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Chapter Text

Sunlight beamed through the canopy directly into Touko’s eyes. She scrunched them shut and shifted her feet—only to sink again into the mud of the drought-sapped river. Heat washed over her in waves, yet she could not let go of him.

N’s hair smelled of smoke and sweat and earth. Musty and unwashed. A separate part of Touko lingered here, clinging to the moment. In turn each feeling came into focus; she reveled in the weave of his shirt between her fingers and the pressure of his arms wrapped tightly around her.

“I thought I would feel relief,” Touko mumbled and buried her nose into his hair. His arms shifted, and she felt fingers brush her hair away from his face. A bead of sweat dripped down her forehead.

“Relief,” N repeated, his breath humid over her ear. “I understand what you mean.”

“Like all my muscles have strained for this moment,” she added, “and the pain and the anticipation of it kind of… eclipses the feeling itself.”

Her nose and throat stung. Forgetting herself, she grasped N’s shoulders, stepped back, and surveyed him. Faint green stubble textured his cheeks, so light it glowed in the sunlight. Tears had channeled down his dusty face. And when their glistening eyes met, his gray to her blue, N collected her face in his hands and pressed his forehead against hers. Touko smiled.

“When I saw you, I didn’t think you were real,” N admitted.

“Me neither.”

“Because everywhere I went, I saw your face.”

And every time did it make your heart jump? Touko wondered.

“But I recognized your friends, and I knew it couldn’t be anyone else.”

My friends. N’s words drew Touko gently back to Earth. The world hugged around her. Liepard’s soft fur grazed her legs, and Reuniclus’s trills echoed in her ears. How long had they been there, waiting with her, sharing in this complicated joy, pressing close? At once the forest felt flooded with light, as if she had awakened from a deep sleep.

She felt dizzy.

“Can we sit down?” she gulped.

N nodded and took her hand in his. They clambered onto the grassy riverbank and sat beneath a sprawling oak. At once Liepard crawled between N and Touko and into Touko’s lap. She breathed a deep, shaky breath. Okay. Wow. I’m here. N’s gangly legs stretched before him.

They sat in silence. When Touko at last raised her head, she found N gazing at Reshiram across the riverbank. The dragon lounged with wings folded beneath them.

She had so many questions, but when she moved to open her mouth, nothing came out. At the forefront of her mind echoed the same question: Is this real? It felt like the culmination of everything. It scared her a little—and thrilled her. And then came another frightening thought: What next?

Keep going, I guess.

“You’ve been looking for me,” N said quietly.

Touko could have laughed. “For two years now, yeah.”

“Why?” he asked.

She stared at her calloused fingers. At some point, a yellow bruise had bloomed on her thigh. Five long streaks of mud lined her dress where she had wiped her hand. Answers to his simple question bubbled to the surface of her mind, but they all felt after-the-fact—reflective of the person she was now, not the person she was when she first set out. What answer would do justice to the Touko who had launched into the sky on the back of the white dragon sitting across the riverbed?

“At the time,” she began, training her eyes on the slow trickle of the river, “I didn’t know what to do. You left—and it was,” she swallowed, “fine that you left—I don’t want you to think you did something wrong, but I didn’t know what would come next.”

N watched her. Touko took another breath.

“I challenged the League again because they claimed the first time was not on the record. And I won. It should have been the happiest moment of my life, but… None of it felt very real.”

“The first time,” N murmured, “when you defeated me.”

Touko’s eyes lowered. She smiled weakly. “Yeah,” she confirmed. “And now I was the champion, finally. My whole life I’d wanted nothing else. But I hated it. The League dragged me around to interviews and conferences and galas. Everyone wanted to know what had happened to Team Plasma. What happened at the League in June. They drilled into me. There were tabloids about me…” She swallowed. “So I quit. I felt like I was walking in a haze… so I decided to go after you.” Touko’s cheeks began to burn. Searching for something else to say, she fumbled, “Wh-where have you been all this time?”

Zekrom had landed in the low, muddy waters of the river. She could hear their grumbling from here. Beside her, N took a deep breath.

“I stayed in Unova for nearly three months before I left,” N admitted. “For the first time in my life I didn’t have a plan but a vague idea of traveling to other regions and meeting new people and Pokémon. As much as I loved, and love, Unova, I couldn’t stay here.”

“Why not?”

“Many reasons. Notably, there remained Plasma members who believed in the cause.”

“People who still called you king,” Touko said.

She looked for his gaze, but his eyes were harsh. “They recognized me,” he said simply.

He cleared his throat and went on. “When my sisters and I were growing up, Rood told us stories of sacred, legendary Pokémon that chose a hero to change the world. But when my story collapsed, I wondered if those legends held any truth.”

