Late at night, while the city slept, Natsui glanced at Ash and the others sprawled across their beds, breathing evenly. Then, moving with practiced quiet, he slipped out of the room.
The dormitory corridor was dead silent, broken only by faint, rhythmic snoring drifting from behind closed doors.
He passed a trainer at the front counter—half-asleep, yawning as they checked in late—then tugged his collar tighter against the night air. Cutting through the empty cafeteria, Natsui exited through the back door of the Pokémon Center.
Outside, Gengar had been waiting for some time, peeking from behind a corner with a furtive, suspicious look.
Since Natsui had sent it to tail Yuko, and then spent the entire day coordinating Deoxys against Rayquaza—and against the swarm of reckless trainers—there'd been no chance to rendezvous. Only now, in the deep of night, after dinner and a bit of forced normalcy with Ash's group, could he finally move.
Seeing Gengar's exaggerated "secret agent" posture, Natsui couldn't help finding it mildly amusing.
"You're a Pokémon," he said quietly, "so why do you look like a crooked spy?"
"Crooked spy? That's harsh," Gengar snickered in its signature jie-jie-jie. "I'm a Pokémon Special Agent. One hundred percent tracking success since my debut."
"Enough," Natsui said. "Report."
Gengar shrugged as if it were reciting something routine. "I mapped the institute's location and the interior layout hours ago. I also found the Deoxys core you mentioned. But the place is crawling with cameras. If you show your face, you'll be caught instantly. I'm fine—but for anything with a physical body, sneaking in without being seen is basically impossible."
"What condition is the core in?" Natsui asked.
"It's still just sitting inside a sealed chamber," Gengar replied, recalling the image. "There's a whole pile of equipment around it. I tried to get closer, but there are alarm sensors. I didn't want to trip anything, so I backed off and came straight to you."
Still just a core?
Natsui rubbed his chin. In his memory, that core eventually restored itself into a complete Deoxys. So why hadn't it happened yet?
Was the timing off? Or was it missing the right trigger?
Either way, it didn't matter.
As long as he delivered the core to the Deoxys that came looking for it, the rest would sort itself out. If any Pokémon could rebuild a body from a core, it would be Deoxys.
He looked at Gengar. "Security?"
"Light," Gengar said immediately. "A few patrol guards. Nothing impressive. But like I said—cameras everywhere. The moment you step inside, you'll be recorded. Even if you steal the core cleanly, you'll still trigger an alarm somewhere."
Natsui trusted Gengar's judgment. If the guards were weak, they were irrelevant. Cameras, however, were another matter.
This wasn't a Team Rocket hideout he could smash and vanish from. Professor Lund's institute was legitimate—legally protected. And the core was something Lund had obtained through his own expedition. As far as the law was concerned, it was his property.
Natsui couldn't afford a sloppy, high-profile raid. He couldn't expose the Pokémon he'd already made public either—otherwise, the police would have an easy trail to follow.
It was a different kind of battlefield.
After a brief pause, Natsui's eyes narrowed with decision. "Then we'll use what they can't record."
Gengar tilted its head. "Meaning?"
Natsui's tone stayed calm. "Meaning the Pokémon I haven't revealed… and the ones that don't 'exist' on paper."
He stepped forward. "Come on. Time to meet our new friends."
In the Forest
Across the river from LaRousse City, within a quiet clearing in the woods, Dragonite descended and Natsui jumped down onto the grass.
Two Deoxys floated ahead—silent, motionless—moonlight glinting off their bodies and giving them an eerie, metallic chill.
To be honest, Natsui thought it was a good thing this was the Pokémon world—and that one of them was his partner. If he'd seen this scene in his old life, alone in a forest at midnight, he would've been convinced he'd wandered into a horror film.
He walked up to them and looked directly at the wild Deoxys.
"I've located your companion," he said. "But getting it out will be a hassle. I'm going to need your help for the next part."
The wild Deoxys emitted a string of distorted, alien sounds.
Even without understanding the "words," Natsui understood the intent: agreement.
He glanced to his own Deoxys. It gave a small, firm nod as well.
Good.
Natsui had left his Deoxys here for two reasons: to let it spend time with its own kind—and to ensure the wild one didn't suddenly vanish or spiral into trouble again.
"No time to waste," Natsui said. He released Gardevoir and kept Dragonite nearby as well, leaving both to guard his physical body.
Then he turned to Gengar. "We begin now. Use Soul Out."
Natsui found flat ground, lay down, and closed his eyes.
Gengar moved in, pressed a palm to Natsui's forehead—and pulled upward.
For the second time since the incident at sea, Natsui felt his soul lift free.
Even having experienced it once, the sensation of seeing his own body lying there was deeply unsettling—like looking at a stranger wearing his face. His instincts recoiled at the unnatural sight.
He forced the feeling down and steadied himself.
"Alright," he said, voice quiet. "We move. No delays."
Only Ghost-types could perceive him in this state. That meant all commands had to go through Gengar. But Gengar could turn invisible, slip through walls, and ignore cameras entirely.
As for the two Deoxys…
Natsui had no intention of making them sneak.
As long as they stayed out of sight until they were at the institute, they could smash their way in, grab the core, and leave. Cameras would record Deoxys—but the entire city had already seen them battling Rayquaza earlier. Most people would assume they were acting on instinct, not on a human's orders.
