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Hooded Eagle - Part 3.

A Saint Seiya fanfiction by Ariane Kovacevic, AKA Fuu-chan.





Lune opened his eyes instantly as the faintest of sounds close by disturbed the deep silence of the night. He couldn't even hear the crickets outside, which meant that dawn would come soon. He stood up slowly, just in time to get a glimpse of Merle's shape exiting the other bedroom through the slight opening Lune'd left on his own door for that very purpose. Focusing inward, he made himself one with the night's shadows, blending in with walls and rocks so that Merle wouldn't feel his presence as he followed him. Not that Lune thought his friend would be able to tear his mind from thoughts of the coming challenge, but it never hurt to err on the side of caution.

Watching Merle walk up towards the Great Stairs, Lune smiled softly to himself. This was all too funny: even though kind and usually unable to plan anything as harsh as another person's downfall, Merle had chosen the perfect moment when to deliver his challenge to Aquila Marin. It was now, in the short peaceful moments right before dawn that she'd be the most vulnerable. It was now that exhaustion would wear her down, summon memories of her past and their share of painful emotions.

How fascinating.

Merle loved the Silver Saint, had loved her for years, possibly even for longer than the blue-eyed young man remembered. Lune did remember, oh yes he could see the scene in his mind's eye as clearly as if it had happened the day before. He waved the memories aside, focusing on the present. What mattered was that Merle loved Aquila Marin so much that he'd do just about anything to stop her from the path she'd decided to follow.

Even if it meant striking her down.




I suddenly realized I was nodding and tensed, shaking my head to send away the overwhelming urge to fall asleep on the spot. Cursing, I berated myself for being a less than worthy guardian. Perhaps Merle had been right after all, perhaps I needed what help he and Lune could give, and--

Ludicrous.

Shaina and I alone had been entrusted with those tasks. I hammered the thought in my brain, wondering how tired I was for such moronic ideas to be able to make their way inside my head. I looked towards the distant Star Hill, and wondered whether Shaina was up there now, to immediately remember why it was most likely she was soundly sleeping in her house. She was right, I knew it. I knew, but I just couldn't....

Waves rising.

Engulfing.

Great ocean waves sparkling.

Power.

Slowly the storm within me abated, and I distantly thought I had rarely felt a warning as strong as this one. My cosmo had been so troubled I had been pulled away from reality for a few seconds. Never since Megrez Alberich had I felt something so incredibly powerful. It had been like a storm of sunlight, like....

Oh stop the stupidity, damnit!

This wasn't the time or place to find qualificatives which matched the sensation. There was a threat to the altar of Athena, very close, and I had to act. Gathering my cosmo and focusing all my strength, I started down the Great Stairs to meet whomever it was who had decided to stand against the established order of things in the Sanctuary.

The time for the challenge had come.

I found him waiting for me right before the first step on the Great Stairs. Waiting for the guardian to come and defend the place she'd been assigned to, doing it the honorable way as Shaina had always told me it would be. Clouds were masking the stars and the waning moon, preventing me from seeing who was there, but that didn't matter. I had donned the Aquila Cloth on the previous evening, like I always did, and I was ready. I asked clearly in the night, "Why have you come here? This is forbidden ground to all in the Sanctuary, save those the Goddess granted express permission to walk the Great Stairs. If you've come to challenge the Goddess' will, state it; if not, leave while you can."

My words sank into silence, and then the reply came.

"Aquila Marin, I have come here to challenge your ability as the guardian of Athena's altar."

That voice, I--

Wind blew, chasing away the clouds, and in the moonlight I recognized Merle standing right below me, his face set in a stony, unreadable mask.

Merle, but.... I inwardly shook my head. There was no help for it now, he'd spoken out his challenge. Besides, judging from his stance, it would have been impossible to talk him out of this madness. I allowed myself to experience a brief pang of regrets, and then joined him down the Stairs, nodding. "I accept the challenge. Let's settle this here and now." I smiled coldly behind the mask, adding, "Since you don't wear a Cloth, you have no protection. We'll fight until one of us is struck down and blood has been drawn, I won't take a life unfairly."

