Neon Genesis Evangelion Fan Fiction / Saint Seiya Fan Fiction ❯ The Intense Clash of the Gods ❯ Tale 29 ( Chapter 29 )

Franziska slumped in her desk before jerking upright again, blinking. She had to stop spending so many late nights in the offices... then again, she had a another case coming up and she was looking forward to getting on with her life and getting through this month to see whatever Aiacos had been talking about.

She smirked as she thought again of the man four years her senior... he had done so much for her father, Lune, and Reiji... she still remembered the day so well... She had been off studying law in Germany, her father here in Japan on a business trip. Suddenly, the great Manfred von Karma, the "Demon God Prosecutor" found himself convicted of murder and expecting the same ruthless control of the court proceedings, as had been when he was prosecuting.

Instead, her father had found mercy at the hands of an 18-year-old Aiacos Higashi, just back from another one of his six month vacations and taking a different stance than one that everyone expected on the case... find the truth. In Aiacos's very first case, he set the standard and earned Manfred's respect, arguing his way through every lie and contradiction to find the truth, not get a guilty verdict. In the end, the true killer was found, Manfred was let off, and he entrusted Franziska's little brother Lune and also the 21-year-old son of the victim, Reiji Mitsurugi, to Aiacos to study under. She had heard them talk of Aiacos's fiery passion when it came to a trial, where he would often object if the judge moved to deliver his verdict, all because the prosecution had not proved guilt beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Some would say Aiacos was a terrible lawyer, the losses and penalties that he accumulated certainly would imply that... but he was a hero... someone that would risk it all for the sake of a clear conscious. She had come to Japan to deliver revenge on Saiban for killing Lune Reiji... something she wasn't even sure had happened despite seeing Reiji's dead body and hearing those four talk... but instead finally met the legendary King of Prosecutors.

"Franziska?"

She looked up, see Aiacos standing there, although looking just as tired as she was. "Oh... yes, Higashi?"

"I have a first name, you know," Aiacos teased, smiling before yawning. "Come on, I'll skim over your case tomorrow first thing, but you'll do no good to justice if you can't even stand on your feet."

The von Karma stood up and stumbled for a moment; she was surprised as how tired she really was. After getting her bearings, however, Franziska walked with Aiacos out the door, side by side. The silence was actually rather comfortable, Aiacos at ease beside the younger woman, but she eventually spoke up.

"I'm going after Nerve Industries this time."

"Oh?"

She nodded. "There's got to be more skeletons in the closet than just Ikari. I'm scheduling a meeting with Fuyutski later this week..." The reached the elevator and waited on it. "I'm hoping to find something I can work with as a justification for it."

"And if not?"

"I'm confident I will."

"Good woman," Aiacos replied.

They stepped into the elevator, pushing the button for the lobby, and rode down again in silence before Franziska spoke up again.

"Aiacos?"

"Hmm?"

"Are Reiji and Lune really still alive?"

"What makes you think otherwise?"

"You know why," Franziska answered. "I was the one that confirmed it was Reiji's body, and Lune's was just so..."

"They're fine. You'll see them in a little more than three weeks," Aiacos responded. She looked at him, dumbfounded. "Really, I mean that. They're-"

The doors slid open, they stepped out... and stopped.

"You two ruined me!" growled the man in front of them. Aiacos recognized him immediately... Saiban. In his hands was a revolver, pointing straight at Aiacos's head.

He pulled the trigger. Franziska screamed.
_
Fenrir, Charybdis, Cecil, and Isaac sprang across the rooftops silently, the three men noticing the music of the lyre becoming more and more clear with each building they hopped.

This is getting weird... Charybdis thought before she quickly tried to recall her experiences from back then. A childhood in the streets of Athens, before Calypso had been born.

She had heard stories of the Saints of Athena... after all, some of them even dropped by bars or something. One of them even gave her a flower one time. She smiled, remembering his name in spite of the pain that went along with it.

But the Saints were one of the most numerous armies of a god... eighty-eight warriors, each based off a constellation. The twelve Gold Saints... sometimes called the "Knights of the Zodiac", the twenty-four Silver Saints, the forty-eight Bronze Saints, and the remaining four Bare Saints, called such due to the significant lack of protection their armor afforded them.

"Lyra..." Charybdis mouthed, wondering if she had ever met the Silver Saint of the Lyra constellation... she didn't think so. Well... scratch her only guess on who this mystery musician was...

"Chary!" shouted Isaac to her. She quickly regained focus on the here and now, looking down at the strange sight down on the streets.

Numerous men were lying on the roads unconscious, five figures all fighting against what, at first glance, seemed to be just a man.

Of course, the gigantic gap between the top and bottom of his body, bridged by a gigantic spinal cord with scythe-like claws covering it seemed more than just a little inhuman.

