Neon Genesis Evangelion Fan Fiction / Saint Seiya Fan Fiction ❯ The Intense Clash of the Gods ❯ Tale 87 ( Chapter 87 )

"Well... we're still in this..." Cecil sighed as he collapsed in his bed, the others around them... although some showed less enthusiasm than he wished... specifically Pandora.

"You know... Kaiser is just going to have a field day knowing all his hard work helping repair this with his blood just went down the drain..." Turning to Charybdis, she shook her head and realized it was only a taste of things to come... "I'm going to have a boatload or repairs on my hands when this is done... aren't I?"

"Obviously," Isaac answered. "I'm expecting Hyoga to wipe out my Scale in the first few minutes of our fight."

"What? That's crazy! Aldebaran took forever to wipe Cecil's God Robe out," Charybdis responded, but Minos corrected her.

"Isaac has the right idea here, at least in regards to the capacity of Hyoga's strength. After all, it's the Aquarius Saint that possesses the Aurora Execution, a technique made infamous in the previous Holy Wars... The technique has the potential to hit Absolute Zero-" he waved his hand to silence the various non-Specters who were about to object to his statement. "And yes, I know that's physically impossible, at least in regards to science..."

Isaac concurred with Minos's statement. "Yeah. Hyoga and I heard about it when we were younger. Usually the Aquarius Saints could get within a few degrees of it, but there references to others that actually hit it. First one was Camille Mals, right?"

Radamanthys and Minos nodded. "Sounds about right..."

"Okay then," Isaac said as he walked away. "I'm... gonna get prepped for the fight."
_
"That was Radamanthys," Lune spoke as he hung up his cell phone. "Isaac's fight is in about five hours."

"And for the last time, this will not work." Mizuki growled in frustration, having been all but commanded by her goddess to carry through with it anyways. "I don't know what you were smoking, Hikari, but there is no way that-"

"Care to make it interesting?" Horoki responded, slapping several hundred yen on the shrine's floor. "I mean... if you've got nothing to lose at all..."

Considering their friend's life was on the line and an attack on Sanctuary would be downright disastrous... plus Ambrosia was completely against it, Horoki had suggested, at the very least, to watch Isaac's fight, using a rather roundabout method. Specifically, have Mizuki channel and project the images for them... at which case, she responded, "What do you think I am, a Sailor Senshi?"

Nevertheless, the miko had broken under the combined beggings of Yuki, Hikari, and Kirishima... the first one alone enough to make her do pretty much anything. So now... all there was to do was wait.
_
Funny... how this all comes full circle. Isaac thought as he sat on the rooftop, thinking about his current predicament, and its connection to the past. The friend I left years ago has died... replaced with a broken, almost insane man suffering from an Oedipus Complex... And someone's life hangs in the balance. Thoughts of Thetis immediately sprung up his head. This whole situation would never have happened if he hadn't told Thetis to go and tell Casa something as simple as a 'Thanks', only to cause her to run into Fenrir and the others. At least that's how Fenrir and Cecil described the situation. And with Asuka, she had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time...

And his best friend was going to give him the hardest fight of his life.

"Still worried, aren't you?"

Isaac looked up, Seeing Fenrir standing there with a half-grin on his face.

"Where were you... earli-"

"Playing World of Battlecraft. A very special blossom needed her e-family to be ripped to shreds right in front of her eyes. Thought I'd deliver it. May I?"

"Go ahead," Isaac said as Fenrir sat down next to him, Mariner and God Warrior watching the city of Athens bustle below them. "Remember... remember when we first met?"

"We were at each others' throats... and Charybdis was even worse," Fenrir chuckled, shaking his head. "Of course, when you wiped out Mime, it was pretty much a statement that we were going to focus on our common enemy more than ourselves."

"We've... done good, these past few weeks. Stopped two bids for global domination, crawled back from hell, taken down a goddess, and met a lot of good people."

"Plus beat the shit out of a lot of bad ones," Fenrir laughed happily. "Taking down Ambrosia... it really was a testament to how you, me, and Cecil compliment each other. Me, well, it goes without saying how I react to most things, same with Cecil, although they're usually the polar opposite. You, I'm not worried in the slightest about Hyoga."

"Really?"

"Well, yeah... you're the cold shower of reason on us... no pun intended. You keep a cool head and use your head more than anyone else here, except maybe Minos. But he's just got experience on you."

"Thanks, but it still bothers me, you know... about what happened before all of that..."

"Don't let it get to you, for your own sake," Fenrir said as he stood up. "Hyoga's the proof of what happens when you let the past drag you down. Live in the present for a better future. Think you can do that?" He held out a hand to Krylov, who grabbed it without a second thought.

"Thanks."
_
For the second time, Isaac set foot in the Aquarius Temple, his Scale already on as he prepared for his greatest challenge yet. Standing there, leaning against the Freezing Coffin, was Hyoga, with a cocky smirk on his face. Isaac couldn't wait to rip it brutally off.

Suddenly, the Saint struck, kicking Asuka's prison much deeper into the temple before teleporting in front of Isaac and raising his hands up.

"AURORA EXECU-" Hyoga began, planning for his first move to be the decisive one. He began lowering his arms...

But then Isaac clamped down on them, ice slipping under the armor and freezing Hyoga's arms solid as Isaac looked into Hyoga's one good eye, the other still bandaged. Hyoga's once arrogant visage shattered, at least for a moment, as Isaac punched him straight in the face, knocking the Saint's headpiece off and launching Hyoga into a wall.

Getting up, Hyoga growled as Isaac pointed at him, speaking up and answering the single thought on his mind.

