Night fell.
The entire Sanctuary was shrouded in gloom.
Only the Twelve Zodiac Temples blazed with light, mirroring the stars in the sky, their starlight shining as they continued to guard the ancient, majestic Sanctuary.
A faint scent of essential oils lingered in the room of Shaina, within the Silver Saints' quarters.
Shaina lay on a soft bed, breathing lightly, her body slick with fragrant sweat.
Her injuries had basically healed. The wound that had once reached the bone had left only a red scar.
"The treatment is done for now. I've already dressed the wound. It'll heal very soon. If you want to get rid of the scar, that'll take some time."
Damian spoke softly.
"Scars don't matter. What Saint doesn't have scars?"
Shaina's lazy voice drifted over, drowsy.
"You're different. A scar would spoil your beauty."
Damian shook his head slightly.
"Smooth talker…"
After those four words, Shaina closed her eyes completely. Her breathing evened out, and it seemed she'd fallen asleep from the treatment.
Damian lifted his hand from Shaina's forehead and, looking at the mask on her face, twitched his index finger.
Shaina's mask covered just enough that he could see her ruby, dewy cherry lips gently parting with each breath.
It was as if she were waiting for him to lift the mask.
Hard to imagine!
That Gatling-gun mouth cannon came out of this pair of cherry lips.
If he wanted, he could take off the mask and see that pretty face beneath any time.
But Damian held back the urge to lift the mask.
Shaina was indeed beautiful. That wasp waist and those long legs were enough to make any man drool.
But lifting a female Saint's mask means taking responsibility; you might even get hunted down. That rule was truly a handful.
The outcome of this mission by Shaina and several Silver Saints had exceeded everyone's expectations—and Damian's too.
In this world, Saints are the goddess's proxies, endowed with supreme authority.
And in combat, each Saint is practically a superhuman. Even the most basic Bronze Saint is a living weapon of war.
Supersonic punches, supersonic movement, the ability to trigger explosions; a Cosmo barrier lets Bronze Saints shrug off bullets.
Conventional firearms don't work on them at all.
And yet this scouting sortie ended in heavy losses.
A Bronze Saint died, and a Silver Saint went missing. This was nothing less than a provocation to the Sanctuary.
As far as Damian knew, the villages and towns near the Sanctuary had been repeatedly attacked by mysterious men in black lately.
Every time they appeared, they would massacre the villages, leaving no one alive.
Even the police and military struggled against these phantoms who came and went without a trace.
Greece's leadership had specifically asked the Sanctuary for support, which led to this mission.
After returning from the Pope, Shaina said nothing in response to his questions.
Clearly, there was a gag order.
Were those men Specters?
If Specters were attacking the towns around the Sanctuary, wouldn't that mean the Holy War was starting early?
Impossible!
Pandora hasn't even found the casket of the twin gods of Death and Sleep yet. Starting the Holy War this early would be far too hasty.
If so, the Saint Seiya timeline was completely off the rails.
After thinking it over, Damian simply headed out.
With the timeline and other factors all going haywire, he probably couldn't quietly get rich in the graveyard as planned.
He'd hoped to stay still and meet all changes, but that no longer seemed possible.
Some plans would have to be moved up.
A dark, windy night.
Midnight.
A black figure swept like a whirlwind to the small tavern in the lower Sanctuary.
There was little entertainment in the Sanctuary.
The lower Sanctuary's small tavern counted as one of the few hangouts for Saints.
After a day of hard training, most Saints and candidates would stop by this small Sanctuary tavern for a few drinks to ease the day's fatigue and frustration.
At midnight sharp the tavern closed, and the drunks staggered out in twos and threes.
Cassios came out with a few lackeys, laughing and swaying, all feeling great.
"I didn't drink enough tonight. I'm still perfectly clear."
"Heh heh heh, I know a great bar outside. Lots of beauties there—the kind without masks."
"Oh, if I could leave the Sanctuary, I'd definitely go see those beauties. I wonder if any are as pretty as the legendary goddess Athena."
"Hmph, what are you thinking? Don't talk nonsense."
