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"If I had known it would come to this," Jingūji Yoraku thought, her jaw tight, "I never would have come to Cloudspire. Not even if my family had insisted on it."
She had stepped onto the field as the second-strongest member of the team, with a Bisharp that held a type advantage over Salamence. The plan — if she could call it that — had been straightforward. Push David hard enough that he and Salamence had to fight at full strength. Wear them down before the last match. Give her teammate a real chance at the end.
One Flamethrower had dismantled that entirely.
She had not expected Salamence's Fire-type move to carry that kind of range and power. The attack had spread so wide that Bisharp had needed to use Protect just to survive it. There had been no room to dodge, no gap to exploit — just a wall of fire that covered everything in front of it.
Bad luck, she thought. That's all it was.
But they still had to bring down that Salamence.
The alternative was too much to think about. The entire Sakura Exchange Team, swept clean on their first day in Cloudspire — all by one trainer, with one Pokémon. No matter how she framed it, that was not a result anyone was going to overlook back home. They were not here as individuals. They represented the Sakura Alliance, and that meant their performance reflected on the Alliance itself.
The consequences of returning with a result like this would not be light. She had already noticed the accompanying teacher standing at the edge of the arena below, pacing slowly with his head down, muttering to himself without stopping. That was not a good sign.
Fine. She let out a quiet breath and made up her mind. If I'm going to lose, I'm at least going to make it hurt.
"Bisharp — charge in! Use Guillotine!"
Bisharp, still recovering from the impact of Dragon Rush, pushed itself upright and launched forward without a moment's hesitation.
There was one piece of good fortune here. Salamence, after using Dragon Rush, had come down from the air and was now on the ground. For a close-range physical fighter like Bisharp, that mattered. Aerial opponents were almost impossible to pressure — but on the ground, Bisharp had a real chance to use what it was built for.
A strange purple light began to gather along Bisharp's arm, running from its elbow down to the very edge of its bladed forearm. There was something cold and precise about the glow — it did not pulse or flicker. It sharpened, like a blade being drawn. Bisharp surged forward, arm raised, the tip of its blade aimed directly at Salamence.
Watching Bisharp charge toward it like something out of a dragon-slayer story, Salamence's eyes narrowed slightly.
A flash of impatience crossed its expression.
Dragon-type Pokémon were not, as a rule, patient creatures. Even Dragonite, among the gentler of the group, carried that restless edge. Salamence — whose fierce reputation among pseudo-legendary Dragon-types was second only to Hydreigon — had very little interest in being challenged by something smaller than itself. The name was not for decoration. Whatever calm and patience Salamence carried was reserved entirely for David and those close to him. Everything else it faced in battle got none of it.
The same purple aura that had coated Bisharp's blade gathered along Salamence's tail — but where Bisharp's glow had been cold and sharp, this one was heavy. Dense. It radiated a sense of crushing force, like something that would not slow down once it started moving.
Salamence swung.
The Dragon Tail came down with full force, and it did not slow for Bisharp's attack.
The Guillotine shattered. The blade never landed.
Salamence's tail swept through it cleanly — hot knife through butter — and struck Bisharp directly. The impact sent Bisharp skidding and tumbling hard into the arena wall. It hit with a heavy crack and dropped straight to the ground.
For a long moment, it did not move.
Then, slowly, it pushed itself up. One arm first, then the other. It found its footing, wavering slightly, and stood.
It was the Steel typing that saved it. Dragon-type moves dealt reduced damage against Steel, and that resistance was the only reason Bisharp was still upright. Without it, one Dragon Tail from Salamence would have ended the battle outright.
Jingūji Yoraku's hands curled into fists at her sides.
This was not right. Salamence had not broken through to the Professional level — she could tell that clearly. And yet the gap between it and her Bisharp was not the gap that should exist between two Superior-level Pokémon. Even accounting for the level difference, five levels at the Superior tier did not normally produce this kind of disparity. Below the Gym level, as long as the level gap was not extreme, Pokémon within the same tier were supposed to be competitive with each other.
The thought crept in before she could stop it: Are we just too weak?
She pushed it aside almost immediately.
No. It's not that we're weak. That Salamence is simply beyond what it's supposed to be.
But there was no time to sit with the thought. The battle was still going.
"Alright, Salamence." David's voice was calm, almost offhand. "Let's finish this."
Salamence, which had been visibly waiting for those words, turned to face the battered Bisharp still standing across from it. Its mouth curved into something that was almost a grin — brief and sharp.
Then it lunged.
A blinding white light erupted along Salamence's entire body, blazing and total, as it threw itself at Bisharp with everything behind it.
"Giga Impact!"
The move was a finishing blow by design — a technique Salamence had gained after its evolution, and one it had not needed to use until now. The white light swallowed the distance between them in an instant.
Then Jingūji Yoraku's voice rang out across the field.
"Metal Burst — now, Bisharp!"
Salamence's Giga Impact landed flush. There was no dodge, no last-second redirect. Bisharp took the full force of the hit.
And then the explosion came.
BOOM.
The sound hit the arena like a physical thing. Metal Burst — a technique that redirects the energy of a powerful hit back at the attacker, amplified — detonated in the space between them. Bisharp had been charging it quietly, waiting for exactly this moment, letting Salamence commit fully before releasing it all at once.
The shockwave rolled outward. The protective barrier surrounding the arena rattled and hummed under the force of the impact. A thick cloud of smoke and dust rose from the battlefield, blanketing the entire field in gray.
For a moment, nothing was visible inside.