He didn't reply anything to my words, and we set ourselves into place. Above us, the sky was slowly turning to gray. As silence settled around us, I felt cosmo rising in Merle; and dimly wondered how it had come to this.

Why it had to be so.

Why....

In front of me, Merle moved so fast he had become nothing more than a blur. The sheer intensity of the cosmo radiating from him.... I gathered my own power and danced to the side, not feeling foolish enough to try and counter directly an attack as powerful as his had been. This was for real, he was playing for keeps.

But sweet Goddess, the strength in him was....

Beyond my own.

Beyond....

Instinct saved me. Stepping on the side, I lifted my left arm in defense, knowing I could never move fast enough to avoid the blow this time. I caught it with my forearm and felt pain shooting up my whole arm like fire. Goddess....

"Can we stop now?"

If I hadn't worn the Aquila Cloth, the blow would have shattered my arm to pieces. As it was, I hadn't even been able to completely catch it with my forearm: there was blood on my upper arm, slowly dripping down on the ground.

"You must know I'm stronger and faster than you are, so--"

I abruptly realized Merle was talking, and smiled bitterly. What he was saying was absurd. I shook my head, not deigning to give an answer that must be obvious, and turned to face him. Strong he might be, but he didn't know me. He didn't know any of my attacks, which meant....

From his watching post, Lune sighed as he heard Merle trying to convince Aquila Marin to yield. Just how far could Merle's naivete go? This was bordering on the ludicrous, even for him. But then, Lune understood why. Merle had spilled her blood, and that realization had driven him to waver in his resolve.

One of the reasons why he'd fail.

The other reason was Merle's forgetting about two very important things: Marin was wearing her Cloth, which she knew how to use and could lend her incredible power, and most of all she hadn't gone for him yet. Instead she had watched, she had allowed her opponent's attacks to come uncountered in order to study his technique.

Watching the cosmo shining brightly around her, Lune thought she wouldn't be content with a passive defense on the next round.

I moved a split second before Merle did, jumping up in the air and invoking my most powerful attack, the Eagle Toe Flash. I noted the look of helplessness on his face as I swept down upon him, and smiled ferally.

One always has to pay the price for foolish mistakes, Merle.

As I was about to strike at him, I saw his right arm move backwards, likely in a futile attempt to defend himself, and thought it was far too late for that. I hit him in the right flank, right heel first with all the strength I had. His arm moved in a blur, and then pain exploded all over his face as the extreme violence of my blow hurled him to the ground a few meters away.

There, it was done. I exhaled deeply, allowing myself to relax just a little bit as I walked towards Merle's unmoving body. There was some blood mixed with the dust on the ground on his left side. As I reached him, I saw him turning and nodded to myself, relieved to see I hadn't hurt him too bad. He sat up, gingerly pressing his right hand against his flank; and the pale blue eyes, clouded with a swirl of emotions I didn't feel like reading, slowly, reluctantly looked up at me.

Lune gestured slightly, partly in disgust, and partly amused. It was an interesting technique, this Eagle Toe Flash Marin had used. It had a devastating force and its unbelievable violence allowed the frailer woman to conquer even the strongest of opponents. It was also incredibly quick for a Silver Saint's attack. Lune had to admit it was a powerful weapon, one he might have had difficulties countering.

Now that he'd seen it once, he'd be able to read Marin's moves and defeat the attack without having to harm her seriously or even kill her, which had been the situation Merle had found himself into. Of course the fool had chosen to take the attack directly and thus be defeated. there was a certain logic in that choice, Lune knew.

What was the use of winning a fight if in so doing you defeated your purpose?

None.

Lune chuckled silently to himself, looking up at the mountains' tops where the sun would soon appear to engulf the Sanctuary in its blinding glory. He'd been right to have Merle challenge Marin first, the Aquila Saint had proved herself to be stronger and more resourceful than he had expected. Now it was time to leave this place and catch a bit of the sleep he'd been missing this night. Yawning widely, Lune stood up and made to leave his observation spot, when all of a sudden he realized a strange hush had come over the place.

Expectation.

