Ash's face immediately broke into a smile.
"All right!"
They had already gone through so many battles together that there was no need to say anything about their tacit understanding.
After checking out the Space-Time Rift here, Ash and Cynthia also got ready to return to Jubilife Village.
The cause of the Space-Time Rift was now known, and they finally had a clear direction for how to return to the present. As for the remaining questions that still had no answers, they could only wait to investigate them further later on.
Unlike when they came up the mountain, going back now was much more convenient. As long as this place had already been recorded by the Arceus Phone, they could leave directly by using the teleport function.
Ash opened the map on the Arceus Phone again and soon found that the place where they were now had indeed appeared under a new name.
[Temple of Sinnoh]
"Temple of Sinnoh?"
Ash subconsciously read out the name shown on the map.
When Cynthia heard that, she paused for a moment, then took another look at the surrounding ancient buildings that had been preserved intact, and at the towering stone pillars near the stage. A familiar place quickly surfaced in her mind.
"This place… is Spear Pillar!"
"Spear Pillar?"
It was clearly the first time Ash had heard this name, and he turned his head with some confusion.
"What kind of place is that?"
"It's a very ancient ruin in the Sinnoh Region, located right at the top of Mount Coronet."
Cynthia was an archaeologist herself, with quite in-depth knowledge of Sinnoh's history and various ancient ruins. Naturally, Spear Pillar was within the scope of what she had studied before.
"I used to study the ruins left behind at Spear Pillar. It's just that in our era, what we could see was only a portion of the stone pillars and broken buildings, so when we first came in, I didn't recognize it right away."
Cynthia held out her palm and roughly gestured at the intact Temple of Sinnoh around them.
"If you strip away these buildings here, then take away this whole area around them, what's left is basically the same as the Spear Pillar I know."
Ash followed the places Cynthia pointed out and looked back and forth a few times, finally understanding what she meant.
"So the Temple of Sinnoh we're seeing now is what Spear Pillar looked like before it was destroyed?"
"That should be right."
Cynthia nodded lightly, then once again examined the ancient structures around them that had been preserved so well.
After studying Sinnoh's history for so many years, she had never imagined that one day she would actually get to see with her own eyes what Spear Pillar looked like back when it was still a complete temple.
However, this kind of joy was quickly suppressed by another question.
Since in their era only the broken remains of Spear Pillar were left, that meant this vast Temple of Sinnoh before their eyes must have suffered some kind of massive destruction in the long ages that followed.
And right now, that enormous rift that tore open space-time over the Hisui Region just happened to be hanging directly above the Temple of Sinnoh.
Although Ash hadn't known about Spear Pillar before, he quickly understood what Cynthia was getting at.
"In other words, this Temple of Sinnoh is going to be destroyed in the future…"
"At least from the history I know, it does end up with only the ruins of Spear Pillar remaining."
Cynthia lifted her head to look at the Space-Time Rift in the sky, her expression gradually turning serious.
Right now, they still couldn't be sure whether the future destruction of the Temple of Sinnoh had anything to do with this space-time anomaly before them.
But the fact that the Space-Time Rift appeared here of all places, combined with what the Arceus Phone had just told them—that the clash between Dialga and Palkia was the cause of the rift—made it impossible for them to simply shrug it off when they put these two things together.
Ash likewise raised his head again, staring at the enormous rift in the sky that kept flickering with a purplish-red glow.
"The Space-Time Rift opens right above the Temple of Sinnoh, and later this temple turns into the ruined Spear Pillar…"
"Sis, we really have to be twice as careful from here on out."
"Mm, we still know far too little right now. Let's head back first."
"Got it."
After leaving the Temple of Sinnoh, Ash quickly used the teleport function on the Arceus Phone to take Cynthia back to the Obsidian Fieldlands.
This time, the two of them didn't use teleport again, but instead started walking slowly along the familiar path back toward Jubilife Village.
Yes, walking back.
Counting the time they'd spent going to Mount Coronet Peak before, this whole trip had already taken about a day and a half.
Even if they summoned Wyrdeer now to travel faster, by the time they factored in rest stops along the way, it actually wouldn't save that much time.
Besides, they had already temporarily dealt with the matters at Moonview Arena and Mount Coronet Peak, so there was no need to rush anymore. They might as well just walk back at an easy pace like this.
When the familiar palisade of Jubilife Village finally came into view, the gate guard on duty quickly noticed them.
His expression, which had been rather formal before, broke into a clear smile as soon as he recognized Ash and Cynthia.
"Well now, our great heroes of the Hisui Region are back!"
"You've really worked hard. Now that the fourth rampaging King has been quelled by you two, aside from the Alabaster Icelands, pretty much the whole Hisui Region has settled down again. That's all thanks to you!"
Hearing that, Ash and Cynthia immediately realized that news of Electrode returning to normal had already reached Jubilife Village.
Melli had specially sent word by Flying Pokemon before; from the looks of it now, the Diamond Clan had long since informed Team Galactic of the situation.
And judging from the gate guard's attitude, their reputations in Jubilife Village had likely risen even higher.
Ash replied with a few light-hearted words, and Cynthia likewise nodded politely. But once they actually stepped into the village, she didn't feel all that excited inside.
Instead, a faint sense of unease slowly surfaced.
The higher you stand, the harder you fall.
Right now, Team Galactic kept publicly praising their achievements in quelling the Kings, and more and more people in Jubilife Village were starting to see them as the heroes of the Hisui Region. This change was of course a good thing for them at the moment.
But once they reached the Alabaster Icelands, if they failed to quell the final Avalugg, or even caused the entire Alabaster Icelands to remain in chaos because of the King's rampage, the public opinion that spread afterward definitely wouldn't sound as pleasant as it did now.
The higher they were being raised up now, the more brutal the fall might be later.
Of course.
They wouldn't fail, and they couldn't fail.
They still had to continue searching for the remaining Plates, investigate the secrets surrounding Dialga and Palkia, figure out what the Arceus Phone meant by that future darkness, and ultimately find a way back to the present.
No matter how much trouble awaited them next in the Alabaster Icelands, they had to succeed.
The two of them made their way toward the Team Galactic Headquarters, and many villagers they passed smiled and greeted them of their own accord.
There were even a few fruit vendors who directly called them over and pushed apples and oranges into their hands, refusing to take any money no matter what they said.
Compared to when they had first arrived in Hisui, when most villagers stayed wary of these two foreigners who had appeared out of nowhere, that attitude had now almost completely flipped.
When they finally stood in front of the Team Galactic Headquarters building, Ash looked down at the fruit people had just given him, and the expression on his face gradually became a bit downcast.
"Sis."
"Hm?"
Ash was silent for a while, then finally asked the question that had been bothering him all along.
"Why are people… like this?"
It was a rather vague question, but Cynthia immediately understood what Ash was really asking.
She let out a soft sigh.
"Not everyone has a kind, selfless nature. If anything, Ash, this is what we call human nature."
"Don't let this one incident make you lose faith in people. But at the same time, don't assume everyone deserves your unreserved trust just because most of the people you usually meet are good."
Cynthia thought for a moment, and her tone grew more serious.
"Living in this world, you give seven parts of yourself to others and keep three parts to yourself. Don't hand over all your trust so easily to someone you still don't truly understand."
"On the other hand, if you've already taken the time to really understand someone, and you still choose to trust them in the end, then just follow your own heart and trust them to the very end."
By the time she finished, the seriousness on Cynthia's face eased a little, and she even gave Ash a small, playful wink.
"On that point, I think you should have your own judgment, Ash."
"After all, you're an Aura Guardian who can sense other people's emotions through Aura, aren't you?"