Chapter 319: Looker and Rosa
With the sparring match concluded, the Canalave City competition was completely finished. Ryan and Lillie tidied up and waited for Looker outside the plaza near the city gate.
Looker didn't keep them waiting long. He arrived shortly after, hands in his coat pockets, and looked between the two of them with a somewhat sheepish expression. "Sorry to take up more of your time. I came to ask about Rosa."
"Rosa — right, you mentioned her earlier." Lillie tilted her head, studying him. "What's your relationship with her?"
Looker gave a wry smile. "I'm not with the International Police anymore, so there's no reason to dance around it."
Ryan raised an eyebrow. "You left? Or were you let go?"
"Let go is the polite way to put it," Looker said, rubbing the back of his neck. "I'll spare you the full story. I was originally assigned as a senior investigator tasked with tracking down remnants of Team Plasma. I crossed paths with Rosa during that investigation — a lot happened after that. Eventually Team Plasma was absorbed by your Mercenary Guild, and with the case closed and my performance record being what it was, the International Police decided they could manage without me." He paused. "After that I went looking for Rosa. Couldn't find her. So I've been traveling and searching at the same time, and when I passed through Canalave and heard you were coming, I entered the competition hoping to get a lead."
Ryan clicked his tongue quietly. The situation between Looker and Rosa was different from the version he'd known through the stories — but the underlying current between them was exactly the same. After N had returned to the Guild and gently turned Rosa down, her composure in the aftermath had worried both him and Lillie. Looking at it now, though, Rosa had probably needed that clarity to sort out her own feelings. What she'd felt for N had always been closer to admiration that gradually became something else — not the same as what had developed between her and Looker through everything they'd been through together. She just hadn't known which was which until she'd tested one of them.
Ryan and Lillie exchanged a glance.
Lillie smiled warmly. "If you want to find Rosa, go to Pallet Town. She's a full member of the Mercenary Guild now and spends most of her time at the main headquarters. She's there."
Looker went still for a moment. Then he bowed — a genuine, slightly stiff bow, the kind from someone who didn't do it often and meant it when they did. "Thank you. I won't keep you any longer."
He straightened up, turned, and walked back toward the city at a pace that was technically not running.
Lillie watched him go, then turned to Ryan with a soft expression. "I didn't expect Rosa to have feelings for Looker. And he clearly feels the same way. That's a good ending for them."
"I didn't expect someone with his track record to actually settle down," Ryan said, stroking his chin. "Rosa must be something else."
Lillie's hand found his waist with practiced precision.
"You know what I mean," Ryan said immediately.
"Do I?"
"You're more charming. Obviously. That's the entire reason I'm here."
Lillie released him, looked away with an expression of exaggerated dignity, and said, "That's more like it."
Ryan rubbed the spot where she'd pinched him and reflected, not for the first time, that even the most composed and gentle people had their limits, and it was important to know exactly where those limits were.
His thoughts drifted as they walked. He found himself thinking about the old prophecies from his time in Johto — the ones that had seemed improbable when he'd first heard them, most of which had quietly come true. Brendan and May. The resolution of the Team Plasma crisis. Most of it had settled into place on its own. Necrozma was still an open thread, but everything else had landed where it was supposed to.
That brought him to Deoxys.
It had been a long time since the capture, and the hostility still hadn't faded. Ryan had spoken to it directly about what happened — the full context of Team Rocket's experiment, the way two Deoxys had been caught up in it, the way one had sacrificed itself to try to save the other. That loss had calcified into something deep and fixed. Deoxys didn't hate Ryan specifically. It hated humans in general, and it had a long memory.
Ryan shook his head. Some things couldn't be rushed. That one would take time — possibly a lot of it.
He turned his attention forward. Next destination: Mt. Coronet. The Dragon Stone and Fairy Stone were connected to Giratina's domain, and it was past time to make that introduction.
Meanwhile, Looker stepped off the plane at Pallet Town and stood for a moment looking at the skyline — modest by most standards, but the Mercenary Guild's headquarters tower was visible from the airfield, and that was what he was looking at.
He had never been particularly sentimental. His career in the International Police had been built on a certain kind of deliberate detachment — relationships were for after missions, feelings were a liability during them, and he had treated both rules consistently. He'd dated. He'd moved on. It had always been clean.
Rosa hadn't been clean.
He'd approached her initially with a clear professional purpose — she had connections to former Team Plasma members, and her background made her worth watching. But Rosa didn't respond to people the way most people did. She hadn't been swept along or charmed or managed. She'd just looked at him with those steady eyes and been completely, infuriatingly herself, and the approach he'd used without thinking for years had simply not worked.
That had been new. And new, for Looker, had a way of becoming interesting very quickly.
By the time the investigation closed, the professionalism had become a problem of a different kind. So he'd done the responsible thing and put distance between them. International Police officers had no business carrying that kind of distraction into the field.
He wasn't an International Police officer anymore.
He pushed open the door to the Guild's main hall. It was larger than he'd expected — open, well-lit, busy with Trainers moving in and out, handing completed quest forms to the front desk staff, presenting Pokémon for aptitude assessment. A points-based system ran the whole operation, by the look of it — earn points through quests and captures, spend them on access to high-potential Pokémon or TM usage rights. Clean and efficient.
Looker approached the front desk, feeling slightly out of his element without a badge to produce. "Excuse me — I'm looking for Rosa. Could you tell me where she is?"
The receptionist smiled before he'd finished the sentence. "Mr. Looker? The Guild Master already let us know to expect you. Ms. Rosa is on the sixth floor — she should be in the meeting room."
Looker processed this for a moment. Ryan had called ahead. Of course he had.
He took the elevator to the sixth floor, walked down the corridor, and opened the meeting room door.
Rosa was at the table, organizing a stack of documents, her back half-turned to the door. She looked up when she heard it open.
She went completely still.
Looker scratched the back of his head and managed something between a smile and a grimace. "Long time no see. I'm back."
(End of Chapter)
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