Day 17 since leaving the Orange Archipelago. Clear.
Morning sunlight filtered through the trees, and the forest came alive almost at once. Birdsong poured down from the canopy while heavy footsteps pounded across the grass below, where the Rhydon herd had already started charging around and bellowing at one another. The Pidgeot flock was even worse, filling the branches and the air above them with enough shrill cries to drag Reiji out of a perfectly good sleep.
He opened his eyes with a tired sigh, rubbed away the last of his sleepiness, and started packing his moisture-proof mat and blanket. Once everything was stowed, he pulled breakfast from his backpack and laid out food for the Pokémon one by one.
They would leave Fairchild Island after breakfast. Hanhan and Pidgeot had both spent time with their families again, which was the main reason Reiji had returned here in the first place. Now it was time to continue the journey he hoped would eventually take him to the Elite Four tier.
He had no idea when they would return. This might end up being the longest stretch of travel he had ever undertaken, and the thought of going straight back into days of constant movement and work made him sigh.
"Another day of being worked to death."
Once everything was packed, Reiji looked toward the Rhydon gathered near the lake and raised his voice. "Hanhan, we're leaving! Pelipper, go get Pidgeot."
Hanhan had been sitting by the water with its head hanging while the rest of the herd crowded around it. Some rubbed their heads against it while others rumbled at it in low voices, and Reiji couldn't tell whether they were exchanging battle advice or giving Hanhan another lecture.
The moment Hanhan heard they were leaving, all of its earlier misery vanished. It sprang upright and thundered across the grass toward Reiji, every heavy step making the ground tremble slightly beneath his feet.
"Rhy... Rhy..." Hanhan sounded almost pitiful when it reached him, its eyes suspiciously wet before it wrapped both arms around him.
Apparently, the reunion had lasted quite long enough. Another day under its father's disapproving stare and Hanhan seemed convinced it might not survive.
"All right, all right. Don't cry." Reiji patted its head with an amused smile. "Once we're gone, I'll give you something good to eat."
For all its size and strength, Hanhan was only two years old. Standing more than two meters tall made it look imposing, but among its own herd, it was still little more than an oversized baby.
After calming Hanhan down, Reiji looked up and saw Pelipper returning from the forest alone. His expression changed immediately; Pidgeot was nowhere in sight.
"Pel."
Pelipper landed in front of him and shook its head, confirming exactly what Reiji had suspected.
Reiji took a slow breath before turning back to the remains of breakfast and packing away the wrappers and utensils. The battle last night had probably shown Pidgeot's mother just how dangerous fights between Trainers could become, and apparently she had reached her own conclusion about whether her child should leave again.
There wasn't much Reiji could do about that. If Pidgeot's mother refused to let it go, was he supposed to storm into the nest and argue until she changed her mind? He had laughed at Naoki plenty of times for being a simp, but trying to win an argument with Pidgeot's mother might make Reiji the bigger clown.
"Gengar, give me an empty backpack."
Gengar emerged just far enough from his shadow to spit one out. Reiji opened it and filled the bag with box after box of Pidgeot's favorite Pokéblocks until more than a thousand were packed inside.
He carried the backpack to the edge of the woods, where several Pidgeotto were resting among the branches, and held it up toward the nearest one.
"Take this to Pidgeot. Tell it I've already left, so there's no need to come after me. I'll visit again when I come back."
"Pidge?"
The Pidgeotto tilted its head and stared at him blankly. Most of the wild Pokémon here had little contact with humans, so complicated sentences were asking far too much of it. Even Pokémon accustomed to living alongside people didn't always understand everything humans said.
Pelipper stepped in and repeated the message in a language the Pidgeotto actually understood: they were leaving, the backpack was for Pidgeot, it shouldn't chase after them, and they would return someday.
That was enough. The Pidgeotto flew down, caught the straps in its talons, and carried the backpack toward the Pidgeot leader's nest.
"Let's go. Pelipper, take him too."
Reiji recalled Hanhan and the rest of his Pokémon, leaving only Umbreon perched on his shoulder before climbing onto Pelipper's broad back. Pelipper then flew over to the unconscious first mate, caught him securely in its talons, and carried both humans away from Fairchild Island.
