The ocean was loud that morning. Waves broke against the jagged black rocks below, each crash sending spray high enough to dampen the wooden
The ocean was loud that morning.
Waves broke against the jagged black rocks below, each crash sending spray high enough to dampen the wooden railing where Arata leaned. He didn't mind the salt clinging to his skin or the wind tugging at his hair he had grown up on this coast, after all, and the sea was as much a part of him as breathing. Still, he watched it with the same wary respect every villager carried. The water gave, and the water took.
His aunt always said: Never turn your back on the ocean. Or on a Pokémon you don't understand.
Arata shifted, tugging the strap of his satchel higher on his shoulder. Inside, something shifted in answer a restless scrape of claws against canvas, the faint thrum of caged energy. He allowed himself a small smile, the kind he never showed anyone else.
"Easy, Caesar," he murmured. "We'll head inland soon."
The dragonlet rumbled in protest, low and stubborn, before finally settling. Containment had never suited him; even as a hatchling, Caesar wanted to run, to bite, to carve his place against the world. And Arata understood because some days, he felt exactly the same.
From the railing, the view stretched far. To the north, cliffs rose in jagged teeth, broken only by winding paths that led toward Viridian's edge. To the south, fishing boats bobbed against the pier, their sails stitched and patched from a hundred storms. Behind him, the village of Saltwind barely more than a cluster of homes, nets, and a single weather-worn Pokémon Center huddled against the coast. It was no Pallet, no Viridian, no Saffron. Just an outpost. A place where life meant working hard, respecting the tides, and keeping watch for wild Pokémon too bold for their own good.
Arata had never minded. But he also knew this place could not hold him forever.
He let the sea wind sting his face as his thoughts wandered. Eleven years. Eleven years in this world, in this body, and not once had he truly forgotten who he was before. The knowledge lingered, quiet and sharp, like a second spine beneath his skin. He carried it with him in silence, never daring to share it not with his aunt, not with the neighbors, not with anyone.
It was strange, looking back now, on those earliest years in Saltwind.
He remembered the crib most of all too small, too confining for someone with a grown man's mind. He'd lie there staring at the wooden ceiling, listening to gulls and waves, trying not to scream from sheer frustration at being trapped in a body that couldn't even stand. And then there was his aunt.
At first, in his fog of new existence, he'd thought she was his mother. She fed him, carried him, soothed him when he cried. But as days bled into months, his mind pieced together the truth: she wasn't his mother. She was younger, fiercer, her voice edged with command instead of softness.
And there were moments burned into his too-sharp memory that left little doubt.
Like the time he had woken in the night to the sound of a rough laugh, low and satisfied, followed by rhythmic slap of skin on skin, He hadn't understood nor could see properly back then Thank Arceus, but he remembered her her silhouette of her body and her laugh, raw and unashamed, and the way she shoved the man off when she was done, striding naked across the room with all the dignity of a warrior.
Not exactly the kind of thing you forget.
Still, she was family. And over time, he came to understand her.
His aunt was a ranger. The whole family was his parents, their parents before them, and her. Rangers by blood and by duty, bound to the wilds more than the towns. She was the one who taught him that the world was not built for safety. She carried scars to prove it, pale streaks across tanned skin that she wore like medals.
Men came and went from her life sailors, the occasional trainer passing through. Some stayed for weeks, some for a nights. She never bent herself to any of them.
Independent. Fierce. Free.
But when it came to him, her nephew, she was steadfast. She loved him with a devotion that had no softness, but was no less real for it. She scolded him harder than anyone, pushed him farther, but always, always looked out for him.
And her work…
Arata remembered sitting by the window as a boy, watching her stride out at dawn in her ranger's coat, the insignia stitched bright on her shoulder. Sometimes she was gone for a day, sometimes for weeks. When she returned, there were always stories. Capturing poachers, helping caravans cross routes too dangerous for common folk, even serving as an auxiliary for the League during tournaments or emergencies.
