Chapter Text
The sky's been red for days, and frankly, Itachi's got more important things to worry about now, the least of which being that it also hasn't been night for a few days, and the whole ‘few days’ thing is more of a rough estimate than he would like.
Gods, the sound when it had happened. It nearly tore his eardrums out, and he's barely even got any left! But they hadn't known back then just how dire things would become. His retirement had made him too soft, too spoiled for choice in petty concerns. How many hours had he wasted with no other thought than settling his fussing Wyrdeer, coaxing medicine into his aching Chatot’s beak? Because surely he only needed to worry for himself. Surely if there was some great peril after all, someone would fetch him. And they did, after a fashion. Around when sunset should have happened, the Porygon piloting Ingo's train had screeched like a kettle outside his door, blared at Itachi to pack up what little he couldn't part with and come right along with Lady Sneasler and the children. And he had. Of course he had. But that had left Itachi and his pokemon in a metal box with his grandchildren, barreling off to gods knows where, and as the hammer of his heart began to slow, it finally occurred to him he should be asking questions.
The only thing resembling an answer was Ingo. He'd- he'd seen the explosion in the sky coming, sensed it too quickly to explain why he was locking his children inside his train before collapsing to the ground, face all red with the blood bursting out of his ears. Foolishly, Itachi hoped that when the train finally came to its stop, Ingo would somehow be waiting there, hale and whole on the other side. But it was only the ghost of his madness that greeted them, one foxhole out of hundreds, an enclave filled to bursting with non-perishable supplies and Itachi's old lantern holding staff leaning against the wall, pointed towards an endless underground labyrinth. When Itachi took the lantern and shone its light through the patterns of its copper face, the maze suddenly consolidated into itself, revealing the intended path forward. Just like Ingo to spit Itachi's own tricks back at him. A Fox to the bitter end.
But just as Ingo was not there to greet them underground, he was not there when Itachi led everyone to Cogita’s cise on the other side. Not there as the thieving Miss Fortunes found their way afterwards, just as confused as everyone else, not there when Sanqua and her daughter soon followed.
So, yes. The sky's been red for days, and frankly, Itachi's got more important things to worry about right now, like the fact Ingo is gone.
There's a lot of things Ingo's going to be answering for when Itachi finds him, foisting all the damn kids on his elderly father being one of them, and then all of these other people, besides. It may well be that Ingo had intended for Cogita to deal with it, but Itachi can hardly leave the poor woman to it, can he? And then there's the fact Ingo had an entire cave of supplies to outlast a siege. Just to have. That's flat out distressing, is what it is, and even if it wasn't, having an unknown amount of siege-outlasting caves waiting in Ingo's back pocket is a deeply concerning window into his upsettingly rich inner life he forgets to tell anyone about. Him and Itachi are having a talk about that one, and- um…
“You're looking a bit less dead than the last time I saw your body,” Itachi bluntly tells Gaeric.
“Oh, I'm…” Gaeric's glazed eyes, bluer than they ever were in life, blink too slowly, too placidly. “...sorry?”
“Don't be,” Itachi immediately corrects. “It's an improvement. You've got less- less outside bones. That's good. I'm hoping that's good.”
“Well… y'know… Mita says so, so… seems so, ah-” Gaeric frowns. It's the least foggy look on his face he's had since Itachi first ran into him. “Sorry. Drawin’ up blanks again. Did we know each other?"
Itachi neutrally crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow. “What do you think?”
Gaeric answers him with a confused smile. “I think you threw me into a wall and sh…outed at me, Warden. I don't think you like me very much.”
Itachi's mouth warps as he cringes to himself. “That was over a year ago, and I said I was sorry. If I knew it was going to stick with you, I wouldn't have said it!”
Gaeric claps his hands in front of himself. “So you do like me!”
Itachi snorts. “Well, I didn't say that.”