No one would connect them to a hidden trainer.
The Infiltration
Under the moonlit sky, the two Deoxys streaked over the city at extreme speed, heading toward the northern side of the island. In the dead of night, almost no one noticed.
From the outside, Professor Lund's institute sat beside a manicured garden. The architecture was modern, but there was no prominent signage—nothing that would hint at what it truly was. To an ordinary passerby, it looked like an unremarkable private facility.
Cautious. Deliberately so.
At a side entrance, Gengar and Natsui's spirit slipped through the wall as if it weren't there.
Behind them, the two Deoxys didn't bother.
They smashed through the reinforced door with brute force.
The instant they entered, alarms detonated throughout the building.
A piercing siren tore through the quiet halls. But for a facility located in the heart of a city, the response systems felt designed for petty thieves—not for a pair of alien legendary Pokémon that could breach blast-proof doors.
For several long seconds, no one arrived.
Then two guards finally rushed in with batons and two Pokémon at their sides. They froze the moment they saw the intruders.
They never got a chance to act.
The Deoxys drifted past them, and both guards—and both Pokémon—collapsed as if their strings had been cut, dropping into immediate, deep unconsciousness.
No blood. No struggle. Just instant shutdown.
After that, there was almost no resistance.
But Natsui knew better than to relax. The police would have received the alarm. They would be moving already.
Guided by Gengar's memory and mapping, they pushed deeper into the institute. Within minutes, they reached the innermost laboratory.
The door was thick, reinforced, built to withstand force.
Against Deoxys, it might as well have been cardboard.
The door caved in.
They entered—and Natsui's eyes narrowed slightly.
Two people were already inside, sitting near the sealed core.
Professor Lund… and Yuko.
This late, and they were still here?
Unexpected, but it didn't change the operation. They were ordinary humans; they couldn't stop Deoxys. Natsui's role was already complete. Now it was up to the Pokémon.
Professor Lund rose calmly, facing them as if he had been waiting for a scheduled appointment.
"You finally came," he said.
Natsui watched without expression. Lund wasn't speaking to him—humans couldn't see Natsui's spirit at all. He could have waved directly in the man's face and remained invisible.
Still, Natsui had to admit Lund's instincts were sharp. Even with two Deoxys present, the professor had correctly addressed the one he'd encountered four years earlier.
Deoxys didn't answer.
It floated straight to the sealed chamber and fixed its gaze on the core.
Lund's voice softened into something like resignation. "When I saw you today, I knew you would come. I've imagined this moment many times. I just didn't expect it to arrive so soon."
Deoxys ignored him.
It lifted an arm, and the sealed casing around the core shattered—cleanly, decisively—like glass struck by a silent hammer.
Lund's hands clenched at his sides, knuckles whitening. Beside him, Yuko watched with visible concern, as if she wanted to say something but held it back.
Lund drew a breath and tried again, almost pleading with the air. "I've made a breakthrough. I've mastered the resurrection process. If you'd given me a little more time—if I'd had the remaining parts, just a bit longer—I could have…"
He didn't finish.
Deoxys extended its hand. Energy pulsed from its own core into the dormant one.
The change was immediate—visible even to the naked eye.
From the core outward, matter began to form, building structure and shape at a terrifying rate. Limbs, torso, head—an entire body assembled in seconds, like reality itself was being rewritten.
In the space of a few breaths, a complete Deoxys hovered above the lab floor.
Professor Lund's words died in his throat.
After a long, helpless pause, he exhaled—slow and heavy.
Four years of work. Funding. Sleepless nights. Endless trial and error.
All eclipsed in a few seconds of innate power.
Natsui felt a faint, complicated sympathy. Lund hadn't seemed malicious; he'd genuinely wanted to restore the Pokémon. But intention didn't change the fact that the core never belonged to him in any meaningful sense.
It was cruel, perhaps—but inevitable.
At Natsui's side, invisible to all but him, Gengar leaned in. "We're done. If you stay separated much longer, your body's going to suffer."
Natsui nodded. The task was complete. There was no reason to linger.
He gave Lund one last look—silent, unreadable—then turned away and motioned for the Deoxys to leave.
--
The Escape
Exiting wasn't as smooth as entering.
By the time they reached the outer corridors, LaRousse City's police had arrived. Worse, the city's automated defense systems had activated.
Thousands of smart-block robots swarmed together, locking into a massive composite machine—an improvised colossus that blocked the route like a living wall of steel.
But against three Deoxys, it wasn't a defense.
It was a delay.
The police and their Pokémon were neutralized almost instantly—dropped without warning, without even understanding what hit them. The city's assembled defense unit lasted barely fifteen seconds under the combined assault before it collapsed into wreckage, reduced to a twisted heap of smoking scrap.
Under the helpless, furious stares of those still conscious, three Deoxys rose into the night sky, crossed the river, and vanished over the forest canopy—swallowed by darkness as if they'd never been there at all.
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I want to explain why I stopped updating daily for a while.
I had some health problems, and I also had to deal with a few work-related matters. Because of that, I couldn't keep the daily update schedule like before.
But that ends today.
Starting today, chapters will be published every day again.
Also, all the novels that were abandoned or left on hold will be coming back as well.
I'm truly sorry to everyone who kept waiting, and I want to thank all of you who still came back day after day to check for new chapters.
Really, thank you for your patience and support.