The ground was so very, very cold.

Somehow, Sagittarius Aiolos always thought the ground would be warm when he died, whether from the endless hours Grecian sun spent beating it as he died slowly of old age, or from the freshly spilled blood on the battlefield of Athena's army against her ultimate enemy, Hades and his minions. This… he never envisioned this – dying in the middle of the night, being branded a traitor and trying to save his Lady Athena from the madness of his best friends while being mortally wounded by another friend.

Holding with madman's desperation on the last vestiges of his sanity and consciousness, pain from the Excalibur spreading past his shattered bones and tearing his heart apart with a cold and calculated precision he learned to associate with Shura's strikes and tactics, he stumbled to the Parthenon, hoping the Fates would send him someone who would care for his goddess, for he knew he couldn't hold on anymore.

Athena… my Lady…

The tiny infant with a shock of light purple hair, born under the sign of Virgo, was currently asleep, letting out content noises from time to time as she lay swaddled in her blankets Aiolos hastily picked up from her crib when he took her away, adorably similar to his little brother Aiolia at that age. A sweet smile already on her face, undoubtedly dreaming of the wonders and light she embodied and gifted so easily with her mere presence, it gave Aiolos strength to go on, to fight for one more step, one more meter. If he forgot for a moment what had happened to him, Aiolos could pretend it was just him and Aiolia as children after Aiolia had one of his infamous temper tantrums that made their caretakers tear out their hair, Aiolos carrying him around and singing him to sleep since he was widely known to be the only one capable of dealing with the little twerp.

The reminder of how he left his baby brother to the mercy of Saga and Sanctuary only served to make his eyes water and send another bolt of pain into his overworked heart as he clutched onto the bundle of blankets tighter.

Ba-dum. Ba-dum…

Nothing.

With horror, the young Sagittarius Saint realized that it would not be the injuries from Shura's blade that would do him in: it would be his own soldier heart. His family had not had the history of heart problems as far as Aiolos knew, but he had heard stories about the Scorpio Saint that had heart issues – the Saints were still mortals, despite their seemingly god-like powers. They still got sick, and boy, could they die, often in the most spectacular way possible. The records and Aiolos' current state were the prime examples of that fact.

The terrible coldness and pain shot out of his heart down his left arm, the classic sign of the abrupt heart attack. Aiolos gritted his teeth and dragged himself forward a few more steps to the giant rock, his Pandora Box miraculously staying light on his back, as if trying to help his Saint and Athena reach safety. Reaching the rock, the boy collapsed face first on it, his light-brown sun-bleached hair falling everywhere as he cradled the infant goddess under his chest, the last barrier between her and the death he could offer as he kept praying for assistance from Fates.

Please, please, save her, someone please come and help me save Lady Athena!

"Hey, kid!"

Oh thank Goddess, Aiolos thought, mind already descending into murky fog he usually associated with the nights he fell on his bed in ninth House, completely wiped out from endless stream of missions and training and meetings with Pope Shion and spending time with Aiolia. He fought it off for a brief second, determined not to let go of himself until he managed to hand off his Lady properly – his Lady deserved to know her destiny, and if he died before he said anything, all will be for naught.

"Kid! Kid! Hey… are you from the Sanctuary? Are you alright?" A worried male voice came from somewhere in close vicinity, and a rumble of feet running up to him reached Aiolos' ears and mind.

He knows! Aiolos rejoiced – he will not need to explain much, and this was a lucky break he needed right now. He was losing his consciousness way too fast for any detailed explanations he knew he owed to the man he was about to foist the infant off onto.

"A-athena…" he managed to rasp out, gathering all of his strength for one last act for his goddess. "P-prot-tec-ct her… San-sanctu-tuary… not-t s-safe… for A-athena…"

"Athena?" the man's voice asked in disbelief, and Aiolos could understand. No one expected one of the Twelve Olympians to willingly rebirth themselves as tiny babies to help out Earth, let alone find them far away from the place they're supposed to be safe at, but such were the ways of his Lady. "O-okay, I will."