Touko reached for his hand again. His fingers were cold. “Where did you go?” she asked gently.

“We—Zekrom and I—left for Alola. It was the closest region to Unova, and the islands’ guardian deities entranced me. When I had learned all I could, Zekrom and I made our way across the ocean to Kalos and Galar. Then to Johto and Hoenn…”

A shock ran up Touko’s spine. Alola, Kalos, Johto… She had traveled to each of them, and beyond. But she hasn’t seen N. Had he been one step ahead of her this whole time?

Before Touko could compare notes, N broke her train of thought. “I had been seeking the truth after pursuing ideals for years. The truth about myself and what it means to be a person living alongside Pokémon. Plasma left me without a foundation. Plasma defined me and everything I stood for. And without it, I didn’t know who I was.”

“They took everything from you,” Touko murmured. Anger boiled in her chest. Her eyes began to sting again.

But he went on. “Journeying through Unova brought me to the truth about Pokémon and people in the first place, so traveling further made the most sense to me. Touko, you’re crying again.”

His voice sounded so matter-of-fact she began to laugh. “Don’t worry about it,” she said, wiping her eyes.

Ahead of them, sunlight danced across the riverbed. Touko scooted backwards and pressed her back against the base of the oak tree. They watched in silence as Reshiram slid down the riverbank and approached Zekrom. The two pressed muzzles in greeting.

Beside her, Touko felt N’s body tense. She did not know what the dragons were communicating, but it felt different, strange. She scrambled to her feet—

—as the Light Stone dropped from where Reshiram had been standing moments before and splashed into the shallow water.

Chapter Text

Mud squelched under Touko’s boots as she trudged into the riverbed. The low water trickled past the Light Stone as she dug her fingers around its form and wiggled it free. The orb dripped mud onto her bare legs.

“Touko–!” came N’s voice as he rushed to meet her.

“I thought…” she murmured, dipping the stone in the water and washing it clean. “I thought we did everything we were supposed to.”

N drew in a breath. “Before Reshiram transformed, they said—”

“What did they say?” Touko interrupted, her voice flat, bracing for the worst.

“That this legend has ended. That there were other heroes.”

She straightened and rolled the Light Stone in her hands. The texture—smooth and dry, with three rough divots like unglazed ceramic—felt familiar. If she closed her eyes, she could picture the first time Lenora placed the orb in her hands at the Nacrene Museum two years ago.

“The Light Stone was speculated to dwell within the Relic Castle in the Desert Resort,” N was saying. “The castle was partially buried in sand, but excavations revealed artifacts dating back two thousand years. According to legend, the castle housed Reshiram and one of the twin heroes, so it naturally became a target of Plasma’s search for the Light Stone.”

“I remember that,” Touko said. She remembered the oppressive humidity within those stone walls and the scrape of sand against her skin when she slipped through the unstable floor. “But it wasn’t there. Lenora got to it first.”

Ghetsis had been there too. “Congratulations are in order, Touko. You were chosen by our king.” His smugness made her skin crawl. It dawned on her, at that moment, as sand dripped from the ceiling above them, that his tone carried something sinister.

But she didn’t want to bring it up now. The forest here was humid, too, but a breeze drifted in and out. Zekrom pressed his snout again against her back. And the stone in her hands was cool. Her fingertips pulsed against the orb. She wondered whose heartbeat she felt.

“We should get going,” she said.

“Try Alder,” Cheren suggested.

Touko’s childhood friend stood just where she had left him: in the very center of the Entralink, by a moat that encircled a pair of twisted trees. She could have sworn the trees had grown taller since she’d last seen them.

She had asked, in short, where to go from here. Within her brewed a certain trepidation—but she gulped it down.

“He is true to his word,” Cheren continued as he released an Unfezant from a Poke ball. The massive bird stretched its wings. “In the past two years I’ve come to think of him as a mentor. He is not quite as aloof as many think.”

The sun hung deep in the sky by the time they landed in Floccesy. Touko rubbed her eyes as she dropped from Zekrom’s back, legs nearly crumpling beneath her as her feet met the dirt path. She rolled her neck and yawned.

Unfezant skidded to a stop beside them. “Not far from here now,” Cheren said as he alighted. He dragged a hand through his wind-tousled hair. “Just up the hill.”

The three of them had touched down in the middle of a park. Somewhere the shrill calls of children and Pokemon echoed in the summer evening. Some paces away a man feeding a baby had his eye trained on them.

Touko watched as N stepped softly to the ground. He ruffled the feathers atop Zekrom’s head and gazed at a massive structure that loomed across the road.

