. The IV stand had been knocked over. On the shelf above, an empty storage case. The box that should have held the Pegasus Cloth sat with its lid open, completely empty inside. Saori entered the room and slowly approached the bed. She reached toward the stains. The moment she touched them, she knew they had long since dried. Blood from some time ago. It must have seeped from his fractured arm when he started moving. (Seiya...) She had felt it since last night. As the incarnation of Athena, Saori could sense the anomalies in the Holy Land with her body—the sudden shift in the quality and quantity of Thanatos waves. A dull heaviness had accumulated deep in her chest, waking her multiple times during the night. Something was pressing in from the Underworld. The seal on the Yomotsu Hirasaka was barely functioning anymore. By last night, she had already become certain of this. So. There was no need to think about where Seiya had gone. "...Lady Kido, what should we do about the emergency contact to the Holy Land?" A voice. In the foundation's hallway stood a veteran staff member—Hayakawa. A man in his fifties who had long served as the liaison with the Holy Land. Confusion was written across his face, unable to be hidden. "I thought we should send word immediately. According to last night's report, there are currently only three Gold Saints available to respond. The order for Holy War—" Saori didn't move. Hayakawa's words seemed to mix with the air of the room, settling down slowly. The order for Holy War. That was something only Athena was supposed to give. Saints fought only upon receiving Athena's command. It had been that way for centuries. There was no precedent in Saint history for fighting without an order. Everyone understood this—the staff here and those in the Holy Land alike. That's why they were confused. Without an order, they didn't know "what to do." Saori was remembering the aftermath of the Poseidon Sea Battle. Seiya on a stretcher. Arms covered in bandages. The number "11 fractured ribs" written on his medical chart. All the comrades who had fought alongside him that day had returned in similar condition. Not a single one had come back unscathed. (I didn't want anyone to get hurt anymore.) That's why she had decided not to give an order. Not fighting was also a choice, she had thought. So that the Saints could rest, could recover—that had been Saori's way of showing care. But. The blood stains on the bed quietly thrust the result of her decision in her face. Because she hadn't given an order, Seiya had gone alone. Without an order, with a battered body, without telling anyone. (My judgment sent that boy to his death alone.) Something sharp pierced deep in her chest. Her hand unconsciously touched the front of her clothes. There had been a hard sensation there since last night. A fragment of the Pegasus Cloth that Seiya had left behind. —In her pocket, the fragment was faintly warm. "Hayakawa." Saori spoke without turning around. Her voice was calm. Now was not the time to let emotion show. "[serious]Make finding Seiya's whereabouts the top priority. Do whatever you can within the communication routes the Holy Land can reach." "And the order for Holy War...?" "[cold]I won't give it." A brief silence. The sound of Hayakawa exhaling quietly. "...Understood." The sound of footsteps faded away. Left alone in the room, Saori continued staring at the empty cloth case for a long time. Not giving an order. Whether that was still the right choice—honestly, she didn't know. --- Athens International Airport was noisy in the morning light. Seiya, stepping into the arrival lobby, was swept along by the crowd of people through the automatic doors. His bandaged arm was hidden under his sleeve, but the weight of the Pegasus Cloth couldn't be concealed. A Saint Cloth—the sacred armor worn by Saints—could maintain its equipped state when infused with Cosmo, but Seiya's Cosmo was running on empty. So he had packed it in a case and carried it on his back. The problem was what came next. He needed to head north by taxi to the nearest settlement of the Holy Land. "Taxi... taxi..." Muttering under his breath, he lined up at the taxi stand. A cab pulled up immediately, and a cheerful-looking middle-aged driver grinned and rolled down the window. He rattled off something in Greek. "Uh... um, near Mount Staropetras, to the village..." When Seiya answered in Japanese, the driver tilted his head. Now he said something in English. Seiya wasn't that good at English either. "...Okay?" He didn't understand, but he went with the "just say okay anyway" strategy and got in. As the car drove off, the driver uncle kept chattering cheerfully. The radio was playing too. Seiya didn't understand a single word, but he kept nodding. Partway through, the driver pointed at something. Out the window—the blue Aegean Sea was visible in the distance. He had to admit it was beautiful. "Orea!" He said something. Maybe it meant "beautiful." "Ah, yeah... well, I guess so." After about an hour, they arrived at the village. When Seiya tried to pay with the foundation's card, the driver suddenly refused. Instead, he tried to roll up Seiya's sleeve—probably catching sight of the fractured, bandage-covered arm. The driver said something while tapping Seiya's shoulder once. Then, still grinning, the taxi drove away. Seiya stood alone at the village entrance, watching the taxi disappear into a cloud of dust. (I had no