Aiolos' job was now done – Athena was safe, given to someone who was already at least somewhat aware of the role she will have soon, and the Sagittarius Cloth was also far away from Saga's lunacy – no one except those the Cloth and Athena deemed worthy would be able to have it.

Thank you, whoever you are.

Sagittarius Saint would've said it out loud, but the nightmarish cold was getting to him: he could no longer move, simply sinking into the darkness and coldness he had only felt once, when the Cancer candidate Deathmask opened the gates to the hell with his Sekishiki Mekai Ha(Dark Underworld Wave) to demonstrate his mastery of Cancer techniques to Pope.

Deathmask, Aiolia, Shura, Mu, Camus, Aphrodite, Milo, Shaka, Aldebaran… Saga…

Even after everything, Aiolos could not stop thinking about his friends and the Sanctuary. Even with Saga doing what Aiolos previously thought no Saint would ever do, Aiolos refused to lose faith in them. There had to be a way around Saga's insanity, there just had to be!

Casting his own Cosmo towards the heavens, where he knew his birth star shone and would soon fall to commemorate his death, he cried out loud for the entire universe to hear.

Please, if anyone's listening, please, I beg you, keep my friends safe! I'll give you anything you desire, just keep them safe until Athena grows up!

With that, Aiolos lost consciousness and fell into the cold embrace of Death.

"Well, that ended in a disaster and a half," Yelena, the Celestial Guardian Aquarius that was currently on duty, sighed as she watched Sagittarius Saint collapse and breathe out his last breath and with it, his last wish to the stars. Her blue eyes were solid and un-moving, dedicated to watching the world, her House and her celestial siblings, but her heart ached in sympathy for the life lost. She rubbed the gold armlets with her celestial sign on them as she offered her own prayer for the safe passage of the brave soul and turned to the man standing next to her to see his reaction.

"I hate seeing him like that," Tenma, the Celestial Guardian Sagittarius and the second one on duty for that night, spoke and Yelena spotted him discreetly brush off the tear from the corner of his eye.

His brown hair was tousled even more than normal, and a golden arrow flickered in and out of sight in his clenched right fist as he watched the Japanese man, Kido, take Lady Athena away with Sagittarius' Pandora Box and leave Aiolos' broken body in the middle of Parthenon. Even after all those years of living and serving with him, Yelena still found herself surprised to not see him donning his Pegasus Cloth that made him – or well, other him – a legend in her time, exchanging it for the similar clothes as her: a knee-length white chiton, bearing vambraces and shin guards instead of her elaborate armlets and anklets, and a stardust-infused belt and girdle respectively.

"He did his duty to Lady Athena," Yelena told him in a soothing voice, laying a careful hand on his shoulder as to not startle him and provoke a retaliation from the already unstable and emotional Guardian. "He'll be fine."

"No, he won't be," Tenma shook his head as he observed the moon setting, marking the end of their vigilance and the coming hand-off to Virgo Guardian who still had the reign over the days for the next two weeks. "His body didn't dissolve – who knows what will Sanctuary do to him, considering Saga will likely declare him a traitor to cover up for this nightmare."

Yelena winced at the reminder of how merciless Sanctuary could be to its traitors and touched her unblemished neck, free of the scar but not of the occasional phantom pain. She had been surprised her and Integra's bodies had been buried honorably, all things considered – then again Shion might have calculated it'd be better to bury them with honors then to leave their bodies for Hades' minions to pick up later down the line.

Whichever the case, Shion's cold calculation or mercy, Saga would have none for his fallen once-friend, that much was clear. However, there was a way for Aiolos to avoid the fate of other traitors, if one bothered to read through all of the documents the Zodiac Guardians had accumulated throughout the centuries – and lucky for Tenma, eleventh House keepers were obligated to do so during their spare time to better prepare for inevitable rehashed squabbles they would have to judge with Libra keepers.