“It’s a clocktower,” he hummed.

“That building?” Touko asked.

He pointed. “You can tell from the inset there,” he explained, gesturing to the gap near the top of the tower, “though it’s missing its face. Mm—” he craned his neck— “there. There are similar insets on each side. I wonder how old it is.”

“I don’t know,” Touko admitted, smiling a little.

“As old as the town itself, according to the tourism bureau,” Cheren explained, recalling Unfezant in a flash of red light, “though I doubt that. The architecture of the tower predates the surrounding buildings, but only by a couple hundred years. Yet farms have existed in this area for eons.”

Touko said nothing. She leaned against Zekrom’s chest and breathed a sigh. Her muscles trembled with exhaustion. “You said it’s near here—Alder’s house?”

“Mm,” Cheren said with a nod. “I’ll bring you there.”

Alder’s home stood dilapidated on a hill at the edge of town. Before it sprawled a battlefield, its white outline faded in the dust. Touko shielded her eyes with a hand as she surveyed it.

Ahead of her, Cheren rapped his knuckles against the front door. Touko felt her arms prickle with anticipation, but the door did not budge. Cheren knocked again.

“Where could he be?” she heard Cheren mutter.

“Maybe he isn’t home,” Touko suggested.

As if on cue, a sunburst of hair emerged from behind the house, followed by the six massive, speckled wings of a Volcarona. Without noticing them, Alder slung a bag of soil beside the plot of dirt against the house. Cheren threw up a hand in greeting. “Alder!”

The older man looked up and broke into a smile. “Cheren, welcome! How are you doing?”

But when his eyes fell on Touko and N and the black dragon that drifted behind them, he stopped in his tracks. In a moment he had tossed his gardening gloves into the dirt and jogged to meet them. Shaking his head, he clapped Touko on the shoulder.

“I’m speechless, you two. I really am,” he laughed.

Without meaning to, tears began to well up in Touko’s eyes again. She pinched her now-dripping nose and attempted to respond, but nothing came. Instead she found herself stepping forward and pressing into Alder’s chest. His burly arms wrapped around her, swayed her side to side.

“I knew if you set your heart to it, you would find him,” he whispered into her hair.

“It is real, right?” Touko asked.

“It’s real.”

She felt his arm extend past her body and reach for N. “Thank you for coming, N,” came Alder’s voice in her ear. She did not hear N’s reply.

Chapter Text

He lived alone. Touko could tell by the single pair of boots in the mudroom as they entered, dirt still caked on the soles. It reminded her of her father’s apartment in Accumula shortly after her parents’ divorce, before he returned to his home region of Hoenn. At least this place didn’t echo.

Touko sat on a low wooden bench—a plank of wood, really, but soft with curved edges—and untied her own boots. Cheren held the door. “You’ve never been here.”

“I’ve never been here,” Touko confirmed, yanking off her socks for good measure and placing her bare feet on the cold stone floor. “Is it so surprising? This is the second time you’ve asked.”

“I suppose, to my mind, there would have been a handful of destinations you would have sought out after the League, and Alder’s home would have been one of them,” Cheren said.

“I wasn’t really in a place to interact with anyone,” Touko admitted, padding onto the hardwood into what appeared to be a living room.

The room centered around a television set and a muted red sofa with sunken cushions. Framed children’s drawings peppered the walls, one after another of crayon scribbles to tighter colored pencil works. There were photographs, too: a family portrait, a child holding a soccer ball, a much younger, laughing Alder with his arm tossed over a Bouffalant’s shoulders.

N’s voice echoed from the kitchen. “We met this morning in the Entralink…”

“Is that so?” Alder boomed by contrast. Touko could hear someone shovel ice from the freezer into a drinking glass. “The Entralink is a mysterious place. Legend calls it a land of dreams. Seems fitting the two of you would find each other there!”

Cheren hummed as he skimmed a finger along the books. He took to the place with a certain familiarity, Touko noted as she perched atop the armrest of the sofa. She heard him say something, but she couldn’t focus. Irritation gnawed at her brain.

Cheren was looking at her. Touko blinked.

“What—what did you say again?” she asked. “I wasn’t paying attention…”

“No matter,” he said as Alder and N entered the room.

“I’d hazard a guess you folks need a place to stay,” Alder said. “You know you are welcome to stay at my place as long as you like. That goes for you, too, Cheren.”

“Do you really mean that?” Touko interrupted. “Genuinely, I mean. I don’t want to be a burden.”

“To house two of the most distinguished trainers of our time? I would be honored.”

“That seems like an exaggeration,” Touko responded, glancing at N for his reaction. He leaned against the kitchen threshold, brows furrowed. She wondered what he had to think about being referred to as a trainer.

