The Saint Countdown: #2 Cygnus Hyoga (anime version 1)

For some the ultimate favorite, and the expected 'winner' of this countdown, but it ain't so.  Hyoga has to settle on the silver medal in this series, and with that I mean the original anime version, where the blue contrasted better with his silver white cloth.

Hyoga is often called the 'Saint of Melancholy' due to the aura of sadness surrounding his person.  He lost his mother, he will lose both his teachers, he will lose his childhood friend, and in the end during the Lucifer movie, he will even lose the memory of his mother.  He appears calm, collected and unemotional but beneath the surface he is a volcano of passion and loyal to his ideals.

In the manga, he was the 'assassin' send by Sanctuary to bring the other bronze saints back in the fold instead of showing off to the world, but in the anime this has been changed and ommited.  He is aloof though, as he thinks that the subclass of Ice saints make him more then the rest.

This is first seen when he battles Hydra Ichi during the galaxian wars, but during his confrontation wirth Ikki, he was defeated, though he did manage to get past the Black Saints first and reach the Phoenix saint.

In the anime, he also has a master in the direct line between him and Camus, namely the Crystal Saint.  When this noble warrior is forced by the false Pope, due to the Demonic Illusion technique, to attack Hyoga, he has no other choice to eventually overcome and kill his old master.  Later during the Sanctuary arc, Shun nearly sacrifices himself to heal Hyoga from being frozen by Camus, and since then he came close with the Andromeda Saint as he thinks he own's Shun his life.

He is also the only of the bronze saints not having their religion be the Greek pantheon, but being Christian just as his mother Natasha was.  When during the Sanctuary arc Camus sends the ship his mother's body rests on further to the ocean floor and out of Hyoga's reach, he finally awakens his 7th Sense and copies the strongest attack of his master, the Aurora Execution.

It is then revealed that both Milo of Scorpio (who donated his blood to revive his cloth after the Sanctuary arc) and Camus of Aquarius fought so hard against the Cygnus saint in order to make him awake his true potential for the battle to come.  Little did they know that due to the machinations of Kanon, it would be Poseidon that they needed to tackle first, and not Hades.

During these arcs, Hyoga played another part as equal as the other 'companion saints', perhaps entering the forefront more during the Asgard arc, as this was, well, his nativelike soil and he was in his element there, and has made cameo's so far in the Next Dimension manga and in the Omega storyline.

Hyoga has been released in his classic version cloth, and stands proudly in my collection on his cutomized base.