And Gaeric lets out this warbling noise that might be a laugh, an odd-toothed smile pushing into blue tinted cheeks. Oh, gods. What are the other Wardens going to think? What's the clan going to think? And seeing as how there's no way Ingo didn't do this, what the hell are they going to do to Ingo after this?
(If he even comes back. If he ever comes back. If he's even still alive-)
Gaeric's head repeatedly snaps to the left, to the left, to the left. Before Itachi can ask if he's alright, the icy Ninetales at his side forcibly corrects his body, turning him in the direction he's trying and failing to look at. Itachi follows his gaze to where the air snaps over Cogita's garden with a telltale wooden click, and Ingo falls into existence over the sparse winter flowers with his two ride Sneasler apprentices in tow- that pair of Diamond Clan twins, Ides and Nones.
“Please,” Nones begs, tunic flipped inside out, eyes sleepless, “I know we're not one of yours, but my wife and child, our mother, take them at least, please-”
“I am not from either of your clans, lost one,” Cogita softly interrupts. “Anyone who keeps my peace and tends to my house is welcome for as long as they need.” She primly takes the offered tendril of her Mismagius as her fulcrum to stand. “Come. What are your supplies? Are you wounded?”
“There was no time,” Ides shakes out. “The little one, she's gotten some kind of altitude sickness, but the healer's yurts are already overflowing with everyone else who's gotten it first. If Fox hadn't found us when he did, we-” He startles as Ingo falls into his side. “Fox!”
“I- Ides-” Ingo's words are swallowed in a static-filled wheeze, its drowned sound too close to fevered for Itachi's comfort. “I apologize that I can- cannot c-conduct you further, I may need to-” He stabs his sword into the ground to keep what little remains of his balance. It is not enough to offset the waves of ghostfire spasming over his body as he lets out a hacking, rattling, bloody cough. “I may need to rest before our next… stop, yes.”
“Like hell there's gonna be a next stop,” Itachi growls out, taking Ingo from Ides’ arms as Cogita attends to the ride Sneasler pair’s other passengers. “You're dead on your feet as is and I'm not gonna let you pull off one of your fox parades again-”
“Not… yet,” Ingo weakly gasps out.
Itachi gently pries Ingo's sword and his rigor mortis grasp on it from the ground. “You can argue with me when you're not nearly fainted and you can give me a straight answer on what you're doing,” Itachi firmly says.
One of Ingo's hands is trying (failing) to push himself off of Itachi. “Find him,” he mutters, “find him…” His head droops. “...find…”
Itachi is many things, but strong enough to lift a grown man going limp in his arms is a feat beyond his age. It takes Gaeric lurching forward to keep the two from falling, and there is some breath of life in that dead man yet, escaping in his rattling and long suffering sigh.
“You're done,” Gaeric simply says. As he sets Itachi back upright, he nudges Lady An' out of Ingo's body, eyes darting under their icy film at the cracks lining the other ghost’s lantern frame. “And you're done, good gods. What were you… two doing out there?” Her only reply is a whistling shriek that steams and smokes out of her cracking glass, and there's an irritated click rolling under Gaeric's voice, even as his hands stay gentle along her surface. “Yes, I know, I still can't hear y'all for fuck all, I know that, y'know, you can just- k- kK- KKKK-” He snaps his fingers. “You know?”
Her ghostfire crackles with discontent across his intangible flesh, chattering like gnashing teeth. It flickers in his eyes, and then he blinks, and then he nods.
“Right then,” he sighs, adjusting Ingo's placement in his arms. “The kids are gonna panic see…ing you like this after what you've put them through, y'know?” he lowly says. “You gotta stop doing that. Volo can't take it. So you… will be staying with Cogita until you can string two words together, alright?”
Ingo lets out a vague noise as Gaeric starts dragging him along elsewhere.
“No,” Gaeric firmly refutes, eyes dull and dim. “You’re done. I mean this medically, you are done. Lady An' and I will take… care of it, alright?”