“I would be grateful for a place to stay,” N said anyway.

“If you can believe it,” Alder went on, “this house used to bustle with people and Pokémon from all corners. These days we only have a few visitors now that my children have moved out. Though League challengers like to pass through on their way to Virbank…”

Touko rubbed her face with her hands. A headache was brewing. Alder’s words floated above her head, incomprehensible. Her arms began to numb.

“Not to sound insulting, Touko,” Cheren remarked, “but you look exhausted.”

“You’ve come a long way,” Alder said, clapping a yawning N on the shoulder. “Have a rest upstairs, if you like. In the meantime, I’ll make us some dinner.”

Few bird Pokémon chirped in the deepening blue darkness. Touko leaned over a lounging Zekrom, squirting salt water from a water bottle onto the glossy wound on the Pokémon’s neck. Stepping back, she lifted the camping lantern beside her to take a better look.

“It’s not all that bad,” Touko reassured. She dabbed the excess with a towel. “I can see if someone from the Pokémon Center can look at it, but you just have to promise not to lick any medicine they put on it.”

Her scalp prickled in the cool evening air, her hair still wet from her shower. It felt nice. The discomfort grounded her; it coaxed feeling to return to her limbs.

The black dragon grumbled. Touko stroked their head.

“People take a lot out of you,” she sighed, and she whistled. Nearby, Samurott’s horn glinted in the lantern light. “You want to stay out here, darling? Give Zekrom some company?”

“Touko?”

It was N. He had swapped his collared shirt for a linen short-sleeve that hung loose on his frame. Must be Alder’s.

“Hey, buddy,” she said, smiling as she got to her feet.

She wanted to say something more, but try as she might, no thoughts came to mind. An invisible obstacle stopped anything, anything at all from forming. N’s silence told her he had the same issue.

“Zekrom’s wound… I am not sure when they sustained their injury,” N said finally. “They did not have it when we entered the Entralink.”

“I suspect when you all split up,” Touko suggested. She scratched the dragon underneath their chin. “We—ah, Liepard, Reuniclus, and I—ran into Zekrom in the forest out there. It was foggy, and kind of dramatic. And in the aftermath, we all got separated.”

“Separated,” N repeated under his breath, his gaze far away. Zekrom was staring at him. “The incident in the forest—that’s likely when it happened, Zekrom thinks,” he explained. “I find it fascinating that Zekrom’s voice differs when they speak with you than when they speak with me. They have always been rather serious with me.”

She did not quite know what to make of that. “That sounds sexist, Zek,” she laughed.

N looked thoughtful. “That is a curious observation. Historic descriptions of Zekrom and Reshiram do not mention sex, and of course with one of each species, we are unable to observe sexual dimorphism. Both dragons, it turns out, do not use gendered language when referring to themselves. But having lived within human society for a time, has Zekrom absorbed patriarchal values?”

Touko got to her feet. “How could I forget,” she said, clasping his hand, “all you need is the most off-the-cuff remark to come up with the most interesting take I’ve heard all day?”

She tugged at his arm. “Come on. Let’s eat.”

Chapter Text

Her muscles ached, yet sleep evaded her. Without thinking she tossed the covers aside and planted her feet onto the hardwood. The floorboards creaked as she padded to the door and into the hall. Downstairs, the television flickered. Was Cheren still awake?

Touko’s fingers froze over the doorknob to N’s bedroom. The indecipherable drone of the TV faded. She strained her ears. As the sound drew up again, she pressed into the room.

Something furry slid past her legs. Touko held her breath. In the dim light she spotted two glowing eyes—Liepard. The feline turned and leapt onto the mattress.

N’s form lay still atop the covers. Touko began to wonder if he had already fallen asleep when his arm suddenly lifted to stroke her Pokemon’s face. She mustered an ounce of perkiness and whispered, “We’re coming in.”

“Okay,” came N’s muffled reply.

The wrought-iron bedframe squeaked. The twin bed was not meant for more than one person. It was certainly not made for someone of N’s stature; his feet hung over the edge. Touko hesitated before slipping beside him, perched on the edge of the bed. Her face grew hot.

Her high school self would have laughed. Her limbs burned as she hovered in this awkward position. Liepard stepped over N and closed up the remaining space between them. Swallowing, Touko brushed his hair away from the pillow.

She was not entirely sure of her own plan. Now that she reclined inches from him, she had the heartrate of an Emolga. She would be kidding herself if she thought she would get some sleep here. Liepard, meanwhile, had draped her tail across Touko’s legs and tucked her paws beneath her.

