As I see him, Deathmask is a well educated and intelligent man, who just happens to have been in contact with Death and the Dead more than it's healthy… And have the temper of Hercules himself. And that temper is going to show up.

By the way, started publishing a series of (silly) omake for this series. If you need a good laugh, check it out.

Chapter 03: A Nagging Feeling

Deathmask knew exactly what was happening: the king of Melromarc was trying to frame him as a rapist. It was a classic, and in hindsight he should have seen it coming. He also knew how to dismantle it-it wasn't hard if one kept a clear head-and use the whole thing to gain control of the king, with the accuser tortured to death as a bonus. That was why, after waiting for Ren and his party to reach the throne room first, he entered himself by throwing the gates open while showing righteous anger rather than the annoyance he felt for both that and the nagging feeling of missing something important.

"Who dares to levy false accuses on me?!" he demanded.

The king was caught by surprise by his entrance, but recovered immediately and tried to continue his scheme: "Silence! You stand accused of attempted rape, and you will answer for it!"

"With what evidence is the Hero of the Shield, your guest, accused?"

That caught the king up short. As common as it was, the false rape accusation wasn't easily proven, and as a guest and a Hero Deathmask could not be simply punished if he questioned it. King Aultclay had clearly not thought things through. What the Gold Saint didn't know was why the king was so scared.

"YOU DARE TO ACCUSE MYNE OF LYING?!" Motoyasu shouted.

Deathmask quickly realized why the king was so scared: it was his daughter's life on the line. Then he registered the rest: his host's daughter was the accuser, Motoyasu believed the little girl in prostitute clothes over the guy he should know was too sure of himself to commit rape, and, worse of all, they insinuated he would feel even the slightest attraction to the wandering insult to anything heroes and similar, like Athena's Saints, Poseidon's Mariners, Odin's God Warriors, and even Hades' Specters, stood for.

It was a minor miracle that Deathmask's punch simply knocked Motoyasu out, or that he didn't massacre everyone.

"Let me get this straight-I try and save you from your own lack of preparedness, and not only you levy such a false accusation on the Hero summoned to save this land, but you insult everyone's intelligence by not even trying to gather evidence?!" he bellowed, absent-mindedly noticing that the Bow Hero was considering his words and some nobles were trying to hide their snickers. "I ought to have you quartered! Be grateful I have a schedule to keep in slaughtering bandits, or I wouldn't be as merciful as I am now!"

And with that he piledrived the girl before demanding to the king if there was anything else and, when he confirmed there wasn't, leaving.

"FANCULO!" one of the three wanderers shouted. "Fanculo to my temper and everything! When will I get another chance?!"

"Never?" the lead bandit said as they came out of the woods. "Don't worry, it's going to be painless."

The wanderers-the one covered with a hooded cloak, the young boy wearing winged boots, and the regal-looking old man-looked at the bandits as if they were a joke, and not even a funny one.

Then the hooded one moved-and next thing the bandit leader knew, the wanderer had bit his teeth off. Then the pain started, as the hooded one killed all his companions but one by spitting the teeth at them and used the threat of the same to have the survivor indicate him the location of their hideout, before tearing him apart.

"My word, I had not seen that trick in centuries. Magnificently executed."

"Thank you, Conductor of Souls." Deathmask replied. "May I ask why your Divine Father and you have come to this world?"

"We wondered why did the magic called for you-and we had your answer. Now we wonder if Nemesis is involved. And why you didn't massacre them all, given that Myne is-"

"Please don't tell me, Magnificent Herald. For if I knew for certain I would have to exact revenge for broken Hospitality, and that would weaken their punishment."

"As expected by the second cruelest servant of the Goddess of Wisdom. Continue as you do, for you honor your Goddess. Farewell."

With that, Deathmask observed the two gods disappear and return where they had come from, leaving him wondering what kind of fame he had if Zeus and Hermes came to see who had done what to deserve him. And what was that nagging feeling.

"Lord Angelo! What brings you here?"

Deathmask's smile was not completely motivated by acting or how his plan to have the locals' goodwill as a shield against the crazy king was working in spite of his temper ruining his play at court. After all, being the Cancer Saint steeped in death by his very existence meant his presence wasn't exactly well liked most of the times, even when it wasn't motivated by his duties, and his cavalier attitude and the fact few aside from Shaka and his affiliates got the ACTUAL point of the wailing heads (well, most of them) certainly didn't make him better liked, so the people actually appreciating his presence was a nice change of pace.

