Scy—!
The Scyther that appeared on the field stood with its back curved—either coiled to spring or simply too old to straighten up all the way.
There was very little light left in its clouded eyes.
"That Scyther…" Akiyama started, and stopped.
"He's traveled with me since I was a kid. He's old now." Hikaze stroked one of the broken wings, then looked at the notched, chipped blades with open affection. "I'm apparently still young."
Gardevoir watched the guttering candle of a Pokémon in front of her and did not relax an inch.
He's strong.
"Got one more in you, old friend?" Hikaze asked.
Scyther looked up at him and nodded.
"Then say hello. Agility, and Slash!"
If Hikaze had been a pliant, agreeable sort of flower up to this point, the flower had just grown teeth.
The Scyther that came off the ground was nothing but a streak of green. Every trace of the old man was gone.
It was in front of Gardevoir in a blink, blade already high.
"Gardevoir, Fire Punch!"
The burning fist came up to meet it. Scyther tipped its blade a few degrees—just a few—and the edge slid past the punch entirely.
Caught off guard, Gardevoir pulled the fist back and threw her forearms up instead.
She ate the Slash on the block, and it showed on her face.
It also wasn't over. "Scyther, Fury Cutter."
White light gathered on the ruined edges, and the strikes came in a chain.
Gardevoir wasn't willing to just stand there and take it.
"Gardevoir, keep punching—find the gap!"
"My old friend doesn't make rookie mistakes—"
Hikaze didn't get to finish, because Scyther's rhythm stuttered. The chain broke.
Gardevoir found her opening and drove a fist straight into the blade.
Scyther buried the edge in the floorboards and skidded a good distance before it stopped.
"That's it, Gardevoir!" Akiyama's fist closed.
It hadn't been pretty, but it had worked.
Gardevoir straightened up by degrees.
Hikaze had gone strangely distant. On the field, Scyther turned its head toward him, and there was an apology in the way it looked at him.
"…It's all right, Scyther." He pulled himself back together. "Break away. Swords Dance."
"Don't let it! Gardevoir, Focus Blast!"
Scyther, already spinning up the dance, saw the orb screaming toward it and gave its body the smallest twist. The Focus Blast detonated beside it instead of on it—but the shockwave still caught it and rocked it hard.
Just the backwash was enough to make it stagger. Somehow it held the form.
"Scy!"
It finished the Swords Dance ugly, and the light settled onto its blades and its broken wings anyway.
"Gardevoir, Shadow Sneak."
Her shadow stretched across the floor and rose up behind Scyther.
"Wing Attack—cut it apart!"
At Hikaze's word, the Scyther that had been standing there with its eyes closed, taking stock of its own body, snapped them open.
The cloudy eyes lit. The wings on its back sheathed themselves in razor-white light, and one flick tore the shadow in half.
It had broken the move on nothing but its own edge.
"Gardevoir, Magical Leaf."
"Scyther, Double Team."
Scyther blurred and multiplied. Gardevoir's leaves shredded the copies one after another.
"They're all gone?" Akiyama's eyes narrowed—and then went straight up.
"Dual Wingbeat!"
The white on Scyther's wings blazed brighter as it dove.
"Gardevoir, Protect!"
It was all he had.
She threw both palms out, the dome closed over her, and it held.
"Focus Blast, right now!"
Gardevoir's aura roared up and the energy compressed into something ugly and heavy, then fired point-blank into the Scyther in her face.
"Take it, then close the distance—Close Combat!" Hikaze made the call fast.
"Scy!"
The Focus Blast blew, and dust swallowed Scyther whole.
Then a pair of blades came out of the smoke. Scyther was breathing in ragged heaves, swinging, cutting, all of its accumulated close-quarters craft and not one ounce of defense.
Gardevoir couldn't get out. All she could do was cover up.
"Then we drop our guard too. Fire Punch—both fists!" Akiyama's jaw set.
She let the block fall and let fire wrap both hands.
Her first swing got caught cleanly in the fork of a blade.
The second one landed on Scyther's face—and Scyther's edge came up into her at the same instant.
They both paid for it.
The battle stripped down to something older than moves after that. Fists, feet, footwork, timing, the two of them reading each other in real time.
And Gardevoir was losing that exchange badly. Against a Pokémon with that many battles in its body, she wasn't close.
Then, slowly, the current turned.
"So we're at the end," Hikaze said, and let out a breath.
Watching the two of them trade blows out there, he was somewhere else—many years back, when he and Scyther had both been young.
And the opponent had been a Gallade.
They fought from the edge of the field to the middle, and Scyther's movements kept getting heavier.
"Now, Gardevoir—drop low, straight up the middle, Fire Punch!"
In Hikaze's eyes, that punch and the Sacred Sword that had cut his Champion dream to pieces were the same strike.
"Struggle Bug! Block it!"
His voice came out exactly as it had that year.
Scyther's body locked. In the space of a heartbeat a thousand things went through it, and Bug energy pulled inward from everywhere.
The Fire Punch landed in its gut, and Scyther didn't move at all.
"Gardevoir, get clear!" Akiyama shouted.
Too late. Green light detonated outward and Gardevoir went flying, barely staying inside the lines. She caught herself on one arm, half-braced on the floor.
He's so strong.
Scyther stood where it was, back bowed lower than before. One eye was drifting shut.
But it turned its head anyway, to look back at its Trainer.
"Scy…"
"I knew you could block it," Hikaze said, and couldn't name the ache that came with saying it.
He wasn't entirely sure it was the Fire Punch that had been blocked.
"You good, Gardevoir?"
She nodded. Still in this.
"Then let's end it. Hyper Beam!"
Gardevoir brought her arms up to her chest and pulled the energy in.
An instant later, a dead-white column of light tore across the field.
"Scyther—make it a beautiful curtain call! Agility, and go through it!"
Scyther nodded once, firmly, ducked just slightly, and vanished into Agility.
It didn't dodge the Hyper Beam. It carved into it with one blade and cut its way along the length of the beam.
Akiyama knew exactly what that was. That was suicide with extra steps.
"Gardevoir, careful." His voice went flat and tight. He found himself thinking, unwillingly, about Dagan's Counter.
The next moment Scyther was in front of her, both eyes closed now, looking like it would go down on its own in another second.
"Scyther—"
"Reversal!"