“Cheren thought it was funny I’ve never traveled up here,” she blurted. “What about you? You ever been here before?”

“Alder’s home was my final stop before leaving Unova,” N whispered.

Silence fell. Just when the darkness began to press upon her ears, N murmured, “It was this time of year when I first met you.”

His voice was hoarse. Touko closed her eyes and breathed deep. “Early June.”

“The trees in Accumula were in bloom. The flowers were white, and they smelled awful.”

Touko smiled. Her heart pounded then, too, as she and Bianca and Cheren stepped into the neighboring town. They had visited countless times before, but Accumula felt different, unfamiliar, this time. Samurott—then Oshawott—led the way, his confidence matching her own. And Liepard—Purrloin—balanced atop her bag, newly caught and curious. It was difficult to remember the now-purring feline not having been in her life.

“At school we had a terrible name for those trees,” Touko admitted, poking Liepard’s tucked paws with a finger, “though maybe it doesn’t bear repeating.”

“A terrible name,” N hummed. Gingerly he rolled over to face her. “What was it?”

“I’ll tell you when you’re older,” she chuckled—and drew her breath.

He had swept his fingers, lightly, over her arm. In the darkness she could make out the whites of his eyes as they widened, the sound of his lips as they parted.

“I–I thought I was petting Liepard…” he stuttered.

Touko stifled a laugh. “You’re not a very good liar, you know that?” she said, and draped an arm over his waist and scooched closer. Liepard flicked her tail.

Chapter Text

Alder’s coffee was strong and sour. Touko gulped it down anyway, grateful for the caffeine. But her stomach, used to traveling, could not fathom the abundance of eggs, potatoes, and spinach the retired champion had plated before them. Instead, she nibbled on warm, homemade bread that glistened with butter.

Across the table, Samurott rested his chin on N’s leg, eyes deep and brown and wide. N smiled to himself and took one last spoonful of scrambled eggs for himself before grasping the plate and lowering it to the sea lion’s height. Samurott lapped it up feverishly.

Knowing what was to come, Touko leaned back and watched Cheren grimace. Swallowing—steadying himself, Touko imagined—he pushed an empty bowl from the center of the table closer to N. N tilted his head.

“For the eggs,” Cheren said.

N glanced back at Samurott, who had cleaned the plate by now. He looked back at Cheren. “For… more eggs…?” he tried.

Touko could not hold back her laughter any longer. “This isn’t Ariel brushing her hair with a fork, Cheren,” she said, patting his shoulder. “Let the man relish his hippie lifestyle.”

Cheren threw up his hands. “It’s about hygiene. I tell this to my students everyday.”

“Focus on the next generation,” Touko responded through a mouthful of toast. “This one is already lost.”

N’s gaze moved from Cheren to Touko. “I am not following. What is unhygienic? Samurott requested scrambled eggs.”

“Letting Samurott eat from your plate, hon,” Touko laughed. “You’re fine. Pup’s basically a Trubbish—he’ll eat anything. And anyway, you’ve lived with Pokémon your whole life. If you haven’t gotten sick yet, you’ll be fine. Everyone’s fine.”

“No fighting at the table, young trainers,” Alder chortled from the living room. He leaned against the doorway and crossed his arms. Behind him peered the massive form of a Krookodile, eyeing the kitchen table. “I have business with the League shortly. Why don’t you all do what trainers do best—explore the wilderness and meet new people and Pokémon? This town is the humbling sort that views farmers and former champions in the same light. Or you may consider a visit to Pledge Grove not far from here. It is an old, old place shrouded in legend. It is well worth exploring.”

A grin crept onto Cheren’s face. “I take it you’re kicking us out?” he asked.

Alder smiled. “After you do the dishes, of course.”

“Let’s start from scratch,” Cheren said. “What do you know about Pledge Grove?”

Touko was walking backwards across the grass behind Alder’s house. Before her trailed a floating Reuniclus, tumbling in the air. “It has something to do with the Swords of Justice,” she replied, reaching for the Pokémon's fingers. “Who I guess could be considered folk heroes. Kinda anti-human, weirdly enough.”

Cheren paused. “They were, weren’t they? Were they ever relevant to Team Plasma’s cause, N?”

“The Swords of Justice were revolutionary for the cause of Pokémon rights,” N answered, squinting at the silhouettes of Touko’s Braviary and Cheren’s Unfezant in the sky. “As a child I believed the legends were written by Pokémon themselves, so biased against humans were they. Though I am unsure how true that is now.”

“Perhaps not,” Cheren said politely. “That kind of anti-human perspective is peculiar, isn’t it? The Grove, too, is a strange thing. It is a landmark of Floccesy, certainly, but not often visited. It is said to be a meeting place of the Swords of Justice, yet no sightings have been reported in maybe one hundred years.”

