Homeland

         “What the hell…? Are you saying you saw your brother losing the fight and you didn´t try to help him?” 

            “It´s his fault he was defeated by a bronze saint. As for me, even if he was my half-brother, I just see him as… a corpse, cold and weak, nothing else.”

            “We both… Shun and I also weren´t born under a good star. Bado, we have never met our parents. We were led separate ways! And we once fought one against the other on different sides! Shun and I curse our own fate. But now we can fight side by side, along with our loyal friends, for a single goal: the goddess Athena! It´ll come the time when Shun and I, who were born under such unfortunate stars, will be able to… live in peace. We fight together because a victory earned by hatred for your only brother is hollow… Hollow because your brother is not there for you…”

            The speech echoed in his ears. Now he understood his parents had been cruel by abandoning him, but he also had been cruel when he said such harsh words about his brother. Ikki was right. His attitude was worth being cast away by Odin. Hatred. That feeling had closed completely the doors to his heart, and in its place had been raised a bloody sword.

            Bado looks at his brother, who is lying in his arms. His body was severely punished by Andromeda´s violent attack. However, his face still held the pure tinge of the boy who once saved a rabbit. His brother. Bound to him by a common fate, and all that time he had thought they led separate ways. In truth, they were the same.

            He had never thought he would be back someday. His parents´ homeland. He didn´t want to be near them. But he remembered how far he went led by hatred and decided to forgive them. Forgive them for having abandoned him to die, afraid of losing the family´s status, as if money was more precious then life.

            He still hated them. But it was useless. He could never go back to the time they were alive so he could take his revenge on them. It was preferable to forget about them. ‘We have never met our parents…’ said Ikki. And Bado, for an instant, asked himself if it was better to have met his parents, who abandoned him, then to have never met them at all.

            It was starting to get dark. There was only one god warrior left to be defeated. Siegfried. Bado was curious if Ikki, Shun and their friends would manage to get through the Northern Dragon. He didn´t care anymore if the battle was won or not. But he wished that the bronze brothers would be able to, someday, achieve the dream of living in peace. An unreachable dream for him and Shido.

            ‘You are just being used by Hilda, Bado’.

            Andromeda was right.  All his efforts were thrown away when Hilda took advantage on him. Bado stops and lowers his gaze.

            ‘I was just a toy. Just a toy. Nothing else. I´ve lost so much time because of hatred. A whole life…’

            Bado kneels on the ice.

‘What a useless life…’

Bado feels his legs weaken and gathers all strength in his body to stand up. He had to carry Shido to his homeland.

Shido… Even if he didn´t become as strong as Bado himself was, he was indeed a god warrior. And to achieve such an exploit, a lot of blood had to be shed. Shido knew his shadow hid his twin brother Bado. He knew Bado hated him. Even so, he carried on pretending his brother didn´t exist. It wasn´t because he was trying to run away from the problem, but because no one should know about Bado´s existence, not even the other god warriors. This could harm his brother. Shido knew Bado had always hated him, but that feeling was never mutual.

Because they were brothers.

Bado walks through the snow, its smoothness marred by the anger of his every step. It wasn´t far.

Then he arrived. From the top of that mountain, he could see the house were they were born. It was badly kept, swept by the snow and the morbid weather, left to oblivion. In front of it, semi-destroyed walls and unlocked rusty gates, the very gates his father once crossed in order to abandon him. There was their homeland.

Twin wet tracks found their way down his face. It just occurred to him everything that had happened during his childhood. Tears flowed in a silent answer to such emotional impact.

But he wasn´t crying because of sadness.

He missed him.

Bado gives up to the sudden weakness that seizes his body and collapses on the ground, shedding his last tears over his brother´s corpse.

* THE END *

Obs: Saint Seiya belongs to Masami Kurumada, Shueisha and Toei Animation.