Gardevoir threw her last punch through the blizzard.
Lapras's eyes closed, and she went down with a crash that shook the ice.
Gardevoir dropped in the same instant.
"Gardevoir!"
Akiyama was already running onto the field. He didn't hear a word the referee said. The ice took his legs out from under him once; he scrambled back up and gathered her unconscious body into his arms.
Minori recalled Lapras and tossed the Snowflake Badge across the field to him.
He caught it, said his goodbyes, and headed straight for the Pokémon Center.
Up in the stands, Nikozo shook off his shock and hurried after them.
That is an unbelievable Gardevoir.
Minori stood there with a chill running down her spine.
She hadn't seriously believed the thing could win.
Not on that ice.
"Oh. I never told him about the Balance Trial."
The promise she'd made in the middle of the match came back to her all at once, so she slipped out the back door and went looking for Akiyama at the Pokémon Center.
....
Luxray tore through Archaludon's Rock Tomb wrapped head to tail in lightning, closing the distance in bursts of speed.
Under Reika's astonished stare, he launched himself high into the air, an Electro Ball gathering in front of his chest.
A flick of his tail sent it out, and it detonated against Archaludon's skull.
Battered from head to foot, Archaludon finally toppled.
Luxray landed light on his feet, fur bristling, still full of fight.
Then, as Raika was recalling Archaludon, electricity began sparking wildly across Luxray's body, out of his control.
He dropped to the metal floor, face twisted in pain.
Reika ran, her footsteps booming hollow on the plating. She pushed straight through the crackling arcs around him without a thought for herself and got the medicine Nurse Joy had prescribed into his mouth.
"We're done—we're done, okay? He's hurt," she said toward Raika.
Raika's hand stopped halfway to his second Poké Ball. He walked over instead.
The medicine took hold, and Luxray slowly steadied, then pushed himself upright on shaky legs.
He looked at the burn on the back of Reika's hand and licked it, very gently.
Then his head came up, wary, tracking Raika as he approached.
Raika only smiled at him, eyes crinkling.
Because he did, in fact, know this Luxray.
....
"Gym Leader Minori? What are you doing here?"
Akiyama looked up from the bench outside the treatment room as she came down the hall.
Every head in the Pokémon Center turned with her.
Nikozo was working hard at looking somewhere else.
Nobody could take that in and stay focused.
"I forgot to tell you why Rapidash can run on ice." Minori spread her hands.
The motion involved caused several people in the lobby to go red.
"Sorry. I forgot too." Akiyama stood up, a little sheepish. He'd been so worried about Gardevoir that it had gone right out of his head, and now she'd made the trip for nothing.
"The Windmill City. Phoenix Landing City runs something called the Balance Trial—maybe you've heard of it. Pass it, and you learn to control every last ounce of power you put out."
She told him quietly, like she was handing over a secret.
"The Balance Trial. Got it. Thank you, seriously," Akiyama said.
Minori waved it off, then left the way she'd come, the crowd parting and closing around her.
All those stares didn't seem to register with her at all. Maybe she'd simply had too many years of them.
"So you're headed for the Windmill City next?" Nikozo asked, finally back in the conversation.
"That was already the plan. Now it looks like I don't have a choice." Akiyama nodded.
The route had been set from the start: take a ship out of Frostvale City to the Windmill City, then cut over to Lonecliff City, the nearest neighbor. From there he'd loop around, skipping the Steel Gym—the strongest of them—take the Dragon Gym, and come back.
Facing Raika, a man who had turned down a seat among the Elite Four, he had exactly zero confidence.
The treatment room door slid open.
Gardevoir came out looking fresh as morning.
Completely healed.
She had Gengar's and Kadabra's Poké Balls in her hands.
Akiyama held up the badge case for her the moment she cleared the door.
Four badges sat inside.
Gardevoir made a delighted sound and threw her arms around him, squeezing tight.
Both Poké Balls hit the floor.
Gengar and Kadabra popped out.
Kadabra took one look at the two of them wrapped up in each other, smiled, and stood off to the side.
Gengar grinned, flew straight into the middle, and wedged himself in.
"Yeah, yeah. Okay." Akiyama gave up on the moment and let the little menace have it.
Nikozo watched, envious, thinking about his own Growlithe and Chimecho.
He checked the time. A few more hours and he'd be boarding for home.
Night came fast.
Down on the shore, Nikozo and Akiyama bumped fists and split up.
Nikozo showed his ticket and boarded, then leaned on the rail and looked back at the figure on the dock.
"Akiyama!" he shouted. "Come visit the Archipelago region sometime!"
The Archipelago region—a patchwork of islands large and small, a long way from Seichu.
"After the Silver Crown League. I'll be there," Akiyama shouted back.
"Forget it, I'll come watch you compete instead. Don't be late!"
The ship pulled out, tearing across the black water, and in no time it was gone.
"I won't be late," Akiyama said, still watching the empty horizon. He was smiling. "And next time, I'm going to blow your mind."
Keep moving forward and you'd always meet again.
Sad? No point.
He stood in the sea wind a while longer, then took Gardevoir's hand and started back toward the Pokémon Center.
Beneath the calm surface of the water, pair after pair of crimson eyes lit up.
....
"Let's go. Next city."
Nanami sat cross-legged on Gyarados's head as he lifted off into the wind currents unique to Phoenix Landing City, riding them up out of the great basin.
The city at the bottom of that basin was the one they called the Windmill City.
She had five badges in her hand, turning them over lazily. One edge caught the moonlight now and then and flashed.
Four of them matched Akiyama's. The fifth was the Cyclone Badge from the Flying Gym.
She refused to walk anywhere, which meant that on certain stretches she moved a great deal faster than he did.
Their routes had been nearly identical. They'd both been caught up in the Reiji incident.
In the pitch dark, Gyarados drifted through the forest canopy without letting a single branch so much as brush her.
He was so practiced at it that it was almost sad.
"Kosei, you—"
The murmur cut off. Her eyes came open, unfocused.
She'd fallen asleep.
And woken up again.
Gyarados slowed, a question in the way he turned his head.
"It's nothing. Keep going." Nanami shook her head.
Time didn't make you forget a person. It only got you used to living without them.
And not even all the way used to it.
Dreams, for instance, you couldn't control.
Elsewhere, Akiyama was having a good one.
In it, he and Gardevoir stood in an open field under an indigo sky, and a handful of shooting stars had stopped in place overhead, as if waiting to be looked at.
In the waking world, the progress bar surfaced, and gold particles poured into it without end.
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