The spiral of light beneath Kael's feet faded behind him.
The sky turned grey, not like storm clouds, but like ash stretched thin over glass. There was no horizon. No sun. Just a flatness that seemed to go on forever.
He had left Veilpoint.
But he hadn't returned to the world.
Not yet.
Echo stepped beside him, her fur dimmed, no longer glowing — but heavier, as if carrying something unseen.
"This is the Between," she said.
He looked around. "Between what?"
"Between memory and form. Between ending and beginning. Between what was and what you couldn't bear to imagine."
He didn't ask how she knew.
Somewhere in this place, knowledge and instinct were the same thing.
They walked.
The ground changed with each step — from water to stone to mist to nothing. The path didn't curve, but Kael couldn't tell if they were going forward or in circles.
Then, far ahead, a figure appeared.
Not standing.
Floating.
A shape made of threads — not physical, not spectral. Just presence.
Kael slowed.
"Is it Amaranth?" he whispered.
"No," Echo said. "It's what's left of Amaranth. After everything it consumed… after it lost itself."
The threads curled slightly, then reached outward — not to attack.
To welcome.
"You're the first to come this far," the voice said.
Not loud.
Not harsh.
Tired.
Kael stepped forward.
"I didn't come to finish you," he said. "I came to understand you."
The presence pulsed once.
"Understanding is what started this."
"I wasn't always what I am."
"I was what you forgot. What everyone forgot."
Echo stood still. Her body didn't glow, but her eyes shimmered like reflections on deep water.
Kael took another step.
"You fed on pain," he said. "Grief. Guilt. You twisted people."
"No," said the voice. "I didn't twist them. They were already twisted. I just echoed it back."
"I am not fire. I am smoke."
"I am not death. I am what comes after."
Kael clenched his fists. "Then why did you come back?"
"Because someone remembered me wrong."
"And I got stuck."
The light threads around the presence began to unravel.
Not disintegrating.
Just loosening.
"I don't want to stay," the voice said. "I want to rest. But I can't… not while you still carry me."
Kael stepped closer. "Then how do I let you go?"
Echo spoke first.
"You give the memory to something that can hold it without becoming it."
He looked down at her. "What does that mean?"
She turned toward him.
And for the first time… she didn't look like just an Eevee.
She looked older.
Her fur shimmered with deeper tones. Her body, once soft and foxlike, now carried angular patterns — Unown glyphs shifting like tattoos across her limbs. Her eyes glowed with the symbols of all the echoes she had seen.
She was evolving.
But not into anything the Pokédex had ever named.
Kael reached out slowly.
She pressed her forehead to his.
"I was born of a memory," Echo said. "But I was shaped by you."
He closed his eyes.
He remembered.
The egg in Galen's arms.
The first night on the trail.
The battle in Ice Path.
Tama's voice.
The monolith.
The other Kael.
Every fragment.
Every echo.
And he gave it to her.
Not as a burden.
But as a bond.
The presence pulsed one last time.
And smiled.
"That's all I ever was," it whispered.
"A bond… remembered too long."
Then it vanished.
No scream.
No collapse.
Just a soft breath, fading into silence.
The Between began to dissolve.
Color returned.
So did sound.
The path beneath them solidified into grass and stone, and Kael found himself standing on a hill beneath a golden sky.
Not Kanto.
Not Johto.
But not lost either.
Echo stood beside him, her form changed.
Her silver fur now shimmered with threads of blue, gold, and deep grey. Her eyes held memory — not heavy, but whole.
He knelt slowly, breathing deep.
"You okay?" he asked.
She nodded. "I am."
And so was he.