I trailed behind them, my head lowered, shoulders heavy with a leaden exhaustion that no amount of modern "rest" could fix.
The city of Eterna was a sensory assault.
The ground was flat. The lights were constant. People moved with reckless abandon.
I followed the boy, Ash, mostly because I had nowhere else to go. I was a man who had outlived his world, a ghost haunting a future that didn't have a place for him.
As the sun rose and the artificial lamps flickered off, the light hit the girl—Dawn—at just the right angle.
I stopped dead in the middle of the crowded walkway, my heart hammering against the silver scar in my chest.
"Akari?"
The name slipped out before I could catch it—a desperate, broken whisper.
The girl turned, her blue hair shimmering. She blinked at me, her expression a mix of confusion and that same, stubborn spark of life I had seen a thousand times in the Icelands.
For a heartbeat, the city vanished. I wasn't in the future, but back at the base camp, watching a friend prepare for a trial.
Then she tilted her head, and the illusion shattered.
She wasn't wearing the Survey Corps blue. She didn't smell of woodsmoke and apricorns. She was just a girl who happened to share her face.
"It's Dawn, remember?" she said, her voice soft with concern. "Are you okay, Corvin?"
I looked away, my jaw tightening as I stared at the pavement. "Right. Dawn. My mistake."
I sank deeper into myself, a silent, armored shadow following a group of children as they wandered, gawking at the various sights of Eterna City.
Eventually, we reached a grand, stone building—a museum.
"Hey, what's that?" Ash questioned, his voice breaking me from my trance as he pointed a finger at the ancient statues that rested outside of the building.
I followed the path of his finger, my eyes widening with a surge of adrenaline as I saw what he was pointing at.
My hand closed tight around Kishin's hilt as I had nearly drawn Kishin, fully prepared to smash the statues of Dialga and Palkia into pieces with a Strong Style move.
"Let's go check it out!" Ash didn't seem to have noticed my reaction, or at maybe he simply ignored it, as he rushed to the entrance of the museum to get tickets, forcing the rest of us to follow in after him.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
The air inside the Eterna Historical Museum was stagnant, a heavy, suffocating weight that had nothing to do with the ancient tapestries or the dust of centuries.
To the people gathered at the entrance, this was a hall of wonder. But to a soldier like me, who had seen the sky split open and the eroding depths of the void, it was a room full of people playing house with the remains of an ancient era.
A crowd had gathered in a frantic, noisy swarm. A man with a golden harp, Nando, was being surrounded by officers in blue uniforms. They were shouting, accusing him of stealing something called the Adamant Orb.
The Adamant Orb. The name flashed through my mind, igniting a cherished memory of the time Adaman thought it was a good idea to try to sell the Diamond Clan's "useless" Adamant Crystal for three bags of Potato Mochi and a Leaf Stone for his Eevee.
The thought of Adaman's foolish antics brought a small smile to my lips, though the joy didn't reach my eyes.
I'll never see him again. I realized.
The Adamant Crystal—the sacred treasure of the Diamond Clan, a vessel of Almighty Sinnoh's power over time itself.
"He couldn't have done it!" Ash shouted, his voice breaking the quiet of my memories, as he stepped forward to defend the man with the harp. "Nando's our friend! He wouldn't steal anything!"
Leaning against the cold marble of a pillar, arms crossed, the rhythmic, icy thrum of the Rift-Eye pulsed beneath fresh bandages. I watched them as they scrambled, running in circles to prove the innocence of a man they had barely met.
What a farce. A theater of naivety.
"You're all so... incredibly soft," I muttered, my voice cutting through their frantic planning like a cold wind.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Dawn asked, turning to me with those eyes that kept twisting the knife in my memory.
"It means you play at being heroes in a world that has forgotten what a villain actually looks like."
My gaze fixed on the empty pedestal where the Orb had been. "You trust a stranger because he plays a pleasant tune? A man with a harp is just a man who doesn't want you to hear him draw his knife. You're chasing feelings while the real culprit is already miles away."
"We have to help him!" Ash insisted, his fist clenched. "Because that's what friends do!"
I let out a hollow, bitter laugh that felt like sand in my throat. "Friends. You've known him for a little more than an hour. Yet you're risking your standing with the law for a 'feeling.' It's a miracle you've lived long enough to reach this 'League' without being eaten."
I looked back at the spot where the Adamant Orb should have been. If it truly was the relic of the Diamond Clan, then the threads of my past couldn't be buried just yet.
"The Orb," I said, my tone shifting, becoming sharp and focused for the first time since I woke up. "If it is what I think it is, you shouldn't be worried about a thief. You should be worried about why the stone has decided to disappear now."
"Relics like that don't just 'go missing'."