Itachi raises up a hand. “I can-”
“I… will… take… care of it,” Gaeric slowly sounds out- gaze cold and resolute, words heavy against an unseen weight behind Itachi's eyes. “I will do this, and I will come back, and I will not die.” And then the hardness of his face softens once again. “Y’know?”
“And you'll do that for him,” Itachi questions.
“I'll do that for you,” Gaeric corrects.
“Alright,” Itachi concedes, “alright. You'll do it and you'll come back and you won't die. I'll hold you to it.”
Gaeric walks off with Ingo's dead-to-the-world body, and the weight behind Itachi's eyes is gone. He feels like he just made a deal with a god. Considering everything about Gaeric these days, he probably did. What would Gaeric's ghost be the god of, anyways? Sundered man, dear friend the devil, what sort of domain would a death that cruel become? Maybe nobody knows the answer to that. Maybe Gaeric doesn't know the answer to that. Maybe there won't be an answer at all until people start praying.
…But they will. Itachi knows, deep down, they will. It's the twilight of the gods, after all. What once was will not always be so.
Something will inherit the dawn that comes after, whether it wishes to or not.
=#[o]#=
The sky's been red for days, and Kari wishes he could remember even half of it.
He wasn't, and then he was. The Zorua cannot remember what prompted this, and the space in his mind where Akari's clay once stood is still and silent and says nothing. He has her straw shoes, her scarf, the pack that had been tied to her obi sash. She had been clutching her pokeballs when the change had happened, he knows- knows by the scatter of them along the ground as he came into being, their trajectory weighted to her size rather than his own.
He cannot remember why the sky is red. He cannot remember what has become of her. He cannot even remember her face-
“You could come with us,” Alec says, voice cutting through the panicked fog, hand gentle on his shoulder. “Yukino and I talked about it, and… Yukino’s going to take our father and I back home, his home. The Old Man will take us, he's certain.”
“Not all of us,” Kari hears himself say. “Not the others. We can't tell him to, not like Ingo-niisan can.”
“Considering the circumstances, boy,” Alec’s father says, “you're not in a position to be worrying about anyone but yourself.”
“But I have to,” Kari simply says. “They are my passengers. I cannot accept my safety above their own.”
“Everyone saw what happened,” Yukino assures. “No one would blame you. They can fend for themselves if they have to.”
“They should not have to,” Kari tersely snaps.
Weak. Disjointed. Childish. He wears the ghost of Emmet’s authority, of Ingo's authority, like a tailored suit, but without Ingo he does not remember how to wield it, and he feels that absence more keenly than ever. There is no track order. There is no schedule. Most alarmingly, the prospect of anywhere once considered a safe station raises the Zorua's hackles, a formless emotion bearing the only inkling of Akari that remains. Akari, who these people followed into the wilderness from Jubilife because it was not safe anymore, either.
Kari stares up at the fraying tapestry of stars that's torn itself over Mount Coronet. The Highlands, too, are no longer safe, and Ingo would surely know it. Would not suffer his Lady to remain there. Here, something resembling a track forward begins to take shape, because while Kari does not know Emmet without Ingo, he does know Ingo. And Ingo, before the world ever began to end, before Kari had ever been brought into being, was a deeply perversely paranoid man. If there was somewhere safe enough to hide his charge and her children both, he would have found it years ago, kept it maintained no matter how many years it passed without true use. And if he were to use it now, of all times, he would begin to think of his other passengers, would he not? Begin funneling them towards safety, over and over, creature of habit that he is. If Kari can find Ingo, he can find safety for his passengers, and Ingo, to those who pay close enough attention, is a verrrrrrry easy man to find.
“Kari,” Yukino gently prompts, “if you lie at a crossroads, you should come to a decision sooner rather than later. The longer you wait, the more it will hurt all of our chances.”
“Yes,” Kari acknowledges. “I am verrrry sorry for the delay.” He stiffly cocks his head. “But! I have a plan now. Or at least a start. But I cannot do it on my own. This, I know. Will you help me see it through?”