Turning towards the two opponents, Lune distinctly heard a faint crack. In a flash, he remembered Merle's right hand moving backwards as his friend had been about to be struck down by Aquila Marin's attack. The speed with which that hand had moved, and its purpose....

Lune's heart missed a beat as something eerily cold closed its claws over him.

Oh sweet Goddess, Merle....

I *felt* the cracking sound more than I heard it. For a fraction of a second, I didn't react, uncomprehending. Then I felt the wind on my face as the silver mask broke, neatly split along its length into two perfect halves, as if the metal had been cut by an incredibly precise and sharp sword. It fell on the ground at my feet, raising a bit of dust that the breeze whirled away.

The mask...gone.

The mask....




Merle watched in silence as the young woman's expression shifted slowly from incomprehension to shocked realization, and then as her eyes darkened, going from soft nut brown to impossibly black as she gazed down at him.

Black, as black as the fury and fear rising within her at this very moment.

She slowly reached up, catching with her fingertips a few drops of blood which had run from the center of her brow down the line of her nose, and thoughtfully brought her hand to her lips. Merle stood in a fluid movement, more or less certain of what to expect, and unwilling to face whatever Fate meant for him on his knees. The enormity of what he had done was only now starting to sink in.

He had known as he had seen her attack that there was no way he could possibly defend against it or counter it without going all out and harming her grievously, very likely killing her. So he'd just waited for the blow to strike him down, knowing he'd be defeated if he allowed it to connect.

And in the face of failure, contemplating what the consequences of that would be for her, he had reacted, he had lashed out, aiming for this *thing* which held her prisoner. In a mad, desperate reflex he had shattered the silver mask, and in so doing....

Never, ever try to even ask a female Saint to remove her mask. For a female Saint, there is no more terrible offense than to be seen by a man without her mask. The mask defines them, it's the symbol of what they are, of what they've accepted to sacrifice in order to become Saints, and in the same time it's the visible mark of the chains which bind their souls. No matter what your opinion about it is, you must remember one thing: in a female Saint's eyes, to have her mask removed is to allow an ownership mark to be set upon her. For, once her face has been unmasked by a man, she is left with only two choices.

Merle looked straight at Aquila Marin's face, unable to take his eyes away form her. What he had done was anathema to her, a thing as heinous as rape which she would never forgive. The gesture had been madness, the worst mistake of his young life, but there was no undoing it. Sorrow engulfed him, not because of the choice he knew she would make, but because he had hurt her terribly. Dimly, he felt something like tears burning his eyes.

"Go."

Merle almost failed to hear the faint, harsh whisper. Bewildered, he didn't react, still staring at her. She gritted her teeth and repeated in a hiss, "Go." Abruptly, she turned her back on him and added, "By all rights, I should kill you where you stand." Both her hands were tightly clenched into fists at her sides, and he could see she was trembling. "Go away, Merle. Leave the Sanctuary and never come back. Go before I lose what small control I still have over myself. Go and never set a foot in the Sacred Domain again, or I *will* kill you."

Merle stared mutely at her back, aching to take the little step forward which was all the distance separating him from her, and knowing he couldn't do that. He longed to hold her close and explain his actions to her, ask for her forgiveness, but there was now a bottomless abyss between them, darker than a moonless night.

An abyss of his own making.

They had been master and apprentice before, almost friends at times, but from now on they could never be anything else than bitter enemies. Silence stretched on between them, until at last Merle bowed his head. There was nothing to be gained in staying here any longer. The only thing he could achieve was to hurt her even further. Slowly, he went away.

The sun had risen over the high mountain peaks.




Lune watched on after Merle left the scene, fascinated as the young woman picked up the two pieces of her mask that Merle's blow had cleanly sliced into to perfect halves. He hadn't expected that Marin's face would be so delicate. Her fine features could almost have been called beautiful, but what had surprised him the most had been the feeling of utter vulnerability he had gotten from her.

Like on that faraway night.

Instead of the hardness which would have been normal considering the kind of life she had led, he had found her to be close to fragile. There was a gentleness in her nut-brown eyes, a kindness and sensitivity which didn't belong. He knew she was a ruthless fighter, one who could and would kill in order to defend what she believed in, and now that he'd seen her face....

