The registration process was straightforward in theory and chaotic in practice, because Professor Elm treated every step as an opportunity for scientific inquiry.
Kanto trainer licenses were valid across both regions, the Indigo League's jurisdiction covered Kanto and Johto equally, but Johto required a supplementary registration that logged their Pokémon teams in the regional database, assigned them a Johto trainer number, and established their eligibility for the Johto gym circuit and Contest circuit.
The scanner that read their Pokéballs was a sleek device mounted on Elm's desk, designed to catalogue species, level, and energy signature in a matter of seconds. It handled Miyuki's Salamence, Shaymin, and the rest of her team with professional efficiency. It processed Kasumi's Gardevoir, Togekiss, Espeon, Butterfree, and Glaceon without complaint. It managed Kiyomi's Alolan Ninetales with only a brief calibration pause.
Then Sasuke placed his first Pokéball on the scanner, and the device made a sound it had almost certainly never made before, a high, keening whine that rose in pitch until the display screen flickered and the numbers in the readout column began scrolling too fast to read.
Elm stared at the screen. Then at Sasuke. Then back at the screen.
"This is... Zekrom. The Dragon of Ideals. A Legendary Pokémon of the first category." His voice had shifted from scattered enthusiasm to the focused intensity of a scientist confronting data that challenged his understanding of the world. "The energy signature alone is..." He looked up. "How many more Pokéballs do you have?"
"Nine."
Elm swallowed. "May I?"
One by one, Sasuke placed his team on the scanner. One by one, the device struggled to quantify what it was reading. Raikou caused a brief power fluctuation in the overhead lights. Groudon made the Typhlosion outside lift its head and growl. Victini, perched on Sasuke's shoulder and therefore not in a Pokéball, was scanned manually with a handheld device that Elm had to hold at arm's length because the Victory Pokémon kept trying to examine it.
When it was finished, Elm sat down heavily in his desk chair and adjusted his glasses with both hands.
"You have," he said carefully, "five Legendary or Mythical Pokémon on a team of ten. Including a member of the Tao Trio, a Legendary Beast, and a Continent Pokémon." He looked at Sasuke the way a cartographer might look at a map that showed a continent nobody had discovered yet. "Your father trained you."
"Yes."
"Fugaku Uchiha was the most methodical battle strategist I ever met. He spent six months at this laboratory studying draconic energy transfer when Itachi was a baby." A pause. "You have the same eyes. Not just the color, the same way of looking at things. Like everything is a problem worth solving but nothing is a problem worth panicking about."
Sasuke didn't know how to respond to that, so he didn't. Victini chirped on his behalf.
The tour that followed lasted two hours, though Elm had clearly intended it to take twenty minutes.
The breeding wing was where Miyuki lost her composure, which was notable because Miyuki Senju did not lose her composure. She maintained calm during Pokémon medical emergencies. She'd treated injuries under fire during Aether Foundation encounters without raising her voice. She had dressed wounds while discussing treatment options in the measured tone of a professional who understood that panic was a luxury she couldn't afford.
But the genetic sequencing array in Elm's breeding wing made her stop in the doorway, press her fingertips to her mouth, and whisper, "Oh, that's a Helix-9."
"You know the model?" Elm asked, pleased.
"I know it exists. I've never seen one outside of a journal photograph. That's, that's real-time chromosomal mapping. You can watch genetic expression changes as they happen. The implications for understanding evolution triggers alone..."
"Your mother was the same way," Elm said, and the words landed with a gentleness that suggested he understood exactly what he was offering. "Hanako Senju. She studied here for two semesters before she chose fieldwork over institutional research. Brilliant woman. Brilliant hands, the way she handled Pokémon, you could see the trust transfer happen in real time."
Miyuki's expression did something complicated, pride, longing, and the specific ache of hearing a parent described by someone who'd known them in a different life.
"Your Salamence," Elm continued. "I scanned the developmental markers during registration. The bone density ratios, the wing membrane elasticity, the neural pathway integration scores, all within optimal parameters. You raised him from egg?"
"From before the egg, really. I selected the breeding pair, monitored gestation, assisted the hatch, and managed every developmental stage from neonatal care through full evolution."
Elm regarded her for a long moment. Then he pulled a keycard from his coat pocket and held it out.
"Guest researcher access. Valid at every Johto-affiliated laboratory and breeding center in the region. Use my equipment whenever you're within range. Study whatever interests you. And..." he smiled, and for a moment the scattered professor disappeared and the keen scientist emerged, "...if you discover anything remarkable, publish it. The field needs voices like yours."
Miyuki took the card with both hands, the way someone accepts something they understand is worth more than its physical form.
Kiyomi's extraction from the archaeological archives required actual physical intervention.
The wing was smaller than the breeding facility but dense with materials, shelved tablets, framed rubbings of stone inscriptions, holographic reconstructions of ruined structures, and an entire wall dedicated to the Ruins of Alph. Maps, symbol charts, attempted translations spanning three centuries of scholarship, and, pinned in the center like the sun of a small academic solar system, a high-resolution photograph of the Unown Chamber's main wall, covered in script that nobody alive could fully read.
Kiyomi had seated herself at a research terminal and was cross-referencing Elm's Ruins of Alph data with her own Kanto findings, her fingers moving across the keyboard with the rapid precision of someone who had forgotten that other people existed, that time passed, that there were things in the world beyond the screen in front of her.