Alec's father- Anvin, that's who it was- shrugs wearily at his sons. “Wherever you two go, I'll go.”
“Alright.” Alec takes a breath, then turns to Yukino. “In that case, I’d like to make sure they're safe before we head out on our own. We can at least do that.”
“Excellent.” Kari claps his hands together. “There are tunnels in every part of this region. Underground. Ingo has used them for a verrry long time. Long enough that I could find his scent, or that Shimmer could find him through the walls. He will be able to take us somewhere safe. He will have a better plan.”
“And if he is dead?” Yukino challenges.
“Then there are stores of food hidden in that place, and many many rooms for shelter,” Kari grimly offers. “It will be better than here, where the red sky can see us. Do you comply?”
Yukino sheds his human skin, shining fur glimmering with red in the unnatural twilight. For you, friend of the fox-lord, I will remember my duty to my patients one last time. Whatever comes after, me and mine are beholden to whatever Mother wishes, and no further. Now come. Gather your passengers, and I will bring them into the earth.
No one strong- in battle, at least- came with Akari. The bulk of their motley attendance is laborers with pokemon more trained to till fields and heft lumber than raise a hand in harm, and people just old enough to have gotten their first pokemon here in Hisui. No one elderly is among them, and the children are few. It is a blessing, Kari must concede, considering how much walking they may have to do, but it paints an increasingly odd picture as to what, exactly, they followed Akari out of.
They sink into the vast catacombs below. It is an abandoned habitat for few pokemon, if any, that Ingo did not place here himself. The scent of ghostfire and inkstone stains the walls, burned into the hollow space around them like harried footsteps. They'll need to find a crossroads to check which of these trails is more fresh, more frequently used within the past days.
It is dark and cold and full of unknowns. It is safer than Kari has been or felt since the moment he was forced into Akari's place, and that will have to be enough. For him and his passengers both.
Yukino's nostrils flare. There is a den ahead, he gurgles, still heavy with supplies. One of the humans can leave a note we passed through, in the event our dear friend finds it before finding us.
“And it would do them and their pokemon good to rest,” Kari concedes. He points his hand forward. “Attention, passengers. We are now arriving at a rest station. Take this time to refuel and perform all necessary safety checks on yourselves and your fellow passengers.”
There's a magic of sorts, stronger than any fox’s illusion, in the well-worn tracks Ingo lays in his reality- in the world, in himself, in the hands and habits of men. Where there are no passengers, he finds them, and where there is no station, he makes one. Kari watches the humans’ eyes ease at the foreign but familiar verbage and file into a docile line behind him.
Akari has never been to these places, and his own familiarity with them is dim at best. The layout of this one is peculiar, as well. There's a mass of furs and bedding folded up in a pathetic corner, the supplies are arranged in places too tall or heavy for Ingo to reach normally, and what little wood braces the walls is peppered with frantic knife marks-
…Ah. But of course. If Kari accepts that nothing in here has been arranged for Ingo’s convenience, it makes a lot more sense. This was meant to be a bunker for the next time something stole his mind beyond reason, and had possibly already been used as such before.
(For Ingo's sake, if nothing else, Kari hopes this red sky will be over soon. The ozone clinging to his tongue is too close to inkstone for comfort.)
There is no time to dwell on his own thoughts. Not his discomfort over the quiet implications of this room, or Ingo's fate, or what's become of Akari. He's doing as well as he can, and the Zorua's stomach is far smaller than any of the humans among their number, so he rummages a few paltry crumbs of food for himself and takes stock of Akari's pokemon. And they are hers. He can see it in their eyes when he brings them out of their balls. He is a familiar face, but he is not their mother, and they are just as clueless about her absence as he is.