The five fighting them, Charybdis quickly realized, were those five girls they had seen before... wearing rather... unorthodox fighting outfits.

"You gotta be kidding me..." Chary muttered, "No armor whatsoever on those things... one hit and their toast!"

"Then again, it's not like that guy can even touch them," Fenrir responded. He then winced, "...spoke too soon."

Sure enough, the five had been unlucky enough to not notice one of the claws slamming into them from the sides. Horoki, Mizuki, and Mina had managed to block the attack, but Asuka and Mana's evasion put them right in strangling range for the man, who quickly took advantage.
_
"Heh... you little girls really shouldn't pick a fight with the big men of Tokyo..." the freak taunted, the two of them struggling in vein to break free. He suddenly looked up, seeing Mizuki summoning a series of magic seal to attack him with...

But just as the attacks reached him, the man raised up the two. Mizuki pulled back, Mina and Horoki looking onward as the man chuckled.

"Game over... babes. Now drop your weapons and maybe I'll let them live." he stood there, waiting. When they didn't do anything, the man looked down at an unconscious man near his feet and plunged a scythe through his head. "NOW DO IT!"

Wand and sword hit the ground, but Mina clenched her weapon forcefully.

"No. You're just going to drop them right here, right now," she commanded, a faint wind blowing up around her.

The man grinned. "No way... now way in-"

He never finished. Mina didn't let him. Instead of wasting time with an elaborate pose or anything, she got down to business and finished it in less than a second. One second the man was just standing there...

The next his eyes were open wide, Mina's weapon now a long spear that had impaled his head. "Dammit..." He slumped down on the ground as the four girls all looked at their friend, confused.

"M-Mina?" Mizuki asked. Instead of armor, Mina now stood among them in a flowing white robe... she seemed older, wiser...

Mina turned and shook her head. "Please, Mizuki-san, call me Ambrosia."
_
"Minos?"

"Yes?" The Specter looked over to the other side of the fishing boat to see Hagan looking back at him.

"What... what does Radamanthys do in Germany... alone with his wife and all?"

Minos smirked. "All alone? Are you kidding me? All you saw was their private getaway. Pandora helps out in the Underworld with Surplice repair for Specters, but when Radamanthys gets to go on leave, they spend a month in that mansion just relaxing before they deal with their real-world jobs. They actually run a construction company."

"And you?"

"Just fish."

Hagan raised an eyebrow. "For your six months of not being in the Underworld, you just fish?"

Minos nodded, blinking once for some odd reason immediately afterwards. "That I do. There's somebody I'd like to never see again, and so I just stay as far away from Greece and Athena's Saints. And since I don't want some Saint on break seeing me, I just spend days fishing."

"Sorry I asked..." Hagan sighed.

Minos smirked. "Nah, it's okay. It's the time I spend here that helps remind me I'm merely a man. True, the most powerful Specter in all of history... but merely a single step ahead of Aiacos and Radamanthys, and two steps ahead of most of the rest. And I also like the quiet..."
_
Franziska stared in horror at Aiacos's dead body, blood spilling out the hole in his head as Saiban turned to her.

"And you ruined me too!"

He pulled the trigger, Franziska screamed.

And then screamed again at the sight before her.

Slumped over like some sort of corpse, blood streaming down his face, Aiacos was standing there, his fist clenched an inch away from Franziska's face. He opened his palm, holding the bullet.

Gyakuten suddenly back up, eyes wide in horror. "No... no... no..." He pumped the remaining four rounds in the revolver into Aiacos's head, each one blowing a hole in it, yet the prosecutor just staggered forward at him. "No... please..." He blinked in horror, and when he opened his eyes...

Aiacos was still standing in front of him, but without a scratch.

"Galactic Illusion, asshole," Aiacos explained before Saiban's world suddenly went crazy. Everything blacked out... he found himself in some kind of void... strange purple gelatinous masses appearing around him opening up to reveal blood-red eyes staring at him.

He screamed... this couldn't be happening... this couldn't be happening!
_
Franziska blinked again, looking at Saiban, lying dead there on the floor, Aiacos looking down at him.

"What... was that?" Franziska asked, confused, shocked, and horrified.

Aiacos looked at her and sighed. "Franziska... you know about those six-month long vacations?"

She nodded.

"Ever wonder what I do on them?"
_
As Mina finished up her tale, discussing what Eurydice had told her, the reincarnation of Ambrosia held her fingers.

"So... we're supposed to protect you and everything?" Horoki asked. Mina nodded nervously. "THAT'S GREAT!"

She looked at the others, who seemed similarly relaxed. "This is great!" Mana said, looking up into the night sky. "At least now we have a mission and everything that's more defined than 'protect Tokyo from monster attacks'!"