Pelipper had carried two people before, so the extra passenger caused no trouble. Within minutes, the island had begun shrinking behind them until both the forest and its wild Pokémon disappeared beneath the horizon.
Back at the Pidgeot leader's nest, Reiji's Pidgeot saw him rise into the sky aboard Pelipper and immediately turned on its mother. It spread its wings and tried to launch itself after its Trainer, but the two Elite Four-tier Pidgeot beside it reacted first, locking their talons around its wings and forcing them back down.
Against two stronger members of its own flock, Pidgeot couldn't break free. It fought against their grip anyway, forced to watch Reiji grow smaller and smaller in the distance until the last dark speck finally vanished from sight.
The Pidgeotto carrying Reiji's backpack arrived shortly afterward, but the pressure rolling from the three Pidgeot nearly knocked it out of the air. It fought its way down to the edge of the nest and quickly passed along Pelipper's message.
"Pidge! Pidge! The human left. He told me to bring this here. It's for Pidgeot."
The flock leader looked at the black backpack, dismissed the messenger, and tipped its contents onto the nest. Boxes of Pokéblocks spilled out, the same food Reiji had shared with them the night before.
A long sigh left the leader as she looked from the food to her child. She didn't dislike Reiji. If anything, he had proven that he treated Pidgeot well, and that only made her decision harder. After seeing what had happened during the previous night's battle, however, she couldn't allow her child to follow him into that kind of danger again. Even if Pidgeot hated her for it, she would rather be the villain than risk losing her child.
Pidgeot stared at the backpack as the Pidgeotto's message sank in. Reiji had really left without them getting one last chance to see each other, and all it had managed to catch was his back disappearing into the distance.
It lowered its head and refused to look at its mother. Right now, resentment outweighed everything else, but resentment didn't change the balance of strength. In this world, whoever had the power usually had the final say, and anyone too weak to resist had very few choices.
Reiji had been in the same position. What was he supposed to do, wage a battle against the entire flock and leave both sides injured? Burn the forest like a Pokémon hunter just to force them out? Or stand under the nest and try talking a stubborn mother into changing a decision she had already made?
Some people simply wouldn't budge once they believed they were right, no matter how long anyone argued with them. Reiji wasn't going to repay the flock that had once saved his life by tearing apart their home over Pidgeot, so he had taken the first mate and left peacefully, making sure both the Rhydon herd and Pidgeot flock had plenty of food as thanks.
As for his own Pidgeot, Reiji had no intention of giving it up. Once he was strong enough to prove that he could protect it, he would come back and take it with him. By then, its mother would have far less reason to object—and even if she still tried, she might no longer be capable of stopping him.
Their next destination was Trovitopolis on Mandarin Island South, where Reiji intended to meet the daughter the first mate had mentioned. The distance was roughly comparable to yesterday's flight toward Mikan Island, although Pelipper was carrying an extra person this time and would probably burn through nearly twice as much stamina.
They should still arrive around evening, which would give Pelipper plenty of time to rest afterward. Long-distance flight over the ocean was monotonous, but Reiji couldn't afford to relax completely, so he remained alert until a sudden scream from below shattered the quiet.
The first mate had woken to find himself dangling high above the sea and immediately started screaming, apparently under the impression that he had died and was on his way to heaven. After Pelipper casually dropped and caught him several times, however, the panic began to wear off. With his hair blown into a complete mess, he finally looked up, saw Reiji on Pelipper's back, and realized he was still alive.
"You didn't kill me?" His voice still shook from the flight.
"Obviously."
"Why?"
The first mate couldn't understand it. He had helped ambush Reiji and had been part of a group trying to kill him, so being spared made no sense unless Reiji wanted something else. When he remembered that they were heading toward Trovitopolis, fear hit him all over again.
"Please, don't hurt my daughter. I'll do anything you want. Just leave her out of this. Please—"
"Keep talking and I'll drop you," Reiji warned coldly. "Then I'll go kill your daughter."
The first mate went rigid and immediately shut his mouth. Reiji's patience was clearly gone, and provoking him while hanging from Pelipper's talons seemed like an exceptionally bad idea.