Miriel’s gone from Turtwig to Grotle at some point in the gap of the Zorua's memory, it seems, and this is not a good sign. Its shell shows early signs of warping and its leaves reach desperately for light. A stress evolution. The lack of day-night cycle alone must be throwing all manner of pokemon into havoc. Professor would be beside himself with the implications.
Thinking about Professor hurts for some reason. The same way it hurts thinking of going to the clans, going back to the village, going to anyone but Ingo hurts. Kari is starting to worry that Akari might have done something bad. Very, verrrry bad.
Shimmer’s teenaged mane puffs with alertness, eyes fixed at some point beyond the walls. Yukino rumbles with wariness. A fox, but not a Zoroark, he warns. Female. She walks these tunnels with too much certainty. Do we know her?
Akari would have made better use of her nose by now, but Kari is forced to guess. A fox, but not a Zoroark. No Alakazam but Aza would come down here, and Yukino would know Aza besides. And this fox smells cold. Cold and… something cloying, sweet, something that raises the Zorua's hackles with distaste. Only pokemon Ingo count as friends would take these paths, and the only other fox Ingo knows would be-
“Yamanobori!” Kari calls out. “Over here!”
The too-quiet footsteps stop, still, then gain a galloping pace, tails flowing behind Gaeric's fairy fox companion like a thick encroaching fog as her pale face swivels towards Kari and his passengers. At last, her thoughts sigh, at last. Finally, we've found you.
Kari doesn't dare to hope, doesn't dare give her the brunt of his disappointment if this is all for naught. “We?”
Yamanobori's shadows shift with golden eyes and ghostfire. Lady An' is with us. Ingo could not search for you any longer, and we continued in his stead.
“There are human passengers with me,” Kari tells her. “Can we take them to wherever Ingo is? Will they be safe there?”
Yamanobori rears up as she turns back to the catacomb tunnels. Yes, yes, quickly, come now!
Images flick across his mind’s eye. “Mistress Cogita,” Kari lowly murmurs, “of course.” He turns back to his gathered passengers with a bit more confidence this time. “Everyone, there's a place hidden between the Highlands and Coastlands. A large chashi made to hold a great many guests. There will be room to shelter everyone, and where there is not enough there will be room to build more. Let us proceed to our destination with speed but not haste. Quickly, now!”
Gaeric, too, must have had his own sort of magic, that the sight of his Ninetales made everyone relax the moment they saw whose it was. An enviable ability, to Kari at least. As much as Akari wanted to be human, Kari wanted what they did to each other. The words and wiles that sheltered and swayed in equal measure. Strange magic. Human magic.
Yamanobori is using strange magic of her own, it seems. Strange magic she shouldn't have. Even with the tunnels, this is not how quickly they should be able to close the distance to Cogita's ancient retreat, and she should not be able to ascend to the surface on her own without ghostly assistance. Lady An' is with her, she said so herself, but Lady An's presence is weak, faded- too weak to do more than act as a guiding shadow. Did Yamanobori have an Escape Rope on her? No, the only adornment she had on her was her mane being done up like a girl's hair. And there is an odd, weighty static in her wake, its undertow trailing behind her like a long horned shadow, like a…
…like a god. Like a ghost and a god both, and Yamanobori is most assuredly too young to know the Bound God in such a way.
Didn't people say that before Gaeric's ghost was slain, he had turned into a-
Kari breaks away from the group as soon as Cogita starts to take them in, stalking Yamanobori from a short distance as she slips away into one of Cogita's raised storehouses, letting Lady An' leaves her as she climbs up the short ladder to the door, tails parting a curtain of beads that reek of powerful wards as she passes. And then Kari sees her shadow grow and twist and warp and rise and he sees icepick claws, gasping ribs, long horns poking through a burial shroud falling over the face of nothing, nothing, nothing at all sees, sees, sees- sees… reality correcting itself, Yamanobori's shadow shifting back to normal, and Gaeric standing in its place.
