Neon Genesis Evangelion Fan Fiction / Saint Seiya Fan Fiction ❯ The Intense Clash of the Gods ❯ Tale 96 ( Chapter 96 )

"I won't be gone long, I promise," Aiacos said as he avoided Franziska's gaze. The entrance to Aiacos's apartment was dark, the prosecutor already in one of his suits, Julien, Malon, and Shun behind him. "We're going to end this once and for all."

Looking at him very coldly for a moment, Franziska's expression cracked into a smile as she leaned close to him. "Well, if this is to 'end this once and for all', I guess I can let it slide..."

"I think it would be wise for Reiji and Lune to stay here though, in case something happens," Shun spoke up. "We're heading to Greece first, so there shouldn't be too much of a need of muscle."

"We'll know if anything serious happens, so don't worry," Persephone elaborated before the quartet began walking away, Aiacos waving once to the German girl before continuing on.
_
Another blast of pure power sent Isaac sliding across the water as he joined Charybdis and Cecil, all three of them hopelessly out of breath as Shaka looked at them.

"His power..." Cecil breathed, "It completely dwarfs Ambrosia's!!! Not just with his power... but his mastery of every detail of it!"

Shaka approached them slowly, explaining along the way. "I am the man closest to the gods. I am your greatest of opponents." Placing his hands in front of him, Shaka began slowly gathering up his strength before immediately blasting out with it. "Tenma Kofuku!"

The three Pentrine fighters spiraled away from the might of the technique, but suddenly Charybdis vanished. Shaka, as if completely away of the counterattack, spun around, catching Charybdis's arms with his hands and kicking her away before teleporting behind her and kicking the female Mariner in the head, knocking her into Cecil and Isaac.

"Clever..." Shaka applauded, "But I, unlike other Gold Saints, am in tune with the same great power you are... Combat Awareness." The arrogant Virgo smirked as he knelt down in the water. "I am able to keep up with your attacks, unlike other Gold Saints. As a result, the only way to defeat me would be to have a greater level of strength than I... which you are tragically leaps and bounds away from..." Raising a hand, Shaka held up a finger. "One minute. You have one minute to try to kill me, during which case I will not attack you in any form whatsoever. After that minute, I will begin stripping your senses away one by one with every five seconds that elapse. To prove I am not lying in this all..."

A wave suddenly shot through Isaac, Cecil, and Chary, all of them taking a step back when a sudden sensation swept through them. They looked at Shaka, confused by the gesture before Charybdis spoke up... "I can't feel anything..."

"I can't either..." Isaac added, and Cecil agreed.

"I removed your senses of touch... it shouldn't interfere with your chances of killing me. One minute and counting."

Charybdis lunged at Shaka before he even finished the announcement, slashing down with Gram. It struck Shaka's head, but stopped on contact, the Saint looking at her unimpressed before vanishing, Cecil and Isaac's respective punches failing as Shaka appeared above them and slapped his hands onto their back, bright flashes of golden light coming forth as they slammed into the murky waters underneath them.

Shaka landed in the waters behind Charybdis as the Mariner struck at him again with Gram, which bore no effects whatsoever, the Mariner growling at him. "You hit back."

The Virgo Saint's leg suddenly came up, smashing into Chary's gut and knocking the wind out of her as he blasted her away with another Tenma Kofuku. "Of course I did. My previous impression of your skill in battle is clearly inferior to what it is. In a million years, you would never have a chance at harming me."

Another wave passed through Charybdis and the now-recovered Isaac and Cecil, this time negating their sense of taste as Shaka afterwards stated. Agni then turned to casually move out of the way of Cecil's Moko Ranbu... but suddenly the water around his feet froze, and he took a painful Hieha Suicho to the face, knocking the Saint into the air, where the pillar of ice then smashed into his backside from below. Nimbly, Cecil jumped at the Saint, striking with the Ankoku Moko Reppu Shiden Ken, but Shaka simply teleported away again from all three of them.

"Suppression of the sense of smell," Shaka announced as the trio fell victim to the next attack in that sequence.

"Reppu Kairyunagi!"

"Black Tempest!"

