[Water Stone: A mysterious stone that can make certain Pokémon evolve (Purity 94.02%)]
Reiji's throat went dry. So it really was a top-grade Water Stone.
If Poliwhirl evolved with this, Elite Four potential would be a lock. Reaching the Elite Four would just be a matter of time.
He brushed the stone lightly with a fingertip, then pulled his hand back. His thoughts tangled into a knot.
Cissy snapped the jade box shut, cutting off the view just as Reiji was about to start drooling, then handed it back to her grandfather.
"Told you I wasn't lying," she said, smug enough that she clearly wanted to watch him panic. It was payback for him calling her flat. Unfortunately for her, she'd misread him.
Reiji's surprise lasted only a heartbeat before he forced himself calm.
"So what do I have to do to get that Water Stone?" He gave a small nod, accepting what he'd seen. It really was top-grade. Stealing it was out of the question—these old foxes weren't pushovers, and there was a Slowking right there.
If he could get it the proper way, he'd rather do that. He wasn't short on money.
"Cissy, let me talk to him," the old man said. Hearing Reiji ask for the Water Stone, he didn't even pretend it would be handed over easily. They didn't have many top-grade evolution stones to begin with.
That said, it wasn't impossible. It depended on what this young man was worth—whether he deserved a stone like that.
"Okay, Grandpa," Cissy replied.
She walked off and lingered at a distance, close enough to watch but too far to hear. Reiji staying at the Gym was basically settled now, and that alone made her content. Her mind was already drifting toward whatever "revenge plan" she'd cook up next.
The old man didn't mention the Water Stone at all. He looked at Reiji and went straight for the throat.
"Kid, the thing in your shadow is dangerous."
Reiji's heart lurched. Did he spot Darkrai?
He tried to step back, but in the same instant psychic force clamped down on him. He couldn't move at all. A cold curse flashed through his mind. This was bad—really bad.
"Don't tense up," the old man said quickly when he saw Reiji strain against it. "No sudden moves. And don't think about running. You can't."
Reiji let out a dry laugh. "I shouldn't have come."
Only his head could still turn. His eyes slid toward the lake, to the Slowking sitting by the shore in meditation. So it was that Slowking's telekinesis. Strong enough that even Darkrai didn't dare move.
Maybe Darkrai could still act—but only once. After a Psychic-type uses Miracle Eye, Psychic attacks can land on Dark-types. Darkrai probably didn't want to burn that precious window here. It was waiting for a better moment.
Reiji could only blame himself. He'd been greedy. He'd let a top-grade Water Stone lure him right into a trap set by old monsters like these.
The old man chuckled, as if Reiji was making a fuss over nothing. "Why the long face? I'm not some villain."
He looked genuinely amused. A young trainer like this, and still so raw—yet he'd somehow caught a legendary Pokémon. That was not a future to take lightly.
If his granddaughter hadn't dragged the boy here, he might never have learned such an interesting person existed. It was a welcome break from his boring routine.
Reiji kept his voice steady. "What do you want?"
He wasn't completely cornered. If the old man tried to force it, Reiji could activate the Silver Wing and call Lugia in to bail him out.
Still, the way that gap-toothed old man stared made Reiji's skin crawl, like he'd been stripped bare and inspected, every secret about to be peeled out of him.
The old man laughed again, then asked something that had nothing to do with stones. "So, what do you think of my Cissy?"
"Don't know her," Reiji said. It was the truth, and this wasn't the kind of old man you tried to outplay with clever talk.
"Then go," the old man said, waving him off. "You'll get to know her later."
The Slowking released him.
Reiji's body went slack so suddenly he nearly stumbled. One moment the old man sounded ready to tear him apart, the next he was letting him walk. It made no sense.
And those two questions were just as baffling.
Why let him go? The Water Stone hadn't even been discussed—but Reiji didn't dare ask now.
Before the old man changed his mind, Reiji hurried away from the lakeside. He wanted nothing more to do with someone that terrifying.
No top-grade Water Stone, then. Fine.
Unless… was the Water Stone somehow tied to Cissy?
He could see the shape of it. He just didn't want to think about it. Becoming a live-in son-in-law wasn't a line he could cross, and he wasn't about to sell himself for a stone—no matter how good it was.
