I didn't sleep. Every time I closed my eyes I saw the floating light, felt the weight of the letter in my hands. By the time the sun came up I'd decided I wasn't going to show Aunt Yuki. Not yet.
But I should have known better. Aunt Yuki always knew when something was wrong.
She was waiting in the kitchen when I came down for breakfast, and I could tell immediately from her face that she already knew. The letter was sitting on the table between us.
"You went through my room?" I said.
"I heard you up all night. Moving around. Pacing." She didn't sound angry. She sounded scared. "I needed to know what was keeping you awake."
"So you went through my things."
"Akira." She picked up the letter like it might bite her. "Where did you get this?"
"It came through my window. Some kind of Pokemon delivered it, I think."
"And you were planning to hide it from me."
That stung because it was true. I sat down across from her, too tired to fight. "You would have told me not to go."
"Of course I would have told you not to go!" Her voice cracked. "Do you have any idea what you're asking? The academy isn't some school where you learn math and history. It's where trainers go to become part of the League system. To become visible."
"Visible to who?"
She stood up abruptly, the chair scraping against the floor. For a long moment she just stood there with her back to me, hands gripping the edge of the counter.
"Aunt Yuki, please. I'm eighteen years old and I've never left this village. I don't even know what my parents looked like. You won't tell me anything about them, you won't tell me why we're hiding here, you won't tell me anything."
"There are good reasons—"
"Then tell me the reasons!"
She flinched. I'd never raised my voice at her before. Not like this.
When she turned around, she looked older than I'd ever seen her. "You want to know about your parents? Fine. They were trainers. Brilliant trainers. Everyone said they'd make it to the Elite Four, maybe even become Champion one day."
My heart was pounding. She'd never told me this much before.
"What happened to them?"
"They made a mistake." Her voice was barely a whisper. "They got involved in something they shouldn't have. They asked questions about things that were supposed to stay buried. And then..." She closed her eyes. "Fifteen years ago there was an incident. The League called it 'The Purge.' Dozens of trainers were arrested, exiled, or worse. Your parents were among them."
The room seemed to tilt. "Exiled where?"
"I don't know. No one knows. The League doesn't keep records of the exiled. They just... disappear."
I thought about the dreams. The running, the footsteps, the guards. "But why? What did they do?"
"I don't know, Akira. I truly don't. Your mother was my sister and she never told me what they'd discovered. She just showed up at my door one night with you in her arms, said she needed me to keep you safe, and then she left. That was the last time I saw her."
She picked up the letter again, her hands shaking. "This academy invitation... it can't be a coincidence. Someone knows who you are. Someone knows you're their child."
"Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe whoever sent this can tell me what really happened."
"Or maybe they want to finish what they started fifteen years ago." She looked at me with desperate eyes. "Please, Akira. Don't go. Stay here where you're safe."
But I was already thinking about the symbol on the cliff. The dreams I'd had my whole life. The floating light that knew exactly where to find me.
"I can't stay here forever," I said quietly. "You know that."
She didn't answer. She just set the letter down and walked out of the kitchen, leaving me alone with the acceptance and all the questions it raised.
That afternoon, while Aunt Yuki was at the village center for her shift at the medical clinic, I went looking for answers.
Our house was small. There weren't many places to hide things. But I'd seen Aunt Yuki acting strange whenever I went near the storage closet upstairs, the one she kept locked even though we didn't have anything valuable.
The key was in her room, hidden in a box of old jewelry I wasn't supposed to touch.
My hands were sweating when I unlocked the closet door.
Inside were boxes. Lots of them. Stacked carefully, labeled with dates and names I didn't recognize. I pulled down the one marked "K.S. & R.S. - 2010."
My parents' initials.
Inside were newspaper clippings, all yellowed with age. I spread them out on the floor, my heart racing as I read.
LEAGUE ANNOUNCES INVESTIGATION INTO ROGUE TRAINERS
DOZENS ARRESTED IN ALLEGED CONSPIRACY
OFFICIALS: "THREAT TO POKEMON SAFETY NEUTRALIZED"
But it was the photo that made me stop breathing.
Two trainers being led away by League officials in dark uniforms. Their faces were blurred out, but I could see enough. The woman had dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. The man was tall, broad-shouldered, looked like he'd been in a fight. Their hands were cuffed.
Under the photo: Trainers arrested during The Purge. League officials declined to provide names or charges.
I stared at the blurred faces and felt something crack open inside my chest. These were my parents. These were the people who were supposed to raise me, who were supposed to teach me about Pokemon and training and the world.
Instead they'd been arrested and erased.
I kept reading. Most of the articles said the same things in different words: dangerous trainers, threat to the League, illegal Pokemon experimentation. But there was one article that was different.
WHISTLEBLOWER CLAIMS PURGE TARGETS INNOCENT TRAINERS
Anonymous source says League investigation based on false evidence
"They found something the League didn't want them to find," source claims
The article was dated two weeks after the others. At the bottom someone had written in faded pencil: "They're lying. K & R were right."
I didn't know how long I sat there, reading and rereading the articles. The sun had moved across the floor by the time I heard the front door open.
I scrambled to put everything back, but I wasn't fast enough.
Aunt Yuki stood in the doorway of the closet, her face white. "Akira."
"I needed to know," I said. "You weren't going to tell me."
"I wasn't going to tell you because it's dangerous for you to know! Don't you understand? The League doesn't let go of things. If they think you're digging into what happened to your parents—"
"Then what? They'll exile me too? At least I'd be in the same place they are."
"You don't know that they're alive!"
The words hung between us like something physical.
"But you don't know that they're dead," I said quietly.
She turned away, shoulders shaking. "Pack your bag. If you're determined to do this, then do it. But don't come crying to me when you realize the world isn't what you thought it was."
She walked out and I heard her bedroom door close.
I looked down at the clippings one more time. At my parents' blurred faces, forever frozen in the moment everything went wrong.
Then I went to my room and started packing.