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
I can't believe this.
Across the polished marble floor, a display of modern heroism unfolded. Ash gestured, and his Pikachu mirrored his frustration. Beside him, the blue-haired girl and the woman with vibrant autumn hair—Gardenia—pleaded with an Officer Jenny.
They were defending a bard named Nando, arguing over alibis and Sunflora costumes while the common sense of reality screamed in the next room.
The group had been playing detective for thirty minutes now, while the treasure of a god was being handled by thieves. This was a special kind of naivety—the luxury of a world that had forgotten what it was like to actually look into the eye of danger.
They treated Pokémon like pets and artifacts like museum pieces, failing to understand that the Adamant Orb wasn't just "history."
It was the undying heartbeat of an ancient clan. And right now, that heartbeat was being chocked by incompetence.
A sharp vibration hummed against my hip. Kishin remained silent in his obsidian scabbard, but through our bond, its spectral eye mirrored a cold disdain.
The sword didn't care about the bard's innocence or the officer's procedure. It sensed the vacuum where the orb used to be—a jagged hole in the flow of time.
"Let them talk," a low rasp muttered. "They wouldn't know a disaster if it was stabbed in their chests."
Pushing off the pillar, my movement carried the silent grace of a soldier who had spent weeks dodging death. The shouting match was ignored, and the restricted wing of the museum became the focus.
No security cameras were needed to find the thieves; the trail of "sin" that only someone marked by the Renegade God could track was far more reliable.
To the Rift-Eye, the trail looked like a smear of inky, violet oil across the floor, glowing with a sickly light the brats couldn't even perceive.
"Well that's useful." I smirked, looking down at my chest to see the Rift-Eye seemingly squinting in glee.
Rounding a corner near a service exit, a sudden halt allowed my figure to melt into the darkness behind a display of ancient pottery.
Three figures in white uniforms were huddled together. A Meowth frantically kicked a pile of yellow petals into a corner, its claws clicking against the floor in a panicked rhythm.
The woman with magenta hair held a velvet-lined box. Inside, the Adamant Orb pulsed with a deep, rhythmic blue light.
"Team Rocket," the woman hissed to her companions, discussing joyously of wealth and status.
The name meant nothing. It sounded small. Petty. They were fumbling with the artifact, whispering about how "the Boss" was going to be so proud of them, as if they were stealing a bag of gold coins from a merchant's cart.
They had no idea they were holding a ticking clock. Like children playing with a live coal, blissfully unaware that it could burn this entire city to the ground if they dropped it.
"We did it, Jessie!" the man with blue hair whispered, his voice cracking with a high-pitched excitement. "The boss is going to give us a promotion for sure! We'll be swimming in luxury!"
"Pipe down, James!" the woman snapped, clutching the box tighter. "We still have to get past that officer and the twerps. That Pikachu is just waiting to fry us."
A surge of cold malice rose from the scar on the chest. They were afraid of a Pikachu.
A Pikachu.
They were worried about a middle-aged officer. They held the power to destabilize the entire world in their palms, and their biggest concern was a yellow rat.
In Hisui, if you stole from a god, you wouldn't worry about a promotion—but about whether your soul would remain intact by sunrise.
Stepping out from the shadows, the movement was fluid and deliberate. Kishin wasn't drawn yet—there was no need. The temperature in the corridor dropped instantly as the Distortion's chill bled out from the bandages.
The three froze. The Meowth's ears flattened, and it slowly turned around, eyes widening into dinner plates.
"Uh, guys?" the cat Pokémon stammered. "I think we got company. And he don't look like no officer."
"A talking... Meowth?" I paused, my brow twitching. A Pokémon that spoke human tongue was either a god or a hallucination brought on by frostbite.
A mask of stone remained as my gaze fixed on the orb. The Rift-Eye throbbed, a piercing needle of ice, but my posture didn't break.
Muffled sounds of Ash and Gardenia approaching from the main hall grew louder—their loud, clumsy footsteps announcing their arrival long before they'd even see the target.
"More children coming to the playground." I exhaled in exasperation, stepping back into the shadows of the museum.
"Drop the orb," my voice commanded. It didn't carry the heat of anger but the breath of exhaustion. "You have no idea what you're holding. You're all trying to pocket a star and expecting not to be burned."
"Who do you think you are?!" Jessie screeched, though her hand shook as she gripped the box. "We're Team Rocket! We take what we want!"
The bravado was so hollow it was painful. Shadows behind my boots began to stretch, rising up the wall like black glass as the "hero" group reached the end of the hallway.
"You talk of 'taking,'" the voice dropped an octave as the Rift-Eye forced itself open just a fraction. "I've seen what happens when the owners of these trinkets come to claim them. You aren't thieves. You're just bait."