Once the panic settled, though, he began thinking more carefully. If Reiji genuinely wanted to kill him and erase every loose end, there was no reason to drag him all the way to Trovitopolis first. Killing him on Fairchild Island would have been much easier, which meant he was still useful for something.
Perhaps Reiji intended to use him against Riku's sworn brother. Perhaps it was something else entirely. Either way, the first mate had no way of knowing whether his usefulness would last long enough to keep him alive.
With nothing else to do while Pelipper carried him across the sea, his thoughts wandered backward through a life that had rarely gone the way he expected.
Years earlier, he had been expelled from school after offending someone with more power than he had. Losing the degree that had once seemed almost within reach should have crushed him, yet when he walked through the gates for the last time, he convinced himself it could also be a fresh start. He would return to the dream he'd had as a child and become a Trainer people could respect.
Reality corrected that optimism quickly. The world had changed while he was studying, and once he tried supporting himself outside the school system, he discovered just how expensive becoming a serious Trainer had become. With no degree and almost no money, his plan was simple enough: build a team first, then perhaps become a Pokémon Breeder if training didn't work out, or find work as a ranger once his Pokémon were strong enough.
Even that turned out to be far beyond his budget. Raising three Pokémon to the Advanced tier cost more than he had imagined, while the jobs he wanted generally expected a Trainer to have six at that level just to protect himself in dangerous areas. Sitting alone in a cramped rented room with bills spread across the table, he began to understand how far away that goal really was.
He tried working as a Pokémon Breeder instead, only to discover that the job he had imagined as caring for young Pokémon mostly meant hauling supplies, feeding animals from morning until night, and cleaning up manure. The gap between fantasy and reality wore him down quickly enough that he eventually quit.
After leaving the breeding facility, he drifted from job to job while spending whatever little he could save on his Pokémon. He entered street battles whenever he thought there might be money in them, lost far more often than he won, and sometimes ended the night walking home exhausted with empty pockets and an empty stomach.
His first Pokémon had been a Magikarp, which offered very little help in a fight, so odd jobs were the only thing keeping both of them fed for a long time. Things finally began changing after Magikarp evolved into Gyarados. He started winning more often, money became a little less desperate, and for the first time in years he thought maybe luck had finally decided to notice him.
During a crowded market festival, he met a beautiful young woman. They drank together, kept meeting afterward, and before long she had become part of his everyday life. He knew she was far out of his league, but that didn't stop him from imagining that maybe his future had finally opened up.
When she later told him that she wanted their child to have a complete family, everything moved so quickly that he barely understood how much his life had changed. Somehow, the thirty-year-old bachelor who had spent years drifting between jobs and street battles suddenly had a wife, a home, and a baby daughter.
He didn't complain. He looked at that little girl and decided he would protect the happiness he had somehow stumbled into. From then on, every morning started early and every night ended late because formula and diapers cost money, and he wanted savings ready for everything that would come later: kindergarten, school, university, and even the enormous expense of getting his daughter started if she ever decided to become a Trainer herself.
For a while, life genuinely seemed to be moving in the right direction, until his wife disappeared without warning.
Their daughter hadn't even been weaned yet and had only recently started learning to speak when her mother vanished. The first mate searched everywhere he could think of, chasing every possible lead until he finally found her at a wedding.
It wasn't their wedding. They had never had anything like the lavish ceremony taking place in front of him now. Flowers covered the venue, guests filled the seats, and his wife stood at the center wearing a white wedding dress and smiling beside another man.
She noticed him among the crowd, but there was no anger in her expression, only a silent plea asking him not to come closer and not to ruin what was happening. He had a thousand questions and every reason in the world to demand answers, yet he couldn't make himself take that step. Instead, he stood among strangers and watched the entire ceremony with tears running down his face.
When it ended, he turned and walked away without asking her anything. Nobody there knew who he was or why he had been crying; to everyone else, he was simply another face in the crowd.
His wife came after him and caught him from behind, holding on while apologizing through tears. She said she was sorry to him and to their daughter, but the family of the man she loved would never have accepted a woman who had gotten pregnant before marriage. She told him she had felt trapped, that she had never wanted things to happen this way, and that this was why she had approached him, built a life with him, and had their daughter.