"Just some sales and an evaluation." he replied as he gave the pharmacist one of his bottles. "How good are these?"

"A new recipe for your medicines, I take." the pharmacist said, remembering how Deathmask had come to him to sell some of the medicines he had prepared in his spare time with the Shield's power. "Let me see."

"Of course. Take your time, you are the expert for this." Deathmask said. Then he felt the sudden arrival of so many weak Cosmos, and realized what exactly that nagging feeling was about. "You have to be kidding me… How did I miss THAT?!"

"Something wrong, lord Angelo?" the pharmacist asked.

"Nothing I can't fix. May I use the latrine room for a few minutes?"

"Of course, lord Angelo."

"Where are the Legendary Heroes?!" Fitoria shouted as she saw none of them appearing to take on the Wave that was attacking a city in Faubley.

"I don't know, my lady!" the commander of the local militia replied. "They should be already here!"

"Assuming they even know, as the king of Melromarc is just the kind of guy who may decide to not tell them to have a military advantage-or just out of hatred against the Shield Hero." a cloaked man commented.

Fitoria and the commander nodded, Fitoria making some comments on how far her old friend had fallen-then they realized the cloaked man had appeared out of nowhere.

"Who are you, and how did you come here under my nose?!" Fitoria demanded.

"I am a professional who has limited abilities to move between dimensions, and who now understands his nagging feeling about missing something. Good thing I can sense this kind of things…" the cloaked man replied. Then he lifted an arm, revealing the Legendary Shield, and cried out two words: "SEKISHIKI MEIKAIHA!"

Fitoria felt something, like medianic magic but incredibly more powerful, and then saw all the monsters just lie down and die, the flying ones falling down, just as the rip in the sky disappeared. Then she turned at the Shield Hero, but he had already disappeared.

"Don't worry, for I shall always be there, I and those who will come to find me." his voice echoed.

"And Cane is antagonizing THAT…" Fitoria commented.

"What did just happen?!" the commander asked.

"The new Shield Hero is a necromancer and a user of the Power of Miracles beyond any I have ever seen and has ripped away the souls of the invaders, invaders with bodies too weak to survive his spell."

"A necromancer?!"

"One who knows what is allowed, or he'd have been killed well before he could become so powerful. Don't worry, he won't raise an army of living dead."

"So, how's the medicine?" Deathmask asked after coming out of the latrine room he had used to mask his teleportation.

"Good quality, and growing."

As he contracted the sales' price with the merchant, Deathmask decided he needed a companion NOW. Even if it was someone like Aiolia's annoying servant, he needed to bounce idea with them-he would have not missed that the Waves of Destruction were happening in all the local countries otherwise.

Author note

Deathmask should have seen the frame-up coming due the sheer amount of mythical heroes who had been accused of that (usually by a married woman that had tried to have sex with them and made the accuse when they refused). Being Italian and a servant of Athena he would be most familiar with the story of Potiphar's wife and Joseph and that of Phaedra and Hippolytus, but the list is truly enormous. They all have in common the fact they're believed only due extenuating circumstances (Potiphar believed his wife because Joseph left her his clothes in the hurry of escaping her and still had enough doubts to go easy on him, and Phaedra killed herself out of shame at Hippolytus finding out her feelings and made her accusation in a suicide note), and he knows that well.

Deathmask insists so much on hospitality, and is right about it, because most pre-industrial societies have strong codes about that, and the ancient Greeks were fanatics about that (see the Trojan War: most of the Greek kings went because Agamemnon, their overlord, told them to, but they wouldn't have persevered for ten years had Paris not been a guest when he kidnapped Helen).

According to Cancer Deathtoll in Saint Seiya: Next Dimension, the reason for the wailing heads in the Temple of the Giant Crab is quite different from what Deathmask say. Knowing Deathmask and the fact he's not stupid, it's likely that some of his heads are indeed the souls of some of his victims collected on missions, specifically those that would serve well as trophies or were simply particularly irritant before he killed them, but most come from the other reason.

If the body of Shiryuu (pre-Seventh Sense, but still above the level of the Silver Saints) was giving out during his fight with Deathmask only because the soul was at the Yomutsu Hisaraka, then there's no way in hell a bunch of monsters that Deathmask could destroy by sneezing at them would survive. And only now I realize I've made him that much more terrifying.

Yes, I believe Deathmask could cause a zombie apocalypse-and is nowhere near stupid enough to even joke about that.