In time the field was swallowed up by the woods, which in turn gave way to a clearing. Beyond them loomed a massive stoneface cracked four ways as if someone had sliced an X-shape into it. It was flanked by two small bodies of water—the rocky kind that dipped into the grass without warning, the kind strewn with lily pads and leaves. The kind that, Touko noticed, resembled backyard, manmade ponds. The water lay stagnant and low.

Before she could investigate further, however, Cheren began to explain. “This is Pledge Grove. This rock is said to bear the marks of Cobalion, Virizion, and Terrakion.”

By now Reuniclus had settled in N’s arms. N shifted the Pokémon to one side and traced one of the cracks in the rock with a finger.

“What did you think about Alder calling you a trainer?” Touko asked quietly as she approached.

“I suppose it is not inaccurate. I have battled with Pokémon,” he said. His eyes glazed, and for a moment he did not speak. “They are saying Keldeo had been here recently, with a young human.”

Touko searched his face. “Who… is saying this?”

N blinked. “There are Joltik and Sewaddle by the water, and Pidove in the trees. Can’t you hear them?”

“Not like you,” Touko said. When she glanced back, the small yellow body of a Joltik leaped through the tall grass. She hadn’t noticed before.

N frowned but did not respond. He took a step back. “The marks of the Swords of Justice, you said? In other words, the use of their signature attack move, Sacred Sword.”

Cheren nodded. “All signs point to Sacred Sword, yes.”

With a thud Braviary and Tranquill touched down in the clearing. Touko slipped her bag from her shoulders and dumped its contents into the grass: a blanket, bottles of water, containers of food. A pit had formed in her stomach, heavy and longing. She didn’t like it. She hoped she was just hungry.

Chapter Text

The wind lifted as they set their sights on Alder’s home. Dark clouds loomed above the trees. Birdsong erupted in a cacophony. N cocked his head. Braviary pecked at Touko’s hands.

“Braviary does not enjoy wet feathers,” N observed as Touko clicked the bird’s Poke ball.

“He doesn’t,” Touko replied, the first time she had spoken since they had left Pledge Grove.

The first drops of rain speckled her shirt by the time they reached Alder’s back porch. The doorknob did not budge at Cheren’s hand, yet with a swift movement he had kicked the corner of the doormat and procured a spare key. N and Touko tucked under the eaves of the house as Cheren struggled with the lock. Finally, with a click, the door opened.

Their footsteps echoed in the darkened house as they entered. Somewhere came the low, rhythmic snoring of Touko’s sleeping Gigalith. Cheren flicked the light behind them and tossed the key onto a side table. With great strides Touko headed into the kitchen and shut a still-open window. The sill was wet.

“Where is he?” she asked. “Alder.”

“He said he had a meeting with the League,” Cheren said.

The words scraped against her throat. Frowning, she reached for a glass and filled it from the tap. “I figured he would have used his cross-transceiver,” she said between gulps.

“Alder is not particularly savvy with technology,” Cheren explained as he pulled up a chair at the table, “even a cross-transceiver. It’s a battle to get the man to use a dishwasher.”

Not that it worked. They had learned this fact this morning while washing up breakfast. When they pulled out the tray, they found a series of fancy dishes, all clean and seldom used. Alder used the machine as additional cupboard space.

But something caught at the base of Touko’s tongue, still, tightening. She averted her gaze to the window and trained her eyes on two racing drops, halting now and starting again. The rain picked up. Her fingertips grew numb. The countertop felt strange and new and amplified.

“I don’t feel well, actually,” Touko murmured, grasping her glass of water and speeding out of the kitchen.

From the corner of her eye she could see N knelt beside Gigalith in the corner of the living room. Their eyes met. Touko looked away.

Her feet barely made contact with the floor as she bounded up the stairs and into the bathroom. She pressed her back against the door and unbuckled her belt, tossed her hat in the tub, kicked off her shoes and her pants. Toilet seat up. Arms cradled around the cool bowl.

Lord, she felt sick as hell. Her head was spinning. What happened? They’d gone to Pledge Grove, had a picnic. Normal occurrences for normal people. So why had she felt so disconnected while Cheren and N conversed? Nothing came out—like an obstacle in her prevented her from speaking. Not that she had anything to say.

Nothing she could put into words, anyway. In her mind came images and feelings that yearned to emerge, but she couldn’t string together a way of verbalizing them. A lot had happened these past two years. She only wished they would spill from her, a passive, instantaneous flow that would bring Cheren and N—mostly N—up to speed.