Then came the part that hurt most: she admitted that she had always loved the other man. She kept apologizing and begging for forgiveness until the first mate forced himself to swallow everything he wanted to say.
"It's fine," he told her. "Really. I hope you're happy together."
He left before her new husband could see him. Part of him was afraid of destroying whatever happiness she had found, while another part simply couldn't stand the thought of anyone else seeing how badly he had fallen apart. By the time he reached home, he had buried everything as deeply as he could.
He sat outside alone and cried until there was nothing left, then wiped his face, picked up a toy for his daughter, and walked through the door pretending nothing had happened.
Years passed, and eventually his daughter became old enough to ask the question he had always dreaded.
"Dad, where's Mom?"
Every time she asked, something twisted inside him. At first, he could only tell her that her mother was working somewhere far away, then hurriedly change the subject to a new cartoon or game she liked. As she grew older, his excuses became less convincing, and eventually she seemed to understand there was something he couldn't bring himself to tell her. After a while, she stopped bringing it up altogether.
Much later, curiosity and old feelings got the better of him, and he secretly went looking for his former wife again. She had another child by then, a chubby little boy, and the first mate once followed the family to an amusement park from a distance.
His former wife looked happy. Her husband watched her and their son with obvious affection while the three of them spent the day together, and standing outside their world, the first mate finally understood that she had moved on completely. Strangely, accepting that hurt less than he expected.
He turned away and decided that raising his daughter alone was enough. He wanted to watch her grow, see every stage of her life with his own eyes, and make sure she never felt as though she had nobody beside her. Perhaps that kind of life could be its own form of happiness.
More than ten years of work eventually pushed his Gyarados into the Elite Four tier, and he thought the worst part of his life might finally be behind him. Instead, his daughter suddenly became seriously ill.
He carried her from hospital to hospital, sought out specialist after specialist, and spent everything he could trying to find an answer. Some doctors couldn't even identify what was wrong, while others told him outright that the disease was terminal and there was nothing they could do.
Watching his daughter grow thinner in a hospital bed nearly broke him. After everything else he had lost, the thought of losing the one person still holding his life together left him wondering whether he would have anything left to live for.
That desperation was what allowed Riku's brother to enter his life. The offer was simple: if the first mate came aboard, pledged his loyalty, and served as the freighter's first mate, his daughter would receive the treatment she needed.
He had no better option. The promise might have been nothing more than another lie, but when every hospital had already failed, even the smallest chance became something worth grabbing. Against all expectation, the man kept his word.
His daughter's strange illness was cured, and the first mate honored his side of the agreement. He joined the ship, proved himself useful, and gradually became one of his boss's most trusted men.
The money changed his life as well. For the first time in years, he could breathe without calculating every payment in his head. He cleared his debts, stopped being crushed beneath loans, and began dreaming again about the future his daughter might have. Maybe, with enough savings behind her, she really could become a Trainer one day.
Eventually came the mission to kill Reiji. The first mate had spent years surviving dangerous work and wasn't careless enough to walk into an operation blindly, so before they moved, he went over the risks from every angle he could think of. Everything suggested the ambush should be manageable.
Reality proved him wrong almost immediately. Too many things went off course, and when he realized he might die on Fairchild Island and leave his eight-year-old daughter alone, every promise to his boss and every responsibility attached to his position became worthless in an instant.
He didn't care about the ship, the mission, or the man who had once saved his daughter anymore. All he wanted was another chance to see his child and watch her grow up, become a Trainer if that was still her dream, marry someday, build a family of her own, and live through all the ordinary moments he had spent years working to protect.
Hanging beneath Pelipper now, the first mate quietly let out a breath as the first half of his life passed through his mind. There was nothing left in him except exhaustion, fear, and the helplessness of knowing that his future belonged entirely to the young man sitting above him.
He stopped looking for some clever way to escape and let Pelipper carry him toward Trovitopolis. If fate truly refused to leave him any other road, then he had already prepared himself for the worst.
In the darkest corner of his mind, he thought that if both he and his daughter were doomed anyway, at least going together would mean he could stay beside her until the end. She wouldn't have to face anything alone, and to him, even that miserable thought felt almost like a kind of comfort.
[End of chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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