Grand Pope Shion

Grand Pope Shion was the Aries saint of the previous holy war (depicted in both the Legend of Hades and the Lost Canvas manga series), and rose to the position as one of two survivors of that era (the other being Dohko of Libra, who would become the `old master` of the Five Peaks).

He was the apprentice of Hakurei the cloth maker in The Lost Canvas, brother of Grand Pope Sage and them both also survivors of the Holy War before that.  An inhabitant of Jamir, Shion also had the powers to repair and restore damaged cloths, apart from being one of the younger and most recent Gold Saints during his era.

Upon becoming the Grand Pope, Shion could no longer perform the duties of the Aries Saint as he had previously done - thus, he began to train an apprentice to succeed the Cloth. Shion found that successor in Mu, during the 20th century, an extraordinary young man of the same race as Shion with a natural talent for Cloth reparation. Mu not only became the new Gold Saint of Aries, but he did so with all of Shion's abilities under his belt.

After Athena had once again reincarnated as a human infant after more than two centuries, Shion began preparations for the inevitable war. He understood that, due to old age, his
own time would soon be up, and therefore needed to choose a successor for his seat. With the exception of Sagittarius Aiolos and Gemini Saga, all of the Gold Saints were too young and inexperienced to take up the responsibilities. After a lengthy time of consideration, Shion eventually settled on the Gold Saint of Sagittarius. While Aiolos was not as powerful as Saga, Shion felt confident in his choice because he knew of Aiolos' undying loyalty to Athena and undeniable devotion to virtue.

Unfortunately, Shion was confronted by Saga in regards to his decision shortly after the announcement. It seems Saga felt discontent at Shion's choice, and demanded an explanation for it. Shion revealed that, while he acknowledged that Saga had a heavenly reputation and was the more powerful of the two, he could not help but sense something terrifyingly dark within the Gemini Saint. It is at this point that Saga confirmed Shion's suspicions, and assaulted the weary Pope with a deathblow.

Shion returned from the death by Hades, and created and led the plan for the fallen Gold Saints to look like traitors in order to allow the bronze saints to travel to Hades`s castle and enter the Underworld to help in the Holy War of the 20th century.  The plan was revealed when he battled hos former friend Dohko, before his new lease on life is fleeting away at the sunset of the new dawn...

The model is one of the SS `bottlecap` gashapon models I have in my collection, now I only need to paint Saori herself (but first replace the staff handle with an iron rod, as the soft plastic has been bend beyond straightening) to complete the whole `Sanctuary` series and move on towards the next batch, the Marina generals of Poseidon.

Unfortunatly for them, there is only a set of the Temples for background scenery though, no Pillars are on the market in that scale.