She never let him forget the truth of her profession: Pokémon were dangerous. Not pets. Not toys. Tools, allies, partners yes but every one of them carried claws, fire, fangs, or worse. "Until you're ready," she told him, time and again, "you don't get one. You'll thank me later."
And so he grew up in that balance a child with a man's mind, raised by a woman who feared nothing but took no foolish chances. A woman who laughed too loud, fought too hard, and never apologized for either.
Arata sometimes wondered if he would have survived childhood at all without her.
The turning point came when he was seven.
He remembered it vividly the day he wandered too far. The cliffs beyond Saltwind gave way to a stretch of rocky forest, a jagged maze of stone and pine where wild Pokémon prowled. His aunt had warned him countless times not to stray there alone. Which, of course, meant he had to.
He'd been chasing the echo of the sea wind through the gullies when the air went still. Then, out of the shadows, it came small but fierce, scales gleaming like tempered steel, tusks jutting like carved ivory. Its eyes burned with the raw, feral hunger of the wild.
Every instinct screamed at him to run. But his body froze.
And then… something else happened.
It was like a tide rising in his chest, a warmth that wasn't heat but presence, spilling from his core. His heart pounded in strange rhythm, and without thinking, he reached out not with his hands, but with something deeper. The creature snarled, claws scraping stone, but then its gaze locked on him and… softened.
The rage melted. The hunger ebbed.
It stepped closer, slowly, cautiously, as though drawn to him. And for the first time in two lives, Arata felt something stir in answer a connection, fragile and terrifyingly real.
He didn't know what it was then. He only knew that for once, he wasn't helpless. For once, this world had given him something that felt like his cheat.
When he stumbled home hours later, scratched and mud-stained but grinning like a fool, his aunt nearly tore his ears off. Her fury was volcanic. He'd disobeyed, endangered himself, broken every rule she had hammered into him.
But when she saw the dragon trailing behind him, her expression shifted. From fury, to disbelief, to something like dread.
It wasn't supposed to be possible. Children didn't just walk out of the woods with a feral dragon at their heels. Children didn't soothe wild instincts with nothing but a look.
The next days were a storm of arguments. The League wanted the beast confiscated. The local rangers demanded it be released, or put down if it proved unmanageable. Her sister's boy or not, rules were rules.
But his aunt… she fought.
Arata remembered her voice through the walls, raw from shouting. He remembered slammed doors, heated calls, the stink of tobacco smoke as she paced their little home. She maneuvered, wheedled, called in favors. She burned through every scrap of goodwill her years of service had earned.
And in the end, she won.
She slammed a Poké Ball down on the table one night, red light flickering across her eyes, and said,
"He's mine on paper until you're sixteen. He's yours. You train when I say, how I say. You break a rule, you lose him. Clear?"
Arata had stared at it, heart hammering, the weight of the world in that small, simple sphere. He didn't even call the dragon by its species name. No, to him, it was something more. Something earned. Something his.
"Caesar," he whispered. Like the emperor. A king among kings. And from that day forward, the dragon answered to nothing else.
Arata blinked, pulled out of the memory. The years had gone by in a blur, each one shaped by Caesar's shadow and his aunt's iron hand. Whatever else his childhood had been, messy, chaotic, loud, it had been theirs.
The wind shifted, carrying the tang of brine and the faint cry of gulls. Arata squinted toward the jagged rocks where the tide licked against stone. Something moved there a flutter too desperate to be casual.
At first, he thought it was just driftwood catching in the surf. Then he saw the feathers.
A Pidgey, small and battered, its wings bent wrong, feathers ragged from more than just the sea spray. It tried to hop, stumbled, then flared what remained of its wings in a stubborn, trembling display. Bruised, broken… but not surrendering.
Arata's chest tightened. That spark. That will.
Before he realized it, his feet were already carrying him down the narrow path toward the rocks, the satchel at his side stirring as Caesar rumbled low, sensing his intent.
Something about this moment felt different.