"Aurora Borealis!"

Seeing the attacks surge at him, Shaka deftly shouted "KAHN!" A barrier appeared around him, Shaka not expecting the measures to break through...

Although suddenly the corrosive wind, ice stream, and ripple in space suddenly slipped through, hitting the Gold Saint and managing to even draw blood as he reeled back in pain. Red droplets began falling into the water as he looked up at the three of them, Charybdis coyly grinning.

"I can use all of One World without my Scale. Barriers won't work. Heck, that Gold Cloth of yours is nothing more than an accessory now."

She's progressed more than almost every other Sea Dragon Mariner that's ever existed! Shaka thought before looking down, seeing much of his Cloth was completely ruined. Parts had been eaten away by something absurdly toxic, while much of what remained had been frozen solid. And those boys... to match the Aurora Execution's power and be capable of so easily corroding a Gold Cloth... guess I was wrong.

The three of them charged again, Shaka deciding not to risk anything else. "Suppression of the five senses!"

Immediately the world went dark and silent for Cecil, Charybdis, and Isaac, yet they reacted appropriately, letting Combat Awareness guide their actions as Fenrir had done when he battled Milo. Cecil even went so far as to point to the blonde Saint, knowing exactly where he was.

"Congratulations, Shaka. You've managed to do relatively little to us in this fight in spite of your tremendous power."

"Little?" Shaka retorted before pointing up at the sky and then back at the ground, at which case the trio was lifted into the air and then smashed back into the riverbed. "On the contrary... many of your techniques have done damage only to my Cloth. My body itself remains unharmed. Tiamet's Gram is completely useless against me, as she's discovered in spite of her best attempts to fell me with it."

Shaka stood up to a World and Orbit Finger strike without moving a muscle, not a scratch appearing on either his body or his Cloth, leaving the Mariner completely horrified.

"You three... you fail to see the flow of life... the 'breath' of all things in this world. Your Combat Awareness is not complete... whereas mine is." Taking a few steps forward, Shaka began to gather his strength again. "My next move... will kill one of you."
_
There! Rei thought as she stumbled through the exit of the Ophiuchus Temple, a massive statue of Pallas Athena standing there, in one hand a golden shield while a small figurine rested in the other.

Ignoring the pain as best she could, Athena grabbed both before moving as fast as she could back to the Ophiuchus Temple. Although the temple did not serve as a line of defense against invaders to Sanctuary per se, considering that it was located in Sanctuary after the Pope's temple, it still held two important purposes. First, the Ophiuchus Saint served as one of the covert assassin of Sanctuary, to be employed in fragile situations where a traditional assault would result in needless death.

Second, it was more than coincidence that the Athena's shield traditionally bore a serpent on it and Ophiuchus was the "Serpent Handler".

Placing the shield on the ground, Rei knew she had only fleeting moments left. Fenrir might even be dead already... all the more reason to hasten her efforts. The goddess of Wisdom found an adequately sharp rock in the wreckage of where Charybdis and later Cecil had fought Shaina and pricked her finger on it so blood would trickle out. She smeared the blood on the statue, glad to see it begin to glow as the shield did so as well.

Let me don my Cloth again, Athena thought before grasping the statue and shield, the golden arrow that had pierced her chest fading away into nothing as magnificent, platinum-white armor appeared on her.

Looking off back to the previous temples, Athena took off running, a massive war-staff in one hand, her shield in the other. "Aiolos... I'm not dying today."
_
"I've already arranged transportation," Shun explained as he, Persephone, Julien, and Aiacos reached a private air hanger, lifting it up.

The sight of the plane in there caused the prosecutor and student of M-- to drop their jaw in shock.

"Lord Hades... are you aware of the laws regarding private ownership of a Lockheed Martin X-33?" he asked, turning to his master.

"Are you?" Shun humbly responded.

"Uh... no... I was honestly asking you whether these things are allowed for personal use..." The King of Prosecutors said nervously. He started to head to it, but Julien called out to his "brother".

"Hades..." Poseidon asked as he looked down at his Scale, held in his hands. "Is your Surplice acting weird?"