Her true self....

Lune unexpectedly found himself reluctant to try and imagine what a female Saint's life truly was, what it really meant for the young women, for the little girls who were forced to wear masks over their faces and never take them off in public for the remainder of their lives. As incredibly as it might have seemed, Lune found himself feeling pity.




There was a slight creaking noise as my small house's door was pushed open. Instinctively, I rose my hands and covered my face, hiding it under my palms as I asked, "Kiki, is that you?"

"Yes. What's so urgent for you to send for me at dawn?"

I laughed soundlessly when I heard the sulkiness in the youthful voice, repeating to myself,

Indeed. Unmoving, my back carefully set to him, I said in an even voice, "Look on the table." There was a sudden sharp intake of breath, and then silence.

At last he whispered, "Do you want a new one, or do you want me to repair it?"

I idly toyed with the choice for a while, and then shrugged. "Can you repair it, and repair it quickly?"

The answer came at once. "Yes, sure I can repair it. I'll have it done in an hour. I'm sorry, if I were Mu it would be done in a matter of minutes, but I'm not--"

I interrupted him gently. "It's okay. Thank you, Kiki. Now I need to be left alone. When you're done, bring it back and don't forget to warn me before stepping in."

"Sure."

That said, he left at once. I let my arms drop to my sides, turned on the left so my back would be to the hard stone wall, and leaned against it with all my weight. I looked up at the intricate pattern of wood beams which supported the roof of my house, and wondered.

Goddess, what have I done?

I had broken the Sanctuary's law in ordering Merle to go away. I had known he didn't have to will to make any claims on me, I was even sure he hadn't really wanted to rip off my mask. So I had exiled him, rejecting the only two choices open to me. I couldn't kill him, and I couldn't....




"What do you think you're doing? I thought you had been forbidden to leave the Sanctuary again."

Ophiuchus Shaina's mask stares back at me, and for a while silence is sole master of the place where we stand. I can almost see the fury burning inside her, the anger whose flames have been scorching her heart for months now. Eventually she says, "It doesn't matter. I have to leave now, and find him. And when I do, I'll kill him or die."

I sigh, shaking my head. "Why? Why must you pursue Seiya with such a terrible hatred? I know he's defeated you, but he was fighting for his life, and the matter of the Pegasus Cloth is certainly not enough to warrant such a response, not even from you. So why? What did he do?"

Shaina looks at me for a moment, and then she snorts, walking towards a young Olive tree on the edge of the cliff before us. Looking out in the distance, towards the sparkling deep blue of the Aegean Sea and the city where human beings live their normal lives unaware of our existence, she whispers, "What do you think he did, Marin? What do you think your stupid disciple did?"

She reaches out, and slowly breaks a young branch from the tree. "He inadvertently broke my mask and saw my face. That's what he did." I do not reply, for there is nothing to be said. She starts breaking the branch into pieces, and then suddenly adds, "He even dared to have fun at me then. So I'll leave the Sanctuary, even if it means I'll be branded a traitor. I'll leave the Sanctuary and I'll kill Seiya, no matter what it takes, no matter where he is. If he goes to hell, to hell I will follow. I cannot rest until my hands and honor are washed in his blood."




I laughed bitterly.

Now I understood Shaina's reaction. Now I understood the urge, the almost overwhelming need to have the offender pay for what he had done.

Pay in blood.

Men didn't understand, couldn't understand. They didn't know, they had no idea what our masks truly were, what they represented. Even when some were told of their meaning, words could never convey the truth of them.

The feeling of the mask's cold silver on the skin.

Aioria had been the only one who had come within a breath of understanding. He had been the only one to stay close and wait, never asking, just being there and letting me know he'd always be there. He had been the only one for whom I'd have accepted to take it off, had he asked.

Because I had known he never would.

Now Merle had revealed my face. Because he had known what my watch was doing to me, because the fool cared and wanted to help where his help was not wanted, because in the depths of his heart, he was--

Stupid.

Young.