They chatted on the empty mountain path, full of longing for the opposite sex.
Saints are men too. Built as they are, the main topic of small talk is women.
In the Sanctuary, only the goddess Athena doesn't need to wear a mask.
Among the eighty-eight Saints, there are very few female Saints—you can count them on one hand—and they all wear masks. They cannot show their true faces. By donning a mask, a female Saint abandons her female identity and fights solely as a Saint for Athena.
By Sanctuary tradition, if a male sees a female Saint's true face beneath the mask, she must either kill him or love him completely.
So female Saints were out of the question.
The male Saints yearned all the more for women outside.
Once the topic turned to women, the drool flowed—no different from ordinary men—eyes dancing, wolves to the core.
"You're being far too presumptuous, comparing Athena to cheap powder and paint."
A dull voice sounded from ahead.
Cassios instantly looked toward the source and saw a masked man in night clothes before them.
Thud, thud…
With a flurry of thumps, the men around Cassios collapsed one after another, unconscious.
"W-Who are you?"
A chill swept through Cassios, sobering him instantly.
Just now there'd been a flash of light, and the candidates around him had toppled straight to the ground.
He didn't need to think—it was this masked man's doing.
"Who am I? What did you get up to today? Forgot already?"
The masked man prodded him.
"D-Damian, senior brother?"
Cassios trembled all over, guessing the man's identity.
"Enough talk. Come with me."
As soon as the words fell, Cassios felt himself hoisted up, and the scenery at his ears sped backward.
His hulking frame was carried in one hand like a sack. He didn't dare move a muscle, much less resist.
By the time Cassios came to, he was in the graveyard, with his senior brother Damian standing beside him.
"Talk. Why did you take a swing at me yesterday? Did Pansy order it?"
Damian removed his mask, revealing a stern face in the moonlight.
"N-No… I don't remember why I went to make trouble for you, senior brother."
Cassios's ugly face suddenly flushed, and he grew bashful like a lovestruck teen. "I only remember Pansy being so cute, so pretty… You just can't say no to her."
As expected, that little minx Pansy was behind it.
A rough, savage type like Cassios had always liked the willowy, long-legged dominatrix type like Shaina. How could he fall for a big loli?
It made no sense!
Hypnosis?
Genrō Maōken?
Damian could now be sure Pansy had a hypnosis-type ability.
Its effect was similar to the forbidden demonic fist Genrō Maōken, with powerful mental control.
So that was Pandora's trump card!
"Scarlet Needle!"
In a blink, Damian's index fingernail turned crimson and glinted. A bleeding hole appeared in Cassios's shoulder.
"It hurts, senior brother… i-it hurts so bad!"
Hit by the technique, Cassios snapped awake at once. He clutched his shoulder and knelt, begging for mercy.
The pain was unbearable, his whole body shaking.
He'd never felt this kind of agony in his life; his face twisted in response.
"Scarlet Needle, once it hits, subjects the victim to unbearable pain and numbs the nerves, like a scorpion's venom coursing through the body. One even gradually loses the five senses and will, dying without knowing it."
Damian spoke faintly.
"Senior brother, I know I was wrong. I was the bastard who went to provoke you. Please spare me."
Cassios bared his teeth, crying and pleading.
He had once looked down on this senior brother, thinking this scrawny Easterner wasn't even qualified to be a candidate, that he had screws loose, and that being Shaina's disciple brought shame—he'd even wanted to kill the guy.
Until one day, when he picked a fight and tried to cripple him, and got a brutal beating for it—laid up in bed for half a month before he recovered.
Only then did he realize this senior brother hid his strength. From that point on he treated the "mentally unsound" senior brother with wary respect, not daring to act up.
Cassios knew Damian had plenty of ways to kill him.
He'd truly lost his head tonight to think up ways to mess with Damian.
He didn't want to die!
"Want to live?"
Looking at the snot-and-tear-soaked Cassios, Damian pointed a way forward: "In the Cloth battle in half a month, I want you to win the Pegasus Bronze Cloth."
"Beat Seiya hard."
"Make him crap himself!"