"What... do you mean?" Persephone asked.

"No..." Shun answered. "What's wrong with yours?"

Before Julien could explain it glowed bright orange, burst from his hands, and shot out into the air before heading west. Looking at them, Solo slowly said, "Felt like it needed to go somewhere..."
_
"Any idea what's going on up there?" Hilda asked Radamanthys as the Specter shook his head.

"None at all."

"What about you, Pandora?" the Polaris matriarch asked, but Pandora sighed.

"I really don't know... the fight obviously is over by now..."

"Miss Polaris!!!" suddenly shouted a man behind her. She turned, seeing one of her men running towards her, out of breath and sweating nervously. "The... the Odin Robe!"

"What!?!" she said, grabbing him. "What happened to it? Was it stolen!?!"

The man shook his head. "No... the box for it... it just opened!"

"Impossible," Pandora countered. "I made the thing... the box for it would only open if its user's life was in danger!"

Suddenly a beam of blue light shot out of the doorway, knocking them all over before shooting up towards the Pope's temple.
_
As the pink haired doctor leaned against a wall and began trying to catch her breath, she wondered how long before her charade would be revealed. Hopefully not for a little-

"Excuse me ma'am... I'd like to see some identification..."

Shit.

She turned to see Deathmask and Kanon standing there, along with a pair of high-ranking hospital directors. She took a step back before she blinked in shock... as if she suddenly became aware of something.

"Fine... you've got me," she said, raising one hand in the air as the other went into her pocket. She quickly emptied it as a small black figurine fell to the ground and immediately shot off, blinding the four men as she took off running down the hall.
_
"You... you three will witness Hell now," Shaka said as he pointed at them. "Behold the six paths to madness... Rikudo Rinne!!!" A wave of light spread over Cecil, Charybdis, and Isaac as they suddenly screamed... Shaka projecting different images over and over into their mind of nightmarish environments...

"Which one will you be swallowed up by?" Shaka probed, raising an eyebrow. "Feel the unrelenting terror coursing through your minds..." The blind eyes of the trio suddenly glazed over as they began to collapse-

But suddenly two beams of energy shot out of nowhere down into Cecil and Isaac, blue and orange respectively as the rose up into the air. Shaka stepped back in surprise and terror as they looked down in surprise, their five senses returned to them as they touched down. Shaka could see a black beam approaching Charybdis... what was going on here?!?

"Cecil Bodu!" the God Warrior announced as he pointed the infamous spear Gungnir at Shaka, the crystalline armor of the Odin Robe now on his body. "Temporary wielder of the Odin Robe!"

"Isaac Krylov!" the Mariner continued, amused at the thought that this was the second time he had used a borrowed suit of armor. Mirroring Cecil's gesture, the Mariner pointed the trident in his hands at Shaka, a new Scale on his body. "Temporary wielder of the Poseidon Scale!"

Without wasting a moment to act, Shaka charged, teleporting through their strikes. Tiamet was still down, and although the black beam had struck her, nothing had happened, yet. He slammed his hands into her body, screaming out "EXTENSION!" in extreme despair, blasting Cecil and Isaac away the power of the move before flipping away. When the two boys caught sight of Charybdis's remains... they were aghast...

The water they had been fighting in was now all gone... Charybdis's body a large pile of mush with her severed head at the top of it. Her eyes bore a look of pain and suffering beyond anything Cecil or Isaac could relate too as Shaka breathed a sigh of relief.

"By breaking down all the polar bonds in the water molecules around us and also Charybdis's body... I have ended the threat... you two..." he said in a relaxed manner, "I can still defeat you two."

They looked at each other and then back at Shaka and Charybdis's remains... not knowing what to do-

But then the mush began to move, twitch. Shaka looked down at it in shock, stepping back as she emerged from it... Wearing a dark Surplice reminiscent of the Specter she had killed what seemed years ago...

But it was different from Myu's... much more streamlined and with spectral wings rather than traditional, fairy-like wings that Myu had used.

"Charybdis Tiamet," the Mariner said proudly, pointing to the Surplice on her body. "Temporary Papillon of the Terrestrial Demon Star."