Or at least the thing that looks like him. He looks like Gaeric, in a half remembered sort of way. His sharp grey eyes are now glazed and relaxed, colors frozen over with cold blue ice, and his aged hair is flooded with broad shocks of white, floating behind him as if he were treading water. And floating is the right word for it, Kari thinks. The impossible infant god floats some subtle inches from the ground with the limpness of a long drowned corpse, reeking of paradox. The weight of his presence is as new as a newborn Hisuian Zorua and more ancient than Lord Avalugg, all in one, but his face does not betray it. The harsh tenseness his friendly expression had always carried in life is gone, warping his aimless half-smile with… something, or rather nothing. Nothing at all. Nothing, that's what it is- the space where a mind should have been greets Kari with nothing at all but a vast, vast sea of formless white noise. As if the thing that may or may not be Gaeric is some grand titan that only appears to be human in size and shape because he is being seen from so very far away, despite Yamanobori being so visible at his side for comparison. An optical illusion, almost.
One standing far, far closer to Kari than he first appeared, a breath away from Kari’s face where he once was not.
Kari flinches back, and Gaeric mirrors the action in a broad, exaggerated manner, a reflection wavering in disturbed water. Yamanobori immediately shoves herself between them, tails lashing to force them apart. No, no, wait, it's alright, she desperately assures, he's a friend, he won't hurt you-
“He tried to eat Ingo!” Kari fearfully snaps. “Don't say things that aren't true!” His smile stiffens. “How long have you been keeping him? Does Ingo know about this?”
It's alright! Yamanobori nonsensically continues. You're alright! Please! And then Yamanobori rears up on her hind legs, placing her paws on Gaeric's chest, pushing him back. Please, I know you can't understand me, but you know me, at least! She pushes her head against Gaeric’s throat. You are safe, I will keep you safe, I swear it-
She's reassuring Gaeric, Kari realizes, despite Gaeric being the greater danger of the two by the widest possible margin, and uncomfortably enough it looks as if Gaeric needs it. His right arm quakes and spasms, his throat bobs with a strained and repetitive wooden sound, and there is an open fear in his eyes that little suited his face in life, disturbing in its blatancy.
“Be quiet,” Kari hears himself tersely bite out. “I don't know you.” Gaeric's mouth moves like there are words coming out of him, but the only sound that escapes is this strange, ringing static that muffles Kari's ears. Kari’s hands ball into fists, nails biting into his gloves. “There's no reason for you to be afraid of me,” he flatly says. “I don't know you at all.” A confused, uncomprehending look bleeds across Gaeric's face, and a panicked annoyance rises in Kari's chest. “Stop it. Stop it now. If anyone else catches the both of us like this, they'll-”
They'll… what? There's too many people in the chashi for this to be a secret, in a time like this. A storehouse remaining empty, unoccupied, and private to everyone when Cogita has plainly opened her doors otherwise would require justification. Gaeric had shadowed Yamanobori through the catacombs and no one here had been surprised to see her escorting Kari's passengers out of them. It stands to reason they knew about Gaeric already, and the kinds of people who would come here are far too used to Ingo to be in the habit of punishing odd behavior. So, they’re going to do what, exactly? Nothing. Why would Kari feel the need to say something so cruel, unless…
…unless.
(Oh, Akari, what's happened to you?)
“I…” Kari’s face relaxes, and his hands uncurl. “I am- I am Kari. I am sorry. I am not helping at all, am I? Yamanobori, what has happened? Do I need to leave?”
Change, she simply says, still pressed against Gaeric's shaking body. The clan tunic on your form, change it to something else, anything else. He's been terrified of them ever since he came back to himself and he can't tell me why.
“I-” Kari falters at the strange request, but resolves to nod his head regardless. “-yes, of course, I-”
Kari steps back, and the Pearl Clan tunic under his grey coat changes into the attush he once wore at the last iyomante. Gaeric stiffens at the change- then he slumps into Yamanobori, arms closing around her as he sinks to the floor, face buried wearily against her throat. Kari can't hear the tone in his voice, but the movements of his mouth are stuttered, halting, and his eyes are sad.
