The episode continued in a blur of modern "justice." Nando was released.
After a short round of apologies and goodbyes, the group gathered outside the museum's entrance as the man with the harp began to speak of the ancient myths of the region—of Dialga, the master of time, and Palkia, the weaver of space.
Stories about the birth of Almighty Sinnoh, the universe's history and how Dialga and Palkia created this world.
The way Nando told his tales reminded me of a simpler time. When I sat on a linen mat on the floor, listening to fantastical stories of the adventures of the Ancient Hero.
I wonder if he has myths about Giratina. Or if he knows of the Ancient Hero's legend.
"The Ancient Sinnoh..." I breathed. The names caused my scars to ache, reminding me of the pain of the battle against Dialga, the Rift-Eye beneath its layers of wrappings and cloth, flared in response to my distress.
Suddenly, the world tilted. The museum, the children, the very air itself began to stutter. I saw the sky turn purple, then gold, then gray.
I looked down at my hands. The tips of my fingers had turned transparent, flickering like a dying candle.
Before I could process the sight of my fingertips turning to dust, my whole arm burst—erupting into a digital blur.
"A̵̗͂R̴͖̟̂͊G̸͚̟̍̎͆H̴͖͙͂͜!"
I collapsed to one knee, clutching my head as a space-time "glitch" tore through my perception.
It felt as if reality were trying to eject me, a foreign object being purged from a wound. The pain was absolute—a jagged, white-hot screaming in my soul that told me I didn't belong here. I was a paradox. I was an error.
Just as the blackness threatened to take me again, a warmth bloomed at my throat.
The Red Chain fragment, tucked beneath my tunic, began to glow with a soft, steady crimson light. It shone, anchoring me.
The flickering of my body slowed, the jagged edges of reality smoothed out, and the agonizing screaming in my head subsided into a dull, manageable throb.
The Chain—the very thing meant to bind the gods—was binding me to this timeline.
I stayed on one knee, gasping for breath, my sweat dripping onto the pavement of Eterna City.
"Corvin! What happened?" Dawn rushed to my side, her face—Akari's face—filled with a terror she didn't know I'd seen before.
"Nothing," I pushed her hand away, struggling to stand. My heart—both the flesh and the rift—was pounding. "Just a cramp."
"A… a cramp?"
"Yes, a cramp," I emphasized, dusting my haori of dust. "Now didn't you have something important you needed to do?"
"Oh yeah! My gym battle!" Ash exclaimed, realizing the sun was already at the peak of the sky, preparing to set. He began running to the moss-covered stadium at the epicenter of the city. "Hurry, I can't miss it!"
I walked after him, following the slight trail of dust he kicked up in his haste, Brock and Dawn trailed just behind me.
"Are you sure you're ok?" The blue-haired girl's light whisper rang out from behind my shoulder. "You looked like you were in a lot of pain."
"I'm fine," I told her. "Just fine."
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
I was not fine.
I leaned against the moss-slicked stone of the stadium's outer ring, my arms folded tightly over the heavy bandages on my chest. My eyes—the one of weary flesh and the one of flickering entropy—watched the "battle" below with mounting disgust.
Below me, Ash Ketchum was screaming. His voice was a frantic, high-pitched mess, a desperate barrage of sound that lacked any semblance of tactical rhythm.
He called for "dodges" that came seconds too late and with no direction, doing nothing to mitigate the kinetic force of a physical impact. It was a circus, a play-acted war.
If a Security Corps recruit had shown such a pathetic lack of situational awareness, they wouldn't have lived long enough to see the campfire the next night.
The boy's reliance on shouting through every exchange, hoping his voice would somehow bridge the gap between his Pokémon's exhaustion and reality, was worse than a first-day recruit shivering before a wild Shinx.
At least a recruit knows to tactically retreat and counterattack.
I watched in stony disbelief as the boy somehow secured a win. The crowd roared with a hollow, joyous energy; the Gym Leader, Gardenia, laughed with a carefree lightness that felt like a personal insult to the gravity of true combat. A "Forest Badge" was handed over like a medal for a well-behaved child. It was an insult to the truth of battle.