The air pressure shifted as the "twerps" finally rounded the corner. A choice had to be made: step back and let the children fight their petty battle, or end this before the orb's resonance brought something much worse than these "Team Rocket" fools into the city.
The museum hallway was a theater of the absurd. Ash and Gardenia finally burst around the corner, their faces flushed with the righteous indignation of people who thought the world functioned on fair play and honest effort.
"Team Rocket?! What are you doing here?" Ash screamed as he took in the sight of the three fools in their faulty disguises.
They shouted their challenges at the three thieves, who responded with a practiced, theatrical bravado that made my skin crawl.
It was a clash of children. One side fought for "justice," the other for "wealth," while the Adamant Orb—the sacred treasure of the Diamond Clan—sat in the middle like a discarded toy.
I felt a sharp, bitter pang in my chest. I had stood beside Adaman when he spoke of the vastness of time.
I had seen the reverence in his eyes when he spoke of his clan's heritage.
To see his people's most holy relic clutched by these bumbling fools while a group of loud-mouthed travelers treated the recovery like a game...
It was an insult to everything the Diamond Clan had bled to protect.
They have no idea. I thought, my eyes narrowing. They're playing in the ruins of a temple they don't even recognize.
I didn't step forward. I stayed merged with the shadows of the alcove, watching as the battle erupted.
Pikachu's electricity crackled through the air, and Gardenia's Turtwig lunged forward with a flurry of leaves. Team Rocket—the name still sounded ridiculous—threw out their own Pokémon, creating a chaotic mess of smoke and sparks.
Ash was shouting commands with a desperate, wide-eyed sincerity that made me want to look away. He was brave, certainly, but his bravery was rooted in a world that hadn't yet shown him how quickly a person's life could snap in two.
He fought like he expected to win because he was "right."
"Pathetic," I muttered.
The officer finally arrived, but she didn't bring a blade or a strategic formation. Instead, she released a Stunky.
The moment the Pokémon expelled its foul, thick gas, the hallway became a sensory nightmare. The thieves choked, their eyes watering as they stumbled blindly through the yellow haze.
Ash and his friends recoiled, gagging and shielding their faces. In the confusion, the magenta-haired woman fumbled. The velvet box slipped from her numb fingers, tumbling toward the marble floor.
Now.
I didn't move a muscle, but I felt the bond flare.
"Kishin. Shadow Sneak."
The shadows at my feet stretched—detaching from the soles of my boots. A jagged, ink-black ribbon raced across the floor, invisible in the thick, pungent fog.
It moved with a predatory speed that defied the laws of the physical world. Just as the Adamant Orb was about to shatter against the cold stone, the shadow rose up like a hand.
Kishin materialized for a fraction of a second, his spectral eye a piercing violet through the smog. Catching the orb in a silken wrap of shadow, Kishin pulled it into the darkness before it could touch stone.
The box hit the floor empty.
By the time the gas began to clear and the coughing subsided, I was already moving toward the service exit. Team Rocket was being restrained, and Ash was busy wiping his eyes, congratulating his Pokémon on a job well done.
They were so distracted by their "victory" that they hadn't even noticed the prize was gone.
I shook my head in disappointment, stepping out into the cool night air of Eterna City, the Adamant Orb tucked securely against my side. It was cold, pulsing with a rhythmic thrum that matched the beat of my own distorted heart.
"Adaman," I whispered, looking up at the moon. "Your treasure is safe. But the world… has forgotten your name."
The cold weight of the Adamant Orb pressed against my ribs, a physical anchor to a time that had been scoured from the earth.
I stood in the deep, velvet shadows of the museum's outer courtyard, the night air of Eterna City biting at my skin. Below, the sirens of the modern world wailed—sharp, mechanical shrieks that lacked the organic terror of a Noble Pokémon's roar.
I looked down at the orb in my hand.
It was beautiful.
A deep, swirling azure that seemed to hold the sky of Hisui within its polished surface. This was the heart of the Diamond Clan—a promise cast in crystal.
I could almost see Adaman standing before me, his blue hair wind-whipped, his voice ringing with that stubborn, infectious certainty that every second of life was a gift from the Almighty Sinnoh.
He had guarded this treasure with his life, not because it was power, but because it was a promise.
A promise that time would continue, that the sun would rise, and that his people would endure.
My fingers tightened around the cool crystal. The Rift-Eye beneath my bandages throbbed in sync with the orb's pulse as a dark, jagged thought clawed at the back of my mind—a whisper from the depths of the Distortion World.
Keep it.
It is the only thing left of him.
If you leave it here, these children will lose it again.
They treat it like a curiosity, a relic to be gawked at by tourists who can't even fathom the weight of the centuries it has witnessed.