“Why can't he tell you?” Kari asks Yamanobori. “Why can't we understand him?”
I don't know, Yamanobori admits. The humans can hear him, so he must still be able to speak real words. But he is deaf to us, and we to him. Maybe gods are too large to be heard.
“I have heard gods,” Kari corrects. “They are not like this.”
Then it is a secret to everyone, even him. Yamanobori rests her chin on the top of Gaeric's head. Ingo says he still knows me, and other things. But many memories before his death are muddled and confused. Some too vivid to leave him with his reason, others so faded as to vanish entirely. It is still too early to tell just how much he has lost.
“How has Ingo been?” Kari wonders. “Since what happened to the sky?”
We beg him to rest, and only sometimes does he hear us. He sees something up there that we do not, and it turns him into a frantic, wild thing. Yamanobori's tails thump rhythmically against the floor. You might be able to slow him where we cannot. He would want to know you are safe now, at least. He's been very worried.
Kari sighs. “He would, wouldn't he?” He straightens his coat and turns to leave. “I will go to him, then. I am sorry for intruding here-” He grunts as Gaeric suddenly moves to stand, clapping him roughly on the back before passing through the door to parts unknown. “Yes, hello? Hm.”
Yamanobori tilts her head. I think he was glad to see you again.
Kari lets out a sharp hum. “Maybe so. That would be nice.”
Ingo. Where would Ingo be in this place? Either with Gaeric's family or with Cogita herself. With the way he's been running himself ragged, Mita wouldn't want to worry the children with his condition, so Cogita is more likely. There, at that thought, Kari pauses. Was it really only last year they all built this place for her? With everything that's happened, it feels so long ago. Looking back, it was awfully optimistic of them, wasn't it, building houses and throwing days-long celebrations while gods raged around them? But they'd survived their first year of it- they thought the worst had already come to pass, and their only job was to live to tomorrow.
(And they had failed even that.)
Kari finds Ingo weakly slumped in one of Cogita's chairs, speaking with Volo.
“-but you and I both know that I will not apologize for having done so,” he catches Ingo murmuring. “Nevertheless, I will apologize for the distress I have caused.”
“I understand doing that for the others,” Volo insists, “but not to me. I'm too old for you to-”
“No,” Ingo simply refutes, “never. You will never be so old as to lose your value. Not to me. No matter what time passes, or what you have done, if I am given the choice to save you, I will take it. Please understand.”
“Best not to fight it, Volo,” Kari finally decides to join in. “It is simply the instinct of any good parent to think of the survival of their children, yup yup! Humans are no different from any other living thing in the end.”
“Hello to you too, Kari.” Volo squints. “Where's Akari? You don't show yourself around so many people at once.”
Kari lets out a single uncomfortable laugh and tents his hands together. “Akari is not here. She has not been here for a verrrrry long time. She has gone somewhere the Zorua cannot find her, and I have taken her place. I also do not want to be here, but the needs must.”
Ingo's frown deepens. “Yes, the villagers were just now informing Cogita what came to pass. Volo and I were discussing him heading out to find Rei soon.”
Kari stiffens. “What… has come to pass? I do not remember it. Akari has taken it along with everything else. All I knew is that these people followed me out of the village and we should not return to it. That they needed to be taken somewhere safe, and not there.”
Ingo holds his hand to his chin. “From what I am told happened, the rift over Mount Coronet suddenly disappeared, and then exploded into what we now see overhead. A sky covered in red.”
“With permission from the people of Lucario, Jubilife Village had started boarding boats to sail back to the south, towards Rota,” Volo continues for him. “With how many disasters have happened, it's no wonder they had an escape plan in place. But from what I heard, the boats sailed straight towards the horizon, and no matter how many times they fled in a straight line, they kept reappearing at Jubilife's docks. Apparently, this is when the panic began in earnest.”