Once the stadium cleared and the echoes of the "twerps" faded into the distance, I stepped from the long shadows of the rafters and into the dying orange light of the sinking sun. The temperature in the arena plummeted, the air growing thin and sharp.
Gardenia, still wiping sweat from her brow and smiling at her exhausted Pokémon, looked up. Her smile slowly faded, dying when she saw the ancient, cold steel in my gaze and the Aegislash floating at my side, realizing that I wasn't here for a playful fight.
Kishin wasn't a pet, and he wasn't a "partner" in the way these modern trainers used the word. He was a weapon of war, an extension of my own scarred soul.
"A challenger?" she asked, her voice losing its playful lilt, her hand instinctively hovering over her belt. "You don't look like you're here for a friendly match. You have the look of someone who's seen the wrong side of the mountain."
"I am not interested in a game," I said, my voice a low, grating rasp that seemed to vibrate in the silence of the empty stadium. "And I have no patience for the theater I just witnessed. So show me,"
"Show me the strength of this era. Your strongest team. No handicaps. No mercy. And no 'tests' for beginners."
Gardenia's eyes narrowed, the professional Gym Leader giving way to the primal instinct of a cornered predator. She sensed the shift—the transition from sport to real battle. She didn't reach for her training Pokémon, ones used for the bright-eyed, budding trainers of Sinnoh. She pulled her most seasoned fighters—the team she reserved for only the highest level of competition.
The stadium was silent, the air heavy with the scent of crushed grass and the cold, metallic tang of the Rift-Eye pulsing against my ribs. Ash and his friends had long since departed, leaving only the hollow echo of their cheers behind.
Now, there was only the wind and the woman who stood across from me, her knuckles white as she gripped her final five Poké Balls.
"One at a time, then," I said, my voice cutting through the twilight like a blade. "Show me the strength of Eterna."
Gardenia didn't waste words. She threw her first ball, a flash of white as a Jumpluff emerged, drifting into the air with a deceptive fragility. "Sunny Day!" she commanded.
The sun didn't just shine; it burned, a harsh glare meant to empower her Grass-Types.
I didn't blink. I didn't even reach for Kishin's hilt.
"Kishin. Yamaha-no-Orochi, Three-Headed Serpent."
"Clear the air."
The Aegislash didn't use a move. He simply shifted his weight. As the Jumpluff drifted into range, Kishin's blade cleared his scabbard in a blur of silver—a swift slash. The air itself seemed to ripple as the steel bisected the Jumpluff's momentum from three separate angles.
They weren't a technique found in any modern or ancient manual.
They were born from my experiences—
A style of my own creation.
Before the small creature could even register the strike, the flat of Kishin's blade swatted it from the sky. It hit the dirt, unconscious. No flashy lights, no explosions.
Just a silent, surgical end.
"Next," I muttered.
Breloom was her second choice. It lunged forward with a Mach Punch, a strike that would have shattered a man's sternum.
"Nurikabe."
Kishin didn't meet the blow head-on. He slanted his steel, letting the force of the punch slide harmlessly off the katana's curve. As the Breloom overextended, Kishin stepped into its guard, delivering a blunt hilt-strike to the Pokémon's solar plexus, causing it to fold like parchment.
"Too much wasted movement," I said, my eyes tracking Gardenia's trembling hands. "You're fighting a duel here, not a brawl."
Cherrim and Sunflora followed in rapid succession. They tried to hide behind the glare of the sun, charging beams of light that promised destruction. But Kishin moved like a ghost through the tall grass.
He wouldn't use a single "move" recognized by a modern Pokédex.
He didn't need to.
Using Oni—a relentless vertical downstroke, he spilt a charging Energy Ball in half—and with a flurry of irregular thrusts, he shredded the Sunflora's floral joints before it could release its light.
By the time Roserade hit the floor, its Leaf Blades and attempts at Solar Beam were countered by a simple, elegant cleave that left it gasping for air, Gardenia was transformed.
The playful girl was gone. In her place stood a leader who realized she was no longer in a gym, but on a battlefield.