At once similar and opposite to the kind and gentle person Aioria had been. Oh I understood him, I did, but....

It just couldn't be. I was content to be true to my duty until the flow of my life eventually ran dry. There could be nothing else for me. I closed my eyes, willing the memory of Merle's cosmo and arms around me *away*. I didn't need to remember this. I didn't need to remember the distress and tears in his eyes as he'd looked up at me, the sorrow, not for himself but for me.

I didn't want to remember!

It was nothing but a lie.

A lie.

I struck at the stone wall with my right fist, focusing on the pain rising up my arm to blot out the unwanted and useless emotions which were trying to take hold of my heart. Shaking my head wildly, I laughed aloud as I realized there was only one wish in my mind now. Only one.

To feel the cold silver of the mask against my cheeks.

Sealing away tears which didn't, couldn't exist.




As he entered the small house, Lune found Merle busy packing what small belongings he owned. Keeping his voice neutral, for once discarding ever-present irony, Lune stepped in and asked, "Do you need some help?"

"No, thanks. I'm almost done." Merle's voice was steady. So unnaturally so that Lune instinctively became wary of what the other's reactions might be. "So you watched it all?" Had there been a trace of mad laughter in Merle's voice just now, or had it been shame mixed with grief?

Lune nodded slowly. "Yes, I saw what happened. I'm sorry, Merle, really." It was true, Lune had never foreseen that a thing such as Merle had done would happen. Still, unexpected though it had been, the way it had turned out would serve his purpose perfectly.

"My, you almost look as if you meant that one!" Merle had turned to face Lune, a smile on his lips and a frightening light in his eyes.

A dead light.

On impulse, Lune walked towards the one who had been his companion for most of his life, the only friend he'd ever had.

The only one who'd ever truly understood.

Merle didn't react as Lune's arms came around him and hugged him tight, stunned.

"Fool." The faint whisper barely reached Merle's right ear. "Of course I really mean it."

Lune released him as suddenly and abruptly as he'd held him close. The embrace hadn't lasted more than a few seconds, five at most, and Merle could almost have been persuaded it had been a mere figment of his imagination, if it hadn't been for the painful beatings of his heart, deep in his chest.

Lune briefly rested a hand on Merle's shoulder as he added softly, "You can set your mind at rest, I won't let her kill herself over this absurd watch. I promise you."

Something warm spread through Merle then, something which might have been mistaken for hope. He set his hand over Lune's, and nodded. "Thank you, my friend." That said, Merle gently freed himself, bent down to gather the small bag which contained all that had ever belonged to him and went away.

Lune waited for a few minutes before turning to face the wooden door. It was done, now. The pawn had been removed from the chessboard. It was high time more interesting pieces entered into play. He'd dealt with the matter almost perfectly, making it the cleanest cut possible by transforming the mad, stupid impulse with had pushed him towards Merle in a fine, sincere and moving farewell scene between lifelong friends. To crown it all, he'd even been able to assuage Merle's fears for Marin's life, thus ensuring the other wouldn't change his mind and show up where he wasn't useful anymore.

Of course Lune's words had only been a part of the truth, an interesting interpretation of what he really intended to do, but after all truth sincere and entire wasn't of this world.

Lune grinned contentedly, and went out of the little house that was now his alone. The sun was already high up in the sky, its heat quite uncomfortable, but it was all right. Lune stared up at it, unblinking, and wondered why he was feeling restless. There was something, deep within him, something which was almost anger, directed at Merle.

Fool.

Yes, Merle had been that where this stupid notion of friendship with Lune was concerned.

Why did you let yourself trust me so completely?

Because Merle was an idiot, and that was that. Now he was out of the way, and Lune didn't intend to waste even another second on him.

Had anyone told Lune the anger he was feeling was another name for regrets, he'd have laughed in their faces. People always saw into others what they *wanted* to see, not what truly was. It was a common flaw, one that Lune had learnt to use very early. A very interesting weapon, all things considered. From now on, the real game could at last be set into motion. Good.

Smiling, Lune walked towards the Great Stairs leading up to the temple of Athena.

Where the lights waited.

End of Part 3.


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