Touko wiped her mouth with toilet paper and rested her head on the side of the bathtub. Her eyes streamed. With a single hand she felt for her belt on the tile and dragged her fingers across the scratches and dents of her Poke balls. There it was. And Liepard appeared.

Liepard whipped her tail and leapt atop the sink counter. In silence she stared with piercing green eyes. Touko stared back. Found herself rocking slightly. The tub felt cold and smooth. Like a blessing.

What is the problem?

She took a breath. Stop being scared. What is the problem?

The problem was the Light Stone, resting atop winter linens in the closet in her room. Reshiram’s belief in more heroes to come. A cynical voice in Touko called it a warning. Leave the kids alone. No more heroes.

More than that. She was lying to herself. It was Cheren, that he could change personalities so suddenly and expect different treatment. He’d been such an asshole after she’d ceded the championship that she’d left the region entirely. Well, no. Well, that and other reasons.

It was N.

It embarrassed her. She could not say it out loud. It was N. Who is he now? She had slept in his bed. They did not do anything, obviously, and not just because Liepard had lain between them. It was the same feeling when she found his tent off the trail during their first journey, campfire flames illuminating his face. He was someone different. Unlike anyone she had ever met before. An experience to be savored. More than that. Something hard to admit.

He was different now, too, and that’s what scared her. It felt stupid. Let him breathe. Let him live. He owed her nothing, though a selfish part of her demanded her two-years effort be repaid. Let that part of her dissipate. Let it be thought and acknowledged and discarded. Let her rest.

The bathroom lights reflected in Liepard’s eyes. At last the feline blinked a slow, measured blink. Touko found herself blinking back. Someone knocked at the bathroom door.

“Touko, are you okay?” came Cheren’s voice. “I brought some water.”

Chapter Text

She had two glasses now, one in each hand. Her face was still wet, yet she looked up at Cheren with something of a crooked smile. Cheren frowned.

“I didn’t realize… ah,” he trailed off. Biting his lip, he offered his hands to Liepard, letting her sniff his fingers before massaging behind her ears.

They hovered in silence. Touko hauled herself to sit on the side of the bathtub, stared at a peeling corner of wallpaper until her sight blurred.

“What, er, brought it on?” Cheren attempted.

Touko’s eyes came into focus. “What?”

“You stopped speaking at the Grove,” Cheren clarified, “and you disappeared when we returned.”

“Mm.”

Cheren peered into Liepard’s face as if the feline would share what her trainer would not. Instead, she slipped from Cheren’s grasp, rubbed his hands with her head, and yawned. “You know I can’t help you if you don’t tell me anything,” he said curtly.

“I’m not asking you to help me,” Touko shot back. “I’m not even asking for help. You don’t know half of what Liepard and I have been through.”

There it was, the defensiveness that came instinctively when speaking with Cheren. Yet Cheren did not respond. Where Touko expected a descent into bickering came, distinctly, nothing. The new Cheren. She was not sure why it made her so angry.

“I don’t,” Cheren murmured.

Liepard looked over her shoulder at Touko. Don’t look at me like that.

“I know you’ve gone through a lot. I hoped there may be something we could do to ease things if you felt uncomfortable.” Uncomfortable. “Moreover, I have to return to my students tomorrow. I did not want to leave without letting you know."

How chivalrous. Touko crossed one leg over the other and twisted her head to rest on her hand. She felt herself prickling and hated it, hated feeling so irritable, hated feeling her haunches raise at what was, what once had been. “You don’t know what I’ve seen.”

“I don’t.”

“You don’t know what it’s like.”

“I don’t.”

She wasn’t sure what she wanted him to say. “Don’t you think that’s pathetic?”

“What is?”

“That I’m pathetic. I cornered N and I’m fucking it all up.”

“What are you talking about?” Cheren sighed and sat atop the lid of the toilet. “Touko, I don’t know what you’ve been up to these past two years, but I know what happened two years ago. I watched you almost die at the hands of a crazed cult leader. I watched you fall in love with his son.” Touko grimaced. “Please, Touko, I’m not an idiot. And I don’t think that’s pathetic, and I don’t think you are, either. I wish you would give yourself more credit.”

Touko sniffed. “But you don’t know—”

“What I know is the person you spent two years searching for spent two years turning what you told him over and over in his head. He was looking for you, even when he did not know it yet. You changed everything.” He rose to his feet and parted the curtain in the tiny window above them. “It is okay to feel at a loss. I guarantee N does, too. But there is no timeline for things like this. You have not stopped moving in years. You are allowed to recover.”