She pulled her final ball. The ground groaned as Torterra emerged.
It was massive, a living mountain of oak and stone. It bellowed, a deep, tectonic rumble that shook the entire stadium, a small smile graced my lips as I saw a familiar form to the slumbering giant from the Holm of Trials.
Gardenia looked at her Pokémon, her face set in a grim, determined mask. "We aren't just toys for you to throw around, stranger," she whispered.
"Torterra, Wood Hammer!"
The beast moved with a speed that defied its size, its front legs glowing with a terrifying, emerald power. It swung its massive limbs like a falling tree.
"Kishin. Forward."
Kishin dove beneath the strike, slipping through the attack to shift behind the mountainous Pokémon. His pauldron clanged against Torterra's mountain-like shell. Kishin withdrew to his sheathe, using the friction to perform a rending Kamaitachi—but Torterra didn't stop.
Predicting the movement, it shifted its massive weight to slam its body into Kishin, crushing him against the arena wall. It was a soldier's move. A tactical adjustment that used it's surroundings.
I felt a spark of something I hadn't felt since the forest. A sliver of respect.
"Good," I said, a ghost of a grin touching my lips.
"You're finally awake."
The Torterra lunged again, its jaw snapping shut inches from Kishin's eye. It was pinning us down, using its sheer mass to limit our movement. It was a real fight.
"EARTHQUAKE! END IT!" Gardenia screamed, fully intending to use the oppurtunity to at least take down one of my Pokémon.
"ROAR!" Torterra roared in response to its trainer passion, rising on its two hind legs as it forced copious amounts of Ground energy into its hulking front limbs, intending on using the full weight of its bulk to inflict the most damage it could to Kishin.
Its massive body cast a shadow on Kishin as it prepared to slam down with a full-powered Earthquake.
"Marvelous!" My remark breaks Gardenia's battle trance. "But it's still too slow."
"You're thinking in two dimensions," I commanded. "Kishin. Enough. Shadow Claw."
For the first time that night, the Aegislash pulled energy from his sheath. The katana bled. Dark, ethereal claws of violet shadow erupted from the steel, lengthening the blade by three feet as Kishin vanished into the earth.
The Torterra spun, eyes wide, searching for the threat. But it was too slow.
Kishin erupted from the beast's own shadow, the Shadow Claw glowing with a cold, abyssal light.
"Slice its foundation. Tengu."
The shadow-extended blade hissed upward in a sweeping crescent. It severed the thick, muscular tendons of Torterra's rear legs. The "mountain" gave out.
With a sound like a landslide, the massive Pokémon crashed into the arena floor, its weight now its cage.
Kishin hovered over its neck, the ghastly energy of the Shadow Claw dissipating into the night air, leaving only the cold, sharp reality of the katana resting against Torterra's throat.
The silence was absolute.
Gardenia dropped to her knees, her hand resting on Torterra's snout. She wasn't crying, though her eyes glimmered with bitter unshed tears. She was staring at me with a newfound clarity.
"You fought well," I said, my voice softening just a fraction as I signaled Kishin to sheath himself and return to my side.
The clack of the steel was the final period on the sentence of the battle.
"Your Torterra has the heart of a Noble. Don't let this era's softness dull its edge."
I walked across the fractured earth and took the Forest Badge from her hand. It felt heavier than it should have.
"Keep that steel in your eyes and that fire in your heart, Gardenia," I said, turning my back on her. "You'll need it for what's coming."
I walked out of the gym, the Rift-Eye on my chest pulsing a slow, satisfied violet.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Name: Kishin
Species: Hisuian Aegislash
Type: Steel/Ghost
Abilities: Stance Change
Moves: Spectral Draw, King's Shield, Echo Bond, Shadow Sneak, Sacred Sword, Iron Head, Shadow Claw, Shadow Ball, Swords Dance, Close Combat, Aerial Ace, Leaf Blade, Aqua Cutter, Psycho Cut, Flash Cannon, Shadow Clone, Iron Defense, Autotomize, Night Slash.
Techniques: Strong/Agile Style, Spirit Style