"Not to mention this probably explains on why we recieved these powers and everything," Asuka said as she pumped a fist. "I sorta like it... the Magatama comes in handy when I go to casinos."

"Asuka!" shouted Mana and Horoki in unison.

"W-what?!?"

"You're underage!" Horoki explained. "As class chairwoman, I'm going to have to write you up for this!"

"And I'm trying to get on the police force!" Mana shouted. "I can't be associated with a known criminal!"

Asuka shook her head. "Nitwits..."

As Mina watched Asuka, Horoki, and Mana playfully argue with each other, she noticed Mizuki had walked up next to her and smiled.

"Imagine... you being a goddess," Mizuki stated plainly. "Guess I should start worshipping you or something, right?"

Mina shook her head. "Nah..."

Mizuki smiled again and was about to say something else when suddenly the five girls heard moan and groans as some of the men around them started to regain consciousness.

"Great... we gotta split," Mizuki said as they ran off into the night.
_
"Wow... that was weird," Cecil said, looking at the others.

"Well, at least we know we really won't have problems with those girls now," Isaac remarked, sighing. "We'll be out of their hair in no time at all."

"Far from it," Charybdis announced. Fenrir, Cecil, and Isaac all looked at her, the Sea Dragon Mariner quickly explaining. "You heard what Mina said, she blames Poseidon for this all... and to make matters worse..." She looked down at the ground, holding up the statue of Poseidon before pointing down at one familiar figure, surprised that the girls hadn't recognized him.

"Julien Solo is Poseidon."
_
"Franziska... do you believe in the supernatural?"

"Depends. If you mean demons and monsters, no. But I had a case a few months back... I was called up to Ireland for it."

"What about?"

"Some member of the Fey family, a group allegedly known to be real mediums, ended up killing somebody. I argued that even though she was possessed, she had deliberately locked the doors and ensured the guy couldn't get out. In the end, I found out she actually had actually planned the murder with the spirit and was going to have the defense argue she had no knowledge of it. You should have seen her while the 'Guilty' verdict was being read. She literally was a different person. Wouldn't have believed it unless I had seen the transformation with my own eyes. But what's that got to due with Saiban dead on the ground without a mark on him?"

"Franziska, how much do you know about Greek mythology?"

"The basics, why?"

"Did that spirit, well, ghost... refer to three judges?"

"Not that I recall... but answer the question already!"

"Fine..." Aiacos had answered. "Franziska, when someone dies, their spirit goes to the Underworld to be judged. Call it the Pearly Gates, Judgement, whatever you want. But there are three men there that decide the fate of those that died. I'm one of them."

Franziska had looked at him, confused. "What?!?"

"Well, I mean-"

"Are you like a demon or something then?!?" She had been looking hysterical, Aiacos sweating. He hadn't expected it to be this awkward.

"No! I'm a normal person! But..." He snapped his fingers. "Franziska... do you remember the name of the man that terrorized all of Japan four years ago? The man who's name alone brought instant death is said?"

"You mean... Kira Yanosuke?" The name was that of the man claiming to be a Shinigami, a Death God. She recalled Aiacos had also been in charge of prosecution of Yanosuke, not exactly his easiest case... considering all he had to work with was circumstantial evidence that anyone that looked at Kira's face could be killed automatically. The case was hard, but Aiacos won his one of his first victories in court, Kira attempting to exact revenge until a "freak accident" had broken loose.

Supposedly gigantic, worm-like tendrils had impaled Kira as he attempted to kill Aiacos with a gun stolen from a bailiff.

Then Franziska had blinked. "That one guy... that one guy Lune had spent so many nights crying over when he died, Samuel Laimi... was he like you too?"

"In a way. But Franziska, those six months judging the fate of the dead... Lune does it too, just as a substitute judge. And Reiji... well-"

"You can't bring people back to life, can you?"

"Not if they're 100% dead, unfortunately. But Reiji's a lower-ranking Specter of Hades-"

"HADES?!?"

"Well who else is going to judge the fate of the dead?"

"You're crazy!"

"I'm a little over-zealous at times, but not crazy. But Reiji's alive too, I'm sure of it. He's the Doppelganger Specter of the Terrestrial Mimicry Star, after all."

"Okay then... prove it."

"What?"

"We're prosecutors. Proof is everything."

Aiacos had looked at her worried. His Surplice was back in the Underworld, along with Radamanthys's... and attacks were out of the question... but...

"Okay. Get back about twenty feet." Once Franziska had done so, Aiacos closed his eyes and took a deep breath before his eyes snapped open.

Black flames had erupted around him as the image of a great, bird-like creature appeared behind him, letting out a guttural "SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!"

Franziska had taken a look back in horror, shocked by the sight before the flames subsided.

"Okay... that's... that's proof enough."