"Attachment, Hyoga... you taught me the power of attachment." Isaac began walking towards him, but the Mariner was caught off-guard when Hyoga charged at him, striking very rapidly. Krylov began backing off, blocking Camus's attacks as best he could, before suddenly creating a Kholiso ring and binding Isaac in it. He promptly punched Isaac in the face, sending him flying away.

"Attachment?" Hyoga snorted as Isaac tried to break free, "That's nothing. You stripped my mother away from me... That's unforgivable! I'm tempted to kill that stupid Corona right in front of you!" Watching Isaac struggle with his bonds, Hyoga shook his head. "And attachment won't help with your Scale... they're inferior to Gold Cloths, remember? So whereas my armor could protect me from something as weak as a little coating of ice..." He flexed his arms, breaking them free, "Yours is struggling with my weakest attack!"

Groaning in pain, Isaac broke free of the icy rings, standing up and raising his arms to fight. Combat Awareness would help a little... knowing when and where Hyoga would attack, and the actual moves were similar to Isaac's, but there was still the problem of the superiority of a Gold Cloth... Oh well... no point in not giving my all... Isaac pulled back his fist as Hyoga smirked at the gesture. "Aurora..."

"BOREALIS!"

He blasted by Hyoga, who suddenly became trapped in a small block of ice but immediately broke free, who turned and called upon the Seventh Sense, returning the favor in full.

"AURORA THUNDER ATTACK!"

Hyoga's own ice attack hit Isaac square in the chest, causing him to slide back and cough in pain... the force of that... He looked up, seeing Hyoga standing there, cracking his knuckles. "You only beat Sepal because you bypassed his Cloth with that punching flurry. You won't be so lucky with me. I know your every move before you can even-" He quickly side-stepped, avoiding Isaac's Kholodnyi Smerch before reaching up and grabbing him by the leg. "This is how you do a Kholodnyi Smerch!" he announced, uppercutting Isaac into the air as the icy tornado appeared around him and then shatter, slamming Isaac into the ground and cracking his Scale in the process. "Pathetic..." Hyoga spat.

Suddenly, however, Isaac began to slowly laugh. "That's crazy..." Isaac shook his head, getting back up. "Your move hurt a lot less than I thought it would." Getting back up, he charged at Hyoga again.

"Idiot! What makes you think it'll work a second time when it failed the first?!? AURORA THUNDER ATTACK!"

The blast shot out, but Isaac slicked the ground with ice and slid under the move, ending up directly underneath Hyoga, his body condensed like a spring and about to release everything.

"Hieiha Suicho!" Isaac announced before striking up at Hyoga, punching him into the air as a pillar of ice appeared underneath him, pounding into his backside Suddenly, it dropped about five feet... and stopped right afterwards. The force of the initial blow was heightened by this exponentially, and as the pillar dropped three more times, each sudden stop delivering more and more harm to Hyoga before he hit the ground, Isaac jumping away from Hyoga's counter-blow.

"An..."

"An improved Smerch," Isaac said as Hyoga tried to get up. "I decided its first performance deserved a little something extra."

"You... you bastard!!!" Hyoga screamed, although Isaac calmly shook his head.

"No, that's Cecil. I was conceived in wedlock."

"Well then, eat ice, Kraken!" Hyoga raised his hands again, not caring about the gesture being a perfect means of telegraphing. "AURORA EXECUTION!!!" Isaac jumped to the side as the massive blast followed him, the Mariner flipping over it in a desperate chance of getting Hyoga and stopping the one attack he had no response for-

Just as he reached Hyoga, however, the Saint teleported away to the other side of the temple, continuing the attack as Freezing Coffins suddenly appeared all around Isaac, boxing him in... He threw up his own for protection, but it was no good. The Aurora Execution broke through his defense, smashing Isaac into the impromptu walls. The pain, the cold... it exceeded anything Isaac had experienced before, the entirety of his body's Scale gone in an instant and his gauntlets and grieves the only thing left. He collapsed on his hands and knees as Hyoga walked up to him and smiled.

"Nowhere to run... DIE!!!" He performed the Execution again, but suddenly Isaac heard an all-too-familiar voice shout at him.

What?!? You're not fighting back! Beat that guy's ass!

Ice met ice as Isaac countered with the far inferior Aurora Borealis, looking on desperately as his attack was slowly being overpowered, Hyoga grinning in defeat as he realized who had just spoken to him...

Mime?

Suddenly, Hyoga poured more strength into his attack, Isaac's hopeless attempt at defending himself instantly quashed as the Mariner was slammed into the Freezing Coffins again, which shattered under the pure force that Hyoga had at his fingertips. As Hyoga got a better look at Isaac, however, he was surprised to see the boy standing there, in green sleeveless shirt and white pants, growling in fury, a large white, glowing sphere in his hands.

"What the hell?!?"

"Aurora Sphere..." Isaac announced before charging at Hyoga, slamming the orb into Hyoga's chest and causing him to scream in agony, the Gold Cloth instantly freezing and shattering as Hyoga punched him away. The Gold Saint looked up in horror as Isaac pointed to him with a proud smile. "Your own attack broke you. Aurora Sphere is a tightly condensed Aurora Borealis rotating around itself... absorbing the cold around it to lower its temperature further..."

Hyoga's mouth went dry, wincing in pain as he tried to get up... he had prided himself on being relatively immune to the cold... but-

"Even if your Aurora Execution hadn't been absorbed... I assure you!" Isaac shouted, pointing at him. "By condensing the attack into such a small area, my Aurora Sphere is able to reach Absolute Zero too!"

Hyoga's right eye could only widen in shock as Isaac charged at him, screaming out that infamous "ATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATAAAA AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Hyoga staggered away, being encased with ice but quickly breaking free, trying to catch his breath, looking up at Isaac. Without his Gold Cloth... this fight was a lot more evenly matched now.