The bedquilt smelled fresh, buried in Touko’s face. She breathed in the scent of detergent, the synthetic lavender grasping at some far reach of her brain, a comfort nestled in the periphery of her memory. What had it been like to grow up in this house, to burrow in these covers night over night, to awake every morning to Alder as a father, dirt under his fingernails, child hands swallowed in his massive grip? The thought caught Touko by surprise. She chalked it up to loneliness. To the parade of not-quite present, not-quite understanding parents whose ubiquity somehow permeated the background of her journey and those of her friends.

A sliver of light beamed onto the floor. Touko peered underneath her arm at the silhouette in the crack of the open door. Something tall and lanky flanked by a massive quadruped. Touko squinted.

“Mm?”

“Cheren informed me that you were experiencing difficulty in this—”

“N, no no no no no—”

“—transitional period in your life as you are without any discernable or familiar goals to motivate you forward. So I brought—”

“N, don’t say it like that, oh my god—”

“—some tea for you, as this is something my sisters would do when I felt overwhelmed. While you drink your tea, I want to tell—”

“N—”

“---you something.”

N held the steaming mug to Touko’s reclined body. Samurott sniffed it before stretching his neck across the mattress and gazing up at Touko with large, brown eyes. Touko buried her fingers into the sea lion’s furry whiskers.

“I said something wrong?” N frowned.

Touko propped herself up. “Put—put that on the table there,” she said, gesturing to the sidetable. “The tea.”

N cupped the mug with both hands and placed it amidst the rings in the wood of mugs past. Without a prop, however, he hovered awkwardly. Touko smoothed the creased blanket on the bed. “Sit, darling,” she said to his curious gaze.

“You didn’t say anything wrong. I’m just embarrassed,” she confessed.

N’s brow furrowed. “For what reason?”

“Because you have a way of describing things exactly as they are,” she said, unable to fight back a sheepish smile. “It can be hard to hear.”

N clasped his hands in his lap, his knees angled upwards. Touko wondered when the last time Alder’s child—whichever one it was—had slept in this bed. Or did it belong to a grandchild? Touko’s memories of the past few days were vague.

“You do not like to admit that you are struggling,” N murmured. He opened his mouth again as if to go on but paused. His eyes drifted to Samurott’s. “I… find that I share that struggle, too.”

That’s right. When they had collided in the forest of the Entralink, N had admitted that the collapse of Team Plasma had put everything he knew into question. “Still?” she whispered.

When he did not respond, Touko clambered into his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck. The impulse shocked her, yet the hurt in her heart would not allow her to fight back the urge. A slender hand crept up her back and pressed her against him.

A cold, wet nose touched her bare feet. “Hi puppy,” Touko cooed. She felt N’s lips curl into a smile against her neck.

“Samurott likes that nickname. Your Pokemon enjoy the way you speak to them. You are kind.”

Touko reached into his hair, grasped a section, and extracted the elastic that held it in place. With her fingers she combed his green hair, long and dense and tangled. He leaned into her, and her stomach fluttered.

“Touko,” N spoke up again, “you feel distanced from this world, like an outsider?”

“Are you getting intel from Samurott again?” She gulped, the truth of his statement threatening to topple her. Instead, she adjusted her body and took the mug from the sidetable into her hands. The tea scalded her lips. “I do, I guess,” she said. “No, I do,” she said again with certainty. “But I’m here now. I’ll… I guess I’ll make a place for myself.”

“I want to join you, wherever that place is,” N said.

Touko stared into her mug, their faces reflected in the ripples. Her cheeks burned. Hot tears welled up in her eyes. “I fucking hate you sometimes, N,” she choked.

She felt his body stiffen beneath her. “I know it’s not your fault,” she explained, wondering why she had blurted it out in the first place, “not anyone’s fault except for maybe Ghetsis, I guess, but the last two years have been hell.”

When she lifted her head from her mug, N’s expression had turned inward, his lips pursed, his eyes lost in thought.

“I don’t hate you, not literally—I just—it’s frustrating, that’s all.”

N’s muscles loosened. Touko breathed. “I think I understand,” he murmured. “I was the catalyst for your journey. In turn, you associate with me with the pain you’ve experienced.”

Touko’s shoulders dropped. “I’m sorry,” she sighed. “I shouldn't have said it. I shouldn’t have said anything.” She wiped her eyes. “You’re… really important to me, N.”

N offered a small smile. “One of the things I appreciate most about you, Touko, is that you do not censor your feelings.”

But his demeanor had changed. Her eyes wandered to the knickknacks and books askew on the bookshelves across the room. A deep exhaustion descended over her.

“I want you to tell me everything,” Touko said. “Even if you think it will hurt me. I want to know everything about you.”

N wrapped his hands over hers. “Please do the same with me.”