This will do nicely – Tenma would owe her one, and she would be able to show her face in the Underworld knowing she did everything in her power to fulfill the destiny revealed to her when she was but one of many children vying for any Cloth compatible with a cold Cosmo.

"That is true… in most situations," Yelena said quietly, getting Tenma to look up at her with a renewed glimmer in his eyes. "In our archives exists a document that details under which circumstances are Guardians allowed to leave their post, and it specifically states that in the event of war or upcoming war, when one or more Gold Saints die, their celestial Guardian sibling is allowed to take up their post until the next Saint is found or Cloth is returned to a state in which it can protect Sanctuary."

Tenma's eyes went blank for a moment as their owner digested what Yelena had just revealed to him, before lighting up: he jumped up, the fabric and stardust fluttering around in a cloud as he rushed over to her and fell on his knees. Yelena blinked, taken aback, for she had not expected this type of reaction from her fellow Guardian. Elation, yes; some more clarification, certainly, but dropping on his knees?

"Yelena," Tenma spoke gently, and Yelena noticed his shoulders shake and chin droop, "is this true, or are you raising my hopes for nothing?"

"The document is there, I swear to you on my Master, Lord Ganymede and his good name," Yelena murmured and dropped to her knees as well, the dress pooling around her as she embraced Tenma and let him sob into her shoulder, silently thanking her birth-star she had made the stupid decision to become Celestial Guardian at the death's doorstep, just before she entered the Underworld.

She sometimes hated her peers and their attitudes, but she never felt more accepted, loved, and free to say everything she wanted to say without being preemptively judged based solely on the topic she talked about.

"Then… would you mind doing our vigils alone for the foreseeable future?" Tenma asked her in a hushed voice, as if fearing they'd be overheard.

"I won't," Yelena sighed as she saw the mad shine of joy appear in Tenma's eyes. "You do realize you're going to owe me badly?"

"Nah, I don't care," Tenma waved it off, standing up and helping her on her way as well. "What's my purpose here anyway? My other self reincarnated to be with Sasha again, our two timelines merged at this point, so… the six of us from that timeline are all but useless except this glorified watch duty. I might as well take care of Sagittarius House in Sanctuary and make sure that little Regulus look-alike doesn't get smashed into paste by the mob for his brother's noble cause."

Yelena could not find a single fault in his argument, so she was left with sighing and pinching the bridge of her nose as she wished she was allowed to strangle Tenma. This was completely unnecessary; Celestial Guardians did not do much visibly, but the workload that they had always left Yelena wishing she could just flip everyone off and take a good nap, so how did Tenma plan on balancing his normal duties with being on Earth?

The dumbass probably didn't think that far ahead, which meant she and other Guardians will have to do it in his place. Izo and Francisca will definitely not like it, the stubborn and unchanging bull and goat that they were; Integra, Itta and Hakurei will probably just laugh it off and continue, while Ecarlate, Alen and Albafica will just stay neutral and not care too much, since they liked their posts.

All of them Yelena could deal with. The problems would, of course, be the fifth and sixth Guardians – Kaiser was an annoying stick-in-the-mud that all but asked for a good beating with how he sometimes acted, and Asmita was so unpredictable in his eternal meditation and wise words, it was better to overwhelm everyone else and force him to comply by default.

While she was ruminating, Tenma had already started constructing a bridge to the Earth, golden arrow and bow at ready to pierce through the gateway and transport him down the moment the portal stabilized. She could only wave him goodbye and turn around, because she felt Asmita coming with the sun's rise, and she couldn't let him interrupt Tenma.

You're gonna owe so damn much, you stupid, stupid Sagittarius!

This is only an excerpt that'll be up until I manage to write several chapters ahead - I'll be restatring this story afresh, with some names that did appear before that now have a completely different role (because last time I was just flying by the seat of my pants, this time I'm actually planning ahead). Please be patient, and thank you for checking this out!