The conflict was a physical ache, sharper than any bleeding wound or broken bone. If I took it, I could protect it.
I could carry the Diamond Clan with me, a silent passenger in my exile. I could ensure that the "Team Rockets" of this world never laid a finger on Adaman's legacy again.
In this era of brightly colored clothes and easy smiles, I was the only one who truly knew what it was.
I was the only one who had earned the right to hold it.
…
…
…
But as I looked back at the museum's grand, illuminated windows, my gaze fell upon the plaque near the entrance.
It spoke of the "Ancient Sinnoh Period," a sanitized, distant title for the blood and dirt I had called home.
If I took the orb, I would be erasing the last footprint of my friend's people.
Adaman didn't believe in hoarding time, he believed in living it, in sharing it.
If the Adamant Orb vanished into the shadows with me, the Diamond Clan would truly die. They would become nothing more than a footnote in a dusty book, a myth that people whispered about until they eventually forgot to whisper at all.
But here, behind the glass, the orb told a story. It was a silent witness to a clan that had respected the flow of seconds to minutes and hours, a people who had built a life out of the wilderness.
To take it was to protect the object, but to return it was to protect its memory.
And in a world that had forgotten Hisui, memories were the only thing more precious than a god's treasure.
"He would call me a fool for hesitating," I muttered, the words turning to mist in the cool air.
I turned back toward the museum, my boots clicking softly on the stone. The Stunky gas had dissipated, leaving only a faint, acrid tang in the hallways.
The "heroes"—Ash and his companions—were still gathered near the pedestal, looking distraught as they realized the box Team Rocket had dropped was empty.
Officer Jenny was frantically radioing for backup, her face pale with the realization of what had been lost under her watch.
I didn't use the front door. I moved through the rafters, a ghost in the architecture, until I was directly above the display area.
Below me, Ash was punching his palm, his face a mask of guilt.
"We were right there!" he shouted, his voice cracking. "How could it just disappear?"
"The gas was too thick," Gardenia sighed, her shoulders slumped. "It's my fault. I should have been more careful with the city's history."
I felt a flicker of the old soldier's disdain, but it was dampened by a strange, new pity.
They were naive, yes, but they cared. In their own clumsy, loud-mouthed way, they valued what the orb represented.
I signaled Kishin. The Aegislash drifted from my side, his purple tassels swaying like funeral ribbons. He took the orb from my hand, his spectral eye dimming as he descended through the shadows, silent as a falling leaf.
With a soft, metallic chink, the Adamant Orb settled back onto its velvet cushion.
The sound was tiny, but in the stressed silence of the room, it was like a thunderclap. Every head snapped toward the pedestal. For a heartbeat, no one moved. They stared at the orb, shimmering under the spotlights as if it had never left.
"It's... it's back?" Dawn whispered, her hands flying to her mouth.
Ash lunged forward, checking the glass, his eyes wide. "But how? Team Rocket didn't—"
I stepped out from the darkness of the upper balcony, just far enough for the light to catch the edge of my cloak. I didn't want their gratitude, and I certainly didn't want their questions, but they needed to understand that this wasn't a toy.
"It belongs to the people," my voice rang out, echoing off the high ceiling. It was the voice of a man who had stood on the Temple of Sinnoh and watched the sky bleed. It was a voice that didn't belong in their peaceful world.
They looked up, squinting into the shadows. Ash took a step forward, his Pikachu tensing on his shoulder.
"Corvin?!"
I ignored the recognition, looking straight at Gardenia, the descendent of the Agriculture Corps's Colza who held the title of Gym Leader in the strange new city of Eterna.
"That orb isn't just a glimmering stone," I said, my gaze heavy. "It is the heart of a people who fought for every second of their existence. It is the history of the Diamond Clan and it tells the tale of a man who knew that time was the most sacred thing we possess."
I paused, the Rift-Eye pulsing with a final, warning heat.
"Keep it safe," I commanded, the words sharp and cold as a blade. "Don't let their history become a tragedy twice. If it goes missing again... I will be the last person who comes looking for it."
Before they could respond, before Ash could shout another question or the officer could reach for her belt, I stepped back into the absolute darkness. Kishin merged with my shadow, and together, we vanished into the shadows of the building.
Outside, I stood on the roof, looking out over the flickering lights of the modern city. I felt lighter, though my ribs still ached.
The Diamond Clan was where they belonged—in the light, being remembered.
"Time moves on, Adaman," I whispered, the wind catching my hair.
"But I won't let them forget you, my friend."
I turned away from the museum, moving toward the edge of the city where the trees of Eterna Forest began.
I had done my duty to the past. Now, I had to find what remained of it in this new future.