idea what he said... but somehow, it felt like he was encouraging me.) He hadn't even taken payment. He'd just tapped his shoulder. That alone was enough to understand something. He laughed quietly. The vibration of the laugh echoed through his fractured arm and hurt a little, but that was fine. —That laugh died the moment he saw the landscape spreading out ahead of the village. --- The Holy Land—spread across Mount Staropetras, a rocky peak 2,400 meters high in the northern Attica Peninsula of Greece, the headquarters of all Saints. To ordinary people's eyes, it was nothing but a desolate rocky mountain. But Seiya could see it. The columns of half-ruined temples dotted the mountainside as you climbed. The Twelve Temples of the Zodiac—twelve sanctuaries lined in a straight path from the base of the mountain to the summit. They were supposed to be connected by 1,800 stone steps spanning about 3 kilometers, from the Aries Temple at the base to the Pisces Temple at the peak, with one Gold Saint guarding each. Several of them had already collapsed. "..." He climbed the stone steps. Crumbling stones crunched beneath his feet. The wind blew. It was dry and cold. Not the air of a mountain peak—a chill from somewhere deeper mixed in. The structure of the Holy Land was in his head. At the summit was the Pope's chamber. Midway up the mountain was the Starlight Spring, used for repairing Saint Cloths. The Colosseum di Cosmo—where Saint training and selection had taken place—now had walls blackened and scorched. Over 300 people used to live here. Saints, soldiers, handmaidens. Now there was no one. Only silence remained. And—in the center of the Holy Land, it was there. A black hole. A pitch-black hole, ten meters in diameter, gaped open in the ground. The Yomotsu Hirasaka—the entrance to the Underworld existing 600 meters below the Holy Land. The Underworld existed in a different dimension from the surface, the domain of Hades, the Underworld King, and this was its entrance. A seal from the Pope was supposed to have been placed here. But now it no longer functioned. As Seiya approached the edge of the hole, the smell came first. Like rotting grass mixed with mud. Then the cold—a chill below freezing hit his face. The stones around the hole's perimeter were covered white with frost. Thanatos waves, Seiya sensed. The death energy Hades commanded. The power that froze a Saint's Cosmo. This heaviness, this cold, this bottomless darkness—it was incomparably more concentrated than the heaviness he had felt from the Tokyo window last night. He would descend from here. Through this hole 600 meters down into the Underworld. Just as Seiya was about to take a step forward from the hole's edge— Footsteps sounded. From behind. The sound of stone being stepped on. Slowly, approaching. Seiya turned around. —It was a face he knew. "...You..." The voice caught in his throat. He knew the name. He knew the voice. A comrade, a Bronze Saint he had fought alongside during the Poseidon Sea Battle. He had been laughing on the ship heading to the underwater temple. He had fought beside Seiya. But—the eyes were different. The pupils had no light. Vacant eyes pointed straight at Seiya. Eyes with no emotion. No anger, no fear, no sadness—nothing. The Saint Cloth covering the body had turned black. The seal of Hades carved into it glowed dully in the frost-cold air. A Specter—an existence resurrected by infusing the soul of the dead with Hades' power. One of 108. Among them were those who had fallen during the Poseidon Sea Battle. They retained partial memories from life, yet stood as enemies, baring fangs. A face you knew, a body you knew, attacking—Seiya understood that intellectually. But understanding didn't matter. His fist wouldn't come up. He couldn't punch this face—that's what he thought. For just a moment, just an instant, his body froze. The Specter didn't miss that instant. A kick came. It connected with his flank. A sound rang out—not the sound of bones creaking, but the sound of a body flying. Seiya was sent three meters back, slamming into a temple stone pillar with his back. Crack—the impact echoed to the back of his head. Cracks formed in the pillar. Fragments of broken stone rained down from above. He collapsed. Fell to one knee. The taste of blood filled his mouth. He gritted his teeth. (I get it. This is what this battle is.) To move forward, he had to punch this face. These eyes, this voice, this body—he had to know all of it and still drive his fist through. That cruelty weighed on Seiya far heavier than the pain in his flank. The Specter's footsteps slowly approached. Seiya placed his hand on the cracked pillar and stood up. His Cosmo was low. His bones were broken. Still. "[serious]I just gotta do it." He said it quietly, lowly, as if telling himself. He lowered the Cloth case. The bronze gleam caught the faint light as it reflected off the cold air blowing up from the black hole. Pegasus Meteor Fist—a hundred strikes in a single second, fists fired at sonic speed, Seiya's ultimate technique—if he unleashed it at full power with his current body, his Cosmo would be depleted and his body might not hold. But there was no point in holding back against an opponent like this. The Specter stopped. It was looking at Seiya. Straight at him with vacant pupils. Somewhere, the wind howled. The cold air blowing up from the Yomotsu Hirasaka flowed between the two of them. Seiya took his stance. Th