Saga!
One of the strongest Gold Saints under Athena.
Also the craziest Gold Saint.
He suffers from severe split personality.
His dark persona harbors an insanely ambitious will and ruthless methods.
To rule the earth, he even dared to kill the goddess Athena.
"You really can't reason with a lunatic."
Damian griped inwardly.
His own "lunatic" trait was just a persona, a disguise.
This one's lunacy was the real deal—an incurable late-stage case.
Maybe that one line he tossed out in the arena had drawn him here.
The question: did His Holiness come to my graveyard in person?
If he came himself, it would mean a war.
Probably not…
Damian narrowed his eyes and swept Saga with his mental power.
An empty shell?
The Cosmo the other radiated wasn't strong; there was no sign of life. It seemed only the Gemini Gold Cloth had descended, because Saga could control his Gemini Cloth from afar.
If it was just the Cloth descending, he had no reason to fear it.
Damian saw it clearly. He had a hunch Saga would come looking for trouble. He'd thought a dignified Pope wouldn't go all the way to the graveyard to hassle a mere gravekeeper.
He hadn't expected him to dispatch the Gemini Gold Cloth directly.
Which showed just how paranoid Dark Saga was.
Even so, Damian didn't dare get careless before a Gold Cloth.
Even remotely controlling it, Saga could still attack—possibly even use techniques.
Judging by this posture, he was here to silence a witness.
He'd hoped they could coexist peacefully, minding their own business.
And now they were tearing off the mask already.
"No wonder Marin stormed over, and Shaina got sent out in the middle of the night by the Pope… turns out it was all because of me."
Damian understood.
The Gemini Gold Cloth before him was shrouded in a faint black aura that wrapped its face and other exposed parts—like someone was wearing it.
A disguise to conceal identity.
"Saga, the Gemini Gold Saint. I've heard you're powerful—so powerful you can rival gods, a man called godlike."
"And yet someone so powerful came for a gravekeeper like me. Strange, isn't it?"
"Is it just because I said I wanted your Gold Cloth?"
Damian smiled at him, his whole musculature tuned to its best state.
Saga was very strong—enough to make him wary.
Even a Gold Cloth could threaten him. Against a monster like this, he had to tread carefully.
He could also feel a faint killing intent coming from the Cloth.
"I'm very interested in you."
Saga's sullen voice came through.
"In your match with Seiya, that move looked very much like a certain Gold Saint's technique… Hard to imagine—a gravekeeper hiding such strength. I want to know what you're hiding."
"Show me again."
Saga's demand was cold as ice.
It brimmed with the oppression and command of one in the heights—brooking no doubt, no defiance.
And the killing intent inside the Cloth was real. Damian was certain the visitor wasn't here purely for sport, but to kill and keep things quiet.
A lunatic is a lunatic. Somebody says one sentence and you send a Cloth to murder them?
"Oh? You want me to show you again?"
Damian chuckled and tore at his cover: "Back then, at my match with Seiya, there was no Gemini Gold Saint at the scene. How would you know? Were you there too?"
"Who were you disguised as?"
He paused deliberately and used elimination: "I'm guessing you were disguised as someone at the venue. One of the guards? One of those Silver Saints present? Or maybe some special figure…"
"So many people on site didn't recognize you—you probably wore a mask. Were you disguised as a female Saint?"
"No… your figure isn't that good, and you don't have a chest. Then were you disguised as…?"
The Cloth cut him off with a roar: "Enough!
The hand swept out. "Don't waste my time."
"Since you won't make a move, I won't be polite!"
Swoosh!
No sooner finished than Saga moved; his figure blurred and a sonic boom cracked.
An instant later, the Gemini Gold Cloth was in Damian's face.
"Supersonic punch!"
Damian didn't retreat. He simply lifted a hand and caught the punch, arm muscles swelling slightly.
The blow kicked up a gale and a shockwave that rattled the surrounding graves.
"Interesting."
The Gemini Cloth under Saga's control voiced its surprise.
This punch had already outstripped what a normal Bronze Saint could withstand, and the other caught it one-handed.
That alone was praiseworthy.
Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh!
Saga pulled no more punches. The Cloth's arms blurred, punching nonstop, faster and faster—afterimages stacked in layers.
"What speed!"
Saga was taking this fight seriously—the Cloth's speed was even more exaggerated.
Genuinely supersonic—enough to overwhelm most Silver Saints.
Damian figured this was the limit of Saga's control over the Cloth.
Saga hadn't come himself; many moves would be restricted.
For instance, the big guns—Galaxian Explosion, Genrō Maōken—could only be unleashed in person.
If this kept up, his normal state would suffer.
Take one punch wrong and his guard might be shattered—and then if an Another Dimension followed, that'd be trouble.
"Guard up! Activate!"
Damian seized his moment and backed off; his whole body tightened. Muscles detonated one by one, bulging instantly; every line swelled as he turned into a hulking brute in the blink of an eye.
He whipped his fists and crashed into the Cloth's flurry.
Thunk-thunk-thunk…
Lightning-fast iron fists, trailing sonic cracks, hammered the Gemini Cloth's joints, ringing with metallic clatter.
The Gemini Cloth staggered back several steps under the impact.
Gazing at the black sky, Damian shouted, "Number One—go find a strong one!"
A black shadow seemed to peel off into the night.
"Cosmo—I can feel a Cosmo ripple."
Amazement came from inside the Gold Cloth. "You're strange. There's clearly no Cosmo ripple on you—and now there's a vibrant Cosmo, as if your body itself is a Cosmo."
"A mere gravekeeper, and your combat power easily exceeds a Bronze Saint's. The Cosmo coming off you now is about a Silver Saint's standard."
In the Pope's hall, Saga, robed in black, wore a peculiar look.
Controlling a Gold Cloth to fight had limits.
The Cloth's movements and attacks couldn't exceed light speed—at most three or four times the speed of sound—and most techniques couldn't be used.
And the perception of remote control wasn't especially keen. He could only vaguely sense a special Cosmo ripple coming from the other's body.
He gauged the other at a Silver Saint's Cosmo standard—a baseline Sixth Sense.
"To think a mere gravekeeper hid this deep."
"Who is he really?"
As he weighed his options, a violent jolt shook Saga—he felt the other's fists pounding the Cloth, and his own Cosmo was ebbing.
The Gemini Gold Cloth was being bombarded. At this rate, it wouldn't last more than a few hits before coming apart.
He drew a deep breath. His Cosmo surged, pouring into the space before him as he invoked a finisher: "Another Dimension!"
Crap!
Every pore on Damian's body bristled. He felt the surrounding space rapidly compressing and warping, wrenching at him…