“Yes, and in the face of such a crisis, it would seem Jubilife's governance has become irrational,” Ingo notes. “They looked for someone to blame, and so the Commander turned to Rei. But this decision was not unanimous and Akari knew it. She began to sow dissent, or at least, the Commander perceived her actions as such, and this, he would not tolerate.” He stares down at his open hand. “Did you know that he knew you were a Zorua?”
Kari stills. “What?”
Ingo's voice untenses somewhat. “I see. Then at least it was not a friend who did this to you.”
“Did what?” Kari weakly asks. “What did he do?”
Ingo gently takes Kari's hand into his own. “Considering the evidence laid out before you, you do not sorely need my assistance to discover the answer for yourself, but I will do my best to conduct you nevertheless.” His grip turns firm. “You know that you would only transform in front of someone who already knows. Why ever would Akari show you to the villagers you took with you?”
Because they already know. Because Kamado already knew. Because Kamado saw an angry crowd with Akari at the head and told everyone.
“But- but she helped them,” Kari haltingly protests. “She was their friend. She worked with them. For four years she- I-”
“It wasn't your fault,” Ingo softly says.
Kari's hand starts to shake in Ingo's grasp. “She sailed with them across the sea. She harvested their fields. She fed their workers. She taught their children. She was welcome in every home.”
“She was,” Ingo echoes.
The shaking spreads to Kari’s wrists now. “And they still-”
“They did,” Ingo softly answers. “And I am sorry.”
“But why?” Kari wonders, voice flat. “They work with pokemon all the time. Even ones that act like people. Even ones that walk like people. Even ones that talk like people.” A strange quaking note enters his words. “Why her? Why was she different? Why wasn't it all enough?”
“People panic,” Volo reminds him. “Maybe if all these other things weren't happening, it would have gone differently. But they found out while they were all in danger and they panicked.”
“Professor said it would be different this time. It was supposed to be different this time. Why wasn't it different this time? I don't understand, is it-” Kari's eyes widen with despair, voice shattering into a high, keening note. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No,” Ingo murmurs as he wraps his arms around Kari, “never.”
Kari's arms are curled against himself as his body presses into his brother. “They said they needed her,” he muffles into Ingo's clothes. “They said they wanted her. She was perfect.”
Ingo softly rocks the both of them back and forth. “I know. I know.”
“I thought- I thought they meant it this time,” Kari sadly stutters out, an uncontrollable sob slowly welling in his throat, “even if they found out she was different, that I was-” His vision swims painfully. “Because you were different, because in a- in a hundred years you won't be different from anyone else, and it had to start somewhere, didn't it? I thought she could be the first. I thought I could be the first, and now she's- she-”
And now she's gone. She's gone somewhere very far away. Zoroarks shed the faces that endanger them, whether they will it or not, and Akari is not safe anymore. The Security Corps marched her away in front of everyone with a wall of spears, and the last thing she ever saw was someone holding Professor Laventon down as he screamed, pleaded, begged to a crowd of deaf ears, no, no, stop, stop it, please, PLEASE, NO, YOU CAN'T, THAT'S MY DAUGHTER-
What a terrible, foolish, childish thing, to cry over a broken mask. Kari, and the Zorua that wears him, may well be the first fox in history to have ever done it. But he cries anyways, because she was his, and he was hers. It's only natural for someone like him, of all people, to weep and wail and writhe, when something that once was two is suddenly made one.
“She's gone,” Kari finally whispers, eyes welling with tears. “She's gone.” His shoulders shake as he claws into Ingo's coat. “She's gone. She's gone." It is a scream, it is a sob, it is a jagged, wounded gasp for air. "She's gone, she's gone, no, no, nononono she's gone she's gone SHE'S GONE SHE'S GONE SHE'S G-GGGGG-”
(If anyone outside of Cogita's house heard his cries, they kept their silence. Some day, Kari will remember to be grateful for it.)