After Reiji and Cissy left, the old man went back to fishing in the lake. Then, for no obvious reason, he spoke to the empty air.
"you're sure?"
"Shadow-black… a bad omen…"
Slowking didn't open its mouth. The voice sounded directly inside the old man's mind. So it could use telepathy too.
"A bad omen…" The old man's expression tightened. "Team Rocket? The League? Black ships? What a time for trouble."
He lived tucked away on the back mountain, fishing every day, but he still heard the rumble of storms building beyond the horizon.
If Slowking hadn't stopped him, he would've already taken Reiji down.
"Don't say I didn't warn you," Slowking's voice came again, calm and blunt. "He's a trainer blessed by the sea god."
It had sensed it—the Silver Wing flickering faintly in Reiji's backpack. That was why Slowking hadn't attacked.
Lugia was the sea god their Slowpoke line worshipped, the great guardian of these waters. Slowking wouldn't lay a hand on a trainer marked by that blessing.
"The sea god… Lugia," the old man murmured, a chill finally reaching him. Good thing he hadn't acted. If the kid summoned Lugia, that would've been a disaster.
And yet… what ridiculous luck. A Dark-type mythical Pokémon at his side, and Lugia's blessing on top of it. A lucky brat, in every sense.
Since the League arrived, they'd learned Lugia was "just" a powerful legendary Pokémon—but his family still kept the sea god's shrine, and their specialty had always been Water-types.
Slowking was his first partner. If Slowking refused to strike, he couldn't force the command. So he let Reiji go.
Did anyone really think that made him a good man?
A trainer who could keep something like Darkrai was a massive variable for Mikan Gym. If Slowking hadn't stopped him, he would've snuffed the kid out right there. Why leave someone like that time to grow?
But now his oldest partner wouldn't cooperate, the sea god's blessing was in play, and that Dark-type mythical Pokémon was watching from the shadows. The kid's luck was absurd.
So if killing him wasn't an option, recruitment was. It also suited his granddaughter's wishes. If she could keep the boy in the family, even better—at minimum, he was Elite Four-level muscle.
And if he truly had influence over that Dark-type mythical Pokémon… someday it might even become Champion-level strength. That was an opportunity Mikan Gym couldn't afford to miss.
He'd nearly crushed it with his own hands.
The old man exhaled. He really was getting old.
Hearing his old friend sigh, Slowking let out a quiet sigh of its own.
"You and I have both had our time," it told him. "Stop stirring up trouble. Leave the future to the young."
A trainer blessed by the sea god wasn't likely to be truly rotten. The sea god didn't bless monsters.
"Yeah," the old man muttered. "We're old."
Then bitterness crept into his voice. "If that useless brat back home had any backbone, I wouldn't need to do this… I wouldn't need to…"
His fishing line jerked.
He tossed the worries aside and set his hands, hauling in the weight on the other end. Whatever else could wait. First, he was landing this big one.
…
On the way back from the back mountain, Reiji followed Cissy toward the Gym. Even now, he couldn't figure out what the old man had been trying to pull.
Back there, the psychic restraint had been absolute. Darkrai had been pinned under Slowking's telekinetic pressure too. Reiji couldn't have run even if he wanted to.
Still, Darkrai should've been able to hold Slowking off for a few breaths—just enough to create an opening. And Reiji still had the Silver Wing as a last card. He didn't have to fear the old man completely.
That was exactly why it didn't make sense: the old man had simply let him go. No probing, no digging into secrets—nothing.
If the old man had pushed it, even if Reiji resisted, it would've been ugly. He'd take a thousand in damage to deal eight hundred back, and he might even lose Darkrai.
Instead, the old man released him without a scratch.
And the top-grade Water Stone never came up again. Just two unrelated questions—Darkrai in his shadow, and Cissy.
But what was that question about Cissy supposed to mean? Her looks? Her character? Her strength?
Reiji had no way of knowing.
Unless the point wasn't the question at all. Unless the real point was the unspoken condition: if he wanted the top-grade Water Stone, he'd have to marry into Mikan Gym. That was the hint.
Why would the old man want him?
Most likely because of Darkrai. The old man wasn't interested in Reiji's personality—he wanted the identity of "trainer with a mythical Pokémon." Trainers who carried legends didn't stay small forever.
