His fist drew back. The cosmos inside him—that fragile, burning thread—ignited not as a flame, but as a supernova compressed into the size of a child’s heart. The atoms of his broken bones screamed. The shattered Cloth reassembled not around his body, but through it, metal and flesh becoming one absurd, beautiful contradiction.
The Sanctuary bells began to ring. Not in alarm. In defiance. Saint Seiya
“Strike.”
He saw Saori’s face. Not Athena, the cold goddess of war, but the girl who had once stood in the rain with a broken umbrella, waiting for a boy who was always late. He saw his orphanage brothers, Shun’s gentle hands, Hyōga’s frozen tears, Shiryū’s bleeding knuckles. He saw the little girl in the village of Rhodes who had offered him water when his own throat was ash. His fist drew back