Of course, maybe it wasn't strictly "marry in." Maybe it was just that kind of hint—an implication. Either way, wanting the top-grade Water Stone meant stepping onto that path.
Letting him leave was probably deliberate too. A push to make him think it through. A top-grade Water Stone could be handed to family; it wouldn't be handed to an outsider.
A mere Gym trainee would need what kind of merit to earn something like that? The math didn't work. Even the League's vault wasn't a place just anyone walked into.
And now the shortcut was sitting right in front of him.
How was he going to choose?
The old man likely guessed it already—Reiji had no backing. No family. That was why he'd been told to go "think about it."
Otherwise, why would a trainer with this kind of talent be left to drift on his own instead of being raised and protected by a clan?
Old ginger really was sharp. He spotted details most people wouldn't even think to notice.
When it came to schemes, the old foxes were on another level. He'd even used his own granddaughter as bait. Reiji wanted their top-grade Water Stone; they wanted Reiji himself. Both sides had abacuses clicking.
Seen that way… Reiji wasn't exactly losing. He'd get the top-grade Water Stone, and, on top of that, he'd "pick up" a gorgeous red-haired wife for free—young, bright, and very much in her prime.
The only problem was that this "future Gym-Leader wife," currently walking beside him, was grinning to herself like an idiot, clearly plotting something nasty. She had no idea her grandfather had already put her on the negotiating table.
"Rai, right?" Cissy said, tilting her head at him. "So, what's your decision? Become a trainer of Mikan Gym, contribute to the Gym, and you can get the top-grade Water Stone…"
She was still dangling it in front of him, unaware her grandfather had just offered him a very different kind of deal.
"I want to go back and think," Reiji said. "I'll give you my answer tomorrow."
"Fine. See you tomorrow." The moment she imagined getting even with him, Cissy almost bounced as she walked—light on her feet, smiling with that sly, satisfied look of a plan coming together.
She escorted him to the door, blinking bright, lively eyes as she waved goodbye—already preparing to spend the night perfecting her revenge scheme.
"Youth really is something," Reiji murmured, watching her energy spill everywhere. He sighed and turned away from the Gym.
If all she wanted was petty revenge, he could decide whether staying was worth it.
But this wasn't a small decision. This was the kind that followed you for life.
He'd never considered becoming a live-in son-in-law something shameful. Marriage, at its core, was a trade. That cut both ways.
A saying from his past life surfaced in his mind: you didn't need to wax poetic about fate and romance—marriage came down to whether there was profit in it.
Most "successful" marriages, historically, were about complementing each other. A poor but talented man gained backing from a wealthy, powerful family. It was the quickest road to stability—and sometimes to greatness.
People liked to say a successful man had a woman behind him.
They didn't always say the second half: behind that woman, there was often a father-in-law with a sharp eye for talent.
Reiji had even heard of a minor official who married into a family and ended up founding an empire.
If Reiji married into Mikan Gym, the one who benefited most was obviously him, not them. He was an orphan with nothing. Apart from Darkrai—something they already knew about—there wasn't much on him that a Gym family would care for.
If that old man had taken an interest, it was because of the mythical Pokémon in Reiji's shadow. That alone was enough to gamble on. With a partner like that, Reiji's ceiling was at least Elite Four, and Champion wasn't impossible.
That was why the old man's "eye" was so viciously precise. The moment he saw Reiji, he didn't just raise the stakes with a top-grade evolution stone—he even pushed his own granddaughter forward as part of the bargain.
And the "profit" of marriage didn't stop at money or items. It included status, connections, access to resources, and a better environment for growth.
If he joined their family, he could leverage their social web, broaden his own network, and gain opportunities and Pokémon-training resources he'd never reach alone.
If two families truly merged their resources, it could mean more wealth, better prospects for future children, and stronger footing in the League's world.
That was what marriage alliances were for—tightening bonds between families, tribes, even nations. Politics, economy, culture—whatever the era needed.
Romance was the least important part.
That was the blunt reality.
No wonder "keeping it in the family," "strong joins strong," and "ties on top of ties" had always existed. Connections became smoother. Careers rose faster. Businesses grew bigger.
Reiji exhaled slowly.
Tomorrow, he'd have to decide whether that Water Stone was worth stepping into a cage with velvet bars.
[End of chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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